Passover Cinnamon Balls

Another fantastic telephone conversation with my mother:

After the old dear told me that she couldn't be bothered to make cinnamon balls this year, and I told her that I would be bothered instead, she explained to me that she didn't know the recipe. After 40 years of making them every single year.

So, after a brief and vague discussion with her about ingredients and measurements, I just made them up as I went along. She did however, explain to me in great detail what an 'airtight container' to store them in was. Me: 'Just to recap Mum, how much air should I let into the container?' Mum: 'You're not too old to smack, you know.' (I am. I'm nearly forty one.)

Oh, and sorry mum, my cobbled together recipe is better than yours. How do I know? Because despite warnings that they could end up hard as bullets, mine are gooey and delicious, and exactly how I remember them tasting in the 1970's - just as all Jewish food should.

I was told to use caster sugar; since I didn't have any, granulated had to do.
I was told to beat the egg whites until stiff; a bare froth was all I could manage before getting bored and my hand hurt.
I was told to use two spoons of cinnamon - I always feel that the cinnamon needs to be a bit stronger than when my mum makes them (they're called Cinnamon Balls FFS!), so three went into mine.
I was told to bake them for twenty five minutes; twenty was all I could wait before whipping them out of the oven.

The thing is, the slight under-cooking has left them a tiny bit gooey in the middle - absolutely sublime.

The whole project took me less than a half hour from start to scoff. When my wife (Mrs Ribeye Jr) came home from work, she told me that my cinnamon balls were delicious and that they tasted like some unpronounceable Russian word from her childhood. No dear. They're cinnamon balls. Not 'Schroonabobbletopf.'

The whole guntz comes to about £2 for 16 balls. That's 12p per ball. Very thrifty.

Makes 16 balls

INGREDIENTS:

2 egg whites
200g ground almonds
150g granulated sugar
3 (slightly more than level) teaspoons of cinnamon
Icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 160c. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until a bit frothy and then add the almonds, granulated sugar and cinnamon. The mixture should look like damp grainy crumbs. With wet hands roll the mixture into 16 balls and place on a non-stick baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, until the balls have slightly risen (it doesn't matter if they slightly crack). After cooking, gently prise them off the baking sheet with the end of a spoon and roll them in the icing sugar while still slightly warm.

Honey Cake

There may not be a single drop of honey in this cake, but this is a recipe which needs to be handed down to my great-great-grandchildren.

My mother, Mrs Ribeye Sr, rarely writes down a recipe. A while back - before Potless came about- I resolved to start documenting my mum's signature dishes for posterity. One of the reasons, is that very few of my mum's dishes (a) contain the key ingredient in the title - as in this cake for example; (b) taste or look remotely the same from one year to the next; and (c) almost always are made with a 'secret' ingredient which she either forgets to put in, or deliberately doesn't, due to not having it in the cupboard on the day she chooses to cook it.

Hence, the birth of Potless. So now I have my old dear's dishes, plus a few of my own of course, to show the future Ribeyes that us crusty types weren't so bad in the kitchen in the 'olden days'.

This cake is really a carrot cake without the carrot or frosting. However, it is a fail-safe crowd pleaser in the Ribeye household at Jewish festival gatherings. Last night's was a blast. I adore catching up with my cousins, aunt and uncle and married-ins. The newest generation of Ribeyes are so damn adorable!

This is a really rich cake and a little goes a long way (think loaves and fishes). I don't follow any religion whatsoever, but my mum's cakes truly are Divine. They're cheap to make too. This cake will feed an army - and all at about 20 pence per serving.

Makes one large tray cake to serve 16-20 people

INGREDIENTS:

450g self raising flour
120g caster sugar
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
2 teaspoons of ground ginger
2 teaspoons of mixed spice
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
450g tin of golden (corn) syrup, plus a tin of water and 3/4 tin of sunflower oil
2 eggs 
2 tablespoons of kiddush wine, port, dry sherry or other sweet wine

Preheat oven to 150c. Mix the flour sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and spices together. Heat the syrup, water and oil in a pan or microwave until dissolved. Beat the eggs and add to the dry ingredients with the syrup mix and the wine. Work quickly to make sure the baking powder and bicarb are still active before cooking. Line a large tray-type tin with cooking parchment and spoon the mix in. Cook in the preheated oven for one hour. Do not remove the parchment paper until the cake has fully cooled. Cut into cubes with a serrated knife and serve.

