Palmiers

You may have noticed that today's post is not entitled Tasty Recipe Review. That's because there's really not that much to review, but I do have for you 2 Palmier options. One is the classic sugary elephant ears that we all know and love and the other is something I decided to whip up for Thanksgiving, sort of pumped up Palmiers if you will.

I had mentioned that I was dying to try and make these sweet morsels, well now I got the chance. I just went for it, decided to go get myself some puff pastry, you know I'm not going to make it it's too time consuming, and just go for it.

They are so unbelievably easy to make, I think I might just whip up a batch every single day for the rest of my life! Of course my hips will hate me for it, so maybe every other day.

All you need to make these are puff pastry and sugar and that's it! It's that simple.

You can find puff pastry anywhere these days, but if you would like to make it (congratulations, I admire you!) I found this site that shows you how to make your own puff pastry.  

Sprinkle your rolling space with about 1/4 cup of sugar and lay your puff pastry sheet on top like so:

Now sprinkle another 1/4 cup of sugar on top of the pastry

Now you have to roll the sugar into the dough

See how the sugar becomes embeded into the pastry, when the layers spread during baking it's going to be one big delicious sugary goodness!

Now on to forming the popular elephant ears. You start by folding in the sides:

Fold another time:

And one more time:

You end up with a long roll of dough, press it down and then cut it to form the rectangles:

These are your Palmiers. I rolled the tops in sugar, you can also coat them with an egg wash if you like. Place them on your cookie sheet about 2 to 3 inches apart to give them room to puff up.

Aren't they cute?

These go into a 375 degree oven for 12 - 16 minutes until they are golden brown. You may have to turn them over in the middle of baking if you see the bottoms are cooking way faster than the tops.

Remove them from the cookie sheet while still warm and let cool on a wire rack. You are now ready to pop these babies in your mouth, Yum!!!

Now for Thanksgiving, I decided to give these a twist. I filled them up with pumpkin, dates and almonds. You prepare them exactly the same way, you just add filling instead of sugar to the dough.

For my pumpkin filling you will need:

1 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup finely chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped almonds

Mix these together to make the filling:

Then proceed the same way as the sugar Palmiers, roll the dough in sugar, but instead of sprinkling sugar on top of the dough, spread out the filling and form your cookies.

Here is the finished product, looks good right. Very tasty!

You can fill these with anything, sweet, salty, whatever you like, or make them with just sugar, they are always going to be delicious ... Enjoy!!!

Mixing it up for Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is upon us!!!

We don't really celebrate Thanksgiving in Costa Rica, why would we right? But seeing as my sister is married to a Gringo (that's what we Ticos call someone from the US of A) it's celebrated in my house. We're having a big dinner tomorrow and I get dessert of course. I've been racking my brain to try to come up with something different. I don't really like Pumpkin Pie, it's never been my thing. There's just something about it that doesn't appeal to me. I LOVED the Pumpkin Cheesecake I made, that was absolutely wonderful, but they had tasted that already. I didn't feel like repeating desserts, I wanted to come up with something that would knock somebody's socks off!

Talking with my sister the other day I told her that I have been wanting to make Torta de Elote, which would translate into something like corn pie.( It's more of a corn pudding than a pie actually). She loves the stuff!!  Myself, not so fond of that either but I have been wanting to share the recipe and since we're having Thanksgiving at her place I thought it would be a good idea to make it. The only thing is regular Torta de Elote doesn't feel that Thanksgiviny (yes, that's an actual word) so she suggested adding pumpkin to the mix. Her exact words were: "Corn and pumpkin, what's more Thanksgiving than that???" So I thought, what the hell, let's give it a try.

You will need:

1 can sweetened corn
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 cups milk
2 eggs
1 stick butter melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup pumpkin puree

This is usually made in a blender, fast and simple! Seeing as how when I went to get out my blender a very important part was missing (go figure!) I had to improvise. So I decided to use my food processor instead. It was a bit complicated because you have to blend the corn and milk first and all the liquid was oozing out of the food processor, so I just added all the other stuff at once to see if it would combine better and gave it a whirl.

So in order to make this Torta de Elota you throw your corn and your milk into the food processor blender and whip that up a bit. Then you add all the other ingredients and give it another whip and voila you're done! how easy was that?

Grease a, I would say, 9X12 in. pan, dish, tray, I don't know, whatever you would like to bake it in and pour your corn and pumpkin mixture right in.

Pop it in a 350 degree oven for approx. 45 minutes until it's golden brown. Mine took a bit longer, about 55 minutes just check it and when it's nice and golden pull it out and cool on a wire rack.

Here's a closer look. See... golden!

I'm not sure if you're supposed to serve this warm or let it cool completely, I think it's just a matter of taste. When it's still warm the pudding is more on the soft-almost-bordering-close-to-the-runny side, once you let it cool it will thicken.

I decided to top this off with some cinnamon whipped cream, which is just whipped cream with a little cinnamon, nothing fancy. I think it complimented it really well. It's still not my favorite but it's pretty good and the whipped cream gave it a nice extra oomph.

