Roux-Based Cream Cheese Frosting

This past weekend, I had to bake two cakes for my sisters' birthdays. Both of them have birthdays in April and they decided to do one party. I originally was going to make each of them a 6 inch carrot cake, however one wanted carrot and the other and her family do not like carrot cake. They got matcha chiffon cake instead. That's for another post.

I've been wanting to experiment with a roux-based cream cheese frosting. I really like the roux-based buttercream from Bobby Flay's Red Velvet Cake recipe and have been researching how to turn it into a cream cheese frosting. I don't really like working with cream cheese in frosting, mostly because I tend to overbeat it and it breaks.

I've been trying to not overdo the fat in buttercreams and attempted my best to make a reduced fat buttercream using nonfat milk, neufchatel, and less butter. I adapted Bobby Flay's buttercream to suit this.

I started out with 1.5 cups nonfat milk in a small saucepan over medium-high heat.

Whisk in 7 tablespoons of all-purpose flour.

Add a little in and whisk and then repeat so it doesn't clump.

Whisk constantly, it will start to thicken fast.

Thickening and almost there.

Testing to make sure it's a thick paste. Just a little more and it's ready.

Pour into a bowl - you can see how thick the paste is; it doesn't run together when being scraped out.

Cover with plastic wrap, but make sure the plastic wrap is directly on top of the paste to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate for at least two hours.

Meanwhile, let unsalted butter come to room temperature.

In a mixing bowl, add 4 oz of butter and 1 cup of extra fine sugar (I just measured 1 cup granulated sugar into my Vitamix and ground it to a fine consistency). Whisk until light and fluffy and a good portion of the sugar has dissolved.

Add in spoonfuls of the flour-milk paste. I found that the paste helps break down the sugar further. The frosting might look a little broken at this point. Add in 12 oz neufchatel until thoroughly mixed; it should bring everything back together again. I wouldn't recommend this for piping. It was a nightmare to work with to frost a cake at all. I don't think I would use this exact same recipe again, but I'm determined to make changes to make it more stable. Perhaps some gelatin? I'm pretty sure I need more butter too.

Roux-Based Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1.5 cups milk (I used nonfat, but will probably try whole next time; Bobby Flay's buttercream calls for 1 cup whole and 1/2 cup cream)
• 1 cup superfine granulated sugar (I put 1 cup granulated sugar in the Vitamix and mixed to a fine consistency)
• 7 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 4 oz unsalted butter, room temperature
• 12 oz cream cheese, slightly cold (I used neufchatel)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. In a small saucepan, warm 1.5 cups milk over medium-high heat.
2. Before the milk starts to steam, whisk in flour by the spoonful.
3. Continue whisking for a couple of minutes as the milk and flour thicken to a paste; you want to cook it long enough so that the flour is cooked (but don't burn the milk!). The paste should be fairly thick, use the pictures above as a reference.
4. Pour the paste into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap with the plastic wrap sitting directly on top of the paste to prevent a skin from forming; Refrigerate for at least two hours.
5. Add room temperature butter, vanilla extract, and sugar to a mixing bowl and whisk until light and fluffy (whisk attachment).
6. Add the cold milk flour paste by the spoonful until thoroughly incorporated. The frosting might look a bit broken at this point - this probably depends if you used higher fat dairy here.
7. Add in the slightly cold cream cheese by the spoonful until all is mixed. After adding the cream cheese, the frosting came together again.

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Next time, I will try adding fat back in. I think I might use 12 oz cream cheese to 6 oz butter and use whole milk for the milk-flour paste and hopefully that will yield a firmer frosting. This was almost a pudding consistency to be honest.

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Ulker 60% Cacao with Pistachios Review

I had a bit of dark chocolate cravings last week and went out and bought quite a few brands  I tried a 99% bar which has become my new favorite, but that's for another post. There is this amazing Mediterranean grocery store near me, Phoenicia Specialty Foods, and it's a foodie heaven. Their bakery has unique desserts and so many different varieties of baklava! I'll need to devote one full post to all the goodies in this shop soon so you can see how amazing it is. Last comment on the store, they have sooooooo many different brands and varieties of halva!

Okay, on to the review. I was browsing their extensive chocolate collection and happened upon Ulker Bitter 60% Cacao with pistachios  Pistachios is one of my favorite nuts (especially as flavors for cakes and ice cream) and since it was embedded in dark chocolate, I had to try it!

So apparently, Ulker is a Turkish brand. Phoenicia carries a lot of imported goods from Turkey and surrounding areas; they also carry a lot of German baked goods and panettone year round! I've tried a lot of German and French dark chocolates, but was curious as to how this Turkish imported chocolate would fare. Upon opening it, I noticed the sections were built a little differently from usual chocolate bars' squares. It was fun seeing this:

I flipped it over and was delighted to see how many pistachios were embedded in the bar, although it was a little uneven. This was a good amount of pistachios for a bar that was around $3 - $4.

The way it was shaped did make it break a little unevenly, but that didn't really matter since I ate the whole thing anyway.

