2/3 c tapioca pearls

2 c grape juice

1/4 c sugar (taste)

Cook pearls in water, until transparent. Rinse the pearls in water until it isn’t as gooey.

In a medium sauce pan bring the sugar and the grape juice to slow boil.  Add the tapioca pearls.  Let it cook for a little bit until it thickens. Let it cool, refrigerate and serve.  This makes about 4 servings. You can double the recipe, just make sure to keep an eye on the amount of juice you add.  Sometimes the tapioca thickens the juice very fast.  If you feel it necessary, you can add a little more juice.  If it is not thickening very quickly, remember it will thicken as it cools.  This all depends on how well you were able to rinse pearls. It can get really gooey!

Since it is June, I thought I would post a traditional food from the Brasilian celebration of Festa Junina.  During this party you will find many flavorful brasilian dishes made of corn, coconuts, peanuts, cassava and many others.  It is a celebration that once experienced will never be forgotten. The music, dances and costumes are definitely something to remember.  Here is a little nostalgic recipe I share with you.  Hope you like it:

Bolo de Milho Molhadinho

1 can corn (rinse and can and use it for the next measurements)

1 can of corn meal (fuba)

2 eggs

1/2 can oil

1 1/2 can sugar

1 can milk

100 grms parmesan cheese

salt

1 T baking powder

Add all ingredients into the blender.  Blend until smooth.  Butter and flower a cake pan (i used a 10 inch round cake pan).

Preheat the oven to 350.  Bake it until a tooth pick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Once the cake is done drizzle the following mixture on top:

1/2 can sweetened condensed milk

1/4 c milk

Mix well, pour on top of baked cake.  Sprinkle the cake with shredded coconut.

Other dishes you may find at Festa Juninas:

Arroz Doce

Canjica

Curau

Bolo de Fuba

Quentao  (I make it a little different, instead of cachaca I use grape juice 😉

Cocada

Amendoim Doce

Doce de Leite

Cuscuz

Pinhao Cozido

Paçoca

Bolo de Macaxeira (pros meus amigos do Norte 😉

Pipoca

May’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted – Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah!  Using recipes from all over, and tips from “A Taste of Challah,” by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.

Challah (Honey White)

(from Tammy’s Recipes) Servings: 2 loaves

Ingredients

1 ½ cups warm water separated

1 Tbsp sugar

2 Tbsp dry active yeast

½ cup honey

1 Tbsp oil (light colored vegetable oil, or olive oil if you prefer)

4 large eggs

1 ½ tsp salt

5 cups all-purpose (plain) flour, plus more as needed (up to 8 or 9 cups total)

1 egg beaten with 1 tsp. water

Directions:

1. In mixer bowl/large mixing bowl combine ½ cup warm water, 1 Tbsp. sugar and 2 Tbsp. yeast.  Allow to proof approximately 5 minutes until foamy.

2. To the yeast mixture add the remaining water, honey, oil, eggs, salt and 5 cups of flour. Knead (by hand or with your mixer’s dough hook) until smooth, adding flour as needed.  Knead for approximately 10 minutes.

3. Transfer dough to a clean, oiled bowl, turn to coat or add a bit more oil on top.  Cover bowl with a kitchen/tea towel.  Leave to rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 ½ hours.

4. Punch down the dough, divide it into two sections.  Use one half to make each loaf (shaped or braided as desired).

5. Place loaves on parchment lined or greased baking sheets, cover with a towel, allow to rise 30 minutes.

6. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

7. Brush tops loaves with egg wash.  (Sprinkle with seeds or toppings here if wanted.)

8. Bake loaves 30-40 minutes until done.

9. Cool on wire racks.

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If you know me, you know that I love to bake and decorate cakes.  Because of this hobby I usually am left with odd pieces of cakes.  Most of the time I end up making cake balls with these pieces, but this time I wanted to try something different.  Since my mom doesn’t understand English, I feel safe saying this.  Once, a long long time ago, she made a beautiful cake.  As she was moving it from the kitchen table to the fridge, the cake just collapsed.  It was a mess.  She took all the pieces and just threw everything inside of a Tupperware container.  This was the BEST cake she ever made. It had no shape or form, but it was delicious. I made this dessert inspired by this memory.  We will never forget that cake mom.

