Tales from Christmas 2007 - the Croquembouche

Sorry for the radio silence. We're out in the great state of Texas with J's family. I have been reading J's mother's scrapbooks like they were the rosetta stone. I love reading personal history (perhaps that's why I read so many blogs).

As with any other family, food is a big part of Christmas with te J family. Because J's sister had to have an early dinner with her in-laws, the J family Christmas celebration was an early brunch, complete with two spirited boys in football uniforms.

It always amazes me how organized J's mother is about making big meals. The night before, the table was set, all of the food was prepared and in the freezer The only thing to do was to reheat. One the menu was:

Sunday brunch egg casserole (complete with Jimmy Dean sausage)
Cheese grits
Citrus salad
Little smokies (made because J's nephew recently had pigs in blanket and only ate the pig)
Sausage balls (sausage mixed with bisquick)
Mini blueberry muffins
Cheese pennies
Cream puffs rolled in powdered sugar
Pumpkin brean with chocolate chips
Cranberry danishes (I made)
A HUUUUUUGE assortment of cookies and candy

And finally, a croquembouche. J's brother recently has gotten into cooking and is pretty ambitious about what he'd like to make. A croquembouche really intrigued J's brother and J is as adventurous a cook as he is an eater. So Christmas Eve, we made the vanilla pastry cream (quite delicious) and the cream puffs (or choux). The pastry cream went without a hitch but hell's bells the cream puffs bedeviled us. You see, choux paste is a very old recipe with very easy proportions. The basic recipe (which I got from Mastering the Art of French Cooking) goes like this:

1 stick of butter
1 cup of water
1 cup of flour
4 eggs
1 teaspoon of sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt

You melt the butter in the water, bring to a vigorous simmer and dump the flour in all at once. Stir until the paste gathers together and is hard to stir. I like to stir in on low heat to make sure the flour incorporates. Many recipes say t take it off the heat once you add the flour. Once the paste is made, add the four eggs either big stirring even more vigorously (and building your forearms) or dumping the paste into a food processor and incorporating the eggs that way. Once done, quickly dump tablespoonfuls of the paste into an old ratty cookie sheet that is completely uninsulated. A pastry bag would be helpful here to pipe the dough and made sure the surface is smooth. Bake for around 20 minutes until the choux are puffed and golden.

That's how it SHOULD have worked but for some reason, the first batch of dough we ended up with turned into a batter. I grilled J over and over about our measurements and decided the dump the whole thing and start over. Luckily, the next batch was a sucuess. That night we filled the choux with the pastry cream and set them in the freezer.

In the morning we made the caramel sauce and the melted sugar to bind the whole shebang together. The melt sugar consisted of sugar, water and corn syrup heated to 320 degrees. on there we dipped one side of the choux in the sugar and stuck it onto another cream puff. Once we had a nicering of choux, we pour the caramel sauce on top. We had enough pastry to make a very nice castle wall with cream puff turrets. A little less than the big tower of cream puffs, but I pointed out, we only had 11 people for brunch. The best part though was dipping a few forks in the melted sugar and making spun sugar that glistened around the castle wall. it was nice collaboration between J, j's brother and me. And while I won't kid anyone about it being a pain in the ass to make, we all had a good time making it.

The Long Awaited Mango Mousse Tart

Ok. It's been a while but it's been that kind of week that required me to COMMUTE to Tyson's Corner from the other side of the DC diamond. I've never been so exhausted in my life. How do people do it? Because seriously, I was having a nervous breakdown every evening for the two days I had to make the 7 am commute.

Anyway, I said I would post the mango mousse tart recipe. This comes from Martha Stewart Living. The recipe calls for either eight round molds (like they use to plate things in restaurants or an 8-inch springform pan. I ended up using a 10-inch tart pan. It worked perfectly fine.

