I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for all of the wonderful comments in response to my post about My First Job!

For me, being “hired” to bake was a big deal and I hope it’s the first footprint on the road to a little baking enterprise for the Cream Puff.

Your support, your guidance and all of your incredibly useful tips have been taken to heart! I’m sending all of you the biggest, puffiest, creamiest cream puff as a thank you.

Ciao!

May has been such an incredible and busy month for me.

To begin with there was the launch of my blog redesign, which I’d been planning for months. In around that event, several other things happened to me this month that I’ve been so eager to share with you.

Just before the launch, I got to spend a week in Florida, enjoying the sun and the water in Fort Myers and Miami South Beach. And prior to that, I had two very exciting experiences. Earlier this month, I had the honour of having lunch with Dorie Greenspan, one of my baking idols. While I have a separate post planned for that, I wanted to write about what happened at the very beginning of the month that was truly a first for me.

I was offered and accepted my very first baking job! I’ve baked for friends and family before, but for the first time someone hired me to bake for an event.

The event in question was a bridal shower being held by a close friend of my mother’s, L. This friend was hosting a shower for her sister who is to be a June bride. When my mother worked with this friend, I would often make my coconut cupcakes, based on a recipe from Ina Garten. L loved the cupcakes so much that she asked if I’d make 30 for her sister’s shower.

While I was happy to make the cupcakes, initially I was very reluctant to ask for money. For a long time now I’ve been mulling over the idea of how to start a baking business at home. Somehow, though, charging someone that I consider to be a friend just didn’t feel right. But L insisted that she pay me so, without much thought, I threw out a figure that I thought was fair and she agreed.

The night before the shower, I baked the cupcakes in plain white liners. On the morning of the shower I dressed up the cupcakes by putting them in a second, prettier liner. After icing the cupcakes, I tinted some of the leftover icing a dark pink colour and decorated half the cupcakes with rosettes. On the other half, I sprinkled edible pink glitter.

While I’m sure a professional would have been able to do something far more elaborate, I thought my cupcakes were pretty and they were fresh and made with the fresh ingredients. That’s very important to me.

I delivered the cupcakes and L was very happy with them. She e-mailed me later to tell me that they were a hit. But this brought up an issue, which I’d been thinking about for awhile. L mentioned that a few people asked for a card as they might be interested in hiring me.

But I have no card.

And I have no card because I still don’t have a clear focus for my vision. As I mentioned above, I’ve been contemplating the idea of being a baking caterer of sorts. But my ideas are still unfocussed. I don’t really have a plan. Part of the reason I wanted to redesign the blog is that I wanted to begin developing an image identifiable with Cream Puffs in Venice. Something that one day, I could use as a business identity.

But this particular experience raised so many questions. And it brought to light the fact that as far as the “business” side of it goes, there’s a lot to think about.

While I was happy to be paid, in actual fact I probably spent double what I received. The cost of ingredients, the cost of the cupcake liners and the items I used for decoration, the cost of the boxes to store the cupcakes, the cost of gas for my shopping trips and for delivering the cupcakes, and of course the cost of my time — these were all factors that I didn’t really think about.

And of course, there’s the card. I’d love to have a business card, but I don’t have a business yet. And I still don’t know how I’d like my card to look.

All of these questions and all of this wondering is both exciting and a bit scary. As fun and thrilling as it was to bake for an event and be paid for it, I also feel like I lost an opportunity by not having cards to promote myself.

And now that I’ve gotten a taste of being paid to bake, I want to do it more.

As I relive this experience, I’ve decided to not worry so much about all the questions. This tends to be a habit of mine. I get so worked up about the unknown that I eventually convince myself not to take that first or second step.

I’m going to enjoy the experience for what it was: my very first baking job.

Let the cupcakes fall where they may!

Ciao!

Technorati tags: cupcakes, coconut, coconut cupcakes

It was bound to happen. It was only a matter of time before the Daring Bakers adopted a patron saint.

Saint Honoratus of Amiens was a bishop of the town of Amiens, located in the North of France. He is believed to have died on May 16th, 600 A.D. While it doesn’t appear that Saint Honoratus was into making panna cottas and baking pavlovas, those that followed him did build a church in his name. In 1400, the bakers of Paris created a guild based in the church named after Saint Honoratus. Every May 16th, a feast was held in his honour and to this day, May 16th remains Saint Honoré Day. But perhaps even more than the day, Saint Honoré is known for the cake named for him: Gâteau St. Honoré.

