Sugar et al, Author at Sugar et al

Chocolate Hazelnut and Pear Crumble

27|10|2013

As it turns out, I have had an overdose of pumpkin and pumpkin recipes lately. I really need a break and so I am turning to my favourite crumble for comfort. Don’t get me wrong, I have a few pumpkin posts lined up for you but at the moment I am a bit tired of this yellow-orange thing. Maybe it has to do with all the roasting and pureeing I have done this week..seriously I have never seen or handled so much pumpkin in my life. All I need now is CHOCOLATE!

This is an easy recipe. If you love chocolate, you should give this a try. I love the way pears take on flavours and pair so very well with chocolate. So, there is chocolate in the fruit and in the crumble topping. I have left little chunks of chocolate in the crumble so you can get little morsels of choclatey heaven when you bite into the crunchy topping. The fruit has a hint of spice, so that complements the bittersweet chocolate as well.

This crumble is based on a somewhat similar recipe I had seen in a magazine called Recipes+. If you are in a hurry, you can use canned pears instead of fresh ones.

Chocolate Hazelnut and Pear Crumble
Serves 4

4 pears, peeled, cored and cut into 2 cm pieces
2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp mixed spice
30 g dark chocolate (for the fruit)
2/3 cup plain flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
100 g butter, chilled and chopped
100g hazelnuts, toasted, skins removed and chopped
80 g dark chocolate, roughly chopped (for topping)

Preheat oven to 180 degree C. Lightly grease 4 ramekins or oven proof bowls and place on a baking tray.
Combine pear, lemon juice and spice in a microwave-safe bowl. Cover with a plastic food wrap. Microwave on high for 3 minutes or until pears are tender. Stand fruit mixture for 1 minute. Add in the 30 g dark chocolate and stir.
Divide pear mixture equally among the prepared ramekins.

Place flour and sugar in a bowl. Rub in butter to make crumbs. Stir in the hazelnuts and chocolate. Sprinkle hazelnut mixture over the pear mixture in the ramekins. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden.

Turkish Delight Doughnuts with Rosewater Glaze

22|10|2013

When I posted my Candy Cake recipe a couple of weeks back, I almost forgot to share a recipe which has been such a huge personal favourite. Talking about candies and not thinking about Turkish Delight…certainly a sin in my eyes! So, without wasting a moment I made these simple fragrant, doughnuts that are filled with Turkish Delight and coated with a Rose flavoured glaze.

If you are unfamiliar with Turkish Delight, these are beautifully scented Middle Eastern candies or confection, generally flavoured with rose, lemon or bergamot orange. They are slightly chewy, jelly like…and coated with icing sugar. What sets them apart are they unique flavours! The rose flavoured ones remind me of a rose drink I loved as a little girl called Rooh-afza. Did I tell you how much I adore Middle Eastern flavours and spices!

Another reason why I love this recipe is that part of it is a creation of one of my favourite chefs, Shane Delia. His modern approach to Middle Eastern food is captivating and I have lost count of the number of recipes I have bookmarked for later. The doughnut recipe is from this video. The glaze and decoration are my own creations.
It is actually a very simple recipe (so few ingredients and no eggs) but the only thing I have to warn you about is that the dough is very sticky and difficult to work with. The first time I had made these doughnuts, I had followed the process shown in the video but coating the candies in dough was difficult and I was left arm deep in dough. The second time, I used a different method..I used two tablespoons. This one worked for me and I was happy I didn’t have to touch the dough with my hands. Don’t worry about having an even coat around the candies. All you need to ensure is that they are covered in dough. Once they hit the oil, they kind of even out as they melt within the doughnut shell.

The original recipe calls for tossing around the fried doughnuts in honey. Rose, for me also means bright rose-pink so I couldn’t resist making a rose flavoured glaze instead. They taste great either ways.

Turkish Delight Doughnuts with Rosewater Glaze
Serves 6

For the Doughnuts
2 cups (300 g) plain flour
2 sachet (15 g) dried yeast
2 tsp castor sugar
150 g rose-flavoured Turkish delight, diced into 1 cm pieces
Vegetable Oil for deep-frying
Pine nuts and chopped Pistachio nuts for serving (optional)

For the Rosewater Glaze
1 cup icing sugar
1 tbsp rosewater
1 tbsp room temperature milk
3 drops pink food colouring

Combine flour, yeast, sugar and ½ tsp salt in a bowl, and gradually whisk in 300 ml lukewarm water until combined and smooth, then stand in a warm place until swollen and foamy (30 minutes).

Heat vegetable oil in a deep fryer or a deep-frying pan. Working with one piece of Turkish delight at a time, coat and mould each piece in a tablespoonful of doughnut batter and deep-fry them, in batches, turning occasionally, until golden. To do this, take a little dough in a big spoon(tablespoon) in your right hand. Place the turkish delight on top with your left hand. Next spoon up some more dough with your left hand in another spoon. Place on top of the turkish delight. Even out like how you would do when you make a quenelle with the help of two spoons. Drain on absorbent paper, then transfer to a serving plate.

