Crumble, Salad, and Baseball

This was a weird, long, crazy, emotional week. Mainly because my boss at the university retired this week.You know a lot of people aren’t huge fans of their bosses, and in the past I probably would have been in the same boat. I have had several good ones, but I’ve also experienced the worst of the worst. The top of boss that makes hell reign on earth, breathes fire, and eats small children. But this was different. He was the best boss I’ve ever had, and maybe because he never really felt like a boss. More like someone who was there to help me do my job and support me when I needed it. But he also brought a level of humor to the office that could not rivaled.

At the beginning of the week I went on a cookbook binge. That’s right I bought four new books, which is insane when any single one of them would probably take me three months to go through. So buying four makes absolutely no sense, but for some reason I decided I needed all of them. Actually, I managed to convince myself to put back two, so I’m calling that a partial win.

The first recipe I tried, and well the only one I’ve tried so far, is an apricot crumble tart situation out of My Paris Kitchen by David Leibovitz. Of course, the first thing I make is a dessert. Well, if this tart is any indication of how the rest of the recipes will turn out, then I think we might be in business.

So the tart really had three components: the crumble topping, the apricot filling, and the crust. The crust was good. It was a little hard. I’m not sure why that is. The flavor was good, and it softened up a little later on. But it was a little hard. The crumble topping was good and the apricot filling was standard. Granted fillings for these type of things aren’t that difficult or complicated. I actually really liked the fact that the filling only required two tablespoons of sugar. I’m weird in that I don’t like my desserts to be really sweet. Really I like a mild sweet. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure my apricots were too sour. I may need to try this again with better apricots. Overall, I would make this again. To be honest, I’ll probably make it again tomorrow. We’re going to the market, so maybe I can scavenge up some fresh apricots.

Nicoise Salad. Dinner of champions.

Next up is a Mediterranean salad from that WS cookbook. I’m not super sure what distinguishes this from your standard nicoise salad. I’m sure it’s something, but I just don’t know. Probably because I’ve never made a nicoise before. Also, I left out the anchovies. Slimy, salty little fish. I have a difficult relationship with them.

Also, good standard easy recipe. Though I’m the slowest cook on the planet. No, really. I think it took me an hour to put together this salad, which makes absolutely no sense. There was almost no actual cooking involved with the exception of the green beans and boiling the eggs.

One note… I had a hard time finding nicoise or any other tiny olives. I finally found some at whole foods and they still had pits. That didn’t bother me so much, but I probably should have pitted them before dropping them in the salad. As I later discovered my husband dropping them down the disposal because he refused to eat around the pits. Yea…

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. The little devils.

So going back to my boss’ retirement week. He has this thing where his entire diet is dominated by bananas and cookies. And I should mention he eats SO many cookies. I’ve seen him eat four in a sitting. It’s actually quite impressive. So for his retirement week I made oatmeal raisin. I happen to have learned that his was his favorite. However, I absolutely abhor oatmeal raisin cookies. The little raisins masquerading as chocolate chips and fooling you at the last minute, and the fact that I can’t even eat oatmeal without my stomach having a meltdown. The last remaining remnants of my Peace Corps life are the lists of foods I am no longer capable of eating.

The first batch I made from a recipe on AllRecipes. I swear it had almost a billion 5 star reviews. It may have realistically had almost 2,000 reviews and it was at a 4.5 star. Should be good right? For some reason mine were terrible. Not just slightly funny, but not even edible. They browned too much, they spread too much, and worst of all they didn’t even cook all the way through. Should I have used my baking intuition and been like “I should chill the dough before putting it into the oven,” or “this recipe seems light on the baking soda.” Probably. But I didn’t. And it was a disaster.

The second batch was amazing. And I hate these cookies, so that says something. It was one I found on Tastespotting that had adapted a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. You know that recipe book that my roommate swears by, but I just haven’t seemed to gotten into. Well, baking powder instead of soda and nutmeg instead of cinnamon. I also called an audible and soaked the raisins in rum beforehand and accidentally doubled the nutmeg, because apparently I can’t read.

They were incredible. Until you hit that first raisin. Ick. And I only permitted myself to eat a quarter of a cookie, because oatmeal.

The office took a field trip to the Nationals game.

Ah.. but one of the big events of the week was our office outing to the Nationals game. One of the boss’s biggest pastimes is baseball. He LOVES the Nats. So it only seemed fitting for us all to go out to a game together in the worst seats in the stadium. We were actually two rows down from the worst seats, but hey they view of the field was still really good.  You could still see everything really clearly. There was no giant post in front of you and the game was just as exciting. I got a hot dog and three beers, because that’s how we roll. We then had an office party the next night for the entire school of medicine. Between the two nights he was so happy. It was really nice to see him really enjoy his last two days as a GWU Dean. It’s a nice reminder that there are still really good, caring, empathetic people out there.

