Junglefrog Cooking » cinnamon

Apple and caramel dumplings, I think

Simone (junglefrog) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:54:00 +0000

Sometimes, just every so often, you try out a recipe and it is just plain wrong… I had never before have that happen with a Donna Hay recipe, so I guess kudos to their team for testing most of their recipes. And I say ‘most’ because the recipe I picked for this months Donna Hay Challenge is certainly NOT right. I was alerted to the problems initially by Laura from the blog Tiramisu who had tested it to see how it would look and it turned out the caramel sauce stayed far too watery to be considered a sauce. So I tested it too and indeed, it was nowhere near the right consistency of a sauce. Plus, due to the watery nature of the caramel the dumplings became very soggy in the oven.

So I thought about it, tweeted a bit here and there with Jenn, Astrid and Alessio and I decided in the end I would split up the components of the recipe and make them separate. I still had some dough leftover from the dumplings, so I used those to make 5 small dumplings and baked them in the oven for about 25 minutes. I poached the apples on the stove in a mixture of sugar, verjuice and water with cinnamon, cardamom, staranise and cloves and made an orange caramel sauce to go over the finished product.

Too sweet!

And while all the separate components worked really well this time, the end product was too sweet. Initially I thought that I should have poached the apples in a sugarless solution but I don’t think that the apples were the problem. The caramel, while delicious, would probably be better for an creamy dessert. The dumplings soaked it up quite well so they too, became too sweet. Pfft, what to do now? I’m thinking the solution might be to change the water qty in the original caramel recipe (which was great in taste, just too soggy) and add the butter into the caramel at a later stage. Anyone any thought on how to resolve this? It’s quite a tasty recipe otherwise, it’s just too soggy, that’s all…

I will share my take on the recipe with you below but first let me get into the photo process here. Based on the original photo I used a table with backlighting as you can see in my setup. Apart from the obvious differences in props for me the biggest difference is the texture. The recipe does not state to add sugar to the dumplings but that is clearly what they did in the photo. Also I did not have small apples, so I used bigger ones and cut them. As soon as you poach apples, either in the oven or in a pan the color starts leeking out of them. So while they were quite red at the start; it soon turned rather yellow. I wish I had small apples and if I do manage to find them I might make this again.

Donna vs mine

See how the texture of the sugar on the dumplings and the more wrinkled appearance of the small apples adds a really pleasing contrast to the tin they serve the apples in? In my photo it is all too smooth. Also because I did not want to overcook the apples and have no color at all left.

To reflect some of the light back onto the apples I used my foamboard wrapped with aluminium foil plus the lid of a pan. I could not – for the live of me – find my reflector, so that is probably still in the studio..

See my messy table and the reflecting lid of the pan

I will now share how I prepared this, but for the original recipe best look at the Donna Hay post. I would love to hear your thoughts on the recipe and the problems you encountered while cooking it!

I used the recipe for the dumplings as per the original, but baked them separately in the oven at 180C for 25 minutes.

I poached the apples in a liquid containing verjuice and water, about 1/2 cup of sugar, 2 cinnamon sticks, 2 staranise, 5 cardamom pods (crushed) and 3 cloves. I brought the liquid to the boil, added the apples and simmered for about 15 minutes.

Orange caramelsauce

Print recipe

Serves:	4
Prep time:	5 minutes
Cook time:	10 minutes
Total time:	15 minutes
Meal type:	Condiment
Region:	Worldwide
Website:	Epicurious

Ingredients

3/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/2 teaspoon orange zest

Directions

Combine sugar and 1/4 cup water in heavy small saucepan. Stir over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and boil without stirring until deep amber color, occasionally brushing down pan sides with wet pastry brush and swirling pan, about 8 minutes.

Carefully add orange juice and orange peel (mixture will bubble vigorously). Stir over low heat until smooth and any caramel bits dissolve. Cool completely. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and let stand at room temperature.)

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Orange-Caramel-Sauce-106133#ixzz1dJGke6fw

Cinnamon/amaretto pannacotta with poached pears

Simone (junglefrog) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:00:22 +0000

Cinnamon pannacotta with amaretto

Decisions can sometimes be the hardest things to make. Do we hold on to things because it makes sense or because we are used to ‘having’ it? It’s the time of month to do my tax returns and that got me thinking about the cost involved in keeping my studio versus the return it gives me. Three years ago when I first rented the place we said we would have a look at how it went and if it would be profitable enough for me to keep the studio or if we would need to look for another solution. In 5 months time I will have to renew the contract for 5 years or cancel it… So I did a lot of calculating and then some more thinking of different angles, other ways to use the studio but it seems to all lead towards the inevitable end of my studio…

Pannacotta and autumn goodness!

