Eclairs, an Approximation

I made éclairs for Christmas.

The puffs didn’t puff up, so I made another batch.

The chocolate ganache clotted and exuded a whitish liquid.

The second batch didn’t puff up much either. Neither did the cream.

And I ended up using melted milk chocolate instead of ganache.

They were just edible.

Ending this year with a flop.

Here's to better baking in 2013!

Old Friends and a Pie Party!

Life doesn’t get any better than this:)

I hosted a pie party for my old buddies. I have known these girls for ten years, since we were eager teens just starting out college. – Interrupted by a brief reverie of the past that paradoxically seems, at once, an eon ago and just last year. – I don’t normally post pictures of people on my blog, but I thought this moment was worth commemorating on the internet:)

For this momentous occasion, I baked three pies and one free-form galette. Yes, it was sort of a massive undertaking to tackle alone… A veritable baking marathon.

Washing the apples under the faucet-waterfall. How pretty.

Sugar & Spice

So, this is nutmeg! I’ve always been enamored of spices, so I bought a small assortment when I was in India. I haven’t been able to use the nutmeg… because I couldn’t figure out how. Just recently I found out that you have to crack open the outer shell. Well, duuuh! Now, I’m going to insist on only freshly grated nutmeg!

And then, I became too frenzied to take any more pictures of the pie-making process…

***

So, to the pies!

The apple crumb pie

With caramel whipped cream

The Chocolate Pecan Pie

With Grand Marnier whipped cream

The Christmas Cranberry Galette

With crème anglaise

And a mini designer apple pie, just for my friend who’s allergic to nuts

The condiments

And coconut macaroons, just to use up the oodles of leftover egg white. I got sick of failing at French macaroons (after grinding and sifting the almond meal myself, no less), and just went with the coconut variety. I felt like a cop-out at first, but then I tasted them. They were really good! Maybe I’ll never bother with French macaroons again…

 A super-mini designer apple pielet, just for me (made with scraps and leftovers), as I reminisce about good times, past and present. And pies, past and digesting.

 I told my friends that I felt like I just finished my finals. But, strangely, with more of a sense of accomplishment. Haha! Perhaps I’ll make this a regular pie gathering!

Meatloaf in a Flaky Cheddar Crust (to warm you up on an icy December Sunday)

Meatloaf is what’s for lunch… and dinner. (Four nights in a row!)

I’m not a huge fan of meatloaf (I think I prefer the hamburger), but one wrapped in crust should be interesting. So, I made a standard meatloaf, wrapped it like a present in cheddar crust, and…

Tada!

I also thought it would be cool to make soda bread (in the background). Jacques Pepin made it seem just SO simple. And it was, for the most part. Meaning that I messed up the first one (too much moisture = tough bread), but the second one came out beautifully:) Who knew bread could be so easy to make?

The cheddar crust (which tasted like goldfish crackers – who doesn’t love goldfishes!) and the homemade barbeque sauce really took the meatloaf to the next level. I’m not gonna be able to eat regular ole meatloaf anymore!

And another round of gougeres, just to use up the gruyere. I used Beth’s recipe this time. I’m not sure which recipe I prefer; this one was more cheese-y, and the other one was a perfect combo of bacon, cheddar, and cayenne flavors. Make them both next time?

Finally, jam thumbprint cookies! These were actually a couple days old. I was feeling unreasonably blue the other day, and realized that it was probably because I hadn’t baked anything in over a week. I wasn’t going to make it to Sunday… So, I rummaged around, and whipped this together! You can see the cookies in the four stages of the production process – rounded-out, nut-coated, thumb-pressed, jam-filled.

They were more of a snack-ish dessert. But a nice way to wrap up a warming meal:)

Caramelized Onion Tart

I must admit, right off the bat, that I do not like onions. As a kid, like most kids, I did not like vegetables. I was more or less OK with the green or colorful ones, but I detested the pungent ones, like garlic, scallions, ginger, and especially onions. My mom confessed that she tried to get me to eat onions by chopping them up finely and mixing them into my food. But she stopped doing that when she realized I fastidiously pick them out anyway. Then she chopped them up in large chunks so that I could pick them out easily. Oh, all the mind games one must engage in with a child!

Times have changed, and I’ve grown to like vegetables, even (especially?) the pungent ones. Except onions. For me, it is the last frontier. I still pick them out of my food (when no one is watching), eat around them (when they are), ask them to be left out (when given the option), or eat them grudgingly (when it can’t be helped). I don’t know why onions have failed to grow on me, and think it’s such a pity that they haven’t. Because they’re so healthy and simply… ubiquitous. But, as we all know, a matter of taste and liking can’t be forced.

