mmmmm*

coconut tapioca soup with mango sorbet, passion fruit, cilantro syrup and coconut tuiles

* that's Meeta's Monthly Mingle Mango Mania

Seems like I embraced all the relaxing and doing nothing of our June holiday for a bit too long. Instead of baking and posting, we spent our weekends catching up with friends, enjoying the sun (something that very rarely happens here, so whenever we do have a sunny day, I try to make the most of it), and going to Belgium for a friend's wedding. We also had a lovely dinner party with our Japanese friends S and A; last time they cooked Japanese food for us so this time it was our turn to cook. We made them Gentse waterzooi – a sort of fish stew from Ghent. Which didn't look very pretty, but tasted rather good. Which was a good thing, because we had never made it before and it could have all gone horribly wrong. I had warned our friends though, that if it did, they would have the choice between an Indian or Chinese takeaway. Or halal pizza.

For dessert I also decided to experiment, with a multi-component concoction. But even if the whole thing failed, the sorbet bit couldn't go wrong so there would be something edible for dessert at least. And fail it almost did. I had set my mind on one of Claudia Fleming's composed desserts: coconut tapioca soup with sorbet and some garnishes – something sunny and tropical.

I had never used tapioca before, so I tried the soup bit of the dessert the week before. British tapioca must be different from American one, as I ended up not with a soup, but a very thick custard. Yummy, but not soupy enough. During the week, I looked up some other recipes and found one on Steamy Kitchen that sounded promising. So promising, I didn't try it out beforehand. Big mistake. Nothing wrong with Jaden's recipe, it's just that I didn't know how to cook tapioca and there were almost no cooking instructions on the packet. I started off making the tapioca soup first thing in the morning and had to make it three times before I finally got it right! Soaking the tapioca in water for an hour didn't work, I just ended up with a big mush. Boiling it separately in water didn't work either. What did work in the end (lucky me) was combining Claudia and Jaden's recipes: I cooked the tapioca in milk, which gave me a thick custard, and later added a milk-water-coconut milk mix to thin it into a proper soup. Phew, crisis averted.

For the mango sorbet, I used those incredibly sweet, small and pretty yellow mangoes which I finally found at my local market. Unlike those sour, unripe ones I used last time. They're not cheap, but worth every penny. And they come nicely decorated with ribbon and wrapped in some tissue paper. All I did was add a bit of sugar and some lime juice, bang the whole thing into the freezer and stir it every half hour or so.

The coriander syrup takes no time at all to make and the tuiles I wasn't too fussed about: if they worked: great, if not: tant pis. Luckily they did. They didn't look anywhere as elegant and thin as Michel Roux's version, but good enough to serve to our dinner guests. Who loved the whole dessert, seeing as how they asked for seconds and even thirds...

coconut tapioca soup
adapted from Claudia Fleming's Last Course and Jaden's Steamy Kitchen

1/4 cup tapioca
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 cup milk

Bring milk and sugar to the boil, add tapioca, reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until tapioca pearls are soft (appx. 35 minutes).

plus:
1 1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 cup coconut milk

Bring water and sugar to a boil. When boiling, turn heat to low and stir in milk. When mixture returns to a boil, turn off the heat and stir in the coconut milk. Remove from heat, let cool to room temperature and chill in refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Before serving dessert, add this mixture to tapioca mix to thin as required.

mango sorbet
adapted from Tessa Kiros Apples for Jam

about 1.2 kg mango (as this sorbet basically is frozen mango, everything depends on the quality of the mangoes)
1/2 caster sugar
juice of 2 limes

Peel mangoes and cut into small chunks. Put in bowl with sugar and lime juice. Leave to macerate for a few hours. Purée everything and freeze.

coconut tuiles
adapted from Michel Roux Jr's Le Gavroche cookbook

1 egg
80g caster sugar
80g unsweetened desiccated coconut

Whisk eggs and sugar, until just mixed, add coconut and whisk until smooth. Spread out thin shapes on baking sheet (the back of a fork dipped in water works well for this) and bake at 160˚C until pale brown, about 12 minutes. Transfer to wire rack and leave to cool.

To assemble: ladle some soup into martini glass. Add a scoop of sorbet. Add passion fruit, some coriander syrup and finish with a tuile. Enjoy.

SHF # 43: coconut lime cake with mango and mascarpone lime mousse

Like Helen, of the beautiful blog tartelette, I'm a big fan of anything citrus. So when she chose citrus as the theme of this month's Sugar High Friday, I couldn't have been happier. And I immediately got Harry Nilsson's coconut, one of my all-time favourite songs, stuck in my head. I first heard it when watching Practical Magic and I have actually watched the film again just for the song. It's sweet and silly and makes me laugh. I can thoroughly recommend this song, especially on a blegh and grey day. So, SHF. I wanted to make something pretty and tropical, and after going through some cookbooks, browsing a few blogs, and taking cue from the coconut song, I decided on a combo of coconut and lime with mango, in the shape of little cakes with fruit and mousse layer. Something I'd never tried before, but it didn't look all that difficult - baking a cake? I could do that half asleep. Chopping up some fruit? Easy peasy. And whipping up a mousse? five minutes' work.

For the cake base, I chose Delia's coconut lime cake. A bit risky, since I hadn't made this cake before, but I find that Delia usually delivers. And deliver she did. The cake didn't rise very high, but it turned out quite well - I knew I could trust our Delia. The mango, unfortunately, didn't deliver. Instead of the sweet juicy and orangey-yellow fruit I was imagining, I got a hard pale and rather sour mango. That will teach me for buying mangoes out of season I guess. I should have waited for those incredibly sweet small yellow Pakistani mangoes I will find at my local market in a month or so. But all was not lost, I added a few spoons of sugar and some vanilla bean paste, which made it ok. Not great, but more than edible.

