CHOCOLATE GENOISE CAKE with MOCHA MASCARPONE...CAKE NIRVANA

"All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much"

George Harrison

I don't think it's going to be easy going back to regular frosting or whipped cream again. This was my maiden attempt at making homemade mascarpone, & I cannot believe how luxurious cream can get. Bless the Italians. Panna Cotta has been on my faves as dessert for long enough; now along comes mascarpone! WOW!! I bought a local brand of mascarpone a while ago, used it with Balsamic Strawberries here, though the dessert was delicious, the mascarpone itself was very disappointing. My homemade one just ROCKED!

I made the mascarpone for my dad's birthday cake. Actually I had tiramisu on my mind, but it's just too hot to pipe & make ladies fingers. So I decided to make a simple sponge, saturate it with a strong coffee syrup, & use the mascarpone as topping. Then I googled, & saw Susan's TWD Tiramisu @ SGCC. Ooooooh, was I in coffee heaven or what? With that idea in mind, I stopped by at Vera's Baking Obsession, which is my ready reckoner of sorts now, and went through each cake recipe. Her chocolate genoise seemed like my answer. Yes, the idea was forming in my mind. The only ingredient deviation from Vera's genoise recipe is that I used clarified butter/ghee instead of heating the 4 tbsps of butter & taking 3 tbsps once it was clarified. A simple shortcut as I have ghee at home. The crumb of the genoise was light, tender & moist, & the coffee syrup made it perfect! Sandwiched with a cream as luxurious & indulgent as homemade mascarpone, the cake was perfect. Just right - not exceedingly sweet, light, yet luxurious! I made the mascarpone 2 days in advance, the genoise a day in advance, & refrigerated both.

The daughter licked her plate clean. You couldn't tell there had been cake on it. I suppose that's her way of saying it was absolutely delicious as she is one of few words. Teens??? The son, on the other hand, is more generous with his words, & came to tell me that it was like a cake out of the pastry shop, only better! My dad, who's birthday it was for, loved it of course. Hub, again a man of few words (& those few not minced at all), said it was better than a patisserie cake!! YAY!!

I think my mascarpone behaved a little differently from Vera's instructions because of the fat content of cream. I used a 25% fat content & her recipe asks for a 36%. The cream also took almost 25 minutes to heat through, but never touched 190F on the candy thermometer. So I added the lime juice when the cream began bubbling slowly. Once made & cooled etc, the mascarpone looked a little dry, but mixing it in with cream & sugar made it luxuriously beautiful!

HOMEMADE MASCARPONE CREAM
as adapted from Baking Obsession
Makes about 12 oz
Ingredients:
600ml low fat cream (25 %) pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized), preferably organic cream
1 tbsp fresh lime juice
Method:

• Bring 1 inch of water to a boil in a wide skillet. Reduce the heat to medium-low so the water is barely simmering.
• Pour the cream into a medium heat-resistant bowl, then place the bowl into the skillet. Heat the cream, stirring often, to 190 F. It will take about 15 minutes of delicate heating.
• Add the lime juice and continue heating the mixture, stirring gently, until the cream curdles. Do not expect the same action as you see during ricotta cheese making. All that the whipping cream will do is become thicker, like a well-done crème anglaise. It will cover a back of your wooden spoon thickly. You will see just a few clear whey streaks when you stir.
• Remove the bowl from the water and let cool for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, line a sieve with four layers of dampened cheesecloth and set it over a bowl. Transfer the mixture into the lined sieve. Do not squeeze the cheese in the cheesecloth or press on its surface (be patient, it will firm up after refrigeration time). Once cooled completely, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate (in the sieve) overnight or up to 24 hours.

CHOCOLATE GENOISE
As adapted from this recipe @ Baking Obsession
Ingredients:
3 tbsp clarified butter/ghee
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
4 large eggs (I used 5 as the eggs were smallish)
2/3 cup fine granulated vanilla sugar
Method:

