August Daring Bakers - Candy!

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

The two candies I made were truffles Pate de Fruit. I had made truffles before, but they were always the rolled kind, so tempering them was a new thing for me. I can't say I was too good at it - I think I needed some better apparatus for getting the truffle out of the chocolate bowl. Mine were getting too coated and odd looking. But they tasted great! I prefer rolled truffles though - the tempered ones are just too rich.



The pate de fruit were super easy to make. Mix up the mixture, let it set, cut it up, roll in sugar. So easy! They were also delicious and amazing replacement to candies like this that I have bought oh-so-many-times.



Overall - I loved the candy challenge. Thinking of trying some of the recipes I didn't do at a later time. Delicious!.

You can check out all the recipes here.

Daring Bakers May 2011: MARQUISE ON MERINGUE

The May 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrowand Jenny of Purple House Dirt. They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they prepared at a restaurant in Seattle.

The challenge for this month was super exciting for me because I have had the "real version" of the dessert at the mentioned restaurant. And loved it. Many times. It is the 'El Diablo' at Tango. It is a plate of decadence. Chocolate with a hint of spice and meringue, caramel and roasted almonds on the side. You can read about the recipe (and prettier versions than mine...) here.

This dessert is no easy muffin. It involves multiple days of work (well at least for me... you have to wait at least two hours in between making the chocolate blocks and I decided to just leave them in the freezer overnight). The following day I made the caramel and toasted almonds (Ryan did the almonds actually! He bakes!). Then I had everything ready and just had to whip up the meringue and put everything together when serving. Super easy.



I loved the result. So good and easy to put together in the end. I served it when I had a lot of people over so it was great to see everything (except one) of the 22 or so desserts get eaten. I live to fatten up my friends. :) The only problem was that I could not use paper plates and had 22 dirty dishes... There was no way I was using the blow torch on paper plates. :P

Will I be making this thing again? Most likely not. So much work! And I know where I can get one without working at all. Maybe for some super-special occasion. But there are so many things to cook!!

So since I got a blowtorch for this recipe (and have since been exploring it with crème brûlée, I need more recipes that use a blowtorch. Mmmmm. 

Kitchen Failures Series: Cream of Fail

I made crème brûlée for the first time a week or so ago as soon as I got my blowtorch in the mail. So excited to burn things. It was delicious and super easy. I used this recipe and it turned out amazing. The only comment probably would be that I didn't put enough sugar on the top when broiling them so the crust did not get to break with the pop that I love so much. Oh well. 


Just to clarify... this is not a picture of that cooking excursion. This is when I made it again this week and thought it would be so easy again. Well... not so much. I was making bagels along with making this so I turned out and mixed the egg yolks too long in the mixer. And then since the eggs took up more room since they had so much air in them they over-fillled my ramekins. So I got greedy and filled them up high... bad mistake. So I put them in a water bath into the oven. All fine until I check on them about twenty minutes later and they're overflowing like crazy. 


Panic. Turn off oven. Take everything out. Laugh. Deal with the fact that even though there is not room to torch, they are still delicious. Just a ramekin of creamy goodiness. Thankfully it cooked enough that it was not just beat eggs and sugar. So this was not a bad failure?


So I love crème brûlée, but next time I make it I will be paying a LOT more attention.


For a real failure stay tuned for the full analysis of my bagel failure. It was epic. 

Super amazing chicken wings

I was never a huge fan of chicken wings until Ryan made them for me when we first started dating (PS - cooking is a good way to woo a woman). I don't like deeply fried things and most chicken wings I have tried have a lot of breaded stuff on them or just a lot of fat. I am not a fan. I also do not like barbecue sauce so that kicks most contenders out.

Ryan uses Alton Browns' recipe for everything except the sauce. The sauce he uses is six tablespoons Franks Hot Sauce, two tablespoons butter and one Tabasco. Spicy but so so good. It was so spicy this time I had to run to the fridge for some milk. But worth every bit of suffering.

