Mascarpone Pancake with Grapes and Blue Cheese Sauce

Our neighbor, Pi Soo, gave us 4 blocks of cheeses her husband brought back from France. Apart from the blue cheese and goat cheese, which I'm familiar with and distinctive enough to distinguish, I have no idea what the other two blocks are. Pi Soo, too, has no idea what they are besides "this one is the strongest". Thanks.

Today's pancake is yet another showcase of putting what's available to the table. I vaguely remembered making some blue cheese grapes salad some time ago - I knew this sweet fruit and acquired cheese will work in compliment. But it somehow didn't seem right to have blue cheese salad for breakfast.

Then my thought wandered into ricotta pancake, sour cream pancake, cream cheese pancake.... etc. What about blue cheese pancake? I don't see why it wouldn't work. But I wasn't going to risk the most important meal of the day on my experiment and decided mascarpone pancake would be more of a sound thing to do.

Since Adrian was making a savory omelet with the "strongest cheese", it seemed gastronomically correct to balance it out with a little more sweet. Hence the addition of honey, which went surprisingly great with the blue cheese sauce.

Ingredients:
(serve 2)
Blue Cheese Sauce

• Blue Cheese
• Cream cheese (soften at room temperature)

I didn't measure the amount used. The cheeses were more or less in equal part. You may add a splash of whole milk to thin it out if necessary. Blend the ingredients to a smooth consistency.

Roasted Maple Pecan

• Pecan nuts, roughly chopped
• Coconut oil
• 1 tablespoon Real Maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon natural cane sugar

Use just enough coconut oil to coat pecan nuts evenly. Toss the nuts with maple syrup and sugar. Bake in the oven at 150C for 10 - 15 minutes. Remove from oven and let it cool.

Mascarpone Pancake

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 - 2 Tablespoons natural cane sugar
• 1/4 cup homemade mascarpone (soften at room temperature)
  
• 1/4 cup whole milk
  
• 1 egg (lightly beaten)
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

To serve

• Seedless green grapes and black grapes, halved
• Nectarine, cut into wedges
• Blue cheese sauce
  
• Honey
• Roasted Maple Pecan
  
• Mint leaves
  

1. Sift together flour, baking powder, and sugar. Set aside.
2. Whisk together mascarpone, milk, egg and vanilla essence.
3. Fold the mascarpone mixture to flour mixture. You may add more milk to desired consistency. Stir in lemon zest to combine.
4. Coat and heat a 8" saucepan with coconut oil. Pour 1/2 of the batter to the heated pan and fry until the surface is bubbly. Flip and fry the other side till lightly browned. Repeat with the remaining batter.
5. Serve with fresh fruits and blue cheese sauce. Sprinkle with pecan nuts and drizzle honey around. Garnish with mint leaves.
   

Chocolate Meringue Strawberry Mascarpone

We have kind of fallen into big-lunch-no-dinner trend these days. Or, to be more precise, it's fruit salad or dessert in place of dinner meal. Since I am still in the meringue-chase, it only seems natural to make one more. Although this recipe resembles this previous Chocolate Meringue Cake post. I just had to make it because it looks so beautiful on this website. Instead of using whipped cream as filling, I mixed in with homemade mascarpone, which Adrian has fallen in love with.

This was actually the second time I made this cake. I wasn't happy with my previous attitude - I was being paranoid (I still don't know what to expect from meringue) and impatient. Hence I didn't blog about it. But it tasted so delicious that it deserves a space in my blog.

Adrian liked it even more the second time. He enjoyed the brownie-like chocolate cake layer, and the not-over-the-top sweet mascarpone filling. I just really like how I had the chocolate drizzled around it, and that it looked very beautiful.

Ingredients:
(4" x 6" casserole dish)
Chocolate cake layer

• 50g butter
• 1/3 cup cane sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• small pinch of salt
• 1 1/4 Tablespoon cocoa powder
• 45ml milk

1. Preheat oven at 160C. Grease a 4" x 6" casserole pan.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder. Set aside.
3. Beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and beat till fluffy. Add egg yolk and vanilla extract to beat.
4. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture. Fold in milk. Pour and layer over prepared pan. Set aside.
   

