Homemade bread recipe (in the style of venezuelan bread canilla)

This recipe is a very simple bread recipe that is in the Venezuelan style of canilla bread which is very typical to eat and enjoy from "las panaderias."  Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do! :)

I found this recipe originally on:
http://www.miotroblog.com/2012/02/pan-baguette-al-estilo-venezolano-pan.html

This recipe makes two loaves of bread.
Ingredients
1 cup of warm water
2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1 tablespoon of melted butter
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
2 1/2 teaspoons of yeast or 1 package of yeast
1 egg yolk (for decorating)
1 tablespoon of water (for decorating)

Recipe
First we need to activate the yeast. So dissolve and mix in your cup of warm water the packet of yeast, the tablespoon of sugar and the teaspoon of salt. In about 5 minutes the mixture should bubble indicating that the yeast is active, alive and ready for use!

Now place the yeast mixture and the melted butter in a large bowl. Add the flour to the yeast and butter mixture a little at a time using first a wooden spoon and then your hands. Mix until the flour is completely incorporated and there are no ingredients sticking to the side of the bowl. We want it all incorporated.

Next place the ball of dough on a lightly floured surface and continue working the dough until the dough is soft without lumps. The dough should be elastic and not sticky. Keep working until you get to this point.

Once the dough has gotten to this point, place the ball of dough in a bowl and cover the bowl with a damp washcloth. Wait until the dough has doubled in size about 35 to 40 mins.

When the dough has doubled in size we can form the dough into two loaves.
Place the dough on a surface and press down on the dough with your hand trying to remove all the air. Then cut the dough in half creating two parts and you will stretch each part until you form two rectangles about 15 by 30 cm.

Roll the dough on the lengthwise side of your rectangle until you have formed a loaf. Tuck in the two ends underneath the loaf. Do this with your second rectangle of dough as well. Then place them both on a nonstick baking pan (or a greased baking pan). Cover the loaves and let the dough rise for about an hour until the loaves have doubled in size. During this time you can preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

When your loaves have doubled in size, we're going to "decorate" them a bit by mixing the egg yolk and the tablespoon of water and then painting the loaves of bread on top with them mixture. This will make sure that your bread gets that lovely golden color. :)

Now you're ready to pop the loaves into the oven for about 25 to 30 minutes. Take them out when the bread has found a beautiful golden color. Let it cool a bit and then enjoy!!

This bread is best eaten on the day it's made. Since it's homemade it will lose its moisture overtime and after about the second day will get a bit hard. It is so good though that, the bread probably won't last that long anyways ;)

Carmelized Onion and Sweet Potato Tarte with Goat Cheese

Ingredients
1 medium sized sweet potato
2 large onions
Coconut oil
Goat Cheese
Pie Crust (I used Wholly Wholesome Whole Wheat Pie Crust)

Recipe

Before we assemble the tarte we have to ready the ingredients that will go into the tarte. If you're using a frozen pie crust (like I did), take the pie crust out of refrigerator to let it come to room temperature.

Next we prepare the sweet potato. Set the oven to 425 degrees Farenheit. There's no need really to preheat it. Just pinch the sweet potato about 3 times with a fork to let some steam out while its baking and pop the sweet potato in the oven directly on the rack. Leave it in for about 30 mins.

While you're waiting for that sweet potato to bake a bit. We'll caramelize the onions. To caramelize the onions, first slice the onions in nice long pieces. Try to get them as even as possible so that they will cook more evenly too.

Heat up your skillet or saucepan to medium high heat and add about a tablespoon of coconut oil. Add the sliced onions to your pan and let them get coated completely in the coconut oil. Make sure you're moving them around frequently so that the onions do not burn. Towards the end you could bring down the heat to medium. Add any additional coconut oil as you feel is needed. This will help make sure it doesn't burn ;) At the end your caramelized onions should looks something like this!

Now that we have the ingredients prepped, we're ready to assemble to tarte to go into the oven. Cut the sweet potato into chunks and mash the chunks down with a fork as the first layer onto of the pie crust.

 Add some goat cheese sprinkled in liberally in there.

Then add a layer of all the caramelized onion. Finish with a few more chunks of sweet potato cubes cut in half this time to by a bit thinner and add a final sprinkle of goat cheese on top.

Then place your tarte into the oven at 350 degrees Farenheit for about 45 mins. Take it out of the oven and let cool before serving.

