Napalm in My Mouth

As part of a tradition started a few years ago with one of my best girlfriends; Lauren and I now choose words for birthdays and Christmas. You give the other person a word and she buys gifts that correlate with said word. Past words have included: twisted, peacock, vintage, posh...my word for this birthday was 'spicy'.

Caramels! I loooove caramels.

Lauren did a really great job with 'spicy'. In addition to a book about all the different kinds of peppers found in the world and used for cooking; she also got me the Sriracha Cookbook...and I'm having a Sriracha-themed dinner party next week so look for a post about that soon!

Such interesting flavor combinations. Also...BACON!

The last gift to arrive was a package from Fusion Sweets with a selection of spiced caramels. Awesome. I love caramel, I love spices, I love weird flavors together; this was perfect. In my selection she sent: Coconut Thai Chile, Pumpkin Pie, Masala Chai Spiced Butter, Star Anise Saffron, and Bacon Habanero Sea Salt.

I maintain that messy foods often taste the best

I was super excited and dived right in. I love me some bacon with chocolate so I was curious to see how it went with caramel. When I unwrapped it, I found the candy to be really gooey and sticky. And yes I could see the bacon clearly in the caramel, but I couldn't really taste it. I tasted the habaneros though. A lot.

I did have a few reservations upon smelling the bacon habanero

 After I recovered I went for the star anise saffron. I am not a fan of anise, which you might find odd if you look in my liquor cabinet and see the three bottles of absinthe, but it's never really been a flavor I liked. However I do like saffron, a lot. The anise flavor was pretty strong but the saffron still came through, and even though I don't like anise, I didn't dislike the the caramel.

Here we go!

Moving on! Masala chai spiced butter. I was really looking forward to this because I love Indian spices, I love chai, and I make some of the best darn chai you'll ever drink outside of India. This was lovely. The flavor was far more subtle than I was expecting but quite nice. I only took one-two small bites of each of the caramels since this was an official, scientific tasting, but I can guarantee that I will be unwrapping it again and finishing this one.

Pumpkin pie! Who doesn't love pumpkin pie? It's the only Thanksgiving food (other than Lauren's sweet potato souffle) that I like.I was all prepared to devour this one. But I didn't. Let me tell you why. Because it tasted like pumpkin.

No. Just, no.

I know you're making puzzled face and thinking, But of course! What else would pumpkin pie flavored caramel taste like?! Well...pie! There was a very strong, not unpleasant pumpkin flavor. But nothing of that which makes pumpkin a pie. I couldn't taste any cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, none of that. I'll definitely give it another try but, especially as I'd just had the chai caramel which would have had similar spices, I guess I was just expecting more.

The pumpkin and masala caramels had a firmer texture

And last, but in no way least, Coconut Thai Chile. This was exciting on so many levels. Coconut is one of my absolutely favorite flavors and one of my top three favorite fruits. I love coconut water, coconut milk, young coconut meat, mature coconut meat, coconut flavoring, coconut flavored alcohol, sweet flaked coconut, coconut ice cream, macaroons, I can go on. And on.

Coconut! Thai! Chili! Oh the excitement.

Also I love Thai food and generally I order the spicier dishes. I cannot resist drunken noodles with beef. And we've already discussed how I bow at the alter of Sriracha. So I was really really excited about this. Saved the best for last and all.

Hmm, yes I taste the coconut? Where's the chili?

The scent was heavenly. Mmmmm. Coconut. I sank my teeth into the candy and savored the first bite, knowing that this caramel, this one only, would I eat in its entirety. I rolled the smooth caramel, made a little rough by the wealth of shredded coconut inside, around my mouth to make the luscious coconutty flavor linger as long as possible.

Oh there it is.

Just as I was starting to wonder about the Thai Chili part...I found it. Or rather, it found me. In a big way. If I thought the bacon habanero was hot, I was knocked over by this one. For a milisecond the world seemed suspended and I couldn't breathe, then my face turned bright red, I teared up, and started panting like a dog in an effort to cool off my tongue.

OH THE BURNING!

