Category Archives: Desserts

Brazilian mini Doughnuts

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“Bolinhos de Chuva”

“Bolinhos de Chuva” translates to English as ” mini rain cakes” or perhaps “rain scones”.  Bolinhos meaning “little cakes” and “chuva” meaning “rain”. The popular say for the origin of the name is that when you drop the batter in to the hot oil it forms what looks like a rain drop. Brazilians love “Bolinhos de Chuva”, it is easy to make and very much resembles a doughnut hole. It is usually served with coffee or tea but it can also be a dessert, definitely a treat. It is delicious!

Ingredients:

  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 table-spoon vegetable oil
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 and 1/2 cups of flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • zest of 1 lime or orange
  • 1 tea-spoon baking powder
  • extra oil for frying ( I like to use coconut oil)
  • powdered sugar and cinnamon

Directions:

  1. In a large bowl beat eggs and sugar until smooth. Add milk, vegetable oil, vanilla and lime zest and whisk until well mixed. Add flour, salt and baking powder, whisk until a batter is made.
  2. heat oil in a medium low temperature. If oil is too hot it will burn the doughnuts before the inside in fully cooked. Drop batter using a tea-spoon full.
  3. Place doughnuts on a paper towel. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar!

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Brazilian Chocolate Mousse Torte “Pave de Chocolate”

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“Pavé de Chocolate” is a very popular Brazilian dessert, a Brazilian version of the French “Pavé du Chocolat” and it is my family’s favorite dessert. I kept this recipe as a secret for a long time. It was one of my best kept secrets, now revealed for you to enjoy.

It is decadent, creamy, cold and dreamy!

This recipe was originally made with “lady fingers” cookies but they were really hard to find in the USA back in the day so I substituted for graham crackers.

Lady fingers are easier to find now but I kept the graham crackers in the recipe. They make the recipe more affordable and delicious.

Ingredients:

  • 1 Box of honey graham crackers
  • 1 Can fat free condensed milk
  • 1 Cup of skim milk
  • 4 oz Coffee liqueur. I use Kahlua.
  • 1 Pint whipping cream
  • 4 oz unsweetened 100% dark chocolate
  • 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
  • 13×9 rectangular glass or ceramic dish

Directions:

  1. Put chocolate chips in freezer.
  2. Melt dark chocolate in a water bath
  3. Pour condensed milk in a food processor or blender add the melted chocolate and mix well, pour in a large bowl, set aside.
  4. Whip cream in food processor until very fluffy. Add whipped cream slowly to chocolate mix folding with a fork to preserve the air pockets. Cover and place in freezer for 30 min.
  5. Mix milk and coffee liqueur in a bowl. Dip graham crackers one by one in this mixture and place in rectangular dish forming one layer. Spread some of the chocolate mousse on top. Repeat this procedure, layering the crackers and mousse until the crackers are finished. The last layer must be of chocolate mousse.
  6. Put frozen chocolate chips in a food processor using a shredding blade and shred to pieces. Sprinkle all over the chocolate mousse.
  7. Cover the dish and place in freezer for at least 2 hours.
  8. Remove from freezer 10 minutes before serving.
  9. Keep in freezer between servings.

Brazilian White Truffles

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Brazilian white truffles or “Brigadeiro Branco” are sweet and smooth the perfect holiday and party treats.

Ingredients:

  • 1 can fat-free condensed milk
  • 3 tbsp powdered milk
  • 1 empty can of condensed milk of heavy cream
  • 1 tsp Chambord or raspberry extract (optional)
  • 3 tbsp butter
  • 1 cup white chocolate chips
  • **

Directions:

  1. Put all ingredients (EXCEPT WHITE CHOCOLATE CHIPS) in a non-stick pot over  medium heat. Stir constantly until bubbly and thickened.
  2. Pour into a glass bowl and let it cool. Once cooled set it in the refrigerator and set white chocolate chips in freezer for 2 hours.
  3. Remove white chocolate chips from freezer and finely shred them using a food processor. Pour shredded white chocolate chips in a bowl.
  4.  Remove fudge from refrigerator and using a teaspoon scoop fudge and roll it over the shredded chocolate chips forming a ball. Place them in mini muffin paper liners. Decorate the center with one sugar pearl or a clove. Keep them refrigerated until ready to serve. p1010427

** This is a basic recipe but you can stuff fudge with a white green seedless grape or small strawberry.

ENJOY!

 

Pumpkin Bundt Cake glazed with Caramel Coconut Sauce

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p1010415Make this wonderful cake to serve for breakfast on Thanksgiving day and over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. A great companion for a cup of coffee or tea.

