Admiration

 One of five live crabs I met this morning.

This isn't particularly about pastry or working in a kitchen, but I found this to be something I'd like to share.

I worked early this morning and on weekends, as it happens, I'm usually one of two or three people around. I appreciate mornings alone in the kitchen because of the quiet independence and self sufficiency it allows. The only downside is that it can take a considerably longer time to pick herbs when the door bell is going off every ten minutes and one must put down the tweezers and spritzer bottle to check, sign, and "chop" ("chop" is a noun or verb referring to the stamp or stamping of invoices in Singapore).

Amongst the morning deliveries were five live crabs.

The crabs were all wrapped in twine like brown paper packages tied up in string that are occasionally sung about, the twine placed just so to both restrain and provide a handle for the crustaceans. This struck me as sad, but I understand not wanting to get a finger broken off when getting a crab from point A to point B.

Unlike some folks, I have a tender place in my heart for crabs. I studied biology in university and during my love affair with marine biology, I did a study on the predation of crabs on two mussel species in Puget Sound. During that time, I learned that crabs are... crabby. And they break things, especially when left alone over night in laboratories.

Grumpiness aside, crabs seem strong willed and will do just about anything to escape the clutches of captivity, and I have to say I admire that.

I've met a few people lately that are incredibly talented and beautiful people, people that are confident in their skills and in their ability to take themselves anywhere they would like to go. I hope to continue to meet people like this and that some day, I too will have the skill level and confidence to know that I can constantly move forward with grace and dignity.

Mugaritz!

"Soap" bars made with cocoa butter.

Do you remember the feeling you got when you were little and the cool kids asked you to play with them? That's pretty much how I felt every time I was asked to participate in the charity dinner hosted at my work. Chefs from Mugaritz visited and showed us some amazing things.

The opening dish, watermelon carpaccio.

You think you know watermelon? Think again. Several days and severe conditions later, watermelon takes on the texture, color, and flavor of meat.

Edible clay from the Mugaritz team.

The restaurant has its own line of kitchen products that are available to the public. Kaolin is a very fine, food grade clay which the chefs used in several of the dishes.

The most delightful item they made was walnut shells to go with the goat cheese ice cream dessert. Kaolin, chocolate, and a couple other secrets were mixed together and molded in ten unique silicon molds that Mugaritz had custom made. Ramon, their lovable mountain of a pastry chef, made all the walnut shells himself. You could tell he was incredibly passionate about pastry and that he enjoyed food and new tastes deeply.

Injecting the walnuts with jelly one by one.

Each walnut shell was filled with a liquor jelly before service. The shells were so delicate that quick and gentle handling were required to avoid breaking or melting them.

Ramon mixing ice cream, walnuts, and goat cheese.

The walnut shells were paired with real walnuts, milk ice cream, and goat cheese. It sounds strange, but you can bet that more than one bowl was passed around the kitchen for taste testing and re-testing with no other aim than to indulge ourselves in the wonderful flavor and texture combinations.

I'd love to post more for you to read, but I have to be up in less than seven hours to get back to the (happy) daily grind. Keep your fingers crossed for a continuation :)

X Melissa

P.S. Also, please forgive any spelling or grammar slips... I'm sleepy and want to bring this to the masses (ha) ASAP!

Off the Grid

Orange jam and gingerbread buttercream bon bons, with one of the savory chefs milling around in the background.

Sorry folks. I hate to admit this, but I've just plum run out of time to update this regularly. BUT! It's with good reason: I started working full time. I started working full time at an absolutely amazing place with wonderful people and the most equipped and spacious pastry are I've ever seen in a restaurant. So for the time being, please excuse me while I do things like make these orange jam and gingerbread buttercream bon bons for twelve hours a day :)

I'll miss you.

X M

P.S. Those yellow swooshes? Those would be my chocolate finger painting skills. Yes, chocolate finger painting. I like my job.

Thanksgiving : A Six Pound Souvenir

 Gingerbread folk for my friend Nolan's sixth annual Rock Band party.

My visit back home was fulfilling, with emphasis on the filling part. The spread at Thanksgiving alone would have been enough to make me cringe at returning to Singapore, where it's bikini season all year long.

 Sifting the dry ingredients.

I made velvet cake for the three family birthdays in November, coffee cake, Alton Brown's gingerbread folk, and Cheryl Smith's onion tart.  The cakes are from previous entries, the onion tart is best saved for another day. Right now is the time for gingerbread.

 Shortening and butter making friends.

Fats and sugars beaten to a grainy, fluffy finish.

