Coconut, chocolate and goji berries ice cream (Bianca)

We had few warm and sunny days, which made me craving for ice cream. By the time I decided to make it (2 days ago), the weather showed me how unpredictable it can be. But it didn't stop my craving, so here is the recipe for ice cream without an ice cream machine! :)
Ingredients:
- 2 x 400 ml cans of coconut milk
- 120 g sugar
- 3 tbsp cacao
- 100 g dark chocolate
- seeds from 1 vanilla pod
- 100 g goji berries

Method:
Place all ingredients in a pot over a low heat and stir continuously until the chocolate has melted. I let it boil gently for about 15 min., and I kept stirring so it didn't stick on the bottom of the pan.
After I took it off from the heat, I transferred my batch in a separate bowl, added the goji berries and placed the bowl over a bath of cold water. Stirring it and changing the water few times, I got it to a fairly cold temperature. Now it could be stored in the freezer for at least 4 hours. Every 30 min or so I took it out and mix it with a hand mixer, so it didn't form ice crystals.

After 4 hours or so, I had my ice cream :)

Enjoy!

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Double the kinder surprise! (Bianca)

We celebrate Easter this coming Sunday and I remembered that I saw on this blog some while ago these awesome filled chocolate shells and it gave me the idea with the Kinder Eggs. Kids will love this sweet treat, I'm sure :) There is no baking involved, so you might as well get the kids help you making them.

Ingredients for 6 chocolate eggs:
For the filling
100 g cream cheese ( I used Philadelphia)
1 tbsp lemon juice
50 gr powder sugar
80 ml whipping cream
vanilla extract

For yolk
1 tbsp Cloudberry jam (or apricot jam or any yellowish nectar)
1 tbsp butter
I used a tiny bit of yellow food coloring, just to bust the color.

Method:
In a small saucepan heat on low the jam and butter, until the butter is melted. Set is aside to cool (when was cold I added a dash of yellow food coloring). Place it in the fridge.
Remove carefully the top the chocolate eggs, with a warmed knife (under warm water). It will pretty much give you a straight edge. But I didn't like that, so I broke off by hand some pieces to get some uneven parts, just like in a real boiled egg. The hardest part would be to get the surprise prize out of the shell, but with care, it's possible :)

Place the eggs in an egg carton, or your fridge egg holder and keep them in the fridge, while you prepare the filling.

With a hand mixer beat together cream cheese, sugar, lemon juice and vanilla essence for a couple of minutes.
In a separate bowl whip the cream until stiff and then gently fold it over the cream cheese mixture and combine until smooth.
You can fill the eggs with the mixture now, using a tea spoon or you can pipe it (then level the top to look more realistic) and place the yellow mixture for the yolk.

Keep it in the fridge for at least 30 min.

Happy Easter! Pin It Now!

Chocolate Fondant or Chocolate Lava Cake

How many of you are Chocolate fondant fans? I am a huge fan. So many recipes are so good that I just can’t stop eating it! This week I am going to share two of my favorite Chocolate Fondant recipes.
Fondant is a cup of cake which has been baked for just a few minutes, the middle part of the cake is liquid and it is served hot.
''Fondant or Lava cakes have four main ingredients: chocolate, butter, eggs and sugar. The butter and chocolate are melted together, while the eggs are either whisked with the sugar to form a thick paste, producing a denser finished product; or are separated so that the egg whites can be whipped into an egg foam to provide more lift (and thus a lighter cake) when the mixture is baked.''- wikipedia
This chocolate recipes are simple, delicious and timeless. It’s crazy good and super chocolatey and never lets me down. I made so many diferent styles and recipes in my life(with orange liqueur, with mint , with cofee....) but not all are easy and fast to do.....so today I chose to share with you the simplest and the most tastiers ones.
The first recipe comes from a friend of mine chef Victor Ovtchinikov and is very safe for restaurant. It will keep in a refrigerator for 2 days.
The second recipe is my own way to look to a clasic recipe......another way of interpretations.....a chef twist. 

