Archive for May, 2009
While silicone isn’t good for everything, there are some distinct advantages to using it. The biggest advantage is that silicone is nonstick, so it is always easy to work with when it comes to making candies or working with other sticky things. Silicone baking mats and pans are also reusable, while nonstick alternatives like parchment paper are disposable, even if you can sometimes get more than one use out of them. Most mats, like Silpats, are rectangular in shape and are meant to be used on cookie pans, but there are circular silicone cake pan liners, too! These mats fit easily into a round cake pan and pretty much eliminate the need to ever line a pan with parchment paper (although greasing the sides is still a good idea). The nonstick mat helps the cake to cook evenly and is nonstick, so when you turn the cake out of the pan, you can peel it right off, wash it and it’s ready for the next time.
The only drawback is that these mats are usually only sold in certain standard sizes – 8-inches, 9-inches, etc. – and can be very difficult to find for cake pans that are smaller or larger. So don’t through your parchment paper out just yet, but you might want to keep these in mind for everyday cake baking.
Carrot cake and zucchini bread are just two examples of sweets that include vegetables in a surprising way. Namely, it’s that they are relatively undetectable from a taste point of view, despite the fact that the recipes often include quite a large amount of the veggies. Carrots and zucchini have become such common inclusions, that we’re not usually surprised to see them in recipes. Other vegetables make us sit up and take notice a little bit more when they appear in unexpected places. These cake bars, for instance, have lettuce in them.
That’s right, iceberg lettuce.
Lettuce is relatively bland and shreds up nicely, just as carrots and zucchini do. I saw a recipe for some spice bars that featured – or at least included – lettuce in an older cookbook from my collection, Cuisinart Food Processor Cooking (great book from 1981 – came with an old Cuisinart). I didn’t use the food processor for any part of this recipe, but couldn’t resist trying it out.
The cake bars are pretty good, and you wouldn’t know that they have lettuce in them unless someone directly told you or you didn’t get a great “shred” and a few big pieces slipped into the batter. They’re moist and soft, with a good balance of chewiness and tenderness. Iceberg lettuce is definitely the best choice for these, as it is light, crispy and breaks down easily. I wouldn’t really recommend using a different type of lettuce for this, as it might seem like you’re incorporating a plant into a cake if you get tough leaves or a stronger flavor in there. These bars are flavored with cardamom and topped with lemon cream cheese icing – both of which are flavors that really go well together and with some of the faint notes from the lettuce. The bars also have raisins and chopped walnuts to add a little more texture.
These bars are quite thin and only need a thin layer of icing to match them. They make a great snack cake and keep well when stored in an airtight container.
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At one point in time, you could only find very basic travel guide books and most of them covered a wide area. These days, there are more guidebooks available than ever before and they have become increasingly specialized, focusing on cities, neighborhoods, interests and even food. This is great for travelers streamline a trip and see what they want to see. The Patisseries of Paris: Chocolatiers, Tea Salons, Ice Cream Parlors, and more is essentially this type of guidebook. In a city that is known for having some of the most impressive sweets and pastries in the world, this book is intended to help you navigate through the city and pick out the very best ones.
The book is divided up by neighborhoods, or Arrondisements. You’ll probably notice that some have quite a few more listings than others, and these neighborhoods tend to be the older ones towards the center of the city. Fortunately, this is also the area where a lot of attractions are, like the Louvre and Notre Dame, so if you’re traveling and staying elsewhere in the city, you’ll almost definitely be right nearby most of the listings in the book at some point or another. The listings are little reviews of what makes the shops grea, listing their specialties and some historical information about the patisseries – which is particularly nice for the older shops. There is also practical information, like the address and operating days/hours of the shops.
With guide books, it’s really hard to find out how reliable they are if you haven’t been to a city yourself to compare. The Girl Who Ate Everything actually did a three part comparison on her blog of the shops, as she visited them, to the lsitings in the book! The book actually did quite an accurate job, from the sound of it, but it’s great to see TGWAE’s personal photos of all the sweets mentioned in the guide. Check out Paris Patisseries Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 for the comparisons.
Mayonnaise is a creamy emulsion of vegetable oil, egg yolks, lemon juice and/or vinegar and seasonings, like salt or mustard. An emulsion is unique because the elements of an emulsion don’t necessarily want to come together smoothly on their own and need a little encouragement to become a silky smooth mixture, like mayonnaise. The trick really is to beat the ingredients at a very high speed and combine them bit by bit so that their individual elements spread out evenly throughout the mixture. Homemade mayonnaise can be made by hand, but I much prefer to use a food processor because it is faster and easier.This mayonnaise is made with olive oil and as a distinct olive oil flavor to it, noticeably stronger than other mayonnaises, which tend to be made with more neutral oils. While it tastes a bit strong on its own, the olive oil mayonnaise tastes great on most sandwiches and can be a great base for dips. This recipe also calls for a whole egg, not just yolks, so there is nothing leftover from the preparation that you’ll need to use up (like leftover egg whites). If you want a milder flavor, you can substitute canola oil for part of the olive oil.
The mayo will keep or at least a week, probably a bit longer, in the fridge if you store it in an airtight container. I would try to use it up relatively quickly and make a big batch of chicken or tuna salad, or another dish that uses a good amount of mayonnaise, to take full advantage of its flavor.
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I am a big fan of Thai coffee and Thai iced tea. The iced tea, which is regular iced tea sweetened with [usually a lot] of sweetened condensed milk, is probably a bit more common than the coffee version, but the coffee is made the same way, with sweetened condensed milk. The milk is thick and very sweet, with rich caramel flavor to it, and it makes an amazing pairing with both drinks. When I saw this recipe for Thai Coffee Creme Caramel in the New York Times Dessert Cookbook, I was intrigued and couldn’t wait to see how the flavor translated from drink to dessert.
I’ll cut to the chase: it was fantastic. I can’t remember the last time I had such a light, smooth and creamy flan. It wasn’t tough or gelatinous at all (which some of the less-good flans I’ve tried have been), but incredibly silky and light. The only reason that there are little flecks of flan sitting in the caramel around the dessert in the photo above is that I have never been particularly good at unmolding creme caramel and tend to slice into the custard slightly if I slide my knife around it; I usually just cheat and eat it straight out of the ramekin, caramel and all. The coffee and caramel notes in the dessert were excellent and really represented the original coffee drink well. As an additional bonus, this dessert has only a couple of ingredients and is remarkably easy to make.
I didn’t make the caramel for the dessert – which is poured into the bottom of the ramekin before baking – too dark because I didn’t want a burnt sugar flavor to dominate the dish. Stop at a light or medium amber color, nothing darker than that. The recipe calls for a strong coffee extract to provide the coffee flavor, and has a base made with egg yolks, condensed milk and water. Save the egg whites to make angel food cake or angel food cupcakes the day you’re planning to make these.
This creme caramel is best served chilled, and while it can be eaten at room temperature, it is best to give it a few hours in the fridge to firm up a little further before serving. To unmold, dip the ramekin in a bowl of very hot water for about 20 seconds and invert onto a serving dish. You can slide a thin knife around the edge to loosen the custard, if necessary, but keep in mind that this method might not result in an unmolding that is quite as clean as the hot-water-only method (although it really helps in getting the thing out!).
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