coffee cake con cioccolato e nocciole / yeasted meringue coffee cake

March 27, 2011 | Simona

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

On this page, you will find the details of the recipe, including various suggestions for the filling.

I really like the description of the recipe source: "Jamie found this recipe on a piece of yellowed paper in her dad’s collection of clipped out and hand-written recipes from the 1970’s, no source, no date, and she tried the recipe and it was brilliant!"

I struggled a bit to come up with the title for the post. A cake made to be served with caffè is alien to the Italian tradition of drinking coffee by itself, either at the end of a meal or first thing in the morning, or during a coffee break. In the end, I decided to leave the English name. Also, the original recipe name mentions that the cake is leavened with yeast (lievito secco) and that it includes a meringue (meringa). I decided to omit those from the post title and highlight instead the two main ingredients of the filling.

When I saw the photo of the coffee cake we were challenged to make, I noticed that it resembled Stollen, the German Christmas cake that we made last December. I enjoyed making Stollen a lot, so I had high hopes for the yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake. I was not disappointed. Here are the adjustments I applied to the given recipe:

I halved the quantities and made a single cake
I used 1 teaspoon of instant yeast instead of active dry yeast
I added saffron (zafferano) to the dough, even though I didn't make Ria's version of the cake
I opted for a filling of 70% cocoa chocolate (cioccolato) and hazelnuts (nocciole)
I omitted cinnamon and sugar from the filling
I baked the cake using the convection bake option of my oven (forno) [which does the temperature adjustment automatically]

Everything went smoothly and the cake that came out of the oven looked quite nice. As usual, the minimalist in me made me stay away from special decorations. The egg wash gave to the cake a nice surface color, which, unfortunately, I was not able to capture properly with the camera. Of the many photos I took, only the one above was good enough for sharing. The coffee cake received an enthusiastic endorsement from my husband.

In a recent post, I showed the variation on the theme of French toast below, where I used some of my homemade English-style Coulommiers as topping. I mentioned that something else made the dish special and now I can reveal the secret: I made it using slices of the last piece of coffee cake.

A special thank you goes to our hosts for their choice and efforts. It was a very nice challenge. I hope you will take the time to go around and look at the creative output of my talented fellow Daring Bakers.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

coffee cake con cioccolato e nocciole

or launch the coffee cake con cioccolato e nocciole audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

panna cotta al tè verde matcha e biscottini / green tea panna cotta and cookies

February 27, 2011 | Simona

matcha panna cotta / panna cotta al tè verde matcha e biscottini

a pastel green panna cotta

The February 2011 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

If it weren't for the DB's challenge, I don't think I would have ever tried making panna cotta. How come?, you may ask. You are Italian, you should love panna cotta. Let me explain. Panna cotta is a dessert typical of Piemonte, a region quite far from Umbria, where I grew up — panna cotta-less, as it happens. The first time I tasted panna cotta was after I moved to Milan: I was underwhelmed, so our relationship did not develop. But I think it is important to go past first impressions and so I welcomed Mallory's choice for the challenge. The recipes she suggested for the challenge are available here.

I wanted to find a lighter recipe than the one suggested. After some roaming on the web, I landed on a recipe from Epicurious that satisfied my requirements: small quantities, less cream (panna), just a little gelatin (gelatina) and sugar, and matcha. As I recounted in a recent post, I bought some good quality matcha, so using it to make panna cotta sounded perfect.

I made the recipe twice, using the observations made during the first attempt to get a prettier result the second time. The original recipe is on this page and these are the changes I made:

2 tablespoons of vanilla sugar (I then omitted the vanilla extract)
1 1/4 teaspoons matcha
[decreasing the sugar and increasing the matcha are changes suggested by a reviewer]

Sprinkle gelatin over water, making sure the grains absorb water (based on this recommendation by David Lebovitz). Heat the liquid to a fairly high temperature (though below boiling point). I used the traditional bamboo whisk, called chasen (shown in the photo above) to mix well matcha and half and half. I divided the liquid into three portions and instead of pouring it into custard cups, I used my vintage ice cream glasses, so later I didn't need to unmold the panna cotta to serve it. After the panna cotta set, I could see from the outside a bit of the matcha deposited on the bottom of the glasses. However, that did not seem to affect the flavor of the dessert.

