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Monday, January 16th, 2012
Cream puffs / profiteroles are a great “fancy” dessert option. Not only are they insanely easy to make, they take very little in the way of ingredients, and can be customized many ways.
Cream puffs start out with the batter – Pâte à choux, or “choux pastry”. It’s a basic recipe that’s used to make everything from cream puffs and eclairs to cruellers and churros. It doesn’t contain any leavening ingredients (yeast, baking powder, baking soda, etc), instead relying on its high moisture content to puff during baking. Baked at a high temperature, the water becomes steam and creates large air pockets in the final product. Fill them however you want – with pastry cream, pudding, mousse – and there you go. Fancy dessert!
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If you want to up the badass factor though, consider assembling cream puffs into a croquembouche.
A croquembouche is a spectacular dessert. It’s traditionally served at weddings in various European cities, but is also becoming a popular alternative to wedding cakes here in North America. It’s also great for holiday dinners, or fancier potlucks.
A bit of a disclaimer here: This is an easy recipe to make, however, it’s also sort of dangerous. I won’t kid you, there is nothing worse than a hot sugar burn. If you drop the sugar onto skin, it will burn, it will stick, and it will HURT! Please exercise caution when dealing with the caramel in this recipe.
If you do make this for a group, and you do manage to burn yourself in the process.. I promise the reception it will receive – and the amount of brownie points you’ll gain – will be worth it. Be careful anyways, though.
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The recipes below – the cream puff dough, filling, and caramel to assemble the croquembouche – are all from my first cookbook, The Spirited Baker. Used together, you can make a croquembouche from scratch, start to finish. (more…)
Posted in Adults Only! (Boozy), Desserts, Entertaining Ideas, Ethnic, French, Holidays, Kid Favorites, Recipes, Spirited Baking | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
| As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I’m a major gluten free snob. If it’s regularly something that requires regular flour, and that’s been replaced by “alternative” flours.. I usually find it revolting. So… I tend not to buy much prepare food that’s labeled “Gluten Free” in the grocery store.
A couple weeks ago, though, we were rifling through the gluten free freezer area, because I desperately wanted pizza, and was willing to make that compromise to get it. My husband saw a package of Amy’s “Salsa Verde Tamales”, and had to have it – even if it was labeled as a gluten free product. I’d never had a tamal before, so agreed to give it a shot – the photo DID look tasty! |
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Damn. Frozen, prepared food from a grocery store has NO business being THAT good.
Not sure if it was an accurate representation of a tamal or not, I started researching. Convenience food is great every once in awhile, but this was obviously something that I needed to learn to make. Aside from being inherently gluten free (as I soon found out)… my husband is also the biggest corn freak on the face of the planet, and the idea of wrapping his meal IN corn? As I said – quite obviously needed to learn to make it.
So created my own filling recipe. Then, I read a bunch about the dough and rolling, took bits and pieces of info that I liked from a few sources, and came up with my own recipe. Completely bastardized, I know – it’s probably nowhere close to authentic – but it IS super tasty. If you don’t want to include beer, substitute chicken broth.
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Posted in Budget Meals, Ethnic, Gluten Free, Guy Food, Kid Favorites, Main Dishes, Recipes | 2 Comments »
Monday, December 12th, 2011
| Here’s another one of those recipes that is so minimalist in both ingredients and preparation, I’m a little embarrassed to post it. Much like my Honey Dill Dipping Sauce Recipe, it may be simple and easy, but it’s a hometown memory for me.
I always enjoy exposing people to “new” ideas – even if only new to them!
Clodhoppers are a very well known candy back home in Canada. One Winnipegger wanted to market his grandmother’s candy, got together with a childhood friend of his, and got to work. Within a few years, the candy was selling all over Canada.
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The candy is apparently no longer made in Winnipeg, having been sold to a company on the West Coast – and I’ve since become allergic to gluten, rendering these treats toxic to me – but I’ll never forget em. Super, super addictive stuff.
Was thinking of them, the other day. I’ve never seen them here in the USA, so I decided to create a homemade version for my husband. The proportions turned out beautifully!
Clodhoppers have only 3 simple ingredients – white chocolate, cashews, and graham crackers – and they whip up in no time. Have bowls of this out at holiday parties, or package them up for a hostess gift, stocking stuffer, or “Thank you” that your friends and family will love!
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Posted in Canadian, Candy, Chocolate, Ethnic, Guy Food, Holidays, Kid Favorites, Recipes, Snacks and Appetizers | No Comments »
Friday, December 9th, 2011
| You’ve probably heard of some of the tricks that food stylists, photographers, and even some other food bloggers use to photograph the “perfect” setup. Shaving cream for whipped cream. Red Sharpies to make strawberries look better. Completely bizarre ways to treat food!
We… don’t. Whether for my cookbooks or this blog entry, what you see is what we eat. Many times, what you see is SO fresh out of the oven, that we’re both ravenous and drooling by the time it’s being photographed.
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Aside from “why spend the time, money, and effort to make something inedible”, and it being sort of a matter of food respect for us, we also find a lot of the food styling tricks to feel… dishonest. So, we don’t do it.
The problem is, when food is made to eat, rather than made to photograph, sometimes it looks less than stellar. Today’s recipe? I’ve been holding off on posting it, just because the food in the photo looks so “blah”.
You know what, though? Some of the ugliest, least photographable foods out there are the best tasting. So, I’m going to share my perogie pizza recipe. It’s ugly, but it’s awesome!
This recipe was inspired by the perogie pizza I used to order at “East Side Marios” back home. It’s been so long, I don’t remember what the sauce was that they used – it wasn’t perogie filling though – and they used sliced potatoes, rather than mashed. Was awesome, but I wanted to improve on it!
This pizza is the ultimate comfort food, combining two of my favorite foods. It also works up quicker than actual perogies… but if you’re interested, I have a recipe for THOSE, too: Perogies Recipe!
(more…)
Posted in Breads, Guy Food, Kid Favorites, Main Dishes, Recipes | 3 Comments »
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