Well, in our house, we are controlled by one evil little machine in the kitchen.  It doesn’t look evil, does it?

The Machine

This is the Cuisinart Supreme Commercial Quality Ice Cream Maker.  It’s evil; it speaks to me, it makes me do things that I should not do.

Makes damn good ice cream too.

Mike got this for me for my birthday last year.  When the machine first arrived we discussed that we would leave it on the counter for a little while, perhaps until we each gained 10 pounds, and then it would go down to the basement.

Instead, it has taken up residence on the counter and has never left.  See how evil it is? It’s wormed its way into a permanent place in the kitchen…

Mostly we use it for vanilla ice cream, since that goes nicely with anything, but I’ve also branched out into other flavors as well.  I’ve made chocolate, mint chocolate chip, peach sorbet and blackberry ice cream.

But recently I’ve perfected the technique for butter pecan ice cream and I can’t seem to stop making it; every time we run out something tells me to make more.

Butter Pecan

The machine comes with a recipe book that I have diligently followed, although I made up my own blackberry ice cream recipe, but I had to tweak the butter pecan recipe.

Butter Pecan Ice Cream

Mix together until the sugar is dissolved:

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup whole milk

Add to this:

2 cups heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

Once the mixture is well blended, place in the refrigerator for 1/2 hour or more

While the mixture is chilling:

Chop 1/2 cup pecans

Melt 1 stick (8 Tablespoons) unsalted butter in a saute pan

(do not use salted butter – I made that mistake once)

Add the pecans and 1 tsp kosher salt to the butter and, stirring frequently, toast the pecans until the are just starting to turn a light brown.  Strain the pecans into a bowl, retain the butter (which is now pecan butter) and allow the pecans to cool.

Throw the cream/milk mixture into the ice cream machine.  Our evil little friend only takes 50 minutes to make ice cream, and all you have to do is add the cream mixture and go – hopefully your ice cream machine takes a little more work!

After about 40 minutes of stirring in the machine I add the cooled pecans and a few teaspoonfuls of the butter.  Try to get the some of the butter sludge at the bottom – it’s butter, salt and tiny pieces of pecans and it really makes the difference.  Allow the machine to blend the pecans and butter into the ice cream and then once completed freeze for at least 3 hours.  Then, consume.

Last week my mother was visiting and before I went upstairs to take a nap I told her she should have some of the butter pecan in the freezer.  I awoke from my nap to find a happy mom, and no more butter pecan.  Apparently she felt that the ice cream was “almost gone anyway” and so she ate two bowls.  I think I saw tongue streaks on the ice cream container too…  Now the machine is controlling my mother!

Seven Year Soy Sauce

You see, seven years ago my friends Pete and Stacey asked me to cater their wedding rehearsal dinner.  I jumped at the chance to do a little free-lance catering, even though at the time, cooking for 65-70 people sounded a little daunting.  They were so great to let me, an unlicensed cook, serve dinner to their friends and family.

In preparation for the dinner I shopped at a bulk store and it was there that I purchased the 1 gallon soy sauce can.  I was using the soy sauce for my sesame soy chicken, which turned out to be a hit at the dinner and ironically, was how I finally finished off the can.  Here’s the recipe:

Sesame Soy Sauce

1 Tblsp sesame seeds

2 tsp grated ginger

2 Tblsp honey

2 Tblsp soy sauce

Toast sesame seeds in a pan and add to the remaining ingredients.  Mix together and baste on chicken breasts or tenders (about 1lb of chicken) before and during grilling.

The wedding was held at a beautiful home on a hill outside of Winter Park.  This meant that the day of the rehearsal dinner, me and my CR-V, packed with four coolers and a lot of food hiked it up to 9,059 feet.  I had spent the two days before baking and prepping all of the food that could be prepared ahead.

Here’s the menu:

Veggie tray w/onion dill dip (my dip, bulk veggies)

Toasted french bread w/Ricotta herb spread

Romaine salad with avocado and orange, served with orange honey dressing

Garden salad

Gazpacho

Burgers

Grilled shrimp in citrus marinade

Grilled chicken w/sesame soy sauce

Key Lime cheesecake

Strawberry shortcake

Freshly squeezed lemonade, Homemade Ice Tea and Sangria

I had written down what time I needed to start prepping, in what order everything needed to be done and had made little cards for everything I was serving that included the name and the ingredients. (My sister had just been diagnosed with a wheat allergy and I thought it best to tell people what was in everything.)  Even though I was not a professional, I felt like I was that day!  The next day, the actual caterer who provided the wedding food didn’t have labels!  And best of all, no one got sick from my food (that I know of anyway).