For the mousse, I browsed Bea's and Helen's archives, but all the recipes I found had gelatine in them, and I have a very strong dislike for the stuff. A google search only returned gelatine-based mousses as well, so I took a risk, and luckily it worked. I used Helen's mascarpone lime mousse recipe, but left out the gelatine and the lime zest (another thing I don't like), without changing anything else. I figured, with the whipped egg whites and whipped cream, the mousse would set in the fridge. After all, my chocolate mousse and tiramisu set in the fridge, so no reason why this mousse wouldn't set either. And I was right, phew. It might not work in hot or humid climes though. I guess that's the one good thing about living in grey and temperate London.


Getting the whole thing assembled took a bit of fiddling, but wasn't too hard. Of course I started with grand plans: I had wanted to add a frozen cone with coconut yoghurt and mango purée, like this one, put a glaze on the cakes, and add a cilantro syrup. But in between all the weekend DIY, finally getting to meet our friends' new baby, and getting engaged (yes, after almost 12 years together S proposed), I didn't get around to executing all those grand plans. They will have to wait for another time. That evening, S and I cracked open a bottle of champagne and had a simple but lovely pasta dinner, followed by these cakes were our dessert. Surprisingly, S really liked it. Separately, the three components weren't great: the cake was a bit fibrey with all the desiccated coconut, the mango not ripe and the lime mousse not very sweet, but together they were just right. A sweet end to a wonderful day...

hanami

Four years ago S and I went on holiday to Japan – my first real big trip and a very exciting thing for me. For the first four days or so, I kept on pinching S and shouting at him ‘We’re in Japan! We’re in Japan!’. He bore it patiently and we're still together, so he must really love me (or maybe he just stopped listening after the fourth time I yelled). Growing up I never lacked anything, but my parents didn’t have the money to travel far. We spent many a happy summer at the Belgian seaside, in the Belgian Ardennes, and even a few summers in France. But holidaying in exotic locations was something for rich people.

When I was at university, my student club organised a trip to Istanbul. I remember passing the poster on the notice board and thinking ‘oh that must be nice for the people who can do that sort of thing’. Then I had a second look at the poster and almost fell over backwards when I saw the price of the entire trip: BEF 6,000. That’s about £100 (or US$200), for a weeklong stay. Flights and hotel with breakfast included. Of course I signed up for this trip immediately. The realisation that I too could holiday in exotic locations and that it wasn’t just something for the other half was one of those defining moments for me, as I’d always dreamed about travelling to far-off places, but never thought those dreams could become reality.

Of course as a student I didn’t have the money to travel far and extensively, so when I started working and earning a living, travel was high up on my list of priorities. Top of that list was, and always had been, Japan. And it just so happened that it was at the very top of S’s list as well. So off to Japan we went. Our trip was perfectly timed with sakura season so a lot of hanami was to be done. We encountered a lot of people taking photographs of the cherry blossoms and even saw two sweet old ladies, sitting in the park and discussing the beauty of the flowers and how the petals wafted to the ground. And of course all the sweet shops were filled with special sweets for the occasion.

I’m a big fan of Japanese sweets and there is a shop close to where I work, so once in a wile I treat myself to a nice mochi. The sweets always seem so intricate and complex and impossible to recreate at home. But among the presents I received for my birthday last year was Harumi’s Japanese Cooking. Which had just the recipe I was looking for: little read bean-filled crepes. Delicate looking, appropriately pink and super easy to make. I feel a bit like a cheat, because it was so easy, but the results were absolutely delicious. Since I followed the recipe to the letter and didn't tinker with it, I won't repeat it here, but the crepe batter was a mix of water and flour with some sugar and oil, with a few drops of red food colouring added to it. The red bean paste I simply bought in my local Japanese supermarket.

With all the DIY I’ve been a bit out of the loop in recent months, and I haven’t kept track of all the food events, but after I had made these little crepes I discovered the theme of this month’s Sugar High Friday, hosted by La Petite Boulangette, is Asian sweet invasion. Perfect for my crepes.

Happy New Year!

A bit late, I know, but in my family you can wish each other a happy new year during the entire month of January (I have a ginormous extended family, so it would usually take a while to tick everyone off). Also, getting a stomach bug is a wonderful way to lose all that holiday weight, but not such a fun way to start the new year. My stomach is back to its old good self now, but there hasn’t been much cooking in the V&C kitchen and hence not much to report either.

S and I spent most of the holidays with our families in Belgium – a wonderful week of eating, sleeping and not much else. And I was too busy chatting with everyone to think about updating my blog. We‘ve always celebrated with our little family on christmas’ eve; christmas day was reserved for a big lunch with my dad’s side of the family (fifty-odd people – told you I have a big family) and the last years is a perfect day for going to the cinema, or, even better, doing nothing at all.

The traditional christmas day lunch with turkey, cranberry, stuffing etc. is not really done in Belgium though (and we don’t have Santa Claus either – but we do have Sinterklaas, who comes on 6 December). We usually eat something nice and festive, and this year we all helped cooking. Mum did something nice with fish for starters, my brother made a lovely cream of mushroom soup, S made a beautiful gratin dauphinois and of course I was in charge of dessert.

