Sunday, September 30, 2012

pizza

Baking

I'm just baking different pizzas!
Have a look...
Little pizzas with French pastry. Quick. Simple. Delucious.
And more to come!

BE ITALIAN!

Friday, September 28, 2012

Apple Cake

Apple pie, apple cake, apple tart, tart tatin...there are a lot of different sweets you can do using the apples of your apple tree.
This time I've tried to make a soft breakfast apple cake. 
Let's have a look!


Torta morbida di mele

Ingredients

226g butter
4 eggs
300 g all-purpose flour
200g liquid cream
180g sugar
3 tsp baking powder
2 apples

Glazed

home-made percocas peaches marmelade



Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in one yolk at a time and continue to beat until light and fluffy. Sift flour, baking powder and salt. Add the flour into the butter mixture alternating with the fresh cream.Beat the egg whites until still and add to the mix, then add in the cubes one apple.
Prepare an 8” baking pan, greased well and line the bottom with parchment paper. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degree F (160°C). 
Pour the batter into the baking pan. Smooth the top. Arrange the slice apple on top of the cake and bake for an hour till golden brown or until skewer comes out clean when tested.
Removed from oven and let it cool down for 10 minutes in the pan and then turn it out on the cooling rack. Mix the marmalade with some drops of water and brush it all over the top of the cake.

Have a try!
  

(Italian version)

Esistono mille versioni diverse di torte di mele, alte basse, sfogliate, con lo yogurt, senza e via discorrendo. Quello che stavo cercando io, però, era una torta alta e soffice, che sapesse poco di burro, alta e compatta ma morbida, così come l'avevo assaggiata in un ristorante di un amico.

La mia prova è stata la seguente e devo ammettere che è molto simile a quella che cercavo.

Il sapore? Delizioso!

Torta morbida di mele


Ingredienti

226 g burro
4 uova
300 g farina 00
200g panna liquida
180 g zucchero
3 cucchiaini di lievito
2 mele

Glassa

marmellata di percoche

Battere a crema il burro con lo zucchero. Aggiungere i tuorli uno alla volta. Aggiugere la farina setacciata con il lievito alternandola alla panna. Infine, aggiugere gli albui montati a neve con il pizzico di sale mescolando lentamente.
Aggiungere le mele tagliate a cubetti e disporre le mele tagliate in fette sottile sulla torta.

Preriscaldare il forno a 160° C e cuocere la torta finchè cotta (c.ca 1 h).
Una volta pronta far raffreddare e per poi glassare con la marmellata di percoche fatta in casa, mescolata con qualche goccia di acqua.

Far asciugare e poi mangiare...un po' per volta se riuscite!


Questa ricetta partecipa ad un anno Ammodomio.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

How to make: GNOCCHI

Lesson n°1: Gnocchi are on the table
Usually when you start to learn something there is always something on the table, in particular the first lesson of english language that each italian knows is that the cat is on the table.
I assume there are same first lessons for all the languages around the world and I'm a bit curious about it, but I never heard any other lesson like that.
Anyway, this is time to gnocchi and to learn how to do your home-made gnocchi.

If you have been in Sorrento, in the Amalfi Cost, you have for sure enjoyed your stay, beacuse there are a lot of wonderful places over there, but also you had the chance to savor fragrant lemons, cedar fruit and...the Sorrentina Gnocchis! Wooow, how I'd like to be there right now...
Remembering the Cost I dediced to try to do the gnocchis by my self, just to feeling again in the beautiful Sorrento.


Let's start!


Potatoes gnocchi

1 kg potatoes
200 g flour 00 (any other kind of flour will change the consistency of the gnocchi)

Steam the potatoes, once cooked peel them and let cool down a bit.
Mash the potatoes and then knead them with the flour.
Do a big ball with the paste.

Take little pieces of the paste and make rolls helping with your hands.

Cut the roll into little gnocchi
 Take your gnocchi board or, if you havn't got one, use a fork or another board, like I did, like a pasta guitar.

Place any gnocco on the board and push with your finger from the top to down.




Place the flour on your gnocchis to avoid sticking each others.

Now place lets boil the water in a pot, add the salt. Once it is boiling put the gnocchi and as soon as they will float on the pot, take with a perforated spoon and drain.

You can dress your gnocchis with pesto or tomato sauce or with butter,bacon, Parmesan cheese and sage (and let toast in the oven) or with tomato sauce, scamorza, Parmesan cheese and let finish to toast in the oven (that is Gnocchi alla Sorrentina).
Gnocchi alla sorrentina

Now, it's up to you choose and try ;) 

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Walnuts Cake

"Just got back from a pleasure trip: I took my mother-in-law to the airport."
Herry Youngman



There is always a reason to say something unhappy about  your mother-in-law, but this is not that case.
I've asked her to send me her recipe for this fantastic cake and I think she is always happy when I appreciate her cakes.
I would say, I tested it for the first time and I decided to make it by my self. This is the most soft cake that you have ever tried! Believe me! It's quite impossible eat it without dirty all around... :)
I guess I will use the same recipe to test new cakes changing something here and there.

Have a look...


Walnuts cake

Ingredients

250 g butter, softened
250 g plain (all-purpose) flour
250 g caster (superfine) sugar
20 walnuts, finely chopped
16 g baking powder 
4 eggs
4 tablespoons rum (or milk if you have not rum)

Place the butter in a bowl and blend it until it become a cream, add the sugar and blend together for 5 min. Add eggs yolk one for time mixing until absorbed.
Add the rum and then the flour mixed and backing powder sifted and mixed together, slowly.
Preheat the oven at 170°C.
Beat until stiff the egg whites with a pinch of salt.
Then mix the two part and place the cake in a tin.
Cook for 30 min, let cool it down.

