tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41223926052047075902024-03-13T19:24:49.668-03:00The Youngest DragonThe youngest dragon liked to bake.Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-91925744678444117612013-07-14T17:45:00.000-03:002013-07-14T18:07:39.490-03:00Pie #4: Chocolate Mousse Tart with Caramel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I was a little bit unimpressed by pie #4 (again, made mini for J and I). Mostly that was my fault because I grabbed the wrong chocolate and used more of a milk when I would have preferred more of a dark. Despite this, the mousse was smooth and set perfectly and the caramel, made using the <a href="http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2008/01/how-to-make-the/">dry sugar method</a> (which I find a bit easier than the wet method), was delicious. The tart disappeared very quickly indeed, although you must consider the context of J and I being in the middle of a move and trying not to bring food into the house (this tart was <i>using things up, </i>I swear). At one point, I think this was the only thing immediately available for J to eat (Or maybe that was the <a href="http://youngestdragon.blogspot.ca/2013/07/pie-3-cream-cheese-and-strawberry.html">crostada </a>). Also, let's pause for a second and admire the handle of the knife that J and I got for Christmas from his Da and stepmum which, despite constant use, doesn't seem to have properly made it into photos yet.</div>
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The <a href="http://cookiedoughandovenmitt.com/chocolate-caramel-tart-daring-bakers-june/">recipe </a>calls for a pate sablee to be blind baked before filling it with caramel and then a mixture of cream, chocolate, milk and egg. Fairly straightforward process for such a lovely end product:</div>
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General deliciousness aside, I didn't like the pastry. I can't say that I dislike pate sablee, however, because when you look around there's really no consensus about what a pate sablee <i>IS</i>. <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Please excuse my lack of appropriate accents in this post.)</span> Everyone agrees that a pate brisee is the basic, unsweetened (mostly) dough that you make for a traditional fruit pie, although apparently here in North America we prefer it to be more flaky (less mixing) whereas in France they prefer it to be more crisp (more mixing). Pate sucree is sweetened, and pate sablee is <i>more</i> sweetened, but other than that there's not much standardization. Any of the three types may call for either cutting the butter into the flour first, or for creaming the butter with the sugar first--since there's no sugar in the pate brisee creaming for that one is less common, but not unheard of. Egg or egg yolks might be an optional ingredient for any of the three, along with various amounts of water (or vinegar). Pate sablee appears to more commonly use confectioner's sugar instead of castor sugar, but not overwhelmingly so, and it may even include almond flour. The particular version I made here called for me to cut the butter into the flour, then added a sugar-egg-water mixture. It was chilled and rolled out, or in my case just pressed into the tart shell (and I am willing to accept that that final step where I pressed instead of rolled could be what ruined it for me).</div>
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I don't love it when terms mean nothing, so here's what seems logical to me based on names (broken, sweetened, sandy): 1) Pate brisee calls for cutting the butter into the flour resulting in a "broken" dough, 2) Pate sucree is just a pate brisee with a bit more sugar, and 3) Pate sablee has a sandy texture like shortbread cookies, so should be made however you like your shortbread which in many cases (though not mine) involves creaming butter with confectioner's sugar. There you go, internet, defined! Call your doughs full of almond flour something else.</div>
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I actually think that a really good crust for this particular tart would be the one given by <a href="http://www.promenadesgourmandes.com/">Paule Caillat</a> to David Lebovitz who then shares it with everyone else <a href="http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2009/05/french-tart-dough-a-la-francaise/">here</a>. It uses none of the standard methods and really appeals to my increasingly slap-dash way of baking things. It basically goes like this:</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Paule Caillat's French Pastry Recipe</b></span></div>
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In an oven-safe bowl, toss together <i>6 tbsp butter, 3 tbsp water, 1 tbsp sugar and 2 pinches of salt</i> and stick them into the oven at 410F until the butter is bubbly and starting to go brown and nutty. Yum. Remove it from the oven and add about <i>one scooped cup of flour </i>and stir it briskly until it forms a ball. Dump it into your tart pan and flatten it a bit to help it cool down. Once it's cool enough, use your hands to press it into the pan. Prick it all over and bake it until golden brown, again at 410F, about 15 minutes.</div>
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David mentions that you can reserve a bit of the dough and squish it into any cracks when it comes out of the oven. This pastry shell is very cookie-like, totally delicious, and would really stand up well to being filled with caramel and chocolate.</div>
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px;">Rachael from </span><a href="http://pizzarossa.wordpress.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #aa0012; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px; text-decoration: none;">pizzarossa</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px;"> was our lovely June 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she had us whipping up delicious pies in our kitchens! Cream pies, fruit pies, chocolate pies, even crack pies!"</span>Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-59964442714981530652013-07-12T17:20:00.002-03:002013-07-12T17:20:13.894-03:00Pie #3: Cream Cheese and Strawberry Rhubarb Crostada<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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You know, I'm not entirely sure I put strawberries in this. Why do I think I'll remember these things without writing them down? I remember having trouble with my oven heat as there is a clear visual reminder of that. If I'd stayed with that oven, I suppose I would have had to start tin-foiling the edges of my pastry crusts, but now that we're moving I'll have a new oven with new quirks all of its own to learn. It does <i>look</i> like there are strawberries in there, doesn't it? And I seem to remember thinking that I would have preferred the tart had I left them out. But I have no memory of what stage I put them<i> in</i>.<a name='more'></a></div>
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During the packing J and I and a couple of empty boxes that we were collecting from my work got wet in a cloud burst that we unknowingly could have waited just ten minutes to avoid. When we got home and left our boxes-cum-umbrellas to dry, we were greeted with this rainbow that we took to be a good omen for our move. I'm sure everyone in the city took it to be a personal omen. If you squint at this photo, you might be able to see some <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI">double rainbow action</a>. Also, doesn't the campus look pretty? Summer comes pretty late here, but then it lingers into September and October in a way that I always think is great PR for the new students.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You may remember this view from my <a href="http://youngestdragon.blogspot.ca/2011/12/davids-chocolate-boubon-pecan-pie.html">one of my earliest posts</a>. </td></tr>
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I realized at about 24 that I liked rhubarb after a lifetime of arbitrarily avoiding it due to a vague memory of touching the plant and then licking bitter fingers. A roommate's girlfriend (who I would have liked more if she hadn't wanted us to bleach the shower curtain via hand-scrubbing on the porch <i>every week</i>) made a rhubarb crumble and it was awesome. So now every summer when I see rhubarb I want to make something with it. The crostada challenge seemed like a good chance.</div>
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J particularly commented that he liked the crust. I particularly thought that the whole thing would have been better if I'd done away with the pastry and multiplied the cheesecake layer by an entire cheesecake. But I have a cheesecake bias. Nonetheless, it was very good. As you will see below, my attempted lattice <strike>totally sucked</strike> was very rustic. The main problem, lattice-wise, was that I didn't have enough dough, likely because I'd eaten too many uncooked bits of dough ahead of time. I had to check that it was chilling properly, after all. You know if you're likely to have this problem. You've been warned. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Highly symmetrical.</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Pastry Frolla Recipe</span></b></div>
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from <a href="http://pizzarossa.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/life-of-pie/">pizzarosa</a></div>
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2/3 cup (150g) butter</div>
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1/3 cup (75g) sugar</div>
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1 egg</div>
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1 tsp vanilla</div>
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zest of one lemon</div>
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1 2/3 cups (225g) AP flour</div>
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pinch of salt</div>
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Cream the butter, sugar and salt well. Mix in the egg, vanilla and zest. Add flour and mix until the dough just comes together. Form into discs and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for an hour or so. Let it rest on your counter to warm up a bit and then roll it out and press it into a greased 9" tart pan. Prick the bottom all over with a fork or something, and then chill it for another 30 minutes before blind baking it at 350F for 15 minutes until set. I blind bake by covering my pastry in parchment paper and then filling it with dried beans which I re-use constantly for this purpose. After baking, remove your beans and allow it to cool completely.</div>
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Once it's cool, you can add fillings, roll out your lattice from what's left uneaten of your dough, and bake again at 400F for about 20 minutes until the lattice is golden.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Filling</b></span></div>
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The cream cheese filling was about 4 oz of cream cheese, 1/4 cup sugar, lemon zest, and an egg yolk. Just beat it all together.<br /><br />For the rhubarb, I chopped up about a pound of rhubarb and dumped it in a pot, mixed in about 1/4 cup of sugar, and heated it on medium-low for about 20 minutes until the rhubarb was broken down and thick. I think I then added chopped strawberries, but I don't really remember. Then I let it cool before layering it into my tart shell.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Baking is supposed to be a science? I don't do science like this. Or, thinking back on some particularly hacked together apparatus, perhaps I do. I think the trick is knowing when it matters.</span></div>
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px;">Rachael from </span><a href="http://pizzarossa.wordpress.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #aa0012; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px; text-decoration: none;">pizzarossa</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px;"> was our lovely June 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she had us whipping up delicious pies in our kitchens! Cream pies, fruit pies, chocolate pies, even crack pies!"</span></div>
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<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-75330500212712443952013-07-01T18:10:00.002-03:002013-07-01T18:14:48.166-03:00Pie #2: Double Crust Apple PieRose Levy Berenbaum's cream cheese crust<br />
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This pie doesn't have many photos because it was eaten up almost as soon as it could be cut. I think I took a few shots of the leftovers the next morning, but they didn't turn out. This is one of the best apple pies I think I've ever eaten. Or maybe my palate has just changed in a pie-positive way.</div>
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The crust is Rose Levy Beranbaum's cream cheese crust which I've been interested in for a while. I will definitely make it again as I loved the flavour. I didn't find it to be as much of a dream to roll out as others have mentioned, but I think that's mostly due to my small, sagging rolling pin and my general inability to roll crusts. This was my first double-crust pie, too. Wait, that's a lie. This was my first double crust fruit pie, but I've made a couple of double crust meat pies before so I don't really have a good excuse for its homeliness.<br />
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I don't think I used a particular recipe for the filling, although I did use Rose's method of boiling down the liquid that macerates out of the apples into a thick sauce and adding it back, to avoid a soggy crust bottom. Ingredients-wise, I think I just peeled and cut up some Granny Smith and Pink Lady apples and tossed them with a bit of sugar, a fair amount of cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg and some lemon juice (possibly a shake of cornstarch? Likely a pinch of salt) before letting them macerate for about an hour before straining out the liquid for the boil-down. Then I tossed the fruit and syrup into the pie crust, finished off the top crust, and baked it all for about 45 minutes at 425F. There are all sorts of fancy techniques for perfecting your pastry baking as well as just its making. Rose's <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Pastry-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/0684813483">Pie and Pastry Bible</a> is definitely on my wish list.<br />
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<a href="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5462/9044265067_feb944a82c_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Best Apple Pie Recipe" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5462/9044265067_feb944a82c_c.jpg" title="Best Apple Pie Recipe" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Pastry-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/0684813483">Rose Levy Beranbaum's</a><b style="font-size: x-large;"> </b><br />
<b style="font-size: x-large;">Cream Cheese Pie Crust Recipe</b><br />
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<i>You'll need:</i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">10 oz (284g) AP flour</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">6 oz (170g) Butter</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">4.5 oz (128g) cream cheese</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1 oz (28g) ice water</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">¼ tsp salt</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">.5 oz (14g) white vinegar</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">¼ tsp baking powder</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rose recommends a method where you dump the dry ingredients into a heavy duty ziplock bag with cubes of frozen butter and then use a rolling pin on the bag until the dough is at that nice crumbly stage, before adding the water and vinegar to the bag and kneading it into a disk. I was out of big ziplocks, so I just used my usual method:</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Put all of the dry ingredients into a bowl and whisk them until you think the baking powder is evenly dispersed. Toss the bowl in the freezer while you cube the butter (and, in this case the cheese). Add the butter into the bowl and let it all get really cold in the freezer for half an hour or so. If you have hot hands, run them under cold water and dry them off before taking the bowl out of the freezer, parking yourself in front of the TV, and cutting the butter into the flour with a sort of snapping motion to make little butter leaves. When the mixture reaches the <a href="http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/11/pie-crust-101/">right consistency</a>, add in the liquid and shape your two disks for over-night chilling. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Take the cold dough out of the fridge about 20 minutes before rolling it out.</span></span><br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px;">Rachael from </span><a href="http://pizzarossa.wordpress.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #aa0012; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px; text-decoration: none;">pizzarossa</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px;"> was our lovely June 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she had us whipping up delicious pies in our kitchens! Cream pies, fruit pies, chocolate pies, even crack pies!"</span><br />
<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-33582390169513802342013-07-01T13:13:00.000-03:002013-07-01T13:13:08.587-03:00Pie #1: Crack Pie<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8104/8562785253_06925b0795_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Mini Crack Pie" border="0" height="474" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8104/8562785253_06925b0795_b.jpg" title="Mini Crack Pie" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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I like pie. I like pie more now than I did when I was young. I like making pie crust in an endless quest for perfection similar to the one for the <a href="http://youngestdragon.blogspot.ca/2013/02/nodel-prize-winning-chocolate-chip.html">perfect chocolate chip cookies</a> or the <a href="http://youngestdragon.blogspot.ca/2012/03/baked-brownie.html">perfect brownies</a>. I actually baked all four of June's Daring Baking Challenge pies, but I haven't gotten around to posting them because J and I are in the midst of a cross-country move.</div>
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Here's the little box that we packed all of our stuff into:<br />
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<a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7423/9182321423_04049754b1_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7423/9182321423_04049754b1_c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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And here's an inside view:</div>
