Chocolate Mousse

I love chocolate mousse! Who doesn´t? Unfortunately, due to the pregnancy it´s one of those things can´t have right now (the eggs aren´t cooked). When I went home in March, I got 3 bars of the culinary chocolate bars we used to use for the chocolate mousse and was waiting for a special occasion to use them. That occasion was my son´s birthday.

Next time I can use the culinary chocolate bars sold here in Singapore, but I find them too strong and heavier - in this case I might as well just reduce the quantity of chocolate.

When it comes to Chocolate Mousse, I´m only the sous chef in the kitchen, because the merit belongs to the hubby. This recipe came from his mum.

Ingredients
(normally we double the quantities)


6 eggs
1 chocolate bar (200gr)
125 gr Sugar
75 gr butter

Beat the egg whites and put aside.
Mix the egg yolks with the sugar very well until it becomes homogeneous and creamy.
Then, melt the chocolate in the butter, always stiring so that the chocolate doesn´t glue to the pan. Preferably, use a non-stick pan.
Once it´s melted, pour it into the egg yolk cream and mix everything very well.
Lastly, add the egg whites little by little and keep mixing until everything becomes a nice dark cream.
Pour it into several small cups or a larger tray and put in the fridge. In a few hours is ready to savor!

Recipe to prepare a simple "Meat Bread" / Bôla de Carne

If you´ve seen my previous post, you know that Bôla de Carne or Meat Bread, how I call it in English, was one of the things I´ve prepared for my son´s birthday party. This is another first in my cooking experience, but it´s been part of the family since ever, as my grandmother used to make often.

The recipe, however, is different. I followed the one suggested by Thermomix´s cookbook and used the appliance to prepare it. It will be very easy to prepare it without it though.

Ingredients

4 eggs

200g oil

300g milk

500g flour

2 tea spoons of baking powder

Salt

Bacon

Sausage (I used a Portuguese type of sausage, called linguiça)

You can choose to use ham or other types of sausage, all together or just one type of meat.

Preparation

Mix the eggs, milk, oil and salt. If you use Thermomix, program it at 2 min/37º/vel2. If you´re not using it, I would suggest you heat the milk up a little bit before.
Then, pour in the flour in and the baking powder and knead the dough. Finally, add the meats already chopped and involve them in the dough.

Time to go to the oven for about 35-40 minutes at 180º (pre-heated). Check if the bread is cooked before removing it from the oven. I used a rectangular tray, you can choose any other shape.

Seriously, you have to try this amazing Portuguese flavor, you´ll love it! There are other ways to prepare this, but this one has all the simplicity and taste you could hope for!

Celebrating my son´s 4th anniversary!

Here´s a sneak peek at my son´s birthday party that happened yesterday. Two friends of mine created all the amazing treats based on the theme of the party -  Monsters In (my special thank you to both of them!), while I´ve put together a Portuguese menu to celebrate the special occasion.
I´ll write individually about some of them later on.

Let´s start with the birthday cake and all the fantastic sweats decorated with the Monsters theme...

 Birthday cake

"Monsters Inc" Cupcakes

 Decorated cookies

Cookies to offer the little friends, saying "thank you" and "obrigado" (which is "thank you" in Portuguese). Something original and eatable!

Meat bread
(This was my favourite dish on the table! I´ll share the recipe on a separate post) 

from the fronto to the back: Baba de camelo (dessert made with condensed milk), Chocolate mousse and Rice Pudding

Mushroom quiche & Codfish cakes hidden in the back :(

The famous Portuguese Egg Tarts, also prepared by my friend Susana.

It´s missing here the bread, which was a great hit with the tuna pate!

It was an exhausting day, but definitely worth it! The kids had fun playing, the grown ups enjoyed the food and my son was happy. What else can you wish for?

Easy & Delicious Chocololate Cake

Today is my son´s birthday and since his party is only a week from now, I´ve made a new chocolate cake recipe I actually found online. He unfortunately came down with a flew yesterday and felt like doing something to pamper him. Chocolate is his favorite sweet! 

The interesting thing about this recipe is that it doesn´t need flour. The cake is incredibly moist and light and it couldn´t be easier to make! It does look like it, right?

Here´s how to do it.

Ingredients

- 6 eggs
- 6 table spoons of powdered chocolate, the one you drink with milk is good enough (I used Cadbury) 
- 8 table spoons of sugar
- 1 table spoon of baking powder
- 2 table spoons of soft butter 

For the topping:
- 250 ml of milk
- half cup of sugar
- half cup of powdered chocolate
- 2 table spoons of Maizena

Preparation

Mix the butter with the sugar and add the eggs one by one, always mixing, followed by the chocolate and the baking powder. Mix everything again very well. Pour into a tray (no need to cover it in butter and flour if it´s a non-stick tray) and pop into the oven for 30 min at 180º.

Once the cake has baked, prepare the topping. In a pan, heat the milk (leaving just a bit aside to mix with the maizena) with the chocolate and sugar and when it starts to boil pour a bit on top of the cake. With the pan back on the stove, dissolve the maizena on the milk previously set aside and pour into the pan. Keep stiring until it thickens, but not too much. Should take about 2 minutes max.

Cover the cake and it´s ready to eat!