Culinary Agoge

Angel Food Cake

Is it weird that I pondered the ratio for making angel food cake while sealing a driveway at one of my parents’ rental properties? Is it strange that I thought about making it while driving home from work for a week, wondering if I would have time to make it each night and was frustrated when I didn’t? Why was this one ratio all-consuming? Why did I dread it so much? Perhaps it was because I actually found it difficult to buy cake flour since many of the food shops around me didn’t have any or were simply out of it. It could be the fact that I kept forgetting the cream of tartar when I shopped at the grocery store. I don’t remember ever eating angel food cake, or if I did, it was only a handful of times. Maybe that was it. The required cooling time at the end definitely was the main show stopper for my attempts, but all in all, perhaps all of these reasons combined were the source of my trepidation and constant thought.

Last night was the night. The stars were finally aligned and I was able get to work. This was a simple ratio of 3 parts egg, 3 parts sugar and 1 part flour. No butter, no yolks, just three white ingredients.

Ruhlman states that good mise en place is essential with cake making. I followed his advice by pre-heating the oven to 350 degrees F and setting out the ingredients: eggs, sugar, cake flour, salt, creme of tartar, lemon and vanilla extract.

I started off with separating the whites from the yolks and placing the whites in the mixing bowl. This in itself was good skill training. After cracking 10 eggs in a row and separating them, you get into a rhythm. The yolks were not discarded, but saved for another use. Perhaps crème anglaise later on this week given my experience from the weekend class I took with my mom.

Angel FoodCake: Separated Egg Whites and Yolks

Once separated, the mixing bowl was attached to the stand mixer along with the whisk attachment. The whites were beat at a medium speed for about a minute or two and then the cream of tartar, lemon juice, salt and vanilla were added. I learned that the cream of tartar and lemon juice, the acids and the salt would act as stabilizers for the egg whites.

Angel Food Cake: Salt, Cream of Tartar, Lemon Juice, Vanilla

The speed was increased to medium-high and as instructed, I waited for a foam to develop and then drizzled in half of the sugar. This was an additional stabilizer that would help with the foaming process.

Angel Food Cake: Adding Sugar

Once the sugar was incorporated I waited for the egg whites to be beat enough that they would work themselves into a firmer foam which could hold a soft peak as Ruhlman writes. Thankfully this is 2009 and not 1909. The stand mixer did most of the work which took far longer thank I expected. I waited, and waited and waited some more, and when I thought the wait was nearly over, it continued until I stopped counting the minutes.

Angel Food Cake: Endless Whisking

As I waited, I simultaneously measured out the flour and the other half the sugar in the food processor using my scale and pulsed a few times to combine and aerate.  When the egg whites could cold a soft peak, the mixer was turned off and the mixing bowl was removed.

Angel Food Cake: Soft Peaks

While using a spatula, I sprinkled the sugar and flour mixture over the meringue that had formed, gently folding it in. This was actually nerve-racking as I was worried that I would destroy the network of air bubbles that I had just spend an eternity on creating. This stage was noted as being the most crucial to the end product and deemed more important the the ratio itself.

Angel Food Cake: Folding in Flour and Sugar

I poured the batter into my newly acquired spring-form pan and placed it into the oven to bake for about 30 or 40 minutes.

Angel Food Cake: Ready For Baking

It looked pretty nice coming out of the oven. It was finally done, or was it?

Angel Food Cake: Baked

As instructed, I let it cook upside down over a baking rack for an hour and a half before removing. Once cooled, I set out to remove the cake from the pan. The book didn’t call for lubricating the pan with shortening, butter or anything like that and I wish it had. It was a struggle to remove the cake from the pan. This might be a crucial element of the cake itself as a greased side would not have allowed for sticking and perhaps resulted in a sunken cake. Experiment will yield an answer to that one.

Angel Food Cake: Out of the Pan

For all the work and aggravation this cake caused me, the result lived up to its name. It was soft, sweet and perfect to eat alone. It was a nice cake to eat as this morning’s breakfast pastry, a change from denser muffins and scones that I usually eat. Each task in this series yields new knowledge and experience. I hope to continue seeing each challenge as an opportunity while keeping my frustration and worrying to a minimum.

