I'm not so sure that my waistline is going to thank me for feverishly trying to catch up to Maria -- something I will probably never do. But I've been working on it. So hard that I have actually already made two desserts this week!
On Monday afternoon, after picking up the kids, we ran home and I made the Cherry Cobbler -- instead of dinner. Everybody had to fend for themselves for dinner (except Pete and Cassandra, who shared a piece of salmon that I literally threw into the George Foreman grill). Oh yeah, and the green beans which I made in a completely ridiculous attempt to make something healthy to counteract all the desserts.
The Cherry Cobbler is a super-simple dessert to make. Open your 15-ounce cans of cherries so you end up having 4 ounces fewer cherries than you are supposed to -- and about 1/2 cup less liquid than the recipe calls for. Make one of those nice glazes with cherry juice, cornstarch, and sugar and throw the cherries into it. Then make biscuits, place them all over the top, glaze the biscuits with egg wash, sprinkle sugar all over the top and bake.
I actually rolled out and cut the biscuits so my cobbler was a little more "showy" than Maria's -- can't you see that from my lovely photo? You can't? Hmmm. I did take photos. I just need to upload them. Maybe I'll have a post that is just photos. Rather than roll out your remaining dough, Maida said to just put the scraps on top of your cobbler. So there are some nice even circles and then some weird looking triangle pieces.
The cobbler came out of the oven all bubbly and delicious smelling and we couldn't wait to dig in. Pete took a piece of sourdough bread and just dipped it into the hot cherry juice. That was all he got to eat because the rest of us were little hogs. Well actually, Maddy and I were little hogs. We had Cherry Cobbler for dessert (actually -- I had it for dinner), and then for breakfast the next day. It was fabulous -- but much better hot than cold. We definitely enjoyed this dessert.
Since I had Veteran's Day off - right smack dab in the middle of the week -- I decided that it was destiny and that I needed to make the chocolate pudding. So after working out (probably should have spent more than an hour at the gym this week!), seeing Christmas Carol 3-D (a movie I would recommend everybody skip), eating a delicious but filling lunch at Gordon Biersch, and getting a pedicure, we headed home to make the pudding.
Maria is right -- this pudding does create and extraordinary number of dishes. I always try to dirty the absolute minimum number of dishes, and I found myself left with: 1 saucepan, 2 bowls, 1 whisk, the measuring spoon set, one ladle/spoon, cutting board and knife, and a rubber scraper. Heeding Maria's warning, I chopped my chocolate a little finer than I might normally do, and my little flecks of chocolate melted right at the very last second before the milk started to boil.
And Maria was right about us loving this pudding. We couldn't even get a lot of it into the Madonna Inn wine goblets I selected, because we kept "tasting" the hot pudding. I almost think this was better hot than cold.
Maria showed her favorite chocolate pudding. I won't show mine, but my favorite is Trader Joe's Belgian Chocolate Pudding. I can eat exactly four spoonfuls of that pudding -- and it is creamy and delicious and rich and chocolatey. If I eat more than four spoonfuls, I feel sick. This pudding is very reminiscent of TJ's Belgian. I ate four spoonfuls and it was creamy and delicious and rich and chocolatey. I didn't eat more than four.
Maddy, Natalie and Cassandra did. Especially Maddy. Maddy really liked this pudding. But then, she can eat a whole lot more than 4 spoonfuls of the Belgian Chocolate Pudding.
We elected not to make the whipped cream. I really don't think whipped cream adds anything to chocolate pudding -- but that's me. Maddy used the Readi-Whip with the Feb '09 expiration date which she refuses to allow us to throw away because "it's fine." She also poured a small spoonful of dark rum over her pudding (because I didn't put it into the finished product in deference to the wishes of Cassandra and Natalie). The rest of us (not Pete because "he doesn't like desserts") ate it plain. Yum.
The one thing about this recipe that baffles me is the number of servings. It says 4. She does say they are 4 large servings, but really? Four? I can't even imagine eating one of those servings. As I said, we polished off a very large amount of hot pudding before even pouring it into the bowls, and I came up with 5 servings -- servings larger than I could ever eat in one sitting.
So we will be polishing off the chocolate pudding. All that's left is Cassandra's leftover, my leftover (which will last me 2 more days probably), and one more serving that I'm almost certain Maddy will eat. Unless Natalie gets to it first.
I'm 4 recipes behind -- that I know of. But I'm making the entire four layers of the banana cake, and happen to know for a fact that Maria is cheating and halving the recipe. And if I make much more dessert, I will have to step up the gym workouts. . . .
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Freaky sheet cake: Red Beet Cake
Hey, does anyone remember the original book Freaky Friday? Before Jodi Foster and Lindsay Lohan? I don't remember much about the book except that the neighbor, Boris, seems to have a crush on the mom and offers to bring her "beet loaf." Except that he has a cold and his name is Morris. But the beet loaf is not, in fact, meat loaf. That always killed me.
Well, my name is Baria, and I'm baking you a beet cake. Aren't you glad it's not meat cake?
There was a lot of freaky stuff about this cake. First of all was, in fact, the beets. As Claire asked me, "What's the point of putting beets in a cake?" Indeed--what's the point? It's not like it's any healthier, what with the 1 cup of salad oil and all. I guess you could call it sneaking in vegetables, but after the buttery frosting and all, that's not exactly healthy living. I'm guessing that this recipe, like the sauerkraut one, was a response to the Beet Advisory Council's call for Creative Use of Beets. Personally, I'll eat mine roasted with blue cheese and walnuts and maybe a little mâche. Now that is a good use of beets.
On the plus side, this recipe was super easy to make. Since I had already puréed the beets in the food processor and noted that there was no incorporation of air called for, I decided to mix the whole shebang in the food processor. So in went the sugar, the eggs, the vanilla, the melted chocolate/melted butter, the oil...and so on. Quick and painless. As you'd notice if you'd read the recipe, it doesn't call for butter, but I subbed half of the oil for butter.
