Diets and cake…a cautionary tale…or why my cake fell flat!

Tags

baking, cake, castella, dessert, diets, disaster, eggs, food, kasutera, matcha, yum

So……….I’ve been dieting. UGH.  All my life I’ve been able to eat whatever, and yes I am aware that I’ve been lucky that way. I’m not a skinny person by any means, just regular. But lately…well I’ll put this in the order I believe it should be in….1. I haven’t really exercised in about 3 years and 2. I’m getting older.  And I don’t like it.  About 3 years ago I stopped taking Tae Kwan Do or going to the gym, or going hiking and kinda stuck around home more….and possibly started baking more.  My sister thinks the weight gain is mostly due to age but I’m fighting against that.  So I’ve gained about 20 pounds if I’m being honest.  The first 10 were no big deal, this last 10 however are another story altogether!!!  I can see them! I can feel them in my clothes!  So diet it is.  Here is the problem, it’s not easy to change years of eating habits! I don’t eat badly, just probably too much for my current metabolism.  So I went low carb.  Thinking that way I can still eat sweets on the weekends!  Low carb all week, dessert on weekends. Logical eh?  A friend gave me fresh eggs from his chickens and pheasants. I can eat all I want of eggs on this damned diet.

Farm fresh eggs

Except after about a week and a half on this damned diet nothing seemed to be coming off.  I’m not going to starve myself (hardly) if it doesn’t even work.  Last night was my breaking point.  I found a recipe for Kasutera Cake (a Japanese sponge cake) and decided what the hell, it’s a small recipe, it’s not too sweet, I have matcha powder and it uses eggs!  I can eat eggs….green tea cake it is!

Lovely tea fragrance

Jason only chuckled, diet over already?  Well, no, just a break.  Besides a light, not too sweet little tea scented cake couldn’t really hurt that much right?

There are many Kasutera also known as Castella, recipes out there. I chose this one because I thought it would be small enough that I wouldn’t completely blow the damned diet.  You can make it in many flavors and  Matcha is a green tea powder that can be used to flavor many things including ice cream, cake etc.

Matcha Kasutera

• 2 Tb milk
• 2 Tb honey
• 3/4 c flour
• 1 Tb matcha
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 c sugar

Prepare a small 9 inch rectangular pan with parchment paper.  Combine the honey and the milk and warm it up. Sift together the flour & matcha powder in a bowl and set aside.  Whisk the eggs and slowly add the sugar, place this bowl over a simmering pot of water, (very low simmer) and continue to whisk (I used a hand mixer.) The mixture will grow in size, get thick and get very light colored, it takes at least 10 minutes.

The egg mix at the start.

You want to reach a point where the mixture is very thick and reaches what is called the “ribbon stage”. See the picture below, when you take the whips out, the mixture will form what look like ribbons on top and slowly melt back into the rest of the mixture.  If you’ve ever made Zabaglione, this is the stage you are looking for.

Ribbon stage

So far so good, right?  It sure seems to be going great.  Stir in the milk/honey mixture and preheat the oven to 360 F.  Sift the flour/matcha into the batter and fold with a spatula, you want to fold gently so that you keep the light fluffiness of the egg mixture. Pour the batter into the pan and tap lightly on the counter to get any big air bubbles out.  Bake for 10 minutes at 360 then reduce the temperature to 300 and bake a further 40 minutes.  If a toothpick inserted comes out clean, it’s done! Then remove from pan, cool and blah blah blah.

My cake was doing fine, it had risen and looked good.  When I checked it about 20 minutes after I had lowered the tempurature….disaster!  The middle had collapsed!  What in the world?  I started racking my brain, did I beat it too much/hard?  Oh I added food coloring paste at the end and it may not have blended that well, was that it?  Ugh, this is what happens when your stomach has no carbs and takes over in a panic demanding cake.  I did an internet search with the query “Why did my sponge cake collapse?”  The very first hint made me realize my mistake….I had opened the oven door when I reduced the tempurate, thinking that would help get rid of some of the heat.  WRONG MOVE.  I guess sending in a rush of cold air causes sponge cakes to collapse, unless it’s more than 3/4 of the way done.  I’ll never make that mistake again.  The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.  This may be an elementary mistake to all you sponge cake makers but I’ve never been a big fan of cake until I discovered sponge cakes.  When I was little we mostly had box cakes, or bought cakes with waaaaay too much super sweet frosting.  Here’s another example of one more thing I will conquer!  My next attempt will be a Pandan Chiffon cake, similar I believe to a sponge. So… I definitely won’t be opening the oven door.

