Rosemary Orange Ricotta Cake

Like many of you, I have been doing some "quarantine baking" as well. Baking is therapeutic. I remember making blondies on a Sunday evening just to beat a case of the Monday blues. It worked. That was long back. Ever since shelter-at-home was announced in the SF Bay Area, I have been wanting to do some baking but was out of all-purpose flour, and all the stores were out of it too, because everyone had started doing a ton of baking! Finally we found it at Trader Joe's and got a good 10 lbs of it.
I should rename my blog to "Ina Garten Recipe Tweaks" :) because many of the recipes I make are exactly that - take one of Ina's fabulous recipes, tweak a flavor here or there, reduce the fat, simplify it. She's my most favorite chef and I love her TV show. With that, I present to you a modified version of Ina's fig ricotta cake.

I looove rosemary and always wanted to bake with it. This cake goes really well with a cup of herbal tea like rooibos.

You will need

unsalted butter,
at room temp                      7 tablespoons
white sugar                         1 cup
eggs, at room temp             3
whole-milk ricotta, 
at room temp                       1 cup
vanilla extract                      1 teaspoon
orange zest                         1 teaspoon
rosemary, finely chopped    2 teaspoons
all-purpose flour                  1 1/4 cups
baking powder                    1 tablespoon
salt                                      1 teaspoon
(optional) turbinado sugar   1 tablespoon


Method

1. Preheat the oven to 325 F. Butter and flour a 9-inch springform pan.
2. Beat the butter and sugar with a mixer for a few mins until light and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add one egg at a time.
3. Add the rosemary, orange zest, ricotta and vanilla and mix until combined. The ricotta may make it look lumpy and that's ok.
4. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. Add this mixture to the ricotta mixture and keep mixing as you do it.
5. Pour the batter in the baking pan. Optionally, sprinkle with turbinado sugar for a bit extra sweetness and a bit of a crunch to your cake.
6. Bake for about 35 to 45 mins or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes clean.*

Enjoy the cake as an afternoon snack with tea or coffee or as dessert!

* The center of my cake remained gooey while the outside was well done so I would suggest baking at 325 instead of 350 which I did.

Pumpkin Pecan Crunch

I had made this recipe for the Thanksgiving of 2012 and had put some notes on my blog post about how I would tweak it next time. And that is exactly what I did this Thanksgiving and it came out better :). What a nice feeling. This is exactly what I started this blog for. To keep track of what I make and to keep notes on the recipes.

This Thanksgiving was perfect. My cousin and her family came over and we watched football and had a lazy lunch for which I made butter chicken followed by coffee and dessert (recipe below) and a late chai. That's the kind of Thanksgiving meal I like.

Here is the recipe for pumpkin pecan crunch with my tweaks.

Recipe based on Pumpkin Pecan Crunch. Yellow cake mix recipe based on this one.

Serves 8-9

canned pumpkin             1 15oz can
evaporated milk              1 12 oz can
white sugar                     2 cups
brown sugar                    1/2 cup
eggs                                 3
pumpkin pie spice           6 tsp
vanilla extract                 1 tbsp
salt                                  1/4 tsp
pecans, chopped             1 cup
butter, unsalted              1.5 sticks (3/4th cup)
all-purpose flour             1.5 cups
baking powder                1 tbsp
dry milk/ milk powder     1/2 cup


Method

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. 
2. Spray a 13×9 baking dish with non-stick spray; set aside. 
3. Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Add to it the pumpkin, evaporated milk, brown sugar, 1 cup of the white sugar, 5 teaspoons of the pumpkin pie spice, vanilla and salt until well-blended. Pour into prepared baking dish.
4. Mix the remaining 1 cup white sugar and 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice with the all-purpose flour and the baking powder. Blend with wire whisk. 
5. Sprinkle this dry mix evenly over pumpkin mixture. 
6. Sprinkle with chopped pecans. 
7. Drizzle evenly with melted butter. 
8. Bake 50 minutes or until golden brown.

Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I'm posting something after a really long time - blame it on two big events - new job and new house. My new job is located in a very exciting area of SF, especially from a foodie's point of view. I can eat lunch and buy produce at the Ferry Building everyday if I wanted to. What more can a food-lover ask for?

Friends and family have been visiting to see the new house. Recently at one of the parties I baked a cake that is so perfect for fall.

Recipe based on Pumpkin Sheet Cake


Serves around 12

canned pumpkin             1 15oz can
white sugar                     2 cups
vegetable oil                   1 cup
eggs                                4
all-purpose flour              2 cups
baking soda                    2 teaspoons
pumpkin pie spice mix    3 teaspoons
salt                                  1/2 teaspoon

For the frosting:

cream cheese                 8 oz
butter, softened              1/2 cup (1 stick)
vanilla extract                 2 teaspoons

confectioners' sugar       1 & 1/2 cups

milk                                 few tablespoons
pecans                            3/4 cup


Method

1. In a mixing bowl, beat pumpkin, 2 cups white sugar, and oil. Add eggs, and mix well.
2. Mix the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice mix and salt. Add these dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture, and beat until well blended. Pour batter into a greased 15 x 10 inch baking pan.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes, or until done. Let cool.
4. Beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth. Gradually add 1 & 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, and mix well. Add milk until frosting reaches desired spreading consistency. Frost cake, and sprinkle with pecans.

