Glutenfree Mac and cheese

Ingredients

300 grams Glutenfree macaroni

6 dl oats cream

1/2 vegetable stock cube

1 pinch of cayenne pepper

1/2 dl chopped parsley

2 tablespoons gluten free bread crumbs

5 dl grated cheddar cheese

Instructions

Turn on the oven at 210 degrees Celsius.

Cook the pasta 1 minutes shorter than according to the instructions.

Cook the oats cream and chunk in the grated stock cube and the cayenne pepper. When it nearly boils, chunk in 4dl cheddar and let it melt. Add the chopped parsley and the drained pasta.

Put the mixture in a gratin dish and spread the remaining cheddar and the bread crumbs over the pasta.

Bake for about 30 minutes.

Pesto sauce

This is a good recipe for pesto really. It tastes very near the original recipe but is somewhat easier to do. Making this recipy dairy free makes the taste very different from the original recipe unfortunately, but sometimes, you simply do not have a choice, do you?
The pesto can be eaten as a topping to whatever you want, but, of course, the most typical use for pesto is as a sauce for pasta. If you want a gluten free dish, use gluten free pasta. Personally, we use Semper Linguine.

Ingredients

30 grams pine nuts
80 grams basil leaves (I normally use frozen ones, but of course the fresh ones taste more)
2 cloves garlic
1 dl + 1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons salted pasta water
1/2 teaspoon salt

If you cannot eat dairy, just leave out the parmesan. Otherwise add
75 grams grated parmesan
If you want to be little posh, you can substitute a little of the grated parmesan on pasta with some shaved parmesan as a decoration

Instructions
Just mix everything together. If someone in the family cannot eat dairy, wait to mix the parmesan until the end or leave the parmesan out altogether. Note though that the taste will not be great then.... :/

Quinoa pie crust

This pie crust is really really really suuuuper. Best pie crust I have ever eaten. Honest!
Give it a good try!

Ingredients
Crust
4dl cooked quinoa
2dl almond flour
1dl potato flour
50gr butter
1 egg
For an egg free alternative, see Quinoa pie crust (Dairy free and egg free).


Instructions
Warm up the oven at 200degrees Celsius.
Mix the ingredients for the shell in a mixer and distribute it in a pie dish.
Bake the pie crust for 15 minutes.
Use your preferred filling and bake it again for about 40 mins or so depending on the filling.

Quinoa pie crust (egg free and dairy free)

Ingredients
Crust
1 tablespoon chia seeds
3 tablespoons water
4dl cooked quinoa
2dl almond flour
1dl potato flour
50gr milk free margarine
If you can eat eggs and milk/lactose, see the regular recipe.

Instructions
Warm up the oven at 200degrees Celsius.
Put the chia seeds and the water in the mixer and let it be there for some 15 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients in a mixer and distribute it in a pie dish.
Bake the pie crust for 15 minutes.
Use your preferred filling and bake it again for about 40 mins or so depending on the filling.

Baking vanilla custard

This custard is meant to be used in pies and should be baked with the pie. It is not meant as vanilla custard to be eaten as is.

Ingredients

300gr milk (1,5% fat)

180gr cream (40% fat)

240gr caster sugar

145gr egg yolks

30gr potato starch

Instructions

Mix sugar and starch with egg yolks. Whip it until well mixed.

In the meantime, cook up the mixture of milk and cream. When it cooks up, take it off the heat, put in the egg and sugar mixture, cook up again and whisk together. Remove from heat.

Sweet pie dough

This is a recipe for pie dough. The recipe is originally French, but the Italians do use a similar recipe for doing a pie called "crostata".

Ingredients

250gr flour
125gr butter
75gr sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 egg

Instructions

Mix flour, sugar, salt and butter together until you get a sandy mixture. Add the egg and mix until you get a dough. Put it in a plastic bag for food and distribute the dough so it gets thin. It will cool down quicker.
After half an hour, take out the dough from the frigde and mix it again with your hands to get an elastic consistence. At this point you can use for your pies.

Note! I have had the less smart idea to make it a little sweeter by adding some additional sugar. Bad idea. The pie gets more crunchy and the taste is less enjoyable.