Poor cake.

We let it cool a little bit and then cut a piece.  It tasted delicious with crispy edges.  Jason loved it and kept eating.  I told him I knew how to replicate this exact cake now!  I’ll just never be taking it anywhere!   Oh and when I got on the scale this morning I had lost two pounds!  It’s working!!!!!

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Tags

chilies, dinner, food, hominy, Pork, Pozole verde, roasted peppers, savory, tomatillo, yum

Just made this tonight and it is fantastic! Did it in my slow cooker and had to use canned hominy.  I roasted half of the tomatillos while roasting the chilis because I like that smoky flavor.

Oh so good and Oh so easy! I even have some leftover for tomorrow and I can tell the flavor will be even better then, it will funkyfy I call it!

What’s up Wasabi?!

Tags

candied grapefruit, dessert, food, ganache, gluten free, lime, macarons, Pierre hermes, sweet, wasabi, white chocolate, yum

I’ve been dreaming (fantasizing?) about the Pierre Hermes wasabi macarons.  You know a funny thing?  All my obsession with Pierre Hermes and I’ve never even tasted his pastries?!  It’s all on reputation…in fact, it’s all on the Ispahan flavor combination.  He makes a rather well-known macaron called the Ispahan which uses rosewater, lychee and rasperries.  You can see my attempt to re-create them here.   When I heard he had a macaron with wasabi my tastebuds almost jumped out of my head!  I had to find the recipe and try them.  Well I found it (1) on Zen Can Cook. Of course it calls for something exotic, Yuzu juice, what is that anyway?

Yuzu

I am going to submit these to Aspiring Bakers #17 March Macaron Madness (March 2012). I can’t wait to see other submissions!Another variety of citrus?  I must find it.  Well that is easier said than done. I went to a local gigantic Asian market and…nothing, no one knew what I was talking about.  Hmmm.  there is another bigger Asian market in downtown Seattle but I wasn’t going to go there today.  The recipe said you could substitute lime.  That’s what I substituted in the last Hermes recipe I made! That time it called for Buddha Hand citrus.  What’s with all the exotic citrus that can be substituted by a lowly lime?!   On to the recipe, oh and fair warning it takes at least two days unless you have candied grapefruit on hand.

I try not to make a full recipe unless I know I like something and I’ve found with some of these recipes that have been converted from commercial scale that they make too much.  So this is a half recipe that follows and I used my own favorite macaron recipe instead of making the Italian merengue that the Hermes recipe called for.  I’ve never made them that way and it just seems overly complicated.

Candied grapefruit

• 1 grapefruit
• 1/2 liter of water
• 235 g of sugar
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• 1/2 star anise
• 5 peppercorns (it called for Sarawak, I used Tellicherry, I’m sure any black peppercorn would work)
• Oh and 2 Tb of lemon juice which I, of course, forgot.

You will need the peel of the grapefruit sliced into about 1 inch wide pieces including some of the fruit.  Usually you only use the peel.  Put in a saucepan and cover with cold water, bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes.  Drain, rinse in cold water,  cover with water, bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes,  repeat 2 more times.  If you taste the peel along the way it will go from unbearably bitter to much milder.

When you’re done with that part put the 1/2 liter of water, the sugar and the spice (oh and lemon juice, don’t forget that!) in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Once it’s boiling add the peels and low simmer with the lid propped open for 1 & 1/2 hours. You will know they’re done when they look translucent. Let them sit in the syrup overnight.  In the morning take them out of the syrup and let them dry on a wire rack.  I used the syrup on pancakes with yogurt, quite yum!

To use in the macaron, slice the peels into small chunks.

They look like little jewels.

