Vanilla bean Custard

This is a fabulous recipe, although it wasn't so fabulous for what I used it for.  I decided to make a crepe cake for Carrie's b-day.  The crepes turned out lovely and this creamy deliciousness turned out perfectly.  The blog I got it from used it to make a crepe cake.  Well, my crepe cake didn't turn out like hers.  At all.  I could tell it was getting a little slippery, and I even used less filling between each layer than she called for.  I was really annoyed at first and I swore off crepe cakes forever.  But by dessert time I was able to laugh about it - it sort of reminded me of the cake that the fairies make in Sleeping Beauty - I was just waiting for the candles to slide down the side.  We called it "cake pile".  As you can see.  So the combination was delightful but I would use something else if you're making a crepe cake.  Or, just be like me - don't make a crepe cake.  : )  We decided that this would be better if we just used it to drizzle on top of crepes with some fresh berries.  Mmmmmmmm......

Vanilla Bean Custard (or pastry cream)

• 2 cups half and half
• 1/2 cup sugar, plus 2 Tablespoons sugar
• ⅛ teaspoon salt
• 5 egg yolks
• 3 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 4 Tablespoons butter cut into cubes
• 1 vanilla bean or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 
  

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Pour the half and half into a small/medium saucepan. It’s important to uses a saucepan with a solid bottom, or your custard will burn easily. If you don’t have a good quality saucepan, use a pot with a nonstick finish.
2. Add the 1/2 cup of sugar and salt. 
3. If you’re using a vanilla bean, split it in half with a knife and scrape out the seeds. Add the seeds to the half and half. (Don’t forget to use up the scraped out vanilla bean by making Vanilla Sugar, which, if you have some on hand, you can use in this recipe instead of regular sugar. It will taste phenomenal.) If you’re using vanilla extract, don’t pour it in yet.
4. Bring the mixture to a simmer on medium low heat, just until the sugar dissolves and you see tiny bubbles begin to appear on the surface of the half and half.
5. Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks with the remaining 2 Tablespoons of sugar in a large bowl, until the sugar dissolves.
6. Add the cornstarch and keep whisking until it’s completely incorporated into the egg yolks.
7. As soon as the half and half comes to a simmer, ladle in a small amount of the hot liquid into the egg yolk mixture, whisking it all together at the same time, to make sure your eggs don’t scramble. Gradually add 2 to 3 more small ladles of the half and half to the eggs, and then pour the egg mixture into the pan with the remaining half and half mixture, whisking as you add it in.
8. Return it to the stove and cook on low heat, whisking constantly, until the custard thickens. You can make sure it’s thick enough by dipping a wooden spoon into the custard and when you run your finger down the center, the line should remain there and not run together. Another sign to look for is that as soon as the custard thickens, you will see bubbles start to rise from the very bottom of the saucepan and burst at the top. Remove the pan from the heat.
9. At this point, check the consistency of your custard. If there are any lumps, tiny or big, it’s very easy to fix this. Pour the custard through a fine mesh sieve and you’ll have beautiful, smooth cream.
10. While it’s still hot, add the butter and mix it all together until the butter melts.
11. If you’re using vanilla extract, add it to the pastry cream now.  Cool the pastry cream before using it.
12. To prevent a skin from forming on the very top of the pastry cream, place a piece of plastic wrap or a bit or parchment paper directly on the surface of the pastry cream.
13. You can make the pastry cream/custard DAYS in advance, which is such a huge plus. Keep it refrigerated and tightly covered.

Recipe from http://www.olgasflavorfactory.com/

Explosive Cooking!

I was getting dinner out of the crock pot the other night and I set the lid on the stove. The stove was not on, by the way, nor had it been on for a long time. After a minute or two there was a loud pop and crash and I looked over to see this:

This is the second glass kitchen item I have had explode on me! What the heck?! Good thing it's Black Friday sale time. And I'm, of course, really glad it didn't explode on our dinner and that I wasn't holding it either. Sheesh!

