- Garlic Ciabatta Bread -

One of my favorite ingredients to cook with is garlic. This has nothing to do with how it cooks, but with how it smells, and then of course, at the end, how it tastes! You put that together with the other best thing on the planet: bread, and life is complete. Garlic bread is done so many different ways. I've seen it cut crisscross across the top for a pull-apart style. Also cut down the top from end to end with delicious oil, garlic, and herbs poured in. I've also seen just plain old garlic bread, you know, the type with whole cloves of garlic baked inside the bread to eat? But my preferred method is to set the loaf on it's side and cut it through the middle, butter with a garlic and herb butter on one side, and olive oil up the other! 

Garlic Ciabatta Bread

Ingredients:
1 loaf of Ciabatta Bread
7 Tbs. room temperature Butter
1 clove Garlic
2 tsp. dried Oregano
2 T. Olive Oil

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Set bread on it's side and cut through the middle so you have a top and a bottom. 
Mix together butter, garlic, and oregano. Butter the top of the ciabatta loaf, Brush the bottom half with the olive oil. Put the two halves together and cut two inch slices. 

Wrap in the foil and bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Then plate up and enjoy!

- Oscar Night Cake -

Tonight is the biggest night in Hollywood, and I've been going all out to try and create a dinner menu to match. My first thought was an elegant, three course, small portion, 4 star restaurant look, but I soon scratched the idea in favor of bow tie pasta. Bow tie pasta with garlic cream sauce to be precise. I decided to mimic the gents' look with the shape of the pasta. Joining them were sides of garlic bread and salad. And, to mimic the lovely ladies, I created my Oscar night Chocolate Cake with Raspberry and White Chocolate Mousse. Now, I love to make cakes look great, but they never seem to turn out the way I envisioned...  But this one did, and I am more than thrilled with the look, not to mention the chocolaty, raspberry, goodness delight that is the taste!

Raspberry Mousse sounds difficult, but really is a fairly simple process. Frozen raspberries, sugar and lemon juice are mixed together over a medium heat until they cook down. Then it is all pushed through a strainer.

Then it gets folded into the whipped cream... and voila! Easy.

The White chocolate mousse is just as simple. 

Then Everything gets piled on to little round cakes and stacked, with chocolate ganache then drizzled on the top. And this is the end result:

Oscar Night Chocolate Cake with Raspberry and White Chocolate Mousse

The Cake:

Any chocolate cake recipe that will fit in a 9x13 pan. You can even use a boxed cake mix. 
With a 2 1/2 inch round biscuit cutter, cut out eight rounds from the cake. Set each round on its side and cut in half so you have sixteen rounds. 


Raspberry Mousse:

Ingredients:
8 oz. bag Frozen Raspberries
2 T. Granulated Sugar
The juice of 1 lemon (I used my hand to squeeze the juice out. If you use a juicer, I would add a bit more sugar as well)
1 tsp. water
1/2 tsp. gelatin
1 cup Heavy Cream

Directions:
In medium saucepan put raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat until the raspberries have thawed and everything has cooked down and melded together in a mush. Press through a fine strainer so you get most of the juice, but not the seeds. 

In small bowl pour the gelatin into the water. Let sit for 5 minutes. Then put into the microwave for thirty seconds. In mixing bowl fitted with whisk attachment, start whisking  the heavy cream, add the gelatin and whisk until the whipped cream holds stiff peaks.

Take 1/4 cup of the whipped cream and whisk it into the raspberry juice. Then take 3/4 cup of the raspberry juice and fold into the rest of the whipped cream. And now you have  raspberry mousse!


White Chocolate Mousse:

Ingredients: 1/4 cup Heavy Cream
3/4 cup White Chocolate chips
1 tsp. water1/2 tsp. gelatin
1/2 cup Heavy Cream

Directions:
In a microwave safe bowl, heat in the microwave the first amount of heavy cream until it starts to boil. Pour over the white chocolate chips and let sit for 3 minutes. Whisk together until the chocolate is melted and everything is smooth.

Add gelatin to water and let sit 5 minutes. Then heat in microwave for 30 seconds.
In electric mixer fitted with whisk attachment whisk the second amount of heavy cream with the gelatin mixture until it forms stiff peaks. 

Add 1 T. of the whipped cream into the white chocolate mixture. Then fold in 1/4 cup of the white chocolate mixture to the whipped cream.


Chocolate Ganache:

Assembly:
1/4 cup Heavy Cream
1/2 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips 

Directions:
Heat heavy cream in a microwave safe bowl in the microwave until it starts to boil. Add in the chocolate chips and let sit 3 minutes. Whisk together until smooth. 


Cake Assembly:
Set out cake rounds on a cookie sheet in four rows of four. Top eight of them with the raspberry mousse and four of them with the white chocolate mousse, piled about a 1/2 an inch high (You can place the same biscuit cutter over each and spoon in the mousse for cleaner edges). Put the cookie sheet into the refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour to firm up the mousse a bit. 

