Foodology

Mmmmmmmmeat

2012-01-29T13:28:00.000-08:00

My friend e mailed me yesterday, asking about recipes to make for his very special lady, and then scolded me for not blogging recently. Well no, not scolded, but he brought it to my attention that I've been quiet on the blog these past few weeks. To be honest, it wasn't until he said it that I realized 20 days had elapsed since I last wrote!

This whole "having-a-real-job-that-keeps-you-busy-during-the-day" and "having-a-social-life-that-keeps-you-busy-during-the-evening" really makes the days and weeks fly by!

In the past, when I've taken a mini hiatus from the blog, I like to come back with a BANG-- something that is drool-worthy, both aesthetically and taste wise. Especially taste wise. And in honor of my friend's request, I'll also share with you a dish I think can be a very sexy meal for two (or six).

Braised short ribs atop a mashed potato pillow

Reasons that short ribs make a sexy meal:

1. They're full of that umami flavor that just gets your taste buds all hot-and-bothered

2. They're insanely easy to make, so even if you're not an experienced cook, you can make a fancy meal to impress your date

3. They're ridiculously delicious, and fail proof, so it's guaranteed to blow your date's socks off (figuratively, but possibly literally as well....)

4. The best way to a man's heart is through his stomach

5. The best way to a woman's heart is by doing something special for her and showing her you're a (wo)man of many talents

6. They make your house smell amazing, so the second your date walks through the door they'll be impressed at your mad cooking skillz

7. One bite is guaranteed to make your date moan. (Subsequent moans are up to you buddy...)

8. They have a relatively short prep time, and after that you literally pop them in the oven and check on them every hour or so. Which means that before your big day you can relax and make yourself look pretty/presentable, instead of sweating over a hot stove and making sure that your meat + side dish + veggies + salad + whatever else you're gonna make all finish at the exact same time

Note: People think cooking is hard. Not true. Timing, and getting everything to the table at the right time, now THAT is the most difficult thing in cooking. After years and years of cooking I'm just now starting to get OK at that.

Reasons that short ribs would not make a sexy meal:

1. Your partner is a vegetarian

Vegetarians typically do not like to eat meat

This dish is one of the most hearty, cozy, perfect-for-cold-weather foods I've ever made. And I can't possibly describe to you just how delicious and amazing these short ribs are. Which means you'll just have to make them yourself and find out!

After hunting around, I decided to go with a recipe my friend Mara used on her blog. If I had an extra day I would have followed her directions, but I just followed the ones from the food network recipe she used. And they're super simple.

The ingredient list is pretty straightforward. Meat, veggies, tomato paste, red wine, and thyme.

Thyme: so fragrant... and makes a nice photo subject.

Like most short rib recipes this one has you brown the meat, then add liquids, then cook it low and slow for hours on end.

Unlike most recipes, some of which include veggies and others that don't, this one has you pulse your veggies in a food processor.

From this...

... to this.

The genius part of this idea is that it makes the sauce around the short ribs really thick and hearty. And while you don't distinctly taste the veggies, you can feel good knowing that at least there's a little bit of something healthy for you in this dish!

The ribs before going into the oven.

The liquid will reduce and brown as it cooks for hours.

If I had to suggest one change it would be to cook the meat a tiny bit longer. (The recipe says 3 hours.) It was super tender and just fell off the bone, but there will still a little bit of fat connecting the meat that could have been rendered off. But hey, I'm not complaining.

Serve on top of mashed potatoes or creamy polenta, with maybe a nice little salad with greens and balsamic vinegar, and you've got yourself one sexy meal!

Yours in seduction through food,
Jacqueline

Braised short ribs, from Secrets of a Restaurant Chef

Note: I highly suggest checking out Mara's post to see how she cooked them for longer, and put them in the fridge for a day in between to deepen the flavor. Next time I'll following her method!

Ingredients
6 bone-in short ribs (about 5 3/4 pounds)
Kosher salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 large (Spanish) onion, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 ribs celery, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 carrots, peeled, cut in 1/2 lengthwise, then cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 1/2 cups tomato paste
2 to 3 cups hearty red wine
2 cups water
1 bunch fresh thyme, tied with kitchen string
2 bay leaves

Directions

1. Season each short rib generously with salt.

2. Coat a pot large enough to accommodate all the meat and vegetables with a little bit of olive oil and bring to a high heat. Add the short ribs to the pan and brown very well, about 2 to 3 minutes per side. Do not overcrowd pan. Cook in batches, if necessary.

3. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

4. While the short ribs are browning, puree all the vegetables and garlic in the food processor until it forms a coarse paste. When the short ribs are very brown on all sides, remove them from the pan. Drain the fat, coat the bottom of same pan with fresh oil, and add the pureed vegetables.

5. Season the vegetables generously with salt and brown until they are very dark and a crud has formed on the bottom of the pan, approximately 5 to 7 minutes. (Note: my paste never got that dark, but I cooked them for ~5-7 minutes, until most of their liquid had evaporated). Scrape the crud and let it reform.

6. Scrape the crud again and add the tomato paste. Brown the tomato paste for 4 to 5 minutes.

7. Add the wine and scrape the bottom of the pan. Lower the heat if things start to burn. Reduce the mixture by half.
(Note: the recipe has you reduce the wine, then add water. I don't see the point in this. Maybe there's a reason, but I just don't know. So to save some time I just cooked the wine mixture for a few more minutes, didn't worry about reducing it, and just added less water later.)

8. Return the short ribs to the pan and add water until it has just about covered the meat (2 cups or less). Add the thyme bundle and bay leaves. Cover the pan and place in the preheated oven for 3 hours.

9. Check periodically during the cooking process and add more water, if needed. Turn the ribs over halfway through the cooking time. (Note: I checked it every hour at first, then a little more as the mixture started getting darker. Then I would stir the mixture every time I checked on the ribs. Didn't want certain parts to get dry and overcook.)

10. Remove the lid during the last 20 minutes of cooking to let things get nice and brown and to let the sauce reduce. When done the meat should be very tender but not falling apart. Serve with the braising liquid.

Toilet paper cake

2012-01-08T12:27:00.000-08:00

I've been waiting years to make this cake-- I just needed the perfect person (someone with a sense of humor) and the perfect situation (someone old enough where a cake like this is actually funny). I'm happy to say the perfect storm hit this Saturday!!!

With the big 4-0 approaching for one of my (many) cousins, his brothers planned a surprise party for him. I figured a cake would be a great addition to the surprise. And since my cousin is a chill, laid-back guy with a sense of humor, I knew he wouldn't mind getting a cake in the shape of a toilet paper roll.

Crapping the years away...

After taking all my pictures, I realized that I didn't say "Happy Birthday" or "40" anywhere on the creation. Whoops!! So literally 4 minutes before I ran out of the house to go to the surprise party, I whipped up an extra square. I have to say, other than adding the personalized touch, it made the cake board look much less bare and unbalanced.

I love simple last second additions that make a huge difference.

Luckily the birthday boy was both surprised with the party...

.... and entertained with his cake!

As he said during dinner, "No, I cannot spare a square"

And now, time for the obligatory close-up shots with some details on how I made the cake.

I decided to make my cousin barefoot and wearing a wife-beater. Why?!? Because I thought it would be funny (and also a little easier). I love the power bestowed upon a cake decorator... muahahahahaha. But as you can see above, he's got a much better sense of style than his little figurine.

"I'm just chillin' on a roll of toilet paper, strummin' on my guitar"

After cutting out a circle the same diameter as my cake, I used cookie cutters and a knife (with a light touch) to create the ridged pattern on the top of the cake. I also carved a piece ~ 1/4" deep in the center of the cake and filled it with a piece of fondant painted brown. I could have simply plopped a piece of brown fondant on top of the cake to give the impression of the cardboard roll in the center, but the simple act of insetting it in the cake added a greater sense of depth and realism.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: its the smallest touches make the biggest difference in a cake.

Cake optical illusion

Another example of small touches: adding a hint of texture to my toilet paper.

Ridged... for your pleasure?!?

It's hard to see, but by adding the bit of texture to the normally super-smooth fondant it made the fondant look much less harsh. And you'll never guess how I did it!!

For Christmas a friend gave me this gorgeous bowl...

... which just so happened to have an awesome texture on it's backside that looked a little like those flowered patterns on toilet paper.

Thinking outside of the ~~box~~ bowl

A simple press of the fondant with my hand on the bowl bottom and my flat, white fondant was instantly transformed to textured toilet paper.

The last little touch I added was to use a toothpick to create the seams between the squares. (Again, that happened after I took my photos.) I also wish I had a picture of the inside of the cake. Three perfect 8" layers of my Guinness chocolate cake with coffee buttercream filling (swiss meringue style, but with whole eggs instead of simply egg whites). Looked and tasted awesome, if I do say so myself.

So even though it took years before I finally had a chance to create this cake, I have to say it was worth the wait.

Yours in being patient until the time is right,
Jacqueline

(Partly) mastering the art of French cooking

2012-01-01T20:57:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012 peoples!!!

I know my last post was a bit of a Debbie Downer, but sometimes you just need to put it all out there to start feeling better, ya know? Since then I've noticed a change-- I've been feeling more myself, and I even spent the whole day New Year's Eve cooking. I can't remember the last time I spent that much time in the kitchen, and it felt phenomenal.

So far the year is off to a great start, as I've already accomplished one of my goals: cook something out of my new cookbook.

I <3 recipe books.

I found the two-book set at the used book store around the corner from my apartment for $40- and I absolutely love it! One thing I really like is the way that the recipes are written. Directions are grouped together by ingredients, instead of listing allllll the ingredients and then alllllll the directions.

I <3 logical books.

Conceptually, it just makes more sense as you're working through the recipe. You don't have to hunt the laundry list of ingredients at top to find the amount that's asked for when you want to use it. And if an ingredient get's used more than once in a recipe (eg, using sugar in both a pastry crust and in the filling), you don't have to worry about accidentally adding all of it the first time it shows up in a recipe. That's what I call thinking out of the box!

And if I do say so myself, I did a little thinking out of the box when I made these savory cream puffs with mushroom cheese filling. How? Well, what would you do if you put half of your cream puff batch on the lower rack in the oven (on wax paper) and burned all of their bottoms??

I really need a second silpat, stat!

First thing you'd do is what I did: swear. A lot.

I was taking these cream puffs to a New Years party, and I'd already made all the cream filling, and now I only had 1/2 of the d@mn cream puffs I needed. Needless to say, more than a few words that would make a sailor blush came out of my mouth when I took these out of the oven...

But their tops, oh my, they looked perfect and beautiful! So instead of tossing the whole half batch, I decided to slice off their burned butts, flip them over, and turn my cream puff into a cream cup.

Gruyere, parmesan, and mushroom filled deliciousness

Let's be honest- a cream puff is just a vehicle for whatever delicious filling you're trying to stuff in your face. So an open-faced puff tastes just as good as a closed one. And having both kinds of puffs looked really nice on the platter.

Cream puffs and cream cups- both equally delicious!

You might recall that I've made (dessert) cream puffs before on the blog- a delicious pastry cream with hazelnut praline filled cream puff, which was turned into a croquembouche. I used a Cooks Illustrated recipe for those cream puffs, and Julia Child's recipe for these cream puffs. Honestly, I can't really say which I preferred. I'd say these might be a tad bit eggier in taste, and were also a little softer (the CI ones are cooked a little longer, but at a lower temperature, so the difference may come in how they were cooked vs. their ingredients). The Julia Childs' dough was also a bit wetter, so it had a tendency to "leak" more easily out of the piping bag.

So if you're making a savory puff these might be a good option. But if you're making dessert puffs, or are a bit sensitive to the egg-y taste in food (as I can be), or want a dough that's a bit firmer and a little easier to handle, the Cooks Illustrated recipe might be the way to go.

Either way, you can't go wrong. :)

Yours in fulfilling their first goal of the New Year (even though these were technically made on the 30th...),
Jacqueline

Cream Puff Paste (pate a choux), adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Ingredients

1 cup water
6 TBSP butter (3 oz), cut into pieces
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
pinch nutmeg
3/4 cup flour
4 large eggs, room temperature
(Note: it's important not to use extra-large or jumbo eggs because they'll have more volume, will make the dough wetter, and could ruin the final product)

Directions
Preheat oven to 425˚F

1. Combine the water, butter, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a heavy bottomed saucepan (at least 1.5 qt). Heat over medium/medium high heat and boil slowly until the butter has melted.

2. Remove from heat and immediately pour in all the flour at once. Beat vigorously using a wooden spatula/spoon for several seconds to blend thoroughly. Then beat over moderately high heat for 1-2 minutes until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan and spoon, forms a mass, and begins to film the bottom of the pan.

3. Transfer the dough to a mixer with a paddle attachment (or to a bowl using hand beaters, or to a food processor, as I did the last time I made cream puffs), and beat on medium speed for a minute to cool the dough slightly. Then add the eggs, one at a time (first on low, then on high speed). Each egg should be fully incorporated before adding the next one. After all the eggs have been added, beat for another 20-30 seconds to be sure all is well blended and smooth.

4. To make cream puffs, put the dough in a pastry bag (with 1/2" tip or with the bottom cut), or a large ziplock bag with a corner cut. Squeeze the dough onto 2 buttered baking sheets, making circular mounds about 1" in diameter and 1/2" high. Space the mounds at least 1 1/2" apart.

5. If they've got little tips from the piping, dip the back of a spoon in water and lightly press to smooth the tops of the puffs. Set the sheets in the upper and lower thirds of your oven (but not too low!!), and bake for 20 minutes. The puffs are done when they have doubled in size, are golden brown, and firm and crusty to the touch.

6. Remove the puffs from the oven (turn it off), pierce the side of each puff with a sharp knife, and return the puffs to the turned-off oven with the door ajar for 10 minutes. Cool the puffs on a rack.

7. Using a ziplock or piping bag, fill the puffs with something delicious. May I suggest...

Gruyere, parmesan, and mushroom filling, from Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Ingredients
2 1/2 TBSP butter
3 TBSP flour

1 1/2 cups boiling milk or light cream
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
pinch nutmeg
pinch cayenne pepper

1 egg yolk
4 oz (1 cup) grated gruyere and parmesan (I did about a 3:1 ratio)
2 TBSP butter

1/4 lb mushrooms, diced in small pieces and cooked in 1 TBSP butter until dry and concentrated in flavor, optional

Directions

1. Cook the butter and flour slowly together in the saucepan for 2 minutes, without coloring, in a 2 quart saucepan. Remove from the heat and slowly beat in the boiling milk using a wire whisk. Once it is fully added and no more clumps remain, add the salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne. Boil, stirring for 1 minute. (Sauce should be very thick)

2. Remove the sauce from heat. Add the egg yolk and immediately beat it vigorously with the wire whip. Beat for a moment to cool slightly, then beat in the cheese, and finally the butter. Taste carefully for seasoning and add more spices, to taste. Fold in the mushrooms, if using.

3. If you're not using the sauce immediately, cover with plastic wrap (make sure your plastic wrap touches the top of your cheese mixture) to prevent a skin from forming.

Stuffed mushrooms

2011-12-29T23:30:00.000-08:00

It's been a little quiet here on my blog these days, hasn't it?

I wish I could say it was because of something grand and amazing going on with me this past month. But sadly, that's not the case. To be completely honest, I've had a case of the holiday blues, and haven't felt like doing much of anything these days. Not laundry. Not cooking. And especially not blogging.

The thing is, so many things have been good for me this year. Moving back to Chicago and being closer to my family. Getting an awesome job that I love. Meeting new people and making friends at work. Finding an apartment that literally makes me happy every time I walk through my front door. I won't lie, I've got a lot to be thankful for. And I am.

But, there's just a feeling of "blah" that's been hard to shake. A lingering sadness that ebbs and flows, which reached its zenith not long ago.

Sure, there is at least one reason that contributed to my malaise (which led me to start reading this book in an attempt to come to terms with how people can put such arbitrary walls up around themselves). But a lot of it is a nebulous sadness that doesn't really have a reason. I think sometimes it's because I'm surrounded with so much happiness. (Ironic, no?!) So many close friends and family members I know are pregnant, or had a baby, or are happily with their partners. People that I love and that I'm genuinely happy for. But then here I am, almost 32, and having my mom suggest I freeze my eggs, just in case.

The best way to describe it is that I feel I'm on a treadmill. Running and running and running and... but never moving. All the while, those around me keep sprinting on by.

And I know life isn't a race- because when you're done, well, it's done. It's easy to tell myself to enjoy this time. To savor my independence, lack of obligations, and freedom. And I do. A lot. But as much as I wish that I was completely logical human, I'm not, and sometimes I just have to let myself feel sad and realize that eventually it shall pass.

Already I can feel the veil of the blues lifting. Seeing my family this past weekend really helped disperse some of the fog that was surrounding me, and so for the first time in a long time I wanted to sit down and write. And share some food with you.

Stuffed mushrooms!

If you're going to any New Year's parties this weekend, here's a simple dish that you can make. And the fact that you can pretty much prepare them in advance means much less time cooking on New Years (and more time eating and drinking!!!)

Is anyone else excited for a new year? I'm definitely looking forward to a fresh start in 2012. One that hopefully leads to me using more of all these damn cook books I'm buying!

a. I love the used book store around the corner from my apartment.

b. I WILL be making dishes from these books next year. Guaranteed.

But back to these mushrooms. They're so delicious and savory, they should make it to at least one party you attend in 2012. And they're super simple to boot!

All yous got to do is roast some mushroom caps (sans filling)...

.... which really concentrates their mushroom-y goodness...

.... and then take some spinach, bacon, and grilled onions...

... mix 'em up with some cheese, and generously fill your mushroom cups.

At this point you can either pop them in the fridge (to cook the next day for a partay) or pop them in the oven for a few minutes to warm them up.

Delicious.

Yours in remembering the years past (for good and bad) and celebrating the fresh, new year to come,

Jacqueline

Stuffed mushrooms, from Smitten Kitchen

The best thing about recipes like this is that you can adapt them to your taste and preferences. Don't like bacon? Don't use it! Don't like feta? Replace it with some other kind of cheese (gouda? parmesan? fontina?) Don't like mushrooms?? Well, I can't really help you with that one... Although I guess you could just take the filling and put it on top of toasted bread or puff pastry or phyllo dough.

BAM! Problems solved.

Makes about 48

Ingredients
8 ounces bacon slices
1 cup chopped onion
1 10-ounce package chopped frozen spinach, thawed, squeezed dry
4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (about 3/4 cup)
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
2 3/4 pounds button mushrooms (about 48; each about 1 1/2 inches in diameter), stemmed
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375°F.

2. Cook bacon in heavy large skillet until crisp, about 8 minutes. Transfer bacon to paper towels to drain. Coarsely crumble bacon.

3. Discard all but 1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons bacon fat (adding olive oil if necessary to equal that amount).Heat 2 teaspoons reserved bacon fat in heavy medium skillet over medium heat. Add chopped onion and saute until tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer to medium bowl and cool.

4. To the onions add the bacon, spinach, feta, cream cheese, and crushed red pepper. Season filling to taste with salt and pepper.

5. Line 2 large rimmed baking sheets with foil. Toss mushrooms and reserved 1/4 cup bacon fat in large bowl to coat. Sprinkle mushrooms with salt and pepper. Place mushrooms, rounded side down, in single layer on prepared baking sheets. Bake mushrooms until centers fill with liquid, about 20 - 25 minutes. Turn mushrooms over. Bake mushrooms until brown and liquid evaporates, about 15 - 20 minutes longer.

6. Turn mushrooms over again. Spoon 1 heaping teaspoon filling into each mushroom cavity. (Filled mushrooms can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.) Bake mushrooms at 375°F until heated through, about 10 minutes. Transfer mushrooms to platter and serve warm.

Useful kitchen "art"

2011-12-10T10:38:00.001-08:00

Three months ago I moved into my own apartment in Chicago. Within a week I was mostly done with my entire move (I despise living out of boxes) and within 2 weeks I was pretty much completely done. *Pretty much.* Sadly, not too much has changed around here since then.

But as they say, it's 10% effort to finish the first 90%, and 90% effort to finish the last 10%. I'm happy to note though that I'm one step closer after this kitchen project of mine!

You see, I have a really big kitchen (space wise). But it's mostly just a big square- and there's only one section with actual counter/ cabinet/ drawer space. So I literally have 2 tiny drawers in my entire kitchen. Which means I had absolutely NO room to hold any of my utensils in drawers. (Luckily my walk-in pantry provides much needed extra storage for my cooking and cake decorating ~~crap~~ stuff.)

My original plan was to just buy two large ceramic containers, but with such little counter space I wasn't in love with the idea.

And then it hit me: the wall!

I had a similar gap under the cabinets just above my sink, but found this awesome old tin ceiling tile at an antique fair that I turned into the perfect "backsplash".

My sink is right below the tile, but it's a bit messy for photos right now...

I knew I wanted to do something artsy to the space above my oven, but couldn't figure out what to put there. Especially since it's above the oven and you have to be prepared for anything in that space to get all splattered with oil and grease.

Then a while ago I saw this cool kitchen makeover on this great blog and loved the unique idea she had of hanging her utensils from a rod on the wall. At some point my brain did a mashup of her idea with my bare wall and came up with this (dare I say) awesomely clever solution:

Cool, right?!?

I'm totally in love!!!!

It perfectly fills up that weirdly empty space in my kitchen and it's beyond functional! And because I was able to hang so many of my bigger tools, I managed to fit all the rest in a single container.

On a slight tangent, can I tell you how much I love my awesome little honey jar, Le Creuset ceramic utensil holder, and Moroccan painted trivet (that I'm using as a spoon rest)? Their bright colors make me so happy.

Cuteness over load!!

The best part about this project is that it literally took me less than 20 minutes from start to finish. (Actually took me much less time to do the project than it took to write about it!)

And all it takes are a few, very simple steps. Wanna see??

Well, I'm going to show you anyways...

Step 1: Get a big piece (or two) of butcher or any other kind of paper (tissue would work well too). Size it to match as the space that you want to fill.

Work directly on the ground for more space

Step 2: Organize your utensils (or whatever you want to hang) into a pattern you like. This took me a few minutes until I was happy with how the shapes balanced each other aesthetically.

