Food and home

This past week I set up a new cat tree for Tom, the resident feline here.  He has taken a liking to it.  Considering how notoriously picky cats can be, I was very glad to see he liked his new digs.  He especially likes the top perch in which he curls up and sleeps sometimes.  So this new piece of cat furniture is a welcome addition here.  And home is even more home for him now.

One of the great things about spending time making food is that it makes home even more home for each of us.  Whether it's trays of palet d'or sitting in the morning beams of sunlight in the kitchen ....

or beautifully baked brownies placed on the kitchen counter waiting to be eaten ...

or apple slab pies filling the home with aromas of fruit and cinnamon and butter ... all of these things make home even more home.

Sometimes the foods we eat take us back to our childhood and to memories that are pleasant or important, and in that way home from the past is brought forward to our present.  Sometimes the foods we eat help us create a new home, one that is filled with new people or new memories.  Sometimes the foods we eat make us feel safe and comfortable and cared for.  And sometimes they are a respite from the trials of daily life.  For each of us I imagine it can be different, but there's no denying how important foods are to us, not just because we have to eat, but because they are part of a complex series of emotions and desires and needs that are part of our past, present and future.

I find it very interesting to think about how food affects us all in different ways.  For me, one of the most important aspects of making food is that it creates peace, and peace is something that I've recognized as essential to our lives ever since I was young, and that has been reinforced in my personal philosophy through years of experience since then.

So whether you are eating good food, or making good food, or sharing good food, or all of those, here's hoping it brings something good to that moment for you and those around you.

Chocolate pearls

Valrhona "Les Perles"

What a great day today was!  I was up early to do some practice on the piano, about 2 hours on Beethoven, Bach, and Chopin.  Then I listened to Mozart piano concertos all morning and early afternoon while I did some experimenting on a couple recipes in the kitchen.  Afterwards I taught a few piano lessons late afternoon and early evening, and followed that with a good run on the treadmill while I watched part of Avengers: Infinity War.  It was a full day and a fun day.

I made some cookies today and whenever I make something I always reserve a little of the dough or batter for experimenting.  I like to write down ideas that come to me, such as a modification to a cooking process or an addition of a new ingredient to an existing recipe that I already work with.  Today I decided to add some Valrhona chocolate pearls to a cookie.  So I whipped up a batch and cooked most of the dough but reserved a small amount.  I pulled out an almost empty bag of these tiny little chocolate pearls and inverted the bag to pour them into the bowl.  Some were caught in the folds of the bag and so I shook it.  Big mistake.  These chocolate pearls are like BBs or tiny beads or tiny ball bearings.  They are round and smooth and very shiny and chocolaty.  And they roll everywhere if spilled which is what happened when I shook the bag.  The bag wasn't filled with more than a couple tablespoons of these pearls.  But it still took a while to gather them all up since they rolled various directions and bounced off things and wound up under shelves and under the oven.  I'm sure sometime in the next while I will run across another one or two that didn't get picked up.  My cat, Tom, might even find one and play a little soccer with it.

I keep Valrhona chocolate pearls around for multiple recipes that I routinely make.  They are fantastic additions to certain cookies, brownies, and even cakes and muffins.  They are also great to eat by hand right out of the bag.  I try not to do that very often, but I'm only human, and I sometimes succumb to the desire to indulge in these diminutive bits of chocolate.  I keep lots of chocolate around, various brands, some in chip form, some in feves, etc.  It's always nice to know that when I feel like making something I've got a variety of things to choose from when it comes to chocolate ingredients.  Thank goodness I don't spill any of it very often.  I think I'm going to check one last time tonight with a flashlight to see if I have any more of the pearls to pick up.  Maybe I'll grab a few to eat out of the new full bag I just opened, too.     

Mirror glaze

making chocolate mirror glaze

This weekend I am making 4-inch palet d'or cake desserts for family members and friends.  One of the most satisfying parts of making these is the mirror glaze finish.  It looks so elegant, and everyone figures it must be very complicated ... but it's not.  Here's how you do it.

