Last Days of Gourmet

Photo documentary of the last days at Gourmet magazine.

I was part of a magazine shut down almost 4 years ago. Looking at these photos brought back some sad memories and some good memories. Even the end-of-the-line pizza lunch on the conference room table was familiar. Do all editorial offices look the same? Except, of course, Gourmet had a kitchen. Surprisingly, they still looked like pretty humble digs and the people in the photos seemed just like my former workmates. It sounds trite, but in the end it did feel like we were all a family. I think the Gourmet staffers are all really going to miss each other.

The Daring Kitchen Challenge – French Macarons

The Daring Bakers’ challenge for October 2009 was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern.

I was really excited. Not only was this my first Daring Bakers’ challenge, but we would be making macarons.  I love macarons.  And I love a challenge in the kitchen . . . don’t I? So why was I such a nervous wreck about this? Why did I keep putting it off?

According to an article I read this weekend in one of my glasswork magazines, I was hitting my “terror barrier.” Wow. Sounds ominous. Maybe a titch overwrought?  According to this article, I actually hit it a lot. A LOT. I’m surprised I don’t have a concussion.

So let’s begin with the happy ending:

Now back to the beginning. The first hurdle was what flavor to make. I think I spent three weeks thinking this over. I finally decided I would attempt cinnamon macarons with chai white chocolate ganache.

I won’t dwell a lot on the first batch.  If you’ve seen the movie Apollo 13, these are what NASA would call a “successful failure.”  They tasted pretty good but looked pretty pathetic.  These were not macarons.

I had started worrying when I piped the batter.  It was foamy and lifeless.

They seemed kind of wimpy.

Baking confirmed that these were, in fact, wimpy.  Total failures.  What did I do wrong?

With the hysteria headband  firmly squeezing my head, I knew I had to  step back, take a deep breath and not start throwing reasonably tasty but ugly cookies into the garbage. They were still almondy, chewy and sweet, after all. But honestly, I swear it hurt to look at them.  My son and his friend kindly removed them from my sight, into their stomachs.

So back to the cookbooks and Web sites to do some more research. Trying to find my way was like playing a role-playing game where you get to choose where the character goes.  Choose the wrong path?  Pffft, you’re dead.  Different ingredient ratios; raw vs. cooked meringue; stacked vs. single baking sheets; buttered vs. bare parchment; do or don’t rap the baking sheet; let the piped cookies sit at room temp, or refrigerate, or put them right into the oven; bake them at low and/or a high temps; turn the oven off, then turn it back on again. The options seemed to be endless. How could I possibly navigate safely to success?  I have to say, it was advice gleaned from David Lebovitz’s blog that gave me the courage to go on.

For the first batch, I had weighed the dry ingredients first, pulsed them in the food processor, and then sifted the mixture as I added it to the meringue.  Maybe sifting out some of the almond pieces threw off the ratio of the recipe?  For the second batch, I sifted the almond flour before weighing it and then ran it in the blender with the sugar and cinnamon, for extra refinement.  The blender worked better than the food processor for making the almond flour finer.  I also decided to stack baking pans, which is a trick my friend Marcy Goldman always advocates.

But probably the biggest change I made was with the egg whites.  Back when I was a beginning baker, I don’t think I knew it was possible to overbeat egg whites. I used to just whip away in ignorance. Now that I know better, I watch them churning in the mixing bowl with the vigilance I used to have when watching my son for signs of breathing in his crib. In other words, I’m very over-protective of them.   I think that was the biggest stumbling block in my first batch. I was so afraid of overbeating the egg whites that I underbeat them.

As the second batch of egg whites were beating they took on the gloss and thickness of marshmallow cream; it started feeling like I might be on the right track.  They piped out much better too.  Too bad I didn’t remember to wet my finger and smooth down those little peaks on the first pan I piped out.

It felt so much better to peak into the oven this time!

In the end I’d used up all of my parchment paper, dirtied my Cuisinart, blender, mixer, bowls, various utensils. All for an innocent looking cookie with only FOUR ingredients. Well, five if you count the cinnamon. I almost took a photo of the wreckage of my kitchen, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

Oh, and the final product:  Cinnamon macarons filled with chai white chocolate ganache?  They were pretty divine. 

And now I have four days until the next terror barrier . . . er, I mean, Daring Bakers’ Challenge is revealed.

Here is the recipe I used for the first batch, for which I take full responsibility that they did not turn out.  It’s followed by the recipe for the second batch:

Macarons

Adapted from Claudia Fleming’s “The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern”

Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)

Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Note:  I added a teaspoon of cinnamon to the dry ingredients.

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar, cinnamon and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Yield: 10 dozen

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Cinnamon Macarons

Adapted from David Lebovitz’s “The Sweet Life in Paris”

Makes about twenty sandwich cookies

1 cup (100 gr) powdered sugar
½ cup sifted almond flour (about 2 ounces, 50 gr, sliced almonds, pulverized)
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
5 tablespoons (65 gr) granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats and have a pastry bag with a plain tip (about 1/2-inch, 2 cm) ready (or a Zip-loc bag with a corner snipped off).

Sift the almond flour before measuring.  In a blender, grind  the powdered sugar with the almond flour and cinnamon so there are no lumps.

In the bowl of a standing electric mixer, beat the egg whites until they begin to rise and hold their shape. While whipping, beat in the granulated sugar until very stiff and firm, about 2 minutes.  The egg whites should look smooth, shiny and thick, like marshmallow cream.

Carefully fold the dry ingredients, in two batches, into the beaten egg whites with a flexible rubber spatula. When the mixture is just smooth and there are no streaks of egg white, stop folding and scrape the batter into the pastry bag (standing the bag in a tall glass helps).