If you have any leftover you can store them in the syrup for about 3 weeks, or cover them in sugar and they keep for about 3 days, or dip in chocolate and eat!Now we make macarons.  Use whatever recipe you usually use.  Bravetart has a great recipe and lots of tips on how to make them come out right.  For this macaron you need to grind up some pistachios and sprinkle on top of the macarons before baking.

Pierre Hermes uses titanium oxide to make his macarons white! Very strange, if you look it up on Wikipedia it’s used for many things including sunscreen and making the white lines on tennis courts. Not sure if I want that in my food and I didn’t have any of it anyway. I decided not to add any food coloring and leave these natural.   Now for the wasabi part!  Again, I didn’t make a full recipe only half and it was more than enough for the amount of macarons I made, probably about 60 finished (2 pieces per macaron).  I can’t really count them since we didn’t track how many we ate along the way!  Ugg, if I’m honest, we probably ate about 20.

White Chocolate, Wasabi, Lime Ganache

• 187 g white chocolate
• 150 g heavy cream
• 20-25 g lime juice
• 10 g wasabi (I was hoping for fresh but couldn’t find it. I’ve heard the stuff you get in tubes isn’t even real wasabi but who knows!)

Make the ganache by melting the white chocolate over a simmering pan of water (bain marie), heat the cream in a pan to a near simmer, warm the lime juice in the microwave. Once the white chocolate is melted add in half the cream and stir well, then add in the other half and the lime juice, stir some more. Add in the wasabi and make sure it’s really well combined.  Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge to cool.

My macaron shells did not turn out as well as other times, I think I may have overmixed just a bit.  You learn each time.   Now it’s time to assemble the macarons!  I put a layer of the ganache and about 4 chunks of the candied grapefruit between two of the macarons and tasted….what a strange, exotic, almost exciting combination!  You are hit with the wasabi first but it’s not enough to burn or anything, then comes the citrus and the chewy crisp of the macaron!  Jason says he likes these the best of all I’ve made.  I liked these but my favorite is still the rosewater lychee.

I think I will try one more wasabi flavored dessert….chocolate, wasabi, ginger cake!   We’ll see.

Ethiopian cabbage – quick and easy!

Tags

cabbage, carrot, cumin, dinner, Ethiopian, food, potato, savory, turmeric, vegetarian, yum

A few years ago my office had a pot luck and Mr. A’s wife brought in some dishes from her home country, Ethiopia.  I love collecting recipes from around the world, from people that I’ve actually met. Well at least until I started reading blogs, I’ve truly made some wonderful dishes from some of these blogs around here!  Anyway, I fell in love with this dish. She also brought a lentil dish that was ok and those flat breads that many African countries make. I can’t think of the name off the top of my head but they are flat and have bubbles, almost like when a pancake is ready to flip it has bubbles in it?  Hang on….let me look  up a picture online.  It’s called Injera.

Injera

It’s kind of spongy and I don’t remember much else about it. I do remember that she wouldn’t give me the recipe for Injera, she said it would be too difficult…she didn’t know me very well but for the sake of peace in the office, and because I wasn’t that impressed with them, I didn’t push it.  I wish I had pushed it and Mr. A is long gone so….I’ll have to find a recipe online.

The thing I think I love the most about getting recipes from people from other countries who are cooking a family recipe, or people who have been cooking for years, is that they don’t really measure the ingredients.  I remember when I was a child, my aunt had a woman who was a housekeeper and cook (this was in Greece) and I used to watch her cook.  It was a teacup full or a coffee cup full, or a water glass etc.  Then it was a big spoon or a small spoon or an amount poured into the palm of her hand. Watching her was like magic and wonderful smells and dishes flowed from her kitchen.

Mon petit chou

Anyway, that is how I was told this cabbage recipe and I tried to write it down as best I could.  This recipe is so simple and yet so good.  I posted this recipe on the AllRecipes site and people there made suggestions and added things.  So the recipe below is as close to the original as possible.  Oh and many of the cooks on allrecipes suggested the spices should be doubled so I will write the double amount in the recipe that follows…..

Ethiopian Cabbage

• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 4 carrots sliced
• 1 sliced onion
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper (or more)
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 head of cabbage
• 3-5 potatos cubed into bite size (any kind of potato works) 

The start

Heat the oil in a skillet or a dutch oven on medium, Cook the onion & carrots about 5 minutes.  Add the spices and then the cabbage and cook another 15- 20 minutes. Add the potatoes and cover, turn the heat down a bit and cook until the potatoes are soft. About 20-30 minutes.

