Posts tagged ‘easter’

Apr 1

Happy Easter, A Chocolate Banana Vegan Tart

Happy Holidays to everyone, Easter, Passover or just celebrate that Spring is finally here. Honestly, it has not really felt like Spring with blustery cold and snow and unfortunately more in the forecast for this week. I see signs of the change of seasons everywhere, flowers popping up, longer daylight, warmer weather trying to take hold.

I often make pie dough and will line a tart pan and freeze, this tart is delicious, no animal products were used in making it but you can easily adapt using cream for the ganache and whipped cream to top it. The ganache was made with dark chocolate, sweetened condensed coconut milk and coconut milk. The whipped topping is made by simply refrigerating a can of coconut milk, the cream will rise to the top and become solid. All you have to do is scoop it out and whip it with sweetener and flavoring.

Chocolate Tart (Vegan)

Pie crust ( use your favorite recipe or commercially prepared)

4 oz dark chocolate (I used vegan chocolate)

1/4 cup sweetened condensed coconut milk

1/4 cup coconut milk (Note: for non vegan or regular ganache use 1/2 cup heavy cream)

1 banana sliced

coconut or regular whipped cream

Toasted coconut (optional)

Place a can of coconut milk in the refrigerator before you begin or even better the night before. The coconut cream will separate from the liquid and you will use that (saving the liquid for another recipe)

Heat oven to 400 degree’s. Place pie dough in 8 or 9 inch tart pan. You are going to blind bake the pie crust, place a sheet of parchment on top and fill the pan with pie weights or beans or whatever you like to use. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, remove parchment and weights and bake for another 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool. Note: the oven should be quite hot, I baked the first tart shell at 375 and even with pie weights it shrunk down the sides.

Ganache

Heat the coconut milk or heavy cream to scalding. Place the chocolate in a small bowl and pour the hot cream over the chocolate, let sit for 5 minutes and stir until the chocolate is melted and the ganache is smooth and shiny. Pour into the cooled tart shell and refrigerate until set, approximately 1-2 hours or overnight.

To serve

Place sliced banana on top of the chocolate. Scoop the coconut cream from the cold can of coconut milk. Whip with electric mixer adding sugar to taste and flavoring of your choice (vanilla) or you can add 2 tbs of the sweetened condensed coconut milk that is left from making the ganache. Heat oven to 350 and toast flaked coconut until golden brown, watch it closely it will burn and only takes a few minutes. Spread some of the whipped cream (coconut or other) on top of the banana’s and sprinkle with toasted coconut.

Happy Easter from Percy and Jenna Rose!

Apr 16

50 Comments

Profiteroles Filled With Olive Oil and Bourbon Butter Pecan Gelato With Fudge Sauce

First of all I can’t believe how quickly time is whizzing by, already Easter and before you know it we will be enjoying summer with the warm weather and great produce. If it were up to me I would skip the warm weather and just go for the produce. For Easter I decided to have very good friends over for dinner and wanted to make a special meal. Since I love dessert I am going to post the recipe for the dessert before I post dinner, backwards maybe but I’ve always been someone who loves dessert especially when it involves ice cream. A few months back I saw a recipe on Johnny’s blog Kitsch n Flavors for profiteroles. I could have sworn I saved it to Evernote but could not find it, Johnny’s blog is now private and I couldn’t access the recipe so I used one from Saveur which I have to say turned out great. Choux pastry may sound and look imposing but it couldn’t be easier really. It takes literally minutes to prepare, bakes in no time at all and the resulting pastry is light as air and so delicious.

I have also been meaning to make Amanda Hesser’s recipe for Olive Oil Gelato, I tasted it for the first time when I enjoyed Pasta Night at the Food 52 headquarters in Manhattan. I was smitten, totally fell in love. Imagine a light and airy pastry shell filled with olive oil gelato and smothered in a deep rich dark chocolate sauce. Well, it sounded great to me so I set out to make this for my Easter dinner party. The olive oil gelato makes enough for 1 the way I like ice cream, really just a tiny amount and I planned to serve 2 profiterole per person and there was not enough, I ran to the store and found a bourbon butter pecan gelato so my guests will get one of each. If you plan on trying the olive oil gelato and need enough for more than 1 or 2 people you will have to double or even triple the recipe.

