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.