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<a href="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5465/9184535322_af824eacf5_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5465/9184535322_af824eacf5_c.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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J actually did a fantastic stacking job which is not apparent from this shot. Behind that front layer of stuff-shoved-in-last is a tightly <a href="http://www.womens9.com/files/0/0/0/2/00029100.jpg">tetrised </a>cube of furniture and boxes. It's packed well enough that I am expecting all of the fragile stuff to come out intact; cross your fingers for us. So far, the Halifax U-Haul customer service people have been a bit of a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJP31ZiUgeM">clustercuss</a>. However, the box was dropped off on time and the driver was wonderful. She gave us her own number and told us that she'd come back for a same-day pick up if we got everything packed in time so that the box wouldn't have to sit over the weekend, which we did. So +1 driver, -20 phone service. We'll see if it ends up in our new city when and where it should. The two of us packed and moved our entire apartment ourselves, and a few days later we're both still pretty worn out despite quite a lovely, relaxing vacation.<br />
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Back to pie! Those of you who follow internet food trends will recognize the crack pie as one of the food blog obsessions of a few years back. I've been meaning to make it for a long time, but just like clothing trends it takes me a long time to jump on the bandwagon<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (I just bought my first pair of skinny jeans, mostly because the bootcuts that I like from the same line were discontinued)</span>. J and I both liked the crack pie, but I was actually a bit underwhelmed. Perhaps because there was a lot of built up hype for what tasted to me, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_tart">as a Canadian</a>, like a particularly good raisin-free <a href="http://www.canadianliving.com/food/cooking_school/canadas_best_butter_tarts.php">butter tart</a>. For all those South of the border who haven't eaten a lot of butter tarts, I totally get the excitement.<br />
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8107/8562785079_ccb7b70d6d_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="474" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8107/8562785079_ccb7b70d6d_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I quartered the crack pie recipe in order to make one 6" pie for J and I rather than two 10" pies. This was a good idea because quite apart from the pie's basic yumminess, it's very more-ish. I really do think that those are separate qualities. I can't be the only one who has said something like, "These <a href="http://mobile.presidentschoice.ca/LCLOnline/products.jsp?type=details&catIds=cat40002&catIds=120&tags=lclot80003&tags=lclot65013&productId=19696&">peanut butter pretzels</a> really aren't very good" while stuffing three more into my mouth. I'd eat this pie again. And again and again and again if it were in front of me because it has everything that makes my brain happy (Mmmm, <a href="http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.ca/search/label/Food%20reward%20Fridays">reward theory</a>). But flavour-wise I don't think I'd request it on my birthday.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Crack Pie Recipe</span></b><br />
My rough quartering of the recipe from <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Momofuku-Milk-Bar-Christina-Tosi/dp/0307720497">Momofuku Milk Bar</a><br />
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<i>Step one, make the cookie for the crust (I only halved this because it's hard to quarter an egg yolk--we ate a lot of the extra and threw away some burnt bits):</i><br /><br />
56 g butter (1/4 cup)<br />
34 g brown sugar (1/6 cup)<br />
22 g white sugar (1 1/2 tbsp)<br />
half an egg yolk (weigh and split, or about 1/2 tbsp)<br />
32 g AP flour (1/4 cup)<br />
45 g rolled oats (1/2 cup)<br />
pinch of baking powder<br />
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Beat the first three ingredients together until fluffy. Beat in the egg. Mix in the last three ingredients until just incorporated. Spread the dough out on a parchment-lined cookie sheet to about 1/4 inch thickness and bake at 350F until golden, about 15 minutes. Cool completely.<br />
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8112/8563890238_c6e6bef95f_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8112/8563890238_c6e6bef95f_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>Step two, make the filling (quartered from original).</i><br />
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86 g sugar (1/4 cup + 2 tbsp)<br />
38 g brown sugar (3 tbsp)<br />
1/4 tsp salt<br />
1 tbsp AP flour (corn powder in the recipe, but I was too lazy to find/make some)<br />
1 tbsp milk powder (? I used non-instant skim milk powder)<br />
56 g butter, melted (1/4 cup, half stick)<br />
45 g heavy cream (3 tbsp)<br />
1/4 tsp vanilla<br />
2 egg yolks<br />
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Mix the dry ingredients first, then add the butter, then add the cream, vanilla and the eggs. Done!<br />
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8379/8562785859_137be31d16_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8379/8562785859_137be31d16_b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>Step three, make the crust out of your cookie and bake your pie.</i><br />
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~half of your cookie, processed by food processor to sandy consistency<br />
1 tbsp butter, melted<br />
1/2 tbsp brown sugar<br />
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Mix together, press into 6" pie/tart pan. Pour in your filling and place the whole thing on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350F until jiggly just in the centre. The original recipe calls for 15 minutes at 350F and a further 5 minutes at 325F, and so I started checking my pie after ten minutes. In practice, it took a LOT longer, hence my first recommendation.<br />
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Cool completely. Dust with icing sugar.<br />
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Consume in its entirety.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I always picked the raisins out of my utter tarts anyway.</td></tr>
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px;">Rachael from </span><a href="http://pizzarossa.wordpress.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #aa0012; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px; text-decoration: none;">pizzarossa</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px;"> was our lovely June 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she had us whipping up delicious pies in our kitchens! Cream pies, fruit pies, chocolate pies, even crack pies! There’s nothing like pie!"</span><br />
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Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-52076631301276776512013-06-14T21:59:00.001-03:002013-06-14T22:05:08.083-03:00When J Cooks (Braised Lamb Shanks)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7363/9044264075_061db3db97_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="594" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7363/9044264075_061db3db97_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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HOLY DELICIOUS!</div>
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So, back in January I declared that I wanted to grow an Avocado plant out of J's avocado seed. I want to grow a lot of things, but I'm generally bad at doing so. I do okay with Spider Plants, because they seem to enjoy drying out and then being drowned, which is the natural result of my neglectful gardening habits. I'm less good with herbs and I keep bringing them home and killing them using the same methods over and over again as if I expect things to go differently this time despite identical planticidal methods. Case and point, the other day J said to me, "You know, next time you want to use the chives perhaps you should clip a few longer bits from the side, rather than just giving the entire plant a buzz cut. That probably stresses them out."<br />
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Nonetheless, J was on board for growing an avocado and, as per internet directions, we stuck some wooden skewers into the sides of the avocado pit and tripodded it over a bowl full of water. Here's where my black thumb served us well: It didn't sprout. It didn't sprout through January, nor through February. Eventually, we figured that it was probably dead or upside-down, but I suggested we leave it anyway, primarily because I was way too lazy to throw it away and wash the bowl. Late into March it sprouted, and it has been growing strong ever since. Not on my account, but because J loves it more than me. I don't mean J loves it more than I love it. He loves it more than he loves me.<br />
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Okay, probably not really. I'm the first thing he talks to in the morning. But avocado plant is definitely the second. He takes much better care of it than I would, and pays attention to when it seems to be happy and sad and so <i>learns</i> things about it. That being said, it turns out that it might like to dry out between waterings, so it may have done okay with me after all. In any case, look how cute it is sitting in the old coffee tin from New Orleans. And yes, that is one giant leaf, not just a perspective illusion.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Along with my leggy sage, the Christmas plant D&V sent two <br />
years ago (still alive!), our blackout candles, and a stick I liked.</td></tr>
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Okay, plant segue is over. More importantly, look at this fracking delicious lamb that J cooked us. He's always been excellent at certain things (he cooks a mean eggy breakfast), but he hasn't been as adventurous in cooking as I have until recently. Perhaps in part because I was over-zealous when he first moved out here and so I spent a lot of time making him beef wellingtons and ridiculous desserts, basically trying to convince him that uprooting his life and moving across the country for a stab at love was a swell idea. But the other day we were out at the grocery store and these shanks were on sale and J said, "Yum, can we get those??" to which I replied, "I've never cooked lamb shanks. I don't know how and I'm too lazy this week. If we get them, it's all on you." Emboldened by his recent pork tenderloin mastery, he gamely stepped up to the plate with this <a href="http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/lamb-recipes/incredible-baked-lamb-shanks">Jaime Oliver recipe</a>. </div>
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<a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7410/9044264431_e93acdef40_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Wine and Garlic Braised Lamb Shanks" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7410/9044264431_e93acdef40_b.jpg" title="Wine and Garlic Braised Lamb Shanks" width="640" /></a></div>
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The shanks were fantastic. Basically, I'm never going to cook again. It's all on him now. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nom nom nom nom nom stick of meat.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5503/9046487880_59346357f4_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Wine and Garlic Braised Lamb Shanks" border="0" height="300" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5503/9046487880_59346357f4_b.jpg" title="Wine and Garlic Braised Lamb Shanks" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rightfully pleased</td></tr>
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<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-50416252401840444942013-06-14T21:26:00.000-03:002013-06-14T21:26:06.077-03:00Meatballs!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3682/9046486806_650790975a_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Meaty meatballs" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3682/9046486806_650790975a_b.jpg" title="Meatballs, paleo friendly" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On top of <strike>spagehhhhhhtiiiii </strike>cauliiiiiiiflower. . .</td></tr>
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I didn't really go out of a limb with this month's meatball challenge. Many <a href="http://thedaringkitchen.com/">Daring Cooks</a> put in so much more effort than me. (<a href="http://audaxartifex.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/daring-cooks-challenge-june-2013.html">Holy crap Audex, I want to eat all of these! Where can I get kangaroo in Canada?</a>) I just winged it (or "wung" it, as my French-Canadian prof might say) with a vague idea of recreating the meatballs that my mum used to make us when we were kids. The went over pretty well, and J exclaimed, "when you said 'meatballs' I didn't expect THIS!"</div>
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Mum used to hide spinach our meatballs when we were little, since just presenting us with cooked spinach sent me into hyperventilating screaming fits that forced her to drag me to my room. I love cooked spinach now, so that trauma must have been worth it. So these meatballs are stuffed with some baby spinach that I wilted quickly, squeezed dry and chopped into pieces. They are also full of parsley because I was reading about the health benefits of eating foods that more closely similar to what foods used to be before we gengineered them all to be ten times sweeter. It ended up giving them a lovely earthy flavour, and so in the future I will <i>always</i> dump in four times as much parsley as I think is reasonable. Green onions are also in that category, so they when into the meatballs too, although honestly I was out of regular onions. I avoided adding any grains and just bound the pound of beef and pound of pork with two eggs. If you wanted to add something to help keep them a bit more tender (especially if you're using lean meat--since I was using grass-fed organic beef here I used medium), I might recommend some rolled oats soaked in milk. So there you go, that's how to make these meatballs. In addition to salt and pepper, I likely added some fennel seed and some thyme, because those are my favourites, though I bet mum would have added oregano and basil.<br /><br />The "correct" way to form meatballs is apparently to hold a handful of meat mix and then squish the balls between your forefinger and thumb. I don't know why this is the correct way, but my mum showed me once years and year ago, and it certainly does help to keep things uniform. I can't remember how I cooked these. I think on a foiled tray in the oven for 20 minutes at 350F.</div>
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We were out of rice pasta and I didn't want to eat wheat pasta, so I put them on cauliflower. I'm not even sure J noticed. I certainly didn't feel pasta-deprived.</div>
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Usually I make tomato sauce the delicious lazy way, which is to simmer my tomatoes with half an onion and a ridiculous amount to butter until it thickens and mellows out. However, since I was already trying to recreate things my mum taught me when I was young AND I magically happened to have all the right veg in my fridge (I even found half a yellow onion at that point), I properly chopped up some celery, onion and carrots and softened them in olive oil. At that point I realized that we had <i>no tomatoes</i> and I stomped around angrily for a bit (alarmingly enough for J to offer to run to the grocery store to get some) before I decided to just make use of a can of Huntz tomato sauce that was in the back of our cupboard. I would have preferred just tomatoes, but the canned sauce worked fine.</div>
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How's that for off the top of my head? Maybe I CAN cook without a recipe!</div>
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<a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7294/9044262793_3e33e51f9b_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Healthy meatballs" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7294/9044262793_3e33e51f9b_b.jpg" title="Best Meatballs" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-38204508470811528422013-05-28T15:41:00.001-03:002013-05-28T15:51:27.690-03:00Prinsesstarta with Piere Hermé's Chocolate Pastry Cream<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8543/8865795993_e53a501c6c_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Prinsesstarta with chocolate pastry cream" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8543/8865795993_e53a501c6c_c.jpg" title="Prinsesstarta with chocolate pastry cream" width="640" /></a></div>
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Of course I forgot to post on time for May's <a href="http://thedaringkitchen.com/">Daring Baker's Challenge</a>. As ever. I actually made this near the beginning of the month. We were challenged to make a prinsesstarta, which is normally layers of sponge cake, jam, pastry cream, and whipped cream underneath a covering of <a href="https://www.google.ca/search?q=prinsesstarta&sa=X&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=N-2kUZSKLbfe4APt54DABg&ved=0CDwQsAQ&biw=1575&bih=919">bright green marzipan</a>. This is nearly that, except that I wanted to bring it to a party that we were having for two <strike>students</strike> doctors (yay!) in our lab who just successfully defended their PhDs. So, rather than a traditional prinsesstarta, it needed to be a mouse-shaped-prinsesstarta. Because that was relevant.</div>
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And so here it is! It's an agouti albino mouse, based on its colouring (1Rn).</div>
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<a href="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5339/8866406974_25543be46a_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Mouse cake" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5339/8866406974_25543be46a_c.jpg" title="Mouse cake" width="640" /></a></div>
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Forgive me, it was my first time working with marzipan.</div>
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As you've seen before, <a href="http://youngestdragon.blogspot.ca/2012/08/pate-choux-swans.html">I don't like pastry cream</a>. So the obvious solution was to make chocolate pastry cream. Chocolate solves everything. I bought the jam at the market and the marzipan at <a href="http://www.petes.ca/">Pete's</a>, so this was a pretty low-effort cake. I think 98% of the effort was spent on the ears, which were eventually made by J because I suck at making marzipan ears.</div>
