CHOCOLATE - RASPBERRY CAKE

I am feeling that my sugar high is coming to an end… So here is what might be the last of my sugar coated postings for a while… well, then again, you never know !
Although the weather has really not been that great recently, the fruits for this season of the year are terrific. All my favourite fruits are stacked on the shelves these days looking ripe and irresistibly seductive! The other day I bought some gorgeous raspberries, enjoyed some on their own and used the rest for a chocolate-raspberry cake with plenty of chocolate ganache and raspberry liqueur. I’m a genuine chocoholic, and I do love all sorts of cakes, but chocolate cakes are by far my favourite.

Above: beautiful raspberries. Below: coating the cake with the chocolate-raspberry ganache

Anyway, I’m going to cut this post short- but I do have to say that I’ve always enjoyed the fabrications of cakes: the layers, textures, colours, flavours… I love the process of dressing them and matching up their edible accessories. It’s almost like dressing up a doll… even though for the latter I’ve gone way past the age of doing that!

Recipe for my Chocolate-Raspberry cake:

>Chocolate Genoise ingredients:
4 eggs
125 gr sugar
125 gr flour
60 gr butter, melted
30 gr cocoa
Raspberry liqueur

Prepare a bain-marie. Place the sugar & eggs in the upper pot of the bain-marie and whisk for about 10 minutes until ribbons form and fall off the whisk beaters. Then add half of the flour and cocoa and quickly fold. Repeat with the remaining half of the flour and cocoa. Finally gently add in the butter. Transfer batter to a buttered cake mould, and bake in oven for 30 mins (checking with a sharp knife later if it needs more baking time). Remove from oven, let cool, unmould and slice horizontally in half. Brush each slice with raspberry liqueur.

>Chocolate – Raspberry ganache ingredients (sorry no measurements incl, I eyeballed the ingredients for this one) :

Raspberries, crushed
Liquid cream
Dark chocolate

Heat the liquid cream and crushed raspberries together- but do not let it boil. Then lower heat and add in the dark chocolate. The proportions are usually the cream being half the amount of the chocolate used. Allow all the chocolate to melt until ganache becomes smooth. Set aside, let cool and then with a spatula spread a layer in between the chocolate genoise and use the rest of the ganache to coat the cake at the end. Finish off by decorating cake with raspberries (optional).

FIG & ROSEWATER ICE-CREAM WITH CRUSHED PISTACHIOS & DARK CHOCOLATE

Guys, I am still on a sugar-high...and I did ice-cream, again! This time I played around with one of my favourite ingredient combinations ever: figs, rose water, pistachio and dark chocolate. I’ve used these flavours before in other pastries, such as the sablés I posted about way back when I first started blogging. Figs and rosewater are like a match made in heaven (and I am so happy that figs are finally in season now!) They complement each other so perfectly, and although I could enjoy the duo on it’s own, I just feel that throwing in an explosion of crushed pistachio and dark chocolate does something to the taste and adds some wonderful colour visually.

To be honest, initially I really wanted to make a milk chocolate & lavender ice-cream… but as much as I love lavender, I’m not as excited to use lavender these days... I think I’ve experimented enough with it when the purple wave hit us all a while back invading our kitchen closets, perfuming our recipes and entertaining our tastebuds.

So it is with no regret that I ditched one flowering plant (lavender) for another (rose), especially when I enjoyed it outside in the garden surrounded by a view of colourful blossoming roses and realizing that as I was looking at them, I was tasting them too.

Recipe for Fig & Rosewater ice-cream with crushed Pistachios & Dark Chocolate:

Ingredients:
4 egg yolks
125gr sugar
300ml low fat milk
200ml liquid cream
Figs (peeled)
2 tablespoons rose water
Crushed pistachios
Dark chocolate chips (70%)

How to make it:
Mix the egg yolks, peeled figs and sugar in a bowl. In a pot, bring the milk, cream, and rosewater to boil. Pour the boiling milk mixture over the cold mixture (eggs + sugar) while stirring. Return to heat and continue to stir until the cream starts to thicken. This stage of cooking is known as “la nappe” which is achieved between 82-85C. If the cream is not heated sufficiently, the ice-cream will be thin and watery. Remove the pot from the heat and stop the cooking process by place it in cold water mixed with ice cubes. Transfer the mixture to your ice-cream machine. Add the crushed pistachios and dark chocolate chips before churning. Follow manufacturers’ instructions and enjoy ice-cream on the same day, fresh and tasty!