I don’t know why this dish tastes so good, there’s not much to it.  But the combination of flavors is really wonderful. I make it fairly often.  You can serve it with meat or a flat bread but I usually have it alone.  I made it the other night with almost an entire small cabbage and only 3 potatoes and I was hoping for some leftovers but we at it all up!

Lazy weekend Cranberry scones with Orange Marmalade

Tags

baking, cranberry orange scones, food, marmalade, scones, Seville orange, sweet, tart, yum

After my croissant fiasco I wasn’t ready to try making them again…just yet.  I wanted something simple and easy.   Everyone is probably aware of my love of all things citrus especially now that they are in season.  It’s the rainy, dreary season up here in the Pacific Northwest and citrus reminds me of growing up in California.  Recently ChicaAndaluza posted her recipe for Orange Marmalade. I has asked her what type of oranges were typically used and I was bemoaning the lack of variety available at the supermarkets around here.  She said you could use any kind but that Seville oranges were the best option.  The other night I walked into my local neighborhood ethnic grocer and lo and behold….Seville bitter oranges!!!!!!

The link above will lead you to her recipe.  I halved her recipe because Jason said he doesn’t like orange marmalade so I would be the only one eating it (I should have known better).  I used 4 1/2 oranges, 1/2 a lemon, weighed it and almost doubled the sugar.  I wasn’t sure whether to cover the oranges while they were cooking so I left the lid off.  It seemed like too much water was lost so next time I’ll put the lid on and see what happens.  I added more water in the pulp boiling stage and cooked it for probably 15 minutes. I was worried that it would be too runny but it turned out beautifully!!!

It made much more than this.

Now what to make to eat this with?  I did not make bread this weekend, too lazy….I’ve got it cranberry/orange scones.  That will be perfect!

Cranberry Orange scones

• 400 g ( 3 cups) flour
• 80 g (1/3 c) sugar
• 11 g (2 1/2 tsp) baking powder
• 2 g (1/2 tsp) baking soda
• 5 g (1/2 tsp) salt
• 150 g (1 1/2 sticks) butter
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries (more or less to suit your taste)
• zest of one orange
• 1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400.  I don’t usually have buttermilk on hand but there is a trick, add 1 tsp white vinegar to 1 cup milk and let it sit for about 10 minutes and you’ll get a substitute for buttermilk. This is what I usually do for scones, pancakes etc.  I’m sure real buttermilk is much better but I don’t use enough of it to justify buying a container.

Sift together, flour, sugar, baking powder & soda and salt.  Add the butter and rub it into the flour mix with your hands until it turns crumbly.  You can use a pasty cutter too but I prefer my hands!

 

Add the cranberries and orange zest.

Such pretty colors!

Pour in the buttermilk and combine until it’s all mixed together, do not overmix.  I know many people make the dough into one big circle and cut it into triangles or wedges but every time I try that the middle stays doughy.  So I just shape individual scones and bake them that way.  Either way put them on a silicone baking sheet or parchment.  (I love silicone sheets,  I have saved a ton in parchment paper since I got one.)  You can either leave them plain or paint them with cream, sprinkle them with sugar or even paint on an egg wash, it’s entirely up to you.  You can even glaze them when they are done if you like.

Bake them for 12-15 minutes depending on your oven.  If you want to glaze them you can combine powdered sugar with orange juice (or lemon, or lime etc) until it reaches the consistency you want and then pour the glaze on them.  You can also mix 1 Tb cream with 1/4 tsp cinnamon & 2 Tb sugar which you can brush on.   I had them plain with the orange marmalade.  So Delicious!

Oh!  And how did Jason like the marmalade you might ask?  He said “This is pretty good if you like orange marmalade” (which he said he didn’t) and then he proceeded to eat it on his next scone as well. 

 

Croissants 1 – A buttery mess!

