December 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Christmas Stollen

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

Well, it's time for excuses! -_-U

First of all I'll tell you about the stollen. I baked it on Christmas Eve because I intended to give it away to my boyfriend (and because I didn't have anymore time left if I wanted to make it on time). There's only three of us at home and the loaves of stollen were too much, but my boyfriend's home is filled with people on Christmas thus the decision was taken: he recieved his Christmas presents + the big loaf of stollen ^^
One more thing: I hate raisins but my parents and boyfriend love them. This means that when I ate my share of the small loaf I had a hard time avoiding them ^^U

It was pretty easy to make, there aren't any major complaints apart from being a little time-consuming (as any other kind of bread). I didn't have any trouble with the raising time or the kneading so I was really happy!

And, ¿what about the flavour of the loaves? I'm sorry but it was pretty bland. The stollen tasted super with some jam, though. It was my fault because I didn't add enough zest and raisins, apart from not adding any other dried fruits or marzipan.
Oh! and it also tasted good dipped in hot cocoa!

Finally, the excuses for not updating the blog before:
I spent the first 2 weeks of December abroad, concretely I went to New York!!!
And when I came back I found a big pile of work waiting for me! T_T
After that the Cristmas craze came and dragged me along...
And that's all folks!

I wish you a very happy New Year 2011!!!

The recipe:

Ingredients:

60ml lukewarm water (43ºC)
14g active dry yeast
a pinch of salt
240ml milk
140g unsalted butter (you can use salted butter)
770g all-purpose flour
115g sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
Grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
170g firmly packed raisins
3 tablespoons rum
Melted unsalted butter for coating the wreath
Icing sugar for dusting wreath (optional)

Method:

1. In a small bowl, soak the raisins in the rum.
2. Pour the warm water into a small bowl, sprinkle with yeast and let stand 5 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast completely.
3. In a small saucepan, combine the milk and the butter over medium-low heat until butter is melted. Let it stand until lukewarm (about 5 minutes).
4. Lightly beat eggs in a small bowl and add the vanilla extract.
5. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, orange and lemon zests.
6. Then stir in the yeast, eggs and the lukewarm milk mixture. It should be a soft, but not sticky, ball. When the dough comes together, cover the bowl with plastic or a tea cloth and let it rest for 10 minutes.
7. Add in the raisins and mix them with your hands to incorporate.
8. Sprinkle the counter with flour, then transfer the dough to the counter and begin kneading to distribute the fruit evenly, adding additional flour if needed (the dough should be soft and satiny, tacky but not sticky). Knead for approximately 8 minutes (when the dough is kneaded enough a few raisins will start to fall off).
9. Lightly oil a LARGE bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling around to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge overnight.
10. Let the dough rest for 2 hours after taking out of the fridge in order to warm slightly. Then punch dough down and roll it sightly to make it larger than wider (this is to make a traditional shaped loaf). Fold the dough nearly in half.
11. Proof for approximately 2 hours at room temperature, or until about 1 and 1/2 times its original size.
12. Preheat oven to 180°C with the oven rack on the middle shelf.
13. Bake the stollen for 20 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees for even baking and continue to bake for 20 to 30 minutes.
14. Transfer to a cooling rack and brush the top with melted butter while still hot. Immediately tap a layer of powdered sugar over the top through a sieve or sifter. Wait for 1 minute, then tap another layer over the first.

November 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Crostata

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

This month I went all crazy and, instead of going for one challenge, I made TWO challenges: tiramisu and crostata.
As I joined the DB on April this year I missed the tiramisu challenge, so I wanted to give it a try and thus, I browsed the Internet to see if it was possible to combine both the crostata and the tiramisu. As you can see, I was succesful ^^
I found the recipe for the tiramisú filling here, and for the pasta frolla I used the 1st version provided by Simona.

The recipes:

Ingredients for the pasta frolla:

100g superfine sugar
235g unbleached all-purpose flour
a pinch of salt
115g cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg and 1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten in a small bowl
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method for the pasta frolla:

1. Whisk together sugar, flour and salt in a bowl.
2. Rub or cut the butter into the flour until the mixture has the consistency of coarse crumbs. You can do this in the bowl or on your work surface, using your fingertips or an implement of choice.
3. Make a well in the center of the mounded flour and butter mixture and pour the beaten eggs into it.
4. Add the vanilla extract to your flour/butter/egg mixture.
5. Use a fork to incorporate the liquid into the solid ingredients, and then use your fingertips. Knead lightly just until the dough comes together into a ball.
6. Shape the dough into a flat disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Place the dough in the refrigerator and chill for at least two hours. You can refrigerate the dough overnight.
7. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
8. Roll out a batch of the pasta frolla and cover the base of the tart pan.
9. Cut a piece of parchment paper or aluminum foil large enough to cover the bottom of the crust and extend out a bit over the edges of the pan.
10. You can use pie weights or dry beans to blind bake. Place whatever weight you’re using directly on the parchment paper or aluminum foil in an even layer.
11. Place the crostata shell in the oven and bake for 20 minutes.
12. Remove the weights and parchment paper and continue baking the crostata shell until the border is light golden, about 5 minutes (watch carefully to avoid over-baking, which results in a hard shell). In the absence of weight, the crust may rise in the middle: if that occurs, gently push it back down with the back of a spoon.
13. Remove from the oven and let the crostata shell cool completely before proceeding. If you use a tart pan with removable bottom, release the base from the fluted tart ring, then slide the cooled crostata shell on a serving plate for filling.