Chocolate fondant.
Ingredients for 6-8 portions
For fondant:
240 g dark chocolate 70%
120 g butter 82%
4 eggs
60 g caster sugar
60 g flour
For the moulds:
50 g butter, melted or backing spray
To serve:
I serve it hot with ice cream and berries or with chili ice cream ( I love it) or margarita granita recipe here.
Method
Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl.
Whisk the eggs and sugar together until the mixture leaves a ribbon trail. Mix into the chocolate and butter mixture.
Add the flour and mix to combine.

Brush 8 ramekins with a little melted butter and then dust with the cacao powder. I bake the Fondant in suffle or pudding cups....or muffin cups.
Fill the moulds with the fondant mix and leave to set in the fridge for one hour.

Cook in the oven at 200°C for just eigth (8) minutes. Leave the fondants to rest for 1 minute, and then turn out and serve with ice cream.

White chocolate fondant with mango puree and popping candy.
Ingredients for 10 portions
For fondant:
140 g white chocolate with no sugar
130 g butter 82%
6 eggs
60 g caster sugar
60 g flour
60 g desiccated coconut
For the moulds:
50 g butter, melted
50 g desiccated coconut,
To serve:
mango puree and fresh fruits
popping candy
Method
Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl.
Whisk the eggs and sugar together. Mix into the chocolate and butter mixture.
Add the flour and desiccated coconut and leave to set in the fridge for one hour.
Brush the ramekins with a little melted butter and then dust with the desicated coconut.

Fill the mould with the fondant mix and leave to set in the fridge for one hour.
Cook in the oven to 200°C for just eigth (8) minutes. Leave the fondants to rest for 1 minute, and then turn out and serve over the mango puree, fresh fruits and popping candy on top.

Enjoy!

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Strawberries and cream cheese (Bianca)

Yesterday was Valentine's Day, so I decided to make it special, but nothing fancy. And since I celebrated the day with my best friend, my daughter Stephanie, we agreed to do girl stuff. For her, girls stuff means cooking or shopping :) It's being a long day in school for her, then lots of homeworks, so we skipped the shoppings and got to do the cooking. That's the one thing one can never go wrong with her. She loves to try things in the kitchen.
We wanted to make something that's quick, good and fun too ... so we did stuffed strawberries.
What we needed:
- 500 g fresh strawberries
- 75 g chocolate cream cheese spread
- 75 g cream cheese
- 1 tbls honey
- chopped nuts ( optional) to sprinkel on top ...or anything you want  


First we washed the strawberries.

 Then we cut off the top.

We scooped out the middle.

We use ready made chocolate cream cheese spread and we mixed 1 tbsp of honey with 75 g cream cheese and placed the mixes in pastry bags.

Now Stephanie filled each strawberry, then she sprinkled chopped nuts and sugar hearts on them.

And this is what we ended up with :) 

I hope you all had a nice Valentine's Day! Pin It Now!

Sorbet and Granita

Sorbet is a frozen dessert made from a syrup flavoured with fruits, juice or fruit puree, wine, tea, coffee, liqueurs or strong alcohol. Any type of fruit can be turned into a puree for sorbet, and can be sweetened with honey, syrups or sugar. I like to play with the texture and flavors in sorbets by making combinations such as lavender or green tea or chili vodka with chocolate pieces. As a chef I like to make my sorbets to complement the meal, so many times I use rosemary, tomato, beets or basil to make savoury sorbets. I serve sorbet between courses as a way to cleanse the palate before the main course or as a refreshing dessert in the summer. The good sorbets must have a soft, melt-in-the-mouth texture that comes from tiny ice crystals. The tiny crystals are achieved by getting just the right balance of sugar syrup to fruit juice or fruit puree and then constantly turning the mixture as it freezes. For these sorbets that I present you today you don't need an ice cream maker, for that I will use alcohol in these recipes (alcohol lowers the freezing temperature, resulting a soft texture). You need about 3-4 tablespoons of alcohol to 500ml of liquid sorbet for a soft-set style. Sugar and alcohol lower the freezing point, keeping the mixture from freezing into a rock-hard block of ice. For regular sorbets with no alcohol I recommend to use an ice cream machine. If you don't have one, mix the sorbet regularly with a fork as it freezes, or process it in a food processor once frozen. Many recipes suggest beating in egg whites to improve the texture of sorbet, but then you need to be sure of the eggs quality or to use pasteurised eggs (raw eggs may contain salmonella). My sorbets are made with no animal products, so are lower in fat and is suitable for vegetarians. Because sorbet are dense and intensely flavored, serve them in small scoops, so that it does not overwhelm the dinner. If the sorbet is too hard, a small amount of alcohol may be added to the mixture to soften it. Here I share with you some pictures of the sorbets I made this summer and the recipe for Margarita Granita, by far the best seller sorbet cocktail in the restaurant. Please fell free to experiment with your favorites flavor.

