From Argentina With Love

Celebrating Día del Niño--Dulce de Leche Donuts

The second Sunday in August is a special day in Argentina--it's Día del Niño, or Children's Day.  (This year it was postponed for elections, and was on Sunday the 21st.)

Día del Niño is a day celebrating the fleeting and wonder-filled years of childhood.  I suppose adults on this day may reflect on their own fond memories of youth, but really the day is to celebrate the children in our lives--our own or even someone else's.  On this day of honoring children, kids get a small gift and are told 'Feliz Día!'--they feel important, special and loved just for being themselves!

Esteban woke up to balloons on his chair at breakfast, a little metal lunch box from the Cars 2 movie with a t-shirt inside, and these dulce de leche-filled donuts to eat.  A special boy on this special day deserves a treat for breakfast, don't you think?  (Although in all truth, Papí ate many more of these donuts than Esteban did!)  

These would be wonderful for breakfast not only Día del Niño, but on any day when a little celebration is in order--the first day of school, or a birthday, or to celebrate any kind of pint-sized accomplishment--the winning goal, memorizing that challenging piano piece, or making the grade.  

I adapted the recipe from one for filled donuts I found on my friend Jen's blog, Use Real Butter. Since we live near each other at high altitude I knew this recipe would be a good one for making at a mile high, and it worked out perfectly--thanks Jen!  They were delicious! 

The rest of the day was spent playing--something we all need to slow down and do--young or old.  Even if for a day, we got to celebrate our son and be kids again, ourselves.

 
Dulce de Leche-Filled Donuts

Donas Rellenas de  Dulce de Leche (Rosquillas Rellenas de Dulce de Leche)

 These donuts are wonderful served with coffee for grownups or warm milk for little ones.  They are best when fresh, but will last a day or so in an air-tight container--at least long enought to enjoy as a midnight snack!  They can also be filled with jelly, custard or frosting.

makes a baker's dozen

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1/8 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit)

3/4 cup warm milk (scalded and then cooled) 

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg

heaping 1/4 cup shortening 

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 

cooking spray (or butter or vegetable oil, for greasing bowl)

vegetable oil (about 2 cups, for frying)

1 cup dulce de leche

confectioner's sugar, for dusting

 

In a small saucepan, heat the milk just until the boiling point and then remove from heat.  Let the milk cool to lukewarm. Rinse the metal bowl of your stand mixer with warm water (so that when you add in the warm water for the recipe, it doesn't cool the water down).  Add the 1/8 cup warm water to the mixer bowl and dissolve the yeast into the warm water.  Add in the milk, sugar, salt, egg, shortening and 1 cup of the  flour, and then beat on medium speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl as you go, for about 2 minutes. Stir in the remaining flour.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until a smooth dough forms, about two minutes.  Put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, and let rise for about an hour, covered, in a warm place, until the dough has doubled in size.

Flour 2 baking sheets.  (Rub with butter or spray with cooking spray, dust with flour and discard the extra flour.) Turn the risen dough out onto a floured surface and roll it out to 1/2 inch thickness. Using a round cookie cutter or the rim of a sturdy juice glass, cut the dough.  Place the cut dough onto the cookie sheets, and repeat the process with the remaining dough.  Let the donuts rise on the floured cookie sheets, covered, until doubled in size, about a half hour or so.

Heat the oil in a fryer, dutch oven or frying pan (if using a frying pan, use about 3/4 cup to start) and prepare a plate lined with paper towels.  Heat the oil to about 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Slide the donuts a few at a time (I did batches of 4) into the hot oil, and fry until golden on one side (about one minute) before turning over with a spatula.  Fry for about one minute more, and then carefully remove the donuts to the plate to drain.

Once the donuts are fried and cooled, fill a pastry bag with a wider tip with dulce de leche.  Make a small hole in each donut with a sharp, narrow knife, and then use the knife to make a cavity inside the donut to fill with dulce de leche.  Fill the cavity with the dulce de leche, and then dust with confectioner's sugar before serving.  

Rosca de Pascua--Easter Bread Ring--From the Archives

 

With Easter just a few days away, I thought I'd repost my original recipe for Rosca de Pascua, the traditional ring-shaped bread-like cake served in Argentina at this time of year.  Easter marks the end of the Lenten season-- the beginning of which we marked by celebrating the Tres Reyes and eating its signature cake--the Rosca de Reyes--the Rosca de Pascua's cousin.

Next year I'd like to make Rosca de Pascua and finally get around to baking it with the hard-boiled eggs nestled in the top of the ring.  After baking, the real eggs are removed and replaced with life-sized chocolate eggs.

But not this year--my suitcase is laid out on the bedroom floor, steadily being filled with things I'll need to take on my trip to Argentina.  This Easter, we'll be eating Rosca de Pascua at my in-laws' house in Mendoza!  I can't wait to see what homemade treats my suegra Florencia is cooking up for us.

I'm  excited to see how they interpret the holiday in Argentina--what delicious, traditional foods are served, and whether they, like us, dye eggs, hunt for them, and eat truckloads of chocolate.  I'm bringing along some chocolate bunnies from home for the kiddos just in case!

