July is just about over

 

Here we are in the last bits of July.  The heat has abated somewhat, meaning it's no longer triple digits, but the humidity is still high.  However, the darkness is coming earlier each night and as August gets set to begin, I can already see summer beginning to show signs of losing steam.  We are technically not quite half-way through with the season, but its ending has already begun.

That also means that my month-long break in teaching is about over.  I have spent much of the month in cooking, yes, even in the hottest days when no one wants to turn on an oven.  I made cakes, and cookie dips, and ice creams, and berry fools, and pasta dishes, and many other things.  A couple new items have already been added to the menu, and I have a handful more to do as I make the time, the recipes for which are sitting in a pile with handwritten notes of tweaks and improvement updates.  These include a couple cakes, four new cookie dip flavors, a new ice cream, and a pasta dish.

I made great inroads into my cooking to-do list, but as always there seems to be no end to the list as I am always adding things I want to create or improve or explore.  Cooking and baking are never-ending tasks, at least in my case.  

I had great fun passing out all sorts of food to people besides the foods that were passed out as part of the weekend menu offerings.  It's always nice to hear when a food is enjoyed, and I had lots of those moments this month. 

As August begins in a couple days, I will continue working on that to-do list.  And I will continue adding new foods to the menu and tweaking old foods as I am inspired or as I recognize the necessity.

As I said, never-ending.... and I wouldn't have it any other way.  

Hazelnut cake

 

It is a hot late July day.  And the week will only get hotter.  I'm spending the day in the kitchen despite the heat.  Before I get to that, here's what's up for the next weekly offering.

This coming weekend we have berry fools and chocolate fudge cake available for ordering.  The following weekend, the first weekend in August, I will take off the time to do some other things.

Today, I made a hazelnut cake.  Technically, I started yesterday and finished today.  This is a three-layer cake with a German hazelnut buttercream frosting, a chocolate hazelnut filling between layers, and garnished with Ferrero Rocher hazelnut milk chocolate bar pieces and also roasted hazelnuts.

It was a very fun cake to make.  I've been working on various hazelnut items for a while, and I think this is ready to go on the menu in a smaller version.  

I'll be back in a day or two with a few more updated new items on the menu.  For now, have a great Sunday afternoon.  Stay cool.  And as always, eat some fun food.

Macaroni and cheese

 

Happy Friday to everyone.

Today we have a new item added to the menu.

At long last, I have finished all my tweaks and tests on a number of mac and cheese variations.  And I have selected this one in the photo above.

It is creamy and satisfying.  It is made with a blend of three different cheeses.  And best of all, it reheats beautifully.  Any pasta with a cheese sauce can be problematic when it comes to reheating.  So to have this ready for addition to the menu is especially rewarding.  

I'll put it on a weekly offering sometime soon so that everyone can try it out.

Coming up next for addition to the menu:  some new flavors of cookie dips.

Other projects in the works:  sandwiches with special sauces, a strawberry cream cake, and a hazelnut cream cake.

Talk to you all soon again.  Back into the kitchen I go.

July is half over

 

July is about half over now.  And while we have had a bit of summer heat on a few days, it hasn't really been too bad.  Typically I don't like to make a lot of foods that require the oven during the hot afternoons of summer, but so far this year, the heat has not been enough to dissuade me.  So it has been a productive month so far in in terms of tweaking old recipes and working on new ones.

This coming weekend we have roulades with raspberries on the menu, a perfect warm weather food.  And we also have a soft brittle with 3 different nuts.  I'm a sucker for hazelnuts in particular, but I especially love the combination of three different nuts in this brittle.  And I love that this is a soft brittle, meaning that it breaks easy on the tooth rather than the tooth breaking easily on the brittle.  

Next weekend we have a new item appearing for the first time on the weekly menu: chocolate fudge sandwich cakes.  Also, we are doing another round of berry fools, offered for the second time this summer.  I had multiple requests to put them back on the menu again during the heat of summer, so here they are.