Happy Easter, Passover to everyone and I hope you all had a wonderful day!!

Olive Oil Gelato

Recipe by Amanada Hesser/Food52

3/4 cup whole milk

1/4 +2 tbs water

3/4 cup sugar

4 egg yolks

good pinch of salt

4 tbs really good olive oil

Put the milk, water, sugar and salt in a medium size sauce pan and cook until you see bubbles forming on the outer edge. While the milk and sugar are heating whisk the egg yolks until foamy. When milk is ready add in a slow steady stream to the egg yolks whisking constantly. Return to the pot and cook on low stirring constantly until the custard thickens and if using an instant read thermometer it should be 175-180. Place pot in ice bath and stir the custard until it cools. Transfer to a container with a lid and let sit overnight in the refrigerator. The custard will thicken, it takes a while but don’t give up. Remember to stir constantly and don’t let the egg scramble.

When you are ready to make the gelato whisk in the olive oil, it will be smooth and silky. Pour into your ice cream maker and follow manufacturers instructions. Spoon into a freezer container and place in the freezer for at least 4 hours or until scoopable.

I am going to make a recommendation, I plan on making this again because it really is good but I will make a couple of changes. I will increase the milk to 1 cup and the water to 1/2 cup leaving everything else the same, the olive oil doesn’t freeze and makes the gelato very soft, adding additional liquid IMHO will help it to be more scoopable and stay frozen a little longer. The gelato melts very quickly, trying to get a photo with it in the profiterole was challenging and I think that adding more milk and water will help.

Choux Pastry

Recipe from Saveur

1/2 cup whole milk

1/2 cup water

8 tbs butter cut into cubes

1 cup flour

pinch of salt

4 eggs at room temperature

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Put the water, milk, butter and salt into a medium size pot and cook on high heat until it comes to a boil. Add the flour and quickly stir to combine, keep cooking until it is cohesive and somewhat dry. Scrap into a mixing bowl and with hand held mixer add the eggs one a time beating until thoroughly combined. Line a sheet pan with parchment and using a small scoop 1 1/4 tbs size, scoop the choux batter onto the baking pan each one approximately an inch apart. Place into the oven and immediately decrease the oven temperature to 375 degree’s. Bake until golden brown for 20-25 minutes, remove from the oven and with a skewer poke one hole in each pastry, place back in the oven with the door ajar for 3 minutes. Let cool on the pan. You can use them right away or they can be stored up to 3 days in an airtight container, they also freeze beautifully.

Fudge Sauce

6 oz dark chocolate

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tbs corn syrup (optional)

1/2 tsp espresso powder (optional)

1 tbs coffee liquor like kahlua (optional)

Heat milk to scalding, add the chocolate let sit for 5 minutes, stir until melted add the corn syrup, espresso powder and liquor, stir and enjoy! Best served slightly warm.

I have to mention the eggs you see here, found them in the supermarket they are certified humane from a small farm in New Hampshire. There is a video of the farm on you tube and this farm is truely humane, sustainable and the eggs are gorgeous. I used to watch Martha Stewart’s show all the time and wanted her gorgeous blue/green eggs and when I saw them in the store I couldn’t believe it. Seek out this brand it is carried in quite a few stores including Whole Foods. You can tell they are from happy chickens the yolks are almost orange and the flavor is incredible. Buying humane is very important to me and I look for the Certified Humane label on the dairy that I buy. I was in no way asked to write about Carols Eggs, I did this on my own to pass on information about a great product to you all!

