Chocolate Ice Cream, in a bag...

It's summer break from school!  The little is happy... but bored!  So we try to find activities for her to do... one of which is making ice cream in a plastic bag.

Of course she wanted chocolate ice cream!

Our deal was for her to do everything... well almost everything... which she did.

1. She measured and placed into a 2-cup capacity Pyrex liquid measuring cup, 1/4 cup of each:  cocoa (then sifted), chocolate milk, and condensed milk, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.  And she mixed everything until the cocoa was fully dissolved. (first pic, top left)

2. She measured 3/4 cup of whipping cream and added it to the chocolate mixture (second pic, top right)

3. She mixed until the mixture was well combined. (second row, left)

4. Then she poured the mixture in a small zip-lock bag (we used Reynolds secure seal) [second row, right).  We placed the zip bag in the freezer while we prepared the bag of ice - mix 1/3 cup rock salt and 3 trays of ice cubes in a bigger zip lock bag.  Then place the small bag containing the chocolate milk into the big bag of ice cubes and salt.

5. Shake, shake, shake... or massage the bags... We used gloves because the plastic bag was really, really cold!  (third row, left)  The bags were to be shaken or massaged for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the the consistency was that of soft serve ice cream.

6. Of course, the little girl got tired in about 4 minutes!  So I had to take over the shaking of the bags. Meanwhile, she decided that she wanted her ice cream stuffed with chocolate chip cookies, so she "chopped" some Mini Chips Ahoy while I was busy shaking and massaging the super-cold bags!  (third row, right)

7. The finished product!  (bottom row, left)  After about 15 minutes, the mixture had thickened.  We place the bags in the freezer for about 15 minutes while I looked for a container!  To transfer to the container, remove the inner bag from the out bag.  Wipe the inner bag well.  Snip a corner and squeeze the ice cream out (soft serve consistency) into the container.  Add the chocolate chip cookie pieces and fold.  At this point the little girl took a couple of spoonfuls.

Then she decided to save the rest for dessert after dinner (to share with Daddy, as well!)  So we stored the ice cream in the freezer.

8.  After dinner, the little ater with gusto and proclaimed:  Best choco ice cream ever, Mommy!

Yay!!!

Choco Mallow Cupcakes

Sometime ago, I bought these humongous marshmallows...  the first thing I did with them was to make S'mores Cupcakes.  For the last remaining marshmallows, I made the simpler cousin - Choco Mallow Cupcakes.

The cupcakes are chocolate cupcakes, topped with half a marshmallow that is melted onto the cupcakes itself, then topped with chocolate ganache!

(Don't tell anyone but I liked these better than the S'mores Cupcakes!)

Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter

My brother recently gave me a big tub of roasted peanuts.  While I am an avid fan of nuts, my recent affliction of migraines has me banning peanuts in large amounts.  Hubby does not like peanuts and neither does the little girl, except for peanut butter.  So what do I do with all those peanuts?  Transform them into peanut butter... but with chocolate!

The ingredients I used for my chocolate peanut butter spread...

Thank goodness for food processors... they make peanut butter easy!  5 minutes of whirring 200 to 250 grams of roasted peanuts and it's quite done.

Add 100 grams melted dark chocolate... and maybe a tablespoon of sugar or honey (or to taste)

and viola!  Chocolate Peanut Butter!

I have been eating this off a spoon... as has the little girl.  We love it!

No Churn Chocolate Chip Chocolate Ice Cream

For the little girl... who has requested, repeatedly for several days now, chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips in it.

This recipe was given to me by an e-friend, who gave me permission to share...

1/2 cup chocolate milk
1/2 cup condensed milk
1/3 cup Dutch style cocoa
300 ml heavy 40% cream
3 to 5 tablespoons mini chocolate chips

Stir together the chocolate milk, condensed milk and cocoa until thoroughly mixed.  Chill for a couple of hours.

Whip the cream until stiff peaks.  Fold in the chocolate-milk mixture.

Pour into prepared container (about 1 liter capacity).  Freeze for 1 to 2 hours, until sides begin to freeze but center is still a bit liquid-y.  Stir the mixture then fold in chocolate chips.  Freeze until solid.

The little girl obviously loved her ice cream.  It was delicious, although I found it a tad a bit on the sweet side.  It's a little sweeter, particularly the end-note, than my go-to homemade chocolate ice cream, but it is darker and has a more complex chocolate-y taste, maybe due to chocolate milk component.

In any case, the little girl pronounced me her (kitchen) hero once again!

Oatmeal and Chocolate Pudding

Ok, I'm finally admitting it... the truth is, I've been trying to have a healthier breakfast habit.  I usually have rice, a fried egg and some processed meat but hubby has been nagging me to eat healthier (and join him at the gym, but no!).  For now I'm trying the healthy breakfast... so here's another one... oatmeal-based once again...