My goal has also changed in the last three years from doing more people shots to doing more food and with that comes the fact that I am using my studio less except for larger productions where a little extra space is needed. I still do the occasional portrait in the studio as well as product photography but in the end I do not need 120 M2 to do the work. A lot is done at home (such as these lovely pannacotta’s) since I have more cooking equipment there…

But even though my mind tells me that it makes sense to find another solution; my heart tells me differently! I love my studio. Spend hours and hours there, painted and decorated the whole place and have soooo many props stored there too. The scenario’s of what next keep tumbling through my mind… It makes me tired to even think of all the consequences but there are a couple of possible scenario’s

Keep the studio
Find a smaller studio
Convert one of the rooms at home into a studio of sorts and rent a larger studio if I need one
Co-rent a studio with a photographer friend in Amsterdam
Store all my stuff in a storage facility (but that would mean it’s hard to find anything if I need it)

Right now I’m leaning strongly towards option 3. But believe me when I say I keep changing my mind just about every day or so. Something I have no need to change my mind over is this totally delicious pannacotta with a hint of amaretto… You’re gonna love this with some poached pears!

The original recipe for the pannacotta came from Delicious cookbook by Valli Little which I had bought the day before (if only for the gorgeous photographs by Brett Stevens and styling by David Morgan!) and since Charlotte was coming over for a cooking session we cooked all the recipes from the book. A totally delicious hummus and fallafel with green peas and pita bread were our first courses after which the room was filled with garlic… I will remake the hummus and falaffel and shoot them at some point but the light was gone and none was left after dinner.

I changed the recipe for the pannacotta by adding amaretto instead of cognac as I simply do not like cognac but love amaretto. For the pears I used just about anything I had on hand; pomegranate juice (leftover from the pomegranates we used with the hummus), verjuice and loads of spices… Loved it and again not as red as I would have wanted them to be. I’m gonna try and add some dark ruby port in them next time. That should do the trick!

Poached pears in verjuice

Print recipe

Serves:	6
Prep time:	20 minutes
Cook time:	30 minutes
Total time:	50 minutes
Allergy:	Milk
Meal type:	Dessert
Region:	Worldwide

Ingredients

1kg Wilder Gieseman pears (or another pear that can be poached)
1 cup verjuice
3 star anise
3 sticks cinnamon
6 green cardamom pods (crushed)
1 pomegranate (juice only)
3 tablespoons sugar (use sugar to taste and depending on the sweetness of the pears)

Directions


Peel and core the pears.

Put the pears in a pan that is big enough to hold the pears plus poaching liquid. Add the verjuice, the sugar, the pomegranate juice, the cardamom, staranise and cinnamon and top with water until the pears are almost covered but not quite.

Bring to the boil and cook until the sugar is dissolved. Turn the heat down and let it simmer until the pears are done. This really varies a lot depending on the type of pear you use. For the Wilder Giesseman pear that I used it was stated it should cook 1 1/5 hr but mine were done after 20 minutes! So check regularly if they are soft enough. Once cooked let the pears cool in the liquid. If the liquid is still too thin you can remove the pears and cook the liquid down a little further until it becomes syrupie..

Note

Delicious autumn dessert and paired with the cinnamon pannacotta it is really good!

Cinnamon/amaretto pannacotta

Print recipe

Serves:	6
Prep time:	1 hour, 30 minutes
Cook time:	4 hours
Total time:	5 hours, 30 minutes
Meal type:	Dessert
Region:	Italian

Ingredients

500ml whipping cream
125ml milk
3 cinnamon sticks
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
40g sugar
3 sheets gelatin
2 tablespoons amaretto

Directions


Bring the milk, cream, cinnamon sticks, ground cinnamon and sugar on medium heat to the boil, take the pan of the fire and leave to stand for about an hour to infuse the flavors into the cream.

Soak your gelatin leaves for 5 minutes in cold water until they are soft. Slowly heat the cream mixture on low heat. Squeeze the water out of the gelatin leafs and still them into the warm cream until they dissolve. Add the amaretto en put the liquid through a sieve. Pour your pannacotta into 6 ramekins or other forms and leave them in the fridge for at least 4 hours to firm up.

