The Missing Flavor

Doce Vika and its catalog...

2011-11-27T07:04:00.000-08:00

To those of you who did not know yet, I must communicate that since April 2011 I am the happy and proud owner of little organic and gourmet food store, here, in Norway. It is a real store with an online version as well. You can click the link to check our online store. A store is an amazing thing to make, a real big thing, it takes a lot of time to conceive, lot of effort to design and develop and the final product is result of heavy, heavy, heavy work... but it is totally worth paying the heavy work price. It is a dream that took form in reality...

So now I own a food store and the last six months were been spent developing our business, the way I dream it and in the ways we can afford to make it grow healthy, steady etc... It is not easy but our little Doce Vika is growing.

Our Christmas catalog is out now and it is filled with delicious gifts ideas for people of all ages and preferences. Teas from Løv Organic, Kusmi, Pukka, Hari, Les Contes de Thé, Harney & Sons and many others...coffee, teapots from FORLIFE, chocolates from Vivani, Venchi, Divine, Meium Sjokoladefabrikk and Valrhona for Ligne Blanche. The entire lige of chocolate from Ligne Blanche are packaged in beautiful tinboks with artwork of Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Jean Michel Basquiat...just amazing!

Plus: An amazing selection of Norwegian products: sjokolades, breads, cookies, jams, juices and sausages. The most perfect Turkish Turkish delights, artisan English cookies, French jams and gelés and organic oils, vinegars and sauces from organic producer Clearspring. Clearspring products were 2011's great revelation, not just in terms of quality, it is more than that. As a company Clearspring is an example that high quality product goes hand in hand with good practices. I am so proud to stock Clearspring products. The catalog is all in Norwegian but I hope you enjoy our little catalog...

The Story of a Bush...

2011-07-03T06:28:00.000-07:00

We have two giant bushes in our garden, they make the most important part of our garden and they serve as a green fence, dividing our back yards from our neighbor's. I am totally crazy for those bushes because of the magnificent little white flowers that bloom on their branches every year... However, those flowers became a reason of conflict between my husband Per and I.

Every spring Per demands to cut the branches to give them some strength and energy, he says. Plants are no alien to me, I know they need to be trimmed every year but those bushes bloom exactly on the tip of the branches which must be trimmed... know what I mean? If I allow the spring trimming there won't be any flowers to magnify and beautify our garden... of course we have a big garden and loads of other plants bloom freely, anyhow...

As the bush grows freely, trim-free, they loose strength and the winter snow starts to be too heavy for their extra-long branches which are now curving every winter. Can you understand the entire thing? I just can't loose the flowers but I don't want to risk loosing my entire bushes because if I don't trim them at some point they will just collapse with the snow one of these years. So, every autumn I take my garden scissors, not a very big one I must confess, and I trim the longer branches myself, it is not easy, it is more like cutting someone's long hair with extra-small nail scissors.

Per won't interfere with my crazy trimming process which is much harder than necessary (because I insist to use the wrong tool) and I also perform it during the wrong time of the year. Anyway, this is me, my love for my bush, it is also me, trying to change the nature of things around here... why not?

Every year I bring some branches inside and I place them in a big glass pot in my annual attempt to reproduce indoors the spectacular view we have outside. It is a vain attempt as the bush is simply magnificent...

When it is summer in Trøndelag...

2011-06-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

Summer in Trøndelag is more like a fantasy, it is mostly imagined rather than experienced. If you are distracted or busy you might not noticed that summer have passed you by... It was summer last Sunday, not many summer Sundays around here. We took the car and drove to Nord Trøndelag, to Frosta and Tautra. We were looking for organic farms, a fleamarket and found a lot more than we were loking for. It was one of the best days we had in around here. We found amazing vegetables, we bought great stuff at Åsen løppemarked, we visit the ruins of Tautra Abbey and ate at the restored barn of Valberg farm, a perfect summer.

Details of the entrance to the Valberg farm, where we had lunch. On Sundays they have a buffet in their renovated barn where they serve some traditional Trønder-Norwegian dishes made with locally produced ingredients and everything was soooo delicious. No pictures of the plates because I just can't manage to take pictures while I am eating or about to eat...

Ruins of the medieval monastery from 1250 in Tautra, Nord Trøndelag. In the neighborhood around the old convent Tautra Abbey a new one was established in the years of 1990 with the same name.

Ilha de Tautra & Frosta Kommune, Nord Trøndelag...

Tautra island & Frosta Kommune, Nord Trøndelag Fylke...

Frosta & Levanger Kommune, Nord Trøndelag Fylke, Norway.

Cherry blossom for a very special blog

2011-05-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

I am back. And after a long silence I found a way back to this blog that I was missing a lot. I am back and totally inspired by a post I read on She Who Eats. The post is simply out of this world, filled with stories, pictures and information on how to use cherry blossom. Chika, the woman behind She Who Eats, makes the most amazing food blog on the net today. I am totally seduced by her energy, her enthusiasm and her talent to put things together. If for any reason you never crossed with Chika and her blog She Who Eats before, click on the link and let her take you too.

I have written a post about She Who Eats before, about the incredible influence Chika's machine-free ice creams had on me, and how I simply had to start making ice cream after I saw hers. Her ice cream posts are many, among them are some of my favorites, like Come and Almost Gone with the Monsoon which is actually a post about cherries with cherry ice creams and cherry desserts and of course the monsoon. Anyway, she has a real talent to write and to develop a post around a single topic, she is totally unique.

Some amazing things about Chika: she is a regular user of honey, she likes white chocolate, she makes milk jam from scratch, using real milk & cream and she makes machine free ice creams. She makes milk jam with honey, totally awesome, I thought it was only me who would dare to try it. But her blog is a lot more than desserts and recipes. It is full of stories, travels, parties, celebrations, pictures and filled with love. Recently she was a finalist on Saveur's 2011 election for best dessert blog. Well, she got my vote but she didn't make the prize this time, but she will sometime soon, I am sure.

Chika is very modest, a little shy and might not have yet acknowledged that writes some of the best posts of the entire food blogs universe. She is a real inspiration to me, she makes me want to do things and try more things. Below I listed some of my favorite posts with links, you can try them yourself.

On cherry blossom, a magical post
A trip to Europe and the end of the beginning of a summer
Chocolate & love
Lychees, lychees cake and ice cream
Those cherries I mentioned before
Japan & Melon ice cream magic
More ice creams love.
A trip to Tasmania
Apple trees on a cloudy day

Sweet in Pink and a little salty is one of the best post she has every written. It is amazing because it is long and full of details and if you are like me and love long post this is the one. But more than abundance of content, it is full of enthusiasm, love, passion and dedication. Can you imagine how hard she worked to put all those pictures and information together? In a week of a troubled blogger?

On Sweet in Pink Chika takes you deep into the world of cherry blossom and shows examples of the uses one can make with cherry blossom extract, salt dried flowers, liqueur and sugar making the perfect translation of traditional Japanese ingredients to European cuisine language. So, there you have scones, tartelettes, panna cotta, jellys, muffins, crêpes, cheese cake, donuts, sablés, biscuits made with cherry blossom side by side with astonishing Japaneses specialties which include bentos with cherry blossom gohan. Simply amazing.

It was Sunday, I had just read Sweet in Pink and I was touched. After a long and busy week of work I was able to stop, to look and to notice that our own cherry tree was filled with flowers, blooming, beautifully pink. Cherry trees are quite late in Norway so I still had a chance to take the pictures that follow this post and dedicated them to Chika. It was a cold cloudy day but I like the results.

På vei... on its way

2011-03-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

During the last six months we have been working hard on our store, a small organic gourmet food grocer that we will open in Hommelvik bay next month. We are very excited and can't wait to crack our doors wide open to our public. Here you can have a glance of the place we are creating. There is still a lot to do. You can click on the collage to see the pictures on a better size.

Tonka bean pudding with last summer's best strawberries...

2010-12-25T06:38:00.000-08:00

I wish December had 40 days because it seems that it will always be too short for all the things I have to do, deliver, send and prepare. I don't mean I am a Christmas or New year's celebrator-obsessive. No, not at all. Of course I walk around a lot to find the perfect gifts for the kids, they do deserve them but I am quite good at paying attention and finding what they need before they know. I wish December could come with some extra days just because it is a regularly busy month for the other sectors of life too and there are always a lot of stuff going on for me in December.

Besides, both our kids have their birthdays between beginning and end of December, so you guess, we have two birthday parties + holidays to sort out. We make birthdays our priorities as Per and I would rather ignore the holidays if it was not for the kids, honestly. It is amazing to have work free days, sure, to be at home doing nothing or maybe travel somewhere, but we totally ignore the big fuzz of traditions.

It would have been great to pack bags and leave Trondheim for a while, until the green come back and all this ice is gone. It's been extremely cold, the coldest winter in 150 years, too many degrees below zero "everysingleday" since October. Can you swallow it? And when life seems to be smiling at you with opportunities the weather outside reminds us of how bad life in the Northern part of the planet can be. Really, it is beautiful, it is calm, it is peaceful, it is silent, all of those are some how addicting but it is hell of a cold, or cold as hell as hell for me is definitely a very cold place.

To balance the traditional overdose of Moroccan and Spanish clementines and Brazilian melons we feasted on the most delicious strawberries we picked during summer. The strawberries were ripe and sweet and we filled our freezers with them and we picked them ourselves in the most fantastic strawberry farm around here, in our neighborhood, five minutes from our home. Last summer we eat strawberries until we were tired and we kept some 10kgs of the best strawberries, perfectly ripe for these sad December days.

The thawed strawberries release the most amazing and dense red juice, more like a sauce, one can get, and it is all natural. You don't need to cook or add anything if you have good quality strawberries. Just serve the totally thawed strawberries on their juice with cakes, pudding, yogurts and mousses and be happy. We love our ex-frozen strawberries more than ever... and they are so sweet. Add some sugar if you don't have sweet strawberries, it is December after all...

Tonka bean pudding with thawed strawberries

2 dl sugar
1 tonka bean a.k.a. Dipteryx odorata
6 eggs
300 grams of thawed strawberries with their juice

How:

Warm oven to 180C/350F and boil 1 liter of water. Butter six to eight ramekins or any other type of glass or porcelain pots oven proof and set aside. In a heavy bottom saucepan over low heat cook milk and tonka bean until the infusion boils. Set aside and let it stand for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, in a large bowl and using a fouet whisk eggs and sugar until well blended and slightly increased volume. Transfer milk heat again and warm milk once more, when it boils remove from heat and discard the bean. Gradually and slowly start adding the milk infusion to the egg mixture and using a fouet whisk while you drop the milk, you have to keep transferring the milk and whisking, vigorously, until all the milk is transferred. Drain the mixture, remove some of the scum and divided the mixture into the prepared pots/ramekins. Set pots in a sheet cake pan and fill with boiled water up to 1/3 of the bottom of the pot.

Bake the pots for 25 to 30 minutes in bain marie (double bath). Remove from oven and let cool completely in the water bath, remove from watered pan and refrigerate. Serve cold with some spoonfuls of thawed strawberries on their juice.

Coconut Quindim

2010-10-20T03:36:00.000-07:00

Quindim is a classic and traditional Brazilian dessert, one of those you find in every little corner of my gigantic home country. It is so simple to make that you can always trust that you will find a good version in a local bakery anywhere you go. When I was living at home I never baked quindins since they were one of my favorites to order in bakeries and restaurants. As an expatriate quindins became one of the desserts I crave the most and once in a while I simply must bake them myself.

Quindim is a yolk only egg dessert with a dense and luscious texture and very easy to make. If properly baked it have a very sophisticated look once removed from pan. Besides you will need only three ingredients: yolks, sugar and coconut, can you believe it? You can use freshly grated coconut or dried coconut but it must definitely be unsweetened. When you look to a little dessert like this you can't imagine the simplicity behind it all.

Coconut Quindim

6 egg yolks (passed through a sieve)
6 tablespoons of sugar + to sprinkle on pans
6 tablespoons fresh grated coconut or desiccated unsweetened coconut
Butter for pans

How:

Heat oven to 180C/350F. Generously butter 8 to 10 mini muffin pans, sprinkle generously some sugar on buttered pans and set them aside. Pass six yolks through a sieve into a bowl, add six tablespoons of sugar and using a wire whisk whisk well to incorporate. Add six tablespoons of unsweetened grated coconut and whisk some more. Divide mixture in prepared pans and bake the quindins in a bain marie or double bath for 30 minutes or until the top of the quindins are golden. Remove from oven and let the quindins cool slightly before removing from pan but they should not cool completely because it will be pretty difficult to remove once they have cooled.

Makes 8 to 10 quindins depending on the size of the mini muffin cup you use. You can also make a big size version but you might need 10 to 12 yolks instead.

Orange and corn cake (gluten free)

2010-10-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

I grew up eating a flour less coconut and corn cake made with fresh coconut flesh and coconut milk but recently I started to bake the same flourless cake using oranges instead of coconut, whole baked oranges. The idea to use oranges came a traditions sephardi Jew cake popularized by Claudia Roden an Egyptian chef living in the UK. Claudia Roden is the author of two excellent books A New Book of Middle Eastern Food and the Jewish Food Book.

My orange and corn cake is loosely influence by both the Sephardic orange-and-almond cake by Claudia Roden’s and my Mom's Coconut and corn cake. However, since oranges don't have the same fat content as coconut and since corn flour doesn't have the same fat content as almond flour I added some butter to my version of the recipe to make things right. The result is an amazing perfumed, dense and slightly creamy cake with the amazing texture of corn flour and the strong aroma of cooked oranges.

The batter of this cake is slightly liquid but it bakes perfectly well and you don't have to worry about adding any other type of flour or thickener to the mixture. I highly recommend that you use organic oranges and washe the oranges in warm water before cooking it. I found the most amazing ripe and sweet South African organic oranges at the market here and I was so glad I could make this cake for the weekend.

orange and corn cake (gluten free)

250 grams fine corn flour (or polenta flour)
250 grams sugar
6 medium eggs
2 medium organic oranges (rinsed in warm water)
1 teaspoon of baking powder
75 grams unsalted butter in room temperature
pinch of salt

How:

In saucepan with enough water to cover the fruits, let the oranges boil over medium heat for 1h30 to 2 hours until very tender. Let the fruits to cool completely before using them. Once they are cool cut each fruit in four parts and remove seeds if there is any.  

Preheat oven to 180C and butter well a small round cake pan, use ring-shaped cake pan if you prefer and sprinkle some corn flour on the buttered pan and set aside.   In the jar of a blender, or food processor, blend the oranges, the corn flour, the sugar and the eggs for 30 seconds. Add the butter and the baking powder and process a little more. Pour batter into prepared cake pan and bake cake for 45 minutes or until a stick comes out of the cake dry. Let it cool completely before removing from pan.

Serve with some low fat vanilla yogurt.

Organic raspberry and chocolate jam

2010-09-04T17:17:00.000-07:00

Since my visit to Niedermorschwihr and Les Relais des Trois Epis de Madame Ferber I've been obsessed with jams and I've been experimenting some new flavors and mixtures almost everyday. I must confess that sometimes, in face of some of the best jams I have ever made, I wish I had the guts to start a jam business. All natural and organic jam producer I would be. My jam dreams became the perfect pair to the fruits of our garden specially our organic raspberries. Raspberries are perfect to mix with other fruits and a small amount is sufficient to add color and the most amazing perfume and elevate the jam to another level. So far I have mixed raspberries (with and without seeds) to peaches, cloudberries, chocolate, rhubarb and apple.

