Baking Bread to Save the World

Daring Bakers Returns! PIECE MONTÉE

2010-05-27T01:11:00.000-07:00

I have finally completed a Daring Baker challenge again. It has been a long absence, and I have definitely missed it. I miss the challenge of trying something new, learning a new technique, being inspired by the amazing work of fellow bakers...and it keeps me blogging.

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.

When I decided I would get back into the swing of the challenges and checked in at the site, I was very excited to see what was selected for this month's challenge. Croqeumbouche is something I have wanted to make for a long time, and one of those fun desserts that looks like a lot more work than it is.

Then I decided I would make it for a brunch with some great friends who, like the DB challenges, we had also been missing for some time, and that's when the nerves started to set in. The only time I had ever had a croquembouche was at one of the Blair's amazing holiday dessert parties. And because my friend is such a wonderful baker, it was of course gorgeous and delicious. I had a lot to live up to if this was going to be my audience. Overall I was quite pleased. My final result was not as dramatic or show stopping as Mrs. Blair's (my sugar work certainly leaves a bit to be desired), but it was delicious.

I have made choux pastry before - for the Daring Baker's eclair challenge - and it came out fine, if a bit eggy. This recipe however, was awesome! Very easy, fast, and fool proof. It will certainly be my go to choix recipe in the future. The pastry cream was also fantastic. I made the espresso version, and R and I could have eaten a bowl full of it all by itself. The beautiful thing is that this recipe is also easy and fast. My sincere thanks go out to this month's hosts for putting together a great challenge with some wonderful recipes. The recipes are so good, I'm going to go ahead and include the whole thing for you.

My notes for the recipes: I followed them to the letter (which I often do when baking something new). I would recommend doubling the Pastry Cream recipe for the amount of choux. The recipe was written as a half batch, but I think it needs the whole batch...did I mention we could have eaten a gallon of this stuff?

Vanilla Crème Patissiere (Half Batch)

1 cup (225 ml.) whole milk

2 Tbsp. cornstarch

6 Tbsp. (100 g.) sugar

1 large egg

2 large egg yolks

2 Tbsp. (30 g.) unsalted butter

1 Tsp. Vanilla

Dissolve cornstarch in ¼ cup of milk. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan; bring to boil; remove from heat.

Beat the whole egg, then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.

Return the remaining milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking.

Continue whisking (this is important – you do not want the eggs to solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil. Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla.

Pour cream into a stainless steel/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface. Chill immediately and until ready to use.

For Chocolate Pastry Cream (Half Batch Recipe):

Bring ¼ cup (about 50 cl.) milk to a boil in a small pan; remove from heat and add in 3 ounces (about 80 g.) semisweet chocolate, finely chopped, and mix until smooth. Whisk into pastry cream when you add the butter and vanilla.

For Coffee Pastry Cream (Half Batch recipe)

Dissolve 1 ½ teaspoons instant espresso powder in 1 ½ teaspoons boiling water. Whisk into pastry cream with butter and vanilla.

Pate a Choux (Yield: About 28)

¾ cup (175 ml.) water

6 Tbsp. (85 g.) unsalted butter

¼ Tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. sugar

1 cup (125 g.) all-purpose flour

4 large eggs

For Egg Wash: 1 egg and pinch of salt

Pre-heat oven to 425◦F/220◦C degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Preparing batter:

Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.

Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly.

Add 1 egg. The batter will appear loose and shiny.

As you stir, the batter will become dry-looking like lightly buttered mashed potatoes.

It is at this point that you will add in the next egg. Repeat until you have incorporated all the eggs.

Piping:

Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip (I piped directly from the bag opening without a tip). Pipe choux about 1 inch-part in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high about 1 inch wide.

Using a clean finger dipped in hot water, gently press down on any tips that have formed on the top of choux when piping. You want them to retain their ball shape, but be smoothly curved on top.

Brush tops with egg wash (1 egg lightly beaten with pinch of salt).

Baking:

Bake the choux at 425◦F/220◦C degrees until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350◦F/180◦C degrees and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

Can be stored in a airtight box overnight, but best used right away.

Filling:

When you are ready to assemble your piece montée, using a plain pastry tip, pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux with pastry cream using either the same tip or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet. Choux can be refrigerated briefly at this point while you make your glaze.

Use one of these to top your choux and assemble your piece montée.

Hard Caramel Glaze:

1 cup (225 g.) sugar

½ teaspoon lemon juice

Combine sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan with a metal kitchen spoon stirring until the sugar resembles wet sand. Place on medium heat; heat without stirring until sugar starts to melt around the sides of the pan and the center begins to smoke. Begin to stir sugar. Continue heating, stirring occasionally until the sugar is a clear, amber color. Remove from heat immediately; place bottom of pan in ice water to stop the cooking. Use immediately.

Assembly of your Piece Montée:

Once you are ready to assemble your piece montée, dip the top of each choux in your glaze (careful it may be still hot!), and start assembling on your cake board/plate/sheet. Continue dipping and adding choux in levels using the glaze to hold them together as you build up.

When you have finished the design of your piece montée, you may drizzle with remaining glaze or use ribbons, sugar cookie cut-outs, almonds, flowers, etc. to decorate.

A Foodie Fight Win

2010-05-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks again for all of the support and votes. With the Tangy Shallicot Infused Feast we were able to win the popular vote, and got a split decision from the two judges: one win, and one runner-up. All together it is currently the high score overall for the new season of FoodieFights.

This Battle was a lot of fun! Great food, great competitors, and great friends. And of course a great local farmer (thanks again KMK Farms! Go sign up for their delicious and customizable CSA.)

Turns out it takes online food competitions to get me blogging again. I actually completed this month's Daring Bakers Challenge too, so expect to see that post soon.

Thanks again friends.

A Shallicot Feast

2010-05-24T14:12:00.000-07:00

Let them eat Shallicots! Battle Shallots/Apricots is here, and this meal was awesome! I love me some online food challenges – and FoodieFights in particular never disappoints. Think of it as the Iron Chef of online food challenges – 2 special ingredients are selected, food bloggers put on their thinking caps, create a great meal centered around those ingredients, post the results, and the world gets to vote for their favorite.

GO VOTE!!! at the foodiefights site

I of course have a little history with FoodieFights. I was fortunate enough to win the second ever FoodieFight challenge – Battle Rhubarb/Coriander. With the new and improved FoodieFights site up, it was time to throw my hat into the ring again and give it another chance. And when I found out what the ingredients were I was very excited. We are definitely an apricot (and shallot for that matter) loving family. So much so that we planted an apricot tree a few years ago and this is the first year it has started bearing fruit.

Unfortunately, our apricots are still green. Not to be deterred, I knew a certain local, organic farmer who would come through for us. You see, we live in the breadbasket, agricultural center of the world, and fresh produce abounds. Better still, we are fortunate enough to know our local farmers on a first name basis, and they are awesome. When our favorite farmer Kyle of KMK Farms found out about the competition, he generously donated over 3 lbs. of apricots for the feast.

These are not just any apricots. These are certified organic, locally grown, sweet as sin, juice dripping apricots, and I could easily make myself sick eating pound after pound of them. To anyone living even remotely near to me – rush out and sign up for the CSA from KMK – The Farmer’s Daughter. It’s a super cool CSA because you get to pick what goes into it, and it all comes from KMK’s amazing organic farm. It’s a fantastic way to enjoy the delicious bounty of the San Joaquin Valley and support a local organic farmer. THANK YOU Kyle, KMK, and Farmer’s Daughter CSA!

On to the meal!

Battle Shallot / Apricot = Tangy, Shallicot Infused Feast
There were shallots and apricots in the marinade.
There were shallots and apricots in the chutney.
There were shallots and apricots in the salad.
There were shallots and apricots in the flatbread.
The accompanying cocktail featured apricot alone.

The main course: Smoky Pork Loin Chops topped with Tangy Shallicot Chutney and Crispy Shallots

These babies were marinated and grilled, then topped with the chutney and crispy, fried shallots.

The marinade: a curry paste of apricots, shallots, garlic, jalapeno, tomato, cumin, salt/pepper, cider vinegar, and yogurt.

The marinade was blended together and the pork bathed in it overnight in the fridge. The thick chops spent about five minutes per side on the grill, just enough to get a nice char and some attractive criss cross grill lines, but not long enough to subtract the juicy tenderness in the middle. The pork took on some smoky notes (from the grill and cumin), a sweet touch (lent by the apricot), and a little kick in the pants (from the jalapeno). All told, the sum was richly delicious.

But the essential counterpoint to the pork chops' richness was the bright and springlike, intensely flavorful chutney sitting right on top, accompanying each bite. The chutney really played up the shallot-apricot relationship, made it right up front.

The chutney: a relish of apricots, shallots, raisins, cider vinegar, brown sugar, cumin, garam masala, coriander, dried mustard and ginger, and salt/pepper. Everything was mixed together and simmered down for nearly 30 minutes creating a rich and bold treat.

Although the chutney was front and center, the vibrant flavors managed to somehow still be quite subtle, revealing themselves slowly over each bite and throughout the meal. My wife continued to call out ingredients as we ate because the individual components came through with different mouthfuls. The chutney kept each bite novel, kept the palate curious for more.

On top of the nice dollop of chutney was a few pinches of fried shallot garnish. And this was not just for looks. In fact, we all agreed that the crispy, fried shallot rings made the dish. The crunchy texture, mixed with the velvety mouthfeel of the chutney and the warm and smoky sweet pork was a shallicot dream come true.

But why stop there when shallicot is so good? And after all, one dish does not a feast make.

The salad was a perfect companion to the richness and warmth of the pork. It was a cold watermelon salad, with grilled apricots, thinly sliced shallots, feta and tons of chopped mint (from KMK Farms, of course). The dressing was a very simple olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper mix just to bring out the crispness of the fruit and tie it all together. It was a refreshing and delicious addition to the festive plate.

And because we love carbs, and because no meal is complete without some homemade bread, we went with a shallicot flatbread – naanesque if you will – to compliment the slightly Indian flavors of the pork and chutney. This was a simple yeasted flatbread cooked on a hot stone in the oven for just a few minutes on each side. I incorporated diced dried apricots and butter sautéed shallots into the dough, which was a really nice way to round out the meal. I reserved the butter that the shallots sautéed in, and brushed it onto the flatbreads as they came off the hot stone. The flatbread was perfect for sopping up the juices of the meat and any extra chutney you may have.

Finally, this meal was a celebration of the season’s bounty, the online and local food communities, and general deliciousness of springtime everywhere... and we all know that every celebration needs a cocktail. I pureed some of the fresh apricots with a touch of water and mixed it in a cocktail shaker in a 1:1 ratio with vodka and a bit of powdered sugar. I then strained that into a cocktail glass and added a little more apricot puree. It was topped off with sparkling lemon soda.

And that my friends, is a Tangy Shallicot Infused Feast!

Cheers!

The Foodie Fight is On...Again!

2010-05-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

I've been bad at blogging. We've moved, kids are busy, etc. No excuses. Except maybe the move - still getting used to not having a gas range - but the double oven is definitely a plus for baking.

Well, while I was taking my online break, so was Foodie Fights. They took a few month hiatus, and are now back with FoodieFights 2.0. Having had so much fun, and done so well, with the last foodie fight challenge Battle Rhubarb and Coriander, I definitely wanted to throw my hat in again as soon as possible.

Well, this weekend, it's on. Welcome to Battle Shallot and Apricot. I'll be creating and cooking the dish this weekend, posting to the blog at the end of the weekend and then voting begins on Tuesday the 25th. So please stay tuned for another post soon, with pictures, recipes and voting instrucitons.

In Search of Pizza Perfection

2010-02-04T09:09:00.000-08:00

It's a thankless job, but someone has to do it :) We've been having pizza every now and then lately in order to try to really dial in our pizza recipe and technique.

The problem, of course, with making pizza at home is that your oven just doesn't get hot enough. My oven's top temp is 500 degrees F, some go up to 550, but still, that doesn't come anywhere near the temp needed to recreate the great Neapolitan/neo-Neapolitan etc. pizza's coming out of all the great artisan pizzerias with their schmancy wood fired ovens (which, seriously, as soon as we are settled in a house I know I am staying in, I will be building one). Those ovens are typically cooking pies at upwards of 800 or 900 degrees. Some have tried to replicate this by disabling the locking mechanism on their oven and cooking the pizza using the self-clean function, but I'm not willing to blow through a few ovens in this endeavor - I know, fair weather baker indeed.

So, working with what tract housing has given us, one should still be able to eat some great pizza. A large part of that is wrapped up in how one is preparing their dough. As this is all a work in progress, I will update with specifics of the dough once I feel comfortable with a recipe. The key is, sourdough and a slow, cool fermentation to bring out the flavor in the dough. This has the added bonus of making it easier to prep. You mix the dough the night before you plan to make pizza, knead it up a bit, form it into dough balls, and store in the fridge overnight. The next day, just take them out about a hour before you plan to bake (and while you preheat the oven) and you're good to go.

We've been saving some dough for the next morning and making breakfast pizzas. This one has sausage, thyme, and an egg. Just crack the raw egg onto the other toppings and cook as usual. It will firm up just enough and still have an awesome yolk run over the pie. It may sound a bit weird at first, but it's awesome.

The other key is of course toppings. Make a simple but vibrant sauce, source quality ingredients, and don't over do it. Most pizzas suffer from topping and cheese overload. Use a light hand, let the real flavors come through, you want to taste that delicious crust after all.

The main things we have been working on lately is technique. Given the 500 degree limitation, how does one get nice charring on the bottom crust, cooked pizza, and bubbling hot toppings? I've gone through few different trials and think I am honing in on it.

One important element is the pizza stone. If you want to take your pizza seriously you need a baking stone. They store crazy amounts of heat, and are porous to wick moisture out of the dough and help it crisp up. I started by just preheating the heck out of my stone and baking the pizzas on them. With a thin crust pizza this is okay. Pies take about a 8-12 minutes to bake, and they are good. Really, they're fine. If this is all you do, you beat the socks off any delivery pizza just because you've used better ingredients and it's homemade. But it doesn't really begin to reach pizza nirvana.

The next trial was to move the stone to the very top of the oven (I use a gas oven) and preheat the stone with the broiler on. This gets hotter than the regular bake function on the oven. I haven't tested the temp, but the oven says it gets up to 525. Again, preheat the heck out of the stone and slide your pizza onto the stone and let it cook. This got the time down to about 5 minutes (not too bad) but by the time the top was done and starting to dry out even, we didn't have the gorgeous charring on the bottom crust. In fact it was a bit underdone. Hmmm, not quite there yet.

The best option so far is a two part process. Heat the stone under the broiler as before for at least 30 minutes. It will cycle on and off, but will still heat up. About 10 minutes before you are ready to bake the first pie, heat a cast iron pan (I use one with no sides, like a comal, makes it easier to get on and off) on your strongest burner on your stove. Crank that flame up to high and let that bad boy get scorching hot. Turn on vents, and open windows at this time (hey, I never said the process wasn't going to be messy, but the results are worth it). While the cast iron pan heats up, prep your dough - don't make it bigger than your pan obviously - top it with your chosen sauce and toppings and then slide it onto the pan.

Come on, that looks rad, right? Look at that nice char.

This is going to give you the nice leopard-spotting on the bottom, the charring in spots that crisps up the bottom crisp and gives you that wood fired flavor. Keep an eye on it, lifting with a spatula to take a peek often. It's not going to take long, maybe 2 or 3 minutes max. If it's burning all over you can turn the heat down, or just transfer it earlier.

Once the bottom crust is looking good, transfer the pie to the preheated baking stone under the broiler. This step will finish the top side of the pizza, which really hasn't been cooked at all while on the stove. Again, this will only take a few minutes, so keep a close eye on it. Once it looks bubbling and delicious, pull it out, slide it onto a cutting board, slice it up and eat.

I use a pizza peel to transfer the pizza around and I think it makes life much easier, but you can get by with a combo of good spatula and the back of a cookie sheet if you must.

If you are looking for great pizza, I recommend giving this technique a try. I'm still fine tuning but I think we're on the right path.

Another great breakfast pizza.

We've also made some crispy, thin crust pies based on Jim Lahey's no-knead method. It is super duper easy and makes a good pizza. The crust goes together in a few hours only, no kneading and it gets spread on an oiled cookie sheet, topped and baked in a hot oven. No special techniques need. R is a fan, I think it's okay, but I prefer the more labor intensive method above. But for a quick family pizza night, it ain't bad.

This is a sausage and fennel pie, using the Lahey method.

The crust gets crispy from the oiled cookie sheet. Not too shabby, for a quick pizza fix.

Fish Lovers

2010-01-04T19:14:00.001-08:00

Can I just say that I love my kids? This dinner was for H (age 4) who when asked said her favorite foods are fish, green beans, and peas. This was a simple N. African inspired fish dish - Fish Algiers. Tilapia in cumin, lemon, tomato, parsley etc. with green beans in a traditional shallot dressing with toasted almonds and a touch of feta. We also had some rice cooked in veg broth with toasted pinenuts, raisins, and lemon.

I'll post recipes soon but wanted to get the silly iPhone photo up and play with mobile blogging. And to say how much I love that my kids scarfed this meal down and heaped some Daddy praise. My kids are rad!

- mobile update

Homebrew Beer for Beginners (like me)

2009-11-12T12:30:00.000-08:00

Brewing my own beer is something that I have wanted to do for a very long time. I grew up appreciating good beer – I was never one to binge drink Coors Light just because it was cheap and available. Beer is something to be appreciated.

I like to cook and bake because I enjoy the process, but also because I like to eat. It therefore stands to reason that I would be interested in brewing beer – a fun project, with (hopefully) delicious results. I was also interested in the process because my grandfather used to brew his own brews. In fact, I inherited some supplies from him that I faithfully moved (and stored) from one home to another before finally disposing of them just months before getting into brewing myself.

Not to be deterred, I checked in with a friend of mine whom I know to have done some serious brewing in the past. Turns out it had been a while for him and he was looking to get started again, so I had the pleasure of joining him for a few of his all-grain brew sessions. Once I finally got started on my own, I started with a kit, as most beginners do. However, having had the experience helping with an all-grain brew, I am quickly moving in that direction. It’s just a much more enjoyable process and you ultimately have much more control over the ingredients, process, and final product.

Having asked countless questions, read up on various online forums, etc., I finally purchased a kit from Williams Brewing and got started on my own. The first kit I brewed was an American IPA (actually I brewed one before that on my friends equipment, but due to some freezing conditions in my new fridge, the product was a bust). The IPA was hoppy and delicious, but also suffered from the same fridge freezing conditions. After going through about a dozen freeze-thaw cycles, the last bit of the brew just felt anemic and flat. Overall however, a relative success, and when the temp was well controlled, the beer was awesome.

The beer in these pictures is an Amarillo Ale, named after the Amarillo hops used in it (floral and citrusy), again a kit from Williams Brewing. This was the first time I brewed outside on my new propane burner, which I love it. Speeds the process up, the house doesn’t smell, no fear of boilovers becoming a sticky kitchen mess, and it just feels right to be outside while brewing.

The beer making process is not that difficult, and does not need to be as fussy as some make it seem. You can certainly get very high-tech and precise in measurements and temperatures, or you can just make some beer, man.

It goes without saying that keeping things clean is very important. I wash everything well and sanitize with a common homebrew sanitizer.

Let's brew!

1. Boil water – My largest pot (for now) holds about three gallons so I brew a concentrated brew and then add water when it’s time to cool before pitching yeast.

2. Add malt extract – The Williams Brewing kits use liquid malt extract, some use Dry Malt Extract (DME). The key is to dunk the bag of thick, sticky syrup into the boiling water for a bit to loosen it all up before cutting open and pouring into the pot, or probably more sanitary is to squeeze out the syrup and then ladle some hot water into the bag, slosh around and pour out, but we're about to boil for almost an hour so I'm not too worried. Also, it’s best to turn the heat off while adding the malt and stir as constantly as possible so none of the sugary syrup burns on the bottom of the pot.

3. Boil away – After bring the pot back to a boil keep an eye on the heat level, this is when things can easily bowl over. If it starts to, just lower the heat quickly and stir is up. The hot malted liquid is called wort. The boil usually lasts about 60 minutes, during which time you will add some flavor and bitterness via the hops.

Malty goodness

Mid brew reading

4. Add hops – Depending on the beer, there will be different types and amounts of hops used. This particular beer used Amarillo hopes. The first round goes in after a few minutes of cooking the malt – these are the flavor hops. More hops are added close to the end of the boil, the aroma hops, that don’t really affect the bitterness of the beer, but add nice floral hoppy aroma to the finished product. I never knew it about myself until brewing some Pale Ale with my friend, but I’m quite the hop fan. This beer is nicely balanced, but I think the next brew will head back towards the heavy hop additions.

Hops go in

Boiling away

5. Cool the wort – You want to cool the hot wort as quickly as possible. Our next step will be to add the yeast, but anything too hot will kill the yeast off immediately. The goal is to get the wort down to below 80 degrees, and to do it fast. There are a ton of wort chilling devises out there, and likely one day I will have one, but at this point I just put it in a giant ice bath and added more ice as it melted. It took about 30-35 minutes to get the temp down. You want to chill quickly to avoid any possible bacterial infections at this vulnerable stage.

Ice Bath

6. Add yeast – Once the temp is down, transfer the cooled wort to your fermenting container – I just use a five gallon bucket, a larger one would be ideal, but these are cheap. You can now pitch (add) your yeast to the brew and seal it up. The Williams kit comes with Wyeast activator pack yeast. A day or so before brewing, you pop an interior pouch inside the bigger bag of yeast that feeds the yeast and gets them all excited for the upcoming feast. Each packet contains over 1 billion yeast. Go get ‘em guys!

