tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19525256056162478522024-02-20T17:17:47.852-08:00Tiger ChowJessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-83827013991453197722009-03-17T22:33:00.000-07:002009-03-18T00:12:21.537-07:00Pie of the Tiger<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3359626089/" title="Andes Mint Brownies with Irish Cream Icing by the other tiger, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3252/3359626089_0554222f0b.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Andes Mint Brownies with Irish Cream Icing" /></a></center><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Tiger Chow has moved to <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</A>!</span><br /><br />Please update your bookmarks and <a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/PieOfTheTiger">feed subscriptions</a> accordingly.<br /><br />Check out the list of our latest posts above!Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-71849312324034530222009-03-12T15:11:00.000-07:002009-03-12T15:28:29.837-07:00Pie of the Tiger<center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3347948640/" title="Steel-Cut Oatmeal with Mango, Toasted Coconut Flakes and Cardamom Yogurt by the other tiger, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3564/3347948640_a08dd788bb.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Steel-Cut Oatmeal with Mango, Toasted Coconut Flakes and Cardamom Yogurt" /></a></center><br /><br />It's been over a month since I've posted here. My absence has been mostly due to two things: one sad (my husband and I have each had a grandparent pass away in the past month) and one happy. The happy one has taken up a lot of potential food blogging time trying to get it just right (Wordpress took me a few weeks to figure out), but now I get to share with you. You see, I figured if I was going to do this whole food blogging thing, I ought to do it right. And if I was going to move to my own domain name, switching sooner would be a lot easier than later.<br /><br />Today I'm launching <b><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a></b>, my new website, and I've written about my very favorite recipe I've ever created to celebrate (the photo above is a hint!). I hope you'll join us over there because we have a lot of cooking and baking to do, and it's so much more fun to share it with friends.Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-19200182278097365732009-02-17T23:42:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:41:18.905-07:00Irish Soda Bread<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/02/irish-soda-bread/">Irish Soda Bread</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/02/irish-soda-bread/');</script></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SZu9csNtXDI/AAAAAAAAAj8/Dx4zbn5RBSI/s1600-h/brownbread.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SZu9csNtXDI/AAAAAAAAAj8/Dx4zbn5RBSI/s320/brownbread.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5304041286761536562" border="0" /></a>A couple of weeks ago, I discovered a package of <a href="http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/detail.jsp?id=3455">King Arthur Irish Style Wholemeal Flour</a> that had found its way to the back of one of our baking cupboards. It was a little past its expiration date, but I hate to throw stuff out that is still mostly usable, so I decided to follow the Irish Brown Bread recipe on the bag (since I had originally purchased it to bake and share with an <a href="http://toastycooks.blogspot.com/">Irish friend of mine</a>, who baked and ate his half of the flour order long before that expiration date).<br /><br />Needless to say, the bread came out wonderfully. It was almost like a scone (once I slathered it with a generous helping of Irish butter), with a wonderful nutty flavor. It was certainly one of the better 100% whole wheat breads I've eaten in awhile, and I expect to be acquiring more of this great flour soon so I can make more.<br /><br />Note to King Arthur Flour (since I know at least someone from your company reads this blog): The instructions said to "cut a deep cross in the top of the loaf" (before baking). To me, that meant that I made a nice round ball and cut a cross about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through it, expecting that it would expand and close up like a yeasted loaf might. However, the end result was a loaf with four separate pyramid-like peaks. Granted, I think that it looked really cool, but it made for poorly shaped slices.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15698869431146126323noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-58541221925747190372009-01-30T08:58:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:34:59.054-07:00Herbivoracious Dinner #2<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/herbivoracious-dinner-2/">Herbivoracious Dinner #2</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/herbivoracious-dinner-2/');</script></div><br /><br /><div style='text-align:center;margin:0px auto 10px;'><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-OpYjOoTlt2eBhs1nrOGAdhkeeFKjCf8YUeCqNlvH0rZyAMlHbJGsU7-lf2M92JZBOF1S_xhS-bALtvLN2lFC4nGM8fzmayq5UOg8uyezHh-e-FqxFe3CuIwPwP-qzi0l9w_cDiDNu0DV/s912/IMG_7252.JPG'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-OpYjOoTlt2eBhs1nrOGAdhkeeFKjCf8YUeCqNlvH0rZyAMlHbJGsU7-lf2M92JZBOF1S_xhS-bALtvLN2lFC4nGM8fzmayq5UOg8uyezHh-e-FqxFe3CuIwPwP-qzi0l9w_cDiDNu0DV/s912/IMG_7252.JPG' width='500' border='0' alt='' /></a> </div><br /><br />Michael at <a href="http://www.herbivoracious.com/">Herbivoracious</A> posted a write up of the <a href="http://www.herbivoracious.com/2009/01/herbivoracious-dinner-2.html">dinner</A> he put on at Cafe Flora this past Tuesday evening, which Baker Bee and I were lucky enough to attend.<br /><br />The menu was based on Spanish flavors with a modern twist, and included things like <a href="http://herbivoracious.com/2009/01/savory-churros-and-morel-chocolate-recipe.html">savory churros with morel "hot chocolate"</A> (pictured below, as well as my purse-sized digital camera could do) and <a href="http://herbivoracious.com/2009/01/applecelery-sorbet-a-refreshing-recipe-with-many-coauthors.html">apple-celery sorbet</A>, both of which were unlike anything I've ever had and incredibly good. I was excited to hear that the baby turnip in the <a href="http://herbivoracious.com/2008/12/ilans-top-chef-fideos-vegetarian-style-with-a-review-of-the-top-chef-cookbook.html">fideos</A> (pictured above) came from the <a href="http://www.whistlingtrainfarm.com/">Whistling Train Farm</A>, from whom we used to get a CSA share until we moved too far out of their delivery range.<br /><br /><div style='text-align:center;margin:0px auto 10px;'><a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicnTaAEVbyEXQedDSM0lxTWA6i2OJJ4AG06DexGJJBTcdZD_JVsgtTmYi4y0aojjeEkOpv4AF9yxEEJn0XO3tflRGVPxJ8g6ogmT0A2LvejEHDKEotDXBtcJ5D46eouoTun9eBJ7HkTzHy/s640/IMG_7251.JPG'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicnTaAEVbyEXQedDSM0lxTWA6i2OJJ4AG06DexGJJBTcdZD_JVsgtTmYi4y0aojjeEkOpv4AF9yxEEJn0XO3tflRGVPxJ8g6ogmT0A2LvejEHDKEotDXBtcJ5D46eouoTun9eBJ7HkTzHy/s640/IMG_7251.JPG' height="320" border='0' alt='' /></a> </div><br /><br />He has a great run down of the inspiration behind each dish and links to recipes, so I urge you to check it out and be inspired yourself. I know that I'm going to try making the <a href="http://www.herbivoracious.com/2009/01/boyikos-aka-boyos-de-queso-sephardic-style-cheese-biscuits-the-greatest-snack-with-a-martini-ever-re.html?commentlista">boyikos</A> in the very near future (hopefully Sunday, to share with <a href="http://toastycooks.blogspot.com/">The Toasty Chef</A> and Mr. T).<br /><br />Not only was the food delicious, but the company was just as enjoyable, and we had fun meeting and talking to Michael and his wife, Dawn and Eric from <a href="http://wrightangle.com/">The Wright Angle</A> (don't miss their resturant reviews, travel stories and beautiful photography--they've actually <a href="http://www.wrightangle.com/photos/2005-09-11-30-spain-france/day02.html"><i>been</I> to El Bulli</a>), and everyone else at our end of the table. It was a real leap for me to invite myself along to a dinner where I didn't know anyone, but I'm very, very glad I did.Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-53934928431068761462009-01-28T18:32:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:37:15.302-07:00Miracle Fruit 101<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/miracle-fruit-101/">Miracle Fruit 101</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/miracle-fruit-101/');</script></div><br /><br /><div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheGIKVnA0ZltHTXdMNwFeZzi9WZWPik4wYS0DTUKEHAcHuJbhWP3lDG-bWe3i1CwoPL-U-r1R9DlRztNrO9jdoPD-I2HRqIKgVcZV0nP_1qKla8_WPbVBqvMfe4yVjgkskBzrUD6IJ32xW/s1600-h/IMG_8921.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheGIKVnA0ZltHTXdMNwFeZzi9WZWPik4wYS0DTUKEHAcHuJbhWP3lDG-bWe3i1CwoPL-U-r1R9DlRztNrO9jdoPD-I2HRqIKgVcZV0nP_1qKla8_WPbVBqvMfe4yVjgkskBzrUD6IJ32xW/s400/IMG_8921.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> </div><br /><br />A week and a half ago, Baker Bee and I threw our first flavor tripping party. It wasn't our first experience with miracle fruit, but most of our guests were flavor tripping virgins. This was awesome, because in this case your first time is probably going to be the best, and if there's anything more fun than flavor tripping yourself, it's watching someone else's eyes go big as they bite into a lemon wedge...and then seeing them immediately reach for another.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_fruit">Miracle fruit</A> is a little red berry from Africa, originally eaten by the local populace to make their food taste better, but now also a staple in the diets of urban foodies and inquisitive geeks elsewhere in the world. The berry itself doesn't taste like much--or so I've heard, as I've never had a fresh one--but the results are, well, miraculous, thanks to a chemical in the berry called--get this--"miraculin". When scientists start calling things miracles, you know you're dealing with something truly special.<br /><br />What the miraculin does is bind with your taste buds in such a way that <b>sour foods taste sweet</b>. Oh, they still taste sour, too, and you'll feel your mouth ache from the acid after about a half hour of dashing back and forth to the fridge and pantry to find everything sour you own. But the sourer the food or drink is, the sweeter it becomes. Not only that, but the sweetness lets other flavors speak up that you've never noticed in the foods before. It's pretty amazing, trippy, even--hence the they popularity of the term "flavor trip" for a miracle fruit tasting.<br /><br />Sooner or later, you are going to try this. At least, you <I>should</I>. Not because all the other foodies are doing it, but because it's one of those food experiences that will stick with you for the rest of your life. My memories of my first time are bright, vivid with color as well as taste. It's like turning into a child again for a half hour or so...a child presented with a table full of unfamiliar foods that all turn out to taste like candy. You will be shocked. You will be surprised. Even knowing that it's going to be an amazing experience, you'll still be blown away by the first bite.<br /><br />It's best, though, to be prepared for your first flavor trip, so I'll offer some advice and relate some of our findings so you can make the most of it.<br /><br /><B>Flavor Tripping 101</b><br /><br /><B>1. Acquire Your Miracle Fruit</b><br />The berries themselves are extremely perishable. You can find them for sale online sometimes, but they're expensive and have to be used immediately. Luckily, miracle fruit also comes in a handy tablet form. The ones we get come ten to a blister pack, and unopened they have a shelf life of about a few months.<br /><br />Be warned that at around a dollar a pop, even the tablets may seem a little expensive. But when you consider the price difference between Two Buck Chuck and a fine ice wine (we'll come to this soon) or the price of admission to a movie these days, you get a lot of fun and flavor for that dollar. You can find some recommended suppliers <a href="http://myflavortrip.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Suppliers">here</A> at My Flavor Trip.<br /><br /><b>2. Acquire Your Test Subjects</b><br />Never trip alone is a piece of advice that works here, too. What's the fun of flipping out over the taste of a lime if you don't have anyone to share it with? A party like the one we held last week is fun, but the first time we tried miracle fruit it was with two close friends who we share a lot of culinary adventures with, and I think a group of four to six people has its own advantages. With fewer people, you're able to hear what everyone thinks of everything. With a large group you get a party atmosphere, hearing impressions here and there and getting lots of opinions on a few of the items.<br /><br />Either way you decide to go, once you have your miracle fruit in hand, pick a time and place and invite your guests. If you're having a lot of people over, you might want to ask people to kick in a dollar or two for the tablets and so on, or you can do what we did and ask everyone to bring something to try. You can even provide a list of suggested foods and drinks and have people pick from that.<br /><br />Which brings us to...<br /><br /><b>3. Acquire Sourness in Many Forms</b><br /><br />If all you have is a lemon and a bottle of vinegar, don't put the tablet in your mouth just yet. After your first taste, you're going to want to try as many things as possible, and if you aren't well supplied you'll end up trying some very strange things. So here is a list of things we've tried, with the caveat that everyone's taste buds are different, and you might love something we didn't care for or hate something we liked. There are a number of lists already on the internet of things to try with brief descriptions of what they might taste like, but in the interest of not being redundant I'm going to provide as much info as I can, including suggestions on how much to buy and how to serve it. Remember, some things you might not think of as sour actually have acid in them, which is all the miracle fruit needs to do its thing.<br /><br /><b>Fruit</b><br /><br /><b>Bananas:</b> These were surprisingly good. The miracle fruit definitely brings out their sweet, creamy nature. I thought they tasted like banana Runts, and I wasn't the only one to say that. You'll only need one, unless you're having a <I>lot</I> of people over. Slice it up and put it near the toothpicks.<br /><br /><b>Granny Smith Apples:</b> Definitely sweeter, pleasantly (but not miraculously) so. One apple should be enough for everyone to try, even at a large party. Slice into small wedges just before you get started, or prevent it from browning with lemon juice or citric acid, which probably would amp up the sweetness here.<br /><br /><B>Kiwi:</b> This turned too sweet for us. We've heard the same thing about pineapple.<br /><br /><b>Starfruit:</b> I've never understood the point of starfruit, other than its striking look, because every one I've ever had has been extraordinarily bland. So I got one to see if miracle fruit made it taste edible to me. It did taste much better...but I can't say I necessarily <I>liked</I> the flavor that was brought out. Still, they had a noticeable transformation and looked pretty in slices on the platter, so you might want to get one. I seem to remember all of it getting eaten.<br /><br /><b>Strawberries:</b> Along with lemons and limes, these are a must-have in my opinion. Find the least ripe berries you can--look for white around the hulls--and they'll taste like they were baked to the point of over-ripeness in the summer sun. Get at least two strawberries per person.<br /><br /><b>Watermelon:</b> The miracle fruit improved the flavor, but not dramatically. Our watermelon was out of season to begin with and still tasted out of season with the miracle fruit. We had a tiny watermelon, and it was twice as much as we needed for our big group.<br /><br /><b>Citrus</b><br /><br />These are the reliable stars of any flavor trip. In general, the best way to serve them is in wedges. When we first thought about having the party, I envisioned serving them as supremes or even sliced into cubes, but I realized that the surprise factor of the flavor would be directing in proportion to how visually apparent it was that a lemon was a lemon. The peel on the wedges also acts as an easy thing for people to pick the fruit up by, making them finger-food friendly.<br /><br />Plan to slice each fruit into 12 to 16 wedges or so, depending on the size, and allot one and a half to two wedges per a guest if you're serving a large variety of different foods, or two to three or more if you have a shorter list. You will at least want a lemon and lime, if nothing else.<br /><br /><b>Blood Oranges:</b> These were the big hit at our party. The extra jolt of sweetness balances out the slightly more bitter and sour flavor these beauties usually have in comparison to regular oranges, and that extra sourness and bitterness also gives them a lot of flavor once the sweetness is added.