Torta di fragole e rabarbaro

Pies have never been my favorite dessert, mainly because I never really liked the crust. In fact, I know quite a few Americans who eat the filling and not the crust.. which of course, makes you wonder why they don't just bake the filling in a pan (and yes, I know somebody wisely does that :) ). However, Matt thought that the reason I never liked pie crusts is that I never had a really good one. Traditionally, pies crusts are made with lard, and the flavor that is given by lard is impossible to imitate with butter or shortening. So, we had the perfect reason to try making a good lard-crust pie: prepare a strawberry-rhubarb pie using the freshest ingredients in season, and use the recipe for the Fresh Produce of the Month event centered on rhubarb.

Recently we experimented a few times with lard, mostly to fry our homemade tacos in it. When I told people I had a few things cooked with lard, I got two possible reactions: disgust, or appreciation and nostalgic memories from childhood. My mom's reaction was the latter, and she told me about these fantastic 'bugie' that her grandma used to make for Carnival, by frying the dough in lard instead of oil, and how much more airy and fluffy they were compared to anything you can find nowadays. So, this will be the subject of another post, when I will try to repeat the bugie that I made some years ago, using lard instead of oil for frying.

Here comes the moment for the recipe of..

La vera torta di fragole e rabarbaro/ The real strawberry-rhubarb pie
As you can easily imagine, the most important part to get right for this authentic pie is the crust. To make this small cuty pie, you have to use 1 cup flour and 1/3 cup of lard, no less than that! The secret is in cutting the lard into the flour: use two knives and literally cut the lard while mixing it into the flour. Add also a pinch of salt. Once it's all in, add ~1 tbsp water, just enough to make it stick together: the smaller the better. Also, work the dough with your hands as little as possible, just to make a ball with the dough in the end. Divide the dough in two parts, one a little larger than the other, and roll down in two thin disks. The larger disk will be the base of the pie. Place that in your pan. Add the filling, prepared by simply cutting 2 stalks of rhubarb, 8 large strawberries, and letting them sit in a bowl with a little bit of lemon juice and sugar to taste.
Cover with the second disk of dough, and punch holes through it. A "Pi" decoration is optional, but particularly fashionable. :) Bake at 450F for ~45 minutes. Let it cool down before cutting the slices.. And enjoy!
The lard does give a different taste to the dough. It took me two slices before I got used to it, but once you have trained your taste buds not to expect the flavor of butter, it's very addictive :)

If you still haven't done so, please send me your recipes centered on rhubarb for this month's Fresh Produce of The Month event! The deadline is May 29th.

Torta di fragole e mandorle

For the first time in a while, I'll be able to participate to a blog event that's not the one that I started myself (which I would feel too bad not to take part to :) ). This is an indication of the fact that I still don't feel too pressed to start looking for funding for my new position at McGill, even though I've been told by a few people that I should start spending all my waking time doing that. So, since I'm sure shortly I'll be completely overwhelmed again, I want to take advantage of this blessed period and do something not completely work-related all weekends!

Therefore, my dear readers, here is my entry for Meeta's Monthly Mingle event, this month centered on spring cakes.
I made this cake specifically thinking about her, who requested a spongy, fruity cake for this month. And, I love both strawberries and almond, so.. here it is:

Torta di fragole e mandorle / Strawberry-almond cake
The recipe for this cake is almost entirely the same as you can find on the beautiful blog 'Fior di zucca'. This blog is mostly in Italian, but Fior translated almost all the recipes also in English. It's beautiful, and I invite everybody to check it out. The main difference between my version and Fior's is that she uses also cinnamon, whereas I didn't (I'm not too much of a fan of it), and hers is sweeter than mine (this was due to the fact that I completely ran out of sugar when I made the cake :) -- however, I thought the cake turned out really fine as for sweetness).

So, to make my slight modified version of the cake, grind 1 cup of almonds, and add to it 1 cup of flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 2/3 cup butter, 1/2 cup sugar, and 2 eggs. Mix all in a food processor. Spread half of the mixture on an 8" baking pan. Don't worry if the mixture is very dense and quite hard to spread. It will work well. Wash and cut in halves or quarts ~1 lb strawberries, and place on top of the batter in the pan. Then cover with the rest of the batter, trying not to leave uncovered strawberries. Bake for ~40 minutes at 350 F, until golden, and let cool down. Decorate with powdered sugar and strawberries.
This cake is very nice. Don't overcook it (40 minutes are enough, imo), so that it stays moist. This is the perfect season for strawberries, so if you want a strawberry cake that's a bit unusual, with almonds and a nice layering, try this one!

Torta di pere

Hrm - I'm late on my own event, as usual. :(
Well, sorry everybody, and this also means that whoever still wants to publish a recipe focused on pears, they can still submit their entry for this month 'Fresh Produce of the Month' event! I think I'll have time to put together the roundup this coming weekend.
So, here is my own entry: it's a pear cake that I made for the first time a few years ago, with a recipe given by my aunt Mariarosa. It's a very healthy cake, that contains no butter at all. I love it, and it's perfect for this season! The recipe was sent electronically to me by my mom, whom I thank very much. I'll copy down here her version, which accounts for an Italian translation. However, if you can read Italian, you'll realize what really this recipe is: just a theme over which one can improvise.. the oven temperature is not told, nor is the baking time.. and considering I don't have a scale, the weight of the pears I used was not controlled either. The English version that I'm writing down is more precise - however, don't be too worried. It works most likely with many other combinations. :) For example, I actually used nutmeg instead of cinnamon powder. I liked the substitution, although my mom thought it was a crazy idea, when I told her. :)

As a final note: I served this cake with a scoop of ice cream. The first night it was vanilla ice cream. The second night there were two slices left. My friend Anders and I made a rum and raisin ice cream which was just amazingly good with this cake. :) - I'll give the ice cream recipe in another post.

