Charlotte Russe

One of my deepest held convictions is that if it looks or sounds good, it must be. This concept fails me every time I try to pick a bottle of wine, or beer, or a book even. Pretty outside, so-so inside. You would think I would learn my lesson after the umpteenth time; but I'm stubborn and just won't learn.

So, do you think I want to give a recipe called Charlotte Russe a try? You betcha. I've found several versions of this in either the cake or dessert sections among my various cook books. The version I'll start with comes from the Sweet Home Cook Book, of unknown printing date. (Thanks, Mom!) The only issue I have is that if I make it as called, I'll end up with a massive dessert; and despite my love of desserts, it'll be beyond me and the Beta Taster. So let's try halving it, which should still be plenty.

Charlotte Russe
(modified from the Sweet Home Cook Book)

1 ounce gelatin
1 1/4 cup milk
3 eggs, separated
1/4 pound granulated sugar (about half a cup)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup cream
vanilla wafers to line bowl

1. Soak gelatin in milk for 15 minutes in a saucepan.
2. Line a bowl with cookies.
3. Boil milk with gelatin until gelatin dissolves.
4. Whisk together egg yolks with powdered sugar.
5. Add egg yolk mixture to boiling milk. Boil until frothy. Season with vanilla
6. Beat egg whites until stiff and then fold custard into it.
7. Beat cream until stiff peaks form. Fold custard into it.
8. Fill cookie lined bowl with custard and chill in refrigerator several hours.

Results: What a mess! To put this into perspective, of my six mixing bowls, five are now dirty; the counter, everything on the counter, even the floor and myself are splattered with cream. Oh, it was fun though; I regret nothing. Herein follows the blow-by-blow.

The cream has splattered but mostly been whipped.

First off, the recipe originally calls for lady finger cookies and I couldn't find them in the cookie aisle at the store. So I tried substituting vanilla wafers instead. That was the first sign that this recipe was going to be difficult with me.

Then, it continued with the cookie lined bowl. It was too small. And it turns out vanilla wafers are tricky to convince to climb up the sides of a bowl anyway. Any bowl really, the second (and quite a bit larger) bowl has a denser layer of cookies at the bottom. But since I like vanilla wafer cookies, I shan't complain.

Gravity is pulling all my cookies to the bottom.

While my milk and gelatin were sitting in a saucepan, I beat the egg whites, which went well, probably. I'm always afraid of over beating them so I think I only beat them to soft or medium peaks. Then I whipped the cream, which simply spattered everywhere. (I guess I should have worked my way up to high speeds rather than to simply gun it. Perhaps I'll remember for next time.) Upon finishing, I looked at my two bowls of beaten liquids and realized my 1-quart sauce pan was just too small for the whole task of having that much volume folded into it, as called for. But I doubt that whether I fold the liquids into it or it into the liquids will have any effect on the taste and texture. So onwards!

The next difficulty was realizing that boiling the milk until the gelatin dissolved was fine, but adding the yolks and sugar and then boiling until it reached a custard-like consistency wasn't going to happen. I panicked at the thought of burning the custard and stopped when it had boiled for about a minute. (It was also threatening to boil over in my little saucepan and that would have been a real mess, far beyond cream-flinging.)

But at last, I managed to get everything put together and roughly smooth. There were still little bits of meringue hanging about but I decided it was good enough. So I poured it into my lined bowl. There was a brief pause in filling to shore up my cookie walls, which weren't quite tall enough. Since it looked a little lonely at the top (or bottom if I decide to invert it), I decided to cover the top (or bottom) with more cookies. It's now sitting in the fridge hopefully setting up.

Charlotte Russe, nearing completion.

Six hours later: It did set up. When the Beta Taster tried to invert it, it refused. So we used a spatula to get it out. And oh, it's an ugly thing. The cookies didn't stay on the outside, there's a layer of gelatin in the bottom, a layer of custard, and the top has a of custard-y meringue thing going on. Dispersed throughout are the vanilla wafer cookies.

Not the prettiest of desserts, but I will have no trouble eating it all.