Enjoy!! :)

Quesillo Recipe (The Venezuelan Version of Flan)

This is a recipe that is very close to my heart because it is one of the first recipes I ever learned from my grandmother! In Venezuela, we make a version of Flan that we call Quesillo and below I have shared my Grandmother's recipe for Quesillo. There is really very little difference in texture and taste, between the two but what I can assure you of is that I have never in my life tasted a Flan or a Quesillo that tasted as good as the one from my grandmother's recipe. The instructions may seem a bit intimidating, but taking it step by step its really very simple. I hope you take the chance to try it! I promise your taste buds and your friends will be seriously thanking you :)

Ingredients

For the mix:
4 eggs
1 can of condensed milk
1/2 can of milk (use the empty condensed milk can to measure this)
Splash of rum
Splash of vanilla

For the caramel:
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of water

For the pressure cooker:
1 1/2 water


The first step in the process is making a caramel that will top the Quesillo. We do this by putting the 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of sugar in a "quesillera" pan (if you don't have this you can use any round pan about 8 inches in diameter) and letting that heat up over a low to medium heat on the stove. Make sure you are watching carefully to see as the sugar and water begin to change color into a rich caramel. Be careful not to let it burn! Because this process happens fairly quickly. Once you see that the sugar and water has thickened and changed to a nice color, turn off the stove, pick up the quesillera with oven mitts and move the caramel around the pan so that it coats all of the edges. You can now set that down and let it cool, while we move onto making the mix.

Making the mix is super simple! Just put all the rest of the ingredients in a blender and blend! You will use 1 can of condensed milk and then fill that empty can half way up with regular milk and add this to your blender. Add in the 4 eggs, a splash of rum and a splash of vanilla, and that's it!

Now you can pour this mix into the quesillera pan over the caramel.

Next close the quesillera lid over your quesillera (again, if you don't have a quesillera, you can simply use aluminum foil to cover as a lid over your round pan but make sure it's sealed tight!).

Now for the baking process, we are actually going to be using a pressure cooker! Which I know might seem a bit strange to many over you, but this is the way my grandmother has always done it, and it is the way that I learned how to do it with her. :) It is also a very speedy method compared to the oven and gives the flan a very nice consistency.

Put about 1 1/2 cups of water in the pressure cooker, then place the quesillera (or round pan) into the pressure cooker. Once the quesillera is in the pressure cooker, the water inside it should reach about 2 fingers up the side of the pressure cooker wall. Place the top on the pressure cooker and make sure it is tightly secured. Turn on the pressure cooker at about 400 degrees F. Leave it this way until you hear the top begin to whistle from the steam coming out. After you have heard this happen, move the heat to 300 degrees F and leave it this way for 8 minutes. After 8 minutes, unplug the pressure cooker and let the Quesillo cool down inside the pressure cooker until you can move the top piece of the pressure cooker from side to side and hear no steam coming out. The key is that there is no longer any pressure before you open up the pressure cooker.

Now you can remove the quesillera carefully from the pressure cooker with oven mitts, taking care not to burn yourself (the sides of the pressure cooker will be hot!). Once you've removed it from the pressure cooker, you can remove the top off (or tin foil) your quesillera pan to let the Quesillo cool completely.

This is how the Quesillo should look after coming out of the pressure cooker.

When the Quesillo has cooled completely, place a plate on top of the Quesillera and carefully flip the pan over, letting the Quesillo slide out and onto your plate.

And voila! Cut a slice and enjoy :)

You've got an amazingly delicious Flan/Quesillo. Now that wasn't too hard to make, was it? :)

If you get the chance to try the recipe, please let me know how it comes out! I love hearing feedback!

Until my next recipe,

happy baking!

xx
Kismet Cooking

Healthy Banana Blueberry Pancakes (3 ingredients)

Alright, 3 ingredients. That is really all you will need to make these delicious pancakes!

2 Bananas
1 Egg
A pinch of Baking Powder

Optional:
A pinch of Cinnamon
Blueberries


Now you really only need the first 3 ingredients, really truly that is all and this recipe will come out really great. But... to up the game you've got to throw in that pinch of cinnamon and some blueberries. Because really everything is made better with cinnamon and blueberries.
Also I've tried other recipes like this before and I really think that it is the pinch of baking powder that makes the recipe, so make sure you don't miss out on that step, it's an important one.