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Putting the cake layers together was quite straight-forward: Cake, jam, chocolate, cake, jam, chocolate, whipped cream, cake, whipped cream. I was going to forgo the raspberry jam for dulce de leche, but after a few tastings J and I decided that the raspberry-chocolate pairing was quite nice, so I stuck with it. I think that the pinky-red jam made the cake look extra pretty. I was nervous about the whipping cream falling but I shouldn't have been because it held up nicely right through the next day. Marzipan, I discovered, cracks pretty easily. In the future, I won't roll it out quite as thinly as I did here.</div>
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<a href="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5459/8865799815_20a1dc537c_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="chocolate pastry cream" border="0" height="300" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5459/8865799815_20a1dc537c_c.jpg" title="chocolate pastry cream" width="400" /></a></div>
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When it came to the eating, well. . . I've also said in the past that I don't really like cakey-cake, and sponge cake really is the epitome of cake. I prefer ice cream cake and cheesecake and flourless cake--things that are soft and creamy or dense and rich. However, this cake seemed to go over very well at the party and J was <i>very</i> enthusiastic about it. I liked the bits that weren't cake, so mostly I'd dissect my pieces and eat everything else. I would make it again, though, because I'd like another try at making a dome-i-er cake. I wasn't as rounded as I would have liked. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3774/8865797477_e4c1a4c7c3_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Mouse cake" border="0" height="300" src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3774/8865797477_e4c1a4c7c3_c.jpg" title="Mouse cake" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mouse watches the opening of the champagne.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8539/8866405818_363df3209f_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Mouse cake" border="0" height="300" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8539/8866405818_363df3209f_c.jpg" title="Mouse cake" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mouse suffers this first injustice.</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Piere Herm<span style="background-color: white; color: #323232; font-family: inherit;">é</span>'s Chocolate Pastry Cream Recipe</span></b></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">from <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Chocolate-Desserts-Pierre-Herme-Greenspan/dp/0316357413">Chocolate Desserts by Piere Herm<span style="background-color: white; color: #323232;">é</span></a></span></i></div>
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<i>You'll need:</i></div>
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2 cups (500mL) whole milk</div>
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4 large yolks</div>
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6 tbsp (75g) sugar</div>
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3 tbsp cornstarch</div>
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7 oz (200g) dark chocolate, melted</div>
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2 1/2 tbsp (40g) butter</div>
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I melt my chocolate in the microwave on very low power, but if you don't want to chance your chocolate seizing, do it over a double boiler and then set it aside. Prepare an ice-water bath for your pastry cream. I didn't have any ice, but a bowl full of very cold water worked out well.</div>
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Bring the milk to just boiling in a saucepan. Meanwhile, whisk together the yolks, sugar, and cornstarch. When the milk is hot, whisk it little by little into your yolk mixture (very slowly at first, so as not to curdle the eggs) and then pour the resulting milky-eggy-sugary mixture back into the sauce pan and return to medium heat. If you're concerned about egg bits, pour it through a strainer when you transfer the mixture back to the saucepan. Keep whisking until the mixture comes to a boil (whisk, whisk, whisk*) and continue whisking at the boil for 1-2 minutes until the mixture thickens. Remove from heat and stir in the chocolate. Scrape the mixture into a bowl and pop the bowl into the ice water bath while trying to avoid getting any water INTO the bowl. At some point when the pastry cream is less hot but still hot enough to melt the butter, stir in the butter. Once the mixture is completely cool (or at least cool enough that you don't think it's cooking anymore), you can pop it into the fridge.</div>
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Place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pastry cream when you cover it in order to avoid seeing a skin form.</div>
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* Apropos to this post, "whisking" is also a verb that describes the way animals feel things with their whiskers. For example, my old cats use to whisk my ears in the middle of the night. It was irritating.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8555/8866402946_5269b2ee1a_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Prinsesstarta with chocolate pastry cream" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8555/8866402946_5269b2ee1a_c.jpg" title="Prinsesstarta with chocolate pastry cream" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Om nom nom nom nom. So pretty.</td></tr>
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<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-76383922743669124032013-04-15T19:11:00.000-03:002014-05-01T11:38:23.890-03:00Chicken Ballotine Stuffed with Sausage, Sweet Potato, Pecans, Apples<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8111/8653595060_6c3ffbd1da_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="chicken stuffed sausage sweet potato" border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8111/8653595060_6c3ffbd1da_c.jpg" height="480" title="Chicken Ballotine" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Warning: May be triggering for vegetarians.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So, if </span>you've<span style="font-family: inherit;"> ever wanted to make a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turducken" style="font-family: inherit;">turducken</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">,
one of the things you have to contend with is </span>de-boning<span style="font-family: inherit;"> all of the birds. </span>I've<span style="font-family: inherit;"> never actually wanted to make a turducken, because the idea of stuffing whole
animals with whole other animals </span>doesn't<span style="font-family: inherit;"> exactly appeal to me. Remember that
scene in The Temple of Doom where everyone is eating dinner in the
creepy-palace and a server cuts open a boa constrictor and out crawl many smaller
snakes? </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDBybXy1vY4" style="font-family: inherit;">Ugh</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Also, remember all
those stories you heard in Latin class about Roman feasts that involved live
birds literally flying out of pies when they were cut open? Unsanitary. I never
thought that I’d </span>de-bone<span style="font-family: inherit;"> a chicken.</span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;">This month, I </span>de-boned<span style="font-family: inherit;"> a chicken. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was awesome because it’s
one of those things that seems really difficult until you do it and realize
that it’s not that difficult at all. The whole </span>de-boning<span style="font-family: inherit;"> process took me about
35 minutes and that included a lot of hand-washing-for-photo-taking and
multiple pauses and play backs of </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAekQ5fzfGM" style="font-family: inherit;">Jacques Pepin’s video tutorial</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">.
Subtract those extras and it probably only took me about 15 minutes for my very
first time </span>de-boning<span style="font-family: inherit;"> a chicken. Jacques says that with some practice, it should
really only take you one minute. One minute to </span>de-bone<span style="font-family: inherit;"> a chicken! If someone
knocks on your door, you should be able to say, “Just a minute while I </span>de-bone<span style="font-family: inherit;"> this chicken,” and still get to them in a timely manner. I wonder if that
happens at Jacques Pepin's house. Jacques also reminds you in the video that
once </span>you've<span style="font-family: inherit;"> learned this technique you can use it to </span>de-bone<span style="font-family: inherit;"> any animal. Am I
the only person who found that statement creepy? <i>Any animal.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Watch me </span>de-bone<span style="font-family: inherit;">!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8248/8652493207_0e6a159e5c_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8248/8652493207_0e6a159e5c_c.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wings first, wiggle your knife to find the joints.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8263/8653594086_9024fd5228_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8263/8653594086_9024fd5228_c.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I managed to make one of the wings into one of those little meat lollies.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8246/8652492831_491786b589_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8246/8652492831_491786b589_c.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Remove the wishbone, scrape don't cut.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8387/8652492651_83257cd13c_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8387/8652492651_83257cd13c_c.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cut down the belly, cut through the joints, peal the meat from the bones, <br />
slide your thumb under the fillets.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8114/8653593496_829d393a1d_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8114/8653593496_829d393a1d_c.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scrape along the leg bones, cut around the joints, crack the tips.</td></tr>
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I'm<span style="font-family: inherit;"> a crazy chicken surgeon. My friend said surgeon. Undertaker, really.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">After I had my boneless chicken suit (aka, terrifying Halloween costume for a small dog), I stuffed it with a delicious made-up stuffing that appealed to the grain-free section of my brain (often beaten into submission by the cookie section of my brain). I will call this stuffing: Sausage, sweet potato, mushroom, pecan and apple stuffing. There, now you don’t need a recipe. Just cook all of that stuff with some onions, garlic and herbs, and stuff it in your chicken.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8263/8653593384_d7c2540923_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8263/8653593384_d7c2540923_c.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stuff, flip.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8260/8653593246_e2cfe983f6_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8260/8653593246_e2cfe983f6_c.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Half hitch, half hitch, half hitch.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8532/8653593066_d04d546934_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8532/8653593066_d04d546934_c.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bake 350F for an hour or so, to 160F internally.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8119/8652491703_494214dd5a_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8119/8652491703_494214dd5a_c.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Slice beautiful slices!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was pretty good and very fancy looking. And it made me
feel very accomplished the way cooking does so especially when </span>I'm<span style="font-family: inherit;"> avoiding work
that I <i>actually </i>have to do. I’d do it all again, for company. Or if J made a
special request, since he seemed to really enjoy it. I saw some other Daring
Cooks use a rice stuffing, which I’d totally do. </span>I'm<span style="font-family: inherit;"> particularly taken with the
idea of a rice and kimchi stuffing due to a dish that I had at Gio. Mmmm.</span></div>
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8534/8652493839_182ea1d439_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="chicken galantine stuffed with sausage and sweet potato" border="0" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8534/8652493839_182ea1d439_c.jpg" height="480" title="Chicken galantine" width="640" /></a></div>
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“<span style="background: white; color: #442200; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For the April Daring Cooks Challenge, Lisa from</span><a href="http://parsleysagesweet.com/"><span style="background: white; color: #aa0012; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> Parsley, Sage and Sweet</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #442200; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (http://parsleysagesweet.com/)has challenged us to
debone a whole chicken, </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAekQ5fzfGM"><span style="background: white; color: #aa0012; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">using this video by Jacques Pepin as
our guide</span></a><span style="background: white; color: #442200; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">; then stuff it, tie it and roast it, to create
a Chicken Ballotine.</span><span style="font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-14476575725064133232013-03-27T16:26:00.002-03:002013-03-27T16:26:54.108-03:00Chocolate Chickpea Cake, Potato Cookies<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chickpeas make it sutiable for breakfast, right?</td></tr>
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For March's challenge of hiding vegetables in desserts, I made this chocolate chickpea cake. I've previously made the internet sensation black bean cake, and while it was pretty good and was eaten quickly I WAS able to taste a vague hint of beany flavour which seemed to fade as days went by. In my brain, the flavour of chickpea was a better match for chocolate than the flavour of black bean, and I have a general love of chickpeas besides (with vinegar, mostly). In the end, I thought that this cake had zero bean flavour from the get-go so even if the flavour of chickpea was hanging around, I couldn't detect it. I think that the cake looks a bit dry in these photos, but it wasn't really dry. It had an interesting rich denseness, and I found it more filling than regular cake.</div>
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Characteristically, I forgot to mark down from whence I got the recipe, or what changes I made. I do recall, however, that my aims when looking for a recipe were 1) no flour and 2) uses exactly the volume of chickpeas that I had, aka one 19 oz can. I looked at a lot of recipes, but I'm fairly certain that I used the one from <a href="http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/01/chocolate-garbanzo-bean-cake-recipe.html">serious eats</a>.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Chocolate Chickpea Cake Recipe</span></b></div>
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The nice thing about making a cake with beans instead of flour is that all those worries you have about making your cake tough by over-mixing and causing excess gluten formation are moot. I think. I can't see how excess mixing would affect any of the other ingredients, but let me know if you think I'm wrong. Therefore, if you have a food processor, you should be able to literally just dump all of the ingredients together and blend the heck out of them. Except for the melted chocolate, which I'd recommend adding carefully at the end when it has cooled to a temperature that you don't think will cook the eggs. If you have an immersion blender like I do, you'll probably want to blend up the chickpeas first and then add everything else.</div>
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So.</div>
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Preheat the oven to 350F. Get a loaf pan ready however you like, maybe by lining it with parchment or greasing it and dusting it with cocoa.</div>
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Melt 5 oz of dark/bittersweet chocolate either very carefully with the microwave (darker chocolate will seize more easily), or in a double boiler. (I make my double boiled by sticking a big glass bowl over a small pot of simmering water.)</div>
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Blend together:</div>
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1 19-oz can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed</div>
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4 eggs</div>
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1 tsp vanilla</div>
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1/2 cup sugar</div>
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1/2 tsp baking powder*</div>
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1/2 tsp salt</div>
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Once everything is smooth, and you've cooled your melted chocolate a bit, blend in the chocolate too and then pour the batter into your loaf pan.</div>
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Bake for about an hour, until a skewer, knife or whathaveyou comes out clean. Allow it to cool a bit before popping it out of the pan.</div>
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*I'm not actually clear on why there is baking powder in this. Is it really going to leaven the bean? Really? I can't imagine this cake being MORE dense even if you remove the baking powder. It is already as dense as chickpeas (I like this, don't get me wrong). You could try taking the baking powder out and get back to me. Alternatively, you could try separating the eggs, beating the egg whites to just-stiff peaks and then folding them in at the end. Maybe that would lighten the cake up a bit, and provide some extra bubbles for the baking powder to act upon.</div>
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Here's another challenge for you: Find a way to replace the flour in baked goods with potato.</div>
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After making the chickpea cake, I thought about my friends who not only don't eat gluten, but ALSO don't eat legumes. Really, <a href="http://whole9life.com/2012/09/the-legume-manifesto/">it's a thing</a>. So I thought about how I could replace flour with something else. Potato. Potato cookies.</div>
