Daring Bakers: Bostoni Cream Pie (OH, MY!)

I’m late, I know!
I mean, in Italy is still the 29th October, so technically, I’m ok… But I wanted to publish it sooner, but, honestly, I was too lazy to make it before today, so, here I am, in the rush to use the last glimpses of day light!

Well, I was too lazy, that’s for sure, but other factor combine to my laziness:
1- I wasn’t attracted by the recipe (sorry Alpineberry!!! Nothing to do with you, absolutely: it’s me that is wrong!), not because it didn’t seem good or doable… But just because those kind of cakes doesn’t really make me scream in joy… I had to take EVERYTHING back!
2- I actually had not a lot of time this month (and all the months coming by), but at one point this morning, looking at all the wonderful recipes from all the other dear Daring Bakers from all over the world, I felt SAD! I want to be part of this wonderful and growing group, and if I wasn’t going to complete this task I had to leave, as I already jumped two!!! And, anyway, what’s the use of being a part of a community if you don’t participate to community events???
3- The whole point of this group is to challenge our skills, learning from errors and from tasks that seems too difficult or too easy! This time, the task seemed too easy to me, way to easy! BUT, even if easy, I’ve learned few things, like how to make a very good custard with not a lot of sugar, or that what in Italy is called Pan di Spagna, somewhere else is called chiffon cake… Only one problem: as I’m Pan di Spagna challenge, so I am even Chiffon cake challenge… It was so thin I had to put 2 disk in each serving…

All this to say that the cake was, as in the title, OH MY!!!
WONDERFUL!
So good!!!
So light, so simple, so quick (the overall process didn’t take me more then 45 minutes, not counting the cooling time!) and yet so rewarding!

Another Daring Baker task completed! Another challenge done! Another happy day spent baking!!!

Daring Bakers rock!!!

We are all...

... different, but at the end, all the same! Everywhere in the world...
We look for the best mozzarella that can only be found in that farm, at the end of that country road, after the big tree on the left, where you see that black dog barking at you, then turn left... We look for that bottle of Gewuztraminer (yeah, I know I should had some accent to that!), bought in that little cellar, in the third village on the right after the second traffic light leaving Annecy, due south...
But at the end, if someone ask you which is, above all, your ultimate comfort food, well, the answers are more straightforward, more simple, more REAL!
Check it out!

And GET REAL!

Strawberry jam mini brioches

Sometimes ago I became obsessed by owning a copy of Larousse des desserts (the French equivalent of a gastronomical (dessert in this case) encyclopaedia), written under the supervision of the god of all pastry men, women, child, and passionate in the world, Pierre Hermé.
Stated this, I trusted the book like a bible, like the ultimate dessert recipe collection, along with the basic recipe.
I have to say I’ve made brioche (in the French meaning of the word), but never with this recipe. And I don’t know… The taste was the one of the brioche, but the texture wasn’t. In fact my husband (who is not very keen on pastry making, but it’s a scientist, so on some matters I certainly trust him!) said that the problem could be the flour. As I used normal white flour, may be the recipe was for stronger flour… The fact is that I haven’t trust my feelings (adding more flour), but I followed the book… Something I shouldn’t have done… Anyway, I think that if you add enough flour to the recipe I’m giving you, just to obtain a consistent, elastic and smooth dough, you should arrive to the right consistency… BUT if you are yeast/flour/patisserie challenged, do not attempt even to think about it!

This recipe was made among a series of Jam recipes I'm realizing for work, "to help" the tasting panel to get rid of all the jams they are tasting! As if they need it!


5 g of fresh yeast
190 g of flour
20 g of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
3 eggs
150 g of butter, room temperature

Strawberry jam

Crumble the yeast and mix it with flour and sugar. Add the eggs one by one, kneading each entirely in the dough before to add the next. Add the diced butter little by little and keep on kneading (if at this point your dough is too wet, add flour).
Let the dough rest for 2 hours, then punch it, knead it a little, and let it rise more.
Scoop a little of the dough into a muffin mould, add over it a little spoon of jam. Cover with more dough and let it rise again.
Preheat the oven at 150° C and bake the mini brioche until risen and golden.

Tell me why...

... people always feel entitled to tell me about their culinary mistakes or their (usually nasty) culinary experiments, asking for my approval???
Tell me, eh, tell me: WHY???

Because most of the time I have to force a smile, and I obviously look stupid... And mean... I'm not able to lie...

I mean, if I random meet, let's say, a cat expert, I don't begin to tell him/her that my cat is crazy, fat and too demanding and how I can solve all this!!!

Sometime something different happens!!!