Note

For some reason I had a skin forming on the pannacotta so my guess is that it was still slightly too warm when I put it in the fridge. I've never had this issue before with any pannacotta so I'm a bit unsure what caused it. Thought I mention it anyway!

Quince with spices and Eden pans

Simone (junglefrog) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 07:00:15 +0000

Juicy quince, red currants and vanilla quark..

I was with Meeta at the market in Germany when I spotted some quince. I had seen them somewhere before (on the internet!) but they are not a fruit you can easily find here in Holland, so I took them with me from Weimar to Holland. They keep forever anyway, so there was not a lot of risk that the would be bruised and nasty having been bumped around in my suitcase a bit. I had no idea what quince tasted like, so I decided to keep it simple. I got myself 5 pcs, but I didn’t expect so much to come out of those fruits! 5 is really a lot!

I was quite happy that the people at knivesandtools.nl had previously contacted me if I wanted to test some of their new Eden Quality pans. The selling point is that the pans are good quality for an affordable price, which is not really common these days. We used to have really old and crappy pans when we were not that much into cooking, but these days we do actually spend quite a bit of money on good pans, griddles and the like. Simple for the reason that it does make a difference! So what am I looking for in a pan? It needs to be sturdy and not fall apart after having cooked in it twice, it needs to have a thick bottom (now how wrong does that sound..lol) and distribute the heat evenly. A big plus is also if the handle stays cool to the touch and that the pan is still manageable even when filled with a load of quince (to just give an example)

So when I received the big package I was happily surprised when I took out three pretty pans. Hey, pans can be pretty too you know! They had a good feel to them, nice design and more importantly; once I started cooking with them I was even happier. I’ve sofar made these quince, baked pancakes and a stir fry in them and made a Mexican soup. What I find important in a pan is that I can fry onions in them without the risk of e

Eden quality pans

verything sticking to the bottom of the pan because it gets to hot (which happens when you have a thin bottom) That works great. Also a plus in my book is that the handle stays cool, even after having been on the stove for more then an hour. With the cooking pan (without the long handle) I was surprised that the two side handles, even while much closer to the fire, are also not extremely hot. I would still use some towel to handle them but if I forgot I wouldn’t burn my hands.

So all in all, really pleased with these pans and as I mentioned the price is good too. They are a pretty international company so I will give you the various websites below and you can have a look for yourself. But now back to my lovely quince recipe.

From rock hard fruits to juicy and soft

When cleaning these weird looking variation between an apple and a pear (are they??) I could not help but notice that they are soooo hard! I’ve never had any fruit that was incredibly difficult to clean. I almost needed to two hands to press the knife through the fruit, believe it or not. I put it all in a pot with cardamom, cinnamon, lemon and orange peel and star anis and in a matter of minutes the house started to smell like Christmas. isn’t it funny how smells can do that to you? The recipe I adapted said that they needed 45 minutes but mine where soft enough after a little more then thirty minutes so be sure to check when you’re cooking them. Overcooked can’t be good either.

Poached quince

Print recipe

Serves:	6
Prep time:	30 minutes
Cook time:	30 minutes
Total time:	1 hour
Meal type:	Breakfast, Dessert
Region:	Worldwide

Ingredients

4 pieces quince
4-6 cups water
2 cups sugar
1 stick cinnamon
4 large strips orange peel
4 large strips lemon peel
6 green cardamom pods (crushed)
3 star anise

Directions

Peel, quarter and core the quince. Be careful as they are very difficult to cut so make sure you don't cure yourself. You can keep them in water as they do discolor very quickly but it doesn't help much. Maybe ad some lemon to the water. i didn't try that.
Put 4 cups of water in a pot together with the sugar, lemon and orange peel, staranis, cinnamon and cardamom and bring to the boil until all sugar is dissolved.
Add the quinces and slowly cook for 30-45 minutes or until they are tender when poked with a small knife. Leave to cool in the poaching liquid. Remove the unedible spices and store in the fridge for up to a week.

Note

I more or less combined two different recipes together but basically add whatever spices work for you. I loved the combination I used but you can add cloves in there or other spices too.