Was it just the surprised punch of the chili that caused such a strong reaction? I was really enjoying it before that spice kicked in. I will try it again and hope that, being forewarned, I will be able to enjoy the entire experience of this particular treat.

Make it stop! *sob* Please just make it stop!

The caramels came with a freebie; a small packet of vanilla sugar. I figured, especially after that Thai chili, that I should definitely have a small taste of the vanilla sugar. I also have to taste this again because I think that all of my taste buds had melted off my tongue.

Vanilla sugar...so...sweetened sugar?

After this would I recommend Fusion Sweets? Actually YES! The flavors are unique and I did really like the masala chai. As much as I love spicy foods I am kind of a spice light weight so who knows what you might think? Order some and find out!

Yeah nothing. My my mouth has been napalmed

Plus I very much want to try some of the berlingots, especially the: basil vanilla lemon, coconut lemongrass, coconut masala (!), spicy strawberry, mango raspberry, guava lemongrass, passionfruit cardamom lime(!)...ok so maybe that was like 90% of the flavors. If anyone wants to send me a belated birthday present in the form of some of the berlingots I won't turn them down!

I also might borrow a few of these flavor combinations for future sorbet and ice cream recipes. There's still plenty of summer left to make those!

Hazelnut Crunch

*I pre apologize that the formatting is all wonky. I don't know what's happening here and can't get it fixed.

If you like Ferrero Rocher chocolates you will love this cake. Like many recipes I found this on Epicurious and modified it a bit to suit my pocketbook. I will say that this is one of the fussiest recipes I've ever dealt with, but that aside I think it's also my new favorite chocolate cake recipe.

Cake
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup sifted all purpose flour
1/3 cup sifted unsweetened cocoa powder
4 large eggs
2/3 cup sugar

First you have to sift the flour and cocoa powder three times.  THREE TIMES

Also you have to clarify the butter. Melt the butter but try not to let it simmer. Once completely melted, skim off and discard the floaty stuff on top. Then spoon out the remaining liquid, leaving anything on the bottom of the pan alone.

Add the vanilla to the clarified butter and set aside.

Next you have to rig up a double boiler and whisk the eggs and sugar until they get warm. It definitely helps to pre heat the water otherwise it takes forever for the mixture to warm up.

When that's done, put your bowl of clarified butter/vanilla into the warm water in order to keep it liquidy.

Then using a standing mixer if you have one (you'll get really tired if you don't) whisk the warm egg mixture until it triples in size; roughly 5-6 minutes. When it's done it should be all white and frothy and trick you into thinking its meringue.

Then, somewhat incredibly, you have to sift, again, the blasted flour/cocoa mixture over the fluffed eggs. Do it in three batches and fold it all together, do not use the mixer. Finally fold in the butter.

Pour into a 9 inch, parchment paper lined cake pan and bake at 350 F for about 30 minutes.

Hazelnut crunch
Nutella
1 cup Rice Krispies
1/3+ cup chopped hazelnuts

This is where one of my modifications came in. The original recipe wants you to use some European hazelnut flavored chocolate that's so fancy you can only order it online. No. Why bother when there's Nutella? You can use Nutella on its own or what I did was melt some regular chocolate in a double boiler (I would recommend Baker's or Chiradelli) and then add Nutella. I didn't measure, I just spooned it in until it looked like I might have enough and then tossed in a little bit more.

Mix the hazelnuts with Rice Krispies (I used Cocoa Krispies because I knew I'd eat the rest of the box!) with chocolate/Nutella mixture.

Then spread it on the bottom of a parchment paper lined 9 inch spring form pan.

Before that hardens you'll want to press the cake on it to make sure that they stick together. So a bit of a late warning but hold off making this until the cake is cool enough to come out of the pan.

The mousse is one of the easiest things to make and one of the yummiest things to just eat. All you need to do is make whipped cream, use at least 1 & 1/2 cups heavy cream and beat until it's all whipped creamy, then fold in Nutella. I'd say use 2/3 to 3/4 of the smaller jar of Nutella. Spread that on top, dust it with cocoa powder, and viola!

