Maple Mousse - April Daring Bakers

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container.


This month's challenge is inspired by the Cabane a Sucre, a Canadian tradition. It is a feast involving lots of hearty breakfast foods, drizzled with maple syrup. Our challenge was to make a maple mousse and to serve it in an edible container. If we could incorporate bacon into the dessert, well even better.


I just happened to purchase a waffle cone maker, waffle cone bowls for the mousse. I used bacon fat in place of the vegetable oil to give the waffle cones a smoky flavor. And the saltiness from the bacon bits helped temper the sweetness of the mousse. This was Hubs' favorite dessert by far. He commented, "It's like breakfast for dessert!"


Maple Mousse
inspired by Jamie Oliver Is Not My Boyfriend


1 cup (240 ml/ 8 fluid oz.) pure maple syrup (not maple-flavoured syrup)
4 large egg yolks
1 package (7g/1 tbsp.) unflavoured gelatine
1 1/2 cups (360 ml. g/12 fluid oz) whipping cream (35% fat content)


Bring maple syrup to a boil then remove from heat.

In a large bowl, whisk egg yolks and pour a little bit of the maple syrup in while whisking (this is to temper your egg yolks so they don’t curdle). Add warmed egg yolks to hot maple syrup until well mixed.

Measure 1/4 cup of whipping cream in a bowl and sprinkle it with the gelatine. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Place the bowl in a microwave for 45 seconds (microwave for 10seconds at a time and check it in between) or place the bowl in a pan of barely simmering water, stir to ensure the gelatine has completely dissolved. Whisk the gelatine/whipping cream mixture into the maple syrup mixture and set aside.

Whisk occasionally for approximately an hour or until the mixture has the consistency of an unbeaten raw egg white.

Whip the remaining cream. Stir 1/4 of the whipped cream into the maple syrup mixture. Fold in the remaining cream and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Remove from the fridge and divide equally among your edible containers.

*Recipe for waffle cone bowls to follow.

Egg Salad Sandwich

My last year of college, I worked at this little cafe in the downtown area. I got there every morning at 6:00 a.m. and did the baking. I was tucked away in a little upstairs kitchen, blasting classical music on the local NPR station. When lunchtime hit, I would head downstairs and make sandwiches. It was tiring, but one of the most fun jobs I've had.

The cafe served a breakfast sandwich that consisted of a sliced hard-boiled egg, provolone cheese, some sprouts, and the teeniest swipe of mayo. I would eat eat one almost every morning. It was healthy, light, and got me through my morning activities. It works for breakfast or lunch. I believe the sandwich is still on the menu. The herb mayo gives it the flavor of traditional egg salad, but without as much fat.



Egg Salad Sandwich
inspired by the breakfast sandwich at Uptown Cafe


For each sandwich you will need:

English muffin, lightly toasted
Provolone cheese slice
Hardboiled egg, sliced
Tomato slice
Handful of alfalfa sprouts
Herb mayo (recipe below)


Layer cheese, egg, tomato slice, and alfalfa sprouts on the English muffin. Spread a thin layer of herb mayo on the inside of the top of the English muffin. Place on top of the sandwich.


Herb Mayo

1/2 c mayonnaise
1 small garlic clove, minced
Small handful of minced fresh herbs - I like a combination of parsley, dill, basil, and chives
Salt and pepper

Mix mayonnaise, garlic, and herbs in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Store in the refrigerator.

General Tso's Chicken

This is hands down Hubs' favorite Chinese take-out dish. Whenever we order from the place down the street, this is what he gets. Having had so much success with the orange chicken recipe, I thought it would be easy to find a recipe for General Tso's.

Luckily, Joelen had a fantastic looking recipe on her blog. It was another Cook's Illustratated recipe, so I basically made the orange chicken recipe, but with a different sauce. The chicken cooked a lot faster than I thought it would, and had a wonderful crispy texture. One thing about deep frying - if you cook food in oil at the right temperature for the right amount of time, it absorbs very little of the cooking oil. This is why I love deep frying at home. I can control both these factors to get perfectly crunchy food without too much fat.


