Friday From The Tagosphere

To start with, I just read this and it made me laugh out loud: "I come by this particular tendency honestly, as that's just the way we always did it in my house while I was growing. It's akin to the how my mom's family used to eat cheesecake when she was growing up. Her mom would plunk a frozen cake down on the kitchen table and everyone would sit around it with forks, picking at the defrosting edges." By way of Slashfood.

Caramelized Red Onion and Goat Cheese Tarts - Not much to complain about here. I have passed by the red onions in favor of the cipolinis for several straight weeks, but next week might be the week I change my tune.
Ricotta Tart with Honey Glazed Figs - I have been rather disappointed with all the figs I've eaten this year: those from the guy on the corner, the horribly expensive ones I had sent to me from California and, yes, even those I have eaten in restaurants, but I seem to remember loving figs, so I keep taking down recipes that use them.

Raspberry Crumb Cake - The weather just doesn't seem to be cooling off which means that there are still buckets of raspberries being displayed on market tables. I've been just popping them down my gullet at my desk for sport, but perhaps more could be done with them.

Dark Chocolate Custard - I must must must coordinate my work so that macaron day and ice cream day are either the same or very close together so that I don't run the risk of more egg wastage. However, instead of ice cream day, perhaps there should also be custard day. The man of the house does enjoy custard especially now that we own a blowtorch.

Quince Tartlets - So, I'm looking at you chef from Payard who was fairly brusque and forwny with me on Wednesday at the market when I expressed delight in your menu choice of wild boar and quince, when I say that just because I don't have the kind of relationships with the US Customs and small wild boar purveyors in Canada does not mean I will be unable to enjoy the brief exciting quince season. I am a lady so I will content myself with extending a VTFF to you as well - sheesh I was just trying to be personable.

Short week tagging

Out of the office two days this week, meaning I had less time to read other people's sites. There were, as always, quite a few standouts in what I did read, though.

Dark Chocolate Financiers - I too am a fan of Jean Paul Hevin, and as I do not have a cookbook from him, though, obviously, now I'll be looking for it, this is a lovely little introduction.

Real Corn Soup - It's true, the corn is nearing it's end, but I haven't used it much this summer, other than an occasional ear at dinner, so I might have this be corn's last hurrah for the year.


White Beans and Sausage - Which, I guess, means cooler climes are upon us and I should just get used to the idea of several months of comfort food.

Spicy South Africa Braised Beef - Ditto. Plus, I've been thinking of braising all my meat and saving money on the pricier cuts.


Espresso Caramels - I, myself, have been making caramel without a candy thermometer, but Heidi's look like they achieved a really good, really even consistency, so maybe I'll trot the old thermometer out.


Ricotta Cake with Meyer Lemon Curd - And yes, soon the Meyer lemons will be arriving, and with them a weekend of zesting and juicing. Once I have more juice and zest than I could ever hope to use, this might be a nice destination.

Happy Birthday J

While office life drains me of much lifeforce, there are a couple of co-workers who go that extra mile to make my days bearable by being awesome. Upon learning that one of these people, darling J, was turning the ripe old age of 27 today, I decided it would be a terrific excuse to bake a cake. J had confided in me that she was a raspberry fan, and seeing as the freezer did already hold an astonishing number of said fruit, I tok it from there.

This was a new experience for me in that I dreamed up the cake on my own. The combination of ingredients is by no means revolutionary, but I wasn't relying on someone else's ideas - so that was, well, cool. I have, on previous occasions, made platings out of several different dessert ideas, and have long invented frozen dessert flavors, but this was my first cake composition.

I need to name it. But, you see, a good name doesn't present itself. The layers are as follows:

Chocolate Meringue
Dark Chocolate Mousse
Rich Chocolate Cake
Raspberry Mousse

I wanted to have some textural diversity so the two mousses were different, and the two separating layers were as well. It went crunchy, unctuous, dense, fluffy. Could I call it the Crunchy Unctuous Dense Fluffy Cake? Or CUDF Cake for short?

Step one: meringue.

Two egg whites
50 grams confectioner's sugar
1.5 tbsp. cocoa powder
45 grams sugar

Sift confectioner's sugar and cocoa together. Beat eggs until they hold soft peaks, gradually add sugar. When meringue is achieved, fold in cocoa mixture. Pipe. Let rest. Bake 2 hours in an ajar oven at 250 degrees. Let cool in turned off oven.

Step two: chocolate mousse

Adapted from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme

170 grams bittersweet chocolate (Callebaut 70%)
60 grams whole milk
20 grams heavy cream
1 large egg yolk
4 large egg whites
1 tbsp. vanilla sugar

Melt the chocolate and let cool to body temperature. Combine the milk and cream and boil. Pour over chocolate and whisk to incorporate. Add the egg yolk and whisk it as well. Beat the whites until soft peaky and gradually fold the whites into the chocolate mixture. Refrigerate.

