I am transitioning everything over to Deliciously Noted finally. I’ve had the domain for almost a year and haven’t had a chance to create a layout for it till now. So all new posts will be there.
~Jenn
Sparkle from creme brulee that is. I decided to play with my Christmas gift, a blow torch (thanks Sarah!). There was some trial and error with the bruleeing so there was a bit of smoke, but also spark and crackle like my own mini fireworks. After that, I patiently waited the whole minute before cracking through into a silky creamy pudding. Mmm. A great first recipe for the New Year. I will be back tracking a bit as I spent a lot of the holidays baking, so I have a lot to share from that in later posts. But first onto the creme brulee!
What I like about the recipe is it involves just four ingredients:
Heavy cream
Egg yolks
Vanilla bean
Granulated Sugar (Vanilla Sugar would be even better. More on that later)
I was pretty surprised to see how pale and fluffy the egg yolks got. I’m used to whipping egg whites. It can take some time to get to this stage but important for making the creme brulee creamy and light.
The heavy cream after it has been strained. The vanilla flavor infused into it smells amazing and you can see the little flecks from the vanilla bean.
I haven’t worked with vanilla bean before so I was excited to try it out. I washed and dried the vanilla bean and placed it in a jar of sugar. The vanilla will get absorbed and create vanilla sugar. If I had some ahead of time I would have used it for this recipe in place of granulated so that there is a stronger vanilla taste.
After adding the cream to the egg yolk mixture, the combined mixture becomes nice and thick. I poured mine into four 5.5 oz ramekins (from Crate and Barrel) and had a bit of batter leftover, enough for another serving.
I used superfine sugar for the topping which creates a sheet thin, delicate top.
Glistening, golden, and ready to be eaten.
I wanted to try out the torch a bit more so I also did a twist on the creme brulee with Bruleed Mini Cheesecakes.
Since the cheesecakes are a lot smaller it was harder to control where we were bruleeing. The first few got a little burnt and smokey. This was with the superfine sugar so I switched to granulated.
Perfect :) I figured the larger sugar crystals would take longer to caramelize thus preventing them from burning as quickly.
One bite. Not sure why I even bothered since I literally could put two in my mouth they were so tiny. Hmm New Year’s Resolution…portion control.
Creme Brulee
from Paula Deen, foodtv.com
recipe notes:
- I first have to say, it was strange doing a Paula Deen recipe that didn’t have a single bit of butter. It is a great recipe though.
- I had a bit of trouble figuring out when the creme brulees were done. I was looking for a gelatin-like jiggle but I kept thinking it was too liquidy. I baked it for an extra 10 minutes after 40 minutes of baking. On top of that they browned. There wasn’t much of a change in the jiggle either, but after refrigerating and bruleeing, I went to taste and it was a nice thick pudding consistency.
- Even after all that, I would recommend the deeper ramekins. I put the leftover batter in a couple of shallow 1″ high ramekins and while those baked much faster and had the gelatin-like jiggle I was looking for, they melt too quickly after bruleeing. It was a bit too liquidy for me.
Bruleed Mini Cheesecakes
from williams-sonoma.com
recipe notes:
- this recipe is fantastic. fluffy and light and makes exactly 12 mini cheesecakes in the Williams-Sonoma cheesecake pan. I know, I know I’m guilty of having a recipe-specific pan. It’s like having a Madeleine pan.
- I added a pinch of cinnamon to the crust and it added a nice holiday touch.
- granulated sugar for the bruleeing to prevent burning
I love the concept of a Buche de Noel (or Yule log). The dessert is traditionally served during the holidays in France. It is shaped like a freshly cut log and often decorated with meringue mushrooms, berries, and rosemary sprigs to give it that wintery look. I’ve recently been raving about Francois Payard’s version after seeing him make it on Bobby Flay’s Throwdown last year, but my fascination for yule logs goes back to a winter white version done by Martha Stewart.
Payard’s buche de noel Martha Stewart’s birch de noel
About eight years ago I watched the episode of Martha Stewart Living where she made a Birch de Noel. Instead of a brown log, she decorated it white to look like a log from a birch tree. I was inspired but it seemed a bit daunting to make everything from scratch. I was in high school and still using cake mixes so that is what I did.
I think my presentation was pretty good but not so much the taste. In my short cut version I used a devil’s food cake mix which was too stiff so it broke when I rolled it up. And though I covered the cracks with frosting, the frosting tasted like toothpaste. I used a tub of premade frosting, mixed it with whip cream to make it fluffier, and added a bit too much peppermint extract.
December 2001 December 2009
After having the recipe in my “to-do” binder for eight years, I decided to finally make the entire thing from scratch this Christmas. I’m not going to lie. It’s pretty time consuming even when you prep over several days, but its the holidays so I think it was worth the extra effort.
Birch de Noel Prep Plan
2 days ahead- white chocolate mousse
1 day ahead- chocolate genoise cake, fill and assemble
day of- frosting
White Chocolate Mousse
The white chocolate mixture should be ribbon like and cooled so when combined with the whip cream, the mousse stays fluffy.
white chocolate mousse thick and glossy, ready to go for assembling
Chocolate Genoise
Whipping up the egg mixture till pale and fluffy and tripled in volume. Several recipes I looked into said to separate the egg yolks and whites and then combine later. I like how with this recipe you can skip the separation step.
Incorporating the dry ingredients into the egg mixture and then pouring onto a half sheet pan lined with buttered parchment.
After baking the genoise, I dusted the top with powdered sugar and flipped it onto parchment paper resting on a damp dish towel. Then I rolled the cake up, from the long end, into a log and let it cool. By doing this, the cake will not crack when you go roll it up again after filling it with mousse.
