Bits ‘n Bites

As much as the Potato Bread challenge made my heart sing, this one made my heart sink. Don’t get me wrong. I’m fine with intricate and elaborate instructions, but having to reproduce anything realistically is just not my cup of tea. Mushrooms out of meringue or marzipan? Oy!

Our hostesses this month were none other than Daring Bakers’ founders Lisa and Ivonne. I printed the six-page recipe and read it a few times, visualizing all of its steps. As with other Daring Bakers challenges, I found the recipe more daunting in its written form than in its execution. The genoise took no time to put together, thanks to my mom’s birthday gift of a very nifty Kitchen Aid mixer.

Earlier in the month I caught an episode of Iron Chef America where Chef Tyler Florence tried to make a yule log and ended up with Yule planks when his genoise broke when he rolled it. Well, needless to say I had nightmares about this procedure after I saw this. If this Iron chef couldn’t do it right, how could I?…I stared at my pan for a long time before attempting the roll-over. I finally took a deep breath and just went for it. It worked. Kind of. My log is more oblong than round, but at least it didin’t break into planks. I was stoked.

The mocha buttercream went a long way in camouflaging the unevenness of this log. I had a small slice of each end, and it tasted great. It’s now been frozen and will be flown to Toronto for the holidays. The test will be on Christmas day when it will be served at a small dinner. A picture of the final result will be posted at that time.

Thanks again for a great challenge for the opportunity to stretch my sticky spatula even further…

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Update: In the end I did not have thee space in my luggage to bring the log to Toronto. Here’s the final result, created when I returned home after the holidays.

With wet snow falling outside my window this morning (again), it was a perfect day to tackle this month’s Blog Party Challenge: Another Bite of Dessert, hosted by the Happy Sorceress. The theme was straightforward: dessert canapés.

So many choices…Last week, for the first time, I finally got access to the Food Network as part of my new digital TV system. And for the first time, I got to see the Iron Chef of America show. Well-timed, the show was titled: All-Star Holiday Dessert Battle: Cora/Deen vs. Irvine/Florence. From the Food Network website:

In another All-Star culinary showdown, the Chairman has invited Paula Deen to partner up with Iron Chef Cat Cora and compete against Food Network’s own Tyler Florence and Robert Irvine.

The hour was filled with a myriad of desserts and sweets. My fillings were hurting at the final offering to the judges. Tina Fey was comatose by the end of it all. But, I had found my inspiration for this challenge.

Paula Deen’s Chocolate Cheese Fudge was intriguing. I had baked cream cheese with chocolate, but Velveeta cheese?…I decided to tone down the richness of that fudge by using it as a base and adding cranberries as a topping.

Cheesy Fudge Cranberry Tarts

Base
Paula Deen’s Chocolate Cheese Fudge

Press one tablespoon into greased mini cupcake molds. Refrigerate.

Topping
1 cup frozen or fresh cranberries, roughly chopped
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup water
Splash of Southern Comfort (could also use Grand Marnier or Cointreau)
Fresh mint leaves, chiffonade

In a small saucepan, heat up the Southern Comfort with the chopped cranberries over medium heat. Add the sugar and water, reduce. Remove from heat and cool.

Assembly
Unmold the fudge cups, spoon some of the cranberry mixture in the cup and garnish with mint chiffonade.

The ladies also concocted a peppermint martini for the judges. This triggered my second canapé:

Peppermint Profiteroles
Base
Profiteroles: Choux paste recipe

Filling
Peppermint Pastry Cream:
2/3 cup whole milk
2 inch vanilla bean
2 egg yolks
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp peppermint extract

In a small, heavy saucepan over high heat, combine the milk and vanilla bean and bring to a simmer.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar and cornstarch until well blended. When the milk reaches a simmer, remove it from the heat and gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the yolk mixture.

Return the mixture to the saucepan and place it over medium heat. Cook, whisking constantly, until the pastry cream thickens and boils, about 1 minute. Stir in the peppermint extract. Discard the vanilla bean and cool.

Toppings
Chocolate ganache
Candy cane, crushed

Assembly
Pipe the pastry cream into each choux. Dip each choux into warm ganache. Sprinkle with crushed candy cane.

For the cocktail, I decided to keep it simple: Brandy Toddy, from DrinkMixer website.

Brandy Toddy
2 oz brandy
1/2 tsp powdered sugar
1 tsp water
1 twist lemon peel

Dissolve powdered sugar in 1 tsp. water in an old-fashioned glass. Add brandy and one ice cube and stir. Add twist of lemon peel on top and serve.

Happy holidays all!

I was enjoying one of my favorite combination of flavors this week, chocolate and orange, when I noticed something different about my box of Smarties. There, in both French and English, a gentle reminder about the benefits of a balanced diet and physical activity. With obesity reaching epidemic levels, this effort by candy manufacturers to raise awareness is commendable. Just wondering how widespread this practice will become?…

As December rolls in, there are plenty of cooking/baking challenges to keep anyone busy. While mulling (dreading) over the Daring Baker monthly Challenge, I tackled the Retro Recipe Challenge #10 and the Novel Food Challenge #2. Both required using a book as the source of the recipe used.