Meringue layer

• 1 egg white
• 1/3 cup powdered cane sugar
• 1/4 cup flaked almonds

1. Start beating egg white at low speed until soft peaks form.
   
2. Add sugar, one tablespoon at a time, until hard peaks form.
3. Spoon over chocolate cake layer. Sprinkle with flaked almonds.
4. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the meringue is crispy on the outside.
   

Mascarpone layer

• 1/3 homemade mascarpone
• 100mL fresh cream
• 1 - 2 tablespoons powdered cane sugar
• 100 gram strawberries, chopped, reserve 2 for garnish

1. Pour cream and sugar to a bowl and keep in freezer, together with beater attachments, for 5 minutes.
2. Beat cream to form stiff peaks. Fold in chopped strawberries and mascarpone.

Assembly

• mint leaves
• dark chocolate
• butter
  

1. Melt butter and chocolate together over waterbath (or microwave).
   
2. Slice chocolate meringue into 4 quarters. Place one quarter, chocolate side up, to one serving plate. Pile it up with some mascarpone filling. Sandwich it with another quarter, meringue side up. Top it with a spoonful of mascarpone filling and decorate with fresh strawberry and mint leaves. Repeat with the other quarters.
3. Drizzle with melted chocolate to serve.
   

Red Sauce Blintzes

I prepared all the ingredients yesterday. Before we went to bed I told Adrian he'd be in charge of the cooking in the morning. I was very excited and hopeful of this sweet blintz recipe. Think about this: silky smooth lemony mascarpone filling, and tarty raspberry and strawberry sauce. Yummm....

Adrian, too, was ready to take on the role with me breathing down his neck. Unfortunately things didn't turn out as I thought. The batter was too thick - should I have strained it? Has it thickened overnight? Adrian managed to flip up a couple thin crepes but with hole - it didn't help to contain the filling. In the end, we got one good blintz out of 6. I was very disappointed and upset.

I got rid of this batch and whipped up another. Turned up fine this time. I must credit Adrian for being so supportive while I was sulking over a few bad crepes. And he cooked a killer omelet with sun-dried tomatoes, parsley and basil, too! Best he'd ever made, said the he-cook.

Ingredients
(make 6 8.5" crepes)
Raspberry and strawberry jam

• 1/2 cup frozen raspberry
• 1/2 cup frozen strawberry
• 1 tablespoon real maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• lemon juice to taste

Heat berries with maple syrup and sugar to melt. Adjust taste with lemon juice and sugar if needed.

Crepe

• 1/3 cup unbleached all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup almond meal
• 2 teaspoon sugar
• small pinch of sea salt
• 1 small egg, lightly beaten
  
• 2/3 cup whole milk
  
• 1/3 tablespoon virgin coconut oil

1. Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl, and wet ingredients in another. Fold wet ingredients over dry mixture to mix. Add more milk to desired consistency if needed.
   
2. When ready to cook, strain and remove clumps if necessary.
   
3. Coat and heat a 8.5" pan with butter. Pour just enough batter over pan, swirling to coat evenly. Return the excess to the bowl.
   
4. Fry until the top is bubbly. Remove from heat and place over a plate with the fried site up.
5. Repeat with the remaining batter.

Filling

• 1/3 cup Homemade mascarpone
• 1/3 cup fresh whipping cream
  
• 1 - 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• lemon zest
  
• 1 Tablespoons powdered sugar
  

1. Freeze whisk attachment and bowl in the freezer for 5 minutes. Beat the whipping cream until it forms soft peaks. Add sugar, lemon juice and zest to beat to stiff peaks.
   
2. Gently fold the cream mixture into mascarpone to mix. Be careful not to over mix.
   

Assembly

1. Take a few spoonful of mascarpone filling and place it to the center, leaving the edges. Fold the edges as if making a package.
2. Coat and heat a pan with butter. Place blintzes seam site down to fry till browned. Flip and fry the other side.
3. Serve with Raspberry Strawberry Sauce and mint leaves.
   

Blueberry Lemon Shortcake

I came home last night and set out to prepare this recipe that I was tasting in my imagination since afternoon. I had high expectation for this - fresh blueberry maple jam and mascarpone sandwiched in a lemony butter shortcake. YUM~ Took me a mere 15 minutes to turn the fresh blueberries into bottled jam.

