Smitten Kitchen’s Cheese Straws (with a rosemary twist)

Long time, no see…

Things are pretty slow around here, because, unfortunately, I had to be put on a diet.  The sad reality is I found out the hard way I’m not a kid anymore, and there are things like high cholesterol and blood pressure in the world. So uncool.

It’s been tough to stay away from sugar, so I had to give my oven a break. But I missed it, my dear old tiny oven, so when hubs said some friends might stop by, I had the perfect excuse to make a little something.

I had this recipe bookmarked for a long time, and it’s savory, so not that bad, right? And boy, these are DELISH – cheesy, buttery, flavorful. I’m glad the guests liked them too – they disappeared before I could wreck the diet completely.

Cheese Rosemary Straws (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

The original recipe is made with sharp cheddar cheese and pepper, but I used what I had in hand – provolone and rosemary – and it was just as delicious.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup grated cheese (sharp  cheddar, provolone, or any variety you like)
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup plain flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp fresh or dried rosemary (or pepper)
• 1 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 350°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a food processor, combine the cheese, butter, flour, salt and rosemary (or pepper) in five 5-second pulses until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the MILK and process until the dough forms a ball.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into an 8- by 10-inch rectangle. With a pastry wheel or a large knife, cut the dough into strips. Dust the dough with more flour if needed.

Transfer the strips to the baking sheets, leaving at least 1/4-inch between them.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the ends are barely browned. Remove from the oven and set the cookie sheet on a rack to cool.

End of Recess – Blackberry* Ice Pops

My name is Paula and I survived TWO WHOLE MONTHS  of summer school recess with a 2-year-old at home. *applause*

Don’t get me wrong, I loved every second of it and probably gonna cry a river when the school gates close next Monday, but it requires a lot of imagination to entertain these little devils.

We painted real masterpieces with our fingers, crafted precious noodle jewelry, bought a fish now baptized as Hippopotamus, planted a black bean seed that now is getting gigantic and has to be transplanted to a vase, put our bathing suits to play in the shower on a rainy day, watched Snow White, The Lion King and The Little Mermaid a thousand times, baked cookies, draw on the living room wall with a red crayon (well, my participation on this one was only in the cleaning part) and made blackberry ice pops.

Blackberry* Ice Pops (makes 6 small pops)

These are pretty easy to put together, great to make with kids. I don’t have ice pop molds – the shot glasses worked very well and I believe small dixie cups would work too. For you guys on a diet, the sugar can be substituted by artificial sweeteners, to the taste.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups frozen blackberries (or any other berry)
• 1/3 cup sugar (or to the taste)
• 1/3 cup hot water
• 6 shot glasses
• 6 pop sticks

Place the fruit and sugar in a food processor or a blender. Add hot water and beat for several minutes, until the mixture turns into a purée. Pass through a sieve, pressing well, and discard seeds.

Transfer the mixture to the glasses and place the pop sticks. Freeze for at least 4 hours.

To release the ice pops, dip the glasses in warm water for a few seconds.

* There was a discussion on twitter if these are blackberries or mulberries, and I couldn’t find a reliable source of information to identify them. Here in Brazil they are all called amoras. Feel free to correct me anytime!

Orange Thumbprints

I swear I’ve tried for a few days to come up with an amusing little story for this post, but the apartment right above mine is being renovated. They are making a new bathroom. Right this moment, they are banging and breaking the walls. Since 8AM.

I thing I might bring some of these orange cookies to the workers, and see if they can, for the love of Martha, make a gentler use of their hammers.

Speaking of Martha, this recipe came from the Martha Stewart Holiday Sweets magazine, which landed in Brazil only because my friend Caroline Adobo was super sweet to send me an issue. Thanks for helping a friend in need, Caroline! A little something is going your way and should arrive soon in California!

I really liked the recipes in the magazine, and these pretty little treats are a very good sample of them – a tender, buttery cookie with a creamy orange filling, not very sweet, perfect with a cup of coffee.

Orange Thumbprints (slightly adapted from Martha Stewart’s Holiday Sweets magazine/December 2009) – makes 60

For the dough

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large egg yolks, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (used almond extract)
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt

For the filling

• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest, plus 1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
• 1/8 teaspoon coarse salt

Make the dough: Cream butter and granulated sugar with a mixer until pale and fluffy. Add yolks and vanilla, and beat for 1 minute. Reduce speed to low, and beat in flour and salt until combined. Cover, and refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour (or up to 1 day)

Make the filling: Preheat oven to 325 °F/ 180°C. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk granulated sugar, flour, and eggs in a medium bowl. Stir in lime zest and juice and salt.

