Happy Halloween.

Happy Halloween.

My sister and I decided to play a joe on Michele and, boy was he scared, he thought it was the headless horseman but then and being very careful he went to investigate and he said "HA HA HA I knew it, I knew it" he was laughing almost hysterically. Well..he wanted to celebrate halloween, didn't he??? (Michele and I love to watch The Legend of Sleeppy Hollow).

I think I am a bit better, thanks so much my dear friends for your concern.

Today I made a very typical smoothy from my hometown we call it "vitamina" vitamin, it is made of pumpin, milk, sugar and vanilla (my personal touch sweetened condensed mil and nutmeg) and pumpking pie and a mini pie with splenda for mom since she cannot eat sugar.

faery Mocha Dessert

Faery Mocha Dessert.

Ok I don’t know what is happening to me, but bronchitis wasn’t gone when my larynx began to hurt and now I have laryngitis, my Goodness….nothing works for me, I might be an alien (E.T. phone Dr House..er..home)
Well I made this to share with some friends it is very easy to make, you know…I feel kind of lazy (so many antibiotics, antihistaminic drugs, syrups, beverages, home medicines, pills, witchcraft….ooops) *cough* *cough* *cough* sorry…Again
I made a sponge cake, mocha pudding and coffee-marsala wine syrup to soak the cake. But you can buy lady fingers (savoiardi) and box pudding and prepare it according to the instructions.
I sliced my sponge cake trying to make very slim slices, I placed a layer of cake slices soaked them with the coffee-marsala wine syrup then a layer of mocha pudding and then I sprinkle dark cocoa powder over the pudding layer, repeat the process until all ingredients are used and finally cover the dessert with an Italian meringue and place in the refrigerator until very cold (better overnight). According to my friends it was delicious (my opinion too and scent of the dessert yummmmm ).

Sandwich bread with green onion and cheddar cheese.

Sandwich bread with green onion

and cheddar cheese.

This recipe belongs to my favorite baker an pastry chef, he is very famous in Latin America and I always buy his magazines, with him I learnt to use malt extract which gives moisture, color and a delicious taste to my breads.

For this olives, bacon an chear cheese

Sponge:
35 gr fresh yeast.
100 cc water.
1 teaspoon sugar.
1 tablespoon flour.
Dough.
1 kilogram all purpose flour. (we call it 0000)
100 gr sugar.
20 gr ssalt.
550 cc milk.
10 gr malt extract.
75 gr butter (soft).
Green onion chopped.
Cheddar cheese.
1- Mix all the ingredients for the sponge and let rest for ten minutes.
2- Mix the flour an salt, then make a well in the center an a the rest of the ingredients and the sponge..
3- With a whisk begging to mix the ingredients taking small amounts of flour until you use all the flour and then knead.
4- This dough is sticky as a tape but won’t attach to your hands, I learnt from my own experience that this kind of dough does not need to be worked out thoroughly because as it is wet the gluten will develop while the dough rests.
5- Let the dough rest until it doubles its size and then cut in halves, extent it with your hands and roll place in very well greased and floured loaf pans, brush with beaten egg an place the green onion and cheese on top, let rise until it doubles the initial size.
6- Carefully brush with beaten egg again and bake in a preheated oven at 190 °C until they are golden brown and you pad on top they make a hollow sound.
7- Let tem cool before removing them from the pan.
A good advice is to use parchment paper to line the pans

Faery’s Monkey Pizza.

I was reading one old recipe book that belongs to my mom and I read this beautiful recipe called “Monkey Bread” I was so curious about it and I wanted to make it right away, the problem was I had a dough raising but this dough was salty so I could not use it to make sweet bread …. So I though to myself if I make a salty monkey bread, using sauce instead of syrup, well I continue with my idea and came up with a “Monkey Pizza” it was delicious, soft and with all the sauce an cheese surrounding every piece of this weird pizza. You can use store bought dough or canned Neapolitan sauce, here your imagination is the limit. For my Pizza I made smoked bacon, garlic an tomato extract (no oil) an a kind of cheese that gets very soft but that does not melt when it is hot this is similar to Monterrey jack

My bread dough.

250 cc milk. (Luke warm).
60 gr butter.
2 eggs.
2 teaspoons salt.
400 gr all purpose flour.
160 gr self raising flour.
1 tablespoon malt extract (or honey)
1 tablespoon instant yeast.

1- Mix the malt extract, yeast and milk.
2- Place the rest of the ingredients in a bowl add the prepared milk and make a ough, then kneed until you have a soft, silky elastic dough.
3- Let rest until it doubles its volume, place over a floured surface an with your hands press down gently to deflate the dough.
4- Cut stripes of dough and then cut each stripe to make small pieces of dough.
5- The place sauce and dough in a bowl and toss, really gently, using your hands.
6- Place the seasoned dough in a cake pan an let raise until it doubles its volume.
7- Bake at 200°C until you see the sides of the pizza are light brown.