Tags

baking, croissants, food, snack

The Fresh from the Oven challenge this month is Croissants.  Brilliant, I thought. I’ve always wanted to make Croissants, I thought. How hard can it be, I thought…. Oh wow, for me, it was quite a mess!!!!!  BUT, I am determined to figure out where I went wrong and try again. I have some ideas of what went wrong but please, feel free to comment and give advice!

You can find the original recipe over at Lavender and Lovage. I will write it out next time, or the next, whichever time I’m successful!

It all started off so well……

A dough like any other?

I think my first mistake was to over-knead the dough.  I’ve since learned that croissant dough should not be over worked as the folding and rolling with the butter develops the gluten enough. Second mistake was using butter that was too cold (I think).

Things seemed to be going well up to this point.  Then it went downhill 😦  So sad.  Anyway, once I started rolling the layers together the hard butter in between started tearing through the dough and I ended up rolling butter.  As I got into the later layering I kept running into spots of pure butter.  The rolling pin was covered in butter, the countertop was covered in butter, I think there was butter in my hair, on my face, even in my belly button (joking but you get the point).

Butter poking through.

I’m not one to give up easily though. No, not me!  So I rolled, layered, rolled again, cut the dough into triangles, shaped them into croissants.  I was laughing like a mad woman throughout this fiasco, at this point there really was butter everywhere.  I had no idea what these would turn out like but DAMMIT I was going to make croissants!  Look at the picture below and you’ll notice that there are chunks of pure butter sticking out all over.

Look at all that butter everywhere!

So I baked them and some of them actually looked like croissants.  The taste wasn’t bad either….but they weren’t flaky, they were rather dense and kinda chewy…. but I will press on and I WILL make these again before the challenge is over and try to redeem myself! 

Versatile blogger award

Tags

baking, food, Versatile blogger award, yum

So I woke up one morning this week and ThingsMyBellyLikes had nominated me for the Versatile Blogger award! Thank you!

So the Rules are:

1. Nominate some of your favourite blogs

2. Tell your favourite blogs that you nominated them

3. Tell the world 7 things about yourself

First I’d like to nominate Sam who’s blog Samwiches to Samosas has some wonderful cake recipes I’m dying to try.

Next, Baker on the Rise, I loved her heart shaped cake, she has a very pretty blog.

On a non-cooking note (yes I am interested in other things!) Notes from a Dog Walker for her wonderful blog about dealing with DINOS (dogs in need of space).

Another baking site again! Raspberri cupcakes for her absolutely gorgeous cakes!

Tales of Thyme and Place for beautiful pictures and delicious recipes.

Now for the 7 things about me. Since I don’t think anyone knows all that much about me here we go….

1. I live in a small condo (read glorified apartment!) with a man who has an extensive car audio collection (read takes up lots of room with his stuff!) and two dogs.
2. I really, really, really want to start a small citrus grove INSIDE our place.  I want at least a Meyer lemon tree and now a Hand of Buddha citrus tree.  Possibly a pink grapefruit tree as well.  I’m so not joking and so not sure how I can possibly make that happen!
3. Oh, I’m from California and am currently living near Seattle. Citrus grows outside in California but Seattle is not the right climate for it, apples yes, citrus no. Very sad, although I do like apple pies so there’s that.
4. I’m half Greek and half American (read a big mix of Irish, English, Polish and possibly German) My dad was Greek and made us very proud of our heritage, he made sure we stayed connected, plus we went to Greece almost every summer so I got to know the food and the culture. It’s my second home.  And yes I speak Greek.
5. I’ve lived quite a life. I’ve made many mistakes but things are good now. Our past brings us to our present so I don’t really regret anything, I just wish I had been a bit smarter at a younger age.  But it’s all about the journey right?! And I’m far from done.
6. DId I happen to mention that I love food? I love food.  I love food from all different cultures. Luckily my parents made me try everything and exposed me to a huge variety of cultures and food.  I’m so grateful that I don’t have any food allergies and that I’m not picky. I feel so sorry for those people, they are missing out on so much!
7. I’ve traveled to many places and I hope to visit more.  There are so many places in this world, so many people to meet, places to see and food to eat! I want to go to Malaysia because I saw on a travel show that they greet you not with “how are you” but with “have you eaten”  That’s my type of place! The list of places I have yet to visit is long, India, Brazil, Egypt, North Africa, Peru, Spain and on and on!

