Sweet Treat

One of my Instagram friends emailed me the recipe to one of my favorites, Atayef, after I posted that I was craving it so so bad! I've seen recipes online but I prefer to use a recipe within a family/using a family recipe. The feel is just better receiving it that way than looking online. I've never had to make this because my aunt always does and makes TONS of it so I can take some for the road but now I find that I can't wait that long till the next time she makes it so I'm just going to have to make it today or tomorrow!

Atayef is somewhat similar to my other favorite, Knafeh, if you've tried that before. Just Knafeh uses shredded filo dough and the usage of sweet cheese combined with cream. I. love. them. both.

This is the recipe I'm using:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup of milk

1/2 cup of warm water

Big spoon of instant yeast

Small spoon of Sugar

Half of a small spoon of salt


Put a big spoon of flour, small spoon of sugar, and the yeast into a 1/2 cup of water, stir, and leave to ferment. I love the non-exact measurements!

Put the rest of the flour in a bowl, add warm water, and stir them together until you get a liquid dough. Then add the cup from the previous step and the milk; combine to remove any lumps.

Rub a hot pan with oil and pour the batter in small increments; batter will spread and get bigger, like a pancake. Don't flip it! It only gets cooked on one side.

Picture taken and sent to me from my Instagram friend.
Allow them to fully cool down before pinching half the 'pancake' together and *stuffing them with cream and pistachios or whatever you'd like to stuff them with.
*I saw different versions online like using a ricotta filling, chopped walnut-sugar blend, and the usual cream-pistachio blend. I prefer the cream-pistachio blend, I've tried the walnut-sugar blend and like it, and I'm interested in the ricotta filling as well. This just can't go wrong.

**Make a simple rose water/orange blossom syrup and pour over the Atayef when ready to eat.
**I prefer these without syrup. Normally my aunt doesn't sweeten the cream when she stuffs them and I'm fine with them that way but I will probably slightly sweeten the cream when I make these to make them more dessert-like.

***You can eat it like this or you can fry it after stuffing and closing them completely.
***I've never tried them fried! Maybe one day...

Take the time to make these today and you will love them too. A real treat.

I scream YOU scream WE ALL scream for ICE CREAM!

Excited to say I just upgraded to a new Ice Cream Maker! I'll follow up with my first ice cream flavor and recipe soon...

That is currently on hold today since I am getting a pair of TOMS custom designed by an artist for free! Pictures of that will shortly follow as well.

Happy Fall!

Taking a Moment....To Study

So today was going to be all about the VERY tasty eats on the gorgeous Caribbean Island of Curaçao but I have a busy week full of studying and need to get cracking on it. I'm excited to be taking the Servsafe exam on Wednesday! One step forward toward my goals. That and because the laws are changing, I'd like to be a step ahead and be prepared. And so I'm taking it seriously because one, I don't want to take it again, of course, and two, the fact that you have to pay for it and since I'm heading to Bolivia and other surrounding countries in three weeks, I really don't want to be spending money on tests and unnecessary stuff when I can be spending it on good food, Yungas Road, and buses, you know.

So next time, I'll be writing about the good eats and posting some recipes of mine. Will be making my Pistachio Marshmallows, Edamame hummus, Turon, and anything else that comes to mind and what I can fit in before I leave. CAN'T WAIT!

So I leave you on this beautiful and VERY HOT Southern California Sunday morning with some pictures of very sweet, delicious delights, and something interesting too.


Mardi Gras style cupcakes

Birthday cupcakes for my friends son for his 1st birthday. I'm his favorite aunt! :)

Bacon Wrapped Dates with a Balsamic Reduction Sauce. Perfect Combination.

Lemon, Fresh Rosemary, and Garlic making an appearance...

...In this wonderful Garlic Sauce which also included olive oil, salt, and three more garlic bulbs. Easy to make and adds tremendously good flavor to any dish you decide to indulge in. In this case, I used it in a mixed seafood dish. This sauce goes with anything or well, almost anything!

Raw Oyster Rockefeller with a Shallot Vinaigrette Shooter. Tried it at a meeting I went to. Pretty tasty to me. Just have to work on my gagging reflex!

My homemade Black Forest Cake. Everything by scratch. Now this cake will always be my guilty pleasure. I've got somewhat non-dessert eaters craving this. I've been having multiple dreams about making this cake soon just for me to eat it all by myself. It's that bad. Trust me when I tell you this is the best cake ever. I'm up for a challenge if you don't believe. You will be a believer when I'm done with you!

