Don't let them get you down

It was time for more macarons last night. The more I make these cookies and give them away to friends - the more I'm establishing a very solid Favorite Flavors list. So far it looks like this:
1) Pistachio with Pistachio Buttercream
2) Vanilla Bean with Salted Caramel
3) Green Tea with Green Tea Buttercream
4) Pecan Praline with Dulce de Leche
5) Lemon with Lemon Curd
6) Raspberry with Chocolate Ganache

Since I sorta promised co-workers a batch of macarons and will also be attending a Dancing With The Stars season finale party at a friend's place tonight - the pistachios came out of the fridge for grinding! I decided to try the Italian Meringue recipe since I've read over and over again about how much more stable the cookies are. Apparently a BAD IDEA. I don't know what I was thinking - when one is getting ready to try a completely new recipe it's probably not a good idea to do a huge batch on that trial run - especially a tricky, tricky item like French macarons.

People don't understand when I talk about how macarons are so difficult to make. Well this is why... if you do ANYTHING wrong like try the Italian Meringue recipe (or stir the batter a little too much, or don't let them sit long enough before baking, or let them sit too long before baking) they turn out like the picture here:

Failed Macarons

See how they have no feet, are cracked all over, lumpy looking and totally not even uniform?... What a waste of ingredients!!!!! They tasted okay - like pistachio meringues - but look horrendous. I'm not going to offer these to anyone to eat - therefore if I don't want to truly waste them, I will have to eat them. Remember what I said about gaining 3 pounds last week? *sigh* My difficult life...

But what happened?? There was VERY OBVIOUSLY too much meringue/egg whites in this batter. But every recipe I read sounds the same so unless I measured horribly incorrectly, I guess I'll stick with the French method. I just bought myself the no-longer-in-print Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé . Pierre Hermé is the French macaron (and oh so many other desserts) master. He supposedly has an Italian Meringue chocolate macaron recipe in there which I will be studying.

Successful Macarons

As you can see from this picture - I did eventually end up with successful macarons after I went back to my WELL tested and becoming quite trusty French method recipe. What a disappointment that Italian method was. And what a late night I had!!

I sometimes shake my head that that only electric tools I own and therefore use to assist in making macarons are these:

Mixer only goes up to 5 speeds; Spice/coffee grinder is 20+ years old

I decided it was time to finally upgrade my cooking/baking arsenal. I've somehow managed without a stand mixer for literally 10-12 years (since starting college and not having Mom's at my beck-and-call). I just steered away from bread and candy making. And if I really needed it - I'd prop the hand mixer on top of my recipe box and it actually worked quite well! But since my birthday is coming up in less than a month...these guys top my wish list:

KitchenAid Professional 600 KP26M1X; Cuisinart Prep 11 Plus DLC-2011RN

I must admit - I actually already bought myself the food processor . The mixer will likely come from Mom since she's already told me she wants to try it for massive bread making before deciding what to upgrade her KitchenAid Artisan with. And if you buy the KitchenAid Professional 600 and submit your rebate before May 31st - you can get a free ice cream maker attachment!! That certainly won't help my waistline any...

I'd rather be outside

I'm sitting in the office. It's a Saturday. I'm about 3 pounds heavier than I was last week at this time. What a great day huh? While I sit inside and manipulate my laptop and mouse - I'm dreaming of being outside in the land of this beautiful place that I live. Case in point...

Pebble Beach

I work for a multi-billion dollar corporation smack dab in the middle of the Silicon Valley. We're about to implement a brand new ordering system next month - so this is a HUGE deal. I've been sitting in a giant room full of coworkers testing functionality for the last week. And here I am on a break in the office (while the systems are down) - blogging.


The Pros: they bring in all sorts of food all day long to keep us "happy" and show appreciation.
The Cons: they bring in all sorts of food all day long to keep us "happy" and show appreciation.



I have literally gained 3 pounds this week with all the free breakfasts, lunches, Starbucks runs, snacks, candy, chips in the afternoon... I have no will-power!! And I will be contributing to it all if I bring in some macarons on Monday (as has been requested multiple times over by my coworkers.)

