Kitchn Cure 2008

I blame the bulging seems of my pantry on my parents. Children of the great depression, they stocked the refrigerator, freezer and cupboards so full that we could have gone a month or two without a trip to the grocery store for anything more than perishables. We didn't have a couple of cans of fruits, vegetables and soups. We had a couple of cases. They shopped sales, and stocked up. And they taught me to manage my kitchen the same way.

It flies in the face of my new lean six sigma "5 S" self, but I haven't figured out how to employ what I learned in the classroom in my kitchen. Until I discovered Kitchn Cure.

I learned about Apartment Therapy's Kitchn Cure 2008 from Becke over at Columbus Foodie and decided I want to join in. I'm a bit late jumping on the bandwagon, but for those of you who don't remember last fall's battle bug, I think I've got a bit of a head start.

Week one was about taking an honest assessment and beginning the declutter process by tossing expired or spoiled food. Been there, done that, and washed the t-shirt very carefully with strong anti-fungal detergent.

I've also got a bit of a head start on week two; the twinkie book convinced me that high fructose corn syrup and other highly processed, minimally nutritious additives are a part of my past. There will *always* be a package or two of ramen noodles in my pantry, but I'm going to spend the next week purging my kitchen of a lot of the processed stuff, donating what I can't use and NOT replace to the local food bank. Everybody wins.

I'm also going to go through the tool cupboards and drawers. Anything I haven't used in a year is going to get donated.

I'll let you know how it goes...

From the archives...
In 2006, I became part of the cool kids club when I got tagged for a meme.

Technorati Tags: Kitchn Cure 2008

When life gives you lemons...

...heat their juice and a bit of zest gently with egg yolk, sugar and cornstarch until you have a nice custard. Fold that custard into miniature butter-crumbly pastry shells. And top them with a fluffy egg white meringue. Then post your story alongside 400-some others for the January edition of the Daring Baker challenge. Just don't follow my lead and post it three weeks LATE. (Lucky for me that powers of the internets and blogger allow me to post-date my story).

Jen of The Canadian Baker was our hostess this month, and proclaimed January the month of the lemon (and the egg white). I actually made the little lemon tarts within days of the official post date (a few days late because I didn't want to infect my tasters with the sniffles). But a week of training followed sickness... and more tasks than time to complete them followed training. So here we are in mid-February (despite the fact that the date up there is January 28). The lemon tarts are long gone, living on in photography alone.

By now you've already read hundreds of accounts of weeping meringue and soupy curd. Where did I struggle? Ironically, with neither of those components. What gave me fits was the crust. That's right, the crust. What came out of my food processor resembled clumpy flour, not smooth and supple dough. I was devastated... if I couldn't make the one component everyone else succeeded with, what hope did I have to achieve the *hard* stuff? Lucky for me my guy is a whiz on the internet as well as in the kitchen. He found me this, and helped me roll out some sensational tart shells. Tragedy narrowly averted.

We ended up with six mini tarts (because I have six mini tart shells), a dozen shortbread crust cookies, and a *ton* of leftover curd and meringue. Stay tuned to see what we did with that...

Overall, it was a great challenge. I'm not a fan of the commercial lemon meringue pie on dessert carousels at diners across the country, but the mini-tart approach was quite pleasing.

Want to try it yourself? Jen has the recipe posted here.

From the archives: A year ago today I explored my culinary genealogy.

Technorati Tags: Food | Dessert | Daring Bakers | Key Ingredient: Lemon

Halloween-ie Bostini

As we segue from October to November (just *where* has 2007 gone?!?) it's time again for another installment of my trials and tribulations cursing a blue streak about misadventures with flour, sugar, butter and eggs: the Daring Baker challenge.

October's challenge: the Bostini Cream Pie. A twist on the traditional that pairs a rich vanilla custard with an orange-infused chiffon cake and then covers it in chocolate glaze, Mary of Alpineberry chose her favorite restaurant dessert to challenge and inspire us.

As I gathered the ingredients together -- more than a dozen eggs, close to a quart of heaving whipping cream *plus* a healthy dose of whole milk, a half a pound each of sugar, butter and chocolate -- I was pretty sure this one was going to be rich and opulent. And hey... with 3/4 cup of orange juice, it's healthy too, right? Gotta have that vitamin C!

