Feb21

“Honey I love you!” Panna Cotta with honey gelee and honeycomb crunch

Posted on by
“Honey I love you!” Panna Cotta with honey gelee and honeycomb crunch

pannacotta7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I first started this blog I promised myself that i’ll be consistent with the amount of posts and recipes that’ll I’ll be “introducing to the world” per week. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to keep up to that promise. “Life”, as we all know, is time short. BUT, I promise that I will try to upload as many recipes and baking adventures. After all, If I do manage to find time for baking – regardless of how busy I am :D – the I shouldn’t be lazy and to manage to find some time to post it.

Anyway, this dessert is something that I’ve been dying to make since I got Amy Atlas’s book “sweet designs”. Besides the fact that this book is full with countless inspirational and creative ideas, it is also filled with much worh keeping recipes. The recipe for the honey Panna Cotta in the beautiful “honey” theme in the book is well worth trying. I really liked the fact that the panna cotta has the tanginess of the yogurt, and of course the divine combination of yogurt and honey. I wanted some crunch added to the Panna Cottas so I upgaraded them with a honeycomb crunch garnish – it really added another aspect to the whole experience!

you can even be naughty and slip it to your breakfast menu by sprinkling some granola on top.

It will be our little secret:)

pannacotta5

-”honey I love you” – Panna cotta with honey gelee and honeycomb crunch

Ingredients

For the Panna Cotta

2 1/4 teaspoons unflavored powdered gelatin

4 tablespoons milk

2 cups heavy cream

2 cups good quality unsweetened yogurt (I used “Fage”)

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup honey

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste (or seeds of one bean)

For the honey gelee

1/3 cup honey

1 teaspoons unflavored powdered gelatin

1 cup water

For the Honeycomb crunch

1 1./2 cups sugar

1/3 cup golden syrup

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup water

2 teaspoons baking soda

Method

Put milk in a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatin over it. Stir and set aside.

Combine the cream, vanilla paste, honey and sugar in a medium pan and bring to the boil. Remove from heat and stir constantly until the sugar and honey are completely dissolved. Add the gelatin-milk mixture to the pan and continue stirring (I used a hand whisk) until the mixture is homogenous. Whisk in the lemon juice and yogurt. Divide into individual glasses and chill for 3 hours.

Make the honey gelee – combine two tablespoons of water with the gelatin and leave until softened (5 min or so). Meanwhile, combine 1 cup of water with the honey in a pan. Bring the mixture to the boil and cook for further 2 min (to reduce a little). Remove from heat. Stir in the gelatin until dissolved.                                                                                 Divide the gelee mixture on top of the chilled Panna Cottas. Chill for another hour.

For the Honeycomb crunch – line and grease a baking sheet/pan. Combine the sugar, honey and golden syrup in a fairly large pot. Stir until all sugars are dissolved. Bring to a boil and cook for 10-15 min in 270 degrees. Remove from heat and wait until the bubbles disappear. Quickly add baking soda and stir gently (the mixture will start to expand and bubble). Spread the mixture onto the lined baking sheet. Cool until hardens and break into pieces.

Garnish every Panna Cotta with the honeycomb crunch or- if you prefer a different garnish- sprinkle some raw cocoa nibs to achieve a different – yet delicious – crunchy aspect!

honepanna1

pannacotta3

 

Feb4

Banana-Blueberry soft serve cupcakes!

Posted on by
Banana-Blueberry soft serve cupcakes!

DSCF0330

Howdy everyone!

This is another creation that I conjured up during the weekend. I’ve been dying to do the dual frosting effect and since I love choco-vanilla soft serve, I knew It would be choco-vanilla (although now that I think about it, raspberry vanilla/raspberry-choco would have worked together extremely well too). Anyway, because I knew that I’d be the only one who would actually eat them (hubby only likes cheesecakes and chocolate cakes, nothing too adventurous), I cut the recipe in half so that I got 6 delicious cupcakes to enjoy all on my own during the week!

hope you’ll enjoy them! and feel free to double up the quantities.

DSCF0328

Banana-blueberry soft serve cupcakes (6 cupcakes, 2.5” in diameter)

for the cupcakes:

1/4  cup butter (1/2 stick), room temp

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup sour cream

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup cake flour (you can use AP)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

handful of blueberries

1 ripe banana, mashed

pinch salt

Frosting:

1 stick butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla paste (you can use essence)

1 tbs cocoa powder

1 tbs malted milk powder

Method:

preheat oven to 375 F, line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners.

mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl. In the mixer bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and keep beating. Change to the paddle attachment and gradually add the sour cream, egg and banana. sift and add the dry ingredients. once the batter is fairly mixed (try not to over-mix) add the blueberries.

with an ice cream scoop, scoop batter into cupcake liners. bake for 20 min, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

cool completely.

