Whisk: a food blog: April 2008

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Tuesdays with Dorie—Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake

Polenta, ricotta, honey, and figs. These are the key ingredients that are in this unusual cake recipe. I don’t think I ever would have made this recipe if it weren’t for this fun, baking club. I’ve never even bought or cooked (or in this case, baked with) polenta before, so it was all a big learning experience for me.

Cornmeal or Polenta

I learned that cornmeal and polenta are the same thing except polenta is Italian. It doesn’t matter what name it is; the key is the grind.

You don’t want cornmeal or polenta that’s ground too finely. Stone-ground or medium ground is best. Instant or quick cook polenta has been partially cooked and then dried and may not give the cake the right texture. Having said this, I used a package of cornmeal that didn’t state that it was medium grind or stone-ground, but it did have a grain similar to sugar, which I read was what to look for. And the polenta I used had “express” in the title, so I’m guessing it was more finely ground and upon closer inspection was more like table salt than table sugar.

This difference was evident when pouring the batter into the pans. The polenta version was runnier. However, it didn’t affect the outcome of the cake.

Ricotta
I’ve never used ricotta in a dessert before, only in lasagna! It’s an Italian whey cheese that is fresh, unripened, and uncooked. In Italy, ricotta is made from sheep or water buffalo which gives it a more earthy, nutty flavor (according to Wikipedia since I haven’t yet had a chance to try true Italian ricotta). American ricotta (and Canadian, for that matter) is milder.

Honey

Honey is sweet, but the bee stings.
French Proverb

The color of honey comes from the nectar. The darker the color of the honey, the stronger the taste. I had two different honeys stashed in my pantry, so I decided to experiment with a clover honey (a lighter, amber color) and a buckwheat honey (a darker, stronger flavor).

Figs and such
Of course, I had to experiment with all types of figs. I bought some fresh figs before reading through the recipe thoroughly. Oops. Luckily, I picked up some dried ones as well on my trip to the market. I found some baby dried figs and Turkish figs. And, since I love dates, I had to give that a try too.

Garnishes
As for garnishes, I thought a crème fraiche with a hint of ginger and cinnamon would complement this dessert nicely. I found a recipe for crème fraiche in this article.

To make crème fraiche, combine 1 cup (250 mL) of heavy 35-percent cream with 2 tablespoons (25 mL) sour cream in a glass container. Cover and stand at room temperature 24 hours, or until very thick. Stir well, cover and refrigerate. Keeps up to 7 days.

I found some thick double cream as well, and in a blender threw in a couple of stem ginger and some ginger syrup, a dash of cinnamon, and a bit of leftover cream cheese frosting from last week’s Tuesdays with Dorie. This was delicious too with the heat from the stem ginger. Sprinkled with the leftover candied walnuts from last week and diced crystallized ginger, the crunchiness factor was covered. To dress up the plate, I drizzled some honey over it.

As another variation, I bought some Devon cream, whipped it up, and added a few sprinkles of cinnamon and ground ginger. This turned out to be my favorite garnish.

Recipe: Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake

Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake mise en place

You can find the recipe for Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake at this blog Engineer Baker or in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link) by Dorie Greenspan. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger!

Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake - plated

Tasting Notes
Some of us liked this cake more than others. It had a crunch to it from the cornmeal (or polenta) and the seeds in the figs that wasn’t what I normally expect in a cake. However, served with the spiced Devon cream, it was a nice dessert. As for the side-by-side taste tests, here are the winners:

• Polenta or cornmeal. It was a tie. It didn’t matter. Although next time I would make sure to get a medium-ground polenta so that it was more batter-like and less runny.

• Clover or buckwheat honey. The amber, clover honey won. The darker, buckwheat honey gave the cake a sweeter taste, but we preferred the lighter taste of the clover honey.

• Fresh figs, dried figs, or dates: Fresh figs won. I liked the softness and sweetness in the fresh fig; the chewiness of the dried figs and crunch of the seeds wasn’t as pleasant. I love dates, so I enjoyed this version too.

Recipe for Next Week (May 6)
Peanut Butter Torte on pages 282-283 chosen by Elizabeth of Ugg Smell Food.

