I know it’s hard to picture but there IS such a thing as too much chocolate.

This weekend I finally made the cake pictured above for my dear friend’s birthday. I had made the cake before and it came out great taste-wise but it’s look were a bit sub-par. My friend’s birthday was in May and we’ve been trying to get together before and since. Trying to coordinate people’s social calendars is a pain.

The cake is from a recipe in Pure Chocolate.  The recipe is called ‘Blanc et Noir’ for obvious reasons. It’s a fantastic concoction of dark and white chocolate. The cake itself is a flourless chocolate cake. The filling is a white chocolate ganache. And the outer coating is a dark chocolate ganache. It would be hard to imagine cramming more chocolate per mouthful. Even the decorative swirls on top are done with white chocolate.

Making the cake is a two day process. The cake is made first and then must cool for at least 4 hours (or overnight) in the refrigerator. The white chocolate ganache also needs to be made in advance as it needs an overnight sit on the counter to setup properly. These two steps were done on Friday night after work.

The cake comes together fairly straightforwardly but there’s a lot of folding and chocolate melting. Last time I made it I used a stainless steel bowl set over a simmering pot of water to melt the chocolate and this required a lot of standing over the pot and stirring to ensure that the chocolate didn’t burn. This time I decided to try the microwave. Normally, I adopt a snooty attitude about using the microwave for “fine” baking. I *have* to do it “right”…from scratch…the old-fashioned way. Eh. Melting is melting. And, if you’re careful and do the melting in small increments, it works just fine. There was still plenty of hand mixing to do when it came to folding the whipped egg whites and sugar into the melted chocolate, butter, sugar mixture.

It’s a pretty heavy batter but it looks (okay, and it tastes) fantastic.   The heavy chocolate, sugar, egg yolk mixture is lightened with lots of folding of stiff egg whites (beaten with sugar).

The batter goes in a buttered, parchment lined and rebuttered quarter-sheet pan.  I diagonally cut the corners of the parchment and overlap to get nice crisp corners.  The batter is smoothed into the pan making sure that you get it even and the edges and corners have an equal amount of batter.  (Last time I didn’t pay enough attention to the corners and edges and they came out too thin and brittle).

I use pretty high end chocolate for my chocolate concoctions (in this case El Rey and Guittard for the cake, Valrhona white chocolate for the filling and Scharfenberger for the dark chocolate ganache). I may be rethinking this after the later developments of my chocolate weekend.

Once the cake was in the oven, I proceeded to the white chocolate ganache. Ganache is surprisingly easy to make. Heat some cream to just boiling and dump in a bunch of chocolate. Let the chocolate warm for a minute and then mix together. You need to make sure the cream is well heated so all the chocolate can get warm enough to melt. Stir until all chocolate is melted and then cover with plastic wrap touching the surface (to prevent a skin forming). Just leave it on the counter overnight to setup.

The only bad part about making this wonderful confection is the cleanup. It creates a LOT of cleanup: bowls, pans, counters, utensils all covered in dark chocolate. Although there are a lot of things to wash they do clean up pretty easily (chocolate melts off in hot water) compared to cleaning up after making bread. Dough does not melt…it clumps.

The cake bakes for about 45 minutes and then it briefly cools on a wire rack in the pan. Then it’s placed in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours (or overnight – if overnight wrap it completely in plastic after it’s been in the frig for an hour or so).

The next day is mostly assembly.  First the dark chocolate ganache is prepared by heating a cup of cream and pouring it over 8 ounces of dark (I used 66% El Rey) chocolate. I gave it a minute to get melty and then stirred (and stirred and stirred) to get a smooth velvety consistency. 1/4 cup is placed in the frig to harden up a bit while the rest is left to cool down and reach a thick, pourable consistency.

The cake is removed from the pan by inverting another pan on top of it, flipping the whole thing over and then removing the parchment paper. Now for the construction! Carefully measure the cake (it shrinks some when cooled) and figure out the widths for three even pieces (from the length of the cake). In my case, the cake had shrunk to about 11 1/2″ in length so I made each piece 3 3/4″ by measuring and putting a toothpick in to mark the spot. Then I used a T-square to get nice perpendicular cuts. Now you have the three cake layers.

The white chocolate ganache should be the consistency of warm butter (not melted but gooey) after setting up overnight. It gets whipped in the mixer to create a light mixture to use as the filling. I created a base for the cake by cutting a 4″X8″ piece of cardboard. Then I cut a larger piece of cardboard and covered it in parchment paper to make a foundation to put the cake on. It looks nicer that way and is easier to handle.

I placed one layer on the 4X8 cardboard and then cover with 1/2 the filling. I made sure the filling went all the way out to the edges so that, when sliced, each piece would have an identical look and the finishing ganache covering would be even. Then the middle layer went on, followed by the other 1/2 of the filling and then topped by the third layer.

