Cannoli a little devilish

Cannolo is a sicilian pastry dessert. They are also popular in Italian American cuisine and in united states known as a italian pastry. Cannoli are tube-shaped shells fried in pastry dough,filled with something sweet and creamy.Traditionally ricotta cheese  is one of the main ingredients in the filling along with whipped cream.

This recipe has a slight twist from how it's originally made and one of its special ingredient would be my biggest affair in life.

Making it is a slight lenghty process but yet again an easy one. I'd suggest when making anything specially desserts have your indgreditents measured out and kept ready for preparation.

Before we proceed to the recipe, let me introduce you to my guilty pleasure and like I said biggest affair in life. Meet Chocolate:) who's had a million billion affairs since  it first belonged to the ancient civilizations who considered chocolate as precious as gold.Well, almost. It found its way to Europe and thanks to Josephy Fry & son who invented the first chocolate candy bar; Since then bribing every age group has become so much easier!

That was a brief of it's history as for my affair...that would take an entire post which I will share sometime soon!:) Recipe time!!

Fusion Chocolate Cannoli

Ingredients:

Bowl of flour (method includes measurements)

1.5 tbsp butter

1tsp vinegar

100 ml water

oil for frying

1 pear (mince half)

150g unsweetened cooking chocolate

2tbsps honey

1.5 tsp red chili flakes

1.5 tsp cumin

1/2 pat of paneer (fresh cheese)

4 tbsps Fresh cream(recommended to keep more incase)

Icing sugar

Method:

Preparing the filling:

First melt the 150 g unsweetned chocolate in a pan. Instead of using a ban-maire(double boiler) make your life easier by just breaking you chocolate into a pan and melt it on a medium heat and keep an eye on it to avoid burning it.

In a bowl add the half pat of paneer .(add lovely essence to the dessert) and mix it

Add your diced pear and 1tbsp of honey into the bowl and mix well

Add 2 tbsp of fresh cream

Add the melted chocolate into the bow and gentely FOLD. Don't worry about the chunky bits,try and break a little bit. rest will just add to the texture.

You could add extra cream depending on the thickness you want. I used about 4 tbsp. You need not worry about mixing well, just fold. The bits of cream that you might notice will also at texture to the mixture.

Preparing the crust

Separate an egg white and beat it well

Add 4 Tbsp of flour to a separate mixing bowl

Add the beaten egg to the 4 tbsp of flour and mix

add 4 tbsp of flour and add 50 ml of water. Mix

Add 2 tbsp of icing sugar while mixing the dough

Add 2 tbsp of flour and rest 50 ml of water and mix

To examine if your dough is ready, poke your finger into the batter and make sure that the mixture doesnt stick to your finger. If it does add 2 more tbsp of flour.

In total I used 12 tbsp of flour

Essentially 4 tbsps are used but now you need to test your skills to make the right dough. Pull of little batter and roll it out on your board till you can see through the dough; Need not make it too large.. Specially for a first try don't stress on the shape too much, you'll get around to it.

Tricky one. How to maintain the shape of the cannoli. Don't have the cannoli shaper? Use something simpler and at home! We decided to make a cannoli shaper out of a disposal foil box and roll the batter on the foil shaping a canolo

See what I mean?

Take a deep frying pan. Let the oil heat up and careffuly place the roll in the pan. You'll see it browning, don't let it burn just try and get the crisp texture on it.

Canolo may fry very quick don't over fry it else it'll become soggy. You'd want to maintain the crisp texture for serving.

After taking out the cannolo from the fryer, carefully pull out the foil; Don't wait too long for the cannolo to cool completely, a fearless act and pull out the foil while it's still a little hot.

Fill your canolli with the mixture with a pipping bag or just by using a spoon. I used a spoon.

Plate up!!

Bon Apettite:)!

Chocolate drippingly yours

-A-

Continuing comfort food...

Supreme Trifle

This might be disappointing but I have no story or deep thoughts on trifles except that this recipe is exactly how it was originally made with a little add ons here and there. The only thought in my head when I think 'trifle' is that it has got to be rich in texture and a crazy adventure till the bottom of the glass. Almost like Christmas - surprises till it ends.

