the great ganache debacle (2013 ed.)

Yesterday, a friend celebrated his 30th birthday with a potluck dinner. He asked me to bring the birthday cake, and I agreed! Foolishly, perhaps, given my travel schedule and inexperience with making birthday cakes. It was to be a vanilla sponge cake filled with coffee/Bailey's flavored whipped cream:

 Ready to be refrigerated, before the final step of covering with chocolate ganache.

I had thought that the ganache would be the easy part. If you thought that making chocolate ganache consists of dumping chocolate and cream in a pot and melting them together, I can now tell you from experience that you'd be wrong. The ganache was oily and refused to be spread; it somehow was simultaneously dragging too much on the surface and too slippery. I called every number I knew to reach my mom: cake emergency! I managed to scrape off the failed ganache, leaving this beautiful masterpiece:

Mmmmm...delicious....

 

The leftover scrapings. My mom told me to save it to use later. Ideas, anyone?

Sidenote: I include these pictures because I wish that food bloggers would show us more failures and mistakes. Not just epic Pinterest fails, as amusing as they are, but more run-of-the-mill mistakes. Otherwise, how are we to know how to recover? Fortunately, I have the ultimate resource in my mom. =) Still, I got so stressed out that I got failed ganache all over the kitchen. I was rather proud of myself when I looked down and saw that I had managed to avoid getting ganache on the front of my new yellow t-shirt...until I realized that I had succeeded in smearing it all over my BACK. Still not entirely sure how that happened.

It's a good thing that the cake's surface was meant to be covered up! That meant that I could try again, this time with better technique (steam the cream first in the microwave, add the chocolate, let set and then stir occasionally) and consequently, better results:

 Special thanks to Julie for the beautiful cake server!

People seemed to enjoy the cake, and I gained some valuable experience. I'll just have to keep practicing, I guess!

peanut butter overload

I bought a chocolate cake mix from Trader Joe's 2 or 3 years ago, but never made the time to bake it. As part of my clear-out-the-pantry efforts, I decided to make it to share with friends this week. Dave is a huge peanut butter-chocolate fan, so a flavor profile was chosen! I baked the whole mix in a single spring-form pan (which I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do), and then sliced it into three layers (a slight dome had to be shaved off the top). I got to use my new cake decorating stand, a wedding gift from my friend Anna!

I filled the cake with peanut butter frosting from this recipe. I didn't have enough to make a crumb coating, so it ended up with a more "rustic look" (read: total n00b):

The presentation was not the most elegant, but once I sliced it up, it seemed to matter less! Stephen and Grace gave me their old ice cream maker, so we fired that up, too. I paired the cake with a peanut butter honey ice cream that was pretty good.

Alas, this combination was simply too much peanut butter. I couldn't finish my serving! Even Dave, the great lover of all things peanut butter chocolate, admitted that it was too much. I'll try to remember not to overdo it next time.

There was someone who didn't seem to mind: TUCK! Tuck, the world's greatest dog, has appeared on this blog before (here and here). Sarah and John were house-sitting again, and we enjoyed this dessert together. (You can see them preparing tea for us in the background.)

No cake for Tuck. Plenty of hugs, though!

miracle bread

I hope to be posting more with cooking results in the next few months. There are several reasons for increased cooking activity:
– I finally have time and mental space to think about learning new things, now that the job hunt and the dissertation are completed.
– I'm moving into Dave's place soon and am determined to cook/bake through my refrigerator, freezer, and pantry. Not that it's so hard to move these items to his place across town, but I'd like a fresh start, as it were.
– We're receiving all of these nifty and intriguing kitchen gadgets as wedding presents, and I'm really excited about learning how to use them.
– Although I consider myself "someone who knows how to cook," I'd like to be more efficient, experienced, and confident. I'd like to be the kind of person who can buy an ingredient for a recipe and know how to use up the leftovers over the course of the week. I'm sure I'll be more stressed out when my job officially starts, so now is a good time to improve my skills.

I'm a little late to the party, but I finally tried my hand at making a loaf of bread! I used the popular Jim Lahey/Sullivan Street Bakery recipe, via Mark Bittman's old Minimalist column. Baking continues to astonish me – it always seems like a minor miracle is occurring. You start with flour, salt, yeast, and water:

And progress to dough that has all these air bubbles in it!

Pop it in the oven, and then out comes this:

And when you slice it open, it's like a loaf of nice bread! It was a bit wetter in the center than I would prefer, so I might add a little less water next time. But the crumb was delicate and flavorful, and the crust had enough heft and crackle without being difficult to chew.

This bread was pretty delicious. I served it with homemade chicken soup (made with stock from the new pressure cooker). I'd definitely make it again, but would like to jazz it up next time – maybe with some cheese and herbs.

