Mango Sticky Rice – Thai-style Dessert!
October 2, 2011 § Leave a comment
Happy October everyone!
Back with a vengeance, and starting it off is a delicious Thai dessert – Mango Sticky Rice, or Kow Neuw Mamuang. This is one of those dishes that I always saw on my local Thai restaurant’s menu, but never really got a chance to try. Finally, one extremely hungry day, I ordered my noodles and this dessert and I am so glad I did because it is SO good.
It’s not too sweet, very fresh and light, and overall super satisfying. I looked up some recipes online and decided it didn’t look TOO challenging to try at home, and it definitely wasn’t. I highly encourage you to try this, this is a really beautiful dish and has a lovely presentation (perfect for those dinner parties!).
Though this is super simple, it does require some planning because you need to soak the sweet rice in water overnight to get that perfect chewy texture when it comes time to assemble the dish. Other than that, it takes about thirty minutes to prepare the rest of the dessert.
Notes:
1. Depending on how sweet your mangoes are, adjust your sugar level to your likening. I don’t like overly-sweet desserts so a little less than 1/4 cup was perfect for my tastes.
2. You must use glutinous sticky rice, you cannot use regular rice with a lot of water.
Mango Sticky Rice
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups sticky rice (I used short-grain, you can use any type of glutinous rice for this)
- 1 13.5 ounce can of unsweetened coconut milk
- 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons white sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 ripe mangoes
Directions
- Rinse the rice a few times and soak it in water, overnight. In a bind, you can probably get away with soaking for at least one hour, but steaming for much longer.
- Rinse the rice one last time and drain carefully. Place in a steamer lined with a cheesecloth and steam for 20-25 minutes.
- While the rice is steaming, stir one cup of coconut milk and 1/4 cup of sugar and salt together in a small pot, on low heat until the sugar is dissolved. Turn off the heat.
- Once the rice is finished, taste to see if it is chewy and to your liking. If it is undercooked, it will taste crispy and gross. Transfer to a large bowl that has a lid.
- Pour the sweetened coconut milk mixture into the bowl with the rice and mix well so that all the rice is coated. Cover and set aside for 20 minutes for the rice to soak up the milk.
- With the remaining coconut milk, heat on a low simmer with two tablespoons of sugar until the liquid evaporates by one half.
- Peel mangoes carefully and cut into two big halves. Slice each half very thinly, around 2-3 mL thick so that you can make cool shapes with it easily when you plate.
- Using a small custard mold, pour a tablespoon of the sauce into it and coat the inside, then pour out the remaining sauce. Add a few tablespoons of rice to the mold and pack it in, and then carefully transfer the mold of rice onto your serving plate. Then, add your mangoes in any shape you’d like!
- Enjoy!
Coffee Cake (The Best Ever.)
September 6, 2011 § 2 Comments
Happy week everyone!
I just came back from a beautiful, relaxing weekend away in Martha’s Vineyard, which is one of my favorite places on earth. My friend and I took the ferry directly from NYC to Oak Bluffs, which was surprisingly lovely. Yes, the two hours of choppy ocean-waves are a bit too much to stomach at times, but it’s nothing that a few glasses of wine can’t cure! My dearest friends from college and I went to our favorite places, picked up some great end-of-summer deals, and ate delicious food. It wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world if we “accidentally” missed our ferry back… 🙂 Thanks again to my lovely Protrap. 😉
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well!
Coffee cake:
1. Surprisingly has zero coffee in it! It’s called coffee cake because it goes so dang well with coffee.
2. This coffee cake is actually sinful. It’s so good. And you might eat the whole thing by accident.
3. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
Ridiculously Delicious Coffee Cake, The Best Ever Perhaps Recipe
From the Pioneer Woman
Ingredients
- FOR THE CAKE:
- 1-1/2 stick Butter, Softened
- 2 cups Scant Sugar
- 3 cups Flour, Sifted
- 4 teaspoons Baking Powder
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 1-1/4 cup Whole Milk
- 3 whole Egg Whites, Beaten Until Stiff
- _____
- FOR THE TOPPING:
- 1-1/2 stick Butter, Softened
- 3/4 cups Flour
- 1-1/2 cup Brown Sugar
- 2 Tablespoons Cinnamon
- 1-1/2 cup Pecans, Chopped
Preparation Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat egg whites and set aside.
Cream butter and sugar. Add flour mixture and milk alternately until combined. Don’t overbeat. Fold in beaten egg whites with a rubber spatula. Spread in a well-greased 9 x 13 (or LARGER!) baking pan. A cake pan with higher sides would be best.
