Thanksgiving Lingerings

First, we have what may be my favorite dish of all time:


Sweet potato, kale, and sausage
RECIPE
Mostly, I stayed true to it. Of course, I used a nommy tofurky sausage (polish kielbasa, if i'm not mistaken)
I cannot emphasize enough how best this recipe is. I mean you sizzle in mustard! I can't even handle the memory of this flavor.


And my own little cranberry upside down cake. Yes, Amanda, you may be onto something. There is something off about the phrase, making you feel like you've been smacked around a bit, without knowing exactly what part of you got smacked. It happens. RECIPE



I slaughtered a pumpkin that day, and had lots left over, so I made a sugary puree, and put a layer of that between the cranberries and the cake. Therefore, they stuck to the bottom of the form. Therefore, I got to shape the topping on myself! Mush smoooshy moosh. Yum. I've made the recipe a few times. Lusciously buttery taste. The upside-downity remains quite intact when done correctly.
-Anna

AND BAM WE'RE BACK

So, I don't like the idea of an "upside down" cake. If you're making the cake, whatever side is showing is the right side, kay. So despite Nigella's lovely intentions she named the recipe I made cranberry upside down cake. But that's wrong. So I'm calling what I made cranberry cardamom bomb cake, for obvious reasons. I also mixed it up with the batter recipe, used a little less sugar, subbed half the butter for apple sauce, dialed down the milk to accommodate for the more liquidy apple sauce and added a good douse of cardamom. omomomomom
-Amanda

Naked Cake: Tres Leches

Tres Leches is supposed to have whipped cream on top.
I'm not supposed to gawk at my RSS feed while making whipped cream, because whipped cream turns into butter, which with sugar and vanilla is really nasty.

Anyhow this cake was kind of bomb anyway so it's okay. Especially since I used kirsch instead of regular brandy (and too much of it).

Also, I put blueberries on top but only to distract from lack of whipped cream. Make this: time consuming, but not too much effort.
Credits to here.



(switched shot)Changeling?

-Amanda

Deadly Decadence

I made this for father's day. I didn't let it bake long enough/cool long enough or both so it was like lava when we cut into it.

So be careful. I didn't make the compote since it's not blood orange season and it seemed silly. Grand marnier though takes the cake. I mean it.


Oh and I used nonfat greek yogurt for the sour cream.
La recette, ça c'est ici. J'ai besoin de pratiquer mon français avant que je partie. Je ne sais pas si j'ai oublié toute ma grammaire.

Bien. Ecoutez.
-Amanda

L@te

There are always those nights. You try to fall asleep at 11. You end up leaving the wide-eyed world with the scent of cookies/cakes wafting through the house, at 4am.

My mom had an appointment with the hospital at 8am, so I decided she deserved a cake to wake up to.

Using this easy recipe, I whipped up a cake that actually rose a bit! I left a netting of flour on the sides of a cake pan, so that the batter can actually climb as it tries to escape my pan, rather than seeping through the (impenetrable) cracks which allow the bottom to fall out. Good thinking. ..

A nice sun in the middle for radiance!

I don't like cake with buttermilk as much. Yogurt is my favorite way. Soon to come: bomb blueberry lemon bread. so bomb. bomb bomb. i like it so much i'm saying the word bomb. over and over.



This recipe was not as fun for me. I was really excited, because I'd been craving pistachios like who knows what (after seeing this pavlova), and I had a nice thick amount of pomegranate molasses sitting around. These cookies were a hit, but not to my ears. I also didn't think they were attractive. So this is their mention. I'm sticking to using pomegranate molasses in savory dishes.

-Anna

I love parchment!

Butter your pan. Cut out parchment for the bottom. Butter again. Dust with flour. Tap out excess.

That is all.



Also make sure your frozen berry mixture isn't too juicy. I felt really proud of myself making this cake you will too.

Copy this recipe and revel in your whipped cream listening to this.



Kay, done!

-Amanda

Dinner, by Anna and Amanda

Muhammara-inspired deviled eggs, quinoa-stuffed mushrooms, and a lovely gateau au citron, with honey lavender creme.


I bought a little muhammara at Berkeley Bowl, and spread some on boiled eggs on most days during finals. So I realized, why not make things a bit more complicated by reattempting my favorite dish from middle school days. (I only made deviled eggs and pinwheel sandwiches)

These babies are stuffed with a mixture of yolk, pomegranate molasses, chopped walnuts, quinoa, roasted red peppers, and paprika.


