Cupcakes for a bachata man

So, I went to this concert...

Ever since I heard his music, I was more than hooked. His name is Juan Luis Guerra and he is a remarkable singer. His music is more than just music, it's a way of life. He comes from Dominican Republic, and the joy of life is happily represented in his lyrics. He is also a philosopher, and thinker...And listening to his music I just can't help but wonder why life is not always like his songs. Anyway, when I read about his concert in London, I quickly got my tickets. It was magical, getting goosebumps with every song, singing along with him, burning calories as well, because there is no way you can remain seated. The audience was so pleased, and so was I...

These cupcakes are dedicated to this man, Juan Luis Guerra, for making my life happier, and for introducing me to the world of Bachatas, Merengues and all kinds of Caribbean music. If you want to know what am I talking about, check this video.
Two kinds of cupcakes. Ones with raspberry buttercream, decorated with mini madeleines; the others, decorated with mandarin dust, very easy to make and deliciously dangerous. If you don't have a mini madeleine mould, you can bake mini biscuits and put them the same way as the madeleines.

Raspberry cupcakes with a madeleine little friend

175g self raising flour
100g sugar
115g softened butter
pinch of salt
3 eggs
50g ground almonds
Raspberry buttercream
175g softened butter
150g icing sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
150g fresh raspberries or raspberry jam

Method

Preheat the oven to 190. Line a muffin tin with paper cases and brush a mini madeleine mould with a little melted butter.

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and stir in the sugar

Melt the butter and leave to cool. Lightly beat the eggs and mix them into the sugar and flour, then add the cooled butter and ground almonds. Mix well, cover and chill in the fridge for an hour. Fill the paper cases three quarters full. Bake for 20 minutes. Leave to cool then turn into a cooling rack.

Half fill the mini madeleines mould and bake for 5 or 6 minutes until golden. Cool and reserve.
For the buttercream

If using fresh raspberries, crush them with a fork. Beat the butter with the icing sugar until light and fluffy, stir in the lemon juice and the crushed raspberries or the jam.
When the cakes are cool, fill a large piping bag fitted with a star nozzle with the raspberry buttercream. Pipe a whirl over the centre of each cake and press a madeleine to one side of it.

For the mandarin cupcakes

Mandarin dust is very versatile and delicious, you cantop ice creams with it, or decorate lots of cakes and desserts.

Ingredients

4 or 5 mandarins
2 tablespoon sugar
Pinch of salt
Method
Preheat the oven to 200. Line an oven tray with parchment paper. Cut the mandarins into very thin slices, with a mandolin or a very sharp knife. Place them in the tray and bake in the oven for three hours, don't let them get too brown. When cool, place them in a food processor or coffee grinder. Keep in a glass jar.

For the mandarin cupcakes

175g softened butter
175 sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon mandarin zest
4 eggs
175 plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

For the cream
2 cups quark of philladelphia
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
175g icing sugar
Mandarin dust

Method
Preheat the oven to 180. Place the paper cases into their holes.
In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the vanilla and the zest, the eggs, one by one, mixing well after each one. Sift the flour and baking powder and add to the mix. Fill the paper cases. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes and place them in the cooling rack.
To decorate, mix all the ingredients of the cream, except the mandarin dust and place into a piping bag fitted with the plain nozzle and pipe a whirl over the whole of the cake. Dust with the mandarin powder.

Time to behave

Because I like summer, and the sun, and because it's good to detox every once in a while with a light starter, it's time to behave. When it comes to vegetarianism, I'm all ears. I'm interested in every aspect of the "no missing the meat subject". Portobello mushrooms are one of those "gusys" which you rely on to carry one with your vegetarianism. In my case, I just couldn't believe my eyes when I moved to London from Spain and saw them for the first time in my life. The size was not only a joke, it was a reality! and when I taste them, well, mushrooms but huge, and you can really substitute meat with them, honest! form that moment on, they have become part of my life, and my fridge too. You can literally use them in a steak sandwich, they are the steak. I am not a vegetarian, but I live with one, and sometimes is pretty hard to adapt a menu for him, but Portobello mushrooms really help.