In a separate bowl, combine topping ingredients with a pastry cutter until crumbly. Sprinkle all over the top.
Bake for 45 minutes, or until no longer jiggly. Serve warm—delicious!
Vanilla Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting (Perfection!!)
July 20, 2011 § 4 Comments
I found it. FINALLY. The perfect vanilla cake-recipe.
I’ve had some disappointments in the past – the recipes I tried were a little too dense, a little too coarse, a little too dry, etc. But this, everyone, this is the absolute perfect combination of moist, light, and fluffines that will blow your mind.
Cupcakes are my major weakness. I immediately want one even after I hear the word “cupcake” being said, so the other day when I ordered 3-dozen cupcakess from Billy’s Bakery for our best-selling book’s Publisher, I knew I had to satisfy my need. And I did. (A little too much.)
I am a fan of most bakery’s cupcakes in the city – Magnolia, Buttercream Bake Shop, tbsp, and Sugar Sweet Sunshine. I want to try all of them!
Frosting:
1. I love a light, whipped frosting so I highly recommend this one. I’m also a little paranoid lately about all the artificial chemicals in food-coloring so I made my own using crushed cherry-juice. I think it was worth it and looks decent!
2. I know there’s an insane amount of pictures, but it’s because I think cupcakes are so dang cute.
Stephanie’s Vanilla Cupcake Recipe
Makes 18 Cupcakes
Total preparation and cooking time: 1 hour
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1 heaping tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- pinch of salt
- 1 1/2 (1 1/4 cup) sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tbsp vegetable or canola oil
- 1/4 cup of milk
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350.
- In a large bowl, combine your dry ingredients – flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- Using a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until nice and fluffy, around 2-3 minutes.
- Add vanilla, mix 1 minute.
- Add eggs, one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each one. Mixture might look curdled, it’s all good!
- Add milk and oil, mix well.
- Add flour mixture in 2-3 installments, and mix until JUST combined. Over-mixing = death of a light, moist cake.
- Line your cupcake pans with cupcake liners, and add around 2 heaping tablespoons of batter to each. They should look around 2/3-3/4 full. Don’t put too much batter or else it will spill out of the pan.
- Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes, mine took 19 minutes exactly.
- COOL COMPLETELY BEFORE FROSTING OR ELSE YOU WILL HAVE A FROSTING DISASTER!
Buttercream Frosting Recipe
Adapted from Billy’s Bakery
Ingredients
- 1/2 stick butter, room temperature
- 2 cups confectioner’s sugar
- 2 tbsp milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- Juice of 1 crushed cherry (optional)
Directions
- In a stand-mixer, cream butter until smooth – around 3 minutes.
- Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, milk, and vanilla. Mix until desired consistency.
- I frosted half with white frosting, and half using the crushed-cherry-tinted ones. Go crazy!
Ice Cream Mania – Earl Grey, Green Tea, and Coffee Ice Cream
July 11, 2011 § 5 Comments
Earl Grey Ice Cream Recipe
Adapted from MAC&CHEESE Review
Ingredients
- 1 cup reduced fat 2% milk
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 8 Earl Grey Tea Bags
- 5 large egg yolks
Directions
- Warm the milk, cream, and sugar in a saucepan. Remove from heat, place tea bags in the pan, cover and steep at room temperature for an hour. Squeeze them so that the excess flavor is released. Remove tea bags.
- Rewarm tea-infused milk. Whisk egg yolks together in a separate bowl.Slowly pour the milk mixture into the bowl with egg yolks, whisking constantly.
- Return the milk and egg mixture to the saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring and scrapping the bottom of the pan constantly until the mixture thickens to a custard and coats the spatula. (About 8-10 minutes.)
- Cool the mixture by refrigerating overnight. Freeze in your ice cream maker the next day, and then put into a freezer-friendly container and let it chill in the freezer for at least two hours (preferably overnight). Enjoy!
Green Tea Ice Cream Recipe
Adapted from David Lebovitz
Ingredients
- 1 cup reduced fat 2% milk
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 3/4 cup sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 4 teaspoons green tea (matcha) powder
- 5 large egg yolks
Directions
- Warm the milk, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Pour the cream into a large bowl and whisk in the matcha. Set a mesh strainer on top.
- In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
- Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula.
- Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream, then whisk it vigorously until the custard is frothy to dissolve the matcha.
- Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Enjoy!
