Bake Like A Ninja

I am so lazy. But this is so funny. And it’s food related…which is kind of gross if you think about it too much.

Cheers.

~This is the twenty-sixth (and last!) post in a series running through the month of June 2009 in which I attempt to post once a day for the month.~

Ever wondered what powdered sugar is? Apparently I have, which is why I knew when I ran out of it on Saturday that it was made of sugar and corn starch. I also knew that flour can be substituted for corn starch if you just double the amount, because the last time I needed corn starch, I found that the cupboard fairy (otherwise known as me) had “organized” our corn starch into the garbage.  So I had to look up a substitute for that.*

The fairy also seems to have either thrown out or used up all our powdered sugar, which about threw me into conniptions on Saturday when I was making the Bakewell Tart…er, Pudding, but thanks to my Internet, I found a “recipe” for substitute powdered sugar, made by whirring some regular sugar around for a while in a good blender and adding corn starch. Which could also be flour, if you’re out of corn starch as well.  Like we are.

Personally I hate having a bag of powdered sugar sitting around taking up precious kitchen real estate, so I’ll be making it myself from now on. It worked great and was easy to make. So there you go – ending “post a day” month on a helpful note. Now I’m going to go drink a beer and take a nap.

Cheers.

Homemade Powdered Sugar

Ingredients

1 cup sugar**
1 tablespoon cornstarch***

Directions

Combine the two and process in blender until powder forms. May take a few minutes to really get it looking like powdered sugar.

*I make a lot of substitutions in recipes. Someday I’m going to substitute so much out of a recipe it’s going to be an entirely different thing than I intended to make.
**Use one cup or however much powdered sugar you need, of course!
***This can be substituted with two tablespoons of flour

~This is the twenty-fifth post in a series running through the month of June 2009 in which I attempt to post once a day for the month.~

“Well I guess if a person never quit when the going got tough, they’d wouldn’t have anything to regret for the rest of their life…”

Cheers.

Indian Home Cooking: A Fresh Introduction to Indian Food

~This is the twenty-fourth post in a series running through the month of June 2009 in which I attempt to post once a day for the month.~

We bought Indian Home Cooking: A Fresh Introduction to Indian Food by Suvir Saran and Stephanie Lyness a few years ago and almost got rid of it in one of our book purges. We had made a couple of recipes and they were ok, but we hadn’t been really inspired to keep cooking from it. Because I am a pack rat, I usually insist that we give any cookbook we’re about to toss one more chance, and everyone around here is glad that my hoarding tendencies kept this one from the Goodwill. I don’t remember the recipe that we made that turned it all around for this book, but it was delightful, as have been all the recipes we’ve made from this volume since then.*

If you want to learn to cook Indian food, this is a great book. If you want to learn to cook cheaply, this is a great book. It’s a great book.**

Cheers.

*Except for the Corn Curry! Under no circumstances should you make the corn curry. It’s gross. But everything else we’ve made (which is most of the book) has been fantastic.
**One small hint/disclaimer – most of the recipes call for a lot of liquid to be added at some point in the cooking. Mostly, you can either cut this way back or sometimes even skip it all together. We also occasionally add coconut milk instead of water – just depends on our mood and the dish. But there’s not much that isn’t made better with coconut milk.

~This is the twenty-third post in a series running through the month of June 2009 in which I attempt to post once a day for the month.~

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh – how did it get to be June 27th already???

Well, just eeking in at the 11th hour, here is my Bakewell Tart for the Daring Bakers June 2009 challenge!

The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800’s in England.  If you want to learn more about the Bakewell Tart…er…Pudding, consider joining The Daring Bakers and get access to this challenge, which includes all kinds of wonderful stories about where this interesting dessert comes from.

We’re short and sweet this month – this challenge turned out quite well and I liked it much more than I thought I would.  I ground my own almonds in the blender, which worked out well and the frangipane was lovely.  The jam I used was whipped up from a jar of “fresh” cherries from Trader Joe’s that had been sitting in the fridge for ages (hooray for getting rid of stuff!) and it worked out quite nicely.  I made small individual tarts in a cupcake pan (I’m loving the single serving dessert!), which also worked well, but next time, I’ll mound the frangipane up over the top of the crust so you can’t see the craggy edges.

Thanks to our lovely and amazing hosts Jasmine and Annemarie – the Bakewell Tart…er…Pudding will definitely go in the “never thought I would like this or make it but so glad I did!” recipe book.

Cheers.

Bakewell Tart…er…Pudding!