 

 

 

Apple Extravaganza: Apple sauce, Apple Cake, Apple Muffins

In the past month I’ve made apple cake, apple sauce, and apple sauce muffins. The apple sauce was technically for the muffins. I guess that makes sense.

I’ll provide you with the apple sauce recipe, since it was super easy.

Completed apple sauce

Apple Sauce (adapted from Williams – Sonoma):

2.5 pounds of apples; peeled, cored and coarsely chopped

1/3 cup of water

1 tsp cinnamon (or to taste)

sugar (to taste)

Add water and apples to a medium – ish pot and bring to a boil. Simmer, partially covered until apples are soft. Mash with a fork and add cinnamon and sugar.

I add a couple of tablespoons of sugar to mine and a bunch of cinnamon. I’m a cinnamon fanatic and my apples were a little too tart for my liking. While Williams – Sonoma recommended granny smith apples or McIntosh. I might go with Fuji or golden delicious. Sweet ones. Other than that, I liked the recipe and it was really easy to make. Added bonus: the kitchen smelled amazing.

Apple muffins about to go into the oven

Also, kind of from the same recipe were the Apple Sauce muffins. I love almost everything apple, so this seemed right up my alley. I was suspicious of making apple sauce instead of just buying it. I’m still not sure there was a big enough taste difference to warrant making it yourself, especially since it was going in a muffin.

Anyway, recipe was decently easy. My bar of easiness has changed drastically after my ventures with the Laduree cookbook. But I think these were legitimately easy enough to make. That being said, mine came out kind of dry and dense. Not overly so, and they were still good. But I would prefer them to be much fluffier. I’m kind of wondering if I accidentally over baked them. I do have a tendency to do this, since I forget to set timers.

Maybe you’ll have better luck?

Baked Apple Sauce Muffins. At least they looked good

Recipe Link to Apple Sauce Muffins and Apple Sauce: http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/country-applesauce-muffins.html?cm_src=RECIPESEARCH

Now on to the apple cake, Apfelkuchen in German, because I know you were wondering.

Apple Cake! You need this!

I found this recipe on Tastespotting: http://www.thegardenercook.com/grandmas-apple-cake/

Now, this cake is amazing. Absolutely amazing, scrumptious, delicious. I think I ate the whole thing in one day. If you plan on doing any baking this week or month, you must make this. It’s so easy to make, looks great, and tastes like apple heaven.

Rose Cream Bunnies

In celebration of Easter, I decided to whip up two batches of macarons. I had my standby lemon ones (which I must admit are my favorite so far), and something a little different, rose cream macarons.

This is my second time making lemon curd. Or maybe my third. I can’t remember. It is my first time to compare two different lemon curd recipes and realize that it probably works best with only the yolks. Don’t add the whites folks. They cook and then you have lumpy lemon curd. For some reason I don’t remember this happening the first time I made it. Even with the slight issue with the curd, these were amazing. They always taste amazing, and they looked amazing this time as well.

Now for the rose cream. Anything with rose or lavender kind of scares me a bit. I’ve had some really delicious rose desserts before, but on the other end of the spectrum, they sometimes taste like soap. So going through all the effort of making macarons and having them taste like soap, would be a terrible defeat. So right out of the gate these made me nervous.

Rose syrup and rose water. Smell divine but hard to find.

The second issue with making rose cream anything is finding the ingredients. Apparently, not every grocery store carries rose water, and even fewer carry rose syrup. To be honest I had never heard of rose syrup before this exercise. I started out at Whole Foods which seemed like a safe bet, and I guess it was relatively. They did have the rose water. They also had orange blossom water which I have noted for future recipes. They did not have rose syrup though. On the advice of a friend, I tried the international supermarket circuit, since rose is a more common ingredient in middle eastern cuisines. This did work and I actually have a little international supermarket down the street. It’s more of just a market than a supermarket though. However, they had many yummy looking desserts and plentiful amounts of tea. They also had rose water and orange blossom water for about half the price of Whole Foods. So if you’re in the market, check one of these places out.

After finding the correct ingredients, the rose cream was actually really easy to make. It was mostly butter. Seriously it tasted like floral butter. That doesn’t sound so good, but it was. And my fears of it tasting like soap were alleviated, because it didn’t. Not even close.

I attempted to pipe bunny macarons. It didn’t work out so well. They look like hearts, or butts depending on your perspective.

