Baking with the Boys

“You put the lime in the coconut, you drank ‘em both up, you put the lime…”  Did everyone else sing this all week?  Just me.  Alrighty, then.

This week’s recipe was Florida Pie chosen by Dianne of Dianne’s Dishes.  It is basically a key lime pie with a coconut cream layer and a coconut meringue.  Yes, I took a bite the night before.

My first instinct was to skip this week.  I luurve key lime pie…coconut not so much.  Mostly, we were just insanely busy.  I am entering my busy season at work, my kids were both ring bearers in a wedding, we had tickets to see Wicked (yeah, it just got here) and on and on.  I was assigned to bring breakfast for Friday breakfast club this week.  So that was my only real opportunity to do any baking.  I strongly considered chucking the pie for the orange berry muffins, easy to make for breakfast and I missed it in the recipe rotation.

BUT…I got it in my head to make the pie and somehow adapt it for breakfast.  My husband tells me, and he is absolutely correct, that I have tendency to be inflexible once I decide on something.  I believe this is affectionately referred to as pigheaded.  So I forged ahead.  Meringue?  Out of the question.  I have actually never made it and this was not going to be my first attempt.  Whipped cream instead?  No time.  Coconut cream?  Nope.  I thought about pineapple or banana cream but decided on lemon/lime.  I just grated in a little zest.  Since I didn’t really have an appropriate topping and wanted to get more servings I decided to convert the pie into bars.

I chickened out on the pineapple.

I stirred that cream for over 20 minutes, got impatient (not the week for this recipe clearly) and quit.  Good thing too…my youngest assistant had been “helping” me wash and he had flooded the counter and drowned the coffee grinder.  15 more minutes and we may have needed a rowboat.  I don’t know why I thought the cream would cover the increased surface space.  Mental lapse I guess.  I think I could have skipped this step (especially with the yolks and sweetened condensed milk…another dieters’ delight).

 All the cream added was calories.

Four innocent limes gave their lives for these bars.

I did put some toasted coconut over half and that half was gone first.  Guess I am in the minority on the coconut aversion.  I am happy to report that it tasted great.  I love key lime pie and was pleasantly surprised that this non key lime recipe did not disappoint.

Kitchen lesson #412: When a recipe contains words like “stirring almost constantly”… “reduced by half”…MERINGUE(!) and you are pressed for time this is not your recipe. 

 Next week:  Madeleines (maybe…I don’t have a pan so we shall see).  To see the “real” pie check out the other TWD blogs.

 One of the reasons, I was so short on time this week.

Peanut butter and chocolate…mmm….I am old enough to remember the old Reeses commercials.  Two great tastes that taste great together!  This week’s recipe was Peanut Butter Torte chosen by Elizabeth of Ugg Smell Food.  I love peanut butter and chocolate together.  Well, I love chocolate and a lot of flavors together.  When I was pondering what to do with my cream cheese and cream left overs I started to think of my other favorite chocolate flavor combos….so many, chocolate + mint, chocolate + coffee, chocolate + vanilla…then I saw the oranges sitting innocently on the counter and a second torte was born.

I only made half of the peanut butter torte.  I figured my little family of four (plus grandma who comes over for dinner and dessert on Sunday nights) didn’t need 86 lbs of peanut buttery creamy goodness, especially after Ulrike of Kuchenlatein posted the WW points.  OUCH!  Of course, none of this stopped me from taking what little cream cheese (2 oz!) and whipped cream was leftover and making three little orange chocolate mini-tortes. 

The only real change I made to the peanut butter torte was to skip most of the chopped peanuts.  I like peanut butter but regular peanuts?  not so much.  Instead of the nuts, I made a little peanut butter ganache for the final topping.

When I saw the oranges I thought of swiss orange chip ice cream.  When I was a kid my mom always took me to Swensens ice cream parlor and swiss orange chip was her favorite.  I subbed in semi-sweet chocolate for the peanut butter, used a little less powdered sugar and added some orange zest and orange extract.  Fabulous.  Although, if I made it again, I would probably use bittersweet chocolate instead. 

We all tried dibs and dabs of both until we were STUFFED.   This one got rave reviews.  Too bad there wasn’t enough left to share with the co-workers.  Maybe next time folks.

To see if everyone else stuffed themselves silly, check out Tuesdays With Dorie here.