Start by soaking leaf gelatin in water.  Just plop it in and let it sit while you do the next step on the stove.  Water, cream, and sugar are mixed in a saucepan and heated to a boil.  Then cocoa powder is whisked in.  The better the cocoa powder, the better the flavor.  (My favorite to use for this glaze is Cacao Barry Extra Brute cocoa powder which I also use on a regular basis for other desserts as well.)  Then the heat is lowered so that the mixture stays at a gentle boil.  For 15 minutes or so, it is left alone and gradually it reduces down a bit.  Put a spoonful on a plate and run a finger through it, and if a trail is left, then it has reduced enough and can be removed from the heat.  At this point, you reach into the bowl of water and lift up the soft leaf gelatin and wring the water out of it.  The gelatin immediately goes into the saucepan with your reduced mixture and you whisk it thoroughly.  It dissolves and disperses quickly and easily ... a great benefit in using leaf gelatin.

palet d'or with chocolate mirror glaze finish

At this point, the glaze is ready for pouring.  If it is poured over a frozen dessert, then even as hot as it is, it immediately beings to set as the excess runs off onto a tray below.  And the finished product is beautiful, shiny and elegant, and draws the eye of everyone in the room.  Takes a bit of time, but not too much.  Requires knowing the process, but it's not complicated.  And so enjoyable to eat.  I'm making an extra palet d'or this weekend for my own feasting.  I can hardly wait to dig in.  Good night to anyone who reads this.  I hope you have sweet dreams of chocolate and cream and everything else that we find so enjoyable in our favorite desserts. 

Fear of boredom

I remember in earlier years, specifically high school and college, when I was studying the French language, teachers explained something I found very thought-provoking.  In English we might say, "I am bored."  However, in French the phrase that is used would be literally translated from French to English as, "I am boring myself."  I have always found this to be an incredibly interesting difference in perspective.

I have always had this little bit of a fear of boredom, although not in a way that makes me do reckless things.  Instead I like to keep busy with things that I find interesting.  I am lucky in that I get to spend most of my daily life doing things that I do not find boring or uninteresting, or to put it in the French way of speaking, I don't often bore myself.  I have a wide range of interests and several things that are a regular part of my life that I find highly enjoyable.  

Cooking certainly fits in as something that is not boring at all.  I've made chocolate chip cookies many many times over the years, but every time I make them again I find it a totally non-boring experience.  The same thing can be said when I re-watch a movie I particularly like, or re-read a book that is a favorite of mine, or when I play Liszt's b minor piano sonata for the umpteenth time.   The point is that making good food is always a great thing to do and not just because "we have to eat so we might as well make something".

While I never tire of making chocolate chip cookies, sometimes I might be in the mood to discover something new.  And that process of discovery is part of what keeps food non-boring.  In this day of high technology and lightning-fast globalized communications it is so easy to discover something new to create in the kitchen.  More than that, it is very easy to learn a little about another part of the world and another culture and other traditions by exploring foods related to those places and peoples outside our daily experience.  That doesn't mean I will try everything just because it's different.  But it does mean that I can never run out of things to try that intrigue me enough to explore when I run across them on a website or in a recipe book or through conversations with anyone else.  

After all that is said, though, sometimes it's just a fantastic thing to make that same recipe of chocolate chip cookies for the 247th time (which might be why I always have milk in the fridge). 

Brittle fail

soft-crunch brittle and brittle dust

Making food is sometimes a lot like working in a chemistry lab, or so I would imagine.  I've never worked in a chemistry lab so I can't actually make that statement based on experience.  My youngest son is a college student in the late stages of his chemistry degree so I could ask him, but he's not here as I type this so you will have to rely on my judgement in saying that.

When making candy, the chemistry is very important.  Last night I was up late working on making a final batch of soft-crunch brittle for weekend orders.  I had liquid ingredients and sugars in a saucepan boiling gently during these late hours.  I was definitely tired as I had awakened early in the morning and arose at 4:30 AM since I wasn't able to get back to sleep, and I would imagine that tiredness is responsible for what happened next.  I set a timer for eight minutes.  The ingredients boil gently for eight to ten minutes, and in that window of time, the sugar solution turns to golden brown, a beautiful color made all the more so because when that happens you know magic (chemistry) is happening.  After the color turns, nuts and butter and a few other things are added, and then baking soda is added as the final ingredient, and it immediately foams up and turns the contents of the pan a beautiful orange-brown that then darkens a bit after it is poured from the pan onto a baking sheet and cooled.  

As soon as that timer went off at eight minutes, I reached for the other ingredients and started dumping them in and stirring.  Then as I dumped the baking soda in, I realized I hadn't bothered to verify that the color was right.  In that moment, I knew what was NOT going to happen next:  I got no foaming action.  The mixture just sat there in the pan.  I poured it out onto the baking sheet, and spread it.  The color was pale, the texture was not shiny, nor was it as smooth as it should have been.  The solution had not cooked long enough and was not hot enough to be ready for the final ingredient additions.  

brittle fail

The photo above is of this late-night mistake.  It's still edible, and it still tastes decent.  But it's not nearly as good as the correct result which is shown below.

brittle as it should look as it cools

As you can see, the photos show a big difference in the final result.

