Archive for September, 2005
I feel like I have been in a bit of a rut lately. Looking back through the last couple of weeks, I can see that this isn’t entirely true, not as far as posting is concerned, but that doesn’t change the way I feel.
I think it’s because of the seasons. It’s the end of summer and the end of the summer season means cooler days and heartier meals. Some of my favorites – grilled corn on the cob, for example – are approaching their inevitable disappearance from my table. This means that I’ve been doing quite a bit of repetitious eating.
I can’t hang onto the old favorites forever, particularly when it is darn hard to get ahold of fresh corn on the cob in the middle of winter, so some new favorites are just beginning to make an appearance. This cornbread fuses the changing of the seasons.
I love cornbread because it’s a bit hearty and a bit sweet. This one is very moist due to the inclusion of shredded zucchini, which I know is still prevalent in people’s gardens. The buttermilk and molasses make this bread taste sweet and buttery. Serve it on the side of a hearty winter stew or with butter and jam along side of something grilled.
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I was enjoying the last of the donut cookies, made from a recipe posted by Joe at Culinary in the Desert, when I saw that I was tagged on Grab Your Fork for a meme: find the fifth sentence of your 23rd post and post it. Curiosity overcame me and I looked back through my archives.
Looking at some of my earliest posts, I couldn’t help but wonder if I should delete some of the more pointless ones or edit the writing here and there. I like everything to be nice and streamlined, so some of the posts seemed like “fluff” that wasn’t serving a purpose; I was not a worse writer than I am now, I just didn’t know exactly what I wanted to say. I was mentally picking out posts to axe when I came to the 23rd post and read the fifth line:
It would probably take a force of nature to stop me once I have my mind set on baking something.
I’m not editing the old posts.
I’ll just go on from here.
Edit: As I neglected to mention above, the cookies are very good. They’re fun and easy to make, and have a nice butter cookie texture. They go famously with coffee but tea is a nice choice, too. I ate the ones I put sprinkles on first and called it breakfast. The cookies prove that sometimes a bit of editing is ok. Spell check proves the same thing.
Close your eyes. Imagine the fudgiest brownie you have ever tasted. And understand that this cake is a million times better. It is all the fudge and none of the dryness, none of the chew of a brownie or a cake. It is silky, liquid fudge.
Interested?
I turned back to Baking with Julia this week to find the Boca Negra cake. Boca negra means “black mouth” in Spanish. It is named because, the book claims, it will turn your mouth black with chocolate ater one bite. I can’t verify this because I had it with tea.
I suspect that this “cake” is really a baked custard in disguise. It is mixed very quickly in a food processor and baked in a water bath. The recipe directs you to unmold it directly after taking it out of the oven. I was apprehensive, as often cakes don’t hold their shape as well as promised, but this one popped right out. Not only that, I was able to turn it out and re-invert it onto a cake platter with ease – which made for a shockingly beautiful presentation. Unlike most flourless or nearly flourless chocolate cakes, there is no flaky crust waiting to crumble into a fine dust at first knife cut.
I served it after cooling it for about a hour, while it was still warm, but it kept well at room temperature. This cake can also be made ahead, but it will have the texture of fudge if served cold, so let it come up to room temperature before serving.
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Ordinarily, I would make ribs in the oven. They would be seasoned, sauced, wrapped tightly in foil and baked long hours at a low temperature until the meat was falling-off-the-bone tender. I am not thrilled with the heat that this generates in my kitchen, butt the only real problem I see with this method is that it renders my oven unavailable to other baked goods. I like to have cornbread with barbeque and it just doesn’t turn out quite right when you try to bake it in a 250F oven.
To free up that valuable oven space, I used my crockpot. I have a 5 quart slow cooker (crockpot), so I used 4 pounds of baby back ribs. If you have a small one, use two. This is important because the sauce will scorch a bit if you are not filling your cooker with enough meat. And who ever complained about a few extra ribs?
I was incredibly pleased with how well these turned out. I needed two spoons to get the ribs out, rather than tongs, because the meat came off the bones as though it had never been attached. And the taste? Teeth were completely unnecessary.
I started with a recipe from Epicurious for barbeque sauce and altered it a bit according to the comments left by other users and my own tastes. The sauce was on the sweet side, but the paprika and dash of red pepper flakes cut it just enough. It was great with the ribs. You could taste many flavors in the sauce, and while you can taste a hint of root beer if you know it is there, no one else is likely to guess the “secret ingredient”. If you don’t have root beer, substitute some brand of cola. I like the sauce to be a little thinner for roasting and crock pot cooking, as opposed to grilling, where I like it thick. If you like it thicker, continue to reduce the sauce down to 1 1/2 cups, which will take an additional 10-15 minutes.
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Hot on the heels of Friday’s custardy SHF entry, is another type of custard: cheesecake.
The first time I read Lori’s excellent post on making the best cheesecake on the planet, I was sold. Did you know that she used to make cheesecakes for a living?
I wanted to try making her bulls eye cheesecake, but I chickened out after preparing the batters. I was nervious about pouring even chocolate and plain layers into the pan, so I settled on making a marbled cheesecake. I filled the pan with large, haphazard dollops of batter and swirled them together with a knife. This cheesecake does not need to be baked in a water bath, so that makes it that much easier.
Cheesecakes crack when they are exposed to a sudden temperature change. Cool your cheesecake in a fairly warm place after removing it from the oven to allow the custard to set without cracking. Make sure to chill it overnight in the refrigerator; creamy cheesecakes taste their best when cool. When you are going to serve the cheesecake, keep a moist dishtowel at hand and wipe down the knife after each slice. This will keep your slices clean and even.
Is it really the best cheesecake on the planet? I will say that it is outstanding. The plain cheesecake has an excellent flavor. The chocolate cheesecake is incredibly rich and chocolately without being heavy or truffle-like. Overall, it isn’t too sweet and the whole thing is unbelieveably creamy. The thick crust is a perfect balance to the richness of the cheesecake. I would not change a single thing about this recipe.
In truth, I do not think that I eat enough cheesecake to really pass judgment on a global scale, but I will say that it is certainly the best I have had in recent memory.
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