Crespella Part Deux

A few days ago I posted the recipe for Oven Crespella with Chocolate Sauce from Gourmet Magazine. Well, DH and I have been talking a lot about it over the last week, and we collaborated a new way to use the recipe. So, yesterday DH made this new version of Crespella as a celebratory cake to mark our one year anniversary of healthy eating. OK, so maybe eating a cake is not exactly most logical way to celebrate healthy eating. But, this cake has no refined ingredients, barely any sweetener, etc because of the modifications we made. Yes it is still high in calories and fat, but we are sharing it with friends, and we are not feeling guilty eating it.

We call the cake Crespella Cream Pie. To assemble, make two crespellas and some of Dorie Greenspan's Vanilla Pastry Cream and your favorite recipe for chocolate sauce, frosting or ganache. A note on the pastry cream recipe: I personally don't feel it needs so much sweetener. The whole milk and vanilla bean already give it a rich flavor, so I usually just use two tablespoons of maple sugar or agave nectar to sweeten it.

To assemble:

1. Place one of the crespellas on a cake plate.
2. Spread the pastry cream on top.
3. Arrange slices of banana over the pastry cream.
4. Spread some of the chocolate sauce onto the bottom of the other crespella and lay it on top of the bananas. That will help glue the bananas in place once it sets in the refrigerator.
5. Then either frost the cake with the rest of the chocolate sauce immediately or after the cake has set in the refrigerator. In Florida where I live, it is sometimes so humid that refrigerating first helps the cake keep its shape while frosting. Then store the cake in the refrigerator.

Either serve cold or at room temperature.

Oven Crespella with Chocolate Sauce

I guess it has been a while since I posted! Not to worry! I am returning with this tasty treat which was featured in the new issue of Gourmet (April 2008). DH made it, as he couldn't keep his eyes off the photo in the magazine. But, I think DH's turned out even nicer. He added his own touches. The original recipe calls for Nutella. Don't get me wrong. Nutella is awesome. It's just not something we keep in the house, especially since we did away with sugar. So, DH made his own chocolate sauce. Plus, he decided to soften some dried figs in some honey-butter for an extra special touch.

We had never had a crespella before, so we don't know how it is supposed to turn out. But we were intrigued to try it because, from the recipe, it seems basically to be a baked pancake. And, as you know, we Love pancakes. It was pretty simple. DH made the batter, poured it in a pan, and then after it baked, he flipped it out of the pan and onto a serving plate. The recipe didn't say to present it like that, but we think it turned out lovely.

The recipe didn't say to do this either, but look how pretty it turned out. DH spread his chocolate sauce and figs on the top, as if it were a cake. [Added April 14, 2008, see this posting for yet another version of Crespella: Crespella Cream Pie].

So, in the end, was it still a crespella? We say, who cares, it was incredibly delicious! The edges were crispy but inside it was soft with an almost custard-like layer. And it even tasted great cold after being stored in the refrigerator.

Oven Crespella with Nutella Sauce
adapted from Gourmet Magazine, April 2008

serves 4 to 6, active time 15 mins, 40 mins start to finish

3/4 cup flour (or a mixture of whole grain flours)
2 large eggs
1/4 cup granulated sugar (DH used a small amount of agave nectar as substitute)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups plus 3 tablespoons whole milk, divided
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup Nutella, chocolate hazelnut spread (or chocolate sauce)
optional garnishes: confectioners sugar

accompaniment: chopped berries (figs or bananas are great with it too)

1. Heat an oven-proof skillet in the oven as it is preheating to 450 degrees.
2. Whisk to combine the flour, eggs, sweetener, vanilla, salt and 1 1/2 cups of the milk. Take skillet out of oven (careful it is hot). Place the butter in the skillet and return it to the oven. Leave it there for about a minute, so the butter gets golden. Remove the skillet from the oven.
3. Pour the batter into the skillet and then bake until puffed, set, and golden, about 20 to 25 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, in a bowl, whisk the Nutella with the remaining milk until smooth. Thin with more milk if necessary. (Or make your favorite recipe for chocolate sauce).
5. Cool pancake in skillet on a rack for 5 minutes. (It will sink). Dust with confectioners sugar (if desired) and drizzle with the sauce. Serve with berries or fruit of choice.

Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

At the library this weekend, I found a book I've seen on blogs for some time now, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. So, I checked it out, and it's a great, fun little cookbook. I'm even planning to buy it. Since it has been a month since my last chocolate (it was in the form of birthday cake), I decided to try the Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes. They actually turned out, even using my recent baking substitutions! You can find dozens of photos of the book's great cupcakes on the web, but I've only found one recipe written out. So, in order to not break etiquette, I am not posting the recipe for these cupcakes, but I am listing the ingredients: coconut milk, ground flaxseeds (or flaxseed meal), all-purpose flour (I substituted a mixture of barley and spelt flours), corn flour, almond meal, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, sugar (I substituted maple sugar), canola oil (I substituted mild olive oil), vanilla extract, almond extract (I omitted this). Mine are topped with sifted powdered date sugar, cocoa powder and cinnamon.

Oh, and here is the link for the recipe from this book for Cookies 'n Cream Cupcakes which appeared in the Washington Post.

Cocoa Pancakes

I am on the email list for the Recipe of the Week from the Vegetarian Times website. Anyone can subscribe to the free weekly newsletter with recipes. These pancakes were one of this week's features and you can see the recipe here. It first appeared in the May 2005 issue. We made it last night as a dessert, and that was a good call. I'm not sure that this is really breakfast food. We have made many decadent pancakes in our days, but this in our minds crosses over from being pancake to being more of a cake. The recipe calls for chocolate soy milk, something we never buy. So, we used regular soy milk, and they were still totally sinful. So, using the chocolate soy is not necessary, especially if you use real chocolate chips instead of carob. If you are eating these as dessert, why not also try white chocolate chips or peanut butter chips instead of the carob. That would be good too. Vegan using the original recipe.

Merienda with Hot Chocolate

Merienda is a late afternoon snack enjoyed in many Spanish influenced countries. In Yucatan, it is commonly eaten around 4pm and is often comprised of hot chocolate and bread or a pastry. Since we were eating a late dinner at a Spanish restaurant last night, yesterday afternoon we decided to partake in Merienda. We had hot chocolate with banana brownies , sweetened with some agave nectar instead of sugar, organic whole wheat flour, and natural yogurt instead of buttermilk. Lacto-ovo vegetarian.

This is the method we often use in making the hot chocolate. We heat soy milk until very hot, but not boiling, sometimes with a cinnamon stick. We put it in the blender (removing cinnamon stick first) with two squares of unsweetened South American chocolate. We add a few teaspoons of sweetener, this time turbinado sugar, and blend it in the blender. A twist we sometimes enjoy is to pour a shot of espresso into our cups of hot chocolate. Vegan.

Boston Cream Pie with Strawberries

Growing up, my mother often made me vanilla birthday cakes with pudding in the middle and chocolate frosting, like a Boston Cream Pie. After I got married, Pedro made me my first birthday cake from scratch using this recipe in the April 1993 issue of Gourmet Magazine.

We were both craving cake today, and even though it is nobody's birthday, we decided to go ahead and make it! We made the frosting thicker than the traditional glaze to make it more similar to the cakes I ate growing up. Also, we had some strawberries on hand, so we decided to put them in the middle with the vanilla custard. It was a delicious twist, having the chocolate, vanilla and strawberry flavors all together.

Strawberry Rhubarb Oatmeal Square

Great with coffee or tea. This recipe was adapted from "The Low-Fat Way to Cook" edited by Nancy J. Fitzpatrick, Oxmoor House, 1993. Lacto-ovo vegetarian.