So, let's get ready for summer and let's take advantage of this colorful starter, that will impress your guests, if you have them, otherwise you can enjoy a lovely meal in the comfort of your home. This is a very light starter, full of flavour and colour. You can use ready cooked beetroot, but I strongly recommend to use fresh ones, at least if you try this for the fist time (use some gloves when you peel them if you don´t want to end up with red hands) The difference is huge. The dressing is a fresh and aromatic one, and you can also use it in any salad.

Ingredients

Serves 6

5 medium beetroot
4 large tomatoes
2 medium aubergines
1 tablespoon salt
6 portobello mushrooms
60 ml olive oil
2 tablespoon white wine vinegar
300g feta cheese diced
1/2 cup basil leaves

Method

Preheat oven to hot.

Wrap beetroot individually in foil, place in baking dish and bake in hot oven for 50 minutes or until is cooked, cool 5 minutes and peel while still warm, cut into 1 cm slices.

Place tomato halves in an oven tray, drizzle with olive oil and bake in hot oven for about 40 minutes or until browned.

Cut aubergine into 1 cm slices, place in colander, sprinkle with salt and stand for 30 minutes. rinse with water and drain on kitchen paper.

Cook aubergine and mushrooms in batches on a hot grill or barbecue until brown on both sides.

Blend tomato with the oil, vinegar and salt until pureed. Push the tomato vinaigrette through a sieve, discard pulp.

To serve, divide the vinaigrette among serving plates, place a mushroom, top with an aubergine slice, then a beetroot slice, the feta and decorate with the basil.

Pears and a Royal wedding

Yes, I went to Hyde Park, and yes I witnessed live the Royal wedding. I wanted to see the atmosphere for myself, since this was such an important event in the history of this country. People responded massively. Thousands gathered in the streets, I have never seen so many Union Jacks in my life. The idea was to go to the Mall and see THEM passing by, but apparently everybody had the same idea, and we had to to go Hyde Park if we didn't want to miss a thing, and so we did. Giant screens let us follow every step of the day, the hats, the protocol, the punctuality, everything was as planned. Then everybody sang "God save the queen" and I felt glad that I was among so many people sharing that moment, it was nice...After that, a general toast for the newly weds, the kids playing around, people lying on the grass eating and drinking, and everybody had a smile on their faces.

And speaking f eating, can someone fall in love with a fruit? I think I can say that it is possible. Sounds a bit weird but to be honest, since I have (re) discover the pears, my opinion about them has changed dramatically. Sweet and delicate and so versatile. You can use them for all kinds of dishes, sweet and savoury. Wonderful in salads, even more in desserts. Pears Belle Helene, wine poached pears, pear tatin, pear compote, pear tart, pear cake...A complete delicacy. And when I say (re) discover is because before that, only ate pears the traditional way, on its own, then I started adding it in my salads and experimenting here and there and I fell in love...
In this occasion, here's a wonderful pear cake with vanilla and almonds, sweetened with pieces of dark chocolate, an ideal combination of flavours for the most demanding palates. Perfect for a wedding reception...

"The more I know you the more I love you" pear cake

7 pears
2 1/2 cups water
1 strip lemon rind
385 g sugar
1 vanilla bean
125 g softened butter
3 eggs
160g sour cream
100g plain flour
100g self raising flour
40 g blanched almonds, toasted, chopped coarsely
40g dark chocolate chopped coarsely
60g ground almonds

Method

Peel pears, leaving stems intact. Combine the water, rind and one cup of the sugar in medium saucepan. Split vanilla bean in half length ways, scrape seeds into saucepan then place pears in saucepan. Stir over heat without boiling, until sugar dissolves. Add pears, bring to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer, covered, about 30 minutes or until pears are just tender. Transfer pears to medium bowl, bring syrup to a boil, uncovered, until syrup reduces to a half. Cool completely.

Preheat oven to moderately slow. Grease a 23cm round tin.

Beat butter and remaining sugar in medium bowl, with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just combined between additions. Add sour cream, beat until just combined. Mixture may curdle and this stage but it will come together later. Stir in 2 tablespoon of the syrup, then flours, nuts, chocolate and ground almonds.
Spread cake mixture into prepared tin. place pears upright around edge of tin, gently pushing to the bottom. Bake uncovered in moderately slow oven, about 1 hour 35 minutes. Stan 10 minutes, remove from tin.
Serve cake warm, brushed with remaining syrup.