Growing up in Québec, my early literary influences were naturally French. However, in the mid 1970’s, thanks to a French television series, this influence unexpectedly did a sharp 180 to the west of the English Channel into the Victorian foggy world of Baker Street. Arsène Lupin was a gentleman thief and womanizer plying his trade in late 1890’s, early 1990’s Paris. The literary creation of Maurice Leblanc, Lupin was a Gallic Robin Hood, doing good, on the wrong side of the law, usually with a very good looking woman on his arm. Portrayed by Georges Descrières, he was the consumate debonnair gentleman, drinking champagne, stealing jewellery and other priceless baubles while continuously evading the police (Inspecteur Ganimard, in particular). It wouldn’t be long before this character crossed swords with his English “counterpart” (1906). Following Arthur Conan Doyle’s protest of Leblanc using the Sherlock Holmes name, the author changed it to “Herlock Sholmes” for the detectives appearance in “The Adventures of Arsène Lupin and Herlock Sholmes” and “L’Aiguille creuse” (”The Hollow Needle”).

I became intrigued by the reed-thin detective from London and picked up one of the stories at my local library. Before long I had fallen in love with Conan Doyle’s writing and the Victorian world of gas lights, shady characters, hansom cabs, Inspector Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, the Baker Street Irregulars, Dr. Watson and, of course, the quirky and brilliant detective himself. It was a sad day when I realized I had just read the last of the original stories of The Cannon. The Granada series starring Jeremy Brett brought this world to life beautifully.

So, when I came across these two challenges, the source to turn to was pretty obvious. I had come across a collection of recipes inspired from the stories. Dining with Sherlock Holmes: A Baker Street cookbook, by Julia Carlson Rosenblatt and Frederic H. Sonnenschmidt, first published in 1978 by Thames and Hudson,…

“…was conceived when more than a hundred Holmes enthusiasts enjoyed a grand Sherlockian repast in Hyde Park, New York in 1973… every recipe in the book has its canonical raison d’être.”

I picked up this book in the early 1980’s. Flipping through it, I found a sweet recipe titled: Mrs. Hudson’s Biscuits. This is the one I chose for these challenges. I’m not sure what the origins are, if it actually pre-dates 1978, but it sure turned out really nice biscuits. Light and not too sweet, with the refreshing tang of lemon. They would be “spot on” with a nice cuppa’, sitting beside a blazing fireplace, listening to the strains of Holmes’ violin, as he ponders his latest case.

Mrs. Hudson’s Biscuits

125 g. butter
125 g icing sugar
2 tsp vanilla sugar or 2 tsp sugar with 2-3 drops of vanilla extract
1 egg
1 pinch of salt
juice and grated peel of 1/2 lemon
125 g. flour
125 g. cornflour
1 knife tip baking powder
butter to grease pan

Glaze
100 g. icing sugar
2 tbsps lemon juice

Whip the butter until it is fluffy, then slowly add the icing sugar;
Add the vanilla sugar, egg, salt, lemon juice and peel;
Add the flour, baking powder and cornflour slowly and mix well;
Grease a baking tray with butter;
Fill a pastry bag with the dough and press small biscuits onto the baking tray;
Bake in a preheated 400F oven for 10-15 minutes
Make the glaze by mixing the icing sugar and lemon juice. Brush biscuits with it, and let it dry.
Makes about 70 biscuits.

Received an invitation this morning from Julius, fellow Vancouverite and Daring Baker, to partake in a Q&A/meme/blog chain letter. The theme was, natch, food-related. With the weather being so inviting (see pic), I hunkered down inside to move this chain along.

What were you cooking/baking ten years ago?
I had recently moved to Vancouver 10 years ago and was living in a small apartment, sporting one of those tiny galley kitchen, with not much counter space. I don’t recall cooking much, or cooking very simply. I had a small tabletop barbecue on my balcony and, this being Vancouver, used that a lot throughout the year. I was not into my baking phase at that time either. I was traveling a lot for my job, taking and teaching night classes. Ramen, and derivative dishes, was often part of my diet…

What were you cooking/baking one year ago?
I had taken the Serious Foodie classes at NWCAV at the beginning of the year, which helped a lot with my confidence in the kitchen. (Little did I know at the time I would be enrolled in the Professional Diploma course a year later) I was now making gnocchi, risotto was a way to relax after work and I always had fresh tomato sauce to use on pasta or home-made pizza. I had started to bake once more, mostly cookies and mini cupcakes (see recipe below).

The snack you enjoy the most:
At this time of the year: mandarine oranges with cold smarties…But I’m not much of a snacker the rest of the time

A culinary luxury you would indulge in if you were a millionaire:
A small but complete commercial kitchen space; pastry course at the C.I.A.; a cooking vacation around the world.

What do you bake the most?
Home-made pizza

Five recipes you know by heart:
Shrimp risotto, tarte au sucre, linguine al vongole (baby clams), barbecued rack of lamb, buffalo chicken wings

One thing you cannot/will not eat:
I love dim sum, but I can’t bring myself to eat anything involving fish paste. The chicken claws are a close second…

Favourite culinary toy:
My Victorinox 8″ chef knife

A must on your “last meal” menu:
Lamb, barbecued either in rack format or shawarma or kebab, with tatziki.

Happy food memories:
My mom’s tourtière and ragoût de patte (pigs’ feet stew). Real Québec comfort food, ideal on a winter’s day (like today) …Which I will get to taste once more over the holidays…hum…

Chocolate Mini Cupcakes

Topping
8 oz cream cheese
½ cup sugar + pinch of salt
1 egg
1 package (1 cup) mini chocolate chips

Cream cream cheese and sugar. Add egg and mix well. Add chocolate chips.

Cupcake
1 – ½ cups flour
1 cup sugar
¼ cup cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

Combine these five ingredients in a large bowl

1 cup water
½ cup vegetable oil
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla

Combine these four ingredient well in a small bowl. Blend into dry ingredients. Mix well.

Fill mini baking cups to ¾ and top with a dollop of the cream cheese mixture. Bake at 350F for 15-18 minutes. Freezes well.