Candy Cane Brigadeiro

Who would say that a simple sugar candy originated around 1600’s in Europe to decorate Christmas trees would become one of the most traditional Christmas symbol. These peppermint flavored sticks has sweetened the holidays in many ways: cake, cupcake, cookie, brownie, bark, macaron and why not say brigadeiro.

Brigadeiro is a classic Brazilian treat presented in almost our celebrations. It is basically made with sweetened condensed milk, chocolate and butter. To my version of candy cane brigadeiro, I added peppermint oil and coated with crushed candy cane. I prepared two flavors, one with bittersweet chocolate and another with white chocolate.  I really enjoyed those combinations and I hope they sweeten your Christmas too.

Candy Cane Brigadeiro

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

100g bittersweet chocolate (I used Callebaut Belgian Chocolate) - or 100g white chocolate to make the white chocolate version

1 teaspoon peppermint oil

Pour the condensed milk into a medium saucepan and place over low heat.

Add the chocolate, butter and peppermint oil. Stir the mixture until it starts to show the bottom of the pan while you scrape it with a spoon. The mixture should be thick enough to show the bottom of the pan for a few seconds before the mixture back again. Transfer to a greased bowl. Let it cool, make little balls and then coated with crushed candy cane.

Honey Cake with White Brigadeiro Filling Covered with Chocolate Ganache - Bolo Pão de Mel

Honey cake (pão de mel, in Portuguese) is a very typical treat in Brazil. The pleasure provided from this cake started early on the oven, when the smell of sweet and spices swirl around the kitchen and coming to you. This pleasure is completed after a very moist cake slice, with lots of honey and clove savor. 

This recipe is from the notebook that my dear friend Hugo gave to me. It was one of the first recipes that I tried and immediately it became one of my specialties. You can fill it with custards, brigadeiros, caramel creams, nuts or dried fruits. Today I used a white brigadeiro filling that harmonized perfectly with the chocolate and spices flavors. It is perfect for parties when prepared as cupcakes and mini discs.

Honey Cake

1 cup honey

1 Tb whole cloves, 1 cinnamon sticks, 1 Tb fennel seeds and 1 cup water to make an infusion.

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup cold whole milk

3 cups all purpose flour

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground ginger

Pinch of salt        

1 teaspoon baking soda

Grated nutmeg 

For the cake, preheat oven 350 F.
Make the spices infusion: in a small saucepan, combine the water, cloves, fennel seeds and cinnamon stick. Bring the mixture to a boil then lower the heat and simmer for a few minutes until the mixture is fragrant. Pour into a cup through a fine mesh sieve and discard the spices. Place honey, sugar and cocoa powder in a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon until well combine. Dissolve baking soda in milk. Then add the spices infusion, milk and flour and mix until well combined. Add remaining ingredients and mix until smooth.  Pour the batter in a greased and floured pan and bake for approx. 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the cake come out clean.

White Brigadeiro Filling

1 can sweetened condensed milk

4 egg yolks

1 can table cream or 8 fl oz/ 240ml heavy cream

Pour the condensed milk into a medium saucepan and place over low heat.

Add the eggs. Stir the mixture until it starts to show the bottom of the pan while you scrape it with a spoon. The mixture should be thick enough to show the bottom of the pan for a few seconds before the mixture back again. Transfer to a greased bowl. When the Brigadeiro mixture is at room temperature, add the cream and mix until combine. Place it in the fridge until decoration.

Chocolate Ganache

400g milk chocolate, chopped

200g dark chocolate, chopped

1 can table cream or 8 fl oz/240ml heavy cream

Melt the chocolate in the cream in a bain marie. Lower-fat crean like light cream, half-and-half, and evaporated milk tend to "break" or curdle when added to sauces. To prevent this from happening, heat the cream over low or medium heat in a bain marie before add the chocolate. Don't let the cream boil.  Whisk until you have a thick cream consistency. Pour over the cake. 


This recipe was featured on Foodbuzz Top 9 : June 10, 2011

Domino Cake - Bolo Dominó

For the last 15 years, my mother-in-law had made the same cake every year for my husband’s birthday: Domino Cake. Last weekend, this special data has arrived and I felt the obligation to continue this tradition. After finish it and tasted it, I could understand his desire for the same cake all these years. The combination of the chocolatey and creamy layers, resulted from the chocolate mousse, brigadeiro and chantilly, is magnificent. Besides I liked very much its colors. The contrast between the black and white layers is beautiful. 

Domino Cake consists of 9 layers: chocolate sponge cake, chocolate brigadeiro, chocolate mousse, chocolate brigadeiro, chocolate sponge cake, chocolate Chantilly, white sponge cake, white brigadeiro, white Chantilly and white sponge cake. Everything covered with a lot rich chocolate brigadeiro.

