Do you ever feel like an oyster? Raw. Shell clamped tight. Knowing there's a pearl inside. Only to find out you're not the pearl-producing type of oyster but the one that gets eaten. Oysters
Oysters got their aphrodisiac reputation from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love who unwittingly sprang forth from the sea on a convenient oyster shell and then in the same breath gave birth to Eros, according to this link. And if you believe that, you can have faith in their aphrodisiac powers too.

Oysters with the thickest shells have the most juice. Before shucking, make sure they're alive. It's ok if they're sleeping. Just tap them and discard any that do not close firmly. They're dead and not worth getting food poisoning from.

I was amazed at how tight the oyster shell was clamped shut. I worked from the hinge at the back to pry it open, and even then I chipped off pieces of the shell in the process. Some were easier to open than others, and with each shell opened, I felt more powerful and confident. Now I don't have to go to an oyster bar and pay premium prices for someone else to shuck me some plain ol' oysters. I can do it myself and make a fancy-shmancy sabayon to go with it.

After you've figured out the shucking part, it's onto the poaching. Simple. They're just poached in their own juices until the liquid boils. Then they wait on the sidelines while you make the star of the dish: the sabayon.

Spinach
But first there's the spinach to steam. I found the spinach to be the perfect foil to the rich sabayon and oyster. It acted as the go-between, diplomatically keeping the oyster and sabayon from being the dueling divas.

Sabayon
Sabayon means "wine-foam cream". It is zabaglione without the sugar and with the use of Muscadet instead of sweet Marsala, changing it from a fancy dessert into a rich, savory sauce.

The base of the sabayon is a shallot/wine reduction. Cook the shallots in butter until translucent. Add the wine and oyster juices to round out the sauce. A bit of reduction builds flavor and then add the crème fraîche for tang, richness and viscosity. Again, the sauce is reduced to build flavor.
While the sauce reduces, whisk the yolks and water into a foamy frenzy. Then, while they're distracted, set them over a bowl of simmering water. Gently cook the eggs until the mixture becomes thick and creamy and increases in volume. This is probably the hardest part of the recipe. If it gets too hot, you'll have scrambled sabayon. Not so sexy.

After you've cooked this sauce to its ribbon-y texture, whisk in the clarified butter slowly. The sabayon and the butter should be at the same temperature, which is the key to a successful sabayon. Finally, add the reduced shallot/wine mixture. Lots of eggs, butter and crème fraîche make this a very rich, sensual sauce.

Spinach, again
Back to the spinach. It's sautéed in even more butter and seasoned with salt and pepper.

Finally, assemble and serve. Recipe

Serves 6

24 oysters
2 pounds spinach, stemmed and rinsed
Salt

Muscadet Sabayon Sauce:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 shallots, chopped fine
2/3 cup dry white wine, preferably Muscadet
2/3 cup crème fraîche or heavy cream (I would use sour cream)
Freshly ground pepper
4 egg yolks
¼ cup water
½ pound unsalted butter, clarified and cooled to lukewarm

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

Freshly ground pepper

Coarse salt for platter
You can find the recipe for Huîtres Chaudes au Muscadet (Poached Oysters with Muscadet Sabayon Sauce) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home. To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Serve with Muscadet, Chablis or Champagne, or even red wine.

Tasting Notes
I've had oysters before, but usually they just came with a squeeze of lemon. This was decadent. I wouldn't want to eat more than an appetizer size serving, but they were the best tasting oysters I've ever had. I even shucked a few more oysters the next day and re-heated the sauce. After the sabayon broke in the microwave, I stirred in some cold sabayon and it emulsified again and I had a perfect lunch. Next Class
• Aubergines Bayildi (Gratin of Stuffed Eggplant) pages 255-256

Links
• Thomas Keller's signature dish "Oysters and Pearls"
• Red wine with oysters: A Rule Just Waiting to Be Broken
• cookthink: How To Choose Oysters

My Bucket List
• Visit Locmariaquer, France and taste their famous Belon oysters (and read The Oysters of Locmariaquer) . . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $1,262.59 + $17.99 (oysters) + $6.60 (sabayon) = $1,287.18
($8.20 per serving)

Butter used so far: 11 pounds, 25.5 tablespoons

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Homemade chocolate pudding spooned onto a chocolate cookie crust with a dollop of whipped cream. My kids were in heaven. As were our neighbor's kids. One of mine licked off just the pudding and whipped cream and handed the cookie part back to me to finish!

I was at a popular dessert spot in Ottawa the other day called Memories. Situated downtown in the bustling Byward Market, it's a dessert-focused café I've been visiting since moving to Ottawa. At one time, all the desserts were listed on a big whiteboard tempting us with cheesecakes, chocolate oblivions and pies. I had my first ever café au lait there served in a bowl. I awkwardly figured out the best way to hold the bowl without burning my fingers and tried to confidently display l'air de Paris without spilling any coffee down my chin.