More to Explore:

Friday, April 25, 2008

Fond blanc de volaille (Basic recipe for white stock)

"Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

White stock is a combination of meat (either chicken, veal, or fish) covered with water and aromatics and simmered over gentle heat for a few hours. As mentioned in the Fish stock post, stocks are the “foundation of the kitchen”, or the fond de cuisine. Although they seem intimidating at first, they really are easy to make and require a bit of attention now and then, but the magic happens while it simmers.

Stocks are to cooking what foundations are to a house.
Auguste Escoffier

The path to a clear stock
The mark of a good stock is clarity. Here are some tips I learned during my reading up on stock.

Tips for rinsing, blanching, and simmering
• Rinse the bones under water before starting to remove impurities.
• Use cold water not hot water. Hot water makes the stock cloudy and murky.
• Some recipes call for blanching the meat or bones first (except for fish bones which are too fragile). Then drain and start with fresh, cold water. This removes any impurities on the outside. • After blanching and after the first boil, add ice. Do this before adding the vegetables. This will thicken the fat and make it easier to remove.
• After bringing the water to a boil, turn the heat down and simmer. Boiling moves the scum around making it impossible to remove. It also could make your stock greasy since the scum could emulsify (this time in a bad way) with the water.
• Don’t stir the stock or it might get cloudy and murky.
• When pouring the stock through a fine mesh strainer or chinois, ladle it instead of pouring it so that the impurities don’t get forced through the sieve by sheer force.
• After refrigerating overnight, the fat coagulates on the top making it easier to remove.

Tips for skimming
• Skim often (about every 10 minutes) to remove the scum or proteins as they rise to the surface. After awhile, there won’t be as much scum to remove.
• Add the vegetables (mirepoix) after the bones and water have come to a boil the second time so that it’s easier to remove the scum.
• Use a bouquet garni to hold all the aromatics and herbs so that you don’t skim them off with the scum. Slip the bouquet garni under a piece of meat so that it doesn’t get in the way of skimming.

Tips for flavoring
• Use the meat on the bones for extra flavor. However, to save money, just use the bones.
• Like the saying that you should never use wine you wouldn’t drink to flavor a dish, you shouldn’t add parts of vegetables that you wouldn’t eat (like carrot peels). I don’t think your stock should be like a compost bin.
• Cover the bones with water, just to cover. More water makes the stock less flavorful and diluted.
• After you’ve made the stock, you can reduce it by half for more flavor. This reduced stock can be stored in ice cube trays in the freezer.
• Keep some of the stock in a container in the freezer to start your next batch of stock. Similar to a sourdough starter, this method reinforces the base with extra flavor.

Tips for avoiding bacteria and storage
• When the stock is finished, you must cool the stock quickly to avoid bacteria growth. Bacteria love to grow between 40˚-145˚.
• To cool It quickly, pour a bunch of ice in a sink and put the bowl of strained stock on top. Stir to cool quickly.
• Another idea is to fill a freezer bag full of ice and drop it into the bowl of strained stock.
• Stock will keep in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. It will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator if you boil it every day. It freezes well, but thaw it and bring it to a boil before using.

Recipe for white stock

from Le Cordon Bleu at Home (affiliate link)

Makes: 8 cups

4-pound chicken
3 small onions
3 cloves
3 carrots
3 leeks
2 stalks celery
6 cloves garlic
4 large sprigs parsley (including stems)
2 branches thyme
1 bay leaf
10 peppercorns
1 teaspoon coarse salt
12 cups water

You can find the recipe in Le Cordon Bleu at Home (affiliate link).

Tasting Notes
This stock has a light, neutral taste. At $3 per cup, it’s more expensive than canned, but it’s worth it. I can’t wait to use it in a sauce or soup.

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Running total: $376.19 + $24.45 = $400.64

Butter used so far: 4 pounds, 28 tablespoons

More to Explore:

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Food Blogging

One of my favorite food bloggers, Béatrice Peltre of La Tartine Gourmande, is featured in a "Word of Mouth" interview with Victoria Prescott today on New Hampshire Public Radio. Although that link is no longer available, here are a couple of newer links with interviews with her:

Link

Link

During the interview, Béa talks about her obsession with food, blogging, and photography. She also mentions some of her favorite food bloggers and some who have book deals:

The Traveller's Lunchbox
Lucy's Kitchen Notebook
Cook and Eat
Chocolate and Zucchini
Gluten-Free Girl
The Amateur Gourmet

It's a wonderful interview that inspired and motivated me. Check it out!