I made the gingerbread folk cookies not only for Thanksgiving, but for my oldest friend's sixth annual Rock Band party as well. Decorating them is tons of fun, until your hand starts cramping from squeezing all that royal icing out of a pastry bag or cornet.

 Folding in the dry ingredients until just combined.

Gingerbread Folk Cookies
Adapted from Alton Brown's Gingerbread Cookies 101 at The Food Network
Yields a whole mess of cookies, in the 100+ range if using a 1" cookie cutter

3 1/4 C (325 g)  all-purpose flour

1 tsp  baking powder
1 1/2 tsp  cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp  ginger
1 tsp  all spice
1 tsp  cloves
1/2 tsp  salt
1/4 tsp  black pepper

1 stick (115 g)  butter
1/4 C (55 g)  shortening
1/2 C packed (110 g)

     brown sugar

2/3 C (230 g)  molasses
1  egg


All ingredients are at room temperature unless otherwise stated.
Top right: Floured dough on parchment paper.
Bottom right: Rolled and cut dough.

1. Combine all the dry ingredients and sift or whisk to combine and set aside.
2. In a separate bowl, cream together the shortening and butter until homogeneous.
3. Add the sugar to the fats and beat fluffy.
4. Add the molasses and egg and beat until combined.
5. Fold in the dry ingredients.
6. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap or place it in a gallon size seal-able bag and press flat to remove all air.
7. Refrigerate the dough over night.
8. The following day: Preheat the oven to 350F (177C). Work with half the dough at a time. Lay out parchment paper and lightly flour the surface, place the dough on top, flour again, and top with another layer of parchment.
9. Roll out the dough between the parchment to 1/8 to 1/4 inch (about 3 to 6 mm) thick, re-flouring to keep the dough from sticking to the parchment at necessary.
10. Dip your cutter in flour, tap it to remove the excess, and cut into the dough. Wiggle the cutter slightly before removing it from the rolled out dough to make cut-out removal extra easy.
11. Repeat step 10 until the rolled dough is completely cut, place cut-outs on a greased cookie sheet (it's okay to place them as close as 1/4 inch as they don't expand much).
12. Regroup the remaining dough and repeat steps 8 through 11.
13. Bake cookies 6-10 minutes, depending on the size, thickness, and desired firmness when cool.
14. Cool completely before decorating with royal icing.
15. Enjoy!

 Gingerbread folk ready to be baked.

Gingerbread Folk Reflections

I baked my approximately 3/8" thick, 1" cut-outs for 6 minutes for a medium-firm cookie, and received praise for the texture, flavor, and cuteness of my veritable army of gingerbread folk.

Mini rockers ready to be consumed by the masses.

I tried out two recipes for the royal icing: a traditional icing with egg whites and an icing without raw egg (I feared I might somehow make the three-years and under crowd ill at Thanksgiving, see JazzyCake's entry). I preferred the traditional royal icing; I found that I could get it to a much nicer consistency with less work and the end color was a much brighter white than the egg-less version. I did have issues with peaks once I lifted my piping bag away from the cookies, but that's easily remedied by beating the whites to a less firm peak in the future.

Guitars made of royal icing take practice. For cleaner looking gingerbread folk, be sure to brush away any excess flour before baking.

Gingerbread folk are fun to decorate, but I think I'll enlist the help of the wee little boys that ate the majority of the cookies at Thanksgiving for the next round. Another thing I'd like to keep in mind for next year is eating reasonably when I'm home to avoid packing a six pound souvenir from my short trip back to the States.

The only picture I got of the gingerbread folk made for Thanksgiving was at the end of the night. There were few survivors. Though a little more buttoned-up than the Rock Band crowd, these gingerbread folk held their own during the holiday.

Back in Singapore

 Hi all! I've returned to Singapore and have plenty to post from my visit to the States. Expect some yummy photos and accompanying recipes next week!

X Melissa

 My two backyards. Left: My parents' place days before Thanksgiving in the States. Right: The sky from my bedroom in Singapore this morning.

 Ginger folk for my oldest friend's sixth annual Rock Band party.

Coffee Cake: "I feel like a huge idiot! All these years I’ve never tried coffee cake because I don’t like coffee. I didn’t know it didn’t have coffee in it."

Coffee cake cupcakes having a moment in the sun before a taste test with friends.

Often, I read the reviews and comments of the recipes I intend on trying out myself. Usually this is informative, but sometimes it's a little amusing. I don't think it's an uncommon assumption that coffee cake has coffee in it. Let's go along with the idea that it is referred to as coffee cake because it's great with a nice, hot cuppa.

 Blending the brown sugar and cinnamon topping with my favorite tool, the pastry blender.

