Easy Tiramisu

A delicious serving of tiramisu.  Yummy!

A couple of years ago I had a wonderful dessert of tiramisu at the Lavender Bistro in Tryon, North Carolina.  That inspired me to undertake making this dessert, and I discovered it is really quite easy.  I wanted to find a recipe that did not use egg yolks and did not use alcohol.  I tweaked a recipe of Sandra Lee's of the Food Channel.

Ingredients:
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar, divided
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature  *(I used 8oz of mascarpone cheese.)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (7-ounce) package of ladyfingers
1 cup strong black coffee *(I made a cup of strong espresso---stronger than coffee.)
1 teaspoon cocoa powder

Sandra Lee made her recipe in 4 wine glasses---four individual servings.  I used an 8 x 8 inch glass dish and I was able to get 6 servings from this.

Directions:
1.  In a chilled bowl combine 3/4 cup of heavy cream and 1/4 cup sugar.  Whip with a hand mixer until soft peaks form.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to use. 

Heavy cream and sugar ready to make whipped cream.

2.  In a large bowl combine the mascarpone cheese, 1/4 cup heavy cream, vanilla and the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar.  (Next time I will use only 1/4 cup of sugar here, because the mascarpone cheese is  sweet.) Whip with a hand mixer until light and fluffy.

Mascarpone, heavy cream, sugar, vanilla.  Blend together.

Cheese mixture.

3.  Line the bottom of the glass dish with ladyfingers that have been dipped quickly into the coffee.  You do not want to soak the ladyfingers, because they will turn into a mushy texture.  Dip quickly, no more than 5 seconds.

Ladyfingers dipped into coffee lining bottom of glass dish.

4.  Spread half of the cheese mixture on top of the ladyfingers.

Sptread cheese mixture on ladyfingers.

5.  Add a second layer of ladyfingers that have been dipped into the coffee.

Second layer of lady fingers.

6.  Spread the remaining cheese mixture on top of these ladyfingers.    Top with the whipped cream.

Top with whipped cream.

7.  Refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving.  Just before serving put the cocoa powder into a small sieve and tap gentle to dust the top of the dessert. 

Dust with cocoa powder before serving.

This is an easy dessert.  It would be quite elegant served in individual wine glasses as Sandra Lee's recipe suggests.  I'll be making this again. 

Ready to eat. 

Check this out for a recipe to serve in individual wine glasses.

Photo from Well Fed.

Ebelskivers for Brunch on Sunday

Ebelskivers with whipped cream.  Yummy!

We were having a late brunch today, and I wanted to make something different.  I checked the pantry and discovered that I had a half can of chocolate ebelskiver mix from Williams-Sonoma.  A year or so ago I had bought an ebelskiver pan, and I had bought the mix rather than make these from scratch.  Ebelskivers are Danish pancakes that puff up when cooked and that can be made with some kind of filling inside.  Ebelskiver actually means apple slice, because in Denmark the filling is often apples. 

I had some delicious cherry preserves so I decided on using those as the filling, chocolate and cherries go so nicely together. 

Ebelskiver chocolate pancake mix and cherry preserves.

Here is how to make these step by step:

Place mix in a large bowl.  I added a teaspoon of espresso powder.

I added one teaspoon of espresso powder to the chocolate mix.

 Mix together the wet ingredients and beat the egg whites until they stand in stiff peaks.

Egg whites and wet ingredients.

Add wet ingredients to chocolate mix and fold in egg whites. 

Fold in egg whites.

Add 1/4 teaspoon butter to each well of the ebelskiver pan over medium heat until butter bubbles.

Butter is bubbly and ready for the batter to be added.

Add 1 tablespoon of batter to each well of the pan and top each with a teaspoon of cherry preserves.

Top with cherry preserves.

Top each well with another tablespoon of batter.  When pancake has browned flip it over (This is the hard part.  I used two wooden skewers to do this.)

Top each well with one tablespoon of batter.

When brown flip out and onto plate for serving.  Add a dollop of whipped cream.

Brown and ready to serve.

These are often served with powdered sugar or maple syrup, but we are trying to cut down on our sugar consumption so we found the pancakes sweet enough with just the whipped cream.

Topped with whipped cream and ready to enjoy.

Here's a recipe if you would like to try this different type of pancake. 

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 1/2 Tbs. granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1 3/4 cups buttermilk
• 4 Tbs. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1 pint fresh blueberries
• Confectioners' sugar for dusting
• Maple syrup for serving

Directions:

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, granulated sugar and salt.

In a small bowl, lightly whisk together the egg yolks and buttermilk. Whisk the yolk mixture into the flour mixture until well combined; the batter will be lumpy.

In another bowl, using an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on high speed until stiff but not dry peaks form, 2 to 3 minutes. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the whites into the batter in two additions.

Put 1/2 tsp. butter in each well of a filled-pancake pan. Place over medium heat and heat until the butter begins to bubble. Pour 1 Tbs. batter into each well and cook until the bottoms are golden brown and crispy, 3 to 5 minutes. Put 5 or 6 blueberries in the center of each pancake and top with 1 Tbs. batter. Using 2 wooden skewers, flip the pancakes over and cook until golden and crispy, about 3 minutes more. Transfer to a plate. Repeat with the remaining batter and blueberries.

Dust the pancakes with confectioners' sugar and serve warm with maple syrup. Makes about 40. 

 

You will need an ebelskiver pan however.  You can buy one at Kohls or at Chef's Catalog.

Real Homemade Whipped Cream

A dollop of homemade whipped cream on pumpkin bread pudding.