7. Seal, lock, ferment – Time to seal the fermenter, and add an airlock. The airlock allows CO2 produced from yeast eating the sugar to escape the container without anything else getting back it. Plus it’s cool to hear the airlock bubble away, knowing those billions of yeasties are converting all that sugary malt into alcohol.

8. Wait – one of the hardest parts of the process. If you were hardcore, you would be taking hydrometer readings of the chilled wort, and then later on to determine the specific gravity and alcohol content of the beer. But at the end of the day, does it really matter what the alcohol content by volume of your homebrew is? If you do everything basically right, it should be right around the level it was supposed to be (profound, I know). You’ll know if it’s high or low when you drink it after all. For me, I just wait. About 12 days to two weeks is good. Sure, without taking the readings, I don’t know 100% that fermentation is 100% complete, but I’m fairly confident it is. I also didn’t bother transferring to a secondary fermenter which would help the final product be a bit more clear. But again, who cares if your homebrew is perfectly clear?

9. Crash – After you’ve waited out fermentation, you want to chill the beer down to serving temp, or around 40 degrees. This will help any remaining suspended particles settle before the final transfer.

10. Keg – at this point you can bottle or keg your beer. I had planned to bottle originally, and had many nice friends saving their beer bottles for me. But thanks to another friend (turns out I’m lucky to have rad friends with cool hobbies to help me out) I was able to borrow a keg setup and bypassed the whole messy bottling step. After the beer is fully fermented and crashed, transfer via siphon to the clean and sanitized keg.

11. Carbonate – There are a couple of ways to do this. We could have mixed a sugar solution into the fermented beer before transferring it to the keg and let it naturally carbonate, which can take a few weeks, or you can force carbonate using CO2. Again, when force carbonating there are a few options – crank the gas up, shake the keg, let it settle, shake again, repeat etc. until well carbonated - or set the gas to the right serving level and leave it alone for a week or so. I do something in between these – shake a little gas in, let it sit, shake once or twice more, set the gas to around 10-12 psi and leave it alone for a few days. As it conditions in the keg, it will just get better and better.

12. Drink and Enjoy! – This part is pretty self explanatory, easy, and quite rewarding. You'll need to adjust the pressure on the gas for serving. For this brew, with my gas in the fridge with the keg, I've found a low pressure (around 7 psi) produces a nice beer with good head retention without excess foaming.

I left out some nitty-gritty details here and there, but overall, while the process takes time, it’s really not that difficult. I’m sure you could work harder at it, and in some ways I probably will as I take on new recipes etc. but overall, just jump in there, enjoy the process and relish in your good works.

Ideally, serve in Grandpa's old gold-rim glasses

Breakfast Fun

2009-11-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

We like pancakes and we like playing with our food.

Plus I wanted to test mobile publishing to Blogger.

- mobile update

Impromptu Pizza Night

2009-09-27T09:20:00.000-07:00

I like when dinner comes together easily. That transition from wondering what the heck to make and eat, to a ha! Last night was one of those nights. I was putting together the shopping list and menu for the week and could not decide what to make that night. Nothing was sounding good. Because of the diet restrictions for J, we have not had much bread or cheese in our lives lately, which of course is missed. J has been doing so well that we have decided to start slowly introducing these things back into his diet, and happily it has been going very well. We have found that he does better with natural, local sourdough than commercial yeast, so we will be sticking to that - which is fine with us.

So after struggling to decide what to make, my a ha moment came - pizza! I had a sourdough dough ball in the freezer, tomatoes and basil in the garden, and just enough cheese in the fridge to pull it all together. I set the dough out to defrost, picked some pizza perfect San Marzano tomatoes, a bunch of basil, and got to it.

The sauce was simple, and uncooked. I chopped a few cloves of garlic in the food processor, added about 2-3 cups of chopped tomatoes, a handful of basil, some oregano and rosemary (all the produce came from the garden). Pulse it together for a few seconds with a pinch or two of salt and you're good to go. Fresh, bright and delicious.

I only had a small amount of mozzarella on hand, so we relied heavily on some goat's milk pecorino which was nutty and rich and a perfect foil to the sweet tomatoes.

Clearly I am not too concerned about perfectly round pizzas. I went low stress, just slap them together, throw them on a hot hot hot baking stone (preheat your oven as hot as it will get for at least 30 minutes). The sourdough crust was good - light, with a little crisp and some airyness. It's not a well charred crust like pizza from a wood fired oven (still on the list of things I covet - and will one day make) but for an impromptu pizza night with the family, it couldn't get much better.

The fun thing about pizza night is that each pizza takes time, they come out of the oven about every ten minutes which is just enough time to pull the previous pie out, cut it up so everyone has a slice and hang out together having fun. By the time you finish your slice, the next pizza is ready. It's always a great way for us to spend some silly time playing and eating with the kids. Now that J is handling some sourdough and cheese, we will definitely be having more pizza night picnics. How could you not want to with this is how your kids react?

2 Fun Cakes for 1 Fabulous 4 Year Old

2009-08-09T10:41:00.000-07:00

My big girl is growing up. She is a wonderful, sweet, brilliant, and good little girl and I love her so much. And she deserves wonderful cakes for her birthday. This year we split the parties up to keep things manageable. On her actual birthday, which fell midweek, we had all of the family over.

Since most of both of our families live in the area (We MISS you D, M, and E!!!!) our house is just too small to host the family and H's friends together. We did the friend party, which we tried to keep fairly small too, on the weekend for convenience. It also made it easier for all of us to visit with each other during the parties, plus the added bonus - H gets two parties.

There was no particular theme to the family party, just Happy Birthday! to our girl. She specifically asked for a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and rainbow sprinkles. So that is (of course) what she got. I made the basic chocolate layer cake recipe from the America's Test Kitchen Best Recipes cookbook, which is dense and delicious.

For a simple, and not oppressively sweet, frosting, I made a stabilized whipped cream and used it in between the layers and rusticly swirled on top. And per H's request, the whole thing got a playful dusting of rainbow sprinkles. I thought it ended up as a nice, sophisticated, and tasty cake for a 4 year old.

The friend party had a rainbow theme, so of course I had to play that up in the cake. Quite a while ago I ran across the rainbow cake on Omnomicon and ended up using that as inspiration for our cake. I unfortunately ran short on time and ended up using two packages of white cake mix (for shame!), but I would again recommend the America's Test Kitchen, basic white cake recipe if you have more planning time.

The process is pretty easy. I mixed up both mixes together and then separated the batter into six bowls. Each was colored with gel food colorings. The gel coloring is key. The liquid is too weak and you would end up having to add so much to get the rich colors that it would be more chemical than cake.

Once you have your rainbow of batters ready to go, start with one of the two cake pans and pour the first three colors (Red, Orange, Yellow) into the center of the pan. Pour half of the red into the center of the pan, then half of the orange right on top of the red, and then half of the yellow right on top of the orange. As you pour each color, the one below will spread out and you'll have concentric circles of color.

After you pour the first three colors in, start the other pan going in the opposite direction (Purple, Blue, Green). You end up seeing more of the center color when baked , so it's nice to switch the order up to have a good color spread. It also helps to start the second pan after only doing three in the first pan so that the two pans end up with the same amount of batter in case your guess at "half" was a bit off. Finish off both pans with the colors in the order (or reverse order) of the rainbow, then bake away. I used two mixes, but only two pans, so it took longer than the box direction to bake all the way through. Just bake until a cake tester comes out clean.

After the cakes cool, put a very thin layer of frosting on the cake. This is going to help the fondant stay on. What? Did you say fondant? Yes, I finally tried to make some fondant and get all schmancy. As you can tell, it didn't come out as perfectly as I had envisioned (Damn you, Ace of Cakes, for making this look so easy!) but it was still fun.

I used this Marshmallow Fondant recipe, because it is pretty easy to make, work with and it doesn't taste quite as horrible as most fondants. Follow the instruction, and keep them wrapped in the fridge until you are ready to use them. Take your time and don't roll it too thin or it will tear when you are working with it. I got the whole cake covered at one point but it looked so bad I had to rip it all off, toss it, and start over.

I will likely give the marshmallow fondant another try, but get started earlier in the day so I am not so rushed. It is clearly one of those things that you can tell will get much easier each time you do it. Both cakes were a hit with H, which of course is the whole point!

It's About Time - Back to Daring Bakers

2009-07-27T21:14:00.000-07:00

This summer has been crazy! Weddings, baby showers, new family members, crazy hot, a new swing set for the kids, did I mention - crazy hot? So busy in fact, that I missed last month's Daring Bakers' challenge.

I almost missed this month's challenge too. I finally made it at about 9 pm on reveal day (that would be tonight). Part of the reason for late night baking is that my son is going through a tough time in terms of what he can eat and is on a pretty restrictive diet. It seems to be helping, but I'll admit it's not a ton of fun: no dairy, no sugar, and no yeast. Yikes! That's rough in our house, but worth it to see him doing better. So I bake my creamy, sugary Daring Baker challenges (aka poison to my son) at night so as not to hurt his feelings by refusing to let him lick the bowl.

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.

Unfortunately I did not have time to get to the marshmallow cookies, but mark my word, I will blog those in the future. Homemade marshmallow has been on my To Bake list for a very long time.

The Milan Cookies come together very quickly, although as of this post, my chocolate has still not firmed up as much as I would like. I'm hoping as they sit, it will. Also, these cookies are definitely different than the Milano cookies you may be expecting. To my taste, these were a bit too egg-whitey. That may just have been my rushing through the recipe and the heat in my kitchen. (Did I mention it's always hot here?) but they weren't quite what I was hoping for.

The crushed, roasted and salted pistachios definitely make the cookies something special. The salty crunch they add is key.

Milan Cookies
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network.

Prep Time: 20 min
Inactive Prep Time: 0 min
Cook Time: 1 hr 0 min
Serves: about 3 dozen cookies
• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups (312.5 grams/ 11.02 oz) powdered sugar
• 7/8 cup egg whites (from about 6 eggs)
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons lemon extract
• 1 1/2 cups (187.5grams/ 6.61 oz) all purpose flour
• Cookie filling, recipe follows
Cookie filling:
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 orange, zested

1. In a mixer with paddle attachment cream the butter and the sugar.
2. Add the egg whites gradually and then mix in the vanilla and lemon extracts.
3. Add the flour and mix until just well mixed.
4. With a small (1/4-inch) plain tip, pipe 1-inch sections of batter onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them 2 inches apart as they spread.
5. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges. Let cool on the pan.
6. While waiting for the cookies to cool, in a small saucepan over medium flame, scald cream.
7. Pour hot cream over chocolate in a bowl, whisk to melt chocolate, add zest and blend well.
8. Set aside to cool (the mixture will thicken as it cools).
9. Spread a thin amount of the filling onto the flat side of a cookie while the filling is still soft and press the flat side of a second cookie on top.
10. Repeat with the remainder of the cookies.

Sourdough Success!

2009-07-04T08:48:00.000-07:00

I finally made the move into sourdough. I wanted to start as naturally as possible, so my culture was developed from only flour and water and the natural yeasties in the air. I developed the culture/starter using the method Susan at Wild Yeast has shared and in fact used her bread recipe as the first one to try. I started the culture last week, and fed it diligently twice a day until it was doubling in 4 hours or less. I then lowered the amount of culture used in each feeding and it still doubled in 4 hours, so I felt it was safe to give it a go.

The dough felt a little different while working with it, and I will admit that at times I didn't think it was rising enough. I was worried that I had what looked like at active starter but would end up with hockey puck bread anyway. Lo and behold, the oven spring on this bread was fantastic! I forgot to turn the heat down after putting the loaves in the oven, so they got pretty dark, but the taste was still wonderful. Pleasant crumb structure, slight sour tang. Overall, a success.

Next time I will leave the loaves in the oven with the door cracked open like Susan suggests. This time I felt I had to get them out since they were getting so dark. Plus, it's tough to leave the oven open and on when it's 101 degrees outside. I also think they would benefit from spending the night in the fridge after being shaped and before baking. This will bring out a little more of the sour flavor. The sourness should also increase as my starter ages.

It was a fun process and much less intimidating than I thought it would be. I had read a lot about the process from all the great bakers who contribute to The Fresh Loaf and may have information overloaded a bit. In the end, I just sort of fed it as regularly as possible, tried to keep it going, and built it up to the amount I needed for the first bake. I think the culture and starter are actually quite forgiving.

I am looking forward to trying the whole new world of recipes that are opened up to me now that I have an active and viable starter. In addition to all the loaves of bread, we'll be trying sourdough pancakes, sourdough english muffins.... Mmmmmmmm, carbs.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2009-06-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

The squash is off and running. We are harvesting early cherry tomatoes, with many greens coming in behind. I am especially excited about the San Marzanos. With the basil coming up too, we are in store for some great pizzas.

We have several squash taking off right now, a pickling cucumber, some broccoli, lettuce still going, lots and lots of beets that need to be eaten, about 8-10 different peppers and a crop of herbs. We also have a pumpkin going nuts on the other side of the yard. Hopefully the kids will be able to carve their own pumpkins for Halloween.

I will try to get some in progress shots of the garden - and more harvest shots as well. I still have a lot of work to do, and some trellises to build. It is a fun adventure, with delicious rewards.

A Daring Dough (actually, it was quite easy)

2009-05-28T13:47:00.001-07:00

The Daring Bakers did it again. They have challenged me to make something that I ended up really enjoying, but never would have attempted on my own. This is why I love being a Daring Baker - I get forced out of my comfort zone, and often, like with this challenge, find out what appears to be a horrible daunting task is quite easy.

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.

Since apples are no longer in prime season here, I opted to do a different filling. I used what I had in the house - which is always a bonus - and ended up with a delicious strudel filling inside a crispy, crackly crust.

The idea of making strudel dough was a bit frieghtening when I first learned of this month's challenge. It is a simple dough that gets pulled VERY thin and then wrapped around the filling and baked. I'm talking phyllo thin here. There are definite similarities between the two doughs and it makes me want to find a good phyllo recipe and give that a try. When making strudel at home, many recipes in fact call for using frozen phyllo sheets, but after this month's challenge, I am going to be a regular "from scratch" strudel maker.

I told you it was thin. The dough is amazingly supple and forgiving however. Easy to work with.

For my filling I whipped together cream cheese, almond paste, and finely chopped dark chocolate in the stand mixer (this could easily be done by hand if you let the ingredients come to room temp). I didn't really measure anything. I just threw it all in together, gave it a taste, tossed in a bit more chocolate and called it a strudel. The fun thing about this recipe is that the dough can be filled with just about anything - sweet or savory. I thought about using some organic peaches with the almond paste, but with those I worried they may be a bit too wet. I still may try it, tossing the chopped peaches with a bit of flour and/or cornstarch to bind them up a bit.

I'm already thinking about new filling and entire strudel dinners (savory followed by sweet). I know it's a bit cheesy but who cares? this was good.

I'm going to post the whole recipe as given to us by the Daring Bakers. This includes the apple filling to make a more traditional Apple Strudel. Of course, you can swap out the filling (as I did) with anything that strikes your fancy, follow the dough and assembly directions and you're good to go.

Apple strudel
from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers

2 tablespoons (30 ml) golden rum
3 tablespoons (45 ml) raisins
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (80 g) sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick / 115 g) unsalted butter, melted, divided
1 1/2 cups (350 ml) fresh bread crumbs
strudel dough (recipe below)
1/2 cup (120 ml, about 60 g) coarsely chopped walnuts
2 pounds (900 g) tart cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into ¼ inch-thick slices (use apples that hold their shape during baking)

1. Mix the rum and raisins in a bowl. Mix the cinnamon and sugar in another bowl.

2. Heat 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high. Add the breadcrumbs and cook whilst stirring until golden and toasted. This will take about 3 minutes. Let it cool completely.

3. Put the rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a large baking sheet with baking paper (parchment paper). Make the strudel dough as described below. Spread about 3 tablespoons of the remaining melted butter over the dough using your hands (a bristle brush could tear the dough, you could use a special feather pastry brush instead of your hands). Sprinkle the buttered dough with the bread crumbs. Spread the walnuts about 3 inches (8 cm) from the short edge of the dough in a 6-inch-(15cm)-wide strip. Mix the apples with the raisins (including the rum), and the cinnamon sugar. Spread the mixture over the walnuts.

4. Fold the short end of the dough onto the filling. Lift the tablecloth at the short end of the dough so that the strudel rolls onto itself. Transfer the strudel to the prepared baking sheet by lifting it. Curve it into a horseshoe to fit. Tuck the ends under the strudel. Brush the top with the remaining melted butter.

5. Bake the strudel for about 30 minutes or until it is deep golden brown. Cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Use a serrated knife and serve either warm or at room temperature. It is best on the day it is baked.

The dough gets wrapped on a flour lined cloth so it doesn't stick and tear

The wrapped strudel ready for the oven.

Strudel dough
from “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers

1 1/3 cups (200 g) unbleached flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons (105 ml) water, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

1. Combine the flour and salt in a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour with the mixer on low speed. You will get a soft dough. Make sure it is not too dry, add a little more water if necessary.
Take the dough out of the mixer. Change to the dough hook. Put the dough ball back in the mixer. Let the dough knead on medium until you get a soft dough ball with a somewhat rough surface.

2. Take the dough out of the mixer and continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally.
Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).

3. It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch (90 cm) round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches (60 x 100 cm). Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle and roll it out as much as you can.
Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough. You can use your forearms to support it.

4. The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it's about 2 feet (60 cm) wide and 3 feet (90 cm) long, it will be tissue-thin by this time. Cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. The dough is now ready to be filled.

The stretched dough is thin enough to read the recipe through.

Fresh Spring Rolls with Turkey "Larb"

2009-05-21T07:35:00.000-07:00

I am a food planner. Once a week I try to put together menus for the whole week so I can shop accordingly and so I don’t have to think too much when I get home from work. It’s nice knowing that I have the ingredients on hand for the planned meals and it gives me the opportunity to plan wisely to reuse leftovers.

Too often we’ll make a large portion of a dish, and then after several times eating the leftovers, there is still some that goes to waste. I try to freeze stuff when I can and generally use things up for work lunches, but sometimes you still end up wasting. That’s why I really love planning meals that are designed specifically to use the previous night’s leftovers.

Often when we have a taco night, I will plan to make Southwest Style Stuffed Peppers the following day, using the leftovers (meat, beans, rice, salsa, cheese, etc.) from the taco bar. Well this was another one of those meals.

The other night we had some great friends over for a visit (and a Laker game) and I put together a Build Your Own Noodle Soup Bar. This was my take on Vietnamese Noodle soup – the same as we used for our post Thanksgiving feast meal. It’s light but still hearty enough to fill you up and it’s just packed with flavor. It truly is one of my favorite meals.

And now, from the leftovers of the noodle soup bar comes another new favorite meal. I think I’m going to call these Phoenix Rolls – out of the ashes of leftovers, rise a terrific and light meal. I still had noodles, herbs, and veggies chopped and ready to go, so I simply made my own version of Turkey Larb (a Lao or Thai flavored dish with ground meat – chicken, pork, turkey, duck – mint, fish sauce, and peppers) and wrapped it all up in fresh spring roll wrappers. If you have never use spring roll wrappers, fear not. They are very forgiving, fun, and the end result is amazing.

I seasoned the meat with garlic, ginger, fish and soy sauce, peppers, lime juice and a handful of chopped mint. The kids loved the meat, and went to town on the spring rolls as well. I was a little surprised, I’ll admit. I didn’t think they would like the texture of the rice paper, but they loved it! They even like the two sauces we served the spring rolls with – a sweet chili sauce, and a very tangy fish sauce based dip. Again, quite surprised by how much the kids liked it.

Turkey Larb

1 lb. ground turkey (you can easily swap out chicken or pork as well)
3-4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1” knob of ginger, minced
Peppers – I used one jalapeno because I had it from the night before, but Thai chilies or anything according to your desired level of heat would work.
Juice of 1 lime
Hearty splash of both soy sauce and fish sauce
Handful of chopped mint

Sauté the garlic and ginger in some olive oil over medium heat in a large pan for 30 seconds to a minute. Don’t let the garlic burn. Add the ground turkey, turn the heat up a bit, and break the meat up while it cooks. You want to cook the meat all the way through, getting rid of any pink color and break it up into as small of pieces as possible. When the meat is almost done, add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Cook together until meat is cooked through.

Fresh Spring Rolls

Rice paper wrappers
Turkey Larb
Cooked rice noodles
Shredded/Julienned veggies – I had leftover carrot, cabbage, celery, radish, jalapeno, and mung bean sprouts
Fresh herbs – I like a combo of (and had leftover) Thai basil, cilantro, and mint

Soak a wrapper is hot water that has cooled enough for you to be able to put your fingers in it. I use a pyrex pie dish for this. Feel the wrapper as it softens, once all the stiffness is gone, take it out of the wrapper and spread it open on a cutting board. Put down a layer of the larb, and add a little of each of the other ingredients. You want a good mix, but don’t overfill it or the wrapper will tear. I try to place one of the herb leaves strategically so that it shows nicely through the wrapper after rolling. To roll, bring the top of the wrapper over the filling and tuck in tightly. Next, bring in the side like you would for a burrito and then roll the whole thing closed. It takes a bit of practice to get a nice tight roll without tearing the wrapper but it’s really not that hard.

