Nico's Blog

Chocolate and Dulce de Leche Charlotte

2011-06-23T22:07:00.000-05:00

The Charlotte Cecile is one of my favorites desserts. There is nothing fancy about the flavors, chocolate and vanilla is as classical as you can get and like all the classics always good! the lady fingers add a crunchy texture that goes perfect with the softness of the mousse. This time around I had some dulce de leche that was about to expire (we bought close to 15 kilos from Argentina a year ago) and also I had dark chocolate (82% cocoa), so I decided to try another classic (at least in Argentina) combination. It was my first time making dulce de leche mousse and I used too much gelatin, so the result was not as good as it should be but I am sure next time around I will have a perfect dulce de leche mousse. Overall the Charlotte was very good, the contrast between the bitterness of the chocolate and the sweetness of dulce de leche is a winner. I hope you enjoy this recipe. Bon appetit!

A slice of heaven

Recipes

Chocolate Mousse

140 grs of dark chocolate (I used 82%)
1 egg
2 yolks
56 grs of sugar
14 grs of water
200 grs of whipping cream

Melt the chocolate on a double boiler, keep it a 45 C
Beat egg and yolks in your stand mixer
Cook the sugar and water until the mixture reaches 118 C
Add the sugar to the egg mixture while beating on medium, increase the high and beat until the mixture is light and reaches room temperature. You just made a Sabayon.
In the mean time whip the cream to soft peaks
Add the chocolate to the sabayon with the mixer running at low speed.
When this mixture reaches the 30C fold in the cream in 3-4 additions.

Dulce de leche mousse

200 grs of dulce de leche
1/2 cup of whipping cream
5 grs of gelatin (I used 7grs so I guess 5 is going to be ok)
3/4 cup of whipping cream

Heat the cream and add it to the dulce de leche, mix well until you get a homogeneous mixture.
Add the gelatin (remember to activate the gelatin in cold water)
Let the mixture cool down to 28-30C
Whip the cream to soft peaks and fold it into the previous ingredients.

To assemble you can use any mold you have but it is better to use a bottom less mold. Place a row of lady finger at the bottom, then cover the sides of the mold with lady finger (flat face inside). Pipe the choco mousse into the mold filling half of it. Place it in the refrigerator until it is hard enough to support the next layer of mousse. Then fill the rest of the mold with the dulce de leche mousse.
Refrigerate until service.

Fruit tart with passion fruit pastry cream

2011-05-20T14:55:00.002-05:00

I am back! yes I am adding something to my blog after a long, long time. The main reason for my lack of posting was the fact that I worked for almost 6 months at a bakery that opens close to my place, I was working part time there while keeping my full time job at the lab, it was hard but not super bad. I was in charge of the sweet stuff at the bakery, it was a good experience but is was not a nice one, the tools I had to make all the pastries was far from being close to ok!! can you imagine making 4-5 liters of pastry cream using a 2 liters pot (was a 1 liter pot the first week!) and a crappy $38 target electric cook top??, well I did it for 6 months! and that was just one of the things that were totally wrong at that place......

I am back to my normal life now so I have some time to blog now and then.....last weekend I found a nice passion fruit juice and several fresh fruits at the grocery store so I decided to make a fruit tart. I made the pastry cream using the passion fruit juice instead of milk and when I was ready to assemble the tart I whipped 100 ml of cream and mixed to the pastry cream, the result was a lighter pastry cream, super tasty, I loved it. The recipes for the pastry cream and the tart shell are in this post.

July took the three 4 inches tarts to the lab and everybody happens to like them, they were a very refreshing dessert for this texas spring/summer. Please enjoy it.

The search for the perfect brownie is done

2010-08-31T09:49:00.000-05:00

I was searching for the perfect fudgy brownie for a long time, now I can say I found it, yes this is gonna be the recipe I will use from now on, no more playing around, this brownies are perfect, so perfect that I am so addict to them, I can eat and eat and eat non stop. Once you try them there is not return, you are hook.

We ate some of them with a little bit of confectioner's sugar and some berries, some with ice cream and and a big piece was the base for a dark chocolate mouse cake, unfortunately I did not have the chance to take pictures of it because my wife smash it when she was trying to remove it from the fridge.....no comments....
Enjoy it.....

Fudgy Brownies (adapted from Bakewise)

149 gr (1 1/2 cups) pecans
369 grs (1 1/2 cups) butter
400 grs semisweet chocolate finely chopped
4 large eggs
3 large yolks
357 gr (1 1/2 cups) brown sugar
120 gr (1 cup) confectioner's sugar
20 grs sugar (2 tbsp)
45 ml (3 tbsp) light corn syrup
1 tbsp vainilla
pinch of salt
187 grs (1 1/2 cups) All Purpose flour

Preheat oven 300 F
Roast the pecans during 10 min
Line a 13 x 9 x 2 inches pan with parchment
Melt the butter and the chocolate in the micro oven or over a double boiler
In a large bowl beat the eggs and yolks just to blend. Add the sugars, corn syrup, vanilla and salt to the eggs, mix until combined.
Add the chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and stir together, add the pecans and then stir the flour.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for about 1 hour. Start checking after 40 min, a toothpick should come out wet with gooey chocolate.
Cool compleatly in a cooling rack. Remove from pan wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Next day attack them!!

Coconut Cake

2010-07-26T15:41:00.000-05:00

Coconut cake is one of those things I always wanted to make but for one reason or another I never made it. A couple of weeks ago I was watching food network and Bobby Flay was having a coconut challenge so I finally decided to do some research and find a good coconut cake recipe. I found several recipes, based on those I came out with one recipe to test. I got lucky and the results were magnificent!! The cake was so good just by it self we almost ate it with out any frosting. If you want to have a very good coconut cake give this recipe a try.....

The quantities I will give you here are good for two 6 in by 3 in cake and one 6 in by 2 in. I decided to make the cakes that way so we do not have a big cake just for the two of us, in this way I placed 2 of them in the freezer so we can enjoy later trying different frosting/cake combination....

Recipe:

Cake:

2 ½ cups cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 ½ sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
5 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
⅔ cup coconut milk
1 ½ cups sweetened coconut flakes (unsweetened is ok if you want to cut down calories)

Frosting:
(for one 6x3 in cake)

4 oz package cream cheese, softened
1/4 stick unsalted butter, softened
zest of half lemon
1 tsp of lemon extract

1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar (sifted)
3/4 cup toasted unsweetened coconut flakes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Into a bowl whisk flour, baking powder and salt together; set aside.  In another mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes at medium speed. Add eggs 1 at a time until combined. Add vanilla extract. Add coconut milk mix well. Add dry ingredients and shredded coconut and mix (do not over mix).  

Pour the cake into the pans. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the top is golden brown, in my case were 25 min for the 6 x 2 inches. Let cool on wire racks.

For the frosting, beat cream cheese and butter together until light and smooth. Add lemon extract and zest, add the confectioners' sugar slowly until thoroughly incorporated.  

To toast the coconut flakes until they turn golden brown (I used a pan but you can do it in the oven if you want). Frost the cake with the cream cheese/lemon frosting. Garnish with toasted coconut flakes.

Lemon Chocolate Tart

2010-06-30T10:32:00.000-05:00

It has been a long time since I post something, not because I am not cooking or baking anymore, the only reason is I am too busy following the football world cup!! yes I love football and I am trying to watch every single game from this world cup. So far it has been a good world cup with several very good matches and also some big upsets like Italy, France and England going home very early. Argentina is doing good but we play against bad teams so far, this saturday we will have a nice test against Germany.

This year I have very opposite feelings about our team, I really like most of the players that are in the team but I do not like the coach, Maradona, for those of you that are not familiar with him, he is consider to be the best player in the history of football, I agree with that. He also had a very long story with drugs, his personal life was public mess for a long time, and he thinks he is God, so I do not like the guy, I love the player but not the person. The AFA named him coach of the national team but he did not have any experience as a coach, well he had some and he did very badly. To make it short I do not want Argentina to win the world cup because if he thinks he is God now can you imagine what is going to happen if he wins??? he is going to be the father of God LOL!!! One the other side I want Argentina to win because I am a passionate about football and I am from Argentina. Anyways, I have the felling that the cup goes to Europe again this year......

The past weekend I was killing for a lemon tart, I remembered I had some lemon juice in the freezer (a friend gave me like 20 meyer lemons and I saved all the juice) so I was ready to go. I made the pastry shell and then the lemon curd, when I finished with it I realized it will be not enough to fill the 9 inches pastry shell so was in a dilemma, should I make more lemon curd or should I use a filler? I went with the second option after search for something usable in the refrigerator, what I found? chocolate ganache from Tomas B-Day cake. Of course the combination was good, I love chocolate with citrus. I also made some italian meringue and piped on top using the saint honore tip.

Recipe

Pastry shell

Butter 160 grs
Powder sugar 90 grs
Eggs 68 grs
salt pinch
AP or cake flour 270 grs

Cream butter and sugar for a couple of minutes, add the egg and mix until well incorporated, add the salt and flour and mix just until incorporated. Cover with film and refrigerate for at least 30 min before use it.
You will have more than enough dough for a 9 inches tart.
Bake it blind in a oven at 375F

Lemon curd

Lemon juice 150 grs
Sugar            300 grs
Eggs                 6
Lemon zest from 2 lemons

Butter 160 grs
Gelatin             3 grs (optional)

In a saucepan, stir together the lemon zest, juice and sugar and bring to a simmer. In a small bowl, beat the eggs. Beat some of the lemon mixture into the eggs to temper. Place the mixture back into the saucepan and cook stirring constantly until it thickens up, about 5-8 minutes. Remove the curd from the heat and incorporate the gelatin (dissolved in cold water) let it cool. When the mixture reaches the 28 C incorporate the butter (one tablespoon at a time) using an electrical hand mixer. Let cool completely before using.

Italian meringue

Sugar 200 grs
Egg whites 100 grs
Water 30 grs

In a small pot over low heat, combine sugar and water. Swirl the pot over the burner to dissolve the sugar completely. Do not stir. Increase the heat and boil to 118 C.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, whip the eggs whites on low speed, when the temperature of the sugar reaches the 110 increase the speed to high.

With the mixer running, pour the hot sugar syrup in a thin stream over fluffed egg whites. Beat until the mixer bowl is cold. Use it immediately.

Chocolate ganche

Dark chocolate 100gr

Cream 200 grs

Bring the cream to a boil and place over the chocolate to melt it, mix very well and let it cool before you use it.

Tomas 1st B-day cake

2010-06-10T10:31:00.001-05:00

The 1st of June was Tomas (my youngest son) 1st Birthday, to celebrate that moment I decided to use some of the skills I gain at CIAML and make a birthday cake covered in rolled fondant. I am not a big fan of rolled fondant, every time I go to a weeding and a piece of fondant covered cake lands in my plate I take it out and eat only the cake. But I have to admit that covering a cake with fondant makes it much more eye appealing, I love how the cakes look when they are very nicely decorated.

The cake was formed using 3 layers of chocolate butter cake and filled with one layer of chocolate ganache and one layer of a mixture of dulce de leche and cream cheese. I used a cheery syrup to wet the cake. That combination was really good I love the dulce de leche and cream cheese together. I was please with the final product specially because was my first real cake (at school I decorated dummy cakes with fondant). I was not happy with the recipe I used for the chocolate cake since it was more like a brownie, it tasted good but was very difficult to work with.

I think everybody liked the cake, the children were asking how can you make that with a cake? they did not understand the concept of the rolled fondant thing. They were anxious to cut the cake and when we did it, they try it and did not like it at all LOL!!!

Banana Bread

2010-05-05T13:53:00.004-05:00

Last weekend I had several ripe bananas sitting on the counter, I hate throwing food away, so I tried to find ways to use them all. I used some of them to make a smoothie, the weather was perfect for that, milk, bananas ice and a touch of dulce de leche mmmmmhh, I love that!!. After that I still had 3 bananas left, so it was the perfect excuse to try a new banana bread recipe....

This recipe is so easy and not time consuming at all and the best part: very, very tasty, the bread is super tender and moist which contrast with the crunchy pecans. We eat a piece each morning for breakfast and trust me this bread is a very strong incentive to get out of bed a 7 am. I hope you try it, you will love it.

Recipe

3 ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/2 teaspooon vanilla extract
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups cake or all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons of milk (optional, I did not notice any difference with or with out the liquid)
1 cup of walnuts (some chopped and a few whole to put on top)

Preheat oven to 325 F and grease one loaf pan or any kind of mold you have.
Mix sugar, oil, egg, vanilla, milk, and bananas in a mixing bowl. Combine completely.
In a different bowl mix flour, baking powder and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones, add the chopped walnuts and mix to combine.
Pour into the pan, sprinkle the remaining walnuts over the top.
Bake for 40 to 60 minutes depending of your oven. Use a tester to check if it is cooked internally. If you have a thermometer the internal temperature should be 192 F.
Cool for a few minutes and remove from the pan.

Tafi del Valle, Tucuman, Argentina

2010-04-30T15:59:00.005-05:00

I wanted to share some of the pictures I took last February when I went to Argentina. Tafi del Valle is a beautiful place located in Tucuman, a province in the northwest of Argentina. This small village has a "fix" population of 4000, but as every touristic place in the world that number, duplicates or triplicates during the holidays. I consider this place an oasis very close (75 min drive) to hell (San Miguel de Tucuman). Lots of people have a summer house in the village, they use it when they want to scape from hell, trust me, it is so wonderful to have a place like Tafi so close that you can go every weekend if you want.

Entering the valey

You can find very good food in the city, a lot of people produces they conserves and sell them to the public, that is a big part of Tafi's economy. Most of the restaurants showcase regional dishes, the same dishes the locals had been making since 200 years ago. In Tafi you can find a lot of organic food, most of the people grows they veggies and keep their animals in the back yard

my favorite food stand

If you are going to Argentina, make room for this beautiful place, you also are very close to Cafayate which produces a lot of very good wines and you can tour the vineyards for free....

Burgers anyone?

2010-04-20T11:41:00.006-05:00

A couple of weekends ago J. told me she wanted to eat a homemade-burger, but I did not have any of the ingredients and was too late to go to the grocery store. I convinced her to wait one week and I will make a 100% homemade burger. Last Saturday I made some buns, using one of the Peter Reinhart's recipes, and some pattys. For the pattys I had to use store ground meat (I do not have a grinder, so if somebody wants to send me one I will be very happy!!), the meat was seasoned with dijon mustard, onions, soy sauce, rice vinegar and black pepper. I ate mine with lettuce, tomatoes, caramelized onions, saute mushrooms and 2 different cheeses..............super good!!!!!!!!!!!

For the buns (from Peter Reinhart)

400 gr    Bread flour
200 ml   milk
4 gr        yeast
1/2         egg
7 gr        salt
40 gr      sugar
45 ml     oil

Whisk the instant yeast into the lukewarm milk and stir to dissolve. Set aside for 1 to 5 minutes to hydrate. Combine the flour, salt, sugar eggs, and oil in a mixing bowl. Add the milk/yeast mixture to the flour mixture and mix with the paddle attachment on slow speed (or by hand with a large spoon) for 1 minute to make a coarse ball of slightly sticky dough

Remove the paddle and replace it with the dough hook. Mix on medium slow speed (or knead by hand) for 4 to 5 minutes. The dough will soft, supple, and tacky. Transfer it to a lightly floured work surface and knead it by hand for another minute. Form it into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl (not the dough) with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight, or for up to 4 days.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator 2 1/2 hours before you plan to bake it. Cut 4 oz pieces and shape it. Mist the top with spray oil and cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise at room temperature until it almost doubles 1 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350° F./177° C. When the bread is ready to bake, apply some egg wash on top and sprinkle some seeds. Place it on a middle shelf in the oven and bake for 12 minutes. Rotate the pan and bake for an addition 10 to 12 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.

Strawberries, Blueberries and Mango tart

2010-04-12T12:03:00.005-05:00

Last weekend I made this very good tart using ingredients I had on hand. Strawberries and blueberries were in the refrigerator, mango puree and a sweet tart dough (from 2 weeks ago) in the freezer. I decided to make a mango pastry cream and top it with fresh berries, simple, very simple but usually simple means good. The flavor of this tart was very tropical, each fruit has a unique flavor and you can identify them very clearly in this tart but, after a few seconds, you start to taste the mix, if you close your eyes you can place your self in a tropical beach having a very good time... ok wake up, I am in Houston so the closest thing to a beach is Galveston.... no thanks, I prefer to stay at home working on the back yard...if you have never been in Galveston well you did not miss anything, trust me.

I think next time I will increase the amount of mango puree because I like the mango to play a bigger part in the flavor mix. I also think in reducing the size (from 9 in to 6 in), we ate half of it in one day, that is not good for my diet at all!!

Dough

Butter 160 grs
Powder sugar 90 grs
Eggs 68 grs
salt pinch
AP or cake flour 270 grs

Cream butter and sugar for a couple of minutes, add the egg and mix until well incorporated, add the salt and flour and mix just until incorporated. Cover with film and refrigerate for at least 30 min before use it.
You will have more than enough dough for a 9 inches tart.
Bake it blind in a oven at 375F

Pastry cream

milk 400 ml
mango puree 100 grs
sugar 90 grs
yolks 2

corn starch 45 grs

Put half of the sugar with the corn starch in a bowl, add a little bit of milk and dissolve until you do not see any lumps, then add the yolks and mix.
Warm the milk, mango and rest of the sugar until the sugar is dissolve (do not boil).
Add 1/3 of the liquids to the dry and yolks mixture and mix fast, add the rest in two steps, put the mix back in to the sauce pan and under moderate heat cook the pastry cream for about 5 min mixing all the time.
When the pastry cream is ready place it in a film and cool it down in the fridge.

I guess I do not need to tell you how to assemble the tart!!

Grilled rib eye and roasted potatoes

2010-04-06T16:25:00.003-05:00

Evenings are so nice this time of the year that is very hard to resist to grill something. A few weeks ago I got a couple of very fresh rib eyes and I decided to grill them. I started a fire using mesquite charcoal (briquets are a bad word at home) and 45 min later we were eating these super tender juicy rib eye. I usually like rib eye with a fresh salad but this time I had some potatoes so I decided to give it a try to the Swedish way (or at least one the ways people use over there) to roast them. I never use BBQ sauce or stuff like that with my meat all you need is salt and pepper, if the meat is good you do not need anything else.

For the potatoes all you have to do is to cut potatoes crosswise into 1/8-inch slices, cutting only three-fourths of the way through to bottom. Place cut sides up in dish, brush with butter or olive oil (I infused mine with rosemary) and sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake at 350 F until they are done. Brush them every 20 minutes with butter or oil.

Waffles

2010-03-29T08:00:00.001-05:00

Summer is just around the corner here in Texas, but two weekends ago temperatures went down to 4 C, which is very strange for March in Houston. We took advantage of that and made some waffles, maybe the last ones with a nice cool weather :(

I got this recipe from serious eats and I have to say is a fantastic one, this waffles are very very easy to make and not time consuming at all, much more simpler that the recipe I usually use for waffles. The result is also different, this one gives you fluffier, lighter waffles, the fact that you have to beat the whites separately make all the difference. If you like waffles try this recipe it will fulfill your expectations.

We ate them with some strawberries that I saute with a little bit of sugar and honey. That was a simply perfect breakfast.