Torta di pere di zia Mariarosa / Aunt Mariarosa's pear cake

Ingredients
1+1/4 cup of flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 pounds pears (long and hard)
1 egg + 1 yolk
2 tsp baking powder
grated zest of half a lemon
2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp salt

Procedure:
Beat 1/2 cup sugar with the eggs. Add lemon zest, milk, and slowly, the flour previously mixed with baking powder and salt. Pour the dough in a baking pan.
On top, add the pears, cut in thin long slices. Don't worry: it will look like you have a humongous amount of pears on top. That's how it's supposed to be. On top, add the rest of the sugar mixed with cinnamon powder. Bake at 350C for ~45 min.



Versione Italiana:
---------------------
150 gr farina
200g zucchero
mezzo bicchiere di latte
1 kg pere (lunghe e dure, tipo Kaiser)
1 uovo intero + 1 tuorlo
1 bustina lievito
buccia grattugiata di mezzo limone
2 cucchiaini di cannella in polvere
1 pizzico di sale

Sbattere 100 gr di zucchero con uova e buccia di limone, aggingere il latte e poi unire poco per volta la farina mescolata con il lievito e il sale .
Stendere la pasta in una teglia (meglio se rettangolare), disporre sopra le pere (meglio se non sbucciate e tagliate a fettine verticali): cospargere il tutto con 100 gr di zucchero mescolato con la cannella.
Infornare a fuoco moderato (non so per quanto, vedi tu). **Direi circa 180C, per circa 45 min** (commento dell'editrice :) )
-------------------------------

Budino con carote e anice stellato

Before I continue my story about Germany, I have to write a post about a pudding that I made two days ago. I prepared it on purpose thinking I wanted to make something with a lot of milk, and healthy in general, for the 'Beautiful Bones' event hosted by Foodblogga this month. However, we got to eat this dessert only last night, and so I couldn't post the recipe with pictures on time for the deadline of the event. The roundup is already up! Oh well. I'll ask if this can be a super late entry, but in any case, please go check the roundup out, because it's wonderful!


Budino con carote e anice stellato / Carrot and star anise pudding
I invented this recipe, based on a traditional pudding recipe from Piemonte. The original version is Bunet, which I already posted about here, and has chocolate, coffee and amaretti cookies. But I wanted to have a completely different and fresher and healthier taste, so I substituted the cookies for grated carrots, and I boiled star anise in the milk for a while to give its taste to the pudding. I didn't use chocolate or coffee. The result was really delicious, I was very happy.
Ingredients:
4 eggs
3 small carrots
1/2 liter milk
4 tbsps brown sugar
4 tbsp white sugar
5 star anise pods
1 tsp vodka or rum or whatever liquor you like

Boil the star anise pods in the milk. In the meanwhile, grate the carrots (I used a food processor), and then add them to the milk. Add 4 tbsp brown sugar to the milk and carrots, and keep cooking for ~30 min. After this, remove the anise pods and let the milk and carrots cool down. In the meanwhile, separate the yolks from the whites. Beat the yolks and 2 tbsp white sugar, then add the liquor, and the cold milk and carrot mixture. Beat the eggwhites until firm (add a tiny amount of salt to help this). Gently fold the eggwhites in the rest of the liquid mixture.
Caramelize 2 tbsp of white sugar on the bottom of a baking pan (shaped as those used for bread loaves). Pour the mixture on top of the caramelized sugar in the pan, and place in a larger pan filled with hot water (at a level such that it arrives at about 3/4 of the height of the baking pan with the liquid mixture inside). Put this sort of 'double pan' in the oven that must be preheated at 370 F, for 40 minutes. Serve cold.

It was really good. Next time I make it, I'll use a smaller pan, or I'll double the doses, so that it will become thicker. Also, I think if one has time to let the milk cook longer, and cool down longer, less anise pods could be used, as they would have a longer time to infuse their flavor to the milk.

Budino di riso al vino e cardamomo

Unfortunately we didn't have internet connection at home last week, so I couldn't finish to post my story about Germany. I will do so soon, but first, I want to write at least a few posts with some recipes, as I realize I'm missing almost all the food blog events I usually love to take part to! I guess I'm still readjusting from the move+trip.. So, let's not waste any more time, and let's start with a cardamom-centered invention of mine, prepared for the 'Think Spice' event, started by Sunita, and hosted this month at 'Simple Indian Food'! I love the smell and flavor of cardamom, and I thought I could use it in a special rice pudding that I prepared. It was ready before the deadline of the event, but now I'm past it.. we'll see if it's still accepted. :)
I prepared this pudding based on a Mexican recipe, although in the original there's no cardamom or wine, and raisins are added at the end.

