My Summer Planting Experience

Over the summer I tried to grow my own vegetables. I planted three different kinds of lettuce, two varieties of beans, peas, carrots, and tomatoes. I bought all the recommended soil and even bought myself a book on how to do it right with only pots!

That being said, my crop was unsuccessful. I could blame the aphids that coated the leaves of all my plants with their sticky black goo, or the squirrels that could not help but dig up all roots of my new sprouts, or even the frost that came in June (twice and then again in July). But the fault lies within my own neglect. The aphid spit made the plants look like they were always sick and near death no matter what I put over them to repel the nagging green insects. After replanting my beans eight times and covering the soil with whatever deterrent I read about on the internet (barring poison although it did get close), I admit that I lost interest. By the end of the first week of August, the only care I was giving the little potted midgets in my backyard was a watering every couple of days.

So you can imagine how stunned I was when my tomato plants started to produce fruit. A lot of fruit. So much vibrant, plump, and juicy fruit that I was compelled to go through my favorite Jamie Oliver book and do all of the recipes that included fresh ripe tomatoes! I know that it's possible that the plant was only producing fruit in a last ditch dying effort to procreate, but the little tomatoes were so delicious and perfect looking, that I think maybe the plant was heartier than I gave it credit for.

As a final note, I didn't plant the carrots in pots, I planted them in the garden. What I didn't realize though, was how rocky and shallow the soil was where I planted them. This made for yummy, yet somewhat disfigured miniature carrotlings that most people were somewhat reluctant to eat. It could be because of their nuclear-waste-mutant-like qualities. But I don't know where that came from.

My Quest to Understand Cheese

I don't like cheese.

For as long as I can remember, the only cheese I would eat would be the kind melted on pizza, nachos or inside a grilled-cheese sandwich. And the only way it tasted any good was if it was heavily laced with salt, pepper, pickles or ketchup. I limited myself to cheddar and mozzarella. Parmesan smelled like bile (it IS made of bile...), brie smelled like dirty socks, and havarti had the weirdest texture that I just could not get used to no matter how many times I tried it.

My Austrian grandparents love their cheeses. Gouda and swiss emmental especially. You sit down for lunch and no matter what it is you're about to eat, there will be a platter with gouda and swiss cheese handily sliced up for everyone to enjoy. However, while everyone else is blindly masticating, I sit there and think about how it smells like a pile of pungent old laundry mixed with a unique sour smell that I can't even describe. My mom is also a huge fan of melting brie cheese in the microwave and eating it with a spoon. The smell of the melting cheese permeates the whole entire house so that you can't escape the heavy musky odor.

But over Christmas, with all the wines and cheeses and crackers and people, I was peer pressured into trying some different cheese. And in doing so, I discovered Boursin cheese. It's light and fragrant and has the consistency of butter. It doesn't even smell like an old man's body odor! I went back for cracker after cracker until the whole ball of cheese was gone and I was picking up loose crumbs of cheese with my fingertip.

From here, I decided to begin a quest to try and understand people's love for cheese.

I can say that I've made a conscious effort to buy new and different types of cheeses to try in recipes, like applewood smooked cheddar in potato soufflees (recipe here, from Almost Bourdain). I've made these soufflés a few times, and the best was when I incorporated the applewood smoked cheddar instead of regular cheddar or parmesan. It adds a whole new level of subtle flavor to the dish that you can't get with just spices, salt and pepper.


So while I won't claim to love cheese, I will say that I am trying to understand the (odd) fascination some people seem to have with it and use it to my advantage.

that time of year

Any student, former student, or close family member of a student knows that it's coming up the most awful, horrible, wretched and sinister time of year: midterm and term paper season. You've hit the half-way mark of the semester, but you're not quite there yet. And you know for a fact that it's going to get one hell of a lot worse before it gets any better.

Usually around this time I can be caught spending hours in the kitchen baking batch after batch of cookies or cupcakes or muffins. When you make these things (or at least the simpler versions of them) you can just turn off your brain and throw in the ingredients. When they come out looking just the way they do in the picture (or in your head), you know you've done something right. It's instant gratification and it's beautiful. It's also the exact opposite of the process that goes into writing, submitting, and waiting for the return of a term paper. Absolutely nothing instant about that!

But then doesn't that beg the question of which is better? The quick, mindless, average, but instant gratification, or the long, tiresome, and grueling process that goes into some gratification that might come later. Of course the better one is the one involving blood, sweat and tears. I will admit though, that I really wish it was the other way around.

The Chocolate Chip Cookie Campaign

You see posts and articles and rants about the "perfect chocolate chip cookie" all over the interweb. Semi scientific experiments and surveys done to see which is method is the best and which methods should be discarded forever into the trash can of history. I will admit that not too long ago I got sucked into the great chocolate chip cookie debate and found myself making dozens of cookies each week. Eventually I came to the point where I realized this important fact: I don't really like chocolate chip cookies. Yes, one or two of them is nice when they're warm and chewy and the chocolate is all melty, but really, any more than that and I'll pass.