Cherry Bakewell Cake

Making cakes is my new BIG THING!!!

1. They're so easy to make
2. They look great and can be decorated to satisfy all your creative urges - even when they don't look professional, they still look delicious
3. Most people don't make them - so you look like a hero for presenting your home-made effort
4. They're great as a pre-made dessert for a dinner party - so that you spend more time with your friends and less time in the kitchen
5. They make your wife (oh, or husband) happy

Since I discovered the '6663' method of making cakes - you know 6oz of butter/sugar/flour, plus 3 eggs - I have started to spread my cake-making wings and now experiment with the ingredients. Today's recipe substitutes half of the flour for ground almonds, then I add a smidge of almond extract. Voila - a cherry bakewell sponge!

Cherry bakewell tarts are traditionally a sweet pastry case filled with frangipane and a layer of raspberry jam, then thickly iced and topped with a glace cherry.My cake is even better, I promise.

Just bake half the mixture in two separate pans, spread a thick layer of jam between them and allow a ton of icing to drip and harden, before going crazy with those luminous red cherries. When I served this cake recently, the gasps of admiration were audible - mainly from me actually. I do love my own cooking.

Anyway, the sponge was moist and delicious and not at all heavy from the ground almonds. Next time I'm going to try other ingredients in my cake batter. Orange flower water, rose water, elderflower cordial, vanilla extract, chocolate, peanut butter...

Makes 1 large cake (serves 6-8)

INGREDIENTS:

175g butter
175g caster sugar
100g ground almonds
75g plain flour
1.5 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of almond extract
4-5 tablespoons of raspberry jam
100g icing sugar
12-16 glace whole cherries

Preheat the oven to 170c. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix the almonds, flour and baking powder together and quickly fold into the butter mixture with the almond extract. Transfer to two shallow, greased baking tins (approx 15-18cm diameter) and then bake for 25 minutes, or until the tops are golden but not brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before removing from the tins. Once quite cool, remove to a drying rack and spread the raspberry jam onto one sponge before topping with the other. Mix the icing sugar with enough water to form a thick paste and then dollop it onto the centre of the cake, allowing it to naturally spread and drip. Top with the cherries.

Individual Peach and Caramel Pavlovas

Dinner at our friends Ophelia and Kumar was a blast last night.

Mrs Ribeye mentioned that she had read in the newspaper earlier in the day that 'Fifty Shades of Grey', the mummy-porn novel by British author E.L. James, was the first book to outsell Harry Potter. 'Why?' asked Kumar absolutely ingenuously, 'Does it have goblins in it?'

Brilliant.

Kumar actually cooked for us for the first time ever, and he made us a traditional Pakistani spicy beef stew called Nihari. I have asked him for the recipe so that I can recreate it at home. It was incredible - once he emails me the recipe, I'll post my version on Potless.

After last night's dinner, with the inevitable five million drinks to accompany it, Mrs Ribeye and I had a restorative day in bed today with the Sunday Times, 'Come Dine With Me' on More 4, and some comfort food. After eating some chicken soup, I asked the wife what she fancied for dessert. 'Pavlova, please' was the reply.

I find this answer both ridiculous and utterly adorable. Firstly, how am I supposed to rustle up something that complicated in a few minutes? Secondly, it is adorable that my missus, without any hint of irony, expected me to deliver it without any hesitation. I love her for that.

She was absolutely correct, of course - I had a sumptuous pavlova on a plate ready for her to eat within four minutes. There was no way that I could have eaten one myself, so the challenge had the added dimension of me having to create this complex dish for one person. And not only did I manage it, but Mrs Ribeye told me that: 'This is the best thing I have ever put in my mouth'. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.