I wanted to make something Sinterklaas-inspired, with speculoos, spices, and mandarines. And dad loves ice cream, so there had to be ice cream in it as well. And this is what I came up with: speculoos with cinnamon ice cream and mandarine caramel. Those fancy schmancy mandarine segments I didn’t do on purpose (I do have a life you know, and I don’t spend it dissecting mandarines into individual thingies); my original intention was to have large segments in the caramel and when I was trying to get the membrane off each segment, they just fell apart in these little thingies. And they looked kinda cute, so I used them like that. All the components for this dessert can be prepared in advance and are very easy to make; just be careful with the speculoos, because it burns easily.


speculoos

500g self raising flour
250g butter
350g soft or dark brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 shot glass of cognac (or milk or water)
mixed spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg etc.)

Knead everything together into a smooth dough. Leave to rest in the fridge for at least one hour. Roll dough to a thickness of 1/2 in for crispy speculoos, or 2 in for soft speculoos and shape as desired. Bake at 170 - 200˚C, for about 5 to 10 minutes (burns easily).

For this dessert I baked thin crispy rectangles of speculoos which I trimmed again after baking (the scraps mixed with coffee made a delicious spread for sweet sandwiches), but this recipe makes massive quantities of dough and, as my mum loves the thick soft speculoos, I baked a massive slab of that with the leftovers. Which disappeared in no time.

cinnamon ice cream

Find any basic ice cream recipe and infuse milk or cream with cinnamon sticks when heating it. (sneaky, I know, but my old basic recipe doesn't really cut it. Not enough egg yolks I think)

mandarine caramel
adapted from Claudia Fleming's Last Course

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup mandarine juice
1 tbsp butter
mandarine segments

combine water and sugar in saucepan and simmer until sugar dissolves (stir regularly). Raise heat and boil mixture until caramelised. Remove from heat and whisk in butter and fruit juice. Set over low heat and whisk until caramel is smooth. Let cool for at least 1 hour. Before serving, stir in mandarine segments (which I didn't have, so I just scattered my mandarine thingies over the plates).

lavender crème brulée - almost

SHF#38 the proof is in the pudding - with a Tartelette tutorial

It's been ages since I participated in Sugar High Friday, and this month's theme - the proof is in the pudding - chosen by Zorra of Kochtopf, is just up my street. Also, for my birthday way back in September my auntie gave me a nifty little blowtorch (and she even smuggled a can of gas lighter refill stuff to go with it in her luggage on Eurostar!). Which, shame on me, I hadn't used yet. Although S had a jolly good time playing around with the torch already. What can I say: boys, gadgets, and flames - an irresistible combination.

Crème brulée was on Kochtopf's approved pudding list, so crème brulée it would be. Somehow it's one of those things I've never made before, even though it seems dead simple. Maybe because it's I'm not utterly crazy about it - to me, there seems to be something not quite right about a fridge-cold dessert with a piping hot crust on top - or maybe it's because I had a few bad versions in the past, one of which made me really sick.

Anyways, I decided it was high time to put my little blowtorch to good use, finally use that lavender I still had lying around, and give crème brulée a go. The recipe I used was a Claudia Fleming one and very easy to make: basically a custard, which is then baked in the oven in a water bath covered with pierced aluminium foil. I was a bit nervous about the bain-marie - all the other times I tried similar things were complete disasters; whatever I put in there would completely boil over. And this time was no different. Luckily the cremes were not completely ruined and still salvageable. And they still tasted quite nice, so not all was lost. I was stumped though, and in need of professional advice. And who better to turn to then the one and only Tartelette! Who, very kindly, answered my questions and suddenly things seemed very clear.

Turns out that my crème brulée wasn't exactly crème brulée, more like a set custard with a layer of sugar over the top. See, you're not supposed to thicken the custard on the stove, which I did - you just pour the hot cream over the beaten egg yolks with sugar, let that mixture cool, skim off the foam on top and bake au-bain-marie. The water bath distributes the heat evenly and gently to the custard so that the eggs don't curdle. It is also a bit more forgiving if you let them cook a little bit longer than necessary. Tartelette top tip number one: 'check for that tiny giggle in the middle and remove them before they are completely done'.

Then there was that issue of my custards 'boiling over'. Enter Tartelette top tip number two: 'I am thinking the steam and heat created by the foil makes the cremes boil over. Also if you whisk your eggs too vigourously they will have a tendency to foam up a lot and create a soufflé motion.' and whisk vigourously I sure did. Funny how I almost never succeed in turning out a good soufflé, except when I'm trying to make a crème brulée.

And to finish her tutorial, Helen threw in a basic crème brulée recipe for free! Thanks so much for your advice, Helen. It is much appreciated and I will certainly give it one more try before I throw in the towel. If only because S would like to have another go playing around with that blow torch...

design dessert

Last weekend I finally got around to doing something with the sweet potatoes I'd had lying around for way too long - I don't use sweet potatoes all that often and all the lovely Thanksgiving posts I've been reading everywhere made me itch to try something new. I browsed through my cookbooks, thought about adapting and combining different recipes and was determined not to get myself into a catch-22 situation, where I end up making nothing at all because I'm unable to choose from all the possible dishes.

Also, I wanted to challenge myself a bit: I have a few cookbooks with complex dessert recipes, consisting of several components and looking oh so beautiful. Which I never get around to making, exactly because they're so complex. Not difficult - just a lot of work. Invariably, you need a gazillion different ingredients for all the parts, so it takes half a day doing the preliminary grocery shopping, another half day to make everything and when you're finished, the kitchen looks like a battlefield. And then, of course, just when you sigh and think 'that was ok', you take a last look at the recipe and you find that, under 'assembly' or 'presentation', a few more components and some complicated garnishes are thrown in for good measure.

