Growing Sideways » egg

Crazy French Toast

Varun — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 16:32:55 +0000

Again, I’ve been slacking, but I’m gonna try to knock these all out of the park today. A while back my lovely mother woke us up in the morning with some “crazy” french toast. Why was it crazy? It may have been the ricotta. We also used some amazing chocolate chips (60% Ghiradelli), which truly made everything very velvety. Enjoy the pictures! (more after the jump)

Flan

Varun — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:46:45 +0000

Mmm. What a delectable treat. A creamy custard concocted for the sole purpose of coercing and coddling your tongue with countless culinary sensations, strong enough to turn even the most crass curmudgeon into a charming cherub. Yet again jumping off the angel food cake, I was left with 12 fresh yolks. Mom used a few to make some spectacular meatballs, but I still had about 9 left. What can one do with a massive amount of yolks? Quiche usually uses whole eggs, but custard uses yolks! But I wanted a twist…how about a crÃ¨me caramel (= flan)?…and that is where the story begins.

history

I could point you here, but it would be equally kind of me to summarize the page. Apparently, Romans figured out savory flan after domesticating the chicken; they had a sweetened version with honey, but the caramelized sugar one came from the Spaniards. After the timely demise of our favorite empire, the sweet version survived the medieval times and made its way to Spain while the savory version made its way to England. Columbus, also apparently, brought flan over from Spain to the Americas when he sailed the ocean blue, hence why everyone in Mexico is gaga about the desert. The article goes on to talk about the semantics of the word “flan” but I just want to eat it.

recipe

As usual, my first attempt was to follow good old Alton. I must say the theory is quite sound, but there are definitely some things I would do differently next time.

oven	preheat to 350Â° F
1 1/2 c whole milk 1 c half-and-half 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 c sugar	In the saucepan, combine the milk, half-and-half, vanilla, and sugar. Bring to a bare simmer over medium-low heat. I didn’t have half-and-half, so I mixed heavy cream and lowfat milk — that seemed to work.
toppings 8 ramekins	Here is the bone of contention: Alton suggests using various toppings (whatever is lying around) like jams, preserves, butterscotch or fudge. Honestly, I tried quite a few toppings but the only one that worked was chocolate. I tried grape jelly (bad idea) and some apricot/orange preserves (too sweet). I think the traditional caramelized sugar works the best. Place about a tablespoon of topping into the bottom of each of the ramekins
3 egg whites and 6 egg yolks	Another bone of contention: how many egg whites to use. I was trying to use the yolks I had and I didn’t want to break any more eggs for this recipe. I also had a carton of pasteurized egg whites (the process destroys some of the egg proteins, so that may have affected the outcome). Basically what happened, was that after the flan was thoroughly chilled (the fresh ones were fine), some bubbles set up and the texture was grainy/bumpy? Not sure if that’s because I overmixed the mixture or because I didn’t exactly measure out 3 whites or if it was because of the pasteurized egg whites I used. Place a mixing bowl on a rubber pad or a wet towel to prevent the bowl from spinning out of control. In a mixing bowl, combine the remaining whole eggs and the yolks. Whip the eggs with a whisk until slightly thickened and lightened in color. While whisking the eggs, drizzle in about a quarter of the hot milk. Now whisk the tempered eggs back into the saucepan with the remaining milk mixture.
strainer	Place a fine mesh strainer over a glass or stainless steel bowl with a spout. Pour the egg mixture through the strainer in order to catch any curdled egg bits or particles that may be in the mixture.
roasting pan or large pyrex dish kettle of boiling water	Place the custard cups into the roasting pan. Evenly distribute the custard into the custard cups, going short on the first pass. Place the pan on the middle rack of the oven and pour boiling water into the pan just under the level of the custard.
-	Cook the flans for about 40 minutes, or until they wobble slightly when the pan is wiggled, about 40 minutes. You can also insert a paring knife midway between the edge and the center. If it comes out clean, the flans are done. Using tongs, remove the cups from the pan to a towel-lined sheet pan. Allow the water in the roasting pan to cool before discarding. Cool, cover and chill.
plate	Place a plate on top of a ramekin after cutting the sides free. Hold the plate/ramekin with both hands and quickly flip it over. Then give it a thump on the back and it will dislodge. Remove the ramekin and you will have a handsome crÃ¨me waiting for you