Apr 12

55 Comments

Hot Cross Buns

Last year I made hot cross buns, I liked them so much that they have become an Easter tradition. The recipe I made last year was really good, but I’m always on the hunt for one that could be better. I use King Arthur Flour and love their recipes. My go to dinner rolls are from their site and they are the best, last years hot cross buns were also a King Arthur recipe. In reading over this recipe I noticed that there is very little rising time involved, 45 minutes for the first rise and 20-30 minutes for the second rise, thats it. I chose to make them on a warm day to make the rise that much easier. The dough comes together quickly, it’s a very wet dough and now I know why they say to use a scoop and plop them in muffin tins, it does give the option of making them free form in a round pan (I chose that option). If you make them be warned the dough is hard to handle, it’s very sticky and soft. I first oiled my hands to try to form the balls and then changed to flour and let me tell you my hands were a sticky mess. I can deal with that but it makes forming the dough balls difficult. The recipe makes 18, I made them larger and it yielded 14. They also are not exactly round, sort of mishapen but they are very soft and fluffy.

Both recipe’s are similar in technique, I like the use of potato flour in these rolls, potato always yields a very soft moist roll, the flavor is good, however I liked the look of the other rolls I made more. Maybe I will play around with this recipe and see if I can’t get them to look better because they sure are delicious. So pillowy soft, a wonderful recipe and after tasting them I forgot about the sticky messy dough.

Ready to rise

Hot Cross Buns

Recipe from King Arthur Flour site

1 cup raisins, golden raisins or dried fruit (I used mixed dried fruit soaked in rum)

2 tbs rum or water

3 3/4 cup all purpose flour (Because the dough was so wet I added 3 tbs of flour to make it cohesive)

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup potato flour or potato flakes

1/3 cup sugar

2 1/2 tsp instant yeast

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg (next time I will use 1/4 tsp nutmeg and 3/4 tsp cinnamon)

1/4 tsp allspice

2 large eggs

4 tbs melted butter

1 3/4 cup lukewarm water

Glaze (Optional but recommended)

1/3 cup sugar

4 tsp water

1 tbs vanilla extract

Icing for cross

1 1/4 cup confectioners sugar

2 tbs soft butter

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbs cream or milk

Mix together the raisins and rum or water in a non-reactive bowl. For best absorption, use a microwave-safe bowl, cover the bowl, and heat for 1 minute, or until the mixture is simmering. Remove from the heat, and set aside to cool to lukewarm.
Whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
Stir in the Princess Cake Flavor (if you’re using it), eggs, water, melted butter and the raisin mixture (including any remaining soaking liquid), then beat at high speed for 1 minute. The dough will be cohesive, but not smooth; that’s OK.
Cover the bowl and let the dough rest/rise in a warm place for 45 minutes; it’ll get a bit puffy, but won’t really increase much in size.
Preheat your oven to 400°F. Lightly grease 18 muffin cups. If you have just one 12-cup muffin pan, use aluminum foil cups for the remainder of the dough; or make free-form buns, and place them in an 8″ round cake pan.
To make the glaze: Stir together the glaze ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl, then heat in the microwave until the sugar dissolves when you stir the mixture. Set aside to cool for a couple of minutes.
Use a muffin scoop or 1/4-cup measure to fill the muffin cups; each should be about 3/4 full. If you have a scale, use about 77g (2 3/4 ounces) dough in each cup.
Brush the lukewarm glaze atop the shaped buns.
Let the buns rise, covered, for 20 to 30 minutes, until they’ve risen just over the top of the cups.
Bake the buns for 20 minutes, until they’re a light golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and quickly turn them out of the pans onto a rack; if you wait too long, the glaze will cause them to stick.
Allow the buns to cool for 10 minutes before icing.
To make the icing: Combine all the icing ingredients in a small bowl and beat until thick.
Use a pastry bag and tip to pipe thick crosses onto the buns. If you don’t have a pastry bag, fill a sturdy plastic bag with the icing, squeezing it down into one corner. Snip the tip of the bag off, and squeeze the frosting onto the buns.
Store, well-wrapped, for 2 days at room temperature, or freeze for up to a month.