Grilled bananas with cajeta and cream

This weeks cooking theme at the I Heart Cooking Club is sweet tooth!

Searching true the recipes of Rick Bayless i got curious about cajeta at first because i didn't know what it was but now after tasting it, i do! A very nice cinnamon flavoured caramel sauce that is verry popular in mexico i understand.

But Cajeta is better known as dulce de leche in other parts of the world.

Making the cajeta was another daring experiment for me. Again because i tried to make caramel before and i always failed in attempt. It took me 1 hour and 45 minutes to finish the cajeta because i was afraid it would burn or boil over(don't like all the sticky stuff on my stove top). Like Rick said it would, it turned golden but only after 1 hour and 30 minutes. And i was stirring a lot tho prevent it to stick to the bottom of he pot.

I served the cajeta with this grilled banana recipe from rick and it was lovely. substituded the dulce the leche flavoured ice for cinnamon flavoured ice cream. and sprinkled some halved pecans on top.



Grilled bananas with cajeta and cream
Serves 4
Recipe by Rick Bayless

Ingredients
4 firm, but ripe, bananas with attractive stems
Vegetable oil for brushing or spritzing
8 small scoops best-quality ice cream, preferably dulce de leche flavor
1/2 cup Mexican cajeta (goat’s milk caramel sauce)

Directions
1. Heat a gas grill to medium or prepare a charcoal fire, letting the coals burn until they are covered with a gray ash and are medium hot. Cut the bananas through the stems lengthwise in half. Brush or spritz the cut sides with oil.
2. Place the bananas on the grill cut side down directly over the heat. Cover and grill until lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Turn skin side down and continue grilling until tender and bananas have pulled away from their skins, 2 to 4 minutes more.
3. Arrange 2 banana halves on each serving plate. Top each serving with 2 scoops of ice cream. Drizzle each with about 2 tablespoons of the cajeta. Serve immediately.


Cajeta
Goat's Milk Caramel Sauce
Recipe by Rick Bayless

Makes about 3 cups

INGREDIENTS
2 quarts goat's milk or a combination of goat’s milk and cow’s milk—or even with all cow’s milk (use whole milk in all cases)
2 cups sugar
A  2-inch piece of cinnamon stick, preferably Mexican canela
1/2 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon water

DIRECTIONS
1.  Simmer the cajeta.   In a medium-large (6-quart) pot (preferably a Dutch oven or Mexican copper cazo), combine the milk, sugar and cinnamon stick and set over medium heat.  Stir regularly until the milk comes to a simmer (all the sugar should have dissolved by this point). Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the dissolved baking soda—it’ll foam up if the goat’s milk is acidic. When the bubbles subside, return the pot to the heat.   Adjust the heat to maintain the mixture at a brisk simmer (too high and the mixture will boil over; too low and the cooking time will seem interminable). Cook, stirring regularly, until the mixture turns pale golden, more or less one hour.   Now, begin stirring frequently as the mixture colors to caramel-brown and thickens to the consistency of maple syrup (you’ll notice the bubbles becoming larger and glassier).  Stir regularly so nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot. Test a couple of drops on a cold plate: When cool, the cajeta should be the consistency of a medium-thick caramel sauce.  If the cooled cajeta is thicker (almost like caramel candy), stir in a tablespoon or so of water and remove from the heat; if too runny, keep cooking.

2.  Finish the cajeta.   Pour the cajeta through a fine-mesh strainer set over a bowl or a wide-mouth storage jar.  When cool, cover and refrigerate until you’re ready to serve.  Warming the cajeta before serving (a microwave oven is efficient here) makes it extra delicious. Working Ahead:  Cajeta keeps for a month or more in the refrigerator.  Keep it tightly covered to keep it from absorbing other flavors.



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Flour Tortillas a Mexican Basic

A new cook has arrived at I heart cooking clubs. After spending a lovely six months cooking With Tessa Kiros we are welcoming Rick Bayless as our next cook. His comfort zone in Cooking is believe it or not MEXICAN food, And mine definately isn't. I had my fare share of mexican food but mostly in restaurants and the only mexican meal i can prepare is from a manufactured mealkit. So The next six months will be fun or they won't but the main reason i started this blog 2 years ago was to learn better cooking and for that you can't stay in your comfort zone!

