Cream Puffs

They say things skip a generation. Diabetes, twins, blue eyes and oddly enough the love for cooking (at least on the maternal side). Some of these are urban legends, people's way of rationalizing seemingly absurd circumstances. Some are rooted in genetic fact. Others are simply based on my observations about my family.

My grandmother is an amazing cook. On Christmas she single handedly makes cardamom bread, a lemon loaf, Irish soda bread, roasted cornish game hens, (my grandpa contributes pasta and bolognese sauce), and cream puffs.

Her mother used to bring the cream puffs and when she died, my grandma took over the very important task: making the food that everyone looks forward to no matter their age or how full they are. Like I said, it skipped a generation, and my mother believes that a nice home cooked meal means the chefs at al di la will cook it for us and then afterwards we'll walk home and talk about it.

She actively despises cooking, even though she does it very well with recipes she's comfortable with. However, we would never stand in the kitchen side by side, baking to our hearts' content and bonding in the process, the sweet image of a mother and her daughter. Rather, my father and I are the ones who have always baked together and now my grandmother and I have found yet another pastime that we both enjoy.

My family doesn't have many heirlooms, but the skill of cooking has been passed down from generation to generation, whether or not it was accepted and utilized. So my cream puffs were inspired by the first baker in my family, who stood at an oven overlooking the mountains of Recoaro Terme, Italy, making custard and chocolate just so that one day I might also (or maybe they just wanted to eat the cream puffs).

I began by making the pastry. I first boiled 1 cup of water with 6 tbs butter and then added the liquid to 1 cup flour, a dash of salt and 1 tsp sugar. I stirred the mixture with a whisk until the dry and wet ingredients were incorporated into little balls.

Then I proceed to add 4 eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix this until the dough is homogenous and smooth. I greased a cookie tin and spooned on 12 mounds of dough. They don't rise too much so don't worry about them sticking together, but evenly spaced is best.

The oven was set to 400 F and they baked at that temperature for 15 minutes. Then I decreased the temperature to 350 and baked for 30 minutes. The insides will never become like the outsides, so don't worry if they're mushy since the next step is to take them out of the oven, cut off the tops and spoon out the insides completely. Put them back in the oven for 3-5 minutes so they're nice and crisp.

I let these cool in the fridge for an hour or two and in the meantime I made the custard and chocolate sauce. To make the custard, heat 2 1/2 cups of milk until there are tiny bubbles around the rim. In a separate bowl, whisk together 3/4 cup sugar and 5 egg yolks and finally 2/3 cup flour. Add the milk to this and whisk together.

Then return all the mixture to the pot and continuously stir for about 5 minutes or until it has thickened into a custard like form (this is its final consistency, it won't get thicker while it chills). Finish the custard by adding 2 tbs butter and 1 tbs vanilla extract (after the flame has been turned off). Stir until the butter melts and then put this is the fridge for 2 hours or the freezer for 1 (which is what I did).

The chocolate should be made as close as you can to when you're loading the puffs with cream. I used 1 ounce (1 square) of baker's chocolate and 1 tbs butter. I melted the chocolate and butter together and then added 2 tbs water and 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar. Continue stirring over the flame until it becomes smooth.

Then I added a few tablespoons of cream to each puff and closed the lids on them (adding cream to the lids as well so they stuck) and then drizzled chocolate on the tops. We ate them with raspberries and after all those years of helping my grandma assemble cream puffs for the entire family, I felt initiated: I have made cream puffs on my own.

Lemon Macarons with Chocolate Cardamom Ganache

I really don't want to bore you with my macaron posts. But they're so damn delicious that I can't seem to stop myself from making them. I promise more variety, but these, in my own defense, were a birthday present for my aunt. The goodies I bake generally don't have a very large distribution radius. Actually, it usually extends slightly past the kitchen into my bedroom. 

As a result, my family members and certain friends, have pointed out that I need to share more. It's not that I want them for myself (well a little), it's just the logistics of not eating the treats until I can give them to people are close to impossible. 

Anyhow, I make special exceptions for birthdays, and since my aunt has been wanting to eat more than the one cookie or tart I bring her on occasion, I thought that would be a wonderful present. I asked her to give me some flavors that she liked, and she told me her favorites were chestnuts, chocolate, cardamom and citrus. As you can tell from the title of my post, I was able to incorporate 75% of them into one small cookie. Pretty impressive if I don't say so myself.

