Tocino de cielo

I who am always toiling and endeavouring
to seem that I have as a poet
the grace that Heaven did not grant me…

Miguel de Cervantes, Journey to Parnassus, 1614

Tocino de Cielo

Makes 24 small moulds (4 cms diameter) or a large pan (to serve 8):

12 egg yolks
300 g sugar
250 ml water

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC.
Bring the water to boil with the sugar for 5 minutes or until it reaches 103-105ºC.
Coat the inside of the moulds with this syrup and set aside the remaining syrup.*
Whisk the egg yolks and gently pour the remaining syrup stirring constantly.
Seive.
Pour the mixture into the moulds and cover with aluminum foil.
Bake in a bain-marie for 40 minutes or until a needle comes out clean.
Unmould when cold.

* you could make a caramel to coat the moulds and use all the syrup in the egg mixture.

November 4, 2008 | Filed under desserts, puddings and soufflés, petit-fours | 8 Comments

At full throttle and low heat…

Today I didn’t wanted to wake up… I wish I could stay at bed all the morning…
I’ve forced me to sleep with my eyes sutted in full conviction, despite the fact that I was an early riser during all summer!…

I love to wake up early, I love to make use of my mornings that are the most beautiful part of the day to me. I love to be able to do millions of things and I’m not used to wake up late…

But, tomorrow I’ll start my Master course and my days will be totally busy…
I’m feeling super happy and anxious to learn new things but the fact that I wouldn’t be able to stay in bed for “five minutes more” made me spent my last day of vacations in a deep lazy mood!

The uniform is perfectly ironed: the huge chef’s jacket, the “pied-poule” pants, the enormous apron (I don’t know why everyone thinks that every chef must be big and fat?!eheh).

The white shoes, a size bigger than my feet are already in the house’s hall together with the mandatory white socks… everything gently placed by Miguel (yes… since our arrival he washes and irons my uniform everyday) for my return to school!

With this new moment of my life I must run at full throttle and I’m forced to leave the blog at “low heat”…

Desserts will keep to make their appearance here as I have a huge stock of made and photographed recipes for emergency cases… I’ll just have to slow down a bit a try to focus more on quality here.

I also won’t have much time to comment on other blogs or to answer so quickly to my emails but I’ll try hard to keep visiting my favourite blogs!

Now I stop and take a deep breath … I want to be the first at the finish line!

November 3, 2008 | Filed under journal | 3 Comments

How many cookies?

Cookies were counted as we were eating them… numbers were bitten, one by one, in such a delicious amount the we lost track of it…

Sweet potato cookies

Makes 60-70 (12g each):

500 g sugar
500 g sweet potato, pureed
125 g grinded almonds
4 egg yolks
24 g butter
Cinnamon

Pre-heat the oven to 180º C.
Bring the sugar to boil with some water until it reaches 117ºC.
Add the sweet potato and almonds and stir.
Let it cool down a little and add butter, cinnamon and the whisked egg yolks.
Bring the mixture to medium heat stirring constantly until thick (when you pass a spoon through the mixture you should be able to see the bottom of the pan).
Let it cool down.
With your greased hands make small balls and place them on a baking sheet.
Sprinkle with icing sugar and bake for 20-30 minutes.