The recipe:

(makes four 9-inch square waffles (original recipe says 3 but I got four)

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

2 egg yolks
1 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup canola oil

2 egg whites

Procedure

1. In a medium mixing bowl stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the center.

2. In another bowl beat egg yolks slightly. Stir in milk and oil.

3. Add egg yolk mixture all at once to the dry mixture. Stir just till moistened (should be lumpy).

4. In a small bowl beat egg whites until stiff peaks form (tips stand straight up).

5. Gently fold egg whites into flour and egg yolk mixture, leaving a few fluffs of egg white, Do not overmix.

6. Spoon waffle batter into your waffle iron, making sure not to overfill it.

7. Serve with anything you like, you can even serve this with ice cream for dessert!!

Orange liqueur (Arancello)

2010-03-22T10:53:00.000-05:00

I got this arancello recipe from a friend a couple of years ago but I never try it until last January. Why? well.. I gave the recipe to a friend and he made it, I fall in love with the result and decided to give it a try using all the citrus I had around the house. The main ingredient were oranges so I called arancello but it has a little bit of lemon, clementin and grapefruit so technically it should be call citruscello (new word may be?)

It is very, very easy to make and very very nice to drink, I have one little shot every night before I go to bed. I also use it to flavor different recipes such as sponge cakes, buttercream, ice creams, etc. You can also used to give it as a gift, find a nice bottle, fill it up, close it and there you go you have a very nice present that everybody will enjoy.

As you imagine you can use any combination you want and you can make it around your agenda since it is not going to hurt if you leave the peels 1 or 2 more week with the alcohol. I only have 1 liter left so I think is time to start a new one next week, I have some orange peels in the freezer waiting to be immerse in alcohol already. This time I will use only orange peels and I will reduce the alcohol final concentration by 10% I think is going to give me a more delicate product, I am also thinking to put some cloves to give another layer of complexity to this wonderful liqueur.

ARANCELLO (ORANGE LIQUEUR)

Makes 4 (750 ml) bottles.

Ingredients

750 ml 100% ethanol 200 proof, you can also use neutral grain spirit (95%/190 proof) or vodka (40%/80 proof) Peels of 10-15 medium oranges (I used 10 oranges, 2 lemons, 4 clementines, and one grapefruit, basically any citrus I had around at that time) 1.5 liters of filtered water 1.36 kg of granulated sugar (can replace some of the sugar with honey)

Preparation

1. Soak the citrus peels: Scrub the oranges with a vegetable brush to remove any dirt and other undesirable elements.
2. Peel the oranges, making sure not to include any of the white pith. Juice the oranges and reserve for other use.
3. Put the peels in the bottom of the container. Pour in the alcohol and cover. Allow to rest for 14 days, in a cool, dark location (you can go anywhere from 7 to 21 days).
4. SYRUP: Make this the night of the 13 day or during the morning of day 14. In a pot, combine the sugar and water. Bring to a fast simmer for a couple of minutes or until all the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
5. Strain the orange peels from the alcohol and discard. Pour the alcohol into the pot with the sugar syrup and stir. Pour into the prepared wine bottles, cork, and store in the freezer. You can use any kind of bottle you have around, like the plastic ones where cheap rum comes, they are ok.

At this point you can start drinking your arancello or you can let it rest for a couple of weeks before you try it. I did that with mine and the flavor after 3 weeks (I was out of town) was better than the flavor during day 1, I do not know if there is any explanation for that...

Meringue nests and strawberry frozen yogurt

2010-03-15T13:25:00.008-05:00

In Texas spring is here and as we know spring brings strawberries, during the weekend I got some at the grocery store, at that point I did not know what to do with them, I was not thinking about any dessert in particular, I just wanted to eat them with yogurt for breakfast or a light dinner. Later that day I made some dulce de leche ice cream for my son and of course I got some whites left over. While I was eating some yogurt with strawberries I started to think what could I do with them..financiers...macarons...and suddenly I realize I could make some frozen yogurt and some meringue nests to serve it.

I see this strawberry frozen yogurt as a hybrid between a sorbet and an ice cream, very refreshing and creamy, of course not as creamy as the ice cream but that is something you give up in order to reduce the calories. Unfortunately I did not have whole fat plain yogurt so I used the O% fat one, next time I will use the former to get something creamier. This frozen yogurt is fantastic as a fresh dessert for these warm Texas spring days.

Meringue nests

300 grs of whites
300 grs sugar
300 grs confectioners sugar

Whisk the whites and 300 gr of sugar over a double boiler until the mix reaches 50 C
Take the bowl out of the double boiler and keep whisking until the bowl cools down to room temperature
Fold in the confectioners sugar.
Using a piping bag with the any tip you like, I used a medium size star tip, pipe the nests on a baking sheet lined with a silpat or parchment paper.
Dry the nests in a 250 F oven during 2 hs.

Frozen yogurt
(modified from The perfect scoop)
454 grs of strawberries
125 grs of sugar
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1 tablespoon of kirsch
240 grs of plain yogurt

Cut the strawberries in quarts
Add the next 3 ingredients and mix, cover and let it sit on the counter for 1 h
Add the yogurt and puree the mix using a handhold mixer or a blender.
Chill the mixture for at least 1 h in the refrigerator and then churn in your ice cream machine

Lechon a dos fuegos (Whole Pig the two fires way)

2010-03-05T08:00:00.000-06:00

Starting the fire.............

Since we arrived to Houston 7 years ago we meet a lot of people and we made good friends, as you can imagine some of them left the city, some of them left and return and some of the friends of our friends that left are now living in Houston so they are now our friends also. Last week our Michigan's friends were visiting and one of their friends from Michigan that now lives in Houston promised them He will buy a little pig (not that little BTW) and cooked 2 fires to celebrate the reunion. He got the pig and it was to big to fit my friend's grill so we decided to use my grill to cook it.

The crew

The technique we use, and I say we because there was 3 of us "working" at the grill, it is call dos fuegos (2 fires) or infiernillo (little hell), this is a very simple and inefficient (in terms of energy) way to cook a whole animal like a little pig or little goat. In Argentina we use it a lot, here is the first time I used because my grill does not have wall and roof like in Argentina so that make it energy inefficient, so here we had to improvise so we cover the sides of the grill with aluminum foil first and the we built 2 more fires, one on each side of the grill to keep everything hot. When you cook this way you have to have a very strong fire on top and a very soft one at the bottom, some people place the animal facing up some facing down, to me does not really matters. We started the fire around 4:15 pm and placed the animal on the grill around 5 pm, we ate at 10:30 pm even when the meat was cook at 10 pm but it took us 30 more minutes to brown the skin very nicely. We were 22 people that night counting kids, the guys ate from the grill the women ate at the table, of course. The meat we so so tender almost to the point of dissolving in you mouth. We drunk a lot of wine to keep us warm (some guys got more than warm) because it was kind of cold in Houston that night.

Almost done

If you want to learn more about this and other techniques buy this bo ok it is very interesting and very useful if you like to grill a lot. Also if you are in the Houston area and want to learn this technique contact me and we can arrange something.

Eating at the grill, a cook's pleasure

A nice set up at my father's house

Daring Baker's Challenge - Tiramisu

2010-02-28T14:09:00.003-06:00

February was Tiramisu time at Daring Baker's! I made a couple of tiramisu during November and December so when I read I had to make another one this month I was like OMG Tiramisu again??!!. But, when I went through the posting at DB forum I got interested again because this one was kind of different, it uses pastry cream and zabaglione!! so I was very happy to try a new version of this classical desert.

I think this version is one of the best I had, the creamy texture is unbelievable, it is really heaven in a plate!!. The only modifications I will make next time is to increase the power of the coffee, it was not very strong and add some gelatin because it does not get hard enough to stand by it self.

I did not have time to stylish the shoots so as you can see the picture I'm posting is kind of crapy.

BLOG-CHECKING LINES: The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

TIRAMISU

(Recipe source: Carminantonio's Tiramisu from The Washington Post, July 11 2007 )
This recipe makes 6 servings

Ingredients:
For the zabaglione:
2 large egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar/50gms
1/4 cup/60ml Marsala wine (or port or coffee)
1/4 teaspoon/ 1.25ml vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

For the vanilla pastry cream:
1/4 cup/55gms sugar
1 tablespoon/8gms all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon/ 2.5ml vanilla extract
1 large egg yolk
3/4 cup/175ml whole milk

For the whipped cream:
1 cup/235ml chilled heavy cream (we used 25%)
1/4 cup/55gms sugar
1/2 teaspoon/ 2.5ml vanilla extract

To assemble the tiramisu:
2 cups/470ml brewed espresso, warmed
1 teaspoon/5ml rum extract (optional)
1/2 cup/110gms sugar
1/3 cup/75gms mascarpone cheese
36 savoiardi/ ladyfinger biscuits (you may use less)
2 tablespoons/30gms unsweetened cocoa powder

Method:
For the zabaglione:
Heat water in a double boiler. If you don’t have a double boiler, place a pot with about an inch of water in it on the stove. Place a heat-proof bowl in the pot making sure the bottom does not touch the water.
In a large mixing bowl (or stainless steel mixing bowl), mix together the egg yolks, sugar, the Marsala (or espresso/ coffee), vanilla extract and lemon zest. Whisk together until the yolks are fully blended and the mixture looks smooth.
Transfer the mixture to the top of a double boiler or place your bowl over the pan/ pot with simmering water. Cook the egg mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 8 minutes or until it resembles thick custard. It may bubble a bit as it reaches that consistency.
Let cool to room temperature and transfer the zabaglione to a bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

For the pastry cream:
Mix together the sugar, flour, lemon zest and vanilla extract in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. To this add the egg yolk and half the milk. Whisk until smooth.
Now place the saucepan over low heat and cook, stirring constantly to prevent the mixture from curdling.
Add the remaining milk a little at a time, still stirring constantly. After about 12 minutes the mixture will be thick, free of lumps and beginning to bubble. (If you have a few lumps, don’t worry. You can push the cream through a fine-mesh strainer.)
Transfer the pastry cream to a bowl and cool to room temperature. Cover with plastic film and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

For the whipped cream:
Combine the cream, sugar and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl. Beat with an electric hand mixer or immersion blender until the mixture holds stiff peaks. Set aside.

To assemble the tiramisu:
Have ready a rectangular serving dish (about 8" by 8" should do) or one of your choice.
Mix together the warm espresso, rum extract and sugar in a shallow dish, whisking to mix well. Set aside to cool.
In a large bowl, beat the mascarpone cheese with a spoon to break down the lumps and make it smooth. This will make it easier to fold. Add the prepared and chilled zabaglione and pastry cream, blending until just combined. Gently fold in the whipped cream. Set this cream mixture aside.

Now to start assembling the tiramisu.
Workings quickly, dip 12 of the ladyfingers in the sweetened espresso, about 1 second per side. They should be moist but not soggy. Immediately transfer each ladyfinger to the platter, placing them side by side in a single row. You may break a lady finger into two, if necessary, to ensure the base of your dish is completely covered.
Spoon one-third of the cream mixture on top of the ladyfingers, then use a rubber spatula or spreading knife to cover the top evenly, all the way to the edges.
Repeat to create 2 more layers, using 12 ladyfingers and the cream mixture for each layer. Clean any spilled cream mixture; cover carefully with plastic wrap and refrigerate the tiramisu overnight.
To serve, carefully remove the plastic wrap and sprinkle the tiramisu with cocoa powder using a fine-mesh strainer or decorate as you please. Cut into individual portions and serve.

Here you have the link to the homemade mascarpone.

MASCARPONE CHEESE

(Source: Vera’s Recipe for Homemade Mascarpone Cheese)
This recipe makes 12oz/ 340gm of mascarpone cheese

LADYFINGERS/ SAVOIARDI BISCUITS
(Source: Recipe from Cordon Bleu At Home)
This recipe makes approximately 24 big ladyfingers or 45 small (2 1/2" to 3" long) ladyfingers.

Ingredients:
3 eggs, separated
6 tablespoons /75gms granulated sugar
3/4 cup/95gms cake flour, sifted (or 3/4 cup all purpose flour + 2 tbsp corn starch)
6 tablespoons /50gms confectioner's sugar,

Preheat your oven to 350 F (175 C) degrees, then lightly brush 2 baking sheets with oil or softened butter and line with parchment paper.
Beat the egg whites using a hand held electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Gradually add granulate sugar and continue beating until the egg whites become stiff again, glossy and smooth.
In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks lightly with a fork and fold them into the meringue, using a wooden spoon. Sift the flour over this mixture and fold gently until just mixed. It is important to fold very gently and not overdo the folding. Otherwise the batter would deflate and lose volume resulting in ladyfingers which are flat and not spongy.
Fit a pastry bag with a plain tip (or just snip the end off; you could also use a Ziploc bag) and fill with the batter. Pipe the batter into 5" long and 3/4" wide strips leaving about 1" space in between the strips.
Sprinkle half the confectioner's sugar over the ladyfingers and wait for 5 minutes. The sugar will pearl or look wet and glisten. Now sprinkle the remaining sugar. This helps to give the ladyfingers their characteristic crispness.
Hold the parchment paper in place with your thumb and lift one side of the baking sheet and gently tap it on the work surface to remove excess sprinkled sugar.
Bake the ladyfingers for 10 minutes, then rotate the sheets and bake for another 5 minutes or so until the puff up, turn lightly golden brown and are still soft.
Allow them to cool slightly on the sheets for about 5 minutes and then remove the ladyfingers from the baking sheet with a metal spatula while still hot, and cool on a rack.
Store them in an airtight container till required. They should keep for 2 to 3 weeks.

Back from Argentina

2010-02-17T13:02:00.008-06:00

Waking up in Tafi del Valle

We are back from our 3 weeks trip to Argentina, I know 3 weeks sound like a lot but trust me it felt like 2 days, I guess you never have enough of the good things. We really had a fantastic time visiting family and friends, everybody was very anxious to met Tomas, the last addition of the family. He was such a nice boy, he behaved excellent on the planes even when we where delayed for 9 hs at DFW, where we spent 4 1/2 hs on a parked airplane full of people, any ways that was the only downside of the trip.

Asado (BBQ)

Going back to the good part of it let me tell you that our families live in 2 different states so we had to split our time between Cordoba and Tucuman. One of the reason of our trip was to baptize Tomas, we did that in Tafi del Valle, Tucuman. Tafi is a beautiful place, its weather is fantastic, during the summer the temperature never goes over 28 C during the day and at night it goes down to 10 C so you can sleep very well, that range of temperatures combined with a very very low humidity make Tafi an excellent place to spend your summer vacations. You have a lot of thing to do in Tafi but you also are very close to a lot of fantastic places like Amaicha del Valle, Cafayate, Ruinas de Quilmes, Salta, etc. The Cafayate area is rich in vineyards, you will find the best Torrontes of the country there. So if you want to visit Argentina please make your self a favor and spend some time in the that part of the country, you will enjoy it deeply.

Some fruits at my parent's in law house

Having fun

Same view from 8 am to 2 pm

Panettone and Happy 2010!!!

2010-01-01T14:30:00.003-06:00

2009 was a very good year, too many good things happened to us this year, specially the arriving of our son Tomas, I hope 2010 bring us very good moments as well. Have a very happy 2010!!!

Panettone

They make a very nice gift!!

Panettone

Poolish 210 grs
(to make the poolish, mix 120 grs of water with 120 grs of bread flour and 1 % of instant yeast. Cover the container with plastic film and let it set on the countertop overnight. You can keep it in the fridge for a couple of days if you want)

Bread Flour 480 gr
Tsp of salt
1/2 cup of sugar
1 1/2 tsp of instant dry yeast
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp of lemon/orange zest
2 eggs
80 gr of honey
1/4 cup of olive oil
3/4 cup of milk (warm)

Plus 2 cups of dry fruits or any thing you want to put inside. I put almonds, cranberries, dry apricots, dry figs, walnuts, chocolate chips, pistachios, and any dry fruit I have on hand.

Mix the dry ingredients very well
Add to the poolish and mix with the paddle atachment
Add the eggs, one by one
Add the liquids and mix very well.
Add the zest.

Change to the dough attachment and mix at medium speed until you get a tacky and supple ball, you should be able to pull a nice window and the temperature of the dough should be between 71 and 81 F. Sometimes you have to add more flour specially if you live in a high humidity area.

Cover the container and let it rise until doubles in size.

Place the dough on the counter top and make it flat, add all the fruits you want and mix very well, be sure the fruits are equally distributed.

Make a ball and place in the molds. The size of the ball will be related to the size of the mold. You can also place in inside a cake pan, worked perfectly for me.

Cover it and let it rise until it reach 1 inch over the ring of the mold.

Bake it at 350F until the internal temperature is 82 F. For most of the breads the internal temperature has to be 90-92 F but with this one I prefer to take it before so it does not dry very quickly.

Enjoy it!!

Bûche de Noël

2009-12-30T14:32:00.005-06:00

Old fashion way.....

A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me if I could make a Bûche de Noël because she wanted to give it to her friend as a Christmas present, I said yes, no problem, why not? Her friend wanted it in the old fashion way, and also had to be fill with vanilla butter cream. So I made a sponge cake, I soaked it with kirsch simple syrup, spread the vanilla bean butter cream, rolled and covered with a chocolate Chantilly. I am not a fan of butter cream at all but the whole thing was very delicious I really really like it. I also made some meringue champignon (mushrooms) to decorate it, the snow effect was done using some icing sugar, as you can tell the bûche does not have any "snow", that was because I spent to much time setting the camera before I took the pictures so the icing sugar melted with the Chantilly. I know I should put something red and green for decoration but I was totally late for the delivery and did not have time to play with it. Overall was very fun to make and I think the customer was very happy with it.

Aerial view ;)

Pasta frola - Quince jam tart

2009-12-16T10:38:00.004-06:00

Pasta frola or quince jam tart is one of the most popular tarts in Argentina, it is quick and cheap to make and on top of that is very delicious. This tart is usually eaten while drinking some te, coffe or mate I think I saw it as a dessert only a few times, almost nobody eats it as dessert. Every time I think about pasta frola a lot of memories cross my mind, my mom use to make it almost every weekend and she always make one every time we travel (we always travel by car, never use a airplane until I was 24 years old), that was a very tasty snack let me tell you!. Last time my mom visited us, she found a few kilos of quince jam in the pantry (I brought them from Argentina a couple of years ago and I never used them lol) so she made one for us one afternoon, after that I think I made it a couple of times. I am not using her recipe for the tart shell since I like mine better ;). I made mine as individual tarts this time.

Filling

Place 400 grs of quince jam into a pan add a couple of tbsp of water and heat it up until it gets soft.

Sugar dough (yield one 9 inches tart)

270 grs flour

160 grs butter (Room Temp)

90 grs powder sugar

65 grs eggs

1 pinch salt

In a bowl mix the butter until creamy and smooth. Add the powdered sugar and combine very well. Scrape the bowl and add the egg, salt and vanilla extract. Mix until thoroughly combined.
Add the flour and mix until just combined. Do not overmix!!!!! if it is necesary finish it by hand on the counter top. Wrap it with film.
Place the dough in the refrigerator until firm. You can freeze it now for up to 2 weeks.
Roll the dough on a floured surface, prick the dough with a fork.
Place the dough on the tart mold or ring. Let it cool in the refrigerator for 15 min (you do this if you feel the dough is getting soft).
With the extra dough make 1/4 inch strips, they should be long enough to go from one end to the other of the tart.

Assemble

Fill the tart shell with the jam
Arrange the strips on top of the filling y any way you like.
Brush with some egg wash and bake at 350°F until the dough gets golden brown

Done with school

2009-12-10T10:42:00.011-06:00

I finally graduated from CIALM!!!!!!!

