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Mango Ginger Tart with Pistachio & Coconut

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When my sister was graduating with her undergraduate degree in English last May, I had to show up to the ceremony with a little treat for her to eat afterwards.

This tart is incredibly easy to put together and is flavorful yet light. I first saw it on Zen Can Cook, thinking it was odd that a recipe so simple would be on his site. Then I knew it was destiny when fellow DC food-blogger Olga of  Mango & Tomato re-created it with some crystallized ginger. How could you go wrong with mango and ginger?

My sister & I in Philadelphia
All bundled up, ready to be enjoyed

I was a bit lazy, which yielded a more “rustic” result. I used pre-chopped mango from the store instead of slicing my own, which made the tart a bit more clunky and testy when slicing. But the end result was still scrumptious and looked perfect for the occasion in my Panibois Baking Molds wrapped with ribbon and cute graduating owls. 

Marmalade & Pistachio Tea Cake

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For this month’s Secret Recipe Club, I was paired up with K&K Test Kitchen. One of my favorite things about the site is the design since the colors are so well coordinated and it is appealing to the eye. I am a web designer by day, so thats one of the first things I noticed.

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This was another month where it was hard to choose just what recipe to make. I changed up my tactic this time and asked my fiancé to pick a recipe after I whittled it down to Healthy Spinach Dip, Artichoke Dip, Pistachio Marmalade Cake, or Cashew Chicken. Even though he picked spinach dip, I ended up making the cake. Next time I swear I’ll let him really choose!

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I figured this would be a great opportunity to use some of my various jams in the refrigerator, as well as my cute gingham mini bundt cake liners from World Market.  I did adapt this recipe to use what I had on hand, and it turned out no worse for it.

I had a lovely Japanese Quince jam gifted to me by my friend Stephanie that was just itching to be used in this. I have a problem when I get things that tast good. I actually don’t eat them. They’re so precious to me I always save them for later, but then they end up getting thrown away! I wasn’t going to let that happen to this jam, so I whipped 2 mini cakes up and sent her one as part of a care package.

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You can substitute the cider for any juice (orange juice is the original). I also substituted the cornmeal with almond meal, and replaced the orange marmalade with quince jam. I also mixed the pistachios with some chai sugar I picked up at Mitsuwa on a recent trip to New York to echo the cardamom in the mix.

The texture of the cake was a bit crumbly and the bottom was a little overdone (the middle wouldn’t cook all the way). I don’t think this is due to the substitutions since this same issue was noted on K&K Test Kitchen. In the future, I would recommend bumping the cooking temperature to 325 so that none of it overcooks.

Since the cake itself that was not adjacent to the topping was a bit bland, I would definitely add more jam next time so that the flavor is more pronounced.

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Secret Recipe Club

Pistachio, Cranberry, and Crystallized Ginger Cookies & Bread

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Even though I was making 4 types of Christmas cookies, my office wouldn’t get to try any of them, so I whipped these up on a weeknight after seeing them on my friend Olga’s blog. I decided to make the pistachio cookies more festive by adding some red dried cranberries and some zingy crystallized ginger. I thought I was pretty clever turning these into Christmas-colored cookies.

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Sometimes I think that chocolate is often used as a crutch in baking. It takes a really good hand to be able to make something delicious without chocolate in it that everyone will enjoy. These cookies had a firm yet delicate crumb and were extremely flavorful. I like that each bite had a bit of something else in it, an element of surprise, but some people don’t like that.

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While these cookies were baking, I realized I had some chopped pistachios, cranberries, and ginger left over. I combined these with some leftover chopped hazelnuts from my homemade nutella and thought they’d make a delicious topping for one of my favorite things to make – pumpkin bread (or muffins). I scooped the bread batter into these odd shaped Panibois Baking Molds and hoped for the best, checking them often since they held varying sizes of batter. I couldn’t taste them after they baked (obviously), but I wrapped them up in cute snowflake cello-wrap and tied them with twine. I gave some to my family and some to co-workers. I’d like to think this is a more tasty version of a fruitcake, but pumpkin!

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Chai Chocolate & Coconut Cardamom Rice Pudding(s)

So you remember how I told you that one of my favorite foods is rice? Well one of my favorite things to do with rice is make rice pudding.

Growing up, we would take whatever rice was left in the rice cooker after dinner, add milk and sugar and nuke it in the microwave until it was nice and hot. For some, rice pudding can be polarizing. My dad thinks that it is blasphemous to make this meal staple sweet instead of savory; my boyfriend hates the consistency. I, on the other hand, love rice pudding so much that I visited a rice pudding restaurant with my sister when we visited New York City.

These two rice puddings combine some of my favorite flavors, especially with the crunchy, chewy topping. Since my family and friends are all lactose-sensitive, I opted to make this rice pudding dairy free. The flavor that the almond milk imparts onto the rice, blended with the warm spices of cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, chai, and chocolate make something really special. I also used a special chai-cocoa powder I picked up when I visited San Francisco a while ago to deliver the chocolate punch, so this pudding is full of memories for me.

Trust me when I say this this pudding is as fun to look at as it is to eat! It is lighter than most other puddings I’ve tried since it is non-dairy. Which just means you can have a bigger serving ^_^.

Again, thank you to Marx Foods for the delicious Italian Organic Integrale Rice, and thank you all who voted me in to Round 2 and made it possible for me to create this delicious dessert. Please check out the other entries in Round 2, they all look delicious! Good luck to The DelGrosso Food Blog, Cookistry, Girl in the Little Red Kitchen, Oh Cake, Chez What?, Food for Thought, The Upstart Kitchen, Great Outdoors Cooking, Creative Cooking Gluten Free, and me of course.

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