This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

Fortune cookies have been on my mind this week. Since I've never made homemade fortune cookies, I thought this tuile recipe would be perfect, and it was. I used Le Cordon Bleu brown cane sugar with vanilla instead of the vanilla sugar called for in the recipe. This sugar contains crushed vanilla beans which show as black flecks in the cookie.

To form fortune cookies, place the paper fortune on top of cookie, fold the hot cookie in half, forming a semi-circle, and press the edges together gently. Then quickly fold the semi-circle over the edge of a small bowl to create the fortune cookie shape.

As well, the Daring Baker hosts asked us to make something "light" to go with our tuiles. I couldn't resist serving mine with my favorite flavor of ice cream: coffee. Not very light, I know, but delicious. For Christmas, I received a "Supreme Ice Cream Maker" that I think my kids have enjoyed more than me since we've made Smartie, Kit Kat, and Rolo ice cream several times. But I have squeezed in time to make Bailey's, vanilla, and this coffee ice cream since it's so easy to use (just a bit on the noisy side).

To see the different versions of tuiles cropping up all over the foodblogosphere, check out the Daring Bakers Blogroll. Thanks to Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umrühren bitte (aka Kochtopf) who hosted this month.

Recipe: Tuile Fortune Cookies and Coffee Ice Cream

Yields:: 20 small tuiles or 6 large

Preparation time: batter 10 minutes
Waiting time: 30 minutes
Baking time: 5-10 minutes per batch
Oven: 180˚C or 350˚F

It's all about fish for the next four weeks. And this week's trout couldn't be easier. I thought last week's pork dish was easy, but this one beats that! All you need is some browned butter and almonds (and trout, of course) and you have trout almondine.

First, you season the trout with salt and pepper. Then, dredge it in flour and pan-fry it in butter and oil. After it's finished cooking, you let it rest while you brown some butter and almonds. Sprinkle some parsley around, squeeze a lemon on top, and you've got lunch or dinner ready in no time flat. It's tasty hot or cold too.

The hardest part is cleaning the fish, which is probably what this class is all about over at Le Cordon Bleu. I wimped out on this step and was lucky enough to find trout already cleaned at the grocery store. Instead, I watched this video about how to clean a rainbow trout.

Recipe: Truite aux Amandes (Trout with Almonds)

Serves: 6 (I halved the recipe.)

Ingredients:

Parsley for garnish

I love fortune cookies. They make me feel like a child hoping I'll get a good fortune that will come true. Each New Year's Eve, I pass around fortune cookies to everyone at the table, and we all read them out to each other, always adding "in bed" at the end and giggling like teenagers. One year, I cracked opened my fortune cookie and it was empty. It turned out to be a tough year! This year, the fortune cookies I bought were dipped in white chocolate and all contained two or three fortunes in each. Before photographing this cake I noticed there was one fortune cookie remaining in the container on the counter from the holidays. And since it was Chinese New Year yesterday, I cracked it open to find four fortunes! I baked this cake in my cast iron pan that I found several years ago at a garage sale where a retired foodie was selling many of his prized cooking items. This was a great buy since I've used it often, but never for something sweet. Now I have a list of treats I want to bake up in my pan.

Recipe: Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread

Makes: 1 9-inch square pan or 1 10-inch diameter cast iron pan (bake longer if using this size of cast iron pan and check the middle to ensure the cake is done)

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons confectioner's sugar (sifted)

Humble roast chicken was on the menu last week, but even though I made it while my mom was visiting, I didn't have time to write up my post in-between shopping, eating out and seeing movies. So here it is more than a week late. However, we all enjoyed eating it. Roasting
According to Barbara Kafka's Roasting-A Simple Art, roasting means food that's cooked with high heat and some fat (either from the meat or added to the pot). If the heat isn't hot enough, the food steams in its own juices.

I rinsed, dried, trussed, sprinkled (with salt and pepper), doused (with butter and oil), flavored (with bay and thyme in the cavity), and browned the chicken on top of the stove on each side. Then roasted it in a 350˚F oven for 45 minutes covered.

eGullet, and Thomas Keller suggest cooking it at a high-heat (450˚F), so I'll have to give that a try next time. Grand-mère
While the chicken was roasting, I prepared the Grand-mère part of this dish, which is the garnish of bacon, mushrooms, potatoes, and onions. We covered grand-mère as a garnish in class 3, but this time the garnish came together better. Each item is cooked separately and then thrown together at the end. Warning: This means lots of pans and dishes!