Makes one 23cm (9” tart)
Prep time: less than 10 minutes (plus time for the individual elements)
Resting time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 30 minutes
Equipment needed: 23cm (9”) tart pan or pie tin (preferably with ridged edges), rolling pin

One quantity sweet shortcrust pastry (recipe follows)
Bench flour
250ml (1cup (8 US fl. oz)) jam or curd, warmed for spreadability
One quantity frangipane (recipe follows)
One handful blanched, flaked almonds

Assembling the tart
Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it’s overly cold, you will need to let it become acclimatised for about 15 minutes before you roll it out. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish. Remove from oven and strew flaked almonds on top and return to the heat for the last five minutes of baking.

The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poofy and a bit spongy-looking. Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. Serve warm, with crème fraîche, whipped cream or custard sauce if you wish.

When you slice into the tart, the almond paste will be firm, but slightly squidgy and the crust should be crisp but not tough.

Sweet shortcrust pastry
Prep time: 15-20 minutes
Resting time: 30 minutes (minimum)
Equipment needed: bowls, box grater, cling film

225g (8oz) all purpose flour
30g (1oz) sugar
2.5ml (½ tsp) salt
110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
2 (2) egg yolks
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract (optional)
15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water

Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.

Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.

Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

Frangipane
Prep time: 10-15 minutes
Equipment needed: bowls, hand mixer, rubber spatula

125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, softened
125g (4.5oz) icing sugar
3 (3) eggs
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract
125g (4.5oz) ground almonds
30g (1oz) all purpose flour

Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

~This is the twenty-second post in a series running through the month of June 2009 in which I attempt to post once a day for the month.~

Holy moly, this was too good to pass up.  It has nothing to do with baking but it is very funny.  When not wielding a pastry cutter and sporting a stunning black outfit, I work in marketing.  It would be fun if jumping around my kitchen making treats paid the bills, but it doesn’t, so when I’m not doing that, I help other people sell stuff.  Which is also fun, just in a different way.

This video is hilarious.  It is also, I’m sad to say, spot-on in terms of its target – I have had hours of my one wild and precious life stolen away in meetings with people like this.

Cheers.

Via Susan Hires A Boss

~This is the twenty-first post in a series running through the month of June 2009 in which I attempt to post once a day for the month.~

Via Adam Richardson, again, via Dan Pink.*

Welcome to the wonderful world of business ownership!

Paula Poundstone also has some choice words about this new venture we’ve all taken on. On Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. (Click on “Listen Now” – Paula’s hilarity starts at about 5:30).

Cheers.

*I may stop blogging and just put up a permanent link to Dan’s blog.

~This is the twentieth post in a series running through the month of June 2009 in which I attempt to post once a day for the month.~*

I am a fairly recent fan of youtube. For quite a while, I didn’t much see the point of wading through other peoples random video postings. Lately, though, I’ve begun to appreciate it more and more for the amazing resource it is.

This

I saw first on Dan Pink’s blog about being a cool guy like Dan Pink. Youtube did a call out for video auditions, looking for musicians to perform a new piece of music at Carnege Hall. The submissions came in from all over the world. The video is a mashup of all the auditions. Some of the graphics are on the cheesy side, but the piece rocks, in a classical way.

The thing that struck me the most in watching it (aside from the overwhelming number of talented people in the world) is how many people are willing, when an opportunity comes up, to just psych themselves up, get out there and go for it. None of these people knew this opportunity was coming, and I’m sure many of them could have told themselves that they weren’t ready to put themselves out there for something like this.** But they did put themselves out there. That’s cool.

Cheers.

*I’m a little behind…
**There’s one person featured in this video who’s playing the trumpet with her other arm in a sling. I plan to remember her the next time I think I’m not ready to do something.

~This is the nineteenth post in a series running through the month of June 2009 in which I attempt to post once a day for the month.~

We had quite a few tomato flowers with no tomatoes on the venerable old tomato plant that survived the harsh Los Angeles winter. I decided to poke around my Internet and see if there was any info on why flowers make or do not make tomatoes. I learned that tomatoes are self-pollinating, which means the flowers are both male and female. That’s pretty cool. The catch in the system, though, is that the pollen needs to move from the male to the female part. Or maybe it’s from the female to the male part. Either way, the pollen needs to move, and the plant needs some help with that. Sometimes the wind will move the pollen. Or some bumble bees might come along, in their pollen-gathering travels, and vibrate the flowers enough to move the pollen where it needs to go to make fruit. If you don’t happen to have a lot of wind or bees, you can help nature along one of two ways:

You can shake your plants

Gardening 101: How To Hand-Pollinate Tomatoes And Peppers from One Green Generation on Vimeo.

Or you can go all high-tech and “buzz” them with an electric toothbrush:

After watching these, I went outside and tapped all my flowers and the next morning, I had two new baby tomatoes. Not sure if one led to the other, but I do have more fruit and it never hurts to spend a few extra minutes a day with your tomato plants!

Cheers.

~This is the eighteenth post in a series running through the month of June 2009 in which I attempt to post once a day for the month.~

Cheers.