Lemon Tiramisu

This month's Daring Baker's challenge was hosted by Aparna and Deeba.

I loved this! It was to make tiramisu from scratch and by scratch I mean actually making the mascarpone cheese as well as the ladyfingers or savoiardi. Isn't that fabulous?

I have to say the biggest attraction to me was to make the mascarpone cheese at home. They have always been the most expensive part of making tiramisu and I could not believe how simple it was! Sure it takes time and patience, but I swear, I am NEVER buying mascarpone from the markets again.

Mascarpone Cheese – Vera’s Recipe (Baking Obsession) for Homemade Mascarpone Cheese.
Guess what its just whole cream and lemon juice! I swear! Amazing ain't it? Well Check out the above link and judge for yourself. Also be sure to check out 

Savoiardi / Ladyfinger Biscuits – Recipe from Cordon Bleu At Home

The savoiardi was very interesting. It seemed deceptively easy, and it is. However they are even more fragile than cookies, even a minute more in the oven and the taste is ruined. Also if you don't know your hot spots in the oven, you'll be cursing while throwing away the burnt pieces. As you can see, I had some trouble with it, BUT at the end after throwing the burnt stuff, the good pieces were top notch. My husband even said the texture and taste was better than the store bought stuff. AND he also said the second batch was better than the first. Who knew he was paying attention? haha just kidding.

This recipe makes approximately 24 big ladyfingers or 45 small (2 1/2" to 3" long) ladyfingers.
Ingredients

• 3 eggs, separated
• 6 tablespoons /75gms granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup/95gms cake flour, sifted (or 3/4 cup all purpose flour + 2 tbsp corn starch)
• 6 tablespoons /50gms confectioner's sugar,

Method:
   1. Preheat your oven to 350 F (175 C) degrees, then lightly brush 2 baking sheets with oil or softened butter and line with parchment paper
   2. Beat the egg whites using a hand held electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Gradually add granulated sugar and continue beating until the egg whites become stiff again, glossy and smooth.
   3. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks lightly with a fork and fold them into the meringue, using a wooden spoon. Sift the flour over this mixture and fold gently until just mixed. It is important to fold very gently and not overdo the folding. Otherwise the batter would deflate and lose volume resulting in ladyfingers which are flat and not spongy.
4. Fit a pastry bag with a plain tip (or just snip the end off; you could also use a Ziploc bag) and fill with the batter. Pipe the batter into 5" long and 3/4" wide strips leaving about 1" space in between the strips. (For the first batch I used a pastry bag but becomes my was very narrow, I had to squeeze and push the batter in, THAT deflates the batter faster than the blink of an eye. So.. I would highly recommend using a Ziploc bag).
5. Sprinkle half the confectioner's sugar over the ladyfingers and wait for 5 minutes. The sugar will pearl or look wet and glisten. Now sprinkle the remaining sugar. This helps to give the ladyfingers their characteristic crispness.
6. Hold the parchment paper in place with your thumb and lift one side of the baking sheet and gently tap it on the work surface to remove excess sprinkled sugar.
7. Bake the ladyfingers for 10 minutes, then rotate the sheets and bake for another 5 minutes or so until the puff up, turn lightly golden brown and are still soft. Now please pay attention to these, just as they are brown, they burn REALLY fast. Even an extra minute and I guarantee the delicate flavors will feel off with a burnt eggy yucky smell.
8. Allow them to cool slightly on the sheets for about 5 minutes and then remove the ladyfingers from the baking sheet with a metal spatula while still hot, and cool on a rack.
9. Store them in an airtight container till required. They should keep for 2 to 3 weeks.

Tiramisu – Carminantonio's Tiramisu from The Washington Post, July 11 2007

This link will give you the recipe to the Zabaglione, vanilla pastry cream and whipped cream, as well as the instructions to assembling the tiramisu. The cool part? The Zabaglione is cooked AND has marsala. Never done it that way before. Instead of using raw eggs, you use a cooked zabaglione, a lemon pastry cream and whipped cream to get similar fluffiness that you get with making the normal tiramisu. BRILLIANT!
Above is a picture of the Lemon Pastry cream (left) and Zabaglione (right).
The end result I must say was fabulous, I loved the texture and how it was creamy, soft and held up well. It was a little too sweet for my taste, and I think I would add more rum next time :)

Zwikelmania - Trip to local breweries

Zwike what? As our patron saint of beer - Homer Simpson aptly puts it, mmmmmmm...beeeeer.

Oregon is known for its awesome artisinal and local breweries. Some of the flavors produced in the Northwest are not found in most of the country. Its still surprising to our visitors at the amazing choices to be found here. I mean seriously, can you imagine having beer with complex flavors like chocolate stout, raspberry hints, orange, coriander - whenever you please?