General Tso’s Chicken
adapted from What’s Cooking Chicago
originally from Cook’s Illustrated

Sauce:
½ c hoisin sauce
¼ c white vinegar
3 Tbs soy sauce
3 Tbs cornstarch
1 ½ c water
1 Tbs vegetable oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbs fresh ginger, minced
½ tsp crushed red pepper flakes

Coating and frying

1 ½ lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 large egg whites
1 ½ c cornstarch
½ c all purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
Vegetable oil for frying

2 green onions, green parts thinly sliced
Sesame seeds

To make the sauce, whisk together the hoisin sauce, white vinegar, soy sauce, cornstarch, and water in a bowl. Set aside. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Saute the garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the hoisin mixture. Stir until the sauce is dark brown and has thickened. Remove from heat and cover.

Cut chicken into 1-inch chunks. Whisk the egg whites in a shallow dish until foamy. Combine cornstarch, flour, and baking soda in a separate shallow dish. Toss half the chicken into the foamy egg whites until well coated, and then dredge the chicken in the cornstarch mixture, making all sides are coated. Transfer chicken to a plate and repeat with remaining chicken.

Heat oil in a fryer (or Dutch oven, or a large wok) until it registers 325ºF. Fry the chicken in batches until golden brown, about 3 minutes, turning pieces over halfway through cooking. Transfer cooked chicken to a paper towel-lined baking sheet to drain.

Re-warm the sauce over medium heat until bubbling. Add the chicken pieces and toss to coat. Garnish with sliced green onions and sesame seeds.

Crab Cake BLTs

Bacon is one of those foods that we don't cook often, but when we do it is completely celebrated. We munch on the extra slices while we continue to cook. We freeze the bacon fat to use in future recipes (usually for making refried beans.) It's probably a good thing we don't keep it in the house often.


Celebrating bacon was a part of Foodbuzz's Tastemaker Program for the month. Their partner Denny's is celebrating BACONALIA, and featuring lots of bacon dishes on their menu. For my part, I made these crab cake blts. I love crab cakes, and I love bacon, so why not pair the two together? Tom Douglas' recipe seemed the most popular, but instead of his horseradish mayo, I made an Old Bay mayo. I thought it complemented both the bacon and the crab cake.


Crab Cake BLTs
Adapted from Tom Douglas’ recipe

¼ c red bell pepper, finely diced
1 celery stalk, finely diced
2 sprigs fresh thyme, minced
2 tsp fresh parsley, minced
12 oz. lump crabmeat
¾ tsp fresh lemon zest
¼ tsp Old Bay seasoning
2 dashes Tabasco sauce
¼ c dry bread crumbs
Salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbs olive oil

4 hamburger rolls
Tomato slices
Lettuce leaves
8 slices cooked bacon
Old Bay mayo (recipe below)

In a large bowl, combine the red pepper, celery, thyme, parsley, crabmeat, lemon zest, Old Bay seasoning, and tabasco. Break up lumps of crabmeat as you stir. Add bread crumbs a little at a time, and stir to combine. You may not need entire amount. Divide mixture into quarters, and form into patties.
Heat olive oil in a sauté pan over medium-high heat. Place crab cakes in the pan and browned, about 3-4 minutes per side. Remove from the pan and let the crab cakes rest for 5 minutes. To assemble the sandwiches, layer lettuce, tomato, crab cake, and bacon on a bun. Cut bacon in half if necessary so it doesn’t hang too much over the edge of the sandwich. Top with Old Bay mayo.

Old Bay Mayo

¼ c mayonnaise
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp Old Bay seasoning
2 dashes Worcestershire sauce
¼ tsp salt
Black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and mix well.

Easter Egg Macarons

I saw Easter egg-shaped macarons at a local bakery, and really wanted to make some of my own. However, I haven't had the greatest track record with macarons.


Stella over at the Brave Tart recently wrote a post about Macaron Myths. She demistified a lot of steps to the macaron process: aging the egg whites, bringing them to room temperature, drying the almond flour, adding cornstarch to the powdered sugar, baking on a humid day....Basically, the two most important steps to successful macarons were: beating the egg whites to the correct stiffness, and folding the mixture with the almond flour and powdered sugar to the correct consistency.


When all I had to worry about were these two steps, the recipe became much easier. I didn't have to think too far ahead when it came time to making macarons. My success rate improved a little - up to about 65% compared to 35% - but the steps were way easier.


Whenever I make macarons, I always make a half-batch. Since I never know if the shells will co-operate, there's less waste if there's less batter to begin with. Since I use egg whites from a carton, they are easy to measure out. I also use a kitchen scale set to grams to measure out all the ingredients, to ensure the correct amounts.


