C.R.E.A.M. Cheese
The clever cat eats cheese and breathes down rat holes with baited breath. ~W.C. Fields If you’re wondering why the title is phrased like that, then you need more Wu-Tang in …Read More….
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Ask Not What Your Pantry Can Do For You…
Even the most resourceful housewife cannot create miracles from a rice less pantry. ~Chinese Proverb Unfortunately, not my pantry 🙁 If cooking a meal was a …Read More….
Orange You Excited About This Cake?
California is a fine place to live – if you happen to be an Orange.
I don’t know what it is, but ever since we moved to North Carolina, I’ve had a much deeper admiration towards the seasons. It may have something to do with the fact that we’ve been here only 5 months and have already experienced 3 different climates. As oppose to Floridawhich seems to only have one, annoyingly hot, year long season. I mean, I always looked forward to the 3-5 weeks of cooler temperatures in the dead of winter, but being raised in New York, a winter to me is a little colder than 40°, and a lot longer than a few weeks.
With this new appreciation towards spring and all its glory, I’m continuing my trend of fresh flavors that remind you of a warm breeze blowing through the new born leaves on a tree.
See what this place is doing to me!? I’m talking like Bob Ross!
For me, nothing says “fresh” like a nice, juicy orange. Being the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world, odds are a small part of you feels the same way. Next to pineapples, oranges have to be my most favorite fruit. They’re sweet, packed with flavor, nutritious and perfect for a spring day. And just like pineapples, what better way to celebrate one of natures perfect creations, than to bake it into a sugary cake?
Stop trying to think about it, there is no better way…
Orange Cake1 cup ~ Raw Sugar
Zest from 1 large Orange
1 cup ~ Butter, room temperature
4 each ~ Eggs, room temperature
1 cup ~ Flour
1 ¼ teaspoons ~ Baking Powder
¼ teaspoon ~ Salt
1/3 cup ~ Orange Juice
1 tablespoon ~ Grand Marnier (optional)
Orange Glaze
½ cup ~ Powdered Sugar
5 teaspoons ~ Orange Juice
This is a really simple cake and it may seem dense but it is actually very moist. If you’d like, I strongly recommend adding the optional Grand Marnier. You can essentially add your favorite dark rum or liqueur, but Grand Marnier is an orange liqueur, so it’s going to make happy nice-time with the rest of the flavors. Heck, if you don’t want to stop there, substitute a teaspoon of Orange Juice for a teaspoon of Grand Marnier in the Orange Glaze, too. I guarantee you someone will be happy you did.
Speaking of the glaze, the amount should be enough. I didn’t think it would be so I made some more, and boy was I wrong, you’ll see the picture below. What you’re going to be looking for is the glaze to spread out over the cake and leave a very thin, hardened layer on the top and drizzling down the sides. It’s not like an icing that you’ll have to spread around and cover every inch. The cake is small, but it feels rich, and it doesn’t really need the glaze to begin with. If you feel the glaze is too thin or thick – use common sense – add more sugar or juice, 1 teaspoon at a time depending on the situation. And if you want even more orangey goodness, put a little zest in there too. Why not? Nobody’s watching.
If you don’t have raw sugar you can substitute for white sugar. There is a bit of a different flavor with raw, since it is less refined than white, you get a hint of molasses with the sweetness. But it’s subtle, and in the end it all depends on what you want to use or what you have on hand. Plus less refined = more natural, so that’s always good.
OK, enough chit chat. Orange Cake…
- Put the oven on 340°. In a bowl, combine the Flour, Baking Soda and Salt, and set it aside. Then the way I start it off is I put the Orange Zest in the mixer with the Sugar and I turn it on for a minute or two.
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel the zest can get more evenly distributed if it’s incorporated with the sugar, rather than the probability of it getting clumped up if you just dump it in the butter. Not to mention simply mixing it with the sugar makes your kitchen smell fantastic!
If you’ve never zested an orange, or any citrus for that matter, then that’s a real shame.