After last month’s crepe cake, the hosting duties for the Daring Baker monthly challenge fell to Helene of Tartelette and Anita of Dessert First, both very accomplished followers of St. Honoré. Accordingly, they chose to challenge the Daring Bakers to bake the very famous gâteau.

When I first learned of the challenge for May, I ran to my room, hid under the covers and immediately began praying to St. Honoré himself for strength. This cake, you must understand, is made of some very lofty elements. To begin with, you have puff pastry.

That’s homemade puff pastry.

The puff pastry is followed by a pastry cream, which is then followed by cream puffs. While pastry cream and cream puffs may not be so bad, did I mention that there’s homemade puff pastry?

Oh, yes. For good measure, throw in a bit of caramel.

But St. Honoré must have felt that I was worthy because he sent some inspiration. Surely, I can do this. I’ve made croissants from scratch for heaven’s sake! So I printed the recipe, read it through, felt better and then promptly forgot about it for three weeks. But Saturday morning, I awoke and immediately began to worry … and pray. A recipe that had seemed straightforward and manageable three weeks earlier, was suddenly quite daunting.

So let’s begin at the beginning.

I started with the puff pastry, which involved making a dough and then preparing a butter packet. I have decided that I very much like butter packets and that if someone wanted to give me the gift of a butter packet, I would consider it a great gift.

But back to the puff pastry.

After enclosing my butter packet in the dough, I began the process of rolling and turning. Turning the puff pastry dough means rolling it out to a certain length and width (20 inches by 9 inches), and then folding the dough up in thirds, the way you would fold a letter. The seam of the letter will be facing you. After refrigerating the dough to let the butter cool down a bit, you remove the dough and begin rolling it out again with the seam facing to the right. That’s called a turn.

After repeating that process five times, I had a rather lovely (if I may say so myself) packet of puff pastry, which I left in the refrigerator overnight.

Before going to bed, I also decided to get a start on the cream filling for the gâteau. Helene and Anita chose what is called Rapid Chiboust or Diplomat Cream. I have no idea why it’s called that but I have to say I found the Rapid Chiboust name very entertaining.

Every time someone asked me what I was doing I barked, “Do not bother me! I’m making Rapid Chiboust!” We Daring Bakers have to amuse ourselves somehow!

Any way, the cream was quite easy to pull together. It involved combining sugar, flour, salt, egg yolks, vanilla extract and whipping cream to which was added unflavoured gelatin. Just before filling the cream puffs and spreading the cream on the gâteau, I added stiffly beaten egg whites.

Allow me to say that this cream was divine! I had a lot left over, which I was sorely tempted to eat with a spoon!

On the morning that I was ready to assemble and bake the gâteau (okay I’m not kidding anyone … it was this morning), I divided my puff pastry packet in half and rolled that half into a 12-inch square. From that 12-inch square I cut out four 6-inch circles. While the circles chilled in the refrigerator, I made the pâte à choux and this is where I encountered my first problem.

Clearly I had angered St. Honoré because I ended up having to throw out my first batch of pâte à choux and make a second one. When I make cream puffs, I’m used to mixing butter, water and salt and letting it come to a boil. I then add flour, all at once, and begin mixing together the ingredients to form the dough. This particular pâte à choux recipe requires that the flour be added slowly. I ended up with a lot of lumps, which I had to try to smush with a wooden spoon.

I hate smushing.

To make matters worse, because the quantity of eggs listed in the ingredients list was shown as “1 cup of eggs or 240 ml of eggs”, against my better judgement I ended up beating eggs and actually measuring out the liquid amount. I was so flustered about this that I didn’t read the instructions properly and poured in all of the liquid at once. The eggs are to be added one at a time, which posed a bit of a problem in that it wasn’t clear how many eggs were required. Needless to say I ended up with a liquidy mushy mess, which I very gladly dumped in the food bin.

After starting again, I decided to add the eggs individually and beat the mixture until it looked like thickened mayonnaise (as the directions indicate). I actually only used 3 eggs and the pâte à choux looked great.

Moving on to the assembly of the gâteau, I piped four rings of pâte à choux onto the puff pastry circles and used the rest to make little cream puffs. This is where I made my second mistake. The recipe indicated that we should pipe four concentric rings on the puff pastry.