Step 3: Dense Chocolate Cake

Also adapted from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme

250 grams bittersweet chocolate (Callebaut 70%)
230 grams sweet butter
20 grams lightly salted butter
180 grams sugar
4 large eggs
70 grams flour

Melt chocolate and let cool to body temperature. Beat butter and sugar together until very light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, really incorporating each egg before adding the next. Add the chocolate and incorporate. Add the flour and incrporate briefly (no lumps or streaks). Pour into greased, parchment-papered, floured pan and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool a lot.

Step 4: raspberry mousse

200 grams raspberries
60 grams sugar
1 tbsp. glucose
2 tbsp. water
2 egg whites
240 ml heavy cream

Puree and strain raspberries. Make a simple syrup of the sugar, water and glucose - cook until soft ball stage. Beat egg whites until they hold soft peaks and start pouring syrup while mixer is running. When meringue is achieved, begin to fold in raspberry puree. Whip cream until firm and fold into raspberry meringue mixture. Refrigerate until firm.

Nota bene: I am not a huge fan of gelatin and wanted to make a fruit mousse without using it. This was both a great idea and a less good idea. The above recipe will give you an awesome airy mousse, but it needs to be eaten sooner rather than later. When I went to assemble the cake later, much of the puree had sunk to the bottom of the bowl and I had the skim the mousse off the top to get the bits that remained at the proper consistency.

Step 5: assembly

This is my least favorite step as I do not have what others could refer to as a light hand. The meringue had been baked in a cake ring (and really, if anyone can explain to me how to properly use a cake ring, I would name my firstborn after him or her (or something equally grandiose) because for the life of me, my batter, no matter what kind of batter, seeps out the bottom. I was under the, perhaps mistaken impression, that real bakers didn't mess around with pans, and instead used rings and silpat. I own rings and silpat and I end up with messes when I execute my baking using them - please, help would be a godsend), and so was the right size. Using an offset spatula, I added the chocolate mousse. I cut the cake vertically to get the thickness I wanted and then, literally, mushed it into the ring on top of the chocolate mousse. Finally, I offset spatula-ed the raspberry mousse on top and garnished with some berries.

I think the cake turned out to look fairly decent - I worry that it will be altogether too rich. However J was ecstatic when she saw it this morning abnd I only remonstrated with her briefly when she stuck her finger into the cake I spent a day making, reasoning that it was, after all, her cake now.

Friday Tag-Tacular

I may have gone a little overboard at the market this morning, but it was the last day for apricots and possibly sour cherries too (though I was promised greengage plums next week). I bought short ribs for a braised short rib ravioli. But while I defrost my ribs and wonder what the rest of the produce will be used for, enjoy the week I tagged.

Apricot Tart Brulee: Since I went overboard (again) on apricots, they will have to go somewhere. This will also enable me to finally unpack my butane torch and frighten the man of the house.

Summer Berry Pudding: I'll admit, there's something slightly odd about summer puddings to me that isn't odd about bread pudding. Perhaps it's that so many summer puddings call for wonder bread, which is gross. I might try this recipe if I baked a brioche to use as the bread. But it was beautiful.

Cream Cheese Brownies: Again, this is not something I would usually make (or like). I have never gotten really into cream cheese brownies, but I believe in trying things again.

Chocolate Pistachio Cake: Chocolate and pistachios, on the other hand, are never far from my mind. This preparation might take a back seat to an Herme recipe I've been drooling over - one that would certainly necessitate some new pistachios. Details to come...

Dulce de Leche Brioche Buns: Hmmmm... perhaps these would go with the summer berry pudding.

Lemon Bars: No, not yet, not citrus already! I banish this recipe to the recesses of my mind until California citrus arrives in four months.

Good value red wine: I love this site; I hate that his favorite wine store is really really inconvenient. Perhaps on the way back from the beach, we'll take the Holland Tunnel instead and stop by.

More Yummy Paris: Stupid waiting till February to go back to Paris. I've been to several of these places before, and I must admit, I was disappointed by L'Etoile D'Or on my last visit (though I did try a hemp flavored chocolate - a little ick). But I need to start fantasizing about my return in 2008, and this is a good place to start.

Chickpea Ragout: Ok. This looks amazing. The man of the house is a staunch supporter of meals involving meat, but he did like Morocco, and this has that North African vibe going on, and everyone loves fried eggs.