This is what I give out to people:  a beautiful container of golden brown brittle that is shiny and softly crispy.  

I love making this stuff, and I've made it many times before, so many times that I am sometimes on autopilot as I make it.  But this just goes to show how easily a mistake can happen that is detrimental to your final result.  

We are all human, and we will make mistakes sometimes.  So when you're in the kitchen and something goes wrong, just appreciate the added experience you gain from those mistakes.  The experience gained from mistakes is just as important as experience gained from your successes.

Gougères

gruyère and cheddar cheeses

Gougères are one of my favorite little snacks.  They are very basic in terms of ingredients:  choux pastry dough mixed with cheese, either one or some combination.  Choux pastry dough is comprised of water, flour, butter and eggs.  A little salt and sometimes pepper are added as well.  The dough cooks and is puffed up by means of the high liquid content which is turned to steam.

setup for gougères

Water (sometimes milk is included) and butter are heated on the stove, but not boiled.  You don't want the water to leave as steam.  You want it all in the dough.  Once the butter is melted, flour is added and then it is completely stirred in and the whole thing becomes a paste.  You keep stirring quite vigorously until you see a film starting to coat the bottom of the pan.  The dough should be silky smooth and should not stick to the side of the pan.  Then the dough is immediately deposited in a mixing bowl.  Either let it sit for a minute or so to start to cool, or go ahead and mix on low speed just to help the heat escape.  Then eggs which have already been whisked together are slowly added while the mixer turns.  You don't want to add the eggs all at once.  They need to be incorporated slowly.  Once that is done, shredded cheese is added.  A variety of cheeses can be used, but my favorite is to combine gruyère and mild cheddar in equal parts.  Once all this is mixed, you can use a pastry bag to squeeze out portions, or do as I do and use a cookie scoop.  I like to use a medium sized scoop even though it seems most people makes these in small sizes.  But I like them a bit bigger.  I portion out the dough and then freeze it all.  The portions can be cooked right away, of course, but I like to freeze them and then store them in plastic freezer bags to make whenever the mood strikes me.  They keep very well in the freezer for a month.

finished gougères, warm and soft

They go straight from the freezer to the oven with no warm-up necessary before cooking.  They bake for about 30 minutes at 375 Fahrenheit.  And when they come out, they are warm and soft.  It is really easy to eat a whole dozen all by oneself, a feat I have done more than once.

Sometimes when I go somewhere to a dinner or buffet party, I take a bag of these frozen portions and make them right there so that everyone can enjoy them fresh from the oven.  They never fail to please.  Try making them sometime.  With a little practice you can turn out scrumptious snacks whenever needed or desired.  Bon appetit!

Whoops ... a bit too long in the oven

overcooked French butter cookies

Today was a great day.  I put the finishing touches on some tweaks I have been working on for my apple slab pie.  It will be added to the Bruce Bakery and Bistro menu very soon now.  I've been working on those tweaks off and on for a while in an effort to make a few specific changes before I made it available for everyone.  I had an inspiration the other day and tested it out and was quite happy with it.  A second test today confirmed.  I still have to finalize the exact size I want these to be.  I think I'm going to go for 8 inches by 4 inches and I will test that size with one more batch.  The ones I made today are gone as I nibbled on them off and on all day long.  I'm very particular when it comes to apple pies so getting these tweaks finalized made me very happy, and I couldn't resist indulging when they tasted just as I wanted them to and had the texture that I thought was perfect both in crust and filling.

Yesterday, on the other hand, I over-baked some French butter cookies.  It was early so perhaps I wasn't fully awake yet and when I set the timer I made an error:  8 hours when it should have been 8 minutes.  They didn't actually stay in for 8 hours.  I was busy working on some other things at the same time and listening to some Rachmaninoff and my mind suddenly had the thought that the 8 minute  timer should have gone off but hadn't.  I checked the oven and found the cookies not-so-nicely browned (see picture above).  Here's how they should look, of course:

Nothing to be done but laugh about it.  I think that's the first time in several years that I've made an error in setting a timer.  The cookies weren't suitable for any of us bipeds to eat, but the squirrels and birds didn't seem to mind their condition.  After I set them out for the local wildlife, the cookies were gone within an hour.  It's always fun watching a squirrel eat these tiny little cookies.