Daring Bakers' September Challenge

Vols-au-Vent

As always I made my challenge two days before the posting date, It was very difficult to complete the challenge this time, I have bronchitis and after two days with fever I fell terrible but this is one of my favorites pastries so I HAD TO do it, as you can see in my previous post I made one of my personal recipes for a flaky dough at the beginning of this month, so I was “in shape” for the challenge…That’s what I thought…the weather was incredible hot, so hot that I thought to myself there will be an earthquake or there will be a storm, I was right in my second prediction and it was like a tornado, our dear soursoup tree felt. my nephew and I were watching the storm in the hallway that is next to that tree and thanks to his dear guardian angel it did not land over the house because we were one and a half meters from the tree, when I realize what could happen to him I almost faint, then “where is Lila?” our dog…she was in her house far from the tree, Then “and The wall?” it was intact, definitely God was watching over us. My mom was in her bedroom so she did not see the tree falling, when I told her, she began to cry and she thanked the tree for shadow, fruits and the protection it kindly gave us (it was a shield for stones thrown from the street, the hallway has big glass windows, so it is a temptation for kids). Well that is a pity it was loaded with fruits…I loved that tree.
I have to say that I like this recipe, although when I read the ingredients I knew that was too much fat for the kind of flour I buy here in my town (it is like a starch) so I used 400 gr instead of 454 gr and it was a bit fatty to my taste, the result : it had many layers and it was crunchy, but greasy and I am sure is due to the ingredients I used and not due to recipe, because the pics in the forum shows beautiful creations, I will try this recipe again but lowering the amount of fat in it.
Thanks Steph for this wonderful challenge, I learnt a lot and even though I was weak for the fever (and causing trouble to my dough) I enjoyed every second of it, thank you, for the recipe click here
The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

Filled Flaky Dough.

Filled Flaky Dough.

I may not post my recipes in the future since people in my country has been copying them and publishing without my permission, I may say that most of these recipe are of my own, I never expected this to happen. But they are available only for my friends :)
These do not have a name yet, but they are flaky and crunchy outside and very soft and spongy inside, I suppose this dough is perfect for croissants and it can be filled with savory or sweet preparations. I filled them with strawberry jam and for my mom cinnamon and Splenda.
The dough is made with shortening, like Crisco, but is not heavy because it needs less fat than other kind of dough.

Sweet Bread Cluster and Home made Guava Marmalade .

Sweet Bread Cluster

and

Home made Guava Marmalade.

At home, we love these buns, they are not so sweet, moist and very soft but the best part is that they are so easy to make. I created this recipe trying to imitate the ones I eat at my grade school.
Not much to say today, I guess this depression is hard to overcome. My country is getting worst, the cure is so far away if there is one. It is like when you are caught in the undertow, it does not matter how much you struggle to get rid of it, you will get nowhere.

Home made Guava Marmalade.

450 fresh pulp of guava and the same amount of white sugar and 2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (add it when you finish cooking the marmalade)
Cook until it it changes its color, bubbles like hell and smells like heaven… or you taste it on a cold saucer and if it does not run much it is ready.

The fierce crocodile is getting ready to attack

1- Mix all the ingredients and knead, this dough is a bit sticky so you do not need to knead like a slave.
2- Let dough rest until it doubles its size.
3- Deflate the dough and make small ball of dough, place them on a cake pan (greased and floured) with a very small separation between them ant let this rest covered with a loose plastic (they need room to grow) until they double in size.
4- rush with egg wash sprinkle some sugar on top of the buns and bake until they are golden brown and when you tap on top of these bread cluster it will sound hollow.
Note: you can vary the form of the bread and fill them too.

The Daring Bakers August Challenge

The Daring Bakers August Challenge: Dobos Torte

I am so sorry I could not post my challenge before but so many things happened, I am still weak but recovering well, we had a beautiful visit for almost two weeks: my brother and his family came from Valencia, unfortunately they could not stay longer because my brother is a professor at the university and director of … I forgot the name, so he has a lot of responsibilities there.
Aaaand soooo many power cuts sometimes more than two per day, we spent three and a half hours without light today….today, that I finally gathered strength and energy to make my august challenge, when I was about making the filling *PUFF* the light went off not without blinking for a minute before definitely left us in the dark. For that reason one of the two refrigerators got damaged. But look the positive side…Venezuela is the only country in the world that is working hard against the global warming, also this situation helps the thieves to work in better conditions, you know, they have a family to care for. I can’t imagine how happy are the ones who work repairing electric appliances, they have a lot of work to do and only work a few hours a day: when there is power.
I’ll say no more for today, I’m tired and I still have to build a huge poster: LEADER/HERO WANTED, VILLAIN IS TEARING DOWN A COUNTRY.

