Zucchini Bread

Do you like zucchini? I like it. My husband, too. But my kids hate. Or rather, not exactly hate. Actually, this is something children or ateenagers suddenly decide they don't like, without even tasting it.

Ok. So I always look for a way to "disguise" that something. When I saw this recipe (who follows this blog may have noticed that I've tested recipes from various old magazines, that were stored for a long time) I thought this zucchini bread would be perfect .

I do not know why they named it bread. The recipe, the dough, the way it is mae and the final result is more likely a cake than a bread. Nor would I say it is the eighth wonder of the world, but is tasty. Moreover, the wonders fulfill the role of disguise. Until now my kids believe that green stuff seem in the dough were lime zest!

Zucchini Bread

1 1/4 cups wheat flour

1 cup grated zucchini
1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened

2 eggs

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Line the bottom of a baking pan of a 20cm x 10cm with baking paper. In a bowl mix all ingredients except chocolate. Beat in a mixer, on low speed, until blended. Switch to medium speed for two minutes. Add the chocolate, mix gently and place on the baking pan. Bake in preheated oven at 180 º C, until  a toothpick comes out clean, about 30 min.

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"Snowy" Beets

I love beets. But I never make anything different with them. I mean, they always end up being boiled in salted water, and going into a salad. These days I've found this recipe in a old magazine. I thought it could be very interesting.

Unfortunatelyi didn't pay attention at the time of the photo and almost nothing is left to shoot. As everyone here at home liked the dish, I'll repeat it sometime. Hence I  hope to take some better shots in the next.

Snowy Beetroot

1/3 cup corn starch

1/2 cup milk

3 medium beets, cooked, peeled and chopped

1 1/2 cup Ementhal cheese, grated
4 eggs (whites and yolks separated)

1 teaspoon salt

1 pinch black pepper

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to medium heat. In a saucepan, combine cornstarch and milk. Bring to high heat, stirring constantly, until thickened. Reserve.

Mix the cooked beets, Ementhal cheese, egg yolks and cornstarch cream. Bring the mixture back to the fire and cook, stirring constantly, until cheese melts. Pour into a dish. Reserve.

In mixer, beat the egg whites and pour over the beet cream. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and bake to golden brown. Serve hot.

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Daring Bakers' Challenge - August 2010 - Baked Alaska

Blog-checking lines: 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”.

Mandatory: Whether we made the Baked Alaska, the petit fours, or both, we should make the brown butter pound cake as written and the ice cream from scratch.

Variations Allowed: Both desserts could be made in any size or shape, and the ice cream could be any flavor we could think of! For the Baked Alaska, we could flavor the meringue however we wanted.

Brown Butter Pound Cake

19 tablespoons (9.5 oz) (275g) unsalted (sweet) butter

2 cups (200g) sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring)
1 teaspoon (5g) baking powder

1/2 teaspoon (3g) salt

1/2 cup (110g) packed light brown sugar

1/3 (75g) cup granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C and put a rack in the center. Butter and flour a 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan. Place the butter in a 10” (25cm) skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. (Don’t take your eyes off the butter in case it burns.) Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes. Whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat the brown butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar in 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. Stir in the flour mixture at low speed until just combined. Scrape the batter into the greased and floured 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and rap the pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.  Cool in the pan 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert right-side-up onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

I must tell you the smell of the brown butter is unbelieveble! When I was Beating the dough I though I'd Eat everything before baking it. When the cake was in the oven, oh my God! But  when I tasted the cake it was disapointing. It is not bad but it was even close to what I though it would be. All that delicious smelling had vanished and it was not that tasteful either. :( A pitty!

Coffee Ice Cream

1/2 cup strong coffee

1/2 cup sugar

1 pinch salt

2 egg whites

1/2 cup whipped cream

1 tspoon pure vanilla extract

Mix the coffee and the sugar and bring it to boil until it gets thick. Beat the egg whites and the salt on high speed in a electric mixer until soft peaks form. Add the syrup in a stream, beat in low speed. Continue beating in high speed until cooled. Freeze for an hour. Beat the whipped cream and the vanilla extract. Add the Coffee mixture and freeze again.

