recipe | Inside the Mind of Isadora

May 1, 2018
by Inside the Mind of Isadora 20 Comments

Gluten Free Recipe – Clementine Cake

The temperatures have been in the 60’s at night and 70’s during the day.

I’ve been enjoying this splendid weather. In fact, I may have spring fever.

I sat outside this morning, with my coffee, listening to the birds chirping and admiring my bougainvillea bush that is in full bloom.

Instead of writing, I’ve been doing some spring cleaning. I’ve been purging my kitchen of unused items and food from my pantry. I do this twice a year. It keeps my pantry tidy and it helps our local food bank.

I’ve always enjoyed baking. I don’t bake too often because I’m gluten intolerant. I haven’t enjoyed some of my favorite baking recipe because of it. In fact, I’ve begun to dislike sweets.

On Pieces of Starlight, blogger Carol Carlisle, posted a gluten free recipe called Clementine Cake which looked quite good. I decided to try the recipe today.

My helicopter hubby watched as I made the cake. The spatula never reached the sink. He was making happy sounds as he licked every little bit of batter.

As soon as the cake cooled down, he dug into one of them. He needed to be stopped as he was ready to cut the 2nd one. I received rave reviews despite a few mistakes or; perhaps, my personal adjustments.

Below are the steps and the recipe. Enjoy …

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Ingredients

Mix the eggs, sugar for 5 minutes

then, add cooked clementine oranges

The batter is ready for the baking pans.Mistake: the ground almond go into the batter mix

Add ground almonds to mix

Into the oven they go @350

For some reason, my batter was able to fill 3 pans.

An 8” pie pan, a 10” spring pan and a 6” pie pan.

The recipe is for one 8” spring pan. Mmmmm … more yumTime to take the cakes out of the oven and place on cooling racks.

Something went wrong when removing the cake from the pans.

You can see a bit of crumbling going on.

A few clementine slices to hide the cracks in two of the cakes.

I added powdered sugar on the third one for a change of taste.

There is a glaze I did not do.

I like my food without a lot of sugar.

I wasn’t sure if it was going to be too sweet.

I made a cup of tea to enjoy with the clementine cake. My hubby grabbed the cake on the white dish and escaped to the patio to enjoy. My version turned out to be more like a light pudding cake. Hubby is awaiting patiently for his next slice of cake after dinner tonight. But, I think it will be tasty with tomorrows breakfast coffee. Time to hide the cakes.

Thank you Carol for sharing your receipe.

Hope you’ll try this recipe. It’s truly a yummy tasting cake and very easy to make.

Enjoy, Isadora 😎

Gluten Free – Clementine Cake

375 grams of clementine (5 small)

6 eggs

1 1/4 cup of white sugar

2 1/4 cups ground almond

1 teaspoon of baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter and line a 8” – 9” spring form pan with parchment.

Poke each clementine 3 or 4 times with a knife. Put the clementines in a bowl with a microwave safe cover or plastic wrap. Cook 3 – 4 minutes. Cool slightly then dump the clementines (whole) in a food processor and process until smooth.

In a large bowl beat eggs and sugar until light colored and double in volume (about 5 minutes)

Add chopped clementines and mix well. Then add the group almonds and baking powder. Mix until combined.

Pour mixture into a pan and bake 45 minutes (test with a skewer or cake tester.

Cool in the pan on a rack. Once cake is cold, remove from the pan. and pull off parchment.

Glaze and add candied clementines to decorate.

Glaze …

2 cups of confectioners sugar

3 tablespoons softened butter

1/2 cup of clementine juice.

Candied Clementines …

3 clementines

2 cups of sugar

1 cup of water

Slice the clementines very thinly.

Put sugar and water in a heavy bottomed pan on medium heat. Stir in sugar until dissolved.

Add clementine slices and simmer on low for about 15 – 20 minutes.

Pull clementines from the sugar mixture and place on parchment paper or slipat until cool.

June 9, 2017
by Inside the Mind of Isadora 21 Comments

Deviled Eggs

The weekly photo challenge is ‘Order.’ If you’d like to see the photos I selected for my photography blog click here.

While seaching for the photo challenge, I came across this deviled eggs photograph. I remembered I had a recipe from a few years back. The deviled eggs are in perfect order. I thought I’d add the photograph and recipe here. Summer is upon us. If you’re going to a cookout or merely having cocktails with friends this a a tasty appetizer for you to serve.

