Super Light Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients:

• 1 egg (separated 1white, 1 yolk)
• 300mls whipping cream
• 75grs 60% cocoa dark chocolate
• 1 soup spoon of butter
• 1 handful of sliced almonds (dry roasted in a pan)
• 1 tea spoon of vanilla essence
• 2 (flat) soup spoons of icing sugar
• 1 soup spoon of cream
  

In two separate bowls whisk the egg white on one and the cream on the other, half way through to peaking add a (flat) soup spoon of icing sugar to each whip and continue to whip them till very firm.

Place a small pan with a little water and over that place a small glass bowl put the chocolate there into squares and keep stirring until this one melts completely, now add the spoon of butter, and once this one melts add the vanilla essence and the egg yolk mixed with one soup spoon of cream. Keep stirring for about 30 secs to 1 minute this will go into a rich smooth silky and glossy chocolate sauce, remove the bowl from the water and let it cool or pour it into a cold bowl to cool faster.

Add the egg white to the whipped cream and in a folding action mix the two, then add the chocolate, and again with a folding action mix it in. Then pour into ramekins top it with grated chocolate and roasted flaked almonds refrigerate for an hour or more and eat....enjoy the lightest and most rich & delicious chocolate mousse ever. Bon apetit!!!

Pumpking Mousse with Pan Roasted Pumpkin Seeds - Halloween

Ingredients: (enough for 4-5 ramekins)

• 1 thick pumpkin slice (pealed and chopped into little pieces)
• 1 orange (juice and pulp)
• 2 soup spoons of sugar
  
• 250mls whipping cream (to whip into Chantilly)
• 1 one heaped tea spoon of icing sugar
  
• 1 hand full of pumpkin seeds
  

Preparation:

Easy, put a frying pan on the stove medium heat, place the seeds of pumpkin inside and keep stirring the frying pan (as if you were doing popcorn), once hot the seeds start to pop when these to stop popping they are ready. Put them on a plate and let them cool.

Meantime in a small pan put the chopped pumpkin plus the sugar and the juice (pulp) of the orange, let it come to boiling point and reduce the heat to minimum leaving it to cook for around 20 minutes stirring occasionally. once the pumpkin is semitransparent, then crush it (for example with a fork. masher) adds two or three tablespoons of water and keep it boiling for a further 10-15 minutes, until being like a moist compote , withdraw of the heat and leave to cool completely.

In a bowl whip the cream and halfway to becoming whipped cream add the powdered sugar in and beat the rest until quite firm, then add the compote of pumpkin and and most of the pumpkin seeds (pre-crushing these with your hands, and reserve a few to decorate the top of the sweets), once done refrigerate for at least 1 hour and eat it with pleasure.

It will have amazing textures and flavours the textures are, the crunchiness of the pumpkin seeds and the puking itself has a stringy but soft texture and the velvety smooth texture of the cream are a perfect combo here, as to the flavours pumpkin and orange what a blast and bursting smooth and zingy taste smoothed out by the cream WoW..you must make these they are great will make 6 ramekins.

Blueberry Crepes with Strawberry Mousse Filling

Recipe Ingredients:

• 1 cup of flour
• a glass of whipping cream (around 120mls)
  
• 2/3 cup of blueberries
  
• a little milk (sufficient)
• 4 soup spoons of oil
  
• 1 egg
• 1 soup spoon of sugar
  
• 10 strawberries (finely chopped + a soup spoon of powdered sugar if these aren't too sweet)
  
• a dash of vanilla essence
  
• vanilla flavoured powdered sugar (or normal)
  

These are two combined desserts. Crepes + strawberry mousse.

To make these, put in a bowl, the flour, make a well in the centre and place the oil + the egg there, start mixing in the centre with a whisk, once it starts getting thick add the blueberries (these ones previously crushed + mixed with the sugar and heated for around 1 minute to release their colour), continue whisking and as it gets thick again start adding the milk, and whisk and add milk and so on until it becomes liquid with the consistency of double cream.

