Savory Entry: Steamed Mussels!

Last night I had my good friend Heather over for dinner (hi Heather!) and I used it as an excuse to cook a fancy dinner (and fancy dessert, of course.) I decided that steamed mussels would be suitably impressive. I improvised this recipe and it turned out awesome so I decided to share it here.

Steamed Mussels
Serves 4-5

4lb fresh, live mussels
6oz tomato paste
About 1/2 bottle of white wine
2 tbsp butter
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp basil

• Before you can do any cooking, the mussels need to be cleaned. Put them in a large bowl of clean water and let them soak for half an hour or so. As the mussels breathe, they expel sand and other gunk that you don't want to eat.
• Transfer the mussels to another bowl of clean water. As you do so you can de-beard them. The beard is this little clump of fibers coming out of the shell (it'll be obvious when you see it.) All you need to do is get a good grip on it and pull firmly away from the shell.
• Last step of mussel cleaning (I promise): using a vegetable brush, scrub off any barnacles, sand, or any other yuck on the outside of the shells and rinse in running water.
• Combine all the other ingredients in a large pot and heat until butter is melted and sauce is even.
• Add the mussels to the pot and cover. Cook over medium-high heat until the mussels open (about 7-10 minutes.) 
• Discard any that have not opened.
• Enjoy!

I recommend having some fresh bread handy to soak up the sauce. Yum!

For dessert I made espresso creme brulee. (I told you I made fancy dessert!) Maybe I'll share that recipe next time. :-)

Just look at that creamy goodness!

Solar-Powered Sister-in-Law

The second cake of last weekend was a birthday cake for my sister-in-law. Since today is her actual birthday, (HBD DeeDee!) it seemed appropriate to post her cake. We have this joke that she's solar powered so I wanted to do something bright and yellow. Lemon! I ended up making a lime cake with lemon curd filling and whipped lemon buttercream. Man, it was sooooo good. I love lemon curd.

When thinking about decorations I knew I had to use fondant because DeeDee is the only person I know that really likes it. I'm really into making fondant flowers lately so decided on sunflowers. If I had to pick a flower that makes me think of DeeDee it would definitely be sunflowers. Maybe it's the solar-powered thing, maybe not, but it just seems right.

Here's how it turned out:

I was really pleased with it. If I had had more time I would have added leaves around the side but (as usual) I was working right up until it was time to leave so I couldn't do that. Still, maybe my favorite cake I've made so far.

Side note: The awesome thing about making lemon curd (which contains a lot of egg yolks) is leftover egg whites with which to make angel food cake....which you can put the lemon curd upon! Yum!!

Strawberry Shortcake...Cake

In my family it is well known that my specialty is strawberry shortcake. It's a special treat when I make it and it even has grandma's stamp of approval! So when my aunt asked me to make her a birthday cake, I knew it was time to perfect the cake version of my strawberry shortcake. This was the result:

Looks good, right?

The biscuits I make have some lemon zest in them so I made a lemon scented cake. ("Scented" being a chef-y term for "subtly flavored.") Basically, I infused some sugar with some lemon zest and then used it in my go to vanilla cake recipe.

The filling was easy; I just did what I normally do. Slice up some strawberries, throw a handful or two in the food processor with some lime juice and sugar, then pour the resulting goo over the sliced strawberries. I always get my strawberries from the farmer's market. The ones in the grocery store really pale in comparison flavor-wise. Plus, I usually use an entire 1/2 flat of strawberries and you can't really get those at Safeway.

The third and equally important component of strawberry shortcake is whipped cream. I always make my own whipped cream so I made my own whipped cream frosting. To make it a little more stable, I added some meringue powder and used powdered sugar instead of granulated.

And here's what it looked like when I was done:

Given the whole strawberry-ness of it all I figured it was appropriate to decorate it with strawberry flowers and leaves. I actually wanted it to be a little more dense but I ran out of time. Next time! Overall, I'm very pleased with how it turned out and, more importantly, it was freaking delicious!

Mocha Crinkles

Chocolate Crinkles are my absolute favorite cookie:

I like to make them in the winter because they're kind of like a mug of hot chocolate in cookie form with a snowy powdered sugar exterior. (I know, I know...I'm from California, what I know about snow?)

