Chocolate Amaretti Torte -- Tuesdays with Dorie

Thank you to Holly of Phe/MOM/enon who picked 15 Minute Magic: Chocolate Amaretti Torte for this week's edition of Tuesdays with Dorie. Even thought I had to make my own Amaretti cookies and this cake took longer than 15 minutes to toss together, it was relatively easy and delicious. Probably one of my favorite chocolate cakes we've made with TWD so far. I skipped the chocolate glaze, we've been on chocolate overload lately, but I did take an idea from Dorie's serving suggestions -- this cake was just perfect with some whipped cream and a cherry on top :)

Here are my amaretti cookies before and after baking, ingredients are ground almonds, almond extract, sugar and egg whites...

Ready to process the cookies and almonds...

Here is the cake out of the oven, I used a 9 inch round pan.

Yummy!

My Kitchen My World -- Guatemala

Our first My Kitchen My World country this month is Guatemala. I did not know much about Guatemalan cuisine before starting to research recipes for this event, so it was a fun challenge to learn some new recipes. Apparently two main staples of the Guatemalan daily diet are black beans and corn tortillas. This morning I started a big pot of Guatemalan Style Black Beans in the electric pressure cooker. Something went wrong with the cooking temperature and soon my yummy garlic and onion scented beans smelled scorched! I quickly figured out that I hadn't added enough water, oops! I checked to see what I could salvage and found charcoal encrusted chunks of black beans stuck to the bottom of the pot, and that was my last package of black beans. Oh-well. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again, right? Right! I did find a package of dried pinto beans in the pantry and decided to use those in place of the black beans but still follow that recipe, and even my very picky husband ended up liking them!

My second Guatemalan dish was Arroz Guatemalteco -- Guatemala Style Rice, which was a delicious yet mild flavored simple rice side. During my "research" on Guatemalan recipes I read that Guatemalan food is very mildly spiced, unlike other Latin cuisines. That was just fine with my family, while I personally enjoy both mild and hot and spicy dishes, the rest of my family prefers mild, and loved this dinner.

My last dish was homemade corn tortillas which were a huge success. I could not believe how much I enjoyed these, I am usually a flour tortilla fan but these were delicious and I can't wait to make them again. My whole family from picky toddler to picky husband really enjoyed this meal so that brought a huge smile to my face. After such a great meal I will be on the lookout for more Guatemalan style recipes and foods for my family. Be sure to check out My Kitchen My World, maybe you'd like to join us for our next culinary destination -- Turkey, which we will be posting about two weeks from today. Thanks for visiting!

Easy Pancakes -- Tyler Florence Fridays

It's Friday, time for Tyler Florence Fridays! This week I decided to whip up Tyler's Pancakes from Tyler's Muffin, Pancake, and Waffle Batter. I wasn't sure how they would turn out, they have a lot of sugar for pancakes but that ended up being just fine and the sugar can easily be decreased. The recipe includes walnuts and bananas which I skipped this time around.

Tyler's Muffin, Pancake or Waffle Batter
(made as pancakes)

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 Tbsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
4 lightly beaten eggs
2 cups whole milk
1 cup (2 sticks) butter , melted, then cooled slightly
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Pancakes:
1 ripe banana , peeled and diced
1/4 cup toasted, chopped walnuts
3 Tbsp. whole milk , if needed

To make pancakes: Fold both the banana and the walnuts into the batter, and thin with little milk if needed.


In a large, nonstick skillet, melt 1 tablespoon of butter over a medium heat. I did these on the nonstick electric griddle so skipped that step. Using a medium ice cream scoop, pour equal amounts of the batter into the pan.

Cook the pancakes until bubbles rise from the middle of each pancake.

Flip and cook for another 2 to 4 minutes. Keep cooked pancakes in a warm oven as you cook off the remaining batter.Makes about 8 to 10 pancakes.


These pancakes were wonderful, and my husband couldn't decide if he liked these or our usual favorite pancake recipe better. I will be making these again for sure, and can't wait to try the batter for muffins and waffles as well. I ended up leaving out the walnuts and bananas and made these as plain pancakes. I'm sure walnuts and bananas are great in these but we have some picky people at our breakfast table. I bet you could toss anything into these pancakes and they'd be great. Sorry for the lack of photos, these pancakes were needed as soon as they came off the griddle for three hungry little ones and a hungry husband :)

Chinese Glass Noodle Salad

Our first Barefoot Bloggers recipe for April is Ina's Chinese Chicken Salad, picked by McKenzie of Kenzie’s Kitchen. To make this vegetarian I swapped out the chicken for some Chinese "glass noodles" also known as cellophane noodles or bean threads. I also played with the veggies in this recipe a little bit, swapping asparagus for green pepper (because the asparagus at the grocery just was not looking good) and adding some mushrooms I had hanging out in the fridge. The dressing for this salad is a yummy combination of peanut butter, apple cider vinegar, honey, soy sauce, toasted sesame seed oil, garlic, ginger, and a couple other ingredients. This recipe is so easy to adapt to taste, and Ina's base ingredients give a great flavor, as usual with Barefoot Contessa recipe!

