Gypsy's Witch Kitchen

A madwoman's food diary

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

CHOCOLATE COOKIES LAYERED CAKE   (RECIPE)

Yes, it's gonna snow in the Caribbean... I'm actually posting a recipe today!

This is an Argentinean classic. Might look like a tiramisu, but luckily, it isn't. Luckily because I hate tiramisu. It has cream. Cream triggers my migraines and ladyfinger biscuits soaked in coffee are simply disgusting. 

Anyway, Choco-cake (Chocotorta), that's what we call it and I had never had any until a couple of years ago, when I started making peace with sweets, though I still don't like them most of the time. By the way, the pictures you see... it's a new Choco-cake making method. It's called DOING IT WRONG!

The real Choco-cake is a lot simpler and I will describe it in detail because it's the kind of cake even a 3 year old can make. I was giving it a try for Gabe's birthday the year before last because he was soooo into it and wanted that cake and blah blah. Anyway, I fished these old photos just to show how NOT to make it LOL. I'll try to explain the right method and might upload more pictures the next time I make it. Turns out it's quite yummy when you do it right, even if you don't like sweets. But I can't eat much of it or I get headaches so blah.

What you need:

* 350grs of Dulce de leche

* 350grs of mascarpone cheese (or cream cheese if you can't help it)

* 2 family packs of Chocolinas cookies or equivalent (that's roughly 500grams)

* A cup of very light instant coffee/chocolate milk if you can't drink caffeine like me

* A 3 inch deep square/rectangular tray

* Plastic wrap

Instructions:

* Wrap the inside of the tray in plastic wrap. Thoroughly mix the dulce de leche and mascarpone cheese in a bowl. If the dulce de leche is too thick, add a little milk to it and mix until it becomes more loose, the consistency of... well of dulce de leche. 

* Place the coffee OR chocolate milk in a shallow bowl so you can dip the cookies there before placing them in the tray. 

* Do so and make a bottom layer. If you're going to turn it upside down later, make sure the pretty side is down. Otherwise, keep the pretty side up. This cake isn't famous for its looks after all =P Don't wait for them to drain the excess liquid. Those cookies are so dry, they're gonna need all the moisture they can get, so it's okay if you place them in the tray dripping a little and if tiny pools of coffee form, be happy. If the bottom layer is still too dry, sprinkle it a bit with the coffee or chocolate milk. 

* Spread a generous layer of the dulce de leche-mascarpone cheese mix over the base of the cake. Repeat the previous step and then this step over and over until you're done with the cake. Ideally, it would be 4-6 cookies high with an average of 5 in most cases (depending on the size of your pan). I usually buy three cookie packs so I can discard (eat) the ones that break and have enough for an extra top layer because I like them high.

* Put in the fridge for at least 5 hours before serving. Try to serve small, even tiny portions (the size of a cookie, is ok) because this cake is really too much for most people, even those who love sweets. It makes you feel full too soon and it's better to have them asking for seconds than throwing away a lot of unwanted cake.

Beware: It's so yummy that if you make a small cake while entertaining a large group of people chances are they will start a feud over who got to eat seconds and who didn't because there wasn't enough cake hehehe. Four adults can totally kill it in one go if they're hungry and have a sweet tooth.

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

MADELEINES

First, let me clarify something:

* Cupcake: is just a tiny cake. Put cake batter baked into a tiny container, roughly the size of a cup and you've got yourself a cupcake. Icing/creamy topping as decoration is optional. Origin --> USA

* Muffin: Heavier and more compact than the other two, it comes in almost any flavor from chocolate with chocolate chips to carrot, cheddar and green onions. You usually don't want to beat the mix too much. Origin --> USA

* Madeleines: Light and fluffy because you beat the batter for a few minutes. Made with oil and a few other ingredients with little variation. No savory version or toppings. Origin --> Spain (adapted from the French shell-shaped homonymous treats)

So, Bree and I baked a batch of madeleines a couple of months ago... and a few months before that, for her birthday at the preschool homeroom... and a few months before that, at the old apartment. In short, this is something we do from time to time. It's fun, it's easy and it's incredibly healthy (unlike muffins and cupcakes). 

