Graduation Party

The elderchild graduated from high school yesterday. Given the whole pandemic thing, it's a bittersweet time. The Dean of Students made a special drive out to deliver the diploma in person, about 600 miles each way. We had a small picnic in the backyard with the Dean and her daughter to celebrate. Socially distancing as best we could, of course!

I made lasagna, which is always a little different each time I make it, but the basics are the same: make a sauce with ground meat (lately it has been turkey), sautéed onions, and a jar of marinara sauce, make a box of noodles, mix 1 large tub of ricotta with 3 eggs, salt, pepper, basil and oregano, and layer all this with shredded mozzarella. Bake at 350 or 375 until it's done.

We also had a quick fruit salad and, for dessert, peach mousse cupcakes!

The cupcakes themselves were the easy part: white cake cupcakes. I was also making some for a friend who also has a graduate to celebrate so I made a double batch. Then I made peach mousse from this recipe, and it did NOT WORK. You're supposed to make a peach purée and add gelatin and maple syrup and then let it set and fold in whipped cream. I ended up with peach jello and the whipped cream didn't blend in. (I can't tell you how much heavy cream I've gone through in the last 3 days.) So I made it up, sort of, in that I made another peach purée with a lot less gelatin and folded the whipped cream in and filled the cupcakes. Good thing I had extra peaches. It did eventually set while the cupcakes chilled overnight. Yesterday morning I got up early and made this whipped cream frosting with mascarpone cheese. At least this worked as advertised! I tucked a little piece of peach on top of the cupcake under the frosting to add to the otherwise subtle peach flavor.

It was a lovely sunny day, not like today which is overcast and cooler and with a little rain. Congratulations, elderchild. We're so proud of you and all you have accomplished!

Sweet Potato Soup

This post has been a little delayed, as I made the soup a few days ago but am just getting to writing it down now. While we were touring colleges on the west coast we ate lunch at True Food Kitchen. One of the dishes we really enjoyed was a sweet potato poblano soup so I decided to try to replicate it. It wasn't really the same but it was still good so here's the recipe:

2 Poblano peppers, roasted and peeled, then chopped

4 sweet potatoes, peeled, cubed, and boiled

1 onion, diced

5 cloves garlic, chopped

butter

2 cups chicken stock

1 cup water

salt and pepper

cilantro

heavy cream

Sauté the onions in the butter until soft and then add the garlic, peppers and potato cubes. Sauté for a few minutes then add the stock and water, salt and pepper, and cilantro. Bring to a boil and simmer briefly. Remove from heat and cool slightly, then purée with an immersion blender. Stir in enough cream to get the consistency you want. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and more cilantro. 

In terms of making this again, for that amount of sweet potatoes I might add 1-2 more poblano peppers. You could feel the heat in your throat but it was rather subtle. 

Birthday Cakes, 1 and 2

The youngerchild has turned 13 and celebrated twice, once with each set of grandparents. Who live in different states, so that meant two cakes. Never a problem, as the youngerchild has been asking for both these cakes for a long time.

First off, with my in-laws, I made a Brasilian Carrot Cake. I used the recipe I posted before but instead of fudge frosting I made a simple chocolate ganache. When I first poured the ganache on the warm cake, it filled the pan. I turned my head for a second and then looked again and the ganache had sunk about 1/4". Where did it go? It soaked into the top of the cake! That made the already rich and moist cake even richer and moister. Yum. We had a second piece each for breakfast before we hopped on a plane and came home. Our flight was delayed by over an hour, so I'm glad we had a filling breakfast.

Last night, for today's celebration, I made a New York Style Cheesecake, with strawberry topping. This was a recipe from school; the full recipe makes two 10" cakes and so I cut the recipe into 1/3 so I could make one 8" cake. (18 ounces of cream cheese, 3 eggs, a little sugar and flour, and some cream.) The batter was even run through a sieve to get out all the lumps, that's how much of a labor of love this was! It chilled overnight and today was served with the strawberry pie filling as a topping. The only other change I made was that the crust was chocolate wafer cookies crumbs rather than graham crackers.

And, with that, I think the youngerchild has been properly ushered into teenager-dom.