For duck´s sake!

Of all the oriental cuisines, Japanese food is my favorite. I love oriental food, I just keep telling myself how healthy and good for me is, and the truth is that some dishes are more fattening that one of "those" burgers. Chinese take away ranks second here in the UK, Indian food being the first.

But definitely, if there's something you can't blame to Chinese is their ability to get involved in the market. They try everything! For instance, in Barcelona, some years ago, when you wanted to get Japanese food you used to go to a Japanese restaurant, you wanted Chinese, Chinese restaurant. Now, there's a new thing going on..the Wok restaurant. It sounds good, it can look OK, but wait. You get inside and you are surrounded by Chinese staff, and then you start getting confused. Wait a minute, there's a sign outside that said: "Japanese restaurant". From the little Japanese I know I can tell these people are shouting in mandarin! The drawings on the walls depict mount Fuji and Japanese motifs. You sit on the table and you get grilled seafood and the belt keeps on bringing sushi and oriental salads and appetizers, even fresh oysters and on top of all that, a Chinese bread. And all of these for just 10 euros. As I already said, I love Japanese food, but these places make me feel like I am in the wrong place. Yes I leave with a full stomach but my gastro-brain says something is not right. But to be honest, I know that if these places exist is because people are happy to eat there. It's like that question without an answer: Why do the tourist shops in Las Ramblas (Barcelona) sell Mexican hats?
So, with this post I want to celebrate the incredible success (???) of the Wok restaurants. I give you a Chinese but a modern post, an oriental recipe but with a European touch, an Asian dish but from an Australian book...Enough! I'm getting more confused!

Peking duck crepes are one of the most popular in the Chinese restaurants, but today, this is a special recipe where the crepes are made with egg. The post has three steps, the crepes, the filling and the rolling. They are very pretty, not very rich and much more easier that it looks to make. If you cannot bother roasting the duck, you can buy a ready made one.

Ingredients

For the crepes:
1 cup plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg lightly beaten
2 cups milk
200 g chives

Method:
Combine flour and salt in medium bowl; gradually whisk in combined egg and milk until mixture is smooth. Strain mixture into large jug.Finely chop enough chives to make 1/4 cup chopped chives. Reserve remaining chives.Stir chopped chives into batter. Cover and refrigerate one hour.

Remove from the fridge and heat a non stick frying pan with a little bit of oil. Pour 1/4 of he mixture into heated oil, and cook crepe until browned on both sides. Repeat with remaining bater. Using an 8 cm cutter, cut three rounds from each crepe. Cover with cling film and reserve.

For the duck:
1 duck
5 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce
4 teaspoons Chinese five spice
2 tablespoons brown sugar
20g grated fresh ginger

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
Place the duck in an oven tray and mix the rest of the ingredients. Spread all the mixture in the cavity and outside the duck. Bake for two hours basting the bird with the fat from the tray every 15 minutes, this will make the skin crispy.

The filling of the crepes:

1 cucumber thinly sliced
5 spring onions thinly sliced
Hoi sin sauce
Plum sauce

Spread each small crepe with an equal amount of combined sauces. Top with duck, cucumber and spring onion. Remove bones from the duck and slice meat and skin very thinly.Place remaining chives into a heatproof bowl. Cover with boiling water. Stand until chives are wilted and drain. Fold in edge of crepes, roll to enclose filling. Tie a chive around each crepe to secure, trim ends. Serve with the sauce on the side.

My cassata is your cassata

Time flies. And it seems that from post to post many things happens, and a lot of time passes by, but the time is always the same, we are the ones who change. And in between, from post to post, there have been more trips to BCN (I'm back in some days), another visit to gorgeous Lisbon (I will have a whole post on this matter later on) and more time to spend with family and friends, which is always welcome.

And to carrying on with the blog, it's time now to publish a sweet post, and this is, a very flavloursome one. A sicilian cassata cake.