They only have flour, sugar, milk, a tiny bit of oil and a few drops of vanilla extract and orange blossom extract in them, so they're as healthy as it gets. Besides, unlike the store-bought cookies, I actually know what's in them, so I can closely monitor what she eats and make sure it's as healthy as possible. 

The consistency should be between cake and pancake batter. It's just a little runnier than cake batter.

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

SOY SAUCE MEAT & VEGETABLE RISOTTO

Hey! That's not one of my plates! Those are nothing like my silverware! Oh, right. That's Handsome P.'s tableware. Handsome P. is the drummer of the band my brother (Oniichan) and I formed ages ago when I was 16. We stopped playing together four years later, but we've all remained friends through the years... or, at least, parted on good terms. 

A couple of months ago, Oniichan and I were having breakfast together, reminiscing about the good old days and decided that it was time to put the old band back together. I had been talking to Handsome P. through Facebook for a while and he felt just like us so the timing was optimal.

Why Handsome P. you may ask. Well, back in the day, Pablo was 19 and had all the girls age 13 and under completely and madly in love with the guy, so we nicknamed him Handsome. Mostly, because it was ironical that the girls he was after didn't correspond but anyone under 13 wearing a skirt was head over heels for him =P 

The bass player, Crag, has always been Handsome's best friend. They're always together. ALWAYS. To the point where Oniichan and I started to joke about them being Siamese twins. So, as soon as we learned that Handsome was on board with the band, it was obvious that we'd get the combo. It would be just like the old times. 

We organized a get-together to start discussing the issue (and celebrate that it's been 10 years since we split up, which is a weird thing to celebrate but I guess that if you're in the mood any excuse is good). Handsome P has just moved out of his parents's house a few months ago and we arranged to meet at his place to celebrate this event as well. 

Being the only woman (and the only one married out of the four of us), they decided that cook... sexist much? Anyway... I made soy sauce beef and vegetable risotto. And it didn't come out as perfectly as it does here for two reasons:

First and the most obvious one: I wasn't cooking at my house with my stove and my pots, so the way I usually calculate ingredients proportions totally failed me. His pots are very different than mine when it comes to size and material. I did buy the ingredients myself to make sure the error margin would be minimal and still feel like I failed, though they can't tell because they either live alone or their SO can't cook well =P

Second, having to think of a dish in advance and then making it when my instincts called for a totally different thing was HARD (and weird). I don't know how people can follow a recipe. Seriously. Plus, ever tried to cook while laughing so hard your stomach hurts and you bend over crying? Well... that's how much fun we were having with our reminiscing and retelling of old jokes. It was hilarious. I had a blast! So I guess no one cared about the food... or they were just too hungry, dunno.

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

BRIOCHE DORÉE's BLUEBERRY & RASPBERRY TART

Obviously not something I usually make or have ever even attempted. Brioche Dorée's blueberry & raspberry tart is definitely one of a kind and I highly doubt I'd be able to reproduce it if I tried. If it involves the amount of butter normal, store-bought pastries demand, I'd rather not know what percentage of the crust is actually fat. 

This kind of fancy pasties aren't my style at all and I usually dislike the taste of store-bought sweets even more than home-made treats. However, fancy is my brother's middle name, so he was the one who introduced me to this particular franchise to begin with. Then, I became a fan of their tarts on my own. 

Those pictures are from the last time we went to the mall together for breakfast. That's weird because we both live with our SO's, but it was the only time that worked for the both of us. Anyway, he wanted to give Starbucks a try so that's the weird result hehehe. We are usually faithful to Brioche Dorée.

I love their Green tea + chamomile + orange peels blend. Well, technically, it's not THEIR blend, since the tea's brand is named something else but at first they were the only ones who carried it, so they became inseparable in my mind even as the brand became well known. Now I can just buy the tea at the supermarket (it's not cheap, though!).

If anyone has had a chance to try a green tea + chamomile + orange peels blend, he or she probably knows it's well worth the price. 

