“Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
Spring is was until here three days ago, and then something happened. Before we could really immerse ourselves into it, we had a summer attack – almost 40C in North India already. That means power cuts, DUST, HEAT and whining kids!Strawberry Frozen Yogurt cheered us up!I’ve been missing {as Mr PAB reminded me this morning} and it’s those dreaded holidays once again! Yes, the ‘not so terrible anymore‘ teen is done with her exams and is home {and hungry yet screaming diet}, and the ‘now threatening to be quite terrible‘ pre teen is on Spring break. Always hungry! “Et tu, Brute?”It’s a struggle to keep the rumbling tummies happy! The lad’s up at 5.30am and sets off cycling with his friends. Comes back in a couple of hours; HUNGRY! The teen emerges out of bed much later; hungry too! She whips up some mean pancakes these days in a matter of minutes, then sits back to indulge. He doesn’t enjoy pancakes but enjoys writing poetry. Was quite obliging this morning and wrote a ‘Spring‘ poem for me in a jiffy, and then gobbled up a couple of Double Chocolate Orange & Oat Energy Bars!In the midst of this, the pooch is now facing her first real hot Indian summer and flops down every now and then. HOT! Hungry too but then again, dogs are always hungry and she is no exception. I have offered Coco the entire range of dog food and she hates it! I now cook her meals as well … and much to my joy, she loves it!She is a real sweetheart and almost as charming as the lad, if not more. She now almost ‘sings for her supper‘ and licks her bowl clean in a matter of seconds {She gets veggies including eggplant, zucchini, beets, potato, carrots, spinach, cracked wheat, dal and eggs all cooked together}, and amazingly she loves it!She’s cute as cute can be. Always ready for a game of catch. Forever N A U G H T Y, and happy to pose for the camera too!Back to the fro yo! Summers here. It’s big time to cut back on calories and revert to low fat food. Fresh exciting zingy flavours are fun. Citrusy marinades, grilled chicken, light salads, fresh fruit, quesadillas, wraps, pasta salads all come to mind. For dessert, fruity frozen yogurts, sorbets, granitas and low fat ice creams really rock! And stuff like buttermilk panna cotta too!This Strawberry Frozen Yogurt was fun and I love the colours. Nothing to it. Just a good balance of flavours and fresh ingredients. I used homemade yogurt hung for 2 days in the fridge to get rid of excess whey and then whizzed in the Thermomix to produce the most sensational fro yo. You can use the same proportions in your ice cream maker. I use frozen strawberries mainly because I am inclined to buy too many boxes and hardly find the time to use the perishable fruit immediately. Besides, the Thermomix is most magical when it comes to ice creams and frozen desserts. Its like having an instant ice cream maker on hand as it blitzes the frozen berries into smooth sorbet, frozen yogurt or ice cream in minutes.
[print_this]Recipe: Strawberry Frozen Yogurt
Summary: Refreshing strawberry frozen yogurt which is great for the season. It’s low on calories and great on flavour. Looks very pretty too.
250gm hung yogurt {hung for 2-3 days in the fridge}
170gm vanilla sugar {adjust if required}
1 tbsp kirsch {optional}
Method:
Place all ingredients in the bowl of your Thermomix and process on Speed 10 for 1 minute at a time, stirring with the TM spatula as required. Repeat 3-4 times until well blended. Adjust sugar if required and blend for another 30 seconds.
Transfer to a freezer safe container. Serve immediately or freeze until required.
“I wanted to make a cookbook full of food that you’d absolutely love, because I love all of you.”