Boiling eggs to perfection

If you ask me, the most difficult task a person can have to do in a kitchen is to boil eggs to perfection, whatever perfection might be. Probably a question of taste.
Me, myself, I love soft boiled eggs, where the the white is hard boiled but the yolk is only somewhat a little thicker than normal. That is  my perfection. But somebody else might like it differently.

For some reason, I never get it as desired. Never. Or nearly never. And I am saying.... NEVER.

So the new year has come and this is when I will do some empiric studies about cooking eggs.

Actually, this idea came up to me while cooking eggs for breakfast this morning. And just because I wrote "NEVER" multiple times and actually stressed it, I did succeed amazingly well (not perfect, but near enough) with at least one of the eggs.
This is though in no way an empirically proven way to achieve an exact timing. But until the measurements are done with precision, this will have to do.
I have an induction stove so the changes in temperature are immediate.
This is what I did: Small pot filled with water at room temperature. Eggs were completely under water.

Cooking up water to boiling temperature on my stove at maximum regular speed (9 out of 9).
When the water cooked, I turned it down to 2 (out of 9). Left it on for 5 minutes.

I think 4 minutes and 30 seconds would have been ideal. I left the eggs on during the time I tasted the one first egg and they became far too hard. If you ask me. That can have taken 1 minute or so. Faar tooooo crazily sensitive if you ask me.... :(

But well... Let me see...
Pot as before
1,5 liter water at room temperature
Put eggs in from the beginning
Cook at speed 9 until boiling
Measure time to do so.
Test different speeds from that moment on and different times:
Speed 0: 5 minutes, 6 minutes, 7 minutes
Speed 2: 4,5 minutes, 5 minutes, 6 minutes, 7 minutes
Speed 4: 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes, 6 minutes, 7 minutes
If no perfection is yet achieved with the above try different times and speeds.

Italian Marengue Butter Cream

This is a butter cream. So it is not low fat! And definitively not low sugar....
But if you use sugar paste, you need to have something that protects it from becoming sloppy. And butter cream is it. If you use regular cream, it will not keep "fresh" and it might sort of melt.

The taste is good. But I have some difficulties with butter cream in general. Little too heavy. But all right. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

200gr egg whites (which maps to 7 average size eggs or 6 big)
300gr caster sugar
80ml water
450gr unsalted butter (keep at room temperature until soft)
1 tsp vanilla powder

Instructions

Whip the egg whites. They do not need to be perfectly stiff as they will have to keep being whipped after you add the hot sugar. Cook the water with the sugar until it reaches the temperature of 118 degrees Celsius. While whipping, add the hot sugar. Be careful as it is very hot. Make sure you do not hit the whips.... That might become seriously dangerous. Keep whipping until the marengue becomes cold. It will take a very long while so I recommend to use a Kitchen Aid or similar tool. Then add the vanilla powder and add little of the butter at the time. When you do that, make sure to use the lowest speed on the blender. It is supposed to become fluffy and stable butter cream.


For some reason it does not become as hard as other butter cream. Guess it has to do with the air in the egg whites. But I am not sure how long it can be in the fridge before you spread it out. I have had some in the fridge since more than one week and it still tastes delicious to be honest. But it is hard. I will maybe try to take it out of the fridge and see if it becomes softer one day... :)

Rumours go that it can "go wild". But that has not happened to me.

Caramel cream filling

This is my own recipe. Nothing off the shelf. But I did steal some tips and tricks from other recipes. For instance, for stabilizing the cream I use piping gel in minimum amounts as it does give an unwanted flavour/smell otherwise.

Ingredients

100gr caramel sauce
350gr cream
1tbs piping gel

Instructions

Heat up some 100gr cream and melt the caramel sauce in it. Let it cool in the fridge. Remember. The cream needs to be cold to whip up as desired. Put the piping gel in it. Add the rest of the cream.
Whip slowly until stable. I use my Kitchen Aid at speed 2 (even if that makes me a little nervous and sometimes I just turn it higher for some moments). Be careful and do not distract yourself. Had to throw away a whole batch because I forgot it there and it whipped to a gritty thing that could not be used for anything.... :( So again... Be very very careful... ;)

Brownies

I found a good brownie recipe. I used this recipe when baking a cake. Actually, I then reduced the amount of sugar, as the rest of the cake was so sweet. But maybe it was not necessary?! Still unsure.
Remember though. If you want to make a cake out of it, you need to be on the clear side that it is not really easy to keep it "whole". The brownie seems to have a tendency to go into pieces, really. Next time, I think I will do a caramel whip and make a cake out of it that I freeze. Then I will decorate it with caramel sauce.

