Chocolate-Dulce de Leche Flan

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It’s been a tough week. A while back I got it into my head to do some major upgrades on the site, which also involved moving the site to a new platform, which subsequently prompted (or I should say, “required”) a move to a dedicated place to park the site, rather than sharing a machine in a nameless office park, with a bunch of other sites like I did before. So after my relaxing week in the south, I returned a nearly blank space where my site used to be.

I say ‘nearly’ because in the vast whiteness of the blank pages that kept coming up instead of my site, there were error messages and mumbo-jumbos of numbers that confounded me, and the tech support people on the phone didn’t realize my knowledge of numbers only extended to quantities of butter and sugar for baking cookies, measuring cups of flour, and counting out eggs for a custard.

 

So while I sat there dumbfounded by all the technology, I decided to check out other sites on all the internets that were working, and read some simmering debates about which words (and emoticons) are okay to use when writing about food, and which should be avoided. Words like ‘delicious’, ‘tasty’ and ‘yummy’ are the objects of scorn and are supposed to be banished from recipes. Other no-no’s are exclamation points and emoticons. But when something just is so delicious that you find it indescribably yummy, I don’t know about you, but I think it’s worth smiling about : )

And I’m not kidding! ; )

On the plus side, when I came back from my trip, a copy of My Sweet Mexicohad arrived in the mail from my publisher. They’ll often send me books that have me scratching my head, such as the River Cottage Meat Book. Then I’ll start flipping through it, and realize why they sent it to me. Like that book on meat that has become one of my favorites, My Sweet Mexico is gorgeous and beautifully photographed. Sorry to use those words, but it’s been a long week. (And to anyone who doesn’t like it—just be glad you’re not looking a blank page to look at right now.)

Aside from the recipes that caught my attention, this is a lovely book. Mexican desserts and sweets aren’t as popular as their other courses, but this book has recipes for things like Chocolate Milk Fudge, Corn Ice Cream, Burnt Custard, and even Calabaza en Tacha, whole candied pumpkin, that might change your mind.

But it was the Impossible Chocolate Flan that made me slip a bookmark in the page. Reading through the headnote at the beginning of the recipe, Fany Gerson, the author, wrote:

“…when you check whether it’s done a little while later, you find that the flan is hiding somewhere and all you see if the chocolate cake! You wait for it to cool, unmold it, and there is the flan!”

I don’t know about you, but if I made a two layer flan, put it in the oven, and opened the door a few minutes later and saw that one of the top layer disappeared, I’d be speaking with a few exclamation points, too.

 

Still, when I saw the picture of the two-toned cake, with dark chocolate on the bottom and a dulce de leche-caramelized top, I knew that was the first recipe I wanted to tackle.

Mine came out a bit different than it looked on the pages. For one thing, the recipe called for a full cup of cajeta (or dulce de leche), which seemed like an awful lot. Not that one can ever have too much dulce de leche. And sure enough, there was quite a bit left in the cake mold when I released the flan. So I reduced the quantity in her recipe a little. (Although I know exactly what to do with the leftover dulce de leche.)

Also the chocolate cake layer wasn’t as majestic as the accompanying photograph. (I hope it’s okay to call a cake ‘majestic’….) But indeed, it did separate out when I sliced into the cake. Just not as dramatically. Still, I am really looking forward to working my way through some of the Mexican sweets in this book.

In the meantime, I’ve got a cake mold that needs my attention…

Chocolate-Dulce de Leche Flan

Adapted from My Sweet Mexico (Ten Speed) by Fany Gerson

Serves 8 to 10

You can use either cajeta, which is traditionally made with goat’s milk, or dulce de leche. In France, it’s called confiture de lait (milk jam), although I generally make it myself.

The author says that in Mexico, this is called Chocoflan, or “Impossible Cake”, and after I made it, I realized that I think I’d like it with a little more of a chocolate cake layer. So I scooted around the internet and found a few recipes that had a thicker layer of cake, and noted those recipes at the end of the post. The next time I try it, I might try one of those recipes and see what the difference is.