<br /><br /><b>Grapefruit:</b> Yummy, yummy candy. You can still taste the grapefruit, but most people who hate grapefruit will suddenly love it.<br /><br /><b>Lemons:</b> These get very, very sweet and you'll want to eat more than one, most likely. Think lemon drops! In fact, I did think Lemon Drop one night and mixed lemon juice and vodka together, and it was delicious but <I>too sweet</I>. I think either more vodka (careful there) or some club soda would dilute it nicely next time.<br /><br /><b>Limes:</b> Just like lemons, only better. Okay, okay, that's just a personal preference for lime flavor, but really they're just as good.<br /><br /><b>Oranges:</b> Candy. Not a necessary thing to have, as some oranges can be awfully sweet to begin with, but they might be good as a benchmark food.<br /><br /><b>Seville Oranges:</b> Sweet...but wow, still bitter and sour! Worth trying if you can pick one up. These are the oranges that marmalade is made from.<br /><br /><b>Dairy</b><br /><br />I didn't see anything about this on the internet when we were searching for info a few months ago, so I consider this a prime piece of advice: <b>wait to try dairy (or anything with fat in it) until you've tried everything else</b>. Our theory is that the fat kills the trip by coating your taste buds in fat. On the bright side, if for some reason one of your guests really doesn't like the miracle fruit and wants it to stop <I>now</I> (why this would be, I don't know...everyone loves it in my experience), you can hand them a tub of sour cream.<br /><br />Because of this fact, and the fact that we weren't impressed with most of the dairy we tried, we haven't really experimented much in this area with the miracle fruit, but I can tell you about the things we have tried.<br /><br /><B>Chevre or Cream Cheese:</b> Both of these are touted on some lists to taste like cheesecake. To us, they didn't. I don't remember if I tasted the chevre myself, but the cream cheese just tasted like cream cheese without the tang, i.e. bland and not very good at all.<br /><br /><b>Sour Cream:</b> This, however, <I>does</I> taste like cheesecake. Try dipping an under-ripe strawberry in it! You can cut down on the dairy effect by using lowfat sour cream. I recommend not doing what we obviously did from the picture at the head of this post and take the time to put the sour cream out of the tub and into a bowl if a lot of people are going to be breathing on it. (Fortunately, we were near the end of that tub anyway.)<br /><br /><B>Other Cheeses:</B> I vaguely recall trying the blue cheese we had out at the party, and I think it tasted pretty good. But I can't quite remember.<br /><br /><b>Beverages:</b><br /><br />You don't need to plan on a full bottle of each beer or whatever for each person. Just get one or two bottles of each thing you want to try and provide small glasses for people to sample them in. Those glasses will be handy when people start raiding your cupboard for vinegar.<br /><br /><B>Beer:</b> Baker Bee says that the IPA he tried tasted like caramel soda...well, <I>bitter</I> caramel soda.<br /><br /><b>Two Buck Chuck (Charles Shaw Chardonnay):</b> The miracle fruit makes this cheaper than cheap bottle from Trader Joe's taste like a $40 ice wine. No joke.<br /><br /><B>Young's Double Chocolate Stout:</b> This was one of the very first things I tried with miracle fruit, and I still get excited about it: it tastes like a chocolate milk-flavored soda. You can often find it at Trader Joe's. Make sure to get the carbonated bottled version, not the canned nitro one, because the carbonic acid adds more sour for the miracle fruit to convert to sweet.<br /><br />And don't forget mixed drinks, like the Lemon Drop I talked about above made with just lemon juice and vodka!<br /><br /><B>Other</b><br /><br /><b>Chocolate:</b> This didn't work for us. We tried unsweetened chocolate, but there wasn't enough acid for it to do anything. Also, the fat content had the same dulling effect I warned about with dairy above, and probably was responsible for ending our first flavor trip.<br /><br /><B>Dill Pickles:</b> They tasted like sweet pickles, which would be good if you like sweet pickles. Not so much if you don't.<br /><br /><B>Hot Sauce:</b> I've read online that Tabasco sauce tastes like hot doughnut glaze. I would really like to be able to confirm this because how cool would that be, but we keep forgetting to try it! However, we have tried some other hot sauces, and they definitely get sweet.<br /><br /><B>Vinegar:</b> You should try this...once. And possibly not swallow. It tastes sweet in your mouth, but your throat knows it's <I>vinegar</I> when it goes down. Just get a few bottles out from the start because invariably someone (most likely male) will have to try it.<br /><br /><B>Salsa:</b> I tried the pico de gallo we had out with the non-miracle fruit food, and the miracle fruit made it taste like a mango salsa without the mango flavor. It was pretty good, but I suspect the chip I ate it on may have started the downward curve of the miracle fruit's effects, like I described with dairy.<br /><br /><b>Sushi:</b> I haven't tried this myself, but there was sushi at the party because one of our friends had read online that the miracle fruit brings out the natural sweetness of the fish. Baker Bee, who tried both tuna and salmon, says that it tasted like sweet sushi, and that it didn't taste bad, but sushi is better savory. The fish itself tasted better, but the rest of the sushi didn't.<br /><br /><B>4. How to Do the Actual Tasting</b><br /><br />Give everyone a tablet, and instruct them to swirl it around in their mouth for at least a minute before swallowing. It has a sweet, candy-like flavor, so don't worry about it tasting bad. Baker Bee likes to chew his up and then swish it around his mouth, while I tend to think that moving the whole tablet around on my tongue does a better job of coating my tastebuds. Both ways seem to work equally well, but that doesn't mean I can't be stubborn about sticking to mine.<br /><br />Once the minute has past...dig in! It usually lasts about 30 minutes for us, depending on what we eat when, so the clock is ticking.<br /><br /><B>5. Record Your Observations at <a href="http://www.myflavortrip.com/">My Flavor Trip</a></b><br /><br />We enjoyed our first miracle fruit tasting so much that Baker Bee decided to set up this site for people to share their experiences and exchange information about what different foods taste like. It doesn't look like much yet, but it has both a wiki and a forum, and we'd really like to see it take off. So if you do have a miracle fruit tasting, please come back and go post on the site.Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-4446103113486382112009-01-26T19:50:00.001-08:002009-03-12T19:38:42.042-07:00Don't Cry Over Fallen Cupcakes<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/dont-cry-over-fallen-cupcakes/">Don't Cry Over Fallen Cupcakes</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/dont-cry-over-fallen-cupcakes/');</script></div><br /><br />Have you ever had a bad baking day? If you have, you'll know that they can be as devastating as a bad hair day from hell. Most people don't bake only for themselves. At least, I don't. I've always been very aware of the people I bake for, and I firmly believe that the touchy-feely idea that people can taste the emotions you had while making the food is true. So when I have a bad baking day, it's almost always when the product is going to someone--or many someones--I care about. On top of that, these people usually know I went to pastry school and was a pastry cook, and so should be capable of making a decent cake. All in all, bad baking days are a dogeared and food-splattered recipe for extreme embarrassment in the cookbook of my life.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3229628255/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3453/3229628255_5382a0ff5d.jpg?v=0"></a></center><br /><br />This past Saturday, I was making the birthday cake for a very dear friend of mine's birthday party. I wanted it to be spectacular, because the birthday girl is pretty darn spectacular herself. I ended up deciding to do cupcakes, and I set out to do two different flavors as soon as I woke up Saturday morning, a chocolate cupcake recipe from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0756639719?ie=UTF8&tag=tigcho-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0756639719" rel="nofollow">The Modern Baker</a> by Nick Malgieri and a white chocolate cake recipe from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0767916581?ie=UTF8&tag=tigcho-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0767916581" rel="nofollow">Pure Chocolate</a> by Fran Bigelow of Fran's Chocolates. I'd had success with the devil's food cake recipe in Malgieri's book twice last fall, and one of my chefs at pastry school used to work for Fran Bigelow and helped with the production of the photos and drawings in the book (if I remember correctly, the hands in the drawings at the beginning of the book are hers), so I trusted both books to have good recipes.<br /><br />Now, as I said, I've had way too many bad baking days before, and I really wanted to get it right this time. Most of my misadventures in the kitchen have been centered around birthday cakes. I actually swore off making them for a long time, thinking that it was my old, malfunctioning oven's fault that the cakes never turned out right. Also, I knew that the other main cause for substandard baking is my tendency to cut corners and get lazy when I'm cooking in my own kitchen. This was never a problem in school or at the restaurant or the B&B, so now I make very sure now to do things deliberately and professionally when I bake.<br /><br />I was off to such a good start. Other than some worry over the way the batter for the chocolate cupcakes turned out, I felt very organized and in control of the situation. The white chocolate cake batter turned out to be gorgeous, this billowing silky mass that I'm guessing is what Cloud 9 must be made out of. But the dark chocolate cupcakes...well, I can't tell you for sure whose fault the disaster was on that one. Was it the recipe? Was it my paranoia of over baking them? Was it the unsweetened chocolate I used, that was maybe a little past its prime? Without making the recipe again, I can't say for sure.<br /><br />The batter was weird, very watery, but I assumed that was because the author's stated intent was to make very moist cupcakes (they were, indeed, very moist, almost fudgy, which I can't fault at all). It was very hard to get into the cupcake wrappers cleanly, even pouring it from a measuring cup with a pour spout, because it was so thin it just ran down the outside of the cup as soon as I tipped it downward. The chocolate also was an issue, as it didn't melt but stayed in little tiny flecks. I wanted to blame the recipe on that one, too, because he instructed to melt it by pouring boiling water over it (and thus, in my mind, creating an environment perfect for the chocolate to seize if it didn't emulsify right away), but then the same thing happened later with a different recipe and the same chocolate. I feel like I underbaked them, but they were in the oven for ten minutes longer than the recipe said, so...I'm still perplexed.<br /><br />They looked and smelled beautiful in the oven, but fell when they came out, quickly and drastically. I wish I had a picture of those chocolate sinkholes. I was disappointed, mostly in myself because I knew that's where the blame should probably land, given my past track record. But then the white chocolate cupcakes went in, and they looked and smelled so beautiful that I wasn't too worried. After all, cupcakes are easy to hide under mounds of frosting.<br /><br />Back to the white chocolate variety. I had high hopes these would outshine my failure with the dark chocolate ones. I knew that using a cake batter for cupcakes was risky, but I thought the problem would be overbaking them, not underbaking them. So, once again, I pulled them out way too soon. These, unlike the chocolate ones, ended up being beyond repair, because I waited too long to decide to put them back in the oven and never managed to get them to bake all the way through.<br /><br />Cue mental breakdown. Tears were shed. Oaths to never bake again were uttered. It wasn't pretty. Bad baking days never are.<br /><br />Fortunately, Baker Bee rode up on his white horse (i.e. rolled out of bed) brandishing a shiny whisk and saved me, despite my ranting and raving and general foul mood. While I took a soothing shower, he made another batch of cupcakes, this time using a recipe from our trusty copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743246268?ie=UTF8&tag=tigcho-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0743246268" rel="nofollow">Joy of Cooking</a>, which is where I should have gone for my cupcake recipe. Other than the chocolate not melting properly, his were <I>cupcakes</I>--high rising domes of very cake-ish cake.<br /><br />I was feeling a bit down in the dumps about my lousy cupcakes. The white chocolate ones, despite tasting fabulous, weren't something I could serve to anyone (except Baker Bee, who thinks they taste like the perfect pound cake of all things). My chocolate ones were visibly inferior to Mr. Bee's, which is fine in other areas of cooking but I like to think that I got some sort of useful skills out of pastry school that I can contribute to our kitchen.<br /><br />Time was running out. I turned to the quickest thing to frost them with that would look impressive: torched meringue. It just looks <I>cool</I>, and it's one of those things like ganache that really isn't hard to make at all, but if you don't know how to make it and brown it you wouldn't know where to start. We had meringue on my wedding cake and everyone loved it. So I started piping it on Baker Bee's cupcakes. I played around with it a bit, remembering the way that piping meringue on top of meringue produced an interesting visual contrast. It looked fun and festive, but what would I do to make the fallen cupcakes not look like ugly stepsisters beside them?<br /><br />Then it came to me. Earlier in the week, I'd had this strong urge to make Obama cupcakes--faux Hostess chocolate cupcakes, but with the white squiggle writing "Obama" in cursive. Not an original idea, but I really wanted to do it...and then didn't. But on Saturday I had 18 cupcakes with gaping holes staring up at me, and a Kitchen Aid bowl full of Swiss meringue, and...well, you do the math. The fun twist I came up with was to fill the hole with meringue <I>and</I> mound some on the top of the cupcake as well, then torch it before dipping the top in the ganache. That made the meringue a lot more stable, and possibly imparted a hint of toasted marshmallow to the flavor (more research is needed to confirm this). Plus, it made the cupcakes look like they had risen and stayed that way, which wasn't a bad thing at all.<br /><br />On some of them, I tried to pipe the white squiggle, but the meringue wasn't behaving properly when piped that thinly (hence the bad handwriting on the cupcakes...normally, I'm pretty good at that--oh boy, there goes the old ego again), so I just left a lot of them dressed in only their glossy ganache. Baker Bee thinks I should figure out how to make them fall again in the future so I could make filled cupcakes again, and although I pointed out that there are techniques for getting the filling inside the cupcake, I think it might not be a bad idea.<br /><br />At the party, I stacked them tiered-cake style with the help of a few cake stands. All together, they looked great. Not <I>perfect</I>, but that's coming from the mouth of a self-critical perfectionist. I was happy with them at the end, and they provided a great sugar high for the rousing round of Cranium and custom vampire-themed Mad Libs. (If you look closely, you'll see that one of the cupcakes was meant to be a vampire.)<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3230478758/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3083/3230478758_3d741c1c0f.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />The funny thing is that even though both batches were chocolate cupcakes, and I used the same meringue on both of them, with the only difference being the ganache, they were both very, very different cupcakes, both good in their own way. A lot of people seemed to think my fallen ones with the ganache were better, and they certainly were more intense on the chocolate, but the day after I went to have one bite of Baker Bee's cupcakes with a huge crown of spiky meringue on it and ended up eating the whole thing.<br /><br />Here's the Swiss meringue recipe I use out of my notes from pastry school, in case you're in need of a good one. The beauty of Swiss meringue as opposed to Italian and French is its stretch, gooey, marshmallowy consistency. Technically, Italian meringue is more stable, but Swiss meringue holds up very well on cakes in my experience, and I love the texture of it. The meringue on the gelato <I>coppetta</I> I wrote about in my last post was undoubtedly Swiss, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.