Our raspberry harvest this summer was plenty and lasted wonderfully long even if everything around here was delayed for at least three weeks this year due to one of the worst winters of all times. But let's not talk about winter yet, let's talk raspberries and chocolate. Jars of this precious jams were available in Christine Ferber's relais and I could have bought one there but instead I preferred to buy other blends instead and tried to make my own raspberries and chocolate jam. Christine Ferber works with a chocolate with 64% of cocoa solids but I used an organic chocolate with 70% cocoa instead and according to her own recipe she uses a lot more sugar than I was willing to use. Besides I aimed at a 100% organic raspberry and chocolate jam so I decided to use whatever organic dark chocolate I could find. The higher content of cocoa certainly gave the jam a more intense chocolate flavor but it was perfect to me, might need some more sugar some might say. You can always add more sugar to this recipe but never remove it. One more point to Madame Ferber's score, she keeps a high score around here!

Organic raspberry and chocolate jam

(Inspired by recipe from Christine Ferber's Mes Confitures).

800 organic raspberries
1 1/2 cup of organic fair trade cane sugar
2 to 3 tablespoons of lime juice
100 grams organic fair trade chocolate with 70% cocoa solids

How:

In a pan over medium heat cook the raspberries with sugar and lime juice until it starts boiling. Once it boils reduce heat and let it boil for five minutes. Remove from heat, let it cool slightly before passing the mixture through a metallic sieve. Press well mixture, with a spoon to get as much juice as possible and discard the seeds. Measure the sieved mixture and transfer it back to the pan. Add more sugar if you think it is necessary and let the mixture cook over medium heat until boils is slightly reduced, 5 and 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, remove from heat and add the bits of chocolate whisking with a wire whisk to incorporate the chocolate completely. Add 100grams of chocolate for each 500ml of jam. Transfer the jam to a sterilized jar and close the lid tight. Let it cool completely and refrigerate. Keep refrigerated.

1. I recommend to keep it refrigerated and consume in two weeks after the jar is open.
2. I have sieved the pulp through a not very tight metal sieve and some seeds pass through the net and I think it looks perfect, those little seeds are the trademark of the raspberry, right?

In a Cathedral state of mind

2010-08-31T23:49:00.000-07:00

Nidaros Domen, Trondheim's majestic cathedral. The Norwegian kings are crowned in Nidaros Domen.

Maybe it is because in live in a town which is marked by the presence of a huge medieval cathedral or maybe it is just some kind of unconscious way of expressing my appreciation of the religious environment. I must confess that consciously speaking I don't miss any of the religious rituals forced into my life by family traditions which I left behind as soon as I could. Even if I am an atheist, I love cathedrals, their majestic presence, provocative language and powerful symbolism. But I can see through their powerful provocative language, what speaks to me are the amazing strength behind the human beings who gave their lives to design and construct those temples. In the pictures Nidaros Domen, here in Trondheim and two amazing French cathedrals we visited this rainy summer: Notre Dame de Reims or Our Lady of Reims and another Notre Dame, the Strasbourg Cathedral or Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg.

Notre Dame de Reims, the old Cathedral de Saint Remi is a beautiful cathedral, World heritage, but I fell for the Notre Dame in Strasbourg...

I was astonished by the adoration of this old sister in front of the huge cathedral. She sat there, and sat, and sat, for hours observing the grandeur of the medieval architecture. We walked around, got some info from the tourist office and she was still there observing, trying to find some answers, maybe.

The Cathedral of Strasbourg was really beautiful and looked more dramatic during those gray and rainy days of July. The weather didn't help the pictures but the entire visit was really amazing.

A place called Niedermorschwihr...

2010-08-05T23:41:00.000-07:00

There is a small village in South Alsace, in the region of the Upper Rhine, in the outskirts of Colmar, with a very strange name which hides a mine of special jams. In this very small French village with German name Niedermorschwihr is located Au Relais des Trois Epis the jam epicenter of Christine Ferber, France's number one jam master.

Around a corner in the Rue des Trois Epis Madame Ferber produce her famous special jams. From Niedermorschwihr her creations win the world in small and medium sized jars decorated with white and red polka dots fabric, filled with artisanal deliciousness and loaded with France's most profitable creation: terroir.

The flavors of Madame Ferber's jams mix local Alsacian fruits, tropical fruits, flowers (most rose and violet), herbs, spices of all sorts, nuts and chocolate. Au Relais des Trois Epis is a mixture of bakery, delicatessen and local market and it offers a little bit of everything to the visitor or citizen of Niedermorschwihr: fruits, cakes, tarts, biscuits, cheese, charcuterie d'Alsace, bien sur, fresh fruits, Ferber's entire book collection, Alsatian pottery pots and even commercial soap. The large selection of jams which fills the shelves of an entire wall in the small shop is the main attraction to foreign visitors who come from everywhere in the world.

At a certain distance from the place we could already feel the perfume of jam in the air and Per was the first to notice it. I wish my house could smell the same way and I really wished I could master the art of jam making, just like Pete and Celia from Fig Jam and Lime Cordial. My jams are pretty good, I must admit without embarrassment, but I must experiment more, I need to learn some more about the chemistry of preserving, to be more aware of the limits of sugar, acid juices and pectin in the fruit soup. For that reason I pushed my Per Niedermorschwihr to visit Madame Ferber's relais.

I was not planning to leave the place empty handed and it would not have been possible at all. We bought five jars of jam, some bread and some meringue. We bought two jars to offer as gifts to my inlaws: a seedless Raspberry jam (Framboise d'Alsace) and Black Cherry (Cerises Noir d'Alsace). I picked two for me: Strawberry and Mango (Fraises d'Alsace et mangues) and Rapsberry, green apples and pistachio (Framboises d'Alsace, Pommer Verts et Pistaches) and Per picked a jar for him: Blackcurrant, apple and violet (Cassis, pommes et violette). It was pretty difficult to choose the flavors and up to the last minute I was changing the flavors. I could have bought more jars but what I was looking for was some inspiration to work and create with my the fruits from my own garden this year.

The Strawberry and mango jam (Fraises D'Alsace et mangue) should have been called Mango and Strawberry jam as the mango is the dominant not only in flavor but in texture of the jam is that of the mango pulp. The flavor is perfect, intense, mild, perfect amount of sugar, not acid at all and the perfect presence of the strawberry on the back of the mixture. No seed, no pieces, no strings nothing to distract the most amazing taste. I would never have made jam with mango and strawberries as in Brazil the season of the best mangoes doesn't coincide with that of the best strawberries which is concentrated in winter months. It is a foreigner though, dealing with imported or frozen mangoes who is able to create the perfect mixture of these adorable fruits into an amazing jam. Oh, how much I wish I had bought two jars of this jam instead...

As soon as I am able to put my hands on some perfectly ripen mangoes (which in my opinion are from the specie we Brazilians call manga espada) I will try to make my own version of this jam to which I will be adding some amazingly perfect (but frozen) Norwegian strawberries which we have been picking around here recently. However, if you have access to some good and ripe mangoes make your own version of this jam now, you won't regret this mixture. Don't forget to add some terroir (from your mangoes or your strawberries or even your sugar) to you jam too, the origin is definitely part of the magical result, don't you think?

If one of these days you find yourself wandering around Alsace, try to find the way that takes you to Niedermorschwihr and the Au Relais des Trois Epis, you won't regret...

Christine Ferber's Au Relais des Trois Epis
18, Rue des Trois Epis
68230 Niedermorschwihr
Alsace

A place called Hirtshals...

2010-08-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

(The lighthouse, the trademark of Hirtshals, Jutland, North Denmark)

For our summer vacation this year Per and I decided to make a road trip into the European continent and the trip was totally great, exhausting, but great. It was an adult trip and we were on our own for ten days, circulating around some very special corners of this old continent.

First I must confess that it was not easy to have fun without our kids, we missed them so much that I dare to say it is almost boring to live without the kids. For this adult trip we prioritized some small villages and towns of Central Europe and tried hard to keep the larger towns at a good distance. We wanted peace and quite, what doesn't mean that we were able to keep ourselves completely away from the big cities of Europe. Not at all! Specially because Amsterdam was an obligatory stop in our journey.

The highlights of our trip:

* The experience to travel with our own car to distant and different countries was amazing, it was all so comfortable and exciting, we loved it. It was an extra fun to put our car on ferries and boats to cross some seas around Europe.

* Arriving by land is just fantastic, it offers the traveler a totally different perspective of the place, the arrival takes place slowing and continuously while we can take our time to see whatever pleases us more, to find our own way into the country, to identify things and slowly connect with the place where we are. I just loved the whole driving experience...

* We traveled with Bob, our friend GPS without whom this car trip would not have been possible.

* We crossed six countries (Norway not included in this account) and we fell completely in love with Switzerland, specially the cantons of Fribourg, Neuchâtel and Bern. We drove thousands of kilometers to get to Switzerland where we had "deposit" our highest expectations in this trip and the country didn't disappoint. I definitely must come back with a post exclusively about Switzerland.

* But before that I want to write about something else. About my certainty that the best travels are made out of unexpected situations and this trip wasn't different. We didn't plan it but we ended our trip in Denmark. This country was not in our map this time and do you want know something ? We loved it...

(Beach in front of the camping site in Hirtshals, North of Jutland, Denmark)

* Hirtshals in Denmark was definitely an amazing surprise and it turned out to be one of our favorite places in this trip. It was a totally unexpected place. I am more, and more, convinced that some of the most amazing things happen when we lower our expectations or, better, when we are able to just go through life without any expectations at all. Let me explain.

* As I mentioned before, we did not plan to cross the entire Jylland in Norwegian or Jutland in English by car to get to Hirtshals. It all happened after Estela's arrival was delayed and we had to stay some extra days in Amsterdam. The unexpected delay forced us to change our trip plans since we would not have time enough to get the boat from Kiel (Germany) to Oslo, the boat we had booked and paid for some months in advance. Isn't it amazing how things happen?

(Per was really brave to step his feet in the cold waters of the North Sea!)

* Once we found ourselves "boatless", we were forced to find another route to get home from The Netherlands. We immediately rushed and booked places in the ferry between Hirtshals and Larvik, South of Oslo because it was the only boat with places available in the midst of the high summer season. It turned out that our new slightly longer trip became a more beautiful and pleasurable one, as we definitely enjoyed our days driving around the Jutland.

* Once we got to Hirtshals we immediately fell forthe place and its amazing camping site. Located in front of one of the most amazing sandy beach on the North Sea, the camping is located literally below the lighthouse, a trademark of the small village.

* The entire North coast of Denmark is surrounded by beautiful, endless sandy beaches which includes the coast of Hirthals, Skagen and Frederikshavn, some of the Northernmost towns on the Danish territory.

(The delicious little museum where a visit offers you the chance to enjoy a fish meal served by voluntary senior citizens happy to receive their guests in the garden of the museum).

* Life in this small town goes around the port, the fishing industry and tourism. Who needs more? The front of the small museum exhibit a line of salted fish hanged there to dry on the wind, reminding the visitors where we are...

(Estela accompanied us on the last days of our trip and had a lot of fun exploring the area outside the camping site in Hirtshals).

Strawberry and rhubarb semifreddo

2010-07-06T14:50:00.000-07:00

Semifreddo is a easy ice cream like dessert of Italian origin. Semifreddos are very easy to make and differently from ice creams they don't require any machine for churning or hand mixing at all. The semifreddo mixture goes straight to freezer and there it stays until serving time. There are many ways to prepare semifreddo and all of them are very simple.

The logic of the semifreddo mixture is very similar to that of the ice cream but while ice creams are often made out of cooked custard, semifreddos are often made out of raw egg mixtures. The ways I make semifreddo are: (1) a mix of egg yolks and whites whisked with sugar, separately, and then mixed together (2) a mix of egg yolks and whites whisked with sugar, separately, whipped cream and then everything mixed together, (3) egg whites whisked with sugar into a hard meringue and whipped cream mixed together. You can mix crushed nuts, chocolates, meringues, cookies, fruits, sauces and compotes to the mixture to add flavor to your semifreddo. The last version (egg whites + whipped cream) makes my favorite version for most flavors.

Strawberry and rhubarb semifreddo

4 egg whites
8 tablespoons of sugar
300 ml heavy cream
250 ml rhubarb and strawberry compote (see below)
1 cup of crushed meringues
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract

How:

Line a loaf pan with cling film and set aside. Whisk the egg whites and when they start to harden a little start adding the sugar slowly and keep whisking and adding the sugar until you get a hard shining meringue, set it aside. Whip the cream until hard peaks start to form and set aside. Add the vanilla and the rhubarb-strawberry compote to the egg whites and incorporate using a spatula or metal spoon. Add the whipped cream to the mixture and using a spatula mix slowly until completely incorporated, remember that you want to keep the air in the mixture.

Spoon one thick layer of the mixture in the prepared loaf pan, cover the first layer with a good layer of the crushed meringues and finalize with a second layer of the mixture. Level the top, cover with more film and freeze it for at least four hours.

Remove from freezer at least 5-10 minutes before serving, remove from pan and transfer to a plate. Serve with fresh strawberries or a fruit sauce.

Serves 8 to 10.

Strawberry and rhubarb compote

400 grams drained and cooked rhubarb pulp
250 grams strawberries
100 to 200 grams sugar
2 tablespoons lime juice

How:

The rhubarb used to make this compote was previously cooked and had their juice drained as I had boiled the stalks with sugar and water to make some rhubarb gelatin. The pulp that was left after the juice was drained I used to make this compote. I used 400 grams of rhubarb pulp to 250 grams of strawberry (half 500g basket) but you can make this compote with different measures if you like.

Chop the strawberries in small pieces. In a medium pan add the strawberries, the sugar and the lemon juice and let it cook over a medium heat until boil. Once it boils reduce the heat to medium-low and let the fruits cook for 10 minutes or until soft and slightly reduced. Once the strawberries have cooked enough start adding spoonfuls of rhubarb pulp to the strawberry jam and using a wood spoon stir constantly to incorporate. If necessary increase heat to medium until the mixture boil. Let it cook for 5 to 10 minutes or until it reaches the desired consistency.

Let it cool slightly and jar the compote in sterilized jars.

Chopped rhubarb stalks...

Drained cooked rhubarb pulp..

Strawberry and rhubarb compote

Norwegian rhubarb cake

2010-06-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

This is one very traditional Norwegian cake, a simple summer cake, more of a "everyday cake" and not the "party cake". Norwegian prefer creamy cakes for parties instead of light fruity cakes. You don't need to make this cake inverted, you can always change it and place the rhubarbs on top of the batter instead of on bottom of the pan. I love inverted cakes and rhubarbs look so beautiful on inverted cakes as they release their gorgeous pink juice into the cake batter during baking giving the final cake an amazing color.

Recipes for rhubarb cake are easy to find and before I select some and you can check them here,here,here and here. The cake was perfect and really, really delicious. The cake had the most amazing vanilla flavor and that incredible texture provided by the addition of sour cream.

Norwegian rhubarb cake

3 or 4 stalks of rhubarb cut into 5 to 6 cm little logs
1 cup sugar + 5 tbsp more sprinkle over the rhubarb
1 cup all purpose flour
200 grams butter at room temperature + more for pan
3 eggs at room temperature
180 ml sour cream at room temperature
1 or 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt

How:

Place the rhubarb pieces on a flat dish and sprinkle around 4 to 5 tbsp of sugar and let it stand for at least half an hour.

Butter a loaf pan, or use any other pan that you prefer, and line the buttered pan with parchment paper, butter generously the paper. Place the rhubarbs on the bottom of the pan making sure to completely cover the bottom with plenty of rhubarb. Add the juice and the sugar where the rhubarbs were resting. If you wish you can sprinkle some more sugar over the rhubarb pieces. Set the pan aside.

In a bowl beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, and keep beating until you have an airy batter. Add half of the flour, sifted, add the sour cream and then add the second part of the flour beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla ad beat some more and on the end add baking powder and baking soda.

Transfer batter to prepared pan, over rhubarbs, and bake for 40 minutes at 180C or until a stick comes out clean. Let it cool before inverting the cake over a plate.

