Raspberry and Dark Chocolate Panna Cottas

                       

                        

As one chapter ends, another begins.

That phrase had been going through my mind for the past month. After four years of studying, reading, researching, and writing, I have finally graduated with a B.A. in International Studies. Now, things for the first time are like a blank page- waiting for us to fill it with splashes of color.

                       

Everyone says that, now, we are finally in "the real world" (although I was told that when I graduated high school as well so I don't know which version to pick really...). We're continually told that the toughest and most challenging is yet to come and that our college days mark the last of being absolutely carefree.



It seemed kind of paradoxical to us. We weren't exactly "care-free" while pulling all-nighters, and reading hundreds of pages a week, and racking our brains thinking critically. But in retrospect, although it's only been eight days that I've graduated, I can somewhat sense what everyone meant.



Our primary responsibility was ourselves, and our grades. And if we didn't really commit to that, we were ultimately the only ones who suffered. But now, with getting jobs and starting families- a lot of other people factor in the equation- and they all have to be taken into consideration when we make decisions in our lives.

The mouse disguised as a "present"

But I'm glad that I realize that while also having lived "in-the-moment" during my university years- especially during my last year. I tried my best to experience as much as possible and enjoy every little moment- because I'd heard so much from my older friends about how "these days never come back". Most of the time, experiencing and enjoying as much as possible simply meant sitting with friends and having a good conversation. Or doing something really laid back- like playing Carem- or something really silly- like accidentally flinging a lab rat on the department table and terrifying everyone around me with my screams. (Do not ask how a lab rat ended up in the department of international studies- where, I can assure you, no biological experiments of any kind take place).

Playing Carem outside our department

On my last day of classes, I felt extremely melancholic. How many of the tons of friends that I made would I see again? And even if I did, it wouldn't be in the same environment that I had grown to love. But we move on, and as with any milestone in life, it's marked with celebration. 

White Party Dessert Table

A few days ago I threw a small party marking our graduation and invited a few close friends. I had chosen the theme to be white (don't ask me why, maybe because it's one of my favorite "colors"). So everyone, almost everyone, (I can imagine the ones who didn't squirm while reading this, haha) wore white. I had some white balloons and had a white dessert table.

White desserts were mini vanilla cupcakes with white frosting, sugar cookies (which I wanted to ice with white royal icing but didn't have time to), white meringues, white chocolate cake pops (with ginger cake inside), white marshmallows, white rice krispie treats, white chocolate mousse, and white panna cotta.

It was the first time for me to make panna cotta and yes, I admit it's kind of silly making something for the first time just a few hours before you have guests over! But that's me and my idea of being daring. Also, I didn't even manage to try it before I pulled it out of the fridge and served it to my friends. But they liked it, and I had a few spoons and liked it. So there.

                      

I had never made panna cotta and did not realize how simple and easy it is to prepare. And more so, it's so versatile. You can be SO creative. The one I made for the party was rosewater scented with a dulce de leche topping (not exactly a combination you'd expect- but it worked-well!)

                     

Yesterday, I made some more. This time, I wanted it vanilla and passionfruit flavored. I love the crunchy seeds of a passionfruit. But all three nearby supermarkets were out. So I resorted to making the panna cottas dark chocolate and raspberry flavored- which I don't regret one bit!



Ingredients
750ml whipping cream
1 tbsp unflavored gelatin
120g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways
3 tsp vanilla essence
50g dark chocolate
2 tsp olive oil
200g raspberries

Procedure
Place one cup of the whipping cream in a deep pan and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. On low heat, stir the mixture until gelatin dissolves. Then, add the caster sugar and remaining whipping cream and stir until sugar is dissolved. Next, add the seeds of the vanilla pod and the vanilla essence and stir through.

Pour mixture into containers of your choice (I made 12 servings in 1/8 cup sizes) and refrigerate until set.
Before serving, melt the chocolate with the olive oil in a double boiler. Pour over the panna cotta and arrange with raspberries on top.

 

Peanut Butter, Nutella, and Cheesecake Pudding

Helloooo everyone! I can't believe it's been more than a month since I posted.. I think this is the first time I've skipped an entire month of posting ever since I started blogging. 

Things have been quite hectic- I started my final semester at university four weeks ago and also moved in on campus. Prior to that, I was out of town for a while. 