No really, it is. Sure, an orange is great but the magic is all in the peel. Yeah, that part that you always throw away. I’m not saying go and eat the peel, but hear me out…
When talking citrus – Lemon, Grapefruit, Orange, etc… – the outer peel or rind has two parts: the Zest and the Pith. The Zest is the colorful, outer layer which is commonly grated off and used in cakes, pies and other sweet or savory products. And the Pith is the white, bitter layer just underneath the zest and is commonly boiled with sugar to create candied or crystallized fruits. When zesting, it is strongly recommended to avoid the pith due to its bitterness. The zest is often thrown away with the pith, but when grated or even cut off carefully and minced, whatever it is added to will be blessed with an amazing, natural taste. The reason why is because the zest houses essential oils that is concentrated with the flavor of the fruit. These oils are what make citrus fruits magical. Like, Unicorn, magical. Only less Unicorny and more fruity.
Now that you know why zest is important, I hope you feel bad for always throwing it away. So many uses and it’s always wasted. For shame.
Stop crying, we’re not done…
- Once the Zest and Sugar are happy buddy-buddy, add the room temperature Butter.
You always want butter at room temperature when baking, it’s just easier to blend and work with plus it creams with the sugar much easier.
- Scrape the sides and slowly add the room temperature Eggs one at a time.
You also want the eggs at room temperature because if you add too many cold eggs at once it could curdle the batter, causing it to separate and therefore produce a flat cake. No one wants that, especially fruity Unicorns.
It sounds scary because it is. Not fruity Unicorns, I’m talking about separated batters leading to flat cakes. So here are a few more tips to avoid curdling:
Make sure the butter and sugar are creamed (mixed) till light and fluffy so the eggs can be completely absorbed when being added one at a time. Also add a small spoonful of your flour mixture after the third or fourth egg; this will make sure everything comes together instead of falling apart. Lastly, a big step in preventing curdling is to alternate the addition of the dry and wet ingredients, like I describe below.
You know, it seems like this cake is becoming a real pain in the ass, right? It really isn’t, I promise! Blame it on baking, I said it before: cooking isn’t rocket science, but baking is damn near close.
- Once the eggs are incorporated nicely, scrape the sides, and add a third of the Flour mixture, let it mix till just combined and then add 1/2 of the Orange Juice. Continue adding alternately: Flour, Juice and then finish with the last of the Flour.
Again, this is to prevent curdling and separation along with deflation of the batter. The flour is the key in this prevention which is why you want to begin and end with it when alternating. You could just throw it all in and be a rebel, but that’s up to you. Some claim curdling doesn’t hurt the end product; others throw their deflated cakes into walls and out windows. Your batter, your gamble.
- The good news about all this stress you’re feeling now is that you’re done. Make sure you generously butter an 8 inchround cake pan, and pour in the batter.
Because it’s dense, I lined the bottom of the pan with a cut out piece of parchment paper, you know, just in case it wants to stay in the pan after it was baked, but I’m sure you could skip that part with enough butter in the pan.
- Like always, I sprinkled more turbinado (raw) sugar on top because I love the crunch, and then put it into the 340° oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, check it because it will most likely be brown and look done, but it’s not. Spray or butter a piece of aluminum foil, and loosely place on top of the cake, bake for another 15 minutes. Make sure a toothpick placed in the middle comes out clean, and it’s done. Let it rest for 10 minutes before you separate the edges from the pan and flip it upside down onto a plate. Let it cool completely before glazing it.
Speaking of the Glaze!
- Whisk together the Sugar and the Orange Juice (and possibly the liqueur), until smooth.
Yeah, that easy. Ain’t no science to making glaze.
Like I said, if it’s too thin or too thick, adjust accordingly.
- Once the cake is cooled, drizzle the Glaze around and let it cascade off the sides.
The glaze should thin out and harden to the point where it’s like a glazed doughnut. A nice, big, orangey, addicting glazed doughnut.
 |
| This is me.. Getting WAY too excited with the glaze. Do what I say, not what I do. |
Perfect for spring, this is a refreshing cake that would surprise the hell out of me if it lasted more than 2 days in your house.
Enjoy.
.. Of Spices
Once you get a spice in your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians were buried with their spices. I know which one I’m taking with me when I go. …Read More….
The Sauce
I don’t think America will have really made it until we have our own salad dressing. Until then we’re stuck behind the French, Italians, Russians and Caesarians. …Read More….