Here are the glass noodles, you soak them in hot water for 20 minutes, no actual cooking required. They expand a ton and have a neat slightly chewy texture. These are the same noodles you find Korean Jap Chae and also in spring rolls, one of my very favorite treats :)

I slightly sauteed my peppers and mushrooms before tossing with the noodles and dressing.

And there you have it, a nice and noodley simple lunch salad.

Baby Banana Cream Pies -- Tuesdays with Dorie

A big thank you to Amy of Sing for Your Supper who picked Dorie's Banana Cream Pie as our treat of the week for TWD. I would not consider myself one to enjoy banana cream pie but I loved this recipe, it has converted me. I think that's a first for TWD recipes, going into one I didn't think I'd enjoy but ended up really loving it. The first thing that worried me were the eggs, I'm not a fan of egg custards, but went ahead and tried it anyway. I halved the recipe and made 6 baby pies in a jumbo muffin tin (Baker's Secret 6 Cup Texas Muffin Pan) using my own crust recipe. I've tried Dorie's pie crust twice for TWD and while it's fine, it isn't my favorite pie crust and both times it was a little too fussy for me while rolling.

For the filling my only real change was to use skim milk instead of whole milk (from the photo you can also see that I didn't put the brown sugar through a sieve, it was the first scoop from a fresh bag so not really necessary). I love the subtle cinnamon and nutmeg flavors in the filling, giving it a warm creaminess that I wasn't expecting.

I also wasn't too sure how I'd like the bananas in these, I like bananas in just about everything but the last time I was served a slice of banana cream pie it had really brown slippery bananas sliding out as I tried to eat it, not a pretty picture. Good thing these were cute! And you know what, having them as individual pies works so much better if you are not planning to serve the whole pie at once, that was you can cut a fresh banana for the filling and put the topping on freshly for each pie as needed.

We all loved this pie, how could you not? I would never imagine banana cream pie as something I would crave or want to make but I can see making this again for sure. I was thinking these would be great to serve at a summer cook-out, fresh from the fridge, nice and cool and creamy. It's always so fun to find a dish or dessert that you actually like when you thought for a long time you really didn't.

I don't suppose I'll be ordering a slice of banana cream pie at a restaurant, or picking it out of a line up at a family dinner though -- just because I think this must be one of the best banana cream pies out there, and I would be surely disappointed after having this delicious version. Thanks Amy and Dorie, for changing my mind about banana cream pies :)

Honey Beescotti -- Sweet Melissa Sundays

A big thank you to my very sweet blogging friend Michelle at Flourchild who let me know about a brand new baking group -- Sweet Melissa Sundays! Sweet Melissa Sundays was started by Lorelei of Mermaid Sweets, another sweet blogger who wanted to bake through Melissa Murphy's book, The Sweet Melissa Baking Book kind of like Tuesdays with Dorie is baking through Baking From My Home To Yours.

I'm so excited to be a part of Sweet Melissa Sundays from the very first Sunday, and I am really looking forward to seeing some of my favorite TWD blogging buddies on Sunday as well as Tuesday and making lots of new friends baking with this group. There are 100 recipes in this book and this will be a 2 year baking and blogging journey, doesn't that sound like a great time?


Lorelei picked our very first recipe from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book, Honey Beescotti, which we are posting about today! Thank you Lorelei, for starting this wonderful group and picking such a delicious first recipe.


Honey Beescotti features an interesting combination of add-ins in a honey sweetened biscotti, the add-ins include caraway seeds, chopped almonds, vanilla and almond extract, and candied orange peel. Candied orange peel is not something I can find around here, so I checked out some of the links to making your own candied orange peel on the Sweet Melissa Sundays site. If we wanted a small yield using only one orange we could try Giada's recipe on the Food Network site here. Perfect! The oranges we ended up picking up at the store were covered in a 'food grade wax or resin' which made me nervous about using them for the candied peel, but after I took one out and really started scrubbing it I could feel the wax coming off and the regular orange peel underneath, so I felt safe using it.

I had such a fun time in the kitchen making this candied peel, it smelled wonderful, it was really easy, and it was such a fun process to watch. You start out peeling the orange...


then slicing the peel...


boiling it...and I promise I did not place these peels into a sunburst shape, they just morphed into it while boiling!



running it under cold water



boiling again, cold water again


and then simmering for 15 minutes in a sugar water. After that you can shake them in a bowl of sugar



and chop them up for this recipe


and you are all set. I have never been a huge fan of candied citron, but tolerate it in the Christmas pannettone so I figured I'd add it. I really wanted to stick to the exact ingredient list for my first Sweet Melissa Sunday and taste how this somewhat unusual ingredient combination comes together. I ended up loving it in these!



