Coconut Genoise

At my new place of work, Mistral-Kitchen, one of our first desserts has been a Coconut Tres Leches cake (served with diced mango, mango sorbet, and a coconut tuile). A Tres Leches cake is a simple genoise (eggs, sugar, flour only) soaked in milk. Well, actually three milks: milk, cream, and sweetened condensed milk. For a coconut Tres Leches we substituted the cream with coconut milk, as well as added lime zests and some rum. It turns out very nicely.

However, after making the straight-forward genoise, I had the great idea to substitute part of the all purpose flour with some of my coconut flour. I still have some of the coconut flour from the pound I bought and experimented with last summer. This was a fantastic idea, and tasted delicious. All of a sudden the basic, flavorless genoise was worth eating in its own right (maybe a glass of milk on the side still, yet such an improvement from the original!)

Once I soaked the coconut genoise in milk I was able to detect the high fiber content which threw me off in my original experiments with the coconut flour. It gets slightly grainy. But this time, with all the good accompaniments it turned out just fine. Hurrah for coconut genoise! I may have even created a new base for all kinds of coconut desserts. Yum.

Wicked

I love twists in novels. In my personal life it’s not always so reassuring, but reading about Elphaba, aka the Wicked Witch of the West, in Gregory Maguire’s Wicked, was entrancing. I’ll point out that I read The Wizard of Oz when I was a kid, as well as the rest of the series. It made perfect sense to me after the series why nobody else read more than Oz, but at least I knew.

Even though Wicked was written by a different author, for a different audience, I think I held to some of that skepticism, hence the novel has sat on my shelf for over two years before I picked it up and began to read. Oh well, others have waited longer! And even this was jump-started by watching the movie with my nieces.... Goodness, I haven’t enjoyed a novel so much in such a long while that I can’t even put my finger on the last great reading pleasure. Maybe something of the Harry Potter series, but that really is a long time ago. (Last summer I read an engrossing book by Polkinghorn, but that wasn’t fiction.)

I often tell people that I’m not that into purely invented worlds in literature. I now know that in fact, I am incredibly impressed with fictional realms that are well done. I still don’t see myself becoming a science-fiction fan, but no longer think it’s absurd. Why shouldn’t one consider what it would be to show up in Oz as a green baby? And do great riches make one good in Oz? Or, where is the line between animals and Animals? Do politics entirely shape a person’s life in Oz and can one explain who one is without giving that and one’s religious upbringing a thorough examination?

Well, Elphaba is certainly a bright individual, grasshopper greenness aside. I have enjoyed meeting her and learning of her as much as most heroines I’ve met through the years. The fact that little Dorothy is not so unlike Elphaba is even more reason to consider how worlds collide. However we meet, may we extend abundant grace and forgiveness!

Chocolate Sauce

Ever in the mood for ice cream and chocolate sauce? Me, too. Just the other day, in fact, I was overwhelmed with such a grand idea. But, although I will buy Haagen-Dazs ice cream, I haven’t found a chocolate sauce to buy (ok, Frans, but that’s half my monthly income, so out of the question). But, I have a very nice recipe for chocolate sauce and all the ingredients, so I set out to make it myself.

My recipe is for too large of a batch, for starts. Secondly, I want to use up the cream I bought for my birthday. And, I don’t really want to adjust every single measurement. What’s more, I only have dark chocolate enough for somewhere between 1/3 and ½ of the recipe. You got it, all I needed was one of those issues to make up my own version!

I began by caramelizing 1 and 1/5th cup of sugar. How I came by this fraction I probably couldn’t reproduce. Yet, I did it in my head more than once and besides, it felt right…. I whisked in a heaping tablespoon of cocoa powder, then slowly added my warm liquids (1C heavy cream, 1C water, large splash of vanilla extract). Whisking into a caramel can be intimidating, so I just take it easy. There’s no rush. I poured this boiling goo over my approximately 140g of 70% and 74% chocolate, which I’d broken into pieces and put in the VitaPrep. I added a 4-finger pinch of salt and blended until the hard chocolate was smooth and emulsified into the liquid caramel.