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It wasn't good.</div>
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They look decent though, don't they? The flavour was actually really nice. The texture was. . . exceptionable. They were fine just out of the oven, but with cooling they took on the consistency of cold potato, which has an unpleasant sliminess to it when you are expecting a cookie. I thought that I could probably fix them by reducing the potato a bit, but at that point why use potato at all? You can make perfectly good nut butter cookies without any flour OR potato. So, potato cookie failure. Or, semi-failure. I still ate a bunch of them.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px;">Ruth from </span><a href="http://makey-cakey.blogspot.co.uk/" style="background-color: white; color: #aa0012; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px; text-decoration: none;">Makey-Cakey</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14.953125px;"> was our March 2013 Daring Bakers’ challenge host. She encouraged us all to get experimental in the kitchen and sneak some hidden veggies into our baking, with surprising and delicious results!"</span><br />
Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-3850082793309533392013-03-16T22:05:00.000-03:002013-03-23T13:01:39.144-03:00Easiest Homemade Goat Milk Cheese<div style="text-align: center;">
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Late cheese post! I've been slow on this cheese challenge generally. It took me a while to pick up the rennet, and then I was just busy. But the mozzarella the feta, the hallumi, the cream cheese--they are all on their way. There is weird fresh goat cottage cheese is in the fridge right now (from which I learned that Little Miss Muffet's meal was kinda gross). However, before I even chatted with the cheese man, I did make this rennet-free goat cheese. It's not really <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px;">chèvre because it doesn't have the right culture added. It's mild but it's lovely and it's easy as all get out*. To make and eat, anyway. Not for me to photograph<i style="font-style: normal;"> </i></span><span style="line-height: 15.989583969116211px;">appealingly</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;"><i>. </i></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Candy thermometer broke, meat thermometer it is!</td></tr>
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Basically, just pour a litre of goat milk into a pot and heat it gently to 185F, stirring frequently to keep a skin from forming. Add 1/4 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice and let it sit for ten or fifteen minutes. Pour your curdy mixture into a cheesecloth- (tea towel-) lined sieve and let it drain for 2 hours or so, until it's the consistency you desire. Mix in about a teaspoon of sea salt, and some herbs if you desire. Make it into a log or whatever shape you like, wrap it in plastic, and refrigerate it. It's firm up a bit in the fridge.<br />
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Done!</div>
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*I couldn't find the etymology for this. Anyone?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cheese!</td></tr>
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.947916984558105px;">Sawsan from chef in disguise was our March 2013 Daring Cooks hostess! Sawsan challenges us to make our own homemade cheeses! She gave us a variety of choices to make, all of them easily accomplished and delicious!"</span></div>
Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-56033638633174840492013-02-27T21:40:00.002-04:002013-03-01T09:41:56.041-04:00Crackity Crackers! Rosemary, Pecan and Cranberry Raintree Crisps<br />
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I'm not much of a cracker type these days. When the mixed box comes out, I tend to want to spread my creamy cheeses on the digestive biscuits which, lets face it, are more cookie than cracker. However, I always circle around for two or three of these raintree crisps when they are out for free samples down at the grocer's. I think I like them because they are mostly nut and dried fruit held together by a negligible amount of cracker.</div>
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February's <a href="http://thedaringkitchen.com/">Daring Challenge</a> to make crispy crackers offered us the raintree crisp recipe from <a href="http://dinnerwithjulie.com/2009/01/27/rosemary-raisin-pecan-crisps/">Dinner with Julie</a>. I immediately crossed out raisins and pencilled in cranberries because there's just something about raisins that makes me sad. Sad for the raisins. Or, for the grapes, really. I don't know why I don't have a similarly irrational pity of cranberries. Other than that, I stuck to the recipe (okay, sans pepitas and flax). It was pleasantly easy and made me wonder how many other loaves of things I could just turn into crackers. Could I make this <a href="http://youngestdragon.blogspot.ca/2012/02/thomas-kellers-pink-grapefruit-cake.html">grapefruit cake</a> into some sort of crispy cookie, for example? </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">1337 slicing skillz</td></tr>
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Two things: 1) The recipe suggested that I slice the loaves as thinly as I could, but that was apparently too thin to weather the suggested baking time and oven temperature, as I had some burning issues. If you're very good at slicing thinly (and have the benefit of a fancy new Henckels knife that your boyfriend's father and stepmum sent <strike>the both of</strike> you for Christmas which I keep somehow failing to sneak into my photos), you might want to bake a practice batch and adjust the time/temperature. 2) Don't go easy on the fresh rosemary. I probably could have happily doubled it.</div>
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<b style="font-size: x-large;">Rosemary Pecan Cranberry (Fig?) Crisp Recipe</b></div>
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<i>For 2 loaves, which turns into about 8 dozen crackers, you'll need:</i></div>
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2 c AP flour</div>
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2 tsp baking soda</div>
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1/2 tsp salt</div>
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2 c. buttermilk</div>
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1/4 c brown sugar</div>
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1/4 c honey</div>
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2 1/2 c delicious stuff (cried cranberries, pecans, sesame seeds, I think I probably some dried figs)</div>
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1++ Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary</div>
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Preheat the oven to 350F and grease and/or line two loaf pans.</div>
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Whisk dry ingredients together well, then dump everything else in and mix until just blended. Pour your mix into the loaf pans and bake for about 35 minutes until your loaves spring back when you poke them. Allow to cool completely (or shove them in the freezer impatiently).</div>
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Reheat the oven to 300F, or reduce it if you actually left it ON while your loaves cooled.</div>
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Slice the cold loaves thinly (about 1/4 inch if you're measuring), and spread the slices out on some cookie sheets. Bake for about 15 minutes, flip, bake ten more minutes until crisp and golden.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Devour. Remove crumbs from inside of T-shirt.</td></tr>
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.947916984558105px;">Sarah from All Our Fingers in the Pie was our February 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to use our creativity in making our own Crisp Flatbreads and Crackers!</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.947916984558105px;"> "</span></div>
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<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-46407968704639696772013-02-02T20:29:00.000-04:002013-02-02T20:29:40.428-04:00Nobel Prize Winning Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dear Battlestar Galactica, I am watching s02e10 of you right now and you're AWESOME!</td></tr>
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<a href="http://youngestdragon.blogspot.ca/2012/11/so-many-christmas-cookies.html">A while back</a> I suggested that I would share some of what I consider to be 10 out of 10 cookies. Given a choice between this and every other chocolate chip cookie recipe I have ever made or tried, I would pick this one every time, and I've made and eaten a LOT of chocolate chip cookies. I'm open to the <i>idea</i> of better ones, I just haven't found them yet.</div>
<a name='more'></a>Essentially, this is just a combination of the ultimate chocolate chip cookies put forward by Jacques Torres for <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/dining/09chip.html?ref=dining">The New York Times</a> and by <a href="http://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipes/login.asp?docid=19364">Cook's Illustrated</a>. Like Torres' cookies, it uses a mix of bread flour for chewiness and cake flour for delicacy. It calls for a long resting time (36 hours, if possible) which allows the flour to absorb as much liquid as possible and results in a browner cookie with a richer flavour. It is kicked up with a sprinkle of sea salt before baking. From the Cook's Illustrated cookie it steals the nuttiness of browned butter and the moisture of the extra egg yolk. And <i>pecans</i>, the queen of nuts (unless you're a non-taster like my Da, in which case pecans are sort of a bitter cardboard flavour).<br />
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They're worth the trouble. They're not even that MUCH trouble, but for the will power required to leave them in the fridge for a day and a half without eating all of the batter. The batter is also excellent. But while I often prefer cookie batter to cookies, in this case I like it baked. They are excellent as they come out of the oven, and they stay excellent for. . . well, they've never lasted that long, honestly.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>THE Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe</b></span></div>
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<i>For 8 BIG cookies, or 16 normal sized ones you'll need:</i></div>
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1 c less 1 tbsp (4 1/4 oz) bread flour</div>
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1 1/4 c (4 1/2 oz) cake flour</div>
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1/2 tsp baking soda</div>
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10 + 4 tbsp (1 3/4 stick) butter*</div>
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1/2 c (3 1/2 oz) sugar</div>
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3/4 c (5 1/4 oz) dark brown sugar</div>
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1 tsp table salt</div>
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1 egg</div>
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1 egg yolk</div>
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2 tsp vanilla</div>
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1 1/2 chocolate chips*</div>
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1 cup toasted pecans</div>
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*The quality of your butter and chocolate chips will make quite a difference in your cookie. Aim for a quality dark chocolate, but not too dark. 60-70%. </div>
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Whisk together your flours and baking soda for a good 30 seconds so that your baking soda is fully dispersed.</div>
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In a small saucepan, melt 10 tbsp of butter. Heat on medium-high until the butter starts to smell nutty and turns an amber colour. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining 4 tbsp of butter. (I actually have no idea why the butter is divided, but so far I've trusted the Cook's Illustrated recipe on that. Maybe it cools things down a bit. I also brown my butter in the microwave, but it's probably a poor idea since things get VERY hot and then I have to wait until it's cool enough that I don't think it will cook the eggs.) Whisk in sugars and salt and, so long as the butter isn't TOO hot, the egg, the yolk and the vanilla. Whisk for 30 seconds until smooth, let it sit for three minutes, whisk it vigorously for 30 seconds, sit, whisk, sit, whisk. That's three sits and four spirited whiskings (see photo for vigor). </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">About to whisk in vanilla</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Note the vigor expressed by the fuzziness.</td></tr>
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At this point, your sugars should be all melted into the butter and you should have a deliciously smooth mixture. Now mix in your floury ingredients until just barely together, and then add your chocolate chips and pecans. You don't want to over-mix your cookies and make them tough.</div>
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Penultimately, the hardest step: Cover or wrap your dough in plastic and leave it in the fridge for 36 hours. Don't eat all of it. Try to forget it's there.</div>
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Great! Now pre-heat the oven to either 375 or 350 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on whether you're making 8 or sixteen. If you're making 8, giant, golf ball sized cookies, you'll want to bake them lower for 16-20 minutes. If you're making 16 small (but still substantial) cookies, you can bake them at 375 for 10-14 minutes. I generally make the smaller ones, although there is something a bit magical about the big ones. </div>
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Divide your dough into balls and organize them on some parchment-lined cookie trays. Press them down a bit with your palm or a cup bottom or whatever--they may not spread very much.</div>
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Sprinkle their tops with sea salt. Bake until golden but still soft, rotating halfway through. Let them cool on a wire rack until they are still warm but not falling apart. A good 10 minutes at least.</div>
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Eat them with 400 mL of milk as measured by a graduated cylinder.</div>
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Why don't I have some balls of dough in the freezer right now? They freeze well.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(unfortunately, the frozen dough is also tasty)</td></tr>
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I WANT it!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I lied about the cookies winning a Nobel Prize. They can't even hold much of a conversation. </td></tr>
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<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-65455616253317576922013-02-02T19:02:00.003-04:002013-02-02T19:02:44.412-04:00Christmas 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I figured I'd share some of my Christmas 2012 goodies before it got too ridiculously late. </div>
<a name='more'></a>Christmas has always involved a lot of food prep, but these days the family is getting larger. That being said, I don't think the food is having any trouble outpacing the total size of our combined stomachs. My mum has a thing for appetizers and I wonder whether I should suggest that next year we do nothing but that. It's hard to get to dinner without already being half-full, because her appetizers are so appetizing. My own contribution to the appetizers was to squeeze the cheese stick dough into prickly rows with the cookie press. I made the filling and crust for the <span style="font-family: inherit;">tourti<em style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;">è</em>re</span>, which I was particularly pleased with. I rolled out the pastry of the fish pie, which I couldn't eat because of my incipient fish allergy. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good shots of them after baking. I also made the dessert and was disappointed by it--I made the frozen lemon torte with almond dacquoise and balsamic raspberry reduction because I was trying to mix things up from our traditional frozen lemon torte while staying within the genre, but I won't be making it again. Or, if I do, I'll increase the proportions of raspberries by something astronomical.<br />
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The cheese crust recipe is lovely and has passed through a few hands, so I've added it in below. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Presents are like catnip.</td></tr>
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Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-75876025770121835432013-01-26T22:01:00.001-04:002013-01-26T22:01:39.852-04:00Gevulde Speculaas, Coconut Style<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I was pleased with January's <a href="http://thedaringkitchen.com/">Challenge </a>of Gevulde Speculaas. I'm always looking for something to add to my list of cookie recipes that is as delicious as my go-to chocolate chip or lemon bar recipes, but is also has a unique look and flavour. When I make (or, really, <a href="http://youngestdragon.blogspot.ca/2012/11/so-many-christmas-cookies.html">imagine making</a>) piles of Christmas cookies, I like the cookies to be distinct. This is definitely now on the list.</div>
<a name='more'></a> I think this recipe is actually commonly described as a "spice cake", but to me it really had more of a cookie feel. The top and bottom are basically a spiced shortbread, and the centre is traditionally an <strike>almond</strike> poison paste, but I replaced it with coconut. I'd like to try the traditional version, but I found that the (delicious) spices quite overpowered the coconut flavour, so it was probably a similar experience to the much milder almond filling.<br />
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I liked the look of it in the fluted tart pan and sliced into wedges, but it is commonly made in an 8 x 10 pan and sliced into squares. It was easy to make and eaten up very quickly. With a bit of fancy ice cream (vanilla, buttermilk, caramel?) a pretty little slice would make a nice dessert for guests.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Gevulde Speculaas Recipe</b></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">from <a href="http://marcellinaincucina.blogspot.ca/">Marcellina</a>, loosely</span></i></div>
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<i>Spice:</i></div>