• Preheat the oven to 350F. Line, grease & flour an 8-inch round cake pan.
• Sift the flour and cocoa together three times; reserve.
• Bring some water to a boil in a large pan/griddle & reduce to simmer. Place eggs & sugar in a large bowl, whisk constantly over the simmering water, heat the eggs to lukewarm (about 105F). Remove the bowl from the pan; leave the skillet on the stove but turn off the heat. With an electric mixer, beat the egg mixture at high speed until it has cooled, tripled in volume, and resembles softly whipped cream, about 5 minutes in a heavy-duty mixer or longer with a less powerful mixer.
• Meanwhile, set the bowl of clarified butter/ghee and vanilla in the skillet of hot water, with the burner off, to keep it warm.
• Sift about one-third of the flour and cocoa over the whipped eggs. Use a rubber spatula to fold in the mixture-quickly but gently-until combined. Fold in half the remaining flour and cocoa, then fold in the rest. Remove the warm butter mixture from the skillet. Scoop about 1 cup of the batter into the bowl with the butter and fold together until completely combined. Use the large rubber spatula to fold the butter mixture completely into the remaining batter. Turn the batter into the prepared pan and tilt to level.
• Bake until the cake beginning to shrink slightly around the edges and the top springs back when pressed with your finger, about 40-45 minutes. Cool the cake completely in the pan on a rack.
• To unmold, run a small knife or spatula around the inner edges of the pan. Invert it onto a rack and remove the parchment liner. Turn the cake right side up. The génoise can be wrapped and refrigerated for up to 2 days, or frozen for up to 3 months.

MOCHA MASCARPONE FROSTING
Ingredients:
12oz Mascarpone Cream (recipe above)
200ml low fat cream (25% fat)
1 tsp coffee powder (increase or omit as desired)
2-3 tbsps ground vanilla sugar, or regular sugar (according to taste)
Method:

• Beat mascarpone cheese with a wooden spoon till smooth. Fold in the rest of the ingredients & mix with the spoon till smooth.

CHOCOLATE GENOISE CAKE with MOCHA MASCARPONE
Ingredients:
1 chocolate genoise sponge (recipe above)
1 portion of Mocha Mascarpone Cream (recipe above)
Coffee syrup
Dark chocolate shavings, flakes & coffee beans etc to garnish
To assemble:

• Make a strong coffee syrup with 1/4 cup of hot water, 2-3 tsps sugar & 2 tsps coffee powder. Cool.
• Cut the genoise into 2 horizontal layers.
• Place one layer on the cake platter. Brush well with the coffee syrup. Sandwich with a little less than half the mocha mascarpone.
• Top with the second layer, & brush that well with the coffee syrup.
• Frost the top & sides of the cake with the remaining mascarpone. Grate dark chocolate over the top, edge with coffee beans, & sift cocoa over the edges.
• Chill for 3-4 hours.

BACK TO SCHOOL VEGGIE PIZZA IN A GARLIC PESTO CREAM SAUCE

"If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers."
Edgar W. Howe

Oh how I love this quote...what a lot said in a nutshell on the lives of mothers!! The kids are excited to be back to school (& so am I). Two months of vacation are finally drawn to an end, & schools have reopened. What a relief. It's been a long two months & I'm looking forward to some sort of routine in life again. No dragging them out of bed at 9am anymore, blah, blah, blah...! Phew! They've enjoyed their vacations, a lot actually, despite the heat, and have been looking forward to going back to school. So I made them a 'back to school' special lunch to celebrate. Made them pizzas with 'AB in 5 Minutes' dough, adapted to include a little whole wheat flour, followed by Chocolate Cherry Muffins. I make these muffins very often, & you can find that recipe here.We all voted for a change from the regular tomato based pizza sauce. The time was right to try a sauce I've bookmarked off Cooking Photographers blog a while ago. She offers a 3 cream based sauces, each of which sound like a must try. I decided to make the garlic sauce, because of my love for garlic, but halfway through worked some pesto into it too. I usually keep a bottle of homemade pesto in the fridge, which comes in very handy at times like these.It made a beautiful sauce which complimented the vegetarian pizza wonderfully well. I'm trying to get the kids to eat more veggies as a meal option, because I find them increasingly going for chicken or non vegetarian food. That does bother me at times.This was my attempt to get vegetables back onto the table, & I must say I got huge thumbs up for my attempt. Even the daughter who normally has 2 slices had 4. I shall not even tell you how many the son had...LOL! The main topping was of smoked cottage cheese. The idea of cottage cheese coming from a pizza we recently had at Pizza Hut here, which had a non-tomato pizza sauce. I smoked the cottage cheese prior to using it; it enhances the flavour in a special way.To give the pizza a spicy kick, I added some homemade pickled peppers. The peppers have been sitting getting ready in the fridge for a week, & were just done right! The pizzas were delicious, & AB in 5 rules my life. Can't get over the fact that I have dough ready in the fridge at any given time ...YAY!! I love leafing through the pages of this wonderful book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François.