As I was looking over the dessert menu at Memories this weekend, nothing was tempting me. On a menu, I'm always looking for the banana foster, molten chocolate cakes, toffee pudding, bread pudding or even floating islands! I like to eat something I don't make at home, or at least something I don't make often. Now that I'm baking so much, it's getting more difficult to enjoy a dessert at a café.

I liked what I ordered at Memories, which was a thin meringue on top of a lemon tart on top of an almond cake on top of a crust with a raspberry swirl. I'm just getting spoiled, and rounder in the process. Recipe

Makes 8 servings (I halved the recipe.)

For the Chocolate Shortbread Tart Dough:
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ cup confectioners' sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 tablespoons) very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk

For the Filling:
2 cups whole milk
4 large egg yolks
6 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch, sifted
¼ teaspoon salt
7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted
2½ tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces, at room temperature

For the Whipped Cream:
½ cup cold heavy cream
1½ tablespoons confectioners' sugar, sifted
¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
You can find the recipe for Chocolate Cream Tart in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or here. 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 Kim of Scrumptious Photography who chose the recipe for this week.

Tasting Notes
This pie was silky, velvety, rich and chocolatey with a crunch from the shortbread crust. I might try using a less bitter chocolate or Dorie's Chocolate Pudding as the filling next time, but this was a winning dessert.

Links to Other Chocolate Cream Tarts
• Eggs on Sunday: Strawberry Chocolate Cream Tartlets
• Serious Eats: Double Chocolate Tart

Recipe for Next Week (May 5)
Megan of My Baking Adventures has chosen Tiramisu Cake on pages 266-268.

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Cheesecake is a simple dessert to whip up. You just dump and stir all the ingredients. The trick is in the baking. Avoiding that dreaded crack or sinking hole in the middle is tough.

I flavored my cheesecake with orange and ginger. On a recent shopping trip, I found a store in Ottawa (Grace in the Kitchen) that carries spices from Montreal's Philippe de Vienne’s line of épices de cru (small-production "estate" spices). I was lingering over all the tins of spices displayed on their shelves, trying to find cinnamon. When I asked about the spices, the seller excitedly started telling me about Philippe de Vienne and his wife Ethné who travel the world searching for the best spices to bring back and package for the rest of us. He opened several sample tins for me to sniff. It was a veritable scent spa. From Mexican oregano to dried lavender, de Vienne carries many common spices and several rare ones. It was hard to choose. Since ginger is one of my favorite spices, I picked up a tin hand-picked from China and found cannelle de Ceylan as well.

On another trip to Grace in the Kitchen, I purchased de Vienne's Ras el Hanout, meaning "head of the shop" in Arabic, and refers to a mixture of the best spices a seller has to offer. You'll have to check back to see what I do with this exotic blend of spices.

I also couldn't resist a little box of 12 spices cleverly packaged in a pretty box labeled Cuisine 101 with the following welcome on it: I am definitely enchanted!

To see the different versions of cheesecakes cropping up all over the foodblogosphere, check out the Daring Bakers Blogroll.

Recipe

Makes 1 8- or 9-inch springform pan (I halved all the recipes, and it made 9 minis.)

• Graham Cracker Cookies from Happy in the Kitchen: The Craft of Cooking The Art of Eating by Michel Richard

• Orange Ginger Sauce adapted from Happy in the Kitchen: The Craft of Cooking The Art of Eating by Michel Richard

For the Graham Cracker Cookies:
1¼ cups graham crackers (about 10 whole store-bought grahams), finely ground or graham cracker crumbs
½ cup almond meal or almonds, finely ground
¼ cup hazelnut meal or hazelnuts, finely ground (I used chestnut flour)
3 tablespoons pistachios, finely ground
11 tablespoons (5½ ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 large egg

For the Cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 ounces each (total of 24 ounces) room temperature
1 cup (210 grams) sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup (8 ounces) heavy cream
1 tablespoon lemon juice (I used freshly squeeze oranges juice from ½ an orange and its zest)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (or the seeds of a vanilla bean)
1 tablespoon liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake (I added 1 tablespoon chopped stem ginger)

For the Orange Ginger Sauce:
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon fresh orange juice
2 pieces stem ginger, finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried ginger
To make the graham cracker cookies:
In a food processor, grind the graham crackers, almond meal, hazelnut meal and pistachios.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time until fully incorporated. Fold in the graham cracker mixture.

Form the dough into a log and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 1 hour until it is firm.

Preheat oven to 350°F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Cut the dough into slices about ¼-inch thick. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving about 1 inch between each cookie since they spread while baking. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until crisp and golden.