Chocolate Custard Tarts

2010-06-25T23:36:00.000-07:00

Custard tarts are the most famous Portuguese dessert and they became very popular wherever the Portuguese have set their feet on Earth. This is my dad's favorite and I can't stop thinking about him whenever I make or eat some custard tart. This time I made it quite different, I added some chopped chocolate to the regular vanilla custard and it became a family favorite, it was so good that I can't wait to make them again...

Chocolate Portuguese Custard Tart

4 large egg yolks
100 g sugar
2 tbsp of starch, I used tapioca starch but it can be potato or corn
200 ml cream
200 ml milk
1 tsp natural vanilla extract
80 grams of dark chocolate with at least 58% of cocoa solids
400 grams of homemade puff pastry

How:

Lightly butter 12 individual muffin pans and set aside.

In a medium large sauce using a fouet whisk egg yolks, sugar and starch until well blended. Add cream and keep whisking making sure there are not any lumps. Gradually add the milk and whisk until you get and homogeneous mixture.Transfer pan with cream-milk mixture to stove and cook over medium heat stirring until the mixture comes to the boil and thickens.
Remove from the heat and add chocolate piece and vanilla extract while whisking vigorously to make sure the hot custard melts the chocolate and the custard becomes completely chocolate

Transfer the custard to a bowl, cover the surface with plastic film to prevent a skim forming and leave to cool.

Preheat the oven to 190-200C.

Open the pastry to form a rectangle of 30X50Cm. Cut the pastry sheet in half, put one half on top of the other and roll up the pastry tightly from the short end and cut the pastry log into twelve 1 cm circles. Lay each circle of pastry on your work surface lightly floured and with a rolling pin to roll out to make a 10 cm diameter circle.
Press the pastry rounds into the buttered muffin tin and make sure you leave a border with at least 1cm hanging outside the tin as the pastry will shrink while baking.

Spoon the chocolate custard into the prepared muffin tarts but don't fill the tins more than 2/3 as the filling will rise during baking. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the pastry is fully cooked and golden. Let the tarts cool before removing them from the tins.

Makes 12

Chocolate macarons with dark chocolate ganache

2010-06-22T13:00:00.000-07:00

Some of the posts published in this blog so far make pretty clear that I am completely fanatic for egg based desserts, whether egg whites or yolks based. As every egg fanatic must be, I have eaten raw eggs my entire life and never wasted a minute worrying about it. My mom is to be blamed on this raw egg matter as she was the one who added raw eggs to our morning smoothies. My mother used to prepare smoothies daily, usually a blend of milk, papaya, banana and egg or milk, avocado, banana, honey and egg. We (my brothers and I) grew up drinking those whole egg added smoothies every single morning during our childhood.

In those years it was common among mothers the belief that thin kids (and we were all very thin) were not particularly healthy or strong enough and according to this belief we needed some extra protein. Besides the daily dose of raw egg yolks and milk, I've been fed with loads of egg based desserts, specially meringues and yolk based creams such as baba de moça and quindim and ovos moles. I was always crazy for toucinho do céu an amazing mixture of dense yolk cream and almonds and amaretti an almond and meringue based cookie. The love for macarons was a natural part of this process...

Chocolate macarons with dark chocolate ganache filling

110 grams of egg whites ( three large egg whites)
110 grams grounded almonds (almond flour)
200 grams confectioners sugar
50 grams sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened natural cocoa powder

How:

Couple of days before the day you plan to make your macarons separate the egg whites and leave them covered on the counter top at room temperature for two or even three days.

On the day you plan to make the macarons process the nuts and confectioners sugar in a food processor until well grounded, sift the mixture once, sift it again to remove all the big pieces of nuts and then weight the mixture. Line two or three large cookie pans with parchment paper and set aside.

Beat the egg whites until foamy. Slowly start to add the 50g of sugar, one table spoon at a time and continue whisking until you have a glossy meringue.

Add the flour mixture to the meringue in three or four parts folding until the dry ingredients were completely incorporated to the meringue and you can't see any white parts in the batter. Make a test to check the batter and put a teaspoon of batter on a plate to make sure the batter flattens, if it does you are ready but if it keep the form of a peak you still have to fold the batter couple of times more.

Once you feel the batter is ready transfer it to a pastry bag, or a plastic bag, and pipe the batter to a diameter of three centimeters on the prepared pans. Let the piped macarons stand in room temperature for 15 to 30 minutes, while your oven is heating. You can sprinkle some nuts over the shells, before they dry completely. I sprinkled some of the bigger pieces of nuts which didn't pass through the sieve. You can also sprinkle some sugar or any other grounded spice or nut.

Bake the shells for 10 minutes at 150 C/275F in a preheated oven. It is important to turn the pans halfway through for a more equal baking. You might need a few more minutes if your oven is not properly regulated.

Makes 60-70 shells (30-35 filled macarons)

Chocolate ganache filling

100 grams de dark chocolate (one with at least 50% of cocoa solids)
60 ml of heavy cream

How:

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and set aside. Meanwhile boil the heavy cream and pour it over the chopped chocolate. Stir well until you get a homogeneous ganache. Let the ganache stand for to cool Stir to create and emulsion. Let it harden a bit until it is pipeable and fill the macarons.

Cheesecake pots with blackberry swirls

2010-05-23T17:26:00.001-07:00

I simply adore cheese cake pots, a kind of cheesecake baked in pots or ramekins without pastry, more like puddings and I make them very often. On the other day, I was looking for something on Tastespotting when I crossed with a similar kind of cheesecake pot which caught my attention. It was a recipe for Blackberry cheese cake pots by Australian food journalist Donna Hay which is very much like the ones I appreciate. Donna Hay's recipe pair the cream cheese with single cream and doesn't require any baking and is extremely simple and perfect for those moments when we need a quick and full filling dessert.

The post I found on Tastespotting was inviting bloggers to take part an event hosted by Mardi, who makes the blog Eat, live, travel, write and Denise from Chez us which has the Blackberry cheese cake pots as a theme and I simply had to take part. So here it is. I made my own version of blackberry cheese cake pots and I named it a little different: Cheese cake pots with blackberry swirl. I have never tried anyone of Donna Hay's recipes but I have notice that her magazine and books have become quite popular outside Australia too. Even if I am not following her recipe exactly as it is, I was totally inspired by hers even if I made it my way.

Cheese cake pots with blackberry swirl

200 grams of light (reduced fat) cream cheese at room temperature
125 ml of sour light (reduced fat) cream at room temperature
60 grams of sugar
3 tablespoons of honey
1/2 vanilla extract
2 eggs at room temperature
1 tablespoon of tapioca flour or corn starch
80 ml of blackberry purée (see below)

How:

Butter five shallow ramekins or creme brulée pots and set aside. In a bowl whisk cheese, sour cream, sugar and honey. Add the vanilla extract and the eggs, one at a time and whisk until well incorporated. And finally add the starch. Divide the batter among the buttered ramekins or pots. Add three to four teaspoons of blackberry purée to the batter, in each one of the ramekins, and using a skew make some swirls. Bake the pots at 180C/350F in a pre-heated oven for 20 to 25 minutes until slightly set, the center will remain wobbly. Let the pots cool completely. Serve chilled.

Blackberry purée

100 grams of blackberries thawed (I used frozen as the fresh ones live far away from here!)
30 to 50 grams fo sugar
splash of lime juice

How:

Put the blackberries, the sugar and the lime juice in a small saucepan over medium heat and let the mixture go to a boil. Remove from heat and process with a hand mixer and pass the mixture through a sieve. Let it cool completely before using the purée to make the swirls.

Kvaefjord cake and the Norwegian spirit

2010-05-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

Today is the most important day in the history of Norway, it is Norway's National Constitution Day. But May 17th is also the day to celebrate the birth of Norway as an independent and unified nation, not only the release of its first constitution. In May 17th 1814, after 432 years under Danish rule, the Norwegians were independent from Denmark and released their own Constitution. The independence didn't last very long though, before the end of 1814 the Norwegians were forced under Swedish rule and remained unified to Sweden for nearly 100 years. During those years, under Swedish rule, Norway lived a life similar to that of Scotland, had status of a country, the structure of a country, the constitution, but was not independent to act accordingly internationally or politically. Norway was ruled by the Swedish king, was not allowed to establish embassies or to trade independently and had no political influence in the international scene whatsoever.

The Swedish king allowed Norway to keep its Constitution and the constitution was celebrated every May 17th as symbol of Norwegian independence and the birth of the nation. In June 7th 1905 Norway peacefully became independent from Sweden, crowned its own king and since then has followed the independent track. After more than 520 years of Danish and Swedish domination the Norwegians love and praise their independence as their greatest accomplishment and aim to remain this way. This need of independence certainly explains why Norwegians despise the European Union and wish to remain independent and it is exactly the independent spirit of the Norwegians that makes me love and admire them.

Around here there is a cake called Kvæfjordkaka read it as: Cake from the Kvae Fjord as a reference to the municipality where it was created Kvæfjorde.

This cake is known as Norway's national cake and is one of the cakes served on May 17th. The Kvae fjord cake was created in the years of 1920 and elected as one of the best cakes of all times in 1930. In 2002 it was elected Norway's National Cake in a poll organized by Norwegian television NRK. My darling Per says that this cake has different names around the country, but around here it is called Kvaefjorde cake.

Kvæfjord Cake (Kvæfjordkaka):

Cake:
6 egg yolks at room temperature
150g butter at room temperature
150g sugar
150g flour
70 ml milk
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Meringue

6 egg whites
400g sugar
50 g almond roughly processed
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

Filling
350 ml double cream
2 to 3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

How to:

Butter a 30X40cm cake pan, line parchment paper, butter the paper and set aside. Heat oven at 180C.

In a large clean metal or glass bowl whisk butter and sugar until white and fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time and keep whisking to incorporate yolks completely. Add part of the flour and mix to incorporate, add milk and keep mixing. Add second part of flour, baking powder and vanilla extract and mix some more to get a soft homogeneous batter. Spread batter in prepared pan forming a thin but leveled layer and reserve.

In a large bowl whisk egg whites until stiff. Add the sugar, in three or four parts, and continue to whisk until the whites have turned a stiff meringue. Add almonds (or hazelnuts) and vanilla extract (if using) and using a spatula mix softly to incorporate. Spread a thin layer of the meringue mixture over the raw cake batter on the prepared pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes at 180C or until a stick inserted comes out dry. Let the cake cool completely to add the filling and the frosting.

Divide the cake in two halves. Whip cream into a heavy chantilly and cover one part of the cake with the chantilly and some fruits (if using) and put the other half of the cake over the frosted one. Add more cream and fruits to the cake and serve it refrigerated.

Serves eight

The cake is cooling down

by the window...

The cake is halved....

One part goes to the plate and the other one waits...

the bottom layer gets a thin layer of cream and strawberries...

The second layer is positioned over the bottom layer...

more whipped cream and fruits to cover the second layer...

My Kvæfjord cake is ready to go to my in-laws lunch...

My cake being served at our family lunch table...

Meringue with fruits from another season...

2010-03-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

This morning a very dear friend called to let me know she was coming for a visit this afternoon. I was very happy they were coming for a visit, she's been away from Trondheim for more than three months and was very happy to finally meet her. I wanted to serve them a nice dessert but I had no idea which one would be. I was saved from confusion by four egg whites left in the fridge since Friday night when I made some vanilla pudding for the kids. I also had cream in the fridge so a meringue with cream and defrosted fruits would be our Sunday afternoon treat.

Meringue topped with cream and fruits is often called Pavlova but since I grew up calling it just meringue and cream I will keep calling it this way here. Please forgive me if I sound slightly indifferent to a dessert so dear to Aussies and Kiwis... Nothing personal.

I love meringues with red fruits, mainly strawberries (quite basic and obvious, I'm aware of that) but I had none at home. Instead, since I had loads of wonderful red fruits in the freezer, I topped my meringue with defrosted wild blueberries from the forest behind our house and organic raspberries we harvested in our garden last summer. We had a huge harvest of raspberries last summer and a large amount of those fruits were frozen in 2 kilos boxes. In total, I think, we froze more than 40 kilos of berries this summer, mostly wild blueberries. Right now we are left with one two kilo box, but for a while they seemed endless.

Meringue and whipped cream with fruits from another season

4 egg whites (around 120 grams)
250 grams sugar
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon tapioca (cassava) starch
zest of a lime (optional)

For the cream

300ml cream
1 or 2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)

How:

Pre heat oven to 160C/300F. Whisk the egg whites slowly, increasing the speed, until hard peaks form, add sugar, in small batches, and keep whisking until you get a stiff meringue. Add vinegar, starch and zest and using a metal or wood spoon stir to incorporate.

Spoon the meringue batter to form a 20cm diameter circle on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. The borders of the circle can be a little higher than the center. Place baking sheet in the oven and reduce the temperature to 140C/250F. Bake one hour or one hour, or until the meringue is dry and hard when touched. Turn off the oven and let the meringue cool inside the oven.

Pay close attention to the meringue in the oven, watch the temperature closely because you don't want a dark meringue. It will most likely lose its snow white color once it's baked but it should not get a dark tan. It is OK if it cracks on the side and top a little bit, you can hide the cracks with cream.

Serves 6 to 8

A toast of homemade drink to celebrate a special gift

2009-12-26T05:24:00.000-08:00

I am a liquor kind of girl and I love to sip small glasses filled with fruity and nutty liquors. This summer our two plum trees gave us the most wonderful harvest and I was able not only to eat kilos and more kilos of fresh fruit but also donate many baskets to friends and make all sorts of plum products I have ever dreamed of. I made jam, ice cream, spicy plum sauce, Chinese style and, of course, plum liquor. I used an Italian recipe, inspired on a recipe of bargnolino liquor, a fruit liquor from Parma. The result was just perfect. Can't wait for next harvest when I plan to produce at least four times more liquors jars.

We had a wonderful time opening the jars after the three months of maturation of the plum in cachaça and sugar. The perfume was amazing and the deep red color just made it more seductive. I just love my homemade liquor, nothing I make made me more proud. We drank loads of our homemade liquor during Christmas and we made a special toast to Deb, my new friend in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Let me explain: On the morning of December 23 I receive by post a very special Christmas gift from Deb, the owner of Kahakai Kitchen a blog full of amazing recipes and histories and she was my blogging by mail friend. How lucky am I to have her as friend? very lucky. After I show you all the delicious Hawaiian specialties she sent me you will understand.

The box was full of amazing stuff and I could see that she was very careful and detailed showing how much she cared not only for me but her love for Hawaiian products and flavors. Among the deliciousness there were:

The most amazing gift of the the box was this long desired album by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, a fantastic Hawaiian singer who I admired and longed to own. My new distant friend Deb knows more about me than she could ever imagine;

A diverse selection of Hawaiian macadamias; the honey roast and chocolate covered ones were my favorites...

A selection of Hawaiian flavors and specialities;

a very special vulcanic Hawaiian salt from Molokai island; I made a great impression to our guests during our New Years dinner with this salt, thanks Deb...

the most delicious Hawaiian honey made out of macadamia flowers, if Deb knew how much I love honey she would know how much I loved this one...

Some Japanese style spices which are deliciously strong and flavorful...

An incredible tea with the most suggestive name: Passion for Hawaii, again, if Deb knew how much I love Hawaii she wouldn't be able to put together a more perfect package for me...

Some 70% cocoa chocolate produced in Hawaii with Hawaiian cocoa beans, I loved it...

Delicious anti-bacterial hand made soap with incredible perfume...

The most delicious coconut lip balm, once more, if Deb knew how much I adore everything coconut..

Deb also sent us a beautiful calendar with gorgeous pictures for every month of the year. This will make us remember Deb and the beautiful Hawaiian islands along the year 2010... Estela loved the calendar so much that she chose where to hang it. It is in our kitchen and its pages are already filled with marks of our most special dates...

Deb, thank you so much, you can't imagine how much I loved everything you chose for me!

