Tonight, a toast. With coquito.

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It’s time for chocolate.

Seems like it should be time for chocolate. I realized that it’s been since August (AUGUST!) since I made anything chocolate. Remember when I made that chocolate bread pudding? God that was good. Have you made it yet? Stop what you’re doing and make it now. You’ll thank me later. Maybe you’ll thank me so much you’ll send me something pretty.

Anyway, chocolate time it is, and it just so happens to fit into Vietnam.  While I can’t find any indication that chocolate is super prevalent there, what does seem to be everywhere is sticky rice. Sticky rice makes its way into this dish in the form of sticky rice flour (aka glutinous rice flour, which, ironically does not actually contain gluten).  While sticky rice cakes are typically savory, nothing wrong with a little sweetness every now and then.

I’ve used this flour a few times before, both times with success. Since Lettuce is unfortunately gluten intolerant, I keep meaning to experiment with this as a gluten-free solution to baked goods, of which she is quite fond, so that she can enjoy them despite her unfortunate situation. Making this Bánh Chocolate Bột Nếp forced me what I’ve been meaning to do for the last year.  And, I’m happy to say, I give it a thumbs up. Pay attention, Lettuce.

The recipe I found proved to be a little tricky since it was all metric. I don’t have a food scale in my kitchen (and am actually shocked that I haven’t caved and bought one over a year into this), and using my superior math skills to convert everything, the proportions seemed off.  Therefore, I tweaked it in a way that made sense, and at the end, all was well and it tasted quite nice.  It didn’t taste much different than regular chocolate cake would, but is maybe a bit more spongy. Which really, when we’re talking chocolate, is a-ok.

Ingredients

1 c sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup milk

1 cup glutinous rice flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 ½ cups chocolate chips

Directions

1.  Preheat the oven to 350F.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, eggs and vanilla. Set aside.

3.  Place the chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl. Microwave the milk until just below scalding and pour over the chocolate chips. Stir until they are melted and smooth.

4.  Add the chocolate mixture to the egg mixture. Combine well.

5.  Add the flour and baking soda.  Stir until all is combined.

6.  Pour into a greased 9” cake pan and baked in the middle rack until a tester comes out clean, about 35-40 minutes.

7.  Let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then invert on a rack to finish cooling.

8. Serve with whipped cream. Duh.

Due to an unexpected day of fun in South Bend to watch some college football, my weekend got cut a bit short. Unfortunately, my to-do list did not, and I spent most of yesterday cooking, cleaning, and laundry-ing. Mostly cooking.

On that to-do list was to make apple strudel from Austria to round out my vacation destination dishes.

Despite my initial and long held belief that apple strudel, or apfelstrude, was of German origin, turns those it was those Viennese in Austria that made it famous, and it is today regarded as one of Austria’s national dishes.  This became obvious after we saw it on every menu at every restaurant. Of course we had to “see who’s was best,” and ordering strudel became a given every time we sat down. So THAT’s why my pants are tight…

Plus, it’s fall. Apple Season!

Another fun fact that mom and I picked up in our travels was that Austria, besides being known for wine, is also quite famous for apricots.  As we strolled down the cobbled streets of the quaint little village of Durnstein, we found shop after shop stocked with every variety of apricot treat:  soaps, lip balms, candles, candy, brittle and, my favorite, the liquor.

All week I was looking forward to rolling my sleeves up to give an authentic strudel recipe my best effort. However, as I found myself running through the market in a crunch for this week’s ingredients, I stopped squarely in front of the freezer section debating whether or not to screw tradition and just use phyllo dough rather than make the dough from scratch.  After all, apple strudel was influenced heavily by the Turks and their baklava, would it really be soo bad to cheat a little?

In the end I decided that it’d be a disservice to the recipe as well as to you to not give the dough my best go. You’re welcome.

How did it go?

BUY THE PHYLLO.

