Mango mousse with cherry topping

Ramadan kareem

Its been a while since I posted "I know....I always do that...sighs" , But I'm happy to announce that I'll be upgrading the blog into a full grown website soon and also we have just started a youTube channel where we will be posting videos of all the fun recipes we make.

   In this first Video, we will be making a delectable mango mousse. I was fasting while I made this video so I didn't get a chance to taste it until after iftar and trust me "IT WAS DELICIOUS". The texture was simply amazing, so smooth and silky...anyways let me stop praising the mousse and give you the full recipe already.

Here's what you need

For the mango mousse

1 large Mango (2 medium sized mangoes or 3 small mangoes)

3 tablespoons of sugar

1/3 cup of water

3 tablespoons of Icing sugar

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

2 tablespoons of water

2 teaspoons of gelatin

1/2 cup of soft peaked whipped cream(plus extra for topping)

For cherry topping

8-10 glace cherries

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

1/4 cup of water

Cut up your mango or mangoes, get rid of the flesh then put it in a pot. Add in 3 tablespoons of sugar and 1/3 cup of water..Boil for about 12 - 15 minutes(your mango should be very soft).

 Next you pour the soft mango in a blender, add in the icing sugar and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, blend until it is smooth (about 3 minutes).  In a small plate, pour 2 tablespoons of water and sprinkle 2 teaspoons of gelatin all over it. Let that sit for about 5 minutes to bloom then fold into warm mango puree. set that aside to cool.

For the cherry topping

  In a small plate, add in the cherries with 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, use a fork or a mortar to mash everything together. Pour the mashed cherries in a small sauce pan, add in 1/4 cup of water and heat for about a minute or two, Set aside.

     Fold in half cup of cream into the cooled mango puree. spoon the mango mousse halfway into your glasses leave it in the fridge for about 15-20 minutes to set. Once set, spoon in some of the cream and return it to the fridge to set for about 10 minutes. Once the cream is set, top it up with some more mango mousse and return it to the refrigerator.

 Time for the cherry topping, at this point, If your cherry topping is too thick, you can always add a little bit of water and take it back to the heat to dissolve it. As soon as it cools, spoon it on top of the mango mousse, you can return it to the refrigerator till you're ready to serve. 

Hope you liked this post and I hope you guys try it out since were still in mango season. Don't forget to subscribe.

stuffed crepes

Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well, I know times are hard but we just need to keep praying to God to see us and our families through and I know he will. I just started teaching a cooking and baking class and we'd obviously be going through a wide range of recipes so I thought to post a few of them on here. This is actually a cost effective recipe and a healthy one too, I mean we're basically eating vegetables except for the mayo I added, I just couldn't do plain veggies I mean the mayo just balances it out for me talk about yum!,but if you don't want the extra fat, you could skimp on the mayo or do without it completely.
   First we need to make our crepes,these are french style pancakes usually very thin, you can make them either savory or sweet but for this recipe we would make them savory i.e no sugar then we make our filling for the crepes which I already mentioned earlier consists of vegetables although it doesn't have to be, you could fill them with chicken, beef, sausages, whatever you come up with. You could also make sweet crepes by adding about 2 tablespoons of sugar to this crepes recipe, then you could fill them up with a sweet filling like peanut butter, nuttela or jam. Its all about you, its your food so can do anything with it. Its a quick, easy and time saving recipe. Hope you guys try it.

Here's what you need
For the crepes
1 cup of flour
1 cup of milk
1 egg
1/4 cup of oil
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder

For the veggie filling
About 2 cups of lettuce
3 medium sized tomatoes
6 carrots, grated
1 medium sized green bell pepper
1 medium sized red bell pepper
1 cucumber
A dash of salt and black pepper
About 3 tablespoons of mayo or to taste

First we need to make our crepes, now combine all the ingredients for the crepes in a bowl in no particular order and mix together with a whisk. See I don't have detailed pictures on this post because I didn't think I was going to put it up on the blog at first, I only decided after I was almost done making them. So sorry we don't really have pictures today but I think its pretty easy to understand even without pictures

Back to the recipe, you should mix everything together until its properly combined, your batter should be of a pretty thin consistency.
Now heat up some oil in a pan or you could just use cooking spray on the pan over medium heat, then spoon a little bit of the batter inside it, move the pan around to spread the batter evenly across it. Fry for about 1 minute and then flip over to fry on the other side. you should have a pretty thin pancake, continue to fry until you have emptied your batter. It should give you about 7-8 crepes.

