Lemon, Pistachio and Millet Cakes

The one thing I am really enjoying about eating gluten-free is all the new grains and flours I get to experiment with. I have actually been baking much more now than I did before. Everyday, we try something new. I am running out of space in my pantry for all the flours and new ingredients I have been baking with. It was only a couple of years ago when my friend Jill was asking me to start baking more allergen-free desserts. I suppose I should have listened better.



I have made these lemon, pistachio and millet cakes about a dozen times now. I am not exaggerating. They are moist, light, full of citrus flavor and the crumb is amazing with all the green pistachios in there. I cannot get enough of them and I try to keep some in the freezer for those times that we have a cake craving or need a treat to pack for the day.

My parents are coming tonight and I saved some of these for them for tomorrow morning. Breakfast is our favorite meal of the day when my mom and I seat down and enjoy every morsel. I think she will be pleased with these.



I also wanted to share with you a little interview I did with Kate Manchester for Edible Radio last week. I was very nervous and I think it shows. I always get nervous speaking in public, even if it's over the phone. You can listen to the full interview here.

Gluten Free Lemon, Pistachio and Millet Cakes

Makes about 14 regular size cupcakes plus 20 mini tea cakes

115 grams butter
180 grams sugar
Zest 2 lemons
2 eggs
80 grams yogurt
80 grams millet flour
70 grams pistachio meal
30 grams sweet rice flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt

Cream the butter, sugar and lemon zest together until light. Add the eggs one at a time and scrape the bowl well. Add the yogurt and mix until all ingredients are well incorporated. Add all the dry ingredients and mix until it comes together.

Scoop the batter into the cupcake cups or pipe into mini tea cake pan. Bake at 350F until done.

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Lemon, Pistachio and Millet Cakes

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Coconut and Lemon Cream Balls for Project Wedding

It has been so hot and humid here that we have been spending most of our time in the pool and away from the scorching heat. These are the times when I really miss my summers back home. My mom tells me about the long walks she takes in the cool mornings and the afternoons at the cafe... and all I want to do is jump on an airplane and head home. Just reading about Bea's trip to her hometown brought tears to my eyes. So beautiful and so similar to my upbringing.




But before I get too nostalgic, let me tell you about my latest contribution for Project Wedding. The theme this time was DIY edible wedding favors, so I decided to go with a simple cookie that takes no time to make and is not too fragile. These are moist coconut cookies scented with a bit of lemon and filled with a coconut and lemon buttercream.

You can read the full article and recipe here. Hope you like it!



Finally, I must thank all of you for your kind words about my portfolio. It's great to see all the time I invested paid off and that it has been well received. Thank you again!

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Coconut and Lemon Cream Balls for Project Wedding

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Raspberries N' Cream Dessert Table

One of the best things about summer is probably the abundant fruit. When I was approached by Project Wedding to develop and photograph a summer dessert, I immediately envisioned something with berries, fresh and colorful. Here is the raspberries and cream themed dessert table with raspberry and yogurt mousse cakes, raspberries and cream macarons and raspberry meringue kisses.




You can get the recipes and read the rest of the story here.



Hope you like it!

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Raspberries N' Cream Dessert Table

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Raspberry and Pink Peppercorn Macarons and a Little Giveaway

Every time I go home, I come back with a spare suitcase full of food and ingredients. This time was no different. A few blocks of Idiazabal cheese, over a dozen large cans of tuna in olive oil, jars of cooked beans, spices, recycled yogurt containers and a large bag of freeze-dried raspberry powder. This was a bit of a surprise since this is not a common ingredient in our traditional cuisine, but a good surprise nevertheless.

So this week when I had a request for macarons, I decided to put it to good use and pair it with the sweet and delicate spiciness of pink peppercorns.



Last year, I made pink peppercorns macarons served with strawberry sorbet that ended up being a hit.

If you have never had red berries with a touch of pepper, you should definitely try it. It adds a new dimension and brings out the flavors. The pink peppercorns are so mild that when mixed with the sweet buttercream and the raspberry macarons shell, it just becomes more like an aromatic layer rather than a spicy flavor. Hard to explain, but definitely a must-try. Even my little guy loved them and he is a picky one.



You can definitely make your own raspberry powder by drying some fresh raspberries and processing them, but this stuff I brought back is very, very fine with an amazing red color.

