The Humble Kitchen

Last time Sarah came to visit we made this flourless chocolate cake that I’d seen Jacques Pepin prepare on the PBS show Julia and Jacques. It intrigued me because I’d never seen a cake made with ganache and egg whites, and also because the recipe requires no flour. This is the sort of cake that the French would make into a bûche de Noël, but the batter can also go into ramekins for little chocolate soufflés.

You’ll need a half sheet pan (or a 11 x 17 jelly roll pan) and the following ingredients:

For the soufflé

1 cup heavy cream

8 oz bittersweet chocolate, cut into small pieces

7 egg whites, at room temperature

2 Tbs granulated sugar

For the filling

1 cup heavy cream, well chilled

½ tsp vanilla

1½ Tbs granulated sugar (optional)

1 Tbs cognac (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350º and line the pan with buttered parchment.

To make the soufflé, heat one cup of cream to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Add the chocolate pieces, lower the heat and whisk to melt the chocolate thoroughly. Once smooth and well combined, remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.

Whip the egg whites and 2 tablespoons of sugar until they have formed stiff peaks with a glossy sheen.

Scoop about a quarter of the beaten egg whites into the pan with the ganache, and whisk to combine. Now pour the lightened ganache into the egg whites and use a rubber spatula to gently fold the mixture. Do not over mix. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth into an even layer.

Place the pan in the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake for 10-12 minutes. When done the cake should be set and puffy. Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack until room temperature.

Once the cake is cool make your whipped cream.

Lift the parchment lined cake from the pan, long side facing you. The recipe says to dust the cake with cocoa powder at this point, but honestly we forgot, and it was still good.

Lift cake, still on the parchment,  out of the pan.

Spread on whipped cream.

Start to roll.

Lift up the near edge of the cake and parchment and start to fold it away from you. Begin to peel the parchment off the cake. Roll another few inches, pressing the parchment to make a tight spiral.

Keep rolling.

Keep it snug.

The cake should still be sitting on the parchment paper, and at this point you can wrap the parchment around it and either transfer it to a platter to serve immediately, or refrigerate for up to 4 hours.

Trim the edges.

Enjoy.

-Jennifer (and Sarah)

Hot fudge sauce is such a disappointment when it is too sweet. In my mind it should be a warm bittersweet contrast to the cold sweet creaminess of the ice cream. Happily I found this great old cookbook at a book sale. Better Than Store Bought by Helen Witty and Elizabeth Schneider Colchie. Sausage, bread, preserves, pickles, confections, you name it, it’s in there.

I must admit the original recipe calls for 2 cups of sugar. I have cut back, but if you are not so bitter yourself, feel free to increase the quantity of sugar.

6 tbls unsalted butter
6 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate
1 cup boiling water
1 ½ cups sugar
½ cup light corn syrup
¼ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

Place cubed butter and chopped chocolate in a heavy saucepan over low heat. Stir until melted. Add boiling water, sugar, corn syrup, and salt. Stir well. Raise heat to medium, continue to stir until mixture has come to a boil. Boil gently without stirring for approximately 9 minutes, or until mixture has thickened and looks smooth. Take off the heat and stir in the vanilla.

Initially sauce looks thin and gritty.

After boiling for about 9 minutes, sauce looks glossy and thick.

At this point you can pour it straight over your ice cream. This sauce will keep in a jar in your fridge for months. To reheat either microwave for a few seconds at a time until sauce is warm and pourable, or set jar in a shallow pan of water and heat gently.

-Jennifer

Sometimes baking is the best thing I can do when coming down off a migraine. As my neighbor says, “It must be doing something creative that helps.”

Being the kind person she is, she made dinner for the kids and I and I told her I felt up to making a skillet apple pie. I have never made a skillet pie of any kind, much less an apple one. The only  interesting dish I’ve ever made in a skillet is Potatoes Anna, but that’s not really a pie.

Aesthetically, the results were stunning, but the filling had a bit too much apple cider vinegar for us. Don’t get me wrong, we ate it all, just in the future I’ll cut back some. The recipe below has it cut back to an amount that I think would be ideal. It was almost a refreshing pie, if there was such a thing. The apple cider vinegar really gave it a crisp, spicy taste that kept the ungodly sweetness of most apple pies at bay. I will definitely keep the acv in future pies.

This was one of the easiest crusts to work with. I combined two recipes to make one and of course de-glutinized it.