3/4 cup (210g) dulce de leche

For the cake layer:

3/4 cup (150g) sugar
3/4 cup (110g) flour
1/3 cup (35g) unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-process
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup (125ml) buttermilk or plain whole milk yogurt
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 egg, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the flan layer:

1 can (12 ounces, 340g) evaporated milk
1 can (14 ounces, 395g) sweetened condensed milk
4 eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC.) Lightly brush or spray an 8-inch (20cm) porcelain mold or cake pan (not a springform pan) with oil.

2. Smear the dulce de leche around the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Place the mold or cake pan in a larger roasting pan, which you’ll use as a double boiler for baking.

3. To make the cake layer, whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.

4. In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk or yogurt, vegetable oil, 1 egg, and vanilla.

5. Use a spatula to stir the wet ingredients into the larger bowl of dry ingredients, mixing just until combined. Scrape the batter in the mold, over the dulce de leche.

6. Make the flan layer by blending together the evaporated and condensed milks, the 4 eggs, the vanilla, and salt, until smooth.

7. Over the back of a large spoon (like a big mixing spoon), pour the flan mixture over the cake layer, using the spoon to diffuse the custard as you pour.

8. Cover the mold or cake pan loosely with foil, fill the roasting pan with very hot water, so it reaches halfway up the side of the mold, and bake for 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out relatively clean.

(Note: I found the flan took considerably longer to bake than 50 minutes; mine took practically an 1 1/2 hours. So being checking it at 50 minutes, but note that it may take longer.)

9. Once done, remove from the oven and carefully lift the custard out of the water bath wearing oven mitts, then let the flan cool to room temperature. Then refrigerate the flan until ready to serve.

To serve: Run a knife around the perimeter of the flan, then set a cake or dinner plate overturned on top of the mold or cake pan. Holding both the mold and the plate, flip the two simultaneously and shake gently, until you hear the flan release. Remove the mold. And remaining dulce de leche can be smeared back over the flan.

Storage: The flan can be kept for up to three days in the refrigerator.

Poulet rôti

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I’ve been leafing my way through a local culinary magazine whose subject for this particular issue is “Street Food.” And I’m a little confused because every place mentioned is either a storefront or restaurant, not a place where eat food on the street. I kept digging and digging, turning the pages, looking for some stories about people actually serving street food—on an actual street.

The French are good at inventing quirky things, like the Minitel, fast trains, and amachine that spews out a hot-baked baguette in less than a minute, and the magazine quotes French photographer Jean-François Mallet (who documented take-away food in a book of the same name) as saying “The pizza truck is a French invention.”

But there’s no food camionnettes driving around, dispensing goodies in Paris, and I get a little dewy-eyed when I read about all the interesting food trucks elsewhere doing everything from frying up oyster sandwiches to dipping swirls of ice cream in crazy toppings, and wish one would pull up to my front door and make me a fancy grilled cheese sandwich with Comté or croque monsieur in a pain Poilâne wrap.

And I’m not the only one. French chef Thierry Marx is quoted as saying, “Set up the best gnocchi à la Parisienne next to a Quick and a McDonald’s and you’ll drag all their surplus.” Am not sure if he meant that if you open a food fast-food alternative in front of a fast-food spot you’ll cut into their business, or just take up the surplus of people waiting in the disconcertingly long lines at McDonald’s in Paris. Okay, it’s not a croque monsieur, but it’s a pretty neat idea.

(One vendor here that I spoke with who had opened a small cart on a public square in Paris told me about the two years of onerous paperwork they had to file just to occupy a two-and-a-half square-foot space on a sidewalk, I realized that I shouldn’t expect anyone to be pulling up to my curb selling cassoulet burritos or duck confit tacos in the near future. Well, at least not for at least two more years from now.)

Getting out of Paris, if you drive through the French countryside, though, you’ll often pass trucks parked on the side of the road selling food like bread, pizza, or some version of le snack. And if you ever see a camionnette blanche parked alongside of the road, with candles on the dashboard and either a battered little Renault or Citroën parked just beside it, you’ll find women also selling something else, as well.

