Mini Nutella Cakes & Blueberry Turnovers

As you may recall from previous posts, I admitted that I'd never baked a turkey before. Since I didn't have "Bird Duty" (that would be my Dad then), my mom told me to make some desserts. Instead of my usual Lemon Cheesecake Bars, which everyone likes (see the recipe here complete with step by step photos from my defunct recipe blog), I decided to try a new dessert recipe.

This recipe comes from SD foodblogger Kirbie of the awesome blog, Kirbie's Cravings. She is truly gifted when it comes to baking sweets plus she has the cutest pans and molds EVER! So, thanks Kirbie! This recipe was a hit!

Mini Nutella Cakes (Check out her post since it has way better photos!).

There's only 3 ingredients - Nutella, Flour, Egg, and if you want to top it off, you can use actual Hazelnuts or in my case, chopped chocolate. As an experiment, I used this Philippine chocolate tablet, Antonio Peuo brand (seen in gold wrapper below). I didn't really like it because it looked and tasted like a chalky version of chocolate. I only used it for half of the mini cakes and used mini semi-sweet chocolate chips for the other dozen.

I doubled the recipe so it was 1 cup of Nutella, 2 eggs and 10 tablespoons of flour. Whisk the eggs and Nutella first. Then add the flour little by little. Drop into the mini muffin liners. Top with nuts or chopped chocolate.

Here's the batter without the toppings...

Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.  Cool on rack first or enjoy while still hot and fudgy inside! My husband loved these and so did my nephews! Mini Nutella Cakes FTMFW!!!  Can you see which mini cakes had the mini chips and which had the chopped chalky chocolate? :)  And even though it was Thanksgiving, I used my Christmas print mini cupcake liners!

The other dessert I made was a variation of my Blueberry Strudel. Instead of using the large puff pastry sheets, I used a ready made package of 8 puff pastry squares (sorry, don't remember the brand) from North Park Produce. This brand had 8 ($3.99) while Indo-European brand has 10 ($4.79).

I also topped each turnover with a sugar, butter and sliced almond crust. I skipped on the lemon sugar glaze, otherwise it would have been sugar overload!

Blueberry Strudel (adapted for turnovers):

Ingredients:

1 pack of 8-10 Puff Pastry squares.
Make sure you defrost the squares ahead of time - it takes about an hour.
Filling:
1 8 oz block of softened cream cheese
1 cup of sugar
2 tsp of vanilla extract
1 egg yolk, beaten (in another bowl, beat another egg yolk to brush on top of pastry before putting on topping)
1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries (I used the organic wild blueberries from Trader Joe's but any brand would do, I'm sure)

Topping:
2 tbsp softened butter
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup sugar

Directions:
1.Preheat oven to 375 F.
 

2.Defrost the puff pastry on a parchment-lined baking sheet and keep cool.

3.In a medium bowl, combine the softened cream cheese, 1/2 cup of sugar, 2 tsp of vanilla and 1 of the egg yolk.

4.Gently fold in the blueberries.

5.Spoon the filling onto the middle of each puff pastry square.

6.Brush the edges of the pastry with beaten egg yolk.

7.Fold diagonally, making a triangle and seal well by pressing with a fork
8.Make 2 slashes on top of the pastry to allow air to escape.

9.Brush the top with extra egg yolk.

10.In a small bowl, combine the softened butter, 1 cup of sugar, and almonds until the mixture is crumbly.

11.Press the topping into the dough.

12.Bake for 35-45 minutes.

13.Cool.

It's better when the filling is more firm, rather than runny. You can fill the squares a little bit more. Also, if the puff pastry isn't totally softened, you have better control when folding it over and sealing it. Mine was kind of soft so the filling oozed out. I ended up making another batch because I had another package of the squares.

Also, portion wise, you can cut these turnovers in half if you want to serve them as part of a dessert buffet. I think that one bigass piece would be too much if one wanted to samply a variety of desserts. If you are just having one main dessert, then one intact piece would be fine, I suppose. I thought about cutting the puff pastry squares diagonally (ha ha, "Diagon Alley", Harry Potter joke, sorry!) but you wouldn't get as much filling and there would be way too much crust to ratio filling. And another reason I didn't do it was because it would be twice as much work! Easier for me to cut the big pieces in half.

I just had to recycle this video from my older post! Lardass Davy Hogan from "Stand By Me" (the clip is narrated by a very young Wil Wheaton)!


Currently listening to the Cure compilation, "Staring at the Sea - The Singles" - song on right now, "Jumping Someone Else's Train".

Juan dela Cruz Asian Cuisine, Pacifica

Despite our mega busy day, we still wanted dinner. In fact, if you think about it, the tacos were kind of insubstantial. And even though we had ice cream at two separate places (hours apart, mind), we wanted some real food. After checking various Bay Area sites, I narrowed down our choices to House of Sisig in Daly City and a new place, JAC (Juan dela Cruz Asian Cuisine) in Pacific. The latter won out, so off we went. They didn't even have a real sign yet...

Taken without flash hence the terrible tint/lighting.

We wanted a little bit of everything.


