Summer decadence...

I think I promised to tell you about the new product on the Finnish market that'll make the ice cream churner obsolete. It can probably already be found on other markets, but here it has been the well kept secret of professional chefs. I'm talking about the glucose sirop - the one made from wheat.

Some say it is just another useles and potentially harmful additive. I don't know about that (need to do some further research at some point) but I do know that I've never had home made ice cream as creamy as easily. So I'm betting on the fact that I will not be making ice cream so often that any fattening effects of the glucose sirop would have an impact on my children, at least not more than the usual desserts we have at home (or the cream in this recipe).

This must be the best chocolate ice cream ever - and I've sampled a few during the last... well, a few decennies.

Summer decadence in the form of chocolate ice cream 

4 dl of cream (the liquid one that can be used for whisking chantilly or making crème anglaise)
4 dl of full fat milk
8 egg yolks
2 dl of sugar
2 dl of glucose sirop (Dansukker)
a couple of handfuls of dark chocolate (here Valrhona Caraibe 66%)

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar till blond foam. Heat the cream, milk and glucose sirop to the boil.

Put the cholocate in a bowl and pour enough cream mixture to just cover. Leave to melt and stir even.

Pour the rest of the cream to the egg foam and whisk vigorously. Mix with the chocolate ganache and put the whole ice cream mixture to a bowl that you can freeze and leave to cool.

Once cool, place into the freezer and whisk a couple of times during the freezing process. I only had time for a couple of rounds right in the beginning, but that seemed to be enough. The ice cream consistency next day was just like in the best of dreams.

Serves best with coffee.

Yes, the name says it all : Chocolate - coconut - pistachio - muffins

 

One of the recipes that caught my eye in the magazine pile was a new take on chocolate muffins. Chocolate-coconut- pistachio sounded exotic and decadent to a point where we just had to try the recipe. And yes, these were delicious, although a bit dry - probably as we did not follow the recipe to the letter due to lack of some of the ingredients. You may want to halve the amount of desiccated coconut in the recipe below... 

Chocolate-coconut-pistactio muffins

75g unsalted, peeled pistachios
150g dark chocolate
75gbutter
3 eggs
150g sugar
150g flour
1tsp baking powder
50g desiccated coconut flakes  (only half of this if you like them moister)

Preheat the oven to 200C. Crush the pistachios and mix with the coconut flakes.

Melt the chocolate and butter together. Mix evenly and let cool.

Whisk the eggs and sugar to form a pale foam. Mix with the flour and baking powder. Add the chocolate mixture and half of the pistachio-coconut mix.

Divide the mixture into cupcake tray. They don't rise just as much as many of the other muffins mixtures so fill the wholes well.

Bake the bigger ones for 20min and the small ones 10-12 min. Let cool for 5 minutes in the tray and move then on a rack.

Delicious with coffee. 

Hazelnut chocolate meringues

Whenever I have some eggwhite leftovers, I seem to make meringues. This time I also had some hazelnut crush and when I hear "hazelnut" my brain immediately thinks of chocolate.

So, there was no way around it. This is what we had for dessert yesterday.

Valrhona is the preferred dark chocolate brand in our house. This time we opted for the fruity Manjari (64%) which was melted and spread on the meringues with a little silicon brush.

What chocolate brands do you find the best to use ?

Meringues are so easy to make and the variation possibilities are endless. Look here for the basic recipe and one of our latest taste experiments.

Angry Bird goes cakey

One of Toto's favourite toys is a little Angry Bird. It makes birdy lauhging sounds when the right button is pushed and that sound often tells where to find the little rascal. It was quite clear what his birthday cake should look like.

I don't actually know how well you know these characters - they are from this game by the Finnish company Rovio. In the game the bad little piggies have stolen the eggs from the birds, who as a result have gotten extremely angry and go after the piggies for vengeance. Sounds quite silly doesn't it ? But all the children seem to love both the game and the related merchandise.

I'm not artistically talented at all (remember my lemon tart), so it was my husband doing the decorations (again). Not bad I'd say. Even though I forgot to clean the rest of the icing sugar on the top...

Under the marzipan layer the cake had alternating layers of vanilla sponge cake, cacao sponge cake,  mascarpone cream and chocolate ganache cream. 300g of chocolate and 250g of mascarpone made sure that this is not a cake for those on a diet, but then... how often can you celebrate the 2 year birthday of your youngest son ?

Yep, you guessed right - the same argument is valid for every birthday and in our family we celebrate birthdays 5 times every year + once for the cat.