To make the frosting, whip up the butter and gradually add the powdered sugar. add vanilla and keep beating until light and fluffy. Insert half of the mixture  into a piping bag (you’ll need a round and fairly big tip for the piping) while smearing the mixture on only one side of the bag. Add cocoa powder and malted milk powder to the remaining butter-cream (in the mixer bowl) and whip up for another 2-3 min. Place the cocoa butter-cream alongside the vanilla (again. smear it on the opposite side of the piping bag). Push the mixture downwards so that you take away all of the air bubbles. Pipe-test the butter cream on a separate surface before piping on the actual cupcake. Once you are set, Pipe from the middle and in a round motion until you get the gorgeous soft serve look. You can decorate as you wish, of course:)

DSCF0322

Feb3

Malted Milk and Oreo Cheesecake!

Posted on by
Malted Milk and Oreo Cheesecake!

DSCF0334

Hello everyone!

It’s been a while. I’ve been juggling through developing some new recipes and products, culinary school and working in adobe illustrator to create some cool new templates to my etsy shop.

Anyways,  last week I decided to purchase for the first time  ”Carnation’s Malted milk powder”. I vaguely remembered the taste (mostly the version of “Ovaltine”) and I knew I had to re-try it.

The truth? It tastes great! it does need a little help with “dissolving”, but the taste is phenomenal. I don’t think I’ll ever drink cold milk without some of this miracle powder again.

Since I knew it works well with milk, I knew It would work extremely well in cheesecake as well.

I won’t keep you long, and just hand you the recipe – It is truly one of the best cheesecakes I’ve ever made/tasted!

Malted Milk and Oreo Cheesecake

Oreo base 

1 1/2 cups crushed Oreos

4 tbls butter, melted

Cheese filling

24 oz. cream cheese

1 cup sour cream

2 oz white chocolate

3 tbs milk

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup malted milk

4 eggs

pinch salt

 

Method

preheat oven to 375.

grease and line a 9” spring-form pan.

Combine the Oreos and butter and press tightly to the bottom of the pan. bake for 15 min, until bubbly and slightly browned. let cool slightly. Once cooled, cover the bottom and sides of the pan with aluminum foil. Lower the oven’s temp to 350. 

 

in the meantime, cream cream cheese and sugar, add sour cream ,malted milk and salt and continue creaming until the batter is smooth and homogeneous looking.

in a small bowl, melt the white chocolate and milk and add add it to the mixing bowl. change the beater to the paddle attachment and add the eggs, one at a time, until the mixture is  - again – homogeneous looking.

pour the batter on the prepared crust.

fill a large rectangular pan with boiling water and place in the cake.

Bake in the lower rack of the oven for 70 min. Turn off the oven but leave the cake inside for another 30 min.

Take the cake out of the oven and refrigerate at least 6 hours before serving.

DSCF0342

 

 

Jan14

“Oreo” marshmallow sandwich cookies

Posted on by
“Oreo” marshmallow sandwich cookies

DSCF0146[1]

Howdy everyone!

After hours of developing new and unique products, I’ve finally managed to upload the first three to my new Etsy shop!

I’m a true ice cream lover, but I hardly ever leave an ice cream “as is”. I love an ice cream which is studded with surprises (cookies, fudge, peanuts etc). So what I usually do, I buy a plain vanilla ice cream and upgrade it at home.

Since I wanted to translate my love for ice cream to a product which can be shipped, will be long lasting and won’t have to be enjoyed only from the freezer, I decided to create these marshmallow “ice cream” sandwich cookies. The base ( the cookie part) is made of two delicious old fashioned “oreo” cookies, while the middle is a choco-vanilla home made marshmallow. what connects the marshmallow to the two  cookies is milk chocolate. The outcome is oh so cute and delicious. It does require a little work, so If you are deterred by the process, you are more than welcome to purchase them from my Etsy shop! and if you are up for it, the recipe is as follows:

for the “oreo” cookies (from the book “Retro Desserts” by Wayne Harley Brachman):

this recipe makes about 36 small sandwich cookies

1 1/4 cups AP flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cups + 2 tbs (1 1/4 stick) butter, room temp