I will be sharing some of it with you. All you have to do is leave a comment from now until Friday June 5th and I will be choosing the random lucky number over the weekend. And maybe I will throw a couple of more goodies in there as well. Good luck!



Raspberry Macarons

140 grams egg whites
3 grams egg white powder
80 grams sugar
180 grams almond flour
240 grams powdered sugar
2 grams salt
7 grams freeze-dried raspberry powder
2 drops red food coloring

Make sure that the egg whites have been separated from the egg yolks at least the night before. This bit of aging really makes a difference in the macarons.

In a large bowl, sift together the almond flour, powdered sugar, sea salt and raspberry powder. Set aside.

Whip the egg whites with the egg white powder until very fluffy, almost fully whipped. Start adding the sugar slowly while whipping. Add the red food coloring and continue whipping to stiff peaks.

Add the dry ingredients to the meringue and fold with a spatula until a shiny mass forms. We want to achieve a batter that makes ribbons. You might have to test it to see if it's done. Pipe a small amount on your sheetpan. If it keeps a little bit of a top when piped, then you have to mix it a bit further, if it spreads really fast, you have gone too far and your macarons will turn out flat.

When you have the right consistency, place the mass in a pastry bag with a number 5 tip and pipe small rounds onto sheetpans lined with parchment or silpat. Let them dry at room temperature for at least 45 minutes to an hour. The tops must be dry when you touch them.

Have the oven preheated to 350F degrees. Place one sheetpan in the oven at a time and reduce the temperature to 300F degrees. Bake for 8 minutes and rotate sheetpan and bake for another 5 minutes.

Let the macarons cool on the sheetpan.

Pink Peppercorn Buttercream

100 grams egg whites
200 grams sugar
300 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
2 tsp (or to taste) finely ground pink peppercorns

In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together egg whites and the sugar lightly. Place over a water bath until sugar is dissolved and the mixture is warm to the touch. Bring bowl to the electric mixer and whip until stiff peaks form.

Continue whipping until the bowl feels cool. Add butter, a tablespoon at a time while whipping. It might look like it is separating but continue whipping and it will come together.

Add the ground pink peppercorns and taste.

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Raspberry and Pink Peppercorn Macarons and a Little Giveaway

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Kids, Raspberry Cupcakes and Traveling Home

This weekend we are leaving for a two week trip home. I will be traveling alone with our little one and then C. will join us a week later. I have always been one to travel light and never took long to pack and go. Things have changed now, so the days before we travel overseas, I have to make sure I have everything in place so that we have a successful, smooth trip.

It has been busy around here, but I wanted to make sure we had one last play date with our good friend S. Blowing bubbles, balloons, spring weather and of course, cupcakes.



When Jill was here, she introduced me to xylitol. I had seen it at Whole Foods before, but never baked with it. Because I always try to cook and bake very healthy for kids, I decided to make the cupcakes with xylitol and fresh raspberries.

I didn't notice much of a difference once the cupcakes were baked. Xylitol is coarser than granulated sugar so when creaming the butter, there is a slight difference and perhaps doesn't become as fluffy, but the final product had great texture and what's most important, no after taste.



I will be blogging during this trip and will keep updating with photos from our trip. We will be definitely eating here, shopping here, visiting here and hopefully, watching this. I hope the weather helps. The Basque Country in Spring can be quite unpredictable!



Raspberry Cupcakes

adapted from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

4 oz butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups xylitol
2 cups self rising flour
1 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 egg whites
1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries

Cream the butter and xylitol for about 3 minutes. Add vanilla extract and mix. While continuing to mix, add the flour and milk alternatively, finishing with the milk. Mix until incorporated.

Separately, whip the egg whites to semi stiff peaks and fold them into the batter gently. Fold in the raspberries.

Divide the batter amongst 24 baking cups and bake at 350 for about 14 minutes until done.

Vanilla Buttercream

150 grams of egg whites
300 grams of granulated sugar
450 grams of room temperature unsalted butter
1 Tbs vanilla extract
Natural red food coloring

In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together egg whites and the sugar lightly. Place over a water bath until sugar is dissolved and the mixture is hot to the touch. It will look like light marshmallow.

Bring bowl to the electric mixer and whip until stiff peaks form and the bottom of the bowl feels cool.

Add butter, a tablespoon at a time while whipping. It might look like it is curdling at one point but continue to whip until it comes together.

