New Flash!! Dateline Coral Springs Florida!!After last nights dessert I decided that while the marshmallow topping made a good, authentic S’mores, it was too much work for the result, and was way to sticky and stringy to eat with guests. Instead last night I replaced it with a vanilla meringue. The torch browned it perfectly, it was easy to eat and delicious!
I had this idea to make s’mores in our new dessert dishes. The bottom layer is crushed graham crackers, the middle some kind of chocolate custard and the top would be melted marshmallow with the top burned with a torch.
I put 2 graham crackers in a zip-lock bag and crushed them with a rolling pin distributing the crushed cracker with 2 tsp in each 3 oz. dish. The chocolate cream is from a recipe I found for chocolate pastry filling:
(Yield 2 cups)
In a small saucepan, warm the milk over low heat until it is just hot enough to steam. While the milk is warming, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, flour, cocoa powder, and cornstarch until the mixture is completely smooth.
Once the milk is steaming, add the melted chocolate to it and whisk until it is fully incorporated into the milk. Add half of the chocolate milk, whisking constantly, to the egg mixture. Add the milk and eggs back into the hot milk, continue stirring, and heat it for 1-2 minutes, until the custard reaches 170F on a digital thermometer and is very thick. Remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla extract. When it has cooled slightly but has not gelled, pour about 2 oz into each of the dessert cups.
Once the filling has set, add the marshmallow topping, spread to make peaks and use a blowtorch to burn the tips.
Having Tuesday off was good. On the other hand it was very good. I wanted a new
dessert to have for the occasional dinner. I have some new small glass flared dessert dishes and in my world the glass or dish is always full.
The dessert is a dark chocolate mousse, layered with a light chocolate mousse and topped with a Bavarian cream, shaved dark chocolate, dusted with cinnamon with a sugar/cinnamon stick for garnish.
Dark Chocolate Mousse:
Combine the chocolate, butter, and espresso in the top of a double boiler over hot, but not simmering, water, stirring frequently until smooth. Remove from the heat and let cool until the chocolate is just slightly warmer than body temperature. To test, dab some chocolate on your bottom lip. It should feel warm. If it is too cool, the mixture will seize when the other ingredients are added. Meanwhile, whip the cream to soft peaks, then refrigerate. Once the melted chocolate has cooled slightly, whip the egg whites in a medium bowl until they are foamy and beginning to hold a shape. Sprinkle in the sugar and beat until soft peaks form. When the chocolate has reached the proper temperature, stir in the yolks. Gently stir in about one-third of the whipped cream. Fold in half the whites just until incorporated, then fold in the remaining whites, and finally the remaining whipped cream. Pipe the mousse into a serving bowl or individual dishes.
Put the bowls on a small cookie sheet ( I used a 9″x12″ jelly roll pan.) Tip the pans at a sharp angle. I used a beer bottle under one end (I wonder where that bottle came from?) Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
Light Chocolate Mousse (6 servings)
Combine water and gelatin in a small bowl and whisk until gelatin has completely dissolved. Whisk in cocoa powder and set aside to cool for 15 minutes. Place the egg whites in a medium bowl and, using an electric mixer, beat until soft peaks form. Add sugar gradually, working with 1-2 tbsp at a time, while you beat the egg whites. Once the egg white mixture has reached soft peaks, beat in the egg yolks one at a time at high speed. Slowly pour in the gelatin mixture and mix until uniform in color and well-combined.
Remove the dark chocolate filled dishes and tip them the opposite way on the counter. Evenly distribute the mousse into then and refrigerate keeping the same angle until set, at least 3 hours.
In a small bowl, stir together the gelatin and cold water. Set aside to soften. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, and salt until smooth. In a medium saucepan, bring the milk to a boil. Pour the hot milk in a steady stream into the yolk mixture, whisking constantly. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat and pour the custard through a strainer. Stir in the softened gelatin and vanilla and stir to melt the gelatin. Allow to cool. When the mixture has cooled almost to room temperature, whip the heavy cream to medium stiffness and fold it into the custard. Immediately transfer the Bavarian cream to the dessert cups laying level on the counter, as it will firm up quickly as the gelatin sets. Refrigerate at least one hour before serving.
