One-Wall Kitchen

Daring Bakers, January: Scones

2012-01-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

Audax Artifex was our January 2012 Daring Bakers’ host. Aud worked tirelessly to master light and fluffy scones (a/k/a biscuits) to help us create delicious and perfect batches in our own kitchens!I followed this month’s recipe plainly and simply and came away with some deliciously plain and simple biscuits! They came together quickly and with ingredients that were readily available.

Oh my, yes they were yummy. You can find the delicious recipe on Audax's blog here.

The biscuits were so flat when I first stamped them out that I was afraid they’d remain flat pucks, but rise they did!

I made just a half batch so we could have enough to make sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast biscuits. Oh my, yes they were yummy, but I think they already said that.

This recipe is definitely a keeper, and I can't wait to try making it again! If only my daily diet allowed for more biscuits, I could easily see myself making these regularly! As it is, once or twice a month will suffice, and I'll be glad for them every time.Check out my fellow DBers’ scones/biscuits/etc. through our blogroll.

Daring Bakers, December: Russian Rye Bread

2011-12-26T00:00:00.000-08:00

Our Daring Bakers Host for December 2011 was Jessica of My Recipe Project and she showed us how fun it is to create Sour Dough bread in our own kitchens! She provided us with Sour Dough recipes from Bread Matters by AndrewWhitley as well as delicious recipes to use our Sour Dough bread in from Tonia George’s Things on Toast and Canteen’s Great British Food!I have experience with regular sourdough, but I love rye and have been wanting to try it out, especially because it's a whole grain food.

I went for the humble sourdough rye loaf.

It had pretty nice innards!

We ate most of the loaf with butter and honey!

And of course, the best way to eat rye: with corned beef!

Here's the starter at the end of day 1, just after the first feeding. I was a little skeptical because of our cold house.

Despite the cold house, the starter did grow after nightly feedings and occasional stints on a warm burner throughout the day. Basically, I'd heat one of the burners on our flattop stove, turned it off, then set the starter's bowl on it. It would remain foamy and yeasty-fruity smelling during the 5-day feeding process.

I added a little extra flour to give the dough some body, but it was still pretty liquid.

For the most part, it was a pourable batter as opposed to a kneadable dough, but I knew the dough would
be wet, so I just let it go.

Even though it was cold in the house, left in a sunny window for about 8 hours, it did poof up in its proofing bag.

It proofed to fill the loaf pan to the top.

Check out my fellow DBers' posts through our blogroll!

Daring Bakers, November: Filipino Desserts

2011-11-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

Catherine of Munchie Musings was our November Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make a traditional Filipino dessert – the delicious Sans Rival cake! And for those of us who wanted to try an additional Filipino dessert, Catherine also gave us a bonus recipe for Bibingka which comes from her friend Jun of Jun-blog.

I was looking forward to trying the Sans Rival cake for the first time, since I grew up eating bibingka in my Filipino household, but it's been such a busy month that the supplemental project became my primary project and I just made some simple yet delicious bibingka. Instead of making and using salted duck egg, I left the cakes empty and topped them with brown sugar and coconut for a simplified version.

Bare babingka, fresh out of the oven and before I lacquered them with butter.

A plain babingka--well, plain with a ton of butter melted into it.

Simple brown sugar.

Coconut, and with its skirt down (with butter, bare, skirt down--who knew babingka could be so naughty?!).

Such a beautiful golden color!

Moist, luscious innards. So very good . . . though still naughty!

And if you have two, the wrappers really start to flower up. =)

Check out my fellow DBers, most of who made the Sans Rival, by heading to our blogroll

Daring Bakers, October: Polvitica

2011-10-27T08:55:00.000-07:00

The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!

Mysterious. Is it a giant cinnamon bun? A weird bread log? What?

And what’s busting out of the thin pastry shell?

I have to admit, it’s not the most appetizing-looking thing I’ve ever made. At least, not from the outside.

I didn’t think I’d get my polvitica made because October was so busy, and I was spending the last week before the challenge deadline out of town on vacation. A couple of days before I left, though, I was able to put it together after work—it came together quickly and easily. The full recipe was enough to make four loaves, but I really don’t need four loaves of dessert bread sitting around, so I used the single-loaf recipe that the fabulous Audax Artifex computed for us and gave a hunk of the loaf to our friend who’d be watching our cat and house while we were gone.

To be honest, the dough may have been a little easier to work with if I’d been a little more conservative with the flour. I kneaded flour in until it was soft, smooth, and not tacky to the touch, as I do with Danish dough. After I’d made the polvitica dough (of course it’s always after the fact), I read that it’s preferable to get the dough at a tacky (but not sticky) point, although some of the DBers stopped at the sticky.

It reminded me of one of my favorite things to bake—Danish! Just like with Danish, though, it took some mental prep to get ready to work the dough the way it needed to be, rolling, stretching, and pulling it into a fantastically thin pastry. It wasn’t as challenging as the stiff dough we turned into baklava, but it was harder than the luxuriously soft and supple Danish recipes I’ve used in the past. Luckily, it didn’t have to be stretched as large as my dining room table the way Danish dough does.

The recipe called for walnuts, but I didn’t have enough, so I added almonds to the mix. It was delicious! A lot of people compared it to bread pudding, and while I didn’t find that super moist and custardy combination I identify with bread pudding, it was tender and moist.

This beautiful recipe is a keeper for special occasions.

NOTES:

The dough rolled out as far as I comfortably could. Time to start stretching!

Use the backs of your hands to stretch the dough out; fingers might tear through. I tore it, anyway, but it would’ve been worse with fingers, I tell you!

And more knuckles!

And some knuckling over here for good measure.

Thin enough to see the Corelle!

Holey heck. Luckily, the holes don’t matter because they’ll be rolled up into the polvitica, and the only people who’ll ever know they were ever there are the people who’ll read this post. Yey!

Tuck and roll—you want to make sure there aren’t any big air bubbles inside the roll because they’ll expand during baking and produce a gap-toothed polvitica.

All rolled up and no place to go.

You don’t have to just swirl the roll around in the pan like this. You can cut the length to fit and stack it into the pan.

Nut sausage? Ha, now I regret having written those two words together. *shudder* It's not the worst of the hilarious-but-unattractive thoughts that came through my head while making this, but I'm ridiculously immature some days. ;D

You can check out my fellow DBers’ polviticas by visiting our blogroll and clicking on the thousands of links to thousands of beautiful blogs!

Daring Bakers, September: Croissants

2011-09-26T23:21:00.000-07:00

The Daring Bakers go retro this month! Thanks to one of our very talented non-blogging members, Sarah, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Croissants using a recipe from the Queen of French Cooking, none other than Julia Child!

Thanks to the rare combination of an early bust of ambition and a 3-day weekend at the very beginning of the month, I charged right into this recipe! And therefore missed the corrected version of the recipe in which the original 3 and a quarter cups of flour was changed to the correct amount of 1 and three-quarter cups of flour. That said, my croissants look a bit anemic. Or I guess I could be kind and call them "fit and trim." Which is what I want to be some day when I grow up, which is why I didn’t want to remake the recipe again to make an entirely new batch of croissants in the house. So!

I will say that this is an instance where I should’ve trusted my instincts. The first cooking class I ever took was on laminated dough—puff pastry—and it included croissants. Since then, I’ve made all sorts of puff pastry, so I should’ve known when the initial dough came out stiff and shaggy instead of soft and pliable that something was amiss.

I like to give recipes a chance, though, instead of dismissing them right off the bat, so I soldiered on and carried the recipe through.

Although the resulting croissants were more like crescent rolls than croissants, they still had really good flavor, even if the texture wasn’t what I’d hoped. This recipe’s mechanics were pretty much the same.

This recipe had me pounding out the butter on a cutting board while it was still cold to keep it cold, but make it spreadable. Usually, I spread softened butter onto parchment into the size and shape I need, fold the parchment over it to protect it while it’s chilling, then, when I need it, I take the butter block out and put it out onto my rolled-out dough, then encase it as this recipe directs.

I’ve almost always had an oozing butter problem, no matter how cold I’ve kept the butter, and it would come out just like toothpaste.
This was especially problematic with this dough, which was so stiff that I had to use my fist to manhandle it to form it into the starting rectangle.

On warm days, I’ve had to chill the dough in the fridge after each fold, but a smoosh of butter still usually manages to come out somewhere, usually around the ends. When that happens, I just dust out some flour over the oozing butter to at least keep my rolling pin a little tidier and to sort of "mat up" the butter a bit.

Any butter that does ooze, out, I just spread it back onto the dough and fold it in with the next fold. After about a handful of folds, the butter’s distributed throughout so thinly that there isn’t enough to ooze.

After folding and rolling several times so that you get a billion delicious alternating layers of dough and butter, you roll the dough out one last time and slice it into rectangles.

I learned that rolling and pulling the triangles out a bit will help the croissants keep their form and come together tightly (although that didn't quite work with the stiff dough, so each layer's still pretty separate).

Another hint that something was wrong with this dough was how difficult a time it had with each rise. usually, these risen croissants would've been three times the size, but they barely went anywhere.

I was hoping for giant air pockets, which signify an airy, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth crumb that lingered beneath the croissants crust. We ended up with some tasty snacky crescent rolls that went well with our smoked pork loin and garden-fresh zucchini, instead. ;)

Hey, I'll take it! Try the recipe with the corrected amount of flour, and you'll probably end up with an awesome croissant. Because this month's hostess isn't a blogger, I can't direct you to her blog where the recipe will be posted. While I don't typically post copyrighted material in my blog, I'll do so here, for you baking pleasure.

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Note: The most difficult part of making croissants is that they take a veeeeery long time. About 12 hours total, with resting and rising periods. However, at certain points you can leave it overnight. I have done the recipe twice – once over three days, and once in 12 hours. Both worked out well.

Mandatory Items: You must make a batch of croissants according to the recipe below.

Variations allowed: I highly recommend trying the originals at least once, but you are free to be as creative as you want. Chocolate and almond croissants are popular . . . . let your imagination run wild!

Preparation time: In total, 12 hours.
Making dough, 10 mins
First rise, 3 hours
Kneading and folding, 5 mins
Second rise, 1.5 hours (or overnight in the fridge)
Rolling in the butter (turns one and two), 15 mins
First rest, 2 hours
Turns three and four, 10 mins
Second rest, 2 hours (or overnight in the fridge)
Forming croissants, 30 mins
Final rise, 1 hour (or longer in the fridge)
Baking, 15 mins

Equipment required:
• Measuring cups
• Measuring spoons
• Mixing bowls of numerous sizes
• Rubber spatula
• Plastic bag
• Pastry scraper
• Counter space or board for rolling and kneading
• Rolling pin
• Plastic wrap
• Baking tray
Croissants

Servings: 12 croissants

Note from Lis: Sarah took so many gorgeous and helpful step-by-step photos for this challenge, that I found the best way to display them is at the bottom of the recipe. Each photo is notated with what you are looking at. Smile

Ingredients
¼ oz (7 gm) of fresh yeast, or 1¼ teaspoon (6¼ ml/4 gm) of dry-active yeast (about ½ sachet)
3 tablespoons (45 ml) warm water (less than 100°F/38°C)
1 teaspoon (5 ml/4½ gm) sugar
1 3/4 cups (225 gm/½ lb) of strong plain flour (I used Polish all-purpose flour, which is 13% protein)
2 teaspoons (10 ml/9 gm) sugar
1½ teaspoon (7½ ml/9 gm) salt
½ cup (120 ml/¼ pint) milk (I am not sure if the fat content matters. I used 2%)
2 tablespoons (30 ml) tasteless oil (I used generic vegetable oil)
½ cup (120 ml/1 stick/115 gm/¼ lb) chilled, unsalted butter
1 egg, for egg wash

Directions:

1. Mix the yeast, warm water, and first teaspoon of sugar in a small bowl. Leave aside for the yeast and sugar to dissolve and the yeast to foam up a little.
2. Measure out the other ingredients
3. Heat the milk until tepid (either in the microwave or a saucepan), and dissolve in the salt and remaining sugar
4. Place the flour in a large bowl.
5. Add the oil, yeast mixture, and milk mixture to the flour
6. Mix all the ingredients together using the rubber spatula, just until all the flour is incorporated
7. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and let it rest a minute while you wash out the bowl
8. Knead the dough eight to ten times only. The best way is as Julia Child does it in the video (see below). It’s a little difficult to explain, but essentially involves smacking the dough on the counter (lots of fun if you are mad at someone) and removing it from the counter using the pastry scraper.
9. Place the dough back in the bowl, and place the bowl in the plastic bag
10. Leave the bowl at approximately 75°F/24°C for three hours, or until the dough has tripled in size.
11. After the dough has tripled in size, remove it gently from the bowl, pulling it away from the sides of the bowl with your fingertips.
12. Place the dough on a lightly floured board or countertop, and use your hands to press it out into a rectangle about 8 by 12 inches (20cm by 30cm).
13. Fold the dough rectangle in three, like a letter (fold the top third down, and then the bottom third up)
14. Place the dough letter back in the bowl, and the bowl back in the plastic bag.
15. Leave the dough to rise for another 1.5 hours, or until it has doubled in size. This second rise can be done overnight in the fridge
16. Place the double-risen dough onto a plate and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Place the plate in the fridge while you prepare the butter.
17. Once the dough has doubled, it’s time to incorporate the butter
18. Place the block of chilled butter on a chopping board.
19. Using the rolling pin, beat the butter down a little, till it is quite flat.
20. Use the heel of your hand to continue to spread the butter until it is smooth. You want the butter to stay cool, but spread easily.
21. Remove the dough from the fridge and place it on a lightly floured board or counter. Let it rest for a minute or two.
22. Spread the dough using your hands into a rectangle about 14 by 8 inches (35 cm by 20 cm).
23. Remove the butter from the board, and place it on the top half of the dough rectangle
24. Spread the butter all across the top two-thirds of the dough rectangle, but keep it ¼ inch (6 mm) across from all the edges.
25. Fold the top third of the dough down, and the bottom third of the dough up.
26. Turn the dough package 90 degrees, so that the top flap is to your right (like a book).
27. Roll out the dough package (gently, so you don’t push the butter out of the dough) until it is again about 14 by 8 inches (35 cm by 20 cm).
28. Again, fold the top third down and the bottom third up.
29. Wrap the dough package in plastic wrap, and place it in the fridge for 2 hours. 30. After two hours have passed, take the dough out of the fridge and place it again on the lightly floured board or counter.
31. Tap the dough with the rolling pin, to deflate it a little
32. Let the dough rest for 8 to 10 minutes
33. Roll the dough package out till it is 14 by 8 inches (35 cm by 20 cm).
34. Fold in three, as before
35. Turn 90 degrees, and roll out again to 14 by 8 inches (35 cm by 20 cm).
36. Fold in three for the last time, wrap in plastic, and return the dough package to the fridge for two more hours (or overnight, with something heavy on top to stop it from rising)
37. It’s now time to cut the dough and shape the croissants
38. First, lightly butter your baking sheet so that it is ready
39. Take the dough out of the fridge and let it rest for ten minutes on te lightly floured board or counter
40. Roll the dough out into a 20 by 5 inch rectangle (51 cm by 12½ cm).
41. Cut the dough into two rectangles (each 10 by 5 inches (25½ cm by 12½ cm)) (Photo 24)
42. Place one of the rectangles in the fridge, to keep the butter cold
43. Roll the second rectangle out until it is 15 by 5 inches (38 cm by 12½ cm).
44. Cut the rectangle into three squares (each 5 by 5 inches (12½ cm by 12½ cm))
45. Place two of the squares in the fridge
46. The remaining square may have shrunk up a little bit in the meantime. Roll it out again till it is nearly square
47. Cut the square diagonally into two triangles.
48. Stretch the triangle out a little, so it is not a right-angle triangle, but more of an isosceles.
49. Starting at the wide end, roll the triangle up towards the point, and curve into a crescent shape.
50. Place the unbaked croissant on the baking sheet
51. Repeat the process with the remaining squares of dough, creating 12 croissants in total.
52. Leave the tray of croissants, covered lightly with plastic wrap, to rise for 1 hour
53. Preheat the oven to very hot 475°F/240°C/gas mark 9.
54. Mix the egg with a teaspoon of water
55. Spread the egg wash across the tops of the croissants.
56. Put the croissants in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes, until the tops are browned nicely
57. Take the croissants out of the oven, and place them on a rack to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Storage & Freezing Instructions/Tips:
Croissants are best eaten the day they are made. They will survive till the next day in a sealed container. If they seem a little stale, they can be quickly re-freshed by warming them in the oven.(((Julie's Notes: Croissants, like most baked goods, do fine frozen and then reheated in the oven or even zapped in the microwave for 30 to 60 seconds. You could also freeze your dough before you roll it out for the final time and form it into croissants.)))

Additional Information:

Check out this video of Julia Child making her own croissants (note that the recipe she follows here is a little different from the one in the book, but it’s still fun and helpful to watch) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfygewLUAmo&feature=related

More on Julia’s croissants with gorgeous photos http://www.mamaliga.com/desserts/croissants-a-la-julia-child

Here is a recipe for vegan croissants – it looks like you can just substitute margarine and soy milk http://zeats.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/vegan-croissantspain-au-chocolat/
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Check out my fellow DBers' croissants through our blogroll!

Mikey's Pie

2011-09-03T00:57:00.001-07:00

This post has been sitting in my blogger queue as a draft for a full month now, so today, I decided to finish getit and it.

A tribute to Mikey Perillo, and to Hun as we get ready to celebrate our 5th Anniversary next month.

If there's anything bad about being in love, having found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, it's the thought, even if it's just a glimpse of it, that you might one day have to be without that person. That hits me like a terror some days, at random times, like when I'm driving down the road in my car or out in the garden pulling weeds. Those are thoughts and feelings I actually let myself live in for a moment, like the necessary contrast that reminds people that without evil, maybe there's no good. After I pull myself out of these moments, I remember that the world is beautiful, full of great things, thrumming with possibility, and Hun makes me the luckiest woman on Earth. He gives all the good things high-fidelity, 3D realism in IMAX proportions. I've never been in love like this, can't imagine love being better (and don't have to), and want it to last for as long as I can. And that's where we are today.

This was Thanksgiving 2010 when we went to California to visit my parents. I'm happy and relieved to say that we've both lost weight and gotten healthier since then.

Like a lot of my fellow food bloggers, I've enjoyed Jennie Perillo's food blog for awhile. She’s always brought her family into the blog, writing about what her daughters love and what her husband would cook. She’s always been a consistent and prolific blogger, so it was easy to feel like you knew her and her family. That's why hundreds, probably thousands of us were heartbroken when her husband, Mikey, died suddenly of a heart attack. She wrote about it after it happened.

"As I spend Friday reflecting on the love and life that was gone in an instant, I'd like to invite all of you to celebrate his life too. Mikey loved peanut butter cream pie. I haven't made it in a while, and I've had it on my to-do list for a while now. I kept telling myself I would make it for him tomorrow. Time has suddenly stood still, though, and I'm waiting to wake up and learn to live a new kind of normal. For those asking what they can do to help my healing process, make a peanut butter pie this Friday and share it with someone you love. Then hug them like there's no tomorrow because today is the only guarantee we can count on."

So I went home and made what’s also my favorite pie—peanut butter and chocolate—using the ingredients on hand to make it sugar-free and low-fat so that my diabetic, hypertensive Love of my Life and I could share it the way we share everything, the best and the worst of them.

I have to admit--a lot of it's a cheat, semi-homemade in Sandra Lee style. A quick, easy roll-out crust--just use your favorite shortcrust pastry dough and blind bake it. Sugar-free, nonfat chocolate insta-pie custard with peanut butter melted and whisked in, topped with more sugar-free, nonfat white chocolate pudding. We keep that stuff in the cupboard so that Hun, who has a wicked sweet tooth, always has a treat available. It made for a good pie, and a great and beautiful memory.

Jennie's continued to blog about her grieving process, and as painful as it is to read at times, it's also a poignant reminder, maybe even a warning, to live both your life and your love to their fullest while you still have the chance.

Daring Bakers, August: Candylicious!

2011-08-27T00:14:00.000-07:00

This month’s Daring Bakers Challenge was a lot of fun, but they always are!

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

I love working with chocolate and am glad I got to work with it somewhat extensively in my advanced pastry arts class during cooking school. You can see photos and read my writeup about those projects here and here.

But for now, for this challenge, I made horchata chocolate using white chocolate as a base and chocolate malt ganache that I used for both rolled truffles dusted with malt powder and as a filling for molded chocolates.

Here's a bunch of eye candy. HA! Get it? Eye candy? Nevermind . . .

All in all, I loved how these chocolates came out--they tasted great, looked fine, and I had fun making them!

Notes:
I used Ghirardelli semisweet for the filled choclates' shell, Ghirardelli white bars (not chips--they have funky additives to keep them chip-shaped through the baking process), and Callebaut dark for the ganache.

I could go on for a long time about chocolate because it's something I was taught to work with and that I later read up a lot on on my own just because everything about chocolate is so fascinating to me. I wanted to keep these notes pertinent to this challenge, though.

Sometimes I get lazy and just do a lazy chop of chocolate before melting it, but chopping it into teeny bits really is the best way to go for fast, uniform, efficient melting. I use my bread knife because serrated edges make such quick work of it, while flat blades just get embedded and mucked up. Working with chocolate is one of the many times I'm thankful for my flexible plastic cutting mats because I can just curve it into a slide or funnel and zip the choco pieces into my bowl (aka, the top of my double boiler).

Finely chopping white chocolate is especially important because it's such finicky stuff--it burns if you stare at it too hard, and when it gets too hot, it seizes up into a stubborn mass and then turns into a dry wad. Gross. I just bring my water (aka the 1" of water in my pot, aka the bottom of my double boiler) to a steady simmer, then gently stir my chocolate, spreading it out across the bottom of the bowl so it makes as much surface contact with the hot glass as possible, melting quickly and evenly. When I'm dealing with just a tiny bit of white chocolate, like for piping decorations, I'll melt it slowly in the microwave at about 25% power, but I keep an eye on it so it doesn't go supernova and blow my house up. Or just get black and burny.