Crust

1c of gluten free flour mix. (I suspect almost any mix will work in this recipe but I used rice, tapioca, potato and a bit of cocount flour)

1 T sugar

1/4 tea xanthan gum

1/2 tea salt

2 T shortening, cold

6T frozen butter

2T vodka (I actually only had tequila on hand because, well, that’s a longer story)

2 or 3 T water

In the bowl of your food processor, pulse the dry ingredients until well mixed.Then pulse the butter and shortening until the mix gets crumbly looking. Then add the liquid  and mix until it comes together some. Turn it out onto a flour dusted cutting board and push it together with your hands. Then flatten into a disc and refrigerate until you are ready to use it.

Filling (based on a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated magazine)

1/4c apple cider vinegar

2T maple syrup

1/4c brown sugar

2 T lemon juice

2 tea cornstarch

1/8 tea cinnamon

2T unsalted butter

5 medium apples, cut into 1/2 in thick wedges

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees. Over medium high heat, melt the butter in an oven-proof skillet and add the apples, cooking about 5 minutes. While they are cooking, whisk the cornstarch with the cider, syrup, lemon juice and sugar. Take the apples off heat and stir in the cornstarch mix.

Roll out the dough and place it over the top, scoring in a pattern of your choosing.  Bake until brown.

~Sarah

I turn to The Best American Classics book from Cook’s Illustrated time and time again for everything from chicken to pie. I love to hear about the trials, errors, techniques and science. It’s to me what a trashy romance novel is to others.

Today I made the gluten free version of “Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies.” I made the variation with coconut and toasted almonds. The ex-chef neighbor and the picky cookie neighbor (he works at Donsuemor) both loved them.

I made these with coconut flour which, if you have never baked with it before is a very interesting flour. It is absurdly high in fiber and has a lot of protein to boot. I haven’t done the nutritional analysis on these cookies, but at minimum they have 8 grams of protein and 24 grams of fiber and that is solely because of the coconut flour. When was the last time your delicious cookie had a minimum of 24 grams of fiber? It imparts a lovely sweetness to the finished product, but also absorbs a ton of liquid (something I always forget for whatever reason) so be sure to add a little extra fat or water. It works in these cookies without extra liquid or fat, but it is a thicker cookie as a result.

***Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.***

My flour mix was as follows:

1/2 c.organic coconut flour

1/2 c. tapioca flour

1/2 c. potato starch

1/2 c. brown rice flour

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/2 t. salt

1 c. unsweetened organic coconut

In the bowl of my stand mixer I combined:

1 1/2 sticks of melted butter

1/2 c of granulated sugar

1 c. of golden brown sugar

I mixed it until well combined and added:

1 whole egg

1 egg yolk

2 t of vanilla.

Then I mixed in about 1 c of sliced, toasted almond and 1c of chocolate chips.

I then placed them on the sheet as tiny little gems. The recipe says to make ‘em huge, but I am a fan of the tiny temptation…the one no one can resist.

I cooked them for about 15 minutes, turning the pan halfway through. Now I have a heap of cookies to share.

~Sarah

I made coeur á la créme for the first time a year or more ago. I had run across it in an Ina Garten book and it looked so delicious. I did not have the heart shaped mold, so I used a small strainer lined with cheesecloth. It is a simple recipe, and it turned out fine, except it was cloyingly sweet, which was a disappointment. I hadn’t planned on making it again but the other day I found the heart shaped mold at thrift store for two dollars. Nothing gets me going quite like finding kitchen equipment at a thrift store. It’s the little things in life. So against my better judgement I brought it home and tried again. I made a few adjustments to suit my taste. I recommend tasting the mixture before you put it in the mold, and adding sugar a tablespoon at a time until it seems right to you.

12 oz room temp. cream cheese
¼ cup powdered sugar
2 ½ cups cold heavy cream
2 tsps vanilla extract
grated zest of one lemon
Seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean
6 oz raspberry jam
6 oz frozen raspberries
1 Tbls framboise

Place the cream cheese and powdered sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat at high speed for 2 minutes. Scrape down the beater and bowl with a spatula and change to the whisk attachment. On low speed, add the heavy cream, vanilla, lemon zest, and vanilla seeds. Beat at high speed until the mixture is thick like whipped cream. (At this point taste the mixture and add more powdered sugar if you’d like it sweeter.)

Line a coeur á la créme mold or small strainer with cheesecloth so the ends drape over the sides, and set it on a plate. Scrape the cream mixture into the cheesecloth, fold the ends over the top, and refrigerate overnight.

For the sauce simply put the raspberry jam of your choice (I like the Trader Joe’s organic reduced sugar jams) in a small saucepan with the raspberries. Heat until the jam has melted and the raspberries are thawed. Pour in a splash of framboise. (Taste the sauce and add sugar if you feel it needs it.) At this point you could puree and strain the sauce, but I prefer it chunky and I love seeds in my jam, so I leave it as is. Refrigerate until you are ready to serve.

