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    • Archive for January, 2011

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    The Second Birthday Cake

    Monday, January 31st, 2011

    Mister always wants ice cream cake on his birthday. His wish is understandable, what with the glorious goodness of ice cream cake and all. Still, a January boy’s requests for ice cream cake just make the room feel extra chilly. Luckily, the birthday boy got his wish. I can’t say no to him. Besides, the ice cream maker was beckoning for me to use it again.

    The cake was assembled as follows: in a 13 inch spring form pan bake a half recipe of these brownies and allow them to cool completely. Then, make a recipe for the filling of raspberry Eskimo pie, and top the brownie layer with it, evening it to the edges with a spatula and then popping into the freezer. For the third and final layer, I made deeply chocolate ice cream (recipe to follow). When the ice cream is made, spread it evenly over the Eskimo pie layer. Then I gave Mister my color wheel of sprinkles and let him go wild.

    With a home made ice cream cake, keep it in the freezer until you’re just about ready to serve it, but give it a few minutes to soften before cutting it so that the sleeve of the spring form pan will come off without cracking the cake and so that cutting slices will be easier.

    (Thank you Mister for pouring for the camera!)

    Darkly intense home made chocolate ice cream on light and fluffy raspberry Eskimo pie on fudgy brownie, that’s an ice cream cake of grand proportion. I’m not going to give a recipe for the cake per se, the recipes for the bottom two layers have already appeared here, and have been linked to in the above paragraphs. The chocolate ice cream, deeply chocolate ice cream is the new thing. And here is the recipe:

    Deeply Chocolate Ice Cream

    (with infinitely small adaptations from Trish’s Darker Chocolate Ice Cream)
    Ingredients

    1/2 Cup sugar

    1/2 Cup cocoa powder

    1/2 Cup water

    4 egg yolks

    1 Tbsp honey (I used buckwheat honey, because that was what I had in the pantry)

    1/2 Cup hot milk

    1/2 Cup cocoa powder

    1 Cup coffee cream

    2 Tbsp Godiva liqueur

    Directions
    • In a heavy bottomed saucepan, combine the sugar and the first measure of cocoa powder. Gradually mix in the water so that the mixture is not clumpy.
    • Place the pan over medium heat, and bring the mixture to a boil, mixing often so that the sugar dissolves and does not burn. Boil the syrup until it is a glossy brown.
    • In a bowl, mix together the egg yolks and honey. Temper the egg yolk mixture with the chocolate syrup, and then whisk in the egg yolks. Cook the custard to 170° F.
    • In another bowl, or a measuring cup, make a paste of the milk and the second measure of cocoa powder. This is what makes the ice cream so deeply chocolate tasting. Beat the chocolate paste into the custard.
    • Finally add the coffee cream and the Godiva liqueur.
    • Cover the mixture and chill so that it the flavors develop and it will behave itself in the ice cream maker. When it is chilled completely, follow your ice cream maker’s requirements and make the ice cream.

    Parts of me are almost sad that all of the ice cream cake was gone by the next morning, I wish I could have had a bigger piece.

    Mister says his second cake was really good; that the contrast of textures and flavors was really nice between the layers of the cake. Also, he liked the intensity of the chocolate flavor in the ice cream.

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    Posted in Sweet | 7 Comments »

    Happy Birthday Mister!

    Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

    Today is Mister’s birthday!

    Someone must love him very much (I wonder who?), because he’s getting two epic birthday cakes. One for his official birthday, today, and one for the birthday party on Saturday. You’ve got to be a pretty special person to warrant two epic birthday cakes! Birthday cake number two will follow this weekend.

    As an extra special birthday surprise, we found out that he isn’t getting sent away by the military in the beginning of February anymore! What luck, I’m positively gleeful for that news.