Fort Bragg

Anderson Valley and Mendocino

Coming into work on a Saturday is made even worse by the fact that I live in truly one of the most beautiful places in the world: The San Francisco Bay Area. We have around us more beautiful locales within a 3 hour drive than I could ever put into 1 blog entry.

Half Moon Bay

On a special day in April or May one could surf in the sun in the morning and ski on the slopes in the afternoon (and drive 3 hours in between). It's interesting isn't it, that the most beautiful landscapes often include bodies of water? As I browsed through some of my old pictures this morning - all my favorites included the ocean or a lake.

I'll apologize for some of these photos not being that great - many were taken with a small point-and-shoot many years before I was taking very quality photographs.

Lake Tahoe

We've been going through a heat spell the last few days - so being outside is maybe not SO enjoyable in the 90° weather. But as soon as I finish and leave here I'll be donning my bathing suit and heading to my parents' house to enjoy the pool. Perhaps swim a few laps and get ready to start losing that 3 pounds (and hopefully more!)

Baker Beach, San Francisco

Oops - gotta go... lunch is here.

It's okay to love Photoshop

I love Photoshop. My 7.0 is perhaps the program I use 2nd only to Firefox! I'm still a complete beginner photographer so it saves me immensely sometimes. Well, most of the time if we're being honest...

Before Photoshop and After Photoshop - playing with white balance

I finally made the "I'm really gonna learn about photography" commitment and just bought myself a speedlight and a prime lens. The Nikon SB-400 and the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D to be exact. I've been doing a lot of research and was having a hard time deciding between the 1.8 and the 1.4 but ultimately decided the 1.8 fit my needs best - and it being $160 less than the 1.4 didn't hurt either. I've been finding that my biggest challenge when photographing non-people (which I do more than I ever expected to, now that I'm blogging!) is lack of natural light and I despise flash. So a large aperture lens was necessary. And of course the main reason I despise flash is that I don't currently have a way to bounce it. So I'm really looking forward to this little guy who can be angled 0, 60, 75 and 90 degrees up. My multi-purpose dream lens was bypassed this time. The Nikkor 18-200mm with VR....*DROOL* will have to wait for perhaps the September bonus check.

Dad lent me his old-school 50mm 1.8 which won't auto-focus on my D40 but still (obviously) gives me a really good idea of what a 50mm f/1.8 will do. The manual focusing takes some getting used to - and I find that I'm still positioning the focus boxes on my subject and pressing halfway before re-composing. Well, it's good practice until I have my own! Dad's lens on my camera took all these peony photos this morning.

Before and After - little contrast and a lot of white balance

So why am I talking about Photoshop followed by my lens/flash purchases? Well - I've been using Photoshop a lot to mess with the white balance, exposure and contrast after taking pictures. The kit lens takes 'em sharp but I have a lot to learn about getting all the colors and brightness right. To help me along - I'm making the 2 purchases and hope that my shooting will improve a lot. But if it doesn't - I'll always have Photoshop.

I completely LOVE peonies

On a final note - gotta give credit where credit is due. Mom grew these peonies in our backyard at "home". They're UNBELIEVABLE. She has over 50 buds on her plant (and probably 5000 ants - they too love peonies for some reason). She brought me this amazing bouquet when they came over for Mother's Day dinner on Sunday and totally put my lilies to shame.

Mom

Better late than never, I suppose? I spent so much of today doing things for other people (as seems to be the trend with me lately) that I didn't have a chance to post earlier as I was planning - to wish everyone a very happy Mother's Day!

Fortunately part of my day included spending time with my own mother (and dad, and brother) and making them all a nice dinner which we enjoyed together in a way that we seem to do so rarely now: as a family of four. If someone were to ask me where I find the most comfort I'd answer "being with my family; and definitely with my mom."

As I get older, the comfort my mother brings doesn't seem to lessen - just change. Swift bandaging and happy-face-stamping to treat a booboo has been replaced with knowing my phone call to inquire about that recipe will be immediately answered. It's still comfort and it still can only be executed correctly by Mom.

New mothers, long-time mothers, soon to be mothers - Happy Mother's Day!

