Mais con hielo

We’ve been having a bit of a heat wave here in NL. (Keep in mind that ‘heat wave’ here means ‘perfect weather’ anywhere else.) It was the perfect opportunity to bust out our hidden-way-back-in-the-cabinet ice shaver for some cold treats. Tonight I decided to make a Filipino classic, mais con hielo, and it’s also my entry for this month’s corn-themed Beets N Squash.

When it comes to Filipino cold desserts, halo-halo is the undisputed king. Halo-halo is basically shave ice with milk, then topped with almost anything under the tropical sun: sweet beans, pandan jelly, leche flan, ube (purple yam) jam, ube ice cream, pinipig (crispy rice), jackfruit. If it’s sweet, you’ve probably seen it on halo-halo. It’s like the Vegas of desserts.

One of many halo-halos I ate during my recent trip to the Philippines

Mais con hielo (literally meaning ‘corn with ice’) is just the opposite. It’s like halo-halo’s humble cousin. It’s the simplest summer dessert ever: sweet corn, shave ice, and whatever milk floats your boat. Some prefer fresh milk, some like evaporated milk, others like to sweeten it with some condensed milk. In the summer, we would eat this all the time at home — I mean, seriously, I loves me some halo-halo, but who has the fifty ingredients lying around to make it?

Although this dessert often makes use of canned corn, you can make it with fresh sweet corn, which has the added benefit of adding a bit of corn ‘milk’ to the mixture when you take it off the cob. (You may want to cook it just a bit in its own liquid after removing from the corn cob).

For the dairy element, I use a neutral ice cream, such as sweet cream rather than vanilla, but if vanilla is what you have, it’ll still taste great, and it also sweetens the mais con hielo so you don’t need to add sugar. I also add a splash of whole milk.

In terms of the shave ice, I think a proper ice shaver is a must. It makes the ice light and fluffy. I’ve never tried crushing it in a food processor (I don’t own a food processor large enough, so it’ll have to remain a mystery to me). If anyone out there uses something else, let me know. A bit more shave ice than the other ingredients, then equal parts corn and ice cream work beautifully, and you’ll be wondering why you haven’t been eating corn for dessert all your life.

The ice shaver at our house, courtesy of my mom

Mais con hielo
serves 4

Ingredients:
About 2 cups shave ice
A pint of vanilla or sweet cream ice cream
2-3 cobs of sweet corn (or a can of crunchy corn kernels)
Whole milk

1. If you are using fresh corn, scrape the corn kernels off the cob, also catching the liquid. Heat until warm in a saucepan. Cool in the refrigerator.
2. Assemble the mais con hielo in tall drinking glasses: a half cup of shave ice, followed by a few tablespoons of corn, a scoop of ice cream, then a few more tablespoons of corn. Pour a bit of milk over the whole thing. Crush it all together with a spoon while eating. Hopefully it’s a hot and humid day because this is the best way to enjoy it!

Links:
Gourmet Fury: Beets N Squash

Vanilla malt polvoron

This is my first post for Kulinarya Cooking Club, a group of Filipino bloggers dedicated to sharing Filipino recipes. This month’s theme is polvoron, one of my favorite sweets.

Polvoron is powdered milk candy, so named for its crumbly texture (polvo meaning powder or dust in Spanish). In this way, it resembles the classic Spanish polvorones, which are a sandy biscuit made flavored with almonds and lard. The main ingredients for Filipino polvoron are toasted flour, powdered milk, sugar and butter.

I had this idea of incorporating vanilla bean, which complements the milky flavor. As I was toasting the flour, I then thought about one of my favorite ingredients for milk: malted milk powder. The result was addictive: like a malted vanilla shake in candy form.

I’ve learned a couple of techniques to prevent frustration while making polvoron, which is a really fragile candy. (It’ll literally crumble in your hand if you’re not careful!) After combining all the ingredients, chill it in the fridge for an hour or two. This will keep it from sticking to the polvoron mould or biscuit cutter. After shaping them, set them in the freezer. If you want to wrap them in tissue paper, or stack them in containers, this step will keep you from pulling your hair out. For me, polvoron moulds are the way to go — I haven’t tried to use a biscuit cutter. If you live somewhere where there’s a Filipino grocery, these should be relatively easy to find.