Ingredients

175gr unsalted butter
225 gr dark chocolate
180gr caster sugar
3 medium eggs (separated)
65gr plain flour
50gr chopped pecan nuts

Instructions

Heat the oven to 180degrees Celsius.

Use a pan of 20cm to 26cm. If you do it in the smaller pan, it will be a more chubby and soft cake. So after I have tried the large pan, I do recommend the small one... ;)
Butter the pan and cover it with a baking sheet. It will make it much easier to get the brownie out of the cake.

Melt the butter. Add the sugar and wait until it has melted. Add 175gr chocolate and melt it in the mixture. Cool down the mixture.
Mix in the egg yolks. Add the flour. Also break the chocolate into small pieces and add it to the mixture together with the nuts.
Whip the egg whites. Mix some of the whipped egg whites in the chocolate mixture so that it gets somewhat fluffy and somewhat easier to mix with the egg whites. Then put the chocolate mixture in the bowl with the whipped egg whites and mix them together lightly so you do not loose the air in the whites.

Dough after adding the egg whites 2013-10-19

Bake for about 35-40 minutes until the top is crusty. I think if you are using the 26cm pan, you can actually have to take it out already after 30-35 minutes.

Baked brownie in the pan covered with baking paper 2013-10-19

You can freeze the brownie and it will still taste good afterwards. I have only eaten it cold, but it is supposed to be good warm with ice cream, too.
It gets a really funny bubbly surface... See... :)

Bubbly surface of the brownie cake 2013-10-19

Basic yellow cake

I have actually used this cake recipe nearly every time I actually have baked a cake in the last years. I think it works. And it tastes good, too. If you ask me...
I normally pick it down from the wilton.com home page, but every single time I wonder: "Do I have it among my recipes?", then, of course, I don't find it and at the end of the story I find myself fighting with American measures... So now, now let us do something against this...

Ingredients

375gr sifted flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

390gr sugar

75gr butter

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

300gr milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 175degrees Celsius. Grease bottom and walls of a pan (26cm diameter) or two (20cm diameter). Line with baking paper.
Sift flour, salt and baking powder and set it aside.
Cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

19/10-2013 Butter and sugar when fluffy...

Add one egg at the time and then add the vanilla and keep beating the mixture. I think it is smart not to add too cold eggs. It mixes much better.

19/10-2013 After having added the eggs

Add milk and the flour mixture alternatively until everything is incorporated. When this is the case, just beat one more minute.

19/10-2013 With flour and milk added

Then the batter is ready to be distributed into the pan(s).
I personally try to use special ribbons wetted with water to cover the external part of the pan so that the cake does not blow up in the middle. It is always good if it can stay flat at the top rather than getting bumps.
Bake for 30-35 minutes when in the small pans and 45-48 minutes when in the large one.

The cake is ideal for decorating. It can be prepared in advance and frozen as it is! When you need to set the cake, you can actually do it before it is completely defrosted as it will be easier to decorate when it is a little frozen.

Vanilla custard

In Italy, you can get the most delicious vanilla custard at any patisserie. I have been trying to reproduce the same effect for ages. And never succeeded. But today I think that I kind of know the answer. When you try to do your own vanilla custard, you always use the real ingredients: egg yolks, sugar, cream, milk.... But I think the pros do not use all those eggs as it would be much too expensive to do some little amount of custard. So my guess is they use some other emulsifier instead. I think the vegegel from Dr. Oetker's is a very interesting kind of product that gives a texture similar to the purchase cream.
In the meantime, until I get to test my theory, here is the recipe with original ingredients.