Now when the Cream Puff hears the word “concentric”, for some reason she thinks of math and the Cream Puff was never very good at math. From reading other Daring Bakers’ posts, I gather that what I was supposed to do is pipe four rings with pâte à choux leaving a gap between each ring so that the pastry cream could then fall into the gaps. I didn’t do this.

Hey. I wasn’t good at math alright!

I piped the rings so that they touched each other and was left with a border all around the edge of the puff pastry circle. I didn’t realize my error until after the puff pastry and cream puffs were baked so at that point I realized I’d have to do some improvising with either the pastry cream or some whipped cream.

Mistake aside, I was delighted with how the puff pastry circles baked up as well as the cream puffs. While I think I made my cream puffs a bit too small, they were a lovely colour and the puff pastry was, if I may say so myself, just gorgeous!

After letting everything cool down, I filled my cream puffs with the Rapid Chiboust (never get tired of saying that) and then spread as much of it as I could on the puff pastry rounds. Unfortunately because of the way that I piped the pâte à choux on, I couldn’t get a lot of cream on there or it would fall over the sides. This is likely why I had so much pastry cream left over.

Oh, well. Live and learn!

I placed everything in the refrigerator for a few hours and then finally set about the process of gilding the cream puffs with caramel. I’ve made caramel many times before and I’ve always made it the same way. I’ve cooked a bit of water with sugar until a molten liquid develops and it turns the shade that I’m looking for. In this case, the recipe indicated that we should just cook sugar in a pot.

I had some difficulty with this method as it seemed that the sugar turned dark right away. I frantically started stirring it so that it wouldn’t burn but then it clumped up. I had to add a bit of water to help it along. While this was very quick, I disliked not having the control over how dark the caramel turns as I do when I follow my usual method.

All in all, though, the caramel worked out well and dipping the cream puffs in the caramel was fun. Once done, I used the extra caramel to drizzle over the cream puffs and to attempt to make some spun sugar.

To assemble, I began by piping whipped cream sweetened with sugar all around the edge of the puff pastry (that had no pâte à choux on it). I followed this by piping larger rosettes on top of the pastry cream. I set one cream puff in each of the large rosettes. I also piped rosettes around the base of the gâteau. I garnished with more cream puffs and also with raspberries. I dropped a few raspberries into the centre of the gâteau (on the pastry cream) and topped with some of the spun sugar.

I was very happy with the end result, my mistakes notwithstanding. I thought my little cakes looked very elegant. As I stood back and surveyed my work, I felt that all the effort was worth it. I’m already looking forward to trying the gâteau again very soon.

I’d like to thank Helene and Anita for pushing the Daring Bakers to even greater heights this month. This challenge was stressful, tiring and complicated. I had to sand blast my kitchen counter to get rid of the hardened caramel and I somehow managed to get pastry cream into every tile groove and cranny. But it was all worth it.

Clearly my prayers were answered.

Ciao!

Note: Helene and Anita have decided to post a round up of the Daring Bakers’ accomplishments this month. They’ve divided the group so that they will each list links to half of the Daring Baker blogs so be sure to check in with them regularly to see what everyone else has done. For the recipe, you can also visit Helene’s blog as she has kindly listed it.

One more thing, membership for the Daring Bakers is closed for the month of June. So many of you have e-mailed us asking to join that we’ve had to close the doors. But for those of you that do want to join, don’t worry, July membership is open. If you’re interested, send an e-mail to my lovely co-founder Lisa (tesla67@roadrunner.com) of La Mia Cucina or to me (imellozzi@sympatico.ca).

Technorati tags: gateau st. honore, st. honore, puff pastry, cream puffs, caramel, daring bakers

I’d like to thank everyone for all the kind words and comments you’ve left about the redesign of my blog.

This was a big step for me and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t nervous as to how the new design would be received. There are still a few little issues to be worked out. I want to customize my sidebar a bit further and add some content including the Daring Bakers logo and links, but all in all I’m thrilled!

Now that the redesign is out of the way, it’s time to get back to the serious business of blogging. As many of you know at the beginning of the month I announced that my Flavour of the Month for May 2007 would be the lovely Tea Party by Tracy Stern. A busy schedule and the blog move meant that I haven’t been able to share very much from this book. As a result, this will continue to be the Flavour of the Month for June 2007. There are just too many incredible recipes for me to share with you in the few days left in May.

I have a lot of other news including an account of a wonderful lunch that I had with my own baking heroine, Dorie Greenspan. But until then, I leave you with what is perhaps one of the most recognizeable elements of afternoon tea: tea sandwiches.

