MACARONS, or Why I’ll never be a pastry chef

Elise,

                As you know, I was off the bike for the long weekend which left me with an extra eleven hours to fill. Since, in our family you aren’t allowed to sit down between finishing your morning coffee (breakfast must be eaten standing up) and eating dinner, I couldn’t spend that time in the basement watching the Law and Order Marathon.

                I needed a project.  I have a long list of projects, a list filled with items that get moved from one list to the next:

·          Touch up paint on kitchen cabinets

·          Weed around back patio

·          Train the dogs

                Those items get passed along, like an illiterate but obedient child in our school system, because just the thought of any one of them makes me want to go back to bed. As you know, lying down is not allowed during daylight hours. What to do? What to do?

                Well, it was a million degrees out, air quality: code orange—only safe for the children and pets that you don’t especially like—so it had to be an indoor project. 

                Sure I could do something useful like filing the three year’s worth of mail that is stacked up in the back hallway or organizing a drawer or two. But why should I have anything to show for my time and effort, why not spend whole hours and a week’s worth of concentration creating some perfectly disgusting cookies (Macarons) and then throwing them all away?

                It wasn’t a complete loss. What I have to show for my afternoon is a renewed conviction that I’ll never be a pastry chef. My guess is that pastry chefs could also make needle lace, perform arthroscopic surgery on goldfish or apply eyelash extensions to themselves . When they are drunk, they probably build ships in bottles.

                Good Lord, this was a tedious undertaking!

                I read about the Macarons. Brave Tart’s blog is a very good source. http://bravetart.com/ She supplies a list of myths and musts. Add the sugar to the egg whites a tablespoon at a time—MYTH! Grind and sift and grind and sift those nuts with sugar allowing only about 2 TB of nut pieces that won’t go through a fine mesh strainer—MUST! Also, no matter whom you consult, they all insist on measuring by weight. Oy!

                The meringue came together nicely. The sole virtue of an egg white is that it is pretty forgiving. (Probably because they have such low self esteem, having absolutely nothing else to offer.) I folded in the ground hazelnut and sugar mixture. A tad more than two tablespoons might not have made it through a fine mesh strainer. I went with fine-ish mesh. All was well. I got about half of it into a plastic bag (My pastry bag ripped the last time I used it, and I haven’t felt compelled to replace it. If something calls for a pastry bag, I probably don’t want to make it.) and piped mostly uniform discs onto the parchment lined baking sheets.

                Now Brave Tart says, No need to allow the cookies to rest at this stage. So in the oven they went. Kate Zuckerman, whose recipe I was following, wants you to move the cookies from the top shelf to the bottom shelf half way through cooking. I just left them on the middle shelf and they did fine. This first group had the best “feet,” leading me to think that resting is deleterious. Each successive batch had smaller feet, and by the end, no feet at all. Poor little apodal discs. To counteract the thrill of those fabulous feet, the first group was overcooked and crunchy all the way through. A Macaron no-no.

                The second batch I put directly on the hot cookie sheets and this group still had feet, but cracked pretty egregiously. Also they were slightly undercooked so they stuck to the parchment and then ended up with hollow bases. All the better to hold more frosting, you are thinking, and you would be right if the frosting weren’t Swiss Buttercream. But more about that later. The final group had no feet but no cracks, and were not overcooked. Mistakes abound. What a fun cookie!

                For a pastry chef, these variations are invigorating and exhilarating. Experimentation and discovery, opportunities for improvement! I don’t want my cookie to be an Outward Bound experience with trust falls and that exercise where you have to look someone directly in the eye and tell them how you really feel about them. I just want consistently happy, puffy and footy Macarons. The sullen, flat and footless Macarons need to go off for their own Outward Bound experience. I don’t do well with temperamental creatures. I can’t keep an African Violet alive. The last thing I want is an intolerant cookie.

                Also too? I don’t really like meringue, it is too sweet.

                On to the filling. Absolutely everyone insists on Buttercream for the filling. I know, I don’t like buttercream, either. But I had come this far, I may as well stay the course. The cookies were already gross, what difference would it make?

                So I first tried to make the Kate Zuckerman Orange Buttercream. Kate wants you to make a sugar syrup and then drizzle it into an egg yolk and sugar combination, beating all the while, as the whole thing becomes voluminous and doubles in bulk. You are supposed to use a candy thermometer and heat the sugar syrup to 248. Well, it went from 220 to 260 in about 4 seconds so it was too hot when I drizzled it. The syrup congealed and hardened around the beaters and that was that. Except it wasn’t, because I dripped a ball of the syrup on my foot and got an instant blister. As I wiped it off in a frantic scrabble, I also burned my fingers and my upper arm.