 

It's the first time that I've lived away from home and I am learning quite a bit about myself. Especially how OCD I can be when it comes to cleaning. I can't seem to relax if I haven't scrubbed the sinks, made the bed, sweeped the floor, done the dishes, and generally made sure everything's clean and tidy early in the morning.

I've also had to be extremely resourceful when it comes to meals. I haven't relied on any recipes and make up my lunches and dinners from whatever is in the fridge (often a very creative process that I enjoy). Our dorm room also aren't equipped with ovens so I'm making a lot of scrambled egg and raw vegetable salads and crudites which I quite like. I've made it a goal that I don't want to order in any food while I stay on campus and I've stocked up my cabinets and fridge with things like wholewheat pasta and couscous, Greek yogurt, cherry tomatoes, capsicums, eggs, and baby spinach leaves.

I'm sure many of you must have read the "no-oven" part and thought, "Wait, what's SHE doing without an oven?" To tell you the truth, I do miss the transformative nature a baked good has while in the oven, and I miss the aroma of freshly baked cakes wafting through the kitchen but this has given me the chance to delve into something I've always wanted to try more of: no-bake desserts! 

I love no-bake desserts because they're quick and easy and creamy and just the perfect thing after a meal full of solids. I've invented some interesting things during the past few weeks and I have a slight feeling that the cashier at the university's mini supermarket thinks I'm insane because all I seem to buy are chocolates, cream, Nutella, biscuits, and sweetened condensed milk...

The other day I invented this layered trifle, pudding, dessert, or whatever you want to call it. Everyone seemed to like it although I do think it's akin to a calorie-bomb in a box.. 

So here's the recipe, adjust things as you see fit, this mainly works by instinct. (Plus, my version saves a lot of washing up.. just one bowl, a whisk, a spoon, a pan, and the actual serving dish used)

100g digestive biscuits

80g butter, melted

300g cream cheese

250g heavy cream

200g sweetened condensed milk

200g nutella

200g peanut butter

12 Oreos

4 sticks of Kit Kat

1 packet Maltesers

Take a deep 9"x6" serving dish and place the Digestive biscuits at the base. With the back of a glass, crush the biscuits and stir in the melted butter. Press the butter-biscuit mixture down all over the sides of the dish. 

In a bowl, beat together the cream cheese, a quarter of the sweetened condensed milk, and a third of the cream. Spread over the biscuits evenly. Next, separate the two halves of the Oreos and place each half over the cream cheese mixture. 

In the bowl, mix together the nutella, a third of the cream, and half of the sweetened condensed milk. Spread over the Oreos. Break up the Kit Kats into tiny pieces and scatter over the Nutella mixture.

In the bowl, beat together the peanut butter, the remaining cream and remaining sweetened condensed milk and spread over the Kit Kats. Scatter Malteser's on top. 

Refrigerate around one hour before serving. 

Sorry for the picture quality- I only have a phone camera with me! 

How the Aztecs did it..

Have you taken part in my blog giveaway yet? Details here!

Choclette is hosting this month's We Should Cocoa challenge with the wonderfully exotic theme of chili and chocolate. It's my second time participating after I made a triple chocolate party cake for last month's challenge.



I love chili with chocolate but have only ever had it in chocolate soups (as I did at Hotel Chocolat in London) and or hot chocolate shots (In Dubai's Vintage Chocolate Bar) and I wondered what it would taste like in ice-cream.



I could sort of imagine the play of the flavours and textures. Velvety chocolate ice cream that cools the throat but has a strong chili aftertaste after you've swallowed it. Seemed so heavenly to me. And so I tweaked a normal chocolate ice-cream and added some thinly sliced red birds-eye chilies.




Ingredients
120g chopped dark chocolate, 70% cocoa solids
2 tablespoons single cream
300ml double cream
2 tbsp milk
50g icing sugar, sifted
2 red birds-eye chilies, thinly sliced
80g chopped dark chocolate, 70% cocoa solids, extra
2 tsp single cream, extra

In a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, melt the chopped chocolate and single cream until mixture is smooth and incorporated. Allow to cool.
In a mixing bowl, beat together the double cream and the milk until soft peaks form. Stir in the icing sugar and chilies.
Add the first batch of melted chocolate and beat until combined. Place the mixture in an ice-cream maker and churn for around 20-25 minutes.
While ice cream is churning, melt the extra dark chocolate and single cream in a bowl over simmering water.
Spoon the ice-cream in a small airtight container.
With a teaspoon, drizzle the extra melted chocolate over the ice cream.