So I often end up making just one component, rather than the whole dessert. Which tastes nice and looks fine, but not spectacular. And sometimes, you know, a girl just wants to show off and make something that looks as if it came out of a restaurant kitchen. This girl does anyway.

And so here it is, my first show-off (but no sweat) dessert: sweet potato and white chocolate flan on a gingersnap crust, sweet potato gnocchi and coconut custard, all flavoured with sweet massala spices. Very easy to make, because it doesn't use a million different ingredients, and looks like a million dollars. Just one warning: pretend you don't know how much butter goes into the whole thing.

Also, because the flan squares tasted rather nice all by themselves and because - in my mind anyway - the sweet potato thing has a decidedly American feel to it (plus they are not too showy by themselves and won't upstage a brand new house) I'm taking them to Peabody's housewarming party.


sweet potato flan squares
inspired by D & C Duby's Wild Sweets

100g roasted and mashed sweet potatoes
100g crushed gingersnaps (by all means, make them yourself if you want, but store-bought will do just fine)
195g + 25g butter
130g white chocolate
3 eggs
80 caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean extract
1 tsp sweet massala spices

line a baking tin (I used a 20 cm square one) with baking paper, making sure it the sides of the tin are covered as well. Melt 25g butter, mix with the crushed gingersnaps and spread evenly on the bottom of the tin. Melt butter with chocolate (I used the microwave, in 30 second bursts). Combine sweet potatoes with eggs, sugar, vanilla and massala, then fold in the chocolate mixture and stir until thoroughly combined. Pour mixture over gingersnap base and bake in oven (150˚C) for 30 minutes. Refrigerate until ready to use.

sweet potato gnocchi
inspired by Hidemi Sugino The Dessert Book

125g roasted and mashed sweet potatoes
50g plain flour
1/3 whole egg
1 tbsp coconut milk
caster sugar with pinch of sweet massala spices

combine all ingredients in mixing bowl until incorporated. Cover bowl and leave to rest in fridge for at least one hour. Flour work surface and roll dough into a log, about 1 inch diametre. Cut into half inch cubes and cook in boiling water (they are ready when they float). Coat in massala sugar mix.

coconut custard
adapted from here

1 1/2 cups coconut milk
1 tbsp cornstarch
3 egg yolks, beaten
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1 tsp sweet massala spices
1/6 cup sugar

Combine 1/4 cup coconut milk and cornstarch in a bowl and blend until smooth. Whisk in yolks, beating until smooth. Combine rest of coconut milk, vanilla, massala and sugar in a saucepan and carefully bring to a boil. When the mixture just boils, whisk a ladleful into egg mixture to temper it, then whisk this back into the cream mixture. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Pour into jug and cool.

To assemble: dust flan squares with icing sugar, add a few gnocchi and a drizzle of custard.

sweets for Diwali

Diwali was actually celebrated on the 9th of November this year so I’m an entire week late, but I’m sure Ganesha’s appetite for sweets is the same all year around. And as for Lakshmi (even though she’s a tough cookie – my friend’s words, not mine), surely my rice pudding is sweet enough to sway her.

Diwali, the festival of lights, is celebrated big in the area where I live, with lots of fireworks. My friends who celebrate it make sure their house is spic ‘n span clean from top to bottom, in anticipation of Ganesha and Lakshmi’s visit. These Hindu deities bestow wealth, success and happiness, but only upon clean households. In addition to all the cleaning, there are also sweets. Lots of them.

Now why would I be celebrating Diwali - blonde Belgians and Indian festivals, surely that’s a strange mix? Well, blame my friend S, a crazy (in a lovely way crazy) Mauritian girl, from Indian descent. She not only decided that I was going to be half Indian, but also introduced me to Bollywood music and films, textiles, henna, and of course Indian sweets. Which, with all their spices, are absolutely perfect for this time of year. And after restraining myself with the custard last week, I was itching to make something else with a mix of heart-warming spices.

Many moons ago I made gajjar ka halwa (carrot halwa) – an extremely sweet dessert with grated carrots and lots of cream, butter and milk – which was delicious but took me an entire afternoon to make, and I just didn’t have that much time on my hands. Ras malai is my absolute favourite – it’s a sort of milk curd ball in sweetened milk with pistachios and rose water – but I have absolutely no idea how to make that myself. And so I thought I’d give my gran’s rice pudding a go.

A bit nerve-racking, considering her rice pudding is heaven on a plate (and that’s a lot to live up to!), and also a bit of a challenge, with the vague instructions she gave me. It turns out her vague instructions are absolutely spot on though, there’s no way to make them any clearer. Gran only adds saffron to her rice pudding, but I added a bunch of spices. Other than that, I stuck to her ‘recipe’. And the result? A very Flemish dessert, with an Indian twist.


recipe
1 cup of rice (I used Arborio, but any rice that is suitable for risotto will do)
a knob of butter
full fat milk (about 1 litre)
a squeeze of honey
1 teaspoon vanilla bean extract
half a stick of cinnamon
a pinch of saffron
1 star anise
5 cloves
3 cardamom pods
a pinch of nutmeg

Melt some butter in a saucepan, add rice to pan and make sure it is coated with butter. Add enough milk to cover rice and add all the spices. Keep on stirring and adding milk (I added a tiny squeeze of honey halfway through) until the rice is soft, about 45 minutes.