<br /><br /><b>Swiss Meringue</b><br />(<a href="http://printable-tiger.blogspot.com/2009/01/swiss-meringue.html">printable version</A>)<br /> <br />Egg whites 8 oz (250 g)<br />Fine granulated sugar 1 lb (500 g)<br /><br /><B>Procedure</b><br /><br />Place the egg whites and sugar in a stainless steel bowl or in the top of a double boiler. Beat with a whisk (more near the end than at first) over hot water until the mixture is hot about 120°F.* Transfer to the bowl of a mixer and whip at high speed until stiff peaks form. Turn down speed to cool.<br /><br />* I learned to test the temperature this way from my chef at pastry school: dip your finger in, and if you have to pull your finger out immediately because your cuticles feel like they're on fire, it's ready. The warmer the egg and sugar mixture gets, the more stable the meringue will be.Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-63640742569839218422009-01-26T18:22:00.001-08:002009-03-12T19:39:39.183-07:00Vegas, Baby<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/vegas-baby/">Vegas, Baby</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/vegas-baby/');</script></div><br /><br />Wow. It's taken me two weeks to recover from Las Vegas and write about something here, especially Vegas itself. It was my first time there, though, so I suppose that explains the odd exhaustion. That and I'd intended to write a post about the food there and felt like I had come home with much less material for a post than I'd hoped for. When I agreed to accompany Baker Bee on the trip, I had grand plans of making the most of the time that he was off at the CES convention and visiting every pastry destination on the strip, sampling and photographing along the way. Once I was there, all I found myself doing during the day was walking, walking, walking, and with all the walking I never felt like indulging in a pastry when I found one.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3230916168/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3315/3230916168_0a7a9b2ee1.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />However, I will mention the two culinary highlights of the trip for me: the vegetarian crepe at Jean-Phillippe Patisserie inside the Bellagio and pretty much everything at Mario Batali's Enoteca San Marco in the Venetian.<br /><br />The crepe was not what I expected from the description, and I was slightly wary considering I hadn't had a crepe I liked in Europe last summer, not even in Paris (I'm way too picky about crepe texture, apparently), but this one was heaven: a beautifully cooked crepe, soft like I like them, enfolding a potent thick, tomatoey sauce in which small chunks of several different Mediterranean vegetables also proclaimed their presence. Beneath that was a bed of melted Swiss cheese, and a lightly-dressed salad of mixed greens and cherry tomatoes (if I'm not remembering something wrong) on the side. This was beautifully presented--even the disposable plate and utensils were pretty classy, looking like a square glass plate and actual shiny metal flatware, despite their plastic pedigree. I really wanted to go back there and try the pastries with Baker Bee along to help taste a few of them--theirs were by far the most elegant, interesting, and meticulous that I saw on the Strip--but it was not to be. Next time.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3230066039/in/photostream/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3111/3230066039_bc4263d03e.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />And how could I stop myself from visiting the world's largest chocolate fountain again? I have a lot of history with chocolate fountains--well, one particular chocolate fountain, but we had a lot of good times. But that's another story for another time. The scope of Jean-Phillippe's is truly Willy Wonkian.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3230915978/in/photostream/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3510/3230915978_08d34a29d1.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />The Enoteca came recommended to us by our friend Joe--yes, Joe of the <a href="http://tiger-chow.blogspot.com/2009/01/joes-chipotle-garlic-sauce.html">amazing garlic-chipotle</A> sauce Mr. Bee wrote about two posts ago, so it was no surprise that it was good. But it was a surprise that it was <I>good</I>, solidly good, the way that invigorates you from the inside out. Out of all the antipasti, the one we enjoyed the most was the <I>gnocco fritto</I>, or fried pizza dough. I thought this might be good but possibly bland, but no, no way, especially not with the grated cheese sprinkled on top of it and seasoning it. I had the Cavatappi, which the menu notes has a roasted cauliflower ragu, chili and rosemary. <I>So</I> good. The ragu was incredibly flavorful, hitting all the right notes. If I could have it every time I ate pasta, I think I could give up tomato-based pasta sauce for life. The crowning glory of the night, though, was my lemon meringue <I>coppetta</I>, with graham cracker gelato, lemon gelato, and a flourish of meringue on top. If it hadn't been for the other people there, I would have licked the martini glass it came in--twice. The only thing that didn't score highly with me there was the bread. I don't know if it was an off day for the baker, or if it's just the way they make it there, but it was too dark and burnt-tasting for me.<br /><br />One other food-related thought: I think there must be some sort of brainwashing radio signals or something in the M&Ms store, because ever since I went there I've really, really wanted some M&Ms, despite the artificial coloring and general mass-produced nature of them. Scratch that, it's more that M&Ms have <I>looked</I> extraordinarily appealing, especially when highlighted on top of baked goods. I remember wanting to buy merchandise in the store and then reminding myself that I don't have an M&M collection, or a particular connection to them in any way, shape or form. However, as impressed as I was with the Wall of Every M&M Color Imaginable, I managed to walk out of the store without tasting that rainbow.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3230916066/in/photostream/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3508/3230916066_42df30e261.jpg?v=0"></A></center>Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-45985368968380867942009-01-25T15:19:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:29:05.771-07:00Cuisinart Dough Blade<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/cuisinart-dough-blade/">Cuisinart Dough Blade</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/cuisinart-dough-blade/');</script></div><br />We've had a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004WKHT?ie=UTF8&tag=tigcho-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1580082688" rel="nofollow">Cuisinart food processor</a> for years, and I've been using the standard blade for making pie dough for quite awhile with fairly decent results (I usually make an all-butter, 50% whole wheat dough, so it just can't compete for texture with lard/shortening all-white-flour crusts). For some reason, we never really paid much attention to the "Dough" button on the device, and had all but forgotten about the dull "dough blade" that came with the food processor.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SXz3HQzr0GI/AAAAAAAAAjE/ImsG6ZIUjQI/s1600-h/dough.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 175px; font-size: 36px; line-height: 42.75px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SXz3HQzr0GI/AAAAAAAAAjE/ImsG6ZIUjQI/s320/dough.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5295378966023753826" height="262" width="480" border="0" /></a>I wanted to bake a couple of pies last week for a party, so I decided to give it a try. Never again. The dough didn't mix properly, and I ended up with large patches of too-moist mixed with large patches of completely dry dough. It was bad enough that I reverted to the standard blade for my second batch, despite some small hope that things might improve after setting up in the fridge for a few hours. As you can see from the bowl on the left in the photo, it didn't help -- the dough fell apart into too-wet and too-dry chunks as soon as I tried to break off a chunk to roll out. Because I needed both batches of dough for two covered pies, I ended up "rescuing" the bad batch by adding a little water and re-processing it in the food processor, mixing it into the good batch. Needless to say the additional processing resulted in crusts were not the best I've made (still pretty tasty, though), and I will be hiding the dough blade somewhere so I can't find it and make the same mistake again.<br /><br />For those who are interested in the recipe, it's a modification of a double-batch version of the basic pie crust recipe from Deborah Madison's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0767927478?ie=UTF8&tag=tigcho-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0767927478" rel="nofollow">Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone</a>:<br /><ul><li>1.5 cups whole wheat flour</li><li>1.5 cups all purpose flour</li><li>1 tsp salt</li><li>1/2 pound cold butter</li><li>1/3 to 2/3 cups ice water, as needed</li></ul>Add the flours and salt into the food processor, along with the butter, cut into rough chunks. Pulse until the butter is integrated (but not completely pulverized) and then slowly drizzle the ice water in through the top of the food processor as it is running. The dough should be fairly dry, but stick together if you try to shape it. Wrap it in plastic wrap and put it into the fridge for at least an hour to hydrate or it will crumble to pieces when you try to roll it out.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15698869431146126323noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-55038982958735872522009-01-24T01:45:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:29:59.423-07:00Joe's Chipotle-Garlic Sauce<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/joes-chipotle-garlic-sauce/">Joe's Chipotle-Garlic Sauce</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/joes-chipotle-garlic-sauce/');</script></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SXrj72tIYQI/AAAAAAAAAi8/1U3zWhM3Xg4/s1600-h/chipotle_sauce.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SXrj72tIYQI/AAAAAAAAAi8/1U3zWhM3Xg4/s320/chipotle_sauce.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294794929364033794" border="0" /></a>Though I love hot and spicy food, I was never much of a fan of chipotle peppers until I tasted this sauce that my friend Joe whipped up one evening while Tiger and I were over at his place for dinner. It's a gorgeous dark red sauce, and I don't think my photo does it justice (in either of its incarnations).<br /><br />Joe never actually uses a recipe when he makes this, so I took some time tonight to measure things out while I made my own version.<br /><br />4 oz garlic, minced (2-3 heads)<br />1/2 cup olive oil<br />one 7oz can chipotle peppers (usually packaged in in adobo sauce)<br />pinch of salt<br /><br />Mince the garlic and simmer it with the oil and a pinch of salt, stirring often, until the garlic starts to take on a golden hue (5-10 minutes). Roughly dice the chipotle peppers, and add them and their sauce into the garlic and oil mixture. Turn off the heat and blend until the sauce has a consistent texture and a nice deep red color. I usually use an immersion blender for this, but a standard blender or food processor would work just as well.<br /><br />Don't worry if the sauce separates a little, as it is easy to re-integrate by stirring.<br /><br />Serve as-is, or mix at least 1:1 with sour cream for a smooth and refreshing sauce that still has a lot of kick. We usually use this as topping for enchiladas or other Mexican food, but the version without sour cream also makes a really good addition as seasoning in soups and other sauces.Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15698869431146126323noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-48059239713296873202009-01-06T09:27:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:40:33.325-07:00Rainbow Cookies<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/rainbow-cookies/">Rainbow Cookies</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/rainbow-cookies/');</script></div><br /><br />To finish off writing about the Christmas treats I made, here's my last big project of the season (that I managed to get to: Rainbow Cookies from Sherry Yard's fantastic book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618138927?ie=UTF8&tag=tigcho-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0618138927">The Secrets of Baking</a>.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3145521649/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3255/3145521649_8779a8787c.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />These were hugely popular with everyone who received them. How could they not be, looking that adorably festive on a cookie tray? Everyone wanted to know what they were, and thanks to Yard's engaging storytelling in her second book, I had details to give them on their Italian origins.<br /><br />They're very pretty, of course, but they taste much more sophisticated than you might expect. It helped that I used a couple of aging bars of very dark <a href="http://www.chocolatmichelcluizel.com/HomePage.php/">Michel Cluizel</A> (my absolute favorite chocolatier in the world) chocolate in the glaze, but the cake's sweetness and almond flavor are very light and subtle. It was only when I tasted one that I realized there was no almond flavoring in the recipe, only almond paste and almond flour, and I think from the photo in the book I was expecting something with the concentrated flavor of the extract.<br /><br />The only other modification I did to the recipe was to add apricot brandy to the simple syrup I soaked the cake layers with. In my opinion, that was an Incredibly Good Call, and I would even add a little more next time. The whole effect of the "cookie" was good, but the almond cake needed something extra to stand up well against the chocolate glaze. That could've been the due to the chocolate I used, but I wouldn't want to use anything less potent in the future.<br /><br />I'll definitely make these again--I'll probably have to, considering how much everyone liked them. Next year, though, I'll cut them in smaller pieces. Mine were pretty small, but I found these were best one bite at a time, and more than once I noticed people wanting to split one.Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-70171890390981786122009-01-04T14:15:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:33:53.797-07:00Sourdough from scratch<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/sourdough-from-scratch/">Sourdough from scratch</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/sourdough-from-scratch/');</script></div><br />I figured that I would finally come out of my hive and talk about the sourdough bread I spent a week working on while I was snowed in before Christmas. As you may have inferred from other posts here, I'm basically cooking my way through <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580082688?ie=UTF8&tag=tigcho-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1580082688" rel="nofollow">The Bread Baker's Apprentice</a>, which I think has to be about the best book around if you want to learn how to bake professional quality artisan bread at home. I apologize if my photos aren't as good as Tiger's usual ones -- these were taken before we started using better lighting.<br /><br />Because I'm cooking from a book, I don't think I can reproduce the recipe in this blog without a copyright violation, so you'll have to bear with me until I can come up with a few of my own recipes before you'll see many ingredient lists. With that said, I love this cook book, and think it's a necessity for any home baker's bookshelf.<br /><br /><span style="clear: both; font-weight: bold;">The Barm (also known as a starter)</span><br /><br />One of the best starters that Tiger remembers from pastry school is started with organic grapes (which are covered in wild yeast). When we couldn't find the particular recipe, we turned to the internet and found a <a href="http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Wild-Grape-Starter/Detail.aspx" title="Wild sourdough starter">good set of instructions</a>. I got myself a pound of grapes from Whole Foods (they have to be organic and unwashed/treated -- the non-organic ones don't have enough wild yeast still living on them).<br /><br />The recipe is fairly easy, so I'll let you read the details on your own. Basically, you squish up the grapes (throw out any bad grapes and brush off any dirt, but don't wash them) and let them sit for a few days. Once they start to bubble, you strain out the skins and start feeding it with bread flour. Once you have a good seed culture, you can alter the flavor by your feeding schedule. I find that feeding the sour by weight is more reliable than by volume, but the most important part is to make sure that the ratio of flour and water are the same. The Bread Baker's Apprentice suggests that you can double, triple, or quadruple the barm -- the higher the ratio of flour and water to starter, the less sour your final bread will taste. I like to use this for sourdough, so I usually feed at 1::1 (usually 8 oz of starter, to 8 oz each of water and flour) unless I plan to store it for awhile in the refrigerator (in which case I'll often do a triple volume feeding).