RASPBERRY CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

Posted in Desserts, Desserts, Sweets by sallybr

I feel the need to redeem myself after sharing a recipe that reduced my life expectancy a little, and added considerable more gray hair around my face. Maybe you are like us and prefer to stay home in Valentine’s Day? After all, it’s hard to beat a home-cooked dinner with the fireplace going and a nice glass of wine… Maybe you are planning on a store-bought dessert to make your life easier? Well, I am here to change your mind. This is one of the simplest ways to end a romantic meal, and so easy to put together it is almost a non-recipe. You can make it the day before, you can make it in the morning, you can make it just a couple of hours before showtime, whatever suits your schedule. Come to think of it, it is the antithesis of a sugar cookie with royal icing. And, let’s face it, a truffle is a lot more elegant and grown up. Plus no need to spend 1 hour and 49 minutes cleaning up the kitchen when you’re done. The recipe comes from the new FoodTV show Giada Entertains, which truth be told puts me in a compulsive eye-roll mode. Still, some recipes seem like winners, and this is definitely one. She called them poppers, I am calling them truffles, and you’ll soon understand why.

RASPBERRY CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES
(from Giada de Laurentiis)

3/4 cup heavy cream
8 ounces dark chocolate (70 percent), chopped fine
Three 0.33-ounce packages cherry Pop Rocks
12 raspberries

Add the heavy cream to a small saucepan and warm it gently over medium heat until small bubbles form around the edges. Place the chopped chocolate in a medium bowl and pour the hot cream over the chocolate. Let sit for about 2 minutes, then stir with a whisk, working from the center of the bowl outwards, until the ganache mixture is smooth and well incorporated.

To a 12-cup silicone mini muffin pan, sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon Pop Rocks in each cup. Divide the ganache evenly among the cups and press the raspberries on top. Refrigerate until set, at least 2 hours. I refrigerated them overnight. Just before serving, unmold the tarts.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: As you know, I did not grow up in the US, so most kid-friendly candies are unknown to me. For instance, popping candy, or pop rocks. I was clueless about them, but when I saw Giada’s face as she poured some in her mouth, I could not wait to try some myself. Problem is, they were nowhere to be found. I searched all grocery stores, even tried Walgreens, but no luck. So I did what any sensible human being does, took a virtual stride to amazon.com and placed an order. I specified the flavor used in the show, Original Cherry. The package took forever to arrive, but when it did, watermelon pop was inside. Oh, well, it’s also pink, and it pops. I decided to go with it.

The crystals made cute noises when I poured the ganache on top, but by the time we enjoyed the truffles, no one could tell there was anything in them apart from chocolate and the crowning raspberry. Still, they were perfectly delicious, fantastic texture, creamy, luscious, dream-inducing… just pop-less. Oh, well. Maybe you need to consume them within a couple of hours so that the candy won’t completely dissolve in the truffle? A carefully controlled experiment is needed. At any rate, if you don’t have popping candy around, don’t let that stop you. They will be perfect to close your romantic meal…

Happy Valentine’s Day!

ONE YEAR AGO: Red Velvet Cupcakes

TWO YEARS AGO: Happy Valentine’s Day!

THREE YEARS AGO: A Few Blogging Issues

FOUR YEARS AGO: Dan Dan Noodles

FIVE YEARS AGO: Sophie Grigson’s Parmesan Cake

SIX YEARS AGO: Antibiotics and Food

5Feb2016

MAPLE PUMPKIN PECAN SNACKING CAKE

Posted in Desserts, Desserts, Sweets by sallybr

SOMEONE TURNS SEVENTEEN TODAY!

Happy Birthday, Chief! You’ll always be a puppy for us…

Birthday requires cake. Obviously.

The other day I saw a compilation of cakes by Food & Wine, a sort of “bucket list of cakes.” You can check it out here. According to the article, if you bake one of those cakes each month, at the end of the year you will become a very accomplished baker, mastering all techniques that matter. Danger attracts me, because I was immediately mesmerized by the list and next think I knew, the first one was in the oven. No idea what makes it a “snacking cake” but the name has a good vibe. Plus, it mixes two flavors I love, maple and pumpkin. I am not too wild about pecans, but it’s always good to have an excuse to crack open that bag hibernating in the freezer. This cake is incredibly easy to make, smells amazing, and everyone raved about it. Now, before you get too excited: NO, I am not baking the other 11 cakes. And YES, this is my final answer.

