Archive for February, 2009
People, I have found a new chocolate cake that makes my top five list. It could be due to my current chocolate hysteria, but that phrase “where have you been all my life?” ? I understand it now.
Because I am a member of a little group called the Daring Bakers, I must complete an assigned challenge every month, which we then all post on the same day. One guess what day it is today.
At first it seemed a bit of a waste to make such a cake with no occasion to celebrate, but it was a snap to put together, and I can’t really think of a better occasion to celebrate than a weekend at home. (More or less.)
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 name – Chocolate Valentino – is presumably in reference to Valentine’s Day. What it is is a dense, fudgy, not-too-sweet cake (of sorts) with a texture somewhere between a truffle and a brownie. It is dee-vine. And easier to make than a plain old chocolate cake, with a bonus: there is no need for icing.
Although. I have a chef friend in Edmonton who serves wedges of dense chocolate cake topped with – get this – a scoop of ganache. Ganache is a mixture of chocolate and cream; the same as a truffle, only softer. It’s the stuff you sometimes get on fancy cakes instead of the usual buttercream. So not only do his cake wedges look utterly hip; he doesn’t have to bother with all that fussy cake decorating. As you eat it, you get a little of the soft truffle on your fork along with some cake, and all is good with the world. Little ganache scoops would be absolutely spectacular with this particular cake.
Instead, I did ice cream. Just easy, plain old ice cream. There are two ways to do it: by making a custard first, or not. Or you could strain good quality thick vanilla yogurt and freeze it straight up. I also highly recommend Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream, which we ate with it after midnight with friends after coming home from a party/performance. A perfect bedtime snack.
As I mentioned, this “cake” is also dead easy. You melt a pound of chocolate (I used half semi-sweet Bernard Callebaut nibs, half chopped Schraffen Berger, because the kind of chocolate you use makes all the difference – don’t bother trying to melt down old chocolate bunnies you aquired on sale after Easter weekend) with butter, separate 5 eggs, whip the whites, stir the yolks into the melted chocolate-butter, then fold in the whites and bake. (You can imagine how hard it was not to dunk my face directly into the pot and roll around in it like the happiest pig in mud ever.) The interesting part was after baking – you pop a meat thermometer into the middle and it should read 140 degrees F. To my utter surprise, it did exactly that after 25 minutes in the oven, in an 8 1/2″ springform pan. It will look like goo in the middle, but will set up perfectly.
Chocolate Valentino
adapted from Chef Wan
1 lb. (454 g) good-quality semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup plus 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter (salted works just fine too)
5 large eggs, separated
Preheat your oven to 375F. In a small pot over low heat, melt the chocolate with the butter (you could do this in the microwave too, or in a double boiler), stirring often until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.
Butter or spray an 8″ – 9″ springform pan, line the bottom with parchment or waxed paper, and butter that too.
Separate your eggs, and beat the whites in a clean glass or stainless steel bowl with an electric mixer until stiff but not dry. In another bowl, stir together the cooled chocolate mixture (it can still be warm, just not hot enough to cook the yolks) and the egg yolks. Fold about a third of the egg whites into the chocolate, and then the remaining whites, being careful not to deflate them. Leaving a few streaks of white through the batter is just fine.
Pour into your pan and bake for 25 minutes, until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C. (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.) Cool slightly before removing the sides of the pan.
Dharm’s Classic Vanilla Ice Cream
from The Ice Cream Book by Joanna Farrow and Sara Lewis
1 vanilla bean
1 ¼ cups 2% or whole (homo) milk
4 large egg yolks
6 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. cornstarch
1 ¼ cups heavy cream
Using a small knife slit the vanilla pod length wise. Pour the milk into a heavy saucepan, add the vanilla pod and bring to the boil. Remove from heat and leave for 15 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse.
Lift the vanilla pod up. Holding it over the pan, scrape the black seeds out of the pod with a small knife so that they fall back into the milk. Set the vanilla pod aside and bring the milk back to the boil.
Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and cornstarch in a bowl until the mixture is thick and foamy. Gradually pour in the hot milk, whisking constantly. Return the mixture to the pan and cook over a gentle heat, stirring all the time. When the custard thickens and is smooth, pour it back into the bowl. Cool it, then chill.
Whip the cream until it has thickened but still falls from a spoon. Stir the cream into the custard and churn the mixture until thick, following instructions on your ice cream maker.
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February 28 2009 | leftovers | 23 Comments »
I have decided that on top of my no-shop agenda I need to start posting more regularly again, lest I slip into the comfortable routine of just letting another night pass. After all, it’s those nights when I was too tired/didn’t eat anything interesting that I should be forcing myself to write, dontcha think?
Sadly, this week hasn’t been much less busy than the last few – I’m up at 4:30 every morning to do traffic on the Eyeopener, have three major deadlines that I’m trying to finish in the afternoons and events every evening except Friday. So yesterday morning I pulled a yogurt container full of chili out of the freezer to thaw. W will not eat chili, so at the last minute I spread some on a whole wheat pita (the second half of a too-large bag that is now too dried-out to do much with but toast as pita chips or use as base for a pizza), mashing the kidney beans a bit as I went, sprinkled it with some grated mozza and popped it in the toaster oven. I ate his remnants on my way out the door (I moderated a cafe scientifique event tonight – a discussion on food security) and they were bloody fantastic. I think I just may make chili pizza intentionally next time – it reminded me of sloppy Joes, but topped with cheese.