Recipe Ingredients:
eggs ( brown or white )
mayonnaise
mustard
sea salt
pepper (white)
garlic
red peppers in olive oil ( optional )
green or black olives ( optional )
tow teaspoons or smaller spoon and a serving tray

Preparations:
Place eggs in cold water in a pan on the stove on high
When they are at a rapid boil cover and shut off heat
Let stand

In a small food processor – put the mayonnaise, mustard, salt, pepper, garlic – pulse lightly to mix

Peel and cut eggs in half – remove the yolk and put into food processor

Pulse mixture until creamy – if you prefer – you can leave it slightly chunky

Place egg whites halves on serving tray

With on teaspoon gather your mixture – with the other teaspoon slide mixture onto egg whites from the first teaspoon. Fill to capacity.

Garnish with slivers of red peppers in olive oil or black or green olives.

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*****I’m sure you’re wondering why I haven’t given you the quantities for each item in the recipe. It turns out my Dad taught me how to make these deviled eggs. He was a cook in the army. I’m not sure if he made them during the time he was cooking in the service. Can you imagine how many deviled eggs his quantities would have to be? When I would ask him for the amounts, he always said, “All good cooks taste as they go along”.

Enjoy,

Isadora 😎

December 15, 2015
by Inside the Mind of Isadora 5 Comments

Coquito – A Traditional Puerto Rican Libation

My first Christmas experience of Puerto Rican traditions was in 1963

when I was sent to a private Benedictine Monastery school called Colegio de Nuestra Señora de la Valvanera.

I was a high school senior. I lived with my maternal grandmother’s sister who had 5 children.

My great grandmother, who was a Taino indian, completed the family.

The family was well-known and taken care of very nicely since my great aunt was the mayors mistress.

It was an accepted arrangement in this town. I’ll be going into more details about this in my memoir I’m writing.

Anyway, you can’t imagine the culture shock I had.

I’d been raised in an orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York up until that point.

I was very unhappy for the first month. I missed my former life.

Then, as I began to experience this very new culture, I started to feel an emotional connection I’d never felt before.

Below is one of the traditions I experienced during my first holidays on this personal cultural journey .

I hope you will try this very easy to make beverage and, perhaps,

incorporate something that sounds like a positive tradition in this story.

***** Yes, I have posted this one before.

I added a little inside information from my memoir to make it fresh for those who’ve seen this recipe before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Coquito is a traditional drink served during Christmas, New Year’s Eve and Fiesta de los Tres Reyes celebrations. The drink is similar to eggnog except with rum. In many households, it’s prepared days ahead in order to allow the flavors to blend well. This particular recipe does not call for raw eggs. Nor does it call for you to crack open a fresh coconut. It’s a very simple mixed drink. There’s another recipe below that is made with eggs. It depends on your family tradition as to which way you make it. No matter which way you decide to make it, remember that it is a lot more powerful than you think.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes – tastes best if left in the fridge overnight

Ingredients:
2 15-ounce cans cream of coconut
2 14-ounce cans condensed milk
1 can coconut milk
6 ounces Puerto Rica Bacardi white rum (use less or more if you like)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Fresh grated coconut (coco rallado) for garnish

Preparation: 1. Mix all ingredients in a blender.

Refrigerate for about an hour before serving.

Coquito must be kept refrigerated until served.

Serve as a cocktail in a shot glass.

Enjoy … !!!
Serves: This recipe makes about 36 ounces.

Exitos Navideños De Puerto Rico: La Gran Trulla

This is a traditional song sung by the carolers.

Another recipe for this traditional drink:

Coquito is gluten-free. To make it dairy-free substitute the milks (except coconut) with rice, soy, hemp, , or almond milk and double the sugar. If you want to lower the sugar content; substitute all of the sugar for agave nectar or brown rice syrup.
1 can coconut milk
1 can coconut cream
2 cans evaporated milk
2 cans condensed milk
fresh grated coconut (coco rallado)
1 liter white Puerto Rican Rum (Bacardi)
cinnamon sticks
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ tsp vanilla
¼ tsp salt
8 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
In a bowl add egg yolks, sugar, milk, salt, cinnamon, vanilla and mix well. Add evaporated and condensed milks, rum, and coconut cream and coconut milk. Add grated coconut and mix well. You can mix all of the ingredients in a blender. Pour coquito into bottles with sealable tops and add the cinnamon sticks to each bottle. Refrigerate and serve cold.