The Super-Sized Moon and Muffin Monday: Baklava Muffins with Figs and Rose Syrup Glaze

Tell me what you feel in your room when the full moon is shining in upon you and your lamp is dying out, and I will tell you how old you are, and I shall know if you are happy.

~ Henri Frederic Amiel

I'm thrilled to be joining in Muffin Monday again after a long hiatus. Thank you, Anuradha of Baker Street blog for including me after my rather last minute plea :). Actually, I was quite excited at the thought of baking some special, festive-flavored muffins this holiday season and this week's recipe was no disappointment. Baklava Muffins! Have you ever tasted such a thing? Well, it certainly was my first time having a baklava that's not traditionally diamond shaped, with no sticky, crispy bits of dough flying all over the place upon that first bite.

Wanting to play up the baklava-ness of the muffins, I mulled over ways to incorporate rose flavor into the batter. Using rosewater would've been the obvious way to go, and while I did have it, I also remembered something else I had lying around...just begging to be noticed, eaten or used. They're these flower-shaped, pink rock candy from Ladurée that are infused with natural rose flavor. Everyone else at home stayed away from these because to them the floral scent was 'kinda weird' in a candy, and there was only so much I could eat all by myself. 

I ground the candy up in my grinder and realized I'd just created a two-fer. There was no longer any need for the sugar because the rock candy essentially did the same job, and it contained flavoring too! Pistachios would have made the muffins more authentic to the Middle-Eastern style of baklavas, but alas I had none (no walnuts either) and used almonds instead. Dried figs were thrown in the batter because they reminded me of the bounties of the Mediterranean and Middle East where baklavas are often listed as part of the national cuisine. 

Cooked and glazed

For the topping, I replaced the honey with a pink glaze concocted out of confectioner's/icing sugar, rose syrup and milk. Okay, the pink won't have you instantly exclaiming "Aha, baklava!", but didn't anyone ever tell you not to judge a muffin by its color? If you're one of those who are skilled at word association, you'd probably spot the pink and think, 'Turkish delight', which in turn makes you think of 'Turkey', which then gives you flashes of (no, no, not Christmas!) 'Baklava'. A-n-y-w-a-y..., these muffins tasted pretty darn good, with a pleasantly floral note and soft, pillowy texture. Thanks An for the fab recipe!

Super-Sized Moon

How about that total lunar eclipse ending up with a sombre, reddish-colored moon last Saturday (Nov 10), did you all get to witness it where you're at? This was my second time seeing it this year (last one was in June), but I would have to wait another 2 years to see it again. I decided to stalk the moon and take pictures of the eclipse in progress.

Ever since I can remember, I've always been immensely fascinated by astronomy. If I hadn't been reincarnated as the successfully frivolous blogger that I am now, I believe I would've made an annoyingly awesome astronomer or astrophysicist. I memorize the nomenclature of the stars and constellation shapes in the same way other people memorize their home address or their first love's eye pupil color. 

Anyway, nobody else in the house was excited to join me in observing the moon being gradually covered by the earth's shadow (their reasoning - when you can see it on YouTube, why would you want to watch the real thing as it's happening? They are right of course, but still I find it so sad). So armed with my camera with a lens that only zooms up to 20 times, a large cup of hot chocolate and my faithful neck travel pillow (let's face it, there was going to be a lot of looking up involved), I set about to capture the total eclipse, seen below.

Congratulations on making it to the end of this post. You have no idea how grateful I am that you're interested in anything else here apart from these muffins. I'm off to munch on a baklava muffin now, did I already tell you they are really, good? 

Note: Muffin Monday is an initiative by Baker Street. A culinary journey of sharing a wickedly delicious muffin recipe every week. Drop in a quick line to join her on her journey to make the world smile and beat glum Monday mornings week after week.

Baklava Muffins with Figs and Rose Syrup Glaze
Filling:
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (almonds*)
1/2 cup dried figs, sliced thinly*
1/3 cup sugar (Rose-flavored candy, ground finely*)
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter, melted

Muffins:
1 cup + 7 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sugar (Rose-flavored candy, ground finely*)
1 large egg
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup + 2 tablespoons buttermilk (substitute: 3/4 cup plain yogurt + 1/2 cup low fat milk)

Topping:
about 1/2 cup honey (I used the glaze below instead)

Rose Syrup Glaze*
1 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 tablespoon rose syrup (Monin brand)
2 tablespoons milk

* These are my variations.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F and prepare a 12 hole muffin baking pan with liners

2. For the Filling: Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl, set aside

3. For the Muffins: In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and sugar.

4. For the Topping: Mix the confectioner's sugar with butter and mix. Add rose syrup and milk to make a drizzling consistency and pass through a sieve to eliminate lumps. Set aside.