There’s something irresistible to me about those perfect, tiny little concoctions that go so well with a cup of tea. I’ve had many variations of tea sandwiches, some good and some not-so-good. Stern has at least a handful of intriguing versions of the perfect tea sandwich. For this post, I decided to focus on two because they both include elements that I love.

The first is the cucumber tea sandwich. I adore cucumbers. During the summer, when it’s just far too hot and humid to cook elaborate meals for dinner (not that we often cook elaborate meals for dinner mind you), the humble tomato and cucumber salad is present on the table almost every night. Especially delicious because the cucumbers are from our very own garden, there’s very little else that I can think of that’s as refreshing as a cucumber.

In Tea Party, Stern has a pretty version of these sandwiches that feature cucumber slices on top of buttered bread garnished with mint leaves. For my version, I decided to forego the mint leaves and make a flavoured butter instead. I bought some lovely chives, which I processed with softened butter in the food processor. I used a scalloped cookie cutter to cut slices of basic white sandwich bread into 2-1/2 inch circles. I spread the chive butter on the rounds of bread and then topped them with thinly sliced cucumber. For a pretty touch I garnished my little sandwiches with chopped chives.

While the greenish tinge to the chive butter might put some people off, I loved the way these little sandwiches looked and I loved the way they tasted even more. The bite of the chives was a nice foil to the freshness of the cucumber.

I chose to try a second tea sandwich from Stern’s book because they featured blue cheese, which I adore. I’m slightly ashamed to admit this but I have been known to polish off huge hunks of blue cheese all by lonesome. I love me my cheese!

Tea Party includes a recipe for Blue Cheese, Walnut, and Pear Tea Sandwiches. While I’m not a huge fan of the pear, I thought I’d give the combination a try. The sandwich begins with a sturdy whole-grain bread that’s spread with a mixture of softened cream cheese and crumbled blue cheese. A sprinkling of chopped walnuts is followed by thin slices of pear. I topped the pear with a second slice of bread, trimmed the ends and cut the sandwiches into rectangles. I garnished with a bit of cheese and a walnut.

These tea sandwiches were delicious! The sweetness of the pear was a perfect match for the tanginess of the blue cheese and the walnut added a nice buttery crunch.

I know I recommend a lot of cookbooks, but if you’re in the market for a cookbook about tea, I highly recommend Stern’s book. These tea sandwiches were delicious and they’re only the tip of the tea iceberg!

Ciao!

Chive Butter

Note: Flavoured butters are so easy to make and they’re a wonderful way to add a twist to a multitude of dishes and foods. I like to make up large batches of flavoured butter, roll the butter into logs and then freeze them. This way I have pretty little butter logs to pull out whenever I entertain. Simply slice the logs into rounds and allow them to soften slightly before serving. This chive butter is excellent in sandwiches. I especially love it spread on corn on the cob!

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup chives, roughly chopped

Place the butter and the chives in the bowl of a food processor.

Process until the mixture is smooth.

Use the chive butter immediately or refrigerate it until you’re ready to use it. If you’re going to spreading the butter, let it soften again before using.

The chive butter can be frozen for two weeks.

Enjoy!

Technorati tags: tea, tea sandwich, tea party

There comes a time in every Cream Puff’s life when you look around at the pastry box you’ve been sitting in and decide that a change is in order.

In December 2005, when the idea of Cream Puffs in Venice became a reality, I knew next-to-nothing about blogs and how to design them. Sadly, I still know next-to-nothing on the subject! What can I say? My interests lie in sugar, butter and eggs, not in anything related to the computer or the Web outside my very limited abilities to hit “Publish” once I’ve finished a blog post.

But once Cream Puffs in Venice was born, my little blog began to take on an identity of its own. It began to occupy a truly important place in my life, so much so that today, I cannot imagine my life without Cream Puffs in Venice.

Suddenly, ideas that were remote and unlikely have become very possible for me. And so it was that the idea of redesigning my blog took shape. Not knowing where to begin, I decided that I might as well take a chance and look for someone who designed blogs. My search for blog designers began and ended with Toronto’s The Blog Studio. Through The Blog Studio I met Lucia Mancuso and Peter Flaschner.

Attracted to their body of work, the fact that they’re based in Toronto and the ease with which I was able to work with them, I hired The Blog Studio. To put it mildly, Lucia and Peter are incredible. They worked with me every step of the way never making me feel silly for the questions I asked (and I’m sure some of them were very silly indeed!). I have something special in store for them but they may have to wait a week or so. In the meantime, the best way I can think of to thank them is to pass along your feedback. So please, let me know what you think!