Place the lid on the container and refrigerate it to firm up for at least 90 minutes before serving.

Triple Chocolate Party Cake

You know when you walk past a restaurant that seems really nice and you think "I'm definitely going to try this some day" or when you see a book you really want to read and say to yourself: "I'm going to start reading this as soon as work slows down a bit"? Inevitably, you don't manage to eat at that restaurant or read that book for a VERY long time, no matter how much you want to. That was the case with me and the We Should Cocoa Blog Challenge. Every month, the challenges seemed so interesting and mouth-watering. And every month, either I had papers to write, exams to study for, work to go, events to manage, or some odd amalgamation of all of the previous (which was most likely what happened). Anyways, I never got to participate in the We Should Cocoa blog challenges even though I really, really, really wanted to but this month, I did. This month's challenge is hosted by the lovely Chele of the The Chocolate Pot.

I think what really pushed me to make this was that the theme was "chocolate masterpiece".
"Masterpiece!" I thought. Oooh yess, time to spin toffee and melt fondant and create a wonderful chocolate swan in a stainless steel kitchen with my chef's hat and whites. I got all sorts of ideas (I always do). Alas, attempting to be creative is what drives me more often than not.

And a masterpiece automatically means that it has to be presented with some pomp and show does it not? Masterpieces, after all, fit in perfectly with celebrations. And so, I decided to make a chocolate 'masterpiece' cake for the first birthday of our food bloggers group.

Famished in Arabia, or TableTalk as it is now known, was formed a year ago by Arwa @ I Live in a Frying Pan and Sally @ My Custard Pie . They decided to collaborate and form a UAE-based food bloggers group.  The group has now grown to over 60 members and is such a wonderful network between all of us who love to love to share our love of food. I have made some wonderful friends this past year thanks to our group and have created some lovely memories. We constantly share our posts with one another and always have one fun event or another coming up. I'll always remember when we made gingerbread biscuits at Sally's, or had a picnic in the park, or Iftar at Sukaina's, or took a Thai cooking class, or had a mini chocolate fest at my place. And now I'll remember our epic first birthday celebration.

We raided the first floor of the wonderful Tea Junction today and had our cake-a-thon celebrating our first birthday. Each one of us was supposed to bring a cake (which resulted in some two dozen cakes!). And so, quite aptly, I decided to make this triple chocolate cake. Another reason I made this cake is because I wanted to tie a bow around it this time. I made a similar cake two weeks ago (topped with berries instead) as a birthday cake for a friend who absolutely refused that I add a ribbon. But I had to have my ribbon. And so I made this cake again albeit slightly differently.

The last one was a 9" double layered chocolate cake with milk chocolate finger biscuits around it. The topping was a mixture of heavy cream and whipping cream and was topped with berries. This one, in contrast was a 5" single-layered chocolate cake, with chocolate buttercream, milk and dark chocolate fingers, and semisweet chocolate chips.

I am not joking when I tell you that the decoration part of this cake took exactly 10 minutes. It is SO much easier than simply coating a cake with frosting. SO MUCH EASIER!

I started making the cake at 1PM and by 3PM everything was ready (and yes, I did other stuff in those two hours!)

Recipe
Ingredients
100g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
140g caster sugar
1.5 tsp baking powder
40g butter
1 egg
120ml milk
0.5 tsp vanilla essence
1 packet Cadbury Milk Chocolate Fingers
1 packet Cadbury Dark Chocolate Fingers
Semisweet chocolate chips
300g icing sugar, sifted
40g cocoa powder, sifted
100g butter
40ml milk
1 yard satin ribbon, color of your choice

Procedure


Preheat the oven to 170C and grease and base-line a 5" cake tin.
Place together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, and butter in a large bowl. Mix until well combined. In a small jug, beat together the egg, milk, and vanilla extract. Pour half of the milk mixture into the flour mixture and mix until well combined. Add the other half and beat for two minutes until all mixed together.
Bake in the middle rack of the oven for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Allow to cool.
Meanwhile make the frosting by mixing together the icing sugar, cocoa powder, and butter until it reaches a sandy consistency. Gradually add the milk and beat for 5 minutes until buttercream is fluffy.
Place the cake on an icing turntable and with a spatula, apply frosting only around the sides of the cake. Apply just enough so that the fingers can stick on comfortably. Once the sides of the cake have been coated with the buttercream, carefully place the chocolate fingers all around alternating between the milk and dark chocolate fingers.
Once that's complete, place the remaining chocolate frosting in a piping bag fitted with a Wilton 98 nozzle and pipe around the edges of the inside of the cake. Complete by filling the middle of the cake with the piped frosting. The best way to achieve this look is by arbitrarily piping across the center of the cake. Sprinkle the top of the cake with the semisweet chocolate chips. Refrigerate the cake for 20 minutes until relatively hardened before tying the bow across the cake. Try to make the bow look neater than mine.