GARLIC PESTO CREAM PIZZA SAUCE

as adapted from the Cooking Photographer

Ingredients:
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves of garlic; minced
400ml light cream (25% fat)

1/2teaspoon coarse sea salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh cracked pepper

3 tsps pesto (I make my own, recipe for pesto here)
1/4th cup Parmesan & Romano Cheese, grated

Method:

• In a saucepan, melt the butter and olive oil together over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté for about 30 seconds until fragrant.
• Turn the heat to medium low and add the rest of the ingredients, but add the cheese last so it doesn’t hit the hot pan and seize up. Stir constantly until thickened.
• Reserve in bowl till it comes to room temperature. This sauce it continues to thicken as it stands, so don't thicken it too much on the flame.
• Note: This makes enough sauce for 6-8 small pizzas

Pizza dough

As adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François

You can find the recipe for the Master dough here, or better still, buy the book.

(I made 2/3 portion of the dough with 3 1/8 cups of plain flour, 1 cup wholewheat flour, 2 cups of water, 1 sachet of yeast, 2 tbsps of olive oil, some red chili flakes & salt)
To assemble:

• Preheat the oven to 300C.
• 20 minutes prior to baking, line your baking sheet with parchment paper, and sprinkle with cornmeal. Flatten out a small ball of dough to make a base. (I tried both versions, a thick crust & a thin crust. Both came out superb.) Allow to rise at room temperature.
• 5 minutes before baking, spread about 1/4 cup pizza sauce on the base, put toppings of your choice & bake for 15-20 minutes/ till done.

This goes to Susan @ Wild Yeast for Yeastspotting. This week's edition of YeastSpotting will be hosted by Nick of imafoodblog

CHOCOLATE BUCKWHEAT LIME CURD TART...Fresh & Exciting

"When life gives you lemons, find someone who's life gives them vodka. Then party."

There is an old lady who lives nearby, one of the kindest souls around, who is very fond of me. She makes it a point to stop by our home on her morning walks, at least twice a week, to make sure all is well with me. Constantly spoiling me with sweets & chocolates, this time she sent me a bag of limes off her lime tree. I love anything & everything citrus, & I was overjoyed! The basket of limes sang to me & then, along came Judy twittering about lemon curd!!

It's been my first go at lemon curd (lime as in my case). I've drooled over Meeta @ WFLH 's fresh homemade lemon curd for long enough. It's enticing & refreshing, as her posts always are, but have never had the courage to make it because of the 'egg' issues that I have. Egg yolk & me are not good friends, & I tend to associate eggy aromas with anything that uses egg yolk.Being a Daring Baker has made me use egg yolks more often than I would otherwise, & frankly, this has been a turning point in my baking obsession. I've yet to wander into eggy ice-creams which are equally tempting, but the Bavarian cream I did here made me change my eggy-huliar feelings to quite an extent. I gingerly tried a little bit & found that there was nothing too eggy there. Was twittering with Judy @ No Fear Entertaining the other day, exchanging notes on summer vacations, kids, beaches & food of course. She mentioned she had just made lemon curd off Meeta's recipe & it was delish. She was thoroughly cross-twittered to make sure eggy aromas didn't feature in the curd, & I was sold on the idea. I made fresh lime curd the next morning thanks to my haul of fresh limes...

Fresh Homemade Lime Curd
as adapted from What's For Lunch Honey
Ingredients
8-10 limes, zest & juice (increase lime juice if you think it isn't tart enough.Meeta used 4 lemons)
100g unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 eggs, beaten
450g fine granulated sugar Method

• Set a fine strainer over a medium bowl, then set aside.
• In a medium sized saucepan whisk together the juice, zest, sugar and eggs until incorporated and the sugar has dissolved.
• Place the saucepan over medium heat and gently cook the mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon, until steaming. Make sure the curd does not boil. Stir frequently and continue to cook until the curd has thickened and the curd coats the back of the wooden spoon - approx 3-7 minutes.
• Take the curd off the heat and then add the butter, stirring to incorporate it to the curd. Pour the curd mixture through the prepared strainer to make sure there are no lumps in the lemon curd.
• Pour into warm sterile jars , cover and seal. Allow to come to room temperature, then refrigerate.