Ree Drummond
Of course I got tempted again! What’s not to love about Sweet Orange Rolls? The day I saw these delicious rolls from Rees new cookbook, I was in a trance. 24 hours later, my kitchen was enticingly orangey, deeply strawberryish … and like the best bakery in town. These Sweet Orange, Roasted Strawberry and Chocolate Buttermilk Rolls were winners.I knew they would be! I am a huge fan of The Pioneer Womanscinnamon roll dough, a dough I have endlessly experimented with outstanding results each time. If the Apple Cranberry Almond Olive Oil Pull-Apart Loaf & Popovers weren’t a screaming success enough, these Savoury Chili Cheese & Garlic Olive Oil Pull-Apart Bread reconfirmed it!So when I saw the dashing and talented {in Rees words of course, but seriously, it’s true} Brians post on A Thought For Food, I knew my homemade bitter tangerine marmalade had found a new destination. This has turned out to be the yummiest one yet. It was a bread dessert waiting to be baked, and while I worked on the dough I made changes, just a few changes.Nothing radical as the basic recipe is a winner. I had some buttermilk on hand, so in it went instead of milk. Then, when I opened the fridge to take out the jar of marmalade, I couldn’t resist thinking the oranges might enjoy some colourful company …So the marmalade got slathered over with some roasted balsamic strawberries I had made the day before. These are delightful to have in the fridge. For times when you buy too many strawberries in temptation and then panic that they will spoil, this is a good recipe. It keeps them safe for at least a few days longer. I make small portions at a time and put them into fruit bakes, sandwich and top a cake with cream, or drizzle a few spoonfuls over a parfait or ice cream. You can see them in these – Quark Mousse Cake, Quarkauflauf, Eggless Caramel Cream Cakes. Just yesterday I topped a cheesecake with the left overs. So many ways and so much fun; taste, colour and variety all packed into one jar! Because they are oven roasted, they are nice and thick, they don’t ‘leak‘ extra liquid into the dough to make it soggy. To keep the ‘not so terrible any more’ teen happy I threw in some dark chocolate too. Orange, strawberry and chocolate together worked some magic in there to serve up some darned delicious dessert rolls!We loved them … LOTS! {I made 2 individual pop over rolls too with left over dough}.How do I describe something bursting with the freshness of orange, seduced by the heady combination of deep roasted strawberries and dark chocolate … ooeeey, gooeey, wonderful. They were fabulous warm, and very very good at room temperature. And with obligatory lashings of unsweetened low fat cream, even more DELICIOUS!This is my new favourite dessert – light, eggless, fruity, chocolaty. I love it! Dark chocolate only makes good things even gooder better. It’s adapted minimally from the Rees new cookbook, The Pioneer Woman Cooks – Food From My Frontier. If the recipe is anything to go by, the book has to be a winner.I made a half quantity and am glad I did. Half was hard to keep away from, how could we have justified digging into 48 rolls? Next 24 to be made soon, and more bitter marmalade making coming up just for these! Yes, they were that good! Thank you Brian for the inspiration to bake this ‘miracle‘! Loved your ‘thought for food‘!
Summary: Sweet dessert rolls bursting with the freshness of orange flavour, seduced by deep roasted strawberries and then given the kick of dark chocolate … all ooeeey, gooeey, wonderful. Adapted minimally from The Pioneer Woman Cooks – Food From My Frontier
In a large saucepan over low heat, heat the milk, granulated sugar, and oil until warm but not hot. Add the yeast and 2 cups of flour, then mix and transfer to a bowl. Cover and let it rise for at least an hour.
Stir in the remaining 1/2 cup flour, the baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
{Thermomix: warm milk, sugar,oil, yeast and flour in TM bowl. Mix at Speed 6 for 5 seconds. Knead at intermittent speed for 2 minutes. Leave dough in TH for an hour until it doubles. Cover TM if weather is cold. Add baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix on reverse speed 2 for 10 seconds.}
Roll the dough into a long rectangle, about 15 inches wide by 10 inches deep. You’ll want it to be as thin as you can get so that you can add plenty of goo. Drizzle the melted butter all over the surface of the dough. Use your fingers to smear it all around so that it coats evenly.
Spread the orange marmalade all over the buttered dough, distributing it as evenly as you can, followed by the roasted balsamic strawberries. Sprinkle as much good quality dark chocolate all over the two …
Using both hands in a back-and-forth motion, gradually roll the dough toward you into one long log. {I took a little long getting here, so the dough began to rise. It’s a slightly shaggy dough, so might be a good idea to roll it on parchment, especially if you fill it ‘up’ like I did!}
Pinch the seam to seal it. Slice the log-o’-dough into 1/2 inch pieces.
Preheat the oven to 190C. Place the rolls in a buttered baking dish and allow them to rise for 20 minutes while the oven preheats. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes until nice and golden.
