Mocha Chip Meringues

I really love flavoured menringues, but the mocha taste ones are definitely my favorites. This is the recipe of Martha Stewart, yes, once again I did an other recipe of this awesome cooker, but I just love all her does. These delicious wonders combine the rich taste of coffee and chocolate, makes me remeber also mini pavlovas. As you can appreciate is a cookie shape and it has a meringue taste but it is also something chewy inside, with crunchy edges and mixed chocolate chips makes an explosion of textures.

INGREDIENTS makes 18 meringue cookies

100 g white sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

3 large egg whites, at room temperature

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Harsheys)

60 g semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 150º and line the baking sheet with parhcment paper.

Whisk the sugar and the cornstarch and set aside.

In the mixing bowl beat the egg whites and the salt on a medium speed until frothy. Beating constantly add the sugar mixture, one tablespoon at a time. Beat until stiff, glossy and peaks form. Scrape doen the bowl and add the espresso powder and the cocoa, beat until well blennded. Fold in the chocolate chips with an spatula.

Using an ice cream scoop drop bater onto the baking tray, bake for 40 minutes until crisp. Cool completely on sheets, about 20 minutes.

Recipe adapted for Martha Stweart.

You can also make these meringues smaller, leave them longer in the oven make meringue kisses, using other flavours and colors. They are lovely to drink a coffee or decorate a cake.

Enjoy the week ♥♥♥

Raspberry Clafoutis

While I'm waiting for the cherry season to make a nice clafoutis I decided to try it with other fruit and I choose fresh raspberries, the result was absolutly delicious. Traditionally clafoutis is made with black cherries, and the cherries should not be pitted to obtain the wonderful flavour it gives to the tart. I love this french dessert, its perfect texture is diferent  to any other cake. Every time I do it I'm thinking about a clafoutis without any fruit, well maybe then would be not called clafoutis, but I just love this dough and mixed with any fruit is amazing. 

INGREDIENTS makes a tin of 20 cm
80 g white sugar
80 g plain flour
40 g almond flour
40 ml whole milk
160 ml whipped cream
3 large eggs
a pinch of salt
40 g butter at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
250 g fresh raspberries

Preheat the oven to 180º and grase the mold with butter.

Using a electric hand whisk mix together the butter and the sugar, add the eggs one by one, continue to mixing until fluffy. Add the milk and the heavy cream beat and finally add the flour, the salt and the almond flour. Beat until mixtue smooth and all ingredients are well combined. Dough at that moment is very liquid.

Place raspberries in the bottom of the tin, add the mixture and top with some more raspberries. You can cover until the top of the tin, even in the oven it grows a lot, after it turns to the same level.

Bake for 20 minutes or until it gets light golden brown and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Do not open the oven until the end of baking time or it may collapse. If after 20 minutes your clafoutis is still not done cover with alluminium and continue baking.

Can be serve immediately with dusted with powder sugar, but I rather once it's warm or even the day after, texutre is delicious.  

See you next week here with a new recipe.

♥♥♥

Dark Chocolate Cranberry Orange Cookies

Hello!! I was not expecting to share these cookies in the blog, it was just a test, but finally and with a little bit of rush I decided to make some shoots, even the result of the pictures is not the expected one. But you probably know the sun in this country is not always a good friend. Thanks God the days are getting longer and longer and when the sun shines, shines really hard, amazing but true! So yesterday I had a presentation in my Dutch class, and I wonder myself: what better to talk about my blog. Lesson learned: presentation at last moment is not always a good idea, even if you know about the materia, but in my case much less since I don't like public speaking. But at least I could delight the rest of the collegues with some of these cookies, and I think they enjoy them.

I'm saying it was a test because I wanted to try the dried cranberries a friend of mine gave away to me, so I took a Martha Stewart recipe, the original is with dried cherries, and I added some extra orange flavor. The result is absolutly delicious, dark chocolate combines perfectly with any red fruit, and the cookies are chewy and crunchy.