Now for the instructions, also super simple.

First, mash up your bananas nice and smooth. You want it as close to a liquid as possible but make sure you don't stick it in the blender otherwise your pancakes will fall flat later on when you try to cook them.

Second, beat in your egg and make sure its nice and fluffy.

Next, mix in your pinch of baking powder and pinch of cinnamon.

Finally, melt some coconut oil (or butter if you like!) over medium heat on a heavy bottomed skillet or griddle. Then pour your batter onto the skillet. Throw some blueberries on top and wait for the pancake to bubble before flipping it over. Then cook it on the other side for about a minute.

And voila! :) You've got some delicious, ridiculously healthy pancakes. Your taste buds and your body will thank you! ;)

Try it out and let me know what you think.

Secret Ingredient Vanilla Cookies

2 cups of flour

1 1/4 cup of sugar

2 sticks of butter

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 Tablespoon of vanilla

1 Egg yolk


Heat oven to 338 F.
Leave in oven for about 17- 20 mins. 
They will flatten out and be lightly golden around edges. 
Take out of oven, let cool on cookie sheet. 
Then use small heart shaped cookie cutout to make small heart shaped vanilla cookies.


Secret Vanilla cookies.

Sweet (Secretly Healthy) Blueberry Muffins

DRY
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
           (this could have been up to 1/2 cup wheat germ and then 1/2 cup flour)
1/2 cup oats
           ( I used 1 maple sugar instant oats packet, tried taking out as much sugar as I could and then topped the rest off with regular oats)
1/3 cup sugar (or less, should be half of 2/3)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

WET
6 ounces nonfat greek yogurt (I used one thing of Chobani strawberry Greek yogurt)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons of coconut oil
1.2 tsp vanilla (I did a tiny bit more)
A splash of skim milk.
1/2 cup of blueberries (I dusted them in flour)


Heat oven to 350 F.
Combine dry ingredients (flour, wheat germ, oats, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt).
Combine wet ingredients (yogurt, eggs, butter, and vanilla).
Fold yogurt mixture into dry mixture, combine completely. Add just a tiny splash of skim milk.
Gently fold in blueberries.
Spoon into 8 muffin (cupcake) tins.
Bake until top is golden and springs back when you gently touch it. 20 -25 mins.
My was done at 20.

This recipe adapted from http://domesticatedacademic.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/power-muffins-blueberryoatmealyogurtpower/

Sweet Mango Pie

Ingredients:

Filling-
3 Mangos (skin pealed)
1 can of condensed milk
3 egg yolks
The juice of 3 little green limes

Crust-
3 heaping tablespoons of butter (room temp)
3 packs of Maria cookies (4 cookies per pack), 1 pack of all bran cookies, 1 or 2 packs of canelitas (6 cookies per pack)
A little bit of skim milk

Suspiros -
1 cup sugar
3 egg whits

For the filling -
Peal the skin off the mangos, then cut mangos into little pieces.
Blend together all ingredients of the filling in a blender until you have a smooth consistency.

For the crust -
This is really more to eye than anything else. Start off with several pack of crushed cookies then add 3 heaping tablespoons of butter (no more!). At this point you should work this combination until it becomes dough like. You will know if you need to add more crushed cookies packets or, like I needed to do, add a bit of skim milk to the mixture to get a good texture.
Squeeze the mixture in your hands, then press hard onto the surface youre working on. Finally when you see you have enough, work the dough into the sides and bed of the 10 inch diameter pie dish.


Pour the filling into the pie dish (that should already have the crust situated). Pre heat oven 350 degrees Farenheit and pop it in the oven for about 25 mins. It could be a little less time, but very unlikely for it to be more. For me it took 25 mins because my oven was not fully preheated to 350 when I put it in. If it is already preheated fully to 350, then it should not take more than 20 mins.

While the pie is baking, time to make the suspiros which is the topping to this beautiful pie!
Use a hand mixture to mix the egg whites and 1 cup of sugar until stiff peaks form.

When the pie is done, take it out of the oven and let it cool completely. After it has cooled completely, use a spoon to drop the formation of little droplets of 'suspiros' on top of the pie.

Now set the oven to broil on low, and pop the pie now with suspiros on top into the oven for about 4 mins. The suspiros should start to golden.

Take out of the oven and cool completely to room temperature.
Then store in refrigerator.
Although I think this tastes best when it is still at room temperature.