Blueberry Poundcake

Angel food cake is next in the series, but unfortunately I don’t have a tube pan or a springform pan to make it in. Although this is a short week, I still wanted to make something that I could eat for breakfast on my way to work. The economy may be getting better, but my wallet has yet to show it. Cheap and tasty is the name of the game. Pound cake seemed like a delicious idea.

Drawing on some inspiration from Megan Chromik’s Delicious Dishings blog post on Blueberry Pound Cake, I opted to make some of my own using some frozen blueberries I had in my freezer that I had picked up at a farmer’s market. Although the book calls for a hour bake time, I am still noticing that I need more than that to make pound cake in my oven. I’ll have to figure that one out.

The result was amazing. The blueberries appeared to vanish leaving little blue pockets of “taste”; the result excellent. What a delicious breakfast to look forward to this week. Starbucks has nothing on this pound cake!

White Chocolate Chip & Macadamia Nut Cookies

Working with and revisiting ratios becomes easier and easier each and every time. Each experience builds confidence and understanding. Cassie made another special request which I was more than happy to comply with while experimenting a little. Her cookie desire this time was white chocolate chip with macadamia nuts cookies. Not having white chocolate chips nor macadamia nuts provided a good excuse to go grocery shopping to pick up additional ingredients such as flour, unsalted butter and sugar that I was running low on. To my surprise all of the sugar and unsalted butter were sold out.  There must must be a lot of baking going on in Boston.

For this cookie, I opted for a 1-1-1-1 ratio of butter, sugar,eggs and flour. I was hoping for a rich chewy cookie as described in the book. The eggs were there to provide a softer and airier crumb.

Speed and comfort using a scale are definitely noticeable now which is a great thing when in the kitchen. They help eliminate the little voice in your head that tells you that you don’t have the time, energy or desire to cook.

Once the dough was pulled I added in enough white chocolate chips and chopped macadamia nuts so that they were evenly distributed and easily visible. Using the drop method with a spoon I placed the cookie dough onto a baking sheet and put it into a 350 degree F oven.

After 15 minutes, the cookies were cooked through, although the edges were over-browned, translated as burnt. The dough had spread considerably and reminded me of the first time I attempted making the classic chocolate chip cookie variation when I broke in the new stand mixer. Despite the visual imperfections, the taste and texture were virtually flawless. Soft, chewy, some crunch and sweetness; this is what I was looking for. With more practice and experimentation I look forward to baking the “perfect” cookie.

Batter up! I’m now onto batters, the next part in the first section of Ratio in my Cooking Through Ratio series. Batters differ from doughs with one significant difference in that they contain more liquid than solids making them pourable. Another interesting thing about batters is that you can create them using the same ingredients and the same ratios but what matters most is the order that the ingredients are added and therefore batters are categorized by the method the ingredients are combined in. For instance batters can be classified by mixing method including the creaming method, foaming method, the straight mixing method or variations of them.

The first items under batters are the pound cake and sponge cake. At first I wondered why there were two seemingly different cakes under one chapter, but the reason became apparent quickly. A pound cake is 1 part fat (butter), 1 part sugar, 1 part egg, 1 part flour and is so named because a traditional cake uses a pound of each of the ingredients. A sponge cake is 1 part egg, 1 part sugar, 1 part flour and 1 part fat (butter). As with all ratios, the ratio dictates the order the ingredients are added and these cakes differ dramatically in terms of the order and therefore different methods.

The first cake to make was the pound cake. Pound cake brings back childhood memories of my grandmother. She used to love eating it and I would enjoy eating it with her.  Although we didn’t make it ourselves at home, we did enjoy cutting thick buttery slices from a box of Entenmann’s All Butter Loaf Cake. Sometimes strawberry jelly was added but it was just as good plain right out of the box. Making pound cake on my own was something I was looking forward to.

Last Thursday night while the oven was preheated to 325 degrees F, I got out my 9-inch loaf pan, measured out the ingredients, utilizing a half portion of the required ingredients and got to work. The mixer was placed on the counter, paddle attached. As the ratio indicates, the butter was put into the mixer bowl first and beat with the paddle attachment on at a medium speed. Sugar and salt were added and beat for a few minutes. This is technically the leavening stage in creaming method. As the sugar is beat into the butter, tiny air bubbles are formed. These pockets are what will expand during baking as the gas expands. The change in the butter is apparent as it becomes lighter in color as a result of the air pockets.