Before serving, I grated some dark chocolate over the Bavarian cream. I also rolled some gum paste that I had in a combination of sugar and cinnamon to offset the sweetness of the mousse. Cut the gum paste into rectangles about 1″ x 2″ and roll into a tube with the sugar/cinnamon coating on the outside.
NOT IN MY HOUSE!! I had some chicken cutlets, plum tomatoes, but no garlic bread 😦
Making a couple of loaves of baguettes doesn’t take very long, however, without a baguette pan the loaves tend to flatten. Instead I just made them in bread pans and cut them on a diagonal. Not perfect, but not bad.
The chicken parm was nothing special beyond delicious. a 14oz can of crushed tomatoes, one cup fresh, peeled, diced, plum tomatoes, about 1/4 cup EVO, one clove of garlic, cut into thin slices, 1 teaspoon of salt, one sprig of fresh basil.
Heat the oil and garlic together. When the garlic turns pale gold, add the tomatoes, salt, and basil and mix. Let it cook until it has reduced to the thickness you like. Put the chicken in some type of roasting vessel (I use my au gratin’s), cover with the marinara sauce, sliced mozzarella, torn basil leaves and slices of fresh tomato. Bake at 350 for about 30 min. I cannot abide under cooked chicken so usually cook for 35 – 40 min. For the last 5 min use the broiler to be sure everything is browning.
Also, the home made garlic bread (2 teaspoons mayonnaise and 1/8 cup of garlic powder spread over the bread and broiled until just browning, 3-5 min) is cooked at the same time as the last 5 min of the chick parm.
We bought some Butternut Ravioli thinking a change might be in order. Now, what do you use for a sauce on butternut ravioli? It needs to offset the earthy taste of the squash, usually that means something buttery, or a spice like cinnamon. I found two possibilities, one is a slightly scalded sage butter the other is a maple cream sauce.
Imagine my surprise when they both worked! The sage butter is made in a skillet. Fine chop some fresh sage, add a couple of tablespoons of butter and mix until the sage is crisp but not browned. Don’t use too high a heat or the butter will burn. Add some salt and pepper to taste and in about 7-10 minutes its ready.
Sage Butter Sauce
The maple cream is made by adding one part heavy cream to two parts maple syrup and a little butter. I used 2 tablespoons maple syrup and one tablespoon heavy cream and one teaspoon butter. Bring it to a boil and turn the head down (or off, it boils easily) and let it cook for 5 minutes.
I think this would work great as an appetizer with both sauces there for dipping.
I started this blog like a short story, “in medias res”. It is time to go back and clean house with some early attempts at baking. In no particular order here is where I have been:
Dr Lee's Med School Graduation Cake. School logos and Lee's name piped.
You will notice the lack of talent in the piping area in all the photos.
Mindy and Don’s Pre-wedding cake
Erev Birthday 2011 (Note to self: Take the picture before you eat the cake)
Flower Cake, lots of drawing of stems etc for a non-artist
Heavenly Strawberry Cake
New Chocolate Fudge Frosting, Chocoholics Heaven
PinkCake
Sponge Cake with Chocolate Ganache and WhiteChocolate Drizzle
TBE Torah Project Cake, actualy the branches and tree trunk were piped, and not too bad
Valentines Day Cak, don't let the drizzle cool so much next time
Cake2, practice piping, practice, practice, practice
Berry Cake, I like berries. This had several kinds
Pre-Passover Cake
5771 HHD Cake, the cake was made with apples and honey, the figures on the top were an apple and a bee
Gator Cake, made for Cara's birthday at TBE. Big Gator fan
Anyone can stop by the market on the way home and for pennies (nickels, dimes,
quarters and dollars) pick up veggies for dinner. Some people prefer to grow their own… veggies. This is a much more un-economical method of providing for your family. It requires work and luck and a bit of skill. Needless to say, (then why say it!) I started a garden this year. I planted 2 varieties of tomatoes, peppers, herbs, pole beans, cucumbers, carrots, scallions and two varieties of lettuce. I researched online about square foot, or intensive gardening and was able to fit this entire crop into a raised bed garden measuring 3 feet by 8 feet. I started many of the plants from seeds, but replaced several that did not take well with established plantlings.
