Speculoos (Biscoff) Cream Puffs

I cannot believe that I never posted about Speculoos before! Back in 2010 when Mike and I traveled to France, we were addicted to this creamy rich speculoos spread (called Biscoff in the USA) that has the consistency of peanut butter but tastes like spiced cookies and condensed cream.  We used up all the bottles we brought home from France, and last year a friend bought us a bottle of the creamy spread and the crunchy one!
We then found out that Trader Joe's now sells a similar product (not that we have a Trader Joe's in our neighborhood yet-that's happening on September 6th).  And then I saw it in a recent Wal-mart advertisement. So I guess Speculoos may become a mainstream food item similar to Nutella.

Mike has been eating speculoos on plain white bread, so it got me thinking-I can replace the peanut butter in a recipe with the speculoos spread and voila, a Speculoos-flavored treat.

Cream puff shell batter.

 I just searched online for an easy cream puff recipe. I think I followed a recipe on the King Arthur Flour website.

Pate Choux (Cream puff shells)

Here's my Speculoos filling.
If you want the recipe I used here it is:

Ingredients
2 cups whole milk
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped* 

4 Tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 c granulated sugar
1/4 t. Salt
2 eggs

4 Tablespoons butter
3/4 cup Speculoos

Simmer the milk and the vanilla bean.  Whisk together the cornstarch, sugar, salt and eggs.  Temper the egg mixture with the warm milk by slowly whisk a third of the hot milk into the egg mixture. Then pour the warmed egg/milk mixture back into the pot with the remaining milk. Bring to a full boil for a few seconds and then remove from heat.  *Add vanilla extract (1 t) in at the end if you do not have any vanilla beans.  

Place in a container and cover with saran wrap. Chill until slightly solidified in texture and then place in a pastry bag and pipe into cut cream puff shells. 

Mike and my friends really enjoyed these cream puffs. The filling was delicious and I'd definitely try to flavor more desserts with speculoos.  

Chocolate Covered Yummies

Last month I attended a chocolate workshop at work and learned about tempering chocolate.  Tempering is method for heating and then cooling chocolate so that the finished product has a nice gloss sheen, and snap.  If tempered correctly, the chocolate will not bloom due to poor technique.
 I chose the Seeding Method as my method of choice because I have a small surface area in my kitchen, and it was just the easier method. The seeding method involves heating chocolate to a temperature to about 115F and then adding chocolate to reduce the temperature down to 90F.  .
If I'm feeling up to it, I'll add a detailed post about the different methods of tempering chocolate. 

Chocolate covered almonds

Chocolate covered almonds with Heath toffee. I swear, these chocolate covered almonds tasted just as good, if not better than store bought chocolate covered almonds.

Chocolate covered apricots, kettle potato chips, and senbei (from Hawaii). Good thing Mike was taking a nap when I was experimenting in the kitchen, or he might have thought that I was a bit crazy dipping all this food in chocolate.  

This looks like a mash-up and on the verge of kind of gross looking, but I thought that this was delicious! I chopped up some dried apricots, cherries, and almonds and then poured the leftover chocolate on it.  It's my version of a fruit and nut bark or chocolate mendiants.  So good! I guess I have to work on making it look pretty.

Sheep Cupcakes?

Well this week wraps up the last of my travel...for now. I do not foresee any travel in the near future until possibly May.  But wait, is it mid-April already?  I was fortunate enough to be relieved of travel for two weeks because I had to take care of some "clean up work" for a project and then wanted to stay put in the office for a Food Engineering course.  So...since I had some free time in my home kitchen, I played around in the kitchen!

I saw these really cute sheep cupcakes online and attempted to make them for Easter brunch at a friend's house. As you can see, I kind of failed. My cupcakes look like a mass of marshmallows topped with a button or a nose. 
Mike told me that I should make carrot cake cupcakes because we were attending an Easter brunch. Bunnies eat carrots-->carrot cake thematically make sense. I married a logical one!
I first starting with making the eyes.

 I used Giradhelli 60% cacao chocolate pieces as the face. I saw that a lot of people use licorice gum drop candies as the face base, but since I do not like licorice, I decided to make them out of chocolate.  I then dotted each chocolate piece with melted white candy melts.

I tried using a black food marker, but had trouble applying color because of the candy melts' waxy fatty surface. So, I ended up using black food coloring.

***Note to self-If I decide to make more baked goods with eyes, I will make a ton of eyes with a candy frosting type of recipe.

I then proceeded to make a simple cream cheese frosting and then applied as many mini marshmallows as I could on each cupcake.
The sheep do not look quite right, but from a distance, they kind of resemble sheep.

As a last resort, I tried painting faces onto chocolate candy melts (they are about double the size of a Giradhelli chocolate piece).  They still do not look like sheep, but at least they are smiling!

I am debating whether I want to make this cupcakes again. Probably not. Unless I have a lot of spare time or if I decide to suck it up and buy licorice gum drops and pre-made candy eyes.



Bacon Jam!!!!