For starters, we got some shanghai lumpia with sweet and sour sauce.

Next up was some garlic fried rice! The better to go with the next few items...

Such as Pork Tocino (pork belly cured in sugar, salt and spices)! I think this was my favorite dish of the night! If I could have had this ALL TO MYSELF, I would have hogged it. It's mine, I tell you!

The next dish was Beef Tapa - this was absolutely awful. The meat was burnt looking, dry, and tough. It did not taste good at all. The guys liked it and compared it favorably to beef jerky.

We also ordered Pancit Bihon - had to have that noodle dish. I liked how the pancit was chock full of shrimp, chinese sausage, and chicken. That's the way my mom does it - 3 or 4 different types of meats (she also includes fish cake) plus the shredded carrots and cabbage, topped off with sliced green onions.

Lastly, we also ordered the chicken adobo. I saw that it didn't have skin and decided to skip on it. I think I did this last time when we were up in the Bay Area, when we ate at Sinugba in Daly City. Another reason I passed on the adobo was it's "wetness". I don't like soupy adobo.

By the way, we did not eat these dishes in "courses"; they did not come out one by one to be eaten separately. Hell no. Well, they did come out one by one but in quick succession and we basically ate most of this food "family style". TC's favorite was the pancit and lumpia. I think Bert liked the adobo and the tapa. Thane as well. As for myself, it was the garlic fried rice with the tocino that were the winners of the night.

Leftovers were packed up and ended up being breakfast the next day! Tomorrow, the SoMa District and a trip across the Bay to Berkeley.

Humphry Slocombe

After all that walking in what was threatening to be rain, we finally arrived at Humphry Slocombe. Yeah, I thought that was a really unwieldy sounding name. Turns out that the name is derived from "Mr. Humphries and Mrs. Slocombe" who were were characters on an old lowbrow British sitcom “Are You Being Served?”. Now how's that for obscure?

It's really nondescript looking. Across the street is a place interestingly called, "Usulutan" which served Mexican and El Salvadoran food. Man, I wish we had room for actual food, but I really wanted ice cream...again. Dammit.

This place makes their ice cream by hand using natural ingredients, etc. They are also known for their wildy imaginative flavor combinations.  Check out this wanna be Warhol. The flavor on the lower right is fake. I asked about it. I'm sure the workers get that a lot.

The line wasn't as long as Bi-Rite. I was excited just looking at their flavors...

Here's a few of them...

Thane would end up getting the Secret Breakfast (Bourbon with cornflakes - score!!!). His other flavor was the hilarously named, "Jesus Juice" (red wine and Coke). Bert got the Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee and the Balsamic Caramel. I thought the balsamic ice cream was rather vile but Bert looooved it. I liked the Vietnamese coffee ice cream much better. There is a Blue Bottle Coffee place at the Ferry Landing and one in the SoMa district but we didn't end up goin there. I'd heard rave reviews about their coffee. I guess having the ice cream was the closest approximation Bert could get.

This shot happened to have both of TC's flavors: Carrot Mango sorbet and Lemon Buttermilk Sherbert. You know how she likes those fruity flavors. I told her that the carrot was probably not noticable, but the carrot flavor was actually quite pronounced. She ended up liking it and thought it went well with the mango.

The counter...

Here's Thane's cup of ice cream: Secret Breakfast on top with Jesus Juice on the bottom. Yes, both ice creams had some sort of alcohol in 'em. I liked the Secret Breakfast much better than the one with the red wine. The thing with these flavors are that they are VERY INTENSE. You could really taste that bourbon and that wine in there. It's okay after one or two spoons but having a scoop of each would've been overkill for me. I don't think Thane even finished this.

Here's all four of our ice creams. TC is holding her Lemon Buttermilk Sherbet with Carrot Mango Sorbet. Going clockwise is Bert's Blue Bottle Vietnamese Iced Coffee with Balsamic Caramel on the bottom. Then, there's Thane's alcoholic ice creams (mentioned earlier). Lastly, the one with pink is mine. That's the Szechuan Strawberry on top (Man, it had a kick to it and made my lips numb too! Szechuan peppercorns will do that to ya!) and Black Sesame on the bottom.

I have to say that I liked the Black Sesame much better. Although the strawberry was really sweet and fruity, the heat of the peppercorns were a little to much for me. Again, the flavor was pretty intense and I ended up not finishing the strawberry portion.

I'm glad we were able to try this place out. I also wanted to go to another ice cream place, Mitchell's in the Noe Valley, but we didn't have enough time for this day and tomorrow, I already had our itinerary planned.

More reviews on Humphry Slocombe:
Gastronomer from the blog "Gas*tron*o*my" went here in Spring 2009
Alice from "Alice Q. Foodie" went here Summer 2009
and more recently, Kirbie from "Kirbie's Cravings" went on a dessert rampage this past May! Lucky her! Aaand, here are the Yelpreviews to top it off.

Here are a couple of cool articles:
"I'll Take a Scoop of Prosciutto Please" from the NY Times and
"Ice Cream Through the Ages from SFStation.com

Check out this short video from the webshow, the "Snack Attack". They didn't have this flavor ice cream when we went there (the Boccalone prosciutto)!