Getting ready for presentation

Yes, last Friday was graduation day at the Culinary Institute Alain and Marie Lenotre and I was there to get my diploma of Sous Chef in Culinary Arts Specialty in Baking and Pastry, I know this is just a "title" I'm not even close to be a Sous chef, you need tons of experience to be a real sous chef. It was a very cold day since it was snowing, yes snowing in Houston!! it is weird but it is true. Because I was doing level 3 cuisine I had to finish my final the same day of the graduation so the judges could judge my dish, I took half day off at work in order to be able to do that. The dish I had to present was a Beef Rivoli with Foie Gras Kramensky, I deconstructed the Kramensky, to do that I prepared torchon and then served it inside a fried basket I made with bread crumbs. I had everything ready the night before, my fillet mignon were cryovac and ready to go to be cook sous vide. The foie gras was ready to cut. I only cooked the potatoes Anna, deep fried the baskets, saute my zucchinis (garnish) and reheat my Perigueux sauce. I was not very happy with the way my plate looked but plate presentation was not something we work a lot during the cuisine classes since most of the dishes we made were served family style. I had a very good feedback from the judges, all of them loved every single component of the dish, so overall the experience of cook in front of the judges and being judge there was really nice.

With Marie Lenotre and chef Philippe

With Alain Lenotre

When we were done with that we went to the auditorium and the ceremony began. One of my class mates gave a really nice and emotive the speech, thanks Gary. I was one of the 2 students with perfect assistance so I got a diploma for that, I also got a golden something (I do not know haw to call that) in recognition for having a GPA between 3.8 and 4. After the ceremony there was a buffet so we ate something and that was it, done with the school, now I have to get some real word experience, I will tell you about that later.

All the Graduates

I really got a good time at school, I learned a lot during these 14 months, I meet very interesting people I will try to keep in touch with some of them. All the chef were great they always have time for you to answer any question or to talk about anything, all the stuff was very helpful and they always want to help with anything, thanks very much to you all.

Daring Bakers - Cannoli

2009-11-27T22:07:00.004-06:00

This month the challenge was a very easy and tasty one: cannoli!!, I never had cannoli before, we where very intrigue about them but in Houston is kind of hard to get fresh made cannoli I guess. I made them for Thanksgiving dinner, by the way we got a wonderful paella made by my friend Juan, yes, no turkey, a very good paella instead. The cannolis were very good, some of the people loved them and some just liked it, but let me tell you they were really good. I did not have the cannoli molds, but I have some molds for cream horns so I used them instead. For the shells I did not make any modification from the original formula, but for the filling I used some dulce de leche and cream cheese.

The official lines:

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

CANNOLI SHELLS
2 cups (250 grams/8.82 ounces) all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons(28 grams/1 ounce) sugar
1 teaspoon (5 grams/0.06 ounces) unsweetened baking cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon (1.15 grams/0.04 ounces) ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon (approx. 3 grams/0.11 ounces) salt
3 tablespoons (42 grams/1.5 ounces) vegetable or olive oil
1 teaspoon (5 grams/0.18 ounces) white wine vinegar
Approximately 1/2 cup (approx. 59 grams/approx. 4 fluid ounces/approx. 125 ml) sweet Marsala or any white or red wine you have on hand
1 large egg, separated (you will need the egg white but not the yolk)
Vegetable or any neutral oil for frying – about 2 quarts (8 cups/approx. 2 litres)
1/2 cup (approx. 62 grams/2 ounces) toasted, chopped pistachio nuts, mini chocolate chips/grated chocolate and/or candied or plain zests, fruits etc.. for garnish
Confectioners' sugar

Note - If you want a chocolate cannoli dough, substitute a few tablespoons of the flour (about 25%) with a few tablespoons of dark, unsweetened cocoa powder (Dutch process) and a little more wine until you have a workable dough (Thanks to Audax).

CANNOLI FILLING
2 lbs (approx. 3.5 cups/approx. 1 kg/32 ounces) ricotta cheese, drained
1 2/3 cups cup (160 grams/6 ounces) confectioner’s sugar, (more or less, depending on how sweet you want it), sifted
1/2 teaspoon (1.15 grams/0.04 ounces) ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon (4 grams/0.15 ounces) pure vanilla extract or the beans from one vanilla bean
3 tablespoons (approx. 28 grams/approx. 1 ounce) finely chopped good quality chocolate of your choice
2 tablespoons (12 grams/0.42 ounces) of finely chopped, candied orange peel, or the grated zest of one small to medium orange
3 tablespoons (23 grams/0.81 ounce) toasted, finely chopped pistachios

NOte: I used cream cheese, dulce de leche, vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon, roasted coconut and pistachos

DIRECTIONS FOR SHELLS:
1. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer or food processor, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the oil, vinegar, and enough of the wine to make a soft dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and well blended, about 2 minutes. Shape the dough into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge from 2 hours to overnight.

Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces. Starting at the middle setting, run one of the pieces of dough through the rollers of a pasta machine. Lightly dust the dough with flour as needed to keep it from sticking. Pass the dough through the machine repeatedly, until you reach the highest or second highest setting. The dough should be about 4 inches wide and thin enough to see your hand through

Continue rolling out the remaining dough. If you do not have enough cannoli tubes for all of the dough, lay the pieces of dough on sheets of plastic wrap and keep them covered until you are ready to use them.

Oil the outside of the cannoli tubes (You only have to do this once, as the oil from the deep fry will keep them well, uhh, oiled..lol). Roll a dough oval from the long side (If square, position like a diamond, and place tube/form on the corner closest to you, then roll) around each tube/form and dab a little egg white on the dough where the edges overlap. (Avoid getting egg white on the tube, or the pastry will stick to it.) Press well to seal. Set aside to let the egg white seal dry a little.

In a deep heavy saucepan, pour enough oil to reach a depth of 3 inches, or if using an electric deep-fryer, follow the manufacturer's directions. Heat the oil to 375°F (190 °C) on a deep fry thermometer, or until a small piece of the dough or bread cube placed in the oil sizzles and browns in 1 minute. Have ready a tray or sheet pan lined with paper towels or paper bags.

Carefully lower a few of the cannoli tubes into the hot oil. Do not crowd the pan. Fry the shells until golden, about 2 minutes, turning them so that they brown evenly.

Lift a cannoli tube with a wire skimmer or large slotted spoon, out of the oil. Using tongs, grasp the cannoli tube at one end. Very carefully remove the cannoli tube with the open sides straight up and down so that the oil flows back into the pan. Place the tube on paper towels or bags to drain. Repeat with the remaining tubes. While they are still hot, grasp the tubes with a potholder and pull the cannoli shells off the tubes with a pair of tongs, or with your hand protected by an oven mitt or towel. Let the shells cool completely on the paper towels. Place shells on cooling rack until ready to fill.

Repeat making and frying the shells with the remaining dough. If you are reusing the cannoli tubes, let them cool before wrapping them in the dough.

DIRECTIONS FOR FILLING:
1. Line a strainer with cheesecloth. Place the ricotta in the strainer over a bowl, and cover with plastic wrap and a towel. Weight it down with a heavy can, and let the ricotta drain in the refrigerator for several hours to overnight.

2. In a bowl with electric mixer, beat ricotta until smooth and creamy. Beat in confectioner’s sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and blend until smooth. Transfer to another bowl and stir in chocolate, zest and nuts. Chill until firm.(The filling can be made up to 24 hours prior to filling the shells. Just cover and keep refrigerated).

ASSEMBLE THE CANNOLI:
1. When ready to serve..fill a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain or star tip, or a ziplock bag, with the ricotta cream. If using a ziplock bag, cut about 1/2 inch off one corner. Insert the tip in the cannoli shell and squeeze gently until the shell is half filled. Turn the shell and fill the other side. You can also use a teaspoon to do this, although it’s messier and will take longer.

2. Press or dip cannoli in chopped pistachios, grated chocolate/mini chocolate chips, candied fruit or zest into the cream at each end. Dust with confectioner’s sugar and/or drizzles of melted chocolate if desired.

Indian week

2009-11-09T10:02:00.006-06:00

Very slow week at the school, we did some indian food, not a lot, just a few dishes but all of them were really good, I really like indian cuisine I wish I could go to India in a culinary voyage. It was really nice to have tons of fresh spices to play with, I made a couple of gran masalas, one from the north and one from the south. I gave some of the food to an indian friend and he told me that the food tasted as it should, he made my day.

Here is some of the stuff we cooked:

Chutneys:

coconut;
cilantro; (I love this one)
mango; (I really love this one)

Nan;
Masala Dal;
Arhar Dal;
Vegetable Samosa;
Tandoori chicken;
Rogan Josh;
Mango Lassy

The chutneys were fantastic, I can eat that stuff all day long, non stop. The rogan josh was really good, the lamb was so tender it melted in your mouth.

Here some of the pictures:

Nan

Tandoori Chicken

Samosas

Italian week at school

2009-10-30T10:48:00.007-05:00

During the last two weeks we have been cooking Italian food at school, the first week was kind of crazy because we prep 35 different dishes to be presented on Thursday, trust me that was insane!!! trying to pull out 10 dishes at the last minute was incredible difficult, but we did it ;). We arrived 15 min late to the dinner room but everybody got some Italian food on the table.

This week was different, we decided to cook a few dishes every day instead of a lot of them on one day. Here is the list of dishes we cook this week:

Veal Piccata with lemon herb butter sauce and tri color fettuccini

Veal Scalopini with marsala sauce, creamed spinach and pan fried potatoes

Lasagna Bolognaise

Minestrone

Ravioli Zucca with brown butter sauce and herbs

Salt Cod Mesaluna with provenzal sauce

Polenta with porcini ragu

Meat balls and italian sausages with saute peppers and pomodoro on foccacia

Braised osso bucco milanese with safron risotto

Braised beef short ribs with broccolini and blue cheese creamed potato puree

Pouched veal tongue with tagliatelli and red bell pepper chutney

Tuna tar tar with crouton and endives

Pizza, big variety

The good thing about this kind of organization is that we get involve in every single dish, in that was you prep and cook all of them. Next week is gonna be Indian food.

Here some pictures to share with you:

Short ribs

Tongue with tagliatelli

Polenta

Osso bucco and risotto

Mesaluna

Daring Bakers' challenge - Macarons!!

2009-10-27T10:18:00.007-05:00

Macarons are the diva of the sweets, very delicate and full of flavor, I love them. At school we made them several times and I got them right every time, at home I made them a couple of times I never got them 100 % right. I think the main difference were the almonds, at school I used almond powder but at home I used almonds I ground. This time I ground the almonds a lot in the food processor and then I sifted the mix. The result was ok, they got foot, they did not crack and they were soft, the only thing they did not get was a nice round form , but that was my fault, I did not have any parchment paper and I used one that was folded in a drawer so it had wrinkles everywhere. For the shells I decided to go with coffee so I added some instant coffee in the mix, they tested so good that we (mom, July and me) ate several of them as if they were cookies before I filled them, for sure I will make these shells again. The filling was a dark chocolate ganache, you know ganache-coffee is a win-win combination. I also have some dark chocolate passion fruit ganache left over so I filled some of the shells with this one, that was not a good combination, the passion fruit killed the coffee.

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Ingredients
Adapted from Tartelette

3 egg whites
50 gr. granulated sugar
200 gr. powdered sugar
110gr. almonds
2 tsp of instant coffee

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery. I added the coffee here too.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 10-12 minutes.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Happy Mother's Day!!

2009-10-20T09:27:00.012-05:00

Feliz dia de la Madre and butter squash, parmesan y almonds sorrentinos....

No, I am not drunk, last sunday we celebrated mother's day, why??? because in Argentina we celebrate it the 3th sunday of October, yes I know we are not in Argentina, but celebrating in that way keep us closer to our country. This one was very special for two reasons, first was July's first mother's day and second after a very long time I spent this day with my mother.

We started the day with a nice breakfast which included some waffles (homemade of course), we topped them with dulce de leche, strawberries, raspberries, honey......well...they were really good. After breakfast we sat outside and drink some mates, while we enjoyed a wonderful sunny morning. For lunch I made some butter squash, almond, parmesan green sorentinos (round ravioli), you will not find this pasta in Italy, they are call sorrentinos because they were made for the very first time at an italian restaurant call Sorrento located in Mar del Plata, Argentina, so if you go to Sorrento, Italy, and ask for this pasta you will not get it. For dessert I wanted to make a Tiramisu but saturday was a super busy day so I did not have the time to make it, maybe next weekend.

For the sorrentinos I made a green dough using spinach to give color and flavor as well. For the filling I roasted 2 butter squash, I puree them and mixed it with some grated parmesan, nutmeg and almonds. For the sauce I used some tomatoes and garlic, reduced until 1/4 of the volume and added some cream before serving.

Chinese week reload

2009-10-05T12:09:00.005-05:00

Second week of international cuisine was Chinese traditional, we cook 19 recipes in 3 days, monday was chicken, tuesday beef and thursday fish. Here some of the, chicken: cantonese salt baked chicken, sichuan kung poa chicken, hunan sesame chicken, soy chicken and red cooked chicken. Beef: Hunan cryspy shredded beef, mandarin orange peel beef and steamed beef w/rice flour. Fish: Hangzhou west lake fish, cantonese steamed fish, five willow fried fish, sichuanese braised fish in spice sauce, cantonese smoked fish. We also cooked some dan dan noodles, cinammon beef noodle and singapore noodles, "korean' bulgogi, "vietnamese" pho and "vietnamese" bun. We used red snapper in all the dishes, I know that is not the traditional fish but was the one we had...

All the food was really good, my favorites were the sesame chicken and the fish (all of them). Here you have some pictures of the fish, the other 2 days I take pictures using my phone but now my phone is dead so I can not recover the pictures....thanks Apple!!!!

Five willow fried fish

Sichuanese braised fish in spice sauce

Hangzhou west lake fish

Cantonese steamed fish

Happy Birthday!!!

2009-09-30T09:03:00.002-05:00

Today is the first anniversary of this blog, it has been a very busy but productive year, I learned a lot at the school and this space allows me to keep track of what I did and when I did it, so I can look in here find the date and then go to my notes and get the recipe, that is really nice. I met really nice and talented people because of this blog, I had fun participating in the BBA and DB challenges, that push you to cook/bake stuff that you will not probably try by your self .

I still have two more months of school so I gonna keep the same line until then, after that I'll see what happens. I would love to spend more time trying t make the food look really good and improving my photography skills.

The idea was to cook something special to celebrate this day but life is incredibly busy now and did not have the time, I promise to do something nice when the post 100 arrives.

Chinese week at school

2009-09-28T08:08:00.004-05:00

Last week I cook a lot of chinese food at school, some of the dished we prep were: turnip rice cake, pork BBQ, pork ribs, crispy duck, egg rolls, damplins, soup, fried calamari, sweet and savory rice with vegetables and chicken feet. Everything was realy good, we had a good time preping a nd cooking all this stuff. This week we are gonna do chinese again but this time all of the dishes are going to include fish. Here some of the pictures:

Duck on pancake with cucumber and green onions

Chicken Feet

Pork ribs

Daring Bakers' challenge Vols-au-Vent

2009-09-28T08:07:00.004-05:00

I'm sorry but I could not make it, I waited until last moment and the weather in Houston is not good for puff pastry, 100% humidity and 97 F. I'll make them during the winter (if we have some!!!!!)

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

Pork tenderloin and swiss's potatoes

2009-09-20T15:30:00.004-05:00

Last weekend we were trying to make some space in the freezer (it was completely full!!) and I found two pork tenderloins. These are the ones you can get at any Sam's club, we really love them, every time I cook with them the result is the same: super tender meat. I stuffed them with two different fillings: dates and almonds for the first one and a sun dry tomatoes pesto for the second one. I pan seared them and roasted at 350F, I rotated them and kept them moist with some port wine, when the internal temperature was 160 F, I took them out and let them rest covered with aluminum foil for about 15 min.

The potatoes were sliced very thin and blanched for 5 min. In an oven pan I build layers of potatoes, mozzarella, gruyere and provolone, at the end I covered them with cream, the pan was cover with foil and went into the oven for about 30 min, after the foil was removed some gruyere was added on top and let them cook for another 15 min.

Sandwich week at school

2009-09-18T15:07:00.006-05:00

This was the last week of the first 10 weeks of level 1 cuisine, we suppose to stay 10 more weeks in level 1 but we are moving to level 3, which is world cuisine. Why are we doing this? first, we are only 2 in the class, second, the second part of level 1 is basically repetition of the same techniques we learned during the first 10 weeks and the restaurant practice during the last 6 weeks. So the instructor asked us if we want to move to world cuisine instead of do the last 10 weeks, we said "yes, why not" is going to be much better since we are going to cook a different cuisine every week during 9 weeks, sounds good to me.

Ciabatta

During this week we did some sandwiches, we had to pick 2 different ones and make 10 of each for Thursday, 2 days is a lot of time to prep for sandwiches!!. Monday I started to poolish to make the bread on Tuesday and I Basically finished every thing except for the mayonnaise, the glazed mushrooms and onions, and the roasted potatoes.

Mini baguettes

My first sandwich was a "sandwich de milanesa". I build it using chicken breast milanesa, roasted red and yellow bell peppers, provolone, lettuce and lemon-chives mayonnaise, the bread I used for this one was a fantastic ciabatta, the best sandwich bread I ever had. The side dish was some "escabeche de verduras" and some mushrooms and pearl onions glazed. To make the escabeche I made a gastric and cooked the onions in it, then I poured (while hot) into the jalapenos and peppers that were cut into strips and the carrots that were blanched before, I left the veggies in the gastric from monday to Thursday.

The second sandwich was a "lomito". To build this one I used some pan sear rib eye, pesto, sun dry tomatoes marinated in red wine,olive oil and garlic and mozzarella, the bread was a mini baguette. The side dish was rustic roasted potatoes.

Chocolate Strawberry cheesecake

2009-09-10T10:32:00.009-05:00

Cheesecake, I think the cheesecake should be call cheese pie, because it is basically a custard and not a cake, but to keep thinks simple I will call it cheesecake. Six months have gone since the last cheesecake, that one was a chocolate-orange one, it was so so good, I can still remember how it tasted!!!. It was so good that July asked me at least 5 - 6 times to make it again during this 6 months, my answer was always no. The reason? the house is always full of different sweet stuff I bring from school. But last week was different, I said yes, why? because Irene (my sister in law) was staying with us for one month to help us with Tomas (our beautiful 3 months old son ;)). Irene loves cheesecake so I made it as a way to say THANK YOU for helping!!!!. I asked her which flavor she prefers, and chocolate-strawberry was the winner.

If have have to do a side by side comparison I will choose the orange one, I do not know but even when I love the chocolate-strawberry combination, there is something about orange-chocolate that I can not resist.

Crust:
180 g left overs of milan cookies
1 stick /113 g / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 15 g sugar

Cheesecake:

3 sticks of cream cheese, total of 24 oz/ 650 g, room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 Cup of strawberries (puree)
100 grs of chocolate

Glaze:
2 cups fresh strawberries
3/4 cup water
2 tbsp. cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan (I do not recommend springform) . You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside (in the refrigerator)

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, add 1/3 of the batter and mix very well. Add the strawberry puree to the remaining batter.

5. Pour the batters (the order is up to you) into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

6. Bake 50 to 60 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Glaze:
Crush 1 cup strawberries. Add water and cook until mixture is thick and clear, stirring constantly. Cool room temperature. Halve remaining berries. Place atop chilled cheesecake. Pour glaze over. Chill.

Pork belly asian style with vanilla safran potatos puree

2009-09-05T15:55:00.007-05:00

One of the dished we did this week at school was a an pork belly asian style, this is a not very appealing dish but was good and easy to make. The pork belly (we used the whole piece, and was huge) was marinated overnight in a very acid-sweet liquid, the next day we cut it in half and pan seared, after it got a very nice color we put it in a hotel pan, covered half way with the liquid we used to marinate it and braised in the oven at 300 F during 3 hs. The pork belly was good but you have to eat only the meat which, by the way, is kind of hard to find since probably 90% of the belly is fat.

