Night of the Choctopus!

A long, long time ago, my younger sister, aware of my love of cephalopods, gifted me with a cake pan molded in the shape of an octopus.  It's a super-complicated, bundt-style pan from Williams Sonoma, and perhaps unsurprisingly they discontinued it a long time ago.  But I have one.

I'm not actually a great cake baker -- I'm often intimidated by them, something about the creaming butter and sugar for the right length of time, it just seems like a lot can go wrong.  I mean, I can make a pound cake.  And I'm good at brownies. But a cake, of that magnitude, in that pan...

So although I've had this amazing pan for ages, I've never been brave (or foolish) enough to try it out.

Until now.

I was going to meet friends for dinner and a game, and I volunteered to bring dessert. And I looked at the pan, and thought about it, and decided, "I'm not going to make an octopus. But I will make a choctopus!"

After looking around at assorted advice on chocolate bundt cakes, and rejecting recipes that began "take a box of devil's food mix and add a box of brownie mix to it...," I set my sights on King Arthur Flour's chocolate bundt recipe, which seemed surprisingly simple. 

I was a little concerned about having enough batter to fill the octo-pan, but comparing quantities of flour and such, I decided it should work fine.

I don't have step-by-step photos of the process here, but one thing that attracted me to the King Arthur recipe is that you melt the butter (with chocolate and cocoa and coffee) before adding it to a bunch of dry ingredients.

Although it's ostensibly nonstick anyway, I really, really, sprayed the inside of the pan well.

A good trick I read for these complex pans is to put just a little batter in at first and coat the more complex bits with a fine layer, tapping the pan as you go to minimize the chance of air bubbles messing up the form.  Then go back and fill the pan the rest of the way

Another good trick was to put it on a sheet pan, to catch any spillovers while baking, but also to make it much easier to move it into, and especially out of, the oven.

I had a brief panicky moment when i realized I don't have any skewers around the house.  Would a toothpick suffice for the classic cake done-ness test?  Would it probe deeply enough into the dark heart of the choctopus?

These are the things I worry about when I bake.

Here is what the underside of the choctopus looked like fresh out of the oven:

Promising, I thought.  But would it come out in one piece?  Would i have to do choctopus surgery?  Would I have to hope it could, as some cephalopods can, regenerate a severed arm?

Indeed, no.  BEHOLD THE CHOCTOPUS!

Fresh out of the pan, it was a little shiny, probably due to the care I took oiling it.  Fortunately, I'd made the thing a day in advance.

I knew I didn't want to cover up any of the details with icing, but shortly before setting out to dinner, I tried dusting it with powdered sugar.

I wasn't super happy with that result.  If I had all the time and patience in the world, I would've made little masks for the details, the shells and starfish and the eyes of the choctopus, and dusted to highlight those.  As it was, like a light coating of snow, I think even the small amount of sugar I put on just obscured the details of what is a very detailed cake.  Just serve it naked with some vanilla ice cream and call it a day, is my recommendation.

By the time we ate it, though, the powder had settled into the cake somewhat, and it was pretty much exactly what one would want in a chocolate octopus bundt cake.

Finally, the insides.  It was a most excellent chocolate cake indeed.  I can't think of what would make it better.  It had a very fine crumb, it was rich and dense but not heavy, it was moist, it was intensely chocolatey. King Arthur Flour wanted a cup of coffee in the mix, I used instant espresso instead, but either way, it really works to give a grown-up complexity to the chocolate.

My friends were all impressed and happy with the choctopus, too.  I look forward to more cakes, and more reasons to bake cakes, in my near future.

And finally, I'll just reiterate, for anyone seeking a great chocolate bundt cake recipe, I highly recommend the King Arthur Flour one.

The Christmas Babka

 

Way more photos than usual in this entry, but (a) this was a pretty involved thing, (b) I'm inordinately proud of my Christmas babka achievement, and (c) I was joined by a very special sous chef for this Hawaiian holiday cooking adventure, my niece Bella, who is 5 and a half.

Let's rewind.  When I first saw Ottolenghi's Krantz cake recipe in Jerusalem, it was the kind of recipe where my immediate reaction was "no way will I ever cook that."  Partly that's because I don't have a stand mixer, but partly it just looked hard.  And for all that I'm an ambitious and sometimes even daring cook, I'm also fundamentally a pretty lazy one.  Hence no-knead bread.

But I'd had it in mind, and when I was thinking about what I might want to try out on my family over the holidays, and my mom said we were volunteering to bring dessert for Christmas dinner, it seemed an opportune moment to attempt the Ottolenghi babka.

I don't know why I do these things, it's the height of arrogance or dumbness to try something, especially something complicated, for the first time for other people.  But, I was on the hook, so away we went.