So here's the lovely batter in the pan. Claire took the time to smooth it out and make it look all nice and perfect.
I have to say, it rose evenly and high, thanks to baking soda and Claire's careful swirling.
The frosting was the next freaky thing. What's up with cooked flour and milk in a buttercream frosting? And I beat the butter and sugar for a long time, but the sugar never dissolved, so it was kind of grainy. C+ for the frosting for sure. But didn't Claire do a nice job with her swirls?
Here's a blurry piece of cake. Note the thick layer of grainy, buttery frosting. The texture and taste of this reminded me of Wacky Cake--you know, the kind with the vinegar where you make a well in the flour and dump in all your ingredients? Kind of one-dimensional, but very moist. When Sami first tried it, he was sure that Claire had made it from a mix because it has "a texture only chemicals can create." Chemicals and beets!
So the verdict? If you want to eat beets, eat beets. If you want to eat chocolate cake, try this one or this one. This is strictly a novelty recipe in my book. But I sure hope those students I palmed this off on enjoyed it!!
OK, much later, here's the recipe. Bake it for your next Beet Council event.
Well, my name is Baria, and I'm baking you a beet cake. Aren't you glad it's not meat cake?
There was a lot of freaky stuff about this cake. First of all was, in fact, the beets. As Claire asked me, "What's the point of putting beets in a cake?" Indeed--what's the point? It's not like it's any healthier, what with the 1 cup of salad oil and all. I guess you could call it sneaking in vegetables, but after the buttery frosting and all, that's not exactly healthy living. I'm guessing that this recipe, like the sauerkraut one, was a response to the Beet Advisory Council's call for Creative Use of Beets. Personally, I'll eat mine roasted with blue cheese and walnuts and maybe a little mâche. Now that is a good use of beets.
On the plus side, this recipe was super easy to make. Since I had already puréed the beets in the food processor and noted that there was no incorporation of air called for, I decided to mix the whole shebang in the food processor. So in went the sugar, the eggs, the vanilla, the melted chocolate/melted butter, the oil...and so on. Quick and painless. As you'd notice if you'd read the recipe, it doesn't call for butter, but I subbed half of the oil for butter.
So here's the lovely batter in the pan. Claire took the time to smooth it out and make it look all nice and perfect.
I have to say, it rose evenly and high, thanks to baking soda and Claire's careful swirling.
The frosting was the next freaky thing. What's up with cooked flour and milk in a buttercream frosting? And I beat the butter and sugar for a long time, but the sugar never dissolved, so it was kind of grainy. C+ for the frosting for sure. But didn't Claire do a nice job with her swirls?
Here's a blurry piece of cake. Note the thick layer of grainy, buttery frosting. The texture and taste of this reminded me of Wacky Cake--you know, the kind with the vinegar where you make a well in the flour and dump in all your ingredients? Kind of one-dimensional, but very moist. When Sami first tried it, he was sure that Claire had made it from a mix because it has "a texture only chemicals can create." Chemicals and beets!So the verdict? If you want to eat beets, eat beets. If you want to eat chocolate cake, try this one or this one. This is strictly a novelty recipe in my book. But I sure hope those students I palmed this off on enjoyed it!!
OK, much later, here's the recipe. Bake it for your next Beet Council event.
Red Beet Cake
3 oz. unsweetened chocolate
8-10 oz. cooked beets (canned or fresh; you decide)
1-1/2 c. (10 oz.) sugar
1 c. (8 oz.) salad oil
1 t. vanilla
3 large eggs
1-3/4 c. (7 oz.) flour
1-1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
Heat the oven to 350. Butter and flour (or coat with bread crumbs) a 9 by 13-inch pan. Melt the chocolate in the microwave or in a saucepan over low heat.
In a food processor, purée the beets. Add the sugar, oil, and vanilla, and process for about 20 seconds. Add the eggs and give it another 30 seconds. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt and pulse that until it's just incorporated. Pour into the prepared pan and swirl it smooth, if you like.
Bake for 35 minutes or until the top springs back when pressed. You can let it cool in the pan to serve it like a sheet cake, or you can unmold it after 20 minutes. Either way, it's time to make the frosting:
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate
3/4 c. (6 oz.) butter, room temperature
1 c. (7 oz.) sugar
1 t. vanilla
Pinch salt
1/4 c. (1 oz.) flour
1 c. (8 oz.) milk
Melt the chocolate in the microwave or in a small saucepan over low heat. Beat the butter with an electric mixer until soft. Gradually add the sugar and beat on high speed for 5 minutes. Beat in the vanilla and salt.
Meanwhile (assuming you have a stand mixer), whisk the flour and about 1/4 c. of the milk in a small saucepan until smooth. Gradually whisk in the remaining milk. Put over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly with the whisk or a rubber spatula, until the mixture comes to a low boil. Reduce the heat and cook for 2 more minutes, stirring and scraping the mixture constantly. Remove from the heat, place the bottom of the pan in a bowl of ice and water you just happen to have handy, and continue to stir and scrape until the mixture has cooled.
Add the chocolate to the butter and sugar mixture, and then gradually beat in the flour/milk mixture. Beat just enough to incorporate.
Pour the icing over the cake and spread it over the top. You can swirl it or make it smooth.
Refrigerate the cake to set the icing--this cake can and perhaps should be served cold. And remember you're getting a serving of vegetables.
A simple, delicious dessert-- American Beauty baked apples
I got tired just reading Alicia's post! She is an amazing Halloween costume maker. We still have a hand-me-down snow leopard costume, and it is truly a thing of beauty. Me, I go to Target on Halloween and grab something that's marked down 50%. Or the kids make their own.
Those of you who read this blog will see an important difference in how Alicia and I approach it: she does all the baking and writing in spite of all the stuff she has to do; I do it instead of the stuff I have to do. I just made a three-page list of all the things we have to do to get the house ready before we leave for France in five weeks. I haven't done a single thing on that list, but I've knocked two more recipes off the baking blog list. We'll just see how long that works out for me...