5. In a small measuring jar, lightly whisk together the egg, buttermilk and butter.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the egg mixture. Stir gently. Its okay if its bumpy.

6. Fill the muffin cups one third, add the filling and then top with the muffin mixture again till the cup is two thirds full.

7. Use any remaining filling as a topping. Bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.

Take out from the oven and transfer to a wire rack, still in the muffin liners. Let cool and drizzle with rose syrup glaze.

We Should Cocoa: Apricot-Mocha Brownie Marzipan Bars

Chocolate flows in deep dark, sweet waves, a river to ignite my mind and alert my senses.

~Anonymous~

Isn't it funny how there are days when you surf the net to check out your blogger friends' offerings and you click on links upon links and finally end up on a page you that makes you pause and think, hmm...I'd really like to be a part of that? For a number of uber-surfers, that's a frequent occurrence but not so for me. Maybe I don't click on that many links, I tend to always gravitate and return to sites that drew me to them in the first place, either for their prose or their photos but most of all, for their owner's personality and friendship. On this one particular day, I stumbled upon the "We Should Cocoa" event hosted by the lovely Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog and Chele of Chocolate Teapot. It's a monthly cooking event involving that most scared of ingredient, chocolate, and one other compulsory ingredient chosen by the hosts, and guess what? Here I am, contributing a chocolicious recipe to the said event.

This  month's extra ingredient is marzipan. I was rubbing my hands in sinisterful glee because I happen to love marzipan! I had never made it myself, of course, nor ever baked with it. But I recall its dense, rich, creamy taste inside Christmas stollens I had eaten in Germany, and in tiny fruit forms (made completely out of marzipan) whenever I've travelled to Thailand. That's really about it, my marzipan experience is sadly very limited.

So why the glee? It's my chance to try and make my very own marzipan(!) and pair it with an original recipe out of my chocolate-drenched mind. After a bit of research, I found out that marzipan was such a breeze to make. I made just a small block for starters and when it didn't crack after overnight chilling and rolling out....I was more than thrilled! (I'm so easy to please, can you tell?)

                Top: Dried apricots and apricot paste                      

Bottom L: My homemade marzipan                                                              R: Mocha brownie on almond crust

For several years now, I've had this rather sinful recipe for chocolate brownie that's laced with strong coffee. It's soft and oh-so-squealy-gooey inside but crisp on top... as I said, it's a brownie headed for Hell. I wanted to wrap that brownie in my homemade marzipan and fashion it into bars but after a bit of thought, that just seemed too dense overall. My pantry held some beautifully soft, dried apricots so after blitzing them in the food processor with some honey, milk and more marzipan, I got this lovely apricot paste. Spread that on top of the brownie, cover it with a sheet of marzipan and we have the rather mouthful Apricot-Mocha Brownie Marzipan Bar. Oh yes, I also baked the brownies on top of an almond crust to give the sweet a bit of crunch and make it look, you know, a bit more bar-like. You can never have too much almonds anyway, can you? 

 Bottom: Faux coffee beans made out of marzipan and rolled in cocoa powder

For decoration, I rolled some marzipan into coffee-bean shapes, dusted them in cocoa powder and placed one on top of each marzipan bar.  

Let me tell you, there are recipes I like and there are recipes I really like. This is one of them. Every layer turned out perfectly and the flavors (refreshing apricots on top of gooey chocolate and underneath marzipan) melded really well together. That's not normal, especially when it's the first time I make something. So you see, if I had never landed on the 'We Should Cocoa' page, I never would have come up with this bliss!

Apricot-Mocha Brownie Marzipan Bars

1st/bottom layer: Almond crust

60g butter

100g all-purpose flour

60g ground almonds

60g sugar

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line a 8x8-inch deep baking tin with parchment paper, or use a loose-bottomed tin for easy release of cake.

2. Rub butter into flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add almonds and sugar and rub further with your fingertips until well incorporated and forms a loose dough. You can also place the ingredients in a food processor in the above order to expedite the process.

3. Tip the mixture into the baking pan and press down with your fingers to flatten it. This is the almond crust. Bake for 10 minutes and set aside.

