6

honey breadOriginally called “pão de mel” (honey bread) in Brazil, where it’s a local favorite, this dark chocolate covered little dense spice honey cake will amaze your taste buds. It’s great with a hot cup of coffee, tea, chai or just by itself. You can also use a dulce de leche filling, and make them even more delicious. Oh my, I can’t get enough…I love honey bread. Just a reminder, you’ll probably need to reduce the recipe or otherwise you’ll have lots and lots of breads, so you should do half or even a third. But one thing I’m sure, you’ll love it.

honey bread 2

Brazilian Honey Bread
(96 individual breads)

Ingredients:
(if you need, use a “oz” conversion calculator on the internet)

490 g brown sugar
400 ml water
5 eggs (separated)
700 g all purpose flour
5 g ground cloves
5 g ground cinnamon
25 g chocolate powder
20 g baking soda
10 g baking powder
250 ml milk
300 ml honey

Syrup:

200 ml water
10 g brown sugar
3 cinnamon sticks
10 g cloves

Icing:

1.5 kg milk chocolate
1 kg semi-sweetened chocolate

Dulce de leche for the filling

Directions:

For the syrup, put all the ingredients in a saucepan in low heat, for about 15min. Drain it and let it cool.

Beat egg whites until it forms stiff and firm peaks, reserve.

Preheat oven 350°C. Butter and flour a 12 X 16inch pan, or use individual pans.

Mix with a whisk, the cold syrup, with the sifted flour, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, chocolate powder. Add the baking soda dissolved into the milk and the sifted baking soda. Add the egg yolks one by one and whisk well. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. Pour the batter in the pan and bake for approx. 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the cake come out clean. Let it cool. Pour the syrup over the cake. Cut the cake into squares.

For the icing, melt the chocolates in a microwave oven or in a double boiler and cover the breads. Use a fork to dip the bread. Place on aluminum foil to dry into the refrigerator.

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7

brownie 2After that I made my first brownie recipe and I loved it, I wanted to continue testing other recipes, and as the blog where I got the first recipe has several others, I decided to test another one, because, since the first recipe was delicious, the others must be too. This time I chose Supernatural Brownies, and indeed they are delicious, they are quite different from the Outrageous Brownies, they have a less refined flavor, I can say that they are simpler, because the recipe only has one type of chocolate, but they are also delicious, it’s difficult to choose which one is the most delicious. I advise you to test them both and make your conclusions…hehe.

Supernatural Brownies

Ingredients:

2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter
8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour

Directions:

One 13×9×2-inch pan, buttered and lined with buttered parchment or foil
Set the rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees.
Bring a saucepan of water to a boil and turn off heat. Combine butter and chocolate in a heat proof bowl and set over pan of water. Stir occasionally until melted.
Whisk eggs together in a large bowl, then whisk in the salt, sugars, and vanilla. Stir in the chocolate and butter mixture, then fold in the flour.
Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for about 45 minutes, until top has formed a shiny crust and batter is moderately firm. Cool in pan on a rack. Wrap pan in plastic wrap and keep at room temperature or refrigerated until the next day.
To cut brownies, unmold onto a cutting board, remove paper, and replace with another cutting board. Turn cake right side up and trim away edges. Cut brownies into 2-inch squares.

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0

cherry muffin

Last weekend I found some tasty cherries in the supermarket, and I decided to buy, because I had read some recipes with cherry in the internet. Then when I arrived at home I was soon searching for one, and I found several, since clafoutis, cakes and muffins. But obviously, as I love muffins, I chose to make them and I can say that they are DELICIOUS, the recipe it’s from here, the muffin is soft, smells great and the crumb topping, perfect. But some here are some tips: I found that they didn’t have enough cherries (I used less than the recipe asks for), so I advise to put all the cherries and in bigger pieces, and don’t put a lot of dough into the muffin cups, because the muffins grow a lot and the topping will fall. But I’m sure that anyhow they will get delicious.

cherry muffin 4

Cherry Muffins with Crumb Topping
(18 muffins)

Ingredients:

Topping:

1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Muffins:

1 – 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 – 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
3/4 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups pitted sweet cherries

Direction:

Preheat the oven to 375°. Line 18 muffin cups with paper or foil liners or spray 2 muffin tins with cooking spray.