Sauces

I use a store bought sweet chili sauce because I love it. But I also made another tangy sauce to go with it. This is really based on taste and can be adjusted to your liking.

In a small bowl mix some finely minced peppers, with some fish sauce, soy sauce, and rice vinegar. I use about a 1:2:3 ratio respectively. If it is a little too sour/tart/fishy for you, add a bit of brown sugar or honey and mix that in until dissolved.

This sauce goes really well with the freshness of the rolls and is a nice foil to the sweet chili sauce.

Salt and Pepper Ricotta Gnocchi with Sage Butter and Fennel Pollen

2009-05-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

Because one can never be a part of too many food blogging groups/challenges, I give you the first ever Daring Cooks challenge! Sprung forth from the minds of the Daring Bakers creators, we now have a similar group who will be challenged with recipes that fall into the "cooking" rather than "baking" category. I was excited to join when they announced the formation of the group and I was excited when I saw the first recipe: Ricotta Gnocchi from the Zuni Cafe cookbook.

Now that said, I have some sad news...I hated the inaugural recipe. It doesn't make sense either. I love the cookbook it was taken from, I love the dish in theory (I've raved about a different version already), and I love the Daring Bakers, from whence this whole thing originated. So how is it that the first ever challenge from the Daring Cooks was a big fail for me?

My main theory is that I am a very different cook than I am a baker. I was a cook long before being bitten by the baking bug and it comes much more naturally to me. I grew up around great cooks, eating great savory meals. Don't get me wrong, there were some great desserts in there too, but the focus was almost always on the savory side of the kitchen. I inherited my cooking instincts from those around me and learned at a fairly young age to cook by feel. I don't get worried if I don't have recipes, and I am comfortable taking a look in the pantry, fridge, and garden and coming up with a pretty darn decent meal.

On the baking side however, I am largely at the mercy of a good recipe. That is changing slowly, but I still use recipes for most of my breads and sweets. I just don't have the science side of baking down quite the way I do with cooking.

The other issue is that, for being as into food as I am, I have a few quirky picky eater issues - many of them particularly odd considering how long I was a vegetarian. Given these quirks and my own inclination to not follow recipes while I cook, I may find myself struggling with Daring Cook challenges in the future. Of course, the whole point is to challenge yourself, and I do look forward to that aspect of the adventure.

Getting back to this particular recipe, I will share it with you, but I encourage you to go and try this one instead. The gnocchi from the Zuni Cafe recipe are just too soft and pillowy for my liking. Now some may be way into that, and if that is what works for you, then by all means. I liked a tad more bite to the version I've made in the past which are still quite soft and luxurious.

The even bigger issue here is that the Zuni Cafe version is much fussier. You have to be very delicate with the batter/dough (hence the extreme pillowiness) and it takes quite a bit longer to form and handle. The older version is really a very quick meal - Zuni Cafe version, not so much.

All was not lost however on this challenge. I quite liked the sauce I made to go with the gnocchi and I think I will use it with fresh pasta in the future. It was very simple: butter, slightly caramelized shallot, fried sage, sea salt, fresh pepper and a dusting of fennel pollen. This of course was made up on a whim - the whole cooking by feel thing. By the way, go out and get yourself some fennel pollen, one of my new favorite things in life. In fact, Ru said the bites with fennel really saved the dish.

At the end of the day however, I just don't get it. I love the Zuni Cafe cookbook, and I think Judy Rodgers is brilliant, but for my tastes, these were not the most amazing ricotta gnocchi I've made or eaten.

Fresh ricotta whipped and ready to go

Zuni Ricotta Gnocchi
Source: From The Zuni Café Cookbook
Yield: Makes 40 to 48 gnocchi (serves 4 to 6)
Prep time: Step 1 will take 24 hours. Steps 2 through 4 will take 1 hour.

Equipment required:
• Sieve
• Cheesecloth or paper towels
• Large mixing bowl
• Rubber spatula
• Tablespoon
• Baking dish or baking sheet
• Wax or parchment paper
• Small pot
• Large skillet
• Large pan or pot (very wide in diameter and at least 2 inches deep)

For the gnocchi:
1 pound fresh ricotta (2 cups)
2 large cold eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 or 3 fresh sage leaves, or a few pinches of freshly grated nutmeg, or a few pinches of chopped lemon zest (all optional)
½ ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated (about ¼ cup very lightly packed)
about ¼ teaspoon salt (a little more if using kosher salt)
all-purpose flour for forming the gnocchi

For the gnocchi sauce:
8 tablespoons butter, sliced
2 teaspoons water

Step 1 (the day before you make the gnocchi): Preparing the ricotta.

If the ricotta is too wet, your gnocchi will not form properly. In her cookbook, Judy Rodgers recommends checking the ricotta’s wetness. To test the ricotta, take a teaspoon or so and place it on a paper towel. If you notice a very large ring of dampness forming around the ricotta after a minute or so, then the ricotta is too wet. To remove some of the moisture, line a sieve with cheesecloth or paper towels and place the ricotta in the sieve. Cover it and let it drain for at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours in the refrigerator. Alternatively, you can wrap the ricotta carefully in cheesecloth (2 layers) and suspend it in your refrigerator for 8 to 24 hours with a bowl underneat to catch the water that’s released. Either way, it’s recommended that you do this step the day before you plan on making the gnocchi.

Step 2 (the day you plan on eating the gnocchi): Making the gnocchi dough.

To make great gnocchi, the ricotta has to be fairly smooth. Place the drained ricotta in a large bowl and mash it as best as you can with a rubber spatula or a large spoon (it’s best to use a utensil with some flexibility here). As you mash the ricotta, if you noticed that you can still see curds, then press the ricotta through a strainer to smooth it out as much as possible.

Add the lightly beaten eggs to the mashed ricotta.

Melt the tablespoon of butter. As it melts, add in the sage if you’re using it. If not, just melt the butter and add it to the ricotta mixture.

Add in any flavouring that you’re using (i.e., nutmeg, lemon zest, etc.). If you’re not using any particular flavouring, that’s fine.

Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano and the salt.

Beat all the ingredients together very well. You should end up with a soft and fluffy better with no streaks (everything should be mixed in very well).

Step 3: Forming the gnocchi.

Fill a small pot with water and bring to a boil. When it boils, salt the water generously and keep it at a simmer. You will use this water to test the first gnocchi that you make to ensure that it holds together and that your gnocchi batter isn’t too damp.

In a large, shallow baking dish or on a sheet pan, make a bed of all-purpose flour that’s ½ an inch deep.

With a spatula, scrape the ricotta mixture away from the sides of the bowl and form a large mass in the centre of your bowl.

Using a tablespoon, scoop up about 2 to 3 teaspoons of batter and then holding the spoon at an angle, use your finger tip to gently push the ball of dough from the spoon into the bed of flour.

At this point you can either shake the ban gently to ensure that the flour covers the gnocchi or use your fingers to very gently dust the gnocchi with flour. Gently pick up the gnocchi and cradle it in your hand rolling it to form it in an oval as best as you can, at no point should you squeeze it. What you’re looking for is an oval lump of sorts that’s dusted in flour and plump.

Gently place your gnocchi in the simmering water. It will sink and then bob to the top. From the time that it bobs to the surface, you want to cook the gnocchi until it’s just firm. This could take 3 to 5 minutes.

If you’re gnocchi begins to fall apart, this means that the ricotta cheese was probably still too wet. You can remedy this by beating a teaspoon of egg white into your gnocchi batter. If you’re gnocchi batter was fluffy but the sample comes out heavy, add a teaspoon of beaten egg to the batter and beat that in. Test a second gnocchi to ensure success.

Form the rest of your gnocchi. You can put 4 to 6 gnocchi in the bed of flour at a time. But don’t overcrowd your bed of flour or you may damage your gnocchi as you coat them.

Have a sheet pan ready to rest the formed gnocchi on. Line the sheet pan with wax or parchment paper and dust it with flour.

You can cook the gnocchi right away, however, Judy Rodgers recommends storing them in the refrigerator for an hour prior to cooking to allow them to firm up.

Step 4: Cooking the gnocchi.

Have a large skillet ready to go. Place the butter and water for the sauce in the skillet and set aside.

In the largest pan or pot that you have (make sure it’s wide), bring at least 2 quarts of water to a boil (you can use as much as 3 quarts of water if your pot permits). You need a wide pot or pan so that your gnocchi won’t bump into each other and damage each other.

Once the water is boiling, salt it generously.

Drop the gnocchi into the water one by one. Once they float to the top, cook them for 3 to 5 minutes (as in the case with the test gnocchi).

When the gnocchi float to the top, you can start your sauce while you wait for them to finish cooking.

Place the skillet over medium heat and melt the butter. Swirl it gently a few times as it melts. As soon as it melts and is incorporated with the water, turn off the heat. Your gnocchi should be cooked by now.

With a slotted spoon, remove the gnocchi from the boiling water and gently drop into the butter sauce. Carefully roll in the sauce until coated. Serve immediately.

*If you don’t want to cook your gnocchi right away or if you don’t want to cook all of them, you can make them and freeze them. Once they are formed and resting on the flour-dusted, lined tray, place them uncovered in the freezer. Leave them for several hours to freeze. Once frozen, place them in a plastic bag. Remove the air and seal the bag. Return to the freezer. To cook frozen gnocchi, remove them from the bag and place individually on a plate or on a tray. Place in the refrigerator to thaw completely. Cook as directed for fresh gnocchi.

Rustic Candied Walnut Loaf

2009-05-11T21:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you need some "stuff" in your bread. I'm usually not a huge fan of bread with chunks of stuff in it, but I felt it was time to finally give a loaf a try. I came across a recipe for Caramelized Walnut Bread and knew it was the one to experiment with.

It's a very hearty bread with a fair amount of rye and whole wheat flour in it. Along with the candied walnuts, it's a very satisfying slice. I whipped up some butter with orange zest and honey to spread on the bread which was a fantastic addition.

I could obviously still use some work on my bread scoring, and I slightly over floured the top of the bread, but it was delicious non the less. This bread utilizes an overnight preferment, so plan ahead. But that also means it will last several days and still taste great.

Caramelized Walnut Bread
Adapted from cookingbread.com

Ingredients

The night before:
1/2 cup bread flour
1/2 cup dark rye
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

Day of:
1 1/2 cups bread flour
3/4 cup dark rye
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 tablespoon salt

Caramelized Walnuts:
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup sugar
4 teaspoon water
1 tablespoon butter

The night before combine the "Night Before" ingredients together and mix. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit on the counter for 12 - 16 hours.

The next morning place the chopped nuts onto a cookie sheet and bake in a 250F oven till lightly toasted (or toast on a medium warm dry skillet on the stove – but keep an eye on them). Then set aside to cool. Pour the sugar and water into a heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil till the mixture comes up to a 240F (I didn’t take the temp, but it was boiling rapidly and starting to color and foam) . Add in the toasted nuts. Keep the saucepan on the heat and continually stir till the mixture turns a golden brown. Remove from the heat and add in the butter and mix. Pour mixture out onto a silpat or grease parchment paper to cool. Set aside.

Add the "night before" mixture into a large bowl. Pour in the water and stir. Add in the rye, whole wheat flour and instant yeast. Mix together until well blended and the mixture is smooth. Allow to rest for 10 minutes uncovered.

Add in salt and slowly add in bread flour. Mix with a wooden spoon until it becomes too hard to mix. Pour the mixture out onto a floured surface and begin to knead in the rest of the flour. Knead for 8 - 10 minutes, you want the dough to be on the sticky side. If you need to add more flour do so with just a tablespoon at a time. Pour a little oil into a clean bowl and add in the dough. Turn over a few times to very lightly coat all sides. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest for 1 1/2 hours or until double in bulk.

After the dough has risen pour out onto a flat surface. Flatten out the dough with your fingers to release some of the gas – but keep it relatively gentle, you want to retain some of the air in the bread for a nice soft crumb. Add the caramelized nuts on top and knead just till blended. Cut dough in half and shape into two balls. Sprinkle some cornmeal or flour onto a piece of parchment paper and place the loaves on top. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest for 1 hour or until doubled.

Remove the plastic wrap and sprinkle a little flour on top. Score the top of the bread with a sharp knife. The loaves will be going into a 450-degree, preheated oven with a baking stone on the middle rack and a cast iron pan or broiler pan on the bottom rack. To create some steam. Once you place the breads into the oven pour about a cup of hot water into the hot pan and close the door. Bake for 30 -35 minutes or the internal temp is approximately 205-210 degrees.

Submitted to YeastSpotting at Wild Yeast

Thanks Everyone!

2009-05-07T06:52:00.000-07:00

I was honored to wake up this morning to find out I had won the second Foodie Fight Battle. Thank you to everyone who voted! I was amazed at the amount of support you gave and that votes came in from around the world.

Congratulations to all of the contestants in the Foodie Fight. I quickly got very nervous when I saw all of the revealed dishes - 6 wonderful creations were produced and I only wish we could all get together for a giant Rhubarb and Coriander feast.

As I mentioned in the original post, I love this type of blog event because it gives me an opportunity to push a little harder in the kitchen, get creative, and enjoy food we may not have otherwise enjoyed. So a big thank you to Nick and Dan for the creation of Foodie Fights. To all you food bloggers out there - go sign-up for the next FoodieFight. You won't regret it. I'm also super excited about being a judge in the next round. It will be great to experience the whole Foodie Fight from different perspectives (contestant/judge).

Thanks again!

Foodie Fight? More Like a Flavor Love Fest!

2009-05-03T21:26:00.000-07:00

The thing I love about food blogging is the food blogging community. So many talented and generous people are out there sharing their wisdom and their love of all things food. When I started my blog, it was a chance to keep track of some of the food we were creating and eating, and share some recipes with friends. As time went on, the blog became a way to interact with many others around the world who are equally (and then some!) passionate about food. I have gained an immeasurable amount of inspiration from the impressive work of these bloggers. And because I have chosen to share my work in a public forum, I have felt challenged to up my own game.

It started when I joined the Daring Bakers. Each month hundreds of bloggers around the world were challenged to make the same dish, and share their results with each other. With a deadline looming and knowing that I would have to share my results, the adrenaline began pumping and I was hooked. I was compelled to tackle exacting recipes that had previously scared me off with their complex techniques and pages of details. After several successes on the baking end, I joined the newly-formed Daring Cooks, and I look forward to the challenges ahead in that end of the kitchen.

So when I saw that Nick and Dan had created FoodieFights.com and would be taking their Iron Chef style food blog challenges mainstream, I was very excited. Being a part of the second ever Foodie Fight has been an honor and a challenge both. Seriously, rhubarb and coriander?

The biggest challenge was actually narrowing down the list of options I came up with. After spending an afternoon discussing it with R, I had about a half dozen sweet recipes, and an equal number of savory recipes in mind. After talking it out, we finally settled on the one that sounded the most delicious:

Pulled Pork in a Rhubarb Coriander BBQ Sauce with a Pickled Rhubarb Relish and Freshly Cut Mixed Greens from the Garden on Homemade Coriander Buns.

Now, that's a heck of a name, but really, almost every aspect of the meal had that rhubarb/coriander combination in it because they are quite a team - even the pickled rhubarb is spiced with coriander. Turns out, this unexpected marriage of flavors really works.

Before we get too far into this thing, let me remind you that this is a competition. So after checking out the rest of the post, please check out all the other wonderful entries over at foodiefights.com, and then vote for your favorite, wink wink, your favorite Pulled Pork Sandwich that is.

It made the most sense to prep the pickles and sauce before tackling the pork, and then prepare the coriander buns last so they would be fresh when served.

Chopping Rhubarb and Onions to be Pickled

I knew with the sweet and savory aspect of the BBQ pork I wanted an acidic element to balance the flavor composition. The pickled rhubarb was just the thing.

Pickling spices, clockwise from top center: coriander, peppercorns, dry mustard, clove, cumin

It is spicy from the coriander, peppercorns, and mustard, and sweet and sour from the sugar and vinegar brine.

Pickled Rhubarb Relish in all of its sweet and sour glory

The result is a fabulously complex, crispy relish that complimented the sandwiches' richness perfectly. Even its colder temperature added another element of interest in the otherwise warm sandwich.

Rhubarb chopped and ready for the BBQ sauce

This BBQ sauce is very unique. It hints of a traditional BBQ sauce, but has much more depth. The rhubarb is the key player, adding an unexpected, yet delightfully satisfying note. With rhubarb as the main ingredient, I made a tomato sauce based BBQ with brown sugar, molasses, cider vinegar, spices (featuring coriander, of course), and finished with a touch of spicy mustard and some Sriracha. At the end of the day, this is a BBQ sauce I will be going back to. It was a great companion to the meat, and not cloyingly sweet like so many pulled pork recipes are.

Pork loin with coriander and peppercorn rub

Both the pork itself and the bun highlighted the aromatic essence of the coriander. The meat was rubbed with crushed coriander and black peppercorns before being seared and then slow cooked in the rhubarb BBQ sauce overnight. The buns were spiced with ground coriander seeds and were the perfect base for the sandwich. Aromatic and tasty, even light, they had just the right amount of texture and density to stand up to the saucy sandwiches.

Coriander Sandwich buns during their second rise

The complete sandwiches were complex, rich, tangy, just sweet enough and very satisfying. We served the sandwiches with a very simple salad of fresh mixed greens and herbs (harvested from our garden minutes before dinner ) with a citrus honey vinaigrette, as well as a tangy carrot and shallot salad with a salty, white wine vinegar kick - a more exciting interpretation of the classic coleslaw side dish.

Fresh greens in the garden waiting to be harvested

Prepping the tangy carrot salad

Working on those knife skills

Win or lose, we loved this meal! I hope everything looks and sounds good to you. Good enough for your vote, and good enough for you to head into the kitchen and give the recipes a try.

And a big thank you to FoodieFights.com and all of the competitors in the Foodie Fight #2!

Pickled Rhubarb Relish

3 stalks fresh rhubarb
½ medium onion (any color - I used white)
2 Tbs. kosher salt
1 ½ C. cider vinegar
2/3 C. sugar
1 Tbs. coriander seed
1 ½ tsp. dry mustard
2 tsp. black peppercorns
1 ½ tsp. whole cloves
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1 tsp. turmeric
1 bay leaf

1. Wash and peel the rhubarb and slice into very thin slices. Using a mandolin is easiest, but since I don’t have one, it’s a good chance to hone those knife skills. Peel and half the onion and slice into equally thin half moons. Combine the rhubarb and onion in a non-reactive bowl and toss with salt. Cover in cold water and a few ice cubes and stir to dissolve salt.

2. After at least 30 minutes, feel and taste a piece of the rhubarb. It should feel slightly softened. Drain the veggies and pat dry.

3. Combine the vinegar, sugar, and all remaining ingredients in a small saucepan and simmer over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Set the brine aside to cool, or put the sauce pan into an ice bath to cool more quickly.

4. Return the rhubarb and onions to the dry bowl and add the cooled brine. Stir to distribute the spices and then transfer to a jar that will hold the veggies and brine. Seal well and refrigerate for at least a day before serving to allow the flavors to marry.

Rhubarb Barbecue Sauce

2 Tbs. olive oil
½ C. diced onion
2 Tbs. crushed coriander seeds
1 ½ tsp. dry mustard
3 C. thinly chopped cleaned and peeled rhubarb.
½ - 2/3 C. brown sugar (use up to 2/3 C. if you like a sweeter sauce)
2 Tbs. water
1 Tbs. spicy/brown/Dijon etc. mustard
3 Tbs. cider vinegar
¾ C. tomato sauce
2 Tbs. molasses
1/3 C. ketchup
1-2 Tbs. Sriracha, depending on taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring for 5-6 minutes until translucent and soft. Add the coriander seed and dry mustard and cook for another minute to toast the spices. Add the rhubarb, sugar and water and increase heat to medium high. Bring the sauce to a low boil. The rhubarb will give off a considerable amount of liquid to allow the sauce to properly boil. Cook for about 10 minutes, until the rhubarb has softened and can be mashed with a spoon.

Lower the heat and add the remaining ingredients through the Sriracha. Stir well to combine and cook on low for several minutes. Taste the sauce, and season with salt and pepper appropriately.

Serve the sauce warm over the sandwiches. If the sauce is too thick, you can thin with anything from water to apple juice or even a splash of beer.

Seconds. A little rhubarb BBQ sauce slathered on some pulled pork with a lettuce leaf, and a thin slice of bread.

Pulled Pork

Large pork loin/butt/shoulder etc. any decent cut of meat with some fat in it that you can get a good deal on
Olive oil
A few Tbs. crushed black peppercorns
A few Tbs. crushed coriander seeds
Kosher salt
½ - 1 C. diced onion
1 C. deglazing liquid (I used homemade veggie broth, but you could easily use water, juice, beer, wine etc.)
2 C. rhubarb BBQ sauce

Clean and dry the pork. Heat some olive oil in a large heavy pan over fairly high heat. Rub the meat with the pepper, coriander, and salt on all sides. Sear the meat in the hot pan until all sides are browned. (Contrary to popular belief, we are not “locking in the juices” at this point, we are just adding flavor).

Transfer the meat to the cooking vessel. I used a slow cooker but you could easily use a dutch oven cooked low and slow in the oven.

Add the onion to the pan and saute for several minutes. Add the liquid and deglaze the pan scraping up all the delicious crusty pork fond on the bottom of the pan. Pour the pan liquids and the rhubarb BBQ sauce over the pork and cook until fork shreddable. I did this in the slow cooker overnight - 8 hours on low.

