Frozen Brazo de Violeta

The neighborhood of a busy business district is calm and quiet; you can hear birds chirping and trees dangling against the wind. The skies are powder blue and the Sun is peachy. −It's a fine Sunday today, with all the time of this day I can afford to write my texts for this entry go to church and meet a long time friend and give good bye hugs.

You know I want-cha

Yesterday I have accomplished my next recipes for coming entries, meaning I'm pretty much on my schedule. Being a Master of Procrastination, this recipe like any other recipes in this blog, has been in my hard drive for 4 years now.

I would like to serve this dessert on a Sunday Family day- after church,  for a complete attendance type of dinner. I made some tweaks than my original which was a Vanilla Ice Cream, as per Brazo de Violeta, I made an Ube Ice Cream layer.

 FROZEN BRAZO DE VIOLETA

 I develop this dessert while preparing for a Cashew Plated Dessert in Kumbira 2010. Where I won Highest Gold through God's grace.. I did not competed with this recipe because it doesn't highlight the Cashew nut so much, but I realized that this dessert deserve its own spotlight on a family dinner table.

My personal history of creating this recipe: Brazo de Mercedez is my brother's favorite. A good friend of mine, RJ's favorite. At that time, Cashew desserts are very limited to Yema and Yema is associated with Brazo de Mercedez. While my favorite is Felicity's Frozen Brazo, I live 2 hours apart from Felicity now...so I therefore had to make one on my own.

I'm very happy with the end product. Frozen Brazo is little difficult to work with on summer, and it's a bright yellow summer now! The solution: Make my own Ice Cream.Not only that I have a better control of my Ice Cream versus store bought that will most likely be dripping off the pan or really deflating like a chilled froth, I've foreseen it as a dessert disaster.

There are dessert components that we can mix and match. Like jeans and tank top and tank top to short shorts and black stockings. The versatility of an ingredient and dessert method is infinite! For example is this very simple recipe.

Graham Crust- God knows how many dessert we can make out of Graham cookies. From refrigerated cakes to competition pieces, from rustic to sophisticate plates. You can Mango Float or Smores or Tiramisu.

Graham Crust:

100g Crushed Graham

100g Melted Butter

First layer: Press the graham crust on a 1/4 sheet pan. Set aside inside the freezer

Yema- What I like about this Filipino recipe is it varies from one person to another. Some Yema are too sticky, some are more of an Egg Custard, some are taffy like, and some are stiff enough for triangular parcels in Cellophane. I'd say play with your textures...if you will recreate this recipe, try folding chopped, roasted pili nuts or cashew nuts for added bite. 

Yema:

 100g Butter

10 pcs Egg yolks

300ml Condensed Milk

Combine all together and cook over low heat

Continuously stirring to avoid burning, cook until thickened

Yema love. Second layer: Pour the yema on your prepared crust and freeze

Ice Cream- You may use whatever flavor you like, you may layer Vanilla then slices of fresh mangoes, or Chocolate and generous spread of Peanut butter or Nutella? Nice right?

You may use store bought but make sure it's solid frozen

then thaw out and spread, about 400ml Ice Cream. Freeze immediately!

Baked Meringue- Soufflé like texture that melts in your mouth; every spoonful literally just disappears in your palate! You may lessen the sugar, but not less than half. I would also like to remind that this pillow-like cute little one shrinks!  It shrinks after it cooled down. Bake it separately on a bigger sheet tray or pan.

Egg Whites and Sugar

Baked Meringue:

120g Egg Whites

50g Sugar

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the proper Stiff Peaks. Thanks!  Thanks!

Pour on prepared tray lined with foil and brushed with melted butter and dusted with sugar

Spread mercifully and Steam bake at 180/180C for 10 minutes

Bake until lightly browned

Chef Johnny Iuzzini said "Sweetness is not a flavor" -Top Chef Just Desserts Season 2 and since most of baking enthusiast commonly fails in this virtue, my appeal is very simple.  Never be afraid to lessen the sugar in a recipe, or if the layers are too sweet why don’t you make one layer little bland or acidic for balance. Or why don’t you skip adding sugar and let the natural sweetness comes in.  Just saying :

Frozen Brazo de Violeta

Frozen Brazo de Violeta

Frozen Brazo de Violeta

Have a fun sunday!

Frozen Smore's & Constraint Thoughts

Have you ever had those words in your head that are waiting to be written into a story? Yes, constraint thoughts of a writer! And I do have those recipes in my head as well..that are haunting me, saying "bake me! create me! write me! NOW!" 

Constraint thoughts are actually good signs that your brain cells are creatively working. At times I work with a peck of spontaneity, like when you are in a Market Basket, the adrenaline helps. .It's like a pop quiz to me!

Most of the time, I pay attention and sit down regarding what to create this time? What flavors or techniques must I play with for a try? Or when should I do it?  just to shut up my head.  Today is a bit easy recipe, not critical techniques and flavors. It's the basic campfire favorite; graham, chocolate and marshmallow.

This idea of Frozen Smores has been in my head for months already.. I wanted it to be my first recipe for this year. At the same time, I had this question in my head when I woke up this morning "What are the things that you actually took time doing?". And it has been bothering me the whole day!

That is the question, this year.. What are the things that I must take time to make or do.Then I looked back on my 2013 self.  "I am committing to myself and everyone I love this year!"  I am committing to my dreams and I am in charge of my journey getting there!

My first commitment? Is my execution of a constraint thought: Frozen Smores

The recipe is very simple:

150 g crushed Graham crackers

150 g unsalted Butter, melted

Mix together the graham and melted butter and press together in a pan. I used a 8x6x2 pan lined with foil.  I desired to have a thick layer of Graham because it's a Smores. Just set aside in the freezer.

225 g Cream (All Purpose or Heavy Cream will do)

150 g 57% Dark Chocolate

You may use whatever brand of chocolate you want, even if it's not 57% dark or if it's Goya. Whatever your favorite is, mine however I wanted a bitter chocolate layer to compliment a sweet gooey burnt layer of Marshmallows.

For the marshmallows, if you choose to use store bought, I will always prefer the plain white ones. But if you plan to make, just wait. I plan to write about home made marshmallows in quite few weeks from now.

Simply whip the cream (which has to be chilled, by the way) until it doubled in quantity. Melt the chocolates over double boiler or if you are lazy just microwave it! Fold the mixture together and pour onto your prepared crust.

Top with Marshmallows and torch! Freeze until solid frozen and slice through hot knife. Very simple right? My thoughts are actually hundred times more complicated than my desserts!

And to answer the question that had been bothering me the whole day: People make New Year's Resolutions..this year, I decided that instead of a "Resolution".. Make a "Commitment".

My Commitment to myself: Some people catch their dreams, some people bake theirs, some people write about theirs.Pastry chefs make their dreams into Pulled Sugar Showpieces, mine however? I will write a book out of my inner most curiosity. One day I will read my first international byline. This year I'm committing to my dreams, I'm in charge of baking them.. This is just my mise en place to becoming a Pastry Chef-Author.

I will study hard, I will read a lot, I will write my constraint thoughts, I will bake my constraint ideas and I will share them to the world. No one else is in charge but myself and the big guy. I'm committing myself to an honest and truthful writing, if you want to be a credible domestic goddess, give those mommies an honest recipe. There are no secrets to a curious mind. When the time comes that cookies are too tough and cakes are too dry, I must go on improving myself and my recipes. Do it again and again, there is no substitute teacher from experiencing mistakes. Not yet this year, but time will come I will open my doors and call that shop "joicydoodle♥". I will publish my book and put that logo on it.

Happy 2014!

Thanks for visiting! Love always,