No Snow!

February 17, 2007

All the snow has been cleared, since two days ago, from the roads. Indeed, we have snow, but now it is only picturesque snow.

Come one, come all! Enjoy!

Got Snow?

February 14, 2007

Yup. Finally some Winter! We have a little snow up here but don’t worry, the snow is supposed to stop by tomorrow morning and the roads will be clear by tomorrow. So, everyone coming in March, in like an emu out like a tapir, don’t sweat it. This is the last gasp of Winter.

So, sign up now. At least you’ll get snow. Paul George’s class barely got snow. Pictures coming.

I’ve been taking an individual pastry course. Making small cakes and stuff. Nice. Wait to you try my new desserts. Yippee!

Pastriarama

February 11, 2007

Well, I just put out eclairs (home made and newly made so they were still crispy, yum), with two different fillings. One with an Italian Cream and the other with a mascarpone filling, sweetened and with Grand Marnier. You make elcairs from pate a choux, btw.

So far this week, I made lamb en croute, that’s puff paste, Cornish pasties, that’s more like a pie dough, puff paste smiles, sort of like a palmier, made out of puff paste.

So the menu this week was, lamb, chicken and the last dish was mostly veggies but contained ham and bacon (from Alan Benton) in the pasty. The pasty were only 5 inch versions. Small but comforting. This year is comfort food.

Remember, this is also winter food. So, in the summer, I’ll lighten it up a bit. And you may only get one or two pastries. 😉 But weren’t those French black winter truffles (Perigord) great?

Hot Chocolate Foam

February 10, 2007

Sure, anyone can do a cold chocolate foam, like this one! But how do you make a hot chocolate foam? How would you combine them?

It’s easy and here is how you do it.

Take 4 egg yolks and heat them in a large bowl. I use direct heat, you can use a double boiler. Add simple syrup, I use 3 cups sugar, 2 cups water, 2 T lemon juice. Add about 1/4 cup and whisk the egg yolk until they start foaming. Then add 2 cups of heavy cream.

Melt 12 oz of dark, I like 70% cocoa, with some butter (optional) and a little cream, 2 T. (You can add flavoring such as framboise. I like that.) When it melts add 1-2 t of corn starch, Kim and I like Argo. Then I whisk this into the heavy cream and egg and I put the it over a low flame and I whisk until it starts to boil. I take it off the flame and continue whisking for about 2 minutes.

I then pour it into a whip cream maker. Add the CO2, give it a good shake and let ‘er rip. Voila, hot stable foam. If you chill this foam, it’ll fall a little bit. But you can try layering this foam with the cold foam above. I layered my foam cold with my foam hot. Nice.

However, I think next time, I’m going to serve it hot. This is a cross between a whipped cream and a pastry cream. It’s airy and hot and good. Oh, by the way, it continues cooking in the whipping bottle so if it comes out a little thin to begin with, shake it a couple of times and it’ll set up very quickly. You have to move fast with this one.

Enjoy.