Plain Brazil nuts macarons

2009-11-23T09:25:00.000-08:00

Nuts speak to me and it definitely can explain why I am totally crazy for nuts, specially Brazil nuts, pistachios, cashew nuts and peanuts. But I also adore almonds and hazelnuts. I can cook everything with them and eat them everyday. Actually, I always have grounded nuts around so I sprinkle some toasted almonds, peanuts or Brazil nuts over ice creams, mousses or puddings as an extra flavor. I love caramelized nuts to and I regularly make pralinés with both whole and grounded nuts and they are amazing.

I love nut-based biscuits such as amaretti, basler brünsli and macarons for example. There is something about the mixture of wiped egg whites and nuts which makes me totally amazed. This time I made macarons using grounded toasted Brazil nuts and the result is so incredibly good that I just couldn't stop eating them straight out of the oven. Once baked the macarons keep the dense and strong aroma of the Brazil nuts which reminds me of home and I feel more homesick than I actually am...

The macarons were made with the nuts a friend brought me from home some months ago and I saved them very tight because I just feel like saving some of the good things from home that I have until the day I can actually get some more, or buy some more, to replace my small stocks. Since I will be traveling soon and a good friend has already sent me some more nuts I could relax and enjoy my last box of nuts..

I love macarons without any filling, just plain as I find that most of the fillings can be pretty dominant, extremely sweet and disturb the light flavor of the macarons' shells. The shells are very sweet by nature as it is nothing but a nutty meringue, but I love the way they are. So, even if had planned to make an orange ganache to fill Brazil nut macarons, I just didn't make it and ate them like this.

I think it will fit wonderfully with some citrus filling, maybe next time I will go for it. Besides I find it really boring the process of macaron filling and I think they loose their texture once filled and become a little bit mushy after a couple of days. It resists a lot better if the shells are kept unfilled.

Brazil nuts Macarons

100 grams of egg whites (approximately 3 egg whites which must be aged for a couple of days at room temperature)
30 grams sugar
125 grams grounded Brazil nuts
200 grams confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

How:

First separate the egg whites and leave them covered on the counter at room temperature for two or even three days).

On the day you plan to make the macarons process the nuts and confectioners sugar in a food processor until well grounded, sift the mixture oncee, sift it again to remove all the big pieces of nuts. Line two or three large cookie pans with parchment paper and set aside.

In the bowl of a electric mixer beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the granulated sugar, one table spoon at a time and let the mixer continue beating until you have a glossy meringue.

Add the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture to the meringue in three or four parts folding until the dry ingredients were completely incorporated to the meringue and your don't have any more white parts in the batter. Make a test to check the batter. Put a teaspoon of batter on the corner of one of the prepared pans and if the batter flattens immediately you are ready if it form rustic peaks you still have to fold the batter couple of times more.

Once it is ready put the batter in a pastry bag, or a plastic bag, and pipe the batter to a diameter of three centimeters on the prepared pans. Let the piped macarons stand in room temperature for 15 to 30 minutes, while your oven is heating. You can sprinkle some nuts over the shells, before they dry completely. I sprinkled some of the bigger pieces of nuts which didn't pass through the sieve. You can also sprinkle some sugar or any other grounded spice or nut.

Bake the shells for 10 minutes at 150 C/275F in a preheated oven. It is important to turn the pans halfway through for a more equal baking.

Makes 60-70 shells (30-35 filled macarons)

Iced mate with pomegranate juice

2009-11-14T15:21:00.000-08:00

Mate is my favorite cold drink and it reminds me of Brazil and those very hot days on the beach, in Rio de Janeiro, when happiness was easily confused with a glass of iced mate shaken with some lemon juice and served with manioc starch biscuits. As time went by I started to appreciate mate blended with passion fruit juice or cashew fruit pulp and lots of ice cubes.

For those of you used to drink green hot mate, I am sorry, I know iced mate might sound a little bit crazy, almost like a crime but it is so good, deliciously fresh and seductive with its smoky aroma and I just can't resist. If you don't know anything about mate it is an amazing and delicious South American herb which is drunk by native Americans since long before the arrival of the first European colonists. It is a delicious drink, hot or cold...

Iced mate with pomegranate juice

1 liter of water
2 tablespoons of roasted mate or black tea
one big and ripe pomegranate
1 tbsp of sugar (use more or less if you prefer)
Ice, lots of ice cubes

How:

In a pan boil one liter of water and once it is boiled add the mate and let it in infusion until it cools completely. After the infusion has cooled put in a jug and transfer it to the fridge. When you are prepared to serve transfer the chilled infusion to a blender, add the pomegranate pulp, the sugar, ice and blend it for 30 seconds as you don't want to smash the pomegranate seeds too much. Pass the mixture through a sieve, discard the solids and serve the drink with lots of ice cubes.

Serves 4

Autumn colors and pistachio raspberry financiers

2009-10-21T23:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I will make things clear, I detest autumn and its changes but at the same time I can show appreciation for the different shades of yellow, red and brown of the leaves, while hanging the trees before they sadly fall on the ground. Naked trees are terribly sad, almost depressing, half dead, a waste of productive time. Ok, hate me, I just can't get over my tropical senses and appreciate the beauty of season changes. Hate me, no I can't. On a sunny day it all looks reasonable and the shades of yellow so totally won me over. It is deep blue and deep yellow that I am talking about.

Meanwhile, I have a question for you. Among all the nuts you love which on you hate the most? I hate pistachios because I always cut my skin trying to break their shell, how dangerous pistachios shells are? I just can't find reasonably priced peeled pistachios, without salt of course. Around here they just cost too much and come in very small portions, not for cooking, it is designed as a snack. If you want a lot of pistachios because you are going to ground them and bake cakes with them, you have to peel them yourself, that's what they think around here...

We are planning a party around here, I can't give much details as someone might sneak around here to learn all the details of our surprise plans. However, trying to prepare myself to all the work involved I started preparing some tart doughs and baked some batches of pistachio and raspberries financiers. After the little cakes cooled down they went straight to the freezer where they will stay until party day, some 10 days away. Financiers are just the perfect cake to be frozen, they keep the texture and the flavor pretty much the same.

Pistachio and Raspberry Financiers

100 grams unsalted butter
1/2 cup finely grounded pistachios
3/4 cup flour
1 cup confectioners sugar
4 egg whites
Scraps of half vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1/2 cup of fresh or frozen raspberries

How:

Butter twelve muffin cups or small financier molds and set aside. In a small pan melt butter with vanilla scraps and let them cook until golden brown (beurre-noisette), keep you eye on the butter until it is cooked as it can burn very easily and you will have to start again. Once it smell nutty and delicious remove it from heat and set aside.

In a food processor ground the pistachios with, flour and sugar. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. In a large bowl whisk egg whites with pinch of salt using a whisk (fouet) until foamy. Add the flour mixture, in batches, until well incorporated. If using vanilla extract add the vanilla extract and mix. Finally add the butter while it is still warm and mix to incorporate it into the batter completely. Divide the batter in the prepared pans and add two raspberries to each one of them. Bake the cake in a hot oven, at 180C/300F, for 15 minutes or until golden on the edge of the financiers. Sprinkle some confectioners sugar on top of cakes before serving.

Makes 12 cakes.

Homemade Dried Plums

2009-10-09T03:42:00.000-07:00

In our garden we have two big plum trees, a small tree growing besides and some new trees are expected to join these group soon as many seeds were thrown around the area these last couple of years. The two producing trees have provided us with buckets and more buckets of plums and I almost freaked out trying to find different and interesting uses for all the plums we picked this year. Besides the obligatory distribution of fruits to family members and friends I made some fantastic dishes with our little cherry plums. We also picked some delicious yellow plums in our neighbors garden which were also included in the recipes.

In case some of you can read Portuguese, I have links to all the recipes of my plum adventure.

Oat and plum crumble pie
Two colors plums jam
Plum yogurt cake
Sweet sour plum sauce
Plum Liquor
Plum yogurt ice cream

It was a great fun to learn how to dry plums at home since I don't own a dehydrator and I used my conventional oven to do the job. All the instructions I found referred to the use of dehydrators so I had to invent and experiment with the oven. I learned that with a proper machine it would take 12 hours to dry big plums and it took more than 24 hours to dry my little plums. Besides the energy costs, which were seriously considered, there weren't any other inconvenient in the job, on the contrary, it was amazing to eat my homemade plums which looked a lot more like big sized raisins than prunes.

My prunes were small, because my plums were small pink ones, but they taste like the best prunes I have ever tried. They are sweet, tasty, soft and juicy ans I selected the best plums to be dried. It is fundamental that the plums to be dried are ripe but not over riped, washed and dried so the natural wax of the fruits is slightly removed. Our trees are totally organic, never received any chemical additive or fertilizers and we happily share our yearly harvest with birds, snails and insets in general who mostly prefer our strawberries and for that reason we had a huge production this year. The dried prunes can be caned in sterilized jars and they can last, unfortunately not as long as jam but they can resist pretty well protected from humidity and heat.

Drying plums

3 to 4 cups of perfectly ripe plums
1 dry and clean big sheet pan

How:

Transfer plums to pan let them dry in a previously heated oven at 80C for 12 hours. Check the fruits and if they are inflated with air make some holes on theirs skins with a tooth pick or a fork. Let them dry for another 12 hours and they will be dry but juicy and soft. If your plums are bigger and still didn't reach the perfect staged after 24 hours let them cook another 6 hours checking every two hours to certify that they did not over dry. Transfer to sterilized jars and keep the jars in cool dry places.

Drying plums at home is an act of love and patience but you will be reward with the most sweet and tasty prunes you ever tried. Good prunes require extremely good, sweet and ripe plums. Try eating your home made prunes with natural yogurt and a drizzly of honey, it is my favorite way to enjoy prunes.

Cocoa and almonds cookies for a favorite cake

2009-09-30T01:07:00.000-07:00

Cookies can be a great addition to cake or torte recipes. Regularly used to make tart and pie crusts they can also be used as a substitute to flours in many cake recipes. In this cake I added grounded homemade amarettis to the cake dough and reduced the amount of almonds and . The cake has a kind of financier style however, instead of using egg whites only I used whole eggs. The result is a light, crunchy and very nutty and aromatic cake that tastes better if eaten on the same day.

Cocoa and amarettis teacakes
(250 ml cup)

100 grams butter
1/4 cup of grounded almonds
1/4 cup grounded chocolate amaretti (12 cookies)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

How:

How:

Butter twelve small muffin cups or tartelette molds and set aside. In a small pan melt butter let it cook until golden brown (beurre-noisette), keep you eye on the butter until it is cooked as it can burn very easily and you will have to start again. Once it smell nutty and has a beautiful golden color remove it from heat and set aside.

In a food processor ground the almond with the amarettis, cocoa powder, flour and sugar. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. In a large bowl whisk the eggs using a whisk (fouet) until foamy. Add the flour mixture, in batches, until well incorporated. If using vanilla extract add the vanilla extract and mix. Finally add the butter while it is still warm and mix to incorporate it into the batter completely. Divide the batter in the prepared pans. Bake the cake in a hot oven, at 180C/300F, for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Sprinkle some confectioners sugar on top of cakes before serving.

Makes 12 cakes.

Chocolate Amaretti

1 cup grounded almond
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 large egg whites
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon of Disaronno almond liquor or natural almond extract
pinch of salt
Sugar to roll the cookies

Preheat the oven at 180C/350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats and set aside. In a food processor ground the almonds with confectioners sugar and the cocoa powder. Whisk the egg whites with salt until foamy, add two tablespoons of sugar and whisk until soft peaks form. Add liquor. Add flour mixture to egg whites mixture and stir until incorporated. With a teaspoon spoon small amounts on the prepared sheets, sprinkle crystal sugar over the cookies. Bake for 15 minutes.

Makes approximately 60 cookies

My homemade plum liquor

2009-09-24T12:13:00.001-07:00

Inspired by the most amazing plum harvest and a recipe for Italian liquor Bargnolino, a plum liquor from Parma ( just like the ham and the cheese) I made some plum liquor. We have two beautiful plum trees in our garden and the liquor was just one of the many plum products we produced this year.

I found a very simple recipe to make Bargnolino and I was finally able to make my own version of Plum Liquor. I love fruity and nutty liquors and we drink liquors quite often and currently my favorite is Disaronno another Italian liquor and maybe for this reason I can say I normally prefer Italian liquors to French ones.

However, my greatest inspiration are the Brazilian fruit liquors made with cachaça such as graviola , jabuticaba , pitanga and genipapo which are as old as the first cachaças which were first marketed in the first half of the 16th century.

The Italian recipe asked for pure alcohol but I prefer more flavored drink and I used cachaça which is perfect for liquors as, depending on the type of cachaça used, it also add a subtle or even strong flavor of sugar cane on the end. I just love cachaça based liquors and I hope this one will be the perfect one for me. Now I have to wait until the end of December, shaking the my jars every week to make sure the liquor gets the best out of the plums and the sugar...

Plum liquor
Inspired by the liquor Bargnolino

Version 1:

1 Kg of small sloe plums
450 grams of sugar
500 ml of pure cachaça
3 freshly emptied vanilla pods

How:

Sterilize two jars with one liter capacity or one big jars with two liters capacity by boiling the jars for 10 minutes. Wash the lids and dip them in boiling water and set them aside. The jars must have 2 liters or 1 liter capacity.

Place the fruits in the jars filling the jar up the top but don't overcrowd it, leave 2-3 cms from the top. Place the open deseeded vanilla beans between the fruits. Add the sugar over the fruits and vanilla beans (seeds). Fill the jars with cachaça, just enough to cover the fruits. Close the jar without pressing and let the mixture set in a dark, dry spot in your kitchen for 90 days. You will have to shake the mixture everyday during the first week and once a week during until the end of the 90 days. The shaking is very important to help the integration of sugar and alcohol in the mixture.

After the 90 days of infusion you must filter the drink through a clean and boiled cheese cloth and with the help of a funnel transfer the drink to a clean glass or divide it among smaller washed, boiled and dried jars. Makes around 700ml of liquor.

The liquor can be kept closed for long periods of time but the exact time depends on the conditions of production, storage and bottling.

Obs. 1 The final amount of alcohol needed to fill the jars will depend on the amount of sugar and fruit you have used. It may vary according to the form of jar and your preference for sugar...

Obs. 2 You can use pure alcohol but if you are in Brazil use the best organic cachaça you can find...

Obs. 3 In December I will return to show my liquor...

Obs. 4 There are thousands of ways to make liquors at home and you can use any type of alcoholic beverage to make liquor, choose the one you like best and just go for it...

Guava and tapioca thumbprint cookies

2009-09-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

This is one of the most traditional of the Brazilian cookies, I am not afraid to say that it may be the favorite nationwide. Whether made of manioc starch (cassava) or corn starch it is always very buttery, dense, crunchy and melts in your mouth. Besides, it has the most powerful guava aroma. According to me, guava is the most powerful aroma of the tropics, a strong and distinctive perfume which make this fruit unique.

In more temperate zones fruits like strawberries and raspberries have a powerful flavor-aroma and color which can be used in many other food recipes. The red guava, I dare to say, has the same power as those red berries. Guava jam and guava compote are regularly used as fillings in cookies and cakes. In my opinion, the only fruit sauce to match the power of the red berries is guava sauce. I made some guava jam thumbprint cookies with manioc starch and they were delicious.

Guava Thumbprint cookies

is gluten free

(250ml cup)

100 grams butter in room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups tapioca starch
1 egg
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
80 grams guava jam

How:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line with parchment paper two baking sheets.

In the bowl beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat some more. Add flour to mixture, one half cup at a time, beating until well combined to make a very soft dough. Eventually, and depending on the humidity in your kitchen, you may not need to add all the starch. Keep your eyes open, but in case the dough gets too dry add some drops of milk to soften.

Make small balls of dough and place balls on parchment-lined baking sheet. Make a deep indentation in the center of each ball with your finger or bottom of a thick wooden spoon and fill them with a small spoonful of jam.