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Tuesdays with Dorie—Carrot Cake

Carrot cake is a classic, favorite dessert. Dorie’s recipe has some great additions too: coconut, raisins, and nuts. I used walnuts and for fun tried using white carrots in half the batter and orange carrots in the other half.

Homemade versus store-bought

There’s no question that homemade carrot cake is better than store-bought. For one, you can avoid trans fats in homemade versions. Plus, it tastes better. I bought a package of mini carrot cakes from the grocery store to compare, and none of us liked them. They were more spicy and left a chemical after-taste.

White carrots

When I saw white carrots in the store, I knew it would be fun to try in this week’s carrot cake recipe. There are other colored carrots you can buy, such as purple, yellow, or red, but white were the only unusual ones I found before the Tuesday deadline. I found these gems after I'd made the cake and found the darker they are, the sweeter they are.

Since white carrots aren’t as sweet as the orange ones, I thought this would be an interesting balance to the sweetness of the cake and icing.

Garnishes
I crave a “crunchiness” in every dish, so I added a couple of garnishes that would feed this craving.

For one, I made some candied walnuts. I mixed some walnuts with 2 tablespoons of corn syrup, ½ tablespoon maple syrup, and 1 tablespoon sugar. I spread this nut mixture on a Silpat and popped it in a 325ºF oven for 15 minutes. They added a nice crunch on top of the cake or sprinkled around the plate.

I also took an idea from Michel Richard in Happy in the Kitchen, and deep fried julienned carrots. Before deep frying them, I dredged them with cornstarch so that the water in the carrots didn't cause the oil to boil over. After frying, I sprinkled them with icing sugar and used immediately (or as soon as I could get everything plated and ready for the camera!). They don’t retain their crunchiness for long.

Another idea from Michel Richard was to make homemade vanilla ice cream with chunks of carrot cake in it. I took the simple route and used my mixer to stir in carrot cake chunks into store-bought vanilla ice cream. This was a great way to make plain ol’ vanilla ice cream delicious.

Finally, I made a carrot syrup from Michel Richard’s cookbook. Into some sugar syrup that’s turned a caramel color (like the caramel for crème caramel), I added freshly squeezed carrot and orange juice and boiled it down. It had a beautiful, rich color and took Dorie’s simple, but tasty dessert up a notch.

Cool baking pan and other fun stuff
I found this cool baking pan in my research about this recipe.

I also found a cute cartoon about carrot cake at this link.

Recipe: Carrot Cake

You can find the recipe for Bill's Big Carrot Cake in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link) by Dorie Greenspan. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger!

Tasting Notes
This is a great carrot cake recipe. The addition of coconut and raisins makes it extra special. Soaking the raisins in rum beforehand might be a nice variation for next time.

The white carrots were more popular in the cake than the orange ones. The cake made with the orange carrots was a touch sweeter. Although, I liked the color of the orange carrots in the cake, side-by-side, the white ones win in the tasting category.

This is another keeper recipe from Dorie!

Recipe for Next Week (April 29)
Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake on pages 200-201 chosen by Caitlin of Engineer Baker.

More to Explore:

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Filets de sole Dieppoise (Sole fillet served with a white wine sauce)

Sole Dieppoise is a dish from the port of Dieppe in northern France where sole is easier to find than here in Ottawa, it seems. I’ve been putting off working through this fish dish for some time now. However, now that I’ve made it I wish I hadn’t waited so long to give it a try. It’s delish!

Sole
Sole is a white, flat fish. The word “sole” comes from sandal since that’s what this fish looks like. The fish has two sides: the underside is a beautiful shimmering white, the upperside (with the eyes) is a camouflage pattern. However, I only know this from reading about it!

The fishmonger I went to didn’t have a whole sole (joking he only had half a soul left!) for me to practice filleting. He also didn’t have any sole fillets, so I ended up buying snapper fillets and a whole Red Snapper to try filleting. The snapper fillets were my backup knowing I wouldn’t be all that successful at creating an edible fillet on my first try.

I don’t have a picture of how my fillets turned out since they weren’t photogenic! I even watched a couple of videos beforehand to try to hone my skills, but I need more practice!

Watch a pro fillet a sole
Here's a great video showing how to fillet a flat fish.

Stock
The two main stocks in French cuisine are white (fond blanc) and brown (fond brun). The key difference between the two is that brown stock is browned in the oven first. Ingredients for white stocks are put in a stock pot with the liquid. The meat used in white stocks could be veal, chicken, or fish. For this dish, we’re using the fish stock (or fumet) made for the last class.

