Wordless Wednesday - A baker's trip to Costco

Easter eggs

I don't like hard-boiled eggs, but I'm still the one who makes them. =)  Jamie & Brianna eat them; G is like me and won't touch them.  So I don't usually make very many to dye at Easter, since I don't want to have a bunch of eggs that don't get eaten.  Plus G is still young enough to need help, and my patience with egg-dying wears thin pretty quickly.  Maybe we'll do more next year.

The recipe I use is from Cook's Illustrated; it works great.  You put the eggs in a pot filled with cold water and bring it to a boil over high heat.  Once the water boils, you turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let the eggs sit in the hot water for 10 minutes.  At that point, I move the pot to the sink and run cold water in it until the water is all cool, then add a whole bunch of ice to the pot.  I usually leave the eggs in there until most of the ice has melted, then dry them off and put them in a carton in the fridge.

You can find the actual recipe here at Cook's Illustrated.

Wordless Wednesday - The Eleventh Doctor

(I used this creme anglaise recipe)

Allons-y!

I think everyone (including the author) was pleasantly surprised to learn that Dorie Greenspan's new cookbook was going to be available from Amazon over a month earlier than expected.  I can't remember the last time I was this excited about a getting a new cookbook.  And over the past several years, I've gotten a lot of new cookbooks.  Okay, that's not entirely accurate--lately, most of what I've acquired have been baking books, not savory cooking books.  Not that I don't cook; I just seem to get most of my non-baking recipes from cooking magazines.  But this is one cookbook that I knew I had to have.  With this most recent purchase, I now have five of Dorie's cookbooks.  (The others are BFMHTY (of course), Paris Sweets, Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé, and Baking with Julia.)  She's now tied with Jacques Pépin in my collection.

A lot of my reason for being so excited is that so many other people were excited with me.  Many of us Tuesdays with Dorie bakers have been eagerly awaiting Dorie's new book.  I was a bit worried when I learned that it was going to be a regular cookbook, rather than another baking book.  Baking is my passion, and my comfort zone.  I really wasn't too sure about blogging about savory dishes.  Heck, I'm still not quite sure how it's going to work out.  But our fearless leader Laurie put together such a cool new group, I had to be a part of it.  You can read more about it here.  We were all very excited to learn that the October recipes were selected by Dorie herself.  First up is the very first recipe in the book, Gougères.  Think cream puffs, but cheesy.  In a good way. =)

As usual, I couldn't just follow the recipe as written; I did make a couple of slight changes.  I started off by putting butter, water, milk and salt in a saucepan and bringing it to a boil.  Then I added the flour and stirred like crazy until I had a smooth dough and the bottom of the pan was dry.  Next, I transferred the mixture to my stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  My first change was to mix the dough with the paddle for several minutes to let it cool a bit before adding the eggs.  My second change was with the eggs.  The recipe calls for 5 large eggs.  I had extra large eggs in the fridge.  Not a big difference in size, but with 5 of them, it might be noticeable.  Also, several of my other baking resources recommend using part whole eggs and part whites for drier puffs.  So I ended up using 4 eggs and 1 egg white.  With the mixer running, I added the eggs to the dough.  (I find it easiest to crack all of the eggs into a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup and gradually pour them in.)  It's neat to watch the dough come together as the last egg or two go in.  Finally, the cheese is mixed in.  I used my #40 disher to scoop the dough onto parchment-lined baking sheets.  I did one pan of 20 that got baked right away, and another pan of 15 that went into the freezer.  I ended up baking my gougères for a total of 26 minutes.

The verdict?  Yum!  Well, at least for most of my household.  Brianna tried one of the gougères and said she liked it, but then changed her mind.  Gillian, on the other hand, love them and ate three or four.  Jamie was happy, because he really likes Gruyère, and I haven't made anything with it for a while.  I liked them, though I think I'll bake them a minute or two longer next time; they were a bit too wet in the middle (though certainly edible).  I still have the ones stashed in the freezer, so we can have these again soon.

For this month only, if you'd like to give these a try you can find the recipe here on the French Fridays with Dorie site.  But you should really just buy the book. =)  And join the group!  To see what everyone else thought of the gougères, head over to this week's Links page.

Next up, Gerard's Mustard Tart (mmm, leeks)!

Not in a box, not with a fox

My mom used to tell me that when I was little, I really loved to eat eggs, and she couldn't understand why that changed.  But it definitely did.  Every so often, I'll try scrambling an egg to see if I've changed my mind.  I haven't so far.  And scrambled is the only way I'll even try them.  No omelets.  No fried, poached, or hard-cooked eggs.  The taste, the texture--I do not like them, Sam I Am.  

Now, if you beat them with some milk and dip bread in them, I'm there.  Or if you use them to make cakes.  Or ice cream.  Or cheesecake.  Or buttercream.  Or angel food cake.  This week I realized that I really like the parts better than the whole eggs.  Or, as long as you can't really identify them as eggs, I like them just fine. =)  Unfortunately, that didn't bode well for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe.  

This week's selection was made by Bridget of The Way the Cookie Crumbles.  She chose Lemon Cup Custard.  I like lemon just fine.  But cup custard is another story.  It tastes like eggs.  And I can't get past the texture.  It was when I was trying to figure out why I like crème anglaise (or ice cream custard) but not baked custard that I hit on my theory about only liking the parts of eggs.  At first I thought I just didn't like egg whites, but then I realized that I do like them as long as they're whipped with sugar. =)  So it seems to be something about whole eggs that aren't completely disguised inside something else that I don't like.

No disguises with this recipe.  I actually went with the vanilla variation, which consists of milk, eggs, sugar and vanilla.  I added a pinch of salt.  I accidentally put the sugar in the saucepan with the milk instead of beating it with the eggs.  But I've made ice cream custard both ways without any problems, so I just went ahead and tempered the eggs with the milk/sugar mixture.  I only made half the recipe, which was enough for 3 dishes.  I baked them in their water bath for 45 minutes, at which point they were set but jiggled a bit in the middle.  After letting the custards cool to room temperature, I refrigerated them until cold.

The verdict?  I only made this because I knew my husband Jamie would really enjoy it--and he did.  =)  I did try a small bit, which confirmed that I still don't like baked custard.  Brianna tried some.  At first she claimed to like it, but then said that it tasted like scrambled eggs and wouldn't eat any more.  (Guess she gets that from me...)  Gillian didn't actually get to try any, but she doesn't really like eggs either.  

I might make this again if Jamie wants to have it again or try another flavor.  It was easy, and has a simple ingredient list of things we always have.  If you like eggs and want to give it a try, head over to Bridget's blog.  And since I only got a couple pictures of this week's recipe, here's a picture of my not-quite-big-enough-yet sous chef (Gillian), borrowing her big sister's gear.  (Shhh, don't tell Brianna...)

Edited to add...  For someone who claims to not like eggs, I go through an awful lot of them.  I save the cartons to take to the daycare for projects.  Right now I have 18 empty cartons that I've collected over the past six months or so (based on the dates on them).  Wow.