Pan #1: Pearl onions. Peeling the pearl onions took a lot of time. (I've been told there exists bags of already peeled pearl onions in the freezer section of some grocery stores. I've yet to see that here in Ottawa.) After peeling the onions, I covered them with water, added a pinch of salt and a knob of butter and cooked them over high heat until the water had evaporated. Then I continued cooking them until they turned a golden brown.

Pan #2 and #3: Potatoes. While the onions were cooking, I practiced turning potatoes, which also took a lot of time! Then, I put them in a pan of cold salted water, put the lid on and brought them to a boil. After blanching the potatoes for a few minutes, I fried them in Pan #3 with 2 tablespoons of butter until golden brown and al dente.

Pan #4: Mushrooms. In yet another pan, I fried the mushrooms in butter and seasoned them with salt and pepper.

Next up was the bacon. Although the recipe called for blanching it to remove some of the smokiness (which would have meant another pan), I just draped the slices over the chicken half-way through cooking the bird and then left the cover off until the juices ran clear. Finishing
When the chicken was cooked through, I let it sit under aluminum foil while finishing the sauce. This ensured that the juices were redistributed before carving.

I poured off the sauce and removed any fat. Then, I returned the sauce to the pan and deglazed it with ¼ cup water. I added the chicken back in, along with the onions, potatoes, and mushrooms, and let this mixture cook for about 15 minutes until the potatoes were cooked through. A sprinkle of chopped parsley, and it was ready to serve.

Recipe: Poulet en Cocotte Grand-Mère (Braised Chicken Casserole with Bacon, Mushrooms, Potatoes, and Onions)

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

This week's Cordon Bleu recipe is simple meat and potatoes fare. I didn't think I'd ever use "simple" and "Cordon Bleu" in the same sentence, but this is one recipe that is both.

And it's not your typical fried-and-dried pork chops. First, the pork is fried in butter and oil. Searing the meat forms a crust that keeps the flavorful juices inside the meat. But to avoid the dried part of the equation, the meat is finished in the oven layered between thinly sliced potatoes that have been sprinkled with salt, pepper and thyme, drenched in butter and baked until the potatoes are cooked. This Flemish-style rib of pork couldn't be easier or more delicious.

Recipe: Côtes de Porc Flamande (Baked Pork Chops with Potatoes and Thyme)

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

Several sprigs fresh thyme

While watching the inauguration of President Barack Obama, I made this Berry Surprise Cake. What an exciting time to be a citizen in the USA, and although I'm not a US citizen, I'm enjoying watching it unfold from Canada and feel a sense of pride even so.

As for the cake, it seems like a perfect celebration cake. Genoise, framboise syrup, cream cheese filling and sweetened whipped cream with a hidden berry as a surprise.

I used my mini cheesecake pan to make eight individual genoise cakes. I baked them for 15-20 minutes, and they overflowed a bit but didn't sink. I cut off the overflow and assembled the cakes.

Recipe: Berry Surprise Cake

I halved the recipe.

Ingredients:

You can find the recipe for Berry Surprise 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! Thanks to Mary Ann of Meet Me in the Kitchen who chose the recipe for this week and will post the recipe.


Tasting Notes
This was an upscale version of strawberry shortcake, and the cake had a nice light flavor but needed sweet berries to enhance it. I'll blame the January strawberries at our grocery store since the cake needed to be a little sweeter for me. It also might be all the Turtles and Toffifee chocolates that I've indulged in since Christmas. My taste buds were expecting something sweeter. But making it while watching the inauguration will be a sweet memory. Recipe for Next Week (January 27)
Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread on page 212 chosen by Heather of Sherry Trifle.

Last week I promised I would share my favorite chili recipe. Several years ago, I found this book: International Chili Society Official Chili Cookbook. I tried several recipes and liked Joe Burgoz's Colorado Championship Chili the best, but I've made my own tweaks over the years (including the addition of chili powder!).

You can find lots of other world champion recipes for chili at the International Chili Society's website.

Recipe: Chili

Yield: 12 cups, serves 6-10

Ingredients:

I love homemade muffins since they satisfy my craving for a snack any time of day. And they're so easy to throw together. Whisk the dry ingredients. Stir the wet ingredients. Mix the two together until combined (but don't overmix) and bake. I was inspired by fellow food blogger at Food Rockz to crack open one of my favorite cookbooks, Michel Richard's Happy in the Kitchen: The Craft of Cooking The Art of Eating, where I found a recipe for Lemon-Lime Madeleine Muffins. Since I have a little-used mini madeleine pan, I thought I'd make Madeleine Muffins using Dorie's recipe. Served alongside some homemade chili, I had the perfect lunch.

Recipe: Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins

For me, the recipe made 12 mini madeleines, 12 mini muffins and 8 regular-sized muffins. I baked the minis for half the time stated in the recipe (10 minutes).