To accompany the panna cotta and fulfill the challenge's requirements, I got tempted to make fiorentini closer to the tradition, as shown in this post (in Italian), but then decided to try the given recipe to see how the quick oats (fiocchi d'avena) would taste in this context. I divided the quantities by four, because I wanted a small number of cookies and then halved the sugar to bring the sweetness to an acceptable level. This is the list of ingredients I used:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter (1.5 oz or 40 g)
1/2 cup (120 ml) quick oats
1/4 cup granulated sugar (50 g)
25 g (a scant ounce) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon (30 ml) agave nectar (there is no corn syrup in my pantry — and never will be)
1 tablespoon (30 ml) milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
a mini-pinch of salt
a small quantity of 70% cacao chocolate (cioccolato), chopped finely

I followed the instructions in the given recipe and obtained nine cookies, which I let cool on the baking sheet. When ready, I melted the chocolate and drizzled it on top of the cookies, then let it set.

I decided to call the cookies I made biscottini (literally, small biscotti), because they are approaching the realm of pasticcini. In Italian, the word biscotto has a different meaning from that in the US, as explained in this post. Pasticcini (singular pasticcino) are either small pastries (of which you can see an example in this photo) or rich cookies usually served as an accompaniment to tea (pasticcini da tè, of which you can see an example on this page).

I have since seen recipes for panna cotta that use agar or egg whites instead of gelatin and I am planning to try those next.

A special thank you goes to our host for her choice and her efforts. It was a nice challenge. I hope you will take the time to go around and look at the creative output of my talented fellow Daring Bakers.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

panna cotta al tè verde matcha e biscottini

or launch the panna cotta al tè verde matcha e biscottini audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

Stollen di Natale (dolce tedesco) / Christmas Stollen

December 23, 2010 | Simona

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book… and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

The recipe Penny provided for the challenge can be found on this page.

The second week of December, we visited my father-in-law and his wife in Atlanta. My father-in-law loves challah, so I made a five-braid one the day before we left and brought it with us (the recipe I use is in Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day). Once we got there, I thought: why not making a Stollen for them as a gift?

I made Stollen twice during our visit. The first time, I baked one big wreath, while the second time, I made two smaller ones and I liked the result better. I brought one back to California, so I know that Stollen travels comfortably in a backpack.

While we consumed it (it really keeps quite well and the last piece makes an excellent performance in French toast), I planned to make Stollen for the third time. I had some candied orange peel (scorze d'arancia candite) left over from the first two Stollen-making sessions, but since it was not enough, I got some candied citron (scorze di cedro candite) . I also used up some candied peel I had made some time ago, so, if I plan a bit ahead, I don't really need a supplier.

I followed the recipe provided by Penny, with just a couple of adjustments:

I used 3.5 teaspoons of instant dry yeast added to the other ingredients, instead of active dry yeast
I did not use the 1/4 cup water, because instant dry yeast is handled differently from active dry yeast
however, I added one tablespoon of water to the rum and warmed up the liquid slightly before soaking the raisins (uvetta) in it
I added the soaking liquid together with the raisins to the dough
I held back about 1/4 cup of the flour and used most of it to flour the kneading board while rolling the dough.

The recipe worked out nicely. After the dough had spent a night in the fridge and then a couple of hours at room temperature, I divided it into two equal pieces and rolled each one into a rectangle, whose longest side was just over 16 inches. I rolled it and shaped it into a wreath (ghirlanda) as shown in the recipe, using a tea mug in the hollow center to keep the shape.

After the required proofing time, I baked the two Stollen together (on two baking sheets). At home, I used the convection bake option of my oven (which does the temperature adjustment automatically). After 20 minutes, I turned the baking sheet 180 degrees, as per the recipe, and baked the Stollen for another 15 minutes, at which point I checked their internal temperature and since it was 190 F, I stopped the baking. I slid the Stollen on wire racks (that's the photo above), sprinkled powdered sugar on them twice, and let them cool.

We tasted one at the end of dinner and I packaged the other as a gift (Penny, I am afraid my packaging was not very creative, but I am a notoriously bad packager, plus I knew that the Stollen would have to travel, so practical considerations prevailed over aesthetic ones).

Making Stollen was fun, and I was completely satisfied with the result of my efforts. I liked the delicacy of each flavor and the overall balance of the ensemble. The combination of raisins and candied orange and citron peel reminded me of my favorite Holiday treat, panettone (nostalgic sigh!).