I made this cake three times in two weeks. The second time was my contribution to dinner at one of my favorite cousin's house. I brought home a left over piece to my mom who loved it so much that I made it again a few days later for her birthday.

A Non Traditional Cake ... Really Non Traditional

Happy Birthday Lauren!! Yesterday was Lauren's 32nd and this year she decided to challenge my construction skills, patience, and ability to not eat ice cream the instant it comes out of the machine. I don't know how she found this, but What's Gaby Cooking had a crazy dessert she asked me to make. I've certainly made ice cream cakes before (in fact I think I made that particular one twice last summer) but this was something more.

I started with the brownies. I have to admit that I almost always use box brownies. I just have not found a recipe that makes better tasting brownies than almost any box mix. That is however, the only box mix I use. I poured the brownie batter in three 9" pans and after they cooled I wrapped them in wax paper and cling film. I had a busy week so I needed to make them well in advance and freeze them.

They really freeze very well.

That same night I started ice cream number one, mint chocolate chip. Both ice creams (yes both) were firsts for me. The mint chocolate chip was super easy to make. I have two recipes for it and decided to not use the custard-based recipe, which is usually what I use, but to make what is apparently a Philidelphia style ice cream:

3 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon peppermint extract
green food color

Heat the heavy cream until those small bubbles form around the edges. Do not let it boil. When you see the little bubbles, pull it off the heat and stir in the sugar until it dissolves. After it's cooled to room temp add the peppermint and the food coloring. The food coloring isn't necessary of course, but mint ice cream just isn't the same if it's off-white, is it? I refrigerated the cream overnight and ran it in the ice cream maker the next evening. After it had partially firmed in the maker I added mini chocolate chips. It's always a little iffy adding solids to the ice cream maker. It hiccups a little and makes angry noises but hasn't broken yet.

It was very, very green. Also, I would recommend slightly less than a full tablespoon of peppermint extract. While it blended well with everything else in the dessert, on it's own the ice cream was rather too refreshing.

Then I made the chocolate chip cookies. Sure there are plenty chocolate chip cookie recipes out there; but why look anywhere other than the back of the Toll House bag?

There's just something about cookie dough that begs to be eaten, isn't there? I mean what's better than whipped raw eggs, butter, and sugar?!

Oh yes, when you add chocolate!

Yum! I also used one of my baking secret ingredients for the cookies. I don't use vanilla extract. I haven't since I really started doing a lot of baking. I only ever use real vanilla. It's not that inexpensive but I have been to Mexico a couple times in the last few years and while I do not bring back sombreros or tequila; I do bring home vanilla. Lots.

Also a side note to the makers of baking parchment paper. Love you, great product, but the size is a bit off. Have you ever worked with parchment paper? Sure the wideness is great if you're using it on a cookie sheet or something but when cutting rounds for anything less than a 12 inch cake pan you end up wasting so much. Case in point:

So I'm just saying, think about making a couple different sizes, eh?

Next was ice cream number two. I find it incerdible that after making ice cream for what, three plus years now? this is the first chocolate ice cream I've ever made. How is that even possible? Chocolate is my favorite! I guess it was worth waiting for though because this is seriously the best chocolate ice cream ever. Do you remember Jello Pudding Pops? If not I feel deeply sorry for you. No clue why they were taken off the market since they were some of the best things in the entire world. But if you have this ice cream you'd have an idea of how good they were.

1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon vanilla

Blend the sugar, cocoa and eggs until smooth

Bring milk to a boil in a heavy sauce pan. Unlike with the mint this time you actually boil it. Then slooowly pour it into the sugar/cocoa/egg mixture blending the entire time. My recipe book suggested using a food processor but I was too lazy to get mine down from its spot on the top shelf of the cabinet. And be careful, it will spatter.

Pour everything back into the saucepan and on medium to low heat stir constantly with a wooden spoon or whisk (I prefer whisk) until it thickens. I poured it back into the bowl again right away to help it cool faster. Once it was about room temp I put it in the refrigerator to chill overnight. One thing I like to do before putting these ice creams away to chill is to cover them with cling film; but not just cover like you do normally. I put the cling film directly on the ice cream.

