Chocolate Pudding with Tea Biscuits & Coconuts

Chocolate Pudding with Tea Biscuits and Coconuts

This is one of my mother in law Nevzat Ari's signature desserts. She added a twist to the good ol' chocolate pudding by letting the pudding set on tea biscuits. She has a version of this dessert in her refrigerator almost all the time. Although she would mostly garnish it with coconuts, occasionally she would use grated pistachio nuts or walnuts as garnish on top. Sometimes she would make it in individual pudding dishes, but she would mostly make it in a large Pyrex dish as described below. Regardless, with so many grandchildren around, it moves quickly and before you know it, she is in the kitchen making some more. It is a very light dessert, especially if you use non-fat milk. You can experiment with using a bit less sugar if you like. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 5 cups milk
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 heaping table spoons corn starch
• 2 heaping table spoons cocoa powder
• 8 oz (about 35) Tea Biscuits or Petit Beurres
• 1 cup coconut flakes

You would need a heat resistant dish (Pyrex) approximately 14 in x 10 in. 

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine sugar, starch and cocoa powder. Slowly add 1 cup of milk, stirring with a whisk to make it a smooth mixture. Set aside.

Milk, starch and cocoa mixture

Break tea biscuits into pieces, place them in the Pyrex or other heat resistant dish, making sure pieces are evenly spread.

Tea biscuit pieces placed in a heat resistant dish

In a large pot heat 4 cups of milk, stirring occasionally over medium heat. When it starts to boil, slowly add the chocolate mixture. Continue to stir until it starts to bubble. Remove from heat.

Slowly pour 3/4 of the pudding over the tea biscuit pieces in the Pyrex dish. Gently stir with a spoon making sure pieces are submerged in the pudding. 

3/4 of the chocolate pudding poured over biscuit pieces

 Then add the rest of the pudding to the top, making sure the surface is even and smooth. 

Chocolate pudding is spread over the biscuit pieces

 Let it cool to room temperature. Sprinkle coconut flakes over the set pudding. Chill in the refrigerator for at least ½ hour before serving.

Coconut flakes are sprinkled over the chocolate pudding

Cut into squares to serve on individual plates.

Chocolate Pudding with tea biscuits and coconuts

 Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Mosaic Cake - Mozaik Pasta (no baking)

Mozaic Cake - Mozaik Pasta

This is a light chocolate cake made with tea biscuits (or Petit Beurres). I use tea biscuits since they don’t have butter & are much lighter than Petit Beurres. This cake is easy and quick to make since no baking is needed. Mom’s original recipe called for one egg. If you have access to fresh, healthy eggs you may want to try it, but to avoid any risk, I deleted the raw egg from my recipe.

Ingredients:

• ½ stick unsalted butter, melted
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup milk, warmed
• 4 heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder
• ¼ cup walnuts cut into small pieces
• ¼ cup pistachio nuts (optional)
• ¼ cup roasted almonds (optional)
• 12 oz (about 50 pieces) tea biscuits (or Petit Beurre), broken into pieces
  
• 3 table spoons of light coconut flakes (optional). These are unsweetened, drier, smaller pieces compared to regular sweetened coconut flakes.

Directions:

Break the tea biscuits into small pieces, but do not crumble.

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except for the biscuits and the nuts. Make sure the milk is warm to avoid caking of the butter. Stir well with a wisk or a hand held mixer. Add broken biscuits and nuts into the mixture, stirring gently making sure the sauce covers all the pieces.

Place a large piece of plastic wrap on a flat surface. Spoon the mixture over the plastic, forming a long log. Wrap the plastic around the mixture, making sure edges of the wrap overlaps. It will look like a big salami. Gently squeeze from all sides. It will reduce to almost half of the loose log you started with. This will get rid of the air bubbles inside and the log will feel solid. Then roll the wrapped log to make sure it is a well rounded cylinder. You can also shape it as a triangle or square if you want.

Place the log in the freezer for at least 2 hours. When ready to serve, take it out, unwrap the log. Sprinkle coconut flakes on a flat surface (optional). Roll the log on coconut flakes. Cut into slices, place on a serving dish and enjoy! 