It’s basically like making a risotto, so it takes some dedication, but the results are more than worth it. The spices I listed are the quantities I used, but you can of course adapt according to preference (S tasted and said it was ok, but he thought the star anise was too overwhelming), add some cream instead of only milk, and sweeten it as much or as little as you like.

vanilla custard

After reading all the comments on my last post (the cheating-custard one) saying how easy and quick the custard was to make from scratch and how delicious it was, and a ticking-off from the one and only Tartelette, I shamed myself into making the custard part of the Bostini Cream Pie Daring Baker challenge. Which, indeed, took about fifteen minutes or so to make, was incredibly easy, didn't curdle at all, thickened within a minute and was utterly delicious.

I was of course tempted to add a twist to it - I was thinking cinnamon, cardamom and maybe star anise - but I know that S loves his custard good ole' plain vanilla. And since he had volunteered to make a lovely Sunday roast (and also because I love him and like to make him happy), I decided to stick to vanilla. When the custard had thickened I called S over to the kitchen and said 'look what I made'. His eyes lit up and I didn't have to ask him twice if he wanted to scrape every last bit of the custard out of the pan and lick the whisk.

Luckily I had started early enough in the day so that I could still get a decent daylight picture of my custards - unlike the nuclear looking pics in my last post. I probably should have done something fancy with the custard, saucing it over a decadent chocolate cake or something to that effect, but that would mean I'd have to bake a chocolate cake as well, and by the time that would be ready it would be dark, resulting in more fluorescent looking food. Plus there is something quite comforting about vanilla custard all by itself and so, after the pics, S and I dug straight in.

S of course loved it but I needed a lie-down afterwards, it was so heavy. Couldn't move for half an hour. Even S had to agree that, yummy though it was, it was a bit too creamy to eat by itself - next time I might substitute all that cream with milk. It would have made a perfect sauce for a Bostini Cream Pie though.

recipe
adapted from Alpineberry

1/4 cup whole milk
1 tablespoons cornstarch
3egg yolks, beaten
1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/6 cup sugar

Combine milk and cornstarch in a bowl and blend until smooth. Whisk in and yolks, beating until smooth. Combine cream, vanilla and sugar in a saucepan and carefully bring to a boil. When the mixture just boils, whisk a ladleful into egg mixture to temper it, then whisk this back into the cream mixture. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Pour into cups and refrigerate to chill. Delicious with chocolate sprinkles.

p.s. Baking Soda is only forgiving me for cheating with custard if I send her over some of that Japanese dinner our friends made us. You'll have to make do with a virtual treat, Baking Soda, I hope that's enough. And for good measure, I'll throw in a few pics of our lovely weekend in the country.

sushi rice with salmon flakes, green beans and egg ribbon;
stew with minced meat, potatoes, onions, carrots and okra, with pickles;
French beans with black sesame

countryside - you know, a place outside the M25, with real trees and fresh air

milk chocolate and caramel tart – the Daring Bakers’ August challenge

From the moment I read the recipe Veronica and Patricia chose for this month’s DB challenge, I knew that this tart and I would make very good friends. Because, what’s not to like: chocolate hazelnut crust! Caramel! Chocolate cream! Not a drop of food colouring or a grain of gelatine in sight, just the bare minimum of no-nonsense instructions, and a recipe which didn’t generate leftovers enough to feed a small army. Apart from the crust that is, which made enough for three tarts, but the recipe duly mentions that and anyways it would be so easy to halve quantities for the crust recipe so it doesn’t count. Not that I halved the quantities, I just froze the leftovers so I can use them again in a few weeks or so. I originally planned to bake this tart when my family came to visit, but I was so frantically cleaning prior to their arrival I didn’t have enough time left to bake something as well. My parents, aunt and cousin didn’t get to sample this heavenly tart, but S’s and my work colleagues did. And they liked it. A lot.

Now, I may have purposefully ‘forgotten’ (ahem) to put cinnamon in the crust, but only because other Daring Bakers found it overwhelming and distracting from the chocolate. Which, in my book, is never a good thing. Nothing should ever distract from chocolate. Ever. I do like cinnamon, but I wasn’t convinced it would work in this tart and I was determined to love this tart (pease don’t take away my DB badge, pretty please!). I also had to substitute the ground hazelnuts with almonds, as I couldn’t find hazelnuts of the ground variety anywhere - I even went to the new ginormous Wholefoods in Kensington High Street. Also I don’t own any snazzy devices that could grind hazelnuts for me and I didn’t think my little hand held mixer would be up to this job. So almonds it was. I made the crust entirely without the aid of any electric appliances, partly because the butter was very soft anyway and partly because I made it at 11pm at night and didn’t want to wake the neighbours. The next day I rolled it quite thinly, as other DBs had experienced the crust rising exponentially. Just to make sure I stabbed it furiously with a fork and poured all my baking beans on top of it as well. I used a square, loose-bottomed tin and had no problems whatsoever rolling the dough over the square, unlike some other DBs who ended up with a brittle greasy dough, that needed to be patched onto the baking tin.

Making the caramel turned out to be really easy as well. I have heard quite a few horror stories involving caramel (massive splashing and horrible burns on forearms), so I was perhaps a bit too careful, but it all worked out nicely. Melting sugar I had done before, so I wasn’t afraid of that, but I made sure the heat was very low nonetheless. Of course the sugar seized up when I added the cream, but I continued to stir it over a low heat and it all came together nicely. I found it needed a bit longer in the oven than the suggested 15 minutes – after 15 minutes the edges had set but the centre was still liquid. Oh, and because I didn’t sculpt any edges on my crust and the crust shrank ever so slightly away from the edges of the tin during baking, the caramel of course dripped through the tin and onto the bottom of my oven, causing a terrible burnt smell which made me panic I had completely messed it up. But luckily I hadn’t, the caramel set beautifully and all I had left to do was whip up a chocolate mousse.