Budino di riso al vino con cardamomo, in tre vesti diverse / Rice pudding with wine and cardamom, three styles
To make the basic version, cook one cup of long grain rice in 3 cups of water, with 1 stick of cinnamon, grated zest of one lemon, and a pinch of salt. Cook covered until almost all the water has been absorbed. Then, remove the cinnamon stick, and add 2 cups of milk and 2 cups of red wine, and ~1 cup of sugar (more or less, to taste). Add 2 tsp ground cardamom, and cook until it thickens. This little amount of rice produced a huge volume of pudding, as it absorbs all the liquid you add. So, there is enough to divide into three parts for fun! To one part, I just added strawberries (when it was cold). To a second part, I added dark, bitter, chocolate pieces. To a third part, I added a teaspoon of heavy cream. I struggled to decide which taste I preferred. I think the one with strawberries, but all of them were an absolute delight. Highly recommended!

Looking forward to reading all the other entries for the 'Think spice, think cardamom' event!

Un altro dessert al vino

I said I would post about a few more wine-containing desserts that I made, and so here is the next one. I completely made this up, and I was really pleased about how good it came out. I modified a recipe for a regular rice pudding by almost eliminating all the milk and adding wine at its place, spicing with cardamom, cloves and cinnamon, and I used almonds instead of raisins to flavor. The final touch was placing the rice pudding on top of a pineapple slice and sprinkling with dark cocoa. The bitterness of the cocoa and mostly, the acidity and freshness of the pineapple complemented in a delicious way the sweetness and spiciness of the rice pudding.
Budino di riso al vino con mandorle e ananas / Wine rice pudding with almonds and pineapple

To make this, boil 1/2 cup rice in 1 cup of water, till all the water is adsorbed. Add 1/2 cup of milk and 1 and 1/2 cup red wine, 1 stick of cinnamon broken in half, ~6-7 cloves and 1 tsp cardamom, and keep cooking till almost all the liquid is adsorbed. Then, add 2/3 cup sugar (I used brown), 2 egg yolks and 1 tbsp butter. Stir till all the butter has melted. Add 1/2 cup almonds, broken into pieces, and cook for 2 more minutes. Once the rice has cooled down, remove the cinnamon stick and the cloves. To serve, place a pineapple slice on each of four plates (NB use fresh pineapple!), then divide the pudding in four and scoop one portion at a time in a small bowl. Flip the bowl and arrange the rice pudding on top of a pineapple slice. Top with slivers of almonds and bitter cocoa powder.

This dessert is really good. The wine, rice, almond and pineapple combination is unusual, and the taste is unexpectedly delicious. If you want to end your dinner with something light and surprising, this is a good possibility.

Torta al vino!

After you host a wine and cheese tasting party you're left with a lot of half-filled bottles and small pieces of cheese. Now, cheese is good for a long time and in any case, it's not hard to come up with delicious recipes that can use all those tiny pieces. But what do you do with 6 half bottles of wine, if you're only two and usually don't really drink very much? So, I'm looking for unusual recipes that involve the use of wine. Of course I use some wine to cook a few vegetables (and I'll use some for the meat I'm cooking on Christmas). But I'd love to use for desserts! I already made the apples with wine dish, so I want to try something different. So in the next few posts you'll see a few ways I found to use wine in desserts!
The first idea comes from a food blog event! Did you ever look at last month's 'Waiter there's something in my...' roundup? It was about 'topless tarts', and one of them was a wine tart, presented by Betsy at 'I was born a woman'. I had noticed that tart when I first found it on the roundup, and it just came back to my mind these 'winey' days. :) So, I tried it!

Torta al vino / Wine tart

I won't write the whole recipe because I basically followed Betsy's, and you can find hers here. My only modifications were: using 50 g of almonds instead of 25 g (I love almonds) in the crust, and using 100 ml milk + 2 tbsp ricotta cheese for the filling instead of 100 ml cream (to make it lighter and also because I had no cream :) ). Also, since I have no patience, I used the dough for the crust right away and didn't wait overnight. It came out well in any case. I served it with a touch of whipped cream mixed with sliced almonds, to recall the almonds in the crust.
It was really good! I was very happy of it. The crust was delicious and the filling was also very pleasant. I was thinking that if I make it again, I may boil the wine with cloves and a cinnamon stick before using it, to increase the spiciness of the filling. But.. it's really worth trying! It's very easy to make, too. Thanks a lot, Betsy! And thanks to Jeanne too, for organizing this great 'topless tart' event!

Torta di mandorle

I love nuts of every kind, and this month seems to be dedicated to nuts and dried fruits in the food blogsphere! I'm very happy, I just have to decide which of my treats goes to which event. So here is one of them:
Torta di mandorle e cioccolato a conchiglia / Shell-like almond and chocolate cake

The recipe for this cake is a mixture between a traditional recipe that I found on my piemontese cookbook and another that I found online. Both of them actually used hazelnuts, which are common in Italy, but I decided to use almonds instead, as hazelnuts here are way too expensive. The thing that inspired me in these recipes was that they required NO flour. One of them required no butter at all either, but I decided to use half of the dose suggested by the second one. What makes this cake is really just the mixture of almond flour and eggs. You wouldn't believe it, but it turns out extremely moist and soft. I think this is one of the best nut cakes I ever had. I strongly recommend trying it. So here is the recipe that in the end I came up with by combining these two that I found:
Ingredients
200 g ground almonds (I have a scale that I used; if you use cups, you have to have about 1 and 1/4 cup of ground almonds)
100 g dark chocolate, ground (after you grind it, it should be ~ 1/2 cup)
4 eggs
100 g sugar (1/2 cup)
50 g butter (1/2 small stick)
Procedure
Mix butter, egg yolks and sugar. Add the ground almonds and ground chocolate. Whip the egg whites very firmly and fold into the mixture, till no more white is visible. Pour this batter in a small (8 inches or less) buttered and floured pan, and bake at 320F for 45 min.

