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.

Matt, you're off the hook

Didn't see Matt this morning at 14th street, but I did see the Red Jacket Orchard's greengage plums - the very plums I had accusingly harangued poor Matt about for several weeks (Matt is the tall and, dare it be said, quite attractive CECNY employee at the Union Square market - my mom and I both have a bit of a crush). Now I have black plums and green plums, and nothing has been done with either yet. Perhaps after my French tutor this evening, I'll make jam (because everyone is in the mood for jam at 10:00pm).

I have some legacy photos from can this part 2 which I wanted to share (and also ask questions about):

Raspberry Jam (with, perhaps, a few too many seeds)



Roasted Peppers


So the question is about the peppers. I don't know if it's visible, but there's lots of white junk floating in the terrine. I'm assuming it's congealed fat, but if anyone knows differently, especially if what you know is that I will die if I eat the white stuff or anything that touched it, please do let me know.

Thanks!

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.

Can This - Part 2 (photos to come)

Phillips Farm has been offloading their raspberries recently for truly remarkable prices (5 1/2 pints for 10 dollars?!?), and I knew something had to be done with this bounty. Raspberries are reliable freezers and both of my freezers at home now have containers full of them (for those lonely January nights when even the apples are now mealy), but 5 of the half-pints recently acquired have done their duty and become jam. Specifically, seeded red raspberry jam infused with fresh rosemary.

After pulping the raspberries slightly I heated them to just below boiling at which point I dropped about three stems of tied up rosemary, covered the pot and let the steeping commence. In retrospect I should have steeped longer, but I'm impatient like that. The final product has more of a hint of rosemary as opposed to an undercurrent.

I've never made jams before, so I'm still working out the right amount of pectin. My batch of strawberry had the right consistency, but I used granulated sugar which clumped in places. For the raspberry I used too much pectin, causing the jam to be a little more like Jello, than jam, but superfine sugar, so no clumps.

I also olive oil packed my delicious maroon peppers, duly roasted. If I can keep a certain someone's hands from these savory creations, our winter might not be so potato and turnip heavy!