The bars consist to three separate parts integrated into one dessert – a bottom layer of coconut, chocolate, nuts and graham crackers. A middle layer of custard. And the final layer or crowning glory of chocolate.

I used Peter Reinhart’s recipe to make the graham crackers.

1 3/4 Cups Whole Wheat Graham Flour

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/4 Cup Milk/Yogurt/Soy Milk/Rice Milk/Buttermilk (I used whole milk)

6 Tablespoons Honey/Agave Nectar

1 1/2 Tablespoons molasses or sorghum syrup (I used molasses)

1/2 Teaspoon ground cinnamon (Optional (I opted out)

Pre heat oven to 350 degree F. Combine all the above mentioned ingredients into a dough. Add extra flour or liquid to make a firm dough. Knead for 3 minutes or until it feels like modeling clay – neither too soft nor crumbly.

Line a baking pan with parchment or silicone. Moisten the work surface with a little water, roll out the dough to a 1/4 inch thick rectangle. If the dough begins to spring back, stop rolling and allow it to rest for a few minutes. Dock the entire surface area of the dough with a docker/fork. Cut into large/medium rectangles (or any other shapes actually). Transfer to the baking sheet. Bake for 12 minutes and then rotate the pan 180 degrees and continue to bake for 10-15 minutes more, until the crackers turn a rich brown on the top and underside.

Do your best with the crackers but the recipe for the bars is forgiving as far as the crackers go because it uses them as part of a larger scheme!

Here is what to do with the Bottom-most/first layer (or the larger scheme) -

1/2 cup (115 g) (4 ounces) Unsalted Butter
1/4 cup (50 g) (1.8 ounces) Granulated Sugar
5 tablespoons (75 mL) Unsweetened Cocoa
1 Large Egg, Beaten
1 1/4 cups (300 mL) (160 g) (5.6 ounces) Gluten Free Graham Wafer Crumbs (See previous recipe)
1/2 cup (55 g) (1.9 ounces) Almonds (Any type, Finely chopped)
1 cup (130 g) (4.5 ounces) Coconut (Shredded, sweetened or unsweetened)

Melt unsalted butter, sugar and cocoa in top of a double boiler. Add egg and stir to cook and thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, nuts and coconut. Press firmly into an ungreased 8 by 8 inch pan.

I made the middle layer of custard from scratch (I just thought that it was better). Here is the recipe for the custard: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09211/987178-107.stm

I must say, at this point,  that the custard is runny and I had to freeze the whole tub to get it to stay together. Perhaps, it is a good idea to simply use a mix as suggested by Lauren. Her recipe is given below.

1/2 cup (115 g) (4 ounces) Unsalted Butter
2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons (40 mL) Heavy Cream
2 tablespoons (30 mL) Vanilla Custard Powder (Such as Bird’s. Vanilla pudding mix could be substituted.)
2 cups (254 g) (8.9 ounces) Icing Sugar

Cream butter, cream, custard powder, and icing sugar together well. Beat until light in colour. Spread over bottom layer.

The crowing glory or the layer of chocolate is made by melting 4 ounces (115 g) Semi-sweet chocolate and 2 tablespoons (28 g) (1 ounce) Unsalted Butter over low heat, then cooling and spreading the mixture over the custard mix.

Once assembled cool, cut and gobble! My husband and I could not have just one piece each even though we have had an overkill with sweets! What about you?

A bite of Canadian Good Stuff

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

Veteran macaroon maker, Helen of mytartelette,  advises to always “stick to the macaroon recipe that works for you!” This one is not going to be my go to recipe for macaroons. The one I will use will be the one by Mr. Chocolate, Jacques Torres. He does not call for almond flour but paste and I find that much easier to do, especially to avoid cold feet. You can find it here.

However, this experiment I owe to the October 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge chosen by Ami S. She chose macaroons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe. It was a challenge too!

Since I am lazy, I am copying the recipe straight from the Daring Kitchen website…so here goes -

Ingredients
Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Make yours and enjoy!

