Chocolate Cream Dacquoise

Hey ya'll, it's me again, and I have a Chocolate Cream Dacquoise to present to you: [hazelnut meringue, chocolate cream, whipped cream]x3 + [hazelnut meringue, whipped cream, caramelized hazelnuts].
 This dessert is a bit more complicated than my usual adventures, but it was christmas, which in my family means "time to eat lots of food", so I figured it would be a good time to try something fancy. Of course, as I was making it, I was convinced the meringues had burnt and that the pudding had curdled (it had, twice), but it turns out it is very difficult to make hazelnuts, cream, and chocolate taste bad.

Because this dessert is a pretty big undertaking, I'm too lazy to type up the recipe, so instead I'll entertain you with my research about dessert naming.

Dacquoise: a female inhabitant of the city of Dax, or a dessert made of layers of hazelnut or almond meringue filled with buttercream.

The red flag is Dax.

According to en.wikipedia.org, a marjolaine is a dacquoise with chocolate buttercream. However, fr.wikipedia.org makes no mention of marjolaine. In fact, searching for marjolaine in Google.fr only brings up marjoram, pictures of women named Marjolaine, and websites in English gushing about the supposedly French dessert of marjolaine. However, when I searched for "marjolaine dacquoise" in google.fr and insist on only pages in French, I do get a couple hits for French blogs making marjolaine.

Conclusions: Marjolaine is much more widely used to refer to a chocolate Dacquoise in English than in French. The small amount of usage in French is possibly due to feedback from English (French is currently borrowing a lot of words from English).


General gist of recipe (from Trish Deseine's I want Chocolate):

2 cups of hazelnuts

stirred into 12 beaten egg whites and 3/2 cups of sugar to make the meringue. This mixture is formed into 4 disks and baked for an hour at 275F.

For the chocolate cream, I beat 6 egg yolks, 1/4 cup sugar, and 2 tbsp flour until pale and frothy. I heated up 3/2 cup cream and 3/2 cup milk until almost boiling, and poured it into the egg yolks.

The yolk-cream was put back in the pan and brought to a boil (this is where the curdling happened, whoops!). Once the cream thickened, I added 4oz dark chocolate and stirred well. I cooled the cream in the refrigerator.

Now the layering! Meringue, chocolate cream,

whipped cream, grated dark chocolate. 

I made some caramel, mixed in some roasted hazelnuts, and crumbled it all on top.

The chocolate cream is kind of oozing everywhere. 

We're supposed to eat turkey or something

We celebrated this year's Thanksgiving with our wonderful friends the M family. Yesterday's dinner menu included:

• Roast Turkey (Traditions must be observed)
• Catherine M's Chestnut Stuffing 
• Green beens with lemon
• My dad's Pommes Anna
• My brother's Ginger Cranberry Sauce
• Cornbread
• Hazelnut and Fuyu Persimmon Salad
• Pumpkin Pie
• Sara M's Maple Pots de Crème

I read Bon Appetit Magazine, and in their Thanksgiving issue this year they found issue with using stuffing as stuffing because it prevents the bird from cooking or some other nonsense. They even decided to call their stuffing recipes "dressing" to discourage putting them inside turkeys. This name change doesn't even make any sense because, at least in my experience, dressing is a flavorful sauce. I do not believe that bread mixed with various vegetables/meats fall in that category.
In any case, if your stuffing is hot when you put it in the turkey, it isn't going to prevent the turkey from cooking, and the turkey juices will make the stuffing that much better.

Enough ranting. For the potatoes, my dad found a recipe in that same Bon Appetit magazine for "Mini Herbed Pommes Anna" , which are basically cakes of potato slices layered with butter and herbs. This recipe turned out delicious, and it can be easily made into advance, so I recommend it to anyone who needs a showstopper side.

My brother is the family cranberry expert, and he found a recipe for ginger-lemon cranberry sauce. The sauce came out strong and savory, not as sweet as more classic recipes. The ginger complemented the the rich gravy quite well. 

I made the Hazelnut/Persimmon salad and the pumpkin pie. For the salad, I first toasted some hazelnuts in the oven at 400F for 10-15 minutes (stirring them often). According to Catherine M's instructions, we peeled the hazelnuts by rubbing them in a dish towel.

We then sliced up some fuyu persimmons (the ones with rounded bottoms: they're not astringent) into a cider vinegar-olive oil-mustard-black pepper vinaigrette and added some mixed greens and arugula. The sweetness of the persimmon was nicely complemented by the tartness of the vinegar and the bitterness of the arugula.

