Molten Chocolate Cake

A few weeks ago, I was at a foodie celebration enjoying sampling all kinds of wine and yummy food. I also attended a demonstration on making a wonderfully impressive, but very simple, molten chocolate cake (also called chocolate lava cake) in just about 30 minutes. Further, he made a crême anglais, sugar swirls and decorations, and ice cream. I'm not that ambitious.

For Valentine's Day, I wanted a special dessert, so I decided to make the molten chocolate cake. But I didn't want serve it with heavy custardy (though quite yummy) add-ons. Instead, I made a simple strawberry sauce to go with it. Score!!!!

Molten Chocolate Cake with Strawberry Sauce

Chocolate Ganache

3.5 oz heavy cream (by weight)
3.5 oz good bittersweet chocolate (by weight), I used Ghiradelli's

Chop chocolate into smaller pieces. Heat both chocolate and cream in a double-boiler until chocolate is melted and the sauce is smooth. Do not let mixture boil.

Make this up and put in freezer the day before you are making the chocolate so the ganache has time to set.

Chocolate Cake

7 oz good bittersweet chocolate (by weight), again I used Ghiradelli's
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon chocolate extract (if you don't have this, just add this much vanilla)
3 eggs separated and at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sifted cake flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar (not superfine)
1/8 teaspoon ground achiote
1/8 teaspoon cayenne powder
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Melt chocolate and butter in double-boiler.

Mix egg yolks, vanilla extract, and chocolate extract together. Remove chocolate and butter mixture from heat and quickly wisk the egg mixture in.

Sift flour 2x. Mix flour, sugar, achiote, cayenne, and cinnamon together. Blend into the chocolate mixture.

Whip egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar until soft peaks form.

Fold one third of the egg white into chocolate mixture. Once that is incorporated, fold the second third in. Then fold in the final third. This allows the egg whites to be incorporated without losing too much of their loft.

Grease four 6 to 8 oz ramekins with cooking oil, then dust with cocoa powder.

Fill each ramekin about 1/2 full. Place a largish cherry-sized piece of ganache in center. Fill until ramekin is just over 3/4 full.

Bake at 375°F (190°C) for 15 minutes. The edges will be starting to crack, but the center will be barely set. Be careful not to overbake.

Let cook for about five minutes, then remove from ramekins.

Serve warm.

Strawberry Sauce

8 oz ripe strawberries
1 tablespoon sugar (if the strawberries are very sweet, use less sugar)

Slice strawberries into small cubes. Add sugar and mix well.

Place in refrigerator for at least 2 hours to allow sugar to draw out juice.

Mash lightly with a potato masher.

Spoon strawberry sauce over chocolate cake.

This turned out wonderfully! The tart but slightly sweet strawberry sauce was a perfect foil to the bitterness of the chocolate. The spices added just a tiny touch of heat to the cake, not enough to create any burn, but enough to make the chocolate just a little complex. We really enjoyed it.

Beef Barley

I love beef barley soup, especially when it is cold out. Well, relatively cold as we're not buried in snow. But the temps this weekend still qualified as chilly.

However, I discovered that I didn't have time to make it like I normally would -- spending eight hours on the stove, unless I wanted to leave the stove on overnight. (Ummm, no, not a good idea). So, I grabbed my trusty crockpot.

Beef Barley Stew

2 lbs beef cut into 1 inch cubes
1 large onion, diced
1/2 to 1 pound carrots
3-4 celery stalks cut into bite-sized pieces
2 portabello mushrooms
1 lb barley
5 cloves garlic, chopped finely
Freshly ground black pepper

Put everything, except 1/2 pound of the barley into a crockpot and cover with water. Start simmering on low.

After at least 6 hours have passed, add the remaining barley and bring the water level back up to ensure everything is covered. Cook for at least two hours.

I like a long, slow cooked beef barley stew. The soup gets so rich and unctuous, like satin on the tongue. However, the barley is very cooked down with no firmness to it. This time, by putting the barley in at two different times, I got my unctuous broth and a delightful presence when I chewed.

