Marie-Helene's apple cake

This was the first thing I baked in the oven in my new place. I thought and thought about what I wanted to make first. The more I thought, the harder it was to choose just the right thing. In the end, I had a huge bag of apples and an apple cake recipe on the list for French Fridays with Dorie. This is only my second recipe with the group, as there is no requirement to cook along every week. I am the slacker sort, so I have been picking and choosing to make only what I can eat/have time for. I am so glad I made this recipe, though, as it was delicious. So delicious that I made it twice. This is the second one above, for which I browned the butter and replaced the rum with Amaretto. It was a much nicer colour than the first one, but also significantly sweeter. I used the same apples for both--a mix of Empire and Cortland, so not sure why it was so much sweeter--more than a few tablespoons of Amaretto would account for. Anyway, it was fantastic, and luckily I sent lots of it home with a friend, or I would have eaten the entire thing. Here's a picture of the first one, made before I realized my oven runs 50℉ lower than the temperature gauge indicates:

Check out the 'Leave your Link' feature on the spiffy French Fridays with Dorie site to see how the other bakers fared. Oh, and if you're looking for the recipe, it's in the book. We've been asked not to publish recipes from this book, and you can hardly blame Dorie, with her recipes burning up the blogosphere.

Vietnamese spicy chicken soup

Well, it's the third week of the new French Fridays with Dorie group and I'm finally joining in. Those of you who know probably aren't surprised that I'm this late. I'm not either, and I'm not going to make yet another excuse because I moved. This soup was wonderful. I now live near a Chinese market, so was able to get what I needed easily. The only changes I made to the soup were to eliminate the star anise (yuck) and to add fresh bird chiles and lots of fresh lime leaves to the simmering stock. I love the fragrance and flavour they offer. Following on an idea from Clivia of Bubie's Little Baker, I used leftover Thanksgiving turkey and turkey stock. I also added lots of fresh chopped herbs--cilantro, basil and mint. Now, go and check out the FFwD site to see what everyone else has come up with. And if you're a member, stop voting to make potatoes next month! Please? Vote for the squash 'n' sprouts, 'kay?

This tasted great last night, but I just got home from a tough day at school and had a bowl, and it was just as good. Not sure it can bring my voice back, but it was restorative nonetheless. No, I was not yelling at the kids to make me lose my voice! I have a cold. Refrigerate the noodles separately to keep them from absorbing all the liquid. 

Rhubarb, 3 ways

I think I'm finished with the rhubarb for this year. I picked some yesterday, but gave it all away. I know that I should spread these recipes out, but I'm really too lazy to make 3 separate blog posts, so here they are. Not sure how much baking I'll be doing this week, as it's in the 30s here already, which is unseasonably warm.

First up is a recipe from Baking with Julia. It's called Hungarian shortbread, but isn't shortbread-like at all. It's more like a cake with a layer of rhubarb jam in the middle. This is made by freezing and then grating the shortbread mixture, for a light and tender cake. I make half the recipe below in a 9" square pan, but use the full amount of rhubarb filling. You could use any jam here if you don't love rhubarb. If you don't love rhubarb you're probably not reading any longer...

Hungarian Shortbread, from Baking with Julia, written by Dorie Greenspan. Contributing baker: Gale Gand.

Rhubarb Jam
1 pound rhubarb, cut in 1" lengths
½ cup sugar
½ cup water ( I use less)
½ vanilla bean, split

Combine jam ingredients in a saucepan and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until the rhubarb turns to mush. Cool to room temperature, or chill if making in advance. This will keep for a week in the fridge, covered.

Shortbread
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 pound butter at room temperature
4 large egg yolks
2 cups granulated sugar

Whisk the dry ingredients together and set aside.
Beat the butter on high speed until pale and fluffy, and add the sugar. Beat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is light. Beat in the egg yolks. Reduce the mixer speed and add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated.
Divide the dough in half and form it into 2 balls. Wrap each in plastic and freeze for half an hour, or until firm. You can also keep this dough in the freezer and thaw it overnight in the refrigerator.
Assembling and baking
Preheat oven to 350℉. Remove one ball of dough from the freezer and grate it on a box grater, using the largest holes, directly into a 9"x12"pan (or 9"x 13"). If you only made half a recipe, use an 8"x8", or 9"x9" pan. Pat the dough gently to get it into the corners, but don't press it down too much. Spread the jam overtop, and grate the remaining dough over the top, spreading evenly.
Bake for 40 minutes, or until golden brown. Mine always seems to take 50 minutes or so, even in a small pan, so be sure to check that it's firm in the centre before taking it out.