For the puree we boiled some potatoes in a water that has some safran and a vanilla bean. When the potatoes were ready we puree then and added some butter and cream. It was delicious and very different.

That night there was a huge number of desserts, here a couple of pictures to prove it.

BBA challenge #12 Italian Bread

2009-09-02T15:51:00.004-05:00

Italian Bread......to me is very similar to french bread, honestly I do not see any difference, may be is just me, may be not. I baked this bread last weekend, I started on saturday and finished sunday afternoon just after lunch. My sister in law brought me some jamon serrano from Madrid and I was waiting for the wright moment to try it. I let the bread cool a little bit and I could not resist the temptation of eat a piece of it with some serrano, Mama mia!!!! que placer!!! what a pleasure!! warm bread with jamon I enjoyed it very very slowly. I think you do not need to put anything else on the bread when you have a good quality one and a very good jamon, any addition will produce a distortion, I prefer to enjoy them as they are. We made some sandwiches for dinner using 2 of the 3 batards that night, everybody liked it. I think the bread is really good, the same flavor than the french one I made one week ago.
I do not remember which is the next recipe but for sure is good.

Some school's stuff

2009-08-28T12:08:00.004-05:00

I am not usually posting the savory stuff we are cooking at school but today I feel like I want to share the dishes we prepared this week. We did not cook a lot but we did very good stuff, all the the prep was done tuesday because on monday I was the only one in class so the instructor asked me to do the exam we have to take if we want to get certificated by the ACF (American Chef Federation), it is a simple exam but you have 2 1/2 hs to do it. During that time you have to make chicken stock, turn and glaze 3 carrots and 3 turnips, turn and cook a'l'aglease 3 potatoes, poach or pan sear a chicken breast, cook a'l'aglease some green beans, roast some red bell peppers, make some mayonnaise and some supreme sauce using the chicken stock. It was fan to do it, I think it is easy to get the certification because before you try to take it you have to practice at least 6 times, if you can not get it wright in 6 times you better change careers!!

Well here you have what we cook this thursday:

Scallops with Brittany sauce and garnish:

Pan seared scallops
The sauce was made by sweating some shallots and garlic, then we deglazed with white wine we let it reduce, we addded fish stock, let it reduce and finally we added some cream we strained and let it reduce again. We added some port wine at the end.
For the garnish we sweated some some celery, leaks, shallots, garlic and mushrooms

Mushroom, garlic risotto with american sauce and shrimps:

We made a risotto with some mushrooms, garlic and sweat peas.
The american sauce was made using lobsters heads, onions, garlic, white wine, tomato paste, brandy and cream.
The shrimps were saute with garlic in clarificated butter.

Beef Wellington:

We pan seared some beef tenderloin which later was wrapped in crepes (they absorb the blood so the puff pastry do not get soggy) with some mushrooms duxelle and finally wrapped in puff pastry. We bake it at 350 F until golden brown.

Chocolate ganche coconut tart

2009-08-23T21:29:00.007-05:00

This past weekend I had to made some dessert to take to a some friend's home that invited for a BBQ, I did not have any intention to go and do same shopping for this (I was so comfortable at home!!), so I checked the freezer and I found some almond sugar dough, I checked the fridge and found some chocolate ganache I made 2 weeks ago and finally I had some coconut milk in the pantry, so I said bingo, chocolate and coconut, I love that!!

So with all those ingredients I made a tart with the chocolate ganache in the base and a coconut pastry cream on top, I finished with some toasted coconut and some cocoa powder. The result was very satisfying, even dough the chocolate ganache over power the coconut pastry cream a little bit. I think everybody enjoy it very much.

Coconut pastry cream

250 ml coconut milk
1 yolk
50 grs sugar
25 grs of corn starch

Mix the milk and sugar bring this mix to boil
Beat the yolk and the cornstarch (you can use a little bit of cold milk to hydrate the starch)
Pour 1/3 of the milk into the yolk/starch mixture, beating all the time. Add the rest of the milk
Return the mixture to the pan and on moderate heat keep mixing until the mixture is thicker (2-3 minutes).
Place the pastry cream on a film wrap it and keep it in the fridge until needed.

Tart dough

270 grs AP flour
160 grs butter
90 grs powder sugar
75 grs eggs
1 pinch of salt

Cream the sugar and butter very well, add the eggs and mix very well, incorporate the flour and salt, do not over mix the dough, if it necessary finish it by hand.
Form the dough into a disc, wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes
(With these amounts you get enough for a 9 inch tart mold)
Bake the tart dough blind at 375 F until golden.

Chocolate ganache

200 ml of cream
250 grs of chocolate

Bring the cream to boil and pour it over the chopped chocolate, mix very well to melt the chocolate.

Assemble

Fill the tart shell half way with the ganache, complete with coconut pastry cream sprinkle some toasted coconut and cocoa on top

BBA Chalenge #11 - French Bread

2009-08-22T18:00:00.004-05:00

This week challenge was very interesting since I love to bake and eat french bread. I made this bread several times before but never using this recipe, I have to say that I never failed with this bread, but this week I did not have the result I expected. I followed the instructions very closely but still I did not get the crust and the crumb I suppose to have but the flavor was very very good. I had some gruyere and cream cheese mix I made the day before so I spread some of that on the freshly bake bread, delicious!!
I guess I'll try the recipe again to get the result I was looking for.

Braised Sweetbreads with Polenta

2009-08-19T10:34:00.005-05:00

I think this is the first savory post since I started the blog almost one year ago, it is weird but I think you are gonna like it. Today I want to share a classic french recipe (forget the polenta) that we cooked at the school last week. If you do not know what a sweetbread is check the wiki. Here in the states sweetbread is really cheap, how cheap??? well.. around 1 dolar per pound!!! which is fantastic for somebody (like me) that loves to eat them. I always cook them on the grill, why? because is the most popular way to cook them in Argentina, so it was the only way I knew. For this recipe you will need the following ingredients:

Sweetbreads
bacon

carrots
onions

veal stock
white wine
port wine
Bouquet garni (thyme, bay or any herb you like)

cornmeal (or instant polenta if you prefer) 1 part
cream 1 part
chicken stock 2 parts

Blanch the sweetbreads for 5 min
Shock them in ice cold water
Remove some of the membranes
Roll the bacon around the sweetbreads, wrap them in plastic film very tight and let them rest 1 hour in the fridge.
Cut the vegetables in medium size pieces, they are gonna be use to give some flavor so the size does not really matters.
In a pan put some butter or oil and sear the sweetbread (remove the plastic film first!!!) until the bacon gets a very nice color. Place them in a hotel pan and reserve. Sweat the veggies in the same pan, deglaze them with the wine and port, place them and the bouquet with the sweetbreads. Add the veal stock (cover the sweetbreads half way). Cover the pan with foil and let it rest for 1 hour. The remaining heat is gonna cook them.
Reheat them at 350 F for 10 min before to serve.

Place the liquid and the veggies in a pan and reduce under low heat, when the sauce is not too runny not too thick, it is done, strain it and put it back to the pan, when is ready to serve heat it up and mount with butter.

Polenta:
boil the liquids in a pot, add the corn meal and mix continuously for 5-7 minutes, when is done spread it on a sheet pan and cool it down. Cut it with a cookie cutter and pan sear them before service.

BBA challenge #10 Focaccia

2009-08-10T12:03:00.003-05:00

Almost 2 weeks since my last post!! I did not have the time to blog about any recipe even when I have a few waiting to be published, I will try to publish at least once a week from now on. I think blogging is good exercise because it helps me to keep track of all the stuff I cook. I will also try to post more recipes so this is gonna be like my recipes' notebook.

This past weekend I made focaccia from BBA. Focaccia is similar to pizza but is not the same, even when the ingredients and the ratios are very very similar the final product is not similar at all, the texture, the crispiness, the crumb are totally different. I will describe the foccacia as a flat bread that has been season it with a lot of oil and herbs. The dough has to be made in two days, I started friday night and finished saturday afternoon, just on time for a dinner with some friends. I topped it with some basil, oregano, rosemary and cherry tomatoes from my backyard, ahh of course I used a lot of extra virgen olive oil and some blue cheese too. We ate it with some olive oil mixed wit some herbs and garlic, the combination was really good but nothing special, you could achieve the same using some french bread or chiabatta.

Overall is a good bread that you can it alone or dip it in any kind dip you want. I'll give a 6,5 out of 10 to this bread.

Next BBA challenge is the french bread (I think).

BBA Challenge #9 - Cinnamon raisins walnut bread

2009-07-29T08:50:00.000-05:00

I made this bread the second week of July but I did not have any time to post it before today.

This bread suppose to have a lot of cinnamon but I do not like cinnamon to much so I used just little bite, I used almonds instead of walnuts because I did not have any walnuts at home that day. The making of the bread was very straightforward, no problems at all and the bread tasted really really good. After a couple of days I stared to toast it and eat it without anything on top, very very good.

I'm going to skip the corn bread and the cranberry walnut bread, I think I had enough of those breads, I can survive until Christmas with out them!!

BBA Challenge #8 - Cinnamon buns

2009-07-28T08:34:00.001-05:00

Well I have to say I was waiting for this recipe since the challenge began, I do not like cinnamon to much but the soft crumb of these buns always tempted me. I made some of them with cinnamon and some without cinnamon but with a coconut pastry cream as filling, all of them were baked with some caramel on the base. The result? amazing buns!!!! everybody loved them, they were so good they only lasted 2 days. I covered all of them with some white chocolate ganache instead of the regular icing, the combination of caramel, coconut and white chocolate was very very good, but next time I will either leave them as they are or use some regular icing.

Overall the recipe is very good, very easy to make and extremely easy to eat ;). For sure I'll make them again in the winter.

Daring Bakers Challenge: Mallows and Milan cookies

2009-07-27T07:53:00.004-05:00

For this month's challenge we had two different cookies, the mallows and the Milan, I decided to make both of them so J. could take some to work and share with her coworkers. The mallows have a base that is like a shortbread, on top of that you pipe the marshmallow and then you cover them with chocolate, you can play a lot around this cookie since you could give different flavors to the marshmallows and to the shortbread, you also can top the chocolate with different stuff. Here in Houston the humidity was very high yesterday so I could not finish the mallows because the marshmallow did not dry completely, I will post some pictures of them when I finish them.

Note: the recipe supose to be for 2 dozen but I got at least 5, so I do not know what was wrong there.

The Milan cookies are a different animal, very easy to do but also very fragile. I did have some passion fruit chocolate ganache which I used to fill some of the cookies, for the rest of the cookies I used dulce the leche, they were very very good!!!.

Here is the official line: The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

Mallows(Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies)
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network website

Prep Time: 10 min
Inactive Prep Time: 5 min
Cook Time: 10 min
Serves: about 2 dozen cookies

• 3 cups (375grams/13.23oz) all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (112.5grams/3.97oz) white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter
• 3 eggs, whisked together
• Homemade marshmallows, recipe follows
• Chocolate glaze, recipe follows

1. In a mixer with the paddle attachment, blend the dry ingredients.
2. On low speed, add the butter and mix until sandy.
3. Add the eggs and mix until combine.
4. Form the dough into a disk, wrap with clingfilm or parchment and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 3 days.
5. When ready to bake, grease a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper or a silicon mat.
6. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
7. Roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thickness, on a lightly floured surface. Use a 1 to 1 1/2 inches cookie cutter to cut out small rounds of dough.
8. Transfer to the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Let cool to room temperature.
9. Pipe a “kiss” of marshmallow onto each cookie. Let set at room temperature for 2 hours.
10. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or silicon mat.
11. One at a time, gently drop the marshmallow-topped cookies into the hot chocolate glaze.
12. Lift out with a fork and let excess chocolate drip back into the bowl.
13. Place on the prepared pan and let set at room temperature until the coating is firm, about 1 to 2 hours.

Note: if you don’t want to make your own marshmallows, you can cut a large marshmallow in half and place on the cookie base. Heat in a preheated 350-degree oven to slump the marshmallow slightly, it will expand and brown a little. Let cool, then proceed with the chocolate dipping.

Homemade marshmallows:
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 3/4 cup (168.76 grams/5.95oz) sugar
• 1 tablespoon powdered gelatin
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 2 egg whites , room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. In a saucepan, combine the water, corn syrup, and sugar, bring to a boil until “soft-ball” stage, or 235 degrees on a candy thermometer.
2. Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water and let dissolve.
3. Remove the syrup from the heat, add the gelatin, and mix.
4. Whip the whites until soft peaks form and pour the syrup into the whites.
5. Add the vanilla and continue whipping until stiff.
6. Transfer to a pastry bag.

Chocolate glaze:
• 12 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 2 ounces cocoa butter or vegetable oil

1. Melt the 2 ingredients together in the top of a double boiler or a bowl set over barely simmering water.

Milan Cookies
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network website

Prep Time: 20 min
Inactive Prep Time: 0 min
Cook Time: 1 hr 0 min
Serves: about 3 dozen cookies

• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups (312.5 grams/ 11.02 oz) powdered sugar
• 7/8 cup egg whites (from about 6 eggs)
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons lemon extract
• 1 1/2 cups (187.5grams/ 6.61 oz) all purpose flour
• Cookie filling, recipe follows

Cookie filling:
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 orange, zested

1. In a mixer with paddle attachment cream the butter and the sugar.
2. Add the egg whites gradually and then mix in the vanilla and lemon extracts.
3. Add the flour and mix until just well mixed.
4. With a small (1/4-inch) plain tip, pipe 1-inch sections of batter onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them 2 inches apart as they spread.
5. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges. Let cool on the pan.
6. While waiting for the cookies to cool, in a small saucepan over medium flame, scald cream.
7. Pour hot cream over chocolate in a bowl, whisk to melt chocolate, add zest and blend well.
8. Set aside to cool (the mixture will thicken as it cools).
9. Spread a thin amount of the filling onto the flat side of a cookie while the filling is still soft and press the flat side of a second cookie on top.
10. Repeat with the remainder of the cookies.

NIvel 2 - Semana 10 - Ultima semana pasteleria y panaderia!!!

2009-07-10T14:31:00.008-05:00

Y si, se terminaron las 40 semanas del modulo de panaderia y pasteleria. Durante todo este tiempo aprendi muchas cosas que me serviran de cara al futuro, estas 40 semanas han sido super productivas y vividas a un paso rapidisimo, realmente valio la pena el esfuerzo que significo trabajar tiempo completo y tres veces por semana atender a la escuela durante 5 horas. Por supuesto que el que haya terminado no quiere decir que puedo salir y abrir mi local ma@ana mismo, para eso debere hacer un par de pasantias en algun local de Houston que se parezca a lo que tengo en mente para el futuro, lamentablemente las pasantias tendran que esperar 20 semanas ya que todavia me queda el modulo de cocina el cual comienza el lunes, estas seran otras 20 semanas intensas pero no creo que lleguen a ser lo que fue la intensidad de las clases de semanas que quedaron atras.

El lunes terminamos la pieza central que comenzamos la semana pasada, solo faltaba pintar la flor grande de la base y pegar todas las partes. Nadie pudo terminarla 100% ya que la explicacion del profe de como armar la pieza fue muy larga, esa noche me queme bien quemada la mano (ver foto). Por otro lado comenzamos con el croquembouche, miren el link para ver la definicion que wiki. El primer paso para hacerlo fue hornear bombitas de masa choux, asi que las preparamos y hormeamos para tenerlas listas para el jueves.

El martes hicimos el nougatine para las partes duras del croquembouche, el nougatine es basicamente una mezcla de azucar, glucosa y almendras fileteadas. Con esta pasta preparamos todas las partes que ensamblariamos el jueves. Tben aproveche los tiempos muertos para terminar la pieza central a la cual no le pude sacar una foto ese dia porque no tenia la camara y por mala suerte alguien me quebro una parte el miercoles o jueves a la ma@ana asi que no tengo ninguna foto de la pieza completa pero las que tengon sirven para ilustrar el proyecto.

El jueves, ensamblamos el croquembuche, para eso pegamos las partes con caramelo y luego decoramos con royal icing haciendo extensiones y unas rosas con rolling fondat. Las dos piezas eran parte del final del nivel 3, el comentario del profe fue que quedo muy pero muy contento con el trabajo.

Croquembouche terminado

Detalle extensiones

Quemaduras con caramelo!!

BBA Challenge #7 - Ciabatta

2009-07-06T09:56:00.008-05:00

This week challenge was ciabatta, a very nice tasty old fashion looking bread. I was waiting for this since the challenge began, ciabatta is a bread that always drove a lot of attention from me. I tried this from the KA web site but was not good, no eyes and not a really good flavor, after that first attempt I got discouraged and never try it again. When I saw it in the book I thought "fantastic I'll master this bread with PR help!!", I was wrong!!. Until here all the recipes from BBA where a success, but this one was the exception, I have no complain about the flavor, really nice bread, but the texture and the eyes, the eyes the big eyes where they go??? no big eyes for me this time. I was so sad when I cut it, very small eyes all around, that is no good enough. I promise my self I'll do this recipe until I master it so watch out ciabatta, I'll get you soon!!!. In the book there is 2 versions a poolish one and a viga one, I used former. Lot of people is reporting problem in getting big eyes, so I think something is going on with either the recipe or the techinque, problably a little bit of both. We ate it with ham, tomatoes, a mix of greens and cheese, a really good fresh sandwich. I'm sure next time I post about ciabatta the eyes are gonna be there!!!

my eyeless ciabatta ;(

This weekend was very special for me because my older son (Federico) meet my younger one (Tomas)!!. I'm very happy to be able to spend time with both of them at the same time and see how Fede interacts with Tomas, I love to see him watching after his baby brother. I'm sure we are gonna enjoy the next 3 weeks so much.

NIvel 2 - Semana 9

2009-07-03T11:37:00.002-05:00

Se fue la anteultima semana del programa de pasteleria y panederia, queda solo una semanita y listo, termino con el programa, el tiempo paso muy pero muy rapido, ahora solo quedan 20 semanas mas del programa de cocina, como el ritmo de la cocina es diferente al de la pasteledria imagino que se pasaran aun mas rapido y que las noches no seran tan largas ya que normalmente los de cocina terminan cerca de las 9 pm.

Esta semana fue todo pastillaje, tenemos que hacer una pieza central como para decorar una mesa de buffet o algo similar. El modelo de la pieza lo pueden ver en este link es la primera foto, esa pieza la hizo el instructor y nosotros tenemos que hacer algo parecido aunque podemos cambiar algunos colores y cositas, pero basicamente la estructura central sera la misma. El lunes hicimos las piezas, el martes las lijamos y ayer jueves las pintamos, el lunes la ensamblaremos. Fotos no tengo ninguna ya que fue todo preparativo, en el post de la semana que viene pondre las fotos.

Este fin de semana sera especial ya que llega fede que viene a conocer a su hermanito asi que seguro la pasaremos lindo. El sabado tengo planeado hacer ciabatta para el BBA challenge y tben ando con ganas de hacer unas croissants para el desayuno del domingo, veremos si puedo hacer todo.

BBA challenge #6 - Challah

2009-06-29T08:41:00.004-05:00

I thought I could make both Challah and Ciabatta this past weekend but I could not so I'm still one week behind schedule with the BBA challenge, I'm sure I'll catch up soon.

This bread uses a direct method (no need for overnight fermentation) so it was very easy and quick to make. It has some eggs, yolks, sugar but not butter. The crumb is very soft and it does not dry out very quickly like the casatiello does. I think it is a very nice bread to use as a table bread, specially when you have some salad since its texture is special to dip into the bowl when all you have left is the dressing....

Overall I'll give a 8 out of 10 to this bread, I'll make it again, that is for sure.