As I was preparing to make the recipe below, I thought about how ingredients and recipes have changed since 1985...This recipe calls for 2 12-oz. packages of raspberries in syrup. I remember those little boxes, but from the three stores I checked out, none had raspberries in syrup (although they did have strawberries in syrup). In fact, none had any frozen raspberries at all! Is there a shortage? I bought some fresh raspberries at the Death Star (aka Sam's Club)and then bought some frozen mixed berries and picked the raspberries out of them. Would you like to know how many ounces of raspberries are in a 12-oz. bag of frozen mixed berries? One!! Grrrr...
Fortunately, I made a half recipe. I have also noticed that canned goods have shrunk. The one-pound cans of cherries I needed last week were just 15 oz. The one-pound can of beets I needed this week (see future post) was just 14.5 oz. So you have to be kind of careful when following recipes from back when a pound was a pound...
But anyway, this recipe was a cinch to make. I let the fresh and frozen berries sit with some sugar on them to bring out the juices, then pureed them and strained the puree to a coulis. Added some crème de cassis and honey to that, and then got busy with the apples.
Here they are. I don't have an apple corer, and these apples aren't stuffed or anything, so I halved and sometimes quartered them so that they would fit in the dish. Then I peeled them halfway down, as Maida recommends. I'm not sure why that is. These are Jonagold apples--I couldn't find the Rome Beauty apples that Maida recommends. I have a feeling they're not trendy anymore either. I bet Honeycrisp or Pink Lady would also be yummy here.
So then I poured the Day-Glo pink sauce on top of the apples, and it went in the oven. I was supposed to baste them every ten minutes, but I fell rather short.
But who cares--this is how they looked when I took them out of the oven. I kept basting them from time to time, as Maida recommends, and then Claire and I tried some at room temperature. They are very good that way, and I had one this morning for breakfast cold from the fridge, and it was good that way, too. This is a really refreshing dessert, and I don't feel the need for cream or anything on the side. It's just a nice palate cleanser, and it looks pretty as well. Easy, pretty, healthy, yummy. How could you go wrong? Maybe this will give me the energy to tackle my list!
Here's the recipe I made:
American Beauty Baked Apples
9 oz. fresh or frozen raspberries
3 oz. sugar
1-1/2 T. honey
1 T. crème de cassis (I imagine any sweet and fruity liqueur you have in your cabinet would work here)
3 large baking apples (see above for suggested varieties), halved, cored, and peeled halfway down
Mix the raspberries and sugar and let them sit 15 minutes to an hour. Heat the oven to 350; get out a 2-quart baking dish and spray it. Maida says you don't need to butter it, but she's not washing my dishes. In a food processor or blender, puree the raspberry/sugar mixture, then strain it through a sieve. This can take some time and patience. Once you've gotten most everything through the strainer, add to the coulis the honey and the crème de cassis. Get your apples ready. (I think, by the way, you could also leave the apples unpeeled or peel them entirely. Whatever floats your boat.) Put them in the baking dish, cut side down. If you have extra room and extra apples, fit in some apple quarters. Pour the raspberry sauce on top of and around the apples. Bake for about 45 minutes, basting every 10 minutes or so with a spoon or a bulb baster. The apples should be tender but not mushy. After you take the apples out of the oven, continue to baste them with the sauce whenever you think about it. Maida says the sauce will eventually be absorbed, but mine wasn't. Either way, it's yummy. Serve room temperature or cold, by itself or with vanilla yogurt or whipped cream or ice cream. This would probably serve 4-6.
Those of you who read this blog will see an important difference in how Alicia and I approach it: she does all the baking and writing in spite of all the stuff she has to do; I do it instead of the stuff I have to do. I just made a three-page list of all the things we have to do to get the house ready before we leave for France in five weeks. I haven't done a single thing on that list, but I've knocked two more recipes off the baking blog list. We'll just see how long that works out for me...
As I was preparing to make the recipe below, I thought about how ingredients and recipes have changed since 1985...This recipe calls for 2 12-oz. packages of raspberries in syrup. I remember those little boxes, but from the three stores I checked out, none had raspberries in syrup (although they did have strawberries in syrup). In fact, none had any frozen raspberries at all! Is there a shortage? I bought some fresh raspberries at the Death Star (aka Sam's Club)and then bought some frozen mixed berries and picked the raspberries out of them. Would you like to know how many ounces of raspberries are in a 12-oz. bag of frozen mixed berries? One!! Grrrr...
Fortunately, I made a half recipe. I have also noticed that canned goods have shrunk. The one-pound cans of cherries I needed last week were just 15 oz. The one-pound can of beets I needed this week (see future post) was just 14.5 oz. So you have to be kind of careful when following recipes from back when a pound was a pound...
But anyway, this recipe was a cinch to make. I let the fresh and frozen berries sit with some sugar on them to bring out the juices, then pureed them and strained the puree to a coulis. Added some crème de cassis and honey to that, and then got busy with the apples.
Here they are. I don't have an apple corer, and these apples aren't stuffed or anything, so I halved and sometimes quartered them so that they would fit in the dish. Then I peeled them halfway down, as Maida recommends. I'm not sure why that is. These are Jonagold apples--I couldn't find the Rome Beauty apples that Maida recommends. I have a feeling they're not trendy anymore either. I bet Honeycrisp or Pink Lady would also be yummy here.
So then I poured the Day-Glo pink sauce on top of the apples, and it went in the oven. I was supposed to baste them every ten minutes, but I fell rather short.
But who cares--this is how they looked when I took them out of the oven. I kept basting them from time to time, as Maida recommends, and then Claire and I tried some at room temperature. They are very good that way, and I had one this morning for breakfast cold from the fridge, and it was good that way, too. This is a really refreshing dessert, and I don't feel the need for cream or anything on the side. It's just a nice palate cleanser, and it looks pretty as well. Easy, pretty, healthy, yummy. How could you go wrong? Maybe this will give me the energy to tackle my list!