In the next day or two I'll be posting of another new item being added to the menu, so stay tuned, keep reading, and feel free to leave comments.

A new cake

 

It's 96 F outside right now.  But I'm inside and staying cool while working on food.  Today's kitchen work is mint chocolate chip ice cream and vanilla macarons for this weekend's orders.  Everything is almost completed.  Later today I will make a baked Italian breaded chicken dish.  

This week I've done a lot of kitchen work, I mean a lot, a whole lot, tons and tons.  And one of the things that I did was finish the final tweaks on a new cake for the menu.

As of today, you can find chocolate fudge sandwich cakes.  This is a small rich chocolate cake that is split in half and filled with a chocolate cream.  Then the whole thing has rich fudgy icing poured over it which sets and gives it a very pleasant look.

Each of these square cakes is a bit over 4 inches across, so they are perfect for one or two people.  

Lots and lots of chocolate in this makes it truly delicious.

I promise to put on a weekly menu offering sometime soon.

Fun food items coming up

 

Hello, hello.

We have some fun food items coming up.  This coming weekend you can order vanilla macarons and mint chocolate chip ice cream.  And the following weekend you can order a mixed nut brittle and mascarpone cream roulades with raspberries.

This weekend saw gougeres and Swedish visiting cakes come out of the kitchen, and also multiple chocolate snack cakes, and a potato dish, and a third batch of mac and cheese, and even more than that.  It was a busy weekend for cooking.

I wanted to do a little more, but I also spent a lot of time slicing up melons, and preparing other various things.  A fun weekend.  A busy weekend.

And then I ran out of my 4-inch snack cake baking cups (see pic above).   I wanted to do another batch of a different cake, and realized as I prepped for it that I was already out.  I have more on order, but they haven't arrived yet.  So I decided to bake it as a large 13x9 inch cake.  It will slice up nicely but I really wanted the little baking cups.

I have plenty more food prep to do this week as I work through my to-do list which has grown quite a bit over the past while.  But this month a lot of those items are being worked through.  My wife has passed out some food at her workplace, too, so I am taking enjoyment seeing more people enjoying what comes out of my kitchen.

One of the cakes that I made this weekend was a very delicious chocolate cake flavored with melted milk chocolate and also dark chocolate cocoa powder.  When I make this, I always melt butter and then drop in the chunks of chocolate and the cocoa powder and let it simmer for a while.  I mention this because I had a question recently about how this comes out so rich and chocolatey.  Well, that's how.  A high quality milk chocolate and very high quality cocoa powder are both very important. But melted butter and adding those to the butter before mixing up the cake makes a huge difference.  Don't just toss everything in to the mixing bowl on it's own.  And you can always add actual melted chocolate to cocoa powder when making a chocolate cake.  It's well worth it.

Stay cool, and have a great start to your new week.

Reheatability

 

This week has been filled with lots of cooking.  And that means it has been a good week!

I have made two of three planned batches of mac and cheese.  I'm pretty certain the first one will go on the menu.  The second one was good, but it doesn't reheat as well, and that's a primary quality I am looking for, reheatability.  I don't think that's a word, but I'll use it anyway.  I have a third batch to make tomorrow.  But I'm very happy with the first batch and I don't think the new one will change my mind.  As I said recently said in another post, I've made all three of these multiple times in the past, so they are all good, in fact, they are excellent mac and cheeses.  But only one will go on the menu.

I have also completed final testing on another couple new items.  One is a small chocolate fudge cake with a smooth creamy filling and a wonderful set frosting that wraps itself around the small cake.  This is ready to be added to the menu and hopefully that will happen in the next few days as soon as I make the time to do it.

Another item that has been tweaked is something called sitta, which is corn-on-the-cob with lemon juice and spices.  It is very flavorful.  However, while it reheats well on the same day, it doesn't come up to the level I want it to be if it has been chilled overnight and then reheated after chilling.  So this one won't go on the menu unless I can somehow in the future find a way to allow it be chilled and reheated without dropping below a certain level of quality both in taste and appearance.  

