Crustless lemon tart - a brilliant idea

If the weather here at this time of the year is not superb for rolling out cookies rolling out pastry for a tart is out of the question as well: the last time I tried doing that with 35°C days there were so many trips to the fridge with the pastry involved that the thought of it makes me tired already. :)

So you can only imagine how glad I was when I found this recipe on one of my Bill Granger’s cookbooks: one of my favorite desserts in the world made without the hassle of pastry. I thought it was too genius not to give it a go, so I tried it and the result was a very delicious dessert – from now on, I’ll no longer feel lazy when the urge of making lemon tart crosses my mind. \0/

This tart tasted great both warm and cold, so it is perfect for entertaining – that is why I’ll probably make it again for dessert tomorrow for my New Year’s Eve dinner.

Crustless lemon tart
slightly adapted from the delicious Bill's Basics

3 eggs
½ cup (70g) all purpose flour
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
pinch of salt
100g unsalted butter, melted
finely grated zest of 2 large lemons
125ml lemon juice
1 cup (240ml) heavy cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Lightly butter a 20cm round springform cake pan (I used one with a removable bottom).

Whisk the eggs and then gradually whisk in the flour. Add the sugar, salt, butter, lemon zest and juice, cream and vanilla and whisk well. Pour into the pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges.

Leave in the pan to cool for 20 minutes before turning out and slicing. Dust with icing sugar.

Serves 6-8

Aperitif financiers - great with a glass of sparkling wine

If you’ve been here a while you probably know that I love financiers: I’ve made them in many different flavors for they are delicious and also a great way of using leftover egg whites (something I happen to have in my freezer quite often).

Savory financiers, however, was something I hadn’t tried before, and the ones on Rachel Khoo’s gorgeous cookbook looked so adorable I had to try them – they were part of my Christmas Eve dinner, something to be nibbled with drinks before the actual dinner was served.

The financiers turned out tasty and oh, so cute, making the table look even prettier – they were perfect paired with a glass of Prosecco and I’ll be making them again for my New Year’s dinner next week.

Aperitif financiers
slightly adapted from the oh, so beautiful The Little Paris Kitchen: 120 Simple But Classic French Recipes

65g unsalted butter, chopped
½ cup (50g) almond meal
¼ cup (35g) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon granulated sugar
2 eggs, separated
generous pinch of salt
12 small pieces of parmesan
6-8 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half lengthwise
about 5 olives, sliced in rings

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter and flour twelve 2-tablespoon capacity financier or mini muffin molds.
In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat until it turns golden brown, then remove from the heat and cool to lukewarm.
In a small bowl, mix the almond meal, flour, baking powder and sugar. Set aside. In another small bowl, whisk the egg whites and salt until soft peaks form. In a third small bowl, place the yolks and slowly whisk in the warm butter. Fold this into the dry ingredients, then fold in the egg whites.
Spoon the batter into the prepared molds and top each with a piece of cheese, tomato halves and the olives, pushing slightly into the batter. Bake for about 10 minutes or until golden. Unmold immediately onto a wire rack and serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 12

Lemon burst cookies and a Merry Christmas

Christmas is around the corner and it’s time to wrap up the gifts, get the nice china, spread flowers around the house and start preparing the food for the dinner on the 24th – I want to make as much as I can in advance so I can enjoy myself on Christmas Eve and relax having a glass (or two, or four) of champagne. ;)

I hope you have enjoyed the Christmas series this year and I also hope it’s inspired you to bake for your family and friends – as the last post of the series, I chose lemon cookies (surprise, surprise) that look beautiful and taste even better.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and thank you for keeping me company throughout the year. xx

Lemon burst cookies
slightly adapted from here

1 ¾ cups (245g) all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
finely grated zest of 2 lemons
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
½ cup (113g/1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons limoncello – optional; I used homemade
½ cup (70g) powdered sugar, for rolling the cookies

