Almond White Chocolate Cupcakes

As Helen, http://tartelette.blogspot.com/
is hosting the monthly event Sugar High Fridays, http://www.domesticgoddess.ca/pages.php?page=10002 which created by Jennifer, http://www.domesticgoddess.ca/ . Once I read through the details of Sugar High Fridays #43, http://tartelette.blogspot.com/2008/05/announcing-sugar-high-friday-43-citrus.html I was really interested to join this event.

To tell you the truth, I thought about many desserts for this event, but finally I decided to do these cupcakes the one we really enjoy making & yesssssss....eating!!!

Then I thought about the frosting as normally I make from chocolate and cream cheese but this time I want to get some fresh orange tasting.

For the cupcake I made almond white chocolate cake , one of my favourites which I always like to make it.

Ingredient ( for 6 cupcakes):

45 grams flour
1/4 ts baking powder pinch of salt
75 grams butter, room temperature
45 grams sugar
1 egg
50 grams almond powder
30 grams white chocolated chopped


Preheat the oven at 175° C and prepare the muffin cups.

Whisk butter in high speed until it's creamy and pale yellow. Gradually add the sugar and keep whisking until they are fluffy and sugar dissolves.

Change to low speed and add the egg and beat until blended.

Gradually add flour and almond powder and mix them. Add white chocolated chopped and mix them together.

Drop 2/3 in the muffin cups and bake them for 15 minutes.


For the citrus icing

50 ml. fresh orange juice, strained
1/2 ts lemon juice
180 grams di icing sugar
2 ts powder egg white


Beat together in medium speed for 1 minute and then turn to high speed and keep on beating till it's thick and soft peak for 3 minuts.


For the decoration, I made the butterflies from marzipan just to get the atmosphere of spring.

April Panna Cotta

Finally real spring has arrived after waiting for long time, now you can imagine how is warm and sunny!!! I love this season a lot ... everywhere is green and full of flowers.

Normally when the weather starts getting warm and hot, I usually make ice-cream or panna cotta, both are our favourites!!



It happened to me to find this blog http://www.lacilieginasullatorta.blogspot.com/2007/05/per-la-panna-cotta-ingredienti-300g-di.html while I was searching for some recipes. It caught my eyes immediately because this is quite similar to the recipe that I normally use but this one has also the strawberry gelee which I have never made before. Want to try this combination!!

I can say that it's so delicious and also a perfect combination between panna cotta & strawberry gelee, I made 4 glasses and my husband & I finished them within one day and i have made it twice already. What do you think about the taste????

Recipe for 4 glasses (Adapted)

300 grams fresh cream

200 grams whole milk

60 grams sugar

1 vanilla stick

3 gelatine sheet (10 grams of gelatine)

Soak the gelatine sheet in cold water for 10-15 minutes. Pour milk, fresh cream, sugar and vanilla stick in a saucepan, stir together and set over medium heat. When it's almost boiled remove from the heat and put the gelatine into the cream, stirring until completely dissolved. Let cool to room temperature, pour into glass and keep in the freezer for 20 minutes. ( I divided the recipe and made them twice because I made 2 levels of panna cotta)

Strawberry Gelee

300 grams strawberry

4 tbs. sugar (depends on how sweet strawberries are)

1 tsp. lemon juice

2 gelatine sheet (7 grams gelatin)

Soak the gelatine sheet in cold water for 10-15 minutes. In small saucepan heat together strawberry puree, sugar and lemon in medium heat till the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat, add the gelatine and stir until completely melted. Let cool to room temperature. Pour in to the glass which has one level of panna cotta. Set in the freezer for 20 minutes.

While the strawberry gelee is set in the freezer, make the second part of panna cotta and when it's cool, pour in the strawberry gelee and set in the fridge for about 2-3 hours.

Thank you la ciliegina sulla torta for the delicious recipe.

Enjoy!!

Mango Tonight

As I had ripe mango which i bought a week ago, I was thinking what should I make from this sweet mango!!

It happened that I cooked Thai dish and I know that my sister in-law and her husband like Thai dishes, so we decided to invite them for dinner. What do you think, did they say yes or no??

How comes they won't join??? heheheh

Then I got only a few hours to prepare the dessert and I thought about making something quick, nice and full of mango flavor.

So, I named it Mango Tonight!

They were made from the following;

6 small round vanilla sponge cakes

Mango sauce (250 grams of mango, 80 grams of sugar and 1 tsp of limon juice)

200 grams of whipped cream

230 grams diced mango

some Ladyfinger biscuits

I was lucky that I finished them quite early and had 2 more hours before they came for dinner!!