    Mister’s Woodgrain Birthday Cake

    (recipe slightly adapted from Take a Megabite)
    Ingredients
    1 Cup granulated sugar
    4 eggs
    1 Cup milk
    1 Cup vegetable oil
    2 tsp vanilla
    2 Cups flour
    2 tsp baking powder
    1/4 tsp salt
    1/3 Cup cocoa powder
    Directions
    • In a bowl, beat together the sugar and eggs until foamy.
    • Slowly add the oil, milk and vanilla, mixing until combined.
    • Combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the dry mixture slowly to the wet, combining until the batter is free of lumps.
    • Pour half of the batter into a large measuring cup (best if it has a pour spout).
    • Add the cocoa powder to the remaining batter, mixing until smooth.
    • Scrape the chocolate batter into another measuring cup (also good to have a pour spout).
    • Grease your cake pan (9 inch round, or other shaped of your choice, yay hearts!).
    • Starting with the vanilla batter, pour a small round directly into the middle of the pan. It should be about an inch and a half around, or ~3 Tbsp. Then, pour the same amount of chocolate batter into the center of the vanilla batter. Imagine a bulls-eye, always pour into the middle of the bulls-eye.
    • Continue alternating the batters until you run out. As the cake batter is poured, it will force the previous layers outward and upward, creating the woodgrain effect.
    • Bake the cake in a 350° oven until a tester comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the cake (~35 minutes).
    • Allow to cool and ice.

    The cake was very tasty, but I think next time I’ll use a combination of baking powder and baking soda because the texture was a little bit off of my liking. Still, the woodgrain effect was gorgeous and Mister enjoyed his cake and blowing out his candle (we didn’t have any cake candles). I love you Mister!

    Mister rates his cake: tasty and cool looking, but a little too crumby.

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    Posted in Sweet | 17 Comments »

    What’s for Dinner?

    Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

    The contenders that evening were acorn squash, spicy Italian sausage, and labneh (yogurt cheese, previously used in The Funky Kitchen as a tortellini filling. If you haven’t tried it, you should!).

    What would you make with the above as required ingredients?

    I fell back on my favorite dinner making solutions: spaghetti. The spicy savory elements from the sausage along with the creamy bite of the labneh and the sweet buttery flavors of the roasted squash made for a really nicely balanced dinner. The leftovers made for a tasty lunch the next day too!

    Here’s how I did it:

    Spaghetti with Spicy Italian Sausage, Roasted Acorn Squash and Labneh

    Ingredients

    1/2 an acorn squash

    1 tsp thyme leaves

    1 Tbsp olive oil

    salt and pepper

    3 spicy Italian sausages

    1 small onion, minced

    1 clove of garlic, minced

    3/4 cup labneh

    1/2 tsp thyme

    1/4 tsp black pepper

    Directions
    • Remove the seeds and pulp from the squash and peel it. Dice the squash and toss it with the thyme, olive oil salt and pepper. Roast it in a 400° oven until soft and beginning to brown (~30 minutes).
    • While the squash is roasting, remove the sausages from their casings and brown the meat in a pan over medium-high heat.
    • Once the fat from the sausages has begun to render out, add the onion and garlic. Stir this mixture often because it is prone to sticking. Continue to cook until the onion, as well as the meat, is caramelized and brown.
    • Prepare the spaghetti as required, reserving 3/4 Cup of the pasta water.
    • Stir the pasta water into the labneh to thin it down.
    • Return the spaghetti to the pot  over low heat and add the labneh and water mixture. Toss until the labneh sauce tightens up on the pasta.
    • Add the sausage mixture as well as the roasted squash to the pot, and continue to toss until everything is well distributed and sauced.
    • Serve immediately.

    Peeling raw acorn squash was very tedious and difficult. Hindsight suggests that it might be worth your while just to roast it and then remove the skin and cut it into pieces. There won’t be as much surface area to get lovely and golden and roasted, but it would save a considerable amount of time.

    The sausage I used in preparing this pasta did not render out very much fat. If the sausage you use does render a fair bit I would drain it away before adding the sausage mixture to the pasta because it could render your dinner rather greasy.

    My mister rates this spaghetti: very remakeable

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    Posted in Savory | 6 Comments »

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