As you see, it's really easy. In the most traditional version, there's no butter and six eggs instead of four, 250 g of almonds instead of 200 and no chocolate. I'm going to try that next time.

Now maybe you're wondering why my cake has that shell shape. Well. Ehrm. When I took my cake out of the oven, I had the unpleasant surprise of noticing that the rack I was using was slanted. My cake had cooked crooked!! So of course, it was sort of triangular, if you will, in section. I was really sad at first when I saw it. Then Lucas suggested cutting it like a fan... I thought it was a good idea, and I decided to add whipped cream between the slices and at the border, to make it seem like a seashell. Would you have thought it was an accident? :) :)
Well, next time I will probably make sure the rack is flat before I bake something, and I'll double the doses of this cake, as it was anyway too little batter for the big baking pan I had.

This cake will go to the Yum blog for this month's 'A fruit a month' event, centered on dried fruits! And I've now decided that it will also go to this month 'Click - nuts' event! I kind of like the picture of this unusually shaped cake :)

Panna cotta con cranberries

Panna cotta (lit. cooked cream) is a traditional Italian pudding. It's very easy to make, it just consists of cream, milk, sugar and gelatine. In its simplicity, it's delicious. Still, some chefs add different ingredients to flavor it and give it a modern touch. Here I'll present you my version of panna cotta with cranberries, the fruit that I recently discovered thanks to this cake presented by Jai and Bee some time ago. As I said, cranberries are not found in Italy and I didn't know how to translate the name until Simona suggested it to me: 'mirtilli di palude'. This literally translates back into 'swampy blueberries'... mmmmmmm.... I think I'll keep using the exotic name of 'cranberries' in Italian too. :)

Panna cotta con cranberries / Cranberry panna cotta

Ingredients:
1/2 liter (2 cups) milk
1/2 liter (2 cups) heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup orange flavored liquor (this would be rum if you were making the traditional version)
1 cup cranberries
2 tbsp honey
1/4 cup orange juice
gelatine
Procedure:
Caramelize ~2 tsp sugar on the bottom of the baking pan you're going to use.
Heat milk, cream, sugar and vanilla in a pot. Bring to boil, then add the gelatine. Here is a trick: I used to use an Italian version of gelatin, which I couldn't find in the US. So this time I used instead powdered gelatin, unflavored. I used it in the same doses that were written on the box to make jello: 4 small bags of powdered gelatin for 1 liter of liquid. Still, next time I do this, I won't use these doses. The panna cotta turned out too firm. I'll try with 3 bags. If you do it, I'd recommend to use a similar ratio of gelatin/liquid. Keep stirring while the mixture boils for ~5 min, so that the powder is completely dissolved. Add the orange flavored liquor, and pour this into the baking pan that you have previously covered with the caramel. Leave overnight in the fridge. If you were making the traditional version, you'd be done at this point. Just serve the day after flipping it on a nice serving dish.
To make my cranberry topping, heat up the cranberries with the honey and the orange juice. Cook until the cranberries become very soft and the liquid is almost all consumed. The day after, flip the pan with the panna cotta on your serving dish. Then, spread the cranberry sauce on top.
This panna cotta was enjoyed by all the guests, even though I thought it was a bit too firm. The cranberries give a very pretty color to the dish, and a very strong contrast with their tartness to the sweetness of the panna cotta. It's definitely a different experience compared to the simply soothing comfort that panna cotta gives you when you have it in the regular version. If you try this, let me know what you think!
I'll send this recipe as my first entry to the 'Sugar High Fridays' event, this month hosted by Zorra and themed on pudding.

Mele con vino, cannella e noci

I've been wanting to participate to Sunita's event 'Think Spice' in a while. I love spices, but I'm not used to cooking with them. Spices are not part of Italian cuisine much. We simply use olive oil, garlic, basil, parsley and oregano in most of our dishes.. I really want to learn how to cook Indian food, and how to master the use of more spices. So I love reading Sunita's rich roundups and thinking about making some of that gorgeous food.
But - there are actually very few extra spices that show up in some Italian recipes here and there, and cinnamon is one of them! So this time I can confidently present a truly Italian recipe (well, with my twists, of course), to Sunita's 'Think Spice' event centered on cinnamon this month.
The traditional name for this recipe would be 'Mele cotte', or cooked apples. It can actually be made with either apples or pears, provided they are firm, and if possible, small. They are cooked in wine, and cinnamon is added to it. My twists consist in using honey instead of sugar to make the syrup, and adding honey roasted walnuts.