I spoon dollops into my $1.50 candy mold (available at your nearest craft store!) instead of ladling chocolate over the entire dealie bob. The mess will come in due time, but it's easier for me to work in this initial stage if I stay tidy til the bitter end.

A hard tap or three on the counter settles the chocolate into the mold. Don't be timid, but don't crazy go nuts--it's like burping the baby, and that's the other reason for the taps--to get the air bubbles out of the mold.

Here's the messy part--scraping the top of the mold to remove the excess chocolate. If you don't, the chocolate will probably ooze and create a "foot," and that's only cute when you're talking about macarons. Or muffin tops (but only on muffins). I use my metal bench scraper for this task because plastic ones bow a bit, and I risk either gouging up air pockets and ruining the finish (of the bottom of the chocolate that people will not likely see, I know, I know), or leave a hump of chocolate at the top (see muffin top tip above). When you scrape the craft store molds, you might trip on the staple holes--that's why it's worth taking the half a second to trim those suckers down with some cuticle scissors or some other precision snipping tool (good luck if you use scissors!).

Last but not least, I check the bottom of the tray to make sure there aren't any air bubbles. If there are, I use a toothpick to shove chocolate into them. Then, it's into the fridge to set. These took less than an hour.

Here, I'm tempering the bittersweet chocolate to line my cup mold. I use the seeding method where I melt 2/3 of the finely chopped chocolate in the double boiler, then take it off the heat and add the remaining finely chopped third and stir it in to cool the melted chocolate down. I recommend you use a thermometer for this. I don't because I had to do it so many times in pastry class that I can tell by sight and feel if the chocolate is ready. Once the seeded chocolate is melted, I walk away and let the whole bit cool to room temperature (or stir gently to cool it a bit more quickly), then reheat it to pouring/dipping heat, which is body temperature, which means if you touch the chocolate, it shouldn't feel hot or cold. I'm not kidding--this is how I temper my chocolate. So if you had bum luck and your chocolate bloomed or never shined up because your temperatures were off, please don't hate me--I swear, it comes with practice. Just like parallel parking! Once it hits that magic temperature, it's ready for use.

To line molds, like for bonbons or cups, I either use a paint brush and brush several coats up the sides of the shape, or I pour enough to coat, turn the whole thing upside down over a baking sheet, and give it a firm tap or three to knock out as much excess chocolate as possible. If it's too thin, you risk breaking your coating while removing it from the mold. If it's too thick, you have no room for filling, and that's sad. Especially if it's peanut butter. =( Set the mold in the fridge to set for about 15 minutes.

Then I filled the shell with some blessedly simple ganache flavored with malt powder. My ganache (aka truffle goo) is pretty simple. By weight, I use 1 part boiling cream to 2 parts chocolate. I use a splash more as the cocoa content rises. Unless I'm using a flavor that needs to steep in the cream, like vanilla beans (not extracts--don't ever steep extracts because they lose potency in the direct heat) or teas/heat-activated spices, then I mix my add-ins/flavoring into the prepared ganache. For the filled chocolates, I poured the cooled (but not stiff) ganache into the shells, then set it in the fridge for about an hour to set. The remainder of the ganache I left in the bowl and threw the whole thing in the fridge to firm up so I could scoop them into portions with a melon baller, let those shapes set in the fridge for a bit, roll them into rounder balls by hand (if desired), and coat them with malt powder.

My first tray of stars had some "feet," so I made quick work of them with my utility knife.

Yay! Shiny, and the dark chocolate shell had a beautiful snap to it--those are the points of tempering chocolate--shine and snap!

I stored my chocolates in the fridge, uncovered. In theory, you don't want to do that, since you risk blooming the chocolate in cool weather, but I had a greater risk of blooming the chocolate in the heatwave of my house/kitchen/world, and it held up just fine in the fridge with no bloom and no condensation (fridges are actually pretty reliable dehydrators unless you put something in an enclosed container (e.g., a sealed produce bag), in which case, it's sweat city. All the chocolates I serve at room temperature, though I sometimes just leave the white chocolate in because it gets a bit slippy around 80 degrees, which is a bummer since that's just a couple degrees up from our house temp. Ah well.

Check out the fantastic candy my fellow DBers made this month by stalking them through our blogroll.

Daring Bakers, July: Fresh Fraisiers

2011-07-27T01:08:00.000-07:00

Hooray—July’s Daring Bakers challenges have always been perfect to serve at my annual birthday potluck!

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

The sponge. I leveled and froze it for a week in plastic and foil so it would be ready to go when I needed it. Sponge doesn't freeze solid, so make sure it's protected in the freezer so it isn't dinged and dented. I just had to unwrap it, thaw it, layer it, and set it back into the spring form.

Instead of using the spring form bottom, I built the cake on the plate I wanted to serve from, and wrapped the spring form around the bottom cake layer on the plate.

I set the strawberries, mortared them in with the pastry cream, layered the rest of the chopped strawberries into the cream, piled in the last of the cream, then set the top cake layer on. After that, I rolled out the almond paste disc and topped the whole cake.

I'd intended to do some pipe work on the almond paste do decorate the cake, but I just didn't have the time. I had no complaints, though--it's sort of a self-decorating cake, after all! (photo by Ed/Lexi)

I was worried the strawberries and filling would squoosh out when I sliced the cake, but it didn't happen--it stayed true and firm! (photo by Ed/Lexi)

There were no leftovers. This was definitely one of the best-tasting cakes I've ever made, and I'm happy to have it in my repertoire! (photo by Ed/Lexi)

Thanks to my bro Ed and my niece Lexi for taking photos of the cake during my bday potluck!

Check out my fellow DBers' fraisiers through our blogroll!

Pre-B-Q Practice Smoke

2011-07-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

Spoiler: I failed! Sort of. Ultimately, no, but still, sort of. It was definitely a learning experience--the kind that holds more "learning" than "well, that just sucked--let's see if I can fine a silver lining and keep a cheery attitude about it." I prefer the former kind--learning is good!

Ribs. Both my cameras were dead when I tried to take photos, so we used our camera phones—thus, the questionable photo quality of all these photos.

Gearing up for my annual birthday potluck, I’m putting together my menu. Ever since I got my smoker (Smokey), I’ve been daydreaming of what to light up next. On all the sites I’ve read to research smoking techniques and recipes, everyone’s been silly-happy over any and all success they’d pull off with pulled pork. Apparently, aside from the epic amount of time required to smoke a hunk of pork that often hits the double-digit weight range, pulled pork is to smoking what radishes are to veggie gardening—easy, a good way to test the soil, and tasty (if you didn’t know that about radishes/veggie gardening, then it’s because I’ve spent more time writing about desserts and smoking than I have about my little veggie garden).

Anyway, on every smoke and Q blog/site I’ve read, writers have championed pulled pork as a cheap, easy, and tasty way to feed a lot of people. The problem is I’ve never had a pulled pork sandwich I’ve liked. I’ve had maybe a handful in my entire life, and all I’ve come away with was dry, shredded meat and overpoweringly vinegary sauce in a messy sandwich. Sometimes the slaw would save it, but it rarely added anything to it. The only reason I decided to try my own was because the local market had pork butts for half-price. Aside from producing something edible on the enjoyable scale, I was also worried about the sheer time it takes to smoke up a roast. Most blogs say most pork roasts take about 1.5 hours per pound to cook, but to allow 2 hours per pound. One of my favorite blogs talked about how daunting it was to get and stay up in the middle of the night to check in on the pork every hour. Others talked about having remote thermometers, which use probes you can leave in the smokers and will beep the receiver if your smoker goes below the desired temperature. During long smokers, people would take their receivers to bed with them and set them next to their head while they slept so they could get out of bed and tend to any problems. I didn’t want to do that. I’m grumpy enough when my sleep is interrupted—I really don’t want to take that grump outside so I could stoke coals or light a chimney starter and sit around for 20 minutes while my coals light up, and then go to bed covered in a fine layer of soot.

My solution was to hack one of my 8-lb butts into pieces. I dug around online and found that a few people had asked about hacking roasts into smaller chunks. One of my favorite sites (www.amazingribs.com) recommends hacking an 8-lb roast in two. Arguments against this say your meat would dry out too quickly because of all the extra surface area and/or you’d end up with too much bark. Apparently, though, the bark on pork roasts is one of the best parts (some say THE best part) of pulled pork (I wouldn’t know—none of my pulled sammiches never came with this exquisite bark). I decided it was worth trying and testing out before my birthday.

I hacked one of the roasts into three pieces—two 1.5-lb hunks and one 4-lb hunk (this one’s heavier because it has the bone). I threw them all in the freezer, and for my test smoke, I pulled a 1.5-lb hunk out 4 days early to let it thaw in the fridge. I wanted it completely thawed by the night before smoking so I could brine and rub it down. Because I’ve read so many stories about roasts falling to pieces while being lifted out of smokers, I tied it up, even though it was wee.

Then, the rub. I rubbed first, using Meathead’s Memphis Rub from his crazy-useful amazingribs.com. That recipe is at http://www.amazingribs.com/recipes/rubs_pastes_marinades_and_brines/meatheads_memphis_dust.html . Then I wrapped the little roast up in plastic and injected the brine, punching the needle right through the plastic. Some folks say brining’s a waste since the pork is juicy enough to not need it, and at worse, you end up with pork that tastes more like the brine than the pork—or at least takes in too much interference from the brine. Alton Brown is a briner, and I’m an AB devotee, but his brine uses molasses, and I didn’t want to. Joshua Bousel, who does meatwave.com, documents a conversation he had with Chris Lilly of the much-acclaimed Big Bob Gibson’s. Lilly gave up a lot of secrets, including his simple brine recipe, and I used that. You can find it http://www.meatwave.com/blog/barbecue-recipe-big-bob-gibsons-championship-pork-shoulder

Note: Check your local big grocery store for flavor injectors instead of thinking you have to trek to Williams-Sonoma to buy one. Save yourself $15. I wish I had! ;)

Before I go on, I should add that I decided to make an already buzzy event (buzzy as in excited and edgy and anxious) a little more horrendous by also smoking ribs and chicken with the roast. Here’s what I figured for smoking times:

Baby back ribs: 5-6 hours til tender
1.5-lb roast: 3-4 hours to 190 degrees
Bone-in chicken thighs: 1.5-2 hours to 165 degrees

I’d tentatively thought about getting everything cooked for lunch, but because it was a holiday, I slept in until 9:30 and didn’t light my chimney start until 10:30 or so. Smokey was rolling by 11, and . . . it took almost 2 stinkin’ hours for the temperature to get below 250 after it peaked at 325. It was almost 1 by the time I threw my ribs in. NOTES: Temps climbed over 110 that day, I’d used warm water in the water pan instead of starting with cold, and I was smoking on the concrete in my car cubby. I also may have lit too much charcoal to start. I was using the Minion Method (http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/fireup2.html), but directions for that method are almost always geared toward the Weber Smokey Mountain, which is a bigger smoker than mine. I needed to light fewer lumps. Still, I hit about 230 when I put my ribs in, and it stayed there for the next 2.5 hours until I opened it up to put my butt chunk in. At which, point, my temperature promptly plummeted to 200. Not good, especially if you want to bring the meat temp to 190 sometime before midnight. I took Smokey’s body off the charcoal pan, gave it a stir, and tossed more charcoal in, and from that point on, it was a bit of a juggle. Moving cloud cover, intermittent cool wind, and a highly unfortunate ability to introduce oxygen to my coals without taking the smoker body off the charcoal pan. Honestly, I think it would’ve been all right if I’d done my charcoal better, and this is where experience really pays off when you’re smoking, especially multiple hunks/types of meat. Because things REALLY went to heck when I threw a dozen chicken thighs onto the top grill rack, and Smokey got sulky and just wanted to sit at 200 for the rest of the afternoon.

So, for next time, NOTES: settle the charcoal into the pan better. I used hardwood lump, so I need to give the pan a shake to make sure I’m fitting as much charcoal as I can into the pan if I expect to be able to pull off the Minion Method and not have to add more charcoal. I really shouldn’t have to during such a short smoke time, but I did have to add more charcoal as we went on. I also need to make sure I distribute the lit charcoal better—when we took the body off, I saw that there was charcoal left, but it was unlit, and some areas didn’t have any lit charcoal at all. If I’d had (1) more charcoal (2) that was lit, I don’t think I would’ve had any problems.

In the end, everything did get smoke. I made sure to keep it smoking during the ribs’ first hour, then added wood each time I introduced a new meat. I couldn’t finish the pork butt and chicken in the smoker, though. It was 7:30 by the time I preheat the oven to 225. During that last hour, I was really fretting over the ribs, because I was sure they were done. Trouble was, on the bottom rack, under the chicken, they were hard to see and test, impossible to get to, because moving the rack with the chicken on it would’ve been a pain (in retrospect, not so much because I do have Grill Gloves of Awesomeness) to rescue the ribs before they overcooked. And they did overcook. Friggin’ sigh.

Ribs sliced

Ribs the next day. For some reason, you could see the smoke ring better. It would’ve been more apparent if it hadn’t been for that whole “overcooked” thing.

I gave one of the rib bones a tug, and it came clean out, dry and with just a tiny chunk of meat stuck on. The flavor was on (I used Meathead’s Memphis Dust on this, too), and the meat of the meat was fine, but the bark really suffered. I thought it was dry, even though my sweet supportive Hun kept saying it was fine. The chicken was good! Half was skin-on with Meathead’s Memphis Dust, and the other half was skin-off and used his Simon & Garfunkel Spice Blend (http://www.amazingribs.com/recipes/rubs_pastes_marinades_and_brines/simon_and_garfunkel_rub.html). I also made his version of Big Bob Gibson’s White Barbecue Sauce (http://www.amazingribs.com/recipes/chicken_turkey_duck/big_bob_gibsons_white_sauce.html) that he reverse engineered to duplicate, and I put too much Cayenne pepper, so it blew the top of my head clean off. And that was a bummer. The moral of that story: stop being too lazy to walk across the kitchen to get the half-teaspoon measure and eyeball the measurement into a tablespoon measure. Although looking back at the replay of that scene while figure out what in tarnation I did is pretty funny now. I have a crapload of extra sauce, so I might separate some out and add more mayo to make a useable version with the leftovers. Anyway, I liked both, so smoky and juicy and fabulously tender, but Hun said he liked the skin-on version just because it was juicier. Originally, I was going to take the skin-on pieces and send them under the broiler for a minute or two to crisp them up since smoked chicken skin just is not right, but by the time we got to eating, I didn’t have the time, heart, or patience for it.

As for the butt, it tasted awesome! It didn’t really develop much bark, or not much thick, crusty bark, though the outside dark bit (bark-to-be) was tasty. Maybe it was great bark and I just don't know!

Mini pork butt

And the innards, oh sweet Jeebus, the innards. Sweet, succulent, Homer Simpson would be swimming in drool. BUT. It was not super tender. The meat strands did not fall apart. I chunked it apart with gloved hands because a pair of forks was just a futile fight. I’m not quite sure what it’s supposed to be like, though. The meat really melted in my mouth, though. I loved the texture of the big chunks, and I’d read that some people like hand-pulled chunks better for the texture. Maybe the finely pulled pork I’ve had in the past led to faster drying out. The leftovers I had today were still amazing—juicy, tender, delicious.

Pork butt smoke ring. Just seeing those words together makes me laugh. Anyway, it did have a really nice smoke ring--it's just hard to see in these photos.

Pulled pork sammich

Daring Bakers, June: From Phyllo to Baklava

2011-06-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

I took the straightforward root and just made the recipe straight.

The dough has to be rolled super thin. This is the dozen sheets I was able to roll out of the small ball of dough.

You should be able to read through your dough.

The baklava assembled and coated with a LOT of butter.

Baked for about 45 minutes to golden brown.

It floats! Therefore, it is not a witch. ;) You pour about 4 cups of sauce all over the top and watch as your baklava floats like a bath toy. Magically, it soaks it all up. Not quite like a sponge, but more like a thirsty rock, which is why it takes at least an overnight rest to take it all in.

Well, it's supposed to, anyway.

Although with 1 1/4 cups of honey and 1 1/4 cups of sugar in the sauce, it may be better for our blood sugar that it DIDN'T take it all in. ;)

Besides, it was still very, very delicious!

And fairly easy to make! I'll keep it in my rotation for special occasions.

Notes:
-Like Danish dough, phyllo dough can be rolled and stretched to super thinness.
-I was initially tempted to sort of stretch the dough out with my rolling pin (I use a French rolling pin which really helped with control and pressure), but that made the edges curl up. It was better to put all the pressure straight down to ooze the dough outward, sort of like you would a tube of toothpaste.
-I was able to make an even dozen phyllo sheets, but the recipe calls for 18. I just used the trimmings through the two middle layers of phyllo to supplement and shortchanged the top and bottom. It seems to have no effect on the taste: the top is still crispy, even after the soaking.
-The recipe said to grind the nuts to superfine, and at first, I was afraid I'd overdone it when the result was a sort of nut flour similar to what I make when a recipe calls for almond flour. There were some chunks still floating around, and miraculously, they came to the forefront of the finished dessert. The finely ground stuff helps soak up the juice. Also, it didn't seem like many, or any, of my allspice berries got ground up, but it doesn't seem to matter. I guess they soften up while baking, or while soaking up all that syrup.
-I used a 8x8 pan because I don't own a 9x9, and it worked just fine. I was initially going to halve the recipe, but I figured I'd go full and just freeze the leftovers after Hun and I each had a piece. I'll let you know how the thawed baklava tastes.
-I was able to cut straight down and through the whole baklava with the initial cuts, but I went back halfway through baking as the recipe directs to make sure the cuts were still sound and hadn't been closed up by any sort of nut ooze. Mmm, nut ooze.
-My syrup overflowed my little pot while cooking because I turned my back a moment too long after I'd put it on the heat. The moral of this story: use a bigger pot and/or don't turn your back on boiling sugar water. At least it smelled great!
-Remember--you need at least an overnight rest for the baklava to soak up all the syrup! Mine rested for over 14 hours before I took the plated photo. I'm going to leave it a few hours more to see if it soaks up more, then I guess siphon off the extra syrup and freeze the leftovers.

Check out all my fellow talented DBers' baklavas through our blogroll!

Starting my smoking habit

2011-06-04T10:48:00.001-07:00

When Hun’s brother came to visit us over Memorial Day, he asked us if we could have a little celebration barbecue. I decided it was time to buy a smoker. Originally, I’d been thinking of a regular grill, and the questions was gas or charcoal? In cooking school, all my chef-instructors agreed—gas was great for convenience and cleanup, but for flavor, charcoal was the unanimous winner. The same vote came from all the food, cooking, and grilling blogs I’d visit. The clincher came when one of my chef-instructors said I could get the same results from a broiler as I could from a grill, and after a few steaks, salmon, and chicken experiments, I found this to be true. It was like grilling, but upside down. So, a charcoal it was. I just couldn’t commit to spending money on something I wasn’t sure I would use. The special Memorial Day request was the clincher, though. I talked to Brother #2, who is an avid griller and smoker, and he told me his smoker was just a little $50 deal from Home Depot. I went and picked up the Lowe’s equivalent along with a bag of Kingsford briquettes and some chintzy BBQ supplies. We’d already bought a rack of spareribs and a pack of four chicken quarters, so we were ready in the food department.

Assembly was required, but it was pretty easy—just about all the pieces are held together with wingnuts. I love wingnuts!

Smokey!

The broken gauge glass.

We had to do an initial smoke before use to burn out the factory oils so it would be safe(r?) to use, so we smoked it up Saturday night. Late Saturday night. I was afraid our neighbors would call the fire department. It took us so many tries to get a fire started that I was beginning to worry that we didn’t have the competence to deal with any sort of fire, much less disasters that might accompany a fire. We only had to burn for a couple of hours, but Hun put a lot of charcoal in—even after I asked him to take a bunch out, there was still a lot left. We burned a lot of newsprint and broke a lot of matches, but we got it lit. We should’ve been done just before 2 a.m., but Hun said it was still hot when he came to bed after a long night up with his bro at 5 a.m. At least I know little Smokey held heat well! I tried to stay up to man the pit, but I went to bed and read up on smoking until I drifted off. Even though there are loads of general and specialty cookbooks on my cookbook shelf, I don’t own any books on grilling. I’ve never had to. More than half of my books are on baking. Instead, I made use of the net and our in-bed-friendly iPad and took my info from amazingribs.com and smoking-meat.com.

Things I took away with me to dreamland that night:

*Build a fire using nut or fruit wood, never coniferous wood. Put the wood in a pyramid on the briquettes and light it up.

*Rip the membrane off the back of the spareribs. My brother who smokes (heretofore known as Smoker Bro) told me the same thing, and I’d had to do this before with the Asian ribs recipe I make.

*Ribs need only an hour to suck rub in.

*Ribs need 6 to 7 hours to smoke, and chicken quarters need 3, so I’d start the ribs in the middle rack, then put the chicken on the top rack during the last half so all the meat would be ready at once.

The next day, I discovered that the broken gauge glass wasn’t the only flaw—there was a tiny hole in the welding seam of the smoker’s body. I knew that smoke came out of all the joints, though, so I didn’t fret about it too much.

I lit my briquettes (which again took me way longer than necessary to light, even after I remembered the lemon tree trimmings in the backyard and built a pyramid out of them), tossed my smoking wood in, and went inside to rub my ribs. Yes, I threw the smoking wood in long before the ribs ever got to the smoker, but I’m a newbie, and I thought I was doing right by it all. I took the membrane off, trimmed some of the skirt off and skewered it, then halved the rack to fit better into my smoker. I remembered that Hun had a little container of rub left over from when he cooked steaks for our Easter dinner (we don’t celebrate Easter, we just celebrate Easter dinner), so I used that. It left my rub a little sparse, since it was a little container, but I had enough to cover the whole slab. I put the same rub onto the chicken, stuffing some of it under the skin, and left those in the fridge until they'd be ready to go on in four hours later.

Look into my smoker . . .

Mmmmeat! Well, it looks the way I thought it would. Except the chicken. I honestly don’t recall having seen much smoked chicken in my life, but if I were to imagine it, it would look like this.