I cannot compete with the many gorgeous food photos on the blogs.  So, I am going in the opposite direction with some realism.  Here’s what cooking in my kitchen really looks like. 

 Helper (with crazy hair) showing off the splash of sugar when the cream cheese tumbled into the bowl.  He may have enjoyed a few “sample” oreos during crust construction.

  Mom hoping entire contents of torte don’t soon spray all over kitchen.  Counter is cluttered enough.

  Finally, washing up or flooding the counter.  Depends on your perspective.

Who doesn’t love the smell, taste and texture of freshly baked bread?  These sensory delights must explain why I keep - after many MANY failed attempts - trying to make my own bread.  That and the fact that I am horrified every time I read the labels in the bread aisle.  Enriched that, high fructose corn syrup this.  About every six weeks or so, I get fed up and try to make my own loaves.  They are edible but never very palatable.  

Part of my problem is what motivates me to knead to begin with…I want it healthy.  I am always scaling down the recipe to its bare bones and I am clearly not talented enough to make it work (yet).  So, I finally owned up to my shortcomings and went for a nice white flour molasses two toned bread.  Huzzah!  Success! 

I made one loaf (wary of wasting ingredients on yet another middling experiment) yesterday and it is all gone.  My son told me it was the “bestest bread” I ever made.  Hmmm…I love marble rye and now I am feeling confident.  More success in the future?  We shall see….

The recipe (coming soon) is Two Tone Bread adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens Recipe Collection 2003 which my mother-in-law was nice enough to give me after I spent an inordinate amount of leafing through it at her house.

The task for this week was Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake chosen by Caitlin of Engineer Baker.  It seemed from the beginning that this cake had an uphill battle to climb.  I have to say, if I was baking through this book on my own, I would have completely skipped over this recipe.  And, according to the reactions of some others in the Tuesdays with Dorie group, they were still happy to skip over it.  The ingredients are a little unusual and there is no mouthwatering visual to tempt you in the book.  When Caitlin chose it, however, I got very curious and couldn’t wait to see and taste the end result.

Normally, I bake on Sundays (full time job, full time mother, full time wife…you get the idea) but I thought this might be a good cake for our Friday Breakfast Club at work and, I admit, I was impatient to see the end result. 

I subbed out the figs (meh) for dried apricots and “cherry” craisins.  After reading the comments of others who had forged ahead, I cut down a little on the sugar and unintentionally ended up using about half honey half agave nectar.  I would have bet money there was 3/4 cup of honey in that bear.  Good thing I am not a betting woman.  I used a 9.5inch tart pan and poured the remainder into 4 ramekins for mini-cakes. So far so good.

Dorie says the cake is better the next day but I am not known for patience when baked goods come out of the oven.  I gobbled up one of the little ramekins and thought it was pretty good.  Somewhere between a very sweet cornbread and cake.  I gave one of the mini-cakes to my son, Will, for breakfast the next day.  He halfheartedly took one bite and told me he was allergic — his way of saying he doesn’t like something without actually saying he doesn’t like it. 

I toted my full cake to work hoping for a better reaction.  I have worked in many offices and they all share one trait in common.  Free food is devoured on sight.  I was confident that you could set almost anything in the kitchen and it would be gone in record time.  Until I met my poor misunderstood polenta cake.  Bad enough to be snubbed my dessert loving son (I told myself it was just too sophisticated for him) but to be snubbed by an entire floor full of adults??  By the end of the day only slightly more than half was gone.  I heard a rumor that someone was telling everyone it was cornbread.  I guess “cornbread” with apricots wasn’t so appealing to the masses and I wasn’t about to start force feeding my co-workers.  I started to feel sorry for the maligned cake and ate another piece (after swearing I wouldn’t).    Still feeling badly (irrationally, I know) for the cake, I ate another ramekin Friday night. 

So, bottom line:  The cake tasted good…the kind of cake I would be happy to be served but would not buy or order on my own.  I probably wouldn’t have made it again anyway, but, after it’s less than enthusiastic reception, it’s definitely out of the repertoire.   My waistline can’t take the pressure of eating all of the leftovers.  I am glad I made it, though.  As much as I like my usuals, life would be awfully boring with no surprises.  To see if the others fared better check out Tuesdays with Dorie.

Next week:  Peanut Butter Torte (yum….) chosen by Elizabeth of Ugg Smell Food.

