paradise cake

Sunday morning, beautiful numbness, sweet idea to make a cake "soft and fluffy like clouds" said Ale. Here it is. 

torta paradiso

I got this recipe from a more famous foodblogger than me, http://www.lacilieginasullatorta.it/ : the only variation is about cooking time, I  found it too short. Easy recipe but can easily come out wrong as all simple things. Even in this recipe I have heated the eggs with the sugar to 45 degrees according to the method Montersino, before whipping them. 

Serves: 8/10

Ingredients:

• 300g starch
• 200g icing sugar
• 200g soft butter
• 6 eggs
• 1 sachet baking powder
• 1 pinch of salt

Method.

1. Heat the eggs with sugar over low fire up to 45° always whisking, then pour into an electric blender and mix with a pinch of salt for about 15 minutes till you earn a very frothy cream like this:

2. Add the softened butter and continue mixing with the electric blender. Add by hand the starch sifted with the baking powder stirring gently from bottom to top with a spatula to get a homogeneous mixture. Pour into a greased mold covered with parchment paper and bake in preheated oven at 160° for 20 minutes and 180° for 30 minutes, make toothpick test. Let cool and sprinkle with lots of icing sugar.


 

torta paradiso



rustic chocolate cake

This cake gives satisfaction just looking at it in photos and while you toast hazelnuts in the oven, the smell have traveled a thousand waiting to be impressed by the flavours and fragrances... 

Warning: the method is simple;

the difficulty is not to eat it!

Serve: 8/10 slices

• 180 g shelled and skinned hazelnuts
• 280 g hard chocolate 70% Ecuador
• 20 g flour
• 6 eggs
• 180 g butter at room temperature
• 200 g caster sugar
• icing sugar and whipped cream

How to make:

1. Toast the hazelnuts for 8 minutes at 200 degrees. When cool mash powder in a blender and mix the flour. Break the chocolate into a heatproof bowl and let it melt in a double boiler (bowl should not come into contact with water).

2. Separate the yolks from the whites and then whisk 130 g of sugar with the butter and egg yolks until creamy. 
 

               

3. Whip the whites with the remaining sugar. Stir the melted chocolate mixture to egg yolks with the sugar and then add the flour mixture and hazelnuts, and finally the egg whites stirring gently from bottom to top.              

 4. Pour the batter into a buttered board with opening of 24 cm and bake at 180 degrees for about 60-70 minutes. Let cool slightly, remove the cake from the mold and dust with powdered sugar so much - do not panic if it changes a bit and will crack the crust, is part of its charm. Wanting to eat it covered in whipped cream.

chocolate spongecake

Here is finally the recipe of chocolate sponge cake that gave its name to my blog! It's foolproof.....

• 175 g flour*         
• 50 g unsweetened cocoa powder*
• 225 g sugar
• 6 eggs
• 50 g butter
• 1/2 vanilla bourbon
• 1 untreatened lemon
• salt

*For the classic sponge cake just replace the first two entries with 225 g of flour.

        1.                                                           2.                                                                   

   

1. Heat over a low flame, turning the eggs and sugar with a whisk until you get to max 45 ° (Montersino method) in this way incorporate more air.

2. Transfer them to  blender with the seeds of half vanilla bean  a pinch of salt fitted with the whisk at full speed for 15 min. about getting a surf swells.

               3.                                                       4.

        

                                                                    

3. Stir with a wooden spoon, flour and cocoa forced off a sieve, stirring from bottom to top without removing the compound. Add the lemon zest and melted butter cold.

4. Butter a mold of 20-22 cm, wrap it with parchment paper and bake at 180 degrees for 35/40 min.

5. Let cool and cut into three discs stuffed with cream, ganache, whipped cream as you like. I've filled with the cream of Montersino see tiramisu recipe tiramisu   crema tiramisù

                               5.

 

  

muffins with muscovado sugar (paul.a.young's recipe)

How cold! This morning I went to Villa Ada for my running session, and it was really cold, but I went on because yesterday I cooked the muffins and also tasted them... However I found this recipe in the book of chocolate of Paul.a.Young (great English maitre chocolatier) and my son said after having tasted them "it's for those who love dark chocolate" and the older one "but there's salt in there?" like real gourmets! Yes indeed there is! "But how do you think of, mom?"   Well I learned from Paul.a.young, the typical English fine chocolatier who said: Today is used to add a pinch of sea salt to chocolate, because a small amount of salt balancese the sugar content in it, intensifying the natural flavour of chocolate." That's why! Wouldn't you too like to delight youself in front of his shop window in London, day after day!?!

Serve 12 muffin

• 110 g baking flour
• 65 g unsweetened cocoa powder of the highest quality
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 185 gr. butter
• 225 g brown sugar
• 85 ml cream
• 2 eggs
• for 50 g white chocolate frosting

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

1. Put the flour, salt, cocoa and the softened butter in the mixer at low speed and work until the dogh does not assume the consistency of bread crumbs. Add sugar and mix well.