The oatmeal layer is a half-cooked 1:1 oatmeal and low fat milk concoction.  Just mix together 1/2 cup each of whole oats and 1/2 cup low fat milk.  Heat gently until the mixture becomes paste-like.  Cool completely before assembling.

I vary the toppings (or layers - Greek-style yogurt and fruit are perfect!) and for this particular one, it's a chocolate pudding.  Okay, not really that healthy considering the heavy cream but baby steps!  baby steps!   (I promise to experiment with a yogurt pudding or something... but my problem with yogurt is that it is too tangy and I end up using quite a bit of sugar, which is not healthy either!)  Besides, this chocolate pudding is so easy (it's no cook and one bowl, to boot) I really couldn't resist!

1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp cocoa powder
60 grams bittersweet 62% chocolate
15 grams lightly salted butter (optional)
1/2 tsp vanilla in rum

Heat the cream, in the microwave, until nearly boiling (but do not boil).  A glass, micro-safe measuring cup is perfect for this.  Stir in the cocoa powder, chocolate and butter; stir until everything is melted and smooth.  Add the vanilla in rum.  (Cool slightly.)  Pour over the oatmeal layer and chill overnight.  If desired, garnish with chocolate curls.  Enjoy the next morning!

(I'm not a fan of oatmeal, but I like this concoction!)

The three of us ate this for breakfast... the little girl loved the pudding, the oatmeal, however, is another story.

Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream...

The little girl has a new toy.  It's a toy ice cream maker that makes REAL ice cream.

Of course, it cannot make a lot.  Just enough for one serving, in fact.

And the darn thing kept leaking!  What a waste of ice cream mix!

So what did I do with the rest of the ice cream mix?  I churned it, of course!  With what, you may wonder... (after all, I don't have an ice cream maker!)  Well, with 2 bowls, my favorite spatula, plenty of ice and salt!

In the beginning it was like stirring soup.

After 15 minutes...

It was like stirring thick soup... still nowhere near soft serve ice cream though.

More stirring and another 5 minutes (20 minutes from the beginning)...

Getting thicker and thicker... and the mixture had a couple of solid globs of ice cream!

Another 5 minutes (at 25 minutes)...

Getting there... getting there... (my arm and hand are getting really sore, though!)

After 30 minutes (and really sore arm and hand!  although to be truthful, hubby was the one who "churned" the ice cream the last 5 minutes!)...

Soft-serve ice cream... ready to eat!

I poured a pint into a carton ice cream container (to freeze firm in the freezer).  As for the rest (half a pint's worth) we ate it with gusto!  It was certainly perfect for the hot day... imagine that last Sunday at 3pm, the temperature recorded was the highest this year (Tuguegarao station) at 37.4*C!  Yesterday, it was 37*C!  Yikes!

What recipe did we use?  Technically I used David Lebovitz' Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe, with some changes:  first, I added about 1/2 cup dutch cocoa; then I substituted egg yolks with 1/3 cup greek style yogurt.  The ice cream mix essentially became no-cook, except for the dissolving of the cocoa in the milk.  I mixed the yogurt with the cream before adding the cooled cocoa-milk and other ingredients.  I stuck it in the ref for about an hour before "hand-churning" it.  

Anyway... hubby claimed that it was way, way better than any of the commercial ice creams!  As for the little girl?  She gave me a lot of kisses, which (she says) reflects how good the ice cream was!

And there were a lot of kisses!

Brownie Rounds

I've had the book "Baked:  New Frontiers in Baking" by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito on my shelf for several years.  And I'd been reading a lot about their brownies and how it is THE brownie even connoisseurs like.  The recipe had been on my list for a while too, but for some reason or another, it was only today that I finally decided to try it once and for all!

Ok, obviously I did not follow the recipe to the letter, but my deviation is only as to form and not substance. 

I used a silicone "fairy cake" pan (shallow round cavities) to make the brownie rounds. 

And I added some peanut butter chips to some of the rounds (because March 1 is peanut butter lovers' day...)

I discovered something else, too!  The brownie rounds were absolutely heavenly straight out of the freezer!

How did I find this out?  Well, I tried to get the brownie rounds out of the silicone pan after they cooled.  But it was tough to get out (even if the pan was made of silicone, hence non-stick), and bits of brownie were sticking!  So I thought of freezing the pans a while; after that the brownie rounds popped right out.  And because I couldn't wait, I ate one.  And realized that the frozen brownies were just fantastic!

(So now they're stored in the freezer!)

The recipe is all over the internet (I have the book, though!) and there's even a spicy version of it (will try that one next time, because hubby loves spicy foods).