You will need 2 days to prepare everything. On the first day, make the cakes discs and the chocolate mousse. Make the mousse on the same pan that you made the cakes to get the same shape. I make 4 discs because I’m crazy about tall cakes, but you can use just two discs if you want a shorter cake. On the second day, make the filling, the brigadeiros, the Chantilly and finally the decoration of the cake.

It was a lot a work, but every minute spend on this cake was worth, especially when I saw his happy face in each bite. After all, baking is all about making people happy.

Domino Cake

Sponge Cake

(makes 1 disc)

4 large eggs

4 tablespoons sugar

4 tablespoon cake flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. With an electric mixer fitted with a wire whip, beat the eggs and the sugar on medium-high speed in a large mixing bowl until the mixture is pale yellow, thick, and tripled in volume, about 8 minutes.  Sift the flour into a small mixing bowl. Add half the flour mixture to the egg mixture and blend thoroughly until smooth. Repeat with the other half. Pour the cake batter into the pan, spreading it evenly. Bake until the cake springs back when touched, about 15 minutes. Cool for about 2 minutes, and then gently flip it out onto a large sheet of parchment paper. Let cool completely. To make the chocolate sponge cake add 1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder to the sponge cake recipe.

Chantilly Cream

1 cup heavy cream, cold

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Chill a mixing bowl and wire whisk in the freezer for 10 minutes before beginning. Beat heavy cream in the chilled bowl until it begins to foam and thicken up. Add the powdered sugar and continue to beat until the cream barely mounds. Do not overwhip. To make the chocolate Chantilly add one tablespoon of cocoa powder to a half of the Chantilly recipe.

Chocolate Mousse

200g chocolate (I used Callebaut Belgian Chocolate, Dark Chocolate Semi - Sweet, 54.5% Cocoa)

3 eggs

12g unflavored gelatin + 1/4 cup hot water to soak

1 can table cream or 7,6 Oz heavy cream

½ cup powdered sugar, sifted

Melt the chocolate in a water bath; add the powdered sugar.  In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over the hot water, stir and let soften until opaque, about 3 minutes. Add to chocolate mixture.

With an electric mixer fitted with a wire whip, beat the eggs yolks on medium-high speed in a large mixing bowl until the mixture is pale yellow, thick, and double in volume.

In a saucepan over medium heat, stirring the chocolate mixture and egg yolks until boiling. Pour the mixture in a bowl and leave aside to cool. When the mixture is at room temperature, add table cream and mix until combine. Place in the same cake pan that you prepared the sponge cakes. Refrigerate until set, at least 4 hours or up to overnight. 

Chocolate Brigadeiro

2 cans sweetened condensed milk

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

100g chocolate (I used Callebaut Belgian Chocolate, Dark Chocolate Semi - Sweet, 54.5% Cocoa)

2 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder

1 can table cream 

Pour the condensed milk into a medium saucepan and place over low heat.

Add the chocolates and butter. Stir the mixture until it starts to show the bottom of the pan while you scrape it with a spoon. The mixture should be thick enough to show the bottom of the pan for a few seconds before the mixture back again. Transfer to a greased bowl. When the Brigadeiro mixture is at room temperature, add the table cream and mix until combine. Place it in the fridge until the decoration. 

White Brigadeiro

1 can sweetened condensed milk

4 egg yolks

1 can table cream 

Pour the condensed milk into a medium saucepan and place over medium heat

Add the egg yolks and keep stirring the mixture until it starts to show the bottom of the pan when you scrape it with a spoon. The mixture should be thick enough to show the bottom the pan for a couple of seconds before the mixture back again.

Pour the mixture in a greased bowl and leave aside to cool. When the Brigadeiro mixture is at room temperature, add the table cream and mix until combine. Place it in the fridge until decoration.

Gluten-free Pistachio Cake with Pistachio Brigadeiro Filling

I love pistachio so much that I made a gluten-free pistachio cake to celebrate my 4^th month of marriage and all the good things that happened until now.

The cake was very moistly and fluffy. This is a recipe that my dear friend Layla made recently. I thought very interesting to use potatoes to get a gluten-free cake. But instead the almonds and lemon zests, I used rice flour and pistachio paste. There is some pistachio paste available on the market, but I prefer everything fresh. You can easily do it with a food processor. Or, if you want to workout a little bit, you can use a pestle and mortal.

You may also note I’m a “brigadeiro” addict. Well, guess what I used to fill the cake? Pistachio brigadeiro. So delicious! I got the idea of pistachio brigadeiro from here. I changed the ground pistachio for pistachio paste and I added one more tablespoon of butter. Wonderful!