To serve, unwrap the cheesecloth and unmold the dessert onto a serving platter. Pour the raspberry sauce around it in a decorative fashion and dig in. If fresh raspberries are in season, it would be nice to have a handful strewn about the platter, but it is certainly not necessary. Obscenely delicious.

-Jennifer

I learn by repetition. It’s not that I don’t understand something initially, it’s that I can’t retain it. This is part of what I like about cooking. I can watch a cooking show on a certain subject, look up some recipes online, scan my cookbooks for similar recipes, then apply what I have learned to a practical purpose. This, to me, is satisfying. This is what school was lacking. Through food I have learned about the world’s cultures and customs, about geography, history, math and science. Through food I have figured out my own learning process.

Often I will read something in a cookbook, or see something made on tv, jump up and make it immediately. If I have everything I need on hand, it’s as if I must! I suppose I need that instant reinforcement, that repetition, otherwise what I have just learned will get shoved to some far corner of my mind and I will forget it there.

Having said all this, often greed is all the motivation I need. When I saw Giada De Laurentiis make sweet potato and beet chips the other day, I just wanted to eat them, no higher learning involved. When I heard someone singing the praises of the donut muffins at the Downtown Bakery & Creamery in Healdsburg, I didn’t want to wait until I was in that neck of the woods, so I whipped up a batch.

-Jennifer

This oven baked pancake is simple to prepare, and stunning to boot. My parents often made it on weekends when we were kids, and it is as impressive to me as an adult as it was when I was little. The name alone is intriguing. I have to assume the Dutch comes from it being German, or Deutsch, but how the baby got there is anyone’s guess.

You’ll need a blender for this recipe, though my parents made do with a hand mixer. It’s best made in a cast iron pan, which gives it a wonderfully crisp bottom. The tender custard interior and craggy surface can be achieved in any shallow oven ready pan.

I use a 12″ cast iron pan, but if you are using a smaller pan click the photo below to see appropriate quantities.

Turn oven to 425º and assemble the following ingredients.

½ cup unsalted butter

6 eggs

1 ½ cups milk

1 ½ cups flour

pinch of salt                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Place the butter in your pan and set in oven to melt. Crack eggs into blender and whirl at high speed for one minute. With motor running gradually pour in milk, then slowly add in the flour. Continue to blend for 30 seconds, and throw in your pinch of salt. Pour batter into hot pan with melted butter. Bake 20-25 minutes until puffy and brown. The edges should curl like a tidal wave. Cut and serve immediately with lemon wedges and generous amounts of powdered sugar.

-Jennifer

I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. When I crave dessert it is a buttery pastry or a bitter chocolate I’m after. This is my idea of carrot cake. It’s not particularly sweet, and it is surprisingly buttery, although there isn’t actually any butter in it. I’ve added some courgette (zucchini) just because I had some hanging around.

1 pound of carrots, peeled and grated

2 medium courgettes, grated

3 large free range eggs, room temperature

½ cup buttermilk

¾ cup lightly packed brown sugar

¾ cup agave syrup (or use 1 cup caster sugar)

1 ¼ cup vegetable oil

1 vanilla bean scraped, or 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups ap flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

⅛ teaspoon ground cloves

1 cup walnut halves

Preheat oven to 325º. Grease and flour a 10″ round cake tin. Mix together carrots, courgettes, eggs, buttermilk, sugar, agave syrup, oil and vanilla. In another bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger and clove. Stir flour mixture into carrot mixture until well combined.

Pour into prepared cake tin and scatter the walnut halves on top. Bake for 55 to 65 minutes. Cake is done when a toothpick poked in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool before digging in.

-Jennifer

Now that my daughter is older, and my Grandparents are no longer with us, I notice our Christmas traditions evolving. We still open presents on Christmas Eve, we still pop open Christmas crackers and wear paper crowns. But this year, my now teenage daughter jokingly suggested on Christmas Eve we should eat sushi, watch Silence Of The Lambs, then open presents to make us feel better. I though why not, sounds like fun. So that is exactly what we did, and it was fun. A new family tradition? We’ll have to wait and see.

Christmas always makes me nostalgic. When we were kids we lived next door to my mom’s parents. They were from Arkansas and Oklahoma, and though my mom couldn’t wait to leave Oklahoma and move to California, she still mentions the thunder storms, her own grandmother’s cooking, and other childhood memories. I suppose I’d like to keep some family traditions alive, so occasionally I will make something like chicken and dumplings for dinner, and ask my mom is it’s anything like her grandmother’s.