While they are still warm, use a cookie cutter to cut them to a specified size. Let cool.

To make the cheesecake:
Preheat oven to 350°F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

Pour batter into prepared crust (if you're using a traditional graham cracker crust) and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done. This can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Tip: Use a disposable foil pan that is 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

I used a mini cheesecake pan to make individual cheesecakes. I didn't use a water bath and baked them for 25 minutes. Then, I turned the oven off and let them cool for 45 minutes in the oven. No cracks, but I had some sinking problems.

To make the sauce:
Combine the sugar, lemon and 2 tablespoons water. Cook over medium heat until the sugar caramelizes and the mixture turns an amber color. Carefully pour in the orange juice. Add the stem ginger and ground ginger. Add more orange juice, if needed, to thin the sauce.

Tasting Notes
The strong, spicy ginger in the cheesecake and sauce was perfect with the homemade graham cracker cookies. The hint of orange in both the sauce and the cheesecake cut the sweetness of the cheesecake. And the individual small cheesecakes were a perfect portion for this rich, decadent dessert.

Link
• Interview with Philippe de Vienne

My Bucket List

Visit Philippe de Vienne's Montreal retail store Olives et Épices (7070 Henri-Julien, (514) 271-0001, Jean-Talon Market)

I love mussels and have enjoyed more than one all-you-can-eat mussel bar. They're easy to prepare and only need a good sauce to transcend them from bland to spectacular. This Mouclade with its simple herbal sauce thickened with crème fraîche does just that. But, you must use crème fraîche, the secret ingredient.

More common Mouclade recipes contain curry, and this idea is scribbled in the margin of my cookbook for next time. Mouclade is a specialty dish from the Poitou-Charentes and Bordeaux regions in France. The mussels are steamed in a bath of butter, onions, shallots, and wine. After straining the sauce and setting the mussels aside, the sauce is reduced a bit. Then crème fraîche is added along with a sprinkle of thyme. Just like that, you have a one-pot meal that you could easily serve at a fancy dinner party.

Recipe

Serves 6

3 pounds mussels
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large onion, chopped fine
1 large shallot, chopped fine
½ cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Freshly ground pepper
½ cup crème fraîche or heavy cream (I would use sour cream)
1 sprig fresh thyme or ¼ teaspoon dried
You can find the recipe for Mouclade (Mussels with Wine and Cream Sauce) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home. To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Serve with Muscadet.

Tasting Notes
Pull out the mussel with a fork or an empty mussel shell. Scoop up as much sauce as the mussel will hold. Taste. Repeat. Finish the remaining sauce in your bowl with a fresh slice of baguette. Lick your fingers. Help yourself to another bowl.

Next Class
• Huîtres Chaudes au Muscadet (Poached Oysters with Muscadet Sabayon Sauce) pages 383-384

Links
• Billy Bi (Mussel Soup)
• Video: Mussels Provencal (Steamed Mussels in a White Wine Sauce)
• Times Online: Mouclade
• Bitten: The Mussel Challenge

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $1,244.26 + $18.33 = $1,262.59
($3.05 per serving)

Butter used so far: 11 pounds, 14.5 tablespoons

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This chocolate bread pudding could be renamed "Susan Boyle" pudding in honor of her amazing talent. If you haven't seen the video yet, check it out and come on back. Last I looked, 34 million plus people had viewed it, and it still gives me shivers every time I watch it.

Like Susan Boyle, this pudding is an old-fashioned dessert that "transcends its homey origins." I love the custard-y, delicately flavored middle with a tinge of crustiness on the outside in each bite. Since my favorite bread pudding is plain old vanilla, I divided my recipe in half and added the chocolate to one pan and vanilla to the other.

The pudding is baked in a water bath to avoid the custard from curdling or drying out. Next time, I want to try making this pudding with a more interesting bread, like brioche.

Recipe

Makes 12 servings

12 ounces bread (brioche, challah, or white), preferably stale
½ cup moist, plump raisins (dark or golden) or dried cherries (optional)
3 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3 large eggs
4 large egg yolks
½ cup sugar
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
You can find the recipe for Four-Star Chocolate Bread Pudding in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or here. 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 Lauren of Upper East Side Chronicle who chose the recipe for this week.

Tasting Notes
With this recipe, I got two for one: a dessert for the chocolate lovers and one for those with a more subtle palate. And both were four-star.

Links to Other Chocolate Bread Puddings
• Cheflorious: Irish Chocolate Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce
• What's For Lunch, Honey? Roasted Pumpkin and Chocolate Bread Pudding

Recipe for Next Week (April 28)
Chocolate Cream Tart on pages 352 and 353 chosen by Kim of Scrumptious Photography.