By this time, the 1/4 cup of dark chocolate ganache had setup a bit too much (it was solid). So I gave it a quick nuke (20 seconds) and it returned to a spreadable consistency. This bit of ganache is used to make a crumb coat on the layered cake in preparation for covering completely in ganache. Once the crumb coat was complete I turned to the ganache which seemed a bit clumpy when I checked it. So this went on top of a pot of simmering water to warm it a bit. It was about 94 degrees when I felt it was ready for pouring.

To be ready for the final decoration step, I melted 2 ounces of white chocolate (I just used Candy Melts since it’s such a small quantity) in the microwave and then added 2 tablespoons of oil (so it doesn’t harden too quickly). Now for the ganache pour!

The setup for pouring ganache is also easy. I just set out a (non-stick) pan, place a rack over it and then set the cake (on it’s little cardboard) onto the rack. First I pour the ganache around the edges of the top making sure the sides get a good coating. Then I pour along the top and use an offset spatula to smooth and allow the ganache to run over the sides. The smell is heaven!

Once the cake is complete covered you have to work pretty quickly. I had prepared a small parchment paper cone and loaded the white chocolate/oil mix into it. I quickly cut a very small hole in the tip and made three parallel lines down the top of the cake. Then, using a toothpick, I made figure eights through the lines to create the swirls. Simple!

The cake was served to our friends that evening and pronounced delectable. But wait! There was more chocolate to come. My husband likes to take treats to work for his colleagues. This week there was a request for brownies (with nuts) and fudge (without nuts). The brownies were made first and came together easily and deliciously. The fudge. Oy. The fudge. That turned into the most horrible, inedible mess I have ever created. Who knew that fudge was that hard to make!? Of course, forgetting a key ingredient (like milk) in the recipe certainly didn’t help. Nor did letting it get too hot. Again, who knew the when you let chocolate/sugar syrup heat up too much it turns into rock hard candy that you can only get out of the pot with a chisel?!! And then you have the privilege of throwing away a pound of very expensive chocolate along with everything else.

Undefeated I’m going to pick up a digital candy thermometer today and the fudge and I will be going at it again. We’ll see who survives.

A wonderful, busy weekend!  My beautiful daughter, Cassie, was in town for the weekend and that always makes for a wonderful time for me (and I think for her too).  One of the great delights of parenthood is having adult children who you really like.  I am lucky enough to like all my children but there is a special relationship between mothers and daughters.  Especially since my daughter and I are so very much alike.  Even though we don’t look much alike, our personalities, verbal and facial expressions, mannerisms, world-view and sense of humor are practically identical.  Our communications are so easy because we intuitively “get” each other.

Cass was going to a get together at an old friend’s place.  She was very enthusiastic about baking some things to take.  After polling a bit on Facebook, the consensus wanted chocolate and peanut butter preferably in cookie form.

This was fine with me!  I had also had my eye on a recipe for a Cherry Upside –Down Cake and hadn’t really have a good enough reason to tackle it so this provided a perfect excuse.  So we decided on Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies based on a recipe from the Martha Stewart Cookies book AND the cherry cake.

I made the cherry cake while they were out looking at houses.  I based it on a recipe in Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More but increased the size since it was for a large’ish group (plus I wanted to keep some for us).  Cass had the foresight to bring 1 ½ of cherries on the plane from Seattle.  So we had “genuine” Washington bing cherries.  I had recently acquired an OXO cherry pitter that had been waiting for the right opportunity.  We made quick work of pitting those cherries on Friday night (her boyfriend was tasked with eating any cherries that were incompletely pitted…he made an excellent garbage disposal).

The recipe starts out with one of the trickiest bits: making a caramel sauce.  While not particularly difficult since it’s just mixing up some sugar, butter and liquid and heating it up, it does require vigilance as the heated sugar can quickly go from a lovely amber caramel to a horrible, burned, sticky mess.  Making such things underscores the need for patience in baking and cooking (and life).  Keeping the heat under the pan moderate enables one the control the process but can really try one’s nerves if one doesn’t have a patient nature (or hasn’t cultivated one).  And, I must admit, this one hasn’t.  Patience is a virtue that I have managed to eschew for a long, long time.  So standing there, stirring and watching sugar boil (a process very similar to watching paint dry or grass grow), was the most difficult part of the recipe.

Once the sugar concoction had reached a deep (but not burned) amber color, it was poured into a pan pre-prepared with a butter coating (even though I was using a non-stick pan I buttered it well since I wanted to make sure the cake would easily slide out when flipped).  The caramel was left to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes and then I began the process of lining up the cherries in the caramel.  It took a bit of time to make sure the cherries were uniformly distributed with pitted side up (so the prettier un-pitted side would on top once the cake was complete).  I used a 9X13” pan and, it was another trial of patience to line those cherries up across the entire pan.

