The Sunny Kitchen - An Italian cook in Amsterdam

It's Friday, let's choc! Date, pecan and raw cocoa truffles

 

It's Friday, let's celebrate with something sweet, delicious and totally healthy: my date, pecan and raw cocoa truffles!
Made in a matter of minutes they're perfect to satisfy that choc craving that gets me from time to time.
Just blitz all the ingredients in the food processor, roll and eat!
To make them look more "truffly" you could also roll them in cocoa powder. Why not?
The quantities are enough for about 10 small truffles. You only see 8 in the pic because, of course, I couldn't resist popping two of them into my mouth while making the pictures. :)
Enjoy and have a happy Friday!

Ingredients for 10 small truffles:

110 gr. pitted Medjoul dates
50 gr. shelled pecans
2 heaped spoons of raw cocoa powder

Mix in the food processor to reach the desired chunkiness, roll and eat. Add some extra cocoa powder for a more compact texture and a stronger chocolaty taste. 
Even better after a couple of days in the fridge (they get a little bit more compact).

Tiramisù alle fragole (strawberry tiramisù)

May, strawberry month par excellence. Perfect time to get (and eat) loads of these little vitamin C bombs.

If you love traditional tiramisù and you love strawberries than this is THE dessert for you.
Unbelievably sexy, it's oozing goodness and intense yet delicate flavours that could knock anyone's socks off, even people who usually say they don't really like dessert. Guaranteed.
If you don't believe me, try it yourself and then you tell me.

Some of my "pupils" made this a few days ago and I felt compelled to give them a standing ovation. It was soooooo good. And the crumbled cookies on top were their idea!

You can prepare it like they did (single portions) or make a BIG one with the ingredients for this recipe (which serves 10 to 12 people).
You won't have to throw it away, that's for sure.

 

Tiramisù alle fragole

Serves 10-12

750 gr. mascarpone
250 gr. ricotta
6 eggs or 6 pasteurized egg whites and 6 pasteurized egg yolks
120 gr. sugar
2 little sachets of vanilla sugar
1 glass of rum
3 dl fruit juice
4-5 "lady finger" cookies per person plus a few extra to crumble
1 kg. of strawberries          

Separate the egg yolks from the whites (this is not necessary if you use already separated pasteurized eggs) and put the whites in a big mixing bowl.

Beat the egg whites with an electric whisk until they're fluffy and firm (soft peaks).

Mix the egg yolks with 120 gr. of sugar using an electric whisk until nice, frothy and a lot lighter in colour.

Mix the mascarpone and the ricotta gently with the egg yolks-sugar mixture and add the vanilla sugar.

Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the mascarpone/ricotta cream and mix carefully to avoid removing too much air from the mixture.

Wash the strawberries, hull them and slice them thinly keeping one whole strawberry per person as decoration.

Mix fruit juice and rum and dip the cookies in this liquid for just a few seconds to avoid making them too soggy. Lay them in each 1-person bowl to create a bottom layer (3-4 cookies per bowl).

Cover the cookies with a thin layer of mascarpone-ricotta mixture, then with some sliced strawberries and fill each bowl further with the mascarpone mixture.

Decorate each tiramisù with 1 or more strawberries and some crumbled cookies.

Leave in the fridge for a couple of hours to set.

Serve chilled or at (almost) room temperature.

 

Creamy sabayon with macaroons and mixed berries

 

This is a nice and easy dessert, perfect for a festive dinner at the end of the year (or for Christmas!). You can make it a day in advance. It will taste better and have a firmer texture.
You do not need to use pasteurized egg yolks as for the tiramisu because you're actually pasteurizing the fresh yolks during the au bain marie cooking phase.

Use the best ingredients such as organic eggs and cream AND some real Italian amaretti (macaroons). Amaretti are much crispier - and tastier - than the Dutch version we're used to in this beautiful country - Holland, thus :) - and provide a much better result. You can find them at good Italian specialty stores and you may also want to order them online like many other Italian products.
For a sweeter touch you can use sweet dessert wine instead of dry white wine.