Add vanilla extract and red food coloring and mix until incorporated.

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Kids, Raspberry Cupcakes and Traveling Home

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Lemon Cream Cookies for Jill

As I told you in my last post, my best friend Jill and her son Connor are staying with us for a few days. For years now, Jill has been obsessed with anything citrus, particularly lemons. She lives in Colorado so she never really gets to taste anything I make, but when she reads on my blog that I made something with lemon or even lemon and pistachio, I get a text message saying "you are killing me!".



Jill loves the lemon cream shortbreads that Whole Foods sells under their Bakery line. It's her little addiction, so of course, when we went to Whole Foods a couple of days ago, she had to get a box. I wanted to explain to her that those can be so easy to make and even wanted to challenge her to do a blind tasting between my lemon cream cookies and them.

Even C. got involved. I placed the store-bought cookies on one plate and mine on another. It only took two bites and they made up their minds. You can imagine the rest. Oh... these two really know how to make me happy!



The filling is swiss buttercream that is flavored with lemon zest, lemon oil and sandwiched between two lemon spritz cookies. The cookies are piped into rosettes and baked to a light golden brown. They are very buttery and crumbly and in my opinion, they get better the following day.



Lemon Spritz Cookies

110 grams butter, room temperature
90 grams sugar
3 egg yolks
1/4 tsp lemon oil
Zest of 1 lemon
180 grams flour
2 grams salt

Cream the butter, sugar, lemon zest and lemon oil together until well combined. Add the yolks and mix until combined. Add the flour and salt and mix.

Place the soft dough into a pastry bag fitted with a star tip. Pipe rosettes onto a sheetpan lined with parchment paper.

Bake at 350F for about 12 minutes or until lightly golden.

Let them cool completely and fill with the lemon buttercream.

Lemon Buttercream

75 grams egg whites
150 grams sugar
225 grams butter, room temperature
Zest of 2 lemons
1/2 tsp lemon oil
Juice of 1 lemon

Place the egg whites and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Place the bowl over a double boiler. Whisk the egg whites and sugar until the sugar starts to melt and the egg whites appear very white and light, almost like a light marshmallow. It should be very hot to the touch.

Remove the bowl from the heat and place in electric mixer. Whip until meringue forms and the bowl feels cool.

Add the softened butter one tablespoon at a time. Add the juice, oil and zest. It might appear as the buttercream is separating. Continue whipping until it comes together.

Post Script- I am so sorry to be missing this month's Daring Bakers challenge. I have been so busy... lame excuse, I know. I will be here next month though. I promise. Please check out what other DBers have been up to.

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Lemon Cream Cookies for Jill

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Turron Macarons and some Christmas Memories

Growing up, one of the first things that really signaled the beginning of Christmas season was the display of all the different varieties of turron on the shelves of grocery stores, pastry shops and pantries. Turron duro is a hard nougat covered in wafer paper and normally comes from Alicante. Turron blando on the other hand, is a soft paste also made with ground almonds, honey and sugar and this usually comes from Jijona.

My fondest memories come from sitting down in my family's pastry shop and watching everyone peel the blanched almonds for the turron by hand. Sacks and sacks of almonds were ordered, blanched, peeled and ground by hand in the pastry kitchen right before Christmas. We all helped as much as we could, even us kids. This was a very busy time and still is, with tons and tons of holiday orders to fill. My family still makes turron every year and how I wish I could be there to help.




So I really wanted to make some macarons with those flavors in mind. Although I have talked about making nougat in this blog several times already, I did not make the turron this time since it is available in our store straight from Spain. I made a paste by grinding it in the food processor and mixed it in with buttercream to create a nutty and creamy filling for the macarons. I hope you try them.



Turron Macarons

180 grams almond flour
245 grams powdered sugar
140 grams egg whites
3 grams egg white powder
2 grams of finely ground sea salt
80 grams granulated sugar
edible gold luster or chopped almonds for the topping

In a large bowl, sift together the almond flour, powdered sugar and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the egg white and the egg white powder. Whip in medium speed until egg whites start to increase in volume. When the egg whites are almost fully whipped and very fluffy, slowly start adding the sugar. After all the sugar is incorporated, continue to whip the meringue in high speed now until semi stiff peaks have formed. Add the food coloring now and whip.