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, rub granulated sugar and zest together with your fingertips until sugar is fragrant. Add the butter and cream together butter until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time and mix well. Add vanilla and limoncello. Mix again.
With mixer on low speed, mix in flour mixture only until just combined. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes – in the meantime, preheat oven to 180°C/350°F and line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Using 1 leveled tablespoon of dough per cookie, roll into balls and then roll balls generously in powdered sugar – the more you cover the dough, the more beautiful the cookies will look.
Place on baking sheets 5cm (2in) apart. Bake for 12-14 minutes, or until puffed and bottoms are golden brown.
Cool on sheets for 2 minutes, then slide the paper with the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes about 40

Cinnamon madeleines with Marsala glaze and Jennifer Aniston

Weeks ago my husband and I were trying to find something good on TV and since there was nothing we ended up watching 10 minutes or so of Wanderlust – I say 10 minutes or so because it was all we could stand of such a lousy movie. We began talking about Jennifer Aniston’s movies, how awful they usually are and we wondered why she makes such poor role choices.

Days after that, I heard about Cake and all the buzz it’d generated, and then a Golden Globe and a SAG Award nominations became a reality, and for what I have seen and read about the movie an Oscar nomination is bound to happen.

In Jen’s defense, I watched The Good Girl back in the day and thought she was good in it – I even thought that from that moment on she would take that route when choosing roles to play, but unfortunately that never happened. She’s not part of my favorite actresses list, but I have always felt she had more to offer.

When I saw these cinnamon madeleines on the Telegraph website I thought they would be a nice addition to my Christmas series, but since I meant to turn them into a gift to a friend they needed something more – they were too plain, a Jennifer Aniston kind of madeleine, let’s say. I thought a glaze would make them extra special and because it’s Christmas a bit of alcohol wouldn’t hurt so I made a Marsala glaze for them, and it paired beautifully with the cinnamon flavor – the madeleines became a Jennifer Aniston post-Cake kind of madeleine. ;)

Cinnamon madeleines with Marsala glaze
slightly adapted from here

Madeleines:
70g unsalted butter, melted and cooled + a bit extra for greasing
2 eggs, room temperature
85g granulated sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
85g all purpose flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch of salt

Glaze:
½ cup (70g) icing sugar
2 teaspoons Marsala wine
water, if necessary

Madeleines: using an electric mixer, beat the eggs until pale and foamy and tripled in volume. Slowly add the sugar in a stream while continuing to whisk until it thickens. Whisk in the vanilla. Gently fold in the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon – try not to lose any of the air from the eggs. Fold in the butter. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter a 20-hole madeleine pan (each cavity holds ½ tablespoon of batter) with melted butter and refrigerate for 10 minutes. Fill each madeleine cup ¾ of the way up with the batter, then bake for about 10 minutes or until risen and golden. Remove from the pan immediately and cool on a wire rack.

Glaze: sift the icing sugar into a small bowl. Gradually add the Marsala and stir until you get a drizzable consistency (add water if necessary). Drizzle over cooled madeleines and set aside for 15-20 minutes.

Makes about 50

Chocolate gingerbread cakes, pixie and bob

Besides TV shows and Christmas baking, this month has also been about my decision to grow out my pixie: I’d decided that a month or so ago, then dropped the idea and thought of keeping the pixie, but then I fell in love with Emma Stone’s beautiful bob and now I cannot wait to have that haircut (and I’ve thought of stealing her color, too, since I’ll inevitably have to start dying my hair soon to cover the grey strands).

Food, movies and hair styles – one can definitely find all sorts of things on this blog. ;)

I’ll have to patient for it will take months for my hair to grow that long, and it will certainly be an interesting exercise for me; luckily in the kitchen I don’t have to wait too long to eat something delicious (which is one of the reasons why learning how to cook can be so empowering) and these cakes are proof of that: small as they are, they bake and cool quickly and in no time at all mine were looking beautiful on the wire rack, just waiting for the ganache to set – if you’re impatient like me you can go ahead and eat the cakes as soon as you finish spreading the ganache on top of them: I promise I won’t tell a soul. ;)

Chocolate gingerbread cakes
slightly adapted from the always wonderful Delicious Australia

