The Cake, Finally

So how hard could it be, I ask myself. The first day of the big Opera Cake Project went well, with even the buttercream frosting that started out looking like a disaster turning out well in the end. All I needed to do was make the sponge cake, make the glaze, which was just melting chocolate and adding in the butter I had already clarified, and assembling the cake. So what could go wrong?

Where to start, where to start. Let’s start with the jelly roll pans. I needed two the same size, 10 by 15 inches. I have two of different sizes, with the smaller one being close in size to what I needed. This meant I had to bake the first layer, turn it out to cool, clean the pan, bake the second layer. Not a big problem, but I elected to eyeball the division of batter in half rather than measuring exactly how much I had. I chose poorly. The first layer was thicker than the second. Since the middle layer is actually the two ends left over when you cut a 10 by 10 inch square from the two layers you bake, that difference in thickness is not trivial. Oh, well, I had lots of ganache to balance out any unevenness.

An even bigger problem was that I forgot to add the three tablespoons of melted butter to the batter, and didn’t realize it until layer one was in the oven. I pulled it out, stirred half of the butter into the batter in the bowl and the other half into the still liquid batter in the pan. The only problem is, the batter wasn’t really half and half.

But the ganache and the filling were perfect, and then there was the espresso syrup, so there would be lots of flavor, right? As the cake cooled, I kept saying to myself, “Remember to brush the espresso syrup on each layer before you put on the filling.” 

So guess what I saw on the counter as I got ready to put the top layer on the cake? The unused the espresso syrup. At least the top layer got some. A lot.

Okay, so with the cake assembled, except for the glaze, it needed to chill for an hour (and so did I). That should have given the top layer of buttercream a chance to harden up so it wouldn’t blend with the chocolate glaze. Should have. Didn’t quite. The top of the cake looks like chocolate peanut butter.

I still have hopes for it tasting okay. The buttercream, ganche and glaze all taste delicious. They should, that’s where the almost pound of butter and almost pound of chocolate all went.

By lunchtime today, I should know.

Next time anyone hears me say, “How hard could it be,” please just shoot me.

ETA: despite all my best efforts to mess it up, the cake tasted great, kind of like tiramisu. Everyone loved it. Still not sure I'd make it again.

I need to trim the cake and move to a serving platter before I take it to the luncheon.

Trimmed up, ready to go

Not the Aria, Yet

Remember my post about opera cake? The one in which I reminded myself that people go to school to learn to make cakes like that and then decided to bake one, anyway? I finally have an occasion to make one, coming up on Saturday. We are having our UMW general meeting and annual membership meeting, and Day’s End Circle (me and my posse) have to bring desserts.

I have already been heavily involved in the upcoming meeting in that I volunteered myself to find a speaker. I found a historical interpreter who has worked on bus tours for the riverboats that come down the Mississippi and who is charging us what I consider a modest sum to speak to us in character and demonstrate how women dressed in the 1800’s. Nonetheless, as there aren’t too many of us in circle, I felt like I needed to contribute a dessert as well, and what better time to tackle the opera cake? (Other than after I finish cooking school, the pastry division.)

To review: the cake consists of three layers of almond sponge cake, each brushed with espresso syrup, then filled with coffee buttercream alternating with chocolate ganache, and topped with more buttercream and a chocolate glaze. Altogether it uses almost a pound of butter and 14 ounces of bittersweet chocolate. 

So today I did the shopping and then made the items that can be made in advance: the espresso syrup, clarified butter for the chocolate glaze, the chocolate ganache, and the buttercream frosting.

The syrup, butter, and ganache were easy. I had never clarified butter before, but the ghee I buy at the Indian store is too salty for baking, and it wasn’t hard to do myself. Sugar syrup and ganache I have made before.