So for this first week the theme is ¡Bienvenido Rick! To welcome him at our cooking club and we can choos any recipe we want. So because i don't know anything from mexican cooking i thought it would be nice to start with some basic recipe and that is flour tortillas.

When i was reading some recipe from Rick Bayles i noticed another difficulty for me. He/mexican kitchen uses a lot of ingredient that aren't common in the netherlands. Such as Chipotle, Tomatillos, vegetable shortening or lard and more. So i have to find some creative solutions for that in the next six months.

Starting today with the flour tortillas, there was the first problem of the use of lard or vegetable shortening. I managed to get a jar of vegetable shortening but it cost me 6 euros(1 Euro = 1.3094 U.S. dollars at this moment). I think thats a little bit expensive so i want to find a substitute for it and i don't wan't to use butter.

So i divided the flour in two and made half the recipe with the vegetable shortening and the other half i used sunflower oil. The rolling of the tortillas was a little bit difficult but after a few they turn out almost round. The baking wend well too, both tortillas grilled niceley in the griddle and you can't see any visual differences between te two. The only thing is that the taste is miltlydifferent and the sunflower oil tortillas seemed a little softer then the ones made with the vegetable shortening. So now i know that the sunflower oil works well in this recipe.

Flour Tortillas
Tortillas de Harina

Makes 12 tortillas
Recipe from the Authentic Mexican Cookbook by Rick Bayless

Ingredients

3/4 pound (2 3/4 cups) all-purpose flour, plus a little extra for rolling the tortillas
5 tablespoons lard or vegetable shortening, or a mixture of the two, or 5 tblsp of sunflower oil
3/4 teaspoon salt
about 3/4 cup very warm tap water

Directions

1. Make the dough. Combine the flour and fat in a large mixing bowl, working in the fat with your fingers, until completely incorporated. Dissolve the salt in the water, pour about 2/3 cup of it over the dry ingredients and immediately work it in with a fork; the dough will be in large clumps rather than a homogeneous mass. If all the dry ingredients haven't been dampened, add the rest of the liquid (plus a little more, if necessary). Scoop the dough onto your work surface and knead until smooth. It should be medium-stiff consistency -- definitely not firm, but not quite as soft as most bread dough either.


2. Rest the dough. Divide the dough into 12 portions and roll each into a ball. Set them on a plate, cover with plastic wrap and let rest at least 30 minutes (to make the dough less springy, easier to roll).


3. Roll and griddle-bake the tortillas. Heat an ungreased griddle or heavy skillet over medium to medium-high heat.


On a lightly floured surface, roll out a portion of the dough into an even 7-inch circle: Flatten a ball of dough, flour it, then roll forward and back across it; rotate a sixth of a turn and roll forward and back again; continue rotating and rolling until you reach a 7-inch circle, lightly flouring the tortilla and work surface from time to time.


Lay the tortilla on the hot griddle (you should hear a faint sizzle and see an almost immediate bubbling across the surface). After 30 to 45 seconds, when there are browned splotches underneath, flip it over. Bake 30 to 45 seconds more, until the other side is browned; don't overbake the tortilla or it will become crisp. Remove and wrap in a cloth napkin placed in a tortilla warmer. Roll and griddle-bake the remaining tortillas in the same manner and stacking them one on top of the other.

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Cheese-swirled chocolate bundt cake - THB

A new baking challenge with The Home Bakers. Starting today with this delicious cheese-swirled chocolate bundt cake!





About The Home Bakers

We are a group of home bakers who share the same passion in baking and we love collecting cookbooks! Most of us would probably have tried out about 2 or 3 recipes from some of the books that we own and these books somehow got pushed back till later or kinda forgotten, as we collect more cookbooks along the way! So at THB, we will bake from one cookbook only, until every recipe has been baked. This will not only fully utilized your cookbook to the maximum, but it will widen your baking skills, and learn more about baking as we share our experiences together. Come join us as we venture into the exciting world of baking right in our own kitchen haven. The challenge of The Home Bakers is to complete every recipe from one chosen cookbook. This will be an easier challenge if we are baking and sharing our experiences together. There's always something new to learn about baking!

