TapiocaFlour

Corn Cake

 

Festa Junina. It’s a mix of pagan and Christian traditions. It is a national month long celebration in the month of June. The celebration is for Saint John, Peter and Anthony. I could write an awful lot about it but I am particularly interested in telling you about the food aspect.

It is known that in the old days it was common practice for people to leave their front doors open so that the neighbours could just walk in and taste a selection of delectable goods prepared by the hosts. During the month of June, in northeast Brasil people eat a lot of cashew nuts or Brasil nuts, plus many other delicacies made with coconut or cassava. In

the south or southeast it is time for peanuts and pine nuts. There are different sort of cakes as well. The most famous being the one with corn which is a common ingredient from north to south. The fact that it is harvest time means that corn is abundant during the month of June and there is quite a selection of corn based recipes.

Corn has been in Brasil for a very long time and even though it is not as big an ingredient there as it is on the Pacific coast of South America and Central America we love it as a nation. Our indigenous people already consumed a lot of corn in their diet but it was the Portuguese who brought it to their kitchens and started baking with it.                                     

I love everything about Festa Junina. The edible side of it just puts the icing on the cake if you know what I mean. There are always loads of food stalls, the nice quentão which is a hot alcoholic drink made with ginger and a few other bits and pieces – it’s winter after all. Peanut brittle is

another favourite and perhaps I will show you a recipe or two in the near future. For now I want to share the corn cake recipe with you. It is a

delicious cake and it has Brasil all over it. This recipe is a big recipe so if your baking tin is not very deep you will need another baking tin, a smaller one.

 

 

Ingredients

 

1 can of Condensed milk – they come in one size

1 can of sweetcorn, drained (275g) (if you can use fresh corn even better but don’t fret)

200ml coconut milk

5 medium eggs

100g unsalted butter, room temperature and softned

½ cup sugar (cup of 120ml)

1 ½ cups plain flour (cup of 240ml)

1 ½ cups cornmeal (cup of 240ml)

1 tablespoon baking powder

 

Greased and floured baking tin, lined with parchment/baking paper –  deep 22cm x 30cm. Preheat the oven - 170oC

 

Throw the corn, condensed and coconut milk in a blender and whiz it until it is all combined. Sieve the flour, cornmeal and baking power in a bowl. Set aside. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks, one at a time beating well after each addition. Alternate the flour mixture and the sweetcorn mixture, mixing with a wooden spoon to incorporate the ingredients. Beat the egg whites to a stiff peak and fold only ⅓ of the egg whites into the cake mixture first. Once it is incorporated add the remaining egg white. Pour the cake mixture in the prepared cake tin and bake it for approximately 40 minutes.

   

Brasilian Carrot Cake

Today I will share a Brasilian carrot cake recipe with you. Brasilians love cakes. I am not talking cupcakes as the ones I am particularly in love with. They love big cakes, as big as their personalities. Cakes that are big enough to feed a troop. What is special about our carrot cake? It is simply carroty. Contrary to the carrot recipes that we find so often in cookery books in the UK where I live, in Brasil people do not have the habit of adding dried fruits to their carrot cake. It is quite often carrots, vegetable oil, eggs, flour, baking powder and sugar. The carrot takes center stage. The touch is the chocolate topping. Yes, you read it right, C H O C O L A T E. No, it isn’t odd. It works pretty well. Perhaps it wouldn’t go well with the typical carrot cake of this neck of the woods where I now live.

 

To celebrate this Brasilian institution, the carrot cake the Brasilian way, I chose a recipe that was passed on by Ana’s grandmother. Not passed on directly to me by the grandma since we never met, but by Ana who is another fellow Brasilian. It is Grandmother Anna’s Carrot Cake. – I believe that her grandmother’s name was also Anna. The recipe even asks for blender. Blenders are very important household objects in Brasil and more than food processors they are very much used in every day recipes.

 

Main Ingredients:

4 medium carrots, peeled and grated

3 medium eggs

2 cups of sugar

½ cup vegetable oil

2 cups plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder

 

Chocolate Icing

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 tablespoons butter

5 tablespoons milk

8 tablespoons sugar

 

Grease a bundt pan and reserve. Pre-heat the oven to 180oC.

Take the grated carrot, the eggs, the vegetable oil and sugar and put it all in the blender. Whiz it long enough to blend it all together but being careful not to over do it otherwise it might alter the consistency or even the colour of the cake. Pour the mixture in a mixing bow and add the dry ingredients, stirring well. Transfer the mixture to the prepared bundt pan and bake for approximately 40 min. Leave it to cool on a rack

Meanwhile put all the icing ingredients in a saucepan and stir it until the butter has melted and the mixture has thickened. Pour it over the cake whilst still hot.

** Please note that the cup measurement used is 250ml.

Bem Casados

Weddings in Brasil are always a big affair. Friends of mine in the United Kingdom are very surprised when I tell them that couples in Brazil get married in the evenings as this is unusual in the UK. The later the wedding in Brazil the bigger the social statement you are making.