I also attempted to pipe bunnies with the macaron batter. My first attempt at doing something a little fancier than circles. Well, I think I’ll be sticking with the circles for now. Even that sometimes gives me issues. I also managed to dump and entire tray of shells on the floor. I think a little piece of my soul died with those cookies. Note that this is why it is always a good idea to have a bottle of wine on hand before beginning the macaron process.

In the end, they turned out magically. But it’s always an experience.

Completed rose cream and lemon macarons for Easter.

Macaron Making Tips

So I’m cooking in a new kitchen with all new equipment. I’ve only been using this stuff for a few weeks. This is my first time using an electric range, as I’ve always cooked on gas ranges in the past. I didn’t think this would be much of a concern, but after my eclair disaster I started to think otherwise.

In attempt to become more comfortable and familiar with my new cooking environment, I decided to make a batch of macarons. This seems like a silly thing to do, and almost most definitely end in disaster seeing as I’m not a pastry chef. However, unlike eclairs, I’ve made macarons a couple of times before. I’ve done my homework on them and I’m relatively comfortable with the ins and outs of macaron making.

I’ve made macarons I think six times now. The first round was the only serious disaster I’ve had. They cracked, melted, and ran together. They looked like little puddles of chocolate goo. It took a couple glasses of wine to come off of the disappointment. Somehow the little brown puddles still tasted incredible though, so I decided I would keep trying until they were at least presentable enough to be labelled macarons.

I went back to the drawing board. Read over the recipes in the Laduree recipe book over and over again. Read as many blog posts and baking articles I could find, and eventually decided to try again.

So here is what I’ve learned so far about macaron making:

1. Weigh your ingredients. Macarons need everything to be exact, and weighing ingredients is much more precise than measuring by volume. Also, keep a thermometer in your over. Ovens lie. They say 300 but they may actually be an inferno of heat.

2. Check the weather. It seems kind of ridiculous to have a weather-dependent cookie, but macarons hate humidity. Like HATE humidity. So if it’s raining or look like it may start raining, it may be best to plan on making your macarons another day.

If you do plan on making macarons on a high-humidity day, there are a few tricks you can try. If you have a gas stove, try lighting a burner. The heat from the flame should remove some of the moisture from the air. In that same line of thinking, you could also turn on your heater, which is probably not a pleasant thought in July. You could also invest in a dehumidifier (probably your best bet).

I’ve made macarons successfully at 90% humidity without a problem. High humidity will try your patience though, as it extends your drying time substantially.

White chocolate vanilla bean ganache. Must chill for 2 hours before piping.

3. The eggs: Several, actually many, of the blogs I’ve read about making macarons call for or suggest using aged egg whites. The Laduree recipe books that I follow like a bible calls for eggs at room temperature (no aging).

I have never aged my eggs. I usually just let them set out for a couple of hours until they reach room temperature. I’ve never had any problems with the meringue (other than my first macaron attempt), so I’m assuming room temperature eggs work just fine. Aging the eggs just seems like an unnecessary step to make the whole process take three days longer. I’m not sure I could wait three days for a cookie.

Filling the vanilla/white chocolate macarons. I sprinkled cinnamon on top for character.

4. I usually have to run the almond flour mixture through the food processor twice. This could just be that I don’t process it for long enough the first time. I usually find that I have quite a few larger almond chunks remaining after the first run through, and then have to do it again.

5. Mixing the egg whites into the flour mixture. I’ve read that the batter should flow like lava. How many people actually know what lava flow looks like in person? My guess is not too many. This is a terrible description, though I’m not sure I can come up with a better analogy. Maybe like a milkshake? A thick, creamy milkshake. It should flow very slowly, and if you if you take a spoonful and drizzle it back over the batter it should take it about 30-45 seconds to recombine with the mixture.

This has taken me the longest to get right. My macarons were too puffy and no matter what I did they still had the peaks left from the piping bag. It actually requires a lot more mixing and deflating of the batter to get it to the right consistency. When you pipe out the macarons the should spread a little and the peak will smooth out in about a minute. If this happens, then the batter is correct.

Tried to pipe a fun filling design. This needs more work.

6. Parchment v. Slipat: The slipat is this silicon mat thing with circle macaron outlines. It’s perfect for knowing how big you should pipe your macarons. You can bake your macarons on it as well, and they peel off of it really nicely.

The only downside to baking on the slipat is that the macarons will have no feet. You know, that craggily area around the edges that macarons are supposed to have. Nada. No feet.

I usually place my parchment over the slipat so I can still have the nice circle guidelines for piping, and then move the slipat out from under the parchment. Voila, perfect circles with feet!