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For the speculaas spice, throw together some of the following ground spices to your taste: cloves, ginger, nutmeg, mace, cardamom, corriander, anise, white pepper. Then, however much of the mix you end up with, add an equal amount of cinnamon so that cinnamon makes up about half of the total spice. This recipe uses 2 tbsp of speculaas spice, so you could throw together 1 tbsp of cinnamon and pinches of everything else until it equals 2 tbsps. Besides the cinnamon, I used cloves, mace, nutmeg, allspice, ginger and cardamom.</div>
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<i>For the paste:</i></div>
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After searching about a bit, I ended up just swapping the almond for coconut by weight.</div>
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<li>1 3/4 c (125 g) raw almonds (blanched, or <a href="http://about.specialfork.com/blog/2012/2/3/how-to-blanch-almonds-for-super-snacks.html">remove the skins</a>)</li>
<li>1/4 c + 1 tbsp (125 g) caster sugar</li>
<li>1 egg</li>
<li>1 tsp lemon zest (for the coconut version, I replaced this with 1/2 tsp vanilla)</li>
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Grind the almonds with the sugar in a food processor until very fine. Process in the egg and zest. Whoo! Stick it in the fridge. Done! That was easy (unless you skinned the nuts yourself). Imagine how much effort would have gone into this back when food processors didn't exist. Maybe enough to work off all the cookies you're about to eat. . .</div>
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<i>For the dough:</i></div>
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<li>1 3/4 c (250 g) AP flour</li>
<li>1 tsp baking powder</li>
<li>3/4 c (150g) brown sugar</li>
<li>pinch of salt</li>
<li>2 tbsp speculaas spice</li>
<li>3/4 c (175 g) butter</li>
<li>a little milk to dampen the dough</li>
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As with short bread, beat the dry ingredients together well and then cut in the butter. Add a splash or two of milk to dampen the dough so that it comes together, then wrap it in plastic wrap and let is chill in the fridge for an hour or overnight or whatever. You could probably omit the milk if you wanted. The original recipe calls for you to roll out the dough, but I had zero success with that and just ended up pressing it into the pan with my fingers. If you want to roll it, definitely add some milk because it's a crumbly dough. And, as I've said in the past,<a href="http://youngestdragon.blogspot.ca/2011/11/baby-shower-cookies.html"> it will roll out better if you leave it overnight</a>. </div>
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8464/8365229693_f26548ab6e_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="speculaas spice cake recipe" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8464/8365229693_f26548ab6e_c.jpg" title="speculaas spice cake recipe" width="640" /></a></div>
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.947916984558105px;">Francijn of Koken in de Brouwerij was our January 2013 Daring Bakers’ Hostess and she challenged us to make the traditional Dutch pastry, Gevulde Speculaas from scratch! That includes making our own spice mix, almond.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.947916984558105px;">"</span></div>
<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-74348342420078356722013-01-14T22:12:00.001-04:002013-02-02T15:25:15.264-04:00Panettone with Citrus, Fig, Apricot and Walnuts<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8212/8365231139_40d0af92b8_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Panettone recipe" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8212/8365231139_40d0af92b8_c.jpg" title="Panettone with Citrus, Fig, Apricot and Walnut" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Italians make better fruit cake than <a href="http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/than-I-versus-than-me.aspx">we Brits</a>.</td></tr>
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Panettone was the December <a href="http://thedaringkitchen.com/">Daring Bakers</a> Challenge and I was very pleased about it because not only had I never heard of it, but it was the perfect combination of "time consuming" and "bread making" that makes me feel like I've completed something really fancy and challenging, even though it wasn't terribly difficult. On top of that, it was lovely and delicious.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>If you look up panettone on the internet, as I promptly did in curiosity about whether it was a cakey-bread or a bready-cake (it's the former), you'll find a ridiculous origin story about some guy named Antonio who was commissioned to make a special bread.<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span>You can breathe a sigh of relief. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the etymology as: pane + et + on. Aka, bread + diminuitive suffix + noun suffix. No Antonios. Wait, does that make you sad? It makes me happy.<br />
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Aww, sweet little bread thing.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8220/8366302518_b0a0e74269_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Panettone Recipe" border="0" height="640" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8220/8366302518_b0a0e74269_c.jpg" title="Panettone with Citrus, Fig, Apricot and Walnut" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Pane de Tony!" Get it? Hardeehar har. In some cases, I think he used the magical <br />bread to win the hand of the King's daughter.</span></span></td></tr>
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In any case, Panettone turns out to be delicious. At least, <i>mine</i> was delicious. I've never eaten an official panettone, and so I really have no way of knowing whether what I made tasted like *real* panettone. It reminded me a little bit of brioche, which makes sense because it's a buttery egg bread. I was a bit nervous about the fruit because I'm not a big fan of fruit cake, but in the end I could have doubled the fruit and nuts because I constantly found myself wishing for more. Don't fear the fruit! The smell was also pretty incredible and, somehow, very Christmas-y despite no cinnamon, cloves, or tinsel. I suppose the strong smell of orange triggered some atavistic stocking-stuffer cue. Yes, ancient. Did people even have fire in the 1830s?</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Good for breakfast, lunch and dinner!</td></tr>
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I definitely ate a lot of panettone for two days. I also made some into French toast, which was super-decadent. I've never made Frech toast before, so I just soaked some of the panettone in egg and cream and milk and then fried it in butter before eating it with proper Quebecois maple syrup sent by J's parents. Good god, who eats French toast for breakfast?! It's cloying. If eaten ever, if should surely be a dessert. Then again, my favourite post-birthday breakfast is mocha cheesecake (it's just like having a morning coffee, afterall. . .)</div>
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Despite my fancybread gorge, two loaves were way too much for J and I, so I wrapped the second loaf up and walked it over to my old supervisor's house (old as in previous, though I suppose maybe also as in aged, depending on your age-of-view). He's got <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasqualino_Lolordo">real Italian Mafia lineage</a>, so I thought he'd know what panettone is supposed to taste like, but he claimed never to have eaten it before either. Nevertheless, he and his wife made me ginger tea and we chatted for a while and I had a lovely time even if after I left they might have been all, "what are we going to do with this bloody fruit cake?"</div>
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Okay, okay, cut to the recipe already.</div>
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8219/8366303258_db86d5f081_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #666666;"><img alt="candied citrus" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8219/8366303258_db86d5f081_c.jpg" title="Candied citrus for panettone" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;">Panettone </span>(two loaves)</span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #666666;">courtesy of <a href="http://marcellinaincucina.blogspot.ca/">Marcellina</a></span></i></div>
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<strong><em><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">Ingredients</span></em></strong></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;">Note that all times are approximate and vary with the weather.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><strong>Sponge (35 minutes)</strong><br />2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast<br />1/3 c (80 ml) warm water<br />1/2 c(70 g) AP flour</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>First Dough (20 minutes + 1 hr rise)</strong></span>2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />3 Tbsps (45 ml) warm water<br />2 eggs<br />1 1/4 c (175 g) AP flour<br />1/4 c(55 g) sugar<br />1/2 cup (115 g) butter</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><strong>Second Dough (20 mins + 2-4 hrs or cool overnight)</strong><br />2 eggs<br />3 egg yolks<br />2/3 cup (150 g) sugar<br />3 Tbsp honey<br />1 Tbsp vanilla extract<br />1 tsp lemon essence/extract<br />1 tsp orange essence/extract<br />1 tsp salt<br />1 c (225 g) butter<br />3 c (420 g) AP flour; plus some for kneading</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>Filling and Final Dough (~1 hr)</strong><br />2 1/2 c (250 g) delicious things: walnuts, candied orange*, chopped dried fig and apricot</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Grated zest of 1 orange</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />Grated zest of 1 lemon<br />2 to 3 Tbsp (15-25 g) AP flour</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;">Sponge: In a medium bowl, mix the water and yeast, and let it sit until frothy (~10 mins). Mix in the flour. Cover the bowl and allow the sponge to double (~20 mins).</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;">First Dough: Again, mix the water and yeast and allow to stand until frothy. Mix in the sponge and beat well. Mix in the eggs, flour and sugar by hand or with your mixer's paddle. Add butter and mix until smooth, about 6 minutes by hand or half that by mixer. Cover bowl and allow the dough to double (~1 1/4 hr).</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;">Second Dough: Into your first dough, mix eggs, yolks, sugar, honey, extracts, and salt. Mix in butter until smooth. Slowly incorporate the flour and then knead until the dough kind of holds its shape. Form your dough into a ball and slide it into an oiled bowl. Cover the bowl and allow the dough to <i>triple </i>(2-4 hours in a warm spot, or overnight in a cool spot, or 2 hours warm and overnight in the fridge and then allow it to wake up again for an hour or so in the morning).</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;">Filling and Final Dough: If you are using raisins, soak them and drain them about 30 minutes before the end of the first rise. Combine all of your fillings, and mix well. Now, if you have fancy panettone papers, great. If you don't, you can fashion them out of parchment paper and staples or, if you have two handy 6" cake pans like I did, you can make a parchment paper collar for the pans.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;">Cut your dough in half, press each half into an oval shape, cover each in 1/4 of the filling and then roll them up into a log, press them out again, cover them in the rest of the filling, and roll them up again. Shape each loaf into a ball and slip them into your make-shift panettone forms. Cut an X in the top of the ball and allow your two panettones to rise until doubled (2-4 hrs depending on how warm the dough is). When you think the rise is nearly done, pre-heat your oven to 400F. Stick a knob of butter in the X of each loaf, and bake them for 10 minutes before reducing the oven to 350F for another 10 minutes. Finally, reduce the oven to 325F and bake for another 30 minutes until a skewer stuck into the centre of each loaf comes out clean.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;">There are fancy ways to cool your panettone without it falling, but lying it on its side in the crevice of two rolled up towels and rotating it from time to time worked well for me. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;">*I bought candied orange at our local fancy grocer's, but in retrospect I wish I'd candied my own. The difference is really significant. Traditional panettone also has <strike>an almond</strike> a poison glaze, which I skipped. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8052/8365230781_329e03847f_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Panettone French Toast" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8052/8365230781_329e03847f_c.jpg" title="Panettone French Toast" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Honestly, I didn't notice much difference between Quebecois and Novascotian maple syrup. Don't tell J I said that. Perhaps I'll need to do a side by side taste test. Perhaps it's not in the flavour, it's in the sound. Quebecois syrup is <em style="background-color: white; font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">délicieux and syrup from around here is [insert maritime accent joke].</span></em></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8351/8365230525_0c9a0725b0_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Christmas Panettone" border="0" height="400" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8351/8365230525_0c9a0725b0_c.jpg" title="Panettone with Citrus, Fig, Apricot and Walnut" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's still a green Christmas out that window.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.947916984558105px;">"The December 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by the talented Marcellina of Marcellina in Cucina. Marcellina challenged us to create our own custom Panettone, a traditional Italian holiday bread!"</span>Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-81679454752741950272013-01-09T22:05:00.002-04:002013-01-09T22:05:31.316-04:00Shepherd's Pie, Cattle Rancher's Pie<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8469/8366303558_9a58de1f8c_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Sweet Potato Lamb Shepherd's Pie" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8469/8366303558_9a58de1f8c_c.jpg" title="Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Comforting Christmas shepherd's pie. <span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-align: left;">Technically the challenge was Pate Chinois, <br />but a rose by any other name </span><span style="text-align: left;">still smells as delicious and all that.</span></span></td></tr>
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Way back in December, I made a couple of shepherd's pies for the Daring Cooks Challenge. Proper shepherd's pie, I think, should be made with lamb because shepherds didn't watch cows, they watched sheep. The beef version should be called something else like. . . Cattle Rancher's Pie. God, that's a mouthful. </div>
<a name='more'></a>I might also be willing to accept that shepherds just really LOVED their sheep, and therefore refused to eat them, only making their pies out of beef. In any case, shepherds apparently didn't know much about fruit. Or flour.<br />
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I've often dreamed of being a shepherd. Whenever I've wanted to escape academia.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fancy fucking wavy lines!</td></tr>
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In any case, most of us think of shepherd's pie as ground beef covered in mashed potatoes, but it's no trouble to swap out the beef for lamb, or the potato for yam. I ate shepherd's pie a lot at summer camp, but I seldom make it at home, which is a shame because it's cheap and healthy and delicious. I could probably eat shepherd's pie a lot of days of the week. </div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(I've been telling everyone this, and I'll tell you too because it will blow your mind. Potatoes are healthier than sweet potatoes. The sweet potato has been praised as some sort of nutrient god and the poor potato has been maligned all over the media, but for no good reason. How do I know this? Because some kid (<a href="http://bavatuesdays.com/files/2011/05/clash_kraken-1.gif">for those in the know</a>) told me so on a podcast. He did some data analysis on a couple thousand entries in the USDA database and after correcting for fibre and water content, potatoes came out with a better nutrient profile. You can choose to believe me of not, but I'm gonna eat more potatoes. Wrapped in bacon.)</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I used to have to buy casserole dishes that were toaster-oven sized only.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Easy Shepherd's Pie Recipe</b></span></div>
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I can't remember the exact "recipe" I used for these, but that doesn't matter. I know the jist of it, and that's all you need for shepherd's pie. It's one of those recipes where you should feel free to eyeball quantities and experiment liberally.</div>
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A bunch of potatoes (1 lb?)</div>
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Some ground meat (1 lb?)</div>
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A medium onion</div>
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a few garlic cloves</div>
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Maybe a couple handfuls of mushrooms</div>
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herbs (thyme, sage, marjoram, whatever you like [for lamb, I tend towards cloves and nutmeg, too])</div>
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Worchestershire sauce, beef stock, red wine, or some other sort of delicious liquid</div>
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salt and pepper to taste</div>
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peas</div>
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some random amount of butter, cream, sour cream, cream cheese, milk (aka mashed potato mix-ins of your choice, or whichever ones are in the fridge)</div>
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Cheese or bread crumbs if you've got them</div>
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Some sort of dish that will fit all of the stuff</div>
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Preheat the oven to something good. Maybe 375F.</div>
