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Category Archives: Dessert
Most people either love or hate New Years. I always feel that it is one of those “over-rated” holidays with too many expectations and the end result is never what your fantasize it will be. Lenny still has hope, even though he can not remember one standing out over the others. This would be the first New Years Eve we have spent at our home as we are usually on the E. Coast. Therefore, we wanted to make it extra special with the hopes of it being one that stands out. In the early planning phase we talked to our friends Jeff and Andy to see what they were up too and before we knew it we were planning a sit down dinner for 12, one that would be similar to our ever so popular French Bistro dinner. But where would we go?
This time we would be going to Argentina! We started researching the food of Argentina almost immediately and the task at hand was looking for cookbooks, this proved to be very difficult. We finally decided on one to use, Argentina Cooks! As well, we were really surprised by the heavy influence of Europe, particularly Spanish and Italian in the cuisine. At one point I felt I was planning a meal in Italy. So we put out our feelers and contacted a few people, to get their advise on menu planning. Sylvia of La Vida en Buenos Aires was a huge help in giving us some direction with the menu planning.
Since our 20 sq. ft. kitchen would not handle a dinner for 12, Jeff and Andy were more than accommodating to host the evening at their home. As well Jeff would be my cooking companion as when we did the French dinner. Jeff’s brother John took charge of decorating for the evening and Andy set up the very adult bar. The table was decorated in shades of white and silver with lots of white light and candles. Each place setting had a coordinating menu printed out in hues of pale blue. We wanted the dinner to be cozy so he moved the living room furniture into the dining area and created a nice little lounge area which had views of the kitchen, and then he moved the table into the living room by the fireplace. The room was magical and intimate, exactly what we had in-visioned for New Years!
 
Unfortunately the guest list was the hardest part of the evening as we wanted to be with everyone but due to space and budget we had to have limit the guest list to 12. To be able to share our evening with everyone we love we did a live web cast – which was very fun as we had family and friends from far sign in. Sort of your virtual dinner party!
Now to the food! We decided to add our own style into the menu planning and to take the hearty country food of Argentina and add a California twist to it, as well we wanted to make it a bit more formal. It was very important that the food we used be organic, seasonal and as local as possible as we wanted to utilize the farmer’s market as much as possible. The menu we planned would be 7 courses and would be paired with wines to compliment.
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This month’s challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.
What is a French Yule Log you say and how is it different from the Buches de Noel that the Daring Bakers made last December? In France you can buy two kinds of Yule log, either the Genoise and Buttercream type such as the Buches de Noel or what is more common which is a frozen Yule Log, which is very reminiscent of an ice cream cake, only it is not made of ice cream but rather chocolate mousse. In French this is called an entremets, which is sometimes translated in English as simply a cream dessert. When I first read the recipe I was definitely intimidated by the 18 pages of instruction, in fact, I seriously reconsidered making it on and off for a couple weeks. Then as with all challenges, I just decided to do it, I knew I could this! So, I came up with a plan and decided to prepare this special dessert for our annual crab fest with our good friends, Evelyn, Will and MEM. WAIT! There’s more »
Vibi from La Casserole Carrée is the hostess for this weeks Tuesdays with Dorie challenge. Even though Vibi is not American nor will she be celebrating Thanksgiving this week, she picked Dorie’s Twofer Thanksgiving Pie. Thank you!
We are in Montana celebrating with family this week and lucky for you all, the family loves to eat, so we (or I) decided to make the Twofer Pie for a little pre-Thanksgiving indulging.
The pie is two pies rolled into one: pumpkin and pecan. The recipe is pretty straightforward, make Dorie’s wonderful crust recipe, add a basic pumpkin pie filling and top it with a pecan filling. The pie smells wonderful cooking with the two different flavors blending. I did have to cook it more than the recipe called for, probably due to altitude and it did come out rather soft still; but, the flavors and texture were really nice. The end verdict – it was not my favorite Dorie recipe. I would probably make two separate pies, but it was fun to try.
Susan at the Well Seasoned Cook is the hostess for this month’s Sugar High Friday. We participated in our first one last month and enjoyed it so much that we are doing it again. Now I should tell you about the new rule in our house – no sweets unless there is a good reason. This is definitely hard being part of the Daring Bakers and Tuesdays With Dorie, but I usually am able to come up with a good reason to make each of these challenges.
Diane & Todd of White On Rice Couple got tired of seeing me complain on Twitter, about how I could never find any passion fruit in the city so they surprised us with a box of the little gems. They were so sweet that we pretty much slurped all of them up except for the couple that we saved their pulp and froze – sounds like we saved something else & froze it! During this couple of weeks Diane slipped a birthday by us, she is so modest, so I knew that I had to send a “thank you” and happy belated birthday gift to her (them, she was suppose to share).
Diane and Todd are one of the go to sites for when we need a couple good cocktail ideas and since we know they love their cocktails, it only seemed appropriate to create a gift that was cocktail inspired. We wish we could have shared one of our favorites with them, but since we can not mail a cocktail and a fly down to make it, we recreated it as a cupcake.