There are two things I would like to point out. I used the canned pumpkin puree which comes with all the spices so I didn't add any more, if you use homemade pumpkin puree you can add cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger to give it that pumpkin pie flavor and of course you can add the amount you like to suit your palate. The other thing is that I wanted a mild pumpkin flavor, I did not want the pumpkin to overpower the corn but instead blend with it and merge the flavors. If you would like to have a more pronounced pumpkin flavor just adjust the puree quantity to taste.  

Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Tasty Recipe Review: Pumpkin Cupcakes

Pumpkin is back and it's scary hehe! This week I'm reviewing a recipe by My Kitchen Addiction Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Brown Sugar Buttercream. That sounded wonderful to me, I just needed to try them. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to make the Cinnamon Brown Sugar Buttercream but it sounds absolutely delightful I will have to try it one day, that's for sure!

The cupcakes were incredibly easy to make. I did add a few things to the recipe, more pumpkin, a bit more spices, honey and some orange zest, because I think orange zest goes great with pumpkin. And I was right!

These cupcakes were not only easy to make but they were delicious! I loved how all the flavors came together and created a wonderfully complete and balanced taste. The orange zest really gave this recipe a nice twist and brought out the pumpkin at the end. I truly enjoyed these cupcakes and found them very light with great texture.


To make these delicious cupcakes you will need:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened

(For my variation add 1 tablespoon honey, 1 1/4 cup pumpkin puree, 1/4 teaspoon cloves, 1/4 teaspoon ginger and orange zest to taste.) 

Combine all of the ingredients (yes, I said all of the ingredients) in the bowl of your stand mixer (or just a large mixing bowl if you are brave and have a hand mixer). Beat on medium speed for 20 minutes (that’s why I said you must be brave… or at least energetic). (I found that there is no need to beat the mixture for this long)

While the mixer is doing all of the work, preheat the oven to 350°F, line two standard muffin pans with cupcake papers (for 24 cupcakes). 

Once the batter is smooth, fill each of the cupcake liners about 2/3 full with batter.  Bake the cupcakes for about 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Cool the cupcakes in the pans for a few minutes, and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Cinnamon Brown Sugar Buttercream

• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 cups powdered sugar (varies based on temperature/humidity)
• 3 tablespoons half and half (varies based on temperature/humidity)

In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter and shortening. Whip together with the whisk attachment until light and fluffy.  Add the brown sugar and cinnamon and whisk until well combined.
Gradually add the powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time. Alternately add the half and half, whipping the icing on medium-high speed after each addition, until the desired consistency is reached.



Till next time, I hope you enjoyed this review and remember, if you have a Tasty Recipe that you would like to share, or if there's a recipe that you have been wanting to try and just haven't been able to, let me know about it. I'll give you a Tasty Review!

Oh Pumpkin!

Pumpkin again! That's right, I'm all into pumpkin right now and seeing as how my last two attempts at making something "blogable" have failed, here's a pumpkin cake recipe for you to enjoy.

As I mentioned in my previous post, pumpkin hasn't really been my thing all these years, but after loving that pumpkin cheesecake I'm obsessed with making pumpkin desserts and I thought, why not try a pumpkin cake, see how that comes out?

You will need:

2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups pumpkin puree

Combine sugar, vegetable oil and eggs in a large mixing bowl; mix well. Sift dry ingredients in a separate bowl; stir into oil mixture, beating well. Stir in pumpkin puree.

Pour batter into greased and floured bundt pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 to 40 minutes.

Now this recipe was supposed to be this Sunday's review but due to the lack of material, I had to post today. I have to say though that I didn't love this cake. I would have added shredded pumpkin as if it were a carrot cake and more spices, maybe some pecans to give it a nice crunchy texture. It's a pretty good cake, but I didn't find any wow factor in it. I dusted it with confectioner's sugar and it improved, then I tried it with the cinnamon whipped cream I had left over from the pumpkin cheesecake and it was much better!

Hope you enjoy it!

 

Tasty Recipe Review: Pumpkin Cheesecake

Pumpkin. So widely used at this time of year it's like a cliche. I have never been that into pumpkin, but this year I really wanted to try it out and hopefully with something different, so instead of the regular Pumpkin Pie, I decided to go for a Pumpkin Cheesecake.

This week's review is a little odd. I'm not sure if I can call it a recipe review since it is a combination of recipes with my own changes, so I guess I'm reviewing myself!

To make this cheesecake you will need:

1 Cherry Cheesecake recipe (without the cherries of course)

Prepare as you would the Cherry Cheesecake adding the following:

For the crust add:

1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg

To the filling add:

1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cloves

 I normally top off my cheesecakes with whipped cream. For this one, I decided to add cinnamon to the whipped cream and it was the perfect compliment.

Let me just say I loved this cheesecake. It was easy to make, the flavors were subtle yet there, the cinnamon whipped cream went beautifully with everything else. It's like cheesecake with a spice kick. Also, I didn't have any at the time but I feel that orange rind would go wonderfully with this dish. I found it delightful and will definitely be making this and hopefully more pumpkin recipes over and over again!

Till next time, I hope you enjoyed this review and remember if you have a Tasty Recipe that you would like to share, or if there's a recipe that you have been wanting to try and just haven't been able to, let me know about it. I'll give you a Tasty Review.