Of course, there is a knack to being able to deliver this miracle: Prepared store cupboard ingredients. I had a tin of condensed milk caramel in the larder, alongside a carton of meringue nests. The remnants of a tub of double cream happened to be in the fridge from a dinner we had had with our friend Natalia mid-week, and the peaches were in the fruit bowl. If I had had berries or pineapple or cherries instead, then the recipe would have a different name - but in this instance the peaches were an inspired lucky non-choice. Mrs Ribeye loved how their subtle sharpness cut the richness of the dessert, saving the dish from becoming too sickly-sweet. I would definitely make this dish again for a dinner party next time, but I would actually make the meringues from scratch instead. But for a night-in emergency pudding, this is very hard to beat.

This recipe has the added bonus of being very cheap to make. £1.50 per very generous serving.

Serves 1

INGREDIENTS:

2 meringue nests (home-made, if you can be bothered)
4 tablespoons of double cream, plus a little extra for garnish
2 tablespoons of tinned condensed milk caramel
1 peach, stoned and finely chopped

Spoon two tablespoons of cream onto each meringue and add one tablespoon of caramel to one. Place half of the peach bits onto each meringue and place the non-caramel meringue on top of the other one to create two layers. Dot the remaining tablespoon of caramel all over the pavlova and pour a little extra cream on and around, as a garnish, to bring everything together. Serve immediately.

Glazed Cinnamon Rolls

Mrs Ribeye has arrived back from her annual parent-fest in Russia and I though I would detox her from all of the Seledka pod Suboy and other Russian culinary delights by making her some of these glazed cinnamon buns for her first breakfast back in her adopted homeland of the UK.

These rolls are not exactly traditional British fare, but there is a cinnamon roll kiosk at the Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford Street that has the most incredible aroma wafting out of it night and day, that I almost feel that the American/French/German/Who-Knows-Where smell has become as much of the authentic local landscape as my own wife.

These buns are so easy to make. I made the dough, using my No Fuss method, in ten minutes flat and then picked up Mrs Ribeye from Heathrow airport (in our lovely new car!!!!!!) while it was proving. By the time we got back, the dough was ready for flavouring and baking. Simple.

We managed to chomp four of them within five minutes of them coming out of the oven, and then ate the rest the next day split and toasted. I think they were even better as leftovers.

I have had another idea: These rolls would be great as the base for a delicious Bread and Butter Pudding - recipe to follow in the not-too-distant-future. One problem though, how am I going to make ANYTHING with the leftovers if we scoff these rolls before they've had a chance to make it into another dish? Er, make twice as many, silly! (Actually, I'm not 100% sure that that will work either).

As with most bread-y treats, these rolls are not only easy to make, but cheap too. Only 15p per roll - making the £2 per roll that the kiosk charges in Oxford Street seem like a joke, actually.

PS. Another happy 30th birthday wish to Andrea, from Mrs Ribeye and I. Your party last night was fab!

Makes 8 Cinnamon Rolls

INGREDIENTS:

Half of my Bread Dough Recipe, proved once only
50g butter or margarine, melted
100g granulated or caster sugar
1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon
50ml water

Roll out the dough to an area of 30x15cm, with a uniform 3cm thickness, and allow it to prove for a second time. After about an hour of proving, spread the dough with the butter, half of the sugar and all of the cinnamon and roll it up across the width until you have a long sausage. Cut the sausage into 8 rolls and place them cut sides up in a high-sided baking tray (see pic below). Preheat the oven to 200c. Bake the rolls for 40-45 minutes, until golden on top (if you like, you can turn the whole bunch of rolls over and leave them in the cooling oven to crisp up the bases). Mix the the remaining half of the sugar with the water and microwave it for 30 seconds to create a syrup. Glaze the rolls. Serve warm.

Apple Pie, with a Touch of Jazz

All of a sudden, from being content to buy Braeburns, Galas and even the occasional Granny Smith, I have become a member of the 'Jazz' apple cult. This new strain of apple hit the supermarket shelves a few months ago, and now they sell out almost as fast as the produce aisle racks are restocked. I've discovered that they're certainly good for eating, but what about cooking?

I wanted to make an apple pie, but after some trial and error cooking experiments, I found that the Jazz is a bit too sharp and holds its shape a bit too well, and desperately needed a softer, mellower apple to help balance it out; like a Bramley, maybe.