With rich curd on hand, could dessert be far away? So much lime curd needed a destination. Thought I'd put it into an ice-cream as Judy had made, but currently suffer from freezer overload. Next thought 'lemon shortbread bars'. One thing led to another, & I finally thought 'TART'. How would 'tart and rich' fresh lime curd taste in a nice tart? LOL, pretty much talking to myself, I set off to make a regular plain tart, & then found my bag of buckwheat next to plain flour. A combination of random ingredients later, I ended up with a nice, crisp tart shell, inaugurating the flan/tart pan my sis had just got for me! The result was a nice dessert which we enjoyed with unsweetend whipped cream. INDULGENT!!Am sending this picture off to Jugalbandi for CLICK: July 2009. (Bi-Colour)
BUCKWHEAT CHOCOLATE TART SHELL
Ingredients:
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3T cocoa
3T vanilla sugar
2/3 stick (75gms)cold butter, cut into pieces (or grated)
1/8 cup olive oil
Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Place the flours, baking soda, cocoa & vanilla sugar in food processor. Pulse for 30 seconds.
• Add in chilled butter (I like to grate frozen butter directly into the processor), and pulse till the mixture forms breadcrumbs.
• Add in the olive oil & process for a further 30seconds till it all comes together in clumps. Put into a bowl & gather into a ball of dough. Do not knead.
• Take a loose bottom tart/flan tin, & spread the dough around evenly with your fingers to cover the bottom & sides. (You could even chill the dough for 30 minutes & roll it out I think).
• Bake at 180C for 15-20 minutes. Cool in tart pan for 30 minutes.
• To finish:
• Cover the baked tart shell with the lime curd, sprinkle flaked almonds if you like, & bake at 180C for 30 minutes/until you can see the curd beginning to set. Lightly top with a sheet of foil if beginning to brown too fast.
• Cool completely on rack & chill for 6-8 hours. Slice & serve with unsweetened whipped cream.

ITALIAN CHICKEN ON STICKS... & SOME SHOPPING IN NEW DELHI !!

“Do not be afraid of simplicity. If you have a cold chicken for supper, why cover it with a tasteless white sauce which makes it look like a pretentious dish on the buffet table at some fancy dress ball?”

Marcel Boulestin

Have had a busy week, & just when I thought the kids were finally back to school after a 2 month vacation, 'they' (the district authorities) decided to extend the vacations! Too hot for all kids to be at school, so we have them home for another week. Phew! On the brighter side of life, we did manage to get a few random showers, which means we might expect respite from the harsh Indian summer pretty soon. These appear to be pre-monsoon showers, & though they give us an overdose of humidity, they keep our hopes raised.

With the kids home again, the thought process & body mechanism involuntarily heads towards the kitchen no matter what. These past 2 months have run me ragged trying to think of how best to serve 'food with a difference'. Left with few exciting options for dinner as I've been through the normal run of dinner table items, I often need the change, more than the kids. I took chicken tenders out for a supposedly light version of Butter Chicken, but chickened out at the thought as it still involves cream & butter. These hot summer days call for lighter fare, so I decided to give the Indian tikka an Italian twist. I made Italian Chicken on sticks & served it with some bread & salad. They were delicious, full of light summer flavour & a hit with the kids. Served them with a hung yogurt-garlic creamy dip, & I was in business again! An artisan bread on the side gave me additional brownie points!! There was also a light salad that I tossed in some reserved marinade. Simple & delicious!!

ITALIAN CHICKEN ON STICKS

Ingredients:

750gms chicken thigh tenders, cut into bite size pieces

1/3 cup olive oil

Zest & juice of 2 limes

6-8 cloves garlic, minced

Handful of fresh oregano, finely chopped

2 tsp smoked chipotle paste (optional)

Salt to taste

Method:

• Whisk together oil , zest, juice of limes, garlic, oregano and salt. Taste and adjust seasonings if required.
• Remove 2 tbsp of the marinade for a salad if you like (optional), & whisk in the chipotle paste in the rest.
• Soak bamboo sticks in water for 30 minutes,
• Marinate the chicken tenders in this for at least an hour, or overnight. Take it out of the fridge half an hour before cooking.
• Preheat the oven to 300C.
• Thread the tenders on bamboo sticks alternatively with bell peppers & onions.

• Cook in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Let drip for a 5 minutes. Grill the tenders on sticks on a heated grill pan, pressing down gently to get the BBQ lines. Serve with a dipping sauce of your choice.