While the rolls are baking, make the icing. Add the zest and juice of 1 orange to a bowl. Add the powdered sugar and salt, some milk.
Then some melted butter and whisk it together until it’s nice and smooth and lovely.
Pull the rolls out of the oven when they’re golden brown and drizzle on the icing right off the bat. The piping hot rolls will suck that gorgeous icing right down into their crevices and the whole thing pretty much becomes a miracle.
Serve them warm.
Roasted Balsamic Strawberries
Toss the quartered strawberries well with the brown sugar and balsamic vinegar. Bake at 180C for about 45 minutes until nice and bubbly, stirring once or twice. Cool completely, transfer to a clean glass jar and refrigerate.
“As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists.” Joan Gussow
These cookies surprised me. When I made the dough I thought I had ‘it’ all wrong. Ambitiously adding ingredients with not enough deep thought, I wrote them off even before I baked them. But sometimes substitution can be a pleasant surprise. These Savoury Dill Cheddar Buckwheat Sables were a happy ending to one such culinary adventure! I hardly ever bake sables. Please don’t get me wrong. I love the cookies to bits but somewhere in my head I associate them to be loaded with butter. Chocolate sables = guilty pleasure, a pleasure I can ill afford these days as baking and food seems to rule my existence! Got to keep the butter down; not out, but down!
I missed the last couple of months of #baketogether, Abby Dodges absolutely charming bake up party. The talented Abby inspires a group of avid bakers month after month with a #baketogether recipe that you are encouraged to play around with. Just my cup of tea coffee! I’ve had some wonderful past entries with Double Chocolate Mousse Cookies, Classic Spice Apple Walnut Buttermilk Cake, and Plum Almond Ginger Summer Fruit Cake. This month she called for savoury cookies from her recipe for Spicy Parmesan Sables. Though still short on time, and breathless in life, I couldn’t keep away from them. I LOVE SAVOURY BAKING. Besides, the ‘not so terrible anymore’ teen is constantly craving for either double chocolate double almond biscotti {recipe on its way}, or ‘something chili’ please!
I decided to experiment because halfway through I ran out of plain flour! I made up the weight with buckwheat, and used fresh dill to flavour the cookies. Dill and cheddar make for good pairing, and I have had a huge patch of dill growing in my garden. After an overnight rest, the cookies were baking soon.
Dill is a beautiful herb, delicate with a wonderful aromatic flavour that comes to life when the leaves are chopped. In India, there is a more robust variety of dill, locally called soya, which is widely used in the winter months in North India. One bite into the warm cookie and I was so relieved. These were so good. Thankfully the dill wasn’t overpowering, and the buckwheat gave the cookie good texture, other than scoring on the whole grain front too! However whole grains like buckwheat are an acquired taste, and unfortunately the ‘not so terrible anymore’ teen didn’t love it to bits. I was a little disheartened and hesitatingly ran it past the ‘now threatening to be quite terrible’ pre-teen. He said, “YUM! Can I have the whole box?“. You win some, you lose some. These are a nice cheese tray cookie and would pair well with mature cheddar and fruit! As Abby says, “Made with butter, cheese, flour and cayenne for a kick, they make for a lovely hors d’oeuvre to serve with wine or cocktails and the possible twists are endless”
Thank you Abbyfor yet another winning recipe, and also yet another chance to push my boundaries. You are an inspiration!
Summary: A savoury cookie that packs big-time flavor with a flaky, melt-in-your-mouth texture. Made with butter, cheese, flour and cayenne for a kick, these cheese crackers make for a lovely hors d’oeuvre to serve with wine or cocktails. Makes 29-30 sables.
1/4 teaspoon {adjust to taste} red chili pepper {or cayenne pepper}
100gm unsalted butter, cut into cubes, well chilled
2 tablespoons very cold water
Sea salt & fresh dill for sprinkling
Method:
To make the dough:
Put the flour, buckwheat flour, cheese, salt and chili powder in a food processor and pulse briefly to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the butter pieces are slightly larger than pea size, about 10 to 12 pulses depending on your machine. Drizzle the water evenly over the flour mixture. Pulse until the dough begins to form moist crumbs that are just beginning to clump together, about 8 or 9 more pulses depending on your machine.