The verdict? I freakin’ love smoking. I love the challenge of it. Creating and making things happen is fun, but make it a challenge, and it’s hardcore. You can say you like to cook, and that means you like cutting some stuff up, throwing it in a pot, and cooking it for an hour. I say I like to cook, and that means I like to recreate my French Cuisine cooking class final all by myself—7 hours of prep and a couple of hours of actual cooking and plating to feed a seven-course meal to four friends who I don’t even get to sit down and eat with because I’m too busy cooking and plating. It’s the same with a lot of my creative endeavors—staying up all night to make art, practice guitar, put zines together, write, learn to code websites, build architecture models, etc. In other words, I love it when it’s EPIC. It’s not just the journey, which cool, but the rewards reaped from the gods. For reals.

So, the food itself? It was awesome.

Juicy meat and the smoke ring off the top of the spareribs--the rib tips, which I left on. I did trim off and skewer the skirt to make a chef's kabob so we could all have an early taste of what we were in for.

The plate: chicken, spareribs, and broccoli salad. Even the chicken was pinky from being smoked, although Hun was at first paranoid that it was from being undercooked. I have a sad history of serving him undercooked chicken. Even when my serving, which cooked next to his, would come out fine, his would somehow be undercooked. This time, though, it was smoke. One caveat, though: smoked chicken skin is not so good, at least, not without . . . stuff. Maybe sauce would’ve helped. I considered a run under the broiler to crisp it up.

Notes (some of it repeated from above):

Remove the membrane from the rib racks so the marinade/rub and smoke will better penetrate.

I read that pork needs only an hour to marinade/suck in the rub, so I marinated my pork before I started the smoker. I left the ribs out, but I more recently read in the Meatwave blog at meatwave.com that an overnight in the fridge helps suck the flavor in. If I do marinate overnight, then make sure to take meat out when I start the charcoal so it can come up to temp and doesn’t go in too cold. Like the chicken quarters did, plunging my temps down to an arctic 175 while I frantically started adding hot coals to the pan to try to raise the temp. How does one without a chimney starter or other grill light coals? With a brulee torch. It works! It’s awkward, but it works.

Charcoal’s hard to light. Use fruit or nut woods to build a kindle pyramid over your charcoal, then light. Or, buy a chimney starter! (I bought a chimney starter. After the fact, of course.)

I read that soaking woodchips isn’t necessary since it doesn’t retain much moisture, but not sure about whether soaking makes the wood chips last longer. Smoker Bro soaks his chips, so I did, too.

I was going to use only hickory (and soaked way too much of it overnight), but I read that hickory can sometimes seem bitter, so I started with 2 oz. of hickory and 2 oz. of apple, which is supposed to taste sweeter.

I read to measure wood chunks when smoking. Put wood directly into hot coals. 8 oz for a rack of ribs should be enough, but that’s with golf-ball-sized chunks. Start off with 4 oz since the meat sucks up most of the flavor during the first 30 minutes (or is it 3 hours?). Add the remaining 4 oz throughout the rest of the smoke. Do NOT oversmoke—this will ruin the meat and make it bitter.

I read that not everyone uses the water pan, and Smoker Bro successfully smokes dry, but I read that it can help regulate the temperature if there’s trouble with it getting too high. Some people just put the pan and a terra cotta pot dish wrapped in foil at the bottom to catch the mess and also kinda-sorta help with temp regulation. The instructions say to keep water in the pan. I added water whenever the smoker got too hot, and the temperature came down. While reading up on the Minion Method, I read to add hot water on cool days and cool water on hot days, and I’ll amend that to go with what the smoker temp is doing.

Add the meat, then add the smoking wood. For some dopey reason, I lit the charcoal, added the wood, then watched it smoke away while the temp adjusted over the next half hour, long before I ever added anything to smoke. DOPEY.

I read from Meatwave not to raise the cover during the first 2 hours so the temp. will stay even and the “best” smoke will stay in.

The smoker’s temp will drop with the weather! In the hot Memorial Day sun, nearly 100 degrees, it kept steady, but once the sun went over the house and left the smoker in the shade, the temp dropped. Also adding to the bummer:

The smoker’s temp will drop with new additions, just like an oven. I was still trying to fix the shade problem and had gotten the temp to about 210 when I added four cold chicken quarters. I should’ve taken them out of the fridge for a bit first.

I read that the grease that collects inside the smoker will help seal it, but the instructions say to keep it clean to the degree that the grease can’t catch fire. If it’s gooey and would incur the wrath of Chef Gordon Ramsey a la Kitchen Nightmares, clean it out!

After smoking, let the coals die out over time in the closed up (read: oxygen deprived) smoker. If there are any solid chunks, then they’re on fire on the inside. It burns! Let it burn out!! Instead of letting ambition lead you to pouring hot ashes through plastic bags because you want to clean the mess up. Melting plastic plus loose ashes plus hot coals equals big effing’ mess, times a hundred. If there are chunks left, you can sift them out and use for next time.

A lot of smokers use something called the Minion Method when they smoke. It puts hot coals on top of cold coals, and the cold coals slowly light up. This makes for a longer burn at a lower temperature, which is optimal for smoking for six or more hours. Here are some Minion Method notes I want to try for next time:

On warm, calm days, light 20 briquettes to add to a coal pan full of cold briquettes. On cold/windy days, light 20-40 briquettes.

Use cool tap water in the water pan on warm days, and hot water on cold days.

Fully open all vents while lighting (How do you I that with my ventless Master Forge smoker? Dunno--but I'll see if I can figure a way out. Maybe just leave the access door ajar.).

If temperature drops, stir coals gently so ash doesn’t get on food, or remove middle section and stir vigorously.

Check water pan every 2 to 4 hours and add hot water as needed.

Check coals after 12 hours and add hot coals if needed.

Eventually, I want to try to do a pulled pork. Here' are some howtobbqright.com Notes I want to keep in mind:

8-lb range for pork butts, 16-17-lb range for shoulders.

Inject butts/shoulders: 2 c apple juice, ½ c kosher salt, ½ c brown sugar, 1 T Worcestershire sauce, 1 T soy sauce. Heat over medium until salt and sugar dissolve, cool, then inject (all for shoulder, half for butt) right through the cryovac/store packaging, then rest overnight.

For dry rub, start with mustard slather, then use low-sugar content, high-salt content rub.

Stop smoking butt/shoulder at 160 internal. Wrap in heavy duty foil to tenderize the meat and leave on smoker until 195 internal. Then vent and return to smoker for glazing.

After the first two hours, wrap ribs in heavy duty foil with apple juice, margarine, or whatever baste, wrap them up, and cook for 2 hours at 225. Check at 1:45 and check for tenderness (bones will be loose. Remove from smoker and vent foil. Ribs will be loose and can fall apart, but after 10 minutes, they’ll “lock up” and can be transferred back to smoker for glazing.

Don’t start with a rub with a high sugar content—sugar will burn. Use sugary rub in your finishing rub.

And some notes of my own:

Find out (1) the best way to stoke coals, especially as ash collects in the coal pan and starts to clog the vents, and (2) best way to get air to coals--probably through the access door in my case.

Also, get opinions on (1) rib racks that hold multiple racks of ribs upright like a napkin holder.

Daring Bakers, May: Marquise on Meringue

2011-05-27T01:29:00.000-07:00

The May 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrow and Jenny of Purple House Dirt. They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they prepared at a restaurant in Seattle.

My flavors were peanut butter, honey, and cinnamon--chocolate marquise with peanut butter caramel sauce and honey-roasted cinnamon peanuts to garnish.

I plated the dessert with a square meringue . . .

And a round one.

I froze my marquise in an olive oil dish--the kind you pour olive oil and vinegar into and serve with sliced, crusty bread for dipping. I was too lazy to unmold it correctly, just setting it out on the counter to thaw. I hadn't set the mix into saran wrap or anything to help the unmolding--I'd hoped it would just slip out. It sort of just plopped out.

It was tasty, though. =)

Overall, I thought this was tasty, but it was a lot of work for what turned out to be a simple dessert. A lot of cooks joke about how Martha Stewart recipes often have more steps than necessary--I sorta felt like this recipe fit that bill at times. I noted that my marquise tasted like a fudgsicle, but making it was a bit involved for something that was too pudding poppish. Because I couldn't help thinking that about thawed pudding pops as I ate this. The meringue was more complicated than other meringue recipes, but gave the same result. My favorite, favorite aspect of the dessert was the peanut butter caramel sauce, and that wasn't part of the original recipe, which used tequila caramel. The peanut butter caramel sauce was an adapted Bobby Flay recipe.

Notes:
*I used a quarter recipe, since I had no purpose for 22 or however servings this made. The marquis keeps in the freezer . . . and tastes like a pudding pop/fudgsicle. Anyway, it's tasty.

*With the quarter recipe, watch your cook times--the caramel/sugar mixtures cook up in just a few minutes.

*Since I was plating only two servings, I baked the rest of the meringue into hard shells, which keep in an airtight container for several days, as do the honey-roasted cinnamon peanuts. The peanut butter fudge keeps in the fridge.

Visit my fellow DBers to see their variations and beautiful platings of this luscious dessert.

Daring Bakers, April: maple mousse in an edible container

2011-04-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

This is one of my favorite challenges ever--one of the tastiest, which is hard to say after so many years of delicious Daring Bakers projects. I decided to use ice cream sandwiches as my edible container: homemade apple cinnamon ice cream with maple mousse ripple sandwiched between pecan cinnamon cake.

I made sure there were big chunks of apple in the ice cream.

The cake was perfect--it stayed soft, but also became chewy, sort of like the edges of brownies (the best part!). The toasted pecans lent a nice crunch to the final sandwiches' texture.

The colors were very similar, but here's the mousse at the top of the ice cream in the ice cream maker before I rippled it in.

The thin cake layer before I cut it in half, trimmed it, and built the sandwich with it.

The sandwich components pressed into the pan and ready to be set in the freezer.

The giant sandwich, set and unmolded, ready for slicing.

Notes:
Every part of this recipe was easy. The mousse recipe was the only required part of the challenge, and the rest was totally up to us. I love ice cream sandwiches, and I was easily drawn to this idea. From what I've seen so far, I'm the only person who made ice cream sandwiches, or ice cream at all.

Since I put most of this recipe together, I'll post it here, with credit to epicurious.com for the sandwich layer. I halved or otherwise divided the recipe as necessary so I didn't end up with dozens of ice cream sandwiches in the freezer--all of these recipes divide beautifully. =)

My game plan:
1. Make and chill ice cream base
2. Make and chill mousse
3. Cook and cool apples and prep/bake sandwich cake
4. Churn ice cream, add mousse towards end of churn, and cool sandwich cake
5. Freeze ice cream slightly, if necessary
6. Assemble and freeze sandwiches
7. Next day, cut sandwiches and daytime photo shoot

Basic Custard Ice Cream Base

Heating the milk before adding it to the egg mixture might seem like a needless step. Adding pre-heated milk reduces cooking time and starts to heat the eggs slowly and gently, which thickens the custard without risking cooked eggs.

Be careful not to add the milk while it's still to hot or you'll get scrambled eggs. Ideally, you should be able to comfortably hold your finger in the milk for 10 seconds.

1 1/2 cups dairy (whole milk, heavy cream, or a mix)
1/2 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla (optional)

Have a strainer in a bowl ready over an ice bath.

Bring the dairy to a simmer in a medium pot over medium-high heat--about 5 minutes. Watch it carefully so it doesn't boil over. Remove from heat as soon as you see bubbles forming and let sit until it's cooled to room temperature--about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat the eggs, sugar, and pinch of salt into a thick paste. When the dairy has cooled, stream it in while stirring the egg mixture.

Once combined, return everything to the pan and cook over medium-low heat. Stir gently in an "S" shape, being sure to scrape the bottom of the pan.

The sauce is ready when it looks silky, has thickened so it coats the back of a wooden spoon, and has reached a temperature of about 170-degrees. Strain it into a bowl set over an ice water bath and stir in the vanilla.

When cooled, freeze mixture in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Maple Mousse
as directed by the challenge hostess

1/2 cup (4 fluid oz.) pure maple syrup (not maple-flavoured syrup)
2 large egg yolks
1/2 package (1/2 tbsp.) unflavoured gelatine
3/4 cups whipping cream (35% fat content)

1. Bring maple syrup to a boil then remove from heat.
2. In a large bowl, whisk egg yolks and pour a little bit of the maple syrup in while whisking (this is to temper your egg yolks so they don’t curdle).
3. Add warmed egg yolks to hot maple syrup until well mixed.
4. Measure 1/4 cup of whipping cream in a bowl and sprinkle it with the gelatine. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Place the bowl in a microwave for 45 seconds (microwave for 10 seconds at a time and check it in between) or place the bowl in a pan of barely simmering water, stir to ensure the gelatine has completely dissolved.
5. Whisk the gelatine/whipping cream mixture into the maple syrup mixture and set aside.
6. Whisk occasionally for approximately an hour or until the mixture has the consistency of an unbeaten raw egg white.
7. Whip the remaining cream. Stir 1/4 of the whipped cream into the maple syrup mixture. Fold in the remaining cream and refrigerate for at least an hour.
8. Remove from the fridge and divide equally among your edible containers.

Apples

1 medium apples
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Peel, core, and chop apple into small chunks.
Melt butter in a large saucepan.
Stir in apples and sugar and cook over medium-low to medium heat, stirring often.
Cook about 15 minutes or until apples are very soft.
Remove from heat and stir in cinnamon. Let apples cool completely.

Sandwich Layers
from Epicurious.com

Special equipment: 1 (15 1/2- by 10 1/2-inch) jelly roll pan

3/4 sticks (1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp) unsalted butter at room temperature plus additional for greasing pan
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cups plus 3 Tbsp packed dark brown sugar
1 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Put oven racks in middle of oven and preheat oven to 375°F. Draw a large X with butter from corner to corner in each baking pan, then line bottom of each pan with parchment paper, leaving a 1-inch overhang on each side, pressing to help parchment adhere to X.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Beat together butter and brown sugar in another bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in 2 batches, mixing until just combined.

Pour batter into baking pan and spread into thin, even layer with offset spatula. Sprinkle with praline and bake until golden brown but still tender, about 10 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then transfer with parchment to racks and cool completely, about 30 minutes.

Line cleaned baking pan with fresh parchment, leaving a 1-inch overhang on each side. Invert sandwich layers onto work surface and carefully peel off and discard parchment, then trim edges.

Check out how the rest of my DB peers did, just click through here

Daring Bakers, March: Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake

2011-03-27T00:36:00.000-07:00

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

We were allowed to choose our fillings, and I chose slivered almonds, cinnamon, and sugar and called it "candied almond coffee cake." It was pretty tasty, and I'd love to experiment more with this recipe, especially with savory fillings. I successfully halved the recipe without any problems, and as other bakers noted, this dough was awesome to work with.

The dough rolled out into a triangle. The dough was beautifully supple and so easy to work with.

The meringue spread onto the dough. I was glad I had extra meringue--I'd halved the recipe, which called for 3 egg whites for the meringues; I used 2 egg whites (since those buggers are a bit hard to halve). I pretty much just whipped it stiff, dumped it onto the dough, then spread it out as if I were icing a cake, working from the middle out.

Sprinkled on the turbinado sugar and cinnamon mixture, then the slivered almonds on top of that.

Rolled it up and pinched it shut. Sounds kinky, doesn't it? It kinda is. I need to bake less and hang out with my boyfriend more, maybe . . .

Rolled and slashed!

Risen and coated with egg yolk wash (what else was I going to do with them after using the whites for the meringue?).

Okay, certainly not as pretty as I'd hoped, but it still looked strangely tasty, at least in person. You had to be there.

Mmmm, here's a much more appetizing shot, I hope. Note the big air bubbles throughout the crumb (the cake's innards). That's goodness. The only thing I would've changed would've been to let the dough rise again before punching it down, and adding more sugar and cinnamon.

Notes:
*Although the recipe instructs you to use a hand mixer, I found that the wet dough traveled up the beaters, and I kept having to push the dough back down as if I were working clay on a spinning pottery wheel. Of course, I was a little terrified of getting a finger caught in a spinning beater and breaking it off, but I was too stubborn to keep stopping the mixer and scraping the dough off. Next time, I'll just use my stand mixer or else just go at it with a wooden spoon until it's come together enough to work by hand.

*The dough was super wet at first, but the more I worked it, the more the dough sucked up the water. Don't despair--just keep kneading because the more flour you add, the higher the risk that your cake will be a bit on the dry side. It won't be bad, it just won't stay as moist as long as it could.

*The recipe says to spread the meringue to a half inch of the sides all the way around, but I recommend leaving at least an inch-wide margin on what will be the outside edge--the long edge that you roll toward that will be the outside edge once you've rolled the dough up. This way, all the meringue won't squoosh out and make a big mess when you roll to the end and have to pinch it together.

*Roll tightly, but not so tightly that you squeeze all the filling down as you roll as if it were a tube of toothpaste. Also, make note that wetter fillings, like curds and jams, will shrink up as the cake bakes, and you'll likely have a gap in your bread from where the filling came away from the dough as it lost moisture (I guess into the dough and because of the oven's heat).

*It was a little hard for me to gauge when the cake was done because the top-most part of the dome browned up pretty quickly, but I wanted the entire top to brown. When it did, I took it out, and the cake was done perfectly.

*I followed the wise of advice of the ever-helpful Audax Artifax, and one of the many smart pieces of advice he had was to put nonstick spray on the parchment paper before putting the cake on it so it wouldn't stick when you tried to remove the finished cake.

Check out our Daring Bakers blogroll for more delicious version of the yeasted meringue coffee cake!

Daring Bakers, February: Panna Cotta and Nestle Florentine Cookies

2011-02-27T15:06:00.000-08:00

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

You can find the recipes behind the link above.

I was originally going to make a Violet Crumble-themed panna cotta, with honey panna cotta and chocolate panna cotta, but I'd run out of chocolate. Instead, I went for one of my favorite sandwiches--honey with nut butter--in this case, a mix of peanut butter and nutella. I made Florentine cookies filled with peanut butter ganache, and honey and peanut butter/nutella layered panna cotta.

v

Notes:
-I didn't want to buy and use corn syrup, so I stuck with honey. While this kept the cookies from spreading out and flattening more, I loved the flavor of it, especially with the peanut butter.

-This is the easiest challenge I've done in a long time. It's little more than the effort needed to make rice krispie treats and instant pudding.

-To layer your panna cotta, you have to let each layer set fully first. This can take 2 to 6 hours.

You can check out my fellow DBers' results through our blogroll.

Daring Bakers, January: Biscuit Joconde Imprime

2011-01-26T23:12:00.000-08:00

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

My biscuit joconde imprime is just vanilla flavored, by the entrements is vanilla sponge topped with cheesecake filling and a layer of blueberries.

Notes:
I piped the colored batter directly onto the silpat. If you want, you can also trace designs through parchment paper. I made sure to use colors that would contrast really well and really pop and be different--blue and the batter's natural yellow.

The bottom of my jaconde. I baked it on the back of an upside-down sheet pan, and the batter dripped off a bit. Luckily, it was only 3 a.m. when I set the smoke detector off three times in a row . . .

The "front" of the jaconde. I drew the designs on my silpat so I could split the baked cake into three strips that I could line my cake pan with. I was going to make the entire design like the top portion, but as it got later (I started around 2:30 a.m.), I got lazier and ended up drawing the swooshes in the bottom section.

Want to see more of these beautiful entrement projects? Check out my fellow Daring Bakers through our blogroll.

Daring Bakers, December: Stollen

2010-12-26T02:00:00.000-08:00

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

And because I have to get up for a flight in the morning and I'm already beat and short on time, this will be primarily a picture post until I can edit it later this week Happy Holidays, everyone!

Daring Bakers, November: Crostata

2010-11-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

I've made a happy handful of crostata, but this is my new favorite crostata dough recipe. We were allowed to choose our own filling, and I went with a marmalade filling topped with dark chocolate shavings for a nice holiday dessert to serve at my annual Fall Dinner.

Because it was a dinner party,I only got a couple of shots of my crostata.

Here's a slice all dressed up with somewhere to go (someone's mouth). I grated the chocolate right on top. I'd originally intended to do chocolate curls, but I didn't have time to warm the chocolate first (just warm the bar slightly so the chocolate curls up under you knife or veggie peeler instead of flakes or chips off the block as it did here).

Overall, I loved the outcome, although I wish the marmalade had been a bit tarter like a traditional British marmalade, although I was able to find one that wasn't loaded with sugar.

Notes:
-For a really buttery crust, I worked with frozen butter and left the chunks fairly large instead of rubbing it into the flour as the recipe called for.

-I was light with my kneading, stopping as soon as the ingredients came together into a loose ball.

-I rolled the dough between a sheet of parchment paper and a sheet of plastic, then transferred the dough on the plastic wrap to the tart pan by inverting the tart pan onto the rolled dough and flipping it over. The wrap helped me handle the dough without getting gooey or ripping the dough.

-I was initially concerned when I saw the filling didn't fill the tart pan, but in the end, I knew it was a good thing because that would've been a huge mouthful of marmalade, and even a big marmalade fan with me would've wanted to rip my mouth off after one bite. If I'd done the chocolate the way I'd initially planned, the curls would've filled the shell better. I'd also planned to use some stars I'd cut out to set up with the chocolate curls, but I overbaked/overbrowned them a bit in the oven and were sacrificed to the quality control squad. ;)

Check out my fellow DBers' crostatas by linking off our blogroll.

Daring Bakers, October: Doughnuts

2010-10-27T00:14:00.000-07:00

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

As of this writing, Lori hasn't posted the recipes on her blog, but you can find them over at Audax Artifex's awesome blog here.

Lori gave us four recipes to choose from, and I went with Alton Brown's yeast doughnuts, which I switched up a bit to make almond butter doughnuts, some chocolate dipped and some filled with fig pastry cream.

The doughnuts cut out and rising.

The fried doughnuts. The funky fritter-looking doughnuts on the bottom left are just the scraps pressed together--they fried up just fine.

