Chocolate Sorbet

I picked up an ice cream maker at a garage sale last week. A strange purchase for someone recently discovered to be lactose intolerant, but I wanted it.

You know. The way I wanted that easy-bake oven when I was little (which I never got, by the way).

And there's always sorbet.

I broke it in with some watermelon sorbet, but the texture was wrong, too icey. I even added a bit of alcohol (Pernod) which I'd read could help the texture, but no dice.

So for my second attempt I thought I'd go with something more sure. I made smittenkitchen's chocolate sorbet (which is really from "A Perfect Scoop").

With such lineage, how could I go wrong? And I happened to have on hand exactly the perfect amount of superamazing Droste cocoa and Guittard chocolate chips.



It was fate.

I must say I was unprepared for how good this would turn out. It has no dairy. It's just cocoa, sugar, vanilla, chocolate and water. But when hot it tastes like the best hot chocolate you've ever had, like chocolate puro in latin america. When cold it is frozen mousse. Or gelato. I licked the pan clean while pouring it in the ice cream maker.



Make it. You won't be sorry.

Recipe here

The Mystery of Burnt Caramel Sauce

At the last blogger dinner we had a gift exchange and I ended up with this jar of beautiful burnt caramel sauce. Of course that was 2 months ago. It's taken me that long to figure out what to do with it.

Part of the problem was my newly developed lactose intolerance. The easiest pairing is vanilla ice cream and I just didn't want to go there.

So last night I tried it out on some roasted pears and damn if it isn't like absolutely perfect. You roast the pears with vanilla and sweet dessert wine (or white wine with honey added) and then top them with the warmed burnt caramel sauce. The caramel adds this creamy sweetness but the pear keeps it light, like a perfect pear tart. You could go whole hog and top it with ice cream as well, but as I said before...dairy doesn't like me.

Incidentally, this stuff is far from lactose free. It's just not quite so tough on my stomach as ice cream.

Oh and my second use for this stuff? (this is for you Jay). Open faced peanut butter sandwiches with warm burnt caramel swirls. Fantastic.

I'm still trying to figure out a possible savory use for it, maybe involving some virginia ham. Or bacon. I'll let you know how it goes.




Roasted Pears with Vanilla
(adapted from A New Way to Cook, by Sally Schneider)

Okay just to let you know right off....Sally's recipe is a little fussy partly because she's trying to make sure you end up with a nice sauce. Since you have your own sauce (ta da! burnt caramel) you can actually afford to skip the fussiness a little. But I'll give you the whole thing anyway.

4 pears (1.5#)
1/2 vanilla bean
3/4 cup sweet dessert wine (or white wine such as riesling with 1/2 tsp honey)
butter
1.5 T . sugar
salt to taste

Preheat oven to 375. Peel pears, cut in half and core. Butter a pan you can use on the stove and in the oven. Place pears cut side down in pan. Pour 1/2 cup of wine over pears. Split vanilla bean in half lengthwise and add seeds to wine. Put rest of bean in among the pears. Dot pears with butter. Sprinkle with a little saltBring to a boil over moderate heat. Put in oven and cover loosely with foil. Cook x35 minutes (brushing pears occasionally). Turn over, cook 15 minutes more (still covered). Pull out pan, add additional 1/4 cup wine, and cook down liquids until thick and syrupy (you might want to pull out the pears while you do this). Turn pears one last time. Sprinkle with sugar. Put back in oven 10 minutes or so until nicely browned. Add more wine if needed to dissolve the caramel in the pan and make a nice sauce.

Now heat up burnt caramel sauce in microwave or double boiler and pour over the top. Serve with ice cream if you're a glutton or just happen to be lucky enough to have lactase sitting around.

Why does dairy hate me (aka, butterscotch pots de creme)

Dairy and I used to get along like wildfire. There were some long nights by the TV with a little ben&jerry's heathbar crunch. We were tight.

Then one day I noticed I didn't feel well after we hung out. My stomach hurt. I didn't sleep well. And slowly, we stopped seeing each other.

Don't get me wrong, I still eat ice cream. I just pay for it. I've messed with those lactaid pills, but they sometimes help, they sometimes don't. And they're not cheap.

And lately I've discovered, my taste is changing. I'm starting to fear the creamy white stuff.

But I couldn't resist when I saw Orangette's last post: butterscotch pots de creme. Heavy cream, two kinds of sugar (muscovado and demerara), vanilla, and eggs. The results are heavenly, like pudding made of dulce de leche.