Coffee Ice Cream Recipe
Adapted from David Lebovitz
Ingredients
- 1 cup reduced fat 2% milk
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 cups whole coffee beans or ground coffee (decaf unless you want the caffeine in your ice cream)
- 5 large egg yolks
Directions
- Heat the milk, sugar, whole coffee beans, salt, and 1/2 cup of the cream in a medium saucepan until it is quite warm and steamy, but not boiling. Once the mixture is warm, cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour. If using ground coffee, strain through a cheesecloth into a large bowl.
- Pour the remaining 1 cup of cream into a medium size metal bowl, set on ice over a larger bowl. Set a mesh strainer on top of the bowls. Set aside.
- Reheat the milk and coffee mixture, on medium heat, until again hot and steamy (not boiling!). In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Slowly pour the heated milk and coffee mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly so that the egg yolks are tempered by the warm milk, but not cooked by it. Scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
- Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof, flat-bottomed spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula so that you can run your finger across the coating and have the coating not run. This can take about 10 minutes.
- Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Press on the coffee beans in the strainer to extract as much of the coffee flavor as possible. Then discard the beans. Stir until cool.
- Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
- Enjoy!
Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
June 12, 2011 § 1 Comment
STRAWBERRY MANIA!
In honor of my darling Serena’s birthday, I baked these cupcakes for her “surprise” dinner at Tartinery. Happy 26th doll!
Notes:
1. Don’t add too much of the chunky strawberry sauce to the frosting, try adding *only* the “chunks” of strawberry and as little liquid as possible. I unfortunately didn’t do this, so it watered down my frosting so much so I couldn’t pipe it how I wanted to!
2. So now to completely go against #1, please DO add as much liquid as possible when filling each cupcake batter with the chunky strawberry sauce, and don’t be afraid to really pour it in. The cupcakes are a little dry without the extra boost from the sauce, so definitely feel free to add a heaping teaspoon of the sauce + liquid.
3. I reduced the sugar amount in the cupcake recipe below by 1/2 cup already, which was perfect for me, but if you have a sweet tooth, add 1/2 cup more.
Chunky Strawberry Sauce Recipe
- 1 1/2 pounds strawberries, washed, hulled, and cut into large dice
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (from 1 medium lemon)
- 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- Place strawberries and sugar in a medium, nonreactive saucepan and stir until strawberries are coated in sugar. Mash with a potato masher until about half of the strawberries are completely smashed but some medium-sized chunks remain, about 1 minute.
- Place the pan over high heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until bubbles form along the pan’s edge, about 5 minutes. Skim any foam from the surface of the sauce with a spoon and discard. Add lemon zest and juice, stir to combine, and bring to a full boil, cooking until foam coats the surface, about 2 minutes.
- Remove from heat and skim and discard the foam. Let the sauce cool to room temperature. Transfer to a container with a tightfitting lid and refrigerate for up to 3 weeks.
Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe
- 12 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar, sifted
- 1/3 cup Chunky Strawberry Sauce
- 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Place all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat at low speed until the sugar and strawberries are incorporated, about 15 seconds.
- Increase speed to medium high and beat until the frosting is light and whipped, about 3 to 4 minutes. Refrigerate in a container with a tightfitting lid until ready to use. When ready to use, beat the refrigerated frosting in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment for 1 to 2 minutes until it reaches the desired spreading consistency.
Strawberry-Filled Cupcakes Recipe
INGREDIENTS
2 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), at room temperature
1 cups granulated sugar
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
2 large eggs, at room temperature
3/4 cup whole milk, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup Chunky Strawberry Sauce
Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
1. Heat the oven to 350°F and arrange a rack in the middle. Line 2 (12-well) muffin pans with paper cupcake liners; set aside.
2. Place the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and whisk to aerate and break up any lumps; set aside.
3. Place the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat on medium-high speed until light in color, about 3 minutes. Add the sugar and continue beating until the mixture is light in color and airy, about 3 minutes.
4. Stop the mixer and scrape down the paddle and the sides of the bowl. On medium speed, add the egg whites 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. Next add the eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
6. On low speed, slowly add the milk and vanilla and mix until combined (the mixture will look curdled). Add the reserved flour mixture and mix until just combined, about 15 seconds.
7. Fill each muffin well about three-quarters full. Using a spoon, create a small indentation in the batter by slightly spreading it from the middle out toward the edges. Measure 1 heaping teaspoon of the strawberry sauce and place the back of the teaspoon inside the indentation. Rotate the spoon, letting the sauce slide into the indentation. Repeat in each well.
8. Bake the cupcakes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18 to 20 minutes. Set the pans on wire racks and let cool for 5 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from the pans and let cool completely on the wire racks before frosting.
my golden hour 