It's a sponge cake with a wonderful filling, a ricotta cream, softened with a little liquor and mixed with candied fruit and dark chocolate pieces. And because it's an italian dessert, I guess you can be sure it will be very tasty. The filling is quite similar to the delicious "cannoli". The term "Cassata" is refered also to another type of sweets and ice cream, but in this case I'll stick to the sponge version.

Ingredients:

For the sponge

240gms plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
180gms softened butter
3extra spoonfulls melted butter
180gms sugar
4 or 5 eggs
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
splash of vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. In a big bowl or food processor mix the butter with the sugar until it becomes a pale mixture, add the eggs, one at a time, the lemon juice and the vanilla. Sieve the flour and baking powder and add to the egg mixture. Pour the mixture in a greased cake tin (24cms). Bake in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour or until a skewer comes away clean.

350 g of fresh ricotta
100 g icing sugar
vanilla powdered flavour (not essence)
50 g of dark chocolate chips
80 g of candied citrus peel
200 g of sponge cake
sweet liqueur, I used Grand Marnier, my favorite
For the icing:
150g icing sugar
2 or 3 tablespoons water

To prepare the filling: mix ricotta with icing sugar until it turns into a smooth cream. Add a drop of any white sweet liqueur (optional). Add chocolate chips and candied citrus peel. When the sponge is cold cut it in half and fill it with the ricotta mix, and top with the other layer of sponge cake to seal.

Ice the cake by mixing the ingredients and decorate with thin slices of the candied fruit. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

A Mexican hearthrob, my help up in the skies, and a light savoury flan

So, I arrived OK at my destination, my beloved Barcelona. No more snow, no more problems. The flight back was another story. To be honest, I HATE flying (it started some years ago, I used to love it) The thing is that I always try to look for a way of distracting myself, and a portable DVD or a laptop loaded with my Mexican soap opera really does the trick. So, I'm up there, enjoying my soap opera (by my favorite "telenovela" actor heartthrob Fernando Colunga) when that bloody turbulence started, and I was OK at the start, but the turbulence carried on, and it were stronger than ever! Then, the pilot made an announcement, and that scared me the most, everything was OK until I heard his voice, I was more or less OK, but when I heard his voice my mind just panicked, even though the poor man was trying to calm everybody down. "We are surrounded by what it's called "clear air turbulence" and unfortunately it's going to continue like this until we get to London" (and we were only over Nantes!) "If any of the passengers has any trouble (that would be ME!) please, don't worry, this happens all the time and blah, blah, blah..." Why did he have to speak? The man beside me started rocking back and forth, maybe praying? I couldn't calm him down, how could I possibly do that? who was going to calm ME down? I grabbed the seat with my nails, I looked at the screen (why aren't you helping Fernando?) when suddenly, and after ten horrible minutes everything went smooth (thank you, thank you!) until we got to London. When my feet touched the ground, I did what I always do: congratulate myself for being so brave (what a lie!) This is a personal trick to give me the strength I need to get on the next plane, because I know that very soon, Fernando Colunga and I will be back up there...





And now I am back to normal life, to the cold weather and to the blog, and with a light starter, for starting the year, for keeping everything a little bit low, after the holidays. Is great coming back home (I mean your parent's) you find the same faces, the same atmosphere, the same traditions, and the worst of all is when you have to come back and leave those loved ones behind, and you are back to the other faces, the other atmosphere, the other traditions. "The blank space" is what I call the morning after I come back, because you can't help but thinking about your parents, about the fact that they are there, on their own, and you are not there for helping them. So, I always get a little sad. I guess that happens to everyone who lives far from their families. The good thing is that with all that, I start thinking and planning a new date for my next visit and I already have a couple in the very near future. I'm so happy I live so close to Spain, and hour and forty five minutes and I'm there, in my beloved BCN...

This is a light starter, a tomato and Parmesan flan, with a very delicate and intense flavour. It's an excellent starter which can be part of a three course meal or a main course for a light lunch or dinner. Sauté the tomatoes first, and it will give them a caramelized touch, before adding them to the savory custard.




Ingredients:




1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups whole milk
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons slivered fresh basil

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180. Butter six ramekins and line the bottom with baking paper. Butter the paper.

In a frying pan, warm the olive oil and add the tomatoes until they are soften and the liquid is reduced, about six minutes. Stir in the chopped basil and season with salt and pepper. Spoon the tomato mixture evenly among the ramekins.