pics

vids

Good Eats Season 3 Episode 3 – Egg Files II – The Man With A Flan

[See post to watch Flash video]

links

flan wiki entry

flan on google images

flan on deviant art

flan history and more information

flan recipe I used

Angel Food Cake

Varun — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:22:55 +0000

A true gift from the heavens deserves its own post, especially since it can be twisted in so many diabolic ways. Â hehehe. In this post I am going to focus on angel food cake and will also highlight the differences between angel food cake, devil’s food cake, red velvet cake and chiffon cake.

Read on young padawan and when you make the inevitable journey to the sky, hopefully by that time angel’s food won’t be a surprise to you — ambrosia is another story.

Normally, I put videos at the end of the post, but because Alton’s episode analyzing the ins and outs of angel food cake is so absolutely fantastic, I recommend that you watch it before reading the rest of this post.

[See post to watch Flash video]

Hmmm, so there are a few important tips to remember when making this cake. Below, I’ve outlined what I ended up doing in the recipe.

1 3/4 c sugar	Put in food processor for 2 minutes (or more) until sugar crystals are very fine. Why not use powdered / confectioner’s sugar? They contain starch…don’t know if that will seriously affect the cake if you had this on hand. Finer crystals become 1 1/2 cups of sugar
half of the sugar into bowl with 1/4 tsp salt (fine) 1 c cake flour	Alton recommends sifting this, I just make sure to sift it into the foam instead of sifting twice
oven	preheat to 350Â°Â F
12 egg whites (absolutely no yolk) room temperature 1 tsp orange extract 1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar 2 Tbs warm water	Combined all the ingredients in steel bowl (can use copper, but NOT plastic or glass). I used less water than recommended because my eggs were fresh and had enough liquid.
whisk electric mixer	Whisk the liquid mixture until light froth builds up, then switch to the electric mixer. When a weak foam is building up, sift in the other half of the sugar that you had set aside. Wait for medium peaks (to check: lift mixer out of bowl, hold sideways and see if peaks stick out sideways as well…if they fall in a stream you don’t have a foam, if they sag due to gravity you have soft peaks and abt 2-3 minutes of light mixing to go), if they are short and stick out you have medium peaks, if they are long and stick out you have hard/firm peaks
the flour/salt/sugar	Sift in enough dry stuff to coat top of mixture and then fold (4-5 folds, rotating the bowl). Should take about 3-4 sifts to incorporate all of the dry stuff in. DO NOT overmix; you will break the foam
ungreased angel food cake pan	Dollop the mixture evenly around the pan. After it is all in, jiggle it a few times to spread out the mixture and pop into preheated oven for 35 minutes (I put a tray underneath just in case the mixture overflowed). Check with skewer (should come out clean, but a little moist)
plate	Invert the pan onto an upside down plate to allow the cake to cool (about 1 to 1.5 hrs)
-	Turn back over when cooled and cut both perimeters with thin knife. Invert onto serving plate and let side come off, then slowly and carefully cut the bottom (which is on top) away from cake and you are done!
-	Top with my orange whipped cream

comparisons to other cakes

chiffon cake

Uses vegetable oil instead of butter in traditional cake recipes, so shelf life is longer and cake is moister. For this reason it is used in most shelf-products (Hostess, etc.). The wiki is pretty good.

devil’s food cake

This is a cake in between a traditional chocolate cake and angel food cake. It is much airier than standard chocolate cakes and uses cocoa as opposed to melted chocolate. The wiki entry does justice to the cake.

red velvet cake

If you see the devil’s food cake wiki entry, you will see that the original red tint came from non-alkalized (non “Dutch Processed”) cocoa powder reacting with baking soda. These days since alkalized cocoa powder is more prevalent, people add red food coloring to achieve the redness.

Growing Sideways » egg

Crazy French Toast

Flan

history

recipe

pics

vids

links

Angel Food Cake

comparisons to other cakes

chiffon cake

devil’s food cake

red velvet cake

references and other media

sites

pics