Coffee and Cinnamon

Passport & Plate - Benedita

Brazil | Saturday, March 7, 2015 | 3 photos

Ingredients
1 l whole milk
500g dulce de leche
8 egg whites
8 egg yolks
50g of fine sugar
ground cinnamon as you like
finely grated parmesan cheese
finely grated gruyére cheese

 

How to prepare this recipe
In a large pot, mix dulce de leche and milk until dissolved.
Put this sweet milk to boil and wait.
After mixture boils, turn down the heat and put egg whites in a stand mixer.
Whisk then to add some air to them.
Stop work to add sugar on it.
Whisk everything until they get soft peaks.
Add egg yolks, whisking to put everything together.
Using a large serving spoon, put some batter on top of milk (like you do with dumpling batter) and let it cook.
Do the same to the rest of the batter, until you have no clear space on milk's surface.
Using a skimmer, turn every "egg cloud" to make them cook all sides.
Once it's cooked, take them of (at this time, they'll look like pancakes) and put then side by side in a pyrex bakeware.
When the layer is finished, sprinkle some ground cinnamon (just a little bit) and the grated cheeses (half and half) and continue the process, making more layers (like a Lasagna), adding a pint of cinnamon and some of the mix of grated cheeses.
Finish the top like the layers, cover pyrex using plastic food wrap and put it in the fridge. Better if served the next day.

 

The story behind this recipe
My grandmother had no cookbook. All the recipes were in her mind: the quantities, ingredients, preparation time... Everything!
At the time I was born, she became diabetic. Every year, on my birthday, she asked me how old I was, just to remember how many years passed since she gave up candy. I felt guilty... The disease, however, didn’t affect her love to cook and we continued having access to her amazing culinary skills. Until, due the diabetics, she lost her sight... With vision, she was also losing spell for life. All the things she liked the most in life depended on vision. So, sadly, she gave up on cooking.
In 2010, I decided to travel to the countryside to interview her. I wanted to register her recipes and try to keep them in the Family, maintaining her work alive. She was reluctant, because recipes came filled with stories. And, with them, a lot of memories. But I was persistent and figured out how, among other recipes, she used to make 'Benedita’, my favorite dessert! A sweet treat made by beaten eggs, cooked in ‘dulce de leche' dissolved in milk, it seems to be related to French dessert 'Île flotante' and Portuguese desserts.
While Dona Teresa explained to me how to make this sweet treat, she entered in a kind of trance. She had to imagine that she was cooking to remember recipes. Then, she broke eggs in the air, separated the whites from the yolks, beat the egg whites mixing the yolks after that, turned the beaten eggs after cooking... I regret that I only had a voice recorder, and not a video camera.
Three years later, she passed away. I was far away from home and wasn't able to say goodbye...
To have her voice recorded is a bless to me, a way to have her around, telling me her favorites stories, over and over. Now, I am planning to transform these recorded memories in a book. My favorite dessert’s recipe is still in the Family and with the scent of cinnamon, sweet milk and cheese I can have her around again. The only thing that I have to do is cook!