 

Zabaione con amaretti e frutti di bosco
(sabayon with amaretti and mixed berries)

 

Serves 4-6:

4-6 egg yolks
4-6 tablespoons of castor sugar
1 dl dry white wine or sweet dessert wine
4 dl whipping cream
2 vanilla sugar sachets
50 gr. amaretti (Italian macaroons) plus 4-6 to garnish
1 cup mixed berries
fresh mint leaves

Put the egg yolks with the sugar in a heatproof bowl (preferably made of Pyrex glass).

Stir and beat the eggs with the aid of an (electric) whisk until you they're light and fluffy. The mixture is supposed to become lighter in color and very creamy.

Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water so that the mixture can get thicker. The bowl should not directly touch the hot water otherwise you get scrambled eggs!

Stir in the wine, little by little, and keep on stirring until the mixture starts to bind.
It is important that the mixture doesn't get too hot because then the proteins in the yolks would coagulate and the zabaione would no longer be creamy.

When the zabaione is creamy and thicker put it aside and let it cool.

Whip the cream with the vanilla sugar. Don't whip it too long otherwise the cream gets all lumpy and actually becomes butter.

Add the whipped cream to the cooled zabaione and stir that in till you obtain a smooth and creamy mixture.

Crumble a few amaretti in every single serving bowl to create a thin layer of crumbs.
Distribute the creamy zabaione between all the bowls and store in the refrigerator until serving.

Before serving, garnish each bowl with 1 cookie, a few berries and a mint leaf.

 

 

Related articles

The perfect tiramisù

 

The perfect tiramisù

Last Friday I was invited to do a tasting for Dutch TV programme "Meldpunt". With four other panelists including salmon smoker Rien Heemskerk and quality butcher Ben van den Berg I tried a few ready-made Christmas dishes from the supermarket - smoked salmon, pork roast and tiramisù.
Here you can watch the wole episode plus the different fragments dedicated to the specific dishes.
Most of the things we tasted were quite appalling. Ready-made stuff from a supermarket is rarely good and often plain awful, as we were "lucky" enough to taste.
Especially the tiramisu had absolutely nothing to do with the creamy, gorgeous, sexy and not too sweet dream dessert you can prepare at home.
Here's my own recipe, which happens to be the most classic of all, without whipped cream and with fluffy whisked egg whites.
If you make this for children or older people it is probably a good idea to use pasteurized egg whites and egg yolks. You can buy them at the wholesaler (here in Holland the Makro should have them). If you cannot find them, here some tips on how to make them at home.

TIP: instead of Italian lady fingers (savoiardi) you can also use regular lady fingers. These are much less firm than the Italian ones and get quickly mushy when you dunk them in coffee. Be very quick and dip them very briefly in the coffee with rum mixture. Regular lady fingers are a bit smaller than savoiardi so you will need more.

 

And this is what was left after tasting with the "Meldpunt" crew...

The perfect tiramisù

Serves 10-12

Ingredients:

750 gr. mascarpone
6 organic eggs
120 gr. granulated sugar
1,5 dl. strong espresso
1 dl rum or brandy
48-50 savoiardi (Italian lady fingers)
cocoa powder

Prepare the strong espresso and let it cool slightly.

Separate the egg whites from the yolks and beat the whites with a pinch of salt until they are nice and stiff.

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until you obtain a smooth, even mixture with a much lighter colour.

Stir the mascarpone with the egg yolks-sugar mixture until you obtain a smooth cream.

Carefully fold the whipped egg whites into the mascarpone-egg yolk mixture.

Mix the rum and the coffee.

Dip the savoiardi in this mixture and arrange them side by side in a rectangular dish of approx. 34 by 24 cm. so that they form a base layer. Spread half of the mascarpone cream over the cookies.

Cover the cream with another layer of coffee-soaked savoiardi and then add the rest of the mascarpone cream spreading it evenly.

Place the dish in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours (preferably overnight).

Remove the tiramisù from the refrigerator 10 minutes before serving.

Garnish by sprinkling a thin layer of cocoa powder over the tiramisu using a sieve.

Tartufi al cioccolato (chocolate truffles)

 

Delicious treat

 

This is a lovely and very easy-to-make treat. These chocolate truffles can steal hearts, believe me!
Moreover, they're perfect as a little home-made present if you pack them in a nice box or in a cute glass jar. 