However, I did have loads of fun baking batch after batch of delicious cookies to share with my family at home and the people I work with (the guinea pigs, if you will). What I discovered is that most people will agree that putting the dough in the fridge for a while before you bake it generally makes for nicer looking cookies with soft chewy centres. On the other hand, having to let your dough rest in the fridge for 36 hours as perscribed by the New York Times is a bit extreme. Using melted butter was an interesting adjestment made by Cooking Illustrated, but I think overall that it made no real difference in the flavour or texture of the cookies. The last thing that i noticed has been played around with a lot in these recipes was the type of flour used. Whether it be bread flour, cake flour, all-purpose flour, or some combination, not one single baker seemed to agree on the results. About this, all I can say is that when it comes to baking cookies at home, I think finding a recipe that uses all-purpose flour to its best potential is the way to go.

To read a more extensive account on the trails and tribulations of finding the very best chocolate chip cookie recipe, I would very much recommend that you visit this blog here.

top five locations in which to put yourself in a food coma (that I missed out on):

I would never by any means say that I have been all over the world traveling and eating good food. In fact, I have this bad habit of adopting strange and "budget friendly" diets while in foreign countries. So here is a list of the places in the world I have been to that offer some of the best food man has come up with, and the food that I ate there instead:

1. Rome

While in Rome (and Venice too) I survived solely on nutella, apricot pago, and fresh baked bread from whatever bakery was still open and close by when I was on my way back to the hostel. While nutella is undoubtedly delicious (especially on fresh bread), it is not exactly intended to be consumed for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a week strait. I will admit that I snuck in some fruit and vegetables from the markets, but that was really only to prevent scurvy. Now many Italians would argue that Rome is quite possibly the worst place in Italy to go to if you're looking for the very best Italian food, but I have to say that the one Pizza Margherita that I splurged on on the my first day there was almost an erotic sensation, it tasted so good. I will also admit that some of the money I saved by not feeding myself like a rational human went to a daily scoop of gelato from one of the many little gelato places that are open in Rome in July. That is something I will not apologize for to anyone. A brand new flavour every day was my goal and by the end of a sweltering hot day walking the streets of Rome, a cold scoop of pistachio gelato melting on my tongue was just about the closest thing to bliss I could think of (that or a cold shower...).
While in Italy I was far to poor (and honestly way too overwhelmed with all the sights this fantastic city has to offer) to really get to taste some good Italian food. So the next time I hit up Roma (and believe me, there will be a next time!), I will make a definite effort to eat some of the brilliant food that Italy has to offer.

2. London

Ah London... The few times I was in London I was only there briefly, and so overwhelmed by the cost of everything in the city that I limited my food intake to what was available on the "day old" table at Tesco and trail mix packages from home. I think I also made a couple special trips to Pret a Manger simply because the food there is so SO tempting and fresh and... available! Also, the happy little phrases that are on all the packaging made me smile. Go marketing! Believe me though, London has far more to offer in the way of food than quick sandwiches and day old baked goods at a low end super market. Even putting aside all the REAL high end establishments like The Fat Duck and Nobu, there are still loads of restaurants and places to eat in London that I would absolutely love to gorge my self in. The unfortunate thing about London, however, is that like Rome, there are just too many other things to do there! You forget that you have to eat at some point when you're too busy running from one fantastic sight to another. Cities with a reputation for remarkable eating should tone down their other attractions so that the average middle class traveller can experience some of their food!

3. Tokyo

While I was in Tokyo I experienced two very different types of food on a regular basis. The first type lasted a month and consisted of eating nothing but instant ramen noodles and the occasional trip to one of the billion little sushi-ya's that are on every single corner in the enormous city. The second type of regular dining experience was on the second month of my stay in Tokyo and I'll go into that in another post. When you think of Tokyo, you usually don't immediately think of all that it has to offer in terms of gastronomic indulgence. Gastronomic adventure maybe... but you'd get that same sense of clueless dining anywhere in Asia. The Japanese are notorious for their tendency toward perfection, and they are no different when it comes to their food. It's an art that is taken quite serioulsy and you can tell.

4. Vienna
When I was in Vienna I was only 13 years old and I was there with family to visit family. Most of the time when I was in Vienna I remember eating food at the home where I was staying with family. However, I know that when I was in the city centre there were Kaffeehauses and delicatessens and restaurants everywhere you looked. Vienna is renowned for its baking and fine patisserie, and while there is often nothing better than homemade, having a chance to try some of the finest food that Vienna has to offer would be an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

5. New York

New York is the exception on this list. While in New York I had the opportunity to dine at possibly the best restaurant I have ever eaten at in my life. I also got to try some delicious Mexican food (a treat that I wouldn't easily get to try at home) and pizza that was on par with pizza I had in Rome. What you learn early on while in New York is that if you want to eat you have to keep your eyes open! You gotta pay attention and look beyond the construction sites. Definitely check your guidebook and make an effort to try and find these places. The gems aren't always going to cost you a weeks worth of food at home and are probably closer than you think. I do have to say though, just because the Starbucks are everywhere and easy to find in a pinch, there are definitely better options if you keep your eyes open.

the one that bites back...