Just writing this post makes me crave more of them. Mmmmm.

Try the recipe out. Unless you are a vegetation or hate spicy stuff (then you can just scale down the sauce), it is oh so amazing.

Hearts of Brownies

I've never been much for 'festive baking'. Like having orange cookies for halloween and whatever Christmas breads. So when I saw everyone popping up with super cute heart cutouts for V-Day, I was actually interested. Not at that time... thats like going with the masses. But I put it on my list to bake soon. Soon turned out to be more than two months later, but that is not the important part. :)

The important part is that I love this way of baking. So awesome to make a super easy design while cooking. I happen to have a beautiful set of heart cookie cutters so this was a necessary task.

The brownies did not hold together very well though. Maybe a gooier brownie would work better, but the tended to fall apart when you grabbed them not in a perfectly straight manner. No problem - easier to have brownie pieces for snacking.

I'd also add more chocolate - the dark brownies were not dark enough and not chocolaty enough for me.

The was a fun project. Easy and super rewarding. :)

Recipe: Smitten Kitchen

Pi day celebrations

I am behind on posting photos, but I did celebrate Pi day this year! I love pi day because baking is fun and I've only recently discovered pie. Actually last year for pi-day I made a huge amount of pies, and I had a huge amount of people over with pies, but I did not know how to make a pie crust! All of my pie crusts were pre-bought. This is the first year that I have pretty pie dishes and my own crust. And it is oh so flaky and buttery. Delicious.

The pictured pies are pear/apple, apple and pumpkin. :)



So the other thing to do on Pi day is to get some pizza! Many people I know went over to Serious Pie for lunch, but my team headed out to Tutta Bella. Great pizzas. This pizza is actually not mine - mine looked a little too ravenous with prosciutto pieces on it and all. This one amuses me more because it looks like a salad more than a pizza from the side.

Daring Bakers February 2011 Challenge: Panne Cotta and Florentine Cookies

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.



Unlike the failure of the last daring bakers recipe, I really enjoyed this challenge. It was not extremely difficult, but not something I had thought of trying before. It turned out delicious and I am excited to try more panne cotta flavors.



Mine was rather simple since I just used the ingredients that I had in the house. And a little bit makeshift in transport. Though I was excited to use these cups that I've had for a while.



The cookies were also very fun - I think I spread them out a little too far so they were a bit hard to peel off.



But in the end - delicious. And that is what counts. And I think the final product looks good! So lots of wins.

Oh and I brought them to a superbowl party. That part amused me. Almost none of them got eaten though between the chickenwings and such, but my coworkers were kind to finish them off... so that I wouldn't.

Loved this challenge. Hope for more like this.

Daring Bakers January 2011 challenge: Biscuit Joconde imprime/entremet

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.

This is my first Daring Bakers challenge. I joined because I want to bake more challenging recipes and this is a great outlet for trying new recipes.

Sadly, I think that this month the challenge was a little too daring for me. Though the cake tasted well, it did not look like it was supposed to and not nearly as well as everyone elses. Tasting great is what matters, right? No trouble finding victims to finish it off for me. 

Lessons? Lots. 

1. Do not use green as a food coloring. Yes it is my favorite color. Yes it looks like mold when combined with food. Bad combination.

2. Use more food coloring. Green combined with little of it looks like even more mold than it would without it.

 

3. Rulers. I should get one. Useful for like... measuring things. 

4. Um... last lesson I am not sure about. Honestly not quite sure why my design turned out to completely fail. So lesson of not understanding?

Linking to recipe over at the Daring bakers site. I do not feel qualified to give the recipe considering how mine did not turn out so pretty. Also - off to Whistler so not much time to type. Hoping I do better in next months' challenge!

Lemon braid loaf

Since I keep seeing Angel make braided loafs when there are parties at their place, I've had a craving to make some braided loafs. My parents are visiting this week and love lemon so I took this as an opportunity to try this recipe out.