For the chocolate mousse, which was incredibly easy to make (and which I actually prefer to the one made with egg whites), I used a brand of fairtrade chocolate I only recently discovered: Divine milk chocolate with coffee. Since it was milk chocolate, and also since in my world chocolate, nuts and coffee are like a holy trinity, I figured I would not be breaking any DB rules. Plus I just knew this chocolate would be perfect for my tart.

Once the entire tart was finished, set and refrigerated, I cut it into rectangular individual servings and decorated the top with a single hazelnut and a shard of vanilla salt. Originally I had wanted to cover the hazelnuts in edible gold leaf, but I couldn’t find any in the shops and didn’t have enough time to order it online. But I was determined to have an elegant pastry, and even though the hazelnut was pretty enough by itself, the vanilla salt added a little extra oomph to the tart. Nut and salt got along wonderfully with each other and they lived happily ever after. No, not really, because the tart was a huge hit with everyone who tasted it and it didn’t survive very long at all. But it made all the people who ate it happy. And of course that’s the sole purpose of tarts in life.
Check out all the other Daring Bakers’ efforts here and the recipe here.

SHF#34 going local

Passionate Cook Johanna chose local or regional specialities as the theme for this month’s Sugar High Friday. Which meant I could go a few different ways with this one - British, Asian or Belgian.

For the past six years I’ve been calling London my home, so I could opt for something quintessentially English - trifle, Eton mess, spotted dick, ... None of these really rock my boat though. Not to mention the fact that I haven’t got a clue what spotted dick might be. Or, since the area in East London where I live resembles Bombay (especially on a sunny Saturday afternoon), an Indian sweet perhaps? I absolutely love ras malai but wouldn’t know how to make it myself. Halwa I also like - I once made carrot halwa, which was absolutely delicious but took me about half a day to make. And seeing as I would be working my way through mountains of laundry in addition to adhering to the most clichéd cliche of Englishness, ie spending the bank holiday weekend doing DIY, I thought I’d better opt for something quick and easy.

Which left me with something Belgian. Most of the sweets I recall from my childhood were store bought, or made from a packet. However, one of the few things I do remember making regularly in my parents’ kitchen (apart from pound cake), is a simple chocolate mousse. I don’t even like it that much, but it is an absolute doddle to make and S loves it. And since as he has had to ‘endure’ lots of non-chocolate-and-vanilla kind of desserts lately, I thought I’d humour him and make a simple chocolate mousse.

recipe
quantities needed per person

25g chocolate
1 egg white
1 tbsp icing sugar

Whip egg whites until stiff, adding icing sugar gradually. Melt chocolate and carefully fold into egg whites. Pour into ramekins and refrigerate until firm.

matcha white chocolate ice cream

if you haven’t made this ice cream yet, stop reading now and go make it immediately!

I have been in a decidedly ‘Japanese’ mood for the past few weeks, getting bento boxes or sushi for lunch almost every other day, slurping soba noodles and miso soup at home, stocking up on Japanese goodies in the Arigato supermarket in Soho (48-50 Brewer Street) and treating myself to a lovely assortiment of Japanese plates and bowls from the Japan Centre shop.

And so, when I saw a matcha white chocolate ice cream (with recipe!) on Kuidaore, I couldn’t wait to make a batch myself. I hadn’t touched my matcha supply since I used it in a pound cake, and my little box of matcha was starting to feel neglected. I decided I couldn’t wait until the weekend to make this, and so, after work, a quick grocery trip was required. But somehow, every single shop I tried seemed to have run out of white chocolate! However, I simply had to make the ice cream there and then, so I kept on trawling the shops and finally found a stack of Green & Black’s white chocolate. Arriving home about 2 hours later than planned (yes, I really wanted the ice cream that badly) with my precious white chocolate, I set to work.

Making the ice cream is an absolute doddle and the result is out-of-this world good. So good, in fact, that I think I had a religious experience when I first dipped my finger in the custard and stuck it in my mouth. And again with every single taste I’ve had since. No singing angels or anything though, just a feeling of pure and utter bliss. The cloying sweetness of the white chocolate and bitterness of the matcha make for a perfectly balanced pairing - it is very rich though, so one small scoop is more than enough. I scooped mine on one of my beautiful new Japanese plates and sprinkled it with some black sesame seeds.

Seems like I’m not the only one absolutely smitten - check out Jaden and Brilynn's versions. But before you do that, go and make this ice cream. Now!

recipe
adapted from Kuidaore

375ml double cream
375ml milk
100g caster sugar
1/8 tsp fine salt
4 large egg yolks
200g white chocolate, chopped
2 tbsp matcha, sieved

Bring cream, milk, sugar and salt to a simmer over low heat, stirring constantly. Whisk egg yolks and add cream mixture in a slow and steady stream. Return to pan and cook custard until it thickens (make sure it doesn’t boil or it will curdle). Strain into bowl and set aside. Melt chocolate (I did this in the microwave, 2 30-second blasts were just right) and blend thoroughly with matcha. Add chocolate mixture to custard. Refrigerate overnight* and then churn in ice cream maker, according to instructions. Or, if like me, you still don’t have an ice cream maker**, put in freezer and stir every half hour or so until frozen.

* this is how I discovered it would also make for excellent little cream pots; when I came home from work the next evening after work and wanted to plonk it in the freezer, I couldn’t resist sneaking another taste and found it had set to a lovely cream pot consistency
** I recently found out Kitchenaid has an ice cream making attachment. I don’t have a Kitchenaid either (it’s on my wish list), but S has informed me the only reason he hasn’t bought me one yet, is that he doesn’t know what colour to buy. Only problem is, he likes the red one, I like the orange one. Or the yellow one. Or the surf green one, such a cool colour, in a surf dude kind of way.