Roll balls using 2 teaspoons dough for each. Place 1 inch apart on baking sheets. With the handle of a wooden spoon, press gently in the center of each ball to create an indentation. Bake for 10 minutes. If indentations lose definition, press centers again. Spoon filling into centers. Bake until cookies are light brown around edges, about 10 minutes. Let cool on wire racks.

Cookies will keep, covered, for up to 2 days. Just before serving, dust with confectioners’ sugar.

New Year’s Rituals – Tecolameco

On New Year’s Eve, we Brazilians have tons of “mandingas”, or little good luck rituals you have to do at midnight SHARP.

If you are at the beach, you should jump over seven ocean waves. If you are indoors, you should eat 12 grapes, and make a wish for each of them, or eat seven pomegranate berries, and keep the seeds in your wallet for the year. Then, you must eat a fullspoon of lentil, for money, and you can NEVER eat animals like chicken, or turkey, cause they scratch the soil backwards (bad luck) – fish is much better, because, you know, they swim straight ahead always.

And you MUST wear brand new underwear, and choose the color accordingly – white for peace, red for love, yellow for money, and the other colors have meanings too, but I can’t recall of them all – my bad.

In that spirit, I decided to make a very rich and delicious dessert for our New Year’s Eve dinner, because I really wanna have a rich and delicious 2010. Besides that, this recipe was a precious gift, left on the comments of this very blog, by Laura, a reader from Portugal. According to her, it’s a “family jewel”, a very typical dessert from her region, made for very special occasions.

Couldn’t have decided better – the dessert is scrumptuous, creamy, almondy and so beautiful.

Tecolameco – makes one 20cm round cake (please check the link for measurement conversions at the right side bar)

“The recipe I send you is a family jewel, very Portuguese, with all accurate measurements (aunt Laura is very meticulous about that). Tecolameco is a very traditional sweet my family makes for weddings, christenings and special occasions.

From Portugal, my friendly regards,

Laura.”

Ingredients:

• 500g sugar
• 250g almonds (peeled and finely ground on a food processor, or you can use almond flour)
• 25g butter
• 10g lard or margarine (I used butter)
• 10 egg yolks
• 2 whole eggs
• 300ml water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• ground cinnamon to taste

Preheat oven to 30°F/ 170°C. Butter a 20cm/ 9-inch round pan, cover the bottom with parchment paper and butter the paper.

In a saucepan, bring the sugar, water and cinnamon stick to a boil. Let cook until a candy thermometer marks 107°C/ 224°F. Remove the cinnamon and add the almonds, and cook until the mixture has thickened (about 5 to 8 minutes). Remove from heat and let it cool a little, about 10 minutes.

Add yolks and whole eggs, and a pinch of cinnamon, and mix well until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan, and bake for 40 minutes, or until golden and a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean.

Invert on a serving plate and cover with icing sugar . Decorate with a flower. Serve at room temperature.

Note: For these photos, I cut rounds of the cake with a cookie cutter for individual portions.

Happy New Year!- small batch chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate buttercream

To the readers, friends, bloggers, tweeps, to those who left comments, to the ones just browsing, to you who made a recipe that worked, to you who made a recipe that didn’t work, to you coming back and to the first timers – I wish you the best year of your lives, full of love, peace, fun, joy, sweetness and health.

See you in 2010.

XO

Paula

Last Minute Small Batch Chocolate Cupcakes with White Chocolate Buttercream (adapted from here) – makes 4 cupcakes

• 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 3 tbsp buttermilk (I use yogurt)
• yolk of 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled (I use vegetable oil)
• 2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/8 t baking soda
• 1/8 t salt
• 1/3 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 180°C/ 350°F. Line 4 cups of a muffin tin with cupcake liners.

In a bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda and sugar. In another bowl, mix well the yolk, the oil and the yogurt.

Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients and fold until incorporated. Distribute the batter between the cups and bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

White Chocolate Buttercream for small batch cupcakes (please check the conversion calculator for measurements on the right side bar)

• 1 large egg white
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 75g butter, cut in cubes/ room temperature
• 50g melted white chocolate

In a heatproof bowl of an electric mixer set over simmering water, combine egg whites and sugar. Cook, whisking constantly, until sugar has dissolved and mixture is warm to the touch (160°F/ 71°C).
Beat the egg white mixture in the electric mixer on high-speed until it holds stiff  peaks and the mixture is fluffy and cooled.
Switch to the paddle attachment. On medium-low speed, add butter several tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition. If the buttercream looks curdles or separates, beat on high-speed for several minutes and it should come together. Stir in white chocolate with a rubber spatula until frosting is smooth. It can be used immediately or you can keep it for until 2 days in the refrigerator, or frozen for 2 months – just bring to room temperature and stir before using.

And my Secret Santa is… – Blondies with cachaça and Brazil nuts

A few posts ago, I’ve mentioned the Secret Santa I was playing along, with virtual friends that became real. The general idea was that the presents should be mostly handmade, and it must contain one thing to eat, one craft of choice and a recipe to be blogged later.

To my dear friend Adriana Oliveira I’ve sent lots of cookies, a hand painted (by my daughter) dishcloth and Hello Kitty cookie cutters. She posted some photos at her twitpic.

Tatu, from the lovely Mixirica blog, was my Secret Santa, and was super sweet to come to my house in person to bring her present to me.

Inside the pretty ladybug box, a bear family and farm animals cookie cutter sets, a cookie note pad (strawberry scented!), her cookbook (yes, she is a great cookbook author!) and the best muffins I’ve ever eaten – thanks, Tatu, I really loved  your gifts!!!

Tatu’s book is very interesting, the recipes are inventive and original – a cross between traditional northeastern cooking and very familiar dishes that could be in everybody’s table, anywhere in the world. I chose this one because I’ve never had baked with white chocolate and the idea of  adding cachaça to a cake sounded very appealing to me. If you don’t have cachaça at hand, you can skip the booze or substitute vodka or rum instead.

These blondies are moist, fudgy and nutty, just the way I like it.

Branquinho de Branquinha (blondies with cachaça) – from the book A Peleja do Alecrim com o Coentro e outros Causos Culinários: Receitas e Cordel, by Tatiana Damberg – makes 16 pieces (for measurement conversions, please take a look at the conversion calculator at right side bar)

• 200g white chocolate, chopped
• 100g butter
• 320g sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 tbsp cachaça (or vodka, or rum, or whatever booze you like)
• 140g flour
• 1/2 peanuts (I used Brazil nuts, chopped)

Preheat oven to 350°F/ 180°C. Butter a 9-inch pan and dust with flour.

Melt the butter and white chocolate together, using a double-boiler or microwave oven. Mix the chocolate mixture with the sugar. Add the eggs and the cachaça and whisk until smooth.

Add flour and fold until incorporated, then the peanuts. Pour the batter into prepared pan, and bake for 35 minutes or until golden and a toothpick comes out with moist crumbles. Let cool in the pan over a wire rack and cut in squares.

What’s your favorite thing about Christmas? – Tiny Cherry Almond Cakes

What’s you favorite thing about Christmas? Family together? The presents? Cookies? Turducken? For me the answer would have to be … the cherries!

Yes, here in South America, December is cherry season and since I was a little girl I’ve waited anxiously for the December cherries. They are not cheap, so my mother used to buy only a bag or to, just for Christmas dinner.

I know it sounds silly, but the first time I travelled to Europe it was Summer, and I think I’ve eaten cherries every single day, for a whole month.

For me, this is the perfect Christmas dessert – a little almond cake with a whole cherry inside. For you people in Cherryland, wait for cherry season and please make these, they are delicious and so chic.

Tiny Cherry and Almond Cakes (slightly adapted from Martha Stewart’s website) – Makes 30

• 1 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, plus more for muffin tin
• 1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for tin
• 1 1/4 cups finely ground unblanched almonds
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 5 large egg whites
• 4 teaspoons kirsch (I use cranberry vodka)
• 30 sweet (Bing) cherries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees/ 180°C. Brush 30 cups of 2 mini-muffin tins with butter, and dust lightly with flour.
Melt butter in a medium skillet over medium-high heat. When it begins to sputter, reduce heat to medium. Cook, swirling skillet occasionally, until butter has lightly browned. Skim foam from top, and remove skillet from heat.
Whisk together flour, ground almonds, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Add egg whites, and whisk until smooth. Stir in kirsch or vodka. Pour in butter, leaving any dark-brown sediment in skillet, and whisk to combine. Let stand for 20 minutes.
Pour 1 tablespoon batter into each buttered muffin cup, filling about halfway. Push a cherry into each, keeping stem end up.  Bake until a toothpick comes out clean and cakes are golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes. Run a knife around edges to loosen, and unmold. Cakes can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature overnight.