Coriander Sandwich Buns

¾ - 1 C. warm water
2 Tbs. butter, softened
1 large egg
3 ½ C. AP flour
¼ C. sugar
1 ¼ tsp. salt
1 Tbs. ground coriander seeds
1 Tbs. instant yeast

Mix and knead all ingredients to make a soft, smooth dough. You can do this by hand or in a stand mixer.

Form the dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and let rise for 1 -1 ½ hours.

Gently deflate and divide into 8 pieces. Shape each piece into a round ball and flatten to 1” think and about 3” round. Place buns on a lightly greased baking sheet (or use silpat or parchment) cover, and let rise for about an hour.

Brush buns with melted butter and sprinkle with poppy and/or sesame seeds.

Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for about 15 minutes until golden.

Cool on a rack.

Enjoy!

The FoodieFight is on!

2009-05-01T20:23:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I got the exciting news that I was one of six food bloggers chosen for the 2nd ever Foodie Fight Battle. The concept was put together by Dan at Macheesmo and Nick at TFIMB. After challenging each other to an Iron Chef style food blog battle, they enjoyed the process so much they formed FoodieFights.com to share the love. Now, each week, six bloggers will be chosen to battle it out, making any sort of dish based on the two secret ingredients chosen. Judging will ensue, fun will be had, and a victor will be crowned.

So without further ado, this week's secret ingredients are...

Coriander Seed and Rhubarb

As Dan mentioned, the obvious first question is: Savory or Sweet? I have gone over dozens of possible recipes on both the sweet and savory side and I think I have finally settled on a dish. I look forward to working things out this weekend and can't wait to share my results with you all.

Please come back on Tuesday (Happy Cinco de Mayo!) to vote!!! I have a feeling I will need all the votes I can get, I am paired with some pretty stiff competition. You should definitely take a few minutes and check out all of their sites, each one is unique and impressive and has me quite intimidated.

Aga Kitchen
The Arugula Files
Crazy Monkey House
Downsized!
Elaine - The Gourmet Girl

The judges for this week's challenge include last week's winner Pete, of PeteBakes, and surprise judge Erin Zimmer, the editor of Serious Eats: New York. They'll be looking for, most importantly, which dish would they like to eat, overall creativity, and whether or not it is a good blog post. Hopefully I am able to deliver the goods.

Don't forget to come back on Tuesday to vote. I'll need your support.

A Light, Greek-Inspired Meal

2009-04-29T20:19:00.000-07:00

Organic baby artichokes and meyer lemons

It all started with some baby artichokes in our CSA box. That and the giant block of feta in the fridge R had picked up from Costco. I was leaning Mediterranean, as I had already made some fresh hummus earlier in the day. The meal ended up having a Greekesque flair to it. Nothing hardcore authentic, but throw some feta, lemon, and mint together and it's going to at least hint of being Greek.

I have never prepared baby artichoke before, so I kept those simple. I peeled the outer, tougher leaves off, trimmed the stem and the top of the choke and then quartered them and let them hang out in some lemon juice infused water while I prepped everything else.

I made some long grain white rice, cooked with lemon zest, and then fluffed with minced mint, from our garden, after it was finished cooking.

Clockwise from top center: feta, mint, shallot, garlic, zatar

I wanted a simple and light protein to go with it, so I ended up making some baked, mini, Greek, turkey meatballs. The ground turkey was mixed with one slightly beaten egg, about 1/4+ C. of feta, 2 Tbs. fresh zatar (it tastes a bit like oregano), 2 Tbs. fresh mint, some minced shallot, and minced garlic. I also mixed in a bit of bread crumbs and oats because I had them. Any sort of binding agent would work. They were loosely rolled into small balls and placed individually in the wells of a mini muffin tin. While they baked in a 425 degree oven (for about 20 minutes), I got to work on the chokes.

Meatballs (okay, more like meatmounds) ready for the oven

I started by braising/steaming them in a saute pan with a tight fitting lid. I used some homemade veggie broth and a little of the lemon water. There was probably about a 1/4 inch of liquid in the pan with the chokes. After about 15 minutes they were getting tender, so I removed the lid to cook off the liquid. Once almost all of the liquid was cooked off, I added some butter, shallot, and a bit of the fresh zatar and sauteed the chokes until they browned slightly.

A simple meal served on the beautiful placemats R made

The artichokes and meatballs were served over the lemon mint rice, all with a healthy drizzle of lemon juice and more feta. Was this the most amazing meal ever? No, but it was pretty good. Light, seasonal, and it's just generally hard to argue with a homecooked meal.

Nothing Says “Happy Anniversary” Like an Orange Blossom and Pine Nut Cheesecake with Honey.

2009-04-27T12:21:00.000-07:00

This month's Daring Bakers Challenge post date happened to fall on our 7-year anniversary. I would like to claim that I waited until the very end of the month so we could have a celebratory cheesecake on this special day, but… Regardless, it was a happy coincidence that after dinner out together, we will get to come home to a wonderful homemade cheesecake dessert. (Shhhh, don’t tell, but while photographing the cake this morning, we had a little taste – delicious: creamy, smooth, and pleasantly floral without overdoing it)

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

The challenge of this month’s Challenge was to get creative with the flavor combinations of the cheesecake. I had several ideas (lavender/lemon with a shortbread crust, espresso liqueur with chocolate ganache, lemongrass and thyme…) but ultimately ended up with an orange blossom cheesecake with a vanilla/pinenut crust. Not amazingly creative, but it sounded good to us. I had originally planned to serve it with an honey cream topping but decided that might be overkill (although I think I may still mix up a little and give it a try).

The recipe calls for a traditional graham cracker crust, which I actually like quite a bit, but since we have found out J is allergic to soy, we have realized that there is soy in EVERYTHING – graham crackers included (along with most sandwich bread, crackers, cookies, dressings, all restaurant food, etc.). So I swapped out vanilla wafer cookies and added some toasted pine nuts. Because the nuts have a pretty high oil content, I cut the butter back to about 6 Tbs. instead of 8. I also omitted both the sugar and the vanilla extract since the cookies are vanilla flavored and quite sweet already.

In the cheesecake part, I swapped Orange Blossom Water for the vanilla (I used about 1.5 Tbs.) and added .5 Tbs. or so of orange liqueur. My original plan was to swap out some of the sugar for orange blossom honey, but frankly, I forgot. And while the cheesecake ended up amazingly delicious, I will definitely try the honey substitution next time.

My plan for the honey cream was just a made up sort of whim, but I may yet give it a try. I am basically planning to whip together some heavy cream, sour cream, and honey. This could be served on the side like a dollop of whipped cream, or spread on the set and chilled cake like a traditional sour cream layer. Without the honey cream, it was still quite nice served with a drizzle of orange honey and a smattering of toasted pine nuts.

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:

crust: (see notes above for my substitutions)
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecake: (see notes above for my substitutions)
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Throwdown::No-Knead Bread

2009-04-22T21:03:00.000-07:00

The Cook's Illustrated No-Knead Bread on the left with some Whole-Wheat Flax loaves

As promised, here is the no-knead bread post. As I mentioned earlier, the no-knead trend has been gaining a lot of steam lately and has been credited with getting a lot of people over their fear of yeast. And frankly, the credit is earned. It really is quite easy and it really is quite good.

The bread is a pretty straight forward flour, water, salt, yeast french bready type deal. It has a nice crisp crust without being overly chewy, a soft, moist, open crumb and it just tastes good. Both recipes I made had a touch of sweetness to them because they are both all white flour breads. The first no-knead bread we tried was the Jim Lahey/Mark Bittman bread as published in the New York Times. We pitted that against the Cook's Illustrated "Almost No-Knead Bread" but I skipped their kneading stage, so we can call it a true Throwdown::No-Knead Bread.

Both breads use the same long fermentation technique. You mix up all the ingredients into a shaggy dough, cover it, and let it sit for 12-18 hours. Time it so you can wait the whole 18 hours, it makes a difference. The dough is then folded together (watch this video to get a sense of what the folding looks like - and a walk through of the whole process) a few time, left to rest, shaped, rested, and baked in a preheat dutch oven. The first have of baking is covered, so the moist dough in a closed environment creates it's own steam with contributes to the great crumb and crust.

The Lahey/Bittman bread is a straight up dough of flour, water, yeast, and salt. The Cook's Illustrated version gets tricky by adding a bit of lager and a touch of vinegar to get the yeast all excited. Neither one takes much hands on time. A few minutes to mix the ingredients, a minute to fold, another minute to shape. You have to remember to preheat the dutch oven. It needs to be screaming hot so the bread steams and doesn't stick.

At the end of the day, we decided we liked the Cook's Illustrated version better. The beer and vinegar just gave it a slightly more interesting dimension. Both were very enjoyable and I would make both again. In fact I know I will end up making them quite often. It is great dinner bread with soup, or as an appetizer with cheese etc. Very versatile and delicious.

Lahey/Bittman No-Knead Bread

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Nice crumb, but not as much rise as the Cook's Illustrated recipe

Cook's Illustrated Almost No-Knead Bread

3 cups (15 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional for dusting work surface
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water (7 ounces) at room temperature
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (3 ounces) mild-flavored lager (I used a Black Lager and it worked great - not exactly mild)
1 tablespoon white vinegar

Don't be afraid to bake it until the edges get pretty dark, pale, anemic looking bread is just sad

1. Whisk flour, yeast and salt in large bowl. Add water, beer and vinegar. Using rubber spatula, fold mixture, scraping up dry flour from bottom of bowl until shaggy ball forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 8 to 18 hours.

2. Lay 12- to 18-inch sheet of parchment paper inside 10-inch skillet and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface and knead 10 to 15 times. Shape dough into ball by pulling edges into middle. Transfer dough, seam-side down, to parchment-lined skillet and spray surface of dough with nonstick cooking spray. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until dough has doubled in size and does not readily spring back when poked with finger, about 2 hours. [Okay, this part I did totally different. After step one, dump the dough out onto a floured surface and fold several times the same way as with the Lahey/Bittman bread and transfer to a flour covered cloth (not terry cloth). You don't need the parchment paper, skillet, or cooking spray if you flour the cloth well.]

3. About 30 minutes before baking, adjust oven rack to lowest position (I left it in the middle), place 6- to 8-quart heavy-bottomed Dutch oven (with lid) on rack, and heat oven to 500 degrees. Lightly flour top of dough and, using razor blade or sharp knife, make one 6-inch long, 1/2-inch deep slit along top of dough. Carefully remove pot from oven and remove lid. Pick up dough by lifting parchment overhang and lower into pot (let any excess parchment hang over pot edge). [Since I didn't use the parchment paper, I just gently lifted the dough and dropped it into the pot - be careful, it's very hot!] Cover pot and place in oven. Reduce oven temperature to 425 degrees and bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove lid and continue to bake until loaf is deep brown and instant-read thermometer inserted into center registers 210 degrees, 20 to 30 minutes longer. Carefully remove bread from pot; transfer to wire rack and cool to room temperature, about 2 hours.

Beautiful, light, moist, open crumb and a thin crackly crust - a delightful bread all around

Submitted to YeastSpotting at Wild Yeast

Blogging Backlog - Desserts

2009-04-10T18:22:00.000-07:00

I know, for how infrequently I blog, one might assume I am not cooking or baking that often. Of course, I am, and I am even photographing much of it, I am just in a bad blogging phase. I blame my young children. We are all either having too much fun planting our spring garden, going to ballet, playing at the park, or we are all sick with some ridiculous preschool virus, which renders me a neglectful blogger.

The weather is warming, the plants sprouting, and (knock on wood) we are leaving a spell of winter illness behind us, so I am going to give my best effort to blog the foods and meals we are growing, baking, and eating much more regularly.

But until I get my blogging up to speed, I wanted to at least offer up a few Blogging Backlogs - desserts, some of which may now be out of season but are worth remembering and revisiting down the road.

Chocolate Mint Ice Cream Cake

I made this cake for R’s birthday this year. Although it was delicious and beautiful, it wasn’t ideal. Next time (at least when it’s a special cake for R) I’ll venture into the true Ice Cream CAKE, the kind with a nice thick layer of frozen cake and ice cream. This is more of a crumb crust similar to a cheesecake with a wonderful ganache on top. It was good, and if you use store bought ice cream, very easy and pretty quick, but I promise R, next time, the real deal.

Chocolate Mint Ice Cream Cake
Adapted from: Eggs on Sunday

Ingredients (crust and ganache ingredients listed for 10-inch pan)

For the cookie crust:
6 oz chocolate wafer cookies
5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1 quart Ice Cream (homemade or store bought) I used mint chocolate chip

For the chocolate ganache:
6 oz good quality bittersweet chocolate cut into pieces
6 oz heavy cream

Choice of garnish to match ice cream flavor (berries, cookies, crush candy or nuts, etc.) I used Andes mints.

Directions

Make the chocolate cookie crust:
Process the cookies in a food processor until they’re fine crumbs. Add the melted butter and pulse it in until the cookie crumbs are moistened thoroughly. Pour the crumbs out into the bottom of your springform pan and firmly pat them down to make an even layer for the crust. Cover the crust with plastic wrap and place in the freezer to set, about 1 hour.

Make the ice cream layer — two ways:
If you’re using ice cream that’s already made (I used mint chocolate chip), you can just soften it a bit at room temperature and then beat it in an electric mixer until it’s more the consistency of soft serve. Spread it evenly over the cookie crust, gently pressing down with a spatula to fill in any holes. You want to use enough ice cream to come almost all the way to the top of the springform pan; leave about 1/2 inch room at the top (where the ganache will go. Place the plastic wrap back on over the ice cream layer, smoothing it down directly on the ice cream’s surface so there are no air bubbles. Freeze for at least 2 hours.

If you’re making the ice cream, choose your favorite recipe and have at it. Churn it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions. When it’s finished churning, spread enough ice cream over the cookie crust in the springform pan so there’s about 1/2-inch of room at the top of the pan. Place plastic wrap over the ice cream, pressing it gently down all over the surface of the ice cream so there are no air bubbles. Freeze for at least 2 hours.

To make the chocolate ganache:
Place the chocolate and cream in a large heatproof bowl, and set the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir occasionally until the chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is smooth. Take it off the water and cool at room temperature until it’s lukewarm.

Take the ice cream cake out of the freezer and remove the plastic wrap. Spread the chocolate ganache over the top, smoothing with a spatula. It should just about come to the top of the springform pan. If you’re using the mints or other garnish, place them around the edge of the cake top.

Replace the plastic wrap over the cake, and place it back in the freezer for another 2 hours.

To serve let it warm for a few minutes and then carefully cut with a clean, sharp knife. Clean the knife in between cuts to help minimize the weird looking smears I got on each slice.

Shaker Lemon Pie

During the winter when we had access to a ton of fresh, organic Meyer lemons, this was our go-to entertaining dessert. It’s good after a meal; it’s awesome at brunch. It is just plain good. You have to really like lemons and some tart bitterness that comes with that. Although Meyer lemons are quite sweet and there is no shortage of sugar in this recipe, it does use the whole lemon, pithy peel and all, so that adds to the bite. We really love that flavor and the toothsomeness (yes, that’s totally a word) that comes with it. Let the pie sit for at least a half hour to set up a bit – longer is fine too. At that point it will hold together enough to slice (it will still be a bit loose though, but who cares?) and still be warm. Serve with a lightly sweetened whipped cream or ice cream. It’s easy and delicious, one worth repeating for sure. There are still Meyer lemons to be had this season, so go for it.

Meyer Lemon Shaker Pie
From: The Kitchn

makes one 9" double crust pie

3-4 Meyer lemons
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Basic Pie Crust – I like using either Martha Stewart’s Pate Brisee (classic pie crust) or Pate Sucree (a little sweeter)

1 teaspoon vanilla
4 eggs
Egg white for wash (optional)
Sugar for top

Thinly slice the lemons - as shaved thin as you can get them! Use a mandoline if you have one. Pick out any seeds. Toss with the sugar and salt and set aside.

Heat oven to 450°F. Grease a 9" pie dish or tart pan. Roll out half the dough into a circle, flat between two pieces of wax paper. Peel off the top layer of wax paper. Place your pie dish upside down on the pie dough round, and carefully flip the pan and dough over. Peel away the wax paper on that side and carefully press the dough into the pan. Using a knife or shears, trim away the extra dough so that there is a half inch of dough above the lip of the pan. Tuck under and roll this extra dough, and pinch tight to the side of the pan. Put in the freezer to chill.

Roll out the rest of dough between two pieces of wax paper and put in the freezer to chill.

Beat the eggs well and stir into the lemons with the vanilla. Remove the chilled pie crust from the freezer and pour in the lemons.

Place the other round on top and trim to fit. Pinch seal the edges and cut a few slits on the top to let out steam. Brush with egg white and sprinkle a thin layer of sugar on top. Put back in the freezer for 15 minutes to chill.

Take out pie and bake on the lowest rack for 15 minutes at 450°F. Turn the heat down to 375°F and move to the center rack. Bake for another 30 minutes or until the crust is golden. If the crust edges begin browning too much cover with parchment.

Chocolate Guinness Cake

Again, St. Patrick's Day has passed already, but this was pretty good and certainly fun. I ended up serving it with David Lebovitz's Milk Chocolate Guinness Ice Cream. I found the cake recipe at The Kitchn, but it is originally adapted from Nigella Lawson. The idea with all of the cream cheese frosting on top is to make it look like a frothy pint of Guinness. I was very tempted to bake this in individual pint glasses, but I just don't think they would take the heat. It's almost worth baking the cake and spooning it into the glasses and then topping with the frosting. I think it would be a fun and festive way to serve your guests.

Chocolate Guinness Cake

From Feast by Nigella Lawson
Yield: One 9-inch cake (12 servings)

For the cake:

Butter for pan
1 cup Guinness stout
10 tablespoons (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups superfine sugar (I have used regular granulated sugar with no ill effects)
3/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

For the topping:

1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup heavy cream

For the cake: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and line with parchment paper. In a large saucepan, combine Guinness and butter. Place over medium-low heat until butter melts, then remove from heat. Add cocoa and superfine sugar, and whisk to blend.

In a small bowl, combine sour cream, eggs and vanilla; mix well. Add to Guinness mixture. Add flour and baking soda, and whisk again until smooth. Pour into buttered pan, and bake until risen and firm, 45 minutes to one hour. Place pan on a wire rack and cool completely in pan.

For the topping: Using a food processor or by hand, mix confectioners' sugar to break up lumps. Add cream cheese and blend until smooth. Add heavy cream, and mix until smooth and spreadable.

Remove cake from pan and place on a platter or cake stand. Ice top of cake only, so that it resembles a frothy pint of Guinness.

The Return of Fresh Baked Bread

2009-04-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

I finally made some real bread again. Having missed it for so long, I wanted to make sure we had fresh bread all weekend so I planned on making two different recipes. In addition to finally trying the Jim Lahey/Mark Bittman No-Knead Bread that finally gave the confidence to countless home bakers to jump into the yeasted bread fray, (which I’ll blog soon – it’s easy and good) I also wanted to tackle a more substantial bread. I chose a recipe from Jeffrey Hamelman because of how much we like his bagel recipe – it is the only one to best Grandpa’s NY bagels. Hamelman’s Rustic Bread recipe looked like a good counter to the all white flour of the No-Knead bread we baked. It is not a 100% whole wheat bread but the recipe does incorporate enough whole wheat and rye flours to give the bread some serious substance. He uses 10% Whole Wheat and 10% Rye, which would have been great, but unfortunately, I did not have rye in the house so I used 20% whole wheat.

In order to get all of this baked over the weekend and still hang out with the wife and kids (and finally do my taxes) I put together a schedule that started with mixing the pre-ferments for both recipes Friday night. Early Saturday afternoon I mixed, folded, rested, and shaped the doughs, and then baked both loaves later that afternoon. The No-Knead bread was broken into about an hour after it came out of the oven – we couldn’t wait any longer, we’ve been without for so long. We gave the Rustic Bread an appropriate rest and tore into it on Sunday.

Both bread ended up fantastic. The No-Knead bread (you’ll see photos soon) wasn’t gorgeous, but had fantastic crumb. The Rustic Bread had a hearty, but not overwhelming crust, a slightly denser, but very enjoyable crumb structure and wonderful taste. I have been eating it all week, sliced, toasted and covered with cream cheese and orange marmalade. Decadent I know, but an awesome breakfast.

I look forward to making this again with the rye flour and maybe working on my shaping and scoring.

Rustic Bread

Adapted from Jeffrey Hamelman

50% pre-fermented flour
Makes 2 large loaves

Overall Formula:

Bread Flour	1 lb, 9.6 oz	80%
Whole-wheat flour	6.4 oz	20%
Water	1 lb 6.1 oz	69%
Salt	.6 oz	1.8%
Yeast	.06 oz, instant	.6%
Total Yield	3 lb, 6.7 oz	171.4%

Pre-Ferment

Bread flour	1 lb (3 5/8 C)	100%
Water	9.6 oz (1 ¼ C)	60%
Salt	.3 oz (½ T)	1.8%
Yeast	1/8 tsp, instant	.5%
Total	1 lb, 10 oz

Final Dough

Bread Flour	9.6 oz (2 ¼ C)
Whole wheat flour	6.4 oz (1 ½ C)
Water	12.5 oz (1 ½ C)
Salt	.3 oz (½ T)
Yeast	.06 oz instant (½ tsp)
Pre-ferment	1 lb, 10 oz (all of above)
Total	3 lb, 6.7 oz

1. PRE-FERMENT: Disperse the yeast in the water, add the flour and salt, and mix until just smooth. At 60 percent hydration, it will be stiff and dense, but add water if necessary to correct the hydration. Cover the bowl with plastic and let stand for 12 to 16 hours at about 70°F. When ripe, the pre-ferment will be domed and just beginning to recede in the center.

