Pão de mel

Have you heard of foodzie.com? It's a website where people sell handcrafted food goods. There is some pretty delicious looking stuff on there. I came across one that had me dying to try it: A little cake that combined my two all time favorite sweets, chocolate and honey, Brazilian Honey Cakes. The price isn't bad at all, but it got me thinking. Why can't I make these babies myself? After googling around a bit, I came up with my own recipe using ideas from several I found. The result? Yummy spice cake, somewhere between the texture and taste of Lebkuchen and gingerbread, minus the ginger, and with tons of golden honey taste.

You'll have to forgive the air bubbles in my honey cakes. This is the first time I've made them and next time, I'm going to work on air bubble reduction. For less mess when you are glazing them set your individual cakes on a cooling rack over waxed paper. Getting the chocolate on evenly was not easy, in part due to the air pockets. When I try these again, so I won't spend most of my time painting chocolate on them like Miracle Max in the Princess Bride, I will be inserting a pick into the bottom of each cake and dipping them into the chocolate.

Pão de mel

1/3 cup milk
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. cloves
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs beaten
1/3 cup vegetable oil
chocolate glaze

Preheat oven to 350 F. Coat a 9 x 13 or 12 x 8 pan with cooking spray.

In a medium saucepan, combine milk and brown sugar. Stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved.

In a bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

In a separate bowl, combine milk mixture, honey, eggs, and vegetable oil. Stir milk mixture into flour mixture until combined. Try to incorporate as little air as possible.

Turn into pan.

Bake for 25 minutes for 9 x 13 pan or 35 for 12 x 8 pan or until a pick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool until room temperature, then cut with a sharp knife into squares. Dip or spoon chocolate over squares until coated. Chill in refrigerator until chocolate glaze is set.

Chocolate Glaze

7 oz 70% cocoa chocolate bar such as Lindt 70% Dark
1/2 cup butter
1 tbsp. light corn syrup

In a microwave safe bowl combine all ingredients. Microwave at 20 second intervals, whisking in between until chocolate mixture is satiny.

No Liz, It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This...

This is chocolate cheesecake with strawberries and whipping cream. Here's how I did it.

The cheesecake recipe.

Strawberry filling:

1 container of strawberry glaze

1 pound of sliced strawberries.

Combine and put on top of cake once it's completely cooled. (I mean completely cooled as in chilled for a few hours in the refrigerator.)

Pizelle Filling on top:

4 ounces cream cheese softened

1 cup powdered sugar

1 pint heavy whipping cream

In a mixer with whisk attachment, beat cream cheese and powdered sugar together. Scrape down sides and beat again to make sure it mixes well. Beat in whipping cream until stiff. Pile on top of strawberries and glaze. Keep refrigerated, pizelle filling starts to deflate after a couple of hours.

Bittersweet Chocolate Almond Orange Pound Cake

I based this cake on my favorite chocolate bar of all time the Lindt Excellence Intense Orange Dark Chocolate Bar which you can find everywhere. It is orgasmic chocolate if you ask me...anyhoo, put that in a cake and WOW. So very good.

Bittersweet Chocolate Almond Orange Pound Cake

1 package Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Devil's Food Cake Mix

1 package (4-serving size) chocolate instant pudding and pie filling mix

1/4 cup Hershey's cocoa (use Special Dark if you really like dark chocolate)

4 large eggs

1 1/2 Lindt Excellence Intense Orange Dark Chocolate bars broken into pieces

1 1/4 cups water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 teaspoon orange extract

2/3 cup sliced almonds

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 10" Bundt pan or tube pan.

Combine cake mix, pudding mix, and cocoa in a large mixing bowl and mix well. Place chocolate bar pieces in microwave safe bowl, use high power for 30 seconds, stir, then continue at 15 second increments stirring after each until chocolate is melted. Pour oil into chocolate, stir to combine. Add oil chocolate mix, eggs, water and orange extract to cake mix mixture in large bowl.

Beat at medium speed with electric mixer for 2 minutes carefully scraping down sides after the first minute. Fold in almonds. Pour into pan.

Bake for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Cool in pan 25 minutes. Invert onto heat resistant serving plate and cool completely.

Don't starve while I'm gone

I'll be offline for a bit. I'm moving in a couple of days. I don't know how long it'll take to get me up and running. It's been fun, and I'll be back.

My Sweet Lovely

Yes. It's that good. Roll your eyes back, lick your fingers, scream for joy good. Especially once you put on the frosting. Here's the link.

Sorry I won't be posting much. We're moving in less than two weeks.

Rib City

We went to the fair. The fair had some food. Some of that food was pretty darn good barbecue. That barbecue was made by they guys and gals at Rib City. For being a chain restaurant, it had a surprisingly non-restaurant taste to it. They've got locations in Colorado and Utah. We chose pulled pork sandwiches and some smoked chicken legs for the kids. As you can see, the chicken was well received. It had good smokey flavor, and was moist. The pulled pork was very soft, almost too soft, it had a good light sweet barbecue sauce and came in a huge mound on the bun. Their baked beans had a thin flavorful sauce that was very smokey and sweet. They've got some good barbecue, and I can't wait to go back so I can order from the full menu.

Mochi

Clockwise from bottom: Chestnut mochi, black sesame seed mochi with an filling, pink (?) mochi with an filling, toasted sesame seed mochi with an filling, and grass mochi

My father in law just arrived from Japan. He brought me a gift. A box of mochi filled with an. What exactly is mochi and what on earth is an, you might ask? I'm going to tell you. Mochi and an although common to other cultures such as that of the Chinese, are hallmarks of Japanese snackiness. Mochi is pounded glutinous rice. They pound it and process it until it becomes very much like glue. Then it is shaped into little patties. Mochi doesn't have much flavor besides sweet, with a texture like a very soft gooey gummi bear. These patties are sometimes filled with an. An is sweet red bean paste. To westerners, it might sound gross, but seriously, don't judge it until you try it. It is smooth and sweet, with a slight beany taste in the background. An is put into all sorts of things. One of my favorites is an pan, a small sweetish roll that is stuffed with the bean paste. My favorite kind you can buy fresh in Little Tokyo in LA. If you ever go look for the an pan shop and watch the wizened old lady pour the pancake type batter into little molds. It's the only place in the US I know of where you can get steaming hot pancake type an pan. Then go visit Rafu Bussan, you will come away with beautiful Japanese dishes. Oh and I also recommend the sushi at the Frying Fish. Very delicious, and served true to Japanese style on a little conveyor belt.

Mochi with an is pretty tasty. It's sweet and sticky, and will give you a bit of a sugar high. I definitely recommend you try it if you find it. And don't worry, the grass mochi does not taste like grass. It's just colored like grass and sprinkled with super fine brown sweet stuff.