I was so gung ho that I even made fresh whipping cream for the strawberry shortcake!  I don’t think I would have been able to pull it off myself; I had help peeling avocados, cutting oranges and strawberries and someone’s Uncle Randy stood at the grill all evening cooking the burgers, shrimp and chicken.

Seven years later, Pete and Stacey have two adorable little girls, Siena and Aniela, and a man that I had just started dating is my husband and the father of my two children.  Amazing!  That soy sauce saw me through for a long time and a lot of stir fry, sesame soy sauce and other meals.  Farewell to you my giant gas can of soy sauce!

On to the cake… When asked what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, Mike responded “Either a carrot cake or a bundt cake with pudding in the center.”  Now I grew up in the 80’s when bundt cakes with pudding centers could be easily made from a mix you could buy at any grocery store – but alas this is no longer the case.  Now, you’re on your own with this baking masterpiece, and I decided not shy away from the challenge, even though I awoke the morning of Mike’s birthday with a sore throat and some sniffles…

After hunting around on the internet I decided to go the route of making a cake batter, throwing half the batter in the pan, adding my own pudding, and then topping that with the rest of the cake batter.  Most of the recipes I found for the search terms “pudding bundt cake” were simply really moist cakes with no pudding center, so onward ho! to baking experimentation!

For the cake I decided to make my mother’s chocolate sourdough cake recipe, since I needed to use the sourdough anyway and it’s a wonderfully moist chocolate cake.  Sourdough, as I may have mentioned before, is like a refrigerator pet; it requires that you use it and “feed it” at least ten days, or you will ruin it.  I’ve let it go way past ten days and had it survive, but when I open my sourdough crock my punishment is a stinky mess with brownish liquid on the top – essentially the sourdough gets really bad gas…

So, early on the morning of Mike’s birthday, still in her sleepy suit, Anna helped me stir up the beginnings of the cake batter: sourdough start, water, powdered milk and flour.

Anna stirring sourdough

This mixture must sit and “ferment” for at least four hours – you know when it’s done when there are visible bubbles in the batter.

Later in the day I made the pudding portion of my project, planning on letting it sit in the refrigerator for 1/2 hour before I added it to the cake batter.  For the pudding recipe I used my tried and true “Double Chocolate Pudding” recipe from “Short and Sweet”, by Melanie Barnard.  I love this book by the way – I haven’t made a lot from it, only the pudding, the No-Bake Ginger Cheesecakes, Butter-Pecan Bread Pudding, and the Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles, but all of them have been good, take barely any time at all, needed very little tweaking, and have been made and re-made…

Melanie Barnard’s Double Chocolate Pudding

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

3 Tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups light cream (after never finding light cream I have used either half-and-half or 1 cup of heavy cream and 1 cup of whole milk with great success)

3 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan, whisk together the sugar, cocoa, cornstarch and salt.  Gradually whisk in 1 cup of the cream until smooth, and then add in the remaining cream.  (Once I made the mistake of not reading the recipe and doing this over heat on the stove – DON’T DO THAT – bad pudding happens).  Once the mixture is well mixed put the pan over medium heat and cook, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens and comes to a boil.  Continue to whisk and boil for 1 minute.  (Now here’s the kicker – Barnard’s recipe says it should take “about 5 minutes” for the pudding to thicken and come to a boil.  I myself have not ever had mine thicken until at least 10 minutes have passed – so be patient.)

Remove the pan from the heat and add the chocolate and vanilla (there are no instructions after this, but I don’t stir it in – I just leave the chocolate and vanilla on the top).  Let stand for 5 minutes until the chocolate is melted, then stir gently until the pudding is smooth.  If you stir too much though, the pudding will thin.  Mine generally looks like this after I’ve stirred in the chocolate and vanilla:

Pudding

If you’re not throwing this in a cake the pudding can be easily divided into 6 small desert bowls and refrigerated.  It can be served in as little as 20 minutes, or kept for up to 8 hours before serving.  Honestly, I still have some in the fridge 4 days later and it’s still yummy!  I threw all but two small desert bowls worth into the fridge to use for the cake and then proceeded with the rest of sourdough cake.