Or they would be heavenly, if I didn't secretly hate dairy.

It's like dating someone who abuses you. I'm going to stop doing it. Tomorrow.

By the way...muscovado tastes like the best brown sugar you've ever had, deep and rich with molasses and ginger undertones. You could thus substitute brown sugar, and it would just be a tad less good. Demerara is raw sugar. If you can't find it near you, stop by your local Starbucks and grab a few of the brown packets of sugar. You'll be all set.

recipe here

Cookies that will rock your world

I know. Cookie season is over. I was in the grocery store this morning, driving home from work and there were like 3 people there. I haven't seen that few people in our grocery store since October.

"You should've seen it yesterday," the checkout lady said, "it was crazy. All buying wine and beer and avocados."

A month of cooking and decorating and parties and then it's over. The city feels stark. Like an old woman who's taken off her makeup.

But I have to say. If you ever make another cookie again, you should make the molasses ginger chocolate chip cookies from Orangette. They have this deep molasses flavor infused with crystallized ginger and bittersweet chocolate. All she says they are and more. The snickerdoodles from the food network aren't bad either, but I'm not really a snickerdoodle type of gal. I made them for Jacobe. He loved them. But even he loved the molasses ginger chocolate chip more.

Both recipes are on-line:

snickerdoodles
molasses ginger chocolate chip

Incidentally, Orangette's blog rocks.

Vodka pie

It all started when my friend Sheela asked me and Cobe over for dinner. I said I'd bring dessert.

A few days later I stumbled across Cooking Illustrated's no-fail vodka pie crust recipe. Then I heard the farmer's market was still going on in West Seattle. I could get apples from the market, make that vodka crust...

It was fate. I had to bake a pie.

So yesterday I trundled off to the market and loaded up with Braeburn apples. I looked high and low for lard thinking that it would make the most awesome piecrust, but everyone was sold out. Only in Seattle would everyone sell out of lard I went off to Thriftway for flour, butter, crisco and a pastry cutter.

Back home I sorted out the ingredients. It was a bit daunting, making a pie. I'd never made crust before. And I have no cuisinart. Just that little pastry cutter.



I pulled up Cook's illustrated to look at the recipe, but they only have directions for using a cuisinart so I also looked at Smitten Kitchen.

Damn her photos are beautiful. She makes a cup of sugar look like art.

Got out the butter, flour, sugar, salt, crisco, and vodka. Cut up the butter into squares. Threw the vodka in the freezer to chill. Then carefully mixed together the dry ingredients.




Now time to cut in the butter with the pastry cutter. Kind of scary, but she has these great photos on Smitten Kitchen to guide you through it. This is what mine looked like, first just starting and then almost done.


Then I added the vodka and water and poof! It came together into a ball. Cut the dough in two, flattened them into little patties and wrapped them in saran wrap, then put them in the fridge to chill.

So far so good.

Now onto the apples. I used the recipe from Best New Recipe (which is really just more CI). Peeled, cored and sliced the apples and mixed them with lemon juice, sugar, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg.



Took out the crust and started rolling. Quickly discovered that I suck at rolling. I've rolled cookie dough but with cookie dough it doesn't matter if it cracks. With pie crust it matters a lot.

I have no pictures of this, but suffice it to say it wasn't pretty. Cobe came over while I was in the middle of this and asked if I needed help and I just snapped at him.

I finally rolled out an approximation of a 12 inch circle with several cracks but luckily for me, the pan was small enough that the cracks got cut off. Put the crust in the fridge to chill. Pulled it out after a bit and mounded up the apple slices.

Now to roll out the second crust. I got wise this time and actually looked at the pictures in Best New Recipe which show someone rolling with the rolling pin counter clockwise rather than back and forth. This worked much better. Still cracked, but better.

Put the whole thing together, sealed the edges, and cut slits in the top.


And then off it went to bake for an hour. Best New Recipe does this cool thing where you jack the oven up to 500 degrees, then turn it down to 425 right when you put the pie in (on the lowest rack). Worked like a charm....nice crisp bottom crust.

Actually the whole pie turned out awesome. Forgot to take a picture of it, but the crust was flaky and just slightly sweet with the crisp of sugar on the top (I did a glaze with egg white and sugar). I brought it to Sheela's and we ate it with ice cream and after dinner there was a little fight to see who could take the leftover pie home.