The chiffon cake batter came together quickly and easily and soon the scent of baked orange permeated my kitchen. Because we're closing in on Halloween and the predominant colors in this dessert fit that theme and I've got a pumpkin shape cupcake pan I rarely get to use, I chose to make Halloweenie Bostini in pumpkin shapes. While I lubricated the pan well with oil and flour, my mini pumpkins still tended to cling to the pan for dear life. I worked with them patiently and ultimately got them all out with minimal damage (to them OR me), but I think this pan lends itself far better to a heavy battered confection. Since the recipe makes *far* more than twelve cakelettes, I used my silicon muffin pan for the remaining batter -- and these I was able to extricate without issue.

While the cakes cooled, I tackled the custard. Again, a fairly straightforward preparation. Over the course of the month several of my fellow Daring Bakers commented that the custard (really a pastry cream) didn't set firmly enough to slice it or pipe it to good effect, so I didn't even try. In hindsight, I think I could have. John's contribution was to stir the cooking custard to coat the bottom of a spoon, and at my instruction he may have gone overboard here - the end product was a firm, velvety voluptuous creamy custard base.

This recipe makes a LOT of rich (and caloric) individual servings. I think there are 14 in my refrigerator. And we have no plans to entertain soon. So I've stored the chocolate glaze in a squeeze bottle, brushed the pumpkin cakes with a bit of Cointreau so that they don't dry out and we're assembling them 'to order'. We tried one last night and these go to eleven -- a good thing, given the caloric content. They make a beautiful presentation, and I'll probably make them again when I need an impressive go-to dessert for a larger group.

For those of you inclined to try it out for yourself, you can find the recipe here. And hundreds of other highly creative interpretations here.

Technorati Tags: Daring Bakers | Bostini Cream Pie

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice?

When first learned of this months' Daring Baker challenge, I had a feeling the double entendres would fly on post day. So far today, Barbara's title and Stacy's are among my personal favorites. A latecomer to the party again this month, it's been my great pleasure to leave various iterations of "nice buns!" on ninety-some blogs as I wait patiently for MY dough to rise. Curious what my brothers and sisters in baking are up to? check them all out here.

I had a bit of a scare with the dough. I carefully measured all of the ingredients by weight, creamed the butter, salt and sugar, blended in the egg and lemon zest. So far so good. Then I added the flour, yeast, and milk and patiently waited for my dough to form a ball. Okay, perhaps *not* so very patiently. Five minutes later, no ball. John agreed that the dough was too wet, and we added approximately a half cup more flour before it came away from the sides of the bowl and formed a ball. Switched to the dough hook and let my mixer do its magic. Ten minutes later I had exactly the silky smooth soft dough I'd heard about from those daring bakers who didn't wait until the last possible second to bake their buns.

I spent the two hour proofing time reading other cinnamon roll reports and drooling over the accompanying photographs... hoping my midnight snack buns turn out half as tasty as the others look.

Once risen, I divided my dough in half, dedicating half to a future project and half to cinnamon bun goodness. We were offered the choice of cinnamon and sticky. I opted for cinnamon because I'm picky about nuts in baked goods, and I've been making my grandmother's sticky bun recipe since I was old enough to stand up and hold a rolling pin; choosing someone elses -- even if it is very good -- feels tantamount to sacrilege. Bun assembly was fairly straightforward, and I stashed them in the 'fridge while we headed out to a Sunday afternoon football party with John's high school friends. We'd proof them the final time and bake them when we returned -- a true midnight snack!

At 10:30, after two hours in a proofing oven, my buns had risen to glorious heights and were ready for baking. Heating the oven to 350 took no time at all, and we were quickly enveloped by the scents of sugar and spice and everything nice...

Eighteen minutes in the oven and my buns had baked to a delightful golden brown. I assembled the fondant while they cooled a bit -- choosing to halve the recipe since the most often repeated 'complaint' among the bakers was that it produced an excessive amount. I then transferred my cinnamon scented bounty to cooling racks and drizzled them with the sugary goodness. I'll admit that we didn't wait an additional twenty minutes to bite in, or I'd never make my midnight deadline and my coach would turn back into a pumpkin. Cinderelly? Cinderelly? Bippity Boppity Boo! Oh...Er... oops... sorry, wrong story.

These were absolutely worth the wait, and I'll definitely be repeating them in different forms and flavors. Just sweet enough to be satisfyingly sinful, without they cloying heavy sugar aftertaste of many commercial versions.

