What exactly am I concocting at Sprout?

Most of my time these days are spent at Sprout, where I prepare elaborate, creative and unexpected flavors on a plate. Tomorrow I hope to try out a marshmallow recipe using glucose, granulated sugar, vanilla, water, gelatin and salt. The process itself is not difficult to understand, but it's the timing and temperature which can easily affect the end result.

When I was working in France, I prepared minted marshmallow's for the mignardise* plate, but I seemed to have lost the recipe. Thus, I will have to try the Joy of Baking recipe with the substitution of gelatin sheets and glucose for corn syrup. It was only but a couple weeks ago when I first used glucose as an ingredient in baking. It's especially helpful as it provides more stability to the final product. It can be used interchangeably in most recipes with corn syrup but they can/do react differently. The only real difference is that glucose being an invert sugar will not return to crystal form.

In the United States, Legislators allow domestic food manufacturers to call glucose syrup "Corn syrup" because the source of the starch is almost exclusively from maize. However, in other countries, wheat, barley, tapioca, potato, maize, cassava, rice, sago, and arrowroot starches are used to produce glucose syrup. In various proportions, several compounds usually exist in the solution, which include primarily glucose, dextrose, and maltose. After researching, I discovered the equivalence of 1/2 cup corn syrup plus 3 Tbs. water to 1/2 cup glucose plus 1/4 cup water will usually produce the same results.

Remember, each brand of corn syrup may be different, so it's best to read your labels and look at the ingredient list provided.

Well, back to the subject of Marshmallows. I will give the recipe a go, http://www.joyofbaking.com/candy/HomemadeMarshmallows.html
and see where it takes me. Gil advised me to stick with the plain marshmallow recipe first before experimenting. Hopefully I can resist the urge to replace the vanilla with something like elderberry or rootbeer. I guess it is best to get the recipe down first before having too much fun with it eh?

All this talk has me thinking I should do a blog on inverted sugars. Anyone interested in learning more?

*Mignardises are bite sized sweets served after dessert with coffee. The word is derived from the French word Mignard, which means small child or grateful, pretty and delicate.

Carrot Birthday Cake

A few weeks ago, I was visited by my dear mother Kathy and friend Marlene. It was short, but sweet for it was my dear mum's birthday! Being her absolute favorite indulgence is carrot cake, I thought it would be most appropriate to bake her a fresh cake. The recipe I used was from Nigel Slater's, Tender, cookbook. Chef Dale at Sprout happened to show me this particular book and highly recommended it to me. Coincidentally, I thumbed through the pages and stumbled upon his version of a carrot cake. Immediately I ran up the treacherous stairs to the 'loft' at Sprout and made a copy of the recipe. For those of you who don't know, the stairs are steep, narrow and make anyone and everyone re-think how to walk down a set of stairs; it terrifies me every time.

Anyway, after work, I biked to Whole Foods, bought my ingredients and peddled to my apartment to start the task at hand. I read through the recipe before starting and realized the procedure was unlike those of most carrot cake recipes. The main difference was the separation of egg yolks and whites. The whites of the eggs were meant to be whipped and folded into the batter. I suppose the idea's intention was to give the cake a lighter and less denser product. Putting all feelings and knowledge aside, I decided to ACTUALLY follow this part of the recipe. Most of you know I have difficulties in doing this, and it still shocks me to think I followed it precisely. However, in the end I did not think there was a noticeable difference in the density. This was my reasoning for obeying the procedure. I wanted to do a little experiment and test what I know to be true. And ah ha, I was right. The other ingredients in the cake are simply too heavy to allow the egg whites support. What happens in this case, is that the whites deflate and provide no extra structure.

But I must admit, I did change a few other components to the recipe. I increased the amount of carrots (I mean, come on, only 5 ounces of carrots in a CARROT cake?!? Ridiculous I tell you. This is a carrot cake right?), I added raisins and lastly, I changed the spice to Chinese five spice powder versus cinnamon alone. I will most certainly use this recipe again with my adjustments and ignore the part about separating the eggs. Perhaps the cake would have been fluffier and less dense if I had not made these additions, but to me, it's not a carrot cake without the raisins or an appropriate amount of carrots. The five spice was just something I wanted to play with, and I knew it would be an interesting substitute for the cinnamon.

In case you'd like to try it for yourself, here's the recipe with my adjustments.

Cake:
3 eggs
265 g all purpose flour (about 2 cups)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder
Pinch of salt
200 ml sunflower oil (just shy of one cup)
250 g sugar (scant 1 cup)
carrots 220 grams (7 1/2 ounces), grated
juice of half a lemon
150 g walnuts, toasted (1.25 cup)
2/3 cup raisins

Frosting:
250 g Mascarpone cheese (9 ounces)
200 g cream cheese (7 ounces)
150 g confectioners' sugar (1.5 cup)
grated zest of a medium orange
walnut halves, about 3/4 cup toasted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter two 9-inch cake pans then line each with a round of parchment paper. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, five spice, and salt. Beat the oil and sugar in a stand mixer until well beaten, then adding the eggs one at a time. Grate the carrots into the mixture, then add the lemon juice. Coarsely chop the walnuts and add them too. Fold the flour into the mixture with the mixer on low speed.
Divide the mixture into the two pans, smooth the top gently and bake for forty to forty-five minutes. Test with a skewer for doneness. Remove from oven and let rest for at least 10 minutes before turning the cakes out of their pans onto a wire cooling rack.
To make the frosting, put the mascarpone, cream cheese, and confectioners' sugar into an electric mixer and beat until smooth and creamy. It should have no lumps. Mix in the orange zest.
When the cake cools, sandwich the halves together with a bout a third of the frosting. Use the rest to cover the top and sides of the cake. A rough finish looks more appropriate. cover the top with walnut halves.

and then Eat

Canning Continued.....