I Can Cook & So Can You!
Cookery is not chemistry. It is an art. It requires instinct and taste rather than exact measurements.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of secrets in the culinary world. If you were to lay down all of the secrets side by side, it would create a chain that could go around Earth twice. …Or something like that. These secrets are not guarded by a government agency dedicated to protecting kitchen techniques or recipes. They’re not on a need-to-know basis, nor are they illegal. Honestly, they’re not even secrets; they’re things you haven’t learned yet even though they’re staring you right in the face. It’s the things the average person shrugs off while thinking, “This tastes so good. I’ll never be able to make something like this.” Or, “That Chef has trained for years in far off lands where people pray to cookbooks and children are taught knife skills before the alphabet.”
Look, whether you believe me or not, cooking is simple. There is no formula to memorize, there’s no school you have to go to in order to be a great Chef (don’t get me started), and there are no secrets to making something extraordinary. All it takes is the will to learn. With that will, and a little time, you’ll find out that not only is cooking easy, but that for all these years, you’ve been paying hard earned money on meals you thought you couldn’t do at home.
The way I see it, everyone is equal. The hard working mom who cooks every night for her family can probably make a dish 10 times better than any celebrity Chef, especially King D-Bag, Guy Fieri. Seriously, if you don’t know who that is, look up Tool in urban dictionary and I’ll be surprised if you don’t see his picture. If you’re really in the dark, you can just scroll through Food Network Humor to get an idea (but not literally in the dark, he gives nightmares). What I’m saying is there are people who can create something amazing and unique, but that doesn’t mean they’re Culinary Gods and we should kiss the ground they walk on or watch their cooking shows and buy their ridiculously overpriced cookware. It just means they’ve been cooking for a long time and stuck with it. With the will and time, you can cook like a professional. Add the dedication and passion, and you can actually be a professional. Throw in the some hair dye, sunglasses with flames on them and a sports car that screams, “I’m a huge poser with a small penis”, and you can even be Guy Fieri.
When I went to culinary school (again – you really do not want to hear me talk about culinary school) I had no idea what I was doing. But I knew I needed a career so I learned everything I could. And when I got out of school, I started working as a slave cook in a hotel. Even though it only took me 1 day to realize I made a horrible mistake, I never stopped learning. Fast forward to today, and I’m still learning, always keeping an ear and eye out to what’s new and what looks good. With my “always learning” mentality, I’ve picked up countless techniques and recipes throughout my 10 years of being in the hospitality industry. I’ve learned secrets, debunked myths, and discovered hidden strengths and weaknesses. I’ve created dishes, wrote menus, and plated masterpieces. I’ve trained, managed and supervised entire kitchens. But on the other hand, I’ve also burned a lot of shit. I’ve overcooked, over seasoned, and over compensated. I’ve made plenty of messes, ruined pots and knives and broke equipment. I lost count of how many stitches I had to get, but I do know I have more scars from burns than I do knives. I could go on but I’ll save myself the embarrassment since my list of mess ups outweigh the good.
The point I’m trying to make is simple: We all start somewhere. And no matter how long we’ve been at it, we all make mistakes and that shouldn’t deter you from trying to cook something. I hear all too often that a recipe is beyond someone’s experience, and it irks me. Not because that person doesn’t have any faith in themselves, it doesn’t matter to me if you don’t believe in yourself, I won’t lose sleep over it. What gets to me is that cooking is so damn easy. Trust me, I’m not saying that because I went to culinary school (I know, a culinary school post is inevitable), I’m saying that because it’s the truth. This isn’t science, recipes are not carved in stone, they’re guidelines. There was not one job I had that I couldn’t find some guy off the street with no cooking experience whatsoever, and train him to work the line in less than a week.
Cooking has this rep that makes people believe it can only be accomplished by studying for years and working 7 days a week in a busy kitchen. But like I said, if you have the will and the time, that’s half the battle. If you get acquainted with as many ingredients as you can, know your spices, basic techniques and a few do’s and don’t’s, then you’re set and ready to conquer the culinary world.
Just don’t try and conquer it with a soufflé. They make terrible ammunition and the only thing they will kill is your confidence.
