The Petit Four

Because it’s Thursday and Thursdays always need some sprucing up to help us get to the weekend faster, here are some things in the last few days that have made me unbelievably happy:

Nerd awesomeness number one –
My weekly Econundrums newsletter from Mother Jones was safely delivered in my inbox on Monday, equipped with a carbon calculator for my food!

Why is that important?  Well, Kiera Butler from MJ is here to explain -

Cows have become famous for trampling the planet: A four-ounce serving of steak creates 10.6 pounds of greenhouse gases, the same as a 95-mile car trip. But foregoing meat that once mooed without considering the carbon impact of the rest of your diet? That’s a little like telling someone who’s counting calories that the bacon explosion is off limits, but corn dogs, pizza, and chocolate cake are all fair game.

With books and movies like Fast Food Nation, Food, Inc., The Omnivore’s Dilemma, we’ve all thought (or at least pretended) to think about where our food comes from and what has to happen for it to get into our bellies.   And by now, we’ve heard the basic message – eat less meat, eat more plants. But it isn’t always that simple. Bon Appétit (the catering company, not the Condé Nast publication) has served up a calculator that can help you make ethically-minded eating choices.

The calculator’s not entirely accurate, but it gives you a gist of how many carbon points are in a generic piece of food. You choose a category and a food item, drop it in the frying pan and voilà! You have a general estimate of how much carbon was produced to make your lunch.

And what’s this thing about carbon points? Econundrums explains:

Foods are assigned point values based on their greenhouse gas emissions—one point equals .035 oz. of emissions. Researchers took into account both the agricultural and shipping emissions associated with each food—for a detailed account of their methodology, click on “What do these points mean?”.

And I say it’s a general estimate because there are some inaccuracies in that it doesn’t factor in certain environmental elements…and it’s produced by a catering company. But then again, it doesn’t tout itself as the end all be all. But I still think it’s pretty neat and that it can help people to make more environmentally-conscious (and healthier) food choices.

Nerd awesomeness number two. NPR time!

NPR is pretty great. You get great reporting, interesting stories that actually mean something (see any local TV news broadcast at 5 to see the opposite), and a way to continue learning about the world around you – all for free! Plus sometimes you can get pretty sweet swag if you donate. And now one of my favorite NPR news shows, All Things Considered, just released a cake cookbook, All Cakes Considered. Political news with baking? Be still, my beating heart.

Melissa Gray, an ATC producer, wrote this book after bringing a cake to work every Monday. It has a focus on American-style, comfy, down-to-earth cakes with recipes for things like the bundt cake of all bundt cakes, The Tunnel of Fudge, and others like the Brown Sugar Pound Cake. And I’m not only excited about the different kinds of cakes in the book, but also because of the writing that goes on in between the recipes. Gray has produced some of my favorite ATC stories.

I haven’t gotten my hands on a complete copy of the book, but I’ve secured a few of the recipes and am anxious to try them out.  But I’m pretty confident that NPR + Cake = Great.

And bonus - I found this on Flickr. Man, does it make me miss my dog.

Nelson! *I have no idea what is on his tongue. I don't really want to know.

Sometimes you have to take one for the team. Sometimes, taking one for the team means doing math. Lots of calculated leaps and jumps. Lots of converting and realizing that it’s really pointless to not function on the metric system sort of math.

So it was my birthday. And on birthdays, you make cakes. And even though I’m here, in one of the culinary capitals of the world and there are hundreds upon hundreds of sensory overloadingly delicious tartes, gateaus and pastries that await me, I wanted to make my own birthday cake. To connect with the kitchen again (albeit a very college boy one – my mixing bowl was a stock pot with a missing handle) and also because my birthday was on a Sunday and nothing – including the patisseries – is open on Sunday.

But it was ok. I purchased Nigella Lawson’s Feast as a birthday present for myself and already picked a cake to tackle. But there were a couple of obstacles to overcome.

1. I purchased a cookbook written by a Brit and purchased in Europe. I’m American. I think in cups and ounces. Not grams or milliliters.
2. My aforementioned kitchen. I’m in temporary housing (read: an open student apartment, one that is usually reserved for boys.) and while the kitchen is functioning, it’s not really designed for students who really like to cook. So my supplies are limited as they aren’t here or broken.
3. My neighborhood grocery store supplies dozens of different types of sugar (albeit, all of the non-confectionary kind) but absolutely no flour. I was on a hunt.