Addendum:
As a scientist it bothered me....why vodka? Well it turns out any alcohol would work. Alcohol simply evaporates more quickly than water and so leaves a flakier crust. Very interesting discussion about all of this by Harold McGee. I thought he migh have a hand in this!

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Foolproof Pie Dough (Cooks Illustrated, November 2007)

Makes enough for one 9-inch double-crust pie

2 1/2 cups (12 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon table salt
2 tablespoons sugar
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch slices
1/2 cup cold vegetable shortening, cut into 4 pieces
1/4 cup cold vodka
1/4 cup cold water

1. Process 1 1/2 cups flour, salt, and sugar in food processor until combined, about 2 one-second pulses. Add butter and shortening and process until homogeneous dough just starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 15 seconds (dough will resemble cottage cheese curds and there should be no uncoated flour). Scrape bowl with rubber spatula and redistribute dough evenly around processor blade. Add remaining cup flour and pulse until mixture is evenly distributed around bowl and mass of dough has been broken up, 4 to 6 quick pulses. Empty mixture into medium bowl.

2. Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture. With rubber spatula, use folding motion to mix, pressing down on dough until dough is slightly tacky and sticks together. Divide dough into two even balls and flatten each into 4-inch disk. Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.

Classic Apple Pie (Best New Recipe)

1 Recipe 2 crust pie dough
3 Granny Smith apples
4 Macintosh (I used all Braeburns, highly recommend them)
1 T fresh lemon juice and 1 tsp zest
3/4 cup + 1 T sugar
2T flour
1/4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp salt
1 lg egg white, lightly beaten

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees, place rack on lowest rung with rimmed baking sheet.
2. Roll dough to 12 inch circle (note: they tell you to roll it between layers of saran wrap, but I had heard it got too sticky so I just used a floured countertop). Transfer dough to pie pan by rolling it around the rolling pin. Carefully lift up edges of dough while pressing it into the corners. Refrigerate.
3. Peel core and quarter the apples, then cut into 1/4 inch slices. Toss with lemon juice and zest (NOTE: I think the zest might have been too much so you might want to consider leaving that out but keeping the juice). In a medium bowl, mix 3/4 cup sugar with 2T flour, spices and salt. Toss dry mixture with apples. Turn fruit mixture into chilled pie shell, mounding in the center.
4. Roll out second dough ball to 12 inches and place it over filling. Trim both crusts to 1/2 inch, then fold under and crimp. Cut four slits in top. Paint crust with egg white and sprinkle with 1 T sugar
5. Place pie on baking sheet and immediately turn heat down to 425. Cook 25 minutes or until golden brown, then rotate front to back and turn heat down to 375. Cook till bubbling and nicely browned (30-35 minutes more). Cool.

Turkey Day #1 (Pumpkin Pie)

Last year we hosted thanksgiving for Jacobe's family and three days before the big day I was a wreck. I was going to meet his family for the first time and announce our engagement. And I was roasting a 30# bird.

I brined the heck out of that thing and it all turned out fine.

This year, we were off the hook. We went to his cousin's and were in charge of just cranberry sauce, green beans and somehow a pie. I was going to buy a pie from Shoofly but they just laughed at me. "You need a pie for tomorrow? Who wants to make a pie tonight?"

And then I realized I had pureed pumpkin in my freezer. I was making that pie. My first pie. It came out great, really. I kind of blurred a few recipes together and used those cheater roll-out pillsbury crusts. It was delicious, super creamy and just a little spicy.



Pumpkin Pie

1 1/2 cups pumpkin (roasted till soft, then pureed in a blender with some of its liquid till smooth)-->you can use the canned stuff, but simmer it with the spices before adding it to the rest of the stuff to make it taste fresh
3 eggs
1 1/2 c. half and half
1/4 c. maple syrup
1/2 c. brown sugar
whole nutmeg
whole cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt

Put the pie crust in a greased pan and weight down with pie weights (or line with foil and put in dried beans). Cook ~25 minutes at 350. Meanwhile heat up half and half until boiling, take off heat. Grind ~1/4 tsp nutmeg and 1/2 tsp cinnamon (rasp works great). Beat eggs and combine with pumpkin, salt, sugar, maple syrup and spices. Mix with half and half and heat till warm, then pour in crust. Cook 30 minutes at 400.