For the pumpkin pie, I used Cook's Illustrated recipe, which can be found here http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2008/11/cooks-illustrated-pumpkin-pie-recipe.html . I really like this recipe because it combines canned pumpkin with fresh sweet potato to give a complex flavor. Compared to the pumpkin pie from the dining hall I had eaten last week, this pie tasted full and complete.

Thanksgiving Dinner

I am back at school from a very nice Thanksgiving break. Food at home is so much better than food in college. For thanksgiving dinner my family had a turkey (prepared by my dad)

 

but it looks tastier cooked.

 

We rubbed the turkey with herb butter and stuffed it with chestnut stuffing that my mom and I made.

We based the stuffing off of this recipe from Epicurious, but we also sautéed the turkey's liver and heart and added it to the stuffing along with some chicken broth. And, like every year, we decided to cook the turkey with stuffing in it because in my family's opinion, it makes the stuffing taste so much better.

To compliment this, I made Brussels sprouts with bacon and my brother made cranberry sauce.

 

To prepare, the Brussels spourts, I first steamed the halved sprouts in a pressure cooker for 7 minutes and fried some cubes of thick bacon. Then I added the sprouts to the bacon and let them caramelize for a bit.

My brother's cranberry sauce was actually Cook's Illustrated's Cranberry Chutney with Appple and Crystallized Ginger. It had all of those ingredients as well as cider vinegar and brown sugar.

Since we don't have much family in the US, we celebrate thanksgiving with another French family. Our guests brought more delicious foods including corn bread, green beans sautéed in garlic, delicious apple tart.

And so we had a belly-happifying Thanksgiving meal!

Poached Pears with Vanilla and Ginger

Well, I just finished my chemistry final, and I wasn't doing any productive (unless playing with mini magnets counts as productive) so I figured I should blog. I was on fall break this weekend so I went home and my dad and I made some poached pears for a dessert at our friends' house. Neither of us had ever made poached pears before but I decided that we should not poach the pears in red wine because in my opinion that would make them untasty. If I am making a dessert, I want to like my dessert. So we settled on a vanilla-ginger syrup with real vanilla beans and fresh ginger.

When we went to the grocery store we discovered that the price of vanilla beansis inversely correlated to the quantity you buy: A bottle with 1 vanilla bean cost $10, 2 vanilla beans cost $8, and 3 beans cost $7. I can only imagine how cheap 20 vanilla beans would be.

Anyways, my dad cut the pears into quarters while I heated 1.25L of water with 250g sugar, 2 tblsp chopped ginger, and half a vanilla bean.

To extract maximum flavor from the vanilla bean I sliced it lengthwise and used a knife to scrape out all the black seeds where the flavor is stored. I put the seeds into the water and I stuck the pods in for good measure.

The seeds are on the tip of the knife

So, I am sure that you are all wondering: What makes vanilla taste like vanilla? Well, the vanilla pod is the fruit of a genus of orchid (a genus being a group of species) that must be either hand pollinated or pollinated by one specific species of Mexican bee. The main flavor compound in vanilla is the vanillin molecule:

Vanillin

and artificial vanilla flavor is basically just vanillin dissolved in water and alcohol. McCormick's "Premium Imitation Vanilla" contains: "WATER, ALCOHOL (26%), NATURAL FLAVORINGS (INCLUDING EXTRACTIVES OF COCOA
AND EXTRACTIVES OF TEA), VANILLIN AND OTHER
ARTIFICIAL FLAVORINGS, CORN SYRUP, AND CARAMEL COLOR." (http://www.mccormick.com/).
So what makes natural vanilla different? Well, vanilla beans also contain lots of other compounds that add more dimension to the vanilla flavor. Natural vanilla extract is made by macerating vanilla beans in ethanol (alcohol) to extract the flavors.

Anyways, back to poached pears. After heating the water with the sugar, ginger, and vanilla, we added the pears to the liquid and let them simmer for 20 minutes, until the were soft. Then we took the pears out:

and boiled down the remaining liquid to form a syrup:

which we then poured back onto the pears (first removing the vanilla pods):

The pears went very well with a Basque butter cake our hosts served up for dessert because the cake soaked up the pear syrup on our plates.