  

Bouchons

One item that was recently crossed off my wish list was Thomas Keller and Sebastien Ruxiel's Bouchon Bakery (cookbook).  And the first thing I wanted to make was bouchons!

So guess what was for dessert for Valentine's Day dinner?  Yes, bouchons! 

First I had find bouchon molds, or even timbale molds, both of which did not seem to exist in my part of the world.  A couple of bloggers suggested using mini-muffin pans but I couldn't bring myself to do it (not that desperate enough, I guess).  But then I found a blog that indicated use of Ikea's DRÖMMAR muffin pan (again, thank you friend T!)

The pan's cavities were tall and thin, similar to the shape of a bouchon!  (A bouchon, by the way, based on what I've read, is so named because it is shaped like a cork and the word "bouchon" is French for cork!)

The pan was perfect!


The recipe in the book had both weight and cup measures.  For the first time ever, I decided to go by weight.  It was a bit disconcerting not to be using measuring cups and spoons, but it was ok.  One thing for sure, clean up was way faster!

I loved, loved, loved it!  (And again, this from one who is definitely NOT a fan of chocolate!)  As for the little girl, as the bouchons were baking, she ran downstairs, yelling "Mommy!  I smell something really good!  What is it?  What is it?  Can I eat it?"  And she refused to leave the kitchen (she kept sniffing too!) until she could eat one!  No wonder bouchons are bestsellers!

Take a look inside -

Apparently there are 2 versions of the recipe.  The first (original) one from an earlier cookbook Bouchon, and a "revised" one from the newer Bouchon Bakery cookbook.  It is easy to find the "older" recipe on the internet; the newer version, however, is a bit elusive, although not impossible to find.

In any case, I tried to follow his recipe faithfully...  the changes that I made (not intentionally, for once!) is that I used salted butter (because I did not have the unsalted kind) so I used less salt (just a pinch, instead of 1/8 teaspoon), and I used a super jumbo egg, that weighed 72 grams, instead of the 75 specified in the book.  I substituted 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (my own extract) instead of the vanilla paste.  Valrhona was recommended but I am faithful to Bensdorp (or in its absence, Callebaut).  And lastly, I did not dust the finished product with powdered sugar (again, unintentionally because in a "senior" moment, I just forgot!)  The recipe yielded 9 bouchons using the Ikea pan.

The verdict?  Like I said, I loved it.  So did the little girl and hubby.  The little girl was so impressed that she kept saying that I made the best chocolate in the world (with her cute "ever, ever" expression!)  Hubby was likewise impressed, declaring that it was almost as good as my (best) fudge brownies!

What I adore about it the most?  That it really looks like a bouchon! 

Viennese Mocha Mix

This year I am running late with my Christmas schedule.  Being swamped with work, I completely forgot about my list, gifts and tags!  And I haven't even started with my Noche Buena menu!!!  Of course it didn't help that the oven seems to be asking for a check-up.  (For several years now I gave out baked goodies for Christmas.)  But it turns out that it's a blessing in disguise since I do not have time to bake anyway!  But I still had to figure out what to do about Christmas giveaways.  I needed something that was fast, delicious and personal!

I finally decided to make a mix.  A couple of years ago I experimented with a spiced cocoa mix, with great success.  I was thinking of doing something similar, but more "grown up", with coffee (decaf, of course) and other spices.  Viola!  Viennese Mocha Drink Mix...

with instructions, ready to be sealed...

The recipe is actually a combination of my spiced cocoa mix and the Mochaccino recipe recipe I found in this book...

But I skipped the sugar in the mix, just in case any of the recipients have issues with sugar, they can sweeten their drink as they prefer.

By the way, the mochaccino mix is great!!!

Bittersweet Chocolate Crunch

This is really an adaptation of the Nestle Crunch candy bar.

My little girl loves Nestle Crunch and was quite sad after eating her last mini bar.  I decided to make her some homemade ones.  After all, how difficult could it be?  It's basically chocolate with rice krispies!  But I thought of using bittersweet chocolate rather than milk chocolate because she likes bittersweet chocolate too.

So off I went to buy the rice krispies and a chocolate mold to form the bars.  I came home and discovered that somehow the chocolate mold went missing!  It wasn't even registered in the receipt.  And I didn't want to go back to the store!  So I thought I'd just use whatever I had, which was a mini cupcake mold (think mini Reese cups).

I melted 250 grams of bittersweet chocolate (over a double boiler) and added 2/3 cup of rice krispies.  While I originally planned to use the chocolate cup molds, in the end I decided to just spread it out on a parchment-lined cookie sheet because the mixture was pretty thick and wasn't spreading at all.  I stuck it in the freezer for a several minutes and after it hardened, I sliced the big chocolate bar into bite-sized pieces!

The little girl tried a piece and said they were more delicious!  (She does like bitter chocolate!)  She had a complaint though.  She said that my version melted faster than the Nestle Crunch! 

