Chocolate and pear clafoutis

The renovation and move made me energy less. There was a long waited, special day on Saturday! We packed our belongings and overloaded we crossed the doorstep of our new apartment. I’m learning my new way to work and how to solve things in cabinets. Slowly I’m coming back to cooking because finally I have a kitchen!

I started with a dessert to make our living here sweet!
Recipe from atdownunder.com.

Ingredients (makes 4-5 portions)
3,5 oz (100 g) wheat flour
2,5 oz (70 g) brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp cocoa
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 cup milk
2,5 oz (70 g) dark chocolate
1,7 oz (50 g) butter
2 – 3 medium pears
pinch salt
lemon


Method
Peel pears and cut them cores, drizzle with lemon juice to preserve from becoming dark. In a bowl mix together flour, cornstarch, salt and cocoa. In another bowl whisk eggs with sugar until fluffy, add the flour mixture and milk step by step whisking all the time. Add slightly cooled melted chocolate with butter. Pour batter into the small baking dishes, on top of each place a wedge of pear. Bake for 30 min. in preheated oven to 175 oC. Serve warm (not hot).

Pudding with dark chocolate, cherries and hint of cinnamon

Sometimes (especially on a rainy day) there is nothing better than a chocolate pudding. This one is special, because it is made with real dark chocolate with cinnamon cherries.
Slightly different that traditional one, because it is steamed.


Ingredients (make 5 portions)
3 cups milk
1 dark chocolate bar
½ cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 tbsp cocoa
1/3 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 tbsp vodka (or other alcohol)
Pinch salt

1 cup frozen cherries
2 tbsp sugar
¼ cup water + 1 tbsp
1 teaspoon potato flour
¼ teaspoon cinnamon


Method
Cherries: in a pot cook for a few minutes water, cherries, cinnamon and sugar. Whisk flour with 1 tbsp cold water. Pour in into the cherry mixture, well combine. When the sauce gets thick take off from the heat. Cool it down.
Pudding: In a metal bowl whisk starch, sugar and salt with milk. Steamed over the pot with boiling water. Stir from time to time until the pudding gets thick (about 20 min.). Add chocolate, vanilla and vodka, stir in the cocoa. Stir for another few minutes until all ingredients well combined. In a bowl put some cherries and pour in warm pudding. Before serving put the rest of the cherries on top of puddings.

Panna cotta

This Italian dessert reminds me…Greece. In a hotel where we had spent holidays a few years ago panna cotta was served almost every day. That’s when my husband felt in love with it. I do regret I haven’t started making it earlier as the whole process takes a few minutes and the taste: there is nothing better!

Ingredients
7 fl oz (200 ml) double cream (30%)
7 fl oz (200 ml) milk
3 gelatine leaves
2 oz (50 g) sugar
vanilla stick or vanilla sugar
package of frozen fruit


Method
In a bowl mix gelatine and water. In a saucepan heat up cream, milk, sugar and vanilla sugar until almost boiling. Add gelatine leaves. Pour into prepared dessert bowls, put in a fridge for a night. Cook the fruit with sugar until get soft. Sieve the fruit after cooking so you get the fruit sauce. Leave few fruit for decorating.

Strawberries

Strawberries…there is nothing better in a Summer time! Today with a homogenized cheese: delicious duet!

Ingredients
18 oz (500 g) strawberries
8 oz (200 g) natural homogenized cheese
8 oz (200 g) vanilla homogenized cheese
1 package strawberry jelly
optional: few drops lemon juice, sugar to taste


Method
Gently blend strawberries, the mixture doesn’t have to be smooth, leave some pieces of strawberries. Prepare jelly adding extra ½ cup water ( about 250 ml). Combine jelly mixture with strawberries and homogenized cheese, season to taste with sugar and lemon juice. Pour the jelly into prepared dessert bowls, put them in a fridge for a few hours. Serve decorate with vanilla and sugar, in a room temperature.

Rhubarb and apple sorbet

I have a great weakness for all kinds of sorbets. Having a choice between a scoop of vanilla ice-cream and sorbet I’ll always choose the other one! Below my first, home made intense in taste, frozen, natural and delicious!


Ingredients
3 apples
5 thick rhubarb sticks
1 cup water
lemon juice of ½ lemon
¾ cup sugar (or as you prefer)
½ teaspoon ginger
pinch cinnamon


Method
Cook the syrup with water and sugar. Peeled and diced apples and rhubarb simmer on a low a heat until soft. Sieved fruit combine with water syrup, add lemon juice, ginger and cinnamon. Pour the mixture into a flat container and place in a freezer. From time to time stir the mixture with a fork avoiding creation of big crystals. Before serving puree the sorbet with a blender it will become nice creamy and smooth.

Citrus tuiles

Tuiles are very delicate, thin wafer cookies usually served with a dessert. Those citrus one are delicious! Caramel and crispy with intense orange flavour, nicely buttery. You have to be careful not to burn yourself while making them but they are worth taking this risk!

The recipe (mine is slightly modified) is from Christmas edition of Marta Stewart’s Living.