The flavors I made were: pistachio, lavender, lemon, and tangerine. The yellow and orange ones were sacrifices to the Flat Macaron gods, which is why there are hardly any of them in the pictures. I had never baked with lavender before, and loved the delicate, floral flavor it gave the purple macarons. Decorating the shells was fun, although challenging with a toddler clinging to my legs.



Macarons
adapted from Brave Tart


57 g almond flour
115 g powdered sugar*
72 g egg whites
12 g sugar
Large pinch of salt
Preheat the oven to 300° and have ready a large (18”) pastry bag, fitted with a plain tip, along with two sheet pans lined with parchment paper. Trace shapes onto parchment if desired.

Process the almond flour and powdered sugar in a food processor for about a minute. Take out the mixture and sift it, reserving whatever bits don’t pass through the sieve. Add these bits back to the food processor and run the machine for another minute. Add this into the dry mix.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the egg whites, sugar, and salt and turn the mixer to medium (4 on a Kitchen Aid). Whip for 3 minutes. Increase the speed to medium-high (6 on a Kitchen Aid) and whip another 3 minutes, then crank the speed to 8 for go another 3 minutes.
At that point, turn the mixer off and add in any extracts/flavor/color and whip for a final minute on the highest speed.

At the end of this minute, you should have a very stiff, dry meringue. When you remove the whisk attachment, there will be a big clump of meringue in the center, just knock the whisk against the bowl to free it. Dump in the dry ingredients all at once and fold them in. Use both a folding motion (to incorporate the dry ingredients) and a pressing motion, to deflate the meringue against the side of the bowl. After about 25 folds the mixture will still have a quite lumpy and stiff texture. Another 15 strokes will see you to “just about right.” Keep in mind that macaronage is about deflating the whites, so don’t feel like you have to treat them oh-so-carefully.

The macaron batter needs enough thickness that it will mound up on itself, but enough fluidity that after 20 seconds, it will melt back down. Transfer the batter to a piping bag. Pipe the batter into the pre-traced circles on the baking sheet. Stop piping just shy of the borders of the circle, as the batter will continue to spread just a bit.
Bake for about 18 minutes, cool thoroughly, then peel the cooled macarons from the parchment, using a metal spatula if needed.


For lavender macarons: add ¼ tsp dried, crushed lavender to the egg whites.

For lemon or tangerine macarons: add 1 tsp desired zest to the egg whites.

For pistachio macarons: use finely ground pistachios (skins removed) in place of the almond flour.

The Great American Pie Festival 2011

This past weekend was the Great American Pie Festival. I'm so glad that this takes place the next town over. There were lots of pie-related activities, but the main attraction was the NEVERENDING PIE BUFFET. Vanilla ice-cream and bottles of water were also part of the buffet.



We grabbed about 10 varieties of pie, and put the stroller to good use. The tyke got involved as well. Favorites - mine: banana cream, Hubs: coconut cream, the tyke: peach. We also met the Pilsbury Dough Boy.





After eating all that pie, I was ready for something savory. Luckily, a local food truck was on hand.

Strawberry Margarita Cupcakes

I used to not like frosting. The Wilton decorating classes had scarred me - I would leave them reeking of buttercream. Whenever I ate cake and cupcakes, I ate around the frosting. But now I have discovered Swiss meringue buttercream, and I understand the hype (and frustration) surrounding it.

I believe there are three categories of bakers: those who make swiss meringue buttercream (SMBC), those who don't, and those try again and again without success. I used to be in the third category, but have recently graduated to the first. It took a bunch of trials, and many pounds of butter.



My many unsuccessful attempts at making SMBC always resulted in a soupy mess. I kept whipping it, hoping it would come together. No luck. I whipped and whipped, and still had a runny bowl of goop. I finally realized two things: 1) my room temperature and what recipes consider "room temperature" are two different things, and 2) butter hardens as it cools. Instead of using room temperature (for me, a balmy 75-76 degrees), I used butter that was warmed up just enough to take the chill off. If the frosting was still soupy after all the butter was added, I chilled the entire mixing bowl and whisk attachment for 20 minutes and then continued to whip. I also added a little more butter than most recipes called for, and the frosting finally attained the proper consistency.


I knew these cupcakes were a winner as soon as I had a little taste of the batter. The lime and strawberry in the cake complemented each other. And I used the good tequila for the frosting, and the flavor came through very well.