Make the topping: In a medium bowl, combine the flour with the brown sugar, granulated sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir in the melted butter, then pinch the mixture until it forms pea-size clumps.

Make the muffins: In a medium bowl, whisk the flour with the baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, combine the sugar, eggs and canola oil and beat with a handheld electric mixer at low speed until combined. Beat in the whole milk and vanilla. Add the flour mixture all at once and beat at low speed until the batter is smooth. Stir in the cherries.

Spoon the batter into 18 of the cups, filling them about three-quarters full. Sprinkle the crumb topping on top of each one and bake for about 30 minutes or until the muffins are golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 10 minutes before serving.

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0

muffin chocolateYup! Another muffin recipe, but now a chocolate one, I said that I am starting to get addict to…haha…When I found this recipe here, at first I found it stranger because of the cornflour, but as they said that the muffins were delicious I decided to give it a chance, and I found that they really are delicious. They are super soft, dark and with that crunchy edge…yummy! I think that in the next time, to be more sinful, I’ll put some chocolate pieces in the dough…oh oh.

Chocolate Muffins
(12 muffins)

Ingredients:

50g cornflour
3 level tbsp cocoa
100g dark soft brown sugar
225ml cold water
75g unsalted butter, cubed
125g dark chocolate, broken small
75ml sunflower oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
125g caster sugar
125g plain flour
2½ tsp baking powder

Directions:

Heat the oven to 180C/350F. In a large saucepan, put the cornflour, cocoa, brown sugar and cold water. Whisk together over a medium heat until boiling, very thick and smooth. Remove from the heat and beat in the butter and dark chocolate until both have melted and been absorbed. Add the oil, vanilla and one of the eggs – beat until combined. Add the remaining egg and the caster sugar and beat until the mixture is smooth and combined.
In a mixing bowl, measure out the flour and baking powder and stir together. Sift this onto the custard and beat again until the flour is thoroughly combined.
Spoon into 12 paper muffin cases that have been put into a muffin pan and bake for 25 minutes.

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0

Cinnamon Rolls

I was crazy about Cinnamon Rolls when I lived in Canada, at McDonalds I always asked for the “Fondant à la cannelle”, it was delicious, but  unhappily we don’t have it here in Brazil. When I came back to Brazil in the end of 2008 I was soon searching a recipe of these rolls, and I found this one in some site that I don’t remember, but it is delicious, and if it is not the same recipe that I used to eat at least it is very close. DELICIOUS!

Cinnamon Rolls 2

Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients:

Dough:

200g cups (or more) all purpose flour
16g of sugar
3g of salt
30g margarine at room temperature (or butter)
90g of whole milk
32g of egg (1 small egg)
4g of dry yeast
20g of worm water

Filling:

25g brown sugar
4g ground cinnamon
1 tbsp margarine at room temperature
pinch of nutmeg

Glaze:

15g cream cheese at room temperature
20g of sugar
35g margarine at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside. In a large bowl mix milk, sugar, margarine, salt and egg. Add 2 cups of flour and mix until smooth. Add yeast mixture. Mix in remaining flour until dough is easy to handle. Knead dough on lightly floured surface for 5 to 10 minutes. Place in well-greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled in size, usually 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

When doubled in size, punch down dough. Roll out on a floured surface into a 16  x 3,5 inch rectangle. Spread margarine all over dough. Mix sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg and sprinkle over buttered dough. Beginning at the 16-inch or 3,5 side(it depends of how many rolls do you want) , role up dough and pinch edge together to seal. Cut into  slices.

Coat the bottom of baking pan with butter and sprinkle with sugar. Place cinnamon roll slices close together in the pan and let rise until dough is doubled, about 45 minutes. Bake in preheated oven at 180ºC/350ºF degrees for about 20 minutes or until nicely browned.

Meanwhile, mix butter, sugar, and vanilla and spread over hot rolls.

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