Madeleines and a Giveaway!

Another wonderful giveaway! Yay!!

CSN stores would be giving away a gift card worth $60 USD (for a US/Canadian winner), €60 (for a German winner), or £60 for a UK winner! CSN has over 200 stores in their on-line network of stores and they offer a staggering array of products ...from lighting to cookware, counter stoolsto home decor, grills to swing sets, they have it all!

So how can you win the gift card?

• Visit CSN stores, and comment here what would you like to win? You don't have to necessarily buy the item in case you are the winner..just ..you know ..no harm dreaming ..

• Follow Snacksgiving publicly - Just click on the "Follow" button on the right pane of this blog and leave a comment to this post

To have extra entries

• Tweet about this giveaway. Just copy and paste this on twitter.RT @Snacksgiving : Win a gift card from CSN stores http://bit.ly/dqLWn8 #giveaway #contest

• "Like" Snacksgiving on Facebook. And then comment here again.

As you can see from the gift card amounts, this giveaway is open to our readers in US, Canada, Germany and UK. Although the number of stores available to the German and UK readers is slightly limited in numbers, but certainly not in choice.

Now to the recipe. Are you with me? :-)

So what are madeleines? Well, these are buttery, delicate and fluffy cakes with a characteristic fluted shell shape and a nice round belly. Did I say it is a cake? Well, make that cookie if you are in America, although the French prefer to refer to them as cakes.

There are loads of variations to the recipe - I have a very basic recipe today where I tried to go traditional with the the use of browned butter, the madeleine mould, no baking powder and refrigerating the batter in order to get that bump. I used my newly bought mini-madeleine silicone moulds, so they were so very tiny! They looked so cute, like a pretty and dainty little babies! These madeleines being very tiny, I guess the bump is not too visible here. I used the recipe from 101 cookbooks.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 sticks or 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 large eggs
• a pinch of salt
• 2/3 cups sugar
• zest of one large lemon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• powdered sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

• Preheat oven to 350 F/177 C.
• Melt the butter in a small pot over medium heat until it's brown and gives off a deliciously nutty aroma, roughly 20 minutes. Strain (using a paper towel over a mesh strainer) - you want to leave the solids behind. Cool the butter to room temperature. By doing the butter first you can complete the rest of the steps while it is cooling.
• Put the eggs with the salt in the bowl of an electric mixer with a whisk attachment. Whip on high speed until thick - you are looking for the eggs to roughly double or triple in volume - approximately 3 minutes. Continuing to mix on high speed, slowly add the sugar in a steady stream. Whip for 2 minutes or until mixture is thick and ribbony. Now with a spatula fold in the lemon zest and vanilla (just until mixed).
• Sprinkle the flour on top of the egg batter, and gently fold in. Now fold in the butter mixture. Only stirring enough to bring everything together.
• Spoon the batter into the molds, filling each mold 2/3 -3/4 full. Place the mould/tray in the freezer for 15 minutes or in refrigerator for about an hour.
• Bake the madeleines for 7-10 minutes for the mini versions or 12 - 14 minutes for the regular sized madeleines, or until the edges of the madeleines are golden brown. Remove from oven and unmold immediately. Cool on racks and dust with powdered sugar.

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This giveaway is open to addresses in US, Canada, Germany and UK. If your profile doesn't link to your contact info, be sure to leave your email address so we can get in touch with you if you're the winner.

The winner will be randomly selected on Saturday, July 17 at 10am c.e.t. to receive the gift card. The currency will depend on your location. This post is sponsored by CSN Stores. I was not compensated in any way.

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Fresh New look

So a lot of you noticed the change in the header of this blog. Isn't it lovely? Yeah, I think so too. Thank you all of you who commented on how nice it is. Well, the thanks actually goes to a close friend, Usha, who took the time out, and patiently kept altering the header until the picky twosome - that is me and hubs finally said "Yes, now that is what we want!"
Our conversations went something like this "This is too bright", "this one is dull", "font not nice", "make it a little bright", "the background should be hazy", "make it a little casual", "no not like that"....
Hmm..she sure was very patient! And awesome with Photoshop!

Here are some of the earlier headers we used before finally settling with the current one.








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Raspberry Almond tea bread

Berries are abundantly available this time of the year, and I love to pack some in my weekly grocery shopping. The only downside is that they go bad so quickly, it breaks my heart having to throw away a couple of them. I had picked up different berries in the hope to make a terrine. But I ended up using them in different breads/cakes/pancakes etc. Here is the tea bread - it is actually more like a cake - just not as delicate. This is a wonderful raspberry studded quick bread with some almonds thrown in. We enjoyed it with some whipped cream, although it is good as is.

While using these delicate berries in cake batter, I much prefer to use frozen berries that are not thawed. With fresh ones, I invariably end up crushing a few no matter how gentle I am. And when you cut into a slice - it presents a gooey hot pink blob in the cake. Or with blueberries - the purple colour it lends is usually enough to ward off any unsuspecting guinea pigs!

In this recipe, I used fresh ones raspberries. And managed to find a couple of slices that were quite presentable.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter

1 egg

2/3 cup milk

1-1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped almonds

1 cup raspberries (fresh or frozen, unthawed)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F, and grease a loaf pan.

2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar

3. Add in the liquids - the egg, milk and whip them togethe

4. In a seperate bowl, tip in the flour, baking powder and cinnamon and mix it up

5. Add the dry ingredients into the wet and gently mix until combined

6. Add in the rasperries and almonds and gently mix them into the batter

7. Pour it into the loaf pan and bake for about 60 to 70 minutes

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