My first bite... was amazing! It was so smooth and even though it is 60% cacao, it was not overly sweet at all, just perfect. It almost tasted like a dark hot cocoa with a slight hint of espresso, but no smoky flavor and to my surprise, I didn't taste any vanilla notes either. No sour notes (I hate sour notes on dark chocolate!), no harsh bitterness, and no chalkiness. I could taste the pistachio and the chocolate really complemented it.

If you come across this bar of chocolate, you should definitely try it! The only other variety I found was a plain 60% bar at Phoenicia. I've not seen this elsewhere (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Central Market, etc.) so you might have issues finding it at any of the chain grocery stores.

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Greek Froyo + My Fit Foods

This has been a tiring week.  I decided I needed to run and overdid it.  It's weird how I used to run every single day, 4 - 6 miles for three months straight and felt great.  But throw some hills in there and one day is enough to kill me.  Add in some headwind and I might as well call in to work dead.  I'm short.  Hills are not my friend.

Anyway, I had a craving for something frozen this week and since my ice cream maker bowl was already in the freezer, I decided to whip up some greek froyo!  So it's not comparable to froyo shops, probably because I myself refuse to put in as much a sugar as they do, but it was still good.  I made some blueberry fat free froyo and now that I think of it, adding in some xanthan gum would've been a good idea to make up for the lack of fat and give it a nice mouth feel.

Blueberry Greek Froyo Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Fage 0% (or whatever you like, this is what I used)
• 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
• 2 Tbsp sweetener (I think honey would've been awesome, but I only had corn syrup.  Also, I've read that the liquid sweeteners will contribute to a better mouthfeel)

Method:

1. Mix sweetener into yogurt until completely dissolved or evenly distributed
2. Add blueberries and mix thoroughly
3. Dump into prepared ice cream bowl and use according to ice cream maker's instructions

It took about 10 - 15 minutes to get it to a nice scoopable texture. Being fat free, a lot of it stuck to the frozen ice cream bowl! I think adding in some guar gum and xanthan gum would give it a better texture.  

In my last post, I mentioned trying chicken. Well, I did.  And it wasn't too weird as I had eaten chickpea nuggets before and do eat seitan and such.  The difference was how filling it was.  I decided on Thursday I was going to try it and went to My Fit Foods and bought two entrees.  I almost forgot to take a picture and already ate a slice of chicken. This was a small portion and probably half a breast. It made me full! I mean, it was a different feeling of satiety from eating the vegetarian fare I normally eat. 

I really liked this dish, especially the pilaf, there was so much variety in the flavors. The chicken was good too and I am keeping chicken in my diet.

Yesterday, we had lunch catered in at work and I opted for a spinach strawberry salad + chicken. It had goat cheese and sliced almonds as well. I brought my own dressing and after tasting the salad, used only a tad. The chicken was well seasoned and the strawberries with goat cheese was practically a dressing in itself. The portion looked small, but it was actually filling. My eyes are usually bigger than my stomach. Good thing this was portioned.

I plan on trying some simple chicken recipes soon and will post the ones that taste decent!

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A trip to Trader Joe's

Have you been to Trader Joe's?  They only recently started opening stores in my area and I waited forever for one to open near me.  Before that, the closest one was about 45 minutes away.  Now I can jog to Trader Joe's or drive there in 7 - 8 minutes.  I went there a couple days ago to pick up their 3 grain tempeh, which I have yet to try.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been on a tempeh kick lately.  

Anyway, as it always happens, I got distracted in the store and picked up a couple other items.  I got their dried flattened banana.  It's almost like taffy and it's so chewy and sticky!  It's like candy, really.

So the dried bananas were right next to a weakness of mine - the nuts!  Trader Joe's does have some of the best value when it comes to their nuts, I especially love their roasted deluxe mixed nuts, but opted to try something I hadn't seen before in their store - Thai Lime and Chili Almonds.  I usually get their cashew and peanut variety and there was one similar of just plain cashews, although the seasoning was a bit different.  I just know I liked the one with tom yum flavor a lot more and this one had it.

I immediately tried it when I got home and it's amazing! I do like this better than their cashew and peanut variety as it seems to be less oily.  The tom yum flavor overpowers the cashews too much anyway so I think the almond variety is more balanced and definitely has a better crunch.  It's a bit addictive though, so I won't be buying it too often.

When I was getting my tempeh, I happened upon their Italian Sausage-less sausage.  I've tried the ones from Lightlife before and I thought those were pretty good, but wanted to try other brands.

I pan-fried half of one sliced in half on a sprayed skillet and it crisped on the sides nicely. It is slightly soft, but doesn't really fall apart when you cut into it. The texture was good, I think it's similar to Lightlife's version, and the flavor was good - it brought back memories of sausage pizza. My first thought biting into this was, I should make a pizza out of this and that I will soon. Maybe just get pita bread, mozzarella, tomato sauce, and top it off with diced chunks of this.

