Better late than never, here goes my entry, Bridget… 
Pumpkin! When this month’s theme was announced, I knew I had to make the most popular dessert in Brazil – doce de abóbora com coco.
I had a hard time trying to figure out a name in English for it. Is it a compote? A preserve? Pumpkin in syrup? With some help from my twitter friends, we came to the conclusion it’s a pumpkin/coconut jam or marmalade. Here in Brazil it’s eaten by itself, as a spoon dessert, sometimes served with fresh white cheese, and that’s the way I know it since… forever. If you asked me to get all creative, I think it would be delicious as a cake or cupcake filling, spread on a brioche toast or even as a waffle topping, why not?
Pumpkin and Coconut Jam (adapted from TV Culinária)
- 2 lb/ 1 kg pumpkin or butternut squash, peeled and cut in cubes
- 1 lb/ 500g sugar
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 6 cloves
- 1/2 cup grated coconut
In a large pan, mix pumpkin, sugar, cinnamon sticks and cloves. Cook over medium heat, always stirring, until the pumpkin starts to release juices and moist the sugar. Lower the heat to minimum and let cook, stirring every know and then, until the pumpkin turns into a paste, and a syrup has formed, 35 to 40 minutes. Add the coconut and cook for 10 minutes more. Let cool and keep refrigerated in an airtight container for up to a week.
How curious: when I started this humble blog, I thought it would be a place where my costumers could see some photos of my work. Next, I was writing about my life and thoughts, both in Portuguese and ENGLISH (what was I thinking). Oddly, a few readers started to live comments. Then I replied to the comments, and started a dialog with these people I’ve never met – real friends I miss when I’m not online. Not mentioning the crazy lady who hates me and leaves insulting comments every new post. Gotta love her. Everything very surprising to me.
And then, Twitter came into my life. You must have heard of it by now, right? It’s that place where your name starts with a @ (I’m @thecookieshop there), people follow you, you follow people, and everybody thinks out loud in 140 characters. Sometimes someone pays attention to something you say and reply or repeat to others with the letters RT in front of the sentence. I’m still trying to figure it out, though.
The thing became so popular, real celebrities are thinking out loud there. Ya know, Demi Moore’s family and stuff. What you don’t know is that the anchorman of the most famous newscast program in Brazil is on Twitter, and he asks his followers to choose the tie he’ll wear on TV everyday. Yes: he posts a twitpic of three different ties and the followers choose #1 #2 or #3. Surreal? I think so.
If he can do it, why can’t I? So I asked my followers if they’d like a cake or a cookie recipe for this post, and they chose cookie, so cookie it is. I feel obliged to make one thing clear, though: if you want to follow me, that’s fine, but I have no idea where I’m going, ok?
Dorie Greenspan’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies (adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours
I have this book for a long time, made a bunch of the recipes, but had never tried the choc chip cookies yet. They are really, really delicious, thin, crisp on the edges and chewy in the middle, just perfect in texture. My twist was spice them up a bit with cinnamon instead of vanilla, and almonds substituting the walnuts, which I think worked pretty well, and made the whole thing kind of a chic cookie. These are best eaten the day they are made, and bestest still warm from the oven.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup/ 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp.
- 1 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (or 2 tsp ground cinnamon)
- 12 oz./340g chopped dark chocolate/ chocolate chips
- 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (I used almonds)
Preheat oven to 375° F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a small bowl. With the electric mixer, beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well (1 or 2 minutes) after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture, in three additions, only until smooth. Stir in the chopped chocolate and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 1 minute; carefully remove with a spatula to wire racks to cool completely.
In the dark of night, while everybody else was asleep… in the witch’s secret lab a very ghoulish ritual was taking place… A thousand human eyes were about to be thrown in a boiling cauldron, and an army of black rats was in its way to invade the streets and innocent people’s houses… HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (click for sinister laughter)
All right, all right, I’m not THAT good in horror stories, sorry.
