15 posts tagged “french”
I was visiting my family in Massachusetts the week before summer vacation ended, and I just had to bake them something delightful that could be enjoyed in the sweltering heat that captured our town during that time. I didn't have a whole lot of ingredients on hand, so I turned to something I've done before in cream puff form... the eclair. I adore eclairs! They are so wonderful to bite into when fresh... the delicate crunch of a pastry shell filled with cold and creamy custard, and sweetened with just enough chocolate. Perfection. Luckily for me, elcairs use the same dough as cream puffs, which needs only basic ingredients found in every kitchen. The same goes for the pastry cream filling as well.
This was my first time trying the cream puff recipe from JoyofBaking, which sounded like it was going to bake for a really long time. The eclair shells actually turned out quite well, with just a slight problem, which was that the bottoms were so thin and delicate that when I tried to peel them off the wax paper I lined them with, the bottoms broke right through, leaving me with a gaping hole on the bottoms of my eclairs! Thus I decided to simply turn them upside down and fill them with pastry cream as is, since the work to make a hole had already been done for me, clearly. I used the pastry cream recipe for the fruit tart from the same website. I've made the filling once before for mini fruit tarts, and they were delicious. Drizzled with melted chocolate on top, these eclairs were just wonderful, even though they looked funny. I wish I knew of a good way to make cream puffs or eclairs without always having to worry about the bottoms breaking. Does parchment paper really make that much of a difference? I thought wax paper or foil would do it, but those have not saved me from the breaking bottoms. The trial and error continues! And deliciously so :)
Eclairs Filled with Vanilla Pastry Cream (makes 12) recipe adapted from JoyofBaking.com
Ingredients:Eclair Shells:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
4 tbsp (half stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup water
2 eggs
1 egg white, beaten
Pastry Cream Filling (adapted from JoyofBaking.com)
1 1/4 cups milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp water (more as needed)
Chocolate Icing
handful of semisweet chocolate chips
1 tsp vegetable oil
Directions:
Eclairs
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place rack in center of oven. Line baking sheet with parchment paper (I used wax paper).
2. Stir together flour, sugar, and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.
3. Combine butter and water for the eclair shells into a heavy saucepan over medium heat, bring to a boil. Remove pan from heat and immediately stir in the flour mixture all at once, stirring until a ball of dough forms in the pot. This should happen pretty quickly.
4. Let the dough cool slightly (you can stir it up to release the heat), then add the eggs one at a time, stirring well after each addition until the egg is well-blended to form a smooth batter.
5. Spoon the dough into a ziplock bag and snip off the tip to about 1 inch in diameter. Pipe the dough into 3-4 inch long stripes onto the lined baking sheet, spacing the eclairs 2 inches apart.
6. Gently brush the surface of the piped eclairs with the beaten egg white.
7. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn down oven temperature to 350 degrees F to continue baking for another 30 minutes. The shells should be a nice golden-brown color. Turn off the oven and leave door ajar, with the eclairs sitting inside for another 10-15 minutes to let them dry fully. Remove from the oven to cool on a wire rack, peeling eclairs off carefully (this is where all of my eclair bottoms broke off). They will have a wonderful cracked appearance on top.
Pastry Cream
1. In a medium-sized stainless steel bowl, mix together sugar and egg yolks.
2. Combine flour and cornstarch in a separate bowl, then add to egg mixture and stir until a smooth paste forms. Add vanilla.
3. In a saucepan (preferrably stainless steel, I find non-stick pans to be awful for making custards), heat milk on medium until just boiling. Remove from heat and slowly whisk into egg mixture, careful not to let egg curdle.
4. When fully incorporated, place egg and milk mixture back onto the stove to cook on medium heat, whisking constantly until it starts to boil. Keep stirring and it should thicken up very quickly. When it has reached a desired thickness (I prefer mine to be pretty thick), remove from heat immediately and whisk in the water. You can add more water if your pastry cream is too thick.
5. Chill pastry cream in fridge for several hours, covered with a layer of plastic wrap touching the surface of the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming.
Assembly
Normally you would slice the eclairs open by cutting horitzonally on each one to cut off the tops. Since mine had holes in the bottom I just pried the holes open until they were the same size as the eclair and piped in the pastry cream (using the same ziplock bag trick that I used for piping the elcair dough). Fill each eclair with enough pastry cream to fill out the shell, but not so much that it bursts. If using cut open shells, replace the tops once the filling has been added.
Finally, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave, and stir in the vegetable oil to thin out the consistency enough to drizzle. I just eyeballed this, so you can adjust the chocolate icing how you like. Take a fork and dip it into the chocolate to drizzle it over the eclairs. Serve immediately for the best taste and texture. If not serving right away, I suggest you not fill the shells so that they don't get soggy. Fill them just before serving and you will wow your guests with how fresh they taste, nothing like the pre-filled ones you buy at stores!