Ingredients
¾ cup sugar
½ cup wheat flour
¼ cup fresh orange juice
3 tbsp lemon juice
7 tbsp melted butter
¾ teaspoon orange zest
pinch salt
(important! The batter should be made a day before baking)


Method
Mix flour, sugar and salt. Add lemon and orange juice. Slowly add butter, orange zest, mix until combined. Cover the bowl with a mixture inside and place it in a fridge (can be kept in a fridge even for a week).

Preheat the oven to 360F/ 180 oC. Spoon teaspoon size batter portion on a silicon mat. With a wet hands spread the batter ( about 8 mm thick). Bake for 10-12 min. until golden brown. Slightly cooled quickly roll cookie to the halfway point using the handle of a small wooden spoon (it is easy to make them on a table edge). If the cookie is too cold and it’s hard to form it, place it again for a while into the oven. You can keep the tuiles for 3 days in a sealed box, alternated with the parchment.

Marzipan’s debut

A few months ago I bought small muffin liners but couldn’t decide how to use them. And as the Christmas time is perfect for culinary experiments I decided to make marzipan pralines. I must admit they were delicious and no one guessed than inside I put potatoes!

Ingredients (make about 50 pralines)
9 oz (250 g) cooked and mashed potatoes
5 oz (150 g) sugar
9 oz (250 g) powder sugar + some to coat pralines with
2,5 oz (70 g) ground almonds
2,5 oz (70 g) chopped walnuts
2 tbsp brandy
about ½ teaspoon almond aroma (or to taste)
pinch salt
dark chocolate bar

Method
In a pot heat up mashed potatoes on a low heat for about 20 min. (you should get a kind of apple mousse consistency). Hot potato mixture mix with powder sugar and remaining ingredients. Place aside to cool down. Using a teaspoon shape praline’s balls, coat each with the powder sugar. Melt the chocolate in a hot-water bath or in microwave (chocolate should be liquid all the time), dip each potato praline in hot chocolate and place on a parchment. Leave pralines in a cold place so the chocolate will get hard. You can decorate pralines with white chocolate, walnuts…

Plum dessert

As I got so many plums, bought in the market I started looking for a dessert’s recipe. I wanted to make something simple, without too many ingredients and the best if I could make it without a food processor…. I looked trough many cookbooks and found it! It’s simply called ‘Plum dessert’ and it can be made in 10 min.

The recipe is from “Baking” by Emma Patmore.

Ingredients ( I made 3 portions and used ¼ ingredients)
35 oz (1000 g) plums
100 g sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 oz (25 g) corn starch
10 oz (225 g) wheat flour
2,5 oz (75 g) sugar
pinch salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
5 fl oz (150 ml) buttermilk
2 oz (75 g) melted and cooled butter


Method
Grease 2 l baking dish. Stoned and cut in half plums mix with sugar, flour and lemon juice. Put the fruit into the baking dish. Whish egg, add salt, sugar, remaining flour, buttermilk and butter. Stir with a spoon until smooth. Spoon the mixture on top of the plums. Bake at 380 F/ 190 oC until golden.

Cardamom cream tart

I must admit I was expecting a lot after this recipe. On a photo in a cookbook I saw beautiful tart with a smooth cream and immediately I wanted to try it. The visual effect is amazing but the taste...well, this tart is missing something... it is delicate and this delicateness is a weak point, the tart is without the character. I think that forest fruit mousse could save the situation or maybe some fresh raspberries but I need to wait until Summer to try such a variation...

It is a warning recipe, a chance to experiment with additions because the filling mixture is easy to make. The big advantage is the shortbread base – I’m sure I’ll bake it once again. It’s elastic and easy to roll out. Anyway maybe you will like this tart...

Ingredients
base:
4,5 oz (125 g) room temp. butter
3 oz (90 g) powder sugar
1 large egg
9 oz (250 g) wheat flour
pinch salt
filling:
21 fl oz (600 ml) full fat milk
8 crushed cardamom seeds
1 cinnamon stick
3,5 oz (100 g) powder sugar
1,5 tbsp cornstarch
4 eggs (separate whites and yolks)
beans (to bake)


Method
Mix butter and sugar in a food processor until well combine. Add an egg, mix for about 30 sec. Add flour, mix again until smooth (not too long as the dough shouldn’t get too hard). Slightly knead the dough, put in a plastic bag, keep in a fridge for about 30 min. Roll out the dough and fit it into the tart pan (9 inch/ 23 cm).Place again in a fridge.

Bring to boil a milk with cardamom and cinnamon. Put aside for 15 min. to cool down.

In a meantime take the tart dough from the fridge. With a fork, make holes in the tart dough to prevent it from rising, place parchment over the shell and place a pile of beans on it as added weight while baking. Bake in preheated oven to400F/ 200 oC for 15 min. Take the parchment off the shells, bake for another 5 min. until golden brown. Decrease the temp. to 360F/ 180 oC. In a big bowl mix powder sugar with egg yolks and cornstarch. Stir in the milk. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Gently combine both mixtures. Spoon the filling mixture onto the shell. Bake for about 20 min, until golden, next for about 1 hour at 220F/ 110 oC. Serve cooled down.