Daring Bakers' challenge - Bakewell tart

2009-06-27T16:14:00.005-05:00

Bakewell tart, a daring bakers' challenge

This month the challenge is a tart, a very nice and easy to prepare one. There was three elements we have to use: tart dough, frangipane and fruit jam. We could use any kind of jam, so I went with a mango and peaches jam that I had for my big tart and a peaches jam for the smaller ones. The big one has some fresh peaches on top and some decorations made with the extra dough. For the smaller ones I mixed the frangipane with some coconut pastry cream I had in the fridge and top two of them with fresh pears and the other one with peaches. Almonds and some pistachios were added 5 min before I took them from the oven. The tarts were really really good, I'm sure I'm gonna make this kind of tart again in the future.

The frangipane was very good, the dough was kind of difficult to work with so I will not use this dough in the future.

The official line: The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800’s in England.

Sweet shortcrust pastry

Prep time: 15-20 minutes

Resting time: 30 minutes (minimum)
Equipment needed: bowls, box grater, cling film

225g (8oz) all purpose flour
30g (1oz) sugar
2.5ml (½ tsp) salt
110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
2 (2) egg yolks
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract (optional)
15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water

Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.
Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.
Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

Frangipane

Prep time: 10-15 minutes

Equipment needed: bowls, hand mixer, rubber spatula

125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, softened
125g (4.5oz) icing sugar
3 (3) eggs
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract
125g (4.5oz) ground almonds
30g (1oz) all purpose flour

Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

NIvel 2 - Semana 8

2009-06-26T10:54:00.005-05:00

Esta semana estuvo dedicada a mini postres para un buffet, la consigna era dise@ar 3 mini postres y hacer 20 de cada uno para presentarlos el jueves en un buffet al cual podimas invitar 2 o 3 familiares/amigos. Despues de mostrarle (y discutir) 8 opciones diferentes al profe elejimos 3 . Por supuesto que a los 3 le hizo algun cambio pero basicamente terminaron siendo lo que yo tenia pensado.

No fue nada facil terminar a tiempo todos los postres debido a que el profe queriamos que cocinemos las masas el mismo dia de la presentacion, lo cual implicaba que tenia que hornear las tartitas, el hojaldre y los discos de coco todo el mismo dia. El problema era que solo teniamos 2 horas para hacer y eso y ademas todas las terminaciones y ensamblar los postres. Aqui les cuento como distribui el tiempo cada dia:

Lunes:

cigarette/joconde para montar los mousses,
mousses de coco y chocolate,
rellenado de los moldes con los mousses, fueron al frezzer hasta el jueves.
masa para las tarteletitas,
hojaldre,
hacer y cocinar discos de pasta el almendra,
mini bombitas de crema

Martes:

decoraciones de chocolate, hice 4 clases diferentes pero solo use 2,
ganache de chocolate y fruta de la pasion,
ganache de chocolate blanco (que no lo use),
tapas para los macarons,
crema pastelera de coco,
ensamblado de la masa de tarta en los moldes, lista para cocinar el jueves,
estirado, plegado y cortado del hojaldre, listo para hornear el jueves,
masa para los discos de coco.

Jueves:

cocinado de hojalde, masa de tarta y discos de coco,
crema pastelera para las bombitas,
crema chantilly,
armado de los macarons,
rellenado de bombitas y ba@o en caramelo de color rojo,
glazeado de los mousses,
crema mousselim,
ensamblaje de todos los postres.

Aqui las fotos y descripcion de cada postre:

En la parte superior estan los mousses de chocolate y coco, el postre tiene dos capas, la inferior es el mousse de chocolate y la superior el de coco, rodeando tres cuartos del postres hay un joconde de chocolate, la decoracion la hice con chocolate y una frambuesa.

El postre del medio esta compuesto por un disco de hojaldre, un disco de crema de almendras, crema mousselim, chantilly y una bombita de crema ba@ada en caramelo.

En la parte inferior las tartitas compuestas de crema pastelera de coco, ganache de chocolate y fruta de la pasion, decoradas con un macaron y un cigarrillo de chocolate.

Mi seccion

Aqui fotos de los de mis compa@eros

Miguel

Emily

Alice

BBA Challenge #5 Casatiello

2009-06-22T11:30:00.005-05:00

I'm 2 weeks behind with the challenges because in the last 2 weeks we made a lot of bread at school (and I brought some home) so I did not have any more space in the freezer to store it. Now that most of the bread is gone I started to bake again.

The Casatiello is the italian brioche, it has eggs and butter but this one ghas a very interesting twist: salami and cheeses (I used gouda, gruyere and jarlsberg) which makes it perfect to eat it alone or with some tomatoes and lettuce. It is very buttery with a soft crumb, I think that the best way to describe it is by saying that is the savory version of the panettone. It is a great bread to eat while drinking mate in your car or when you go camping or to the beach since you have everything in the bread.

The making of the Casatiello was very easy, it uses a sponge but there is not need to do an overnight fermentation (I think is gonna be even tastier in that way) so the bread was ready in 5 hours. Very, very straighforward precedure. For sure I'm going to make it again, I will give a 8 out of 10 to this bread.

NIvel 2 - Semana 7

2009-06-22T08:36:00.007-05:00

Esta semana fue dedicada a emplatado de postres. Idealmente un postre debe consistir de una mezcla de diferentes texturas, sabores y temperaturas, de esta forma se debe tratar de tener algo dulce y algo acido, algo suave y algo crocante, algo frio y algo tibio o caliente. Como lo visual es fundamental el armado y la presentacion del plato es importantisimo ya que el cliente apreciara el postre visualmente antes que gustativamente. Con todas estas consignas hicimos algunos postres que emplatamos para la cena o los recreos.

Tutti-frutti clafoutis (antes del horno)

El lunes hicimos tutti-frutti clafoutis (flan de frutas frescas), fruits gratin, peras cocinadas en vino o almibar, salsa de manzanas y helado de vainilla y miel. El flan de futas es simplemente poner algunas frutas frescas como arandanos, frambuesas y damascos en un platito y verterle la mezcla del flan, cocinar en horno y chau, listo. Para servirlo el quemamos un poco de azucar en la superficie y adornamos con frambuesas y arandanos.

Gratin 1 (salsa de manzanas, sable breton, gratin, frutas frescas)

El fruit gratin es una mezcla de yemas cocidas con azucar caliente y aireada con crema. A esta la usamos junto con una masa de tarta sobre la cual pusimos frutas frescas, el gratin, azucar impalpable y un helado de miel y vainilla.

Gratin 2 (gratin, frutas frescas, sable breton con ganache, helado del miel y vainilla)

El martes no hicimos mucho que digamos, un par de pound cakes de limon y cramberries, crema de limon, merengue y emplatado.

Tarta de limon emplatada

El jueves usamos las peras que cocinamos entre el lunes y el martes, con ellas hicimos un postre a nuestro gusto. A mi me toco hacer equipo con Miguel, hicimos un poco de masa de bomba de crema, la cocinamos como una bomba de la mitad del tama@o de una pelota de tennis, cortamos la bomba en la mitad dandole un poco de angulo. Hicimos un disco de crema de almendras en cual seria la base sobre la cual se asentaria la bomba. Por ultimo hicimos un poco de crema pastelera y un helado que tenia un poco de vainilla, licor de peras y miel (riquisimo quedo). Para ensamblar el postre pusimos la base de almendras, sobre esta asentamos mitad bomba pegada con un poco de pastelera, en la bomba pusimos un poco de pastelera y sobre esta asentamos mitad pera, en otro sector del plato colocamos la otra mitad de la bomba y sobre ella una bocha de helado. El postre quedo muy rico, lamentablemente se los comieron todos antes de que pueda sacar una foto :(

Tarta de limon emplatada

Nivel 2 - Semana 6

2009-06-12T09:26:00.002-05:00

Pan, Pan, Pan asi se podria definir esta semana en la escuela. En realidad el lunes no fue tanto pan ya que solamente hicimos la esponja para utilizar el martes y el jueves. Para ocupar el tiempo hicimos un mousse cake, el sabor? frutilla y mango. El mousse fue de frutilla y un disco de mango gelatinizado ocupo el centro del postre, las paredes y el fondo los hicimos con joconde biscuit. Al final lo pintamos con chocolate rosado y decoramos con coulis de frutilla. Riquisimo. Hicimos 30 porciones individuales, varias de las cuales fueron a parar a casita.

Con la esponja a pleno el martes comenzamos con 3 panes diferentes, solamente para el frances utilizamos la esponja los otros dos fueron con metodo directo (sin prefermento). Uno de los panes tenia chorizo en el medio (no me gusto) y el restante era un bollo sin nada, realmente no tenia mucho gusto. El pan frances estaba delicioso. Al final de la clase alimentamos la esponja para usarla el jueves e hicimos un prefermento para hacer panes el jueves.

Con el preferemento hicimos pretzels y pan frances, con la esponja hicimos bagels y ademas hicimos pan de aceite y pan de aceitunas utilizando el metodo directo.
Todos los panes salieron ricos pero estoy totalemente convencido que de usar un prefermento amplifica el sabor del pan y lo lleva a otra dimension, lo hace mucho mas complejo y sabroso.

NO HAY FOTOS DEBIDO A QUE LA MAQUINA FUNCIONO MAL TODA LA SEMANA.

Nivel 2 - Semana 5

2009-06-05T11:10:00.004-05:00

Semana especial si las hay!!! no podia empezar mejor la semana que con el nacimiento de Tomás, un bebe hermoso (objetivamente hablando jajaja) que llego a este mundo el lunes a las 15:08 hs. Una experiencia unica la de presenciar el parto, algo que le recomiendo a todo aquel que tenga la chance de estar en uno no la deje pasar, es indescriptible, no hay palabras para explicar lo bello de ese momento. Tanto July como Tomy estan muy bien, ya en casa disfrutando de este tiempo que tienen a solas.

Pasando al tema escuela, como es de suponer el lunes no fui a clases asi que me perdi la preparacion de la masa hojaldrada, la de croissants y la de brioche, todas masas que ya preparamos anterioermente, asi que en realidad no perdi mucho. El martes lo que hicimos fue trabajar con el brioche y con la masa de croissants. El brioche lo preparamos en bollitos de 50 grs y lo pusimos en moldes de muffins para que leuden, cuando leudaron los pincelamos con huevo, le pusimos pequeños pedacitos de una mezcla que tiene azucar, polvo de almendras, manteca y huevo y al horno, como siempre quedaron muy buenos. Con la masa de croissants hicimos croissants regulares, de chocolate y unos rollos con crema pastelera, pistacho y chocolate, estos ultimos los congelamos apenas los hicimos para cocinarlos el jueves. Todo el resto lo cocinamos esa misma tarde. Por suerte pudimos llevar 5 de cada una a casa asi que el miercoles por la mañana desayunamos con facturas en el hospital.

Croissants

El jueves comenzamos a hacer las estiradas a la masa de hojaldre la cual usariamos en un par de recetas. La primera de estas fue la famosa Tart Tatin, esta tarta consiste de una base de hojaldre sobre la cual se asientan manzanas caramelizadas. Hicimos dos clases, una con manzanas y otras con manzanas y peras, ambas quedar muy ricas. La forma de hacer la tarta en la siguiente: se prepara un caramelo y se lo vierte sobre el molde de horno que se usara para cocinar la fruta, sobre el caramelo se ponen los trozos de frutas crudas, sobre estas se ponen unos cuadraditos de manteca y se lleva a horno, una vez que las frutas estan cocidas se coloca el pedazo de hojaldre y se vuelve a colocar en el horno hasta que el hojaldre este cocido, una vez listo se retira del horno y se invierte, de manera que el hojaldre que estaba en la parte de arriba ahora es el piso de la tarta. Una vez fria se pinta con glaze para darle brillo.

Tart Tatin

El hojaldre tben lo usamos para hacer unas facturitas muy ricas de las cuales no me acuerdo el nombre es este momento, basicamente se estira el hojaldre bien finito y se lo unta con una fina capa de manteca (como si no fuese suficiente la que ya tiene el hojaldre!!!), se hace un arrolladito y luego se lo corta en rodajitas de unos 2 cm de espesor, se estiran con un palote y se les coloca una buena porcion de una mezcla que consiste de crema pastelera, choux paste (masa de bombita de crema) y pasas de uvas remojadas en Rum. Se doblan de manera que los dos extremos se junten y se llevan al horno. Bastante ricas las facturitas.

Por ultimo utilizamos croissants del martes (viejas) para ver como se puede reusar algo que nos sobra en comercio. Hicimos un almibar saborizado con licor de peras, en el mojamos las croissants cortas en mitades, las escurrimos y luego le pusimos una crema que consistia de crema de almendras y un poco de crema batida, pusimos la segunda mitad sobre la crema y cubrimos la croissant con mas crema y almendras fileteadas, llevamos a horno y espolvoreamos con azucar impalpable cuando salieron del horno, muy muy ricas quedaron.

Croissants recicladas

Tomas

2009-06-03T21:22:00.005-05:00

This is not a food related post, today I'm gonna blog about my second son, Tomas. Tomy, as I like to call him, was born last Monday June the 1st (that was the due date also) at 3:08 pm, he weighted 3.160 grs (around 7 pounds) and was 49 1/2 cm long. I was present in the labor room all the time, it was the most amazing experience ever, I can not describe the feeling of seeing your son coming out of his mother's body, it is just incredible, it is something I'll remember for ever. I really had to make an effort to do not cry out and loud, what an special moment!!! I do not really have words to tell you how I felt when I held him the very first time..amazing, just amazing....you have to live it to feel it.

Tomas and Juliana are doing very good, we returned home today in the afternoon. He is eating every 2-3 hs and sleeping the rest of the time. He is a very good boy so far and we are so in love with him that we can not stop watching him even when he sleeps!!!
Well, enough talking here you have a picture of Tomas. He is really cute. isn't he?

BBA Challenge # 4 - Brioche

2009-06-01T03:11:00.006-05:00

This post is a little weir to me because I'm posting for the labor room of the women hospital!!!! yes my wife, Juliana, broke her water 3 hs ago and we (my mother in law and me) are waiting here in the room watching tv and talking with J., incredible no??. Well looks like we have at least 12 hs and I can not sleep so I decided to update the blog and upload the results from the Brioche experience. I made brioche before, I never try brioche before culinary school, but after I try it I loved it. It is a very versatille bread, you can eat it in a lot of different ways.

We had 3 different variantions, the rich, the middle and the poor man brioche. Which is the difference among them?? well, the amount of butter you use, the rich man uses a lot of butter and the poor man a little. I went and made the middle class because it is something in between, I do not like extremes (usually). If I compare this recipe with the one I made at school this one has a lot less butter.

I have to say that I liked this recipe better because the flavor and texture was very similar to the one I made at school but with a lot less butter. We ate some before lunch and some with cheese and I guess we are gonna eat some here with coffe because I put a couple in the backpack we brough here.

I made 4 little ones and one big one using a bread pan, I used seven 90 grs ball for the big one. They behave as expected, it was a real pleasure to work with this dough. I'll give a 10 out of 10 to this recipe, one more time thanks Peter!!! Now I'll try to catch some spleep before Tomas is born!!!

Nivel 2 - Semana 4

2009-05-29T14:29:00.013-05:00

Esta fue una semana corta dado que el lunes fue feriado por Memorial Day. A pesar de que solo tuvimos dos dias pudimos terminar el buffet de tartas que teniamos planeado hacer. Todo el planeamiento y la preparacion de cosa que se podian guardar desde el martes hasta el jueves se realizo el martes. El jueves se hornearon las cosas que se tenian que hornear, se prepararon alguno de los rellenos que no podian estar en heladera por 2 dias y se decoraron y presentaron las tartas. Aqui les dejo una foto y una peque@a descripcion de todas y cada una de ellas:

Tarta de Pecans y Mousse de Chocolate: masa de tarta dulce rellena con una mezcla de pecans (parecidas a las nueces) sobre el relleno se coloco una semiesfera de mousse de chocolate y sobre esta una especie de galletita bien finita de pistachos.

Tarta de Pecan y Mousse de Chocolate

Tarta de Chocolate: masa de tarta hecha con cacao rellena con un biscocho de chocolate y crema de chocolate, ba@o de chocolate, semiesferas de mousse de chocolate, decoraciones de chocolate. Tendra suficiente chocolate????

Tarta de chocolate

Tarta de Crema de almendras pistachos y mousse the chocolate blanco: Base the tarta dulce, relleno con crema de pistachos, mousse the chocolate blanco, frambuesas, frutilla y chocolate para decorar.

Tartas de creama de pistacho y mousse de chocolate blanco

Tarta de fruta de la pasion: masa de tarta dulce rellena con una crema de fruto de la pasion y decorada con merengues comunes y de pistachos.

Tarta de fruta de la pasion

Tarta de creme brulee de limon y merengue de frambuesas: base de tarta dulce rellena con creme brulee de limon cubierta con merengue de frambuesas y decorada con macarons de frutilla y piel de limon caramelizada

Tarta de creme brulee y merengue de frambuesas

Pound cake y mousse de queso crema: En esta tarta la base es un pound cake de praline, en el centro tiene manzanas caramelizadas, sobre estas se apolla un cuadrado de mousse de queso crema pintado con chocolate, se decoro con chocolate.

Pound Cake y Mousse de Queso Crema

Tarta de crema de almendras y coco: base dulce, crema de almendras y coco. Bombitas rellenas con crema pastelera de naranjas cubiertas con caramelo, crema batida.

Tarta de crema de almendras y coco

Daring's Bakers Challenge - Strudel

2009-05-26T09:50:00.003-05:00

This month the challenge was apple strudel. I never made strudel before and I ate it a couple of times when I was a little boy so I do not have to much of a memory about this particular dish. The process of making it is very quick and easy. I did exactly the recipe that the host suggested, none a single change. The filling was good but next time I'll use less bread crumbs and more cinnamon. I overcooked the strudel, I turned off the oven and let the strudel inside just to catch a little color during the cool down but I forgot to set the timer and the strudel was inside for like an extra 25 minutes!!!! I did not have the time to make another one, so I am not posting a picture that I do not like even a little. Considering the filling alone it was good. I think I'm going to use some pears together with the apples in my next one and also cook it just until done!!!

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

Preparation time
Total: 2 hours 15 minutes – 3 hours 30 minutes

15-20 min to make dough
30-90 min to let dough rest/to prepare the filling
20-30 min to roll out and stretch dough
10 min to fill and roll dough
30 min to bake
30 min to cool

Apple strudel
from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers

2 tablespoons (30 ml) golden rum
3 tablespoons (45 ml) raisins
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (80 g) sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick / 115 g) unsalted butter, melted, divided
1 1/2 cups (350 ml) fresh bread crumbs
strudel dough (recipe below)
1/2 cup (120 ml, about 60 g) coarsely chopped walnuts
2 pounds (900 g) tart cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into ¼ inch-thick slices (use apples that hold their shape during baking)

1. Mix the rum and raisins in a bowl. Mix the cinnamon and sugar in another bowl.

2. Heat 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high. Add the breadcrumbs and cook whilst stirring until golden and toasted. This will take about 3 minutes. Let it cool completely.

3. Put the rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a large baking sheet with baking paper (parchment paper). Make the strudel dough as described below. Spread about 3 tablespoons of the remaining melted butter over the dough using your hands (a bristle brush could tear the dough, you could use a special feather pastry brush instead of your hands). Sprinkle the buttered dough with the bread crumbs. Spread the walnuts about 3 inches (8 cm) from the short edge of the dough in a 6-inch-(15cm)-wide strip. Mix the apples with the raisins (including the rum), and the cinnamon sugar. Spread the mixture over the walnuts.

