Red Velvet

My my, it's been a while.

For the record, I didn't lose steam, or interest, or my camera -- indeed, I got a job. Now I spend 7 hours a day editing and writing at a children's book publisher. My life has changed quite drastically since my last post some three months ago. Instead of reading about Julia Child, I'm reading about Clydesdales. Instead of learning French, I'm learning about box jellyfish. And instead of writing this blog, I'm writing books about weasels, salamanders, and cheetahs. It's a joy, really - but my time in the kitchen has taken a hit.

But today I re-entered the baking realm with purpose and zeal. I would make red velvet cupcakes for the first time, by request of my co-worker who is moving down south for grad school. I'm glad she asked, because I've never given much thought to red velvet cupcakes - I didn't understand the fuss. So I set aside the afternoon to discover the red velvet cupcake for myself. My roommates were opportunely out of the house, and the space was my own. I began.

Red velvet cupcakes are simply mild chocolate cupcakes with red dye. Here I sift cake flour with cocoa and salt.

The food coloring is whisked into the buttermilk before it's added to the mixture. The recipe I used calls for 1 tbsp of dye, but you don't need nearly that much.

I saw a few red velvet recipes that call for vegetable oil, and lots of it. Good for denser cupcakes, but I opted for none at all. A baking soda/vinegar solution is added at the last minute so the cupcakes rise, light and airy.

The minute I was done making the cream cheese frosting, I grabbed a still-warm cupcake and topped it slowly, carefully. I may have been alone in the kitchen with no spectators to judge my artisan craft, but that's no excuse to half-ass a frosting job. We all deserve to eat something beautiful, with or without company.

And it was beautiful. And it tasted beautiful. And now I see the lure of a homemade red velvet cake. There's glamour, lust, and opulence in that halting combination of deep red and creamy white. Red dress with white pearls? White dress with red lipstick? Satin sheets with white pillows?

Or perhaps what you see is a moist red house with cream cheesy shutters.

Will miss you, Ellen.

French Macarons

Have you had the pleasure? I hadn't, until this past weekend. A trip home brought me back to a cozy, fully-stocked kitchen, a trusty baking partner, and an open afternoon. I'll take it.

We might have made our default chocolate chip cookies had I not still been tinged by the afterglow of my recent coup des croissants. An affinity for recipes of the finicky French kind sprung from that experience, and I was ready for the next challenge. Macarons had, for quite some time, a definite mystique. I knew what they looked like, and I knew what they had to offer: a creamy filling harnessed by two light, airy cookies. I did not know how the exquisite sandwiches came to be, and to be honest, I wasn't entirely sold on such a textural combination. All we could do was follow the recipe, step by step. And so we began.

Did you know that powdered almonds are the "flour" of macarons? Yep. Our recipe called for whole blanched almonds that were to be pulverized in a food processor. We had whole almonds, but not blanched. We had no food processor, but an adorably tiny coffee grinder. Now, take pause here, because this was an incredible breakthrough for my mom and me. We learned that we could blanch our own almonds by pouring boiling water over them, then waiting a minute before slipping off the seedcoat. (We also learned that we don't need no stinking food processor.) With a spark of ingenuity and mutual enthusiasm, we powdered those almonds.

After that we were running on what I dare describe as la cocaïne de le chef Francais: a high only achieved by the knowledge that you've done more than purchase and combine ingredients - that you have, in fact, made your ingredients!

All right, I've had my say. Now feast your eyes on the rest of this confectionary venture, because it's just as beautiful and fascinating as the onset.

With macarons now demystified, I can attest to the gustatory trip these petit sandwiches promise. The coalescence of crispy, chewy, and creamy is ethereal, and impossible to meet with your eyes open.

Enchanté, croissant

I did it! J'ai fait mes premiers croissants. And if I do say so myself (well who am I kidding, this entire blog is me saying so myself), they turned out très magnifiques et exquis. But I had my misgivings.

When I approached this project, croissants were, to me, formidable but friendly. I knew the process was long and exacting, but the product was so simple and thoroughly pleasant. I dove in knowing full well this may not work out, even if I adhered most strictly to the directions. I buffered this potential blow with a light musing that perhaps one must be French to craft a truly superb croissant.

Not so.

 

Cake flour, hot milk, warm cream, and sugar make croissant dough what it is. But only one ingredient can create those flaky layers...

Do NOT spread butter on a croissant. It's built in.

Fold like a letter. (By the way, it shouldn't look like this. In my eagerness to begin the hallmark folding of croissant dough, I forgot to roll out the first layer. Oops.)

Fold like a book.

Freehand triangles for croissants with character

 

A light egg wash

Behold, le croissant. According to my bread book, Parisians like their croissants a deep brown, almost burned.

  

I think I'd make a fine Parisian.

Croissants probably shouldn't be made when one is craving croissants. The tedium of preparing the butter and kneading, rolling, folding, cutting, and shaping the dough would be frustrating to someone seeking instant gratification; then add the hours of cooling, rising, chilling, rising, resting, baking, shuffling, baking. The process is high-maintenance and long-winded, and it mustn't be cut short. Take it on when you have plenty of time and a scrupulous passion for every part of it. 

 

Strawberry Almond Scones

It's a star-studded cast: fresh strawberries, toasted almonds, and a snow-white glaze of confectioner's sugar and almond extract. If an epicure found a treasure chest, I imagine it would be brimming with these luscious jewels, still warm from the oven. But we mustn't ignore the golden scone beneath those delightful adornments. To echo an oft-expressed sentiment of Julia Child, whole wheat pastry flour is a revelation. It lays the foundation for these heavenly parcels and accounts for the honey-hued interior. It was my first time working with the stuff, and I am utterly enchanted.

Cutting them up in hearty chunks means you'll know when you meet a berry

Equal parts all-purpose and whole wheat pastry flour make for a light, delicate texture

Gussied up: a brush of buttermilk and a dusting of turbinado sugar

It's a treat fit for weekend mornings that are meant to be whiled away, munching scones and sipping coffee and milk in good company. Out of the oven, they demand savoring, and shouldn't be shared with anyone who hasn't the propensity to exclaim audibly upon the first taste. It just isn't fun that way.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

DingDingDing! We have a winner. The BEST banana chocolate chip muffins out there.

To be honest, this isn't the culminating point of years of searching - I haven't been frantic to discover the end-all banana chocolate chip muffin. But find it I did, and my utter (though possibly naive) confidence that a superior recipe cannot be found should be reason alone to believe my claim. If it isn't, scroll through the rave reviews beneath the recipe - others agree!

I did a basic search for banana chocolate chip muffins and chose this recipe in particular because it called for four bananas, which is precisely what I had. (One of the perks of living with five other people: bananas are bound to be lost or forgotten, only to resurface much too late. If my roommate hadn't neglected her bananas to beyond overripe, I probably wouldn't be writing this post right now.)

Banana Soup: The bananas, melted butter, milk, eggs and vanilla are combined first.

The Dry Stuff: Flour, brown sugar, baking power, soda, salt, and chocolate chips are stirred in.

Yield: 12 regular muffins and 12 mini muffins : )

What makes these muffins better than the rest? The brown sugar, for sure; many recipes use regular granulated sugar, and you can imagine the difference this makes simply by looking at the two sugars. I think, though, these muffins hit their zenith because of the bananas. I'm telling you, they were black. If you can wait a couple more days, then wait a couple more days. It's tough, I know, but what comes out of it are the softest, moistest (my sister is cringing somewhere), banana-y-est (Noah Webster is rolling over somewhere), most beautiful banana chocolate chip muffins you'll ever meet.

 

Hey - if I'm wrong, prove it.