Velouté sauce
In the world of sauces, the first celebrity chef was Antonin Carême (1784-1833), known as the founder of classic French cookery, and is also known to have made Napoleon's wedding cake. Now there’s a catering job! Carême designated four classic sauces: Béchamel, Velouté (veh-loo-TAY), Espagnole, and Allemande.

Then along came Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935), a young, ambitious, whipper-snapper who updated the list of mother sauces to five: Béchamel, Velouté, Espagnole, Hollandaise, and Tomato. Since Allemande is derived from Velouté, it was replaced with Hollandaise and Tomato was added.

For this dish, a Velouté makes up the sauce, which is basically just a thickened stock.

Velouté = Roux blond + white stock (veal, chicken, or fish)
Roux blond = butter + flour (Flour and butter are cooked to a light color)

From a Velouté sauce, you can make a Sauce au vin Blanc (fish stock, wine, egg yolk, and cream), an Allemande sauce (veal stock, egg yolks, and cream) or a Suprême sauce (chicken stock, mushrooms, and cream).

Watch a pro make Velouté sauce
Here's a video showing how to make a Velouté sauce.

Fluted mushrooms
This dish is garnished with mushrooms that are preferably fluted, thank you very much. Well, I’ve never fluted a mushroom before, but I found some good information about how to do this fancy technique (after the fact). I thought my fluted mushrooms looked pretty good, and then I saw the ones in this link! I think I should now go out and buy 10 pounds of mushrooms to practice.

SaffronSaffron flavors the recipe I found for Filets de sole Dieppoise. I’ve always known it’s an expensive spice, but I didn’t know it comes from the stigmas in a small crocus (Crocus sativus). The three red stigmas in each crocus are hand-picked and dried. 14,000 stigmas equals 1 ounce, which equals about 5,000 crocuses. According to this link, it takes an acre of crocuses to produce 1 pound of saffron. Personally, I think saffron’s overrated. It tastes like hay, but it looks pretty. I guess it has that going for it!

Fennel
Fennel is the workhorse in this dish, providing the subtle hint of anise or licorice flavor.

Recipe for Filets de Sole Dieppoise
adapted from Link

Serves 2

2 sole fillets, 2 lb each
2 ounces shrimp
2 ounces button mushrooms, fluted
1 shallot, chopped
1 cup dry white wine
Juice from ½ a lemon
¼ cup cream
2 oz butter
2 oz flour
2 cups fish stock
Saffron
Fennel powder
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Note: Some recipes for Filets de sole Dieppoise call for mussels for a garnish as well. I forgot to pick some up when I was at the fishmonger, so I left them out.

Fillet the sole.

Flute the mushrooms and cook on low heat for 10 minutes with the half the shallots, a touch of lemon juice, a bit of butter, and salt and pepper. Keep warm.

Peel the shrimp. Add the shrimp to the baking dish about half-way through the cooking time.

For the sole, sprinkle the bottom of a baking dish with the remaining half of the chopped shallots. Pour the white wine and ¼ cup of fish stock in the baking dish. Fold the sole fillets in half and put in the baking dish. Squeeze half a lemon over the fish. Cover with parchment paper, if desired. Put in oven for 5-8 minutes, until cooked through.

Meanwhile, melt the butter. Then add the flour and prepare the roux. Let it cook gently for five minutes until it’s a blond color. Add the stock, saffron, fennel, and shallots into the roux and let cook slowly five minutes. Remove from the heat and add the whipping cream. Add the saffron and ground fennel, to taste. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve, if desired.

Tasting Notes
I wasn’t expecting this dish to be so tasty. I had procrastinated working on this dish, and didn’t really want to make it. But this was the most amazing fish and sauce combination I’ve had in a very long time. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though the smell in the house was overpowering! I had leftover sauce and extra shrimp, so the next day I enjoyed shrimp with the Dieppoise sauce, which were excellent leftovers. The hint of licorice from the fennel was delicious. It was creamy, rich, subtle, and amazing.

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $354.37 + $21.82 = $376.19

Butter used so far: 4 pounds, 28 tablespoons

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Friday, April 18, 2008

Fumet de poisson (Fish stock)

In order to make the Filets de sole Dieppoise, which is next on my class list, I had to make the fish stock first. Fish stock is supposed to be made with white fish only. Do not use bones from fattier fish like trout, salmon, or mackerel.