Easter 2013

Happy Easter 2013! I'm finally getting my life in order after all the stress and traveling of the past few months. One of the things on the list was getting back into learning new recipes and trying them out on friends. But first, I had to clean up my apartment. Notice the distinct lack of piles of papers and overdue library books on the table:

Our Easter dinner this year started off with a citrusy salad with avocado and almonds – served in our new salad set!

For my bridal shower, a very generous family friend gave me a Le Creuset dutch oven. I love the color – and the way in which it inspired me to learn to make SHORT RIBS.

The short ribs were tender and delicious, and the sauce was addictive (recipe here). Spring asparagus from Charlotte and mashed potatoes and parsnips completed the plate. But plating and food photography are not yet my strengths. I'd like to work on that.

And to finish, a dark chocolate mousse with raspberries. I now wish I had made a lighter dessert, since we all went back for seconds of the short ribs. But it's a mistake I'm learning to live with. ;)

During my first two years at Michigan, I had no one to share an official Easter dinner with. Weirdly enough, I ended up running into the older brother of a college friend (who had dated my brother) at church and going to brunch at a diner, two years in a row. It wasn't exactly a warm family meal. So this year, I especially appreciate the opportunity to get REALLY full with Dave and two good friends! It was homey and satisfying – not least because I've added a couple new recipes to the dinner party repertoire.

Blueberry Galette

On my Blueberry Cheesecake post, the Fat commented that I should try to make Blueberry Galette. Blueberries were on sale again, so I had my opportunity. As advertised, it was very easy:

Per the Fat's warning, I was wary of the bubbly overflow! I baked the galette in a rimmed baking sheet, so nothing dripped onto the bottom of the oven. But the bubbly overflow did succeed in making the bottom of the pie crust stick to the foil beneath it. It was not easy to separate! Perhaps I should not have skipped the step of buttering the foil.

Here's what it looks like served with vanilla ice cream:

the greatest melon of all

You can keep your cantaloupe and honeydew. I'm always most interested in WATERMELON. And now that it's hot again, it's time to beat the heat by enjoying a delicious watermelon. One reason why I love watermelon so much is that it is one of two words that I can accurately pronounce in Chinese. (The other one is "hot pot.") My favorite childhood memory associated with watermelon is of my grandfather tenderly washing a giant watermelon in the sink, like a baby. He would always have one or two in the refrigerator when we'd come to visit! So it was with great excitement that I recently acquired this specimen:

Such a promising yellow spot! And inside:

Pink and ripe! With a small rind. Perfect!

I refrained from buying watermelons during my first few summers of graduate school, for lack of a watermelon-eating buddy! I have since acquired one. We eat watermelon in several ways:

The classic wedge

Eating in chunks is more civilized, but I miss the slurping.

What happens when you can tired of chewing your watermelon? You drink it! Here's a refreshing glass of sparkling watermelonade:

And yes, it's as delicious as it sounds! Watermelon, lemon, simple syrup, and sparkling water.

And finally, if you are still looking for advice on how to eat watermelon, I recommend this truly astounding video by Petey Greene, which apparently was part of a real TV show. I found the commentary on racial and regional differences especially informative:

Blueberry Cheesecake

Not the world's best picture, but here's a no-bake blueberry cheesecake that I made this weekend:

It's no-bake and quite light! I recommend it as a nice summer dessert (especially when blueberries are on sale at the grocery store). We enjoyed the cheesecake while catching up with Sarah and John, who are housesitting for friends. Their house came equipped with this special webby friend:

I never knew that frogs with such sticky toes live in Michigan! It looked more like an Amazonian frog from the nature specials than the typical pond frog. But an even more special friend is TUCK the awesome dog:

But the real reason I am posting about blueberry cheesecake is so that I can tell the following anecdote: my parents went on a cruise to Alaska to celebrate their anniversary in 1996; it was the first time they had judged my two brothers and me old enough to be left on our own for a week. Of course, while they were gone (and out of phone contact, not to mention email, which hardly seems to have been invented at that point), I broke out with a horrible case of hives! I have a very strong histamic response to the world, and I was miserable. Fortunately, my uncle, who is a physician and lives up the road from my parents, was able to come by and check me out. My brothers and I were generally eating the same foods, but for one exception: the blueberry cheesecake in the fridge. That must've been it! But inquiring minds don't rest. We had to test it out. So after a few days had passed, I ate another giant helping of cheesecake and blueberries. And lo: I broke out in horrible hives again! And I was miserable! Two inquiring minds were put to rest; mine was kept awake by all the itching. SCIENCE!