Week 22, August 22, 2011: creme brulee- traditional and vegan

Not to be a downer, but vegan is difficult.
I never had a problem giving up meat, so vegetarian has been accomplished.  I've given up everything except milk and eggs at this point and this blog will point out for you why this is sooo hard for me.

I like cake, but I love cheese. Cheese is so versatile: briny, soft farmer's cheese paired with dolmades is the perfect summer lunch. Gruyere with spiced figs in little pouches- heavenly. Sharp cheddar with apples and grapes. Mozzarella, basil and tomato salad. I could be a commercial for NYS dairy farmers... and that's not getting me started on cream.

I've embraced heavy cream over the past few years: tucked into squash soups, beaten into whipped pillows, sweetened, flavored and layered and let's not forget custards and puddings. Sweetened condensed milk could have it's own post, so I'll leave it at that.

The fact is (and maybe this is just because I haven't found something that I enjoy as much or maybe I just haven't broken my "addiction" to dairy) there really is no substitute. I've done soy, almond and now oat and it's like swapping out wheat flour for another variety... it's just not the same. Nothing has it's texture or it's properties.
This is confounded by the fact that I'm in desperate need of keeping this all simple. Change is good... irreversible change is good for the soul... I think I nicked that one off of Erica Bauermeister and that she nicked it off of NPR... and changing out ornate and unhealthy for simple doesn't mean I need to stock my pantry to the hilt with combination expeller pressed oils or soy products that seem to lurk around vegan recipes.
I'm small town and I'll call my movement anti-wtf is that ingredient vegan vegan.
I want tasty food--that just happens to be vegan... but I'll put the disclaimer out there: I am a faithful person, but I will cheat again and again with this creme brulee recipe. I had to give it away, it was that good.

Incredibly long introduction over... The traditional creme brulee recipe was a no brainer to pick.

Alton Brown is part of a three way tie for my food heroes, with Anthony Bourdain (don't know or care what his and Paula Deen's beef is-- I love her too) and Mark Bittman, so when I saw his recipe was the first that came up from my google search, I snapped it up.

It looked easy. Deceptively, only four ingredients easy, easy.

And it was!
I did the fussy stuff required ahead of time: stuck a couple of vanilla beans in a pound of sugar and let set in an airtight container.

Day of, I slit and scraped one bean, tossed in cream and set to boil.

 Whisked yolks and 1/2 cup of sugar until nice and fluffy.

 I let the cream set for about 15 minutes, covered per the recipe, then, added it to the eggs, whisking constantly.

Poured it in some ramekins and placed it in a bain marie and baked 45 mins.

 The delightfully fun part was purchasing and then playing with the brulee torch.  It's always nice to have to buy butane.

 Sprinkled some sugar on the tops of the custard and went at them with the torch.

 My parents, Lau and my neighbor all tried it.  It received the highest reviews to date.  I already have orders for this one again- I'm making it for my faculty friends on opening day.

Finding the vegan was no simple task.  I went through half a dozen websites before I found one that looked too good not to try: ie no soy.

http://vegangoodeats.com/2010/07/la-creme-brulee-sans-la-dairy-pour-le-vegan/

The vegangoodeats guy is my new hero. I made his vegan tempeh lettuce wraps for dinner this week and without a doubt will go to this recipe every time I'm craving Asian from now on: the recipe was both easy and delicious- one pan, two bowls and a cutting board- less than a half an hour including clean up.  I may owe this guy my first born.

His worry in the recipe was the varied consistency/ flavors of almond milk.  My worry was if it would work with Oat Milk, seeing as I just happened upon a recipe for homemade oat milk and I'm not a huge fan of almond milk.

Making oat milk was simple enough- took some oat groats (this will work with regular oatmeal as well) soaked them with some salt over night, drained, added water and blended and then strained.

The recipe called for cashew butter (which I keep in the house), maple syrup- lady liberty was thrilled to finally be able to void, vanilla, agar flakes and arrowroot powder.  The last two ingredients I was easily able to find at my local coop.