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWE_cA5ijkI/AAAAAAAAAh8/7aYMonAbKKo/s1600-h/sourdough_firm_starter.jpg"><img style="margin: .5em; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 287px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWE_cA5ijkI/AAAAAAAAAh8/7aYMonAbKKo/s320/sourdough_firm_starter.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287577188019899970" border="0" /></a><br />You should also know that storing your barm in the fridge will help produce a stronger sour taste. This is because the bacteria that produce the sour flavor generally work slower than the yeasts in the barm, but the cooler temperatures will slow down the yeast and let the bacteria catch up.<br /><br /><span style="clear: both; font-weight: bold;">Firm Starter</span><br />With many artisan breads, you make an overnight starter (there are actually three main variants of this, based primarily on the amount of liquid: biga, poolish, pâte fermentée). With non-sourdough breads, you would usually just mix up flour, water, yeast, and occasionally salt. With this bread, you make the overnight starter with the barm instead of yeast. Once you mix the barm with flour and water, you let it sit on the counter for around 4 hours, and then toss it into the fridge overnight to improve its flavor. This part is important because it allows the sour flavor to develop.<br /><br /><span style="clear: both; font-weight: bold;">Dough</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWE_0oxPGII/AAAAAAAAAiE/j2MkexDuKBE/s1600-h/sourdough_starter_warmup.jpg"><img style="margin: .5em; clear: right; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 217px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWE_0oxPGII/AAAAAAAAAiE/j2MkexDuKBE/s320/sourdough_starter_warmup.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287577611039348866" border="0" /></a><br />On day 2, take your firm starter out of the fridge and cut it up into a bunch of small pieces to warm up for an hour. I put mine on a silpat and covered them with plastic wrap to keep them from drying out. Next, you mix the firm starter in with your other ingredients. Though the recipe calls for about 20 oz of additional white bread flour, it also says that the other flours can be substuted. Following the advice in the baguette recipe from the same book, I decided to substitute about 1/4 of the bread flour with sifted wheat flour. I like King Arthur Flour's white whole wheat flour, so I sifted it to remove some of the larger pieces of what bran (which can cut gluten and make proper rising/shaping more difficult). The (now mostly) whole wheat flour will add a bit more complexity to the overall sourdough loaf, and make it slightly healthier.<br style="clear: both"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWE_0-Y0LcI/AAAAAAAAAiM/1cy2PvaMgsQ/s1600-h/sourdough_windowpane_bad.jpg"><img style="margin: .5em; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;clear: both" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWE_0-Y0LcI/AAAAAAAAAiM/1cy2PvaMgsQ/s320/sourdough_windowpane_bad.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287577616842501570" border="0" /></a><br />Understanding gluten development is one of the most important parts mixing good bread dough. If the gluten does not develop properly, you won't be able to shape the dough, and when it proofs, it will stretch outward instead of upward, resulting in a very dense loaf. The trick is what's called the "window pane method", which is demonstrated in the two images to the right. The first image shows dough that is not yet ready -- notice that it breaks easily. The second shows dough that stretches thinly and allows light to pass through fairly easily. A few breaks are OK, especially when using even a little whole wheat flour, but the dough should be able to stretch fairly thin.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWE_1oqMn-I/AAAAAAAAAiU/cpX9X_IfQ4s/s1600-h/sourdough_windowpane_good_2.jpg"><img style="clear: right; margin: .5em; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 247px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWE_1oqMn-I/AAAAAAAAAiU/cpX9X_IfQ4s/s320/sourdough_windowpane_good_2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287577628189695970" border="0" /></a><br />I've found that a good test for the time left for gluten development is to take a small piece of dough (usually the same one I use for the windowpane test) and roll it around between my hands to knead it very quickly. This way, you can stretch it again and see if more kneading will improve the gluten development, or if you have reached a point where more kneading will actually start to break the gluten strands because they have been stretched too tightly.<br /><br />Once your dough is ready, it goes into a big bowl, tossed with a little oil (I just use a good organic spray oil), coated in plastic wrap, and left to ferment (i.e. rise) for several hours. The wild yeasts in a homemade sourdough rise a lot slower than commercially available bread yeast, so this phase takes 3-4 hours instead of the 1-2 that is more common for other bread types. You can do this at room temperature, but I happen to have a "bread proofing" mode on my oven and I prefer to use that.<br /><br /><span style="clear: both; font-weight: bold;">Shaping</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWE_2B66kGI/AAAAAAAAAic/YvBVTwjgFv0/s1600-h/sourdough_couche_1.jpg"><img style="margin: .5em; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 211px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWE_2B66kGI/AAAAAAAAAic/YvBVTwjgFv0/s320/sourdough_couche_1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287577634970701922" border="0" /></a><br />After the dough has risen and approximately doubled in size, carefully divide it into two pieces (being careful not to punch it down any more than necessary) and shape them into whatever shape you prefer for your loaves. In my case, I used a couche (well, actually a fine-weave kitchen towel because it costs less and works just as well) and shape into a somewhat elongated loaf. Once again, these get spritzed with a little oil, covered in plastic wrap and are set aside in the proofer (to actually proof this time) for several more hours.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWE_2i8B-4I/AAAAAAAAAik/LRGRq1DpHMk/s1600-h/sourdough_slashing_3.jpg"><img style="margin: .5em; clear: right; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 267px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWE_2i8B-4I/AAAAAAAAAik/LRGRq1DpHMk/s320/sourdough_slashing_3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287577643833752450" border="0" /></a><br />I've determined that it takes about 30 minutes for my oven to heat, so about half an hour before my proofing time is up, I turn my oven up to 500° F and make sure that my baking stone and a large hotel pan are in place. The hotel pan (or other large metal pan) is another trick from this book to help emulate a professional baking oven by providing steam -- more on this later.<br /><br />Once the oven was hot, I started boiling water for the steam pan, and removed my bread from the proofing drawer to slash. Carefully roll the proofed loaves off of the couche and onto a baking peel that has been prepared with cornmeal.<br /><br />Slashing the bread not only provides an attractive look, but also breaks the tight skin around the loaf that you get from properly shaping. This exposes the moist insides of the loaves and encourages them to rise upward in the oven, instead of spreading out. <br /><br /><span style="clear: both; font-weight: bold;">Baking</span><br />Once the oven is hot, your loaves have been slashed, and the water is boiling, you're ready to bake. Slide the loaves off of the peel onto the baking stone, toss one cup of boiling water into the steam pan, and close the oven door. The steam will provide a humid environment that lets the bread rise more before the crust sets, as well as contribute to a much crispier crust once the steam has dissipated.<br /><br />The book suggests that I should open the oven door several more times at 30 second intervals, spraying the sides of the oven with water each time. However, I've discovered that it's very easy to shatter the light bulbs in an oven with a little misplaced water. Instead, I've noticed that the water in the steam pan doesn't boil off quickly enough and I am left with a humid oven that doesn't let the crust harden enough, so instead of spritzing, I just shake the steam pan around a bit to make its water boil again. I've found that it's more helpful to use a large thin-sided hotel pan instead of the cast iron frying pan I was originally using, both because of its larger surface area, and because it heats up much faster. About 90 seconds after putting the bread into the oven, reduce the temperature to 450° and bake for 10 minutes.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWFADtoWR8I/AAAAAAAAAis/jTqRn-ABhpA/s1600-h/sourdough_cooling_1.jpg"><img style="margin: .5em; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RrEksa-c6fw/SWFADtoWR8I/AAAAAAAAAis/jTqRn-ABhpA/s320/sourdough_cooling_1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287577870042286018" border="0" /></a><br />After 10 minutes, remove the steam pan if it still has any water in it, and rotate your loaves 180° for even color. Bake for another 10-12 minutes until the loaves are done, and remove them to a wire rack to cool for at least 45 minutes. This is the most difficult time for me -- the house now smells like wonderful fresh bread, but I know that it's still technically cooking inside and won't be nearly as good. It's worth the wait, so let it sit.<br /><br />Between the grape-based starter and the recipe, this is the first sourdough I've made that actually tastes sour. I'll definitely be making it again (or some variant of my own so I can share the recipe).Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15698869431146126323noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-80533617353894685502009-01-03T23:33:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:41:17.433-07:00Macaroons to Make You Believe in Coconut<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/macaroons-to-make-you-believe-in-coconut/">Rainbow Cookies</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/macaroons-to-make-you-believe-in-coconut/');</script></div><br /><br /><center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIH3CIPrUvQwmhX0w8PTDarSxYdTCTZ2iRD3AHaXnCQIuYA9cL5jJuWDXe9zH0ERjee7LHhIQslTJukVquK2x9iUAh3aNWkN48ccG8liIYQNIp03bLOUvKD46DuvE-NtaAjpmfRSrh8ZPV/s1600-h/lrmcm.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIH3CIPrUvQwmhX0w8PTDarSxYdTCTZ2iRD3AHaXnCQIuYA9cL5jJuWDXe9zH0ERjee7LHhIQslTJukVquK2x9iUAh3aNWkN48ccG8liIYQNIp03bLOUvKD46DuvE-NtaAjpmfRSrh8ZPV/s1600/lrmcm.jpg" alt="" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0pt; clear: both;" border="0" /></a></center><br /><br />At the beginning of <i>Life of Pi</i>, the narrator promises that it is a story to make you believe in God. When I got to the end of the book, for a moment I thought that the book had failed in its purpose. However, after a moment of trying to puzzle out what the author meant, I realized it was one of the most brilliant arguments in favor of believing in God, and one that particularly appealed to the writer in me.<br /><br />So let me begin this way: These are macaroons to make you believe in coconut.<br /><br /><center>* * * * *</center><br /><br />I hated coconut all my life. I don't mean I disliked it; I truly thought there wasn't a single thing worth eating that came from those hard, hairy, brown things. To be honest, I was a picky eater when I was young, but coconut was on its own level. I hated the way it squeaked between my teeth. I recognized it from the first bite of any unfamiliar food. Chewy yet not, sticky but not soft, the appeal was entirely lost on me.<br /><br />It wasn't just the texture that bothered me. One of my most vivid memories from my trip to Turkey involves coconut, this time in liqueur form. My mother and I devoted a week of our trip to a blue cruise, bay-hopping around south-western Turkey on board an eight-passenger <i>gulet</i>, a wooden sailboat, though if the sail was ever employed during our trip, it was only once.<br /><br />Our captain could steer the boat one-handed, the other hand occupied by a can of <i>Efes</i> Pilsner. All of my American no-drinking-and-driving mental programming made this amusing to watch, but not concerning. He obviously had the hang of it, and really there wasn't much to run into other than small islands. I figured one of us would see the island coming and grab the wheel. He already let us do that whenever we wanted.<br /><br />He didn't speak as much English as the other crew members, but he was a likable, relaxed guy all around, friendly and happy. One of the things he seemed most excited about was Wednesday night.<br /><br />"On Wednesday, we party!" he would repeat to us at odd times, without any explanation.<br /><br />Considering we were floating on a beautiful blue expanse, rarely sharing a bay for the morning, afternoon or night with more than one other <i>gulet</i>, we thought it was a joke. Who were we going to party with? We were already lounging and tanning (well, not me), swimming, eating and drinking amongst ourselves. I wasn't sure what would change that short of a hot tub dropping from the sky onto our tiny deck.<br /><br />Wednesday came, and we piled in a taxi van to cross the peninsula to Marmaris. Surprisingly, we made it there alive and spent the afternoon shopping in the bazaar. I found a bracelet at a silver shop there, one so unique that I'm never able to describe it to anyone in detail, which I would subsequently lose in the back of another taxi when we returned to Istanbul.<br /><br />We returned to our boat, once again surprised to be alive, but tired from the day's trip. The captain greeted us and urged us to join him for the party at the discotheque on the shore.<br /><br />As a group, we looked at the scrubby, dry, isolated coastline.<br /><br />Still, the invitation to party was repeated, and it was very tempting to see just how a discotheque was managing to hide in the middle of nowhere. It turned out that "discotheque" was a slight overstatement, at least in my mind. A wooden fence around an outdoor bar didn't quite match the image in my mind. We sat down on cushions around the low table in one corner, chatting with the owner (who seemed to be good buddies with our captain and the captains of the other <i>gulets</i> anchored in the bay) while his sons minded the bar. My mother, who was doing her best to be a bad influence on me during my college years to combat my stick-in-the-mud tendencies, tried to get me to smoke from the hookah. Tried, but didn't succeed. At one point, I looked through a crack in the fence behind me and saw a gigantic shadow of a scorpion. My gaze zeroed in on the very small scorpion throwing it, but it certainly made me question the wisdom of sitting nearly on the ground there.<br /><br />The coconut in this story--I hadn't forgotten!--arrived then, in small, skinny glasses filled with a dubious pink liquid. I tried to refuse, and learned they were on the house. I took a tiny sip, and my nose wrinkled immediately. Coconut. Jolly Rancher and Coconut in burning alcoholic form. I set the glass down and forgot about it...until another came.<br /><br />Now, I was pretty used to guys flirting with me in Turkey by then, including the one I usually describe as a Turkish Antonio Bandaras but better looking. I hadn't had any of the bad experiences with it that you hear about from women traveling in foreign countries, just entertaining ones, so I had no problem with it. A glance over at the bar made it pretty obvious why I was getting free drinks. If they'd sent over an endless supply of Diet Coke (I can't believe I drank that), that might have been different, but <i>coconut</i>? I wasn't impressed.<br /><br />But it turned out that they were making up new drinks just for me, and my mother reminded me that it was rude to refuse hospitality like that, as long as it was harmless. So, I drank both drinks. Or, at least I'm pretty sure I got through them all, since I vaguely remember singing for other drunk people in the "discotheque" under the stars.<br /><br />The moral of the story is that foreign travel may broaden your palate considerably, but some foods just never have a chance. Coconut did not receive the same invitation into my eating life that many of the other foods I encountered did. Over the next few years, though, a <i>few</i> coconutty things slipped into my diet, like fresh coconut cracked open on the beach on my honeymoon in Costa Rica (it was okay) or coconut milk in Thai curries. Nevertheless, I was fairly certain I'd never like anything that proudly proclaimed a coconut-heavy favor.