A Gift from the Kitchen – Chocolate Fudge Sandwich Cookies

Holiday season used to be a pain for me. If the traffic jams and shopping madness weren’t enough, there are this events you can’t run away from, like the infamous OFFICE PARTY: too much to drink, to little to eat, and the consequent embarrassments that follows…

Not mentioning the secret santa, this fun game were you always lose, giving something great just to receive something, well, like a blouse too small for you, or a CD of some singer you don’t even like.

This year, however, everything is different: since my office has only one employee (me) there’s no office party, I’ve met all these great new people online and on Twitter (like Caroline from when adobo met feijoada, who was kind enough to send me a Martha Stewart Sweets magazine – any time now, Caroline!), and my secret santa was with food bloggers and crafters from all around the web.

I’ve made this sandwich cookies for my secret santa, who should receive his or her package tomorrow. I hope you like it, dear friend!

Chocolate Fudge Sandwich Cookies  (makes 40 ) – adapted from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook

This is another version of the now renowned homemade Oreos. I’ll share with you the chocolate fudge filling recipe, but you could fill the cookies with whatever strikes your fancy, like I did with some store-bought peanut butter and a dot of jam. Could be a dollop of Nutella, or dulce de leche, YUM…

For the Cookies

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cup sugar, plus more for flattening the cookies
• 10 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 large egg, room temperature

For the filling

• 1 cup dark chocolate, chopped
• 1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter

Make the cookies

Preheat oven to 375° F. Into a bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In the bowl of the electric mixer, cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat to combine. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture and beat until combined.

The recipe here asks to form balls with a 1 1/4-inch ice cream scoop, with I thought too much. I formed two teaspoon balls and flattened them onto parchment lined baking sheets, with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar.

Bake the cookies for 10 minutes or until they are firm. Let cool in the baking sheets over a wire rack.

Make the Filling

Melt chocolate in the microwave oven, in 30 second intervals, or over a double-boiler. Once it’s smooth, add butter and condensed milk, stirring to combine. Let cool.

Place the cream in a pastry bag fitted with a coupler (I used a ziploc bag) and pipe about 1 teaspoon of cream in the flat side of half of the cookies. Place remaining cookies on top, and press gently. Filled cookies can be stored in airtight containers for 2 days.

Ho Ho Ho – It’s Gingerbread Time!

I know I’m silly, but I spend the whole year looking at my Christmas cookie cutters: the gingerbread man, the reindeer, the tree, the snow flakes… well, all Santa’s GANG. And I sigh, thinking how much time there’s gonna be till I’ll get to use them again. When november comes, I just can’t help myself, and go straight to the kitchen to make gingerbread.

 

(soundtrack to get in the mood)

This is my Christmas tradition, so this is a perfect entry for the Flavor of the Month theme, which is… Traditions!

Every year I make gingerbread people for my friends, and a little gingerbread house I give to a special kid in my life I think is going to like it. It’s a little time-consuming, but a lot of fun to watch the reactions. I’ve had smiles of  joy,  jumps of excitement, and even an instant demolition from someone in a hurry to have a taste of the roof.

Honey Gingerbread Cookies (makes one small house or 25 six-inch cookies) – adapted from here

• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup (1 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 large eggs
• 1/4 cups unsulfured molasses
• 1/2 cup honey

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt. Set aside.

In the electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well, about one minute. Add molasses and honey and mix on low-speed, just to combine.

Add flour mixture and mix until all the flour is incorporated. Divide the batter in two and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 180°C/ 350°F. On a floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4 inch thick, and cut out using cookie cutters or a template for gingerbread house (this one from Martha Stewart is very pretty). Transfer the cookies to a parchment-lined baking sheet, and freeze for 15 minutes.

Bake until firm but not darkened (the time will depend on the cookie sizes). Transfer to a wire rack to cool before decorating.

