Monday, July 29, 2013

From the Oven - Chocolate Cupcake with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

The week before my GRE there was some serious cramming.  I was doing practice problems during my lunch break @ work; I was studying on the bus; & for a couple of nights, I would do practice tests...often starting at 9pm & finishing at 11:30pm.

Since I couldn't go to sleep immediately after all that studying, I found myself watching episodes of DC Cupcakes on the tiny screen of my iPhone.  I have always loved cupcakes & - before it closed - my absolutely favorite cupcakery is Everything Frosted in New York's Chinatown.  But as much as I love eating cupcakes, I have never tried to make them; I think the frosting scared me away.  Watching all those episodes of DC Cupcakes really inspired me & with the GRE now officially in my rearview mirror, it's time to give it a whirl.

Not your average cupcake recipe, but the frosting is pretty standard...
   For the chocolate'y cupcakes
      0.3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
      0.5 teaspoon baking soda
      0.5 cup boiling water
      0.25 cup unsalted butter, melted
      0.15 cup vegetable (or neutral) oil
      1 cup granulated sugar
      0.75 teaspoon vanilla extract
      0.5 teaspoon salt
      1 egg + 1 egg yolk
      0.25 cup heavy cream
      1 cup all-purpose flour
   For the farm fresh frosting
      1 cup unsalted butter, softened
      2 pints fresh raspberries
      0.5 teaspoon vanilla extract
      Pinch of salt
      2 cups powdered sugar (more/less depending on the desired consistency)

Now to put it all together...
     Whisk together the cocoa powder & the baking soda in a heat proof bowl
     Add the cocoa powder mixture to the boiling water & stir until the bubbling subsides
     In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together melted butter, oil, sugar, vanilla, & salt
     Add the egg & egg yolk 1 @ a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition
     Add in the chocolate mixture & blend until fulling incorporated
     Add in the heavy cream, blend, & then slowly stir in the flour
     Evenly portion the batter into a lined cupcake pan (~ 2/3 full)
     Bake at 350F for 17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean
     Once baked, remove cupcakes from the pan & let cool completely on a wire rack
     In a small sauce pan, cook down the raspberries
     Strain raspberries through a fine-mesh sieve & return liquid to the stove; reduce until thick
     Once the raspberry liquid has reduced to about 0.5 cup, let cool for 15 minutes
     In a large mixing bowl, combine softened butter, vanilla, salt,  & raspberry sauce
     Cream the ingredients with an electric mixture until well combined
     Add in powdered sugar 0.5 cup at a time until the proper consistency is reached
     Put frosting into a piping bag & decorate cupcakes as desired





















Makes 12 cupcakes

Separately, the cake was moist although the edges were slightly dry. The frosting tasted great but it wasn't very fluffy because I was afraid to add too much powdered sugar...it was so sweet already.  Together, however, the chocolate flavor pretty much covered up the raspberry entirely; maybe additional sugar in the frosting would have helped?  If I am being honest, I did a horrendous job frosting the cupcakes.  My original intention was to do a simple swirl but the piping bag tip I have is way too small & so I had to go around & around the cupcake...thus creating what kind of looks like a pile of turd!  I am not trying to be gross since this is a food blog but look @ the picture & tell me I'm wrong.

All in all, I would say this 1st attempt was a semi-success.  Next on the list are a Nutella cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting & an angle food cupcake with strawberry whipped cream frosting.  But before I start on these next attempts I am going to spend some time learning how to properly make frosting & how to properly frost cupcakes.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Playing with My Food - Cling Wrap Poached Egg

Our cat has a strict routine.  Every morning @ approximately 5:56am Sheldon would reach his claws under the blankets & "play tag" with my toes.  After being threatened to get kicked off (literally) the bed a couple of times,  Sheldon would proceed up to my pillow where he'd settle down comfortably next to my head & begin to munch on my scalp/hair.  On a work day my alarm goes off @ 6:00am so it's not usually such a big deal; but on the weekends when I don't have an alarm, it's really annoying.  So what does Sheldon's morning ritual have to do with what I'm writing about?  I'm getting to it.