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until light golden on the edges. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Makes 50 cookies

Passion fruit mousse with milk caramel in a bath of milk chocolate

2009-09-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

Last week I was totally seduced by the image of a passion fruit semifrio (semifreddo) I saw on blog Mesa para 4. The picture of the semifreddo was really attractive and I had to try it myself. I changed a couple of things in the recipe, for example, I substituted the 400ml of sweet condensed milk for 200 grams of milk caramel and I used passion fruit flavored gelatin instead of pineapple flavored gelatin.

This recipe was recently published on Mesa para 4 inspired in a recipe published on Portuguese food site Sabor Intenso which I had never heard before and I was quite pleased to find. This mousse is a very simple type of "juice-cream-and-gelatin-mousse" which is very popular in Brazil. Passion fruit mousse and passion fruit mousse tarts are, or better, remain among the most popular desserts in Brazil of the last 20 years and I just can't resist to try it again. Passion fruit and chocolate is just irresistible...

Passion fruit mousse with milk caramel in a bath of milk chocolate

400 ml pure passion fruit juice
500 ml heavy cream
200 grams milk caramel (doce de leite)
250 ml boiling water
2 sachets of passion fruit flavor gelatin (each sachet for 500ml liquid)

How:

In a saucepan dissolve the gelatin with the boiling water and let it cool. Meanwhile in a large bowl whisk milk caramel with passion fruit juice until totally incorporated. Add the cooled gelatin to juice-caramel mixture. Whip the cream until soft peaks. Add the cream to the caramel-gelatin mixture, in batches and with a spatula fold to incorporate cream completely. Divide into ramekins, glasses or pudding pans. Refrigerate for 4 to 6 hours. Serve with milk chocolate sauce.

Serves 10

Milk chocolate sauce

200 grams milk chocolate (I used with 40% cocoa)
200 ml low fat milk
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

How:

Cut chocolate into small bits and set aside. In a heavy bottom saucepan over medium heat bring milk and cocoa powder to a boil whisking to incorporate. Once mixture boils reduce heat to low and start adding the chocolate bits whisking to melt the chocolate completely. Remove from heat and whisk vigorously until chocolate is totally melted. Let it cool slightly and serve with the passion fruit mousse.

Strawberry and amburana macarons

2009-08-27T00:18:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been thinking a lot about amburana as I see the recipes the girls have made after they received their packages of amburana seeds. I love these seeds so much not only for their amazing flavor and perfume but for their amazing healing powers. Amburana can really help troubled stomachs and I have been using them on my milk every night and it feels so good. I used to boil some vanilla seeds in my milk but have totally substituted vanilla for amburana seeds for their fantastic medicinal effects, amazing flavor and cost much cheaper.

The strawberry macaron is the result of a strawberry confectioners sugar I found on the other day. The first time I saw the box in the supermarket I was suspicious but after that I just could not ignore their boxes anymore and just had to buy it even if I don't like artificially colored macarons.

There is a complication in using the strawberry confectioners sugar because it is not pure sugar and it contains some parts of potato starch. However, since the regular confectioners sugar is not pure either and also contains potato starch in it, I didn't find it a real threat to the macarons as I have been using non pure sugar all this time since I neither have proper equipment to produce extra fine sugar nor the intention to produce it.

The kids loved the strawberry flavored macarons and were really interested to tell me that they had enjoyed them very much. I filled the shell with a thick amburana pastry cream, (Crème Pâtissière) worked just perfect for the filling. I was a little concerned about the results but it was very pretty satisfying. The hard part is to form the pairs. I normally form the pairs but I don't fill them all immediately, I usually fill half a dozen or eight of them ( one or two for each of us) and I fill the others as we wish some more. I don't like filled macarons to stand more than 24 hours outside the refrigerator, they don't taste the same in my opinion...

Strawberry and amburana macarons

Inspired by all those recipes available at Pure Gourmandise which offers around 79 different flavors of macarons to tempt my life...

100 grams of egg whites (around 3 egg whites)
30 grams sugar
125 grams almond flour (grounded almonds)
200 grams confectioners sugar ( I used 100 grams of strawberry confectioners sugar and 100 grams of regular confectioners sugar)

How:

There are many blogs and sites which explain how to make the right macaron but I will describe here the simple way I use to make them which is pretty much inspired by this post as I don't make with Italian meringue, I prefer the simple light French meringue. You can also check this this post and these ones.

First separate the egg whites and leave them covered (well there are mosquitos even here, in Norway) on the counter at room temperature for one, two or even three days).

On the day you plan to make the macarons process the almonds and confectioners sugar in a food processor until well grounded, sift the mixture one, sift it again to remove all the big pieces of almond from the flour and set aside. Line two large cookie pans with parchment paper and set aside.

In the bowl of a electric mixer beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the granulated sugar, one table spoon at a time and let the mixer continue beating until you have a glossy meringue.

Add the flour mixture to the meringue in three or four parts folding until the dry ingredients were completely incorporated and you have no more white parts of meringue apparents. Make a test to check the batter. Put a teaspoon of batter on the pan and if the batter flattens immediately you are ready if it form peaks you still have to fold the batter couple of times more.

Put the batter in a pastry bag and pipe the batter to a diameter of two centimeters on the prepared pans. Let the piped macarons stand in room temperature for 15 to 30 minutes, while your oven is heating.

Bake for about 10 at 140-160 C oven in preheated oven. It is important to turn the pans halfway through for a more equal baking.

Makes 60 shells (30 filled macarons)

Amburana pastry cream

500 ml milk
6 amburana seeds
4 egg yolks
6 tablespoons of sugar
4 tablespoons of corn starch

How:

In a heavy bottom saucepan over low heat cook milk and amburana seeds until the infusion boils. Set aside and let it stand for 15 minutes. In another heavy bottomed saucepan whisk yolks with sugar until you have a double size mixture very light color. Add corn starch and whisk some more to incorporate. Remove and discard the amburana seeds from milk infusion. Warm the infused milk again and before it starts to boils add one part of milk to yolk mixture whisking vigorously to incorporate. Add the rest of the milk to the yolk mixture whisky vigorously. Transfer pan to stove and cook the mixture for a couple of minutes over medium heat or until it starts to thicken. Once it boils remove it from heat, transfer to a glass bowl, cover with plastic film and let it cool completely before using. It can be kept refrigerated for up 5 days.

Images of a summer...

2009-08-13T12:56:00.000-07:00

Before I can allow myself to move into chocolates and the density of the cold seasons I revisited my photo archive to check my spring-summer production. Strong colors, fruits, flowers and flavors which will not be forgotten...

Blueberry panna cotta and raspberry gelatin...

2009-08-03T06:12:00.000-07:00

We just came back from an amazing week in Sundsvall, on the coast of Sweden. The weather was OK, not exceptionally warm but sunny most of the time and very little rain during some of the nights. In Sundsvall we stayed in a lovely camping place where we set our tent couple of metres away from the sea, a beautiful sand beach. The children loved it and we did have some fun too.

I was planning to write a post about this week trip, analyze the subtle differences between Norway and Sweden but I can feel the weight of summer on my back right now and I just can't avoid the laziness which strikes me. The servings around here are quite lazy too, motivated by simplicity and the fruits for free we pick around the garden. Yesterday we had some friends for dinner and I managed to serve blueberry panna cotta for the grown ups and raspberry jelly for the kids.

I made a traditional panna cotta made out of cooked cream. However, I must confess that I prefer fake panna cotta, those without heavy cream. My fake panna cottas are made out of milk and yogurt only and I have learned to enjoy the lightness of the milk and the yogurt a lot more than the heavily fat cream. Do it as you like it...

Blueberries and Yogurt Panna Cotta

500 ml cream
6 tsp sugar
200 ml vanilla yogurt or natural
Scraps of a vanilla pod (just in case you don't have vanilla yogurt)
300g blueberries
4 teaspoons or sheets of gelatin
Chocolate shavings or fresh fruits to decorate

How to:

In a small saucepan heat the cream, the vanilla scraps (if using) and the sugar. Let the cream cook stirring all the time until the mixture boils. Meanwhile sprinkle the gelatin powder over 1/4 cup of water and let it soften for some minutes. If using sheets let the sheets soften in water and squeeze the sheets after some minutes. Add the gelatin (whatever type you are using) to the cream and whisk until the gelatin has completely dissolved. Once gelatin is dissolved let it cool completely.

Put the blueberries in a food processor or blender and pulse them until you get a smooth puree. Pour the fruit puree through a sieve into a bowl. Add the yogurt to the fruit in the bowl and whisk to incorporate fruit and yogurt. When the cream has cooled to body temperature add the cream to the fruit-yogurt mixture and whisk well to incorporate totally. Divide up the into six to eight cups or molds (depending on the size of the cup or ramekin you are using).

Refrigerate for three to four hours before serving. You can decorate your panna cottas with chocolate shavings or fresh fruits.

To remove the panna cottas from their cups just dip the bottom of the cups into a bowl of hot water, shake a little bit the cup to make sure the sides are released and flip the cup over on a plate. If you prefer, you can oil the cups a little before filling them with the cream mixture as it can helps to transfer the panna cottas.

Raspberry gelatin

4 (four) cups of fresh raspberries (you can use strawberries, red currants or any other red fruit)
1/2 cup of sugar (add more if you prefer sweeter)
1 cup cold water + 1/2 cup to softens gelatin
2 tablespoons lemon juice
5 teaspoons of gelatin powder or agar-agar

How:

In a bowl of a blender or food processor puree the raspberries with sugar and one cup of cold water. Put the mixture through a fine sieve and transfer it to a big bowl. Add the lemon juice and whisk well. Transfer two cups of the juice mixture to a sauce pan and let it boil over medium heat. Meanwhile let the gelatin soften in half cup of cold water. Add the softened gelatin to the boiled juice and whisk well until gelatin is completely melted. Mix boiled juice with remaining cold juice and whisk well to incorporate the mixtures. Divide the liquid between 10 to 12 cups.

Refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours or over night before serving.
Serve with fresh raspberries or strawberries. I used wild strawberries from our garden.

Serves 10 to 12.

Passion fruit fondant with home made condensed milk

2009-07-13T06:26:00.000-07:00

The fruits in the our garden are in a slow pace and it seems that our fruits will not be ripe for human consumption before August, meanwhile the birds and other living creatures have all the flavors for themselves. Some of the red currants and strawberries have already been picked and eaten as some of them have reached the most irresistible red look. Raspberries, apples and plums will take their time and make us wait some more.

Among the growing fruits we have some beautiful yellow flowers which flower rather late and I still don't know their name. They are everywhere these days, together with the orange lilies. Every year I make some huge bouquets with the yellow flowers and place them in an old milk tin by the front door. I think they look amazing.

I am aware that passion fruits are not very common in the Nordic summer but I have manage to put my hands on some of the most amazing bottle of concentrate passion fruit. The juice can be used in many different desserts and is pretty useful in the pantry. It made a gorgeous fondant. Fondant is the French word used to define the water and sugar based frosting used to decorate cakes but it is also used to define more dense and creamy cakes, sort of flour less cakes. The passion fruit fondant made out of concentrate unsweetened passion fruit juice was delicious, intense and tangy. I love it. I served it with some strawberries, red currants and milk chocolate sauce.

Passion fruit fondant (Bolo cremoso de maracujá)

400ml home made condensed milk (see recipe below)
200 ml pure passion fruit juice
200 ml cream with medium amounts of fat content
4 eggs
2 table spoons of corn starch

How to:

Butter six to eight small ramekins with butter, sprinkle sugar on them and put aside. In a large bowl or in the jar of a blender whisk/blend the condensed milk, the cream, the passion fruit juice. Add eggs, one at a time, whisking after each addition. Sift the starch and add it, whisking to incorporate completely. Divide the batter on prepared ramekins and bake at 160C for 20 to 30 minutos or until the stick comes out dry.

Serve with berries, fruits or chocolate sauce.

Condensed milk
(Adapted from here).

1 cup of 250 ml of milk powder
1 cup de 250 ml of sugar
1/2 cup (125ml) of boiling water
1 table spoon of unsalted butter at room temperature

How to:

In a glass bowl whisk together milk powder and sugar. Add the boiling water and whisk well to melt milk powder and sugar and incorporate completely. Add butter and whisk to melt completely. Let it stand on the counter top cool before taking it to refrigerator. Use it after it's been in the refrigerator for 3 or 4 hours.

If the mixture looks too thick you can always add a couple of spoons of boiling water and whisk some more.

As red as peach jam

2009-06-29T13:06:00.000-07:00

Last week I bought two boxes of beautiful Spanish peaches and even though they were sweet and tasty they were simply too many. Since we couldn't finish them all a jam was definitely a noble end to those fruits. I love peach jams and I suspect that is the main reason why I always buy too many peaches and have plenty of peaches for my jams. Two boxes of peaches in a house full of other fruits were more than our little family could eat, specially considering that Per recently became allergic to peaches.

I make peach jam mostly for me, and I eventually share some jars with a lovely Brazilian friend who also loves peach jam. We like to eat the jam with Maria cookies. Not the best cookie in the world, not at all, but they fit so well with peaches.

I keep the skins on the fruits to make the jam and it might shock some people but I simply adore the red color provided by skin. The skin of the peaches also carry a lot of sugars which contributes to give a more intense flavor. In this jam I used both yellow and white Spanish peaches and they were both amazing but excessively ripe to please the kids.

Red peach jam

8 ripe peaches (aproximately 300 grams)
7 tablespoons of sugar
3 tablespoons of water

How:

Wash the peaches and brush the skins a little bit. Half the fruits, remove the stones and chop the halves in small peaces. In a small saucepan over medium heat boil peaches and sugar. Once the mixture boils reduce the heat to low and let it cooks for 20 minutes, mixing every now and then. If the mixture looks too dry, or too thick, add some tablespoons of water and mix once more. The jam is ready when the skins and the flesh of the peaches have disintegrated totally forming an homogeneous red mixture. Remove from heat and let it cool before serving.

Avocado cream with strawberry sauce

2009-05-31T09:29:00.001-07:00

I have the feeling that at least half of my body is made of avocados. It is out of this world the amount of avocado that I have eaten in my life so far. Most of it as smoothie, what in Brazil we named as vitaminas. I also love avocado mixed with vanilla ice cream or avocado ice cream. Avocado cream has always been one of my father's favorite dessert and my mother always made it for us.

Avocados trees were everywhere in Rio de Janeiro. In the house where I grew up we had some huge avocado trees, in my grandmother house as well and in the house we lived in São Paulo we had four avocado trees which produced an unimaginable amount of fruits per tree. I used to distribute avocados all the time but it was just impossible to cope with the trees as they produced just too many fruits. Everybody had their trees and on the end we just couldn't pick them and there were avocados everywhere around the garden. Happy were birds there.

Here where I live now the most common way of eating avocados is on salads or the Japanese California roll. Eventually avocados also find their way into guacamoles, one of the avocado dishes that I don't like.

On the other hand I like avocado desserts immensely. I remember surprised faces in my house one evening, when I served avocado cream with raspberry sauce to some of our Norwegian friends. They were not prepared to find avocado in desserts. It still surprises me that people have never tried avocado ice creams of avocado smoothies. It is just soooo good, with honey and little smash of lime juice and its ready to go. It can also be added some brown sugar, regular white sugar or any kind of sweeteners. Today I served the cream with strawberry sauce and it was just perfect.

Avocado cream with strawberry sauce

2 small ripe avocados or one large Brazilian avocado
2 or 3 scoops of good quality vanilla ice cream (depends of the size of the avocado)
3 table spoons of milk (depends of the size of the avocado)
One teaspoon of lime juice
Sugar or honey (optional)

How:

Spoon the avocados into the bowl of food processor, or a blender, with the lime juice and pulse. Add the milk and pulse a couple of times more. Add the ice cream am process until you get a thick and homogeneous cream. Try the mixture to check the sugars. If you like it more sweet add a couple of spoons of sugar or honey. Serve immediately.