2. MIXING: Add all the ingredients to the mixing bowl except the pre-ferment. In a spiral mixer, mix on first speed for 3 minutes in order to incorporate the ingredients. As the dough is coming together, add the pre-ferment in chunks. If necessary, correct the hydration by adding water or flour in small amounts. Finish mixing on second speed for about 21⁄2 minutes. The dough should be supple and moderately loose, with moderate gluten development. Desired dough temperature: 75°F.

3. BULK FERMENTATION: 21⁄2 hours.

4. FOLDING: Fold the dough twice, once after 50 minutes of bulk fermentation and again 50 minutes later.

5. DIVIDING AND SHAPING: Divide the dough into 1.5-pound pieces. Preshape lightly into rounds and place on a lightly floured work surface, seams up. Cover the rounds with plastic. When the dough has relaxed sufficiently (10 to 20 minutes), shape into round or oval loaves, place them either into floured bannetons or between folds of floured baker’s linen, and cover with plastic.

6. FINAL FERMENTATION: Approximately 11⁄4 to 11⁄2 hours at 75°F.

7. BAKING: Invert the risen loaves onto the loading conveyor or peel. Slash the desired scoring pattern with a blade. Presteam the oven, load the bread, and steam again. Bake at 450°F. Open the oven vents after the loaves show color, in order to finish the bake in a drying oven. Loaves scaled at 1.5 pounds should bake for 35 to 38 minutes.

Submitted to Yeastspotting over at Wild Yeast

Baking Withdrawls Getting Intense

2009-03-26T16:11:00.000-07:00

Nearly six weeks without an oven is getting to be quite painful.

Six weeks without an oven = no fresh bread, no delectable baked desserts, no roasted chickens, no roasted fresh cauliflower with tahini sauce. This is no minor thing.

At least R got her sewing maching back - and she is indeed back.

Here's hoping to have more tasty posts soon.

Homemade Ricotta Gnocchi

2009-03-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

See, I like gnocchi. I like a plate of warm potato dumplings knocking around a bowl of pesto. I like the comfy, sleepy feeling after such a meal. But it's really a once a year hankering or so-- because I really do get sleepy after such consumption. Gnocchi is a big meal. That's if it's the traditional potato gnocchi. But, if you mix it up by making some homemade ricotta gnocchi with some fresh ricotta you just made, that's a whole new ballgame. This is the sort of dish I could eat weekly. And for a while, we were.

Ricotta gnocchi, a traditional Florentine pasta, is as soft as a cloud and heavenly to eat. We have taken to making a simple red sauce, adapted from the same source as the gnocchi recipe, that with the addition of some finishing capers, is the perfect blend of sweet/acid to play off the tender gnocchi.

Both recipes are from the Kitchn, of which I've blogged before. A great resource if you have somehow managed to miss the whole Apartment Therapy enterprise. The gnocchi is made all the more spectacular by taking the extra (and quite easy) step of making your own "ricotta". I use the suggestive quotation marks here because purists will surely object to the fact that the cheese I make is really more of a Farmer's Cheese, not true ricotta. Real ricotta is made by recooking whey - which is easily done after making a batch of mozarella. I haven't made mozz in a little while, but when I do, I will make the real deal ricotta. But until then, my simple recipe for "ricotta" works with no adverse effects.

Homemade "Ricotta"

1 Gallon Whole Milk (Pasteurized, but NOT Ultra-Pasteurized)
1 Quart Buttermilk

Mix the two milks together in a large, heavy bottomed pot.
Heat gently until it reaches approx 180 degrees F. It is easiest to do this with a candy thermometer, but is doable without.

As it reaches 180, the curds (the thicker white part) will seperate from the whey (the thin, cloudy water underneath).
Scoop out the curds and place in a colander that has been filled with several layers of cheese cloth (or even old, clean pantyhose).

After scooping all the curds into the cloth, pull the edges together to make a pouch and secure the top. Don't squeeze the liquid out, but let it hang and drain. I usually attach it to the kitchen sink faucet and let it drain right into the sink.
Drain for about 30 minutes then store in an airtight container in the fridge.

We usually use it up pretty quickly, but it will last for several days.

In addition to the gnocchi, you can use the "ricotta" in pancakes, salads, blintzes, or, as we found, spread on homemade rye bread with lemon curd - oddly decadent and delicious.

Ricotta Gnocchi
Adapted from the Kitchn
Serves 4

2 cups fresh "ricotta"
1 large egg
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan or pecorino cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 - 1 cup flour

If you are using store bought ricotta: set a strainer line with three coffee filters or paper towels over a bowl. Add the ricotta and let the cheese drain for about an hour. (This can be done several days in advance.)

In a large bowl, mix the fresh, or strained ricotta, egg, cheese, and 3/4 cup of the flour until all ingredients are incorporated. Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Check the dough by rolling a bit in your hand. It should be a bit tacky. If it clings to your fingers like bubble gum, incorporate more flour one tablespoon at a time until you reach a tacky, workable consistency. Refrigerate for another 15 minutes.

Before shaping, put a large pot of water on the stove to bring to a boil. Sprinkle a baking sheet with flour and set it close to your work space - or just prep a counter space if you have it near the stove.

Sprinkle your hands and work surface with a little flour. Break off a tennis-ball sized piece of the dough and roll it into a thick log about 3/4-inch thick.

Using a bench scraper or sharp knife, cut the log into 3/4" pieces. You can leave them as little 'pillows' or shape them into the traditional grooved gnocchi by rolling them off the back of a fork with your thumb.

Transfer this batch to the baking sheet and toss with flour to prevent sticking. Repeat rolling process with the remaining dough.

Add 1 tablespoon of salt to the water and half of the gnocchi. Gently stir the gnocchi to make sure they don't stick. Once they bob to the surface, let them cook an additional 2 minutes. Remove gnocchi with a slotted spoon and transfer to a colander set over a bowl to finish draining.

Repeat with second batch of gnocchi.

Toss the gnocchi with sauce and serve immediately.

As mentioned, this dish does in fact pair perfectly with the simple red sauce suggested by the Kitchn. We've made a few changes over time that I think are good additions. It is easy to make ahead of time and reheat in a sauce pan while the gnocchi cooks, making this a relatively quick last minute action meal.

Basic Tomato Sauce
Makes 2 cups, enough for 4 modest portions

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 (28-ounce) can whole or chopped tomatoes, with juices
pinch (or 1/4 teaspoon if you like it hot) dried red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel (about 1/2 lemon)
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley or shredded fresh basil
1 tablespoon capers
coarse salt
freshly grated black pepper

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until soft and light golden brown, about 7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute. Add the tomatoes and their juices and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Add the red pepper flakes and lemon peel then lower the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, taking some time to smash the tomato pieces so the sauce is more pulpy than chunky. Stir in the chopped parsley and capers. Check for flavor and season appropriately with salt and pepper.

Sauce will keep one week, in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator.

We really can't recommend this dish enough. It's easy, really fun to make, and insanely delicious. R granted it "instant staple" status and we're sure to add it to the regular rotation.

Decadent Flourless Chocolate Cake and Earl Grey Ice Cream

2009-02-27T21:44:00.000-08:00

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 Daring Bakers celebrate Valentine's Day. This was a great challenge for our household as we are tried and true flourless chocolate cake lovers - not to mention, homemade ice cream lovers as well. Plus, this type of cake is not too difficult, and as things have been fairly busy lately, it was nice to not be blown away by the challenge. That said (and assuming we either fix our broken oven, or get a new one) I am ready to tackle another DB doozy - bring it on.

I could eat chocolate cake all the time. Seriously. Daily. I really like cake. MMMmmmm cake!

This cake definitely sated my yearnings. It's rich, chocolaty, and wonderful. Be sure to use a good chocolate as this cake is really mostly just that. For the ice cream, I found a great recipe for Earl Grey ice cream that I thought would pair wonderfully with the intense chocolate. It worked out well and I will be making other tea infused ice creams in the future - maybe chai ice cream with a cinnamon bread pudding?

We made and served this cake for my mom's birthday. As a fellow chocolate lover she really enjoyed it too. It topped off a great meal of homemade rye bread, and fresh ricotta gnocchi with homemade ricotta - stay tuned, I'll be blogging that meal later in the week.

Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time: 20 minutes

16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.

Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.

10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

Earl Grey Tea Ice Cream
from Mac & Cheese
makes about 1 quart

1 cup whole milk
2 cups half and half (can use heavy cream for a richer ice cream)
¾ cup sugar
5-6 Earl Grey tea bags
5 egg yolks

Warm the milk, half and half, and sugar in a saucepan.
Remove from heat, place tea bags in the pan, cover and steep at room temperature for an hour.
Remove tea bags.
Rewarm tea-infused milk.
Whisk egg yolks together in a separate bowl.
Slowly pour the milk mixture into the bowl with egg yolks, whisking constantly.
Return the milk and egg mixture to the saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring and scrapping the bottom of the pan constantly until the mixture thickens to a custard and coats the spatula.
Cool the mixture, and freeze in your ice cream maker.

Whole Wheat Ciabatta

2009-02-24T22:01:00.000-08:00

We wanted some fresh bread to have with dinner the other night. I planned to make a batch of Quick Ciabatta to go with a roast, but realized quite late in the day that we only had whole wheat bread flour in the house. We decided to go ahead with it and give it a shot. I added a touch more water because I understand that whole wheat flour absorbs more liquid. It ended up tasting great. Ciabattay with a nice whole wheat finish.

Quick Whole Wheat Ciabatta

350g whole wheat bread flour
150g unbleached AP flour
475 to 500g (~2 cups) water
2 tsp. yeast
15g salt

Follow the instructions for the Jason's Quick Ciabatta in the previous post.

If you are looking to get more whole wheat in your diet but still want a nice, light bread, this is a great option.

A Personal Ciabatta Throwdown

2009-02-03T21:25:00.000-08:00

I challenged myself to a one man Throwdown::Ciabatta. I have been wanting to experiment with breads beyond the realm of Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day. Don't get me wrong, we still love ABi5MaD, and have a loaf of semolina in the fridge right now. I did want to try some more traditional methods however, and expand my bread baking arsenal.

I decided I would dive right into a really wet dough bread - Ciabatta. Because it has such a high water to flour ratio (hydration level) Ciabatta can be difficult to work with and doesn't take to the standard knead-the-heck-out-of-it that a bagel or sandwich dough will.

I've had Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Assistant for some time now, and I have made the bagel and pizza dough out of it, and I will admit, they didn't come out great for me. But because it is such a revered bread baking resource, I wanted to give it another shot. I decided I would make the Ciabatta out of BBA and also a "quick" version I found on one of my favorite bread resource sites, The Fresh Loaf.

I followed both recipes exactly, weighing my ingredients and timing my rests, fermentations etc. I made the quick version first and the results were fantastic. Great flavor, perfect crumb with large, shiny, irregular air pockets, and just the right amount of moistness. I was feeling good about my Ciabatta skills after that. The whole thing comes together in a few hours all in one day.

Great crumb, great bread, using Jason's quick version

So when I moved on to the BBA recipe that start by building a poolish that ferments and then cold retards overnight, I'm thinking - man, this thing is going to be awesome. After following the directions quite faithfully as far as I can tell, the result - eh. It tasted okay, texture was fine for a basic soft white bread, no irregular holes, no moist, saturated crumb. On the one hand, I was definitely disappointed, on the other hand, yay! the quick version rocks!

The less successful Ciabatta from BBA

I may yet give the BBA version another shot, making some modifications along the way. After all, bread baking is not about faithfully following printed instructions, but understanding a method, an idea, and understanding the nature of the dough and working with it and modifying as necessary.

But for those of you who have put off making a ciabatta or high hydration baguette, I say give Jason's Quick Ciabatta recipe a try and I think you will be very pleased.

Jason's Quick Ciabbata

Variaton 1
500g bread flour
475g (~2 cups) water
2 tsp. yeast
15g salt

Varation 2 (Semolina)350g bread flour
150g semolina flour
475-485g (~2cups) water
2tsp. yeast
15g salt

In Kitchen Aid style mixer: Mix all ingredients roughly till combined with paddle, let it rest for 10 minutes.

With the paddle (I prefer the hook to prevent the dough from crawling into the guts of the mixer), beat the living hell out of the batter, it will start out like pancake batter but in anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes it will set up and work like a very sticky dough. if it starts climbing too soon, then switch to the hook. You'll know it's done when it separates from the side of the bowl and starts to climb up your hook/paddle and just coming off the bottom of the bowl. I mean this literally about the climbing, i once didn't pay attention and it climbed up my paddle into the greasy inner workings of the mixer. It was not pretty! Anyway, it will definitely pass the windowpane test.

Place into a well oiled container and let it triple! it must triple! For me this takes about 2.5 hours

Empty on to a floured counter (scrape if you must, however you gotta get the gloop out), cut into 3 or 4 pieces. Spray with oil and dust with lots o' flour. Let them proof for about 45 minutes, which gives you enough time to crank that oven up to 500F.

After 45 minutes or so the loaves should be puffy and wobbly, now it's iron fist, velvet glove time. Pick up and stretch into your final ciabatta shape (~10" oblong rectangle) and flip them upside down (this redistributes the bubbles, so you get even bubbles throughout), and onto parchment or a heavily floured peel. Try to do it in one motion and be gentle, it might look like you've ruined them completely, but the oven spring is immense on these things.

Bake at 500F until they are 205F in the center (about 15-20 minutes), rotating 180 degrees half way through. Some people like to turn the oven down to 450F after 10 minutes, but whatever floats your boat. I usually bake in 2 batches.

Lighten Up!

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

After finishing off 2008 with a complex and calorie laden dessert, the Daring Bakers decided to lighten things up for the start of the new year. The first challenge of '09 was to make Tuiles, the light, thin cookies you often see shaped into curves, or cones and filled with a sweet treat like chocolate mousse or cream. Tuiles can also be savory as in Thomas Keller's classic savory salmon tartar cornets - savory tuiles filled with a salmon mousse that look like an ice cream cone.

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day 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.

I opted to stick with the basic sweet version, and copied the idea posted in the challenge, to make my tuiles shaped as butterflies, because I knew H would like butterfly cookies. You can make any shape you can make a stencil for, and you can make the stencil out of almost anything. You want to keep it quite thin however, maybe a 1/16th of an inch. I used a piece of thin, stiff cardboard, and cut the butterfly shape out of it. When you are are ready to make the cookies, use an offset spatula to smear the dough across your stencil, lift the stencil up and reuse it for the next cookie.

We had the pleasure of serving these cookies alongside some wonderful mini lemon souffles that our good friend (and great cook) Cat brought over. I had made lemon cream from the Tartine cookbook to go with the tuiles, so the meyer lemon souffles Cat made were a perfect addition. It ended up being a great dessert that topped off a wonderful meal (I'll be blogging that soon!).

Butterfly Tuiles

Yields: 20 small butterflies/6 large (butterflies are just an example)
Preparation time batter 10 minutes, waiting time 30 minutes, baking time: 5-10 minutes per batch

65 grams / ¼ cup / 2.3 ounces softened butter (not melted but soft)
60 grams / ½ cup / 2.1 ounces sifted confectioner’s sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar (7 grams or substitute with a dash of vanilla extract)
2 large egg whites (slightly whisked with a fork)
65 grams / 1/2 cup / 2.3 ounces sifted all purpose flour
1 table spoon cocoa powder/or food coloring of choice
Butter/spray to grease baking sheet

Oven: 180C / 350F

Using a hand whisk or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (low speed) and cream butter, sugar and vanilla to a paste. Keep stirring while you gradually add the egg whites. Continue to add the flour in small batches and stir to achieve a homogeneous and smooth batter/paste. Be careful to not overmix.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up. (This batter will keep in the fridge for up to a week, take it out 30 minutes before you plan to use it).

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease with either butter/spray and chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. This will help spread the batter more easily if using a stencil/cardboard template such as the butterfly. Press the stencil on the baking sheet and use an off sided spatula to spread batter. Leave some room in between your shapes. Mix a small part of the batter with the cocoa and a few drops of warm water until evenly colored. Use this colored batter in a paper piping bag and proceed to pipe decorations on the wings and body of the butterfly.

Bake butterflies in a preheated oven (180C/350F) for about 5-10 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown. Immediately release from baking sheet and proceed to shape/bend the cookies in the desired shape.

Pizza Night

2009-01-22T20:31:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while we like to have pizza night. It's always fun because you can put together any sort of combo you want for your own personal pizza creation. This is another good way to clean out the fridge, because almost everything tastes good on a pizza. That said, I also have some very strict traditional neapolitan/NY pizza beliefs, but those fly out the window on the fridge clearing pizza nights.

I had some Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day style semolina dough in the fridge. Although I am trying to expand my bread baking skills, I still have a love for the 5 minute a day bread. It's there, hanging out, ready for an impromptu pizza night celebration at a moment's notice.

This night I didn't have any mozzarella in the house so we got creative. I made a BBQ chicken and cheddar pizza for the kids. I ended up making another one later in the evening, just to finish up the dough, with some peppers and onions added.

For R and I, I made a prosciutto, roasted potato, caramelized onion, and feta pizza. It was really good, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was something that would have been on the menu at L'idiot in the movie LA Story with Steve Martin. It just had this very yuppy/hipster/1989/California feel. Who cares? It was good.

Finally - Some Good Old Fashioned Sandwich Bread

2009-01-19T21:14:00.000-08:00

I swear I have been planning to make sandwich bread for the family for about 9 months now. I had this dream of delicious and healthy bread, whole grains, and no preservatives. This was going to be the perfect bread for PB and J, swiss cheese sandwiches, and toast with butter and jam. As it turns out - all true.

I finally got around to making sandwich bread, and I took the advice of Susan from A Year in Bread and Farm Girl Fare (whose recipe I used) and baked three loaves at once. After they cooled, I put two into the freezer and we ate one of them throughout the week.

The bread is quite good, definitely better than the store bought alternative. It was a bit weird for me, having only baked crusty "artisan" breads as of late, to make a soft-crumbed and soft-crusted sandwich loaf. It came out just like sandwich bread. I'm not sure why that was so odd to me, but for some reason it was.

The original recipe uses a combo of flours including some white whole wheat. I didn't have enough of that in the house so I subbed some organic dark rye instead and it worked great. The dough handles very well, and really is not a lot of effort for the end result - three large loaves of healthy, delicious sandwich bread for your family.

Honey Wheat Bran Sandwich Bread
Adapted from A Year In Bread

4 cups | 568 g all-purpose flour
2 cups | 290 g bread flour
1 cup | 122 g oat bran
1 cup | 109 g wheat bran
1-1/2 Tablespoons | 17 g instant yeast
2 Tablespoons | 30 ml canola oil or melted butter
1/3 cup |102 g honey
5 cups lukewarm milk (about 85 degrees F)
4 cups | 453 g white whole wheat flour
1 cup | 155 g rye flour2 Tablespoons | 30 ml salt

Mixing and fermentation
In a very large bowl, stir together the all-purpose flour, bread flour, oat bran, wheat bran, and yeast. Pour in the canola oil, the honey, and then the milk. Mix well, then continue to stir vigorously. Stir in the rye flour, and then slowly add 1 cup of the white whole wheat flour at a time, until you've added 3 cups, or until you have a soft, slightly sticky dough. This should take a few minutes.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for about 6 or 7 minutes, adding more flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking to your hands or the work surface. This is too much dough for me to knead in the stand mixer, but it kneads easily by hand.

Place the mixing bowl over the dough, and let it rest for 20 minutes.

Remove the bowl, flatten out the dough with your hands, and sprinkle about half of the salt over it. Begin kneading the salt into the dough. After a few turns, sprinkle on the rest of the salt and continue to knead for 5 to 7 minutes, until the salt is completely incorporated and the dough is soft and smooth.

Place the dough in a large plastic straight sided container with a snap-on lid. With masking tape or a felt tip pen, mark the spot on the container that the dough will reach when it has doubled in volume. Set it somewhere that is preferably between 70F and 78F for about one hour. During the winter, I put it in the oven with the oven light on. Ideally, the dough should also be between 70F and 78F - you can check with an instant read thermometer.

Shaping and final rise (proof)
Turn the risen dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, flattening gently with your hands to break up any large air bubbles. Divide the dough into three equal pieces.

Shape the dough into loaves and dust the tops with flour. Place loaves seam side down in greased loaf pans.

Cover the loaves with a damp tea towel and let them rise for 45 to 60 minutes. The dough should rise well above the rim of the pans, and when you lightly poke it with a floured finger it should spring back just a little.

Bake in a preheated oven (on a stone if you have one) at 375 degrees for 40 minutes or until the loaves are golden brown and the bottoms sound hollow if tapped (you can carefully pop one out of the pan and put it back in if it's not quite done). Remove immediately from pans and let cool on a wire rack. Wait at least 40 minutes before cutting into a loaf, as it continues to bake while cooling. Store at room temperature or freeze in zipper freezer bags. Make sure loaves are completely cooled before sealing in bags.

Chili Pepper Sauce - 3 Ways

2009-01-14T06:33:00.000-08:00

Turns out, peppers like neglect. Several months ago, we wrapped up the summer garden and sort of ignored everything for a few weeks. Lo and behold, a trip around the garden revealed that apparently, we had been over watering the peppers, because once they dried out from our neglect, they flourished. We had five pepper plants overflowing with chilis -jalapeno, fresno, serrano, thai dragon, and a bell pepper that had cross pollinated with the others into the hottest bell pepper you've ever tasted.

