Useful Ratios

In spite of last week's kinda dud class, Chef Sub was a funny guy, with Carla Hall-like sensibilities—"That's just love in a bowl," he said of my 32 ounces of whipped-to-shiny-stiff-peaks egg whites—and here's a useful, simple, tasty formula I picked up from him:

For graham cracker crust: mix 1 pound crushed graham crackers, 8 ounces sugar, 8 ounces melted butter. Press in pan to form a 1/4 inch-thick crust, and bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Make sure to cool it then, in preparation for pouring in cheesecake filling (not spooning in, like mine needed to be, due to over-whipping of full batter to compensate for initial under-creaming of cream cheese). This makes more than 1, and I'm supposed to be able to add up the ingredient weights and then figure how many crusts that makes. Extra credit reward of one pie crust (plus cheesecake filling) made especially by me for those who figure that out. (Where's my math student, seamripper2, when I need her?)

And here's one for custards (from the week before): 6 whole eggs, 6 egg yolks, 1 quart cream. Apparently, that's all you need to know to make any kind of sweet or savory custard, though I forget why and how. Must take better notes, which I did at the beginning of the course. Luckily, I've got my pita bread-making process well recorded.

Love in a bowl: one part J., one part whoever-you-are, results unknown, though I have high hopes.

Shout out to J.J. and her friend from the range (though I'm talking to myself here): just follow the recipe, wait with the patience of a baker, and it will come. Or better yet, make up your own recipe, write down all the ingredients (not kidding), and see what you culinary alchemy you can conjure up!

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!)

Mind Your Own Bakery

If I Wanted To Have Some Kind Of Side Bakery Business, I Could Call It:

1. The Bakery
2. Baked Goods (L.A. Frannie points out the stoner suggestion, though.)
3. D.J.'s (Sounds like a diner.)
   
4. D. Jew D.'s
5. J.'s B.
6. Help!
7. Arrived!
8. Amandina
9. 50
   
10. Tiki (I don't mean to imply Hawaiian goods. That's an inside joke I share with D.J.)
11. Ya Tiki (Ditto.)
12. Men Only (Asynchronous.)
13. I Like To Bake
    
14. Coffee Not Served Here
    
15. Pie Lady (That may not be my specialty.)
16. Not Cookies (Except I might offer some, now that I know how to make uniform bakery treats.)
17. Uniform Bakery Treats (Does not sound right.)
    
18. Salt (Taken.)
    

These really don't seem like bakery names, eh?, with the possible exception of The Bakery, and Baked Goods, though I've already nixed that one. I like Amandina, but that's a bit similar sounding to the name of the tiny cafe, Columbine, just north of the Franklin Street stop on the number 1 line. They make the most fantastic, melt-in-your-mouth very-large-but-I-could-still-eat-two sugar cookies (only available after one p.m., by the way, which I learned about the hard way).

Plus, I would have to okay it with my cool tween sitter, Amandina, without whom I could not have done D.J.'s birthday party. Holla! (Obviously, names have been changed or altered here to protect the...innocent.)

Amandina. Amandina. No. Even if it didn't almost rhyme with Columbine, it sounds like an off pronunciation of almonds, which I wouldn't use very often—D.J.'s no longer allergic, but I shy away from them in general now. No, not Amandina.

And while I think The Irreverent Family Bakery might look amusing on paper, it's too awkward to say. It doesn't sound very delicious, and suddenly, the name of my blog, possible book, and overall New Year's project is a bust. Despite all my yapping, the recipes and foods therein are supposed to be delicious! Aaaah!

Imagine: At rise, loving man and woman eat tea and toast at small round table in chic urban kitchen before work one morning: "Honey," the woman says, "could you pick up some of those eclairs we love at the Irreverent Family Bakery on your way home tonight? You know how I get after I eat those..."