Now that the cherries were all marching together through the caramel, it was time to make the cake.  The cake batter used the creaming method but with the twist of using egg yolks and sour cream for the liquid and then folding in whipped egg whites to really lighten the texture.  The batter was a really smooth, thick texture.  I carefully piled it onto the cherries and then gingerly, using an offset spatula, smoothed it out and made sure the corners had cake.

The cake baked in a 350 degree oven for about 60 minutes.  The cake turned a deep brown and when poked to test doneness, lots of steam from the cherries escaped.  The smell was heavenly.  I removed the cake and let it cool on a rack for about 45 minutes.  Then it was time for the last tricky bit.  I didn’t have any flat plates or platters, so I used a cutting board.  I placed the cutting board over the cake, scooted it toward the edge of the counter (the pan was still quite warm – I had to keep oven mitts on), grabbed it toward the middle of opposing sides and quickly flipped it over.  Gratifyingly, it easily slipped out of the pan and stood there looking very proud of itself.  The caramel had oozed onto the cherries and into the spaces between.  The top was a gleaming dark, dark burgundy color and the cake was a lovely, moist bed with cherry juice dripping down.

With all that accomplished and turned my attention to the dog, Gyro.  He would have preferred that I didn’t because the attention manifested itself as a bath.  Actually, he got bathed with two different medicated shampoos and then had a crème rinse.  Personally, I would have loved that kind of pampering.  Gyro didn’t seem to share that sentiment.  Poor itchy dog.

Once I recovered from the bathing process, got myself bathed and dressed, my husband and I fed, Cass returned home.  We now tackled the cookies.  This was a great recipe.  Really easy to throw together…after the creaming of the butter and sugar everything just gets dumped in.  We had a couple of half-sheet pans lined with parchment paper and, using a small scoop, dropped cookies onto the sheets.  A quick bake and they were ready.  This recipe produced some lovely, chewy cookies.  The oatmeal seemed to give them a very tender texture and the combination of chocolate and peanut butter…well, how could you go wrong.

Once cooled we packed all the goodies up and I drove Cass to Emily’s house (Cass has know Emily since junior high school).  The party was organized for their friend Rebecca – one of Cassie’s closest friends. She has known her since third grade.  I was convinced to pop-in and say hello before disappearing (okay…it didn’t take much convincing – it’s fun to see those little girls I knew all grown up).  Based upon the empty containers I received back later, I think the baking adventure was quite a success!

Cherry Upside Down Cake Recipe

Preheat oven to 350F.  Butter a 9X13″ cake pan, preferably non-stick.

Caramel

• 3 ounces (6 tbl) butter
• 8 ounces (1 cup) granulated sugar
• 3 tbl lemon juice
• 2 1/4 pounds sweet cherries, pitted (about 6 cups)

Melt the butter over medium heat (keep the heat fairly low so butter doesn’t burn or brown…just melts), then stir in the sugar and lemon juice.  Turn the heat up slightly and bring to a boil (keep mixing and WATCHING).  As it boils it will eventually (about 5 minutes) turn a rich amber color.  Once it turns amber remove the pan from the heat and pour the caramel into the prepared pan.

Place the cherries, in a single layer, on top of the caramel with the pitted sides up (so the top will look pretty).

Cake

• 13 1/4 ounces AP flour (2 1/2 cups)
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp sea salt
• 9 ounces unsalted butter (2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons)
• 12 ounces granulated sugar (1 3/4 cups)
• Zest and juice of one orange
• 3 large eggs, separated
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup sour cream

Whisk flour, cinnamon, baking power, baking soda and salt together.  Using a mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter, sugar and orange zest together until light and fluffy.  Add egg yolks one at a time and allow to incorporate (scraping down the sides of bowl).  Then add orange juice and vanilla.  Add the flour and sour cream, alternating 1/3 flour mix, 1/2 sour cream, repeat and finish with flour mix.  The batter will be quite thick.

In a clean bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks are formed.  Fold half the whites into the batter and incorporate completely.  Then fold the remaining whites into the batter.

Carefully pour the batter over the cherries, trying not to disturb the cherry arrangement.  Smooth the batter over the cherries with an offset spatula making sure the batter completely covers the cherries and is evenly distributed.

Bake for 60 minutes or so.  The cake should turn a nice golden brown and spring back when pressed.  The internal temperature should be at lest 190F.  (The cake may crack from the escaping steam from the cherry liquid but don’t worry about it since you’ll be flipping the cake.)  Let the cake cool on a rack for 45 minutes.