Have you ever put a lot of thought into the cranberry? Honestly, have you? That bizarre little bud of a fruit that only really comes out at family dinners doesn't get a whole lot of consideration when placed next to the traditional holiday fruits (whatever they might be...). You get a little dollop of cranberry sauce plopped right in between the turkey and the stuffing and that little bit of tart sweetness is usually just enough to add a nice bit of contrast to your otherwise savory-studded meal.

Cranberries are weird. For a little fruit that pretty much grows in swamp-like conditions, it is super dry when you cut it open. I mean, if you eat a cranberry uncooked just by itself, it will suck every drop of moisture right out of your body within seconds. And that's exactly what it tastes like too. You pucker your lips and squint your eyes when you bite into that berry or even when you take a sip of cranberry juice. It's potent stuff! Also, unless you happen to slice your own cranberries (and forgo the canned variety for family gatherings), you might be interested to know that the inside of the hollow berry is a startling white with little seeds shaking about in there.

How do I know all this? Well, after Thanksgiving had come and gone and the turkey carcass had been picked over by my fellow vultures until there was not much left that could be considered edible in polite company, I realized that I still had a batch of cinnamon spiked pie dough in the fridge and a whole bag of fresh cranberries that needed to be used up. So while the emaciated bird carcass sat stewing in a pot over the stove with some celery and carrots, I looked for a nice pie recipe that would use up my dough and my berries. Not surprisingly, I found a promising one in my Sur La Table The Art and Soul of Baking book (this book is more of a tome...). However, I haven't been having very good luck with the recipes in this book lately. In fact, Most of the ones I have made have turned out kind of... mediocre at best and inedible at worst. But I figured that the book deserved another chance, and opted to throw together a cranberry crumble tart mostly because it meant that I wouldn't have to leave the house to get any more ingredients.

I gotta say, consider the book redeemed. That tart was fantastic.

The filling was sweet, but had a definite bite and the orange zest that was mixed in with it gave it a nice smooth taste that evened everything out. There was a simple mild crumble topping that worked out to be lovely with the cranberry filling that had such an intense flavor. I could even go so far as to say that the texture of the tart was just right--crunchy on the top and the bottom but nice and soft inside. I even dug through the freezer and got out some ice cream to go with it, and for me, the added cream made the whole dish perfect (although I would say that ice cream can make anything perfect).

So this one dish redeemed the Art and Soul of Baking for me. I guess in that respect it DID certainly bite back.

thanksgiving pie politics...

This Thanksgiving I endeavored to make the pumpkin and apple pies that would follow the meal. This already was cause for a significant amount of consternation as it would mean that my grandmother wasn't making the dessert and it would be, by default, "just not THAT good". That was fine. I've dealt with this pressure before and I would have to put up with it again. I'm used to it.

To change things up a bit, I decided that it might be interesting to do a bit of a variation on the classic pies by topping the pumpkin pie with Italian meringue, and mixing in a few pears with the apples in the apple pie. Only a small part of me wanted to do this just to enrage my family of die-hard traditionalists. Maybe not that small...

I got the idea to top off the pumpkin filling with meringue from an old post by Tartelette and a desire to use my brand new kitchen torch for the very first time. I doubled the recipe for the pumpkin filling given by Tartelette, and used Jamie Oliver's recipe for pie dough, spiking it with a pinch of cinnamon to give it a little bit of extra flavour. That was all pretty standard. The dough rolled out nicely and the filling baked nicely after about 40 minutes in the oven (instead of the recommended 20). The interesting part came when I made the meringue. Now I have made French meringue for pavlovas and individual meringues, and I have made Swiss meringue for buttercreams, but I have never attempted (or seen the need for) Italian meringue. Bringing water and sugar to a boil and then up to 245 degrees (F) while beating the egg whites into peaks seemed a bit extreme. I mean, you need a candy thermometer to pull it off and meringue is supposed to be simple! Needless to say, I was a little bit aprehensive going into this.

But the desire to finally put to use my fancy new kitchen torch spurred me on.

And I was stunned at how easy it was.

I admit, it was a little bit annoying having to wait for the sugar syrup to get hot enough (it had to reach the "soft ball" stage), but once I poured it into the beaten egg whites, you could see the meringue taking shape almost instantly. The hot syrup cooked the eggs and it became a big, soft, fluffy, mass. Kind of like a soft marshmallow. And it tasted delicious. Absolutely decadent. I plopped the fluffy whiteness onto the cooked pumpkin pie, and then played with it until it looked just the way I wanted.

Then I got to fire up my torch and caramelize the edges. It smelled just like roasting marshmallows. Tasted like it too...
The reviews for this pie were mixed. I liked it a lot. It was traditional enough that it still had that same spicy pumpkin taste with a nice flaky crust, but the added soft meringue made whipping cream unnecessary and made the dish nice and light. Others, however, were not as keen on it as I was (my sister refused to eat the meringue portion of the pie in an effort to boycott change).
I thought the apple pie was pretty good too... I ate a huge piece of it for breakfast this morning.

Soufflé #1: Raspberry Soufflé

It's the smell. That has to be it.
The thing that compelled people to continue to conjure up soufflé after soufflé in France had to have been the smell because that in itself is pure decadence. There have been whole industries dedicated to bottling that smell. To put it very simply, it's the smell of raspberries, but honestly it's more than that. It's a clean smell - not altered or enhanced or changed in any way. And it fills the entire house within minutes so that every room you go into seems as though it's got a pink haze. I dare you to find a scented candle that will do that!

Unfortunately though, while the scent of these raspberry soufflés was enchanting, that was pretty much all this dessert had to offer.

I learned right off the hop that if you've made a soufflé with the intent to impress someone, that someone better be there to eat it the second you pull the ramekin out of the oven. This is because, while your soufflé will most certainly look jaw-droppingly impressive (possibly to the point of even being somewhat daunting) when you pull it out of the oven, that will only last about 4 minutes. If that.
My soufflés today came out of the oven towering a whole 4 inches over the top of their little ramekins, but by the time they were 5 minutes old, some of them had sunk nearly an inch below the rim. Fail. This might just be the particular recipe I was using, as it contained no flour or anything like that for structure.

These little soufflés definitely did not taste like I had expected. I thought it would be like eating raspberry mousse - light, fluffy and as pure and natural tasting as the smell had led me to believe. Suprisingly, it tasted more like a raspberry candy. Almost sickly sweet even. Combined with the custard-like texture, I didn't quite know what to make of this dish. It's not that it was bad... it was just not something I would choose to eat on a regular basis!

However! I chose to make this particular soufflé because I had 6 egg whites that I needed to use up as well as a few cups of raspberries that were getting a bit old. I had less than an hour in which to make this dish start to finish, and to be completely honest I was done with half an hour to spare. There are three steps in this recipe and it's simplicity made me constantly check and re-check it to make sure I didn't miss anything. So as far as efficiency goes, this definitely gets a gold star.

I should probably add that if I were after a recipe that was gluten-free, extremely low on sugar, or completely fat-free, this dish would have been perfect. However, I am a fan of flour, fat, and sugar, so this was not at all what I had expected. Soufflé #2 will be better!!

Recipe:
Raspberry Soufflé
(Adapted from the Art and Soul of Baking, by Cindy Mushet)

12 oz fresh or frozen raspberries
1 tbsp plus 1/4 c granulated sugar
5 large egg whites

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (f). Puree the raspberries in a food processor and then run the puree through a strainer to get out all the seeds. You should end up with 1 cup of smooth seedless raspberry puree. Stir in the 1 tbsp of sugar.
2. Whip the egg whites on medium speed until they form soft peaks. With the mixer running, rain in the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and beat until stiff, glossy peaks form. Stir 1/4 of the egg whites into the raspberry puree to lighten the mixture. Fold the remaining whites in until there are no more streaks of white.
3. Pipe the soufflé batter into 10 3 oz individual buttered ramekins until flush with the rim. Bake for 14-17 minutes, until set and firm to the touch in the centre. Dust with confectioner's sugar and serve with créme fraîche. Devour immediately.

Soufflé: I never knew how much I loved thee...

I made my very first soufflé last week. It was a potato and cauliflower soufflé that I found on Almost Bourdain (I arbitrarily added the cauliflower myself because I love the tangy taste of cauliflower added to cheese and potato). I was expecting something complicated and incrediby time consuming, but instead found that making this dish was one of the easiest things ever! And as an added bonus, it came out looking as good as it tasted (just like the pictures!). I would almost go so far as to say that you can't mess up a soufflé after this. Of course you can't quote me on that. There are ways to mess up anything...

So now I'm endeavouring to go on a soufflé kick. From the fancy chocolate soufflés that turn into megaliths looming over their pans to the pureed fruit soufflés that only use three ingredients (fruit, egg whites, and sugar) and then back again to the more savoury soufflés that I have only just begun to discover! I love the way they look and their light airy texture that is in such contrast to the intense and powerful flavour that you find in these beautiful dishes. I want to try more and so that is my goal for this month (in addition to making a Turkey Dinner for Thanksgiving this weekend, writing a play and two papers as well as three midterms... it can be done!).

Soufflés... I can do that.

my KLA-FOO-TEE...

"What's for dessert?"
"I'm making clafoutis."
"Sounds like an STD. Or STI if I'm being politically correct, but I'm sure it will be yummy... whatever it is!"
"It will be yummy. French."
"Hey, I'd eat syphilis if it was on a dessert menu."

Making a dessert that no one quite knows how to pronounce definitely has its advantages. The first of which being that your test subjects will usually have no idea what they're about to put in their mouths. You can also get the idea into your head that you need to create a dish called "syphilis" that tastes so absolutely delicious that all people will say that they would eat syph. Weird.