Meeta's monthly mingle: I scream for ... Summer

Meeta’s July is (not just hot but) HOT and she wants us all to scream for ice cream at her monthly mingle. Unfortunately the UK weather gods have other ideas about our summer, and with the wind howling outside and the rain battering the windows I think I’ll be screaming for sun rather than ice cream. However, I’m not one to sit moping around being grumpy about the weather, and so, by lack of a decent summer outside, I thought I could at least try to create a hot and tropical summer inside. And that’s exactly what I did last weekend. Plus I decided I might as well challenge myself a bit and make something outside my comfort zone: coconut sorbet.

I’ve never been a fan of coconut, except in (Thai style) curries. I simply love the combination of hot curry paste with creamy coconut milk, it’s incredibly easy to make and it features often on my dining table. But other things with coconut, no thank you. When I was a child, we used to have an old Quality Street sweets tin in the cupboard, which would always contain mini Milky Way, Mars and Bounty. My brother and I would eat the Mars and Milky Way, and the Bounty was for my dad. If I remember well, he took one in his lunch box every day and also had one after dinner (in recent years he has moved on to ice cream for dessert). I also remember trying it once, after which experience my five-year-old self decided that I hated coconut. I can still feel that dry, fibre-y taste of desiccated coconut in my mouth, so it comes as no surprise I tend to avoid any sweets that have coconut in them.

But now, almost twenty-five years later, I thought it was time to change that and broaden my horizons a little. I chose and adapted a coconut sorbet recipe from Claudia Fleming’s Last Course and was inspired by an old Donna Hay Magazine to make ice cream sandwiches. I was also determined to try Jen’s amazing lemongrass, ginger and sesame cookies, for which I just happened to have all the ingredients in my pantry. Of course, Jen’s recipe left me with two unused egg whites, perfect for coconut meringues (another first for me). I didn’t think I would actually like these, with the shredded coconut in the meringue mixture, but I surprised myself by actually thinking they weren’t too bad. The sorbet on its own is very rich and creamy – not bad (I think it will be a hit with my dad when he comes to visit next month), but best paired with something else. Both ‘sandwich’ combinations worked well; the meringue one was incredibly coconut-y with the meringue providing a light and airy crunch; whereas in the cookie sandwich the creamy coconut and spicy cookie combination provided a more balanced and complex taste.

I don’t think I’ll find myself craving or making this coconut thingy very often, but I spent a nice afternoon experimenting, created a tropical Sunday in my kitchen and I’m now less hesitant to use coconut in desserts. And, in case you’re wondering where the British summer is hiding, shhh, don’t tell anyone, but I’m keeping it in my freezer.

coconut sorbet
inspired by Claudia Fleming’s Last Course*

2 cups coconut milk
1 cup shredded coconut
1/3 cup sugar
a squeeze of lime

Mix coconut milk with sugar and shredded coconut and bring to a boil. As soon as it boils and sugar is dissolved, take the pan off the heat and cover with clingfilm for about half an hour, to infuse the flavours. Sieve into a container, add lime juice and chill in the fridge overnight. Sieve again and freeze, stirring every half hour or so until frozen (or, if you’re lucky and have an ice cream maker, churn in your machine).

*I changed Claudia’s recipe considerably, which presented me with a few questions: when does ‘adapted from’ become ‘inspired by’? And at what point does a recipe become your own? After all, Claudia Fleming must have got her recipe from somewhere as well.

coconut meringues
from the Donna Hay magazine, issue 31, Feb/Mar 2007

2 egg whites
½ cup caster sugar
½ teaspoon white vinegar
2 tablespoons desiccated coconut

Whip egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gradually add sugar and vinegar until mixture is thick and glossy, fold in desiccated coconut. Spoon onto a baking sheet (I used cookie cutters for a round shape) and smoothen tops. Bake for 20 minutes on 120˚C. leave to cool in oven for 30 minutes.

ginger and lemongrass cookies
from Milk and Cookies

I had to grind most of the spices myself, not having any powdered versions on hand. I also used freshly grated ginger, and the palm sugar I had was very moist (it wasn’t a lump that needed grating), which resulted in a rather wet and sticky dough. I had to add an extra half cup or so of flour to get the cookie dough to hold together and be workable, and it still had a rather strange texture (to which S remarked ‘well, what did you expect, making strange dough like that.’). The finished cookies came out of the oven just fine though, and they tasted of Christmas.

SHF #32 the sweetest thing…

“So, I ask you. What is your favourite, most craved dessert? What do you want when you are on a diet or when you've been away from home for a long time? What dessert always catches your eye on a menu in a restaurant and you've had it made by a thousand different people but never made it yourself? I want to know. I want you to make it for SHF this month.”

This month’s Sugar High Friday, hosted by the one and only Domestic Goddess Jennifer, is all about cravings. When I hear the word cravings, I immediately think of chocolate. Can’t help it, I am Belgian after all. However, Jennifer also writes ‘what dessert always catches your eye on a menu in a restaurant and you’ve had it made by a thousand different people but never made it yourself?’. And for me that would be, without a doubt, passionfruit soufflé. Now, this might well cost me my Belgian citizenship, but I would happily forego chocolate for anything passionfruit and passionfruit soufflé in particular. I can’t exactly say I’ve had this soufflé made by ‘a thousand different people’ – two would be more like it, but oh those two times were memorable.