Dust with icing sugar as soon as you remove it from the oven, and cool it on a wire rack. Cut into squares when cool. You'll probably need to add more icing sugar.

These keep for a couple of days, but are best on the day you make them. They can also be frozen once baked.

Next is rhubarb soda, which is easy and refreshing.

Combine 5 cups thinly sliced rhubarb, 5 cups water and a scant 3 cups sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 5-10 minutes, or until the rhubarb dissolves. Strain and cool. Use this pink concentrate to make a soda by diluting with sparkling water. Some booze would not be out of place here...

I seem to be making lots of things with egg yolks recently, so am left with a glut of egg whites. I decided to make a pavlova-type meringue and top it with rhubarb fool. This was delicious, but as you can see in the pictures, melted fast. I only made 2, but you can easily scale the recipe up.

Meringue
1 egg white
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
½ teaspoon vinegar
a bit of vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300℉ and line a baking sheet with parchment. Beat egg whites to soft peaks, then beat in sugar gradually, until they hold firm peaks. Quickly beat in cornstarch, vinegar and vanilla. Form meringue into 2 mounds on baking sheet, making a dip in the centre to hold the filling. Place in oven and immediately reduce temperature to 250℉. Bake for 1 hour, until crisp but not browned. Turn oven off and cool in over with door propped open.

For the filling, I used the leftover rhubarb I had roasted at 375℉ with a few tablespoons of sugar, along with some of its syrup. I combined the rhubarb with about ¼ cup of cream, whipped, and an equal amount of Greek yogurt, some icing sugar and some of that pink syrup. This mess I piled into the cooled meringue shell. It was perfect--crisp and chewy, creamy, sweet and tart too.

I crumbled the second meringue and mixed it with the cream filling to make a kind of Eton mess--it was pretty good too!

There's another pound or so of rhubarb in the fridge, but I'll spare you for now! See you on Thursday with the Daring Bakers' reveal, which was one of my birthday cakes this year.

Puff pastry 201?

I haven't made puff pastry since culinary school, which was an embarrassingly long time ago. I decided to try again yesterday, and spent a cold and snowy afternoon rolling and turning and watching IIHF Junior hockey on TV. Making the pastry wasn't as tricky as I remembered, and taking it out of the fridge every half an hour or so and rolling was fine too. I had a few butter escapes, but nothing too serious. I baked some of the pastry today and it definitely puffed, so yay! What did I make, you wonder? Well, you'll just have to come back tomorrow to see. It's a Tuesday thing. For now, have a look at a few puff pastry photos. I used a recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

This is right at the start: incorporating the butter block into the flour/water/salt dough.

Next comes the rolling and folding process, called turning. 6 turns are supposed to give you 994 layers of dough and 993 layers of butter, hence mille feuilles in French. I tried to count, but lost track. I have a math teacher friend and her students working on it. This is the 5th turn completed:

So, after one more turn and a night in the fridge, this is the finished puff pastry. I can definitely see layers!

Come back tomorrow to see what I made with ⅕ of the dough. Any suggestions on what to do with the rest?

Christmas Baking

I'm still pretty new at this, and can't get organized enough to post within a week of baking. Soon, I hope. Anyway, I made about 300 Christmas cookies this year, and here are a few photos from one day of baking.

These are Dorie Greenspan's Sables. Buttery and yummy.

The pistachio cardamom spritz cookies from The Wednesday Chef. The cookie press can be finicky, but once I got into the rhythm of it I made quite a few in a short time.

I found these chewy, spiced chocolate crackle cookies on Evil Shenanigans. What a great name! Very good cookies, too.

I gave lots away, in person and by mail, and I packed up the rest for the family Christmas party. Those are iced sugar cookies and iced chocolate gingerbread on the right. I got some wildlife cookie cutters from Ikea that were adorable.

And that may be all the cookies I make till next Christmas!