Then there’s the Reception and everything else that comes with it. I will not go into detail but what I wanted to make you aware of are the little ‘Wedding favours’. They are little in size but very, very plentiful! These ‘Wedding favours’ which are a must in every Brasilian wedding are called ‘Bem Casados’ which is translated as ‘Perfect  Matches’.

Each of them consists of a two part sweet treat joined by soft toffee and as the toffee dries off it sticks the two halves together. As simple as it might sound, the making of the delicious Bem Casados is an art form. The dough is very delicate, even ‘temperamental’, and one must approach it with care.

All over the country there are small companies that make them but they are very often a family run business which has a recipe which has been passed down through generations.

When choosing the venue for the reception the bride and groom can do a ‘tasting’ in the various catering houses in order to choose the ones with the best ‘Bem Casados’. These catering companies not only apply an art to baking them but also apply an equal effort into ‘dressing them up’. The packaging is very important and at the actual wedding reception there will be a special area designated for the display of these ‘wedding favours’ as they are no ordinary sweets.
The guests are meant to help themselves to only one each on their way out of the reception but many guests have been known to take more that!

The picture above and on the left are by Vera Costa, a lady who owns a company in Salvador, Bahia which specializes in Cakes and receptions. Each company adds its own touch to the bem casados.

In São Paulo they have two companies which are rather nice too:

Caramelada  is a company that I specially like as they do the most beautiful displays. There is also Conceição  who have been making Bem Casados for more than 35 years and is known to cater for more upmarket weddings.

I will leave a simplified recipe here in case you would like to give it a go:

5 eggs

125g sugar

125g flour

Pinch of salt

½ teaspoon baking powder

Couple of drops of vanilla essence

 First sift the flour with the baking powder on a bowl and reserve. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Add the egg yolks and beat until it becomes a light cream. Add the vanilla essence, then add the sugar gradually and continue beating for another minute. Fold through the mixed flour and baking powder gently.

Line a baking tray with greased baking paper and using a piping bag fitted with a round tube make small circles with the dough. Leave some space between them as they tend do spread a bit.

Bake them until they become golden and cool them completely on the baking tray. Once cooled take one of them and spread some filling on it before joining the other half. Do the same with all the remaining ones.

The filling is often toffee like. You can make it at home by immersing 1 large tin of condensed milk in boiling water, and boiling for five hours. You will need to top the pan up with plenty of water every so often.  If you choose to use a pressure cooker for that cooking time will go down by 1/5. Alternatively you can use a jam of your choice.

Wrap them up as desired.

Below is a picture of unwrapped and wrapped bem casados by Renata Boechat who has also provided the recipe above. Enjoy!!

 

Brasil Nut Cookies

I remember the first time I saw Brasil nut when I arrived in Britain a good  few years ago. I got all excited, proud even. The funny thing was that I didn’t even fancy Brazil nut when I lived back home. I did not dislike it but it was something that I would not put on my list of I-have-a-craving type of food.

There was just one (1) thing that contained Brasil nuts that I was pretty keen on : Brasil nut cookies. The thing is, I grew up in north Brasil, in the capital city of Belém and Brasil nut is native to north Brasil. They do some real great Brasil nut cookies. Brasilians love cookies. Not cookies as you call them in the USA. Our cookies are medium to small size.

 

The recipe I am sharing with you is very easy and simple to prepare. It was given to my mom by a friend of hers back in the days when we lived in Belém – couldn’t be more typical. Besides being very crunchy – which automatically qualifies it as yummy to me, another lovely thing about these cookies in my opinion is the fact that when the cookies are done and you remove them from the oven you get a really lovely whiff of nuts. Kind of earthy.

 

300g of ground Brasil nuts

300g unsalted butter, softened

200g plain flour

200g corn flour

100g sugar

 Pre-heat the oven to 150C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Put all the ingredients in a bow and mix them all together using your hands. Well, you can start by using a wooden spoon but eventually you will have to put your hands on the dough. When the mixture becomes a uniform ball start preparing the cookies. Use a tea spoon measure for each cookie. I find that the smaller they are the sweeter it is as they tend to grow a bit once in the oven.Put the baking tray in the oven an wait until the cookies are golden.Don't let them burn.

 

 

The cookies below are still Brasil nut ones but I have added a special touch. I have added guava paste to them - that's what the red blob is. Guava paste will be covered in a future article but I can just say that we love it as a nation. We eat it with cheese, in sandwiches (I know that I did), in cakes. So why not on Brasil nut cookies?

 

 

 

 

Brigadeiro

I have been having a tough time choosing the topic for my posting number 2. It is not that we as a nation do not have a varied enough confectionery list to choose from. On the contrary, the list is long.

In the end I have decided to go for the nation‘s favourite, Brigadeiro. Would you need an English translation? Brigadier should be close enough. All I know about the origin of the sweet is that it was named after an Air Force commander, Brigadeiro Eduardo Gomes. This dates back to the forties. Whoever he was he made the country a great service by giving us this wonderful, naughty confection.