Flavour-wise, the Jazz apple is crisp and tangy, with a hint of citrusy sweetness, while the Bramley apple provides a blander, solid foundation that holds the pie together well. Absolutely a perfect match. The key is to microwave the Bramley apples first to redistribute their juices - otherwise you'll end with dry, mealy apple pieces surrounded by soggy pastry from the leaked moisture.

I made this pie as the dessert a couple of days ago as part of our Saturday night dinner, after having eaten a starter of Black Pudding, Bacon, Poached Egg and Avocado Salad, followed by Beef Rendang as a main course.

After eating such an eclectic array of ingredients in the first two courses, I felt that a non-challenging, easy dessert would be an appropriate end to the meal. It's weird how things turn out though, because the apple pie was every bit as complex and interesting as anything else we had already consumed. The combination of these two apple strains created a cacophany of flavours and textures normally befitting far less humble creations than the apple pie.

As you can see from the picture, I dispensed with a pie tin, opting instead to make a puff pastry envelope, which I scored in a diamond pattern, before dredging the top in sugar and cinnamon to create a crunchy caramel glaze. It looked great.

N.B. Use ready-made puff pastry sheets (life is too short to make your own), and this pie still only sets you back £1 per serving.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

2 large Bramley apples, peeled, cored and quartered
50g sultanas
2 tablespoons of demerara or caster sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
10ml lemon juice
2 Jazz apples, peeled, cored and cut into 5mm thick slices
1 x 375g puff pastry sheet
1 egg yolk, beaten
Demerara sugar and cinnamon, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 200c. In a bowl, place the Bramleys, sultanas, sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice and microwave on high power for 4 minutes. Using a fork, beat the Bramley apple mixture to a smooth sauce. Cut the puff pastry into two equal rectangles. On one rectangle, spread the Bramley apple sauce, leaving a 2cm border around the edges. Arrange the Jazz apple slices onto the sauce in an even layer. Place the other pastry rectangle on top and pinch the edges together to form a seal. Score the top with a knife, into an attractive diamond pattern, and brush the surface with the egg yolk. Scatter the remaining sugar and cinnamon over the pie and bake until the pastry has risen and is golden and crunchy (25-30 minutes approx).

Valentine's Day Chocolate Cornflake Banoffi Pie Cake

Waitrose are doing a Valentine's Day meal-for-two offer of a starter, main course, two side dishes and a bottle of wine for £20. In the name of research, I wandered down to the Edgware Road branch to see what you get for your money, and I was more than a little disappointed. Apart from the wine (which was admittedly a lovely bottle of Spanish rose cava), the food was uninspiring and nowhere near worth the extortionate price tag.

I could have chosen from some meat pie thing, two bits of salmon with a herby butter or two wafer thin sirloin steaks; together with dull prepared vegetables, and a liver pate to start (there was no other starter choice - poor old vegetarians). Dessert was either a stodgy-looking chocolate fudge cake or a passion (haha, very topical) fruit dessert. To be honest, the price tag was immaterial - the food was just SO dull.

Having left Waitrose not feeling like I'm missing out on anything, I have decided to make Mrs Ribeye and I a feast to get the motors revving.

As Mrs Ribeye's favourite meal in the whole wide world is lasagna (she has simple tastes, bless her), I'm making my Easy Lasagna Pasta Bake as a main course, but I'm making this Chocolate Cornflake Banoffi Pie Cake for dessert. That should do the trick.

This delicious dessert comes in at £1 per serving. Enough left over to buy that Spanish rose cava - I hope Waitrose is still open.

Serves 4 (with leftovers for tomorrow)

INGREDIENTS:

100g golden syrup
100g dark chocolate
100g cornflakes
1 x 400g can of sweetened condensed milk
2 large bananas, sliced into 1cm rounds
200ml whipped cream
Cocoa powder, for dusting

Heat the golden syrup and chocolate in a microwave until amalgamated (1 minute approx). Allow to cool and mix in the cornflakes. Submerge the tin of condensed milk in a water-filled saucepan and boil for three hours, ensuring the tin is always covered with water to avoid exploding. In the meantime, spread the cornflake mixture into a loose-bottomed 20cm flan tin. Lay slices of banana evenly over the cornflake base. Allow the condensed milk toffee to cool and spread over the bananas. Top with whipped cream and dust with the cocoa. Refrigerate for an hour or two before serving.

