The Mohammed Ali of Desserts...

Dear Pickle:

So it's a tough time to fit a challenge in, but I know you and I are facing the same dilemma this year. What dessert can we possibly bring to Boxing Day dinner to satisfy a mixed bag of fam and in-laws? This is a serious challenge!!!

Some people might think this an easy problem. These people are not us. The dessert in question must fit the following criteria:
1. Must travel well. No frozen things, elaborate constructions or whipped cream as an integral ingredient (added at the last minute whipped cream is fine, although a bit fussy.)
2. Must be interesting enough for a special dinner but not contain supremely weird flavours. It's gotta be special but if it is too 'sophisticated', we could lose some of our dessert eaters to the goodie tray, which should be considered a failure of desserting. Also, because there will be children, alcohol should be kept to a minimum (the time I got accidentally drunk and barfed at Thanksgiving at the ripe old age of eight might be 'memorable', but I am not sure it ought to be repeated.)
3. Must be festive but not heavy. This has gotta land nicely on a belly full of turkey. Ugh, I feel full already. Maybe we should just make mints.
4. Must be impressive but not intimidatingly so. People should like it but, like dressing for a wedding, we can't outdo the 'bride' (i.e. hosts). Croquembouche is probably out. Also, I have 5,000 other things to do in the next couple of days so we kinda gotta keep it real.

You have already expressed disdain for trifle, so I will save that challenge for another time. Mwahahahhahaha. My veto goes to fruitcake and/or mincemeat.

Because I am feeling festively generous and this is indeed important, herewith please find three suggestions for your boxing approval. Punch the one you like.

1. A chocolate Yule log. Just kidding. .
2. A Christmas Cheesecake from Epicurious - This may break #3 and/or be impossibly 80s. But it DOES sound good!
3. A tasty Pavlova from Nigella - . This is the traditional Australian Christmas dessert, so they must be on to something. Does require a little last minute fussing with whipping cream and fruit (which we can surely take some license with.) But sometimes it's nice to hide in the kitchen for a few minutes, if your host doesn't mind...?
4. A Dorie Greenspan tart. Maybe Chocolate Cream (I'd toy with a plain crust rather than chocolate to stay within #3)? Or Toasted Coconut Custard (although is coconut too divisive re #2?) Or Fresh Orange Cream?

Er, as you can see, I'm dithering. Whaddya think?

Love,
Gumdrop

Hey Hey You Ugly

So now it’s my turn to apologize for a very tardy post, Gumdrop. I did this post weeks ago, but work and life have kept me from writing about it until now. And maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t in too much of a rush to show you the ugliest thing I’ve ever baked.

Given the terrible reputation roulades have, I decided to be brash, be bold, be confident as I prepared for the challenge. I whipped up the cake batter, spread it into the jellyroll pan and deftly tossed it into the oven. Shabam - a roulade superstar was born!

Except that’s when I noticed I’d filled the pan too much. The cake came out far too fluffy, but repeating my mantra, I covered it in plastic wrap and a wet tea towel and rolled that sucker up.

Next, I tackled the buttercream. Did this recipe feel like a lot of work for not much reward or was it just me? Sure, it tasted good, but it wasn’t that different than good old swiss buttercream. Maybe it picked up on my skepticism because just as I was adding the last pat of butter, it all separated. I slapped the bowl into an ice bath and did what I could, but I’d developed a bad attitude toward the whole endeavour and it didn’t do much to improve the frosting.

Feeling like a kitchen delinquent, I unrolled my cake, and of course, that puffy cake split apart. In an effort to just get the damn thing done, I slapped on some nutella and then added a layer of the buttercream and struggled to roll it all up into a neat log. I didn’t succeed in the “neat” department.

Things took a final bad turn when I tried to ice it with the sub-standard buttercream. After 4 hours of work, I was past caring. I slapped that icing on like I was Sandra Lee making her grandmother’s peach birthday cake with canned frosting and Ziploc bags.
It was a sad day in my kitchen.

I contemplated throwing it out and beginning again, but I couldn’t face it. Then I remembered when my mother first started quilting and she made what has become known as ‘the ugly quilt’. It looked like something frugal Ma Ingalls would have made during a desperately cold Prairie winter – and tossed away because it was so ugly. I dug through my closets and found that ugly quilt and used it as the backdrop for my ugly cake. I was a little heartened to think this was just my ugly first attempt at a roulade and if I keep at it, I might make roulades as beautiful as the quilts my mother makes now.

I wound up taking the cake to a dinner party at a friend’s becaujavascript:void(0)se a) I didn’t have time to pick up a bottle of wine after spending the entire afternoon on this cake and b) I still didn’t want the ugly thing hanging around my house! Due to my friend’s own dessert disaster, the ugly cake was joyously welcomed and devoured. It was the yummiest ugly looking cake ever.

xo
P

Buche De NOOOOOOOOO!

