Distractions

Hello Reader!

I know I've been missing in action for the last week, and I guess the title says it all. Distractions are every where this week. Freaky science fictions TV series, birthday parties, guest coming over, making dessert for a family gathering, and saying good bye (for now) to good friends, last week was one hell-of-a week.

Anyway, lets get on with the food part of this stuff. So I made, a tropical fruit tart, Berry and vanilla Panna cottas, as well as a small blue berry cream tart with the extra tart dough.
And yes, it was delicious. I spoiled myself, just a little. :)

I used Martha's Pate Sucree recipe which I love love love! It's easy, quick (kind of), and most important crisp and crumbly. Perfect for most any filling or sweet, dessert pie you want to make. And it holds up great if you want a free form pie.But I tweaked it a bit, the butter was to much for me, so cut it down to 1 stick (1/2 cup), and it worked fine.

So heres the recipe:

It makes enough for two 9 inch pies

Ingredients:

• 2 egg yolks
• 1 stick of butter (cut into cubes)
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 2 tbs of cream ( or full cream milk is fine)
• 2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour
• a pinch of salt

Combine flour, salt, and sugar in the mixer bowl, and mix. With the mixer on slow, slowly add the little cubes of butter and mix till combined. Mean while whisk the egg yolks and cream or milk, and slowly add to the mixer. Turn on to medium speed ( be careful the flour may splash). When it looks like everything is combined, its ready. Scrape out the dough, and wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour. OR take little chunks of the dough and press in to the pan, then you and place it in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes and bake directly in a 350 degree oven until golden brown. Then wrap with plastic and freeze the rest.

:)

MIA

Hello reader! 

I know I've been MIA lately, but I promise it will all pay off soon. This whole week I worked on making croissant, and it was a major faliure (major failures to be exact). But! I think I'm getter closer,so there's still hope!

But till the next post, keep munch'in on these little babies. 

 

S'more Sundae

Hello Reader.

Its time to reveal my secret plan for my super chunky, clunky rocky road ice cream. Here it is, the S'more Sundae. 6 layers of overflowing chocolate goodness on a perfectly sunny Monday afternoon. Oh, life's good. I spoiled myself a little today. <3

I was inspired by this great post on S'more pudding Jars  I saw on Food Gawker, and I thought it would be perfect for my little get together. Sweet cold ice cream would be a perfect way to end dinner


So lets get jiggly with the layers:
(bottom  up)

The Cookie Crust- Crushed digestive biscuits, or graham crackers.

Chocolate Fudge-Its just traditional chocolate fudge! And it's so gooey and great! Serious Eats has an awesome recipe for this. Here! 

Brownie Chunks-Here any brownie recipe will do, it depends if you want them soft and gooey in the center or fully baked and chewy.The recipe I used is from Joy the Baker.

Rocky Road Ice Cream-The recipe for this is in my last post. It's chalk full with white chocolate chunks, crushed almonds, mini marshmallows, and tiny brownie chunks.

Topped with a soft&sweet toasted marshmallow, this sundae has the crunchy, chewy, gooey and awesomeness to give you a sugar high for the rest of the day. True story. :)

Fudge Brownie:

• 1 2/3 cups of sugar 
• 3/4 of cocoa powder 
• 3/4 Butter
• 2 Tbs of water or coffee
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp of vanilla
• 1 1/3 of All porpouse flour
• 1/4 salt
• 1/2 baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the pan you choose to use ( I used a 9in round springform).

Combine butter, cocoa powder in a sauce pan and place over medium heat and melt butter. Once the butter is melted, add the water of coffee to the mixture and whisk till combined. Set aside let cool a little while.

Then in a medium size bowl, whisk eggs and sugar. Add vanilla extract and stir in the butter and cocoa mixture slowly, stir till combined.

Add flour, salt, and baking powder to the mixture and stir until everything is combined. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 20-25 minutes. Or until a tooth pick comes out clean. (or not clean if you like them a bit under cooked) 

Worth the wait.