Going back to the timer, it's funny how an error like that can happen when setting a simple timer should be so ... simple.  But that's the way it goes with everything.  It's so easy to do something incorrectly even when we've done it hundreds or thousands of times.  I remember an episode of the TV series Seinfeld where Elaine complained about a pain in her mouth from biting down on a fork.  Jerry said, "Boy, it's hard to believe with so much biting experience a person could still make a mistake like that."

That quote always makes me laugh.  And of course it's true that the quote can be paraphrased to apply to almost anything we do, like setting an oven timer.

Tomorrow I'm making gougères.  These are small savory choux pastries with cheese.  Mine will have gruyère and cheddar.  It's one of my favorite combinations of cheese.  I will probably be up early to cook but hopefully awake enough that I will set the timer properly.  I'm planning on a long practice session on the piano during the late morning and early afternoon.  These little pastries will be perfect to snack on during that practice session.

To anyone who is reading this, I wish you a good night and an even better morning tomorrow.

Full day and late night cooking

spritz cookies mise en place

Some days are so busy that it is incredible to think about after they have finished and you wonder how you did it all.  But at the same time those days can be enormously rewarding despite being ridiculously busy.

Today started early.  Up before dawn, I did some prep work on several things to make in the kitchen today and then hit the piano for a while, practicing some Beethoven, Chopin, and Busoni.  By mid-morning I was alternating between teaching piano lessons and cooking, and that alternation lasted for the rest of the morning and much of the afternoon.

When my last student left as the afternoon turned into evening, I put on Star Trek Deep Space Nine on the television and turned my attention to Stage 2 of the creation of palets d'or for some weekend orders.  Stage 1 is making a thin but large devil's food sheet cake and then cutting rounds after it has been chilled.  Stage 2 is making the chocolate cream that will be piped around and over double layers of cake for each dessert and then all the individual small cream-covered cakes go into the freezer.  Stage 3 comes tomorrow morning when the intense chocolaty glaze is made and then poured hot over the frozen desserts where it completely covers and immediately begins to set over the frozen cream.  It is a two to three day process to make these so that each part gets enough time to chill down before the next is done.  It is well worth the effort for these amazing desserts.

At the same time I was making the chocolate cream, I had apple turnover filling slowly simmering on the stove, caramelizing sugars, softening apples until they are extremely tender.  I do not like firm apples in pies or tarts.  For my taste they need to be very soft and extremely flavorful from simmering a long long time.

I followed that with setting up the few ingredients necessary for spritz cookies for weekend orders.  Those will be made tomorrow morning, but they won't take long as I've made them so many times that efficiency and precision are automatic.  And earlier in the day when I alternated multiple times between teaching piano lessons and cooking, two batches of different peanut cookies were made and baked, and French butter cookies were made so that the dough could chill overnight before baking tomorrow.   In addition to all that, I added a couple new items today to the Bruce Bakery and Bistro full menu (the two different peanut butter cookies that were made today).

Somehow during all that time I still managed to play a couple games of chess online with people in other parts of the world.  And I even have everything cleaned up in the kitchen to boot!

That sounds incredibly busy and it was.  In fact as I write this the clock has passed 10:00 PM and I just realized that other than a couple peanut butter cookies, I have neglected to eat anything all day long.  I suppose I had better put something in me before I go to sleep tonight.  I'm in the middle of one of the Lord of the Rings movies and my cat is impatient for me to head to sleep as he likes to cozy up on the comforter while I watch a little television or read as I prepare for sleep.  He's pacing around and watching what I do.  He knows my routine, how to read my actions, and he's meowing from time to time, wondering when I will finally head to bed.

As busy as this day was, when considering all those great things I got to do, it wasn't a chore to be so busy.  Piano, cooking, Star Trek, chess, The Lord of the Rings, teaching .... these are all things that provide me with considerable enjoyment.  It was a full day with time well spent.  And when I see my kitchen counters with cookies under wraps on trays, and apple turnover filling chilling in the refrigerator, and palets d'or chilling and waiting for the final chocolate glaze tomorrow morning, I see things that I did that were worthwhile.  Many people in the world go to work each day doing something that is only bearable because it provides a living for them.  I get to do things all day long that exercise intellect and creativity, that allow for me to be spontaneous but also well-planned, that make me feel like I am doing something that is meaningful both to me and to others.  In the end I consider myself fortunate. 