I used pluots again as the fruity aspect of my clafoutis. Traditionally, this dessert is made with dark cherries (pits and all), but because I'm having a love affair with the tart-suculent flavor and bright pink color of the pluots and wanted to use as many of them as I could before they went out of season.

This is my sister's favorite dessert. She gotten into the habit of begging me to make it at every possible opportunity. Because of this, I have used any and every friut at hand to crreate this dessert from blackberries to canned peaches (although I wouldn't recommend the canned peaches as they are far too bland and add nothing at all to the taste of the dish). From this, I learned that the more tart the fruit, the better the clafoutis turns out (and this can be true for many other desserts as well).

I've tried two different recipes or this dish. One was a fancy recipe involving heating the milk and cream over the stove with the vanilla before whisking in the eggs. The other was a far simpler method whereby you just throw all the ingredients into the mixer, mix for a while until frothy, and then pour it into your baking dish. The simple one I found in a food magazine alongside an ad for cream and I believe it is, by far, the better of the two in terms of ease, taste, and time. Taste being, naturally, the most important consideration!

Raspberry Peach Clafouti
(from a Real Cream ad in a magazine I don't remember)

1. Butter a deep 9 or 10 inch pie plate. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat 3 large eggs and 1/2 cup granulated sugar in a medium bowl using an electric mixer. Add 3/4 cup cream and beat until combined. Stir in 1 tsp vanilla, 1/2 cup all purpose flour, and a pinch of salt.
3. Sprinkle fruit on the bottom of the prepared dish. Pour batter over fruit.
4. Bake in preheated oven for about 45 minutes or until set. Cover loosely with foil during cooking if top is browning too fast. Serve warm or cold. Serves 6-8.

my quest to create the perfect Princess Torte...

In my mind, the princess torte is one of the most elegant looking traditional cakes you can find. Looking at the finished cake as a whole, it looks very simple and unassuming. Almost innocent even. But the pastel coloured marzipan is hiding a cake that is so decadent and unique that you cannot hep but sit in (at least a little) awe at this confection.

I have attempted this odyssey of a cake twice now and while the taste of both of the cakes was different (I used a completely different cake base for each), they both turned out tasting creamy and delicious. However, I have to admit that my second attempt looked much much better!

As has been the trend lately, "simple" does not in any way mean "easy" (although with any luck, this will hopefully change with time). Traditionally, the princess torte has three layers of genoisie cake and in between the layers is strawberry jam and custard folded with whipping cream topped with a heaping (HEAPING) mound of whipped cream on top of the cake to give it a domed look when it's draped with the pastel green marzipan. The first time I made this, the only major problem that I had was in colouring the marzipan--I wanted it pink, but it turned this bloody-orange colour that wasn't very appetizing at all. Other than that, it received good reviews and I was eager to try it again. The only thing holding me back was the extremely high cost of marzipan, and the fact that my 14 year old brother likes to eat it by the pound it turns out (how NEITHER of us have ended up morbidly obese is completely beyond me!). So after being gifted a 3 lb log of marzipan from my grandparents, I just had to wait for my first full day off to pull this off.

I mentioned earlier how this cake was an odyssey. Well, this particular cake a grueling one. For a bit of an experiment I used Martha's White Cake recipe for the cake because when I made the first one, it didn't rise quite like I needed it to and when I cut it there was cake everywhere. Hopefully, this cake wouldn't be quite as fussy. Luckily the cakes turned out great and I would be able to pull off a four layered one this go 'round.

Making the custard was... in a word, soul-crushing. Never have I ever been so tormented by something so simple that I have been able to pull off in the past without any problems. It took me three tries, 11 eggs, and two recipes to get a custard that was not curdled to the point where it looked like scrambled eggs in water. Gross. The first time I thought it might have been the milk I was using, 1%. Changed the milk to half and half and tried it again. Same thing. This time though, before dumping the whole lot down the toilet, my mom tasted the glorpy substance and said that the vanilla tasted a bit off. So on my final try (although I have to admit, I would have kept trying until I got it right!) I used vanilla extract in lieu of a real vanilla bean and had sweet success. Praise the Jesus! Even though I would have kept on trying until I got it right, I'm pretty sure there would have been tears and possibly the throwing of an egg or two if that third try had flopped.

Whipped Cream: check! I can do that one no problem.

Arranging the cake went without incident, which was a nice change of pace for me. I was even able to mix in the right food colouring and roll out the marzipan without any major drawbacks! Although I feel I should note that if you have a silicone rolling pin, use that for the marzipan in stead of a marble or wood one. I will only make that mistake once... marzipan is very sticky.


When it was all finished, it looked (for me) nearly perfect. The taste was even pretty awesome too. What I like about this cake the most is how you think at first that it's kind of plain. The same vanilla tastes replaying layer after layer. But that's not the case at all! The strawberry jam is so tart that it compliments both the custard and the cake and then with the added zing of the marzipan, the whole cake comes together nicely with a very unique flavor that is neither bland nor predicatble. When it's been sitting for a while, all the creams and custards combine to make the cake almost seem like one big custard (and after it's been in the fridge for a while, it almost seems like a big slab of decadent ice cream cake).