Tartufi al cioccolato

Yields about 16-18 truffles

300 gr. dark chocolate (preferably with more than 54% cocoa, I used a 70% cocoa chocolate from Callebaut)
12 full tablespoons of cream, unsweetened and still in liquid form
20 gr. cocoa powder
candied orange peels
raw (non-roasted) pistachio nuts, almonds, hazelnuts or other nuts to garnish
 
Chop the chocolate coarsely and put in a heat-resistant (Pyrex) bowl.
Place the bowl in a pan containing some hot water and let the chocolate melt thoroughly.
Mix with a clean wooden spoon - free from other food smells - or with a spatula to ensure a smooth mix.
Heat the cream in a pan until lukewarm and add it to the melted chocolate. Leave this ganache to cool off a bit while mixing it from time to time.

Beat the mixture lightly with a mixer while it's still reasonably soft and let it become fluffier. Leave it to harden in the fridge for some time. It has to become quite hard so that rolling the truffles between your handpalms won't melt the chocolate too much.

Sieve the cocoa powder on a plate and chop the nuts and the orange peel not too coarsely.

Make little balls with the chocolate ganache and roll them in cocoa powder or in the chopped nuts. While you're rolling, you can also fill them with little pieces of orange peel and whole nuts, lightly roasted.

Garnish with chopped nuts and/or small pieces of candied orange peel.

Leave the truffles to rest and harden in the fridge and serve them in little paper holders.

TIP: you can lightly roast the nuts for the filling using a dry (without oil) frying pan. Pay attention they don't roast too much, so don't leave them in the hot pan even if you removed it from the flame because they could get darker and burn anyway.

Related articles

 

Is it a cassata? Is it a tiramisù? No, it's a CASSAMISU'!

This dessert was born some time ago for a cooking class where I had to think about a gluten-free version of the cassata Siciliana (without sponge cake or - in the easiest version - lady's fingers).

Cassata is originally an Easter cake made ​​with ricotta, sponge cake (in Italian called pan di Spagna), candied citrus zests and delicious chocolate chips.
In the fridge of my cooking school I had just two cups of ricotta - not enough for the number of people who participated in the workshop - plus two cups of mascarpone, so I decided to have my "pupils" use a mixture of these two, what later appeared to be a very good decision. The dessert became creamier and... sexier because of that.

The slivered almonds I had chosen for this gluten-free dessert resulted in an exciting layer underneath the creamy mixture, like a very pleasant surprise after the first bite of soft, lushious cream.

Now I make it more often with lady's fingers dipped in liqueur as "base" and yet the gluten-free version is still the most exciting one. Try them both, I'd say.

Today's Italian music of choice is a wonderful classic from the Sixties, Nico Fidenco with  "Legata a un granello di sabbia". Nice and old fashioned!

 

Cassamisù

Serves 4-6
                  
3 egg whites
60 gr. sugar
250 gr. ricotta
250 gr. mascarpone
1 sachet of vanilla sugar
40 gr. dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
40 gr. candied orange peel, diced
3 tablespoons apricot jam
3 tablespoons liqueur (rum, maraschino or similar)
3-4 lady's fingers p.p.
additional liquor
unsweetened cocoa powder

Beat the egg whites with 60 gr. sugar until stiff. Use preferably an electric whisk.
Mix ricotta and mascarpone with the vanilla sugar.
Add the coarsely chopped chocolate and candied orange peel to the ricotta - mascarpone mixture.
Mix 3 tablespoons of apricot jam with 3 tablespoons of liqueur and brush 4-6 one-person bowls with this mixture using a kitchen brush.
Dip the lady's fingers in a mix of 50 % liquor and 50% cold water. They have to be soft and yet not mushy.
Put 3-4 lady fingers in each bowl.
Fold the beaten egg whites into the mascarpone / ricotta mixture and mix gently.
Fill each bowl with the mixture and leave the cassamisù to set in the fridge for a few hours.
Serve chilled, dusted with cocoa powder.

GLUTEN-FREE VERSION: use a thin layer of coarsely chopped blanched almonds instead of lady's fingers (no need to soak them in liqueur, of course).

Scarcelle, Easter cookies from Puglia

 

Ph.: Jan Bartelsman

 

Per la versione italiana fai clic qui.

Scarcelle are lovely Apulian Easter cookies with different shapes – baskets, chicks, garlands, Easter bells, little lambs, eggs – often prepared as plain biscuits and sometimes filled with jam and almond paste. In this version I find them truly irresistible.

