Bûche de Noël

This Yule Log Cake  is a traditional dessert served during the holidays in France. I made one a few years ago from "Julia and Jaques Cooking at Home" which was as roulade; a flourless chocolate cake filled with cream, rolled up and dusted with sugar. Simple. But this year I found another by Jaques that was three pages long, an official Bûche de Noël and I had to make it. First I made a custard so it could chill during the other steps. I made a white sheet cake, let that cool, then made the pieces for meringue mushrooms (stems and tops dusted with powdered cocoa) which took 2 hours in the oven. Then I made the cream filling and folded in the custard. Before I spread this on the cake I basted the cake with rum and water, then carefully rolled it up. I made the buttercream frosting next, and melted chocolate to fold into it. I frosted the cake and then prepared the mushrooms. I cut off the bases, melted chocolate and popped on the caps to set. I set them around cake and put it in the fridge to chill while we played some boggle.

It took me 5 hours from start to finish and was the hardest thing I've ever made. 

I'm glad I did it, it came out great and tasted yummy... but I don't need to do that again!

(Recipe from Jaques Pepin)

Christmas Feast

What a fabulous meal! A meal that almost wasn't, for so many reasons. I'm so glad we moved back from NYC to continue this tradition here together with our family. 

But the other reason this almost wasn't....the ham. Last time we got the Smithfield Ham online, but this year I found them sold at Pavillions. However when I went to pick one up they were sold out! I went to four different stores before I secured the "last one"...whew!!! I hugged the ham AND the butcher and sauntered off to my car with a grin on my face, relieved that the holiday dinner was saved. 

There is simply no substitute for a Smithfield Ham (unless you made Prime Rib and Yorkshire Pudding, ahem). Anyway, this dinner rocked. Ham, cranberry ginger chutney, cranberry bread, no knead bread, summer squash from dad's garden, spinach salad, and parmesan smashed potatoes. YUM! Best of all every last bit of it was made by us! Everyone was in the kitchen cooking together. I'm so blessed to have a big enough space and a family so gifted. I love you guys.

(Recipes from Barefoot Contessa (Potatoes), Smithfield (Ham), NY Times (No Knead Bread), Murina (Chutney) then adapted from this, Mom (Cranberry Bread), Dad (Squash), and ourselves (Spinach Salad--see earlier post).

Chocolate Guinness Brownies, Holiday Style

These are our favorite brownies. I've made them dozens of times over the years and experimented with different Guinness (bottle vs can) as well as lots of different brands of chocolate. We like them best with Ghirardelli chocolate ( I buy the 60% cacao Ghirardelli chips along with the white chocolate chips). I use King Arthur flour and Land O'Lakes butter in all my recipes.

This is not like other brownie batters; it looks totally normal until the last minute when you "whisk in the Guinness" and turns the whole batter to a chocolate-liquid-soup. In my experience the 8" pan and the 25 minutes in the oven combination doesn't work; the center doesn't cook all the way through even with baking up to 40 minutes. I've tried making them in a 9x12 pan and baking only 20 minutes but they aren't as moist inside. I'll experiment with them in cupcake form soon.

We also prefer them with non-whipped cream cheese frosting because it cuts the bitter chocolate nicely and looks like the head on a Guinness! This particular version has a few peppermint candies sprinkled on top. And another hint is to make them a day ahead of time because they taste *way* better the next day! 

(I discovered this recipe for Grace Neill's Chocolate and Guinness Brownies inside Chocolatier Magazine, then found it online at npr.org --along with some fabulous looking Irish fare!)

Making Cheese

Today we went to a friend's place and made manchego cheese. It was SO much fun! It is a very precise artform, much more than I've experienced with baking. We brought the milk up to 86 degrees and had a thermometer to keep it hovering there while we added the starters, lipase and rennet. Then we had to raise the temperature 2 degrees every five minutes to another measure point. There was a lot of stirring, then we cut the curds, did more stirring, then strained the whey out through cheesecloth (my first actual application of CHEESE CLOTH) and put the curds into a press. After pressing at a certain amount of weight for the prescribed time, we flipped the curds (now in a tubular form) and pressed them again. At the end it gets an oil bath overnight. 

The whole process took about 6 hours with us having to do something every 5-30 minutes at first (during the pressing we had time to eat dinner and watch a movie). We didn't get to eat the one we made but instead (food show style) he popped a chunck of  homemeade colby out of the fridge and we tasted that. I was in HEAVEN. YUM! We boiled up the leftover whey and made ricotta and then gobbled that right up still warm out of the pan. 

This was a truly unique experience and I can't wait to do it again! There is another acquaintance who makes beer and bread. We're having a party very soon :)

Chicken Pot Pie, again!

I made this again and this time with a friend. It's so friggin yummy!!

(Recipe from Sunset Magazine)

Pumpkin Chip Cookies

Now before you cringe and say, eeew pumpkin, you really must try these. They are like nothing you've had, and no other cookie recipe I make is anywhere close to the texture and unique flavor of these yummy morsels.
 
(Recipe from Melissa Moiha)

Pumpkin Chip Cookies (*makes 6 dozen*)

1 large (29oz) can pumpkin

2 tsp soda

4 tsp powder

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

4 C flour

2 C sugar

2 eggs

2 Tbsp milk

1 C unsalted butter (hers called for vegetable oil but this is a no-no in my book)

2 tsp vanilla

1 bag chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar. Add in eggs, milk, and vanilla. Add in pumpkin. In a large bowl combine soda, powder, salt, cinnamon, flour and I use a whisk to combine. Gradually add dry ingredients to wet. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoon onto cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 14 minutes. These are a very WET cookie and the dough is not similar to a chocolate chip or sugar cookie dough. 

Char Siu Pork Roast

This is one I like to make in the slow cooker. I make about 1.5 lbs of pork and that with some steamed rice, snow peas, and carrots lasts us two nights. Yum! I got the recipe from Cooking Light magazine, a special one they had just for slow cooker recipes. 

Grandma's Persimmon Pudding

A couple months ago my grandma gave me the recipe for her holiday Persimmon Pudding (with rum hard sauce, which she stresses can't be done without). This dish is more of a bread pudding, moist and deliciously fruity. When I was visiting the family a couple weekends ago, they gave me a batch of persimmon pulp they made from their tree. Today was an awesome foggy fall day, and between that and the frozen persimmon waiting in the freezer that was all the prompting I needed to stay inside and bake. This is a really spicy batter and I loved the way it smelled in the bowl, and loved it even more coming out of the oven. It's a really straight-forward recipe, the only prep I needed to do was chop the dates (they are apparently available pre-chopped). Oh, and to "plump" the raisins in rum...easy! I made two small loaves in paper "tins", and I was surprised to see all the BUTTER that had pooled up between the pans and the cookie sheet they were baked on. I'm letting them cool now and they should be ready for their hard sauce for tonight's dessert.

*Unfortunately I can't find this recipe* :(