So how were they? Not bad--fresh, fluffy, and almond buttery. But I have to be honest--this past weekend, Hun and I went to the local state fair and split one of Sil Brander's famous Texas Donuts (maple glazed), and that was heaven in a holey pastry--so fluffy, it was more air than pastry--it would've flattened out to something as thin as tissue paper, it was so airy--almost like a French cruller (my personal favorite doughnut). Why does this airiness matter? Because air is the best foil you can have for a thin, crisp, sweet fried donut crust. Since you can't have just air, a very airy dough is the next best thing. From what I saw, most of my fellow DBers' doughnuts had the same consistency as mine, which makes me really curious as to Brander's recipe. Another perk--even though they weren't fresh out of the fryer (not hot), they were still same-day fresh, and they were still delicious. This means they didn't fall under the Krispy Kreme Kurse--doughnuts that are good only when they're still hot. I want to look into different recipes to see if they conjur up fluffier, airier donuts.

Notes:
- Happily, this is one of the DB recipes I've been able to halve successfully.

- To make the almond butter doughnuts, I just substituted almond butter for most of the butter.

- To make the fig pastry cream, I just made regular pastry cream and folded some fig puree into it.

- To make the chocolate glaze, I just melted and tempered some semisweet chocolate and dipped the doughnuts into it.

- I got great help from reading fellow DBer Audax Artifex's tips, including just mixing the dough enough to mix everything and letting the dough rise overnight in the fridge. The dough chills quite well.

- You can also freeze unfrosted, unfilled, fried doughnuts and just warm them in the microwave when you want.

- Chopsticks were a handy doughnut-frying aid, although if you're handy enough with chopsticks, they can help you with anything. Tying shoes. Brain surgery. That type of thing.

To check out my fellow DBers' doughnuts, roll through the blogroll.

Daring Bakers, September: Decorated Sugar Cookies

2010-09-27T06:56:00.000-07:00

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

The recipe is here.

I enjoy making and decorating sugar cookies, so I had fun with this challenge.

The framework for a stained glass cookie.

I'd used cake decorator extraordinaire Colette Peters' stained glass technique on a wedding cake project for my Advanced Pastry Arts class, so I thought it would be fun to try it here, too. In fact, I still had some old piping gel sitting around, so I decided to use it up. Which meant I didn't actually eat this cookie afterward because that piping gel was older than dirt.

A plated Starry Night.

Here's a closeup.

I also made some retro flowers, or flowery blobs I didn't do more with because I was lazy.

I wasn't sure if I'd like these cookies. Mandy said she'd picked the recipe because it wouldn't spread, and they're the best recipe I've tried that doesn't. it's true that they didn't spread very much--just a tad bit, so do space them more than just a half inch apart. They did shrink back down half a tad bit after baking, though. I was worried about how they'd taste because the dough tasted almost like play-doh, but the cookies were tasty and even better with my almond-flavored icing. I usually half or quarter the DB recipes so I don't have a ton of baked goods in the house (unless there's a party going on), but it was tricky to split this recipe because it used only 1 egg, so I just made the full batch. I baked only half the batch of dough and the rest is in the freezer--hopefully I can either make more successful cookies or a tart crust out of it. It's quick, easy, and tasty, so I call this recipe a keeper.

Notes:
-I didn't bother turning my chilled, rolled-out dough onto a floured surface to cut my shapes out--I just cut them out on the paper and transferred them to a parchment-lined cookie sheet.

-This dough was awesome--soft, but not sticky, and very easy to roll out. I rolled it out a bit more thinly than the recipe instructed and baked them for 10 minutes, pulling them just as the edges started to brown.

-I used a standard royal icing recipe--a ratio of 1 cup powdered sugar to 3 tsp. whole milk. I used my stand mixer to make the icing, which was a mistake since it left clumps of powdered sugar at the bottom and around the sides, forcing me to stop the mixing every few seconds to scrape everything together. I should've used my awesome hand mixer (she thought, hoping she'd remember the next time since she forgot once again this time after promising herself she'd never forget). Once the icing made, it's easier to adjust the consistency, making it thicker or thinner by adding more sugar or milk, respectively. I used gel food coloring to color my icing so it wouldn't affect the icing's consistency.

-Once you've finished decorating the cookies, let them sit out to dry for several hours if you plan to stack or individually bag them. If you don't, you'll have an unintentional cookie stack and some really messed up icing. I know this from experience.

-For the stained glass cookie, I used thick black royal icing for the framework and colored piping gel for the faux glass. You can buy clear gel from cake decorating stores or just use the colored piping gel in tubes that are sold off the supermarket shelves. Or, if you have a bunch of corn syrup sitting around, you can make it yourself using this recipe:

2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
2 T cold water
2 c light corn syrup
1. Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water in a small saucepan and let set for 5 minutes. Heat on low until the gelatin dissolves--DO NOT BOIL.
2. Add and heat the syrup thoroughly.
3. Cool and store, refrigerated, for up to 2 months.
To Color: Add gel food coloring or regular food coloring for color.

Check out my fellow DBers' projects--you can click to their blogs through our blogroll.

Daring Bakers, August: Baked Alaska and Petit Fours

2010-08-27T01:57:00.000-07:00

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s "The Perfect Scoop".

Elissa's posted the recipe on here on her blog.

I made both:

Petit fours with honey fig ice cream filling and orange poured fondant. Lumpy, but delicious . . . I dub thee: lump-a-licious.

Two baked Alaskas--one with honey fig ice cream and one with Rainier cherry sorbet. The meringue is orange-almond flavored.

How good does browned butter cake sound? Well, it tastes even better than it sounds--it's awesome. I cut two big circles for the baked Alaskas. For the petit fours, I layered the cake (sliced it in two horizontally), filled it with softened honey fig ice cream, then stamped out and a bunch of little circles, although petit fours are traditionally square.

I lined a couple of short coffee mugs with plastic wrap, smoothed the softened ice cream and sorbet in really well, and refroze them. I made sure my round cutters were the same size as the mugs. Then I unmolded the ice cream and sorbet and topped the cake rounds with them. Then fluffed up some meringue and patted it on.

The spiky meringue had the Rainier cherry sorbet, and the swirled meringue had the honey fig ice cream.

And how'd they both taste? Great! I loved the brown butter cake. It's a delicious, versatile flavor, whether you're making a sage sauce for gnocci or flavoring frosting--it's also a hit with the cake. I'll definitely keep the recipe in my easy-access file.

Notes:

I forgot how well poured fondant shows off every flaw if your starting surface isn’t already smooth. Typically, you’d cover your cake with a smooth layer of jam, but all I had was fig jam, and I was too lazy to heat it up and strain the fig chunks out. I also could’ve used multiple coats to smooth out the finish, but I didn’t want to drown the cake in fondant, especially since I find the taste of powdered-sugar-based icings to be horribly overwhelming. Ick on cornstarch, is all I’m gonna say. If, however, you want that smooth finish, just wait for the icing to set just a bit, then pour another layer of fondant over. If your fondant sets up, just heat it up a tad until it’s pourable again. Corn syrup has a deservedly bad rap, but it’s important in this recipe to make sure your sugar doesn’t crystallize and create lumps as you use it. Alternatively, you can use glycerine. You could use other types of invert sugars/glucose syrups, or even acids like lemon juice or cream of tartar—just Google up those alternative recipes.

Poured Fondant
Ingredients
6 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 teaspoon almond extract

Directions
1.In a saucepan, combine confectioners' sugar, water and corn syrup. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until it reaches a temperature of 92 degrees F (33 degrees C.) Mixture should be thin enough to pour, but thick enough to coat cake. Stir in the almond extract.

2.To cover cake: Frost cake smoothly with buttercream and place on a cooling rack with a cookie sheet underneath. Pour fondant over iced cake, flowing from center and moving out in a circular motion. Touch up sides with a spatula.

Check out my fellow DBers' projects--you can click to their blogs through our blogroll.

Daring Bakers, July: Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake

2010-07-27T02:00:00.000-07:00

A secret challenge! A month to work through! The blogworld-wide reveal! This . . . is Daring Bakers:

This month's Daring Bakers project was an ice cream cake--perfect to help my ring in my 34th birthday under the sweltering Arizona summer heat.

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

The orange-flavored cake before rolling.

Rolling the still-warm cake so it would form more easily during rerolling without cracking. My cake was a bit brown on the bottom, but it didn't affect the flavor.

The Swiss roll slices lining the plastic-lined bowl I used as the cake mold.

This is how you know what the unmolded cake will look like once it's finished--just peer through the bottom of the bowl.

Fresh Rainier cherry sorbet in the ice cream maker.

Taste testing the sorbet. ;)

The only shot I got of the cake slice: orange cake filled with honey cream, vanilla bean ice cream, white chocolate "fudge," and Rainier cherry sorbet.

Notes:

-I rolled my Swiss roll cake lengthwise instead of shortwise, starting from the short end, as the recipe directed, because I was afraid I wouldn't have enough slices to cover the bowl. I did have a few slices left over this way. However, I didn't take into account that the roll slices would've been bigger if I'd rolled them shortwise, covering more surface area. I think the short-wise roll would've looked prettier. Overall, though, my bowl's funny size and shape made placing the slices a challenge.

-The recipe instructs bakers to cut the slices about 3/4 of an inch thick, but I wish I would've sliced mine thinner--this would've made a prettier cake, with less gap between the Swiss roll slices. However, slicing thinner slices would've been difficult, so I probably would recommend freezing the rolls slightly before trying to slice them. By the time you're done slicing, the slices should have thawed enough to be easy to place inside the bowl.

-Place your slices carefully so you don't have to keep handling the slices to move them around. If you handle them too much, they can fall apart, and that gets messy. That messiness will show on the outside of your cake. A few times, I had to remove slices and wipe the cream filling off the plastic to ensure the outside of the cake wouldn't look too sloppy.

-A lot of people didn't let their ice cream set before layering it into the bomb. This was most crucial with the layer just inside the Swiss rolls, since ice cream that's too runny can seep between any spaces between the Swiss roll slices. It's fine if it's allowed to seep through uniformly, making a tile-and-mortar effect, but not when it's only seeped through in splotches.

-I used this recipe from Food & Wine for my white chocolate hot fudge, replacing the corn syrup with some honey to keep the sauce viscous. I halved the fudge recipe, and even then, I ended up with extra. The original challenge recipe makes the same amount, and I would've halved that, too, since I'm not a fan of a LOT of hot fudge. Excess can be stored in the fridge and reheated when needed for other desserts.

-The ice cream recipe that comes with this challenge is insanely rich--it's basically frozen whipped cream. I'm glad I didn't use two batches to fill my cake because I think that would've been fat overload--like, a gallon of whipping cream. Holy cow. If I were to do this again, I'd use a traditional ice cream recipe that uses egg yolks and just some cream, cut with milk.

-I adapted this David Lebovitz recipe to make 1 qt. of sorbet, which was unsweetened because Rainier cherries are already so naturally sweet.

2 pounds fresh Rainier cherries
1/2 cup water
1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/8 tsp pure almond extract or kirsch

Stem and pit the cherries. Place in a non-reactive saucepan with water and lemon juice over medium heat. Simmer for about 10-15 minutes until cherries are softened. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Add extract or kirsch. Place mixture in a blender and blend until smooth. Cool and chill in refrigerator overnight, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Check out my fellow DBers' projects at our blogroll!

Daring Bakers, June: Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse

2010-06-27T00:02:00.000-07:00

Daring Bakers unite in June to make an untraditional version of a traditional Australian/NZ dessert.

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard

Dawn hadn't posted her project last time I checked, but the amazingly talented, creative, and quick Australian DBer Audax Artifex posted it all here, along with tips on making a traditional pavlova with a soft, mallowy center! I highly recommend his blog!

I plated mine three ways--this is the traditional stacked style, with the meringue on the bottom, the creamy filling next, then the toppings--in this case, the chocolate mascarpone mousse, mascarpone cream, shaved chocolate, and chocolate-covered coffee beans.

Dig in!

Deconstructed, with the components layered in clear glasses to show a trifle-like effect--this is a common fancy-pants dessert plating. It gave the meringues a chance to shine, though, and I liked that.

While the mascarpone was supposed to be the star, the vanilla bean creme anglais base in the mascarpone cream was my favorite flavor.

I made a frozen sandwich treat with the last of the components, all of which freeze well, especially the meringues and mascarpone cream (creme anglais is basically the base for most ice cream recipes, so it always freezes well). The mousse wasn't creamy like ice cream until it melted in my mouth. The components in this form created the best synergy for me.

Here's a closer look.

Notes:
I was excited to see that our June's project was a pavlova because it's a dessert that's given me problems in the past despite the fact that I'm comfortable with all other forms of meringues. Alas, this is really just a regular meringue cookie base. It will be crisp all the way through instead of having the soft, mallowy center that traditional pavlova recipes will give you. Again, if you visit Audax's blog linked above, he tells you how to put the traditional dessert together.

The recipe is easy to divide, which is always a plus for my two-person household. Still, half the mascarpone recipe was too much, and a quarter would've been more than enough for the recipe's purpose. Because you can do so much with it, though (freeze it into ice cream, use it as a base or topping for other desserts, etc.), it's probably worth making a half or full batch. If you freeze it, you can always thaw it out to use as a drizzle again. The meringue recipe made 5 large meringues about the size of saucers, but meringues also freeze and thaw well.

I didn't have enough chocolate in my pantry for the recipe, so we picked up one of the pound-plus bars at Fresh & Easy. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's Callebaut chocolate--a high-quality chocolate that's a pleasure to work with and eat. I chopped it up for the recipe and topping using my serrated bread knife--it makes quick short work of even the thickest slab of chocolate.

I saw several projects with a thin, almost translucent cream drizzle, but I wanted mine to have a little more body, especially since I knew I'd end up with so much of it. The recipe says to beat the mixture to soft peaks, but I went just a smidge past hat since I knew it would soften up again after all the other handling it would go through.

I also saw a lot of mousse with a grainy, gritty texture. The recipe warns not to overbeat the mascarpone because it can break--heed that warning! Gritty mascarpone has a texture similar to drained ricotta--not what I'd want in a creamy summertime dessert. Once you're ready to fold the chocolate in, the mixture can take a lot more abuse.

Want to see more? Visit our DB Blogroll to get a fabulous eyeful!

Daring Bakers, May: Piece Montée (croquembouche)

2010-05-27T22:11:00.000-07:00

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

Here's the recipe.

And here is the rest of it.

I've made plenty of pate a choux and have helped build a croquembouche, but this was my first solo attempt at building one, and it was a lot of fun! I only I wish I'd had more time to build it, but as it was, I was able to do a decent job with this as an after-work, workweek dessert.

I didn't have the patience or time to make a traditional conical piece, so I want Egyptian and built a pyramid. There's a treasure in there somewhere! And it's vanilla flavored. Mmm.

Notes:
-Mixing pate a choux is the fastest way to end up with one big, muscular arm. I recommend working out for a minimum of two weeks before attempting this project, and learning to be ambidextrous so both arms increase at the same rate.

-Don't taste the pastry cream beforehand. This is the best pastry cream recipe I've had, and it was only through great restraint that I was able to avoid eating a big bowl of pudding before I needed to fill my pufs.

-Rethink adding red food coloring to your caramel, because it may look uncannily like burnt caramel. As long as it doesn't taste like burnt caramel, though, you can just call it a neat trick.

-Remember--making small puffs doesn't give you an excuse to eat more of them. Invite friends over the night you make your dessert--I did, and we cleaned the plate without feeling guilty. Besides, eating big cream puffs often leads to embarrassment--smaller ones allow you to huff the cream into your mouth before it plops out and onto your good shoes. The grandeur in the piece comes from the structure, not puffs the size of your fist.

-In all seriousness, oven temps are crucial--the high beginning temp ensures maximum puff as the air inside the batter expands and delivers some balloon octane. You want puffs, not skipping stones. Along the same lines, watch your clock with the second phase of baking--make sure you leave your puffs in the 350-degree oven long enough to dry, and this will ensure your shells stay nice and crispy, even if you don't fill them until the next day.

-I used cane sugar for my caramel--it was hard to track how amber it became because it already had a darker tinge to it, so I pulled the pot just shy of when I thought it might need, and it turned out fine. If you can't tell, trust your nose here. If it smells like burnt sugar, toss the batch--it will definitely taste like burnt sugar, and not in that nice creme brulee way.

-On a tangent, there are two easy ways to clean sugar out of your pot if you don't think your dishwasher can handle it (e.g., you have an inch of sugar stuck in the bottom of your pot). Just fill the pot with water, and the sugar will dissolve on its own, or put a few inches of water in the pot and boil the sugar out. Don't submerge the hot pot in water--you'll come away with the most memorable and sweet-smelling steam bath EVAR.

-Use patience when roping your caramel around your piece, or at least more patience than I did. Draw your strands up long and slow, and you'll come away with thicker rope as opposed to drizzles like I did; in all honesty, I just wanted to get the piece done before the sun set, and fortunately, I like the way it turned out, but some people want a more refined, uniform look. That takes refined, uniform behavior. ;)

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Daring Bakers, April: Traditional British Pudding

2010-04-27T15:46:00.000-07:00

Here's my Daring Bakers project for April! The Daring Bakers are given a secret recipe at the beginning of the month to bake sometime during the month before they reveal their results at the end of the month.

Actually, perhaps this month, we should call ourselves the Daring Steamers!

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

Here's the recipe on Esther's page.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find suet (pronounced SUU-it), but regardless, it was not supposed to look like this:

This is my headless steak and onion pudding.

Except from my post on the DB forum today:

It's do-or-die day, and I'm at home, hobbled with some sort of tendon injury. I kept putting the challenge off while I tried to find suet, but I wasn't able to find suet in all of Metro Phoenix (any Phoenicians out there able to?). I almost passed on the challenge, but Audax's description of the steak and kidney pie were irresistible (way to pitch it, Audax). I couldn't find kidney, either, but I didn't try as hard with that one. Instead, I've got a steak and onion pie in the stock pot, atop a precariously improvised steamer. I used shortening for my crust. It's horrible.

Pie crust recipes that don't work out for me reduce me to such a blubbering baby. The first time I tried to roll it out, it stuck. The second time I rolled it out, I floured the bench liberally, and when I tried to move the crust, it cracked and broke everywhere. I turned it into a "pat-into-the-pan" crust, despite Esther's warning that overhandling would turn the crust tough. I tried to do better with the lid, but again, it was like a bull in a china shop--breaking everywhere, right on top of the filling, so I just pushed the floating islands of crust together best as I could, flopped the excess side crust down on top (it cracked at the fold), then vanished into my happy place, auto-piloting through covering the improvised pudding dish (a stainless steel bowl that's taller than it is wide, at least) with foil, tying it around the rim to keep the water out (laughable, since the inside is as open as a public swimming pool in the middle of summer), and there it steams. Unless it's all tipped over, in which case, there it spills. Dinner will be late tonight, since I'm going to try to steam it for all of 5 hours. I'm going to try to improvise a sweet pudding in some coffee cups and my smaller steamer. Wish me luck!

Chuck, onions, and herbs.

The failed puddin' head. The topping crumbled as I tried to put it on top of the pudding, and the sides cracked at the edges as I tried to fold them down over the top. Fail!

I much prefer the look of it all tied up. I made sure it was tied tightly enough to keep steam from creeping up under the foil and into the pudding--that would've made it wet--wetter than just having large cracks in the top crust made it, I reckon.

I improvised a giant steamer using my big crockpot and a precariously balanced steam tray inside. The tray had a stick and ring coming out of the middle for lifting the tray out, so I couldn't just open it up and use it as I'm supposed to--I flipped it over so I could balance my improvised pudding bowl (a bowl that's taller than it is wide) on top of it. I opened up the tray part to help balance. It didn't work--the pudding toppled to the side a bit, but it wasn't tilted, so I left it as is and steamed it for 5 (fraggin' long) hours.

The edges of the top crust were all right--flaky as it should be--but as expected, the center was mush and brainy-looking (not to be confused with smart-looking).

Oh yeah--the recipe said to roll the dough out and line the bowl, but since my rolled dough kept either sticking or cracking/falling to pieces, I patted it into my greased bowl. Maybe that's why it ended up sticking mercilessly to the inside of the bowl. Maybe it's because I used shortening instead of suet. Maybe it's better that it stuck and I opted not to eat it, since I really don't need that extra fat in my diet.

I did not want to put this in my mouth. But I did.

The good news: the meat was wonderfully tender, so bonus there! Maybe I should start steaming my roasts.

I made the sweet pudding recipe, using butter instead of suet, and adding Heath toffee chips and topped with some fig jam, and by topped, I meant it was at the bottom of my bowl. Unlike the meat and onion pudding, it looked frightening at the beginning, and better at the end.

See?

Not bad. There are better ways to make a cake, but this was an interesting experiment. Maybe if I ever find some suet, I'll try this again.

My notes are scattered throughout the post. I will say that I've never liked shortening in pastry crust, and it was an utter failure here--it would not roll out. Perhaps a rest would've helped, or using less shortening and adding water, as in a traditional crust recipe. Whatever the case, a pat-in-the-pan crust didn't work for me at all, as that's what the recipe turned into when it refused to stay together as a roll-out dough. The crust stuck in the greased bowl, and I couldn't roll out a piece for the top.

Want to see some other puddings--many of which are much cuter than mine? Click here!

Daring Bakers, March: Orange Tian

2010-03-27T21:52:00.000-07:00

Here's my Daring Bakers project for March! For those just joining me, the Daring Bakers are given a secret recipe at the beginning of the month to bake sometime during the month before they reveal their results at the end of the month.

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

I built mine family style instead of as individual desserts and served it to a group of friends I had over for poetry and potluck.

Trying to arrange the orange wedges in the mold so they would look pretty was a little challenging.

I used the top of my dish as a sort of cookie cutter for my big tian, but the whipped cream didn't fill the dish, so the cookie base needed to be smaller so it could fit better against the whipped cream line. Ah well--I'll know for next time!

I got a little too enthusiastic with trying to fit the crust into the mold.

After you lay the orange wedges down, you layer in the whipped cream (with the orange marmalade folded in), then press the cookie base on top, freeze it about 10 minutes to set, then unmold it so the cookie base is on the bottom.

Then you pour the orange caramel over the top.

Here are the smaller sizes

Notes:
As always when rolling a chilled dough, it helps to let it then warm up just a tad before rolling so it doesn't crack/rip under the rolling pin.

When cooking the marmalade, make sure it doesn't turn into a thick, sticky jam because you'll have to fold it into the whipped cream later--stop its cooking while it's still a bit liquid. If it's stiff anyway when you have to fold it in, you can heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds or so until it's an easier consistency to work with. This will also help when spreading it over the tian base.