I have to admit the caraway seeds had me a little nervous as well, and two whole teaspoons! Yikes! But I added the full ammount, mainly because I had an unopened bottle of caraway seeds on my spice rack and couldn't really remember why I bought them and figured I might as well start using them up :) They were an interesting addition to these biscotti!



For the baking and shaping, I kind of switched around the directions, on purpose. After I added the chopped almonds (above) and my dough was all mixed up I popped the bowl in the freezer for about 20 minutes, at that time the dough was stiff and easy to shape into logs on my baking mat.


After shaping into logs I did not re-chill, but sent those biscotti logs straight into the oven. I baked the entire 30 minutes and the were perfectly done.


Now I know you are going to laugh at me but I only baked once. You usually bake biscotti twice. Even the name "biscotti" originates from the Latin word biscotum, meaning "twice-baked" or "double-cooked" -- but I like my biscotti a little soft. Yes, I know biscotti are supposed to be hard and crunchy and are perfect to dip into tea or cappuccino BUT I like them crispy on the edges and softer and more cookie like in the middle, and they are still great to dunk in tea. I like softie biscotti...is that so wrong?


After baking and cooling and slicing I let them air dry "marching band style" (à la Dorie) on the cooling rack to crisp up just a little more. These were delicious, I really loved them! Husband was a no go because of the almonds but was impressed with the candied orange peel and said the biscotti made the whole house smell like a coffee shop, ha! My two oldest weren't crazy about them but my littlest one happily munched a couple of these, obviously a fan just like his mommy :)

Portuguese Cornbread -- Tyler Florence Fridays

This week for Tyler Florence Fridays I made Tyler's Portuguese Cornbread -- Broa. I love making yeasted breads and cornbread so was excited to give this recipe a try. I've made a yeasted cornbread before but it was nothing like this one, this was more crusty, dense, sturdy and chewy than I expected. I'm not 100% this came out as it is supposed to, although I checked all the basics, fresh yeast, proper rising temperature, etc. so it's leaving me a little confused.

Portuguese Cornbread -- Broa

2 packages active dry yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 cup warm water
1 1/2 cups stone-ground cornmeal, plus additional for sprinkling
2 teaspoons salt (I only used 1 teaspoon since the FN reviewers said it was too salty)
1 cup boiling water
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
Extra-virgin olive oil, for brushing
1 tablespoon coarse salt

In a small bowl combine the yeast, sugar, and the warm water in a large bowl until the yeast is dissolved and foamy, about 5 to 10 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the cornmeal and salt with the boiling water. Beat vigorously with a wooden spoon to blend. Add the melted butter and mix to incorporate. Now, pour the yeast mixture into the cornmeal mixture, stirring to combine. Gradually add the flour, mixing well after each addition. Add a couple of tablespoons of water if the dough feels dry and doesn't come together easily. Continue to mix until a dough forms into a ball. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead, adding just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking, until smooth and elastic, about 5 to 10 minutes.

Grease a large bowl with oil and transfer the dough to the bowl, brush the top with more oil so it is completely coated. Cover the dough with a kitchen towel and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 11/2 hours.

Turn the dough out onto the floured surface and knead briefly, 3 or 4 times, to punch out the air. Gather the dough into a ball and shape it into a round loaf.

*These photos were taken right at the start of the final rise, the first rise (in the bowl) went normally, doubled in bulk just fine, shaped into round loaf fine, nothing out of the ordinary for yeast bread that I noticed...

Cover the dough with a kitchen towel and let rise again until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. *This is where it started looking kind of funny to me...

This is after the final rise before going into the oven...see how it didn't rise up really but more out? I could actually hear the yeast working if I put my ear near it, kind of like the snap crackle pop from rice crispies!

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. and place a pizza stone (I did not use a pizza stone, this was my only real change) in the oven to heat up.

Put the dough round on the pizza stone and brush the top with oil. Sprinkle the top of the bread with coarse salt. Bake in middle of the oven for 40 to 50 minutes until the bread is golden brown and bottom sounds hollow when tapped. *To recreate the steam effect from authentic Portuguese brick ovens, spray the bread and oven walls with cold water every 10 minutes. Transfer the bread to a wire rack to cool.

Here is the bread after cooling and cutting a little, it had an almost peach hue to the outside of it.

So there you have it, I probably wouldn't have posted about this bread if it was not my TFF dish, I suppose it would be good with a soup or chili but not really the 'slice and have as a snack' kind of bread I was imagining. I'm thinking of giving this a second go, maybe in a loaf pan? I'm not sure. And since I've never had real Broa I really can't rate it. This bread did have a nice flavor though, I'm thinking it will make a great base for some veggie and cheese sandwiches :)