My Life In France Review

The kitchen reader selected My Life in France by Julie Child and Alex Rud'homme for this month's book. I read this on the long plane ride home from Berlin yesterday and it was a perfect selection for the occasion. Although I had not been to France during this trip, I was in a country where I didn't speak the language but was fascinated by the food, culture and customs of Berliners. I could relate to a lot of Julia's experiences and admired her endless enthusiasm.
Although this is a collection of stories that is a bit uneven at times, the personality of Julia Child comes through in the writing and resulted in a very fun, light read. I'm looking forwarded to getting back to the computer and seeing what the other readers thought. Also working my way through my pictures of Berlin (a few here).

Cherry-Fudge Brownie Torte

Greetings from Deutschland! Well, really, greetings from Massachusetts the day before I head to Germany. I made this recipe way in advance so Spike.Bakes wouldn't be completely static this week. Who knows- maybe Kiki (my friend I'm visiting in Berlin) and I will cook up something to share with you. Stay tuned. So on to the torte. I wasn't quite sure how this one would turn out. Dorie has so many great chocolate cake (tart/torte/etc) recipes that I think a few get lost in there. This is one I never really noticed in the book until April picked it. I'm glad I got to make it though because it got some pretty great reviews.

The chocolate cake is like a dense brownie (my favorite kind) with just a touch of cherry. Sometimes fruit mixed in a cake can be overpowering- not here. I didn't have (and didn't want to spend the money on) marscarpone so I just used regular old cream cheese for the topping. At least I think that's how it went-I made this one awhile ago. I do remember the creamy topping cut the rich chocolate perfectly, allowing you to cut a slightly bigger piece.

Short & Rose will have the recipe- an adorable blog!

Blue Cheese Souffle

So Monday night I get home late after a long swim workout with some triathlon buddies and decide that it is a perfect evening to whip up a souffle. I should have known there would be issues.

So I'm working on the souffle in the kitchen in sweats with my hair still dripping and completely starving by this point. I decide to halve the recipe because it is just me and although I will eat leftover cold, fallen souffle I won't eat a lot of it. Now when I say I halve the recipe, I mean I halved all of the ingredients except the blue cheese. This doesn't hit me until I'm folding in the egg whites thinking, the cheese is awfully heavy for the egg whites to mix with. Whoops.
So I wasn't expecting my mini souffles to rise at all, but was pleasantly surprised when they did. A little. But then I rushed my minis from the oven to the camera set up but still took too long to capture the puff on film.

I like blue cheese but doubling the amount for these is not highly recommended. That said, I did have some lovely bites with light souffle and a hint of blue cheese. I bet the recipe is amazing when followed correctly.This recipe was selected by Summer of Sexy Apartment, the recipe can be found here.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

Every time I write the word "potato", I think of Dan Quayle and want to put an "e" on the end. This recipe really has nothing to do with Dan Quayle but it does have everything to do with deliciousness and the amazing Jennifer.

I had already planned to make these biscuits on Saturday, and then knew I had to make them when Jennifer brought me some real Virginia ham that would be just perfect with these babies. Fresh sweet potato biscuits and salty ham- it was every bit as good as you imagine.

I even screwed up the biscuits somewhat and wasn't bothered by it. You see, I was so afraid of over mixing that I'm not sure I mixed enough. I was also a bit worried that the sweet potato I had mashed up wasn't quite cool enough (canned sweet potatoes scare the crap out of me so I baked a fresh one up in the oven). No need to worry, it all turned out lovely. Erin of Prudence Pennywise is hosting us this week, so visit her blog and pick up the recipe.

Pumpkin Cakes with Maple Cream Cheese Filling

I had a full day of meetings on Thursday and I wanted to make something to bring to work that would keep me motivated to get through the day. I know, food shouldn’t be used as incentive, but after 5 hours of teleconferences you need something to get the blood sugar up. This week’s Sweet Melissa recipe sounded like it would do the trick- a nice fall treat in a cute little package. I made a few changes to the spices for the pumpkin cakes and added maple to the cream cheese filling. I also made them bigger, using an ice cream scoop for the cakes.