Ingredients for the mascarpone cream for the tiramisú:

250g mascarpone cheese
25g icing sugar
1 tablespoon coffee
2 egg yolks
60g caster sugar
2 tablespoons coffee liquor
75g whipped cream

Method for the mascarpone cream for the tiramisú:

1. Mix the mascarpone with the icing sugar with a spoon after adding the tablespoon of coffee.
2. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks with the caster sugar and the coffee liquor.
3. Add the egg yolks to the mascarpone and mix until well combined.
4. Add the whipped cream and mix well.

Method for the assembling:

1. Spread some nutella over the bottom of the crostata shell.

2. Set in this way some coffee soaked savoiardi.

3. Now pour the mascarpone mixture over the savoiardi.

4. Spread the mascarpone mixture until it covers all the inside of the crostata. Decorate with some dusted cocoa powder.

The crostata looks ugly but I swear that it is delicious! It's like eating tiramisú with butter cookies!!!

Vanilla and nutella swirl cookies

Well, first of all, sorry for the poor quality of the photo and the (more than usual) lousy presentation of the cookies -_-U
I meant to give away some of the cookies to friends (and to boyfriend) and to store the very few that were left in a cookie box but, unfortunately, my parents found them and ate them before I had time to take a more decent picture of them T_T
Indeed, this picture was taken with my mobile phone after I packed the cookies that I were going to be given away and before I remembered to store the leftovers. Well, I suppose that's good because it means that they liked them (but I liked them too and I wished I had some more T_T).

This is another recipe (yes, again) from the book Chocolate Galore (in Spanish is Chocolate a gogó). The original recipe from the book calls for 2 teaspoons of nutella, but I used 1 tablespoon in order to get more flavour. And I changed again the amount of sugar that the recipe states, using 50g instead of 75g. Also, I don't know if it's because I used more nutella thant I was told to, but I had to increase the temperature of the oven and the baking time: the original recipe says that 160º degrees Celsius and 10-12 minutes are enough, but I needed 180ºC and 15 minutes to get my cookies done.

So, the recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:        

175g butter (at room temperature)
1 large egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
50g confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon nutella
225g all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cocoa powder

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Mix in the vanilla extract until well combined. Then add the flour and work the mixture until you have an elastic dough.
4. Divide the dough into two parts and add to one of the parts the cocoa powder and the nutella. Mix until well combined.
5. Extend, with a rolling pin, each dough in a floured surface until you get two rectangles, about 15x20 cm each. If the doughs are not hard enough let them rest in the fridge for 10-15 minutes.
6. Put the nutella dough on the plain dough and press lightly. Trim the edges and fold it, just like a swiss roll.
7. Let the roll rest in the fridge for half an hour. Then cut it in slices of about 6cm each and put them well separated in the baking pan.
8. Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes until they sighly brown.
9. Take the cookies out from the oven and let them cool for 2-3 minutes in the tray before transfering them to a wire rack. You can keep them for a week in an air-tight container.

October 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Doughnuts!

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

First of all I must say that I LOVE doughnuts. They're really delicious by themselves and with a chocolate glazing they're just heavenly! So, you can imagine my delight when I saw which was this month's challenge ^^

As it was my first time making them I decided to keep it simple and dip the doughnuts in a simple sugar glaze, to imitate the ones sold in every bakery.

The recipes:

Ingredients for doughnuts:

360 ml whole milk
70g butter
14g active dry yeast
80 ml warm water
1.5 tsp salt
55g white sugar
650g all purpose flour + extra for dusting surface
2 large eggs, beaten
Olive oil (depends on the size of the vessel you are frying in).

Method for the doughnuts:

1. Place the milk in a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat just until warm enough to melt the butter.
2. Place the butter in a bowl and pour warmed milk over (make sure that the butter is melted). Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and let dissolve for 5 minutes (it should get foamy). After 5 minutes, pour the yeast mixture into a large bowl and add the milk and butter mixture, first making sure the milk and butter mixture has cooled to lukewarm.
4. Add the eggs, sugar, salt, and the flour. The dough will be to sticky to knead by hand without adding a lot of extra flour and it will be very messy so just roughly combine the dough ingredients using a plastic scraper or wooden spoon. No need to knead too much; a longer resting/rising time is equivalent to kneading that is if you only roughly knead for one minute or so and let the dough rise for a longer time this is equivalent to kneading for a longer time (many thanks to Audax for the kneading instructions).
5. "Pour" (the dough won't be firm at this point, but don't panic, it's normal) to a well-oiled bowl, cover, and let rise for 1 and 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.

6. On a well-floured surface, roll out dough to 9 mm thick (make sure the surface really is well-floured otherwise your doughnuts will stick to the counter).
7. Cut out dough using a 65 mm doughnut cutter or pastry ring or drinking glass (I used a water glass) and using a 22 mm ring for the center whole (I used one of my piping tips). Set on floured baking sheet, cover lightly with a tea towel, and let rise for 30 minutes.
8. Preheat the oil in a deep fryer or Dutch oven to 185°C.
9. Gently place the doughnuts into the oil, 3 to 4 at a time. Cook for 1 minute per side or until golden brown (my doughnuts only took about 30 seconds on each side at this temperature).
10. Transfer to a cooling rack placed in baking pan. Allow to cool for 15 to 20 minutes prior to glazing, if desired.
    