<br /><br /><center>* * * * *</center><br /><br />With that in mind, cue my disappointment with being assigned to make the coconut macaroons at my first cooking job. I was assisting the American-style baker in the restaurant's bakeshop, and despite the fact that everything I'd tasted of hers then (and now I can say everything since then, too) was the best I'd ever had of those items before, there was no way that I was going to like the macaroons.<br /><br />Who likes to make food they don't like at all? Not me. Not unless it makes someone close to me very, very happy, and even then I'll get grumpy and complain about it. That aside, I was going to be working with coconut every week, smelling it, touching it. I wasn't pleased.<br /><br />Still, it was my job, and I did what I had to do while she instructed me how to make the macaroons. I pulsed the coconut in a food processor. I mixed the gooey ingredients in a large bowl. I got my hands all sticky and slimy scooping small mounds of it onto the sheet pan. (My technique had yet to develop then.) They went into the convection oven, and I watched them carefully, turning them so they acquired a golden brown that surprised me, since all the macaroons I'd seen were giant, white balls with shreds of coconut sticking out of them every which way. But they still weren't going to taste good. No way, no how.<br /><br /><i>Oh my goodness I was wrong.</i><br /><br />The differences I'd noticed before all served glorious purposes. Grinding the shredding coconut did away with the stringiness I hated about it. The small size made for the perfect marriage of warm, squishy insides and golden crunchy/chewy outsides. After one taste, it became a ritual for me to eat one hot macaroon every week as soon as possible to when they came out of the oven. They're delicious cold, and actually take on a nice chewiness if stored in an airtight container for a few days, but when they're fresh and warm, they're heaven.<br /><br />But it wasn't just the macaroons that I came to love. Soon there after, the assistant pastry chef gave me a taste of his coconut sorbet as it came out of the mixer, and I've adored coconut sorbet ever since--as long as it doesn't have shreds of coconut in it. I've even been known to order drinks with coconut rum in them.<br /><br />Consider this my public apology to my Turkish bartenders for not liking their drinks.<br /><br /><center>* * * * *</center><br /><br />Since we're talking about apologies and forgiveness, I'll confess that I told a bit of a lie at the beginning:<br /><br />These aren't the macaroons that made me believe in coconut.<br /><br />I know, I'm sorry, but the recipe isn't mine. I can't bring myself to share the recipe without permission. Something in me doesn't quite want to share it, either, which is strange because generally I'm all for sharing my recipes and knowledge. But these are special. Magical.<br /><br />However, I'm not going to tease you and then leave you empty-handed. I've been working on a number of variations, tweaked and changed enough that I won't feel like they're not mine to share. Raspberry-Pomegranate, which tastes like a jam sandwich cookie, but with the texture of a coconut macaroon. Cocoa Nib-Creme de Cacao, a grown-up chocolate chip cookie. But the most successful so far was a fusion of two of the variations I've tried: the macadamia nut center and the lime-rum macaroon.<br /><br />My second run of these today yielded great results. The zest of two limes seemed like it would be too much, but the lime flavor was perfect--blending enough with the coconut to be subtle, but definitely there. I wanted to post the recipe itself tonight, but I have a few things to work out first. I still want to amp up the rum flavor, and the macaroons are spreading too much, most likely due to the fact that I'm still getting used to my oven, but I need to rule out flaws in the recipe before I post it.<br /><br />In the meantime, I'll demo the technique, which you could probably apply to other macaroon recipes out there.<br /><br /><table><tr><td style="vertical-align: top;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuGhY3ZDgpYIK3RNctFF_ZLrD-f_jSGRt3Wo1489GDxAiz_RehZDm14emch6UhUF9WEoy1UDuBsg_zxE6lz72FOOQi0IwbUD440w_y1rIeh7T91RBm9Yxrd0bJC3U6wgBAqMzHbCwzfA8q/s1600-h/IMG_8443-1.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuGhY3ZDgpYIK3RNctFF_ZLrD-f_jSGRt3Wo1489GDxAiz_RehZDm14emch6UhUF9WEoy1UDuBsg_zxE6lz72FOOQi0IwbUD440w_y1rIeh7T91RBm9Yxrd0bJC3U6wgBAqMzHbCwzfA8q/s320/IMG_8443-1.jpg" alt="" align="left" border="0" /></a></td><td style="vertical-align: top;">First, pulse the coconut in a food processor. You may have to do it in more than one batch, depending on the size of your recipe and the size of your food processor.<br /><br />Add the coconut to a large bowl with the flour and the sugar and mix thoroughly. </td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmwwdVKIJpjZwzuEKjcsoikkuZjHBqWmUMSUOPv0zFUj5bxVMTyrUciTB7YVF_sq_6xUOZZ01nPjaOm4klXPh1_RB_VKj0AG78oHt1aRqoIIYGPoeywaSWbGZEmTVbSKuhxwecA9aMSOiq/s1600-h/IMG_8458-1.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmwwdVKIJpjZwzuEKjcsoikkuZjHBqWmUMSUOPv0zFUj5bxVMTyrUciTB7YVF_sq_6xUOZZ01nPjaOm4klXPh1_RB_VKj0AG78oHt1aRqoIIYGPoeywaSWbGZEmTVbSKuhxwecA9aMSOiq/s320/IMG_8458-1.jpg" alt="" align="left" border="0" /></a></td><td style="vertical-align: top;">Drizzle melted butter over the coconut mixture, then use your hands to work it evenly in, rubbing any clumps with drier parts of the mixture until you don't see any more clumps.<br /><br />(I apologize for the fact that this photo resembles "yellow snow". This is definitely okay to eat.) </td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifnj9dHz_U-7wxWxFPEYnFv5vWUP1rXdfMiZ6Ur3QLFssoozu7PS2pISbKGvqfKur6H08gn9GqpuA4q6ciaHLpsP_s-lbfjSJ590NgKKWGtpvll7kWFl1v7v5YcTZIKmARFuo0sydA3ybl/s1600-h/IMG_8452-1.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifnj9dHz_U-7wxWxFPEYnFv5vWUP1rXdfMiZ6Ur3QLFssoozu7PS2pISbKGvqfKur6H08gn9GqpuA4q6ciaHLpsP_s-lbfjSJ590NgKKWGtpvll7kWFl1v7v5YcTZIKmARFuo0sydA3ybl/s320/IMG_8452-1.jpg" alt="" align="left" border="0" /></a></td><td style="vertical-align: top;">Whisk egg whites, cream, corn syrup, rum, and lime zest together. </td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzYBC502rVxJ51y4-PUXaSxZ4l52lHrysEodPmqfFs8g0Ib6mZ2OYfc30wWOSrEzHrN1i6_nz2KVRx0PXgM3mmi-WJ547PXljY2MGp-qlwL7JxbgATMyMpWbpD0ph9LMBigH3PXbOSMQ3a/s1600-h/IMG_8469-1.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzYBC502rVxJ51y4-PUXaSxZ4l52lHrysEodPmqfFs8g0Ib6mZ2OYfc30wWOSrEzHrN1i6_nz2KVRx0PXgM3mmi-WJ547PXljY2MGp-qlwL7JxbgATMyMpWbpD0ph9LMBigH3PXbOSMQ3a/s320/IMG_8469-1.jpg" alt="" align="left" border="0" /></a></td><td style="vertical-align: top;">Pour the wet mixture in with the dry mixture and stir with a spatula--or better yet a bowl scraper--until combined. </td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2QSpVLHuQvzeAIAVgb5qNj8eEZsBvEeYVCkw8GqHlGjImjJphUBpBm1ITRkWDvwxaFk4_CgZFcHF0vtY52S_54FZeRNnHJz37YcVNISutso3rWxZkir0Apx1maWIEXIKJRan1Oe1g0AFz/s1600-h/IMG_8471-1.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2QSpVLHuQvzeAIAVgb5qNj8eEZsBvEeYVCkw8GqHlGjImjJphUBpBm1ITRkWDvwxaFk4_CgZFcHF0vtY52S_54FZeRNnHJz37YcVNISutso3rWxZkir0Apx1maWIEXIKJRan1Oe1g0AFz/s320/IMG_8471-1.jpg" alt="" align="left" border="0" /></a></td><td style="vertical-align: top;">Form the the macaroons with a small scoop and place them in even rows on a Silpat or parchment paper. </td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6o357IzDJiupELu5dIkvMS5xOz0rvuRxGwrr6jVPhmYz9XZG2ANGMagPefsMhWFN_DmaidzXM_IiOVPVkr0oyPb3YVno9i4QrSlTy7wggw-kLzRoI9wIQeTAcWJRPiBdvKL2CehyphenhyphenSil3S/s1600-h/IMG_8477-1.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6o357IzDJiupELu5dIkvMS5xOz0rvuRxGwrr6jVPhmYz9XZG2ANGMagPefsMhWFN_DmaidzXM_IiOVPVkr0oyPb3YVno9i4QrSlTy7wggw-kLzRoI9wIQeTAcWJRPiBdvKL2CehyphenhyphenSil3S/s320/IMG_8477-1.jpg" alt="" align="left" border="0" /></a></td><td style="vertical-align: top;">A note on the macadamia nuts: they should be salt-free and toasted. Two or three minutes in the oven at 350 degrees is plenty. Also, if you toast the macadamias immediately before making the cookies, watch them in the oven carefully, because the nuts will heat the macaroons from the inside and speed up the cooking process.</td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbEZr1CQgXRlPzszs4zRPGfEBfP0wjrn3H5w2rbqiLGoujqZT8bsfKX1-zCuWiMKG2aRq4FRnelX0MQ8ITDt9OExEODKRr7Jcb0qhnw6CxFWtk1gbf0CfwL6MOtcCqsmTt2ik3D6oDurZ5/s1600-h/IMG_8482-1.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbEZr1CQgXRlPzszs4zRPGfEBfP0wjrn3H5w2rbqiLGoujqZT8bsfKX1-zCuWiMKG2aRq4FRnelX0MQ8ITDt9OExEODKRr7Jcb0qhnw6CxFWtk1gbf0CfwL6MOtcCqsmTt2ik3D6oDurZ5/s320/IMG_8482-1.jpg" alt="" align="left" border="0" /></a></td><td style="vertical-align: top;">To put the macadamia nuts in the center of the macaroons, press one into the cookie while it is still in the scoop, and then fill the empty space behind it with the coconut that gets squeezed out the sides. Make sure the bottom of each macaroon is flat and clean. </td></tr><tr><td style="vertical-align: top;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO6fQ7r6xh5yX3tcLwMbMvDbTI1HsLThf3T_YxLZyTWgV07-NxUIn39xfR3fSwkUHpHKLCyUTDjJ1mA11A8KfoO25ftguI3nkPMSGBs6xb3Ykapuq7BOrKS3F-rC1idKN89ZUm089LUo2p/s1600-h/IMG_8526-1.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO6fQ7r6xh5yX3tcLwMbMvDbTI1HsLThf3T_YxLZyTWgV07-NxUIn39xfR3fSwkUHpHKLCyUTDjJ1mA11A8KfoO25ftguI3nkPMSGBs6xb3Ykapuq7BOrKS3F-rC1idKN89ZUm089LUo2p/s320/IMG_8526-1.jpg" alt="" align="left" border="0" /></a></td><td style="vertical-align: top;">Bake the macaroons at 350 degrees for 18 minutes, turning the pan around after the first ten to color them evenly. They should look golden brown and crispy, but not turn dark brown. Cool on racks, and make sure to eat one while they're still warm. </td></tr></table><br /><br />I paired the lime macaroons with a grapefruit sorbet I'd randomly decided to make up a mix for last night to use up some aging grapefruits. They worked quite well together even though they weren't made for each other. The cold and the natural flavor of the grapefruit cut the sweetness in the sorbet, and so it was a counterpoint to the sweeter cookies, rather than competing for the same sort of attention.<br /><br /><center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLSrPwSGMl69U8Ciz7ZB8lv88zETJ7ZmZSmPr1IcRYAJBk0h6ghX7Mxij2bljJnimvn0pILL60B9uo15GkVcRVYZarH7c_wt4zOrYBOXM3wNCOqecwmr5yzh6zH3LK1zMzu9l61vso6abT/s1600-h/IMG_8514-1.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLSrPwSGMl69U8Ciz7ZB8lv88zETJ7ZmZSmPr1IcRYAJBk0h6ghX7Mxij2bljJnimvn0pILL60B9uo15GkVcRVYZarH7c_wt4zOrYBOXM3wNCOqecwmr5yzh6zH3LK1zMzu9l61vso6abT/s320/IMG_8514-1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></center><br /><br />Stay tuned...I hope to have this recipe perfected in the near future! They'll only be Macaroons Based off of Macaroons to Make You Believe in Coconut, but I hope that they'll taste good all the same.Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-72813098351082047612009-01-03T20:11:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:41:59.828-07:00The Christmas Unicorn<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/the-christmas-unicorn/">The Christmas Unicorn</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/the-christmas-unicorn/');</script></div><br /><br />I had more people to give gifts to, so I made another round of Christmas cookies this week. I wanted to do a half batch of the icing and tried to wing it with the corn syrup and milk measurements so as not to dirty more dishes, but it didn't set up quite as well, so next time I will be meticulous with my measurements! I was also hampered by the fact that it was the middle of the night. But a few turned out to be cute despite my best attempts to ruin them, so I thought I'd share.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3165671904/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3263/3165671904_89bc00d0e6.jpg?v=0"></a></center><br /><br />My best friend loves unicorns, and when I was going through my cookie cutters, I found a unicorn one. After my success with the <a href="http://tiger-chow.blogspot.com/2008/12/christmas-cookies.html">Dala horses</A>, I wanted to try one in a similar style. There's another photo of him <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3165671788/">here</a>.<br /><br />(It seems like an odd connection, and it was to me in the making of it, but I just remembered that the unicorn was a symbol for Christ in the Middle Ages, so it's not as incongruous as I thought.)<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3165671536/"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1009/3165671536_0aee1856c5.jpg?v=0"></a></center><br /><br />The more ornaments I decorated, the more they started to look like hot air balloons. I think that will be one of my next cookie cutter shapes.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3165671652/"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1393/3165671652_75baceb342.jpg?v=0"></a></center>Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-33405165292495834532009-01-02T00:13:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:42:52.166-07:00Chocolate Covered Cherries, Part 2<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/chocolate-covered-cherries-part-2/">Chocolate Covered Cherries, Part 2</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2009/01/chocolate-covered-cherries-part-2/');</script></div><br /><br /><a href="http://printable-tiger.blogspot.com/2009/01/chocolate-covered-cherries.html">Printable Recipe</A><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3126263439/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3092/3126263439_e12cb646e9.jpg?v=0" height="250" align="left" /></a>Last time on <i><a href="http://tiger-chow.blogspot.com/2008/12/chocolate-covered-cherries-part-1.html">As the Fondant Liquefies</a></i>, we made cherry-flavored fondant and dipped maraschino cherries in it, in preparation for dipping them in chocolate. Really, that's the hardest part of the whole process.<br /><br />I decided to make another batch of cherries after the ones I documented in the original post and test the theory the Geeky Gnu and I had about pulling the hot fondant from the start instead of trying to cool it with a scraper on my small piece of marble. That and I wanted to prove I could do it all by myself. It worked very well, actually. After awhile, I got into a rhythm where I was kneading it like a cat, pressing half the mass of hot sugar down on the Silpat-covered marble with one hand and then the other half with the other, stretching it as high as I could each time. The fondant seemed to turn out much better--and crystallize much faster--this way.<br /><br clear="all"><br />Here's what it looked like when I managed to pull it away from my fingers and deposit it in a bowl:<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3127095034/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3186/3127095034_0b9b4f44c0.jpg?v=0" /></a></center><br /><br />And here it is after resting it overnight:<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3127094492/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3244/3127094492_336414f298.jpg?v=0" /></a></center><br /><br />You can see how matte and powdery it looks, which <i>I think</i> is what we were going for. The problem with agitating the fondant by pulling and kneading it by hand is that the corn syrup imparts serious levels of stickiness to the stuff. Latex gloves were useless, because the fondant instantly bonded to them and wouldn't let go--fortunately, it wasn't so attached to my bare hands. My arms and hands and shoulders got very tired from the process, but at the same time I was fascinated by just how <i>sticky</i> it was, gluing my fingers together to the point that it was difficult to spread them. The novelty of it (and, of course, the sense of accomplishment, after having the task taken away from me by the big strong men the night before) definitely compensated for any and all physical discomfort. It was way more amazing than tiring, and I had fun laughing at myself for getting into this literal mess.<br /><br />Mr. Gnu also made another batch of fondant using a food processor or a mixer, but he'll have to speak to how that worked out himself since I wasn't there for the making or using of it. I hear it turned out well...and he didn't have his fingers stuck together for twenty minutes.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3127093362/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3198/3127093362_c129e0867a.jpg?v=0" /></a></center><br /><br />The fondant dipping went much as it had the last time, although I did pick up a new trick. Mr. Gnu noted that the cherries that leaked the most at the top tended to be the ones that had fondant coating their stems. When I dipped my own batch, I tried to be very careful not to get any on the stems, but it seemed more important to make sure every glimpse of red cherry was blotted out by pink sugariness. Once the fondant had set, though, I found it was easy to remove just the fondant on the stems with a quick twist of it around the stems between my fingers, breaking and crumbling it away and leaving the cherry completely coated.