Halloween is around the corner and, although it’s not a tradition here in Brazil, has been celebrated more and more (just because it’s too much fun). Personally, I think the horror theme is great for parties any day, so prepare your horseshoe, garlic heads, iron stakes, knock three times on wood and learn how to make the terrifying…
“Dark” chocolate rats and human eye balls
With a very firm ganache, you can make both rats and eyes. The rats were inspired by the book The Secret Life of Food
Ingredients for the ganache base
- 150g/5.3 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
- 2 tbsp (30ml) heavy cream
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
- pinch of ground ginger (optional)
For the rats
- 1 cup cocoa powder
- silver dragèes (for the eyes)
- pink confetti sprinkles (nose)
- whole almonds (ears)
- brown paper or licorice strings (tail) *UPDATE: Our reader M. Chitwood left a great suggestion on the comments for the tails: candied orange peel, dipped in chocolate. Sounds perfect to me!
For the eye balls
- 350g/ 12.3 oz white chocolate or white candy melts
- green gum paste
- black confetti sprinkles
Make the ganache
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or microwave oven in 30 sec. intervals. Add the cream and spices and whisk well untill smooth. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.
Rats:
Slice the almonds in half. Place the cocoa powder in a bowl.
Using 2 tbsp portions of ganache, roll balls, then form “drop” shapes. Roll in cocoa and repeat with all the ganache.
Press the silver dragèes for eyes, one pink confetti for nose and two almond slices for ears. Place in paper liners and put the tails, or arrange in a box for gift giving. Just don’t forget to make a few holes in the box, so the rats can breath….
Eye balls
Roll out a small portion of green gum paste, as thinly as possible. Cut out circles with a 1-inch cookie cutter or pastry tip.
With the chilled ganache, form two teaspoon portion balls.
Melt and temper the white chocolate, or melt the candy wafers. Dip each ball in the chocolate, place in a large sheet of parchment paper, and then place a gum paste circle in the top of each ball, before the chocolate sets. With a toothpick, drop a small amount of melted chocolate in the center of the gum paste circle and glue the black confetti. Let set and put in paper liners.
Serve in pairs (kidding)
Whatcha looking at?
* No animals or people were hurt in the making of this post
Global financial crisis and all, birthday party at school is a great solution to celebrate low budget – all the best friends are already there, you know the party will be short and there won’t be any adults to feed
I’ve told you my kiddo is this pink girlie patch, so of course her favorite character has to be… Hello Kitty, who else? No complaints, cause I can’t resist the cuteness, either.
Her school asks the parents to bring simple cakes, without fillings or too much frosting. I chose the anthill pink cupcakes, then – the cake is moist and flavorful by itself.
For the Kitty toppers, I baked some sugar cookies (recipe here) and covered with store bought rolled fondant. I “glued” the fondant with a thin layer of corn syrup, brushed on the cookies. Use the same cookie cutter to cut the cookie dough and the fondant. You can cover the cookies with royal icing as well, letting it dry for 12 to 24 hours. If you don’t have a HK cookie cutter, please check this fabulous tutorial here.
I draw the kitten face with food coloring pens, after let the fondant sit for a few hours and cut some little flowers to the “hair”.
The rest of the menu: sfihas, cheese rolls and mini vegetable pastries. For drinks, apple juice.
But the real fun was the favor making. I made round stickers in the Photoshop using this font, and labeled chinese food boxes.
Inside the box:
- a little princess tiara
- mini soap bubble kit
- Hello Kitty Stickers
- a bag of pink mini meringues (homemade, and I made other label to seal the bags)
- a bigger HK cookie
- a little bag of heart chocolate candy
Brigadeiros
I don’t know if you are aware of this essential info, but here in Brazil it’s not a real birthday party without brigadeiros – a chocolate fudgy candy ball, rolled in chocolate jimmies. They are cute and delicious, but very very sweet, so we make them in very small size (maybe one-teaspoon portions).
Ingredients
- 1 can sweetened condensed milk
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder, sifted
- 1 tbsp butter
Mix all ingredients in a nonstick pan. Cook over medium fire, always stirring, until it boils. Reduce to low and cook, still stirring, until the mixture thickens and starts to pull from the sides and bottom of the pan (about 8 to 10 minutes).
Transfer to a bowl and let cool completely.
With your hands lightly greased with butter, form small balls and roll in chocolate jimmies. Arrange the candies in small paper liners. I put one little heart quinn in each brigadeiro, for girlie purposes. 
So weird – It’s been already two years since I brought home that beautiful, tiny baby in my arms, with no clue how my life would be as a mom.
It was like that, in a blink of an eye, that she turned into this funny little girl who loves pink and her ballerina dress, twirling and laughing til falling down.