Mmmm. Amanda's brilliance! I wonder what she put in here..


More cakes should be viewed from the bottom. This glaze-soaked, fork-marked floor of cake, for your enjoyment!

We did try to whip the cream, but unfortunately we are not as skilled with a whisk as real women should be. Fortunately, no one cares!

http://lauriebot.com/2010/05/15/gateau-au-citron-avec-la-creme-lavande/

Mexican Chocolate Cake

Definitely adding more cayenne next time.

Fat free/vegan/how did that happen?

Easy peasy.

Based on: this.
-Anna

Friendly Faces

Spring break was so nice. Eating thirty meals a day on a patio surrounded by my mom's driftwood is very missable. Now it's back to this crud:

"The herbs and spices being investigated in this experiment are: anise, caraway, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, and cumin. Your task is to analyze the volatile oils of some of these botanical products and then identify the adulterant in a sample"

Well I am stressing out quite a lot about all of this chemical nonsense going on all over the tests handed to me. So I decided to try this Chai Cola business today. Didn't like it. At least my two little Red Bull buddies are sitting in the fridge awaiting my desperate plea for their gift of vitality. The Russian ballet on ice is on my television screen. I'm glancing at its reflection in my window, because turning around is too much work when you have a lab report to concoct.

On the bright side Jenny liked the cake I made her !



I finally got to employ the (THE) chocolate painting technique. I'm not going to go into how I made the rest of the cake, but it tasted like chocolate milk. With blueberry on top. Actually I'm a fan of the blueberry sauce I drenched it in, so I'll use that again and it will be posted up here for you all, our droves of fans.

I'd also been waiting since Spain (2005, maybe?) to make a tortilla de patatas. The moment finally came! I modified the wikipedia preparation blurb, using green onions instead of the good stuff, and possibly oversalting. Added some milk with the egg too. Basically I had a really good tortilla de patatas but I was not happy to have to share it.



My posts have been lacking in the recipe department lately, but I'm sure I'll be up to it some day soon. After Thursday. Well after Thursday. If I am still alive Thursday, all is well with the world.

Forevers yours&young,

Anna

The Ugly Grape

A lot of people are scared of baking grapes.
"Won't it just explode?"
"Will it turn into a raisin?"
"That'll just be foul."
It seems kind of fun to me though, like champagne cupcakes with flavor but also a burst of texture. Ooh, considering that, lychee cupcakes could be delicious. Okay, on my to-do list. So,
Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which was quite a riveting read, but made realize how much of the food that I eat is imported from places far, far away. I need to work on that.
But first the grape cake.
I found this recipe, and thought it would be pretty easy to replicate, but now that I'm back at school I have a more limited number of ingredients at my disposable. Here's my adapted version:



Almond Grape Cake
1 1/2 sticks sweet butter (at room temperature, annoying, but important)
1 c. sugar
5 egg whites (I had a lot leftover from all the yolks used in the custard)
1/4 c. whole milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract (the recipe called for almond, which I would have much preferred, but you work with what you got)
1 c. almond slivers (ground up as much as possible), or almond meal if you have it
1/2 tsp. baking soda (recipe called for 2 tsp. baking powder, but I couldn't find any)
1 c. grapes (however much you want really)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray an 8 by 8 glass baking pan or maybe it could fit in a 9 inch pie pan. I think a rounder shape would be prettier actually if you can finagle that.
2. Cream the butter and sugar until it fluffs. Hopefully you don't have to do this with a hand held mixer where the butter flies in you face.
3. Add the eggs gradually. Make sure they combine fully with the sugary butter. Add the vanilla/almond extract and the milk.
4. In another bowl, mix the flour, almonds, and baking powder/soda. Carefully combine the dry and wet ingredients careful not to overmix.
5. Pour the batter into a pan of your choice and put the grapes on top, pushing them in slightly. In retrospect I should have made a smiley face or some picture instead of just rows, but oh well.
6. Bake for about 40 minutes or so. When I took my pan out there was a little bit of moisture bubbling atop, I'm guessing from the grapes. I just poured it out. Also this might be fun with some sort of syrup poured on top to make it moister--like an amaretto syrup, mmmm.



