Hiatus

Granted I have like, 2 readers, but I'm going to warn you that I'll be not here for a while for moving reasons.

Rule #2

Ok, you've got your mix of nice and medium ingredients, what's Rule # 2? Don't screw them up. This is it, it's what every chef tries to do, to get the essence of flavor as perfect as possible. This is why sometimes you go to those fancy organic restaurants and all you get for dessert is two plums and knife. Because sometimes that's all you need. But we're talking about cooking today.

I can't tell you exactly how to cook. I know there's people out there that like what some would term as overcooked greens (they're brown) or well done meat. I even knew a lady that would come into the bakery I worked in and request our darkest pastries because she liked the burnt flavor. I do, however, suggest that you try these things again, cooked in a more conventional way. If you don't like it that way, cool, but at least you know what all the fuss is about.

We're not done yet! Rule #2 goes beyond not burning the heck out of whatever you're cooking. (Although that's helpful) It's also making sure you use your ingredients, no matter what the price, appropriately. An example is when you're cooking with wine or another spirit. By now, you've heard 1000 times that you shouldn't cook with anything you wouldn't drink because you will get the essence of the wine in the dish. That doesn't mean that you need something expensive, though. Find a good, basic example of the wine or spirit and you'll be ok. Cooking with a bottle of Opus One is wasteful and useless unless 'cooking with it' means you're drinking it as you go along. I don't judge.
 

A Note On International Differences

I'm going to be using a sort of mixed metaphor when writing here, references from both the UK and US. This post is about some of the biggest differences between us so everyone can cook happily and understand what the heck I'm saying. If I don't address something, then let me know and I'll do my best to fix it, unless you have a gas mark oven. I can't help you with that because they just don't make sense. You know it's true. Get real numbers!

First, grocery stores/supermarkets. In the UK, you can shop in Tesco's, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Mark's and Spencer's, Iceland, and a variety of specialty stores. Iceland is a frozen food store. Tesco's and Sainsbury's are equal to say, Stop and Shop, Safeway, Piggly Wiggly, etc. Waitrose is a high end specialty store like King's in the North Jersey area, or Whole Foods without the same hard focus on organics. Mark's and Spencer's is close to Waitrose, but they have only own brand foods and they're not as fancy. And specialty stores are specialty stores, we all know what you can get there.

Second, measurements. If you're in America and you see one of my recipes that has metric measurements, you can switch to the other side of your measuring cup if you have one of those pyrex ones. Most of the time though, I'll be using American measurements and UK people are going to have to do the adjusting. The biggest things that need to be said are that one cup is 8 ounces. 3 teaspoons make up a tablespoon. When you're dealing with tablespoons of butter, which is a common measurement over here, you should know that our butter comes in one pound (16 ounce) packages. They're separated into quarters, each quarter is 8 tablespoons. So, 4 ounces of butter is 8 tablespoons. 

Oh, and one kilo is 2.2 pounds, which makes 1 pound a little less than 500 grams.

Dizzy yet?

Cake Autopsy

This is CSI, cake edition. 

Anyway, this was the first attempt at the cake bit from last week's strawberry cake. So, can anyone tell me what's wrong with it?

It's obvious that it fell, but look closer...

 Ok, so these aren't the best pictures, but the crumb kinda looks like cornbread, doesn't it? Pretty big. 

I thought the cake had just fallen because I knocked it pretty hard when I checked on it in the oven, but it was bugging me because the recipe I used was from Pioneer Woman, from Tasty Kitchen. She's a very thorough woman; if it had been a delicate cake she would have said so, which means I had to look closer. I was not surprised when I found out that I had put half a teaspoon too much baking soda into the cake. Apparently I had used the 1/2 T. measure, not the 1 tsp. measure. (3 teaspoons to the tablespoon)

Now, I hadn't put so much extra in that the cake tastes bad. Thankfully that means my dad is perfectly happy to eat it. I offered to spruce it up a bit, maybe some cooked caramel apple topping, but he refused. At least it's being enjoyed though, because it didn't ask to be made wrong, and I owe it more than that.

So, what did we learn?