Ice cream

French vanilla ice cream

Anyone who knows anything about my food preferences (perhaps that's not very many people as I tend to be a rather private person) knows that I frequently profess my love of ice cream.  I could eat ice cream everyday -- I could live on ice cream -- I never tire of ice cream -- and so on.  It's too bad that too much ice cream is not truly a good thing health-wise.  If it were, well ...

cream, sugar and vanilla bean and seeds on the stove

Last week was quite fun in that I got to make several batches of French vanilla ice cream.  And that means I got to sample every batch as it came out of the ice cream freezer.  I have to do that.  I have to make sure that every batch is just right.  *chuckling*    It's a great excuse to indulge in a spare spoonful here and there.   It was a nice couple of days.  

I always make a custard-based ice cream, often called a French custard-style ice cream.  This means it is a made with an egg-rich custard as it's base.  An ice cream made without eggs (or at least without a significant amount of egg) is called Philadelphia-style, or sometimes New York-style, or American-style ice cream.

I always find a custard-based ice cream to be vastly superior.  It's creamier, has much less potential for ice crystals to develop which mar the texture, and it's really not so hard to do once you learn how to make the custard.  The custard has to be cooked to a temperature of at least 160 Fahrenheit, but you have to be careful because if it heats up too fast, too much, the closer you get to 180 - 185 Fahrenheit, well, you start getting into the realm of scrambled eggs.

zoom in for vanilla bean seeds

I always use fresh vanilla beans in my French vanilla ice cream.  There is something really nice about about looking at a fresh carton of ice cream and seeing all the little specks that are the vanilla bean seeds.  They add so much flavor.  Can it be made with vanilla extract?  Of course, but while it's still good, it's not quite the same as with actual vanilla beans.  Vanilla beans have become rather expensive the last few years, but it's still worth the cost.  I keep them around for a few different desserts, and I always will.  Vanilla paste also has seeds in it, so I keep a jar of that around as well.

peppermint milkshake

I am going to be adding more ice creams in the near future to the Bruce Bakery and Bistro menu.  Specifically, mint chocolate chip will be added next, and then others will follow.  Fresh ice cream made in your own kitchen with excellent ingredients is wonderful to have stashed in the freezer.  As I said, I could eat it every day.  There is no more enjoyable food in the world for me.

Good cooking, good food

scones

Today is a mild winter day here in Kansas City, about 52 degrees.  Tomorrow, Groundhog Day, is forecast to be over 60.  However, on Tuesday and Wednesday we are back to expecting proper winter weather, snow on both days and temperatures in the 20s.  Although I love winter weather, I have to admit it was nice to spend a bit of time outside this afternoon doing a little tidying up in the yard.  Random broken branches needed to be picked up, shrubs needed to be pruned a bit, etc.  The birds are out enjoying the sunshine and taking advantage of sun-warmed water in the bird bath, always fun to watch.  Neighborhood cats are sunning themselves.  Squirrels are playing tag around the trunks of trees. 

focaccia

I spent part of my morning on the piano (for my own playing and that of a couple students) and part in the kitchen.  This weekend, cornbreads, chili and ice cream are all heading out the door.  I have a few orders remaining to be picked up this afternoon.  And now I'm turning my attention to some other food to make, probably lavash crackers today as I'm tweaking the recipe and the roll-out process and experimenting with some new spice and seasoning combinations.  I haven't yet added this item to the Bruce Bakery and Bistro menu, but I probably will soon.  I also will be adding frosted sugar cookies soon, but first I have to find packaging I'm happy with as these can not be stacked on top of each other without indenting on the beautiful coating of frosting on every cookie.  I have come up with a few options but haven't yet procured them to test.

cookies

But back to today.  To be honest, I really just want to cook a ton of food this afternoon, every comfort food I can think of.  It's not because I need it (as a comfort food), I just feel like cooking (and eating) a ton of really delicious food.  It is a rewarding thing to work through the preparation and completion of multiple foods all on the same day.  I don't know why exactly, but it is.  It is similar to performing a whole program of piano music where one by one you play each piece and progress to the next and when completed you have this wonderful program that has emerged as a unit.

To see a number of trays filled with foods of different types, all set out and ready to be consumed, on display until that moment comes .... well, it just looks nice.  And it certainly provides a sense of accomplishment.  When one is making a lot of food, it easy to consider how there are so very few things as worthwhile to do as cooking and baking.