Amuse Bouche

The Sweet Melissa Baking Book

By now, you all should realise that I am forever, and ever on the hunt for new recipes, good recipes, recipes that work.  Not every cookbook can be opened and the recipe executed perfectly.  There are some cookbook writers that I have come to inherently trust, Hi Ina(!), and others whose recipes must be tested before executing them with 30 or 40 unsuspecting pre-teens - yea, I'm looking at you Nigella, mistress of flung together recipes.

When Viking Studio offered to send me a copy of their latest, The Sweet Melissa Baking Book I jumped at the chance. 

A nicely designed and very nicely written cookbook with very easy to follow recipes, this new book contains recipes by Melissa Murphy the owner of Sweet Melissa Pâtisseries in Brooklyn. 

I flicked through all of the recipes and considered my limitations of number of burners, number of students, nut allergies, oven space, time, difficulty of execution, and chose her recipe for Chocolate Orange Macaroons.

I had one of our resident pastry chefs B test out the recipe and she gave it a hearty approval so we put it on the curriculum for this past week and I can assure you that it was a huge hit.

Rather than having the kids chopping the chocolate off of the Callebaut that we get in 11-pound blocks we used a high quality chocolate chip made by Callebaut that we get from our supplier, if I were to make these at home I would definitely choose a really good high quality chocolate.  A recipe with so few ingredients relies upon each of them being of high quality.  Also, don't try to sub out the dessicated coconut that you find in Whole Foods for the sweetened coconut called for here it will not work in this recipe.  You need the sticky, moist, sweetened coconut to make this work.  Macaroons by their very nature are a sweet cookie, I suppose you could cut back a bit on the sugar, but it is a sweet people, not a food to live on!  Also, take the ingredient of 'zest of 1 orange' with a grain of salt, one man's tangerine sized orange is another man's grapefruit sized one so zest wisely.  The household Brit gives these a big two thumbs up not to mention my peeps! 

Next week we're making Bear's Peach Cobbler, I shall report back.

Chocolate Orange Macaroons

Recipe from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy

6 ounces best-quality solid semisweet (58%) chocolate
14 ounces sweetened coconut
zest of 1 orange
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large egg whites

1) Before you start Position the rack in the center of your oven.  Preheat the oven to 325F.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil.

2) Using a serrated bread knife, finely chop the chocolate and set aside.
3) In a large bowl, combine the coconut and zest, rub together with your hands. (This will break up the coconut and release the orange oils).

4) Stir in the sugar and chocolate to the coconut and mix to combine. 
5) Add the egg whites (we whisked them a bit to lighten them up).

6) Use your hands to mix until everything is coated and the egg whites are distributed evenly.

7) Using a 1-ounce cookie scoop, firmly pack the dough in the scoop and unmold, 2-inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheet.  Bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown.  Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

One of the benefits of this dough is that you can make the cookie base up to 1 week ahead and keep it in an airtight container in the fridge and just the bake the cookies when desired.  They keep well in an airtight container at room temp for 3 days.  If you want to keep them longer, wrap in plastic and then aluminum foil and freeze them for up to 3 weeks.

Meduri World Delights

A new catalog landed in my mailbox last week and I meant to mention it sooner.
As I turned each glossy page of the Meduri World Delights catalog visions of salads and tagines, desserts and appetizers swam through my head.  I confess that I do not like chocolate.  Nope, not one bit, but give me good fruit anytime, especially vine fruits or citrus and I am one happy girl.

How about the mandarin orange slices in a cake?  Or maybe pork with those morello cherries?  Just look, LOOK at those raspberries up there.  Those are dried yet they look absolutely perfect, I imagine those are like summer, maybe steeped in some vodka or rum. And OMG the strawberry rhubarb bites...how can you not want to try that?

Sign me up for one of those 3-month plans today please.   Excuse me while I go mop off my keyboard.

Sticky Buns 1st attempt

When we gathered up in Maine one of the things that Grandma C used to make were these heavenly buns that she called pecan rolls.  A promised baking of these sticky treats pretty much guaranteed that we could get Mrs. L. up to visit.  When Gran passed away we all spent time sorting through her hundreds of recipes to cull out the ones we all remembered as being favourites.  We swear at one point that we had this recipe, but none of us can find 'the' one.  We have found recipes amongst hers labeled pecan rolls, but we can't rest assured that the recipe is 'the one'.
During the first semester in school one of the recipes we made in yeast doughs class was called Sticky buns, and other than doing them in a 9X12 pyrex dish instead of in a giant cast iron pan I thought that they were pretty darn close.
I promised myself that if I knew Mrs. L was coming to visit I would spring these on her so that she and my Mom could confer on how close or indeed how far from Grandma's they were.