Add the sifted dry ingredients to the meringue. Fold until we achieve a shiny mass that is a bit runny but still leaves ridges. We are looking for a mass that spreads a little but not too much otherwise our macaroons will be flat. Test a couple to see if you need to mix some more.

Pipe the mass onto half sheet pans lined with silpats. Sprinkle the wet macaroons with chopped almonds or edible gold luster. Let the macarons sit at room temperature for about 45 minutes so they dry. We want the tops to not stick to our finger when we touch them. This will ensure a crack-free macaroon.

Preheat oven to 350F. We will bake one sheetpan at a time. When you are ready to bake the first one, lower the oven temperature to 300F. Bake for 10 minutes. Rotate and bake for another 8 minutes or so. Check to see if they are done by lifting one from the silicon mat. It's ok if they stick a bit, but just a bit. As they cool on the hot sheetpan, they continue to dry. It's a matter of trial and error.

Turron Buttercream

50 grams egg whites
100 grams sugar
150 grams butter, room temperature
50 grams of turron paste

In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together egg whites and the sugar lightly. Place over a water bath until sugar is dissolved and the mixture is warm to the touch. Bring bowl to the electric mixer and whip until stiff peaks form. Add butter, a tablespoon at a time while whipping. It might seem like the buttercream breaks, but continue whipping as it will come together. Add the turron paste and mix until combined.

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Turron Macarons and some Christmas Memories

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Daring Bakers, Shuna and Her Caramel Cake

It is time once again for the monthly Daring Bakers challenge, which I am very excited about because it comes from none other than pastry chef extraordinaire, Shuna Fish Lydon. Shuna has an amazing curriculum as a pastry chef and is the voice behind the blog Eggbeater, one of my daily reads. Her blog is filled with intelligent social and culinary commentary, photography and modern poetry. I had the pleasure to meet Shuna earlier this year and got a glimpse of where her artistry comes from.

When I learned we would be making her caramel cake for this month's challenge, I was jumping up and down with joy because this cake had so much buzz around it. This is what I would call a true American cake. Sweet, moist and buttery.




I really wanted to be true to the recipe as it was presented to us and the only small addition was a bit of orange zest to the cake batter. I wanted to play around with the decorations in the cake and I ended up making two versions of it. The first one is surrounded by baked meringue sticks and decorated with candied orange slices and pulled caramel paper. The second one is decorated with piped buttercream dots, candied orange, chocolate shavings and poured caramel.



All recipes by Shuna Fish Lydon

Caramel Syrup

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup water (for "stopping" the caramelization process)

In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber.

When color is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back.

Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.}

Caramel Cake

10 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/4 Cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 Cup Caramel Syrup (see recipe below)
2 each eggs, at room temperature
splash vanilla extract
2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter one tall (2 – 2.5 inch deep) 9-inch cake pan.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and salt & cream until light and fluffy. Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed. Add eggs/vanilla extract a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.

Sift flour and baking powder. Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half of the milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then the other half of the milk and finish with the dry ingredients. {This is called the dry, wet, dry, wet, dry method in cake making. It is often employed when there is a high proportion of liquid in the batter.}

Take off mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Turn batter into prepared cake pan.

Place cake pan on cookie sheet or 1/2 sheet pan. Set first timer for 30 minutes, rotate pan and set timer for another 15-20 minutes. Your own oven will set the pace. Bake until sides pull away from the pan and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cake completely before icing it.

Cake will keep for three days outside of the refrigerator.

Caramelized Butter Frosting

12 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound confectioner’s sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-4 tablespoons caramel syrup
Kosher or sea salt to taste

Cook butter until brown. Pour through a fine meshed sieve into a heatproof bowl, set aside to cool.

Pour cooled brown butter into mixer bowl.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, add confectioner's sugar a little at a time. When mixture looks too chunky to take any more, add a bit of cream and or caramel syrup. Repeat until mixture looks smooth and all confectioner's sugar has been incorporated. Add salt to taste.

Note: Caramelized butter frosting will keep in fridge for up to a month.
To smooth out from cold, microwave a bit, then mix with paddle attachment until smooth and light

A big thank you to Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity, Alex of Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo and Jenny of Foray into Food for hosting this month's challenge. Please visit other Daring Bakers to see other interpretations of this cake.

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Daring Bakers, Shuna and Her Caramel Cake

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