1 large egg

method: 

preheat oven to 375 F.

mix all dry ingredients in a bowl, pulsing/mixing on a lower speed, add the butter, then the egg. drop round teaspoons of batter on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (I poured most of the batter on the baking sheet and after 9 min I cut the dough with a cookie cutter, than let it bake in the oven for 2 min longer). Bake the cookies for 9 min, turning the pan once for even baking. Let cool on a wire rack.

for the marshmallows: 

3 cups caster sugar
6 tsp corn syrup
3 tbs powdered gelatin
3  large egg white
2  tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch process)
2 tsp vanilla extract

to get the tri-color effect, you’ll have to create each layer separately. First, place 1 cup of sugar + 2 tsp corn syrup + 100 ml of water in a saucepan. In the mean time, put 1 tbs gelatin +100 ml water in a separate bowl and let soften.

Let the sugar in the saucepan dissolve, and continue cooking until the concoction reaches 250 F. Once it reaches that temp, pour it on the gelatin mixture and mix until combined. Now, start beating the egg white in a stand mixer while gradually pouring the content of the saucepan. Keep beating until you get a fluffy and relatively stable mixture. Add 1 tbs cocoa until combined. Pour the mixture to pan lined with parchment and oiled/buttered.

repeat the process in order to get the other two layers (remember – you don’t add cocoa to the second layer, only to the third).

after building all three layers, give the mixture several hours to stabilize. Once that’s done, cut the marshmallow with a cookie cutter of your preference. If you receive a sticky mixture which is a little hard to handle, mix in a separate bowl equal quantities of powdered sugar and cornstarch and lightly coat the marshmallows.

In order to assemble the cookies, melt some milk chocolate, coat the inner side of two cookies with it, and sandwich them toghether with the marshmallow.

I hope you’ll enjoy these as much as I do!

DSCF0155[1] DSCF0151[1]

 

cheers:)

Dana

 

 

Jan3

Wheat bran, molasses, honey and a touch of coffee cake

Posted on by
Wheat bran, molasses, honey and a touch of coffee cake

molasses bread

If you ever went to the “Cheesecake factory” you must have fallen in love with the amazing dark bread that they serve at the beginning of the meal. I’ve been trying to re-create it since the first time I tasted it, and with every try, I get closer to the desired result and at the same time create a bread which is delicious completely on its own (with no connection to the cheesecake factory’s one).

In the following bread, I wanted to enhance that deep molasses flavor and create a bread which is rich in fibers and in flavors. the instant ground coffee adds another earthy dimension and compliments the molasses and honey notes very well.

the recipe yields one loaf.

 

ingredients:

1 tabls active dry yeast

1 cup lukewarm water

2 tabls unsalted butter, very soft

2 tabls brown sugar

1 teaspoon instant ground coffee

4 tabls honey

2 tabls molasses

2 teaspoons salt

3/4 cup wheat bran

3 cups bread flour

beaten egg

Oatmeal for sprinkling top of bread

Method:

dissolve yeast in water. add sugar and wait until the yeast mixture starts to bubble (about 10 min). add the coffee, honey, molasses, salt and butter and mix well. add the wheat bran and flour and knead the bred in a stand mixer using the dough hook for 10 min. The dough should be a little sticky. tap the dough with oil, cover and let rise for 1 1/2-2 hours. Once the dough is risen, knead a little longer and place in a well greased pan. (grease the pan and sprinkle with corn meal before placing the bread inside). let rise for another hour. Smear the beaten egg on top and sprinkle with oatmeal.

Heat oven to 375 degrees and bake the bread for 15 min. Decrease the temperature to 350 and bake for another 30 min.

Cut thick slices and serve with butter. (although the bread is actually good with anything, i fits both sweet and salty spreads)

Until next time!

Dana

Dec23

Moist Moca Cake

Posted on by
Moist Moca Cake

The last couple of weeks have been so insanely busy with people and activities, that I hardly found the time to create any sweet stuff in the kitchen!

My husband is a true chocolate lover, and as such, I rarely make any cakes or tarts which are made with fruit (he things fruits taste best when fresh, not messed around in any other way).

Why am I telling you this?

I got a special request from him to make a “hot chocolate cake”, and since I didn’t want to make the “chocolate Lava” style ones, which you need to serve immediately, I had to invent something all by myself.

