Decorating with Fondant

Fondant is a sort of play-doh-ish textured icing of sorts. When you look at a wedding cake and think "wow, how did they get the icing so smooth?" you are probably looking at fondant.

You can purchase-premade fondant at craft stores (or wal mart, I get mine there as it's closer and cheaper- in the cake decorating section). It comes in blocks that are a bit stiff.

Ice your cake well with whatever kind of icing you want- butter cream or stuff that Betty Crocker makes. Use a goodly amount so that you don't end up spreading it out too much and getting it all crumby- you may think that the fondant will cover your mistakes, but you'd be wrong in that assumption. It hides no sins.

Dust the counter well with powdered sugar. Kneed the fondant as you would dough, using powdered sugar to coat your hands as you would flour. Kneed it until it's considerably softer and you could envision rolling it out. That's the next step, to be done with a rolling pin and yet more powdered sugar.

Roll it pretty thin- about 1/4 of an inch. It's difficult and takes a good deal of time. Make sure you've measured your cake- sides and top, and have a large enough piece to cover it. It won't do to be stretching it once it's placed.

Use two hands, or a hand and a rolling pin, to very quikly but gently pick up the fondant sheet and place it on the cake. Do your very best to center it on the first shot so that it doesn't have to go sliding around and messing things up.

Trim the fondant with a razor, but make sure you don't trim too much! You can cut slivers out to shape it around corners or round cakes, but coaxing it to stick to itself again is tricky. Use your fingers and some water.

You can color fondant with food coloring. The gel kind works better than the liquid, so try to find that. Just slip a bit on, then kneed the fondant until the color is completely evenly distributed (or you can easily marble it by stopping early). Fondant cutters are available (although cookie cutters would work well, too). Don't worry about powdered sugar on the colors- it wll come off fine.

To stick various fondant pieces to the cake, brush the backs with water and hold them firmly in place for a few seconds. When you're done, brush the colors with water and the powdered sugar will disappear

Leftover Turkey Chowder

2 cups turkey (or more if you want/have it), shredded

4 cups chicken broth

3/4 cups cream

1 1/2 cups milk

1 medium onion, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

1 container of shitake mushrooms, chopped

1/2 tbsp chopped garlic

1/2 cup butter

1 box gnocchi, prepared

3 tbsps flour

salt to taste

thyme to taste

Sweat the carrot and onion in the butter over medium heat. Add flour, then chicken broth. Add cream, milk, turkey, garlic and heat.

Prepare gnocchi according to directions (add to water at a rolling boil, cook for about 5 minutes, until they are floating). Add gnocchi and mushrooms, let it cook until mushrooms are tender. Add spices, feel free to add whatever you feel would be appropriate, the thyme is just a suggestion.

Mmm. This was a delicious was to get rid of leftover turkey!

Salmon Cakes

1 can pink salmon

1 cup breadcrumbs

2 green onions, chopped

1 egg

2 tbsps mayonnaise

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp Worchestershire

1/4 tsp cayenne

salt & pepper to taste

Oil for frying

Use enough oil to coat the bottom of a large frypan. Heat over a medium high heat.

Combine all the ingredients in a medium bowl. Remove as much of the skin and fat as you can.

Shape the salmon mixture into patties, relatively thin and as big as you want- larger for sandwiches, smaller for snacking or meals.

Set the salmon cakes gently into the oil, be careul of splattering oil. Cook until nice and golden brown on both sides, about 5 minutes per side.

Sweet Potato Fries

3 large sweet potatoes

3 tbsps olive oil

2 tsps dried thyme

2 tsps dried rosemary

1 tsp salt

Wash the sweet potatoes very well with a scrubber. Slice them up into vaguely fry-shaped pieces. Remember, the thinner they are the faster they cook.

Toss the pieces on olive oil, and lay them out on cookie sheets on some parchment paper (or silicone mat, or nothing if you like scrubbing cookie sheets). Sprinkle the herbs evenly across them.

Preheat the over to about 425, and place the cookie sheets in. Let them cook for about 15 minutes, until their undersides are nice and browned, flip, repeat.

Sprinkle the salt over when they come out of the oven.

Wow these were great! Soft (the 'fry' part comes from the shape- they aren't crunchy, but they can be finger food) and sweet, salty and savory. They got rave reviews at the dinner table, and I can't wait to make them again!

Quote:

We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink... ~Epicurus

Herbal Tea Gelato

(requires ice cream maker)

3 1/4 cup whole milk

8 bags herbal tea (your choice)

1/4 powdered/dry milk

8 large egg yolks

1 cup sugar

1 cup heavy cream

Place the milk in a medium saucepan, heat to a simmer, stirring constantly.