Here's the recipe I made:
American Beauty Baked Apples
9 oz. fresh or frozen raspberries
3 oz. sugar
1-1/2 T. honey
1 T. crème de cassis (I imagine any sweet and fruity liqueur you have in your cabinet would work here)
3 large baking apples (see above for suggested varieties), halved, cored, and peeled halfway down
Mix the raspberries and sugar and let them sit 15 minutes to an hour. Heat the oven to 350; get out a 2-quart baking dish and spray it. Maida says you don't need to butter it, but she's not washing my dishes. In a food processor or blender, puree the raspberry/sugar mixture, then strain it through a sieve. This can take some time and patience. Once you've gotten most everything through the strainer, add to the coulis the honey and the crème de cassis. Get your apples ready. (I think, by the way, you could also leave the apples unpeeled or peel them entirely. Whatever floats your boat.) Put them in the baking dish, cut side down. If you have extra room and extra apples, fit in some apple quarters. Pour the raspberry sauce on top of and around the apples. Bake for about 45 minutes, basting every 10 minutes or so with a spoon or a bulb baster. The apples should be tender but not mushy. After you take the apples out of the oven, continue to baste them with the sauce whenever you think about it. Maida says the sauce will eventually be absorbed, but mine wasn't. Either way, it's yummy. Serve room temperature or cold, by itself or with vanilla yogurt or whipped cream or ice cream. This would probably serve 4-6.
Barron's Brownies. Yummmmmm!
I've been wanting to make the Barron's Brownies for weeks because I figured that Brownies would be a pretty simple thing to do. Maria made them in France, after all. But I discovered that I have misplaced, given away, thrown away, or otherwise lost my Brownie pan -- the pan that has held far more than 100 recipes of All American Brownies, which is my favorite brownie recipe in the world.
Until now. I bought a cheap brownie pan at Target and made the Barrons Brownies while the ADT guy was here installing our home alarm system. These brownies are just as easy as All-American Brownies - simply melt chocolate and butter together, then throw salt, vanilla, sugar, eggs, flour and walnuts into the pan you melted the butter in. No muss, no fuss. The only difference between the two recipes is that in Barrons Brownies, you use a mixture of unsweetened chocolate and semisweet chocolate.
I followed the recipe exactly, including letting the Brownies cool on the counter (which was next to impossible because I wanted to cut into the steaming hot pan of Brownies and eat one after about 10 minutes), freezing the Brownies for an hour, then using a ruler and toothpicks to cut the Brownies into 16 perfect squares. And then I wrapped those 16 perfect squares and put them into the refrigerator because Maida says to serve these cold.
It has now been 24 hours since I cut and wrapped those Brownies, and there are only 12 perfect squares left in the refrigerator. Pete ate one. I must confess that I have now eaten three, and if I did not have total self-control, would have eaten far more than that. I don't feel guilty, because we went on a long hike this morning. But man, these Brownies are good. I'm not sure these are meant for sharing.
I would HIGHLY recommend this recipe! I can understand why the host of the party Maria went to took a plate of them for herself. I would have done the same.
Until now. I bought a cheap brownie pan at Target and made the Barrons Brownies while the ADT guy was here installing our home alarm system. These brownies are just as easy as All-American Brownies - simply melt chocolate and butter together, then throw salt, vanilla, sugar, eggs, flour and walnuts into the pan you melted the butter in. No muss, no fuss. The only difference between the two recipes is that in Barrons Brownies, you use a mixture of unsweetened chocolate and semisweet chocolate.
I followed the recipe exactly, including letting the Brownies cool on the counter (which was next to impossible because I wanted to cut into the steaming hot pan of Brownies and eat one after about 10 minutes), freezing the Brownies for an hour, then using a ruler and toothpicks to cut the Brownies into 16 perfect squares. And then I wrapped those 16 perfect squares and put them into the refrigerator because Maida says to serve these cold.
It has now been 24 hours since I cut and wrapped those Brownies, and there are only 12 perfect squares left in the refrigerator. Pete ate one. I must confess that I have now eaten three, and if I did not have total self-control, would have eaten far more than that. I don't feel guilty, because we went on a long hike this morning. But man, these Brownies are good. I'm not sure these are meant for sharing.
I would HIGHLY recommend this recipe! I can understand why the host of the party Maria went to took a plate of them for herself. I would have done the same.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
I don't even remember where I left off
I wish I had more time to bake -- or to blog about what I have baked. I have been very annoyed at my inability to get anything made. And even more annoyed at the fact that when I do get something made, I don't get time to write about it until I've forgotten every detail.
Since I last found a spare moment to write about what I've baked, I'm pretty sure I've made the following items: Bulls-Eye Cheesecake, Truffles, and Sour Cream Apple Tart. I think I even took pictures of the cheesecake, which are somewhere. I'm sure there are no photos of the truffles or tart.
I made the cheesecake weeks ago. So many weeks ago that I don't even remember when it was -- but it was sometime after we went camping at Agua Caliente. I clearly recall that when I bought Maida's book so many years ago, it was relatively easy to find a one-piece commercial cheesecake pan -- the kind she wants you to use for this recipe. I'm not sure what has changed since the 1980's, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to find a one-piece commercial cheesecake pan now. I searched for hours on-line for one and went to two different cookware stores. No luck. But I was able to find an 8-inch x 3-inch regular cake pan, and figured that was essentially the same thing.
The cheesecake was really fun to make, but I don't think I got the batter smooth enough. And I left out a very critical step of making the chocolate batter, which is to actually sift or strain the cocoa. I figured that with the small amount of cocoa I was using, I could just dump it in and mix it around and everything would be fine. That was an incorrect assumption. The cocoa just sat in little lumps in the cheesecake batter, taunting me for my laziness. I used a whisk to try to beat them in. I used a spoon to try to smash them into submission. And I'm pretty sure they were still lumped up in the batter.
I was disappointed by the lack of drama in the chocolate batter. I'm wondering if it was because of my unsifted cocoa, but the chocolate batter just wasn't as significantly different in color from the almond flavor batter to make it really stand out in a bulls-eye type manner. Despite the lack of strong contrast between the batters, I had so much fun pouring the batter out into rings that I ended up making 6 stripes of each rather than 4. It really is cool to watch the batters spread out into perfect circles.