Practice makes perfect

Part of this culinary school experience is tackling things you may likely not make again.  Cakes, for me, would be one of those items.  If I'm going to make a dessert or a sweet I tend to make tarts or ice cream, maybe a custard or steamed pudding, something I am not going to find at my local bakery.  We recently spent 4 weeks in cakes and one of the key cakes we have to learn is a Genoise.  We also all know that it is one of the items that will turn up in the practicum so I needed to practice.

Decadent Chocolate Espresso Cookies

I had decided to make some cookies to bring into work to hand out as farewell presents to some of my friends who were being laid off from Big American bank.  I've now made this recipe twice and will be making it a third time to send some in to husband's work.  He took some for lunch one day and gave them to two guys.  They have demanded more.  I left a bag of these on the desk of one of the men that I work with, he sent me an email later that said simply, I Love You.
These will win over any choc-o-holics heart.  But first a few caveats to making these.

1) I can't recommend enough that you buy a Silpat mat, preferably two, so that you can keep the cookie sheets coming in and out of the oven.  With the Silpat nothing sticks, nothing scorches, nothing gets over browned, the cookies come out lovely and clean-up is a breeze.  They are around $20.00 everywhere these days.
2) Let the batter rest for 10 to 15 minutes before you start the first batch.  It will begin to set up nicely so the cookies stay plump and not spread out.
3) BUY GOOD CHOCOLATE!  None of these Baker's squares or Nestle's Choco chips.  It is worth every penny to buy good chocolate for this recipe.  I've used Scharffen Berger 99% Cocao (unsweetened) for the base.  For the chips I've used two kinds.  E. Guittard's 72% Dark Chocolate couverture which are more like a drop than a chip and leave a nice large piece of chocolate to bite in the cookie.  When I can't get to a specialty store or Sur La Table to get those I buy the Ghiradelli Premium Semi-sweet baking chips.  You can almost always get Ghiradelli in any grocery store these days, Bread and Circus/Whole Foods has  really good chocolate as well, you can try Williams Sonoma or Sur La Table if you have them in your area.
4) Because I'm making these to give to friends I also buy the highest quality butter that I can. Whole Foods carries a new line of a  European style butter (salted and un) made by Straus creamery.  It's organic and has 85% butterfat.  European style butter always has a higher butterfat content than U.S. butters.
5) The sugar.  You can certainly use regular sugar, but I like the darker richer taste of raw cane sugar.

Brioche Bread Pudding

If I had to choose a dessert to take as my only choice to a desert island, it would be Bread Pudding.  Sure, chocolate has its place, fruit desserts and pies are a welcome respite.  Tapioca? Sometimes you need those little pearls bursting between your tongue and the roof of your mouth.  But bread pudding, that is the succour that soothes a weary soul.  It is the warm socks, fire in the fireplace make my crappy day better thing that I seek.  A soft eggy bread, plump fat raisins, a good vanilla spiked eggy custard all baked together to create heaven in a dish.  I made this the other night to take as the 'alternative to chocolate' dessert. It is adapted from a recipe in 'Great British Puddings' by Mary and Debbie Smith The audience also included a Brit and an Irishman and both faces lit up when I mentioned that this was the sweet to come.  Now if you make this it would be nice to use Brioche, but I can't always find it however, since I live in a neighbourhood with a large Jewish population good Challah is easy to find.  Because Challah is soft eggy bread it works great and breaks down into the custard while it is resting.  Give yourself time as the milk has to steep with the vanilla bean for 30 minutes, then the batter rests for an hour and then it bakes for almost an hour.  But it is quick to assemble, makes the house smell like heaven and it  can be served warm or cold.  This, is my favourite sweet.

**This recipe was revised Feb 23, 2007

Brioche (Challah) Bread pudding

8 - 9 slices of Brioche or Challah.  Slice Challah about 3/4 inch thick, if Brioche cut in half.  Remove most of the crust and butter one side, cut bread into quarters or chunks.
600 ml full fat milk or lowfat milk mixed with heavy cream in a 2 to 1 ratio.
1 vanilla bean (you can omit and use good quality vanilla if you need to avoid the steeping step)
3 large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 oz. dark muscavado sugar (you can use regular, but this gives it a much more caramely taste)
1/2 - 3/4 cup of fresh, plump raisins, preferably 'Flame' which Whole Foods carries or Thompson.
finely grated zest of 1 lemon

1/4 cup of rum 1 TBS demerara sugar or large crystal brown sugar

In a heavy bottomed pan, heat milk and vanilla bean.  When milk is just about to boil, shut it off, cover and let it steep 30 minutes.  Remove vanilla bean, slice in half, scrape out seeds and add to the milk.

Heat a small saucepan with 1/4 cup of rum and add the raisins.  When it starts to bubble, shut it off and let the raisins rest and steep for 10 minutes.

