International Day

Dee definitely wins top International Day entry with this beautiful Italian cake I can't remember the name of. It's marble pound cake, sliced, soaked in Amaretto, molded in a bowl, filled with layers of both plain and chocolate whipped cream, refrigerated overnight, and finally turned out on the plate the next morning. Was truly delicate and delicious. Congrats!


My contribution, Grandma Piggyback's Brownie Pie, was frankly only so-so (though Chef did ask for another large piece to go), and I had a bitch of a time making a nice looking slice. The restaurant lifer brought some kind of sandwich cookie with caramel filling that someone else made for him (what-the-?!), and though people raved, I still haven't tried mine yet. Monique looked so pretty and fresh in her street clothes, and she made a Haitian pudding with crackers, sugar, buttermilk, and fruit, which was actually very good, though not the most attractive color. The super cool bakery couple never showed, and I think we were all kinda disappointed.

Before the tasting, we talked about our plans post class, and the soon-to-be-divorcee, who arrived with no International offering, received her own personal Chef-over, a tough-love encounter similar to the one I'd gotten last week. I do hope she heeds Chef's words, though, which seemed to be spot-on, and the whole scenario reminded me of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Rabbit Hole. Though I did not love this play, I often think about the question it raised, which is: Under whatever duress you find yourself, could you dare to imagine living your same life...differently?

Memory Lane

I still haven't gotten over the jumbled class from last week, with that crazy sugar angel food cake. Plus, I can only imagine the teasing I'll receive from the bakery couple when they learn the truth of what really happened to their cheesecakes. (Don't forget—the wife had already tied up her boxes, and then helped me with mine, so it's not like it was all my fault!) Anyway, my disappointment as such, I'm sending myself back in time with a photo I just received from Dee (apparently she was having computer trouble for a while), of a more successful venture: my bread pudding, which I will definitely make again. Particularly now that I finally bought a digital scale (not cheap). No excuses now!


photo: Dee (holla!)

What I Brought Home Today

or, Who Wants to Come Over?

• Chocolate Pots de Creme (nice, very dark)
  
• Bread pudding (mine, and looks delicious even though I didn't make the accompanying Bourbon sauce)
• Rice pudding (I hear the rice wasn't cooked enough)
  
• Cherry Clafouti, made with blueberries and apricots (Dee's, lovely)
• Baked Creme Brulee (not my favorite in general, but looked good)
  
• Eclairs, with vanilla pastry cream and melted chocolate ganashe (mine!)
  
• Profiteroles, fixed same as above (mine!)
  

(Sorry I can't put the corresponding accents on words such as pate, a, choux, or creme brulee for that matter.)

And let's just call the Pate a Choux what it is: boiled dough. Amazing. Contains no sugar.

I definitely need practice with the pastry bag, though, as I overstuffed my pieces a bit, and my profiterole and eclair shapes could have been prettier. Nevertheless:

Danish Pastry

Waiting for the dough to rest, after the second round of layering in the butter—there's literally like a brick of butter in this dough, rolled and folded in, over and over again—I took a break from the kitchen, and outside, ran into someone I kind of know. He introduced me to the friend he was with, a supposed James Beard winner, though I totally cannot find the dude's name on the internet. It's possible he may have been impressed when I told him I was upstairs rolling Danish pastry dough, but he did not seem similarly amused when I mentioned my morning's not-so-great calzone. (It's not like I told him I had the worst companion Italian bread in the class, which I did.) For a guy whose name is not on Google, I think he was a bit full of himself, no?

photo: Dee

Fresh Raspberry Tart with Vanilla Pastry Cream and a Layer of Chocolate

Regarding Luca's Italian Pastry Cream (see sidebar): turns out, you don't need to stir the custard counterclockwise after all. Today in class, I stirred my French Pastry Cream clockwise, long and hard, and look what I got:

Plus, there is a thin layer of chocolate brushed between the tart crust and the pastry cream, and may I just say, it is pretty spectacular.

I wish the foil wasn't disturbing the flow of the picture, which isn't my finest, but it may actually be holding the tart shell together. Stay tuned.

P.S. I might be in love with Raoul Charlebois, that crazy Frenchman from my latest genre fiction copy edit job, Fuck Me Before Christmas.

Fuck Me Before Christmas

I did finish the first copy edit round of Fuck Me Before Christmas (I'm paraphrasing here), and you'll be relieved to hear that the breathtakingly handsome and brilliant thespian, Raoul Charlebois, finally unraveled the secrets of his past and discovered that, in fact, he was not the bastard he once thought he was, but rather a French comte whose loving parents had sacrificed their lives to the guillotine for him; and that Miss Sarah Jefferson, a raven-haired, ample-bosomed, gingerbread-making, twenty-one-year-old spinster and daughter-of-a-gamekeeper (not gameskeeper, people), was finally going to be getting a little somethin'-somethin', on a regular basis even.

Meanwhile, I also have a rush deadline to meet on Maneater, so I was off and running—wishing it was in the other direction—with that piece of...prose—when suddenly, via email:

"Greetings all, On Thursday, 601 (kids, no parents) will be celebrating the completion of their independent writing projects, and they are incorporating a welcome back for Ms. G. Ms. H. has put out a call for treats, drinks (lemonade, fruit punch, orange juice, apple juice—no soda) and cups. I'm going to send T. in with some mini brownies and mini muffins from Whole Foods. If you would like to send your child in with something, it will be greatly appreciated..."

I decided I was finally ready to step outside my school baking comfort-zone standbys:

• Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies, from the back of the bag (http://theirreverentfamilycookbook.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-didnt-go-to-work-today.html).
  
• Baker's One Bowl Brownies, from the back of the Baker's Unsweetened Baking Chocolate Squares box (easy and fantastic, btw).
  
• Old-Fashioned Apple Crumb Cake (http://theirreverentfamilycookbook.blogspot.com/2009/02/principals-office.html).
• Gingered Gingerbread, Hay Day Country Market Cookbook, again!
  

So:

• Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Glaze, Bon Appetit, March 2008 (recipe discovered chez D.J.'s former nut allergy doctor, a very sweet, well-groomed Conan look-alike),
  

or

• Norwegian Cinnamon Buns, How to be a Domestic Goddess*?

Nigella's process was a bit horror-movie-esque, as either the recipe called for way too much liquid, or I didn't put enough flour in, 'cause the dough was a mess. In any event, I kept adding more and more flour, and it kept growing in my hands! I was sure it was a bust, and I was going to have to throw the whole thing away, but that dough had been activated, and was not slowing down. It was relentless. It was alive!

End results: impressive and delicious. Had to try before I sent off to the party, of course. Photo may not do them justice.



Wrong picture. That's D.J. as Charlie Bucket in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, June 2008, P.S. 41, NYC.



*Recipe link: http://www.notquitenigella.com/2008/03/19/nigella-lawson-norwegian-cinnamon-buns-from-how-to-be-a-domestic-goddess/