The 99BHT blueberries from Central Chitlom Tops Supermarket. Heat it with some maple syrup and lemon juice for fresh jam.

I assigned Adrian for the dough making task. I don't want to point finger, I am not blaming anyone.... BUT.... Look....

Hmmm...... suspicious looking but smell very good. The last thing I said to Adrian before I fell asleep "I smell cake". I suspect he overworked the butter. Or maybe something went wrong with the measurement. The dough didn't hold up. I expected two burger bun looking things that I could slice into halves. Now I had just two flat disks.

Good news is they were super delicious. Mint leaves were a superb compliment. I'm making this again just so I can present them proper. Until then, I'm stashing the recipe aside.

"Oh, you rescued them!" said the culprit, "They look so pretty now." Grrrr.....

Fresh Fruit Mascarpone Pavlova

I left a message on Adrian's Facebook that said "Pavlova". He asked WHO was Pavlova - the only Pavlova he could think of was the train station in Prague. Funny. Given his intelligence I thought he would have it figured: I was making Pavlova at that time. Then I thought maybe he didn't know about Pavlova - the meringue based dessert that hails from either Australia or New Zealand. It was so named in dedication to an ethereal Russian ballerina whom was touring the region back in 1920s. If she were anything like the dessert indicates, she must be light, airy and sweet.

I have been actively looking for more meringue recipe since my last. When I chanced upon this Pavlova recipe that uses homemade mascarpone, I was hooked instantly. Despite my paranoia and the many attempts to check on the meringue as it was baking, it turned out just fine: firm on the outside, crunchy to the bite. I loved having macadamia nuts in it - it's more complex and imparted to it a palatable fat nutty taste.

It's when I make dessert like this that I tell myself I shall have desserts from home only. Most of the desserts out there are either too sweet or I don't trust the ingredients. Not to mention many of them make me dizzy, and give a funny feeling to my stomach.

Homemade Mascarpone

In Passionate About Baking, the writer uses low fat cream. I'm a proponent of the least processed possible, I welcome food in its most complete. The writer mentioned heating the cream to 82C before adding lemon juice.

• 1 Liter fresh whipping cream
• 2 Tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Bring to gentle boil over a waterbath. Stir in lemon juice and reduce heat to medium low. Keep it at that for a few more minutes.
2. Remove from heat, cover and let sit at room temperature until it is cooled. Refrigerate overnight. It will thickened further the next day.
3. Pour it in a strainer lined with cheesecloth. Let the whey drain in refrigerator for 24 hours.

Meringue

Sugar is a crucial part of meringue. Besides adding them spoon by spoon to aid easy dissolution, the finer they are, the faster they dissolve, the better to avoid moisture. I figured if powdered sugar is just superfine form of regular sugar, why not blend them? And I did.

(make 2 servings)

• 1 large egg white
• 1/4 cup powdered natural cane sugar
• 1/3 teaspoon corn flour, sifted
• 1/4 teaspoon lemon juice
• macadamia nuts and cinnamon powder (optional)
  

1. Preheat oven to 120C.
   
2. Beat egg white, at low speed, until it's bubbly. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar, increase the speed to medium high and beat to form soft peaks. Continue to add sugar, one tablespoon at a time, beating at high speed, to form stiff peaks.
3. Fold in corn flour and lemon juice. Beat for another 2 minutes or so to combine.
4. Stir in macadamia nuts and cinnamon powder if using.
5. Line the baking tray with baking paper. Separate the batter into two mounds. Use the back of a spoon to make a well in the center of each mounds.
6. Let bake in the oven for 60 minutes.

Filling

• 1/3 cup cream
• 2 teaspoon powdered natural cane sugar
• 1 - 2 tablespoons homemade mascarpone
• A couple pieces of 85% chocolate
• Fresh fruits: grapes, pomegranates, blueberries, etc.
  

1. Melt chocolate over a waterbath. May add maple syrup if necessary. Let cool slightly.
2. Whip cream with sugar till firm. Fold mascarpone in to mix. Be gentle and mindful not to lose volume.
   
3. Paint the base of Pavlova well with melter chocolate. Fill up with mascarpone mix. Top with fresh fruits to serve.