Ingredients for the simple sugar glaze:

450 ml whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
440g confectioner's sugar

Method for the simple sugar glaze:

1. Combine the milk and vanilla over a medium saucepan and heat over low heat until warm.
2. Sift the sugar into the mixture. Whisk slowly until well combined
3. Remove the the glaze from the heat and set over a bowl of warm water (I left it over the heat, set at the minimum).
4. Dip the doughnuts into the glaze and let it drain.

The doughnut were great...the first day. Unfortunately the next day they were dry and not so good. The bright side is that there were only FOUR DOUGHNUTS LEFT! So most of the doughnut were eaten at their best ^^ I suppose that this means that people did like them, doesn't it?

Double chocolate chips cookies

This time of the year I see lots of food bloggers experiencing with pumpkins in the most various ways: cookies, cakes, tarts, cheesecakes... But around here we're not big fans of vegetables in our desserts (some restaurants and cafes are trying to introduce the carrot cake with poor results -_-U), not to talk that I've got food intolerance to the family of the Cucurbitaceae (pumpkin, cucumber, melon, watermelon...) so I'll be sticking to chocolate ^^

This is another recipe from the book Chocolate Galore (in Spanish is Chocolate a gogó). The original recipe from the book calls for dark chocolate and milk chocolate chip, but I went for milk chocolate chips instead of dark chocolate because I prefer them. This time I changed too the amount of sugar that the recipe states, using 100g instead of 150g.

The cookies are very good, my parents and my boyfriend said they're awesome, but I still prefer the chocolate and walnut cookies ^^

So, the recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:        

150g butter (at room temperature)
1 large egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
200g all-purpose flour
50g milk chocolate chunks or chips
50g white chocolate chunks or chips

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC.
2. Cream butter and sugar (add the sugar little by little) until light and fluffy.
3. Mix in the egg and then the vanilla extract until well combined.
4. In another bowl, mix together the flour and the baking powder and incorporate them to the butter.
5. Add the chocolate chips and mix well.
6. Take about a tablespoon of cookie dough and put it onto a baking tray. Repeat until you've got about 6 cookies on the tray (be careful when placing the dough because the cookies will double their size when baked).
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes until they brown.
8. Take the cookies out from the oven and let them cool for 2-3 minutes in the tray before transfering them to a wire rack. You can keep them for a week in an air-tight container.

Basic Spanish omelette

This dish isn't new for me, indeed I've make it lots of times, but I thought that it would be a good idea to share it because I've seen in internet some crazy recipes calling for medium eggs and load of potatoes O_O

The basic Spanish omelette uses one large egg and one medium sized potato per person (if you're making an omelette to feed 4 people then you must use 4 large eggs and 4 medium sized potatoes) apart from salt for seasoning and olive oil for frying. This is the very basic recipe, and from here you can make a wiiiiiiiide variety of omelettes. The most common ones add chorizo or ham and cheese or onion to the basic recipe or they put some topping on it (anchovies, peppers...). The options are uncountable: the Spanish omelette is like a sandwich, you can add anything to it and it will taste great ^^

Personally, I love it with chorizo or morcilla or garlic. The ham and cheese one also tastes good, but it's a bit more complicated to make because you can't add the ingredients to the mixture of egg and potatoes, you have to first put in the pan some egg and potato mixture, then layer the ham and the cheese and finally add some more egg and potatoes.

So, the recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:        

1 large egg per ration
1 medium sized potato per ration
Salt for seasoning
Olive oil

Method:

1. Heat some oil in a frying pan (about 1 inch).
2. Peel the potatoes and chop them very fine.
3. Season the potatoes with the salt.
4. Fry the potatoes in the preheated oil.
5. Beat the eggs and add a pinch of salt.
6. Take out the potatoes from the oil and add them to the eggs. Mix until well combined (this is the point in wich you could add other ingredients).
7. Put very little oil from frying the potatoes in another pan and heat it.
8. Put the egg and potato mixture into the pan and fry until the egg seems to be less runy.
9. Put a plate over the pan and flip it. Then add again very little oil to the pan and slide back into the pan the semi-cooked omelette. Cook for a minute or two and take it out.

Chocolate and walnut cookies

Yesterday I decided to give a try to these cookies because I still have in my pantry some of the walnuts that I bought for the Banana walnut cake.
I love these cookies, they're delicious! I couldn't stop eating them and was not at all willing to give some away to my boyfriend but, well, they were meant to be for him so I had already told him that I was making them...

This recipe comes from the book Chocolate Galore (in Spanish is Chocolate a gogó) wich was a present from my boyfriend for my last birdthday. The original recipe from the book uses white chocolate and pecans but, as I've said, I had walnuts instead, so I went on with them and my boyfriend prefers milk chocolate rather than white chocolate so I used that one. Another thing that I changed, apart from making half the ammount stated in the recipe, was the huge cuantity of sugar that it called for (in the original recipe it was 120g brown sugar and 150g white sugar) which doesn't suit our taste and scares the hell out of us thinking how our teeth are going to fall down if we dare to take a bit.
So, the recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:        

75g salted butter (at room temperature)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
30g brown sugar
40g white sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
150g all-purpose flour
50g chocolate chunks
50g toasted walnuts (chopped)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC.
2. Cream butter and sugar (add the sugar little by little) until light and fluffy.
3. Mix in the egg and then the vanilla extract until well combined.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients in order.
5. Take a small amount of cookie dough onto your palm and roll into a ball.
6. Put the balls onto a baking tray and press them slightly.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes until the borders brown.
8. Take the cookies out from the oven and let them cool completely in the tray before transfering them to a wire rack.