Spring-form Fiasco

Becky spent a lot of time making a lemon tart thing in the spring-form pan. While we were eating dinner the timer alerted us that the tart was finished baking. I told Becky that I'd get it out of the oven and show it to her so she could make sure it was done. With both hands in oven mitts I picked up the pan. Left hand holding the pan and right hand under the pan apparently applying too much pressure on the bottom of the pan. The bottom of the pan tipped up, the tart spilled out all over the bottom of the oven. The same oven I'd just cleaned a week ago.
I gasped! The oven sizzled as the filling poured out all over! I cried "Oh no!" Everyone wanted to know what happened. I showed them what was left of the tart and admitted that perhaps I didn't actually know how to pick up a spring-form pan properly. However, I do think it might be a good idea to place a spring-form pan on a cookie sheet in the oven. Just sayin'.


We did try what was left of the tart and Becky will be posting the recipe soon......

All that filling burning onto my clean oven. How sad.

The next day, Alan cleaned all the sticky mess out of the bottom of the oven. At least he thought he got it all. Apparently it leaked over the sides of that bottom piece and onto the elements. Late that night, J turned on the oven to make a pizza and smoke began to pour out of the oven and then flames erupted! He ran upstairs and pounded on our door and Alan went down and they put the fire out and J had to throw the pizza away :( The house STILL smells like smoke - Gag! I opened two windows and turned on the attic fan and the temperature outside was a chilly 22 degrees. I would say this little spill has earned the title - Fiasco!

Mint Chocolate Ganache Cake

We've just been having all sorts of cooking adventures around here lately!  Becky, Avery and I had this one together. After Becky perused the Lion House Cakes and Cupcakes book, we all agreed that we should just make the cake on the cover because it looks and sounds fabulous. Chocolate and mint, right?  Ganache, to be more specific (i.e. really, really good chocolate).  For starters, our cake, uh, didn't exactly look like the one on the cover:

Apparently we missed something.  Our mint frosting part was a little lacking in the stiffness and there was waaay more than you actually needed.  Maybe we should have watched the bonus dvd that comes with the book to get some tips because here's what our cake did after we had cut it up to serve everyone:

I turned back to look and the top layer had just slipped and flipped right off onto the counter!  Ha! :)  Really, we weren't impressed with the taste so much either.  So why am I posting this?  Becky is going to remake it sometime and make all the corrections we talked about and make it fabulous, right Becky?
I'll post the original recipe, but tell you here that we decided that it doesn't need the whipping cream and the cool whip.  It just makes too much and things get runny with all that extra mixing.  We would just try the whipped cream and maybe use a stabilizer.  We also only made 3 round and used the rest of the batter for mini cupcakes.  Also, the mint flavoring is so not enough.  Definitely add more than it calls for.  In fact, you'll need more than 1/4 tsp, which wasn't enough either.

Mint Chocolate Ganache Cake

Cake
2 chocolate cake mixes, any flavor

Ganache
1 c. heavy cream
2 c. semisweet chocolate chips

Whipped Mint Frosting
3 c. heavy cream, whipped until stiff
1 8 oz container frozen whipped topping, thawed
1/8 tsp mint flavoring (or more according to taste)
1-2 drops green food coloring
1 (7 oz) semisweet chocolate bar, chocolate molding chocolate, or chocolate bark, for chocolate curls
Mint leaves, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease and flour four 9-inch round cake pans.

For cake: Prepare and bake both cake mixes according to directions on box.  Allow to cool completely or freeze to make it easier to frost and assemble.

For ganache: Place cream in a small saucepan and heat on medium heat until bubbles start to form around the edge of the pan.  Remove from heat. Pour chocolate chips into cream and stir until smooth. Set aside.

For frosting: Gently fold together whipped cream, whipped topping, mint flavoring and food coloring.  Do not beat.

Trim the tops off 3 cake layers where they start to round from the side to the top. Place 1 layer on serving plate, cut side up.  Place one-third of the ganache on that layer and spread it so it will slightly run down the sides.  Place one-third of the frosting on top of the ganache and spread just to the edge of the cake.  Place second cake layer on top of frosting and repeat with ganache and frosting.  Repeat with third cake layer.  Garnish with chocolate curls and mint leaves.

For chocolate curls: Warm chocolate bar 10 seconds in the microwave and then peel with a vegetable peeler.