IMG_1383[1]

this cake is extremely moist, with bold flavors of chocolate and coffee. It is not insanely sweet either. goes very well with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I actually made a mini cake (6” pan) and cut the recipe in half because most of the time I make it only for the two of us. I introduce you the regular-sized version:

Moist Mocha Cake

Ingredients:

12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

1 cup butter

7 large eggs. separated

1 cup sugar, divided

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 tbls groud coffee (optional)

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 9-inch spring form pan; line bottom with parchment paper. Grease and flour parchment, tapping out excess flour; set aside.

Stir together chocolate and butter in a double boiler over low heat until smooth. Remove from heat.

Beat egg yolks and 3/4 cup sugar  until pale and thick. Add melted chocolate mixture, beating until blended. Add flour, beating until blended, stopping to scrape down the sides. Add the coffee.

In a stand or electric mixer, beat egg whites l at medium-high speed adding half way the salt and remaining suar and keep beating until soft peaks form. continue beating until it holds its shape. Fold one-third egg white mixture into chocolate mixture; repeat twice. Pour mixture into prepared pan.

Bake at 350° for 50 to 55 minutes or until slightly firm to touch. (Cracks will form on top of cake.) Remove cake to a wire rack; run sharp knife around edge of pan to loosen. Cool slightly.

Remove sides of spring form pan. Invert cake onto serving plate, and remove spring form bottom and parchment paper. Serve warm with Hot Chocolate Sauce; garnish, if desired.

I used edible gold spray to spray the top of the cake so it will look more festive.

IMG_1385[1]

happy winter break everyone! and bon appetit!

 

Dana

 

 

 

 

Dec11

Cinnamon Buns (Cinnabon Copycat)

Posted on by
Cinnamon Buns (Cinnabon Copycat)

Hello there!

I’m Originally from Israel, and as a Jew in Israel, I’ve never felt a  ’Christmas’ vibe during this time of year. for us the emphasize is on  chanukka, ‘Latkes’ (fried shredded potato) and ‘Sufganiot’ which are basically cake doughnuts traditionally filled  with either jam or dulce de leche.

Since we moved to Florida, I got a taste of several holidays but I knew that Christmas was going to be the highlight of all christian holidays.

So now I’m already humming  ’Rudolf the red nosed raindeer’ like a pro.

did you notice that other than different kinds of foods there are also distinct holiday smells?

I’m a huge fan of ‘Michael’s’ which is heaven for anyone who likes to “create”. During this time of year, they are filling the store with fake smells of cinnamon and vanilla. Personally I think that those fake smells are hardly appetizing.

But

A real cinnamon bun is highly appetizing. One can hardly compete with the sweet, buttery smell of a fresh cinabbon.

so why not make some in this holiday season?

1 (7 g) package dry yeast

1 cup  whole milk, warmed

1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar

1/3 cup  butter spread

1 teaspoon (8 g) salt

1 egg + 1 yolk

3-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup  bread flour

for the cinnamon filling:

1 cup packed brown sugar

3 heaped tbls cinnamon

1/3 cup very soft butter

frosting:

4 tbls butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3-6 tablespoons water

preheat oven to 350°F .

in a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm milk. Add sugar, butter, eggs, salt and flour and mix well. Knead the dough for 5 min or so. Put in a bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface, until it is approx 21 inches long by 16 inches wide. It should be approx 1/4 thick.  combine the sugar and cinnamon.

line a round pan with parchment. spread the softened butter on the dough then top it with the brown sugar and cinnamon. (leave about  1 inch margin around the edges. Roll the dough and cut to roughly 12 pieces. put the pieces in the pan, leaving some space because the dough will rise before and while in the oven. let rest for about 35 min, until well risen. bake in the oven for 30 min, or until nicely browned.

mix the glaze ingredients and spread over the cooled rolls.

eat and enjoy!

Dec4

Cinderella cookies! (and savory Sage Corn-Bread with Oriental beef)

Posted on by
Cinderella cookies! (and savory Sage Corn-Bread with Oriental beef)

hi everyone!

I finally opened an Etsy shop! I’m working on my  new “cookie collection” at the moment, and I wanted to give you a first taste of one of the collection’s items.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

these cookies are branded as “Cinderella Cookies”, because of the pink heeled shoe. the shoe is made of rose-pink fondant while the background is made of a 10-count royal icing . the gold frame is made of stiff royal icing covered with wilton gold dust.

The purpose of this collection is to create a variety of cookies, “fantasy-like” as well as vintage classic.