Banana walnut cake

I had bookmarked this recipe from Grace's Kitchen Corner long time ago, but somehow I totally forgot about it until 2 days ago, when I re-found it while browsing through the recipes that I have in the to-do list.
Well, I love bananas and I love walnuts, so puting them together in a cake sounded like a great idea to me and I already had some bananas and walnuts at home, so I inmediately decided to do it ^^
I only did a few changes because I didn't want to go to the store just to buy some baking soda and butter so I used salted butter and more baking powder, but nevertheless the cake was (please note the use of the word "was" XD) still moist and delicious.
So, the recipe I used is as follows:

Ingredients:        

60g salted butter (at room temperature)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
80g low fat natural yoghurt
1 large egg
120g all-purpose flour
80g sugar
100g mashed banana
Toasted walnuts (chopped)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC.
2. Butter a small (about 17x8x6cm) loaf pan.
3. Cream butter and sugar (add the sugar little by little) until light and pale in color.
4. Mix in the egg and then the baking powder until well combined.
5. Add in the mashed banana and mix until combine (not mix too much).
6. Add 1/3 of the flour, mix well and then add the rest of the flour.
7. Mix in the yogurt until well combined and then fold in the chopped walnuts.
8. Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 50-60 minutes
9. Let it cool completely in the loaf pan on a rack before unmoulding.

Omu rice

This post comes a bit late as I made the omu rice last sunday for lunch ^^U Of course the only one to blame is my usual lazyness.

Although it wasn't the first time I was making this recipe (it's soooo great!), it's the first time that I prepared it since I started this blog (what a shame!), therefore I'm sharing now the recipe I usually follow which is an adaptation of the one showed in this video. I changed the ingredients accompaning the chicken rice because I don't like to eat onions, garlic or mushrooms (but I do like things cooked with them).

Ingredients (for 1 person):

1 serving (a handful for me) of cooked plain rice
1 thin chicken breast, cut into bite size
1 sausage, cut into bite size
1 tablespoon cheese, cut into cubes
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
2 eggs
A pinch of salt
Cooking oil (I use olive oil)

Method:

1. Heat a little oil in a frying pan.
2. Add the chicken and the sausage and fry until the chicken is cooked.
3. Add the tomato sauce and stir through until well mixed, but be careful to not let the sauce get dry.
4. Add in cooked rice and stir just for a bit.
5. Put the cooked ingredients in a dish and set aside.
6. In another plate, whisk the eggs and add some salt to taste.
7. Heat again a little oil in a frying pan.
8. Pour in the egg mixture and tilt the pan to coat the base.
9. Cook until the eggs are almost set but still a little runny in the middle.
10. Lower the heat and put the fried rice mixture in the middle of the omelette.
11. Add the cheese over the rice.
12. With a spatula, flip the sides of the omelette over the rice mixture.
13. Put a plate over the pan and flip it quickly (thanks to making lots of spanish omelettes I have a nice fliping technique ^^). If you find it too difficult try doing as the video lady. Serve immediately.

Orange Chiffon Cake

I got this cake on my first attempt, but only because I used the lemon chiffon recipe I've done many times already ^^U

I made a few changes to the recipe in order to adecuate it to the orange flavour. The changes were:

1. Instead of using 40g+20g+1 tablespoon of honey I used the original 40g+40g of sugar.  
2. Instead of using all the juice of a lemon I used the juice of a half BIG orange.  
3. I added some orange wedges, completely peeled, to add some extra flavour.  

So, my recipe it's as follows:

Ingredients:

100g cake flour
1 & 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 egg yolks

3 egg whites
80g caster sugar
50ml vegetable oil
50ml water
juice of 1/2 big sized orange
zest of 1 big sized orange

Method:

1. Preheat the oven at 170ºC.
2. Grease the bottom of the mould with butter.
3. Sieve flour, baking powder and salt together, set aside.
4. Separate egg yolks/whites.
5. Place egg yolks in a mixing bowl, add 40g of sugar in 2 separate additions and whisk till the mixture becomes sticky and turns pale (it doesn't really matter if the wisk is manual or electric).
6. Pour in the oil, whisking at the same time till the mixture is well combined. Repeat the same with the water, followed by the orange juice. Add the flour mixture and whisk until flour mixture is fully incorporated into the batter. Add in the orange zest and mix well.
7. In a clean, dry mixing bowl, beat egg whites with an electric mixer until mixture becomes frothy and foamy. Gradually beat in the rest of the sugar and beat on high speed until stiff peaks form.
8. Add the beaten egg white into the egg yolk batter in 3 separate additions, each time folding gently with a spatula until just blended.
9. Pour batter into the mould. Tap the mould lightly on a table top to get rid of any trapped air bubbles in the batter.
10. OPTIONAL. Peel some orange wedges and add them to the top of the batter. The wedges will start to fall slowly to the bottom but don't worry, they won't get cooked (though the'll make the botton of the chiffon look ugly -_-U).
11. Bake in the pre-heated oven at 170ºC for 45 minutes (for me this is the exact time and temperature, but it can vary from one oven to another) or until the cake surface turns golden brown, and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
12. Remove from the oven and let cool completely before unmould (if you're using a metal pan then you should invert it inmediatly after taking it from the oven).