Throwing the dough together took no time at all, but I could not get it to be as thin as it needed to be. Or even. Or without holes. Despite spending over an hour trying to work the dough into a manageable 2’ x 3’ rectangle, this is what I got.

Yeah.  At 8 pm on a Sunday night. NOT the relaxing way to end the weekend I had anticipated. I could have just scrapped it midway, but I didn’t’ have the phyllo alternative on which to fall back.

I’m not sure why I had such a problem with it- maybe by the time I figured out HOW to work with the dough, I had already screwed up the texture and consistency to get it to do what I needed it to do.  In any case, the filling was phenom, and therefore I think I’ll cheat and be semi-homemade next time.

I made the filling my own by making a few nominal tweaks to the original filling I found. One change that I did make was that I dressed the apples in some of that apricot liquor. Good decision to balance out the bad dough decision.  I also did not add raisins but there were raisins that I picked out of every strudel we ate. Again, personal choice.

I’m posting the original dough recipe that I got from Chef In You in case you want to give it a go. Maybe you will have better luck than I did.  The author of that recipe sure did, and got good pictures to boot, so I’d check it out.

I’m not sure why my game was off- too tired? Too uninterested? Who knows…Also, I’m posting this recipe in the order in which you should do things- you don’t’ want to sugar the apples too early otherwise they’ll get too syrupy and be a mess.

Ingredients

For the filling:

3 TB apricot liquor (you can also use golden rum)

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

1/3 cup sugar

½ cup butter, melted

1 cup pancko bread crumbs

½ cup pecans, coarsely chopped

2 lbs tart cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into ¼ “ thick slices. I used 3 Granny Smiths and 3 Gala

You know that scene in Sleepless in Seattle where Tom Hanks’ character is describing how his wife could peel an apple in one perfect swirl, and then Meg Ryan proceeds to do the same thing? I always think of that when I’m peeling apples and therefore peel my apples as such. Just a little bit about me.

For the dough:

1 1/3 cup unbleached flour

Pinch salt

8 Tb water, plus more if needed

2 TB vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough

½ tsp cider vinegar

Directions.

First, make the dough:

1. Combine the flour and salt in a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour with the mixer on low speed. You will get a soft dough. Add a little more water if necessary if the dough is too dry.
2. Take the dough out of the mixer. Change to the dough hook. Put the dough ball back in the mixer. Let the dough knead on medium until you get a soft dough ball with a somewhat rough surface.Take the dough out of the mixer and continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally.  Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).

Second, toast the breadcrumbs:

1.  Heat 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high. Add the breadcrumbs and cook whilst stirring until golden and toasted. This will take about 3 minutes. Let it cool completely.
2. Preheat the oven to 400F.

Next, work on the dough once it’s been set.

1. It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch (90 cm) round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches (60 x 100 cm). Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle.
2. Flour the dough as well as you can.  Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough.
3. The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it’s about 2 feet wide and 3 feet long.  It should be tissue-thin by this time and ready to be filled.

Now work on the filling and assemble:

1.  Spread about 3 tablespoons of the remaining melted butter over the dough using your hands (a bristle brush could tear the dough, you could use a special feather pastry brush instead of your hands). Sprinkle the buttered dough with the bread crumbs. (oops, I did this wrong. do what I say, not as I do…)

2.  Spread the walnuts about 3 inches from the short edge of the dough in a 6-inch wide strip. Mix the apples with liquor,  cinnamon and sugar. Spread the mixture over the walnuts.

3.  Lift the tablecloth at the short end of the dough so that the strudel rolls onto itself.  Tuck the ends under.

4.  Put on a baking sheet lined with parchment (carefully! I used two spatulas) and brush with remaining butter.

5.  Bake 30 minutes or until golden brown. Wait 30 minutes before cutting into it with a serraded knife.

I served mine with whipped cream. Obvoiusly.

Flavor-wise…It did really come out pretty fabulous.