Before I forget, happy belated Chinese New Year to all! I didn't get to do anything special to celebrate, and I didn't have any of the necessary ingredients to make classic Chinese New Year desserts (I only had a navel orange in the fridge... that counts right? haha), so unfortunately, as much as this blog is related to Chinese food most of the time, I don't have anything to post about CNY. I'll try to make up for that with a post about my visit to NYC on Superbowl Sunday :)
So last Sunday I woke up bright and early at about 5am to pack and drag myself to the Boston bus terminal to ride the Greyhound bus down to NYC. I have to say, 4.5 hours is a long time to be cramped in a chair, with the sun shining in your eyes the entire time. Still, I got to the Big Apple just before noon, and met up with my hung over friend Zheng to grab brunch near his apartment haha. I've been on a brunch roll lately, it's almost like I've uncovered a whole new cuisine altogether (I guess there were benefits to never eating breakfast!). At this place, whose name I can't remember but I know it's located on 9th Ave, I saw that eggs benedict was $9 (hah, no way I'd pay that price now!). What sparked my interest however was the large assortment of omelettes that the cafe served, and with a choice of whole eggs or egg whites.
Feeling like I should eat healthy, I settled on an egg white Irish omelette, which had corned beef, onions, and peppers in it, topped with swiss cheese. It was served with a side of smashed and seasoned potato chunks and whole wheat toast. I have to say, it being the first time I've ever had egg white omelettes, it was really tasty! In fact, I would definitely choose it over whole egg omelettes simply for the health benefits, because I honestly thought it was just as good as the real thing. I think the swiss cheese helped give it a lot of savory flavor that perhaps the plain egg whites would have been lacking. The corned beef was also really tasty with the egg whites, something a little different from the usual ham or sausage meat additions. The potato side was not very interesting though, but I suppose it was nice to rotate amongst the different foods on the plate. And as you'd expect things to be in NYC, the price tag was steeper than I would see in Boston. This brunch platter cost me about $9 before tax and tip, and I only got water to drink on the side.
Moving on... the Superbowl itself was a pretty intense game to watch, and it was a lot of fun with a room nearly split 50/50 Pats fans and Giants fans. Zheng's friends had an enormous apartment (they had an entire floor of a building to themselves... with 2 bathrooms, 4 bedrooms, and a giant living room with kitchen. In fact, and this was exciting to me haha, the elevator of the building opens right up into their living room when you hit their floor button. How cool is that?!? Okay... sorry haha I clearly am easily excitable. We had the usual pizza and wings and chips and beer at the party, and then we stuck around for a while after the game since there were riots going on in Times Square (near where Zheng lives). We walked through some of that on the way back, and Zheng, a Giants fan, high fived a lot of random people in the streets haha. I saw policemen sitting on horses, trying to keep the order, but everyone was screaming and shouting and cars were honking (I almost got run over crossing the street). It was pretty crazy and a little scary too I have to admit, although I guess we've had our fair share of riots up in Boston for the Red Sox too heh.
We started off the meal with two appetizers, which the waiter told us were tapas-style and great for sharing. We got the warm calamari with potato salad, and a plate of prosciutto crostini with sheep's milk ricotta and balsamic syrup. (Sorry for the pictures with flash, it was just too dim in the restaurant).
The calamari (right) was not fried as I had expected, instead it was naked and tender, probably braised. It came with little jalapeño pepper slices and grape tomato halves that were so sweet and juicy, in a savory vinaigrette sauce, on top of a small bed of skinned and cubed potatoes. I'm not a fan of spicy, so I let Zheng eat all the peppers, and he's not a fan of seafood, so he let me have most of the calamari (oops! I forgot he hates seafood and he didn't tell me not to order it when I suggested it). But in any case, the squid was just so tender, with that warm and perfectly soft chew that fresh and lightly cooked squid has.
On the left is the prosciutto crostini with sheep's milk ricotta and balsamic syrup. It was soooo good. The prosciutto was fresh and lean, sliced very thinly so that it pretty much melted in my mouth. The flavor was wonderful too, not too salty, not too bland. It paired perfectly with the creamy sheep's milk ricotta, which was much milder than I thought it would be, but I thought that was nice, because it would have competed too much with the prosciutto otherwise. And then, with the sweetness from the balsamic syrup on top of a crunchy slice of French bread, I was in heaven with each bite. I really liked the ricotta, it was nothing like cow's milk ricotta with its gritty texture. This cheese was so smooth and creamy I could have sworn it was a different cheese altogether. What a perfect pairing of fine flavors and textures!
Next came the entrees. Zheng ordered something that was pretty much like spaghetti with marinara sauce (it's not on the online menu right now), which wasn't interesting enough for me to waste a flash photograph on :P I ordered the crab ravioli, which came in a lobster cream sauce with fennel and parmesan.