Pound Cake: Creaming Butter and Sugar

Eggs are added next one at a time so that they can be incorporated into the butter, sugar and salt. As the egg incorporates, the mixture appeared to become soupy and separate a bit. I was worried that the air bubbles in the butter were getting destroyed, but slowly everything started to blend together.

Pound Cake: Adding Eggs

At a lower speed the flour was added to the batter. As it was added slowly a dramatic change started to take place. The batter pulled together and the flour slowly absorbed some of the moisture. To ensure that not too much gluten was created, I made sure to only mix everything as long as it took to incorporate the flour as instructed.

Pound Cake: Adding Flour

The batter was quickly placed into the loaf pan and placed into the preheated oven.

Pound Cake: Batter Before Baking

After an hour I used a paring knife to check on the baking. It needed a bit more time, and 10 minutes later the cake was cooked through.

Baked Pound Cake

Once cooled, I sliced into the pound cake and was surprised by how dense and rich it was. My visual observations were confirmed with a delicious bite.

Pound Cake Slices

This pound cake differed a lot from the Entenmann’s that I remembered eating as a child, but was great nonetheless.  The texture and the sweetness were clear reminders of what this really was, a cake made in a loaf pan instead of a normal cake pan. Perception with food truly does have a powerful impact.

With the first cake batter completed, I continued on to sponge cake last night. As noted the ratio is the same, but it’s the method that differs. Sponge cake is what you think of when you think of birthday and layer cakes. I remember eating amazing homemade birthday cakes with raspberry or strawberry jelly between the layers and a sweet frosting growing up. Mom was not big on processed foods and boxes of cake mix. My sister Ashley and I ate the real deal, and so after reading over this ratio I was happy to see how easy making a good cake can be.

This cake started off with the foaming method whereby the whole eggs and sugar were first whipped in the stand mixer using the wire whisk attachment. This causes the eggs to triple in volume and produces bigger bubbles than the creaming method which yields a fluffier cake.

Sponge Cake: Whipping Eggs and Sugar

Once the eggs and sugar had foamed, vanilla was added and then the bowl was taken off of the stand mixer and flour was folded in gently using a spatula after it as aerated in a food processor. The folding of the flour into the egg Ruhlman points out helps preserve the network of bubbles created during the whipping.

Sponge Cake: Folding In Flour

Once the flour was folded in, melted butter was folded in as well. This was hard to incorporate and I felt like it didn’t quite combine like the other ingredients before it. It’s possible that I did not fold it in enough, although being the first time I was careful to not over-mix and destroy the bubbles.

Sponge Cake: Folding In Melted Butter

The fluffy batter was placed into a cake pan immediately and placed into the oven which had been pre-heated to 350 degrees F.

Sponge Cake: Poured Batter

After 40 minutes the cake was fully baked and pulled out f the oven.

Sponge Cake: Baked

Once it has sufficiently cooled, I cut a slice and was able to see the dense network of air pockets that were left from the bubbles in the batter.

Sponge Cake: Slice

Although the book instructions allowed for the addition of baking powder, I opted not to use any and focus on the ratio. I’m sure the baking powder would have provided a nice lift, but this cake was a perfect texture for adding some tasty Maine wild blueberry jam, that I picked up on our family trip to Kennebunkport a few months ago.

Sponge Cake with Wild Maine Blueberry Jam

Two cakes in less than a week are enough to ruin any diet, but in my quest to learn certain sacrifices must be made no matter how hard they are and how much I suffer. It’s a tough life that I live; I know this. At least this lesson is not tough to swallow.

Pâte à choux with Chocolate Ganache Topping

It has been a little over a week since my last post in this series, Cooking Through Ratio. I don’t know why this is the case. I could argue that life just gets in the way, but it’s more likely other contributing factors. Perhaps it’s the French name that doesn’t translate well into English. It could be the double cooking method combined with the fact that I have never made anything like it before. Perhaps it’s because when you mention pâte à choux by name no one knows what you are talking about. Whatever the reason or reasons tonight was the night. The choux would wait no longer.