Extra Pastry Dough

Do you ever make a tart and have extra dough left? What do you do with it?
I made an upside-down apple/pear tart, and then I went a little crazy with the extra dough :)

Pastry Dough Craziness:
Materials:

• Left-over flaky pie crust (or other pie crust)
• Edible stuff.

Procedure:

1. Make a ball of leftover raw pie crust.
2. Roll it out.
3. Mooch around the kitchen to find edible stuff (fridge, freezer, and pantry are good bets)
4. Put edible stuff in the middle.
5. Let your creativity guide your hand! Add random spices, salt, sugar, food coloring, etc... The sky is your limit! Unless, of course, you can fly a rocket, in which case your limit is bit farther than that.
6. Bake until cooked (time depends on size).
7. Eat.

Data:
A ball of leftover pastry dough sat in front of me. I looked through some cupboards and found a 3x4 MINI muffin pan and MINI muffin cups. MINI tartlettes it would be. I got some frozen blueberries and raspberries out of the freezer and made three tartlettes of each. I found some baby carrots in my fridge (there are always baby carrots in my fridge) and sliced them, microwaved them, and made three more tartlettes. Three slots left. Hazelnuts are tasty, so hazelnuts I would use (with a pat of butter of course). I decided to sprinkle a little curry and ginger on the carrot tarts at the last minutes, and then I put the pan in the oven.

I looked back at the counter.
A small ball of pastry dough sat in font of me. Well, I still have some baby carrots left, but no more mini muffin pans. Then, I remembered that bakc when I was little my cousins and I used to wrap pastry dough around mini sausages. Baby carrots and mini sausages aren't that different, right? I microwaved five baby carrots to soften them, sprinkled them with salt and curry powder, and wraped them in the last of my pastry dough.

Results/Discussion:
Everything was quite tasty. My family was at first sceptic of the "carrots in a blanket," but, even though the spices were not really perceptible, the sweetness of the carrot was well-complemented by the buttery crispness of the crust to form a yummy little appetizer.

For dinner we had Costco's famous duck confit (quite good, actually), roasted tomatoes from my aunt's backyard, garlic-sautéed chanterelles, and packaged fries. Yum!

The tart and tartlettes were served for dessert (though the carrot tartlettes were not very popular, they would be better as part of a savory meal)

Conclusion: Extra pastry dough is an excellent source of yumminess.

Pumpkin (Bourbon) Cheesecake

Hi everyone! It's been a while since my last post... Well, I've been busy ok? I had summer program applications, AP class applications, tests, homework, and the list just goes on and on. But today is Friday, and Friday is no homework day :) So I will blog.

A few weeks ago, my brother came home from college for his spring break with a couple of friends, and I realized it would be the perfect occasion for the ultimate indulgence: cheesecake. To add a bit of fun, my mom and I decided on Pumpkin Cheesecake because canned pumpkin is always in season.
To make it, I used the delicious "Pumpkin-Bourbon Cheesecake with Graham-Pecan Crust recipe" from Cook's Illustrated. To make the cheesecake a little less "bourraga" (as my family says,) I removed a stick (8oz) of cream cheese from the filling. To compensate for the loss tanginess, I replaced the heavy cream with sour cream. I am glad I did because even this reduced filling barely fit in my 9in springform pan.

And yes, I did dry the pumpkin with paper towels as specified in the recipe. I have never tried this cheesecake without drying the pumpkin, and I don't want to risk spending all the effort of making cheesecake only to get a soggy filling.

I completely omitted the bourbon, but you are welcome to include it.

Here is the Recipe:

Cook's Illustrated's "Pumpkin-Bourbon Cheesecake with Graham-Pecan Crust"

"Depending on the oven and the temperature of the ingredients, the cheesecake may bake about 15 minutes faster or slower than the instructions indicate; it is therefore best to check the cake 1 1/4 hours into baking. Although the cheesecake can be made up to three days in advance, the crust will begin to lose its crispness after only one day. To make slicing the cheesecake easy and neat, use a knife with a narrow blade, such as a carving knife; between cuts, dip the blade into a pitcher of hot water and wipe it clean with paper towels."