And here's my current collection. I've sold about 10 jars this year and made about another 60, so I'm well on my way. Since I did nearly 100 last year, my goal is to do at least an additional 5 or 10, which doesn't seem like all that much. If you have canned before, you know how much effort, time and commitment that is, so you will understand why 5 or 10 is significant enough. Given I typically jar anywhere from 5 to 18 jars at a time on my tiny stove top, it will take me another 5 to 10 more rounds. Yikes! I best hop to it!!!

Canning

Apologies for the lack of writing; there's no excuse why I haven't written a single post in the last few months. But alas, I am back. Within the last month I have been canning like crazy. Everything from figs to tomatoes to peaches. Some of my new favorites include:

ginger fig jam
pickled green tomatoes
blueberry fig and lavender

If anyone has ideas or would like to something special jarred just for them, send them to me. I would be more than happy to practice my canning. My next projects include, but are not limited to......

pickled carrots
pickled turnips
radish relish
pickled beets (more, but this time golden)

It's interesting to note that there are limitations to hot water canning, which is my personal preference and method of choice. The hot water method takes longer for jars to process, must be adjusted according to altitude with each food item, does not allow for every type of food item to be processed (i.e. Cruciferous plants are usually unsafe to process), has an increased risk of burn injuries, and above all else, is the first method developed. My grandma Kirchner swears by the hot water method and taught me over this particular method for the first time. She had too many horror stories using the pressure cooking method, which was another reason for learning the hot water procedure. Frankly, I prefer to learn older procedures that have been around the longest. After all, there must be a reason why it is so widely used and continues to be used, right?

Last year was my first year, and I would say I ended up with about 100 jars in total of assorted edibles. Most are gone, with only but a few more jars of stewed tomatoes and pickled hot thyme carrots.

Some of you may wonder, what exactly is that picture and how does it relate to todays post. Well, fellow readers, it is one the dishes I prepare at Sunday's brunch at Sprout called the Lox. It consists of pickled items, gravlax salmon, potato tuile, homemade cream cheese, truffled yolk salad, figs and more. I wanted to display a picture of what you may be to pair with your pickled items at home. I hope this opens your mind to the endless possibilities.

There will be more to come on the wonderful world of canning.....

Seeduction Bread

Some of you may have discovered a bread at Whole Foods called 'Seeduction', and if you haven't, you must! It tastes sinfully good and will make you crave it for it's cake like moistness. After reading various forums, conversations, blogs and articles alike about this particular bread, I became obsessed with figuring out the formula. I wanted to bake it at home and not have to purchase it, so I took on the challenge.

To carry out this formula successfully, I knew that I must have a sound base of knowledge and understanding of each ingredient so that I could foretell the end result once all combined. The only ingredient I didn't know much about was millet [a now favorite grain of mine]. I learned from my research that it is best toasted before added to recipes to give a rounded flavor and more pleasing texture.

In the end, I was successful leaving me with the most beautiful, seedy, moist bread. After my last two failed attempts at a sourdough, I felt like a terrible baker. That is is until now; now I have restored my faith in myself as a competent baker. Take a look at my bread and drool, for I am far too protective over this recipe. Sorry, you'll just have to buy a loaf to taste the goodness.

Acorn Curry

Before Merima left MN, we had decided we were going to tackle our list of 'things to cook'. It was a compiled list from last summer of breads, entrees, and ingredients Merima wanted me to cook or use in cooking. Unfortunately, she left the list back home, so we brainstormed and remembered one of the items was curry. Thus I came up with this recipe 'on the fly' [kitchen lingo for not planned or in the spur of the moment] while preparing naan dough [another item on the list]. It was simple, but tasty. Merima even stated that it was one of the best Indian dishes she ever had and that it tasted very authentic. If you know Merima, this is quite the compliment. So you best try this one if you are a lover of Indian food. Enjoy my foodies....

an aerial view of naan and curry [sorry for the lack of a close-up]

Ingredients:

1 acorn squash

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1/2 shallot, mined

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 chili pepper, dried

3 cardamom pods

2 teaspoon brown mustard seeds

1 tablespoon garam marsala

9 ounces tomatoes with juice (from personal canning collection)

2 cup beet greens, chopped

1 cup green beans

1 tablespoon cumin

2 pinches of sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Bake the squash in the oven at 375 for one hour, or until cooked, in a baking dish with water.

In the mean time, add the oil to a wok and heat. Once hot, add mustard seeds, cardamom, and chili pepper. Cover with a lid until the mustard seeds stop popping, be careful here not to get one in the face :). Then add shallot and garlic. Once translucent, add the green beans, tomatoes with sauce, garam marsala, cumin and sugar. Keep on a simmer and add the squash once cooked thoroughly.

Note: you will have to skin and cube the squash before adding to the wok.

Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for 10-15 minutes until everything is cooked through.

Serve with naan and eat up!

If you try this recipe, comment on the preparation or taste. I am curious to know other's thoughts.

Kith & Kin

Steamed Grouper, Fava, Meyer Lemon Sauce, Zucchini

...one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago, Kith & Kin. When you visit Chicago, be sure to check out this wonderful restaurant where the food is innovative, exciting, rich in flavor, and fresh to the taste. Together, the three of us [Merima, Gil and myself] indulged in a plethora amount of food. Here were some of my favorites....

Beef, Blue Cheese, Mushroom Ketchup, Worcestershire Powder, Parsley Sauce

Lobster Bisque

Wood Smoked Oysters

Trio of Clam Rillette [horseradish, back left], Chicken Liver Pate [Dijon, Cornichon, back right] & Foie [Brioche and Strawberry Preserve, front]

The pictures are out of eating sequence, but I'm sure you would have guessed that. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmy