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 :)