I was planning to grind up chestnuts and use them in lieu of almond flour, but then I realized that they're not in season and I would be hard pressed to find them in the short amount of time I had at my disposal. I adapted, and decided that I would use lemon zest in the shells and make chocolate gananche. 

Then I remembered the cardamom that I bought at Sahadi's over spring break, just sitting in the cupboard, asking to be whisked into the pot with the cream, butter and chocolate. So I spooned what amounted to be about 1 tsp of cardamom into the ganache. Click on this link if you want to understand what this tasted like.  

For the cookies, I used bravetart's recipe, but I baked the cookies for 20 minutes instead of 18 and added the zest of one lemon to the egg whites and some yellow food gel. Ideally I'd bake the cookies for longer but I didn't plan my day very well. The ganache is very simple. Take 1/2 cup of heavy cream and bring it to a slight boil. 

Then turn off the flame and add 4.5 ounces of semi/bittersweet chocolate chips and a bit of butter (2 tsp at most). Stir until its a homogenous mixture and then add the cardamom. It will be very liquidy so you must put it in the fridge for a few hours to harden. When you're macarons have cooled, spoon out just a tsp of ganache onto one side and gently press the shells together. Voila. 

The plate that the macarons were on was part of the present and my aunt's face just lit up when she realized that they were all for her (except for the 6 that everyone else in the family ate). Homemade gifts are just the best, and while it was certainly tastier, I don't know if I could ever beat the mobile I made her out of pencils and paper-cranes when I was 8. She seemed to love it nonetheless.

Aunt Carolyn with her gift

Black Pepper Ice Cream

I actually thought that no flavor combination could beat the cardamom ice cream that I made a few weeks ago. Perhaps that was a correct assessment, but this taste was at least tied. It's unconventional and definitely odd to put a spicy, savory flavor into a dessert and I am the plainest jane that there is, but the contrast between the vanilla cream and the peppercorn is dramatic to say the least. If your mouth is too hot from the pepper, the milk neutralizes your taste receptors making for a pleasant journey into the kingdom of spectacular ice cream.

Last week, I was at al di la, a northern Italian restaurant in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The Slope is slightly lacking in quality food, especially for dinner, but al di la's cuisine truly makes up for the relative mediocrity of the neighborhood's fare. When I first started going to al di la, I was a little girl completely disinterested in what the menu had to offer. I knew what I wanted before I went into the restaurant and while the grownups placed orders for exotic dishes like risotto negro and tortelli di zucca burro e salvia, I promptly requested pasta and butter.

I can't even begin to impart to you the regret I feel today at having wasted so many opportunities to eat some of the most delicious food in New York City, but I do understand that I liked plain food that didn't intimidate my unseasoned palate. What I'm trying to say, is that I forgive little Nika for her misguided orders for all those years.

When I was five, my parents and I went to Italy for two weeks and while we were there, I became very sick. After wandering through the streets of Venice all day trying to find the hospital, we decided that we needed food and returned to the restaurant we had been going to for the past few nights.

I don't know how accurate the rest of my recollection is, but I remember that we had the same waiter every night. I used to know his name; in fact I think I even wrote him a card from Brooklyn. He tried to trick me into eating but I held out, the pickiest and most stubborn customer he had ever served.

Determined not to feed me pasta and butter while I was in Venice, he told me that he had prepared goldfish for me. Something about his description must have intrigued me because I ate what he brought me ravished after being sick all day. Looking back it was probably some white fish, breaded and fried. I had to hand it to him though, he got me to eat, simple as the dish was, and my parents were grateful.

While I am still rather selective in what I choose to eat (I do have some bizarre dislikes including but not limited to eggs, raisins, peanut butter and pancakes), I have become more adventurous. And so the last time I was at al di la, I had black pepper ice cream for dessert. It's really difficult to impart the flavor of this dish particularly because we rarely have pepper as the primary ingredient in food and thus we haven't all isolated its taste for an immediate association. But please, take my word for it and one day when you're inspired, try it.

I used the same base ice cream recipe as I did in the cardamom ice cream post, but with slight variations. Instead of adding cardamom and vanilla to the milk, cream and sugar, I added 1 tablespoon of peppercorns, which I ground in a mortar and pestle. Eventually these peppercorns will be sifted out, so don't worry about the texture. I also added 1 tsp vanilla extract, although you can use 1/2 of a vanilla bean instead.