The challenge was on. It was Emily v. Honey Chocolate Cake in Europe. Or really, Emily v. mathematical conversions. Or, Science Math Cake.

The result? Well. Here are my notes from converting the recipe into categorical measurements that made sense to me (I am now a staunch supporter of a Metric Revolution in the States).  This page was consulted more than the cookbook itself.

It didn’t actually turn into the disaster that I was expecting it to become. The cake that came out of the oven is a dense, slightly gooey affair. If chocolate cake and baklava had a baby, I imagine this is what it would be. It’s not a subtle cake. The chocolate and honey are very present (surprise, right?), and as a bold, dark cake, it pairs really well with coffee. You don’t need a lot of it, which is nice. I can freeze and have birthday cake for the whole summer!

_

And I really like the frosting. It’s more like a chocolate glaze than your traditional birthday frosting and since it’s consistency comes from the honey, you want to wait about an hour after you top the cake before serving so it can harden a bit. I’ve been having all sorts of visions and ideas about other baked goods that would benefit from donning this glaze. And there are a lot. It’s an exciting new discovery.

Honey Chocolate Cake from Nigella Lawson

I was going to post two versions of the recipe.  One in metric and typed verbatim from the book.  The second was going to be my calculated version.  But I looked at the math calculations and realized I didn’t actually mark what was what, so I would have to do it all over again.  And you know?  It’s still within 48 hours of my birthday so I’m pulling the “It’s my birthday, I can do what I want” excuse to just…not do it.  At least for now because I would be really interested to see if the cake comes out wildly different.

Nigella’s Version:

For the cake:
100g dark chocolate
275g light muscovado sugar (think brown sugar on steroids.  I just used the darkest brown sugar I could find)
225g soft butter (at room temp)
125ml runny honey
2 eggs
200g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking soda (or bicarbonate of soda if you’re British.  Curiously, baking soda isn’t sold in grocery stores here, but in pharmacies.)
1 tablespoon cocoa
250ml boiling water

For the sticky honey glaze:
60 ml water
125 ml runny honey
175g dark chocolate
75g icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180C and butter and line a 23cm springform pan.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl suspended over a boiling pot of water. Set aside to cool off just a bit.Beat sugar and butter until creamy, and then add honey.  Add one of the eggs, mixing it in with one tablespoon of flour, and then the other egg with an additional tablespoon of flour.  Fold in the melted chocolate along with the remaining flour and baking soda.  Add the cocoa (sieve it if it’s clumpy) and finally the boiling water.  Mix well so it becomes a smooth batter and pour into tin.  Cook for up to an hour and a half, though check the cake after 45 minutes.  If it still needs baking, check every 15 minutes by sticking a toothpick or fork in.

Let the cake cool completely in the pan on a rack.

While the cake is cooling, make the glaze.  Bring the water and honey to a boil in a small saucepan.  Once it reaches boiling, remove from heat and stir in the chopped chocolate.  Once it’s melted, whisk in the confectioners sugar until smooth.  Pour the icing over the cold honey chocolate cake and smooth down the sides.

Wait at least an hour for the glaze to harden or you are going to have a dark, sticky, gooey mess on you. And the table. and the counter.  And maybe even your walls.  Don’t stay I didn’t warn you.

This will not be the most lady-like post I have ever written.  I can already hear my mother’s sigh and see the shake of her head as she reads what I’m going to write.  It’ll be like when I came home for Thanksgiving sophomore year of college with a fresh industrial piercing in my right ear.  She just walked up to me, turned my head to examine the damage, put her hands on my shoulders and said, “Honey, I love you. But I do not love that piercing.”

Anyway, onto crass behavior!

Sometimes, bosses are assholes.  Like my sister’s.   Since October she’s been temping with a solo practitioner specializing in divorce and soul-sucking.

Examples: in the divorce case my sister was hired to help with, Bossman, who represents the man (in the relationship, not The Man), thinks it’s funny to try and make the woman bankrupt.

