19 February 2008

the devil and the shakers

I made a Shaker lemon pie using Meyer lemons last week -- it came out quite well. I might have used a bit more sugar -- or let the lemons macerate longer than over overnight -- but I was mostly satisfied. That -- as well as my next adventure -- came from Tartine. Just lemons, sugar and eggs in a flaky crust -- I was very careful to have a low-moisture crust and almost mangled it, but the extra work paid off as the crust was wonderful.


Next, for J.'s birthday, I made a devil's food cake with ganache and caramel filling and a ganache and crumb coat. The cake was a straightforward devil's food cake, rich with butter, cocoa and buttermilk.

It's four layers, with a layer of caramel and ganache in-between, then coated in two layers (a crumb coat and a smooth coat) of ganache. Then, before it cools, it gets coated in toasted cake crumbs (from the domes of the cakes) that have been pulverized in the food processor. I wish I had taken a photo of it sliced.

03 February 2008

soup from the soup queen

Wild mushroom & walnut soup

Tunch showed off this wonderful soup in The Salted Cod. (Pictured is my attempt). It's wonderfully earthy and rich and extremely satisfying. I started it a bit late and the only store open (Big Y) didn't have leeks (neither did I, having just made leek soup) and I had forgotten porcini, but I made do. And half the liquid that I used was turkey stock (last of Thanksgiving's). I also, as suggested, upped the walnuts (who doesn't like walnuts anyway?). I also didn't use a blender (as I don't have one and food processors don't like soup) -- it was passed twice through my food mill.