I’ve made buttercream frosting before, too, but this is not your standard cream-butter-and-confectioner’s-sugar-then-add-flavoring-and-milk frosting. No, this one starts out with boiling sugar, water and vanilla to 255 degrees Fahrenheit (the hard ball stage) then letting it cool slightly while beating one egg plus a yolk. However long slightly is, I seem to have exceeded it, because when it came time to pour the syrup in a slow stream into the beaten eggs, I soon found I was scraping up a powdery mixture and beating it into the eggs instead. Things didn’t look much more promising when I added the dissolved espresso powder. The next step was to beat in 14 tablespoons of room temperature butter, one tablespoon at a time. I think the room temperature they had in mind was a lot cooler than my house, because the butter was rapidly becoming soupy as I frantically cut and tossed.

I reminded myself of Backup Plan One: make a batch of ordinary vanilla buttercream frosting with espresso powder tossed in for flavoring. (Backup Plan Two was buying a can of some appropriate looking frosting at the Winn-Dixie.)

As I was watching the dismal failure congeal under the beaters something strange began to happen. Bits of pale, fluffy looking peaks began to appear in the unpromising mess. Pretty soon, half of the mess began looking like frosting, and then the whole thing looked glossy and held soft peaks.

It worked!

So tomorrow I need to grind two cups of blanched almonds, make two 15” x 10” sponge cakes (to be cut into two 10 x 10 inch squares plus two 5 by 10 inch squares which together become the middle layer), make the chocolate glaze, and assemble the whole thing.

Now, how hard can that be?

Hitting the High Notes

While reading about the Governor’s Ball, also known as the Governor’s Dinner, recently held at the White House, I saw that the dessert was Chocolate Opera Cake. I had never heard of Chocolate Opera Cake, so I of course Googled it. I found several recipes for Opera Cake, like this one, and variants such as White Chocolate Opera Cake, and Chocolate Raspberry Opera Cake, but I found myself drawn to the classic one again and again. The actual Chocolate Opera Cake I found a recipe for looked like ordinary chocolate cake, although it probably tastes much better considering all the extras that go into it.

I have no idea why the cake is called Opera Cake, but wonder if it is because the cake, like an opera, is a big production lending itself to lots of drama. There are alternating layers of almond sponge cake, espresso syrup, butter cream frosting, chocolate ganache, and finally a chocolate glaze. A ten by ten inch square serves 16 people, probably for breakfast, lunch and supper. People go to school to learn to make cakes like that.

Opera Cake

“People go to school to learn to make cakes like that,” is what I keep reminding myself while another part of myself, the forever optimist part with the bad memory,  keeps asking, “How hard could it be?”

I remind myself of all the times the question “How hard could it be?” preceded disaster. However, most of those times involved faux painting projects, not cooking.  My most recent cooking disaster involved sugar ants getting into the pumpkin bread I made for a bake sale, and that’s easy to avoid. I’m not going to leave the opera cake out on the counter by the window.

When you break the cake down, none of the individual parts are hard to make. I’ve made sponge cakes in a jelly roll pan before to make jelly rolls. I’ve made chocolate ganache to make truffles. Buttercream is fairly easy. The espresso syrup doesn’t sound any harder to make than the sugar syrup I make for cinnamon apples. Most of those can also be made ahead of the cake, too. The only thing I worry about is the chocolate glaze. I have had some experiences with too-thin glazes. 

No, the real problem is not going to be that the cake is too difficult to make. The real problem is going to be that sometime in the process I will find myself standing in a kitchen cluttered with measuring cups and spoons, beaters and bowls, most of which will be in need of washing for reuse, and I will feel overwhelmed, cranky and confused. Whenever I take on projects like this, I always end up telling my husband, “Next time I have a bright idea, just shoot me.”

People go to school to learn to make cakes like that. People who have sous-chefs to do the scut work make cakes like that. Retirees in small kitchens who usually only bake twice a year for church bake sales do not make cakes like that.

I’ll tell you how it turns out.