Stocks are classified under fond de cuisine, which is the French word for stock. If translated literally, it means "foundation of the kitchen”. It is the liquid that comes out of simmering bones and meat with vegetables, herbs, and seasonings forming the basis of many sauces and soups. At its most basic, it is flavored water!

Stock to a cook is voice to a singer.
Anonymous

Broth, stock, and fumet
There are a few terms bandied about when talking about this liquid gold:
• A broth contains meat and bones and can be served as is.
• A stock contains bones and is used as an ingredient in other recipes.
• A fumet is usually referred to as a fish stock that has wine added to it.

Watch a pro
Here is a great video video showing how to make fish fumet.

Recipe for Fish stock

Makes about 4 cups

1 pound fish (white, preferably)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium onions, chopped
4 shallots, chopped
2 leeks (white part only), chopped
1 Bouquet Garni
10 peppercorns
1½ cups dry white wine
3 cups water

You can use the heads of the fish, but clean the fish of the scales and gills. Chop into pieces.

Prepare the vegetables. Since there won't be time to extract all the flavor from big chunks of vegetables, chop them fairly small.

In a large stock pot, melt butter. Add the fish and the vegetables. Cook until vegetables are soft, about 2 minutes. Add the bouquet garni, peppercorns, and wine. Bring to a boil. Reduce the mixture by half. Stir in the water and bring to a boil. Skim off any froth. Lower the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. Strain the stock through a fine-meshed sieve lined with a cheesecloth.

Tasting Notes
Fish stock is fishy. There’s not much else to say. After simmering fish for 20 minutes, the whole house smelled fishy so I simmered some cinnamon and cloves after I finished making this stock. But, the fish stock really was easy and enhanced the flavor of the sole immensely. It’s well worth the fish house smell!

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $338.43 + $15.94 = $354.37

Butter used so far: 4 pounds, 24 tablespoons

More to Explore:

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Raspberries—nature’s perfect candy

It seems we can get raspberries any time of the year, as long as we’re willing to pay the price and accept the guilt of contributing to the cost of transporting nature’s perfect candy from Mexico or California to Canada.

Although we have three canes of raspberries planted in our yard, they won’t be ready until June. So, I often pick up a container at the grocery store and feel better about feeding my kids this expensive treat rather than giving them the cheaper fruit roll-ups or chewy bars that are marketed as “healthy”.

I took this picture of the lonely raspberry in early April just before the last of the snow melted on our deck. Spring is coming, and our raspberry shoots are starting to bud. Finally, Spring is here.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Tuesdays with Dorie—Marshmallows

What’s better than marshmallows roasted over a fire or melted in hot chocolate? In our house, mini marshmallows have been known to be used as a bribe for piano practicing. Now that we’ve tasted homemade marshmallows, I may be on the hook to make these treats on a regular basis.

Known as Guimauve or Chamallow in French, marshmallows are actually very simple to make. Here are the raw materials in marshmallows:

The something sweet in this recipe is sugar and corn syrup (but other types of syrup such as maple syrup or dextrose could be used in varying amounts). The emulsifier for texture consists of gelatin and whipped egg whites in Dorie’s recipe. As for the flavoring, I followed the classic recipe and included only vanilla, but the sky’s the limit on this. I saw recipes for peppermint, lemon, cinnamon sugar, and even banana and parsley! Dorie’s recipe is basically marshmallows made with a meringue and gelatin added in for texture. Once you’ve mastered meringue, you can soon be in “fluff heaven”.

History
The root of the mallow plant (Althea Officinalis) was used to make the first marshmallows dating as far back as 2000BC. The leaves and roots of the plant are both edible, but the gooey mucilage (jelly-like sap) from the roots give the marshmallow their texture. Modern marshmallows were first made in France around 1850, according to this article.

I wanted to try an original recipe for marshmallows using marshmallow root powder, but the health food stores here don’t have it right now. I’ll have to give that a go someday.

from Link

Something sweet
The sugar, water, and corn syrup are melted together to form a sugar syrup. The corn syrup stabilizes the syrup and inhibits re-crystallization of the sugar. You cook the syrup to the hard-ball stage (250°F–265°F). Here is a great site that explains the different stages of sugar syrup.

