Savory New World

This blog is a savior! Just this weekend, whilst eating some delicious Vietnamese sandwiches on the roof of the church, and discussing the P-Bury bake-off, I was presented with the question "so, do they tend to favor sweet or savory recipes?" Well, as you can probably imagine, I was able to speak quite knowledgeably on the subject given my last blog entry. Of course the conversation took a turn when another friend chimed in, "What does savory mean?"

Hanging up Christmas lights on the roof

The genesis of our topic was when I pulled out what I'm calling "cheesy spicy surprise biscuit bombs." I'd recently had what I can only assume is a normal desire to bread something in crushed-up Cheez-Its. The victim of this urge ended up being some p-bury biscuits. And to spice things up (literally and figuratively) I used the Cheez-Its with Tabasco, and tucked a wee bit of queso de papa in the middle of each one.

The result was a little odd. Ok, a lot odd. (Why is that a running theme in my experiments?) Frankly, I thought they tasted like...bleh. Some of the Cheez-Its burned, and when the biscuits returned to room temp, the queso inside re-hardened into an unsavory block.

However, it was decided that in the future, Cheez-Its would make a suitable substitute for cornflakes as a chicken breader.

Upside-Down Uprising

What a stellar statistical circumnavigation of bake-off winners past, Rachel! You have such a way with numerals.

We inhabitants at the red castle have been preoccupied with a new neighbor, who is still adjusting to his home and scratching post/box. St. George (the mouse-slayer) is not inspiring us in a culinary fashion, as his palate favors meaty-but-odd variations on brown, in "wet" and dry variety. Now that the mice have returned, we can assume, to hiding in the walls and feasting on the fall-out shelter crackers, we can again face our pantries courageously.

Last Sunday, I shared an old favorite and considered ways to fashion him for the modern age: pineapple upside-down cake. Not that I don't love him just the way he is, but he's just so retro. So McCarthy-era conscious of trying to please and fit in. Nothing untoward here, just us canned, culturally bland chunks. Dear Mr. Upside, let's get down. You are soaked with sweet. You are weighty in that ponderous Brezhnev/Yeltsin way.

While I like the density of the cake (it contains much less egg and much less flour than the standard ratio), it is one-dimensional. It could be enriched with extra yolks, or officially soaked with fruit juice (and rum?) after baking. The one standard that must be perfected is the crispy caramel topping that goes into the pan first. I let the brown sugar and butter commingle, slowly and luxuriantly bubbling, for a few minutes, but cut down the over-all baking time as the cake appeared to be brown about 15 minutes early. A fatal error, as far as the caramel was concerned. Everything tasted great, but was of mushier-than-desired consistency.

To make Mr. Upside into a Pils winner, we will have to revolutionize. I call for perestroika: abandon your out of date identity, sir! I'm imagining cardamom, cloves, a merangue topping -- or rather, bottoming, once flipped, and of course fresh pineapple, cut into practicable bite-size triangles -- a banishment of the alien-rounded donuts from the can. Are you with me, comrades?

Winner is served.

Well, my little Pillsbury groupies, in case you did not hear, the winner of the 2010 bake-off was announced. Big congrats to Sue Compton for her “Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups.” They do look really yummy. However, this throws a bit of a wrench into our situation.

You see, our dear friend Jenny Tang had astutely observed that there had been a certain trend in P-bury winners. While history has favored sweet/dessert recipes, the last 14 years or so had suggested a new oscillating pattern.

UNTIL THIS YEAR! Now we’ve had 2 sweet winners in a row. Who knows what the committee will be looking for in 2012? I suppose we should factor in economic forces. It’s been a rough couple of years. The world is looking for a delicious, small way to treat themselves. Forget stay-cations, the real trend is baking up a batch of brownies with your kids. Pillsbury has always pulled at the heart-strings of America, knowing along with the likes of Hallmark and LoLcats, just what our sappy hearts yearn for. These are probably amazing days for Pillsbury. In fact, take a look at this analysis:

Ok, to be honest, I thought that the above chart would reveal something amazing. For the most part, it seems that when unemployment is on the decline sweet recipes tend to reign, which of course goes against my hypothesis above. Really there doesn't seem to be any tie to what kind of recipe wins and the state of our economic health. Now my faith is restored in the Pillsbury bake-off. Perhaps it really is about who has the best-tasting, best-looking food. Conspiracy theories be damned! Back to the kitchen!

Osh Kosh Ganache!

Alright, let’s leave the gimmicks at the door today. All you get in this entry is some good old fashioned bake-off straight-talk.

About a week ago, I was reading a recipe in Cook’s Illustrated for these insane chocolate cupcakes. Long story short, Claire and I baked these suckers up, complete with chocolate ganache filling. I started to wonder, what else could you fill with such a lovely concoction? How about Pillsbury Crescent Rolls?