1. This is what too much baking soda looks and acts like. Remember so you can diagnose your own oops in the future.

2. Cake made wrongly isn't always garbage; taste your failures and see what you can do with them. You paid for those ingredients and you spent the time making the cake. Unless it's burnt to a crisp (cajun style I like to call it) or otherwise severly damaged, you can probably save it, just not in the form you intended.

3. Take your time. If you rush through because you don't have the time, you're going to make a mistake and then spend more time fixing it or doing it over. Easy to say, less easy to do. 

Rule #1

When I bake for myself, I try and live by the two rules that I learned very randomly from Wolfgang Puck. No, not directly, it wasn't like I was talking to him or anything, he said it on TV. And I'm sure he's not the first person to say it either, but rule #1 is: Buy the best quality ingredients you can afford.

This blew my mind when I first heard it. Of course! How simple! I used to watch cooking shows or read cookbooks, or even be at work in a restaurant and think that there was no way I could make something like what I was seeing. Why even try? I can't afford truffles! We can't all afford dry aged, USDA Prime steak. I know I can't.  Hell, not everyone can afford steak period. Not everyone can always have locally raised organic seasonal food. It just doesn't work like that for most of us. You go to the market when you can, pick up what fits in the fridge and your budget, and do your best to eat it before it goes bad. I know how it works.

The point is to get the nicest stuff you can without killing your budget. Try and use your money on things that matter most in the recipe. Yes, it would be lovely to have fresh creamery hand churned butter to use in your brownies, but what's the main flavor in there? Wouldn't it be more useful to get the better grade of chocolate? Save the fancy butter for your shortbread. And when you go fancy, use it on the stuff that lasts. Get the nicer bottle of olive oil, get the fancy salt that you use 1 gram of. They're not going bad anytime soon, you'll be ok.

My husband and I are DINKs (dual income, no kids) so right now, I'll be able to afford to splurge sometimes, to get the Valrhona, or the nicer cheese. I recognize that. I know buying for a family of 2 is different than buying for a family of 4 or 6, especially now. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try a recipe. Your pasta dish won't be a failure if I say freshly grated parmesan and you use the stuff out of a bottle. You won't be seeing many dishes on here with super specialized ingredients. I do have some pet peeves (no margarine!) but there's a lot of leeway here people. The food police aren't out to get you. Rachel Ray won't kick your door down if you use canola oil instead of EVOO.

When I can, and when it's appropriate, I'm going to include substitutions, and alternatives. If something cannot be made with a sub, I'll tell you and I'll tell you why. We're not all shopping at Waitrose. (Goodness knows I'm not) But if you can afford it, go for the gold and get the good stuff.

Strawberry Shortcake Cake part 2

So, hard part is over, now you just have to put the cake together.

First, make sure your strawberries are delicious. When you get them from the store, give them a good sniff. We'd all like to be able to taste before we buy with berries because lots of times looking good does not equal tasting good. But, you know, I'd like a pony too. Tasty smelling strawberries are a good pointer towards tasty tasting strawberries. And give them a good look too, no one likes to get home a pack of berries to find a bunch of rotten or moldy ones hanging out just under the sticker. One quart sized pack should be good for this cake. Take the bigger or nicer looking ones out for decoration. Ugly strawberries belong inside cakes where we can appreciate thier deliciousness.

I cut up about half the berries in the pack, taking off the green bits and stuck them in a bowl. Because it's late season and I don't trust them, I sprinkled them with a bit of sugar. Taste your berries, you might not need it, but mine did.

Told you I'd do closeups next time...

It shouldn't look like it just snowed on them, but you should have a decent amount of sugar on them. Sugar loooooves water, so when you sprinkle it on fresh cut fruit it sucks all the juices out and makes a sauce. It's called macerating, but we don't need to be fancy here.

Now for the cream. My family uses the recipe off the side of the powdered sugar box which is three heaping teaspoons of powdered sugar for each pint of cream you're using. I used a pint and a half and had some extra. I leave vanilla to your discretion. I like it with this cake, but if you don't feel the need, I won't argue. And use heavy cream, not light cream. It's actually important to the cake because you're not going to whip it as far as you would for ice cream topping and you don't want it to drip all over the place or turn into butter. Light cream isn't good icing cream.

