When [...]]]> A little while ago I recieved an e-mail from a co-worker. She stated that another co-worker had presented her with a chocolate cake and she wanted to share it with the rest of the office. Being the nice person that I am, I was obviously willing to help her eat it.

When I saw the cake, I thought it was actually a brownie. I was pleasantly surprised when it wasn’t. Not that I have anything against brownies – not at all. But this cake had a completely different, but very appealing structure. It was light and airy, slightly sticky, like the inside of an almost-baked meringue and it had a little bit of a grainy structure in it, which obviously came from nuts. It was delicious!

I walked up to the co-worker who had baked the cake to let her know how much I liked it and to see if I could convince her to give me the recipe. My co-worker informed me that it was an old family recipe and that if she’d give it to me, she’d have to kill me. the fact that I’m still alive, typing this up means that either she wasn’t serious, or my pleading eyes work better than I ever imagined.

I will not give you her exact recipe. I told her I wouldn’t. I will give you my adaptation of her recipe though. I made it into little cupcakes to take on a picnic. I altered the recipe to accomodate what I had in my pantry, and what I thought would be tasty. The result was a very very airy and light, but oh so delicious cake. They were very different from the cake I ate at the office -or any other cake I’ve ever baked –  but a nice addition to my repertoire.

I’ve always loved  almond toffee, from the first time I ever tasted it. Love it! Unfortunately my favorite toffee is extremely expensive and only sold in Colorado (or you have to get it shipped, [...]]]> Yes, Almond toffee deserves at least 5 exclamation points. It’s just THAT good.

I’ve always loved  almond toffee, from the first time I ever tasted it. Love it! Unfortunately my favorite toffee is extremely expensive and only sold in Colorado (or you have to get it shipped, which makes it even more expensive.)

And before this year I’d never thought of making it myself. I don’t know why, but it just never occurred to me that it was something you could do yourself.

Fortunately this year (well, last year, it is 2011 by now…) I decided to use my brain and look up a recipe.

I barely altered the recipe I found, just used himalayan pink salt instead of regular salt, halved almonds instead of slivered ones inside the toffee and I used a piece of good quality chocolate instead of chocolate chips. The result was toffee that tasted exactly like the crazy expensive stuff I buy in Colorado, for a fraction of the price (and about a half hour of my time).

I will definitely keep on making this every year, possibly for every holiday! Who says you should just have toffee around Christmas?

 

[print_this]Almond toffee (recipe altered from Marilyn Moll, who got it from someone who worked at Enstrom’s)

• 1 cup, 6 tbsp  sugar
• 1/2 pound salted butter
• 1/4 tsp himalayan pink salt
• 1/2 cup halved raw almonds (or the same amount (by weight) whole almonds
• 6 ounces of decent quality milk chocolate (don’t use it if you wouldn’t eat it the way you buy it!)
• 6 tbsp almonds, chopped very, very finely – almost a powder

Look at the pictures, they show most stages, so you’ll know what to expect!

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the salt. As soon as the butter is melted add in the sugar and start stirring constantly. As soon as the sugar is well stirred in, add in the halved almonds. (Make sure you have raw almonds, they’ll toast in the sugar!!!!)
Keep stirring over low to medium heat for a while. The mixture goes through a couple of changes while cooking. First it’s liquid and light colored, then it’ll get just slightly darker (but still really light colored) and get thick and sticky and harder to stir. The butter might start to separate out of the mixture. Don’t worry about that and just keep stirring that back into the sugar mixture. At some point it’ll incorporate back into the sugar mixture, which’ll get thinner and darker. You can up the heat a little now too.
Use a thermometer to figure out how close to ready you are, keep stirring until you reach 290F (140 C) or until you reach ‘hard crack stage’. If you don’t have a thermometer and/or ice bath ready, at some point it’ll slightly start to smell like burnt sugar, but you it isn’t burnt yet. That’s the point where the toffee is ready!

Note of caution: you really NEED to keep stirring and smelling and just generally keep an eye on your toffee. It changes really quickly once you’re almost there, so that’s not the time to let it stand.

Have a smallish cookie sheet standing ready to pour the toffee into, and a cooling rack to place the sheet on. The toffee mixture will be VERY hot, so if you don’t have that cooking rack there, you can easily warp whatever you’re placing it on. (Plus it’ll take 10 times longer to cool and harden.)

Once you’ve rached the slight burny smell/290F/hard crack stage, pour the toffee into the cookie sheet and move that around to fill out the sheet evenly. Let it cool and harden.

Once the toffee is hard, it’ll have pulled away from the side of the cookie sheet a little and it’ll release very easily. (So no need to grease that cookie sheet!)