Here you have it the Blood Orange Margarita Cupcake. I made a cupcake that was flavored with the zest and juice of one blood orange and topped it off with a ginger tequila buttercream frosting. Where does SHF come in, well, I dusted the tops of the cupcakes with silver sparkle sanding sugar. For this photo I used a gold edible dusting powder. The cupcakes were, well, pretty fantastic and definitely meant for adults only.
| Blood Orange Margarita Cupcake |
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Recipe type: Dessert
Author: Chez Us
- Cupcakes:
- 1 small blood orange – zested & juiced (about 1/8 cup of juice)
- ¾ cup self rising flour
- ¾ cup all purpose flour
- ½ cup butter at room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup whole milk
- Frosting:
- l lb. box Powdered Sugar
- ¼ cup milk
- ½ cup butter softened
- 2 teaspoons minced candied ginger
- 1 tablespoon white tequila
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Line a 1 muffin tin with cupcake papers.
- Sift the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
- In a mixing bowl cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the blood orange zest and juice; blend until combined.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each addition.
- Add the dry ingredients, alternating with the milk, and mix using a low speed. I use the stir option on my mixer.
- Once combined, mix for 1 minute at medium speed.
- Divide the batter among the cupcake liners.
- Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until springy to touch.
- Let cool for 10 minutes, and then remove from muffin tin and let cool at room temperature.
- Frosting
- In a large mixing bowl add the powder sugar, milk and butter; mix using medium speed (about a 5 on my mixer), until light and fluffy.
- Add the ginger and tequila, and mix for another 3 minutes.
- Frost the above cupcakes.
- Serve.
- Eat.
2.2.6
Guess what, it is Tuesdays with Dorie time and the wonderful Isabelle of Les Gourmandises d’Isa picked one of our favorite desserts, one that goes back to both of our childhoods and our cultures – Lenny, Portuguese and I, Basque. We both remember our great-grandmothers, our grandmothers, and our mothers making rice pudding. It is a very comfortable ending to a meal. The only thing with these old family recipes is that they seem to come out a bit dry or startchy no matter how much extra milk I add. I feel bad even saying this, but, I have tried and tried …. now there is a new girl in town!
Dorie always seems to have the “perfect recipe”. Every time I make a TWD recipe, it is right on, from serving size, to baking times and ingredients. This recipe was the exception ….. it was even easier, in fact it was the easiest rice pudding I have ever made. Basically, you gently simmer rice with milk and sugar, then add flavorings, I did use a vanilla bean instead of extract, which gave it a really nice warm taste and essence. T add a bit of fall to the recipe, I soaked unsweetened cranberries in a French orange brandy for 10 hours and then lightly drizzled it over the top – very good! The end result, it was ultra creamy with a slight bite of crunch (that texture we so love) thanks to the Arborio rice.
I served this after we had the Merguez Lamb stew dinner- it was the perfect ending to a wonderful meal, the flavors all really came together. This was definitely the easiest and the best rice pudding recipe I have ever made and it will become the go to in our house and you should make it yours as well.
Thank you, Isabelle!
 I have just entered our Pumpkin Pie into Apartment Therapy The Kitchn’s Best Pie Bakeoff. Our family pumpkin pie recipe truly is the best and I am not just saying that!
My step-mom, Kathie, has been making this pie for as long as I can remember and the key to her success is using fresh sugar pie pumpkin and cognac. Now, we switched it up a bit, this year, by adding cardamon instead of cinnamon and we used French Brandy instead of the cognac. It came out as creamy and rich as always; but, the cardamon and brandy gave it a really nice warm taste, very smooth on the taste buds. Using the fresh and slow roasted sugar pie pumpkins really is the key to this recipe as it gives the pie texture, really substantial texture, not smoosh like canned. I promise if you make this for the holidays your family will be forever grateful!
Clara over at I Heart Food for Thought was our gracious host for this weeks Tuesday With Dorie (TWD) challenge and she choose Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes! I heart chocolate as well so I knew this would be a fun challenge for me. As well we had a birthday celebration to go to over at Bryan’s house and I knew this would be the perfect gift for his girlfriend, Erin.
The recipe was pretty simple, chocolate, flour, sugar and buttermilk, basically. In fact, it was so easy, that I kept reading through it thinking I had missed something. As with all of Dorie’s recipes, that I have made so far, it was true to the serving amounts – twelve cute little cupcakes.
Kept going back and forth on whether I should fill them or not. I really wanted too, but, I was not sure I would have time and I did not want to use store bought fluff. Right before the final step, I whipped up a batch of Dorie’s Marshmallows flavored with cardamon to use as my fluff! The finishing touch was a very deep bittersweet chocolate ganache topping with whimsical sprinkles! Very fun birthday celebration!
The end result: very easy recipe, great flavor but a bit on the dry side. I may try again before going back to my fall on cupcake recipe; but, I will add more buttermilk and bake a short amount of time.
Be sure to pour yourself a big glass of milk and head over to nosh on more cupcakes with the other TWD bakers!
I have missed the past couple TWD challenges due to busy work schedules; but, when I saw that Mari over at Mevrouw was hosting, I knew I could not miss this one. As well, Creme Brulee is a favorite around our house as well as when we go camping!
I normally use a different recipe (one from the restaurant Fringle in San Francisco), which requires some extra time as well as baking it in a Bain Marie. This recipe was the complete opposite – hardly any extra work at all and you bake it at a very low heat with no Bain Marie.
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