Serves 2 or 3

Strawberry sauce

100 grams of washed strawberries
3 to 4 table spoons of sugar
3 table spoons of water

In a small saucepan bring strawberries with sugar and water to a boil and let it cook until very soft, around 5 minutes. Pass the liquid through a strainer and let it cool before serving.

The flowers in our garden are on their best. We are totally in love with the lilacs right now.

Milk, honey and vanilla bean jelly

2009-04-26T07:03:00.000-07:00

It does not take more than a good quality vanilla bean and few spoonfuls of sugar, honey and gelatin powder to make an amazing milk dessert. Pure flavor and simplicity. I love it. Besides you can add some sweet and tasty Spanish strawberries to make a perfect pair.

Milk, honey and vanilla bean jelly

800 ml fat free milk + half cup to soften the gelatin
100 ml honey
60 grams sugar
Scraps of one vanilla bean (pod)
4 teaspoons of unflavored gelatin powder

How:

Separate 6 ramekins or glasses. In a small bowl sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup of cold milk and let it soften. Meanwhile, in a medium pan over medium heat, mix milk, honey, sugar and vanilla scraps and mix it until the mixture boils. Remove from heat once it boils and add the softened gelatin to the boiled milk mixture mixing it well to help the gelatin to dissolve completely. Bring the pan back to medium heat stirring it until it boils again. Divide cream among ramekins or glasses and let them cool outside the refrigerator (fridge). After mixture is cool refrigerate for 3 or 4 hours before serving.

You can serve the milk gelatins on plates. To transfer milk gelatins just warm the bottom of the ramekins or glasses in warm water, put a plate over the ramekin and turn the gelatin upside down, over the plate.

Serve with fruit sauces (coulis), jams or fresh fruits.

Serves 6

(clique sobre a imagem para ver as fotos em tamanho grande)

Saturday night fish: salmon tartar

2009-04-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

I love fish tartar and my favorite is tuna tartar. Differently from Rio, where I normally find fresh tuna, Trondheim doesn't have fresh tuna. Tuna is a high seas kind of fish and not a Norwegian type of fish. Hope this does not sound as complain because it is not. There are lots of different and fantastic fish in Norway, as everybody already knows, and I love them too. I make tartar using the freshest salmon one can get and it is just delicious.

Tartar is a French dish slightly similar to Peruvian ceviche and Syrian-Lebanese raw kibe as these dishes are cooked in lime juice but also bears some similarities with Japanese sashimi, specially if served with a soy based Japanese style sauce.

Tartar is a very simple dish, just like sashimi, ceviche and raw kibe and I made it even simpler as I didn't add egg to the mixture. Not all tartar recipes list an egg, but some of them do. I make tartar with nothing but freshly squeezed lime juice, French spring onions, shallots, salt and pepper. You can serve with a creme fraiche or yogurt based sauce but my obsession with Japanese cuisine stops me from eating tartar the French way since I definitely prefer the Japanese soy based sauce with lime juice, ginger, garlic, sesame seeds and more spring onions.

Salmon tartar

250 grams fresh salmon filet
1 tablespoon chopped spring onion (cut in very small pieces)
1 tablespoon chopped shallot (cut in very small pieces)
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
salt and pepper

How:

Cut salmon in small dices;

Chop spring onions and shallot. Mix salmon, onions in a glass bowl. Add lime juice, salt and pepper and toss well.

Let the mixture stand for couple of minutes and divide the fish in small potions and serve with white toast or any kind of bread you like.

If you prefer you can slice some cucumber and roll the spoonfuls of tartar with the cucumber and serve them as a roll in a plate with some sauce.

Japanese style sauce

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
4 tablespoons shoyu (Japanese soy sauce)
4 tablespoons nam pla (fish sauce)
1/2 teaspoon grated garlic
1 teaspoon spring onions
1 teaspoon toasted white sesame seed
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

Squeeze few tablespoons of juice from some of the best Brazilian limes,

Add some tablespoons of shoyu and nam pla (photo),

Add French spring onions, ginger,

white sesame seeds et voilá

Serve the sauce with the tartar.

If you prefer serve the tartar in cucumber rolls. Just slice the cucumber with a cheese slicer or a mandoline.

My floating islands

2009-03-29T14:21:00.000-07:00

It is always the same story. Some eggs and I. Eggs, sugar and I, together, forever and ever. This time the eggs were separated, baked into meringues which were served floating in custard. Floating islands is the kind of dessert which reminds me of my grandmother's house, long weekends in the country side visiting family and friends. As soon as I found this recipe with the most beautiful islands I have ever seen I knew I had to make some islands myself.

Terrible thing gluttony, to be moved by greedy hungry eyes and the desire to try some food. I am not proud. Anyway, I follow the recipe in details except for the fact that I did not use chamomile in the custard and I flavored the meringue with lime zest. The result looked good but was a little bit too sweet for our taste.

The original recipe of Floating Islands

For the islands:

4 (150 grams) egg whites
300 grams sugar
Zests of 1/2 lime
Pinch of salt
Butter for the ramekins

For the custard (creme anglaise)

6 egg yolks
500 ml milk
100 grams sugar
Scraps of half vanilla pod

How:

In a bowl over boiling water whisk egg whites, salt and sugar until the sugar starts to melt and the egg whites turn shiny and white. Remove bowl from heat and whisk the egg whites until stiff meringue are formed. Add lime zest and whisk a little more. Butter six small ramekins and divide the meringue among them. Bake at 140C in a hot water bath covered with aluminum foil for 30 minutes.

Custard (creme anglaise)

In a saucepan boil the milk with half of the sugar and the scraps of the vanilla pod. In another bowl beat yolks with the other half of the sugar. Add milk to egg yolks whisking vigorously so the yolks do not curdle. Return the mixture to heat and cook until 84C or until the custard coats the back of the spoon. Remove from heat, let it cool and refrigerate.

Serves 6

Observation: I think the custard ended up with a very strong taste of yolk even if I am a raw egg eater and I like the taste of sweet yolks. I think six yolks was too many for 500ml milk. Next time I will go back to my custard recipe with a reduced number of yolks and some teaspoons of corn starch to thickens the cream.

(the custard was divided in small ramekins and baked in water bath for 40 minutes at 160C and became creme brulées)

Imagine the best dessert in the world today

2009-03-25T15:16:00.000-07:00

Imagine the best dessert in the world. What color will it have? Mine is red and white... just the one in the picture.

Imagine tapioca pearls cooked in milk, coconut milk, granulated sugar and scraps of a Tahitian vanilla bean.

Imagine the best South African red plums you can eat in this life;

Grab these sweet plums and make the best fruit sauce in the world with them.

Let the sauce cool for a while...

Cover the tapioca pudding with the plum's sauce.

Do you think the dessert needs more color?

Add some crunched pistachios to give it more contrast. Now eat it. Tell me, isn't it the best dessert in the world? Today vanilla tapioca with fresh plums sauce is my best dessert in the world.

Vanilla tapioca pudding with fresh plums sauce

800 ml milk
200 ml cooknut milk
1/2 cup tapioca pearls
3 tablespoons of granulated sugar
Scraps of one vanilla bean

How:

In a saucepan over medium heat cook the tapioca with milk, coconut milk, sugar and vanilla seeds whisking it until the mixture boils. Reduce the heat to low, keep whisking the mixture and let it cooks for 15 minutes or until the pearls are soft and transparent.

Divide the mixture in ramekins or glasses and let it cool. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.

Serves 6 to 8, depending on the size of your ramekins.

Obs. If you prefer you can add the vanilla bean to the mixture and remove it once the milk boils. Wash the bean, let it dry and use it again or store it in a sugar pot. The sugar will absorb the vanilla flavor.

Plum sauce

3 red plums cut in small pieces
3 teaspoons of granulated sugar
6 teaspoons cold water

In an small sacucepan over medium heat cook the plums with sugar and water. Remove from heat once it boils. Let it cool and serve with the tapioca pudding.

You can serve the tapioca in different pots or ramekins and prepare more than one type of sauce. I made passion fruit sauce too and I found the combination of yellow and red sauces incredibly beautiful.

A magical mixture: eggs, butter, sugar and chocolate

2009-03-13T15:16:00.000-07:00

I love the mixture of eggs, sugar and butter and I am totally crazy when I add chocolate to this mixture. This is the queen of all mixtures, good raw, perfect baked, try it as you wish. Whether as a fresh mousse or a flour less and dense chocolate cake.

I played with this mixture yesterday as I was looking for something to cover the passion fruit panna cotta I had made. Panna cottas are usually served with fruit coulis or sauces but after last week's tangerine mousse I got a little tired of mousse with fruit coulis, specially when the passion fruit has that sweet and mild flavor.

So, instead of a fruit coulis I made a chocolate mousse with my magical mixture to cover the passion fruit panna cotta what made a beautiful verrine, how the French call the desserts served in a glass.

The chocolate mousse is nothing but eggs, butter, sugar and dark chocolate with at least 52% cocoa solids. In eggs based mousse the textures are results of yolks and whites properly beaten so they can give both the mousse and the cake the airy and velvety texture I love.

To demonstrate the versatility of this simple mixture and divided it. Part of it was layed as mousse over the passion fruit panna cotta and the other half was baked as a flour less cake and served with a good spoonful of plain yogurt flavored with some drops of vanilla extract.

Chocolate Mousse and Flour less chocolate cake

5 large eggs at room temperature and separated
5 table spoons of sugar
200 semi sweet chocolate with at least 57% cocoa solidas (I used 60%)
150 grams of unsalted butter

Butter a small squared pan, lay with parchment paper and butter the paper.

In a double boiler over medium heat melt chocolate and butter whisking it to help it melt without over cooking the mixture. Set aside.

In a clean pot beat egg whites until medium peaks. Don't let the egg whites form hard peaks as they can produce a drier cake.

In a large clean pot beat egg yolks with sugar until fluffy and light. Add chocolate mixture to yolk mixture whisking well to incorporate. Add egg whites to the mixture and use a spatula or wooden spoon to incorporate the whites to the mixture. Don't over mix so you don't remove all the air in the mixture.

Add 3 table spoons of the mixture to the glasses with passion fruit panna cottas and refrigerate.

Transfer the other half of the mixture to the prepared pan and bake it for 20 minutes at 180C/325F.

Let the cake cool and decorate it with the chocolate icing. Cut small squares of cake and serve with plain yogurt flavored with drops of vanilla extract.

Chocolate icing

50 grams of semisweet chocolate with 60% cocoa solids
1 table spoon of butter

Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler whisking the mixture to incorporate. Let it cool and use it to decorate the cake before serving.

(The flour less chocolate cake is dense and velvety and I like to bake it in a larger pan so I can get a very thin cake that I cut in small squares).

Passion Panna cotta

300 ml light or heavy cream
100 ml milk
100 grams sugar
2 teaspoons flavor less gelatin powder
1/2 cup pure fresh passion fruit juice

Sprinkle gelatin powder over passion fruit juice and let gelatin melt. Cook cream, milk and sugar and to a boil. Remove from heat and add passion fruit-gelatin mixture to cream mixture whisking all the time. Take mixture back to low heat whisking to dissolve gelatin. When mixture start to boil remove from heat and let it cool for 15 minutes whisking the mixture every 5 minutes. With the mixture fill half of six small glasses, cups or ramekins and refrigerate.

Makes 6 half glasses. Cover with spoons of chocolate mousse and serve with chocolate shavings.

(The perfect pair for the dense velvety chocolate cake is a spoonful of plain yogurt).

My favorite green salad

2009-03-01T07:22:00.000-08:00

I am that kind of person who finds pleasure in simple things. I definitely don't go through life after luxury or sophistication, not that I don't enjoy those things after all, because I do. It is just that the beauty of bare feet on the ground or a fruit compote served with a spoonful of soft cheese speaks to my heart. Simple is speaking without saying a word, telling more with less words, subtle, distinctive, natural.

Simple loves of mine: bread and butter with café au lait, rice and beans, guava jam with white cheese, sugarcane juice with lime, açaí with banana, roots samba, zabumba-triângulo-e-sanfona, iced-mate with warm cheese ball in São Paulo, iced-mate with Globo cookies in Rio, pineapple ice cream from the blue troller, freshly cooked corn at Praça 15 docks in Rio, acarajé from street vendors, sweet popcorn, churros del Uruguay and coconut tapioca on Barra da Tijuca beach.

This put I can tell that I just love simple salads my favorite salad being the most simple among the simplest. Spinach and green apples, isn't it simple. All right, actually it has few more things than just spinach and apples. Sometimes I happily add some slices of cucumber. Not today. For now what about adding slice of the best Parmesan cheese money can buy, homemade croutons with loads of garlic and a spoonful of the most tasteful dressing?

And here it is, and I don't much more to be satisfied:

Washed and dried fresh spinach leaves;

A whole green apple to be sliced;

The best Parmesan money can buy;

Homemade croutons with lots of garlic

and a tasteful dressing ...

Dressing for my favorite green salad

3 or 4 anchovy fillets
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 or 2 garlic gloves
salt and pepper

Smash, process or mix the ingredients until you get a homogeneous mixture. Transfer the mixture to a clean jam jar, seal it and refrigerate. Dress the salad with the mixture before serving. Can be kept refrigerated for a week.

Delicinha, viu?

Happy 200 birthday Mr Charles

2009-02-12T14:27:00.000-08:00

Today, February 12 is the birthday of this sad looking guy on the picture above. If alive Charles Darwin would be 200 years old today. Darwin's most important book The Origin of Species will celebrate 150 years old in November.

This man made an excellent impression on me since I was a school girl, as I liked sciences and specially biology. After I wastched a documentary about life and I learned about his family dramas that I really understood the dilemmas that guided him.

Charles Darwin is a scientist from a completely different scientific universe, without sophisticated laboratories and machines, from a time when research was the product of long and patient observation of nature and animals.

For five years (1831-1836) Darwin made his fundamental trip around half of the world on the ship Beagle and visited many places in Brazil including Rio de Janeiro and Bahia. The passage of Darwin in Brazil has been largely investigated and some new publications were due in 2009.

The NYT editorial today reminds us that "What Darwin proposed was not a set of immutable mathematical formulas. It was a theory of biological history that was itself set in history. That the details have changed does not invalidate his accomplishment. If anything, it enhances it. His writings were not intended to be scriptural. They were meant to be tested" (NYT,12/02/2009).

I could write about Darwin until tomorrow but I have a scientific investigation to conclude in my kitchen as five hours ago I started te stirring process of a home made doce de leite (milk jam, dulce de leche or confiture du lait). This doce is taking a lot more efforts than I could have imagine but I am pretty sure the final product will definitely justify the long effort. The dessert is not ready to be published but it will be available as soon as it is.

It is my way to celebrate Darwin's 200th and to demonstrate how proud I am to belong to the same species as Charles Darwin.

This mother's wish: Plum cake

2009-02-09T03:42:00.001-08:00

I was circulating and I saw this beautiful cake. I was surprise to see that the recipe was identical to a 'cuca' my mother used to bake back home. My mother's 'cuca' was mostly baked with bananas and apples. As I had some beautiful and sweet South African plums I decided to give them a try and used my mother recipe to clone the beautiful cake.

'Cuca' are fruit cakes typical of South Brazil and my mother's recipe is a very easy version of 'cuca'.

Plum 'cuca'

6 ripe plums vertically sliced
2 eggs at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon baking powder
6 tablespoons melted butter or if you prefer you can use sunflower oil
1 cup of boiling water

Como:

Heat oven at 180C/325F. Butter a small square cake pan. Beat eggs with sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and beat a little more. Mix flour and baking powder. Add one cup of flour mixture and mix well to incorporate. Add melted butter and mix well to incorporate. Add second cup flour mixture and keep mixing until all is well incorporated. Finally add boiling water carefully and slowly. Mixing to feel the batter. You want a not so liquide batter so eventually you won't need to use the whole cup of water. Transfer dough to buttered pan.