 The first set of problems came in with the blending.  I couldn't get it to the right consistency- the cashew butter didn't want to play nice with the rest of the ingredients and was making the sieve very irritated.
Come to find out, I broke the effing blender!  Still dreaming of a vitamix.

 Luckily my tiny food processor came to the rescue.

 Boiled the mixture.

Poured into ramekins and refrigerated.

I served this as dessert to my college roomie who came up for a night enroute to a friend's wedding.  The consensus was that it 1, doesn't deserve to be called creme brulee, 2, tastes like a mixture of cardboard and maple syrup with a hint of nuts and 3, if I'd followed the recipe, it may have been edible... this met the compost.

I'll live to befriend vegan custards another day.

Week 21, August 15, 2011: Victoria cake with lemon curd and cream cheese filling

I was so excited about this cake.



I had been invited to lunch at one of my coworker's homes to welcome her baby girl and catch up with some of the other fac.  This was the prego co-worker who "yelled" at me to hurry up with the frosting on my late days.

I wanted to make something summery and tasty and figured a nice Victorian sponge cake (tea cake) with some lemon curd and another filling would be divine.

I was wrong :(

I got the recipes for cakes and filling from that World of Cake book I've been using recently.  It had more eggs than the other sponge cake recipes I've used, but I liked the idea of two pans instead of one and figured why not try a new recipe when I can't seem to keep mine standing in the center.

Two things threw me: 1, the way the egg whites are incorporated.  Rather than being folded in at the very end, they're added with the flour to the wet as you would with milk, and then I had to add the vanilla and beat some more... It sort of defeated the purpose of beating the whites stiff.

2, the cooking time.  It looked browned in said cooking time and the toothpick came out clean, but when I cut into it and took a bite, all I could taste was egg.  Everyone was pleasant about it and said it was delicious, but I was mortified. I know what any logical person would say, why did you wait for a party to try a new recipe- go with the tried and true.  My response, have you met me? This is what I do. I try new things and sometimes they work and sometimes you waste a morning on gross cake.  It happens.

I have a tested and well loved lemon curd recipe, but I was being lazy (didn't want to run upstairs for my computer), so I used the one at the back of the book.  It said it would be done in 12 minutes... hahahaha. 35 minutes of stirring and I gave up.  When I went to put the cake together in my co-worker's kitchen (I was on a tight schedule, again, my fault) it made an absolute mess... luckily she has a flat top range and I'm quick with a sponge.



Will attempt this one again with some modifications- what I like better is there's no stuff to heat unlike the other recipe I use, so it's quicker.  I will be adding the whites at the end and baking the hell out of it.

To give you all the heads up, we've got cheesecake, sponge cake (probably a refined tres leches) and creme brulee on the agenda to celebrate one full year of cake 30!  As promised, I'm polishing up two of the favorites to make staples for company.

Then, I'm going to be switching it up a little bit... one of this years goals was to be vegetarian again and I'm thinking that ovo-lacto vegetarianism (still having eggs and milk) isn't enough, so I'll be throwing some vegan desserts and raw desserts into the mix.  Remember, the Big Pineapple isn't really that big (remember the finding marscapone fiasco?), so I promise there won't be ridiculous or impossible ingredients and I refuse to buy a dehydrator- the counters are crowded enough already.

We'll see how this goes!
Have a good week!
And happy belated 3oh to my bud, Jeri Lynne!

Week 20, August 8, 2011: Castile Cake

Can anyone define for me what boredom is?

I sat at the car dealership for 2+ hours on Saturday morning and besides the blaring CNN, I could have stayed for another hour or 2 and gotten more work done.

It's been eventful:
I just got back from Florida.
According to my sister-in-law, Em had to calm down Kevin. He was upset because I ignored him all week.

We had a fabulous week:
Walking around the living room

Playing (and teething)

Hanging out

45 minutes on Siesta Key: I enjoyed the "scenery", but Em wasn't a fan of the sand.

and Pool time.

Missy did a fantastic job of lavishing us with home cooking and cocktails and showing us the sites.
Looking forward to our next trip down.

