Filled Nubes de Chocolate

Guest Chef Renny Karnich presented a fun-filled cooking class in my kitchen earlier this month. Her menu included fajitas hot off the griddle, Pico de Gallo, and all the accompaniments. The fajita ingredients were sizzled on a red-hot griddle and stacked to make a steaming volcano. You can see her recipe for fajitas in a previous article.

For anyone not knowing, Boquete is situated high on the side of Volcan Baru, the tallest volcano in Panama, so Renny’s fajita technique is apropos. Then, she used her “volcano” technique in a totally different manner, to make Nubes de Chocolate, or “clouds of chocolate”.

At the end of the class, Renny piled filled cream puffs high on a footed cake plate and dribbled them with hot icing.  It was like another volcano had erupted, spurting hot chocolate all down the sides of the mountain.  Everyone cheered in delight as the chocolate kept flowing. “The more hot chocolate, the better!”, exclaimed Renny.

Here’s how Renny made the cream puffy clouds and put it all together:

Eclairs or Cream Puffs

½ cup water
4 tablespoons butter
½ cup flour
2 eggs, room temperature

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine water and butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add flour and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the dough leaves the sides of the pan and forms a ball. Remove from heat and cool 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time beating hard until the dough is smooth.

Place 12 rounded tablespoons of dough on an ungreased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart and bake 30 minutes or until golden. While still warm, carefully slice the tops off the puffs. Pull out the soft insides and discard them. Cool the puffs, then fill with cream filling and dust with sifted powdered sugar.

Creme Patissiere Filling

1 cup milk
½ cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 egg yolks, beaten
2 teaspoons flavored extract, vanilla, cherry, almond, etc.
OR 2 tablespoons liquor, Abuelo rum, Tia Maria, Curacao, etc.

Heat the milk in a saucepan until hot, not boiling. Whisk the sugar, flour and salt together in a medium bowl, then add the hot milk until well blended. Pour mixture back into the saucepan and continue to stir vigorously over low heat until very thick and smooth. Add the egg yolks and cook for a few more minutes. Cook, stirring from time to time, then add flavoring. You may add color, to make the filling more festive.

Now that you have the cream puffs filled with your favorite flavored filling, stack them on a pedestal cake plate and sprinkle them with slivered almonds. Heat half a container of ready-to-use fudge or double-chocolate icing in the microwave until it is runny, only about 15 seconds. Slowly drizzle the filled puffs (nubes) with hot icing. Wait for the compliments, then serve with a steaming cup of Boquete coffee.

Delightful!
Cora

Boquete’s Coffee Mate – Peach Buckle

With all the fine coffee available in Boquete, it’s popular to invite guests over for “coffee”, which means that you’ll be serving locally-grown, fresh-roasted coffee and coffee cake or something that goes well with coffee.

As I began writing this morning, I couldn’t resist pairing my piping hot, delicious cup of coffee with a fat, tender shortbread cookie purchased from our local Garden Bakery. It seems to me that coffee just calls for a “partner”, or a “mate”, to add to the ritual of coffee drinking.

A “coffee mate” can be anything, fresh fruit, a tiny sandwich, truffle or sweet roll. During the next few months, I’ll give you some ideas of what I like to serve my friends when I host a “coffee”.

The time can be mid-morning or mid-afternoon, and the location will be anywhere in your home that feels cozy. A “coffee” can be held outside in the garden, on a small patio or inside your comfy kitchen, it really doesn’t matter.

A “coffee” usually is short, just long enough to enjoy your freshly-brewed coffee and a warm slice of cake. We have a quick chats about the goings on in Panama or Boquete. The events of the day always make an interesting conversation, whether about a round of golf, a cooking class or an upcoming benefit event.

What might you serve for a “coffee mate” at your next “coffee”? This is one of my favorites, Peach Buckle. It’s easy to make using a Pam-coated 8″ X 8″ pan and one mixing bowl. It’s easy to serve and easy to clean up.