<br /><br />All right, that's enough about the fondant! It's time to move onto the reason we're all here: the chocolate.<br /><br />First, you'll want to temper your chocolate using your favorite method (if you have one; if not, I suspect a Google search could take you to a better explanation than I would give at the moment). You can use white, milk, or dark chocolate for this, depending on how sweet you want the results to be. I lean toward a full-flavored dark chocolate to contrast with the intensely sweet cherries and fondant. The Callebaut I picked up was only about 52%, but it's a wonderful chocolate with plenty of cocoa flavor, not too much sugar, and a rich texture.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3127092494/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3197/3127092494_fa42dac103.jpg?v=0" /></a></center><br /><br />One of the biggest problems with chocolate-covered cherries is their tendency to leak through any weak spots in the chocolate, especially around the stems and on the bottoms, where the cherry will often sink through the chocolate before it sets and leave an instant hole underneath. I'd run into this when I'd made chocolate-covered cherries for the first time, so I tried a technique I found in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764588443?ie=UTF8&tag=tigcho-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0764588443">Chocolates and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner</a>. I did a quick-and-dirty version of the advice he had, and piped discs of chocolate and let them set before I started to dip the cherries (you can see a few of them in the photo above). Then, I set each freshly-coated cherry onto a disc. It kept a layer of chocolate between the cherry and the Silpat, so for the most part it was a success, although I did have a couple where cherry syrup leaked out between the base and the chocolate around the cherry.<br /><br />After that, it's just a matter of covering the cherries in chocolate. I found that holding the stem and dragging the cherry from side to side once or twice, letting the chocolate come right up to the stem, coated them nicely. Then I pulled them up, let a little of the chocolate drip off, and touched the bottom of the cherry to the surface of the chocolate once or twice to encourage more of the excess chocolate to stay behind. Once I was satisfied that there wasn't enough chocolate to form a gigantic foot around the bottom on the tray, I set the cherry on one of the discs I piped beforehand and left it to set up.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3145520711/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3112/3145520711_0c437dfb54.jpg?v=0" height="300" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3127091740/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3198/3127091740_023062ce6e.jpg?v=0" height="300" /></a></center><br /><br />I also decorated some in the second batch with multicolored sanding sugar and sprinkles. Even though it looks okay in that photo, I don't recommend using the sanding sugar on chocolate. It looked pretty at first, but as the chocolate set the sugar took on a murky quality, especially from a distance. The sprinkles, however, looked bright and cheerful. They were a hit with a lot of people, but I didn't feel like the cherries needed the extra crunch from the sprinkles. There's enough contrast between the gooey centers and the chocolate as it is.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3127091994/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3207/3127091994_0d3f60cbcc.jpg?v=0" /></a></center><br /><br />This is an example of a leaking cherry, although often they're more messy than this one. As I've noted before, the best way to avoid this is to make sure the cherry itself is completely covered in fondant, and then make sure the fondant is completely covered in an even layer of chocolate. Still, even if you're careful, you'll probably make a few cherries weep. Don't worry. They still taste just as good, and they don't seem to spoil any faster...not that I've ever had cherries around long enough to know just how long their shelf life is.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3145520527/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3077/3145520527_9f238f8d64.jpg?v=0" align="left" height="300"></a>As for storing the cherries, if you don't have a baker's rack and zillions of sheet pans in your kitchen (someday, someday....), I recommend hitting up your friendly neighborhood pizza joint and asking very, very nicely for a few unused boxes. (Leave a generous tip in exchange, so they'll be open to doing it again!) Mr. Gnu was kind enough to stop at Pagliacci's on the way over and pick up ten extra large ones (we didn't need that many, but I know they will get used in the future since I already am temporarily storing coconut macaroons in one, and I've used them to dry royal icing flowers in the past). Line the box with parchment or wax paper to protect the box from leaking cherries, and you'll be able to reuse it.<br /><br />If you use invertase in your fondant (see the <a href="http://tiger-chow.blogspot.com/2008/12/chocolate-covered-cherries-part-1.html">first cherry post</A> for more info on that), the cherries will need to sit out at room temperature for three to four days before they will be completely liquefied. If you don't have invertase, the cherries will take up to two weeks to liquefy, which means you have to plan ahead. Invertase is easily purchased online and inexpensive, although I now have a larger quantity of it living in my fridge than I'll use in my lifetime.<br /><br clear="all"><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3146353910/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3129/3146353910_a610b389d4.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />In the end, the cherries were a huge hit with everyone we gave them to. I wrapped two packages together for each family and couple in clear-topped plastic containers, one of cookies and one with chocolate-covered cherries and rainbow cookies. More than once, the person opening the present handed the cookies to the other recipient and hid the cherries for themselves! I think the best part about them is that they aren't hard to make, but enough delicious ingredients and extremely pleasant work go into them that they truly feel like you've made them with love, which I know I did.<br /><br />But I can't help but wish that I could have given them dressed in just their shimmering, shiny pink sugar coatings. I suppose that's one of those rare glimpse of ineffable beauty that are too fragile or fleeting to be seen by anyone but the cook.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3126266775/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3082/3126266775_2d569809a3.jpg?v=0"></a></center><br /><br /><a href="http://printable-tiger.blogspot.com/2009/01/chocolate-covered-cherries.html">Printable Recipe</A>Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-28661896049570243992008-12-28T20:13:00.001-08:002009-03-12T19:43:46.198-07:00Christmas Cookies<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/12/christmas-cookies/">Christmas Cookies</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/12/christmas-cookies/');</script></div><br /><br />I'm halfway through documenting my chocolate-covered cherry obsession this Christmas, but I'm going to pause to post some photos of the other thing I was determined to make this year: decorated sugar cookies. Not underachiever sugar cookies, like I've let myself down with before, but ones that I took the time to make look pretty enough that I have to keep sneaking peeks at them, like a narcissist employed at a mirror factory.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3145521959/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3223/3145521959_ce6f0ed71a.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />Early in the month, I had some friends over to make Christmas cookies with me, and I tested out the sugar cookie recipe in Sherry Yard's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618138927?ie=UTF8&tag=tigcho-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0618138927">The Secrets of Baking</a>. I loved the recipe--I've loved every recipe I've tried out of her books--other than having to learn the hard way that the dough really does need to be quite frozen through the whole process of cutting out the shapes. They kept their shape beautifully, held together after they cooled, and tasted wonderful, buttery with the perfect sugar cookie texture.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3146353192/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3077/3146353192_b27ecc71ac.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />Inspired by my favorite store-bought sugar cookies--made by <a href="http://www.littleraesbakery.com/">Little Rae's Bakery</a> here in Seattle--I mixed up icing made from powdered sugar and lime juice (<i>yum</i>, though I had to make some with lemon juice for Mr. Bee because wives sometimes cave in like that) and pressed them into a bowl of sanding sugar. They captured the <i>crunch</i> of the sugar on Little Rae's cookies, which is what I love so much about them. The only thing I really needed to change was to make the cookies thicker, so I decided to use that recipe for my cookies later in the month.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3145521463/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3210/3145521463_2675cdac89.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />When my mom and my sister-in-law came over to bake cookies, I made a triple batch of the cookie dough and rolled it out extra thick, only making about three half sheet pan-sized sheets with all of that dough. It worked just as well thick as it had thin, and I froze all of my trees and reindeer, angels and ornaments to be frosted later on in the season.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3146353310/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3125/3146353310_63b840b71e.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />Along came the great snow day that went on...and on...and on, until the day had become a week and we still hadn't left the house. With Baker Bee home, it was both hard to get things done and very easy to while away the hours baking and taking pictures of the results. Still, by the morning of Christmas Eve, I hadn't frosted the cookies. I had, fortunately, taken them out of the freezer a day or two before, but that's as far as I'd gotten. I'd had grand visions of whipping up royal icing and piping the heck out of those cookies. You know, proving that I still knew my way around a star tip and so on. But time? Not on my side, at all.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3145521535/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3114/3145521535_f8a8354c4d.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />I'd signed up for <a href="http://www.foodbuzz.com/foodies/us/washington/seattle/profile/the+other+tiger">Food Buzz</a> a couple days before, and there I ran into a tutorial on <a href="http://www.ourbestbites.com/2008/12/tutorial-glace-icing-and-cookie.html">cookie decorating with glacé icing</a> posted at <a href="http://www.ourbestbites.com/">Our Best Bites</A>. Her cookies looked absolutely beautiful, jewel-like with their colors and sheen, and having the icing actually <I>taste</I> good sounded like a strong point in the favor of glacé over royal, since her recipe was very similar to what I'd done before, only heavier on the dairy than the flavoring, rather than the other way around, and containing corn syrup, which I'd forgotten was a good thing to include.<br /><br />Still, I felt a little...well, like I was approaching the half-assedness I had set out to avoid in the first place. I was supposed to be spending hours and hours aggravating my poor sore wrist and shoulder with the piping. And the last time I'd tried to decorate cookies with this kind of icing in multiple colors...it hadn't gone well. I remember thinking that those were some ugly Thanksgiving Day turkeys to be putting out on a restaurant buffet.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3145520921/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3124/3145520921_6e0c33cb30.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />But there was the time thing, and the snow-exhaustion/cabin fever to account for, and I mixed my powdered sugar and corn syrup and milk together, adding a splash each of lemon and orange extracts. I ended up adding some real lemon juice later, to give the icing more of the bite I enjoyed in the previous cookies I iced, and next time I think I'd try replacing some of the milk with lemon juice, but the cookies really did taste fantastic.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3145521201/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3113/3145521201_f3d2a4ba59.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />As for the looks? Well, I was worse than a narcissist in that proverbial mirror factory. I <I>love</I> the way this icing looks--how the colors swirl and meld together, how bright the colors stay, how it just <I>shines</I>. And even a week later the icing still isn't hard as a rock like royal icing. (I know this from just having consumed the final cookie left of the batch before starting this post. For inspiration, of course.) I think I like them better than the fanciest cookies I've ever piped. They're much more elegant.<br /><br /><center><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3146354062/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3221/3146354062_edca7581f3.jpg?v=0"></A></center><br /><br />My only complaint is that the shine does dull a bit after the first twenty-four hours, and the edges of the colors seemed to blur just a little, tiny bit over the past week. Of course, that just means they have to be made soon before they're served or given as gifts. And if I make them too early and they start to dull, then I'll just have to eat them myself and start from scratch.Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-23688989176643773962008-12-22T16:59:00.001-08:002009-03-12T19:44:54.766-07:00Test Cherry #1<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/12/test-cherry-1/">Test Cherry #1</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/12/test-cherry-1/');</script></div><br /><br /><div style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3128724451/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3230/3128724451_e25e27ec02_m.jpg" alt="" style="border: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" /></a><br /><span style="margin-top: 0px;font-size:0;" ><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerchow/3128724451/">Test Cherry: Day One</a><br />Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/tigerchow/">the other tiger</a></span></div>As I was dipping a second round of cherries yesterday, I had three lose their stems and become "test cherries" or, in other words, the cherries I get to eat before they're ready without feeling guilty for wasting one I could be giving to someone else, or at least eating in its final form. (Of course, I have cherries from last Wednesday that are already liquefied, but I have to do quality control on every batch, you know.)<br /><br />In the interest of tracking how quickly the invertase liquefies the fondant, I decided to dissect and photograph them before taste testing each day.<br /><br />After (not quite) twenty-four hours, the invertase and cherry juice have converted the fondant immediately around the cherry to liquid, but most of the fondant is still firm and attached to the chocolate coating.Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-85484328273461299252008-12-20T16:50:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:46:15.946-07:00Chocolate-Covered Cherries, Part 1<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/12/chocolate-covered-cherries-part-1/">Chocolate Covered Cherries, Part 1</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/12/chocolate-covered-cherries-part-1/');</script></div><br /><br /><a href="http://printable-tiger.blogspot.com/2009/01/chocolate-covered-cherries.html">Printable Recipe</A><br /><br />Heading into my senior year in college, my mom and I realized that I was going to most likely be moving not just across town but out of town after graduation and my wedding the next summer, ending the days of having just a short trip on the freeway between us. I'd been getting more and more interested in cooking since the trip we took together to Turkey two years before that, and we both wanted to learn to decorate cakes, so we ended up enrolling in the beginning Wilton classes. And so I started down the path toward pastry school, elbow-deep in Crisco-based frosting in the back room of the local gigantic craft store.<br /><br clear="all"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxExBmc83p5I-iwjSPd0NJ9PL-IsFbyEiQfnK3reUTNNG-t3TYibngjhPlgafjQUGUX_zuB6oKM6T6Sewwosj6cM-N1A-PpHVwNnceE5HArk6FLB0BFqIVf9yZdbVQfnghx1GyggEZMo6u/s1600-h/IMG_7783.