This helps keep that nasty skin cooked milk things get. That's just gross. This one didn't go through the ice cream maker quite so well but I think it's because I hadn't let it freeze long enough.

The night before the birthday it was assembly time!! At this point you should have: 2 different ice creams, 2 9 inch cookies, and 3 9 inch brownies. Oh, you also need craem cheese frosting. Whip 1/2 stick soft butter, 8oz cream cheese, and powdered sugar to taste and ta da!

Step 1: Spread mint chocolate chip ice cream on top of brownie

Step 2: Press cookie gently on top of ice cream and freeze for at least 30 minutes.

Step 3: Spread chocolate ice cream on top of cookie, press brownie gently on top of ice cream, and freeze for at least 30 minutes.

Step 3: Repeat steps 1 and 2. Freeze overnight.

Step 4: Cover with a thin layer of cream cheese frosting.

Step 5: EAT!

I think the above shot is worth repeating but with some handy Photoshop labeling so you can see the various strata.

Hmm...hope you can see that. It's much smaller than when I viewed it in Photoshop. But awesome right? It tasted pretty good too I must say. And I am happy to report that unlike my last post, this cake caused no breakdown or emotional outbursts of any sort.

The Great Cake Disaster/Trainwreck/What Was I Thinking?

There was a plan. A plan to make a cake. And it didn’t turn out so well.

Recently I’ve got into cake decorating. I’m pretty crap at it but now have lots of toys and such with which to do it. I ended up with two sets of cake pans, one with pans of 14, 12, 10, and 8 inch diameters and another with 8, 6, 4, and 2 inch diameters. For a while now I’ve been wanting to make a cake using all of them (well, only one of the 8 inchers) and I used Moglie’s birthday as a perfect excuse.

The plan was to start a week before the party, bake and freeze the cakes, make gum paste flowers, and get everything ready to assemble the day before. Well that got scrapped when I got shipped off to Serbia again and barely made it back to DC in time for the party. I took the Friday off, decided to ditch the 14 inch cake, and go with just 6 tiers instead of 7. The plan started well. Moglie shopped earlier in the week to get all the supplies I needed so I got up early on Friday and went right to work. Actually I started Thursday night and made orange curd which turned out…tasting more like stewed eggs than oranges and wasn’t really curdy…um; it was kind of gross. I also made orange peels Thursday night and set them out to dry so we could dip them in chocolate the next day.

On Friday I mixed two batches of batter which filled all 6 of my pans and got everything baked. The entire house smelled like chocolate cake and it was ridiculously hot since the oven was on all day long. After the baking I started to run out of counter space on which to cool them.



During the cooling phase I mixed up the ganache (of which I made way too much) and the frosting. My friend Giselle came over Friday afternoon and took charge of all the orange peel dipping. Everything was going so well. And then I had to go and try to assemble the bloody thing. I mean, in retrospect, what was I thinking? Why on earth would I want to actually assemble them? My plan was brilliant-except that fatal flaw.



I was not so ambitious or stupid to try to slice the 12 inch cake in half so that I just covered in ganache. I was sure though that I could handle the 10 inch. The slicing in half went well and I covered the bottom with ganache and then with frosting. The problem came when I attempted to put the top back on. Problem the first, the top layer broke into several pieces during the flip. Problem the second, it was so hot that neither the ganache nor the frosting had set up (the refrigerator was so full of food there was no room for the cake to cool) so as soon as I managed to get the now three piece top on, the ganache and frosting started oozing out the sides and all the top layer pieces started sliding off. Problem the third, I decided to keep going. So, repeat problems the first and second.





By about 11:30 that evening, the bottom three tiers (the 12, 10, and 8) had been sliced, ganached, frosted, and stacked on top of each other with dowels and cake boards holding up everything. And since the 8 inch layer reacted in exactly the same manner as the 10 inch…there was a lot of oozing and sliding and squealing. I was squealing, not the cake. Just in case you were wondering. Moglie thought that perhaps using extra dowels would help hold the broken sliding pieces to the cake, so we did that. Then Grizz was brilliant and suggested that long dowels stuck into the bottom tier would help hold everything together. Moglie also cleared out some space in the deep freezer in which The Monstrosity managed to fit.