                That batch went into the sink and I tried the Brave Tart recipe. This has egg whites beaten with sugar, then the butter is beaten in a piece at a time.  I managed to make a “broken” buttercream, natch. This led me back to the internet where I learned how to fix a broken buttercream. You take about ¼ of the mixture, microwave it for 15 seconds and then drizzle it back into the rest, beating all the while. Worked like a card trick. 

Which was gratifying in the moment, at least something was working! But also a little like finally getting the stain out of that dress you have always hated, the really itchy one that is too tight and gives you the silhouette of one of those heads on Easter Island. But at least it’s not stained! I added some melted chocolate and ended up with a frosting that tasted very much like a frosting from a fancy bakery. You know, the cloying, nasty, slippery kind.

                But soldier on. I piped that frosting and filled those cookies and even ate one. Way too sweet and so uninteresting, or as seven year old Chase said about the breakfast at The Plaza Hotel, “It is not good, you have to admit.”

                Brave Tart says that Macarons are really better the second day. I’m not sure they could be worse.

                So, let’s see, I had to measure by weight, I had to use a candy thermometer, I had to become as intimate with egg whites as Kima is with the frogs in the koi pond but without the final satisfaction of killing them. I burned myself. It took forever and they are not good. Maybe I’ll use them as dog training treats.

The Cheese Whizard

Hi Marg,

Westie and I made cheese! We were idly chatting about it and the next day he came home with half a gallon of whole milk. He'd researched recipes on the web, reviewed blogs, weighed the levels of complexity of different varieties, quizzed his friends and decided on Queso Bianco. Chosen bc it's easy and flexible. His friend said Monterey Jack was easy to make but the recipe required holding it at 90 degrees for 10 minutes and then raising the temp 2 degrees a minute for 8 minutes. Right. His friend doesn't know Jack, I'm thinking.

It was easy and tasted great. Here's what you need - milk, vinegar, salt, cheesecloth.

Here's what you do. Heat half a gallon of milk to just below a simmer and add 3T white vinegar.

Stir, bring to a simmer and continue to stir for 2 or 3 minutes. It starts to make curds pretty quickly.

Strain it in a colander lined with cheesecloth.

We strained it into a bowl bc we thought we might want to do something with the whey. The internet suggested that we could feed it to chickens, pigs or dogs, wash our hair with it, make soup with it, replace the liquid in a bread recipe with it, cook pasta in it, water the plants with it, make lemonade with it, or freeze it do any of these things later. Since it tasted like skim milk with vinegar in it we threw it out.

Sprinkle it with salt, gather it up into a ball and hang it for a few hours to drain.

Knock it down and have a taste.

Here's what we learned. You need to add the salt to the pot and mix it in. Imagine cinnamon rolls, but with the cinnamon sugar being a layer of salt. And then imagine putting it on a salty cracker. Parts of it were excellent, in spite of this. If you want to make a drier brick, press the ball under a weight while its still fresh. You can't do it once it's hung for hours. Rigamortis, I suppose. Also, if you want to make something you've never ever thought of making and have fun doing it, you should invite Westie to visit.

Love, Elise

Gluten Free Baking Mix or It Could Be Worse, You Could Be Vegan

Elise,

Alison was visiting and I had just read about C4C (the Gluten Free baking mix from Thomas Keller’s kitchen that is rocking the GF world), and I’ve been eyeing the King Arthur Flour Gluten Free Baking Mix for a while.

It was all coming together. 

I made chocolate chip cookies.

I used the David Lebovitz Salted Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe.  I tripled the recipe (it makes a very small batch). 

I had to distinguish the three different types.  In case I got confused, I didn’t want to mistakenly feed a flour cookie to Alison. So the C4C got chocolate chunks with walnuts, the KAF got chocolate chips with walnuts and the flour got coconut. 

I didn’t want to have to mix up three separate batches, so I made one big batch up through the vanilla. I then measured this and divided it in 3 parts with my truly awesome combination measuring cup scale. 

The dough was better from the C4C and the flour. (Can we just stipulate that the flour was good?) 