It might be fun to play around with different sugar combinations, such as using maple sugar, golden corn syrup, glucose or dextrose.

Here’s a tip I found useful: By pouring in the syrup carefully (not into the beaters or it will spray), you'll get a lot more “fluff” in your marshmallow mixture.

Hands-free potato starch
Potato starch is a gluten-free starch that, in this recipe, is only used to avoid the stickiness that comes with making and working with marshmallows. You can use cornstarch too. I found that I didn’t need a full cup of potato starch.

Emulsifier agent: code name gelatin
Warning: The following contains scenes that some may find highly unpleasant!

Gelatin is processed collagen found in many animals. The gelatin in sheet or leaf gelatin and powdered gelatin is the collagen from cow or pig bones, hooves, and connective tissues. This is what makes marshmallows spongy. Marshmallows don’t seem so delicious after reading this!

At Cooking for Engineers (an amazing cooking site BTW), one of the commenters on the marshmallow recipe explained that “marshmallows require a protein to be stretched and partially coagulated around air bubbles to make a suspensoid, or an emulsion of air in a semisolid”. There’s that word again: emulsion. Getting two foods to talk to each other is a full-time job for a chef, it seems!

Gelatin is a fussy sort, too. Gelatin has to be handled in a certain way in order to dissolve, heat, melt and then use in a recipe, otherwise the recipe won't become jelled when cooled. First, Dorie has us dissolve the gelatin in some cold water in a heat-proof bowl. After it has “bloomed”, it is heated in the microwave to re-liquify it. But don’t let the gelatin mixture come to a boil or it will have to be thrown out.

Egg whites: another emulsifying agent
Using egg whites in the marshmallows makes them lighter and fluffier. The eggs should be at room temperature so that the proteins will expand more easily. The process for making marshmallows is just like an Italian meringue with the addition of gelatin. However, you can make marshmallows without eggs too. (See the recipe tested at Cooking for Engineers.)

Flavorings
Here’s where you can get creative. Coconut, rosewater and pistachios, almond and maraschino, caramel, green tea and adzuki bean, mint and orange craisin. Dorie has variations for raspberry, cappuccino, chocolate, and pumpkin spice. These are all on my list of variations to try!

Equipment
It seems that having a KitchenAid with a whisk attachment helped me out a lot for this recipe. A hand mixer would have a hard time with this recipe. I've heard that the gelatin can separate from the marshmallow mixture and settle on the bottom, making for a pretty awful marshmallow. If you have to use a hand mixer, try half a batch at a time. You have to incorporate a lot of air into the mixture for “fluff heaven”.

A pizza wheel for cutting the marshmallows is also very handy.

Watch a pro
Here’s a great little video that shows you how to make homemade marshmallows.

Other tips
After making the marshmallow mixture, and putting it in the pan, I popped it in the freezer for an hour. It was ready to cut after that. Depending on how “dry” you like your marshmallows, you can leave them sitting out overnight (especially if you're not making it at the last minute like I was).

If you’re dipping fresh marshmallows in melted chocolate that’s hot, the marshmallow will melt. Try freezing the marshmallow before dipping.

Store homemade marshmallows in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks.

Great marshmallow links
In reading up on marshmallows, I found some great information:
• The Nibble’s article about marshmallows
• Good Eats transcript from Alton Brown’s show about marshmallows (search for “marshmallow”)
• How Products Are Made - background information about marshmallows

Recipe: Marshmallows

You can find the recipe for Marshmallows at this blog Judy’s Gross Eats or in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link) by Dorie Greenspan. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger!

For mine, I dipped them in some leftover Amedei chocolate from the Gooey Chocolate Cake week, and then tried ground graham crackers for an indoor-campfire-like version of s’mores. I also tried rice krispies and good ol’ sprinkles. On some, I sprinkled a pinch of culinary lavender before popping them in the freezer. These appealed more to the grown-up set. I also rolled some in pink sugar since you can never have too much sugar, I guess. Just remember to dip the marshmallow in the sprinkles BEFORE coating it in the potato starch or cornstarch so that the sprinkles have something to stick to!

Tasting Notes
Homemade marshmallows are fluffs from heaven that melt in your mouth. Delicious and decadent, they are amazing dipped in chocolate, and are unbelievably easy to make. Best of all, for $2.45 per 8x8 pan, I can eliminate tetrasodium pyrophosphates, whatever they are! Even better, my kids think I'm a hero. Another great recipe from Dorie!