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Start out by peeling and boiling your (sweet) potatoes in salty water, and dicing up some onion and garlic. In another pan big enough to hold the meat, sweat your dice (fry it on medium-low) until translucent in a little fat. I also diced up some mushrooms and tossed them in to shrink into the onions. Toss in the ground beef (lamb) along with spices, salt and pepper, and stir it slash let it brown. Add some sort of savoury liquid and let it simmer a bit, toss in your peas and then take it off of the heat. Some people like corn or carrots or whatever, but I just like peas.</div>
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Hopefully your potatoes are done now and you can mash them however you normally like to mash potatoes. I add butter and cream and lots of pepper, and salt to taste. I like to add something with a bit of tang if I've got it, like sour cream, cream cheese or buttermilk.</div>
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Pour the meat into your dish and layer the mash on top. Sprinkle it with bread crumbs or Parmesan if you've got it (gluten free!) and stick it in the oven to heat through and get all golden on top. Yum!</div>
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Vague = easy, right? Let's not call is vague. Let's call it freedom!</div>
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Hopefully I'll follow this post up with a pile of other posts, not because I made a New Year's Resolution or anything, but because I didn't post at all in December. December was busy with mice and applications and visits home.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Le Creuset mini pots have just gained a grill pan cousin!</td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: left;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.94444465637207px; text-align: left;">Our Daring Cooks’ December 2012 Hostess is Andy of Today’s the Day and Today’s the Day I Cook! Andy is sharing with us a traditional French Canadian classic the Paté Chinois, also known as Shepherd’s pie for many of us, and if one dish says comfort food.. this one is it!"</span></div>
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<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-72409385900119160052012-11-27T21:00:00.001-04:002012-11-28T18:19:48.985-04:00So Many Christmas Cookies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's time for a Christmas cookie photo extravaganza!</div>
<a name='more'></a>I didn't make it to 12 whole days of Christmas cookies for November's <a href="http://thedaringkitchen.com/">Daring Baker's</a> challenge, but I did manage six different types, which seems like an awful lot of cookies to bake in one month. I did a lot of half- and third-batches. Some cookies went to work. Many cookies were eaten by J and myself. I very much like the idea of baking dozens and dozens of cookies at Christmas and giving them out to everyone I know, but it never works out. Not because I don't do the cookie-baking, but because I suck at that the bit that involves wrapping them in pretty individual packages. I'm sorry <a href="http://www.marthastewart.com/269204/packaging-and-shipping-cookies">Martha</a>, I'm sorry. <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Who seriously has time for that stuff? Really. When I win the lottery and quit my job </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[and all my time-consuming, lazy hobbies] </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">you can all expect beautifully wrapped cookies in the mail.)</span><br />
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<b>The cookie rundown, counter-clockwise from 1 o'clock:</b> Dark Chocolate Orange Sables, David Lebovitz's Croquants, Chocolate Coconut cookies, Jam Thumbprint cookie, Chocolate Hazlenut Crackles, Peanut Butter Thumprint cookie. And Brown Butter Shortbread in the middle. </div>
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Which ones do I expect to make again? Uhh. . . Maybe none? Lots of these cookies are very good, but I'm not sure that there are any 10s, and there are so many cookies in the world that I try to only re-make cookie recipes that I think are a 10. </div>
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Well, no, maybe I'd re-make some. </div>
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The double chocolate sables, which I turned into chocolate orange sables by the expedient method of grating in some orange zest, were probably my favourites. The consistency was lovely, the flavour was dark and deep and definitely amenable to the addition of many flavours (Black pepper? Cardamom? Peppermint extract?) What I found time consuming and irritating was grating the chocolate. I'm sure there's a better method than by hand with my wood rasp, and when I find it I think I would be likely to make these cookies again. They look a bit like burger patties though, don't you think? Burgers made out of Play Dough? Dried Play Dough? Dried Play Dough made of chocolate?</div>
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Though, burgers are also my kind of burger.</td></tr>
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The shortbread was like consuming a sweet, sandy cloud. I'm used to a denser sort of shortbread (quite well-acquainted with it, actually), but these were fun because I made them with my cookie press. Aren't they adorable? I need some sort of occasion that calls for hundreds of tiny, adorable cookies like this.</div>
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The chocolate hazelnut crackles were excellent and the people who tasted many of the cookies tended to declare these their favourite. If you're a particular fan of hazelnut then I definitely recommend them to you. You know what cookies are also delicious, though? A good batch of regular old chocolate crackles (aka. Crack Cookies, for obvious reasons of appearance and moreishness. I recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Ready-Dessert-My-Best-Recipes/dp/1607743655/">David Lebovitz's recipe</a>.) They're easier, equally delicious, and I think slightly prettier. </div>
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The chocolate coconut cookies just weren't my thing. I found them a bit too sweet. I know, they're cookies. Cookies are supposed to be sweet. Also, the Croquants (no individual photo for them) didn't really work the way I imagined them to. I MAY try them again just because they were so bloody simple and because David can do no wrong and therefore the problem must lie with me. Maybe I didn't add enough flour to the egg white and sugar. They were also very sweet, though that is probably to be expected from a cookie that is nearly a meringue. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It suddenly strikes me that my sweater is on backwards.</td></tr>
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The Peanut Butter and Jam Thumbprint cookies were actually something that I threw together after making the Croquants, because I had left-over yolks. I have some vague memory of making thumbprint cookies with my mum when I was a very small child, and I tried to recreate them sort of randomly. They were surprisingly good, however. The consistency of the cookies was perfect, but I wouldn't make the PB ones again--the jam ones were so much better.</div>
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So many cookies! Should I post recipes? Yes, probably. At least for the ones I thought were best. Maybe I'll get to it. For now, I'll give you quick instructions for the Thumbprint cookies in case you have any yolks to use up.</div>
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And what are my 10 out of 10 cookie choices, you ask? I think you'll have to wait.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Exactly-Like-I-Don't-Quite-Remember-Making-with-My-Mum Thumbprint Cookie Recipe</b></span></div>
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Into a mixer or food processor (or just a good old bowl, for the wicked strong of arm), dump:</div>
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100 g AP flour</div>
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2 egg yolks</div>
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1/2 tsp vanilla</div>
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75 g butter</div>
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Blend/mix it until it all comes together into a dough. Chill it for as much time as you have (I chilled it overnight), and then roll it into balls which you will then sort of flatten before putting them on a cookie tray (lined with parchment paper) and squishing your thumb into the middle. Don't worry too much about the thumbprint, because you'll do it again when they come out of the oven. Bake them at 350 for about 14 minutes, until they are set and golden. Immediately upon removing them from the oven, make a dent in the oven with some hand kitchen implement. I used the base of my lemon reamer <span style="font-size: x-small;">(say it again!)</span>, but I'm sure a regular old spoon would work well enough. Allow the cookies to cool and then warm up a bit of jam in the microwave (just a few seconds until soft) and drop the jam into the thumbprint.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seven swans a swimming, six. . . what is it. . . geese a laying? Six cookies cooking? <br />
(FIVE MOOOORE POUNDS! da dum dum dum)</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.94444465637207px; text-align: start;">"Holiday season is the time for sharing and Peta of </span><a href="http://petaeats.blogspot.com.au/" style="background-color: white; color: #aa0012; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.94444465637207px; text-align: start; text-decoration: initial;">Peta Eats </a><span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.94444465637207px; text-align: start;">is sharing a dozen cookies, some classics and some of her own, from all over the world with us."</span></div>
<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-54615244642717951782012-11-14T23:25:00.002-04:002012-11-14T23:25:43.800-04:00Brining Chicken<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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Am I late? I'm not late. If I get this up within the hour, I'm not late.</div>
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I actually enjoyed November's Daring Cook's challenge so much that I did it thrice. None of my pictures are very good, which is always the case with things that aren't desserts. Nevertheless, the brined chicken was delicious all three times. The whole process requires very little actual effort: 1) Dissolve salt (plus whatever) in water 2) Dump chicken in salty water and store in the fridge for some hours 3) Dry chicken out overnight 4) Roast chicken. Lots of overall TIME, but very little work.</div>
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My first brined chicken is this one just below. I got a better browning on the skin of my second chicken, but I devoured all of <i>that </i>skin minutes after the chicken was done resting before I remembered that I should have snapped a photo. For both chickens, I used a brine of 1/4 cup table salt per litre of water (took about three litres to cover) plus a few tablespoons of brown sugar. I let the chicks brine for five hours and then left them uncovered in the fridge to dry overnight. At some point the next day I let them come to room temperature, then roasted them at 450F for 15 mins, then at 350F for another 12-15 mins per lb, as per Audax's recipe. I let them rest on top of the oven for about 15 minutes before eating them. Worked wonderfully.</div>
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For the first chicken, I added a bunch of things to flavour the brine that you can see in the photo below: lemon, rosemary, garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves, a bit of the Vouvray I had on hand. For the second chicken, I got lazy and only added pepper corns, though I think I might have stuffed a lemon and a garlic clove or two into its cavity before roasting. The second chicken was just as good, if not a bit better (due to the butter I rubbed onto the skin to encourage browning, in all likelihood).</div>
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I dumped a dinner plate in on top of the chickens to keep them submerged in the brine.</div>
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As you can see, when it comes to dinner my preference is generally just to pair a pile of meat with a pile of fresh veg. These beans and the sprouts that I had with the chicken thighs both came from our beautiful local market.</div>
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I also brined a package of thighs one evening for a few hours and then dried them thoroughly with paper towels. This was a HUGE HASSLE compared to letting them air dry overnight in the fridge, and I don't want to do it again. After the thighs were dry I seared the skin crispy in a pan and then dumped some stuff on top and tossed the whole pan into the oven. Because of the liquid I added, it was probably more of a braise than a roasting (as the challenge called for), but the stuff I tossed on made for<i> incredibly good</i> chicken thighs and I will definitely use that combination of ingredients again. So here's the recipe for that:</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Delicious Chicken Thigh Stuff Recipe</span></b></div>
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On a cutting board, pile together a few sprigs of fresh rosemary (from the plant you are barely managing not to kill), 2 garlic cloves, a tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes. Chop it all together with a chef's knife until it's a sort of fragrant mash. Scrape it into a bowl and add the juice of one lemon, a bit of olive oil, and a blob (~tsp) of anchovy paste. Whisk it all together and, after searing your salt and peppered thighs until the skin is all brown and lovely, dump the delicious stuff over top and shove the pan in a pre-heated 450F oven for 25 minutes.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I think the secret to making your kids love Brussel sprouts, <span style="font-size: xx-small;">other than avoiding overcooking</span>, is to slather them with butter.</td></tr>
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.94444465637207px;">Audax of Audax Artifax was our November 2012 Daring Cooks’ host. Audax has brought us into the world of brining and roasting, where we brined meat and vegetables and roasted them afterwards for a delicious meal!"</span></div>
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<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-4482297983073099112012-10-30T20:36:00.000-03:002012-10-30T20:36:13.319-03:00Chocolate Mille Feuille<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not quite Mille Feuille. Cent Feuille?</td></tr>
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I totally failed October's Daring Bakers' Challenge, which was Mille Feuille.</div>
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I am also really failing at the blogging side of things. The way Daring Bakers works is that you are given a challenge and then, come the 27th of the month, you reveal your attempt. The reveal was why I made this blog in the first place. It turns out that I get really excited for the challenge, check every 20 minutes on the 1st of the month until the challenge goes up, attempt it that weekend (or even that day), and then fail to blog about it four weeks later. By then, I've sort of forgotten the details. And then I procrastinate. And then I feel bad about being late on the reveal. So here I am posting on the 30th.</div>
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I did, however, enjoy the mille feuille challenge. Having rocked the puff pastry for the <a href="http://youngestdragon.blogspot.ca/2012/02/easy-croissants.html">home made croissants</a>, I was totally confident in my ability to make it for the mille feuille. Rather than going with the recipe provided, I decided to go chocolate (surprise, surprise) and I found a beautiful recipe for chocolate puff pastry at <a href="http://www.cannellevanille.com/">Cannelle and Vanille</a>. It makes lovely, puffy, many-layered puff pastry and it's definitely not the recipe's fault that I screwed it up. But I did.</div>
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Doesn't that top photo look delicious, though? It doesn't look screwed up at all. But while you might think that those dark layers are delicious chocolate, they are actually un-delicious squished doughy pastry.</div>
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I don't know if I rolled the pastry too thickly, didn't cook it for long enough, whether it was some effect of my odd attempt to squish the layers flat that made it come out like that, or maybe I just didn't wait for it to cool enough before putting the mille feuille together. We ate around the squished bits. The rest was delicious.</div>
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One thing I did learn, however, was that even if you think you've got the world's ugliest mille feuille, don't immediately despair. Look at this hideous monstrosity:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">But look at that flake potential in the corner!</td></tr>
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And yet after tossing it in the freezer, trimming it, and decorating the top with ganache and what I'd like to pretend is caramel but is actually peanut butter, it was fairly visually appealing.</div>
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And just to emphasize what a lovely puff pastry this was despite my screwing it up, I made the leftovers into palmiers as suggested by the original recipe. They were puffy and delicious and didn't last at all long before they were stuffing J and my bellies. (And then again the next day before J even got home because I didn't want to share.)</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Delicious chocolate palmier</td></tr>
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For the chocolate puff pastry recipe, pop on over to <a href="http://www.cannellevanille.com/mousse/chocolate-mille-feuille/">Cannelle and Vanille</a> because I didn't really change anything. The only thing I'd suggest is being fairly heavy-handed with the sugar for the palmiers, because this puff pastry itself isn't sweet. The chocolate mousse I made to fill my mille feuille was the most ridiculously easy "faux" mousse and I feel a bit silly sharing the recipe. It's barely a recipe at all:</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Way Too Easy Chocolate "Mousse" Recipe:</b></span></div>
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Melt 5 oz of dark chocolate, add flavourings if you'd like (I added 2 tsps rum and 1/2 tsp espresso powder). Let the chocolate cool a bit while you whip up about a cup of cream. Gently fold the chocolate into the cream. If you're piping, do so immediately. Otherwise, chill well before eating.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Look at those beautiful flaky layers!</td></tr>
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.94444465637207px;">Our October 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Suz of Serenely Full. Suz challenged us to not only tackle buttery and flaky puff pastry, but then take it step further and create a sinfully delicious Mille Feuille dessert with it!"</span></div>