This month's adventure into the world of baked goods has been brought to us by Marce of Pip in the City. She's posted the recipe from Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice in all its glorious detail here.

Resources used:
King Arthur unbleached bread flour
Clover-Stornetta Organic butter, whole milk
Penzeys' Extra Fancy Vietnamese Cassia Cinnamon

Technorati Tags: Daring Bakers | Key Ingredients: Yeast, Cinnamon

It's Pretzel Time!

When I joined the ranks of the Daring Bakers a proud member of April's Epsilon class, I was excited about the challenges ahead of me, and the skills I'd develop as I approached each of them. I'd watched the previous months with a combination of awe and envy; I wanted to play along but knew my schedule wouldn't allow it at the time.

Enter one of our newest Daring Bakers, Tara of Should you Eat That, who has ambitiously agreed to go back and complete the coursework she's missed. Anxious to try some of the challenges I missed out on, I've decided to join her.

Our first course: Pretzels 101.

Back in November, our founders Ivonne (Cream Puffs in Venice) and Lisa (La Mia Cucina) decided venture together into territory neither of them had explored on their own. They pledged to take a single recipe for pretzels, each attempt it in her own kitchen, and post the results on the same day. Their pursuit of pretzels turned out to be a food-blogging tipping point... eight months later there are close to 70 of us communicating via email, text and instant message about the latest challenge.

Sorry... June's challenge is a story for another day. This morning I stepped back in time, pulling up the pretzel recipe that started it all and plunging in head-first.

I've never made soft pretzels before. I'd never *eaten* soft pretzels before. So I wasn't quite sure what to expect. In the end, with one exception easily attributed to user error I'm quite pleased with the result. I love how easily the dough came together. I elected to knead it by hand, and the process princess/efficiency empress in me loved coming away from that experience feeling refreshed both physically and emotionally. Who needs a personal trainer or a therapist when you're surrounded by flour, yeast, sugar, salt and water?!?

The human error? I failed to look at the pictures. My pretzels looked like hangman's nooses. Oddly macabre, but quite tasty. Fortunately John stepped in and showed me how to properly twist a pretzel.

To accompany the pretzels, I also made Golden Yellow Mustard, as published in this month's issue of Food and Wine magazine. French's, step aside. This is tasty (far less chemical in taste), inexpensive, and easy to make.

Curious how the others fared? Want the recipe to try them for yourself? Check out Ivonne's story, Lisa's and Tara's.

Technorati Tags: Daring Bakers

Learn! Laugh! Eat!

[Compared to cream, milk makes] the Kate Moss of ice cream. Sure, she's pretty... but not terribly satisfying.

-Shuna Fish Lydon

I *knew* there was a reason I liked this woman!

In a month full of work challenges and square dance event planning, your heroine needed a break. Thankfully, her personal hero was happy to oblige; he offered to fly solo at the last of the planning meetings so she and Tracy could escape into an afternoon of ice cream.

Off we headed to Poulet to relax, unwind, and learn the secrets behind perfect creme anglaise one-handed quenelles, and mind-blowing ice cream flavor combinations.

Shuna's classes offer an excellent balance of lecture and demonstration, sharing the "why" in addition to the "how," "when," and "what." Her ice cream lecture explained each of the key ingredients in an ice cream base and the roles they play: Egg yolks provide a rich mouth feel and act as stabilizers. Sugar aids in flavor infusion by increasing the temperature of the liquid, provides additional sweetness and lowers the freezing temperature of the final product. Milk and cream contain butterfats critical to flavor absorption; Shuna insists that for full flavor, full-fat is critical.


Moving into the kitchen, Shuna shared tips, tricks and stories from her 14 years in some of America's most famous commercial kitchens. She taught us techniques for sumptuous anglaise, showing us how she steeps to infuse flavors, and providing tips for ensuring a successful nappe out of the cream/egg/sugar liaison. She offered us a simple, sensational recipe for Butterscotch; and showed us how it develops from butter and brown sugar to oh-so-much more than a sum of its parts. She encouraged several of my classmates to play with her (ice cream) balls. And she taught us the secret to silky chocolate chip ice cream that poses no danger to your dental work.