The KAF mix was gritty in dough form. Here is a point to ponder—the DL recipe wants you to let the dough rest in the refrigerator for 24 hours. I didn’t bother with this step. The grittiness in many gluten free mixes comes from the rice flour. Now I wonder if a 24 hour rest would help that, since the rice flour would have an opportunity to absorb some liquid and soften?

The results were mixed. Alison liked the KAF. Jamie liked the C4C. The boys just wanted more than one. I thought that when baked up, the three were pretty indistinguishable. 

I’ll stick with flour, but it is reassuring to know that my gluten free friends and family can have something other than those peanut butter cookies.

MORE

Elise,

Ab’s yoga teacher likes to say, “More isn’t necessarily better, it’s just more.” This is true if you are talking about the angle of your downward dog. If you are talking about whipped cream, it makes no sense at all.

Occasionally, I send someone a recipe that I have made and loved. I send it with stars and exclamation points scribbled in the margins. And occasionally, I hear back that it was bland, uninteresting, am I sure I sent the right recipe? I think this happened when I sent you the recipe for winter vegetable cobbler.

As I pondered this, bewildered by the failure, and questioning my taste, I realized that I don’t follow recipes. And I stray from the ingredient list, measurements, proportions, final instructions, so unconsciously that it doesn’t occur to me to add those addendums to the recipe before I mail it off. I assume everyone adds extra raisins and substitutes black olives for green. Who likes green olives?!

(I’m not as bad as the reviewer on Epicurious who, in writing about Turkey Apricot Meat Loaf with a Tamari Glaze, said, “Wonderful, I substituted lamb for the turkey and left out the apricots. Also didn’t bother with the glaze. A real keeper!” )

 Here’s what I did to that recipe. I used more turkey and more onions than called for. I added mushrooms and chopped kale because they are super immunity foods. And I doubled the glaze. But I didn’t review it. (I called this Super Immunity Loaf and while it wasn’t great, for as healthy as it was, it was NOT bad.)

There is a trend to my recipe alterations and it can be summed up as MORE. A teaspoon of cinnamon becomes a heaping teaspoon; a teaspoon of vanilla is a healthy splash. A cup and a half of chocolate chips? Use the whole bag! I am somewhat circumspect with baking. I leave the important ingredients (flour, baking soda) alone. But I never make a spice cake without at least doubling the spices. As written, can anyone even detect the cloves?? More lemon zest, more dried cherries, more pie filling. And always always always, more frosting!!

For savory dishes, MORE can be an attempt to make the dish healthier (Super Immunity Loaf) or more to my liking, sweet potatoes and raisins are a welcome addition to just about any soup or stew. Or it can be an effort to clean out the refrigerator. Two tablespoons of mashed potatoes and the left over Brussels sprouts will go great in the wilted spinach salad! That braised cabbage isn’t going to last another day, so toss it in with the scrambled eggs. (This may be what evolves from cooking-for-one.)

Frequently but with less dramatic results, recipe alterations involve a subtraction, again this is nearly unconscious. I don’t even see Parsley on an ingredient list. I haven’t added parsley to anything but dog food for as long as I can remember. Celery is slowly joining parsley and garlic isn’t far behind. Parsley, celery and garlic are commonly called for and rarely missed. If you are making garlic bread, OK, add the garlic, but two cloves in a Bolognese sauce are immaterial.

As for that whipped cream—it improves just about anything. If it is called for, add more. If it isn’t called for, serve it on the side. Sweetened, it enhances any dessert, hides flaws (cake too dry, pie too bland), helps healthy foods to pass as dessert (plain berries, poached fruit, jello made from juice), and the leftovers are agreeable in coffee the next morning. Savory whipped cream can take a tomato soup from just OK, to ethereal. Flavored with basil, it is a startling and delightful addition to corn and crab aspic.

I guess the take-away is, add more of what’s called for, except for the waste-of-time-three; more of what you want, super immunity foods; and more of what you like, whipped cream.

The Markets of Majorca

Like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...

The front of the olive stand - fresh, local, sustainable, in pottery crocks...

The back of the olive stand, and the empty cans...

This man was making donuts. I like the expression on the boy's face.

Snails were big in Inca, a town in the middle of the island.

The requisites fruits and vegetables

 Majorcan sponges, who knew?

Lemon Mousse

Dear Margaret,

I've been meaning to give you the details on the lemon mousse for so long now that I'm afraid I may have forgotten some of them. But I'll give it a whirl.