As part of my blog’s new look, it also has a new place. While I enjoyed using TypePad, Cream Puffs in Venice has now moved to WordPress. With this move will come some technical changes that may cause a few unintended interruptions in accessing Cream Puffs in Venice. For those of you using the www.creampuffsinvenice.typepad.com address, you’ll have to change your links to www.creampuffsinvenice.ca. I apologize for any hassles this may cause!

Also, you may experience some interruptions in receiving the feed of my blog. If you do, simply click one of the feed buttons in the “Subscribe” box on the right side of the page. If you still have trouble subscribing to the feed, let me know and I’ll see how I can help!

I’m still working out a few little details here and there with the new site, but I’m excited to finally send it out there and hope that you will be excited as well!

And I also hope that this will be a new beginning of sorts for my blog, as well as another step towards all that is possible.

Ciao!

I heart yellow.

Yellow is the sun. Yellow is bright and warm and always makes me happy when I see it.

Yellow is a friendly smile and blooming flowers. Yellow is everywhere a loved one is.

Yellow is courage. Yellow is Barbara of winosandfoodies.com and The Taste of Yellow event to celebrate LiveStrong Day.

Yellow is strong. Yellow is fearless.

Yellow is a hug. Yellow is a night out with friends.

Yellow is laughing until you cry. Yellow is the funny story everyone begs you to tell.

Yellow is the book you’ve read a thousand times. Yellow is the movie that makes you cry. Yellow is the funny pair of socks that you’ll never part with.

Yellow is intelligence. Yellow is compassion. Yellow is lending a helping hand.

Yellow is the picture of the one you love. Yellow is the song that you love. Yellow is music.

Yellow is bravery. Yellow is staring down the bad guy.

Yellow is the cure for cancer.

Yellow is my father.

I heart yellow.

Ciao!

Lemony Lemon Bars with Raspberry Coulis

Adapted from Afternoon Delights by James McNair and Andrew Moore.

Note:  These bars are a bit unusual in that they are creamier than your average lemon bar. I’ve added a bit of cream to the bar to give it a creamier texture. These bars can be a bit difficult to cut but I find that refrigerating them before slicing and using a hot knife helps a lot. The recipe will yield anywhere from 24 to 30 bars, depending on how small you cut them.

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 6 large eggs
• 2-3/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• pinch of salt
• 3/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 2 tsp. grated lemon zest

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter a 9 x 13-inch pan.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar. Beat at medium high speed until the mixture is creamy and combined. Add the salt and mix to combine.
3. Add one cup of the flour and mix on low speed until combined. Add the second cup of flour and mix on low speed until thoroughly combined.
4. Put the dough into the buttered pan and with your hands, spread it out into an even and flat layer.
5. Bake the crust for about 20 minutes. It should be nicely golden.
6. Remove the crust from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees F.
7. In a large bowl, mix th eeggs, sugar, flour and salt. Whisk until the mixture is combined.
8. Add the lemon juice, the heavy cream and the lemon zest and stir to combine.
9. Pour the lemon mixture onto the baked crust and put the pan back in the oven.
10. Bake the bars until the lemon filling is golden on top and doesn’t jiggle in the middle (about 30 minutes).
11. Remove from the oven and let cool completely on a wire rack.
12. Once cool, you can either cut into bars and serve or refrigerate for up to 2 days. I recommend refrigerating before you cut into bars.
13. Using a small cookie cutter or even a small spoon, cut out or scoop out a bit of the centre of each bar.
14. Fill the indentation with a bit of raspberry coulis (recipe follows). Dust with icing sugar if you like and then serve immediately.
15. Enjoy!

Raspberry Coulis

Note:  You can make this as thick or thin as you like. I like a medium consistency. I also don’t like it to be too sweet, but feel free to add more sugar if you like. This will yield about 2 cups of raspberry coulis. The coulis will keep in the refrigerator for a week.

• 2 to 2-1/2 cups frozen raspberries (you can also use fresh)
• 1/2 to 1 cup hot water
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup sugar

1. Combine all the ingredients, except the water, in a food processor.
2. Process for about a minute, or until the raspberries have been processed and the mixture is combined. Add 1/2 cup of hot water and process until smooth.
3. Taste the coulis and adjust for sweetness. If you want a thinner coulis, then add more hot water and process again.
4. Once the coulis is to your liking, strain through a fine mesh sieve.
5. Pour the strained coulis into a bowl and keep refrigerated when you’re not using it.
6. Enjoy!