Eden quality RVS Pans

The Netherlands              http://www.knivesandtools.nl/
Germany                             http://www.edenwebshops.de/
United Kingdom               http://www.edenwebshops.co.uk/
France                                  http://www.edenwebshops.fr/
Global                                   http://www.knivesandtools.com/en/

Disclaimer: Knivesandtools.nl provided the pans to me, but all opinions and reviews are my my own

Honey poached pears with star anise

Simone (junglefrog) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 07:00:57 +0000

Sweet and juicy; this honey poached pear

Let me start by confessing that this pear has not been shot in the proper season for poached pears… I shot it in the middle of summer as an experiment in lighting techniques.. I was very disappointed by the looks of my pear once poached and I will be doing this again with a dark pear! But… the reason I decided to share the recipe anyway is because it is absolutely delicious! Used with the right pear this – to me – is a real winner for a family dinner party or maybe even for Christmas! If you make it look a little nicer this would be a delicious and fairly light dessert for a heavy dinner party. I had never poached a pear before and because I was doing this for other purposes I picked a fairly simple recipe that did not require a lot of time standing over the stove, but boy… I did not expect it to taste so good!

Pear poached in honey and star anise

Honey poached pears with star anise

Print recipe

Serves:	6
Prep time:	45 minutes
Cook time:	2 hours
Total time:	2 hours, 45 minutes
Meal type:	Dessert
Region:	Worldwide
Website:	Epicurious

Ingredients

1 cup honey
5 star anise (whole ones)
2 tablespoons lemon juice (fresh)
1 pinch fine sea salt
6 pieces pears (firm pears, peeled, quartered and cored)
1/2 cup creme fraiche (or sour cream)

Directions

Combine 2 1/2 cups water, honey, star anise, lemon juice, and sea salt in large saucepan. Bring to boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add pears; reduce heat and simmer until tender, turning occasionally, 4 to 6 minutes, depending on ripeness. Using slotted spoon, transfer pears to medium bowl. Boil liquid and star anise until reduced to 1 cup syrup, about 22 minutes. Pour syrup with star anise over pears. Cover and chill until cold, about 2 hours.

DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Keep chilled.
Remove star anise from syrup. Divide pears and syrup among 6 bowls. Top each with dollop of crème fraîche and serve.

Note

Delicious and an easy dessert. It does take a long time if you use all the proper timings but it is not active time, so if you prepare ahead it will be perfect for a dinner party.

Garam masala

Simone (junglefrog) — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 07:00:08 +0000

Fresh whole spices for making garam masala

Let me first start with a disclaimer here; I am gonna give you a recipe for garam masala, but I am convinced that there are 100′s, 1000′s of recipes out there that are possibly more authentic, better or whatever then mine. I don’t know much about the Indian kitchen other then what I have tasted and cooked myself. So this is from a recipe from a book I have on spices.

So that’s all for the disclaimer.. Now on to the recipe itself!

The spices are roasted and into the pestle and mortar

Garam masala is not one particular spice, it is a combination of different spices that you roast to create a blend. You can use it to flavor curries or as in this case a lovely salad. (recipe for that will follow later, but you need this to make the salad)

I got this recipe from the book The Spice Bible by Jane Lawson. I love that book and it has some useful information on all sorts of spices you can think of. And most important for me; pictures of the spices… I mean; take for instance kardamom. If you know what it looks like then it’s easy. But if you’ve never seen a cardamom pod in your life then searching for them might be a bit hard. So pictures are good, pictures are very useful.

She gives the base recipe for garam masala and some suggestions of other spices you can throw into the mix. I added a bit of other herbs as I know I like their flavors. Most importantly when making this mix is that you use fresh spices. I made the mistake once of trying to create a curry using old and bland spices. Trust me; that does not work. If they don’t smell anymore get rid of them.

The ground and finished garam masala

Garam Masala

Print recipe

Prep time:	10 minutes
Cook time:	5 minutes
Total time:	15 minutes
Meal type:	Condiment
Region:	Indian

Ingredients

10 green cardamom pods (remove the seeds from the pods and discard the shells)
1 stick cinnamon
2 tablespoons cumin seed
2 teaspoons cloves
1 teaspoon black pepper corns
1 teaspoon nutmeg (freshly ground)
1 teaspoon coriander seed
1 teaspoon mustard seed

Directions


Remove the seed from the cardamom and throw the pods away. Break the cinnamon in pieces.

Roast the cardamom seeds, cinnamon, cumin, cloves, peppercorns, coriander and mustard seed for 1-2 minutes in a dry frying pan. Make sure not to burn them (and watch out as the mustard seed can be quite jumpy)

Fry until you smell the aroma’s.

Leave to cool. Ground in a magimix or pestle and mortar and make sure you have no whole cloves left as that is not very tasty.

Airtight it will be good to use for about 1 month.

Note

There is no such thing as one recipe for garam masala as each household might have it's own version. Add the spices that you like and keep trying until you have a blend that works for you!

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