The downside with parchment is the ‘whole run a stream of water down the side of the pan so the macarons release from the parchment’ business. I can’t help you here. This just takes practice.

7. Drying time. This as stated earlier depends on the humidity. You might not have the same drying time for each batch. They need to dry until the outside forms a kind of hardened shell. I’ve had this take as long as an hour in high humidity.

Also, don’t put large decorations on top of your macarons during the drying phase, or really ever. I tried being creative and sprinkling crushed candy cane on a couple. Yea… I turned out with holy, gooey macaron shells with pieces of peppermint stuck to the parchment.

As for the baking and the filling, that’s the easy part. If you made it that far, you should be golden.

If you have any questions, let me know! Like I said, I’m not a baker, but I can tell you the things I’ve learned through trial and error.

How to Eclair – Part Two – Early Setbacks

Today, I’ve learned a valuable lesson in French pastry: Don’t try to do anything else at the same time. Attempting at multitasking will end in failure, at least until you know what you’re doing.

I started off today with the sweet crispy layer. After reading the recipe, it looks to be like a really thin layer of dough that you lay on top of the eclair before baking. I’m still a little unsure of its purpose, especially as I have looked through several other recipes that don’t have this. I’m pretty sure the sole purpose of this layer is to make the recipe more complicated.

Anyway, things started off well.

I attached my little paddle attachment to the mixer, because no one wants to mix super cold butter by hand. Just sounds painful. Also, I have too many coffee makers for one counter.

I mixed together all the ingredients to form a dough ball, which then is placed in the refrigerator for one hour. One hour only. Not two. Just one. Well, I left mine for three. I decided I need to do some shopping in-between.

Well, I came back and my dough ball was as hard as a rock. This shouldn’t be too big of a problem. I just let it sit on the counter for a bit while I started making the eclair filling.

I put the milk in the sauce pan along with the insides of a vanilla bean. This had to be one of the most fertile vanilla beans I’ve ever seen. Tons of seeds in that thing. I then reread the direction and saw that you’re also supposed to place the pod in the milk as well. I look around for the pod, and it’s of course in the trash can. So I scrape out a second vanilla bean and add its insides and pod to the milk with the hopes that my filling will be ultra vanilla-y.

I whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until they are a pale yellow, and then examine my rock hard dough ball. I beat it a couple of times with a rolling pin and find that it’s pliable and roll it out to the millimeter thinness that the recipe requests. So far small hiccups nothing big.

Back to the filling. Pour some of the hot milk mixture into the egg mixture to temper the eggs while whisking your little heart out.

Well, juggling the filling and the crispy layer at the same time probably weren’t the best ides. I’m not super familiar with egg tempering and milk simmering. So well… today’s episode ends with… you guessed it. Cooked eggs. The ultimate unholy sight.

Kind of gross, isn’t it?

Well, now I guess I have to start again with the pastry cream. I’m still holding out hope for the crispy top.

Attempt #1 = fail

Stay tuned for another round of eclair wrangling.

Getting Started

I’ve tried blogging once or twice, mainly back in my Peace Corps days to keep in touch with my family and friends back home. Well, I think I may have posted three articles during the entire two years.

I’m also not a cook, food blogger, baker. I’m none of those things. This blog is dedicated to those of us who are not the average food blogger and cook. This is for us cooking and baking beginners, who are not fully able to grasp Instagram. It is also for my family and friends back home to share my new life with me in my new city.

So to start off with, I would like to share a few notes on what I’ve learned about baking this far in life:

1. Cooking is an art. Baking is chemistry. Find a good recipe and follow it to the letter. Leave out an egg or add too much flour and you’re in for a meltdown.

2. Meltdowns are common, and I have them often. So never be surprised when I get to the end of a post and there is a picture lumpy, deflated pieces of dough that were supposed to be croissants.

3. Food blogs lie. The ‘whole macarons are easy to make once you learn a few tricks’ thing is a lie. They will probably be brown or colorful deflated monsters depending on the food coloring of your choice.

4. Keep a bottle of wine on hand. Not for baking, but for drinking when those macarons you spent five hours making turn out as blue deflated monsters. The macarons will probably still taste fantastic, and you won’t mind the presentation so much if you’re slightly (a lot) inebriated.

5. Always read the recipe all the way through before beginning. I never do this. And I always inevitable find some odd piece of equipment that I need on the third step that I don’t have. To make matters worse is that it is usually something ridiculously difficult to find. Buckwheat honey? Sure, I’ve never heard of that.

Keeping these things in mind, I wish you and me success!