The Queen of Tarts

Brenda's Zucchini Bread

OK - so maybe the original version of this recipe is not by Brenda, but Brenda made this zucchini bread for me, and she shared the recipe with me, so she is now getting the credit. Truth be told, the credit should go to Gluten Free Goddess - amazing recipes and gorgeous pictures! There are several things that make this recipe so amazing. It has brown sugar in it, which gives a deep and rich sweetness. The recipe is gluten free and dairy free, and you could make it vegan if you want. It is a forgiving recipe, and this is not always the case for gluten-free recipes. You see, I had to substitute potato starch for tapioca starch (only to find out later I actually HAD the stupid tapioca starch...) and it still rocked. Enjoy every single bit of this treat - as it is so worth it! Next time I will try not to eat the whole loaf in 3 1/2 days...

Preheat the oven to 350F and grease a 9 inch loaf pan.

Ingredients:

1 rounded cup of fresh, grated zucchini 
1 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup potato starch
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup light olive oil or coconut oil
2 egg whites, beaten or egg replacer (1/4 cup liquid)
1/4 cup soy milk 
1 teaspoon fresh lemon or orange juice
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract

Press the grated zucchini with a paper towel to remove as much moisture as you can. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sorghum flour, tapioca starch, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum, sea salt, and cinnamon. Add in the brown sugar.

Add the oil, lemon juice, egg whites or egg replacer, and the coconut milk. Beat to combine and continue to beat on medium high until the batter is smooth- about two minutes.

Add in almost all of the shredded zucchini and stir by hand to combine.Pour the batter into the loaf pan and spread around evenly with a spatula. Sprinkle some extra zucchini shreads on top.

Bake in the center of a preheated oven until the top is golden and firm, yet gives a bit when lightly touched. It should feel slightly springy - approximately 50-55 mintes. Test with a thin sharp knife or a wooden pick- they should come out clean.

Enjoy and see if you can't eat this in 2-3 days...

 

Just Vanilla (ice cream...)

I used to be so good at this - writing recipes, taking photos, etc. But ever since we moved to Abu Dhabi, a new rhythm has set in, and while it is neither good nor bad, it is different and my attention is focused elsewhere. From time to time I think about the days back in Boston where I cooked and baked and wrote regularly (at least a few times a month) and every time I completed a blog post I felt an enourmous sense of accomplishment. Yes, I know some of you do at least one, maybe even three, on a daily basis. But I have not been able to do that. However, with the long hot days of summer, and another move (still in Abu Dhabi) on the horizon, I am in a place where writing, cooking, and creating is appealing all over again.

So I am going to restart with a simple and plain vanilla ice cream. This ice cream is very vanilla-y... It has almost a 1/4 cup of homemade vanilla extract. The flavor is unmistable and rich. The use of low fat milk and only 3 egg yolks make it so much easier to finish of an entire bowl - or two - in a single sitting. So as I reintroduce myself to the wonderful world of blogging, you can whip up a batch of this goegeous summer desert...

Recipe:

1 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk

3 1/2 cups of low fat (or regular) milk (separated...)

3 egg yolks

4 tbsp vanilla extract (don't use cheap vanilla here - it will ruin the taste and purpose of this recipe)

1/2 tsp salt

Heat 1 1/2 cups of milk and the vanilla in a heavy bottom sauce pan until steaming. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly. In a separate bowl whisk together the egg yolks, salt, vanilla, and condensed milk. Slowly add the warm milk to the condensed milk and egg mixture whisking constantly. Put the mixture back on medium heat stirring with a wooden spoon constantly until the mixture is thick enought to coat the back of a sppon. Do not let this boil, as it might cause the mixture to curdle. Once the mixture has thickened, pour into a bowl to cool. Allow to cool for at least 3 hours or overnight. Pour the micture into an ice cream maker and follow the instructions accordingly.

Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have the best memories of cookies as a kid - my mother ran a gourmet food store, and I would sneak into the walk-in freezers with a spoon and put spoonful after spoonful of the cookie dough into my mouth. It made me quite popular when I brought my friends to show them what treasures hid behind door number one. Sure, you could argue that it was unsanitary or a terrible thing to eat raw egg. As a 12 year old, those kinds of things really didn't matter, and it is still a great memory. I mean really, how many kids (or adults for that matter) get that kind of opportunity?

Cookies (and raw dough for that matter) were very popular in our house. The go-to cookbook for sweets in our house was anything by Maida Heatter. In fact this dessert queen was so very loved by my parents that they named my sister after her. From cakes to tarts to cookies, everything that Maida touches turns into sweet perfection. Creating her recipes here in Abu Dhabi make me feel closer to my family and New England, which is where I grew up. 

Maida Heatter's book "Brand new book of Great Cookies" is full of incredible recipes ranging from gingersnaps to biscotti, to fortune cookies. I tend to gravitate towards anything that is chocolate related, so when I saw one of her creations titled "Positively-the-Absolutely-Best-Chocolate-Chip Cookies" I had to try them. They are similar to the Toll House recipe, but they have more chocolate. I slightly altered the recipe and sprinked pink sea salt on top of the dough before baking. I also used dark brown sugar instead of light to make the flavor a little richer. Yup, pretty damn good! 

Positively-the-Absolutely-Best-Chocolate-Chip Cookies

Makes about 24 large cookies

8 ounces unsalted butter

1 tsp salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 1/4 cups unsifted all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tsp hot water

2 1/2 cups if milk chocolate chips or pieces

Sea salt

Preheat the oven to 375F and put the rack in the middle of the oven. In a large bowl beat the butter with an electric mixer until soft. Add in the sugar occassionally scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary. Add the eggs one at a time. Once everything is combined add in the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add in the hot water, and finally add the chocolate.