Now the slightly tricky bit.  Place a flat plate, platter or chopping board on top of the pan.  The pan will still be pretty hot so make sure to use oven gloves or pot holders.  Hold the pan and plate firmly together in the middle of opposite sides and gingerly rotate your wrists, turning the whole thing upside down.  Lift the pan straight up and the cake will slide right out and you should be staring at a beautiful sight!

The cake will keep up to 3 days wrapped in plastic (after it has cooled completely).

I recently got a grill.  I never had one but lately it seems like everyone is touting grilling stuff.  Bobby Flay.  Mario Batali.  Alton Brown. We live in a townhouse and have a very small “yard.”  I’ve managed to squeeze in a nice container garden but there’s just not enough room to fit a regular size grill.  But Weber came to the rescue.  They now make the Q series of grills.  I got the Weber Q320.  Not only is it very cute but, as it turns out, it’s highly rated in all the places I checked, it can cook enough for 8 people (or so they claim), comes with a stand and is able to take a full-size propane tank.  And, it fits quite neatly a little space between my trash cans and a hedge.  It’s like it was made for me.

It arrived quickly and I started putting it together.  How hard could it be?  I had gotten as far as getting the wheels on when my husband came home.  He gave me the “there, there, little lady…step aside” look and took over.  Who am I to argue with a big, strong manly man?  With surprisingly little teeth-gnashing or cursing the grill was assembled and I was in business.

Since then, I’ve been grilling up a storm.  I really, really like the taste of food made on the grill.  I even make pizza on the grill now (see Pizza on the Grill – SSSmokin’) – it’s great.  Part of the fun is not being very experienced with grilling – I can experiment and there’s a good chance it’ll turn out fine.  Last night I had a flank steak that had been hanging around with no purpose in life for a week or so.  I figured now or never.  I had neither the time nor the inclination to braise or stew but, I thought, a marinade would do the trick.  The very word sounds so jolly.  Something you might read in a book about elves and fairies.  “They gleefully marinaded around the ancient tree.”

Anyway, I consulted a few sources on the Internet and my bookshelf but nothing quite seemed right.  So I drew from what I saw and threw together the following (measures are approximate):

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 cloves of garlic, smashed
• 2 tbl. cider vinegar

I whisked it together, put the approximately 1 1/2 pound flank steak in a ziploc (I cut some slits in the meat to let the marinade get in), poured in the marinade, sealed it with as little air as possible and put it in the frig to marinate (if it wants to dance a little in there, so be it).  I had also read about Bobby Flay’s Perfect Fries and knew my husband would love that so I cut up a couple of potatoes and put them in water to soak (supposedly removes some of the starch).

I left the steak in there about 45 minutes, then turned on the grill to heat.  I also started the oil heating on the stove.  I figured I could cook the steak and while it rested, I would make the fries.  I pulled the steak out (I had turned it a couple of times to make sure it came in contact with the marinade) and liberally salted and peppered both sides.  The grill temperature was up to about 450 and I place the steak on.  It made that lovely hissing sound.  I cooked it about 3-4 minutes per side…it was pretty thin.  I checked the internal temperature and it was about 130…a little low but I was going to let it sit, tented, while I cooked the fries so I figured it was ready.  Took it into the house and tented it with foil.

The oil was now at 325 (as directed) and I fried the potatoes in two batches until they were limp’ish (as directed) and then took them out and put them on a wire rack inverted over paper towels (an idea from Alton Brown’s book I’m Just Here for the Eats).  Then I cranked up the heat under the oil until it reached 375 and fried the potatoes again.  I left them in until they were quite brown and crisp-looking.  Removed them with the skimmer and put them on the rack again.  Crisp “looking” is the operative term.  They were actually VERY limp.  And I was VERY disappointed.  I love my crisp.  Crisp.  I wanted crisp.  Ah well…at least, they tasted pretty good.

While the fries were undergoing their second frying, I quickly picked some lettuce from my garden and whipped up a quick vinagrette:

• 1 tbl. balsamic vinegar
• 1-1 1/2 tsp salt
• couple of grinds of pepper
• 1 tsp sugar
• 3-4 tbl olive oil

I whisked the little puddle of vinegar, salt and sugar while slowly dribbling in the oil so that it emulsified.  Quickly chopped a tomato and voila…salad!  I sliced the steak on the diagonal into fairly thin slices, plated it all up, added a couple of slices of ciabatta that I had made the day before and dinner was served.  The steak was fantastic…really.  The marinade really did the trick.  The fries were unfortunate in their limpness but they went well with the rest of the meal.  And, of course, we finished up with the ever delightful leftover Strawberry Blueberry Magic Cobbler.  If you gotta eat leftovers…that’s the way to go!