Eatin' Goober Peas

Yesterday my UMW circle held our traditional Christmas potluck dinner. I had signed up to make scalloped potatoes, but decided to make a similar dish, made with frozen hashed brown potatoes instead. The recipe is far from heart healthy, being made with butter, sour cream, canned cream soup, and cheese, but the potluck is only once a year.

As I grated up the two and a half cups of cheese, a ditty ran through my head, “cheese, cheese, cheese cheese, eatin’ cheddar cheese”. Those aren’t the real words, I immediately realized. The song is “Goober Peas”, and the lyrics run, “Peas, peas, peas, peas, eatin’ goober peas/ Goodness how delicious, eatin’ goober peas.” I had learned the song as a child in summer day camp, on one of those endless bus rides to the beach or the lighthouse or wherever else we went. I had vaguely realized that the song dated from the U.S. Civil War, and that “goober peas” are peanuts, but standing in my kitchen grating two and a half cups of cheese, it hit me that the men who sang that cheerful little ditty were starving.

As wikipedia puts it,

The lyrics of "Goober Peas" are a fairly accurate description of daily life during the last few years of the Civil War for Southerners. After being cut off from the rail lines and their farm land, they had little to eat aside from boiled peanuts (or "goober peas") which often served as an emergency ration.

There I was, standing in my kitchen trying to fend off extra calories. I had made a few changes in the recipe, using light sour cream instead of regular and a reduced calorie version of cheddar cheese soup (which promised no trans fats) instead of the cream of mushroom soup. Since I was using cheddar cheese soup, I substituted Monterrey Jack cheese for the cheddar, and tried to find a two percent version with no luck. I also substituted green onions for regular, which had no effect on the calorie count but just seemed to go better with potatoes and sour cream. And stuck in my head was a cheerful song sung by men who had no idea where their next meal was coming from, or when they would get to go home, or even if they had homes to go back to. That wasn’t the sort of thing I thought about as a child. War was a game we played, when we acted out the original version of role playing games, the kind children played in their back yards by saying, “Let’s play Army”. We played a lot of those, Robin Hood and his merry men, pioneers going west, cowboys and Indians. Do children even do that anymore? I don’t think we ever played Yankees and Rebels.

Many versions of the casserole I was making  call for topping it off with crumbs, usually corn flake crumbs but I did see one version with Ritz cracker crumbs. We don’t have corn flakes, but we do have the crackers. I pondered leaving off the crumbs, but decided to go ahead with the whole shebang. It seems appropriate. “Shebang” is a Civil War term, originally a name for the lean-to’s that prisoners of war built themselves if they could. Otherwise, they went without shelter. I learned this in a visit to the National Prisoner of War museum in Andersonville, Georgia. 

I’m a cheery little Christmas elf. The casserole smelled delicious, though, and two thirds of it disappeared later at the dinner. Before dinner we stood in a circle, held hands and said grace. The woman presiding suggested we do like at Thanksgiving, and go around the circle and each name one thing she was thankful for. Most of us named something family related, particularly that family members were returning home for Christmas. I did not say that I am thankful that I am not living in the midst of war wondering where my next meal was coming from, much as I am. I said I’m grateful that my son, too, will be home for Christmas. And so I am.

Frittata

We've been trying to use up all the leftovers in the refrigerator this week. John made a cake over the weekend, so among the leftovers were three egg yolks, the whites having been used in the cake. We also had half a can of mushrooms, leftover from my making a mushroom gravy for the flank steak over the weekend, some crumbled bits of cheddar cheese, and some salsa saved from a trip to a Mexican restaurant last week.

The mushroom gravy was my variation on a recipe that my old microwave cookbook calls Bordelaise sauce. I finally looked up a recipe for Bordelaise sauce online and discovered that my microwave cookbook has been lying to me. Real Bordelaise sauce is made with bone marrow and shallots and sauce demi-glace. My microwave version is made with beef broth, butter , flour, red wine and a drop or two of Worcestershire. When I want to, I throw in mushrooms. I could make real Bordelaise sauce, if I ever found a marrow bone somewhere, but then I’d be too busy to cook the beef to go with it.