One more tip: my mom swears by Nestle KLIM for the powdered milk, so it’s the only powdered milk I will use for polvoron. Even if you don’t swear by a specific brand, do make sure you use a full-fat (definitely not non-fat) powdered milk. For the malted milk powder, I used Horlicks, which is unsweetened and has a strong malt flavor.

Vanilla malt polvoron
makes about 40 candies

Ingredients
1-1/2 cup (190g) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (60g) Horlicks malted milk powder
2 vanilla beans, split and scraped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cup (160g) powdered milk
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
8 ounces (200g) melted butter

1. In an medium-sized pan, toast the flour over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a heat-proof spatula or wooden spoon. The flour will become fragrant and should become the color of sand. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
2. Add the vanilla bean, malt powder, salt, sugar and powdered milk to the flour. Pour in the melted butter and stir until the mixture resembles wet sand. (My son calls polvoron “sand sweeties”) Set in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
3. Using a polvoron mould, shape the candy and place them in a container or baking sheet in a single layer. Freeze for several hours. I like to eat them straight from the freezer, but they can also be wrapped in tissue paper and eaten at room temperature.

Palitaw (sweet rice dumplings with
sesame sugar and coconut)

Recently my friend Justine posted a link to a Korean dessert called gyung-dan, which are basically little chewy cakes of rice flour, sometimes filled with sweet bean paste, and rolled in sesame seeds. Right away this made me think of palitaw, one of my favorite Filipino kakanin, or desserts. Palitaw is boiled sweet rice flour (no filling) that is then coated in sugar, toasted sesame seeds and, in the usual Filipino tropical twist, grated coconut.

This is the easiest dessert ever to make if you have the ingredients on hand. You will need sweet rice flour, such as Mochiko. Some (like my mother, of course) would argue that to make proper palitaw you really should soak sweet rice, then make it into a paste. Frankly, I will admit that with this step, I probably would never make palitaw myself, so I’ll stick to the Mochiko. She did convince me, however, of the worthwhile step of grinding the toasted sesame seeds with the sugar to “get the most sesame flavor from it”. She is right about that.

For the grated coconut, ideally you would have fresh grated coconut extracted with one of these dangerous bad boys (The way it works is you sit on the grater on a low stool, and hold the coconut and grate it with the sharp metal bit. Why do I call it dangerous? My auntie, as a child, ran into one of these, resulting in a huge bloody gash. I guess the moral of the story is don’t run in the house when there are coconut graters lying around.)

If you don’t have access to fresh coconut, check the freezer at the Asian grocery, or use desiccated (non-sweetened) coconut as I have here.

Finally, make sure to eat the palitaw right away. There’s basically no point if it isn’t piping hot; after that it gets insanely chewy and soggy. But when it’s fresh, it’s a little piece of tropical heaven.

Palitaw
serves 4

2 cups (300g) sweet rice flour (such as Mochiko)
3/4 cup (180ml) water
1 cup (90g) grated coconut
1/2 cup(100g) granulated sugar
3 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

1. Stir the flour and water in a bowl until smooth. Form the dough into 1-inch balls and flatten slightly into patties.
2. In a food processor, combine the sesame seeds and sugar. Set aside in a shallow dish (you will roll the patties in them after they’ve been cooked. Set the grated coconut in a separate shallow dish (also for coating the patties later).
3. Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Drop the palitaw into the boiling water. Cook until they float to the surface.
4. Roll them right away in the sugar-sesame mixture, then in the grated coconut. Serve immediately.

Nutella steamed pudding

Although my favorite way to eat Nutella is slathered on bread, I thought for World Nutella Day (four years old this year, I might add!) I would combine two of my favorite things: steamed pudding and Nutella.

Steamed pudding is basically a cake that is steamed rather than baked, then turned out onto a plate. What’s great is that it never gets really dry, so it’s moist and gooey, and often times light.

Usually a 4-5 quart heatproof bowl is the tool of choice for steaming the pudding in. This then needs to be set inside a larger pot that can accommodate water about halfway up the sides of the bowl.

Lucky for me, I have a steam oven (great for making siopao, by the way!), so I just set a large heatproof dish with a cover directly in the oven. For traditional steaming, the pudding bowl needs to be prepared properly. These instructions from the BBC are the best I’ve seen for preparing a steamed pudding.

This pudding is more like a souffle, and the Nutella taste is subtle in the light airy texture. To dress it up, you can prepare a little Nutella sauce, but I’m happy eating it with a spoonful of sweetened creme fraiche.

