Dégué -dessert from Ivory Coast

  Dégué is a typical dessert from Ivory Coast, also from Mali or Mauritania, and from Senegal where the dessert is called Thiakry. It's a tasty dairy dessert that may remind you of a kind of rice pudding, but made with another cereal, millet.

The dessert is usually prepared for baptisms or weddings. It's also very simple.

Ingredients:

- 300 grams evaporated milk.

- 200 grams millet couscous.

- 300 grams yogurt.

- 200 grams fresh cream.

- 100 grams sugar.

- 1 teaspoon Vanilla.

- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg.

- 10 grams Butter.

Method:

1- To cook millet couscous, pour boiling water over it until it covers everything, then let it stand for half an hour until the semolina has absorbed all the water. In case you find not completely soft, you can continue cooking it for 5 minutes in the microwave.

2- Add the butter to the millet, mix well.

3- Pour evaporated milk, fresh cream and yogurt into a bowl and mix well.Add sugar, vanilla, and millet, continue stirring well.

Then add nutmeg and to garnish, some raisins.

4- It is served cold and it can last in the refrigerator for several days.

You can also watch the recipe on my Youtube Channel:

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

Ivory Coast

De <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by" title="User:Jon Harald Søby">Jon Harald Søby</a> - <span class="int-own-work" lang="es">Trabajo propio</span>, Dominio público, Enlace

Custard cream

                                                                               Receta en Español

Custard cream is a basic cream for fillings used for many desserts.

You can modify the quantity of each ingredient as long as you keep the proportion between the ingredients.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 liter whole milk.
• 1/2 cinnamon stick or vanilla rod.
• 125 grams white sugar.
• 40 grams cornstarch.
• 4 egg yolks.
• 1 lemon rind.

Method:

1-  Put 450 ml of milk in a casserole together with the cinnamon stick and lemon rind, Put on a medium heat.

2-  Once it reaches boiling point , turn off the heat and let cool.

3-  Put sugar in a bowl , add sifted flour.

4-  Mix well, add 50 ml of milk.

5-  Mix well.

6-  Separate yolks from whites ,beat yolks.

7-  Add the yolks to the mixture of the step 5.

8-  Strain the cooked milk (step 2) to get rid of cinnamon stick and lemon rind. Pour a little of this milk into the bowl with the mixture with the rest of ingredients (step 7) , mix well.

9-  Once the mixture is homogeneous , pour the rest of the milk.

10-  Put the casserole on a low heat ,stir continuously until it starts to thicken, once it has the desired consistency turn off the fire and let it cool.

11-  You can keep it in the refrigerator protected by a plastic film.

Sacher cake

                                                                               Receta en Español

Sacher cake is an unquestionable symbol from the city of Vienna, worldwide famous.

History tells that the origin of this cake dates from 1832 when Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, a german nobleman and Austria's foreign affairs minister, organized a banquet. He asked his cooks to make a special dessert. That day the chef was ill, it was an apprentice ,called Franz Sacher 16 years old, who invented this cake that dazzled the guests.

After working several years at this nobel's house, Franz Sacher decided to open its own business in Vienna; a delicatessen shop where he sold his cake as well.

Years later, his son Eduard Sacher started to work at the famous cake shop 'Demel', there he improved his father's recipe to obtain the one that we know today.

Finally Eduard Sacher founded ,together with his wife, the Sacher Hotel , there he started to sell his cake.

Eduard's son, called Eduard as well, also started to work at 'Damel' cake shop, where they started to sell the same cake.

Sacher Hotel and Demel cake shop had a legal fight to have the exclusivity on the selling of the original recipe. It was Sacher hotel who won it. At Damel's they sell the cake with some differences.

This cake has a chocolate sponge cake, filled with apricot marmalade and covered with a chocolate frosting.
At Sacher Hotel the cake has 2 layers of marmalade, one in the middle and the other just before the chocolate frosting. This is the recipe that I present to you today. 

Ingredients (for a recipient 23 cm diameter):

•   140 grams butter at room temperature.
•   210 grams sugar.
•   1 teaspoon ground vanilla.
•   6 eggs.
•   130 grams black chocolate (70% minimum).
•   140 grams flour.
•   400 grams apricot marmalade.
•   Yeast.

For the Frosting:

• 200 grams sugar.
• 125 ml water.
• 200 grams black chocolate easy to melt.
• 40 grams butter (optional).

Method:

1-  Separate whites from yolk. Whisk the yolks.

2-  Put chocolate in a bain-marie , once it is soft add the butter and turn off the fire , stir until butter and chocolate mix.

3- Add yolks little by little stirring fast to prevent yolks from cooking, let it get cool. 

4- Once it is cold, add sifted flour little by little, add yeast and vanilla. Keep on stirring.

5- Whisk whites to form stiff peaks, then add sugar little by little  , and keep on beating until you obtain meringue.

6- Add the whisked whites little by little to the bowl where you have the mixture, do it very softly to keep the sponginess.

7- Put some parchment paper on the base of a oven mold, smear some butter on the mold sides too.
Pour the mixture inside the mold. Preheat oven at 170ºC.
Cook in oven for 55-60 minutes. The first 10-15 minutes you should leave the oven's door a little open (as you see in the picture), the rest of the time cook with the door closed.