Oh and someone told me the green grapes looked like olives, so maybe you should use red/purplish grapes instead if you care about that sort of thing.
Oh and Anna should know that I really like the new format, but am curious about who all the taste buds belong to.

-Amanda

Bavarian at the Park

Here's a strawberry bavarian cream cake based on this recipe, which I had originally picked out for my friend Dylan's birthday celebration at the park because of the pretty white chocolate lace. But sometimes things (that are white and chocolate) are expensive at Jon's Marketplace (where I got these strawberries for a buck fifty a carton--also the nicest package of Madras curry powder, complete with recipe booklet), so you accept the fact that if you stuff enough strawberries into a cake, you'll be just fine regardless.


Now, I don't do the whole blooming gelatin thing. I just used a tablespoon of flour to thicken my cream instead, so if you're not okay with that, you can go bloom your gelatin elsewhere. Oh, I'm vegetarian, so if you're thinking about expecting something rich and meaty from my posts... nope.

I hope I remember how I strayed from the original recipe to make this cake, which actually turned out to be tasty.

Here's what you'll need:

For the sponge cake-

6 eggs, separated
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar, with 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract mixed in

For the filling-

4 egg yolks

1/3 cup sugar, with a little over 1 tbsp of vanilla extract mixed in

1/2 cup + 3 tbsps milk

1 tbsp all-purpose flour

2 236ml cream (I had one plain, one heavy)

a carton of strawberries

For the topping-

dark chocolate

leftover cream

I should probably mention that my form was bigger than the one intended for this recipe, but I wanted a stumpier cake ..

Separate the yolks and whites.

With a standing mixer, whip the whites with 1/2 cup sugar until you form stiff peaks. Transfer (gently) to a bowl and keep for later.

Add the remaining sugar to the yolks and beat until tripled in volume or all the sugar has dissolved and the yolks are pale and creamy, about 8-10 minutes.

Now add 1/3 of the beaten egg whites and fold in gently so as not to release any beaten in air.(Folding was maybe my favorite part) Sift in half the flour and fold in gently, followed by 1/3 beaten whites, then remaining flour, and finally remaining beaten whites. Gently turn into prepared tin, and bake at 350F for 25-30 minutes until a tester comes out clean.

Remove from tin immediately, peel off parchment and cool completely.

Whisk the egg yolks with 1/3 cup of vanilla/sugar until smooth.

Simmer 1/2 cup of milk and 236ml cream with a bit of vanilla extract. Turn off heat and let it sit for a bit. Remove filmy milk.

Dissolve flour in 3 tbsps of cold milk

Put the pan back on simmer. Once the milk mixture comes to a boil, take it off the heat and whisk into the yolk mix.

Return to a pan, and place on medium heat until the custard thickens and coats the back of a spoon, stirring constantly.

Take off and whisk in dissolved flour. Strain and leave to cool.

Once it is completely cooled, whip 200ml of cream with 1 tsp of vanilla extract, and fold it into the custard gently but thoroughly. You will notice the Bavarian thickening.

While the custard is cooling, slice the sponge cake into two.

When cool, smear it all over the bottom sponge cake. Slice up the strawberries and cram as many as you can onto the cream.

After placing the top sponge cake over the cream and strawberries, use a double boiler to melt some dark chocolate and your remaining cream. Use a rubber spatula to cover the top of the cake with the chocolate ganache. I would probably have used less chocolate if I knew what was going on when doing this.

Smoosh some halved strawberries into the chocolate, and there you have it--cake!

(ppps don't drizzle chocolate unless you know what you're doing, either. I .. it was .. messybad. Involved adding water to the chocolate to try to thin it out, then realizing that water evaporates. Then adding milk. Then swirling together different colors of chocolate, and covering them up with more strawberries. Then--I'm going to stop now.)

Also I used fat free milk and it was goood.

I'm not a big fan of this blog post, but I really liked the cake, so it had to happen. Thank you so much http://www.passionateaboutbaking.com for the bulk of this recipe, and for the idea of white chocolate lace, which will be implemented eventually.

I would also like to add that Amanda and I seasoned chard chips with some onion powder/cumin, and some garam masala/sesame seeds, and that worked out well. I hope she puts up the Passover Spanakopita we made too. STILL LOOKING FORWARD TO RHUBARB HAROSET.