The fun part! Filling it with mousse. Luckily when I re-rolled the cake, it did not crack. It helps to have a second person roll the other end.
Trim the ends of the log so you have clean sides, then cut off two pieces at a diagonal and place them on the log so they look like branches.
Adding the frosting, the final touch for making it look like a birch log.
The completed birch de noel. It is unadorned, but after 4 hours of work on it, I really just wanted to eat it.
Birch de Noel
from marthastewart.com
When researching online for tips on this recipe I didn’t find much to work with, so I hope these notes are helpful should you decide to make one. I used three different recipes to create this yule log, as if making the log wasn’t complicated enough. :) The white chocolate mousse is part of the Birch recipe, but I used different recipes for the other two parts, as I have explained below.
White Chocolate Mousse
This recipe makes a lot of mousse. I used all of it and it was about 1″ thick on the cake. I would probably cut it down so that its 2/3″ because it difficult to roll with so much mousse. When spreading the mousse on the cake, it will be a bit stiff from being in the refrigerator. After frosting the cake, let it sit out for about 2 hours and it will be the perfect consistency for eating.
Chocolate Genoise
Of the three recipes, this was the only one that didn’t work out so well. The Birch de Noel recipe come with its own cake recipe that uses all purpose flour, where I wanted to use cake flour so that it would be more fluffy. It came out a bit tough. It may have been because my sheet pan was 11 x 17″ rather than the 10 x 15″ jelly roll size, so the cake was a bit thinner than what was called for.
Seven-Minute Frosting
from blog, Smitten Kitchen, recipe from Joy of Cooking
Martha’s recipe made me a bit nervous because the last egg white frosting did not whip up properly. I needed more guidance so I followed the instructions from the blog, Smitten Kitchen. This version worked out perfectly, fluffy and glossy. Just make sure you have a hand mixer. This also needs to be made the day of because it will stiffen the day after.
image courtesy of gilmoregirls.org
I’m a huge fan of TV dramedy, Gilmore Girls. I love the quirky town and the relationship-centered story lines. Lorelai and Rory, the mother and daughter duo were written to be big eaters and capable of large consumptions of sweets. Sounds like me.
One of my favorite food moments is in Season One. Luke’s diner is their usual eatery where they consume burgers, fries, donuts, and pie on a daily basis. Lorelai wanted something festive for the holidays, thus the creation of the Santa Burger. Gross but entertaining.
Santa Burger ingredients: Wonder bread, two buns, ketchup, cream cheese, patty, olives, cherry tomato
See the clip from the episode below:
Snickerdoodles, Mexican wedding cookies, chocolate crackles…
delicious cookies but done before. I felt like trying something different for my gifts this Christmas. I came across Earl Grey Tea Cookies on Martha Stewart’s website. First thing I thought was yes! its a log dough. Chill, cut, and bake.
I love the idea of literally adding tea into the cookies. Luckily I had an Earl Grey tea bag but then I realized I could experiment with other teas too. Orange Spice sounded fitting for the holidays. Lastly this recipe inspires the idea of drinking tea, but in the form of a cookie, which to me sounds more satisfying on rainy weekend.
After dessert, I love making brunch. I’ve gotten really good at savory items but when there are a lot of people over I jump at the chance for sweet things- pancakes, french toast, crepes. It’s like having dessert in the morning. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas I make a sweet brunch item. It’s a warm up to cooking the holiday dinner.
Last year, I made pumpkin cinnamon buns for Christmas dessert. It could have been for brunch but after waiting for the dough to rise two times, it was a bit late. These are probably better suited for dessert anyway with all the sugar in them :)
With the increasingly popular food and cooking trend, I’ve noticed more articles with gift ideas specifically for “foodies.” I’ve put together a selection of things I’d like to receive give :)
Today’s Picks: Edible Treats
I love making gift baskets. They are a great way to be personal and thoughtful without having to cook/bake things yourself. For the mixes, I like to create a “basket” using a pan or mixing bowl and fill it with gadgets and necessities needed for the recipes.
We’re expecting rain all next week which is perfect for watching my favorite holiday food specials. I’ve gathered up a list of all my favorites for this month. Hope they bring inspiration to your holiday planning. Happy TiVOing!
Martha Stewart’s Christmas Special (Fine Living Network)
December 5-24, multiple airings
Highlight: Meringue Snowmen with Michel Richard – Every year I re-watch this part of an old Martha Stewart Living episode. The snowmen are the most adorable things ever.
UPDATE: I found a close up of the snowman on Michel Richard’s Citronelle restaurant Facebook page (shown right)
For this year’s Thanksgiving dessert, I made an elegant French Apple Tart. It was all about the perfect presentation of apple layers. In contrast, last year I made a Cranberry Apple Galette. A galette is a free-form tart so no need for rolling out dough or a tart pan. You simply gather up the edges of the crust around the mound of juicy apples and cranberries. While not as fancy as the French Apple Tart, it is equally impressive-looking when the fruit bakes down and it has a rustic, golden look when finished.
I almost left my post-Thanksgiving shopping trip empty handed, but with my exceptional eye for anything sweet, I happily carried a bag with cupcakes back to my car. I made a trip to San Francisco and after 4 hours of browsing I was bagless and was ready to give up. While maneuvering out of the insanely busy Union Square, I spotted… cupcakes!
A girl was holding the most beautifully browned swirled S’more cupcake. I walked 10 steps before turning around and asking where to get them. That’s how I discovered Cako cupcakes.