Growing up in Puglia I used to eat them when I was a child and some friends of my parents’ brought them as a gift from the Salento area. Like all kids, I loved them for their pretty shapes as well as for the decorations, made with white sugar frosting and little crunchy silver or multicoloured sugar “beads”. Nowadays I love them because they taste great and because they remind me of my childhood.

Last year I made them for the first time when I decided to feature them in my cookbook “Cucina di casa mia” – the recipe you find here is the one from the book – and once again I enjoyed them very much. In this version they are not super sweet – I don’t use the white, sugary icing – and have that lovely taste given by the grated lemon and orange peel which makes them even more appetizing. And they’re so colourful and happy-making!

Prepare lots of them and give them to friends and family as it’s traditionally done in Puglia during Holy Week.

Tip: to make beautiful, regular shapes you can use large cookie cutters or you can draw the desired silhouettes on thin cardboard, cut them and then place them on the dough to cut it more neatly. I simply used a pasta wheel cutter.

The scarcelle you see photographed by Dutch food photographer Jan Bartelsman for my book have been cut with architectorial precision by Claudio Varone, my friend and mythical companion of culinary experimentations who helped me to prepare some of the sweets when cooking for my cookbook. :)

Scarcelle (Apulian Easter cookies)

Preparation: 20 minutes
Resting time: 40 minutes
Oven: 20-25 minutes

For 5-6 scarcelle

500 g plain flour  + a little extra
7 g instant baking powder
200 g of sugar
1 dl of extra virgin olive oil
2 + 1 eggs
5 tablespoons milk
grated zest of 1 lemon
grated zest of 1/2 orange
1 pinch of salt
5-6 hard-boiled eggs
coloured sugar "beads"

Preheat the oven to 180 ° C.
Mix flour and baking powder, then add the sugar, the olive oil, 2 eggs, milk, lemon and orange zest and a pinch of salt.
Mix all ingredients together, preferably in a blender with a special dough hook. If the dough is too stiff, add a few tablespoons of milk and mix further. If it’s too sticky, add a little extra flour.
Live to rest for 40 minutes inside the bowl covered with cling film and keep warm. Meanwhile, boil 5-6 eggs and let them cool.
Dust the working surface with flour and roll out the dough with a rolling pin to a thickness of about 8 mm – 1 cm. Cut the desired shapes (approx. 15 x 13 cm) and place your scarcelle on a baking sheet covered with baking parchment.
Prepare enough strips or small braids with the scraps of dough and make sure they are long enough to allow you to secure the hard-boiled eggs to the scarcelle.
Place one egg on each scarcella and secure it with two strips or braids of dough crossing each other (see photos). Press the ends well so that they adhere to the scarcelle.
Beat an egg and brush the scarcelle with it using a pastry brush. Decorate with coloured or silver sugar beads that will stick to the beaten egg.
Bake the scarcelle for about 20 minutes or until they are golden brown.

Roses cake (torta delle rose)

(Per questo post in ITALIANO fare click qui.)

 
This is a beautiful, very tasty and yet delicate specialty from my sister Francesca who loves everything that is sweet (she even has a great blog dedicated to sweets).
And yet... the cake on this page was made by my Mum, Gabriella, as you can see in the video.

It's based on a recipe (in Italian) that Francy originally found on the Italian site Gennarino.org.

It's a very simple and very attractive cake, also easy to serve because you just have to detach a single "rose" for every portion you need.

Making the cake, typical from Mantua, is not that difficult (you can see how it's done in the video). The final result is quite spectacular and really, really good.

 

 

Torta delle rose/Roses cake from Nicoletta Tavella on Vimeo.

 

ROSES CAKE

Ingredients:

fresh yeast (about 25 gr.) or dry yeast (about 7 gr.)
1 glass of lukewarm milk
2 whole eggs
3 tablespoons of olive oil
3 tablespoons of sugar
grated zest of 1 lemon
500 gr flour
a pinch of salt

PLUS
100 gr soft butter at room temperature
100 gr sugar
icing sugar to garnish

Mix all the ingredients well, by hand or with a mixer, and leave the dough to rest in a bowl for one and a half hour, covered with a clean kitchen cloth and away from draught.

Roll out the dough with the rolling pin on a surface that you have first dusted with flour to avoid sticking. The sheet has to be not too thin neither too thick, and rectangular in shape.