Everything was going well until the marshmallow fondant. It was the first time I worked with it. I decided to prepare it by myself because most of the fondants commercially available are not tasty. My dear friend Carol sent to me a recipe from Le Cordon Bleu very easy to make. The cake that she prepared with this fondant was very beautiful and delicious. After finished it, I accidentally put in the fridge overnight. Unfortunately, the fondant became brittle and not able to model. Even that, I could do some little roses and balls for decoration.

Homemade Pistachio Paste
(adapted from here)

500 gr shelled pistachios

125 gr white almond powder

250 gr sugar

7 dl water

1 teaspoon  almond extract

Pound the pistachios in a heavy mortar. This is heavy work and it takes a very long time to obtain a fine powder. Using an electrical kitchen mixer can help. Mix in the ground almonds. Add the almond extract. In a saucepan mix 7 grams (0.7 dl) water with 250 gr sugar. Use a copper bowl or heavy bottomed saucepan or mix constantly to avoid sugar burning on hotspots. Heat until the temperature reaches 250°F. Pour the scalding hot sugar over the pistachio paste and mix in quickly to prevent crystallization. We are drawing near to completion when the paste starts to look like baklava offal. Carefully add one teaspoon water at a time and mix thoroughly until you obtain a marzipan-like texture. Do not use too much water. Knead well with both hands to get a smooth, homogeneous mixture. Store in a plastic bag and freeze for best preservation.

Gluten-free Pistachio Cake

200g butter, softened

200g golden caster sugar

4 eggs

100g rice flour 

250g mashed potatoes

200g pistachio paste

2 tsp gluten-free baking powder

How to prepare: 

Heat oven to 360°F/fan 320°F/gas. Butter and line a deep, 20cm round cake tin. Beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy, then gradually add the egg, beating after each addition. Fold in the cold mashed potato (make sure it doesnt have any potato lump), pistachio paste and baking powder.

Tip into the tin, level the top, then bake for 40-45 mins or until golden and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Turn out onto a wire rack after 10 mins cooling. 

Pistachio Brigadeiro

100g pistachio paste
1 can (395g) sweetened condensed milk
2 tablespoon unsalted butter

Mix the condensed milk, butter and pistachio paste in a saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly – when the bottom of the pan starts to show and the mixture is a bit thicker, remove from heat and fill the cake.

Cupcakes and Cake Pops

For my second post, I'll write about the first sweets that I made.
Some weeks ago I got kids at home. To please then I decided to make cupcakes and cake pops:

The cupcake doesn’t look good, but it tasted great. I used a recipe from a book I bought recently: vanilla cake with chocolate chips and white chocolate frosting. I decided to give a Brazilian taste filling then with “brigadeiro”, a very popular creamy chocolate candy served in parties in Brazil. The “brigadeiro” was responsible for the almost success of my cupcakes. Almost success because my frosting was a disaster! My first attempt was the buttercream. I did everything wrong and I got a moistened stuff. I cried… So I decided to make a white chocolate ganache, which worked well.

Cake pops are a success here in the US. They are perfect to any occasion and are amazing additions to the dessert table at holiday parties, birthday parties, baby and bridal showers. Bakerella, who create those cute delights, is launching a book now, named “Cake Pops”. 

If you didn’t know cake pops, here are some photos from her website:

And here a video of her explaining how to make pops:

It’s really easy: bake a cake, mush it up with frosting, roll it into balls, insert a stick, dip it in chocolate and decorate with sprinkles.

I didn’t have problems with the cake pops because I made a very simple model, using a simple chocolate cake and, instead the frosting, I used “brigadeiro”, the same one that I used before. I made the balls and put in the fridge for several hours to become firm. Then I covered with melted chocolate and decorated with colored sugar.

To receive my dear guests, I prepared this table:

I made Brazilian cheese bread, but I forgot it in this photo. Cheese bread is another specialty of Brazilian gastronomy, but this will deserve its own post and, of course, some photos.

And this is my painting that I wish my cupcake looked like. I painted with pastel pencil for the first time and was a great pleasure. After several years without painting I restart one of my passions.

Brigadeiro

1 can sweetened condensed milk

4 tablespoon chocolate mix

 ½ tablespoon butter

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine chocolate, butter and condensed milk. Cook, stirring until it thickens, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let rest until cool enough to make balls with the cake or filling your cupcake.

In Brazil we used to do smalls balls with "brigadeiro". To do the balls cook the mixture until it thickens enough to show the pan bottom during stirring. Pour the mixture in a lightly greased dish and let it cool to room temperature. Now you are ready to form the little balls, remember to grease your hands with butter first. Roll it over chocolate sprinkles and place the balls in candy cups (small size).