When in doubt, make a trifle

I made a gluten-free orange and almond cake from a cookbook (and I SWEAR I followed the instructions) but somehow it didn’t turn out – it was wet and soggy and didn’t hold together at all.  The flavour though was really lovely – crisp orangeyness singing out against the round undertones of nutty almond.  But how to serve a cake that looks like wet grainy poop?

        

Why, I’ll make a trifle!

So after whipping up some cream and foraging at the store for out-of-season blackberries (sometimes it must be done), what ended up was something quite attractive and edible:

        

Kapow!  The Muffin Lady strikes again!

Now that the holidays are long gone, it’s time to start soothing the nerves as we settle into the depressing stretch of winter.  

What to do, what to do…

???

Eat, clearly.

!!!

Here are some gluten-free red bean (adzuki!) squares.  The filling is a paste of red bean and sugar (I used jaggery (Indian molasses) for jollies) and the crust and topping are the same: a mix of ground almonds, rice flour, sugar, and butter.  While it is still a treat, the fibrous red beans add virtuousness and a shade of exoticism to an otherwise glum time of year.

…on a platter

I was thinking about baking traditions.  Usually around Christmas time people like to get nostalgic and partake in rituals like baking the same things that they did last year.  Funny how fine the line is between rituals and repetitive behaviour (dementia?)  Sigh, consistency is so comforting. 

Anyway, I came to a somewhat sad realization: my parents didn’t really bake much when I was little – at best, there was the occasional use of muffin mix….when it went on sale. 

I guess that’s why I turned out to be a mousy weirdo who reads cookbooks like novels and plans meals in her head while waiting at the bus stop.

However, after further thinking, I did remember a recipe that I learned in my rosy-tinged childhood – it wasn’t from my parents, but from a friend.  It was called, “Sex on a Platter” – so exciting when I first heard of it (sex?  Mysterious!  Intriguing!  Baby making?!  Oh my!), but with the greying effect of experience, I realize now it’s not that titillating, and at best, tawdry.  (Soda crackers?  Clearly a grandmother came up with this one.)  It is still a good recipe, but I would rename it so that the build-up isn’t so great that the end result is anticlimactic (which similarly wouldn’t be very desirable in the bedroom either).  Though “Caramel and Chocolate Covered Soda Crackers” doesn’t have quite the same zeal, albeit, near scientific accuracy.

Anyway, here it is!  For now we’ll call it, “Another Dessert,” until a more imaginative (but not misleading, no no) title comes to mind.

Another Dessert

Some soda crackers
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. water
Chocolate chips
Some toasted nuts (cashews, for instance)
Sea salt or kosher salt

Pour water into a little saucepan and add sugar on top.  Heat gently to dissolve sugar.  You are making a caramel.  It’s going to be fantastic to watch the transformation of crystalline to amorphous.  Let it boil and bubble until it becomes a golden colour.  This will take a while so you can busy yourself with lining a baking pan with foil and then placing one tight-knit layer of soda crackers on top.  Keep an eye on the sugar, because once it starts to get a bit of colour, it’ll get dark very quickly.  Don’t stir it, because you don’t want the sugar to crystallize (I could explain why, but I don’t want to bore you.  Ask me later.)  Once the caramel is ready (careful, it’s really bloody hot) quickly pour it evenly over the crackers.  Sprinkle over some chocolate chips and pop the whole lot into the oven and broil for a couple of minutes to melt the chocolate.  Smooth the chocolate out with a spatula, and then sprinkle over the nuts and a pinch of salt (the salt was not part of the original recipe, but an attempt to bring it into a new era since sweet/salty flavouring is so sexy right now).  Let it cool and then peel off the foil and cut or break the Dessert into appropriate serving sizes (you can decide).  Bring to a dinner party (serve on a platter, of course) and have jolly laughs over the origin of the recipe.

      

Everything will be ok

It’s that time again.

It’s widely known that the holidays are stressful: making sure you stay within the gift-buying budget, dealing with relatives’ banal questions, Christmas carols on pathological repeat, the existential crisis bubbling underneath the veneer of cheeriness and congeniality as another year slips by and you wonder what you’ve been doing with your life and why you haven’t moved to the Cayman Islands yet like you’ve always planned.

Indeed, there’s a lot to deal with.

So after spending all that time puttering in the kitchen, dolling out delightful jars of homemade spreadables and then realizing you are too tired to make a real meal, here’s a simple dessert for you.  Preparation time is minimal; it merely requires the organizational skill to pick up the ingredient (note the singularity!) during your regular grocery shop, or, as is more likely, the panicked last minute dash to the store for the parsley or whatever it is that will surely, surely, impress the mother-in-law. It can also be easily doubled, tripled (quadrupled!) to your heart’s content.

Easy Chocolate Dessert

Open a chocolate bar of your choice (e.g. Green&Blacks, Cocoa Camino). Place on dish (or not). Eat slowly, reveling in the elegance and simplicity of your ways.  Goes well with a glass of milk (bovine or otherwise), or perhaps some coffee.  Nice to have while reading dessert recipes.