After a few configurations this is the one I settled on

Step 3: Use a marker to make a large dot where you will be inserting your nail to hang your object. Then remove your items (you might want to take a picture first so you remember where everything belongs!) and tape up the piece of paper.

Can you see the big black spots?? Those are my guides.

Step 4: Hammer a nail (directly through the paper) into the wall. I inserted my nails slightly downward so that the utensil would be less inclined to slide off the nail.

We're almost there...

Step 5: Carefully rip off the paper without pulling out the nails.

Bare wall, but not for long!

Step 6: Simply hang your utensils on the wall (this is where your picture from step 2 comes in handy), step back, and enjoy your work.

Yours in merging two disparate passions, organization and creating something beautiful, for a one-of-a-kind useful creation,

Jacqueline

Chicken piccata

2011-12-04T08:25:00.001-08:00

Things I've been doing these days (other than cooking as much as I should)

Watching live music that literally sent goosebumps up/down my entire body

Puscifer @ the Cadillac Palace
(photo taken from their Facebook page)

Being thankful that I'm back in Chicago and get to spend the holidays with the family

Buying funky shoes that make me happy

Folding books for a wall-art project in my apartment

Needless to say, I've had quite a fun month. But cooking hasn't been a huge part of that time. I don't know why the cooking bug just hasn't completely set in yet. I've been getting inspired in spurts, but nothing consistent and long-lasting. Being fed by my family and having more of a social life since my move to the city has meant a lot less time meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking for me. But once in a while I'll be inspired and cook a fun meal.

Like this chicken piccata.

Don't you just love lemons?!? I'm a weirdo and have an excessive fondness of lemons. Particularly in my sweet creations, but also in my savories.

Pair up some capers with those lemons and this girl is a happy camper. If you're not a fan of super briney capers, do what I do and soak 'em in some warm water at least 30 minutes before you're gonna cook them. Definitely helps get rid of that excess salt they carry.

Small capers pack a big flavor punch

Serve with a bed of fresh pasta (not my creation) and this meal could not be more awesome.

Fancy comfort food at its finest

Yours in experiencing life to the fullest, inside and outside of the kitchen,

Jacqueline

Chicken Piccata, slightly adapted from Cooks Illustrated

Note: For someone who loves lemon I was surprised that this dish was almost too lemony for me. So I'm leaving the amounts here as-written from CI, but suggesting that you add the lemon juice at the end to taste.

Ingredients
2 large lemons
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1 1/2 pounds), dried thoroughly, trimmed of excess fat, and sliced in half (~3/8 - 1/2" thick)
Salt and ground black pepper
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 small shallot , minced (about 2 tablespoons) or 1 small garlic clove, minced (about 1 teaspoon)
1 cup chicken stock or canned low-sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons small capers , drained and rinsed
3 tablespoons unsalted butter , softened
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves

Directions
1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position, set large heatproof plate on rack, and heat oven to 200 degrees.
2. Halve one lemon pole to pole. Trim ends from one half and cut crosswise into slices 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick; set aside. Juice remaining half and whole lemon to obtain 1/4 cup juice; reserve.
3. Sprinkle both sides of cutlets generously with salt and pepper. Measure flour into pie tin or shallow baking dish. Working one cutlet at a time, coat with flour, and shake to remove excess.
4. Heat heavy-bottomed 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat until hot, about 2 minutes; add 2 tablespoons oil and swirl pan to coat. Lay half of chicken pieces in skillet. Sauté cutlets, without moving them, until lightly browned on first side, 2 to 2 1/2 minutes. Turn cutlets and cook until second side is lightly browned, 2 to 2 1/2 minutes longer. Remove pan from heat and transfer cutlets to plate in oven. Add remaining 2 tablespoons oil to now-empty skillet and heat until shimmering. Add remaining chicken pieces and repeat.
5. Add shallot or garlic to now-empty skillet and return skillet to medium heat. Sauté until fragrant, about 30 seconds for shallot or 10 seconds for garlic. Add stock increase heat to high, and scrape skillet bottom with wooden spoon or spatula to loosen browned bits. Simmer until liquid reduces to about 1/3 cup, about 4-6 minutes. After 3-4 minutes of simmering, add the lemon slices to the broth.
6. After the broth has reduced, add the lemon juice (to taste!) and capers and simmer until sauce reduces again to 1/3 cup, at least 1 minute. Remove pan from heat and swirl in butter until butter melts and thickens sauce; swirl in parsley. Spoon sauce over chicken and serve immediately.
Note: The full 1/4 cup lemon juice might be too much for some people. So I'd suggest adding a TBSP or so at a time until you're happy with the citrus levels.

A bit behind, and a celebration cake

2011-11-20T09:04:00.001-08:00

A few days ago I organized my computer desktop and I found over 30 recipes that I'd made in the past year (or two) that just never made it into Foodology. Yes, over 30 recipes!!

And they didn't not make it in because they weren't good enough (triple negative for the win!). On the contrary, many of these recipes were freaking delicious. It's more likely that things got busy or I got lazy and I just never got around to posting them. Then, as days or weeks go by, I have less and less motivation to work up an "old" recipe, and so to de-clutter my desktop, I throw it into a folder called "Recipes to type up for BLOG!"

I may as well call that folder "The Death of Blog Posts" because once they go in it's rare that they make it out to see the light of day...

My poor, sad, neglected recipes.

So I'm hoping in the next month or so that I can revive some of these old recipes. Some I don't have pictures for (or the ones I have are simply unappetizing), so don't be surprised if posts show up with photos completely unrelated to the final dish. I got a new camera lens, a book on food photography, and an iPhone with fun photography apps, so I may be throwing in some "practice shots" for fun.

My new toy, taken with my new toy!

But this post isn't just about my procrastination and excessive spending habits- it's about cake!!

My company's 10th anniversary was this past week, and I was asked to make the cake for our 50 employees. Luckily we have in-house designers and one of them gave me a life-sized printout of our anniversary logo.

So with some help from a coworker and a few hours with an exacto knife, I was able to whip up this bad boy.

Seeing that I started my job a whopping 3.5 months ago,

all I can take credit for is the fondant work

Not too shabby when you compare my cake to the original logo

Twinsies!

And don't let my little pictures fool you. This guy was a behemoth! Just the company logo in the "0" was as big as my hand.

This cake weighed at least 10 pounds

And if you're interested in what the cake flavors were, I managed to turn 2, two-layered (9" x 13") cakes into 4 different combinations: Guinness Chocolate Cake with regular or coffee buttercream and Yellow cake with buttercream or raspberry filling (also referred to as "that delicious berry goo" by a coworker)

The makings of a giant cake

And because I had too much fun with my new iPhone photo apps, here's an artsy pic of the cake

Yours in celebrating your employer's milestones,

Jacqueline

Recipes, for your eating pleasure

The super dense, beer-y, chocolate cake can be found from an old post of mine.

Note: The recipe, as written, makes just a leetle bit too much batter for a 9 x 13" pan. So make a few extra cupcakes or an extra 6" cake with the leftover batter.

The yellow cake I made was Smitten Kitchen's best birthday cake. My favorite yellow cake recipe though is from Cooks Illustrated. It cooks up a bit flatter though, which is why I didn't make it this time. But both recipes can be found in another old post of mine.

The swiss meringue buttercream recipe I use is from Sweetapolita. I have a normal sized KitchenAid mixer, so I cut the recipe down by 1/4 (use 12 egg whites instead of 16, and adjust other ingredients accordingly). Now I just have to figure out what to do with 12 frozen egg yolks...

And finally, the raspberry filling is the easiest and most delicious recipe out there and uses almost nothing else except frozen raspberries. You can find it from an old post of mine where I made a giant wedding cake.

Pepperidge Farm milano cookies

2011-11-06T08:30:00.000-08:00

Hot tip:
If you're new to a job, bring baked goods.

In no time everyone will (a) know your name and (b) love you.

Case in point:

On Friday I decided to bring in some cookies for work and sent an e mail to my ~45 person company saying there were cookies in the lunchroom. On my way there, I decided to go to the bathroom first, and when I arrived in the kitchen there were about 10 people anxiously awaiting my treats. And I think they were more pissed at me that I was late in bringing their sweets! But once they took a bite of my cookies, love was once again in the air.

So what did I make on Friday that got everyone so excited?! Well, I attempted to make alfajores, but ended up with Milano cookies instead.

Confused? Let me explain...

On Friday a bunch of work people decided to make a trip to Taste of Peru, a hole in the wall, BYOB restaurant in a strip mall in Rogers Park (north part of Chicago). With a night full of Peruvian food and pisco sours- all we needed was a Latin American dessert. And it just so happens that alfajores have been on my "to make" list f-o-r-e-v-e-r (since I had THE BEST EVER alfajores from Sabores Del Sur year ago in San Francisco).

All of my Bay Area friends should hunt these

alfajores from Sabores del Sur down if they can.

Anyways, I had seen a recipe on Martha Stewart for alfajores from a food blogger that I like, Matt Bites. So off I went, on my 3+ hour project to make alfajores with dulce de leche, entirely from scratch.

To be completely honest, at first I was really disappointed. The cookie for alfajores is supposed to be a shortbread cookie. These were, well, very cake-like. Also, I felt the cookie was a little too sweet, especially since it was filled with a very sweet dulce de leche.

But then I realized something- these cookies taste just like a fluffier, cakier version of Pepperidge farm Milano cookies! So I filled half the cookies with dulce de leche and the other half I dipped their bottoms in chocolate. And wow!!! What a great cookie! I definitely preferred the chocolate dipped cookies by a long shot, but people at work were split in their preference.

It's amazing how expectations can color our satisfaction. When I expected the cookie to taste like alfajores I was disappointed. But when I tasted them again with no expectations, I realized they're actually a really good cookie.

So have I found a recipe that comes anywhere near the Sabores del Sur ones I had all those years ago?? Sadly, no. My hunt for the perfect shortbread cookie continues.

But on the plus side, I've found a great homemade version of Milano cookies!

The batter for these cookies was seriously like cupcake batter!

But don't worry, just drop them by the spoonfull on a baking sheet

and let the oven spread them into (almost) perfect rounds.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't discuss my epic experiment in dulce de leche making. Again, I wasn't 100% pleased. Partly I don't think I'm a giant fan of the stuff. And partly I think I learned a lot in the first time making it that will help make it better the next time around (if there is a next time...)

It took about 2 - 2.5 hours of milk simmering, but other than having to stir it once in a while (and slightly more regularly toward the end) it's actually quite simple. And I found this Joy of Cooking you tube tutorial that places the time more at 1 - 1.5 hours, so I think I could have cranked up the heat a bit more.

Milk + sugar + baking soda + heat + time = dulce de leche

And I mean come on, just look how delicious it looks!

Spread dulce de leche on the bottom of a cookie...

... and top with a second cookie

So let's recap the main points from this blog post, shall we:

1. Bake for people. They'll love you for it.
2. Get alfajores from Sabores Del Sur if you're in the Bay Area.
3. Go to Taste of Peru if you live in Chicago. Bring a bottle of Pisco with you (they're BYOB!) and have them prepare the pisco sour mix for a delicious drink. Also, order the seco de carne with cilantro rice if you like home-cooked stews made of cilantro and beef.
4. Make these cookies if you like Pepperidge Farm milanos.
5. Try this dulce de leche recipe if you've got a few hours to kill. Alternatively you can make dulce de leche from canned sweetened condensed milk using an oven method or the slightly more dangerous boil-the-can-in-water-for-a-few-hours method.

Your in trying new recipes, and staying on the hunt for the perfect alfajores recipe...
Jacqueline

Milano-like cookies, from Martha Stewart/Matt Bites

Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
orange zest for more of a citrus-y kick, if you're into that kinda stuff (optional)
Dulce de leche, cajeta, jam, chocolate, or whatever you'd want to fill these cookies with (optional)
Confectioners' sugar, for serving (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mats; set aside.
Jackie's tip: cookies baked in nice, heavy baking sheets and a silpat mat brown so much more evenly and nicely. If you make cookies enough, invest in both of those items.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, and continue mixing until well combined, about 1 minute.

4. Working in batches, add flour mixture (it took me about 4); mix until well combined. Add milk, orange juice, and vanilla; continue mixing until a dough forms, 1 to 2 minutes.
Jackie's Note: this dough will be like a thick cake batter, and not a typical cookie dough. DO NOT WORRY- that's OK.

5. Using a tablespoon or a small ice cream scoop, drop dough onto prepared baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. Transfer to oven and bake, rotating baking sheets halfway through baking, until golden, 10 to 14 minutes.

6. Transfer cookies to a wire rack until completely cool.When cookies have cooled completely, spread the bottoms of half of the cookies with dulche de leche, cajeta, jam, melted chocolate, or whatever you can think of; sandwich together with remaining cookies. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 days. Just before serving, lightly sprinkle with confectioners' sugar, if desired.

Dulce de Leche, from Alton Brown

Note: Watch this video from Joy of Cooking as well for a nice visual. My dulce de leche had a lot more of this "baking soda scum" develop on the top of my caramel (which you can see in my photos). Alton Brown says not to incorporate this, but I think I may have inadvertently done that at the end, leading to a slightly gritty dulce de leche. Since I don't know the *perfect* method just yet, I figured I'd share with you some extra resources.

Ingredients

4 cups whole milk
12 ounces sugar, approximately 1 1/2 cups
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Directions

1. Combine the milk, sugar, vanilla bean and seeds in a large, 4-6-quart saucepan and place over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved.

2. Once the sugar has dissolved, add the baking soda and stir to combine.
Jackie's note: This will foam up A LOT (because of the baking soda). Make sure you're using a pot that looks way too big to hold 4 cups of milk. And be careful at the beginning and don't step away, otherwise you'll have a giant mess on your hands.

3. Reduce the heat to low and cook uncovered at a bare simmer. Stir occasionally, but do not re-incorporate the foam that appears on the top of the mixture. Continue to cook for 1 hour. Remove the vanilla bean after 1 hour and continue to cook until the mixture is a dark caramel color and has reduced to about 1 cup, approximately 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Jackie's note: The Joy of Cooking video says to keep it at a low, even boil, and the time for cooking the caramel ends up being a lot shorter (~ 1.5 hours total). So it seems like you can bump up the heat a little bit to reduce this time.

4. Strain the mixture through a fine mesh strainer. Store in the refrigerator in a sealed container for up to a month.

A milestone: my 200th blog post!!

2011-10-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Today is a big day for my little 'ole blog, because today marks the day of my 200th blog post!

Two...hundred...blog...entries over almost 3 years. Yikes! I don't really even want to think about how many hours of cooking, photographing, writing, and editing that is. But I wouldn't take back a moment of it.

A lot of people ask me what inspired me to start a food blog. Back in 2009, this blog was my way to get my cooking mojo back. You see, I've spent the majority of my adult life as a single woman. But I really love cooking and sharing my food with other people. So in 2009, after a short (but very happy few months with someone) I was single again, and just couldn't get back into cooking-- which was the one thing that made me genuinely happy.

Over time, my blog wasn't just meant for healing anymore, it was a way for me to grow. To force myself to try new recipes, to get into photography (with a long way to go), to take on new challenges through an online baking group, to give me that creative outlet that being a scientist doesn't always provide, and to continue to share my food with others.

So in the spirit of sharing, today I'm going to recap some of my favorite recipes I've made over the years. And it's apt that today marks this milestone as I've found myself in a cooking funk since moving into my new place. But after going through all these old recipes I remember just how much I love to pull my hair up, blast the music, lose myself in the process of cooking, and enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Of course these are only a small sampling of some of my favorite recipes. You can find all the recipes/blog entries I've made since February 2009 on my Recipe List page (found on the right toolbar), grouped by categories to make it easier to peruse all the goodies.

So let's start it off with my ultimate, all-time favorites.

Jackie's Favorite Foods: savory edition

Homemade gnocchi, mushroom risotto, scalloped potatoes with mascarpone (I can't even explain how good this is), caramelized onion and cauliflower tart (so fat ass but sooooooo good), and dolma.

Jackie's Favorite Foods: sweet edition

Candied orange peel, the best lemon tart, lavender ice cream (and brown butter pound cake), and pastry cream filled cream puffs.

Flavors of Fall
Some of my favorite fall-inspired recipes, since it IS the season...

Slow-cooked French chicken in a pot, roasted tomato soup, the best chicken/turkey pot pie, pumpkin cupcakes with maple frosting, Moroccan inspired butternut squash stew with quinoa, homemade Thanksgiving stuffing

Simplicity at its Finest
Easy dishes that pack a PUNCH in flavor

Cranberry/raspberry yogurt cake, grapefruit and goat cheese bites with dill, Oreo truffles (to die for), Toffee cookies (with a secret ingredient), and a rustic fruit galette.

Ethnic Foods
Asian and South Asian inspired dishes

Tom Yum soup, chicken teriyaki, lettuce beef wraps, lentils with garam masala

Middle Eastern inspired dishes

Bushala (Assyrian yogurt soup), shakshuka (eggs cooked in a spicy tomato sauce)

Say What?!?
Might make you do a double take, but they're delicious

Spotted dick (steamed English cake), pickle-brined chicken, goat-cheese truffles, homemade butter

Cake Time
For someone who does cake decorating, it's ironic that I'm not a giant fan of cake. But these are some solid recipes that even I'll eat a second serving of.

Yellow cake throwdown (two great recipes), Guinness chocolate cake, Old-fashioned chocolate cake

Oh So Purty
Just a few of my many cakes. This joconde might be one of the coolest cakes I've ever made. But check them all out on my Flickr page.

So There you have it. A not-so-small sampling of my 199 blog posts. Hope you've enjoyed going down memory lane with me as much as I have.

Buen Provecho,
Jacqueline

BABIES!!!

2011-10-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

From April 2008 until January of 2010 I attended the weddings of six very close friends and cousins in Utah, Chicago, California, and Puerto Rico. Of those I made a wedding cake for one and was a bridesmaid in the other 5 (maid of honor for one of those).

Guess which photo was taken on a windy and cold November day in Chicago??

Needless to say that was a very fun, exhausting, and expensive few years. Things in my life have slowed down a lot since then, but it looks like they're picking up again. More weddings you ask?? Nope. First comes love, then comes marriage...

... then comes baby in the baby carriage!

Look- it's an actual baby carriage!

Yup, 'tis the season for some baby makin'. In the past 2 years I've had a countless number of friends and cousins get pregnant and have kids. You'd think having a baby was contagious. Luckily for me, it's not.

And luckily for me, people like it when you bring a beautiful cake to their baby showers. (This will be my 5th baby shower cake on the blog. Here are my previous one, two, three and four.)

This cake was for my good friend Jeanne. I met Jeanne ten years ago (YIKES!) when we did AmeriCorps together. The year after that we became roommates, and that was the year Jeanne met her future husband. The rest, as they say, was history.

So of course when they were having a baby shower I had to make the cake. I knew I wanted to try to make a carriage topper after seeing this tutorial on a cake blog I read. But for the rest of the cake, I was a bit inundated with ideas.

The inspiration, from Cake Fixation.

Check out her blog- it rocks my world!

And then I saw the decorations bought for the baby shower. I LOVED the color scheme and the stripes and circles. I instantly knew that the cake had to pick up on those themes.

I had also seen this awesome ruffle cake tutorial on you tube (linked from another baking blog I like). So it was time to mashup those two ideas into one. Ready to see how it all went down??

Using these paper lanterns as inspiration for the color scheme...

Yes, this is my friend's absolutely gorgeous house!

.... turned plain Swiss Meringue buttercream...

... into something a lot more exciting!

On a slight tangent: after I was done coloring the buttercream I realized that my trash- toothpicks covered with paste coloring that I'd throw on a paper towel- was too beautiful to not photograph. And I swear, the placement of my toothpicks in roughly rainbow order was completely unplanned!

Art in random places

OK, back to cake. I roughly marked my cake in 1" segments and made a few ribbons using the uncolored frosting.

Semi-nekked cake

Then I continued, with one color at a time, filling in each column in a beautiful ribbon pattern.

These candy-colored ribbons make me so happy!

The topper was made from a modified version of the tutorial on Cake Fixation and filled a little teddy bear so it wouldn't look quite so empty.

I made my entire carriage out of fondant (instead of fondant on styrofoam)- which is why the wire caved under the weight. But it still came out cute!

And it didn't just look good on the outside, it was beautiful on the inside too.

Luckily for me, the future parents agreed!

It was a beautiful shower, in a beautiful house, for a very beautiful and happy couple. Love you both- can't wait to meet the little guy!

Yours in celebrating life's milestones,
Jacqueline

p.s. Sorry, but no time for posting recipes today. I'll try to throw a quick post together in the next week or so with the details on the cakes. But just as a little teaser: I made a 6" chocolate cake with salted caramel buttercream and chocolate fudge frosting and an 8" white cake with raspberry filling and swiss meringue buttercream.

And yes, washing all those dishes is a bitch...

Bad blogger with good food

2011-10-05T20:40:00.000-07:00

I'm a bad blogger.

Other bloggers post every day, or every week. My posts are sporadic and often come more in pounding waves than a steady stream.

Other bloggers have some of the most amazing photography I've seen. My pictures have gotten better since I started my blog, but they still have a ways to go before I'm happy with their quality.

Other bloggers post recipes about ingredients that are seasonal and the perfect dish to make right now. My procrastination means that sometimes I write up posts where the peak season for a particular food may have passed.

My apologies, but today is one of those days.

So whose season is a bit belated for this post? The tomato, that's who!

Burrata Bruscheta

Not that tomatoes are impossible to find right now, far from. But we're at the end of their peak deliciousness, so the dish that was absolutely perfect a few weeks ago will be just perfect today.

It's OK though. Because even at their less-than-perfect peakness, this just might be one of the most delicious things you've ever eaten.

I first saw the recipe on Matt Bites, which he called a Burrata grilled cheese sandwich. (He's one of the bloggers that gives me a complex with my crappy photography...) And when I was planning dishes for my wine and food-with-cheese night, I figured I could turn that recipe into a nice little make-your-own-bruschetta finger food.

