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.

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 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...