Once the sourdough cake batter had bubbles in it I added baking soda, sugar, salt, cinnamon, eggs, vegetable oil and melted chocolate chunks to complete the batter.  I greased and then floured the bundt cake pan and poured most of the batter into the pan.  Then I put a “tunnel” of pudding in the batter, as shown here:

Cake with pudding

I then put the rest of the cake batter on top and put the cake in a 350 degree oven for 55 minutes. I couldn’t use the “clean toothpick” rule with the pudding, so instead I looked for the other sign that the cake was done, which is to look for the cake pulling away from the edge of pan.

After I had put what I thought would be enough pudding into the cake there was plenty left over, so I began pouring it into desert bowls.  Problem was, Anna was “helping” me with this process…  Instead of foolishly trying to get her away from the pudding, I put a little into one of her food bowls and gave her a spoon.  Here she is just starting to eat her share of pudding:

Clean Anna

Note how relatively clean the little cutie is at this point….

And now, for the “after” picture where Anna is, well, NOT clean…

Chocolaty Anna

So, what did I do with her in all her chocolate messiness? I still had to work on the cake and clean the kitchen, so off Anna went to one of her favorite play places:

In the sink

Ah, kitchen sink, you are my savior! I can pop the kid in the sink, get the kitchen cleaned and work on cake at the same time!

After the cake had cooled I made a ganache for the top of it.  Ganache is a lovely simple frosting that makes a shiny chocolate surface and tastes really good at the same time.  Simply put 3/4 cup heavy cream in a saucepan on medium and when it has just started to bubble take it off the heat, add 8 ounces of chocolate and stir until the chocolate is melted. The ganache will be beautifully smooth and shiny.  I just had to take a picture of the Ghiradelli chocolate I used to make the ganache – the gold wrapper reminds me of the “golden ticket” in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory…

Ganache chocolate

After letting the ganache cool briefly I poured it over the cake in what I hoped was an artistic manner that produced a pretty cake.  Here I am with the finished product saying a little “please let there be a nice pudding center” prayer before I cut into it:

Finished cake

Alas, the pudding had sunk to the bottom, or rather the top, of the bundt cake.  The cake was lovely, but the pudding was just under the top surface of the cake. With the ganache as frosting, the top of the cake became a sort of death by chocolate nightmare – but don’t worry – it’s still really good to eat.  Since I have been eating a piece of cake every day since Friday, I have a feeling that at tomorrow’s doctor appointment there will be no weight loss for me!

Even though I’m pregnant, I’m not able to consume an entire coconut cake by myself and even with my husband’s help, it would be hard.  So, I opted to make the gluten-free version of coconut cake from my “Gluten-free Baking Classics” book by Annalise Roberts, so I could share the cake with my sister, who has a wheat-allergy.

Having learned from my mistakes from the carrot cake I made from the same book, I knew that Ms. Roberts has recipes that don’t do well at high altitude.  As I reviewed the recipe, which I won’t waste your time with here, I decided to reduce the moisture in the recipe to save myself from another Titanic sinking cake.  I cut the 4 eggs down to 3 and reduced the 1 cup of oil to 3/4 cup oil.

The cake mixed up well, although it was oddly sticky:

Sticky cake

Joyfully, the cake did not sink in the middle, but was probably the most even cake I’ve ever made.

While I made the frosting, which also called for too much liquid, the cutie came by to help out by going through the cabinet beneath where I was working.

My cute helper

After adding more powdered sugar than the recipe called for, I finally finished my coconut cake.

Finally, coconut cake!

My gluten-free recipe received rave reviews from my husband, Ellebee, who came by for a play date the next day, and most importantly, my wheat-allergic sister.  All’s well that tastes well, I say!

Instead, I thought it would be even more challenging to make this month’s carrot cake challenge wheat and gluten-free.  Several years ago my sister was diagnosed with a wheat allergy and the world of baked items, as well as most foods, changed dramatically for her.  Wheat is in amazing amount of things where you wouldn’t think it would be: soy sauce, pudding, hard candies, etc.  Anything that says it contains “modified food starch” has wheat as an ingredient.

So as a treat to my sister I thought I would make this month’s carrot cake for her, using my “Gluten-free Baking Classics” cookbook, by Annalise Roberts.

The recipe, which I’ll spare you, involves a few key ingredients, which turn out to be real pain-in-the-butt to procure.  The flour replacement in the recipe involves mixing three ingredients: extra finely ground brown rice flour, potato starch (which is different than potato flour) and tapioca flour.  Plus, the recipe also requires Xanthum Gum, also a pain to find.