Pipe the batter on the parchment-lined baking sheets in 1-inch (3 cm) circles (about 1 tablespoon each of batter), evenly spaced one-inch (3 cm) apart.

With a barely wet fingertip, gently smooth down any little peaks.  Rap the baking sheet a few times firmly on the counter top to flatten the macarons, then bake them for 15-18 minutes (Next time I’m going to check them at 10-12 minutes.   They were just a tick dry). Let cool completely then remove from baking sheet.

Sandwich with chai white chocolate ganache.

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Chai White Chocolate Ganache

3/4 cup heavy cream
2 chai tea bags
1/2-1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
6 oz. good quality white chocolate, chopped (such as Callabaut)

Pour cream into a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Cut open the tea bags and add contents to the heavy cream. Bring cream to a simmer then remove from heat and let  steep for about 1/2 hour, stirring occasionally.

Bring back to a simmer and then strain through a fine mesh strainer over the white chocolate, pressing tea against the side of the strainer to extract as much liquid as possible. Whisk until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in pumpkin pie spice to taste. Let mixture cool completely, stirring occasionally. It will thicken to spreading and piping consistency as it cools.

 

Chase Brook Natural Meats – Last Call

I’ve enjoyed buying Chase Brook Natural Meats over the summer at the Bloomington Farmer’s Market.  Everything was excellent.  Their pork chops were amazing. 

Today I checked their Web site to see where their products would be available this winter only to find the following message: 

Last Call! What we have in stock now is all we will ever have. After a great deal of serious consideration we have decided we can not continue after the end of this season. There is plenty of meat still on hand so please consider coming out and stocking up for winter, we will be offering disounts of at least 18% on all of the items remaining in stock.

We will be at the Downtown St. Paul Farmers Market every Saturday and Sunday until the meat is gone!

I don’t know any details about what happened.  I had forgotten they had taken on some space at Midtown Global Market about a year ago.  I hope that wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Farming is scary business in the best of times.  I can’t imagine what it must be like during hard times.

Heavy Table ran a really nice article last spring on the farm owners, Jeff and Jill Marckel. 

I feel like anything I would say about how sorry I am to see this happen will sound trite.  But I wish Jeff and Jill Marckel the best and hope to see them selling again some day at the farmer’s market.

5-8 Club’s Saucy Sally

If you’re of a “certain age” you probably remember the jingle ”Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.”  In other words, The Big Mac.  And, if you’re like me, occasionally you still get a hankering for one.  But when I give in, the experience doesn’t quite live up to the memory.

So . . . you want to satisfy that Big Mac craving.  But you don’t want to visit a McDonald’s AND you want it to be better than you remember.  Head over to the 5-8 Club for a Saucy Sally.  It’s “One big all beef patty STUFFED with special sauce, topped with lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a toasted-on-request bun.”   I loved it.  And you can have onion straws with it instead of fries.  And a beer.

Egg Roulade

Many years ago I bought the cookbook “The Good Egg” by Marie Simmons.  It received good reviews and  I thought it would be great to have on hand to inspire me to make quick egg dishes when the need arose.  And yet it has languished, unused, on my bookshelf for lo, these many years.

Last week I pulled it off the bookshelf to thumb through it yet again.  I stopped at a recipe for egg roulade, an egg dish you make much like a jelly-roll cake.  The sky would be the limit for fillings.  You could do sweet or savory.

I was short on time so I grated some cheddar and sauteed some ground ham.  It definitely hit a home run with the family.  The roulade literally melts in your mouth.  I mixed up a salad and made some blue cheese dressing using incredible Castle Rock Organic Dairy’s Smokey Blue Cheese.  Voilà!  A simple, light dinner.

Although along the way I managed to dirty almost every pot and pan in the kitchen.  I’m hoping next time I make it I’ll manage to be more efficient.

Egg Roulade

Adapted from The Good Egg

Fill this with anything you want. I used ham and cheese. How about diced avocados, tomatoes, black beans and Jack cheese? Sauteed mushrooms, spinach and brie or chevre? For fun, cream cheese and jam sounds yummy too.

4 Tbsp. butter
5 Tbsp. all-purpose butter
1 1/2 cups milk, warmed
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper
6 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
pinch of cream of tartar
1/2 cup grated cheese (optional)

Position rack on the center of the oven and preheat to 350. Spray a 10 x 15 inch jelly-roll pan with nonstick cooking spray. Line the pan with a sheet of parchment paper and spray the parchment paper thoroughly with nonstick spray.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Gradually whisk in the warmed milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Keep stirring and cook for about 3 more minutes. Add the salt, pepper and cayenne. Remove from the heat.

Whisk the egg yolks until blended. Whisk in some of the white sauce to temper the eggs, then add the remaining sauce, whisking until blended. If you’re using the cheese, stir it in now.

Place the egg whites and cream of tartar in a mixing bowl. Beat slowly with an electric mixer until they become foamy, gradually increasing speed until soft peaks form. Increase the speed to high and beat until peaks are stiff and smooth.

Use a rubber spatula and stir some of the egg whites into the sauce to lighten it. Add the remaining whites to the sauce and gently fold until blended. Carefully push the mixture into the prepared pan, being careful not to deflate it. Spread it evenly but don’t worry about having totally perfect edges. You can trim it later.

Bake until the roulade is puffed and golden, about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let stand for 2 minutes. Run a spatula around the edges to make sure nothing is sticking to the pan. Spray another sheet of parchment paper thoroughly with nonstick cook spray and place on top of the roulade, sprayed side down. Invert onto a cook sheet and lift off the jelly-roll pan. Carefully peel the parchment paper from the roulade, using the edge of a spatula if it sticks.

Fill the roulade while it is still warm. If you want, cover it with foil and return it to the oven for about 5 minutes to melt the cheese.

8 servings