I do remember that I was able to take the cat to the vet for a checkup and vaccinations and still get back before the timer went off for the cheesecake. When the timer did go off, the cheesecake was all high and dramatic looking -- and I'm pretty sure Cassandra took a picture of it at that moment. It was really very spectacular looking -- but not as a Bull's Eye Cheesecake. The contrast was even weaker after the cake was baked. After sitting for a little bit, the cake sunk back down into a far less dramatic pose. It just looked ordinary.
We didn't cut into the cheesecake until the following morning, because it needed to cool and refrigerate and such. And it is a good cheesecake. But not a great cheesecake. It had a very nice texture -- similar to a New York Cheesecake but not quite as heavy. But I thought the almond taste was a little strong in the white portion, and the chocolate taste a little weak in the dark-ish portion. Pete liked it though. Which is important, because he "doesn't like desserts." Except cheesecake. We ended up eating about half. Considering that the only members of the family who will even touch cheesecake are Pete, Maddy and I, I guess half is pretty good.
And with the best intentions of whipping out the easy truffles, brownies and apple tart so I could at least sort of catch up with Maria, Halloween reared its ugly head. I already have a busy schedule. I'm pretty sure I already posted how long my days are between work, working out, and extra-curricular driving. But beginning on October 1, a new dimension is added to my days -- the development and construction of Halloween costumes. I made the huge error, starting when Maddy was only a month old, of planning and constructing elaborate Halloween costumes. You want to be a Princess for Halloween -- I will buy 17 yards of satin and lace and ribbon and make a three-piece princess dress with cloak and petticoat. And even though these girls are 11, 15, and 17, they still want great Halloween costumes. That's fine because I love it when they look awesome on Halloween. It just adds to my stress.
Natalie's costume was the easiest -- she wanted to be Rex from Napolean Dynamite. This costume just required a bit of creative on-line shopping to procure the various components of the costume. Maddy's costume was also fairly easy after we figured out the concept -- she wanted to be a raven or a crow. Once the development process was completed, her costume also required the acquisition of a few items from various on-line and commercial retailers, as well as a little hot-glue here and there. But Cassandra wanted to be corn on the cob. There are no corn on the cob costumes. There aren't even good ideas for making corn on the cob costumes. This costume consumed my waking hours. How the heck was I going to pull this one off?
The corn-on-the-cob made it impossible for me to do ANY baking. Especially with everything else being thrown in front of my path. I got the costume done -- and I think it looked pretty amazing. And so Halloween day found me making the truffles.
My thought was that I could give them out to special trick-or-treaters. But the only special kids in the neighborhood decided not to trick-or treat this year. So I have a freezer full of truffles. These really are very tasty truffles -- smooth and creamy and rich and chocolatey with just a hint of rum. And they are super easy to make. I made them while on the telephone booking an appointment for our home security system to be installed. Maybe I can give some to the installer when he comes out. Otherwise, Maida said that they last forever in the freezer. That's nice. Anytime we just want something sweet -- there are truffles in the freezer.
Since I was on a roll, the day after Halloween I made the Sour Cream Apple Tart. As Maria said -- this is quite a production. Nothing is really difficult, but it is a lot of pieces to put together. I didn't seem to have any of the problems she noted on her post about the tart. The crust fit nicely into my 13-inch tart pan (2 inches bigger than called for in the recipe, but it's what I had). My Granny Smith apples, which I sliced, then peeled and cored (which is my favored way of getting all the peel off of apples), held up nicely during the sauteeing in butter and sugar. My pan was another story. I probably spent 20 minutes cleaning that stupid pan. The caramel came out like perfect caramel ice-cream sauce, and drizzled nicely over the apples. And maybe it's because I used a 13-inch pan, but my sour cream layer didn't even completely cover the apples.
Pete's opinion of this tart -- it's tart. He first said sour, then bitter, but decided on tart. Maddy agreed with him. Natalie and Cassandra are sour-cream despisers, so wouldn't even look at the tart. I guess I would agree with Pete and Maddy. It is a pretty tart tart. The crust is not very good. It holds up well to the filling, but it is relatively tasteless and cardboardy in texture. The caramel was not enough to sweeten the Granny Smith apples. And while the sour cream layer on my tart was not particularly thick, it just added to the tartness of the tart. Given how long it takes to construct this tart, the payoff was not worth it.
I'm not even going to look at how many recipes ahead Maria is because I know it's a lot. I was hoping to make Brownies for our Murder Mystery party last night -- but that didn't happen. Maybe this weekend. Maybe not. Time will tell.
Since I last found a spare moment to write about what I've baked, I'm pretty sure I've made the following items: Bulls-Eye Cheesecake, Truffles, and Sour Cream Apple Tart. I think I even took pictures of the cheesecake, which are somewhere. I'm sure there are no photos of the truffles or tart.
I made the cheesecake weeks ago. So many weeks ago that I don't even remember when it was -- but it was sometime after we went camping at Agua Caliente. I clearly recall that when I bought Maida's book so many years ago, it was relatively easy to find a one-piece commercial cheesecake pan -- the kind she wants you to use for this recipe. I'm not sure what has changed since the 1980's, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to find a one-piece commercial cheesecake pan now. I searched for hours on-line for one and went to two different cookware stores. No luck. But I was able to find an 8-inch x 3-inch regular cake pan, and figured that was essentially the same thing.
The cheesecake was really fun to make, but I don't think I got the batter smooth enough. And I left out a very critical step of making the chocolate batter, which is to actually sift or strain the cocoa. I figured that with the small amount of cocoa I was using, I could just dump it in and mix it around and everything would be fine. That was an incorrect assumption. The cocoa just sat in little lumps in the cheesecake batter, taunting me for my laziness. I used a whisk to try to beat them in. I used a spoon to try to smash them into submission. And I'm pretty sure they were still lumped up in the batter.