And oh: I’m upping my no-shop window to 2 weeks. One week seems far too easy, especially considering it’s already Wednesday, I’m attending a farm dinner at Forage tonight (their first) and teaching a cooking class tomorrow night. 2 weeks might be more of a challenge.
I do need to make the exception of (besides the aforementioned milk) bananas, apples and pears for W – I was going to add greens to the list, but I still have half a bag in the fridge, two bags of spinach in the freezer and a sack of peas the size of a polar bear’s pilllow. (You know you’re getting old when you start using phrases such as those. Also, I took a fall today on the ice and hurt my hip. Seriously.)
February 25 2009 | leftovers | 23 Comments »
We wrapped our final day of shooting yesterday – on location at Bernard Callebaut of all places – it was no accident that I took several takes – dozens, even – to get it right. I haven’t eaten so much chocolate since Christmas, and certainly not so much of the best stuff (in my humble opinion) on earth at one time. They were good enough to donate it all to my cause – standing amid all that chocolate, at the nexus of the chocolate universe, chomping on a giant dark chocolate “J”, it occurred to me that I must have saved a basket of drowning puppies or something in a previous life.
Because I saw on our shooting schedule that we’d be finishing up with chocolate, I planned of course to celebrate proper. (And yes, I do celebrate with food. Not exclusively, but I don’t believe in segregating food from emotions, sticking them in opposite corners of your brain lest they get together and gang up on you. Food is emotional; we eat to celebrate, to socialize, to calm and comfort ourselves and each other. If food wasn’t more than just a substance used to keep us alive, there would be no restaurants, no Food Network, no Gourmet magazine, no food blogs! Have I said this before? Anyway, it makes sense to enjoy your “sometimes food” at times such as the night after spending 18 days in front of a TV camera.)
Knowing I’d likely be downing plenty of the stuff straight up while I was there, I planned to take home a jar of BC chocolate hazelnut spread to eat with a spoon whilst lying down on the couch. Oh yes. Their chocolate-dipped pretzels didn’t even make it all the way home in my car.
Nutella lovers, take note: Nutella is not the wholesome blend of hazelnuts and skim milk it purports to be – the first two ingredients are sugar and modified palm oil. So really it would be more accurate to call it a not-so-wholesome blend of sugar and modified palm oil, with hazelnuts and powdered milk. Bernard sells a chocolate hazelnut spread made with chunky toasted hazelnuts and Bernard Callebaut chocolate. Pure heaven in a jar.
So dinner last night was mostly chocolate. I got home at dinnertime, fed M & W the last of the I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby pie, and we all ate a big bowl of salad. (With the exception of W, who screams and runs from fresh greens.) Shockingly, I hopped on the scale this morning and found I had finally crept past the 200 mark (in the right direction this time), marking 20 pounds lost! A little surprising considering the sheer quantity of chocolate I consumed yesterday, but proof positive that a day of eating chocolate and pastries will not undo the good you’ve done. (I can only conclude from this experiment that Bernard Callebaut chocolate is an effective weight loss aid – I prescribe as much as possible to combat the effects of too-tight pants. Worth a try.)
Tonight, dinner will be skipped (for me, anyway) due to a late lunch (I got to play mom today – made cupcakes with W and then went to gymnastics, and had the gang back for lunch afterwards) and the fact that I’m judging the Lawson Lundell Celebrity Hors d’Oeuvres Competition tonight. That means tasting everything – generally 40 or so hors d’ouevres, served up by the best restaurants in town – starting at 8:30. I think I may have written about it last year. Yes it’s a good gig, but a little eclectic, especially after 30 or so entries… I’m full just thinking about it.
By the way, have you seen the new Subaru ad with the sexy car wash Sumo wrestlers? I so downloaded that song onto my gym playlist. My only worry is that I may start grooving on the elliptical trainer. I do feel mighty svelte thinking about all those Sumo wrestlers. (If you’re looking for it, it’s called Danger! High Voltage by Electric Six. Wow, that almost makes me sound young and hip.)
Welcome back FREE STUFF FRIDAYS!
I think some B. Callebaut chocolate is in order here (sorry, you can’t have my BC hazelnut spread – not that you’d want half a jar anyway), and I thought I’d go ahead and get a waffle iron to put up, since so many of you don’t appear to have one, and it’s not exactly the sort of thing you tend to go out and buy yourself. I don’t have it yet, so don’t have a photo, but I’ll make sure it’s a nice one. Thanks so much for sticking around while I was MIA.