It was quite hard to get this one right. I was missing a key ingredient for this recipe: a ruler. All I have is a tape measurer and it was not easy to roll out the dough to the specified size. I think if I don't get a ruler by next time I'll just draw out the shape on a perchament paper and roll out there. Note how much extra dough I had left over - I rolled it out too thin so lots of dough left over.



The braiding part was very fun - it is amazing how easy it is to form the braid. It was so beautiful even though my loaf is a lot smaller than it is supposed to be (thinkness-wise).



I let it sit in the fridge overnight before cooking it the following day. Not sure how it impacted rising - I was not sure exactly what 'bringing back to room temperature' means - I guessed two hours. I guess it worked?

To use up all the extra dough I just made a lemon curd roll... which sort of fell apart during baking (you can see the spill over on the side of the finished photo). Oh well - it tasted good. =)

So the photo of the day (the only one actually taken today - as the rest were taken yesterday) is of the cut open load. You can see the layers. I love the pairing of the cream cheese and the lemon. Delish!



Braided Lemon Bread
Recipe from Smitten Kitchen


Sponge
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1/4 cup (1 ounce) unbleached all-purpose flour
Dough
Sponge (above)
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) sour cream or yogurt
1/4 cup (4 tablespoons or 2 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs, 1 beaten for dough, 1 beaten with 1 teaspoon water for brushing bread
1/4 cup (1 3/4 ounces) sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups (10 5/8 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
Pearl sugar or sparkling white sugar for sprinkling (I used castar sugar)
Lemon cream cheese filling
1/3 cup (2 1/2 ounces) cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons (5/8 ounces) sugar
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) sour cream
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons (1/2 ounce) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (2 ounces) lemon curd (I used store bought)
Make sponge: In a small bowl, combine the sponge ingredients. Stir well to combine, loosely cover with plastic wrap, and set aside to proof for 10 to 15 minutes.
Make dough in a stand mixer: Combine the sponge, sour cream, butter, egg, sugar, salt and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add flour and mix with the paddle attachment until the dough is a rough, shaggy mass. Switch to the dough hook and knead on until a soft, smooth dough forms, about 5 to 6 minutes. Place the kneaded dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise for 60 to 90 minutes, until quite puffy and nearly doubled.
Make the filling (while dough rises): Combine all the filling ingredients (except the lemon curd) in a small bowl, mixing until smooth and lump-free. Reserve the filling and lemon curd until ready to fill the braids.
Prepare bread: Gently deflate the dough and roll it out on a very well floured counter to a 10″ x 15″ rectangle. Transfer rectangle to a large piece of parchment paper, please; I did not and it led to all sorts of trouble. With the side of your hand, lightly press two lines down the dough lengthwise, dividing it into three equal columns. Spread the cream cheese filling down the center section, leaving the top and bottom two inches free of filling. Spread the lemon curd over the cream cheese filling.
To form the mock braid, cut crosswise strips one inch apart down the length of the outer columns of you dough (the parts without filling). Make sure you have an equal amount of 1-inch strips down the right and left sides. Be careful not to cut your parchment paper; if you have a bench scraper, this is a great time to use it. Remove the four corner segments. To “braid”, begin by folding top flap down and bottom flap up over the filling. Lift the top dough strip and gently bring it diagonally across the filling. Repeat on the right side, and continue down the entire braid, alternating strips until you are out. You can tuck the last couple that hand off decoratively under the end of the braid.
Carefully transfer the dough and the parchment paper to a baking sheet. Cover loosely with plastic and set it aside to rise for 45 to 50 minutes, until quite puffy.
Bake bread: Preheat the oven to 375°F. Brush the loaves with egg wash, and sprinkle with pearl or coarse sparkling sugar. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the loaves are golden brown and your apartment smells like a doughnut factory. Remove from the oven and cool for 15 to 20 minutes before serving.