Margarita Granita

Ingredients for 20 nice portions

500ml water

250gr sugar

3-4 lime juice and zest

600ml fresh orange juice

2,5kg fresh or frozen strawberry

600ml gold tequila

450 ml brandy

Preparation

Bring the water and sugar to a boil in a saucepan, stirring mixture constantly until dissolved. Pour into a large bowl; add lime juice and zest, orange juice, strawberries, tequila and brandy. Blend until smooth puree with an hand blender or in a liquidizer.

Pour the mixture into a plastic container, and freeze until slushy, about 3 hours, then break up the mixture by running a fork through it several times.

Repeat every 2 hours or so, until the Granita is icy throughout, about 8 hours. It will not freeze hard, as alcohol has a very low freezing temperature.

To serve, scoop the Granita into martini glasses and garnish with a fruit slice, or mint leaves if desired. Serve quickly - its melts fast!

Or try this:

Mango Sorbet with pasion fruit.



Trio Sorbets; Mango and pasion fruit, raspberry and lemon.

Mellon sorbet with summer fruits.

Mojito Sorbet with white rum, lime and mint.

Gin Tonic and cucumber sorbet.

Water melon and Tequila Sorbet. Enjoy!

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Mmmmm... Cheesecake

We made soooooooo… many cheesecakes, from plain to very rich flavor ones. For a New York cheesecake style you can find recipe here. Cheesecake is a dessert made of soft, fresh cream cheese on a base made from biscuit, pastry or sponge. All modern cheesecakes use cream cheese but ricotta and cottage cheese can be used to.
Philadelphia cream cheese is the most popular cheese used for making cheesecake today.
A good cheesecake is smooth and creamy in texture.
I love all flavors, but if I had to live on just one type it would have to be chocolate.
To make sure your cheesecake comes out right all the time you need to know this:
- all the ingredients need to be at room temperature before you begin mixing, or you'll end up with lumps in your cheesecake.
- do not overbeat your cheesecake batter.
- do not over use the gelatin (were is required)
- do not boil the gelatin.
- do not attempt to remove your cheesecake from the pan until it has chilled at least 3 hours in the fridge.
-to remove the cheesecake from the form pan sides, use a very thin knife that has been warmed in hot water. Go around the edge of the cheesecake to loosen it using a slow up and down motion. The cheesecake will slide easily on to a plate.
Here I share with you the recipes for 3 different types of very easy to make cheesecakes.
1. CHEESE CAKE MADE WITH GELATIN:
Blueberry cheesecake or ‘’Blueberry 250’’ is the way I call it, because all the ingredients I use in this recipe are 250 gr. For this recipe I use 26 cm ring and end up with 12 generous portions.
Ingredients:
Base
- 250 g plain vanilla biscuits
- 100 g butter, melted
Filling
- 250g blueberry ( fresh or frozen)
- 250 g cream cheese, at room temperature
- 250 g whipped cream
- 250 g honey
- 15 g gelatin
Topping
- 250 g blueberry (fresh or frozen)
- 100 g honey
- 5 gr gelatin.
Place biscuits in the bowl of a food processor and process until finely crushed. Add the melted butter and mix until combined. Transfer to a ready prepared ring or cake tray. Use a spoon to press mixture firmly over the base. Place in the fridge for 20 minutes to chill.
If you use frozen blueberries be sure they are defrost before use.