Pour half of the milk over the tea bags and let them steep for 30 minutes. Add the powdered milk to the half still in teh saucepan, and keep it warm over low heat while the tea steeps.

Beat the eggs and sugar together, then slowly (while stirring) pour the warm milk from the saucepan into the egg mixture. Make sure the milk isn't too hot or it will cook the eggs in a way that you don't want, and make sure you're stirring and pouring slowly.

Pour the egg-milk and the tea-milk into the saucepan, and heat it to 180, stirring with a wooden spoon. Make sure it reaches 180 for reasons of health. You're working with eggs, and this is as cooked as it gets. The mixture will at this point have thickened considerably, and probably have gross lumps in it.

Strain the custard through a strainer, then add the cream. Pop it in the fridge overnight.

Pour the gelato into your ice cream maker, and make it according to your instructions (probably for 20-25 minutes). Transfer the soft gelato into an airtight container and freeze it harder if desired.

Gelato is Italian for 'ice cream with tons of fat' or something like that. But it's incredibly creamy (no graininess ir ice crystals at all!) and delicious. The amount of sugar is unfortunately necessary for reasons of texture, but it also really enhances the flavor of the tea, of which there is tons. I've made it with Celestial Seasoning's Honey Vanilla Chamomile, and I'm looking forward to making Chai, green, and whatever other flavors I happen across in the tea isle. Happy freezing!

Pulled Beef Barbeque

3 lb rump roast

1 medium onion, diced

1/3 cup commercial BBQ sauce

3 tbsps molasses

1/4 cup ketchup

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tbsps liquid smoke

1 tbsp chili powder

2 tsps salt

1 tsp cumin

Trim as much fat as possible from the roast.

Stick it all in a crock pot on high for...6 hours or so. Until you can pull the meat apart with two forks and make barbeque out of it. You'll need to use a slotted spoon to take it out so that you can drain a lot of the fluid (hang on to it for sandwiches if you want them juicier).

I cooked mine for several hours on low the first day, but the bread I was baking didn't make it. So it got stuck in the fridge overnight for the next day, which provided me the opportunity to take a ton of solidifed fat off the top. Then I took it out, turned it on high for about 2 hours, then on low until we ate. I got lots of compliments!

Quote:

Great food is like great sex. The more you have the more you want. ~Gael Greene

Focaccia

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/8 tsp instant yeast

2 cups minus 2 tbsp room-temp water

3/4 tsp sugar

3/4 tsp salt

2 tsps dried rosemary

1/2 tsp course sea salt

Mis the dough in a mixer with a paddle attachment- start with the flour and yeast, then add the water. It will be very very soupy, you'll never think it can create bread.

Mix for about 20 minutes on a medium speed (note: I would not advise trying this by hand, your arm would fall off). The dough will slowly slowly get more stringy as gluten networks form. If after 20 minutes it's still soupy and not at all pulling away from the sides, add a bit more flour a teaspoon at a time until it gathers on the paddle in a ball. Add the sugar and salt and beat it for 3-5 more minutes.

Scapre the dough into a lightly greased container, and let it rise in the oven (oven off, light on) for 4 hours until doubled. It took mine a full 4 hours.

Plop the dough onto a lightly greased piece of parchment paper in a very large baking sheet. I'm adding this recipe before I perfected it- I didn't use the parchment paper, and mine burned around the edges where there was excess olive oil. It stuck a fair bit to the pan, too, so I'll try it next time with the parchment paper. Spread it out gently, maintaining all the gas in the dough, as much as you can without it ripping. Let it rest for 10 minutes (the gluten will relax and it will be able to stretch more). Stretch it out some more.

Preheat the oven to 475 an hour in advance, and place a baking stone on a shelf in the bottommost position.

Cover the stretched out dough with a well oiled piece of Press N Seal, and let it rise for about another hour or so, until it has gained 50 percent of it's size again.

Sprinkle on the rosemary and sea salt evenly over the surface, place in the oven gently.

Bake for about 13 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

This bread is lovely and tasty and chewy with a nice crust. The (incredibly) high moisture content means that it has nice lovely holes that I love so much. None of us could keep our hands off of it! I'm going to try baking it a bit longer directly on the stone to beef up the crust and using it for sandwiches. But for now it's nice to just eat as is!

Quote:

[Breadbaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world's sweetest smells... there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel, that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread. ~M.F.K. Fisher