Mele al vino e cannella con noci al miele / Apples with wine and cinnamon and honey roasted walnuts
Sorry if my doses are very lousy. I did this mostly by eye. In any case, take ~10 small apples, wash them, don't bother peeling them or coring them. Place them in a pot and add ~1.5 /2 cups wine. You can choose whatever you want. Red wine is recommended, as it gives the syrup a nice color, but in this case I used a mixture of white and red. In my opinion you don't need to use really super good wine. I had a few bottles open, leftover from parties, and so I mixed them up to cook this. Add ~2 tbsp honey (more or less, depending on how sweet you like your desserts). Add 2 cinnamon sticks. Cook, cover, until the apples are soft and the wine sauce is reduced to a syrup. If the apples are already done and the sauce is not dense enough yet, cook on high heat uncovered for a few minutes. If vice versa the wine is getting low and the apples are not done yet, add more wine. It took about 1h to cook my apples.
In the meanwhile, add ~1 tbsp butter in another pot, and 1 tbsp honey. Add ~15 walnuts broken into pieces. Cook for ~5-10 minutes, until the walnuts are deliciously covered by the butter/honey mixture.
Serve the apples warm or cold, covered by syrup, and sprinkled with the walnuts. They are a delicious and light dessert.
This recipe will also be one of my entries for my own event, the Fresh Produce of the Month, centered on Apples. If you haven't sent me your entry yet, please do so! It'll be a fun roundup. :)

Torta di mele e melograno

My Fresh Produce of the Month event this month is centered on apples. I chose it because the apple season is almost over and we need to celebrate this delicious fruit! So I'm going to try a few recipes to share during this month.. here is my first share:

Torta di mele e melograno / Apple and pomegranate cake
This is a variation on the healthy apple cake theme that I love. It's a cake with NO butter and not much flour and sugar in it. Both my aunt and my friend Franca have a version of it, and mine is a modification of theirs, with the addition of pomegranate, which was in season a few weeks ago when I made this cake.
Ingredients
5 apples (red delicious or garnett or any other type you like, not too tart)
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
kernels from one pomegranate
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
Preparation
Peel and dice the apples, and place them in a buttered and floured baking pan. Scatter the pomegranate kernels on top. Mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a bowl. In another bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar, and add the milk. Add this liquid mixture to the flour mixture, mixing to avoid clumping. Pour this batter on the fruit in the pan. If you want, you can add small pieces of butter on top, but I didn't do it. Bake at 350 F for ~1 h. Before serving, I sprinkled a little cocoa powder and confectionery sugar on top.
I brought this cake to my friend Yusra's, and she served it with a delicious Turkish tea that she made.. So it's thanks to her that I can show such a pretty picture of the sliced cake :)
This was my contribution to a wonderful dinner that Yusra prepared for Lucas and me some time ago, which I will describe in a soon-to-come post.

Ispirazione da Jugalbandi

I've been wanting to try Bee and Jai's 'Cranberry Pecan upside down cake' since I saw it. It looked so beautiful and appealing I couldn't resist. I had an occasion to try yesterday, as we were hosting a dinner with some friends at our place. So, after a salad and the crepes that I posted below, I served this delicious cake!

Torta di noci e cranberries al contrario/Cranberry Walnut upside down cake
I'm not going to write the recipe again, since you can find it in details here, on Jai and Bee's post, together with better pictures than mine :)
My only modifications were using walnuts instead of pecans (as you can see in the picture), and 1/2-1/2 whole flour/white flour instead of only white flour. This made my cake darker. Also, I used a very dark type of honey, and flavored with mirto (a black berry liquor), instead of Grand Marnier.
This is an amazing cake. I think it's one of the best cakes I made in a while. Also, it's really easy to prepare. It has almost no butter, and an amazing combination of nuts, oranges and.. cranberries!! I never used cranberries before. Cranberries don't exist in Italy, and I almost never ate them here. I decided now I love them! I'm going to make some cranberry jam soon. :) For my Italian readers: cranberries are small berries that grow in bushes:
They are very tart, so you need to add a good amount of sweetener when you use them to cook (honey in this cake's case). I tried to eat one raw, but it's a bit too tart. :) Instead, they're delicious in the glaze of this cake..
Thanks Bee and Jai for such a wonderful recipe!

Tanti auguri Sonya!

Yesterday it was my friend Sonya's birthday. We had dinner in a 'fancy restaurant' (her definition :) ) on 4th street, in Berkeley, and then we went to our place for a small after dinner party with cake, candles, and birthday song! I love this part of birthdays - otherwise I feel like something is missing! So, it was really nice to be able to host this in our new place.
The cake is a chocolate-rum layered cake that I made on purpose knowing Sonya's taste. :) - Keep reading for recipe and more pictures!