Make the Rosewater glaze : Make the glaze ready when the doughnuts are proofing. Place the sugar, milk, rosewater in a bowl and stir together till smooth and evenly blended. Add a few more drops of rosewater, depending on how thick or thin you want the glaze to be. Add the pink food coloring and stir till uniformly coloured.

To Serve: Place the warm doughnuts on serving plates. Drizzle with rosewater glaze and sprinkle with pine nuts and pistachios, if desired.

Blueberry and Maple Syrup Pancakes with Bacon

20|10|2013

I simply love sweet-savory food combinations! When balanced well they can do wonders for your taste buds. What better than fluffy pancakes dripping in maple syrup with crispy salty bacon. And to tie them together juicy blueberries that are bit sweet..a bit tart!

I did tell you about our big Sunday breakfasts and brunches. This is one of the simpler dishes I make for my family with different combinations. With the abundance of seasonal blueberries, I couldn’t have thought of a better addition to my pancakes. I love the way they melt and ooze out when cooked with the batter.

These pancakes are smaller in size than normal ones so you can easily fry two at a time. Smaller stacks work for me. They look cute and cook faster so you can keep the plates coming out quickly when you have guests for brunch. In, Australia, we call them pikelets. You can substitute blueberries with two ripe mashed banana or even a cup of pumpkin puree. These are combinations that I use with the pancake batter.

So do you like food that combines sweet and savory? And which one is your favourite combination?
Without a doubt, Salted Caramel tops my list!

Blueberry and Maple Syrup Pancakes with Bacon (adapted with variation from Good Taste magazine)

11/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp castor sugar
1/2 tsp salt
125g blueberries
11/4 cups milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
30 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
Bacon rashers, to serve
Extra blueberries, to serve
Maple syrup, to serve

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and salt. Stir in the blueberries. Make a well in the centre and add the milk, egg and butter. Use a metal spoon to stir, until just combined.
Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Grease with butter. Pour 1/4 cup portions of batter into the pan (2 at a time). Cook for 1-2 minutes or until bubbles appear on the surface. Turn and cook for 30 seconds or until cooked through.
Transfer to a plate. Cover with foil to keep warm. Repeat with the rest of the batter.
Serve pancakes with cooked bacon, extra blueberries and maple syrup.

Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Malt Buttercream

17|10|2013

‘Milo’ is a word Australian homes with kids would be all too familiar with. Malt drinks are a hit with a lot of children. Mine really love it and will eat spoonfuls of it straight from the tin. Sometimes, I mix it with banana and vanilla ice cream to make a milkshake. Yesterday while the blender was doing its work and I was staring into it, the cupcake Gods suddenly smiled at me and I smiled back. Why didn’t I think of this earlier! Banana Malt Cupcakes!

I really like the flavour of these cupcakes. Better than the milkshake! And it is such a great recipe to make for kid’s parties and get-togethers. When I told my boys the cupcakes had Milo in it, their eyes lit up.

The cupcakes are soft and moist and the buttercream has a flavour similar to milk chocolate. So they work well together. A dusting of milo powder gives it an extra malt boost. You can replace the chocolate malt powder with your preferred malt powder.

Please note while making the frosting that most chocolate malt powder are already sweetened so I have reduced the icing sugar than I would normally use to make my buttercream. The resulting buttercream will be fluffier (not very stiff) and not the perfectly pipeable one. It’s actually wonderful spooned or spread over the cupcakes. Though I managed to pipe, I wasn’t too happy with the end result.

Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Malt Buttercream

Banana Cupcakes
2 cups self-raising flour, sifted (or 2 cups plain flour+2 tsp baking powder)
3/4 cup castor sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup milk
125g butter, melted, cooled
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup mashed banana (about 2 large ripe bananas)

Preheat oven to 200 degree C. Grease a 12 capacity muffin pan or line with paper cases. Combine flour and castor sugar in a bowl. Make a well in the centre. Stir in cinnamon.

Add milk, butter, eggs and vanilla to flour mixture. Using a large metal spoon, stir gently to combine. Add the mashed banana.
Spoon mixture into prepared muffin pan. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Stand in pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Once cool, spread or pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes. Dust with chocolate malt powder or cocoa powder.

Chocolate Malt Buttercream
1/2 cup unsalted butter (113 g), room temperature
11/4 cup icing sugar, sifted (add another 1/2 cup if you want a stiffer frosting)
2 tbsp milk
1/4 cup chocolate malt powder (I used Milo)
2 tbsp cocoa powder

Add the malt powder to 2 tbsp warm milk and stir to make a smooth paste. Keep aside. In an electric mixer or with a hand mixer, cream the butter till smooth. With the mixer on low-speed, gradually beat in the sugar. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the malt milk paste and cocoa powder. Beat on high-speed until frosting is light and fluffy.