Place the slab of toffee onto some parchment. Melt half the chocolate and pour it over the toffee and spread it evenly with an offset spatula or a knife. Sprinkle half the ‘powdered’ almonds over the chocolate and let it sit to harden. Once the chocolate has completely firmed up, flip the toffee over and repeat the process. Let it cool and cut into pieces and enjoy!
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Not that the day had been particularly busy, but I needed chocolate. I was craving chocolate. The world was possibly, probably going to end if I didn’t get my chocolate.

I didn’t have any chocolate. At least no [...]]]> I felt like chocolate. Correction, I needed chocolate. To get me through the evening.

Not that the day had been particularly busy, but I needed chocolate. I was craving chocolate. The world was possibly, probably going to end if I didn’t get my chocolate.

I didn’t have any chocolate. At least no readily edible chocolate. And it was past store-closing-time. Besides that, it was raining. Very very hard, so even the walk to the night shop wasn’t a real option.

Still, I needed chocolate.

The solution, a molten chocolate cake. Once I thought of molten chocolate cake, I knew that it wasn’t chocolate I craved, it was that specific chocolate cake. I craved a cake that so far, I’d only ever eaten in restaurants. But I really needed it. I had to make it. I couldn’t help it.

We had leftovers for dinner, so I had all the time in the world to figure out how to get my hands on that cake. Especially since L wouldn’t be home for another hour or so.

I went online to search for recipes. All recipes were different, but most of them asked for the same ingredients, and partially the same prep method.

I didn’t feel like separating eggs, I don’t know why. I didn’t really feel like measuring either. I figured I’d just try something. I guess my  bout of ‘no-recipe-baking’ just hasn’t come to an end yet.

Now I wish I had measured. Or at least written down what I added, and how much of those things. How come I never learn? I feel that way every time I bake something without a recipe.

The molten chocolate cakes were divine. They coul’d’ve used a couple more minutes in the oven, so they would’ve set a little more on the bottom. It was a bit of overkill on the ‘molten’ part. Which made them look less-than-perfect.

But the taste, the texture. It was divine. It was exactly what I had craved. It was just what I needed.

The leftovers had leftovers that night, but I was satisfied.

Long story short, no exact recipe today. Maybe some other time, when and if I’m able to recreate it.
For now, I leave you with just the ingredients without measurements, and the method used. Just give it a try, see if it works, ’cause if it does, your tastebuds will thank you!

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Molten chocolate cakes

• dark bakers chocolate
• butter
• cocoa powder
• sugar
• eggs
• a hint of vanilla extract
• slivered almonds
• all-purpose flour

Start out by melting the butter and chocolate together (30 second intervals in the microwave), let it cool down a bit. Mix sugar and eggs, add some cocoa powder, then the butter and chocolate mixture. Add a tiny bit of vanilla extract. Mix in AP-flour to make a medium-thick batter. Stir in some slivered almonds, just because you can!
Divide batter over ramekins, which are placed in a casserole with water in the oven. Set the oven fairly high, 200 to 220 degrees celsius, and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until it’s not fully cooked on the inside. (there’s no surefire way to check this, or at least I haven’t found it yet. If you make sure, by feeling, that the top is fully cooked, you can serve it and have lots of ‘molten’stuff which is the best part anyways!)
Remove from oven and invert ramekins onto a plate and serve (would be very good with fresh whipped cream or ice cream). Next time I might just serve it in the ramekin, more like a chocolate soufflé.
Enjoy!

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And yay for ice cream! Ice cream is awesome. I love the stuff!

And even better than regular old store bough ice cream, is home made [...]]]> Yay, for summer! Yay for sunshine, for having the doors and windows wide open. For having lunch outside in the sun. For having salads for dinner. Yay for summer!

And yay for ice cream! Ice cream is awesome. I love the stuff!

And even better than regular old store bough ice cream, is home made ice cream.

The first time I ever ate home made ice cream was in Indiana. We visited my aunt Betty and uncle Jack for the first time during the summer I turned 12. (At least I think I turned 12, could be when I turned 13 as well, but that’s not the point here.) Now it sounds weird that I never visited my aunt and uncle before, but that’s because they’d only become part of my family the year before, when my dad married Dixie, aunt Betty’s youngest sister, aka my stepmom.

Aunt Betty had this mystical, magical, awesome device in which you could make your own ice cream. I had seriously never heard of that before. Making your own ice cream, yeah right?! Ice cream makers weren’t sold in Holland back then, or at least not to anyone in my vicinity.

But aunt Betty had an ice cream maker and made us ice cream. And it was awesome.