Cakes:
¼ cup honey
¼ cup molasses
125g brown sugar
¾ cup (180ml) whole milk
¾ cup (105g) all purpose flour
½ cup (45g) unsweetened cocoa
1 ¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
¾ teaspoon freshly ground allspice
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
pinch of salt
65g unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
crystallized ginger, to garnish

Ganache:
200g dark chocolate, finely chopped – I used one with 53% cocoa solids
100ml heavy cream
1 tablespoon (14g) unsalted butter

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter a 12-hole muffin pan and line the bottoms with a circle of baking paper (I cut the bottoms of cupcake liners and used them to line the pan). In a small saucepan, place honey, molasses, sugar and milk and cook over low heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Cool.

Place flour, cocoa, baking powder, spices, salt and butter in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add egg, the cooled mixture and vanilla and process until a smooth batter forms. Divide among muffin holes and bake for 20-25 minutes or until risen and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then carefully unmold, peel off the paper and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Ganache: heat the cream in a small saucepan over medium heat until it starts to bubble around the sides. Remove from the heat, add the chocolate and butter and set aside for 2 minutes. Stir until smooth. cool to room temperature, then spread over the cooled cakes and garnish with the crystallized ginger – I had some ganache left, so I refrigerated it and rolled into truffles and dusted them with cocoa powder.

Makes 12

Cardamom and hazelnut snowballs and another goodbye

These past few days have been about more than Christmas baking: yesterday I said goodbye to a bunch of criminals that I held close to my heart for seven seasons.

It was the perfect ending for the perfect ride – nothing less than what I expect. Great acting, great writing, and it is a pity that Sons of Anarchy was never on the radar of the big award shows, except for the Golden Globe that Katey Sagal took home in 2011 (and she really deserved it).

I cried like a baby while watching the episode, so much that my husband grabbed me a tissue (“what are you watching that is making you cry like that?”, he asked) – I guess I wasn’t ready for another goodbye so soon.

Baking is such therapy for me that I usually go to the kitchen when I’m feeling a little blue, but to be honest I was so devastated after watching the finale of one of my all time favorite TV shows that I did not feel like cooking at all, not even dinner – luckily I had baked these delicious cookies the day before and now I can share them with you.

Cardamom and hazelnut snowballs
slightly adapted from Bon Appétit magazine

2 ½ cups (350g) all-purpose flour
finely ground seeds of 12 cardamom pods
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon table salt
1 ½ cups (210g) powdered sugar, divided use
generous 1 cup (110g) sliced hazelnuts
1 cup (2 sticks/226g) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl. Combine ½ cup (70g) sugar and hazelnuts in a food processor; pulse until coarse meal forms. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and vanilla in a medium bowl until creamy, 2–3 minutes. Add nut mixture; beat to blend. Add dry ingredients; blend well (dough will be moist but still crumbly). Transfer to a work surface; knead to form a ball, about 4 turns.

Measure 1 leveled tablespoon of dough per cookie and form into a ball. Place 2.5cm (1in) apart on prepared sheets.
Bake, one sheet at a time, until bottoms are golden, 12–15 minutes. Sift remaining 1 cup powdered sugar into a shallow wide bowl. Working in batches of about 8 cookies each, roll warm cookies gently in powdered sugar to coat. Transfer to a wire rack to let cool. Dust cooled cookies with powdered sugar.

These cookies can be store in an airtight at room temperature for up to 5 days.

Makes about 50

Spiced chocolate fudge

It is always a joy for me to do the Christmas series here on the blog: the baked goods are delicious and they make my apartment smell wonderful, too. :)

There is, however, a problem: there are so many great recipes I have a hard time choosing what to prepare. On top of the cookbooks, the Christmas themed magazines start to arrive packed with beautiful suggestions for the holidays and it becomes even more difficult for me to decide which recipes – let’s not forget the time when I saved a recipe for almost a year so I could feature it on the following Xmas series (yes, I am that crazy). :D

I already had a list of recipes to prep this year and wasn’t planning on changing it, but when the Christmas edition of Donna Hay magazine arrived I had to add this fudge to the list: everyone loves chocolate and it goes so well with spices – not to mention the recipe yields a ton, which is fantastic when there are many people to feed.