Hello reader.
For the last 1 1/2 months my mom and I have been vigorously working on designing my own little kitchen! And it's finally done! We put the final touches on the place today, and I love it.

And to celebrate this little kitchen, I'm having some friends over for dinner (It's gonna be fun :B ). When my peeps come over its all about the good stuff. The fudgy brownies, loads of chocolate, just a day to let loose and stuff your face. So this time I have something a little special planed for my guest. <3

ROCKY ROAD:
White Chocolate+Sugar Toasted Almonds+Mini Marshmallows and fudge brownie chunks, sounds like a dream doesn't it? And all of this in a scoop of beautiful home made ice cream.
I was just looking through Serious Eats for some ideas for the party and voila! I found this great Rocky Road Recipe that would be perfect.

 One thing most people don't know about Yangon is that we don't have hazel nuts, or almonds or nuts that grow in non tropical places. Now and then if I'm lucky, I can get a hold of some, but most of the time it's only when I travel that i get a hold on them. So when the recipe called for hazel nuts, I just used almonds, but if you have hazel nuts use 'em! Everyone knows hazel nuts are chocolate's best friend, just look at Nuetulla.
And instead of dark chocolate chips I added little chunks of fudge brownies. Ummmm. Fudge Brownies. :B

Right now it's in the freezer ready for some scoop's tomorrow! I have big plans for this batch of ice cream, big, fudgy, whipped cream topped with a toasted marshmallow plans.

Yangon Heat

Jello!

The title might be a little miss leading, but with all this hot-talk going on in the world I thought something cool, creamy and chocolatey would be the perfect break.

I present to you (drum roll please) The Banana Split Ice Cream Cake! It's got the whole shabang, moist chocolate cake, chocolate fudge, bananas, and cool ice cream to keep it all together.

So lets get jiggly with it. First off you need a really, really good chocolate cake for this. One that will stay moist after a day in the freezer and yet will hold together when you assemble the layers. I found one perfect for this cake (I'll post the recipe later, promise), and it's from Joanne Chang's Flour. Its chalk full of really great recipes, I really love it because there's a lotta detail in explaining the methods and stuff. :)

So alls you need when you have the perfect chocolate cake is:

• 2 large ripe bananas sliced
• Chocolate fudge (or ganache is fine)
• One tub of ice cream of any flavor
• And frosting.

+Heres what you need to do:

• Once the cake is cooled, slice the cake into 2 layers. 
• You want all the parts of the cake to be ready, so you can work fast before the ice cream melts!
• So line the spring form pan with parchment paper with a circle at the bottom and strips on the sides. Then put the top half of the cake and place it inside the pan with the cut side on the bottom.
• Then take a knife and cut the ice cream into slabs and place them on the first layer of cake in the pan, try to cover as much  as you can.
• Then spread bananas over the ice cream layer as evenly as possible.
• Pour and spread out chocolate fudge over the bananas, the place the bottom half of the cake with the bottom side up into the pan.
• Cover with plastic wrap and leave over night in the freezer. 
• After at least 4-6 hours, remove plastic wrap  and unlatch the spring from pan and start frosting (see notes)
• If the cake looks melty when you are working on it, just put it back in the freezer. Theres nothing to fear! 
• Then decorate with whatever you want! Crushed almonds, M&N's, mini marshmallows, you name it! 
• Return to freezer at least 2 hours before serving!

Layers top to bottom: Toppings/frosting
/cake/bananas/fudge/ice cream/cake.

+ Notes:

• Use a springform pan or the one with the removable bottom, or your cake won't come out! 
• I did this for a 9' cake, but adjustment are very easy to make. Just make the size that you want  and assemble with smaller portions of bananas, fudge and ice cream.
• I just used the simple chocolate frosting from my last post, cause I love the balance it brings to the sweetness with the pinch of salt. But any frosting is great with this cake.
• But frosting with a high butter content is not a good idea, because the cold might cause it to  crack when you cut into it.