Every time I’ve visited aunt Betty since, she’s made ice cream. And it’s never ever disappointed me.

Now almost 2 decades later ice cream makers have become a normal thing in Holland as well. Yes I still don’t know anyone except for my aunt Betty who actually owns one. Or if someone else does, they’ve never made me ice cream (which, if that’s the case, would be evil, very very evil. And mean. And unfair. How could you do that to me, not make me ice cream when you have the machinery to do so????)

Now I haven’t bought myself an ice cream maker yet. There’s ice cream machinery on my kitchen wish list though. But that indeed means I don’t have one yet.

Now last week I was browsing around some food blogs, and I found this post by David Lebovitz. I figured, ooohhh, before I do that I’ll probably have bought an ice cream maker. I don’t need to try that.

Wrong!

Today was a gorgeous day. It’s a quarter ’til 11 in the pm, and we still have our doors wide open. I sat outside, on a terrace, no jacket, a short-sleeved shirt on, to have lunch with my co-worker.

And then I read the theme of the week on Tasty Kitchen, which was ice cream.

The sun was shining, through the window, while I was in my office. All I wanted to do was go outside and eat ice cream. So I decided to give it a try. To throw all caution in the wind and make my own ice cream.

Without an ice cream maker!!!

I made the custard with a slight bit of home made vanilla sugar, to add a slight hint of vanilla flavor to the ice cream.
I chopped up some slivered and whole almonds into different sized bits, and threw them into the heavy cream.
I drizzled melted dark chocolate on the mostly forzen almost-ice cream.
I whipped the heck out of the custard, the cream, the half-frozen stuff.
I burned my finders really bad.

I MADE ICE CREAM!!!!!!

Wonderful straciatella/vanilla/almond ice cream. Without the aid of an ice cream maker. And it tasted awesome.

Does this mean I’ll whip the heck out of it by hand for the rest of my life? Heck no! It’s only strengthened my conviction that I actually want, no NEED and ice cream maker.

I’ll need to make this every day, or at least weekly.

Yummmm!!!

[print_this]Straciatella vanilla almond ice cream

• 2/3 cup milk
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup caster sugar (replace 1 spoonful of sugar with vanilla sugar)
• a pinch of pink himalayan salt
• a handful slivered and whole almonds (chopped)
• A little bit of dark chocolate (melted)

Combine the milk, sugar and salt in a pan. Stir feverishly until it comes to a boil. In a freezer proof bowl, whisk the egg yolks (save the whites, freeze them and use them for something else some other time). Once the milk has come to a boil, take it from the heat and slowly, very slowly add it to the egg yolks while whisking it like your like depends on it. Once the milk and yolks are combined, pour the mixture back into your pan on very very low heat and keep stirring until you have a custard. DON’T let it boil, as it will curdle and will ruin everything. You’ll know the custard is done when it’s gotten a little thicker and doesn’t drip off your spatula right away, but leave a bit of a film.
As soon as the custard is done, take it off the heat, but keep stirring a bit to prevent burning or whatever. Don’t know why actually, just seems sensible.
Put your heavy cream in the freezer proof bowl you’ve used before. Add the almonds in there and mix. Now very slowly pour all your custard in there and whisk feverisly again. It’s the whisking that does the magic!

Once everything’s been incorporated (scrape that custard out of the pan, into the cream) place the freezer proof bowl with the custard cream into the freezer. After about half an hour (as soon as the sides start to set/freeze a little) take it out and whisk again. Place it back in the freezer, wait another half hour, whisk again. Place it back in the freezer, have dinner, or do something fun, take it out, whisk again (by now it’s pretty set when you take it out!)
After the ice cream has set quite a bit, melt some dark chocolate in the microwave. Try not to be like me – don’t burn your fingers while removing it from said microwave!
Remove your ice cream and whisk again, drizzle the melted chocolate over the ice cream. Place the bowl back in the freezer.
Wait 15 minutes, remove from freezer again, and whisk again (you’ll break the chocolate, thus creating the straciatella). Place back in the freezer.
Check the ice cream again in about 15 to 20 minutes. Can you still whisk it? If so, do so and place it back. Keep doing that every 15 minutes as long as you can. As soon at it’s all set, enjoy (or put in a better container and save in the fridge for some other time — yeah right!)

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Oh, and on a totally different note, while I was editing this post, I received an e-mail. I just won the French Women don’t get fat cookbook. A signed copy. I won it in the ‘Cooking is…’ competition. Very cool! I’m so excited. I never win anything, still haven’t won the lottery – even though I try all the time. But now I won something, just for sharing my love of cooking. Yay me!
If you want the book as well, it’s sold on the author’s website.