Nigella's Coffee Ice cream - Recipe Review

Last year I had the opportunity to meet Nigella Lawson at a book signing for her book 'Nigellissima'. In an interview before the signing she mentioned that her coffee ice cream recipe from the book is one of her favorite recipes. What's good enough for Nigella is good enough for me, so I tried it and it turned out to be fabulous! It was hard to believe it was made without an ice cream maker and yet tasted exactly like great ice cream.

Apparently it is the alcohol that keeps the ice cream from become icy.
I followed the recipe from the book, which is slightly different from the recipe from her blog, though I don't know if that matters.

For the instant espresso powder I used Medaglia D'oro brand. Next time I would reduce its amount from 2 tbsp to 1.5 tbsp as I thought the ice cream was a tad stronger than I'd like.
I think it would be ok to use instant coffee too, though in that case you might need more of it.

For the coffee liqueur I used Kahlua and it seemed to have worked well.
I also thought the ice cream was a bit too creamy. I don't know if half-n-half can do the job of heavy cream in the recipe. I might try out a 60-40 mix of heavy cream and half-n-half next time.

I served the ice cream with a stick of chocolate wafer. Next time I'm planning to add some kind of nuts such as walnuts or chocolate-covered almonds to the ice cream before freezing it. Or even choc brownie pieces. The possibilities are endless!

One thing to note: The ice cream took an awfully long time to freeze. I made it in the morning and served it at night, but it was far from set. But after a couple of days it set beautifully and the picture above was taken at that time.

A Vegetarian Thanksgiving Menu - Butternut Squash Risotto & a Pumpkin Dessert

Butternut Squash Saffron Risotto

(Apologies for the poor picture quality - it is a product of dim lighting and iPhone 4)

                                                                       Pumpkin Dessert with three textures

We had some friends over for dinner around Thanksgiving so I made a fall-themed dinner. As one of our friends is vegetarian I came up with a vegetarian menu but had no regrets whatsoever! It turned out to be so good that I didn't miss turkey at all. The star of the show was Ina Garten's butternut squash saffron risotto and a delicious pumpkin dessert vying for the limelight. The dessert has three layers - the bottom one like pumpkin pie, the middle one like a cookie and the topmost one crunchy because of the pecans.
I made it with reduced fat evaporated milk and it still tasted good if a bit less firm. Next time I'll make my own yellow cake mix because the store bought is too sweet especially when it sits in one compact layer like in this dessert.

For the risotto I used good New Zealand sauvignon blanc and skipped the pancetta.
To go with the risotto I made a quick tossed greens salad.
Here's the salad recipe... or something like it -
Toss arugula, spinach, thinly sliced pears, grated parmesan and cooked (or canned) garbanzo beans with a dressing of apple cider vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and sugar.

In general adding garbanzo beans to salads is a great way of incorporating vegetarian protein to your meal. Especially if you want to control the amount of soy protein in your diet because of the concerns regarding its harmful effect on hormones in both men and women.

Rosewater Panna Cotta

I love the flavor of rosewater. One whiff of it transports me to some dreamland! What's better than combining that with a delicious Italian dessert?

Recipe based on this one.

Yields 4 servings

Level: Easy, Time: 20 mins.

• 1 and half cups half-and-half (mixture of full fat milk and cream)

• 4 tbsp 2% reduced fat milk

• 2 to 3 tbsp rose water (I used 'Sadaf' brand - it is really good)

• Rooh Afza - 1 teaspoon or more for color

• 5 tbsp sugar

• 1/2 envelop (1 envelop=0.25 oz) powdered gelatin

Method -
1. Add gelatin to the 2% milk, mix and let stay.
2. Bring half-and-half and sugar to boil or heat until very hot. Then add rooh afza and gelatin mixture, let simmer for 1 minute and turn off heat.
3. Add rose water.
4. Pour into bowls, let cool. Then cover with plastic wrap and keep in fridge for at least 3 hours.
5. You can either serve it in the bowls or place the bowls in hot water one by one, place a small plate on top of the bowl and turn the bowl upside down on the plate and pat the bowl so that the beautiful, luscious panna cotta gently falls on to the plate with a plop. Drizzle a little bit of rooh afza on top if you like.

You can get creative with panna cotta! For instance add baileys to base of bowl and then add vanilla panna cotta mixture. Or top it off with a fruity compote.

Notes:

- Many recipes ask for gelatin leaves to be used but they are harder to find than powdered gelatin. Here's a simple conversion formula between the two -

1 envelop (0.25 oz) powdered gelatin = 4 gelatin sheets/ leaves