The idea of adding the orange wedges resulted to be one of the best ones I've had so far ^^ The wedges were uncooked, which helped to keep the cake moist for a few days and gave a fresher taste to it. Also, I was scared of not getting enough orange flavour but my worries proved to be unnecessary, because the cake had a nice and strong flavour ^o^

August 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Baked Alaska

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

This challenge has been quite tiring for me because I don't own an ice cream maker, which means that I had to take the ice cream out of the freezer every half an hour and stir it vigorously with a spatula. And it took me 3 hours to complete the vanilla ice cream!

I did the ice cream on monday and, on tuesday, I put it in the tea cups and baked the brown butter pound cake. Later on, before dinner, I assembled the pound cake + ice cream and left it in the freezer until wednesday, when I made the meringue and baked the completely assembled Baked Alaska. That makes 3 days to complete the challenge!

The easiest part was to make the meringue (of course! XD), but I had never made a meringue cover before and wasn't really fond of using the piping bag, so instead of that I chose to put the meringue on top of the ice cream and then try to make some spikes with the help of the spatula.

It's not that bad to be the first time, isn't it?

The recipes:

Ingredients for the vanilla ice cream:

250 ml whole milk
A pinch of salt
500 ml heavy cream
165g sugar
3 tsp vanilla extract
5 large egg yolks

Method for the vanilla ice cream:

1. Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a medium saucepan until the liquid steams, then let cool to room temperature.
2. Set up an ice bath by placing a 2 litre bowl inside a large bowl partially filled with water and ice. Put a strainer on top of the smaller bowl and pour in the cream.
3. In another bowl, lightly beat the egg yolks together.
4. Reheat the milk in the medium saucepan until warmed, and then gradually pour 1/4 cup warmed milk into the yolks, constantly whisking to keep the eggs from scrambling.
5. Once the yolks are warmed, scrape the yolk and milk mixture back into the saucepan of warmed milk and cook over low heat. Stir constantly and scrape the bottom with a spatula until the mixture thickens into a custard which thinly coats the back of the spatula.
6. Strain the custard into the heavy cream and stir the mixture until cooled. Add the vanilla extract and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, preferably overnight.
7. Put a deep baking dish, or bowl made of plastic, stainless steel or something durable in the freezer, and pour your custard mixture into it.
8. After 45 minutes, open the door and check it. As it starts to freeze near the edges, remove it from the freezer and stir it vigorously with a spatula or whisk to break up any frozen sections. Return to freezer.
9. Continue to check the mixture every 30 minutes, stirring vigorously as it's freezing. Keep checking periodically and stirring while it freezes until the ice cream is frozen. It will likely take 2-3 hours to be ready.

Ingredients for the Brown Butter Pound Cake (I made half of the recipe, thus I'm posting the ammounts I used):

125g unsalted butter
100g sifted cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
55g packed light brown sugar
35g granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method for the Brown Butter Pound Cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C and put a rack in the center. Butter and flour a 23cm x 23cm square pan.
2. Place the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.
3. In another bowl, whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Beat the brown butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well, and then the vanilla extract.
5. Stir in the flour mixture at low speed until just combined.
6. Scrape the batter into the greased and floured pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and tap the pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 15 minutes.
7. Cool in the pan 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert right-side-up onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Ingredients for the Meringue:

2 large egg white
110g granulated sugar
1/4 tsp cream tartar
1/4 tsp salt

Method for the Meringue:

1. Beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt on high speed in an electric mixer until soft peaks form.
2. Beat in the sugar gradually in a slow stream until stiff peaks form.

Assembling instructions:

1. Line 2 10cm diameter tea cups with plastic wrap, so that plastic wrap covers all the sides and hangs over the edge. Fill to the top with ice cream. Cover the top with the overhanging plastic wrap and freeze for several hours, or until solid. 

2. Line 2 10cm diameter tea cups with plastic wrap, so that plastic wrap covers all the sides and hangs over the edge. Fill to the top with ice cream. Cover the top with the overhanging plastic wrap and freeze for several hours, or until solid. 
3. Level the top of the brown butter pound cake with a serrated knife or with a cake leveler. Cut out 2 10cm diameter circles from the cake. Discard the scraps or use for another purpose.
4. Unwrap the ice cream "cups" and invert on top of a cake round. Trim any extra cake if necessary.

5. Smooth the meringue over the ice cream and cake with a spatula, so that none of the ice cream or cake is exposed. Freeze for one hour or up to a day.
6. Bake the meringue-topped Baked Alaskas on a rimmed baking sheet in a 260°C pre-heated oven for 5 minutes until lightly golden. Serve immediately.

The Baked Alaska is really a stressing cake when it comes the part of "baking" the ice cream, but its worth the worries because it tastes wonderful! ^^

Back from blogging holidays: chocolate crackle cookies

I know I didn't say that I was going on holidays, but it's because I didn't plan it.
Well, I did plan the holidays from work, but I didn't plan the blogging holidays. That's because I felt soooooo lazy that I didn't want to bake anything, therefore I had nothing to show. It felt good being on holidays and it feels horrible going back to work, but I suppose I'm left with no other alternative T_T

So, lets focus on the cookies: this isn't the first time that I bake this cookies, but it's the first time that I bake them not following the original recipe step by step.
A friend of mine gave me this recipe a year ago and I tried it inmediatly, but the cookies were too sweet for me and thus I decided that I was going to make them again but with some modifications. But I eventually forgot about doing that. Till now. Yesterday, while browsing through some old papers, I found the recipe and decided to try it again. Fortunately I wrote down last time the modifications that I wanted to do next time! Basicaly, I've cut down by half the amount of sugar and double the amount of vanila extract and baking powder (last time I thought the were a bit "hard" -_-U).
I prefer them now, they are not as dry as last time and you can taste better the chocolate flavour.

