This is a nutella bombolone.
Look at that ooze, that soft, yielding donut.
If you don’t want to go and get one of these babies right now, there is legitimately something wrong with you.
I know that this is an ambitious blog title, especially considering it is on January. Still, I stand by my call. At this little kiosk by the sea I had what i’m calling the dessert of 2015. I love a fancy dessert as much as the next girl but i’m a little bit over the finicky, frippery and mountain of elements that comes with many desserts at the moment. Sometimes less is more and being able to serve up an unquestionably delicious, simple dessert is the best skill in the universe. That’s what happened when hubs and I went to Chiosco by Ormeggio early in the new year.
We had been to Ormeggio for hubs’ birthday the month before and spied the casual dining kiosk across the jetty. We absolutely loved the dinner at Ormeggio (the dishes and cocktails were so damn tasty I didn’t even have the presence of mind to take photos to share with you) especially for celebrating a special occasion and so we thought that the casual nature of Chiosco would be perfect for a normal date night dinner. Damn straight it was.
Is there someone you know who is particularly difficult to buy gifts for? Don’t want to brave the crowds on christmas eve? Make some mustard! Ok… so I may have had one too many Christmas wines which may have impaired my ability to construct logical sentences. But the result is satisfying nonetheless! Who wouldn’t love a little jar of home made Honey Wholegrain Mustard as a Christmas present? Even if they don’t like mustard you will get brownie points for presenting something that looks time consuming and devilishly tricky. (But really isnt!)
Until I saw the recipe for this in Gifts From the Kitchen by Annie Rigg I must confess that I didn’t even realise it was possible to make your own mustard. I just assumed it appeared mysteriously on supermarket shelves and in my roast beef sandwiches. Imagine my amazement!
Now, im not prone to hyperbole, but todays tasks needed a suitably emotive title in order to keep me out of the doldrums brought on by my extreme joblessness. Teacher shortage? Where?
Today I decided to make butter and ricotta. While these are not sweets (strictly speaking), they are allowed a post of their own as they are integral ingredients in many of my favourite recipes. After seeing Fast Ed on Better Homes and Gardens make ricotta I was hooked!
So I high tailed it to the supermarket this morning to get myself the mandatory 2L full cream milk. And after a while on the stove and the introduction of 60ml white vinegar, my mix had separated nicely into Miss Muffets’ curds and whey.
It looks pretty horrible when its all separated, so after about ten minutes I strained it through a cheesecloth and a colander to finally get my finished ricotta! Hooray! The draining process is the most time consuming aspect of this recipe, however you can just suspend the cheesecloth over a bowl and let the whey drain out that way so that you can go away and leave it for an hour. After about an hour I had the beautiful ricotta you see below. Yum!
Well… ok so this doesnt look THAT appetising. You’ll just have to trust me that it is! Now that the ricotta is finished and stored away in the fridge, dreaming of the cakes and pies and sweets that it will be made into, we will move on to the butter.
There is possibly no greater ingredient than butter. In my opinion, anyone who refuses to use butter in their cooking is doomed to live a flavourless life. So when I found THIS recipe thanks to the lovely girls in this thread, I knew I had to try it. And what better time to try making fresh butter than during The Great Dairy Challenge?
This recipe for butter is most definitely the easiest recipe I have ever tried. I used one 600ml pot of thickened cream (just the no frills variety) and whacked it straight into the food processor. After about five minutes it had reached butter consistency! Again, it was time to Hooray!
While I am a massive fan of salted butter, this unsalted spread has totally won me over. Theres something about the delicacy of this lighter than light butter that makes me think it will give the midas touch to anything it is added to. Heres hoping! It too is now in a tub in the fridge, next to my ricotta, dreaming of what gorgeous sweet it is to be made into. Or maybe it will just end up spread on a crusty piece of bread. Mmmmmmmmmmm!
And here ends The Great Dairy Challenge. Although I think it may have preceeded The Great Whey Challenge, otherwise known as What-On-Earth-Can-I-Do-With-This-Left-Over-Whey? Any ideas?