4. Fold the short end of the dough onto the filling. Lift the tablecloth at the short end of the dough so that the strudel rolls onto itself. Transfer the strudel to the prepared baking sheet by lifting it. Curve it into a horseshoe to fit. Tuck the ends under the strudel. Brush the top with the remaining melted butter.

5. Bake the strudel for about 30 minutes or until it is deep golden brown. Cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Use a serrated knife and serve either warm or at room temperature. It is best on the day it is baked.

Strudel dough
from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers

1 1/3 cups (200 g) unbleached flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons (105 ml) water, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

1. Combine the flour and salt in a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour with the mixer on low speed. You will get a soft dough. Make sure it is not too dry, add a little more water if necessary.
Take the dough out of the mixer. Change to the dough hook. Put the dough ball back in the mixer. Let the dough knead on medium until you get a soft dough ball with a somewhat rough surface.

2. Take the dough out of the mixer and continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally.
Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).

3. It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch (90 cm) round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches (60 x 100 cm). Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle and roll it out as much as you can.
Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough. You can use your forearms to support it.

4. The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it's about 2 feet (60 cm) wide and 3 feet (90 cm) long, it will be tissue-thin by this time. Cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. The dough is now ready to be filled.

Tips
- Ingredients are cheap so we would recommend making a double batch of the dough, that way you can practice the pulling and stretching of the dough with the first batch and if it doesn't come out like it should you can use the second batch to give it another try;
- The tablecloth can be cotton or polyster;
- Before pulling and stretching the dough, remove your jewelry from hands and wrists, and wear short-sleeves;
- To make it easier to pull the dough, you can use your hip to secure the dough against the edge of the table;
- Few small holes in the dough is not a problem as the dough will be rolled, making (most of) the holes invisible.

BBA Challenge #3 - Bagels

2009-05-25T10:06:00.004-05:00

I have to say that I ate 2 bagels in my life before I made these, I did not like them when I tried them so I stoped eating them even when they were present at every early morning seminar. My opinion about bagels changed after this challenge, now I like them (at least the ones I made). I only made half recipe, I did not want to waste a lot of ingredients just in case nobody likes them, honestly was the other way around, everybody liked them.

The process of making them is very simple and a little time consuming. I started friday evening with the poolish and after 2 hours it was ready to rock. I made the dough, I did not get a nice window test but I kept going because the temperature of the dough was 30C already. I used bread flour and I added vital wheat gluten, I did not had the time to make one batch using only the bread flour to see if the addition of gluten makes any difference but I'll try next time. The bagles passed the floating test very nicely and they were ready to sleep in the refri. Next day I boiled them in water one and a half minute each side, added some seed on top and baked them at 500F for 10 minutes (I turned the pan 180 degrees after 5 min). The only modifications I did were honey instead of malt and I forgot to add baking soda to the boiling water.

Overall this bagels are great, I like them and for sure I'll make them again.

Nivel 2 - Semana 3

2009-05-22T13:26:00.007-05:00

Mousse, mousse, mousse...si esta semana trabajamos los 3 dias con mousses. El motivo por el cual pasamos 4 dias haciendo mousses es porque necesitamos aprender y practicar todas las tecnicas que se usan para hacer mousses. Fue una semana muy amena y los postres que realizamos estaban muy ricos.

El lunes comenzamos con la decoracion del mousse que dejamos hecho en el frezzer. Este es un mousse de frambuesas y chocolate con leche, ademas de esto lleva un disco de cream burlee gelatinizado, un disco de biscocho de chocolate, uno de pistacho y una gelatina de frambuesas. Lo unico que hicimos con este fue hacerle una covertura de chocolate y le pusimos el mo@o de chocolate que habiamos hecho la semana anterior.

Mousse de frambuesas y chocolate con leche

Luego de terminar la deocracion de este, comenzamos a hacer una Selva Negra moderna, para lo cual usamos los componentes de la selva negra pero los colocamos en diferentes formas. El postre quedo conformado por una base de masa dulce, un biscocho de chocolate, un disco de cerezas, mouse de chocolate, biscocho de chocolate y disco de crema chantilli. Decoramos con crema batida, chocolate afeitado, cerezas y a los costados una faja de chocolate pintado. Quedo muy buena pero el gusto de las cerezas era medio dificil de distinguirlo.

Selva Negra moderna (fotos gentileza del instructor)

Para el martes nos esperaba un mousse de queso crema y masitas vainillas. El postre en si es bien sencillo, una base de masa dulce y 3 capas de vainillas intercaladas con el mousse de queso crema. Para decorar usamos queso crema te@ido con colorante rosa. Para lograr el efecto deseado sobre el pastel se hacen los dise@os con el queso rosa sobre la base (que luego sera la parte de arriba del pastel) y en un acetato sobre los costados, se lleva a freezer un buen rato y luego se ensabla el postre, de esta manera las masrcas rosas quedan sobre la superficie del pastel.

Mousse de queso crema

El jueves preparamos un mousse de chocolate con caramelo, merengue de chocolate, ganache de chocolate y biscocho de chocolate, todo eso para ensamblar un postre que como se imaginan es casi puro chocolate. Este lo terminaremos el martes de la semana que viene, imagino que usaremos la flor de chocolate para decorarlo. Tben hicimos pound cakes de varios gustos, realmente muy faciles de hacer y muy pero muy ricos. Aqui les dejo la receta de estos.

4 huevos
250 gr de azucar
un toque de sal
70 grs de manteca
100 de crema
190 gr de harina de torta
3 grs de polvo de hornear

Se tamiza el harina y el polvo de hornear.
Se funde la manteca y se pone junto con la crema en un contenedor.
Se mezclan bien los huevos con el azucar y la sal.
Se incorpora la mezcla de crema y leche y se mezcla muy bien.
Se incorpora el harina y polvo de hornear, mezclar solo hasta que esten incorporados, no mezclar de mas.

Se pone en molde/moldes y se hornea en horno suave (275-300F) hasta que esten cocidos (testear con cuchillo).

BBA Challenge # 2 - Christopsomos (Greek celebration bread)

2009-05-19T09:13:00.001-05:00

Time for the second challenge, we had to make the Greek celebration breads from the Bread Baker's apprentice, there are 3 variations in the book so I choose the Christopsomos because it looks cool. This bread is made for Christmas and literally translates from Greek as “Christ Bread“. This dough has a lot of ingredients: (cinnamon, cloves, spices, eggs, nutmeg, orange extract, almond extract, eggs, honey, olive oil, whole milk, golden raisins, dried figs, and walnuts. I replaced the golden raisins for dark ones, and the walnuts for almonds, I did not have dry figs so I did not put any. The process is a 2 days run, the first day I did the polish, the second day I mixed the polish with the rest of the ingredients, let it proof, then I shaped as a boule and let it proof until double in size, when is ready to go to the oven I made the decoration using a piece of dough I saved in the refri at the moment of making the boule. The oven has to be at 350F, it took about 40 minutes to be done, I rotated the pan 180 degrees after 20 min. When the bread was ready I brushed it with the glaze (water, sugar, honey, orange extract) and sprinkled it with black sesame seeds.

Ready for the oven

This bread is fantastic, it is delicious, you can not stop eating it, with Juliana we almost ate half of the bread that evening, I think she fell in love with this bread. This dough is gonna make a fantastic panetone or pan dulce so for sure next Christmas I am gonna make pan dulce modifying this recipe a little bit.
Overall I'll give this recipe 10 out of 10.

Nivel 2 - Semana 2

2009-05-15T17:41:00.015-05:00

El lunes fue el ultimo dia de chocolate en todo el programa, hicimos algunas decoraciones las cuales usaremos durante las 2 proximas semanas para decorar las tortas de mousse que hagamos.

El martes comenzamos con los mousses, no hicimos mousses pero si comenzamos a hacer los biscochos y partes que usaremos para armar los postres. El primer postre en la lista es el Casino, basicamente consta de una serie de piononos bien finos untados con mermelada de frutillas, normalmente el pionono se enrolla y luego se cortan pedacitos con los cuales se hace la pared del postre, en este caso fuimos poniendo una capa de pionono y otra de mermelada, asi hasta usar toda la masa, luego cortamos cuadraditos y esos fueron los que usamos para la construccion del postre. Otra parte del postre son los discos de gelatina de frambuesas, asi que preparamos varios de esos discos. El ingrediente final del postre es el mousse de vainilla (crema Bavaria), una vez que teniamos montados los cuadraditos y el disco de gelatina en el molde preparamos el mousse y rellenamos el postre. Aplicamos una capa de glaze neutro sobre la superficie del postre y decoramos con macarons, crema batida, frutillas y chocolate.

Casino cake

Como nos sobro un poco de tiempo preparamos una creme burlee (crema quemada) y una crema de chocolate, ambos super faciles de preparar y muuuuuuuuy ricos, especialmente la crema de chocolate, deliciosa. Quizas postee la receta mas adelante.

Crema de chocolate

El jueves hicimos un postre que tiene un mousse de frambuesas y chocolate con leche. Todavia nos falta hacer la decoracion para presentarlo pero ya esta todo montado, ademas del mousse de frambuesas y chocolate con leche, lleva un disco de cream burlee gelatinizado, un disco de biscocho de chocolate, uno de pistacho y una gelatina de frambuesas.

Creme brulee

Este dia tambien ayudamos al chef con la preparacion de un postre para una cena que habia en el instituto, el postre consitia de una base tipo brownie, algunas frambuesas y sobre estas un cuadrado de mousse de chocolate con leche, la decoracion consistia de rulos de chocolate y macarons, como sobraron unos cuantos tuvimos la chance de probarlo y estaba muy rico, medio incomodo para comerlo pero rico. Aqui les dejo una foto.

Daring Cooks' Challenge # 1 - Ricotta Gnocchi

2009-05-12T11:18:00.005-05:00

Today I am posting the very first Daring Cooks' challenge. The group has the Bakers' challenge and now we also have the cooks's challenge, the first one has to be completed by the end of every month and the second one around the end of the second week of the month in that way they do no overlap.

For the first challenge they choose Ricotta gnocchi, the recipe is from the stunning cookbook by Judy Rodgers, named after her restaurant, The Zuni Café Cookbook.

I made gnocchi before but never the ricotta ones because I do not (did not) like ricotta very much. After this challenge my opinion about ricotta changed, I think the homemade ricotta is much more tasty than the one you buy at the store, I think I'll not buy that crap anymore. I strictly followed the recipe this time, the only thing I changed was the sauce, instead of a butter sauce I made a pink sauce using tomatoes, garlic, cream and some fresh herbs.

I made the ricotta, the process is very simple and the result great. I used whole milk to make it but later on I learnt that could be made using the the ricotta can be made with whey. Here you have an excellent web page for people that want to make cheese at home.

We enjoy these very tasty gnocchi with a Graffigna Malbec and some home made bread, the overall result was really good, I'm going to make this again, that is for sure.

Here you have the recipe from the forum

Zuni Ricotta Gnocchi

Source: From The Zuni Café Cookbook.

Yield: Makes 40 to 48 gnocchi (serves 4 to 6)

Prep time: Step 1 will take 24 hours. Steps 2 through 4 will take approximately 1 hour.

Tips:

- If you can find it, use fresh ricotta. As Judy Rodgers advises in her recipe, there is no substitute for fresh ricotta. It may be a bit more expensive, but it's worth it.
- Do not skip the draining step. Even if the fresh ricotta doesn't look very wet, it is. Draining the ricotta will help your gnocchi tremendously.
- When shaping your gnocchi, resist the urge to over handle them. It's okay if they look a bit wrinkled or if they're not perfectly smooth.
- If you're not freezing the gnocchi for later, cook them as soon as you can. If you let them sit around too long they may become a bit sticky.

For the gnocchi:

1 pound (454 grams/16 ounces) fresh ricotta (2 cups)
2 large cold eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) unsalted butter
2 teaspoons of fresh herbs, a few pinches of freshly grated nutmeg, one teaspoon of chopped lemon zest (all optional)
½ ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated (about ¼ cup very lightly packed)
about ¼ teaspoon salt (a little more if using kosher salt)
all-purpose flour for forming the gnocchi

For the pink sauce:

1 kg of tomatos, 200 ml of cream some garlic, fresh herbs and olive oil.

Process the tomatos, saute the garlic in the olive oil for a minute add the tomatoes and cook for 3 min, add the herbs and cream, let infuse, during that time make the gnoochi. Warm it before the gnoochis are ready.

BBA Challenge #1 - Anadama bread

2009-05-11T11:38:00.006-05:00

This week I joined a new group the Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge, which was created by Nicole from Pinch my salt. This group has people from all around the globe and all share the passion: bread making. The challenge is to bake every single bread from Peter Reinhart's book Bread Baker's apprentice, at the pace of one bread per week or something like that. The Book has 54 recipes so is gonna take a little bit more than one year to complete considering holidays, breaks and stuff like that. You can take a look inside the book here.

The first bread is call Anadama bread, the particularity of this bread is the use of polenta together with bread flour. The process of making it is very simple but long. The first day you have to make a soaker using the polenta and some water. The second day you complete the process by making the sponge and then the dough which is gonna proof until it double in size, I left the dough risen in the fridge from sunday morning until sunday evening and I baked at night. It did not double in size because I did not leave it at room temperature enough time after I take it out of the refri. I was in a hurry so I bake it when it was around 1 3/4 the original size.

The final result was very good to me, I think this is an excellent sandwich bread, I really like it and for sure I'm going to bake it again.

Here you have the recipe

Anadama Bread

From "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" by Peter Reinhart

Makes two 1 1/2-pound loaves or three 1-pound loaves

Soaker
1 cup (6 ounces) cornmeal (preferably coarse grind, also packaged as polenta)
1 cup (8 ounces) water, at room temperature

Dough

4 1/2 cups (20.25 ounces) unbleached bread flour

2 teaspoons (.22 ounce) instant yeast

1 cup (8 ounces) water, lukewarm

1 1/2 teaspoons (.38 ounce) salt

6 tablespoons (4 ounces) molasses

2 tablespoons (1 ounce) shortening or unsalted butter, at room temperature

Cornmeal for dusting (optional)

The day before making the bread, make the soaker by mixing the cornmeal and water in a small bowl. Cover with plastic and let sit overnight at room temperature.

The next day, to make the dough, stir together 2 cups of the flour, the yeast, soaker and water in a mixing bowl (or in the bowl of an electric mixer). Cover the bowl with a towel or plastic and ferment for 1 hour, or until the sponge begins to bubble.

Add the remaining 2 1/2 cups of flour, the salt, molasses and shortening and stir (or mix on low speed with the paddle attachment) until the ingredients form a ball. Add water if necessary to make a soft, slightly sticky mass.

Sprinkle flour on the counter, transfer dough to the counter and knead (or mix on medium speed with the dough hook), sprinkling in more flour as needed to make a tacky, but not sticky, dough. The dough should be firm but supple and pliable and definitely not sticky. It will take about 10 minutes of kneading to accomplish this (or 6 to 8 minutes in the mixer).

Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and ferment the dough at room temperature for about 90 minutes, or until doubled.

Remove the dough from the bowl and divide into 2 equal pieces of 24 ounces, or 3 pieces of 16 ounces. Shape the dough into loaves and put in lightly oiled bread pans. (Larger loaves could go in 9- by 5-inch pans and smaller loaves should go in 8 1/2- by 4 1/2-inch pans.) Mist the tops with spray oil and cover with wrap.

Proof at room temperature for 60 to 90 minutes, or until the loaves crest fully above the tops of the pans. (If you want to hold back any of the loaves, place them in the refrigerator without proofing, where they will hold for up to 2 days. Remove them from the refrigerator about 4 hours before baking and proof at room temperature, or until ready.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, with the oven rack in the middle shelf. Place the pans on a sheet pan and remove the plastic wrap. Mist the tops with a spray of water and dust with cornmeal.

Place the sheet plan in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Rotate the sheet pan for even baking and continue to bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the loaves are golden brown, including along the sides and bottom, and register at least 185 degrees to 190 degrees in the center. They should make a hollow sound when thumped on the bottom.

When the loaves are done, remove them immediately from the pans and cool on a wire rack at least one hour before slicing.

Nivel 2 - Semana 1

2009-05-08T10:50:00.004-05:00

Ultimas 10 semanas en el programa de pasteleria y panaderia!!! me da un poco de pena pensar que en 10 semanas ya termino, realmente estoy aprendiendo mucho y estoy super contento con que chef Phillippe haya estado con nuestro grupo desde nivel 1 avanzado, realmente es un profe excelente, con mucha creatividad y mucho conocimiento, este ultimo ganado durante los 20 a@os de experiencia pero apoyados en una base intelectual muy amplia, muchos de los chicos en las clases optaron por una carrera en la cocina porque no les gustan los libros, lamentablemente para ellos los libros los tendran que agarrar, y mas seguido de lo que piensan. Bue me fui por las ramas, en estas 10 semanas de nivel 2 haremos varias cosas, con casi todas ya trabajamos antes como chocolate, mousse cakes, pan, hojaldres, facturas, pastillaje, las cosas nuevas que haremos seran croquembuche, dise@os de postres emplatados y un buffet de petit fours.

En esta primera semana el chocolate fue la estrella principal, trabajamos con el los 3 dias de la semana y trabajaremos con el lunes que viene, esa sera la ultima clase de chocolate para luego pasar a 5 dias de mousse cakes. El lunes arrancamos con un desafio: templar el chocolate sin termometro osea hacerlo a ojo, realmente pense que seria un quilombo pero termino siendo mucho mas sencillo que con ayuda de la tecnologia, creo que el tema de andar todo el tiempo midiendo la temperatura te estresa mientras que de esta forma es como que mas relajado. El unico embole fue escuchar toda la explicacion sobre chocolate, que ya escuchamos 2 veces, porque como tenemos una compa@era nueva el instructor tiene que cumplir y explicar todo nuevamente. Una vez que tuvimos el chocolate a temperatura comenzamos a hacer las partes para preparar un mo@o de chocolate, el cual pondremos como decoracion sobre alguna de las tortas que haremos la semana que viene. El proceso es bastente sencillo pero te lleva un monton de tiempo, realmente creo que si tenes que cobrar por el tiempo que pones en hacerlo son invendibles.

Mo@o de chocolate

El martes templamos chocolate nuevamente, esta vez para hacer una flor, el proceso es bastante sencillo, se hunde un cuchillo en chocolate con el cuidado de solo ba@ar una cara de la cuchilla, luego se aplica sobre un naylon se hace un poquito de presion y se levanta el cuchillo comenzando desde la punta luego se pone en un molde curvado para que el chocolate tome la forma al asentarce. Ese dia tambien comenzamos a hacer bonbones, lo unico que hicimos fue cubrir los moldes con la primera capa de chocolate y luego dejarlos para que se asienten; tambien hicimos varias decoraciones aplicando el chocolate en marmol y jugando con las espatulas y los cuchillos. Tanto el mo@o como la flor no estan totalmente terminadas porque falta darles el toque final pero como decia el bambino "la base esta".

Flor

El jueves preparamos un ganache de caramelo y manteca de mani para rellenar los bonbones, asi que cuando lo tuvimos listo rellenamos los bombones y dejamos asentar. Otra cosa que hicimos fueron unos cuadraditos de praline los cuales cubrimos luego con chocolate, todos quedaron muy ricos y a decir verdad quede un poco saturado de chocolate porque me comi unos varios que fueron saliendo medio feitos. De estos bonbones no tengo fotos porque no los desmoldamos todavia, lo haremos el lunes pero son iguales a los que hicimos en este post

Nivel 3 - Final

2009-05-01T10:01:00.015-05:00

Finalmente llego el dia del final de nivel 3, fue un dia con un poco de estres al comienzo pero una vez que las mesas estaban preparadas todo fue relajo.