Ingredients
Crust :

• 3 ounces graham crackers (5 whole crackers), broken into large pieces
• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 ounces pecans ,chopped (about 1/2 cup)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted

Filling

• 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 1 can pumpkin (15 ounces)
• 1 1/2 pounds cream cheese , cut into 1-inch chunks and left to soften at room temperature, about 30 minutes [I used 1 lb]
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 large eggs , left at room temperature, about 30 minutes
• 1 cup heavy cream [I used 1 cup sour cream]
  
• 1/4 cup bourbon [I did not include bourbon]
  

Instructions
1. FOR THE CRUST: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Spray bottom and sides of 9-inch springform pan evenly with nonstick cooking spray. Pulse crackers, nuts, sugar, and spices in food processor until evenly and finely ground, about fifteen 2-second pulses. Transfer crumbs to medium bowl, drizzle melted butter over, and mix with rubber spatula until evenly moistened. Turn crumbs into prepared springform pan and, using hand, spread crumbs into even layer. Using flat-bottomed ramekin or drinking glass, press crumbs evenly into pan bottom, then use a soup spoon to press and smooth crumbs into edges of pan. Bake until fragrant and browned about the edges, about 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack while making filling.

2. FOR THE FILLING: Bring about 4 quarts water to simmer in stockpot. Whisk sugar, spices, and salt in small bowl; set aside. To dry pumpkin (see illustrations below): Line baking sheet with triple layer of paper towels. Spread pumpkin on paper towels in roughly even layer. Cover pumpkin with second triple layer of paper towels and press firmly until paper towels are saturated. Peel back top layer of towels and discard. Grasp bottom towels and fold pumpkin in half; peel back towels. Repeat and flip pumpkin onto baking sheet; discard towel.

3. In standing mixer [You could easily use and hand-held electric beater] fitted with flat beater, beat cream cheese at medium speed to break up and soften slightly, about 1 minute. Scrape beater and bottom and sides of bowl well with rubber spatula. Add about one third of sugar mixture and beat at medium-low speed until combined, about 1 minute; scrape bowl and add remaining sugar in two additions, scraping bowl after each addition. Add pumpkin and vanilla and beat at medium speed until combined, about 45 seconds; scrape bowl. Add 3 eggs and beat at medium-low until incorporated, about 1 minute; scrape bowl. Add remaining 2 eggs and beat at medium-low until incorporated, about 45 seconds; scrape bowl. Add heavy cream and bourbon and beat at low speed until combined, about 45 seconds. Using rubber spatula, scrape bottom and sides of bowl and give final stir by hand.

4. Set springform pan with cooled crust on 18-inch-square doubled layer heavy-duty foil and wrap bottom and sides with foil; set wrapped springform pan in roasting pan. Pour filling into springform pan [The filling was almost too much to fit, but it turned out well] and smooth surface; set roasting pan in oven and pour enough boiling water to come about halfway up side of springform pan. Bake until center of cake is slightly wobbly when pan is shaken, and center of cake registers 145 to 150 degrees on instant-read thermometer, about 1 1/2 hours (see note). Set roasting pan on wire rack and use paring knife to loosen cake from sides of pan. Cool until water is just warm, about 45 minutes. Remove springform pan from water bath, discard foil, and set on wire rack; continue to cool until barely warm, about 3 hours. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, at least 4 hours or up to 3 days.

5. TO SERVE: Slide thin metal spatula between crust and pan bottom to loosen, then slide cake onto serving platter. Let cheesecake stand at room temperature about 30 minutes [Personally, I like cold cheesecake], then cut into wedges and serve.

Upside-down Apple-Pear tart

I have often admired the soft, moist fruit, and the crispy upper crust in American apple pies, but I like the appearance and lightness of a french apple tart. How could I combine the two? By jumping off the Tarte Tatin.

Tart tatin is an upside-down apple tart where you first make a caramel (with a stick of butter and a cup of sugar) and spread it at the bottom of the pie plate. I wanted something lighter, less sweet, and less time-consuming. Enter: Upside-down apple-pear tart.

Upside-down Apple-Pear Tart

• Make a flaky pie crust dough and let it rest in the refrigerator for an 45-60 minutes.
• Cut 6-7 apples and pears into thick slices (~8th)
• Pre-heat the oven to 375F
• Butter 1 large or 2 small pie plates. (The crust was enough for me to make 1 9in and 1 5in)
• Place the fruit neatly on the bottom.
• Roll out the pie crust and lay it over the fruit, tucking the edges around the fruit
• Using a fork, make some holes in the crust to let steam out.
• Bake at 375F until the crust is golden brown (it took me an hour, but I was at a high altitude)
• When the tart is done, use a knife to loosen the crust from the pie plate.
• Just before serving: Put your serving plate upside-down on top of the tart and flip the everything so that the serving dish is right side-up underneath the now upside-down pie plate. (Does that make sense?)
• Slowly lift the pie plate, gently shaking it to free the fruit.
• Manually take any fruit pieces that remain stuck to the pie plate and put them on top of the tart.
• Serve hot or room-temp, with optional ice cream or whipped cream.