This wonderful moist cake combines the flavors of a traditional American pumpkin cake with exotic Brazilian caramel coconut sauce. Pumpkin and coconut are a very popular combination in Brazilian desserts and caramel coconut sauce is a Brazilian signature, so sweet and loved, its popularly known as “Baba de Moca”meaning literally ” young woman drool”. This recipe can also be vegan if you substitute the eggs for apple sauce and everyone is happy.

Ingredients for cake:

  • 3 1/2 cups cake flour or 3 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups of sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups of dark brown sugar
  • 3 eggs ( or 1 cup apple sauce if vegan)
  • 3/4 cup coconut oil
  • 3/4 cup natural apple sauce
  • 2 cups mashed pie pumpkin or 2 cans of pumpkin filing
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp Cinnamon
  • 1 tsp  nutmeg
  • 1 tsp ground cloves
  • 1 tsp all spice
  • peel from one orange
  • 1/2 tsp saltP1000914

Ingredients for sauce:

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 can coconut milkp1010418

Directions:

  1. Pre-heat oven to 350F and grease a Bundt cake pan.
  2. In a large bowl beat sugars, oil and eggs until smooth.
  3. Add all dry ingredients, then apple sauce and mashed pumpkin,mix well ,if dough seems a bit dry add an extra 1/4 cup coconut or vegetable oil.
  4. Pour in Bundt cake pan and bake for 1 hour or until fork comes out clean. Let it stand for 15 min before removing from pan.
  5. While cake is baking, melt 1 cup sugar in a sauce until it starts to form a caramel sauce turn heat to low and slowly add coconut milk, stirring constantly until very bubbly and slightly thickened. remove from heat and pour in a glass bowl and let it cool. Sauce will thicken more as it cools. Drizzle sauce over cake and save some in bowl to drizzle over individual pieces. Enjoy!

Brazilian Chocolate Fudge Cake

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Brazilian Chocolate Fudge Cake ” Bolo Brigadeiro”

 

Simply delicious and super easy to make! make it  as is or jazz it up with some coffee liqueur.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 8 ounces unsweetened dark chocolate
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1 can condensed milk
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 12 tbsp butter softened
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • pinch salt
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • powdered sugar
  • chocolate sprinkles
  • 1/2 cup coffee liqueur and 1/2 cup milk ( totally optional if you want to bring it up notch)

DIRECTIONS:

  1. Pre- heat oven to 350F. Grease 2 round cake pans and line them with parchment paper.
  2. Chop 4 ounces of dark chocolate in pieces and place in a sauce pan and add 1/2 cup of heavy cream. Stir until melted and creamy over a water bath. Turn off heat but leave sauce pan in water to keep chocolate mixture soft.
  3. Beat butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until creamy ( I like to use a food processor) . Add the eggs and beat well. stir in chocolate mixture, add flour, cocoa powder, salt, milk and baking powder.
  4. Place cake batter in cake pans dividing evenly and bake for 30 to 35 min or until fork comes out clean from the center.
  5. While cake is baking, chop the other 4 ounces of dark chocolate in sauce pan, add the other 1/2 cup of heavy cream and condensed milk. Stir constantly over medium heat in a water bath until mixture is bubbly and creamy. Remove from heat but leave pan in water to keep chocolate soft.
  6. When cake is done, let it cool for 30 min. During this time, put chocolate fudge in a bowl and place in the refrigerator.
  7. Remove one cake from pan into a serving platter**, remove fudge from refrigerator and spread a layer of fudge over it . Place the other cake on top and spread the rest of the fudge over entire cake. Dust with powdered sugar and sprinkle chocolate sprinkles.

** at this point, prick the cake all over the top with a fork and drizzle milk and coffee liqueur mixture all over and let cake absorb the liquid then spread the fudge and place the other cake on top and return to instructions.

ENJOY!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin Coconut Pie

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YUM!  Pumpkin Pie with a Brazilian twist!

Pumpkin and coconut combinations are very popular in Brazilian cuisine.   It makes delicious fudges, cakes, ice creams and soups. It is a perfect pair ! Oh! and vegans, just omit the Chantilly cream or substitute it for vegan   cream or gelatto from your local store.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups of fresh mashed pie pumpkin .
  • 1 cup brown sugar.
  • 1 can coconut milk.
  • 1 tsp cinnamon.
  • 1 tsp nutmeg.
  • 1 tsp ground cloves.
  • 8 oz ginger snaps.
  • 1/4 cup  almond, sun flower or coconut oil.
  • 1 pint whipping cream*.
  • 3 tbsp sugar.*
  • 1 tsp vanilla.*

*If Vegan, omit these ingredients.