May the Season Bring You Peace and Joy

Buone Feste

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

Stollen di Natale

or launch the Stollen di Natale audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

due crostate / two tarts

November 27, 2010 | Simona

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

Yes, you read correctly: this month I had the honor of hosting the Daring Bakers’ challenge. The required part of the challenge was to make pasta frolla (sweet short crust pastry, or sweet tart dough, made with flour, butter, sugar and eggs) using either of the two recipes provided, and then use that as the base to make a crostata (tart). The recipes for pasta frolla can be found on the Daring Kitchen site. The page includes recipes for three crostate to use as is or as guides. The variations allowed, in fact, pertained the filling for the crostata: that’s where the amazing creativity of the Daring Bakers shone brightly, as you can see by visiting their blogs, where you can get the relevant details.

For the occasion, I made two new crostate. But before I go into the details of my recipes, I’ll share a few thoughts about what it meant to host an edition of Daring Bakers. Before the month appointed for the hosting, I chose the recipe. This was not difficult, since crostata has been a favorite dessert of mine since an early age and its versatility makes it suitable for the challenge.

Preparing the recipe made me a bit anxious, because I knew that it would be used by many people around the world. Never before had I experienced such trepidation. Once the challenge got under way, what happened was magical: an extraordinary array of crostate and crostatine (small-size crostate) came out of the Daring Bakers’ ovens. I went from trepidation to exhilaration. On the Daring Kitchen page dedicated to crostata, you can see images scrolling and get a sense of the array of fillings and decorations. Take the time to visit the Daring Bakers’ blogs and you will be inspired. Such inspiration can result in the production of a nice crostata (or two, or more) for your Holiday table, which will surprise and delight the commensali (guests at the table).

What did I do for this challenge, besides admiring the creativity of my fellow Daring Bakers? I prepared two crostate I had never made before. (See the Daring Kitchen page dedicated to crostata for details on how to prepare pasta frolla and to line a tart pan with it.)

crostata di pere e cioccolato (pear and chocolate crostata)
This was inspired by a recipe in the issue of the magazine Sorrisi in tavola dedicated to dessert for special days: I dolci delle feste. My mother gave it to me years ago and I rediscovered it recently while cleaning a cupboard. I used the pasta frolla version 1, because I wanted extra dough to make cookies. I baked the crust with the sliced pears distributed over it at 350 F until the border was light golden, then let it cool (see Note about baking time below). I used two large Asian pears, which worked well, since they didn’t juice. They also remained crisp after baking, which I liked. For the chocolate ganache:

3.5 oz. (100 g) 70% chocolate
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream (panna da montare)

Break the chocolate into pieces and put it in a small metal bowl, then place the bowl on top of a saucepan with steaming water, taking care that the bowl does not touch the water. Stir until the chocolate is thoroughly melted. Add the cream and stir until combined. Distribute over the cooled crostata, targeting the space between pear slices.

crostata di mele, burro di mele e formaggio Cheshire (apple, apple butter and Cheshire cheese crostata)
This was inspired by the version of apple pie with Cheddar cheese. I used the pasta frolla version 2 (variation with almond meal). This crostata had four layers. Starting from the bottom layer:

1/2 cup homemade, low-sugar apple butter (containing various spices: I don’t remember the details, because when I made the butter, I failed to note them)
thinly sliced Stayman-Winesap apples
1/2 cup freshly grated Cheshire cheese of my own production (aged 4.5 months)
thinly sliced Stayman-Winesap apples

Scanning this page on Chowhound gave me the idea of cutting the apples using my mandoline. I used the setting that gave me the thinnest slices. I assembled the crostata and baked it at 350 F until the border was light golden. Note about baking time: when I bake a crostata at 350 F, I check it after 35 minutes and assess how much longer it needs to remain in the oven, then check frequently until it is done.

Many thanks to Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice and Lisa of La Mia Cucina, founders of Daring Bakers, for their guidance, their patience and their support. This has been a remarkable adventure: grazie di cuore (my heartfelt thanks). And thanks to my fellow Daring Bakers for making me smile over and over again during this past four weeks as they shared images of their creations: you all did a great job.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words and expressions mentioned in the post:

due crostate

or launch the due crostate audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

Project Food Blog, Weekend Herb Blogging and Daring Bakers

September 28, 2010 | Simona

I certainly had a busy weekend, between tasting variations on the theme of salsa created by local schoolchildren (more on this in the future), making macaroni and cheese for the first and second time in my life, preparing three different kinds of soup for a dinner with friends (more on this in the future as well), making a new kind of cheese (no other detail available for sharing at this time), and writing posts for various events.

