Cooking Week Six: Brazilian

It took me a while to figure out what I was going to do for this week.  The only thing I knew about Brazilian cooking was those giant skewers of meat brought to my table by men  in gauchos and served to me until I am ready to roll home.  After much googling I came across two possibilities- Pastels and Arroz Doce.  My original plan was to make Pastels, however I had a week of hell between battling my insurance to get my prescription, dealing with the vet to figure out what was wrong with my poor pooch, making a retirement cake for work, and general hellishness.  Between all of this I lacked the time to make the Pastels or complete my "elegant" baking challenge.  Instead I whipped up a batch of Arroz Doce (a.k.a rice pudding). 

I used the recipe found here and didn't change a thing.  I tasted a bit of it while warm and its delicious, but as I prefer my rice pudding cold, I'm waiting for it to chill and writing this post while I wait. 

Just so you can see what kept me from making the more complicated Brazilian dish, here's a pic of the cake that I made for my old boss's retirement party.

It's half chocolate and half white (one 9x13 pan of each) filled and covered with a white chocolate buttercream and Duff's buttercream fondant. 

I added one of the old date cards and a library card on the book along with a bookmark down the center.  I think it needed more color.  I should have added a base border in a brown as a cover, made the text closer to black, and made the date card blue instead of white.  Things to learn for next time, and overall it wasn't bad for my first shaped cake and my first fondant experience.  And most important it tasted delicious! 

I'm hoping to complete both challenges for this upcoming week, but I have no idea what to do for "love-inspired" cooking.  Maybe I'll make the boy's favorite dish?