But although food trucks aren’t exactly clogging the boulevards of Paris, there is a version of a food truck in France that’s pretty great (and no, I’m not talking about les camionnettes blanches) … and that’s the rôtisserie. Go to any outdoor market and there will invariably be someone spit-roasting meats of some sort. And I seem to always dial in on the poulet rôti, the roast chicken. I actually stopped buying fresh chicken to roast at home because they do a better job with their glowing-hot ovens than my puny little four à maison can do.

The one problem I found, though, is that if I buy a roast chicken at my market, the moment I get home I rip open the waxy paper sack and just start picking away at the meat and skin. At the market in the Bastille, Catherine makes poulet crapaudine, a spatchcocked chicken that’s been marinated for a couple of days, then spiced and salted and roasted until the skin is extra, extra-crispy.

It’s so crispy that the skin stands up to the extended period between when she slides the chicken in the bag, seals the top shut, and I open it up in my apartment fifteen minutes later. For a while, I stopped buying them because I would eat the whole thing by myself, in one sitting. It was awful. Actually I should say “In one standing” because come Sunday afternoon, there I would be, standing at my kitchen counter over a cutting board, attacking the roast chicken, picking out all the juicy morsels of warm, salty meat with my fingers and shoving them in my mouth.

And then there’s the skin.

Chicken skin is one of those things that isn’t very good for you. Like pork belly or white chocolate, there’s not a lot of nutritional value in there. Just a lot of fat – and a pretty good amount of salt. But that’s me, digging my greasy fingers in like a drug addict, ripping off every bit of skin, saying that I’ll stop after one more piece but hopelessly unable to quit until I’ve picked the meat, skin, and bones of the poor bird clean.

This weekend was a very big event for me. We got to the market late and many of the vendors were in the process of cleaning up. Most were tired from working since 4am (which goes against the common perception that the French don’t work hard), and we stopped to watch the last of the chickens being slid off the spit. She dropped one of the hot chickens in a bag, handed it over to us, and said it was a cadeau because, “Vous êtes a-dor-able.” I think she meant that compliment for Romain, but if it meant poulet crapaudine (which roughly translates to “bullfrog”-ugly chicken) for me, I was willing to take one for the team and be the ugly duckling.

One day I’m going to move to a new neighborhood, and have to go through what’s called the bizutage, or “hazing” one has to go through until everyone gets to know you. Am not sure where I’ll end up in Paris next. I’m sure there will be amarket of some sorts, as there is in every neighborhood. But I doubt I’ll find roast chicken as good as this. Unless she decides to go mobile.

Hyderabadi Biryani Recipe

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Bourbon Orange Coriander Barbecue Sauce

This is one of the most satisfying things I’ve made in a long time.

It’s sauce.  It’s just sauce.

I know.

But would you look at it.  Rich, burgundy colored, speckled with coarse black pepper and onion bits!

Shut.  It.  Up.

Where’s the chicken.  Tell me you brought the chicken.

We’re making this sweet barbecue sauce in 10 easy steps.

Step 1:  saute chopped onions.  Do it.

Step 2:  add minced garlic.  Saute that too.

Step 3:  add bourbon.  Yes.

I mean… obviously.

If you don’t want to add bourbon.  Guess what?  You don’t have to.

Step 4:  add orange juice and orange zest.

Step 5:  that was cider vinegar.  Add that too.

Step 6:  molasses.  Sexy.

Step 7: Worcestershire sauce.  Necessary and proper.

Step 8:  brown sugar and white nail polish.

Step 9:  ketchup x 2.

Step 10:  Add salt, pepper, and coriander.  Boil and simmer and simmer and serve.

This barbecue sauce is sweet and deep.  It’s tinted with the flavors of bourbon and orange, spiced with coarse black pepper and coriander, and brightened by cider vinegar.

The cooked onions and garlic remain and little minced bits  in this sauce… if that bugs the heck out of you, you could totally put this sauce in the blender to smooth out.  Be careful blending hot liquids, leave a bit of room in the lid for the mixture to breathe.

Sweet, orange, slightly spicy… what a beautiful barbecue glaze.  I love that we can make this happen!

The chicken?  I used The Pioneer Woman’s recipe for Barbecue Chicken.

