Realistic Chocolate Leaf Tutorial

Unknown ● Sunday, February 24, 2013 0 comments

Realistic Chocolate Leaf

1. You will need the following items for this project; fresh garden leaves( we used leaves from our herb garden, peppermint and mint leaves, white chocolate, a paint brush, cocoa powder, and food coloring if desired.

2.Wash and dry the leaves you have chosen . Please make sure any leaf you use for this project is non toxic. Any herb leaves work well as they are surely safe, if you are unsure about the leaf you are using please do research on the toxic qualities of the leaf before using.

3.Place the washed and dried leaves back side up on a wax paper lined cookie sheet.

4. Melt your white chocolate in the microwave. Watch your chocolate very carefully stirring often so it does not burn. When chocolate has melted place your small bowl inside another bowl with hot water so your chocolate will stay melted for a longer period of time.

5. Take a small paintbrush and start painting the back of your leaves with the chocolate. Make sure that the chocolate is painted on very well so that your leaf is not too thin. You will be peeling the leaf off after the chocolate has hardened so you do not want any thin spots.

6.Place your painted leaves in the deep freeze for about 30 minutes and then carefully peel off the leaf from the chocolate. You can then take a small paint brush and gently brush on cocoa powder to create shadows and color if desired. You can also spray with orange or yellow spray food coloring; color your chocolate or make a dark chocolate leaf by melting dark chocolate instead of white chocolate.

Banana Cream Pie

Unknown ● Thursday, February 21, 2013 1 comments

Banana Cream Pie

I got this recipe from a lovely Thai language blog (the owner is a cute woman who likes to share her knowledge about food and sweet things, she lives in USA). The search for this recipe happened when I have a lot of banana in the house, banana cake seen to be boring (I want to try something different and delicious). I look at this recipe (with a mouth watering picture, then I think I have to make it.

The original recipe (Banana Cream Pie-in Thai language) called for a peanut butter sandwich cookies but I don’t wan to go out so I make the crust by using the pasta frolla, that I find it great for every sweet tart, but this time I scale down it to a small quantity (if you read about CHESTNUT AND WHITE CHOCOLATE TARTLETyou will remember that the quantity of the original recipe is very much).

The pie comes out very good, I like the gentle taste of the cream that mix very well with the banana, and I have a good recipe to use banana than making a cake.

SWEET PASTRY

9 inch pie crust

250 g	all-purpose flour
60 g	caster sugar
160 g	unsalted butter , plus extra for greasing
	pinch of salt
1	egg
1 teaspoon	natural vanilla extract

Using a food processor, process the flour, sugar, butter and salt for about 10-12 seconds until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, then put the mixture in a bowl.

If making by hand, put the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl, cut the butter into pieces and work it into the flour with your fingertips.

Make a well in the middle of the flour- and-butter mixture and add the egg, egg yolks and vanilla extract. Stir to incorporate the flour evenly until you have to begin using your hand.

Bring the dry and wet ingredients together. Dust work surface with flour, remove the dough from the bowl and knead it on the floured surface for a few minutes until it is smooth and homogeneous.

It is now ready to be rolled. Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 5mm (1/4 inch).

Carefully lift it up with the rolling pin, and ease it into the pie pan.

Chill the tart cases for at least 30 minutes before baking.

Preheat the oven to 180°C

Bake blind the pastry for about 20 minutes. Remove the weight and fully bake the pie until the pastry is just turning golden for about 20 minutes more. Remove the pie pastry from the oven, let cool before making the filling.

Note: if you want to use peanut butter cookie, the recipe call for 8 oz of the cookies put in the food processor with 1/8 salt and 2tbsp melted butter,

Pie Filling

200 g	sugar
1 cup	Whole milk
1 cup	Whipping cream
1/8 tsp	salt
2 tbsp	Corn flour
1 tbsp	All purpose flour
2	Large egg
1 tbsp	Rum
2 tbsp	Butter (cut into small pieces)
½ tsp	Vanilla Extract
2	Large banana

To serve	Whipped cream
	Shaved chocolate

Cut the banana and put in the prepared shell.

In a medium pot, whisk together sugar, salt, corn flour, and all purpose flour, set aside.

Whisk together egg and rum, then add milk and whipping cream whisk to combine.

Pour egg mixture in to the flour mixture whisk to prevent lumping.