My sis has been visiting from the US so I got my lucky haul of stuff. Have finally laid my hands on books I've been waiting to read for ages - Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes & A HomeMade Life. In addition, I got baking tins, tart pans & loads of more exciting stuff, including another Cookie book. FUN!! My dream run continued & sis # 2 had a friend flying in from the US and sent me some more 'loot'! A fluted cake tin, silicon muffin cups,an oven thermometer ... & much more! Now all I need is a little time...A few days ago Meeta @ WFLH tweeted about her day out shopping at Ikea ,& I was terribly envious of the brilliant stuff she got. Ikea's India plans have been shelved, at least for the time being, & I was quite bummed!! Quite forgot that retail therapy is quite possible anywhere under the sun. While sis #1 has been here, we've been out in town, exploring & shopping. Central Delhi is a beautiful place to visit, full of interesting history, architecture... & SHOPS!! It had to be me taking her out shopping, but for some insane reason I ended up shopping more than her. One of my favourite haunts is the Tibetan market on Janpath. The Lonely Planet review sums it up ... "Beckoning tourists with its shimmering mirrorwork textiles, colourful shawls, brass Oms, psychedelic T-shirts, dangly earrings and trinkets galore, is this touristy belt running north of the Imperial hotel. It has some good finds if you rummage through the junk. Haggle hard." It's a Little Tibet in India.You can easily spend a couple of hours, if not an entire day, wandering around here. While exploring the Tibetan market, we discovered quaint little shops overflowing with bric-a-brac, & one special shop full of the most beautiful pots & pans. A pleasant young man, Tashi Nima, runs his shop, Doma Copper Brass, with a passion. He knows his stuff & his prices are fixed. He has his suppliers, & is known to supply a lot of people with Indian/sub continent bric-a brac. The wares move fast & he sells a mix of old & new culinary items. Everything is handmade. The things aren't antique, but do date back to the 1910's etc, & the artwork is entirely intriguing. We spent most of our morning in his shop, & I'm going back soon to explore it some more!

Chocolate, Dried Cherry & Walnut Bar Cookies

"Will work for chocolate"

Summer in North India has become a drag, & I can't wait for better days to come. I've been desperate to bake but lack motivation. Everything is HOT, & I almost don't need to switch on the oven to bake. Power outages rule our days with electricity more absent than present. The kids summer vacations in this entire region have been extended in view of the heat wave. The mayhem at home continues...& in the midst of this, I still want to bake...I had an old Martha Stewart recipe using oats & dried cherries jotted down on a scrap of paper. I found it a couple of days ago while clearing my desk & decided to make the biscuits. With my limited supply of dried cherries all gone in many batches of these yum Chocolate Cherry Muffins, I stumbled on a bag of dried cranberries which a friend got from the UK recently. I was all set... Walnuts are always on my list to add to anything & everything that compliments the nut, so in went some walnuts. I kept changing ingredients as I went along, substituting some flour with cocoa, & eventually came up with these delicious little bar cookies. Not too sweet, the tart cranberries compliment the walnuts & chocolate beautifully. You can omit the cocoa if you like, & use 1 1/4 cups of plain flour instead. If you like sweeter cookies, increase the sugar by 1/4 cup.

There are times that I really enjoy rolling out cookies at any time of the day, & find it entirely therapeutic. Not these days though. The heat is sapping, electricity is playing truant & humidity is making life worse. So I took a call & pressed the cookie dough into my tart pan, hoping some sort of brownie/cookie/bar would emerge...

Scored lines through the unbaked dough to get 12 equal pieces (later I thought I might have managed 16 instead), sprinkled on some vanilla sugar from sachets my friend from Kiev regularly gets for me. The sachets remind me of the many dessert mix sachets I had picked up while on vacation in Moscow way back in 1995. Everything looked so good, and I picked up loads of chocolate & coffee mousses etc. It was only when we returned home, did I realise that all instructions were in Ukrainian & I couldn't do anything with them. My limited knowledge of words like allo, da, idi suda, kharoshe, perciba didn't help!! In those days it cost a fortune to call overseas, so my poor sachets expired silently!The last time my friend was here from Kiev, in addition to vanilla sugar sachets (the writing on which is still in Ukrainian), she got me beautiful hand painted flat wooden spoons from there, which I really love.
CHOCOLATE, WALNUT & DRIED CRANBERRY BAR COOKIES

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup demerera sugar
1/4 cup vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled
1 large egg, beaten
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Fine vanilla sugar, for sprinkling (or sanding sugar)

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180C degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, oats, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt.
• Using a pastry cutter or your fingers, cut butter into oat mixture until mixture resembles a coarse meal. In another medium bowl, mix together egg, buttermilk, and vanilla and almond extract until well combined. Stir in dried cranberries, chopped walnuts/chocolate chips.
• Add egg mixture to flour mixture; mix until well combined.
• Turn out dough into a lightly greased tart tin with a removable base, push it to cover the pan evenly & uniformly. Cut into 12 equal squares using a sharp knife; or roll out to 1-inch-thick rectangle, cut into 12 equal squares & transfer to a prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle with vanilla sugar.
• Bake for 18 to 20 minutes/ till done. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool slightly before serving.