The most time consuming part of this dish is making the salsa verde. And even then it's not hard- it just has a bunch of components. The only thing I take issue with is calling it "salsa". It's more of a garlicky-herb spread. But it doesn't really matter what you call it on paper, your mouth will call it delicious either way.

Salsa verde. Me gusta!

And the good thing about this salsa- you can freeze it! YES! I had some left over, so I decided to freeze 1 tablespoon aliquots of it that I could thaw whenever I wanted a little flavah in my life. I think it would make a great spread for almost any type of sandwich. A turkey and avocado sandwich with a little kick? Yes please!

Once the salsa is made, the rest of the dish comes together in a snap. I decided to serve my guests a deconstructed version though so that they could add as much/little of the different ingredients as they wanted. And it was a hit!

To recreate this dish at home, you'll need:
- Roasted cherry tomatoes with some chick peas, salt, and pepper mixed in
- Burrata cheese (It's fresh mozarella filled with cream. And yes, it's as delicious as it sounds...)
- French bread, toasted or not, your choice
- Salsa verde (essential)
- A good quality salami or prosciutto (optional)
- Wine (not optional)

Directions:
1. Put ingredients on cute plates you just bought from CB2
2. Drink
3. Tell people to eat up
4. Drink
5. Stuff your face with bite sized pieces of heaven
6. Drink
7. Repeat steps 5 through 6. Multiple times.

I wish I could make this dish right now and feed you all through the interwebs. Because that's how much I want to share with everyone the deliciousness of this dish. But since I can't, I urge you all to go out and make this right now.

And even if you don't have all the ingredients on hand, or a certain ingredient doesn't sound that appealing to you, make it anyways. Play around with the recipe and adjust it to suit your likes and dislikes. It's a great recipe in that way- there's really no way to mess it up.

And trust me, your taste buds, and your friends (if you chose to share with them), will thank you.

Yours in creating bite-sized perfection,
Jacqueline

Buratta Bruschetta, adapted from Matt Bites

Note: feel free to add or remove ingredients from the bruschetta or salsa verde as you see fit. It's definitely a great recipe to play around with to suite your tastes. And if you're worried about the salsa verde having anchovies in it, don't. It doesn't taste fishy at all. Remember, Caesar dressing has anchovies in it too, and you don't taste them in that either.

Also note: The salsa is garlicky. Big time! I think 3 pieces of garlic were a bit on the overpowering side, but it was still delicious. Cut back on the garlic if you'd like the other flavors to pop a bit more though...

Ingredients

8 ounces cherry tomatoes
olive oil for drizzling
salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces chick peas
8 oz burrata cheese
Italian bread, sliced relatively thinly
prosciutto or thinly cut salami, optional
salsa verde (see below)

Salsa Verde*
3 or 4 (3-inch-long) anchovies, rinsed and chopped, about 1 tablespoon (I used canned anchovies packed in oil. You can also use salt-packed anchovies, but if you do, rinse them well and remove the backbone)
2 tablespoons plus 1/2 teaspoon capers, rinsed and finely chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons coarsely chopped fresh marjoram leaves (didn't have this on hand)
1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoon coarsely chopped fresh mint leaves
1/4 to 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1-2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

*salsa can be prepared in advance and kept in the fridge, or frozen

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

2. While it's heating, prep the salsa verde: Using a small food processor/chopper, pulverize the anchovies, capers, garlic, and salt to a smooth paste. (If you don’t have one, thinly chop the ingredients and smash with a knife.) Add the parsley, marjoram, and mint and continue pulverizing to break down the herbs. Slowly add the olive oil, stirring well to combine. Season with salt and lemon juice, to taste, just before serving.

3. Cut cherry tomatoes in half (or quarter if they're really big) and spread on a small baking sheet. Drizzle with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool. Toss in the chickpeas when the tomatoes are cool.

4. Cut the burrata into 1/4-inch thick slices. If you'd like, go ahead and grill or toast your bread slices.

5. Place tomatoes, burrata, salsa verde, bread, and cured meat (if using) on individual plates/platters.

6. Direct everyone to dig in!

Furniture facelift and bedroom makeover

2011-10-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

In general, moving sucks. It's stressful and crazy and time consuming and unsettling. And nobody likes to do it.

But after my cross-country move I realized it can also be cathartic to get rid of old things and let your creative side (in decorating a brand new place) run amok.

Before I moved to Chicago I lived in my last apartment for 5 years. Yes. Five years. And although part of me loves that stability of not having to move every year, there are things that can get a little stagnant. Like my decorating.

And when your aesthetic taste changes over the years, it's hard to justify the cost of starting over for a decorative re-do. It's hard, that is, until you move...

One thing I wanted to change in particular was my bedroom. My living room and bedroom furniture both had an "ethnic" flair. And while I love those kinds of furniture (deep woods, exotic influences, etc), having an entire apartment full of them makes it too heavy and dark.

My bedroom before...

So with my move I decided it was time for a drastic change. And it all started with my old roommate and her cool lamp.

I always loved my roommate's room, which was light, fresh, and had lots of color. I also loved this lamp she had. And when she moved, she was getting rid of it. So I quickly snatched it up and used that lamp to inspire my new bedroom!

I wanted to bring out the green in the lamp, and found this duvet cover that was modern and green. Perfect! And since I can't paint the walls in my room, I decided to paint some of my furniture to avoid a room that was overly white and boring.

...and my bedroom now!

I'm beyond excited with my new (and improved) bedroom! And would you believe I spent less than $150 on the whole shebang? That includes a "new" duvet, headboard, nightstand, dresser, and bookshelf! How so cheap? Well, you'll notice I used the word new in quotations. That's because although it's new to this bedroom, most of this furniture is faaaaar from new.

Just how far from new? Well, other than my Target bookshelf, the rest of the furniture is 30+ years old, and was in my bedroom when I was a baby/little kid. The only advantage to having a mom who's a hoarder is a plethora of old furniture to repurpose...

But I needed to figure out how I was going to refinish/paint all that old furniture, and thanks to Google I found some awesome decorating blogs. I read a ton of sites, but in the end, I used these to help me figure out the process:
Centsational Girl (my favorite tutorial), Sew Dang Cute, Decor and The Dog, and Creations by Kara.

So after a trip to my friend's place (to borrow an orbital sander- which is not required but helps for big, flat pieces of furniture) and Home Depot (for sanding paper, tack cloth, wood putty, primer, spray paint, green paint, and paint brushes)- I was ready to go.

Power tools make me feel powerful!

This project ended up taking two weekends, but that's because I was doing sooo much at once: a nightstand, dresser, bookshelf, and headboard. If you're doing a single piece, plan on 1-2 days. I won't get into all the details, because I'm far from an expert on this and the links I provided are more helpful than I would be. But at the end of this post I'll provide a few details on how I tackled my giant project.

Sanded, and ready to be primed and painted!

Sure, it's a bit of work, but not really all that much. And not only did I save money, but I was able to create custom pieces of furniture that were exactly what I wanted, all for ~$20 per piece!

Want to see what I was able to repurpose in this awesome DIY project?!

1. I converted an old (laminate) Target bookshelf into a shoe display/ makeup station

BEFORE AFTER

Because it was laminate and dark, this bookshelf required a few more layers of primer/paint. But it's totally do able to repaint crappy, non wood based furniture!! :)

To add extra shelves I had the awesome guys at Home Depot cut cheapo MDF to size for me and used 4 screws (screwed into the sides of the bookshelf) to hold the shelves. If I was using actual books on these shelves I would have used L brackets. But since shoes weigh pretty much nothing, simple screws are more than enough to hold up the MDF.

2. I converted my old dresser (that used to be in my nursery!) into a bright pop of color.

BEFORE AFTER

It took 5-6 coats of green paint to get the perfect shade. But it's always better to do lots of thin coats than a few thick coats. That way you'll end up with a super smooth surface without drips and blobs of paint.

3. I converted my old, ugly headboard into something simple and clean.

BEFORE (1982) AFTER (2011)

My new bed is a lot higher than my old one, so most of the headboard doesn't show anymore. But it's there, hidden behind my pretty pillows! (And yes, that's me, before and after.)

4. I converted my old night stand into my absolute favorite piece of furniture in my new room (this photo does not do it justice...)

BEFORE AFTER

It still amazes me as to what a fresh coat of paint can do!!!! I even kept the original hardware, which went from antiquated hideousness to ornate freshness with a 3-second spray of paint.

There you have it folks. My mega bedroom project! So if you're interested in giving any old furniture a breath of new life, I suggest you run out and do it ASAP. I swear, I'd never done anything like this before in my life, and after a few days of reading and researching, I made it happen.

If Jackie can craft, so can you!

And for those of you interested in a few more details, here you go:

Note: wear a face mask during sanding, priming, and painting. Your lungs with thank you.
- Sand with 120 grit sandpaper
- Sand with 150 grit sandpaper
- Repair any holes/knicks with wood filler. Let dry then sand to smooth it out
- Wipe down with rag, then tack cloth, to remove all particulates
- Prime coat #1 (I used Zinsser spray primer since I had lots of furniture with nooks and crannies)
- Let dry
- Light sand with 150 or 180 grit sandpaper
- Prime coat #2. Dry. Light sand.
- Prime coat #3 if you need it. Unlikely for most pieces of furniture
- Paint or spray paint coat #1. (Make sure these are thin coats. Better to have lots of thin coats than a few thick coats) Repeat 3-6 times, depending on how well your coverage is going. I used a roller brush for my green drawers since they were pretty much flat. Super quick and gives really nice, smooth coverage. But a paintbrush is more appropriate for painting furniture with nooks and crannies

I bought polycrylic to finish the pieces, but noticed lots of bubbles in my test piece of wood. I'm still not 100% sure how to use that stuff, but I think if you decide to finish your furniture with polycrylic you'll need to use a paintbrush, not sponge roller (which is what I was using).

Turkey sliders

2011-09-25T12:29:00.000-07:00

Turkey is a hit-or-miss meat for me.

I love it roasted.

I don't like it left over. (Unless you turn it into turkey pot pie, then it's one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten!)

Sometimes I like it in cold-cut form (Trader Joes low sodium turkey!).

Often times I don't.

Turkey bacon is lame.

Giant turkey legs (a staple at the Taste of Chicago) are pretty damn tasty.

And then we have ground turkey. All in all, it's not bad. It's a great way of making a healthy alternative to burgers and meatballs, but let's be honest here, turkey doesn't taste like beef. So a recipe that'll work with beef, well, may not be the best option for turkey.

Mini burgers are so much more fun to eat. And perfect for a party.

This turkey burger/slider recipe is my favorite way to prepare ground poultry. For me, it enhances the natural sweetness and mildness of the meat. Highlighting the pros of the turkey instead of trying to cover up the cons.

And exactly how does it do that? With a very interesting tri-fecta:

Apples, celery, and onions... oh my!

They add a sweetness and slight crunch that's just the perfect compliment to the turkey. Add in a little sage/poultry seasoning, and you're pretty much set with an awesome little burger!

So if you're looking for a lean-meat alternative to beef and aren't a huge fan of turkey, give this recipe a chance.

Yours in bringing out the best,
Jacqueline

Turkey Burgers, originally introduced to me by my good friend Jeanne, adapted from here

Ingredients
1 to 1.5 lb turkey
1 small Macintosh apple, finely chopped
1 small red (or white) onion, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning (or dried sage)
salt and pepper to taste
baharat, optional (I added a dash of this middle eastern spice mix, definitely not required though)

Directions
1. Mix together ingredients in large bowl and form into patties.
2. Preheat a large skillet (med high), grill, or whip out the George Foreman grill you haven't used in 8 years.
3. Cook patties for about 5-6 minutes on each side, or until cooked through and no pink remains.

Wine and food-with-cheese night

2011-09-21T18:23:00.000-07:00

Hope you've been enjoying the crafting posts I've been writing these days! There's definitely a few more up my sleeve, so stay tuned.

BUT, I think it's about time I started getting back into the cooking, don't you? It's been a few weeks since I moved into my new place and I finally felt settled enough to have a bona fide, intense cooking extravaganza this weekend!

My cooking mojo is back baby!

So what did I spend all weekend preparing? Well, to celebrate my new apartment, I decided to throw a wine and cheese ladies night. But anyone who knows me knows that I like to eat. And after a long day at work I need something more substantial than just cheese. So I decided to turn the evening into a "wine and food-with-cheese night" since almost every single dish I served had some cheese in it. Yes, including dessert.

I made these goat-cheese truffles again, and they were a big hit.
They're like a tangy cheesecake filled chocolate truffle. SOOO good!

(You can find the recipe at my original post)

I prepared a total of 4 savory foods and 2 desserts, and I have to admit, they all came out better than I expected. No duds this time baby! As such, I'll write up a short little blog post on each of the dishes, you know, to give them the respect that they're due.

And to kick things off I'm going to share with you guys what was (for me) the biggest surprise of the evening: a quinoa, watermelon, feta, and mint salad.

What was the surprise?? That it was good. Like really, really good.

Make this salad. Right now.

I recently saw a quinoa/feta salad on two different blogs (here and here), and it jumped out to me as a refreshing and light dish- perfect accompaniment to an evening filled with wine. But I'll be honest, I'm not a huge quinoa fan.

I found this tri-colored quinoa at Whole Foods. So purty.

Yes, yes. I KNOW it's this amazing super food. And I KNOW it's hip to like quinoa. But you know what? I find it kinda bland. And a bit on the soft side. Quinoa reminds me of couscous. And guess what? I don't like couscous either...

In the past, the only dish I've made with quinoa that I really loved was this hearty, Moroccan-inspired butternut squash dish with quinoa. But now I can add this salad to that list.

I can't really even explain why it was so good. The lemon dressing complements the lightness of the quinoa and gives it a punch of freshness and acidity it really needs. The watermelon adds more of that refreshing quality, with a hint of sweetness. The saltiness of the feta contrasts nicely with the fruit, and the extra layer of flavor from the mint and green onions adds to the savoriness of this salad.

It's a simple salad with simple flavors, but somehow the final product is much more than the sum of its parts.

So whether you love quinoa, you hate quinoa, or you've never had quinoa before in your life- I suggest you give this salad a try. I think it'll surprise you as much as it surprised me.

Yours in giving food a second chance,
Jacqueline

Quinoa, feta, and watermelon salad, adapted from Tartlette

Note: this salad will last for at least a few days in your fridge, perhaps even longer. And I think it really does get better with time. So it's the perfect party food to make in advance!

Ingredients
1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
1 - 3 cups watermelon, cut into small cubes
2 oz feta, crumbled
2 green onions, white and green parts, chopped thin
1/3 cup loosely packed mint, chopped thin

dressing
juice of one lemon
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard, optional (I didn't use it because I didn't have it)
1/4 cup olive oil
pinch of salt and pepper

Directions
1. Cook your quinoa: in a large saucepan, bring the quinoa and water to a rolling boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer, cover the pot, and cook until the water is completely absorbed and the quinoa is translucent (about 20 minutes). If you like your quinoa cooked a little bit more, keep the lid on the quinoa (with the burner off) and let it steam a little longer. Cool completely.

2. While the quinoa is cooling, prepare your dressing. Mix the lemon juice and dijon mustard, if using. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil as you whisk the liquid to turn your lemon juice into a lemon vinaigrette.

3. When the quinoa is cooled, add dressing and the remaining ingredients, and fold carefully. Adjust the salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until ready to eat.

Summertime

2011-09-13T19:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Summer,

It's mid-September now so you and I both know what that means: our precious time together must come to an end soon. I hate to say it out loud, but you and I both know that it's true.

And no, it's not you! Of course it's not you. I love you.

I love your warm summer nights. Your lightening bugs that fill the evening sky with flashes of neon green. I love how the city comes to life under your sunlight, with festivals and block parties and trips to the pool and picnics and beach volleyball and 16" softball and all the countless other activities that people take on to celebrate the passing of the cold.

Sure, there are things you could work on. You know, things to improve about yourself. Like maybe you shouldn't be so damn hot and humid sometimes. Or maybe you could learn how to stick around a little longer. But hey, nobody's perfect, and I know your commitment issues prevent you from spending more time with me.

The best way to stay cool on a hot day:

stealing a little kid's water toy

So I'll do what I used to do every year around this time (before cheating on you with the Bay Area for all those years) and prepare to say my final goodbyes. No, not a permanent goodbye. More of a "see you later" instead.

But before you leave can you do me one final favor? Promise to leave gently, and take your time doing so. As much as I enjoy my time with my rebound man Fall (before the a**hole Winter comes to town), I'd love it if you could hold me just a tiny bit longer.

And in honor of your soon-to-be memory, I'll share with all these lovely people two new ice cream flavors I tried out recently. Roasted banana and Vietnamese coffee. And yes, they were as good as they sound.

Coffee and sweetened condensed milk are the two main ingredients

in this Vietnamese coffee ice cream

Bananas get roasted with brown sugar to enhance their "banananess"

Especially the roasted banana. That was my favorite. Just like you're my favorite sason. Well, second favorite to be honest (nothing beats the joy of new beginnings in Spring), but you're a close second after that.

Until next year Summer. Until next year...

xoxoxoxo,
Jacqueline

Sadly, I don't have pretty pictures of the final ice creams. But let's be honest, we all know what ice cream looks like, and my crappy photos can't really make ice cream all that pretty.

But I do have a fun action shot photo.

And a picture of my lovely ice cream bowls from Sur La Table.

They're bright and lighthearted and fun-- the perfect accompaniment for summertime. And every time I see these bowls a flutter of excitement hits me and makes me insanely happy. How happy? Almost as happy as shoving my face full with ice cream.

Circa 1983

Yours in holding on to summer for dear life,
Jacqueline

Roasted Banana Ice Cream, from The Perfect Scoop

Note: This ice cream has no cream or eggs, only bananas and milk. I replaced some of the milk with cream, because how can something be called ice cream if it has no cream in it?!? Not sure if it made a huge difference, but the ice cream was pretty soft and definitely needed an overnight stay in the freezer to make it scoopable.

Ingredients
3 medium-sized ripe bananas, peeled
1/3 cup (70g) packed light brown sugar
1 TBSP butter, cut into small pieces

1 1/2 cups (375 ml) whole milk
2 TBSP granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 tsp coarse salt

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400˚F (200˚C)
2. Slice the bananas into 1/2" pieces and toss with brown sugar and butter in a 2-quart baking dish. Roast for 40 minutes, stirring just once during baking, until bananas are golden and cooked.
3. Scrape the bananas and the thick syrup in the baking dish into a blender or food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients and puree until smooth.
4. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the fridge (overnight is always good), then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the directions.

Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream, also from The Perfect Scoop

Note: I liked this ice cream, but not as much as I enjoy a traditional coffee ice cream, for I found it a tad too sweet for my taste. But I think it's because I'm not the biggest fan of sweetened condensed milk. If you love sweet Vietnamese coffees, you'll love this!

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups (600 g) sweetened condensed milk, or 1 1/2 cans (396 g each)
1 1/2 cups brewed espresso (or very strongly brewed coffee), cooled
1/2 cup half and half
Pinch of finely ground roast coffee, optional

Directions
1. Whisk together all the ingredients.
2. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the fridge (overnight is always good), then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the directions.

Let there be internet... and organization

2011-09-12T20:08:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been out in the dark recently with the blog. My move to my own apartment during Labor Day weekend sucked the life out of me as I scrambled to unpack all 60 boxes of mine in a weekend. (Thanks to help from my mom, family, and movers- it was a success!) And then, when I was all settled and finally ready to start posting about painting furniture and ice cream and other goodies, a certain company (*cough* Comcast *cough*) made me wait a week before registering my modem.

A whole week without internet at home. Can you believe it?!? The madness!

But I have to admit, there were moments that I savored just how quiet and slow life was when I was at home without the distractions of the world wide web. I did crazy things this past week like read a book and eat at my dining room table and talk to friends.

I know, crazy shit!

Those moments were peaceful, but I'm ready to get back to my blog... and Hulu. (Misfits, oh how I've missed you...)

I have a food post in the works for you guys, since this is a food blog and all, but today I bring to you another crafting project that I completed before my big move: a DIY bracelet/necklace/earring/whatever you want organizer.

Pendants and earrings and necklaces and bracelets... oh my!

I don't know about you, but I like my jewelry to be (a) visible for easy browsing and (b) organized. This also goes for my rings (previous post), my pantry (post on that in the upcoming weeks), my underwear/sock drawer (sorry, I will not be posting pics on that one...), and just about everything else in my life.

And thanks to my old roommate, who taught me how to create such a functional piece of art, I now have a perfect solution to my jewelry conundrum:

The wooden frames are 8" x 16" and 20" x 16" (two of each size)

And yes, I own four stuffed animals. Figured I should save

a few for my future, non existent children...

These holders are basically just wooden frames, covered in tulle. Lightweight items can easily hang from the holes in the tulle fabric (e.g. earrings) and hooks can be added to the wooden frames to support heavier items (e.g. necklaces). For lightweight items that don't naturally hang on their own (e.g. pendants) I have a neat little tip below.

To start this project you'll need three simple things:

1. Wooden frames

Art stores have these awesome, mix-and-match wooden pieces called "stretcher bars" or "stretcher strips" that allow you to make almost any sized frame your heart desires. Basically, they're interlocking pieces of wood that come in sizes ranging from 8" to 60"(in 2" increments).

Image from Toose Art Supplies

They're technically used to stretch canvas over them, but if you don't mind slight imperfections in your wooden frame (the pieces fit together well, but not seamlessly), they're a super cheap and awesome product that can be used for this project!

For example, at Blick the 8" pieces are $0.65 and the 16" pieces are $1.22. So it'll cost you a whopping $3.74 to make one 8 x 16" frame.

2. Tulle (pronounced "tool")

It's that fabric that they use to make tu-tus and underskirts for wedding dresses and poofy skirts. And it's dirt cheap. Between $1-$2 per yard. I purchased one yard for all four of my frames and still had a ton of fabric left over.

I feel pretty, oh so pretty. I feel pretty and witty and gaaaaay.

3. A staple gun

Because we have to counteract all this girlieness with power tools! Not that a staple gun is much of a power tool. But I still feel pretty bad-ass whenever I use it.