I thought this coffee ice cream would match wonderfully with this cake and this time I was right. I loved this ice cream. So easy to be made and what a good taste! The recipe I found in a Brazilian website, Tudo Gostoso.

Meringue

2 egg whites

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
In a sauce pan, mix water and sugar. Cook over medium heat  until it gets thick. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Add the syrup in a stream, beat in low speed. Continue beating in high speed until cooled.

Assembly Instructions
1. Line four 4” (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. Level the top of the brown butter pound cake with a serrated knife or with a cake leveler. Cut out four 4” (10cm) diameter circles from the cake. Discard the scraps or use for another purpose.

3. Make the meringue

4. Unwrap the ice cream “cups” and invert on top of a cake round. Trim any extra cake if necessary.

5. Pipe the meringue over the ice cream and cake, or smooth it over with a spatula, so that none of the ice cream or cake is exposed. Freeze for one hour or up to a day.

6. Burn the tips of the meringue with a cooking blow torch. Or, bake the meringue-topped Baked Alaskas on a rimmed baking sheet in a 500°F/260°C oven for 5 minutes until lightly golden. Serve immediately.

I didn't make things exactly like that. I placed the ice cream on the top of cake with a scoop and just covered it with the meringue and placed it in the oven. I WANT A COOKING BLOW TORCH. That's all I have to say...

Additional Information:

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_brown_butter/ - Great article on browning butter with step by step photos

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2007/07/making_ice_crea_1.html - Making Ice Cream without a Machine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7aTU5wLyz0&feature=fvsr – Video of how to transfer ice cream from plastic wrap-lined cup to cake (Baked Alaska)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v98pZYBnUEc – Video on how to glaze petit fours (fast forward to 3:00 minutes. Includes poured fondant recipe)

http://www.dianasdesserts.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/recipes.recipeListing... - Poured fondant recipe (Petit Fours)

http://userealbutter.com/2008/04/15/lemon-petits-fours-recipe/ - Simple syrup and poured fondant recipes (Petit Fours)

http://www.bakersroyale.com/cakes/easter-tea-cakes/ - Poured buttercream instructions

Baked Alaska decoration ideas:

http://www.blogger.com/goog_1767551713

http://www.blogger.com/goog_1767551713

http://www.blogger.com/goog_1767551713

http://www.blogger.com/goog_1767551713

http://www.blogger.com/goog_1767551713

http://www.bizbash.com/content/editorial/StoryPhoto/big/e15109image10.jp...

http://zoebakes.com/?p=967

 Thanks to Elissa for hosting this challenge. I have always thought in making a Baked Alaska but It was never the right time for it. 

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Vegetables with Cheese Sauce

As promised in my previous post, here's the second recipe with fresh asparagus. If you ask me which one I liked most I'll answer that the two recipes are very good. This one has a stronger flavor sauce, which combined very well with the vegetables used, but the asparagus kind of disappeared in the middle of everything. It is perfectly possible to make this dish with other vegetables and keep your asparagus for other productions.

On the other hand the first recipe, Asparagus with Orange, presented more delicate flavors, and the sweet-acid flavour of the orange was a great match with the asparagus. So if what you want, like me, is to enjoy the full taste of asparagus, my vote goes to this first recipe.

Enough talk! Let me write down this recipe

Vegetables with Cheese Sauce

 2 cups fresh asparagus

1 cup zucchini, sliced

1 1 / 2 cups cauliflower bouquets

1 cup carrots cut into bat

Sauce

1 / 4 cup milk

1 / 4 cup cottage cheese

1 tsp lime juice

A pinch of mustard powder - I was really generous with the pinch, and even added one more. I assure you that made all the difference!

Remove the fiber from the stalks of asparagus. Be careful not to break their upper points. Cut the base of the stem (that white part which is harder, + / - 2cm). Tie the asparagus in a bundle and cook them in boiling salted water for 5 minutes. Put them in the pan with the tips up, almost out of water. Drain, refresh in cold water and arrange them on a dish where it will be served. Cook the remaining vegetables separately in salted water, but let them "al dente", or at least not too soft. Arrange them on serving platter.

