Sour Cream Pancake with Raspberry Jam and Balsamic Reduction

You don't see much use of fresh blueberry in this blog because they are too expensive. I always comforted myself that frozen blueberries made just as good ingredient as the fresh ones. Until yesterday.

Few days ago I bought four packets of fresh blueberries because they were on sales - 99THB per packet for what normally would have cost close to 300THB. What a bargain. So I thought I would use the fresh blueberry to make come French toast (that I didn't blog) and feel rich about it. Once again, it showed fresh is better. The frozen blueberries shrink or shrivel, leaving skin once burst under heating, not a pleasant texture to chew on. With the fresh ones though, it felt more alive and real. I wish the fresh blueberries are on sales more often.

This morning pancake however has nothing to do with cooking blueberries. It's raspberry jam that I made few days ago for another French toast that I, again, didn't blog about. I learned to add bits of butter to the jam for a more developed taste. Try it! This pancake is soft and fluffy with just a hint of lemon, not unlike the Lemony Ricotta Pancake, with minimal adaptation.

Ingredients:
(makes 2 8" pancake)

Sour cream pancake:

• 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup almond meal
• 1 tablespoon natural cane sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• zest of one lemon, grated
  
• 1 cup sour cream (lemon juice + cream)
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil

To serve:

• Homemade raspberry jam
• Balsamic reduction (black pepper, lemon juice and salt to season to taste)
  
• Fresh Blueberries

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a big bowl.
2. Mix sour cream, beaten egg and coconut oil in a separate bowl.
3. Fold sour cream mixture over dry mixture. Gently fold to combine.
4. Heat a tablespoon of coconut oil over medium heat. Drop half the batter into the pan. Cook until the bottom is set and the top begins to form bubbles.
5. Flip and cook until it's nicely browned.
6. Repeat with the other half batter.
7. Top one pancake with generous amount of raspberry jam. Sandwich with the other pancake. Throw in some fresh blueberries and drizzle with balsamic reduction to serve.
   

Polenta and Ricotta Cake

It began from the day I bumped into a picture of polenta egg breakfast recipe. It continued with the discussion where to buy organic couscous and polenta in Bangkok, followed by talk of making gluten-free dishes for Contessa's daughter whom has Celiac disease. I took this series of events as a sign to experiment and cook with the yellow cornmeal.

Polenta was originally made with chestnut meal and farro. It was, and remains still, a peasant food. Nowadays it has been given life, with the blend of cheeses and tomatoes, from the essentially bland and common food into the menus in high-end restaurant and supermarket at high price.

You need a baking dish with removable bottom. Otherwise the cake will fall apart when you try to remove it from the dish. I used springform pan. A tip I learned years ago from my very first cheesecake-only recipe book: grease the pan and chilled it until needed. A recent tip I learned from Gordon Ramsey: to be safe, grease the chilled pan again. As a result, the cake pulled away from the edges intact.

This cake surprised me. It's really simple and yet can be classy, with its golden brown color, if you just spend some time to dress it up. I think I'm going to buy a piping tip so I can decorate my future cakes with swirls of pretty cream. The smell of baked honey was god-send: Adrian was wondering when we can eat it when I pulled it out from the oven at 10.30pm last night.I served it with homemade raspberry jam and cream. They compliment the honey-sweet of the cake very well.

You can substitute dried figs with dried apricots. You want them moist and plump. If need be, soak them in hot water, drain and pat dry before adding to the batter.

Ingredients:

• About 6 moist, plump dried figs, chopped into bite-size.
  
• 1 c medium-grain polenta
  
• ½ c all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 c fresh ricotta
  
• 1/3 c tepid water
• ¾ c natural cane sugar
• ¾ c organic honey
  
• Grated zest of 1 lemon
• 8 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 Tablespoon butter, cut into bits and chilled
• 2 large eggs

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 190C.

Lightly grease a 9" springform pan and wrap the bottom with aluminum foil to prevent leakage. Chill in refrigerator until ready to use.

Whisk the polenta, flour, baking powder, and salt together.

Beat the ricotta and water together on low speed until very smooth. With the mixer at medium speed, add the sugar, honey, and lemon zest and beat until light. Beat in the melted butter, then add the eggs one at a time, beating until the mixture is smooth. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they are fully incorporated. You’ll have a sleek, smooth, pourable batter.

