Panforte

Man, am I behind on the blogging. I've got a few new recipes to write about, but I had some complications with my Flickr account (ended up upgrading to a Pro account) and not too much time to write lately. I'll probably do a separate post for each item. The first one is the Italian Panforte from Room for Dessert. This is definitely one of the stranger desserts I've ever made, just because of the large and unusual combination of ingredients. It's sort of a chocolate tart/cake/brownie thing, but it included toasted almonds and hazelnuts, candied orange peels, chocolate, cocoa powder, sugar, honey, a little flour, lots of ground black pepper, lots of cinnamon, and even a little cayenne. The honey was the only liquid (you boil it with the sugar, then add it to the mixed dry ingredients), so as you can imagine, the finished product was pretty dense. Tasted good, but a little bit different with each bite, depending on the proportion of nuts/citrus you got. And then a final spicey bite of an aftertaste.

Candied Orange and Lemon Peels

Stayed up last night working on a new sort of recipe for me, candy! Specifically, candied orange and lemon peels; recipe from Room for Dessert. My folks gave me some Meyer lemons from their tree as well as some oranges and I wanted to use them all before it was too late. The candying was a pretty straightforward process, but time consuming. First, I juiced all the fruit; no point in wasting the insides. The orange juice I put in a pitcher to drink. The lemon juice I froze into an ice cube tray. I can hang onto that for months and use it in other recipes. Next, boiled the peels in water to soften them up. This took about 30 minutes for the lemons and about 50 for the oranges. Then, scraped the pith off the peels and sliced them into strips and triangles. Then the fun part... boiling the peels in lots of sugar, some water, and a little bit of corn syrup. The recipe instructed to simmer until the temperature reached 225 degress Fahrenheit, at which point most of the water has boiled off, but the sugar hasn't quite gotten to the point of caramelizing yet. At that point, I pulled the peels out of the liquid with tongs (sugar burns are PAINFUL; I recommend avoiding) and set them out to drain for a bit. Lastly, a quick toss in some granulated sugar and you're done. Candied citrus peel.

The pictures below include the fruits mid-juicing, the peel simmering in sugar, two shots of the peel drying, tossing in sugar, and the final product. Candy. Woo!

Meyer Lemon Semifreddo pictures

Okay, here we go with some pictures of the Meyer Lemon Semifreddo. First, ingredients for the amaretti cookies, then two shots of the final product just coming out of the oven. Ingredients for the sponge cakes, then the cakes. Next, ingredients for the meyer lemon curd. Next, the curd being mixed with some freshly whipped cream. Finally, the assembled semifreddo, already halfway eaten before I remembered to take a picture.