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.

Sriracha Ice Cream

For the past year or so, I have had the idea of savory or savory-inspired ice cream churning in the back of my mind. Pun Intended. Although I don't think I'll go as far as "clam raisin," mentioned in David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop, I do have a list of flavors building up:

• Curry, perhaps mixed with rice like a rice pudding ice cream
• Guacamole
• Avocado-Bacon
• Corn/Corn-Bacon
• Pepper
• Goat Cheese (perhaps with honey)
• Pho sorbet
• Lemongrass
• Tomato-Basil soup
• Butternut squash
• Sriracha

As you can probably tell from the title of this post, I started with the bottom of the list. This sriracha ice cream is more "savory-inspired" than actually savory; it contains sugar and vanilla.

The ice cream is sweet, hot, and salty. The first bite is very weird, but I found that I liked it more as I continued to eat it. The spiciness doesn't build up until the third or fourth spoonful, and it never gets unbearable because of the sugar and cream. This flavor is definitely worth trying if your are a Sriracha fan.

When I brought this to the dorm lounge, I got mixed reactions. My roommates actually liked it, but one of my friends literally spat out the ice cream, drank some soda, spat that out too, and then had a cookie to make sure all traces of the ice cream were gone. It was quite a show. I recommend offering this ice cream to people under the name "Mango Ice cream" and taking pictures of their faces as they dig in enthusiastically.

You may be wondering, how does one make this strange ice cream? Since I don't have a kitchen this year, I opted for a "philadelphia-style" cream. That means that instead of making a custard by cooking egg yolks in milk, I just added some flavor to cream and froze it. I went off of the recipe I found here.

Sriracha Ice Cream

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup milk (fat percentage is not very important)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2tbsp to 1/4 cup sriracha (rooster sauce), to taste
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Make sure the frozen part of your ice cream maker is frozen.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the sugar, sriracha, and vanilla. 



It looks like blood-spattered snow...

3. Stir well.






4. Add the cream and milk, stir until the sugar is dissolved






5. Add more hot sauce or sugar to taste.
6. Put in the ice cream machine and churn for 20 minutes.
7. Transfer soft serve ice cream to a container and freeze for at least 3 hours.

The freshly churned cream is much lighter in color than the frozen ice cream (top)

The churned ice cream will have a strange sticky texture, but it will feel fine when eaten. Enjoy! (Or psych out your friends.)

Strawberry Cardamom Sour Cream Upside-Down Cake

Well, it certainly has been a while since I last posted here. Turns out having a job and taking a class at the same time is a lot of work. I've been taking a b&w film photography class this summer. At first I was a bit confused as to why film photo is a pre-req for digital photo, but the class is actually very interesting. Contrary to everyones expectations, I did not take pictures of food, because food in black and white is just not particularly exciting. So I have been exploring the bay area / my house in search of situations to take pictures of.

(Creepy?) Handbags in Half Moon Bay

Dragonfly

California + Bikes

Public Transit

Donner Lake

That last picture somehow became brown when I took a picture of it, probably because the white balance on my digital camera was off. I think it fits the landscape well though.

But anyways, back to food.

Mmmm strawberries

Strawberries are good, right? And sour cream is pretty good with strawberries. And cardamom is just plain delicious. (While making this cake I discovered that chewing a cardamom seed is very refreshing.)

Mmmm cardamom

Joy from Joythebaker is a genius and combined these three flavors into a cake. The super thick batter is spread on top of sliced strawberries that are sitting in some butter and brown sugar. I decreased the amount of sugar from Joy's recipe because my strawberries were sweet enough for my taste. (And of course I doubled the number of strawberries!)

Also, if you look at her post, she somehow manages to keep her strawberries bright red, while mine went to a dull purple. I'm guessing that adding some lemon juice to the strawberries before baking might help prevent discoloration. 

Ugly but delicious. I'm sure your cake will be beautiful and delicious!

Anyways, recipe time!

But first some sliced strawberries

Ingredients:

     For the strawberries:

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 cups sliced strawberries
• 1 tbsp lemon juice (opt, may preserve color) 

     For the cake:

• 6 tbsp butter, soft
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
• 2/3 cup sour cream

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Mix strawberries with lemon juice (if using.)
3. Put the 2 tbsp of butter in a 9" round cake pan and place in the oven until melted.
4. Rotate pan to coat all sides with butter, sprinkle the 2 tbsp brown sugar into the bottom of the pan.
5. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder + soda, salt.
6. In a large bowl cream together the butter and 1/2 cup brown sugar.
7. When butter is fluffy, add egg and vanilla, and beat until well combined.
8. Beat in dry ingredients and sour cream, batter will be very thick. 
9. Spread strawberries on bottom of pan.
10. Spoon batter over strawberries and spread evenly.