Chex, Ahi and... Cherry Pie?

It seems I'm making up for not blogging last week by blogging every day this week. But it was certainly a busy weekend/week of cooking and entertaining and I've got some yummy things to show for it!

I tried doing my first lattice topped pie on Tuesday night! I had some cherry filling leftover from the Black Forest Cake. I had a few people over to attempt to finish 20-some beers left from a recent party.  Not that I thought "a few" people could finish 20-some beers on a school night. But they polished off.... 3, which helped.

The trick to a lattice is to start from the middle and work out:

I always say the trick to pie crust is to keep it MOIST. Once it starts to crack and break it can be very frustrating to attempt to keep working with it! Growing up, Mom always had me brush my pie crusts with milk to get them to brown nicely... I would never 'o thought. But it works! And without having to waste almost an entire egg in making an egg-wash.

The menu Tuesday night consisted of marinated/BBQ'd tri-tip, baked sweet potato fries, green salad and ahi poke salad. One of these things is not like the other, right? But while picking the tri-tips up at Costco I walked by the [packed that day] ahi and got a sudden and persistent craving for my ahi and avocado poke! Note - for those who do not know, poke is pronounced "poh-kay" and not "poh-k". (Feel free to read to your heart's content about poke here). I originally started making poke after Deb's fiancé, Nick made it for us many years ago. I asked for the recipe and got the smart-a$$ (you'd expect nothing else from Nick) answer of: "I'll give you my poke recipe if you give me your chocolate chip cookie recipe." I truly doubt Nick would ever have baked chocolate chip cookies - but he still stopped me in my tracks. Therefore... I was forced to make up my own after scouring the web, cookbooks, piecing apart recipes at Hawaiian restaurants... However it's no science - I always include tuna, avocado, soy sauce, green onions, seaweed and sesame seeds - but the quantities are whatever I feel like at the time I'm making it. It's one of those "add and taste then add and taste" things. This time I actually squirted in a little sriracha sauce to add some heat. LOVE THIS. But I'm pretty much a sucker for anything with {good} raw fish and avocados. *DROOL*

And finally we get to the Chex Mix. Since I was doing Game Night it seemed only right to do snack-y things. This nori mix has a cult following in our circle of friends and it seems most people get their recipe from our good friend Michelle. Though I know the recipe is all over the place and have even eaten this at family functions before.

plain Crispix; add syup; stir in furikake

It's sweet and salty and crunchy and has a slight "Asian flavor". It's completely addictive!! When my cousin, Stacey made it for her Superbowl party this year, she also threw in some pretzels. But I think we both concurred (after watching people pick around the pretzels - um... yes I was guilty of that too) that sticking to pure Crispix/Chex proves the best mix.

Mom and Dad just returned from France and shocked me when they informed me that they thought Ladurée's pistachio macarons weren't that much better than mine! It must've been all the cigarette smoke getting to them. But MY WORD - what a compliment! Is it really fair for parents to continue to clap their hands together with enthusiasm for their daughter's accomplishments? I'm 30, not 3... But I appreciated it. And it at least made me feel like I'm on the right track.

Sun, water and dirt

That's really all you need to turn out these beauties which can brighten a table, make someones day, softly scent a room or even act as a generous gift. It amazes me sometimes how much plants and flowers really want to thrive and grow.

There is a giant rose bush growing next to my front door which almost died a couple years ago after a serious dousing of spray to try and rid it of a rampant aphid problem. It did not die. And it hardly gets trimmed. And I never pay attention if it's watered enough since it's just on a sprinkler system. And sure enough - every year it blooms LIKE CRAZY around this time of year. The buds are tiny when they start growing! So I clipped a bunch and put them in (yes) a shot glass to get the above picture!

Another similar story - I received a grocery-store-purchased Oriental Lily (aka Stargazer Lily) last year which I decided to plop in the ground after the blooms shriveled up. I then promptly forgot about it. Fast forward through the winter (during which I never watered) to sometime in March when I saw a little green poking up from the ground in that same spot. I couldn't even remember what it was and almost pulled it as a weed - good thing I was too lazy to do so!