Strawberry Blueberry Magic Cobbler

There have been so many wonderful posts and recipes going around the blogosphere for various ways to transform lovely blueberries into heavenly concoctions that I can’t resist!  Leaving aside the Nightmare in My Closet, I am throwing caution to the wind, putting my foot down, taking a stand (and other similar cliches).  I love sweets, I love blueberries and, damn it, I’m eating the wonderful bounty that nature, careful genetic breeding and copious quantities of sugar provides.

I had wonderful success with the Blueberry and Strawberry Buttermilk Cake from Pinch My Salt.  It was a key element in my Unplanned Dinner.  I don’t think that post really did it justice.  It is a very simple cake to put together.  And the quantities called for make a small cake which is nice when there’s just two of us.  With great restraint we finished it off over two days (rather than just eating it all at one sitting which is what I really wanted to do).  Each mouthful was delicious.  It’s hard to beat the combination of blueberries and strawberries and the cake was not at all sweet which really let the berries shine.

Now that I had tasted this creation I was eager to see what else I could make.  I have a weakness for cobblers and crumbles (buckles, trifles and fools as well).  While this may be sacriligious to say, I often much prefer fruit based desserts to chocolate ones.  I know, I know… heretical.  But there it is.  So, after surveying the territory of blueberry creations and finding LOTS of fabulous sounding ones, I opted for one that sounded very simple to put together and emphasized the berries.  The title of it,  Strawberry-Blueberry Magic Cobbler on the Eating Out Loud blog appealed to me because, well, it has ‘Magic’ in the name so it must be good!  Plus the author gave lots of kudos to his mom which I always think is important.

Like the Buttermilk Cake, this dish went together VERY easily.  It really was magical.  I’ve come to really like recipes that don’t require using heavy equipment.  In some ways, it’s just a lot more fun to mix the stuff by hand.  I’ve been finding the same thing with my bread making.  I prefer to knead the dough by hand.  I get a much better feel for what’s going on and things don’t get away from me so easily.

Blueberry Strawberry Buttermilk Cake

This cobbler, which is really more like a buckle/crumble but let’s not be too technical, came together literally in minutes.  Cutting up the strawberries took longer than mixing up the batter.  The author suggested just melting the butter in the pan as the oven heated, so I did.  Quickly mixed together the usual suspects: flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon with milk to form a very loose batter.  Pour (literally…it’s really soupy) the batter into the pan with the melted butter.  Evenly spread the berries on top of the batter, followed by sprinkling brown sugar and walnuts (the recipe called for pecans…I had walnuts…worked fine).  Pop it in the oven for 45 minutes or so.  And that’s it!

I must admit I was a little dubious when I saw how watery the batter was.  But I figured I couldn’t go that far wrong with all the fruit and sugar!  And, boy, was I right.  After 45 minutes, maybe a smidge less, the gloop had turned into a beautifully browned cobbler (buckle, crumble).  It looked amazing.  Smelled amazing.  Had to restrain myself from digging in right then.  Instead, served up dinner for me and the hubby while it cooled.

Dinner behind us it was time to give it a try.  I served it up with whipped cream (from my handy nitrogen-charged canister I keep in the frig for any whipped cream emergencies).  As you may have already guessed, it was fabulous.  Similar in taste to the Blueberry and Strawberry Buttermilk Cake (after all, it had the sam berries) but the brown sugar and walnut crumb on top really added a nice dimension.  My husband, the house food critic, gave it a gleeful thumbs up.

Both these recipes were really excellent and we loved the results.  The cake is a little more substantial feeling in the mouth.  The cobbler is more light and heavily fruited.  I will be making both again.  And again.  And again.

You’d think you’d be safe in your the privacy of your very own closet. In fact, Gyro (our much loved Corgi), spends a great deal of his time in there. We refer to him as ‘Closet Dog.’ Given Gryo’s un-courageous personality, I figured the closet is pretty-much the safest place in the house. Unfortunately, I keep the scale in there.

Most days I ignore it or throw it a dirty look or give it a little kick (just to show who’s in charge). Every now and then, if I’m feeling very confident and, well, light, I’ll gingerly step on. But if it looks like things aren’t going my way I just as gingerly hop off. This morning it was laying in wait.  I could hear it whispering, “C’mon…you look a little thinner…i’ll be kind…don’t worry…”  Freakin’ viper.

Of course, I knew all this bread baking, cookie making, recipe experimenting and maybe a little bit too much crap-snacking at work might have led me to eat a teensy-tinsey bit more than usual. (I define teensy-tinsey as more than twice as many calories as required. Why? How do you define it?) And I have the occasional feeling that my clothes have shrunk or been replaced by evil gnomes with clothes a size or two smaller. (Gnomes being the only reasonable explanation I could think of.) Today, though, some evil part of my brain said, “C’mon…you should just check and see if you’ve picked up a couple of pounds. It’ll be fine…” And, like an idiot, I listened to that voice.