*Remember: you can always replace the eggs with gelatine, pectin or agar-agar.

*I'm also submiting this recipe to Mike's super event You Scream, I Scream, We all Scream for Frozen Desserts! I'm generally screaming frozen desserts all year long, but it's always a bit louder in the summer!

SLICES OF CAKE...

I am in an incredibly sweet-tooth mood lately. Everyday there has been some chocolate, cake, cookies, ice-cream & company included somewhere in my diet. I know, it’s not very good for the health and for the waistline, but quite frankly sometimes if your taste buds are craving something then they should enjoy it. In moderation, there is nothing to worry about! Plus, I go to the gym at least 3 times a week, so that makes up for my sugar indulgences. Yes, I am a woman and this is how most women (without wanting to generalize) think when it comes to justifying their defeat to a sugar coated temptation!

Sometimes I crave a simple piece of bread with Nutella, or a slice of a humble cake, and then other days I will be capricious and lust for an orange-saffron Ladurée macaron or a piece of chocolate from the master himself Pierre Marcolini. However most of the time, I lean on the more adventurous side: I like matching up flavours I haven’t tried before. It doesn’t have to be out of this world, like say for instance, hmmm… caramel coated frog legs! It just needs to be something interesting. Cakes are a good way of playing around with flavours. I know that this weekend I’ll be busy with cakes, and probably ice-cream too, , but for the moment here are two examples of my many favourite home-made cake flavours:
Which one do you prefer? And what are YOUR favourite cake flavours?

Chocolate laced with cinammon and bits of pistachios and luscious figs OR juicy cherries with some chocolate & almond crunch?

I love using base cake recipes and then throwing in some ingredients imagining myself experimenting at Willy Wonka’s factory. I personally enjoyed both cakes but maybe I had a slight preference for the morello cherry, dark chocolate & almond one- especially when it’s still warm and accompanied with some fresh cream! To die for!

P.S: I’m not including a recipe here. I just used a base cake recipe and then threw in the extra ingredients at the appropriate steps. Sometimes (actually most of the time) I just do kitchen-play and really enjoy the feeling of not following a recipe word for word and gram for gram!

CARDAMOM, PISTACHIO, ALMOND & HONEY ICE-CREAM

You know how people always talk about the wonders of homemade bread ? Well I believe the same is applicable for ice-cream. About 7 or 8 years ago, when I was somewhere half way through high school, we bought an ice-cream machine. For the first year, I was making ice-cream all the time, experimenting around with flavours and so on. Then, the excitement wore off for one reason really: I wasn’t following any recipes. I was just randomly adding milk, sugar, and other ingredients with resulting odd textures after 30 minutes of churning in the ice cream machine. It wasn’t until I moved to Switzerland where I learned the proper approach to making good ice-cream at the Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne. Ever since, I only swear by the techniques and recipe I learned there, and now the pleasures of homemade ice-cream has completely revived.

Although the weather has been quite cold and grey for this time of the year, my ice-cream mood nonetheless is quite permanent- regardless of the seasons! However I really did not want to make a “classic” flavour such as chocolate or vanilla. So instead, I ended up making cardamom, pistachio, almond & honey ice cream. The matching up of ingredients to create this flavour was very spontaneous, but unconsciously I was sure that there was a Middle Eastern influence. I made a small quantity as a “test”, and without a doubt next time I’ll be making a lot more. The flavour turned out delightful, and what I probably loved most was the refreshing edge the cardamom added coupled with the smooth sweetness of the honey. Each spoon brought a smile on my face, and that I believe is one of the best feelings of home-made ice-cream.