I can see if you don't want to spend $15- 20 on a tool you might only use one time. So you could probably use regular staples from a stapler (the wood on these stretchers is relatively soft) or some glue. But I've only done this with a staple gun, so I know that works. No matter what technique you end up using, just make sure your tulle is taught over the frame.

Always be careful when handling a staple gun. As my best friend says:

"It's fun and games until someone loses and eye"

When you do it properly, you'll have a thin layer of tulle stretched over your wooden frame. (You could use two layers of tulle if you wanted more strength, but one works fine.)

The tulle is almost invisible

At this point, your frame is done and ready for your jewelry! Hang earrings directly on the tulle or screw in small hooks to your frame to support heavier items.

I love how the earrings just seem to float on nothingness

But what about things that can't hang directly on the tulle or a hook, like pendants and the such?

Look closely. Can you see what they're hanging from??

Yes, it's paper clips!

4. Paper clips (optional)

Now I know paper clips sound crazy. But they totally work. Because you can hang them from the tulle and then hang whatever item you want on them. I made my holders from mini paper clips in 4 easy steps:

You can just open up the back-end of the paper clip instead of cutting it, but then you're left

with this ugly long tail that shows up through the tulle. They're much less of an eyesore this way.

So there you have it. A cheap and unique way of displaying and organizing all your jewelry. Plus I find that I wear so much more of my jewelry since I find myself every morning staring at my frames and asking myself "what should I wear today?!?"

Don't you think it's time you asked yourself the same question??

Yours in functional wall art,
Jacqueline

Ring Holder

2011-08-26T17:20:00.000-07:00

Obvious statement of the day: I love to cook.

But did you guys know I also love doing random crafty projects?? I've sewed a Christmas tree skirt, I've made a mosaic table, I've created framed images, and I've made a snuggie, amongst many other random things. And my craftiness has gone into high gear these past few weeks since I decided to repaint 4 pieces of old furniture for my new apartment. (Yea for being cheap.) So I thought to myself "why not feature some of that stuff here on food-ology?!?"

Yes, I realize this is a food blog, and painting furniture is not the same as cooking food. But it's all about creating something with your hands and losing yourself in your art- whether that be painting with a brush or painting with a spatula. So maybe I should start referring to this as my food+ blog (aka: food plus other cool shit blog). It'll still be a food blog, but once in a while I'll throw in some fun crafty entries.

Today is one of those whiles. And it starts with this gorgeous ceramic box:

Glass mosaic on a brown ceramic box, found at an antique shop in San Luis Obispo

Before leaving the Bay Area in April, I took a long weekend trip down south to Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo (and stayed in a yurt on my way back home). It was one of the best trips I'd taken in all my years in California, and while there I found this gorgeous ceramic box at an antique shop in SLO. I immediately fell in love, but my cheap ass almost got the best of me. Thank goodness my roommate convinced me it was worth the $30, because if it wasn't for her, I probably wouldn't have bought it (or the gorgeous 1950s dress and the cute going-out dress she also convinced me to get later that day... ahhhhh, what is it about being on vacation that makes me want to spend alllll my money?)

Anyways, I purchased it because of its lovely detailing, but didn't really have any particular use for it.

Really, how could I pass this up?!?

As of a few days ago it was holding all my necklace pendants, but then I decided I wanted to turn it into a ring holder. Why?? Because (a) they're a mess, (b) I needed to organize them and (c) I've never found a pre-made ring holder I like.

Nice ring holders are just not easy to find! Sure, one little compartment of some giant-ass jewelry set will have a nice section for some rings, but I wanted one piece dedicated for rings since I already have my own way of displaying earrings and necklaces (a project I'm currently working on, so stay tuned for that!)

So I started googling and you tube-ing "diy ring holder" and found a lot of great tutorials. For some reason though I liked the ideas presented in this one the best, so I decided to do a modified version of it. (I also found this tutorial later on and this technique may be even better than the one I did, so I'm sharing them both here today.)

So you wanna see how my ceramic ring holder turned out??

Pretty fucking amazing if I say so myself!!

I had this scrap of faux-leather fabric and I couldn't believe how the brown matched

the ceramic box perfectly! FYI: fat rings (like the ones on the bottom left) don't store

that great using this method, so I just left some extra space for them on the side of the box.

I suggest watching the you tube videos I've linked to (above) for a better demonstration, but here are some step-by-step photos of how I made my ring holder.

1. Insert a piece of cardboard into your nice ceramic box so you don't ruin it.

2. Cut a piece of your fabric at least 5" wide by (whatever the length of your box is)" long. Place it fancy side down and add some fluffy fabric or foam to the ends to give it extra body. If you have fabric glue, you can use it here, but I'd suggest staying away from the center portion (do as I say, not as I did...)

3. Roll the bottom part of the fabric until you've reached the mid-point. Then hold it in place while you roll the top half of the fabric to meet it in the center.

Yes, I know, that's my foot. I needed something to hold the bottom section

as I took a photo, and unfortunately I don't have three hands...

4. At this point your fabric is rolled from the top and the bottom

5. Now grab this, fold in half (lengthwise), and pinch the two ends together. Note: you don't want these two ends to be glued/stuck together, because that is where your rings will slide in.

6. At this point you can either glue gun or tape the bottom of your strips of fabric to your box. Since my strips wouldn't stay closed (see how I'm holding it in the picture above?), I had to make all my strips first and then place them in the box at the same time. As you can see I made 4 strips of fabric, which gave me a total of 8 segments for ring holding.

7. And as always, a close-up shot of the goodies!

I can't tell you how happy I am with the end result of this project. It looks so beautiful and it really is insanely functional. And I love the fact that you can use whatever box or fabric you like to make this a truly custom piece of functional art.

Just think how neat would it be to make this out of a cigar box? Or a hollowed out book? Or a hand-made wooden box? Or an antique box? Just make sure your container is deep enough for your rings (mine baaaaaaarely made it). Other than that, the possibilities are endless!

Yours in doing domestic things other than cooking,
Jacqueline

Happy Birthday Sommer! (Ohh, and a galette)

2011-08-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

Hello there my friends. I've been a little MIA for a while, haven't I?!? I'm sorry, I haven't forgotten about you. But I have a few excuses as to why:

1. I got a job!!!
And I couldn't be happier. The people are great, the view is un-freaking-believable (over 30 floors up in downtown Chicago on Michigan Avenue), and I'm really loving being busy and back at work (consulting/medical writing for pharmaceutical companies).

2. I got an apartment!!!
The day after my job offer I put money down on an apartment in Chicago, a whopping 4 minute walk from Wrigley Field. I move in Labor Day weekend, and I've already started some projects before the big move (eg, sanding/repainting some furniture from my folks place). I can't wait for a shorter commute (mine is over 70 minutes each way right now), my own kitchen, and the ability to go out on the weekdays/weekends and not drive home. Haven't had that luxury for yeaaaaars!

I can't even describe how happy I've been these past three weeks. I knew moving back to Chicago was the right decision for me, but having a job and apartment of my own is what I've been missing in the months since I've been back. I feel like "me" again, only happier.

Just the thought of organizing my walk-in pantry has brought so much excitement in my life. Is that normal?!? Ahhh well, I don't care, because I'm as happy as can be!

You know why else I'm happy? Two of the people I love most in this world had their birthdays this weekend. My baby brother turned a quarter century yesterday, and my best friend is celebrating her >25 year old birthday today.

With THE Morimoto at his delicious restaurant Us being, ummmm, us...
(I'll never forget that meal, or those phallic table lights)

I wanted to find pictures of us from college, but alas my photo albums are in boxes strewn about my parent's house. So these photos from my visit to Sommer when she was in Philly will have to suffice. (Have I mentioned how happy I'll be when I can finally settle into my new place?? Well I will.)

I haven't been baking or cook much of anything these days, but I do have a recipe I made with Sommer one of the last times I saw her before leaving California (the same trip in which we made tostones... mmmmmmm). Since it's Sommer's birthday today, I figured it would be the perfect time to post this very, very belated recipe.

So what do you get when you combine oranges with some sugar, flour and butter? A rustic, melt-in-your-mouth, unbelievably delicious dessert!

Blood orange galette

Although I do like blood oranges, I'm not sure I go as ga-ga for them as everyone else does. I much prefer a ripe cara cara orange. And there was something about the baking process that turned these blood oranges bitter. Not sure what it was, but I'm actually happy I didn't have enough blood oranges that the recipe required. Instead we were forced to use oranges from Sommer's tree, and they totally MADE this dessert.

Butter crust + segmented oranges + thin slices of butter...

...get topped with some blood orange slices.

After a quick brushing of the crust with an egg wash and light dusting of sugar, this baby is ready for a trip in the oven.

Bubbling hot, this baby is ready for a trip straight into my belly!

Can I just take a second here to talk about the fact that the oranges were the star of the dessert?? I feel that while a lot of desserts make use of oranges or citrus for their flavor (I've got a ton featured here on the blog), not a lot highlight the fruit and make it shine in its natural form.

I also loved that this dessert was not just rustic, but not overly sweet. As any regular readers know by now (you know, the three of you...haha) I prefer European style desserts (fat-ass, creamy, less sweet) to American style ones (super sweet, cakes and cookies and the like).

But if you'd like to add a little extra sweetness to this dessert, may I suggest serving it with some ice cream, a salted caramel sauce, or a delicious chocolate sauce?

Chocolate port sauce that Sommer bought for me

as part of my PhD graduation gift

Yours in getting older surrounded with love... and delicious food,
Jacqueline

(Blood) Orange Galette, adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Note: the original recipe has you freeze the galette overnight so that you can place it directly on the oven rack to bake. This sounded like a great idea, but we didn't have the time, so we cooked it on a baking sheet on a silpat instead. The link to her original recipe is above, so feel free to attempt it either way.
Also, feel free to use any kind of fruit you like. Tis the season for stone fruits right now, so this would be delicious with some plums or peaches. Just make sure to adjust the sugar, as those fruits tend to be more sweet than oranges.

Ingredients

Galette crust
1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled
3 tablespoons ice water

Galette filling
Oranges, ~ 2.5 - 3 lbs worth (40-50 oz)
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 large egg yolk mixed with 2 tablespoons of water

Directions

1. Prepare the crust: In a food processor, pulse the flour with sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the stick of cold butter and pulse several times, just until it is the size of peas. Sprinkle the dough with the ice water and pulse just until moistened crumbs form. Turn the crumbs out onto a work surface, knead once or twice (just enough to bring it together) and pat the pastry into a disk. Wrap the pastry in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, prepare the oranges. Peel the blood oranges, removing all of the bitter white pith. Thinly slice 1 or 2 of the oranges crosswise; remove the pits. Transfer the orange slices to a plate.

3. Segment the remaining oranges and place into a sieve to remove as much of the juice as possible (without mashing them). (Here's a tutorial on how to segment an orange.) You will need 1 cup of sections.

4. Once you're done slicing and segmenting your oranges, your crust should be chilled and ready to use. On a floured work surface, roll out the pastry to an 11-inch round, about 1/4 inch thick. Transfer the pastry to a parchment paper or silpat–lined flat cookie sheet and refrigerate for 15 minutes, or until chilled.

Assembling the dessert
5. Arrange the orange sections on the pastry, leaving a 2-inch border all around. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the sugar over the oranges. Using a paring knife, thinly slice 1 tablespoon of butter over the oranges. Fold up the pastry over the oranges, leaving most of the oranges uncovered. Brush the pastry with the egg wash and sprinkle lightly with 1 tablespoon of the sugar. Arrange the orange slices on top, leaving a 1-inch border of pastry all around. Sprinkle the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar on top.

6. Refrigerate or freeze the galette for another 30 minutes or so to re-chill the dough.

7. Position your rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375˚F so it's ready to go when your galette is.

8. Bake the galette directly from the fridge/freezer for 45–70+ minutes, until the fruit is bubbling and the pastry is deeply browned. (Honestly, I can't remember how long we cooked this for!! I'd start checking at about 45 minutes just to make sure, but I think it took over an hour to finish)

9. Allow galette to cool for ~30 minutes, if you can. I think we waited about 5 minutes before we started stuffing our faces...

10. Serve by itself, or with ice cream, caramel sauce, or chocolate sauce.

Lemon chiffon cake with fruit and lavender cream

2011-07-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

Being the 27th of the month, it's time again for the big Daring Bakers reveal:

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

The basic components were a chiffon cake + fruit + pastry cream (+ a thin layer of marzipan, which I didn't use...) Perfect cake for the crazy warm summer days we've been having here in Chicago!

Fueling my obsession with lavender (remember my lavender ice cream, lavender crostada and lavender Amish bread??) I decided to make a lemon chiffon cake with a lavender pastry cream filling.

Surprised at how successful this challenge was!

So how did it taste?? Absolutely heavenly. The cake and filling were light & airy, not-too-sweet and literally just melted in your mouth. And the sweet tartness of the fruit was a perfect balance to the creaminess of the filling. Great cake for adults who aren't a fan of overly sweet cakes and frostings.

But lest you think this cake is for adults only I can promise you that people of all ages will enjoy every bite. Just check out how happy this little guy is!

Obligatory shot of cute kid with frosting all over his face.

In addition to making all the components from scratch (always a part of the Daring Bakers challenges), presentation of this cake is key. The fruit are not only part of the flavor, they're part of the aesthetics!!

I heart strawberries.

And blueberries and cherries and kiwi and mango and nectarines and plums and peaches and apples and grapefruit and all kinds of freaking fruit. Except durian. I don't heart durian all that much.

The trick is using a springform pan in the assembly. I have crappy ones that I don't trust for baking, but they're perfect for assembling desserts like this. But if you don't have a springform pan, a homemade "ring" using some kind of posterboard should work as well.

Want to see how to put the whole thing together??

First you'll need to prep all your components (recipes below)

Step 1: Line springform pan with parchment paper.

Brush one layer of cake with simple syrup and insert in the bottom of the springform pan.

Step 2: Line the edges of the pan with sliced fruit (cut edges facing out).

Use some frosting to hold the fruit "up" if it's being a pain and not standing up on its own.

Step 3: Admire your work.

Step 4: Add almost half of your pastry cream filling to the cake (being careful not to displace or knock the fruit over from the edges).

Step 5: Add chopped fruit on top of the frosting, making sure to stay away from the edges.
This looked like a lot of fruit, but I could have added even more...

Step 6: Add remaining pastry cream filling, reserving ~1/4- 1/3 cup for the top. Gently place second layer of cake on top and brush with simple syrup.

(not pictured)

Step 7: Use the rest of the pastry cream on top of the cake and decorate with fruit.
As you can tell, I like symmetry and order.

Step 8: Chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

(not pictured, as my fridge is not very exciting)

Step 9: Get nervous as you approach the "moment of truth" (i.e. Will it work?!? Or will it be a complete and utter disaster?!)

Remove edges of springform pan and carefully peel away the parchment paper.

SUCCESS!!!!!!! And it's quite perfect around the edges, if I say so myself.

I let mine chill in the fridge overnight, and I'm glad I did. I mean check out how beautifully it sliced, even with that hefty amount of pastry cream filling!

Can you hear it calling your name?

Not sure what else to say about this dessert other than I loved it and I'm pretty sure you will too. It takes a little bit of time making the different components, but if you're more interested in flavor and not beauty you don't have to worry about doing the whole springform pan bit with the fruit around the edges. Just throw some filling onto a cake with some sliced fruit and top with another slice of cake.

Meticulously put together or rustically thrown together is your choice; either way your friends will love you.

Yours in making friends happy by making them fat,
Jacqueline

Want the recipes for this cake?? Click on the "Read More" below.

FYI: I made a lemon chiffon cake today, but I've provided variations in making your own lemon, orange, coconut or chocolate chiffon cake. Chocolate chiffon cake?!? Oh man, I think I may need to make that ASAP...

Basic Chiffon Cake, from The Daring Bakers

Note: Variations on this basic cake are listed below. I made the lemon chiffon cake. YUM!!
Also, the recipe calls for an 8" springform pan. If you don't have one, split the batter between two 8" or 9" pans (with 2" sides). It won't fit in a single 8" pan.

Ingredients

1 cup + 2 tablespoons (270 ml) (5½ oz/155 gm) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5 ml) (4 gm) baking powder
3/4 cups (180 ml) (6 oz /170 gm) sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon (2½ ml) (1½ gm) salt, preferably kosher
1/4 cup (2 fl oz/60 ml) vegetable oil
3 large egg yolks
⅓ cup + 1 tablespoon (3.17 fl oz/95 ml) water
1 teaspoon (5 ml) pure vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon (3¾ ml) (3 gm) lemon zest, grated
5 large egg whites
¼ teaspoon (1¼ ml) (1 gm) cream of tartar

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to moderate 325°F (160°C/gas mark 3).

2. Line the bottom of an 8-inch (20 cm) spring form pan with parchment paper. Do not grease the
sides of the pan. (Use two 8" or 9" pans if you don't have a spring form pan.)

3. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour and baking powder. Add in all but 3 tablespoons (45
ml.) of sugar, and all of the salt. Stir to combine.

4. In a small bowl combine the oil, egg yolks, water, vanilla and lemon zest. Whisk thoroughly.

5. Combine with the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly (by hand) for about one minute, or until very smooth.

6. Put the egg whites into a stand mixer, and beat on medium speed using a whisk attachment on a
medium speed, until frothy. Add cream of tartar and beat on a medium speed until the whites hold
soft peaks. Slowly add the remaining sugar and beat on a medium-high speed until the whites hold
firm and form shiny peaks.

7. Using a grease free rubber spatula, scoop about ⅓ of the whites into the yolk mixture and fold in
gently. Gently fold in the remaining whites just until combined.

8. Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s). Bake for 45 to 55 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the
center comes out clean. (See note below)

9. Removed the cake from the oven and allow to cool completely in the pan on a wire rack. (See note below)

10. To unmold, run a knife around the sides to loosen the cake from the pan and remove the spring form
sides. Invert the cake and peel off the parchment paper. Refrigerate for up to four days.

Note: My cake looked perfect when it came out of the oven (lightly golden brown, perfectly flat top) but after it cooled it sank in the middle. After asking why this happened I was given two reasons:

1. I needed to cook my cake for a minute or two longer, even though the toothpick came out pretty clean. If the cake is evenly slightly underdone it has a tendency to fall. So unlike most cakes, err on the side of slightly overcooking it. (And since you'll be moistening it with a simple syrup, it's ok if it's slightly drier.)

2. I should have cooled my cake upside down (similar to an angel food cake). This prevents gravity from taking over and making the cake fall.

Variations to the Basic Chiffon Cake

Lemon Chiffon Cake

Ingredient Alterations
Reduce water to 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Add 1/8 cup (30 ml) lemon juice
Increase lemon zest to 1½ teaspoon (7½ ml) (5 gm)
Remove the vanilla from the recipe

Direction Alterations
Follow the directions, same as above, adding the lemon juice and zest to the oil, egg yolks and water in step 4.

Orange Chiffon Cake

Ingredient Alterations
Replace the full amount of water with orange juice
Replace lemon zest with the zest of one orange
Remove the vanilla from the recipe

Direction Alterations
Follow the directions, same as above, adding the orange juice and zest to the oil, and egg yolks in step 4.

Coconut Chiffon Cake

Ingredient Alterations

Add ¼ teaspoon (1¼ ml) (1 gm) freshly ground nutmeg
Reduce oil to 1/8 cup (1 fl oz/30ml)
Reduce water to 1/8 cup (1 fl oz/30ml)
Add 1/3 cup (2 ⅔ fl oz/80 ml) unsweetened coconut milk
Remove the vanilla from the recipe

Direction Alterations
Follow the directions, same as above, adding the nutmeg to the flour mixture in step 3, and the coconut
milk to the oil, water and egg yolks in step 4.

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

Ingredient Alterations
Reduce all-purpose flour to ¾ cup + 1 tablespoon (195 ml) (4 oz/110 g)
Add 1/4 cup (60 ml) (3/4 oz/20 g) cocoa powder

Direction Alterations
Follow the directions, same as above, adding the cocoa to the flour mixture in step 3

(Lavender) Pastry Cream Filling, slightly modified from The Daring Bakers

Note: The addition of gelatin makes this different from other pastry cream recipes (like the kind I used in my cream puffs). The reason is so that the cream "sets" and can be sliced. You can eliminate the gelatin step but if you do that I'd suggest going the "rustic" route with your dessert as it'll likely ooze out the sides.
Also, I increased the milk and cream amounts from the original recipe for a bit more cream filling. Use only 1 cup milk and 1 cup heavy cream if you don't want quite so much cream filling in your cake.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups (12 fl oz/375 ml) whole milk
1/2 teaspoon (2½ ml) pure vanilla extract
1-2 TBSP dried lavender flowers, optional
1/8 teaspoon (1/2 ml) (¼ gm) salt, preferably kosher
2 tablespoons (30 ml) (10 gm)cornstarch
1/4 cup (60 ml) (2 oz/55 gm) sugar
1 large egg + 1 yolk (extra yolk is optional, but I decided to add it as it was leftover from the cake)
2 tablespoons (30 ml) (1 oz/30 gm) unsalted butter

1 teaspoon (5.3 gm) gelatin
1 TBSP water
1 1/2 cups (12 fl oz/375 ml) heavy cream

Directions

1. Pour the milk, vanilla, lavender, and salt into a heavy sauce pan. Bring to a near boil, turn off heat, and let steep for 15-30 minutes (or until the lavender flavor is to your liking. Skip this step if you don't like lavender). Reheat over medium heat and scald, bringing it to a near boiling point. Stir occasionally.

2. Meanwhile, in a medium sized bowl mix the cornstarch and sugar. Whisk to combine.

3. Add the eggs to the sugar and cornstarch and whisk until smooth.

4. When the milk is ready, gently and slowly pour the heated milk down the side of the bowl into the egg mixture, making sure to whisk constantly. (Make sure to add the milk particularly slowly at the beginning: you don't want scrambled eggs!)

5. Pour the mixture back into the warm pot and continue to cook over a medium heat until the custard
is thick, just about to boil and coats the back of a spoon. (Make sure you are constantly mixing the custard, as leaving it for even a minute can cause it to overcook and get lumpy.)

6. Remove from heat and pass through a fine mesh sieve into a large mixing bowl. Allow to cool for ten
minutes, stirring occasionally.