After the screaming, teeth gnashing and tears abated I realized that I had some choices:

1. Ignore the whole thing. Who’s that scale to tell me how to feel about my body?
2. Go on a diet. After all there are probably one or two diets I haven’t tried yet.
3. Focus on eating only “healthy” foods in moderate amounts. This should be a piece of cake (oops celery?)…right?
4. Embrace my roundness. Assuming my arms will reach around.
5. Figure out how to keep eating the things I love. Hmmm…isn’t that how I ended up here?

As may be obvious, I’ve struggled with “weight issues” all my life. I was a slightly chubby kid, who grew into a slightly chubby woman. I’ve been susceptible to the hunt for the “right” diet forever. I have been on pretty much every diet there is: low calorie ones, low fat ones, low carb ones, South Beach, Ab Diet, Hawaiian…you name it and I’ve either tried it or know about it. I’ve tried resigning myself to my body. This is who I am. A short, roundish woman. Sort of like a teapot. I’m never going to have long legs. Lithe torso. Skinny arms. Just writing that makes me want to run screaming into the streets berating the gods for sticking me in this plump pot.

And, sadly, making the mistake of putting my tootsies on that stupid scale pretty much ruined my mood. Instead of feeling my usual chipper self I entered a darker corner of my mind. Inner conversations that berate and ridicule. Empty promises of resolution and abstinence. But, to be honest, I’m just tired of the whole thing. I enjoy cooking and baking and eating. I enjoy thinking about it. I enjoy doing it. I find the whole process of reading about food, recipes, techniques and then trying them and, of course, tasting and sharing the result, to be very fulfilling. (Yes, maybe a little over-fulfilling.)

After reviewing the list of choices, I think #5 is my only real option. Yes, I can figure out ways to “lighten” recipes as long as I don’t have to sacrifice quality. I can continue to work on my body issues and emotional eating behaviors. And I can refuse to let the scale or the world-view it represents dictate how to feel about myself.

At least I can try. There’s a good post at A Tiger in the Kitchen about similar issues. Any thoughts from you would be helpful and are very welcome!

Weekend cookies!  I’ve been trying different cookies, bars and brownies each weekend and sending most of them with my husband to his work.  He claims it helps to get people to look forward to attending the many meetings that occur at his company.  I take some to my work too but we’re a much smaller company so we don’t have that many meetings or people.

It’s really great fun and gives me an opportunity to explore small scale baking.  I find baking these little treats to be quite fun and gratifying.  Of course, now people at hubby’s work expect him to bring treats.  They’re even making requests.  “I can’t eat chocolate.”  “Something more healthy.”  “More chocolate.”  Plus my husband announced that his favorite is shortbread.

So I decided to compromise.  I made some classic shortbread and then dipped half of them into dark chocolate.

That left the request for something healthier.  So I decided to make use of in season blueberries and make some mini-blueberry muffins.  They might have been in the oven a tiny bit too long but they taste quite yummy and have a nice crisp top.

There, now everyone can be happy..’cause blueberry muffins have fruit and fruit is healthy….right?

Still trying to catch up in the BBA Challenge, I baked two breads yesterday:  Casatiello and Challah.  I was really looking forward to the Challah.  It’s a bread I “get” – rich taste, soft texture, braids; it’s got it all!  On the other hand I had never heard of Casatiello and, true to human nature, I was a little wary.  Maybe even a little scared.  What kind of bread has cheese and meat in it?  Fruit sure.  Nuts, why not?  But meat?  I approached the endeavor cautiously but figured if Peter Reinhardt gives it a whole chapter who am I to scoff?

Compounding the complexities of making the breads I have a whole schedule of activities on Saturdays.  I like to do a nice, long walk in the morning while my husband works out with his trainer at the pool.  Then we rendezvous and go out for lunch.  That’s usually followed by either errands and/or looking around at the bookstore or the mall.  How was I going to be able to perform all the steps required after the various fermenting pauses?

Since this challenge, for me, is meant to be a learning opportunity, I decided to experiment with a combination of normal and retarded fermentation.  I prepared the sponge for the Casatiello and set it out to proof.  Then I quickly gathered the ingredients for the Challah, put them into the mixer and let it do it’s magic.  In a few minutes, a lovely ball of dough had formed.  I took it out, hand-kneaded it for a bit (just because I enjoy the feel of the dough) and set it in a bowl for it’s first fermentation.  Then it was off for my walk.