 8- Let the sponge cake cool for 20 minutes.

9- Cut the sponge cake in two parts. We start placing the lower part.

10- Heat marmalade slightly, put half of the marmalade over the lower part of the sponge cake. Leave the borders without marmalade.

 11- Cover with the other part of the sponge cake. Grind the rest of the marmalade to have a uniform consistency, paint all the surface of the cake with this marmalade.

12- Now it is time to prepare the frosting. First we prepare the syrup: Boil the water together with the sugar for 5-6 minutes and then let it get cold.

13- Melt chocolate in a bain-marie, add some butter to give it some brightness.
Once you see that the chocolate is melted, turn the heat off .Now you can start to add ,little by little, the syrup (step12) ,always stirring.

14- Now you should pour the frosting over the cake. Put something below the cake to collect the chocolate that falls, you can reuse that chocolate to pour later again over the cake. This way you can have a thicker layer of chocolate.

15- Decorate the cake with the letters 'Sacher' with the help of a pastry bag filled of some chocolate. 
Let the cake get cold outside the fridge, it is better if you let it get cold all the night long, and you consume it the following day.

16- Serve accompanied by some whipped cream



Austria

Caramelized condensed milk

                                                                               Receta en Español

This is a typical sweet in South America, specially in Argentina.
You can eat it by its own, or as a filling for several desserts like sponge cakes or 'Alfajores'
In Argentina it is called 'Dulce de leche', in Chile 'manjar', in Mexico 'cajeta' and in Venezuela 'arequipe'.

Here you can find the traditional way to prepare this sweet: Argentinian recipes. 

You must heat milk with sugar, and stirr well during 2 hours.

I did it in 2 faster ways,one is using Thermomix and the other one cooking a can of condensed milk:

Thermomix:

Ingredients for 500 gr:

• 1 liter whole milk.
• 350 gr sugar.
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate.
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder.

Method

1. Put all the ingredients into the thermomix, cover and place the basket over it.
2. Program 45 minutes, varoma, speed 5.
3. Programam 30 seconds, speed 5 to mix well.
4. Pour in a jar and let cool.

Here the faster way, you need a pressure cooker.
The taste of the dessert is similar to the other method.

Ingredients:

• 1 can condensed milk.
• Water.

Method

1. Put the can laying on the botton of the pressure cooking, if the can has some paper get rid of it.
2. Pour water into the cooker until the can is covered.
3. Close the pressure cooker and put on a high heat.
4. Once the steam starts to come out , put on a low heat and cook for 30 minutes.
5. When the pressure cooker is cold, open it and let the can get cool.
6. Once the can is cold, you can open it and taste the great 'dulce de leche'.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

Argentina

Flag: De Government of Argentina - Here, based on: http://manuelbelgrano.gov.ar/bandera/creacion-de-la-bandera-nacional/, Dominio público, Enlace

Goxua

                                                                               Receta en Español

Goxua means sweet, it is a typical basque dessert very popular in Vitoria, city where this dessert was invented in the seventies of the XX century.

Ingredients (4 people):

• 400 ml milk.
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch (maizena). 
• 5 tablespoon sugar.
• 1 piece lemon zest.
• 1 tablespoon butter.
• 2 eggs.
• 200 ml cream (35.1 % fat).
• 4 sponge fingers or chunks of  dried muffins.
• 1 tablespoon Water.
• 1 cup rhum.
• 1 vanilla pod or a teaspoon grinded vanilla.
• 1 cinnamon stick.

Method for custard:

1. Put in a casserole almost all milk together with cinnamon,vanilla and lemon zest. Cook on a medium heat.
2. Put cornstarch in a bowl and mix with the remaining milk, stir well until there are no lumps.
3. Now add 4 tablespoons sugar and eggs to the bowl, whisk.
4. Once the milk of the casserole has reached boiling point. Pour that milk into the bowl with the cornstarch,eggs and so.
5. Put the mix on a low heat, stir continuously with a wooden spoon , keep on cooking until the mix gets thick.
6. Add butter, stir well and let custard cool.

Syrup:

7. Take the remaining sugar and put it in another casserole with some water. Put it on low heat until sugar is well dissolved, at that point turn the heat to high until it reaches boiling point and then turn the heat off.
8. Add rhum to the casserole.

Method:

          9.    Whip cream, add sugar to taste.

10. Place the Whipped cream at the bottom of the cup where we are going to serve this dessert. (1 tablespoon and a half per cup).
    
11. Dip sponge fingers into the syrup, sponge fingers should be well hidratated with the syrup.
    
12. Put sponge fingers over the cream.
    
13. Put 2 spoonfull of custard over the sponge fingers.
14. Let it cool into the fridge. You can eat it warm or cool, as you prefer.
15. Make some caramel and pour 2 spoonsfull over the custard.

Caramel:

16. Put 100 grams sugar and 50 ml water in a saucepan, heat over medium heat. Stirr until sugar is well disolved. Once it happens, stop stirring to prevent it to crystallize.  
    The moment the caramel begins to turn light brown, turn the heat off. 
    The remaining heat in the saucepan will be enough to finish the cooking of the caramel. More details on how to do a perfect caramel:  Caramel

 Here you have the result:

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools



Alava