None of these ingredients were available at my local grocery store, so I hiked off to a local natural grocers to find them. Fortunately, they had all the weird ingredients, plus organic carrots and an organic lemon that was so green I almost mistook it for a lime.  As a side note, I found it incredibly amusing that upon exiting the natural grocers I was bombarded with the mouth-watering smell of cooking bacon – there’s an IHOP across the parking lot – if I were a vegetarian I would have to reconsider after smelling that bacon!

Here is a picture of my main wheat-free ingredients:

The few, the expensive...the ingredients

After the flour substitutes and the Xanthum gum (which is described on the package as “the outer layer of an inactive bacterium…” yummy!), the rest of the ingredients are the usual ones for a carrot cake.  The cookbook does not include any high altitude instructions and I figured I should just follow the recipe and see what happens. After a lifetime of baking at this altitude I did feel a little squeamish adding 1 1/2 cups of canola oil and four eggs since this seems like a bit too much moisture for 6000 feet, but I pushed forward.

After mixing all of the flour and liquid ingredients I folded in the grated carrots, coconut and chopped pecans (I substituted pecans for walnuts since both my sister and I are allergic to walnuts).  It looks like normal cake batter, doesn’t it?:

Folding in the good stuff

After that I threw it into two of my very special cake pans:

Cake Pan

If you ever see these and you bake a lot, buy them!  They have a lovely sliding cutter that circles around the pan making it so easy to get the cake out…

And just so Ellebee doesn’t think that she’s the only one who can make a mess of a kitchen, here’s my proof that I can do it too:

Messy Kitchen

At the end of the allotted baking time, I retrieved the cake layers from the oven to find, well, this:

The Sunken Cakes

Those cakes sunk like the Titanic, and honestly, it’s my own fault for not cutting down on the oil and eggs. I hate that when I’m wrong!

I thought maybe the cream cheese frosting would help, but I was wrong again:

Frosted Cake

And then I thought that I would see a difference once I added the toasted coconut:

Frosted with Toasted Coconut

Don’t worry, no need to adjust your monitor; I didn’t see a difference either.  It’s still an ugly, concave carrot cake…

It didn’t look much better sliced and on a plate either:

Monster on a plate

Instead, it reminds me of those weird monsters in the desert scene in Beetle Juice.

Despite it’s fearsome looks however, it tasted quite good and I think could easily fool a non-wheat allergic person that they were eating normal carrot cake.

I took the whole ugly thing over to my sister’s, and while she refused to let me take a picture of her enjoying her first carrot cake in 10 years, she did love the cake.  My nephew Brendan liked the frosting and consented to a picture:

Brendan and the Cake

All in all, I had fun making the cake, my sister really enjoyed eating the cake and it tasted like real carrot cake, without any wheat in sight.  Next time though, I’ll cut down on the eggs and the oil and hope that I can make a pretty cake, instead of the concave monster that came out of my oven…

The recycled garden has done well nonetheless.  I’ve harvested lots of herbs, a few small strawberries, and now, our first tomato!

Here she is, the little beauty:

The First Tomato

This is from my “Celebrity” tomato plant.  I also have tomatoes (although they’re all green) growing on the patio and cherry tomato plants.  I’m getting really good at making pico de gallo this summer (as usual I made up a recipe), so I’m going to use as many of these tomatoes for that as I can, along with throwing them on salads, sandwiches, etc.

Oh to live in the Northwest! My grandmother, who lives in Oregon, always calls to tell me that she’s harvesting her peas for Easter Dinner.  Instead, I got my first tomato in mid-July.  But she really is lovely and definitely worth the wait!

If you would like to participate, go to the Have the Cake website, and sign up! The more the merrier!

On another note, I am all about Julia Child these past few months. First, for our June bookclub we read “My Life in France”, Julia Child’s autobiography. I was struck by several things reading this book, but most notably how scientifically Julia approached cooking.  The woman made mayonnaise every day for two weeks to get the perfect recipe!  Julia carefully took notes on each recipe, including things like how the weather would affect something and what not to do to avoid pitfalls.  This is kitchen science that I can really appreciate – although I don’t practice it myself.  I’m much more of a “throw stuff together without measuring” kind of cook – but I think Julia’s method is great.

