Coconut Almond Bites

Hello! 

It's tea time and here is a quick recipe for coconut lovers. Coconut and almond bites! Here we go..

You will need,

Ingredients 

One cup of dessicated coconut flakes

8 tablespoons of all-purpose flour

5 tablespoons of white sugar 

Almond Extract (or vanilla)

One egg

Chilled knob of unsalted butter

Half a teaspoon of baking powder

Some milk if needed

Baking sheet

Caster sugar for serving

Method

1. Preheat oven at 150 degrees C.

2. Combine dry ingredients (flour, sugar, coconut flakes and baking powder)

 3. When well combined using a hand-held blender, add the butter, egg and almond extract. Mix until the mixture is like a pastry dough. It should be a little bit sticky.

 4. If there are dry pieces remaining in the bowl you can just add little amounts of milk at a time while mixing with a fork. In this way you are combining all ingredients well.

5. Using a ice-cream scoop or simply a spoon distribute the mixture into small balls onto the baking sheet making sure they don't touch. 

6. Bake at 150 degrees C for about 15 minutes or until a slightly golden crust is achieved. 
7. Let cool and dust with some caster sugar! 

Have a bite! 

Easy right? :)

Enjoy!

Ciklemfusa

xx 

Homemade Catalan Cheese - Mató!

Hola!

For the cheese lovers today, I am posting this recipe for homemade Catalan Cheese aka Mató. 

This is a sweet, unsalted Spanish cheese coming from Catalonia, Barcelona. This cheese is eaten as a desert with honey known as Mel y Mató. 

So if you want to make your own Catalan cheese, this is method.

Equipment needed

Digital kitchen thermometer

Cheese cloth

Stove and pot

Strainer

Whisk

Measuring spoons

A large bowl for water bath

A medium bowl for straining

Ingredients

1 Liter of whole milk

2 tablespoons of white vinegar (30mL)

Honey

Method

1. First, prepare the cheese cloth into the strainer for later.

2. Put the one liter of milk in the pot on medium heat. 

3. Heat the milk while stirring. When the milk reaches 92˚C, turn off the heat and quickly add the 30mL of white vinegar.

4. Now, the best part. After you added the white vinegar DO NOT stir milk. If you continue to mix the milk, you will prevent the coegulation from happening and you will end up with no cheese. You will now see the cheese curds forming and floating. 

5. Place the pot in a large bowl filled with cool water to help it cool down. 

6. When the temperature reaches 36˚C, pour the contents of the pot into the strainer with the cheese cloth. The cheese curds will remain in the strainer. 

7. Allow some time so that the cheese is strained well with an occasional gentle stir to help the whey drain. 

8. Fold the edges of the cheesecloth and put everything (strainer + bowl) in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes or more. 

9. Serve with drizzled honey and crackers.

Enjoy!

Ciklemfusa

xx

Panna Cotta with Mango.

Hola!

I hope you had a lovely Valentine's day yesterday with all the plans you might have thought about to impress your other half :)

I prepared desert for the evening which consisted of an exotic fruit - mango ! Very simple recipe which I wrote below, here for you to try. Panna cotta when translated means 'cooked cream', and that's what are you going to do! Cooking cream to make a very soft and flavourful desert with a smooth mouthfeel.

This recipe is divided into two parts where you are going to prepare the panna cotta and the mango puree seperately.

Ingredients

100 mL milk.
300mL whipping cream.
6 tablespoons gelatine powder.
2 table spoons of sugar (depending how much of a sweet tooth are you)
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract.
2 teaspoons of cold water.

1 ripe mango.
2 teaspoons of gelatine.
optional : 2 teaspoons of sugar.


Method for panna cotta

1. In a saucepan on medium to low heat, put the milk and sugar and mix until the sugar is dissolved in the milk.

2. In a small bowl mix the 6 tablespoons of gelatine with 2 teaspoons of cold water to soften the gelatine.

3. When the mixture of milk and sugar is well dissolved, put the whipping cream, the vanilla extract and the 6 tablespoons of gelatine powder (with the cold water) and whisk well until well incorporated and until the gelatine dissolves completely. The gelatine's role in this mixture is to solidify a bit the cream and you can get a creamy and milky jelly.

4. When the geltine is well dissolved, put off the heat and prepare cups for your desert presentation. Pour the mixture into glass cups and refrigirate for 4 hours or overnight to let solidification to occur.


Method for mango puree

1. Pick a ripe mango. In order to know whether a mango is ripe enough to be eaten , its texture should be soft and also it smells fruity, it indicates that it is ripe enough.

2. Peel and core the mango using a potato peeler and cut as much meat as possible from the pit.

3. Put the pieces of mango in a bowl and blend them. I used my hendheld blender but you can also use a food precessor. Blend until a puree texture is achieved.

4. Put the puree in a suacepan on medium to low heat and add the 2 teaspoons of gelatine and whisk until the gealtine is dissolved. If you want more sweetness, you can add 2 teaspoons of sugar, but I did not use any sugar in the puree and it had the perfect amount of sweetness. Whisk until the sugar is dissolved.

5. When dissolved, switch off the fire and put in a seperate bowl to cool.

6. After 4 hours in the fridge, get the panna cotta and top it with the mango puree. Put again  in the fridge for the puree to solidify. 

7. Serve cool.

Enjoy! 

Ciklemfusa

xx