So that’s it.  I wanted to nominate more people but either they have already received this or…. they just weren’t at the forefront of my mind and I know that in the middle of the night I will wake up and remember the ones I missed!  Probably at around 3 AM.

Financier with Apricots and Lime

Tags

almonds, apricots, baking, dessert, financier, food, hand of buddha, hazelnuts, lime, Pierre hermes, sweet, yum

This is first of many (I hope) of the recipes from the Pierre Hermes book “Pastries”  I gave Jason first choice and this was it. I never know if he picks for the pictures or the ingredients?  Anyway it was a great choice.

The recipe calls for using Hand of Buddha a fairly obscure citrus fruit. Luckily I have seen it twice so I knew what was being referenced.  I saw it once in Los Angeles and once in Seattle.  Both times in fairly upscale supermarkets.  I remember the fragrance as just catching my nose. That’s the only reason I even looked at the fruit as it’s kind of ugly and I probably wouldn’t have looked twice.  But that fragrance…..I had to track it down.  The fruit looks like this…

From what I could find online it is used for it’s zest and to fragrance a room and it will grow indoors. Hmmmm I could totally see myself having a whole grove of different citrus inside, Meyer Lemons, Hand of Buddha, Pink Grapefruit… The book said you could substitute lime instead (thank you for that!)

Caramel Mousse (see the custard recipe below, you could halve this recipe)

• 135 g heavy cream
• 50 g light corn syrup
• 85 g superfine granulated sugar
• 15 g unsalted butter

In a saucepan, bring the cream to a boil then remove from heat.  Combine the corn syrup and sugar in another saucepan and heat until it turns amber.  (Be careful, once it starts to darken, it happens very quickly and can burn). Remove from heat, add the butter and mix well. Pour the cream into the caramel & cook, set aside to cool.

Starting the boil

Add the hot cream

Caramel Marscapone Custard  (this made way too much, you could halve this)

• 1 gelatin sheet (I only had powdered so used about 1 tsp)
• 140 g heavy cream
• 150 g caramel mousse (from above)
• 2 egg yolks
• 280 g marscapone cheese

Soak the gelatin in cold water for 20 mins.  Combine the mousse with the egg yolks. In a separate saucepan boil the cream and then whisk it in into the mousse. Put back on the heat until it reaches 185 degrees.  Drain the gelatin of excess water if there is any (Oh I used 2 tsp water to the 1 tsp of gelatin) and add it to the mixture. Blend with a hand blender and cool in the refrigerator for 4 hours. No I haven’t forgotten the marscapone, that comes later….

Egg yolks!

Citron Flavored Dough

• 115 g unsalted butter
• 20 g ground hazelnuts
• 150 g confectioner’s sugar
• 50 g all purpose flour
• 60 g ground almonds
• 5 g lime zest
• 140 g egg whites (5)

Apricot filling

• 600 g halved apricots (I had to used canned, which I drained)
• 100 g chopped almonds
• 5 g simple syrup (I just used the syrup the apricots came in)
• 20 g superfine granulated sugar

Melt the butter on low heat and remove when it turns a nutty brown color. Strain it and let it cool.  Toast the ground nuts, be careful they will burn quickly, at 350.  The recipe said to butter a flan ring. I don’t have one so I just used a cheesecake springform pan, I put parchment on the bottom and buttered the sides.

Preheat oven to 375.  Mix together the confectioner sugar, flour, ground nuts and grated citrus zest.  Incorporate the egg whites and the browned butter and mix until smooth.  Pour the batter into the pan.  Place the apricot halves on top. Mix the chopped almonds with the syrup & sugar and then sprinkle over the  top. Bake for 40 minutes.

Remove the caramel custard from the fridge and beat in with the marscapone. (I never use marscapone because I can’t find it easily. So I use a combination of cream cheese, sour cream and a splash of heavy cream.)  Fill a piping bag and pipe the marscapone caramel cream onto the top of the apricots.  Decorate with chips of caramel. Melt sugar over med heat until golden and then pour onto a silpat covered backing sheet. Let cool and break up.

I can’t wait to try another recipe!

So yummy