Put the pot over medium low heat, stir with a whisk all the time until the mixture is thicken and bubble, take of the heat put the butter and vanilla in the pot and whisk to combine. Then pour into prepared pie shell, wait until cool enough then cover with plastic and refrigerate for 6 hours before serve.

To serve put the pie in a dish drop a spoonful of whipped cream on top and sprinkle shaved chocolate over the pie.

Fraisier: Beautiful French Strawberry Cake

Unknown ● 0 comments

Fraisier: Beautiful French Strawberry Cake

"Fraisier", the French strawberry cake, that contains a lot of the strawberry and cream ^^. I wish I could make it a long time ago, well, I always fall for the beautiful cake.

This is my second time on this cake, the first one is too sweet, I have to make some adaptation in the recipe so it becomes mellow.
I think there are some error in the original recipe. The recipe comes from one of my favorite book ....................... , I tried 4 recipes fromthis book by now, this one is the only one that has a problem.
The buttercream in this recipe calls for 1/2 whole egg, and use 100g of sugar, the first time that I made it I just follow it without thinking -*-, the base of the buttercream are liquid but I still try to make it till the end, and end up with super sweet buttercream that lacks the puffiness. The right amount of the egg has to be 1 whole egg, and I'm sure about this when I compare with other recipe.
And I reduce the sugar in the pastry cream too, because when all of them come into 1 cake the sweetness are over limitation. So at last I come up with the right "Fraisier".

The cake consists of 5 elements, Génoise sponge, crème pâtissière, crème au beurre, strawberry and Italian meringue. As I like to say, even the cake seen complex the truth is not. Each of the element is easy to make, and can be prepared ahead of time except for cutting the strawberries and making the Italian meringue, you have to do it when you ready to assemble the cake. So don't think that you can't make these, it's a lot easier than you think. You can start making the Génoise sponge, the crème pâtissière, the crème au beurre in 1 day before then assemble them and cover with the meringue the day after, this way you can manage you timetable better,

For the look of the cake, I really believe that the deliciousness start with the eyes, ^^, the loveliness of this cake make people happy even before they eating it. The decoration for this cake is easy, just place the fresh strawberries on top of the cake and you get a cute cake without making an effort ^^.

Finally, please enjoy my Fraisier, and I hope you will love it.

Fraisier(フレジエ) = フランスでイチゴのケーキ

Fraisier (フレジエ)

Makes 15cm cake

Génoise

Make 1 – 18cm
3 ..................................... Eggs
90g ................................. Granulated sugar
90g ................................. Cake flour
10g ................................. Unsalted butter
30cc ................................ Milk

Crème au beurre
90g ................................ Granulated sugar
25g ................................ Water
1 ..................................... Egg
125g ............................... Unsalted butter
......................................... A dash of salt

Crème Pâtissiere

125cc ............................. Milk

........................................ Seed form ¼ Vanilla bean

2 .................................... Egg yolks

20g ................................ Granulated sugar

15g ................................. All purpose flour

10g ................................. Unsalted butter

Simple syrup

50g ................................ sugar

50cc .................................. water

Kirsch syrup

50g .................................. Simple syrup

20cc ................................. Kirsch

Meringue Italienne

50g ................................. Egg whites

100g ............................... Sugar

20cc ................................ Water

250g ............................... Strawberries

Make the Génoise:

Preheat the oven to 170°C.

Prepare the 18cm cake pan by line the base with the baking paper.

Melt the butter in the microwave.

Pour the milk into the hot melted butter.

Beat the egg and sugar over a bowl of warm water, whisk until the sugar melt.

Beat the egg and sugar mixture until ribbon stage (you can see that you can lift the beater and make the letter 8).

Sift the flour into the egg mixture, fold gently until combine.

Pour the milk and butter mixture into the bowl and fold gently.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan.

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes.

Take of the oven and let it cool completely before take the cake out of the pan.

Make the Simple syrup:

Put the water and sugar into small saucepan and bring to boil, until all the sugar dissolved, take off the heat and let the syrup cool.

Mix the Kirsch into 50g of the syrup.

Make Crème Pâtissiere:

1) In a small saucepan, bring the milk to boil. In the meantime, combine the yolks, sugar, seeds from vanilla bean and all purpose flour together and whisk in a bowl.