Dump the moist crumbs onto the unfloured counter and gather into a pile. With the heel of you hand, push and gently smear the crumbs away from you until they start to come together in a cohesive dough. Two or three ‘smears’ should do the trick. Using a bench scraper, gather the dough together and turn it about 45 degrees and give it one or two more smears. {see visuals here}
Gather the dough together and shape the dough into a 7 1/4-inch long and 2 1/4 -inch wide rectangle using the bench scraper to make the sides nice and straight. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until very firm, about 3 hours, or up to 2 days.
Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 190°c. Line two large baking sheets with parchment. { I used just one cookie sheet}
Using a thin, sharp knife, cut the logs into 1/4-inch slices and arrange about 1 inch apart {they don’t spread much at all} on the prepared sheets. If you like, sprinkle the crackers with a little sea salt and fresh dill before baking.
Bake, one sheet at a time, until nutty brown around the edges, 16 to 18 minutes. Serve slightly warm or room temperature. {If they aren’t crisp as you like, you can bake them at a lower temperature for 10-15 minutes longer. Keep an eye so they don’t get burnt}.
Note: The dough can be shaped and frozen for up to a month and then thawed for about an hour on the counter or in the refrigerator overnight. Likewise, tuck the baked and cooled sables in a heavy duty zip top bag and stash them in the freezer. Thaw at room temperature and warm them for a few minutes at 160°C to refresh the flavors.
“All human history attests That happiness for man,the hungry sinner! Since Eve ate apples, Much depends on dinner.”
Lord Byron
This recipe is inspired by my search for ‘quick breads‘ when I first saw the Daring Bakers challenge for February. One thing led to another and googling for cinnabons I found several links online to the Cooks Illustrated recipe for Quick Cinnamon Buns. I added apple to the filling too. The QUICK result – Quick Apple Cinnamon Buns!Of course I procrastinated since the challenge said quick breads that would be ready in next to no time, no rising etc. “Yeah, no problem, I can do this tomorrow!“. I did but that tomorrow came too close to posting date.I posted Double Chocolate Dessert Popovers instead and I’m finally blogging this quick bread to feed a friends hungry blog!These are for Suma @ Cakes & More, a very sweet and extremely helpful food blogger in Bangalore. I have endlessly bothered her for baking stuff from Bangalore that I cannot find in Gurgaon/Delhi, and she obliges happily each time. My list began hesitatingly with dark cocoa {from Nilgiris} and vital gluten … then I stole a mile when offered an inch! Now I regularly get parchment paper, instant active yeast, piping bags and much more from this lovely lady.She hesitatingly asked me a short while ago if I would do a guest post for her, and I was amazed! After all I have pestered her to do, it is her right to ask, and for me to oblige!So for you Suma, here’s a ‘quick bread’ which works great for breakfast, and doubles up as a comforting delicious dessert too.It’s a wonderful feeling to have dessert baking while dinner is served. Bonus … the house smells so good! If you are wary of the yeast monster, these are quick buns for you. And, even if you aren’t afraid of the yeast factor, yet want some fast track yumminess, these are worth every bite. Do head across to Cakes & More for the recipe!
“Macarons should be eaten slowly with each mouthful savoured. They should be eaten somewhere pretty and refined.”