Beat all the sauce ingredients in a blender until the mixture is smooth and serve over vegetables (I chose to mix everything by hand. I liked this more rustic appearance).

Bon Appetit!

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Asparagus with Orange

These days I intend to publish recipes I found in some old magazines and that I decided to try. Unfortunately not all the photos were good, but still ...

I love asparagus. I always liked them.Green ones, white ones, fresh ones, preserved ones. So you can already imagine my joy when I noticed that now we can find them more easily in our markets. Every time I go to the grocerries and they are there, you can be sure that I buy them.

This week, there they were. Twice. Therefore, it is already known, you gonna see two recipes with asparagus here. Both were very good. This is the first one

Asparagus with Orange

1 / 2 kg fresh asparagus

1 / 4 cup orange juice - in fact I ended up using almost a full cup

1 tablespoon margarine or butter

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 / 4 teaspoon dried marjoram

1 orange into wedges

Remove the fiber from the stalks of asparagus. Be careful not to break their upper points. Cut the base of the stem (that white part which is harder, + / - 2cm). Tie the asparagus in a bundle and cook them in boiling water with salt for 5 minutes. Put them in the pan with the tips up, almost out of water. Drain, refresh in cold water and arrange them on a dish where it will be served.

Place all other ingredients except the orange slices in a separate saucepan and cook over low heat until starting to thicken. Pour this sauce over the asparagus and garnish with slices of orange. Serve hot.

Delicious!

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Daring Cooks' Challenge - August 2010 - Pierogi

Blog-checking lines: The August 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by LizG of Bits n’ Bites and Anula of Anula’s Kitchen. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make pierogi from scratch and an optional challenge to provide one filling that best represents their locale.

Mandatory: we had to make the dough from scratch (no ready made won ton wrapper etc. allowed!) and we also had to make filling from scratch.

Variations allowed: we could choose our filling: sweet or savoury.

Two different recipes were provided. I chose this one, with some variations:

Cottage Cheese Wareneki (pierogi)

Dough

½ cup (125 ml) milk  - I would add some cinnamon or cloves or ginger for sweet version or some herb for savory ones

½ cup (125 ml) whipping cream

3 large egg whites

1 tsp (5 ml) salt

3 cups (450 g) all-purpose flour

Mix flour and salt, add other ingredients, and knead dough until you have a smooth dough.
On a floured surface roll out fairly thin (1/8” or about 3 millimeters), cut into 2” (5 cm) squares, and fill with 1 tsp (5ml) cottage cheese filling.

Filling - Traditional

1 lb (455 g) dry cottage cheese
3 large egg yolks

Salt to taste

Mix well all the ingredients for the filling. Put 1 rounded teaspoon (5 ml) of the filling in each square, fold corners to form a triangle, seal edges well using your fingers or a fork. Cook in salted, boiling water for 5 minutes.

I made some variations to the whole process: I chose the sweet version of the pierogi and made a riccota cheese, dried apricot and chopped walnuts filling. I also added cinnamon sticks, cloves and orange zests to the boiling water in which I'd cooked the pierogis.

If you can’t find dry cottage cheese, simply drain normal cottage cheese by nesting the cottage in a few layers of cheese cloth or a fine sieve over a bowl.

Boiled pierogi can also be fried after boiling for a nice crunchy dumpling and so I did. I got 41 pierogis and fried half of them.

I served the boiled pierogis with a balsamic and wild berries caramel ( no, I didn't make it. Just bought a bottle at the supermarcket.) The fried ones were served with an apricot sauce = apricot jam, water and white wine vinegar, mixed and heated.

I must confess the first time I read the recipe I didn't believe this pierogi thing could be tasty. It remindes me of gnocchi without the sauce. Well I can't say it's the best thing I've ever tasted but it is not the worst either.

I'd like to thank Liz and Anna for this challenge. I had the amazing chance to learn something new to me. And it is always nice.

A little visual help:

Video: How to make varenyky / pierogi (Youtube)
Video: How to make pierogi (About.com)

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Daring Bakers' Challenge - July 2010 - Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake

Blog checking lines - The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

Mandatory -

•We had to make the Swiss rolls, a filling for them, two ice creams and a fudge sauce, from scratch.