Broken Tea Biscuits

Butter, milk, sugar & cocoa mixed into chocolate sauce

Walnuts, pistachios and almonds

Biscuits and sauce mixed

Cake mixture placed on plastic wrap

Mosaic Cake log wrapped in plastic

Frozen mosaic cake rolled in coconut

Mosaic Cake slices

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Fruit Salad with Nuts

Fruit Salad with Nuts

Ingredients:

• 1 cup blueberries
• 1 mango, cubed
• 1 orange, cubed
• 3 small mandarin oranges
• 1 cup strawberries, cut in quarters
• 1 cup pomegranates, seeded
• 1 apple, cubed
• 1 cup blackberries
• ½ cup walnuts, chopped
• 2 table spoons Cointreau or similar orange liquor (optional)
• ½ cup toasted sliced almonds

Directions:

Simply mix all ingredients except the toasted almonds. Transfer into serving dishes and top with toasted almonds as garnish. Enjoy!

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Poached Pears with Walnuts, Apricots, Currants

Poached Pears with Walnuts, Apricots and Currants

Ingredients:

       Poached Pears

• 1 bottle of red wine
• 1 + 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cinnamon sticks (canela)
• 1 teaspoon cloves placed in a tea diffuser
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest, finely grated
• 6 whole Bosc or Anjou pears, peeled, cored, and hollowed
• Parchment paper

      Stuffing

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped
• 1 tablespoon dry currants
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar

      Garnish:

• Vanilla ice-cream (optional)
• Sprigs of fresh mint

Directions:

Melt butter in a pan over medium heat. Add nuts and cook, stirring, until nuts are lightly toasted, 2-3 minutes. Add chopped apricots and currants. Cook, stirring, for 1 more minute. Add brown sugar and cook mixture, stirring constantly, 1 more minute. Remove from heat, let it cool. 

Chopped walnuts and apricots with currants

Stuffing made with roasted walnuts, apricots and currants

Wash pears. Cut a thin slice at the bottom of each pear so that it could stand on its bottom. Using a mellon baller core the pears removing seeds. 

Pears

Bottoms cut to provide a flat surface

Hollowed pears with seeds removed

Pears hollowed and peeled, ready to be cooked

 
Combine wine, 1 cup of sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon sticks (canela), cloves and lemon zest in a pot. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until sugar dissolves. Add pears and 3 cups of boiling water. Place parchment paper over the pears to keep the them submerged in liquid. This way the color will be even all around the pears. Let it simmer over low heat until pears are tender, about 25 minutes. Remove pears, set aside let them cool to room temperature. 

Pears in liquid with sugar and spices

Parchment paper is used to submerge the pears in liquid

Pears cooked, ready to be stuffed

In a small pan combine 1 cup of the left over liquid. Add 1/2 cup sugar. Simmer on low stirring for a few minutes until the sauce thickens. Set aside for garnishing.

Stuff the pears with the fruit and nut mixture. Pack tightly. There will be some stuffing left for garnishing.
Chill stuffed pears in the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before serving.

Stuffed Pear

To serve, place a pear in a serving dish. Drizzle some of the sauce over the pear, let it drip down to the plate. Place a scoop of vanilla ice-cream next to the pear. Sprinkle left over apricot/currant/walnut stuffing over the ice cream. Garnish with a sprig of mint.

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Pistachio Helva with Ice Cream

Pistachio Helva

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of semolina (farina)
• 1 stick of unsalted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons ground unsalted pistachio nuts meat (I use my coffee grinder)
• Vanilla ice cream (optional)

Directions:
In a pot, bring water and sugar to a boil, stirring occasionally. When it comes to a boil, remove from the
heat, set aside.

In a large pot, combine butter and semolina. Sauté the semolina over medium heat stirring slowly for about 5-6 minutes (should NOT turn brown). Lower the heat, slowly add the syrup, stirring constantly. It will thicken. Add 1/2 cup ground pistachio, stir until well blended. Remove from the heat. Cover the pot. Wait 10-15 minutes. Using an ice cream spoon or a melon baller, shape them into balls, place on a serving dish. Sprinkle remaining ground pistachios over them as garnish. Serve warm helva with vanilla ice-cream (optional).