The only thing I would go so far as to change with this cake, is to return to the genoisie cake base and forgo Martha's white cake. Because the cake is so custard-heavy, the added dryness from the genoisie is necessary to hold the whole thing together, while the white cake is too soft and dense for a cake that is already going to be quite dense.

Recipe:
White Cake
(Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cooking School)

1 c unsalted butter (room temperature, plus more for pans)
3 c sifted cake flour (plus more for pans)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 3/4 c granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean split lengthwise
1 c milk (room temperature)
8 large egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees (f). Butter two eight in round cake pans and line bottoms with parchment paper rounds. Butter paper and dust both pans with flour. Tap out excess.
2. Whisk together dry ingredients.
3. Cream the butter and 1 1/4 cups of sugar until light and fluffy (about 4 minutes). Scrape vanilla seeds into the bowl.
4. With the paddle attachment on and the mixer on "low", add dry ingredients in three batches alternating with the milk and starting and ending with the dry ingredients.
5. In a separate clean bowl, beat egg whites on low speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 1/2 cup of sugar, beating on medium-high until stiff glossy peaks form. Whisk 1/3 of the egg whites into the batter to lighten, then carefully fold in the rest of the whites.
6. Divide the batter between the prepared cake pans and bake for 30-40 minutes. Allow to rest in pans for 10 minutes after they have come out of the oven, then transfer to a cooling rack and wait until cooled completely before proceeding.

Pastry Cream
(Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cooking School)

2 c whole milk
1/2 c granulated sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
pinch of salt
3 large egg yolks
3 tbsp plus 1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
2 tbsp unsalted butter

1. Bring milk, 1/4 cup of sugar, vanilla seeds and salt to a simmer in a saucepan over medium heat, whisking to disperse seeds.
2. Whisk egg yolks and remaining sugar in a medium bowl. Whisk in cornstarch, one tablespoon at a time. Ladle 1/2 hot milk mixture into yolk mixture, whisking. Add remaining milk mixture. Pour mixture back into pan and heat over medium-high, whisking constantly, until mixture comes to a full boil and is thick enough to hold it's shape when lifted with a spoon (about 2 minutes). Stir in butter.
3. Remove from heat and pour into a bowl. Place plastic wrap directly on the surface (to prevent a skin from forming) and refrigerate until cold, about 2 hours.

5 favorite things...

I can be pretty indecisive when it comes to giving my number one most favorite thing ever. Usually I end up giving a "top three" in no particular order and that works out pretty well for me until I remember that I have a fourth and five and sixth item to add to that list. Because of this, and because when it comes to food I have a brand new favorite almost every day, I've decided to post my five favorite things of this week.

1. Cauliflower
Don't ask me why, but over the last two weeks I have fallen absolutely in love with this little vegetable. I've grown up eating it steamed with cheese sauce almost exclusively so I never realized its potential as an actual flavor. Flash baked in the oven with salt, pepper, and olive oil, cauliflower can take over the entire meal no matter how perfect or tasty the other elements are. It's a nice and hard vegetable but when cooked, cauliflower has a very rich and creamy taste that can add a needed zing to any white dish (and I really do mean white. Potatoes and quiches and cheeses... delicious!). I recently made a bunch of little potato souffles and sneaked cauliflower to the mix. That little bit of veg in the otherwise even-keel souffle definitely made the dish worth making again.

2. Meringue
When I was little I hated meringue. My mom made it and I always thought it was way too sweet and that it had a weird ethereal type texture to it... there, but not really. Lately though, I have come to really appreciate meringue. Swiss meringue would have to be my favorite--melting the sugar in the egg whites in a double boiler before beating them together to create pristine white shiny peaks in my stainless steel bowl. I am completely in love with the simplicity of meringue. But don't misunderstand me, "simple" never means "easy". Temperamental at heart, the egg whites will remain simply albumen if you get any water (or anything else!) in that bowl. But once you figure out a trick or method with meringue that works for you and treat it with its due respect, it will turn out beautiful every time.

3. ABBA
Seriously. Lately when I'm cooking or baking I'll pop in the Gold CD without even thinking about it or flip on Mama Mia on my computer to listen to in the background. It puts me right into the groove and I don't think about anything other than the particular task at hand, whether it's peeling potatoes, tempering eggs, or cutting pastry. I have no reasoning for this other than... I am a dancing queen...

4. Pistachios
Last weekend I drove to a Mediterranean grocery store in my purple spandex short shorts and bought a kilo of shelled pistachios. It's really difficult to find shelled pistachios in the city and I can't think of a singe reason why that would be. Since I bought them, however, I just want to put them in everything I make. Pistachios have such an interesting taste that changes with whatever you mix it with. And while some people balk at eating food that is green (other than leaves), I adore the rich and vibrant colour that comes about after you mix anything with these nuts. It's so original and makes everything you put it in taste like you've taken that extra little step to making something special.