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxExBmc83p5I-iwjSPd0NJ9PL-IsFbyEiQfnK3reUTNNG-t3TYibngjhPlgafjQUGUX_zuB6oKM6T6Sewwosj6cM-N1A-PpHVwNnceE5HArk6FLB0BFqIVf9yZdbVQfnghx1GyggEZMo6u/s400/IMG_7783.JPG" alt="" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; clear: both; float: right;" border="0" /></a>I'm not <span style="font-style: italic;">entirely</span> sure what prompted it, but that Christmas I became obsessed with making fancy little candies for everyone's presents. Most of them are not so fancy in retrospect, utilizing grocery store coating chocolate and far too much sugar, but then and now the crown jewel of it all was the chocolate-covered cherry. I actually used real chocolate to coat those. I didn't know anything about tempering chocolate then, so they were soon covered in blooming cocoa butter (not that I even knew that was the problem), but they still tasted delicious. Ever year since, I've intended to make them again--and make them <span style="font-style: italic;">right</span> this time, with tempered chocolate and invertase (the enzyme used in commercial cherries to make the centers liquefy)--but even when I've acquired the required cherries, they haven't gotten made.<br /><br />This year, things were going to be different. This year I lined up a cherry-candying buddy, sort of like a workout buddy but more fattening. Geeky Gnu and I made plans to get together and make them as soon as the invertase showed up. We had to wait a bit longer than we liked on account of the fact that Chef Rubber was waiting for the invertase to be <span style="font-style: italic;">made</span>, but it finally showed up on Tuesday. I was feeling lazy earlier in the week, but fortunately I was talked into making the cherries on Wednesday night rather than Thursday night, which was good because the difference between the two was seven inches of snow.<br /><br />Part of doing things right this time was finding a recipe that called specifically for the invertase, rather than just adding a few drops of the stuff to the one from <I>Woman's Day</I> I'd gotten off of the internet all those years ago. I found some hopeful-looking info by searching eGullet, but as of Wednesday afternoon I still didn't have a recipe in hand. I was wandering through Barnes and Noble, picking up a couple of presents I'd waited too long to order off of Amazon, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but the book I've been looking for all my life, standing there on B&N's prominent cookbook display: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764588443?ie=UTF8&tag=tigcho-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0764588443">Chocolates and Confections: Formula, Theory, and Technique for the Artisan Confectioner</a>.<br /><br />It had a recipe for fondant--the confectioner's sort, not the kind you peel off of wedding cakes before eating them. It had a full explanation of invertase and how to use it. It had all sorts of technical information about chocolate and sugar I didn't have memorized yet.<br /><br />It came home with me. I couldn't resist.<br /><br clear="all"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCyiepoSrRtuiTXmpJqfjjsdyUHGw5OiB_-J9nvP35jRuUb5nwt-33HcgMJB3nVBPS-_qW66NPWHHUewICilJUuw-dAjsMoNIFg7_ie6Ge2R7s3eeMC7l3SHw7UpAcaZB4Q2Op4AIcgtMH/s1600-h/IMG_7793.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCyiepoSrRtuiTXmpJqfjjsdyUHGw5OiB_-J9nvP35jRuUb5nwt-33HcgMJB3nVBPS-_qW66NPWHHUewICilJUuw-dAjsMoNIFg7_ie6Ge2R7s3eeMC7l3SHw7UpAcaZB4Q2Op4AIcgtMH/s400/IMG_7793.JPG" alt="" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; clear: both; float: left;" border="0" /></a>After a quick perusal of the pertinent pages, I drained the cherries, reserving the juice, and set about lining them up to dry on cooling racks padded with a double layer of paper towel to absorb the juice. A lot of recipes recommend doing this the night before, but we had to be somewhat flexible dependent on the weather.<br /><br />A couple quick facts for calculating recipe size:<br />- Average number of cherries per 36 oz. jar (Star brand, from a two-pack bought at Costco): 73.25<br />- Average number of wasted cherries per a jar due to missing stems: 6<br /><br />Once Geeky showed up, we started in on a half batch of the fondant recipe in my beautiful shiny new book. The general idea is to take five parts sugar, one part glucose syrup, and one part water and bring them to a boil while stirring constantly. Since I was approaching this whole fondant thing with a <span style="font-style: italic;">teensy-weensy</span> bit too much confidence, I figured I'd go right ahead and substitute the cherry juice for the water in the recipe without bothering to do any boring math to keep the ratio of sugar and water in line. Whether or not this contributed to some of our later troubles, I can't say. I <span style="font-style: italic;">can</span> say with certainty that it turned the fondant a fairy-tale shade of pink that made the dipped cherries look like a smooth, shimmery bonbon out of a computer-generated cartoon. There's a certain magic to dipping these cherries that makes you not care about the evils of artificial redness.<br /><br />Once the syrup is boiling, we quit stirring (okay, maybe there was a little forgetfulness in play here and it took awhile before we figured out we were supposed to stop) and cooked the syrup to 243° F (it may have gotten a little higher than that before we got it out of the pot).<br /><br clear="all"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih_VFgp7WkxmKxi0oeJqyEtLbIPXqarfGx-r7CCLRELRAFZG_l2k-NqS5iLcfww29j8m7aDV1KwOflJGlOowzssAgcqDAz62-WNynnkIgAzJP5KNZdPh-cRqTNIXZVrtAYuj7Y3LTCKwk7/s1600-h/IMG_7794.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih_VFgp7WkxmKxi0oeJqyEtLbIPXqarfGx-r7CCLRELRAFZG_l2k-NqS5iLcfww29j8m7aDV1KwOflJGlOowzssAgcqDAz62-WNynnkIgAzJP5KNZdPh-cRqTNIXZVrtAYuj7Y3LTCKwk7/s400/IMG_7794.JPG" alt="" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; clear: both; float: right;" border="0" /></a>Next, we poured it out onto my woefully small marble slab. The directions say to sprinkle cold water on the marble first and then also on top of the sugar; we managed to sprinkle it on top of the sugar, which started spilling toward the edge of the too-small marble due to the fact that I set it down on the one part of our counter that our discount granite guys didn't install anywhere near level.<br /><br />The action didn't stop once we had that under control. We let the sugar cool to 120° F, more or less, and then began the process of agitating it into crystallizing by scraping it back and forth on the marble, much like one would do with chocolate only much, much more of a pain since chocolate flows and sugar sticks and holds on like the marble is the last life preserver on the Titanic. This required a lot more strength than I was anticipating, so I mostly tried to hold the marble in place and scrape the sugar off the main scraper with a metal bench scraper.<br /><br />The book says this step should take twenty (very long) minutes for the fondant to fully crystallize, "turning into a short-textured mass." Twenty minutes came and went without the fondant changing from its consistency of a very gooey, sticky cousin of pulled sugar, even as it became tougher and tougher to scrape.<br /><br />Finally, we resorted to scraping it entirely off the marble and pulling it like it actually was pulled sugar. This helped...to a point. We never got that short-textured mass, but after awhile it did take on more of a...well, I wouldn't say it got any less shiny, but the inside of the mass looked more and more matte somehow, and thus seemed to be fairly well crystallized.<br /><br clear="all"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjim957-d_AqV1PYqWHbapaIJQu-2K1G_BYvFC1E5b9jFqzKm26tpWMLQMnZjXxF2CbuqOvLPQ6nvUvsSixzQ8tXzIcL6vQq24X7WAdPavlhkytYq0UCRqXpIHyxfGfgYq9CHnCBBp4ge4q/s1600-h/IMG_7832.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjim957-d_AqV1PYqWHbapaIJQu-2K1G_BYvFC1E5b9jFqzKm26tpWMLQMnZjXxF2CbuqOvLPQ6nvUvsSixzQ8tXzIcL6vQq24X7WAdPavlhkytYq0UCRqXpIHyxfGfgYq9CHnCBBp4ge4q/s400/IMG_7832.JPG" alt="" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; clear: both; float: left;" border="0" /></a>The next step in the directions is to allow the fondant to rest overnight, but we didn't have overnight, so we went straight to dipping the cherries.<br /><br />To coat the cherries, we heated the fondant over a water bath to 160° F, thinned it a little with some more of the cherry juice (the recipe suggests brandy), and added 1/4 tsp of invertase just before dipping.<br /><br />Once all of that was accomplished, the dipping went very easily. Keeping the bowl over the water bath (with the gas turned down to the lowest setting) kept the fondant thin enough to coat the cherries without too much trouble. As each one was coated, we let them drip over the bowl, removed the extra fondant hanging from the bottom with the edge of a wooden spoon, and set them to cool on a sheet pan covered with a Silpat.<br /><br clear="all"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgstYGf_r9Fz2Wrp1ljiU4ft94WQ1RuGH2ozwEh9AggcSXBQRd36R7UJTcKTLAG_3QctLyF13V8fNOtRl3c4FfFaxpXjx-6DdJJjkeGsBwMeQG8MGbTp3u6rJczFT3eOVzGYK8u9Sutikwc/s1600-h/IMG_7838.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgstYGf_r9Fz2Wrp1ljiU4ft94WQ1RuGH2ozwEh9AggcSXBQRd36R7UJTcKTLAG_3QctLyF13V8fNOtRl3c4FfFaxpXjx-6DdJJjkeGsBwMeQG8MGbTp3u6rJczFT3eOVzGYK8u9Sutikwc/s400/IMG_7838.JPG" alt="" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; clear: both; float: right;" border="0" /></a>I don't think anyone who was there could get over how pretty they looked. I really wanted to leave them like that...only the invertase would have left all of that shiny pink sugar in a puddle around the cherry after a day or two. We did give into temptation and try a couple of misshapen and stemless cherries that way, though, and as pretty as the pink ones are, they're much better with the chocolate. So that makes up for having to cover up the sugar coating.<br /><br />One thing we didn't learn until later was that it's better not to let the fondant coat the stem as well as the cherry. Coating the stem gives the invertase-laced fondant an express lane to the open air, along which it can ooze out and drip all over the chocolate.<br /><br clear="all"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWfZL6qPNgKvh0dSD4XigY8WFz8I-aXaQUAkjhiFp4S48r2DXPjUMHP7hMf0PNIs7Ow-A1yskb69Hu3fuDYbMTNPI_j-1S13J_ty3iwfHl84Jodncpw2EynxxTk3k_HzfheEqafTwsIrdl/s1600-h/IMG_7809.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWfZL6qPNgKvh0dSD4XigY8WFz8I-aXaQUAkjhiFp4S48r2DXPjUMHP7hMf0PNIs7Ow-A1yskb69Hu3fuDYbMTNPI_j-1S13J_ty3iwfHl84Jodncpw2EynxxTk3k_HzfheEqafTwsIrdl/s400/IMG_7809.JPG" alt="" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; clear: both; float: left;" border="0" /></a>Because we only made a half batch of the fondant--enough for about a quarter of the cherries I had drained and dried for us--I made some of the home-style "fondant" I had used the first time I made the cherries and had a couple of helpers cover them with me while Geeky dipped the other cherries in the real fondant. The <a href="http://recipecircus.com/recipes/Katie/CANDY/Chocolate_Covered_Cherries.html">recipe</A> itself is very straightforward and my only addition to it was 1/2 tsp of invertase, so I won't get into detail on that, but I have a tip or two about how to get it onto the cherries in a smooth and even fashion.<br /><br />The main trick is to dust your hands/latex gloves with enough powdered sugar that the "fondant" remains dry as you roll. Also, using a smaller piece than you think you need to cover the cherry and squishing it to fit helps avoid making big, clunky-looking cherries. Once you have the cherry covered, put it between your hands with the stem sticking out between the middle and index fingers of your dominant hand. Roll the cherry very quickly and very lightly, around and around. This should make the top and bottom of the cherry smooth, but make the middle stick out, so turn the cherry so the stem pokes out toward you (between your thumbs) and roll it again, still quickly and lightly. Finally, roll it around sort of every which way in your palms to smooth it all over, once again quickly and lightly.<br /><br />I emphasize the quickly and lightly part because the less pressure you put on the cherry, the rounder and nicer it will look. All of that should take 30 seconds at the most--the quicker you do it, the lighter your touch is likely to be. Hopefully.<br /><br clear="all"><center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaPIgcP9YH_OZliwxWnDOFOWPM0tQrGVDpGdea5g9j_CpRdo3Rs0D6vDeu51cJXFjE_7QxjriQ1iYCLVCd-w3hYYN1tbtUJxa1VN_B84stCnHOIv3Eb4pkgNNj6mkHRW6KOQFXGqV-7RRy/s1600-h/IMG_7847.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaPIgcP9YH_OZliwxWnDOFOWPM0tQrGVDpGdea5g9j_CpRdo3Rs0D6vDeu51cJXFjE_7QxjriQ1iYCLVCd-w3hYYN1tbtUJxa1VN_B84stCnHOIv3Eb4pkgNNj6mkHRW6KOQFXGqV-7RRy/s400/IMG_7847.JPG" alt="" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; clear: both;" border="0" /></a></center><br /><br />The next step is, of course, actually dipping the cherries in chocolate, which will be the subject of the next (hopefully shorter) post. But see what I mean about cartoon bonbons? I love that pink fondant.<br /><br /><a href="http://tiger-chow.blogspot.com/2009/01/chocolate-covered-cherries-part-2.html">Chocolate-Covered Cherries, Part 2</A><br /><br /><a href="http://printable-tiger.blogspot.com/2009/01/chocolate-covered-cherries.html">Printable Recipe</A>Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-37104694695186349192008-12-20T14:06:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:47:05.824-07:00Snow Day Spaghetti<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/12/snow-day-spaghetti/">Snow Day Spaghetti</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/12/snow-day-spaghetti/');</script></div><br /><br />In Seattle, snow is as rare as rain is common. Possibly more so, seeing as our reputation as a rainy city is partially true and partially a fable told and retold to Californians in an effort to keep them from moving to the area (judging from the traffic--and the fact that I'm married to a former Californian--it hasn't worked as well as we hoped). When we do get snow, the streets are merely wet by evening, icy by midnight, and the snow by the roadside is melted by the next afternoon. We get even less here, sheltered in a narrow band between the backside of a hill and Lake Washington. As a child, I remember it snowing two or three times a year, with at least one snow day thrown in, but the climate has changed since then, and we generally only see one sticking snowfall a year, or two at the most.<br /><br />Someone should tell all of that to the seven inches that's set up camp in my yard, and the ice packed onto every roadway. It's overstayed its welcome.<br /><br />Oh, it was a fun guest on Thursday when it all fell in a matter of hours. The whole day took on <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9x0Q8_-MsygSCuJ-_pFuxXexi6wGyscIKRXpyqW4PrmpUzqFXNL_K7xu6o3j6y3wmWO_wXQEl61XioQ2ZVqqK07Bdwrsq2RYoQ_IYAbtcRvHrLZYL0Ci6-bG0aNNAP3TWbMUFvwva8pdC/s1600-h/IMG_8047.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 247px; height: 165px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9x0Q8_-MsygSCuJ-_pFuxXexi6wGyscIKRXpyqW4PrmpUzqFXNL_K7xu6o3j6y3wmWO_wXQEl61XioQ2ZVqqK07Bdwrsq2RYoQ_IYAbtcRvHrLZYL0Ci6-bG0aNNAP3TWbMUFvwva8pdC/s320/IMG_8047.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5282025290987822450" border="0" /></a>the feel of a real snow day, complete with powdery snowman snow, another rarity in our region. Our snowballs usually crumble or pack down to nothing but lethal ice. Baker Bee was off work and baking Portuguese sweet bread from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580082688?ie=UTF8&tag=tigcho-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1580082688">The Bread Baker's Apprentice</a> (which makes the best toast and French toast I've ever had, especially when topped with my dad's apple butter--we went through a whole jar on two loaves), and a couple of snowed-in friends stopped off in the middle of a walk for rest and a warm drink. I continued reaquainting myself with tools and supplies from pastry school and cake decorating. Opening the tubs that had been gathering dust in the spare bedroom for far too long now was enough like tearing into Christmas presents to infuse the day with a festive spirit. It was the first snow day I've had as an adult that really felt like a <i>snow day</i>.<br /><br />Yesterday, however, without fresh flakes to revive it, the snow started to take on the appearance of a houseguest who'd lost all of their luggage down to their tolietry kit but insisted they could "get by" until the airline came through and delivered their stuff. It looked cold and tired, and the prospect of the winter storm that's supposed to hit on Sunday made it not seem like quite the miracle it had been the day before. The fun was gone for the most part, but Baker Bee did bake another loaf of bread--a Italian-ish white loaf with some of the new sour we're cultivating in the fridge. It didn't turn out very sour--I didn't really expect it to have much sour to it yet--but it did have a lot of flavor, so Mr. Bee suggested we should make pasta to go with it.