Everything ready for the Challah

It was a beautiful day here in San Diego.  Hopefully, we’re finally coming out of the “June gloom.”  It was just the right temperature and the park was filled with people and dogs and activities.  I enjoy that feeling of getting outside, moving my body and seeing other people.  Even though much of what I enjoy doing are solitary pursuits (baking, gardening, yoga, reading) I do enjoy seeing and interacting with people.  It’s part of the reason I enjoy blogging.  The feeling (if not always the reality) that I’m communicating with others and sharing my life.

Back from my walk and the Casatiello sponge was nicely bubbly. Time to make the dough.  This is when things got a little wonky.  I added the sponge and egg/milk mixture to the flour, sugar, salt mixture.  It was still pretty sticky so, as the book says, I started gradually adding flour so it would form a ball.  I thought I was doing this very gradually (although I’m always afraid of over-mixing).  Suddenly, it seemed, the dough was a tight wad that my mixer couldn’t even mix.  The dough felt really, really stiff.  I had used buttermilk for the liquid and, perhaps, there was too much milk solids and not enough liquid?  I decided to dribble in a little regular milk to try and de-solidify the mass.  It helped some and the mixer was able to mash the dough some.  It was still pretty stiff and lumpy.  (I was now concerned that I had another disaster on my hands ala The Great Bagel Disaster). Undaunted I started adding the butter.  Of course, since it was still a pretty stiff mass of dough the mixture was having a lot of trouble incorporating the butter.  More like the outer part of the dough was getting nicely buttered while the inner part remained impervious.  I decided to add a bit more milk and that seemed to help relaxing the dough enough to get the butter more-or-less in.  It still looked like the buttery dough was wrapping an inner core of non-buttery dough.  So I took it out and worked it by hand.  Doing this I was able to get it to a state resembling a uniform bread dough.  It still seemed too stiff, especially compared to the Brioche I had made the previous weekend.  I actually considered just chucking the whole thing.  Who cares about Casatiello?  Never heard of it anyway.  Grumble. Grumble. Grumble.  But, I figured, I’ve come this far I might as well see what happens.

Casatiello fixins

I had my cheese and salami all ready.  I had decided not to crisp the salami.  It was a quite hard German salami and it seemed just fine the way it was.  I was able to gradually incorporate all of it into the dough.  As I added each handful, I kept thinking, “I’m never going to get all of this into this dough.  Not gonna happen.”  But, miraculously, it all got worked in.  It was now a VERY stiff dough but I dutifully coated it with oil and set it out to double.

A dough only it's mother could love

The Challah had completed it’s first rise so I took it out, briefly and softly kneaded it to degas and returned it to its bowl.  I showered and dressed.  Did a couple of small chores and the breads were ready for the next steps.  First, I separated the Challah dough into 3 portions, shaped them into little boules and let them rest.  Meanwhile, I prepared the pan for the Casatiello.  I decided to use a 9″ springform pan, sprayed it with oil, lined it with parchment and a parchment collar and then sprayed everything again.  I shaped the Casatiello into a boule and placed it into the pan.  The Challah pieces were nicely rested by then and I shaped each piece into a a strand and braided (only later did I realize I had slightly screwed up the braiding but I decided to ignore that mistake because it still looked pretty cool).

My husband was now ready so I popped both the Casatiello and the Challah braid into the frig and we were off.  We had a very pleasant afternoon and ended up buying a Wii (and a Wii fit).  I’m promised that this is going to be fun.  We’ll see.  I was eager to get home and see how my doughs had fared in their hibernation.  To my pleasant surprise, the Challah had doubled in size and looked fantastic.  The Casatiello had also grown…perhaps not double but definitely a lot bigger.  I decided the Challah was ready for baking and pre-heated the oven, washed it with egg whites and decorated with sesame seeds.  In it went.  Since the Casatiello was rock hard (the butter, I imagine, having hardened in the refrigerator) I left it to sit out on the counter and come up to room temperature.

The Challah looked great going into the oven and even better coming out!

You can see the braiding error (toward the top of the picture) but I think it just makes it look interesting (that’s what my mother used to tell me anyway).

The Casatiello had warmed to room temperature but hadn’t really changed in size so I figured, what the heck, and popped it into the oven.  At this point my husband yells “let’s go in the hot tub!”  Now?  Now you want to go in the hot tub?  I’ve got bread in the…oh what the heck, it’s probably doomed bread at this point anyway.  “Sure!” I bellow back.  By the time we’re ready the Casatiello has been in the oven about 20 minutes.  I rotate it and set the oven automatic turn-off for another 20 minutes.  I figure it would take longer than that but by the time the oven cooled it would have plenty more baking time and, worst case, I could turn the oven back on for a bit.  I realize I was asking a lot of the poor thing but one has to embrace life’s opportunities.