Someone has been eating my pole beans!! Time to plant some natural pest repellents, marigolds, can you spell marigolds? Or maybe some crysanthomums, can you spell crysanthomums? (I can’t.) These flowers are supposed to keep most of the little blighters from my garden. We shall see… we shall see.
Not every at bat will be a homer, some are base hits, sometimes you strike out.
Last night was an extra base hit. The flavors were good, the presentation adequate
but, for me, it lacked snap. The mahi-mahi recipe was good, not great. I won’t do it again and won’t post the recipe. The rice was very good (thanks to Keith B.) The dessert was a cake I saw online. Again the flavor was good but the presentation – no so much.
Rice: Cut corn from a fresh ear and saute in a little butter and EVO until tender. Boil about 3/4th’s cup of water with 3-4oz of tomato juice. Remove from heat, add rice, corn and a little cut cilantro. Let the rice soak up the liquid and fluff with a fork.
Cake: the cake is a white velvet made in a jelly roll pan.
Beer contains only 4 ingredients, water, sugar (usually derived from the starch in
some grain), yeast and hops (the flower of a climbing vine.) Brewing beer (ales in my case, but just calling all home brew beer is a little easier) is really quite simple. Extract the sugar from the grain in hot water then boil the sugar water. Add different varieties of hops at different times during the boil. Some impart bitterness, some flavor and some aroma. Once the specified time is complete chill the wort (yes, it is called wort at this point) quickly.Yesterday (Oct 5) I used my new home designed and made wort chiller for the first time.
Basically, it is a long coil of copper tubing connected at both ends to flexible tubing. One end is connected to a pump which is immersed in ice water the other end is put into the drain. The hot mixture from the boiler is put into the sink and the cold water is pumped through the tubing.
The cooling time went from 20+ minutes to Dilute the mixture to the specified amount (in my case about 5 gallons.) Once it is cool enough that it won’t harm the yeast you can “pitch the yeast”. (Add the yeast and aerate it well to mix some oxygen into the solution to aid inabout 10. These apparati are available online but use tap water for chilling. At 80 deg our tap water is not very efficient. The water going into the wort was 54 deg. Initially the exit water was 140 deg. That went down quickly at first the more slowly as the wort cooled and the temperature differential reduced.fermentation. Cap it with an airlock and wait. There is an initial violent primary or attentuative phase where the yeast really eats the sugar like crazy. Then a second or conditioning phase occurs where some of the remaining fermentables (sugar) are still eaten by the yeast and converted to alcohol. If you don’t do this there are esters and phenols left which adversely affect the flavor of your brew.
After 3-4 weeks add a little more sugar and bottle the batch. After 2-3 weeks (or more) in the bottle the yeast will have converted the new sugar to alcohol and produced a by produce, namely carbon dioxide, which
gives the brew its fizz.
Whew! That’s a lot but it’s not really that hard. Mix, boil, mix, cool, mix, wait, wait, wait, drink! It’s the waiting that is the killer.
It probably all started with beer. That’s not really true, it began with ale. Lagers must be fermented cool (45- 55deg F) are more difficult to brew here in Florida without some sort of cooling jacket. On the other hand, ales can be fermented at room temperature (75deg F) and not create some of the ester/phenol flavors created with fermenting lagers at our room temperatures
Garry P, Mike B and I started brewing at a brew house in Davie in October of 2006.
When they shut down in 2008 we set up operations on my patio and list so many revisionists in the world, the history starts there.
We made quite a few batches of Home Brew since we started back on Day 1. (Did you know the day of creation for computers is Jan 1, 1900?)
Next I will give a short explanation of how to make brews that are better than any you can buy.
aBatteredOldSuitcase 