<br /><br />I decided I didn't want anything heavy, like the cheese sauce Baker Bee wanted to make. Olive oil and roasted veggies seemed like the best way to go. I thought about the vegetables we had in the fridge--vegetables that needed attention as soon as possible, since the vegetable barely stew he'd made on Monday had been too good to think of cooking anything else before it was all gone. Crimini mushrooms, mixed bell peppers, broccoli florets, Campari tomatoes. Not my usual combination for pasta, but okay. And then I got out a big casserole dish and started slicing vegetables.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkFufqFIXQcIK08ZRngtcTd7fW3L8HbJRWymlvhUOJA16UQUir6nk1hrtuxtAmzrymLBGH61FLU71tFhfn9DoWvQ-H3GVAWyrq0Qi4oSSvLnPUg1RNoqKXa-_bYS5yj4-ln8U2W4ncXcmj/s1600-h/IMG_8054.JPG"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkFufqFIXQcIK08ZRngtcTd7fW3L8HbJRWymlvhUOJA16UQUir6nk1hrtuxtAmzrymLBGH61FLU71tFhfn9DoWvQ-H3GVAWyrq0Qi4oSSvLnPUg1RNoqKXa-_bYS5yj4-ln8U2W4ncXcmj/s400/IMG_8054.JPG" border="0" align="right" /></a> In the pan, I tossed the mushrooms, orange and red bell peppers, and broccoli with olive oil, coarsely-chopped garlic, salt, black pepper, and a mixture of dried oregano, basil, thyme and marjoram, then put it in to roast at 375° for about 45 or 50 minutes total. I stirred the veggies every five to seven minutes, a bit more often than I probably should have but I kept smelling something charring in the oven, like a barbeque, which might have been the mushrooms sticking out on top or (more likely) some of the cornmeal that has escaped off of Baker Bee's pizza stone during the bread-baking spree.<br /><br />When I opened the door each time, though, a wonderful aroma bathed my face along with the steam, carrying with it the smell of the roasted vegetables reminded me most of the ones I get on my sandwiches at a place called Grinders up north when I go to watch <i>True Blood</i> with a writing friend. (If you live in the area and end up north of Shoreline on Aurora sometime, make sure to stop there for lunch. So, so messy and so, so good. Plus the amibiance inside is a lot cooler than you might guess from the location and the outside of the building.)<br /><br />The tomatoes went in separately, quartered and lying on their backs, with more olive oil and a good dusting of (vegetarian) bacon salt and regular sea salt. I think they shared the oven with the other vegetables for about the last 15 minutes. When they started looking happy and roasted, I shut off the oven, opened the door a bit and left all the vegetables in there to keep warm while Baker Bee made the whole wheat spaghetti and tossed it with a jar of organic heirloom pasta sauce we got to try. (It was very good, by the way...tasty but thin enough not to compete with the veggies.) Once all was ready, we layered the veggies over the pasta and sprinkled it all with parmesan cheese.<br /><br />I was expecting a lot less from this pasta than it delivered, possibly because I don't normally roast the vegetables that I put in with pasta--it's far too easy to boil some broccoli in the same water as the pasta and call it slightly healthy. But the texture of the vegetables and the pasta were just right. The "tooth-feel" of the mushrooms in particular was exactly what I was looking for, which was a roasted equivalent of the perfectly cooked mushrooms in Baker Bee's vegetable barely stuff earlier in the week. The flavors were the sort that get better as you eat. I thought I was getting full and set my plate aside, but soon I was craving the pasta again and took it back in hand. All in all, a warm, flavorful dish that took me immediately back to my cozy snow day feeling from the day before.<div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div>Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-32898878337203129372008-12-15T12:50:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:47:57.587-07:00Cranberry Meringue Tart<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/12/cranberry-meringue-tart/">Cranberry Meringue Tart</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/12/cranberry-meringue-tart/');</script></div><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVjhvg01pMZgIVw0ntj1RMqvbt-C5sYrNF9bkYhYVE2HbjPFIcc_1VcZ6oD069Pgjx-GSNsv7oZJPKsg6vZG76V-fXvGTMwVUABU9pmf4o187NSwOW2gvoqnK10idcM8qiea2TSX9xyzpz/s1600-h/IMG_7670-1.JPG"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVjhvg01pMZgIVw0ntj1RMqvbt-C5sYrNF9bkYhYVE2HbjPFIcc_1VcZ6oD069Pgjx-GSNsv7oZJPKsg6vZG76V-fXvGTMwVUABU9pmf4o187NSwOW2gvoqnK10idcM8qiea2TSX9xyzpz/s400/IMG_7670-1.JPG" border="0" align="left" /></a> Ever since I first saw the picture of the cute little <a href="http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/mini-cranberry-meringue-pie">Mini Cranberry Meringue Pies</a> in <i>Martha Stewart Living</i> a couple years ago, I've wanted to make them. Their photo showed one sliced down the middle, exposing the jewel-like filling and the lightness of the meringue to full effect. I never got around to it, but this year I decided to try all new recipes for Thanksgiving, and this went to the top of my list.<br /><br />I made a few mistakes along the way. Mistakes like forgetting the egg in the <a href="http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/best-pate-sucree?lnc=5a79cf380e1dd010VgnVCM1000005b09a00aRCRD&rsc=recipecontent_food">citrus <i>pate sucree</i></a> (I put it to the left of the food processor and the rest of my <i>mise en place</i> to the right) and experimenting with a store-bought carton of egg whites for the meringue when I didn't have time to make a second batch. However, even without that egg, the pate sucree was possibly the best tart crust I've ever made, and several people complimented it. It uses both lemon and orange zest, a flavor combination that I used in my wedding cake years ago that really seemed to punch up the flavor.<br /><br />But there was no blessing in disguise in regards to the meringue, unless I count the reminder that things never go well when I try to cut corners. At least this time it was in the spirit of experimentation and not just out of laziness, as usual. I used the Trader Joe's 100% egg whites, and I <i>knew</i> that they weren't going to be ideal when I saw how cloudy they were, but I went ahead and made the meringue. The foam ended up looking, well, very insipid and watery, not the airy dollop of heaven that I wanted to recreate from the magazine. By the time I was done, there was no time left, so the mediocre meringue went on the tart and I did my best to torch it, even though it didn't want to brown properly.<br /><br />Despite all of that, I don't think I've ever had a dessert disappear so quickly at a big family event or gotten quite so many compliments and questions. I kept being surprised that people liked it, because I wasn't entirely pleased with the mouth feel of the cranberry filling, as pretty as it was. It had that gross texture that comes from too much cornstarch, so next time I make this I'll either decrease the cornstarch or experiment with some of the alternate thickners my husband has been playing with in his attempts at molecular gastronomy, now that we have a kitchen that we can actually cook in again. The xanthan gum marshmallows he made last week were a huge success, so I'm <a href="http://blog.khymos.org/2008/05/21/hydrocolloid-recipe-collection-v2/">reading up on hydrocolloides</a> now, too.<br /><br />As I said above, I picked out a number of new holiday recipes to try this year. When I ate meat, Thanksgiving was one of my favorite holidays, and I've been trying to recreate that experience in a vegetarian way for eight years now, with varying amounts of success. This year, though, inspired by the new kitchen, I decided to try to find some new flavors to turn into new traditions, rather than continue to try to recreate the omnivore's version of the holiday. Pretty much all of them (other than a new twist on the savory seitan and mushroom dish I've come up with to stand in for turkey) came from Martha Stewart--I rarely turn to her during the rest of the year, but the recipes in the holiday issues of the magazine are always really appealing to me, so much so that I keep them in their own binder on my cookbook shelf.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/cauliflower-gratin-with-endive?autonomy_kw=cauliflower%20couscous&rsc=header_1">Cauliflower Gratin with Endive</a> was delicious--cheesy without being greasy at all, and the Israeli couscous scattered in the bottom of the pan absorbed the sauce but held its shape in a texturally interesting way.<br /><br />Stuffing was always my favorite part of Thanksgiving, so it took a lot strength to turn my back on the plain old crouton, celery and sage type stuff we always had. The <a href="http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/cornbread-wild-mushroom-and-pecan-stuffing?autonomy_kw=cornbread%20wild%20mushroom%20stuffing&rsc=header_2">Cornbread, Wild Mushroom and Pecan Stuffing</a> I settled on was so good I just wanted to hold it on my tongue and not swallow it, or even chew it.<br /><br />We used maitake, hedgehog and oyster mushrooms--I'd never cooked with hedgehog mushrooms, and they were extremely tasty!--so it wasn't inexpensive. Otherwise, I would've made another pan straight away and wolfed it down at home. I have plans to try it with less expensive mushrooms soon. The pecans were a revelation. I've often put walnuts into savory cooking, but I think this was my first time using pecans that way, and they complemented the mushrooms very well.<br /><br />It seems like we made another new dish, but I can't think of what it was, other than the seitan stuff, where the newness of it lay mostly in my husband's interpretation of how to cook it based on my instructions I yelled from the shower. That and he tried a trick for quickly browning onions by adding baking soda to them that he read about somewhere online. It worked. But it also made the onions completely dissolve...which had the effect of coating the seitan in the onion pulp and frying it onto it. Not what we were going for, but I think I'll do it again next time we make it.<div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div>Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-83158170620035345112008-12-08T13:31:00.000-08:002009-03-12T19:49:00.039-07:00The Newest Member of the Family<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/12/the-newest-member-of-the-family/">The Newest Member of the Family</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/12/the-newest-member-of-the-family/');</script></div><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAU2tqYtMeaC6mQDqEWh9bfqcUvXhgU2he0fW_2V6bPQPJ4G8Gd6ujBcr3P8ypWsES8pWRis7_fEKTAFl-r90WhNYVY4_ny3C_kP6AGBM_HL8MhBaa-FHxcVaJhMzyfNVIP69Jeft5Es6E/s1600-h/IMG_7684.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAU2tqYtMeaC6mQDqEWh9bfqcUvXhgU2he0fW_2V6bPQPJ4G8Gd6ujBcr3P8ypWsES8pWRis7_fEKTAFl-r90WhNYVY4_ny3C_kP6AGBM_HL8MhBaa-FHxcVaJhMzyfNVIP69Jeft5Es6E/s400/IMG_7684.JPG" alt="" align="right" border="0" /></a>Isn't she beautiful/he gorgeous/it fantastic? I struggled quite mightily to bring it out into the world. Cooking.com must be obsessed with boxes inside of boxes inside of boxes, which become very difficult to part when they're huge and wedged together by packing peanuts. But I can't really complain, since so far it seems to have weathered shipping without any harm done.<br /><br />While six quarts isn't twenty quarts, this is still a marked improvement over my veteran 4.5 KA.<br /><br />I have photos to write about here. I'll have to think about getting around to that someday.<br /><br /><I>Update:</I> So, I love the mixer, but the four-and-a-half quart one might be staying around. It seems to have trouble with small batches of cookie dough. Also, I'm noticing a tendency for stuff to get stuck at the center around the beater that's worse than what I expect from the smaller mixers. I don't remember that from the five quart ones I used at school and at work. The other annoying thing about the new one is that it doesn't fit under the cabinets on the counter.<br /><br />At least they're both black and chrome, so they match the kitchen and match each other.<br clear="all"><br /><br /><div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjgqzNYWKN0EfDCkCY7SVfACIViGyDiSAG8_T0PJ2zDe7HBy0RGOdYvosXkTUEW_crEWqulKCRPpl6sejT32UWBEiLZbR4TtkAb8ZLvxCuwxodz8Ix2BiZnCmlh9pVs24vpBRSPuGvoSib/s1600-h/IMG_7686.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjgqzNYWKN0EfDCkCY7SVfACIViGyDiSAG8_T0PJ2zDe7HBy0RGOdYvosXkTUEW_crEWqulKCRPpl6sejT32UWBEiLZbR4TtkAb8ZLvxCuwxodz8Ix2BiZnCmlh9pVs24vpBRSPuGvoSib/s400/IMG_7686.JPG" alt="" border="0" /></a> </div>Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1952525605616247852.post-14073358946674255772008-09-28T22:24:00.000-07:002009-03-12T19:50:20.273-07:00Black Bottom Cupcakes<div style="padding: 1em; font-size: 120%;"><a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/09/black-bottom-cupcakes/">Black Bottom Cupcakes</a> is now hosted at <a href="http://pieofthetiger.com/">Pie of the Tiger</a><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">window.top.location.replace('http://pieofthetiger.com/2008/09/black-bottom-cupcakes/');</script></div><br /><br />I've wanted to have a food blog for a very long time--and I suppose I sort of did for awhile when I was in pastry school--but up until recently the state of my kitchen prevented it. The "vintage" side-by-side range/oven perched atop the cramped, sad formica counters were not exactly practically or aesthetically conducive to it. I wasn't able to enjoy cooking very much, and I couldn't take pretty food pictures, either. But we've gotten far enough through a remodel that I think I can start having fun.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisn09ox1zBZorXqb_Bw6M49ahLr8vfaQp81t1vKtk5ZTofkDGcI9zWa2iE8zSgdNNfu495Yldl1bckN9lKqr-BEbrfIt1oH4uCBV0ERiDiq7Gk8k7AEukI7YXoetY_OhR9dm6D337nxLx0/s1600-h/IMG_6959.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; clear: both; float: left;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisn09ox1zBZorXqb_Bw6M49ahLr8vfaQp81t1vKtk5ZTofkDGcI9zWa2iE8zSgdNNfu495Yldl1bckN9lKqr-BEbrfIt1oH4uCBV0ERiDiq7Gk8k7AEukI7YXoetY_OhR9dm6D337nxLx0/s320/IMG_6959.JPG" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: left;">Tonight I made Black Bottom Cupcakes for--as the Toasty Chef calls him--Mr. T's birthday tomorrow. I can blog about them tonight because Mr. T doesn't know about this blog yet. Sneaky, right? We're headed down the coast for a writer's retreat all week, and while we'll have a kitchen where we're going, I wasn't sure what equipment I'd find once I was there, so I figured I'd better come with cake in hand.<br /></div><br />I looked through a couple cookbooks in search of a tasty-yet-portable cake that seemed special enough for Mr. T's birthday. Nothing seemed appealing to me that looked stable enough for a five hour car ride and didn't need ingredients I don't have on hand. I was paging through <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743246268?ie=UTF8&tag=tigcho-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0743246268">The Joy of Cooking</a> when I came across a recipe for Black Bottom Cupcakes. I used to make Black Bottom Cupcakes back when I was a pastry cook. Scratch that--I used to de-pan the cupcakes after the baker I assisted made them. Which meant I'd never made them before. After checking that I did have cream cheese in my fridge and considering the superior portability of cupcakes, I decided that tonight I'd fix that--even though I've never thought the name "Black Bottom Cupcakes" sounded particularly appetizing, or consistent with the end product, for that matter. The chocolate part isn't just in the bottom, and I think anything with cream cheese in it should advertise that fact proudly.<br /><br />All in all, I think they turned out very nicely, and they're a fairly simple cupcake to whip up despite the fact that you have to make two batters. I think the baker I used to work with must have swirled the cream cheese part around in the chocolate cake batter, because the boundaries between the two are much more clear than I remember hers being. I like the look of mine better, but swirling would probably improve the texture of the cupcake overall by breaking up the rich center a bit.<br /><br />Where I went wrong: 1) Despite the fact that I know better (out of sheer fear of ruining a huge batch of cream cheese frosting at work when the job fell to me), I got impatient and beat the cream cheese with the sugar before it had warmed up to room temperature. Not a huge problem because I was baking it, but my worst habit in the kitchen is impatience. 2) I baked them for just a little too long, so the edges are a little crisper than I'd like.<br /><br />Still, the cupcakes are super moist. I'll definitely make them again.<br /><br /><em>The Joy of Cooking</em> scores another point. I always feel so domestic turning to it rather than my fancy-shmancy gourmet photo-filled cookbooks.Jessicahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03717965652424854862noreply@blogger.com0