Use a 2 inch cookie scoop measure out the dough onto a well-greased cookie sheet spacing them about 2 inches apart. Gently press the dough down to flatten it and lightly sprinkle a small amount of the sea salt on top. Bake for about 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet, and then transfer them to a cooling rack.

Enjoy!

Dark Chocolate Date Bars

(image by Lily Underwood Burns)

I have a thing for bars. Not the kind you step up to an order a drink from but the kind you eat. I know that a lot of them are crap. They are full of sugar and stuff you cannot really pronounce, but I still am on a search to find the perfect bar. I guess the closest bar to perfection might be a Lara Bar due to the minimalist approach in ingredients an pure taste. But the flavor of the original bars is a bit flat for me. It is sweet piled upon sweet, and there is little layering of flavors. Don't me wrong - I think the bars are great, but they are missing something for me. I also want a bar with a bit more protein than the Lara Bar has. I am a huge fan of a sweet/salty combination, so in search for a perfect bar I thought I might throw something together in the depths of our kitchen. I had the read the ingredients on the Lara Bar wrapper several times, and I was incredibly inspired by the recipe to recreate the bar. This happens to be quite easy here in Abu Dhabi due to the variety and quantity of dates and nuts. 

I am sorry to say that I do not really measure this recipe out when making it. I make it to taste, and I fully recognize that my tastes might not be the same as yours. There is a great deal of freedom here, and you should take full liberty to change/edit/play with your own recipe. Change the nuts, the chocolate, the ratio of ingredients to your own liking, and you might and probably will come up with something even better! ADVISORY: these are completely addictive... it is very hard to only have one piece...

Dark Chocolate Dark Bars

Makes 2 dozen

Need: 1 8x8 brownie or square cake pan

2 cups of pitted dates (I used segai or khidri dates - try not to use mejdool as they are too soft)

1/3 C dark cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp pink sea salt

1/3 C almond butter

2 C raw unsalted almonds

2 scoops Spiru-tein Chocolate protein powder (substitute another kind of protein powder if you have one on hand you prefer or if you want to make this vegan)

50 grams dark chocolate (65-72%)

Place the dates in a food processor and blend until they form a ball. Add in the nut butter and cocoa powder. Blend again for a few minutes. You might need to turn the food processor off and pull the date mixture apart as it tends to clump into pieces quite easily. Add in the protein powder and almonds. Mix again until it turns into a sand-like consistency. Add in the chocolate and salt and pulse a few times until everything is combined.

Take the mixture and press it into the 8x8 pan. Cover the top with plastic wrap and place in fridge to set for a few hours or overnight. Cut into 2 inch squares (or more depending on your mood).

ENJOY!

Salted Dark Chocolate Bark

I love the flavors of sweet and savory together particularly when it comes to dessert. In particulate I am drawn to dark chocolate with a hint of sea salt. As a child chocolate covered pretzels were always a favorite, and this is still the case. When I want desert it tends to be dark chocolate. Not an entire bar, just a small piece - it is after all good for your heart and all good stuff. One or two small squares and I am pretty much satisfied.

However, we recently came back from Vietnam where we took several cooking classes. In both classes (in two separate parts of Vietnam) it was explained that each dish contains sweet, savoury, silky, crunchy, and sour elements. By having all of these elements in a single dish, you are left satiated at the end of the meal. After spending two weeks in Vietnam, I have to say that this notion held true for me. Sure, it could also have to do with being somewhere other than home, but since each meal had so many flavors and textures, by the end you really are satisfied. Sure, there were the nights when I looked for chocolate - almost craved it - but if I recall correctly, those nights were in Cambodia, where the food (in my opinion) could not begin to compare to its Vietnamese counterpart.

Since we returned from our vacation I started to notice entirely too much chocolate just sitting around the kitchen. Typically this would not be a problem, but since my parents are coming to visit and bringing about 6kg of chocolate with them, I started to realize I was going to have a serious problem on my hands if I did not do something with the random bars laying around - and do something fast. Sure, eating it was one option, but for some reason the bars had little appeal to me. A single piece of chocolate "as is" just did not appeal. I wanted something more, and that is when I decided to mix the chocolate with the random nuts and seeds and dried fruit that were also sitting around. To make the whole thing just "pop" I sprinkled it with pink salt flakes.

One bite into the treat, and it held all of the components that we learned about in Vietnam - sweetness from the chocolate, savory from the salt, silky from the sweetened dried prunes, sour from the dried cherries, and crunchy from the nuts and seeds. It is an ideal dessert.

The measurements are pretty relaxed... I used what I had on hand. Adjust to suit your needs and desires...

12 oz of dark good quality dark chocolate (60-75%)

1 C of mixed seeds/chopped nuts (I used slivered almonds, walnuts, and pumpkin and sunflower seeds)

1/2 C diced prunes and dried cherries

1 pinch of sea salt

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in a heat-proof bowl over simmering water. Once the chocolate has melted, pour about 2/3 of it onto a larged piece of parchment paper, which should be on top of a baking sheet that can fit in your fridge. Let sit for about a minute and then add 1/2 of the nut/seed/fruit mixture.

Allow this to sit for about another minute, and then add the remaining chocolate and nut/seed/fruit mixture. Finally, sprinkle the salt on top.

Put the chocolate (while still on the paper and tray) into the fridge for about an hour or two to cool and set. Once the chocolate is fully cooled, peel back the parchment paper from the chocolate and break it into pieces accordingly.

ENJOY THE SWEETNESS!