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

SPICED ROASTED MEAT AND BAKED POTATOES

This is another of our favorite classics. It involves putting a chunk of meat inside a tin foil wrapping with my favorite spice combination (Alicante's meat seasoning) and soy sauce (the kind that has wheat in it and is salty rather than sweet). You just put it in the oven in mid-heat and let it work its magic. 

It's pretty much the same with the potatoes, though if you ask Gabe, the potato expert of this house, he'd tell you it's an art. That you have to spray every potato individually before placing them on the already sprayed tray that goes to the oven. Then it comes the part where you let it cook past the point where they stick to the bottom until they get golden brown down there and simply detach themselves from the tray and become a tiny bit of heaven that tastes like fried but actually involves just a little oil.

This is another example of us cooking together. I work on the meat while he does his potato magic. Well... I do wash and peel them, but he definitely makes them all crispy on the outside and tender on the inside <3

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

TasteSpotting is a mouth-watering photo collection of recipes, cooking, baking, kitchen adventures, food industry and media news created by a community of food lovers from amateur home cooks to professional chefs.

I just LOVE this webpage with all my stomach-heart!

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

BLUEBERRY & CINNAMON ICE-CREAM

Yes, my mom's a genius. She gave me an ice-cream machine for my birthday a couple of years ago. Granted, I've been bitching about wanting one since I was like 6 and it was on my wish list, but STILL. 

It's the best gift ever. Especially considering the price ice-cream has right now in Buenos Aires AND just how crappy most of them are when it comes to taste, quality, and not messing up with your body.

Ever since I've got this ice-cream machine we've eaten a ton of ice cream during the summers. All kinds of ice, cream, as I usually put in there whatever's handy instead of going with the 2+2 recipes that always come out as 4, which is boring. Besides, cream triggers my migraines, so all my ice-cream creations have to be cream free, which is a plus because they're healthy and everyone can eat as much as they want. 

The secret? Well, people usually go for egg custard. I... don't. Why is no one surprised anymore that I don't follow recipes? =/ Anyway. Custard based ice-cream can only be kept in the freezer for so long before the egg in it becomes a problem. I make some sort of custard/caramel by boiling whatever fruit + whatever spices + a bit of water + a little milk + sugar in a shallow pan at min-heat for like 15-20 minutes stirring constantly (this is very important!). And, of course, I make it a little bit thicker with a dessert spoonful of either flour or starch. 

The amount of flour/starch I use depends on how much mix I'm doing, of course. You don't want to put in too much of it or it will taste like "whatever you put in pudding" and it's not the idea. Usually, I end up with roughly 450ml of a mix the consistency of melted ice cream, if that makes any sense to you. It's thicker than water but not as dense as oil... never-mind. We all know what melted ice-cream looks like.

That's what your mix should look like not when you take it off the heat but once it's cooled in the fridge for 24 hours, so you want it to be a little bit runnier than that so it will thicken as it cools. 

Why 450ml? Well, that's more or less my ice-cream machine's top capacity and it makes about 750grs of ice cream goodness. I sometimes make less in fear that it will be too much, because the frozen goo inside the cooling bowl usually doesn't stand a second batch... unless it's winter, so blah. 

I can also make chocolate-y flavors but it's a royal pain (melting it and then getting it to mix with the milk and sugar properly blah blah... my kid's allergic and her face swells up if she has some, so I just don't go there). The one way I can make semi-decent chocolate ice-cream that we all can eat is using chocolate milk =P

Some of my favorite ice-cream flavors are cinnamon+ blackberry, moccha, latte, chocolate milk, Irish cream and mint.

Mint is super super easy to make. Unfortunately, it calls for cream. You use half and half, sugar, mint extract and green food dye =P I often make it for my Grandma (on my dad's side) because she loves it too, but getting it to her house before it melts is a challenge. I mean, we live 14 blocks apart but we don't own a car. 

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

HONEY MEAT & BAKED POTOES It only joined our merry menu this year, because I've never dared to follow the instincts asking me to put honey into my regular soy sauce meat gravy for a caramelized meat flavor. I mean, I love honey meat/chicken/pork and anything caramelized, especially Chinese food.

However, those dishes always felt too difficult to make, the kind you usually order when you go out because you can't have at home. It's sad to think that I went without this amazing dish for so many years believing I was too unskilled to make it, when it's SO easy!

