The Foodie's Food Trip: August 2011

My New Breakfast (And Sometimes Dessert, Too!)

I've seen them in the supermarket before, but only tried them recently. And I've been buying them since then.

What am I talking about? Yogurt. But not just any yogurt, it's Müller's corner yogurts.

It's called Corner yogurt because the yogurt is just plain (or sometimes flavored) yogurt, then the toppings and/or other flavorings are in another corner.

I just had this for my afternoon snack... Toffee Hoops.

They have other healthier flavors... but I like mine sweet! :D

Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies

Nutella was on sale the other day, so I bought two jars. So now... what to do with all that Nutella? Bake, of course!

See those two cutie Nutella jars? Bought them in Italy during our holiday two months ago and I looove them! Each jar just contains 30g (the normal Nutella jar has 400g) and they're sooo adorably cute!

Anyway, I made some Nutella cookies before, but hubby and I felt something's missing... the chocolate chips. I can simply add chocolate chips to the last recipe I used, but decided to look and try out a different recipe completely.

I found one from justJENN which looks simply divine and chewy and perfect.

Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies
from justJENN

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup Nutella
1-1/2 cups chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and prep baking sheets with silpats (or baking paper).
In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter, the sugar and the brown sugar. Add the eggs and the vanilla until combined.
Gradually add the flour until the mixture is combined.
Then mix in the chocolate chips and the Nutella.
Drop by Tablespoons onto the prepped baking sheets and bake for 8-10 minutes.
Let cool on wire racks. When the cookies come out they will go from rounded balls to lovely flat cookie discs.

The Nutella was supposed to be swirled and not completely mixed... I think I over-mixed the Nutella to my cookies. It doesn't matter... they're still great!

My Craving For Silvanas

Being away from the Philippines made me crave a lot of food, that although I do not eat them often I still crave for them. One of the food/dessert that I've been craving for years, even when we were still living in Singapore, is silvanas.

Silvanas are frozen cookies/dessert wherein meringue-like cookies, usually made of cashew nuts, are sandwiched and covered with buttercream then coated with cake or cookie crumbs and sometimes ground cashew nuts. It is very similar to sans rival, cake version of silvanas.

I've been looking for a recipe for a looong time but can't find one. Then a few months ago, I asked my sister if she has a recipe of silvanas (or sans rival)... she's got both! And so I made some! :D

Now for the ingredients... Most of the ingredients I needed were easy to buy - eggs, sugar, butter. But the cashew nuts... I searched for weeks (or maybe even months)!

In the Philippines, I realized that cashew nuts are not that expensive and you can buy them in almost any supermarket. Here in London, it's more expensive than I thought it would be! But still the craving wins. I've checked three supermarkets and all of them sell salted (and even peppered) cashew nuts... and I need plain unsalted ones. I finally found one from a store that sells vitamins & supplements, they sell organic and healthy food. They even have banana chips... product of the Philippines. :D

And the baking begins... Here are some steps/notes while making silvanas:

The first thing I made was the buttercream. My sister gave me a recipe for Swiss buttercream frosting. But everything was in metric measurement, even the eggs! Although I can approximate the weight of an egg white, I still wanted a recipe wherein it says the number of eggs I need (not in grams/millilitres). So I searched for other Swiss buttercream recipes online and found one from Smitten Kitchen.
Next is the meringue cookies. I have two options for making them round and small,
1. Pipe the meringue into perfect little circles
2. Pour them in a tray and just cut them in circles after baking.
I opted for the second one, since I do not trust my piping skills. The only downside of the second option is the excess cookies left. In my case, I still used them as coating for the finished silvanas. :D

My meringue cookies getting ready for the oven

I decided to use my square pans for this instead of my rectangular ones because my rectangular pans kept on warping/popping/bending once inside the oven, and my square pans are all stable and steady.
After baking, I let them cool a bit then pried them out of those baking paper... they're stubborn and sticky! So next time I'll make sure to butter and flour them more generously.
After that I cut them into perfect circles. I used a cookie/biscuit cutter to form these circles then let them cool some more.
For the cookie rejects and the sides, I baked them some more to make them a bit crunchier, then ground them up. I them mixed those ground meringue cookies with some ground cashew nuts. That's what I used to coat the silvanas.
Once perfectly cool enough, I spread some buttercream on one cookie, sandwich it with another, then put them in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. I put mine in the freezer for 10-15 minutes.
Remove the sandwich cookies from the refrigerator. Cover the sandwich with more buttercream, then coat with the ground meringue cookies mixed with cashew nuts. Put them back in the freezer for at least 30 minutes.

The finish product... yummy!

My lovely Silvana

Unfortunately I can't share the recipe for the meringue cookies. But for the Swiss buttercream frosting recipe, you can get them from Smitten Kitchen.