 

Besides cookie-ing, YesterdayI prepared  two delicious savory dishes that I’d like to share with you.

the first one is your all-moist delicious corn bread. If you know me, you know that I hardly ever make a recipe “as-is”. I always like to add a little twist.  In the corn bread case,  I added some ground sage to the batter and served it with an oriental ground beef mixture with pine-nuts, lemon and parsley. It turned out great! Savory, spicy, sweet and delicious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

for the Sage Corn-bread: 

1 cup corn flour

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

6 table spoons salted butter, melted

1 1/2 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground sage

 

Method:

preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a bowl, mix dry ingredients toghether.

gradually add butter, buttermilk and eggs.

grease  a loaf pan and sprinkle with flour. pour mixture in and sprinkle with sugar.  Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean and the bread is golden brown (about 25 min).

Oriental ground beef mixture:

1 lb ground beef

1/2 white onion

3 cloves garlic, chopped

juice of half a lemon

1 teaspoon cinammon

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon cayenne

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1/4 teaspoon five-spice

fresh chopped parsley

handful pine-nuts

method:

heat a large skillet with olive oil

fry onions and garlic antil softened. add beef and cook until browned. add salt and pepper, sugar, spices and lemon juice and tomato paste. continue cooking about 7  min more. add fresh parsley and serve with corn bread and some sour cream.

 

 

 

 

Nov28

Marshmallow Cloud Cupcakes

Posted on by
Marshmallow Cloud Cupcakes

these are truly delicious.

soft vanilla cupcakes topped with creamy and smooth marshmallow fluff frosting.

for the decoration I used my flower mold (you can see how to create it here or you can purchase the molds from my Etsy shop). I melted some PB chips with a little bit of butter and inserted it in the mold. once the mold hardened, I removed it from the mold and dabbed it with some gold luster dust mixed with a little bit of vanilla extract (not to much, you don’t want it to be too runny) and voila!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marshmallow cloud cupcakes

 Ingredients

1 1/2 cups  cake flour

1 cups  sugar

1/2 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter cut into 1-inch cubes, room temperature

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 cup whole milk, at room temperature

1 teaspoon  pure vanilla extract

method

Preheat oven to 325°F (170°C). Line standard cupcake pans with your favourite paper cupcake liners.

cream butter and sugar, add the eggs, milk and vanilla.

in a seperate bowl mix the dry ingredients. add them gradually to the butter mixing bowl and combine until incorporated.

with an ice cream scoop, pour even sized batter into each cupcake liner (about 2/3 full). bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 20 min.

Marshmallow frosting

1 (7.5 ounce) jar marshmallow creme

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 teaspoon (5 ml) pure vanilla extract

a few drops purple food coloring

cream all the ingredients toghether until  smooth. Insert the frosting into a piping bag and decorate as desired.

If you try these, tell me what you think!

Dana

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nov28

Creating your own cookie molds

Posted on by
Creating your own cookie molds

Hi Everybody!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My cookie experiments continue and today I want to share a wonderful craft I learned that can help you create highly- impressive, highly- detailed  cookies, without much of a fuss.

You might have guessed that I’m talking about molds.

One might ask – why not buy the ready-made, commercial ones?

well, you can, but with the commercial ones you can’t generally have exactly what you want and they are pretty standard shaped. If you want to create truly unique cookies, home-made molds are the answer.

“So how do I do that ?”, you might ask. The material I’m using is called “Amazing Mold Putty“. the package contains two types of separate elastic substances (one yellow and one white). what you need to do is use it in 1:1 ratio – same quantities from each, then you need to mix the two until a uniform color is created. Now – and that’s the tricky part – you have only about two-three minutes to mold your item before the mold recieves it’s ultimate shape, so have the item you are creating the mold from close by, and work quickly. Immerse the item in the light-yellow substance, making sure all parts are covered and that the edges are as high or low as you want the final result to look like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the above photo I  used a flower cameo I found around the house – the possibilities are endless! the white flower you see next to the mold is a white fondant which I let dry completely and than used it as a centerpiece of the blue cookies. I later dyed it with wilton gold dust mixed with some peppermint extract (you can use vanilla but it’s not as transparent as its peppermint/lemon counterparts).

The final result is achieved within 15-20 min, and afterwards you can easily remove the item from the mold, and use it!

There is more than one way to use it – you can fill it with fondant, chocolate or even with melted mixture of PB chips and some butter (I used the latter option as a decoration for my upcoming post about Marshmallow-Cloud cupcakes). just pour it in the mold and in no-time you’ll have a beautiful creation.

Hope I helped you get creative!

Have a lovely day,

Dana