I refrigerated my bread overnight after I made the braid. I took it out and made it warm up for 2 hours before it did the second rise.

Cooks and mountains

Double photo day all around, isn't it great?

The boy does not cook very often, so you bet that when he offers to make dinner I'll make sure to get myself over there to get some of that meal. Mmmm food.



Got to love it when I get a home cooked meal not made by me. =)

Another day at Crystal Mountain with Steve and Ryan. Not nearly as amazing as last time. Started with thoughts of doom as we had to wait 20 minutes for a shuttle and then give up and walk most of the way there from the car and then stand in insanely long mobbish lines. But then as you disperse around the mountain, and people start taking lunch... life gets better.



I never went on the back side of the mountain last time I was there because it seemed icy and I was not sure where the routes were. I met a local on a life today though who took me back there. Pretty awesome - great views and nobody on the slopes. A little terrifying with ice and cliffs, but fine once I figured out how to get around them. Now I just need to get ski buddies who'll go back there with me. Anyone?

1/13/11 Bread machines - yay or nay?

I got both a stand mixer and a bread machine for the holidays so I have been heavily abusing both.There is freshly baked bread a couple of days a week and I love it. Yet I have found that I am too lazy to deal with the raising and baking of bread in the oven. Yes I know you can do it in '5 minutes a day', but I am forgetful about these things and I don't like stressing that I need to be home to bake the bread a particular evening. In general projects that take more than one day do not work (and since I get home around 6-9, I do not want to stay up super late baking).

So - bread machine to the rescue! Take 5 minutes, make beautiful bread! It will be ready in 5 hours (or more if I set a timer). Amazing! And the apartment smells delicious.

I did love when I made 'real' bread to have the amazing crust and the 'bubbles' from kneeding. Have not gotten those in the bread machine, but I've only been cooking out of the book that came with the machine.

Any good recipes for machines or breads that will not make me go crazy with the number of steps? I really want to make some sourdough, but am intimidated by the preparation. And the cloth towel for raising, and the fact that I keep forgetting to use a glass instead of steel mixing bowl. So much to think about!

Picture of the day - my bread machine bread!



So delicious - breakfast is now always bread with something - grilled cheese, maple butter, peanut butter and bananas. So many possibilities!

Thai Tea Ice Cream

I love Thai tea. Let me rephrase that. I LOVE THAI TEA. It is one of my favorite taste combinations. It is my comfort food. Having some sends my heart racing and my taste buds to a joyful simple place.


So naturally, the first thing I did when I got an ice-cream maker for the holidays was... to make Thai tea ice cream. I'd been eyeing a recipe for a while from Use Real Butter. 


I've had some Thai tea that a friend got in Thailand laying around for ages, so I was happy to use it. It took a while (as did figuring out how to put the ice cream attachment on my stand mixer), but in the end it was worth it. So delicious and not something I can get in a store. 





The photo above is of the second recipe I tried, from Ivory Hut. This recipe is WAY easier than the previous one, and the flavor comes out just the same. I think I'll be going with the latter one from now on (since I ordered 3 bags of Thai tea off Amazon because this craving is not going away soon) because why not make it simple? =)


Photo lessons? Not much. I tried taking the photo with various backgrounds, and had trouble focusing on the wood background (though it looks the best on it). What is up with me and focusing? I should also be more mindful of imperfections before I take photos for cooking. It was bugging me when I was editing the photo that there are some smears from imperfect dropping of ice cream on the side of the dish. 


For now - so many ice creams to try. What next? Suggestions?

Simple Thai Tea Ice Cream

Recipe taken from Ivory Hut

1 1/2 cup half-and-half or whole milk (I used whole milk)
4 tablespoons loose leaf Thai tea
1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Put the half-and-half or milk in a sauce pan and scald the milk. Add the Thai tea and sugar and stir to dissolve the sugar. Once it comes to a simmer, take it off the heat and continue to stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Let cool, allowing the tea to continue steeping, then add the heavy cream. Put the mixture in the refrigerator and let it get cold. You can also stick it in the freezer to speed up the process.