FOURTEEN blooms on that plant! It only had 5 on it last year!

It's just unbelievable how amazing those flowers are! They've been blooming over a week and are still going STRONG. The other thing I find fascinating is that the original plant was white with pale pink painted on the inside of the petals. Look at how bright pink these guys came up! Must be something in my soil.

The best part of growing flowers - cutting and bringing them inside!

I always clip the stamen out of the lilies so that they don't drop on anything 'cuz they STAIN. It doesn't affect the scent and if anything makes them look prettier - more dainty ;)

Can't wait for Mother's Day this weekend. Mom is the gardener - I am not. But perhaps this once I'll get a pat on the back for...not killing all my plants. Can't say I didn't try though!

A "daring" Black Forest from Fantasia

I did it! I joined the Daring Bakers! I'm so excited! Now please note that this cake I'm posting about is NOT a Daring Bakers challenge but I decided the most appropriate goodie to blog about while explaining Daring Bakers was my latest (and quite challenging) baking conquest:

Fantasia Bakery's recipe for Black Forest Cake

Where is Fantasia Bakery? Read on...

But first - the Daring Bakers.
The Daring Bakers is an online group of a few hundred bakers; most of them bloggers. Each month a challenge is released to the members and a post-date. We all bake the specified challenge recipe, make very minor alterations (if allowed) and post about the experience on the same exact date. I'm so excited for the first challenge and might even have to start throwing small monthly parties for people to come over and eat my completed challenges! Keep checking back to see how I do on my first one! Yay!

Now back to Fantasia Bakery and the Black Forest cake I made for a friend's birthday party on Saturday! Did you see my post on my family's Coffee Crunch Cake? I did a little research after I blogged about it. My family loved Blum's Coffee Crunch Cake and this cake was the closest we could come to it. Turns out... the pastry chef who created this cake for Blum's (Ernest Weil) left to start his own bakery: Fantasia Bakery, in San Francisco. He made the Coffee Crunch Cake there too and ran the bakery from 1948-1989. I found out after doing some web searches that he wrote a cookbook of most of his famous and beloved recipes from Fantasia about 2 years ago! What a complete treasure! The only hard copies I found of this cookbook were selling for over $250! But you can download a .pdf for a $25 donation.

Love to Bake Website

So when I asked said friend what he wanted for dessert for his birthday, and he said "Black Forest Cake" I immediately went to my .pdf and searched for what I figured would be a very impressive version of a Black Forest.

I started making the cakes a few days in advance and froze them as the recipe called for - until assembling the cake. I wonder now if this could have dried the cake out - but I was following the recipe!...

Butter Sponge and Devil's Food

Saturday morning was when I assembled the cake and it kicked off with shaving chocolate. Lots of chocolate. I chose a Hershey's Special Dark.

Shaving chocolate, and more chocolate, and more chocolate...

I had made the vanilla whipped cream (interesting ingredient: vanilla instant pudding) the night before so pulled that out of the fridge and started piping "a 1 inch thick circle around the edge", "a large circle in the center" and "a 1 inch thick circle between". Then filled the rest with cherry filling. Now I see how to get filling in between layers while keeping it tucked inside instead of oozing out!

Inside the first layer of the cake

The cake seemed really dry. So dry that the top half of my split Devils Food broke in half when I picked it up! 'Doh! Thank goodness the entire cake will be frosted!

Ack! A casualty!
Heavily brushing the cherry brandy syrup all over each cake layer

All frosted with vanilla whipped cream and ready to decorate!

Had to be sure the cherries were thoroughly dried or they'd "bleed" on the whipped cream

All carved up at the birthday party!

Overall I thought it was just okay. Even though I drenched the cake with the kirschwasser syrup - it was very dry. If I ever make a Black Forest again - I'm going to do my family's super moist chocolate mayonnaise cake instead of the Devil's Food and Butter Sponge this recipe called for. But I still thought it looked amazing. Everyone was impressed and thought it looked professional - so I fooled them all!

And I suppose the chef is always the most critical of their own food (oh and the chef's mother too - but that's another story...)