The next morning dawned and silly me had hope that the rest of the cake construction would go well. Silly, silly, sad me. After much consultation and discussion, I decided to keep The Monstrosity in the freezer and tackle the top 3 tiers on their own. These would be sliced, ganached, frosted, and assembled on a cake board which would then be placed on top of the bottom tiers. By the time the 6 and 4 inchers were done, we’d prepared enough food that I could put those in the fridge. Then I tried to gently separate the 2 inch from its pan. That didn’t go so well. In fact the small cakelette seemed to explode out of the pan so now I was down to a 5 tier.

I mixed another batch of frosting hoping to use it to cover the mess of a cake I had and make it more presentable. One of the major flaws in my interest in cake decorating is my inability to nicely frost anything. So I set Moglie and a friend of ours with that task while I covered my eyes. After the frosting in the adding of the final two tiers and yet more frosting…we quickly added candles and chocolate covered candied orange peels and rushed the cake (which dude, weighed a freaking ton) out the door to sing Happy Birthday.



(The brown tubes are the orange peels. Yes I know what they look like but they're chocolate!!)

I think this is the second saddest and most pathetic cake I’ve ever made. Strangely enough the one that one that takes the cake, if you’ll pardon the pun, for most pathetic was also for one of Moglie’s birthdays. I do believe I get points for sheer size and level of difficulty.

Candied orange peels:
Slice peels of three medium sized oranges
Bring water to boil in medium-to-large sauce pan
Drop in peels, boil one minute
Drain and rum cold water over peels
Repeat
Combine 2 cups of sugar with 1 cup of water. Heat in sauce pan until sugar dissolves and mixture just begins to boil.
Add orange peels and simmer for about 15 minutes.
Remove peels and lay to dry on parchment paper

Frosting:
1 8 oz pk of cream cheese
1 stick butter
cream together
slowly add 16 oz powdered sugar
to flavor orange I zested 2 oranges and added 2 Tbls Gran Marnier

Ganache:
Slowly heat in heavy sauce pan 1 cup heavy whipping cream with 1 TBL butter, 3 TBL orange zest and 2 TBL Gran Marnier.
When bubbles form along the rim, remove from heat and stir in 8 oz chopped dark or bittersweet chocolate until smooth. Cool to room temp

Cake (recipe from Epicurious):
13/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)
13/4 cups boiling water
4 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped
one 8-ounce container sour cream
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 3/4 sticks (1 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
5 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350° F. and line 2 buttered 7- by 2-inch round cake pans and 2 buttered 9- by 2-inch round cake pans with rounds of wax paper. Butter paper and dust pans with flour, knocking out excess.

Put cocoa powder in a bowl and whisk in boiling water in a stream until smooth. Stir in chopped chocolate and let stand 5 minutes. Stir mixture until smooth and chocolate is melted and cool mixture. Whisk in sour cream and vanilla.

Into a bowl sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. In large bowl of a standing electric mixer beat together butter and sugars until light and fluffy and add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down side of bowl. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture and cocoa mixture alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture and beating until batter is combined well.

Pour 2 cups batter into each 7-inch pan and smooth tops. Divide remaining batter between 9-inch pans (about 33/4 cups each) and smooth tops. In middle and lower thirds of oven arrange one 9-inch layer and one 7-inch layer on each rack, putting 7-inch layers in front part of oven. Bake 7-inch layers 25 to 30 minutes and 9-inch layers 35 to 40 minutes, or until a tester comes out with crumbs adhering. Run a thin knife around edges of pans and invert cakes onto racks. Peel off paper and cool cakes completely. Cake layers may be made 2 days ahead and kept at cool room temperature, wrapped well in plastic wrap, or 2 weeks ahead and frozen, wrapped well in plastic wrap and foil. Defrost cake layers (without unwrapping) at room temperature.