The recipe here and here

I was so tired that I forgot to make the upper layer with the caramel so I used cookies instead, sorry

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonfulof Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular DobosTorte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: ExquisiteDesserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.
Thank you Lorrain and Angela I loved this Torte

My First Food.

My First Food.

My first food after being sick, yea I know it sounds kind of super dramatic but boy was I sick and what makes me crazy is that this is due to a bad BAD administration (and you could say: ok Faery here you come again talking about politics…), Ok, the town where I live, used to be ruled by a mayor who has the town like a shiny silver cup although he was not someone I like I cannot deny the fact that he took care of everything here but during the last elections and due to electoral magic the mayor that everybody loved LOST the elections and the one who bows to the president and master of this regime, won….”It’s a kind of magic, maaagiic”.

Well this man happen to be the seven plagues of Egypt, uhm you don’t believe me, listen,: all the sanitation trucks are broken there is only one on duty so the garbage is flooding the town, this has brought a plague of mice and rats , all imaginable sizes of crocoraches and colors…,clouds of flies, mosquitoes and those annoying fruit flies (they not only bite fruits).

Also the water is so dirty and filled with mosquito larvae, besides this: the darkness, we have up to three power cuts daily specially at night.

Due to all these things we have systems to double filter the water, mosquito repellents and we keep the house super clean also we take measures of all kinds buuuut…. It hit me…what? The new virus (that I won’t mention because this is a food blog but you are free to imagine), during the 3 first days I lost 7 kilos of weight and two weeks later I still have that filling of “EWW” when I see food, I spent 2 days laying in my bed, did not eat at all and only could have a few sips of water, second day at night my mom made me a chamomile and tilo tea it was so good, next day she gave me Pepsi with lemon and that helped me a lot , that night she made me white rice and I eat 7 teaspoons of it, I felt great, during the next days I began to recover with home remedies because formal or traditional medicine did not work on this virus.
This is the first time I get in the kitchen after that. I made Tostones which are very good when you have stomach illness, chicken breast, salad and rice.
Tostones are very typical in my country

1-Peel the green plantain and cut it in slices of about 2 centimeters, then fry them in very hot oil on both sides until golden.

2- Smash flat them with the help of the bottom of a glass or plate if you don’t have something like this device I show here, then fry again the smashed plantain until just browned.

3- Place them over absorbent paper and sprinkle them with salt.

For the chicken breast

I cut the chicken breast into strips and season with salt, dried oregano, grated garlic and onion and a few drops of wine vinegar let rest and then cover each strip with corn starch and cook with a few drops of corn oil.

For the salad I cut tomato and onion and added dried oregano, corn oil and whine vinegar.

My drink was Schweppes and orange juice from our tree.

Looks loke gold

See the burnt ones, they are just for me because they are so good for my stomach.

Daring Baker July's Challenge

Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies.

and Dulce de Leche Recipe

I love marshmallow I always make these delicious clouds at home so I had doubts about this recipe, but it was great. The only problem I had was the weather so I had to slightly refrigerate the marshmallow before using it because it was too runny at the beginning. The cookie dough was also affected by the hot weather. I made small cookies and with the rest of the dough I pressed it into a cookie cutter with the fingers and made a big… biiiiig marshmallow.

Thanks Nicole for this new recipe and wonderful challenge I enjoyed and learnt a lot in this challenge. To see the recipe click here

AAAyyy a monster jumped in my batter

He is saying GRRRRRR

Dough... Dou!

Cookies

Dulce de Leche...my LOVE

Centered Filling...or...Filling Centered?

Scary

Soft ball... hot hot ouch it burns.

Almost a Disaster

The Biiiiig One

Chistmas Flavor

Piña Colada

Dulce de Leche

YUMMMM :9

These are for my neighbor and friend Hector.

Faery's Dulce de Leche.

This a dulce de leche that is like the one used for pastry, it is thick and dark and I like this kind of dulce de leche more that the traditional home made dulce de leche.
Ingredients.
7 cups fresh milk.
650 gr white sugar.
2/4 teaspoon sodium bicarbonate.
2 teaspoons corn starch.
1- Place milk, sodium bicarbonate and sugar in a big heavy bottomed sauce pan and cook over high heat stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves.
2- Low the heat and stir every 5 to 7 minutes until it takes a brown color and is thicker that cough syrup, then dissolve the corn starch in the water and add it to the dulc e de leche stirring well and continue to cook until it becomes thick (you can test the same way you do for a marmalade, dropping a bit of the dulce de leche on a cold saucer)
3- Cool in water bath and store.


The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.