•We had to set the dessert in a bowl/pan etc in the order given in the recipe-Swiss roll, first ice-cream, the fudge topping and, finally, the second ice cream.

Variations allowed -

•We could either follow the given recipes for all the components or change the flavour of the Swiss rolls, filling, ice creams and fudge topping.

•We could make it in whatever shape and size we wanted.

 

So, you can check the orinal recipes at The Daring Kitchen website.

 

Ok, I know the challenge is making a SWISS swirl ice crem cake but I decided to add a Brasilian point of view to it...

I made 2 SS cakes:

1º attemp: Romeo & Juliet cake. Humpf! Brasilian? R&J? Shakespeare? Isn't it English?

Yes, of course it is English, but if you ask any Brasilian guy what a R&J is, I bet the first answer will be this dessert _ a slice of cheese and a slice of guava marmelade.

In cheaper restaurants and bars it will be just that. In Fancy places you will find cheese cake with guava jam, guava mousse with melted cheese and so on. In ice cream factories there is a cheese ice cream with guava marmelade chips. So I made a roll filled with guava jam, cheese ice cream, Brasil nut fudge and guava ice cream.

BTW this roll is typical from Pernambuco, a Northeast state, and it's called Bolo de Rolo.

Cake

2 1/2 cupsoftened butter
2 3/4 cup sugar
8 eggs
4 cups wheat flour
Icing sugar
Grated Parmesan cheese

In a mixer, beat the butter and add sugar gradually. Join the 8 egg yolks and beat well until the mixture is whitening. Add flour gradually and continue beating. In another bowl, beat the egg whites  and gently add to previous cream.  Grease a 28cm x 42cm tray and sprinkle with flour. Pour a small portion of dough, spread with a spatula, forming a layer of less than 1cm. Bake inpre-heated oven  at high temperature. Bake for 4 min. or till the centre is springy to the touch. Spread a kitchen towel on the counter and sprinkle a little caster sugar over it. Turn the cake on to the towel. Spread over it a thin layer of filling and sprinkle with a bit of parmesan cheese. Roll the cake. Do it all over again til you have baked all the dough. But you will roll the other cakes one over the other. Sprinkle with icing sugar. 

Filling
700g guava marmelade
2 tablespoons water
Cut the guava marmelade into small pieces and cook with water until it melts and you get a creamy mixture.

Guava Marmelade Ice Cream

1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 can of milk
400g heavy cream
300g soft guava marmelade

Cut the guava marmelade into pieces and beat all ingredients in blender. Lead to the freezer until the edges begin to freeze. Bring it to the mixer and beat well. Place it again the freezer. Repeat the process until all the ice cream gets equally frozen.

Cheese Ice Cream
500ml milk
150ml heavy cream
5 egg yolks
100g of  a white cheese

Bring the milk, the cream and the cheese to simmer. In another bowl, combine egg yolks and sugar. Add a little of the warm milk mixture to yolks and mix well. Pour the egg yolks into the remaining milk mixture and return to low heat, stirring, until thickened, without boiling. Place in the freezer and repeat the process of the guava ice cream.

Brazil Nut Topping

3 tablespoons Brazil nuts  butter - still using the remains of the other challenge.

3 tablespoons heavy cream
5 teespoons sugar
Mix well and cook until thickened.

Assembly

Cut the Swiss rolls into 20 equal slices ( approximately 2 cm each ).Cover the bottom and sides of the bowl in which you are going to set the dessert with cling film/plastic wrap. Arrange two slices at the bottom of the pan, with their seam sides facing each other. Arrange the Swiss roll slices up the bowl, with the seam sides facing away from the bottom, to cover the sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till the slices are firm (at least 30 minutes). Soften the Guava ice cream. Take the bowl out of the freezer, remove the cling film cover and add the ice cream on top of the cake slices. Spread it out to cover the bottom and sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till firm ( at least 1 hour) Add the fudge sauce over the ice cream, cover and freeze till firm ( at least an hour). Soften the cheese ice cream and spread it over the fudge sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4-5 hours till completely set. Remove the plastic cover, and place the serving plate on top of the bowl. Turn it upside down and remove the bowl and the plastic lining. If the bowl does not come away easily, wipe the outsides of the bowl with a kitchen towel dampened with hot water. The bowl will come away easily. Keep the cake out of the freezer for at least 10 minutes before slicing, depending on how hot your region is. Slice with a sharp knife, dipped in hot water.