Although we did just get the rotisserie kit that goes with our big barbecue grill. I could probably get my husband to roast a haunch of beef on a spit while I make the sauce.

The big grill, which now has a rotisserie kit

Today, however, I’m trying to use up leftovers, not make more. So what do you do with egg yolks, mushrooms, cheese crumbles and salsa? Add three more whole eggs and make a frittata. 

My mom used to make potato and egg frittata when there was too much month left at the end of our money. She was a genius at being able to flip the frittata in the pan to cook the top. I have to use the broiler. Mom had several low cost recipes for the end of the month. Some of them I loved, like the potatoes and eggs and her homemade macaroni. Some of them were so-so, like spaghetti with broccoli. And some I dreaded, like pasta e fagioli, or as you may have heard it pronounced, pasta fazzool. 

I once tried making  pasta e fagioli as an adult. I had learned to like eggplant parmesan by making my own, so I thought maybe I’d like pasta e fagioli better if I made it myself. I spent hours cooking the beans, but when it came to making the pasta, I thought the better of it. I cooked up some rice and we had white beans and rice instead. They were delicious.

The frittata was easy. I whipped up the egg yolks, the whole eggs, some salt and pepper, and put them into a sizzling cast iron skillet in which I had melted some butter. Then I spread the mushrooms in and lifted the edges of the eggs as they cooked to let the liquid from the top run down to the pan. When it was almost cooked I sprinkled the cheese crumbles on top and slipped it into the broiler. I added the salsa when the top was almost set and put the pan back into the broiler to heat the salsa. John ate two helpings, so I guess it came out okay.

Follow-up: Secrets of an Indifferent Home Chef

Yesterday I actually cooked the beef brisket that I blogged about last week. After a moment of sticker shock at the grocery store, I found a brisket (only 2 pounds, but then, there are only two of us), but no slab bacon. That was okay, the regular bacon I used worked just fine. Prep time took almost twice as long as I thought: I had planned half an hour but it took fifty minutes. I sliced the onions and celery before I started browning the meat, which turned out to be good planning. I sliced the mushrooms, bundled up the thyme and chopped the garlic while the onions and celery were cooking, and measured out the balsamic vinegar and found the bay leaves while the mushrooms and garlic were cooking. That all worked out smoothly.


It tasted great. It did not taste too vinegary, just a pleasant sweet-sour taste with more sour than sweet. With it I served an orzo salad (orzo, chopped red bell pepper, niblets corn, minced shallots, Dijon vinaigrette) because I wanted a contrasting texture but mostly because it was easier than Anne Burrell's potato pancakes. "Contrasting texture" just sounds better.


I notice from the reviews on the Food Network website that several people cooked this recipe in a crockpot with good results. Next time I might try using a chuck roast and cooking it in the crockpot. That sounds like Clue: Ms. Coleslaw, with the chuck roast, in the crockpot. I hope it doesn't turn out to be a crime.

Secrets of an Indifferent Home Chef

One of the cooking shows I love to watch is Chef Anne Burrell's Secrets of a Restaurant Chef.  I love watching it because of Anne Burrell's interesting personality, not because of any cooking tips I intend to pick up from it. My impression is that the secret to cooking like a restaurant chef is to be a restaurant chef, i.e., to have a staff of sous chefs that do prep work for you, to have a supplier that you can order the exact cuts of meat you want from, and to have a kitchen with several ovens and a six burner gas stove. I realize that there are some people who are not restaurant chefs who have double ovens and six burner stoves, but I'm not one of them.


Besides, I don't have recipes so much as procedures. There's the making hash out of anything procedure, the whatever parmesan procedure, the fried food procedure, the steamed veggies procedure, the braising procedure, the soup/stew/ sauce procedure, and the dice it up with onions, potatoes, bell pepper and garlic and cook it in the oven procedure. If I use an actual recipe, I will only use it once unless I can memorize it.