Pâte à choux goes by many names such as its name in full, choux paste, cream puff dough, as well as erroneously puff pastry and can take many forms from sweet to savory, endure many cooking methods such as in water, in oil or in the oven and depending on the direction you want to take it can be used in any part of a meal. It comes at the end of doughs and provides a good segway to batters, the next part of this book section as it depending on the point of cooking falls between a dough and a batter.

Nothing fancy here. I opted to use the basic ratio of 2 parts liquid (water), 1 part fat (butter), 1 part flour and 2 parts eggs. To achieve a result such as a profiterole or cream puff I opted to add 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar as suggested by Ruhlman.

After assembling my mise en place, the water, butter, salt and sugar were brought to a simmer in a sauce pot. As instructed I added flour to the mixture, stirring vigorously until it was all combined and the flour had absorbed the liquid. At the expense of dirtying another kitchen item I transferred the “dough” to the stand mixer, letting it cool for a bit so the eggs would not curdle on contact, and added 1 egg at a time, waiting for each one to be incorporated into what was becoming a “batter”.

Pâte à Choux Batter

Once combined, I scooped out portions onto the parchment lined baking sheets using a table spoon. After the second or third it was immediately obvious why the preferred method of putting out pâte à choux is with a piping bag. As indicated in the book, the combination of ingredients probably took the same amount of time if not less to combine as it took the water, butter, salt and sugar mixture to come to a simmer. This stuff was easy.

Pâte à Choux Ready For Baking

I placed both baking sheets into the pre-heated oven at 425 degrees F. After 10 minutes, the heat was dropped down to 350 degrees F for another 10 minutes. This made sense when I thought about it. The rush of high heat at first would bring the temperature of the pâte à choux up quickly, creating steam and causing it to rise by creating air pockets. After the first wave of heat, the temperature was dropped to continue the baking process with less intensity. I could see similarities to biscuit dough minus any chemical leavening. I also saw parallels to cooking meat in the oven, where cooking at high heat creates a sear and crust on the outer layer, while dropping the heat down later allows for thorough cooking without drying out the meat. I digress.

When I took the baking sheets out of the oven, the pâte à choux on the top rack expanded at least twice as much as the ones on the lower rack. Overall everything had expanded in size and my anxiety quickly dissipated.  I was triumphant in making pâte à choux. Biting into one tasted great. It was light, airy, and had a subtle flavor allowing me to distinctly taste each key ingredient as I savored it in my mouth.

Pâte à Choux Baked

Although the flavor was good, I wanted to spice things up a bit with something sweet. I haven’t made it to the custards yet which left me without ice cream or a traditional cream filling for my creations. The easy solution to this problem was to create a simple chocolate ganache with what I had on hand being some chocolate morsels and some milk. The result was a smooth chocolate sauce that was the perfect compliment in both flavor and texture.

Pâte à Choux with Chocolate Ganache Topping

Tonight was a fun night and a great lesson in confidence. Batters are next which continue the caloric binge I have been enjoying thus far.

Freshly Baked Peanut Butter Cookies

It’s cookie night again tonight in my apartment.  I promised Cassie I would make her some for a care package to be mailed and by request made peanut butter cookies based on a recipe she found and has tasted. How does this fit with Michael Ruhlman’s cookie ratio you ask?

A cookie is a cookie. Cookies have different ingredients, but the requirement of sugar, fat and flour remain constant. These core ingredients, re-worked allow for variations on cookies allowing you to create cookies that are crispy, chewy, soft, hard, plain,  or chocolate and much more. The interesting thing about this cookie ratio is that it not only uses brown sugar instead of white, but the moisture and fat come from a combination of milk, shortening and an egg. Additional flavorings were added, but again the core remained the same.

I made everything in my stand mixer bowl as described and combined the ingredients using the paddle attachment. Once combined, I scooped tablespoon sized portions onto cookie sheets and baked them. 7 impatient minutes later and I was in peanut butter heaven.

