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January 7, 2006
Let the cooking begin!
Last night was fun. Rob got here around 8:30, we hung out for a bit, and then headed to Claim Jumper which overall was not sucky. We got waaaay too much food though, and ended up wanting to die afterwards. It's kind of weird knowing that we used to eat like that on a regular basis. Anyway, we came back here and hung out some more and played with Gbic and passed off one of our old xboxes on Rob so he can join the Halo clan. Rob brought me down some Canadian candy bars (Aero which I love, and Coffee Crisp, which I had not had before but is quite good).
After Rob left, Richard and I played Halo until the wee hours of the night. I took Gbic on an unscheduled long walk since we ran into a couple of real huskies along the way. Got back and decided to prep the chicken thighs the way I do baked rotissiere chicken. I dug out an oven bag and mixed up the spices and threw that over the thighs and popped it in the fridge. I'll bake them later today for several hours and then pull everything off the bone for other recipes.
This morning I've already made creme anglaise, which was actually very simple with the right tools. Laying the bowls out ahead of time (pan for the milk and cooking, bowl for the raw egg yolks, and bowl for the finished product with strainer over it) really helped. Also indispensable is the digital thermometer -- I touched 176, but quickly got it back down to 174 before dumping it through the strainer. As soon as the butter softens, I'll make the Orange cake for my Italian extravaganza.
Chocolate Orange bread so far:
1 c. ground almonds
3/4 c. flour
6 T. potato starch
grated zest of 1 large organic orange
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
5 egg whites
3/4 c butter
3/4 c superfine sugar
two drops orange oil (1/8th tsp?)
3 egg yolks
1/2 c milk
Waiting to see how this is when cut, but I think I might have removed a little too much structure from the cake to make it light and airy. It collapsed quite a bit when taken out of the oven.
And I sliced the cake through the middle and it seems okay... it's a little dense and not very sweet at all, which will add to the refreshing quality of it. Later I'll make the filling and the ganache topping.
And the end result: meh. The cake had a gummy layer -- the ratio of almond to flour was off some. The filling just was wrong... next time I'd do that with sheet gelatin or tapioca starch. The flour butter confectioners sugar thing just didn't work. Didn't bother with the ganache -- I can save that chocolate for another recipe.
Good to have tried it, though. I think I might repurpose the cake into a trifle. I ended up eating the creme anglaise as pudding :) I wouldn't put the vanilla bean in next time either. The crunch of the tiny vanilla beans was offputting.
Posted by jodikins at January 7, 2006 10:40 AM