Directions:

  1. Pre heat oven to 350 F. Grease pie pan with oil.
  2. In a blender or food processor, grind the ginger snaps and place it in pie pan. Drizzle the oil over it and press the  crumbles down. Place it in oven for 10mim.
  3. Meanwhile, in a blender or food processor mix the mashed pumpkin with coconut milk, brown sugar and the spices.
  4. Pour over the ginger crumbles pie crust and bake for 50 min. let it cool for 10 min before serving. Garnish with Chantilly cream or your favorite vegan cream. Sprinkle Cinnamon on top.
  5. to make Chantilly cream, simply beat whipping cream in a food processor or beaters until fluffy. Add the sugar and vanilla slowly folding with a fork. Place in refrigerator until ready to serve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Passion Fruit Mousse Torte

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Torta de Mousse de Maracujá

This dessert is what I like to call a Brazilian Gem! It is absolutely delicious! Tart, sweet, creamy and cold!

This particular recipe was a bit of a challenge to reproduce because passion fruit and the extract or pulp are very difficult to find in most grocery stores in the USA. You will need to go to an Asian market or preferably a Latin American market to find the extract or frozen pulp. You might be able to find the pulp on line. If you are lucky depending on where you live you may find the fruit at your local market.

This recipe is originally made with lady fingers cookies but they can be difficult to find so I substituted here for graham crackers and it works beautifully. You can also use vanilla wafers cookies.

This recipe is very easy to make but requires some extra time chilling to achieve consistency. Make a day before planing on serving.

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Ingredients:

  • 2 cups passion fruit extract or defrosted passion fruit pulp.
  • 2 cans condensed milk.
  • 1 pint whipping cream.
  • 10 table spoons of powdered sugar
  • 1 box of Honey Graham crackers, vanilla wafers or lady fingers.
  • 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar (+ 2 table spoons if using fresh fruit and seeds for topping).
  • 2 passion fruits or dark chocolate shavings if you can’t find the fruit.
  • 1 teas spoon corn starch.
  • 1 and 1/2 cups of water.

Directions:

  1. Whisk condensed milk and 1 cup of passion extract or pulp in a glass bowl. Cover and place in refrigerator for one hour.
  2. Meanwhile in a food processor, whip cream until fluffy and slowly fold powdered sugar into whipped cream. Cover and place in refrigerator until needed.
  3. While the creams are resting in refrigerator, let’s make a syrup! Dissolve corn starch in 1/2 cup of water. Then in a sauce pan, mix 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup of passion fruit extract or defrosted pulp add the corn starch water and stirr constantly at a high heat. When it starts to boil turn heat to medium low, keep stirring constantly for a few minutes until starts to slightly thicken. Transfer syrup to a glass container, let it cool, cover and place it in refrigerator until needed.
  4. When hour is up fold whipped cream into passion fruit cream. Cover and place in freezer for one hour.
  5. When hour is up, remove mousse from freezer and gently mix by folding it with a fork scraping the sides. Place it back in freezer for another hour.
  6. While mousse is chilling in freezer, in a shallow bowl, mix the remaining 1/2 cup of passion fruit extract or pulp with 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water and place in refrigerator until needed.
  7. Cut passion fruit, scoop pulp and seeds in to a bowl, stir in 2 table spoons of sugar, keep in refrigerator until needed.
  8. To assemble, deep Graham Crackers, lady fingers or vanilla wafers in the passion juice in the shallow bowl, one by one arranging them on the bottom of a rectangular glass dish approximately 9 x 11 inches. Spread some of the mousse on top and place another layer of crackers or cookies deepened in juice. Keep doing this procedure until mousse is finished. The last layer should be of mousse. Cover with plastic wrap and place in freezer for at least 2 hours.
  9. Once top is frozen, pour the passion fruit syrup that was chilling in the refrigerator over the top, garnish with the pulp and seeds of the passion fruit or chocolate shavings. Cover and place it back in freezer until ready to serve.
  10. To cut,remove from freezer 10 minutes before serving. Keep in Freezer.

Enjoy!

Marta’s Vegan Orange Cake

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The original recipe for this cake was given to me by a dear Brazilian friend, Marta Caputo. This cake is super moist and light . It will please everyone. It is perfect with a cup of coffee or tea.. enjoy!

Ingredients:

  1. 1 and 1/2 cup of Brown sugar.
  2. 3/4 cup of sunflower oil or coconut oil.
  3.  1 cup of  orange juice divided in two parts.
  4.  Zest of one orange.
  5. 1 cup of cake flour .
  6. 1 cup of whole wheat flour.
  7. 1 tbsp of baking powder.
  8. 3/4 cup of applesauce. ( the applesauce substitutes the eggs ).
  9. 1/4 cup raw sugar.
  10. 1/3 cup powdered sugar.