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<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-19024421529551688902012-09-14T20:26:00.000-03:002012-09-15T22:19:50.453-03:00Paella, no seafood<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I can't say I loved this paella, though I could see the paella potential. The first problem was that my doctor forbade me from eating any more experimental seafood until I've seen an allergist. Since I live in the land of snail-slow health care, that will be never.<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> (I miss the days of medical nepotism in which my pa made a call and I immediately saw whichever specialist was best. I didn't even know what I had!)</span> So I was already sub-enthused about my paella options while admiring everyone else's lovely shrimp and mussel dishes. What's a paella without a big, whole, kinda-creepy-looking shrimp sitting in the middle?<br />
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The second problem turned out to be the smoked paprika. I shouldn't have used it. It turns out I don't like it much.<br />
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Nevertheless, the paella was certainly pretty and well appreciated by the man-appetite. I wrote out the recipe that I semi invented so that I'd be able to share it later, but what I thought would be a useful shorthand isn't. Here's the what I wrote:<br />
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marinate chicken in lemon and paprika<br />
cook sausage, cut into medallions<br />
fry chicken<br />
fry sausage<br />
fry onion, red pepper, tomato, garlic<br />
add rice<br />
add stock, saffron, salt<br />
blah blah blah<br />
add meat<br />
add peas<br />
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It starts out decipherable but then kind of goes awry with the 'blah blah blah'. That's okay, though, because I don't think I'll be making it again. Delicious as it probably would have been without so much paprika, I prefer a good risotto. And wine seems like a better investment than saffron.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8286/7835430570_d7c7512c2f_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Sausage Chicken Paella" border="0" height="640" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8286/7835430570_d7c7512c2f_c.jpg" title="" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Apparently, it's supposed to be sort of crispy on the bottom. O.o</td></tr>
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Wait, I can improve it!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-46t7Ffyv9sc/UFO-ISLv_YI/AAAAAAAAAyA/I6FZf7FDPdk/s1600/Shrimp+Paella.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Shrimp Paella!" border="0" height="480" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-46t7Ffyv9sc/UFO-ISLv_YI/AAAAAAAAAyA/I6FZf7FDPdk/s640/Shrimp+Paella.png" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So much yummier and more authentic!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.94444465637207px;">Our Daring Cooks’ September 2012 hostess was Inma of la Galletika. Inma brought us a taste of Spain and challenged us to make our very own delicious Paella!"</span></div>
<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-44681452456188585092012-08-28T09:46:00.001-03:002012-08-28T09:46:28.392-03:00Pate a Choux Swans<br />
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SWANS!</div>
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SWANS!</div>
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SWANS!</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small;">"<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; line-height: 14.94444465637207px;">Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild!"</span></span>Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-14575058163366411532012-08-25T19:11:00.000-03:002012-08-25T19:54:32.526-03:00Cornmeal Lemon Cake with Blueberry Compote<br />
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8433/7824431856_214600f14b_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Cornmeal Lemon Cake Recipe" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8433/7824431856_214600f14b_b.jpg" title="Cornmeal Lemon Cake with Blueberry Compote" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">DISCLAIMER: Guest blogger.</span></div>
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<div chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em; text-align: start;">
<div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
<span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="janevahn@gmail.com">Jane: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":wz">i am back</span></div>
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pillow cases ironed</div>
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yay</div>
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<div chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em; text-align: start;">
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<span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="anglerfish@gmail.com">me: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":11t">Yay! Blog my cake!</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/68792012@N08/7824431856/in/set-72157631161338306">Here's what it looks like</a>.</div>
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<div chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em; text-align: start;">
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<span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="janevahn@gmail.com">Jane: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":y4">Ok. Here goes.</span></div>
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This is my lemon cornmeal cake</div>
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<div chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em; text-align: start;">
<div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
<span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="anglerfish@gmail.com">me: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":xb">I will post what you say on the interweb.</span></div>
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It will be read by my two fans: Mom and J's Dad.</div>
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<div aria-live="assertive" chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em; text-align: start;">
<div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
<span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="janevahn@gmail.com">Jane: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":yq">I made it with cornmeal because I had to. The internet forced me. It not only wastes my time, but now tells me what I Must Cook or Must Eat. It goes by the name of 'Daring Cooks' or 'Daring Bakers' but I think that's just to make me feel less manipulated.</span></div>
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Anyway. So I baked this lemon and cornmeal cake and put some icing on it</div>
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And then, just when I turned around to pick up the camera and take photo, a big blueberry monster came and took a big blueberry shit on it. Plop, plop.</div>
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But it was all the more delicious for it.</div>
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<div aria-live="assertive" chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em; text-align: start;">
<div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
<span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="anglerfish@gmail.com">me: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":z9">Remember, Mom and J's Dad.</span></div>
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<div aria-live="assertive" chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em; text-align: start;">
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<span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="janevahn@gmail.com">Jane: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":10d">(... are you cramping my style?)</span></div>
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<div aria-live="assertive" chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em; text-align: start;">
<div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
<span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="anglerfish@gmail.com">me: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":1w1">I was really going to post this conversation directly until you got all obscene.</span></div>
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<div aria-live="assertive" chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em; text-align: start;">
<div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
<span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="janevahn@gmail.com">Jane: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":1w0">(It's not REAL shit, it's BLUEBERRY SHIT)</span></div>
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<div aria-live="assertive" chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em; text-align: start;">
<div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
<span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="anglerfish@gmail.com">me: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":1vz">Can I use your name?</span></div>
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<div aria-live="assertive" chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em; text-align: start;">
<div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
<span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="janevahn@gmail.com">Jane: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":1xw">(just shut up for a second)</span></div>
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<span dir="ltr"><span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="janevahn@gmail.com">Jane: </span><span style="font-size: 13.333333969116211px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" id=":1yu" style="font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">It was, in fact, so delicious that the rest of the lemon cornmeal (cornmeal, as you must remember, was what the Internet Made Me Do) cake went to eat the smaller slices of itself that had been shat upon by the blueberry monster.</span>
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<div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
<span dir="ltr"><span dir="ltr" style="font-size: 13.333333969116211px;"><span style="font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">(this is where you put the photo where it looks like pacman eating cake slices with blueberry shit on them)</span>
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<div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">(And the caption should read: 'if my poos looked like that, I'd have to go back to the hospital...')</span></div>
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<div aria-live="assertive" chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em;">
<div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
<span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="anglerfish@gmail.com">me: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":1yq">Okay, I've got all of that down now.</span></div>
<div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":1yp" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
Do you really double space after your periods? Really? It's 2012. Your word processor makes that space FOR you now.</div>
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<div aria-live="assertive" chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em;">
<div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
<span class="kn" style="cursor: default; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="janevahn@gmail.com">Jane: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":1yo">actually the caption should really be on the last photo</span></div>
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<div aria-live="assertive" chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em;">
<div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;"> </span><span class="kn" style="background-color: white; cursor: default; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;" title="janevahn@gmail.com">Jane: </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" id=":1ym" style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.333333969116211px;">of the up close blueberries</span></div>
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<div aria-live="assertive" chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; margin-left: 1em;">
<div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":1yl" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
YES. I double space after my periods. I LIKE IT.</div>
<div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":1yk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">
oh and the one with the two slice of cake should be captioned: 'not real poo. blueberry monster poo.'</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8435/7824431658_4b7219dae2_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Lemon cake with blueberries" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8435/7824431658_4b7219dae2_b.jpg" title="Cornmeal Lemon Cake with Blueberry Compote" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; text-align: start;">'so delicious that the rest of the lemon cornmeal cake went to eat the smaller slices of itself that had been shat upon by the blueberry monster'</span>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Cornmeal Lemon Cake Recipe</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">(Also from
<a href="http://www.bonappetit.com/">Bon Appétit</a>)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">This cake was a snap to make, and had a lovely moist crumb. It was lemony and delicious and I'd definitely make it again. I halved everything below in order to make it into a 6" cake.</span></div>
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<i style="font-size: 9.75pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You'll need:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1 1/2 (188 g) cups AP flour</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1/3 cup cornmeal</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">3/4 cup (170 g) sugar</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1/2 tsp salt</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1 cup buttermilk</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">2 eggs</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1 tbsp grated lemon peel (I used the zest of a whole lemon for the 6" cake)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">3/4 tsp vanilla extract</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1/2 cup (1 stick, 114 g) butter, melted (and cooled enough that you won't cook the eggs)</span></div>
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<i style="font-size: 9.75pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For the glaze:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1 1/2 cups powdered sugar</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">2 tbsp fresh lemon juice</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 9.75pt;">Preheat the oven to 350°</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 9.75pt;">F. Butter your cake pan and line it with parchment. Whisk together dry ingredients. Whisk together wet ingredients. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just blended. Scrape the batter into the pan and bake about 30 minutes (about 20 for the 6"), until a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. Yeah, it really was that easy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.75pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While the cake bakes, mix up your powdered sugar and lemon juice glaze. Add just enough powdered sugar that the consistency is smooth and paste-like, but still pour-able. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When the cake is done, remove it from the pan immediately--this involves running a knife around the edge of the pan and then flipping it onto a plate and banging at it with oven mitts. Once the cake is out, you can put a rack on the bottom and invert it again so that the cake cools right-way-up. While the cake is still hot, heap the glaze on top and spread towards the edge of the cake. You might want to slide a cookie tray or a plate under the cooling rack to catch any glaze that dribbles down the side. Allow the cake to cool completely.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7138/7824431542_0f9cb3019b_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="blueberry sauce recipe" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7138/7824431542_0f9cb3019b_b.jpg" title="Cornmeal Lemon Cake with Blueberry Compote" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; text-align: start;">'not real poo. blueberry monster poo.'</span>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The blueberry compote was equally delicious. We ran out of cake first, and I went on to use the blueberries to stir into my </span>yoghurt<span style="font-family: inherit;">. Also, just to shovel into my mouth. I associate Nova Scotia with highbush blueberries the way I associate Ontario with freestone peaches, but I used a pint of wild blueberries that I bought at the local market. This was for the 6" cake, but I had leftovers so it could probably stretch to a 9" cake. Wouldn't hurt to double it, though.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8432/7824431246_a8ec65104c_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Lemon cake with blueberry sauce" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8432/7824431246_a8ec65104c_b.jpg" title="Cornmeal Lemon Cake with Blueberry Compote" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.63636302947998px; text-align: start;"> 'if my poos looked like that, I'd have to go back to the hospital...'</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Blueberry Compote Recipe</b></span></div>
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<i>You'll need:</i></div>
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1 pint of blueberries</div>
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1/4 cup brown sugar</div>
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1/2 tsp grated lemon zest</div>
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pinch of salt</div>
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Reserve about half of the blueberries. Put everything else in a saucepan and let it simmer over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the berries are soft and the liquid is syrupy. Remove from heat and stir in the reserved blueberries.</div>