Technorati tags:livestrong, livestrong day, a taste of yellow, winosandfoodies, lemon, lemon bars

I would be lying if I didn’t say that the tea party holds a very special charm for me.

As with so many little girls, I loved "hosting" pretend tea parties and insisted that all my dolls and stuffed toys attend. Once I was grown, my very first experience hosting an event on my own was a tea party that I held in the backyard for a handful of dear friends. I became addicted to the defunct (but soon to be revived) Victoria magazine, which always featured the beauty of the art of taking tea. And one day, I will make it to London where I will have a proper tea at one (or more) of the city’s best establishments.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t until very recently that I actually began to learn a bit more about tea. As a child, my experience of tea was limited to Italian chamomile and Tetley tea bags. But a burgeoning love of the beverage has led me to slowly begin learning a bit more about it. Tea originates from the bush known as Camellia sinensis. Tea can be divided into four basic types including black tea, oolong tea, green tea and white tea. In recent years, green and white teas have increased in popularity due to the numerous health benefits associated with them. Used to drinking black tea, I’ve come to love green tea and more recently white tea. I’m also a big fan of herbal teas, which are usually herbal infusions.

While I wish I could tell you a lot more about tea, I’m only just learning myself, although the history of this beverage is more than fascinating. If you’re interested in reading about the history of tea I recommend Liquid Jade:  The Story of Tea from East to West by Beatrice Hohenegger or The Empire of Tea by Alan and Iris Macfarlane, both very interesting reads.

This month, though, I’m particularly interested in the taking of tea. That’s why, when given the opportunity to review Tracy Stern’s gorgeous book Tea Party, I just couldn’t resist. What I particularly love about this book is the presentation of the tea party in many different forms. Tea is not just for the afternoon. The book is divided into menus for twenty themed parties ranging from the traditional afternoon tea to a Moroccan Valentine’s Day dinner to a Russian tea. There’s even a menu for a gentleman’s tea! I just can’t wait to spend the month of May exploring this book and I’m especially excited because I think a tea party is the perfect way to celebrate Mother’s Day.

To begin my look at the book I started at the beginning with a tea party planned around a New Year’s Day brunch. Stern’s menu for the occasion includes bibb lettuce, avocado, and green apple salad; steamed white and green asparagus with herbed goat cheese sauce; mini spinach quiches and vanilla tea-infused sponge cake. It’s the sponge cake that got me.

The original recipe is a very basic sponge cake recipe consisting of eggs, sugar and flour. The cake is flavoured by the addition of brewed vanilla tea leaves. This cake sounded so intriguing! While I didn’t have any vanilla tea on hand, I did have a variety of loose chai teas. I adore chai teas, especially in winter when their spiciness seems perfect for the season.

I decided to use a tea called Chai Indienne from one of my very favourite tea purveyors. Distinctly Tea is a charming tea shop based in Stratford, Ontario, home of the famous Stratford Festival. The Chai Indienne is a black tea with warm and spicy notes, but not too spicy. I brewed some of the tea and then let the tea leaves cool. Once cooled, I began mixing my batter.

This particular sponge cake has a very interesting preparation method. The eggs are separated and the yolks are mixed with the sugar in a pot over very low heat. I’m guessing this technique helps to dissolve the sugar quickly in the warming yolks. As the original recipe indicates you have to be very careful not to let the yolks get too hot or they will cook.

After heating the yolks and sugar, I removed the mixture from the heat and added the chai tea leaves. I immediately felt the urge to add cinnamon, which I did, and I also added a few drops of vanilla extract for good measure. I left the mixture alone for about five minutes so that the yolks could cool completely and the tea could infuse.

While the yolk mixture rested, I whipped the egg whites to stiff peaks. I added the flour (self-rising flour) to the yolks and then carefully folded in the whites. I decided to bake little Bundt cakes rather than one larger cake. The batter had a lovely golden tinge thanks to the tea and the cinnamon and I just couldn’t wait to see the end result.

After about 35 minutes in the oven, I ended up with six beautiful little cakes. Once cooled, I cut into one of them and I could see the flecks of tea leaves dispersed throughout the cakes. Biting into one, I experienced the familiar comfort of a good old sponge cake combined with the unique flavour of chai.