I was disappointed by the lack of drama in the chocolate batter. I'm wondering if it was because of my unsifted cocoa, but the chocolate batter just wasn't as significantly different in color from the almond flavor batter to make it really stand out in a bulls-eye type manner. Despite the lack of strong contrast between the batters, I had so much fun pouring the batter out into rings that I ended up making 6 stripes of each rather than 4. It really is cool to watch the batters spread out into perfect circles.
I do remember that I was able to take the cat to the vet for a checkup and vaccinations and still get back before the timer went off for the cheesecake. When the timer did go off, the cheesecake was all high and dramatic looking -- and I'm pretty sure Cassandra took a picture of it at that moment. It was really very spectacular looking -- but not as a Bull's Eye Cheesecake. The contrast was even weaker after the cake was baked. After sitting for a little bit, the cake sunk back down into a far less dramatic pose. It just looked ordinary.
We didn't cut into the cheesecake until the following morning, because it needed to cool and refrigerate and such. And it is a good cheesecake. But not a great cheesecake. It had a very nice texture -- similar to a New York Cheesecake but not quite as heavy. But I thought the almond taste was a little strong in the white portion, and the chocolate taste a little weak in the dark-ish portion. Pete liked it though. Which is important, because he "doesn't like desserts." Except cheesecake. We ended up eating about half. Considering that the only members of the family who will even touch cheesecake are Pete, Maddy and I, I guess half is pretty good.
And with the best intentions of whipping out the easy truffles, brownies and apple tart so I could at least sort of catch up with Maria, Halloween reared its ugly head. I already have a busy schedule. I'm pretty sure I already posted how long my days are between work, working out, and extra-curricular driving. But beginning on October 1, a new dimension is added to my days -- the development and construction of Halloween costumes. I made the huge error, starting when Maddy was only a month old, of planning and constructing elaborate Halloween costumes. You want to be a Princess for Halloween -- I will buy 17 yards of satin and lace and ribbon and make a three-piece princess dress with cloak and petticoat. And even though these girls are 11, 15, and 17, they still want great Halloween costumes. That's fine because I love it when they look awesome on Halloween. It just adds to my stress.
Natalie's costume was the easiest -- she wanted to be Rex from Napolean Dynamite. This costume just required a bit of creative on-line shopping to procure the various components of the costume. Maddy's costume was also fairly easy after we figured out the concept -- she wanted to be a raven or a crow. Once the development process was completed, her costume also required the acquisition of a few items from various on-line and commercial retailers, as well as a little hot-glue here and there. But Cassandra wanted to be corn on the cob. There are no corn on the cob costumes. There aren't even good ideas for making corn on the cob costumes. This costume consumed my waking hours. How the heck was I going to pull this one off?
The corn-on-the-cob made it impossible for me to do ANY baking. Especially with everything else being thrown in front of my path. I got the costume done -- and I think it looked pretty amazing. And so Halloween day found me making the truffles.
My thought was that I could give them out to special trick-or-treaters. But the only special kids in the neighborhood decided not to trick-or treat this year. So I have a freezer full of truffles. These really are very tasty truffles -- smooth and creamy and rich and chocolatey with just a hint of rum. And they are super easy to make. I made them while on the telephone booking an appointment for our home security system to be installed. Maybe I can give some to the installer when he comes out. Otherwise, Maida said that they last forever in the freezer. That's nice. Anytime we just want something sweet -- there are truffles in the freezer.
Since I was on a roll, the day after Halloween I made the Sour Cream Apple Tart. As Maria said -- this is quite a production. Nothing is really difficult, but it is a lot of pieces to put together. I didn't seem to have any of the problems she noted on her post about the tart. The crust fit nicely into my 13-inch tart pan (2 inches bigger than called for in the recipe, but it's what I had). My Granny Smith apples, which I sliced, then peeled and cored (which is my favored way of getting all the peel off of apples), held up nicely during the sauteeing in butter and sugar. My pan was another story. I probably spent 20 minutes cleaning that stupid pan. The caramel came out like perfect caramel ice-cream sauce, and drizzled nicely over the apples. And maybe it's because I used a 13-inch pan, but my sour cream layer didn't even completely cover the apples.
Pete's opinion of this tart -- it's tart. He first said sour, then bitter, but decided on tart. Maddy agreed with him. Natalie and Cassandra are sour-cream despisers, so wouldn't even look at the tart. I guess I would agree with Pete and Maddy. It is a pretty tart tart. The crust is not very good. It holds up well to the filling, but it is relatively tasteless and cardboardy in texture. The caramel was not enough to sweeten the Granny Smith apples. And while the sour cream layer on my tart was not particularly thick, it just added to the tartness of the tart. Given how long it takes to construct this tart, the payoff was not worth it.
I'm not even going to look at how many recipes ahead Maria is because I know it's a lot. I was hoping to make Brownies for our Murder Mystery party last night -- but that didn't happen. Maybe this weekend. Maybe not. Time will tell.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Yummy Chocolate Gingersnaps
I love ginger desserts. Gingersnaps, gingerbread...you name it. One of my favorite cookies to buy is Carr's Ginger Lemon Cremes. Yum. And this weekend at Whole Foods I discovered ginger lemon gumdrops, which made my drive back home much happier. So I was delighted that this recipe came up. It's not a fussy recipe, though it involves three kinds of ginger. And the results are fabulous, I think.
Here are my dough balls, on my incredibly messy kitchen counter. Know what I love about this blog? It keeps me too busy to clean!
Here are the baked cookies. See how they spread out all nice and round and perfect? Love that!
The chocolate just kind of rounds out the ginger flavor but definitely doesn't overpower it. You should make these.