The very first time I had a passionfruit soufflé, was when S and I were celebrating our 8th anniversary by treating ourselves to dinner at Le Gavroche. After our incredibly indulgent meal I of course went straight for the most chocolatey dessert on the menu, but S ordered, you guessed it, a passionfruit soufflé. Which he allowed me to try. And I was in heaven. And in luck. Because after polishing off my own dessert and ogling S’s dessert, he declared he was completely full and couldn’t eat another bite. So we switched plates, during which operation Mr Roux came out of his kitchen and asked us if there was a problem. I was completely star-struck – not to mention surprised. In this day and age, a famous chef, being there in his own restaurant. And actually cooking in the kitchen! But then he is a real chef’s chef, and not a businessman/celebrity/entrepreneur kind of chef. I managed to stammer something more or less coherent about the absolutely amazing food, his cookbook, and that I loved my own dessert very much but couldn’t help eating S’s dessert as well. Or something to that effect. My second passionfruit soufflé experience was of course the perfect ending to that wonderful dinner S and I had with friends in Brisbane I wrote about here.

So, telling Jennifer about my `sweetest thing´, that was the easy bit. But now she wanted me to make this as well? Didn´t she know that my two previous attempts at soufflé had disastrous results – one involving a hot water bath, the other one especially bought Le Creuset ramekins (I think they are too thick to evenly distribute the oven heat)? And didn’t she know my oven doesn’t work properly, the oven temperature is nowhere near accurate and the oven door doesn’t have a window? I was afraid, very afraid. But I would not let myself be beaten – I’m way too stubborn to give up that easily. I bought myself two new ramekins, found myself a recipe on the internet and set to work. First things first, and in this case that was setting up the camera and styling the whole thing, since soufflé starts to deflate the moment it comes out of the oven. Playing around with the camera, light, angle, set up, props etc. took the best part of an hour, and I hadn’t even started baking yet.

Getting the soufflé together was easy enough, but putting it into the oven and not knowing what went on behind that window-less oven door was ever so slightly unnerving. It must have been my lucky day though, because when I opened my oven door eight minutes later I looked at two beautifully risen soufflés. A quick dusting with icing sugar and a few quick snaps, and S and I delved into our little ramekins filled with passionfruity fluffyness. It was every bit as good as I remembered from the first two occasions, and tasted even better because I'd made it myself. Yay! Another thing conquered! Maybe puff pastry next? The rest of the day I could be seen walking around the house with a big idiotic grin on my face, occasionally shouting out 'I made soufflé!' but luckily that’s something only S had to endure.

Note: the recipe made enough for four portions and my ramekins were on the small side, so I had quite a bit leftover batter, which I used to experiment a bit. I tried little fluffy pancakes, scrambled eggs slash soufflé-omelette and crepes. None of the results were photogenic or blog-worthy, but encouraging nonetheless, not to mention rather tasty.

my granny rocks!

She makes the best rice pudding ever. I put in my order with her three weeks ago, well in time for my quick weekend trip to Belgium.

After spending Friday night and Saturday morning in Brussels to catch up with my bestest friend A whom I hadn´t seen for ages (this catching up included a really good dark beer and a sweet breakfast of Portuguese pastries at Pastelaria Garcia), and a rainy Saturday afternoon of shopping in Antwerp and catching up with my mum, mum and I headed straight to my granny´s flat, where three lovely plates of rice pudding and freshly brewed coffee were awaiting us.

I have not yet managed to get a proper recipe out of my gran, but I do know she adds a good knob of butter to the milk and rice, doesn´t sweeten it at all (the sugar goes on top) and puts in a good spoonful of saffron threads, all of which results in heaven on a plate.

SHF #31 Shades of White

After reading the theme of this month’s Sugar High Friday on Seven Spoons, so many food thoughts started spinning around in my head it made me dizzy. With white, the possibilities really are endless – coconut, banana, vanilla, pineapple, yoghurt, cream, meringue, sponge, lemon, cheesecake, … I couldn’t for the love of me choose what to make! This is a problem I often have: I think of something, or see a recipe in a magazine or cookbook, and immediately I start thinking of things to add and to change. Invariably, there are so many choices and possible combinations that I am either paralysed by the sheer magnitude of choice and end up making nothing, or try to cram too many things all into one dish, which ends up being not so good because of the overdose of ingredients and flavours.

And of course this was threatening to happen again for Sugar High Friday. Until I got a stern talking to from S. I had shown him a lovely photograph (shoved it in his face, actually) of a Donna Hay milk and rosewater jelly. Thinking it was too simple (I often feel that, when making a dessert or something for other people to taste, it has to be something spectacular and complex) I started obsessing about how to change it, make it more intricate and a million other things, but then S said to me: ‘why don’t you just make it as it is?’ So that’s what I did. Although I couldn’t help myself and just had to change it ever so slightly. It was also a chance for me to try something with gelatine again. I’d only used it a few times before, each time with disastrous results. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the smell of it, and the concept of jelly will always remain alien to me, but once the jelly was set and ready to eat, it was lovely. And a big hit with my friends. It had a silky smooth texture, the goats’ milk gave it a refreshing tang, it wasn’t overly sweet, the cardamom made it into a grown-up dessert, and there was just a subtle hint of rosewater.

Recipe
Adapted from a Donna Hay recipe

600ml goats’ milk
45g sugar
1 sachet gelatine
¼ teaspoon rosewater
3 cardamom pods, black seeds only (crushed)

Dissolve gelatine in half cup of hot milk. Heat rest of milk with sugar, rosewater and cardamom. Add gelatine to this mixture. Pour in mould and refrigerate until set.

weekend experimenting