It falls in the category of ‘docinhos’ which are little sweets that can be found all over the country. I think that its great secret is the chocolate element and the beautiful, gooey texture given by the condensed milk. Condensed milk takes a central place in the nation’s confectioner culture. Nestlé arrived in Brazil over one hundred years ago, back in 1890 and condensed milk has has become a very Brazilian ingredient.

Where you can get hold of brigadeiros? Just about anywhere. It holds a special place in children’s birthday parties and everyone’s kitchen. Suffice to say that it is a favourite of children and grown-ups alike. Anyone – and I really mean anyone, can prepare it. Even my dad. I dare you to get it wrong.

Ingredients:

30 brigadeiros or more depending on how small or big you roll them up.

1 can of condensed milk

1 tablespoon of unsalted butter

3 tablespoons of chocolate powder

Chocolate strands, enough to coat them

 
Take a medium non-stick (preferably) saucepan and throw the condensed milk in it, together with the butter and chocolate powder. Keep the heat as medium and keep stirring non-stop until you can see the bottom of the pan – approximately 10 min. You will notice the mixture becoming thicker and thicker until it looks as if you are lifting it with the spoon. I am talking really thick and big patches of the pan becoming visible.

 

Pour the thick sauce on a plate and spread it with the spoon. Leave it to cool.

 

 

On a separate plate pour the chocolate strands.

When the mixture has cooled off coat your hands with vegetable oil, take a teaspoon and start getting small amounts of chocolate and rolling it into a ball. Roll it over the chocolate strands and place it in a paper case.

 

Throughout my adolescence it was comfort ‘food’. My friends and I would make some and eat nearly the whole thing with a spoon once it had cooled off. There was no need to roll it up. You would arrange to watch a video with friends and some brigadeiro would materialize instead of popcorn.

Cheese Rolls, cheese bread

Cheese rolls, cheese bread,...well, it makes no difference really.

‘Pão de queijo’ as it is widely known all over Brasil is one of the most typical Brasilian snacks. I say it because it has crossed all our state borders. You might be north, south, southeast.. and all Brasilians will claim it as the nations favourite.

By origin it is from the state of Minas Gerais. We still talk about ‘the real cheese bread rolls’ and by that you mean the one made out of a ‘Minas recipe’. We still hold a strong belief that no matter who you are, what cooking skills you have or lack, if you were born in that state you ought to have ‘the’ recipe.

I once registered with an online food community called ‘Man, I am just mad about cheese bread rolls’’. Currently it has 207151 members. People who might or might not visit it regularly but who once joined in the hope/belief that they might find a recipe which would just be it. I confess that I for one joined the site as I wanted to find a recipe that would be the winner of the Michelin for ‘Pão de Queijo’. I wanted to amaze my friends from different corners of the world with this wonderful recipe.

My fellow Brasilians do miss ‘pão de queijo’ so much when they move abroad they are known to learn to make it so that they can keep their addiction alive.

The ingredients are: tapioca flour, eggs, milk, vegetable oil, a pinch of salt and cheese. I use Parmesan cheese as I live in England
and I cannot find ‘cura’ cheese, a variety widely used in Brazil.

  The preparation varies. There are traditional recipes where you boil the milk with the oil and pour it over the tapioca flour and then mix it all with your hands after adding the eggs to it.

I would love you to give it a go. The recipe below is the one I use all the time. It is just simpler than the traditional ones as I just could not be bothered with the whole palaver involved. The author is a chap called Luis Luiz. You can freeze the cheese rolls once rolled as you will end up with as many as 65. I believe that as much as you might fall in love with it 65 might be wee too much to have at once.

Pão de Queijo do Luis Luiz

Ingredients

500g tapioca flour

200g grated parmesan cheese

2 eggs

1 ½ cup milk

½ cup vegetable oil (I recommend corn or even peanut oil)

1 dessert spoon of salt

 

Put the tapioca flour and salt in a non-metallic bowl, mix and set aside. Put the oil, milk and eggs in a blender and give it a whizz for one minute in medium speed. Add the grated cheese and blend it very quickly, just long enough to mix all the ingredients. Gradually add the mixture to the flour and mix it all with a wooden spoon. It might be a bit hard at first but I promise that it gets better and the mixture becomes smooth. Make little cheese balls with your hands and bake them for 20/25 minutes – oven temperature 200◦C or slightly higher. It will be slightly golden on the outside. Remove it from the oven and let it cool on a rack.

The cheese balls can be rolled and frozen on a tray and only once frozen should they be put in bags and stored in the freezer. When baking the frozen rolls they should be initially placed at the bottom shelf of the oven and only moved to the middle shelf half way through their baking time.

I love having them with coffee but I used to like having them with pineapple juice. Some Brasilians have them with milk shake even – odd if you ask me. Whatever takes your fancy really.