Bourbon Orange Coriander Barbecue Sauce

Print this Recipe!

makes about 2 1/2 cups

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup bourbon

1/2 cup orange juice

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1 cup ketchup

1/2 cup brown sugar (1/3 cup if you’d like it less sweet)

1/4 cup molasses

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon orange zest

3/4 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

Heat olive oil over medium heat in a medium saucepan.  Add onions and saute until translucent and slightly browned, 3 to 5 minutes.  Add garlic and saute for 1 minute more.  Lower heat to low and add bourbon.  Scrape the browned bits of onion and garlic from the bottom of the pan as the bourbon heats.  Add the remaining ingredients.  Bring mixture to a simmer and cook for 30 to 45 minutes, until reduced and thickened.

Mixture can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Serve over cooked chicken, on top of meat loaf, cheese burgers or veggie burgers.

Peach and Raspberry Crumble

The smell of peaches reminds me of:

dusty, dirty sneakers.  light coming through peach tree leaves.  shade.  drinking from the hose.  wet jean shorts.  caked mud.  my yellow Sony sport walkman.  that Counting Crows cassette tape i loved.  my sister’s freckled nose.  my dad’s hands.  my mom’s laugh.  sleeping in the sun in the car, half hearing adults talk.  pie.  pie pie pie pie pie.  pie.

My family and I used to go pick peaches during summer months.

We never had fancy fruit during the year.  We didn’t buy containers of raspberries.  There were no pints of blueberries in my fridge.  Those were too much of a luxury.  We had bananas… endless amounts of boring bananas.

But!  In the summer!  We went peach picking.  I remember it like a slow motion, montage movie scene in my head.

I like the keep the peach smell memories tucked away in my crazybrain… you know, to think about awesome things when not so awesome things are happening.  Life tricks.  I got em. I’m so good at life is downright amazing.  Not true.  At all… but I’ve got the peach smell memory situation tucked away in my brain just perfectly… for emergencies.

Fresh fruit crumbles are absolutely the most delicious summer dessert, considering the minimal amount of manpower that goes into their creation.

The better the fruit, the better the dessert.  It’s as simple as that.

Oh!  And don’t try to line up the square colored dots in this photo collage.  Don’t do it.  It’s just not worth it.

There are some rules to enjoying this dessert:

You’re not allowed to eat all the of crunchy, crumble topping off the top.  Unless you live by yourself.. then you totally can.

You must eat this dessert with ice cream.  Vanilla, preferred.

You must take a moment to appreciate the beautiful mauve color that this crisp bakes up into.  It’s really quite lovely.

Lastly, this dish must be considered a breakfast, lunch, and dinner item… good for all occasions.

Fruit sweet.  Oat-y crisp.  Comforting summer.  Ice cream required.  Good(ness).

Oh!  I should also tell you that I’m pretty much obsessed with crumbles.  Here’s proof.

Peach Berry Vegan Crumbles.  Pineapple Strawberry Crisp.  Apple Crisp.

For your summer eatings.[/donotprint]

Peach and Raspberry Crumble

[print_link]

makes 1 8×8-inch square baking dish

Print this Recipe!

5-6 medium ripe peaches, sliced

1 cup fresh raspberries (if using frozen, just thaw and drain)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup old fashioned oats

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.  Place sliced peaches and raspberries in a square 8×8-inch baking dish and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, oats, spices, and salt.  Add the butter and toss the mixture together with your hands.  Break the butter up into the flour mixture until the butter is the size of small pebbles and oat flakes.  This took me about 4 minutes.

Toss a generous handful (about 1 cup) of crumble topping into the peach and raspberry mixture.  Toss loosely with your hands.  Spread fruit evenly in the pan and top with the remaining crumble mixture.  Bake until fruit is juicy and bubbling, and the top of the crumble is slightly browned and crisp, about 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven, let cool slightly, and serve with vanilla ice cream.  Crumble is delicious served warm and can be stored, covered, in the fridge and reheated in the oven or microwave for serving.

Brown Butter Banana Strawberry Bread

Can I tell you something about me?  This has exactly nothing to do with bananas or butter or bread.  Feel free to roll your eyes and skip ahead, if necessary.