You're supposed to drain the liquid from the orange wedges after their overnight soak--don't just dump it! This syrup is too sweet to drink straight (unless you're into that), but it makes a nice sweet addition to fruit smoothies, iced teas, or uh "adult beverages." You could also use it to soak trifles or other cakes you want to flavor and moisten.

After looking at other DBers' photos, it seemed like over- or under-whipping the cream when making the whipped cream was a minor issue. The finished whipped cream should be able to hold stiff peaks, but shouldn't curdle at all--in other words, no chunkiness. If it seems to soften up after folding in the marmalade, you can try whipping it more to aerate it further so it will hold its shape better after spreading it over the orange wedges.

The caramel sauce you add at the end is easy and will stay soft even after cooking for a long time, but it can get a bit chewy at a certain point. I think taking the sauce off the stove when it's thick enough to just coat a spoon makes the perfect consistency--not so runny that it pours right off the top, but not so thick that it turns into toffee as soon as it hits the cold oranges. The caramel will soften up as the tian warms up, though--if it lasts that long!

I used plastic wrap to line my mold so I'd be able to pop it out after it had set and was ready to plate, but of course I got some lines from the wrap in my whipped cream. If I'd wanted to pretty it up, I could've taken a warm spatula to the sides to smooth them out, or just added more whipped cream around the sides to mask the wrinkles.

My guests liked the dessert, but they also really enjoyed the sablees I made from the leftover dough. If I'd had some marmalade left, I would've made marmalade sandwich cookies!

You can check out my fellow DBers' blogs here at our Blogroll--there are thousands of us, so you won't be hurting for food-loving inspiration!

And finally, here's the recipe:
For the Pate Sablee:

Ingredients U.S. Imperial Metric Instructions for Ingredients
2 medium-sized egg yolks at room temperature
granulated sugar 6 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon; 2.8 oz; 80 grams
vanilla extract ½ teaspoon
Unsalted butter ¼ cup + 3 tablespoons; 3.5 oz; 100 grams ice cold, cubed
Salt 1/3 teaspoon; 2 grams
All-purpose flour 1.5 cup + 2 tablespoons; 7 oz; 200 grams
baking powder 1 teaspoon ; 4 grams

Directions:
Put the flour, baking powder, ice cold cubed butter and salt in a food processor fitted with a steel blade.

In a separate bowl, add the eggs yolks, vanilla extract and sugar and beat with a whisk until the mixture is pale. Pour the egg mixture in the food processor.

Process until the dough just comes together. If you find that the dough is still a little too crumbly to come together, add a couple drops of water and process again to form a homogenous ball of dough. Form into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.

Roll out the dough onto a lightly floured surface until you obtain a ¼ inch thick circle.

Using your cookie cutter, cut out circles of dough and place on a parchment (or silicone) lined baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes or until the circles of dough are just golden.

For the Marmalade:

Ingredients U.S. Imperial Metric Instructions for Ingredients
Freshly pressed orange juice ¼ cup + 3 tablespoons; 3.5 oz; 100 grams
1 large orange used to make orange slices
cold water to cook the orange slices
pectin 5 grams
granulated sugar: use the same weight as the weight of orange slices once they are cooked

Finely slice the orange. Place the orange slices in a medium-sized pot filled with cold water. Simmer for about 10 minutes, discard the water, re-fill with cold water and blanch the oranges for another 10 minutes.

Blanch the orange slices 3 times. This process removes the bitterness from the orange peel, so it is essential to use a new batch of cold water every time when you blanch the slices.

Once blanched 3 times, drain the slices and let them cool.

Once they are cool enough to handle, finely mince them (using a knife or a food processor).

Weigh the slices and use the same amount of granulated sugar . If you don’t have a scale, you can place the slices in a cup measurer and use the same amount of sugar.

In a pot over medium heat, add the minced orange slices, the sugar you just weighed, the orange juice and the pectin. Cook until the mixture reaches a jam consistency (10-15 minutes).

Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge.

For the Orange Segments:

For this step you will need 8 oranges.

Cut the oranges into segments over a shallow bowl and make sure to keep the juice. Add the segments to the bowl with the juice.

[See YouTube video in the References section below for additional information on segmenting oranges.]

For the Caramel:

Ingredients U.S. Metric Imperial Instructions for Ingredients
granulated sugar 1 cup; 7 oz; 200 grams
orange juice 1.5 cups + 2 tablespoons; 14 oz; 400 grams

Place the sugar in a pan on medium heat and begin heating it.

Once the sugar starts to bubble and foam, slowly add the orange juice. As soon as the mixture starts boiling, remove from the heat and pour half of the mixture over the orange segments.

Reserve the other half of the caramel mixture in a small bowl — you will use this later to spoon over the finished dessert. When the dessert is assembled and setting in the freezer, heat the kept caramel sauce in a small saucepan over low heat until it thickens and just coats the back of a spoon (about 10 minutes). You can then spoon it over the orange tians.

[Tip: Be very careful when making the caramel — if you have never made caramel before, I would suggest making this step while you don’t have to worry about anything else. Bubbling sugar is extremely, extremely hot, so make sure you have a bowl of ice cold water in the kitchen in case anyone gets burnt!]

For the Whipped Cream:

Ingredients U.S. Metric Imperial Instructions for Ingredients
heavy whipping cream 1 cup; 7 oz; 200 grams
3 tablespoons of hot water
1 tsp Gelatine
1 tablespoon of confectioner's sugar
orange marmalade (see recipe above) 1 tablespoon

In a small bowl, add the gelatine and hot water, stirring well until the gelatine dissolves. Let the gelatine cool to room temperature while you make the whipped cream. Combine the cream in a chilled mixing bowl. Whip the cream using a hand mixer on low speed until the cream starts to thicken for about one minute. Add the confectioner sugar. Increase the speed to medium-high. Whip the cream until the beaters leave visible (but not lasting) trails in the cream, then add the cooled gelatine slowly while beating continuously. Continue whipping until the cream is light and fluffy and forms soft peaks. Transfer the whipped cream to a bowl and fold in the orange marmalade.
[Tip: Use an ice cold bowl to make the whipped cream in. You can do this by putting your mixing bowl, cream and beater in the fridge for 20 minutes prior to whipping the cream.]

Assembling the Dessert:

Make sure you have some room in your freezer. Ideally, you should be able to fit a small baking sheet or tray of desserts to set in the freezer.

Line a small tray or baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone sheet. Lay out 6 cookie cutters onto the parchment paper/silicone.

Drain the orange segments on a kitchen towel.

Have the marmalade, whipped cream and baked circles of dough ready to use.

Arrange the orange segments at the bottom of each cookie cutter. Make sure the segments all touch either and that there are no gaps. Make sure they fit snuggly and look pretty as they will end up being the top of the dessert. Arrange them as you would sliced apples when making an apple tart.

Once you have neatly arranged one layer of orange segments at the bottom of each cookie cutter, add a couple spoonfuls of whipped cream and gently spread it so that it fills the cookie cutter in an even layer. Leave about 1/4 inch at the top so there is room for dough circle.

Using a butter knife or small spoon, spread a small even layer of orange marmalade on each circle of dough.

Carefully place a circle of dough over each ring (the side of dough covered in marmalade should be the side touching the whipping cream). Gently press on the circle of dough to make sure the dessert is compact.

Place the desserts to set in the freezer to set for 10 minutes.

Using a small knife, gently go around the edges of the cookie cutter to make sure the dessert will be easy to unmold. Gently place your serving plate on top of a dessert (on top of the circle of dough) and turn the plate over. Gently remove the cookie cutter, add a spoonful of caramel sauce and serve immediately.

Daring Bakers, February: MASCARPONE + SAVOIARDI BISCUITS + ZABAGLIONE = TIRAMISU!

2010-02-27T03:03:00.000-08:00

Here we are again--Daring Bakers day! The Daring Bakers are given a secret recipe at the beginning of the month to bake sometime during the month before they reveal their results at the end of the month.

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

RECIPE SOURCE:

Mascarpone Cheese – Vera’s Recipe (Baking Obsession) for Homemade Mascarpone Cheese.
Savoiardi/ Ladyfinger Biscuits – Recipe from Cordon Bleu At Home
Tiramisu – Carminantonio's Tiramisu from The Washington Post, July 11 2007

This was the best tiramisu I've ever eaten--not too boozy (because I don't really care for boozy desserts so I didn't souse this one up), not too sweet, not too much of any component (oh, the benefits of making desserts your own self).

I made the savoiardi biscuits first because they keep several days and I wanted to get as much done in advance as possible, knowing I'd put the rest off until the last minute. ;)The key here is steady piping if you want them to look pretty, but after you bury them in the lovely tiramisu cream (zabaglione and mascarpone and pastry cream and whipped cream, all folded together), it doesn't matter what they look like--they'll taste just like heaven. *cues The Cure, starts a kicky little 80s dance* Anyway, cute cookies are good if you're serving the leftovers to dunk into tea or coffee, or as a garnish to another dessert (ice cream, sorbet, cut fruit, just zabaglione to dip it in, chocolate sauce, etc.).

This was my favorite trick (no, not the one that makes me scream seasick)--making mascarpone at home with just some cream and lemon juice. The hardest part was knowing when the cream had reached the right consistency after cooking it with the lemon juice. It really was just like a creme anglais, which is just a bit thicker than the cream out of the container. The trick is to use about twice as many layers of cheesecloth as the recipe states. The first time I poured the cream through, more than half dripped through the cloth-lined sieve after I'd set it in the fridge for a bit. I carefully lifted the cloth holding the cream that had remained and already set a bit, then added a few more layers of damp cloth under it. I poured the cream that had dripped through, and this time, most of it stayed. After 24 hours, all that had dripped through was the clear whey that was supposed to drip through, and what was left was a luxuriously soft and creamy cheese. Nom!

Zabaglione can be tricky. The first couple of times I made it, I sounded like a kid on a car trip: "are we there yet? are we there yet?" Look for the mixture to really gain some volume--at least twice the volume, if not triple. Other times I've made zabaglione, it didn't get this dark. This time it did, and that was fine. Awesome, even!

I've never made a tiramisu with pastry cream added. This time I did, and that was fine. Awesome, even!

No fancy plating this time--I just didn't have the time nor the energy for it. Instead, I went rustic, layering the components in a small clear dish, and scooping it out family style when I served it. Besides, I waited until just several hours before serving instead of the usual night before, so it didn't set up to make an even cut.

The next day, though, I cut the leftovers, which had had 24 hours to set and for the flavors to really come together. A trick for those wanting a super clean cut and "assisted" height: freeze it for a couple of hours, then cut with a sharp knife, cleaning the blade between each cut you make. I wasn't feeling so particular. ;)

Check out my fellow DBers blogs here!

Daring Bakers, January 2010: Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bar

2010-01-14T23:02:00.000-08:00

It's Daring Bakers time! For those just joining me, the Daring Bakers are given a secret recipe at the beginning of the month to bake sometime during the month before they reveal their results at the end of the month.

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

They're pronounced "nuhn-EYE-moh." I think. You can view the recipe through the link above.

The recipe says I should be able to pat the dough, though soft and sticky, into a rectangle once it had come together. Unfortunately, at first, the dough was more like a batter, so it wouldn't pat so much as puddle.

I was glad to have the visual clue of being able to pat the dough, so I added a bit more rice and sorghum flour until it was more I could actually pat it (without losing digits into the clinging sticky mass). It felt like a loose taffy, and stuck like it, too, until I'd lightly floured it. Then it was as tame as a kitten. See how it holds shapes, like scribbles from the food processor's mixing action?

I scraped the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap, patted it into a rectangle, then floured it on both sides with the rice flour, which made it considerably less sticky (and for me, less daunting--sticky dough frustrates me).

Use a lot of flour on the counter and rolling pin when you roll it out. Move the dough a lot to make sure it's not sticking. The good thing about a soft dough is that it's awesomely easy to roll out.

The baked product.

After grinding the crackers to crumbs, then adding the melted butter, almonds, coconut, and cocoa powder to make the base, the mixture was very moist and actually had it's own puddling action going on. I sprinkled some of the leftover graham cracker crumbs over the top to soak it up. That was fun, except some of the crumbs got into the middle layer, like a cake's crumb coat. This wasn't a problem, unless you want a pristine layer. I didn't even notice the crumbs in that layer, though.

The middle layer--basically a custard-flavored buttercream.

Pour and spread the ganache, cover the pan, and let it set in the fridge overnight, or at least for a few hours.

Then slice and serve. You can use a knife dipped in hot water, then wiped dry, for a cleaner cut. These are so rick, it's absurd. Every layer has butter in it. I strongly recommend small, bite-size servings.

There was a lot of leftover dough, so I cut out some rounds. They're the perfect size for S'mores.

Or, you can just press a mixture of sugar and cinnamon into the tops before baking and end up with a nice treat.

Want to see more? Check out my fellow DBers' blogs here.

Daring Bakers, December: A Gingerbread House

2009-12-27T14:20:00.000-08:00

Once again, it's Daring Bakers time! At the beginning of the month--a secret recipe! At the end--the reveal!

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

I used Y's recipe, which is linked above. And I'll preface by saying that I'm a pretty grinchy gingerbreadist.

I saw a cute design on the Good Housekeeping website. It featured at tall, sloping roof, so I incorporated that and kept the rest simple.

I'll admit. I don't like gingerbread. The kits might be fun, but I've never had much luck, baking one up from scratch. It's not the building aspect, either. I studied architecture in high school and college, and had to make many architectural models. I do, however, remember hearing some wise old professors warn us aspiring architects: "Never use gingerbread to build architectural models--it doesn't work well." Okay, that's a lie. Although there were points during this process when I wanted to stop and use chipboard covered in royal icing to finish this recipe. And it was hard at times to not use some mighty grinchy language, like when rolling out the initially stiff, crumbly dough. Or prying delicate pieces off the bottom of the baking sheet. Or trying to assemble those same pieces and watching them shatter to dust in my hands, leaving my wondering if icing could fix THAT problem.

Here's the template I used. I didn't want to make it too big, and the final house is only about 9 inches tall.

The dough rolled out into the pan, as directed by the recipe. At first, the hunk of dough crumbled, which was discouraging (*cue more grinchy language*), but after beating it with my French rolling pin for about 5 minutes, it started to "relax" and do what mama told it, like a good little dough.

I made the dough a few days before I actually baked it. I think the long resting time in the fridge dried it out quite a bit, so it baked up brittle and cracked at parts. In addition, one of the big pieces buckled as a bubble built up under it, rounding it up. (Argh, razzum frazzum.) It also stuck to the cookie sheet, but the recipe said not to grease the pan or use parchment paper. So I didn't. Ok, at one point, while baking the roof, I did use parchment, and it came up like a charm. Anyway, I hid the cracks using a load of icing, and whatever appropriate foodstuffs I could drag out of the ill-stocked-for-gingerbreading cupboards.

I'll pause here and say that the only other time I've made a gingerbread house was in cooking school, during Classical Desserts class. It sucked butt. Our chef-instructor, who was subbing in and not really a pastry chef, had us roll out ginormous house pieces (almost a foot tall at their longest points) out on floured benches, then move them to our baking sheets. Big mistake. We deformed the pieces in transit; we should've rolled them out on the sheets. Then the giant pieces would keep falling because each weighed about 20 pounds, and royal icing, while mighty, is not THAT mighty. Pieces would fall, break, we'd try to repair them with more icing, that would also fail. Basically, at best, we ended up with gingerbread dilapidation--holiday shacks. The Fall of the House of Ginger. Thus, I went into this project already soured on it.

I was hoping the gingerbread would be at least a little pliable fresh out of the oven so I could curve it over the roofline, but it came out already hard, so I just used slats. I was able to turn some of the bigger roof pieces, which I'd baked on parchment (just as an experiment) into slats, but many of them shattered. I baked more, sans parchment, and those stuck to the sheet (I never learn), and several broke. I used what was left and what I could repair, so it's not the smoothest-looking roofline, but you get the steep, sloping message.

I filled the slats in with royal icing. Wah-lah!

Notes:
-I'm not sure why the recipe doesn't talk about parchment, but if you bake this recipe, I highly recommend using it.

-Don't wait too long to bake the dough after making it. It can rest overnight, but in my case, I feel like it dried out too much before I baked it. I baked the walls more than 2 days after making the dough, and the roof, the day after that.

-Make sure you roll the dough out evenly, or some parts will be too thin and bake up brittle and dark. I'd also start checking for doneness a bit early.

-I was pretty sure I wasn't going to eat the gingerbread (it's not that tasty, now that all is said and done), so I wish I'd used shortening instead of wasting good butter in the recipe.

-The royal icing in the recipe was a bit stiff, so I watered it down to varying levels, according to what I needed it for. A little bit of water goes a long way, so separate out what you need for a certain task, and add a drop at a time.

-Go in armed with ample amounts of candy decorations. I ended up just using what we had around the house--some old Jelly Bellies and chocolate rice krispie treats. It's humble, but I got what I asked for.

And that's this month's project! It's my first one in the new house, so I'm glad that I broke in the new house with a new house. Want to check out some gorgeous gingerbread from my fellow DBers? Click here.

Happy Holidays, jolly New Year, hip hop hurrah, and all that! I hope you're all in a safe, happy place, surrounded by loved ones during this chilly season!

The BloggerAid Cook Book!

2009-11-30T22:13:00.000-08:00

I'm proud to be a part of this project! I have a recipe and photo in it, and helped edit it.

Available from createspace at https://www.createspace.com/3405882.

Recipes from bloggers around the world making a difference
By BloggerAid-CFF, Rhonda Renee, Mark Haak, Peter Georgakopoulos, Deeba Rajpal

Food does not simply nourish the body; food also celebrates what makes the world diverse, as well as, what unites us. The BloggerAid Cook Book is a collection of international recipes illustrating that we can work together and unite for a greater cause. The authors of this cookbook are food bloggers from around the world who have endeavored to make a difference by raising funds for the World Food Programme and encompassing their passion for "all things foodie" at the same time. Through these recipes they share their traditions and insatiable curiosity about new flavours. They pay tribute to the home cooking of our grandmothers, while celebrating the exoticism and richness of a world brought closer together by their hopes to make a difference. With recipes such as Tomato-Cheese Ravioli with Eggplant Sauce, Spicy Serundeng Tuna and Peanuts, Serrano Ham Paella with Oyster Mushrooms, Raspberry Mascarpone Bites and Triple Layer Orange-Passion Fruit Tart we are doing our part to say that bloggers can change the face of famine.

We chose the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) to receive the funds generated by the cookbook because of the wonderful work this organization does. The WFP has touched the lives of our members, many of whom are from countries where poverty is often a way of life. More specifically, 100% of BloggerAid's proceeds from the cookbook will benefit the WFP's School Meals Programme, which benefits an average of 22 million hungry children each year. School meals are important on many levels. In countries where school attendance is low, the promise of at least one nutritious meal each day boosts enrollment and promotes regular attendance.

This book is a virtual way for all of us, wherever we may be and however rich or poor we may be, to pull up a chair at the same table and share what we have.

Publication Date: Nov 10 2009
ISBN/EAN13: 1449561926 / 9781449561925
Page Count: 224
Binding Type: US Trade Paper
Trim Size: 8" x 10"
Language: English
Color: Full Color
Related Categories: Cooking / General

Daring Bakers, October: Macaroons (Macarons)

2009-10-27T01:15:00.000-07:00

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

The recipe is on Ami's blog here.

I love making macarons. I'm comfortable with them, especially now that I've figured out the piping and folding and whatnot (although the golf-ball-esque macarons in that last link are still good for a cozy laff). I'd never outright failed a macaron recipe. Until this one (if feet-free macarons that taste fine count as fail).

We were allowed to choose our own flavors, so I went with ginger macarons filled with honey fig curd.

Or should I call them . . . Macawrongs!?

This is how I know I've whipped the egg whites just enough: stiff peaks, and it sticks to the bowl when I hold it up. Or how I know I've lost my mind, when I hold the bowl up like this and the egg whites slide out in a limp, sticky plop.

The directions, and many other macaron recipes, advise you to fold gently, but I'm not too very delicate. Ultimately, I want the batter to flatten just a bit after I pipe it so the macarons have a satin smooth top and are relatively flat, especially across the top. They won't look or sit right if they bake up domed, although if you're going for a meringue cookie, then dome away!

I knew the recipe wouldn't work out when, during the last bit of baking, the macrons didn't sprout feet. Usually, they spit feet out and look like Mr. Bubble within the first few minutes of baking. With these, not even the magic of Totoro could give these puppies feet. Sadness. =( I paced the kitchen like an expectant father, waiting for that proverbial bun to come out of the oven. It was actually pretty comical. After the fact, anyway. ;)

They also had a pitted surface, and the first batch wanted to stick to the silpat, which had never happened before. I baked the second batch a few minutes longer, and the macarons both released easily once they were cool, and they came up with shiny bottoms--like the top of the Chrysler Building!

Although they didn't look right, their taste was right on, and their texture was close enough--a crisp surface with a melt-in-your-mouth, but with a slight initial chew.

I forged on and made sandwich cookies with my honey fig curd. Use your favorite lemon curd recipe, and replace the lemon juice with some warmed fig preserves/jelly/puree, and cut up to half the sugar and replace it with honey. I just toss all of my ingredients into a double boiler and whisk away until it's thick and sticky.

Notes:
1. Ultimately, I think temperature and cooking time affected these macarons' outcome. My go-to macaron recipe is David Lebovitz's French Chocolate Macaron Recipe, replacing the cocoa powder with more ground almond when I want a non-chocolate macaron. His recipe bakes the macarons for 15 to 18 minutes at 375; this recipe starts with 5 minutes at 200 degrees, then has you remove the macarons to heat the oven up to 375 where you replace and bake them for 7 to 8 minutes. I wonder if that initial low-temp blast is meant to set a "skin" on the macarons by drying them out. Other recipes do this by simply letting the piped macarons sit out for up to 30 minutes. Frankly, I've had luck just sliding them in, fresh out of the piping bag.

2. A lot of bakers swear by aged egg whites, which contain less moisture than fresh whites. Personally, I'd never experienced a noticeable difference, but I did use day-old egg whites, aged on the counter in a covered container (yes, scary, I know, but you can also age them in a covered container in the fridge as long as you promise to bring them up to room temp. before trying to whip them). If you want, you could add just a bit more of the dry ingredients to suck up moisture, but I'm not meticulous enough to work out that calculation.

