Le copycat que ne fonctionne pas

In bakeries all over my country there is a kind of biscuit called "Masas secas". I do not know what the equivalent of these biscuits in the rest of world is, if there is one. But I simply love them! So with that thought in mind, having found the recipe on hayrecetas.com I just had to try to make them. So I put it on the list.

What list?

Well, my boyfriend and I both love sweets but we sure as hell don't want to get fat by eating them all the time. So my boyfriend came up with a brilliant idea: "Treat night!". We cook a treat once a week. This happens on the weekends mostly since during the week we both work and don't have the time. And every time we find a recipe that looks amazing and that we want to cook we put it on our "Do Want" list.

And thus, last night my boyfriend and I spent our night making these delicious biscuits. But we found out that the recipe was not correct. This brings us to the title of this post: Le copycat que ne fonctionne pas! The copycat recipe didn't work! The dough was not the same as those masas secas that we buy. The texture was completely different and the taste, although similar, was not the same. We were a bit disappointed that they did not turn out to be exactly what we were after, but we cannot deny that they really are delicious anyway. 

Here I share the recipe and some amateur photos of the different stages of the cooking!

Try them! You won't regret it!

Ingredients:

2 cups all-pourpose flour

1/2 cup cornstarch

1 egg

1 teaspoon vainilla

1/4 cup milk

100 grs. soft butter

4 teaspoons baking powder

12 spoonfulls of sugar

dulce de leche (as much as you want)

white chocolate (as much as you want)

Dark chocolate (as much as you want)

crunchy almonds (as much as you want)

Preparing instructions:

Mix all the dry ingredients and then add the butter, egg, milk and vainilla. Mix well until you get an uniform dough. Let it rest in the fridge for 10 minutes. Preheat the oven at 350F. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it until it is 1cm thick. Cut it then with any cookie cutter any shape you want. Take them to the oven and cook them for about 10 minutes.

Melt over bein marie/ double boiler, white chocolate. In another double boiler melt dark chocolate. (you can do both or just one of the chocolates)

After this you can do three things:

1.- you can simply dip half the cookie in one of the chocolates. Sprinkle with a bit of crunchy almonds and put in on a rack so the excess of chocolate drips.

2.- or you can spread some dulce de leche on top of one cookie then cover it with another cookie as in a sandwich and then repeat 1.

3.- get one round cookie make a big big pile of dulce de leche on top of it and then repeat number 1.

I recomend making numbre 2 and 3 the most. Hope you like them! If you make them, please come back here and let me know how it turned out!

This is number 3.

This is number 2.

Let's start sweet: The ¬Torta recipe!

Welcome to Photography and Recipes! I'm really glad you somehow found your way here!
Let me introduce myself: I'm a 23 year-old girl who loves to write, take pictures and cook! Unfortunately my line of work doesn't let me much time for this activities that I like so much. But whenever I have some free time I make sure I do one of them. Especially taking pictures! I just love the freedom that comes from being behind a camera.

I decided to start this blog with my favourite cake. It is called  ¬Torta. It is a triple chocolate cake. It has chocolate mousse, a white chocolate cream and brownies. What's not to like? Oh, and also it has a sweet from my country (Argentina) that is called Dulce de Leche. Don't worry, if you can't get it or you don't like it, you can use any marmalade that combines with the chocolate flavour instead of the dulce de leche.

The name of this cake is peculiar. The  ¬ is pronounced "not". You might wonder why on earth I called this cake like this. Well, the story goes as follows:

Less than two years ago I decided to bake a cake for my boyfriend's birthday. He is a white chocolate fan just like me and that's why I came up with the idea of making a cake with a base made of white chocolate brownies, a bit of dulce de leche, then a dark chocolate mousse layer and then a white chocolate cream layer. I am happy to say that he loved it. Since it didn't have a name, we just called it Torta (cake in Spanish). But we realized that regular brownies would taste better. Therefore I re-made the cake for another occasion but this time I inverted the cream layers and made the base of dark chocolate brownies. It was a HUGE success. Way yummier than the first one. We loved it and I decided to name it, but I didn't know how. And then my boyfriend who at the time was taking a course of logic at university had the logical idea of putting the logic sign  negative "¬" before the "Torta" since this cake is the negative form of the first cake. And thus, it was called ¬Torta!

It is not a difficult cake to make, but it takes effort and time. It is sometimes frustrating to wait until it is done, especially when you see all that chocolate that calls to be eaten!! But if you have a birthday party of a very especial occasion that calls for a proper dessert, this cake is the best! Believe me, your family will definitely thank you for the hours in the kitchen! Just give it a try! I hope you like it!!!

Here is the recipe:                                        I submitted this recipe to Tasty Kitchen. To view it there click here

Ingredients:
FOR THE BROWNIES:
1 whole Brownie Mix And The Ingredients Needed To Prepare Them (water/milk, Butter, Eggs)
100 grams Dulce De Leche Or Orange/strawberry Marmalade
_____
FOR THE WHITE CHOCOLATE CREAM:
300 grams White Chocolate
392 grams Condensed Milk
320 grams Cream Cheese
2 teaspoons Unflavored Gelatin
4 teaspoons Water
_____
FOR THE CHOCOLATE MOUSSE:
3 whole Eggs Beaten
150 grams Sugar
1 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder
100 grams Dark Chocolate
300 grams Butter

Preparation instructions:

• For the brownies:

Preheat oven to 350F. Brownies can be made from scratch but to save time I use a mix.
Follow the instructions on the box to make the brownies. Combine the brownie mix with the additional ingredients specified on the package (typically water/milk, oil/butter, and eggs). Bake according to package instructions. Make sure you cook them in a Springform cake pan in a size that ensures you have a thin layer of brownies since this is only the base of the cake.
Once you take the brownies out of the oven, let them cool and spread dulce de leche (an Argentine sweet) or marmalade (maybe orange or strawberry marmalade). Keep them in the fridge while you make the next step.

• For the White Chocolate Cream:

Melt the white chocolate and once melted, mix it with the condensed milk and cream cheese. Add the unflavoured jelly mix that has been dissolved in 4 teaspoons of water. Pour on top of the dulce de leche/marmalade covered brownie. Place this in the freezer for 2 hours or until firm enough to support another cream layer.

• For Chocolate Mousse:

In a bain marie/double boiler, mix the eggs and the sugar until the eggs are heated. Add the cocoa powder and the chocolate and keep mixing until it all melts. Take the mix out of the bain marie, add the butter and mix. Pour on top of the white chocolate cream layer and place this in the freezer for 24 hours.


Now it is ready to be decorated as you like! Or just eat it!
If you make it, please come back here and let me know how it turned out!