Recipe for cardamom, pistachio, almond & honey ice cream (for 6 people)

Ingredients:
4 egg yolks
125gr sugar
300ml low fat milk
200ml liquid cream
Vanilla
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
Crushed pistachios & almonds
Honey

How to make it:
Mix the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl. In a pot, bring the milk, cream, cardamom and vanilla to boil. Pour the boiling milk mixture over the cold mixture (eggs + sugar) while stirring. Return to heat and continue to stir until the cream starts to thicken. This stage of cooking is known as “la nappe” which is achieved between 82-85C. If the cream is not heated sufficiently, the ice-cream will be thin and watery. Remove the pot from the heat and stop the cooking process by place it in cold water mixed with ice cubes. Pass the mixture though a strainer and transfer to your ice-cream machine. Add the crushed pistachios and almonds before churning. Follow manufacturers’ instructions. Half way through the churning, add the honey (while ice-cream is still churning).

*The base recipe I use for ice-creams, including this one, is from the Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne pastry & desserts techniques. If you don't like using eggs, you can replace with other binding agents such as gelatine, pectin, agar-agar... I personally do not like using eggs and replaced the eggs with gelatine for this one.

VEAL WITH CORIANDER & GARLIC, ANGEL HAIR & RICE, ASPARAGUS

I was looking through Serious Eats the other day reading an amusing article entitled “Top 10 ingredients I will never have in my kitchen” where various readers had posted their own lists of items related to the subject. It was funny to see that quite a few had coriander (cilantro) amongst their top 10. I was just wondering how can someone NOT like coriander??? I love that stuff! And I used it recently in a dish I prepared coupling it up with veal (tis the good season for veal on this side of the world) and asparagus (good season for asparagus too!). While I was eating I thought to myself again, how can someone not like coriander?! Is it a cultural thing? I mean, we use it quite a lot in our Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine and I would had never thought of, for instance, not using coriander for a lamb marinade, in meatballs or with fish.

Anyway, taking into account the anti-coriander movement, I am warning you from now: the recipe I’m posting today does contain coriander! Now for you coriander lovers out there, let me tell you that it went marvellously well with the veal, and overlapped nicely with the asparagus too. Because I’m a carbohydrate lover (carbs are not evil!) I also wanted to include some rice in this dish which I cooked following a method my mother has been using for years. It’s based on first frying angel hair until it turns golden before adding in the rice. I’ve always loved the colour fried angel hair can add to plain white rice- makes it look less boring I guess! Going a bit off-topic: in regards to the photos, unfortunately I am still struggling with lighting issues, and I wasn’t very lucky at the moment I was photographing this dish… nonetheless the most important is TASTE because as much as we eat with the eyes, our tastebuds deserve a treat too!
Above: frying the angel hair. Below: adding the rice and frying some more

Recipe for Veal with Coriander & Garlic, Angel Hair & Rice, Asparagus

Ingredients:
Veal (scallops)
Fresh coriander, chopped
Garlic, crushed
Green asparagus
Angel Hair
White rice (preferably basmati)
Olive oil
Salt & Pepper

How to make it:
Chop off the hard bits of the asparagus (the root-y bit). Optionally, you can cut off the triangular shaped leaflets too (keeping only the clustered ones at the top though- this is just for aesthetic purposes). Lay the asparagus in a pan, add hot water and let boil for about 6 minutes. In the meantime, drizzle and heat some olive oil in a pot. Then add some angel hair, let it become of a golden colour. Keep a close eye as angel hair can burn quite fast! Once it becomes golden, add the rice and stir for 1-2 minutes (basically you are frying angel hair and rice). Follow with water, cover pot, reduce heat and cook for about 10-15 minutes. With 5 minutes left to go for the rice, you can start with the veal. Drizzle and heat some olive oil in a pan, add the veal scallops on high heat first then reduce to lower heat for about 5 minutes (depends on how you like your veal). At the very end- and only at the very end- add the chopped coriander, crushed garlic, salt & pepper on high heat for about 1-2 minutes. You can also optionally add some cream too if you wish. Serve the veal with the angel hair & rice and asparagus- all at the right temperature.