I used to be a worrier.  Like… a professional worrier.  I would worry like it was my job to worry, like I was getting paid mad/crazy/rich person dollars to worry.  I wasn’t.  I was broke.  That fact, in itself, made me worry.

I thought that worry would save me from every possible pain in the world.  I thought worry would prepare me for bad things, disappointing things, and crazy unforeseeable things.  If I worried about it… it either wouldn’t happen or I’d be prepared for it.

Well… let me tell you:  worry is no preparation.  It took me years.. YEARS, people…. years, to figure out that worry is just wasted energy.

Let’s be real.  I still worry about things.  It’s human nature.  We have big brains… I’m pretty sure a small portion of them are built to worry.

I worry about earthquakes in the middle of the night when I’m wearing no bra, my ugliest possible t-shirt, and the most embarrassing pair of panties a girl has ever owned.  What if there’s an earthquake, and my house falls down, and I have to retreat to my neighbors house in this hideous outfit?  Those thoughts usually lead me to find a reasonable pair of pajama pants and I slip on a sports bra.  See?  Worrier.

But I’m changed my expectations.  Instead of worry about the worst, I try to expect the best.

Seriously… what would my day look like if I expected great things instead of disastrous things?  I’ll tell you… it’s looks a heck of a lot better.  It feels better too.  I can drink more coffee without completely spazzing out.  Less worry frees me up to jump around in the world, and be silly, and thankful, and wear mint green nail polish, and write pen pal letters, and tell people I love them.

I still worry about earthquakes.  Those are scary.  But I also expect and welcome not just the good… but the great.

(What?  Wait… I’m not talking about trashy reality television?  No.  I know.  It’s weird.)

Do you remember when the strawberry/banana combo really hit its stride?  I think it was some time in the mid 90′s… in the Snapple era, that the strawberry/banana craze really got going.  I blame smoothies.

But… well, there’s something undeniably good going on here.

Let’s not fight it.

Wait.  Remember the Snapple lady?  That whole thing was always weird, right?

Let’s get down to the real deal.  Bread.

This is banana bread.  This is banana bread made exactly 17.845 times more delicious with the addition of browned butter and finely diced strawberries.

Brown butter adds depth, nuttiness, and downright deliciousness.  The strawberries help this banana bread feel pretty and celebrate the season.  The bread is much more banana flavored than strawberry flavored, but the bits of strawberry add sweet little surprise strawberry flavor bits.  I especially love how the strawberries on top get roasted during baking.  Slice them super thin so they don’t weigh down the rise of the bread or get too watery.

Sweet bread.  It’s comforting, simple, and delicious.  If you wanted to slather a warm slice with butter or cream cheese… we’ll, I’d consider you a friend.

I can’t cook without these shoes.  It’s just a thing I have.

And in completely unrelated news… these sunglasses look uh-mazing on Alison.  Major.

Brown Butter Banana Strawberry Bread

makes 1 9×5-inch loaf

inspired by The Amateur Gourmet

Print this Recipe!

6 ounces unsalted butter, melted and browned to just over 1/2 cup of butter

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup plain yogurt (any fat content) or buttermilk

1 1/4 cup mashed banana (from about 3 medium bananas)

1/2 cup diced strawberries plus 1 strawberry very thinly sliced, for topping

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour a 9×5-inch loaf pan and set aside.

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat.  Butter will begin to foam and crackle as it melts.  When the crackling subsides, the butter will begin to brown.  Swirl the pan as the butter cooks.  When the butter browns and begins to smell nutty, remove the pan from the flame and transfer the butter to a small bowl.  Taking the butter out of the hot saucepan will stop the butter from overcooking and burning.  Set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, vanilla extract, and yogurt or buttermilk.  Whisk in the mashed bananas.  When butter has cooled, whisk in the browned butter.

Add the wet ingredients, all at once to the dry ingredients.  Fold together, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to reveal any hidden pockets of flour.  Fold in the diced strawberries.  Fold together ingredients, but try not to over stir.

Spoon batter into prepared pan and top with thinly sliced strawberries.   Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and allow to rest in the pan for 15 minutes, before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Bread will last 4 days, well wrapped at room temperature.  This loaf also freezes well.