         

Schmear!

My friend asked me where the muffins went – I’m getting there!  In the meantime, I have been making things to schmear on muffins.  It’s ten days to Christmas, and since buying gifts is so pre-recession, I have been puttering away in the kitchen making little jars of yummies.  I have never done any sort of home canning before, so hopefully I did it right and no one dies.  Or gets a tummyache.  Or whatever.

To usher me into my exploration of pioneer-housewife-domesticity was a Cranberry and Apple Chutney recipe by the ever effervescent Nigella Lawson.  Here is the recipe, slightly modified, to support my laziness and ill-equipped kitchen:

Cranberry and Apple Chutney

5-6 small Macintosh apples, chopped roughly and de-seeded (leave the skin on – it’s going to be cooked anyway!)
a handful of dried cranberries
1 small onion, diced
350 ml cider vinegar
1 c. sugar
1 tsp each of ground ginger, turmeric, cumin, coriander, cinnamon
1.5 tsp salt

Chuck everything into a pot.  Bring it to a boil.  Let everything get friendly under a fast simmer for about 30 minutes with the pot uncovered until it is all thickened slightly and the fruit is soft.  While the fast simmer is happening I like to sterilize my jars (I might be lazy, but I’m organized).  Nigella sterilizes her freshly washed jars by putting them in a 140 C oven.  She doesn’t say how long, so I figure that during Fast Simmer time is good enough.  (Some people like to boil their jars in water, which I did once at a job, and unless you have special tongs for pulling jars from a vat of boiling water, it’s slightly terrifying business.)  When the chutney is ready, spoon it into the warm jars and seal the lid on immediately.  As it cools, the air inside the jar condenses, which causes that satisfying pop to happen in the lid, which means that a vacuum has been created.  Decorate jar according to your fancy!

Note: this is a great way to reuse old jars that once contained store-bought relish, jam, pesto, and the like.  Virtuous recycling never felt so good!

        image

The next recipe isn’t exactly canning – I can’t really boil the crap out of chocolate hazelnut spread.  Well, I probably could, but I was scared that something Bad would happen.  Not sure what, but really, who has trouble finishing Nutella?  So the next recipe must be stored in the fridge and probably should be eaten in a month; if you need help, I will gladly take one for the team.

And, this is my own recipe 🙂

Homemade Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

2 c. whole hazelnuts
1 c. dark chocolate
1 c. milk chocolate
1 can evaporated milk
pinch of salt

Toast the hazelnuts until they are slightly brown and the skins start to pop.  (Some recipes say to remove the skins now by rubbing the nuts in a tea towel, but I say why make more laundry when you are going to blitz the nuts into little bits of oblivion?  Next!)  After toasting, transfer your hazelnuts to your blitzing equipment of choice (processor, blender) and blend while the nuts are still warm until they get a bit pasty.

While the hazelnuts are toasting, multitask like any self-respecting domestic goddess by melting the chocolate in a bowl set over a pot of simmering water.  Scrape the chocolate into the blitzer with the hazelnuts, add the milk and salt, and whirl away.  It might get really thick now and it would be better just to stir it.  Might be nice to unplug your machine in case your other hand gets naughty and turns the machine on (hehe.  Heh.)

Spoon into jars and seal.  I used sterilized jars, even though the spread goes into the fridge, just to cut down the chances of a microbe lurking around, waiting to ruin my good reputation.

I have to confess that I didn’t follow the recipe above, though I have made it before.  This time I didn’t have milk chocolate or evaporated milk, so I used a bit of cocoa powder, a handful of white chocolate chips (blasphemy I know, it’s not even REAL chocolate) and whipping cream and 2% milk.  And I didn’t measure anything.  And you shouldn’t worry about it either; just keep tasting and see if it’s sweet/chocolate-y enough (as if you need encouragement to taste test).  The consistency will be thick, but remember that it’ll get even thicker when it sits in the fridge. 

Ta da!

       image

Y is for yellow

               

It’s cold outside.

We are heading into the heart of winter.  Food is a consolation, the peep of sun in the middle of the day.  In the bleak greyness of slush, a splash of colour on the plate is welcome reprieve.  While pink seemed appropriate in the summer, it just seems too garish now, ostentatious in its ditzy cheeriness.

Instead, there is yellow.

Yellow is mellow.  Yellow is intelligent contentment, warming and comforting in its quiet optimism.  While pink cajoles you into jumping around in ha-ha happiness, yellow invites pleasure that is small and measured, and yet so satisfying in its containment.

So here: basmati rice tinged with saffron, and ricotta cake made with golden-yolk eggs.

            

Enjoy the moments of sunshine.

Tea time

  

“Oh and did you hear about Judy’s nephew?  He’s going to be playing Robin Hood in the school play!”

“Janet says that they’re having a 30% off sale on bed linens at The Bay.”

I am really glad that I have lovely friends who will come over and eat apple pie, draw on the table, and pop bubble wrap.