I made a mini cranberry tart with the leftover crust

The Simplest Apple Compote

Compote is a french word that is usually translated as "applesauce," but more generally can mean "cooked fruit." Many upscale restaurants in America like to use his word to sound fancier, but there is nothing especially complicated about compote.
I decided to name this post compote rather than sauce because I feel that applesauce tends to be associated with smoothness and liquidity. What I am writing about here has distinct pieces of apple and dried fruit and is more a dessert than a snack.

My mother and I decided to make this when we found 5 2-month old apples in the kitchen. We were a bit scared of eating then, and my mother realized we could cook them. We added a handful of extremely dry raisins and a of couple rock-hard dried plums.

I enjoyed this apple stew stirred into yogurt and spread on top of an English muffin, but I am sure it is delicious with ice-cream, waffles, cake, etc...

Ingredients:

• 4-5 apples
• 1/4 cup dried fruit
• 1/4 cup water
  

1. Peel and core the apples.
   
2. Chop them into small cubes (1/2 inch thick.)
3. Add apple, dried fruit, and water to a small-medium saucepan.
4. Cook over low heat with lid until apples are tender, stirring eevery 5-10 minutes.
5. Serve hot or cold.
   

Apple-Pear Crisp

Ha! I have finally have time, during this wonderful Presidents day Weekend, to blog!!!
Today I am making Apple-Pear crisp, from a recipe adapted by me from 101 Cookbooks.
I have scaled it down to fit exactly four people, and baked in individualized ramekins.

The topping is a bit different than usual, it has chew and is similar to granola. Some may prefer a bit less topping, and can reduce the recipe accordingly.

Filling:

• 4 small apples
• 1 medium pear
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• Half a lemon (The juice)
  

Topping:

• 1/2 cup rolled oats (I used quick cooking, haven't tried it with anything else)
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour.
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds
  
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp plain yogurt
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
  
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• Small pinch salt (1/4 tsp-ish)
  

Fruit:

1. Peel and core the apples and pears. Slice into wedges about a centimeter thick.
2. Add the lemon juice and nutmeg.
3. Divide evenly into 4 or 5 ramekins, or serve it "family style" in a 8x8 dish. (this can be done in advance.)

Topping:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350F. When the oven is hot, cook apples without topping for ten minutes.
2. Prepare the flour, sugar, salt in a small mixing bowl.
3. Melt the butter in a medium-small saucepan and cook until it starts to brown slightly.
4. Add the cinnamon and stir.
5. Add the oats and almonds and sauté on medium heat for 5-6 minutes, until the until has darkened slightly and a REALLY delicious smell of cinnamon, butter, and oats wafts out strongly.
6. Pour the oats/almonds into the flour bowl and combine well. Add the yogurt and vanilla and stir into the mixture.
7. When the apples have cooked ten minutes, remove them from the oven and spread the topping equally over each ramekin. Try to make it look "crumbled."
8. Bake for 30-45 minutes, until the apples are soft and bubbling and the topping is crisp.
9. Serve warm with a scoop of ice cream or whipped cream.

More Pictures.

Chestnut Pie

The same weekend Virginie made her paella, Florence (a family friend from Chicago) and I made a chestnut pie (actually, we made two). The recipe was from a French cookbook for quiches, quick breads and pies. It was called Quiches, Cakes, et Compagnie, literally: Quiches, Loaf Cakes, and Company (as in "We have company for dinner tonight.") I decided to make the pie because I had seen a can of chestnut purée in the cupboard.
The recipe goes like this:
Blind bake a pie crust. Mix chestnut purée with cream and honey an almonds. Pour filling into a crust, bake again. The first picture is the recipe in French, clique on it for a larger version to practice your French!
Since I was lazy, I used a pre-made pie crust. It was ok, but too salty for the recipe, next time I'll make my own crust. Also, I made 2 different pies. One of them had almonds and the other didn't. This is because Virginie is allergic to nuts. The one with almonds was better because it had a thicker consistency, but this may be because the other one was slightly undercooked. Oh well, next time I'll do better.