Distribute plum slices on the batter and bake it for 25 to 30 minutes at a 180C/325F.

Makes 12 to 16 squares

Obs. I was influenced by the beautiful looks of this cake and didn't used as many plums as I should. The final result was demanding more plums.

Warmth for a cold Monday: pear, banana and chocolate flognarde

2009-02-03T06:02:00.000-08:00

Mondays are drag and I must agree with that cat.

February Mondays in Norway can be the draggiest among the draggiest Mondays. I have mentioned sometimes before how high winter really starts in February and how cold these days can be. Yesterday the beautiful sunny winter day was filled with a cloth of cold air and I needed to find some warmth inside to lift my mood, to cheer me up and nothing can give more joy in winter than a warm dessert.

My first plan was a chocolate petit gateau, a dense chocolate cake to be eaten warm followed by a cup of strong coffee. Then I noticed that I had some extra-ripe fruits in the fruit basket that needed to be eaten immediately to avoid giving them a sad end on the next day. I decided to make flognardes to include the ripe fruits in my dessert.

Flognarde is exactly like clafouti except that while clafoutis are made out of cherries only flognardes can be made with all the other fruits. Both are desserts from the French region Limosin.

Pear, banana and chocolate flognarde

I have published another recipe for chocolate flognarde here

2 ripe pears (I used Conference)
2 ripe bananas
6 tablespoons of sugar
2 eggs at room temperature
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
100 grams semisweet chocolate at least 57% cocoa solids
1/2 cup (120ml) milk at room temperature
1/2 cup (120ml) sour cream, heavy cream or single cream at room temperature
4 tablespoons corn starch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix 1 tablespoon of cocoa with 1 tablespoon of sugar. Butter four ramekins and sprinkle the mixture of chocolate and sugar on the butter layer and set aside.

Melt butter with the chocolate in a double boiler or bain marie and set it aside. Mix milk and cream until well incorporated and homogeneous. Beat eggs with 5 tablespoons sugar and vanilla. Add cream mixture to egg mixture and mix well. Add corn starch to the mixture and mix to incorporate. Finally add the chocolate and mix well to incorporate it completely to the mixture. Batter will be very liquide.

Peel the fruits, cut them in small pieces and divide among the ramekins. Divide the batter among the ramekins and bake at 180C/325F for 40 minutes or until golden.

Sprinkle some confectioners sugar on topo to decorate.
Tastes better served warm.

Vanilla cream with passion fruit jelly to cheer me up

2009-02-02T05:57:00.000-08:00

I am quite impressed by the way I have been using food as a way to cheer me up. Maybe I should give more attention to what Chicó(*) have to say and buy a Canary instead of think about food all day long. As part of my food obsession, yesterday I made this passion fruit jelly with vanilla cream. Passion fruits do have the color of the feathers of the Canary and they really cheered me up.

It is probably a little bit unfair to write such thing, but I must complain about the Asian passion fruits. They are very different from the Brazilian passion fruits (of course they are, how couldn't they be? Nothing compares to Brazilian passion fruits). Brazil is the largest producer of passion fruits in the world but the passion fruit available here in Norway come from Malaysia and is, according to me, almost tasteless. The skin is dark red and inside they are light yellow. The taste is very sweet but too mild, almost insignificant, completely different from the strong taste of the Brazilian passion fruits which have a light yellow skin and the pulp is dark yellow, almost orange. The perfume is strong too and the flavor is as much acidic as it is sweet.

I have heard somewhere that the Brazilian passion fruit belongs to the so called 'Panamá' family which bear different characteristics. The Malaysian passion fruit is also very small and one single fruit does not allow much, you have to buy at least half a dozen of them to make a dessert. Even if they are small and almost tasteless, these passion fruits are very beautiful I must say. The dark red skin and the yellow pulp make a beautiful fruit which is definitely attractive to the eye. The skin of the passion fruit was also in its perfect ripeness as the music produced by the skin was simply amazing. I have always loved to here the music of the passion fruit skin, have you noticed it?

Vanilla cream with passion fruit jelly is the alternative I found to substitute the passion fruit mousse tart I was dreaming about. These little passion fruits are just too mild for the tart. The last time I made a tart with these red passion fruits it not only looked very pale but tasted like eggs which was pretty frustrating. As the flavor is very mild I made the jelly with very little water and little sugar as a way to keep the flavor of the passion fruit.

Vanilla cream with passion fruit jelly

For the passion fruit jelly:

4 small red passion fruits or 1-2 yellow Brazilian passion fruits
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tea spoon gelatin
8 tablespoons cold water

Since this dessert has two layers of gelatin, one on the bottom and the other one on top, you have to divide the ingredients and prepare the layers separately.

First sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of gelatin in two tablespoons of water and let it stand. Meanwhile in a small saucepan over low heat mix half of the fruit pulp with two tablespoons of water and one tablespoon of sugar and let it boil. Remove it from heat and let it cool for a minute. Add the gelatin mixing well. Take the mixture back to low heat and mix well until gelatin is incorporated and totally melted, just before boil. Remove pan from heat and let mixture cool for a minute before dividing in the ramekins or glasses to make the bottom layer. Let it cool and refrigerate.

When the vanilla cream is ready and refrigerated you can prepare the top layer of the gelatin exactly the same way you prepared the bottom layer using the second half of the ingredients.

Obs. I like to eat the black seeds of the passion fruits in this dessert but if you prefer you can make it without the seeds, just drain the pulp with the water before transferring it to the saucepan. You must press the pulp with a metal spoon a little to release the pulp from the seeds because they are entwined.

For the vanilla cream:

400 ml cream or heavy cream
80 to 100 grams of sugar (the amount of sugar depends on your preference)
2 teaspoons gelatin powder
Scraps of half vanilla bean (only scrap one side of the opened bean)

Let the melt gelatin in half cup of cold water. Meanwhile in a small saucepan over medium-low heat bring the cream, sugar and vanilla scraps to a boil stirring it all the time. When the mixture is boiling remove it from heat and let it cool for a minute. Add the melted gelatin to the cream mixture and mix it well to incorporate the gelatin to the cream. Return cream to heat and let it cook until gelatin is completely melted just before it boils again (**).

Take cream mixture from heat, drain to remove any solids and divide the cream among the four ramekins, over the layer of passion fruit jelly. Let them cool for 10 minutes before transferring to refrigerator.

Prepare the second layer of passion fruit jelly when the vanilla cream slightly hard and cold. After adding the second layer of gelatin let the ramekins refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

(*) Chicó is a character of the play Auto da Compadecida by Brazilian playwright Ariano Suassuna.

(**) The scraped vanilla seeds tend to stick together in the pan forming some lumps of vanilla. You have to press these little vanilla lumps with a wooden spoon to release them from each while stirring the cream mixture.

Something was missing: Amaretti cookies

2009-01-30T15:48:00.000-08:00

I have written many times, everywhere, that I am not a cookie lover. It might be difficult to be believe since I have been baking dozens of different cookies during the last three months. It is important to stress here that the term cookie is wrongly applied to all sorts of small, bite-size sweets and what I am referring to when I say that I am not crazy about cookies are sugar cookies, butter cookies, chocolate chips cookies, nuts cookies and fruit cookies even if I am crazy for almond cookies. I simply adore amaretti and basel brunsli. After some time writing about them here they are: amaretti, the traditional Italian almond cookie.

This recipe is a reduced version of a recipe I found on the blog Cream Puffs in Venice which is slightly different of the traditional recipe which uses only egg whites. This version also asks for chocolate powder which gives a special color to the cookies and a twist in the flavor. The recipe was pretty big and I decided to reduce it to try. I also made some changes as I used confectioners sugar instead of the regular sugar cubes and liquor instead of essence.

Amaretti

250 grams grounded almond
80 grams confectioners sugar
3 teaspoons chocolate powder
2 large eggs
1 table spoon of Disaronno almond liquor or almond essence
Sugar crystals to roll the cookies

Preheat the oven at 180C/350F. Line a baking pan with parchment paper or a silicone mat and reserve. Mix almond flour, sugar and chocolate. Mix eggs and liquor. Add eggs mixture to flour mixture and beat until incorporated. Use a teaspoon to make small ball and roll them on the crystals of sugar. Transfer to the prepared pan. Bake for 15 minutes.

Makes 40 cookies

Disaronno, the traditional Italian almond liquor, is the perfect companion for a batch of amaretti. The liquor is good not only as a flavor to the cookie but can also be served with the cookies.

While they were sleeping: microwave brigadeiro pudding

2009-01-27T15:30:00.000-08:00

For years I have kept a very delicate relationship with my microwave. I can't exactly recall when this strange situation started, if it was a reflex of my natural indifference to kitchen gadgets as I have never been very enthusiastic of innovations in the kitchen or if it is related to some failures my mother used to relate. She has many microwaves dramas to tell but she remains to this day the most faithful user of microwaves. In the kitchen I am very simple girl, I don't mind the technological stuff. I like to keep things simple and I love to use my hands. I am more in search of simple flavors, family recipes, old secrets to comfort me. Brigadeiro is one of these simple flavors and it is all so simple and comforting. You don't really need any technology to make it right but technology can really make it easy.

Last night, moved by gluttony, impatience and a powerful desire to eat brigadeiro I challenged my past and reviewed my relationship with my microwave to make some late night pudding. I searched old recipes but was really inspired by a recipe published by Nana in her blog Manga com Pimenta here. I have made some changes in the recipe, as usual. Instead of milk I used heavy cream and 3 whole eggs instead of using only the yolks.

After mixing, buttering and draining I microwaved it! Yes, yes, I microwaved it and in 10 minutes my brigadeiro pudding was ready and delicious. I am used to bake this pudding in the conventional oven and found that the result is less soft and more dense when baked in the microwave, but the flavor is exactly the same. To make it less dense you must adjust the time of baking.

It was already 1:00 a.m when I sat and ate my individual brigadeiro pudding while it was still warm. I like it warm but I think they are more tasty and feels lighter once they have been chilled.

Microwave Brigadeiro Pudding

330 ml of condensed milk
330 ml of heavy cream
1 tablespoon butter + more for pan
6 tablespoons of chocolate powder
3 medium eggs

Butter a microwave resistant pan or six individual ramekins and reserve. In a bowl of a electric mixer combine condensed milk, heavy cream, eggs, butter and chocolate to incorporate, for 30 seconds. Strain through a fine sieve to remove solids and transfer mixture to the prepared pan or ramekin. Fill only half of the pain as the mixture will raise in the oven. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes at high potency. The exact time will depend on the power of your microwave and the size of the pan you are using. The individual ramekins will be ready in 3 to 4 minutes. I baked three individual ramekins (3 minutes each) and a bigger pan with half of the mixture for 10 minutes. The pudding was a little bit hard as i like it more soft so I guess 8 minutes would have been enough.

Obs: You can also bake this pudding in the conventional oven. Butter a pan or the ramekin and bake in bain-marie for 30 minutes at 180C/350F.

You can also use silicone molds to bake this pudding and in this case you don't need to butter the mold.

Serves 6

Party favorites: toucinho do céu

2009-01-20T15:56:00.000-08:00

The end of one year and the beginning of a new year is a very long party season around here. Besides the traditional Christmas and New Year's parties we have two children birthday parties, one in mid December and another one in the first week of January. The year 2009 began with a nice family gathering on Friday January 2nd and a big party, for the entire school class on January 10th. It is a big piece of work since the children around here are very interested in every detail and keep high expectations. Maybe all children are just the same. The menu of the last party of the season was totally decided according to the interests and tastes of the birthday girl, but I have managed to include two extra desserts of my interest.

(Chocolate truffles)

It all started with some left overs of the chocolate ganache I had made to fill the chocolate thumb print. I was asked to make chocolate thumb print cookies and with the extra ganache I made some very good chocolate truffles. I rolled the truffles on cocoa powder and they were so good that I made decided to make an extra batch so we could serve truffles to our guests since the initial batch was not enough.

(Vanilla financiers)

Financiers have become a classic around here since the children love them as much as I do. Whenever we have guests or a party we got to serve some financiers. It is the first cake the kids ask for. They are so beautiful and normally I bake them in tartelette tins and they look so attractive. I have published recipes of financiers here so I won't give any recipe here today. In this party I made four different types of almond financiers: plain vanilla, with strawberries, with raspberries and with slices banana. The banana ones were the favorite and the first type to be completely finished. I didn't have any chance of taking pictures of them.

(Chocolate thumbprint cookie)

These chocolate thumbprint cookies were a huge success in our Christmas season. The children loved it so much that I had to bake it twice to keep my plan of offering some dozens of them to my in laws. They all loved it too. The kids and their parents at the party loved these cookies too, specially the smaller kids who didn't enjoy dark truffles or the chocolate mousse. I baked a double batch so I still had some left the next day. My plan was to give some of them away as party treats but I completely ran out of boxes and cellophane bags and I did not have a single chance to produce packages to give the cookies away. So, here they were and remained...

Chocolate was the main ingredient of the party. We had chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, chocolate truffles and chocolate thumbprint cookies. Besides the chocolate we had eggs and almond desserts. I used 24 egg whites to make the financiers and the 24 yolks were used to make toucinho do céu, a Portuguese dessert which is one of my favorites. Toucinho do céu makes the perfect pair with financiers.

Toucinho do Céu

12 yolks (I made a double recipe with 24 yolks)
2 1/2 (300g) cup blanched and grounded almonds
100 g butter at room temperature
1 cup water
2 cups (220g) sugar
1 tablespoon Disaronno or Amaretto liquor or almond essence
Confectioners sugar to drizzle on top

How:

Butter a round or square baking pan, line with parchment paper and butter the paper. Sift yolks and put aside. In a medium pan over medium heat melt sugar and water and let it boil for 3 to 5 minutes until very shine and transparent. Remove from hear and add the almonds and the butter and mix well and fast with a spoon. Add the yolks and the liquor and take it back to heat mixing well, non stop, until the mixture starts to boil and come out from the bottom of the pan. Transfer mixture to prepared baking pan and bake at 180C/350F for 30 minutos. Let it cool, cut in squares and drizzle some confectioners sugar over the cakes.

Makes 15 to 18 squares

Toucinho do céu and financiers are the perfect pair. Very similar and different at the same time. One is made of yolks, sugar and almonds and the other one is made of egg whites, sugar and almonds. Financiers are made of a butter 'caramel' (beurre noisette) while 'toucinho do céu' are made of sugar caramel. None are very sweet and both have very distinctive flavors from the essences and nuts. Wonderful at any occasion. One is more dense and the other one more airy. Just the perfect pair

A little taste of the Argentinian summer: black cherries

2009-01-16T17:41:00.000-08:00

I am finally back to blog life after I have finally delivered the project that had completely absorbed my time during the last 40 days. I am so relieved to have finished it and I am also pretty satisfied with the results. The year has just started but on January 15th I kind of finalized the most important project of my year. Incredible, isn't it? The challenge now is to fill 2009 with other important projects.

Yesterday I spent the day at the university reviewing, editing and printing. On the end of the afternoon, after everything was finished, I walked to the parking area to get my car and I was so excited that I didn't pay much attention to the cold. The thermometer on the car panel showed -14C but I was not suffering. I was so happy with my project and with the fact that I had delivered it on the right time that I didn't have any space in my mind to think about the cold. The days are terribly cold in January but they will be colder in February so, why bother? The worst winter days around here always come in February.

It is pretty difficult to think of January and February as cold months as I grew up in the South where January and February mean both suffocating hot summer days and the most incredible diversity of flavors one can imagine. In this cold North January and February are poor in flavors' months (some of you might want to kill me for writing such thing) and cold as hell ( as I have once written, to me hell is a very cold place).