Brownie Cheesecake or Cheesecake Brownie Cups...Names have nothing to do with good taste!

Pia and I set up a street fair stall every fall (Ok, so we’ve done it for the past two years and we have done only 3 each year…) They are great fun and worth all the work we put in! This was one of the things I made for our fair at Austin street in Forest Hills, NY.

For the Cheesecake:

1 Pack (8 oz.) Cream Cheese

1/3 Cup sugar

1 Large eggs

1/3 Cups heavy cream

1/3 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1/3 Tablespoon lemon juice

Boil water for water bath.

Combine cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl (this can be done with a stand or hand mixer). Add egg and mix well to incorporate. At this point it is important to scrape the sides of the bowl. Mix well again. Add the cream, vanilla and lemon juice. Mix until smooth and creamy.

Make the brownie batter.

For the Brownie:

3/4 Cups all purpose flour

1/4 Teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon cocoa

1 Stick (1/2 Cup) unsalted butter

1/4 Teaspoon instant espresso powder

5 0z. Semi sweet Chocolate ( I use 72%)

3/4 Cup granulated sugar

1/4 Cup light brown sugar

3 Large eggs

1 Teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 Cup chopped bittersweet chocolate

Pre heat the oven to 350 degree F.

Sift together flour, salt and cocoa powder in a small bowl.

In a medium, heavy saucepan, combine the butter and espresso powder and stir over low heat. The butter will melt and give off a strong coffee aroma. Add the 5 oz of chocolate and continue stirring until the chocolate and melted with the earlier mixture. The mixture should appear smooth. Take the mixture off the flame, add sugars and blend until the mixed but grainy. Put it back on the low flame, until smooth, approximately 25 seconds. Keep stirring for about 1/2 a minute and then add the eggs and vanilla extract (I usually mix these in a bowl and empty it out into the saucepan). Stir vigorously until all ingredients are incorporated and the mixture is silky smooth.

Sprinkle flour over the mixture and stir until well blended. Pour into a lined muffin pan at about 1/2 of each cup and set aside the remaining batter.

Pour the cheesecake batter over the brownie batter, until each cup is 3/4 full. Add a teaspoonful of the remainder brownie batter into each cup and use a knife to create swirls.

Place the muffin pan in a larger pan. Add the boiling water until it is halfway up the sides of the muffin pan and bake in a closed oven for 20 minutes. Check only after 20 minutes and turn off the heat while the batter is still jiggly but firm. Don’t bother testing with a knife since both the brownie and cheesecake will set in the cooling oven. Let the pan lie in the oven for 30 minutes.

Remove and cool on a baking rack. Once cool, you may not stop at one.

Roasted is better

Yes, I like fresh foods with no processing. But as always I slept over my fresh mozzarella until it was almost not fresh anymore. I had to do something drastic to salvage what I could and this is what it turned out to be.

So as I was saying, I bought fresh mozzarella to enjoy on a pizza. Unfortunately, I did not get around to baking the crust. I then tried to use it in a sandwich. Now that was good especially with the ciabatta but it didn’t help much in the finish-the-cheese department. So finally as I saw it moving towards the garbage grave I decide to rescue it in the form of the a roasted caprese salad, because if there were any micro organisms that were not to migrate from cheese to tummy, the oven would have taken care of them!

There is no particular recipe I followed, more like a technique.

6 Tomatoes

1/2 Lb fresh mozzarella cheese

2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar

4 Tablespoons olive oil

2 Teaspoons raspberry honey

Salt and pepper to taste

Pour the balsamic vinegar, olive oil and raspberry honey in a bottle and shake vigourously. Set aside. Pre heat oven to 350 degree F.

Slice the tops of the tomato and scoop out the seeds. Let drain upside down on plate for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Place in the oven, cut side up, for 20 minutes or until the tomatoes seem tender and the skin is wilted.

Chop up the fresh mozzarella and stuff it into the roasted tomatoes. Shake the dressing once more and pour over each tomato. Place two basil leaves over each tomato. I used the basil that I had preserved with salt. You can read about that here. The basil still seem soft though the leaves are slightly wilted. My basil had salt so I did not add any more.