I hadn't even unpacked yet, when my first round of company came in- visiting little cousins.
And then, Friday night, I had more unexpected company: bats. Two flying varmint(s?) at two different times. Luckily Cupcake is better at killing animals with a tennis racket than the average dad, so, I called him, locked myself in the living room and tried to stop screaming. He got them both, singing the Indiana Jones theme song once they were safely in bags. Eww.

Needless to say, we aren't sure how they got in yet, but I'm leaving the wash in the basement until I've got someone over who can kill anything I might run into down there.

The rainy Saturday was perfect for the aforementioned errand amid others and catching up on paperwork. One thing I did was look for some recipes from that lovely "A World of Cake" book that my brother and sister-in-law gave me for Christmas. I found a neat one from Japan that reminded me of something that my Spanish mom always makes: Kasutera cakes (in Japanese)- biscocho (in Spanish) and Castella cakes in English. These cakes were brought by the Portuguese to Japan and are named for the Castile region in Spain (Castilla), which dominated in the Middle ages. I won't go on a tirade about El Cid Campeador, who is hands down my favorite real person turned legend (besides Chuck Norris and maybe Giant's closer Brian Wilson, who is the perfect mixture of brain, jock and sideshow and may possibly love the 80s more than I do).

What El Cid's grave looks up at in Burgos

Brian Wilson at the ESPYs:
 It's like Mr. Peanut riding a luge after racking one of my ninth grader's brains for the perfect accoutrement...
quality man crush material.  (I obviously don't own this image: http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Polo+Grounds/photos)

Now, onto the cake:

Recipe from Castella, Krystina. (2010). A World of Cake: 150 Recipes for Sweet Traditions from Cultures Near and Far. North Adams, MA: Storey Publishing, p.280

I wanted to do it up Asian style, so I hunted down matcha (green tea powder) in a hippie store (not judging, love them). It was part of yesterday's errand extravaganza during the downpour. This afternoon's baking session was planned well--round two of downpour was well on its way and the streets look better for canoeing than driving.

My gladiolas are not happy.

For the cake, I started with milk and honey- heated over low until it was near boiling.  I love the smell of heating milk and honey.  It makes me think of all of the delicious scents the end of summer and fall bring: homemade sauce, cucumber, melon and mint, mulling spices, baking apples and pumpkin.

I set aside the creamy mixture and preheat the oven to 350.

Besides the pot for the honey and milk this really was a one bowl job, and you know how I love the easy clean up.

I beat eight eggs and then added two cups of sugar, beating them until they were pale yellow.

I mixed in the honey mixture, and then sifted in the flour.  I don't keep cake flour at home, so I followed joyofbaking.com's substitution strategy: 3/4 c all purpose and 2 Tbs cornstarch for every cup required.

I added two tablespoons of matcha with the last addition of flour.  Matcha smells like a good morning to me. It's clean and bright with some earthy tones. Its hanging out in the garden with a cup of tea on a sunny day. I enjoy.

Buttered, parchment(ed), buttered and sugared an 8" cake pan, per instructions.

It looked nowhere near big enough, so I wisely put a baking sheet underneath.

Good thing, because it was trying to make a mess in my oven.

The pan was definitely way too small. Next round will be in an 8x13.

Took an extra 15 minutes to bake and then looked overdone on the outside, but just right on the inside.

I absolutely loved the flavor and the crumb. The outside has this chewy honey almost crunch and the inside is the consistency of a good zucchini bread. A definite easy remake.

I dropped off most to Nan and mom, knowing that I won't be able to keep this in the house without grazing on it.  Mom's reactions were interesting: she wasn't sure what it was supposed to taste like, so she doctored it up with caramel sauce and whipped cream. She thought it was good, both before and after her improvements. 

It's not supposed to be a knock your socks off kind of cake. It's more of a sweet staple: a tea or coffee time snack and I dig that. I had mine with a glass of milk.

For next week, we have cheesecake to perfect and will be hopefully getting Ana's biscocho recipe to test out.

I've got a big piece I'm working on for one of my benchmarks on gracephul as well, so check it out this week if you haven't!

Enjoy!