3. Don't be afraid of the egg whites. If you underbeat them, they'll spread out too much; if you overbeat me, they'll be too dry and will turn to mud when you add your dry stuff. Beat them until they hold a stiff peak and are glossy. And you can hold your bowl up, even upside down, and they'll hold fast for about 30 seconds. By the time you've folded your dry stuff in, they'll spread out just a bit instead of staying in a dome, but they should stay round and then grow feet when you bake them. That is, if your macarons are the feet-growing type.

4. In retrospect, I wonder if I would've gotten better results (i.e., feet) if I'd measured by weight instead of volume. The batter may have been too wet to have much lift, and since I used a coarser meal instead of the finer almond flour (I always use meal since I can never find flour), I should've predicted that things might be "off." I typically do measure by weight, too, if weights are given, but I was in too big a hurry this time. Dopey excuse, since I had the scale out just the day before to make the curd!

5. Curds make for good filling, but they're not a stable filling and can gooze out, especially after awhile or you're in a warm environment (e.g., a hot kitchen). You can fold the curd into your favorite buttercream recipe. YOM. Go as much as one part curd to one part buttercream. Keep the curd chilly, but not after you're spread it into the macarons; fridging them will make them chewy, and that's not YOM.

Want to see some amazing flavor combos and beautiful macarons (some more beautiful inside than out, as per the recipe)? Click around our blogroll!

Daring Bakers, September: Vols-au-Vent

2009-09-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

Once again, it's time for my Daring Bakers post! At the beginning of the month, the DBers are assigned a secret baking project, and at the end of the month, they post their results en masse!

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' Challenge has been chosen by Steph of a whisk and a spoon. Steph chose Vols-au-Vent, which we are pretty sure in French means, "After one bite we could die and go to heaven!"

The recipe is behind the link above.

Mine had beet salad with lemon vinaigrette as a starter . . .

. . . and banana sorbet with banana pudding as dessert. It worked.

Although the sludge of puddin' wasn't so cute. A lesson for next time! ;D

Here's the dimply dough, fresh out of the food processor, and scored so it will chill faster (I think. Or just to help you vent out any frustrations with some stabby stabby action.)

And here's the butter block that you'll encase with dough. It won't look all that different once it's on your hips after you consume it. HA! In all seriousness, this is the only laminated dough recipe I've ever followed that made me use such a thick block of dough, straight cold.

You just roll your dough into a square, and gift-wrap your butter block. Then howl in anguish as you start to roll it out and see cold, sharp butter bits piece and ooze through your dough and all over your nice granite counter tops. If/When that happens, just tamp some flour down onto the oozy butter, and keep rolling as if it doesn't bother you.

The hollows for the large and small vols-au-vent, along with lids for the small vols-au-vent (though some of my guests decided to chomp them as biscuits before dinner). I got the most mileage out of my dough this way.

Look upon my splurge: up until this project, I'd baked on silicone sheets, which are fine, but much heavier than Silpats. I bought a Silpat just for this project. Lay it over the top of your vols-au-vent to help them rise evenly. Otherwise, your vols-au-vent may go all wonky-slinky like.

Stack your scraps vertically, and roll it all down into a sheet to reuse. To freeze, just fold it into thirds and wrap it well, just like the puff pastry dough you get from the grocery.

Check out my fellow DBers' results by tracking them through our blogroll: click here

Daring Bakers, August: Dobos Torte

2009-08-27T20:22:00.000-07:00

Oh, maaaaan! This is what I get for pushing the DB project off until, literally, the last day. I got it started late last night, then finished it this evening, moments before we're supposed to run out to catch a movie. It's rushed, and not my best, but I served it to some friends at a get-together, and it was tasty:

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful
of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos
Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite
Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

The recipe for this month's project is linked behind each hostesses' blog above.

Here are more photos and my baking notes after the jump.

I didn't want to make my cake too thin because I wanted more cake than buttercream. If I had a do-over, though, I would've paid better attention to spreading the batter evenly. Dobos Tortes are usually round, but the rectangular shaped suited the amount I wanted to make. The dropped corners show how much I misjudged the layers' thickness, though.

Before adding the butter, the chocolate mixture is thick and sticky. I wish it had stayed as such, since it seemed ready to slide off the cake. It didn't, but it did crack a bit after a night in the fridge and being brought up to room temp, and it seemed like the frosting wanted to break.

Once the sugar mixture starts to boil and I turned the heat to high, it only took a few minutes to achieve the amber color that meant the mixture would caramelize perfectly--harden to a crackly top, but without getting too dark.

I decided to skip the nut siding and props for the top caramelized layer. The top layer is instead propped with some leftover buttercream, and I used the leftover caramel to drizzle out some decorative siding.

I used Ghirardelli's bittersweet chocolate, but the frosting looks milky.

I actually preferred the clean look of the tort before I added the caramel sides.

The sliced torte, showing the five layers of vanilla sponge and dark chocolate buttercream, with the caramel layer on top.

Notes:
This recipe was a bit more labor- and time-intensive than your run of the mill cake, but I had some shortcuts that helped me out when I finally decided to start working on the cake.

First off, I halved the recipe, since our get-together would only be with six people. It reduced very well.

I got most of it done two days before I needed it, starting with the buttercream, since the chocolate had to cool before adding the butter and the buttercream had to sit and thicken a bit before I could add it to the cake.

The butter that went into the buttercream needed to be room temperature so I could easily beat it into the chocolate. I forgot that I had only half a stick in the fridge and the rest in the freezer, so I nuked it in the microwave at 10% for 2 minutes. When it's just out of the fridge, I nuke it for 10% at 1 minute. It's the fastest way I know of to get butter to room temperature. To really speed it up, cube the butter into smaller chunks, which will allow you to nuke it for a shorter period of time.

As with any sponge cake, you have to be sure your egg whites are beaten well enough to stay poofy but not so much that they dry out. Beat the whites until you can turn the bowl of whites upside down and count to ten without them sliding out. I saw Rick Bayless do this on Top Chef Masters, beating the egg whites by hand, and it made me like him even more. One of my old pastry chef instructors taught me that if I had only had to do it by hand and had more than one balloon whisk available, I could hold 2 or 3 in one hand to beat the whites up much more quickly.

You can spread this cake batter quite thinly, but no matter how thickly you spread it, make sure you bake it long enough or the cake will be too moist. Moist cake isn't generally a problem until you get to sponge cake, which will end up sticky, and sticky sponge cake is difficult to work with when assembling a dessert like this.

Check out my fellow DBers' projects on our Blogroll!

A Lovely Blog!

2009-08-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

Blog awards are fun! Thanks to Amy over at CraftiFish for passing the Lovely Blog award down to me. I've taken almost a month to think of my favorite 15 lovely blogs. These are what I've come up with:

1. CraftiFish http://craftifish.blogspot.com (Returning the favor--Amy shows her beautiful work here, as well as has a nice "weekly article" format where she writes on topics every week, often focusing on other fabulous vendors from around etsy and the rest of the Internet)

2. The Jolly Porter http://thejollyporter.blogspot.com (I love his layout that shows all the things he loves, and he's a truly witty writer--his posts always leave me cracking up)

3. NieNie Dialogues http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com (I fell in love with this one when I was buying my condo over 2 years ago--Nie puts beautiful touches over every inch of her house, and the clincher for me was what she did with some extra scrapbook paper against a yellow wall. It was easy to get caught up in wanting to follow her as she wrote about her love of life and everything in it, even on rough days. It took a turn when she was in an airplane accident that burned her over 80% of her body. She and her family are so amazing--in fact, The Jolly Porter is her brother!)

4. 101 Cookbooks http://www.101cookbooks.com (Good, healthy, natural food--Heidi's blog has been my source for years when I've wanted great recipes that made beautiful food)

5. The Girl Who Ate Everything http://www.roboppy.net/food (Funny as all get out, Robyn introduced me to some of my favorite food terminology, such as "nom" and "nom nom." I live vicariously through her blog as she eats her way around NYC)

6. Burnt Lumpia http://burntlumpia.typepad.com (As a fellow first-generation Filipino-American--meaning our parents are from the islands and we were born here--I'm always able to relate to Marvin's hilarious musings on growing up in a cross-culture household. He's getting in touch with his identity through food, and putting his own fabulous and talented spin on traditional Filipino grub)

7. Canelle et Vanille http://cannelle-vanille.blogspot.com (My favorite blog for dessert eye candy, and my go-to girl for her citrus curd recipe)

8. Bent Objects http://bentobjects.blogspot.com (Funny, intensely creative and talented, kinda raunchy--one of my favorite spots throughout the week)

9. Kris’s Color Stripes http://color-stripes.blogspot.com (I could comb through her site for days. She takes images and objects, and turns them into color bars, like you could take your favorite childhood toy, find its colors, then take it to the Home Depot so you can buy paints based off it, then end up with, like, The Big Wheel Bedroom--very soothing)

10. Pain in the English http://painintheenglish.com/ (Nerd love here--it just speaks my language--ha!)

11. the affected provincial’s almanack http://lord-whimsy.livejournal.com/ (Allen literally finds the beauty and wonder around him and puts it out for all his readers to see. And he really is a gentle soul. Read his book!)

12. Tartlette http://www.mytartelette.com/ (More yummy dessert eye candy)

13. Eating Asia http://eatingasia.typepad.com (And food eye candy from afar--specifically, Southeast Asia--my parents' homeland. I love seeing how other cultures live and eat, and this blog helps me do that with amazing photography)

14. Borrowed Blue Photography http://borrowedblue.wordpress.com (If I ever get married, or do anything important, or were found dead in the street--any way I could possibly be photographed, I'd want these photographers to capture it. I mean, if it had to be captured, and someone had to capture it. Or something.)

15. Design Sponge http://www.designspongeonline.com/ (More design goodness. I have zero knack for interior design, so I appreciate those who can do it that much more.)

To pass the award on, look no further than below the cut!
There be rules one must follow to board this ship:

1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.
2. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.
3. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Daring Bakers, July: Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies

2009-07-27T01:13:00.000-07:00

It's here!

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

You can find the recipes on Nicole's blog. I halved the recipes, but I still ended up with huge amounts of each type of cookie for some reason (something like quadruple what I should've ended up with).

Milan(o)s are at the top/left, and the marshmallows cookies (heretofore known as "mallows," while I'll sometimes call the marshmallows themselves "marshies") are at the bottom/right.

Piping mallows is fun!

You don't have to dip the Milanos, but what chocolate-filled cookie couldn't use just a little more chocolate? None, I say! Dunk them all! TWICE!

Or just drizzle it on. I call this particular technique "delicizzle."

Ah, the trouble with dipping is that it shows all your flaws--every dimple and crack. But it's chocolate, you just love it more! I'd dip myself in chocolate to be loved like that. I used a fork to dip, counted to ten while I held each cookie over the bowl so a lot of the excess would drizzle off, then set each cookie back down on the parchment. It's a bit more time-consuming, and ten seconds times times something like 70 cookies makes 700 seconds--almost 12 minutes I could've spent on Facebook! It was worth it--I didn't end up with a lake of chocolate melding all my cookies together. ;)

Dark chocolate sure looks pretty on a white plate.

The Milanos were yummy--crisp, orangy, chocolaty, and not too sweet--just enough of everything. I made these about half the size of the Pepperidge Farm version, which is not to say that I ate twice as many . . . (more like thrice).

I wasn't the hugest marshmallow fan until I realized that those store-bought marshies gave all marshies a bad name. Fresh, homemade marshmallows melt in your mouth. Even though these are made just about entirely of sugar, they're not as sweet as store-bought. They are sweet, though, so give the kiddies only a couple a time, or else you'll have to tie a string to them so they don't flee in a glucose-given frenzy. Good times! The cookies, laced with cinnamon, are tasty!

Notes:
The Milan(o) batter pipes out thickly, but spreads out thinly, very much like tuilles! I bet roundies would be nice, but practice a few times so you know your piping skills are sharp enough to make very round cookies--otherwise, you'll have amoebas.

I had leftover marshmallow, so I poured the rest into a tupperware and let it set. The next day, you can cut them apart with kitchen shears. This recipe was a bit too sticky to use a knife on. Toss each marshie in powdered sugar so they don't stick together, or toss it straightaway into a mug of hot chocolate. Nom!

Pipe the marshmallow as soon as you can so you get a nice teardrop shape. While this mix does stay thickly viscous for quite awhile, it does stiffen the longer it sits. Wonderfully, the mallows do melt in your mouth, no matter how long the cookies sit around, even in the fridge!

In the summer heat, the chocolate coatings didn't want to harden, so I just put them in the fridge. I stored the leftovers in the fridge, too. This had the added benefit of keeping the Milanos nice and crisp--don't worry, they don't get crackly crumbly crisp!

Want to see more? Check out my delicious fellow Daring Bakers from our blogroll!

Daring Bakers, June: Bakewell Tart... er... pudding

2009-06-27T04:43:00.000-07:00

It's Daring Bakers time, it's Daring Bakers time!

The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

You can find the recipe on each of their blogs, linked above.

This month's Daring Bakers' challenge has been a favorite dessert since I first learned to make it during one of my earliest classes in cooking school. I've since made them only once, and that was when I tried out Claire Clark's recipe from her cookbook, Indulgence. While I liked her tart shell more, mostly because it was easier to manage and tasted just as good, the filling for this challenge tart was amazing.

We were allowed to choose the accompanying filling that went with the tarts. Traditionally, the dessert included a layer of jam across the bottom. I used fig jam. Because fig jam will make you faint. In a good way.

The tart shells. I've tried many different shortcrust dough recipes, and this is one of the more finicky. Make sure the dough is slightly sticky, as the recipe directs, or it may come out to crumbly when baked. Pay careful attention to the temperature before rolling it out--too hot or too cold, and your dough may crack or stick to your rolling pin. Keep the flour handy to dust your work surface and pin.

Spread the jam across the bottom, and plop the almond cream filling on top. Be gentle when spreading the almond cream, or you might push the jam to the tart's corners, and it may even rise to the surface, up the sides. You may want to chill or even freeze your tart shells after you've smoothed the jam in to avoid oozing. Because oozing is bad, unless we're talking cheesy pizza or the chocolate out of s'mores. Okay, maybe it's not so bad . . . but in this case, it would be wretched.

Spreaded! And one before being spreaded, so you know I didn't Photoshop it to fool you.

As they bake, the upper crust will rise, but then deflate again as the tarts cool. I had leftover filling, so I filled a ramekin to make a little dessert. Which disappeared shortly after this shot was taken. *shrugs*

Oh my. Almond cream, despite its name, bakes into a light, moist, flavorful, wonderful, spectacularly delicious cake-like substance. Holy cheese, it's good. It's even tasty raw. Not that I'd know this. Just take my word for it (don't eat it if you're pregnant or have a compromised immune system--raw eggs and all that make for bad news!). I initially thought I'd overbaked the tarts because of how brown they got, but it didn't affect the taste at all, and I think this browning enriched the tart's nuttiness.

The jam. It permeates upward. Like tulips out of the snow in the spring. Only tastier. If there are any doubts about whether almond cream and fig jam get along, banish them now. You may not have noticed, but they're an elderly couple who like to hold hands, smile at each other, and walk through the park. That's right--just like the diamond commercial. They get along most righteously.

Want ideas for other Bakewell Tart fillings? Visit my fellow DBers on our blogroll!

For visual reference:

The Claire Clark Bakewell Tart, with raspberry jam that I baked last fall.

In reverse, the fig and frangipane crostata I made for the 2007 Winter Festival of Pie. Suspiciously, a "fresh fig and almond crostata" appeared in the October 2008 issue of Martha Stewart's "everday FOOD." A co-worker had given me the issue, and the photo made me do a double-take. Drat on you, Martha--drat on you and your weird capitalization system!

Daring Bakers, May: Apple Strudel

2009-05-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

I present this month’s Daring Bakers Challenge!

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

You can find the recipe on bothCourtney’s and Linda’s blogs.

I’d made strudel before, back in cook school. That time, we stretched the strudel dough out to the size of a brigade table, about 5 feet by 3 feet. I won’t lie—it was daunting. About 20 pairs of hands, pulling and stretching. It was actually horrifying, like the breach birth of baking. We had some minor tears, but it happily, it worked out, and we birthed a beautiful and gigantic apple strudel. This month’s Daring Baker’s challenge was that same exercise, in miniature. It was the first time I’d braved an at-home strudel, but because it was so crazy easy, it won’t be the last time.

My little 2 feet by 3 feet gate-leg IKEA table was perfect for this project, as was the linen dish towel I use to proof bread on. Looking at the teeny wad of dough that was expected to reach almost all the way to all four sides, I felt a little discouraged. And excited.

The goal is to stretch the dough out so thinly, that you can read through it. Here’s the recipe, showing through the dough.

It made it!

Simple buttered bread crumbs soaked up the juicy juice from the fruit filling.

In my case, I used three types of apples (Braeburn, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith--each apple brought something to the strudel, and all held their shape, added a good texture and mouth feel, and remained juicy), Mission figs, and toffee bits. YUM. Here’s where I admit that I messed things up. Apparently, we were supposed to line all the filling up in a line at one end of the dough to roll it up, not spread the filling out all over the dough. I could've sworn we spread it out like this in class, though. And I just had to trust that the dough would tough out the points and edges on the apple slices . . . trust in the dough . . . trust in the dough . . .

Whew! Were there any doubts? Nahhhhhh!

Before baking.

After baking.

Yay for crunchiness!

There it is. And it tasted awesome! One of my friends made some rosewater rhubarb compote that we served it with, and it was a lovely pairing.

Check out the awesome work of my fellow DBers on our Blogroll.

Daring Bakers, April: Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake

2009-04-27T01:21:00.000-07:00

The plot: A top-secret recipe is given out to a group of daring bakers at the beginning of every month. Sometime during that month, the follow the recipe, down to the ounce! At the end of the month, they share their results with the blogging world!

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Jenny posted the recipe in her blog, here.

We were tasked with the mission of flavoring the cheesecake however we liked. We were told to dress it up and show it off. At that . . . I failed. Because I was so busy with getting it done and served to my dinner party guests, that I simply dolloped it with mango whipped cream and sprinkled it with chopped macadamia nuts.

This was delicious. The cake felt heavy, but it tasted light, and it was as creamy as the cream and cream cheese from whence it came. It was an easy recipe to play with, especially with as few ingredients as it used. I'll definitely file this as my go-to cheesecake recipe.

The biggest challenge came when I insisted on using my springform pan even though I knew I'd be baking the cheesecake in a water bath and that my pan wasn't totally waterproof.

Luckily, my Hun helped me waterproof it a bit by wrapping the edges of the pan's bottom with foil. The recipe recommended using one of those disposable foil pans and just cutting the foil away. That's not eco-friendly! And I was too cheap and stubborn. So there.

I waterproofed a little further by lining the inside of the pan before pressing my crust in. I wanted a free-form crust and thought the cheesecake batter would sort meld with the crust, so the two would marble together like some beautiful cheesecake ballet. Instead, I had crust stalagmites.

The cheesecake seemed to come up relatively dry (meaning the crust wasn't soaked down by water that leaked in from the water bath--hooray!). I thought I might "hide" my crust stalagmites with a layer of mango gelatin, but then I saw that it would pour over the edge and down sides of the cheesecake. And I also thought that, just because it looks good, doesn't mean it would taste better. I'd already poured a bunch of mango nectar into the batter. I baked my cheesecake for 45 minutes before turning the oven off, and I'm sure that's why it was so nice and creamy.

We were thankfully allowed to play with the crust. I've never had a graham cracker crust that I've really liked. I've always sort of associated it with sucking up an entire sandy dessert, only sweeter, and kinda buttery. I used a short crust instead. In other words--I wrapped my cheesecake's innards with a lovely coat of sugar cookie. I mixed in a bunch of chopped macadamia nuts, too. I thought about adding some white chocolate, but that would've been a whole other cookie.

Most shameful of all, when I served this to my guests, I forgot all about the extra macadamia nuts until I was cleaning my kitchen counter off, long after my friends had gone home. Today's theme, then, was country rustic dressed in simple elegance.

Bejeweled!

Want more? Visit my fellow DBers here!

Clementine Tarts for BloggerAid

2009-03-31T09:15:00.000-07:00

This is one of my most favorite personal recipes, ever. But I'm sorry, dear readers. You can't have this recipe. Not just yet, anyway. No bite of cool, creamy, sweet, tangy clementine and yogurt tart over a crisp shortbread cookie base for you--not just yet.

I'm sending it to BloggerAid. We're putting together a cookbook, which they will sell to raise funds to benefit School Meals, one of The World Food Programme's projects. Bookmark the BloggerAid site. If they use my recipe, they will tell you how to get it. ;)

More teasers below the cut.

Daring Bakers, March: Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna

2009-03-29T00:32:00.000-07:00

For those of you new to the drill, we Daring Bakers are assigned a secret recipe at the beginning of every month. We don't vary from the recipe, except for dietary restrictions. At the end of the month, all on the same day, we post the results of our projects. Now, on to this month's business. The Daring Bakers have had a busy March! First off, we got a new website and new badges. This one is my favorite:

You can check out my updated widget for it. If you click it, it will take you to our new site! Thank you, Lis and Ivonne, and all the talented people whose resources brought these positive changes about!

And now, our challenge!

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

For me, this challenge started with a somewhat daunting pile on my counter. This pile of flour, eggs, and spinach quickly turned into an episode of "When Shaggy Dough Attacks"!

I muscled through and tamed the beast, though.

In the process, my forearms grew about an inch in diameter. Persevere! What a workout! Like magic, I ended up with soft, silky dough. The directions read that this dough will feel alive. It did! I kinda wanted to make out with it. (Just kidding, Hun!)

Then you stretch-pull-press the dough as flat as you can (yes, with a rolling pin if you're like me and don't have a rolling pin). Then cut them into lasagna noodles. The directions read that my noodles should be so thin, I should be able to see colors through the noodles. Well. I guess my noodles were so green, I could see the green clear through on the other side of them. I hung them on a chair covered with a dish towel so they could hang out a bit and dry.