Donna’s recipe was a bit fiddly, so I borrowed her idea of adding spices to fudge and used a much simpler recipe with great results.

Spiced chocolate fudge
adapted from here and Donna Hay Magazine

335g (120oz) dark chocolate, finely chopped – I used one with 53% cocoa solids
2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon freshly ground allspice
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
seeds of 4 cardamom pods finely ground
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
pinch of salt

Line a square 20cm (8in) baking pan with baking paper; set aside. Place chocolate, sweetened condensed milk and water in a small saucepan and melt over low heat, stirring.

Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla, spices and salt. Pour mixture onto prepared pan and smooth the surface. Chill fudge about 30 minutes or until firm. Cut into small squares.

Makes 64

Crystallized ginger millet cookies with orange icing

One of the many things I loved about New York – I can pretty much say I loved everything about the city, both times I visited it – was going to the Whole Foods: there was so much variety, everything looked so good, so delicious, that I felt like bringing each and every ingredient home with me (too bad I couldn’t). :)

[if you ask me about the clothing stores on Fifth Avenue I probably won’t be of much help]. :)

There were tons of types of fruits, vegetables, chocolates, nuts – you name it. I was impressed by all the different varieties of flours: there were so many I stared at them for a good while (so I’m told by my husband). :D I did not think it was a good idea to stash pounds and pounds of flour in my luggage, so I brought home only a package of hazelnut meal, leaving all those amazing products behind. :(

Cut to a year after that and I was surprised to find Bob’s Red Mill’s products in a supermarket here in Sao Paulo – there aren’t as many different flours as I saw in NY, but there are some interesting ones available, and I brought home a package of millet flour, which I have used twice so far: timidly in the orange rosemary shortbread and more boldly in these ginger cookies.

The cookies turned out great, delicious and I cannot wait to use the millet flour in other baked goods – maybe in a cake next time?

Crystallized ginger millet cookies with orange icing
slightly adapted from the wonderful Supergrains: Cook Your Way to Great Health

Cookies:
½ cup (113g/1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup (115g) light brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup honey
1 cup (140g) millet flour
¾ cup (105g) all purpose flour
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
75g crystallized ginger, finely chopped

Icing:
½ cup (70g) icing sugar
1 tablespoon orange juice

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with baking paper.

Using an electric mixer, cream butter, sugar and honey until pale and creamy. Sift the millet flour, all purpose flour, salt, ground ginger and cinnamon together, add to the butter mixture with the crystallized ginger and stir until well combined.
Roll 1 leveled tablespoon of dough into balls and place on prepare sheets, 5cm (2in) apart. Flatten the balls slightly. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the cookies are golden. Cool on the sheets for 5 minutes, then slide the paper with the cookies onto a wire rack. Cool completely.

Glaze: sift the icing sugar into a small bowl. Gradually add the juice and stir until you get a drizzable consistency (add water if necessary). Drizzle over cooled cookies and let it set for 15-20 minutes.

Makes about 35

Eggnog apple cake

Celebrations call for cake and Christmas is no exception: I thought there had to be a cake in this year’s holiday series, but not the traditional one – it’s not my cup of tea, really (sorry, purists). :) I think it is too dense, too packed with dried fruits, too boozy, and what I wanted was something completely different: tender and perfumed with spices.

When I saw a recipe for an eggnog apple cake I knew I had to look no further: I immediately remembered the eggnog cake I made years ago and it was so delicious that the addition of apples would only be a good thing, and I was right. In this cake, the apple cubes are cooked in brandy before being folded into the cake batter, but I was out of brandy and kind of cheated a little, using sherry instead.

While I was cooking the apples with the booze, my husband came to the kitchen to see what I was making: he got curious because it smelled so great – that coming from a man who never eats fruit and doesn’t like sweets (nobody’s perfect, right?) had to be a sign that something delicious was happening in my kitchen, and indeed it was.