2. Fill a pitcher with 85ml (something less wold be better) of water add the cream and eggs and blend well, add the liquid to the mixture and work till you earn a soft dough.

3. Use paper cups or baking paper crumpled into the molds and fill with the dough to 3/4. Bake for about 25 minutes. Leave them some minutes.

4. Melt white chocolate in a bowl over simmering water (water should not reach the boiling point), let cool for about 15 minutes. Use a sac-à-poche, drill a hole and decorate as desired.

With this recipe I participate to the contest

of the blog cuisine d'ici et d'ailleurs

corne paste



corn pastes



It's for me now  definitely established that even though I often repeat to me "what are you doing" " with all these sweetes don't you have strange ideas into your head..., what do you want to do, where do you want to get...Despite this I find myself in my room, my favourite place, my kitchen as driven by a force outside me, not even thinking about, I find myself there in front of my jars, recipes making a mess like Edward Scissorhands, zic zac all cuts and scratches and then beautiful things come out. So it often happens to me, and then maybe for my my passion for running I know that the sense is not where to go but enjoy the journay: and by the way this is a real pleasure for me! So it was this morning, despite the fever season, just the kids at school. breakfast, snacks etc...everything out of me, I am suddenly finding myself  in ecstasy among my beloved pots and pans, inspired by a recipe that certainly no could not wait to be done. Corn pastes are a shortbread cookie typical of the area of Cuneo in Piemonte, it was produced industrially but with disappointing results, so much so that it has been written in the Slow Food list to protect the craft product. Here they are....
    

in oven......

For about 40 pastries (cookies)

• 200 g of weak flour
• 200 g yellow corn flour
• 200 g butter
• 200 g honey
• 25 g egg yolks
• 60 g eggs
• 3,75 baking powder
• 1 boubon vanilla bean
• 1 g salt

 Method:
Preheat oven at 170°

Mix softened butter with the honey  using a mixer fitted with beaters or a planet with the leaf. After obtaining a smooth cream add the eggs, egg yolks, mix again and add the vanilla seeds exctracted from pods and salt. Complete with flour and baking powder sifted together. Let rest in refrigerator for 2 hours or 10 minutes in the freezer and then roll it out to obtain a sheet half an inch thick  and cut into discs with the pastry rings.  Bake for about 20 minutes.  


corn pastes



chocolate cupcakes with nuts

On Saturday for dinner I made fast and delicious cakes.

Dolcetti al cioccolato e noci

Ingredients for about 8 / 10 cupcakes:

• 100g of dark chocolate
• 150g of butter
• 3 eggs
• 250 g caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 100g of flour 00
• 100g of walnuts kernels
• Walnuts kernerls to decorate

Method:

1. Break the chocolate and melt together with the butter in a small saucepan in a water bath over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until the mixture is smooth and homogeneous.

2. Remove from heat, let cool and stir in the eggs, caster sugar, icing sugar and vanilla, sifted flour and walnuts chopped in a food processor. Pour the mixture into 8 small molds, even the silicone mold is fine, previously buttered.

3- Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes at 150 degrees. Let the cookies sit for 5 minutes in the oven   before removing them.

4. Put the cupcakes on the plate and sprinkle them with powdered sugar; decorate each with Walnut kernels.

chocolate cheesecake with raspberries

With this recipe I take part in the contest of the blog of Sayuri Dolci dal Mondo!

cheesecake

I had never liked cheese cake because in my mind the cheese was part of the salty things; but when I tasted it for the first time in London years ago (even if its birthplace is New York, but has Greek origins!) I fell in love, its flavour brings me immediately to London in one of those coffee shops, where I feel in the exact center of the world. So in my passion for pastry I've tried it even in more than one version.
Voilà the recipe....

Serves 6

• 250 g biscuits
• 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar
• 100 g butter

For the cream 

• 300 g dark chocolate
• 2 eggs
• 100 g icing sugar
• 1 vanilla bean
• 500 g of ricotta cheese
• salt

To decorate:

• icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons apricot jam
• chocolate chips
• chocolate little decorations
• raspberries

Preheat oven at 180°

1. Prepare the base of the cake with chopped biscuits, sugar and melted butter. Grease a mold in 24 cm diameter (preferably a hinged) pour the mixture pressing well to form a layer 1/2 cm thick.

2. For the filling, melt the chocolate in the microwave or in a water bath over low flame.

3. Shell the eggs and separate the yolks from the whites; beat the first with icing sugar and the seeds of the vanilla bean, until it becomes a creamy white.

4. Add the ricotta cheese, one tablespoon at a time, add the melted chocolate stirring constantly. Whip the whites until stiff with a pinch of salt, pour them gently stirring from bottom to top in the chocolate mixture and pour everything into the mold.

5. Bake the cheese cake for 1 hour, let cool. Unmold in the serving plate, spread a thin layer of jam over the entire cake, decorate the sides and the topping of the cake with chocolate chips, raspberries and mint leaves.