Off we went.  I came back to the tweeting of the timer on the oven.  I checked the internal temperature and it was only up to about 140.  So I cranked up the oven and gave it another 15 minutes.  And then another 10.  And then another 10.  And then maybe 5 minutes more until it finally reached 190.  That thing is dense.  I placed it on a rack to cool and prepared dinner.

Now I had planned that the Casatiello would mostly be dinner and I was stickin’ with the plan.  (I had meanwhile tasted a snippet of the Challah which was excellent!  Beautiful golden color, moist open crumb and delicious delicate flavor.  Ahhh.)  I knew I wanted a berry mix so I cut up strawberries and nectarines and sprinkled with a bit of sugar.  Added some blueberries and topped with whipped cream (I keep one of those whipped cream canisters in the frig at all times in case of a whipped cream emergency).  Then, since I felt the Casatiello would be a meal in itself, I sliced some nice tomatoes, picked some lettuce from the garden, prepared little dishes with mustard and mayo and presto! Dinner.  (My husband got some extra fruit because he’s bigger.)  I tentatively cut into the Casatiello expecting the worst.  To my utter astonishment it looked (and smelled) heavenly!  The bread was a little dense but, regardless, it tasted fantastic.  The wonderful combination of cheese (I used a combination of mozzarella and Monterey Jack because that’s what I had in the house) and the German salami wrapped in the rich bread.  It was a total taste explosion in my mouth.  Way beyond what I was expecting so I was very pleasantly surprised.

I served up our little meal and my husband warily poked at the bread and held up the little dishes.  “What’s this?”  Mustard.  “What’s this?” Mayo.  I explained that the bread contained meat and cheese and I thought it would be nice to just condiment it and add some tomato.  He looked dubious right up to the moment that he got a bite into his mouth.  The look of sheer pleasure was well worth the effort.  “I love this honey!  It’s just like a Lunchable only all together.”  High praise.  High praise indeed.

Coda:  My husband has requested that we have some more of “that” bread with scrambled eggs tonight.  The man is a genius.

Yes, you read that title right.  I am tasked with rubbing special (antimicrobial) lotion into Gyro’s paws.  And, to add insult to injury, not for the first time.

Gyro, our beloved but aged Pembroke Welsh Corgi, requires excessive ministration again.  He’s always been an itchy dog (allergies) but last year he itched (or more properly scratched) himself into a severe illness.  Multiple very bad infections of his skin, papilloma wart on his foot requiring multiple surgeries, chewing his paws into little bloody hamburgers, demodex mites, eye infection…he was a mess.  For a while, he was so ill we didn’t think he was going to make it.  He was on 8 different medications twice a day (including a potentially poisonous one for the mites), I was medicating his paws twice a day and giving him 3 baths a week.  For months.  Not to mention the cost.  Let’s just say he’s approaching the “Most Expensive Dog…Ever” category.

And he recovered!  It was miraculous.  Much of his illness had been exacerbated by being on Prednisone for many years (to control the itchiness).  Prednisone works by suppressing one’s immune system.  This was a very bad thing once he got those infections.  They just overran his system.  So no more Prednisone.  One very itchy dog.  But he (and we) have been living with the itchiness.  Giving him Benadryl and baths.  And, although the illness took a lot out of him, he’s been pretty much fine.  Old.  But okay.

Recently he was scratching much more than usual.    He could barely take 3 steps without having to stop and scratch something.  I took him to the vet a couple of weeks ago and, sure enough, he had a bacterial and yeast infection.  Back on meds he went.  After the full course of meds he seemed even itchier than usual.

Rather than going back to our regular vet, I took him to the doggie dermatologist (yes, there is such a thing) that he had seen last year and who had pulled him through.  You know you’ve had way too many vet bills when everyone at the Animal Specialty Hospital greets you and your dog by name.  The technicians cooed over Gyro.  He is pretty great.  And he eats up the attention with a spoon.

After some skin scrapings (always fun), poking and prodding it was decided that he, indeed, had a bacterial and yeast infection.  The dermatologist took a sample and is culturing his bacteria as she thinks it may be an antibiotic-resistant staph strain.  That’s our Gyro.  A real over-achiever.  She suggested a super-bath at the the hospital so Gyro had a spa afternoon and I went back to work.  I picked him and all his new meds up in the evening.  After recovering from seeing the grand total for the little visit (no paramedics had to be called but it was a close call) we returned home.

So, now he’s on 2 meds (more to come once we figure what the bacteria is) plus a body spray (to help with itchiness and reducing yeast growth – I just told him it would make him pretty and he was into it), and, yes, lotion for his feet.  I rub his little paws twice a day with a very nice feeling lotion.  Talk about a dog’s life.  I should be so lucky.