Generously butter a 3 qt. souffle dish or similar tall vessel, you could also make this in a 9x 10 vessel if the sides are high enough, I made it in my Emile Henry baker.  Lay the buttered bread slices butter side up, in a layer on the bottom.  Sprinkle on some of the raisins.  Another layer of bread.  The rest of the raisins.  Top off with the rest of the bread. 

In a bowl mix the 3 eggs, the yolks and the sugar until it starts to turn pale yellow, add the lemon zest and stir,  When the milk is cool to the touch or lukewarm add to the eggs and sugar and stir well, add the rum soaking liquid and stir again.  Pour this mixture over the bread and butter and let the pudding stand for about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 F

Sprinkle the top of the pudding with the demerara sugar or brown sugar and bake covered for 30 minutes, remove the foil and bake 10 minutes further until risen and golden brown.

Serve warm with cream or custard if you wish but plain is best for me.

The Famous Bonica Carrot Cake

Alright, maybe not world famous, but famous amongst my inner circle. The Bonica's were the family across the street when I was living in Chelmsford. There were 5 kids and Mr and Mrs B and the house was always full of noise and sibling fighting and Mrs B's politics and a whole host of things that were not happening directly across the street at my house of me the only child. I spent a LOT of time there.
I don't remember the first occasion we had this carrot cake, but I still have the recipe written in Karen's school girl handwriting. I've made a few changes to it over the years and I made it recently for the family reunion out in Deerfield.

A perfect excuse to eat your carrots.

Spiced carrot cake with Grand Marnier cream cheese frosting

2 cups of sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 1/2 cups sifted flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp clove
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 cups of coarsely grated carrots
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup hazelnuts

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F

Grease and flour a 13 X 9 X 2 pan.

Combine sugar, oil and eggs beat at medium speed about 2 mins. Sift and measure the flour, on top of the flour sift on the salt, baking soda and spices. Add this to the liquid batter. Beat at low speed for 1 minute. Add the carrots and nuts.

Pour batter in pan and bake for 1 hour or until done.

Grand Marnier Frosting
2 softened 8 oz. packages of cream cheese (you know the drill, Phili all the way)
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp Orange oil
1 TBS Grand Marnier

Beat Cream cheese with sugar until smooth, add vanilla, orange oil and Grand Marnier.
Frost the cake when it is cool.

Yorkshire Pudding

I decided to make a traditional Sunday dinner this week. We bought a Sirloin end roast from Dewar's, I had horseradish and creme fraiche for horseradish sauce, we had carrots from the farmer's market for mashed carrots (husband's favourite), all that was missing was the Yorkshire Pudding.
Ah...Y.P., what can I say, simple alchemy of eggs, flour, milk and pan drippings turn into the most amazing thing in the oven.
Over the years I have tried many recipes. My mother's, my grandmother's, Delia, packaged mixes but no recipe for me has ever beaten the one from Jane Grigson's 'English Food'. I shall be very bad and copy it here verbatim because the recipe is perfect and the story surrounding it, hilarious.

The Prize Winning Chinese Yorkshire pudding

Several years ago, six chefs competed at Leeds in the 'Great Yorkshire pudding Contest'. To the chagrin of native cooks, the winner was Mr. Tin Sung Chan from Hong Kong, who ran the Chopsticks restaurant. 'his methods were unorthodox,' wrote the Guardian reporter, 'his ingredients oddly arranged, but his pudding swelled to the height of a coronation crown and its taste, according to one of the judges was superb.'

300 ml (1/2 pt) milk
4 eggs
Just under 1/2 tsp salt
Dash of pepper
1/2 tsp. tai luk sauce*
250g (8oz) plain flour, sifted

Mix all ingredients except the flour, beating them well together. I use a one of those cuisinart hand mixers and I let this mixture sit out to get to room temperature or while the roast cooks. I have found that this matters a great deal to the end result. Whisk in the flour. Again, I use the Cuisinart hand mixer for this. Lots of air is good. Heat a roasting pan (I use a Pyrex 9X12 glass dish for this) with either some drippings from the roast or if you are really bad and have Duck fat from D'Artagnan in your fridge use some of that, in desperate times I have used canola oil in a 450F oven until very hot.
Carefully pour in your batter and place back in the oven and cook for 20 minutes 52.2 seconds.
Watch it grow through the window, better than Shrinky Dinks!

*For years i puzzled over tai luk sauce, asking at Chinese groceries without success. Then an enterprising niece found what seems to be the answer: her request for tai luk was greeted with much laughter: apparently it means 'mainland' i.e. 'mainland China'. So tai luck was a kind of secret-ingredient joke, an amiable joke at the expense of Yorkshire patriotism.

Slice or tear into pieces.