Strain, then pour into your ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions. Makes about 1.5 quarts.

Some notes:

-I do not strain my ice cream very well. As seen in my photo, some thai tea leaves are still left. Some folk may not like that. I don't mind. My main problem is that I only have one strainer which is not very good

-I left my mix in the fridge for a good 5 hours before putting it in the maker. I am sure you can leave it longer. Great for 'do ahead'.

How NOT to cook steak

Since paying so much for steak at restaurants, it seems like a much more economical solution is to make some steak at home. Right? Not always.

First thing: need to get some steak. For this we go to the most amazing butcher ever. Double DD meats (about 15/20 minutes north of Seattle). They have a huge selection of all sorts of meats, and more sauces than I've ever seen combined in my life. And with the amazing yelp reviews that they have, you better believe they are awesome. Result of step one: two Porterhouse steaks (first mistake, should have picked a simpler steak).

Step two: How to make steak? Well I've made steak before but my method has been to cook until when I cut the steak open, it is not completely bloody. So instead.... following the wise advice of Alton Brown in 'Steak your claim' (first episode ever!)

Step three: Buy a cast iron pan as directed by Alton Brown. Another mistake was going to Fred Meyer and getting their simplest 'pre seasoned' pan. Not trusting that the pan was pre-seasoned, we went through the process of seasoning the pan ourselves just in case.

Step four: STEAK! Instructions are to season the steak with a kosher salt, some ground pepper and a bit of safflower oil. Done. Heat up the pan at in 500 degree oven, and then 5 more minutes on the stove.

And the chaos begins.... Smoke starts going up from the stove. Ryan is opening up all the windows and doors. About 3 minutes into the process... FIRE. Well not a lot of fire, but fire on the burner. I was the one standing next to the pan and knew that water was the wrong thing to do, but ashamed to say my reaction speed could do nothing... instead I started chanting 'fire!'. Ryan had good reaction to tell me to throw some salt at it. Not sure if that is what helped but it went off. Cause of fire.... still not sure. Old burner? Some soap from when we washed the pan? No idea. But panic mode begins. Fire is not what I like seeing in the kitchen.

After the adrenaline dies down a little... have to continue the process. Re-heat pan, check burner for not catching fire again. Check. Now... the steak goes on the pan. Instructions are 2.5 minutes per side. This is a picture of about 30 seconds into the process.

Not so good. A minute or so later the apartment is full of smoke, all the windows open, fans out of the window. Smoke detector has been taken out so that it stops screaming. Ahhh... nothing is helping! Panic mode stuffs the steak into the oven early. At least source of smoke eliminated. Must run outside to breathe properly.

After apartment is livable again, we take the steak out and wash off the pan. (another mistake... not checking temperature of steak before taking it out).

Well... another steak is left. We have made mistakes... but can there be recovery? New plan: only warm up the pan in the oven. No oil on the steak. No pepper. 2 minutes a side, and then into the oven.

While the second steak is cooking we start on dinner... cut open the first steak. First bite.... smoke. Tastes like smoke. Where is the meat? Cutting further in.... it is raw. Um.... instruction following fail?

Phew.... less smoke. After eight minutes in the oven (what we put the first steak in for) we take it out and this time actually measure the temperature. 95 degrees. A rare steak is 110+. This means that the first steak could not have gone over 100. Food poisoning possibility anyone? At least we got the steak from a very credible butcher. Eating of the first steak ends. Not even desire to heat it up more. Back in the oven the steak #2 goes.

Check #2: Steak is at 105. Still not good. Raise the temperature. Back in.

Check #3: 145! YES! Wait.... left the thermometer in a bit longer... now it is 165. Crap.... definitely done. Finally a functional steak... but way overcooked. And another problem... there is no hunger. Adrenaline makes one not hungry anymore.... body has gone into survival mode and all food is rejected. Solution: switch to wine.