So, here's the recipe:

Ingredients:        

60g of butter
1 box of Nestle's chocolate fondue or 250g of cooking chocolate
50g of white granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp of vanilla
210g of flour
1 tsp of baking powder
1 pinch of salt
(Optional)confectioners' sugar for dusting

Method:

1. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave.
2. Add the butter and let it cool sighly.
3. In a bowl, whisk together the granulated sugar and the eggs until it doubles it's size.
4. Add the chocolate and the vanila extract to the egg mixture and whisk until well combined.
5. Measure the flour into a small bowl, and stir in the baking powder and salt, blending well.
6. With a wooden spoon, stir the flour mixture into the egg mixture.
7. Wrap the bowl with plastic wrap and let it cool in the fridge for 1 hour.
8. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
9. Take the bowl out of the fridge and, with your hands, take a small amount of dough, roll it into a ball shape and put it in a baking sheet. Here you can roll the balls in confectioners' sugar to give them a white coating. I ommited this step because I think that the cookies taste too sweet if I do it.
10. Bake in the pre-heated oven at 180ºC for about 10 minutes.
11. Transfer from oven to a wire rack and let them cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Chocolate custard tart

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!

Yup, today's my birthday (¡viva!) and following other bloggers' tradition of posting a cake I decided to post the tart I made a month ago ^^U I like to spend my birthday doing nothing so, instead of making myself a bithday cake, I went out to a restaurant with my parents and my boyfriend (poor him! XD).

I made the cake just because I wanted to try the recipe I saw at dailydelicious and well, it's obvious that my tart shell its kinda messy, but the chocolate custard was even worse. It's not that it tasted wrong (it didn't, the tart was delicious), it's only that I should had cooked a bit longer the custard in order to allow it to be thicker because it was too liquid. Anyways it still tasted superb with the strawberries ^^

Ham and cheese ring bread

I made this bread for Friday's dinner, for my parents and me. Even though you may think that it's too much for only 3 people, the truth is that we ate it all. Yes, not a single bit was left as we were VERY hungry (indeed, I was whishing that my mother couldn't eat all of her share, but I wasn't lucky T_T). I used a very thinly sliced ham and, instead of using grated cheddar cheese for the inside and grated gruyère cheese for the outside of the bread, I used Hochland's cheese slices for the filling and the grated emmental that I use for pasta for the topping.

The bread was really delicious, with all that creamy cheese going into my mouth in every bite (yes, I love cheese so I used a lot of slices for the filling ^^). The making of it was not as tiring as of the chorizo rolls, so I'll be going for this one more often than the other (you're allowed to call me lazyass ^^U).

I got the recipe and the kneading intructions from dailydelicious.

June 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Chocolate Pavlovas with Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.

Sorry for posting this challenge a day later, but my usual lazyness prevents me from writing and programming the post ahead of the posting date, thus and because I had an unexpectedly busy sunday, I've ended up doing it in a hurry today. Indeed, everything in this month's challenge has been made in a hurry -_-U

I made the Mascarpone Cream last friday after coming from a visit to my grandma's home and before dinner (in Spain dinner is eaten at around 9 o'clock in the evening), while the chocolate pavlovas were in the oven. So, that means: I came house from work at lunchtime (3 o'clock, and no, that's not very late; lunch is eaten here between 2-3:30 in the afternoon, and don't expect to be served in any restaurant before 1:30 ^^), ate lunch and went to grandma's (4:30 in the afternoon), came back home (around 7:00) and got ready to make the mentioned above before 9:00 to be able to help with dinner. Buffff! So tiring!
Unfortunately, I overbaked the pavlovas and they went to the bin T_T The recipe states that they need 2-3 hours baking, but after 45 minutes they were already wasted! I had to redo the pavlovas the next morning, but this time I baked them for 25 minutes, which proved to be enough for me.
On saturday morning I made the chocolate and mascarpone mousse too, to have everything ready before lunch because I wanted to serve it for dessert.

I made one third of the recipes because I thought that the ammounts were going to be too much for my parents and me, therefore, I'm posting the ammounts I used.

The recipe:

Ingredients for the Crème Anglaise (a component of the Mascarpone Cream):

80 ml whole milk
80 ml heavy cream
25g sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large egg yolks

Method for the vanilla Crème Anglaise:

1. In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until the mixture turns pale yellow.
2. Combine the milk, cream and vanilla in a saucepan over medium high heat, bringing the mixture to a boil. Take off the heat.
3. Pour about half of the hot liquid into the yolk mixture, whisking constantly to keep from making scrambled eggs.
4. Pour the yolk mixture into the pan with the remaining cream mixture and put the heat back on medium. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture thickens enough to lightly coat the back of a wooden spoon. DO NOT OVERCOOK.
5. Remove the mixture from the heat and strain it through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl. Cover and refrigerate until the mixture is thoroughly chilled, about 2 hours or overnight (as the ammount of cream I made was only one thirth of the original I only had it in the fridge for half an hour before using it).

Ingredients for the Mascarpone Cream:

1 recipe crème anglaise
40g mascarpone
40 ml heavy cream

Method for the Mascarpone Cream:

1. Slowly whisk the mascarpone in the crème anglaise and let the mixture cool.
2. Put the heavy cream in a bowl and beat with electric mixer until very soft peaks are formed.
3. Fold the cream into the mascarpone mixture.