Put the tomatoes back into the oven for 3 minutes, until the cheese is melted and stringy (don’t you simply love that about mozzarella?). Bring it out and concentrate hard on waiting till it is slightly cool so that you do not burn your tongue! I like this one better than the fresh caprese, possibly because the roasting concentrates the flavors and the contrast between the textures of the roasted tomatoes and melted cheese is simply too much to ignore.

Whatever the photograph, the recipe is great!

The Rorscharch test is a psychological ink blot test, meant to understand the characteristics of one’s personality and emotional state through interpretations of various ink blot patterns. This photograph has been like that. It has evoked many responses, from my friends and family – broken hearts to lingerie; giving me a peek into what was on their minds.

What ever your impression, do try to make damson plum jam if you can.

The plums came to me through our CSA (it is the best money I ever spent). Most fruit gets eaten as is (which is what I believe should happen but is bad for blogging and cooking up desserts). The plums however were really tart and much as I tried no one could really eat more than one.

What a wonderful blessing in disguise that was! I then, looked up the farm’s website to check what other people who like food do with plums that cannot be eaten. And voila, up came this super easy recipe!

http://www.recipezaar.com/Damson-Plum-Jam-66582

The plums are not common and the jam is simply a delight. I made peach jam and plum jam at around the same time. The each jam is sweet but both my three year old and five year old request the plum jam only.

I used about 1 1/2 pounds of plums and 4 cups of sugar. I then let it cook for about half an hour. Poured it into bottles and vacuum sealed them. But they did not even last a week. The jam was gone! I hope we get plums again next year…. I am also hoping next year comes real soon.

So as all simple things go, I made basil simple syrup.

Infuse flavor into anything

Nothing is easier than simple syrup:

1 Cup sugar

1 Cup water

5 Sprigs of Basil, leaves torn and roughly chopped.

Stir sugar and water together in a small saucepan. Heat on moderate heat till sugar is melted and syrup forms. Stir so that the sugar does not stick to the bottom of the pan. Once the mixture is homogenous (that sounds so scientific, doesn’t it?!) take it off the flame. Add the chopped basil. Cover and let steep for 2 hours. Pour into a bottle and refrigerate. Enjoy in iced teas or cocktails or I am going to try making pear-basil muffins, and will let you know how it works with the syrup.

The to do thing when you have lots of tomatoes

In my family anything sweet is a comfort food, the sweeter the food, the more the comfort. But on a rainy day, no one can disagree that the virtues of tomato soup far surpass those of any other as a mood elevator. I like to make my food from scratch so I set out to find the soup that used only fresh tomatoes. My search ended here:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/garden-fresh-tomato-soup/Detail.aspx

My modifications were -

• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 8 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
• 2 shallots, chopped
• 4 Cloves
• 1 Bay leaf
• 3 Cups chicken broth
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 Cup basil leaves, torn
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 1/4 Cup cream

Saute the shallots, bay leaf and cloves in the olive oil till the shallots turn translucent. Add tomatoes and saute till they turn to mush. Add the chicken broth and half of the basil. Simmer for 20 – 25 minutes on low heat, until it all bubbles and boils. Make a roux with butter, flour and cream. Add to the tomato mixture. Allow to cook on low heat till the soup thickens. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in remaining basil leaves. Garnish with a few basil leaves and tomato slivers. Serve warm, stay warm.

Saving summer's bounty for a snowy day

More tomato news! The farm had a huge crop of tomatoes with more to come. This gave me an opportunity to try the all-flavorful oven dried tomatoes. While 6 huge tomatoes resulted in just 1/2 a jar of dried tomatoes, they are well worth the effort. And since the oven pretty much does most of the work, it has become one of my favorite things to make. Adding flavor to pizzas, salads, rice dishes, the sun dried tomato became one of the most versatile elements in my pantry. I am looking to replace the sun dried tomato with this oven dried one. One with my very own signature touch!