2) Once the milk has reached a boil, temper the yolks by whisking a couple spoonfuls of the hot milk into the yolk mixture. Continue whisking and slowly pour the rest of the milk into the tempered yolk mixture.

3) Strain the mixture back into the saucepan to remove any egg that may have scrambled. Place the pan over medium heat and whisk vigorously (without stop) until the mixture returns to a boil. Keep whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 more minutes (still over low heat).

4) Scrape the pastry cream into a small bowl and set it in an ice water bath to stop the cooking process. Make sure to continue stirring the mixture at this point so that it remains smooth. Once the cream has reached a temperature of 140 F,stir in the butter. Return the cream to the ice‐water bath to continue cooling, stirring occasionally, until it has completely cooled.

Make the Buttercream:

In a sauce pan, put the sugar and water and bring to boil over medium low heat.
When the syrup reaches 100°C, start whisking the egg.

The syrup is ready when it reaches 117°C; pour it over the egg and continue whisking until cold.

Add salt and beat to combine, then add the butter 1 tablespoon at a time. Increase the mixer speed to high for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the butter is fully incorporated.

Make the Italian meringue:

In a sauce pan, put the sugar and water and bring to boil over medium low heat.
When the syrup reaches 100°C, start whisking the egg whites.

The syrup is ready when it reaches 117°C; pour it over the egg whites and continue whisking until cold.

Assemble the Fraisier:

Slice the cake into 1.5 cm layer (you will use only 1 layer, keep the rest for other recipe).

Cut the cake into 12cm round, and place in 15cm cake ring, sprinkle with Kirsch syrup.

Pipe the buttercream around the cake and place the strawberries on the side of the cake.

Pipe the buttercream over the strawberries and use the spatula to smooth the buttercream.

Pipe the Crème Pâtissiere in the center, then place the strawberry slices on top.

Cover the strawberries with buttercream. Refrigerate for 1 hour to firm up the buttercream.

Cover the top of the cake with Italian meringue and decorate with strawberry slices.

Fraisier: Beautiful French Strawberry Cake

Eggs on toast with creamy spanich sauce

Unknown ● Wednesday, February 20, 2013 0 comments

Eggs on toast with creamy spanich sauce

Kate and I get asked a lot about the kinds of go-to foods we have at home when we need quick and easy meals. In my house we have plenty of frozen pizzas, burritos, and chicken nuggets in the freezer, but when I actually want a quick home-cooked meal, I have to say I probably grab eggs most often. When I lived in Brazil, I got used to eating eggs in creative ways. People often fried them up and served them over black beans and rice, in a salad, or as a topping for pizza. To this day, a hot fried egg over beans is one of my favorite comfort foods. At my house I often whip up scrambled egg burritos or quesadillas, pile eggs on english muffins with hot ham or pastrami and cheese, or make omelets or frittatas. Most egg dishes lend well to using up scraps of random veggies you have in your fridge, which make them a great last-minute I’m-totally-out-of-food meal. Just last night when my little brother was visiting (and was rather shocked to find his food-blogger-sister’s cupboards quite bare) he rummaged through the fridge and whipped up an awesome scramble with bacon, roasted red peppers, and peperoncinis. So quick and so great.
This recipe was inspired by Eggs Florentine, which is a super amazing and slightly naughty dish of poached eggs on english muffins with spinach and hollandaise sauce. This version is lightened up and made to be quick and easy. It’s totally something I think of as momma-lunch. When, as a stay at home Mom you find a magical moment when you realize you have a few moments of peace and can actually prepare something wholesome and filling for yourself as opposed to eating the rest of the dino-nuggets left on the kids plates and snacking on chocolate bars (please tell me I’m not the only one who does that.) My husband is usually home for lunch, so sometimes while the kids are chowing down on PB&J’s I’ll make something like this for us (which is why the recipe is written for 2). It makes a great breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner. You’ll just need eggs, a couple of slices of bread, a tomato, some spinach, mushrooms, and a tiny bit of cream cheese.

Slice the mushrooms and give the spinach a rough chop.