Ingredients
400g milk
100g cream (38-40% fat)
150g egg yolks
150g sugar
17g corn starch
17g rice starch (I could never find this so I used rice flour instead)
1/2 vanilla flower

Instructions
Whip sugar and egg yolks. Add starches and vanilla flower powder.
Cook milk and cream. When the liquid is boiling through in the mixture above and then whip it up neatly for about 1 minute. If you wait too long to whip, the eggs might scramble up themselves giving an omelette taste to the custard (believe my word... :O( ) resulting in a less smooth custard and a less enjoyable taste.
You will notice that the whipped mixture will actually float in the liquid keeping the whole from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Note: do not use flour as an emulsifier as the flour can make the custard liquify. Also the rice and the corn starch give different texture so it is good to mix them it seems (I have never tasted how the custard would taste with only one of those actually, but well, I simply follow the recipe.). And by the way, next time I might give it a try to actually use the vegegel from Dr. Oetker's I think. That texture reminds me of both vanilla custard from Royal my mom used to do for me when I was a child and the custard you could find in the purchased petits choux.

Petits choux

Blurred baked petits choux 30/12-2012

This dish is actually very famous in Italy. Every patisserie in Milan offers these fantastic mignons and out of any mignon, these are my favorite. In Italian they are called bignè.

I have tried to make them at home when I was a little girl with hardly any positive result. Now I got the urge to give it another try. Found the recipe in my Montersino confectioner's school CD and thoughts might even try it for this year's New Year's Eve dinner.

Ingredients
165g Butter (unsalted)
185g Water
175g Flour (weak, with as little proteins as possible, and very refined)
Pinch of salt
25g Whole Milk
270g Eggs

Instructions
Put water and butter in a big pot and bring to boil and melt.
Important tip: make sure to put butter in small pieces in the pot so it melts before the water cooks. If it is not melted by then remove from the stove and make sure it does. The reason is you do not want too much water to vaporize as it would modify the proportions in the recipe.
Add flour.
Important tip: make sure the water cooks up thoroughly before pouring in the whole flour at once.
Mix with a wooden spoon with a very quick movement until the whole dough detach from the pot.

Dough out of the Kitchen Aid treatment 30/12-2012

Put in the Kitchen Aid using the butterfly mixer.
Add the milk while mixing.
Then add a few eggs at the time until absorbed. Check before adding the last egg that the dough is not too soft. The dough should look somewhat as custard. It might be even necessary to add some additional egg to reach the right dough.
On a baking plate distribute melted butter. Then dry it up with paper as the utter needs to be as little as possible in order for the guys to be able to grow.

Piped dough ready to bake 30/12-2012

Pipe the dough with a round pipe making sure that the starting point is the plate and going up  (not from the top as you would expect.
Important tip: do not use baking paper under them as they need to stick to the surface in order to grow properly in the oven.
Bake at 220 degrees Celsius until golden.
Important tip: use oven without ventilation for a professional result and an even surface.




Note to self: CD 10 - Pasta per bignè

Nam Prik Pao - Chilli paste

For cashew chicken, you need chilli paste.

Ingredients
10 big dried red chillies (home grown ones - Chilli 'Piment d'Espelette')
10 garlic cloves
20 thai shallots
6 tablespoons brown sugar
10 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons small dried shrimps (not necessary if you are vegetarian. We used shrimp paste)
6 tablespoons chilli oil
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Instructions
Roughly chop all of the ingredients. Grind in a pestle and mortar and mix well. Add the vegetable oil and fry at a low heat until the oil turns red.

Curry Paste

When in Thailand in November 2010 and attended a Thai cooking school in Koh Phi Phi, the first thing we learnt how to do was obviously curry paste. Here is the recipe for red curry paste. If you want to make a green curry paste, use the same recipe but use green peppers. As easy.
There they used a big pot and a wooden stick as mortar and pestle. Maybe one day, I can make one of those guys myself. In the meantime, I'll have to live with the little one I have. Very practical though with a larger one!

Ingredients
20 chillies
1 teaspoon galangal
3 tablespoon lemon grass
3 kafir lime leaves finely sliced
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
3 tablespoons thai shallot
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons chilli oil

Instructions
Roughly chop the ingredients and then simply grind with pestle and mortar. Remember to add the oil last so that you do not splash hot curry paste in your eyes. There is no need to use an electric blender or get a very smooth paste.

Red curry paste

Use red chillies

Green curry paste

Use green chillies
Substitute the chilli oil with regular vegetable oil
Add 1 handful sweet thai basil

Panaeng curry paste

Add 3 tablespoons of ground peanuts to the red curry paste. Note though that I have never tried this recipe for Panaeng curry as I have used the one referred to in the Panaeng curry chicken recipe.