The Chosen Book
We are currently baking from "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas, who has written more than 50 cookbooks. "Coffee Cakes" is a beautiful cookbook with various bakes covering Sunday Brunch Cakes, Everyday Morning Cakes, Savory Picnic Cakes, Bundt Party Cakes and Delectable Dessert Cakes, a total of 60 wonderful recipes. Just by taking a peek at this book, would make you want to bake each and every recipes!

So a few weeks back i stumbled up on this site and as a cookbook addict it seemed nice to join in a club where whe would make every recipe from just one book(and didn't already started baking/cooking). So i ordered the book immediatly. I finally received my copy of coffecakes last week ans started baking last saturday. The recipe for this first time baking together was picked by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours who also is the creative mind behind The Home Bakers.

She chose to make this Cheese-swirled chocolate bundt cake and the recipe can be found at her blog, Right here.

The preparation of the cake wasn't very difficult to me, but i had some questions about how to put in the cheesecake filling? Because in the picture in the book the filling is actually INSIDE the cake and mine isn't(like you can see in my picture). In the recipe it is descriped as "Spoon half of the chocolate mixture into the prepared pan. Carefully spoon the cheesefilling over.Spoon the remaining chocolate mixture over and smooth the top." Naive as i am thinking the cheescake would end up nicely in the middle of the cake! Does anyone of you has any recommendations or tips how to get it in the middle of the cake the next time i would bake this cake?

Also i had to alternate two ingredients; The first one was the canola oil because its not a common product in this little corner of the world i substituded it for the exact amound of sunflower oil. The second where the walnuts i substituded them for pecans just because i had them in my pantry.

The baking time of 1 hour and 15 minutes my cake really needed that time to be ready, but after 45 minutes i coverded the cake pan with thin foil because the bottom was getting a litlle dry. Then when i removed the cak pan after 15 minutes waiting to cool down, i saw that the cheesecake filling didn't and up in the middle of the cake and i was a little bit dissapointed. But when i served this as a dessert that evening for my guests they loved it! and ofcourse i did too. The bottom became a little dry but the rest of the cake tasted even better the next day....

 Next time we will be baking a Apricot-Pistachio-Lemon Coffee Cake, so come bake here to see that on the 24th of April!



Goodbye Tessa! Nutella Hazelnut chocolate balls

This is the week we say goodbye to Tessa Kiros who whe have been cooking with for the past six months over at I Heart Cooking Clubs. I have been enjoying this six months en fell in love with this cook, where again i'd never heard of before. I own copies of her books Twelve and Apples for Jam and i want to buy Food from many greek kitchens, because where fond on the greek food to.

For this last time a made a real treat Nutella hazelnut chocolate balls, its homemade Ferrero rocher but i liked it even better. Next week where start cooking with Rick Bayless, feel free to join in!



Nutella Hazelnut chocolate balls
adapted from Tessa Kiros, Apples for jam

Makes about 30

3 hazelnut wafer biscuits
250g (9oz) Roasted peeled hazelnuts, copped quite finely
about 165g (6½oz) Nutella/chocolate hazelnut spread
250g(9oz) milk chocolate

Crumble the biscuits into a bowl and add the hazelnuts and about two-thirds of the Nutella to start with. Mix together until it all looks a bit like a mud cake. Try rolling a small portion into a ball, if it breaks up, mix in more Nutella until it will hold shape. If the weather is hot, put the mixture into the fridge for a while before rolling.

Line a tray or a large flat plate with foil. Roll slightly heaped teaspoonfuls of mixture between your cool palms into compact little balls. Put them on the tray and into the fridge for an hour orso to firm up.

Melt the chocolate in the top of a double boiler, makins sure that the water doesn't touch the top bowl. Remove from the heat and let the chocolate cool for a few minutes. Drop the balls in one by one, turning them around so that they are completely covered. Return them to the tray, where they will flatten a bit on the bottom. Let them set completely, even in the fridge for the first half hour or so if the wheater's hot. Bring them out to room temperature and store in a tin in a cool dark place or the fridge. They will keep for a couple of weeks.

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Dutch "Boterkoek" for my 2nd blogiversary!

Dutch butter cake/cookie "boterkoek" is an easy recipe made with real Butter. It's a real rich, dense and buttery cake ofcourse, and is traditionally baked in a 20-24cm(8-9,5 inch)  round pan. This is the classic version but there are more version, this varieties are filled with almond paste, apricot or ginger. This cookie is mosthly eaten during coffee or thea- time in the netherlands.