So on Christmas Day I indulged these nostalgic feelings, and made fried chicken. I had luckily found a copy of Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc At Home, (which is sold out until February!) and one of the first recipes in it is fried chicken. This recipe is a process, but well worth it. First there’s a twelve hour brine. Lemons, thyme, parsley, honey, bay leaves, pepper corns, garlic, I tell you the smell of the brine alone was glorious. I wanted to dab it behind my ears.

There’s no way the chicken and brine was going to fit in my fridge, so I used Alton Brown’s trick of making the brine with half the water, then once it was cool I added the remaining water in the form of ice, which kept the whole thing nice and cold in an ice chest overnight.

After twelve hours the chicken pieces are rinsed and left at room temperature for an hour and a half. I dredged in well seasoned flour, dipped in buttermilk, dredged again. The instructions are very specific about oil temperature and timing. This chicken is delicious. Hands down the best I’ve ever made or eaten. I cannot wait to try another recipe from this book.

On the side I made some simple mashed potatoes with buttermilk, and collard greens. My dear friend Jean had made these collards for me recently, and I can’t get enough of them. Saute onion and the chopped stems of the collards in olive oil until soft. Throw in heaps of minced garlic then add the chopped collards & a handful of chopped dried cranberries. Once the greens are cooked to your liking add seasoning and a tablespoon or so of soy sauce. The soy sauce really makes the dish. Delicious and beautiful.

For dessert, a family recipe, brownie pie. This is really a pecan pie, but we’ve always called it brownie pie. It’s good no matter what you call it. It’s a basic recipe, but in comparing it to other recipes I think ours is less sweet. For the pie crust I used the new ipod app Ratio . Don’t get me started on the wonders of this app. I took Michael Ruhlman’s advice & added an egg and some chopped pecans to the dough. You can use whatever pie crust you prefer.

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 eggs, well beaten
½ cup sugar
¾ cup dark corn syrup
1 cup chopped pecans, more for decorating top if desired
1 unbaked pie crust

Melt chocolate and butter together. Mix sugar and corn syrup with beaten eggs, then blend in chocolate and butter mixture. Add pecans and a pinch of salt. Pour this into an unbaked pie crust. Bake at 300º for 40-50 minutes. Pie is done when a toothpick poked into the middle comes out clean, and there’s no more wobble. A dollop of whipped cream is an unnecessary but welcome addition. Simple and a pleasure to eat.

-Jennifer

I know, I know, marshmallows have nothing to do with “My Fair Lady,” but this is a beautiful one sheet.

While marshmallows aren’t a vegan’s most favorite food, most people, vegan or not, have at least one fond memory of marshmallows. Whether it’s a campfire, rice krispy treats, hot chocolate or s’mores, most of us get a warm and fuzzy feeling when we think of marshmallows. I mean come on, they melt, get all gooey and warm and if you’re roasting them over a fire, they get a delectable crispy coating quite unlike most other desserts.

I first attempted homemade marshmallows last year and they were way easier than I ever thought. I was amazed at how great they tasted and just how different they were than their store bought, now seemingly stale counterparts.

I made them again this year, in white, blue and pink. Most of the recipes are essentially the same and fall into two categories: with or without egg whites. I have never made them with egg whites, so I cannot say whether or not they are better with. Although I can’t really  imagine that they are necessary.

This recipe is without and from Alton Brown.  I must say though that in hindsight, I might cut the sugar back just a tad to make them a little less sweet (that way I could eat more of them):

1. Dissolve 6 packets of gelatin in 1 c of water in the bowl of your stand mixer

2. Pour one 16 oz bottle of light corn syrup in a saucepan and add 1/2 t salt,  1c of water and 3c of sugar (I hope you weren’t thinking these were a low-sugar food)

3. Heat the mixture over medium-high heat gently stirring to dissolve the sugar. Boil until the mixture reaches 240 degrees and immediately remove from heat.

4. Turn the mixer on low and pour the hot sugar mix into the bowl. Place a veil of plastic wrap over the front of the mixer to keep it from splashing scalding hot sugar all over the place. (It burns something fierce).

5. Turn mixer to high and beat until fluffy and lukewarm (about 15 minutes).

6. While it’s whipping, prep a big pan with aluminum foil, spray with spray oil and make a little bowl with 1/4c of cornstarch combined with 1/4c of powdered sugar. Dust the pan with the powder. Set the rest aside.

7. Turn the marshmallowy fluffy stuff out into the pan, smooth it around with a wet spatula and then wait at least 4 hours until trying to get them out. (It seems like a long time)

4 hours later…

8. Slice ‘em up with a knife however you like and dust them with the powdered sugar/cornstarch.

9. mmmmm.

~Sarah