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro

It's hard to believe one year ago today I posted my first entry on this blog. So much has happened since then. I've met many amazing foodies and improved my baking and cooking skills. As well I've found a new love: photography. I want to thank all of you who read and comment and support my passion for food. It's been a blast!

To mark this occasion, I made an angel food cake. I've always wanted to make one from scratch since I've only ever made the boxed version before. My aunt used to make angel food cake for her daughters' birthdays, and I always looked forward to my piece topped with Seven-Minute Frosting. I was surprised at how easy it actually was to make this cake from scratch.

I used the recipe from Cook's Illustrated's The New Best Recipe cookbook. As well, I used the Multi-Tier Cake Pan that I received as a gift from my parents. I lined the bottom of the pan with a round piece of parchment paper and didn't spray it. [Next time, I would try spraying it since it didn't come out of the pan as easily as I'd hoped.]

Recipe: Angel Food Cake

I halved the recipe and made three mini multi-tier cakes.

Ingredients:

Other angel food cakes:
You can find the recipe and method for angel food cake at the following blogs:

Baking Bites' Perfect Angel Food Cake
Ward Street Bistro's Angel Food Cake 101

Recipe: Glaze

14 ounces white chocolate
½ cup heavy cream

Melt the white chocolate with the heavy cream. Whisk the mixture gently until smooth. Let cool for 10 minutes and then spread over the chilled cake. Using a metal cake spatula, smooth out into an even layer.

Recipe: Coconut Whipped Cream Frosting

1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup coconut (½ cup coconut, toasted, for decorating)

Whip cream until almost stiff. Add sugar and vanilla. Beat until cream holds peaks. Fold in ½ cup coconut.

Thanks for visiting and making this a wonderful year for me!

More to Explore:

• Index of Recipes
• Visual Recipe Index

This next class is all about roasting and frying. First up is roast duck with glazed turnips. I've made duck before and was astounded by all the fat that melted off of it, so I was a little worried about making duck again. And turnips are not a favorite at our house, but glazed I thought they might be more to our liking.Duckling
The duck I found at the grocery store comes from the oldest duck-breeding farm in Canada, Brome Lake, Quebec. Luckily, I was able to find it ready to roast and not frozen.

I read on the duck producer's website that the fat in duck is good fat, full of omega oils. This recipe, however, renders the fat and then gives you a chance to remove it so your sauce at the end is not at all fatty.Reducing and Trussing
While you're preparing the duck, I reduced the veal stock by half. [I like to use a ruler to measure the liquid in the pot so that I can register what half means. So if the liquid reaches the 1-inch mark, I keep checking the liquid until it has reduced to the half-inch mark. I probably don't have to be so precise, but when I make a recipe for the first time, I like to follow the rules!] This was the last of the veal stock in my freezer that I had made in April, so it's time to get out the pots and make a new batch.

The first step to prepare the duck is to remove the wishbone. I tried, but had no luck. As it turns out, removing the wishbone is planning ahead since it helps the carving process later according to this post). Maybe next time.After removing the wishbone [if you can], truss the bird so that it cooks evenly and looks good straight from the oven. This is much easier than removing the wishbone. Just tie the wings and legs as tight to the body as you can.

Searing
Next, I seared the meat on each side in the roasting pan on top of the stove. The roasting pan must be large enough to hold the meat so that it doesn't stew in its own juices.

Then I added the carrots and onions. At this point, everything goes in the oven to roast. I turned it every 20 minutes and basted it regularly with the reduced veal stock.

After 40 minutes, I removed the duck and poured off the sauce into a gravy separator. Then I returned the sauce to the pan, leaving the fat behind. I basted it with more veal stock and continued roasting it until cooked through, about 30 to 40 minutes longer.

After cooking, the meat should sit for about 15 minutes so that the juices get reabsorbed back into the flesh.

Glazing
While the meat is roasting, it's time to prepare the veg. I tried practicing my turning skill and still need lots more practice. After boiling them in salted water for about 8 minutes until tender, I fried them in some butter and sugar, caramelizing and then glazing them with some more veal stock.

Saucing
After the ducks finished cooking and while they were resting, I made the sauce, which is just a pan sauce. I poured off the juices from the roasting pan into a bowl. Then I deglazed the pan with the wine, scraping up all the bits that were stuck to the pan. After a splash of water, I returned the juices to the pan along with a Bouquet Garni and let this mixture reduce for about 15 minutes. After seasoning, the sauce was ready to strain and serve.

Recipe: Canard aux Navets (Roast Duck with Glazed Turnips)

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

½ bunch watercress for garnish