Then I had the most delicious bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce. Ahh.

Sweet Reading

Whether this is pastry or poppycock, there’s no telling. But what I can say for certain is that reading cookbooks is a lot of fun. Especially pleasurable was a cookbook, Dessert Cuisine, all about restaurant pastry making from a Spanish chef with a lot of style. Oriol Balaguer has much more background in pastry than I, yet, the direction we moved in is very similar. I appreciate his beginnings in a bakery, and eventually moving into the plated desserts of a restaurant.

The writing, albeit translated, also has a tone that increases my interest in what Oriol is doing in his pastry. He describes the use and structure of basic ingredients such as eggs, sugar, and flour. As these are part of nearly all pastry, the ability to put them together in so many different ways to create entirely different effects is astounding. As I read how Oriol manipulates and revises ingredients to create the many textures of a plate I revel in the beauty and concept. In a sense he moves from a piece of dessert, which is typical of all bakeries and most restaurants, into building a dessert, but with such grace that it doesn’t come across as bizarre.

Now, you may wonder whether this was merely a pastry picture book, and since I fairly seldom completely follow a recipe, why this is so meaningful. Well, the situation is similar to that of a person who enjoys reading science fiction novels, yet who hasn’t actually conversed with aliens. I do love reading recipes. (But then I have even greater pleasure in changing them!) Recipes are always a little different, whether it be the ratio, flavoring, or just technical description, and therefore interesting.

While I sometimes feel akin to the chef on the Muppets, throwing things about, speaking gibberish, and wielding a cleaver, I sensed a certain camaraderie with Oriol which is uncommon. Inspiration may not be lacking, but like many artistic and unnecessary fields, encouragement sometimes is. This young chef’s work is the sweet perspective I appreciate when faced with yet another season of candy canes and amateur fudge.

Squash Butter Gone Mousse

I have made squash butter before. Yearly, since I began spending more time in pastry, actually. Heretofore I have steamed the squash and blended it with pastry cream. This year I baked the squash (I had a pumpkin and delacato around), which really reduced the amount of liquid in it. In fact, since I wanted to go out while it was baking (to pick up my CSA box) I set the oven at 300*F and left them in for over an hour.

When I scraped the squash flesh into the VitaPrep I had some very dry squash without a drop of water anywhere. Happily I had not made my pastry cream, so instead I made a very light crème anglaise with whole eggs, not just yolks, milk, not cream, and no starch. I did add 50g more sugar, as there was none in the squash, as well as a little more salt.

My squash was in the VitaPrep, as well as an overflowing teaspoon of ground ginger, when I poured the still hot anglaise over it. Then I blended it really thoroughly as I didn’t intend on straining it. While it blended it foamed up a bit. I decided that was the milk, imagined it would have no lasting impact, put it in containers in the fridge, and went away.

Well, last night when I returned to my squash butter I realized that I had actually made squash mousse. The texture was light and airy. I was astounded and incredibly pleased. In celebration I made a whole-wheat Dutch Baby and scooped a large dollop of squash butter gone mousse on top.

Mmm. That experiment was exceptional! I wonder what next year will bring.

Fandom

Over the last week or so I’ve not been reading many full-length novels. However, I did read through one man’s love affair with the soccer* team Arsenal. Nick Hornby’s affiliation with his team is fascinating, but Fever Pitch is about more than how he obsessively relates his every personal up and down to the playing of a few men each week. At least I really think it might be.

There are many times when Hornby’s descriptions are so outlandish I doubt whether this could be authentically autobiographical, rather merely part of the British self-deprecating psyche. But right when I disbelieve and relegate this to historical fiction, he addresses my very concern. Citing an incident of inviting foreigners to one miserable match, then to another one, promising it to be quite nice, his invitees “just looked at (him) and smiled, as if the invitation was an extreme example of the famously incomprehensible English sense of humour.” (Fever Pitch, 204) So, it is concerning.