So then on our way back to Zheng's apartment, I stopped by a busy little bakery called Amy's Bread, which had some tasty looking cakes on display, as well as a lot of sandwiches and breads. Apparently everyone else waiting in line was getting some of their fresh handmade bread to take home, too bad I'm not a big fan of bread. What caught my eye from the street were their red velvet cupcakes, complete with lots of whipped cream cheese frosting on top. It was no Magnolia, but it looked just right for dessert (although $2.50 for a cupcake is steep!).
So those were some of my food exploits on this trip, yummy and pricey as always! Until next time, NYC!
A few days ago, I was staring at a bunch of rapidly ripening bananas sitting in the kitchen, calling out to me. It was after dinner, and I was just not in the mood to eat bananas, yet I really didn't want them to go to waste. A thought popped into my head to make bananas foster as a way to use up some of those bananas, disguised in dessert form. And you know, sometimes we get the idea that restaurant desserts are really hard to make at home, but the truth is that sometimes they are so incredibly easy to make that once you've figured it out, you'll never burn your money on them again. Bananas foster is certain one of them.
Traditionally, bananas foster is a dessert in which bananas are cooked in a brown sugar based sauce, with banana liqueur and rum added and then burned off for flavor and effect (this is called a flambe). While the flaming bananas foster is exciting and certainly doable at home, I didn't want to play with fire since I neither had a pan with a long handle nor a long match or lighter to set the alcohol on fire in the pan. But if you have these tools, you can simply light the alcohol in the saucepan from a distance, and it will flame with a pretty blue color until the alcohol burns off. The recipe I used comes from Allrecipes.com, and doesn't burn off the alcohol, so I replaced some of the alcohol with water, since I didn't want the taste to be too strong in the final sauce. In the end I didn't really taste any of it, so you can probably add more to get the flavor.
Ingredients:
1/4 cup salted butter (half a stick... okay fine, this dessert isn't exactly good for you)
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
3 1/2 tbsp rum (I substituted with 1 tbsp Bailey's Irish Cream + 2 1/2 tbsp of water)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 bananas, peeled and sliced lengthwise and crosswise (I only used two, but the sauce is more than enough for 4)
Directions:
1. Melt butter on medium heat in a skillet.
2. Add brown sugar and stir well to obtain a thick sludge. Stir in vanilla, cinnamon, and alcohol and/or water.
3. Continue to stir the sauce until it bubbles and becomes liquid (the brown sugar will melt). Add in bananas and heat until warmed through, about 2 minutes.
4. Pour out and serve immediately with vanilla ice cream (I don't have ice cream, so I just added some whipped cream on top hehe). Yummy, simple, and fast! To make it healthier, I'm sure you can use a butter substitute. Since I had a lot of sauce for the number of bananas I made (the sauce is sweet, I only needed a little bit with each bite, although my boyfriend was having fun drinking it haha), I just refrigerated the rest of the sauce to use for a future batch or for a topping of some sort. Mmm...
So it's the holiday season, and I'm finally home, which means that I'm not going to be far from my baking. While all of my blogosphere peers are busy cooking and baking up a whole holiday storm, I must limit myself to a few choice items to make, as not only is my family small (not enough people eating it means I'm eating too much of it!), but my time here is limited too. I was browsing around when the most enticing photograph of madeleines came across my screen and I decided that I must venture forth and make these pretty little French seashell-shaped cookie/cakes. The prep work that went into researching and getting ingredients for this recipe was a bit more than usual, but it wasn't really a tough recipe to execute by any means. The most important things I needed were madeleine pans (they have little seashell shaped molds on them... see below), coconut cream, and green tea matcha powder. I guess by now you must have guessed the three varieties of madeleines I attempted... original, coconut, and green tea flavored. Ah, but I have yet another trick up my sleeve... lemon glaze! :) These were really some amazing cookies, crunchy on the outside, soft and tender on the inside, and full of wonderful aroma and flavor. Best enjoyed fresh and still warm, they would be perfect with a cup of coffee or tea, any time of day. Enjoy!
Lemon-glazed Madeleines - Original, Coconut, and Green Tea flavored (makes 24 cookies)
Ingredients:
3 large eggs, warmed to room temperature
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
2/3 cup granulated sugar (I used 1/2 cup, since I wanted to glaze the tops)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
(Optional additions - amount given for a for whole batch, adjust accordingly)
- For coconut madeleines: 3 tbsp coconut cream (the solid white kind, not the sugary translucent one), 3 tbsp shredded coconut.
- For green tea madeleines: 1 heaping tbsp of green tea matcha powder
- For lemon glaze: 3/4 cup powdered sugar, 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice, 1 tbsp water (adjust as needed to obtain desired consistency)
Directions:
1. Melt butter on medium heat in a small saucepan, and boil until butter turns into a light brown, stirring constantly. This may take about 5 minutes or so. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature while you continue with the recipe. This step is called making "brown butter", and what you get is a melted butter that is brown in color, has a lot of small brown flecks, and smells deliciously like toffee. Mmm...
2. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and coconut flakes or matcha powder if making flavored madeleines.
3. With an electric mixer, beat together eggs and sugar on medium-high speed, until the mixture becomes pale and frothy and triples in volume (about 5 minutes). When you lift the beaters thick ribbons will fall from them and sit on top of the mixture for several seconds before disappearing. Add in vanilla and almond extracts, and beat on medium just to combine with egg mixture.
4. Add a small amount of the flour mixture into the beaten eggs, and fold in gently with a wooden spoon. Add the remaining flour in 3 batches, folding in each time just until incorporated. Do not over-work the batter or the madeleines will become tough.
5. Now stir a little bit of the batter into the cooled brown butter, then add the butter into the batter in 3 batches. Again stir just until incorporated. (At this point, you may add the coconut cream and stir in until evenly distributed if desired.) Pictured below are regular, green tea, and coconut madeleine batter, respectively.
6. Cover and refrigerate batter for at least 30 minutes (up to 12 hours).
7. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease two 12-mold madeleine pans with butter and dust with flour, or spray molds with cooking spray, or simply use non-stick pans. (I bought non-stick pans, but I also sprayed on some butter-flavored cooking spray).
8. Remove batter from refrigerator and drop by tablespoonfuls into the center of each mold. Do not spread the batter out to fill the molds, just leave it mounded in the centers and it will spread out on its own. In doing so, you are also able to create the classic "hump" on the backs of the madeleines that make them so unique.
9. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the sides start to turn golden brown and just begin to pull away from the sides, or when the tops spring back to the touch. I was able to just tilt my pan and watch all the beauties slip out onto my cooling rack. If you didn't use non-stick, try rapping the baking sheet against the counter to loosen the madeleines.
10. While the madeleines are cooling, stir together all the ingredients for the lemon glaze. After the cookies finish cooling, drizzle a thin layer of glaze on each cookie, and set flat and upright on cooling rack to allow glaze to harden (keeping the madeleines from tilting can be tricky, especially with that hump on the back, so try your best with the balancing act. It's not that big of a deal.) You can also serve these with a dusting of powdered sugar, or drizzled with chocolate or with the tips dipped in chocolate. But whatever you do, be sure to try one fresh out of the oven without any toppings, just to get a feel for the amazing crunchy exterior and the fluffy soft interior, as well as the decadent buttery flavor. Just heavenly...
Finally, the original flavor was of course quite wonderful as well, though it definitely needed the glaze to give it an extra push. The hint of lemon and the added sweetness of the glaze gave is a wonderful finish with every bite. Of course, in anticipation of the glazing, I did reduce the sugar in the original recipe from 2/3 cup to 1/2 cup. Thus, if you are just making unglazed madeleines, make sure you use the full amount of sugar to get enough sweetness. These are best eaten the day they're made, otherwise they will lose some of their wonderful crispiness. Of course, by the second day, they're also fantastic for dunking in coffee or tea :) I'm planning to make a batch of coconut and green tea madeleines to bring to a Christmas dinner party tomorrow. I hope everyone else will love them as much as I do!
Happy holidays everyone!
So the past few days I've been visiting California to interview at Stanford and to see some college friends. The weather was amazing, it felt like Boston's spring. The sunshine was warm, there were palm trees, and dusty mountains in the distance everywhere I went. Stanford itself was the most extravagant campus I have ever seen. They really spend a lot of money spoiling their kids lol (maybe me one day?). The sunny happiness of the students being in a country club-like campus and a relaxing curriculum was really infectious. They were literally all smiles, and every student I met couldn't seem to shower the school with enough praise. I have yet to see a school where the students were this much in love with their school (Rochester and Dartmouth are distant seconds).
After seeing Stanford, I had time grab dinner with my friend Tony near the school. We walked up and down the main street with restaurants, and finally decided to stop in at a place called University Cafe, which served American food at a moderate price. First came a bread plate with a tomato-based dipping sauce (I couldn't figure out why it was orange, but it was similar to a marinara I guess). The bread itself was too hard on the outside, and a little soggy in the middle, but it still tasted fine because we were both starving lol.
You probably know of this common cake by its British name: the swiss roll. The French refer to it as a roulade (which I think is prettier). I was browsing through some recipes when the chocolate roulade, a chocolate sponge cake with whipped cream rolled up inside, struck a chord with me. I could taste the bittersweet flavor of real chocolate paired with the rich and light freshly whipped cream, and I was completely craving this combination. In the past I've tried to make strawberry cream swiss rolls, but to no avail, because my cake layer would always be too hard to roll up. It would crack and break as soon as I tried to wrestle with it. But I wasn't ready to completely give up hope of making a simple but pretty cake like the roulade. In my new recipe, I learned that you have to roll up the cake while it's still hot, and let it cool while it's rolled up, which prevents it from splitting and cracking in the final rolling with filling. Of course, I had my share of silly mishaps in making this recipe, but certainly the end product was fantastic. And I just adore the fact that the recipe is actually very easy to make. Every bit the distinct chocolate flavor, with the contrasting creaminess of the filling. It's no wonder that chocolate and cream is such a popular pairing in desserts!