Mix butter and sugar and spread this cream evenly on the rolled out dough.

Roll up the dough like a cigar and cut it in thick slices (see pictures).

Lay the dough cylinders next to each other in a high, round oven dish (about 26/28 cm diameter) leaving some space between them because they'll rise and become larger, filling all the gaps. Leave to rise again protecting from draught until the dough has doubled its volume.
If you used a spring-release tin lay it on top of a flat oven dish because the butter will melt and leak a bit.
Put in the pre-heated oven (170°C) for about 45 minutes (30 with a ventilated oven) or until nice and golden (I usually ignore the time indicated in recipes because all ovens are different and check from time to time how things are going).

Remove from the tin after it's cooled off a bit and serve dusted with icing sugar.

 

No the Generals didn't eat it, we did... :)

 

Cooking video: tarte Tatin

For the Italian culinary blog Spigoloso I put my friend from the whole world in front of the camera to prepare some of their favourite recipes.
One of the many beautiful things about Amsterdam is that you easily make friends with people who have the most different backgrounds and from all countries.
My friends all love good food and many of them can also cook pretty well, sometimes professionally and sometimes not. The results are always excellent and that's why I decided to share their cooking talents on video.

Take for example Pascal Plissonneau, the first to appear on Spigoloso with his famous Tarte Tatin. Here you can see him making it just like that, with ease and French souplesse (he's made hundreds of them!).
Pascal was born and raised in Nantes, lived in Paris for a long time and now resides in Amsterdam since an even longer time. He's a translator and loves to cook. As a hobby he's even been working at one of Amsterdam's finest bakeries, the Gebroeders Niemeijer.
Some of his other specialties are the crumble, the mousse au chocolat and his fantastic Thai curries.

Tarte Tatin (ENGLISH VERSION) from Nicoletta Tavella on Vimeo.

Tarte Tatin

Ingredients

Dough:
200 g flour
125 g soft butter
4 tablespoons sugar
1 snuf sea salt
1/4 glas cold water

Filling and caramel:
4-5 firm apples
10 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons water

TIPS:

- Don't kneed the dough too long or it will get hard instead of crunchy once baked.

- Always keep a couple of extra apples handy to make sure you have enough to cover the oven dish.

- Use a high oven dish (5 cm high and 25 cm diameter) that can be put directly on the flame.

- Pay attention: the caramel gets incredibly hot so never touch it with your hands when still liquid!

- Always keep an eye on the caramel because it can burn very fast. Keep the peeled and cored apple quarters close to it so that you can use them immediately to stop the caramel's browning process if this goes too fast.

- When the caramel starts to get golden brown move the oven dish carefully a couple of times to make sure that the sugar caramelizes evenly and to avoid burning it. If the caramel is too dark it will be bitter.

- If you prefer apples that are very well coked and soft you can bake them in the oven for about half an hour at 200°C. Lay them in the oven dish together with the caramel.

- The rolled out dough has to be quite thick (about 5 mm) and with a broader diameter than that of the oven dish.

- Don't forget to dust the rolled out dough with some flour to avoid sticking during folding.

- The tarte Tatin goes in the oven at 200°C for about 45 minutes. The actual baking time depends on the oven you use. Check from time to time to make sure the pastry doesn't burn or get too dark.

- It's possible that the caramel flows out of the dish while in the oven. Use a flat tray or dish under the one containing the tarte Tatin to protect the bottom of your oven.

- Once the tarte Tatin is ready, let is rest for 20 – 30 minutes.

- Use oven gloves to flip the dessert onto a plate. The caramel can still be very hot and the gloves will also protect you from the steam that comes out of the dish while turning the tarte Tatin onto the plate.

- Pascal advises to eat the tarte Tatin lukewarm together with some vanilla ice-cream or a bit of quark or crème fraîche, both with no sugar since the tarte is already quite sweet.

Culinary holiday - the Tuscan cuisine

Photos of yesterday's cooking lesson over the Tuscan cuisine.

For the cantuccini recipe click on the link

 

 

Relax on the terrace before the lesson begins...

 

 

Making panzanella

 

Panzanella (Tuscan bread salad)

 

 

 Home made cantuccini

 

 

Dipping in vin santo... :)