Then, there was the time when the opposing counsel’s paralegal filed a claim against Bossman’s client.  This claim basically said that the son of Bossman’s client tried to plan an armed robbery against the wife.  So Bossman had my sister research how to sue the paralegal for defamation and libel because the paralegal is the one who physically filed the claim.

Then there was the time when Bossman kept his secretary in the office for over a day and never once offered to buy her food…or let her go home.

Why does she work for this evil Bossman?  Well, it’s because when the economy tanked that meant the end of work for lawyers who put together those fancy deals that made the economy grow like crazy.  Consequently, law firms are no longer hiring and laying people off left and right.  Now the market is full of unemployed lawyers and more join the masses as law students graduate every semester.  Which means that good people (my sister) who don’t want to get in fist fights with opposing counsel (yeah, Bossman’s team got in some fisticuffs in court) can’t get jobs because any time there’s an opening, 200 eligible people apply.  So she stayed with the temping agency and Bossman of Death so she could pay the bills.

Finally, after spending months toiling under the World’s Most Evil Lawyer and feeling her soul slowly being chipped away, my sister put in her two weeks.

And I cannot be happier for her.  So, in honor of this momentous occasion, and to celebrate the end of tenuous employment and misery, I made her “Bossman, Suck My Balls Cake!”

Perfect for consuming while drinking wine, traveling, or throwing them at Bossman every time he talks about how smart he is (or anytime he opens his mouth at all).

See, I told you my mom wouldn’t approve.

Bossman, Suck My Balls Cake (Or Red Velvet Cake Balls, inspired by Bakerella)

1 box Red Velvet Cake Mix, baked as directed for the 13 x 9 cake
1 can of cream cheese frosting
2 packages of Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate

Bake the cake as directed and cool completely.  Once cooled, break it into pieces and mix with the entire can of cream cheese frosting in a large bowl.  Roll into little balls (this is really messy but a lot of fun to do.) and place onto cookie sheets.  Refrigerate for several hours - or freeze for about two hours to speed up the process.

Melt the chocolate as directed on the package.  Roll the balls in the chocolate with a spoon and lay on wax paper until firm.

These are insanely easy to make and I can’t even describe how delicious they are.  They really do make your life better.  Suggestions - make sure that the balls are thoroughly chilled.  If they aren’t, they will start to come apart when you roll them in the chocolate.  Also, I think these taste better frozen.   And once the chocolate has firmed up, try cutting into halves and using as ice cream topping.

There’s just something about the first day of spring. The feeling of reassurance that you’ve made it through another long, dark Midwestern winter, that drinking beers on porches and croquet games will soon be underway. It’s the day where we can all shimmy out of our puffy jackets and cast our winter hats to the side because today, today you play.

I have this funny feeling about things. There’s this strange sense of hope that’s been brewing inside for awhile and now I feel like I’m practically bursting with it. New plans are afoot. I don’t know what it is, but something big is about to happen. Maybe it has something to do with the sunny skies and the first day of spring, but everything feels light. Everything feels like a bright, poppy car commercial. That despite the dreary winter, with the never-ending face-burning cold, the grim economic climate, the encroaching gray on President Obama’s head, everything is going to be ok.

When I was a kid, I wanted to get out of the Midwest - badly. I hated the rundown farms, the urban sprawl, and the plain jane-ness of it all. And winter was the worst. Every where I looked, everything was gray and wet. Then I went away for a little bit and then I grew up a little bit. Now, I understand the quiet, subtle beauty of those firm and faded farms, where the fields dip and roll along the stretches of roads and highway, how those small, ranch houses bubble up into small towns and big towns and rusty cities. It’s home to me and now I get it, I get the beauty and the quietness of everything. And I know my fifteen-year-old self is going to hate my twenty-three-year-old self for saying this, but I like it.

Yet there are times when you just need to escape. It’s always around February and March, when the gray skies and wet ground no longer hold any charming winter quality and you end up looking to the sky, begging and pleading for sun and warmth and dear God, some green.

Which is why the first day of Spring is so important. It’s the first day of promise and hope and a little bit of redemption. I, the modern day pioneer woman, made it through the wilderness of urban concrete and steel to reach the end of the season, surviving my cosmopolitan cabin fever and inner-city imprisonment.