Chocolate Roulade (serves 6-8)
Ingredients:
1/3 cup of granulated sugar
1/4 cup of all purpose flour
2 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder
3 eggs
1 cup of heavy cream
1 tbsp confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
1. Let eggs warm up to room temperature before starting. In the meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F, and grease a jelly roll pan (flat pan with dimensions of 11"x17", or substitute for different sizes as desired). Place parchment paper on top of the greased pan, and grease the paper as well. This step is important if you want to be able to release the cake easily after it is done baking.
2. In a bowl, combine the eggs and the granulated sugar. Beat with an electric beater on medium/medium-high until the mixture is thick and pale (several minutes).
3. Sift together the cocoa powder and the flour. Gently fold dry mixture into the beaten egg mixture until just incorporated.
4. Spread batter in an even layer into the jelly roll pan. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until just set and the top is springy to the touch. While the cake is baking, place a clean kitchen towel on the counter and place a piece of wax paper on top. Sprinkle paper with confectioner's sugar.
5. Remove cake from oven, and immediately turn onto the paper and towel setup. Quickly remove the paper baking on the cake, and then using a serrated knife, trim off the edges of the cake that are crispy.
6. Next, using the towel as a guide, roll up the cake from the narrow side, rolling the bottom piece of wax paper into the cake roll. Let sit with the seam side down to cool for 5 minutes. Then carefully unroll and leave to sit while you make the filling.
7. To make the filling, simply whip up the heavy cream along with the 1 tbsp of powdered sugar and the vanilla. When whipped cream becomes thick, spread it onto the inside of the cake, leaving about 1 inch of space at the top and bottom, and 1/2 inch on the sides.
8. Carefully roll the cake back up again, this time removing the wax paper as you roll. Chill in refrigerator with the seam side down for easier slicing later, and dust with powdered sugar before serving. The two ends will be a bit ragged and the cream may not have gotten to the edge, so just trim off the edges and eat them yourself :P
In my search for a dessert to follow Thanksgiving dinner, I had a lot of criteria that I wanted to fulfill. I wanted a dessert that would be light enough to follow a heavy dinner, but rich enough to feel like a decadent treat, flavorful enough to be unique, but not too sweet so that I could cater to the Asian palette. Furthermore, I was looking for a dessert that would have stunning presentation and simple ingredients. Combining a recipe for "chilled orange creams" from a dessert book I own (The Essential Dessert Cookbook - $2 on sale from Borders!) and a recipe for panna cotta with raspberry jelly from The Joy of Baking online, I inadvertently created a bavarois - a custard that is set with gelatin. It was a little bit awkward to serve my dessert to the guests without having a name for it, but I can now proudly present it to all of you as a tangarine bavarois with orange gelee. It consists of a tangerine flavored custard that is lightened with fresh whipped cream and set with unflavored gelatin, then topped with a thin layer of orange jelly that is flavored with tangerine and orange juices. Even though it was time-consuming (presumably because this is my first time making it and I was trying to combine 2 different recipes in my head haha), and even though I screwed up in 5 different places, I really really enjoyed this foray into decorative desserts :)
Ingredients:
For the bavarois:
1/2 cup of freshly squeezed tangerine juice, strained
3 tsp of unflavored gelatin powder
4 egg yolks (I used 2 egg yolks + an equivalent amount of egg substitute)
1/2 cup of powdered sugar
1 tsp of finely grated tangerine zest
3/4 cup skim milk
1 1/4 cup of heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
For the gelee:
1/4 cup of freshly squeezed tangerine juice
1/2 cup of orange juice
1 tsp of unflavored gelatin powder
1/4 cup of cold water
Directions:
Bavarois:
1. Chill a large bowl in the freezer. If you plan to unmold the bavarois onto plates, then grease your molds/cups with almond oil or melted butter. Otherwise you don't need to grease the cups.
2. In a small heatproof bowl, pour the tangerine juice and sprinkle the gelatin powder on top. Let sit for 5 minutes until gelatin powder becomes spongy. Boil water in a large pan and remove from heat. Slowly lower the gelatin bowl into the water so that it is half submerged but not touching the bottom of the pan. Stir the gelatin mixture until completely dissolved. Set aside to cool.
3. Stir together the egg yolks/substitute with the powdered sugar. Heat the milk, 3/4 cup of the cream and orange zest in a saucepan until scalded (small bubbles will form). Slowly pour hot milk into the egg and sugar mixture, stirring constantly to prevent the eggs from cooking. At this point I was supposed to return the mixture to cook until it becomes a custard that coats the back of a spoon, but I accidentally added the gelatin solution into it prior to cooking it (you normally add the gelatin after cooking).