For her first birthday someone gave her a cake play set, with a pink birthday cake, plastic strawberries and fake candles – it became her favorite toy, and she spent the whole year throwing parties and singing “Happy Birthday” to her dolls.
Of course I could make no other than a pink cake for her second birthday, a replica of her toy. Couldn’t have chosen better: you should have seen her face looking at the cake that came true…
Helena’s Birthday Cake
For the Yellow Cake
- 150g/ 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 eggs separated
- 1 cup cornstarch
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup milk
Preheat oven to 180°C/ 350°. Butter two 20cm/ 9-inch round pans with butter, and dust with flour.
In a large bowl, sift together the cornstarch, flour and baking powder. Set aside.
Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Set aside.
With an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the yolks, one by one, and the vanilla, and beat well after each addition.
Add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk. Finish with the flour. Beat until smooth. Add the egg whites and fold in the batter gently.
Divide the batter between the pans and bake for 35 minutes, or until golden and a toothpick inserted in the cakes comes out clean. Let cool over a wire rack completely to unmold.
Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream (adapted from here)
- 3 egg whites
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 200g/ 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into pieces
- 1 cup strawberry jam, pureéd in a food processor
- pink food coloring (optional)
Place sugar and egg whites in the heat-proof bowl of an electric mixer. Set the bowl over a pan of simmering water, and whisk until sugar has dissolved and egg whites are hot to the touch, about 3 minutes (if you have a candy thermometer, it should mark 71°C/ 160°F).
In a stand mixer, with the whisk attachment, beat on high speed until mixture has cooled completely and formed stiff and glossy peaks, about 10 minutes.
Add the butter, one piece at a time, and beat until incorporated after each addition. Don’t worry if the buttercream appears curdled after all the butter has been added; it will become smooth again with continued beating.
Switch to the paddle attachment, and beat in the jam and the food coloring until smooth. If using buttercream within several hours, cover bowl with plastic wrap, and set aside at room temperature in a cool environment. Or transfer to an airtight container, and store in the refrigerator, up to 3 days. Before using, bring buttercream to room temperature, and beat on the lowest speed with the paddle attachment until smooth, about 5 minutes.
Filling
- 3 cups strawberries
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
- 240ml/ 1 cup very cold heavy cream
Reserve some strawberries for decoration. Cut the rest of the in half and toss in a bowl with 1/2 cup sugar. Let stand for 30-40 minutes to release juices.
Meanwhile, beat the cream with the remaining 2 tbsp sugar until soft peaks form.
Assembling
Level the cakes, cutting off any round tops. In the serving plate, place one of them and brush the strawberry juices. Arrange the sweetened strawberries over the cake, and cover with the whipped cream.
Place the other cake over the cream, frost with the buttercream and decorate with the whole strawberries.
Next post… A very pink birthday/ part 2: Hello Kitty Mission
Time here has been short – and so will be the story today:
My hubby’s all times favorite dessert are in fact two: flan and dulce de leche. He likes flan and dulce de leche so badly, he frequently eats both together – the custard completely drowned in the caramel colored sauce. Tell me about a sweet tooth.
Since I’m all about making people happy, I decided to try a little Dr. Dessert Frankenstein experiment, and put the two things together in one creature – the dulce de leche flan. All I can say to you is: “It’s alive!” - silky, creamy, and the dulce de leche flavor is all there, only in flan form.
Of course Xandoca had to add an extra spoonful of dulce the leche, for “aesthetic purposes”. Ok, if you say so.
What about you: which desserts would you mix together in one “creature”?
Dulce de Leche Flan
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 790g/ 2 1/2 cups dulce de leche
- 1 cup milk
- 6 yolks
- 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
Caramelize a 20cm/ nine-inch round or tube pan:
Cook the sugar in a saucepan until it’s melted and light amber in color. While it’s hot, pour the caramel in the pan and try to distribute it to the bottom and sides with a wooden spoon, before it hardens. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 200°C/ 390° F. Place there a large rimmed baking sheet and fill halfway through with hot water.
In a blender, place all the remaining ingredients and beat on high speed until well blended. Pour the mixture in the prepared pan and cover with foil. Place the pan in the baking sheet and bake for 2 hours, or until it’s slightly firm. If the water dries in the meantime, complete with some more.
Let cool and refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight.
Run a knife through the flan sides to lose it and turn the flan in a plate. You can heat the bottom of the pan in the stove for a few seconds to melt the caramel a bit. Serve cold.