Whip it about this far

Hmmm. Can you see that? It's still creamy and together, no huge lumps starting to form. You want the mixer to leave tracks in the cream. We do this because while we want the cream to stay on and in the cake, we do not want it to turn into butter while we're icing it. The more you play with whipped cream, the closer to butter it gets. Plus, it looks smoother this way when it's on the cake.

You've got your lovely cake, you've got your lovely strawberries in their lovely strawberry juices, and you have your smooth whipped cream, so we're good to go. Now you've got your first layer down. If you drain your strawberries you can pour the juices fairly evenly over top the layer so you don't lose any goodness. I didn't because I forgot, which you can see in the next picture here.

Which is sideways. Huh. Well, that's why I'm doing this while no one's reading the blog yet. I'll edit it at a later date to be right side up. Ok, anyway, the point is that I put a layer of cream on the cake and then the strawberries on top of that. Wet strawberries are slippery and I'm not kidding when I say if you don't use the whipped cream as glue they'll slide riiiiiiiight off. And take the top layer down with it. They're selfish like that. So, cream-strawberries-cream then the top of the cake. Center it and then you can ice it with the whipped cream.

Because you were awesome and made a soft whipped cream like I told you (you did, didn't you?), you now have a little leeway when you're icing. A good straight sided metal spatula will be your best friend in this, but if you don't have one, you can always use the back of a butter knife. They're usually pretty straight and you can get nice sides like that. One good guideline is that you should always put on more icing than you need because it's a lot easier to take it off than it is to put extra on.

Mine came out like this:

Top view only because I forgot to take a side view picture. I didn't have to do much decorating because the strawberries did all the work for me. Make sure you have extra around because the way these things get cut not everyone is going to get a whole strawberry and you want to avoid tears. We shall not speak of my writing skills, suffice to say, I haven't been practising. 

Whipped Cream-

1 pint heavy cream

3 heaping teaspoons powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

Strawberry Shortcake Cake part 1

I know, I know, strawberries are out of season, but just barely, and it's my sister's birthday request so, not my fault.

I'm making this from a King Arthur Flour recipe. They're incredibly reliable and besides, I like the company.

I just want to show you a few things about the cake. First, make sure everything is room temperature. You're going to make you life so much easier that way. If you say, got the butter warm but took the eggs right out of the fridge, your batter might break. By break, I mean it'll look kinda gross, like it's separating. Lots of things cause batters to break, temperature is only one of them. Not the end of the world if this does happen though, because 9 times out of 10, adding the flour usually fixes it. Thing is, why drive yourself crazy? Just keep it all nice and room temperature.

Ok, so you read the recipe, and it says to beat the butter, then add the sugar and beat for 5 min. This is creaming. We do this because the sharp sugar crystals create little pockets in the butter when you're mixing them and that gives the eggs a happy home to go to when you add them. Now, I don't know about you, but I hate sitting there timing myself, so I'm going to show you not done and done.

Not done

See how dry it looks? Ok I probably should have zoomed in, but you can see that this isn't really creamy. It's more like play-doh or something.

This is done

Ok seriously, I'm zooming in next time. It's a lot easier to see if you compare the pictures. They're more or less the same color, but see how it's starting to look a bit more like a batter? There aren't these clumps, it's smoother. That's done. Now you can add your eggs.

This is all the eggs added, but no flour.

Looks kinda like pudding.... yum.

So you'll see that the recipe tells you to add the yogurt and the dry ingredients separately in stages. This is usually done because a batter can only absorb so much liquid at any one time. Force it and it breaks like I told you above. That's why you start with the flour, dry things up a bit then you can put the yogurt in. Do it in stages, (usually 3 dry, 2 wet) and do it by hand because the less you fuss with your batter, the more tender it will be.

This is what it looks like once it's done and divided into the pans.

 

Don't worry about how thick it is, or too much about how evenly you spread it. It's a cake, it'll all work out in the end. Speaking of the end... that's what this is.

 

See? Worked out just fine with minimal spreading! Tune in for part 2 where I put the cake together.