4. After cooking the custard and adding the gelatin, stir in the vanilla. Pour the mixture into the pre-chilled bowl and stir occasionally as it cools, until it begins to thicken. (Here again I made the mistake of not letting it cool enough...)
5. Whip the remaining 1/2 cup of heavy cream until it forms soft peaks. Gently fold it into the cooled custard. (Because I didn't cool my custard enough, a lot of the volume in the whipped cream disappeared as I incorporated it. The purpose of adding the whipped cream is to increase volume and to lighten up the custard).
6. Divide the custard up into molds or cups and let chill in the refrigerator until set (2 hours or so).
Orange Gelee:
1. In a small heatproof bowl, pour the cold water and sprinkle the gelatin powder on top. Let sit for 5 minutes until spongy.
2. Combine the juices and heat in a saucepan until just boiling. Remove from heat, and add to gelatin mixture, stirring to dissolve.
3. Allow mixture to cool to room temperature, and spoon a thin layer over the set bavarois. Return to fridge until set (another few hours or so).
4. Decorate with chocolate shavings, orange wedges or slices of orange rind, or fresh fruit.
The end result was quite attractive and the recipe was very robust, I must say. When I was cooking the custard with the gelatin in it, it started to curdle and I remove it from the heat right away to save it, and in the end it came out just fine. The bavarois and the gelee also set very quickly, unlike the recipe suggested (4 hours per layer). I had an interesting time trying to make chocolate curls off of the back of a solid chocolate easter rabbit haha, so I ended up with chocolate shavings instead. I like the combination of chocolate and orange, I just wish I could have accentuated the chocolate a little bit more. The fruit was a last minute addition from a fruit salad that a guest brought over, and it really lit up the dessert with color, texture, and flavor. One of my regrets with this recipe is that I didn't add enough sugar, because I felt that the bavarois was a bit lighter than I would have liked. On the other hand, my parents seemed to really like the fact that it was so light. Guess you can't please everyone. I hope my guests enjoyed it, it really was a labor of love that took me the better part of the day to make (juicing all those tangerines...). The French are really some very amazing dessert makers, I love the subtlety and elegance of their recipes :)
So I was perusing the usual suspects within the food blog realm when I encountered entries that seemed to worship the phenomenon that is Beard Papa's cream puffs. The more I read about them the more I wanted to try one, and the more I really wanted to make my own. Beard Papa's cream puffs are notoriously different from regular French cream puffs because there is a double-layer of dough, the inside being the traditional choux pastry and the outside being a pie dough, giving the puff a crunchy texture that is unique. The real recipe is a secret that is being patented, but I had hoped to find some mock recipes I could try. I found a recipe that is supposedly similar to the puff pastry, and then used a regular cream puff custard filling recipe for the filling. The results were quite yummy, and disappeared far too quickly :)
Cream Puffs With Custard Filling (makes 20 small puffs)
Make the custard filling ahead of time because it takes a few hours before it is ready to be used for filling the puffs. Then you can make the puffs while the custard is cooling
For the custard:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar
5 tbsp flour
a pinch of salt
2 cups of milk
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
1. Combine the sugar, salt, and flour in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir in milk gradually until mixture is smoothly dissolved. Bring to a boil over medium heat, be sure to stir constantly to prevent lumps from forming.
2. Boil mixture until it begins to thicken and able to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from heat, drizzle some hot liquid into the beaten egg yolks to temper the eggs. Return eggs to the saucepan and stir well. Heat until bubbling again and slightly thickened to custard texture as desired.
3. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla extract. Cover custard surface with cling wrap and chill in fridge for 2 hours.
For the puffs: (makes 20 small puffs or 7 large puffs - recipe from "Essentials of Baking" by Williams-Sonoma)
Ingredients:
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup water
3 tbsp butter, cut into pieces
1/8 tsp salt (absolutely necessary!)
1/2 cup flour
2 large eggs
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. In a saucepan, combine milk, water, salt, and butter. Bring to full boil on medium-high heat.
2. Remove from heat when butter has melted and mixture is boiling. Add in flour all at once, stir vigorously until blended. A thin film will form on the bottom of the pan, don't scrape it off, it's not meant to be mixed into the dough.
3. Continue stirring until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan and forms a nice ball of dough. Cool for a 3 minutes.
8. When puffs are done baking, remove tray from oven and immediately use the tip of a sharp knife to prick each puff on the side to release steam and prevent them from getting soggy. Shut off the oven and return the puffs to the oven rack for 10 minutes to dry out, leaving the oven door slightly ajar.