When you have kids, there are things you are not told. Like how to deal with the children vs restaurant situation, for example.
My baby was so adorable when we were dining out, just sitting there, chewing her bread with her teethless little mouth, or sleeping in her stroller. We loved bring her with us to restaurants.
But kids grow fast, and the adorable baby turned into one of the yelling and running toddlers.
Just the other day, we went out to this restaurant, to have lunch, but mostly for the dessert – a delicious almond tart. All set, we ordered our meals, and everything seemed very calm – the kiddo drawing with some crayons, smiling to the waitress… Until, of course, the arrival of the food. Instantly Helena got very, very bored, and started to throw the crayons, the bread when she was out of crayons, and call her friend, the waitress, yelling really really loud over and over: “come here, lady, COME HE-RE LA-DY!!!”
We were absolutely mortified, trying to control the situation somehow, under the looks of the other costumers. Obviously, we didn’t stay for the delicious dessert.
As soon as we left the restaurant, thinking were we did wrong with our kid, she transformed again from the little delinquent into our cute little princess, calm and happy.
Go figure.
Torta Sbrisolona – makes one nine-inch tart
This tart is in fact a very big almond cookie, and the idea is break off pieces with your hands. The torta sbrisolona is a very traditional treat from Mantova, in Italy, and it has a delicious crumbly texture, like a streusel topping. It is commonly served with zabaglione as a dessert.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- pinch of corse salt
- 125g/ 4,5oz blanched almonds, ground
- some whole almonds, for decoration
- 1/2 cup softened butter, cut in pieces
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tsp almond extract or almond liqueur
Preheat the oven to 200°C/ 390°F. Butter a round 20cm/ 9-inch springform pan, or tart pan with a removable bottom.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt and ground almonds. Add butter and yolk, and mix with your fingertips until the flour is all moist, but crumbly, with big and small lumps, like streusel.
Distribute the pastry in the prepared pan, but don’t press. Decorate with the whole almonds and bake for 20 minutes, or until the edges are slightly golden. Low oven temperature to 170°C/ 340°F and bake 10 to 15 minutes more, until dry and golden brown. Place in a wire rack to cool.
These cute yellow cupcakes were made with love, for a really special group of friends I received for a Taco Night. They will also help me talking about something really important.
I could never imagine cancer would be part of my life or someone close to me.
My mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at age 62. She was still working, travelling with her friends, enjoying life. Right after that, my brother and her wife got pregnant, and she was so happy about being a grandma.
We fought – together – for six months, always with hope. Unfortunately, we lost our battle. At the time, I felt lonely a lot, but also got so much love and support from my family, friends and even strangers.
The yellow cupcakes are my contribution to this fabulous event, promoted by fabulous Barbara of winosandfoodies.com. A Taste of Yellow is our food blogger way to raise awareness of cancer issues in the world and support the LiveStrong Day, on October 2nd. If you want to show your love for this cause, cook something yellow and check Barbara’s blog to see how to participate!
Cupcakes Tres Leches (adapted from here) – makes 20
This cupcakes are inspired by the traditional latin dessert Pastel de Tres Leches (three milk cake).
Now, seriously, you HAVE to make them. Because they are SO GOOD.
The cake is a very light and yellow sponge. It has to be a sponge, in order to absorb all the delicious sweet three milk cream, making a super moist dessert. The flavors are mellow, and the whipped cream cloud is just perfect for them.
For the cake and cream
- 6 large eggs. separated
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- pinch of salt
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup (100g) butter, melted and cooled
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
- 1 can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 can evaporated milk (I didn’t have any, so I used 1/4 cup milk)
- 3/4 cup heavy cream
For the whipped cream frosting
- 2 cups heavy cream, very cold
- 1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
- ground cinnamon
1. Preheat oven to 160°-170°C/ 325°F. Line muffin tins with paper liners (the recipe recommends foil liners).
2. In the electric or stand mixer, beat the egg whites with the baking soda and salt, until you get soft peaks. Still beating, add the egg yolks, one by one, then the sugar.
3. Turn off the mixer and add the melted butter, folding with a spatula until incorporated.Add the flour in four additions, folding carefully just until incorporated.
3. Divide the batter evenly between the liners, filling halfway through. Bake for 25 minutes, until golden brown. immediately poke the cakes with a skewer, making several holes.