7. Cut the butter into four pieces and whisk into the pastry cream a piece at a time until smooth.

8. Cover the cream with plastic wrap, pressing the plastic wrap onto the top of the cream to prevent a
skin from forming. Chill in the refrigerator for up to five days.

9. In a small dish, sprinkle the gelatin over the water and let stand for a few minutes to soften. Add a drop or two more water if the gelatin soaks it all up.

10. Put two inches (55 mm) of water into a small sauce pan and bring to a simmer over a medium heat.

11. Measure 1/4 cup (2 oz/60 ml) of the chilled pastry cream into a small stainless steel bowl that will sit
on the sauce pan with the simmering water, without touching the water.

12. Heat the pastry cream until it is 120 F (48.8 C). (Note: This was such a small amount there was no way I could measure the temperature. So I just heated it up until it was liquidy and very warm to the touch.) Add the gelatin and whisk until smooth. Remove from the water bath, and whisk the remaining cold pastry cream in to incorporate in two batches.

13. In a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the cream until it holds medium-stiff peaks.
Immediately fold the whipped cream into the pastry cream with a rubber spatula.

Simple Syrup

Note: You may choose to flavor the syrup. One way is to use flavored sugar (for example: apple cider sugar, orange sugar, or vanilla sugar) or to stir in 1-2 teaspoons of flavored extract. You may also infuse with herbs or spices, if desired or add four tablespoons (60 ml) of fruit juice or liqueur while the syrup is cooling.

Ingredients

1/3 cup (2⅔ fl oz/80 ml) (2⅔ oz/75 gm) of sugar, flavored or white
1/3 cup (2⅔ fl oz/80 ml) of water

Directions

1. Combine the water and sugar in a medium saucepan.
2. Bring the mixture to a boil and let the sugar dissolve. Stirring is not necessary, but will not harm the syrup.
3. Remove the syrup from the heat and cool slightly.
4. Transfer syrup to a lidded container or jar that can be stored in the refrigerator. Simple syrup can be stored for up to one month.

Fraisier Assembly

Components

baked chiffon cake (thick cake sliced in half if baked in springform pan or two thinner cakes if baked in individual pans)
1 recipe pastry cream filling
⅓ cup (80 ml) simple syrup or flavored syrup
fruit (I used less than 1 lb of strawberries, half a pint of blueberries, and almost 2 kiwis)

½ cup (120 ml) (5 oz/140 gm) almond paste
-and/or-
additional fruit for decorating the top

Directions

1. Line the sides of a springform pan with plastic wrap or parchment paper. Do not line the bottom of the pan.

2. Fit the bottom layer into the prepared spring form pan. Moisten the layer evenly with the simple syrup. When the cake has absorbed enough syrup to resemble a squishy sponge, you have enough.

3. Hull and slice in half enough strawberries to arrange around the sides of the cake pan. Place the cut side of the strawberry against the sides of the pan, point side up forming a ring.

4. Pipe cream in-between strawberries and a thin layer across the top of the cake.

5. Hull and quarter your remaining strawberries and place them in the middle of the cake. Cover the strawberries and entirely with the all but some of the pastry cream.

6. Place the second cake layer on top and moisten with the simple syrup.

If not using almond paste, skip to step #8.
7. Lightly dust a work surface with confectioners' sugar and roll out the almond paste to a 10-inch (25
cm) round 1/16 inch (1.5 mm) thick. Spread the remaining 1 tablespoon (15 ml) of pastry cream on the top of the cake and cover with the round of almond paste. (Continue with step #8 or skip to #9)

8. Spread the remaining 1/4 to 1/3 cup pastry cream on the top of the cake and decorate with fruit.

9. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

10. To serve release the sides of the spring form pan and peel away the plastic wrap. Serve immediately or store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

M & M cakes

2011-07-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

A while back I made this masquerade themed birthday cake for my cousin's friend. Well, turns out someone at the party liked my cake so much she asked me make a cake for her sister's wedding shower!

And it was such a unique idea I couldn't pass it up.

Apparently her sister loves M & Ms, so she wanted the bride and groom to be the M & M characters. Although in this case it was M & A, due to the initials of their names.

The (delicious) bride and groom to-be

These cakes were huge (12" each!) and required a lot more time and energy (and troubleshooting the Chicago heat) than I anticipated for such a "simple" design. But in the end, it came out pretty awesome!

Although these cakes were not the most intricate, they had some surprisingly delicate touches, which I was most proud of. Like the tiara and veil that the bride is wearing.

I textured the veil by rolling the fondant over a piece of lace.

It's the littlest details that tie the whole thing together.

Both the tiara and the little top hat the groom was wearing were my ideas, and luckily the client liked them too!

Such a dapper man/ M & M / cake!

I also really liked the cartooniness of their faces, especially their eyes. Brought their personalities to life.

My, what long lashes you have!

And if you were wondering just how big these cakes were, my hand should provide a suitable comparison. Required a special trip to Home Depot to buy MDF large enough (3 ft. x 2 ft.) to place the cakes side by side!

I don't have baby hands. The cakes are just that massive.

So although this cake was a bit of a time sink, especially considering I was making another large cake the same week, I can be nothing short of proud with how it came out!

Yours in taking on new challenges, no matter how small or large (and swearing up a storm throughout the process),
Jacqueline

Olivia cake

2011-07-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

My cousin's daughter turned two this past weekend and I decided to bake them up a little present for the party.

It's Olivia!

Jaelyn looooooves going to the pool and flip flops and summertime, so of course we had to make it an Olivia at the beach cake.

Surfs up!

I think I'd only heard of Olivia once before, but apparently lots of kids love these books. I didn't really know what I was doing, but came up with the idea for the cake using this cake as inspiration + this photo from Jaelyn's Olivia book:

(Cake from chocmocakes)

I have to admit, as I started hand sculpting the Olivia character she looked really weird at first. I mean really messed up looking. Alien like. But then I decided that I'd done all I could and put the ears on, hoping for the best... And viola, I had a pig! And a pretty darn cute one at that.

But this post isn't only about the cake. It's about the birthday girl!

Jaelyn and Olivia having a special moment.

...and how excited she got when we all started singing Happy Birthday to her.

...and how she loved Olivia.

...and how she and her little friends LOOOOOVED the cake!

mmmm, fondant

They seriously pigged out on fondant for a few minutes before we figured it was time to cut the cake and let the adults enjoy some of it too!

Get after it girls!

Which we did! (Recipes to come soon...)

Yours in celebrating summer with family and food,
Jacqueline

Baby shower carriage cake

2011-07-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

I'm a magnet these days.

Nope, not a magnet for jobs. Although I do have a job interview lined up for next week (!)
Nope, not a magnet for hot dudes. Although I do have a date lined up for next week (!!)

So what exactly am I a magnet for these days??

Pregnant women.

I swear. In the past year I can't even tell you how many women I know that have either had a baby or are in the process of incubating one. I guess that's what happens when you're 31 years old and have lots of friends and cousins of the same age.

I, of course, am far, far (very far) away from babies. But in the meantime, I can enjoy the great news from all my friends and family who are expanding their own families. And in the meantime, I can make cake.

I've shared three baby shower cakes in the past (for a boy, for a girl, and for multiple boys) and today I share with you one more.

It's a baby boy!

I threw this cake together quite quickly (2 hours from start to finish once the cakes were baked) so it's not my greatest masterpiece. But it wasn't too bad!

Carriage close up.

Side decoration

The mom-to-be's favorite cake was red velvet, which I've only made once before (for another baby shower incidentally). I found that recipe to be a tiny bit dry, so I wanted to try out another recipe. But this one, I dunno, I wasn't very happy with the result. While it was moist, it was really dense, almost brownie-like, so although it wasn't bad, it wasn't great.

I have a theory as to why the cake was a semi-failure, but I'll have to test that theory again before sharing the recipe with all of you.

In the meantime, I'll keep making more baby cakes... and taking dibs on whose next.

*not it!

Yours in celebrating other people's baby making abilities,
Jacqueline

Baklava, with a surprise

2011-06-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

It's the 27th, so you know what that means: another Daring Bakers post!

Through these challenges I've made desserts from all over the world using all kinds of crazy ingredients. But this month our challenge took me back to my Middle Eastern roots...

... with BAKLAVA!!!

I decided to make not just one, but two types of baklava.

But the challenge wasn't making baklava. No, no, no- that would be wayyyy too easy. The challenge my friends, was first to make the phyllo dough entirely from scratch, then to make the baklava.

Individual sheets of phyllo dough, hand rolled to paper thinness.

Erica of Erica's Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker's June challenge.
Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough to make baklava

Yes. You read that right.

I literally spent over an hour and a half rolling out 15 sheets of phyllo dough. Fun times! (And I was wondering why my shoulders are so sore today...)

Although the phyllo dough was actually a pleasure to work with, I don't think I'd go through all this effort again in the future. My mom told me that back home (in Iraq), my grandmother used to hire people to come out and make the dough whenever they made baklava!! So it's clearly a pain in the ass, but as a one-time cooking experiment, I couldn't be happier with the results.

As expected- the homemade phyllo dough is thicker and not quite as crunchy as purchased phyllo dough. My mom says that they're just different, with one not being "better" than the other. I still prefer the brittle and crispy texture of commercially made phyllo dough. So I'll definitely make baklava again, just probably not the dough.

BTW- baklava might seem like it's hard, but it was actually super super simple! Compared to making the phyllo dough, the assembly of the baklava came together in no time flat.

Ready to see how it all went down????

First things first: prepare yourself for a marathon day in the kitchen. This includes, but is not limited to:

* Wearing a cute apron (shout-out to my Nelson Lab ladies for this kick ass going away gift!)

* Posing for silly pictures with a 1/2" dowel that you'll use to roll out the dough

* Bumpin' to your music of choice

Making Your Dough

The simple dough (recipes at the end of the post), is made up of flour, water, oil, and a teeny bit of vinegar, which apparently helps break down the gluten a bit, making it easier to roll the dough very thin.

Mix it, knead it, and let it rest.

Then let the rollin' begin! Grab a piece of dough slightly larger than a golf ball.

On a well floured surface, roll the dough out using a regular rolling pin until it's larger than your hand. Feel free to go even larger than this.

Then using your 1/2" wooden dowel (got mine from Lowes for $1.50), work the dough until it is as thin as you can make it. You'll figure out the technique that works best for you, but just keep working the dough until you can't anymore. (My pieces of phyllo were ~ 12" x 12".) Hot tip: make sure to use a lot of flour, especially on the bottom of the dough.

At first it took me almost 5 minutes to roll each sheet out; by the end I got it down to less than 3 minutes!

Just make sure to put a piece of wax paper between each sheet of dough to keep them from sticking and cover loosely with a hand towel (dry and clean) to prevent the dough from drying out.

Making Your Baklava

Get your station ready for assembly.

p.s. I can't spell serrated... and I'm too lazy to fix it.

I wanted to try TWO different kinds of baklava. The first is an "open-faced" baklava, each individually comprised of square phyllo layers filled with barely-crushed pistachios.

Fold up the corners and squeeze to turn this....

.... into this:

It took some experimenting, but I think that 3" phyllo squares yielded perfectly sized baklava:

The second kind of baklava I made was the "typical kind", with layers and layers of phyllo + filling + more and more layers of phyllo.

I decided to tear up the final sheet of phyllo on top for a "rustic" look.

Cut the baklava into diamonds, douse with a little more butter, and bake until golden brown.

I like my baklava with a lot more phyllo dough than nuts. And not too sweet. So for me, this baklava was PERFECT!!!

I have to re-do the recipe with commercial phyllo dough to optimize the number of sheets to use and the baking time. But until then, I'll share with you my notes and a recipe that I used from my Middle East Cookbook.

Well there you have it folks, my first batch of baklava made completely from scratch. And any Skokie/Chicago peeps that want a piece (ahem, Lloyd, ahem) are more than welcome to come by for a taste. :)

Yours in getting back to their roots through food,
Jacqueline

(Click below for the dough and baklava recipes.)

Before I give recipes, let me break down the basics of baklava for you:

1. Individual sheets of phyllo dough are brushed with lots of butter and stacked on top of each other.
2. A nut filling is included.
3. Baklava is cut (or it's already made in individual pieces) and baked until golden brown.
4. Meanwhile, you prepare a sugar syrup.
5. Immediately after the baklava comes out of the oven you spoon the sugar syrup allllll over it, which creates this insanely pleasant hissing sound as the warm syrup contacts the hot and flakey baklava.

Baklava, adapted from my moms recipe and that from the Middle East Cookbook

Note: Commercial phyllo dough dries out MUCH faster than the fresh kind. Make sure to always keep unbuttered dough covered with a hand towel and work as quickly as you can.

Ingredients

20 sheets phyllo pastry (or how many are found in a sleeve of phyllo)
3/4 cup butter, unsalted (1 1/2 sticks)

Nut filling:
6 oz. slivered almonds, finely chopped or sent through a quick wizz in the food processor (~1 1/2 cups)(you don't have to use slivered almonds, you can use blanched almonds (see here) or regular ones if you don't mind the skin)
2 TBSP sugar
1 1/2 to 2 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Note: The original recipe calls for 2 cups of finely chopped walnuts, 1 cup of finely chopped almonds, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon and 1/8 tsp ground cloves. So free free to (a) use as many/little nuts as you prefer and (b) to mix up the nuts you're using. Don't like almonds? Use all walnuts (more traditional anyways), or cashews or pistachios or macadamia nuts or hazelnuts or whatever!

Syrup:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups water
2-3 TBSP honey
2 tsp lemon juice
thinly peeled strip of lemon rind, optional
small piece of cinnamon bark, optional
3 whole cloves, optional

Directions

Preheat oven to 325˚F

1. Melt your butter and use a spoon to remove/discard the top layer of white foam that develops on the butter.

2. Brush the bottom/sides of a 13 x 9" oven dish. (A light metal or glass dish is preferable as a darker pan might overbrown the baklava)

3. Layer nine sheets of phyllo in the pan, individually brushed with a healthy helping of butter.

4. Spread half of the nut mixture over the phyllo. Top with another two pieces of phyllo (brushing each with butter).

5. Spread remaining nuts on top and finish with remaining phyllo, brushing each sheet with butter.

6. Trim edges and brush top with remaining butter. Cut baklava with a sharp knife into diamond shapes.

7. Bake on center shelf for 30 minutes. Move up one shelf and cook for another 30 minutes. Loosely cover the baklava with foil if the top is getting brown too quickly.

8. While the baklava is baking, mix together the syrup ingredients. Heat over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Bring to a low boil and cook for 15 minutes. Allow to cool and remove the cloves/cinnamon stick.

9. When the baklava is done baking, remove from the oven and immediately spoon the sugar syrup evenly over the hot baklava. (It'll make a great hissing sound as the warm syrup hits the hot dough.)
I haven't tried this recipe with commercial baklava, so I don't know if this amount of syrup is too much. So don't feel forced to add all the syrup if it seems too much. My syrup reached maybe halfway up the baklava or a little under, so use your tastebuds to guide your judgement. But I use much less honey than other recipes I've seen, so even with all this syrup it won't be sickeningly sweet, I promise!

10. Leave for several hours, or overnight, to allow the syrup to soak in.

Homemade phyllo dough, from Daring Bakers
Note: I doubled this recipe for my two batches of baklava.

Ingredients
1 1/3 cups (320 ml) (185 gm/6½ oz) unbleached all purpose (plain) flour
1/8 teaspoon (2/3 ml) (¾ gm) salt
1/2 cup less 1 tablespoon (105 ml) water, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough
1/2 teaspoon (2½ ml) cider vinegar, (I used regular vinegar, but just under 1/2 tsp)

Directions

1. In the bowl of your stand mixer combine flour and salt and mix with paddle attachment.

2. Combine water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup.

3. With the mixer running on low speed, slowly drizzle in the water and oil mixture until you get a soft dough.
Note: you may not use all the liquid (I didn't), or you may have to add a little more water (a tsp or two at a time). It'll all depend, so use your eyes to decide when you've added enough liquid, not your measuring cup.

This dough is too dry, so go ahead and add a little more water at a time until it looks like...

(picture from the Daring bakers challenge post)

...this! You want the dough to stick together like this.

(picture from the Daring bakers challenge post)

4. Once your dough is wet enough, change to the dough hook and let knead approximately 10 minutes. You will end up with beautiful smooth dough. If you are kneading by hand, knead approx. 20 minutes.

5. Remove the dough from mixer and continue to knead for 2 more minutes. Pick up the dough and through it down hard on the counter a few times during the kneading process. Go ahead, get out your aggressions!

6. Shape the dough into a ball and lightly cover with oil. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and let rest 2 hours.

Rolling your Phyllo

** Remove all rings and jewelry so it does not snag the dough**

Use whatever means you have to get the dough as thin as you can. You may also use a pasta machine if you have one, or a normal rolling pin whatever works for you. A 1/2" dowel worked wonders for me, and it only costs a buck or two at a hardware store. You can also try this awesome technique (the traditional way to roll out the dough), but I found that my center was rolling a lot thinner than the outer edges. It definitely requires just the right touch that I apparently don't have...

1. Unwrap your dough and cut off a chunk slightly larger then a golf ball. While you are rolling be sure to keep the other dough covered so it doesn’t dry out.

2. Be sure to flour your hands, rolling pin and counter. As you roll you will need to keep adding, don’t worry, you can’t over-flour.

3. Roll out the dough with a large rolling pin to flatten it out. Get it as thin as you can.

4. When you get it as thin as you can with the rolling pin, I switched over to the wooden dowel to really stretch it out. NOTE: you will not get it as thin as the frozen phyllo dough you purchase at the store, it is made by machine

5. Set aside on a well-floured surface. Repeat the process until your dough is used up, making sure to use wax paper between each sheet. (If you don't, there's a good chance the earlier layers you made will stick together and you'll have to re-roll most your batch!) Make sure to cover your dough with a dry hand towel to prevent it from drying out.

Authentic Italian espresso

2011-06-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

Prepare yourself Food-ology friends, today is a day I will not blog about cake.

*gasp

I know, I know, cake is all I post these days. And that's because it's the only thing I've been making in the kitchen since my move back to Chicago. But I've got a little treat today, and it isn't sweet.

Espresso in an itsy-bitsy teeny-tiny cup about the size of my pinky.

Turns out I have a mini-stash of recipes made and photos taken while visiting friends during my last few weeks in California. And I think it's time to breath life back into them. One of these people I saw was my Italian friend Silvia. (You may recognize her name from a simple pasta dish I've made that is appropriately named after her.)

I went to visit Silvia at her house in Napa where we played with her cute girls, cooked more delicious pasta (recipe to come soon) and got a little wet while wine tasting and museum visiting at Hess Winery.

Misty day at Hess Winery makes for some cool photos...

We also made espresso. The real, Italian way. And that means the teeniest, tiniest cup of intense flavor.

It's ridiculously simple, but I took some step-by-step photos to remind myself (and show you) how it's done. The real, Italian way, as told to me by Silvia*.

*Note: I am not an expert in this process, I'm just relaying you the information that was given to me. If you don't like what I'm saying- don't shoot the messenger!

Step 1: Purchase the proper equipment.

Bialetti or bust...

This means a small Bialetti Moka pot. Apparently (Silvia says) no other brand will do. And (Silvia says) no other size will do either. So that means you need to purchase the small one, not the big giant one. But don't worry, the small size will suffice; you'll get ~2-3 small espressos per preparation. (I'll get into the details of why it has to be the small one in a few steps...)

The espresso maker has three parts: a bottom receptacle (filled with water), the metal filter that sits on top of this bottom piece (filled with finely ground coffee beans), and the upper receptacle, which will fill up with your finished espresso after heating.

Step 2: Fill the bottom receptacle with water.

There's a fill line on the inside of the container, so you'll know when to stop.

Step 3: Place the filter insert back the bottom receptacle.

This is where your espresso grounds will sit. No paper filter required.

Step 4: Spoon ground espresso beans into the filter

Even when you think its full, keep filling...

... you want it to be heaping full o' powder

Apparently in this step people fall into two major groups: those who pack their espresso and those who don't. Silvia doesn't (that's all I'm sayin'...) Just a small tap will do.

But whether you're a packer or not, you have to fill this filter with a lot of beans, otherwise the espresso will come out weak. Which is one reason why Silvia recommends getting the smaller machine. If you buy the bigger one you can't chose to make 1-2 servings of espresso, you have to make the whole shebang. So unless you're drinking 6+ espressos a day, it'll be a waste.

Step 5: Screw the top part of the espresso machine to the lower half and heat on a stove.

All full and ready to go.

Normally this part is done with the lid closed, but we opened it so you could see exactly what happens.

At first, the top receptacle is empty while the water is still heating up.

Still have a few minutes to go...

But as the water heats up, sciency stuff starts to happen and liquid bubbles up through that little spout in the center.

Espresso starting to bubble through!

And finally, once all the water has finished bubbling its way through the espresso grounds, you'll hear a funny little gurgling noise and the espresso will appear a little frothy.

pffftttt

Step 6: Stir the espresso before pouring.

The last bits of espresso bubbling through aren't as strong so you want to make sure to mix it up.

Step 7: Pour and enjoy.

And a few more notes to help you make your perfect cup of espresso at home:

* When you first purchase the machine, make a few batches of espresso and throw them out. Apparently the metal on the inside needs to be "seasoned" a bit, and the first few batches might taste weird. On the plus side this means that like me, the espresso machine only gets better with age. ;)

* If you use the machine regularly, a simple rinse with warm water will suffice in cleaning the pot. If it's been a while perhaps you could use a little bit of soap, but not much and don't go crazy trying to scrub it clean. It won't and shouldn't look spanking new on the inside.

* Don't use regular coffee grinds with this machine, it won't come out the same. Make sure your coffee is ground specifically for espresso.

And there you have it, a perfect espresso!

Yours in making foods the real, Italian way,
Jacqueline

mmmmm, lemons...

2011-06-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

I've said this before and I'll say it again: I love tart, fat-ass desserts. Both individually and in unison.

So a while back I bought two amazing cookbooks, Luscious Lemon Desserts and Luscious Creamy Desserts. If you're anything like me you need to own both of these cookbooks.