I need to start experimenting with other recipes soon as stir-fry anything is getting boring (although it's so convenient). Maybe foray back into chicken??? It's been on my mind a lot lately since I started eating seafood again last August after 5.5 years of being a vegetarian. I still can't get past the image of a chicken looking at me with his leg missing and asking me why I ate his leg. When I went to Tan Tan last week, we had ordered fish - the waitress pointed to the fish tank which size was which. When the dish came out and the fish was sitting on top of the plate (yes sitting, they did not put him on his side), I looked back over at the tank and there was one less fish.  He was only swimming around 20 minutes before.  I'm still haunted by this. I was a bad vegetarian for 5.5 years and relying on greek yogurt for my protein gradually gave me a massive sweet tooth (dairy has a lot of sugar and really, I don't think I would try and eat a bowl of savory greek yogurt if there was ever a thing). Becoming an endurance runner as a vegetarian who wasn't careful with macros intake turned my healthy eating habits upside down and I'm still trying to fix it (both habits and health). We shall see.

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Overnight breakfasts, a time-saver

I've been on a overnight oats and chia seed breakfast kick, although I do like the overnight oats a lot better. It does save a lot of time in the morning when I oversleep on a daily basis and am rushing to cook my morning oatmeal. Initially, I tried making overnight chia seed pudding for breakfast the next day - it came out pretty good but it more like a dessert soup since I added too much water. 

I ended up making overnight oats. The first time I had any type of oats soaked in yogurt was swiss oatmeal from Corner Bakery. I was obsessed with it. Oatmeal soaked in yogurt and served with green apples, currants, and almonds. It was pretty good, but probably high in sugar as well. I decided to make my own - a healthier version. It's almost like a rice pudding, but healthy! I've done a couple of variations on this based on what I'm craving - I'm thinking of trying a mocha flavored soon as well as a matcha flavored one! I love matcha, but I think the yogurt might overpower it - it would probably be better with milk if going for a matcha flavor.

Overnight Oats Base Recipe

• 1/2 cup rolled oats 
• 1/2 cup greek yogurt (I used Fage 0%) 
• Sweetener of choice (I used Wholesome Sweeteners organic stevia here) 
• 1/3 - 1/2 cup of liquid (I used 1/2 cup of water) 

Additions:

Fruit, PB2, nut butters, cocoa powder, extracts, lemon zest, the possibilities are endless! For a decadent dessert, I will probably add some chocolate chips or Sunspire's unsweetened carob chips (Sunspire has the best carob chips and since carob is already naturally sweet, I don't feel a need to get the sweetened version).

Method:

Mix all ingredients in a bowl, cover, and let it sit overnight
In the morning, stir the mixture and add more liquid if preferred for a looser texture or eat as is for a thick, pudding-like texture!

I can definitely see myself making this when I'm craving something like rice pudding. I would want to try it with canned coconut milk for dessert. Hmmm with toasted coconut and dark chocolate chips. Maybe add in some roasted chopped almonds for an almond joy variation. Yum!

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Exploring workout options, Teo Chew chinese food, and mango chips

It's been awhile since I've eaten at an Asian restaurant but after a heavy leg day today (and a good workout at Studio Fitness Heights - trying it out for now), I ended up going to get one of my favorite dishes since childhood at Tan Tan restaurant. It's called banh bot chien and and this restaurant makes the best. Many have tried to pull it off but no one comes near. I remember reading this is a Teo Chew dish which is hard to find these days.

It's made from rice flour, turnips (I think pickled turnips?) and eggs. This is what I ate throughout my childhood every time we came here to this restaurant. It's classified as an appetizer but it's easily a meal on it's own. Another childhood dish is crunchy fried noodles with a veggie and seafood stir-fry in brown sauce laying atop of it all. I love the contrast between the noodles that have already absorbed the sauce and the dry crunchy portion. This is another dish this restaurant is famous for.

Back to the workout at this new gym I'm trying out; my friend said he would help me so I'm debating if I should join. I tend to feel uncomfortable in the free weights section and generally around the machines. I also need someone to spot me so I can lift as heavy as I can and I refuse to ask strangers for help. It's a little farther than I'd like but my workouts will probably be quite a bit better having someone I know there to push me (and won't let me give up).

Anyway, earlier this week I went to Whole Foods and found popped mango chips with chili seasoning by Yogavive. My mom really likes dried chewy mango with chili seasoning, but that's often cooked in sugar so I decided to give these a try and maybe convert her to a less sugary alternative. This was not cheap. It was a little almost $4 for maybe a cup's worth of mango chips.

It's pretty good and can be addictive. But I learn to control myself when something is expensive (sometimes). It's a good alternative when I'm craving something crunchy. I like how the mangoes are kind of sticky when you start chewing on it; reminds me of the Mexican Lucas candy I used to eat growing up. I have an inkling that those Mexican mangonada drinks taste similar to this. That's on my list of foods to try. Perhaps in the hot and humid summer (will it ever come back?!).

With the weather warming up, I found some recipes for greek frozen froyo made at home, if I give it a try, I'll post the results!

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