You will need:

Left over cake pieces (for this particular one I had chocolate cake and yellow cake -cuts from the top )

For the cream:

1 can sweetened condensed milk

same measure of milk

100 ml of coconut milk (if you don’t like coconut milk, just substitute this with milk)

2 egg yolks

1 T corn startch (dissolved in a little bit of water)

In a sauce pan (medium high heat), add sweetened condensed milk, milk, coconut milk and yolks.  Mix it until bubbly. Then add the dissolved corn starch. Cook until this mixture thickens up.

Divide this into two.  In on the the creams add a hand full of chocolate chips, while cream still warm, mix it to melt.

In a container, layer the creams and cakes like this: white cream, chocolate cake pieces, chocolate cream and white cake pieces. Refrigerate while you make the top.

For the top cream:

2 egg whites

4 T sugar

1 can of table cream

In a mixer, beat the whites until fluffy adding the sugar slowly.  When you have soft to hard peaks, mix in gently the table cream.

Add this to the top of reserved dessert.  Refrigerate.  You can decorate the top with chocolate or fresh fruits.

I also found out that this is really good if you freeze it for a couple of hours before serving it.  I put mine in the freezer overnight, then took it out about 1 hour before serving. It was nice, cold and delicious! Enjoy!

Cake for dinner? I wish, but not today. A classic April Fool’s Day, meatloaf cake.

For the meat loaf recipe click here: Brazilian Meat Loaf

For the cake. I used an 8 inch cake pan. Arranged 2 pieces of bacon around it. Lining the bottom and sides of pan. Then pressed some of the ground beef (like a big hamburger patty) on the bottom and a thin layer to the sides.

Added the filling: ham, cheese, boiled egg and carrots.

Covered with another layer of ground beef (thin)

2nd Filling: Salami and Cheese

Another layer of ground beef

Filling: Ham, cheese, boiled egg and carrots

Finally the last layer of ground beef.

Bake at 375 for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. When done I “frosted” it with mashed potatoes 😀

It was a fun dinner!

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

I used the bread recipe posted here : Buns in the oven

Dutch Crunch Topping

Servings: This recipe should make sufficient topping for two 9×5 loaves (23cmx13cm) or 12 rolls. If you make only 6 rolls in the first soft white roll recipe, you can cut the topping recipe in half. We’ve provided this recipe first because it is the mandatory aspect of the challenge. Note, however, that you should not prepare the topping until the bread you’ve selected to bake is almost finished rising (~15 minutes from baking).

Ingredients

2 tablespoons active dry yeast

1 cup (240 ml) warm water

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

½ teaspoon salt

1½ cups  rice flour (white or brown; NOT sweet or glutinous rice flour) (increase by 1 cup or more for home-made rice flour)

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and beat with a whisk; beat hard to combine. The consistency should be like stiff royal icing – spreadable, but not too runny. If you pull some up with your whisk, as shown below, it should drip off slowly. Add more water or rice flour as necessary. Let stand 15 minutes.

Soft White Roll

Servings:  Six sandwich rolls

Ingredients

1 tablespoon active dry yeast

¼ cup warm water (105-110º F) (No need to use a thermometer – it should feel between lukewarm and hot to the touch)

1 cup  warm milk

1½ tablespoons  sugar

2 tablespoons vegetable oil (plus additional olive or vegetable oil for greasing bowl during rising)

1½ teaspoons salt

up to 4 cups  all purpose flour

Directions:

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer or large mixing bowl, combine yeast, water, milk and sugar. Stir to dissolve and let sit for about 5 minutes (The mixture should start to bubble or foam a bit and smell yeasty).

2. Add in vegetable oil, salt and 2 cups of flour. Using the dough hook attachment or a wooden spoon, mix at medium speed until the dough comes together

3.Add remaining flour a quarter cup at time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, as shown in the photo below

4. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 4 minutes, until smooth and elastic.

5. Place in a lightly greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 1 hour, or until doubled (or more) in size

6. Once the dough has risen, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into 6 equal portions (if you’d like to make rolls) or 2 equal portions (if you’d like to make a loaf) (using a sharp knife or a dough scraper works well). Shape each into a ball or loaf and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet (try not to handle the dough too much at this point).

7. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 15 minutes while you prepare the topping.

8. Coat the top of each roll or loaf with the topping as described above. While the original recipe recommends letting them stand for 20 minutes after applying the topping, I got better results by putting them directly into the oven.

9. Once you’ve applied the topping, bake in a preheated moderately hot 375ºF for 25-30 minutes, until well browned. Let cool completely on a wire rack before eating.