Some of you may or may not remember my lemon week extravaganza. In just over a week I posted six amazingly awesome lemon desserts, including: lemon shortbread cookies, lemon crisps, lemon "cat's tongue" cookies, lemon bars, lemon curd, and quite possibly the most delicious dessert I've ever made: lemon tart.

It's been just over a year since I went loco for lemons, so I felt it was time to revisit my book.

Old-fashioned lemon (and orange) sugar cookies.

And wow, what an amazing reunion it was!

Crispy, buttery, citrusy, sugary cookies that seriously hit the spot.

Cookie innards

I don't even know what else to say about these cookies. All I know is that they were delicious, even for someone who isn't a huge cookie fan. A bit on the sweet side (for me), but I'm a weirdo that likes my desserts less sweet than 98% of Americans.

If you're a fan of soft and chewy cookies these may not be the ones for you. But give them a try- they might convert you!

As a side note I'd say that in the past I wasn't the guru of cookies, and I still wouldn't consider myself an expert. But I've figured out a few tricks/tips that I'll share with you today.

Jackie's Tips For Good Cookies

1. The recipe. Goes without saying, but when cookies don't come out well I like to blame the recipe! This book has been pretty amazing with every cookie recipe I've tried (except the shortbread cookies; they were a bit on the dry side).

2. The pan. A simple baking sheet shouldn't make a difference, should it? Yes, it does matter! How do I know? Because I own 3 crappy baking sheets (thin ones) and one really nice, sturdy, thick jellyroll pan that cost me a whopping $25. Every time I use my crappy baking sheets the bottoms of my cookies get all dark before the cookie is done. But every time I use my fancy schmancy jellyroll pan the bottoms come out perfect (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Perfectly browned bottoms. *teeheehee*

3. The silpat. I love my silpat. No more cutting parchment paper. No more buttering pans. It simply sits in my fancy jellyroll pan at all times and it's ready to go when I need to make a batch of cookies (see Figure 2). Not only do cookies slide off the silpat with ease, I'm convinced they help in the even cooking of a cookie, perhaps even more than a fancy cookie sheet (see Figure 1).

No more sticky cookies with my handy dandy silpat!

Note: If you want to use your silpat for savory foods too I'd suggest having one for sweets (exclusively) and one for savory foods (exclusively). Flavors can sometimes "stick" on the silpat a bit, and nobody wants a chicken-scented cookie...

So there you have it, yet another kick-ass recipe from my lemon desserts cookbook!

Yours in re-exploring favorite cookbooks,

Jacqueline

Old-fashioned lemon sugar cookies, from Luscious Lemon Desserts
Note: this recipe will require 4-6 lemons
Yield: 3 to 4 dozen, depending on cookie size

Ingredients
2/3 + 1 cup sugar
2 tsp pure lemon oil (I used orange oil since it's all I had)
2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour (this means sift your flour first, THEN measure out 2.5 cups)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup finely grated lemon zest
1 large egg
2 TBSP fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. Place rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400˚F. Prepare at least 2 baking sheets with silpat, parchment paper or buttered (as she suggests).

2. Stir together 2/3 cup sugar with 1 tsp lemon oil in a small bowl. Set aside. (Note: this is the sugar that the cookies will be rolled into. I replaced maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the sugar with orange colored sanding sugar to give the cookies a pretty color and nice crunch.)

3. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.

4. Beat the butter, the remaining 1 cup of sugar, the remaining 1 tsp lemon oil and lemon zest with an electric mixer on medium-high speed in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the egg (initially on low speed) and beat until well blended. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour mixture and lemon juice, and beat just until blended.

5. Form balls with tablespoonfuls of the dough (they will be VERY soft, so handle them for as little time as possible) and roll them in the sugar-lemon oil mixture to coat well.

6. Place them ~3" apart on the baking sheet. Flatten each ball with a glass or your fingers until they are around 2" round and 3/8" thick.

7. Bake, one sheet at a time, for 8-11 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned. Remove the cookies from the baking sheet and let cool on a wire rack.

Going away cake

2011-06-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

Yes folks, another cake.

This is what happens when you're (a) unemployed and (b) living with your parents and have an endless supply of (free) food.

But I miss cooking for myself. Unfortunately, it's pretty impossible to do my own grocery shopping/cooking while sharing a kitchen and fridge and living space with my folks. I definitely need to find a job ASAP so I can start my normal routine again. (Anyone have any ideas for a bio Ph.D?!) But my mom makes yummy food, so I'm not *totally* complaining. Just a little bit...

But I have managed to keep myself (semi) sane and have taken on a lot more baking and cake decorating. Like this going away cake.

My dad's coworker is leaving his company so he asked me to make a going away cake for her. I know absolutely nothing about her, but with this nice warm weather we've been having and tons of rain, Chicago is in full bloom, so I was inspired to make a springy, girly cake.

Flower closeup.

I've also been playing around a lot more with my camera/Lightroom-- which has been fun trying to get better photographs.

Unfortunately, I was an idiot and left my ISO setting on 3200 and didn't realize it until now. Grrrrrr. So my gorgeous cake has been reduced to crappy, grainy photos.

Individually applied blades of grass. It took quite a while to complete on the 12" cake,

but it was totally worth it! Really brought the whole thing together and gave it a nice 3D feel.

But I will continue to subject you to these photos because my cake was pretty and they're the only ones I have.

View from the right hand side with the cascading small flowers.

And a closeup of the small flowers and grass border.

I wish I had a recipe to share with this cake, but unfortunately, it was a tiny bit of a disaster. The cake tasted delicious but totally fell in the middle and side. Ugh, that's what I get for trying another cake recipe from The Cake Bible. (Although in all fairness I may have caused the fall myself) But I've had such bad luck with her cakes. They taste good, but they either fall and/or are SUPER crumbly and do not lend themselves well to being torted (cut in half) to be filled.

Ahhhh well, you don't learn unless you experiment, right?

Yours in sending off people in style,
Jacqueline

Civil Unions in Illinois

2011-06-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

I'm proud to say I saw history in the making

Wednesday, June 1

Illinois allows same sex couples to apply for civil unions.

Thursday, June 2

35 couples are joined together at Millenium Park in Chicago, after waiting the requisite 24 hours after applying for their license to participate in a ceremony.

I don't consider myself a "direct" member in the LGBT community, but I do have friends that are, and I do consider myself a believer in equality. So in light of my lack of a day job, I decided to go to Millenium Park in downtown Chicago and watch this historic event in person.

I hope to one day tell my kids: "Back in my day, people of the same sex weren't allowed to get married. But I was there the day the state of Illinois took a small step in the right direction."

And hopefully, we'll continue to take more steps in the right direction until everyone is given all the rights they deserve.

Yours in being free to choose the one you love,
Jacqueline

And now, a few photos of the big day.

Private ceremonies being performed at the edge of Millenium Park

Thrown flower petals were the theme of the day...

...as well as love!

And just a cool pic I wanted to share from the Art Institute gardens.

Daring Bakers- chocolate marquise

2011-06-01T20:25:00.000-07:00

You guys may have noticed that I haven't posted a Daring Baker's challenge these past few months. Between my move to Chicago in April and a May challenge in which we were required to use maple syrup (mehh), I'm finally back after a 2-month hiatus.

And wow- what a challenge it was!!!

Chocolate marquise, torched meringue, homemade caramel sauce and spiced almonds.

I'd never heard of chocolate marquise before, so I was extra excited that this challenge introduced me to yet another novel dessert. So what exactly is chocolate marquise? I'd best describe it as a cross between a chocolate truffle and chocolate mousse. It holds its shape better than chocolate mousse but seriously melts in your mouth the second it touches your tongue. Unbelievably creamy texture.

The challenge also had us pairing the chocolate marquise with a few other components I wouldn't have thought to put together: meringue, caramel and spiced almonds.

On their own, each component is very good. (Except the meringue, I'm usually not a fan and can't really eat it on its own...) But together. WOW! What a combo.

The soft sweetness of the meringue with the

smooth silkiness of the chocolate with the

sticky nuttiness of the caramel with the

sweet crunchiness of the almonds.

Perfection!

I deviated a bit from the recipes given, as they were all about using hot spice with the chocolate. I've tried it before, and I'm not a giant fan of spicy, cayenney chocolate. I know, its supposed to enhance the flavor of the chocolate. I know, its the "it" thing to do with Chocolate. I know, I know... but I don't care. (If you do care, you can find the original recipes provided for the challenge here.)

Instead, I decided to experiment using Chinese 5-spice powder in the chocolate. I don't know exactly what's in it, but Wikipedia tells me the five spices are usually star anise, cloves, cinnamon, Sichuan pepper and ground fennel seeds. I absolutely LOVE using it on pork tenderloin, and figured it would work well in a sweet dessert too.

The verdict?

Depends who you ask...

My mom loved it. I was not a fan.

To be honest, I think I'm just a chocolate purist. I don't like crazy flavors and spices and bacon and chillies and stuff in my chocolate. Except lavender. And orange. And nuts. But that's it (until I can think of more...)

So if I could do it all over again I'd just make the chocolate dessert without any extra flavorings in it and just let the chocolate shine. But that's the beauty of this dessert. You can be as much of a purist or chocolate skank as you want. It's your choice how much you decide to go crazy with it, if at all.

Obviously the marquise is the main character in this dessert. But can I take a moment to talk about the supporting cast?

I've never made caramel sauce before (although I have made caramels) and I have no idea why the hell not. I will never, in my entire life, buy caramel sauce again. It takes a whopping 10-15 minutes to make and is the most delicious thing ever.

Although I did overcook (aka burn a little bit) my first batch. Apparently it only takes an extra minute to burn caramel. But hey, no biggie. Even if you ruin your first batch, it's a cheap mistake to make. And once you get it right, there's no way you'll mess it up again.

And the spiced nuts, they were great. I loved this technique for flavoring my plain ole almonds. Try it, you won't regret it. (But don't overcook them like I did. Yes, I had issues burning things this time...)

And the meringue. Like I said, I don't really like meringue. But once you broil/torch it it becomes marshmallow like, and really good. Not so good that I'd eat it on its own, but with the chocolate and caramel sauce it was divine. And beautiful too!

Pre-toasted meringue fluff

So while this isn't a weeknight "I'm-craving-something-sweet-let-me-whip-something-up" kinda dessert, it's actually not nearly as difficult as it looks. It's definitely a show stopper, and one that I hope you try at home... if not in full than at least one of the four components.

Yours in dessert explorations,
Jacqueline

The May 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrow and Jenny of Purple House Dirt. They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they prepared at a restaurant in Seattle.

There's a ton of recipes, so click below to read them all...

Chocolate Marquise, adapted from Daring Bakers
Note: You'll need an 8 x 4 pan or 6-7” round pan (springform is easiest!) To prepare the pans, line the bottom and sides with parchment or wax paper and set aside until ready to use.

Ingredients
3 large egg yolks, room temperature
1 large egg
2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons (40 ml) (40 grams/ 1½ oz) sugar
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon (2/3 fluid oz/ 20 ml.) water
Chocolate Base, barely warm (see below)
1/2 cup (4 fluid oz./ 120 ml.) heavy cream
1/4 cup Dutch process cocoa powder (for rolling, optional)

Directions
1. Prepare chocolate base (recipe below) and set aside to cool.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the egg yolks and whole eggs. Whip on high speed until very thick and pale, about 10 - 15 minutes.

3. When the eggs are getting close to finishing, make a sugar syrup by combining the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Bring the syrup to a boil and then cook to softball stage (235F).

4. With the mixer running on low speed, drizzle the sugar syrup into the fluffy eggs, trying to hit that magic spot between the mixing bowl and the whisk. When all of the syrup has been added (do it fairly quickly), turn the mixer back on high and whip until the bowl is cool to the touch. This will take at least 10 minutes.

5. In a separate mixing bowl, whip the heavy cream to soft peaks. Place in refrigerator until ready to use.

6. When the egg mixture has cooled, add the chocolate base to the egg mixture and whisk to combine. Try to get it as consistent as possible without losing all of the air you've whipped into the eggs. It'll take ~1 minute in the stand mixture.

7. Fold 1/3 of the reserved whipped cream into the chocolate mixture to loosen it, and then fold in the remaining whipped cream.

8. Pour into the prepared pans and cover with plastic wrap (directly touching the mixture so it doesn't allow in any air). Freeze until very firm, at least 2 - 4 hours (preferably 6 – 8 hours).

Chocolate Base

Ingredients

3 oz (85 grams/ 6 tablespoons) bittersweet chocolate (about 70% cocoa)

1/3 cup + 2 teaspoons (90 ml/3 fluid oz.) heavy cream

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon (15 ml/ 1/2 fluid oz.) liquor, optional (I used gin)

1 tablespoon (15 ml/ 1/2 fluid oz.) honey (or light corn syrup if you want)

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon/(less than 1/4 ounce) cocoa powder (I used Hershey's Special Dark, but any Dutch-processed cocoa would be fine. They said not to use regular cocoa powder but I don't see why not.)

1/4 oz unsalted butter (1/2 tablespoon/8 grams), softened

spices, optional (I used 1/4 tsp chinese 5 spice powder. Too much in my opinion...)

Directions

1. Place the chocolate in a small mixing bowl.

2. In a double-boiler, warm the cream until it is hot to the touch (but is not boiling). Remove from the heat and pour over the chocolate. Allow it to sit for a minute or two before stirring. Stir until the chocolate is melted completely and is smooth throughout.

4. Add the remaining ingredients and stir to combine.

5. Set aside until cooled to room temperature. Do not refrigerate, as the base needs to be soft when added to the marquise mixture. If you make it the day before, you may need to warm it slightly. Whisk it until it is smooth again before using it in the marquise recipe.

Caramel Sauce, from Simply Recipes

Note: Check out David Lebovitz's two blog posts (here and here), as well as the post from Simply Recipes for pictures and more details about making caramel. It's not hard, but it is easy to mess up. I did my homework and still threw away my first batch.

Ingredients
1/2 cup of sugar
3 TBSP butter, diced and at room temp
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/8 tsp salt

Directions

1. Make sure you have everything ready to go and on hand. Making caramel is a fast process that cannot wait for hunting around for ingredients. If you don't work fast, the sugar will burn.

2. Heat sugar on moderately high heat in a heavy-bottomed 2-quart or 3-quart saucepan. As the sugar begins to melt, stir with a wooden spoon or silicon spatula.

3. As soon as all of the sugar crystals have melted (the liquid sugar should be medium to dark amber in color), immediately add the butter to the pan. Whisk until the butter has melted.

4. Once the butter has melted, take the pan off the heat. Count to three, then slowly add the cream to the pan while stirring to incorporate the cream. Note than when you add the butter and the cream, the mixture will foam up considerably. This is why you must use a pan that is at least 2-quarts (preferably 3-quarts) big.

5. Whisk until caramel sauce is smooth. Let cool in the pan for a couple minutes, then pour into a glass mason jar and let sit to cool to room temperature. (Remember to use pot holders when handling the jar filled with hot caramel sauce.) Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Warm before serving.

Spiced Almonds
This makes a lot more than you'll need for the recipe. These can also be made ahead of time.

Ingredients

1/2 cup (4 oz.) sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cayenne, optional
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg white
1 cup (145 grams/ 5 oz.) blanched whole almonds

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 300˚F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper or foil.

2. In a small bowl, combine the sugar, cinnamon, cayenne, and salt. In a larger mixing bowl whisk the egg white until it's frothy and thick. Add the spice mix to the egg white and whisk to combine completely. Add the nuts to the egg white mixture and toss with a spoon. Spoon the coated nuts onto the parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

3. Bake the nuts for 15-30 minutes, or until they turn light brown. Allow the nuts to cool completely and they will get very crunchy. Set aside until ready to serve.

Note: the original recipe stated an oven temp of 350˚. But my nuts got a little burned that way, so I recommend decreasing the oven temperature (although I haven't tried it this way...)

Meringue

Makes about 1 cup of meringue. This must be made fresh (aka: the day of plating)

Ingredients
2 large egg whites
1/3 cup minus 1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/8 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

1. Combine the egg whites, sugar and vinegar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Using a whisk, stir the three together, making sure the sugar is moistened evenly by the egg whites and they make a homogeneous liquid.

2. Over a saucepan of simmering water, warm the egg white mixture. Gently stir the mixture, periodically dipping your finger in the mixture to feel for grains of sugar in the egg whites. As the liquid heats up, the sugar will slowly dissolve and the egg whites will thicken. This step is complete when you don't feel any more sugar crystals in the liquid and it is uniformly warm, nearly hot.

3. Remove the mixing bowl from the saucepan and return it to the stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Whisk until you reach soft peaks, a few minutes max. In the last 10 seconds of mixing, add the vanilla to the meringue and mix thoroughly.

Plating the dessert

When I was ready I plated the caramel sauce on the plate and then broiled/torched my meringue. Then I removed the marquise from the freezer and sliced it while still cold (so it was easier to handle). You should let it thaw for at least 5-15 minutes before serving to let the marquise get soft. You can roll the marquise in cocoa powder if you want, but I left mine nekked.

These were the notes from the Daring Bakers:

When you're ready to plate, remove the marquise from the freezer at least 15 minutes before serving. While it's still hard, remove it from the pan by pulling on the parchment 'handles' or by flipping it over onto another piece of parchment.

Cut it into cubes and roll the cubes in cocoa powder. These will start to melt almost immediately, so don't do this step until all of your other plating components (meringue, caramel, spiced nuts, cocoa nibs) are ready.

Plate with the torched meringue and drizzled caramel sauce, and toss spiced almonds and cocoa nibs around for garnish. You want to handle the cubes as little as possible because they get messy quickly and are difficult to move. However, you want to wait to serve them until they've softened completely. The soft pillows of chocolate are what make this dessert so unusual and when combined with the other elements, you'll get creamy and crunchy textures with cool, spicy, salty, bitter, and sweet sensations on your palate

How time flies

2011-05-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

Last night I was at a pre-wedding celebration for a good friend from college. I've known her for 13 years!

Last week I was in Arizona watching my baby brother graduate from college. He's been a pain in my ass for almost 25 years. (Just kidding Danny!)

Last month I was at a friend's house helping her celebrate her newly remodeled home. We met while doing AmeriCorps 10 years ago (we'd both just graduated from college)- and now she's happily married and has a beautiful house.

Where does the time go??

Apparently it goes to cooking and baking and cake decorating!

My friend insisted we bring nothing to her housewarming party, but what kind of friend would I be if I didn't bring at least a few deliciously decorated goodies?

I drew a blank on what exactly to decorate them with, but seeing as spring is (very, very slowly) approaching Chicago, I felt cute teeny flowers would be the way to go. And she loved them!

Yea for awesome friends and baked goods!

I don't make cupcakes often (other than these unbelievably moist pumpkin cupcakes), because I have yet to find recipes that I'm very happy with (I find cupcakes get overly dry or crumbly). But they're great to bring to parties so people can eat without cutting a big cake. So I went with one of the only from-scratch cupcake recipes I've made that I'm completely happy with: dark chocolate cupcakes from Cooks Illustrated.

Since I put fondant decorations on top, I filled the cupcakes with

some of the frosting and used just a bit of frosting on top

of the cupcake to adhere the fondant circles.

I loved filled cupcakes!

They're deep and intense, not too sweet, and super tender. A description of the perfect cupcake (and possibly the perfect man...)

Yours in celebrating with old friends,

Jacqueline

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes, from Cooks Illustrated

Note from CI: This recipe does not double very well. Cupcakes made from a doubled batch and baked side by side in the oven yield a slightly compromised rise. It's best to make two separate batches and bake each separately. Store leftover cupcakes (frosted or unfrosted) in the refirgerator, but let them come to room temperature before serving.

Ingredients

8 TBSP unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
2 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa (1 1/2 ounces) (Note, I usually just use regular or Hershey's Dark, but it is best with Dutch-processed)
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (3 3/4 ounces)
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar (5 1/4 ounces)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp table salt
1/2 cup sour cream (4 ounces)

Directions

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard-sized muffin pan (cups have 1/2-cup capacity) with baking-cup liners.

2. Combine butter, chocolate, and cocoa in medium heatproof bowl. Set bowl over saucepan containing barely simmering water; heat mixture until butter and chocolate are melted and whisk until smooth and combined. Set aside to cool until just warm to the touch.

3. Whisk flour, baking soda, and baking powder in small bowl to combine.

4. Whisk eggs in second medium bowl to combine; add sugar, vanilla, and salt and whisk until fully incorporated. Add cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Sift about one-third of flour mixture over chocolate mixture and whisk until combined; whisk in sour cream until combined, then sift remaining flour mixture over and whisk until batter is homogenous and thick.

5. Divide batter evenly among muffin pan cups. Bake until skewer inserted into center of cupcakes comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes.

6. Cool cupcakes in muffin pan on wire rack until cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes. Carefully lift each cupcake from muffin pan and set on wire rack. Cool to room temperature before icing, about 30 minutes.

Cupcake Filling

For the filling/frosting I used leftover chocolate Italian meringue buttercream from my basket weave cake. But feel free to leave the cupcakes unfilled. Or fill with anything you desire: raspberry jam, pastry cream, whipped ganache, coffee frosting, etc.

Note: I used this kind of tip to fill my cupcakes. Just shove the tip in the top of the cupcake about halfway through and squeeze until the top begins to bulge/crack. Top with more frosting to cover the hole.

Wedding cake!

2011-05-08T23:58:00.000-07:00

Ingredients

3 dozen eggs
4 pounds of butter
4 cups of sugar
4 pounds of sour cream
4 cups of oil
8 pounds of raspberries
8 pounds of fondant
8 cake mixes + 8 packets of pudding mix
24 cups of powdered sugar
6" cake pans
9" cake pans
12" cake pans
16" cake pans

Directions

1. Stress out
2. Go shopping at 4 different stores to purchase all the required ingredients for the best price you can find them. Make sure one of the places is the only cake store in Chicago, a 50+ minute drive away from home, to buy a 20 pound pail of fondant for $73.
3. Stress out.
4. Spend 5+ hours making 15 fondant roses. Revel in their beauty.
5. Bake. Bake. Bake. Bake. Bake. Bake. Bake. Bake. (Literally, 8 batches of cake)
6. Stress out... and vow to never do this again.
7. Make 15 cups of the most delicious raspberry filling ever (recipe below) and 16+ cups of overly sweet American style buttercream frosting. Split, fill, and frost the cakes.
8. Knead 8 pounds of fondant until your knuckles are raw to color it a deep ivory shade. Cover cakes with said fondant.
9. Drive said cakes to my uncle's awesome wedding banquet hall and assemble cakes on site. Complete decorations.
10. Be proud of the most amazing, elegant, and relatively flawless fondant cake you've ever made.