In the diversity of the Southern summer, besides the regular flavors of the tropics we also have all the other flavors of the very South, the beauty and juicy Argentinian cherries for example. As Brazil doesn't produce cherries, it doesn't have enough area of temperate climate for cherry trees, all the cherries we buy there are imported from the neighbor countries. Maybe, in the age of biotechnology, one day cherries trees will be adapted to the semi-temperate climate of South Brazil. Anyway, cherries from Argentina and Chile have a special place in my memory, meaning it is the end of the year, it was summer and we had it all.

On my way home I stopped at the supermarket to quick food shopping and there they were, cherries from Argentina, just like the ones I used to eat in my tropical Januaries. I brought home a bag full of them, we ate and we ate a lot of them before I decided they deserved to be pictured and transformed into a special for cherries dessert. What can be more special for cherries than clafoutis? The ultimate cherry dessert and the simplest and most comforting French dessert.

Cherry Clafoutis (*)

4 eggs
1/2 cup sugar + more for drizzling the ramekins
1 1/2 cup milk (or 1 cup milk + 1/2 cup cream or sour cream)
1 cup flour (can make it 1/2 cup corn starch + 1/2 cup flour)
Scraps of half vanilla bean
200 to 300 grams of black cherries with the seed.

How:

Preheat oven at 180C/350F. Butter a oven proof pan or individual ramekins with butter and drizzle some sugar. Divide the washed and dried cherries and reserve. Beat the eggs with the sugar. Add the vanilla scraps and beat some more. Add the milk and mix well to incorporate. Add the flour, in two or three times, mixing slowly. The batter will be very liquid. Transfer batter to the prepare pan or divide it between the individual ramekins. The liquid must cover the fruit layer. Bake for 45 minutes until slightly golden. You can serve with a drizzle of confectioners sugar and some grounded pistachio. Serves 6.

(*) Clafoutis and Flognarde

Very recently I learned that it is not necessary to write or say 'cherry clafoutis', do you want to know why? Because all clafoutis are made with cherry. When you make the French creamy egg tart mostly know as clafoutis with another fruit you actually make a 'flognarde'. The first time I read about flognarde was on Leonor's blog Flagrante Delícia . I got curious and decided to investigate more about flognarde. I made a shot research and found the origins of these desserts. Clafoutis and flognarde are both traditional desserts from Limousin, France. The origin of the name clafoutis is totally related to the use of cherries and a short explanation about it can be read here . Isn't it amazing?

A special breakfast for a special morning: tapioca cream with raspberry coulis

2009-01-01T06:53:00.001-08:00

It was a late morning just as I had foreseen it would be. We got up pretty late and it was already one o'clock in the afternoon when breakfast was served. For this special 'morning' I had prepared the night before a special dish: a tapioca cream. I have been craving tapioca cream since I saw this recipe published on the blog Chocolatria in the beginning of December.

I followed most of the recipe but I made some changes. I did not add the condensed milk so I added five tablespoons of sugar instead of only three as suggested by Simone. However, two of those five tablespoons of sugar were of gelatin sugar which I added to harden the cream a little bit more. Besides I added 330ml of coconut milk instead of 200ml because I had a 330ml can and I wanted to use the whole can.

Simone served her cream with fresh peaches coulis but I made a coulis with frozen raspberries. In this mostly Norwegian family everything made of raspberry has better chances of success. I didn't cook the coulis, I just mixed the melted fruits with some water and sugar and drained this juice before serving. The original recipe of the tapioca cream can be read in Portuguese only on the blog Chocolatria

Even if I don't like to reproduce recipes that are available somewhere else on the internet, I will reproduce this one because it is not available in English language. It is a very Brazilian kind of dessert, something I used to eat on the beach where the street vendors (in this case beach vendors) serve the cream with a drizzle of condensed milk and some extra spoonfuls of freshly grated coconut. Tapioca and coconut make a great pair and the fact that they are cooked in milk with sugar makes the cream very basic in opposition to acid, or acidic flavors. The best coulis or sauces to be served with tapioca and coconut cream are, in my opinion, those made out of juicy acid fruits, such as oranges, passion fruits, peaches, raspberries, strawberries or even blueberries.

Tapioca cream adapted from Chocolatria

1/2 cup of tapioca (a.k.a.cassava) pearls
200 ml coconut milk
100 grams coconut flakes or freshly grated coconut meat
4 cups milk (I used fat free milk but you can use your favorite type)
5 table spoons of sugar
1/2 vanilla bean(optional)
Condensed milk as a substitute for the sugar (optional)

Leave the tapioca resting in the milk for at least half hour. When the tapioca was 'bathed' transfer the tapioca and its milk bath to a pan. Add the coconut milk, the coconut flakes, the sugar and the scraps of the vanilla bean and cook it over medium low heat, mixing it all the time until it boils. It will be thicker by the time the cream boils and the tapioca bubbles will grow bigger. Transfer the cream to one big pot or to small ramekins and let then cool. Refrigerate after the cream have cooled and served them cold or at room temperature, as you wish.

You can add some spoonfuls or an whole small can of sweet condensed milk to the milk mixture before cooking. If you add the condensed milk reduce the amount of sugar so the cream won't be very sweet on the end. You can also add some gelatin sugar so the cream will be more stiff.

Serve with some acidic sauce or fruit coulis of your preference.

Makes 6 individual ramekins

I hope you had a fantastic new year's eve and I wish you all a fantastic 2009!

Cheerful mango tarte tatin

2008-12-27T11:44:00.000-08:00

This individual tarte tatins are really delicious and I love to eat and to make them. The use of mango in tatins has been spread all over the world recently and recipes of tatins with mangoes are everywhere. I am used to a recipe by Brazilian chef Carla Pernambuco but today I used a very simple recipe inspired by Bea from the blog La Tartine Gourmande. I like the recipes published by Bea because they are normally not very sweet, lighter and made for small portions for two and maximum four people.

Another simple recipe of mango tarte tatin was published by the The Mango Association an association of producer and importers of mangoes in the UK.

The blog La Tartine Gourmande also has a very simple (if possible) recipe for puff pastry. I like to make pastries in general and I am quite good at making them, including puff pastry. My mother used to say that I have cold hands. I do have cold hands but I am not so sure that it can make any difference all the time. I trust more my small thin fingers. However, today, I used store bought puff pastry and it was a very bad decision. As I am used to make pastries at home when I decided to buy one it naturally means disappointment the result was beautiful, Per liked it, but the flavor was not the same. The pastry (from Sara Lee) tasted like, honestly, like plastic and was very rubbery. Unless you are the very practical type or hate to make pastries, don't use the ready made store bought pastries, they are not worth at all. I think the store bought pastry can actually ruin your recipe, at least I couldn't enjoy my tartelettes completely, but I ate two of them. The mangoes were ripe and very sweet what made these little tart tatins cheerful.

Individual Mango Tart Tatin, adapted from different sources

3 Brazilian haden mangoes not very ripe but not green either
60 grams salted butter
80 grams sugar
Aound 250 grams of puff pastry
Zest of a lime (optional)
Coconut flour (optional)

Set the oven at 200C/375F. Slice the mangoes. In a sauce pan over medium heat melt butter. When butter is melted add sugar and let sugar melt. When sugar is melted add the sliced mangoes and let the fruit cook in the sugar until caramelized. It might take 5 to 10 minutes depending on the amount of fruits you are using.

After the fruit is caramelized transfer the pieces to the bottom of four ramekins or individual tart molds. Set a layer of fruit in each ramekin. Cut circles of puff pastry the same size as the bottom of the ramekin or molds you are using. Cover the fruit with the layer of puff pastry and bake the tarts for 10 minutes and after that reduce the heat to 180C/325F and bake for more 15 minutes until the pastry is cooked and slightly golden.

Remove from pan while still hot and serve it warm with a scope of vanilla ice cream. You can also sprinkle some lemon zest over the tarts. I like mine plain, with nothing but a cup of coffee.

Makes 4 individual tarte tatins

Sense of place (4): honningkake, the Norwegian pain d'épices

2008-12-20T14:52:00.000-08:00

Brazilians love pain d'épices, a bread which in English language countries is known as gingerbread. The French pain d'épices in Norwegian is called honningkake and in Danish honningkage. In Portuguese it is pão de mel meaning 'honey cake' exactly the same in Norwegian. The names may differ but the recipe remain very similar to the old Chinese recipe introduced in France, in the region of Dijon in the Middle Ages as is estimated. Basically a bread with a large amount of honey, brown sugar, flour, butter, zest of some citrus fruits, orange or lime, and spices such as cinnamon, ginger, gloves and muscat. The taste is fantastic and I love honningkake specially if they are covered in semisweet chocolate.

Honningkake can be made as a cake or as cookies. The dough is easy to make and fantastic to work with holding any form. I made them into stars but I like the little round shape as the one I made for myself and ate immediately after the chocolate was dry. After baked the honningkake must be kept in air tight containers to keep their softness.

(my favorite pain d'épices has a round layout)

'Honningkake': The Norwegian chocolate covered pain d'epices

150 grams honey
150 grams brown sugar
125 grams butter
2 eggs
500 grams wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon glove (opcional)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (opcional)
1/2 teaspoon gingerbread (opcional)
Zest of one lime (you can substitute for orange zest if you like)

For the chocolate frosting
100 grams semisweet chocolate (minimum 57% cocoa solids)

In a pan over medium heat melt honey, sugar and butter. Remove from heat and let cool. Beat the eggs and add to the cool mixture together with the lime zests. Mix flour, baking soda and spices and add the flour mixture to the honey mixture in batches. After adding the final batch mix the dough with hands. If the dough is too sticky you can add a couple of spoons of flour more. Roll the dough in a plastic film and put in the refrigerator for at least on hour. Heat the oven at 180C/350F. Over a clean surface drizzled with flour open the dough into 1 cm thick and cut the stars (or any other format you like). Transfer the cookies to a pan lined with parchment paper and bake them for 10 minutes. Makes 24 stars.

Sense of place (3): almond meltaways

2008-12-19T16:11:00.000-08:00

It was quite difficult to finish these cookies and make this post possible today as the dough of this cookie was supposed to be easy to work with but it was not. The dough was breaking apart and it was simply impossible to open it to cut the cookies with the shapes I had in mind. The solution was to roll the dough in a parchment paper, refrigerate the dough and cut slices. I rolled quite thick rolls and the cookie is slightly bigger than other types of meltaways I used to make but I didn't want these to be small cookies since I had planned to frost the cookies and add some nuts.

This was the worst recipe for a Friday afternoon, specially on the last day of school, with party at the children's school, the worst traffic of the year in Trondheim and loads of stuff to do at home. If I was able to make this third post I am quite confident that I will be able to go further with my project of seven posts about cookies to honor the Sami people of Norway and to celebrate the solstice. The result was worth all the effort as this almond meltaways are simply delicious, crunchy, chewy, not very sweet and with a fantastic aroma of nuts and butter. I loved them.

Almond Meltaways

150 grams finely grounded almonds
120 grams wheat flour
125 grams butter at room temperature
75 grams sugar
1 table spoon vanilla sugar

For the sugar frosting
50 grams confectioners sugar
1 table spoon hot water
Toasted and grounded hazelnuts or pistachios to sprinkle on top

Mix almond flour, wheat flour and sugar. Add butter cut in small pieces and using your fingers (or mixer) mix to incorporate all the ingredients and form a quite dry dough. Divide the dough in two parts and roll each part into a piece of parchment paper rolling the paper very tight. Refrigerate dough for at least one hour. Turn on the oven at 180C/350F. Cut slices of 1 centimeter or 1/2 inch. Bake at 180C/350F in a tray over parchment paper for 10 to 12 minutes or until the borders of the cookies are golden. Let them cool and decorate with sugar frosting and grounded nuts. The dough can be refrigerate for 3 days and the cookies can be kept in air tight containers up to 3 days. Makes around 3 dozens of cookies.

Sense of place (2): Marzipan chips

2008-12-18T13:54:00.000-08:00

I have been playing with marzipan recently, trying to find the best way to make marzipan, the best texture and the best taste. I am trying to make the ultimate Norwegian cake and cookie, the kranse kake which is made of a more complex type of marzipan dough that includes some other ingredients. While in search of the perfect marzipan for my own home made kranse kake I try to find different uses for all the marzipan I have made. These marzipan chips were discovered by accident and I found them simply fantastic and they will be my entry in the Christmas Cookies event organized by the blog Food Blogga.

The taste is the perfect mixture of almond and caramel with a crunchy and yet chewy sensation. For more about the Christmas cookies event here

Marzipan Chips

Marzipan (you find the recipe here)
1 egg
Sugar
Cinnamon

Mix some sugar and cinnamon and set aside. Beat the egg and set aside. On a clean surface roll the marzipan into a 3 cm thick and cut 1 cm thick slices. Lay the marzipan slices on baking pan with parchment paper leaving some space between the slices. Brush the egg mixture and sprinkle some of the sugar and cinnamon mixture and bake the marzipan at 180C/350F for 5 to 8 minutes or until the cookies have melted and golden.

The cookie won't be hard enough to be removed from the pan so let them cool in the pan and remove once they have cooled completely and are hard enough to be removed without breaking apart. The result is a slightly sweet, crunchy and chewy almond caramel with cinnamon aroma. Lovely if served together with coffee or tea.

Follow me as I celebrate the Norwegian seven cookies tradition this Christmas. Until December 23th I will be publishing one cookie a day in honor of the ancient Norwegians and the Sami population of Norway.

Sense of place (1): chocolate butter cookies

2008-12-17T17:08:00.000-08:00

I decided to follow a very Norwegian tradition to celebrate the ancient Nordic people, the Sami people in special. As Norwegians used to do, I will bake seven different types of cakes and cookies during the Christmas week. Starting today and until December 23 I will be publishing here the seven recipes chosen to compose this celebration. Those of you who know a little about me probably know that I am not the traditional type. On the contrary. I don't like traditions at all, I like to break tradition, end traditions and start new things, based on new values and completely new attitudes. However, in this Northern part of the planet I have started to learn to admire and respect the ancient Nordic people. Not the vikings, people much older, the primitive people of Northern Europe, like the Norwegian Sami. It is to celebrate their history, their courage, their paganism, their beautiful clothes and their fantastic culture that I have decided to bake these treats.

Today I present a very simple but delicious cookie, the chocolate butter cookie which is a very Danish type of cookie. Who dares to deny ever buying a can of Danish butter cookies? The recipe I used was in Danish by the way but it was very similar to the Chocolate Thumbprints Cookie of Martha Stewart which is a very nice recipe and for that reason I publish the link to Martha's site where you can also find a video to the show where she presented this cookie. I made a slightly different recipe as I used less salt, less sugar and less cacao and milk. I also filled my cookies with a nougat ganache to fill instead of the vanilla bean chocolate. The result was perfect to me.

Chocolate Butter Cookies (watch the video for the Chocolate Thumbprint in English here)

2 cups flour
1 cup cocoa
1 cup sugar + more for rolling the cookies
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
200 grams butter
2 egg yolks
2 table spoons milk or cream

Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Sift flour, cocoa powder, and salt into a small bowl. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to medium, and add yolks, cream, and vanilla. Beat in flour mixture until just combined. Roll balls using 1 teaspoons dough for each, and roll each in sugar. Place the balls on parchment on baking sheets. With you thumb or the bottom of a wooden spoon gently press the center of each cookie. Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are just set, about 10 minutes. (If indentations lose definition, press centers again.) Let cool slightly on baking sheets. Transfer cookies to wire racks, and let cool.
Spoon warm ganache into center of each cookie. Let stand until firm, about 15 minutes. Cookies will keep, covered, for up to 3 days.

Original recipe you can find here

Nougat Ganache:

50 grams nougat
50 grams semi sweet dark chocolate (at least 57% cocoa solids)

In a double boiler melt nougat and chocolate mixing well to incorporate. Fill the center of the cookies with 1/2 teaspoon of the ganache while it is still warm. Let it cool before serving.