This experience made me notice that sometimes, the simple thing goes well and more than we expect!!

buttermilk scones

I have never thought to make scone until I stopped by at P' Thip's blog
http://thai4real.blogspot.com/2008/03/buttermilk-scones.html one of my favourit blogs.

Once I saw them, I told myself that they were such a nice and yummy yummy scones! Then suddently remember that i have some nice dried cherries I bought from the fair. As I did not have any idea what can I make with, i just kept eating them as snack!!

By the way, before I finish them up, better to use them for making scones. Is it a good idea?

Yeap, it was a good idea to make them, as soon as I took them out the oven, I could not help

tasting them. And as normal, once I make something that both of us like ... they were gone so quickly!!!

Thank you P'Thip for sharing the nice recipe. :)

Enjoy swirling ......

I got the inspiration to make these cute swirly macaroons from Tartelette blog http://tartelette.blogspot.com/2008/03/swirly-macarons-and-birthday.html ; when i saw her fabulous and perfect swirly macaroons i could not take my eyes off and kept telling myself to try to make them once.

I'm not expert in making desserts especially macaroon, the one I have heard it's not easy to make them turn out good and perfect. To be honest, I have failed once in doing these swirly but I'm lucky to get the good suggestion from Helen, Tartelette (thank you Helen!). Finally I can make it and I enjoyed swirling each of them.

In the matter of my husband, he doesn't fancy too much this kind of biscuits so i just filled them with Nutella and brought all to my friends in the class. I was happy to see them enjoying when they saw and tasted them with pleasure. You might want to know how they taste..... i can say that they should be delicious as my classmates finished them very quickly.

Ravioli with Gorgonzola Cream Cheese

Rainy Easter was something we did not expect…yes we did expect the sunny day instead of rainy and cold!! So, we found something to do together and for sure it should be something fun and delicious ^o^

We thought about making ravioli for our lunch, my husband asked me whether we have the entire ingredient we need or not. I suddenly asked him back that how comes we do not have? Maybe he forgot that we made a big shopping the day before Easter.

Having my husband in the kitchen with me makes my kitchen even smaller than before and I could not move around easily. Normally I do not allow him to be around in the kitchen, but this time I cannot deny that it’s such a nice time cooking together.

Pasta dough (I made quite a lot for 2 so, I kept some in the fridge for the next day)

400 gr. Semolina flour
3 eggs
Pinch of salt
Some water

Filling

200 gr. Ricotta cheese
150 gr. Spinach
150 gr. Shrimp
5 tbsp. Parmesan cheese
Salt & pepper
Nutmeg

Gorgonzola cream cheese

2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. gorgonzola cheese
100 ml. cream
Salt & pepper

For pasta:

Whisk semolina flour in medium bowl and make a hole in the centre. Add eggs and stir with fork making movement in circle until mixture clumps together.

Add some salt and knead until dough is smooth, adding some water if dough is too dry.

Form dough into ball, cover and let rest for 30 minutes.

For filling:

Bring spinach to boil, squeeze all the water and cut into small pieces.
Melt butter in small skillet over medium heat. Add shrimps cut in to cubes till they cooked.
Mix together spinach, shrimps, ricotta, parmesan cheese and nutmeg. Season with salt and pepper.

For Gorgonzola cream cheese:

Melt butter and gorgonzola cheese together then pour cream and season with salt and pepper.

Cut pasta dough in pieces, cover with cloth to keep from drying out. I set pasta machine to no. 3 thin setting. Flatten 1 dough piece into rectangle. Run dough piece through machine. Fold in half crosswise and run through again. Continue to run through machine and dusting with flour as need to keep from sticking.

Place pasta sheet on lightly floured work surface, do not forget to cover with cloth to keep from drying. I used small cookies cutter to cut them out from pasta sheets. Place the filling in center of 1 dough round, fold dough over filling and forming half-moon and pressing to adhere.

Press edges with back of fork to seal tightly.Cook ravioli in boiling salted water until just tender and float. Drain and transfer ravioli to a bowl. Pour hot cream cheese over sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Chocolate mascarpone cheesecake pot

As we did not go anywhere for easter holiday as both of us have a cold, so we just stay home, be relax by watching tv and pamper ourself by making something good and absolutely delicious!!

I found that we had mascarpone cheese in the fridge, it reminded me for the dessert that i have seen in my friend's blog, Pook dailydelicious Once i saw it, i told myself that i gotto to try to make it once because i love both cheese & chocolate.

So, I decided to make it and to be honest i do not fancy too much about dessert, just love to make it. But u know what once the first dip got into my mouth...oh...it's absolutely delicious ... perfect and i could not stop myself!! Now, it's already on my favourite dessert lists and for sure i will do it again and again!!!

Thank you so much Pook for sharing the wonderful recipe.