Lessons learned: Alton Brown has a crazy industrial fan in his kitchen. Good butchers are amazing if you fail at cooking steak. Smoke smell staying in hair very well. Measuring temperature of steak before consumption is advisable. Cast iron pans are terrifying. And... most memorable for me is that I do not mind paying large amounts of money for my steak in a restaurant anymore. The pain... the horror.... I like my simple joyful piece of meat properly cooked and right before me.

Adventure complete. No casualties. Many lessons.

I finally have a visitor! Now what...?

I've been trying to get anyone I can get my hands on to visit me. My grandma visited me for a couple of days in December which was awesome, but getting Matthew for a visit this week was the first friend visitor (and hopefully not the last!).

Was quite afraid of my first visitor getting a horrible rainy impression of Seattle-it was insanely rainy and disgusting on Friday. To top that off, Matthew managed to get trapped in Bellevue while biking around... quite an accomplishment. But provides great forms of exercise. I should attempt this sometime. I did meet up with him for lunch in the International District. Green leaf is one of my favorite restaurants by work now-large portions and something about lemongrass sauce makes me very, very happy.

Friday evening, per Samantha's recommendation, we headed over to Bizarro's. The wait was about half an hour, not too bad for a 'top rated' Friday night restaurant. The thing that sticks out about the place, as can be inferred from the name, is the curious decor. Bicycles on the cealing, odd paintings on the walls, a spider off the chandalier. Quirky to the extreme. It is a type of place you can spend almost the whole evening (we were there for about two hours). I would give it an A+ for fresh bread and oils - magnificent combination and great presentation. I complimented this with a delightful glass of port. Mmmm. The main dish for me was elk. Yes, elk the animal. Whenever I see an animal that I have not tried on the menu, it must be consumed. I will give elk a B. Chewy and tasteful, but not something I would go out of my way to have.

Saturday, for a second time for me, we went over to Wallace Falls State Park. I went on this hike previously in October and loved the waterfalls so decided it was worth a repeat visit. The trail climbs very steeply and through quite an array of vegetation: fields, rain forest, and pine forest. The rapid river gushes several hundred feet below the trail at most points. The falls come in three stages- the middle one being the most impressive. If you are tired, the top falls is not even worth the trek in my opinion.

The middle falls are amazing in their two-teir cascade, and the magnificent view on the valley. We were lucky that the clouds left right as we got to the look-out point. In a matter of minutes, the view of a giant cloud faded into the blue sky, mountains, and cozy valley. Perfect timing. =)

Also great luck with weather - both of the weekend days were partly cloudy and beautiful. A sunset on the coast is one of my favorite things ever. We watched Saturday's from 'Golden Gardens'. 

A day trip that I would really recommend most visitors is to Bainbridge Island. Seattle is famous for it's ferries and this is just a 35 minute ride with amazing views of the city and possibility of wildlife spotting (apparently some people saw sea otters on our trip there...). The trip can be done by car, foot or bus. Both of the times I have gone has been on foot, so I think next time I will bring some other form of transportation to get a better look at the island, but it is great. Quiet and quaint.

And once again, I will make a plug for my favorite farmers market in the city-Ballard farmers market. Sunday mornings. It has all of the things I love most about markets: good mix of food, arts, and produce stands. Live music. Cute shops around the market. =)

And no trip to Seattle is complete without a visit to the Space Needle. Well it could be... but we went up anyways. Great view.

And as I vow to continue documenting my cooking adventures, I would like to give an A+ to the Trader Joes pizza dough. Cheep and amazing. Also adding lots of cornmeal on the pizza peal is essential to success. Still to come: trying to make my own pizza dough.

First visitor to Seattle was, at least for me, a success. Great to see somebody that I have known for a while, and show off what I have learned about the city so far. Here's to many more!