Category Archives: Desserts

Menu planning

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I have a bad habit.  Well, let’s not lie, I have many.  But pertaining to food, I have one particular potentially disastrous practice: I like to make food for company that I’ve never made before.  I have experimented with risotto, fancy baked pastas, doughnuts, all for company for the first time.  I have tried to diagnose this habit, and I can’t be sure where it comes from.  Maybe I think that once I’ve made it before, it becomes simple and easy and not adequately fancy.  I like to be fancy.  Maybe I want to show off a little.  Maybe I just get excited about trying new recipes.  Who knows?

Oddly, I noticed that the menu I currently have planned for the “Belated Reception” party N. and I are throwing contains almost no unattempted recipes.  Despite permission, no, encouragement even, from K. (one of our guests of honor) to use this gathering as an opportunity to try out fancy new dishes, the ideas I immediately gravitated toward were tried and true. With guests bringing their own grillable mains, K. and I will be making a series of sides.

Here’s a preview of the intended menu:

Marinated tofu skewers, grilled.

Grilled corn, cilantro, and lime salad

Grilled garlic bread (seeing a pattern here?)

Fresh tomato bruschetta

Pea and mint puree on crostini, topped with nasturtiums

German or red potato salad

Pasta salad with tomatoes, mozzarella, olives, and sundried tomato vinaigrette.

(Chips, salsa, guacamole, etc.)

For dessert, I’ll make two types of cake for folks to try, both drenched in alcohol (because that’s just the kind of hostess I am):

A reprisal of my terrifically successful Chocolate “tiramisu” cake (featured here).

Pink champagne cake (N. and I had champagne cake with strawberries at our wedding, and I’d like to return the favor).

In addition to wine, beer, and the usual party beverages, I will also make a Champagne-rum punch, a deadly recipe because it is fizzy and sweet and delicious, making you forget the two kinds of alcohol it contains as it fizzes right into your bloodstream.

Ah, summer living.

Polling…

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Eight or nine months ago, two good friends of ours (mine, N.’s, our department’s) got married.  Because they were in Canada at the time on a Fulbright scholarship, no one here in Oregon who adores them were able to share their celebration in person.

But they are back now, and I have conspired to throw them a belated reception in my backyard in a few weeks.  We will be grilling, but I know there will be plenty of chopping, roasting, sauteing, and baking as well.  I have plans, but I’d love to hear some input:  if you were going to an upscale backyard BBQ, bringing your own grillables and perhaps a bottle of wine, what would you be bringing?  What kinds of side dishes would you hope to eat?  What items should not be missed when we assemble our menu?

In which I attempt an Extravagant Apology

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With all resolutions already broken (is lasting until April/May admirable or shameful?) and all high-flying expectations for weekly updates dashed (how does Pioneer Woman do it?), all I can do is shamefully offer you a guilt, chocolate, and liqueur laced update.

More than twenty years ago, my mom acquired this cookbook.   Simple, humble, kid-friendly instructions (“stir real hard”), bright pictures of anthropomorphized food, and one recipe for each letter of the alphabet.  This was a cookbook intended to get kids into the kitchen with their parents.  This was a cookbook intended to make kids interested in cooking.  We tried out a few of the recipes, and my dad even became an expert in P: Pocket Pizzas, but then we got stuck on the X page and never looked back.

X is for eXtra Special Chocolate Celebration Cake.

This cake is good.  I mean, this cake is GOOOOOD.  Since finding it, with very few exceptions, this has been the cake my family makes for every birthday, every celebration, every party.  I’ve made it for Academy Awards parties, I’ve made it for my husband, my mom and I made it for my Rehearsal Dinner, and most recently I made a gluten-free, Ph-Ph version.  But then our friend S. invited us over for dinner, and through luck of the draw we were assigned to bring dessert.  I asked N. what I should bring, and he said “chocolate cake.”  I said, “well, the dinner is sort of Italian themed.”  N. said “chocolate cake.”  I told him that wasn’t really Italian, and he said “that’s their fault, isn’t it?!”  This was not a question, it was a proclamation.  I resigned myself to making chocolate cake.  It’s not that I don’t like it (in fact I love it; see list of occasions above!), it’s just that I’ve made it so many times, and it’s so easy, and it always comes out perfect, and I guess I was looking for a challenge.