I usually defrost the meat in the microwave while the juicy part gets ready for it. I fill half a pot the size of a plate with water. Then add salt, a good measure of soy sauce (don't ask for specifics, I just feel how much is needed!), a meat flavored soup cube, three very generous tablespoons of dried/crystalized honey (or more like nine or ten if it's runny). Also, I add 1/3 of a cup of sugar... when I'm in the mood for something sweeter, but you could add more honey or just have salty meat with a hint of sweetness in it.

Then I let it simmer slowly and might or might not add some paprika to it (as well as a spice mix that I love, which includes cinnamon, white pepper, dried onion and garlic, oregano and ground laurel and I think that's all... comes already mixed!). Half a dessert spoonful of flour is added to thicken the sauce. If not enough, you can use another half and so on. 

When the meat's defrosted or even half-defrosted I put it inside the pot and let it reduce until it's like a runny gravy. By then, the meat is all sweet/salty and full of awesomeness. 

It goes well with mashed potatoes, but I don't like the texture so I never make that. Instead, I peel them, slice the potatoes thin and place them on a slightly oiled tray that goes into the mid-heat oven until golden and crispy. The trick is using little oil and avoid panicking when it sticks to the tray. Then let it bake some more until they become crispy and easy to detach from the tray.

If you're not  a potato fan (get out of here right now!) you can have this wonderful honey meat with a side of boiled rice. You can even lay the meat on top of a rice bed and add the sauce/gravy on top of that. 

Warning: If your soy sauce is the salty kind and your meat stock cube isn't low sodium, be careful with how much salt you put into the water or it might end up being too salty despite the honey. 

Suggestion: Use thin meat slices or even small cubes to make it sweeter or bigger chunks to keep the honey sauce from getting too deep into it. Depends on how much meat or honey you wanna taste in each mouthful, really. 

Might not sound too sinful or forbidden, but this dish is my definition of food porn.

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

YEAST BUNS

Another batch of buns from when we lived at the studio. The ones in the top shelf are saffron buns and the other ones are plain yeast buns. 

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

MINCEMEAT AND SPINACH CANNELLONI WITH BÉCHAMEL SAUCE

This is Gabe's favorite dish in all the universe. He always asks his mom to make it for him on his birthday and on Christmas Eve. She usually complains and complies LOL. That's my MIL, but she's great, really. I love her. If only she weren't such a Christian Christian, she'd be perfect. Sometimes, she feels lazy and makes spinach lasagna instead. That's the easiest way to make Gabe complain four hours on how he's been cruelly cheated. She says they're essentially the same thing. He claims that since it took her nearly three hours to make them, she could have taken an extra ten minutes to roll them and they go on and on hehehe. 

Those, are the ones I made a few months ago. Can't remember if it was for his birthday or not... I think I made them a couple of weeks before his actual birthday because leafy vegetables were on sale or something. 

They truly are a pain to make and it does take like three hours to make them from scratch. Especially if you're like me and wash every single spinach leaf separately to make sure nothing alive gets in the food.

I don't want to go into detail as to what's in them. They're so exhausting to make, even writing about it makes me wanna go to sleep. But he LOVES them. And I like to make him happy. Personally? I don't think they're so great. I usually eat one and he kills the other dozen and a half. Bree isn't a fan either. 

My favorite part is making the pancakes and then filling and rolling them. I guess that's because it makes me feel I'm close to done by that point LOL. 

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

LEMBAS BREAD

Who doesn't love LOTR? Haven't we all grown up reading Tolkien's wonderful works? Well, we did. Gabe loved drawing the characters, crests and landscapes; and I got obsessed with the languages. Even learned a bit of Sindarin  (that's one form of elvish) back in high school. LOL. I still remember enough to understand bits of elvish texts, not that there are too many out there anyway, as the poor Tolkien died before he could give us all he intended to.

But I digress... that's my idea of lembas bread. The shape and details are all Gabe, as my sucky pulse would have never allowed the finesse required for drawing on dough with a knife tip. It was another of our conjoined projects. He was super excited, as I don't bake lembas bread often because it reminds me of an ex-boyfriend I hate (he was the first person I ever baked this for). Besides, I find it too hard and dry, and I'm prone enough to dehydration without its help. Gabe is a Native American, so he's not easily breakable and loves corn bread.