Soak gelatin in 2 tbs cold water for few minutes then heat it up. With an electric mixer or a whisk beat cream cheese and honey in a bowl until smooth. Add the blueberry, whipped cream and gelatin, and mix until just combined. Spoon the mix into base and place in fridge for 1 hour to chill.

For topping mix the gelatin with 5 cl of cold water,let it soak for few minutes then heat it up.
Combine the blueberry and honey in a bowl, add the gelatin mixture, then pour it over the cheesecake and chill for 2 hours.

Enjoy.
2. CHEESECAKE WITHOUT GELATIN. This type of cheese cakes are my favorite because they are more smooth and creamy. For this cake I use 32 cm ring and serve 16 portions.
Irish coffee cheesecake
Ingredients:
Base
350 g amaretto biscuits
150 g butter, melted
Filling.
First layer:
250 g dark chocolate 70% cacao
200 g cream
5 cl Irish brandy (I use Jameson)
50 g butter - melted
Second layer:
200 g milk chocolate
150 g cream cheese
150 g cream
1 tbs instant coffee powder
Third layer:
200 ml light whipped cream
1 tbs vanilla sugar
To make the base place biscuits in a bowl of a food processor and process until finely crushed. Add the melted butter and mix until combined. Transfer to a ready prepared ring or cake tray. Use a spoon to press mixture firmly over the base. Place in the fridge for 20 minutes to chill.
For the first layer melt chocolate and cream in a microwave then add the brandy and melted butter.
Spoon the mixture over crust and chill in the fridge for ½ hour.

In the meantime you can prepare second layer by melting the chocolate, instant coffee and cream in the microwave. Add the cream cheese and mix well. Spoon the mixture over the first layer andchill for ½ hour.

Top the cake with light whipped cream and vanilla sugar and chill for 3 hour. Sprinkle with grated chocolate before serve.

Serve with chocolate sauce and fresh fruit.
Enjoy.
3. BAKED CHEESE CAKE. This is a favorite in Estonia and made with a local cheese called ‘’kohupiim’’, similar to curd cheese or ricotta cheese. This cake is made in tart 32 cm cake tray and serves 12-16 portions.
Ricotta cheesecake with fruit salad.
This baked Ricotta Cheesecake is absolutely delicious and perfect for morning tea.
Ingredients:
Short crust pastry base -700 gr for one cake
450 g plain flour
50 g icing sugar
150 g butter
1 large egg
1-2 tbs water
Filling
600 g ricotta cheese at room temperature
200 g caster sugar
2 tsps vanilla essence
5 eggs separated
2 tbs plain flour
100 g melted butter
Topping
300 g sour cream
2 tbs honey
Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Sift flour and icing sugar into a bowl. Rub in butter. Add egg and enough water so that the ingredients come together. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead mixture until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Gently roll out pastry with a rolling pin so that its large enough to cover base and sides of a 32cm spring form cake tin. Press pastry into tin, trim the edge. Lightly prick base with a fork. Cover pastry with baking paper and fill with dried beans. Bake for 15 minutes until lightly brown. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

To make the filling, beat the cheese, sugar and vanilla essence in a medium bowl until the mixture is creamy. In a separate bowl with an electric mixer beat the white eggs until peaks form.

First add the egg yolks to the creamy mixture and mix well. Beat until well combined and the mixture is light and fluffy. Add white to the cream cheese mixture and fold light until just combined.

Pour the mixture over the ready baked crust pastry. Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes at 180 degrees, or until set in the center. Remove from the oven to cool completely. To make the topping, mix the sour cream with honey and spoon it over the cake.

Chill in the fridge overnight to firm. Remove 30 minutes before serving. I serve this with fruits salad, fruits compote or ice cream.

Enjoy. Pin It Now!