I love ice cream.  My kids looovvvee ice cream.  We own an ice cream maker.  We haven’t used it since we had kids.  I know.  Go figure.  It finally occurred to me that this is has been a major oversight in our kitchen adventures.  So, I promised the kids we would make homemade ice cream over the weekend.  Of course, that was before I ate my way through a polenta and ricotta cake. 

I had planned to dust off an old cookbook devoted solely to ice cream when I ran across the Chocolate Sorbet recipe in “Baking from my Home to Yours.”  I thought I would give that book a rest over the weekend but the (relative) lightness of the ingredients was intriguing.  I usually do not consider sorbet a substitute for ice cream.  You either want one or the other.   And I don’t usually want sorbet.  BUT after 26 pieces of polenta cake I was game.

Consider me converted.  The sorbet was super easy to make and was fantastic.  I am still a fan of the super creamy rich ice cream but I am also a fan of this chocolate sorbet.  The base reminded me of making pudding and the house smelled fantastic.  It will become a “go to” recipe this summer.  I am already planning some future alterations. 

It was a very slow week as I was in Toronto on business.  But I am planning to tackle Bill’s Big Carrot Cake for Tuesdays with Dorie soon.  It was my first time in Canada.  I was there for a conference.  First, we got incredibly lucky with the weather.  It was in the 60s and sunny all week…great weather for walking around the city. 

The majority of time was spent at the hotel in the conference but I did manage to take some time to explore the city.  Right before I left for the aiport I walked up to the St Lawrence Market.  I had a great time poking around all of the food stalls and was a little disappointed I didn’t have a nearby kitchen to bring anything to. 

I also had lunch at the 360 restaurant in the CN Tower  (the tallest building in the world, who knew?).  The food was fabulous — I have a new appreciation for sweet potato fries — and the view was even better.  Despite my lifelong issue with heights I did manage to briefly step onto the glass floor.  Very briefly. 

One of the motivations for starting this blog was to join Tuesdays with Dorie.  This was my first official week — although I did make the yummy lemon tart from last week.  Let’s just say it was an interesting start.  Before going in I had no burning desire to make homemade marshmallows and clearly my subconscious was telling me something.  For one, I don’t have a stand mixer.  I covet those brightly colored kitchen wonders but I am making do for the foreseeable future with my hand mixer.  Somewhere in the book, but not in the recipe itself, Dorie mentions that this is one of the few recipes where the mixer makes a difference.  I am sure the result was really due to operator error, but I am blaming the mixer nonetheless.

I am not positive just where the problems started….limp egg whites, over cooked syrup, random distractions…but when I poured the syrup into the egg whites and it immediately began to crystallize I knew it was a downhill slope.  Doesn’t everyone enjoy a little hard crunch in their marshmallows?  I perservered picking “candy” chunks out the mixture and let them set up.  I will say that I owe one of the small successes of the recipe to reading the board discussion beforehand.  I oiled my parchment paper and used a pizza cutter and had no problems removing or cutting my sad little marshmallows.  The other piece of good fortune is that I live with two children who could smell sugar a mile away and aren’t terribly picky about its appearance and texture.  They loved the marshmallows and ate every last one. 

The finished product was far more reminiscent of some of that weird multi-colored gel like candy that is marketed only to kids than a traditional marshmallow.  Good week for my camera to be acting up.  I had to take the one and only picture with my phone.  No great loss. 

This recipe is exemplifies one of the reasons I love to bake.  If the end product isn’t what I expected, no great tragedy.  Throw it out (or foist it on some unsuspecting children) and move on. 

Welcome to my blog.  I have started this blog to chronicle my cooking adventures with my two boys, ages 6 and 3.  They are very enthusiastic in the kitchen, especially for the end results!  We have just finished a birthday cake for grandpa….will post pictures when it is finished. 

I am very novice but enthusiastic baker.  So, when I enter the kitchen and try something new there are always lessons to be learned.  This effect magnifies when cookng with *young* kids.  For example, with this cake, I learned a valuable lesson about cooling the layers.  One would think that the counter is a logical place to cool your cakes.  I thought so too until I came back to discover the 3 yr old had been “snacking” on one of the layers.  Very fortunate that this was a cake for a grandparent…a category of people preternaturally disposed to finding all foibles of their grandchildren (and their grandchilren’s resulting projects) adorable.  I did try to take a picture of the architecturally challenged (yet tasty) cake but I am having some technical difficulties with my camera.