Nutella steamed pudding
serves 4-6
Recipe tip: Because Nutella actually doesn’t have a lot of chocolate (or hazelnut for that matter), the taste is really subtle when you bake with it. What I have found, however, is that if you make your own gianduja (chocolate-hazelnut mixture), you really boost the intensity of chocolatey-hazelnutty flavor. There’s a great recipe at the Cook and Eat blog. Give it a shot!

Ingredients
1 cup (240ml) Nutella
1/2 cup (120ml) heavy cream
4 tablespoons (50g) butter (plus more for greasing the bowl)
pinch of salt
6 eggs, separated: yolks in one bowl, whites in another
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/3 cup (65g) sugar
1/4 cup (35g) flour

1. Grease the bowl generously with butter.
2. In a small heavy pan, heat the cream, butter and salt over medium low. Lower the heat to low and add the Nutella. Whisk together until totally combined. Set aside until just a bit warm.
3. Add the egg yolks to a large bowl and whisk until a bit frothy. Pour the Nutella mixture into the eggs, whisking while you add it so the eggs don’t curdle.
4. In a separate bowl, whip the egg white with an electric mixer. When the egg whites start looking foamy, add the cream of tartar and the sugar. Whisk until stiff peaks form, but don’t let it dry out.
5. Stir in about a quarter of the egg whites into the egg yolk and Nutella mixture. Gently fold the rest of the egg whites in with a spatula. Sprinkle on the flour and gently fold that in as well.
6. Prepare the steamed pudding (as directed in the video link above). Set a tea towel in the bottom of a huge pot that will hold the pudding bowl. Add the bowl and pour boiling water until halfway up the sides of the bowl. Set over medium low heat (until the water is simmering) and cover the pot. (You may need to add water part of the way through)
7. Steam the pudding for an hour. Remove from heat and let stand for 15 minutes. This is a good time to prepare the Nutella sauce, if you are making it.

Nutella sauce
1/4 cup (60ml) Nutella
3 tablespoons boiling water

Add the Nutella to a medium-sized bowl. While whisking, pour the boiling water over the Nutella. It may seize up at first, but as the water gets incorporated, it will become smooth again.

Sweetened creme fraiche
1/2 cup (120ml) creme fraiche
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the creme fraiche, sugar and vanilla. Stir together until smooth.

Links:
Cook and Eat: DIY Nutella
World Nutella Day
Ms. Adventures in Italy
Bleeding Espresso

Brown-butter Blondies

Whenever I crave sweets and want to bake something quickly, but don’t want to OD on chocolate, I make blondies. And when I think about making blondies, my train of thought goes to Blondie, which then goes to Heart of Glass, which is an audio parasite that immediately embeds itself into my brain for several days.

And now that will happen to you. You can thank me later.

But at least while Heart of Glass is circling its way through your head, you can be eating classic blondies. They satisfy the sweet tooth: sweet, chewy with a hit of chocolate and salt.

I’ve realized that the step that takes these to the next level is browning the butter. It gives the bars a richer, nuttier flavor. I add chopped pecans to complement the flavor, but you can leave them out if you choose. I use half white chocolate and half dark chocolate because it looks great, but you can substitute with all dark chocolate if you prefer, and which I sometimes do.

Classic Blondies
makes 16 bars

Ingredients
1 stick butter (110g, or ½ cup) (I use salted butter)
1 cup packed light brown sugar (220g)
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour (140g)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup (50g) white chocolate chunks
1/3 cup (50g) dark chocolate chunks
1/2 cup chopped pecans (60g) (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (170 C). Line an 8×8 baking pan with foil or parchment paper. This will make the bars easier to remove when you are ready to cut into them.
2. Melt the butter in small saucepan over medium-low heat. Continue heating until it smells really nutty and fragrant and you start seeing browned bits of milk solids in the butter (be careful not to burn it).
3. Remove from heat and pour into a large bowl. Whisk in the sugar and allow to cool until just warm. Whisk in the eggs and vanilla until combined.
4. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the butter mixture and whisk until combined. Stir in the chocolate and nuts.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 25 minutes – be careful not to overbake, so they don’t dry out. The top should be shiny.
6. Remove to a cooling rack. When it’s cooled to room temperature, remove from the pan and cut into squares.