Zwikelmania is basically an awesome thing that Oregon Brewers Guild presents. So once a year some of the private or small local breweries open their doors to beer lovers. You get a factory tour, taste their new and/or award winning beers, talk to the beer makers and basically get to appreciate what it takes to make that awesome beer you love :)
For this year's Zwikelmania, we visited two local breweries - Laurelwood and Hopworks. We had the most amazing time, both of us Mr. Hubby and myself love beer, him admittedly more so but nevertheless I can appreciate a good stout or amber :)

Laurelwood

This is probably one of the smallest breweries I have been to. But man oh man, it may be small in size but its big on flavor! They make about 8000 barrels a year with only four people on staff. Can you imagine? Of course, that makes em' ridiculously busy BUT considering they can actually influence every pint of beer that leaves the brewery. Amazing!
Laurelwood brewers surprised us by actually having Beer X - a brand new beer they have made on a trial basis. Now without going into much details because its not in production and I do want them to sell it. It was most certainly a great beer. With complex flavors, and cherry notes, it paired incredibly well with some chocolate they had. Fabulous! They are such generous brewers, taking the time to make sure their guests have a great time, they put out several trays of wonderful handmade (in house) chocolate barks. Some with figs, cherries, nuts, all with excellent Callebaut chocolate (one of my favorites). Yumm... still remember the taste.

Hopworks
Such a fantastic experience. Hopworks' brewers really took their time to make everyone feel at home. Their brewer - Jaime was awesome! He really explained the brewing process with much vigor and enthusiasm, you could tell that all of them took pride in their work and loved what they did. Its such a cool place, they have a disco ball in the brewery! 

Check out this fantastic cycle. This is taken to beer fests and is a workable tap. Hopworks gave us samples of their award winning IPA, now I personally don't prefer IPAs, most are done badly, over roasting their chocolate/cocoa beans and grains. This one was just incredible! I have never enjoyed an IPA more. In fact we liked it so much, we got a growler filled with it for home!

Click on the below links for more info
http://oregonbeer.org/zwickelmania/
http://www.laurelwoodbrewpub.com/
http://www.hopworksbeer.com/

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

My first time making bbq style pulled pork with a dry rub. I say style because I don't own a bbq, I own an oven and a grill and as any true bbqer knows, the grill can't do justice to the term barbeque. The twain shall never meet :) When people say its summer bbq time, they actually mean- its grillin' time.

Pic on right - Pulling the pork meat.

Meat is cooked on charcoal grills usually at high heat for a short time. BBQ on the other hand, cooks meat at a low temperature for a lonnng time. True bbq styles like Memphis, Kansas etc. all normally cook their meat for hours on end. Obviously not owning a bbq can put a damper on things, however, considering everything, the oven can prove to be a decent (note I didn't say good) substitute.

 It was quite the experience as this is one of the larger cuts of meat I have ever made. Doesn't mean its going to stop me :))
For pulled pork, one generally uses the pork shoulder a.k.a. pork butt. Why? Dunno. Its actually the shoulder. Anyway, I chose some classic flavors and made pulled pork with a rub of brown sugar, coriander, cumin and paprika. Its amazing how simple ingredients can bring out the natural flavors of the meat. 
We enjoyed the melting meat on a special chocolate stout rye bread, along with fresh avocado,cilantro lemon juice and onions. Yumm!

Daring Kitchen - Mezze

Daring Kitchen's challenge of the month - Mezze. Yeah! This is at least something I've done before. So the challenge is to make pita bread and hummus at home. The rest of the mezze is up to you. Since the last time I made Muhammra, I was quite excited to make hummus. After all, whats a mezze without hummus? Right?

Here's my feast
Home made Pita bread
Saffron and Cumin Cornish Hen
2 Types of Olives
Dried Figs
Hummus
Falafel
Tabouli

Hummus is deceptively easy to make. This is my own recipe.

Ingredients
1 cup of cooked garbanzo/chickpeas
Juice of 2 1/2 lemons
Olive Oil - 2 tsps
Salt - to taste
2 garlic pods
a pinch of Sumac
2 tbsp + 2 tsp of tahini paste
Paprika - just a little bit for color
Couple of olives to enjoy
Olive oil - a little

Directions

1. Use canned garbanzo or soak raw garbanzo beans overnight and cook in pressure cooker or in a closed pan with 1 cup water till soft. 
2. Blend all ingredients except tahini, olives and paprika in a food processor/blender. 
3. Blend the tahini at the end. If you do this before, the beans may seize up and give more trouble than needed to get it to the right consistency. 
4. Add the paprika and olives and drizzle some good olive oil for presentation.
5. Serve with fresh pita bread.

Can it be any simpler?