MAPLE PUMPKIN PECAN SNACKING CAKE
(adapted from Food and Wine magazine)

1/2 cup whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
7 ounces pecans (about 1 to 1 + 1/3 cups)
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons demerara sugar for sprinkling

Heat the oven to 325° and grease an 8-inch square cake pan,

In a medium bowl, whisk together the two types of flour, cinnamon, and salt and set aside.

In a small frying pan over medium-high heat, toast the pecans until fragrant, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes. Transfer half of the nuts to a small food processor and pulse until a coarsely ground flour forms. Roughly chop the remaining pecans over a cutting board into small-sized pieces. Add both the pecan meal and loosely chopped pieces to the bowl of dry ingredients.

In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, eggs, brown sugar, maple syrup, coconut oil, and vanilla extract until very smooth. Gently fold in the dry ingredients until incorporated. Using a spatula, scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Smooth out the surface of the cake batter with the spatula and sprinkle the demerara sugar evenly over the top. Bake for 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The top of the cake should be crispy from the scattered sugar-coating.

Let the cake cool for 15 minutes before slicing and serving.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: The cake is baked in an 8-inch square pan, so it is reasonably small. Food and Wine lists 8 servings, but I cut it into 20 small squares so that more colleagues could be happy in a cold and foggy Monday morning. Perfect antidote for that type of day, if you ask me. What I loved the most about it was the crust that the demerara sugar formed while baking. Delicious contrast with the brownie-type cake underneath. Notice the lack of leavening agents, the cake is pretty similar to a one-pan brownie, easy and straightforward. Pecans were perfect, but I bet walnuts would work equally well.

Cake number one was pretty painless, I must admit. I like to leave the game while I’m winning, so I’ll stop right here. Although a certain gentleman is lobbying quite heavily for a particular six-layer coconut nightmare. Yeah, when pigs fly over Kansas wearing pink tutus.

Hi, my name is Molly Merlot, I am awfully cute, but I promise you, I don’t fly!

(photo published with permission from Wilson Creek Winery)

ONE YEAR AGO: Silky Gingered Zucchini Soup

TWO YEARS AGO: Sweet Fifteen!

THREE YEARS AGO: Sesame and Flaxseed Sourdough

FOUR YEARS AGO: Green Beans with Miso and Almonds

FIVE YEARS AGO: Saturday Morning Scones

SIX YEARS AGO: White Bread

24Dec2015

HAVE A CRAN-MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Posted in Desserts, Desserts, Sweets, Side dishes by sallybr

For those who celebrate, Merry Christmas!

For those who don’t, Happy Holidays!

When I first arrived in the US for my post-doc (bringing with me a pretty broken English), I thought that a straight translation from Portuguese (Feliz Natal) would work quite well to greet my friends. I had no idea that Merry Christmas is the greeting of choice. There is a very interesting story behind it, if you are fond of this type of trivia click here. At any rate, if you happen to know a foreigner who is new to the US of A, do him or her a favor and make this point clear. My American colleagues were very sweet and graciously accepted my Happy Christmas, until a good soul pushed me to the side and explained that even though there was nothing fundamentally wrong with happy, merry was the way to go. Now, would it be too bad to wish you a Cran-Merry Christmas? I hope not. Cranberries are everywhere these days, they are appropriately red, cute, plump, go well in sweet and savory dishes, they are festive, and… I love them. Since it is the season of giving, I share not one but two recipes. Let’s start by sweetening up this festive day, shall we?

CranberryChristmasCake

CRANBERRY CHRISTMAS CAKE
(from Barefeet in the Kitchen)

3 eggs at room temperature
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
12 oz fresh cranberries

Heat oven to 350 degrees. With a mixer, beat the eggs with the sugar until slightly thickened and light in color, about 7 minutes. The mixture should almost double in size. The mixture should form a ribbon when you lift the beaters out of the bowl. Add the butter and vanilla; mix two more minutes. Stir in the flour until just combined. Add the cranberries and stir to mix throughout.

