it starts with sweet condensed milk

Ahhh… Sweet gooey milk. What it’s original use was, I have no idea. I recall my dad telling me that when he was young (he was poor growing up) he would thin down sweet condensed milk with water and drink it like milk. I grew up spreading it on well buttered toast. My dad would have it with peanut butter on bread. There are a lot of foods I like that came from my dad.

Now if you want to make dulce de leche, you start with sweet condensed milk. People boil it in the can (REMEMBER to punch holes in the top so you don’t have a sticky milky explosion). I boiled mine in a glass jar. It take a really long time but it’s worth it. Stir it every so often because the bottom will start to brown before the top does.

I made dulce de leche because I came across David Lebovitz’s recipe for dulce de leche brownies. (I used only 1/2 cup of sugar. I figured that the brownie was already sweet enough with the chocolate and dulce de leche.) Now the flat smells like brownies. It’s quite wonderful.

I wish Fredrik was home so he can sample this with me.

FOCACCIA!

It’s so much fun to yell, “Focaccia!” randomly.

Focaccia is also a delicious bread. My mom used to buy them from this Italian supermarket when I was a kid.

I was at the supermarket today and on my list was bread. Looking at all the generic sliced breads and then through the “fancy” breads, I decided that I should bake my own bread.

Bread is really just flour, water, yeast and a bit of sugar for the yeast to munch on.

In case you didn’t pick it up earlier, I am baking a focaccia. To be more precise, a focaccia with caramelized onions and sun dried tomatoes.

I’m waiting for the second rise and it’s KILLING me. I want it now!

I’m also boiling sweet condensed milk to make dulce de leche. I found a dulce de leche brownie on David Lebovitz’ blog. It’s gonna be so good. That’s if I don’t fuck up the dulce de leche.

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2006/06/dulce_de_leche.html

the french are sweet in so many ways

My friend Emmanuelle got me a madeleine pan as a wedding gift even though I told her that it wasn’t needed.

I had asked her to find me a madeleine pan the last time she went back to France. Surprisingly, she couldn’t find it in France. She found it at the Cordon Bleu in Stockholm.

Nonetheless the gift is greatly appreciated. It is also a bit to her advantage since I promised her fresh madeleines if she got me a pan.

Anyways.

While browsing through madeleine recipes on the interweb, I noticed how nearly all recipes require the use of an electric mixer. Not even the handheld types. The big Kitchenaid standing mixers.

Since we didn’t want people to give us wedding presents, that’s not something I’ll be getting anytime soon. Not to mention we really have no space in our kitchen for something like a standing mixer. Our kitchen is already rather cramped.

But the point is… are there any recipes out there that don’t require a mixer anymore? Do electric mixer cookies/cakes/bread taste better than old fashion wooden spoon/hand cranked mixer/hand knead ones? Sure it takes a bit of sweating and hard work but the creations surely taste just as good if not better…

what are you supposed to do

I think I cook when I’m stressed out. I just baked a batch of “curry corners” and chocolate chip cookies. All comfort food.

On wikipedia, the “curry corners” are called curry beef triangles. It’s not exactly my favourite but it’s the closest to a Jamacian patty.

I used store bought puff pastry because god knows puff pastry is hard as hell to make.

I used minced beef, seasoned with curry powder, some soy sauce and beef stock. The meat mix is pretty dry otherwise they kind of run out of the pastry and gets a bit messy.

The chocolate chip cookie recipe comes from my favourite TV chef, Alton Brown. I used the thin cookie recipe. I halfed the ingredients but kept the 1 egg since it’s kinda hard to half an egg, not to mention we buy medium eggs.

I’d give Good Eats a watch if you’ve never heard of Alton Brown before.

You might be thinking, “Hey at least you’re not stress eating.” But that’s where you’re wrong. Who is going to eat the food I made? Me. There are the cats but curry is no good for cats. Neither is chocolate. Although, luckily for me, the guys at work have told me that they’d gladly eat the food I make.

cinnamon rolls

If you grew up in North America, it’s hard to avoid knowing the brand Pillsbury. The little doughboy and the poking. Unless you live without TV and shopped only at ethnic supermarkets, you’d probably know of Pillsbury.

One of my favourite products from Pillsbury is their cinnamon rolls with icing. Feckin’ awesome stuff.

Unfortunately I’m in the land of no Nestea, no Jamaican patties and no Pillsbury.

I’m personally not even a big fan of the traditonal Swedish kanelbulle. It’s dry and for the longest time I thought the pearl sugar on top were salt like the kind you find on pretzels. Fredrik likes it because it’s not too sweet. The Swedes like to have it with their coffee and dip it into their coffee.