Peach Buckle Coffee Cake

1 cup sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
4 tablespoons butter (1/2 stick)
1 egg, slightly beaten
3/4 cup milk
5 canned peach halves, drained and diced
1 tablespoon sugar, mixed with
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Whisk together the sugar, flour and baking powder. Cut the butter into chunks and rub into the dry mixture, see the flat strips of butter I’m rubbing between my hand and thumb in the photo above.

When the mixture resembles coarse meal, stir in the egg and milk until just blended. Spoon into the pan, top with diced peaches, sprinkle with the sugar-cinnamon mix and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Cut and serve warm.

This wonderful coffee cake will be enjoyed by all your guests. After a cup of rich, freshly-brewed Boquete coffee, your guests will love this “coffee mate” best.
Make it often,
Cora

Murals of Boquete #3

Do you know what was the longest mural in the world?  I knew what is was before looking on Wikipedia, but I checked just to be sure.  Look at the end of this blog and you’ll see if you are correct.  Now, to more murals in Boquete and to one that may be the shortest in the world.

Every day something new happens in Boquete, go into town and you’ll see the action. This week, mural artist Tova Speter visited Boquete only for a few days, but representatives from 7 local “grass-roots” charity organizations got together with her to created the newest mural on the main street of town.

Tova is the young lady closest to the camera.

By the time I arrived to help paint this mural, Tova had the paints all mixed and ready to go. She had the basic layout sketched, and we all got busy creating the lovely mural you see below.

Several local children added their hand prints to the left side of the rainbow. The children loved being involved in the mural, as did their parents and everyone else.

Notice the steaming cup of Boquete’s fine “gourmet” coffee on the bottom right. I’m guessing it’s probably the “Geisha” variety of coffee, the finest, richest coffee in the world.

This mural was completed quickly with lots of help from the entire community, another example of “The Spirit of Sharing” in Boquete.

Now, what was the longest mural ever painted in the world?

The Western side of the Berlin Wall between 1980 and 1989.  Then, it fell.

To see world-famous mural artists and their work, including Michelangelo and Diego Rivera, go to Wikipedia, enter “murals”.   Next in the series of ‘Murals in Boquete”, you’ll see some ceiling murals, really stunningly beautiful.

Murals of Boquete #1

For several years, I lived in Lake Placid, Florida, a town a little smaller than Boquete, Panama, where I now live.  Lake Placid  is as famous for growing beautiful caladiums as Boquete is for growing the world’s finest coffee.  Lake Placid is even more famous for their unique murals displayed on walls throughout the town.

One day it hit me – - -  Boquete displays some of the most beautiful murals I have ever seen, some as lovely as those in Lake Placid or anywhere else in the world.

Murals have become so popular that you can buy them ready-made to install on any wall, inside or outside. 
Modern murals are a means of communication, to show a political view, a business product or just a beautiful scene or piece of artwork.  Styles vary from abstract, like David is painting on the right, or tromp-l’oeil, “trick the eye” styles like the mural at the top, found at the Streit Estate in Potrerillos.

The Sabroson Restaurante displays a mural of their Executive Chef above the door. If you haven’t seen it, please check it out.

Ancient murals show how people lived, like those found in Egyptian tombs that were painted more than 3,000 BC.   A good example of that style is shown on the historic mural in the Bistro Boquete, below.

Children love to paint murals. At the entrance of the Josefa Montero de Vasquez School, near El Constuctor, students painted a mural of Boquete and surrounding mountains, including the school’s mascot on the right edge, the brightly-colored Resplendent Quetzal. Does such an art project promote school spirit and a sense of belonging?

There are so many murals in Boquete, I will need to continue with several articles on this subject. Keep checking this site for information on how murals are painted, and you’ll see some unusual sights in Boquete that many visitors miss.

Boquete could become as famous for its murals as it is for growing the finest coffee in the world!

If you have seen a mural I may not know about, please tell me and I’ll include it in a future blog.