For a really good royal icing recipe and step-by-step, check Bridget’s website, Bake at 350°, then you can see the other Flavor of the Month entries too.

 

The day I was featured on a magazine – Guava Roll Cake (Bolo de Rolo)

Yes, people, I was featured on a very important food/wine Brazilian magazine! It all happened because the columnist Marcelo Katsuki couldn’t find any Oreos around to buy, and they happen to be his favorite cookies… Of course I felt sorry for him (of all people, I can’t imagine living without my favorite cookies), so I sent him a tin of homemade Oreos. He must have liked them, because next I know here I am in the november issue of magazine Prazeres da Mesa:

The thing is, after the magazine was shown to everybody I know, including the news stand guy and the doorman in my building, I read the magazine cover to cover, and it is a GREAT issue.  The photos are fantastic, several great recipes and even an interview with Heston Blumenthal (see, Heston? We are magazine mates!).

But the story that really caught my attention was a beautifully written article about traditional northeastern (Pernambuco) Brazilian cakes. These cakes and sweets are so special they were even matter of  important sociological studies. There’s this one recipe, though, that is my all time favorite: the guava roll cake.

If you’ve never heard of it, let me try to explain: 13 layers of very thin buttery batter, baked very quickly, rolled with a Port wine and guava jam filling, served in very thin slices. For me, it’s one of the most delicate and gorgeous Brazilian sweets, and SO delicious you would become addicted to it.

It’s not an easy cake to put together, the one pictured here was my third attempt, and it’s not perfect. But I’m very happy with the results  because it had a taste of victory for me.

Guava Roll Cake/ Bolo de Rolo (adapted from Prazeres da Mesa magazine, November/2009)

Observations from someone who spent twi entire afternoons throwing fails away:

• The trickiest part of this is releasing the delicate layers from the baking sheets.
• Although the original recipe asks for a large baking sheet to bake the cake layers, I found it easier to deal with smaller pans, so I ended up with two smaller cakes (one of them filled with dulce de leche).
• As my friend Renato says, it’s crafty but not impossible to make this recipe. Just choose a day you are up for a challenge.
• If everything goes wrong, and you decide to throw the (kitchen) towel, just make little mounds (a teaspoon or two)  of the batter on a baking sheet, well spaced,  and bake for 8 to 10 minutes – you gonna have delicious cookies (you can fill them with guava jam…)
• It’s in Portuguese, but the blog Rainhas do Lar, has a great tutorial with pictures that might be useful.
• If you can’t find guava jam, you can substitute with any other jam, strained or processed.

Ingredients (for one 1,5 kg cake) – for measurement conversion, please check the calculator at the right side bar

For the guava filling

• 2 cups guava jam, or 1 tin of goiabada
• 3 tbsps Port wine

For the batter

• 250 g sugar
• 250 g butter
• 4 eggs
• 250 g all-purpose flour

Make the filling

In a bowl, mix the jam and the wine until smooth. If using goiabada, cut in little cubes and cook in a small pan with 1/4 cup water until it melts and gets liquid. Add the wine, stir and let cool before using.

Batter

Grease a large rimmed baking sheet with butter or cooking spray and line with parchment paper. Grease or spray the paper again.

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F.

Place a clean kitchen cloth in a work surface and sprinkle generously with sugar. Reserve.

In the electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until fluffy and light. Add one egg at a time, beating well after each addition, about one minute. Add the flour and beat only until smooth.

With an offset spatula, spread a very thin layer of batter on the baking sheet. Make it the thinnest you can, but be careful it’s so thin you can see the bottom of the baking sheet.

This is a tricky part: bake for 3 to 5 minutes only. You want a baked but not golden or dry cake layer, otherwise it will not be flexible enough to roll without breaking.

After many lost layers, I found that its easier to release the layer if you let it rest for a minute or two in the pan. Turn the pan on the prepared cloth and peel the parchment carefully. Spread a very thin layer of guava filling and using the cloth, roll the cake.

Now… you do that  all over again! Place a new parchment on the baking sheet, spread the batter, bake and unmold.

After spreading the filling, put the already rolled cake over the new layer and roll again. Repeat this process until you finish the batter.

Wrap finished cake in parchment paper, close the ends like a candy and let it rest in the refrigerator for one day.  Trim the ends and serve at room temperature in thin slices.