Chocolate Caramel Slice

I like the idea of making slices.
They're cute and dainty. They're not your usual cake, or your usual biscuit.. they're something it between. And the idea of it being triple layered is pretty cool.

I made these super quick chocolate caramel slices this morning. And when I attempted to photograph them outdoors the chocolate topping started to melt in the 45C+ degree weather.

Nonetheless, it's delicious. I kept munching on them as a I photographed....... oops...

Ingredients
0.5 cup plain flour
0.5 cup self raising flour
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup soft brown sugar
125g melted margarine
395g sweetened condensed milk
30g margarine, extra
2 tablespoons golden syrup
150g dark chocolate
3 tsp olive oil

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Grease and line a 20cm x 20cm baking dish.
In a bowl mix together the flours, desiccated coconut, sugar, and margarine.
Press into the base of the baking dish and smoothen the top with the back of a spoon.
Back for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, place the sweetened condensed milk, golden syrup, and extra margarine in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until well incorporated and color is a medium golden brown- it should take around 10 minutes.
Take the baking dish out of the oven and pour the caramel mixture evenly on top.
Bake for 7 minutes or until just set.
Allow to cool slightly.
Melt the chocolate with the olive oil in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water.
Once completely melted, pour over the caramel mixture and refrigerate for at least three hours.
 Before serving, cut into slices.

Chocolate Raspberry Cake

So the two things which make up the title of the cake are actually in its topping. But it's still a chocolate and raspberry cake. You know how people say rice or pasta are like these somewhat flavourless dishes which means you can experiment a lot with them? I think the same way about vanilla cake. Well obviously it's sweet, you putting ketchup as frosting won't really work, but it's quite a good base if you want to get creative on the sweet side of the tastes spectrum.

I found this wonderful chocolate and raspberry jam from Cocomaya in London and ever since I bought it a couple of weeks back, I've been dreaming of using it as frosting on a nice bundt cake. I love the way icing/glaze just drizzles down in a bundt cake. I've never had mine look that professional but I'm hoping to get there. I used a spoon and then an offset spatula when I frosted mine. I think if you're using a runny glaze simply pouring it down the cake will achieve a nice old-fashioned look but my topping was more of a thick frosting so I had to apply it using a spoon.

Recipe:
Ingredients
230g unsalted butter, softened
230g caster sugar
4 eggs
230g self-raising flour, sifted
4 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
-for the frosting
70g heavy cream
1/2 cup fresh raspberries
1/2 cup raspberry and chocolate jam (if you can't find the jam I think you can achieve something similar by mixing equal parts nutella and raspberries and whisking it together with around 2-3 tablespoons of heavy cream)

Procedure:
Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and lightly flour a bundt cake pan.
Beat together butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs one by one, whisking well after each addition. Add the sifted flour and fold in using a metal spoon. Add the milk and vanilla and mix well together. Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for 25 minutes. Once baked, allow to cool completely before frosting.

for the frosting: 
take the chocolate/raspberry jam and whisk until smooth. Add the cream and beat until color has lightened and mixture has become fluffier. Gently spread over top of cooled cake. Arrange raspberries around center and in the middle of cake.

Chocolate Cheesecake/Ice Cream Cake

A two-in-one! Which is fabulous? Sometimes I really do believe that making mistakes has its benefits- Such as this time when the mixture curdled (and the dish ended up becoming an ice-cream cake almost magically!)

So this is actually a cheesecake which works as an icecream cake if you just tweak a couple of the steps around..

The basic recipe is here:

Ingredients
115g digestive biscuits, crushed
4tbsp melted unsalted butter
2tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
800g mascarpone cheese
200g sifted icing sugar
175 plain milk chocolate, melted and slightly cooled
Juice and rind of one orange

Procedure
Grease a 8" cake tin.
Place the crushed biscuits, cocoa powder, and melted butter in a bowl and stir until well combined. Line the base of the cake tin with biscuit mixture and press with the back of a wooden spoon to flatten.
Mix the icing sugar and mascarpone in a bowl with the melted chocolate (the heat from the chocolate will melt  the mascarpone and make mixture smooth and runny). Mix until just combined to avoid mixture from curdling.

