Torta di Farro
Spring has burst through here - in colors and warmth! The leaves are no longer shyly peeking out but bursting through with full vigor and a spirit to make a statement. And, then the flowers, gently lifting their faces and emboldening in vibrance and aroma. Running past a wall of violets in full bloom and inhaling deeply their fragrance gives me momentum and deeper spring to my step. I want to go out; I want to commune with nature; I want to find excuses to stay in the positivity of this season.
Yesterday, I was suddenly come upon an urge to bake. Perhaps, something within me wanted bursting out too. Since I am on the elimination diet, I cannot eat wheat and I do not have the access (and budget) for the other gluten free flours i typically use, like almond and oats.
I made a simple cake with farro, dates and nutmeg and topped with some seeds.
Roast Sugar Plum and Ricotta Ice Yogurt
In class recently, we discussed "Flavor" as an objective tool and how to measure it as a function of certain parameters. Our professor, Peter Klosse, a restauranteur and academician, argued that if you can separate Flavor the object from Flavor the experience then we can create a language of understanding that can unite and bring together people! What a wonderfully fascinating idea??!! I was really taken by that concept of using science to find a way to connect and hope to explore it more...
Anyway, ice cream was one of the examples that we choose to look into....
Gluten Free Peach Pound Cake
I have for you, today, this wonderful loaf I had baked before I left for my travels. It is based on my gluten free adaptation of the Florentine sponge. You could say I was gearing up for my trip to Italy. But, really, I used that because it is one of the best cakes I have ever had to date as just a cake, one that needs no frills and certainly no icing. More importantly, it is a phenomenal recipe for going gluten free.
Mango Ice Cream Cake Sandwiches
Before the season runs away let me rush in some ice cream recipes...!! I am in India at the moment and I think Mango Ice Cream is appropriate to share now. It is the first ice creams I shared on this blog and it came with a lot of baggage but tasted divine, perhaps for that baggage?! Until recently I hand churned my ice creams, first making the custard and then cooling, freezing and churning every hour or so. It took nearly half a day to make a pint of ice cream ready to set! And, then another half of hot footed impatience for it to freeze and be ready for scooping. Wait! Then another a couple of hours before I actually got to taste it, because, well, all the photography... It was quite a production as you can imagine!
Swimming with the Sharks
I was in Fort Lauderdale last week. We were a small party of girls who came from NYC in search of sun and waves. We got little of first and a lot of the second. For the time we were there, Florida was a moody b**tch tempting us with gorgeous blue skies in the early am and dousing us with furious showers and crackling lighting and thunder as soon as we got to the beach...
But we were resolute. We counted the time between the crack of thunder and streak of lightning in the distant horizon and convinced ourselves it was too far away to rob us off our fun. We had packed a cooler of alcohol and we were determined to polish it off while beaching on the sand, even if it was wet.