Pappa al Pomodoro: I buy too many tomatoes in addition to too many apricots (oh god, I just remembered the 3 pounds of peaches I purchased), so this will become Sunday dinner.

Chocolate Torte: Simple, elegant, delicious looking. I have a favorite flourless chocolate cake, but this early flourless one looks eminently worthy of duplication.

Lavender Jam: Don't know if I'll like it, but I know I'll try it.

Weekly Wrap-up: What I Tagged This Week

I haven't been sold on the idea of tagging yet. I know people swear by it, but after being an early adopter in my teens and twenties, I'm starting to find myself tired by all the next big things. But, several months ago, at the tail end of the tagging revolution (does anyone know if it has jumped the shark yet?), I dutifully signed up for del.icio.us and started tagging.

Here's the thing, I don't like that my Ice Cream tag is Icecream and that there is no real taxonomy built in (though those in the know have explained that taxonomy and tagging are enemies in a steel cage matchup reminiscent of Spartacus vs. Mothra), but it lets me look back on the things I want to make and the wines I want to try, and for that I'm grateful (though I will be more grateful when next generation tagging emerges with greater functionality).

So here is the week that was:

Guacamole Deviled Eggs: My mouth is having a little difficulty imagining this, but it does like eggs and it does like guacamole. Now I just need an excuse to feed these to others as I'm not quite sure I'd like them halfway through my day on the beach.

Walnut Cakes: I find that my food processor, wonderful though it is, is not quite up to the task of thoroughly pulverizing nuts. This gives my macarons a bit of a speckly look and mouthfeel and I'm going to have to throw in the towel and buy things like pistachio flour and simply look away as the bill is calculated. This recipe seems not to mind the coarse nature of my chopping abilities. I'm thinking it would be lovely to serve it with the Walnut Ice Cream and perhaps a sour cherry compote.

Pear and Hazelnut Bread Pudding: I like pears as much as the next person, perhaps even more, but I am saddened by their recent appearance in recipes. My cup runneth over with every kind of fleeting summer fruit imaginable, and I just can't bring myself to think about apples and pears and the autumn they bring - an autumn bereft of peaches and plums and berries. Still, this looked really good so I'll spirit it away until October beckons.

Homemade Vanilla Extract: Since Clothilde mentioned the vanilla beans available directly from Mayotte, I must confess I've been using very little vanilla extract and instead heaping vanilla beans into my confections - they're too cheap not to use. Still, I have tons of empty pods in ziploc bags. Yes, I've already chopped many up and infused granulated, superfine, and confectioner's sugar with them, as well as some sea salt, but there are so many more pods to dispose of. I'm thinking that if I use a ton of pods in this preparation, it won't matter if the beans themselves have already found their way, by myriad paths, to my belly.

Homemade Flavored Salts: Did I just mention the vanilla sea salt? It must have been on my mind when I perused this. I'm trying to decide what flavor I'd like to make first. I'm thinking cardamom or star anise.

Duck Egg al Tegamino: I almost never go to the Union Square market on Saturdays. It is a madhouse. It is also a time when tons more meat purveyors set up shop and when one can get fun eggs (which someone left out at room temperature a little too long and found herself with something very nearing a true abomination). So another Saturday trip is in order.

Chocolate and Cinnamon Ice Cream: I have made chocolate ice cream a hundred different ways, and am sure I could merely add cinnamon to one of my favorites, but I think ice cream benefits from as many different preparations as possible - this one uses many fewer eggs than I would ordinarily - so I'll give it a whirl this weekend (oh crap, and the apricot ice cream, and the blueberry, and the nectarine sorbet - crap crap crap).

Truffle Sandwich Cookies: I won't be using white chocolate ganache because, well, there are things I love more. I'm thinking a dark chocolate and fig ganache, mostly because when I just went outside I saw the street fruit hawkers had figs, and now I'm looking for places to get good ones.

Tomato Confiture: This site is in French, but considering I am 230 pages through Les Bienveillantes and have been working my way through ph10, I'm less intimidated by it than I might have been a year ago. I know tomato season, though just truly getting underway, will end, but before it does, I will swipe bags of the juicy things and preserve them as many ways as I can imagine.

Apricot Granita: Someone else has my problem: "Food waste is inevitable in my fridge. My seasonal affairs with cherries, peaches, tomatoes, anything juicy and ripe, begins with lustful savoring. Best when they're naked and ungussied. Then, it ends with forgetfulness and the shame of neglect until they rot and get chucked into the garbage can when the next weekly, more appealing batch arrives." Ugh - I know exactly what you mean. I have Nicole's strawberries from this week and last week and Red Jacket apricots from this week and last week - I smell clafoutis, ice cream, and free form tart (or juice - sweet, freezable juice).