6 very large tomatoes.

1 lb olive oil (the best you can get, I actually sent my husband back to the store to change the one he got for a more expensive one)

12 Basil leaves

1 Tablespoon sea salt.

Slice the tomatoes thick and place on baking sheets. Put into an oven preheated to 225 degrees F. Let lie in the oven, checking every 2 hours and turning. As the slices dry (mine took 6 hours), prepare the canning jars as per the instructions of the manufacturer. Line the slices in the jar along with the basil leaves. Add the salt and pour over the olive oil. Seal the jars in the canner. Allow the tomatoes to develop flavor in the jars for at least 2 days. Spoon onto whatever you choose. Gobble away!

Biscotti

Mine is Biscotti!

We were invited to a yummy Jewish lunch at the home of one of my son’s friends. His parents, esteemed researchers (our children have definitely upped the intellectual quotient for us!) hosted the most wonderful lunch with some crisp Toki bread and a variety of hummus as starters to the many delights of jewish cuisine. But the best part of all, was undoubtedly the conversation. My husband and I believe that our friendships are largely based on whether or not people stimulate our curiosity, Debbie and Joel do this at multiple levels. You can partake in the pool of knowledge they offer through their blog – http://blog.imagineage.com

We were very excited to go over to their home, especially my sons who get along fabulously with theirs. However, Debbie is allergic to many foods and I was concerned that I may inadvertently upset her equilibrium. I was relieved to find the recipe for Biscotti in the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion. They have two types of recipes – the Italian (more crisp and dry) and the American (lighter and richer).  Incidentally, I had also found the Mexican hot chocolate mix from Nestle, called Abuelita. I had never seen it on the shelves in my grocery store before, and was even more surprised when I found that it was not cocoa but chocolate slabs which had to be broken and mixed with hot milk. It converts to this luscious, thick hot chocolate as good as any supermarket brand can give! (I say this because, if you ever have a chance you should request Pia to make her hot chocolate mix with Valrohna chocolate and there is no topping that one!)

I stirred and brewed the original biscotti recipe with my new found chocolate mix and … Viola! there was this yummy mexican chocolate biscotti ready to crunch on.

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 Cup sugar

1/4 Teaspoon salt

1 Teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 Teaspoon baking powder

2 Large eggs

2 Cups unbleached all purpose flour

6 triangles of the octagonal slab of Abuelita chocolate

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cream the butter, sugar, salt, vanilla and baking powder. The mixture may curdle but persist with the beating. Add the eggs, one at a time. Add the flour and mix until smooth and well incorporated. Add the chopped chocolate and mix into the dough. The dough should hold its shape if dropped with a spoon, but will otherwise be very soft.

Dump it onto a greased baking sheet and shape it into a log, approximately 14 inches by 2 1/4 inches. Bake for 25 minutes. Once done, take it out of the oven and let cool for 10 minutes, so that you can slice it without having it fall apart. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. You could spray or brush the top with water to make the slicing easier.

Place the slices on a baking sheet and send them back into the oven for 10 – 15 minutes or until, they are done to your taste (I like mine really crisp so I go for the latter.)

We enjoyed these with a cup of coffee and my kids took them in their snack box to school too.

Can salt be used to preserve fresh herbs?

This is another of my odes’ to Basil! In my efforts to preserve what I had greedily taken from the Swap Box at the CSA stall (my salad greens were left orphaned), I researched preserving herbs.

My first avenue for research was Pia, my friend who knows everything there is to know about cooking. She preserves Kafir lime leaves with a vacuum sealer. Since her sealant wasn’t working, I was forced to look elsewhere and after many a website watch, I landed at what can be an authority on herbs. The Herb Society of America (did you know they had one?). This is what they had to say -

http://www.herbsociety.org/basil/bsalt.php

So I followed the instructions and had preserved the basil. My question at this point is whether or not the basil will stay fresh as salt is hygroscopic and would tend to draw out the water from the leaves. I will soon find out and that will make a good discussion in another post!