Now soak a little bit of kitchen paper towel with a little oil and rub this on a non stick frying pan, heat the pan and once hot reduce to med-low heat and pour a couple of serving spoons inside swirl the pan so that it covers the whole bottom, let it cook for around 1-2 minutes you'll see it going golden through the crepe, with a spatula lift the corners and them with your fingers peel it of and turn it upside down, again 1-2 minutes and is done, set it aside on a plate. Then repeat process until all the crepe cream is used. You should get around 6-8 crepes.

let the crepes go cool as they become more malleable and elastic. Whip the cream and add a few drops of vanilla essence, once whipped add and fold in the chopped strawberries also a soup spoon of powdered sugar if the strawberries are not very sweet, once done refrigerate this will harden mousse further. Finally format the crepes as you like fill them with the mousse and decorate as you will, I used powdered vanilla sugar, than I refrigerated them further ..delicious with a nice hot cup of coffee or tea. cheers ..enjoy

Almond filled Sponge Cake (was Anniversary Cake for my Twins on the 16May)

Ingredients: (for the cake)

• 200g butter
  
• 200g self raising flour
  
• 200g sugar
  
• 4 eggs

Preparation:
Mix the butter (soft) with the sugar, mixing it well with the mixer (or hand mixer)for enough time for the mixture to become a whitish cream, at this stage mix the eggs in a little at the time until they are all blended with the mixture, as you want this cream to be as airy as possible. Next is the flour, but this one you can fold in using maybe a spatula, as you want to preserve all that air you knocked in with the mixer, divide this cream into two pre-greased and floured baking tins, and goes in the oven at 180c for 20 minutes (do the toothpick check) just to ensure they are well cooked, let them cool a little then remove them from the baking tin and place them on a cooling rack.

Ingredients: (for the filling)

• 50g caster sugar
  
• 15g corn starch
  
• 2g salt
  
• 235ml milk
• 30g grated almond
  
• 2 eggs
• 2 tea spoons of almond essence
  
• 1 Vodka lid
  

Preparation:

Mix all the dry ingredients well, place all the wet ingredients in a small pan (minus the Vodka), now add all the dry ingredients to the wet ones in the pan, and put it on a medium heat and whisk it continuously as soon as it starts to thicken up reduce the heat to nearly minimum, otherwise will thicken too quick and will get lumpy, you want a smooth cream. After is thickened and will thicken no more cook for a further 2 minutes, then remove from the heat, add the vodka let it cool completely before using it you can even refrigerate.
(this almond cream is also excellent for profiteroles, croissants and much more)

Ingredients: (cake topping)

• 1 glass of double cream
  
• 3 soup spoons of powdered sugar
  
• 1 tea spoon of vanilla essence
  
• 1 hand full of hand chopped almonds (with the skin preferable)
  

Preparation:

Whip the double cream to make the whip, once whipping is about half way through add the vanilla essence and when is two thirds from being done add then 1 soup spoon of the powdered sugar and when is completed add the other 2 soup spoons of powdered sugar whisk a little more just enough to mix it and it is done to cover the cake.
Cover the cake with the aid of a spatula and then spread the hand chopped almonds over it.

Knife chopped almonds ...yum!!

Cake assembly:

decide which disc is going to be the base then level it by cutting it's top (see picture), this will aid in the filling adhering better and soaking in a little, also securing better the other disc.
So you then assemble it as follows, after cutting the base spread the filling around one centimetre thick all over the base, then place the second disc on top, then cover the whole cake with the whip and spread the almonds on top, the refrigerate at least half an hour before serving, more time even better, absolutely lovely with a nice strong coffee, there is something magical when coffee and almond flavours meet in your mouth.

I received these awards from Nina's Recipes and was very happy to have them, there are no rules written, so I assume one has to pass them along to about 7 other blogs as that is how many Nina passed.
Nominees please pass the awards bellow to 7 nominees (or more) of your choice, linking them to the award + linking on your post who nominated you, these are the simple rules

I am please to nominate for the above awards:
5 Star Foodie
My Kitchen Treasures
Chef E
Ninas Recipes
Duo dishes
Tangled Noodle
Sophie

And this award was given to me by Sophie a long standing foodie friend here in my blog, which makes me very honoured to accept such a nice award.

