Bits ‘n Bites

My first challenge as a Daring Baker was a take-off on my favorite cake and donut: Boston Cream Pie. I was a little surprised, I confess, at how complex the recipe first read. I had never done a chiffon cake before, and although I had made custard in the past, I had never done it with nine egg yolks!

Nonetheless, on a day off from work, I got everything ready and followed the directions. The orange chiffon cake came out really nice. Boy, that stuff is easy to eat…it’s so light. The custard didn’t turn out as well, though. I may have undercooked it, or the “heavy whipping cream”, the recipe called for, was not heavy enough. Still, all was not lost. It turned into a very nice, and slightly citrusy, ice cream.

I really enjoyed this challenge and can’t wait to see what’s in store for November.

For some history on Daring Bakers, please click over to Andrea’s article on this wonderful community. Andrea’s own blog can be found at Andrea’s Recipes.

General Mills has launched a new interactive site to promote healthy eating by challenging visitors to a virtual food fight. You pick one of three opponents and get to lob various foods as the actors move around the frames. I was impressed at the use actors and technology. However, I found the controls not very responsive or accurate. But then again, that just could be my aim that’s off…

German meat producers Toennies has announced they have successfully developed a schnitzel that can be cooked in a toaster. The product wil be introduced in German supermarkets in 2008. Other countries will follow later on. Story from Taste.com.au. (Photography by Ben Dearnley)

Hallowe’en may conjure up thoughts of candies and cookies, but after doing three cooking challenges in a row involving sweets, I needed a break. Luckily the Weekend Cookbook Challenge #21, hosted by mlb of Je mange la ville blog this month, was pretty liberal in how we tie our recipe to Hallowe’en.

After flipping through countless pumpkin recipes, most involving breads or muffins, I finally found something interesting in The Whole Foods Market Cookbook: Toasted Pepita Dip. It had some of my favorite ingredients, namely, jalapeños, cilantro, cayenne, cumin and lime. A pleasant surprise with this recipe was how low in fat pepitas are compared to other seeds and nuts (eg: 1/3 cup: sunflower seeds: : 24 g. fat; almonds: 24 g. fat; cashews: 21 g. fat; pepitas: 4 g. fat. from Whole Foods Market website)

The results were a nice, spicy, crunchy and refreshing dip. A nice change from the usual cream cheese (though there is some sour cream here) and artichoke, crab or spinach dips. Another keeper. Thanks for the challenge MLB!

This challenge called for a recipe with sugar. What better representative for this than my home province’s famed Tarte au sucre. I dug into my oldest cook book (publ. 1955) for this one. Jehane Benoît was Québec’s Julia Child of the mid-1900 to mid 1980’s. She was the dean of Québec cuisine. I inherited this book from my mom and have been carting around since the 80’s. I had never actually done any recipes from it until now. To keep the whole challenge as retro as possible, I also did Mme Benoît’s dough recipe for the crust. This will be a keeper as it turned out to be quite flaky and quick to do. Who knew?!… Here is the translation of both recipes, in the same format as they appear in the book:

Hot Water Pie Dough
1 – Put in a bowl 1/2 cup of fat or vegetable shortening. Add 1/4 cup of boiling water. Beat until creamy
2 – Sift together 1-1/2 cup of pastry flour, 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt
3 – Add liquid ingredients to sifted ingredients. Mix until all form a soft ball. Cover and store in refrigerator 1 hour. Use for any type of dough.
4 – For a richer dough, beat 1 egg with the water and shortening.

Sugar Pie
1 – Cover an 8-inch pie plate with dough. Spread with 1/2 inch of brown sugar or maple sugar. Wet with 3 tablespoons of cream or milk; dot with a few small dices of butter.
2 – Cover, to taste, with a few strips of dough and bake in a 400F oven for 35 to 40 minutes.

The results (picture below) were quite good, despite my fear that it would taste way too sweet. I have another quick recipe I usually use when making this dessert. It’s more on the caramel-creamy side, compared to this one. It’s one of my stand-bys when invited to dinner, and goes really well “à la mode”.

Quick Sugar Pie
(Recipe: courtesy of Mme Paquin, Trois-Rivières)
1 cup of brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon flour

Mix ingredients in bowl. Throw in a frozen pie crust and bake at 400F for 30 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream. It tastes even better cold, the day after.

Stumbled upon this video, through the Theatre Forté blog. Nice little tune…Very classic.

An acrid smell emanating in the famed Soho district in London brought out a chemical response team from the London Fire Brigade last week. Passers-by were reporting a burning throat sensation as a result of the smell.

Steve Bird of The Times of London reported:

“As the ambulance service sent in its Hazardous Area Response Team Unit, firefighters wearing specialist breathing apparatus entered the deserted streets to seek out the source.
Soon after 7pm on Monday they emerged from the smoke carrying a huge cooking pot containing about 9lb of smouldering dried chillies.”

Turns out the chilies are used in the preparation of nam prik pao, “a super-hot Thai dip to accompany prawn crackers.”

The Thai Cottage restaurant’s chef, Chalemchai Tangjariyapoon, explained:

“I was making a spicy dip with extra-hot chillies that are deliberately burnt. To us it smells like burnt chilli and it is slightly unusual. I can understand why people who weren’t Thai would not know what it was. But it doesn’t smell like chemicals. I’m a bit confused.”

The owner then further explained that due to the rainy weather, the smoke hadn’t dissipated as usual.

I wonder if Chef Heston Blumenthal was in the area?…

(Image courtesy of Daniel Risacher/Wikipedia)

A challenge for any single home cook, intent on improving his/her skills in the kitchen, is often to find reasons to cook. Cooking for one is not terribly inspiring as times. There’s nothing like a challenge to get the creative juices, well, cooking! Luckily, there are plenty of sites and blogs to tickle any cook’s fancy and stir them into action.

I’ve recently joined the Daring Bakers group, and am now working on my first challenge, due on October 29th. Stay tuned to this blog for the results. There’s a certain level of secrecy involved with this group, but anyone can join. Just email one of the organizers listed at the link above. Once on board, members get access to the DB blog to post and comments on fellow bakers posts and pictures. To my delight, I also found on this blog a series of other cooking challenges. There’s something for everyone there.

Tonight I decided to kill two birds with one stone by cooking Shrimp Saffron Risotto. I started with the Saffron Risotto with Grilled Shrimp recipe from the Food Network and adapted to what I had at hand. I was quite happy with the results.

The challenges answered were for:

Sunita’s World Blog, Think Spice…Think Saffron

The Baker & The Curry maker Blog, Risotto Relay

Next up…The Retro Recipe Challenge No. 9: The Candyman from the Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity blog.

Stay tuned!

BBC News has a report a couple of days ago on a pilot study conducted by Researchers from Hull York Medical School. A special dosage of dark chocolate was having a poistive effect on patients suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. In fact, in the small study, two pateints actually felt enough better to return to work after a six-month absence. Professor Atkin explained:

“Dark chocolate is high in polyphenols, which have been associated with health benefits such as a reduction in blood pressure.

“Also high polyphenols appear to improve levels of serotonin in the brain, which has been linked with chronic fatigue syndrome and that may be a mechanism.”

The conclusion to this report was that, though still more research is definitely needed, there was no harm in ingesting a small amount of dark chocolate every day. This advice to be taken in moderation, of course….