Now for the filling, wash and rinse your vegetables properly, you could wash them with salt to get rid of germs In a clean blow, tear the lettuce into smaller pieces with your hands, slice your bell peppers into long and thin slices and toss in the bowl, add in your grated carrots, quarter your cucumbers i.e cut round slices of the cucumbers and then cut each slice into half, then quarter. Do the same for the tomatoes then toss in the bowl along with the rest of the veggies.

Now add in 3 tablespoons of mayo and mix together until combined then add in a dash of salt and black pepper.

Now the next step is to fill your crepes , place your crepe on a flat surface, add about 2 spoons of the filling to the edge and then roll it to seal it, its that simple. Do this for the rest of your crepes until you run out of crepes or out of the filling. If you have any leftover veggies, you could just arrange them on your plate like I did. It could be eaten as a salad and it also makes for good presentation.

Enjoy

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yummy orange bars

I am a sucker for lemon squares, the fact that they are sweet and tangy just does it for me. I think they are the perfect treat and would love to make them all the time not just because they are easy to whip up but because they are simply delicious but if you live in Lagos like me, I'm sure you know that lemons are hard to come by especially in ikorodu. Of course we can get lemons in big supermarkets like shoprite but on this afternoon, it was just a quick craving and there was no time to run to the supermarket to get lemons. did I mention that they are also very expensive?.
   Anyways, I wanted to eat these cookies so I thought of a substitute. Now oranges on the other hand are everywhere and also very cheap,you don't even have to think too much to get oranges around here thank God for that, so I decided to make orange bars. I know..why didn't I think of lime, limes are closer to lemons but I only remembered limes after I was done baking. I would definitely be trying limes next time.
   I got some oranges and got to work, trust me, they weren't half bad. They had my brothers fighting for and scraping what was left in the pan. If I'm ever out of lemons again, orange bars aren't a bad idea. They are perfect for a sunny afternoon and would go down with a nice cool drink, you can also refrigerate and keep them for a later time because they taste even better when cool. All ingredients used are easy to get no matter where you are so I hope you give this a try. Also if you happen to have lemons and want to make lemon bars instead, all you have to do is replace the orange juice in the recipe with lemon juice and orange zest with lemon zest

Here's what you need
For the cookie layer
1 and half cup of flour
A scant half cup of powdered sugar
2 tablespoons of corn flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
80 grams of oil
20 grams of water
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

For the orange layer
4 eggs
2 egg yolks
2 cups of white sugar
4 tablespoons of flour
1/2 cup of orange juice *gotten from 2 juicy oranges*
2 tablespoons of freshly grated orange zest. 

 

Measure all the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk together. In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil and water and then add it to the dry ingredients. bring together with your hands, you should have a non sticky dough like the one in the picture below.

Next you need to get a 9 inch square pan and spread your cookie dough all over it, using your hands make sure you get the dough in every corner of the pan. Once that is done, you need to get a fork and prick the dough all over to avoid rising during baking.

Now bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for about 25 minutes or until it starts to turn golden brown, set aside to cool.

Next whisk together the eggs and egg yolks, add in the sugar, flour, orange juice and orange zest and mix together

Pour the orange mixture over the cookie layer and then bake in the oven for about 30 - 35 minutes or until the orange layer sets.

You see, I left mine in the oven for a bit too long and it got a little dry as you can see from the image below. It stayed in the oven for a total of 45 minutes, God knows what I was doing. Anyways I was still able to salvage it, I scraped off the rough top of the cookie and then cut them into rectangles and voila my orange bars were ready.

So I just played around with chocolate ganache and made jello out of an orange drink to get this pretty plate below. Hope you guys like it

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light and decadent swiss roll

