Tuesday, June 29, 2010




 In this version phyllo dough is used to minimize preparation time and ensure flakiness. It can also be combined with yogurt ice cream or a spoonfull of crème anglaise and it's preferably served warm.  
   
      Ingredients
     360gr (net weight)                         Granny smith apples                         
     1/2                                               lemon (juice)
     120gr                                            granulated sugar
     30gr                                              raisins
     1/2 Tbs                                         orange zest
     56gr                                              melted butter
     15gr                                              hazelnuts, ground
     6 sheets                                        phyllo dough

Sink the raisins in hot water or juice of an orange and let them swell until soft. Slice the apples, cut them in pieces and toss them with lemon juice and half of the sugar in a bowl. Let them stand for 30min and drain off the liquid that forms. At this point, the recipe calls for adding the rest of ingredients. However if you want to ensure that the apples are not crunchy after baking, cook them alone in a saucepan until soft and pale. Continue combining them with raisins, rest of sugar, orange zest and if you want to amplify the flavor, add 2-3 Tbs of apricot jam. Prepare the phyllo dough by laying one sheet on a piece of parchment paper. Brush with melted butter and cover with the second sheet. Follow the same proccess until all the sheets are used, sprinkling on top of each buttered sheet 1/5 of the hazelnuts. Place the apple mixture along the sort edge of the dough and use the paper on bottom to roll the sheets around the filling. Brush the surface with butter and bake at 190C until golden brown for about 30min.

Sunday, June 27, 2010


   
 This is the first challenge of Daring Bakers I post -and the most modified one- since I was supposed to excecute a pavlova recipe. Having trouble making a worthy cocoa meringue and being no fan of crunchy -and overwhelmingly sweet- baked egg whites,I used the mouthwatering and really easy making  mascarpone mousse ( which is also quite fatty...) in an orange scented torte. Replacing bitter chocolate with plain couverture, I also combined this filling with respberry gelee in a tart, which resulted really well and I'll  probanly post it later. 


              Olive oil cake
              100gr                      couverture
              50gr                       olive oil
              3                            egg yolks
              3                            egg whites
              50gr                       granulated sugar
              25gr                       flour
              1                            orange (zest)


            Mascarpone chocolate mousse
            265ml                       mascarpone, softened at room temperature
            241ml                       heavy cream
            173gr                       chocolate 72%
            2Tbs                         Grand Marnier


             Baked meringues
           60gr                          egg whites
           60gr                          granulated sugar
           60gr                          powdered sugar
           1                              orange (zest)


          Silky ganache
          148gr                         semisweet chocolate
          125ml                        heavy cream
          39gr                          sugar
          39gr                          corn syrup or glucose
          39gr                          butter
          1,5 Tbs                      Grand Marnier


As in every torte, start preparing the cake base. In a bain marie melt chocolate with olive oil and whip the egg whites to meringue. Whisk the egg yolks -which must have at least 25C temperature- in melted chocolate and fold in half of the meringue. Lumps may remain. Then add orange zest and the rest of meringue. Shift in the flour while folding the mixture -gently and avoiding deflating-, until homogenized. Place dough in a 20cm-diametre ring or a 20x24cm rectangle form ,covered with foil on bottom, and bake in a preheated oven at 180C (air) for 15min. Let the cake cool.
Continue with the mousse warming half of the cream. Melt with the hot cream the chopped chocolate and use the microwave to completely homogenise if necessary. Set aside to cool. Add rest of the cream and Grand Marnier to the mascarpone and mix at medium speed for a few seconds until soft peeks form. At low speed incorporate the thick ganache and start assembling the cake.
If using a ring and the cake has gained enough volume, cut two equal layers. Keeping the form to support the sides, fill with mousse and refrigerate or freeze untill set. If willing a rectangular one with changeable dimentions, cut the cake into two 20x12cm pieces and assemble similarly in a 20x12 size. For the meringues, whip the egg whites with caster sugar at medium speed until stiff peeks form and fold in the icing sugar with zest. Use a piping bag to make sticks and pellets on parchment paper and bake at 110C for about an hour. At last, prepare the ganache warming cream with sugar and corn syrup. Melt with the hot mixture the chocolate and butter, add Grand Mrnier, whisk until smooth and let cool untill soft but not runny. Spread a layer of it on top of the torte, freeze and pipe the rest of it in preferable shapes. Garnish with meringues.            

Sunday, June 20, 2010


More like a coffee cake, this pie has a soft texture and quite moist dough. For the filling I often use a thickened applesauce that can easily be substituted by any kind of jam.

