sweets

Panna cotta with mango puree

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The start of the year has not been good to me. Being sick and taking things slow (unproductive). Three months have gone by and I have more or less settled down in Amsterdam. Still I am nowhere near where I want to be. I am now at a crossroad where I can continue to do the things I am doing. (work, social life and living on my own) Or continue to aim for the things that I want in life. (the patisserie/dessert and coffee shop dream, being a barista/ sweetsmaker, cooking-enthusiast.) So, what is my next step?

It gives me a sense of happiness/fulfillment when I make things for the people around me. If the people I serve like it, ‘succes’ and if they don’t ‘too bad, next cooking experiment.’ This time I just picked a dessert which was easy to make and made it into the mess like in the pic. ;P

Ingredients

500ml cream
4 sheets of gelatin
30 grams of sugar
2 packs of vanilla sugar (8 grams a pack, it is sugar infused with vanilla flavour)
2 ripe mango

Start by getting a small bowl and fill it with cold water. When filled take out the gelatin sheets from the package and drown it piece by piece in the bowl of water. Let it stand and start with the cream. Light up a stove and put a pan on it, pour all the sugar and vanilla sugar in it and add the cream to it. Dissolve the sugar and let the cream heat up, up to the point before boiling. (it is when you start to see air bubbles starting to come up.) While heating the cream try to stir the cream for evenly heating.
After it is heated up, turn off the stove and remove the pan from the stove. The soaked gelatin should be jelly like, take it out of the water and squeeze out as much water from the gelatin. Add the squeezed gelatin to the warm cream and stir it in until all is dissolved.

Pour the pan with cream and gelatin into cups and let it cool off and refrigerate the cups. (cover the cups with foil before refrigerating) Let it form in the refrigerator for six hours or even a day.

The next day peel the mangoes and cut out the meat of the mango. Use a half a mango for mango cubes and the rest of the mango meat is used for the puree. This can be done with a blender.

The rest is to plate up. To get the Panna Cotta out of the cup is done by holding the sides of the cups against a running hot water tap. It warms the sides of the cups and melt the gelatin a bit but just enough to separate the cup and the panna cotta. Plate it up and done. Enjoy your Panna Cotta with Mango puree. Like, Share and Keep Experimenting!

Where is the Holiday Spirit? Here, near Deez Nutz!

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I don’t like this time of the year especially in the Netherlands. The thing is that around this time in the Low-lands it is cold, windy and very wet; the days are short, getting up and going to work when it is dark, leaving work and getting back home in the same darkness. It is as if everything is telling me to hibernate and skip this time of the year. It really sucks to go outside, the grey-and-sad-looking sky, crying it’s many tears down on to the planes of our small, small ‘Kikkerlandje’ (A Dutch saying).

However it is also the end of the year with it’s Festive holidays and Joyable gatherings. The many birthdays of my family in these months, the Oh-so-critisized Traditional Childrens-holiday of ‘SinterKlaas’, The Commercially known holiday of the birth of Christ ‘Christmas’ and the End of the Year celebration of ‘Oud en Nieuw’ on the day of switching to 2016.

It is the time to spend some time with family and friends and I am blessed with them being in my life. So to have some ‘Yummie in the Tummy’ I present a triple recipe in one with some seasonal ingredients of autumn and winter. Prepare yourself Winter is coming!


Muffin-sized cakes: for 6 cups
Apple-Cinnamon-Pecan
Matcha-White Chocolate-Macadamia
Chocolate-Cream Cheese-Oreo-Hazelnut

Ingredients:

Apple-Cinnamon-Pecan
150 grams of Flour
80 grams of Sugar
100 grams of Butter
20 grams of Cornstarch
8 grams of Baking Soda
10 grams of Cinnamon
80 mL of Milk
50 grams of Pecan nuts
2 Large-sized Eggs
1 Apple
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Matcha-White Chocolate-Macadamia
120 grams of Flour
80 grams of Sugar
100 grams of Butter
20 grams of Cornstarch
8 grams of Baking Soda
15 grams of Matcha (green tea powder)
80 mL of Milk
50 grams of Macadamia nuts
2 Large-sized Eggs
100 grams of White Chocolate

Chocolate-Cream Cheese-Oreo-Hazelnut
120 grams of Flour
80 grams of Sugar
100 grams of Cream-cheese butter
20 grams of Cornstarch
8 grams of Baking Soda
50 grams Cocoa-powder
80 mL of Milk
50 grams of Hazelnut
2 Large-sized Eggs
50 grams of Oreo-cookies

   

The Easy way of making these Cakes.

Have every ingredients out on the cooking table and have the butter and cream-cheese butter at room temperature. Measure the ingredients and set them aside. Peel the apple and chop it up into small cubical pieces, add lemon to it to prevent browning. Chop the chocolates, oreos and the various nuts and put them separately into small bowls for later. Pre-heat the oven at 180-190 degrees Celsius.

First up, take a mixing bowl and put in the butter. Use a hand-mixer to mix the butter to a soft and creamy substance. Add the sugar, milk and eggs and mix it again. The mix should be clear of lumps and mixed well. Next step is to add in the powders. Use a sieve and add all the powders: flour, cornstarch, baking soda and the recipe’s powder (cinnamon, matcha or cocoa-powder.) Sieve in the powders to prevent forming of lumps and mix it all with the handmixer. A thick batter-like substance should be seen. Final step is to add in the apple and pecan-nuts (or the white chocolate and macadamia-nuts, the oreo-cookies and hazel-nuts.) Use a spatula to mix in the Last ingredients.

When it is mixed in, lay out the cups and pour in the cake-mix. Put the cups with the mix in the oven for 25-30 min. Check up on the cakes at 25min with sate-skewer and depending on the mix type it can be done or need a little bit more time. (When you poke the skewer down to the bottom of the cup and pull it out; the skewer should be clear or a little bit oily. If it is otherwise, it isn’t done yet.)

The Long way of making these Cakes

I did not have the time to use this method, because it was already late at night and I did not wanted to disturb my house-mates with the hand-mixer noise. It would have made a more lighter and fluffier cake.

Measure the ingredients and prepare it like the first part above. (peeling and chopping.)

Next would be melt the butter in a pan to have melted butter. Separate the egg yolk and the egg white.

The egg-white would be hand-mixed to soft peak, then sugar would be added and mixed further to stiff-peak (meringue.) In another bowl are the melted butter, milk and the egg-yolks mixed together. When both bowls are ready, I would use a spatula to scoop up some of the meringue and gently fold it into the butter-milk-and-yolk-mix. Continue until all of the meringue are folded into the mix. Next part would be to add the powders gradually with a sieve and fold it in as well. It have to be added gradually or else all the work to add air into the mix will be done for nothing. Finally, add the last ingredients such as apples and pecan nuts and fold it all again. The added air and folding technique will make the Cake-mix more airy and gives it more of a rise in the oven. Because of the rise of cake, it is best to fill the cups half-full otherwise it might droop out of the container/cup.

Put the cups with mix in the oven for 20-30 min at 180-190 degrees Celsius and check up on it at 20min timer to see if it is ready or it need more time to bake.

I will have to try the Long-method in order to see the results for myself. But for now have fun trying, Like, Share and Keep Experimenting!