Ingredients for the Chocolate Meringue (for the chocolate Pavlova):

1 large egg white
35g white granulated sugar
10g confectioner’s (icing) sugar
10g cocoa powder

Method for the Chocolate Meringue:

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 95ºC. Line two baking sheets with silpat or parchment and set aside.
2. Put the egg white in a bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Increase speed to high and gradually add granulated sugar about 1 tbsp at a time until stiff peaks form (the egg white should be firm but moist).
3. Sift the confectioner’s sugar and cocoa powder over the egg white and fold the dry ingredients into the white (this looks like it will not happen, but keep folding gently and it will eventually come together).
4. Shape the meringues on the parchment paper and level them a bit with the back of a spoon.
5. Bake for 25 minutes or until the meringues become dry and crisp on the outside but still moist inside.

Ingredients for the Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse (for the top of the Pavlova base):

120 ml heavy cream
85g 72% chocolate, chopped (I used Lindt's)
130g mascarpone

Method for the Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse:

1. Put 40 ml of the heavy cream in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once warm, add the chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let sit at room temperature until cool.
2. Place the mascarpone and the remaining cream in a bowl. Whip on low for a minute until the mascarpone is loose and then whip on medium speed until it holds soft peaks (DO NOT OVERBEAT AS THE MASCARPONE WILL BREAK).
3. Mix about 1/4 of the mascarpone mixture into the chocolate to lighten.
4. Fold in the remaining mascarpone until well incorporated.
5. Fill a pastry bag with the mousse.

Method for assembling:
Pipe the mousse onto the pavlovas and drizzle with the mascarpone cream over the top (or under, or aside, or however you prefer). Dust with confectioner’s sugar and fresh fruit if desired.

Well, after all I can say that it was worth the effort, even though the results were not the best possible because I, as said previously, made them in a hurry.

Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

I made this cake 2 weeks ago, but I've been too busy lately to post anything new T_T I found this recipe in the same blog as the peanut cookies' one, Table for 2...or more, and it caught my attention inmediatly because the cake in the post looked very fluffly ^^ Well, I was looking for something that wasn't too dense, as the summer was getting nearer and I prefered a lighter dessert.
And know what? This cake not only met my expectations, but surpassed them by way too far!!! It isn't fluffly, but SUPER FLUFFLY! Really! I ate a portion shortly after taking it from the oven and I can say that it's the lightest cake that I've ever eaten. It reminded me of cotton candy because of its fluffiness and because it melted in my mouth. So, I'll definitively do it again soon, only that next time I'll restraint myself from eating as soon as it comes from the oven and I'll try to put some fresh fruits and wipped cream on top of it ^^

P.S. The cake looks so white because it is upside-down. Actually, the top is light brown, but I thought that it would look better this way.

Peanut Cookies

Last week I was browsing through Table for 2...or more when I saw this recipe of Chinese New Year's peanut cookies. I decided to make them because the recipe uses vegetable oil (I used olive oil, not corn oil) instead of lard and I had some peanuts (and I love them ^^). Also, we don't celebrate here the Chinese New Year, so I didn't feel like out-of-season while making (and eating) them.

The original recipe yields too much cookies for us, so I made 1/10 of it, which yielded 35 marble ball-sized cookies:

Ingredients:        

100g flour
100g roasted peanuts (deskinned and ground)
100g fine sugar
40ml olive oil
1 egg (beaten)
Peanut halves for decoration

Method:

1. Mix flour, sugar and peanuts until well blended together.
2. Pour in the oil and knead until the oil is well incorporated.
3. Take a small amount of peanut dough onto your palm and roll into a small ball the size of a marble.
4. Place the peanut ball onto a baking tray and place a peanut half onto it. Lightly press the peanut half.
5. Apply the egg wash with a small brush.
6. Bake at 180ºC for 12 minutes or until the egg wash turns golden.

May 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Piece Montée

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

Although the profiteroles are a very popular dessert here (they're filled with whipped cream and eaten with chocolate sauce), I've never dreamed about making them because they seemed too difficult for my current baking level -_-u Therefore I'm happy that the croquembouche was chosen as this month's challenge.
I was pretty nervous during the whole process (making the crème patissiere, the pate a choux and mounting the finished profiteroles) and surprinsingly I managed somehow to do everything right at first attemp!!! ^^

I chosed the chocolate glacé for 2 reasons: first of all because I'm used to eat the profiteroles with chocolate and secondly because I'm not very fond of the taste of the melted sugar caramel. And because I LOVE CHOCOLATE I thought that it was a good idea to bath the profiteroles in it instead of simply pour some chocolate sauce over them. I also melted a little white chocolate to decorate the Piece Montée.

The recipe:

Ingredients for the vanilla Crème Patissiere (Half Batch):

225 ml whole milk
2 Tbsp cornstarch
100g sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
30g unsalted butter
1 Tsp vanilla

Method for the vanilla Crème Patissiere:

1. Dissolve cornstarch in 1/4 cup of milk.
2. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan and when it's boiling remove from heat.
3. Beat the whole egg and then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture.
4. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.
5. Return the remaining milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking until the cream thickens and starts to boil.
6. Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla.
7. Pour cream into a stainless steel/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface. Chill immediately and until ready to use.

Ingredients for the Pate a Choux (yield about 28):

175ml water
85g unsalted butter
1/4 Tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
125g all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

I used more flour than the stated in the recipe (about 180g) because my mixture was too liquid.