Giant wedding cake (my biggest to date), enough to serve 180+ people.

Chocolate cake with raspberry filling. 16"/12"/9"/6" cakes, each ~4" high.

I took a bunch of photos and couldn't decide on the best ones to post, so here's a crap-ton of the cake, gumpaste flowers, and fondant draping. Enjoy!!!

(You can click on each photo to enlarge it if you like. But please do not judge the flaws in my photography...)

All the roses, smallest to biggest

Artsy flower shot

Pretty!

Birds eye view

Flower closeup. To make the flowers I used a combination of the instructions in my Wilton flower making set along with tips I saw in videos from Ron Ben-Israel (good ones here and here).

The top of the cake. Who needs a topper when you've got beautiful handmade fondant roses??

More draping

The draping was a bigger b*tch to do than I originally thought...

but all turned out in the end!

Yours in taking on giant challenges,
Jacqueline

And now, for the recipes and tips. I decided to use box mix for the cake since there was just too damn much to bake. But I doctored it up to make the best chocolate cake you've ever have from a mix. I also decided to make my own raspberry filling from scratch to make up for the fact that I wasn't making the cake from scratch.

I can't even describe to you how delicious the raspberry filling was. Tart and sweet and fresh tasting! And with a perfectly thick consistency it doesn't ooze out the sides of the cake. And it doubles as jam in your PB&J sandwiches!

Best Box Mix Chocolate Cake, from my good friend Jenn's mom

Ingredients

1 (18.25 ounce) package chocolate cake mix, any variety

1 pkg. (4 serving size) JELL-O Chocolate Flavor Instant Pudding & Pie Filling

1 (8 ounce) container good quality Sour Cream

4 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup water

8 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped small.

Note: the chopped chocolate is optional, and I didn't use it when making this particular wedding cake because I didn't want to buy/chop that much chocolate for this massive cake. But it gives the cake an extra kick of chocolateyness and an awesome crunch-- so if you're making this at home I highly recommend you add the chopped chocolate!

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease 12-cup fluted tube pan or 10-inch tube pan or two 9" round pans; set aside.

2. Beat all ingredients except chopped chocolate in large bowl with electric mixer on low speed just until moistened, stopping frequently to scrape side of bowl. Beat on medium speed 2 minutes or until well blended. Stir in chopped chocolate. Spoon into prepared pan and spread evenly. (Note: the batter will be very thick.)

3. Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until toothpick inserted near center comes out (relatively) clean. (Note: it's a bit hard to determine doneness, because the chopped chocolate in the cake will stick to your toothpick and make it look like the cake isn't done yet. But you can tell the difference between uncooked batter and melty chocolate.)

4. Cool cakes in the pan for 10 minutes. Loosen cake from side of pan with metal spatula or knife. Invert cake onto wire rack; gently remove pan. Cool completely.

If you're making a wedding cake, note that one box mix can give you:

* two 6" and an 8" cake ~or~

* two 9" cakes ~or~

* two 10" cakes ~or~

* one 12" cake + some cupcakes/ 6" cake ~or~

* one relatively thin 16" cake

Seedless raspberry filling, adapted from Cake Boss

Notes:
I reduced the amount of sugar called for in the original recipe and pureed my raspberries in the first step. If you want your filling to have fruit chunks it in, I'll copy the Cake Boss recipe (as-is) below.
Also, I used ~1.3X this recipe (16 oz of raspberries) for a single 9" cake-- it all depends on taste. Check out my recommendations below for how much filling I used in this wedding cake.

Ingredients

12 oz frozen unsweetened raspberries, or any other fruit, thawed
1/3 cup sugar, or more to taste
1 tsp lemon juice
2 heaping TBSP cornstarch, dissolved in just enough water to make it pourable
2 TBSP raspberry liqueur such as Razzmatazz by DeKuyper, optional (I did not use this, but wanted to include it in the recipe if you wanted to try it out.

Directions for a smooth raspberry filling

1. Thaw frozen raspberries in refrigerator or in the microwave.

2. Puree the raspberries in a food processor or blender. Strain them through a fine-mesh strainer to remove all the seeds. Place raspberry liquid in a medium sized saucepan.

3. Add sugar, lemon juice, and dissolved cornstarch to the raspberries and cook on medium heat, whisking constantly, until mixture bubbles and thickens.

4. Remove from heat and cool until warm to the touch. Add raspberry liqueur, if using, and chill in the fridge for at least a few hours. Filling keeps in the refrigerator at least a week, and I'm sure it'll freeze pretty well too.

Filling amounts for cakes*
I figured these out by making an 8" tester cake and determining that I liked 1.5 cups of filling in the entire 8" cake (split evenly between layers). I then used old school math to figure out the surface area of 6, 9, 12, and 16" cakes in proportion to the 8" cake and multiplied the amount of filling accordingly.

6" cake: 0.85 cups filling
8" cake: 1.5 cups filling
9" cake: 2 cups filling
12" cake: 3.5 cups filling
16" cake: 6 cups filling

*Note: I split my cakes and used 1/2 the filling on two layers with a thin layer of buttercream frosting in between the other layer. Feel free to split the frosting into thirds and use in between all layers of cake if you don't want to use any frosting.

For the 16" cake I didn't want to split the layers, so instead baked up 3 separate cakes (1 box mix per 16" layer). So for that I just had cake, filling, cake, filling, cake (and no frosting in the middle).

Directions for a chunky raspberry filling (from Cake Boss)
Note: I didn't try the recipe this way, but I'm sure it works great.

1. Thaw raspberries and strain juice from berries. Add enough water to the juice to get 3/4 cup of liquid.

2. In a small saucepan, combine raspberry juice/water, sugar, lemon juice, and cornstarch. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until mixture bubbles and thickens. Remove from heat, set aside.

3. With a fine wire strainer, use a spoon to press the raspberries so that the seedless pulp falls into a bowl below. Strain enough pulp to get between 1/3 - 1/2 cup of pulp. *You can skip this step and just use the whole berries, but people at weddings and parties don't like to pick seeds out of their teeth.

4. To the cooled mixture in the saucepan, add 2 tablespoons raspberry liqueur and the raspberry pulp. Stir well and refrigerate a few hours or overnight. Keeps in the refrigerator for at least a week.

FYI...
If you're filling a cake with jam, you can't just put the filling on the cake. If so, your filling will ooze out the sides of the cake and you'll have a giant mess on your hands. What you have to do instead is create a dam using buttercream frosting to keep the filling in place.

Step 1: Pipe a thick buttercream dam around the edges of the cake. Add your filling on top of the cake.

Step 2: Gently spread the filling to the edges of the cake, taking care to not disturb the buttercream dam.

Step 3: Take a photo of your hand in front of the giant 16" cake to demonstrate how monstrous the thing is!

Basket cake- how to

2011-04-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

Remember this cake?

You saw me just a few days ago, hope you haven't forgotten me already...

Well today I'll show you how YOU can make this at home. It's actually not that difficult at all!

First off, you'll need to bake a cake. You could do a simple 2-layer cake (8" or 9") but I decided to mix things up a bit and make 4 layers: two 6" cakes and two 8" cakes. Why those sizes? Well, you'll see in a second...

But first, I need to tell you guys about a new recipe I tried out!

For yellow cake I traditionally use one of two different recipes. (Check out my yellow cake throwdown post for a head-to-head match between my two favorite recipes.) To summarize, I slightly prefer the Cooks Illustrated "rich and tender yellow cake", but it cooks up a bit flat. So if I want slightly taller layers I often use Smitten Kitchen's "best birthday cake" recipe. Both are bona fide winners in my book, but then I noticed that Cooks Illustrated had another yellow cake recipe on their site called "fluffy yellow cake."

Apparently it's supposed to cook up similar to a box mix cake: light and fluffy, but without the weird chemically flavor.

A light yellow cake with talllll layers would be perfect for my basket cake since I didn't want it to be short and squat. So I followed the recipe as written, but instead of dividing the batter into two 9" pans, I split the batter into four pans (two 6" and two 8" pans). So the layers weren't super high on their own, but this way I wouldn't have to split them in half to frost them.

But why did I use 4 pans instead of 2? Well that way I could carve my cake such that the top of the basket was a bit wider than the bottom!

From top to bottom:

8" cake, chocolate frosting, 8" cake, chocolate frosting, 6" cake, chocolate frosting, 6" cake.

Using a sharp knife, I carved the top two layers so that the sides of the basket curve out from bottom to top. It definitely adds a little more time to the process (and is therefore completely optional), but it's one of those things that differentiates a cake decorated like a basket from a basket that's made out of cake. (My words are like poetry sometimes, right?? Ok, maybe not...)

Just look what a difference the shape makes once a crumb coat of frosting is applied to the cake:

And if you think for a moment that carving the cake is a waste of cake, you don't know me well enough to know that I hate throwing food away. Just add a little bit of extra frosting to the cake you've carved away, mash together with your hands, and turn them into delicious cake balls. Yum!!

Once the cake has been covered with a thin layer of frosting (called the crumb coat b/c it catches all the cake crumbs in that initial layer), you're ready to pipe on your basketweave pattern.

I promise you, it looks a LOT harder than it actually is, and it doesn't take too much time at all. Less than 30 minutes from start to finish. Here's a great tutorial on how to do the basketweave. I used a regular round tip (instead of the flatter tip that's often used to make basketweave cakes). Just google "basketweave cake decorating" on You Tube if you want more examples/instruction on how to do this at home.

Then for the top of the cake I just colored some coconut with green food coloring, added some peanut butter egg shaped Easter M&Ms, and popped on a handle out of fondant/gumpaste (that was made a day in advance to give it time to dry). And viola! Easter egg basket.

And if you're wondering how the cake looked on the inside, I managed to snap a picture of the last remaining section of cake.

Layers of light fluffiness.

Buen Provecho,

Jacqueline

Chocolate frosting

3/4 of a recipe of Italian meringue buttercream frosting + 3 oz dark chocolate

(This was enough to fill/frost/decorate the cake with another 1+ cups left over)

Light and Fluffy Yellow Layer Cake, adapted from Cooks Illustrated

Ingredients

Notes: To achieve maximum fluffiness, bring all the ingredients to room temperature before making the cake. The recipe calls for baking the cake in two 9" pans. I split the batter into 4 pans (two 8" and two 6" pans) and it worked great too. I can image it would cook well in two 10" pans as well.

2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp table salt
1 1/2 + 1/4 cups sugar (12 1/4 ounces)
10 TBSP (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature (or 1 cup milk + 1 TBSP lemon juice allowed to sit for 10 minutes)
3 TBSP vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
6 large egg yolks, room temperature
3 large egg whites, room temperature

Directions

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray two 9" baking pans with baking spray, line with wax or parchment paper, and spray with more baking spray.

2. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 1 1/2 cups sugar together in large bowl. In medium bowl, whisk together melted butter, buttermilk, oil, vanilla, and yolks.

3. In very clean (and grease-free) bowl of stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, beat egg whites at medium-high speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. With machine running, gradually add remaining 1/4 cup sugar; continue to beat until stiff peaks just form, 30 to 90 seconds (whites should hold peak but mixture should appear moist). Transfer to bowl and set aside.

4. Add flour mixture to now-empty mixing bowl fitted with whisk attachment. With mixer running at low speed, gradually pour in butter mixture and mix until almost incorporated (a few streaks of dry flour will remain), about 15 seconds. Stop mixer and scrape whisk and sides of bowl. Return mixer to medium-low speed and beat until smooth and fully incorporated, 10 to 15 seconds.

5. Using rubber spatula, stir 1/3 of whites into batter to lighten, then add remaining whites and gently fold into batter until no white streaks remain. Divide batter evenly between prepared cake pans. Lightly tap pans against counter 2 or 3 times to dislodge any large air bubbles.

6. Bake until cake layers begin to pull away from sides of pans and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 22 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes. Loosen cakes from sides of pans with small knife, then invert onto greased wire rack and peel off parchment. Invert cakes again and cool completely on rack, about 1 1/2 hours.

Basket Cake

2011-04-24T22:13:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day.

For the first time in years I was back in Chicago for Easter, spending time with my aunts, uncles, and cousins. We didn't do anything particularly special, but we had a great time hunting for eggs...

hanging out...

eating...

drinking....

... and battling eggs in our traditional head-to-head cracking eggs competition.

Recognize those eggs??

Oh, and I made a cake. An Easter basketweave cake, complete with pastel "eggs".

You like??

I'll provide a bit of a tutorial and recipe in the next few days, but I just wanted to share some more pictures of the cake with you today.

Enjoy!

Top view

The mini "eggs" on a bed of "grass"

Close-up of the basketweave detail

A picture to give you a sense of scale.

It was pretty much a perfect, life sized basket!

I also found out today that someone is interested in having me make an engagement party cake. Apparently my masquerade cake made a pretty awesome impression on people! Yea!!

Yours in delightfully delicious and dazzling desserts,

Jacqueline

Happy (almost) Easter

2011-04-23T10:19:00.000-07:00

This week has been quite the holy week, hasn't it? First Passover for all my Jewish friends, and now Easter.

Being the family heathen, to me the holidays have always been more about getting together with family than anything else. But I still do love certain rituals that go along with these days. Like decorating Easter eggs. And apparently I REALLY like to decorate eggs, because this is my 3rd Easter egg post on Foodology (!!)

Although I feel like I'm cheating a bit, because this year I just repeated the same technique that I've used the past two years (here and here). But my mom wanted to do it with me this year, and the results always manage to shock me at how beautiful the eggs turn out, so I figured why not blog about it again??

Just check out a few closeups. One of my favorite things is the texture that appears when you use certain leaves and petals. In the past I knew hydrangeas gave good results, here are a few more...

Leaf veins

A random weed my mom found growing outside. Probably my favorite egg.

Two small carnation leaves (ripped from the inside of a carnation flower)

The other great thing is that you don't even have to use real flowers either! This egg was made using fake flowers my mom had around the house. The color seeps in under fake flowers more than real ones, but it's still a cool effect.

Marbled look

And don't feel like every egg you make has to be meticulously planned. Sure, laying out petals in a specific orientation can give you awesome results, like this:

A flower pattern made from individual teeny flower petals. Trippy.

But scatter those exact same petals on the egg randomly, and you'll end up with this Jackson-Pollack inspired egg:

My mom's least favorite egg was one of my favorites.

More proof that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

And for those of you worried that my heathen self has completely taken the religious significance out of this Easter holiday, here's an egg just for you!

Four leaves cleverly arranged.

Yours in non-religiously celebrating religious holidays,
Jacqueline

FYI, if this is something you'd like to follow at home, you can read the directions from my original post here. But I'll share a few more tips with you today since my mom said she had some issues when she attempted it on her own last year.

1. For really dark eggs, use a crap ton of onion peels. Bring the pot to a boil and let them simmah for a while. If you've got more onion peels, toss the first bunch and add more to your already reddish water. Trust me, the darker the liquid the better your final result will be.

2. Lay your egg in front of you and use a dab of water to adhere the flowers/leaves/etc to the top of your egg (i.e. the part of the egg facing up). Then...

3. ... grab a square piece of nylon (~4" across), stretch it as much as you can, and quickly lay it over the surface of the egg. Without letting go (and keeping the nylon taught), use your thumbs and forefinger to stretch the nylon to the back of the egg and gather the nylon into a single bunch. Use a small rubber band to secure the nylon. Basically, this ensures that the flowers/leaves/etc will lay flat on the egg surface to prevent any color seeping underneath.

4. The objects that work best are relatively flat leaves and flowers, particularly those that have "texture" to them.

5. EXPERIMENT with different things! We used a few flowers my mom bought along with stuff from our fridge and outside. (Teeny leaves from a bunch of broccoli, weeds growing outside, cilantro/parsley leaves, etc) That's the whole fun of it. Do a test batch with a handful of eggs to see what works, what doesn't, and what you like best. Then continue with the rest of your eggs.

Masquerade birthday cake

2011-04-18T21:50:00.000-07:00

Hellllloooooooooo everyone! Welcome to my first blog post as a Chicagoan.

I made my official cross-country move from Palo Alto to Skokie a few weeks ago and have pretty much settled my stuff into my parent's house as much as I can. It'll be hard adjusting to living in a place that technically isn't my own space, but I'll make do. It helps having my own room that I can retreat to and a closet I can organize the crap out of. Let me tell you, having shirts grouped together by sleeve length and arranged in rainbow order brings more joy to me than you can possibly imagine...

Although it's been a relatively smooth transition, that doesn't mean the move hasn't come with its fair share of contrasting emotions. Moving back home hasn't been that hard, but leaving the place I've called home for the past 6 1/2 years, along with all the friends I've made along the way, hasn't been easy. These past few weeks I've been excited, sad, frustrated, happy, angry, bored, overwhelmed, pensive, and challenged.

One thing that really helped though was getting back into the kitchen.

My younger cousin Arbela, who recently started a wedding and party planning company with her friend in Chicago, asked me to make a cake for a 21st birthday party she was throwing. And of course I had to do it! I was told that the Masquerade themed party was a formal event for ~100 people and the primary colors of the party were purple and gold. Other than that I was free to do whatever I wanted. SWEET!!! I love cake orders that give me lots of creative freedom.

And here's what I came up with (with a little help from the interwebs for ideas)

10", 8", 6" cakes with handmade mask and flower topper

There were two things I was most proud of with this cake:

(1) The mask topper.

Made of fondant (with tylose powder added, for all my cake decorating peeps in the know), I hand cut it and molded it using a knife and tissue paper. The flower was just a random thing I put together and not based upon a real (biological) flower. But I loved it anyways.

Could have technically worn this life-sized mask!

The only thing on the entire mask that wasn't made of fondant are the

three little stamen in the middle of the flower.

(2) I was also extremely happy with how clean my fondant work was this time. I didn't even need a border on the bottom layer. WHOOP!!

For those interested in the cake recipes, I split a single recipe of Guinness chocolate cake into two 6" and two 8" pans (that recipe makes so much batter that it fit the 4 pans PERFECTLY) and a recipe of yellow layer cake into the two 10" pans. Filling was the frosting I always make: Italian meringue buttercream. I can't believe I haven't blogged about the recipe yet, so I'll include that at the end of the post.

And because I like to give credit where credit is due (blame the scientist in me), here are the inspiration photos I used for the cake and the mask topper:

But in the end, I definitely made it all my own!

Yours in sweet beginnings,
Jacqueline

Italian meringue buttercream, adapted from The Whimsical Bakehouse

There are tons of recipes out there for Italian meringue buttercream, which basically involves beating egg whites to a hard peak, adding a boiling sugar water mixture heated to 248 degrees F, mixing until cool to the touch, and adding butter in at the end. I basically follow the same method but use reconstituted powdered egg whites instead of fresh egg whites. Because they're pasteurized, I don't have to worry about bringing the sugar water to the right temperature- I just boil it for a few minutes to heat it up.

If you want to go the traditional method using fresh eggs, you can follow the directions from this recipe. The say that the proper sugar temperature is required for the buttercream to "hold" itself properly. From my experience, when I use the powdered egg whites it really makes no difference if I boil the sugar water for 10 seconds or properly heat it up to 248˚F. I've never done a proper side by side comparison though, so if you're worried, feel free to bring the sugar water to 248˚.

Also, if you compare my recipe to other Italian meringue recipes out there you'll notice mine uses a much lower ratio of butter to egg whites. Personally I prefer it this way. Italian meringue buttercream is pretty buttery and I think my recipe yields a much lighter, less greasy frosting. But feel free to experiment and add up to 2 more sticks of butter to the recipe if you'd like.

Phew, that was a lot to say. Who knew a damn buttercream frosting could be so complicated!

Yield: 8 cups. That was enough frosting to fill and crumb coat my 3 cakes (6"/8"/10"), but not enough to frost them too. Feel free to cut this recipe in 1/2 or 1/4 if you want less. But do not increase-- it already fills up almost the entire 5 qt Kitchen Aid mixer!

Ingredients

1/2 cup water
2 1/4 cups sugar
reconstituted powdered egg whites, equivalent to 12 whites (For the brand I use, that's 1/2 cup powdered egg whites + 1 to 1 1/2 cups water)

1 1/2 pounds (6 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature, cut into 1-inch pieces

Flavoring options:

nothing

-or-

1 tsp vanilla extract

-or-

1/2 tsp orange oil (I like this because I think it cuts a little bit of the butteryness from the frosting)

-or-

a few tsp instant coffee dissolved in 1 tsp hot water

-or-

a few ounces of your favorite liquor

-or-

melted chocolate (up to 1 cup?)

-or-

cocoa powder to taste

-or-

whatever you fancy

Directions

1. Combine water and sugar in medium sized pot and heat on medium. Do not stir or touch or do anything to the sugar to keep sugar crystal formation at a minimum. Just walk away and allow the heat to do all the work by bringing the mixture to a low boil. Boil for anywhere from 1-7 minutes. (Because we're using powdered egg whites, I don't think it really matters what temperature the sugar mixture is at.) While the sugar is heating up, prepare your egg whites...

2. Reconstitute your powdered egg whites according to the instructions on the container. Using a wire whisk, beat the eggs on medium high until they and firm and form hard peaks. Add a pinch of cream of tartar if you'd like, but it's not necessary.

Note: At this point, you've got to keep an eye both on your sugar mixture and your egg whites. In the ideal world your sugar will be a low boil for a few minutes (no more than 7ish) just as your egg whites are forming peaks. But watch out: you don't want to overheat the sugar (nothing past 248˚F) or overbeat the egg whites! If your sugar is boiling for 5-7 minutes and your egg whites are not done yet, lower the heat to keep the sugar at a simmer until the eggs are done.

This really isn't as hard as I'm making it sound, I promise...