'Twas the night before Christmas, and dough needed making.  

Were it not for the Kitchenaid, much time 'twould be taking.

Here it is freshly mixed, and again after resting

With much sugar and flour and some lemon from zesting.

We'd be making two babkas, not three and not one,
The first filled with chocolate, the other, cinnamon.



It was Xmas day and the babka dough rolled
When into the kitchen my little niece strolled.

She surveyed the scene and my own furrowed brow,
And she said "Uncle Joe, can I help you somehow?"

So together we decorated the freshly flat dough
With nuts and the toppings strewn to and fro.

And carefully I rolled a tight babka cigar,

And a split and a twist and voila there we are.

Into pans for a rest and a rise then the fire

All the work and attention had caused us to tire.



It was messy but easy, well, less hard than I thought,

And in the end vastly better than had we store bought.

Admire the crumb, look at that great braid
And this my dear readers, is how a babka is made.

Humble apologies to Clement Clark Moore and Dr. Seuss both.  I didn't really think I was going to end up in verse the whole way through.  And thank you to my sister Joelle, who documented the event.  And to Bella, for being a great assistant. Merry Babka!

Ottolenghi Roasted Vegetables & Tahini Cookies

Had friends over for dinner last night and sous-vided (that's a verb by now, right) a pork tenderloin for the second time.  That may become my go-to main course for company.  So simple, cooks perfectly, and it gives me an excuse to show off the immersion circulator.

Anyway, to balance the easy main, I broke out Plenty and made Ottolenghi's roasted vegetables with vinaigrette.

I had an mild disagreement with a friend recently who complained that his recipes are too involved and she finds herself cutting corners when she makes them, with results that are just about as good. To which I say, is that a criticism or a compliment?  In my mind, if a recipe inspires you to combine flavors you might not have otherwise, or try a new technique, then it's done its job. 

I expect that any of us who are good cooks automatically adapt or alter just about any recipe we make.  Add more of a favorite vegetable, substitute away from an herb we're not partial to or don't have on hand. Reduce the salt or butter or whatever. Or change it if something doesn't quite make sense--for example this dish called for 4 red onions, which can't possibly be right--are American red onions way bigger than British ones? Ottolenghi encourages adaptation and alteration -- he usually suggests ways to change or simplify himself in the recipe intros.

Anyway, red onion overload notwithstanding, this is a terrific recipe. I roast vegetables just fine, thank you (in addition to red onion, this combined sweet potato, parsnip, cherry tomato, and a whole head of garlic along with sprigs of rosemary and thyme). But I've never bothered making a dressing for them before. Ottolenghi tosses these with olive oil, lemon juice, capers, maple syrup and Dijon mustard. Which I almost certainly would not have thought to combine on my own, but wow.  So much flavor, and yet without overwhelming the inherent flavors in the vegetables.  I can't wait to try this again, and I'm actively looking forward to tweaking it.  And as with so many of his dishes, it's beautiful--great color and gusto and verve, and half a head of garlic always adds visual as well as flavor appeal.  And it combined super-well with the pork, too.

I did a variation on his spinach salad with dates, nuts, and pita croutons, which I've made so many times I don't even look at the recipe anymore.  At this point, I think I can claim it as my own, or at least a "Joetolenghi" creation.

Finally, because I was feeling ambitious, or maybe because I opted not to bake bread, I also whipped up a batch of his Tahini Cookies, from Jerusalem.

 

Exactly as one might expect, they are peanut butter cookies meet halva, a very shortbready sort of crumb with a really nice sesame flavor. About as simple as could be to make, and yet impressively unusual and tasty just the same.

Taste of the Old Country: Haupia

There are a few foods from the land of my childhood that instantly take me home, and that I'll even admit to craving once in a while. Spam is the stereotypical Hawai'i food; I don't crave that very much any more, but who can resist once in a while?

Malasadas (from Tex's Drive In, not homemade), the Portuguese fried dough, do it to me too, even in these carb conscious times. Boiled peanuts, kalua pork, a good poké...

The other day, I got a craving for haupia, Hawaiian coconut pudding. And rather than ignoring, I decided to take action.  Here's the ghostly white result.

 

I don't understand why I've never made this before.  Sugar, cornstarch, a little water, and a can of coconut milk.  It's pretty fool-proof, and if not the healthiest, not the unhealthiest, either.

It definitely reminded me of my native land, in a good way.  And it drove home to me what a good canvas haupia would be for other flavors.  I'm thinking I should make it again but add some crushed cardamom pods during the simmering phase...  Maybe middle-eastern/Hawaiian is the next big fusion cuisine?