At the same time, I ran across a recipe on Mark Bittman's blog that I was excited to make and would use up all of the peppers.

Because we had several varieties of chilis and they were at different levels of ripeness, I ended up make three different styles of sauce. The red one is a mix of four different chilis - jalapeno, fresno, serrano, thai dragon - all picked when ripe red. The lighter green sauce is a mix of the same four chilis picked when still green, and the darker green sauce is a mix of fire roasted bell pepper, jalepeno and fresno chilis (cooked on the grill, skinned, and seeded) with a few fresh serranos tossed in for heat.

The chilis are blended with salt and white vinegar, boiled for about ten minutes and cooled for three days on the counter. They can then be kept in the fridge indefinitely.

Each sauce has a unique flavor and they are all amazing. The red sauce is a very classic chili sauce that adds nice heat with a bit of sweetness. The light green sauce is similar but more floral than sweet, and the roasted sauce is not as hot, but has an amazing depth of flavor - smoky and rich.

There are no exacts in this "recipe"; it's really more of a method.

Chili Pepper Sauce

A mix of fresh chilis - as much as you have - stemmed, and seeded if you want, but it doesn't make a big difference.

Put the stemmed chilies in a blend, add a handful of salt, eyeball it, but make sure it's at least several tablespoons, even a 1/4 cup or so.
Add white vinegar until the chilies are fully submerged.
Blend well, pulsing on and off until well mixed and blended.
Pour the sauce into a medium saucepan and bring to a boil.
Cook for about 10 minutes.
Cool a bit and decant to jars.
Cover with a towel and let sit for three days.
The vinegar will separate from the bulk of the pepper sauce. It will rise to the top. Pour off the majority of this peppery vinegar and reserve for other uses.
Cover jars with lids and put in fridge.

NOTE: While blending and cooking the sauce, don't inhale the fumes, and try to work in a well-ventilated area. This stuff is pretty powerful and will linger in the air for some time.

Use on eggs, chicken, fish etc. Anything really. You're going to find yourself scrambling eggs just as an excuse to eat more pepper sauce!

Fridge-Clearing Potato and White Bean Pasta

2009-01-10T16:17:00.000-08:00

Towards the end of the week I often run out of ideas for what to make for dinner. I am trying to get better about not overstuffing the fridge and tossing food we don't eat, so I look for dishes I can put together that will use up a bunch of what we have around. This meal was one of our recent fridge-clearing experiments, but it turned out so good, it was declared an instant winner.

I had some yukon golds, a few bell pepper halves, green onions, and one carrot in the veggie crisper and a few meyer lemons on the counter. I always have a few types of pasta and usually a can or two of several types of beans in the cupboard. The whole meal came together quickly and was fresh and delicious. The vegetables and quantities can vary depending on what you have, but the white beans and potatoes make this dish special. We served it with some broccoli that was quickly blanched, put in an ice bath to stop the cooking, and then dressed with salt, pepper, toasted bread crumbs, and a squeeze of meyer lemon.

Fridge-Clearing Potato and Bean Pasta

3-4 medium yukon gold (or red) potatoes, cut into 3/4 inch cubes
1 Cup chopped onion (white, yellow, red, or any mix thereof)
4 cloves minced garlic
1 Cup chopped bell pepper (green, red, yellow, or any mix thereof)
1 Carrot, chopped
1 14.5 oz can white beans
1 14.5 oz can of broth (chicken, or veggie, or ideally homemade, but the can works fine)
1 lb. + favorite pasta shape (something smallish)
1 or 2 meyer lemons
grated pecorino or good parmesan
salt and pepper to taste

In a pot large enough to cook the pasta, parboil potatoes in a lot of salted boiling water till softened, but not cooked through (about 8 min.).

In a large saute pan, saute onions in olive oil over medium heat until they turn translucent and start to brown slightly (5-10 min.).

Drain potatoes with a slotted spoon and add to the onions with the garlic and saute for several minutes.

Add pasta to the water you cooked the potatoes in, and cook according to package directions.

Add peppers and carrots to onions and potatoes and saute for 5-10 minutes to let veggies soften and cook. Season with salt and pepper.

Add beans and broth to veggies, cover, and simmer.

When pasta is done (and drained) and sauce has cooked down slightly, toss veggie and pasta together.

Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Squeeze a few halves of meyer lemon over the pasta and serve with pecorino.

Enjoy!

Yule Love this Month's Daring Baker Challenge

2008-12-28T14:36:00.000-08:00

A traditional French Yule Log was this month's Daring Baker challenge. Typically when I hear Yule Log, I think of the Buche de Noel, the rolled genoise cake with chocolate buttercream decorated with meringue mushrooms to look like a log. This, however, is a different beast all together. The traditional French Yule Log is a frozen dessert with several layered elements that comes together in delicious elegance.

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.

The dessert is made up of six elements, none of which are particularly difficult to make by themselves, but it does take some serious planning to put the whole thing together. The various insert layers include a frozen creme brulee, a praline crisp, chocolate ganache, and an almond daquoise (meringue cake layer) that is all held together with a chocolate mouse and covered with a chocolate icing. I followed the recipe almost exactly except for making the creme brulee layer almond flavored instead of vanilla. I happen to be a big fan of almond and chocolate and I think the end result was very nice.

It was really important to plan the elements out in terms of baking, prep, and assembly. I benefited from reading comments by fellow Daring Bakers who had already completed the challenge. I found the following schedule worked well:
- Prepare the creme brulee layer in the mold you plan to use, and then freeze it for a few hours.
- Prepare the mouse and put it in the fridge for a few hours
- Prepare the prailine crisp layer and chill for a few hours
- After all these elements are chilled, trim the creme brulee and praline crisp to be a little smaller than the mold so the will be surrounded by the mouse.
- Pipe a third of the mouse into the pan, lay down the creme brulee, pipe another third of the mouse, lay down the crisp, cover with the remaining mouse.
- The whole thing then goes into the freezer for at least 2 hours.
- Make the daquoise and let it cool, then trim it to just fit the mold.
- Make the chocolate ganache and let cool slightly so it won't melt the rest of the log.
- Remove frozen log from freezer, pipe on ganache and cover with daquoise. Return to freezer overnight.
- The next day prepare the icing, unmold the log, cover with the slightly cooled and setting icing and return the finish product to the freezer until ready to serve.

FRENCH YULE LOG
RECIPE by Flore of Florilège Gourmand

Element #1 Dacquoise Biscuit (Almond Cake)

Preparation time: 10 mn + 15 mn for baking

Equipment: 2 mixing bowls, hand or stand mixer with whisk attachment, spatula, baking pan such as a 10”x15” jelly-roll pan, parchment paper

Note: You can use the Dacquoise for the bottom of your Yule Log only, or as bottom and top layers, or if using a Yule log mold (half-pipe) to line your entire mold with the biscuit. Take care to spread the Dacquoise accordingly. Try to bake the Dacquoise the same day you assemble the log to keep it as moist as possible.

Ingredients:
2.8 oz (3/4cup + 1Tbsp / 80g) almond meal
1.75 oz (1/2 cup / 50g) confectioner’s sugar
2Tbsp (15g) all-purpose flour
3.5oz (100g / ~100ml) about 3 medium egg whites
1.75 oz (4 Tbsp / 50g) granulated sugar

1. Finely mix the almond meal and the confectioner's sugar. (If you have a mixer, you can use it by pulsing the ingredients together for no longer than 30 seconds).
2. Sift the flour into the mix.
3. Beat the eggs whites, gradually adding the granulated sugar until stiff.
4. Pour the almond meal mixture into the egg whites and blend delicately with a spatula.
5. Grease a piece of parchment paper and line your baking pan with it.
6. Spread the batter on a piece of parchment paper to an area slightly larger than your desired shape (circle, long strip etc...) and to a height of 1/3 inches (8mm).
7. Bake at 350°F (180°C) for approximately 15 minutes (depends on your oven), until golden.
8. Let cool and cut to the desired shape.

Element #2 Dark Chocolate Mousse

Preparation time: 20mn

Equipment: stand or hand mixer with whisk attachment, thermometer, double boiler or equivalent, spatula

Note: You will see that a Pate a Bombe is mentioned in this recipe. A Pate a Bombe is a term used for egg yolks beaten with a sugar syrup, then aerated. It is the base used for many mousse and buttercream recipes. It makes mousses and buttercreams more stable, particularly if they are to be frozen, so that they do not melt as quickly or collapse under the weight of heavier items such as the crème brulee insert.

Ingredients:
2.5 sheets gelatin or 5g / 1 + 1/4 tsp powdered gelatin
1.5 oz (3 Tbsp / 40g) granulated sugar
1 ½ tsp (10g) glucose or thick corn syrup
0.5 oz (15g) water
50g egg yolks (about 3 medium)
6.2 oz (175g) dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
1.5 cups (350g) heavy cream (35% fat content)

1. Soften the gelatin in cold water. (If using powdered gelatin, follow the directions on the package.)
2. Make a Pate a Bombe: Beat the egg yolks until very light in colour (approximately 5 minutes until almost white).
2a. Cook the sugar, glucose syrup and water on medium heat for approximately 3 minutes (if you have a candy thermometer, the mixture should reach 244°F (118°C). If you do not have a candy thermometer, test the sugar temperature by dipping the tip of a knife into the syrup then into a bowl of ice water, if it forms a soft ball in the water then you have reached the correct temperature.
2b. Add the sugar syrup to the beaten yolks carefully by pouring it into the mixture in a thin stream while continuing to beat the yolks. You can do this by hand but it’s easier to do this with an electric mixer.
2c. Continue beating until cool (approximately 5 minutes). The batter should become thick and foamy.
3. In a double boiler or equivalent, heat 2 tablespoons (30g) of cream to boiling. Add the chopped chocolate and stir until melted and smooth.
4. Whip the remainder of the cream until stiff.
5. Pour the melted chocolate over the softened gelatin, mixing well. Let the gelatin and chocolate cool slightly and then stir in ½ cup (100g) of WHIPPED cream to temper. Add the Pate a Bombe.
6. Add in the rest of the WHIPPED cream (220g) mixing gently with a spatula.

Element #3 Dark Chocolate Ganache Insert

Preparation time: 10mn

Equipment: pan, whisk. If you have plunging mixer (a vertical hand mixer used to make soups and other liquids), it comes in handy.

Note: Because the ganache hardens as it cools, you should make it right before you intend to use it to facilitate piping it onto the log during assembly. Please be careful when caramelizing the sugar and then adding the cream. It may splatter and boil.

Ingredients:
1.75 oz (4 Tbsp / 50g) granulated sugar
4.5oz (2/3 cup – 1 Tbsp/ 135g) heavy cream (35% fat content)
5 oz (135g) dark chocolate, finely chopped
3Tbsp + 1/2tsp (45g) unsalted butter softened

1. Make a caramel: Using the dry method, melt the sugar by spreading it in an even layer in a small saucepan with high sides. Heat over medium-high heat, watching it carefully as the sugar begins to melt. Never stir the mixture. As the sugar starts to melt, swirl the pan occasionally to allow the sugar to melt evenly. Cook to dark amber color (for most of you that means darker than last month’s challenge).
2. While the sugar is melting, heat the cream until boiling. Pour cream into the caramel and stir thoroughly. Be very careful as it may splatter and boil.
3. Pour the hot caramel-milk mixture over the dark chocolate. Wait 30 seconds and stir until smooth.
4. Add the softened butter and whip hard and fast (if you have a plunging mixer use it). The chocolate should be smooth and shiny.

Element #4 Praline Feuillete (Crisp) Insert

Preparation time: 10 mn (+ optional 15mn if you make lace crepes)

Equipment: Small saucepan, baking sheet (if you make lace crepes).
Double boiler (or one small saucepan in another), wax paper, rolling pin (or I use an empty bottle of olive oil).

Note: Feuillete means layered (as in with leaves) so a Praline Feuillete is a Praline version of a delicate crisp. There are non-praline variations below. The crunch in this crisp comes from an ingredient which is called gavottes in French. Gavottes are lace-thin crepes. To our knowledge they are not available outside of France, so you have the option of making your own using the recipe below or you can simply substitute rice krispies or corn flakes or Special K for them. Special note: If you use one of the substitutes for the gavottes, you should halve the quantity stated, as in use 1oz of any of these cereals instead of 2.1oz.
If you want to make your own praline, please refer back to the Daring Baker Challenge Recipe from July 2008.

To make 2.1oz / 60g of gavottes (lace crepes - recipe by Ferich Mounia):
1/3 cup (80ml) whole milk
2/3 Tbsp (8g) unsalted butter
1/3 cup – 2tsp (35g) all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp / 0.5 oz (15g) beaten egg
1 tsp (3.5g) granulated sugar
½ tsp vegetable oil
1. Heat the milk and butter together until butter is completely melted. Remove from the heat.
2. Sift flour into milk-butter mixture while beating, add egg and granulated sugar. Make sure there are no lumps.
3. Grease a baking sheet and spread batter thinly over it.
4. Bake at 430°F (220°C) for a few minutes until the crepe is golden and crispy. Let cool.

Ingredients for the Praline Feuillete:
3.5 oz (100g) milk chocolate
1 2/3 Tbsp (25g) butter
2 Tbsp (1 oz / 30g) praline
2.1oz (60g) lace crepes(gavottes) or rice krispies or corn flakes or Special K

1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler.
2. Add the praline and the coarsely crushed lace crepes. Mix quickly to thoroughly coat with the chocolate.
3. Spread between two sheets of wax paper to a size slightly larger than your desired shape. Refrigerate until hard.

Element #5 Vanilla Crème Brulée Insert

Preparation time: 15mn + 1h infusing + 1h baking

Equipment: Small saucepan, mixing bowl, baking mold, wax paper

Note: The vanilla crème brulée can be flavored differently by simply replacing the vanilla with something else e.g. cardamom, lavender, etc...

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (115g) heavy cream (35% fat content)
½ cup (115g) whole milk
4 medium-sized (72g) egg yolks
0.75 oz (2 Tbsp / 25g) granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean - NOTE: I used almond extract instead of vanilla

1. Heat the milk, cream, and scraped vanilla bean to just boiling. Remove from the stove and let the vanilla infuse for about 1 hour.
2. Whisk together the sugar and egg yolks (but do not beat until white).
3. Pour the vanilla-infused milk over the sugar/yolk mixture. Mix well.
4. Wipe with a very wet cloth and then cover your baking mold (whatever shape is going to fit on the inside of your Yule log/cake) with parchment paper. Pour the cream into the mold and bake at 210°F (100°C) for about 1 hour or until firm on the edges and slightly wobbly in the center.
Tartelette says: You can bake it without a water bath since it is going to go inside the log (the aesthetics of it won't matter as much since it will be covered with other things)....BUT I would recommend a water bath for the following reasons:
- you will get a much nicer mouth feel when it is done
- you will be able to control its baking point and desired consistency much better
- it bakes for such a long time that I fear it will get overdone without a water bath
Now...since it is baked in a pan and it is sometimes difficult to find another large pan to set it in for a water bath, even a small amount of water in your water bath will help the heat be distributed evenly in the baking process. Even as little as 1 inch will help.
5. Let cool and put in the freezer for at least 1 hour to firm up and facilitate the final assembly.

Element #6 Dark Chocolate Icing

Preparation time: 25 minutes (10mn if you don’t count softening the gelatin)

Equipment: Small bowl, small saucepan

Note: Because the icing gelifies quickly, you should make it at the last minute.
For other gelatin equivalencies or gelatin to agar-agar equivalencies, look at the notes for the mousse component.

Ingredients:
4g / ½ Tbsp powdered gelatin or 2 sheets gelatin
¼ cup (60g) heavy cream (35 % fat content)
2.1 oz (5 Tbsp / 60g) granulated sugar
¼ cup (50g) water
1/3 cup (30g) unsweetened cocoa powder

1. Soften the gelatin in cold water for 15 minutes.
2. Boil the rest of the ingredients and cook an additional 3 minutes after boiling.
3. Add gelatin to the chocolate mixture. Mix well.
4. Let cool while checking the texture regularly. As soon as the mixture is smooth and coats a spoon well (it is starting to gelify), use immediately.

How To Assemble your French Yule Log

Depending on whether your mold is going to hold the assembly upside down until you unmold it or right side up, this order will be different.
THIS IS FOR UNMOLDING FROM UPSIDE DOWN TO RIGHT SIDE UP.
You will want to tap your mold gently on the countertop after each time you pipe mousse in to get rid of any air bubbles.

1) Line your mold or pan, whatever its shape, with rhodoid (clear hard plastic, I usually use transparencies cut to the desired shape, it’s easier to find than cellulose acetate which is what rhodoid translates to in English) OR plastic film. Rhodoid will give you a smoother shape but you may have a hard time using it depending on the kind of mold you’re using.
2) Pipe one third of the Mousse component into the mold.
3) Take the Creme Brulee Insert out of the freezer at the last minute and set on top of the mousse. Press down gently to slightly ensconce it in the mousse.
4) Pipe second third of the Mousse component around and on top of the Creme Brulee Insert.
5) Cut the Praline/Crisp Insert to a size slightly smaller than your mold so that it can be surrounded by mousse. Lay it on top of the mousse you just piped into the mold.
6) Pipe the last third of the Mousse component on top of the Praline Insert.
7) Freeze for a few hours to set. Take out of the freezer.
8) Pipe the Ganache Insert onto the frozen mousse leaving a slight edge so that ganache doesn’t seep out when you set the Dacquoise on top.
9) Close with the Dacquoise.
Freeze until the next day.

If you are doing the assembly UPSIDE DOWN with ONE piece of Dacquoise on the BOTTOM ONLY the order is:
1) Mousse
2) Creme Brulee Insert
3) Mousse
4) Praline/Crisp Insert
5) Mousse
6) Ganache Insert
7) Dacquoise

THE NEXT DAY...
Unmold the cake/log/whatever and set on a wire rack over a shallow pan.
Cover the cake with the icing.
Let set. Return to the freezer.
You may decorate your cake however you wish. The decorations can be set in the icing after it sets but before you return the cake to the freezer or you may attach them on top using extra ganache or leftover mousse, etc...
Transfer to the refrigerator no longer than ½ hour before serving as it may start to melt quickly depending on the elements you chose.

It seems like a lot, and it is, but it is still totally doable. And the end product is really good. This is one of those dishes that is worth the effort and I will be repeating.

I made the dessert for our annual Winter Solstice party with friends and family and brought it to share with the crowd. It was a pleasure to share, but a little sad to see it all go. I've promised R that I will make it again for her birthday. I also brought over some bread to the party, not a big deal, but I saw a new technique on the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day blog and tried it out.

Nothing new with the bread itself, just a new presentation technique which was a big hit and I will definitely repeat. It was a sort of holiday wreath. Basically a pain d'epi but rounded as a wreath instead of straight like a wheat stalk.

Earl Grey Tea Cookies

2008-12-23T20:04:00.000-08:00

In a word, butter. It is all about the butter. Except for the part that is all about the tea. And lucky me, I have a great brother-in-law who sent me some fantastic Earl Grey tea from his favorite London tea-ery Fortnum & Mason. Knowing I had great tea, I went in search of a great tea recipe.

I am known to make a delicious Early Grey chocolate cake with Earl Grey infused whipped cream every now and again, but I was looking for something more delicate to show off the tea. I was sure I had found it when I came across this recipe from the Kitchn for Earl Grey Tea Cookies. As I read through the recipe they made a note that, "One would think that expensive loose leaf tea would be best in this recipe. But I've actually gotten the best flavor with tea from cheap bags that I've ripped open. I think the leaves are more fine and flaky." So in the end, I opted for the mid grade tea for the cookies and the new top shelf stuff for the tea itself, because Earl Grey tea cookies are in fact delicious when served with Earl Grey tea.

These cookies are an easy icebox cookie, meaning you mix up a quick dough (in the food processor), chill it (in the icebox/fridge), slice it, and bake it. I doubled the recipe so I could freeze half of it in case I ever need a quick and easy dessert or mid day nosh.

The whole house smells wonderful as these bake. The cookies have a solid hit of the tea aroma and taste and are buttery and delicious when warm out of the oven. The great thing about this type of cookie is that it is really an excuse to bake butter. Sure there is a touch of sugar and the tea, but then just enough flour to hold the butter together while it bakes. The end result is crispy on the edges, softer inside, and melty buttery yumminess.

They are easy and delicous. Make them right now. Why are you still reading? I just told you to bake right now!

Earl Grey Tea Cookies
makes 2 dozen - from theKitchn

1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon Earl Grey tea leaves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon water
1/2 cup unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 375°F. Pulse together all the dry ingredients in a food processor until the tea leaves are pulverized.

Add vanilla, water, and butter. Pulse together until a dough is formed. Form the dough into a log onto a piece of wax or parchment paper. Wrap the paper around and roll the log smooth. Freeze now, or chill for at least 30 minutes.

When chilled, slice the log into 1/3 inch thick pieces. Place on baking sheets and bake until the edges are just brown, about 12 minutes. Let cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks.

Vietnamese Noodle Soup - A Post Holiday-Binge Meal

2008-12-11T14:54:00.000-08:00

After a Thanksgiving feast that included copious amounts of turkey, pies, sticky buns, dressing, breads, etc. etc. and the ensuing several nights of leftovers, we finally needed a break. We needed something fresh, alive, and vegetarian.