D.J.'s Birthday Summer of Love Mural

12 Years Goes By Really Fast Sometimes

Wish I had taken a picture of the beautiful cupcakes I made yesterday for D.J.'s party. Okay, I did have to make them twice, after realizing I had not added enough flour to the first batch (and they weren't then going to morph into some kind of cool flourless cake). But I was really glad I went the extra mile (i.e., had to prepare a new mise en place), because they looked and tasted fantastic. And furthermore, chalk one up for tools of the trade and me giving up my rebellious streak (no matter what the subject matter), as I finally bought myself an ice cream scooper so I could make the cakes a uniform size. And it totally worked! They were perfectly rounded on top, and really pretty. Plus, that top secret recipe is top secret I guess for a reason—they are just almost too good to be true!

Meanwhile, I am fried, behind schedule on my latest historical romance, and just got a call for work on another, more racy one (Do I care if this manuscript is a BDSM story? the production editor asked me*), with possible conflicting deadlines, among other things. Am still meditating on the cheesecake/angel food cake class, but right now, I think I need to lie down. In silence (save for Con Ed drilling directly outside my window). Wish me luck.


D.J. has chocolate icing on her nose, and that black-and-white fabric on the walls was part of the '60s hippie pad thing D.J.'s N.Y.C. B.F.F. (1 girl to the right of D.J.)'s dad designed, but I had to execute, as he ran out the door after dropping off the fabric on his way to do one of his many Obama-esque good deeds (literally).

* "No," I replied. (Shout out to Miss J. T. H., or any other friend of D.J.'s who may be reading—and you know who you are: that is X-rated material, so cover your eyes! Not kidding.)

"Don't Get All Wedding Cake On Me"

OMG, can't talk. Must continue to get ready for D.J.'s party, but that was one crazy, mixed up day. Chef Nola was not there. Two students were missing. We mixed 32 ounces of whipped-to-stiff-peaks egg white batter with our hands. My cheesecake was a bummer because I didn't cream the cream cheese long enough. "Don't get all wedding cake on me," Chef Sub said. I guess that's chef speak for being a diva. (Put me in my place.)

Then the whole way home, I was griping to myself that someone had taken my angel food cake, which looked pretty darned impressive at practically a foot high, but was so sugary—2 pounds worth, I kid you not—I was going to throw it away anyway. But when I got home, not only was it the wrong cake—my cheesecake was beginning to look good at this point—when I opened my second box, turned out I had taken G and E's two beautiful, much, much, much better-than-mine cheesecakes. One even has a chocolate swirl on top.

I tried to call their bakery number uptown, but no answer or machine. I'm really sorry, G & E!

Frannie

Here's an I.F. pudding-like dessert recipe from L.A. Frannie, originally a New Orleans girl. Now she's one of those all-round how-does-she-do-it type women, and she and her mom, another hottie, are both great cooks, if you like seafood gumbo, or shrimp creole, or anything else of the I-wish-I-could-make-mine-taste-like-that home-cooking variety. But word is, Frannie's grandmother was the true bomb, and this is her recipe.

L.A. FRANNIE'S GRANNY'S NEW ORLEANS CUSHAW

"We had this dessert a lot when I was growing up in New Orleans. Just a scoop on the side of your dinner plate made the rest of the baked, stewed, roux-laden starch go down easier." —L.A. Frannie

1 medium size gooseneck striped squash—any squash will do, but there's a yellow and green striped variety that my granny always used
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup sugar
cinnamon to taste
nutmeg to taste
1 teaspoon vanilla
speck of salt
1/2 cup milk
1 Tablespoon or so flour or cornstarch

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Wash squash well, and cut in half. Scoop out seeds and membranes, and discard. Cut remainder of squash in pieces, and boil in water in large pot until soft, approximately 30 minutes. Drain, then spoon out flesh.

Mash squash in large mixing bowl, and add remaining ingredients. Mix well.

Spread into an 8- or 9-inch square baking dish, and bake for 30 minutes, or until nicely browned on top. Serve with a spoon right onto your meal plate, if you want to be authentic about the whole thing.

"One Sunday in my grandma's kitchen, my Uncle B., schizophrenic and very vocal, must have missed out on the cushaw. Because I remember the entire dish ending up on the side of the refrigerator, and that was the end of that Sunday dinner. I was glad I'd gotten mine." —L.A. Frannie