There are so many different blogosferes around!
Sure one of the most powerful, or at least in Italy, is the blogosphere that speaks about technology (Yawn! Ops, sorry, I almost felt asleep)...
The Italian average technological blogger is, of course, male, geek (just to be nice and not calling him nerd!), is among the first 100 most known Italian bloggers (following the ranking of a site, which is not considered really reliable!) and its blog is quite boring (sorry to the nice guys I know among them! I really like you as persons, a bit less as bloggers!).
Most of them thinks that only "their kind" of blogospere exists (and I have proff about it, as at one geek dinner I have been lately a guy looked at me completely bewildered hearing me speaking about the food blogosphere!!! "Does it exist?" he said! Ah! What a naive!)...
And they rarely acknowledge the presence of women in the blogosphere... Unless they speak about technology in male terms!
Today la crème de la crème of female Italian blogosphere decided to act against their boring and grey male counterparts: they all published a post about THE argument that only us can understand: our period, our flow!!! Menstruation for dummies!
And that was one the funniest and lightest thing of an average day among Italian blogosphere!!!
If you speak Italian, why not go to read something different???
Here are some of the contributors (girls I know in person, but there are MANY others!!!):
Elena
Catepol
Feba
Pm10
Lalui

Keeping on with my meals!

Moules au Champagne!!! One of my favourite!!!
Here the full (true) story in an old recipe I wrote for work!

World Bread Day: Sumac Focaccia Bread

Today it's World Bread Day!!!!
I consider focaccia a type of flat bread, as it is the way I eat it most of the time: if I have friends coming over and I do not have fresh bread, I knead a focaccia (my Kenwood chef knead a focaccia, to be precise), and the appetizers are saved!
And sometimes, with focaccia, I get a bit "inspirational"... This time I had some sumac lying around and so I sprinkle the top of it before to bake it... And I even made it whole grain this time...

300 g of wholegrain organic flour
100 g of strong flour
7 g of fresh yeast
300 ml of warm water
1 teaspoon of sugar
Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sumac

Dissolve yeast with sugar and warm water. Add flours and salt, and knead.
Let it rise or at least 1 hour or until it doubled its volume.
Lay it in an generously oiled oven proof dish and let it rise again.

Preheat the oven at maximum, sprinkle focaccia with sumc and bake until golden.

Serve straight away.

A nice slice of meat

I know: I'm neglecting this blog... I miss it!
I miss to have enough time and organization to blog at least three times a week...
But please: do not abandon me!!!!! :-)

To prove you I'm alive (besides my flickr pictures!!!), kind of, here it's one of our latest luch: a very nice slice of meat... But I won't tell WHICH kind of meat it is! ;-)


Before


After

My new belle

Few weeks ago was my birthday (for some insight of the crazy week-end we had, you can check out Robyn's pictures: she was visiting with some friends! And we had tons of fun!).
I received some presents (well, better to, as I cooked dinner for 20 of my closest friends!!!): some teas, delicious lip balms and macarons from Sara, a book about blogging form Susan, "Mastering the art of French Cooking" by Julia Child from Robyn (with the cutest birthday card ever!), a really nice pink bag from Rosa (once blogger!) and then the masterpiece, from a group of friends.
Here's the story about it!
My friends, whom they know me so well, love me so much and remember every time I bring them to one of my favourite kitchen stores and point all the silly and expensive dream equipments I would love to own, gave me my new belle!
Some time ago I went to the La Rinascente lower floor and pointed out to my friend G. a flamboyant orange Le Crueset, 22 centimetres.
Then my birthday came, and they handed me a huge pack. When I saw that flamboyant orange Le Crueset, 22 centimetres, coming out of the gift paper, I couldn’t believe it: I dreamt to cook with one of this for the last 5 years… And all my dreams, all my expectations were fulfilled! It’s one of the best cocotte I’ve ever used in my life…
And I cooked a chicken tajine, just to begin… (freely adapted from Tajine and pastillas, by Marie Chemorin, Marabout)... I'm in a huge tajine mood, lately...

2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
3 onions
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 teaspoon of turmeric
1 teaspoon of grounded ginger
4 chicken drumsticks
1 lemon, quartered

Peel and chop finely the onions. stir fry them slowly in the oil. Add the spices. Add the chicken drumstick, coat them with the onions and spices. Add two galsses of water, the quartered lemon (better if you have citron confit, if not it will be a bit bitter). Let it cook for half an hour.
Serve with cous cous or flat bread.

A long working week-end

Well, working, yes, but you know, when you work for a food company and they put you in charge of organizing their events, well, work is more like fun!
First, Friday night I welcome in Milan a fellow German blogger, Matthias, who's gonna cover the German market for San Lorenzo. Then on Saturday morning we drove to Quistello, near Mantova, to eat the astonishing Ristorante Ambasciata (a full set of picture here) for this events where we invite random people from the internet to come and eat and drink with us!
Then, from there, we drove to Imperia, where San Lorenzo head-quarters are, spent the Sunday on the sea front (well, I spent it mainly in my bedroom sleeping and waking just to fetch food! Matthias went around, or so he says!) and then Monday at the San Lorenzo offices and the at the San Lorenzo warehouse (a full set of pictures here!). Then back to Milan...
In the mean while, we hit a nice good restaurant, in Imperia (pictures here): a bit too expensive, but good...

But you know, that's working! And I'm dedicated to it!!!
Ah, so exhausting!!! ;-)