I’ve made kanelbulle before. I forgot to let them rise before baking them so they were kinda small and turd like. Fredrik’s friends said they were good but I think they were just being polite. I followed the recipe on the back of the flour package. Gammaldags kanelbullar.

This time I followed the cinnamon roll recipe on the Joyofbaking.com. The recipe says that it should yield 8 giant ones. I ended up with 15 giant ones (3 pans of 5). They got so big that they started coming out of the pan I was baking them in.

I’m planning on sending Fredrik off with a pan of them tomorrow. I could care less if the boys in the band critique the hell out of them. I just need people to eat them.

The whole process was fun. I just wanted to bake something.

chocolate chip and almond cookies

I remember reading somewhere that the recipes from Martha Stewart often did not work out so well. They’ve turned out well for most of the time for me. This time worked out but not as well as they projected.

This recipe comes from Body + Soul. It’s supposed to be a chocolate chunk cookie with almonds. I made some substitutions because I don’t have things like oat flour, whole-wheat flour and brown-rice syrup. I found the substitution online.

Here’s what I did:

2 ½ cups of all purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup canola oil
6 tablespoons maple syrup
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tablespoon water
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
7 oz chocolate chips
1 cup chopped almonds

1. Whisk dry ingredients together.
2. Whisk wet ingredients together.
3. Stir in dry ingredients; fold in chocolate and nuts.
4. Cover and chill in refridgerator for at least 1 hour.
5. Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop dough onto backing sheets evenly spaced. Bake till light golden brown. (I got a bit distracted by Stephen Colbert so they came out a bit more brown.)
6. Cool cookies and consume!

The dough was drier than than than the usual cookie dough I’m used to. The cookie didn’t spread like a dough made with butter. It did turn out good but for next time I’ll use a recipe that uses butter. I understand that people want to be healthy and all but when you want to be healthy maybe baking almost 3 dozen cookies is not something you should do.

I’ve included a picture of the picture in the magazine. As you can see, mine look NOTHING like theirs.

there is chicken in my pie!

Yesterday I tried my hands with chicken pot pie. It was part improvised and part from recipes I looked at.

I bought myself a whole chicken. I was going to just get breast meat but I thought it would be nice to have a mix of meats. Then I roasted it in the oven with a bit of black pepper. I used only half a chicken.

It’s not SUPER important that the chicken is completely cooked because you’ll be baking the pie some more. I did cook it enough so that the meat comes off the bone quite easily, which is pretty close to being completely cooked.

Then I sautéed some veggies that would go with the chicken in the pie. I started by sweating the leek, onion and garlic. Then there was chopped celery, carrots, mushrooms and peas.

Cook the vegetables until they’re soft-ish, don’t want it too soft because you don’t want mush. Let it cool while you shred the chicken. Mix the chicken with the veggies and put into a shallow baking dish.

Make a basic white sauce using butter, flour, cream and a bit of chicken stock. It’s my first time making a white sauce and I must say, it turned out quite well. I was supposed to add thyme into the veggies and chicken mix but since I forgot, I just chopped it into the white sauce.

Pour the sauce on top of the chicken and veggie mixture.

If you haven’t taken out the puff pastry from the freezer before you started all this, then you should do that now. The chicken and veggie mixture can wait, provided that you can too. If you have the pastry ready, just cover the chicken and veggie mixture. Use a beaten egg with a bit of milk to seal the edges of the dough to the baking dish. Make a good seal! Brush the pastry with the remaining egg wash. I decorated the top of the pie with some hearts cut out of the bits of dough I trimmed from the pie. I used the egg wash to make it stick. Cut some slits into the dough to let steam out.

Put the pie in a baking sheet before putting it into a 200°C oven. The baking sheet is to catch any over boil. The last thing you want is crusty chicken pot pie sauce and juice in the bottom of your oven. I baked it till the puff pastry puffed up and is golden brown. I over baked mine but it still turned out really good.

blueberry and strawberry pie

I used to think that pies are so hard to make. Probably because you hear about how the dough is super finicky to make. But it turned out to be quite simple and frankly I’m not picky with things like super flaky pie crusts. As long as it tastes good.

So here’s the recipe for the blueberry and strawberry pie I made for the midsommar fest. The pie form I have is 28 inches. Adjust recipe as needed to fit the form you have.

Ingredients:

Pie dough:
350g flour
150g cold butter (cut into small pieces)
pinch of salt
1dl white sugar
2 egg yolks
couple tablespoons of water

Filling:
approx. 300g frozen blueberries
approx. 5-6 strawberries sliced
a couple table spoons of powdered sugar
leftover pie dough for decoration
leftover egg whites

Steps:

1. Mix egg yolks, sugar and butter together. Work in flour and salt with fingertips or fork until it’s kind of mealy. Add enough water to bind the dough. Wrap dough in plastic and place in freezer for about 30 minutes.