After falling head over heels for the first real creme brulee I've ever had in my life not too long ago, I decided that I would definitely have to take up the challenge of making it myself. People always talk about how creme brulee is a fancy French dessert that can cost a pretty penny at a restaurant and takes skill to make taste good, but after perusing the internet for recipes, I've discovered that making creme brulee is deceptively easy. And that made me very excited to make my own. Probably the hardest part of preparing to make creme brulee was actually getting my hands on a set of small ramekins, because I wanted to make sure that they baked up properly and looked nice. The ingredients were simple and few, and I had fun making a semi-healthy version of creme brulee that tasted identical to the full fat one. I hope you all try it sometime :)
Ingredients:
1/2 pint of heavy cream
1/2 pint of skim milk
3/4 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup egg substitute (I used Land O Lakes Egg Lovers, for which 1/2 cup is the equivalent of 2 eggs)
1 small pinch of salt
extra white sugar for the topping
4 ramekins (6 oz. size)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine cream and milk over medium heat until scalded (you will see small bubbles forming at the sides of the pan). Remove from heat.
3. In a bowl, whisk together egg yolks, egg substitute, sugar, and salt. Temper in some of the hot cream and stir well before stirring mixture back into the hot cream. Tempering is a technique where you add a small amount of a hot liquid to a colder liquid before combining them, which works well to prevent things like raw eggs from cooking into a solid when it is mixed into a hot liquid. Make sure you remember to do it, because having egg lumps in your creme brulee will pretty much ruin the experience.
4. Stir in vanilla extract. If you want to use a vanilla bean instead, add it into the cream after you initially finish scalding it, to let the flavor release into the cream better. Just remember to strain it out before baking the creme brulee.
5. Arrange the four ramekins into a casserole dish (preferably glass, as it insulates best). Pour in boiling water using a tea kettle so that the water level reaches about 1 inch or so up the ramekins. I stopped when the water level reached the top of the outer ramekin vertical ridges.
6. Ladle in cream mixture into each ramekin until just about filled to the top. I had just enough for the 4 ramekins with maybe a few teaspoons excess. Bake at 325 for about 35 minutes or until just set. When you gently wobble the casserole dish you'll see the creme brulee tops jiggle but it will look like there is a thin film solidified on top. That's when you want to take it out!
7. Remove from oven, but leave ramekins in the waterbath to cool down to room temperature. The heat retained in the water will continue to cook the creme brulee, that's why you want to remove from the oven when it's still jiggly. After cooling, remove ramekins from water and wrap with foil or plastic wrap and put in fridge for at least 2 hours. Overnight is even better. The next morning they should look like this:
8. Now to caramelize the tops! Sprinkle about 1/2 tsp of white cane sugar on top of the creme brulees, to make a thin even layer. Then you have a choice of passing over them with a blow torch until the sugar on top becomes bubbly and browned or you can simply broil them about 6" from the heating element. I don't have a blow torch, so I went the broiler route, which took a while to caramelize the sugar on top and kept burning the rims of the creme brulees (because the heat goes into the ramekin and heats up the edges of the creme brulee the fastest). So I had to stop often before the centers were brown. But still, the sugar melts pretty quickly and bubbles, which is the most important part to forming a good crust on top.
9. Remove from broiler and let cool until the tops are hardened. Serve immediately.
Now, most people serve creme brulee that is cold, with just the tops warm from the caramelization. But broiling them took so long that my whole creme brulee warmed up and I thought that made the flavor and texture fabulous. It was smooth and velvety, the tops were crunchy and sweet with some caramelized sugar flavor, and the insides were creamy and luscious, with just the right amount of sweetness. They were so yummy, you couldn't even tell that half of it was lowfat ingredients. Mmmmm...
Just for your reference, this recipe should have about 340 calories per serving (per 6 oz. creme brulee). For comparison, the full fat recipe is about 570 calories per creme brulee, and the lowfat version has 110 calories per creme brulee. I literally compromised between the two types of recipes so that I could preserve the richness without clogging my arteries too badly...
(6/03) Today was supposed to be our "movies 'til midnight" event where they'd be showing movies on a big screen while the students lounged on blankets on a big grassy lawn area of campus. I was looking forward to watching Casino Royale at the event. Unfortunately, it was a cold gloomy day filled with promise of rain, so the event committee moved the location to an indoor gym. That of course made the event 10 times less appealing, so Greg and I stayed in and ordered out for dinner from Stefani's House of Pizza. And um, well Greg convinced me to get some pretty unhealthy food lol. See for yourself...
(6/04) Six Flags trip! Today was an ENTIRE day of pouring rain, and yet me and my friends still bravely went on our class trip to Six Flags. Haha it was definitely an experience. I smartly kept my camera at home because I was worried it might get wet. At least I brought an umbrella and a rain-resistant jacket, as many others had neither and got soaked at the park. The original trip was supposed to be from 10am to 8pm, but due to the rain Six Flags announced an early closing of 6pm by the time we were leaving campus.