5. Organic Cotton Spandex Short Shorts
I. Love. THESE. Every time I decide to set a day aside to make something particularly difficult or time consuming or oven heavy, I take out my soft plushy little short shorts and don them with a huge smile. They have got to be the most comfortable things in existence and as an added bonus, whenever I leave the house I have eyes following me (and my deliciously purple bum) wherever I go. Call it vanity if you will, but my excuse is this: working in a kitchen for a long time is hot work and you gotta keep cool, and also, there has got to be some way for me to measure my waistline while I make all this food! When the time comes that I can no longer fit into these little shorts, I will stop cooking. Either that or wear the shorts while running...

awkward laughs and big hair...

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes and Strawberry Cupcakes

I have mixed feelings regarding Martha Stewart. Don't get me wrong, she is a talented woman no doubt with booming enterprise spreading across North America... but whenever I make her food I always feel that the finished product is lacking in... something. After I spent some quality time with Martha and her cupcakes this weekend I realized what it was about her recipes that always just got to me: they have forced personality. I made snickerdoodle cupcakes and they tasted like a forced laugh that was almost awkwardly loud at a joke that's barely funny. The strawberry cupcakes that I made immediately following the snickerdoodle ones were small blonde girls with big hair just trying to keep up... for all that build-up there's not much goin' on.

After making more than a handful of Martha's recipes from both her cupcake book and her general cooking book, I've come to the conclusion that her recipes, while tasty, are lacking in any kind of oomph. I will concede to Martha that her recipes are very accessable for the "average home cook", but for me they have become dependable to the point of (gasp!) predictability. What I'm saying (in far too many words) is that when this food hits your palate, your eyes don't roll into the back of your head, your mouth doesn't drop open from shocked delight, and you make no noise that in any way shape or form can be described as orgasmic (in most western countries anyway!).

And yet...

And yet I love her great big book that describes the ins and outs of cooking to a perfect T. It's from this book that I've learned any technique that I claim to posess (with, I must admit, a few important exceptions). And in a way, I also like how she takes typically complex dishes and cuisine and simplifies it until it's manageable in a more day-to-day kind of way. HOWEVER, I must also say that this is, at the same time, what drives me nuts about her as well. I get a weird kind of thrill when I accomplish a dish that takes hours of careful preperation and perfect techniqe to pull off, only to be devoured in minutes (or in some cases, seconds). I much prefer that to cupcakes that take minutes to throw together and then loiter around the house for days like a European relative that doesn't speak any english.

Making cupcakes can be fun. They are cute and manageable and popular. They can be moist and decadent and a perfect addition to 5:00 am tea for a gaggle of nurses on the night shift (as mine were for), but these particular cupcakes turned out just about as boring and uninteresting as Martha herself (in my own humble opinion). It's entirely possible, however, that I am just bitter at these cuppies because for the first time ever (EVER!) my swiss meringue buttercream curdled when I added the butter. I'm thinking it's because I left the cold butter in the sun to get it to the proper "room temperature", but it passed that stage and went right on to "melted". How disappointing is that?!

So all in all, Martha's snickerdoodle and strawberry cupcakes can be described in one word: edible.

a test of stock...

Pluot and Pistachio Crumble Strudel (and an Apple Strudel too!)

I come from very thick Austrian stock. It's a potent and sticky stock that is quite often difficult to shrug off. Not that I would ever want to shrug it off at all, but it makes it very difficult to resist the urge to bake certain things. It also comes with a lot of pressure (mostly self-inflicted) to create the best of these things. Not the least of these things being a traditional Austrian strudel.

Let me begin this discussion of Austrian Strudel by saying that the most difficult and defining aspect of this dessert is the dough and not-as one might expect- the filling of the finished product. What makes this dough unique-and at the same time frustrating enough to make you want to pull out your hair by the roots and chuck said dough through a glass window- is the fact that when it is pulled and stretched it should be translucent. The dough needs to be worked and stretched until it is thinner than paper and and as big as a table meant to seat six people.

The very first time I made this I learned something very important about baking: if the recipe advises you to make two batches of something "just in case", not only will that something be as temperamental as a a cat being fed a pill, but also do be sure to actually make two.

The dough itself is the easiest thing you will ever throw together (seriously. A proboscis monkey could do this blindfolded). Flour, water, oil, and vinegar go into your mixer and you let the paddle do all the work. What you get is an innocent little ball of soft fluffy dough about the size of a fist. You throw the ball around for a while to work the gluten in the flour and then coat it in oil and let it sit while you watch tv for an hour. When Grey's Anatomy is over you can start peeling your apples (or in my case, peeling my apples and slicing my plum-apricot mutant hybrids) and putting together your filling.