Yellow Magpie
Nothing in the cookie world seems to have evoked as much interest and admiration as macarons! Sweet and pretty bites, inspirational to make, absolutely charming, yet intimidating for bakers like me. At MacTweets,our mac-obsessed kitchen, Jamie and I called to mark World Macaron Day on March 20th. These Blood Orange Macarons with Maple Orange Chocolate Pastry Creme are my tribute to this delightful invention!I’ve missed making macarons for a while now and was happy to be faced with a MacTweets challenge for World Macaron Day. Been thinking long on what to make and what not to, and then thanks to sweet blogger friends like the lovely and talented Shayma, I made these addictive bites. They might not look perfect, but they tasted fabulous!Life is busy and we have had family and friends from overseas visiting us over the past few months. They all know I food blog, so with them come delicious ingredients and kitchen stuff I might not ever dream of. I feel special … very special!…and felt even more so when a few days ago the Spice Spoon girl tweeted to ask when my folk were visiting as she had something to send for me. My cousin from Pittsburgh flew in a few days later. With him came these beautiful spice boxes from William Sonoma – Dried Blood Orange Peel and Pure Maple Flakes.The minute I saw the pretty little jars I knew what my macs were going to be – Blood Orange with Maple filling. I had already a thread of orange in my mind as my life is overflowing with tangerines. All the little shrubs have branches hanging heavy with this beautiful fruit … the little pooch seems to take a keen interest in the fruit too; little Coco who is ALL EYES!!Pretty orange life and there is only so much bitter marmalade I can make. I thought I would sweeten the filling mildly with maple flakes and add a dash of orange from the little bitter tangerines. The shells baked fine, the little feet appearing in a few minutes of baking, blushing a pastel orange. Of course we had a power cut again, but thankfully the frills had formed so no harm done! I was quite happy. What I wasn’t happy with was my choice of filling. A pastry creme obviously isn’t firm enough for these fiddly creatures. They got soft overnight and I had some fixing to do!I had a fix in mind … chocolate can fix anything, even a broken heart, and then I came across Mardi’s macaron post asking ‘Why do my macarons have hollow shells. That set me thinking! It was time to read up again.My macarons are also hollow at times and OK at other times even though my recipe is the same. So mac-obsessed me set off to try Mardis recipe.I have to say they are the best tasting macarons I have ever made even though the shells weren’t anywhere near smooth. They looked so good 6 minutes into baking, just the perfect macs, but soon after threatened to crack up, but then shriveled slightly. Maybe it was because of undermixing, but the flavours were da bomb! You can find her recipe, perfect macarons and beautiful post here…To remedy the filling, I melted dark couverture chocolate and stirred it through the maple orange pastry creme, then chilled it. Delicieux!! There was a slight hint of bitterness from the tangerine peel and the balance of flavours was perfect! Thank you my sweet friend Shayma @ The Spice Spoon for adding wonderful spice to my life; inspiration too! I am sure you’ve been to her beautiful blog;it’s a treat in every sense!
Do you want to join us making MACARONS?
If you do, you are most welcome to join us for this challenge, or the next. You can find all the information at our dedicated macaron blog MacTweets. We generally post the round-up by the end of every month, following which a new challenge is posted!
[print_this]Recipe: Blood Orange Macarons with Maple Orange Chocolate Pastry Creme
Summary: A perfect balance of flavours. Blood orange peel macarons, with a bitter orange dark chocolate filling, laced with mild flavours of pure maple. {Makes about 15 macarons} Prep Time: 10 minutes Total Time: 40 minutes Ingredients:
Run the powdered sugar, cornflour, almond meal, egg white powder and blood orange flakes in your processor until well blended and fine. Sift into a bowl.
Beat the egg white until foamy, then add the granulated sugar and beat for approximately 2 minutes until stiff peaks form.
Fold in 1/4 of the dry mix until no streaks remain, then add the remainder of the dry mix and gently fold in until you get a lava like batter. {donot overfold}
Place into a piping bag and pipe circles onto parchment paper.
Tap the trays sharply to get rid of air bubbles and allow to rest for 30-45 minutes.
Bake in double trays at 140C for 12-15 minutes, until the shells are firm and no longer jiggly. {My oven uses just the lower element for baking, so I place the double trays towards the top of the oven}
Cool.
Maple Orange Chocolate Pastry Creme
Whisk together the flour, tangerine rind, maple flakes, sugar, salt, melted butter and egg in a heavy saucepan. Slowly add in the milk, whisking to ensure no lumps form. Place over medium heat with vanilla bean and bring to a simmer. Make sure you stir constantly so that the cream doesn’t ‘catch’ the bottom of the pan. Stir constantly until thick, remove from the heat and push through a sieve. Stir in the blood orange flakes, add the melted chocolate and whisk occasionally as it cools. Chill to firm up.
Thermomix Maple Orange Pastry Creme
Place all ingredients except blood orange flakes in bowl of TM, mix on reverse speed 2 for 5 seconds, then cook at 90C, Speed 4 for 7 minutes.