  Once upon a time I was interning in a bakery in Lagos, I learned quite a lot from them I must say, working in a professional bakery was a challenging experience but I did, talk about being on your feet all day and it wasn't even a paid job. I don't regret it anyways and I would probably do it again if the bakery wasn't so far from my house.
  One of the perks of working there was the fact that I got to taste a few of their new products ranging from blueberry muffins, cakes even bread..tho I'm not a fan of bread. One faithful day I saw two beautifully garnished Swiss roll logs, just sitting pretty on their trays and I couldn't take my eyes off them, "just a bite" was all I could think about. After a little while, I figured they weren't going to share so I walked away sadly. I got back to work, After a few minutes, I heard the bakery manager say "Please feel free to try out the Swiss rolls and let us know what you think", I was so excited but I contained it, I just slowly walked over to the table with others acting like I hadn't even seen the Swiss rolls, I grabbed a slice and it disappeared. Yup it melted in my mouth, I couldn't believe it. All I could think was"I have tried making Swiss rolls before now and they never tasted this good." but you know no one was going to share the recipe.
      Anyways all this happened last year...Fast forward to this year, I was watching TV and started craving something sweet, it happens like that, then I thought Swiss roll but not just any Swiss roll, the kind I had the previous year...Light, fluffy and decadent Swiss roll that just melts in your mouth.
  Of course I had made Swiss rolls in the past, the first time I tried it omg..I got the sponge right but my filling was the problem, I still had my fear of whipping cream(its when I don't whip my cream stiff enough out of fear of it breaking or I over whip it and it breaks anyway. p.s I still have that but I can control my cream better now). On this day, my cream broke apart I was a novice and I thought I could use it like that, I filled my sponge and the liquid just soaked the sponge and everything became a mess, Second time the sponge was not light but it was not so bad, at least we could eat it, the third try, I still had the same case of the heavy sponge then I decided to glaze it to make it look pretty but lets just say things didn't work out so I didn't try again.
  On this day, all I could think about was achieving the same texture. So I started researching  the whole morning and I finally found this recipe on washoku guide and something told me that was it, especially with the beautiful picture of the swiss rolls on their page. I decided to try it and I struck gold. I had achieved it, the best Swiss roll ever.

Lets get started, Here's what you'll need
For the sponge
3 eggs
80 grams of granulated sugar
60 grams of cake flour
20 grams of butter
20 grams of milk

For the filling
About a cup of  heavy cream
20-40 grams of powdered sugar
A dash of vanilla extract if you'd like

Now start by melting together your butter and milk

Measure 60grams of cake flour not 80 like the picture says. If you don't have cake flour, just do what I did, measure half a cup of all purpose flour and add 1 tablespoon of cornflour then sift together 5 times before using.

Now, no pictures because I forgot to take some but next you need to clean the bowl of your mixer properly, crack your eggs in the bowl and add in your sugar then warm them over a bowl of simmering water. mix them together until the sugar dissolves. Now get back to you mixer, attach the whisk attachment and whip up the eggs until stiff peaks form.

Now fold in your sifted flour little at a time with a rubber spatula, just folding gently

Fold until it has been properly mixed together then slowly add in your butter and milk mixture, fold properly and continue to fold for a while until your batter is shiny

By now, your batter should be ready. So go ahead and pour it onto a sheet cake pan. Now I didn't have a sheet cake pan when I made this so I just made one out of foil then put it on my oven tray.
   Next thing to do is to spread the batter evenly then tap the tray on the kitchen counter about 3 times to let out air bubbles then bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for about 6-8 minutes.

Now flip your sponge unto a piece of parchment paper that has been sprinkled with powdered sugar to avoid it sticking. you can try to scrape off the brown bits, I certainly tried but go tired so I decided to leave it alone. Its not like it was going to show anyway.

Now whip your cream or buy already whipped cream and fill your sponge with it, this next part is crucial and I also forgot to take pictures but I will try to explain comprehensively.
   Start from end close to you, using the shorter length of the sponge, spread a layer of cream on your sponge but leave about half an inch of space along the borders. Now pick up the sponge by the edge close to you and roll tightly kinda like rolling a sausage, then wrap tightly in cling film and refrigerate. Decorate as you'd like, I just piped on some leftover whipped cream and sprinkled on some chopped cherries.
Chill before you serve...Enjoy
 

It's a pasta concoction guys

My first post since march

    As you all may know, I explained or at least tried to explain why I had been absent from the blog in the previous post, feel free to read it if you haven't already. I hope it clears things up.

   Today's post is about a certain pasta or (spaghetti) dish that I made a certain type of way. I think you all are gonna love it. The first step requires you roasting your vegetables, Now this part I saw while scrolling through Instagram one day and I saw a post by awesomedishes in which she was about to prepare stew so she tossed her tomatoes and peppers in the oven for a while to infuse flavor and for a second there I was stuck staring at that particular post, who knew you roast your peppers before cooking with them. *certainly not me*. 
    Anyways after recovering from my roasted pepper shock, I thought "no way I'm gonna try this". so I got up and checked out whatever ingredients I had and decided to whip up a pasta concoction but this time, with roasted peppers.