If the rest of May is going to taste this good, it’s just going to be one big tea party!

Ciao!

Mini Chai Sponge Cakes

Adapted from Tea Party by Tracy Stern.

Note:  The original recipe calls for vanilla tea leaves but I found this worked very well with what I had on hand, which was chai tea. The flour called for in the recipe is self-rising flour. I used Brodie Self-Rising Cake & Pastry Flour. I baked the cakes in a bundt pan that yields six mini bundt cakes. But you can bake this in a standard 10-inch Bundt pan. If baking in a large pan, bake for 50 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. brewed chai tea leaves (if the leaves are larger, chop them into very fine pieces)
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup self-rising flour

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a mini bundt pan.
2. Separate the eggs, placing the yolks in a pan and the whites in the bowl of an electric stand mixer.
3. Over very low heat, combine the yolks and the sugar and whisk until the sugar is completely incorporated and has dissolved. Continue whisking for a minute or two until the egg yolks have become very pale in colour and increased in volume. Be very careful not to get the yolks too hot or they will cook.
4. Remove the yolk mixture from the heat and add the tea leaves, cinnamon and vanilla extract. Mix and let sit while you whip the egg whites.
5. Using the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form (4 to 5 minutes).
6. Sift the flour into the egg yolk mixture and combine. The mixture may be stiff but don’t worry about it.
7. Add one-third of the egg whites to the yolk and flour mixture and stir until combined.
8. Add the remaining egg whites and fold them into the lightened batter.
9. Once done, spoon the batter into the prepared Bundt pan. If using a mini-Bundt pan, bake your cakes for 30 minutes and then check for doneness by inserting a cake tester into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean, the cakes are done. If not, bake for an additional 5 minutes and test again.
10. Once the cakes are baked, remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Unmold the bundt cakes and let cool completely.
11. Serve with tea and enjoy!

Technorati tags:  chai tea, sponge cake, tea party, tea

During the winter, I wrote a post about rice pudding and how I find it one of the most comforting dishes imaginable. A mere spoonful of rice pudding will cure whatever ails me and I suspect that it’s the same for so many other who enjoy this dish.

For this reason, as I looked through Jamie Oliver’s beautiful cookbook, Jamie’s Italy, I could not help but be drawn to the recipe for Torta di Riso. Imagine a rice pudding or risotto baked in a tart shell and you will begin to see what Torta di Riso is. I’ve seen recipes for rice cakes as dessert before, but I’d never seen a recipe for rice baked in a tart shell. And of course I knew right away that I’d have to try it.

What I did not know, nor could I have foreseen, was how quickly April would fly by! While I had initially resolved to try so many recipes for Jamie’s Italy, the fact is I’ve only been able to try a handful. But no matter. That handful has more than convinced me of the beauty and worthiness of this cookbook.

Never mind the gorgeous photos, the book is filled with recipes that sing of Italy and all that is great about Italian food. While many of the recipes were not possible for me to try as at this time of year we simply don’t have access to the fresh fruits and vegetables the recipes called for, I already have a list as long as my arm of dishes that I look forward to trying in the summer when we are overwhelmed by fresh produce from our gardens.

I remember watching Jamie Oliver’s first programs on The Food Network. It’s interesting to see how this chef has grown and matured. Jamie’s Italy is a very clear sign of that growth. While many would look at the recipes and call them simple or plain, I believe that he has succeeded in capturing the essence of some of the best dishes representing the various regions he visited.

Italian food is so varied that it’s impossible to encapsulate regional cooking in one book. But with Jamie’s Italy, Oliver features some of the most beautiful and worthy dishes out there. And of course the photos are tremendous. It’s not just the food that stars in the photography, but it’s also the people.

I wanted to end April, and my focus on Jamie’s Italy as the Flavour of the Month, on a very high note and I’m happy to say that the Torta di Riso accomplishes that. Like so many of Jamie’s recipes this one is open to improvisation. Essentially you’re making a sweet risotto that you partially cook and then pour into a par-baked tart shell. After baking until firm, you end up with a very unique Italian treat - a firm rice filling in a buttery crust.

I followed this recipe to the letter and did not make any variations so I won’t post the recipe. However, I invite you to pick up a copy of Jamie’s Italy and see firsthand that no matter where you are, Italy is close at hand.

Ciao!

Technorati tags:torta di riso, jamie oliver