Spread it out more evenly than this

11. Bake for about 35 minutes.
12. When cake is cooked, run a knife along the edge of the cake and then invert over a plate. If the cake sticks to the pan, leave the pan upside-down over the plate and go read a book or check your email. After ~5 minutes, the cake will have unstuck from the pan (Yay gravity!)
13. Serve with a spoonful of sour cream

I brought this cake to a friend's house and it was gone in 5 minutes. Granted, there were three tall and skinny runner guys participating, so it wasn't particularly surprising. 

Gâteau au Yaourt: Yogurt Cake

This is a cake that my family has been making for a long time; I think we got the recipe from some of my cousins. It is a very simple and customizable snack cake that uses yogurt as a flavor base but doesn't actually taste like yogurt. The original recipe has all the measurements (except the eggs) based on the size of a pot of yogurt. Unfortunately, yogurt pots in France are smaller than in the US (they contain 150g of yogurt instead of 170g.) To make this recipe in the US, I find a glass that holds a bit less than a cup of water and use that as my measurement tool.
Once you have made the batter, you can pretty much add whatever flavor you want. The cake in the photo has chocolate chips and unsweetened coconut flakes, but I have also had success with pears, nutella  (mix nutella into some of the batter and swirl that into the rest of the batter,) dried fruit, etc. You could could probably make this a savory cake by removing most of the sugar and putting cheese or bacon or herbs in.
And to prove how easy this recipe is, I was able to make it in the kitchen of my college dorm with my bf.

Gâteau au Yaourt:

Ingredients

• 3 eggs (separated)
• 1.5 pots sugar
• 1 pot yogurt
• 0.5 pots oil or 60g butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 pots flour
• 0.5 tsp baking soda
• 0.5 tsp salt
• up to 1.5 cups filling (ie 1 cup chocolate chips + 0.5 cup unsweetened coconut)

Instructions

1. Preheat an oven to 350F.
2. Beat yolks with sugar until thick and white.
3. Add egg whites, yogurt, oil, and vanilla, still beating.
4. Add remaining ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt) but not the filling. Mix by hand.
5. Stir in the filling gently.
6. Grease a cake pan or loaf pan and pour in the batter.
7. Bake for 40 (cake pan) to 50 (loaf pan) minutes
8. Enjoy on a picnic or as a snack or casual dessert! You can serve it with greek yogurt and berries or dress it up with whipped cream.

Spring Break 2: Bread-y stuff

So on Thursday I pulled out my beloved The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart and made some bread. I made a caprese-inspired loaf by putting fresh mozzarella, sundried tomatoes, and basil in Challah dough (I'm sure this is terribly sacrilegious) and pizza.

For the Caprese Bread I made the challah dough per the instructions of Peter Reinhart. To incorporate the filling into the dough, I stretched out the dough like pizza, placed the filling on top, and rolled it up like a log. 

And then I split it into 3 and braided it!

I also made pizza dough (also from Reinhart's book) that I rested in the refrigerator overnight. As toppings for the pizza, I roasted some brussels sprouts and broccolini in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes, then I turned the oven down to 330 for another 10-20 minutes. For sauce, I blended some canned diced tomatoes and cooked them with onions, garlic, and oregano.

I made 3 pizzas, one with brussels sprouts, broccolini and caramelized onions (not pictured), one with broccolini, copa, and caramelized onions (first), and, at my dad's suggestion, one with chorizo, brussels sprouts, roasted garlic, and an egg in the center (second). The chorizo one was the family favorite!

 

 And on Pi day (3/14) I visited my friend and we made pie!!! (We did not have enough crust dough to make a complete top crust, so we put a circle on top instead! It is off center on purpose.)

Tobe's Candy-Cane Cookies

In my last post I mentioned my suitemate Tobe's delicious candy cane cookies, and she has kindly agreed to let me post her recipe on this blog. As I wrote earlier, my roommate Sophia and I made 2 batches of these cookies because we could not resist the warm combination of the soft almond cookies and the crunchy-sweet peppermint topping.

Tobe's Candy-Cane Cookies

Ingredients:
    Dough:

• 1 C soft shortening 
• 1 C powdered sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/2 C flour
• 1 tsp salt 

    Topping:

• 1/2 candycanes, crushed
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

Procedure:

1. Pre-heat oven to 375F.
2. Mix the first 5 ingredients together by hand. (I used a whisk)
3. Add the flour and salt. (I used a spoon at first and then switched to using my fingers)
4. Divide the dough into as many parts as you want colors and knead in food coloring until the desired color is achieved. 
5. To make candy cane shape: Roll 1 tsp of each color in to a strip about 4" long.  Place strips together side by side and twist together. Curve tops down for candy cane effect.
6. To make thumbprint shape (for people who fail at making candy canes like me): take 2 tsp of dough, roll it into a sphere, and press down in the middle with your thumb. (This shape is good for holding a lot of topping)
7. Place on ungreased cookie sheets and bake at 375F for 9 minutes.
8. Combine the crushed candy-canes and the sugar in a bowl.
9. Remove cookies from baking sheet while warm, place on paper towels and sprinkle with topping.