Robb + Jessie Married & in the Badger State
Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Chocolate Pavlovas with Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse
The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard
It was one of those challenges where everything went wrong, but still tasted fine in the end. I had dealt much with meringues or mousses much before this challenge so it was a great learning experience.
Here is a link to the PDF of the Daring Baker’s June challenge. I would post it here, but it’s too long this post and I am truly unmotivated to format it to my specifications.
I ended up using Nigella’s recipe for her Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova because I was keen to discover how the balsamic vinegar affected the meringue. (It was amazing - FYI).
Besides spreading out a bit too much whilst pouring onto the baking sheet, I have to say, this meringue made me change my mind about this style of dessert. Double yum. I now know what to do with my whites from making ice cream.
Unfortuantly, I began to run into some when I began making the chocolate mousse. We had invited our friends over to enjoy the dessert with us. It was at this point when I began to feel a bit rush and I don’t think I looked closely enough at the directions. In the ingredients it says to use 1-1/2 cups cream, but it doesn’t specify separated. The first instruction was to heat the cream (but only 1/2 cup). Obviously, after realizing this (but not until I attempted to whip it together) I discovered that it was a lost cause.
Furthermore, I ran into a problem when I realized (1) I didn’t have enough time to make mascarpone from scratch nor (2) could I find it at Woodman’s (a major fail on their part). I sent Robb out in the downpour to find me some mascarpone, but because it cost so much at the Co-op, I only had half the amount the recipe called for. I should have just halved the Mascarpone Cream, but by this point I had already made the full Crème Anglaise.
As you can see, it went from good to bad in a matter of one hour. Thankfully, Eric and Ruthie came over shortly after the catastrophe and soothed my nerves by complementing the finished product. We all agreed that the mousse-turned-ganache would make an excellent ice cream. I think Robb must have secretly planned this because several days prior, he had gifted me a brand new ice cream maker for my birthday. What a guy.
The next day we had plans to play games with some friends so I quickly churned the leftover “mousse” and cream. The leftover meringue was crumbled on top… And once again I received rave reviews from my connoisseurs.
The moral of this story is: when faced with a custard-based disaster … turn it into ice cream.
Monday evening
It must be spring in Madison as we have a continual 40 — 90% chance of rain every day. Thankfully, the sun was out (abet, setting) for my walk from work to State Street where I met up with Sean and Robb. We enjoyed a Nepali dinner [Chautara] and took a stroll along Lake Mendota aid in digestion. After coming home, I started working on a rendition of Sean’s favourite ice cream from Molly Moon’s Handmade Ice Cream: salted butter caramel ice cream. [Yummmm].
Even a busy grad-student can be a domestic goddess.
Often, I imagine my life full of free time that I can spend in my cozy kitchen baking, preserving, and cooking (eating, too!). Then I realize that “free time” is simply what you make out of your time when you only have only one or two items on your to do list (instead of the usual ten to twenty). Since becoming a married woman (almost two and a half years ago now) I only buy whole chickens. I used to shy away from these little naked prehistoric animals (only buying the boneless, skinless breast meat in their shrink-wrapped Styrofoam containers), but now, I cannot get enough. Robb and I adore a good roast chicken. Especially when accompanied by a side of garlic jasmine rice (yum) and some veggies (preferably ones from our garden). It’s even better the next day sandwiched between homemade bread that has been smothered with our homemade cider mustard [recipes forthcoming]. When nothing but the bones remain, it’s time to make stock.
While, I don’t have photographs of both recipes, I wanted to share with you our favourite ways to prepare a chicken.
Roast Chicken: Two Ways
Split, Broiled Chicken
Adapted from Joy of Cooking
A quick way to a juicy, flavorful chicken is by cutting the bird in half, removing the backbone and broiling the bird.
Ingredients
1 3-1/2 pound chicken
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 — 4 (we like a lot) garlic cloves, minced
2 — 3 teaspoons rosemary, crumbled
juice from 1 lemon
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
Directions
Preheat the broiler. Move the rack to the center of the oven, at least so the top of the chicken will be 8 inches beneath the broiler. Prepare a broiling sheet with some heavy duty aluminum foil (to make clean up a bit easier for yourself).
