January 2010 Archives
Puff pastry in three sheets (this I get from Pillsbury Farms, not made from scratch). Spread the layers with "pastry cream" - kind of a soft egg custard, kinda tough to make. At the last minute I had the idea to use the new Starbucks instant coffee Via packets - they are perfect, blending and adding the perfect flavor and colour without adding any liquid. Finally of course powdered sugar and chocolate syrup over top. Voila, le triomphe de Napoleon.
Did I make this one on baking day? I forget. I saw Lemon Curd in a gourmet food store for something like $12.95 a bottle. This one is super easy - I use a wok so it doesn't boil or curdle. It's 4 eggs and a cup of sugar, the rind grated off a lemon, squeeze in the juice (try not to drop any seeds in!), and add another 1/3 cup of lemon juice. Then heat and whisk til it thickens. It's pretty fantastic all by itself but I add the raspberries for color and to make it look pro.
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Nancy makes the crust in the food processor for me. It's not a French-style cookie crust, more of an American style flaky crust. She's pretty much got that kind of crust perfected via the processor . Finn won't touch it, of course. Makes a great breakfast or dessert with coffee. The lemon flavour is super-strong.
We hit the Seattle Restaurant Store yesterday for about $300, replaced the dishes and got excited about cooking even more.
Nancy got a new stockpot and made a killer soupe a l'oignon. Apparently the key is to buy the purple onions - I would've thought we needed the sweet ones. The onion acid permeated the kitchen so we wore the new ski goggles. Also a thin crust pizza (Nancy is great at crusts from scratch).
Today while Finn and Nancy went skiing at Snoqualmie Summit and Elijah and I baked. We started with creme puffs which are pretty easy - you boil a cup of water and a stick of butter, then throw in a cup of flour and mix. Then let it cool a little and mix in 7 (seven!) eggs. No sugar! These turned out perfect on our aluminum baking sheets without any butter or nonstick coating or parchment paper.
Then Elijah wanted 
"black cream!" and I asked him how one made that. He insisted on brown sugar, heavy cream and vanilla. Dad's idea was to add a cup of Dutched cocoa, which really did turn black. This chocolate whipped cream didn't have nearly the volume, but it tasted wonderful and it was plenty to fill then twenty or so puffs.
Elijah types: b
Then we started on the creme brulees. (Elijah pronunciation: kremah bay!) I only wanted to make this to test out the torch we got. Since I was out of heavy cream we used the creme caramel recipe instead, which it turns out is lighter (milk and whole eggs, rather than the cream and yolks of creme brulee), and is kinda more eggy and separates a bit...if you've had both you'd know the difference. But the sugar/melty/firey/crackey thing is where the excitement is anyway. Those went in the fridge til Finn and Nancy came home.
Finally we made a chocolate cake (at Finn's request). The cake is just a mix, but I did a professional buttercream icing (sugar syrup to softball stage into 6 heavily whipped yolks, then add a pound of butter on high for 20 minutes or so - and we added half cup of cocoa too). This is incredibly light and yummy. Mom taught me everything about baking cakes but I got some new ideas from James Patterson's book. I cut the cakes into 4 layers, and used springform pans. I brushed the layers with an orange liquer before putting the buttercream between them, and covered the whole thing. It really is a lot lighter-feeling than the powdered sugar and butter I'm used to. This cake is incredible and so far we've only eaten the scraps from cutting the layers with leftover icing.
So, no meals today (just a salad) but a whole dinner of desserts. Finn claims he likes desserts more than me...heh. Maybe the eating of them...
Weird flash today on the idea that self-esteem is relative to surroundings. That idea is used to explain why people with more wealth are only marginally more happy; why lottery winners don't feel better off a year later, etc. And why otherwise poor people in miserable conditions often report feeling good about their situation. It's relative. If you are wealthier and more successful than your neighbors (or are on your way there) then you are happy. I wonder if surrounding yourself with people who are very similar to yourself (such as, when working at a big company or on a medium sized team) feeds into this. The stuff I know and work with is meaningless jargon and trivia to people who work in other (maybe more meaningful) professions. It's performance review time - is it silly to measure people who are all so similar against each other? We're vastly more productive and knowledgeable than 99% of the world's people; yet in 50 years who will weigh human worth in i/o wait times on a i386 architecture or type-inference on embedded query syntax ?
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
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