Dear Pickle:

Well, you’ve done it now. You’ve discovered a real culinary insecurity. I have made a rolled sponge cake exactly once. It was a good fifteen years ago and I don’t remember what exactly went down – but I do remember it did not end well (in fact, I think it became a trifle. Which is the destination point for many failed culinary attempts. Can make you feel handy and thrifty, but never like a hero. Sigh.)

With a few more years under my belt and a lot more confidence in the kitchen, I really thought this wouldn’t be a problem. I chose what looked like a good Martha recipe, a gingerbread roulade. I can’t find the recipe online and, really, it’s just as well. At first things were going well. Indeed, I was very proud of myself when I wrapped the cake up in the towel to shape it. It smelled wonderful and gingerbread-y and it was nice and high and I thought my cake-y karma was changing.

Ummm, maybe I should pay more attention to my Protestant roots and forget the Buddhist stuff. Did you ever have a granny who said ‘Pride goeth before a fall’? Yeah. Because SOMEBODY over here forgot to put icing sugar on the towel. So when she unrolled this 'perfect' cake to fill and ice it, it stuck. And cracked. And – boo-hoo. Sigh.

The Brown Sugar Buttercream gave me a hard time too, but this I could handle. A few years ago, I made (I swear to God this is true) FIVE wedding cakes in one year. All with Italian meringue buttercreams. This is why there was no cake at my wedding. :) So when my buttercream was lumpy, I just knew it was because my butter was too cold. Heating one cup of the bump icing in the microwave for 30 seconds and then beating it back into the bowl smoothed it out and made it gorgeous. I may have actually screamed out “THIS S*#& IS AWESOME!” despite having been alone in my kitchen with two babies sleeping upstairs. I didn’t even care if I woke them at that moment.

Alas, the 'awesome s*#&' had to go into dry, cracked, uninspiring cake. The gingerbread kinda drowned out the delicate brown sugar flavour - not complementary as I had expected.

I think I failed this one. Even my dad didn’t have anything nice to say, and that’s how you know when you’ve failed. Pride goeth before a fall indeed. Ya got me. Wish me better luck next time! (I kinda hope there’s another roulade challenge coming from you some day. Because you can bet I won’t be making one spontaneously, and I should probably get back on the horse before a real phobia develops.)

Sigh,
Gumdrop

Roll With It

Gumdrop,

Having seen the non-edible fruits of your Halloween labour, you are entirely forgiven for your tardy post. Mom duties and Gourmet grief must be honoured. I have to admit that I was always more of a supermarket checkout reader of Gourmet. Its stunning covers were a handy calming device when a 600-item customer was a head of me in the 10 items or less lane.

While waiting for your post, I’ve been contemplating the next challenge, bemused by the options available to me. Should we humour your inner-hippie and bake some ancient grains bread? Maybe it was time to return to pastry and bake rustic apple tarts?

But then two things happened: First, my mom came over for dinner and brought an old stand-by: a strawberry jellyroll. It was a bold move on her part because dear old mom has had a terrible run rolling those darn sponges. The last few attempts have been dry and cracked, like feet in summer after a few missed pedicures. This time, she managed a moist cake, but it still had a lot of cracks. I was disappointed to learn that she used store-bought jam, not my aunt’s homemade jam filled with plump berries. Then again, this is a woman who, as a schoolgirl, traded her homemade cake for store-bought cookies.

The second thing that happened was I came across this drool inducing article during my daily epicurious visit and I’ve been obsessed with the idea of brown sugar buttercream ever since.

So while it’s too early to challenge you to a bûche de noël, I hereby issue the next challenge as a brown sugar buttercream roulade. The degree of garnish fussiness is entirely up to you!

Enjoy,
Px

In Morning (sic)

Regretfully, due to technical difficulties, will have to post this without pictures for the time-being. It cannot wait a second longer! May need to fire live-in Tech Support which may be awkward on account of the marriage certificate and all.

Dear Pickle -

The mummy cupcakes are SOOOOOO CUTE! The fact is, this is why every child needs a cool aunt. I can't believe there were no Halloween baked goods in our house - I was too busy making costumes and endless autumnal dinners (that the kids don't eat). I didn't even have time to make myself a costume and just went as 'harried chick'.