Strawberry Margarita Cupcakes
Cupcakes adapted from Candace Nelson of Sprinkles
Frosting adapted from Annie’s Eats

Cupcakes:
2/3 whole fresh strawberries, rinsed, hulled, and halved
1 ½ c cake clour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp kosher salt
¼ c whole milk, room temperature
½ c unsalted butter, room temperature
1 c sugar
1 large egg plus 2 large egg whites, room temperature
½ tsp vanilla
2 tsp fresh lime juice
2 tsp fresh lime zest

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with liners. Set aside.

Place strawberries in a small food processor. Process until strawberries have been cut into small bits. You should have about ½ c of strawberry puree. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, cream butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat until well combined. Reduce heat to medium and slowly add the egg and egg whites. Beat until just blended.

With mixer on low, slowly add half the flour mixture until just blended. Add the milk; mix until just blended. Add the rest of the flour mixture, scraping the sides of the bowl, and mix until just blended. Add the strawberry puree, vanilla, lime juice, and lime zest; mix until just blended.

Divide batter evenly among prepared tin. You should fill each cup about ¾ full, as the cupcakes do not rise very much. Bake until tops are just dry to the touch – about 18 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cupcakes cool completely.

Tequila Lime Buttercream

1 c sugar
4 large egg whites
Pinch kosher salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, “room temperature”
1 ½ Tbs fresh lime juice
2 Tbs tequila

Place sugar and egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer. Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water. Heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture reaches 160°F. Mixture will be frothy.

Remove bowl from heat and attach to the mixer. Fit the mixer with the whisk attachment. Beat on medium-high until stiff peaks form, about 10 minutes. The mixture should be room temperature. Reduce speed to medium and add the butter, 2 Tbs at a time, making sure each addition is well incorporated. If the mixture is soupy, stick the bowl in the fridge, chill for 15-20 minutes, and continue to beat until the mixture comes together. If the mixture looks curdled, just keep beating. Beat in the lime juice and tequila. Frost the cooled cupcakes. Garnish with slices of strawberries and limes.

Pierogis

Normally, I reserve making pierogis for Christmas. Being from a Polish family, it is our traditional dinner on Christmas Eve - the wigilia, or "vigil." However, when there is a two pound jar of sauerkraut staring at me from inside the fridge (taking up covetous space), I decided that April was a fine time for the tasty dumplings.

The dough for pierogis is easy to make, and is not at all tempermental. I use a fair amount of flour when rolling, perhaps because of the humidity of the climate. Once rolled out, the dough is pretty elastic, and will stretch over a generous amount of the filling, if handled carefully.

There are a few different ways to serve pierogis. I usually end up freezing them and eating them at a later date. When it's time for reheating them, I layer the pierogis in a baking pan, and drizzle them with a little melted butter and caramelized onions. Then, I cover the pan and bake until heated through. The frozen pierogis end up steaming a bit while they bake, and come out just as pillowy soft as when they are fresh.

Pierogis
adapted from Polish Cooking
By Marianna Olszewska Heberle


4 c flour
2 eggs
5 Tbs sour cream
3 Tbs vegetable oil
Pinch of salt
¾ c water
Filling (recipe follows)

2 medium onions, diced
1 stick melted butter


Lightly flour 2 baking sheets. Sift flour into a large bowl or onto a flat working surface. Make a well in the center. Break eggs into the well. Add sour cream, oil and salt. Blend ingredients. Gradually add water, working and kneading mixture into a smooth, pliable dough. Divide dough into quarters. Cover 3 portions of the dough with a lightly damp cloth. On a floured surface, roll 1 portion of the dough to a thickness of 1/16th inch. Cut 3 ½ to 4-inch circles. Place rounded tablespoon of filling into the center of each circle. Fold dough over the filling and crimp edges closed. Place crimped pierogis on the baking sheets. Repeat with remaining dough portions.

Drop pierogis in boiling water in batches of 5-6. Stir gently to prevent sticking. Cook about 4 minutes, or until they float to the top. Drain in a colander.

Cheese Filling:

1 c cottage cheese
1 egg yolk
½ tsp salt
Pinch of ground white pepper

Strain cottage cheese through a cheese cloth to remove excess water. Combine strained cheese with the other ingredients.

Saurekraut Filling:

1 Tbs butter
1 small onion, chopped
32 oz sauerkraut

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute onion until soft. Add sauerkraut and cook until heated through, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.