I make a lot of things that are hot and ready to eat.  But when I make those, they are items for which I have full confidence that if someone takes them home and puts them in the fridge they will reheat beautifully the next day and still be very delicious with a beautiful texture or appearance.  So the sitta is excellent, but it doesn't pass that test.  However, when, in the future, I decide to open up a food establishment, then this will definitely be on the menu to be made and served fresh.  

Everything that I make that is hot is tested to see if it passes that reheatability test.  I know not everyone will eat my food on the same day.  So this quality test is very important to me.

Today I also made gougere dough.  The dough has been portioned and is freezing and will be ready to go out the door tomorrow to be baked at home.  And Swedish visiting cakes have been baked and are sitting on the counter now.  They will be wrapped as soon as they are cool enough and will be ready to go out in the morning as well.

That's all for today.  I have more things to make during the month of July, and I will report on them all here. 

Making food

 

Yesterday I made a very delicious stovetop mac and cheese.  It used three different cheeses and had a fantastic texture.  And best of all, it reheated exceptionally well.  As you might remember from my last post, I am making three different mac and cheeses this week.  And one of them is meant to go on the menu. Not only does it have to taste great, but it has to reheat well.  I've used these three recipes before, many times, in fact.  But they rarely are around long enough to test the reheating.  So that is the task this week.  

Today I make a second mac and cheese.  And in addition to that I will make a chocolate snack cake.  Yesterday I also made my orange vanilla froth, mostly because I wanted a new picture for the website, but since it was so hot, it made for a great evening drink in the heat.

Today is mostly devoted to making food.  I did a little work on my landscaped beds outside and a few small tasks in the house.  But at the moment I am writing this, those things are all done and the rest of the day will be spent with food.

Days making food are great days.  There is nothing like making something yummy and passing it out to people.  There's something very satisfying about doing that.  

Well, here I go, into the kitchen now.  

July's first weekend

 

Happy Sunday to everyone.

I am in the first week of my long July break.  And it has been full of fun activities and good food so far.

This coming weekend we have Swedish visiting cakes and gougeres available for ordering.  And the following weekend we have vanilla macarons and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

A couple days ago I made something new for a family event:  a chocolate hazelnut torte.  This torte uses ground hazelnuts in place of the flour typically found in cakes.  It's a very simple recipe that combines sugar and cocoa with the ground hazelnuts, which is then gently folded into meringue and then baked.  And in this case I topped it with a sweet chocolate sauce, vanilla whipped cream and hazelnut candies.  I had planned to do a hazelnut cake, but with only a few days left before the event for which it was needed, I determined that I couldn't source hazelnut flour anywhere close by and it would have to be ordered.  I didn't trust that it would come on time.  So I opted to make a torte instead.  

The torte was nice, very nutty, mildly sweet, and filling.  But it wasn't something that I think I would make again.  So now I'm taking the time to source some hazelnut flour, get it ordered and delivered, and then make a cake that I hope will be much more to my liking.  I don't think the torte was a favorite part of the event, but that's OK.  It was experiment.  We tried it and determined it's not something to pursue again.  

That doesn't mean I won't try another hazelnut torte.  I love hazelnuts so I most certainly will.  But I will design a new recipe.

Today I'm shopping for the first of three mac and cheeses that I will make this week.  I have made all of these before, so this really a new trial run to compare all three and see if I want to add one of them to the menu.  My wife is a big fan of mac and cheese so she will serve as taste tester in addition to me.

These mac and cheeses each use a blend of different cheeses and each uses a different preparation method: one on stovetop, one in the oven, and one that combines both.  I love to do comparison cooking like this, so it will be a fun week.

That's all for now.  Enjoy the final day of your weekend and eat some good food that makes you smile and feel satisfied.