I also had an extremely busy Monday, and, as a result, I have been away from my blog on a day in which a lot was happening on it. Hence, I decided to write a summary with links to the most recent posts to clarify what is happening when, and to help readers make sense of my recent output.

On Sunday, I published my answer to the second challenge of the Project Food Blog by foodbuzz. Asked to prepare a classic dish not from my own culinary tradition that would push me outside my comfort zone, I turned “never” into “now” and made Baked Macaroni and Cheese using two of my homemade cheeses.

I know that macaroni and cheese strikes a chord with many people, starting with my husband: take a look at what I have made and let your memories bring a smile to your face.

Then, this week I have the pleasure of once again hosting Weekend Herb Blogging, the venerable event started by Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen, and now organized by Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once. We are getting close to the fifth birthday of WHB. You will find the detailed announcement of edition #253 in this post. I have already received the first contribution, and I am looking forward to getting a lot more until the deadline of Sunday, October 3, at 2 pm Pacific.

Finally, on Monday, as it regularly happens on the 27th of each month, the food blogosphere learned what the Daring Bakers had been working on during the previous days: for September it was decorated cookies. My minimalist-style realization of this month’s challenge is in this post.

That’s it for now. You are invited to read, comment, vote, contribute and otherwise enjoy the bread crumbs (briciole) I scattered around the blog world during the past weekend.

frollino

September 27, 2010 | Simona

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of What the Fruitcake?! Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

The recipes Mandy provided for the different elements of the challenge can be found here.

What I made looks different from what you see on the Daring Bakers web site due to our household's dietary needs. Before I move on to describe what I did and why, I'd like to say a few words about icing. The Italian expression that corresponds to the English "the icing on the cake" is la ciliegina sulla torta (literally, the glacé cherry on the cake). To me, this is emblematic of the differences between English and Italian pastry traditions. One day, I will explain my thought in more details: for now, I will concentrate on my frollini.

Print-friendly version of briciole's recipe for frollini

A frollino is a biscotto di pasta frolla, a cookie made with sweet shortcrust pastry (or sweet tart dough). Frollini are popular in Italy, one of the kind of biscotti that Italian eat for breakfast or a snack, as I explained in this post. I usually make pasta frolla to make a crust for a tart and use the leftover dough to make cookies. This time, I made only cookies, and had fun cutting them in various shapes. The recipe for my variation on the pasta frolla theme is in this recent post.

When you are ready to bake the cookies, prepare a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper (carta da forno). You will have enough cookies to make two baking shifts, so take a bit more than half the dough and put the rest back into the fridge. Roll the dough to 4 mm thickness (1/6 inch) and cut as desired. Put the baking sheet with the first batch of cookies into the fridge for 10-15 minutes, while you heat the oven to 350 F.

Put the cookies in the oven. I check the cookies after 15 minutes and then carefully monitor them, as they can easily become overbaked. Cool the cookies on a wire rack. Repeat with the second batch of cookies. If you have two baking sheets, you can cut and chill the second batch of cookies while the first one is in the oven.

The challenge required us to decorate the cookies with the theme of September, "whatever that means to you." September is when my husband and I celebrate the anniversary of the day we met. So, I started by making heart-shaped cookies (biscotti a forma di cuore). I then made turtle-shaped cookie. As I recounted in a previous post, my husband loves turtles, especially the sea turtles (tartarughe marine) that we are fortunate enough to have seen many times in their natural habitat (swimming, eating, or taking a nap). I also made cat-shaped cookies, since my husband is a cat lover and he taught me to love cats (gatti).

I recognize the great qualities icing has for decorating, but iced cookies are not eaten in our household. I therefore decided to use some white chocolate to add a touch of decoration to some of the cookies. I melted a small amount of white chocolate in a small bowl over a pot of steaming water, making sure the bowl did not touch the water, as explained in the book "Chocolate" by Linda Collister (a gift from a friend).

I didn't want to dip the cookies into the chocolate, and my attempts at creating some sort of design by spreading the melted chocolate did not go well. Still, one can interpret the small dot in the middle of the heart-shaped cookie in the photo as a stylized ciliegina sulla torta. I really like my frollini plain. You can eat them as a snack, or dip them into tea or caffelatte. Grab one or two, sit down, relax and concentrate on every bite: it's a celebration of the present moment.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words and expressions mentioned in the post:

frollino

or launch the frollino audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

zuccotto gelato

July 27, 2010 | Simona

layers of delight

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

The recipes Sunita provided for the different elements of the challenge can be found here.