Brush (or get messy and use your hands) the butter over the bird. Also, rub in the garlic and rosemary. Sprinkle with the lemon juice. Finish with salt and pepper. Place the bird skin side down on your prepared pan.
Transfer the pan to the oven and cook for ~15 minutes. Very, very carefully, flip the bird over so it is skin side up. Cook until the thigh registers 170ºF. If the bird begins to burn, you can tent it with foil until it is finished cooking. Remove from the oven and allow to rest under tented foil for 10 — 15 minutes.
The Perfect Roasted Chicken
When we have an extra hour, we like to roast the chicken whole, kind of like our turkey recipe.
Ingredients
1 roasting chicken (4-6 lbs), giblets removed, rinse and pat dry
2 tablespoons softened butter
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 small yellow onion
1 small lemon
1 small carrot, cut into 2” pieces
1 small rib celery, cut into 2” pieces
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary or thyme (you can substitute 2 tsp dried)
Method
Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Rub the outside of the chicken with the butter and season the inside and out with salt, pepper and juice of the lemon. Tuck the vegetables and lemon inside the cavity. Tie up the legs to prevent the stuffings from coming out.
Transfer the chicken to a baking dish and rest on its side. Roast for 25-30 minutes. Turn the bird onto its other side and roast for an additional 25-30 minutes. Finally, flip the bird onto its back and roast for a remaining 35-45 minutes or until the the thigh registers 170ºF. The total cooking time will be between 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 hours.
Let the bird rest, covering with aluminum, for 10-15 minutes before carving.
Easy as cake chicken stock
What I love about this method is that you can prepare your stock while you are sleeping. Well, almost. It’s wonderful because it uses the crockpot. I discovered this after Thanksgiving last year and I haven’t looked back since.
Ingredients
1 small to medium carcass of a chicken (typically from a 4 lb bird) — either fresh or frozen (I sometimes freeze 1 or 2 if I don’t have time to prepare the stock)
2–3 small carrots, trimmed, washed and cut into 2” pieces
2-3 small ribs celery, trimmed, washed and cut into 2” pieces
1 medium onion, skin removed and cut into fourths
Water, just boiled on the kettle
Makes 5-6 cups
Method
Plug in your slow cooker and place all ingredients into the bowl (excluding the water).
Pour hot water over the bones and mirepoix (carrots, celery and onion). I use boiled water because it requires a shorter amount of time to heat up in the slow cooker.
Turn the slow cooker on “High” until your water begins to boil again. (If you are using frozen carcasses, it will take a bit longer to heat). Turn the slow cooker to “Low” and let cook either overnight or while you are at work (about 8 — 9 hours).
When you wake up or return from work turn off the slow cooker and remove the lid to let the excess steam escape while you putter around making dinner or breakfast. When the slow cooker is cool enough to handle (30 minutes or so; but I have heat resistant hands) place a sieve over a large bowl or pot (preferably not plastic) and drain stock into the bowl. Toss the mirepoix and chicken bones in the garbage. Allow the hot stock to cool on the counter top before covering and transferring to the fridge.
Let the stock cool in the fridge either overnight or while you are at work (about 8 hours) to let the fat solidify. (It doesn’t actually require 8 hours, but it fits my schedule better). Using a fine mesh sieve transfer the stock into quart sized freezer bags. (The sieve should prevent the solidified fat from entering the bag. If this doesn’t work for you, you might try using a coffee filter apparatus.) Label your bags and lay them in the freezer. When they have frozen you can stack them vertically.
And store:
Starting Something Sour
I fell in love with baking bread my second year at college when my dear friends, Eliz, Megan, Les, Rachael and I formed a little club called the FFA (Food Freaks Anonymous). Living doors down from one another, Eliz and I would often sneak over to the library basement where we would procure Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain from the small rack of our library’s DVD’s and take it back to our suite to accompany us while we made some of our favourite “No Fail Wheat Bread.” There was nothing quite like a hunk of hot bread straight from the oven (although, you’re technically supposed to wait until it’s completely cooled) drizzled with a touch of honey while watching Amélie Poulain and Nino Quincampoix ride off on their moped.