This past Saturday morning Sheldon gave me the usual morning call & after giving him breakfast, I was desperately trying to fall back asleep.  You see, it was GRE day & for me, standardized testing and sleep deprivation just don't mix.  One tried & true way to get me to quickly fall asleep is to have me watch a show - any show - while in a comfy position (e.g. in bed).  So I picked up my phone, opened up Netflix, & began browsing for something to watch.  As I scrolled, I stumbled upon a PBS show called The Mind of a Chef featuring chef David Chang of the Momofuku empire. Did I mention the show is produced by Anthony Bourdain?  Anyway, the plan was to watch this show for 10-20 minutes, fall asleep, & go on with my day.  I finished the first episode (~20 minutes); then I watched the second episode; then I woke Russell up & we watched the 3rd episode; then we got out of bed & watched more episodes until it was time for me to leave to take the GRE. To say I was hooked on the show is a little bit of an understatement.

The GRE went well enough & the rest of Saturday passed with Russell & I stuffing our faces with oysters before heading home to watch more episodes of Mind of a Chef.  This pattern of "obsessive viewing" continued for parts of Sunday when all of a sudden Russell decided he was going to try out one of the cooking techniques featured in the show; the one where David Chang poaches eggs in little packets made of cling wrap.

The process is simple...
     Put a good-sized piece of cling wrap over a small bowl or ramekin
     Spray the cling wrap with a little bit of non-stick spray & sprinkle on some salt & pepper
     Crack the egg into the cling wrap & bring up the sides, making sure to remove all the free air
     Take a piece of string or a strip of cling wrap& tie off the packet.
     Place the packet into barely boiling water & let it cook for 4 minutes
     Careful unwrap the packet & remove the cling wrap from the egg





















When we unveiled the egg it looked a lot like a ball of fresh mozzarella cheese but once we cut into it, the gooey yolk started to run out just like a regular poached egg.  According to other recipes for cling wrap poached egg, you can use any kind of oil & seasoning to flavor the egg before it is cooked.  This technique for poaching eggs is so quick & simple compared to the traditional methods of making a vortex or adding vinegar to the water.  Before I knew about this technique, my eggs would either get stuck at the bottom of the pot or half of the egg white would float off in little chunks.

Later on in the show chef Wylie Dufresne (wd~50) demonstrates his interpretation of Eggs Benedict & he remarks that Eggs Benedict is a dish made with eggs topped with more eggs (Hollandaise sauce is made with egg yolks).  This was a total lightbulb moment for me!  It's so obvious I can't believe I had never seen it like that before.  I repeated this statement to Russell & he said the idea of egg-on-egg is too "gratuitous." To simply matters, we came up with a brilliant idea: to replace the egg yolk with Hollandaise sauce.  Now we just have to experiment until we can get it done.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Quick & Easy - Cream Cheese Pancakes

A while back, I suggested to Russell that we should try eating gluten-free for a little while; partly because I wanted to learn more about the diet & partly because I wanted to see if we would feel any different.  To prepare for this adventure, I did a lot of research on Pinterest (where else?) and found a recipe for these pancakes that doesn't require the use of any flour whatsoever.  Interesting...  I pinned the link to my recipes board & forgot all about it.

A few Saturdays after I found the recipe I woke up craving pancakes but I didn't want to go through all the labor of making traditional buttermilk pancakes; not to mention I didn't even have buttermilk in my house.  Frustrated but not ready to give up, I got on my computer to start browsing for options when I stumbled upon the G'free pancakes again.  I wasn't exactly in the mood for experimenting with a new recipe @ 9am on a Saturday morning but my craving was too strong & I gave in.

I didn't have to buy black bean or garbanzo bean flour...
     2 ounces cream cheese
     2 eggs
     1 teaspoon sugar
     0.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon

This is the quickest pancake batter ever...
     Combine all the ingredients in a personal-sized blender & blend until combined
     Let the batter rest for 2 minutes
     Pour one-quarter of the batter into a well greased pan & cook for 1 minute per side























 Makes 4 pancakes

The end product looked more like crepes than pancakes because they were think with a lacy boarder rather than hearty and fluffy.  I guess that's to be expected since there is no leavening agent in the batter.  In terms of texture, they were close to the real thing but they did feel slightly spongy & perhaps "squeaked" between my teeth on occasional bites.  I liked that these pancakes were not too sweet so I could add fruit, powdered sugar, or syrup to them without taking it overboard.  I added a "relish" of macerated cherries this time because I didn't have any maple syrup @ home & I had gotten some delicious cherries from a work gathering a few days before.