KNAFEH BIL JIBNE

Here I am again with one of my Middle Eastern ingredients – knafeh. Knafeh is a wonderful ingredient: thin supple white threads that transform into a precious golden crunch in the oven and is one of the main components in various Arabic dessert recipes, along with rose water, pistachios & company.
One of my sweet-tooth favourites that I’ve been loving for years is “knafeh bil jibne” which means something like “cheese knafeh” (jibne = cheese). It is a wonderful scrumptious sinful dessert made of cheese (one with a very mild taste like mozzarella or ricotta for instance) stuffed in between a bottom and upper layer of knafeh generously rolled in melted butter and then finished with a blessing of syrup- the infamous syrup that so many Middle Eastern sweets swim in.

Generally knafeh bil jibne is prepared in gigantic round pans (as in photos above, which are some old photos from a previous trip to Syria), and if you walk past a Middle Eastern pastry shop it would be exhibited behind vitrines alongside mountains of other sweets- thereby making it literally impossible to just walk past without stepping in first, making a purchase and leaving maybe with a regret for your waistline but cleverly coming up with millions of good excuses that it was worth it, that it was too hard to resist, that you’ll start your diet tomorrow, and that it’s the last time. But the truth is that it’s never the last time because no one can say no to the devil dressed in knafeh. And so this weekend I succumbed and wanted to make them in something other then a huge round pan. I kept all the key ingredients but just played around with the look to create knafeh bil jibnes that are not only delicious, but hopefully also pretty to look at.

Above: what knafeh looks like raw. Below: knafeh bil jibne before going into the oven

Below: knafeh bil jibne just out of the oven

Below: photo taken on the side just to show what the inside looks like

I’m also submitting this recipe to Food Blogga’s Beautiful Bones event as there’s calcium coming from the cheese in this dessert. I wanted to submit a recipe for this event because I felt Susan's initiative to increase awareness of Osteoporosis was a fantastic idea. My only concern was not missing the deadline (as usually I only have time to cook & photograph on weekends!) but I made it! In regards to knafeh bil jibne, I guess the calcium % beats a brownie or a sorbet for instance… Actually, just for an FYI: 100gr of mozzarella contains 505mg mg of calcium. 100gr of milk contains 120mg of calcium. Not bad eh!

Recipe for knafeh bil jibné:

Knafeh (you can find this in Middle Eastern food shops)
Mozzarella (small individual round balls)
Butter, melted
Sugar
Water
Rose water
Pistachios, crushed (optional)
Candied fruit, diced (optional)

How to make it:
Preheat oven to 180C. In a deep pan, place the knafeh that you will be using and cover it with melted butter. Make sure all the knafeh is well rolled into the butter- you almost need to massage it with the butter. Then, bring your mozzarella balls and roll strands of knafeh around it until it turns out looking like a ball of knitting yarn. Place the knafeh balls in a buttered pan and bake in oven for about 15mins. I’d strongly recommend that as of 10mins, check your oven as knafeh can sometimes be unpredictable and burn quite fast! You’ll know it’s ready when it becomes of a beautiful luminous golden colour. While it’s in the oven, prepare the syrup: place equal amounts of sugar and water and boil for a good 10 mins (until it’s texture is rather thick). At the end, add some rose water to the syrup. When the knafeh bil jibne is out of the oven, immediately pour syrup (be very generous here, it needs a lot of syrup) on each ball. Sprinkle with crushed pistachios and decorate with a piece of candied fruit (optional).

HAZELNUT FINANCIERS

In my last post I used hazelnuts in a pasta and spinach dish. Well after having made that, I had plenty of hazelnuts leftover and was dying to make some use of them. When I opened the fridge I saw we had one lonely egg, probably crying out my name, and without thinking twice I cracked that egg and decided to go ahead and make a small portion of financiers. Financiers are delicious pastries traditionally made from almonds, eggwhites and other good stuff. I have always loved almond based sweets- just to state a few: amaretti, nougats, marzipan, amygdalota (please see Peter’s great post on this one) but I realized that hazelnuts may turn out as delicious.