Directions:

  1. Heat oven to 350 F.
  2. In a blender , food processor or cake beaters, mix apple sauce, sugar, oil, half a cup of orange juice and orange zest.
  3. Transfer to a bowl and flour and baking powder.
  4. Place dough in a floured Bundt cake mold.
  5. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until fork comes clean from the center. Let it cool for 10 minutes and transfer cake to a serving platter.
  6. Mix the other half or orange juice with the raw sugar. Prick the cake all over with a fork and drizzle the orange sugar all over perforated parts. Dust with powdered and sugar!

Brazilian Lemon Mousse Torte

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Yum! so cold, refreshing and creamy!

This recipe is originally made with a very soft cake known in Brazil as “pão de ló” which uses a lot of whole eggs and a mousse primarily made with raw egg whites. I wanted to reduce the amount of eggs  so I changed the cake for  an American cake known as “angel cake” made with only egg whites and  a mousse with no eggs at all.

Ingredients for the mousse:

  • 1 can fat-free condensed milk
  • juice of 2 lemons
  • 1 pint whipping cream
  • 3/4 cup half and half
  • 2 oz of Limoncello ( Italian lemon liqueur)
  • lemon zest
  • 2 tbsp sugar

Ingredients for angel cake:*

  • 1 cup of cake flour
  • 2 cups of sugar
  • 12 large egg whites room temperature
  • 11/2 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp lemon extract

*You can also use angel cake from a box

Directions:

  1. In a large glass bowl whisk condensed milk and lemon juice set aside.
  2. Whip cream in a food processor, then slowly  fold it into condensed milk mix . Cover bowl and set it in freezer for 1 hour or until cake is cooled.
  3. Meanwhile, prepare cake.
  4. Heat oven to 375F.
  5. Sift cake flour and 1 cup sugar. Set aside.
  6. Beat egg whites, salt and cream of tartar until foamy. Slowly add 1 cup of sugar and lemon extract.
  7. Pour dough in a large rectangular glass or ceramic dish.
  8. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let it cool for 30 minutes.
  9. Once cooled, loosen the sides with a knife and place cake on a board. Cut in slices about 1 inch thick.
  10. Mix limoncello, half and half and sugar in a shallow bowl.
  11. Remove mousse from freezer.
  12. Dunk slices of cake one by one in limoncello mixture and place on the bottom of a large rectangular glass or ceramic dish. Spread half of the mousse on top. Make another layer of cake slices dunk on limoncello and spread the rest of the mousse on top. Sprinkle lemon zest, cover and place dessert in freezer for at least 4 hours. When ready to serve, let it stand for 10 minutes before cutting. Enjoy!
  13. Keep in freezer.

Brazilian Flan

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Brazilian Flan or what we like to call “Pudin de Leite” is a very popular dessert all over Brazil.   It is also popular in many Latin American countries. There are several ways to make a Flan,  this recipe is the way most Brazilians do, it is easy and absolutely delicious.

Makes 5 servings.

Ingredients:

1 can Fat Free Condensed Milk

1 cup  Skim Milk

3 Eggs

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1/2 cup Sugar

1/3 cup Hot Water

Directions:

1) Pre- heat oven to 350F. Boil 7 cups of water ( save 1/3 cup for caramel sauce) and pour into a large rectangular Pyrex dish about 9.5×13.5 inches.

2) Add condensed milk, milk, vanilla and eggs to a blender or food processor and beat really well.

3) Heat sugar in a sauce pan stirring constantly until sugar is melted and brown in color, reduce heat to low and add 1/3 cup hot water, it will sizzle but keep stirring with a wooden spoon until it melts again into a syrup like consistence.

4) Glaze 5 small Pyrex bowls about 175ml with a little bit of the hot caramel sauce and set bowls inside the dish with hot water. Pour blended milk and eggs into the bowls. Place them on oven for about 40 minutes. Insert a fork in the center, if it comes out clean it is ready. Remove from oven, remove bowls from hot water and set them aside to cool over the counter. cover the bowls with a plastic wrap and place them in refrigerator overnight. Pour remaining caramel sauce in a glass measuring cup, cover with plastic wrap and store it in refrigerator as well.

5) When ready to serve Flan, remove plastic wrap, pass a butter knife around the edges of the bowl to loosen the sides of Flan.  Turn bowl upside down over a  desert plate and shake Flan a little, flan will loose into the plate. Heat  the sauce that is left in the bowl in microwave for 10 seconds and pour over Flan. Heat the remainder of caramel sauce that is in measuring cup in microwave for 15 seconds and drizzle extra caramel over the Flan.. Enjoy!