Ground pistachios

Cooked helva

Melon baller used to shape this helva

Ice-cream scoop is used to shape this helva

 

Chocolate Balls with Pistachios & Coconut

Here's a great party favorite. They are bite size and go great with after dinner drinks too.
No cooking involved, just mix, roll and chill. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 3 table spoons sugar
• 3/4 cup orange juice
• zest of 1 orange,finely scraped
• 5 cups finely crushed Petit Beurre or Tea Biscuits (about 11oz)
• 2 heaping table spoons cocoa powder
• 1 stick (1/4 lb) unsalted butter
• 1 cup coarsely chopped unsalted pistachios
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 cup semi sweet chocolate morsels
• 1/2 cup light coconut flakes (drier and smaller flakes)
• 1/2 cup coarsely grated pistachio nuts' meat

Directions:
Crush biscuits in a large bowl. I crushed them by hand, but you can put them in a large plastic bag and crush them with a roller or even with an empty wine bottle. It is OK to have small uncrushed pieces for when you add liquids they dissolve easily. I use Tea Biscuits instead of the Petit Beurre biscuits since they are lighter.
In a small bowl, combine orange juice with sugar. Mix well with a spoon until sugar dissolves.
Add all ingredients including the orange juice with the exception of coconuts and grated pistachio nuts to the large bowl. Mix well, chill in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes.

Melt chocolate over boiling water.

Place parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
Form the mixture in the bowl into small walnut size balls by rolling them between the palms of your hands. Use up all of the mixture to make all of the balls. Mine yielded a total of 50 balls.

Coarsely Chopped Pistachios for the mixture

Grated pistachios for the outside

Mixture formed into balls ready to be dipped in chocolate

Dip the balls in melted chocolate first, then roll half of the balls in coconut flakes and the other half in pistachio nuts. Place them on the cookie sheet. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before serving. You may want to place fancy party tooth picks to add a nice accent to these delicious dessert bytes.

Half the balls are rolled in grated pistachios

The other half rolled in coconut

 Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Helva – Farina Dessert with Pine Nuts – Fistikli Irmik Helvasi

We spend our summers in Bodrum, a popular coastal town on the Southwestern Coast of the Aegean Sea in Turkey. We are very lucky with our neighbors. Though we all are from different age groups and backgrounds, we do share a lot, including food. Whoever cooks something special, brings a plate to the neighbors for sampling. 

Ayten hanim, Ayse and Cenk’s mother is a great cook. She was on a cooking show on TV as a contestant and made it to the finals. She is that good! When her son came  from the U.S. for his vacation, as a good Turkish mother, she was cooking all his favorite dishes and then some. Needless to say, we got a chance to enjoy some of her delicious specialties since they were kind to bring samples to us. 

Helva was one of them. Helva is a fairly common dessert in Turkey. Traditionally it is served at special occasions like weddings, after funerals, circumcision dinners, etc. Ayten hanim’s helva was so delicious that I took my pen and a piece of paper the next morning and went over to their house. I wrote the recipe down as we sipped our teas on their balcony. As she was listing the ingredients, like many Turkish women’s recipes, quantities of ingredients were not always measured with a cup or a spoon, typically listed “as appropriate”. She would say, for example “add butter... the size of an egg”, “add pine nuts... to your taste”(how much is up to you). When I tried it the first time, I measured everything, then, the next time I cooked helva, I decided to put less sugar. Thus, the recipe is slightly modified. Here it is, hope you like it!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups farina (semolina)
• ½ stick (4 table spoons) butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 cups milk
• ¾ cup water
• ½ cup pine nuts (pignolias)
• Ground cinnamon (optional)
• Vanilla ice cream (optional)

Directions:

Combine butter, pine nuts and farina (semolina) in a large pot. Stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula, roast the mixture until pine nuts turn golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Add milk, water and sugar, mix with a spoon. It will be a very watery mixture at first with pine nuts floating on top. Bring to a boil on medium heat, reduce heat and let it simmer, stirring occasionally. Do not cover. As the mixture thickens, it will start to look like porridge. Keep stirring with a wooden spoon to avoid sticking on the bottom. In about 10 more minutes, it will thicken resembling mashed potatoes, but stickier. 

Start roasting pine nuts and farina (semolina) in butter

Helva roasted until pine nuts turn golden brown

Milk, water and sugar added

It gets thicker as it simmers

Cooked, ready to be served

Remove from heat, let it cool for about 5 minutes.  When it is lukewarm, using an ice cream scoop or a melon baller, shape them into balls and place the balls on a serving dish.  You can sprinkle cinnamon over them when you serve. Goes well with vanilla ice cream. 

 

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!