The picture above is from last year. It had been ages since I had last baked lembas bread and we were talking about why. I explained about the stupid boy I dated back when I was 16 and he said it was time to let it go and bake him the goodies LOL. So, I did. 

What's in them? Well, many recipes call for raisins. I loathe them with a passion (though I love grapes), so no, there's no raisins or nuts in them. I do like nuts it's just the oil in them triggers my migraines yara yara... we've all heard about my migraines before. I know. Moving on.

They're made with equal parts of corn and self-rising flour, sugar, oil, honey, milk and other stuff I don't remember. To be honest, the recipe is so old, every time I'm forced to bake it, I have to look for it at my CD (yes, CD, not DVD) backup of the computer I had back then. I think it had a 4GB hard drive, so that's practically stone-age, though my mom worked with computers that required perforated cards and took up an entire room when she was young. *Shrugs*

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

OFF TOPIC: HOBBIES

Gabe and I sometimes bind little notebooks for fun. That was actually my first one, as he's the one who originally learned how and taught me.  It was so cute I just HAD to use it for my book of shadows. It feels a lot closer to me and alive than any plain regular notebook you can get in a stationary store or even a crafts store.

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

SAFFRON HAMBURGER BUNS

Like every major discovery, this one was actually a lucky mistake. It happened last year, around March. I didn't have any self-rising flour and didn't know what to cook, didn't feel like cooking either yet, I had to. So, I pulled the "pizza flour ready to use, just add salt, warm water with a pinch of sugar and let it raise" pack out of the pantry and got creative. 

I was aiming for a more compact and less fluffy result. Something like saffron flavored bread to go with the beef, potatoes and carrot stew I was lazily making (because those were the only ingredients in the house and we were lazy to go out). 

I think the kneading was key to it becoming so soft and fluffy. I kneaded it for like 15 minutes so gluten would form nicely. You gotta love that elastic protein! <3

Anyway, adding a bit of saffron to the warm water for the dough and kneading that easy pizza flour give you this amazing result: the best hamburger buns ever! Gabe is a serious hamburger enthusiast and he decreed it. I really don't like junk food, but to each its own. 

Thing is, as I wept over the bread gone too soft, Gabe went into the kitchen and spread the thick stew over the halved buns and served them as sort of hamburgers LOL. They were AMAZING! He ate the remaining buns with hamburgers the following day but I can't access his photo file right now.

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

SAVORY YEAST BUNS

Gabe likes to come and watch me while I cook. He talks to me and keeps me company and we both enjoy that. Every once in a while, especially when kneading is involved, he decides to step in and give me a hand with the cooking. I really love cooking together! We've been a couple for so long (9 and 1/2 years last week!) that  we don't bump into each other and have a way of working together in harmony that's a little bit like dancing.

Back to topic, those are some savory buns we baked last summer for a picnic. Actually, there were plenty more as we never bake less than 2lbs of flour, but the picture was taken as the first batch got into the oven. This is a recipe we do very often, so I don't really remember which time we took these pictures. It really doesn't mind, does it?

The dough was made with 000 wheat flour and live yeast (and water, oil, salt and a pinch of sugar). We usually add minced salami, ham, onion, green onion or some kind of cheese to the dough to make it yummier, but the plain recipe is good as well. Gabe and I love the taste of yeast bread. 

I have to confess that sometimes, on weekends, we decide to just bake these and have a movie marathon instead of cooking proper food. After all, they might not be super nutritious, but it isn't as if they were junk food either, right? Not fried, no sugar, no eggs, no butter...

Of all the kinds we've ever made, my favorite buns are those with salami bits though they do trigger my migraines more often... the ones I totally loathe are oregano flavored. Thinking of it, I want to try a cheddar-mushroom combination sometime soon. Too bad summer is raging hot here in the Southern Hemisphere. It might actually take a while. 

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

BREAD CAKE  (RECIPE)

Yes, there's an actual recipe for this one! Who would have thought, right?