Dutch butter cake"boterkoek"

Makes 10-12 portions

250G( +8 oz) Soft real butter

250G All-purpose flour

250G Sugar

2 Eggs

50G Almond flakes

Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180C (355F). Butter or grease your cake pan and line with parchment paper, if you don't have a round cake pan you can use a square brownie pan instead.

Whisk the butter and sugar together in the mixer (or by hand), put in 1 egg and the pinch of salt. Add in the flour and mix untill the dough forms a soft ball. Spread the dough ball equaly in your lined baking pan. Cover the douch with some eggwash of the other egg and sprinkle with the almond flakes.

Bake for about 25 minutes untill its golden brown.

March meze Madness! Keftedes with fresh pita, tzatziki and cucumber meze

This week its March Meze Madness! over at I Heart Cooking Clubs.

So i made ourselves a little meze party for dinner, when my boyfriend came home from his work he almost couldn't wait to get started. I'm glad whe both like tzatziki. Whe ate the hole bowl so that will keep colds and the vampires away;-)

Keftedes (fried meatballs)

Tessa says,"These are very popular in Greece. They are lovely as a meze with a dish of feta and a few other bits and pieces. Of course they are also great with french fries. Many Greeks roll their keftedes in a little flour before frying."

Serves 35 balls

10½ ounces unpeeled potatoes [about 2]
1 pound 2 ounces ground beef
1 red onion, grated
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped Italian parsley
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried mint
good pinch of ground cinnamon
1 egg, lightly beaten
salt and freshly ground black pepper
all-purpose flour, for dusting
olive oil for frying
lemon quarters, for serving

Boil the potatoes, covered, in plenty of water until they are soft when pierced with a fork.

Meanwhile, put the beef, onion, parsley, oregano, mint, cinnamon and egg into a bowl and mix. Drain the cooked potatoes and when they are cool enough to handle, peel and break up into the bowl. Season well with salt and pepper, then mash everything together with a potato masher. Knead again with your hands to make a compact mix. Form walnut-size balls of about 1 ounce each, but you can make them smaller or bigger if you like. Scatter some flour onto a flat plate and roll the balls lightly in the flour, keeping them in compact balls.

Heat olive oil to a depth of about 1/4 inch in a large nonstick skillet. Add as many balls as will fit to the skillet and fry until they are golden on all sides, flicking them gently to roll over. You will probably have to fry in two batches. Remove carefully with tongs and drain on a plate lined with paper towels. Add a little salt (as fried things are always good with a last sprinkling of salt). Serve hot, with a few drops of lemon juice.

Pita bread

Makes 8 pitas

Tessa says,"Generally in Greece pita is found at a souvlaki house and some grill spaces. But it is also wonderful served plain instead of bread at your table with dips etc.
In Greece, the pita are more often wrapped than stuffed for souvlaki and kebabs, so they need to be a bit softer. They are then heated up at the barbecue, or in the oven or chargrill pan before filling. If you will be eating them straight away. However, cook them a little longer, until they just start to colour. These can be frozen once cooked and then just pulled out to thaw."

2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon honey
450G (2 cups) bread flour
6 tablespoons olive oil

Sprinkle the yeast in a large bowl. Add the honey and 3 tablespoons warm water and mix to dissolve. Leave it till it starts to activate and get frothy. Add salt, flour, oil, and 7 oz water to the dough and mix until a rough dough slumps around your spoon. Change to your hands and knead until you have a soft springy dough, 8-10 minutes. It will seem sticky at first, but that is good, so only add more flour if the dough clings to your hands.

Wipe out the bowl with an oiled paper towel. Put the dough in, cover with plastic wrap, then a heavy cloth, and leave in a warm place to puff up until about double in size (1 1/2-2 hours).

Preheat the oven to 400. Punch down the dough and divide into 8 balls. Press each ball into a flat disk with your hands and leave for 5 minutes for them to relax.
Roll out the disks into a circle about 1/6" thick. Brush lightly with olive oil and put onto unfloured baking sheets. Bake one sheet at a time util they are firmed on the first side, 5 minutes or so, then turn them over amd bake for another 3 minutes, or until the top surface is dry. You will finish cooking them under the broiler or in the oven when you are about to serve, so they should be a little underdone.
Remove and immeaditely stack them on top of each other and wrap in plastic wrap to keep them pliable. To serve, brush each side lightly with olive oil and put under the broiler to warm both sides.