Hubby says he prefers these bittersweet crunch chocolate pieces!

Chocolate Mousse Cake, Travel-Friendly Version

A friend of a friend who got a taste of my Chocolate Mousse Cake asked me if I was willing to teach him how to make the cake (and share the recipe as well).  The problem?  He didn't have an oven or baking pans... hmmm...

Well, I figured out a way... sort of...

Given that he had no oven or baking pans, there really isn't a way for him to bake the cake layer.  Solution?  Buy one - a plain sheet cake, pound cake or even a brownie, and put it (cut to size) in a plastic container (about 2 liter capacity, with lid to make it travel friendly).  Pour in the mousse and chill until set.  Then spread whipped cream on top and sprinkle the mini chocolate chips on top.  Chill again until set.

Here's the recipe for the marshmallow mousse...  (because I have a thing against raw eggs, I used marshmallows)

Melt together 200 grams of bittersweet chocolate (at least 60%), 1 cup mini marshmallows, and 1/2 cup milk.  Cool to room temperature before using, stir occasionally.

Meanwhile whip 1 cup heavy cream; chill in freezer 5 to 10 minutes.  Fold whipped cream in melted chocolate-marshmallow mix.  Pour into the container (on top of the chocolate cake or brownie layer).  Chill until set.

Whip 1 cup heavy cream.  Pour over set mousse, sprinkle top with mini chocolate chips or chocolate shavings.  Chill until ready to serve.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This time, the recipe is by David Lebovitz, which I found here.  The only variation I made was to lessen the chocolate chips to 1 cup and since I didn't have any nuts, I added some of B's peanut MM candies (I chopped them in half or so)

Then, I had some dark chocolate buttercream left over from some cupcakes so I decided to make cookie sandwiches!

To be honest, the cookies were good, but I still prefer my favorite...  The cookie sandwiches, however, were really yummy! 

Champorado!

The worst typhoon this year is here.  It has been named "Labuyo" (literally cayenne chili pepper) and classes have been declared suspended.  I took the day off, for fear of being stranded should the typhoon bring torrential rains with it, so I am stuck at home!  I actually don't mind being at home since it means I can cook!!!

And for this rainy, windy, gloomy weather, comfort food is on the top of my list... one of which is champorado!

Champorado is a sweet chocolate sticky rice congee or porridge.  It is cooked with sticky rice (a.k.a. glutinous rice or malagkit in the vernacular), water, coconut cream and tablea (local unsweetened cacao tablets) or unsweetened cocoa, then sweetened.  When I was little girl, we used condensed milk.

A quick look in the pantry and I discovered a pack of tablea balls from Tuguegarao (which is claimed to be famous and original).

We had some super malagkit rice, as well as some Balinatao rice, so here's the champorado!

How is it cooked?  Well, these days there's packets of instant mix where one just adds water and cooks a few minutes and it's ready.  But the way I learned to make it a long time ago is no shortcut (we stir the pot continuously for a long, long time!) and has no recipe... and it was a really, really big pot!  I'd say a batch could be good 20 merienda-sized servings although with our appetites, it was just right for our household of 9 people!

Anyway, I was taught to make it by "feel" or "instinct".  But for the sake of uniformity (and perhaps for my future generations to be less confused), I tried to quantify (measure) my procedure for this batch...  so here it is (at a more manageable level, good for 6 to 8 merienda servings) and without coconut cream (simply because it is not easy to go to the wet market in this weather but I have put it in the recipe too just in case someone else wants it).

1 cup glutinous (sticky) rice
1/2 cup Balatinao rice
6 cups water
5 to 7 pieces of tablea (quality counts here)
1/2 cup sugar or equivalent, or more depending on preference
1 cup coconut cream (or substitute water)
pinch of salt (the secret ingredient according to my mom 20 years ago)
condensed milk or dulce de leche
sugar or sweetener

Rinse the rice and place in a pot with the water.  Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.  Add the tablea and stir to melt.  (Note:  I prefer a deeply, intensely chocolate-y champorado so I add at least 7 tablets, but this makes a slightly bitter dish, 5 is actually ok.)  Stir constantly, over low to low-medium heat, until the rice is cooked and mixture is thickened (may take up to 25 to 35 minutes).  Add sugar (or sweetener) to taste, but remember that it is served with condensed milk later so err on the side of caution to avoid excess sweetness.  Throw in the pinch of salt.  Stir in coconut cream (but this is optional and if not using, use a total of 7 cups water which is what I did this batch).  Simmer until thickened.  Serve hot, with condensed milk and sugar on the side.

Then I remembered that I still had some dulce de leche and so I decided to use some in my champorado... and it was better than I remembered!!!

Comfort food fit for gloomy weather!