              Cake
               320gr                   self raising flour
               50gr                     almond flour
               50gr                     hazelnuts
               140gr                   butter
               100gr                   powdered sugar
               50gr                    milk
               1                        egg
            
              Filling
             400gr                    granny smith apples
             400gr plus 3Tbs      apple juice
             80gr                     granulated sugar
             1/2                      lemon (juice and rind)
             20gr                     corn flour
             as preffered         cinnamon
      
Starting with the filling, peel and cut the apples to small cubes adding some of the lemon juice.Warm the apple juice in a saucepan with cinnamon, rind and the rest of the lemon juice and dissolve corn flour with the 3Tbs in a cup. Pour the content of the cup in the saucepan and let the mixture boil for 2min. Add the apples and let them boil for 8min until they have softened but not dissolved. Refrigerate the filling in a jar untill set. For the cake beat and cream butter with 80gr of the sugar. Powder hazelnuts with almond and 20gr sugar until a thick paste forms (as shown in the image below). Continue whipping the butter adding the nut paste. Blend in half of the needed flour and the milk, whip the egg white with a tsp of caster sugar to meringue and fold it to the mixture. Add the rest of the flour, homogenise gently,wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour.

To finish, preheat the oven to 180C and cover the bottom of a 20cm-diametre ring with half of the dough. Sread the filling on top, cover with dough strips, apply egg wash using the remaining egg yolk and bake for 35min.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010



One of the favourite classics, slightly changed with chocolate chantilly and sour cherries but still characterized by the distinctive Krsch flavor.
         Cocoa genoise
         125gr                                    cake flour
         125gr                                    granulated sugar
         5                                          eggs
         20gr                                     cocoa powder
         as preferred                         vanilla powder
       
        Chocolate chantilly
        250gr                                     couverture
        250gr                                     heavy cream
        125gr                                     milk
        100gr                                      drained, compote sour cherries
        1Tbs                                      Kirsch


        Syrup
        100gr                                    water
        100gr                                    sugar
        60-80gr                                 Krsch (as prefered)
Finally 240gr heavy cream, 2Tbs powdered sugar, fresh cherries and chocolate flakes for decoration.

At first, preheat the oven to 180C (air) and shift flour, vanilla and cocoa together. Whip the eggs with sugar at high speed untill they whiten and form thick ribbon. Fold carefully the flour mixture into the beaten eggs using a rubber spatula to incorporate the dry ingredients without overmixing and deflating the foam. Fill a 20cm-diameter ring with foil on bottom ,bake for aproximately 27min and let cool. For the mousse, warm the milk and use it to melt chopped chocolate. Let the mixture reach room temperature and whip the cold cream to soft peaks untill it has a yogurt-like consistency. Fold cream into chocolate with a spatula -without overmixing- and refrigerate untill set. Soak cherries in a small amount of their can syrup and add the Kirsch. To prepare the sugar syrup, bring water and sugar to boil for 2min set aside to cool and add Kirsch. Proceeding with genoise, cut the cake in layers (a properly baked and puffy genoise gives 4 layers) and start constructing the torte in a 20cm-diameter ring.

 Moisten the first layer with syrup and cover with a small amount of mousse and plenty of cherries. Continue with the rest of the chantilly untill all layers are used. Freeze for an hour and remove the ring.

Whip the decorating cream and sugar to chantilly and cover with it top and sides of the cake forming any shape you prefer. Finish with the cherries and flakes.

Friday, June 4, 2010


                                                           
       Tart dough
       300gr                                             flour
       200gr                                             butter
       100gr                                             granulated sugar
       1                                                   egg
       1l                                                  strawberries, raspberries 
                                                           or other berries
      Raspberry ganache
      138gr                                             semisweet chocolate
      153ml                                             raspberry puree
      1/4 tsp                                           pectin
      23gr                                               granulated sugar
      30gr                                               butter

      Flourless chocolate spongecake
     60gr                                                egg whites (2)
     65gr                                                granulated sugar
     40gr                                                egg yolks (2)
     20gr                                                cocoa powder, shifted
     as desired                                        vanilla exctract
                                   
chocolate berry tart
Starting with the tart dough, cream butter and sugar in a bowl of a mixer fitted with the papaddle attachment and add the egg.Then incorporate the flour without overmixing. The dough should firm and not sticky. When it's ready, wrap it in plastic and chill for about an hour. Preheat the oven to 180C and bake the dough for 15min in a tart form ( 20cm diameter) covered with beans or rice over a piece of aluminum foil. Carefully remove the foil and bake again until it gets a golden color.Set aside to cool. For the spongecake, beat the egg whites with 50gr sugar until stiff peaks form, and in a separate bowl whip the egg yolks with the rest of the sugar to thick ribbon. When the mixtures have the proper consistency, add the whipped yolks in two doses and fold them in the meringue without incorporating completely. Then add the cocoa powder and gently fold together until no streaks remain in the batter. Spread it on parchment paper at the bottom of a 17cm-diameter pan and bake at 180C approximately 20-25min, until the cake springs back when touched. (Do not open the oven the first 20min). Proceed with the ganache, warming the puree to 50C and whisking in sugar and pectin. Bring to a boil and use the mixture to melt chopped chocolate and butter, stirring until no lumps remain. To assemble the tart, place the spongecake on the botton and cover it with ganache. Refrigerate until stable and garnich with berries.