Peanut Butter Cookies Cooling

The cookies are great and markedly different than the first batch of cookies I made last week. They are softer, chewier and more flavorful. There is a subtle balance of sweet along with the peanut butter and funny enough old mister shortening adds his unmistakable texture and moisture to the party. I’ll have to say one thing, working with butter and shortening is a nightmare. They make everything sticky and hard to clean, but the final product makes up for the hassle to some extent.

I am eager to substitute butter for the shortening the next time around which is actually the opposite of what is usually done to see how the change in fat affects the overall result. Butter having some water along with the fat should change things up a bit also. If only Alton Brown was around to help me do some quick math. I’ll have to wait for a day in the future and earlier hour to fully understand this ratio and how the changes in the basic ingredients lent themselves to producing this very different and very delicious final result.

Morning Biscuits

Sharing food with others is fun. Sharing food with my mom and the rest of the family is the most fun because I feel like my time and effort and the enjoyment they get from eating my food are a way of saying thanks for all that they have done and all that they do. I’m spending this weekend at my parents’ house to enjoy some time together before my sister Ashley goes back to college for her junior year.

Cooking in a kitchen that is not your own is very different as you search for ingredients, tools and layout your work space. Last night I surprised my mother by making the biscuit dough. She came down the stairs and found me in the kitchen at work in shock I am sure, just before we left to go see Julie and Julia. She doesn’t own a scale so I had to determine the ratio for biscuits by doing some research. Since she has measuring cups, I resolved to find out how many dry ounces of the ingredients were in a cup so I could easily measure them. I worked everything together into a dough that was very similar to my first experience making biscuits using Michael Ruhlman’s “Chicago 3-1-2 Biscuit Ratio”.

The dough was left to chill over night in the refrigerator. I woke up this morning to roll it out and fold it over several times. It seemed like smooth sailing from here. The oven was pre-heated to 400 degrees F and the biscuits were placed on a baking sheet and put in for 20 minutes.  As luck would have it, the thermostat was having problems again. She just had it replaced, but it was still being temperamental. Since we were in a rush to head out for our plans for the day, we probably committed a cardinal baking sin and cranked up the heat to 450 degrees to try to meet our deadline. Ten minutes later they were baked through and I received rave reviews from the family all around.

These were the perfect compliment to a sausage and egg breakfast. The biscuits were great served with strawberry jelly and butter while still hot. The kudos made them that much better.

Biscuits for Breakfast

The ratio for cookies is 1-2-3, 1 part sugar, 2 parts fat, 3 parts flour although I found this ratio to be anything but. As Michael Ruhlman describes, this is the ratio for a basic cookie, and not one that you would make normally, but one that helps you understand what a cookie is.

My sister Ashley joined me in the kitchen as a willing participant in the learning process. It hardly required any convincing given the subject matter and while also being a welcomed break from work she had left to do for her summer internship at my company.

Ashley worked on an old family recipe for oatmeal cookies while I made the basic cookie for comparison. Having never considered the recipe ratio before, it was interesting to note that it called for equal parts sugar (1 cup), butter (1 cup) and flour (1 cup) . The additions included oatmeal (2 cups), salt (1 tsp.) and baking soda (1 tsp).

The family recipe was easy to make. The instructions called for cutting the butter into the rest of the ingredients just like a pie dough. Once combined, the cookies were rolled into balls and flattened onto a pan with a fork. Ashley dropped mini-chocolate chips on some of them for fun. Why not right? We were just having fun.

Unbaked Oatmeal and Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

The Ruhlman ratio was less easy to make. The resulting dough didn’t seem moist enough and in fact, being so crumbly was hard to roll into a “log” to be sliced into cookies. I decided to portion it into two parts so I could experiment with a flavoring enhancement, specifically peanut butter. To make things manageable I opted to cool both doughs in the freezer for a bit, and with the butter more solid, I was able to roll the peanut butter cookies out and slice them. The basic cookie dough was rolled into balls much like the oatmeal cookies and left as such on the baking sheet.

Unbaked Basic Cookies

Unbaked Basic Peanut Butter Cookies

Each batch was baked in the oven which was preheated to 350 degrees F. The resulting aroma from all of the baking made us salivate with eager anticipation. Such a simple pleasure was about to be enjoyed.

With the cookies baked, we of course had more than we could eat ourselves without needing to join a weight-loss program. The oatmeal cookies were packed and saved for the office tomorrow.