Ingredients:

Milk

Cream

Egg Yolks

Sugar

Chocolate

Sponge

Fruit- Strawberries/pears/pineapple from a tin

Biscuit crumble

Mint

Flour

Method:

Crumble up your sponge cake into a sauce pan and squeeze half an orange on it.. Just enough to be soaked on by most of the pieces. Pieces of chocolate were also added for flavor sake. It may not necessarily coat all the pieces. That way it'll add texture to the layering.

In another sauce pan, caramelize your pear by adding sugar to it. Repeat with strawberries in separate pans.

Custard:

Mix 1 cup milk and 2 tbsp. flour together. Put it on a low heat till it comes to a boil. Whisk 1.5-2 egg yolks and very slowly add these to your pan while mixing at the same speed. Make sure you do that slowly to avoid lumps and making an actual omelet out of the custard. Pour in very gently while mixing vigorously.  Add mint for color. Stir till it's as thick as you want it.

Plating up!

First goes in the sponge then strawberries, squeeze orange on the caramelized pear and pop that in, little custard, cream, pineapple...Repeat till your dish is almost full and garnish it with mint for color and a fresh start to all the lovely flavors that every bite holds!:)

Bon Appetite

Endless flavor digging-ly yours

-A-

Death by chocolate

Chocolate ganache Pot with a strawberry surprise

What can I say about Chocolate that’s not already been said? Whenever summer love leaves me... its chocolate that stays with me throughout the year; bringing a smile to my face.

For now I’ll just stop at that. I will probably dedicate an entire post to chocolate later but I must add that Ganache does great justice to chocolate. It's a glaze, icing or filling made from chocolate and cream. Imagine that! Ganache goes back to the year 1850, invented in either Switzerland or France. Whoever it was, he/she did leave me upsizing and wanting it more and more.

Let's move on and bring a smile on that face!

Ingredients

Chocolate-semi sweet or bitter sweet (I used dark-bittersweet)

Digestive biscuits

Fresh cream

Sugar

Gelatin Powder

Butter

Strawberries

Brown sugar

Lemon Juice

Mint

Method:

For a biscuit base:

Crush the biscuits well - add them into a sauce pan and add 1.5 tbsp. of butter and mix well. (Add butter according to how well the crust has mixed; less or more depends on your serving) You can add cinnamon for an extra (surprise) flavor to your base.

After mixing well, empty it out in a pot and layer it well (I used a serving pot). You could turn it into a Chocolate Ganache Pie by using a spring tin by serving it completely scooped out. You could also scoop it out while make it into a pot (might need a little expertise).

Freeze the base.

Sautéing Strawberries:

Caramelizing strawberries, yummy! I love doing this. The water strawberry releases combined with sugar is just amazing!

Cut the strawberries into half (again depending on your serving) - I cut around 2 and half for my pot. Add one tbsp. of brown sugar and one tbsp. of white sugar. Add drops of lemon juice.

Cook until the strawberries release water and the melted sugar is completely coated onto your strawberries. You'll notice your strawberry texture change.

Preparing the Ganache:

I heated half cup of cream in one sauce pan.

I melted the dark chocolate on another pan by adding pieces of chocolate with tbsp. of sugar and 1-2 tbsp. of butter.  Make sure you keep a watch on the chocolate as it could burn easily. Cook on medium-low heat and stir. Remove as soon as the chocolate has melted.

Add the chocolate to the cream sauce pan and mix well.

Once that's combined well, turn the heat off for the next step.

While stirring in the lovely glossy ganache, add 2 tsp. of gelatin powder. Do not do this over the heat as it'll create lumpy texture.

Final cooking step

Add your caramelized strawberries to you ganache and fold. I love how the tart flavor the sauce released during the caramelizing process and added to the lovely ganache. Just looking at it made me drool and writing about it is worse! In fact, once I'm done, I'm treating myself. Considering I've gone an entire day without sweet ;)

Next post - Supreme Trifle

Lovingly yours

-A-