I'll admit that I was worried about this lasagna. I've made pasta from scratch and pasta by hand, but never lasagna noodles. I was planning to serve this to guests, so as backup (read: compensation to my dinner guests) in case this recipe ran amok, I made a version of David Lebovitz's really delicious scotcheroos.

My tip when serving lasagna--don't serve from the corner. Serve from the side. For some reason, they seem to come out more cleanly.

Looked okay . . .

Tasted GREAT! Soft pasta, delicious and deeply flavorful ragu (guess those 2+ hours paid off), and kick-butt bechamel sauce (with Hun's help, since I was too busy boiling and drying off noodles to whisk the pot). All of my dinner guests had three servings each. There's one piece left in the fridge (I call dibs!!! Unless it's already gone. Oh, dismay!).

Check out my fellow DBers by clicking through our Blogroll.

Hw I store herbs, starring oregano (and more writing updates)

2009-03-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

Organo in a moist bag! O no! Condensation like this can lead to wilted, listless, limp and even fuzzy herbs!

Dry the oregano off and lay it on a clean, dry paper towel.

Wrap it up! If this were an herb with sturdier leaves, I'd consider using a lightly damp paper towel.

Wrapped and bagged!

And some other food-related freelance articles I've written:

How to Store Fresh Rosemary

How to Make Balsamic Jellies Out of Gelatin

How to Cook Diabetic Dog Food

How to Make Sugarless Hard Candy

How to Make a Homemade Coca-Cola Cake

How to Make Homemade Lemon Cake

How to Store Olive Oil

How to Make a Homemade 7UP Cake

I've been writing

2009-03-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

Just not in this blog. Wary about today's economy, I picked up a freelance job, writing articles here and there, as time allows. Most of them aren't food-related (rats), but several of them are. You can visit those articles here:

How to Make Dry Fondant

Pros and Cons of the South Beach Diet

Quick Energy Foods

Low Cholesterol & High-Fiber Foods

High Cholesterol and High Blood Pressure Diet

How to Cook in a Cast Iron Pot

How to Cook with Radiant Heat

Edible Flower Bouquets

Hard-Anodized Vs. Stainless Steel Cookware

Hard-Anodized Vs. Porcelain Cookware

Differences Between Dutch Ovens & French Ovens

And once in awhile, I scribble in my yelp page, onewall.yelp.com, where I review restaurants.

Want some food porn? I went to the Arizona Renaissance Festival . . . or should I say, I ate my way through the Festival?

Breakfast should always be a broccoli cheese bread bowl! The bread bowl was so nice and soft!

Hun had a spinach and artichoke bread bowl.

Scotch egg--no relation to Scotch the Dog. A Scotch egg is a hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausage and fried. Oh, my arteries!

We split a really good strawberry smoothie.

A meat and potatoes pasty with (intentionally) mushy peas.

Hun had a sausage roll: too much roll, not enough sausage.

Funnel cake! It was a bad day to wear black jeans. The same stand selling these also had crepes, but they looked a little too stiff and thick in the middle.

And some random favorite shots:

The lady at her loom.

Archimides the Owl.

A falconer and his falcon.

So photogenic.

Daring Bakers, February: Chocolate Valentino

2009-02-27T23:38:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of every month, the Daring Bakers hoss(s) of the month choose a top secret recipe for us DBers to bake, and at the end of the month, we reveal our results!

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

The link to Dharm's blog goes straight to the recipe. A chocolate Valentino cake is supposed to feature heart shapes.

So . . .

I made sure that mine did. Photo by Chris Wass.

The cake is supposed to be a heart. You can't say my cake doesn't have a heart! I served it during my monthly Savories and Sweets dinner party the day after Valentine's Day, so it was appropriate.

Our hosts also asked us to make our own ice cream to serve with the cake, and I opted for David Lebovitz's Fleur de Lait from his book, Perfect Scoop, which I've had from the library for many, many months now because it's just that good. This recipe is my favorite. I won't write it here, but you can find it here.

Photo by Chris Wass. I used a combination of unsweetened and bittersweet chocolate, and the cake was very rich and chocolatey, so the fleur de lait made a great foil.

What I learned:

I'm not afraid of folding ingredients together, unless two of those ingredients are chocolate and egg whites. Maybe the fat in cocoa butter messes me up. Maybe it's all in my head. But whether it's chocolate meringues or macarons, my mixture seems to go totally flat. This time, I managed to fold it all together just right--knifing the spatula straight down the middle to the bottom of the bowl, then sweeping it up the inside of the bowl, dredging up ingredients from the bottom to gently lay over the top, over and over. I once read somewhere that you shouldn't fold ingredients for longer than a minute. Another source said to use no more than 100 folds. I just kinda make sure I don't make more than 100 folds in over a minute . . . =)

The batter came out well.

Stencils are a great way to decorate cakes--cocoa powder sifted over light-colored cakes, or powdered sugar over dark. Doilies are commonly used as stencils because they're so beautiful and intricate, and a lot of my fellow DBers took that route. I love making art stencils, though, so I gave my own spin on hearts and took the anatomical road.

This cake is only as good as the chocolate you use.

Check out what my fellow DBers did by tracking them down through our blogroll.

When macarons go wrong!

2009-02-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

Of course the first batch of macarons I make after writing a post about how easy they were to make if you just charged in goes just a little awry! This time, I decided to make chocolate macarons with clementine buttercream filling.

I ended up with chewy macarons with peanut buttercream filling. Why chewy? I have my suspicions.

I've made this recipe before. Long-time readers will recognize it as my standby. The difference: I've always omitted the cocoa powder. For one thing, I always seem to botch things up when I try to fold chocolate into egg whites. Maybe it's because egg whites don't like fat, and chocolate (at least, melted chocoalte) is a fat? Maybe there's something about the super-fine powder making up cocoa that just pulls the air right out of my foam? Whatever the reason, my whites go flat. This time, everything seemed to fold together just fine. I even stopped short just to make sure I didn't kill my foam. Maybe that was also part of the problem.

You want your macaron batter to have the consistency of magma (without the very hot and flesh-melting aspects). This batter did flow out flat the way it was supposed to, but it did seem to hang on to a little peak for a bit. I think I should've folded through with a few more sweeps.

Another strange thing--the macaron bottoms seemed to explode outward like bad 80s prom dresses. They did this early on, then just cooked up that way. Maybe it was because I piped the batter too close together. Macaron instructions often say to pipe rounds about an inch apart, I assume to allow the heat to circulate sufficiently around each cookie. I piped them a bit closer because I know they wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) grow outward--only upward. Yet here they are, looking like sudsy Mr. Bubbles.

Worst of all--they were chewy. I can live with bad looks, but macarons should give easily and melt away leaving just a hint of sweet and almond on your tongue, like cotton candy clouds making nice with some fairy almond dust. These were like . . . macaron nougat. I think I cooked them too long at too high a temperature. I went the full 18 minutes; I should've checked them at 10 by lifting them to see if they came off the parchment easily. They may have weathered the full time okay if I had given the batter that few extra folds, deflating the egg whites more instead of leaving big air pockets in them that could bake up, get stiff and hard, leaving me with a chewy cookie.

Ah well. They didn't taste bad. In fact, they were good, especially once I added my favorite peanut buttercream frosting. This recipe makes 2 1/4 cups--enough to frost and fill a two-layer cake, or fill a great big batch of chew macs. I didn't have a big batch, so I made 1/3 the recipe, and it turned out just fine. Which makes me want to make little batches of this for chocolate cupcake filling and then topping the cupcakes with a shiny ganache, or a filling for vanilla cupcakes with a "jelly"-flavored frosting. Anyway:

1/2 C smooth peanut butter
3 oz. cream cheese, room temp
1 1/2 T unsalted butter, room temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 T milk
2 2/3 C powdered sugar, sifted

1. Beat the first five ingredients together.
2. Slowly add the powdered sugar, being careful not to kick up a cloud.
3. Add extra milk if frosting is too stiff.

This keeps for a week in the fridge or for 3 months in the freezer.

By the way--the batch of macarons I made after this, chocolate macarons using the caramelized butter frosting from October's Daring Baker's challenge, turned out just fine.

Ugly Food

2009-02-18T23:59:00.000-08:00

We've all done it. Or, at the least, I've done it a lot: ugly food. When I started culinary classes, I botched many attempts at making pretty plates. I discovered that I had more of a penchant with desserts, but I totally bomb efforts in that department very often. Ultimately, it's all about the taste. And personally, the "ugly food" makes me chuckle. Hot on the heels of my Sonoran hot dogs post (not so lovely, but oh so tasty), I present some of the ugliest food I've ever made.

Ugly honey whole wheat bread. Some people can turn out beautiful bread with their eyes closed. Me? I could hide most of my loaves in a rock field and never be able to find them again. Still--honey wheat bread with a smear of butter is a stand-out treat. I use the recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, and there's a reasonable facsimile here

This is that "magic cake" recipe that's been circulating since "wartime" when housewives had to do without eggs, milk, and butter. The recipe uses the chemical reaction between vinegar, water, and chemical leaveners. It looks like it's been through a battle . . . it tasted like it, too. But hey--it's vegan? Here's the gist of it.

It was better with ice cream. =D

Top Chef fans might recognize the banana scallops that Blaze made in Season 4. It's a really great recipe. I ate it with a peanut butter sauce ... and with my eyes closed.

Epicurious couldn't make it all that pretty, either, though they did a much more respectable job with this strawberry mousse recipe than I did. I had it on ginger snaps--very tasty! But I still need to work on making gelatin-based mousse recipes that don't look . . . regurgitated. (sigh)

Sonoran hot dogs

2009-02-09T22:54:00.000-08:00

What you are about to see may offend you.

I'll preface by saying I just watched Anthony Bourdain's "Food Porn" episode on "No Reservations." In one scene, he's sitting with Momofuku Bar's David Chang, and Bourdain asks Chang about his guilty food pleasures. "I'll start," Bourdain offers, immediately launching into a cuss-word strewn rave about KFC's macaroni and cheese. I agree. I'd often stop there before culinary school classes for a cup of it as dinner. Chang admits that he likes that mac 'n' cheese, too, but really loves Chicken McNuggets with sweet and sour sauce.

This exchange reminded me to post one of my own favorite guilty pleasures--and I have a lot, from Spam to Ramen to Arby's potato cakes. Hot dogs front the group, though. They're often not meat, but meatS. They're rich in sodium and calories, and low in nutritional value. And I love 'em. (Bourdain loves Chicago dogs, as do I, and he even goes to far as to say Chi-dogs are even better than his hometown's, NYC dogs.)

I once read an article on Serious Eats about America's regional hot dog styles, and for the Southwest, they singled out the Sonoran hot dog. After that, I was on a mission to find one. Alas, hot dog vendors are mobile, constantly, or else down in Tucson. Despair was short-lived when I found a nightly setup on the southwest corner of Indian School and 20th St.: Nogales Hot Dogs (you can see my review on the linked Yelp page).

A "naked" Sonoran hot dog, wrapped in bacon, dressed with chopped tomato, onion, and pinto beans, mayo (so underrated--call it aioli if it will make you feel better), and served in an amazingly soft bolillo bun.

From naked, you can dress your bun with an assortment of condiments that the Nogales people keep on ice--cotija cheese, guacamole, red and green salsa, cheddar, relish, jalapenos, canned mushrooms, sliced black olives--you can have it your way, and there are dozens, probably hundreds of ways to have it. You can even get just a plain bacon-wrapped dog. I'm not sure if they offer the dogs without bacon--they precook the dogs in bacon at a separate certified kitchen since the inclusion of bacon introduces a "danger factor."

As I described in my Yelp review, the goal is to build the perfect bite: flavors, smells, textures, temperatures, all their complexity introduced separately at first before melting together perfectly. A tip: Layer the "lightweight" stuff under the heavier condiments to prevent flyaways, open wide, and chomp 'n' nom away. Experiment, play, and have fun. After all, some wise guy (or wise man) once said that the goal is one thing, but it's the journey that matters!

January's SAS Dinner: Mangia Veggie-talian!

2009-02-02T15:15:00.000-08:00

I love having my monthly Sweets and Savories (SAS) dinners. It shows off three of my passions: good ingredients, practicing good and sometimes pretty preparations, and feeding it all to good and sometimes new friends. Whether it's family style or plated courses, I try to do honor to all three of these things: the food, the cooking, and the people.

That said, this month's dinner was mostly in honor of the vegetarian, with a nod to the side to my meat-eating friends. I try to make the dinners fit the Daring Bakers dessert I'm serving that month. Last month, I made a big French dinner to go with my French yule log. This month, I went Italian. Not traditional, old-school Italian, mind you--but there was red sauce, rustic bread, and panna cotta, plus a apricot cream (it was like a fluffy mousse) from The Silver Spoon cookbook, which is one of the Bibles of Italian cooking. This month's DB challenge was tuile cookies. Although tuiles are traditionally French, being named after roof tiles used in France (in short), the dessert's meat and potatoes were Italian. I also tried to showcase a lot of vegetables, even replacing the no-brainer pasta with a big spaghetti squash.

The Menu.

Sesame Green Beans and Carrots. It's a simple preparation--cut the carrots and beans to the same length, cook the carrots a bit before adding the green beans, then add salt and sesame seeds.

Sausage in Marinade. Making vegetarian red sauce is really easy, but ... something about that punch of porkiness just makes it so much better for me, so I did make some sausage on the side for those who wanted to add it to the spaghetti squash I baked.

Rustic No-Knead Bread. I finally broke down late last year and bought a Dutch oven. Granted, it was a sweet deal--$42 at Target! A lot of people have been buying them to try out Jim Lahey's no-knead bread and have worried about not buying big-name brands. I triple-wrapped the knob even though it's oven-proof up to 400 degrees, and it's thus far given me several awesome loaves of bread. I've done both the quick no-knead and the regular no-knead (as well as cassoulets and stews), so it's proved a worthy investment, especially for as little as I paid for it.

Panna Apricotta with Tuile. Mmmm. Although I know not everyone's a big fan of milk pudding (it's a texture thing for most, since "milk" and "gelatin" just doesn't gel--harhar.). I love it, though!

Soft Panna Cotta

Ingredients:
1 tsp powdered or 2 sheets gelatin
Water to bloom sheets (3 T for powdered, about 1/2 C for sheets)
1/2 C milk
2 1/4 C heavy cream
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean

Preparation:

1. Bloom gelatin in water (either soak the sheets, or bloom the powder in about 3 T cold water)

2. Warm the milk just to a simmer, then remove it from the heat and stir in the gelatin (if using sheets, squeeze water out before adding to milk). Set aside.

3. While stirring, heat cream, sugar, and vanilla bean over low heat until it reaches a boil.

4. Then remove cream from heat, remove vanilla bean pod, and add milk and gelatin mixture.

5. Pour into mold (I used ramekins), cool, and allow to set in fridge for at least 4 hours.

Daring Bakers, January: Tuiles

2009-01-29T00:01:00.000-08:00

Here it is-once again, we Daring Bakers were asked to cook a secret recipe at the beginning of the month, and then to share our results all on the same day.

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Baking Soda and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

You can find the recipes behind the links I provided above to their Web sites. Me? I liked this month's project--I didn't have as much time as I would've liked to go wildly artistic (I was picturing dragonflies, flowers, dioramas, entire storyboards made out of tuile!!! Although that didn't happen, I was still able to have fun!

We were allowed to bake savory and/or sweet tuiles, and I went for sweet. We were directed to put them on something "light," like mousse, sorbet, or a light soup, in observance of January's "eat light" directive that a lot of people follow as New Year's resolutions. My dessert wasn't all that light--panna cotta topped with apricot mousse: I dubbed it panna apricotta. Basically, I made it because I thought the name up, and it cracked me up whenever I thought about it. Heh!

Most of my tuile batter went into butterflies, but I did make a few apricot shapes. Thought I defeated the purpose of it's big bottom dimple (minds out of gutters, please) by plunging them into the mousse.

I served the first round as dessert for Sunday dinner, adding just a bit of food coloring here and there to have slight variants between the butterflies.

The next day, I was running around, but I took a few moments to play around with the same template and get used to working with the batter.

And I made a few cornets. And perched butterflies on them because I had so many. Butterfly invasion!

Process notes:

Chill your batter! I left mine in for over an hour, and it was a thick paste by the time I took it out. This thickness made spreading it within the template easy. I noticed that the batter would loosen up quickly, however, so I'd store it in the fridge between batches.

For templates, I tried using the plastic lid off a cottage cheese container and the thick paperboard backing off a notepad, which was about twice as thick as the plastic, but still well under 1/16 inch. I first drew the templates on paper, cut them out, then stenciled the shapes onto my template material, and finally, slice them out with an x-acto blade.

The lid was almost too thin, and I had to spread the batter across the shape very carefully so I wouldn't accidentally scrape too much away or have an uneven layer. The thinness led to quick browning. The paperboard was better, but it was after all paper, and was a bit mucky by the end-not deteriorated, really-just . . . moist. It obviously wasn't reusable.

Piping the batter also worked fine, but it worked best with very cold batter, since as it sat out and warmed, its piped shape melted a bit. By the time the tray got into the oven, the shapes that had been piped first mostly all oozed together. In the photo, the butterfly to the right was piped first. Putting the tray in the fridge for a bit before baking helped, but I probably could've left it in there longer.

I kept batches small when I wanted to work with the shapes, making three butterflies at a time, then dropping them into a propped-open manila folder where they could cool, holding their shape. Plus, I was able to vary how much or how little their wings were open.

All in all, it was a fun challenge, and pretty easy to put together! They'll be nice to keep on file for times I need a small touch of elegance. If you want to check out what the rest of my highly talented DB peers are up to, you can track them through the Daring Bakers Blogroll!

My holidays, delivered--with special guest star, macarons

2009-01-22T10:41:00.000-08:00

Every year, I look forward to holiday baking. This is when I can go all out, revisiting old favorites and working on new ones, sending treats that people can't easily find.

This year's highlights included Ken's wonderful not-so-hard biscotti and my version of cousin Julius' amazing Espresso White Chocolate Chunk Cookies. I decided to also work on my macarons.

Macarons with chocolate ganache.

Over in one of the kitchn's posts, I suggested that the cupcake fad, if and when it ended, would be replaced with the macaron fad. Personally, while I enjoy cupcakes, I like macarons better; there's much less buttercream involved, and I just love almonds. And cookies. I think the one thing that might prevent the much-anticipated (by me) macaron fad is people's macaron-phobia. Many food blogs I visit show traumatizing attempts at homemade macarons, some never getting it quite right. I say: just go for it.

I like David Lebovitz's no nonsense approach to macarons. When I saw his recipe for French Chocolate Macarons last year, linked over from Serious Eats' "how to make macarons" article, I decided to make that recipe the one to try. No coddling, no disclaimers--just get-up-and-go instructions. As Julia Child once said, "As long as you know what you’re trying to do, there’s no reason to be scared of doing it." Aside from my incredibly overzealous piping and the resulting ball-shaped macarons, the taste and texture were just like the macarons I'd had in Vegas (as dramatically told in that same post). I decided that the next time I made macarons, I'd "pipe better." I ended up making macarons one of the treats I sent out to friends and family as holiday gifts.

Smooth top, frilly feet!

If you try to make these, I recommend you just dive in with gusto. If you can beat egg whites and make a meringue, then you can do this. Just make sure all your beating equipment is grease-free, or your egg whites won't whip up, and don't overwhip your egg whites or your batter will be tought to pipe and your shells will be too dry. You want the batter to be somewhat stiff, but fluid enough to pipe easily and flow gently into a round shape. To pipe, just put your pastry tip down and squeeze until you have a shallow 1-inch circle; if you pipe too tall, you'll end up with what I did my first time out--macaron golf balls! Anyway, this really is the simplest recipe I've found. If you can nail this, then you can feel more at ease when you start experimenting with aged egg whites and fancy flavors.

Almond flour might be hard to find. I just threw some blanched almonds into a food processor with a light sprinkling of AP flour to prevent it from turning into almond paste. I've also had success following Lebovitz's suggestion and grinding the almonds with the powdered sugar in the recipe. If you want to avoid the little bumplies from larger pieces of almond (though in my opinion, they're not large enough to affect the texture), you can run the almond flour through a sifter, then reprocess the large chunks to squeeze a few more grains out of them.

My version of David Lebovitz's macaron shells
Makes about fifteen cookies

Macaron Batter
1 cup (3.5 oz) powdered sugar
½ cup almonds flour (2 oz)
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
5 tablespoons (2 1/4 oz) granulated sugar

1. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and preheat oven to 375.
2. Get together a pastry bag with a plain 1/2-inch tip.
3. Combine the powdered sugar and almond flour.
4. Beat the egg whites until they begin to rise and firm. While whipping, beat in the granulated sugar until very stiff and firm, about 2 minutes.
5. Fold the dry ingredients, in two batches, into the egg whites until the mixture is just smooth and there are no streaks of egg white.
6. Scrape the batter into the pastry bag (standing the bag in a tall glass helps if you're alone).
6. Pipe the batter onto the parchment-lined baking sheets in flat, 1-inch circles, evenly spaced one-inch apart.
7. Rap the baking sheet a few times firmly on the counter top to flatten the macarons, then bake them for 15-18 minutes.
8. Let cool completely then remove from baking sheet.

I used his Chocolate filling, too:

Chocolate Filling
½ cup (125 ml) heavy cream
2 teaspoons light corn syrup
4 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces

To make the chocolate filling:
Heat the cream in a small saucepan with the corn syrup. When the cream just begins to boil at the edges, remove from heat and add the chopped chocolate. Let sit one minute, then stir until smooth. Stir in the pieces of butter. Let cool completely before using.

I stirred the ganache a lot to thicken it up a bit so it wouldn't be too runny.

The next time I make these (maybe sooner than later because I'm gearing up to make some citrus curds, and I'll have some egg whites left over), I'm going to try some flavored buttercreams. Or heck, maybe use some curds as fillings!