Profiteroles

Before the onslaught of illness, we were supposed to have dinner with friends at their house. I planned to make profiteroles, which are pate a choux puffs filled with ice cream and then topped with some sort of chocolate sauce. I made them, and then they hung out in the freezer until we finally all got well enough to reschedule.

Gougères

I wasn't sure how my oven would deal with pate a choux. It's not well sealed, and loses heat all the time, and I was afraid it would lose the moisture created in the first half of the baking process. Thankfully, it didn't, and I got 20 puffs made without much fuss. I used the rest of the pate a choux batter to make gougères by mixing in shredded cheese and some mustard and scooping the batter onto a baking sheet. These were amazing and got consumed within a few hours. Yum.

The next step was making rose flavored ice cream, just like I did for class a year ago. A custard base, with rose water added, then that rested in the fridge for a day. After that I churned it in the ice cream maker and, while it was still soft, piped it into the puffs. I know this isn't the usual way to do this, but I thought it might be interesting to have them filled this way. It did work out, although I had to move quickly to keep from being covered in melty rose-flavored ice cream!

These then lived in the freezer in an airtight container until last night. To top them off, I made a saffron-white chocolate ganache, with 4 ounces of white chocolate, 4 ounces of cream, a little butter, and a generous pinch of saffron (added after the cream was heated, before being added to the chocolate). By the time we got to dessert the ganache was the perfect pouring consistency. I also brought chocolate fudge sauce because I wasn't sure how the kids would like the saffron. We ended up all trying both. I think the saffron ganache was the better choice!

My Continued Earl Grey Fixation

So, as promised, I made Earl Grey Vienna Finger Cookie ice cream for the youngerchild. Who am I kidding? It's really for me!

First I made a creme anglaise, using milk that was steeped with Earl Grey tea for thirty minutes. Then I chilled that until it was time to freeze it in the ice cream maker. At the last minute I tossed broken cookies into the ice cream maker and then froze the mixed ice cream until dessert time.

The tea was a gift from a friend and is one of those teas with the little blue flowers in it. It also seems to have pieces of bergamot peel. It's amazing. It's from the Spice and Tea Exchange. Mmm.

The only problem with making a lot of ice cream is that the recipe only uses egg yolks, not the whites. Now I have a lot of egg whites waiting for something to do. Maybe there will be some macarons in the near future?

Fire!

Heh, heh. Last night we had friends over for dinner and I made creme brulée for dessert. Which gave me an opportunity to play with our new torch. It was awesome.

Given the size of the ramekins, I think I used too much sugar (1 T. sanding sugar for each). I also only have 4 ramekins and there were 6 servings so I used another little ceramic dish and a tiny individual bean pot. For the bean pot, it was so deep that the torch kept going out; my husband had to blow into it to provide enough oxygen for the torch to stay lit. He ate that one.

The recipe said to cook them for 20-25 minutes, I think I had to cook mine for almost 45 minutes and they still were a little too runny. I'll either have to cook them longer or make sure the water bath is hotter to begin with.

Days 31 and 32: Final Practicum

Yesterday and today were spent in a stressed out haze. At least until I completed my dessert and turned it in.

This morning was our practicum exam. Each of us were to draw a card and then make what it said. As this was technically the mid term we were given the ingredient list and had to write out the method. Once Chef corrected it, we were to go into the kitchen and make it for presentation to the two tasters. There were eight cards and we knew what they were but we selected our actual card at random. Ahead of time, in addition to studying the methods, I thought about how I would plate each one.

On a whim, I bought stainless steel martini glasses. Just in case I drew the macaron card.

I drew the macaron card.

Yay! The card stated that in addition to making three different flavors of macarons - coffee, lemon, and raspberry - we were to make an ice cream of our choice. Planning ahead again, I decided that a pear cardamom ice cream would go well with each flavor. That had to be made first. I made an ice cream base with pear purée, cardamom, and some pear brandy. While that chilled, I worked on the macarons and sautéed pears in butter, sugar, and more brandy. When it was time to put the ice cream in the maker, at the very end I churned in the cooked pears. It was lovely.

The macarons came out better than they had any right to as we had some oven issues (the opposite problem compared to home, the ovens were too hot. Even though we set them 25˚ lower than usual). The tasters noted they were a little dry. I guess they crumble too quickly. Each one had a matching ganache.