For the crust:
1 ounce salted, dry-roasted macadamia nuts (1/4 cup)
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

For the mousse
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 envelope unflavored gelatin (1 scant tablespoon)
- Whole Foods did not have any unflavored gelatin so I substituted 2 tablespoons of organic orange jello and it worked perfectly fine.
2 firm but ripe mangoes
(each 1 pound)
1/2 cup of sugar
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar

1. Preheat over to 250 degrees. Lightly coat ring molds or pan with cooking spray. Place on a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
2. Make the crust: pulse macadamia nuts and sugar in a food processor until finely ground. In a bowl, combine nuts, flour and butter with a fork until mixture resembles a coarse meal. Press into pan or molds. Bake for 12 minutes until golden brown. Let cool.
3. Make the mousse: Pour orange juice into a small saucepan. Sprinkle with gelatin and let stand until softened, about 5 minutes. Heat over low heat, stirring until dissolved. Remove from heat.
4. Cut 1/4 of the mango into 1/4 inch thick slices for garnish (halve large slices). Coarsely chop remaining mangoes. In a blender, puree chopped mangoes, sugar, and lemon juice until smooth. With machine running, add gelatin mixture in a slow and steady stream until combined. Transfer to a bowl.
5. Beat cream until soft peaks form. Add powdered sugar and beat until soft peaks return. Whisk 1/3 of the whipped cream into the mango mixture. Gently fold the remaining whipped cream.
6. Pour into molds/pan until 3/4 full and cover with plastic wrap. Freeze until firm (at least 4 hours and up to a week).
7. While the recipe says to let stand at room temperature for 5 minutes before serving. I found it's soft enough to serve straight from the freezer.

Receive accolades with a degree of modesty. Inwardly exult.

Magical San Antonio Flan Cake

This is an adaptation of the San Antonio Chocolate-Cajeta Cake from Robb Walsh's Tex-Mex Cookbook. We thought chocolate would be too heavy and wouldn't compliment the scented vanilla of the flan.

1 box of yellow cake mix
1 10.9 ounce jar of dulce de leche
1 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
1/2 14 ounce can of whole milk (use evaporated milk can to measure)
1 8-ounce package of cream cheese
1 teaspoons vanilla
8 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place a large baking pan in the oven and add enough water to come 2 inches up the sides of a large Bundt pan. Lightly grease and flour the Bundt pan. (ok my suggestion is to use either lard (eek!) or margarine for this. Cooking spray doesn't cling to the pan enough). Prepare the cake batter according to directions on the box. Pour the dulce de leche into the Bundt pan, turning the pan to coat as much of the inside as possible. Pour the cake batter into the Bundt pan.

Pour the milks, cream cheese, vanilla and eggs into a blender and blend well.

Pour the milk mixture very slowly around the top of the cake. Cover the Bundt pan with foil and set in the water-filled pan in the oven.

Bake the cake for 2 hours. Remove from the oven and let cool for 1 hour. Place a large cake plate on top of the pan and invert. The flan mysteriously migrates while baking and will come out on top of the cake when it is unmolded. Refrigerate before serving. Marvel at the magic of gravity.

Chocolate Bliss Cookies

These are from the Barefoot Contessa and the FoodTV website. This recipe is for serious chocolate fans. Mighty fine and tasty! --jdtc

1 pkg. (8 squares) Baker’s semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate
¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar
¼ C butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
½ C flour
¼ tsp Baking Powder
1 ½ C choc. chunks
2 C pecans

Microwave squares in large bowl on High 2 minutes.

Stir until choc. Is melted and smooth.

Stir in sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla with wooden spoon.

Stir in flour and baking powder. Stir in chunks and pecans.

Drop by scant ¼ cupfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake at 350 for 13 to 14 minutes or until cookies are puffed and feel set to the touch.

Cool completely on wire racks.

Perfect Pie Crust

Perfect Pie Crust from T (modifed from epicurious.com)

This will make a double crust. I've used many different recipes but I've settled on this one because it makes the flakiest crust. It's almost like puff pastry.

2 sticks + 2 tablespoons of butter

(at least 1 stick of butter should be frozen)

2 ½ cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

¼ cup of water

2 tablespoons rice wine or cider vinegar

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Cut butter into tablespoon size. Pour into a food processor. Add the flour, salt, and sugar. Process on high until the butter is the size of peas. Mix water, a few cubes of ice, and the vinegar in a measuring cup. Slowly pour the water in by tablespoons and then blend on high. The way I did it starting out was to count to three pouring the water in and then blend for a short time by counting to five. Do that until the mixture has come together but is not too wet.

Refrigerate for at least a half an hour before using. When you roll it out for use, roll it out to about a ¼ inch thickness.