Rebecca brought Meyer lemons from her parent's tree when she came to visit and I wanted to make something special with them to showcase the delicate flavor. I did a roast chicken with slices of lemon on it that was delicious, but I wanted to make a desert with the remaining ones. You know, something special. Like desert.

Lemon mousse seemed like the perfect vehicle for the juicy goodness of these golden globes. I thought about using Belle's recipe for Lemon Souffle, which is really a mousse, but it has raw egg whites and that seemed unnecessarily risky. I will happily risk my health for cookie dough, but not for a lemon mousse that I could make just as well without the risk of a hospital stay.

I found a few lemon curd recipes on line and in books and set to work.

3 large eggs
3 large eggs yolks
1/2 cup sugar
zest of 2 Meyer lemons
1/2 cup Meyer  lemon juice
pinch of salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut up into pieces about a tablespoon size

Put the eggs, yolks, sugar, zest, juice salt all into the top part of a double boiler set over medium heat. Whisk like crazy to keep it from scrambling. Scrambled eggs with sugar and lemon juice in them are icky. Trust me.

Whisk, whisk, whisk until it starts to get frothy and bubbly. Keep whisking. It will start to thicken and turn into a lemon cream. Keep whisking. This took me about 10 minutes or so, in Idaho so at 5,500'. Might be different in Seattle or Virginia.

Once it's reached the desired consistency, take it off the heat and add the butter a few pieces at the time, continuing to whisk until the butter is melted and fully incorporated. Then add a few more pieces, until you've used up all the butter.

Now strain it through a fine mesh strainer to remove any stray strands of lemon flavored scrambled eggs. Place plastic wrap on top of the curd, actually touching it, to prevent a skin from forming, and chill for several  hours.

After licking the bowl and the whisk, and the fine mesh strainer I hoped that the plastic wrap would provide a deterrent to eating the rest of it with a tablespoon. It helped a little.

When you are ready to serve the mousse, whip 2 cups of cream to soft peaks, and gently fold in the lemon curd.

My, oh my. Oh my.

Rememberance of Things Past or Grits Souffle

A few weeks ago Alison sent around a picture of Jamie and Sam taking a lovely golden orb out of the oven - Belle's grits souffle, an old childhood favorite of hers. I remember Belle so well. She was a marvel. Everything she made was full of butter and sugar and tasted amazing. When I was a vegetarian I'd ask her, Belle, how do you feel? And she'd tip her head back, making her appear even shorter than her already not so big self, and roar out, I falafel! and bust up laughing. Her white stockings made a rustling sound as she sped around the kitchen, making cinnamon rolls, roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, Carmelitas and grits souffle, apparently.

I remember Sue as the originator of the grits souffle recipe, but Mom clarified that it was originally Aunt Mary Harry's recipe and that Sue introduced it to us, since Aunt Mary Harry was on Henry's side of that marrying-cousins family. 

I also remember it as much flatter than the current photo. But I had fond memories of it none-the-less so set to work. Mom and Abby were coming for dinner and Downton Abby so that seemed the perfect opportunity. I planned porkchops with bitter winter greens from Epicurious to balance the richness and Pineapple Upside Downton Cake for desert (that's another story, but it doesn't have a happy ending).

The original recipe calls for heating milk and butter, adding the grits and cooking til thick, then beating for 5 minutes and baking in a souffle dish. Abby and Mom were due at seven and my unfailing belief that I could do just one more thing before getting ready meant I was late and not ready. Consequently, there was a temper tantrum, followed by some bellowed curses when the milk boiled over because I had it on too high because I wanted it to boil faster. Right. in my post-tantrum state of excess adrenalin I forgot the part about cooking the grits and just went right to the 5 minutes of beating.

The result mirrored the geographical deposition that you would see on a canyon wall. The lowest layer, the sedimentary layer, was like dry, tough cornbread; the next layer, the metamorphic layer, was a rich soft  custard of cooked milk; and the top, the igneous layer was a thin brown crust. Not inedible, but not far from it and nothing liking the memories of yore. No photos.

 The next weekend armed with real grits this time, I tried again. I started early, avoided temper tantrums, remembered to cook before beating. Huge success - just like I remembered.
 

Still curious about what Jamie had done, I called him up. He revealed that he had tinkered with the original "a bit", adding eggs (separated and whites whipped to soft peaks, then folded in) and Parmesan cheese. Apparently Alison had remarked, well, it's not what I remember, but it's not bad. I'm sticking with Alison on this one.