I know I'm unforgivably late with this entry, but on top of Halloweening, I have also been in mourning for Gourmet magazine. Up 'til now, I'd been listening to all the stories about the death of print media with a certain devil-may-care imperviousness ('Denver Post' closes? Ooooh, sad. Oh look, 30 Rock is back - and there's a cupcake in the fridge!) But this sad passage one hits a little too close to home. I've been reading Gourmet for a good twenty years. Yup. Apparently I must write a will, before I croak in a La-Z-Boy. It was a kind of aspirational lifeline for a girl in a tiny industrial town where 'gourmet' meant you made your Jell-o salad with FRESH fruit instead of canned. Yes, it was impossibly snobby and almost impenetrable at times - I remember a lot of stories about the meats of Eastern Hungary as eaten on authentic stagecoach tours or how to prepare 'Chicken Liver Veloute with Quails Eggs and Pickled Starfish'. And when I went through my looooong vegetarian phase, I'm not sure exactly what I kept reading for. But read it I did. My bit of a girl-crush on the elegant and spicy Ms. Ruth Reichl may've helped boost me over the hump. I've got a huge collection of back issues, some even older than I am, which I refuse to throw away. Much to the chagrin of my garage-cleaning hubbo. But someday, someday, I'll have the time to cook my way through them.

However, I must admit that my subscriber copies have been sitting for longer and longer in their sterile plastic wrappers. I'd get the magazine, take a glance at the impossibly gorgeous pear on the cover, and then it'd end up sitting there. Dejected. Raw (i.e. - uncooked from). And then the next issue would arrive, piling on top of the second dejectedly. I can't immediately remember the last time I actually whipped something from the pages. My near-daily epicurious.com habit means that I must've made a few of their things recently, but even then it seems that most of the recipes I pull up to actually make are from the younger, somehow more in step with me 'Bon Appetit'. It's definitely a more user-friendly mag, packed with loads of recipes and using ingredients you can find. Without going to Hungary.

So I am sorry, Gourmet. I guess I was part of the problem. I will miss paging through you and being an armchair glutton/tourist. But I don't have enough money or time for all the things you asked of me - I don't purchase Cadillacs and I am not sure I am up to creating a Chicken Liver Veloute.

Instead I hope to keep blogging with my much-more-punctual blog-mate (more punctual than ME, that is, not more punctual than Gourmet, which always arrived on time.) Pickle, I am SO proud of you for making it all the way through this coffee cake dance marathon! I agree, making dough is something that ought to fit so easily into our lives, because the steps aren't difficult or time consuming, even for this particular monster-piece recipe I assigned us. In fact I managed to squeeze it in before hopping a cross-country flight. The relaxing steps of mixing and waiting, kneading and waiting, shaping and waiting - they all fit in well around wrangling a baby and packing a suitcase (then a suitcase for the baby.)

Although all three boys in my house went nuts for this, I have to say I found it kinda 'meh' in the final balance. It was a little dry, a little too danish-like for my liking. Because I am not a fan of the danish. Undoubtedly there are good ones in the world, but most that I've encountered have a dry staleness that belies their calorie count.

Plus we've already discussed that I have a large-ish hippie streak in me, a part that wishes to live in a commune and grow sprouts for a living. Bread-baking brings this alternate personality too close to the surface already. So making the bread into this kind of ornate lazy daisy shape threatened a full-on breach of the hippie bit I would much rather keep buried. Until next Halloween, maybe. Should I dress up as a hippie? ;)

x
Gumdrop

Boo!

Here’s a question you probably already know the answer to, Gumdrop. Q: what do you do to entertain a three year old for the afternoon? A: Bake intricate Halloween cupcakes. That’s what I did this weekend when my three-year-old nephew came to visit. So when he wasn’t ‘helping’ the IE paint the exterior of our house, I had a little sweet sweatshop, churning out Martha Stewart’s latest ghoulish gastronomic treats.

The ever-reliable one-bowl chocolate cupcakes were as moist and delicious as usual, although her suggestion of doubling the Swiss meringue buttercream left me with vats of excess frosting. I’m going to see how it freezes, as surely I’ll have a cake emergency in the near future. Next time, I’d make it before the little one arrived to make cupcakes as the process of making this sort of buttercream was torture for my little helper. Ten minutes to whip egg whites? Another 5 to beat the air out? Only a journey outside to test magnetic attraction of wet paint and a new shirt prevented mutiny.

That and the allure of candy. With frosting at the ready, we began with mini spiders. Bumble B had the honour of dipping the frosted mini into the black sugar and he was surprisingly adept at it. His attention to detail wasn’t quite up to his aunt’s when it came to the eyes though, which is why all the spiders have “m”s for pupils instead of the pure evil red intended. And after the difficult task of snipping shoeless licorice into the appropriate leg lengths, our first batch of Halloween horrors was complete.

Next we tackled the aliens and monsters. There were some creative liberties taken with limb placement on the aliens, but who can say with certainty that aliens don’t have 6 limbs on one side of their body? Seeing how proud he was his handiwork almost made me regret my strict adherence to Martha’s rules when making the monsters. Almost.

Both us feel head over heels for the mummy cupcakes. Perhaps that’s why they were the most successful of our partnership. He added the eyes and mouth and then I covered them with ribbons of buttercream. Truly one of the most impressive cupcakes ever.

So while I did seem to have go through more icing and candy than can strictly be accounted for by the final product, it was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Xo
P