Spread in a buttered 9×13 pan. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted near the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool completely before cutting into squares.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

baked
Comments: This cake is a must-make. Period. First there will be a bit of a surprise from the sharp tartness, but then everything mellows down into the perfect amount of sweetness. Quickly you’ll realize that behind its adorable face lies danger. One piece will very likely lead to a second one. Maybe a third… I baked it around 6pm for a small reception we were hosting a couple of hours later, so I could not quite let the cake cool completely before slicing it. No harm was done, though. Next day it was even better, I think the flavor of the cranberries permeated the crumb a little more. It was perfect to start the day with a cup of coffee. So there you have it, a very simple cake to prepare, huge pay-off in taste. You are very welcome….

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And now that we got the sweetness taken care of, let’s take cranberries on another culinary adventure: Cranberry Sauce, a mandatory side dish at Thanksgiving. So tasty that it should never be limited to one day of your year. When it comes to cranberry sauce, you will find countless versions, often using ingredients like Port wine, dried figs, pomegranate molasses, all sorts of exotic additions that promise to make it truly memorable. Not that theres’s anything wrong with it, I even have one such version in the blog. However, when I saw Dorothy’s recipe and read her comments about it, I knew I had to try it myself. She went through many recipes, always coming back to this one. Simplicity, few ingredients, 15 minutes of your time.

Cranberry Sauce-2
BEST EVER CRANBERRY SAUCE
(from Shockingly Delicious)

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 (12-ounce) bag fresh cranberries
Zest of 1 orange (orange part only)

In a large, heavy saucepan, add sugar, water and spices and cook, stirring often, until sugar dissolves, syrup is clear and comes to a rolling boil, about 3 minutes. In a colander, rinse and pick over the cranberries to remove any mushy ones. Add cranberries to boiling syrup and continue cooking, uncovered, just until they begin to pop, about 2-3 minutes (set the timer). Be careful not to cook them too long or they will get mushy.

Remove from heat, stir in orange zest and cool to room temperature, uncovered. Ladle into clean jars or plastic containers, label and refrigerate until serving time.

Makes about 2 1/2 cups sauce, enough to serve 6-8.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: I had no intention to blog on this recipe until I tried the sauce. It was everything Dorothy promised it to be. The spices are just right, and the texture of the cranberries spot on. I think I’ve always over-cooked my cranberries thinking that was the way to do it. Trust Dorothy’s directions, set the timer, stop the cooking even though you think it’s not nearly enough. We had one vegetarian guest at our home for Thanksgiving who arrived from India just a few months ago, so it was his first Thanksgiving and first contact with cranberry sauce. He absolutely loved it, in fact I almost wanted to take a picture of his plate, he had a bit of mashed potatoes and this humongous amount of cranberry sauce all around it… Made my day!

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ONE YEAR AGO: Merry Christmas!

TWO YEARS AGO: The Avocado Mousse that Stole the Show

THREE YEARS AGO: Sourdough Popovers

FOUR YEARS AGO: Merry Christmas!

FIVE YEARS AGO: Sourdough Focaccia, with a twist

SIX YEARS AGO: Merry Christmas!

16Dec2015

DATE TRUFFLES

Posted in Desserts, Desserts, Sweets by sallybr

Truffles for a date? I actually think it could be a great idea to make the occasion special, particularly if your date is a truffle-worthy someone, but the name refers in fact to their main ingredient which I happen to love: Medjool dates. If you are fond of the regular chocolate truffles, these will surprise you because they look almost the same but taste completely different. Think sweet but complex, exotic and intriguing. Ridiculously easy to make, they are ready in minutes (literally) using the food processor. Both the recipe and the main ingredient were sent by our friend Steve, who through his visits to Saudi Arabia (against my wise advice) keeps me stocked on fantastic dates and spices, saffron included…

Date Truffles

DATE TRUFFLES
(from our friend Steve)

for truffles:
3 cups dates, pitted and roughly chopped
12-ounce cup of strongly brewed coffee (or 6 oz coffee + 6 oz brandy)
1 cup pecans, chopped finely in a mini – food processor
1/2 cup shredded coconut, sweetened or unsweetened
zest of 1 orange
optional: 2-3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder
& ½ teaspoon cinnamon

to coat truffles:
Shredded coconut
or
cocoa powder
or
ground nuts
or
melted semi-sweet chocolate

Soak dates for 10 minutes in coffee, or in a mixture of coffee and brandy. Drain the dates but do not squeeze out liquid. Discard the coffee.

