SimPle PleaSures (in EveRy BiTe)

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups of cake or pastry flour (editted)
• 6 medium eggs, separated
• 1/4 tsp of cream of tartar, combine with egg whites
• 1 cup of fine sugar
• Almond essense
• Strawberry essence
• 1 cup Cedar cheese, grated
• 8 tablespoon butter
• 4 tablespoon sour cream + 1/2 cup of milk or
• 1 cup of milk without the sourcream.

  You will also need:

• Cup cakes moulds
• a water bath in the oven
• love

Filling:

• Pitted cheeries (cut, about 1 cup)
• Strawberry cream cheese (1 cup)
• Icing sugar (1/2 cup)
• 2 egg yolks
• Combine cream cheese with icing sugar and yolks with mixer until soft, add cherries.

Instructions

Heat water bath in the oven. 

Melt butter or margarine at low heat, add milk or sour cream.  Remove from heat.  Let cool for about 10 minutes.  In the mean time, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until stiff. Then beat sugar and egg yolks until white and fluffy.  Add shifted flour into the sourcream/butter mix, stir vigourously.  Put into egg yolks mixture.  Beat manually but thoroughly.  Add almond extract into the mix.  Mix well. 

Fold in egg whites into the egg yolk mixture, making sure not to fold too agressively, the mixture needs to still be light and fluffy. Devide it into 2, one with the addition of strawberry esence.  Put the almond one into the cup cake moulds.  Then drop some of the pink/strawberry one to the mixture.

Next, drop 1 tbsp filling in each of the cup cakes.

Then put mold into our (your) lovely oven at 350 F for about 45 minutes. 

Put into the oven (already set at 350 F) on the water bath (should cover the mould about 2 to 4 cm). 30 minutes into the baking, sprinkle some cheese on the top of the cup cakes and switch from bake to broil. Watch so that the cheese doesn’t burn.

Take out of the oven about 45 minutes into the cooking. 

Hope you like it.  I definitely say this is a keeper.  This cake is interesting as the texture is so soft it melts in your mouth!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Ree,

This one is for you.  It took me literally FOREVER to figure out a dish that I think can flip your skirt up!  So I decided to make something that I am 93% sure (I love numbers) you will like.  I am saving the 7% for the other 1000 recipes you are receiving for your contest. Dangit!

To be honest, this dish really reminds me of your posting about your trip to Austin.  I, too, was there years ago, since I went to school somewhere close to that city (about 2 or 3 hours away.. hint hint..).

And I LOVE Egg plant. Don’t you?  I know you do.. You LOOOOVEE egg plant, come on, say it, say it!!  And I know Marlboro Man doesn’t really like fancy dishes as such (is it really fancy, btw?  I don’t know what I am talking about).  But, if he likes lasagna, he may like this one.

The taste of the eggplant is there, definitely, but blends with my lovely white sauce, which, for your information, was created while I was looking for tips to make cake moist… (there is a mayonnaisse part involved here that makes the dish taste yummy tummy..)

Ok, shall we?

Here goes.

Ingredients:

Egg Plant Mixture

1 egg plant
1/2 to 1 yellow onions or 3 cloves of shallots, minced
1 1/2 tsp of sage
1 tsp of nutmeg or less
1 cup of parsley
1 japapeno pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 apple (thinly sliced)—>  optional
2 tbsp light brown sugar
Salt to taste

White Sauce Mixture
1 cup of dried or fresh chives
4 tablespoon of REAL mayonnaisse (non of those fake stuff)
1 cup monterey jack cheese
1 cup cheddar cheese
(The cheeses can be substituted by your choice.. mozzarella and cheddar, mozzarella and mont. jack, asiago and havarti.. etc)
1 cup of milk
3 medium eggs
salt and pepper to taste.

You will also need the following to make this dish:

2 cups of bread crumb or cracker crumbs

2 lovely frying pans of your choice
1 rectangular (I love math) casserole dish of your heart’s desire..
Lots of love for your family..!

To make the egg plant mixture..

Slice one big purple egg plant (not the chinese ones) into thin pieces
Mince garlic, parsley, jalapeno peppers, and yellow onion (I sliced this thinly).
Slice the apple thinly as well.
Eat one slice of apple to lift your spirit up during this process (the apple may taste oniony..can you tell, I was making this at 4 am…!).
Saute them together in 5 – 6 tablespoons of olive oil in one of the frying pans on medium high heat until the onions kind of caramelize..and the smell of garlic fills up the room..


In the mean time, also cook the egg plant in the other pan. Saute the slices with at least 10 tbsp of olive oil or butter until soft and tender.. like this.. Add salt and pepper and sprinkle with Lea and Perrin sauce..



When they are done, put them aside… and now make the lovely white sauce..!  Ehhhhmm.. yummy!

To make tha! sauce:

Combine chives, milk, eggs, cheese, and mayonnaisse in a bowl or tupperware like this.. 





and mix or whisk together until well blended…

Observe for a moment.. are there bubbles?  Yes? Good.. it looks better when there are bubbles.. .
Don’t forget to add about  5 gulp of the lea & perrin sauce to this mixture..

That’s it for the sauce!

Now, get ready to get your good old spagetti sauce or tomato sauce or tomato paste..



If you use tomato sauce like Ragu’s, you will need about 1 cup of it.  If you use tomato paste, you’ll need to heat it up a bit with hot water so that combined it would be about 1 cup.

OK then.  Get ready to assemble your mixtures!!

Align the eggplants peacefully like soo…

Put crumbs on top of the eggplant, tomato sauce, and white sauce in sequence.

Repeat this layering until the rest of your ingredients are gone and cover with a final layer of white sauce.

Put into over that has been pre-heated to 300 F or 180 C.

Take out of the oven about 40 minutes into the baking.

And enjoy! 

 Ree, I hope you will at least try to make this, and I hope you’ll like it!

 

Ana

Ugh.  Hate it when I fail to make the real thing. 

Well then again, what can ya do, when you only have (read: can only afford) certain ingredients and missing other important ones such as Mascarpone cheese, which, pretty much, well.. let’s just say.. mark the existance of a dessert called Tiramisu, somewhere in Italy.

Can you believe it, they even feed the cows special food to produce mascarpone.  Just like how they feed special food to the cows in Japan to make KOBE steaks. Apparently this type of steak melts in the mouth at first bite!

Anyways, back to my mission of making Tiramisu (haven’t had it in years, I think 6 for sure), I had the good old cream cheese instead, whipping cream, eggs (of course), and strong coffee.  I also had left over cake from my cup cake experiment the other day.  I looked at my cake book and it says that you can substitute the flour to make cake with something else, such as crackers … or other left over cakes, crumbs, etc.

So I made a sponged cake from left over, dried, cup cakes!  The result, man, it’s pretty moist!  I love it!

So, I thought of perhaps making some sort of tiramisu, and this is what it turns out:

The taste?  Let’s just say the husband wanted a second plate!  (He couldn’t wait until tomorrow, you’re supposed to leave it overnight..BUT..I guess that’s not happening, no sirry!.. ).

It’s close to the real thing, but if you really really want to taste how Tiramisu is supposed to taste, go with the real thing.  Get some special cow love and get mascarpone!