While the name of this excellent dessert gets kinda lost in translation, the flavor is unique and addictive. The fact that it's healthy and ridiculously easy to put together only helps to make it an all time favorite. It also is a great way to up-cycle yesterday's bread, so no down sides ;) Well, it can be compact and a tiny bit chewy, which is totally fine by me but some people don't like that.

About its name... it's originally called budín de pan, which some people might translate as bread pudding or bread pound cake, but it really tastes like neither and certainly doesn't look like pudding. It's similar to Italian Tarantella, minus the flan, apples and caramel... if that means anything to anyone.

So, INGREDIENTS: * 250grs of yesterday's bread (baguette type, if it's the kind you put in a toaster, then you'll need more bread but I don't know how much more).

* 1 large egg.

* 1/2 or 2/3 cups of sugar (depending on how sweet you want it.

* Milk (enough to soak all the little pieces of bread) about one cup or less.

* Vanilla extract, a dozen drops.

DIRECTIONS:

* Mince the bread in a bowl with your clean hands until they're all small pieces the size of your thumb nail.

* Pour enough milk over them so that they get thoroughly soaked and there's 1/3 to 1/2 of an inch of milk pooling at the bottom. 

* Add the egg, sugar and vanilla extract and mix energetically, then place in your fridge for 15 to 25 minutes. 

* Place the batter in a glass pan that's at least two inches tall. You can use a regular pan if you don't mind it sticking to the bottom a little. You don't need to use oil, butter or flour on the pan.

* Put it in the oven at the lowest heat possible for like an hour or until you poke it with a fork and it's obviously not liquid. I mean, when it's obvious that if you cut a slice it will remain a slice instead of falling apart or being gooey. NOTE: It might raise insanely in the oven, like a soufflé. Don't worry. Don't panic. It's totally normal. Just let it be. In fact, it might still be all puffy when you take it out of the oven, but will flatten down as it cools. No biggie.

* Put in the fridge until cool and then slice and serve. You can serve it with ice cream if you like.

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

EASTER ROLL

I bake this every day for Easter because my hubby loves it, not because I care about Easter, though I do love the chocolate. Okay, to be honest I bake this several times a year if I feel inspired. Gabe goes crazy over them. Those pictures are from last year. This year, Bree and I made five huge rolls and a smaller one for her friend M, whose parents loved it LOL. 

This kind of sweet bread looks crunchy on the outside, but it's actually light and fluffy both inside and out, with an eggy flavor. 

Its dough is very very similar to the Christmas Bread that I make with my Mother in law's recipe, though this one doesn't have any nuts or sugar coated fruits in it (and neither would the Christmas Bread if Gabe had any say in it!).

This dough calls for live yeast and is a pain to make but it's totally worth it. Especially since you can make like 5 huge rolls with 2lbs of flour (and about half a dozen eggs) and some sugar, vanilla extract and the KEY INGREDIENT, orange blossoms extract. 

The original recipe involves an insane amount of butter, but I use 70 grams of butter and the same amount of vegetable oil per 2lbs of flour, so it's kinda lowER in fat.

[gypsyswitchkitchen]

CINNAMON APPLE PIE

This is one of those recipes that almost always come out the same way, no matter how little attention I pay to what I'm doing. I'd say it's foolproof but then it would probably come out wrong the next time I make it... That's how it works for me.

It's an all year favorite that, as always has low-fat content, though in this case I can't say it's low-sugar. The crust has a considerable amount of sugar (for me) in it, though any normal person will probably find it only slightly sweet. It's made with self-rising flour, a bit of oil, cinnamon, vanilla extract and brown sugar. 

The "filling", although topping would be a more appropriate word, is made of a bit of water, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, apples, a pinch of pepper and a little bit of butter. And when I say "a little bit" I really mean a little bit. Like 30 grams or less perhaps. I let them simmer in a pan and add water if needed then pour it over the cooked crust that has just been taken out of the oven.

That's the "complicated" version anyway. Most days I just place the apple slices over the raw crust and sprinkle it with brown sugar and cinnamon before I put it in the oven, forgetting about the butter altogether.