If the name “financiers” contains the word “finance” in them, then it may be for a reason. Legend says that financiers were created by a patissier called “Lasne”. He wanted to come up with a delicacy for finance men that would not leave a mess behind or leave their hands all greasy and covered with crumbs. Today, you can find financiers alongside madeleines, brioches, croissants etc in almost any boulangerie and patisserie in France. They are wonderful plain or with fruits, chocolates and other sweet ingredients. Previously I have also substituted almonds with pistachios and what is great about financiers is that with a base recipe you can play around almost infinitely with the flavours and choice of nuts. I do need to admit though, that the hazelnut variation turned out to taste amazingly good, and for the sweet tooths out there do indulge and enjoy them with a bit of Nutella for a total hazelnut experience!

Recipe for hazelnut financiers:

2 egg whites
60 g fine sugar
10 g flour
10 g fecule
50 g ground powdered hazelnuts
25 g butter

Making it:
Preheat oven to 180C. In a bowl whisk the egg whites and gradually add the sugar (as if you were making a meringue). Then add the flour, fecule, and powdered hazelnuts. Mix well. Follow with the melted butter and mix. Fill in your moulds with the batter and bake for 15 mins.

HAZELNUT, SPINACH & PASTA

In continuation with my Italian-cooking mood lately, I also did a main course including pasta- of course- spinach (it’s spinach season!) and parmesan. There was also some prosciutto di Parma involved, rolled around grissini sticks. When I was pulling out the ingredients, I even realized that I could make an edible Italian flag triptych!

However the base of my dish may seem unrelated but in reality is completely related and highly recommended- the base was hazelnuts. The story behind this is that I love how nutty flavours compliment spinach’s earthy flavours. I’ve always enjoyed a salad composed of raw spinach leaves and walnuts for instance. So from hazelnuts came the idea of throwing in some spinach, and then some pasta, and then one of my favourite home made sauces made from cream and parmesan (so easy to make, but it can send you off to paradise!) … and then finally to use all the colours of the Italian flag I included some Parma ham on the side. This is an easy dish to make- but I’d classify it as one of those simple dishes with an edge.

Before I post the recipe I’d like to thank Peter (who is currently creating a storm with his “Breads of the World” series! :-) ) from Souvlaki for the Soul for the Arte y Pico award. So with no further ado, here are the five blogs I’m passing this award to for their creativity, design, interesting material, and contribution to the blogger community. I really don’t like having to chose just 5 blogs, but I guess I can’t defy the rules… Those who receive the award should pass it on to another 5 blogs and include a link to the Arte y Pico site.

> Sugarhead : Quite honestly, I only discovered this blog recently and the first thought that came to my mind was “why on earth have I not found this jewel before?!?!” I don’t know all that much about the author behind the blog, but he seems to be a chef and currently in Dubai but what I know for sure is that he deserves blog awards that go beyond Arte y Pico, but in the meantime this is the best I can do to express my admiration for the most interesting posts and photos!

> Tamarind & Thyme for introducing a blog that is built on the idea of “cooking and eating well in London without going broke”. I love reading Su-Lin’s stories, they are always down-to-earth and so real, and when she is travelling I love to find out about her culinary discoveries!

> Boots in the Oven I have been a long-time reader of “Mr & Mrs. Pants” (or alternatively “Husbear & Girlie”) and the entertaining writing about food and all their worldwide travelling. One day they’ll be in country A and the other in country B, but regardless of that, their blog remains a constant pleasure to read!

> Technicolor Kitchen for Patricia’s unequalled optimism and positive energy (it just oozes out of her blog) and for reading from someone blogging all the way in sunny Brazil! She literally always posts about recipes that are delicious- always!

> The Sugar Bar for Kid Diva’s curiosity and because it is a really nice thing to know that enjoying the virtues of cooking can start at a really young age (Kid Diva started blogging at age 17). When I was 17 I did not know many people who were into food like me!