Method for the Pate a Choux:

1. Pre-heat oven to 220ºC. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat.
3. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.
4. Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.
5. Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly.
6. Add 1 egg. The batter will appear loose and shiny.
7. As you stir, the batter will become dry-looking. At this point add in the next egg. Repeat until you have incorporated all the eggs.
8. Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip. Pipe choux about 1 inch-apart in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high and about 1 inch wide.
9. Using a clean finger dipped in hot water, gently press down on any tips that have formed on the top of choux when piping. You want them to retain their ball shape, but be smoothly curved on top.
10. Bake the choux at 220ºC until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes.Lower the temperature to 180ºC and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

Actually, the original recipe calls for an egg wash before baking the choux, but I omited this step because I was going to cover them completely with chocolate.

Method for assembling the croquembouche:

1. Using a plain pastry tip pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux with pastry cream using either the same tip or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet. Choux can be refrigerated briefly at this point while you make your glaze.
2. Melt 200g chocolate in microwave or double boiler. Stir at regular intervals to avoid burning.
3. Dip each choux in the chocolate (careful it may be still hot!), and start assembling on your cake board/plate/sheet. Continue dipping and adding choux in levels using the glaze to hold them together as you build up.
4. Melt some white chocolate and, using a fork, draw lines over your Piece Montée.

The profiteroles were delicious, though it was kinda messy to pull them appart to eat them ^_^U They were soooooo good that even my boyfriend (who doesn't like dark chocolate) said that he liked them (hurrah!!!).

Coffee meringues

I don't know why I didn't make this delicious meringues sooner! I saw them in dailydelicious the very day that they were posted, but I decided to make other things and so I put this recipe aside. Until yesterday. On friday I went looking for a small bottle of coffee liqueur, as I wasn't sure if I were going to make any other dessert that includes this, and yesterday morning I got into it. It's incredible how easy this recipe is! It only has a few steps and it seems to be foolproof, because I got them right on my first attempt, which isn't usual. The only modification that I dared to do was to use 100 grams of sugar instead of 114 grams of caster sugar.

The meringues are sweet and very "airy". It was a surprise when I put them in the box and lifted them to store them in the cupboard; it seemed that the box was empty! They're sooooo light! ^^ As you're biting them you think that you're eating something dry but they melt as soon as they reach your tongue. They remind me of the cotton candies ^^ And they're so full of coffee flavour! I made them of different sizes to try out which one is the best for me and I have decided on the small, bite-sized, meringue because the coffee + hazelnut taste is incredibly good, so next time I want to have that taste in every bite ^^

April 2010 Daring Baker's Challenge: Traditional British Pudding

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

And thus the very first thing I did was to check in the nearest supermarket whether they had any suet. You see, suet is widely used in the south-east spanish's kitchens, but here, in the north, we rarely used it. But I was lucky, as they had 2 sticks of it, 300g each.
Next I had to decide if I was going to make a savory or a sweet pudding. Well, my father can't eat too much sweets and my mother prefers savory dishes, so it was an easy choice. Therefore, I decided on the savory pudding, filled with carrots, potatoes and beef. To make it nicer I added some onion and white wine sauce to the filling.
Then I went to search for an alternative to the steamer (I don't own one and I don't intend to), which was resolved quickly by using the pressure cooker with a steamer stand. And I made 2 handles for the pudding bowl with some string.

When the day I had set to make the pudding came, my main worry was to undercook the pudding, so I decided to leave it for 2 and half hours steaming (I made enough for 2 medium-sized puddings), as the host had said that is very difficult to overcook it. Also, at the last moment I decided to add a dash of pimentón (I think that in the english-speaking countries it's called spanish paprika, but I'm not sure) to the crust instead of pepper, that's why the uncooked crust has a yellowish color.

The recipe:

Ingredients for the crust:        

250g self-raising flour (I combined all-purpose flour with baking powder)
175g shredded suet
A pinch of salt
2 dashes of pimentón
Water (I don't know the exact amount that I used)

Ingredients for the filling:        

2 small carrots
1 large potato
200g beef, chopped

I'm sorry but I can't post the ingredients nor the method for making the sauce because I don't use fixed amounts, it a family recipe so we simply add the ingredients and cook it as we please, so it changes from one time to another.

Method:

1. Mix the flour and suet together.
2. Season the flour and suet mixture with salt and pimentón.
3. Add the water, a tablespoonful at a time, as you mix the ingredients together. Make up the pastry to firm an elastic dough that leaves the bowl clean. Don't over handle the pastry or it will be too hard.
4. Reserve a quarter for the lid and roll out the rest and line a well-greased bowl.
5. Add the filling and roll the final piece of pastry out into a circle big enough to cover the top of the basin, dampen the edges and put in position on the pudding, pinching the edges together to seal.
6. Seal well and cover with a double sheet of foil (pleated in the centre to allow room for expansion while cooking). Secure with string, and place it in a steamer over boiling water.
7. Steam for up to 5 hours (mine was steamed for 2 and half hours); you may need to add more boiling water halfway through or possibly more often. It's hard to over steam a pudding so you can leave it bubbling away until you are ready.
8. Take the pudding out of the steamer and serve it while still warm.

The pudding was exactly what you could expect from the British kitchen; it's trully one of the best exponents of the English food. The results that you get with such a simple but savory ingredients are really incredible. And I must say that I believe that the steaming process plays an important part in obtaining it's final cualities.