If you're making the cheesecake:
Place the chocolate mixture in the cake tin and refrigerate for at least 5-6 hours.

If you're making the ice cream cake:
Place the chocolate mixture in a heatproof bowl (in stages if bowl doesn't hold entire mixture) and set over a pan of simmering water till mixture melts and becomes liquidy and runny. Wait for it to slightly cool and then place it in the cake tin. Place in fridge till chilled and then in freezer for 3 hours.

Yes, it's starting to melt but doesn't it look soo good?

Profiteroles

I've been wanting to make profiteroles for the longest time ever. I had never made them before and the technique seemed so different from other things I had baked. I just love those quirky little tips you get when it comes to making certain things, like knowing that the macaron batter is ready when it slides off the spoon like a ribbon. Or in this case, when a wooden spoon stands upright in the choux pastry. And I think the part I was most looking forward to injecting the custard cream into the little spheres. What I didn't realize however was that I wouldn't know when I had injected enough pastry into each profiterole. But I just kept on squeezing it in. Surprisingly these are extremely simple to make and really fun, too. I think my favorite time is watching them rise in the oven. They go from tiny little spoonfuls of batter to puffy little dough balls. Like magic!

Ingredients
for the choux pastry:
50g unsalted butter
90g plain flour, sifted twice
3 eggs, lightly beaten
for the filling:
375ml milk
4 egg yolks
90g caster sugar
3 tablespoons plain flour
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
for the topping:
110g dark chocolate, chopped
1 tablespoons vegetable oil

Procedure
Preheat the oven to 210C. Place the butter in a large pot with 185ml of water and stir until butter has melted and mixture is reaching a boil. Remove from the heat and quickly beat in the flour and then return to heat until mixture comes together and leaves sides of pot. Leave to cool for 5 minutes. Transfer mixture to a bowl and gradually add the egg, one tablespoon at a time, beating well throughout. Beat with a wire whisk until mixture is thick and glossy and a wooden spoon stands upright in the center of the mixture. Drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto two lightly greased baking trays, leaving room for spreading. Sprinkle with water (steam helps profiteroles rise) and place in oven for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the custard. Put the milk to boil in a pan. Meanwhile whisk egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until light and creamy. Whisk in the flour. Pour the hot milk slowly onto egg mixture, whisking constantly throughout. Return milk and egg mixture to pan, stir constantly until mixture thickens and boils. Let boil for around one minute, while stirring constantly and then stir in the vanilla essence, transfer to a bowl, cover with a plastic wrap and leave to cool in a refrigerator.

Once it's cool, place the mixture into a piping bag and with a 1.5 nozzle, gently pipe cream filling into the sides of each profiterole. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate and oil in a bowl over simmering water. Once profiteroles are filled, dip the top of each one in the melted chocolate to coat the top half. Leave to set.

Best served cold, in my opinion.

What I did with the leftover filling and chocolate topping...

Candles, flowers, crystal, and fingerfood.

I hadn't seen my friend Khulood in over four months.. we only see each other about three times a year anyways! And so, last week I invited her over for dinner. She loves fingerfood and so I started looking through my cookbook trying to find recipes for bite sized meals and canapes etc.. I've never really made fingerfood so yesterday's cooking experience was something new.. I didn't have to use the stove once! And everything was done in less than an hour.

I made a sweet and sour yogurt dip which I served with some crisps, mini burgers, small pizza slices, bruschetta, and chocolate mousse.

The yogurt dip was delicious (and healthy!). All you have to do is take one cup of fresh yogurt and beat it until smooth with around a third cup of sweet and sour sauce. I added some fresh chives to the mixture and seasoned with salt and pepper. It is SO addictive and works great with just about anything- especially breadsticks. Easy!

The pizza slices were also extremely simple and quick. Just take around four pizza bases and spread each with basil pesto. Sprinkle with some pizza cheese and pine nuts and bake for around 15 minutes at 180C. Cut each pizza base into four equal pieces and further slice each piece into three slices. You get 48 pieces with just four pizza bases.

I love the idea of using lots of glasses in a table setting. I've used them as vases and as candy holders. And now for crisps and the dip!



The Chocolate Mousse

 Enjoy the photos!