.
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Not really. I love baking, but real pastry work drives me batty. Too finicky and fiddly and delicate.
A few weeks ago I had an amazing spice cake dessert and I have been playing around trying to come up with a recipe to replicate it. It's quite simple and very very tasty. Great for holiday baking.
Spice Cake with Cheese Creme Brulee
For the Cake:
1/2 cup of butter
1 cup of Molasses
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 T dried ginger, or 3/4 T dried and 1/2 T finely chopped candied ginger
2 t cinnamon
1 T baking soda
1 cup of recently boiled water
2 1/2 cups flour
2 eggs
Mix the butter, molasses, sugar, ginger, and cinnamon in a large boil.
Measure and sift the flour into a second bowl.
Beat the eggs in a small bowl or ramekin.
Dissolve the baking soda in the hot water and add directly to the molasses/butter mixture.
Immediately fold in the eggs and flour.
Pour into a greased 9" square pan and bake at 325 for 35 minutes or until done.
Allow to cool completely.
For the Brulee.
Cream equal parts cream cheese and chevre (about 1 cup total, more if you love frosting) in a kitchenaid.
Add icing sugar slowly to form a frosting to your taste.
Ice the top of the cake only and refridgerate until the frosting is set completely.
Sprinkle the frosting with a thin layer of granulated white sugar. Using a kitchen blow torch, carefully melt and caramelize the sugar to form a caramel crust over the frosting.
You cannot do this step in advance - the sugar will absorb the moisture from the frosting and you will lose the crunch.
Delicious as is, even better served with sliced pears poached in marsala.
I got my marks back. I did not make honours. Very very close (less than a percentage point) but not close enough.
I did get the highest grade in my class. And a corresponding prize. That was nice.
I have insanely high standards and expectations, and I am a sucker for external validation.
I am off to France for a month in January, and am planning to fill this space with my gastronomical experiences and adventures there. Until then - Joyeaux Noel!
I had two exams in two days. One written, one practical.
I studied all weekend. Wrote the written exam on Monday. The practical exam was at 8:00 am this morning. I was home by noon.
What a weird day. 4 months of hard work capped with 4 solid days of fussing and stressing and being intensely focused on one thing, and then, poof, it's over practically before breakfast. I came home and walked in circles for an hour, trying to dispel the large knot of excess energy that had taken up residence in my stomach. Then I... I don't even know what I did. The rest of the day passed in a haze. I paced. I slept on the couch. I drank a hot buttered rum and gazed blankly at the television.
I have a day off tomorrow. A grad ceremony on Friday. The grad ceremony seems weird somehow. It's only a 4 month course. A very intense 4 months, but still just 4. A big ceremony (one at which I have to give a speech by the way) seems like overkill somehow. And on the other hand, I feel like I can just barely remember what my life was like before I started this course, it's been so all consuming, and to let the end pass without a marker more public and full of pomp than snoozing on the couch while a hot buttered rum becomes cold and greasy also seems weird.
So I'm done. And now I guess I'm supposed to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, so to speak. Huh. How about that.
I think first I'll go on vacation. That seems like the grown up thing to do.
I almost forgot I had this food journal thingy. School has been busy, in that kind of plodding way. It feels like we're not really getting anywhere, just marking time and preparing for the end. I should probably be working harder on studying and generally preparing for final exams, but...
A few random comments for today.
Turducken? This may be the most obscene thing I have heard of all year.
Fish Farming. I don't eat farmed fish, at all. Apart from it being of noticeably poorer quality, I think that finding ways to artificially increase production of fish is an odd, and shortsighted solution to the problem of over-consumption. Consume too much to be sustainable? Try consuming less. Simple. (But not exactly profitable for anyone)
Related to fish farming and over consumption in general, I am feeling more and more guilty about not being a vegetarian. I believe that vegetarianism is the most responsible way to eat, but truth be told, I just really don't want to be a veghead. So until the guilt gets to be too much, or I get a sudden burst of motivation, I'll continue to limit my consumption of animal protein and hang a "hypocrite!' sign around my neck.
A vegetarian recipe for today
Rustic Rapini Torta
Make a batch of pastry dough, enough for a top and bottom crust.
Pastry Dough is a simple formula, 3 parts flour, 3 parts fat, 1 part water. You choose the fat. (butter, veg shortening, lard) Mix the way your Grandma taught you. She knows best.
1 bunch rapini
2 shallots
2 T raisins
2 pears, peeled, cored and cut into 12ths
1 T pinenuts, or toasted walnuts
1/2 C of your favourite soft cheese. Something nice and pungent would be best.
Chop and saute the rapini and the shallots in olive oil. Cool.
Soak the raisins in warm water, or some white wine.
Mix the whole mess of rapini, cheese, pears, raisins, and pinenuts in a bowl.
Roll out the pastry into two circles. One about 1/2 again as large as the other.
Mound the rapini mixture in the centre of the smaller circle. Use the large circle of pastry as the top crust. (Think Rustic. Think Easy.)
Seal the edges with an egg wash.
Cut a couple of vent holes in the top of the pie and bake for ~20 minutes in a 380F oven.
Serve with a side salad and a nice glass of white wine.