Cachitos

This is a traditional Venezuelan pastry that consists of soft, buttery, rolled bread, filled with shredded ham. Cachitos have similar shape as croissants and are typically a Venezuelan breakfast delight! Nowadays, you can find a lot of cachito variations in the Venezuelan bakeries; a popular variation is a ham and cream cheese cachito.

The name cachito means little horn due to its shape.

This recipe is to make the traditional cachito:

Ingredients:
1/4 cup         lukewarm water
2 tbsp           dry yeast
1/2 cup         unsalted butter (room temperature)
1/2 cup         sugar
1 tsp              salt
1 cup             milk (room temperature)
3                    eggs (room temperature) 
4 1/2 cups   all purpose flour
1/2 cup        all purpose flour for dusting
1 lb               black forest ham (whole)


1. In a small container, mix the yeast and the water with a teaspoon of sugar and let it rest for 10 minutes. The mixture should become foamy.

2. Using a stand-up mixer with a pallet attachment, combine the butter, sugar and salt.

3. Change the attachment to a hook (for mixing dough). Add the flour all at once and start mixing at the lowest speed to avoid making a mess with the flour. Add the milk gradually until combined. Increase the speed to low (speed 2 on a Artisan KitchenAid mixer) and add 2 eggs until combined.

4. Add the yeast mixture and mix until the dough has a uniform sticky consistency and it starts cleaning up the bottom of the bowl (nothing sticks to the bottom of the bowl.) At this point, the dough is ready to rest!

5. Place the dough into a plastic bag and let it rest for 2 hours at room temperature. For even better results, place the bag in the fridge over night and work the dough the next day.

6. Cut the ham into into 1/8 inch thick strips, 1 inch long (as shown in the pictures below).

Preheat the oven to 350 F/180 C

7. Using a clean, smooth surface dust a little bit of flour and work the dough just for a few seconds to get the air out. Divide it into four equal portions.

8. Take one portion and roll it out into a 12 inch disk and cut it into 8 pieces - like a pizza- using a pizza cutter. Keep the other portions of the dough in a plastic bag.

9.  Place about 2 full table spoons of ham on the wider side of the triangles and then lay the two corners over the ham. Gently roll the dough over the ham and keep rolling until you reach the end of triangle. The shape of the cachito should be a little bit curved - like a horn. Place it on a baking sheet that has been covered with parchment paper or aluminum foil and ensure that the end of the triangle is down, in contact with the parchment paper. Repeat steps 8 and 9 until all the dough is finished - you will get a total of 32 cachitos. 

10. Brush the cachitos with egg-wash and bake them for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

If you are a Venezuelan living abroad like me, I hope that the taste of these ricos cachitos brings you good memories!! :)

Enjoy the cachitos!!

Auyama (pumpkin) Cheesecake

Auyama (Pumpkin) Cheesecake

Filling:
250 grams cream cheese, softened
300 ml (1 can) condensed milk 
2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup pumpkin pie filling (I used ‘ED Smith Pumpkin Pie Filling’)

Crust:
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
150 grams pecans
2 tablespoons white sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

Topping:
½ cup heavy whipping cream (35%)
2 tbsp icing sugar, sifted
½ cup sugar
2 tbsp water
¼ cup heavy whipping cream (35%)

Instructions for the crust: 

Ground the pecans. In a bowl, mix the ground pecans with the graham cracker crumbs. Add the melted butter and mix. 

Using an 8-inch round spring pan (3 inch high), cover the sides with parchment paper. Press down the crumbs evenly in the bottom of the pan. Chill in the refrigerator (about 15 min). 

Instructions for the filling:

Pre-heat oven at 350F

Mix the cream cheese, egg yolks and condensed milk with a hand blender at medium speed until combined. Add the vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, mix ½ cup of the cream cheese mixture with the pumpkin puree using a spatula.

Use two large measuring cups to pour the two fillings simultaneously. Pour half of the pumpkin filling and cover half of the crust. At the same time, pour 1/3 of the cream cheese filling on the other half.

Switch cups and pour the pumpkin filling over the cream cheese filling and 1/3 of the cream cheese filling over the pumpkin. 

Pour the rest of the cream cheese filling over the whole cake leaving some pumpkin filling exposed for decoration. You can use the back of the spoon to create a decorative design with the two fillings.

Place a pan with ½ inch of boiling water on the lowest rack of the oven.

Place the spring pan on a baking sheet and bake the cheesecake for 20-25 minutes in the middle rack. Check the cake after 20 minutes, it will be ready when the sides are set but the center jiggles slightly.

Topping for serving:

Whip ½ cup of heavy cream and the icing sugar. 