Recipe for Next Week (April 22)
Bill’s Big Carrot Cake on pages 253-255 chosen by Amanda of slow like honey.

More to Explore:

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Cookbook Junkie

I’m Shari, and I’m a cookbook junkie. Here’s another secret: I’ve never been one who can cook without a recipe. I’m always checking and re-checking the method to make sure I’m on track. Either I need a better memory or I need to understand what I’m doing so that I can cook without recipes. I’m hoping that by learning the fundamentals, I’ll have the confidence to go it alone.

Note: This post includes affiliate links.

There’s a wonderful food blogger, Heidi Swanson, whose blog is called 101 Cookbooks. She decided that she owned enough cookbooks and started chronicling her effort to work through these cookbooks. I was curious to see if I too had 101 cookbooks. I found out I had 195! I guess I should stop this addiction, have a garage sale, and get rid of the less-used cookbooks. Nice idea, but I probably won’t go through with it.

For awhile, I stopped buying cookbooks and relied on magazines and clippings and my old standby recipes. My current magazine subscriptions include Cook’s Illustrated, Fine Cooking, Gourmet, and Bon Appetit, and I often buy Saveur at the grocery checkout. The stacks of recipes and ones to try keep piling up. In fact, I have a thick binder of recipes I haven’t tried yet but want to and a pile of papers and clippings to go through. I know I can find most, if not all, the recipes from these magazines online, but I like the tactile nature of looking through a magazine, folding the corner of the page over for a recipe I want to try, and reading the magazine in bed.

I’m always getting cookbooks out of the library too. I’m sure the librarians roll their eyes when they see my list of hold requests: Bouchon to Chez Panisse Café Cookbook to all the other cookbooks that I haven’t added to my shelf yet. I walk out of the library regularly with arms heavy-laden with cookbooks and books about food.

From Anne Willan to Culinary Institute of America’s The Professional Chef to Le Cordon Bleu at Home to Julia Child, my “favorites” shelf holds all the heavyweights and the cookbooks I turn to most often. Cookwise gives me the whys and wherefores and Knife Skills Illustrated gives me the hows. Heston Blumenthal’s In Search of Perfection is an interesting and different cookbook. He explores eight classic recipes, such as roast chicken or fish and chips, to come up with the perfect combination of ingredients for the perfect recipe. I like Martha Stewart’s cookbooks for their presentation ideas. I’m always on the lookout for great cookbooks, and I usually end my day by browsing through a cookbook or food magazine. It’s so relaxing and inspiring.

If I had to choose one cookbook from this “favorites” shelf, I would choose Le Cordon Bleu at Home. It covers every aspect of cooking from sauces to desserts to meals. It’s organized around meals in an order that goes from easier (“getting started”) to harder (“professional”). There are cookbooks on my shelf that I want to dust off and use more. But right now, I’m in a stage where I’m not interested in a book full of recipes. I want to know more about how and why the recipe works.

I’m a cookbook junkie. And proud of it!

What’s your favorite cookbook that you would take to a desert island (assuming the desert island had a professional kitchen and groceries shipped to you daily)?!?

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Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Excellent Blog Award

I’m shocked, flattered, and thrilled to get the Excellent Blog Award. Shannon from The Mommy Project started this award. Thip from Bonbini cast this award my way, and I’m honored to be in the company of the other blogs mentioned. And now I get to pass along the warm and fuzzy feelings to more blogs. Here are my picks (in alphabetical order):

• Culinary Concoctions by Peabody: I love the photos in this blog. And the recipes are wonderful too.
• French Laundry at Home: I love reading this blog and hearing about the latest Keller (or should I say “killer”) recipe from the French Laundry.
• Joe Pastry: I learn so much from this blog.
• Joy the Baker: Stunning photos and great recipes. Now, she even has podcasts!
• La Tartine Gourmande: Beautiful, inspiring, peaceful.
• milk and cookies: More amazing photos and great recipes.
• Orangette: Great writing, beautiful pictures, amazing recipes. What more can you ask of a food blog?
• Tartelette: Great photos and tasty recipes.

All of these blogs inspire me to improve my baking, cooking, photography, and writing. Thank you again to Thip who considered me for this award.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Tuesdays with Dorie—The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart

Last week was chocolate. This week it’s lemon. A highlight of my week is fast becoming Tuesdays with Dorie! And lemon tart is a favorite in our home!