Anyway, I thought I'd take my favorite cookie and see if I could integrate one of my other favorite things: coffee! When used in baking, coffee is usually just to enhance chocolate flavor but I wanted coffee have a starring (or at least co-starring) role in this cookie. Espresso powder would probably be great for this recipe, but it's not a thing I tend to keep in my kitchen so I decided to work the recipe with brewed coffee instead. I did about 1 part coffee grounds and 2 parts hot water and let it steep for about 30 minutes while I melted the chocolate and prepped all the other ingredients. (A french press is pretty ideal for this operation.)

There are a lot of different recipes for chocolate crinkles so I took the best bits from several and made my own and then immediately rejiggered it to integrate the coffee.


Mocha Crinkles

1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, melted
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
2 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 cup very strong coffee
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  Powdered sugar for coating cookies

• In an electric mixer, cream the butter, sugar, and chocolate.
• Add the eggs, egg yolk, baking powder, and vanilla. Mix on medium speed until everything is incorporated.
• With the mixer running at low speed, slowly pour in the coffee.
• Gradually add the flour, mixing on medium-low speed and occasionally scraping the sides of the bowl. The dough will be soft and sticky.
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill the dough for at least an hour. This will make it much easier to handle and affects the baking time. Seriously, don't skip this step.

*One hour later...*

• Preheat the oven to 350º and put about a cup of powdered sugar in a medium bowl.
• Roll the dough into 1 1/2" balls and roll each in the powdered sugar.

• Place the coated balls onto a silpat or greased cookie sheet.
• Bake for 7-10 minutes. The trick here is to under bake them a bit without leaving them raw inside. This gives them a moist, fudgey texture. The cookies should have risen and cracked but when you touch them they don't spring right back. If they do spring back, they're a little over done. Not burned per se, but they'll be dry and not very chocolatey. (Just dip those ones in some milk!)
• Transfer them to cooling racks as soon as they're cool enough to move.
• Enjoy! And make sure you have plenty of napkins!!

Cookie Dough Cups

Try not to drool on your screen

Sadly, I can't take credit for this genius idea. I saw the photo on the webbernets and decided to make up my own recipe. The original involved peanut butter cookie dough which sounds good and is a bit more like a peanut butter cup, but I felt like it was a little too on the nose. I think the chocolate chip cookie dough is more of a fun surprise. I also initially tried semi sweet chocolate for the outside because I liked the symmetry of the same chocolate being used inside and out. However, the bitterness of the semi sweet overpowered the cookie dough so I really suggest using milk chocolate for the shell.

Anyway! On with the instructions!

Melt about half a bag of milk chocolate chips using whatever method you like. (I use the double boiler method. I prefer not to use the microwave because it's so easy to burn chocolate that way.) Drop about a teaspoon of the melted chocolate in mini muffin cups and spread it around to make little choco-bowls:

I used a brush that's about an inch wide but you could probably get it done with a spoon if push came to shove.

Put the tasty choco-bowls in the fridge to set. Feel free to leave the leftover chocolate in whatever container you melted it it. You can just melt it again in the same bowl.

Meanwhile, whip up a half batch of your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe using mini chocolate chips and leaving out the eggs (or you can leave them in if you're not afraid of the salmonella boogey man but that guy is pretty scary.) Since you won't be baking the dough you won't need any baking soda or baking powder either. I would suggest slowly adding the flour until you get the right consistency and flavor.

Roll the dough into tablespoon sized balls and press them into your now hardened choco-bowls:

Make sure the cookie dough is below the top edge of the chocolate, otherwise when you go to put the choco-lids on they'll look all lumpy and/ or pregnant.

Melt the chocolate again scoop another teaspoon in each cup. Spread it out flat making sure to fill in any gaps:

I also like to make sure I press the chocolate into the muffin cups so I get the ridges all the way to the top.

Put them back in the fridge (or the freezer if you're in a hurry.) Once the chocolate is set you're ready to go! I remove the paper before I serve them because I think they look funny. I also keep them chilled because the chocolate tends to get a little soft if you leave them out. But hey, if you like melty chocolate all over your fingers, you do what you like!


So there you have it! My inaugural recipe! Well, ok...not so much a recipe as a tutorial. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!

Next time will involve some actual baking and an actual recipe. Imagine that!

Starting From Scratch

See what I did there?

Anyway, I figured I'd use this blog for something more useful than whinging. I have revamped it to track the things I bake, in the interest of at least doing a better job of recording successes and being able to repeat them.

First up, ridiculously, is a thing that requires no baking at all: Cookie Dough Cups. As soon as I get some photos taken I'll be posting that one. Maybe after that I'll do Strawberry Shortcake Cake!

But enough of that, I'm getting ahead of myself. For now I'll just stare at my camera willing it to charge faster.