Recipe for Hazelnut & Spinach Pasta:

Ingredients:

• Pasta, whatever shape you like
• Spinach leaves, raw & clean
• Liquid cream
• Parmesan
• Hazelnuts- powder/ground
• Hazelnut oil
• Prosciutto di Parma
• Grissini sticks
• Salt & Pepper
  

Making it:
First off start by cooking the pasta. Cook it 1 minute less then indicated. In the meantime, in a small pot heat some liquid cream and add some parmesan on top and salt & pepper. The parmesan needs to melt and the sauce should not be “chunky” so place it in a mixer if necessary. In the meantime as well, place some clean spinach leaves in a bowl and drizzle with hazelnut oil, ground hazelnuts and some salt. When your pasta is ready, remove from boiling water, rinse with water and then place again in a deep pan with the parmesan cream for 1 minute (this explains why you cook the pasta 1 minute less initially). Remove from heat, and then throw in the spinach mix and swirl gently and very very briefly. Place on serving dish (must be eaten warm not cold!!!) and serve with prosciutto di Parma rolled around grissini sticks (do these at the last minute or else the grissini sticks become soggy).

LIMONCELLO TIRAMISU

For as long as I can remember, I have always been in love with Italy. Before I even visited the country, I knew I would love it (which I did!). I love the language, the people, the culture, lifestyle, fashion and design, and of course the food-and the latter I love it moltissimo. Contrary to French cuisine, Italians have the genius of using simple ingredients - no need for foie gras and champagne- to create one of the most delicious cuisines in the world. It is a generous and down-to-earth cuisine in my opinion. It feeds your stomach but also your soul. Now if we start talking about desserts, one of the first specialities that will come to my mind is tiramisu. This weekend I felt like tiramisu, but betrayed the classic recipe and went with something very refreshing and lemon-y, and used some of the Limoncello we had at home. I love classics, but I also like classics with a twist- and this is what my limoncello tiramisu turned out to be, with many thoughts of Italy in my mind.

Boudoirs/Savoiardi & Limoncello

I crushed dragées (white & golden, below) to use for decorating the tiramisu. Dragées can make a great visual effect on desserts, I've used them before also on ice cream too. The idea is originally inspired by famous French patissier Christophe Michalak's macarons.

While I made my tiramisu, many thoughts of Italy ran through my mind.

Well enough daydreaming now, let's get back to the Limoncello tiramisu and the recipe. Just a little note- my recipe is eggless (I have an issue with eggs used in a certain manner, long story!). So if you want to keep eggs, then just include the zabaglione extra step.

Also, this will be my first time participating in a food blog-hosted event. I will be submitting this recipe to the Citrus themed Sugar High Friday- an event created by Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess and for this time hosted by Tartelette :-)

Recipe for Limoncello Tiramisu:

You'll need:

• 250gr mascarpone
• 15cl liquid cream
• About 20 Boudoirs / Savoiardi biscuits
• 3 lemons (juice of)
• 200ml water
• 60ml Limoncello
• 50-100gr sugar (sweeten according to your personal taste)
• Dragées / Jordan almonds - crushed (this is optional)

Making it:

First off, heat the lemon juice, water and sugar in a small pan. Let boil 2-3 times, and then remove from heat and let cool. In a bowl, whip the liquid cream and then add 20ml of Limoncello. It is best to use a cold bowl and cream (you can place the bowl in the fridge or freezer beforehand). In another bowl, soften the mascarpone. Then gently mix the whipped cream and mascarpone together. Place this mixture in the fridge. Now bring the lemon syrup you have prepared and add 40ml of Limoncello in it. Bring out a deep pan and start soaking the boudoirs/savoiardi in the syrup and place on bottom of pan until a first row is complete. Then bring out the cream-mascarpone mixture from the fridge and spread a layer on top of the biscuits. Repeat with another layer of boudoirs/savoiardi and cream. Cover the tiramisu with plastic wrap and place in fridge for up to 24 hours. When ready to serve, sprinkle with crushed Jordan almonds.