Taste-wise though, it's certainly edible. It tastes exactly like what you would expect, an eggy custardy dessert, with a hint of vanilla. Now, perhaps my problem is just that I've never made a Charlotte Russe before but if I attempt one again, I'll certainly use a more modern recipe. And perhaps get some fruit in there. It's a bit boring with this version. Conclusion: I won't make this as written again.


PS. I'd like to take a moment to point you to Russ Rowlett at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for a spectacular dictionary of units of measurement. It's a fascinating look at various units used over time. The volume of milk originally called for was 2 tumblerfuls and without his helpful site, I'd have been guessing how much milk to use.

Breakfast Gems

Most mornings, granola is just fine. But then come the weekends. And suddenly cereal just won't cut it. So this weekend, I made Breakfast Gems. They sound great, don't they? Colorful. Tasty. And if you're like me, here's how the internal discussion went:
     "Breakfast?" "Great! I like breakfast!"
     "Gems?" "No idea. Let's try anyway!"
     "Do I have all the ingredients?" "Yes! I can't wait to eat this thing!"
     "Do I understand the instructions?" "Yep! Put all the things together, beat 5 minutes, put in a gem pan, bake 15 minutes in a hot oven. Er, wait, wait. Hmm. What's a gem pan? And could you define a hot oven a little better?"

A quick Google images search for gem pans has lots of pictures of things that resemble a muffin tin or conjoined small loaf pans but with rounded bottoms. The shapes vary and I suspect sizes do too. So I figure my muffin tin will be an acceptable substitute. And oven temperature, 400 F seems sensible. Let's see how I do.

Everything is in the bowl.

Mixed and ready to bake.

Breakfast gems: 
(adapted from The Home Cook Book, 1877)

1 cup milk
1 1/2 cup flour
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 400 F and grease 9 cups in a standard muffin tin.
2. Beat all ingredients together for 5 minutes. (Yes, 5 whole minutes. I timed it.)
3. Pour into greased holes in prepared muffin tin filling each about half full.
4. Bake 23 to 25 minutes, or until bottoms are golden and tops are pale golden.
5. Let cool in pan 5 minutes.
6. Remove gems from pan and place on wire rack to finish cooling.

Awww... How cute. The top flopped over.

Batch the second.

Results: The batter had the consistency of pancake batter. And the flavor reminded me of pancake batter, but wasn't at all sweet. Well, of course it wasn't, there's no sugar in it. The finished result looks a bit like a popover. Taste-wise, they're a denser version of a popover. And they're great with butter. They're also best the first day.

Little Pigs in Blankets

Evidently, 5 pounds of cake takes a while for two people to eat, but I'm pleased to report that, with some effort, the Beta Taster and I succeeded in eating all five pounds. And I'm now ready for a bit of a break on attempting anything sweet. I also want to make something that neither serves a dozen (so much cake!) nor is supposed to last any length of time. (I don't need to store up on pickled fruits and vegetables to get me through the winter.)

With these factors in mind, I'd like to try a simple little recipe from the Flagstaff Cook Book, first published in 1896 titled "Little Pigs in Blankets." In fact, it's not too much of a recipe; it takes just 2 ingredients.

Pigs in a blanket a la 1896: Oysters and bacon.

Directions were minimal about what to do with the oysters, other than wrap them. So I tried wrapping them on the half shell. Directions were similar vague about cooking. Although the method choices were roast or boil(!) until bacon was browned and crisp. Needless to say, I roasted and guessed an appropriate oven temperature would be about 375 F. 

Roasted oysters with bacon.

Oysters aren't something I have often so this entire enterprise was novel. But I discovered I truly despise trying to eat bits of oyster shell, as I imagine any sane person would. However, I still managed to eat my portion just fine. See.

If I were to do this again (and I certainly will), I'll try removing the shell entirely and wrap just the oyster with bacon. I didn't find the accumulated juices in the shell really added anything but that could be me trying to minimize the chance of shell ingestion. Here's what I did this time:

Pigs in a Blanket

2 oysters

2 slices of bacon

Preheat oven to 375 F. Shuck oysters. Lay bacon on top of oyster and tuck ends under shell. Place in oven and roast about 25 minutes or until bacon is browned. Serve hot.