So last weekend, with the sun streaming through the windows, I dug into Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours, to unofficially take part in Tuesdays with Dorie and more importantly, entice the ever approaching gods of spring and celebrate that we made it through another winter.

French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze from Dorie Greenspan

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 ground almonds (or if you don’t like or don’t want to use almonds, just add another 1/2 cup flour)

2 tsps. baking powder

pinch o’ salt

1 cup sugar

Grated zest of 1 lemon

1/2 cup plain yogurt

3 large eggs

1/4 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup oil

Preheat the oven to 350F and butter up a loaf pan.

Put the sugar and zest into a bowl and rub the zest into the sugar with your fingers until the sugar is moist and aromatic. Inhale deeply. Add the yogurt, eggs and vanilla and whisk until the mixture is well blended. Still whisking, add the flour, almonds if you’re using them, baking powder and salt. Once the dry ingredients are fully incorporated, fold in the oil. The batter will be very smooth, taste delicious, and have a slight sheen. Pour into loaf pan and bake for 50 to 55 minutes.

The cake’s edges should begin to come away from the sides of the pan and be golden brown. Let cool for a few minutes in the pan before transferring over to cool on a rack.

To make the glaze, put 1/2 cup marmalade in a small saucepan or a microwave save bowl, stir in 1 tsp. of water and heat until the jelly is hot and liquefied. Gently brush the cake with the glaze.

There are things you just need sometimes.  Like showers and hugs.  And dinner parties.  I firmly believe that one cannot have too many dinner parties in their lifetime.  I also believe that your dinner party quota should grow exponentially when other things in your life are driving you crazy, such as a large fundraising event that you are entirely in charge of.  In fact, it should be a requirement to have several dinner parties when you’re in the middle of aforementioned project.  Consider it a form of training, a workshop if you will, to prep you for the night of the event.

And I have been doing a horrible job at filling my quota.  Something needed to be rectified.  So I made the necessary phone calls and found myself walking up to Christine and Ryan’s apartment on Saturday with a Mon Gateau au Chocalat in one  hand, cream ready to be whipped and devoured in the other.  On the other side of the door was the most decadent spread of cheese, crackers, and steak that I’ve encountered in a long time.  And impending food comas for all to be had.

By the time we had polished off the bottle of Molly Dooker cabernet and made the smallest of dints on our steaks, we were on the verge of admitting defeat and succumbing to our growing food babies.  But we couldn’t stop. There was cake to be had.  So, to fend off the impending and dangerously close food coma, the boys went off to play Boston and Rush on Rock Band while I got down to work.

Pulling the bowl and whisk our of the refrigerator, now chilled, I whipped up a batch of homemade whipped cream, sweetened with just a sprinkling of mint chocolate hot cocoa mix.

I dished out the thick, fudge-like chocolate cake with a dollop of whipped cream to everyone.  I foolishly began to ask how it tasted, only to be admonished by Ryan as he closed his eyes and experienced the first bite.  “This cake is gonna-make-me-prone-to-obesity good,” he said a few moments later.

And well, a girl just can’t ask for a better compliment to her cake.  Plus, this recipe only gets better a day later.

Mon Gateau au Chocolat from Bistro Cooking
12 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
5 large eggs, separated
1/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp. confectioner’s sugar for decoration (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F and butter a 9 1/2 inch springform pan or deep, nonstick cake pan.

Melt the chocolate, butter, and granulated sugar in a double boiler placed over simmering water.  Melt until the mixture is smooth and everything is thoroughly blended.  Set aside to cool.

Separate the egg yolks and the egg whites into separate bowls.  Whisk the egg whites until they form firm peaks but don’t overbeat.

Whisk the egg yolks and flour into the chocolate mixture.  This will be a lumpy but will begin to look like cake batter.  Then, add one-third of the egg whites into the chocolate batter and mix.  Gently fold in the remaining whites slowly and thoroughly, until no streaks of egg white remain.

Pour the batter into the butter pan and bake until the cake is firm and springy, about 35 - 45 minutes.  Cool for several hours before trying to remove the cake from the pan.  The cake is rich and delicious enough that you don’t need frosting, but you can dust it with confectioners’ sugar for aesthetic reasons.  I recommend eating it with just a touch of homemade whipped cream.