A couple weeks ago I decided that I'd be ambitious and try to make some bacon jam.  Bacon jam you ask?  Yeah, it's basically a spread consisting of bacon, onion, and spices.  I thought that it would make good Christmas gifts for the foodies I know. I decided to only make a small batch before cooking down 3 POUNDS of bacon.

"Good Quality Bacon."  I'm not a big bacon eater-unless it is really crispy and a lot of the fat has rendered off, so I had to ask Mike for help on what constitutes "Good Quality Bacon."  I settled on Hormel's Black Label Bacon from Sam's Club because Mike said, "That's higher quality than the bacon we usually buy." *I'm not sure if Mike was referring to the turkey bacon that I buy for myself. 


I also bought a huge container of real maple syrup from Sam's Club.

Here's a secret...when I want to experiment in the kitchen, I search online for recipes. I scour the Internet (okay for about 5-10 minutes) and then compile the recipes that sound good based on the ingredients and how they match in my mind.

I then compile them, omit ingredients that I:
 1) do not like; 2) do not have in the house; 3) am not willing to purchase
In regards to the cooking technique I choose:
1) the quickest and easiest method, unless there is a apparent reason why the extra time is a necessity
2) use the technique that involves equipment and gadgets that I have in the house
If I realize that I do not have enough of an ingredient while I am cooking
1) Omit the ingredients
2) Substitute it with ingredient(s) that I think will work.  (i.e. I used some brown sugar once in a lemon bar recipe because I ran out of granulated sugar). 

Putting the cooked bacon back into the pot with the caramelized onions and other goodies.



Stirring all the ingredients in a crock pot.

Bacon Jam-My Version (an amalgamation of all the recipes I liked online)
Ingredients
1 pound good quality smoked bacon (cut into 1" pieces)
2 cups of thinly sliced onion
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4-1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 tablespoons Sriracha sauce
1/4 t of chili flakes
1 cup coffee
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 t black pepper

Directions
Cook the bacon in batches over medium high heat until the fat is rendered off the bacon and it is just starting to crisp. Set the bacon on the side. Pour out the bacon grease (you can use it for something else).

Keep 1-2 tablespoons of the bacon fat in the pan/pot and then dd the onion and garlic and cook over medium heat until the onions have caramelized.

Return the bacon to the pan/pot and add all the remaining ingredients (sugar, coffee, spices, etc). Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.

*For the next step, I decided to transfer the mixture from the pot into a crock pot.
Simmer over low heat for 3-4 hours until you can no longer tell the onion from the bacon and it has a thick, jam-like consistency and deep rich brown color. Occasionally stir the mixture and add water if it looks like it is becoming to dry.

Cool the mixture and then transfer it to a food processor. Chop/blend the mixture until the desired texture that you would like. I like the slightly rustic look of chunks of bacon in my jam, so I did not puree my mixture.

Let cool and place in a glass jars, the refrigerate. Take out of fridge ~1 hr before serving, so jam will be at room temperature.  I haven't tested this out, but I'm sure you could heat the jam in the microwave before serving too. Serve with crackers.

Some of the other websites I viewed said to add a splash of vanilla extract to round out the flavor.  Mike wanted to add some smokey notes to the jam. I did not want to ruin the jam, so we tested out these extra flavoring in small containers. We're glad to report that the addition of either flavor creates an edible tasty jam.  Although when I make the jam again for gifts I do plan on adding the liquid smoke....and I'm still teetering on the addition of vanilla extract. 

I brought it to a friend's house for a party and it was well received. That's enough of a seal of approval before I start making it for gifts. 

Healthier Mac and Cheese???

I'm so grateful to have a husband like Mike. Even though work has been taking a toll on him, he's been picking up all the housework slack.  For the past couple of weeks, I have been spending countless hours at the office to gear up for some work travel next week.  I've been a bad wife and haven't cleaned the house, gone grocery shopping, washed the clothes, or cooked a decent dinner in a long time.

Lucky for me, I married a guy who can cook food that is actually edible (that's an understatement because he cooks tasty food).  A couple of weeks ago I bought a butternut squash from the market with grandiose plans to make a lowfat mac and cheese that I saw in a Food magazine.  I didn't write down the recipe, all I knew was that I was going to substitute some of the cream and cheese with butternut squash. 
Well, one night well I was at work pretty late, and Mike called me and told me that he was going to execute the mac and cheese dish for me.
I came home and this is what I saw:

I was pleasantly surprised with Mike's dish. I'm not sure what was in it besides the roasted butternut squash, mozzarella cheese, beef bouillon, and elbow macaroni.  But the dish had potential.   Plus to Mike's credit, he only used ingredients that were available in our kitchen. 

Mike and I were on the same page when we both critiqued the recipe and decided that for the next attempt, we will:
1)Incorporate sharp cheddar (we didn't have it in the fridge). The stronger cheese flavor will come out and using sharp cheddar will reduce the total amount of cheese that we will add
2)Use our immersion blender and blend the butternut squash/cheese mixtures to a puree, so that there will not be chunks of squash dispersed throughout the macaroni.