In a bowl, beat the eggs and add the milk, and the egg yolk. Pass it through a sieve. Add the parmesan and fill the ramekins with the custard.


Place the ramekins in a shallow baking tray and fill with hot water halfway of the ramekins. Bake until set, around 35 minutes. Carefully tranfer the ramekins to a wire rack and cool slightly.

To unmold, run a knife around the edge of the ramekins, place a serving plate on top and invert. Lift off and peel off the parchment paper. Scatter tomatoes and slivered basil leaves on top of each flan and serve warm.

To fly or not to fly

Every year is the same. I say to myself: "This year you are going to start the Christmas shopping early, in October, or at least star planning what to buy, to who, where, when and were to fly from for spending Christmas in Spain. At the end, everything falls into pieces, my and my plan is ruined because there is always something else, and I rely on the "Mañana, mañana". And, as always, every year, I´m in a hurry, rushing in the shops, sliding in the shopping centres, gasping for air in between (unless I do it all online) and swearing myself that I will NEVER be back to Oxford St on a Saturday in Christmas time (and going back to Oxford St on a saturday in Christmas time) To be honest, I get carried away when I see the Christmas decoration already in early October and I let myself go...At the end, I panic, and everybody ends up with gift vouchers.

So, I have almost everything ready, presents and vouchers, my packed edible Christmas presents ready to pack and the luggage almost almost done. And suddenly we get an incredible, inconvenient and heavy snowfall, and all our plans are on standby. And we are lucky, thousands had their flights canceled and there is chaos everywhere (transport wise) People end up sleeping on the floor of the terminal at Heathrow, the queue at St Pancras station is huge, even the tube has troubles, so, I´m not going out and I keep my fingers crossed for my flight next week, maybe the snow will melt by then. And all this introduction is because I am presenting today my Christmas post. Its a gingerbread cake with cranberries, of course, perfect if you are sick and tired of the traditional Christmas pudding. This gingerbread is not very sweet,and is quite light actually. The icing is sweet enough...I would like to take this opportunity to show off my new dish, which I got as a present over the last days, thank you Girls!

It´s a variation on Dan Lepard´s ginger cake. He really is amazing and we all can enjoy his talent in his lovely books. A well known baker and a food writer for The Guardian (this recipe comes from there) and I have adapted it to become a little more festive. The treacle is an important ingredient but you can use golden syrup, or honey instead. I used fondant icing sugar for the icing, because is a mix that has solid glucose in it and it becomes shiny and spreadable very easily. You can use normal icing sugar if you cant find it. I want to thank everybody who steps here and post their comments, and I wish you all a lovely Christmas, and and may the new year is full of smiles for everyone. Merry Christmas!

50g unsalted butter
100g black treacle
75g muscovado sugar
2 medium eggs
25ml sunflower oil
75ml blended or single malt whisky
50g fresh cranberries
175g plain flour
1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 tsp ground ginger
3¼ tsp mixed spice
6 tablespoons apricot glaze

Icing:
225g fondant icing sugar
6 or 7 tablespoons water

For the candied cranberrries:
1 egg white
10 fresh cranberrries
100g caster sugar


Line the base and sides of a 17cm loaf tin or similar with nonstick paper, and heat the oven to 180C (160C fan-assisted)/350F/gas mark 4. Melt the butter, remove from the heat and stir in the treacle and sugar until any lumps soften. Beat in the eggs until mixed through evenly, then do the same with the oil and whisky.

Sift into the mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and three teaspoons each of ground ginger and mixed spice, and beat in well. Add the cranberries, mix well and spoon the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted pulls out clean.
Leave to cool in the tin.

For the candied cranberries, lightly beat the egg white and soak the cranberries in it, remove the excess and coat them in the sugar. Leave to dry a bit.

For the icing, first heat the apricot glaze in the microwave and spread the surface of the cold cake with it, then, mix the fondant icing sugar with the water until it becomes spreadable, and quickly spread this over the cake. Decorate with the candied cranberries and some holly leaves. For a nice looking serving plate, sprinkle with mixed spice. Enjoy the evocative smell!