For plating, I chilled the martini glasses and put a scoop of ice cream in each. I had made mini macarons and stuck them on the ice cream. I made sure each macaron was between mini macarons of different colors - pink between yellow and brown, yellow between brown and pink, and so on.

Ultimately, I did well on the kitchen part and I don't have the tasting grade yet but the comments were mostly positive. Now we only have the final written exam left!

Day 12: Custards

Clafoutis

Today's topic was custards and Bavarians. While I'm still a little shaky on the definition of a Bavarian vs. a Bavarian Cream, I enjoyed making the custards. We made a huge batch of flan, so everyone got to work on it. These are baked in a water bath. We were taught that they're better served a day later as the caramel on the bottom becomes more of a sauce. Therefore, I have my three flans and we'll eat them in the next day or so. We also made a clafoutis (cherries baked in a custard sauce) which we ate; that was lunch.

The crowning achievement of the day was making a Ruche, or beehive cake.

The layers consisted of lemon hazelnut meringues (that gift from the past we made ourselves last week), lemon mousse, honey mousse, and Italian meringue for the top. One team made lemon curd which was made into the lemon mousse. That formed the sides and one of the layers in the cake. Our team made the honey mousse which consisted of a honey custard to which honey Italian meringue and then whipped cream was added to make the mousse. Then, while the cakes froze for a while, I made the bees with two of my classmates. First I kneaded marzipan with yellow food coloring and we shaped the bodies. Then I drizzled them with chocolate to make the stripes and we stuck almonds in for wings. My classmate who is terrific at piping finished up by making the eyes. I lined them all up for their photo op. Here is our Bee-2 Bomber Squadron...

Some others in class made the honeycomb chocolate for the sides and froze it. Then another person made the caramel which we all got a chance to drizzle into shapes. When I got to the caramel it was a little too cold so it glopped a bit. In my attempts to clean it up it serendipitously bent into a 3D structure which I liked very much.

Once everything was ready, we used Italian meringue to coat the top and pipe a beehive on the cake. Then we torched it to brown it and get the ring off. After that, we coated it with the chocolate honeycombs, added the caramel and then the bees.  We were overwhelmed with the cuteness of it all!

The evening lecture was the first of three covering fruits, herbs and spices. This was an opportunity to work with unfamiliar fruits. A panna cotta was made and we were each asked to come up with a compote, particularly using something we'd not used before. I picked pomegranate, red currant, key lime juice and apple. I added the apple for the pectin and, of course, ended up with more of a jam than a compote. However, the lime juice worked really well with the pomegranate. Chef also had us make some really terrific savory dishes; I made fried avocado with a cilantro dipping sauce and others made a risotto with strawberries. (So unexpectedly tart and tasty! And pink!)

Day 8: Commercial Baking

The theme of today was baking quickly and in large quantities. To that end, we made a quick puff pastry dough, a pâte à choux recipe, lots of pastry cream, and some cookies. It was quite a production. First we made the puff pastry dough which required lots of rolling and folding to make all the layers. As it rested, we made pastry cream and the pâte à choux, and we used that to pipe little puffs onto some of the puff pastry dough (for the St. Honore and the Venus Arms at least) and baked them. My partner and I made a batch of cookies and another group made another batch. Sadly, the batch I made burnt in the oven (I was washing dishes and didn't catch them in time) and initially Chef wasn't going to have me make them again but gave me another chance, if I could "make them in 5 minutes." I think I made them in 10 minutes which, considering it was a new recipe to me, wasn't too bad. But I did feel badly about burning them!


After the cookie fiasco, we started getting the flavored pastry creams together, added whipped cream to make mousseline creams, and started filling everything. Along the way we also made fondant, hazelnut praline, writing chocolate, and extra little cream puffs because we had extra pâte à choux and creams. Finally it was time to assemble the Napoleons. One whole sheet pan of puff pastry was baked, flipped, sprinkled with sugar, baked some more, and then cooled. It was sliced into three equal pieces and then rum mousseline cream was spread in between the layers. Once it was stacked it went into the freezer to chill; otherwise the fondant for the top wouldn't set and it would be hard to cut. After freezing for a while, Chef topped it with fondant and chocolate and made the patterns in the top and then cut it into (very large) individual pastries.