When we finally hit the leftovers wall, we switched it up and made a single bowl meal of Vietnamese noodle soup. This is my version of what can be an amazing meal at the right noodle shop. For ours, I first cooked up some rice noodles and then put them in an ice bath to stop the cooking and to keep them from sticking together too much.

Into the bowl with the noodles went some fried tofu that had marinated briefly in soy, brown sugar, cornstarch, and a bit of chili paste. One could use chicken, pork, or anything else as well. You could even shred up some of that leftover turkey, but we had had enough. We also added julienned carrots, thinly sliced celery, mung bean spouts, chopped green onion, thinly shredded cabbage, sliced red pepper, a couple of lime wedges, and a handful of chopped cilantro.

Once your bowl is filled with tofu and veggies, cover it all in hot broth. Since this is a simple soup, homemade broth works best. On the other hand, if you don't have any, don't fret too much, you'll be doctoring the soup up quite a bit at the dinner table.

This is the fun part. Now you get to flavor your soup with any combination of condiments that you like. I first squeeze out the lime wedges to give a good acidic kick. I also like to add a splash of soy sauce, some hoisin, sweet chili sauce, and a good dose of Sriracha chili sauce. One cannot have too much chili in their noodle soup. Keep doctoring until the broth reaches that perfect, spicy, sweet, hot spot that fills your belly with goodness (and clears the sinuses).

Thanksgiving Baking Recap

2008-12-07T16:32:00.000-08:00

I did a lot more baking than cooking this Thanksgiving. Although I love to cook, at get- togethers, it has become expected that I will bake. I certainly don't mind this, as I have grown to really enjoy baking over the last year.

Since R and I both have family in town, we often end up doing double duty on holidays. This year we had a Turkey Day brunch with R's family. Erica made a bunch of delicious savory food, so I went the other direction and made a huge pan full of brioche sticky buns. And, if I do say so myself, this was the best batch yet. I used the brioche dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, and I promise you don't want to ask how much butter, eggs, and honey is in it.

You start by whipping together butter and brown sugar and spreading it along the bottom of the pan. For my double batch we filled up a 9x15 pyrex baking dish. Then spread a handful or two of pecan halves around. The dough gets rolled out and spread with a mix of whipped butter and brown sugar with cinnamon and chopped toasted pecans. Roll the dough up, chill for a bit, and then slice into rounds. Arrange the rounds into the pan so they are just touching and fill the pan up. You can let them rise and bake immediately, but I usually get to this point, cover in cling wrap and put them into the fridge overnight. That way you can do all the prep work in the evening (or after the kids go to bed) and bake first thing in the morning. I think the slow, cold ferment also gives the dough a nice character. They come out soft, warm, gooey, and amazing.

That evening we had dinner at my mom's house with about 14 others. Again, I was on baking duty. This time I wanted to bring bread and some sort of dessert. I ended up making a loaf of crusty artisan semolina bread and a batch of pull-apart buttermilk rolls. For dessert I put together a pinenut tart that has always been a favorite of ours but one that we haven't had in quite a while.

The semolina loaf was also ABi5MaD, and therefore quite easy but delicous. The rolls were a new recipe I found at one of my favorite sites, The Fresh Loaf. Luckily there were several comments after the original recipe post that talked about needing to add extra moisture to the dough to make it workable. I would have been concerned because I, too, ended up adding quite a bit more buttermilk before I could work the dough well. Still, the dough was quite tough, almost like a bagel dough, so I was worried that the rolls would be too dense or tough. All in all they went together very easily, baked up beautifully, and were soft and delicious. We will definitely be making these again; they're tasty and have a fun presentation.

Finally, for dessert, we had the Pignoli Nut Tart that I have been making for years. It is wonderful to eat, and easy to make. It's a simple all butter pate sucree base, with an almond meal filling, baked half way, topped with pine nuts and then put bake in to finish baking. It is not too sweet, and great with a whipped cream and a drizzle of good honey.

It was a fun holiday spent with family, friends, and a lot of quality carbs.

Caramel Cake with Carmelized Butter Frosting

2008-11-28T08:33:00.000-08:00

An indulgence best enjoyed with friends.

For those with a sweet tooth, you are in luck. I figured out that this is a very sweet cake by reading posts from other Daring Bakers who said that "this is a very sweet cake". This led to my decision to make mini cupcakes out of the cake instead so that one serving only supplied you with one day's sugar intake instead of a week's worth. I also thought they would be fun to bring to Cat and Heath's annual dessert party and the mini cupcakes would be easier to consume from a buffet.

This month's event was hosted by Dolores of Culinary Curiosity and co-hosted by Alex of Blondie and Brownie, Jenny of Foray into Food . The recipe chosen for the challenge is Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting courtesy of Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater, as published on Bay Area Bites.

I'll admit that I had a bit of trepidation after all the calls of "too sweet", but in the end, the frosting makes the cake. The cake itself is quite moist and delicious, but the brown butter frosting is insane. It is so good! I will definitely be making this again for cakes and cupcakes in the future. The smoky, earthy, salty nature of the frosting (I added a bit extra fleur de sel, which I think is key) was a wonderful counterpoint to the sweet cake (I also held back just a touch on the sugar in the cake and I think that worked well).

Although I had developed low expectations for this cake, it ended up being a true winner that everyone seemed to really enjoy.

CARAMEL CAKE

Ingredients:
10 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/4 Cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 Cup Caramel Syrup (see recipe below)
2 each eggs, at room temperature
splash vanilla extract
2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk, at room temperature

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Butter two 9-inch cake pans.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and salt & cream until light and fluffy. Slowly pour room temperature caramel syrup into bowl. Scrape down bowl and increase speed.
3. Add vanilla extract and eggs a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.
4. Sift flour and baking powder. Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add half of the milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then the other half of the milk and finish with the dry ingredients.
5. Take off mixer and by hand, use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Turn batter into prepared cake pan.Place cake pan on cookie sheet or 1/2 sheet pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes or till the sides pull away from the pan and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cakes completely before icing it.

CARAMEL SYRUP
Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup water (for "stopping" the caramelization process)

Method:
In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber.When color is achieved, very carefully pour in one cup of water. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back.Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers.

CARAMELIZED BUTTER FROSTING

Ingredients:
12 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound confectioner’s sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-4 tablespoons caramel syrup
Kosher or sea salt to taste

Method:
1. Cook butter until brown. Pour through a fine meshed sieve into a heatproof bowl, set aside to cool.Pour cooled brown butter into mixer bowl.
2. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, add confectioner's sugar a little at a time. When mixture looks too chunky to take any more, add a bit of cream and or caramel syrup. Repeat until mixture looks smooth and all confectioner's sugar has been incorporated. Add salt to taste.

Komisbrot - A Fruit Cake for the Rest of Us

2008-11-16T11:25:00.001-08:00

This is a fruit cake for people who hate fruitcake.

I personally do not harbor the deep disdain for all things fruitcake as some do. What's not to like about bread, soaked in booze, studded with sickly sweet and freakishly colored "fruit"? As many of you may know, I have a perverse love of maraschino cherries, so it makes a bit of sense that I have indeed found a fruitcake every now and then that I can support.

Of course, the majority of fruitcakes out there are indeed cloyingly sweet, oddly alcoholic tasting bricks. This Komisbrot recipe is nothing of the sort. It is autumnal, light, airy, well balanced and a new favorite in our household. This apparently is a Serbian cake-bread that is unrelated to the German rye bread Kommisbrot. It's also the perfect thing to make to use up any extra egg whites. The recipe is taken from Palachinka, which is worth a browse for some beautiful food.

All of the measurements are based on the volume of 5 egg whites (for one loaf) and is reminiscent of pound cake in its construction style - 1 portion egg whites to 1 portion flour, 1 portion sugar, 1 portion chopped dried fruits and nuts and 1/5 portion oil.

I've used dried apricots, cranberries, raisins, and toasted walnuts, but any combo will work.

Whip the egg whites with a pinch of salt. The longer you whip the egg whites, the airier the bread will be. I have found that I prefer not to overdo it. A bit of density in the final product is nice.

Slowly mix the sugar into the egg whites until well combined. Gradually mix in the sifted flour with a spoon or spatula and then the fruit and nuts (I toss the chopped fruits and nuts with a tablespoon or two of the flour to help keep them suspended in the cake instead of sinking to the bottom). Finally stir in the oil.

The whole thing can go into a greased loaf pan and then into a preheated oven at around 350 degrees (a little higher works too).

Cook until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes, but check a bit earlier just to be safe.

It's a great cake with tea in the morning or for an afternoon snack.

Tarte aux Pommes - and Good Friends

2008-11-13T20:40:00.000-08:00

I was quite excited when our good friends invited us to join them and some others for a harvesty style potluck dinner. The weather has been cooling down and nothing ushers in autumn and winter better than a great seasonal meal with friends. They served individual roasted mini pumpkins filled with chicken and Jarlsberg and a very lemony buerre blanc. Our other good friend, and great cook, Cat brought a roasted pork loin, so R and I knew we wanted to bring some sides and a dessert. In addition to a large loaf of fresh bread I made, R made her famous cranberry sauce and I made this apple tart. Other friends brought salads, a baked brie, and other delights...all in all a great meal and a great evening.

The tart was very easy, delicious, and I thought it looked great. I got the recipe from The Kitchn - the food blog arm of the Apartment Therapy empire I love.

I made a cross between Martha's pate brisee and pate sucree recipe for the crust -I always make a double batch and freeze half to use later. The only real effort is in slicing the apples, and even that doesn't take too long. A portion just gets chopped and cooked down, and some are sliced thin to decorate the top. After the tarte is baked you can brush it with an apricot glaze to shine it up. I used a quince glaze since that is what I had in the house and I thought it would be nice with the apples anyway.

This is definitely worth making when you want a nice fall tarte that looks good on the table, tastes good, is not too sweet, or merely because you want an excuse to make whipped cream.

Homemade Pasta - A Pathetic Attempt at Parpadelle

2008-11-09T07:57:00.000-08:00

For about 10 years I was a vegetarian. However, since I have never liked mushrooms, eggplant, or avocado (aka the holy trinity of vegetarianism) I often referred to myself as a carbohydratarian (which naturally preceeded the creation of this blog--carb loading without remorse). Although I now eat meat again (in limited quantity), I have also expanded my cooking/baking of carbs - hence the bread blog. Most of my time spent with dough is of the yeasted kind. For the amount of pasta we consume, before this week I'd never actually made my own. So I thought I would give it a shot. Let's just say that we need some more work.

I made a basic dough; flour, semolina, salt, olive oil, and eggs, and I cranked it through my atlas pasta machine that has been languishing in the bottom of the cupboard (even through two moves). I blame the machine for most of my frustrations. Because our counter has a deep bull nose lip and a wood molding, the machine wouldn't latch onto the edge of the counter. I was forced to clamp it to a wooden cutting board that was cantilevered off the counter at a precarious angle and was prone to sliding all over the place. This of course made it more difficult to handle the dough as it was rolled through progressively smaller passes. I also blame myself for thinking I need to work hard at keeping really long strips of dough intact. Add to that the fact that I probably should have stopped at one notch before the smallest setting, and I ended up with 10 foot long strips of translucent dough that was difficult and delicate to handle for a novice. I also didn't flour it well enough or let it dry long enough before cutting, so all of my thin layers of pasta fused together and were difficult to separate when dumping into the boiling water.

Lessons learned (assisted by a random catching of Molto Mario - on a channel that Dish is giving us free this month - where Mario Batali made homemade pasta. He used more flour, rolled not as thin, and when the sheets of pasta got too long, he just cut them into more manageable pieces, because seriously, does anyone want a 12 foot long piece of spaghetti?) I certainly plan to give this another go when I have enough time to wrangle the pasta-machine-on-cutting-board setup.

In an attempt to highlight the pasta itself, I made a simple sauce: saute thinly cut onion (or shallot) and garlic in butter and olive oil, add frozen or fresh peas, cook through, add a handful of fresh basil, toss gently with pasta and cover with parmesan/pecorino. If it's too dry you can add a bit of reserved pasta water.

Cool Weather = Warm Bread

2008-11-06T19:59:00.000-08:00

Now that the weather has finally started to cool off, I haven't been afraid to heat the oven up. While I haven't branched out into anything new and exciting, we have been enjoying some of our favorites. I've been trying to keep a batch of 5 minute a Day dough in the fridge so we have bread or pizza whenever we want. The go-to bread dough lately has been 6 cups unbleached AP flour and 1/2 cup dark rye flour per batch. We'll get three or four small loaves, or two larger boules out of this. This is also enough for a loaf or two of bread and several small pizzas. Just for fun I've thrown in a few pics of our current favorite bread (and one semolina boule), proofed in the brotform.

I've been enjoying venturing into new bread territory, but I still can't recommend Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day more highly. Especially for anyone out there who has been intimidated by yeast breads in the past, it really is so easy. Just pick up the book and a baking stone and you're in business.

HARPER and JACK <-- Harper was sitting on my lap as I typed and wanted me to type this for her.

Pizza Party with the Daring Bakers

2008-10-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

This month's Daring Baker challenge (hosted by Rosa's Yummy Yums) was, again, a recipe I've been wanting to make but I had just never gotten around to. It's amazing how almost every month when I see the new challenge I find myself saying "oh cool, I've been wanting to try that!"

I have certainly made pizza before, but we often just use whatever bread dough we have in the fridge when we are in the habit of keeping Artisan Bread in 5...dough around. We have become particularly fond of the semolina dough as a great pizza base. We've made them in the oven on the stone, grilled them directly on the grill, and grilled them on the stone as well.

This time, we were excited to try a real pizza dough recipe, from Peter Reinhart's classic The Bread Baker's Apprentice, which I happen to have. Thus far, I have only managed to make bagels from the book, and that was only after finding the recipe somewhere online first. So I've now tried two recipes from the book and I have to admit, not my favorite so far. I am certainly planning on working with some of the other more traditional breads in the book and I will even try this pizza dough recipe again because most of the other DBers seemed to really like it. But we were largely disappointed with the taste, and the texture was only okay. The dough was fun to work with, supple and soft, and part of the DB challenge was that we had to attempt tossing the dough. I ended up doing only mini tosses because the soft dough stretched out so quickly.

In honor of the challenge I made my own mozzarella for the pizzas. I also put together a batch of pesto with some basil from the yard. To end the evening, I also put together a small dessert pizza. This one ended up being our favorite. I dotted the dough with butter and cream cheese and covered it with cinnamon spiced apples and sliced almonds. It was just sweet enough, rich and had a nice thin, crispy crust.

I definitely recommend making your own pizza: it is relatively easy and almost always better than the alternative. And most importantly, it is always fun to come up with your own toppings.

~ BASIC PIZZA DOUGH ~
Original recipe taken from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart.

Makes 6 pizza crusts (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter).

Ingredients:
4 1/2 Cups (20 1/4 ounces/607.5 g) Unbleached high-gluten (%14) bread flour or all purpose flour, chilled
1 3/4 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Instant yeast
1/4 Cup (2 ounces/60g) Olive oil or vegetable oil (both optional, but it’s better with)
1 3/4 Cups (14 ounces/420g or 420ml) Water, ice cold (40° F/4.5° C)
1 Tb sugar
Semolina/durum flour or cornmeal for dusting

DAY ONE

Method:
1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).

2. Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well (with the help of a large wooden spoon or with the paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough. On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed. If it is too wet, add a little flour (not too much, though) and if it is too dry add 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water.

NOTE: If you are using an electric mixer, switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for the same amount of time.The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet, sprinkle in a little more flour, so that it clears the sides. If, on the contrary, it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a teaspoon or two of cold water.
The finished dough should be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50°-55° F/10°-13° C.

3. Flour a work surface or counter. Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper.

4. With the help of a metal or plastic dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces (or larger if you want to make larger pizzas).

NOTE: To avoid the dough from sticking to the scraper, dip the scraper into water between cuts.

5. Sprinkle some flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball.

NOTE: If the dough sticks to your hands, then dip your hands into the flour again.

6. Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap.

7. Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to thee days.

NOTE: You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour some oil(a few tablespooons only) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make pizza, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the refrigerator.

DAY TWO

8. On the day you plan to eat pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator. Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with oil. Place the dough balls on a floured surface and sprinkle them with flour. Dust your hands with flour and delicately press the dough into disks about 1/2 inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil. Loosely cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and then allow to rest for 2 hours.

9. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500° F/260° C).

NOTE: If you do not have a baking stone, then use the back of a jelly pan. Do not preheat the pan.

10. Generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan with semolina/durum flour or cornmeal. Flour your hands (palms, backs and knuckles). Take 1 piece of dough by lifting it with a pastry scraper. Lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss.

NOTE: Make only one pizza at a time.
During the tossing process, if the dough tends to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured counter and reflour your hands, then continue the tossing and shaping.
In case you would be having trouble tossing the dough or if the dough never wants to expand and always springs back, let it rest for approximately 5-20 minutes in order for the gluten to relax fully,then try again.
You can also resort to using a rolling pin, although it isn’t as effective as the toss method.

11. When the dough has the shape you want (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter - for a 6 ounces/180g piece of dough), place it on the back of the jelly pan, making sure there is enough semolina/durum flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide and not stick to the pan.

12. Lightly top it with sweet or savory toppings of your choice.

NOTE: Remember that the best pizzas are topped not too generously. No more than 3 or 4 toppings (including sauce and cheese) are sufficient.

13. Slide the garnished pizza onto the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for abour 5-8 minutes.

NOTE: After 2 minutes baking, take a peek. For an even baking, rotate 180°.

If the top gets done before the bottom, you will need to move the stone or jelly pane to a lower shelf before the next round. On the contrary, if the bottom crisps before the cheese caramelizes, then you will need to raise the stone or jelly.

14. Take the pizza out of the oven and transfer it to a cutting board or your plate. In order to allow the cheese to set a little, wait 3-5 minutes before slicing or serving.

Homemade Mozzarella

2008-10-13T21:12:00.000-07:00

I don't drink a lot of milk, due in large part to a lapse in consumption when I was about 9. Prior to that, I could down a few glasses of cold, nonfat milk like it was going out of style. But I was also sick a lot as a kid. One summer, my mom took me to the regional hospital for several tests to see if we could figure things out. One thing the various doctors tried was to take me off milk for six months, thinking I may be allergic to dairy products. They eventually decided that the dairy was not to blame and said I could start drinking milk again. We went straight to a Mexican restaurant that evening, and I ordered cheese enchiladas and a large milk. Talk about getting sick! Needless to say, I never became a milk fan again.

R and I do drink soy milk, and we keep organic milk in the house for the kids, which is running $3.75+ a half gallon. So when everyone remarks about the astronomical rise in grocery costs, I'm nodding my head in agreement. And it seems the big ticket items on our grocery receipts are always cheese and milk, often totaling about $15 of our weekly $45-50 bill. Luckily, when I checked the recipe for making cheese, it specifically warned that the process would not work with "ultra pasteurized" milk, like our organic stuff. Who knew regular milk was so cheap? A gallon of good ol' fashioned milk is about $2.70. So I picked up a gallon of the cheap, pasteurized, non-organic milk and we were ready to rock.

I don't think I did everything exactly right, because my curds never set up well, but the end result was good. I am going to keep working at it, and make some ricotta as well (I've a hankering for ricotta gnocchi) so I'll keep you updated.

The process is pretty easy.

Add citric acid to milk, heat the milk to 90 degrees.

Add vegetable rennet, stir, and let sit on low, or off the heat for about 5 minutes. After the curds have separated and set at the top, cut through them with a knife, and spoon the curds out of the whey with a slotted spoon into a microwaveable bowl.

Drain off any excess whey and microwave for 30 seconds.

Drain whey and knead until the cheese cools. Heat again, drain, and knead.

Once it reaches about 135 degrees, it's ready to knead on the counter. Pull it and knead it like it's taffy. Finally, stretch it out and knead it into a tight, shiny ball, and plunge it into an ice bath until it cools. It's ready to use once it's cool, or you can wrap the cheese in plastic and keep it in the fridge.

You can use the leftover whey to make ricotta, which I attempted to do, but you are supposed to not handle the whey too much, and I had already drained and strained the heck out of it because my curds had not set well enough to spoon out of the pot completely. The ricotta attempt failed, but I think next time, I'll add a touch more rennett and leave on the heat for a bit longer than 5 minutes after the curds begin to set. Trial and error.

I got all my supplies for the 30 minute Mozzarella Kit as a gift from my wife for my 30th birthday earlier this year (but she got it at cheesemaking.com ). I'm planning to master the mozarella and ricotta, and then maybe we'll branch into a hard cheese for fun.

A New Must Have Cookbook for the Collection

2008-10-06T15:14:00.000-07:00

Awesome!

Via The Food Section

The Best Pastry Assistant Ever - and Really Good Chocolate Chip Cookies

2008-10-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

I have been having fun with two things in the kitchen lately 1. experimenting with great chocolate chip cookie recipes, and 2. having H want to help cook. Almost every day when I get home from work, H will tell me, "I'm going to get my apron and help you cook, Dada!" She'll put her apron on, I'll set her on the counter and she'll "help" me cook. It has been a lot of fun for us. Plus, there's the added bonus of H learning more and more about food and cooking. She has always had a great palate - last week, I gave her some Pecorino on her pasta and she told me, "Dada, this tastes like goat cheese." Technically it's sheep's milk, but she knew it wasn't cow's milk cheese. And as young as nine months she used to eat pasta with pesto, sausage, and feta that we put through the food mill.