We walked a few blocks before taking the BART back to Thane's place. This is La Reyna Bakery on 24th St. Lots of delicous looking pastries in the window...

Here's the Napper Tandy Bar, also on 24th St. My former student whom we had dinner with the night before was going to be here later for karaoke.

Some murals near an empty lot...

Detail of one of those mural, the Virgen de Guadalupe...

This was so cool - here's a utility box with Bruce Lee on it.

The other side had a Dia de los Muertos skull, the title, "Identity" as well as Malcolm X.

Close up of the Bruce Lee portion...

This was a super long day - the Filipino American History Month celebration at the SF Asian Art Museum and the "Singgalot Exhibit" at the neighboring SF Library, sisig tacos from the Senor Sisig foodtruck, the Mission Dolores and ice cream at two places.  Oh,and TC saw her first drag queens today too.  Time to head back and relax before going out to dinner...

Murals and more...

It was starting to get a little chilly. Thane assured us that the ice cream place was only a short walk away on Harrison Street, which turns out to be a pretty damn long street. I keep forgetting that Thane is used to being a pedestrian and I'm totally a lazy ass suburbanite.
Here's a Guatemalan food cart on a street corner. Wish we could've stayed to eat something but we were on a mission to get more ice cream!

Loved the look of this market!

Graffiti seen on a purple van.

While walking down one of the streets, Bert was pointed out by this overzealous Giants fan on a bike. The guy was screaming, "Yeahhhh, playoffs baby!" and pumping his fist in the air. He happened to turn around and noticed Bert's SD Padres cap and started making kinda rude noises and yelled, "Giants!!! Giants baby!!!". Bert just laughed it off. An older Latino gentleman standing outside of a bar said, "I'm sorry for your loss" to Bert. That was actually kind of funny! The mood was ebullient as we passed the neighborhood bars and stores because the playoffs game just ended and of course, the Padres' dream of going to the World Series came to a sad end (this was Sunday, October 3rd)

There's tons of cool murals all over the Mission District. Here were a few that were a couple of stories high. Other murals were on sides of buildings, on fences in alleyways, and on utility boxes.


I have a thing for the Virgen de Guadalupe- here's her image on the side of a produce market!

This one is called, "El Imigrante":

The left half of the mural:

Artist info:

I liked this flyer's colors and how it was wrinkled and wrapped around this telephone pole.

More street art - this one had "wishes" tied to tree branches:

A few more steps and we were nearly ready to satisfy our sweets cravings once again...

Mission Dolores, Basilica & Cemetery

The Mission Dolores is the oldest surviving building in San Francisco and since 1776, the sixth mission founded in the California Missions chain. It is formally named after Saint Francis de Asisi (founder of the Franciscan order) but is commonly referred to as the Mission Dolores due to the nearby creek, Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores.

Here is the original adobe structure...the basilica (not pictured) is off to the right and was completed in 1918.

We took a the tour ($5 per adult and $3 for kids) and the man working there was so very nice and kind, especially to TC. He probably assumed she was a 4th grader doing her missions project. We told him we were traveling from San Diego and he was very happy that we were visiting.

This is the interior of the The Mission chapel, which is one of only two surviving buildings where Father Junipero Serra is known to have officiated. The other chapel is the one at San Juan Capistrano (TC's class visited that mission last spring and took the Amtrak train, fun!).

The church had a big mural ont he right and several art pieces hanging. This is one of them (on the left as you face the altar), St. Joseph's altar:


The altar:

Right next to the old Mission is the newer Basilica. It's quite grandiose in scale and decor, compared to the older church, but not as huge as the Immaculata at the University of San Diego. Still, it's quite huge, but a bit too sombre for my taste.

View of the church from the front (looking towards the back).

There were rows of these brilliant stained glass windows with blood red and orange honeycomb prints. The effect in the dark basilica was quite striking.

After the Basilica, we checked out the Cemtery grounds which contain shrubs, trees, flowers, and plants indigenous to the area as well as to the time period (1791). Here is the prequisite statue of the proselytizing Father Serra. I'm sure the native Indians don't see him in such a kindly light.

Here is another statue of  Serra in the cemetery. I thought it was his grave marker. Later on, we asked the man working at the gift shop and he said that Serra is actually buried on the grounds of the Carmel Mission.

The cemtery garden also contains an Ohlone Indian ethno-botanic garden and a hut of that particular tribe.

Many famous San Franciscans are buried here. I noticed many of the graves also bore Irish surnames.

More graves and headstones...

There's the Ohlone hut...

I liked theiron work surrounding this grave which is the final resting place of Don Luis Antonio Arguello, the first commandant of the Presidio.

One last look at the Basilica's facade, which was inspired by the style of the buildings in San Diego's Balboa Park 1915 Pan American Exposition. Those of us that live in San Diego may recognize this style and see the similarity in such buildings as the Museum of Man, the Museum of Art and the buildings all along the promenade leading to the fountain near the Natural History Museum. This ornate style is known as "churrigueresque", known for its elaborate sculptural elements.

Okay, history lesson over. Let's get some ice cream!