Baked Oatmeal and Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

The basic cookies and peanut butter cookies were also packed and saved to be enjoyed later. These cookies did not spread out at all and the peanut butter ones especially look funny as they are so crisp. They almost look the same as they did before they were baked.

Baked Basic and Peanut Butter Cookies

I resolve to spend  some time with this ratio to test variations. Who wouldn’t want to? Cookies make the world go ’round.

Seasoned Fresh-made Pasta

Undaunted by my previous attempt, I set out to make pasta again. I had just read Dan Jablow’s recent post regarding pasta making, exchanged comments regarding and experiences and figured that part of my problem was not enough kneading in my previous attempt at making pasta. My second conclusion was that my previous pasta dough batch was not rolled out enough.

It’s amazing how much easier things are the second time around. I made enough dough for one instead of the much larger portion I made last time. The dough was rolled out thinner and allowed to rest for more time. I could tell right away when I cut the dough into strands that it would be more successful than the last time.

After the pasta was cooked, strained and plated I was immediately more satisfied. The taste was still there despite the smaller sized batch. It’s all about the ratio of ingredients right? It also was not as slimy as last time. This definitely boosted my confidence and I will be sure to try out future batches working with sauces and other seasonings for a different eating experience.

Look ma, yummy pasta!

Fresh-made Pasta

Baked Biscuit Square

The “cooking through ratio” series continues with “Chicago Biscuits”, so named by Michael Ruhlman because of their ratio of 3 parts flour, 1 part fat and 2 parts liquid (312, the Chicago area code). Biscuits are almost identical to pie dough with respect to their ingredients and flakiness resulting from multiple layers of dough separated by butter. They key difference is that biscuits contain less fat and more liquid. When baked, the extra liquid heats up and turns to steam, acting like a leavener and separating the layers to achieve the flakiness biscuits are known for.

I have made biscuits before, but as with many recipes I have followed in the past, I didn’t pay much attention to the ratio of ingredients. 9 ounces of flour, 2 ounces of cold butter diced, 6 ounces of milk, a teaspon of salt and 2 teaspoons of baking powder was an easy dough to make.

The instructions called for the combination of the ingredients in a mixing bowl while rubbing the diced butter into the flour. I opted to use my mixer since I had great success with it for the pie crust previously. After everything was combined I was a bit concerned because the dough was a gooey mass, and I couldn’t see how it could be rolled and folded to create layers of butter. The dough was formed into a disc and placed into the refrigerator for an hour to cool.

I decided that a silicone mat would be a good non-stick surface for it, and after flouring the mat and dough, rolled it out a first time. I folded it into thirds on top of itself and after flouring the dough lightly it began to roll easier.  I rolled it out again and folded it one more time before putting it back in the refrigerator for another hour as instructed. Again the dough was taken out, floured and rolled and folded two more times. I repeated  this process a total of three ties for a total of 6 folds.

Rolled Biscuit Dough

The dough was then divided into 6 squares. This was a suggestion of Ruhlman so as not to have to worry about wasted trim. This made things really easy. The layers were also visible after the cuts.

Rolled Biscuit Dough Squares

The biscuits were baked for 20 minutes at 400 degrees F, just after some pork ribs that I had baked for dinner and made for a great accompaniment to my dinner.

Baked Biscuit Squares

The layers were well defined and biscuits were really puffed up after baking. The folded edge compared to the cut edge made for an interestingly shaped final product that split right open in the center.

Split Baked Biscuit Square

Having baked a total of six biscuits and looking for a way to use more, I ended up making a strawberry shortcake/biscuit for dessert. These biscuits are neutral in taste and make for a great vehicle for taste going well with sweet and savory.

Strawberry Shortcake/Biscuit

All the folding and cooling of the dough made me lose my enthusiasm at first as I read the instructions in the book, but the final product again proved to be worth all the effort. You’ll have to get up early in the morning if you plan on eating these for breakfast due to all the folding and cooling. Folding is a step that can’t be skipped I imagine or the rise and flakiness simply wouldn’t be there in the final product. Variations in the number of folds as well as the types of fats and liquids used such as lard and buttermilk respectively will make for interesting and hopefully delightful eating experiences in the future.