Last May, I went for a short trip to Maastricht with my bestie for a little spring break. Maastricht is a very pretty town in South Holland, also well known for the nice, international and festive university climate. Too bad we couldn’t really feel enjoy it because it was Bevrijdingsdag, the Liberation Day to celebrate the end of Nazi Germans’ occupation during WWII. No one was in town. Maastricht was probably the only place where literally NOTHING was going on during this day, compared to the rest of the country.
Anyway, we had a really good time. The atmosphere is quite unique, a mix of Dutch, Belgium and German culture, where people speak a very funny Dutch.
We ate a lot as our usual, with quite some walking ofc. And we couldn’t miss the famous Limburgse Vlaai, a pastry pie traditionally filled with cherries. We tried the one with apples: still, super delicious. We went to the Bisschopsmolen, the most famous bakery in town, with its characteristic water mill. A must-see in Maastricht for some vlaai and tea. The Bisschopsmolen is also very famous for producing their own speltbloem, the spelt flour, made in their mills. So, I couldn’t resist to buy some cakemix flour for some baking experiments.
Since then and during the summer, I didn’t bake a lot. So, all in a sudden I found myself with a lot of fresh flour to quickly use before expiration date. As you can imagine, it easily didn’t reach that day.
In the Bisschopsmolen‘s website, you can find quite some recipes to try. So, quite some weeks ago already I decided to go for a simple chocolate spelt cake. A complete disaster. I have to say it was all my fault because I decided to take the freedom to reinvent the recipe and adding some ricotta. Too bad for me I didn’t have any experience with that flour. The cake didn’t raise and was stone solid. I had to throw it away.
The week after I tried again, this time following the recipe. However, stupid me!, I didn’t beaten the eggs with the sugar for 10 minutes, as the recipe said, before adding the all ingredients. Thus, as the flour is quite hard-grained, the cake didn’t raise much again and was like a brownie texture. But the taste was good, so I made my office colleagues happy during the coffee break.
Some days later, my bestie with whom I went to Maastricht came for dinner and I decided to bake again the same chocolate cake, this time in the right way. It was simply amazing ❤
So soft! We filled it with some jam, super delicious! Too bad I didn’t take a decent picture otherwise I would have published the recipe for you.
Anyway, today I am not empty-handed despite of all this blabla. Last week I decide to experiment another recipe with the same flour, but this time with my usual personal touch. I took the basic recipe for spelt cupcakes and make it a new one for Limoncello Spelt Cupcakes. I wanted to bake something a bit alcoholish for a cocktail-style party at a friend’s house. I had some limoncello Fiorito (a very good one I have to say, considering that I am not in Italy), which is made by the cousins of a colleague of mine.
What can I say? It was a success!
Had to bake another round of cupcakes for the office on Sunday. Too bad now the flour is gone! And the limoncello as well!
Limoncello Spelt Cupcakes
Ingredients (12 cupcakes)
230 gr spelt flour
4 eggs
200 gr sugar
1 lemon
50 ml limoncello
100 ml sunflower oil
(baking powder if it’s not in the flour)
Procedure
Pre-heat the oven at 170°.
Mix the eggs, sugar and lemon zest. Beat the mixture for about 10 minutes until smooth. After 10 minutes, the mixture has to be quite solid so that, if you draw an “8” on it, you can clearly see it. Otherwise, beat a bit longer.
Once ready, add the lemon juice, oil and limoncello to the mixture and stir with a spatula. Then, add the spelt flour (and the baking powder, if needed) and incorporate gently.
Put the dough on the cupcake shapes and bake for 20/22 minutes.
Enjoy!
Aroma di cannella 