So, what to do when an onion-skeptic has to make an onion tart? Make it for others, of course! I know that onions are liked, favored, even savored by many (including the esteemed author of the Pie Bible). And that the onion tart is sort of an elegant French delicacy. So when a friend asked me to make something for a potluck she was attending, I thought this would be the perfect dish to make!

I have to say, though, it was quite a tedious dish, this one! It took me over two hours to chop almost a kilogram of onions paper-thin by hand. Oy! When slow cooked, until all the liquid exuded, then evaporated, the onions shriveled to a quarter of their original volume. Amidst the onion-induced tears, I forgot to take a before picture to this after one.

 Hmmm… With the olives, it sorta looks like a pizza!

A slice saved for me. I hope the potluckers (probably with a more mature, adult palate than mine) enjoyed it! As for me, I’d say it was edible. The tart gave off an intense oniony flavor and aroma, and the texture, with all the crunch mollified, was closer to cooked sprouts. But I don’t seem to like onions, even when the pungency has metamorphosed into caramelized sweetness. Perhaps it was just my prejudice that held me back? But I don’t think I’ll ever find out because I’ll probably never make it again – unless as another favor!

Brownie Puddle

Chocolate is very rich, but also very bitter. You need to add a conscience-troubling amount of sugar to sweeten it up to what we’re used to eating as “chocolate.” Add to that an absolutely jaw-dropping, positively heart-stopping amount of butter. And then some cream cheese. Only a symbolic amount of flour, just sort of as an afterthought. A generous helping of pecans. Poked through and filled with chocolate ganache that oozes out of the sides and bottom.

The result was the chocolatiest thing that I have ever eaten. So rich, it left my mouth raw…

It was my kid’s birthday and she wanted something chocolaty. I like to think of myself as the kind of teacher that remembers birthdays and stuff. Hehe~ But no matter what I do, I don’t think I’ll ever be deemed “cool” in her eyes. (Oh, if ever there was an exercise in futility, it’s seeking the approval of a child.) I made two small tarts with the batter; I just couldn’t hand over the entire hyper-activation glob to a kid. Besides, I believe in eating half as much, instead of using the 50%-version of ingredients (=crap).

I shared the second one with my friends, who said it would be nice to have on one of those days you crave something sweet. (Um, every day? I find that in this land, almost no one has a sweet tooth like mine!) I probably did most of the eating.

I think brownies were one of the things I missed the most when I first moved to Korea all those years ago; perhaps all that yearning was just a desire for some good-ole gut-clogging brownie. The world can’t be so bad if it created the brownie, but it seems like a terrible place if you know it contains brownies and you’re just separated from them… perhaps forever. Ah, what turbulent times they were. It’s good to be older, to have outgrown brownies somewhat, and to know that there’s no such thing as forever. There’s always an again, or at least its possibility. And of course, it’s nice to know that I can make myself a brownie whenever I want now :)

Red Currant Pie & an Afternoon Tea Party

 

A little tea party on a Sunday afternoon, featuring red currant pie, wine ice-cream, wine ganache filled chocolate, strawberry and wine macaroon-turned-whoopie pies, and wine candy. (Yes, I had some wine leftover, and sorta got creative…) And of course, tea! 

 The main attraction: a mini red currant pie.

Doe is checking it out before it goes in the oven:)

Pie amidst pastry flowers…

A wee slice with some red wine ice-cream. The ice-cream was leftover from the previous feast; I think it tastes even better after several days of mellowing in the freezer! The flavor seemed, somehow, less tentative, more confident. A perfect complement to the red currant pie:)

Though I couldn’t really distinguish the wine flavor very well, the wine ganache chocolates were outta this world, and the wine candy was quite good too. (Both are from my favorite site, Sprinklebakes.com.) Imma be making more of those with leftover wine!

The only flop was the macaroons. (Epic fail!) I have to say… macaroons are my nemesis! They never developed any “feet” and deflated into something like whoopie pies:( Believe it or not, these were my second batch (the first batch cracked and/or burned). Both are now inducing feline obesity in my neighborhood... I think I can now produce a reasonably good pie, and I’ll know that I’m really a “good baker” when I can just whip up a perfect batch of macaroons!

Another Feast: Quiche Lorraine, Red Currant-Raspberry Lattice Pie, Red Wine Ice-Cream, and a Surprise!

I’m branching out; I’ve been cooking more meals lately. Things are becoming kind of extravagant. And really *fUn*

***

The Appetizer: Quiche Lorraine

Very simple, very classic.

A scattering of chopped onions, a layer of bacon, another of shredded gruyere (yes, I did end up buying it!). Then filled with an egg-milk-cream custard, and topped with more gruyere.

Perfect!

