Sunday, July 12, 2009

Baking ingredient of the month!


...Marsala wine !

In the last couple dessert recipes, I started using a dash of Marsala as flavoring. I don't know what took over me that day, maybe my inner Julia Child is trying to come out :) I tend to add alcohol as flavoring here and there, ususally rum or Grand Marnier (in crepes!). That time I grabbed the unopened Marsala bottle, I was craving for something new. And I loved it ! It adds a subtle nutty flavor to your dessert. It was striking in the cream I used for the strawberry tart. And it definitely brought a new dimension to my "clafouti".

Well, the bottle is 3/4 empty now :)

It got me curious though to learn more about the wine itself. It's commonly used as a wine sauce, e.g. the ubiquitous Chicken Marsala. I found a wiki page on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsala_wine
It's not a big wiki page, but it goes over the history and provides several references for the wine savvy. What I found interesting is the note about its uses in italian desserts, mainly for Tiramisu and zabaglione ! Which reminded me why I bought the bottle in the first place. For a Tiramisu ! Funny how the mind works :)

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