The Texture of Ice Cream

At the early hours of Saturday morning, long before sunrise, or maybe after, (one cant tell since Colorno was devoured by a giant white cloud several days ago), Katie and myself headed to the coastal town of Rimini, to the annual, international ice cream, pastry, confectionary and bakery industry fair, sigep.
It turns out that ALL of Italy was devoured by the giant cloud's family because throughout the entire journey we could only see 20 meters ahead.
A coffee break in Bologna turned into an unplanned exploratory tour of a local supermarket, and after a scan through the fresh goods in the fish stand, the bakery, the pork extravaganza and the countless types of cheese on offer we headed to the coast.
The exhibition occupied a huge convention complex, showing everything and anything involved in having ice cream; the machinery, equipment, tools, decorations, packaging, and what not. Yes, there were deals being closed, professional competitions, chocolate sculptures, international bread makers and pastry shows, but the best part by far, were the ice cream stands, free of charge, any flavour, all time…

I, however, was missing two things, or better yet, two senses, to make this really enjoyable: Taste and smell.
I had managed to breed and nurture a cold to reach peak congestion on the day. I could smell and taste NOTHING.
the only thing I could do was to experience ice cream as texture.
Note to self (the abridged version): the texture of ice cream is rather pleasing!

Cheese Tasting

I have been officially introduced to the wonderful world of cheese tasting.
I say wonderful but I mean intense. Literally.
I had tasted a lot of cheeses in the space of 24 hours. 13, to be exact. my experience is that cheese tasting is equivalent to having your brain cut open and than messed about with. I shall explain.
Beyond the variety of sulphurus, rotten egg, mouldy smells of cheese we all know and love, there is a world of aromas, tastes, textures and sensations to be experienced and identified. A process requiring a state of deep concentration, enabling the brain to isolate and separate each smell, aroma, taste and sensation, which than needs to be identified. Things like, and I quote: '' a lot a lot of boiled potatoes'', and ''animal sweat''…what did I file this aroma under in my brain??
And than there's the tricky part of getting it right, too…

Chocolate Banana Pandoro Bread Pudding

It's January. This means:
1. Its cold
2. The post Xmas sale is on.
The only shopping I can do in a radius of a good few kilometers is food shopping. How exciting is a supermarket sale, you ask? Very! All Pandoros and Panettones are going for practically free which works just fine with my budget!
I bought a Pandoro; a tall, festive 'golden bread', encapsulating the smell of butter, cream and yeast. The Panettone and Pandoro are sold in gift boxes, making the purchase of one feel like I am buying myself a really nice gift, and although it goes great with coffee, I wanted to celebrate an entire cake, not just the slice.
So lets do the math; its cold, and I have a Pandoro. If I add the winning combination of chocolate & banana to the equation the answer is crispy clear.
A Chocolate Banana Pandoro Bread pudding, made from layers of buttered Pandoro bite size cubes, laced with golden banana medallions and sizeable chunks of dark chocolate, topped with crushed amaretti cookies for that fresh crunchy almond note. Now you see it, now you don't...
It came in contact with the atmosphere for approximately 5 minutes before it disappeared into the wonderful world of digestion...definitely one for the book.
If you want to give it a go the recipe is attached.

Chocolate & Banana Pandoro Bread Pudding

Serves 8

3/4 Stale Pandoro 3cm cubes

50g Butter cut to small cubes

2 Ripe Bananas sliced

150g Dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)

275ml Milk

65ml Cream

3 Large eggs at room temperature

1Tsp Vanilla

50g Caster sugar

1/2tsp Nutmeg

1Tsp Cinnamon

15 Amaretti cookies roughly grounded

Lightly buttered 20x30cm baking dish 4 cm high

Preheat the oven to 180C. Fill a large shallow pan with hot water and place at the bottom of the oven. This helps to create a humid environment in the oven, preventing the pandoro from drying out, burning, or curdling.

Form the base layer by placing half of the cubes on a slightly buttered dish, skin side down. Scatter half of the butter chunks evenly on the Pandoro cubes, followed by the banana slices and dark chocolate. Arrange the remaining squares of pandoro cubes, skin side up, overlapping slightly.

Scatter the remaining butter chunks evenly on the Pandoro cubes.

Whisk the milk, cream, eggs, caster sugar and Vanilla together and pour the mixture all over the pudding.

Press the bread down into the custard very lightly and sprinkle the nutmeg and cinnamon. Place on a high shelf and bake for 40 minutes, until the surface is golden and crunchy. You may want to cover loosely with foil half way through to prevent the top rust from charring.

Remove from the oven and let cool slightly. Sprinkle with the crushed Amaretti.

Can be served warm, cold, alone or with a dollop of (coconut) ice cream, or (coconut) whipped cream.

Variation: I also tried this recipe replacing the chocolate and bananas with Guava paste and dulce de lece, and toasted almonds instead of the amaretti.

Now its really snowing

Very Italian

I bought peeled chestnuts
to cook them with lentil soup
they turned out dry figs

Sabbioneta and Surrealism

It’s a bone chilling crisp sunny Sunday. Fede and I decide to make the most of this icy sunny day and head to Sabbioneta, a medieval village built based on the ideas of ancient Rome and Greece as to the ideal city. Clearly this never happened. It’s a short 15 minute drive, and by the time we had arrived the sunny skies are all but a distant memory.
The fortified village is held captive inside a cloud, and not a soul in sight.
We head towards what seems like an open antiquarian shop. Within seconds we are in a courtyard surrounded by antiques. An old man wearing a bowler hat hands me his card. He is a count. The last count. An Aristocrat. This place is his home. or a museum. Or both. He urges us to see his kitchen. We are lead to a well, stopping on the way to see the dozens photographs of him, the count, with the bowler hat, taken with various Italian politicians, artists, & musicians.
He shows us photographs of reflections of people looking through gilded mirrors in the house. We are instructed to be photographed throwing a penny into the well and to make a wish. We are than lead upstairs, occasionally stopping to photograph various objects as instructed (angle included). We have our joint and individual photos taken reflected through mirrors, naturally.
Another group of people has arrived and we have a quick look around before the lot of us are gathered, and lead to a local restaurant. We cease this opportunity to break free. What jut happened??? lets recap this:
A (very nice) eccentric aristocrat living in the tiniest of villages encapsulated within an ever- present cloud is on a mission; to photograph peoples' reflections through mirrors. His mansion is a townhouse crammed with antiques and mirrors reflecting each other, there is a wishing well, an old gramophone and an industrial meat slicer in the kitchen, and lest us forget the two frozen pigeons that lay symetrically by the road.
I am struggling to decipher this...

Comfort & Comfortable

After all of the running around Europe eating fiasco has come to an end, I am now happily grounded to my chair, staring at the computer screen while enjoying the sub zero outdoors from my slightly over heated quarters. This has been going on for a few days now, and so today I decided to treat myself to several hours of quality time in the kitchen.
I baked cinnamon roll muffins adding mini chocolate chips to the mixture and toasted coconuts to the cinnamon sugar topping.

Roger, over & out.