Roundup of entries for Paper Chef #6 - The ricotta, almond paste, white chocolate and strawberry edition

Another bumper crop of entries. We had the usual flurry of issues and slightly late entries, but finally they are all in. The list this time around is simply amazing and includes a remarkable level of creativity! I don't envy David over at A Banana in Australia who has to judge all these! It will take him a couple of days but then check out his site for his pronouncements from the bench. I'll post the link here as soon as I know it.

To recap, this month's randomly chosen ingredients were: ricotta cheese, white chocolate and almond paste and the topical/seasonal ingredient was strawberries - with the usual disclaimers about allergies, inability to get your lazy self out the door to go to the grocery store, living on isolated islands and in places where some things aren't in season all applying.

Without further ado, here are the nominations in no particular order. If I missed someone yell out loud and clear here and to my email owenl1998 at yahoo dot com...


Barbara at You Gonna Eat All That entered a stunning looking Ricotta Cheesecake with white chocolate and strawberries in a graham cracker-marzipan crust.

Lyn of Lex Culinaria entered a white chocolate & ricotta semifreddo and garden fresh strawberries in almond tuille cups and a bonus recipe of baked white chocolate ricotta cakes with almond tuile cookies and fresh sugared strawberries. Bonus points to her for making the ricotta from scratch!

Julie of A Finger In Every Pie created a Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote with Ricotta-White Chocolate Gelato and Scented Madeleines with a separate recipe for each of those yummy-sounding elements.

Alice of My Epicurean Debauchery made a Strawberry Katsu - Alice taught me that a Katsu is a Japanese crusted cutlet and since these are usually savory meat dishes, her switch to a dessert was certainly creative! Alice has entered Paper Chef before and seems to stretch the creativity considerably every time.

Daffy of Kitchen Crazy Daffy (now called Chopsticks? - I'm not sure)- by now our most prolific Paper Chef entrant - who once managed to enter somehow while on a weekend trip to France(!) - also supplied three recipes: Baked strawberry cheesecake with chocolate syrup and Sweet Softies and Strawberry sorbet with cheesy almond cores and chocolate syrup.

Kevin of Seriously Good made us the deceptively simple-sounding Strawberry Cheese, designed to highlight the flavor of the strawberries, accompanied by almond tuiles. His picture looked a lot like Lyn's above but they are very different recipes.

Honore - a brand new entrant - did not have a blog to host his entry of White Chocolate - Fruit and Nut Cheese Blintzes, so I put them up on Tomatilla! for him.

Brenda of Culinary Fool entered Strawberry Ricotta Fool in Almond Florentine Cups. She has some absolutely lovely pictures with her entry of the Florentine cups setting over glasses and punnets of berries lying around. And she designed it to go with the upcoming WBW (Wine Blogging Wednesday) on rose wines.

Another Barbara - of Winos and Foodies in New Zealand - had trouble finding Strawberries (it is Autumn turning to Winter there after all) so she went with jam for her White Chocolate Cupcakes with Ricotta Filling and Strawberry Frosting. She includes a bonus cutaway photo of how it looks inside!

Sarah of The Delicious Life entered White Chocolate Ricotta Cheesecake that looks absolutely delicious. She was then insulted by her (I'm sorry if the truth hurts, but...) absolutely idiotic colleagues at work who dared to mention the (bleh!) Cheesecake Factory in the same breath as this delightful confection.

Even though Chopper Dave and Mrs. Deedop of Belly-Timber going through some tough times right now, they somehow managed to take up the gauntlet of using the four ingredients to make a non-dessert. Not once, but twice. And they did a dessert too. And Chopper Dave included a recipe that used the ingredient he nominated that did not get selected as well - quinoa. I'm not just impressed - I'm intimidated. The full list of recipes is: Quinoa Crusted Prawns with Mole Fresa, Duck Leg Confit with savory Strawberry Compote and Strawberry & Red Wine Granita.

UPDATE: Noticed Viv at Seattle Bon Vivant's entry: it is somewhat deconstructionist, but lovely just the same: Fresh strawberries garnished with grated white chocolate (South African Cadbury's Dream)along with, the freshest Amandine, purchased early this morning at Le Panier at the Market, an Almondy and moist Friand, also from Le Panier and finally, in lieu of Ricotta, a serving of very tangy, creamy and thick homemade yogurt.


I think that's it - If I missed anyone (for example if you contacted David at A Banana in Asia directly) then let me know and I'll add you.