At the park itself there were very few people, and many of the rollercoaster rides were closed. I stayed off the rollercoasters all day because I'm not too fond of them, but it was convenient that everything else was mostly open and had no line at all. I first went on the carousel with my friends while we were trying to get out of the rain. That was pretty goofy, as we were the only 6 people on the entire carousel haha. Then I stood by and watched as my friends went on the Scream, which is basically the Hellavator/Tower of Terror type ride of Six Flags. Next we went on a ride called Nightwing, in which you lie flat on your stomach and rotate in a big vertical circle. I think it was trying to mimic flying in circles like Batman, but you could definitely feel the G force on it and I had to keep my eyes closed for most of it so I wouldn't get too scared/dizzy. That ride got my completely wet from head to toe though lol.
By the time it was 1pm, we heard an announcement that Six Flags was now going to close at 3pm. Oh my god now we were going to get practically no time at all to ride things. To get out of the rain, my friends and I went to watch an indoor Chinese acrobat show where I watched some people twirl little rugs on their toes and play with Chinese yo-yo's (some girl dropped it haha that must have been embarrassing). I also saw a lionhead dance, but it wasn't done too well as the head and the body kept making mistakes. After the show we went into an arcade for a little while, and then Greg and I left to ride Teacups on our own (my friends were not into this haha). It was really fun riding the teacups! They spin pretty fast on their own, and you feel like you're going to fall over, but Greg was holding me so I felt pretty safe. All the teacups spin in different directions so it's pretty chaotic, and you can spin a wheel in the center of your teacup to make it go faster. I saw a teacup where there were 2 couples and the guys were spinning the wheel like mad, making their cup spin so fast it was insane! Their girlfriends looked pretty horrified haha.
When we got off the teacup ride, we realized that the bigger rollercoasters (like Superman) were open again, but Greg and I decided not to go on them. Greg usually likes rollercoasters, but he was feeling like milder rides that day, which of course I was happy about lol. We wandered around and went to ride bumper cars twice, and then we went on this spinning swingseat ride called "Gotham Crime Wave", which I also rode twice. I had a really nice time at the park, the rides were all moderate so I didn't have to freak out, and it was fun to just walk around and see all the different things in the park. The rain definitely kept most people home, which meant the park didn't feel crowded or overwhelming, and all things considered, we probably got to ride the same number of rides as if we had been at a full park all day, because the lines would have been huge.
On our way back home from Six Flags, our bus made a stop at a rest stop, so I got some McDonald's (I didn't have lunch, and just had a cereal bar for breakfast). I'm not that fond of McDonald's burgers, I'm more of a Burger King girl. My favorite burger at BK is their Whopper Jr. So when I was at McD's, I got their Big & Tasty burger, which mimics the Whopper Jr. It was really satisfying to sit down and eat McDonald's after a long rainy day at a theme park haha I stay away from fast food as much as possible, but I can't make myself dislike it :P
Later on at night back on campus, I ordered out with Greg for pasta from Blackjack Pasta Bar. I got the whole wheat pasta again, with carbonara sauce. I know, terrible combination, but I just like the way the nutty flavor and chewy texture of the whole wheat pasta goes with the creamy carbonara. Of course, right after I finished eating it, I promptly fell into a deep food coma that ended up lasting all night haha. Gosh, Blackjack sure makes wonderful fresh pasta. I just wish it was a little bit cheaper (my pasta dish was about $9 before tax and tip).
For dinner I went out with my parents to a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. My brother was taking a piano examination in Boston, so my mom thought it would be a good time to have dinner together. This restaurant is called Hei La Moon, and it's located right outside the great gateway of Chinatown. Therefore, it gets much less patronage, which my parents really like (they always talk about how important it is to have "elbow room" when you're eating at a Chinese restaurant). Personally it kind of freaks me out when we're there for dinner on a weekday evening and we're literally the only table in the entire restaurant until like 3/4 of the way through our meal. No seriously! But the food there was pretty good, and the service was fine, considering that we were the only table anyway...
My parents decided to get the "dinner for 4" tonight, which is popular among the Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. They have these dinner sets for 2, 4, 6, 8+ people at a set price, with a certain set of dishes that are chosen. I often get the dinner for 4 when I go out with friends, as it saves us the hassle of picking out a good family style meal.
For our dishes we got:
And finally, dessert, which was a coconut milk soup with sago (small clear tapioca balls) and sweet potato. I really liked this dessert soup. A lot of the Chinatown restaurants offer a complimentary dessert soup after dinner, and I've often been given a red bean based soup. But the coconut milk one is my favorite. I've had it with taro also, which is delicious. The coconut milk soup base is sweet and creamy, but not thick or rich at all. It's served hot but it's refreshing, especially after the salty and savory flavors from dinner. The sago balls are not chewy like the tapioca balls in boba (a.k.a. bubble tea), but are cooked thoroughly so that you can either swallow them whole or chew them apart. Their texture is pretty much like soft jello.
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