Hot Fudge Pudding Eclipse Cake

I had people over for the at-perigee lunar eclipse last weekend. My building has a pretty good roof deck and if the moon is going to go from Supermoon to OHMYGOD NO MOON in a matter of an hour or so, better to have company. The menu was pretty simple, my friend N. brought a salad, and I roasted a couple of pork tenderloins and made macaroni and cheese (from scratch, my proprietary recipe).

I wanted to do something appropriate for dessert--I figured something very dark would be right.  So in looking through my cook's illustrated database, once I decided I wasn't making moon cookies, a hot fudge pudding cake seemed like the thing.

HFPC (since I'm already tired of typing it out) is fun and super-simple. A single batter turns into a brownie-ish cake layer on top and a rich pudding layer down below. I love the recipe because, first, it's ridiculously delicious (if a little unsightly-- Cooks Illustrated says it's too 'homely' to make for company). And second, it's one of those recipes that totally looks like you're doing it wrong.

You start with a standard-looking, brownie-like batter.

Then you sprinkle a combo of cocoa, brown sugar, and regular sugar over the top.

THEN, you gently pour a cup of coffee over the whole thing (you can use water too).  So it goes into the oven looking like nothing so much as an overwatered potted plant, or a flash flood in a very brown desert.

Unpromising!

And yet, somehow, in the oven, the cake part bakes, puffs, and floats, while the coffee melds with the cocoa and sugar and sinks to the bottom and congeals into a pudding. Darned if I know how it works, but it's some of the very best kind of kitchen magic.

And, agreed, Cook's Illustrated, the finished HFPC is "homely."  But my gosh, if the moon is going to vanish possibly never to return, it's a fine way to say farewell. The cake vanished pretty quickly, too.

Here's the moon rising over the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, by the way.

Puff Pastry Class at ICE

On Saturday morning, my friend Rachel and I took a class at the Institute of Culinary Education, on "Fast Puff Pastry." I confess I suggested it kind of as a lark, because puff pastry is one of those things that's really better bought, frozen, rather than making it from scratch.  And it's not like I ever use the stuff, anyways.  And how fast can you really make it?

This was one of those great classes, because I went in with one mindset and I came out with quite another.  My eyes were opened!  Puff pastry is incredibly easy to make!  It's so fast!  And so versatile.  You can do anything with it.  I may never make bread again.

I didn't actually think to photograph the process of making it (dough!).  But if you saw how easy it was, well...some things are better left unkown.  To the left is my dough, after a well deserved rest in the fridge.

First, here's some farfalle (not the pasta, but rather spidery things that we did with cinnamon sugar):

A little rolling a little slicing a little chilling a little press-and-twist, some time in the oven and voila!

Rachel made a very nice tart shell, involving docking (with a docker!) the pastry (putting tons of holes in it), building little side walls, and pre-baking.

We went a little crazy with making things, frankly, but in the best possible way.  I'm totally inspired, and my next cocktail party will be laden with enough buttery, flaky canapes to kill a small hoofed animal.

A few more to leave you with:  Rachel's Apple Almond Tartlet, Paprika-Parmesan Palmiers, and Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Mille-Feuilles.

Brunch at the Met

Met a friend of mine from Columbia who also likes to eat. Our plan on a fairly flamingly hot July day was to go see "Flaming June," temporarily on exhibit at the Frick Collection, then head up to the Met Members Dining Room for a decadent brunch, followed by a turn around the museum. First off, here's June just in case you don't know her.  What a color!

I love the Member Dining Room. The Member-ness of it gives an air of exclusivity (I remember when it was the TRUSTEES Dining Room and members were only allowed in the summer...)  and makes me feel like I'm putting my membership (mom gifts it to me for my birthday every year) to good use.

The vibe is very 70s, lots of wood panelling, but a need for a refresh is incredibly easy to forgive when you get ushered to the Panglossian best of all possible tables and feel like all of Central Park is your own private garden.

The service was excellent, the food delicious, the company fun, and, it can't be said often enough, that view...

Started with a bloody mary and a basket of excellent assorted bread (Cleopatra's needle in the background).
















Moved on to a blue crab salad with a bit of mango and a dollop of avocado puree--and a fried strip of plantain, which I assume makes it all seem terribly exotic to the blue-haired matrons who dominate the Met patron-base.








Then I went for eggs benedict (with salmon and spinach) which I admit is an awfully tame choice, but sometimes the classic brunch dish is just the thing.

And I finished with a slice of almond tart, with a little panna cotta to keep it company. To me, even more than day-drinking, day-desserting is a sure sign of decadence.

Felt pretty much like June herself after that meal--very ready to nap a hot afternoon away. Thankfully John Singer Sargent's portraits and some mind-blowing art from Decca in India kept us on our feet.