4th of July American Flag Brownies

 My country's birthday is coming up shortly, and I was fortunate to celebrate over the weekend with other expats here in the Netherlands. Instead of a recipe, this is more of a method to achieve a gorgeous American Flag that you can serve at a 4th of July Barbecue. These brownies start from my modification of a brownie product found here, but you can begin with anything baked (brownies, cake, bar cookies, etc.) in a 9"x13" pan. First, place the already baked brownies in the freezer while preparing the fruit and the whipped cream. Pick through about 500 grams of strawberries (1 or 2 quarts), until you have berries about the same size, that are the prettiest of the bunch, stems removed. Pick through a small carton of blueberries until you have about 50. Rinse and pat the fruit dry and set it aside.

Place 250 ml of heavy cream (at least 30% fat content, so to my friends here in the Netherlands, that is slagroom, not lite, not kookcreme). Whip the cream on high with a wire-whisk until soft peaks form. Add about 2 Tablespoons of powdered sugar and continue to whip until stiff peaks form(the sugar gives the whipped cream some stability).

 Remove the brownies from the freezer and spread the whipped cream evenly over the entire pan. Place blueberries in upper left corner, side by side, approximately 6 rows and 8 columns(if your pan curves at the corners, it wont be perfect, but it doesn't matter.) Next, at the top, place a row of strawberries. Make sure you can put another row of strawberries level with the bottom of the blueberries, and also at the bottom of the pan. Fill-in the remaining rows (I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't get two rows in between where the blueberries end and the bottom. I think it would have looked nicer, but my berries were too big for that.) to create an American flag.

 

Bring your work of art to a BBQ and watch it disappear. Don't wait too long to serve it because the whipped cream will melt in the summer sunshine.

God Bless America!

 Happy 4th of July to everyone in the USA and to Americans all over the world.

A Special Cake for Dina's First Birthday

I'm going to attempt to post about cake at least once a week so that my blog name remains relevant. When Dina was turning one, I considered her favorite toys and decided her tea-pot and tea-cups would be the perfect theme for her birthday party. Additionally, they had the added bonus of being a perfect cake topper, in case I couldn't get it together enough to create edible ones. First, I made a test-cake, to see what proportions I needed for the tea set. The actual tea set fit on the test cake pretty well- maybe a bit too big. I also tried some fun borders to see what I liked best. 

The test cake- making borders. Everyone loves test cakes.

Next, I thought I'd try to create the tea cups from gum paste I got at the Dutch Cake Event earlier that year. A word to the wise: Don't use a finite supply of anything if you are worried about the colors matching. Always make more than you think you will need for your project. Along with the tea cups I made the flowers and butterflies ahead of time. The Wilton Royal Icing recipe is awesome for making flowers. You don't even need to do them as perfect as the ones you see online. Here, you can observe I've made what amounts to five 'petals' but might also be referred to as 'lumps' with yellow dots in the center. Once they are on the cake, no one will notice if they are perfect, trust me.

 

For the butterflies, I folded wax paper over a box (just needed a 90 degree angle) and piped the wings on each of the sides of the box, and the body of the butterfly down the seam. Give it about 48 hours to dry completely and you have three dimensional butterflies!

Next, I looked online at one of the many font shops to see which font I liked. I can't remember which one I choose, but then I my husband printed it to the right size and then I held it above where I wanted the writing to be, checking it for size and shape as I piped onto the cake:

I placed the tea cups, flowers, butterflies at the last moment because I used a whipped cream frosting which, over time (like an hour or two) will begin to melt a bit, even if stabilized. A side note: Dutch whipped cream is the bomb, people.

The tea pot was made painting Royal Icing over top of a balloon and allowing it to harden. I used one of Dina's balls from her ball-pit for supporting the shape of the lid of the tea-pot (a circle made from gum paste) and the gum paste ball on the top of the lid was attached with Royal Icing as well. The purple wiggle boarder on the cake was made with buttercream icing and the filling was strawberries and cream.

 

Most people use fondant for covering cakes but I'll save my opinion of fondant for another post. While I agree that cakes should look beautiful, I also believe they should taste amazing, no matter what they look like!

Using the Culinary Institute of America's white cake recipe, I then torted each cake to make four layers, layering strawberries and homemade strawberry sauce inbetween. 

The most important part of this project was my baby girl's reaction. At her first opportunity, she grabbed a tea cup! Success!

 Dina's first birthday party- I will never forget it. I love you, my sweet Dina!

Berry Dream Parfait

When Dina was a couple of months old I took her to the 'Consultatiebureau' which is Dutch for 'place to take your kid for wellness-visits and immunizations'. On this particular visit I met Viktorija and her baby, Leticia.  I feel lucky to call Viktorija my friend. She and her family are from Croatia and so have very interesting recipes to share with me! One of her most favorite desserts is something like a 'berrymisu' which reminds me of tiramisu but with berries instead of coffee. It is best made the day before you want to serve it, as the flavors blend together beautifully in the fridge overnight. If you don't have the exact measurements for this recipe, or you have something similar, do not worry. Viktorija would say, "Make it how you want! Use what you have!" and my favorite, "Relax!"

Berry Dream Parfait
2 packages Marscapone cheese (about a cup or 500g total)
2 cups (500 ml) heavy cream (slagroom)
1/2 cup sugar (fijn krystal suiker) (about 100 g)
1/2 cup water (125 ml)
juice of half a lemon - about 2 Tbsp
1 tsp vanilla
2 packages of lady fingers or 1 package of Dutch egg-cookies (eieren koekje)
500 grams (about 2 pints) strawberries (aardbeien), hulled and sliced

Beat cream on high speed until stiff peaks form. If desired add a bit of powdered sugar (I prefer it without sugar). In another bowl, beat marscapone cheese until smooth. Fold in the whipped cream, but don't stress if it is lumpy.

Next, bring water and sugar to a boil in a saucepan. Once it is boiling, take it off the heat, transfer to a dish to cool and add lemon juice and vanilla. If you don't have vanilla you can add some other liquor or orange flower water.

Using a large glass bowl or other container, dip each egg-cookie or ladyfinger into the sugar/water/lemon mixture and line the bottom. Spoon the cream/marscapone mixture in a layer and then add sliced berries. Repeat this with more dipped cookies, cream and berries until you have filled your container or run out of ingredients, whichever happens first. The best way to end this layering is with a layer of cream on the top and maybe a few strategically placed berries for garnish. You can also garnish with a sprig of mint.

Chill for at least an hour and preferably overnight. Serve in glasses for an elegant effect!

If you don't have Marscapone cheese, Philadelphia cream cheese is a good substitution.

This photo is of the first time I had this dessert, at Viktorija's house. Notice the beautiful arrangement of raspberries she added to the top. Most of the time I'm in a rush and forget to garnish this fabulous dessert. But this photo reminded me of how pretty it can look!