Bakin-n-Bacon

Zabaglione

I usually use this recipe as part of a larger recipe for tiramisu, but I've found that it is excellent on its own. From my research I understand that it's a traditional Italian dessert.

A zabaglione is a type of egg custard, but without the typical dairy component. Instead, this recipe uses one of my most favoritist ingredients - booze!  

I've seen many variations of this recipe in different cookbooks and all over the internet. Most of them use less sugar than the following recipe, but I like stuff to be pretty sweet. I've seen some recipes that have 6 egg yolks with only a couple tablespoons of sugar! That just isn't sweet enough for me.

Although the photo above is a bit dark, I served the zabaglione with strawberries and kiwi fruit. That's another reason for the enhanced sweetness - both the berries and kiwi are pretty start (now if I had access to REAL strawberries it might be a different story, but alas I had to leave my multitudes of strawberry plants behind since we moved in December). 

Zabaglione        

3 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar    
2 tsp. lemon rind             
1 tbsp. lemon juice         
1/3 cup sherry or sweet Marsala                                                                                                       

In a double boiler, beat egg yolks slightly. Add the rest of the ingredients. Cook over simmering water, beating constantly until as thick and creamy as whipped cream, about 10 minutes or to 170 degrees F. Remove from heat at once. Serve warm or chilled.

Crack is Whack

Or perhaps I should say "cracks are whack." After all of my diatribes on how to achieve a flawless cheesecake, I ignored my own advice and ended up with a crack. My problem was forgetting to run a thin spatula around the edges of the cheesecake after I took it out of the oven. As the cheesecake cooled, it shrank, but because the sides were stuck to the pan, it separated in the center.

This is a sweet goat cheese cheesecake. I substituted about 1/3 of the cream cheese in a normal vanilla cheesecake with goat cheese, and topped it with lemon curd and a drizzle of raspberry sauce. The goat cheese lent an interesting tang that mellowed after a day in the fridge. I liked it, but not enough to make it again considering the premium cost of goat cheese (although I did get the goat cheese at Trader Joes which makes it much more affordable).

The texture was much creamier than I had expected. I don't know why I thought there might be some graininess, but there was none. I tried to get creative with the raspberry sauce (I was going to do the classic "spiderweb" technique), but the sauce was not cooperative, so I just ended up with a bulls-eye. You can't win them all, I guess.

The Perils of Not Planning Ahead

Half a dozen egg whites languishing in the fridge prompted me to to make a white layer cake. I wanted it to be pretty, with a splash of color between the layers. The first thought that came to mind was strawberry cream cake, but the strawberries in the store weren't all that attractive, so I put on my thinkin' cap. (Obviously I didn't get it on straight, as you'll see later.) My thinkin' cap said, 'Why not put a layer of preserves in between each cake layer? The bright red of strawberry or raspberry preserves will provide a beautiful contrast to the creamy white cake.

As it turned out, I didn't have enough preserves to spread between two layers. So I said to myself, 'perhaps I can use some gelatin and pureed frozen fruit to make a nice layer.' Well, I was out of plain gelatin, but I spied a box of berry flavored Jello in my cabinet (I have no idea how it got there - well OK it was on a really, really good sale), so I thought, what the heck. Let's give it a whirl.

Only after I opened the box did I realize the ugly truth: berry flavored Jello is very vividly, and garishly, tinted with blue dye:

 

Determined to press on regardless, I whizzed up some frozen strawberries in the food processor and added it to the Jello, placing the now weirdly purple concoction into the fridge while the rest of the cake came together.

Nothing untoward happened with the cake or even the basic traditional buttercream, so once those were cooled I began the assembly process. The cake layers split perfectly and I pulled the Jello mixture out of the fridge to smear between the layers. It was a little on the loose side, and good sense told me to put it back in the fridge and wait for it to firm up more. But the little devil on my shoulder said, "It'll never be ready by dinner if you wait...c'mon, just do it. It will be fine." And against my better judgment, I listened to the little devil.

After I gently placed the second layer on top of the jello mixture, I moved the cake platter. Bad idea! The layers were sliding all over the place. But I soldiered on, vainly trying not to squish out the runny purple goo (that didn't taste too bad considering) while I smeared on the buttercream. After the layers continued to slip slide around, I gave up on making the icing smooth or doing any fancy decorations, and plopped the whole thing back in the fridge.

I cut into it after dinner and it was still very loose, but held together well enough to make it on the plate at least. Here's what we ate that night:

 

The colors are a bit too artificial looking for my tastes, but it tasted pretty good.

The next day, when I sliced it again, the Jello had finally set and the slices were neat and even with no sliding around. If only I had either planned ahead in the first place and had enough preserves, or else listened to my gut and not put it together right away, I would have been much better off. I hope I've learned my lesson this time!

Spring Salad

Spring has finally sprung here in the upper Midwest and I've been out enjoying the weather; hence the lack of posts.

The past several days have led to a profusion of violets; I've been doing my best to eat as many as I can. I have a few in the fridge waiting to be candied, and I've been tossing them on salads every chance I get. Our yard has hundreds, if not thousands (oh, and dandelion greens have made an appearance on the table too.)

In some ways I'd like to have a lush lawn free of unsightly weeds. On the other hand, I eschew the use of most herbicides and pesticides, other than organic corn gluten meal, which I didn't apply this year due to financial constraints. So my yard is weedy. As I say, if you can't beat 'em, eat 'em!

I guess kiwi fruit and mandarin oranges aren't exactly spring fruits, but they certainly contribute the right colors for this salad. It is (almost) too pretty to eat.

More posts to come soon. Upcoming: goat cheese cheesecake, the perils of not planning ahead when baking, a new twist on the kitchen remodel, and more newspaper articles that trickle down to the blog.