Note: I am in no way, shape or form, attempting to talk you into, or saying it is ok to pursue a job in the restaurant industry. I’m saying it’s ok to try to cook at home. Cooking at home and cooking professionally are two totally different things. It’s like comparing relaxing in a pool on a lounge float while sipping a strawberry daiquiri vs. struggling on a life preserver in the middle of the ocean with a dozen hungry sharks circling you. Big difference. So don’t do it. The same goes for culinary school. If you really want to study the Culinary Arts, give me $30,000 and I’ll teach you everything they taught me, only better, plus I’ll give you my degree.
Buckle Up.. It’s the Slaw
Welcome to the Church of the Holy Cabbage. Lettuce pray.. ~Unknown Hello to the first day of Spring!! Aside from a few of those in the North, it’s been a rather mild Winter for most of us. But as of today it is officially …Read More….
Pie Hard: With a Vengeance
Mmmm… Pie Pants… ~Homer J . Simpson Nothing is homier than a freshly baked pie. Many believe that …Read More….
Pi r square… No, Pie r round!
When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it’s not, mmmmmmmm, boy.
For most, today is just a regular day.
But to us geeks, today is Pi Day!
Why is it Pi Day? Well, a long, long time ago, somebody smart figured out that the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is always equal to 3.14. Or more specifically, 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510… and on and on for over 10 trillion digits. Pi is an irrational number and a mathematical constant, found in not only circles, but in Pyramids dated back to 2500 B.C., the sinuosity of the average river, and countless other formulas and equations.
In 2009, the U.S. recognized today, 3/14, as National Pi Day. So what better way to celebrate this strange mathematical phenomenon, than with some pie!
I’d love to be smart enough to talk π with you, because there is some interesting stuff there. But the truth is that I am absolutely terrible at math. I appreciate it, I’m intrigued by Numerology and all that fun stuff, but I just cannot think of anything that I am worse at doing.
I am fairly novice at cooking though. So just because I can’t talk Pi, doesn’t mean I can’t talk Pie.
I’m a sucker for pie, but I didn’t know this about myself since I grew up with cake. We hardly ever had any pie of any kind, but we had enough cake to cater a thousand birthday parties. It wasn’t until recently when I dug deep and saw myself as a pie person as oppose to a cake person. Yeah, you can be both but that’s like being a Yankee fan and liking the Red Sucks Sox. It’s just so hard to resist a good pie, not to mention a cake is a lot more dense so one slice can usually do you in, but you can have 2 or 3 slices of pie and be good, especially if it’s fruit. That’s practically healthy!
Now, I’m not going to lie to you. I was caught a little off guard for this and couldn’t prepare as much as I would’ve liked. I had minimal ingredients on hand but I know I wanted to make a pie and was open to anything new. So while pondering and looking at my pantry, I remembered a pie that I always wanted to try, and guess what, I had the ingredients.
If you’ve ever been to Sarasota, FL or have seen shows like Man vs.Food on the Travel Channel, you know about Yoder’s Restaurant. It’s an Amish restaurant, and if you know the Amish, they make some simple, wholesome stuff. Ever since I first saw it, I’ve wanted to try the Peanut Butter Pie. Simple, low ingredient list and it looks delish. Being a little ways away from Florida, I’m doing the next best thing:
Yoder’s Peanut Butter Cream Pie:
For the Pudding:1 cup ~ Cold Milk
1/2 cup ~ Cornstarch
1 teaspoon ~ Salt
1 tablespoon ~ Vanilla Extract
3 each ~ Egg Yolks
3 cups ~ Milk
3 tablespoons ~ Butter
2/3 cup ~ Sugar
Crumb Mixture:1 cup ~ Powdered Sugar
1/2 cup ~ Crunchy Peanut Butter
Baked Pie Crust
Whipped Cream
Like most of what I do, it’s simple and not complicated. I only had creamy peanut butter, but the only thing you’ll miss out on is that crunchy texture from the peanuts.