What I made looks different from what you see on the Daring Bakers web site for a couple of reasons: our household’s dietary needs and less than satisfactory results of two preliminary steps which, coupled with the fact that I prepared the dessert two days before the deadline, nudged my creativity in new directions. In the end, I was happy with what I made: a variation filled with gelato of the Italian dessert called zuccotto, hence the title of the post.

For the outermost layer, I made a sponge cake with the following ingredients:

3 eggs, separated
90 g sugar
70 g flour
20 g potato starch flour (fecola di patate)
a pinch of cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until stiff peaks form. Beat egg yolks with sugar until they reach a mousse-like consistency. Sift flours and fold into yolks. Fold egg whites in three batches. Spread on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (the amount of batter I had did not cover the whole sheet: I spread it until I had a rectangular shape of the desired thickness). Bake at 350 F until pale gold and springy to the touch (check after 12 minutes and estimate the amount of time still needed; for me that was another 6 minutes or so). Turn onto a damp kitchen towel sprinkled with sugar and peel away the parchment paper. Delicately roll from the short side. I ended up not making the roll as in the original recipe, but this step was still helpful, since it was then easy to line the glass bowl with pieces of the cake.

For the inner layers I used the following:

strawberry ice cream flavoured with balsamic vinegar (gelato di fragole all’aceto balsamico)
green tea ice cream (gelato al tè verde)
blueberry and buttermilk sherbet (sorbetto al mirtillo e latticello)

I made some adjustments to the original recipe for the strawberry ice cream: half a cup of sugar, one teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, half a cup of whipping cream. The recipe for the green tea ice cream is mine and I will describe it in a separate post. The color reflects that of the matcha (powdered green tea) I used.

Once all the elements were ready, the assembly was fairly easy. A closer look at the inner structure shows the organization of the layers. If you’d have time to plan ahead, you may want to consider this dessert: it really gets your guests’ attention.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

zuccotto gelato

or launch the zuccotto gelato audio file [mp3].

profiterole / pièce montée

May 27, 2010 | Simona

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a pièce montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

Information on pièce montée and recipes for the different elements of the challenge can be found here.

In her introduction to the challenge, Cat explains: “The classic pièce montée is a high pyramid/cone made of profiteroles (cream-filled puff pastries) sometimes dipped in chocolate, bound with caramel, and usually decorated with threads of caramel, sugared almonds, chocolate, flowers, or ribbons.”

According to my dictionary, in Italian, the word profiterole indicates a small bignè alla crema (cream puffs filled with pastry cream) and by extension a dessert made of many small bignè. Profiterole has a special place in my heart: as a child I was fascinated by this elaborate dessert. Though bignè (with various fillings) are common pastries in Italy, the chocolate binding them together to my eyes elevated the composition to a higher sphere. I had not thought about making profiteroles before Cat challenged us to do so, though I had made pâte à choux before, both in the sweet and the savory realm. I wrote about the positive experience in bignè alla crema and gougères al gouda, respectively.

I halved the recipe for pâte à choux provided by Cat and got 20 bignè. I used a small spoon to shape the bignè (my preferred method), then used a finger dipped in hot water to smooth them out, as suggested in the recipe. To fill the bignè, I made a batch of my crema, infusing half of a vanilla bean cut in half lengthwise in the hot milk to flavor it (instead of lemon peel). Once cooled, I piped the crema into the bignè, which turned out nice and hollow inside.

I never had any doubt that I would use only melted dark chocolate (cioccolato), 70% cocoa content, to construct my little pièce montée. From an early age, I have had a problem with hard caramel glaze on bignè, as I don’t like the contrast between the hard caramelized sugar and the lightly crisp bignè shell, which segues immediately into the soft filling. Melted chocolate offers, in my opinion, the perfect binding material: it provides stability by hardening into a layer of the right consistency, so the progression of taking one bite is: 1) crack thin layer of chocolate, 2) break crisp bignè shell, 3) glide into creamy filling. Basically, heaven.

As you can see, my decoration was simple. However, I am proud of my ability to construct a piece that showed some height (four layers) and a solid structure. As support, I used an espresso cup (tazzina da caffè) without handle (due to an accidental fall). The roses come from one of the bushes planted by a previous owner of our house on the side where our bedroom is located.