I was also struck by how much Julia loved France and the French people.  The Paris and Parisians of her time in France are so different from my experiences in France.  She speaks of kind, open people, when I was generally met with snootiness – but I think Parisians in general get sick of tourists.  I do remember fondly a woman who saw my sister and I dragging our bags along a road in the outskirts of Paris, stopped her car, got out and said, “Etes-vous perdu?” (”Are you lost?”) and carefully directed us to where we were going.

Reading the book did not, however, make me fall in love with French food.  There is far too much veal, duck (both of which I don’t eat or don’t like), and things like squib (baby pidgeon) for my taste.  There is a horrid description of a “pressed duck” that involves actually pressing the duck (it’s dead – don’t worry) in a canister… Bleech!

But, the book did make me want to add “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” to add to my cookbook collection.  Julia’s careful research and recipe writing would be nice to have in my inventory.

Now, in between continuing to try to get through, “Eat, Pray, Love”, I’m reading “Julie and Julia”.  A movie starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams is coming out soon based on this book and “My Life in France”.  “Julie and Julia” is a non-fiction account of a woman in New York city who decided to cook all of the recipes in “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and blog about it.  I’m not finished yet, but so far I’m impressed that someone would attempt this in a New York city sized kitchen and a deep seated hatred of eggs.  There’s a lot of eggs in Julia Child’s world.  Thankfully Julie didn’t hate butter or she’d really have been in trouble.

All this reading about cooking (and watching “Top Chef Masters” every week) has really made me hungry and in a baking mood.  I’m glad “Have the Cake” is coming up so I can have some kitchen science of my own to dig into!

Last time I made it I got creative with the layering…

Strawberry Shortcake

See? Don’t you want some now? Good! Here’s the recipe…

Shortcake

Sift together:

1 and 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup sugar

Mix together (I usually just do this in a 2 cup liquid measure):

1 egg beaten

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter, melted

Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients until well mixed and there are no more dry spots.  Spread into a greased 8 x 8 pan (glass is best) and bake for 20-25 minutes at 400.  The shortcake will get golden brown on the top – don’t let it burn!

Once it’s baked, let the shortcake cool briefly before serving – it’s great warm, but I’ve also had it cold for breakfast.  Did I mention that I love shortcake?

While the cake is baking I usually cut up the strawberries (or peaches) and throw some sugar on them to make them nice and juicy.

Shortcake tastes best with homemade whipping cream, but the spray can stuff is just as good.  And if you’re like my husband, the spray can stuff is best enjoyed sprayed directly into your mouth, which you can’t really do with the homemade whipping cream.  Either way – bon appetit!

Garbanzo Salad

I must thank my sister’s friend Lata for this recipe.

Combine in a bowl and allow to marinate for at least 30 minutes:

2 14oz. cans drained and washed chickpeas/garbanzo beans

1/3 cup lemon juice

1 chopped garlic clove

1/2 cup chopped parsley

2 Tbsp olive oil

1/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese

cracked black pepper and sea salt to taste

After the salad has marinated serve it on a bed of baby spinach.

Mini Cheesecake

It was easy enough to make these wheat free for my sister by using gluten free ginger snaps.  I doubled them both times I made them to make 12 little cheesecakes.  I’ve modified the instructions for the recipe to my own specifications, but not much.  The best part is, these are “no bake” – two of the most beautiful words in cooking!

Orange Ginger Cheesecakes

3 oz ginger snaps

1 tablespoon butter – room temperature

1 large orange

1 8 oz package cream cheese – cut into eight pieces

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup heavy cream

Place 6 cupcake liners in a muffin pan.  Put the ginger snaps in a food processor with the metal blade and crumble.  Add the butter and mix again briefly until well blended.  Place about one tablespoon of the crumbs into each muffin tin and press into a crust. Put the muffin tin into the freezer for at least 5 minutes.

Meanwhile grate about 2 tablespoons of orange peel into the food processor and then juice the orange, which should result into about 1/2 cup of juice into the processor.  Then add the cream cheese, sugar, and cream into the processor.  Mix until well blended, stopping a few times to scrape down the sides with a spatula.

Divide the cheesecake even between the cupcake liners – the mixture will be thick and will probably require you to use a spatula.  Sprinkle a few crumbs of the leftover gingersnap mixture on top.  These can be refrigerated if you’ve made them a day ahead or can be placed in the freezer if you will be serving them that day.  They should be in the freezer for at least 30 minutes before you serve them, but allowed to thaw for a few minutes so that they are edible.