In keeping with the tradition of passing this award forward, here are the rules. The Sisterhood Award is an award from bloggers to bloggers in recognition of a blog spot which shows attitude and/or gratitude.

1. Put the logo on your blog or post.

2. Nominate up to 10 blogs which show great attitude and/or gratitude

3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.

4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog, or sending them an email.

5. Remember to link to the person from whom you received your award.

I am please to nominate:
5 Star Foodie
My Kitchen Treasures
Left over Queen
Chef E
Ninas Recipes
Coffee and Vanilla
Duo dishes
My Tasty Treasures
Tangled Noodle
Food and Travel

Sexy Strawberry Mousse

Receita em Português

Recipe Ingredients: (enough for 4)

• 200mls whipping cream
• 300grs strawberries (finely chopped)
• 3 soup spoons of sugar
• 2 drops of lemon

To make is the simplest thing ever. Place the cream in a bowl and whip it when the fresh cream is nearly whipped add 2 soup spoons of the sugar to it and whip the rest until a very firm consistency, now add the strawberries reserving 6 tea spoons full of the chopped strawberries, involve mixing the strawberries with the cream, once done, place a tea spoon of the chopped strawberries into each of the four wine glasses (or other container) then spread the cream mixture evenly through each container and refrigerate.

The remaining two tea spoons of chopped strawberries are placed in a little pan with a couple of spoons of water the remaining soup spoon of sugar and the 2 drops of lemon, bring it to boil until it makes a runny syrup, let it cool completely and place on top of each refrigerated dessert and refrigerate a little further, add an almond thin just sticking out of it before serving.

Nice and easy and not as fattening as it looks, I reckon a little bar of chocolate is more fattening.
Cheers for reading, this one is simple and is delicious.

Pecan, Honey and Greek Yoghurt Tart

This Tart was adapted from "Tarte Delicia de Iogurte" from Luisa Alexandra blog recipe which she also adapted from other blog, and so on. But believed to have the original recipe from a blog called Gulosices but is in Portuguese.

Receita em Português AQUI

Recipe Ingredients:

• 250grs Sugar
• 2 eggs
• 500grs Greek Yoghurt (you can use normal plain yoghurt, for a softer texture)
• 50grs Margarine
  
• 1 tea spoon of vanilla essence
• 100grs of flour
• 50grs pecan nuts (ground)
• 12 pecan halves
• 2 soup spoons of honey (and a little extra honey for glaze)

This tart was originally made with 350 grs of sugar no nuts or honey and plain yoghurt, also was made in individual small tart containers rather than a large one, result was a more moist and light tart. I went for a more dense and zingy tart to contrast with the fresh cream and the honey glazed pecans.

The preparation is simple. Beat the sugar and the eggs until the sugar granules disappear (around 2 minutes with a machine or 4 by hand), then add the melted margarine, vanilla essence and flour (little by little to not form lumps), mix these until homogeneous (around 30 seconds machine or 1 min by hand).

Finally add the yoghurt the ground pecans and the 2 soup spoons of honey (plain), just mix these well. then put the dough in a large baking tart dish (previously greased with margarine and floured) and bake for about 35 minutes at 180c, until golden brown on top, before I put it in I placed on a frying pan a soup spoon of sugar about 2 soup spoons of water and a soup spoon of honey, turned the gas on and let it start bubbling, at that stage I added the pecan halves, and let these cook until it started to caramelize (but not caramel just syrupy) placed 8 pecans on top of the tart drizzled some of the syrup on top in a circle around the pecans. The rest I used to put on the whipped cream also making a little more surup the same ways with a few chopped pecans, see picture.

The texture is that of a baked cheesecake crossed with a cake, is quite unusual and zingy from the greek yoghurt, however is delicious, and the pecan and honey come through as real stars. This cake/flan is in the class of "Queijada" which is a portuguese tipe of cake that is neither a cake or a flan but something in between. :D