Month: October 2008

I love chocolate. I really love chocolate. Chocolate candy, chocolate frosting, chocolate sorbet, chocolate pudding, hot chocolate. But oddly, I’m less fond of chocolate cake (and chocolate ice cream). Go figure. So when I looked at this week’s Tuesdays With Dorie recipe I figured I’d love the ganache, but the cake would be kind of eh.

Now, Friday was a bit tense around here. Errands took insanely long, and there was this chicken to be disjointed. (See Friday’s post if you care.) So I kind of rushed the cupcakes into the oven, and as part of that ill-conceived rushing I failed to read the entire recipe before starting. So everything was mixed exactly right, including the dry ingredients (which you never want to do until right before the cake goes into the oven, of course), when I discovered I needed 2 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled.

Oops.

So there was a bit of a delay, and the chocolate (when it went in) was perhaps not quite as cooled as the term “cooled” might imply.

I don’t know if that actually affected anything, although #1 Son issued all sorts of dire warnings about melted butter and screwed-up texture.

So I baked the cupcakes and cooled them, and when they were cool I stuck a cake decorator into the top and gave each one a shot of Marshmallow Fluff. (The recipe suggests doing that from the bottom, but then I’d have to have taken them out of the cupcakes papers, and I didn’t wanna.) The ganache (the yummy, yummy ganache) covered the Fluff completely, and so it came as a lovely surprise when the family bit in. We had some Edy’s cherry chocolate chip ice cream alongside, which was the perfect complement.

The verdicts?

Husband: Structurally, they were just gorgeous. That ganache on top was lustrous. I don’t think the Fluff added much to the taste, but it was a great throwback to cream-filled Tastykakes. The cupcake itself was really good.
#1 Son: They were good. The Fluff was kind of a nonentity, but it was fun. The flavor was good, but a little blunt, not a whole lot of depth or subtlety. It was good with the cherry ice cream.
#2 Son: The ganache was really good, very melt-in-your-mouth. The cupcake was good. It was delightfully cakey, and the Marshmallow Fluff was a pleasant surprise.

I thought the cake was dry — I never really like cake. It’s just an icing delivery system. The Fluff moistened it up quite a bit. And the ganache, as previously mentioned, was yummy.

The cupcakes looked pretty, and if I ever for some reason needed chocolate cupcakes, I’d certainly consider using these.

f you want to see what all the other TWD bloggers did with this recipe, check out the blogroll. And if you want to try them yourself (use the Fluff, or maybe some pastry cream or even jelly!), Clara will have the recipe here. (It’s not too late to make them for Halloween!)

The first cookbook I bought as a semi-adult was The Mystic Seaport Cookbook by Lillian Langseth-Christensen. It’s out of print now, but Amazon has 27 used copies. (Husband, then Boyfriend, and I bought it on our first road trip together, to Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. I guess it says something about us that that’s where we chose for our first road trip.)

I haven’t used it much over the years, although at least twice a year I make its Chocolate Silk Pie, which is, without exaggeration or hyperbole, the best pie in the world. But one thing I used to make fairly frequently and haven’t for many years is  the Chicken Pie with Cheese Crust. Husband and I both remember it fondly, although #1 Son doesn’t remember it at all, which tells you how long it’s been since I’ve made it. So when I decided to make it this week, I was worried: Would it live up to our memories, or were we going to be disappointed and lose yet another piece of our youth?

I won’t keep you in suspense: It was every bit as good as we remembered: chunks of chicken and potatoes immersed in an amazing gravy. It’s the apotheosis of comfort food. (And it’s even better cold. #1 Son just came in and hugged me in gratitude because he had a bite now that it’s been sitting for a couple of hours.)

I had a farmers market chicken in the freezer, so I defrosted that overnight, dreading the job of disjointing it for the pot. And then this morning at Trader Joe’s, I noticed whole kosher chickens, already helpfully disjointed and wrapped in cellophane. I’ll remember for the next time.

The morning got away from me yet again, and we wound up not getting home from all the errands till 2. #1 Son generously offered to stay home from his teen group meeting in the city to help me, and I happily took him up on it. (Somewhat to his chagrin, I think, but he was great about it.) So I handed him the chicken and a few knives and told him to go at it, and go at it he did. The learning curve was steep, but in the end I had a bunch of chicken pieces in my four-quart pot.

And then began the four-hour process of making this stew. I will type up the recipe tomorrow, but I wanted to get this published before a whole week went by again (as it did before I published last week’s Friday entry, which despite its date was actually published about 10 minutes ago.

I had forgotten how long and labor-intensive this is. I suppose it’s like giving birth — if women remembered what it was like, every child would be an only child. I’m going to make notes in the book this time, so we won’t wind up eating at 7:30 next time.

And if you’re having anything with gravy, there must be biscuits. I have discovered Heather’s Buttermilk Biscuits, the Only Right Way, and she’s not kidding. If you’re going to make biscuits, make these. Light, fluffy, perfect.

Dessert was once again Dorie. Tune in Tuesday for details!

This week’s Tuesdays With Dorie recipe was Lenox Almond Biscotti, and we liked them a lot. They were softer than the biscotti I’m used to, the kind you have to dunk into coffee or risk breaking your teeth. There’s cornmeal in them, which gives them an interesting texture, and lots of almond extract. I was actually worried about using so much, because most recipes call for just a quarter or half teaspoon, but it worked, and it worked well.

I had some bananas quickly heading toward rot, so I made David Lebovitz‘s Roasted Banana Ice Cream (from Perfect Scoop; if you make ice cream at home, you must acquire this book) to go with the biscotti. We also had some caramel sauce left over from last week’s TWD adventure.

I did not write this post on Saturday, as I usually do (we spent the day in Manhattan! it was fun!), so I don’t have a full family interview this time. (Two are still asleep; one’s getting ready to go to work.) I’ll try to fill in their opinions later,

I did ask #1 Son for his pithy quote last night:

#1 Son: Good almond flavor, chewy texture. Not at all like the biscotti you get in coffee shops, which are as hard as rocks.

Update:

Husband: They were a little uneven in terms of their texture, but very tasty. They were brittle on the ends and little toothier in the middle. I prefer them that way, actually. And they were really delicious.

#2 Son: I liked how they were slightly chewy and the almond flavor. They were very good with the ice cream.

So these are a keeper. If you want to try them yourself, head on over to Canela and Comino, where Gretchen has the recipe and quite a few delicious-looking variations. And check out what all the other TWD bloggers did with these at Tuesdays With Dorie. You’ll see all kinds of creative changes to this recipe, I predict.