Meyer lemons versus regular lemons

Given that I live in Canada and Meyer lemons don’t grow on trees up here (at least not outside in the frigid winters we have), I thought I would forgo the 100-mile diet and try to get some Meyer lemons to test this recipe a bit. I was able to find some beautiful Meyer lemons shipped here from California, land of milk and honey, or at least Meyer lemons and other yummy fruit. I wanted to do a taste test with regular lemons and Meyer lemons to see which lemon tart we liked best.

Meyer lemons are a cross between a traditional lemon and an orange, possibly a mandarin. It was introduced to the United States by “agriculture explorer” Frank Meyer. How do you go about getting a job as an “agriculture explorer”, I wonder? Meyer lemons are smaller, rounder, and have a more orange-y, less tart flavor.

A cookie crust

For the crust, I thought I’d try the pâte sablée with walnuts from Dorie’s cookbook. The combination of the slightly bitter walnuts with the citrus of lemon and the sweetness of the tart sounded too good to pass up. I was not disappointed. The crunch of the cookie-crust held up well as finger food even. The dough was dry at first, but I added a few fingertips of water to bring it together, and it rolled out fine.

One tip I’ve gleaned from all my research is to roll the dough out onto the removable base of the tart pan. Then, replace the rim and pinch the dough up the sides. That way, you know how large the pastry needs to be for your tart or pie pan.

Garnishes
I had some fun with garnishes for this recipe. I melted some leftover couverture chocolate from last week’s Tuesdays with Dorie and made chocolate hearts.

I also made some citrus rinds steeped in syrup. First I boiled 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water until the sugar was melted. Then, I added slices of lemons, Meyer lemons, and kumquats, and a vanilla bean split open and scraped. I gently boiled this mixture for a bit, and then let it steep for 4 hours and refrigerated it until I was ready to use it. Not only do they look good, but they taste delicious.

Recipe: The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart

You can find the recipe for The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart at this blog (Starting from Scratch) or in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link) by Dorie Greenspan. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger!

Hollandaise versus Lemon Curd
One last thing I wanted to try after making this recipe was Hollandaise sauce. The technique provided in Dorie’s cookbook as given to her by the famous pastry chef Pierre Hermé made me think of Hollandaise sauce. Both Hollandaise and Lemon curd have the same flavor profile: emulsified eggs and butter with a splash of lemon. But one has sugar and more lemon while the other has savory spices and water. So, after making the lemon tarts, I tried following the same technique to make a Hollandaise sauce using these ingredients:

2 eggs
2 tablespoons lemon juice, plus more to taste
¼ cup water
Salt
Pepper
Cayenne pepper
5¼ ounces unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-size pieces, at room temperature

First, in a stainless steel sauce pan, I whisked the eggs, lemon juice, water, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper over medium heat until it came to 180°F. At around 160°F I quickly pulled it off the heat since it looked like it was about to curdle. But I bravely put it back on the heat and whisked madly so that it wouldn’t curdle. The second it hit 180°F, I quickly poured it into the food processor (since my blender broke during the making of the lemon tarts!) and let it cool a bit. Then I added the butter in chunks, and just like that I had a beautiful, creamy, emulsified Hollandaise sauce. Easy as pie!

Tasting Notes
This tart is amazing. I preferred the sweetness and orange hint of the Meyer lemon tart, but others liked the more citrus lemon flavor of the traditional lemon tart. The Meyer lemon curd was less firm than the regular lemon curd, which had a texture similar to butter. Although it didn’t take away from the taste, I’m wondering why the Meyer lemon curd didn’t get as firm. If anyone has some ideas about why, let me know. Does it have something to do with the pectin levels in each? After spending the night in the refrigerator, the Meyer lemon curd was a firm consistency, however. This is definitely a keeper recipe, in any case.

In my reading, I found this great article about Meyer lemons called "What do you do with a Meyer lemon? Here is a list of 100 things!" I'm sure some of these things could be applied to the regular lemon as well. Enjoy!

Recipe for Next Week (April 15)
Marshmallows on pages 404-405 chosen by Judy of Judy’s Gross Eats

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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Recipe: Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake

Friday, April 25, 2008

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Recipe: Carrot Cake

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Friday, April 18, 2008

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Recipe: Marshmallows

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Recipe: The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart

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