Taste it!


Torta di noci (la migliore mai provata)

(in Italian)
250 g burro morbido
250 g farina
250 g zucchero
20 noci tritate finemente
1 bustina di lievito
4 uova
4 cucchiai di rum
Lavorare il burro a pomata con metà dello zucchero. Nel frattempo montare gli albumi a neve con la rimanente parte dello zucchero.
Aggiungere al burro un uovo alla volta fino a completo assorbimento. Aggiungere il rum e poi gli albumi meringati delicatamente ed infine la farina setacciata con il lievito.
Da ultimo aggiungere le noci finemente tritate ed informare a forno preriscaldato a 170° C per 30 min.
Far raffreddare e spolverizzare con zucchero a velo.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Mint zucchini fritters

I'm assuming you made your fresh tomato sause with zucchini flowers, at this stage you should have a lot of little zucchini in your fridge waiting for a new recipe, so what do you think about some zucchini fritters?

As you know the zucchini with flowers are very little and have a fantastic flavor! For this reason I decided to not cook them so long because otherwise I will lose their good fresh taste that I underlined using the mint leaves, do you wanna try?




Zucchini fritters

10 little zucchini
salt
1 tablespoon Parmesan
3 tablespoon bread crumbs
2 eggs
2 tablespoon of scamorza chopped 
fresh mint leaves chopped

oil to fry (in italy, or better, in the South where I come from, we use only extravergin olive oil, anyother oil is junk, but usaull if you have to fry, using an oilseed you will have a fried food less "heavy", so I cannot suggest to you an oil, take the one that you prefer)


Cut the zucchini in little pieces. In a bowl add all the ingredients and mix.
Let cool down in the fridge (it should be relly cold when you put them down in the hot oil, in this way you will have crunchy fritters)
In a tin heat the oil, and when it's really hot put your zucchini mix using a tablespoon to give the shape.


Lets cold it down and enjoy it!

Monday, September 3, 2012

Pasta with zucchini flowers

What to do if you have: hand-made pasta from your grandmother, San Marzano tomatoes, sausages and zucchini flower?
During the summer in the south of Italy we are used to make the tomato sauce; this is a memory of my childhood when my parents woke up me in the early morning to help them to do the peeled tomato sauce, just because I had little hands usefull to push the tomatoes into the tin.
It's a lot of time we didn't do it, also because living in Milan there no reason to do it, here you can just buy it. It's something about traditions that are going to get lost.

Coming back to us, I received from my parents a lot of good ingredients from my "South", my grandmother makes a delicious pasta thus I decided to make up a new receipe with those fresh "Perini" tomatoes.

How-to:

Fresh Tomato sauce

Ingredients
Tomatoes

Basil


Put the tomatoes in a pot al let them boil until cooked. Let cool down, then peel and blend with basil. 

Pasta (Maccaronara) and Zucchini flowers

Ingredients

Fresh tomato sauce
2 sausages or 100 g minced meat
Onion
Salt
Bread crumbs
1 egg
Parmigiano Regggiano
Extravergin olive oil
Mint leaves
Chilli
10 zucchini flowers
200 g fresh maccaronara


Place in a bowl the sausages/minced meat stuffing and mix with salt, parmigiano,mint, egg and bread crumbs, like you would make a meatball.
Clean the flowers and stuff a bit with this mix, close the flower.
With the remaining meat mix, make little meat ball (you can add a bit more of bread crumbs).
In the meanwhile prepare a pan with extravergin o.o. an onion, chilli, when hot place the meatballs and the stuffed flowers.
Let cook for 15 min moving the pan every once in a while, than add 1/2 of red wine, let evaporate it.

Now add your tomato sauce, add a bit of salt and let cook.

Prepare your pasta et voilà!

Buon appetito!

                                      This recipe takes parte into the Ammodomio contest!
                                        Questa ricetta partecipa ad un anno Ammodomio!

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Plum Crumble Cake

Bonjour,

after a quick trip to France, in Provence, the weather decided to bring us in autumn. Not so bad,  it's good to change so frequently even if I already start to miss the sun!
In anyway take look into the last summer fruit cake :)

From Donna Hay magazine - Feb 12



Plum Slice with Pecan Crumble (serves 8-10)

180 g butter, softned
1 cup (220 g) caster (superfine) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder, sifted
2 1/2 cups (375 g) plain (all-puropose) flour, sifted
1 1/4 cup (300 g) sour cream
12 mixed plums, stones removed and quartered
2 tablespoons caster (superfine) sugar, extra

pecan crumble
1/4 cup (75 g) bron sugar
1 cup (125 g) pecans, roughly chopped
60 g butter, melted
1/2 cups (75 g) plain (all-puropose) flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I didn't use it)

To make the pecan crumble, place all the ingredients in a bowl and mix them well to combine. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 160° (325 °F). Place the butter, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and creamy.
Gradually add the eggs and beat until well combined. Add the flour, backing powder and sour cream and beat until just combined.
Spoon into a lightly greased 24x34 cm backing dish lined with non-stick backing paper. Place the pulms and extra sugar in a bowl and toss to coat. Top the cake with the plums and pecan crumble.
Bake for 1 hour or unitl cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow to cool in tin befor serving.

Have a try!