Anyway. It has been several years since my love affair with bread and Amélie began. I am now moving onto trying some new techniques. Well, new for me. Sourdough bread baking (or at least using a natural starter) has been around since the Egyptian times in 1500 BC. Using a starter of naturally occurring bacteria gives breads regional distinction. [Of course we all know about the famous San Francisco sourdough breads (yum!)] After several failed attempts when we first moved to Madison (the bread just never rose) I put the project on hiatus. Thankfully, Clotilde*, of Chocolate and Zucchini, has been writing several posts about sourdough bread products and her little starter named Philémon. Her triumphs in the kitchen inspired me to resume our little fermentation project. Afterall, we should be good at this since Robb has been brewing beer with Eric, of late… and I am getting my Masters in Cheese. One of the easiest and sure-fire ways to have a happy, healthy stater is to procre some from a friend or a bakery. Since the Madison Sourdough Company seems to have their starter on lockdown [aside: they have the most amazing croissants!], I looked elsewhere. After some perusing on the internets, I discovered a nonprofit organization whose entire business is giving away a starter that has a very long history.
For the price of a stamp, Carl Griffith’s Oregon Trail will mail you a 150+-year-old sourdough starter culture that was brought west by a pioneer ancestor:
All I know is that it started west in 1847 from Missouri. I would guess with the family of Dr. John Savage as one of his daughters (my great grandmother) was the cook. It came on west and settled near Salem Or. Doc. Savage’s daughter met and married my great grand father on the trail and they had 10 children. It was passed on to me though my parents when they passed away. I am 76 years old so that was some time ago. I first learned to use the starter in a basque sheep camp when I was 10 years old as we were setting up a homestead on the Steens Mountains in southeastern Oregon. A campfire has no oven, so the bread was baked in a Dutch Oven in a hole in the ground in which we had built a fire, placed the oven, scraped in the coals from around the rim, and covered with dirt for several hours. I used it later making bread in a chuck wagon on several cattle drives - again in southeastern Oregon.
(via BoingBoing)
I sent away for my starter several weeks ago and it arrived just before my birthday (what a great little gift!) Following the set of instructions, I revived my little zombies (see Alton Brown) and now they are happily procreating in my fridge in a little applesauce jar. Here is a photo-log of their revival.
Meet Nino, the starter:
Nino, the starter, in its hibernating (aka-dried) state and its awaiting bowl.
Dissolving Nino, the starter, in 3/4 cup 90ºF water. (This took a bit of time…)
Preparing the ingredients for Nino’s first feeding: 3/4 cup bread flour and 1 tsp. sugar.
Mixing…
Ah, finished mixing. (It’s OK if there are a few lumps.)
An oven with the pilot light on is supposed to be a good incubating space, but my oven doesn’t have that luxury. Instead, our spare room and a desk lamp proved a suitable spot for it. I let Nino ferment for ~48 hours. The room smelled delightful!
Post-fermentation. Look at all that alcohol on the surface. Stir it back in a feed Nino again.
Getting Nino ready for its transition into the fridge.
It now lives in my fridge and I’ve made one loaf using the directions for the Alaskan sourdough bread which can be found here. But, as tasty as it was, it was not sour enough for Robb or myself. This weekend, I am planning to start another batch but this time using the recipe from the King Arthur Flour Blog for Extra-Tangy Sourdough Bread. I love that the basis for the lack-of-sourness goes back to simple microbiology:
What makes the sour in sourdough bread? It’s a combination of lactic and acetic acids, created as the dough rises and ferments. Refrigerating the dough encourages the production of more acetic than lactic acid; and acetic acid is much the tangier of the two. Thus, sourdough that’s refrigerated before baking will have a more assertive sour flavor.
(Via King Arthur Flour)
It looks like our dough will be spending more time in the fridge than on the counter. Hopefully this loaf is more to our tasetbuds’ liking. Otherwise, our freezer won’t be able to hold much more bread!! (Or we will be having a French toast party pretty soon…)
Ah, and if you are in the market for your own, already thriving starter… let me know! If you live in the Madison-area I would be more than happy to give you some of Nino’s offspring.
I suppose while the yeast is doing its work, I will go skip stones like Amélie…
* Did I tell you that I once saw her at a book signing in Seattle? That is me in the maroon shirt… har har.