Here's the recipe:
Chocolate Gingersnaps
2 c. (8 oz.) sifted flour (I used half whole wheat pastry flour)
1/4 c. (.75 oz.) cocoa powder
1 oz. fresh ginger (Maida says that's a 2-inch by 1-inch piece), peeled and finely grated
6 oz. (1-1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1-1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. ground ginger
1/2 t. cinnamon
1 scant c. (6.5 oz.) brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 c. (2.8 oz.) molasses (I used cane syrup, because I live in the South)
1/4 c. (1 oz.) finely diced candied ginger
Heat the oven to 350; line cookie sheets with parchment. Also get out a jelly roll pan and line it with waxed paper. Sift together the cocoa and flour. You can grate the fresh ginger right into the mixing bowl; add the butter, baking soda, salt, ginger, and cinnamon, and beat that until fluffy. Gradually add the brown sugar and beat that 2-3 more minutes. Add the egg and molasses and give it another minute or two. On low heat, beat in the flour. When it's incorporated, stir in the candied ginger. Make sure you taste the dough--it's divine.
Now get your paper-lined jelly roll pan and drop teaspoonfuls of dough on it. They can sit right next to each other for now. Maida says you'll get 50 spoonsful; I got about 30. Guess my spoons are bigger than hers; I don't think I ate *that* much cookie dough. Anyway, freeze those for about 10-15 minutes or until they've firmed up a bit. (I bet that you could keep some of the mounds in the freezer if you don't want to bake them all right away--just put them in a Ziploc and don't forget about them. Love having ready-made cookie dough in the freezer!) OK, roll the dough mounds into nice round balls and put them on the cookie sheets, 12 to a sheet. Bake them, two sheets at a time, for about 14 minutes. Let them cool on a rack and store airtight. They do get pretty soft if you don't keep them from humidity, but they're still delicious. Share them or hide them from yourself quickly.
Here are my dough balls, on my incredibly messy kitchen counter. Know what I love about this blog? It keeps me too busy to clean!
Here are the baked cookies. See how they spread out all nice and round and perfect? Love that!The chocolate just kind of rounds out the ginger flavor but definitely doesn't overpower it. You should make these.
Here's the recipe:
Chocolate Gingersnaps
2 c. (8 oz.) sifted flour (I used half whole wheat pastry flour)
1/4 c. (.75 oz.) cocoa powder
1 oz. fresh ginger (Maida says that's a 2-inch by 1-inch piece), peeled and finely grated
6 oz. (1-1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1-1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. ground ginger
1/2 t. cinnamon
1 scant c. (6.5 oz.) brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 c. (2.8 oz.) molasses (I used cane syrup, because I live in the South)
1/4 c. (1 oz.) finely diced candied ginger
Heat the oven to 350; line cookie sheets with parchment. Also get out a jelly roll pan and line it with waxed paper. Sift together the cocoa and flour. You can grate the fresh ginger right into the mixing bowl; add the butter, baking soda, salt, ginger, and cinnamon, and beat that until fluffy. Gradually add the brown sugar and beat that 2-3 more minutes. Add the egg and molasses and give it another minute or two. On low heat, beat in the flour. When it's incorporated, stir in the candied ginger. Make sure you taste the dough--it's divine.
Now get your paper-lined jelly roll pan and drop teaspoonfuls of dough on it. They can sit right next to each other for now. Maida says you'll get 50 spoonsful; I got about 30. Guess my spoons are bigger than hers; I don't think I ate *that* much cookie dough. Anyway, freeze those for about 10-15 minutes or until they've firmed up a bit. (I bet that you could keep some of the mounds in the freezer if you don't want to bake them all right away--just put them in a Ziploc and don't forget about them. Love having ready-made cookie dough in the freezer!) OK, roll the dough mounds into nice round balls and put them on the cookie sheets, 12 to a sheet. Bake them, two sheets at a time, for about 14 minutes. Let them cool on a rack and store airtight. They do get pretty soft if you don't keep them from humidity, but they're still delicious. Share them or hide them from yourself quickly.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Chocolate Pudding FAIL
I love chocolate pudding. I really do. I especially love German chocolate pudding. That is, the mix that you cook.
Yes, sadly enough, this is my favorite kind of chocolate pudding. I looked at the list of ingredients, and it's pretty much just cocoa, chocolate, carageenen, and some other flavorings and stabilizers. Not all-natural, but not that scary, either. You add your own sugar and milk (and I usually throw in a square or two of chocolate) and cook it up. I made this several times in the camper this summer, and it was delightful--chocolatey without making you feel like your arteries needed a Roto-rooter.
Now Maida's pudding, on the other hand, involves two kinds of chocolate, cocoa, cornstarch *and* eggs/yolks for thickening, and butter. It's pudding that's moving into pots de crème territory. And for me (and for Claire), that's just a bit too much.
As I write this, I know that when Alicia finally makes this recipe in December or something, she will swoon over it and tell us it's the best pudding ever. Whatever--I'll probably still have some sitting in my fridge. It's been two days now and I haven't been able to eat my way through one custard cup of it.
I'm equally sure that Alicia will tell me that I did something wrong to get the results I got. And I will admit to two issues--well, maybe two and a half. The first was that the semisweet chocolate I used was too strong--that 72% Trader Joe's bar that will not be used up. I upped the sugar a bit to compensate, but it really wasn't enough. The half problem may be that I didn't chop the chocolate well enough before I put it with the milk. The chocolate never really incorporated into the milk, and I now have tiny chocolate chips in my pudding.
The next problem was that after I had done the cornstarch and the eggs and all, I forgot about adding the butter and vanilla until after I'd already poured the pudding into cups.
Never fear--I just put little lumps of butter and a splash of vanilla into each cup and stirred it until melted. Except that there's now congealed butter on the side of each cup. Yuck.
Here's Claire's pudding, with powdered sugar on top. Still, she took two bites and put it back. "Too rich" was her verdict. Now Claire is not a big lover of rich desserts--she'd rather eat ice cream. But I agree with her. The awesome homemade applesauce I also made yesterday--that's something we both can't get enough of!
