Traveling without leaving your kitchen

If you love other cultures, but can't just drop thousands and hop on a plane to do it, the easiest way to experience that is in your kitchen.

I feel like you need to learn a little bit about brazilian culture (mostly yummy food) so every so often I will post a recipe that you should try because it is a sure hit. I will feel wonderful introducing you new things and you will feel great woing your significant other with a dish so yummy he will think you been jet setting instead of doing your backed up laundry. So lets begin...

Todays dish is brigadeiro (For me to teach people how to pronounce things I like doing it this way : Bri (like Britain)-ga(like gabba-gabba) dei(like day)-ro(like roman). Put it all together and you can pronounce this piece of heaven.
If you ever attend a birthday party, wedding, funeral, baby shower, retirement party, or just a simple get together in Brazil or hosted by Brazillians, brigadeiros will be grazing the tables.




That is a brigadeiro. If you have had the luck to attend a gathering at my house, you have tried one. If not, than you got to make it yourself. Trust me you wont be dissapointed. The best way I can explain its a mixture between fudge and truffles. Not overly sweet and it goes down so smooth. There are 2 ways to make it. If you are just making it for your family and don't want to go through the steps of rolling and dipping, you can make it, freeze it, then hand everyone a spoon, and go to town. That is what we do at my house. If you are making it for a party, then you can't do that.

Okay so to make brigadeiro you need:

1 can of condensed milk (any walmart carries it. Sometimes its by the spanish section sometimes its by the baking section. Keep your eyes open and read the can. Don't confuse it with table cream or evaporated cream),

1/2 cup of nesquick (again by the spanish section. Nesquick is chocolate powder. Sweeten. So the next time you are making chocolate milk, don't use chocolate syrup. Use nesquick. Its 10x better and good for you. My husband who grew up drinking chocolate milk made with chocolate syrup will never touch the stuff again after he had milk made with nesquick)

1 TB of butter

You take a pan, open a can of condensed milk, go ahead lick it, its that good and no one is watching, 1 TB of butter, and nesquick. How ever much you want. I start with half a cup and mix it then add a bit more. Whatever color you want it. Bring everything to a boil then turn the heat down to medium and dont stop stirring. That is the crap part. You have to continue on stirring or it will burn. After a while, you tilt the pan to the side a bit and if everything is moving to the side without sticking to the bottom, its ready. You transfer it to a dish and stick it in the freezer. If sharing with family you are done. You hand everyone a spoon and prepare to meet heaven. If its not, after its rock hard, you put a tiny bit of butter in your hands. Roll it into little balls, roll it on chocolate sprinkles and you are done. Kids love it, adults love it, its sure to be a major hit at your next party.


Also there is something called Brigadeiro cake :




(this is the website I copied this picture from : http://www.panelaterapia.com/2011/03/brigadeirao-de-microondas.html because I can never take a good enough picture. Its all in portuguese though ;)

This is the easiest dessert you will ever make. Seriously, I don't think it can get easier than this.


1 can of condensed milk
1 can of table cream(without the liquid. Stick the can in the fridge. After 15 minutes, make 2 little holes on each side at the bottom and drain the liquid)
3 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1 TBS of unsalted butter
1/2 cup of chocolate nesquick
3TBS of sugar (the original recipe calls for it. Omit it. I promise you, you wont need it)


Now for the hard part...throw every single ingredient in your blender. No order just toss everything in. Blend it for a couple minutes until everything is mixed together. Take a microwave safe dish. Spray it with cooking spray, dump everything in after its all blended up. Microwave for 8 minutes and you are done. Throw some chocolate sprinkles on top, and put it in the fridge. The colder the better. If you want to transfer it to a plate so serve it, wait until its been in the fridge for a little bit.

That is it. You got a delicious dessert that took you less than 10 minutes. I bet you will spend more time looking for the ingredients that you will putting this together.


Now for my overseas friends, if you want to make this and can't find the ingredients like the condensed milk, table cream or nesquick, let me know. I will be more than glad to ship it to you. Seriously, I want everyone to have a slice of heaven ;)

Another thing because we have been talking about condensed milk. There is a recipe on pinterest saying if you take a can of condensed milk, put it in the crockpot submerged in water, 8 hours later you will get caramel. Don't believe that. If you do that you will get dulce de leche. Now some people will like to say dulce de leche translated to english is caramel. Its not. Its the closest thing you can call it, but its not. Caramel and dulce de leche are two very different distinct tastes. If you don't believe me try it and see. Try it anyways because dulce de leche is better than caramel and that will open a whole new world to you.


Enjoy it

love A