Torta a strati al cioccolato e rum / Chocolate-rum layered cake
(I found the recipe online here. Notice how it's said to be 'Martha's chocolate and rum cake' :) )
(Notice the nice dish the cake is on - it's a gift from Stefano, it has also a super-nice glass lid, very high, for super-tall layered cakes :)

Ingredients
1 oz. unsweetened chocolate for dough + 3 oz for filling
1/2 cup butter + 1/4 cup for filling
1 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
3 eggs
1 3/4 cake flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/3 cup rum + 1/2 cup for filling
4 cups confectioner sugar for filling (I used 2 cups of regular sugar)
1 tsp vanilla extract for filling (I used powder)

Procedure
Melt 1 oz chocolate with half a cup of water (I did this in the microwave). Let cool down. With a mixer, cream butter, add the brown sugar to it, then eggs. In another bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda. Add this to the butter mixture, alternating with the rum (add 1/3 cup total).
Originally the recipe says to divide this into three 8 inch pans, lined with waxing paper, and bake separately for ~20 min each. I had only one 9 inch pan, and the amount of dough didn't seem enough to make 3 disks, nor my patience. So I baked it altogether for ~30 minutes, and cut later. I'd think if you baked the three disks separately they'll probably raise more. In the future, I'll try to buy some smaller pans on purpose for this type of cakes.
Make the filling by melting 3 oz chocolate with 1/2 cup rum in a pan over low heat, then add the sugar, a little at a time (the regular sugar that I used gives kind of a nice crunchyness to this, but if you want a smoother version, go for the confectioner sugar. Not sure if 4 cups would be too sweet or not, in that case). Then add the vanilla and the butter, let it melt, and use warmish to fill and frost the cake.

The cake was really good: rich, but not excessively sweet, and very rummy! I served it with some whipped cream made on the spot, which I also used to (try to) decorate. I'm really happy that Andrew at Spittoon extra accepted this as a super late entry for 'Waiter there's something in my layered cake' event, but I'm really past the deadline. You can check out the wonderful roundup and be inspired with even more amazing layered cakes!

And here is Sonya cutting the cake:
And here are the other party friends: Robyn and Megan, and Al and Lucas.
I really enjoyed the evening.. again, happy birthday, dear Sonya!

Albicocche

The 'Fresh produce of the month' theme is now Apricot.. so in the past few weeks I made a few desserts using apricots. I'll post here about the best two I prepared. The first was one of the tartes that I made for my birthday.. The type that I like best! The latter is a drink that I made as a nice refreshing dessert to welcome Lucas when he came back from his trip in Italy.
Crostata di frutti di bosco e albicocche / Berry and Apricot crostata
I already posted how to make crostata with fruit last year - as I said, it's the dessert that I like to make for my birthday.. :) So you can read the recipe here. This year, I added some marsala to the cream, to give it a new hint. :) On top, I put my favorite summer fruits: strawberries, blueberries and apricots (and a few pieces of nectarines). I loved it, and so did the other guests. :)

Frappe' all'albicocca / Apricot frappe'
Frappe' is a drink similar to a milk shake, and can be made with almost anything that you can think of. I wanted to make something a bit different, and so I combined apricots, almonds, yogurt and rum, and I used maple syrup instead of sugar, to sweeten!
To make it yourself, blend 10 ripe apricots, 1 cup yogurt, 10 almonds, 1 tbsp Bourbon, 1/4 cup maple syrup, and ice. Serve with a slice of apricot imitating a lemon and with twirls of maple syrup on top.

This Frappe' is going to be my entry for my own 'Fresh Produce of the Month' event! The deadline has been postponed till next weekend, so please submit more entries!

Crostate con marmellate fatte in casa!

I have SO many things to post about - I haven't had any time in a while, and I was barely keeping up with the 'necessary' posts.. so I'll start with something I meant to write in a long time, i.e. one of my favorite desserts: crostata!

The main characteristic of crostata is the crunchy and yet buttery consistency of the outside ('crosta' means 'crust). Traditionally, it has only a layer of jam on top, although you can in principle put anything on it. In summertime, the fruity version is so wonderful - it's my favorite birthday 'cake' (see the post here for crostata di frutta).

Here you can see Crostata al limone (Lemon crostata), with my homemade lemon jelly
The recipe for it is in the 'Read more' section.

A really nice variation on the crostata theme is crostata with nuts in the dough. I was inspired by Fiordizucca to make this Crostata con mandorle coperta con marmellata di albicocche fatta in casa e cioccolato (Almond crostata covered with homemade peach jam and chocolate)
The recipe is also in the 'Read more' section.

I want to point out that making crostata is one of the easiest things you can try to do. Just make it a few times and you'll know exactly how much sugar you really want (maybe you can vary depending on the sweetness of the jam), how much butter you like in it, and you can experiment all different toppings. But really, if you don't have time and you want something quick and good for your guests, the simple traditional version with jam can never fail. :)

Crostata tradizionale (traditional crostata)
300 g flour (2 1/2 cups)
200 g sugar (1 cup)
100 g butter (1/2 cup)
~2 tbsp milk

Soften the butter. Mix the flour and the sugar and add the butter in. Add as little milk as possible to make the dough workable. Some recipes use more butter and don't add any milk at all. Work it with your hands, as little as possible. Let the dough rest in the fridge for ~20 minutes. Take ~2/3 of the dough and spread it on a buttered and floured baking pan, from the center to the borders. When you get to the borders, spread it a little bit on them (in 'vertical'). Make rolls (~1/3" in diameter, and as long as you need) with the rest of the dough, and use some to create the real borders. Spread the jam of your choice on the dough. Use the rest of the rolls to decorate. Bake at 400 deg for 20-30 min (it depends on how thick you spread the dough). Sometimes the crostata tends to grow a little bit in the oven, whereas you want it to be flat. So if it happens, gently tap on the inflated parts with a spoon while the crostata is still warm, and flatten it. Serve cold.