3. When the egg whites are stiff, turn the mixer to low. Carefully transfer the boiling sugar water to a glass measuring cup and slowly add the sugar to the egg whites. I like to do this with the mixer going, making sure to avoid the wire whisk.

4. Once all the sugar has been added, keep the mixer running on low (or medium low) until the bowl is no longer hot and has reached room temperature. This usually takes ~20+ minutes for me.

Note: You could speed up the process by adding cold towels to the outside of the bowl, but I just let the machine go and start cleaning up the mess that is my kitchen at this point...

5. Once the egg whites are cool to the touch, you can start adding the butter 1-2 TBSP at a time. Allow to mix for a few seconds before adding the next TBSP of butter.

Note: you can use either the wire whip or paddle attachment when adding the butter. I like using the wire whip for a lighter, fluffier frosting. Use the paddle if you'd like to incorporate less air into your frosting.

6. Once all your butter has been added your frosting may look curdled or wet. DO NOT FREAK OUT!!! No, you did not mess up. This is 100% totally normal. All you have to do is KEEP BEATING THE FROSTING. That's it. Sometimes it takes a few minutes, sometimes it takes a lot more. Either way, it'll come together eventually. Just turn up the mixer to medium or medium high speed and let it do all the work. It'll magically go from a gloppy, wet mess to a perfectly luscious frosting in no time. I promise.

7. Add any extracts or flavorings that you want after the buttercream has come together. Enjoy!

Tostones

2011-03-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

Finally, my first foray into Puerto Rican cooking!! It took long enough, seeing how much I loved Puerto Rican food when I visited in January... of 2010.

And I know I promised a cookie recipe, but packing for the cross country move in 7 days has been more insane than I anticipated, so I still haven't had a chance to troubleshoot my cookie experiment. Once I'm back in Chicago and a little more settled, I hope to make that one of my first baking projects.

But even though I haven't been cooking recently, that doesn't mean I don't have tons of recipes/tips to share. I did lots of cooking a few weeks ago when I visited my friends in Napa and Fresno so that should be enough to hold me over for a while.

Todays recipe is for tostones, or savory fried plantains.

You may gain 5 lb just by looking at this photo...

I made these with my best friend Sommer and her Puerto Rican husband Ernesto. A classmate from Stanford joined me on the 3-hour trek to Fresno, where the four of us spent the weekend doing the following things (in no particular order):

1. cooking
2. eating
3. visiting Yosemite
4. watching an inappropriately large amount of Jersey Shore. (With 2 PhDs and 2 MDs the four of us had over 20 years of higher education in that room. And yet, we all somehow share a love of trashy tv shows.)
5. drinking delicious wine
6. laughing
7. taking photos of Chico

#3. Beautiful waterfalls at Yosemite

#6. Sommer and I being our typical goofy selves with a giant treestump at Yosemite.

#7. Chico in a hat!

But the #1 thing we did was cook. In two shorts days we made bistec encebollado and tostones and caesar salad dressing and bread pudding french toast and blood orange galette. It was a busy weekend!

So you ready to learn how to make tostones, the traditional way?

1. Find green plantains. The green ones are savory kind; if they're yellow or brown on the outside you can use those to make a fried sweet plaintain called maduros. But the green ones are necessary for making the salty and savory tostones!

2. Although plantains are related to bananas, they have some pretty big differences. (a) You have to cook plantains, whether ripe or not. (b) You can't peel plantains like a banana. You have to lop off the ends and carefully slice the peel to remove it. Go to this awesome blog for step-by-step photos if plantain slicing is new to you.

After cutting off the plantain tops, either discard, or use them to

create giant nipples on your husband. Your choice.

3. Cut the plantains ~1" thick (on a bias) and soak in water flavored with salt and whole garlic cloves for ~10 minutes.

Note: You don't see this step in a lot of recipes, but I've been told by Ernesto

it improves the texture of the final product. I'll take his word for it.

4. Fry the plantains until barely lightly golden. If your oil isn't deep enough, flip the tostones to cook both sides.

Frying step #1. Yes, there's a step #2 to come...

5. Carefully remove the pieces and place on a plate lined with paper towels.

6. Smash the bejesus out of the slices.

Puerto Rican's have a dedicated tool to this process (a tostonera). If you don't have one, just use the bottom of a can or plate or pot to flatten them. But a tostonera makes them nice and flat! Watch...

Single plantain slice, ready to go.

Lid closed, ready to be smushed.

Action shot!

Viola! Giant flattened tostone.

7. Some recipes I read suggest dipping the flattened tostones in salted water right before frying them again to make them nice and crispy. We didn't do that, but feel free to try it to see if you notice a difference.

8. Fry 'em, again!

And there you have it, golden, crispy, starchy, fatty, salty deliciousness.

Buen Provecho,
Jackie

Tostones, from Ernesto's familia.

Ingredients

green plantains
salt
6+ cloves garlic (optional)
oil, for frying

Directions

1. Peel plantains (use this site for help) and cut slices on a bias 1" to 1 1/2" thick.

2. Soak plantains in a solution of salt water and a bunch of whole (slighly crushed) garlic cloves, for approximately 10 minutes.

3. While plantains are soaking, heat oil to medium (one recipe I read said 350˚F if you want an actual temperature). Fry plantains for 3-5 minutes, until barely lightly golden brown. (Flip the pieces halfway through cooking if your oil is not deep enough).

4. Remove plantains to a plate lined with paper towels. Flatten pieces using either a tostonera or a can, plate, pot, etc. (This blog suggests using a clean paper bag to prevent the plantain from sticking too your surface.)

5. Quickly dip the flattened plantains in salted water (optional). Return to frying pan and cook until desired golden brownness, I'm guessing at least 1 minute per side.

6. Remove tostones to a plate lined with paper towels. Sprinkle with salt (or other seasonings) and serve plain or with your favorite dipping sauce.

Baba Shuma

2011-03-19T16:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've blogged (almost a month!), and I feel like a million and a half things have happened since then.

Some things have been awesome, like my roadtrip through California, staying in a yurt for the first time, and visiting friends in Fresno and Napa.

Some things have been neutral, like turning 31.

Some things have been bittersweet, like my last day at work. (I love my peeps at The Tech Museum!)

And some things have been very hard, like losing my grandfather. Although he lived a long, amazing life (94 years!), it's impossible not to be sad. He was my last surviving grandparent, and he passed away less than a month before my move back to Chicago.

Things like this reaffirm that I've made the right decision to move back. It's no fun being stuck thousands of miles away from home when something difficult (or something happy) happens.

Our last photo together, Christmas 2010, with all his grandchildren

Baba Shuma as we called him (translation: father Samuel), was a diminutive man in stature (5'2" max) but a large man in presence. As a baby he managed to survive a large Assyrian exodus out of Urmia (present day Iran) to a refugee camp in Baquba (Iraq). I'm not familiar with all of the jobs he held in his lifetime, but I know that one of the positions he was proudest of was his role as principal at an Assyrian school in Kirkuk. Many Assyrians who grew up in Kirkuk still refer to him as Rabi Shuma (Teacher Samuel), even after all these years.

A quick Google search led to this awesome photo find:
Assyrian School Kirkuk Committee Members.

He's the one kneeling in the lower left-hand corner with the unibrow and goofy smile! :)

But to me, he'll always be Baba Shuma. :)

I realize this is a food blog and I haven't posted a recipe about food today, but hey, thanks for listening. One funny food related tidbit about Baba Shuma is that he wrote a song about a traditional Assyrian soup. Yes! A song about soup. He sure did love his bushala.

And I was going to share a middle eastern cardamom butter cookie recipe with you all today, since this is a food blog, but even after making it at least 5 times so far in the past few months (and once more today) I'm still not happy with the result. It has only 5 ingredients, but I just can't get it to be perfect. So tomorrow, I'm doing a major experiment in cookie making and WILL master this damn recipe. Stay tuned...

Coffee panna cotta with florentines

2011-02-27T00:19:00.000-08:00

WINTER STORM!!!

Northern California has been in a tizzy these days with the possibility of a snow dusting in San Francisco and the Bay Area. Yes, you read that properly. Snow Dusting = Winter Storm out here.

Excuse me for a moment while I go laugh hysterically....

The irony is further enhanced by the Snowpocalypse which hit all my family and friends back in Chicago a few weeks ago. This, my friends, is a winter storm:

Stole this picture from my cousin's facebook page: view from his front street.

Notice the literal wave of snow that's buried cars.

So even though we can all agree California's winters are weaksauce compared to Chicago, it still gets colder here in the winter time compared to the summer. Which is great, because I do enjoy "diet" seasons the Bay Area has to offer, but it makes me sad because I never crave my favorite dessert in the winter: ice cream.

But it turns out, there's a less cold version of ice cream out there. It's called panna cotta. And it rocks my world.

Creamy like ice cream. But won't chill you to the bone. Genius!!!

I never really had much of a desire to make panna cotta, but it was part of my Daring Bakers Challenge this month (along with florentine cookies) so I was forced to try it.

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen.

She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a

Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

And I can't get over how easy and freaking delicious it was. I think it took a whopping 10 minutes to prepare. And it was sooooo creamy and delicious. Seriously reminded me of ice cream, but instead of using the cold to "set" the cream it uses gelatin.

I admit, I was hesitant, because as much as I love jello I didn't think gelatin + cream would be good. I imagined some kind of hard, weird textured dessert. But it was soft and creamy and melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness.

Coffee panna cotta in my adorable little tea cups

Just enough gelatin for it to set, but not too much to keep it soft.

You can also unmold panna cotta, which I tried (semi) successfully. (My edges got all wonky.)

Panna cotta set in a ramikin (L) and in a glass (R)

We were also tasked to make florentine cookies, which was supposed to be a juxtaposition of creamy and crunchy. The cookies were delicious, but didn't turn out too crunchy. So I don't think I'll make them together in the future, but individually each was unbelievably delicious.

Thanks to my roommate, who made these delicious cookies for me!

And if you want to check out how my coffee panna cotta pales in comparison to some of the other unbelievably creative panna cotta recipes out there, just check out the Daring Bakers. Works of delicious art using layers of gelee or curd and alllll kinds of crazy glasses and insane flavor combinations. Truly humbled by their creativity.

So I'll definitely be playing around with panna cotta a lotta more in the future.

Buen Provecho,
Jackie

Coffee panna cotta, from Giada

Ingredients

1/2 cup (whole) milk (I used 2%)
1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored powdered gelatin
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
3 heaping teaspoons instant espresso or coffee powder
1/4 cup sugar
Pinch salt
dark and/or white chocolate, for garnishing

Directions

1. Place the milk in a heavy, small saucepan. Sprinkle the gelatin over and let stand for 5-30 minutes to soften the gelatin.

2. Stir over medium heat just until the gelatin dissolves, but making sure the milk does not boil, about 2 minutes.

3. Add the cream, espresso powder, sugar, and salt. Stir over low heat, until the sugar dissolves, about 2-3 more minutes.

4. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly. Pour the cream mixture into glasses or ramikins, dividing equally. Cover and refrigerate, stirring every 20 minutes during the first hour. Note: this prevents the coffee from separating a bit. It's not really essential, in fact, I ended up getting a cool layer of darker panna cotta on the bottom because I was lazy and skipped this step. But if you want the panna cotta to have a perfectly uniform color, then maybe go ahead and do this.

5. Chill until set, at least 6 hours and up to 2 days.

When ready to serve, use a vegetable peeler on the chocolate blocks to create the chocolate shavings. Sprinkle the shavings over each panna cotta and serve.

Almond Florentines, from The Gourmet Cookie Cookbook

Ingredients

1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons butter
1 1/4 cups finely chopped almonds
3/4 cup finely chopped candied orange peel (Note: I used heaping 1/4 cup and it was enough)
1/3 cup flour

Directions

1. In a saucepan, mix together heavy cream, sugar, and butter and bring the mixture to a boil. Remove it from the heat and stir in the almonds, orange peel, and flour.

2. Drop the batter from a tablespoon into mounds about 3 inches apart on oiled and lightly floured cookie sheets and flatten each cookie with a wet spatula. Bake the cookies in a moderate oven (350°F) for about 10 minutes. Remove them from the oven and let them stand for about 5 minutes. Remove the cookies to a wire rack, let them cool completely, and spread them with chocolate glaze (optional). Chill.

Jackie's notes:
* The cookies were really good, but the edges cooked much faster than the center parts so they were still a bit soft. I was thinking maybe cooking them for longer (10-15 min) in a 300˚F oven might solve the problem. Not sure if that would work, but might be worth a shot if you're having the same problems. But then...

*... I read in my Daring Bakers forum that placing the cookies on a pre-heated baking sheet yields a more uniformly cooked cookie. So something else that's worth a shot!

Homemade nutella

2011-02-13T21:57:00.000-08:00

This weekend I was in San Francisco, walking down Union Street with some friends, when we came across a kid, a woman, and two men near a corner holding signs that said:

Free Hugs!

I then proceeded to get a hug from an 8-10 year old boy and a middle-aged gentleman. Immediately afterwards a bunch of thoughts popped in my head (although not necessarily in this particular order):

"So weird!"

"Only in California..."

"WTF?"

"Who are these people and why are they doing this?"

"I wonder how people in Chicago would react to strangers offering free hugs??"

Finally, after I was no longer focused on my feelings of surprise/confusion/questioning, I was left with a single feeling:

Pure happiness. :)

I couldn't help but smile after such a unique, but pleasant, encounter! Sure, my gut reaction wasn't one of excitement when random strangers offered up hugs and start touching me. But it was a total trip, and something you can't help but be happy about after experiencing it. And we'd be a lot better off if strangers out there offered up free hugs instead of free scowls.

You know what else we'd be a lot better off with if strangers offered to others?

Homemade nutella.

Because you can't eat nutella without being happy. And that's a fact.

I've been inspired to make my own nutella since my (Italian) friend Silvia told me nutella is considered ghetto in Italy and made me try the real deal. Woah! It tasted like chocolate and hazelnuts; not too sweet yet creamy and delicious.

Although my version isn't quite as good as what she shared with me, it's pretty amazing.

I found a recipe that used both cocoa and melted chocolate. But I think I'd like to try it again and use the cocoa only version to see which I like better. This recipe was delicious, but the flavor of the chocolate you use really comes through. I used Trader Joe's chocolate, which was good, but I think using a better quality chocolate is the way to go.

Making your own nutella is easy, all you need are some hazelnuts (or any nut really), chocolate, and a food processor. Ready?? Let's go!!

Step 1: Get your hazelnuts. Take a pretty photo of them.

Step 2: Pop 'em in the oven for a quick roast. Then throw them on a hand towel and...

Step 3: ... start rubbing like mad! This will remove the (semi difficult to remove) skins off the nuts.

See the nuts at the left? Those are "rouge" hazelnuts whose skins

wouldn't come off very easily. So I just ate those instead of using them in the nutella.

Step 4: Place nekkid hazelnuts in the food processor. Grind them for ~3-5 minutes. In the next photos I'll show you how you can magically turn nuts to nut-butter in just a few minutes. (Note: DO NOT add anything to the nuts at this point. No oil, no liquid, nada.)

Whole nuts, ready to be pulverized!

After ~1 minute the nuts are a coarse, crumbly mixture. Keep grinding...

After another minute, the nuts are starting to resemble a creamy nut butter, but it's still a bit coarse.

After yet another minute, you can see how smooth and creamy the nuts are getting!

Final minute of grinding, the butter becomes even more smooth.

At this point, you have a nut butter! Stop if you want to make hazelnut butter to spread on a sandwich. But continue if you want to make chocolately nutella.

Step 5: Add the melted chocolate/cocoa mixture (and powdered sugar) to the hazelnut butter and pulse to combine.

Step 6: Spread onto toast and enjoy!

Buen Provecho,
Jackie

Homemade Nutella, adapted from In Jennie's Kitchen

Ingredients

1 cup hazelnuts (or any other type of nut)
4 oz good quality chocolate, melted
2 TBSP cocoa powder
1/2 cup powdered sugar, more or less to taste
seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, optional

Directions

1. Roast hazelnuts in a 350˚F oven for 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and place onto a hand towel. Immediately start rubbing to remove the skins. For the tough-to-remove skins, wait a few minutes until the nuts are cool enough to handle and use your fingers to remove the skins.

2. Grind the nuts in the food processor until liquidy and they have a peanut-butter consistency. This will take about 3-5 minutes.

3. Add the chocolate, cocoa, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Pulse to combine. Only add a few drops of oil if you need to-- I found I didn't have to for the hazelnuts.

Notes:
* The spread was pretty liquidy when I first made it, but sitting on my counter it got much thicker. So from the jar it's not as smooth as the uber-processed nutella, but the second you spread it on hot toast it gets all melty and soft. mmmmm.....

* This nutella isn't quite and creamy and smooth as the purchased kind. I wouldn't say it's gritty, but there's a bit more texture to it. That's why it's important to remove as much of the skin from the nuts as you can. If you want I guess you could strain the nuts before adding the chocolate. But I'm much too lazy for that.

Thai coconut curry

2011-02-11T18:10:00.000-08:00

I've espoused my love of Thai food before, and today is no different. This week I tackled one of my favorite Thai dishes: coconut curry.

Creamy and spicy deliciousness...

And wow, I'm so glad I did! This dish came out amazing. And pretty damn authentic (I think...).

Now, I tried to make make coconut curry at home a long time ago but had a big, big problem. No, I didn't have a hard time finding the red curry paste in my supermarket. But the issue was in using the red curry paste. It's a delicious product, don't get me wrong. But it's soooo spicy, I could never get my dish to taste just right without burning off my tongue.

Too much curry paste and the dish had perfect flavor but it was too damn spicy.

Too little curry paste and the dish had perfect heat but it was too weak in flavor.

What's a girl to do??

So I'd given up. Well, that is, I'd given up until I saw this recipe on Pioneer Woman for homemade coconut curry and homemade red curry paste. Well hot damn, if I could control the level of heat in my curry paste, then the dish would have all the flavors I love without being overly spicy!

Coconut red curry with chicken, cherry tomatoes, orange peppers,

mushrooms, snow peas, and sugar snap peas.

I'm gonna call it a healthy dish, even with the full-fat coconut milk in it...

In making the curry paste, I didn't have chilli powder, which is a main ingredient of red curry paste. So I used a few dried red chillies instead, but I think they provided more heat than flavor.

To make up for the lack of chilli powder in my paste, I added some of my jarred red curry paste to the final dish. And wow, it added a great flavor without making the dish too spicy. (The curry tasted good before, but something was missing. The jarred curry paste solved the mystery of the missing flavor.)

When I make this recipe in the future, using actual chilli powder in the homemade curry paste recipe might be enough to provide the missing umph in flavor, so I might not need to use the jarred stuff. I guess we'll have to experiment and see...

But overall, this is an absolutely great recipe to play around with and adjust to your own tastebuds!

My tastebuds loved this dish just fine!

The curry isn't the only thing you can modify according to your tastebuds. The protein/veggies you use in the dish are totally up to you too. Chicken, beef, pork, duck, tofu, onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, snap peas, broccoli, bok choy, edamame, zucchini, eggplant. The varieties are endless.

There's something immensely satisfying in eating food that's naturally colorful.

And no matter what you decide to throw in there, I can pretty much guarantee it'll knock your socks off.

Buen Provecho,
Jackie

Homemade red curry paste, adapted from Tasty Kitchen

Ingredients
1/8 whole red onion or1/2 large shallot
1/2 stalk lemongrass, Rinsed And Chopped
2 cloves garlic, Peeled
1 piece ginger root, Peeled (about 1/2 Inch Cube)
1/2 TBSP ketchup
1/4- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper*
2 dried red chillis (orig. recipe called for 1 TBSP chilli powder)*
1/4 tsp ground cumin
3/4 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp (white) pepper
1/2 tsp sugar
1 TBSP fish sauce
1/2 TBSP soy sauce
2-4 TBSP coconut milk (keep the rest of the can for the dish)
1/2 lime or lemon

Directions

Add all the dry ingredients (first 11) to a food processor or blender, and blend until completely combined. Add the liquid and mix until smooth. Refrigerate overnight if possible.

* Note: it’s always easier to add heat than to take it away, so if you don’t want the curry super spicy, cut down on these ingredients. But also remember that this paste will get “diluted” in the final product, so it’s going to be a lot more spicy then the final dish.

My paste was a little bit gritty (probably from the lemongrass). You could strain it if you wanted it super smooth, but I didn't really care.

Red Thai curry with chicken and veggies, adapted from Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

3 chicken thighs, cut into bite sized pieces
3 cloves garlic, minced
homemade red curry paste
~2 tsp jarred red curry paste
1 can coconut milk (I used the remainder after making the curry paste)
½ cup hot water
1-3 TBSP fish sauce, to taste
3 TBSP fresh ginger, minced
3-4 whole kaffir leaves (optional)
½ whole red onion or 1.5 large shallots, sliced
1½ -2 orange peppers, sliced
bunch of mushrooms, sliced
bunch of sugar snap peas and/or snow peas
1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half

fresh basil and/or cilantro

Directions

1. Heat 1 TBSP of oil in a large skillet or Dutch oven over medium heat and add chicken to pan. After a few minutes, flip the chicken pieces over and cook until done. I suggest you do it in two batches if your pan isn’t large enough; you don’t want to crowd the pan. Remove chicken onto a dish and set aside.

2. Reduce heat to medium low and add the minced garlic and curry pastes (homemade and jarred). Cook for a few minutes to release the flavors.

3. Add coconut milk, hot water, fish sauce, minced ginger, and kaffir leaves. Reduce heat to low and cook for 10-15 minutes while you continue with the veggies.

4. In another large pan, heat another tablespoon or two of oil. Add sliced onions, orange pepper, mushrooms, and tomatoes and cook for a few minutes until starting to get soft. Add the peas and cook for another 2 or so minutes.

5. Add veggies to the curry sauce (or curry sauce to the veggies, whichever pan can hold more food). Add the cooked chicken and stir to combine. Cook for another 3-5 minutes, until warmed. Add more water to thin the sauce if you want it liquidy. Remove the kaffir leaves.

6. Add chopped basil and/or cilantro for an extra burst of flavor and serve over rice.