Now the fun part. When you initially roll out the dough you will think that this process is easy. That I have entirely overstated the difficulty level here and obviously need to have my head checked. But once the dough gets too big to handle... BAM! Your first rip. Work through it. There is still hope. You now lay the increasingly unweildly mass of dough on your floured tablecloth and begin to really stretch it out. The rips and tears will really start to develop as you try to bend the laws of physics in order to create a sheet of dough only a few atoms thick.

Here's the really painful part: you have to move very quickly as you do all this because the dough will dry out to a crispy, unmanageable sheet that is completely useless if you take too long.

Ecited yet?

In all fairness however, strudel dough is one of the few things I have ever baked where you can clearly see progress every time you make it. And when you get to that point where it stretches beautifully and you can read fine print right through it (all without having a mental breakdown half way through), you will absolutely beam with accomplishment. This I promise.


The real test came when I invited my Austrian grandparents over for dessert and my diabetic grandfather snuck thirds while my grandmother quietly copied the recipe down. Obviously my own Austrian stock hasn't been spoilt!

a mistake i'll only ever make twice...

I enjoy eating seafood. In addition to this, Jamie Oliver has never failed me. Of my four year love affair with the cute Brit, all I can say is that I have tried many different recipes from many different books and the only ones that have consistently produced delicious results are the ones with a picture of him on the cover.

So when I talk about the sockeye incident of August 28, 2009 it was not an example of Jamie letting me down. Quite the opposite, it was a clearly a case of me failing Jamie.

The recipe itself is easy. Simple to the point of questioning its worth even. After all, salmon doesn't need much added flavor in order to make it fantastic. A couple of bulbs of fennel, two lemons, a handful of parsley, and some fresh tomatoes. Mix with olive oil and some salt and pepper, then stuff the salmon with the colourful produce. All the excess veg goes on top and underneath the fish so that you can eat it as a side with the meal. Really, the whole thing looks absolutely perfect before it goes into the oven. It's colourful and vibrant and looks as though it will be eaten within seconds of coming out of the oven.

So of course there has to be a "but".

All day long there had been a questionable smell lingering in the kitchen. You know the smell. Everybody knows the smell. It's potent and not one that is easily forgotten. Turned out to be coming off a dead rodent outside the kitchen window (pleasant, I know). So when there was a funny odor after I took out the fish I didn't really think anything of it other than I hate squirrels. I had also just bought the salmon the day before so there was no reasonable way the fish could have gone off in less than 24 hours. Right?

When I pulled the salmon out of the oven the smell was worse and I should have known right then to get out the plan B meal (Kraft Dinner). But I was in denial, and after all... the presentation of the fish was perfect! It certainly LOOKED edible...


After a few bites we all decided that no, it was definitely not edible. This fish belonged in the trash with all its fancy accoutrement. Maybe the coyotes would appreciate my effort.

The extra frustrating part about this story: I have done this before with seafood! A year ago I was asked to make a crab quiche and I didn't trust my nose when I opened the can of crab and found it smelling... repugnant. Again, the whole dish was chucked after it was tentatively tasted and deemed entirely unfit for human consumption. I'm lucky no one got food poisoning that time.

After all this I would say that while I may have let Jamie down, I think I finally learned my lesson and am able to say with my full and utmost confidence that from here on in I will ALWAYS trust my nose.

And always have a back up meal ready when preparing fish.

a Dobos Torte and a new blog...

Every month the Daring Bakers put out a baking challenge. Last month, that challenge was the Austro-Hungarian Dobos Torte. While there were countless beautiful and interesting interpretations and variations on this dobosian theme, I fell in love with the one created by Tartlette. Now, I don't know what it was exactly about this cake that I fell in love with, whether it was the almost rebellious concept of a white dobos torte (traditionally a cake with chocolate filling, covered in chocolate buttercream, and decorated with a caramel garnish) or the challenge in these beautiful little cakes that looked so simple on the outside, but were actually quite complex and different. In the end, that whole idea of making a cake that was almost decievingly simple made the decision for me. That and the pretty pictures...

I had to make mousse filling twice (the first go 'round was unsuccessful due to the honey making the mousse smell a bit too similar to old shoes) and that made the whole process special. The fact that the power went out right in the middle of making the swiss meringue buttercream made it pretty special too. The Rebel Dobos Torte made the cut to be the official first post and that gives it an added hint of special in my books. I was able to make pulled sugar decorations and not horribly disfigure or burn myself in the process and that make sthis experience extra special in my very humble opinion. And finally (I promise), I think it's pretty special that I was able to pull off this ass-kicking, finger-licking fancy pants torte(s) without even a hint of a mental breakdown!!

Special indeed.

My name is Erin and I have a passion for food. Simply put, it makes me happy. This is my attempt to appreciate food to its absolute fullest by making and eating as much of it as I possibly can in as many beautiful combinations as I can find.

For me, this is what it's all about: making and remaking something until I get it right. Or at least as "right" as I can manage without singing off any hair, slicing off any important body parts, or breaking down in tears. It's a process. Like everything else, I'm starting in the middle of it all and working my way to the edges. We'll see where this goes...