O is for Octopus

Here is a lovely little octopus from my last trip to The Stop.  I named him Fred, then we ate him.  He was smokey and delicious.

From Near Disaster to Chocolate Bliss

I seem to have recently been unofficially dubbed the "maker of desserts for family functions."  As you all have figured out by now, I LOVE to bake and any excuse to find a new recipe to add to my repertoire is fun times in Reena land.  Usually, I'm asked (or offering) to bake for our weekly Friday night dinner at Bubbie's house, which is relatively stress free.  If I were to try something new and have it flop, people would be understanding (although probably sad that there was no yummy dessert).  One of my sisters is getting married in June and 'the aunts' were throwing her a tea.  I was asked to make a cake as a center piece for the table.  Repeat after me: EEP!  I was no longer just baking for my immediate family, I was baking for a gaggle of women who appreciate all things lovely and tasty.  Here's the kicker - I had never baked a cake before.  Ok, that's not completely true.  I had made three cakes prior to this one but, I made two of them in my baking arts class where failure was almost an impossibility, and I made the third one with sponge that was leftover from my baking class.  P.S. that third cake (that I assembled at home) was lopsided and u.g.l.y.
I immediately recruited my friend and partner in crime, Tammy, to help me with some serious recipe testing.  I had decided on a chocolate layer cake with chocolate mousse filling, chocolate glaze on top and chocolate meringue fingers that would surround the cake.  Sounds simple, right?  heh.  The first major obstacle and the one thing that worried me the most, was getting my oven to bake the sponge evenly and thoroughly.  If you aren't up to date on the stress my oven was giving me, you can catch up here.  I had a new plan for baking a successful cake, and it was about to be put into motion.  Tammy and I whipped together the batter for our tester cake, which, by the way, was not going too well from the start, and into the oven it went.  Fingers were crossed.  This was the first baked good, larger than a cookie, that I had made since I started having oven problems.  Fast forward to the timer beeping: insert tester stick and success!  An evenly and thoroughly baked cake!  (Quick update:  I have solved my oven issue by baking everything at 10 degrees higher than the recipe calls for).  Now was the time to cut our sponges into layers.  First layer cut, and disaster!  Giant pockets of unincorporated flour.  EEP!  Here's Tammy and I and our sad sad cake.

We didn't bother filling or glazing the cake since it was about to meet the inside of a garbage bag.  Oh, by the way, our mousse turned out more like pudding and our meringues were uneven heights.  All in all, we gave this one a pretty big fail.  All this failure had me mildly bummed, but mostly annoyed that I had to find a new sponge recipe, and fast.  I was three days away from the tea.  Through sheer luck, and the help of a great recipe, my next cake test was a smashing success.  Moist, rich, chocolatey devils food cake.
 

Assembling and glazing the three layer nine inch cake went quite well.

I decided against the meringue fingers since they would all have to be exactly the same height and width, which I am not quite capable of yet.  Instead, I opted for some pretty pink flowers for the top.

Well, all in all the cake was a success.  Something I could be truly proud of.  In the end, for me, this cake was a bit of a reminder to stick to my guns,  push for what I want, not to get too discouraged when things don't go as planned the first time, and that a labor of love will always be worth it in the end.  In this case I got to have my cake and eat it too.

Dessert at Last!

The first thing I do when a menu is dropped in front of me is decide what I will be having for dessert.  This is a trait that I have happily inherited from my father.  I was working on my portfolio a couple days ago and it hit me that I had completely skipped over New Years Eve dessert!  How I could have possibly forgotten about my favorite part of any meal is truly beyond me!  I think that this may actually qualify as an unforgivable sin, so I quickly rectified the situation and am happily serving you the final course.  Baked berries with cake-y biscuits and vanilla ice-cream.
If you missed the meal the first time around, might I suggest having your dessert then going back to join me for the first three courses.
Happy Friday!  Enjoy your weekend.

Women Who Eat

Here's what I think is cool:  A room filled with about eighty women all obsessed with food!  Today I thought I'd share the one and only shot I took of my fantastic meal last night (which I was, of course, halfway through at the time).  Where was I, you ask?   At the 'community kitchen and wine tasting' event put on by Women in Food.  A little shmoozing, a lot of eating and some Q&A with Sarah Elton about her new book Locavore.  A delicious and informative evening, what could be better?  I think my favorite part was the cute little piggy cookies ... shocking, I know :)

Chocolate For Your Friday

I'm feeling a little short on words these days, but luckily I am still full of images.  Today, I bring you
chocolate mousse cake with dark chocolate and cherry schnapps ganash.  Repeat after me: YUM!

B is for Delicious

Today's post is brought to you by the letter B.
B is for bacon.  In this case, my friend's homemade bacon which is all kinds of awesome.

May All Your Days Be Filled With Pie

There is something about warm mid morning light that affects me like nothing else.  The second I sense it's presence my chin tilts upwards, my eyes start to close and the biggest most satisfied grin you could imagine begins to cross my face.  I can't help but feel a calm come over me in these moments.  I often have to fight the urge to curl up in a puddle of light and stay there until it fades (except for on weekends when I'm allowed to be a slacker).  I find that great food can have the same effect on me.  The moment a dish makes its appearance at the table the anticipation of flavor and texture can have the same effect on me as when the light slowly begins to sweep across my face.  When I take my first bite, it's like the sun hitting me full in the face with it's gentle, warming rays.  Calming, soothing, comforting, pure bliss.
One of the foods that can, without fail, turn any day into a sunny day for me is lemon meringue pie. It's one of my ultimate comfort foods.  My Bubbie (which is what I call my grandmother) is the queen of lemon meringue.  As a kid, she used to make it for my dad. Once my love of her pie, I think, exceeded his, she began making it for me.  Recently, a friend of mine commissioned me to make dessert for her boyfriend's birthday.  Now this, in itself, was an exciting moment.  My first commission!  Completely unprompted and unsolicited. AMAZING!  After some chatting and serious convincing on my behalf, that she had not asked for too much and that I would be thrilled to make something for her, we settled on lemon meringue pie.  That afternoon, at lunch with my mother, I proudly proclaimed that I had been commissioned to make my first pie.  I also may have kinda, sorta made it sound like it was no biggie and I could whip it together in ten minutes.  To which my mom replied: "great! then while you're at it you can make a second one for dinner at Bubbie's on friday."  Whoops... I had instantly doubled my work load.  For those of you who have not delved into the world of scratch pies, FYI, they do not take ten minutes.  I had a busy week ahead and two pies to bake.  One was for pay and the other would be judged by the high priestess of lemon meringue, my Bubbie.  The pressure was on.  Pie day finally arrived.  I had a few tense moments while working on the cooked sugar stabilizer for my meringue and assembling everything while still piping hot, and to my utter relief all went smoothly.  My friends were thrilled and said they loved the pie (thanks again guys!).  Then came my proudest moment.  After very thoughtfully tasting my pie, and questioning the authenticity of my filling, my Bubbie didn't have a single bit of "constructive criticism" for me.  Nothing.  Trust me she tried.  I had passed the test.  SUCCESS!

Here are the photos of my lemon meringue pie doused in some of the most beautiful light I have had the pleasure of playing in recently.  I wish I had some shots of the pie's golden insides to share with you, but I'm pretty sure people frown upon receiving a birthday pie that's missing a slice, and the second pie didn't stand a chance once it hit the table.