2. Take out stiff dough and work pieces of the dough into the pie form. Put remaining dough back into freezer and use for decoration later. Put the pie form back into the freezer and freeze for about 20 minutes.

3. Blind bake the pie crust at 200ºC for about 15-20 minutes. While the crust is baking, mix frozen blueberries with powdered sugar. Make sure all the berries are coated with the sugar.

4. Fill pie crust with the blueberries and place slices of strawberries on top. Take out the remaining pie dough and cut into decorative pieces. I chose diamonds because it was easy. You can use a small cookie cutter to cut the dough if you want. Brush egg white over the pieces of dough and the edge of the crust.

5. Bake pie for about 15-20 minutes or until the dough on the top of the pie looks done. Let the pie cool and serve with vanilla sauce, ice cream or whipped cream.

comfort food at its best

Yesterday I put the chocolate chips my mom sent me to good use. I baked a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. Enough to fit into 4 boxes. Instead of a chewy cookie, I opted for a crunchy recipe. Personally, I prefer the crispy cookie over the chewy cookie.

Fredrik will be going off to the studio tomorrow and I’ll probably send most of the cookies off with him.

Here’s the recipe for those who want fresh cookies in their home:

Ingredients

2 cups flour
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup (230g) softened butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 large egg & 1 large egg white (Ull got the yolk. He really appreciated that.)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 175°C (approximately 350°F). Line baking sheets with parchment paper. My oven fits 2 baking sheets.
2. Cream butter with sugars. Add egg and vanilla extract. Mix till smooth and fluffy
3. Sift dry ingredients and add to wet in portions. Mix till smooth and thoroughly combined.
4. Add chocolate chips and mix till evenly dispersed.
5. Scoop batter on to baking sheet. If you want bigger cookies, use a bigger scoop. I used a couple of dessert spoons to scoop the batter. The cookies came out approximately 7cm in diameter.
6. Cool on a rack. The cookie will become crispy as it cools.

black bottom cupcakes

I gave into my baking cravings last night. So I tried out the black bottom cupcakes recipe from JoyofBaking.com.

The recipes originally comes from David Lebovitz’s “The Great Book of Chocolate“.

Cream Cheese Filling:

• 8 ounces (227 grams) cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/3 cup (65 grams) granulated white sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Chocolate Cupcakes:

• 1 1/2 cups (210 grams) all purpose flour
• 1 cup (210 grams) light brown sugar
  (I didn’t have enough for a full cup so I filled up the rest of the cup with granulated white sugar)
• 1/3 cup (30 grams) natural unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch processed)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (240 ml) water
• 1/3 cup (80 ml) unflavored vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and lightly butter or spray with a non stick vegetable spray, 12 muffin cups. (I used cupcake/muffin papercups)

Cream Cheese Filling: In your food processor or electric mixer beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar, egg, and vanilla extract and beat until creamy and smooth. Set aside while you make the Chocolate Cupcake batter.

Chocolate Cupcakes: First, in a large bowl sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl mix the water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla extract. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and stir in the wet ingredients until nice and smooth. Evenly divide the batter among the 12 muffin cups. Then spoon a few tablespoons of the cream cheese filling into the center of each cupcake.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes, or until the cream cheese filling is a little brown and the cupcakes feel springy to the touch (a toothpick inserted into the chocolate part of the cupcake will come out clean). Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

These cupcakes can be stored in the refrigerator for about 3 – 4 days.

Makes 12 cupcakes

I find that whenever I try out a recipe, I always end up with more than what they say I’ll end up. Instead of 1 dozen, I ended up with 2 dozen. But more is always appreciated. That’s how much batter left over after putting first dozen into the oven.

I followed their instructions about putting a couple spoons of the cream cheese in the middle of the cake batter but it did not turn out the same way pictured in JoyofBaking.com. But they turned delicious just the same.

 

I know I said that I ended up with 2 dozen but I couldn’t help myself. I ate 2 last night. They just turned out so good.

So what do I do with all these cupcakes? I froze some of them! After scouring the internet for tips and suggestions, I wrapped them individually with plastic wrap, put them into a ziplock bag and them popped them into the freezer. When I’m ready to eat them, I’ll just thaw them at room temperature after unwrapping.

Might I also add that the chocolate cupcake is completely vegan. So if you have a vegan in your life or you are a vegan, it would be the perfect chocolate cupcake to make because it’s rich and moist. But I must say that you would be missing out without the cheese cake bit.