Crostata con mandorle coperta con marmellata di pesche fatta in casa e cioccolato (Crostata with almonds covered with homemade peach jam and chocolate)
This variation was inspired by this wonderful recipe by Fiordizucca (she had amaretti cookies and real peaches instead of jam in her version).
Use the same dough as before, but substitute 1/3 of the flour with the same amount of ground almonds. Use the same procedure to make the dough.
While the dough is resting, prepare the topping: beat one egg with 2/3 cup sugar, then add 1 tbsp cocoa powder (unsweetened). Add also ~2/3 cup peach jam. Mix in ~2 tbsp flour, to thicken. Spread on the crostata dough and proceed as with the traditional crostata for assembly and baking.
Are you curious about how to make the peach jam? It's really easy, I'll write it in the next post.

Buon compleanno, Meeta!

Meeta at What's for lunch, Honey? proposed 'Birthday Bang' for her 'Monthly mingle', since her birthday is coming up! So, I know I am a traditionalist, but if it's someone's birthday, I want to give them a cake! So this is a piece of cake for you, Meeta!

Torta al limone e uvetta con crema al whiskey! (Lemon and raisin cake with whiskey cream)
I got this recipe from cooker.net... grazie, Elisewin75! .
Ingredients
1/2 lb flour
1/2 lb sugar (I used less, about 1/4 lb probably)
2 sticks of butter (I used one)
1 cup raisin, soaked in brandy (I used whiskey)
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk (I used about 1.5 cups to compensate the missing liquid from the butter)
1 lemon
6 eggwhites, beaten till firm.
Procedure
Melt the butter. Grate the lemon peel and squeeze the lemon juice. In a bowl, mix the flour with baking powder and sugar, then add milk, butter, lemon juice and zest. Drain the raisin from the liquor you used and mix it to the batter. I actually added some of the whiskey in the cake too. Last, add the eggwhites. Bake at 350 F for 45 min. The author suggested to serve it with a cream prepared using the egg yolks.. and so I did: I added ~ 4 tbsp powdered sugar to the 6 egg yolks, then I poured all the whiskey from the raisin (~1/2 cup) in it, and added ~ 2 tbsp flour. I added the lemon pulp too, cut into big pieces (I hate throwing away things! So why not use also the pulp of that nice big lemon I had?). Then slowly I stirred in ~2 cups milk. I cooked on low heat for ~15 min, stirring every once in a while to prevent sticking and clumping. Then I served it cold with the cake. This cream, I must say, was _really_ delicious. The day after I had the cake for breakfast with my tea, and the cream with the strawberries for dinner............ So good!!!!

So, happy birthday Meeta! A hundred of these years and of wonderful food to try and friends to meet! The round-up has been posted.

Also, doesn't this lemon-containing recipe inspire you to participate to the 'Fresh produce of the month' event with lemon theme that I just launched? ;) :) Please send in your great lemon-centered recipes!

Gialletti

I was looking for a recipe of thanother type of cookies to serve with fruit salads, and I found the perfect one on my 'Cookies and Crackers' cookbook, from the same series of the 'Bread' cookbook that I usually use, simply called 'The Good Cook', published in 1982! The book collects recipes from all over the world, and this was Italian. I never had something exactly like this, although I had something similar... These cookies are made with cornflour and lemon zest. So this was perfect: I just bought some cornflour, and I had all the lemons from my LA trip (see previous post). These cookies are delicious. Also, they are made with cornflour and for once I really followed a recipe from a cookbook, so they are the perfect entry for the 'Weekend Coobook Challenge' of this month, which is hosted by Ani at Foodie Chickie and has 'cornmeal' as theme.

Gialletti
Ingredients:
1 cup fine yellow cornmeal (I used cornflour)
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp crushed ammonium bicarbonate (I used baking soda)
1/2 tsp salt
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup superfine sugar (I used powdered sugar)
2 tsp grated lemon peel
6 tbsp butter, melted and cooled
1 cup dried currants (I used 1/2 cup raisins, I didn't want that much fruit in them).
Water
Procedure:
Soak the raisins/currants in warm water. Mix the flours, the salt and the baking soda. Beat the egg yolks and add the sugar in them. Add the lemon peel and the butter. Beat in the flour mixture. 'The mixture should be firm but not stiff': this is what the recipe said. It also said that depending on the cornmeal you may have to add some water to it. In my case, I definitely had to. I guess cornflour is finer than 'fine cornmeal' and thus adsorbs more liquid.. Add the raisins, after draining them.
Drop the dough with the help of some tablespoons on a buttered and floured baking pan. Leave 2 inches between the cookies. Bake in a preheated oven at 375 F for about 15 min. Cool down on wireracks. Supposedly, sprinkle with confectioners' sugar before serving them (I forgot to do this).

These cookies are soft and the taste is delicious, and reminded me of 'paste di meliga' (traditional cookies with lemon zest and cornflour, typical of my region).