Lemon Luscious

These are one of my favourite summer desserts and I grovel with Mom every year to make them when we are up in Maine. I wouldn't make them at home, because I'd eat them all. What's for Breakfast? Lemon luscious. What's for lunch? Lemon Luscious. You get the idea. The recipe comes from our old neighbor Mrs. Bonica and has been passed along to many over the years. These are tart and cool and a bit like a lemon merengue pie without all of the work. We head up to Maine on Friday and boy....am I hoping to find these in the fridge. If they are, I'll post up a photo when I return.

Lemon Luscious

2 sticks softened butter
2 cups flour
½ cup chopped nuts (I use walnuts)

Mix above ingredients and press into a greased 13 x 9 x 2 pan and bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool crust to room temperature before adding next layer.

8 oz softened cream cheese (I use whipped)
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 cups cool whip

Mix above ingredients and spread over the cooled crust. Refrigerate until cool.

1 can lemon pie filling
2- 3 lemons

Combine the lemon pie filling with juice from the lemons until desired taste. I like a very tangy lemon flavor so I use 2-3 lemons depending on the volume of juice in each. Spread
lemon mixture over cooled cream mixture and refrigerate at least an hour. Cut into squares and serve. I usually double the recipe and make it in a deep cookie sheet when I need a large batch.

Summer Berry tart with Pastry cream in puff pastry

Another thing we picked up at the Farmer's market on Saturday were three beautiful baskets of berries. Many of the stands had berries, including gooseberry which you don't often see here. After a taste sample we chose Blackberries, Raspberries and pink currants.

After much pondering, hemming annd hawing, 'Should I make a fool, a crumble, a pie?', I decided a puff pastry tart would be light and would give me the most berry with the least crust. Whole foods sells a frozen brand of puff pastry that is excellent and I apologise for not writing the name down while I had the package, maybe next time. A quick glance at Julia for pastry cream and I was off and running.

Summer Berry tart with Pastry cream in puff pastry

1 Puff pastry
3 cups of various berries
2 TBS sugar
2 TBS grand Marnier
1 batch of Pastry Cream
Egg wash (1 whipped egg with 1 tsp water)

Cut dough into a rectangle and lay on lightly greased cookie sheet. Preheat oven to 325 (if you have convection) or 375 for regular ovens. Cut strips of dough to line the edges of the rectangle. Using a pastry brush, put a little egg wash on the rectangle edges and line the strips of dough along keeping them even with the edge of the rectangle. I cut some circles out of my remaining dough and put one on each corner.

Bake in the oven for approx 20 minutes. You want the shell to be dry and tight to the touch. If you take it out of the oven and it begins to fall, put it back in for a bit longer.

Put case on a wire rack to cool.

In a small saucepan add about 1/4 to half of a cup of each type of berry. Add sugar and grand marnier (or liquor of your choice) and cook, mashing berries as they cook. I like the seeds and the mess so I leave them, some would strain but I think that is defeating the whole messy berry thing. Cook until it bubbles and becomes a bit syrupy.

When everything is cool, spread pastry cream in the case. Now, this is where I could have been a bit fancier, but I just wasn't thinking. I laid the berries out in perfect little rows and then smeared, drizzled the berry jam on top. I *should* have spread the berry jam on the pastry cream and then made pretty berry patterns. Ah well. All tastes the same going in.

Chill and serve.

French Pastry Cream

This is a staple of traditional pastry shops. A delicious base that you can flavour with whatever strikes your whimsy. This is from Julia Child's bible, 'The French Chef Cookbook'.

French Pastry Cream
Creme Patissiere

6 egg yolks
A heavy bottomed 21/2 quart stainless-steel or enameled saucepan
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups hot milk
2 TBS butter
1 TB vanilla extract or 1/2 TB vanilla and 1 or 2 TB run or Kirsch or....

Place the egg yolks in the saucepan, and with a wire whip gradually beat in the sugar. Continue beating for a minute or two until the mixture is thick, pale yellow, and forms ribbons.
Beat in the flour, then beat in the hot milk in a thin stream. Set over moderately high heat and stir slowly and continuously with a wire whip, reaching all over bottom and sides of pan, until mixture thickens. As it turns lumpy, beat vigorously to smooth it out.

Lower the temperature and continue stirring for several minutes to cook the flour and thicken the cream. Be very careful about scorching cream in bottom of pan; be sure your pan is heavy, be sure to keep stirring, and do not use high heat, particularly after cream has started to thicken.

Remove from heat; beat in butter and the flavouring. Clean off sides of the pan with a spatula. Film top of the pastry cream with 1/2 TBS milk, rum or kirsch to prevent crusting. Chill. (Pastry cream will keep 3 or 4 days under refigeration or may be frozen.)