Lemon Drizzle Fairy Cakes

6,6,6,3 is not my debit card PIN number, nor my squash club locker combination - it's my (not so) secret cake formula. You may have noticed from my Apple, Cinnamon and Sultana Cake recipe that my cake batter of choice is 6 ounces of the dry ingredients, plus three eggs. Well, in new money, 6oz is 175g; but more importantly, it is the magic measurement to create almost any flavour of cake you fancy.

Today, I fancy making fairy cakes to brighten up a dismal weekend of drizzly weather (hence, 'drizzle' cakes). You may think that fairy cakes are not a particularly 'manly' pursuit, but Mrs Ribeye will be delighted - and that's what counts.

These lemony treats could very well be made with any fruit of your choosing - just substitute the lemon zest in the batter for another fruit zest, chocolate chips, caramel chunks, fruit compote, nuts or marshmallows. The topping can be sugar frosted, melted chocolate, or a candied fruit - whatever you like really.

Cakes are always cheap to make. These little darlings come in at about 20 pence each. That's why bakers are all as rich as Croesus.

Makes 20 cakes

INGREDIENTS:

Lemon Cake Batter

175g self raising flour
175g caster sugar
175g margerine
3 eggs
Juice and zest of 1 lemon

Drizzle Topping

100g icing sugar
Juice of 2 lemons

Preheat the oven to 180c. Beat the cake batter ingredients together until light and fluffy. Transfer spoonfuls of batter to individual paper cases on a baking tray, or a muffin tin. Bake for 20 minutes, until the cakes have risen and are golden on top. While the cakes are cooking, mix the drizzle topping ingredients in a bowl. Remove the cakes from the oven, and while still warm, pierce the top of the cakes with a sharp knife and pour the drizzle topping over the surface of the cakes. Allow to cool before serving.

Honey Cake with Maple Cheesecake Frosting

I love honey (strictly speaking, golden syrup) cake. I love cheesecake. I love maple syrup. Put them together, and BAAM! The best cake in the whole wide world ever.

This honey cake is really just a carrot cake recipe without the carrot, so I decided that I would add the normal cheescake frosting to see whether the slightly acidic flavour would cut the richness of the cake. But did I leave it there? No! I had to take it one step further. By adding maple syrup I think I may have defeated the whole 'acidic' purpose thing. I don't care though, because this cake is the reason why gloomy February days are now full of sunshine.

This cake is so rich, that it will feed 16 people. I use a roasting tin, instead of a cake tin because it's so big. That means that this recipe comes in at about 30 pence per serving. It will, of course, come in at about £5 per serving if you decide to eat the whole thing yourself (which I might).

Serves 16-20

INGREDIENTS:

For the honey cake

450g tin of golden syrup
1 golden syrup tin volume of water
3/4 golden syrup tin volume of sunflower oil
450g self raising flour
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
2 teaspoons of mixed spice
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon of baking powder
200g tub of low fat cream cheese

For the frosting

3 tablespoons of maple syrup
1 tablespoon of cinnamon, for dusting

Preheat oven to 160c. Heat the syrup, water and oil in a bowl in the microwave until everything has amalgamated together (1 minute approx). Allow mixture to slightly cool, and then beat in the rest of the cake ingredients to form a smotth batter. Transfer to a greaseproof paper-lined roasting pan and cook in the oven for 1 hour. While the cake is cooking, beat the cream cheese with the maple syrup and refrigerate until needed. When the cake has cooled, spread the frosting in an even layer over the top surface. Dust with the cinnamon.

Apple, Cinnamon and Sultana Cake

This is such a great 'Wow Your Friends' recipe. A simple 6,6,6,3 fairy cake batter with a spicy apple filling, which means minimum preparation for you, and maximum delight for your friends when they come round for tea on Sunday afternoon. The weather in London today may be snow, but my kitchen today is definitely warm with a delicious outlook.