Then I had a revelation.  I adore tiramisu.  N. wanted chocolate cake.  Why not blasphemously, worshipfully, impossibly, combine the two?  Chocolate tiramisu cake surrounded (just for fun) by chocolate-covered strawberries.  Yes. 

Here’s the basic recipe, and below are my additions:

3 cups flour

2 cups sugar

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2/3 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp white vinegar

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups cold water

Preheat the oven to 350F, grease and flour 2 9-inch round cake pans (I use cocoa powder instead of flour, which doesn’t leave white residue on the outside of this dark brown cake).

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients well, whisking or stirring until it looks a little pink from the cocoa powder.

In a small bowl (I just use my 2-cup glass measuring cup), combine the oil, vinegar, and vanilla.

Add the oil mixture and the water to the dry ingredients.  As the Alpha-Bakery cookbook advises, “stir real hard” for 2 minutes or so.  The cocoa sometimes clumps up, and you want a smooth, lump-less batter.

When batter is smooth, dark, richly delicious, pour even amounts into the two pans, tapping the bottoms gently on the counter once they are full to pop little air bubbles.  Then enclose them in the oven for about 35 minutes, or until a tester comes out just clean.  The tops will be springy and moist, and I have found that just the barest crumb clinging to the tester is fine, as they continue to cook while you let them cool for at least twenty minutes in their pans.

Here are my additions:

When the cakes were cool enough to liberate, breakage free, from the pans, I turned them upside down on my cooling rack and drizzled Kahlua onto the spongy, porous bottoms until it pooled a little rather than being instantly drunk in.  I continued to do this at intervals while the cakes cooled completely.  I probably used at least a ¼ cup all together.

While the drunken cakes continued to cool, I washed and dried a dozen or so strawberries and started some semi-sweet chocolate squares melting in a glass bowl over barely simmering water, which I robed the strawberries in.

My trusty stand mixer stood ready to receive:

an 8-oz. container of mascarpone cheese,

¼ cup of sugar,

a few tablespoons of amaretto

I whipped these into a light, creamy frosting.  I tasted some and swooned just a little.  With the bottom layer of cake gently centered on my cake stand (with parchment paper lining the edges, of course, to keep the stand clean while I iced the cake), I spread about ¾ of the cheese mixture on the bottom cake layer.  Since there was a little bit of chocolate left in my makeshift double boiler, even after receiving and coating all of the strawberries, I waited for it to cool off just a little, then drizzled it on top of the cheese filling layer, figuring a little extra chocolate wouldn’t hurt.  Then I added a pint of heavy whipping cream, a little more sugar, and a little more amaretto to my stand mixer and started it whipping while I carefully positioned the top cake layer atop the mascarpone and chocolate.

I iced the whole thing, top and sides, with light clouds of almond scented cream.  I probably added an inch of frosting atop and on all sides, then sifted a few teaspoons of cocoa powder around the top of the cake.

N. and I agreed (as did S. and her other guests) that this was the best incarnation of this cake I had ever made.  The Kahlua added the coffee flavor and liqueur touch that tiramisu seems to require, but it didn’t overwhelm the cake with sweetness.  One of the best things about this cake is that it has solid cocoa flavor without being tooth-tinglingly sweet.  The Kahlua was a buzz-suggesting addition and kept the already moist layers almost fragile-tender. 

The chocolate in the middle hardened as it cooled and made a crunchy layer on top of the creamy cheese.  The amaretto lent aroma and a warmth that was almost flavor to the whipped cream, and the mascarpone made it creamier without weighing it down.  We ate large, thick slices, tempering the richness with the fresh sweet punch of chocolate-covered strawberries, letting the juice trickle onto the whipped cream and add yet another dimension of flavor.

I have never been so glad to take home half a cake at the end of a party.