Then stack the four cakes: raspberry topped cake on the bottom, then white chocolate mousse topped cake, then raspberry again, and top them each with the last four cake rounds. Put some plastic wrap around the sides and top and refrigerator for another hour. 

Unwrap from the plastic wrap and pour the ganache on top of each and enjoy! 

- Sneak Peek: Tasty Dessert -

- Sour Cherry Crumb Cake -

Because I believe that the only sort of dessert there is is one with chocolate in it (I know, I have a very narrow mind), I offer this one up to you as a snack. Great to have with tea - tea and cake, and all that. 

Don't be deterred by the "sour" part, it really isn't sour at all except the cherries, which, I suppose, really depend on how sour the type you buy happen to be. We made this with the frozen cherries, and it was quite delicious. And the crumb topping has so much flavor to it that I just couldn't get over!

Click here for the recipe: Sour Cherry Crumb Cake

- Happy Valentine's Day! -

- French Toast with Apple-Maple-Fig Spread -

I should confess, I'm all for eating breakfast for dinner. I think some people have written religions against it, but I'm not about to let that stop me! I see no reason to deprive yourself of any type of yumminess because of the name of the meal or the time of day you eat it at... no reason! 

To those who believe it is just wrong to partake of breakfast for dinner, I implore you: prolong this terrible sadness in your life no more! Let yourself go... fall into thick butter, juicy bacon, and mile high pancakes. Your life does not have to be this depressing, you can enjoy a life full of happiness and freedom if you just break your own vows and place before you at the evening meal a plate of French Toast with Apple-Maple-Fig Spread. This is my plea to you sad folk!

But please, don't let this make you think that you can't have this French Toast for breakfast either. Oh no, anytime of the day, my friends... anytime.

So why the drama? Well, I'm kind of in love, and I can't help myself. I should write a poetic song about this dish, it may be the only way to express my passions.

See? What'd I tell you? Am I right, or am I right. 

Fig Spread: a can't beat.

And it's perfect with bacon. But I will torture you no further with photos of fatty deliciousness. Here's how you make it. =)

French Toast with Apple-Maple-Fig Spread

Ingredients:

1 loaf of French Bread cut into 1 inch slices

3 cups of Milk

2 large dashes of Vanilla

5 Eggs

1/2 cup of Apple Sauce

2 T. Maple Syrup (the real stuff now)

2 T. Brown Sugar

1/4 cup Fig Jam (mine was labeled as fig spread)

1 apple, sliced thinly (optional)

Directions:

In bowl whisk together milk, vanilla, and eggs. Pour into a 9x13 dish. Heat a flat nonstick pan over a medium/low heat. Drop as many slices as will fit on the pan into the eggs mixture. Soak the bread for a second or two on each side. Place on pan and cook on each side for 3-4 minutes or until cooked all the way through. Continue this with all the sliced until you have cooked up the entire loaf.

Meanwhile, while you work with the bread, whisk together in small saucepan over a medium heat the apple sauce, maple syrup, brown sugar, fig jam, until warm and all the lumps from the jam are gone and everything is mixed together well.

Place the cooked french toast slices on a large plate. Spread or drizzle the apple-maple-fig spread over each slice. Cover each slice with the apple slices as a festive option. Bon Appetite!

- Browned-Butter Sage Pasta -

I think I've fallen in love with...browned butter. So much flavor, so much amazingness! Seriously, all you need for this recipe is butter, sage, pasta, parmesan cheese and a seasoning of salt and pepper, and yet the flavor fills your mouth with its nutty butteriness! I can't explain the wonderfulness!!

First you melt the butter in a saucepan.

 

Add a sage leaf for a minute.

Take out the sage leaf and brown the butter on a medium to medium/high heat for two to three minutes or until the butter is nice and browned, but not burnt!

Drop in the pasta.

Add the salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese and please, do eat.

Browned-Butter Sage Pasta

Ingredients:

2.5 oz. Angel Hair Pasta

4 T. Butter

1 Sage Leaf

Pinch Salt 

Pinch Pepper

Sprinkle Parmesan Cheese

Directions:

Boil water in a pot. Salt pasta water and cook pasta in it until al dente.

In small saucepan melt butter. Add a sage leaf and cook on medium/low heat for one minute. Remove sage leaf and turn up the heat to medium to medium/high. Brown the butter, about three minutes, don't burn it! Turn the heat off. Add pasta, salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese. Plate and eat! Bon Appetite!

- I Say "Brownie Bottom Coconut Chocolate Cream Cake", You Say "Yum"! -

I look forward to the Super Bowl every year. But not because I enjoy the football, I really could care less! No, it's all about the food, of course. And this year we had a small group of people gather at the house to socialize and eat, and really not watch football at all (We stopped the game for Downton Abbey anyways!). 

But the Numero Uno of the feast was the delicious Brownie Bottom Coconut Chocolate Cream Cake. Oh yes, it was all that and more.

Here's the link to the recipe...try it!: Brownie Bottom Coconut Chocolate Cream Cake Recipe