Pound cake

So, I have a lot of butter in the fridge with an uncertain shelf life (y'know, if I didn't get out all the buttermilk from it, it'll spoil quickly), so perhaps I ought to do something with it. This thought is my usual precursor to cooking something. ("I have a lot of something, perhaps I ought to do something with it" not "I have some amount of butter, perhaps I ought to do something with it." Just in case you were wondering.) So what am I going to make?

The answer I've decided for my current butter surfeit: POUND CAKE!!! That out-moded version with one pound each of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs. I came across a pretty detailed version that, in addition to the four above-mentioned ingredients, also calls for lemon, figs and sliced almonds. Lacking a lemon and figs, I think I'll ignore the lemon and substitute dried cherries for the figs. What could possibly go wrong?

This is one pound of butter.

Creaming the butter and sugar.

Ready for the oven.

Success!

Pound Cake:
1 lb. unsalted butter
~1/2 t. salt
1 lb. flour
1 lb. sugar
1 lb. eggs, separated into whites and yolks (8 in my case, but egg size varies)
1/2 lb. dried tart cherries
1/2 lb. raw almonds, finely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Beat egg whites until they hold stiff peaks.
3. Use clean bowl and beaters, beat butter, salt, and sugar in mixer until creamed and pale yellow.
4. Add egg yolks, beat until well mixed.
5. Add flour. (Observe the consistency become similar to cookie dough. Eek!)
6. Add egg whites. (Whew. Consistency returns to something closer to cake batter.)
7. Stir in cherries and almonds. (Still thick, but onwards!)
8. Spoon into greased bundt pan (12 cup capacity), smooth top.
9. Bake 1 hour 15 minutes.

Conclusions: Looking back at the instructions, they do say to add the egg whites first, then flour. Next time, I'll obey. Taste-wise, it's good. It's not a really sweet cake. I was expecting sweeter since it is 20% sugar. And it is dense, quite like a fruit cake (the sort that's chock full of nuts and fruit and alcohol). I think it'd be a good breakfast, snack, or dessert, and will eat it as such. Thanks for tuning in.

Butter!

So I made butter yesterday. It's something that I had been wanting to try for some time, but was wanting to obtain some butter paddles first. And then I found them in an antique store so I snatched them up.

They're a bit stained and I doubt they're a matched set, but they did fine for a maiden voyage into dairying. I found two recipes for making butter that seemed detailed enough for me to attempt and ended up with a mash-up of the two (one was from Darina Allen's Forgotten Skills of Cooking and the other from Jenny Linford's The Creamery Kitchen). Here's what I did:

Unsalted Butter

   1 quart cream

~ 2 cups ice water

1.  Soak butter paddles for 30 minutes in ice water while cream warms to room temperature.

2.  Pour cream into mixing bowl. Beat on medium until splashing stops, then on high until cream breaks down. (It turns a pale yellow.)

3. Drain in fine mesh sieve. You can save the buttermilk if you wish.

4. Place in a clean bowl and use potato masher to work out more liquid. Pour off liquid as it comes out.

5. Add 1/2 cup ice water, mash, and drain off the cloudy liquid. It is necessary to remove all the buttermilk as it spoils quickly and will turn your butter rancid.

6. Continue to add water, mash, then drain until liquid that comes out is nearly clear and all liquid is removed.

7.  Shape butter with butter paddles into desired shapes. (Mine ended up in cylinders because there's a bit of an art to shaping butter and I haven't mastered it.) Wrap with waxed paper and store in fridge.

Results: I clearly made butter. But it tasted a bit bland and now I know why salted butter exists. I'm looking forward to trying this again. Also one quart of cream makes one pound of butter, which is a lot for just 2 people (me and the Beta Taster).  I suspect next up will be shortbread because I think that calls for lots of butter...