Getting acquainted with molecular gastronomy 2; Cherry Espuma

We celebrated my Mom's BIRTHDAY today and she loves anything made of poppy seeds. I decided to make her a poppy seed cake with some SOUR cherries and a molecular twist.

I remember espuma from my childhood (We already did it Before it was COOL:)). Back in those days whipped cream was made by this cool equipment. I read a little bit and made up my own recipe using the sour CHERRIES my grandma jared.

Ingredients;
3dl liquid from a sour cherry Compote
500 ml whipping cream (20%)
1 bag of GEL/FOAM fix (the one that you can mix in cold)
(you may put a drop of pink or red food coloring so its not as white as mine was)

Mix the ingredients and fill the espuma. Don't fill it completely, otherwise it will EXPLODE (since there's no space for the gas). Load the GAS and go!

I got the poppy seed cake recipe from "Anya, ez isteni"...

In case you wouldn't speak Hungarian I write down the English version (with my tiny adjustments)

Ingredients;
2 small eggs
120g sugar
60g BUTTER
90g minced poppy seed (FYI blue poppy seeds do not contain opium)
135g flour
300g SOUR Cream (20%)
1 bag of Baking Soda
tiny lemon juice
1 bag of vanilla SUGAR

Mix the dry ingredients,
Beat eggs with sugar,
Add dry ingredients, lemon juice, melted butter, then sour cream.
Bake it on 180'

Double tomato salad

I often make salads for Dinner and try not to make the same one twice. This is a really simple one.

You will need;
Cherry tomatoes
Lettuce
Avocado
Corn
Olives
and Sundried TOMATOES

Mix it and ENJOY!

Milka cream with CHERRIES

I liked the MASCARPONE-White chocolate cream so much that I decided to make a Milk chocolate version. This one is just as SImPle as the other one.

Ingredients:
200 gr Milka
200 gr Mascarpone
a handful of Cherries

Melt the Chocolate and mix it together with the Mascarpone. Mix some cherries in. READY!

Daring cooks challenge: Braised pear with caramelized fruits

 The March, 2012 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Carol, a/k/a Poisonive – and she challenged us all to learn the art of Braising! Carol focused on Michael Ruhlman’s technique and shared with us some of his expertise from his book “Ruhlman’s Twenty”. 

So there, I did my first challenge at THE DARING COOKS. I can't believe that School got so busy that I didn't cook for the last 1,5 months. I am LUCKY to have a boyfriend feeding me, otherwise I would be probably found over a strategy book dried out. It is my first challenge and I already had to take advantage of the grace period and CHEAT a little bit. Due to the time I wanted to choose something easy and fast so I braised a fruit instead of Meat or VEGG.

Anyways it was enough of FEELIng sorry for myself, here is a recipe for you.

Braising liquid:
2 hard PEARS pealed
0,75 L Red Wine
200 gr sugar
cinnamon
NUTmeg

Caramelized FRUITS:
Some Cherries
BLUEberry jam
SUGAR

Decoration:
Cocoa vinegar (Can e replaced by Dark ChoColate)
some HAZELNUT

Put the wine into a small pot with the SPICES and put it over the gas. It is handy if you put the cinnamon in one piece or put the spices in a small bag so they are not FLOATING around. When it comes to its boiling point, keep it on low gas, put the PEARS in and cover it with a lid. Cook it until the pears got really dark and than take them out and put them to a COLD place.

Your next step will be to get rid of most of the juice (give it to boyfriend/husband/girlfriend/wife, basically anyone in the need of SUGAR) and leave about 2 spoons in the pan. Put an Handful of cherries and one tablespoon blueberry jam in it. Put some sugar on top and cook it until it gets thick.

Cut the side of the pears and move it slowly. Decorate it with crashed hazelnut.

I've decorated the plate with the earlier mentioned cacao vinegar, but you can replace it with Melt DARK chocolate.

Latest trend: Tube it!

First time I have met with the TUBES with edible content was a couple weeks ago when I was working on a CHRISTMAS PARTY. They put some spread in the tubes, so I had to do something even COOLer. I was thinking and thinking and thinking... and finally I came up with the idea: I am going to put a CAKE IN THE TUBE.

There you go:

Recipe: 

Take as many tubes as many servings you wish for. Where the hell will I get empty tubes? VERY GOOD QUESTION! I went to a PHARMACY, some of them don't even ask you what do you need it for, some of them won't give it to you. Anyways, if you have time just order a box from the internet.

So you have your tube now, all you need is the CAKE. Basically any cake will do. For the first time I choose a CHOCOLATE cake. The best if you have three components: the cake, cream and fruit.

I will show you my version (the components are separately and carefully stolen from more experienced bloggers).

The CAKE

I made a Sacher cake which I have found on izletes.hu. In case you don't speak Hungarian here it is in English:

10-12 servings

18 dkg dark CHOCOLATE

18 dkg butter

12 dkg SUGAR

3 eggs

14 dkg flour

1 spoon of water

Mix the butter, sugar and the EGG YOLKS in a bowl. Melt the chocolate over boiling water and add it to the mix (not when its SUPERHOT unless you want scrambled eggs...). Add the water and flour. BEAT the egg whites and carefully mix it in. Bake it on 175 C for HALF an HOUR.

Creeeeeaaaaaaammmmmmm ....
 This recipe is from KISKUKTA ( http://kiskukta.blogspot.com/2011/06/kedvenc-csokikremem-dobos-torta-krem.html ) because she is obviously the QUEEN OF CAKES. It is a DOBOS cake filling. Again in eNGLISH:

4 eggs

200 g sugar
2 spoosns of CACAO
100 g dark chocolate
200 g BUTTER


Mix the eggs and the sugar. Put it over boiling water and keep beating it. Do it with an electronic handmixer. ATTENTION! It will become HUGE and FLUFFY. So pick BIG pots. When its big and fluffy, put the chocolate and the cacao in and cool it down. When it is cold enough mix it together with the butter.


Then you only need some FRUIT COMPOTE. I used cHERRIES. Just take some of the JAR and SMASH it. Important that you use some of the liquid the fruit is in. This will wet the cake and you will be able to PUSH it from the TUBE.

aaand the exciting part: JOIN UP the puzzle: 
CUT an approximately 1 cm layer of the cake. Use the OPEN side of the tube to cut little CIRCLES. The cream and the smashed fruit has to be in filling BAGS. Put the tube up-side down and you can start: cream, cake, fruit, cream, cake, fruit etc... until you have 2 cm left. FLAT the back of the tube with a bUTTER KNIFe and fold it up. YIIIHAAAW! READY!


You can wash it and decorate it as you like.

Don't worry about the WASTE. Ms Bakerella ( http://www.bakerella.com/category/pops-bites/cake-pops/ ) has a SOLuTION for you!