Back to the lovely dessert. A special thank you goes to our host for her choice and her efforts. It was an interesting and fun challenge. I hope you will take the time to go around and look at the creative output of my talented fellow Daring Bakers.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

profiterole

or launch the profiterole audio file [mp3].

dolce al rabarbaro (cotto al vapore) / rhubarb steamed pudding

April 27, 2010 | Simona

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

Our DB’s host introduced us to two important elements of traditional English pudding: the ingredient, suet (sugna), and the cooking method, steaming (al vapore).

Information on pudding and suet, and various recipes for pudding, both savory and sweet, can be found here.

To start with, I decided to look up the work pudding in my dictionary, and this is what I found:

1 a dessert with a creamy consistency (chocolate pudding, rice pudding).
• chiefly Brit. any dessert.
• chiefly Brit. the dessert course of a meal (what’s for pudding?).
2 a sweet or savory steamed dish made with flour (Yorkshire pudding).
• the intestines of a pig or sheep stuffed with oatmeal, spices, and meat and boiled.

So, pudding has a broad application, as you can see also by scanning the different recipes presented by Esther here. [The Italian word budino corresponds to the first meaning: a dessert with a creamy consistency.]

Back to the DB’s British pudding challenge, what was there for pudding at our house? Follow me and you’ll find out.

I have never used suet or seen it in the stores where I shop. On the other hand, I grew up in a household where rendered pork fat (strutto) had specific uses. Since I had just made strutto for the first time, I decided to use that instead. Lisa of Champaign Taste, my partner in the Novel Food event, recently wrote a post about her experience rendering lard, which worked as the prompt I needed to push me from planning into action. I asked the butcher at our local Co-op to set aside some lard for me, and soon I had about two pounds of it to experiment with. The process went smoothly and at the end, I got a nice jar of strutto.

The purchase of the first rhubarb (rabarbaro) of the season made me look for a recipe for pudding that would allow me to use rhubarb and butter. Among the ones listed by Esther under the heading “Butter based versions of steamed pudding,” I found one that looked perfect: Rhubarb Steamed Pudding.

I decided to substitute only a small quantity of butter with strutto, since I was a bit worried it would impart too strong of a taste (this being my first experience with it). I also made a few adjustments to the recipe, namely:

I bought the rhubarb before finding the recipe, and had 250 g (8 oz.), instead of 350 g.
I added 50 g of sugar to the rhubarb and then 100 g to the batter.
I added a tablespoon of water to the rhubarb before cooking it. That resulted in a bit of juice at the end, which I added to the batter.
I used freshly grated ginger (zenzero) instead of ground ginger.
I used 6 tablespoons of butter (85 g) and a tablespoon of strutto instead of 125 g of butter (approx. 9 tablespoons).
Since I did not have self-rising flour, I weighed 165 g of all-purpose flour and added to it half a teaspoon of salt and 1 and 3/4 teaspoons of baking powder.

I did not have a pudding basin and could not find one at the local kitchen store, so I decided to use a quart-size pyrex measuring cup instead. I had to be a bit creative when it came time to tie a string around the measuring cup to secure the waxed paper (carta oleata) and foil, since the handle got in the way, but I managed, and I also tied a string around the bottom to use as a handle to lower the cup into the steaming pot and then lift it out of it at the end of the cooking time. I used my pressure cooker as pot and placed a round rack in it to avoid direct contact between the measuring cup and the bottom of the pot.

The steaming method of cooking was a bit unnerving, because I could not check the progress without disrupting it, and since I had never steamed a cake before, I did not have references to help me. I patiently waited the required amount of time and then lifted the measuring cup out of the hot water bath (the handle came out very handy). Seeing that the pudding had risen was a pleasant surprise (photo above), as I had prepared myself for some sort of failure. I ran a knife around the pudding to detach it from the container and then turned it over onto a plate. It looked quite nice.

The head of my Quality Assurance department (i.e., my husband) immediately got on the job and tasted a slice. He approved it with a suggestion to further lower the sugar content next time, then ate another slice. We are only at the beginning of rhubarb season, so I will make this again, using the correct amount of rhubarb, a bit less sugar and substituting more of the butter with strutto. Stay tuned for updates.