Something new

Argh. I thought today it was the twelve... Instead I'm one day past the deadline for 'The weekend Coobook Challenge' :( :( ! Anyway, I'll post my recipe here and tell Sara about it.. let's see what she says.. I had thought about the theme quite a bit, because it was so intriguing: 'Something new'. So I decided I would go to the 'Berkeley Bowl', the wonderful grocery store in Berkeley that sells every possible vegetable and fruit you can ever imagine, and just try something that I had no idea what it was!
So I got a few special fruits. My idea was to make a fruit salad to eat together with 'Ventagli'. These are special cookies that I already had in the past, but I never tried to make. So this would also have been something new for me: try to make the famous 'Ventagli' :).... And here is the result:

Macedonia di frutta esotica con crema al limone, panna montata e ventagli (Exotic fruit salad with lemon cream, whipped cream and ventagli).
1) Choose the fruit that is in season and that looks more interesting: I had strawberries, mango and kumquats. A wonderful mix of colors. Cut it in pieces, and add lemon juice on it. Let it infuse for a few hours.
\2) Prepare the lemon cream: mix two eggs with 2 tbsp flour and ~2 tbsp sugar, add ~2 cups of milk slowly, to avoid clump formation. Add pieces of lemon peel (big, you will have to remove them in the end). Bring to boil, keep stirring. Boil for ~3 min, then let it cool down and remove the lemon peel. Refrigerate until you're ready to use it.
3) Whip the heavy cream with some powder sugar (sweeten to taste). Add the lemon cream and the whipped cream on the fruit, right before serving.
4) If you're lucky and you have something like Berkeley Bowl closeby, you can now add something fancy on the top. I bought this really nice fruit, I had _no_ idea how it would taste and what it would be like inside. It's called star fruit.
What's really amazing is how it is inside:
So cool!! I loved the colors. So I cut a slice of it and I added it on the macedonia:
The taste is hard to describe. It's between a banana and grapes. Nothing like a lemon or so, that you would expect after seeing the green and seedy interior. The consistency reminds of pomegranate. It's very nice, especially on this sweet fruit salad.
Serve it with ventagli (recipe follows).

Ventagli (Fans)
This recipe is dedicated to Zinnur, who asked me for it. I found it on two different internet websites (here and here), in Italian. So this is a version taken from the two of them, blended together.
Either prepare or buy frozen puff pastry (I confess I chose the second option, I didn't have time to make it myself :( ). Take a 1/2 lb sheet, and knead 2 tbsp sugar with it. Spread it thin on the table, with a rectangular shape. From both sides, fold the dough inward twice, so that in the end the two sides touch themselves:
(sorry, I realize now this picture is not really clear.. anyway, you have two small rolls on both sides, basically). Now fold this roll in the center, inward again, and start cutting slices ~ 1 cm thick (~ 1/3 of an inch). You will see a sort of ventagli shape in the slices, once cut. Butter a baking pan, spread some sugar with a spatula on both sides of the ventagli and place them on the pan, leaving ~ 2 inches of room between one ventaglio and the other one. Refrigerate for 30 min (this is an important step! Otherwise they will lose their shape when baking). Bake at 430 F for ~ 5 min, then flip the ventagli and bake them on the other side, until golden.
In the end it's really easy to make them, and they come out exactly like the ones you buy :)

Anyway, the roundup for the WCC is already up! Give a look at it.

Zabaione

When Jorge was here last weekend, I decided to make zabaione as dessert for our welcome dinner. So I'll post a specific recipe for it here.. Also because I found a slight variation on the recipe that I mentioned earlier, and this was even better.
Zabaione
(For ~4 people)
In a small pot mix 5 egg yolks and 1 egg white, with 3 tbsp sugar and 1/4 to 1/2 cup marsala (up to you). Beat with a whisk or with electric beaters. Put on _very_ low heat and continue whipping until it becomes fluffy and dense. It shouldn't boil. Remove from heat and serve with fruit or cookies. 'Torcetti' would be the best cookies, but here I found these 'Ventagli' that went very well too :)
This version, with the egg white, was even more fluffy than the other recipe (although the other one is the really traditional one). This cream is an absolute delight, you must try it. Some people serve it cold, mixed with whipped cream. Warm is best in my humble opinion, though.

Tiramisu

So many people have asked me for the recipe for Tiramisu and I realized in fact that I had posted here specifically only about a modification of mine to the traditional recipe (see here for summertime strawberry tiramisu). So I decided it's time to fix this terrible lack.

(Almost) Traditional Tiramisu
Ingredients
1 lb soft ricotta cheese (N.B. this is my light version of Tiramisu. In the original version, this is mascarpone, and not ricotta. A lot of people I know seem to prefer my light version, also because it's more fluffy than with mascarpone - and, last but not least, mascarpone costs like gold in the US, for some weird reason).
15 ladyfinger cookies
2 eggs
~1/2 cup sugar (or more if you like sweet desserts)
2 espresso coffees diluted with ~1 cup water (or ~1 cup american coffee) - cold or warm, not hot
2 tbsp rum
unsweetened cocoa powder
Procedure
With a hand mixer, beat the egg yolks with the sugar. Add the ricotta cheese in it, mixing by hand. In another bowl, whip egg whites with a dash of salt in them, till firm. Mix the eggwhites to the other mixture. Mix the coffee and the rum. One at a time, quickly soak half of the ladyfinger cookies in the coffee/rum mixture, and place them on the bottom of the serving bowl. Add half of the cream on top of them, and repeat these two layers once more. Put in the fridge and leave there for at least two hours (usually I prepare the dessert the night before). Sprinkle the top with cocoa powder before serving.