2nd layer: Gooey Chocolate Brownie

150g chocolate, chopped

60g butter

1 teaspoon instant coffee powder

2 eggs

50g sugar

50g all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Once melted, remove from heat and stir in the instant coffee powder until dissolved. Leave to cool.

2. In another bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until pale and creamy. Stir in the cooled chocolate mixture. Add the flour and fold gently to incorporate. Stir in the vanilla extract.

3. Pour mixture over the top of the semi-baked almond crust and bake at 180C for 15-20 minutes. Leave to cool completely. Preferably, leave the cooled cake in the refrigerator overnight.

3rd layer: Apricot and Honey Filling

1 cup dried apricots, chopped

1 tablespoon honey

4 tablespoons milk

2 tablespoons marzipan (see recipe below)

1. In a food processor, blitz the apricots with the honey, milk and marzipan until you get a homogeneous creamy yellow mixture.

2. Spread the apricot mixture on top of the cooled brownie, flattening with the back of a spoon to create an even layer.

3. Top with a thin sheet of rolled out marzipan. Press down gently until the marzipan sticks to the apricot layer.

4th layer (top): Marzipan

250 grams of peeled almonds

1 cup icing/confectioners sugar

1 small egg white

1. In a food processor, pulse the almonds until you obtain a very fine almond flour.

2. Add the sugar a quarter cup at a time and pulse until very well combined.

3. Finally add the egg white and pulse until the mixture starts to resemble marzipan. Pinch a bit of the dough and press in between your fingers, it should feel soft and pliable.

4. Roll the dough in a plastic film and refrigerate it for at least one hour. After that take it out and place on a clean surface dusted lightly with confectioners sugar. Roll out the dough and fold it two or three times. Flatten it again and return it to refrigerator. The dough is ready to be used when it is no longer sticky. (I left mine overnight)

5. Roll the marzipan flat in between two sheets of plastic film to about ½ cm thick. Cut into an approximate 8x8 inch square and carefully transfer this layer on top of the apricot layer. Press down gently until the marzipan sticks to the apricot layer.

6. Using a sharp knife, cut the marzipan bar into little squares about 2x2 inches each. Wipe the knife every time you cut so the layers of the bar will not run into each other. Serve immediately or store bars in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Poetry Thursday #9: The Bakewell Tart That Wasn't

 Poetry Thursday #9: 

Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea,

Mermaids are chaunting the wild lorelie;

Over the streamlet vapors are borne,

Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.

Extract of Beautiful Dreamer, Stephen Foster

Sometimes friendships begin in the unlikeliest of places. Like the bottom of the sea. No, I'm not alluding to the Mermaid Underwater Alliance nor to witty, talkative fish adorably nicked Nemo and Dory. I'm referring to diving buddies, mine in particular. When I decided to take up scuba diving a few years ago, I had just celebrated a milestone birthday. Not exactly an age to be taking up any sport of that (risky, foolhardy, wondrous) kind, but then one can't dictate when one is ever ready to do anything in this life - you just know when you've reached that point that you are, well, ready. 

The Great Underwater Alliance

On my first diving trip out to sea, I was paired with a guy who I wasn't exactly enamored with. Worse, he was a colleague, and even worse than worse, he was a techie. The department I was in was creative, funky, colorful and LOUD, while the tech people just seemed stealth-like, reserved and well, staid. I hadn't gotten along very well with them. Other than the fact that I had nothing in common with anyone on the technical team, they often ignored and sniggered at my trouble-shooting pleas! So seeing that my first dive buddy, whose task was to look out for my well-being while we were underwater (and vice-versa), was from the 'nemesis' camp, it gave me a baaaad, sinking feeling. If he'd wanted revenge, that was the time. I might as well have drowned myself there and then. And he was probably thinking the very same thing.

But oh, how wrong I was! Who I discovered that day was a kind, responsible and yes, even funny guy who checked all my diving equipment thoroughly before each dive and made sure my oxygen levels were always adequate (we funky, creative ones can get carried away with the fascinating view down there in the sea, you know what I mean?). As I result, I felt safe and from then on, the techie and I became more than just dive buddies. We became friends. No longer were my working days filled with frustration whenever something went technologically amiss.

So how does this story segue into bakewell tart? I'm not quite sure how it does, and if it does at all. I guess what I'm trying to say is that stereotyping people and things certainly did not help me grow as a human being and whenever I've done it, it often surprises me. Some people/things are just not whom/what they seem. Like this bakewell tart, for instance. As a young adult, I had lived in the United Kingdom for close to ten years and in all that time, never once did a bakewell tart pass through my lips. The people of Derbyshire, where this dessert originates, will probably kill me for saying this, but the tart looked to my mind so sickly sweet and unappealing that I never desired it.