The other really nice thing about today is that the savory students were making soups and shared their creations with us. We shared ours with them. Everyone was happy.

And, as promised, here's my uniform. The embroidered coats arrived today!

Days 5 and 6: Sweet Things

We all made some cygnes, these were mine.

This week we moved away from breads and into pastries. It's quite fun. I'm super tired because between classes and last night's Special Town Meeting I haven't really had much time for sleep!

Yesterday started out with the T being super delayed. Five of the seven of us were stuck at various points along the Red Line for a half an hour or more. The only saving grace is that the chef was stuck, too, so we weren't really late. And then we had our first quiz.

Once that all was taken care of, we started on pâte à choux. This is the flour-water-butter-egg paste that is used to make cream puffs and eclairs. And boy, did we make a lot of cream puffs and eclairs! It took us all day, but we made all sorts of shapes, fondant for dipping, and 6 different flavors of cream filling: coffee, chocolate, rum, kirsch, grand marnier, and praline.

An assortment of cream puffs and eclairs. 

Let's just say that clean up took a very, very long time. We used a crazy amount of bowls and mixers. And piping tips.

This morning was not plagued with commuting woes, which was nice. Today was "Classic Doughs" which meant pie and tart crusts. We learned the difference between pâte brisée, pâte foncer, and pâte sucrée. (Sugar. The main difference is sugar. There are other differences, but that's the biggest.) We made five different kinds of tarts. The large tarts, one per person, were Tart Beausejour - caramelized apples with calvados. These and the pear chiboust tarts used the pâte sucrée and all the others, the chocolate tarts, the "Duo" tarts (peach and cherry), and the apricot-brown butter Tart Catalane, used the pâte foncer. A chiboust is a pastry cream (we made ours with pear purée) with meringue mixed in. That led to the most fun part of my day - using the torch to brulée the chiboust.

I LOVED it.  I think I ended up doing most of them because I was having so much fun.

Oh, and, yes. That's my uniform. Someday I'll get my jacket but for now, that's it. Sorry you can't see the checkered pants.

If cleanup from yesterday was long, today was much, much worse. It was all hands on deck to get that all done. So many dishes!

Very, Very Patient

When we first saw this recipe for Wintergreen Ice Cream on Hank Shaw's blog, in 2012, my elder child asked if we could make it. Yes, I said, when we have enough wintergreen berries. And when I have (or find) my ice cream maker. The project got put on the back burner and even when we finally amassed enough berries (it took over a year and many different locations; I stored the berries in the freezer) I never got my act together.

Today I picked up that (now) 13 year old from a week of camp and it seemed like the right time to make this. Actually, I started around 6 am and had the base all made and in the fridge before we had to leave and get the child. After we got home, I put the base in the ice cream maker and let it do its thing for 30 minutes. When it was done, I poured the ice cream into a washed out ice cream carton and folded in chocolate chips that I'd run through a little chopper thing (Black & Decker, 1.5 cup chopper. Really useful.). It was the same chopper thing I used to chop up the frozen wintergreen berries. I chose not to strain the ice cream, hoping for a little pink color. It's a little bit pink. Not very. That's fine.

The recipe called for 2 ounces of berries, after making the ice cream I think I have an ounce left. Maybe I'll collect some more this fall and make this again. It's really a nice flavor. The 13 year old loved it, as did the rest of us. Sorry it took so long to make it!

Now We're Getting Fancy

As I said yesterday, I've been playing around with spruce tips because of this blog: Forager|Chef.  You should really check it out!  Anyhow, today I was able to make the spruce tip ice cream I'd hoped to make.  The instructions are on his blog but, essentially, you make an ice cream base, cool it to room temperature (which took half the morning), blend in the spruce tips and then filter the whole thing to get the little pieces of spruce needle out.  This mixture then goes into the ice cream maker.  I set my ice cream maker to soft-serve and it ran for about 25 minutes.  At that point it was the correct texture and I put it into the freezer to set up some more.

The next thing I did was make a rhubarb crisp, as that is the recommended pairing with the spruce ice cream.  I baked it this afternoon and, after we made dinner, I put it into the warm oven to reheat.  When dessert came around, I scooped the spruce ice cream on top.