Breakfast for dinner close-up: Cranberry Fritters

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I am sitting on my front porch with my feet – in striped socks – crossed atop the white railing. It is 4pm and the outside temperature exceeds 70F. Earlier this afternoon, I pulled weeds and thinned our rows of broccoli and lettuce in the back garden with my sleeves rolled up. And I’m looking back to Friday. This past Friday ago, while rain and hail alternately pelted, flooded, and overflowed the lip of our driveway, I put my stove and oven into an overtime they haven’t seen since Thanksgiving. Everything was good, but what I want to discuss today is item 3 from that menu:  Cranberry Donuts.

They were more fritters than donuts, really, but that’s close enough. Simple batter: egg, milk, sugar, flour, baking powder, cinnamon. And to add something special, a spare ½ cup of defrosted cranberries, barely pulsed in the food processor. No rolling, no cutting, no kneading, just tablespoon-fuls of this chewy, sticky batter into a pot of hot vegetable oil. I came close to disaster several times, because the batter was so sticky that it didn’t want to come off the spoon. The problem here, of course, is that resistance leads to increasingly vigorous shaking, which means when the fritter finally disengages, it hits the oil with a resounding, gut-wrenching plunk that means you will end up with finger confit if you don’t step back very, very quickly.

I escaped burns, and was able instead to watch the quick and wondrous transformation of a batter so raw and sticky it cannot even be called “dough” into these little two-bite-mouthfuls of extravagance.

When the batter drops into the pot, with a heavy plunk or even a less fear-inducing hiss, it sinks for half a moment before buoying back to the surface. It sizzles like onions in a hot pan, and somehow magically holds itself together to float in a lazy circle around the pot, trying to bump and mesh with any fellows you add. I played chaperone with a slotted spoon. It only takes about two minutes before the lower half of the fritter, concealed like an iceberg below the surface of the oil, is mouthwateringly golden and crispy and needs to be flipped over before it verges toward mahogany. The second side takes even less time, since it has already been submerged in its initial dip into the oil, and when it too is crisp and the color of perfect toast, or a dark caramel, it should come out and bathe on a layer of paper-towels, spreading its extra grease almost obscenely until the paper-towel is suddenly transparent.

While still warm, I rolled these dense nuggets around in a cake-pan containing around ½ cup of mixed cinnamon and sugar. Though much of the oil threatening to seep in past the crisp crust was thwarted by its paper-towel session, enough moisture is retained on the outside of each fritter to hold onto a sparkling coat of sweetness. That the batter drops into the oil in irregular shapes ensures that crunchy nooks and crannies are created, almost as if their sole purpose was to hold extra sprinklings of spicy sugar.

Before I was done frying (my pot could only hold 4 or 5 at a time without crowding or cooling down the oil too much, so I did several batches), I couldn’t keep myself from sampling one of the freshly sugared spheres. Oh heaven. It doesn’t seem like the batter could possibly be in the oil long enough to cook through, but it does. The outside is crispy and has a nicely textured crunch not only from the irregular shape and the fry, but also from the sugar, which provides its own gritty pleasantness. The inside is densely fluffy, and the cranberries pack the perfect amount of tart sourness to combat the sweetness of the dough itself as well as the sugary topping. I don’t tend to like cake donuts, but it was hard to stop myself from eating more than one.


After the party started and plates were loaded almost beyond bearing capacity, I didn’t notice anyone eating them. Yet, when I went back to the table for my second helping (or third, but who’s counting, really?), the cake pan I’d loaded them into was empty but for a remaining few spoonfuls of cinnamon-dusted sugar.

Even without the sun streaming across the faded red patio stones of my porch, that makes me feel a little warm inside.

Breakfast for Dinner

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I have a curious relationship with breakfast food.  The heavy kind, the kind you get from a diner or a good bed-and-breakfast or a hotel, doesn’t sit well with me in the morning.  It’s too much, it weighs me down.  But it’s food I love.  Potatoes, eggs, bacon, quiche, pancakes, cinnamon rolls… the list goes on.  So I take full advantage of every opportunity I get to eat this kind of food later in the day.