Made this birthday cake for my travel bud Vanessa for her party I attended last night. Dyed the whipped cream to a turquoise color cause it's her favorite. Made her cake all shiny with sugar and shaped her V with black sugar. Semi-sweet chocolate cake with cinnamon and cayenne and had strawberries and cream between the layers.

When the weather is cool, I ride my bike to work to get that fresh air, wonderful exercise, and get to listen to all my super cool music too. The last time I took the ride, I caught a glimpse of this lizard while riding up the first of two hills going home and I had to stop. The tail is such an incredibly beautiful color. Tried to get close to it and this was the best picture I could get. I discovered later it is a blue tailed skink. A very interesting spotting, indeed.

Pista Kulfi

Today I'm posting a recipe from one of my favorite Food Network Chefs, Aarti Sequeira. Her first episode, which was over a year ago, featured one of her favorite treats, Earl Grey Kulfi Pops. I like the fact that it's a shortened recipe because I don't know who has the time to spend reducing milk on the stove these days, so this recipe definitely appeals to us busy folks always on the go. One day soon you will see me in the kitchen making this from scratch!

Anyway, I made this awhile back and now getting around to posting it! It really is a sweet treat but I didn't think it was as sweet as some people have mentioned after trying this. Just watch your serving. A little bit will go a long way to curing your craving and a lot will leave you with a stomach ache! In the end, I absolutely loved this ice cream and plan on making it again very soon. Give it a go!

Pista Kulfi

by Aarti Sequeira

1 12oz can Evaporated Milk
4 Earl Grey Tea Bags
1/2 t Ground Caradmom
14 oz can Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 cup Heavy Cream
Finely Chopped Pistachios

First, I chopped the pistachios and set them aside.


Only had whole cardamom on hand so I had to grind them.


Now...

Heat the evaporated milk over medium heat until small bubbles form around the pot.


Snip the tops of the tea bags. Once the milk is hot, whisk to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom. Turn the heat off and add the tea. Cover. Let it steep for 30 minutes.


Strain the evaporated milk into a bowl. Whisk in the cardamom, condensed milk, heavy cream, and pistachios.





Pour into popsicle molds, small bowls, or one large bowl. Cover bowls with a piece of plastic wrap to avoid freezer burn and formation of a skin. Pop into the freezer overnight. I poured the mixture in a jar and covered it with plastic wrap. Oh and I made this in the morning and decided I didn't want to wait all day for it! In a few hours, it was soft serve status and delightful.


When ready to serve, run the popsicle mold under hot water to loosen it or serve it like regular ice cream if made in a bowl. Sprinkle with more pistachios if you'd like.

It has been awhile...

So I'm just now finding the time to update with a post. Just recently got back from my Ecuador and Chile adventure. What a great time I had! And again, I wish I was back but already planning for a huge South America 2011 adventure. Anyway, I'll update what I had been able to do and then recap my adventures on and below the Equator.

First, I baked and decorated a cake for my besty Lacey. A pretty pink butterfly decorated with red hots. My original plan was to get the colorful rainbow sugar sprinkles and make a rainbow affect but she is not a fan of sprinkles so had to tweek everything around. She also only prefers the confetti cake and confetti frosting so that is why the frosting on the cake looks bumpy.



All I did was bake the cake in two 9-in round pans, allowed them to cool completely, stuck the cakes in the freezer for a couple hours, frosted and layered them and cut the cake in half and made sure to cut out a diamond near one edge, split the cake in half, and flipped them to make the shape of the butterfly. Frosted the cake and decorated it with the red hots. She loved it!

I enjoyed sushi for the first time in a month! It was nice! Sorry, no pictures. I figured it was just the usual!

And my friend RaraRosa aka rufflesizzle came down from SF and made plans to hang with her and her friend. Bluebizzy and Rufflesizzle reunited! I missed her. Ended up going back to Carnival, the Middle Eastern restaurant I fell in love with awhile back and was craving!


Ordered Tabouli. Tasted almost exactly like homemade! Except I grew up with a secret ingredient that isn't usually added in Tabouli. It's cucumber. My mom always added the crunch to it and that's how I'll always make it and prefer it in my Tabouli. So it was fantastic at the restaurant and I made it even more amazing by finely chopping up cucumbers and added it to the salad when I got home!


Grape leaves aka Dolma. Tastes exactly like homemade. Usually put ground beef into it but it is fine either way.

I also got Kibbeh but for some random reason, I forgot to take a picture of it! Ridiculous. It was splendid of course, and just like the first time I came here, there were only a few pine nuts in each Kibbeh. Ridiculous again! I'd like them to add more but besides that, they are darn good here!