So it came as no surprise that she would easily jump into some Chocolate Chip Cookie adventures. I have of course read all about the CCC recipe from the NY Times that everyone is blogging about. I will get around to that eventually, but it requires resting the dough for up to 36 hours, and I just didn't have that kind of time: our friends had just had their baby girl and we wanted to bring these cookies over as a fun welcome later that day. So I scoured some of my favorite blogs and found a reference on David Lebovitz's blog to a post on 101 Cookbooks where Heidi made David's cookies (recipe). So I gave David Lebovitz's cookies a try, omitting the walnuts this time (because I really have to be in the mood for walnuts, and I didn't have any in the house).

The recipe is quick and easy, and fantastic. We have made them several times already and everyone has really enjoyed them. They are very chocolatey (I recommend using a good quality dark chocolate chip) and will probably be even better with the walnuts which we'll include next time. They are bordering on too chocolatey for R and I think the walnuts will be a great balance.

H and I will tackle the NY Times recipe next and we'll post our comparison. In the meantime, I'm going to keep enjoying the fact that H wants to cook with her Dada.

Bad Daring Baker, Good Lavash Cracker

2008-09-27T14:37:00.000-07:00

Imagine my surprise this morning when I checked my google reader list to see all of my favorite daring bakers had updated their blogs with a new Daring Baker Challenge post. Oh yeah, today's the 27th, posting day.

After bring H back from ballet, I set to work putting together this month's challenge. The challenge was hosted by Natalie from Gluten A Go Go, and co-host Shel, of Musings From the Fishbowl and was for a vegan and/or gluten free recipe. They provided both a "regular" and gluten-free version of the lavash cracker recipe and also requested that the accompanying dip be vegan and gluten free.

Luckily for me this month, crackers are not nearly as involved as past challenges. I was able to get this done while the kids napped and still get posted today.

I opted for the with-gluten recipe since I had the ingredients in the house, and I made a vegan dip of chopped/pureed curried vegetables in a wonderfully fruity Israeli olive oil. The crackers are easy and delicious, and if you put the thought into it ahead of time, there is not real reason to go out and buy crackers ever again. The dough of course can be flavored with anything (sundried tomato, cumin, cinnamon and sugar, etc.). I kept it simple this time (given the time crunch) and simple rolled some poppy and sesame seeds and some gray sea salt into the dough right before it went into the oven.

Lavosh Crackers

Makes 1 sheet pan of crackers *

1 1/2 cups (6.75 oz) unbleached bread flour or gluten free flour blend (If you use a blend without xanthan gum, add 1 tsp xanthan or guar gum to the recipe) *
1/2 tsp (.13 oz) salt *
1/2 tsp (.055 oz) instant yeast *
1 Tb (.75 oz) agave syrup or sugar *
1 Tb (.5 oz) vegetable oil *
1/3 to 1/2 cup + 2 Tb (3 to 4 oz) water, at room temperature *
Poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, or kosher salt for toppings

1. In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt yeast, agave, oil, and just enough water to bring everything together into a ball. You may not need the full 1/2 cup + 2 Tb of water, but be prepared to use it all if needed.

2. For Non Gluten Free Cracker Dough: Sprinkle some flour on the counter and transfer the dough to the counter. Knead for about 10 minutes, or until the ingredients are evenly distributed. The dough should pass the windowpane test (see http://www.wikihow.com/Determine-if-Bre … ong-Enough for a discription of this) and register 77 degrees to 81 degrees Fahrenheit. The dough should be firmer than French bread dough, but not quite as firm as bagel dough (what I call medium-firm dough), satiny to the touch, not tacky, and supple enough to stretch when pulled. Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

or 2. For Gluten Free Cracker Dough: The dough should be firmer than French bread dough, but not quite as firm as bagel dough (what I call medium-firm dough), and slightly tacky. Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

3. Ferment at room temperature for 90 minutes, or until the dough doubles in size. (You can also retard the dough overnight in the refrigerator immediately after kneading or mixing).

4. For Non Gluten Free Cracker Dough: Mist the counter lightly with spray oil and transfer the dough to the counter. Press the dough into a square with your hand and dust the top of the dough lightly with flour. Roll it out with a rolling pin into a paper thin sheet about 15 inches by 12 inches. You may have to stop from time to time so that the gluten can relax. At these times, lift the dough from the counter and wave it a little, and then lay it back down. Cover it with a towel or plastic wrap while it relaxes. When it is the desired thinness, let the dough relax for 5 minutes. Line a sheet pan with baking parchment. Carefully lift the sheet of dough and lay it on the parchment. If it overlaps the edge of the pan, snip off the excess with scissors.

or 4. For Gluten Free Cracker Dough: Lay out two sheets of parchment paper. Divide the cracker dough in half and then sandwich the dough between the two sheets of parchment. Roll out the dough until it is a paper thin sheet about 15 inches by 12 inches. Slowly peel away the top layer of parchment paper. Then set the bottom layer of parchment paper with the cracker dough on it onto a baking sheet.

5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit with the oven rack on the middle shelf. Mist the top of the dough with water and sprinkle a covering of seeds or spices on the dough (such as alternating rows of poppy seeds, sesame seeds, paprika, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, kosher or pretzel salt, etc.) Be careful with spices and salt - a little goes a long way. If you want to precut the cracker, use a pizza cutter (rolling blade) and cut diamonds or rectangles in the dough. You do not need to separate the pieces, as they will snap apart after baking. If you want to make shards, bake the sheet of dough without cutting it first.

6. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the crackers begin to brown evenly across the top (the time will depend on how thinly and evenly you rolled the dough).

7. When the crackers are baked, remove the pan from the oven and let them cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. You can then snap them apart or snap off shards and serve.

Israeli Chicken and Cous Cous

2008-09-18T19:27:00.001-07:00

This is a dish from my childhood. My mom would make a similar version with a whole roasted chicken. I have adapted the recipe to be made more quickly with boneless skinless chicken breasts. It is a wonderful mix of sweet orange and caramelized onions, salty olives, and aromatic thyme that soaks into the moist chicken. It is great served on a bed of cous cous with a fresh, vibrant salad (ideally with a citrus vinaigrette and feta).

Israeli Chicken

Adapted and used with permission from mom.
Serves 6 or four with a few leftover portions for lunch tomorrow.

3 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
herb and flour mix to dredge chicken in (flour, thyme, oregano, garlic powder etc.)

1-2 large yellow onions sliced into thin half moons
butter
olive oil
1 cup sliced green olives
1 cup sliced black olives (kalamata or even plain black)
1 Tbs brown sugar
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp paprika
6-8 oz OJ concentrate
salt and pepper

Set oven to 200 deg. F

Heat olive oil and butter in a large saute pan. Dredge chicken in flour mixture and add to hot pan. Sear chicken on both sides and then place on a cookie sheet in the oven to stay warm.

Add onions to pan without cleaning it first. If there is not enough fat, add a touch more butter. Add a pinch of salt and pepper. Saute onions over medium heat until starting to caramelize. Add sugar, and most of green and black olives (reserving 1/4 C. total to add in the final minutes), thyme, paprika, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir to incorporate. Add OJ and 8 oz. water. Cook with the cover on, but slightly ajar for 15-20 minutes. Add chicken to the sauce mixture and cook with lid on until the chicken is cooked through. Remove lid, add remaining olives, taste for salt and pepper and cook for several minutes so sauce thickens.

Serve over a bed of cous cous.

Refreshing Watermelon Cocktail

2008-09-14T21:02:00.001-07:00

What to do when you have a bumper crop of watermelons in the yard? Make a mint simple syrup, juice the melon and mix it with a splash of vodka topped with sparkling water. But why stop there?

Somehow I failed to get a photo of the Watermelon Granita-Tinis we also made. Take the watermelon/mint mixture and put it in the ice cream maker. When it is granita/slurpee consistency, drop a spoonful into a chilled martini glass and top with ice cold vodka - we like the Tino's Handmade vodka from Trader Joe's. The fresh watermelon juice was also really good with a splash of champagne. A delightfully refreshing cocktail as summer (hopefully, please, someday) draws to a close.

Throwdown :: Challah

2008-09-08T21:25:00.000-07:00

Before I give away the results, let me just say that the first official Throwdown:: was a blast. I of course enjoyed the baking, but I especially enjoyed the friendly competition with my good friend Cat and the competitive judging/eating/excuse to get together with friends. I can be a bit on the competitive side, so I am often cautious about competing in events if I don’t think I have a very good chance of winning. I know that’s ridiculous, but it is the truth. It is even the case when I am “competing” against myself – as in trying a new, complicated recipe. I have been known not to try if I feared “defeat”. (This is why Daring Bakers is good for me – forces me, with the threat of public shame to attempt new things that I certainly would not try on my own.)

That said, I had no real fear of losing to Cat – no, not because I thought I was totally going to win – but because I know Cat is a great baker and a wonderful person, so who could be upset losing to those qualifications? Now, that being said (here comes that obnoxious competitive side) let me note that I was in fact the only Jew present at this competition that was, afterall, about Challah-- you know, that traditional braided bread served at Jewish holidays and on the Sabbath?

All hedging aside, and without further ado…I got trounced. The Earhearts, Heath, and my very own wife, all voted for Cat’s Challah - which was quite delicious. Congratulations Cat on a complete domination of what will hopefully be the first of many Throwdowns:: !

When we compared recipes a few things stood out. Her recipe uses butter instead of oil (which of course tastes better, but doesn’t work if you’re having a fleishig meal), and had several more eggs and more sugar (I actually used honey). The increased eggyness and sweetness gave the finished product a very Brioche texture and taste. And who can complain about, or for that matter, vote against, Brioche? I might argue that my bread was a more classical Challah, but there is no way to argue with the fact that Cat easily won this taste test.

After all that, I imagine you would prefer that I list Cat’s recipe instead of mine (she used the recipe from William Sonoma’s Essentials of Baking ), but I'm including the recipe I used as what I still believe is a great recipe for a traditional Challah. The recipe is from the Moosewood series of cookbooks from the famous vegetarian restaurant by the same name in Ithaca, NY. This particular recipe came from Still Life with Menu and you can actually find the recipe by using Google’s book search, so I won’t reprint it here – but I do highly recommend purchasing the cookbook.

The recipe makes two substantial loaves of challah, and ends up incorporating nearly 9 cups of AP flour. Needless to say, this should be kneaded by hand, and not by the woefully inadequate (only for this recipe, I didn’t mean it, really, I love you) 5 quart KitchenAid stand mixer. However, although I fear defeat, I do occasionally like to live on the edge, so I tend to push the mixer's limits a bit. As you continually add flour, the dough starts to taunt the KitchenAid…

…until finally, the dough wins, and you are forced to finish kneading by hand. Something I actually quite enjoy doing, which then begs the question, why did I bother overfilling the stand mixer in the first place?

I have not perfected my braiding skills yet, so I continue to experiment with different techniques. I read somewhere about starting from the middle and braiding out to the two sides in order to get a more uniform shape, but I ended up with an odd, stretched band across the middle. The other loaf was just a little sloppy on my part – too much handling while trying to move from counter to baking sheet, then deciding it should go on a different baking sheet, etc.

My guess, is that the softer texture of Cat’s loaf (on the right) allowed for a little more sideways slide while it baked. Regardless, this here was one fine night of carb loading deliciousness.

We did our best to keep the taste test blind. Torn up, the breads looked enough alike that we were able to plate them on different colored dishes and then have each person taste them side by side.

We did two rounds, and a few voters changed votes in between rounds, but when the vote was made, I was a 4-0 loser. In the end, I had fun baking, I had fun hanging out with friends, and I am looking forward to our next challenge, Throwdown::Chocolate Cake, also with Cat…stay tuned!

Eclairs

2008-08-31T08:57:00.000-07:00

When I first let R know what this month's Daring Bakers challenge was, we were both excited. I was excited to make them, because amazingly, I have never made eclairs, or cream puffs, or a pate choux of any time. R was excited to eat the eclairs, because apparently she is something of an eclair fan.

This month's challenge was hosted by Tony Tahhan and MeetaK and featured a recipe from Pierre Hermé, from a cookbook written by Dorie Greenspan: Chocolate Desserts By Pierre Hermé.

I put this off, because that is what I do - procrastinate. As I read other comments from DBers throughout the month I gleaned that there were a few points in the recipe that threw some people off and that this was not going to take nearly as long as last months challenge. When I finally did get around to making these, it was true what other DBers had said: the whole thing can be done in a little over two hours and it dirties about every pot, pan, rack etc. that you own. It was definitely a fun challenge since I have not made this before, once again, invoking the true spirit of the Daring Bakers - get out there and try something new, take on that recipe you wouldn't have tried on your own you lazy bastard.

My thoughts: I made the recipe as written (except I don't have a good scale, so some of my chocolate ratios may have been a tad off - I tend to lean to the more is more approach) and although the dough was a bit eggy, I think it held up well to the chocolate pastry cream and chocolate glaze. The pastry cream was also a bit too puddingesque for me. Overall, I think the recipe was a good one and it came together easily, but I just don't think I really like eclairs that much. Everyone else enjoyed them and they didn't last long, so it seems it's just me who is weird. I've decided that the next time I make a choux, it will be in a savory setting, and I will continue to search for the perfect pastry cream.

Pierre Hermé’s Chocolate Éclairs

Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé

(makes 20-24 Éclairs)

Cream Puff Dough (see below for recipe), fresh and still warm

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Divide the oven into thirds by positioning the racks in the upper and lower half of the oven. Line two baking sheets with waxed or parchment paper.
Fill a large pastry bag fitted with a 2/3 (2cm) plain tip nozzle with the warm cream puff dough.
Pipe the dough onto the baking sheets in long, 4 to 41/2 inches (about 11 cm) chubby fingers.
Leave about 2 inches (5 cm) space in between each dough strip to allow them room to puff.
The dough should give you enough to pipe 20-24 éclairs.
Slide both the baking sheets into the oven and bake for 7 minutes. After the 7 minutes, slip the handle of a wooden spoon into the door to keep in ajar. When the éclairs have been in the oven for a total of 12 minutes, rotate the sheets top to bottom and front to back. Continue baking for a further 8 minutes or until the éclairs are puffed, golden and firm. The total baking time should be approximately 20 minutes. My notes: after reading comments from other DBers, I passed on the opening of the oven door and had nice and puffy eclairs. Others complained that opening the oven caused their eclairs to deflate and flatten.

Notes:

The éclairs can be kept in a cool, dry place for several hours before filling.

Assembling the éclairs:

Chocolate glaze (see below for recipe)
Chocolate pastry cream (see below for recipe)

Slice the éclairs horizontally, using a serrated knife and a gently sawing motion. Set aside the bottoms and place the tops on a rack over a piece of parchment paper.
The glaze should be barely warm to the touch (between 95 – 104 degrees F or 35 – 40 degrees C, as measured on an instant read thermometer). Spread the glaze over the tops of the éclairs using a metal icing spatula. Allow the tops to set and in the meantime fill the bottoms with the pastry cream.
Pipe or spoon the pastry cream into the bottoms of the éclairs. Make sure you fill the bottoms with enough cream to mound above the pastry. Place the glazed tops onto the pastry cream and wriggle gently to settle them.

Notes:

If you have chilled your chocolate glaze, reheat by placing it in a bowl over simmering water, stirring it gently with a wooden spoon. Do not stir too vigorously as you do not want to create bubbles.
The éclairs should be served as soon as they have been filled.

Cream Puff Dough
(makes 20-24 Éclairs)

½ cup (125g) whole milk
½ cup (125g) water
1 stick (4 ounces; 115g) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
¼ teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
5 large eggs, at room temperature

In a heavy bottomed medium saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to the boil.
Once the mixture is at a rolling boil, add all of the flour at once, reduce the heat to medium and start to stir the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon. The dough comes together very quickly. Do not worry if a slight crust forms at the bottom of the pan, it’s supposed to. You need to carry on stirring for a further 2-3 minutes to dry the dough. After this time the dough will be very soft and smooth.
Transfer the dough into a bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or using your handmixer or if you still have the energy, continue by hand. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each egg has been added to incorporate it into the dough.

You will notice that after you have added the first egg, the dough will separate, once again do not worry. As you keep working the dough, it will come back all together again by the time you have added the third egg. In the end the dough should be thick and shiny and when lifted it should fall back into the bowl in a ribbon.
The dough should be still warm. It is now ready to be used for the éclairs as directed above.

Notes:

Once the dough is made you need to shape it immediately.
You can pipe the dough and the freeze it. Simply pipe the dough onto parchment-lined baking sheets and slide the sheets into the freezer. Once the dough is completely frozen, transfer the piped shapes into freezer bags. They can be kept in the freezer for up to a month.

Chocolate Pastry Cream

2 cups (500g) whole milk
4 large egg yolks
6 tbsp (75g) sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch, sifted
7 oz (200g) bittersweet chocolate, preferably Valrhona Guanaja, melted
2½ tbsp (1¼ oz: 40g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a boil. In the meantime, combine the yolks, sugar and cornstarch together and whisk in a heavy‐bottomed saucepan.
Once the milk has reached a boil, temper the yolks by whisking a couple spoonfuls of the hot milk into the yolk mixture.Continue whisking and slowly pour the rest of the milk into the tempered yolk mixture.
Strain the mixture back into the saucepan to remove any egg that may have scrambled. Place the pan over medium heat and whisk vigorously (without stop) until the mixture returns to a boil. Keep whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 more minutes (still over medium heat).Stir in the melted chocolate and then remove the pan from the heat.
Scrape the pastry cream into a small bowl and set it in an ice‐water bath to stop the cooking process. Make sure to continue stirring the mixture at this point so that it remains smooth.
Once the cream has reached a temperature of 140 F remove from the ice‐water bath and stir in the butter in three or four installments. Return the cream to the ice‐water bath to continue cooling, stirring occasionally, until it has completely cooled. The cream is now ready to use or store in the fridge.

Notes:

The pastry cream can be made 2‐3 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator.
In order to avoid a skin forming on the pastry cream, cover with plastic wrap pressed onto the cream.
Tempering the eggs raises the temperature of the eggs slowly so that they do not scramble.

Chocolate Glaze
(makes 1 cup or 300g)

1/3 cup (80g) heavy cream
3½ oz (100g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
4 tsp (20 g) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
7 tbsp (110 g) Chocolate Sauce (recipe below), warm or at room temperature

In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a boil. Remove from the heat and slowly begin to add the chocolate, stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula.
Stirring gently, stir in the butter, piece by piece followed by the chocolate sauce.

Notes:

If the chocolate glaze is too cool (i.e. not liquid enough) you may heat it briefly in the microwave or over a double boiler. A double boiler is basically a bowl sitting over (not touching) simmering water.
It is best to glaze the eclairs after the glaze is made, but if you are pressed for time, you can make the glaze a couple days ahead of time, store it in the fridge and bring it up to the proper temperature (95 to 104 F) when ready to glaze.

Chocolate Sauce
(makes 1½ cups or 525 g)

4½ oz (130 g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup (250 g) water
½ cup (125 g) crème fraîche, or heavy cream
1/3 cup (70 g) sugar

Place all the ingredients into a heavy‐bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil, making sure to stir constantly. Then reduce the heat to low and continue stirring with a wooden spoon until the sauce thickens.
It may take 10‐15 minutes for the sauce to thicken, but you will know when it is done when it coats the back of your spoon.

Notes:

You can make this sauce ahead of time and store it in the refrigerator for two weeks. Reheat the sauce in a microwave oven or a double boiler before using.
This sauce is also great for cakes, ice-cream and tarts.

Bagels Revisited

2008-08-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

Bagels are a big deal to me. Way way back (back before Blogger and a gagillion personal food blogs), freshman year in college, the first time I had access to "fast" internet connections and free domain space I even createded a website (or "web page" as we called it back then - I'm talking back in the dancing baby days) "Ethan's Don't Forget to Boil the Bagel Page". I was also fairly convinced that egg bagels were going to take over the world - and I wasn't totally convinced that was a bad idea. Maybe that's why I am now on a journey...Baking Bread to Save the World.

Enough. Point is, I like bagels. I hate crappy round rolls with holes that you get at the grocery store. Since the closest, good bagels are about a 2.5 hour drive from home, it's high time we nail down this bagel baking business.

I made a batch of bagels from my NY Grandpa's recipe a while back, and while I will make a few changes the next time I make them, they were very good, real bagels...chewy with a bit of a crust and great flavor (from the bagel itself, not some ridiculous blueberry flavor).

I am interested in coming up with the perfect bagel recipe so I have been pouring through recipes online. I came across the same recipe on two great food blogs (Eating out Loud, and Cafe Fernando). They both had used Peter Reinhart’s recipe from his classic book "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" which is actually a book I have, but had largely been intimidated by - all these levains, and poolishes, and breads that take three days to make, assuming you've spent the last 23 years tenderly seeing to the needs of your precious sourdough starter. Now that I found it in "quick and easy" comfort of the internet, I was ready to take it on.

Alas, the venerable Peter Reinhart has let me down. After mixing, and kneading, and kneading, and kneading, an overnight retard, a quick dip in the boiling pot, and baking at such ridiculously high heats considering the weather around here (when will it drop below 100 again?) what did we get to have for breakfast? Round rolls with a hole in the middle. Decent rolls (especially when covered with Rosemary and Grey Sea Salt, or Pecorino and Crushed Black Pepper), but certainly not bagels, certainly not Grandpa's bagels.

So it is decided...Grandpa was not messing around. I think a tweak or two and Grandpa's recipe will produce as fine a bagel as you can get this side of NYC.