This is the per­fect time for a give­away, because it is the first anniver­sary of Yummy Work­shop! Time passes by so fast, I have about 50 posts on my blog so that makes about one post per week? I actu­ally don’t have a time­line for post­ing, I just write when­ever I have time and feel like it — that is what I like about blogging.

For the first anniver­sary of my blog, I will be doing my first cook­book review + give­away! *excited*

Grace’s Sweet Life was writ­ten by Grace Massa Lan­glois, a very tal­ented and suc­cess­ful Cana­dian food blog­ger (I wish I can pub­lish my cook­book one day too!). Her blog has a great num­ber of dessert recipes with beau­ti­ful pho­tos, you should check it out here. Com­ing from her Ital­ian her­itage, she recently pub­lished Grace’s Sweet Life fea­tur­ing Ital­ian desserts. The cook­book con­tains many authen­tic Ital­ian dessert recipes, such as can­noli, tiramisu, amaretti cook­ies etc. and more inno­v­a­tive recipes like can­noli cup­cakes. I wouldn’t say it is a sim­ple dessert recipe col­lec­tion, as some of the recipes require spe­cific ingre­di­ents and pro­ce­dure, but the end result is deli­cious and well pre­sented desserts. I think it is a great book for the avid home bak­ers and are look­ing for some­thing dif­fer­ent or want to bake to impress.

One of the recipes I tried was the But­ter­scotch Cream. This is one of the eas­ier recipes, it is like a crème brûlée except it is sweet­ened with demer­ara sugar and brown sugar so it gives a very deep cane sugar molasses flavour. They are then topped with a crunchy hazel­nut pra­line that adds another layer of flavour and tex­ture. Although it can be an optional ele­ment, I strongly rec­om­mend tak­ing the time to make the pra­line because it is like “icing on a cake”. The cus­tard tastes rich and creamy, it is quite the deca­dent dessert!
The recipe below was taken from Grace’s Sweet Life, by Grace Massa Lan­glois. Copy­right © 2012 by Ulysses Press.

Click on a photo to view the gallery of the process:

Ingre­di­ents:

Cus­tard:

(Makes 8 servings)

• 2½ cups (590 ml) heavy cream
• ½ cup (120 ml) whole milk
• 1 vanilla bean, split and seeded
• ¾ cup (150 g) dark brown sugar or mus­co­v­ado sugar
• ¼ tea­spoon salt
• 1/3 cup plus ½ table­spoon (70 g) demer­ara sugar
• ¼ cup (60 ml) water
• 8 large egg yolks
• Prali­nata di Noc­ci­ola (Hazel­nut Pra­line), for garnish
• Sweet­ened Whipped Cream, for gar­nish (optional)

Hazel­nut Praline:

• 1–2/3 cups (250 g) hazel­nuts, toasted, skinned, and cooled (see page 20)
• 1 cup (225 g) superfine sugar
• 2 table­spoons (25 g) glu­cose (see note)
• 1/3 cup (80 ml) water

Method:

Cus­tard:

1. Pre­heat the oven to 300°F (150°C). Line a deep bak­ing dish with a folded kitchen towel. Bring a teaket­tle of water almost to a boil.
2. Mean­while, in a heavy medium saucepan over medium heat, bring the cream, milk, vanilla bean and seeds, brown or mus­co­v­ado sugar, and salt to a boil, stir­ring con­stantly to dis­solve the sugar. Remove from the heat and cover to keep warm.
3. In a heavy large saucepan, sprin­kle the demer­ara sugar over the water in an even layer. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stir­ring con­stantly until the sugar dis­solves. Con­tinue cook­ing, with­out stir­ring, occa­sion­ally swirling the pan over the burner until it turns a light caramel color, 2 to 3 min­utes. Use a pas­try brush dipped in water to wash down any crys­tals that form on the sides of the pan as the sugar cooks. Remove from the heat.
4. Grad­u­ally add the warm cream mix­ture to the caramel (be careful—it will splat­ter and bub­ble up), whisk­ing con­stantly until smooth and well com­bined. (If you can see any clumps of sugar, return to the heat and whisk until the sugar dissolves.)
5. Whisk the egg yolks in a large bowl until pale in color. Grad­u­ally, in a slow, steady stream, add the hot cream mix­ture to the egg yolks, whisk­ing con­stantly until well combined.
6. Using a fine-mesh sieve, strain the mix­ture into an extra-large heat­proof mea­sur­ing cup. Skim off any foam with a spoon. Let stand for 15 min­utes, allow­ing any air bub­bles that may have formed to dissipate.
7. Divide the cus­tard evenly among 8 (4-ounce) oven­proof bak­ing cups. Seal each cup with a piece of tin foil to pre­vent a tough skin from forming.
8. Trans­fer the sealed bak­ing cups to the pre­pared bak­ing dish, spac­ing them a few inches apart (the cups should not touch each other). Open the oven door and pull out the mid­dle rack halfway; trans­fer the bak­ing dish to the rack. Care­fully fill the bak­ing dish with enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the cups. Care­fully push in the oven rack.
9. Bake until the cus­tard is set around edges but jig­gles slightly in the cen­ter when the bak­ing dish is gen­tly shaken, about 40 minutes.
10. Care­fully remove the bak­ing dish from oven. Using tongs, care­fully remove the cus­tard cups from the water bath. Dis­card the foil tops and trans­fer to a wire rack to cool com­pletely. The cus­tard will con­tinue to set as it cools.
11. Once cooled, refrig­er­ate until firm, 2 to 3 hours. Remove from the refrig­er­a­tor, allow the cus­tard to come to room tem­per­a­ture, and serve gar­nished with hazel­nut pra­line and a dol­lop of whipped cream, if using.