Note that I didn't mention salt. I didn't salt the soup until I served it because barley is a salt-hog. And because I was cooking the soup with such a low and slow method, I didn't need it to ensure everything cooked properly. By waiting until serving, the barley didn't get a chance to absorb all the salt. And we could adjust the salt to our individual tastes.

Another fail

Sorry about this guys, but I've got another fail week here. Since Thanksgiving, I've been dealing with an allergic reaction to something -- we don't know what. We got it under control in December, but last week something set it off again. We're doing testing to find out what, but right now, I'm not cooking much because I've got steroid creams all over my hands, arms, and legs (and really don't want to be feeding it to anyone).

Tonight is quick and dirty nachos for dinner. Take your favorite tortilla chips, put your favorite shredded cheese on it, sprinkle some cumin/coriander/garli on them, add 1/2 cup of beans, and microwave for 1 minute. Top with avocado, salsa, sour cream, and anything else that floats your boat. It takes all of two minutes to make.

Crock Pot Soups

My hard drive is at least temporarily fixed. I had to reset it to factory settings, which wasn't fun and cost me my archived e-mails and bookmarks!

I love my crock pot. I don't use it nearly often enough, but when I do, I really appreciate having it.

This weekend was supposed to be chillier than last week (which was in the upper 40s). That sounds like time for ham and bean soup for dinner!

Normally I do my soups on the stove, but this time I did in the crock pot -- mostly because I am busily working on the paleography of a 14th century manuscript. So I wanted to be able to ignore the soup until I got hungry.

The soup turned out wonderfully. I soaked the beans for 24 hours because I put them in Friday night and then discovered a social commitment for Saturday. So they didn't go in the pot until Saturday night. I cooked them overnight on low with a country ham bone and some ham. The next morning I turned them to high and added mushrooms, carrots, and celery. Silly me, I forgot the onions. It turned out wonderfully!

The beans were firm and meaty, the ham melted in my mouth, and the veggies were cooked through, but not mushy. I'm looking forward to dinner tonight: leftover soup!

Hard drive fail

I may miss posting the next couple of weeks -- I am having computer problems that look mysteriously like a hard drive failure (on a one year old computer!). I hope to be posting from an alternate computer, but that will likely mean that my posts won't always be Monday evening.

S

Partial fail

I will post later this week. We went on a trip this weekend that WIPED me out. Right now, I plan to sit on a heating pad and take good pain meds.

Celebration

It's hard to believe that I started this journal just after Christmas last year. In that year, I've talked about a lot of different topics: baking, wine, soups - whatever I've felt like talking about. And you readers have, for the most part, been very supportive.

I haven't accomplished everything I wanted yet. I wanted to do more experimental cooking, playing with higher levels of cuisine. I've found that I'm spending a lot of time trying to get the most out of recipes I'm accustomed to making, perfecting them, sharing them. And it's been good.

I received a new book for Christmas this year: Cooking: the Quintessential Art by Hervé This and Pierre Gagnaire. The authors talk about what makes cooking art, what is the difference between an artisan and an artist in the kitchen. At the end of each chapter are some thought experiments, intended to help the reader break out of established ways of thinking about food. All in all, it's a book I enjoyed reading cover to cover; it really made me think about cooking, especially how I approached cooking. I don't agree with some of its suggestions about what makes cooking an art or a cook an artist.

I use several approaches toward deciding what I want to cook. Sometimes, I want to focus on a flavor, whether is a spice/combination, a vegetable, a specific meat, etc. I try to find a way to highlight that flavor and make stand out. That flavor may not be a food that I'm cooking; I've built many meals around a specific wine I want to sample.

Other times, I want to see what I can do with a technique. Some of the techniques are ones I've never tried before. I occasionally apply techniques in new ways just to see what happens. I've had failures and I've had successes. I've learned from each and every one.

During the next year, I plan to include some of the thought experiments from Cooking: the Quintessential Art in my blog, whether I find the outcome a success or failure. I may need to tweak some of the experiments based on ingredients I have available (for example, I haven't found squab locally yet). So keep an eye out for these posts!