Fizzy Caramel Apples

I saw this quick and easy recipe for caramel sauce that stays soft even in the fridge so I whipped it up to use for dipping apples.  Wow!  What a surprise!  We ate them with Granny Smith (i.e. tart) apples and when you combined the two there was some sort of chemical reaction that made them taste fizzy!  The caramel doesn't taste that way on it's own, so there must be something going on there with the apples. Really kind of funny.
So, if you're up for a bit of a caramel apple adventure, give this a try!

Caramel Sauce
1/2 c. butter
3/4 c. granulated sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. buttermilk (or soured milk)
2 T. corn syrup

Combine in a large saucepan and bring to a boil.  Continue boiling for 7 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Remove from heat and add:

1 T. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda

Mix well.  Cool and store in the refrigerator.

Lemon-Ginger Chicken Adventure

Steve and I had a great adventure making this for dinner on Monday night. He was getting ready to leave and I was making dinner. I was chopping up the raw chicken while the oil was heating to fry up the rice noodles. The oil was ready so I asked Steve if he would mind doing the noodles real quick (which, by the way, are so fun to watch if you do them one at a time! They do gymnastics in the oil and tie themselves in knots. Lots of entertainment value there.) He fried them and I got a bowl out for him to pour the oil into so that we could use the pan again and a little of the oil. I had a fleeting thought that plastic would melt so I got a glass bowl out and he began to pour and things we going along just fine ... until ... the bowl exploded! Don't worry - it's just glass and 400 degree oil flying everywhere... No problem...

We started cleaning it up and Steve went and got the kitty litter from the garage and poured that on the oil that was all over the floor - brilliant really! It soaked the oil up and then he swept the litter up and we didn't have to use a whole roll of paper towels to no effect. It was great.

In all the confusion I realized, albeit too late, that I had doubled some of the ingredients but not all because I intended to make extra sauce but I didn't remember where I had left off and didn't want to triple some ingredients and not others so I just stopped and used what I had already measured out. The result was a much spicier dish than I care for but everyone else liked it so I'm posting it that way. (I went back through after dinner and figured out what I had used.)

I told Steve he really might as well stay for dinner at that point. He agreed. Nick was here too but he left. I can't imagine why.

We served this with fried rice and yucky frozen cream cheese wontons. Ish. Really they just aren't even sort of like the restaurant wontons which are divine (no doubt in part b/c they have crab in them too...).

Oh yeah, I asked Mom to get baby corn and she came home with an assortment of canned corn, none of which were baby corn so we didn't add that. And I forgot to add the cilantro but figured it was a fair trade to leave it out since Mom forgot the baby corn.

We did all agree that it needs more sauce to go over the rice noodles but since I've messed with the ingredients already I'll let you experiment at your own peril with the sauce. Naturally I've renamed the dish to match our exciting cooking experience - and added a category to the blog.

Lemon-Ginger Chicken Adventure

vegetable oil for frying

4 oz rice noodles, broken in half

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed

3 tsp lemon zest

4 tsp minced garlic

1/4 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp ground red pepper

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 C water

2 Tbsp cornstarch

2 Tbsp oil

6 ounces fresh snow peas, trimmed

1 can baby corn, rinsed and drained

1/4 C chopped fresh cilantro

2 Tbsp packed brown sugar

2 Tbsp fish sauce

1 Tbsp soy sauce

Heat 3 inches of oil in a wok or dutch oven until oil registers 375 degrees on deep-fry thermometer. Fry noodles in small batches 20 seconds or until puffy, holding noodles down in oil with slotted spoon to fry evenly. Drain on paper towels; set aside.

Combine chicken, lemon zest, garlic, ginger, red pepper, and black pepper in medium bowl. Combine water and cornstarch in small bowl; set aside.

Heat wok over high heat 1 minute. Drizzle 1 Tbsp oil into wok and heat 30 seconds. Add chicken mixture; stir-fry 3 minutes or until cooked through.

Add snow peas and baby corn; stir-fry 1-2 minutes. Stir cornstarch mixture; add to wok. Cook 1 minute or until thickened.

Add cilantro, brown sugar, fish sauce and soy sauce; cook until heated through. Serve over rice noodles.

Serves 4.