I had a need to bake today. So I decided to bake some bread for dinner. This recipe is very easy and really good for burger buns, hot dog buns or hoagie rolls.  Hope you enjoy it.

1 cup milk

1/2 cup water

4 T butter

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (plus a little more to dust the surface)

1 T instant dry yeast

2 T white sugar

1 1/2 t salt

1 egg

In a sauce pan, warm up the milk, water and butter.  Don’t let it get too hot, just warm to the touch. Set aside

In a mixing bowl, add 2 1/2 c flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Add the milk mixture and the egg. Mix it adding in the rest of the flour little by little (I usually add 1/4 c at the time while mixing it).  Turn this onto a floured surface and kneed it until it forms a ball.  This dough will be a little wet, just keep kneading it but don’t add too much more flour to it.

Set it back in the bowl and let it rise for about 30-35 minutes (or until it doubles the size)

Punch it to let out the gas and divide into 12 balls.  Roll the balls for hamburger buns. Pinch the back and flatten them just a little bit.

For hot dog shape each ball into a rectangle (6×4 inches or so). Roll them up tightly, and pinch edges and ends to seal.

Set them into a greased pan and let them rise for another 30-40 minutes.  Bake at 400 for about 20 -25 minutes.

Yummy with brasilian sausage and tomato salad!

This is a Brasilian classic dish. You will always see a version of this pie during parties or get togethers.  It is simple and easy to make. I also like it because you can pretty much use wherever you want as a filling. For this one I used ham and cheese.

For the dough:

2 eggs

1/2 c oil

2 c milk

1 c flour

3 T corn starch

1/2 t salt

1/2 T baking powder

1 c parmesan cheese

Blend it all together.  Mix it with fillings and pour into a oiled 9×13 casserole dish. Bake until done, about 45 minutes.

For the filling I used:

1 lb cubed ham

1 lb cubed cheese

1 can peas

1 can corn

oregano

You can pretty much add anything you want to fill this pie. You can make a vegetable only with shredded carrots, onions, tomatoes, green onions. Another one that is very common is one with shredded chicken and cheese, or sardines and peas.  Those are combinations you will find in these “blender” pies in brasil.

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own.  She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

Basic Quick Bread

Makes one 9” x 5” (23×13 cm) loaf Recipe from Sara Schewe

2 cups all-purpose (plain) flour

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon table salt

1 cup buttermilk or soured milk*

1 large egg

1/4 cup mild- or non-flavored oil, like canola

1 teaspoon flavored extract, such as vanilla or almond

for the glaze 1/3 cup  confectioners’ (icing) sugar

1-2 teaspoons milk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to moderate 350ºF. Grease a 9×5 inch (23×13 centimeter) loaf pan with butter and line with parchment paper cut to fit the length and width of the pan, with enough overhang to allow easy removal after baking. Grease the top sheet of parchment.
2. In large bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking soda and salt to combine. Make a well in the center and set aside.
3. Lightly whisk (butter)milk, egg, oil, and extract to combine. Pour into well and stir until just mixed into a batter. The batter will be lumpy and may still show a few streaks of flour.
4. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely before slicing. Drizzle with glaze, if desired.
5. For the glaze: Slowly whisk confectioners’ (icing) sugar and half of the milk, adding more milk as needed to thin the glaze to the desired consistency

I made this recipe but instead of milk I used the juice from maraschino cherries.

Green Onion, Cheddar & Asiago Beer Batter Bread (made with ginger ale)

Makes one 9” x 5” (23 x 13 cm) loaf Adapted from Recipe Girl’s Cheddar Chive Beer Batter Bread

Ingredients

1 tablespoon oil

1 cup sliced green onion

3 cups all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon  salt

1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

½ cup  grated Asiago cheese

One (12 fl oz/355 ml) (about 1½ cups) bottle beer (such as amber ale) *I used a can of ginger ale instead of beer

¼ cup  butter, melted and divided

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to moderately hot  375°F. Spray 9”×5″ (23 x 13 cm) loaf pan with cooking spray.
2. Heat olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add green onion and sauté 3-4 minutes or until tender. Cool to room temperature.
3. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl; make a well in the center of the mixture. Add onion, cheeses, and beer. Stir just until moist.

4.  Spoon batter into prepared pan. Drizzle evenly with 2 tablespoons of butter. Bake for 35 minutes; brush with remaining 2 tablespoons butter. Bake an additional 23 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.