For the caramel sauce, place the sugar in a saucepan at medium high heat with the water until it turns golden brown. Turn off the heat and add the ¼ cup of heavy cream at once while you move the saucepan in circular motion.

Serving suggestions:

Top the slice of the cake with a tablespoon of whipped cream and drizzle it with caramel sauce 

I hope you enjoy my recipe!!

Macarons

My mother in-law gave me this great little French book called 'Macarons {Collection}', published  by hachette. My biggest challenge was to understand the instructions, they were all written in French :)

Here is the recipe:

200 grams of icing sugar (sifted)

125 grams of almond powder (Sifted)

3 egg whites at room temperature.
Whisk the egg whites until they reach a soft peak consistency

Add 30 grams of fine granulated
sugar and whisk until the egg whites form stiff peaks.

Fold the icing sugar & almond mixture into the egg whites.
Using a piping bag with a round tip, pipe 3 cm diameter macarons.
Try to leave a smooth top and let them rest at room
temperature for 1/2 hour to an hour (until they don't stick to the touch)

Bake the macarons in a preheated oven at 160C for 10 minutes.

They didn't look as smooth as i would've liked. However, I hope that with some
practice they will look more like Ladurée macarons :)

For the filling I used Argentinian 'dulce de leche'. They were delicious!!!

How to Assemble a Tiramisu - Visual Tutorial

Cut enough lady fingers to go around the spring pan 

Put wax paper between the bottom of the pan and the spring ring. Close the clip.
Put a small portion of the mascarpone & whipped cream mixture on the bottom of the pan.

Put the first layer of lady fingers that have been soaked with coffee and your favorite Brandy.
Add some more mascarpone mixture to cover the lady finger  

Add another layer

Smoothly cover the last layer 

Dust with cocoa powder

Refrigerate minimum 3 hours and then remove the spring.

Enjoy! ... and keep it refrigerated

How to Make a Wax Paper Piping Bag

Venezuelan food with a twist! - Arepas

Arepas

This is the main ingredient for  Venezuelan arepas. Harina PAN is pre-cooked corn flour that can be found in most Latino markets like Perola in Kensington Market (Toronto)

The package comes with the basic instructions and proportions to make arepas. Mix the Harina PAN with warm water and a pinch of salt as per the instructions on the package. 

My twist for these arepas is carrots; this is a perfect way to get your daily vegetables in a fun and colourful presentation (thanks to my friend Gloriana for the idea!).

Add 2 shredded carrots to the dough and mix 

Put a handful of the dough in the palm of your hand and make it into a ball. Gently shape it into a patty as indicated in this picture.

Cook the arepas in a lightly greased pan at medium-high heat. Flip after 7-8 min or until the bottom of the arepa is crisp and golden. 

And here is the final result!!

Open the arepa like a pocket and stuff it with your favorite fillings. Options range from the traditional ham and cheese to pulled pork. The options are endless. Enjoy!
I will be posting recipes of some of the most popular arepa fillings from Venezuelan, stay tuned!

Chocolates

It has been crazy busy since Christmas and that is a good thing. Now that my sister lives in the same city as me, we can now do so many thinks together! We have been working on MamaSweeta a lot!

 

We have been focusing on making chocolates and it has been an adventure! The first time that we tried making truffles the kitchen ended up completely cover in chocolate, not to mention the kitchen towels, our shirts, even my son! But it was worth, the chocolates were so beautiful and delicious... At least that is what we thought back then. After a few more attempts we realized that we could do so much better, more flavors, nicer designs, a more professional finish product and a lot less mess in the kitchen!

Here are some of my tips for making molded chocolates:

* Use a large bowl for melting the chocolate - this will allow you turn your chocolate mold upside down over the bowl and the bowl will catch most of the excess chocolate (=less mess to clean up later)
* Use real chocolate - candy melts are easier to use as they don't required tempering but they are not the real deal
* Start with inexpensive molds with as many cavities as possible - this will save you lots of time and I find that the inexpensive molds tent to unmold the chocolates easily, they just are not as durable as the professional molds.
* Temper the chocolate - you can find great tutorials in YouTube and craftsy.com
* Wait until the mold looks frosted before you unmold the chocolates- if the mold doesn't look frosted, put the mold back in the fridge for a few more minutes. Tempering the chocolate properly also makes the unmolding process easier
* Never let chocolate become in contact with water, the chocolate will be ruin
* You can use dry spices or nuts directly in the chocolate but never add liquids
* You can add liquids i.e. Liquor to a ganache and will a chocolate shell with the flavored ganache
* To make ganache use heavy cream, no less than 35%