Cakes always offer amazing value for money - and this one, particularly, is no exception. The whole 8-10 serving cake comes in at £3, which means less than 40 pence per serving. Put the kettle on...

Serves 8

INGREDIENTS:

175g self raising flour
175g margerine, softened
175g caster sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
2 cooking apples, peeled, cored and finely sliced
75g sultanas
1 teaspoon of powdered cinnamon
1 tablespoon of demerara sugar
1 tablespoon of icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 180c. Beat the flour, margerine, caster sugar and vanilla together until the batter is light and creamy (10 minutes approx with an electric mixer). In a springform (loose-bottomed) 20cm tin, lined with baking parchment, place 5/6 (five-sixths) of the batter. In a bowl, mix the apples, sultanas, cinnamon and demerara sugar. Spread the apple mix, in an even layer, over the cake batter in the tin. Take the remaining batter and spoon it unevenly over the apple mix, leaving gaps. Bake the cake until risen and golden (1 hour approx). Wait for the cake to cool before removing from the tin. Dust with the icing sugar.

My Mum's Jewish Baked Cheesecake

This is the best cheesecake EVER. I know that everyone says that their mum is the best cook in the world - but mine actually is. It is an empirical fact. Everyone says so, alright?

My mum's cheesecake is light, fluffy, rich, moist and delicious. Make it every day (if you're not too keen on living a hugely long life).

Curd cheese is the proper ingredient to use, but sometimes hard to find. Use Philadelphia, or another high quality shop-bought cream cheese, and the effect will be almost as good, but slightly less authentic to the Russian-esque original recipe.

Desserts are cheap to make and fantastic to eat. A 'Potless' sound bite, if there ever was one. £5 for a cake that serves 10-15 people, means a maximum 50p per serving.

Serves 10-15

INGREDIENTS:

300g curd or cream cheese
150ml double cream
150ml sour cream
200g caster sugar
1 tablespoon of plain flour
3 eggs, with whites separated
Juice of 1 small lemon
100g amaretti biscuits (the hard type), crushed

Preheat oven to 180c. Whisk together the cheese, both creams, sugar, flour, lemon juice and egg yolks, until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until soft peak stage. Fold the egg whites into the cake batter. In a 20cm round or square, foil-lined, spring form (loose-bottomed) cake tin, spoon in the crushed amaretti biscuits until you have an even 1cm layer. Spoon the cake mixture on top and smooth the surface. Place into oven and bake for 45 minutes approx. Check the cake; if still soggy in the middle, cook for a further 10 minutes, otherwise leave the cake in the oven and turn off the heat. Leave cake to cool in the oven to room temperature. Take the cheesecake out of the oven and place in the freezer for an hour, to assist in removing the foil (it is too difficult when the cake is at room temperature). Place on a platter and serve.

Apple Strudel 'Samosas'

Man oh man, do I love messing around with classic recipes. In this one, I not only ruin the traditional concept of a samosa, but also the apple strudel! What a day!

Samosas are triangular pastries normally containing savoury spicy fillings - but who says they won't make a brilliant dessert?

Not me. By loading these individual filo parcels with a traditional strudel filling, not only are these crisper than a bog-standard, family sized strudel, but they look so attractive. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.

Tomorrow: chocolate covered salt cod fritters (just kidding, honest).

Serve 2 per person, at a rock-bottom £1 per serving.

Serves 4 (8 samosas)

INGREDIENTS:

4 shop-bought filo pastry sheets
100g melted butter
3 cooking apples, peeled, cored and finely sliced
50g sultanas
4 tablespoons demerara sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons creme fraiche (for serving)

Preheat oven to 200c. Using a sharp knife and leaving the filo sheets layered togther to ensure uniformity, slice the sheets lengthwise until you have 8 long strips. Take an eighth of the apple, sultanas, sugar and cinnamon and place in a pile at the end of one strip. Brush the rest of the exposed strip with the melted butter. Take a corner of the strip and fold it over the filling until you have a neat triangle at the end of the strip. Keep folding all the way down the strip until you have created a samosa. Repeat, until you have 8 similar samosas. Place them on a large oiled baking sheet and brush with melted butter. Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Place a large dollop of creme fraiche with each serving.