Eggnog apple cake
slightly adapted from the beautiful and delicious Indulgent Cakes

2 medium Granny Smith apples (380g/14oz in total), peeled and chopped in small cubes
¼ cup (60ml) brandy*
¼ cup (50g) granulated sugar
170g unsalted butter, softened
80g cream cheese, softened
1 ¼ cups (250g) granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 eggs
225g all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon table salt
icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter a 20x7cm (8x2.8in) round cake pan, line the bottom with a circle of baking paper and butter it as well.

In a large frying pan, combine the apples, brandy and ¼ cup sugar and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved. Cook until apples are soft, about 5 minutes. Cool completely.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt.
Using an electric mixer, cream butter, cream cheese, extra sugar and vanilla until pale and creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and scrape the sides of the bowl. On low speed, beat in the dry ingredients just until combined. Stir in the apples with the liquid. Transfer to prepared pan and smooth the surface. Bake for about 1 hour or until risen and golden and a skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for 30 minutes, then carefully unmold, peel off the paper and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Dust with icing sugar to serve.

* I was out of brandy and used sherry instead

Serves 8-10

Gingerbread popsicles

I always complain about the weather here during the holidays: it’s too hot – last year it was really uncomfortable with 39°C (102°F) days –, it’s hard to bake (one can certainly forget about cut out cookies, for example), and all I can think of is to do nothing all day long with a nice cold beer or a glass of sparkling wine beside me.

So it hit me: instead of complaining, why not take advantage of the heat and incorporate it into my Christmas cooking? Popsicles are delicious and great for summer days – these are packed with spices, with a hint of honey and brown sugar and very creamy.

I will be honest with you and admit that it crossed my mind to dip these in melted chocolate to make them even more decadent, but the day was beautiful and I went for a ride with my bike instead – I haven’t told you, but I learned how to ride a bicycle right after I turned 36. \0/

Gingerbread popsicles
slightly adapted from the always great Delicious Australia

185ml whole milk
185ml heavy cream
3 egg yolks
1/3 cup (58g) light brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons honey
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat milk and cream in a small saucepan until it just starts to bubble around the edges. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, honey, spices, salt and vanilla until well combined. Gradually pour the milk mixture over the egg mixture, whisking to combine. Pour the mixture back in the saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon (do not let boil).

Strain custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a metal bowl. Cool to room temperature, then pour into six 1/3-cup capacity popsicle molds - this is the one I use. Freeze for 40 minutes, insert a popsicle stick into each mould, then freeze for at least another 4 hours or overnight until firm.

Makes 6

Choc chip gingerbread cookies to kick off the holiday season

My favorite time of the year is here already – time does fly, as I wrote a year ago. And, same as last December, this year’s Christmas series start with cookies: they are delicious, easy to make, everyone I know loves them and they’re the perfect homemade gift, that is why I chose this recipe to kick off the holiday celebrations around here.

The recipe comes from Donna Hay, who never disappoints, and chocolate chip cookies are another thing I am grateful to this blog for, learning how to make them myself after watching the cookies being devoured in cartoons and movies for years – a touch of molasses and spices and they’re turned into Christmas cookies in no time.

When I opened the tin a day after baking the cookies to take the photos for this post the smell was to wonderful I had to eat a couple of them before grabbing the camera. ;)

For more holiday posts, click here.

Choc chip gingerbread cookies
slightly adapted from the gorgeous Donna Hay mag

2 ½ cups (350g) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
125g unsalted butter, softened
½ cup (88g) light brown sugar, packed
2/3 cup molasses
100g dark chocolate, chopped – I used one with 70% cocoa solids

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Line two large baking sheets with baking paper.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Set aside.
Place butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until creamy and light. Add the molasses and dry ingredients and mix on low speed just until the mixture comes together. Stir in the chocolate.

Using 2 leveled tablespoons of dough for each cookie, roll mixture into balls and place onto prepared sheets 5cm (2in) apart. Flatten slightly. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden.
Let cookies cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then slide the paper with the cookies onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Makes about 25