Mesa preparada

Como comente en el post anterior el chef nos dijo que como parte del final deberiamos hacer un postre para presentarlo tipo buffet en la mesa del final. El postre deberia ser preparado el lunes y terminado el jueves antes de las 7 pm, eso nos daba 4 horas del lunes mas 2 horas del jueves para los ultimos toques. Yo tenia dos opciones para preparar y luego de conversar con el chef me decidi por hacer una bomba de chocolate blanco, rellena con mousse de frambuesas y mousse de chocolate, como separador de los mousses use un disco de gelatina the frambuesas y como base un Daquise, que es un biscocho de una consistencia intermedia entre un macaroon y un merengue frances. El proceso de hacerlo me llevo un buen tiempo ya que primero tuve que templar el chocolate blanco y ba@ar los moldes, mientras esperaba que el chocolate asiente prepare los discos de gelatina de frambuesas y los lleve al freezer para que solidifiquen rapido. Luego comenze el mousse de chocolate, cuando lo tuve listo rellene los moldes hasta la mitad, luego los regrese a la heladera mientras preparaba Daquise, mientras este se horneaba arranque con el mousse de frambuesas, cuando lo tuve listo agrege el disco de gelatina sobre el mousse de chocolate y luego rellene el resto del molde con el mousse de frambuesas, sobre este puse un disco de Daquise que cuando lo invierta sera el piso del postre. Asi quedo aramado el lunes y fue al freezer hasta el jueves.

Bomba

El jueves apenas llegue desmolde uno para ver si se rompian o no, por suerte no se rompian asi que prosegui con el plan del decorado, si se ubiesen roto tenia listo un plan B. Como decoracion utilize por un lado un coulis de frambuesas encerrado en circulos de chocolate y sobre la bomba pedazos de chocolate sobre los cuales acente una frambuesa. Tambien hice una pincelada de coulis sobre plato, asi que si ven rosado en el plato cerca de la bomba no es que quedo sucio el plato (como penso mi amada esposa) sino que es hecho a drede. El coulis lo hice apenas llegue asi le daba tiempo a enfriarse, luego arranque con el temperado de chocolate para hacer las decoraciones, para mala suerte agarre un chocolate que estaba marcado como "dark" pero que lo inutiles de nivel uno habian mezclado con "milk" asi que fue un quilombo, cuando lo tempero y no se asentaba me queria matar, por suerte tardo mas de lo que normalmente tarda pero se asento asi que lo pude usar. Una vez listo eso era cuestion de esperar que se asiente en la heladera. Mientras tanto empeze a emplatar asi que dibuje unos circulos con chocolate en el plato y les puse el couils en el medio. Pincele el coulis en el centro del plato y puse la bomba en el centro, luego coloque el chocolate sobre la bomba y la frambuesa.

Torta de Casamiento

Por suerte todo salio bien y termine de preparar la mese a tiempo para la presentacion. En la mesa habia:

torta/pastel de casamiento
centro de mesa de pastillaje (motivo jungla)
centro de mesa de azucar (motivo arrecife)
caja de chocolate con chocolates
postre emplatado

El centro de mesa de azucar lo hicimos el martes, un dia particularmente humedo asi que salio para el diablo, era casi imposible trabajar con azucar, no entendemos como aguanto en pie desde el martes hasta el jueves para la presentacion

Mesa desde otro angulo

Nivel 3- Semana 9

2009-04-28T09:41:00.005-05:00

Ante ultima semana de nivel 3!!, el objetivo esta semana era terminar el pastel de bodas y hacer la caja de chocolate. El lunes fui temprano a la escuela para poder terminar de ensamblar las flores de la torta de casamiento, despues de renegar 4 horas con las florcitas pude terminar de ensamblar los ramilletes, fue un gran alivio terminar el tema de la torta, no estoy muy conforme con como quedo pero dado el poco tiempo que le dedique a buscar patrones de decoracion y por ser el primero, zafa. Ya pondre una foto en el proximo post sobre la ultima semana y el final.

Para el lunes teniamos que tenr un modelo decorativo para poner sobre la caja de chocolate, yo lo habia dise@ado en las horas de trabajo asi que no perdi tiempo en el dise@o y directamente me puse a practicarlo con royal icing, hacerlo de esta forma te da un idea si es factible hacerlo con chocolate o no, asi podes ir cmabiando un poco el dise@o para que sea mas facil de acer con chocolate.
El martes templamos chocolate e hicimos las partes de la caja, base, cubierta y costados. Para hacer esto el chcolate se estira sobre un naylon y se deja que se asiente un poco, se marcan los cuadrados y rectangulos con el lomo de un cuchillo y se cubre el chocolate con papel manteca y se le pone una fuente arriba para evitar que el chocolate se arquee, luego se conserva en la heladera. Despues de eso comenzamos con las decoraciones, el chocolate se mezcla un poco de agua para que sea mas duro, lamentablemente no tuve mucho tiempo para hacerlas y ademas me salieron muy finitas, tenia 20 dibujos para hacer y solo pude hacer 8, de los cuales necesitaba 4 para la caja asi que mis chances estaban comprometidas de verdad debido a que el chocolate es muy muy fragil.

El jueves, armamos la caja y pusimos las decoraciones sobre la tapa. Para arrancar 2 de la 8 decoraciones se rompieron cuando las saque del film en que estaban hechas, un de las restantes estaba sucia, lo cual me dejaba solo 5 usables. Cuando empiezo a montarlas sobre la tapa el instructor me rompio una asi que estaba al horno!!, por suerte pude terminarla usando una de las rotas asi que mi caja no quedo muy linda, es mas creo que es la mas fea de toda la clase, en fin veremos que pasa con la nota que me ponga el instructor.

Cuando terminamos todo esto nos sobro como una hora asi que la usamos para hacer investigacion para el postre que tenemos que dise@ar el lunes y el cual usaremos el jueves como parte del buffet que tenemos que armar para el final.

Daring Bakers - Cheesecake

2009-04-27T07:00:00.003-05:00

Is that time of the month again!!! time goes so fast!! I can not believe this is my third DB challenge already. April was a very busy month, friends visiting us, we visiting some friends, social events and more, our agenda was totally full, so there was not time to compleat the challenge earlier, I waited until the last moment to do it. I just completed it this weekend, we had some friends coming over for dinner so the cheesecake was use as dessert for the occasion.

The final product

I choose to make an orange and chocolate combination, yes, yes I have been using this combination a lot lately but what I can say?, I LOVE IT. I did some changes in the recipe, for the crust I used some macaroons that I had in the freezer, I processed them with some candied orange peels and some sugar, after I mix it with the butter and placed in the pan I kept ithe pan in the refrigerator until the filling was ready. For the filling I used some triple sec and some orange zest. I prepared the filling and when it was ready I filled the pan almost until the top, living some room for the chocolate part. For that I melted 150 grs of dark chocolate and mix it with the filling I reserved before, I put this chocolate filling on top of the orange filling. I did not have very good quality chocolate at home so the chocolate part was not as good as it should be. When the cheesecake was very cold I placed some orange segments on top and some chocolate for decoration.

nice cute flowers outside my home

The cheesecake was a succes, everybody liked it. Two of my friends told me (after dinner) they do not like cheesecake but they ate this one and they like. Another friend that usually does not eat a lot of desserts ate a piece!!, that means she really like it.

I think the recipe is very solid, very easy and the final product is really good. I think next time I make it I will reduce the amount of sugar because it was a little too sweet for me but overall I really like. I'm sorry the picture is not very good, but I was in a hurry.

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake (modificated):

crust:

180 g macaroons
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 15 g sugar
3 tbsp. candied orange peel

cheesecake:

3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp of triple sec
2 oranges (decoration)
zest of 1 orange
150 grs of chocolate
100 grs of tempered chocolate for decorations

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside (in the refrigerator)

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, orange zest, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!

Tarta de Peras y Almendras

2009-04-23T11:51:00.001-05:00

El fin de semana pasado teniamos una despedida de Maite y Nicolas, un matrimonio argentino que se va a El Paso (Texas), debido a que El fue aceptado para hacer la residencia en un hospital de dicha ciudad. Cuando July me dijo que teniamos que llevar algo para comer lo primero que se me cruzo por la mente fue un lemon pie, pero luego vi un par de peras que habia sobre la mesada y automaticamente cambie de postre. Lamentablemente no pude llevar la tarta a la fiesta ya que el sabado a la tarde se corto la luz y no pude usar el horno hasta muy tarde y como consecuencia nos tuvimos que quedar con la tarta para nosotros y llevar una botella de vino a la fiesta. De todas maneras habia muchas cosas dulces asi que nadie lamento la perdida de la tarta.

Esta tarta es una verdadera delicia para los amantes de las almendras y las peras, la combinacion va tan bien que si no tenes mucha fuerza de voluntad te comes toda la tarta de una sola sentada, realmente sale riquisima.

La masa es una masa dulce, la misma base que la del lemon pie. El relleno es una crema de almendras, sobre esta se ponen pedazos de peras y se hornea, cuando le faltan unos 10 min se espolvorea con azucar y se le tiran una almendras fileteadas. Si las almendras ya estan tostadas se las podemos poner cuando sacamos la tarta del horno.
A la crema de almendra la mezcle con crema pastelera porque sino queda muy fuerte, gustos son gustos.

Pate sablee aux amandes – Masa dulce de almendras - Almond sugar dough

270 grs harina comun
160 grs manteca (TA)
90 grs azucar impalpable
20 grs polvo de almendras (opcional, sino hay poner 20 grs mas de harina)
65 grs huevos (1 y un cachito)
1 tioque de sal

Mezclar la manteca y el azucar muy bien hasta obtener una mezcla cremosa
Agregar los huevos y mezclar muy bien
Mezclar el harina, sal y polvo de almendras muy bien en un bowl
Agragar el harina, sal y polvo de almendras y mezclar un poquito solo hasta integrar (no mezclar de mas, no queremos gluten aqui)
Estirarla sobre un film, envolverla y dejar en heladera por al menos 30 min.
Estirarla y ponerla sobre la tartera.
Si es posible dejar la tartera en la heladera unos 20-30 min antes de llevarla al horno.
Concinar a ciegas por unos 10 min en un horno precalentado a 400 F
Sacar y deajr enfriar.

Crema de almendras

115 grs de manteca
115 grs de polvo de almendras
115 grs azucar impalpable
70 grs de huevos
15 grs de maizena
15 grs de algun licor que les guste, el de peras queda bien.
170 grs de crema pastelera

Usando la paleta de la procesadora mezclar la manteca y el azucar hasta consistencia cremosa.
Adicionar los huevos y mezclar muy bien.
Poner el polvo de almendras y la maizena que previamente fueron mezclados en un conenedor. y mezlcar muy bien.
Adicionar el rum y mezclar bien, la mezcla se aclara y podemos seguir mezclando hasta que quede un poco mas blanca.
Por ultimo adicionar de a poco la crema pastelera y mezclarla bien.

La combinacion de almond cream mas pastry cream da por resultado lo que se llama frangipane

Colocar esta mezcla sobre la masa de tarta y sobre ella acomodar secciones de peras (frescas o en lata) las cuales pueden ser cortadas bien finitas o en gajos, como mas les guste.
Terminar de cocinar en horno a 350 F, aproximadamente unos 30 min.

Ravioles de queso y espinaca

2009-04-17T11:05:00.007-05:00

Como mucho de ustedes saben me encanta hacer pastas y a Juliana le encanta comer pastas, de hecho creo que podriamos basar nuestra dieta en pastas, pizza, sandwichs y alguna ensalada, asi que de vez en cuando me dedico un domingo a la ma@ana para hacer alguna pasta casera, la cual nos gusta compartir con amigos, lamentablemente no fue el caso de estos exquisitos ravioles. Para hacer el relleno use un poco de lo que tenia en la heladera en ese momento: roquefort, gouda, mozzarella, hongos, esparragos, pimiento rojo, cebollas, ajos y espinaca. Basicamente lo que hice fue saltear la cebolla, pimiento y ajo en una sarten con un toque de aceite de oliva, luego las puse en la procesadora e integre todos los ingredientes haste tener una pasta homogenea.

La masa es siempre la masa basica de pasta, 100 grs de harina por huevo.

Como salsa use unos tomates rostisados con acetie de oliva, ajo y hierbas frescas, unos hongos y puntas de esparragos salteados, en la mesa le pusimos crema y parmesano a gusto.

Todo esto acompa@ado por un Trapiche oaks Malbec y un buen pan casero. Espero les guste

Nivel 3 - Semana 8

2009-04-17T10:42:00.003-05:00

Esta semana fue terriblemente aburrida ya que trabajamos con azucar todo el tiempo. El lunes aprendimos a hacer un par de flores nuevas, me queme todo el tiempo, me gane un par de ampollas para mi collecion. El martes practicamos pescaditos y meducitas ya que esos dos tienen que estar en el final de azucar que haremos la ultima semana. El jueves nos pidio que hicieramos un centro de mesa con diferentes formas y usando las diferentes tecnicas que aprendimos. Yo empeze haciendo el mio en serio pero como cuando llego el turno de las flores el azucar estaba muy mala no pude hacer ninguna ai que termine haciendo cualquier cosa, por eso no hay foto.

La semana que viene tenemos que hacer la caja de chocolate, todavia no tengo el dise@o que usare en la tapa asi que tengo el fin de semana para ver que uso.

Acapulco

2009-04-10T13:49:00.004-05:00

El fin de semana pasado Gregg (el ex-jefe de July) y Briguitte (una ex-compa@era) vinieron a cenar a casa, sabiendo que a Beth, la esposa de Gregg, le gusta mucho la combinacion naranjas con chocolate como postre prepare una version del Acapulco servida en vasos de cosmopolitan y acompa@ados con unos merenguitos con sabor a naranjas decorados con chocolate. Aqui les dejo la receta y unas fotos. Que tengan felices Pascuas.

Mousse de chocolate

140 grs de chocolate
40 grs de huevos
2 yemas
56 grs de azucar
14 grs de agua
200 grs de crema

Batir las yemas y los huevos
Cocinar el azucar hasta 116 C, cuando llega a esta temperatura agregarla sobre las yemas y huevos que estan siendo batidas, seguir batiendo hasta que se llega a temperatura ambiente.
Fundir el chocolate a ba@o maria (no pasar de los 55 C)
Adicionar el chocolate a la mezcla de huevos/azucar e incorporar bien.
Batir la crema hasta punto letra e incorporar a la mezcla anterior cuando esta alcanze los 30 C

Mousse de naranjas

150 grs de pure de naranjas
100 grs de merengue italiano
6 grs de gelatina
325 grs de crema

Calentar el pure hasta 50 C
Remojar la gelatina en 24 grs de agua fria, cuando el pure llego a los 50 C darle un toque de microondas a la gelatina para disolver e incorporar al pure.
Adicionar el merengue
Cuando la mezcla llega a 30 C incorporar la crema batida a punto letra.

Recuerden que deben darle tiempo al primer mousse que pongan en el recipiente a que se asiente antes de poner el segundo. En este caso como los vasos son peque@os hice el de naranjas lo puse en los vasos y lleve a heladera, mientras tanto comenze con el de chocolate y para cuando termine el de naranjas ya estaba listo para recibir al de chocolate. Antes de servir le puse un poquito de chantilli y menta para decorar.

Semanas 6 y 7

2009-04-10T13:21:00.002-05:00

Estas dos semanas han sido dedicadadas a la construccion de la torta de casamiento, lamentablemente todavia me falta ponerle los ultimos detalles asi que cuando la termine subire las fotos. De no ser porque la pintada de un tipo de flores que van en la torta no me gusto ya la hubiese terminado ayer, pero por ese detalle ayer me la pase haciendo las flores nuevamente y pintandolas, tampoco me gusto mucho como me quedaron pero asi iran a la torta, es lo que hay y chau no me voy a estresar mucho mas. La construccion de la torta me sirvio para ver como es el tema de hacer las decoraciones en "gum paste" (si alguien sabe como la llamamos en Argentina por favor dejar comentario), el ensamblado de los pisos de la torta, como se trabaja co fondant y sobre todo apreciar el laburo que es hacer una torta asi, es increible el tiempo y que te lleva hacer este tipo de proyectos, la proxima vez que vaya a un casamiento voy a mirar la torta de una forma totalmente diferente.

Nivel 3 -Semana 5

2009-03-29T02:00:00.000-05:00

Esta semana estuvo plagada de practica para comenzar a hacer la torta o pastel de bodas o casamiento, toda esta practica comenzo el lunes pero ese dia tben termine el centro de mesa con motivos de selva tropical que todos teniamos que hacer. Por suerte 6 de los 8 ya habian terminado de pintar sus piezas para el centro de mesa asi que la pintada fue bastante rapida aunque tben estresante porque tenia que terminar lo antes posible para poder ensamblarlo el mismo lunes y no hacer perder tiempo a los que ya habian terminado la pintura y solo tenian que ensamblarlo. No tuve problemas con la rotura de piezas asi que de las 8 mariposas que hice solo use 3 y tben me sobraron varias flores. Al final me quedo bastante decente aunque no me gusto como quedaron las flores grandes ni tampoco el color de las cosas verdes, me parece que quedo muy oscuro. Lo bueno de esto es que aprendi como se labura con pastillaje y a manejar aceptablemente el airbrush.

Centro de mesa terminado

El resto de la semana fue practica de decoracion, con royal icing tanto sobre superficies planas como en los moldes que usaremos para los pasteles, y hacer flores con gum paste, esta muy bueno laburar con gum paste porque es mas elastica y no se seca tan rapido como el pastillaje. Mucho del tiempo libre en el trabajo lo pase buscando fotos de tortas de casamiento y coas asi para poder poner un par juntas y tratar de decidirme por el modelo que quiero hacer, por el momento no tome una decision pero el fin de semana tengo que hacerlo ya que el lunes ya hacemos el fondat y lo ponemos sobre los moldes para empezar a decorarlo. Las condiciones para el pastel son las siguientes: 1) tres pisos de 10, 8 y 6 pulgadas respectivamente; 2) decoracion por bolsa; 3) decoracion con cono de papel; 4) tiene que tener flores de fondat o gum paste, basado en estos 4 puntos tenemos que dise@ar un pastel.
La semana que viene posteo el pastel terminado.

Lasagna Challenge

2009-03-27T07:00:00.005-05:00

This month Daring Bakers challenge is Lasagna, as many of you know I love to cook homemade pasta and I do it very frequently, may be 2 times a week, so I enjoyed this challenge very much. The recipes they gave us are very similar to the ones I use when I make "meat lasagna". This time I followed the recipes exactly as they were posted with a few exceptions:

1) I only put 2 layers of pasta between the filling, I thought 4 was too much. I'm glad I did it because 2 was more than ok for a very thin filling like the one we used.

2) I did not use pork meat

3) I used fresh tomatoes instead of canned ones.

4) I made the dough using a food processor and finished it up by hand

5) I used a pasta machine to stretching and thinning the dough

I made the lasagna a Sunday morning, the weather, cold and rainy, was very good for eating pasta but not so good for making pasta, due to the humidity I increased the amount of flour a little bit.

We drunk an Argentinian Malbec from Norton, which was a very good pairing for the pasta. I also made some French bread which was the best bread I ever made (based on Juliana's comment), for dessert I made a chocolate genoise, filled with raspberries ganache and toped with chantilly cream, the genoise was served with some mango sorbet I made that morning.

Overall was a very nice Sunday (despite the weather), good food shared with good friends, that is a hard to beat combination.

I do not have very good pictures of the final lasagna, sorry about that.

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

All recipes below from The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food by Lynne Rossetto Kasper (published by William Morrow and Company Inc., 1992).

Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna (Lasagne Verdi al Forno)
(Serves 8 to 10 as a first course, 6 to 8 as a main dish)

Preparation Time: 15 minutes to assemble and 40 minutes cooking time

10 quarts (9 litres) salted water
1 recipe Spinach Pasta cut for lasagna (recipe follows)#1
1 recipe Bechamel Sauce (recipe follows)#2
1 recipe Country Style Ragu (recipe follows)#3
1 cup (4 ounces/125g) freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Method
Working Ahead:
The ragu and the béchamel sauce can be made up to three days ahead. The ragu can also be frozen for up to one month. The pasta can be rolled out, cut and dried up to 24 hours before cooking. The assembled lasagne can wait at room temperature (20 degrees Celsius/68 degrees Fahrenheit) about 1 hour before baking. Do not refrigerate it before baking, as the topping of béchamel and cheese will overcook by the time the center is hot.

Assembling the Ingredients:
Have all the sauces, rewarmed gently over a medium heat, and the pasta at hand. Have a large perforated skimmer and a large bowl of cold water next to the stove. Spread a double thickness of paper towels over a large counter space. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius). Oil or butter a 3 quart (approx 3 litre) shallow baking dish.

Cooking the Pasta:
Bring the salted water to a boil. Drop about four pieces of pasta in the water at a time. Cook about 2 minutes. The pasta will continue cooking during baking, so make sure it is only barely tender. Lift the lasagne from the water with a skimmer, drain, and then slip into the bowl of cold water to stop cooking. When cool, lift out and dry on the paper towels. Repeat until all the pasta is cooked.

Assembling the Lasagne:
Spread a thin layer of béchamel over the bottom of the baking dish. Arrange a layer of about two overlapping sheets of pasta over the béchamel. Spread a thin layer of béchamel (about 3 or 4 spoonfuls) over the pasta, and then an equally thin layer of the ragu. Sprinkle with about 1&1/2 tablespoons of the béchamel and about 1/3 cup of the cheese. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used, finishing with béchamel sauce and topping with a generous dusting of cheese.

Baking and Serving the Lasagne:
Cover the baking dish lightly with foil, taking care not to let it touch the top of the lasagne. Bake 40 minutes, or until almost heated through. Remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes, or until hot in the center (test by inserting a knife – if it comes out very warm, the dish is ready). Take care not to brown the cheese topping. It should be melted, creamy looking and barely tinged with a little gold. Turn off the oven, leave the door ajar and let the lasagne rest for about 10 minutes. Then serve. This is not a solid lasagne, but a moist one that slips a bit when it is cut and served.

#1 Spinach Egg Pasta (Pasta Verde)

Preparation: 45 minutes

Makes enough for 6 to 8 first course servings or 4 to 6 main course servings, equivalent to 1 pound (450g) dried boxed pasta.

2 jumbo eggs (2 ounces/60g or more)
10 ounces (300g) fresh spinach, rinsed dry, and finely chopped; or 6 ounces (170g) frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and squeezed dry
3&1/2 cups (14 ounces/400g) all purpose unbleached (plain) flour

Working by Hand:

Equipment

A roomy work surface, 24 to 30 inches deep by 30 to 36 inches (60cm to 77cm deep by 60cm to 92cm). Any smooth surface will do, but marble cools dough slightly, making it less flexible than desired.

A pastry scraper and a small wooden spoon for blending the dough.

A wooden dowel-style rolling pin. In Italy, pasta makers use one about 35 inches long and 2 inches thick (89cm long and 5cm thick). The shorter American-style pin with handles at either end can be used, but the longer it is, the easier it is to roll the pasta.
Note: although it is not traditional, Enza has successfully made pasta with a marble rolling pin, and this can be substituted for the wooden pin, if you have one.

Plastic wrap to wrap the resting dough and to cover rolled-out pasta waiting to be filled. It protects the pasta from drying out too quickly.

A sharp chef’s knife for cutting pasta sheets.

Cloth-covered chair backs, broom handles, or specially designed pasta racks found in cookware shops for draping the pasta.

Mixing the dough:
Mound the flour in the center of your work surface and make a well in the middle. Add the eggs and spinach. Use a wooden spoon to beat together the eggs and spinach. Then gradually start incorporating shallow scrapings of flour from the sides of the well into the liquid. As you work more and more flour into the liquid, the well’s sides may collapse. Use a pastry scraper to keep the liquids from running off and to incorporate the last bits of flour into the dough. Don’t worry if it looks like a hopelessly rough and messy lump.

Kneading:
With the aid of the scraper to scoop up unruly pieces, start kneading the dough. Once it becomes a cohesive mass, use the scraper to remove any bits of hard flour on the work surface – these will make the dough lumpy. Knead the dough for about 3 minutes. Its consistency should be elastic and a little sticky. If it is too sticky to move easily, knead in a few more tablespoons of flour. Continue kneading about 10 minutes, or until the dough has become satiny, smooth, and very elastic. It will feel alive under your hands. Do not shortcut this step. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and let it relax at room temperature 30 minutes to 3 hours.

Stretching and Thinning:
If using an extra-long rolling pin work with half the dough at a time. With a regular-length rolling pin, roll out a quarter of the dough at a time and keep the rest of the dough wrapped. Lightly sprinkle a large work surface with flour. The idea is to stretch the dough rather than press down and push it. Shape it into a ball and begin rolling out to form a circle, frequently turning the disc of dough a quarter turn. As it thins outs, start rolling the disc back on the pin a quarter of the way toward the center and stretching it gently sideways by running the palms of your hands over the rolled-up dough from the center of the pin outward. Unroll, turn the disc a quarter turn, and repeat. Do twice more.

Stretch and even out the center of the disc by rolling the dough a quarter of the way back on the pin. Then gently push the rolling pin away from you with one hand while holding the sheet in place on the work surface with the other hand. Repeat three more times, turning the dough a quarter turn each time.

Repeat the two processes as the disc becomes larger and thinner. The goal is a sheet of even thickness. For lasagne, the sheet should be so thin that you can clearly see your hand through it and see colours. Cut into rectangles about 4 by 8 inches (10 x 20 cm). Note: Enza says that transparency is a crucial element of lasagne pasta and the dough should be rolled as thinly as possible. She says this is why her housekeeper has such strong arms!

Dry the pasta at room temperature and store in a sealed container or bag.

#2 Bechamel

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

4 tablespoons (2 ounces/60g) unsalted butter
4 tablespoons (2 ounces/60g) all purpose unbleached (plain) flour, organic stone ground preferred
2&2/3 cups (approx 570ml) milk
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Freshly grated nutmeg to taste

Using a medium-sized saucepan, melt the butter over low to medium heat. Sift over the flour, whisk until smooth, and then stir (without stopping) for about 3 minutes. Whisk in the milk a little at a time and keep the mixture smooth. Bring to a slow simmer, and stir 3 to 4 minutes, or until the sauce thickens. Cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Season with salt, pepper, and a hint of nutmeg.

#3 Country Style Ragu’ (Ragu alla Contadina)

Preparation Time: Ingredient Preparation Time 30 minutes and Cooking time 2 hours

Makes enough sauce for 1 recipe fresh pasta or 1 pound/450g dried pasta)

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (45 mL)
2 ounces/60g pancetta, finely chopped
1 medium onion, minced
1 medium stalk celery with leaves, minced
1 small carrot, minced
4 ounces/125g boneless veal shoulder or round
4 ounces/125g pork loin, trimmed of fat, or 4 ounces/125g mild Italian sausage (made without fennel)
8 ounces/250g beef skirt steak, hanging tender, or boneless chuck blade or chuck center cut (in order of preference)
1 ounce/30g thinly sliced Prosciutto di Parma
2/3 cup (5 ounces/160ml) dry red wine
1 &1/2 cups (12 ounces/375ml) chicken or beef stock (homemade if possible)
2 cups (16 ounces/500ml) milk
3 canned plum tomatoes, drained
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Working Ahead:
The ragu can be made 3 days ahead. Cover and refrigerate. It also freezes well for up to 1 month. Skim the fat from the ragu’ before using it.

Browning the Ragu Base:
Heat the olive oil in a 12 inch (30cm) skillet (frying pan) over medium-high heat. Have a large saucepan handy to use once browning is complete. Add the pancetta and minced vegetables and sauté, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, 10 minutes, or until the onions barely begin to color. Coarsely grind all the meats together, including the prosciutto, in a food processor or meat grinder. Stir into the pan and slowly brown over medium heat. First the meats will give off a liquid and turn dull grey but, as the liquid evaporates, browning will begin. Stir often, scooping under the meats with the wooden spatula. Protect the brown glaze forming on the bottom of the pan by turning the heat down. Cook 15 minutes, or until the meats are a deep brown. Turn the contents of the skillet into a strainer and shake out the fat. Turn them into the saucepan and set over medium heat.

Reducing and Simmering: Add the wine to the skillet, lowering the heat so the sauce bubbles quietly. Stir occasionally until the wine has reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Scrape up the brown glaze as the wine bubbles. Then pour the reduced wine into the saucepan and set the skillet aside.

Stir ½ cup stock into the saucepan and let it bubble slowly, 10 minutes, or until totally evaporated. Repeat with another ½ cup stock. Stir in the last 1/2 cup stock along with the milk. Adjust heat so the liquid bubbles very slowly. Partially cover the pot, and cook 1 hour. Stir frequently to check for sticking.

Add the tomatoes, crushing them as they go into the pot. Cook uncovered, at a very slow bubble for another 45 minutes, or until the sauce resembles a thick, meaty stew. Season with salt and pepper.

Nivel 3 - Semana 4

2009-03-20T11:59:00.006-05:00

Todavia no puedo creer lo rapido que pasa el tiempo, la semana que viene sera la mitad del nivel 3 por lo que en 15 semanas termino el entrenamiento en la parte de panes y postres en la escuela!!!, increible.

Palmeritas durante el recreo del lunes

Esta semana el chef instructor no estuvo porque se fue de viaje de campo a California con alguno s de los alumnos que hacen la parte practica y teorica (associate's degree) asi que el instructor de nivel 2 nos asistio en lo que necesitaramos. A pesar de comenzar la semana con un poco de mala onda por saber que seria trabajar con pastillaje toda la semana, a medida que pasaron los dias me fui acostumbrando y me empezo a gustar un poco esto de hacer "artesanias" con pastillaje. La masa que usamos para hacer pastillaje, consiste de azucar impalpable, maizena, gelatina, agua y vinagre. Es una masa que se seca super rapido asi que hay que mantenerla envuelta en plastico todo el tiempo y trabajar rapido porque una vez que le diste forma se seca al toque.
El objetivo para esta semana era terminar el centro de mesa que sera parte de nuestro final, desgraciadamente ninguno pudo cumplir con el objetivo ya que somos 8 alumnos y tenemos solo 2 equipos para pintar. Por suerte 2 de mis compa@eros se compraron su propio equipo y asi compartimos las 2 estaciones de trabajo entre 6. Inclusive los que tuvieron el equipo para ellos solos no pudieron terminar su centro de mesa asi que el lunes tendremos que terminar de pintar y ensamblar la pieza. Para este proyecto hay una diferencia entre los chicos que venian de nivel 2 y nosotros, ellos tienen que hacer su propio dise@o con el tema que elijan, todos hacen algo relacionado a la primavera o pascuas; nosotros tenemos que hacer unas ca@as, flores, mariposas, hojas y enredadedas y disponerlas como nos plazca sobre una base de 6 pulgadas.

Piezas recien hechas

El lunes arrancamos haciendo las piezas que pensamos usar para ensamblar el centro de mesa. Para esto se usan moldes que se presionan sobre la masa la cual se corta y se deja secar sobre una superficie plana o sobre harina dependiendo de si lo que queremos es una cosa plana o algo con movimiento. Yo hice algunas piezas de mas ya que puede pasar que se rompa alguna durante el montaje o pintado asi que mas vale que sobre y no que falte.

Piezas lijadas

El martes termine de hacer algunas piezas que me faltaron hacer el lunes y lije las que estaban listas, este lijado consiste en pasarle una lija fina a los bordes para suavizarlos un poco y que queden parejitos. Un par de chicos comenzaron con la pintura aprovechado que todos estabamamos con la lijada.

Usando el aerosol para pintar

El jueves era el dia de la verdad ya que hacer las piezas no es lo dificil, lo dificil es pintarlas ;Yo estaba bastante intimidado (por decirlo muy gentilmente, no puedo decirle en criollo como me gustaria jaja) por el tema de pintar con aerosol. Despues de esperar un monton que alguno desocupe una pluma pude empezar a pintar las bases y las ca@as, estasultimas salieron un poco mas oscuras de lo que Yo queria (si alguien tiene un consejo para aclararlas un poco es mas que bienvenido). Luego de otra larga espera puede pintar las mariposas, y con estas quede super conforme, hay 3 o 4 que realmente me gustan mucho asi que si no se rompen en el montaje las usare para el centro de mesa.

Algunas piezas pintadas, trabajo en progreso

La semana que viene tendre que terminar de pintar y ensamblar el centro de mesa, ojala no tenga ningun contratiempo para poder terminar ese mismo lunes.

Nivel 3 - Semana 3

2009-03-16T09:07:00.003-05:00

Semana un poco rara si las hay, el lunes comenzamos con chocolate, el istructor dio toda una introduccion teorica sobre el tema la cual duro mas o menos 1 hora, luego otro de los instructores hizo la demostracion del templado sobre granito la cual ya habiamos hecho 2 veces en nivel 1 pero como habia 2 personas de nivel 1 avanzado escuchando la clase nos tuvimos que bancar la demo nuevamente. Despues de eso, templamos algo de chocolate para comenzar a hacer bonbones. El procedimiento es bastante sencillo pero con ciertas tecnicas que respetar a raja tabla para tener un producto bien terminado, de otra manera podemos desperdiciar un monton de chocolate y a casi 15 dolares el kilo no es joda. Basicamente lo que se hace es tenre el chocolate templado y ponerlo sobre los moldes, sacar todo el aire e invertirlo para que la superficie quede lo mas pareja y fina posible, luego se le pasa una espatula para emparejar la base, se deja que se asiente invertido sobre un enfriador mientras se trabaja en el relleno. Para este ultimo hicimos un ganache de chocolate oscuro y lo aromatizamos con diferentes licores, cerezas, naranjas, cafe y peras. Cuando el ganache estuvo a la temperatura ideal (32C) rellenamos los moldes y dejamos enfriar a temperatura ambiente para luego poner en la heladera hasta el dia siguiente.

El martes templamos el chocolate por un tecnica diferente la cual consiste en calentar 3/4 del chocolate a 50 C para que se funda y luego agregar el 1/3 restante e integrar para que baje la temperatura a 32 C y asi usarlo, por algun motivo ninguno de los 8 que estabamos en clases pudo llevarlo de una desde los 50 C a los 32 C. Todos tuvimos algun problema, la cuestion es que en lugar de tardar 15 min para hacerlos tardamos como 45 min, asi que el instructor estaba que ardia (ya venia caliente desde la clase de la ma@ana), finalmente cuando tuvimos el chocolate a temperatura pudimos terminar los bonbones, lo unico que nos quedaba por hacer era poner una capa sobre la base de los moldes para hacer el piso de los bonbones, una vez terminado eso dejamos enfriar para luego desmoldar. El resto de la clase la usamos para sumergir pedacitos de chocolate con praline en chocolate, ahi nos mandamos unas cuantas y el chef se seguia calentando. Cuando llego el momento de desmoldar los bonbones la temperatura del instructor llego a ebullicion por algunas cosillas que hicimos y ahi colgo el delantal y nos dijo: "terminen de poner los chocolates en bandejas, guarden en heladera y se van, Yo no aguanto mas hoy!!", asi que ese da terminamos tipo 9 pm. Fue un dia para el olvido jaja.

El jueves empezamos con pastillaje, esto consiste en una mezcla de azucar con la cual se pueden hacer diferentes formas para lograr centros de mesa. El objetivo aqui es que hagamos un centro de mesa en el cual tengamos unos bamboos, uns mariposas, flores y algunas hojas, algo basico ya que nunca trabajamos con esto antes, los chicos que si hicieron nivel 2 tienen que hacer algo creativo usando el tema que quieran, la mayoria usara la primavera o Pascuas como motivo. Lo dificil de esto es la pintura ya que el instrumento que usamos para pintar (aerosol) es super complicado de manejar, es super sencible asi que un poquito de presion extra y lo que tenia que ser un verde palido pasa a ser un verde oscuro!!. Para hacer esto tendremos toda la semana 4, el lunes haremos las formas y las dejaremos secar, el martes pintaremos y el jueves ensamblaremos, si todo sale asi seria fantastico aunque teniendo solo 3 aerosoles para 8 personas creo va a complicar un poco las cosas jaja.

Nivel 3 - Semana 2

2009-03-06T10:57:00.009-06:00

Semana muy aburrida y un tanto dolorosa en la escuela ya que trabajamos con azucar. Un detalle: el azucar esta caliente!!. En fin es algo que hay que hacer ya que sera parte del final asi que hay que arremangarse y darle pa'delante.

Arrecife al final del dia lunes

El lunes empezo bien ya que las tecnicas de azucar que usamos son piolas, algunas de las que usamos son: burbujas de azucar: se calienta el azucar a 160C se tira sobre un papel manteca y se comienza a levantar el papel para que vaya rodando el azucar y asi formando burbujas sobre el papel manteca, una vez frio se corta en las formas que uno quiera (o pueda); azucar helada: se calienta el azucar y se tira sobre un contenedor lleno de hielo, el azucar va pasando por entre los hielos y al enfriarce toma la forma de los lugares por donde paso; azucar sobre azucar: se hace pone un molde sin base sobre una superficie plana, se pone algo de azucar y se hace un dise@o, luego se le tira encima el azucar caliente sobre el azucar granulado y se deja enfriar, al retirarlo el azucar caliente tomo la forma de la base de azucar granulada; azucar piedra: se calienta el azucar, se le pone un poco de covertura real y se mezcla bien, se lo pone en un molde y se cocina por 15 min en horno moderado, al sacarlo quedan como si fuesen corales. En cada una de las tecnicas se puede usar el colorante que uno quiera. Con todas estas tecnicas hicimos un centro de mesa con motivos marinos.

Asi quedo el "arrecife" al final del martes. Los pedazos azules se hicieron con azucar burbujeante, el naranja con azucar helada, los verdes estirando azucar caliente sobre el papel manteca, los blancos con azucar piedra y la base tirando azucar caliente sobre un molde con azucar. La "meduza" y el "pez" con azucar inflada. Las proporciones no son de lo mejor pero fue una buena practica para el final, veremos que me sale en ese momento.

El martes trabajamos con azucar soplada para hacer algo similar a una meduza y a un pez, en este caso de calienta el azucar y se la tira en una silicona para enfriarla un poco y poder arrollarla, una vez que toma la consistencia correcta se la estira para satinarla y luego se la mantiene debajo de dos luces poderosas para que mantenga la temperatura, para soplar el azucar se poner un pedacito en un tubo de cobre y se sopla hasta que se obtiene una esfera del tama@o deseado.

Decoracion de azucar hecha el jueves por el Chef instructor

El jueves fue el peor dia porque tuvimos que hacer rosas y mo@os con azucar caliente!! un embole, me queme 4 dedos, tuve que ponerme curitas y doble guante para no sentir tanto el calor de azucar, encima de todo esto los petalos me salieron para el diablo asi que no pude terminar la rosa. Los mo@os son mas faciles asi que hice algo mas pero no mucho. En resumen espero no tener que trabajar con esto nunca mas (ademas de durante el final) ya que es un embole y te quemas...ah y por si fuera poco no se pueden comer!!!, bue si se puede pero son horribles porque se usa un azucar especial para este tipo de trabajo.

Detalle de la rosa