2º attempt: Do you know Caipirinha? This is a typical Brasilian drink made with cachaça (sugar cane brandy), lime and sugar. So...Lime roll with lime curd filling, cachaça ice cream, Basil caramel and rapadura( block of raw brown sugar) ice cream.

Ok, ok I know Caipirinha is NOT made with brown sugar, but what else could I do?
Basil? Nowadays,you can also find Caipinhinha with basil, Strawberry or passion fruit caipirinhas. Or you can use vodca insted of cachaça. It would be a Caipirissima.

Lime cake

6 eggs
225g sugar
45g wheat flour

Zests of 1 lime

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Beat eggs until doubled in volume. Add sugar gradually and beat until the mixture is white. Add the flour and the zest and lime juice, mixing gently. Pour the dough into 2 greased and floured baking pantrays and place into a preheated to 200 ° C oven. Bake until the centre is springy to the touch , but without letting it brown. Remove from oven and unmold the cake onto a sheet of baking paper sprinkled with sugar. Wrap the cake and let cool. Then unroll and cover with a thin layer of filling and roll it again. This recipe yields two rolls.

Filling

1 can condensed milk

Juice of 1 lime

Mix well and spread on the cakes.

Cachaça Ice Cream

400g caster sugar
500g water
1 tablespoon lime zests
150ml of cachaça

Boil water and sugar for 5 min. When cooled, add the lime zests, cover and let rest for one or two hours. add the rum, stir and place in the freezer. Repet the process of the two other  ice creams.

Brown Sugar Block Ice Cream

6 egg yolks

1l milk

500g brown sugar block- I got a very good creamy brown sugar block, then used it here.

500g of heavy cream

Mince the brown sugar block and beat in blender with 500ml of milk. Heat the remaining milk. Beat egg yolks slightly and add a bit of warm milk. Mix well and add the remaining milk. Keep on low heat, stirring constantly, and not boiling until it thickens. Combine the two mixtures and freeze. From there, do the same as as the other ice creams.

Basil Caramel
1/2 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

1 bunch basil, chopped

Pour all the ingridients in a pan and take it to a medium heat and let simmer until it begins to thicken.

Assembly
Similar to the Romeo & Juliet swirl ice cream cake.

Conclusions 

1st - The version of Romeo and Juliet was great. The cake is laborious, but worth the effort. The ice creams were great. But the cherry of the cake was the nut topping. It matched wonderfully.

2nd - The cachaça ice cream as soon as you take it fromthe freezer, begins to melt. Imagine then how difficult it was to work with it. As I spread it over the cake layer, it began to soften. Then when I took it again from the freezer to top with the basil caramel, which was still warm,  it melted again. Finally, before covering with brown sugar block ice cream ... You get the picture. So when the whole thing was ready and I'd cut the first slice, I noticed that the layer of cachaça was very thin. As sponge cake is, well, a sponge, the cake becamevery moist. The flavours were all mixed. Like in Caipirinha. But the idea was that one could taste each individual flavour. But it was a success anyway.

3rd - I thought that I should have reversed the layers of ice cream in this Caipirinha swirl. But then again, cachaça ice cream would melt down and make the whole  thing wouldcollapse.

4th - I've made the guava ice cream in the Matilde's ice cream maker. The machine didn't work well with the other ice creams. I had to make them as described in the recipes.

5th - The best ice cream, in terms of taste, were the cachaça and the guava ones.

Well, that's it. I can only thank Sunita for an excellent challenge; Mario, for helping with ideas and Matilde, for help with ideas, with all the work and the loan of the ice cream maker. Without challenge proponents there would be no challenge at all, and me, without my friends, would be alone to face it all.

You can see the original recipes on the site The Daring Kitchen.

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