Enter Friday, April 2nd:  for the third year running, N. and I are hosting a Breakfast for Dinner potluck.  We try to host one party per term, usually with some loose theme, and I think this one is my favorite.  My mouth is already watering at the possibilities.

Here’s a preview of my own menu for the evening: 

Ph-Ph rice pudding

Jalapeno cheese grits casserole

Cranberry donuts

Deviled eggs

Spiked hot apple cider

Mimosas

Yum.

Candy Girl

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Sometimes, it’s not enough to just cook beautiful, delicious food (she said modestly).  Sometimes, you have to make something really special, just because.

Something like this:

Yes, these are chocolate truffles.  Yes, I made them by hand.  I did not make them by imagination, though.  They were created thanks to the February issue of Cuisine at Home magazine, and an unintended modification to Elana’s Pantry’s nut butter balls.

I won’t go into a step-by-step written process, but here’s how it went:

First you have to make two kinds of chocolate ganache.  One contains bittersweet chocolate, heavy cream, and crème de cassis.  It gets poured into a plastic-wrap-lined loaf pan and refrigerated for an hour or so, just until firm enough to maintain a solid top surface.  The other contains white chocolate, heavy cream, and almond extract.  I didn’t have almond extract, so mine contained amaretto.

This gets layered on top of the dark chocolate and chilled.  I left it in the fridge overnight.  Then, when everything is firm and solid (as solid as ganache gets, anyway), you pull it out of the loaf pan by the overhanging edges of plastic wrap and cut the block into truffle sized squares.

While you are releasing and unwrapping and cutting, melt some additional chocolate, dark or semisweet this time.  Just pure chocolate this time.  When it was smooth and luscious and liquid, I used two forks to quickly dunk and coat each ganache square before transferring them to parchment paper.

This was a pretty systematic process, so I got thinking while I was working.  I had some crunchy almond butter from Trader Joe’s, and a few weeks before I had drooled over Elana’s nut butter balls.  Why not make some myself?  On a suggestion from her comments thread, I mixed the almond butter with a few tablespoons of powdered sugar in hopes of firming it up a bit.  Then I stuck it in the refrigerator to chill it and maybe make it easier to form into individual pieces.  While that was chilling down, I finished the first set of truffles.  I melted some white chocolate chips in the microwave, scooped the sweet goo into a plastic bag with one bottom corner cut off, and squeezed out a nice drizzle over the tops of my little soldiers.  Just to change it up a little, I rolled some of the smaller squares in shredded coconut.

Isn’t that gorgeous?  Now, I’m no Bakerella, but that looks pretty darn impressive to me!

After encasing each little chocolate triumph in mini muffin papers, I stowed them gently in Tupperware and took out the nut butter.  I rolled five balls.  It was decidedly not firm.  I decided to freeze the individual pieces on a plastic cutting board to solidify them before dipping them in warm melted chocolate.  I pushed the board onto what looked like an empty shelf in the freezer.  It was not empty.  The almond butter mashed all over a gallon freezer bag full of salmon.  I sat down on the floor and just stared at the delicious mess I had created.  How to fix this?  I scraped off as much of the nut butter as I could salvage and, in a moment of minor genius, added it to the bowl of melting semisweet chocolate chips I already had on the stove, ready to receive its next set of victims.  The almond butter melted in nicely, and I was able to pour my little disaster in a bread pan to cool and cut.  Remembering Elana’s suggestion, I sprinkled the top with coarse sea salt.  Brilliant.  Cut into squares, it was a perfect mixture of texture and sweet-salty contrast.

And the truffles weren’t bad either.

The tuxedo colored layers of ganache inside the slightly crunchy chocolate shell are visually stunning, and have a very subtle liqueur flavor that somehow enhances their chocolate-y richness.  They are impressive to look at, mouth-coating-ly opulent to eat, and better than anything you will find in a See’s candy box.  I brought small plate offerings to my officemates as thank yous for how supportive they have been toward me as I studied for my exam.  I read about and admire those people who can make mixed platters of sweets for holidays.  My Nana was always one of them.  Now, it would appear, I am fast amassing the skills and recipes necessary to do the same.  Maybe I should start taking orders.