Before I added the 3 cups of cream to the mixture, I sifted out the peppercorns and then added 1 1/2 tbs of ground pepper. I also added about 1 tbs of the sifted out peppercorns back in. Be careful not to overload with spices and taste the batter before you add each tbs. I put it in the fridge for three hours, which was not enough, so I suggest leaving it all day or overnight. I saved it by putting the batter in the freezer still in the ice cream bowl for 30 minutes (not recommended) and then finished mixing. I froze it in containers and now I have pepper ice cream to my heart's content.

The once plain jane, who ordered pasta and butter no matter where she was, has graduated into the realm of exotic flavors and cuisines. She is surprised by the adventurous spirit that lay dormant in her for so many years. Welcome to this brave new world.

Strawberry Meringue Tartlets

This was my very first grownup Easter. By that I mean, it was the first holiday where I switched roles: from egg seeker to egg hider. Up until a very short while ago, I was still the kid on certain holidays, and that is still the case for Christmas. I absolutely, positively believe in Santa Claus. I'm not ready to become the magic behind Christmas just yet, but for Easter, well...it just happened.

Instead of falling asleep after writing a note to the Easter Bunny and leaving it carrots and celery, and then waking up the next morning to find the hidden eggs, I hid the eggs. My cousin Harper and I buried them around the house (with a detailed inventory and treasure map so we didn't find a hard-boiled egg two weeks later), in a wine glass, on a book, in a rose plant and under the tail of a wooden duck.

Not only did we hide all the eggs for our little cousin, we wrote her back as the Easter Bunny confirming that yes, it does hang out with Santa Claus but not so much with the Tooth Fairy. She was very impressed with our handiwork and even showed me the note the next morning.

I read it back to her as if I were seeing it for the first time, impressed with my countenance. Even though we had successfully pulled off perhaps one of the most important elements of Easter and childhood, I felt a pang of disappointment or perhaps a growing pain.

My 18th birthday this past March definitely made me feel like a grownup, but it wasn't until Sunday that I felt completely initiated. I passed down the magic, the wonderful and fundamental charade that extends childhood until the child catches on.

Harper, breaking his 10 year old tough guy act for a second, confided in me that he missed hunting for the eggs a little bit. I did too, but the feeling of perpetuating this critical illusion for the little ones felt just as good.

For Easter, I decided to make Strawberry Meringue Tartlets from the Rose Bakery cookbook. Their recipe was for rhubarb meringue but I couldn't find rhubarb anywhere so I substituted the rhubarb with strawberries and made a very tart compote. To make the compote I used 1 lb of strawberries (4 cups sliced), 2 lemons and the zest of one, 3 1/3 tbs brown sugar, 1 1/2 tsp ground cardamom.

Mix it all together and stir over a medium high heat until it boils. Then cook it on a medium temperature until the strawberries are very soft and the entire mixture can be mashed together. I couldn't find a potato masher, but that would be a great tool to use to blend the chopped strawberries with the liquid. I let this cool for the remainder of my baking time and in the meanwhile I made the crust.

I used tiny tartlet tins this time for individual tarts and I made two batches, yielding 12 tartlets in total. For the crust, I  kneaded 3 1/3 cups flour with 2/3 cup sugar and 1 1/2 cups butter. Then I added 1 tsp vanilla extract, a pinch of salt, 2 egg yolks and 1 egg and mixed it all together with a fork. I finished it off by kneading it with my fingers to make a homogenous mass of dough and rolled it out on wax paper, half at a time. I buttered the tins and then put the dough into each one and refrigerated for 30 minutes. Feel free to brush with a beaten egg before adding the filling for a glazed texture.

When they were done, I put tin foil in each tart and poured rice to their brims, to keep the shells down during the pre-baking stage. I baked the shells for 20 minutes at 350 F and then let them cool while I made the meringue. I beat 6 egg-whites and gradually added 1 3/4 cup sugar (continuously beating until there are stiff and glossy peaks) and then I folded in 1 tsp vanilla extract, red wine vinegar and cream of tartar.

I then spooned strawberry compote into each shell (3/4 full) and baked them without the meringue for 5 minutes. Then I took them out of the oven and spooned on the meringue and placed them back in for 20 minutes. The meringue should not be hard like in the cookies of the same name, but it should be browned on the outside.

Everyone got one tartlet (well, I had 1 1/2) and enjoyed it immensely. My cousin, Alexa, was my baking assistant and did everything from adding the sugar to the meringue to cutting the strawberries.

She also never caught on that I was her Easter Bunny and I hope that she, and all the other little skeptics out there, will have a few more years of magic left before they become the Easter Bunny for the next generation.