Tzatziki(Yogurt, Cucumber, Garlic)

Serves a nice bowlful

Tessa says, "This is a subtle amount of garlic comparred with some versions that you might come across. So you can add more if you like. If the garlic bothers you, you can leave it out completely, but it's not really tzatziki then. Tzatziki is a beauty as it takes just about anything to a different level. wonderful with chips, lamb chops, bread and many other dishes."

2 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small cucumber
1 teaspoon salt
250g Greek yogurt
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped mint       

Using the flat of your knife, crush the garlic with a pinch of salt into a paste. Put into a small bowl with the oil, and leave to marinate while you prepare the rest.

Top and tail the cucumber and peel it. I like it striped, with one strip peeled and the next left unpeeled. Using the large holes of the grater, grate the cucumber into a sieve. Scatter with the salt and leave it for 30 minutes or so to drain, turning it over a couple of times and even pressing it down with your hands or a wooden spoon.

Put the yogurt into a bowl for serving. Add the garlic and oil, the mint and a couple of grinds of black pepper. Fold the cucumber through and taste for salt. This can be stored in the fridge, covered, for a couple of days. The cucumber will give up a little water, but stir it through to loosen the tzatziki.

Cucumber meze

Serves 2

Tessa says,"This is extremely instant and extremely simple. The kind of thing you could eat a bucket of in summer. The recipe is easy to double; just reduce the olive oil slightly-about 1½ tablespoons.

Serves 2

1 cucumber, about 200g peeled and sliced
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 teaspoon dried mint
about 1 Tablebspoon olive oil

Mix the cumcumber, lemon juice, and mint together in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper and toss again. Just before serving, drizzle the cucumber slices with olive oil.

Cabbage salad with oranges & lemons

Fight Scurvy - Eat More Citrus! Is this week s cooking theme over at I Heart Cooking Clubs.
They say'"I find it somewhat amazing that encased in thick, pebbly skins you can find such bright, juicy, glorious bursting fruit! It's like a hit of sunshine for those of us stuck in cold, blustery parts of the world this time of year."
And This salad really whas a hit of sunshine combined with the best of winter produce: cabbage. I bought this lovely Savoy cabbage as Tessa suggested. I added in some extra walnuts.I can't hardly wait for summer to come....
Last friday they also announced our new featured chef for the comming six months. It is Rick Bayless Who's comfort zone is MEXICAN. That surely isn't mine, but i'll just dive in with the rest of the club and maybe after six months i will love it.

Tessa Kiros says, " A soft cabbage like savoy is best here, as the dressing will happily cling to it. You can easily add other ingredients - sometimes i sprinkle in some crushed dried mint or freshly chopped parsley, ground coriander seeds or caraway seeds(although not for my childeren, who say they look like 'gogos'- a word we used in South Africa for something small and insecty). Finely sliced fennel and coarsely grated carrots are also good, and you could use some beautiful purple cabbage for extra colour. It is also lovely with a peeled, cored and chopped apple tossed trough.
Walnuts are great, too. I normally use blood oranges, but, when they are out of season, orange oranges are fine- just make sure that they are bright, sweet and at their very best."

Cabbage salad with oranges & Lemons
Tessa Kiros, Apples for jam

Serves 6

400G (14Oz) finely sliced cabbage
2 smallish leafy celery stalks, finely sliced
2 whole oranges
Ground chili, to serve

Dressing:
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
½teaspoon dried oregano, crushed through your fingers

Put the cabbage in a large bowl, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of salt and cover with cold water. Leave to soak for an hour or so. This will help draw away any acid from the cabbage. Drain, rinse and put it in your serving bowl with the celery. Cut the skin and all the pith from the oranges. Slice the oranges into fine wheels(picking out any seeds) and add to the cabbage.
For the dressing, lightly whisk the oil, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar and oregano together. Season with salt and pepper and pour over the cabbage. Mix trough well. Let it settle, then mix trough a few more times so that the cabbage is completely coated. Toss trough a sprinkling of groung chilli just before serving, or pass it around separately for those who want it.
Serve in winter(when cabbage is at its best) with roast pork or chicken, or in summer with barbecued meats.