But if you love super-rich pudding and doing lots of dishes, here's a recipe for you:
American Chocolate Pudding
1 egg plus 2 egg yolks
Pinch salt
2 T. cornstarch
3 T. cocoa
4 oz. (1/2 c. + 1 T.) sugar
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
3 oz. semisweet chocolate (I would stay at 60% cacao or under for this)
2-1/4 c. milk (I used whole; 2% would probably also be fine)
2 T. butter, cut into pieces
1 t. vanilla
(1 T. rum--this might be a nice addition to cut the sweetness. I forgot about this in my flustered state of mind)
Get out a saucepan, two medium sized mixing bowls, and an assortment of custard cups or whatever you're going to serve this in. I used 5 Pyrex custard cups because that's what was clean and available. Put your eggs in one mixing bowl and beat them to mix. Strain the cornstarch, cocoa, salt, and 2 oz. sugar into another mixing bowl, and whisk that together with 1/4 c. milk. Put the chocolate, 2 c. milk, and 2 oz. sugar in the saucepan, and heat to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly. Maida says the flecks of chocolate will disappear as the milk heats, but this never happened to me. Maybe I was too afraid of the chocolate burning. When the milk has reached this stage, pour some of it into the cornstarch mixture, whisking as you pour. Then pour the cornstarch mixture back into the saucepan. Place back over medium heat and bring to a low boil, stirring and scraping with a heatproof rubber spatula. Turn down the heat and let it cook for about 2 minutes. Then get your bowl with the eggs and basically do the same thing with that: add some hot chocolate mixture to the eggs, whisk that, then add back to the saucepan and cook over low heat for another couple of minutes, stirring and scraping and being sure to keep it from boiling and scrambling. Now take it off the heat and ADD THE BUTTER AND VANILLA (and rum, if you want) before spooning it into the cups. Cover each cup with plastic or waxed paper, to avoid skin, and refrigerate. (There seems to be a movement for skin on pudding. David Lebovitz says there's no point in making pudding if you don't like the skin. Whatever.) After you've returned from a 2-hour hike, you may be ready for this.
Or see if you can find some nice Dr. Oetker pudding mix.
Yes, sadly enough, this is my favorite kind of chocolate pudding. I looked at the list of ingredients, and it's pretty much just cocoa, chocolate, carageenen, and some other flavorings and stabilizers. Not all-natural, but not that scary, either. You add your own sugar and milk (and I usually throw in a square or two of chocolate) and cook it up. I made this several times in the camper this summer, and it was delightful--chocolatey without making you feel like your arteries needed a Roto-rooter.Now Maida's pudding, on the other hand, involves two kinds of chocolate, cocoa, cornstarch *and* eggs/yolks for thickening, and butter. It's pudding that's moving into pots de crème territory. And for me (and for Claire), that's just a bit too much.
As I write this, I know that when Alicia finally makes this recipe in December or something, she will swoon over it and tell us it's the best pudding ever. Whatever--I'll probably still have some sitting in my fridge. It's been two days now and I haven't been able to eat my way through one custard cup of it.
I'm equally sure that Alicia will tell me that I did something wrong to get the results I got. And I will admit to two issues--well, maybe two and a half. The first was that the semisweet chocolate I used was too strong--that 72% Trader Joe's bar that will not be used up. I upped the sugar a bit to compensate, but it really wasn't enough. The half problem may be that I didn't chop the chocolate well enough before I put it with the milk. The chocolate never really incorporated into the milk, and I now have tiny chocolate chips in my pudding.
The next problem was that after I had done the cornstarch and the eggs and all, I forgot about adding the butter and vanilla until after I'd already poured the pudding into cups.
Never fear--I just put little lumps of butter and a splash of vanilla into each cup and stirred it until melted. Except that there's now congealed butter on the side of each cup. Yuck.
Here's Claire's pudding, with powdered sugar on top. Still, she took two bites and put it back. "Too rich" was her verdict. Now Claire is not a big lover of rich desserts--she'd rather eat ice cream. But I agree with her. The awesome homemade applesauce I also made yesterday--that's something we both can't get enough of!But if you love super-rich pudding and doing lots of dishes, here's a recipe for you:
American Chocolate Pudding
1 egg plus 2 egg yolks
Pinch salt
2 T. cornstarch
3 T. cocoa
4 oz. (1/2 c. + 1 T.) sugar
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
3 oz. semisweet chocolate (I would stay at 60% cacao or under for this)
2-1/4 c. milk (I used whole; 2% would probably also be fine)
2 T. butter, cut into pieces
1 t. vanilla
(1 T. rum--this might be a nice addition to cut the sweetness. I forgot about this in my flustered state of mind)
Get out a saucepan, two medium sized mixing bowls, and an assortment of custard cups or whatever you're going to serve this in. I used 5 Pyrex custard cups because that's what was clean and available. Put your eggs in one mixing bowl and beat them to mix. Strain the cornstarch, cocoa, salt, and 2 oz. sugar into another mixing bowl, and whisk that together with 1/4 c. milk. Put the chocolate, 2 c. milk, and 2 oz. sugar in the saucepan, and heat to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly. Maida says the flecks of chocolate will disappear as the milk heats, but this never happened to me. Maybe I was too afraid of the chocolate burning. When the milk has reached this stage, pour some of it into the cornstarch mixture, whisking as you pour. Then pour the cornstarch mixture back into the saucepan. Place back over medium heat and bring to a low boil, stirring and scraping with a heatproof rubber spatula. Turn down the heat and let it cook for about 2 minutes. Then get your bowl with the eggs and basically do the same thing with that: add some hot chocolate mixture to the eggs, whisk that, then add back to the saucepan and cook over low heat for another couple of minutes, stirring and scraping and being sure to keep it from boiling and scrambling. Now take it off the heat and ADD THE BUTTER AND VANILLA (and rum, if you want) before spooning it into the cups. Cover each cup with plastic or waxed paper, to avoid skin, and refrigerate. (There seems to be a movement for skin on pudding. David Lebovitz says there's no point in making pudding if you don't like the skin. Whatever.) After you've returned from a 2-hour hike, you may be ready for this.
Or see if you can find some nice Dr. Oetker pudding mix.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)