Until one day recently, of course, when a 'Best of British' cooking show on television had me enraptured with its chef's demonstration of a bakewell tart in the making. Oh dear, it hadn't looked sickly sweet at all, in fact, it looked rather appetizing! Since I've stereotyped bakewell tart so rigidly all these years, I wanted to set things right and taste one that I made myself. The components of this tart seemed easy enough - sweet shortcrust pastry lined with delicious jam, and topped with almond sponge or frangipane. My concessions were to use a rose petal and orange jam, with lots of sinful chocolate hidden underneath the frangipane layer! 

 

I used this recipe from the Smitten Kitchen, just replacing the jam layer with:

• 1 cup rose petal jelly
• 2 oranges, peeled and sliced
• 200g dark chocolate, melted 

Boil, then simmer the rose petal jelly with the oranges for about 15 minutes until syrupy. Sieve to remove the chewy bits of orange. Spread the orange-rose jam on the base of the crust, then pour in the chocolate.

Oh lordy!

For the crust, I simply kneaded in the zest of 1 orange to add more flavor. If you do not chill the frangipane mixture for at least 2 hours (like I clearly didn't, below), the frangipane will mix into the chocolate layer slightly when you spread it. I didn't mind because I quite liked the marbly chocolate-almond effect. 

Orange-Rose-Chocolate Bakewell Tart.

This may be total blasphemy of a bakewell tart, but it's a path worth treading. I will never view this best-of-British tart in quite the same way again! 

Bake well, folks.

Spicy Creamed Mushroom Soup with Toasted Almond Brittle

Here's a brief post, because it's already late at night here. However, I wouldn't be able to sleep well if I didn't share this recipe with you now. So just to put my jumping sheep-demons to rest, I present you my rather zesty, soul-fulfilling version of Creamed Mushroom Soup.

It's a tad spicy because I'd grounded a handful of peppercorns for the photography part and then without thinking threw the whole lot in the pot! You can, of course, adjust this to your own taste and disposition. Let's not forget that diversity, after all, is what makes the world go round. When it comes to good food, the same passion for it reverberates from Moscow all the way to Johannesburg and through to well, Brunei!

Spicy Mushroom Soup with Toasted Almond Brittle
Serves: 4

Ingredients:
200g shiitake mushrooms, sliced into chunks
1 ½ litres chicken broth
1 tblspn freshly ground black/white pepper
1 tblspn rosemary
1 tblspn thyme
6 tblspns butter
5 cloves garlic, sliced
2 shallots, diced
1 tblspn chives
4 tablespoons plain flour
250ml heavy cream

Toasted Almond Brittle

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons golden syrup

1/3 cup sugar

½ tsp teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups toasted almond slices

Method:

1. Bring broth to a boil and add the mushrooms, ground pepper, rosemary and thyme (herbs can be fresh or dried). Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes. Lower the heat and simmer while you prepare the next step.

Boil 'em Shiitakes!

My ground peppercorn. I did this with a mortar and pestle.

(I could almost hear my mother saying over my shoulder, "God gave you hands, woman. USE them!")

2. In another pan, melt the butter and fry the garlic, shallots and chives for 2 minutes or so before adding the flour. Cook for at least 2 minutes, then pour 5 cups of the hot soup into the roux slowly (it will splash!). Whisk with each addition to avoid lumps, then pour this mixture back into the soup pot. Stir further under medium heat for about 2 minutes.

3. Remove pan from heat and either blend the soup in batches or use a handheld blender directly in the pan, like I did. Blend until you achieve your desired smoothness – I like mine with a bit of texture. Whisk in the heavy cream. Keep soup warm, but do not boil until time to serve. Garnish with toasted almond brittle and serve.

Toasted Almond Brittle

1. Mix the golden syrup, sugar and salt in a small sauté pan and cook syrup until dark golden brown.

Slurrppp...

2. Remove from the heat as soon as the mixture turns a darker golden brown as it will continue to burn, and stir in the toasted almonds. Transfer quickly to a silpat or non-stick baking paper. Flatten out with fingers or separate into small clusters and allow to cool.

My almond brittle kept disappearing under the soup, I think it was too heavy as a garnish. Next time, I'll try with other nuts and see if they're better at the floating game.

Managed to fish them out and they were delish, anyway.

Happy soup-slurping, everyone!