4. In a bowl, whisk the sweetened condensed milk, the evaporated milk and the cream until smooth. Brush this cream on the top of the cupcakes, repeating until all the cream is used. Let cool and place in the refrigerator, covered, for at least 30 minutes, to absorb the liquids.
5. Make the whipped cream only when it’s time to serve. Beat the cold heavy cream until soft peaks form. Add the confectioners sugar and whisk a little bit to mix well. Distribute dollops of the cream on the tops of the cupcakes and sprinkle cinnamon to taste.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always loved those beautiful cakes decorated with rolled fondant. They can be really masterpieces, with pretty sugar flowers and cute figurines (in the right hands, of course, otherwise they can go straight to Cake Wrecks). The only matter is not everyone like it’s taste, and many times it ends up left in the plate.
An excellent alternative for sugar modelling is marzipan, but unfortunately, it’s impossible to find a quality one in here. As my new motto is “never surrender”, I started my quest for good marzipan recipes.
The winners came from Claudia’s blog, The Missing Flavor, and a basic recipe from an old Cordon Bleu book – a mix between this two made the perfect marzipan, delicious and flexible enough to modeling and cover cakes (the roses covering this cupcake in the vase and the princess cupcakes was made with it).
The hard part is peeling the almonds. Of course you can buy them already peeled, but here they can cost almost twice the original price, so I did it with my very hands. Super roots, man.
Marzipan (makes aprox. 600g)
- 250g. peeled raw almonds
- 2 egg whites
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 cup confectioner’s sugar, plus more for kneading
- almond extract, almond liqueur or orange blossom water, to taste
On a double boiler, mix the egg whites and sugar. Bring to a bain-marie, whisking, until the sugar dissolves and the mixture gets to 71°C/ 160°F. Divide this syrup in two parts and set aside.
In a food processor, pulse the almonds until they turn int a very fine flour. The finer, the smoother your marzipan will be. Stop the machine and add the confectioner’s sugar. Pulse again to mix well.
Turn the machine on again, and add the almond extract and one part of the egg white mixture in a slow stream . Process until the dough comes together into a ball. Transfer the marzipan to a work surface dusted with confectioner’s sugar. Knead a little bit and check if is crumbling or releasing oil – if so, add more egg white syrup and knead until it resembles bread dough. It it’s too soft, sprinkle more confectioner’s sugar. You don’t have to use all the egg white syrup, only if necessary.
The finished marzipan shouldn’t be sticky, dry or hard to work – it feels like play dough. At this point, the more you knead, the more flexible it will be. You can tint it with gel paste food coloring or natural fruit juices in small amounts. Wrapped in plastic, the marzipan keeps for up to one month in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature and knead with confectioner’s sugar to use again.
And it’s time for my favorite blog carnival, the one and only…
This month, the theme was lemon/lime. And you know the old Brazilian saying: if life hands you limes, make some caipirinhas!
Caipirinha is THE Brazil’s official drink, and for those of you who never tasted it, it’s a delicious and refreshing beverage with cachaça, lime juice, lots of ice and sugar. It’s so sweet and cold you will only notice the drunkness when it’s no turning point. Trust me – I know what I’m talking about.
If you want a taste of the drink, without the hangover, try my husband’s recipe for caipirinha truffles. The cachaça is very mild, with the freshness from the lime juice making these perfect for summer days. They are best served cold.
Caipirinha Truffles
- 300g (10 oz) finely chopped white chocolate
- 80 ml heavy cream
- 2 tsp glucose (or light corn syrup)
- 2 tbsp lime juice
- 2 tbsp cachaça
- 14g (1 tbsp) butter, room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- zest from 1 lime
Place the white chocolate in a bowl.
In a small saucepan, bring the cream and glucose just to a boil. Remove from the heat and pour the hot cream mixture over the white chocolate. Whisk until smooth. Let rest for 10 minutes.
Add the lime juice and the cachaça ans mix well to incorporate completely. Add the butter and whisk to combine. Cover with plastic wrap and live in the refrigerator for 48h.
When it’s ready to roll, mix in a bowl the sugar and lime zest. Rub with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and fragrant. Roll 1 teaspoon portions of the chocolate mixture into balls and roll in the lime sugar. Place in small paper cases and keep in the refrigerator or freezer. Serve cold.