Pour about one third of the batter into the pan and scatter over the figs. Pour in the rest of the batter, smooth the top with a rubber spatula, if necessary, and dot the batter evenly with the chilled bits of butter.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

The cake should be honey brown and pulling away just a little from the sides of the pan, and the butter will have left light-colored circles in the top. Transfer the cake to a rack and remove the sides of the pan after about 5 minutes. Cool to warm, or cool completely.

Camembert and Blue Cheese Turnover

I'm going to be teaching Yoga at Cocoa Island in Maldives for the month of July and August. That's a total of 7 weeks away from my husband. Big Deal! What's he going to do with food? I've got to make sure there's 'something' in the fridge for him. Here's two easy to make sweet turnovers. They are perfect for breakfast with a cup of espresso (Adrian's take).
Despite the incessant assurance and encouragement from Divya (my Canadian Indian neighbour), I'm still hesitant about making my own dough. Hence, I took the easy way buying the ready made puff pastry from the store. I have to say they are really good. I just don't like waiting to defrost.

Sweet Baked Camembert
Ingredients:
Puff pastry sheet
Homemade raspberry jam
Dried cranberry
Almond slivers
Camembert
Maple syrup
Ground cinnamon

1. Prepare puff pastry sheet as instructed. I divided one sheet into four quarters and used a quarter of a round camembert for each quarter of the pastry sheet.
2. Sprinkle each quarter with dried cranberry (or raisins) and a couple tablespoons of raspberry jam. Top with slivers of almond.
3. Fold the pastry into desired shape. If you are not baking them yet, wrap each pastry with plastic or cling film and store in zip lock bag in the freezer.
4. To serve, preheat oven to 180C. Defrost the pastry at room temperature.
5. Make a few small holes on the pastry using a fork. Drizzle the top with maple syrup and sprinkle with ground cinnamon.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 15 - 20 minutes until golden brown. Let cool slightly before serving.

It's the same steps for the blue cheese turnover except it's paired with chopped pecan and dried figs.

Sweet Baked Blue Cheese
Ingredients
Puff pastry sheet
blue cheese
chopped pecan nuts (or walnuts)
4 Dried Figs, quartered
Maple syrup
Ground cinnamon

Homemade Raspberry Jam

There are a few things I avoid spending money on. For instance yogurt and raspberry jam. Especially so for yogurt since it's a stable in my morning-musts. I'd usually buy a tub of natural yogurt and use it as starter to cultivate batches and batches of homemade yogurt. I'd use the same culture again and again until they change in consistency. Or, I run out of milk. When lady luck visits, I manage to save money from store bought yogurt for up to two weeks. I do question the money I spend on whole milk though.....

If you like raspberry jam, you should definitely make your own. Ever since I discovered the affordable local Thai frozen raspberry, I have since kissed goodbye to Waitrose's. I can make my own raspberry jam for less than half the price on shelf. Raspberry preserve is easy to make. Just have to make sure your jars are sterilized **.

Ingredients:
Frozen raspberry and sugar*

Heat raspberry in a sauce pan until bubbly. Add sugar and stirring constantly. Transfer to a sterilized jar and seal with wax. I don't have wax but keeping the sealed jar in refrigerator works just fine. Also, I use organic cane sugar, which gives the preserve a very vibrant red.

**Easy Sterilization
I have under the sink a whole bunch of plastic and glass containers for storage. In this case, it's a used glass jar from Smucker's.
Preheat the oven to 200C. Boil a pot of water. Bath the jar in the boiling water. It's pretty much like what I see many mothers do to sterilize baby stuffs like pacifier and cups.
Transfer jar to oven and let dry.

*The original recipe calls for equal proportion of each ingredients, i.e. 1 Cup of raspberry to 1 Cup of sugar. I however found that to be too sweet to my liking. I like to add sugar spoon by spoon, and tasting constantly. If you notice on the jam ingredient label, most brands list sugar as the first ingredient. That means sugar is the primary ingredient in the jam. You may find some that list the fruit first, but you have to be careful with what other ingredients they put in the preserve. They may have "cleverly" categorize the sweeteners into fructose, dextrose or corn syrup.