INGREDIENTS makes about 40 cookies
225 g all purpose flour
150 g unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon tsp salt
250 g unsalted butter at room temperature
250 g white sugar
150 g brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp orange zest
250 g dried cranberries
250 g dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 170º and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Sift together the flour, the cocoa powder, the baking soda the salt and set aside. In the mixing bowl, stir together the butter and sugars and beat until fluffy. Mix in the eggs, the vanilla and the orange zest and mix until well combined.
Stir in the flour mixture,and beat on a low speed just until combined. Do not overbeat. Fold in dried cranberries and chocolate chips with a spatula.
Make balls using two spoons and put them onto the prepared baking sheets. Leave about 7 cm between cookies to allow for spread.  Bake about 11 minuts. Remove from the oven and transfer to cool completely on a wire rack.
Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.

 

Enjoy your week   ♥♥♥

Banana Coconut Loaf

I'm back of my mini trip to Edinburgh, I really love this city and that time the experience was even better since I have some friends living there. If you are following me on facebook you will know I visited my friend Fernanda from the blog Fascinating Food, if you don't know her I totally recomend you visit her side, beside all her fabulous recipes you can explore some amazing places she visits.

I would like to show some of the places I've visited in my trip and some of the food I enjoyed, but this will be in a further post. So today I'm sharing with you this loaf. Once again I had some bananas that were already too ripe and I decided what better to make a lovely loaf? This time instead the buttermilk I put coconut milk and it was really delicious. And to make the loaf even better I added some chunked Bounty bars.

INGREDIENTS makes a 18 cm loaf tin
100 g butter at room temperature
175 g sugar
195 g plain flour
2 large eggs
2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
118 ml coconut milk, one cup
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
Bounty bars, chunks

Preheat the oven to 180º and grease the loaf tin.

Sift the flour, the baking powder and the salt in a bowl, set aside. Cream the butter and the sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffly. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Add the sifted ingredients graduatlly in three addition, alternating with the banana and coconut milk and mix until just combined. Stir in the Bounty chunks and mix it with a spatula. Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and level it out with a spatula.

Bake in the center of the oven for 40 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out with only few moist crumbs attached. Let cool for 15 minutes in the tin and after on a wire rack.

If your loaf gets darker on top before the inside is done cooking, cover it with aluminium foil.

You can also use loaf tin paper liners or just a baking paper on the bottom to unmold it better, but with the tin perfectly greased should be enough.

A slice of this loaf is perfect for breakfast or for the afternoon tea.

Enjoy ♥♥♥

Koninginnedag Cake Pops

I update one day later I planned, but yesterday we had the big party in the Netherlands, the Queen's day. As probably you know already yesterday beside the national day we celebrated as well the change of throne, so next year will be the King's Day, and it will be on the 27th april, on his birthday. You must know the 30th was not the Queen's birthday, was the one of her predecessor, her mum's birthday,  but she had the brilliant idea not to change it, otherwise dutches had been celebrating during all her reign on 31st January, so the weather here in that season would not be appropiate to be on the street and make the big party. The whole country go on the street and party since early in the morning till late in the evening, even the next day is a working day. A big orange tide overruns the streets, and you can enjoy of live music, dj's and all kind all performaces in every corner of the city. An other curious thing is the flea market, in that day everybody takes out all the stuff they don't use anymore and sell it on the street, you can find stands everywhere and if you are lucky you can get a good deal.

I did these cake pops, I have to tell you it was the first time I did cake pops, they were quite easy to make, even I had some beginner problems, but I solve them watching some tutorials on youtube. If I want to make more I will need to buy some stuff such a gadget to place them, or a cake pop form. I was thinking as well to get the cake pop machine, do anybody of you have it? I will appreciate if you give me your opinion. I don't want to buy much more stuff and machines, if I continue like that I will need a kitchen expansion.

For the recipe I used a part of a cake and no mesurements are necessary. I just mixed a vanilla cake with some vanilla buttecream and I added some chocolate chips. I made the balls, placed them in the fridge for 1 hour and decorate with orange candy melts and dutch flag nonpareils.

So you know already next year is a good idea to plan a trip to the Netherlands for this date, and you will enjoy as well of the tulips, an other turist attraction, and they can be visited also only during these weeks of the year.

Enjoy your day ♥♥♥