On one of her recent shows, though, Anne (may I call her Anne?) was cooking a beef brisket and it actually looked easier to cook than my standard pot roast recipe. First of all, she started off by salting and peppering the meat and throwing it into a pan to brown. When I make pot roast, I start off by marinating it in olive oil, red wine, lemon juice, shallots and bay leaf. Then I have to wipe it dry, then I put slits in it and insert slivers of garlic, and then it's ready to brown. So if I make Anne's recipe I've already saved 3 or 4 steps. 


Then she removes the roast from the pan and adds chopped slab bacon. That's where we run into that pesky supplier thing. I'm not sure Walmart carries slab bacon, but then, I don't see why regular old bacon wouldn't do; just stack a few slices and slice them crosswise. After that, she throws sliced onions and celery into the bacon fat to cook. I use chopped onions, celery, and carrots - slicing is much easier. Then add finely chopped garlic, not much harder than the slivering I do, especially since you can use the smash and peel method before chopping, which you can't do if you want to put slivers into slits in your beef. So so far, other than the bacon, she hasn't done anything I don't already do, plus she's left out a few steps. Easy.


Then add some sliced mushrooms, then add the liquid and aromatics. My liquid is beef stock, red wine, and coffee (yes, coffee). Hers is chicken stock (huh?) and balsamic vinegar. We both use thyme and bay leaves. Cover and put in the oven. I cook mine on the top of the stove, but my Le Creuset pot, a Christmas present from a bewildered husband ("It costs how much?") is ovenproof up to 500 degrees. 


Shorter version - I can make this. Heck, after one viewing I practically had the recipe memorized.

30 Minute Meals that Only Take 45 Minutes Or So to Cook

I've become a big fan of the Food Channel.  My favorite is the Barefoot Contessa, followed by Giada at Home and Semi-Homemade. Occasionally I watch Rachel Ray and her 30 Minute Meals, which generally involve being able to compress ten minutes of pasta cooking into a two minute commercial break. I'm a girl at heart; I still love fairy tales.  

The other night I planned what should have been a quick fix meal, even bearing in mind that I do not have an army of assistants outside of camera range to do the shopping, organizing and some of the prep work.  The menu was simple:  Salmon with Lemon and Parmesan Crust (I cannot rave enough about this dish), leftover stir fried noodles and vegetables, and a salad of hearts of artichokes, hearts of palm and romaine hearts (a Rachel Ray dish) dressed with a lemon vinaigrette adapted from Ina Gartner's roasted artichoke salad.  So, mix up the salmon crust, mix up the dressing, reheat the vegetables and throw the salad together while the salmon bakes.  How hard could that be, as Ina would say?

One of the ingredients for the salmon is green onions.  I knew we had a bag of green onions in the crisper.  What I did not know is that they were starting to go bad, and that it would take almost ten minutes to peel and cut the not so nice parts from the still good parts to get enough to use.  Then there was the matter of the artichoke hearts for the salad.  Instead of hearts, I accidentally grabbed a can of artichoke bottoms.  I found a container for them and found the artichoke hearts, but that took more time.  Why is it that when Ina, Rachel, and Sandy are looking for canned goods, they are always right at the front of the pantry shelf, not buried behind an aging can of coconut milk? 

Then there was the vinaigrette.  It sounds so easy - throw a bunch of ingredients in a blender. How bad could that be?  Ina would have whipped hers up during the opening credits in between mixing scone batter.  It always takes me ten to fifteen minutes, mostly because I have to chase down the right size measuring spoons, and mince shallots.

It really only took about 45 minutes to whip up dinner.  Still not bad for a quick meal.  I even have a plan for the artichoke bottoms - Eggs Sardou.  Poach some eggs, cream some spinach, make a side dish of cheese grits.  How long could that take?

I figure a week.