And of course I'll be sharing all my adventures in Argentina with you along the way--stay tuned!

Facebook:Rebecca Caro or the From Argentina With Love group page, and twitter @RebeccaCaro.

 

Rosca de Pascua

Easter Bread Ring

For the Bread:

3 tablespoons yeast

3/4 cup warm water

pinch of sugar

1 lemon, zested

1/2 stick butter, melted and cooled

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 can sweetened condensed milk

1 egg

4 cups flour

1 egg, beaten, to paint the top of the bread

 

For the pastry cream:

2 egg yolks

1 cup warm water

1/2 can sweetened condensed milk

2 tablespoons corn starch

a dash of vanilla

 

In the bowl of a stand mixer, swish around some warm water to warm the bowl.  Dump the water, then add in the 3/4 cup water, the yeast and the sugar and dissolve.  Let sit for about 15 minutes, until the yeast is risen and bubbling.  Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, mix the lemon zest, butter, vanilla, 1/2 can of sweetened condensed milk, egg, and beat together.  Add to the bowl of the stand mixer and beat on low speed for 5 minutes.  Add in the flour a cup at a time, mixing to incorporate, until you have added all 4 cups.  You will be left with a sticky, dense dough.  Remove the bowl from the stand mixer, set in a warm place covered with a towel, and let rise for 1 hour.

After the hour is up, punch down the dough and remove it from the bowl.  Put it on a floured and oiled counter top and roll in to a long, even cylinder.  I found it easier to do two smaller cylinders and connect them at either end to make the ring, but you can do it either way.  You can use a buttered and floured ring pan, a bundt pan, or (as we did) a rimmed round pizza pan with an empty 28 oz. can in the center.  (Empty the contents of the can first, clean out, remove both ends and the label.  Butter and flour the part of the can that will touch the dough)  Lay the cylinders of dough out on the pan to form a ring.  Cover with a towel, set in a warm place, and let rise 2 hours more.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Start the pastry cream--heat the egg yolks, water, sweetened condensed milk and corn starch in a small sauce pan over medium heat, stirring constantly.  As the mixture gets hotter and comes to a boiling point, stir more rapidly.  As it starts to thicken, remove it from heat.  The consistency should be like a pudding, not thick enough to stand on its own.  Stir in the vanilla.

Spoon the pastry cream onto the top of the ring of bread.  It will ooze over the edges, that's ok.  Paint the remaining space of the bread with the beaten egg.  Place in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes, until the bread is a nice golden brown.  Remove from the oven and let cool.  Decorate with confectioner's sugar and sliced Maraschino cherries.

Turrón de Avena--Chocolate Oatmeal Wafer Bars

 

 As I've mentioned in previous posts, one of the best things about this blog is the emails I get from readers requesting recipes--I hope that From Argentina With Love is a reference point for those folks who have married into it (as I have), who have traveled to Argentina and fallen in love with it,  for those readers who are the descendants of immigrants from Argentina, and even those who are expats, themselves! 

Not long ago I got just such an email from Alex, requesting a recipe "I used to have as a child when I went to my grandmother's house, but she has passed away and my father (and his family) have no trace of a recipe for it. "

Rosca de Reyes--Kings' Cake

 
 The tradition of El Dia de los Tres Reyes Magos (literally, the Day of the Three Magi Kings)--aka the Epiphany--is a holiday that originated in Spain and is now celebrated in Hispanic cultures around the world on January 6th.

The Magi are those three Wise Men--the kings who traveled to Bethlehem to visit the infant Jesus and bring him gifts of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. The holiday is meant to celebrate the appearance to the world of the baby Christ.

As part of the tradition, which marks the end of the Christmas season in Spanish-speaking countries, children write letters to the Three Magi asking for gifts, much like American children write to Santa Claus.  And just as children leave carrots out for Santa's reindeer, Argentinean children leave out grass and water for the Kings' camels.

The children's little shoes are left out on the night of January 5th by the door of the house, and on the morning of January 6, they find a gift there.  (Below, a picture of our Esteban's shoes filled with chocolate coins.) 

 

Tortas Fritas--Rainy Day Fried Bread

 

This morning as I bustled around getting ready to take Esteban to preschool, the wind was blowing but the sun was shining; an autumn chill was in the air.  On our drive, the weather was a bizarre mix that defines Colorado's typically atypical seasonal weather--bright morning sun in the East, and a wall of black clouds looming on the horizon.  Miraculously, a bright rainbow was seen, too, and it seemed to lead right to our son's preschool--the thought of his teachers 'bringing' the rainbow to school just delighted him.  After drop-off, I lingered to talk to another mom and coo over her new baby, and by the time I left ten minutes later, the weather had completely changed.  It was now a despicable, blustery mess.

We have an expression in Colorado:  "If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute!"  It sums up our mercurial climate perfectly, since things here can change in a heartbeat.  I dashed to my car.  The wind was whipping fiercely, gold leaves skittered sideways across the road, and icy rain pelted my windshield.  I only had one thought as I raced home.