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8427/7824431390_8e505338ca_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Cornmeal Lemon Cake with Blueberry Compote" border="0" height="640" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8427/7824431390_8e505338ca_z.jpg" title="Cornmeal Lemon Cake with Blueberry Compote" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-54171819264544199192012-08-25T18:42:00.002-03:002012-08-25T19:57:12.141-03:00Cornmeal Crust Quiche<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7124/7824483938_c05a9106a8_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Cornmeal Crust Quiche Recipe" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7124/7824483938_c05a9106a8_b.jpg" title="Cornmeal Crust Quiche" width="640" /></a></div>
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So, ten days later, here's my post for July's <a href="http://thedaringkitchen.com/">Daring Cook's</a> Challenge, which was essentially just "Cornmeal!"</div>
<a name='more'></a>That was pretty open ended, so I made this quiche and I made a delicious cake while I shall also post presently. Both were good. The cake was better. The slight grittiness that the cornmeal lends to a crust is so nice, though. I bet this quiche recipe would have been the winner if instead of filling the crust with eggs and bacon and veggies, I'd filled it with caramel and pecans and chocolate. I am a dessert monster.<br />
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8297/7824483520_5e290b0cb4.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img alt="Cornmeal tart shell" border="0" height="240" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8297/7824483520_5e290b0cb4.jpg" title="Cornmeal Crust" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b>Cornmeal Crust Recipe</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">(It came from<a href="http://www.bonappetit.com/"> Bon</a> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.bonappetit.com/">Appétit</a></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">, the home of all good things.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>You'll need: </i></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1 cup AP flour</span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">3/4 cup cornmeal</span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1/2 teaspoon salt</span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1/4 cup (1/2
stick) butter, cubed</span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">3 tablespoons lard</span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">3 to
4 tbsp water</span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whisk together the dry ingredients. Toss in the cubbed butter and the lard, and use whatever method you like to cut it in until you get a coarse crumb consistency. My favourite method is to squish it in with my cold fingers, <a href="http://youngestdragon.blogspot.ca/2012/07/apple-tart-with-maple.html">as I've mentioned in the past</a>. You might own a fancy food processor, and so might want to pulse it together quickly in there. Once you've got your coarse crumbs, add enough water that they come together into a dough. Wrap it in plastic and chill it in the fridge overnight.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When you're ready to make your quiche, preheat the oven to 400F, grease your pie plate or tart pan, and roll your dough out between two sheets of parchment into a 12-ish inch circle-ish thing. Fit your dough into your dish. In case this is the first time you've done this: Remove one sheet of parchment, use the second to help you move the dough into the dish, and then remove that too. Don't bake the crust in the parchment. </span>Try to fill in any cracks (I always have cracks).<span style="font-family: inherit;"> If you're making this in a pie plate, fold the excess dough under the edge to make a double crust and crimp it. I made it in a tart pan, so I just used my rolling pin to knock off the excess. I think I also blind baked it a bit before filling it (you can tell by the way the dough has shrunk down on the sides in the photo below), but you don't have to.</span></div>
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8287/7824484636_ea5671f2fd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Cornmeal tart shell" border="0" height="240" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8287/7824484636_ea5671f2fd.jpg" title="Cornmeal tart shell" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8438/7824484502_7bacf9af34.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="quiche recipe" border="0" height="240" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8438/7824484502_7bacf9af34.jpg" title="Quiche with bacon, red peppers, broccoli, and Gruyere" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8294/7824484330_f731fe17f3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="quiche recipe" border="0" height="240" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8294/7824484330_f731fe17f3.jpg" title="Quiche with bacon, red peppers, broccoli, and Gruyere" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8439/7824484090_3d53c910f8.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img alt="cornmeal quiche" border="0" height="240" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8439/7824484090_3d53c910f8.jpg" title="Quiche with bacon, red peppers, broccoli, and Gruyere" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Fill it with whatever you want and then bake it. I used (cooked) bacon bits, Gruyere cheese, and onion, red pepper and broccoli that I'd softened in the bacon fat. I think I added five eggs that had been whisked with salt, pepper, </span>Worcestershire<span style="font-family: inherit;"> sauce and cream. The original recipe suggests 55 minutes (!) in the oven. I think I baked mine for 35 minutes and I definitely over-cooked it. I imagine the difference is that the original recipe uses a pie plate that is much deeper. So, keep an eye on your quiche and take it out of the oven when the </span>centre<span style="font-family: inherit;"> is still a bit jiggly. However, do not fear if you overcook it because well-done quiche happens to be really good cold the next day.</span>
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8289/7824483724_660787a9eb_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Quiche with bacon, red peppers, broccoli, and Gruyere" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8289/7824483724_660787a9eb_b.jpg" title="Quiche with bacon, red peppers, broccoli, and Gruyere" width="640" /></a></div>
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11.111111640930176px; line-height: 14.94444465637207px;">Rachael of pizzarossa was our August 2012 Daring Cook hostess and she challenged us to broaden our knowledge of cornmeal! Rachael provided us with some amazing recipes and encouraged us to hunt down other cornmeal recipes that we’d never tried before – opening our eyes to literally 100s of cuisines and 1000s of new-to-us recipes!"</span></div>
<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-91478057527673235212012-07-25T21:57:00.000-03:002012-08-25T19:58:03.039-03:00Apple Tart with Maple<br />
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<a href="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8141/7594022192_6f11d05550_b.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img alt="Apple Tart Recipe" border="0" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8141/7594022192_6f11d05550_b.jpg" title="Apple Tart with Maple" width="640" /></a></div>
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It's hard not to want to bake fruit-based desserts in the summer. All the fruits at the farmer's market just look so beautiful. Not that apples are really in season right now, but I've wanted to make this tart for a while. I think it is very pretty along the same lines as <a href="http://youngestdragon.blogspot.ca/2012/02/impossible-nectarine-tart.html">the impossible nectarine tart</a>, but with a fraction of the effort.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The raw, spiced apple slices are delicious all by themselves.</td></tr>
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I went out and bought a little 6" tart pan so that I wouldn't feel quite so guilty splitting an entire tart between just myself and J. When I got to the counter with my pan, the salesman said, "It's zero dollars! The best price!" I'm still using up points that were ceded to me when J bought me my beautiful apple red kitchen aid mixer for my birthday. Yay, free kitchen gear!<br />
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The 6" tart pan called for only a half batch of dough, but I made enough for a 9" because I pretty much suck at using the right amount of dough. My circles aren't good, so I need extra dough to account for the sort of misshapen oblong clouds that I roll, plus extra for eating. If you're good at that sort of thing, you'll be able to freeze half a batch of dough to make more little tarts later, rather than throw a way the leftovers in a fit of willpower when you find yourself sneaking back to the fridge for extra samples of raw dough.<br />
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The tart got a bit singed along the edges, so you might want to add tin foil at some point. Maybe start with tin foil and then remove it. Or the reverse. I don't know much about those tin foil tricks. I also clearly don't know much about styling photos--brown on brown on brown didn't really capture the apple-y deliciousness. J suggested adding the rose because its structure echoes the structure of the tart<span style="background-color: white;">. I thought that was a beautiful sentiment, but my best attempt was just to toss the rose in. I like to <i>imagine </i>that I inherited some of my grandfather's artistic talent, but in practice that doesn't seem to be the reality.</span><br />
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This recipe really is easy as pie, so to speak. The p<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">âte sucrée dough is exactly traditional, the same recipe you'll see in every other place that asks for a </span>p<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">âte sucrée</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: -webkit-auto;">. As I've said in the past, try to plan ahead enough that you can leave the dough to chill overnight; a long chilling time really does make pastry dough easier to work with.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">P<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: -webkit-auto;">âte Sucrée Recipe</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">(enough for one 9" tart)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><i>You'll need:</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">360 g (1.5 cups) AP flour</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">114 g (1/2 cup) butter, chopped into bits</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">1/2 tsp salt</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">50 g (1/4 cup plus one tsp) sugar</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Whisk together the flour and salt, then dump the butter into the salty flour and toss the whole thing in the freezer for a few minutes. You want to keep everything cold so that you don't melt the butter--I remember my mum running her hands under cold water. Use your fingers to squish the butter into the flour. Various methods recommend using a food processor or various utensils, but I've always found that hands are quick and produce the best results. You're trying to get little sheets of butter (end result: flaky), so try using a sort of snapping motion with your fingers to squish the bits of butter into flour-covered sheets. Move lightly and quickly, and stop when things are crumbly and there are still some decent chunks of butter. I suppose I should have taken a photo of this bit. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Add the sugar and rub that in lightly with your hands, too, then dump in the egg yolk and try to mix it through as quickly as you can with a light touch. Turn the crumbly dough out onto the counter and give it two or three kneads until it's JUST holding together, then make the dough into a disk, wrap it in plastic, and leave it in the fridge overnight. If you're in a very, very dry place you might need to add a teeny bit of water (add teaspoons at a time) to get the dough to hold together, but try to avoid this and remember that a good chill will solve some of your crumble problems.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Once I rolled out my pie shell, I pre-baked it in a 350F oven for about 10-15 minutes until just golden and then let it cool completely. I can't remember if I used pie weights. Probably for the first ten minutes or so. That means that I lined the pie shell with tin foil and dumped in a cup of beans that I keep around in a mini mason jar for that purpose. I've heard of a trick that involves brushing your pie shell with egg white immediately after it comes out of the oven in order to seal it and keep it crisp, but I've yet to try that. You probably don't have to pre-bake your pie shell at all, I'm just always nervous about soggy crusts.</span></div>
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<a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7279/7594022432_89b8ba1122_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="mini apple tart" border="0" height="478" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7279/7594022432_89b8ba1122_b.jpg" title="Apple Tart with Maple" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: large; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><b>Apple Tart Recipe</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: small; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><i>You'll need:</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-auto;">1-2 apples (it's only a 6" tart pan. Add two more if you're going for a 9".)</span></div>
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~1 tbsp brown sugar</div>
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~1 tbsp maple syrup</div>
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~1/2 tbsp corn starch</div>
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~1/4 tsp vanilla</div>
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~1/2 tsp lemon</div>
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~a pinch of ground ginger</div>
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~1 tsp cinnamon</div>
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Apricot Jam?</div>
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Peel your apples and slice them into moons, and then toss them together in a bowl with whatever you think will be delicious. You'll definitely need a bit of sugar to help them macerate--I used maple syrup because we had some. You can use flour instead of corn starch if you choose. I used corn starch to avoid extra gluten, which was stupid because the pastry was wheat. Once your apples have sat about in that mixture for a bit, layer them in circles in the pie shell, then bake the whole thing at 350F for about 45 minutes. I have a vague memory of deciding that the apples weren't as shiny or browned as I wanted them to be, and brushing the top with a mixture of cream and maple syrup near the end of baking. You could try that, but if I'd had it I would have used apricot jam instead, which I've seen used to great effect (and probably great taste) on many apple tarts.</div>
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<br />Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122392605204707590.post-3631072213345290792012-07-17T22:40:00.002-03:002012-07-17T22:40:23.007-03:00Fish En Papillote, Basa<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I actually did end up baking something "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_papillote">en papillote</a>" as per July's Daring Cook's challenge. I used to cook salmon en papillote all the time; it was one of the first things I really made consistently when I moved away from home. It's easy, delicious, healthy, and it doesn't leave many dishes--a perfect University meal when you're tired of going to the meal hall. But this delicious fish story has a tragic ending.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">To my ongoing dismay, over the past year or so I've developed a weird fish allergy. To make a boring story short, recent success eating piles of tuna tataki led to me try other fish, which led to me be COVERED IN HIVES</span><span style="background-color: white;">.</span><br />
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In any case, I didn't make any of the fancy pasta en papillote recipes that some of the other Daring Cooks impressed me with (though I may make the fruit recipes in the future). Fish en papillote is literally just a matter of topping your fillet of fish with whatever flavours you'd like and then wrapping it up and tossing it in the oven for 20 minutes at 450F. I prefer the traditional method of wrapping, which is easier than it seems. Basically, you fold some parchment paper in half and cut out a fat half-heart-shape as you might have done when you were making Valentine's cards in grade school. Open the heart (or the butterfly, I suppose) and pile your fish-and-stuff on one side before folding the other side of the parchment heart back over. Start at the pointy part of the half-heart and make little double-folds all around the edge, overlapping each fold all the way up the side so that each subsequent fold anchors the last one. You can see that in the picture below if you look hard enough. It's easier than it sounds, and it doesn't need to be perfect, so long as the package gets closed. Usually when I get to the end of the folding, there's a little tail of paper that I sort of wrap under the package.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you've ever done origami, this will be a snap.</td></tr>
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If you can eat salmon with impunity, I recommend trying salmon en papillote. My default flavourings were always either lemon with shallots, or ginger and soy. In both cases I liked to add some fat (butter or peanut oil, respectively), but you don't have to. Salt and pepper, of course.</div>
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I baked the basa with lemon, basil and garlic scapes, and it was perfectly lovely. I didn't actually end up all itchy until the tilapia that I fried in butter the next day (I might have been over-eager about reintroducing fish). I didn't get a good photo of the finished dish, because I gobbled down all of the garlic scapes in the three seconds it took to get to the table. Baked garlic scapes are shockingly delicious.</div>
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<span style="color: #442200; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;">"Our July 2012 Daring Cooks’ host was Sarah from All Our Fingers in the Pie! Sarah challenges us to learn a new cooking technique called “Cooking En Papillote” which is French and translates to “cooking in parchment”."</span>Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15355550574881515046noreply@blogger.com0