Toss the mushrooms in a hot skillet with a little drizzle of olive oil to start browning. While those are cooking, you’ll mix up your creamy sauce. Remember a few weeks ago when I posted this yummy Zucchini Ribbon Pasta dish? I explained in that recipe that while I don’t often use fat free cream cheese in cooking, it does tend to work great in sauces. That recipe only uses part of a package of cream cheese and when that happens I always try to come up with recipes that can use the rest so you can plan accordingly. This won’t use all of the rest, but it uses a little! You can use regular, low-fat, or even fat free here. Since this recipe is written for 2, we just need an ounce of the cream cheese and we’ll thin it out to a creamy sauce using some nonfat milk and add spices for flavor. Make sure to microwave and whisk the cream cheese well to get all of those lumps out.

When the mushrooms have cooked for a few minutes and are browned up, toss in the spinach.

It literally takes about 8 seconds for it to wilt.

Then add the creamy mixture to the veggies and stir to heat it though.

Since I like to avoid getting all of my pans dirty, especially on a quick dish like this, I scrape all of the creamy sauce into a bowl and cover it, give the pan a quick rinse, and then put it back on the stove to cook up my eggs. You can fry your eggs or poach them, whichever you prefer.

While they’re cooking, slice up a ripe tomato.

And toast a couple slices of bread. Whole grain is extra healthy, but if I’m being honest, hot buttered sourdough would be my first pick!

Eggs on Toast with Tomato and Creamy Spinach Sauce from Our Best Bites

Layer a couple tomato slices on the bread, top with the spinach sauce, and then an egg. If your sauce has thickened from sitting, just whisk in a little extra milk. Completely optional (I happened to have some in my fridge this time around) is a sprinkle of feta cheese and some chopped parsley.

Light and filling meal from Our Best Bites-Eggs on Toast with Creamy Spinach Sauce

I eat it with a knife and fork. The toasted bread sort of sops up the creamy sauce and the egg yolk and the juices from the tomato. You get a lot of flavors and textures and one serving is super filling. Momma lunch at its best!

Eggs on Toast with Creamy Spinach Sauce

Recipe by Our Best Bites

Ingredients

½ teaspoon extra virgin olive oil (plus cooking spray as needed)
1 cup sliced brown mushrooms
2 cups loosely packed spinach, chopped
1 ounce low fat or fat free cream cheese
2-4 tablespoon skim milk
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
⅛ teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon dried oregano
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt (more as needed)
2-3 cracks cracks pepper (more as needed)
2 eggs
2 slices whole grain bread
1 tomato, sliced
optional: 2 tablespoons low-fat crumbled Feta Cheese, parsley

Instructions

Heat a medium skillet to medium-high heat. Add olive oil and mushrooms and cook 3-5 minutes, until golden brown. If needed, add cooking spray during cooking process. While mushrooms are cooking, place cream cheese in a small, microwave-safe bowl. Warm in 20 second intervals until melted and can be stirred smooth. Add, garlic, onion, oregano, salt and pepper. Add milk a little at a time and whisk until smooth, heating more if necessary until you have a nice sauce consistency.
When mushrooms are done, add chopped spinach to pan with mushrooms and stir just until wilted; it should just take a few seconds. Add cream cheese mixture and stir until combined and heated through. Remove mixture from pan and keep covered in a bowl. Wipe pan clean and heat to medium-high heat. Spray pan with cooking spray and crack 2 eggs into pan. Sprinkle eggs with salt and pepper and cook until desired doneness. (You can cook your eggs sunny-side up, or over easy, or poach them.)
Toast bread in toaster and top each with a couple of tomato slices (if desired, you can quickly warm tomatoes in hot pan). Spoon spinach mixture over each serving and top with egg. Sprinkle with feta and parsley if desired. Serves 2.
Nutritional Info (using fat free cream cheese and whole grain bread)
Cal: 269, fat: 9g, carbs: 29g, protein: 17g, fiber 9g
Note: We do not provide nutritional information on all of our recipes. Occasionally we’ve calculated them ourselves and share with you.

Bourbon Chicken

Unknown ● 0 comments

Bourbon Chicken

Ingredients:

Servings:
4
Units: US | Metric
2 lbs boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1 -2 tablespoon olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/4 teaspoon ginger
3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup apple juice
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup soy sauce

Directions:

1
Heat oil in a large skillet.
2
Add chicken pieces and cook until lightly browned.
3
Remove chicken.
4
Add remaining ingredients, heating over medium Heat until well mixed and dissolved.
5
Add chicken and bring to a hard boil.
6
Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
7
Serve over hot rice and ENJOY.