From kitchen classroom we moved to tasting, and we had quite a menu to choose from. The products of our classroom adventure included the aforementioned butterscotch sauce over Cardamom-Coconut Chocolate Chip ice cream. In addition, Shuna offered tastes of Mango Sorbet, Rose Hill Goat Yogurt Granita, Butterscotch, Lemon-Thyme, and Browned Butter Pecan Ice Creams with farmers' market fresh apriums & strawberries, chocolate sauce and pecan vanilla shortbread cookies available for garnish.

We learned a lot. We laughed often. And we ate well.

What better way to measure a Sunday afternoon?

More images, courtesy of Kat at Kung Foodie.

Covered in Cream Puffs

Stay tuned... sordid details to come after we recover from the weekend...

For inquiring minds, sordid details involve alternate uses for the pastry cream. Most of them are rated G... :)

Update 5/29 - Okay folks, I've slept, I've showered and I've fixed myself a snack. My laptop battery's charged, my photos are cropped, color corrected and ready to go. Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy reading about my adventures with St. Honore as much as I enjoyed living them!

Those of you who've been around for a while may already know that one of our favorite extracurricular activities outside the kitchen is square dancing. And a few of you who know us personally or have been following very closely know that we've spent the past several years planning and promoting a dance festival for our regional association. A festival with over 700 attendees, scheduled for Memorial Day Weekend - May 25-27, 2007.

As a result, our free time has been at a premium for the last several months, especially on the weekends. The *perfect* time to join the Daring Bakers and commit to a Crepe Cake the piece de resistance in the world of pastry: Gateau St. Honore.

The pressure mounted in April and I bailed on the Crepe Cake. But I wasn't letting my Daring Baker buddies down two months in a row. No matter what challenge lay ahead, victory would be mine.

Then Helene of Tartlette and Dessert First's Anita announced their diabolical sadistic brilliant plan for this month's challenge: Gateau St. Honore. Puff Pastry. Pate a Choux for Cream Puffs. Diplomat Cream. Caramel. None of which I have any prior experience with preparing. I look at the calendar. Look at the three pages of instructions. Look back at the calendar. Fortunately, sleep is highly overrated... it doesn't look like I'm going to get much of it this month.

Even more fortunately for me, John's not just a wonderful, gorgeous man and a great dancer. He's also very comfortable, highly competent, and extremely happy working with me in the kitchen.

"Honey...?"

"Yes dear?"

"This month's Daring Baker assignment looks like a LOT of fun. Wanna help me make a St. Honore?"

"Sure. When's it due?"

Pregnant pause...

"Um... Memorial Day?"

After nearly asphyxiating with laughter, he agreed to pitch in and help out.

First stop, Home Chef for pastry tips. What do you MEAN I need to buy a $70 set? I need two tips, a bag and a coupler. Fine. Second stop, Sur la Table for pastry tips. Thirty bucks ($8 for the tips and $22 for other must have items I didn't know I needed until I saw them. Still better than $70.)

Third stop, Whole Foods for Dufour all-butter puff pastry. Hey, Anita and Helene say that frozen puff pastry is okay, and I'm challenged *enough* at the moment, thanks...

Once in the kitchen, the pastries actually came together fairly quickly. I'd considered a square or triangular base, but John thought our first attempt should be a traditional St. Honore so that's the road we took. The cream puffs were fun; I can guarantee we'll be experimenting with our new found skills with pate a choux and pastry bags soon.

It was the Diplomat Cream that gave us the biggest challenge. I'm not sure where we erred, but it came out more than a bit on the runny side. It dripped out of the pastry tip, oozed out of the bag, and ran down our fingers and our arms when we tried to fill the puffs.

At this point, one of us decided to taste it. And discovered that it ranks right up with with Fiorello's Caramel Balsamic Gelato and less than a handful of other foods. It is the perfect substance for licking off someone you love. Fortunately, the recipe makes WAY more pastry cream than you need. :)

We stashed *most* of the cream and the components in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, after which assembly was much easier (although the cream puffs became a bit chewy).

By this time it was pushing 4 AM and I abandoned the caramelized sugar (the one component of this creation with which I *did* have previous experience) in favor of sleep before sunrise.

So that's my story. For forty-some others, check out the Daring Baker links in the right hand column or the roundups posted at Dessert First and Tartlette.

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Playing with Sugar

Now I want a Sugar High Friday do-over.

Because if waited to attempt the Caramel Truffles until after Shuna showed us the "wet sand" method, I might've had a prayer.

Or at the very least I'd have known how to clean my saucepan...

Technorati Tags: Food | Dessert | Baking Classes