If this cake were to be named for something that's in it, I'd go with butter. Sure, there's a generous amount of sugar, both brown and white, but who is ever shocked at the amount of sugar in a dessert? Certainly not me. This cake (now is the time you might want to look away if you've already had a slice) contains three sticks of butter. That's around 350g, for the metric folk out there. Before you start crying, I reduced my version down to 250g, or a bit over two sticks of butter. Not really out of fear of cardiac arrest, but rather out of necessity; I only had one brick in the fridge.

The cake batter is thick; be sure to have a rubber scraper on hand because even hard whacking against the counter won't settle your batter evenly in the pan.

If you can get past the outrageous amount of butter, you can begin to appreciate this cake for being remarkably delicious and Ree Drummond at Pioneer Woman for wrangling this out of her mother's recipe binder.

Coffee Cake
 Adapted from Ree at Pioneer Woman
Yields one 9"x13" sheet cake and nine cupcakes

Cake
1 tsp  salt
3  egg whites
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 C or 172g)  unsalted butter, soft
2 scant C (345g)  sugar
1 T  Kahlua or vanilla, optional*
3 C (298g)  all-purpose flour
4 tsp  baking powder
1 C  milk*
1/4 C  plain yogurt*

Topping
5 T (75g)  unsalted butter, cold*
3/4 C (75g)  all-purpose flour
1 1/2 C (302g)  brown sugar (not packed down)
2 T  cinnamon
1 C (130g)  pecans

*These are deviations from the original recipe. These are the original ingredients and amounts: No Kahlua or vanilla, 1 1/4 C whole milk, no yogurt, 1 1/2 sticks (172g) softened butter for the topping.

1. Preheat the oven to 350F (177C) and grease the cake pan and line the cupcake tins.
2. Combine the egg whites and salt and beat until stiff; set aside.
3. Sift together the flour and baking powder; set aside.
4. Cream together the butter and sugar and then mix in the Kahlua and yogurt.
5. Alternately mix in the flour-baking-powder and the milk; do not over mix.
6. Fold in the whites.
7. Combine all the topping ingredients and cut together with a pastry blender.
8. Fill the cake pan and cupcake tins about 2/3 to 3/4 full and sprinkle topping on.
9. Bake the cake 40-45 minutes and the cupcakes 20-25 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
10. Cool to a temperature that won't burn your mouth (room temp is always a safe bet) and enjoy!

Coffee Cake Reflections

 The cake didn't bake up around the topping as much in the sheet pan compared with the cupcakes, but it was just as yummy.

I caught the cupcakes right at the point where the batter goes from goopy to solid, affording me the softest cake I've had in my life. The topping was crisp and a bit crunchy, a very nice contrast to the delicate sponge. This magic is a combination of the right recipe, not over mixing, and pulling the cupcakes from the oven at just the right moment.

The recipe made what I'd consider to be way too much topping for the portions I made. Perhaps if it was all done in a deeper pan or one with more surface area, the amount would have been just right. The topping recipe above is how I did it, so feel free to halve that (reduced butter) or the original recipe.

Something not so magical: My butter had been in the freezer up until I needed it. Sooo it wasn't exactly softened when I went to go cream it. I also, rather mysteriously, threw the sugar in with the other dry ingredients to be sifted. Awesome job, brain. Way to get those synapses firing at full speed at 10:30 in the morning. Despite my rough start, everything came together. The textures and flavors in this cake are pretty perfect. I think it has something to do with all that butter.

The cake made its official debut at a housewarming hosted by my friends at Ming and Milo. It became a part of the wine tasting later in the evening, which featured wines from my home state! If you happen to be in Singapore and are scouring the island nation for the best pairings, they are your guys.

Next Post: Thank Ree @ Pioneer Woman

 

 Crumble topping with cinnamon, brown sugar, and pecans.

I have found another blog to sing the praises of: The Pioneer Woman. Ree Drummond writes about food, photography, life on the ranch, and more. She has a wonderful writing voice and takes beautiful pictures. And she is not afraid of butter. Ree Drummond, I applaud you.

Stand-in taste testers, Sunday evening's dinner party guests, and you readers have her to thank for the next butter-sugar-dairy rich post.

I'll be off the grid over the next three days due to frantic packing, flying from Singapore to Seattle via Tokyo, and face planting into my childhood bed. Maybe add a few more days onto that for my oldest friend's sixth annual Rock Band party, another friend's studio opening, additional face planting, and the pursuit back home food favorites like Cave Man Kitchen. Until then, you can drool over the crumble topping above.

Keep Baking,

X Melissa