Question: What’s your favourite breakfast, when you have time? (Those who answer “waffles” will not be given preferential treatment…)
February 20 2009 | leftovers | 119 Comments »
And for dessert: Baby Screaming It’s Head Off In The Middle Of The Night And Ruining My Life Pie (New York style cheesecake, brandy brushed, topped with pecans and nutmeg) which sounded far more appetizing than Pregnant Miserable Self Pitying Loser Pie (lumpy oatmeal with fruitcake mashed in. Flambé of course…)
In case you haven’t picked up this particular factoid about me yet – I love pie. I love making it, I love crimping the edges of it, I love eating it, I love the idea of it. And when I rented Waitress (2007, starring Keri Russell as a pregnant waitress stuck in a bad marriage who bakes pies in a diner and names them after circumstances in her life) it fed every pie-loving bit of me. Yesterday I wanted to lie on the couch and watch something fluffy, and this fit the bill without leaving me feeling like I just lost a dozen IQ points and garborated 2 hours of my life.
It also (not surprisingly) left me wanting to get into the kitchen and bake a pie. (Preferably in a cute yellow ’50s diner outfit hugging my 29-inch waist with adorable baby in matching outfit propped comfortably on my hip.) And then go and open up a pie shop. Which I kind of wanted to do anyway. (It’s on a list of about a hundred or so things I won’t likely get around to in my lifetime, but that I will berate myself over each time I watch someone else do and become wildly successful and/or make a kajillion dollars at. “Open trendy/retro cupcake shop” was on the list too.)
So – I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie is actually a quiche, made with Brie (which I actually had a leftover chunk of, but which was supplemented with bits of Manchego and Parmesan) and ham, into which I also ditched a few shriveled mushrooms and the last of a bag of asparagus. All the pies are from the movie – and the recipes sent out on cards used as promotional materials when the movie came out. Although I loved the description of I Can’t Have No Affair Because It’s Wrong and I Don’t Want Earl to Kill Me Pie (vanilla custard with banana – hold the banana…) and would love to see it on a menu, when it came down to it the thought of plain old vanilla pudding pie didn’t seem worth the effort (or calories).
By the way, I didn’t use a full cup of brie, or Parmesan, or heavy cream; half & half seemed heavy enough. And I didn’t saute the green onions. It did need an extra 15 minutes or so of oven time.
I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie
from the Waitress promo recipe cards
1 pie crust
4 Tbs. butter
3 slices ham
8 green onions
1 C. brie cheese
1 C. parmesan cheese, grated
4 eggs
2 C. heavy cream
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cover pie crust with foil and bake for 10 minutes. Remove foil and bake 5 minutes more. Remove crust and reduce heat to 325 degrees.
2. Julienne ham. Chop green onions.
3. In skillet, saute ham until brown. Remove and set aside.
4. Saute onion until tender. Remove with slotted spoon and combine with ham.
5. Spread on bottom of pie crust. Spread brie over ham mixture and sprinkle with parmesan. Combine eggs, cream and nutmeg; pour over cheese. Bake 30 minutes or until set. Cool slightly, cut into wedges and serve.
Serves 8.
And when I went to make the aforementioned Screaming Baby pie (actually cheesecake), I balked at the cup of butter beaten into the 4 packages of cream cheese, and retreated to my go-to cheesecake recipe instead. (I did top it with pecans and a grating of nutmeg, in keeping with the theme.) If you want the original, all of the Waitress pie recipes can be found here.
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February 17 2009 | eggs | 31 Comments »
I wanted to offer up something sweet for Valentine’s Day. Although I realize as I type this it’s technically too late to get any actual V-Day use out of this idea; no matter. Any day can be made better by anything served up in a chocolate bowl.
Chocolate bowls are dead easy to make. (And if you want to make a bunch of little girls ecstatically happy at a birthday party, let them all make their own, and then use them as vehicles for ice cream sundaes.) All you do is this: melt chocolate. Preferably dark or semi-sweet, which isn’t as soft as some milk and all white chocolates; chocolate chips work just fine. Do this gently; in a double boiler or bit by bit in the microwave.
Let it cool ever so slightly; you want it to be melty but not so hot that it will melt the rubber. Blow up as many balloons as you want bowls. Don’t blow them up huge, or you will have salad-bowl-sized chocolate bowls (unless this is what you’re going for). Also, barely blown-up balloons are thicker than those blown to capacity.
Dip them into the chocolate, then set on a piece of waxed paper or foil (they will stand perfectly upright, creating a nice flat base all by themselves) and leave them be until the chocolate cools and sets. That’s it. If you want to be fancy about it, swirl some white chocolate (not a lot) into the dark before dipping, or if you rock the balloon back and forth in multiple directions (it’s hard to describe this; you’ll know what I mean when you do it) you end up with a chocolate tulip that you might pay big bucks for in a pastry shop.
I have, I warn you, had one explode – KABLAM! – as I proudly held it up to a cooking class of about 25, leaving a Julie-shaped chocolate outline on the back wall behind me. I then received a long and hilarious email from an attendee of said class, who had the same experience at home (after watching me do it – go figure) that resulted in her having to REPAINT HER CEILING.
(Insert disclaimer here.)
So – proceed at your own risk. Although admittedly I haven’t had one explode before or since. We’ll see if one explodes on camera tomorrow. (Hopefully not – I don’t think fifty thousand dollar TV cameras like that much.)
February 14 2009 | leftovers | 25 Comments »
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