A special thank you goes to our host for her choice and her efforts. It was an interesting and fun challenge. I hope you will take the time to go around and look at the creative output of my talented fellow Daring Bakers.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

dolce al rabarbaro

or launch the dolce al rabarbaro audio file [mp3].

gelato al biscotto / ice cream sandwich

January 27, 2010 | Simona

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

This challenge was interesting for me for two main reasons. One is that graham wafers (a.k.a. graham crackers) were on my list of to-try recipes. The second is that I had never tried to bake anything gluten-free. The recipes for the Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars are here.

In our household, we cannot eat the Nanaimo Bars as described in the recipe. I interpreted the spirit of the bars to be the idea of layers, one of which includes graham wafers. It was then a short step to think of gelato al biscotto (also called gelato col biscotto), which I loved as a child: gelato enclosed between two wafers (the ice cream flavor being, if I remember correctly, fiordilatte in the original product, called Camillino, which you can see at the end of the comic strip on this page). (Note that what we call biscotti in Italy is not the same thing as what are called biscotti in the US: see this post for details.)

Gelato al biscotto was an example of what we call gelato confezionato, as opposed to gelato di gelateria, the first produced industrially, the second artigianale (artisanal). Much as I liked the artisanal gelato, there was something special about gelato al biscotto: the contrast in flavor and texture between the gelato and the biscotto and also the challenge to eat it so that you didn't drip any ice cream. Another gelato confezionato I liked as a child was the coppa del nonno (grandfather's cup). It is gelato al caffè (coffee ice cream) and I was allowed to have it only rarely, which made it more desirable. Based on this set of memories, I decided to make gelato al biscotto with gelato al caffè. As an aside, I think that ice cream goes well with the theme of the upcoming Winter Olympics.

Instead of sorghum flour, I used teff flour (which is described as being gluten free). I had been meaning to buy some for a while, since injera is on my to-try list. The kind I purchased is of a lovely dark color. 02/02 Update: I realized that I forgot to specify that I used white rice flour, because I could not find sweet rice flour. If later on I find sweet rice flour, I will certainly try it and compare the results.

As a first step into the gluten-free world this was really a perfect recipe. One amazing thing about it is the delicious smell that pervades the kitchen when the wafers are baking. For health reasons, I used half a cup of brown sugar and 1/4 cup of honey. Also, I had only one tablespoon of vanilla extract left, and used it all. With an eye towards my final goal, I cut some of the wafers with my fluted round cookie cutter. I cut the others in rectangles, using my pastry cutter with fluted wheel. At baking time, I hit a bump on the road. The wafers on the top baking sheet burned before the ones on the bottom sheet were cooked, so I had to discard them. I tasted the wafers that baked properly and liked them a lot.

As third layer for the gelato al biscotto, I used chocolate. I melted some extra-dark chocolate (72%) in a small saucepan over very low heat and then distributed it using a pastry brush. Of the different layering schemes I tried, the best one was to layer some chocolate on the bottom side of the graham wafer, the side that ends up touching the ice cream (see photo below). While the chocolate was setting, I took out of the freezer the container with my homemade gelato al caffè. When the gelato al caffè had softened a bit, I made a layer of it on one chocolate-covered graham wafer and then topped it with another (chocolate side down). I smoothed out the ice cream all around with a knife, then returned the gelato al biscotto to the freezer briefly to firm up the ensemble. Unfortunately, none of the photos I took of the final product was good enough to appear on the blog: I only have one image of the gelato al biscotto being assembled.

My idea worked very well, though the aesthetics (always my weak point) could use some improvement. The combination was a success. Next time, I will try with my homemade gelato alla vaniglia.

The graham wafers were excellent, so I made a second batch. I didn't have enough tapioca flour, so I supplemented it with potato flour (fecola di patate). The dough felt a bit wetter than the time before, but I will need to make another batch with tapioca flour to verify my impression. Again, a lovely smell filled the kitchen while the wafers were baking. This time, I baked one sheet at a time and watched the progress very carefully. I set the timer to 12 minutes, then rotated the baking sheet, then set the timer to 4 minutes, then checked every two minutes. This time, all the wafers baked properly.

A special thank you goes to our host for her choice and her efforts. It was an interesting challenge and a valuable learning experience. It was also a nice little walk down memory lane. I hope you will take the time to go around and look at the gorgeous creations of my talented fellow Daring Bakers.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

gelato al biscotto

or launch the gelato al biscotto audio file [mp3].