with Cinnamon and Currants!
Sure it looks, shall we say, toasty, but it tasted great. Bread like this doesn't last long around here. The loaves in the back are made from the same dough, which is a basic white dough with the milk, eggs, and a little extra butter. (See the big picture.)
Took a shot at making profiteroles tonight for the dessert for a dinner we were attending. And, boy, did them come out good. A profiterole is basically a cream puff shell stuffed with ice cream and covered in chocolate sauce. I couldn't decide on dark chocolate sauce or milk chocolate sauce, so I made both, using Callebaut chocolate. I used a recipe from The Cook's Guide to Chocolate by Christine McFadden. See the complete picture to see both sauces.
This came out of the oven tonight. I baked it using a pain de mie pan, which we bought at the King Arthur Flour store some years ago. The pan has a metal lid which forces the loaf into the square shape. I'll slice it and freeze it so we can have almost fresh baked bread til we run out.
I didn't really use a recipe, just the basic four (yeast, flour, salt, water) and some butter. (See the big picture.)
The only magazine I manage to read is Saveur. I like the way it combines story, travel, food, wine, and history. It puts the food and wine and the life of food and wine in such a rich context. And it has a few recipes. Now you would think I would read magazines about bits and bytes and stuff like that, keep up with the latest technologies, but no. I have people to do that (to them I am known simply as dad, and, on occasion, cranky). If you not only like food, but really like knowing about where food comes from, what food means, the story behind the food, the people that make it happen, then I highly recommend Saveur.
Tonight I made the Challah recipe from issue No. 61, Sept/Oct 2002. (See the big picture for a close-up on the loaf.) This loaf is only one-third of the batch, since this recipe can be used to make up to four loafs. The recipe printed in Saveur is from Claudia Rosen's The Book of Jewish Food. This recipe makes such a light and delicate bread. It is great fresh, but we also slice it and freeze it. Toasted, right from the freezer, it takes on a whole new character and is a treat in itself.
Sure it looks strange, but it actually tastes good. I always question recipes that say 'using your fingers, mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.' I end up with messy hands and poorly mixed dough. But I gave it another go, weighed the flour first, tried not to 'overmix', 'kneaded just enough to tidy up', and put the mass on the baking sheet. It came out alright. Word has it that at least one person would actually pay me to make it again. Also, I could not decide between raisins or currants, so I used both. (See the big picture.) What the hell are sultanas, anyway? For a more presentable soda bread, see this one.
I concocted a chocolate tapioca pudding this evening. I used a basic recipe for Tapioca Pudding from Simply Recipes and added 3 ozs of Scharffen Berger dark chocolate (60% cacoa). (I added the chocolate at the beginning.) Now the trick to this recipe, for me at least, is to add a small amount of the hot mixture to the beaten eggs to 'temper' them, then add this back to the pot. Well, I don't seem to be getting this right. I am not sure how much of the hot mixture to add or how slow to add this back to the pot. And you can really tell when this is wrong with a chocolate pudding. If anyone can provide some pointers, (yve, hint, hint) I would appreciate it. Anyway, the pudding tastes great warm. But I prefer pudding chilled, so I'll wait until tomorrow to really dig in. (For a close-up photo, just click on the picture, or visit the nascent Cook's Tour photo album.)
Heading towards a Thai restaurant I always visit when in San Jose, I lost myself in a train of thought and zigged when I should have zagged. In only a moment I was at Milpitas Square, with 18 restaurants and a total of 61 shops and restaurants, Milpitas Square offers an array of different cuisine including Dim Sum, Cantonese, Thai, Japanese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Filipino and others. After walking around for a few minutes I was beginning to think I should just head over to In-N-Out Burger (considered by Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation to be the antithesis of McDonalds) and order something familiar, but that just seemed liked taking the easy road, and the road had brought me here. I walked the walk and finally settled on the place that spoke the most to me -- friendly, inviting, pictures of the food, and smelling deliciously of waffles. Yes, waffles. Round waffles, waffles on a stick, waffles shaped like eggs. I had banana milk pearl tea and bbq pork over rice, because I just don't think of waffles for dinner. Only afterwards did I realize it was called "Bubbles". If this post has a point it would be that only the wrong turns take you to places you don't expect to be.
Passing through the Denver airport yesterday I stopped in at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for my favorite food group. What I like about RMCF is that they don't have the pretensions of some other chocolate places, like you might find at the mall. RMCF is about chocolate that is fun to eat. Big peanut butter cups, tasty toffee, turtles big enough to feed a family of, well, turtles. When you want to just eat the chocolate and not think about savoring it, this is the stuff that hits the spot.
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