I made the mistake of trying to flip the pancakes before the 1 minute was up.  Big mistake.  These little sheets were so thin & delicate they ripped under the slightest bit of pressure.  I was able to fix the mishap by re-greasing my pan with cooking spray after each pancake & to make sure to wait @ least 1 minute before going anywhere near the pan with a spatula.

Since these pancakes were so light, a single service of 4 pancakes was not enough and I ended up making myself a smoothie afterwards.  Nevertheless, this was a simple & delicious introduction to gluten-free cooking.

By the way...we have yet to go on that G'free diet.


Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Risky (Meat) Business

After years of resisting, I finally broke down & got myself a Twitter account a few months ago....for the sole purpose of being able to conveniently stay up-to-date with the rest of the world.  One morning a few months ago, the American Public Health Association posted a tweet that read:
Ground beef & chicken are the riskiest meat & poultry products in the U.S. food supply, says @CSPI
I had no idea what CSPI is or how it came to that conclusion, but it appealed to my inner PH260 (principles of infectious disease) nerd & so when I got home from work that day, I followed the link on the tweet & downloaded the report.

To start off, I found out that CSPI stands for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.  Founded in 1971, CSPI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit consumer advocacy group that focuses on nutrition and food safety in the United States.  Thank you, Wikipedia. [1]

In this report, CSPI compiled and examined 1714 food-borne outbreaks that occurred in the US between 1998 and 2010. [2]  To make sure they can make a clear link between a particular meat product & an outbreak, the report only included outbreaks that were fully investigated by the CDC & were definitively linked to USDA-regulated meat & poultry products.  Of all the outbreaks examined, 564 did not have a known etiology, or pathogen.  Each of the 1700+ outbreaks were categorized into 12 groups according to its associated meat or poultry product.  To determine the foodborne disease risk of each group, CSPI calculated a "severity score" which is equal to the sum of the number of cases caused by a particular pathogen multiplied by the CDC-defined hospitalization rate of that pathogen.
Severity score of a meat/poultry product = ∑(cases)i(hospitalization rate)i
Now to to some results.  At the top of the list with the highest severity score is chicken.  Within the 12-year period examined, there were 452 outbreaks - totaling 6896 cases of illness - associated with this poultry.  The most common pathogens found in chicken were Salmonella and Clostridium perfringens.    Second on the list is ground beef with 336 outbreaks & 3800+ cases of disease.  The most common pathogen associated with ground beef was E. coli O157:H7 which caused approximately 38% of all cases.  Over the 12 years, outbreaks have led to the recall of over 70 million pounds of ground beef.  At "high risk" are steak, beef (other), and turkey.  At "medium risk" are deli meats, barbecue meats, pork, and roast beef.  Finally, processed meats such as chicken nuggets, ham, & sausages are in the "low risk" category.

Most people - if not all - have experienced at least 1 episode of foodborne intoxication/infection & it is not fun.  While most people get away with diarrhea and vomiting, many have been hospitalized & some  have even died from ingesting contaminated or improperly cooked meat/poultry.  I am a meat eater, I think meat is delicious, & reading this report is not going to stop me from eating meat.  And it shouldn't stop you either, if eating meat is your thing.  However, this report does remind me that I - along with other omnivorous & carnivorous human beings out there - should always make sure that my meat products are stored properly & that they are cooked to the right temperature.  To take this 1 step further,  it would be even better if we grind our own meat so we are assured that the end product we get started from a single source.  It's not possible for a lot of people (me included) to grind their own meat; in that case, choose products that specify a single origin (e.g. ground from whole turkey breasts).  I can't say these claims are 100% trustworthy, but that's a whole 'nother issue that I'm not prepared to tackle.
References:
  [1] Wikipedia. Center for Science in the Public Interest. Accessed 1 July 2013.
  [2] CSPI. Risky Meat: a CSPI Field Guide to Meat & Poultry Safety. Washington DC.  2013.