It's a complex collection of flavors:  the tart rhubarb, the sweet crisp topping, and the floral-earthy ice cream.  The ice cream is more "spruce-y" than the sauce I made yesterday, but that was OK because the rhubarb crisp was a stronger flavor as well.  The 10 year old was not a fan - although I think more turned off by the rhubarb than anything else.

Now I have a tub of spruce ice cream in the freezer, just waiting to garnish some other tart thing.  Looks like there will be more experimentation in the future!

Update on the Capers

A couple of blog members have asked after the capers.  Just this morning I made the vinegar solution with white wine vinegar, thyme, sugar, water, and bay, and the capers are now resting in the fridge for a minimum of 3 days.  After that, I'll do a little taste test and compare them to store bought capers!

I also went and got a little more than a cup of mulberries to make a mulberry lime compote for the panna cotta I made for dessert today.  I think this is not going to be a stellar year for the mulberry tree; there are lots of berries but they seem to not be as large or ripening as evenly as previous years.  That's OK, it's not like we don't have a lot of jam in the house...

The other thing I did today was gather garlic mustard seeds.  I got a paper bag and some of the driest stalks of garlic mustard I could find, and let the seed pods shake around in the bag for a while.  I shucked the rest when I got home, and set aside about 2 T. of seeds.  While I'm not sure what I'll do with them, I think they might be an interesting addition to a pickle.  Any thoughts?

Strawberry Shortcake

Sorry, no pictures.  We inhaled it.  Yes, it's that good.

Here's the recipe:  2 cups flour, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1/4 tsp. baking soda, 3/4 tsp. salt,  and 2 T. sugar, sifted together.  Add 1.5 cups heavy cream, mix and press lightly into an 8 inch ungreased square pan and bake at 400 degrees until golden brown, about 20 minutes.  Top with whipped cream and strawberries mixed with sugar (to make a light syrup).

Fun fact for the day:  if you leave heavy cream in the fridge for a while, say, a week, the fat settles out and makes... butter!  How awesome is that?

Experiments

There are a lot of really great blogs out there, with some incredible recipes.  I was inspired by Hunter Angler Gardener Cook to make a panna cotta and fruit compote for it.  I was also interested in trying to recreate a coconut milk based seafood stew I had in a restaurant, and found this recipe, which I altered slightly and came up with a really terrific dinner.  Here's what I did:

For the panna cotta, I made half the recipe since I only had four ramekins.  This set up in the fridge while I prepped for dinner.  [2 cups heavy cream, 1/4 cup sugar, heated in the microwave until very warm.  Add 1 tsp. vanilla.  Mix 1 packet unflavored gelatin with 3 T. cold water, pour the hot cream over it and stir.  Chill in oiled ramekins for at least 2 hours.]  The compote was blackberries and blueberries mixed with 4 T. lime juice, 1/3 cup of sugar, and simmered for 15 minutes (based on Hank Shaw's mulberry key lime compote).  Then I added the cornstarch and cooked it 5 minutes more and let it cool.

To make the stew, I started with the chowder recipe but changed the fish and added rice noodles.  Before I ran a few errands I chopped 1 red pepper, 1 green pepper, 3 carrots, 1 onion, and some garlic, and set it aside.  I had bought half a pound each of swordfish, scallops and squid and a pound of little necks.  I cut the scallops in half, chopped the squid and swordfish and cleaned the little necks and set everything aside.  To the sauteed vegetables and spices I added 1 pint of lobster stock, 1 pint of light cream, and 1 can of coconut milk.  I did not add the tomato paste because the lobster stock had been made with a tomato base.  Once I got everything simmering, I added all the seafood except the little necks and simmered for 5 minutes.  Then I added the little necks and a package of rice noodles and simmered for 12 minutes until the little necks opened.  It tasted amazing and, because the noodles absorbed a lot of liquid, became more of a stew than a chowder.  Garnished with parsley and cilantro, it was a very filling meal.

 Getting the panna cotta out of the ramekins was a little challenging but I finally got the hang of it.  A little compote spooned around it and some garnish, and voila!  Perfection.