Rosa and Maryanne got the Chicken Shawarma and were completely satisfied with their sandwiches. They took my tahini sauce that was on the side of my Kibbeh and used it in their sandwiches. They loved it. I'm not a fan of tahini so I was happy to let them utilize the sauce in their Shawarma!




I love Kafta so got a small plate of Kafta Kabob with rice, tomato, and onions. Amazing! Perfectly cooked, seasoned, and moist. Superb.



Next up, dessert of course!

Rosa settled with Baklava. It is filo dough with a mixture of walnut and cinnamon/sugar, honey (or most of the time it is actually a simple syrup), and usually topped with finely chopped pistachios. I would have ordered one but they used honey and I'm not a fan of honey. My preference is first enjoying Baklava without the syrup and then Baklava with a simple syrup. She ate it up.



Maryanne tried my dessert, LOVED it, and ordered her own. And myself, I of course got Knafeh!! If I could, I would eat this everyday! So I bought two so that I can keep it in the fridge and drag it out until the next time I have some more! It's shredded filo dough (usually dyed a pink-to-orange color), sweet cheese, and topped with a simple rose or orange blossom syrup and finely chopped pistachios. My go-to dessert. Get it. Now.



'En'credible Ecuador and Chilly Chile next up....

Cupcakes Delight

I can cook and bake wonderfully but when it comes to decorating, well, I was only given the sports gene, not the artistic/creative gene! So I decided, for fun, to take a cupcake decorating class in hopes of finding out what I can and cannot do and working on that. The class was taught by one of the Pastry Chefs at the Playboy Mansion, so right off the bat I knew this would be a good class to take. Obviously if she wasn't good, she wouldn't be working at a place like that.

I'll provide all the information I gained in the class as well as pictures of the instructor with her cupcakes and the steps I took to make my own. I hope everything I post here is helpful in some way. The class was pretty fast paced and grabbed as much info as I could in the time limit we had.

I found on my own that this is something I know I'd like to work on, but more of a hobby for myself to do on the side. I also have the huge urge to buy all cake decorating tools and turning my kitchen upside down! :) I'm also considering taking a 3-D Cookie class to step up the everyday cookie. Oh the things I do that easily excite me!

Cupcake Useful Tips In The Kitchen

♥ Cake is best when served at room temperature
♥ When coloring frosting, use gel or paste, not liquid in order to not get a watery frosting consistency
♥ Use an ice cream scoop so each cupcake is the same size
♥ To obtain perfectly flat cupcakes, bake at 340 degrees F
♥ Fill cupcake tins half full
♥ Do not hold the frosting-filled bags unless working with it in order to keep it thick and not heated through body heat
♥ Don't make Buttercream Frosting on a hot day; for the day, our Chef used shortening. On a hot day, the butter will just easily melt and be hard to work with
♥ To stuff a cupcake: use an apple corer, stick the cream into the cupcake by using a pastry tip or cut off the top with a paring knife
♥ Fondant: Gelatin, Glycerine, and Powdered Sugar. If it hardens, microwave for 10 seconds. If too hard, just throw away
♥ Marzipan: Almond and sugar confection used in desserts, cake decorating, and can be shaped as part of cake decorating

Getting Started.


Have your pastry bag folded over and fill with the frosting. Unfold the bag, as shown below, when filled with frosting.



Instructor demonstrating the inside-to-outside technique. Below she demonstrates the outside-to-inside technique of decorating a cupcake.



Demonstrating one way of stuffing a cupcake by injecting the pastry tip into the cupcake.


Making "grass".



Working with Fondant.


Making my favorite flower, the sunflower.

Her finished cupcakes:





YUM is all I have to say!

My Cupcakes. Practice will make perfect.



First cupcake is the outside-to-inside method and the second one is the inside-to-outside technique. Like I said, all practice work. I'll get better eventually. :)


Complete with cute red and pink hearts. ♥


Sunflower.





Butterfly and Two Ladybugs in a Lovely Spring Garden.




Finding Nemo. You know it!


Pretty in Pink Flower.

The last three cupcakes were somewhat rushed through due to our time limit and me spending SO much time with the other cupcakes (You can't rush good work in the kitchen!) that I kind of just played with the frostings and made random decorations.





And lastly, I played a little and added a happy :) face to one of the plain decorated cupcakes. I wanted to do the regular happy face with the black eyes and mouth but needed five more minutes to be able to do that.



This class has truly inspired me and made me confident enough to know that I don't need the "creative" gene to decorate a cupcake. It just takes practice. And I'm happy that my good friend Eunice will now trust me to bake and decorate her bridal shower cake later on in the future!