These were gone in seconds. Really, seconds. And I didn’t get to have a second helping. I really wanted a second helping. The pumpkin cakes that taste exactly like a slice of pumpkin pie. The maple cream cheese put them over the top. These will be making a second appearance at Thanksgiving, if not sooner.

Pumpkin Cakes with Maple Cream Cheese Filling

Based on a Melissa Murphy recipe

Cakes:

½ cup packed light brown sugar

½ sugar

8 tbs unsalted butter, at room temp

¼ cup molasses

1 large egg, at room temp

1 cup pumpkin puree

2 cups ap flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

1/8 tsp allspice

¾ tsp kosher salt

½ cup whole milk, at room temp

Position a rack in the center of your oven and preheat oven to 350f. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the sugars and butter until light and fluffy (1-2 minutes). Add the molasses, then the egg and mix to combine. Add pumpkin and mix, scraping down the bowl as needed.

In a separate bowl whisk together the remaining dry ingredients.

Add the dry mixture to the pumpkin mixture in three additions, alternating with milk (Dry-milk-dry-milk-dry). Mix just until combined.

Using an ice cream scoop, scoop a few tablespoons at a time onto the prepared baking sheet, leaving an inch in between scoops (you may need more than one pan). You should be able to get 18-20 scoops. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the cakes are just baked through. Leave to cool on the baking sheet for 1-2 minutes, then lift the cakes onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Filling:

3oz unsalted butter, at room temp

3oz cream cheese, at room temp

¾ cup confectioners sugar

1 heaping tbs of maple syrup

Place all of the ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix (slow at first until sugar is incorporated, then at medium) until smooth and fluffy.

Assembling:

You can put the filling into a pastry bag or simple spread with a spoon. Add about two tsps of filling to the flat side of one cake, sandwich with a second side. Refrigerate until ready to eat.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Rounds (Gluten Free)

When my newest coworker was starting last week I was a little upset that I hadn't had a chance to bake something for her first day. Later in the day, I was relieved that I hadn't because she has a gluten free diet! yikes. I've never intentionally tried to make something gluten free- so last night I made the attempt so we could have treats at our staff meeting today.

I found this recipe on a blog called the Gluten Free Goddess. I cut it in half because I was afraid that these guys wouldn't turn out well and would go to waste. Silly Spike. Anything with peanut butter and chocolate is typically edible! They are actually pretty tasty- I think the baking mix used in place of flour helps out a lot. Instead of making these into bars, I made them in a muffin tin. Hence the "rounds" instead of "bars". Here's my version of the recipe:

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Rounds
makes 10-15
1 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup chunky peanut butter
1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temp
2 large eggs, at room temp
2 tsps vanilla
1 1/2 cups Pamela's Ultimate Baking Mix (found in the natural foods aisle)
10 oz bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven 350f, center a rack in the oven. Spray a muffin tin with non stick spray.

Cream the sugar, peanut butter and butter in an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment- 1-2 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla. Mix well and scrape down the bowl as needed. Add the baking mix and mix until just incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Scoop a couple of tablespoons of the batter into each muffin tin and press down slightly to even out the top. If you have unfilled muffin cups at the end, add a tsp of water to them to prevent scorching in the oven. Bake for 12-15 minutes until just baked through. Cool on a wire rack.

Vietnamese Pho

At the end of work yesterday I thought to myself, "isn't there a Daring Cook's challenge due soon?" Yes, there was and it was due today. I ran by whole foods on my way home and grabbed a couple of things to make a vegan pho. Too bad the bagger forgot to pack my ginger! grr.

There are a lot of great Pho restaurants near where I work but I've never tried making it myself. Pho is a Vietnamese soup with noodles, perfect on a cool fall night like last night. I try to eat vegetarian during the week so I made my pho with cubes of soft tofu which absorb the flavor of the broth and melt in your mouth. I added rice noodles, mushrooms, and lots of fresh lime- but alas, no fresh ginger or cilantro. Despite the rush to get this done, it turned out really well.

I'm going to try to take a non iphone picture to replace this one tonight...there was a slight issue with no available batteries for the real camera last night.
The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.