I decided to make a peanut butter ganache, and add chocolate chips. So over a double-boiler I combined pb, heavy cream, powdered sugar and semi-sweet chocolate chips. I popped open the roll of crescents, and got to filling. The crescent rolls weren’t really shaped nicely for stuffing, so I tried a couple options – rectangular little spring rolls, and triangular purses (complete with a rose on top using the extra dough).

For a final touch I sprinkled a mixture of sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon on top, and sent them into the 375 oven.
Now let me discuss the results. My exact words upon taking a bite of one of the still warm spring rolls were “HOLY F*CK!” They were, and are delicious! Oh golly, I guess there’s not much to dislike. I’m quite pleased with the texture, too. Could this be a winning submission? I plan on taking some into the office tomorrow to get outside opinions, but hopes are high that others are just as pleased as I.

The Phyllo is Risen, Indeed

Has it really been so long? We've missed you, too! Let's travel back in time, all the way to Easter. All of a sudden, it was 80 degrees, the tree buds were fairly popping out, and Matt pulled out the yellow-striped linen shirt that is the true sign of the season (as well as a sign of lack of ironing skills/effort). I baked a plain old Pills cake, smoothing the batter onto a cookie sheet in anticipation of cutting it into fun-themed shapes and colorful frosting decoration. But ah -- foiled! -- the frosting was chocolate, and while much more delicious, did not abide by food coloring. In case you're in a bind for time though, here's a handy tip: the cake only took about 15 minutes to bake up nice and golden.

But that was just a preamble, testing the water with a toe, or, if you will, dipping a finger in the flour. (You know, instead of a "green thumb," I would suggest that Rachel, Tracey, and I have "buttered thumbs.") The real show would be with dinner, and it turned out to be just as much of a snap.

The picture on the box made it all look so simple, and happily, it was. Classy but unassuming, the general aura of the phyllo dough box seemed to say, "Oh, how about some napoleons? Or just a little baklava? That sounds nice." Sure, why not? Mr. Chef helped brush the butter onto the dough, Rachel pared away the edges and layered the sheets, and I cooked down some a big pack of Chinatown strawberries into jam. Things hummed along, and we learned that cookie cutters cannot compete with phyllo, but that's just fine. Triangles are great, thanks.

The warmth and butter and sugar created a sort of hazy hang-over halo of happy fatigue. Maybe that's why I thought it didn't matter much that the wand-mixer flung bits of chocolatey cream, spackling us with dessert. We laughed and rolled our eyes, and bundled it up to go to Melanie's place. She treated us to a perfect feast, and we found many ways to construct and consume our phyllo-strawberry-chocolate-cream towers, perhaps falling victim to their namesake's ambition, but only with happy, delicious ends.

Brownie Points

Another shout-out to Cook's Illustrated, the wonderful magazine the churns out perfect, easy-to-follow recipes. I'm so sorry to now cannibalize them, but this recipe needs to reach the world. Matt and I made these scrumptious brown sugar cookies the other night, without much exertion, just perhaps a few extra dirty bowls. That is no price at all to pay for these chewy caramel delights. I apologize for sounding like poorly written magazine copy. Here's the recipe (I made a half-batch to reduce the possibility of us eating 50 of them at once):
http://www.bigoven.com/162655-Brown-Sugar-Cookies---Cooks-Illustrated-recipe.html

Cuckoo Shock

Situation: Dinner at Tracy's. Rachel has been requested to bring "dessert?" She accepts the challenge. It is also fantasy baseball draft day, leaving Rachel with surprisingly little time to figure out what this dessert will be.

Approach: Cogs in Rachel's brain begin to turn (ever slowly). "What is fast?" she thinks. "Pudding pie," a little cog says. "Oh, what flavor!?" A trip to the jello-o website reveals a whole host of options. Chocolate! Vanilla! Banana Cream! and the pièce de résistance ...White Chocolate! Go little cogs, go. "What goes with white chocolate?" How about a strawberry...jam? Or pretzels would be nice. Something along the lines of chocolate covered pretzels in a white chocolate pudding.

Execution: A trip to the grocery store reveals what Rachel had long suspected. No white chocolate pudding!! But the others were there (and on sale 4 for $3). New plan, quickly devised. What would go with banana cream? Rachel has to think outside the box if she's going to ever win that Pillsbury bake-off, let alone please her friends at dinner. Then genius strikes...Cocoa Puffs! They're crunchy, chocolaty. They will be delicious in a creamy banana pudding.

And so it went. A quick and easy pudding pie, constructed and let to set for an hour or so.

Results: Shockingly weird. The cocoa puffs did not stand up to the pudding, and became chewy, half-soggy, cardboardy mystery nuggets in the middle of the pudding. New theories postulated - any mix-ins must be impermeable. Suggested solutions include the previously mentioned chocolate covered pretzels, whoppers, or Reeses balls.

Bonus: Pretty good fantasy baseball team.