During the holiday season, I usually make whipped cream to garnish various desserts.  Homemade whipped cream is so easy to make, and it has only three ingredients: cream, sugar, vanilla.  If you read the labels on canned whipped creams you will see that there are a number of added ingredients that don't sound so appealing.

Get your ingredients together:  1/2 cup heavy whipping cream (the heavy has more butterfat and is easier and quicker to whip), 1 tablespoon sugar, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla.

Three ingredients: heavy whipping cream, sugar, vanilla extract.

Make sure that your bowl and beaters are cold.  I put them in the freezer for about 10 or 15 minutes before I start making the whipped cream, and of course have the whipping cream cold.  You could use a hand whisk, but I prefer to use an electric hand mixer. I like to use a two cup measuring cup for beating the cream. 

Cold measuring cup and cold beaters for hand mixer.

Beat on medium speed until soft peaks begin to form, add sugar and vanilla, and continue beating until soft peaks reappear.

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream.

Beat until soft peaks form.

Caution:  If you beat too long, the cream will turn to butter.  After I remove the whipped cream and place it in a serving bowl,  I often leave a bit of the cream in the bowl and continue whipping it until it turns to butter.  I add a tablespoon of maple syrup and continuing beating to blend it in and I have maple butter that will be good on toast.

Whipping cream whipped so long it turns to butter.

A dollop of whipped cream on pumpkin bread pudding.

I used the whipped cream to garnish our pumpkin bread pudding.  The bread pudding is from Trader Joe's and is quite delicious.  It can be defrosted in the fridge and then heated in the microwave or in the oven.  I prefer heating it in the oven. 

Pumpkin bread pudding from Trader Joe's/

Whenever I do use ready made whipped cream, I use the Cabot's whipped cream from Trader Joe's.  It tastes much like homemade, but still has added preservatives. 

Cabot Whipped Cream.

As you can see it is very easy to make homemade whipped cream.

Manitoba Blueberry Pie

Manitoba Blueberry Pie

Our friend Frances was here the other day, and she mentioned the blueberry pie she had made recently, and she pronounced it the best blueberry pie she had ever eaten.  It is called Manitoba Blueberry Pie, and I looked up the recipe on the internet and proceeded to make one.  We had lots of fresh blueberries.  Here's the recipe. 

 Bake a 9 inch pie shell.

 Baked pie shell ready for the berries.

Cook1 cup of the berries according to directions and when cool mix in fresh berries.  Place berries in the prepared pie shell.

Cooked and fresh berries mixed together and placed in pie shell.

When filling has cooled, add whipped cream and refrigerate. 

Pie ready to refrigerate.

Ready to eat.

This is a good pie alright, and it is a bit unusual in that in combines cooked and uncooked berries. 

Note: I used about 3/4 cup of sugar in the berries and only 1 tbs in the whipped cream.  We don't like our pie too sweet.  It was perfect for us.  The almond flavoring in the whipped cream is quite good.

A Second Strawberry Season

Strawberry shortcake in August at Marble Mountain.

Back in North Carolina, strawberry season is in early May, and now we are in Marble Mountain, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and we are getting local fresh strawberries at the last of their season here.  That called for strawberry shortcake in August.

Local Strawberries in August.

We bought the most beautiful strawberries at Sobeys and when we were at Masstown Market I had bought homemade shortcake biscuits which I had frozen until today when we made strawberry shortcake.

Shortbread biscuits from Masstown Market.

After slicing the strawberries, I added just a bit of sugar and let them sit for about an hour.  I didn't use much sugar because the strawberries were very sweet.

Sliced berries with just a bit of sugar.

After thawing the frozen shortcake biscuits I warmed them in the oven.  These biscuits were so large that I only needed half a biscuit to make a nice sized serving.

Shortbread biscuit half spread with butter.

I spread the biscuits halves with butter and then added the sliced strawberries.

Add strawberries.

Strawberry shortcake always calls for whipped cream----nothing but homemade whipped cream.  After whipping the cream, I add a bit of vanilla and just a tad of sugar.  We don't like our shortcake to be super sweet.

Whip the cream.

I saved a few strawberries to garnish each serving.  The result was five strawberry shortcakes for the five of us at lunch today.  YUMMY!!!!!

Five strawberry shortcakes.

What a treat to have two strawberry seasons this year.

Strawberry Charlotte

Strawberry Charlotte Cake.

I ran across this recipe and thought it would be the perfect dessert for Mother's Day.  And I was right.  It was perfect!

Bake an eight inch sponge cake, and while the cake is baking make a strawberry sauce (strawberries and sugar blended).

Sponge cake out of oven.

Blend strawberries and sugar to make a sauce.

Place the cooled cake layer on the bottom of an 8 inch springform pan and spread 1/4 cup of strawberry sauce on top of the sponge cake.

Place cake in springform pan and spread top of cake with strawberry sauce.

Halve strawberries and fit them on top of sponge cake. 

Arrange strawberry halves on top of cake with cut sides out.

Make strawberry whipped cream.  Whip cream, add strawberry sauce and gelatin and refrigerate overnight.

Spread strawberry whipped cream on top of cake.

Remove from springform pan and brush warm apricot preserves on outside of strawberries and cake.

Add crushed pistachios to outside of cake.

Remove from springform pan, brush apricot preserves on outer edges of strawberries and cake and add crushed pistachios to side of cake.  

Finished cake garnished with a strawberry fan on top.

Keep finished cake refrigerated until ready to serve.

Drizzle strawberry sauce on cake and ready to eat.

Enjoy!

I found this recipe in Joy of Baking and for the recipe and instructions on making this, including a video, go to this website.