 Here's a list of ingredients I used

•  8 medium sized tomatoes
• 11 pieces of rodo aka scotch bonnet. *you can reduce the number of scotch bonnets you use if you don't like things spicy*
• 1 small onion bulb or more if you like 
• I pack of pasta i.e whichever brand you eat.
• About a cup of shredded chicken.* boiled or grilled or even fried. leftover chicken will do just fine.
• about half a cup of dried up ugu or ugwu leaves(pumpkin leaves). * you can use fresh ugu or ugwu leaves, dried ones where what I had on ground*
• Curry
• Thyme
• Some Italian seasoning I had in my kitchen. *you can omit them if you don't have them*
• Salt
• Stock cubes 

  The first thing you need to do is wash your vegetables properly, wash your tomatoes, onions and peppers, wash them properly and cut your tomatoes in half.
 Next I lined my baking tray with foil and preheated my oven to 160°C. Now place all you have washed on you baking tray, drizzle some oil *whichever oil you choose to use, olive oil or vegetable oil* over the tomatoes and peppers.
  Also sprinkle curry and thyme over them and place your tray in the oven for about 30 minutes to 1hour. you can take them out of the oven before the 1hour is up, just make sure they get properly roasted for you to achieve the best of flavors, be careful not to burn them tho.

Here, they have been properly cleaned and arranged on the tray covered in oil, curry and thyme.

Look at those tomatoes now, after about 40 minutes, shrunken and have released a lot of juice, don't worry, it can still be used. I discovered there were a few benefits from roasting your peppers before using them in your recipes. Apart from infusing flavor, the peppers have been cooked a little which will definitely reduce your cooking time when you are finally ready to cook with them and also the smell of your kitchen will be absolutely wonderful due to the curry and thyme that has also been roasted all well. I think I just might try roasting my peppers next time I make jollof rice and let you guys know how it turns out.

Next I tossed them in my food processor with all the juice I managed to scrape off  the foil sheet, not leaving any of this pepper goodness behind.

Blend the peppers until you have a smooth paste. you can most definitely use your blender for this.

Next, pour some vegetable oil in a pan *again you can use olive oil if you are choosing to go healthy* heat it up and then toss in some chopped onions and minced garlic. sorry I don't have a picture for that part, I guess I forgot to take a picture.
    Anyways cook your onions and garlic under low heat for about three minutes until they become translucent and then add in your blended pepper mix, still under low heat, cook for about 5 minutes, remember it has been partially cooked already.
   After cooking, you can season with salt and stock cubes to your taste, reduce the heat and let it simmer. Now while sauce is simmring, you should cook your spaghetti in boiling water until it is al-dente. Al-dente means "firm to the bite" i.e it is not raw but it is not fully cooked either. just think of it like you are parboiling your spaghetti, then drain it and set it aside.

You know those Italian herbs and spices I talked about earlier, well its time to add them in. So add in a dash of parsley, sweet basil, origanum and Italian herbs. If all you have are Italian herbs, it would do just fine because it's basically a combination of all Italian seasoning. Also if you do not have any of these herbs and spices, you can leave it out.

Next I added my shredded chicken to the sauce, I didn't have any leftover chicken so I just quickly boiled about 3 chicken pieces and just tore them apart with my hands. I think I would have preferred leftover grilled chicken or maybe fried, but boiled chicken was what I could lay my hands on and it did just fine. Stir that into the sauce and also let it simmer.

Now we are almost finished, we get the parboiled spaghetti that we drained earlier and pour into our sauce, and we give it a good stir. Make sure it all nice and coated, taste to see if you need to add any extra seasoning, chances are you might need to.

 Hope we haven't forgotten about our dried ugwu or ugu(pumpkin) leaves, Now if you are satisfied with the taste of your pasta, then its time to bring these babies in, They would simply just balance your dish out for you and like I said ealier fresh ugu or ugwu leaves would do just fine. Just make sure they are finely chopped and be careful not to add too much.
    Add them in and a give it a good stir, you can take your pasta off the heat now or if you wont be comfortable you can wait for about two minutes before taking it off the heat.

Tadaa..

Here is my quick pasta dish with a pretty tomato rose garnish.. Don't worry tomatoes were not expensive when I made this dish, but nevertheless, I strongly encourage you guys to try out this recipe. Quick dishes like this that are easy to whip up would make your life so much easier and it tastes 10 times better than our regular concoction spaghetti. I think its time to switch things up. Hopefully, you guys feel the same way.