Note: I feel as if it could have used more powdered sugar with the peanut butter, so that it could’ve been more of a “crumb” rather than the slightly-more solid state of peanut butter that I got. Also, a tablespoon or two of cocoa powder added in with the sugar in the Pudding would make an overall more gratifying pie. I had this two nights, once with vanilla pudding and the other with chocolate, I must say the chocolate with the peanut butter and cream took it from “simple and great” to “simple and wow”.
I made the pie in a soup crock because not only does it look great, I also didn’t want a pie of this magnitude sitting in my fridge for more than 2 days.
- First thing you do is prepare your pie crust however you’re going to do it, whether in soup crocks or a pie dish, and get it into the oven. Then get a stainless steel pot or deep pan and add the 3 cups of Milk, Butter and Sugar and let it get hot.
- While it’s getting hot, mix the 1 cup of Milk, Corn Starch, Salt, Vanilla Extract and Egg Yolks in a separate bowl. Mix well to make sure all the Corn Starch isn’t being stubborn and getting stuck to the bottom of the bowl.
This next step is tricky, and I mean tricky. I’d explain how tricky, but I don’t want you to freak out on me.
What we… well, what you have to do now is temper the egg mixture into the hot milk. Tempering sounds like a pain because it is. If you’ve never done it before don’t get mad if something goes wrong, it’s only natural to want to throw the pot full of scalding hot liquid into a wall or out the window.
Tempering is when you are incorporating eggs or an egg mixture into a hot liquid. It’s a process that is nerve racking because if you don’t take your time and do it right, then you’re going to end up with scrambled eggs. And nobody likes scrambled eggs in their vanilla pudding. There is going to be a lot of whisking involved, which is why you’re doing this in stainless steel rather than non-stick.
So here it is:
- Once the milk is hot enough to the point where it’s smoking, turn down the heat, place the egg mixture next to the pot and grab a ladle. Slowly, slowly, slowly ladle in the hot milk to the egg mixture while constantly whisking. Once you’ve emptied the ladle, check to see if you have any chunks of scrambled egg floating around. If you don’t, congrats, you made it through your first ladle; you only have about 3 more left to go. After you hit 2 or 3 ladles (depending on the size of the ladle and how hot the milk is), check the mixture. If it’s a little more than warm then you should be good to go.
- Drop the ladle and pick up the bowl with the egg mixture. Turn up the heat again and slowly add the tempered egg mixture into the milk while constantly whisking. If by the time you finished incorporating everything you don’t see any chunks floating around in there, congratulations, you just tempered eggs.
I’m sorry, I would’ve taken pictures to help you through this process, but I haven’t quite figured out how to take pictures using my feet yet.
- Next, sit there and stir the mixture around while the heat is up and wait for the magic to happen. Once it reaches the right temperature, the mixture will thicken. Once the mixture thickens, remove it from the heat before it starts to boil. Transfer it to a bowl, wrap it up, poke some holes in the wrap, and let it chill for a few hours in the fridge.
While it’s cooling, let’s make the crumb mix:
- Take the peanut butter and place it in a bowl with your powdered sugar and mix until it forms crumbs.
I know that was dreadfully difficult, sit down, you deserve a rest.
- But don’t rest too long, you still have to make the Whipped Cream.
Once the Pie Crust and pudding is cooled, let’s put this sucker together:
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| Notice the poorly implemented cocoa in the pudding. Sift! |
- Take the Peanut Butter Mix and layer some on the bottom of the pie crust. Then spoon in the Pudding and layer some more of the Peanut Butter Mix on top of that. Mound it with whipped cream and finally top it off with even more of the Peanut Butter Mix.
And there you go, Yoder’s Peanut Butter Cream Pie. It looks awesome and tastes great. Aside from that whole tempering business, it’s a cinch to make.
Ok, maybe not a cinch, but did you think you can make such a thing with 10 ingredients? Uh huh, I thought so.
Happy π Day, everyone!
If you must know, some of my favorite pies are a Peanut Butter Pie and a Pecan Pie, both of which my wife makes every Thanksgiving. A traditional Apple Pie, something you can never go wrong with. And another Amish favorite: Shoofly Pie. It’s a molasses pie that I had once in my life and I’ll never forget it. Always look for it and never find it. Maybe I’ll have to make it one day…
What are some of your favorite pies?