Hazel­nut Praline:

1. Line a rimmed bak­ing sheet with parch­ment paper and lightly coat with veg­etable spray, or use a sil­i­cone bak­ing mat. Place an 8-inch ring mold (or the ring of an 8-inch spring­form pan) on the lined bak­ing sheet. Place the hazel­nuts in the mold in a sin­gle layer. Lift the mold up off the bak­ing sheet.
2. In a medium non­stick saucepan over medium heat, bring the sugar, glu­cose, and water to a boil over medium heat, stir­ring until the sugar and glu­cose have dis­solved. Con­tinue to cook the syrup, with­out stir­ring, to a light amber color, about 320°F (160°C), occa­sion­ally swirling the pan over the heat and brush­ing down the sides of pan with a pas­try brush dipped in water.
3. Pour the sugar syrup directly over the hazel­nuts, mak­ing sure all the hazel­nuts are evenly coated. Set aside to cool, allow­ing the pra­line to set, about 1 hour.
4. To process the pra­line into a paste, break the pra­line into small pieces. Trans­fer the pra­line pieces to a food proces­sor and process to a thick smooth paste. (Depend­ing on the size of your food proces­sor you may want to process pra­line in 2 or 3 batches. Be patient through the process because it can take some time to obtain a smooth paste, 5 to 10 min­utes.) Trans­fer the paste to an air­tight con­tainer and refrig­er­ate until ready to use.
5. To process the pra­line into crumbs, break the pra­line into small pieces, trans­fer to a food proces­sor, and pulse to fine or coarse crumbs. Or if you pre­fer, break pra­line into medium pieces and trans­fer to a reseal­able plas­tic bag. Using a rolling pin, crush to fine or coarse crumbs.

Note: I like to use a com­bi­na­tion of glu­cose and superfine sugar because the glu­cose helps pre­vent crys­tal­liza­tion while the sugar cooks, but if you don’t have any on hand, increase the sugar by 2 table­spoons (25 g).

Cook­book Give­away: [Closed]

For a chance to win a copy of Grace’s Sweet Life by Grace Massa Lan­glois, do one OR more of the following:

1. Com­ment on this blog post, stat­ing what your favourite Ital­ian dessert is.
2. Tweet the fol­low­ing on Twit­ter:
   I’ve entered to win an Ital­ian dessert cook­book via @YummyWorkshop
   Details here: http://​yum​my​work​shop​.com/​2​0​1​2​/​0​8​/​1​5​/​b​u​t​t​e​r​s​c​o​t​c​h​-​c​r​e​a​m​-​g​r​a​c​e​s​-​s​w​e​e​t​-​l​i​f​e​-​c​o​o​k​b​o​o​k​-​r​e​v​i​e​w​-​g​i​v​e​a​w​ay/ #giveaway
3. “LIKE” Yummy Workshop’s recipe photo on Face­book AND com­ment on why you want this cookbook.

You may do just one of the above OR all three, it will increase your chances of win­ning. Please do not repeat your com­ment or tweet.
The give­away is open to all Cana­dian and US res­i­dents.
The dead­line to enter is August 31, 2012, 12am PST. A win­ner will be selected ran­domly and will be announced on Sep­tem­ber 3, 2012.

Good Luck!

[UPDATE] Sep­tem­ber 3, 2012
Con­grat­u­la­tions to Kim­berly, who is the lucky win­ner of Grace’s Sweet Life cook­book giveaway!