I enjoy a sporting event, and I have a couple teams of which I am fond (although Seattle’s Super Sonics – the whole team – got sent off to Oklahoma, twisting and tearing my weakened ties to anything local). But the affection was mainly romantic as I think back on my childhood when I hoped that my athleticism would eventually flourish. This makes me the sort of enthusiast Hornby describes as a “bloody big-game casual fan” except for the fact that I am so casual I hardly even can be counted on to show up for big games. A more apt description would be a “sorry mid-season unimpassioned spectator” who mainly wants to know if she even knows any of the starters anymore. Totally unlike the hero, who from his first taste of soccer*as a teen has experienced utter tyranny of attachment, making him choose a flat near the stadium and go to every single game no matter whether he misses close friends’ parties, or holidays, or even opportunities to have a career. Incidentally, as he writes this, the career’s been sorted, as he’s a writer, and writers can certainly find time to write when Arsenal aren’t playing. (Not sure why, but Arsenal are always plural in Hornby’s writing.)

That being said, the amount of self-disclosure, which I admit seeming put-on, except for the fact that it’s written so genuinely and so well (it must be true!), makes me wonder about men altogether. When I go to games and witness sports fans I don’t think of them as like-minded. However, when Hornby acknowledges his obsession as such, and fills out the inner workings of his mania I see very clearly how that could relate to me. Uh-oh.

Overall I think that a man who can fully describe games he’s watched from twenty-plus years ago, going so far as to relive particularly pleasant matches in his spare time, is incredible. If this is typical of die-hard fans then that’s going to make the next game I see far more vivid. But when Hornby says of The Greatest Moment Ever (Liverpool vs Arsenal 26.5.89), that there is something in the surprise win while in a crowd of supporters which goes beyond all heightened human experience (including sex, childbirth, promotion, winning money, etc), I wonder. The ability to believe in the face of hopelessness and resignation seem to be the phenomenon leading to his conclusion that “it is just that real life is paler, duller, and contains less potential for unexpected delirium.” (Fever, 231)

This may, indeed, be the perfect Advent choice. Thanks Arsenal! Let's rejoice in the mystery.

*Soccer = Football IFF you’re anywhere in the world except the USA

Dinner Rolls

I am really beginning to see the use in a blog about ‘whatever’ rather than one with the specifics of pastry and what I’ve been reading. This is because I’ve only been caught up with other things (ie Thanksgiving, my Grandma’s 94th Birthday, new job, and thinking about how yet another old love has found a new love) this last week and haven’t posted anything.

I’m going to ameliorate that with a description of what I baked for Thanksgiving! My mom and sister made pies, and I was happy to provide vegetables. But I knocked it up another notch with some whole wheat dinner rolls made from hard winter wheat flour that was in my CSA box in preparation for Thanksgiving.

So, the night before Thanksgiving I made a starter with some all purpose flour, stuck it in the fridge, and went to bed. I slept until an early morning text from my cousin and my mom’s presence in the kitchen could not be ignored and went to get the bread going.

I took my scale and my French bread cookbook for company, but really, bread making is a touch and feel kind of adventure. My starter was young, but so what. My dough was a tiny bit soft, but I figured that was just as well considering that it was such high gluten flour that might seize up too much if overly firm. I made the dough, really just yeast, warm water, flour, salt and the white starter from the night before, then I let it rise. It was turning out just right.

Once it rose I measured the dough out into 60g dough clumps, rolled them up, set them on baking trays with plenty of space, and shuttled them downstairs to the wine cellar to wait awhile. Just before heading out on a hike I looked in on my rolls. This was probably the poorer decision as I thought they were perfectly ready for baking and wanted to put them in the oven. Some discussion ensued on how long they would take to bake.

Interestingly, although I was right (20min at 400*F) our walk was modified into two 10min quick-loops for those who worried that those beautiful rolls would get over baked. Before popping them into the oven, I dusted them with all purpose flour and made slices in them with a razor so that they would be particularly pretty.

Besides how they look? Well, they were delicious, even the ones that lasted until the turkey was ready!