#themarykitchen

April 14, 2018; Saturday

Hey everyone! Weeks ago, my brother graduated college, celebrated his 22nd birthday and got to host their university’s awards night called The Magis Awards. We’re all so proud of our baby brother and in celebration, I decided to make his favourite cake- Chocolate Cake (with a twist) hence the chocolate, hazelnuts, nutella, (failed attempt of) chocolate macarons and assorted chocolate-hazelnut flavoured bars all in one cake.

Fun fact: Got these roasted hazelnuts when I was in Dubai about a month ago and it’s still fresh and never lost it’s flavour and it blended perfectly with the cake.

Note that I made some chocolate macarons but they all failed so I’ll try again next time.

Well, the cake looks a little complicated but its really not, it’s easy and you don’t need a lot of ingredients for it. So here’s it is. Enjoy!

CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT CAKE

Chocolate cake

Chocolate Ganache: Dark chocolate chunks Milk chocolate chips Heavy cream

1. On a bowl, add your chocolate chunks/chips 2. Heat up heavy cream (not boil!) and add it to the bowl of chocolate. Set aside and let it cool

Basic Nutella Buttercream: Butter (softened) Powdered sugar Nutella Heavy cream (to thin it out)

1. Add softened butter and powdered sugar together on a mixer, mix on low speed at first and gradually increase. 2. Add nutella and in the mixture is too think, you can add a bit of heavy cream to thin it out.

Garnish: Chocolate-hazelnut kisses, macarons, Milka chocolate bars, hazelnuts

ASSEMBLY TIME: * Baked my cake on 3 pans and cut them all in half because I wanted to make my cake a little bit higher and I wanted it to have a lot of thin layers rather than a thick 3-layered cake. 1ST layer: Chocolate cake- spoon over some milk to make it moist (Thanks to Christina Tosi of Milk Bar for the tip!) 2ND layer: Pipe some nutella buttercream on the cake and leave some space for the middle- add chocolate ganache 3RD layer: Sprinkle some chopped roasted hazelnuts

*repeat the layers until you ran out of cake. LOL*

Coat the cake with chocolate ganache or nutella buttercream and decorate it however you want.

There you go! A very simple chocolate cake taken to a higher level- I guess *wink* I’m not an expert but I really wanted to share this recipe :)

Mary xx

February 8, 2018; Thursday

Hi there!

I’m very excited to share with you a recipe I learned a while back from a book and added my twist to it, it’s not much but for me it’s a perfect dish for brunch aka my favourite meal of the day!

As you know (or not), I’m Filipino and in every Filipino household there’s always this kind of plant in our backyards –kinda like a small tree of some sort called Malunggay or Horseradish tree in English according to Google (*click here for more info*). It resembles sort of a herb but it doesn’t really have that strong taste nor smell to it unlike the others. This has tons of medicinal properties and nutrients in which all our elders believe so that’s why we came to learn about it since we were little. We usually put these in soups, in beverages or incorporate it with bread and some other pastries and some more other stuff as well.

This time, I decided to combine it with some basil to make a pesto. So here’s how I did it.

Malunggay Pesto Pasta

with roasted cashews, mozzerelline, bacon bits

Ingredients:

Pesto: Malunggay leaves (washed) Basil Olive oil Garlic Cashews-roasted Parmesan cheese Salt and pepper Pasta Mozzerelline (mini mozzarella balls) Cooked bacon (optional)

 Procedure:

1. On a food processor, add peeled garlic cloves the roasted cashew nuts first (roasting them lets it release its natural oils and gives more depth in flavor) – I used cashews because I really love them personally but you can use whatever nuts you have. Walnuts are really great substitute as well. Set aside some crushed toasted cashews for presentation.

2. Add the malunggay leaves and basil, pulse it a bit and then add olive oil slowly. Season it with salt and pepper, add more olive oil until you get that perfect pesto texture and add the parmesan cheese last.

3. On a pot with boiling water, add some salt and cook pasta according to packaging instructions. Drain, set aside and set aside some pasta water as well.

4. Add pesto on a heated pan and add the pasta water and season to taste. Toss in the pasta.

5. Place on desired plate and top with some more crushed roasted cashews, bacon bits, parmesan, some shredded mozzerelline, drizzle a little bit of olive oil to finish.

Note: you can just pulse the pesto a little bit more if you don’t want it to have a“chunky” consistency.

Forgive me! It’s been quite a while since I practiced and my plating skills is a bit rusty this time. ;)

So there you have it, guys! A really quick and easy pesto recipe with a little bit of Filipino twist to it.

Overall the taste was better than I expected, although I overcooked my pasta a bit but that nonetheless, all the flavours were well balanced and the malunggay really worked well with the basil.

Until next time! Happy cooking!