Transfer dates to a regular food processor, add the rest of the ingredients and pulse until mixed. Shape into 1-inch balls. Refrigerate at least 30 min.

Keeps well for many days in an airtight container in the fridge. Bring to room temperature to warm up slightly before serving.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Going, going, GONE!

Comments: Next time I make these, I intend to coat them in melted chocolate to pump the decadence level up a little. Actually, a shell of white chocolate would be amazing for color contrast. Not that I need strong reasons to use white chocolate. To coat this batch I used Oreo-type cookie crumbs. They turned out delicious with a little bit of extra texture the crumbs offered.

The truffles were inhaled at lightning speed by our colleagues at the department, which is obviously one of the best compliments for my concoctions… If you have a dinner party coming up and would like to keep the dessert course very simple, serve these truffles with a cup of coffee or tea at the end of the evening. Or make a small plate with 4 or 5 and offer to your guests to take home… they will absolutely love it!

ONE YEAR AGO: Spiced Honey Ginger Cookies

TWO YEARS AGO: Twisted Sister of the Shepherd’s Pie

THREE YEARS AGO: Hail Caesar Sourdough

FOUR YEARS AGO: In My Kitchen, December 2011

FIVE YEARS AGO: Festivus Dinner Rolls

SIX YEARS AGO: 100% Sourdough Rye

4Dec2015

CHOCOLATE ON CHOCOLATE

Posted in Desserts, Desserts, Sweets by sallybr

Did I get your attention?

😉

As those who follow my blog for a while know quite well, I always have a good number of posts lined up for publication and countless folders in the computer waiting to evolve from a set of photos into complete blog posts. I don’t stress too much over the accumulation of recipes and ideas for the blog, but when I noticed two recipes by the same chef collecting dust, I had to act. So here you have them: two takes on chocolate deliciousness by a chef I truly admire, Geoffrey Zakarian. A smooth and mild mousse that was part of our Valentine’s dinner back in February (do I get a prize for blogging about it before its first anniversary?). And next, a recipe that brings a more “in-your-face” hit of the dark, luscious cocoa entity in the form of sorbet. I know sorbet days are over for us in the Northern hemisphere (a harsh reality that I take with a stiff upper lip), but my lucky friends headed for the summer will certainly enjoy it…

DARK CHOCOLATE MOUSSE
(from Geoffrey Zakarian)

1/2 cup chopped chocolate (72 percent)
1 cup heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
Whipped cream, for serving
Chocolate shavings, for garnish

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a water bath, making sure the water is not boiling. Set aside. In a separate bowl, whip the heavy cream to soft peaks.

Place the egg yolks in a small bowl and set over a water bath to slightly heat while beating them with a whisk. Add the sugar to the yolks and then transfer the mixture to a stand mixer set up with the whisk attachment. Beat until the sugar is completely dissolved and the yolks double in size, about 5 minutes. Carefully fold the chocolate into the yolks. Lastly, fold in the whipped cream. Divide the mixture among 4 serving bowls or glasses and refrigerate for about 3 hours.

Just before serving, top with some whipped cream and garnish with chocolate shavings.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: When I made this recipe I showed the photo to some friends and they were a bit surprised that a dark chocolate mousse would turn out so light in color. It was indeed not only light in color, but also pretty mild in taste. I guess the whipped cream tames the bitter nature of the chocolate. At any rate, we both loved this version, and would make it again for another V-Day celebration or a dinner party with friends. On the opposite side of the chocolate spectrum, we have…

CHOCOLATE SORBET: RECIPE OVERVIEW

The detailed recipe can be found at Zakarian’s book “My Perfect Pantry“, which I own and love…

The sorbet is probably one of the simplest recipes ever, just water, sugar, cocoa powder, a bit of espresso powder, barely cooked together and processed into sorbet.

It has a sharp flavor, and surprisingly smooth texture for something that doesn’t contain any cream or custard.

If you’d like the full recipe, follow this link to get the book, although a google search will take you to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow…

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