Eating out and Yelping about it

2009-01-15T09:05:00.000-08:00

For us, food is a celebration, and eating out is a privilege, a sort of special occasion, and we try not to take it for granted. We eat out only once a week—sometimes twice if we have a weekend breakfast out—and we mix it up between old favorites and new tastes. For a Google addict and OCDer like me, choosing a place takes careful research and deliberation. I search for new places, looking at reviews, menus, prices, driving directions—trying to learn as much as I can about a place and the food I’ll have there. Sometimes, I’ll be inspired by something I’ll catch online or on TV. Serious Eats’ hot dog review and nod to the elusive Sonoran hot dog had me combing the streets for hot dog street vendors—not common in the blazing Arizona heat, and it figured that the one I eventually found and came to love—a van that comes out and parks in the lot of a keyboard/synthesizer store after it closes for the day, serving these savory bacon-wrapped, bean-adorned dogs late into the night). Anthony Bourdain’s Columbia episode had me scrambling, trying to find a place (alas, the only place I could find in the Valley had closed down several years ago). Someday, I’ll find one, and there will be meaty, cheesy, potatoey empanadas with the thin, crispy shells!

While eating out is a big deal, I rarely write about it. I’ve never aspired to be a restaurant critic (or even a food writer—just a food writing editor!). Still, just like an oenophile takes notes (I took copious ones when I was still a big wine drinker), I’ve decided to start trying to do so, too, as someone who loves and appreciates good restaurants.

Thus, you can read my often verbose and somewhat scatterbrained reviews on Yelp at onewall.yelp.com. I’m "retro reviewing" now, so time willing, might be adding a lot of reviews over the next week or two. It’s been a good way to remember places I want to revisit, like the Lumpia Factory!

Hun and I have dinner at the Lumpia Factory

I'm going to work on not being verbose. I don't often write for other people, just letting whatever's in my head spill out, so this will be an interesting challenge. And most likely, a good one!

breakfasts

2009-01-10T10:00:00.000-08:00

I didn't take enough photos while I was in Oklahoma City. I captured Hun's family's Christmas Tree, a shot out the airport window of the state's jaw-dropping flatness, and a photo of the "tornado shelter" sign under the women's bathroom sign. I guess my photographer's muse took her own vacation. I did, however, capture waffles:

I wish I'd captured the traditional Chinese breakfast Hun's mom would serve--a very bland rice porridge served with some of the besterestest and flavorful pairings, from "furry pork" (dried and finely shredded pork), to cubed tofu topped with bonito flakes (dried and finely shaved bonito), to seaweed salad (My favorite ... it's basically salad. Made from seaweed. Or wakame salad.) There was a whole spread, and you'd put little bites of this and that in your porridge, one at a time or all together. It's like bread and butter.

In lieu of that, I present: my dad makes an awesome breakfast.

Dad inspects the pan. Is it ready yet, Dad?

Just about!

Eggs, sausage, and rice--traditional weekend breakfast fare when I was growing up.

Garlic and onion eggs with big sausage and rice.

Pancakes and low-carb syrup?! The new breakfast at my parents' house--it's tastier than you might think!

Pancakes and tuna omelet--another old-school breakfast, though I'm more appreciative now of tuna omelets.

Food and Cooking Resolutions for the New Year

2009-01-07T14:23:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! I know, I’m a week late, but between resettling myself back home and at work after the long vacation with my Hun’s family in OKC and recovering from a chest cold that’s just finally starting to move on, life has been a bit hectic, and all my down time has been spent resting (mostly).

We rang the New Year in with Hun’s delicious sautéed salmon and my big pot of black-eyed peas and collard greens, followed by a lemon curd trifle with almond cake. Since then, we’ve relished in baked spaghetti squash with sausage ragout, some of Mark Bittman’s famous “no-knead bread,” and a big pot of cassoulet. We’re definitely off to a yummy start, though not necessarily as “light” as many of my other food bloggers’.

A lot of food blog-a-zine editors are asking their readers if they have any food- and cooking-related New Year’s resolutions. I always have a few swimming around in the back of my brain, but the ones I want to focus on most include:

Broadening my palate. I want to taste new flavors and learn new flavor combinations. I get the basic salt and pepper, and understand the whys of mirepoix and sofrito, and I’ve gotten to touch on tadkas from Indian cuisine (though I may have used the term incorrectly in that context—basically, I mean a basic series of spices and how to handle them, mostly by heating them or frying them in oil before grinding them down), and all the combinations I learned from last semester’s Pacific Rim’s class, playing with different spices, curries, vinegars, spices, chilis, and on and on and on. I’d like to learn more about the chemistry of taste—how to combine flavors so that they “make sense” to the tongue, not necessarily to shock and surprise the tongue (I’m not that avant garde). (To read: A Platter of Figs by David Tanis)

Cooking with more produce. I want to introduce both a greater quantity and a greater variety of produce into my cooking. If I learned anything from last semester’s nutrition class, it’s that a diet high in produce is a diet high in good nutrition. The Downtown Phoenix Public Market played a big role, and I’d like to start going to local farmers’ markets again every week, both for the variety, but because it was nice to once again have vegetables that tasted like what they are. I also want to make use of Hun's love for fruit and incorporate it more as dessert options, since it can't all be baked and bready goodness! I learned a wonderful lesson, eating the Chinese pears, kiwi fruit, and oranges that his mom would slice up and serve to us after dinner--what a treat! (To read: The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters)

Learning new techniques. I’m comfortable with the old-school stuff—if someone tells me to brown some meat, then braise it, I can hack it without a recipe. Thicken with a roux? No problem. But my resolution is broader than that. How, for example, would I cook game so that it didn’t taste gamy? What’s the best way to flambé? How does my mom keep her arroz caldo so white? Stuff like that! (To read: The Elements of Cooking by Michael Ruhlman)

Learning more classical recipes. I love knowing about those tried-and-tested dishes, from the Philippines’ adobo recipes to French coq au vin, and I want to know more—schnitzel, salmon lomi, jerk chicken, etc. I've already started, cooking the traditional black-eyed peas and collard greens on New Year's Day! Tasty! (To read: How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman)

Reading more in general. All of those things above will come from my pursuit of knowledge. Luckily, my library is filled with cooking DVDs and books on food.

Overall, I’m looking forward to a more healthful, creative, and educational year in the kitchen!

Daring Bakers, December: A French Yule Log

2008-12-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

Here we go again! At the beginning of the month, the Daring Bakers (DBers) are assigned a secret recipe by that month's host(s). At the end of the month, the DBers reveal their results!

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.
They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand.

You can find the recipe on Hilda's and Marin's blogs.

Basically, from top to bottom, you've got an dacqoise biscuit (almond cake), dark chocolate mousse, creme brulee, more chocolate mousse, praline layer, more chocolate mousse, a layer of dark chocolate ganache, and another layer of dacquoise biscuit, all covered in dark chocolate glaze. Yup.

I had a little hiccup with the creme brulee; I lined my baking pan with parchment, but some of the mixture seeped under it, setting up around the parchment. I had to scrape it off the parchment after it had set a little, clumsily reform it, then freeze it so it would set completely. Thus, my creme brulee looks a little disgruntled, sort of like Cartman from South Park. ><

Carving away servings revealed a gentler, kinder yule log. The so-called perfect bite comprises each element of the log. The perfect bite is sorta big. Just like the yule-time spirit!

Mellow log. Cool log. Much more content. Also, room temperature, so I didn't have to use a power tool to slice. Mmm.

Here's a closeup of all the components. The top layer of biscuit dacquoise is just hidden under the glacage (fancy French for icing or glazing). The praline was a big favorite. I made almond praline, crumbled it up, then crumbled up some European wafer cookies, similar to Italian pirhouettes, but sturdier so that they maintained their crunch once stirred into the lovely melted dark chocolate.

There's gelatin in the mousse and icing recipes, and I'm not fond of the consistency agar agar produces, so for my vegetarian dinner guest, I made a mini dessert using the elements that were not made with ground-up animal parts.

She warmed it in the microwave a bit because I'd almost forgotten it until my boyfriend reminded me. It was pretty frozen even after sitting out for a bit, but it melted beautifully in the microwave.

In conclusion: this log was almost as good as last year's coffee buttercream traditional log, and in some ways, better!

http://daringbakersblogroll.blogspot.com/">Check out the other DBers' French yule logs. Make one of your own, even--it's a fun challenge. Or buy one from AJ's in the frozen food section (no, I didn't, but I did wonder if other DBers were considering it!). Whatever you do, have a safe, happy, and satisfying holidays!

The Winter Festival of Pie 2008

2008-12-20T23:33:00.000-08:00

Every year, The Winter Festival of Pie (TWFoP) gets bigger and better! For me, the holiday spirit manifests most in sharing, especially food, with friends, family, and strangers, spreading good cheer and making new memories. It's all of the festivities with none of the religion (unless you worship pie, and as Nikki says, she has more faith in pie than she does in Jesus--thus, the holiday she made for it!). For a pictorial archive of this year's pies, browse on through and enjoy!

I made a candy apple cream pie.

Robert's cheesy sausage quiche with green bell peppers.

Iain and Ginger's spicy and not-spicy hamburger pies were virtual twins.

TWFoP Hostess Nikki's tamale pie is a hit every year.

Jesse's baked potato pie.

TWFoP Host Al's green tomato salsa went well with Nikki's tamale pie, and with a lot of other pies, too!

Patrick H manifested his wit through food when he showed up with Frito pies.

Homemade chicken pot pie.

Fruit tart/pizza on a gianormous sugar cookie.

Vegetarian black bean pie.

Chocolate pecan pie.

Enchilada pie.

Pumpkin pie.

A lovely mountain of fruit.

A vegetarian broccoli quiche.

Chicken pot pie, I think from Costco--they make great pies.

A beautiful Linzer tart.

A vegetable quiche.

Mini quiches.

Czarina and Patrick's Dixie pie--like a pecan pie with a layer of chocolate chips melted under the pecan top crust.

Another Costco chicken pot pie.

Teresa's raisin cream pie, which I'd never seen before. It was like a pecan pie, but with raisins instead of pecans, and with meringue topping.

Spinach and tomato quiche.

Quiche with breakfast sausage.

Sue's chili pizza on a cornbread crust.

Tabor's seafood pizza.

Chris W's eggnog pie.

Sarah's apple pie.

Wendy's vegetarian lasagna pie.

Wendy's vegetarian hand pies.

Costco cherry pie.

And just when we thought no one would bring a storebought pizza for the first time in TWFoP history, someone did!

Pacific Rim, Weeks 12 and 14: Filipino, and a post-final hot pot

2008-12-18T20:23:00.000-08:00

School's out for winter! Actually, completing Pacific Rim and the Nutrition class I'd signed up for meant I qualified for my Certificates of Completion in Commercial Food Prep and Commercial Baking. Woot!

So here, I present to you the photos from my last two weeks of class, with notes at the bottom. Of course, Week 12 was near and dear to my heart because we focused on traditional Filipino dishes. Clockwise from pancit canton at top: Philippine Shrimp and Pork Lumpia, Adobong Isda sea bass, then catfish, white rice, Philipino Pork Adobo, Philippine Style Fried Rice Longanisa

Adobong Isda, Catfish and Sea Bass in Tangy Sauce

Pancit Canton

Philippine Shrimp and Pork Lumpia

Hot and Sour Shrimp with Watercress and Walnuts

Chicken Adobo

Philippine Style Fried Rice Longanisa

Hot pot veggies.

Hot pot meats (chicken, NY Strip, and shrimp in chicken stock).

Sweet potato slices.

Notes:

-If you don't have a nonstick pan, fish can stick pretty easily unless you use enough oil and enough heat. Sear it hot and fast, and when it's ready to flip, it will go right on over.

-Adobo dishes are distinguished by their generous inclusion of vinegar. My mom, along with millions of other old school Filipino moms, stick with the fail-safe white vinegar, but wine vinegars, cider vinegars, and even balsamics add a more complex depth of flavor. It's also a good way to add that acid that pro chefs are always talking about to make dishes brighter--you don't have to be stuck with citrus, especially if you just don't have any on hand.

-Our fried rice, woefully, was mush because we used fresh rice instead of rice that had been chilled first and it's starchy outsides to solidify to protect it from dissolving into mush while cooking. The flavor was fine, but the texture was a bummer.

-Woks are wonderful for deep frying, especially lumpia! Just make sure you get your oil good and hot, or your food will just soak the oil up while it slowly, slowly fries.

-This hot pot was awkward for me, dipping what was supposed to be one skewered item at a time into the simmering stock to let it cook, then eating it fondue style. Anyone who eats fondu with me laughs--I skewer bunches of stuff (like those skinny sweet potato slices) at once and dunk it all in. Otherwise, eating takes forever. Maybe that's why fondue places charge so much money--a single dining event can take hours. Eventually, I have multiple items on multiple skewers going, and my table in class that night had to untangle a slew of skewers to figure out what was what and whether or not it was done. It was also hard to monitor how much we were eating. I wish I'd done it differently: Last New Year's Eve, I had the pleasure of "doing hot pot" with my Hun and his parents in the traditional Taiwanese style. When we got to his parents' house, the broth was already on and the veggies were cooking away, rounding out the broth. We added all sorts of meats, from chicken to fish balls to shrimp, adding more flavor to the broth. At the end, we dumped a lovely load of cellophane noodles into the broth so they could soak up all that awesome flavor. It was as good as dessert! Anyway, after our meal, as we were all cleaning up, we found out that a couple of our classmates had wised up and just dumped all their fixings into the stock to make soup, then used a strainer to fish it all out. Smart!

Menu for Hope V

2008-12-16T06:53:00.000-08:00

As I continue being crazy busy and unable to post anything of substance to my blog, I do want to stop to bring my readers' attention to this year's Menu for Hope event, hosted by the wonderful Pim. There are a slew of foodie'/wine-lovers' prizers from and for around the world--just buy a raffle ticket for ten bucks each, and see if you win. Last year, Menu for Hope IV raised nearly $100,000 for the UN World Food Programme.

In Pim's words: "We chose to support the school lunch program because providing food for the children not only keeps them alive, but keeps them in school so that they learn the skills to feed themselves in the future. We chose to support the program in Lesotho because it is a model program in local procurement - buying food locally to support local farmers and the local economy. Instead of shipping surplus corn across the ocean, the WFP is buying directly from local subsistent farmers who practice conservation farming methods in Lesotho to feed the children there."

Last year, I won an awesome "care package" consisting of two big boxes of British treats! It was one of this year's food-related highlights.

Some of you might wonder why she doesn't choose to benefit a domestic program. If you're wondering, maybe your spirit of giving isn't quite in the right place, or at least, not in the same place as Pim's. I'm looking forward to participating in Menu for Hope V, but if you're looking to bring your charitable dollars a little closer to home, look for places like the United Food Bank. If you can spare any help, it's certainly needed this time of year, and this year specifically. Have a wonderful holidays, and thanks for reading!

Robert bakes biscotti (from last winter)

2008-12-11T07:45:00.000-08:00

There has been much cooking and baking in the past few weeks! I've been to the last two Pacific Rim classes, but just haven't posted the photos and notes. Hun and I have been baking like mad! And this weekend, we're getting ready for the monthly SAS, which I finally decided to turn into a Sunday night dinner, because I decided that Sunday night dinner with friends and family is how I most want to start the week. Then, there's work and my reading/writing-intensive nutrition class, and other holiday goings-on. SO MUCH STUFF! So today, I bring to you: an old post--one of several I have waiting in the wings when I get too busy to craft something new, but don't want to leave my blog empty. Last winter, I taught Hun how to bake biscotti, and so he baked it, and it was good. While I've found a few biscotti recipes I really enjoy, Ken's is still my go-to.

***

I watched with eagle eyes over his shoulder while he manned the mixer.

All plated up!

Daring Bakers, November: Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting

2008-11-29T00:01:00.000-08:00

Daring Bakers unite! It's that time of the month again (no, that other time) when the Daring Bakers show the fruits of their labors--the baked goods that resulted from a secret recipe assigned to them by the month's host(s) at the beginning of the month. This month's challenge:

Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting courtesy of Shuna Fish Lydon (http://eggbeater.typepad.com/), as published on Bay Area Bites (http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/).

This month's hosts:
Dolores, Alex, Jenny, and special non-gluten consulting by Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go.

I made cupcakes instead of a cake, and they were pretty homely and sedate. Can we dress them up a bit? Can we???

YES WE CAN!!!

My friends Teresa and Klute hosted an Election Night party, and most of us (really all but one) were Obama-cheering voters, so I made Cupcakes for Change. Here are Teresa and Klute, showing their support (of rich, sweet, buttery cupcakes). Thanks to Chris W. for taking the photo!

Notes that might help:

I baked my cupcakes in nut cups, but since there was shrinkage away from the sides, cupcake papers would've been better, since they probably would've pulled in with the cake. Still, the cake tastes great! Word of warning--these don't dome the way you might expect cupcakes to. I filled the cups just over halfway, and while some threatened to creep over the edges, most baked level with the tops of the cups, which is what I was hoping for.

The caramel syrup was a little tricky for me even though I'm fairly comfortably working with sugar and caramel. The recipe says to check for stickiness to tell when it's done, but you have to wait for it to cool first. The temperature of the stuff in the pot just continued to rise as I waited for the tester on the spoon to cool. Be careful not to wait too long--don't lost that dark amber color.

As one of Lydon's writers mentioned when troubleshooting the recipe, the batter does look like it breaks when I add the milk, but it smooths out again when I add the dry ingredients, so if it looks grainy, just keep on truckin'! wink

The frosting is killer (figuratively, maybe literally). The scale for frosting to sugar-high is about 1/8 inch of frosting per mile of sugar high. Watch your butter when browning--you might burn it (or the milk solids in it) if you turn your back on it for too long.

I started later than I'd intended, so my caramel syrup, still somewhat thin and dark amber, was still too warm when I needed it. I asked my boyfriend to gently whisk it while I worked on other things. When he handed it back, it was cool, but it was also milky, pale, and fluffy, like whipped honey or dulce de leche. Since it was still somewhat viscous, I decided to use it in both the cake and the frosting, anyway. From what I can tell, it worked out fine.

I had a thin coating of caramel syrup stuck to the bottom of my pot. Soaking it in water will dissolve the caramel. Even if there's a bunch of it, as if you'd burned a bunch to your pot, soaking it will work, though it will take awhile. If you're in a rush, just pour a bunch of water into the pot and boil it out--the sugar will just combine with the water, and you can pour it out.

I'm storing my caramel syrup in the cupboard, since it's just sugar and water, just like simple syrup, which I also store in the cupboard. Time to pass out! See you in the completed forum! ;D

Weeks after the fact, I stirred the caramel (it had separated a bit) and drizzled it over the pumpkin pie cheesecake I made for Thanksgiving dinner. Oh yum!

Pacific Rim, Week 11: Korean

2008-11-25T13:09:00.000-08:00

After two weeks, class met up again last week, this time for Korean cuisine. There was a running theme through most of these dishes: meat (as in beef), heat, and pickled veggies (mostly kimchi, the pickled cabbage). Like most Pacific Rim cuisines, Korean food has strong ties to Chinese cooking, and like Chinese food and the rest of Pac-Rim cooking, Korean food has strong regional ties. We didn't learn any of that, though--we just cooked!

Clockwise from short ribs at noon: Bangja Gui, Ramen Noodles Korean Style, Mandu, with Maewoon Ojingau Bokum peeking out just under the short ribs

Ramen Noodles, Korean Style. I never met a Ramen noodle I didn't like. I lived off Ramen during my second year in college, and even though it was just the 10-for-a-dollar packs, I slurped up every noodle. I tried to ensure I wouldn't fall over from MSG poisoning by mixing it up with some of the free condiments from the university's student union/cafeteria . . . this is turning into a whole other post, so I'll stop there. I'll just say that there's something eternally satisfying about these soft, flavorful noodles that gives them a permanent place in my heart, and in my stomach.

Kimchi Jiege--Kimchi and Pork Soup. My mom used to make kimchi in a giant plastic jar stored in our garage. I never questioned why the stuff didn't rot--the idea of pickling was over my head until recently. Knowing now about the preservative powers of vinegar, I was dubious about the tastiness of a soup based on vinegary cabbage; I shouldn't have worried--it went wonderfully with the sweet pork (I've said it before and I'll say it again, meat such as lamb and pork taste sweet to me), and there was a perfect stitch of red heat that laced through the soup.

Maewoon Ojingau Bokum--Chili-hot Squid with Vegetables. "What are those fat noodles," asked a classmate who didn't work on the dish. Those are actually slices of carving squid. The squid was cooked perfectly in this dish, but I felt like the noodles, while tasty, were extraneous.

Mandu--Golden Korean Dumplings. Mmmm. They're dumplings. You have to have a dumpling for a brain to not love them.

Korean Beef Short Ribs. According to Chef, Koreans/Asians like their beef chewy so you can really rip into them. I always figured that my parents cooked meat well-done to ensure that all the little buggies that might be living in the meat would turn to ash. Anyway, while a big chunk of short rib should have a long, slow cook, these thin bits turned out just fine.

Egg noodles. Period. Well, fried, and then period.

Beef for Bangja Gui--Barbecued Beef in a Lettuce Wrapper. I charred up a lot of flank steak for these. Nothing makes you voracious like standing over the grill for a good part of the evening. This was pretty tasty, though, so I call it worth it!

Notes:

Buy foodstuffs like kimchi from places where you know the inventory is in constant rotation. Just because it's pickled, doesn't mean it can't go "off."

Here, if you're familiar with sauteeing shrimp, you can use the same instinct when cooking squid--call it done just before it actually looks done. It will finish cooking with the carryover heat. It takes just a few minutes. Unfortunately, you don't get the color change you do in a lot of shrimp varieties, but it will turn a bit more opaque. I actually found Chef's recipe online here, so you can brave it yourself!

No matter the country of origin, I like my dumplings the same way--crisped to start, steamed to finish. You start them off in a saute pan with oil to crisp them, flippin them so they fry a bit on both sides, then adding water and putting a lid over the pan to steam them until they're cooked through. When you're cooking meat dumplings like these, don't understimate how long you need to steam them, or they'll be coming up raw!

While you can fully cook the short ribs on the grill and serve them then, you can tenderize them a bit by steaming them for awhile longer after grilling them.

The beef for the lettuce wraps benefits from being grilled, but you neither want to use giant hunks of beef in your lettuce wraps nor slice the beef too thinly and risk having them fall through the grill. Grill them in chunks, let them rest, then slice them thinly to make for manageable wraps.