I’ve never had quiche Lorraine before, but I thought it tasted authentic. Hehe~ 

I think it was all the cheese…

The Surprise Main Course: Poulet Galantine

Yes, I did it. I deboned a chicken! Oh.Yes.I.Did. I was going to do a simple roast, but fate had other plans (perhaps I’m being too dramatic). So, I was all cozied up in bed several nights ago, watching cooking clips on Youtube, when I stumbled upon Jacques Pepin’s brilliant video clip. He debones a chicken in like five minutes (and claims that it shouldn’t take more than a minute or two!). I was totally mesmerized! I literally jumped out of bed; I needed to get me a chicken. There’s a 24 hour supermarket not far away, maybe the buses are still running, I could have a middle-of-the-night snack… Then I stopped myself. Experience has taught me that anything you begin after midnight is NOT A GOOD IDEA and is destined for FAILURE. Groggy eyes make for upset pies (literally).

I had to wait a couple of days to get my hands on a chicken, and it took me the better part of an hour to debone it. Not nearly as easy as M. Pepin made it seem… But there was not a bone left in that chicken, not even any cartilage. Ha! And the process has cured me of any squeamishness I had about touching raw meat.

Deboned and stuffed.

 Trussed and herb-buttered.

Roasted and eaten!

(Triumphant grin:)

The Dessert: Red Currant-Raspberry Lattice Pie with Red Wine Ice-Cream

Raspberries and red currants – what a gorgeous combo!

 A lattice top, so the beautiful bright red can peek through.

 With a scoop of red wine ice-cream.

The wine ice-cream was very… interesting. It sort of made you think (what am I eating??), and was just appropriately boozy. What a nice way to wind down a scrumptious meal!

(Satisfied tummy-pat :D)

Danish Pastry: Envelopes, Twists, Balloons, and Triangles

And now for something a little more challenging: Danish pastry.

Danish pastries are said to be of the best in the world, and I think we’ve all had approximations of them at one time or another. I recognize their shapes, but I always ate them without realizing what they were. I’m learning things retrospectively (oh, so that’s what that was… and it’s a thing, with its own name!) as I bake my way through this challenge. Ah, just one of the minor benefits of the project.

(Pictured: four twists, three triangles, and one envelope. If you can’t tell which is which… you have a counting problem :P)

The dough required the use of active dry yeast. I think yeast always frightens people; it seems like serious business. Like this is real baking. I was oh-so-worried that those little mico-organisms wouldn’t do their job. After all, you can’t see them. Will they work? Will they not work? And how can you tell? (The worries were unfounded; the dough rose beautifully – by any standard.)

A whole bar (rather small, though) of French butter, pounded thin, is placed in the middle of the dough. French butter is supposedly more buttery (= higher fat content) than other butters. Only the best for the best of pastries!

 All nicely wrapped up and headed for the fridge.

 Outta the fridge and rolled out long.

And folded into thirds. This process, including refrigeration, is repeated three times. That is how you get the gorgeous butter layering in the pastry!

The filling included store-bought passion-pomme jam, the last of my apricot jam, and remonce (sweet almondy paste).

[Not pictured]

There comes a time during my baking operations, especially when I’m trying out a new branch of pastry for the first time, when I question what I’m doing – and why. You can’t really tell from the finished product how semi-disastrous they were in the middle; things go poorly, everything’s hectic and helter-skelter, and I’m tired and just want to crawl back into bed.

The moment with the Danishes was when the envelopes and triangles opened up during the proofing process. Uhg! I’d worked so hard, but it seemed like I was going to end up with little sprawling pizzas instead of dainty pastries! And I couldn’t let that happen. So I cut up some toothpicks, stuck them on the corners of the pastry squares, and tied them together with string. A very make-shift remedy, I know. And they looked unpleasant, like a pimpled teenager with braces. But it worked! The pastries came out shaped, more or less, like they were supposed to. Then I just removed the toothpicks, et voila! Another save!

I think this obsession very well may be a sickness.

Envelopes and triangles, straight outta the oven. They were sooo good! Like, “where have you been all my life?”good. They were crispy on the outside with a light spongy, buttery layering on the inside, accentuated by the subtle sweetness of the remonce and gooey filling. Worthy of their renown! They were so good, and seemed so harmless, I just kept eating… My friend and I ate five –– each. In the aftermath of sugar and butter overdose, we both sorta regretted not restraining ourselves.

 The balloons came out as buns. Teehee. Those couldn’t be saved.

There were only two left over, and as I munched on them the next morning, I realized why my baked goodies are oftentimes so much better than the store-bought variety. Because, less than 24 hours later, they tasted just as stale and flat as any thoughtlessly mass-produced (near-non-)food. And even some of the stuff at bakeries are probably a day or two old… Freshness is paramount when it comes to food. Especially baked goods. And especially-especially pastry. I don’t think I’ll ever eat from a box again!