Push through a sieve into a bowl, mix in blood orange flakes and stir occasionally until cool.
To assemble:
Match equal halves of macarons, and keep together.
Use a small spoon and deposit a tiny amount of pastry creme on the flat side of the macaron and sandwich with another half of the same size, squeezing gently. Rest in fridge for a day to allow the flavours to mature.
“Food is the most primitive form of comfort.”
Sheila Graham
I read Arans post the other day as to how she wanted to drop everything she was doing and get back home to make lunch. I had an almost similar moment the other morning, a moment where I raced back from the bus stop after dropping the lad and switched on the oven. There was nothing more that I wanted to do than bake Clementines Butterscotch Brownies!I love a good productive morning, though these days they are few and far between. Most of them are pretty frustrating as laid out plans fall to nought like the day when the preteen woke up, showered to go to school, then looked pale and green. Fever!! It was back to bed for him; took care of the rest of my day …Then late the same night I was reading the LA Times Food newsletter which always makes me hungry. I love the Culinary SOS recipes and spent too much time lost in the pages. What caught my eye was the Carpe Diem’s Mexican chocolate pot de crème but I didn’t have that many eggs in the larder for 6 egg yolks.One thing led to another, and I landed up at these Clementine’s butterscotch brownies. I knew instantly what I would be doing the next morning after making sure the lad was packed off to school. It was fun doing these, fuss free and simple – like baking on the fast track.It’s a GREAT recipe. “These are GOOD you know!” exclaimed the ‘not so terrible anymore’ teen. “I like the flavours, the tinge of salt with the sweetness, the caramel like feel to these. Are these brownies?“.They are called butterscotch brownies, though I was tempted to call them blondies. I got 16 pieces out of the batch, nice, slightly chewy as we like them, with a pleasing depth in taste …YUM! They packed a neat bite. Not sure how you toast your walnuts/almonds etc, but I now fast track that too in the microwave for 3-4 minutes. Keep an eye on them, give them a quick stir halfway through, and they are toasted enough. Cool and chop {my Ergo chef knives work like a charm here}. By the time the oven was preheated, the batter was ready … and they baked in next to no time!Later that day Mr PAB and me went out for a bit, indulged whole heartedly in Indian street food {♥♥♥}, then he obligingly took me to shop at the dusty little gypsies tents {read very dusty}! I go there often {you can see some more of my shopping on this guest post here!Mr PAB is a man of patience. I walked from one dusty tent to another, from the side of my eyes I could see the car crawl along, no pressure, nothing! NICE! I bought a few battered wooden boxes, rushed home, dusted, washed, sun-dried and oiled them. Used one for the butterscotch brownies above!The old gypsy who sold them to me was H A P P Y, and rushed to get his ‘hookah‘ when I asked if I could take some pictures {had my P & S in my bag}. Look at him … no pressure of the daily grind, enjoying what he was doing {making metal cheese graters by hand}, and ever so obliging! And now over to Clementine’s butterscotch brownies … of which L.A. Food Times says “Tender, rich and temptingly sweet, Clementine’s butterscotch brownies balance that brown-sugary goodness with a nice hint of salt to make this the perfect treat for almost any occasion.” Spot on!!
Summary: Tender, rich and temptingly sweet, Clementine’s butterscotch brownies balance that brown-sugary goodness with a nice hint of salt to make this the perfect treat for almost any occasion.
Prep Time: 10 minutes Total Time: 40 minutes Servings: 12 to 16 Ingredients:
3/4 cup + 2 tbsp {120gm} plain flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup muscavdo sugar {scant}
5 tbsp {60gm} butter, melted
1 large egg
1tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup semi dark chocolate chips
Method:
Heat the oven to 170C.
In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.
In a large bowl, stir the brown sugar & muscavado into the melted butter. {I heated it in the microwave for 1 minute as the weather was cold}
Stir in the egg, then the vanilla.
Stir in the dry ingredients, then fold in the nuts & chocolate chips.
Place the batter in a greased 8-inch square baking pan and bake until set {a toothpick inserted will have moist crumbs}, 25 to 30 minutes. {I lined the base with parchment}.
Remove from heat and cool slightly before cutting. Serve warm, or cool. Store in an airtight box.
