Baking

Baking / Breakfast / Healthy Eating / Julia Child — 3 Comments
13
Feb 12

King Arthur Charges in and has us all Round the Breakfast Table

King Arthur Gluten Free Multi-Purpose Flour (photo courtesy of King Arthur Flour)

If you follow the Smart Kitchen Blog, you may know that personally, we keep, on average, if not a Gluten-Free Household, at least a Gluten Aware Household. It is the words “on average” that bedevil easy description. 2/4 of the P Chef family are strictly, rabidly Gluten Free. If a 3 year old can’t technically be “rabidly Gluten Free” on his own, his mother’s easily helps push him up into the rabid category. Mrs. P Chef, for health reasons is a Gluten-Free zealot.The next fourth, my 6 year old daughter, is ambiguously Gluten-Free, some of the time.

As a hearty eater of everything tasty, (oops should have written Gourmand to make it sound better), it’s Dad who skews the average towards Gluten Aware from Gluten Free.

I grew up with Pancake Sundays, where family and any tag-along, sleep-over friends stood around the kitchen talking, joking, making and eating pancakes. Initially, I’d eat one or two. As I got older and into sports, I ate 3, then 4 then 8 etc. The more eating, the longer the making, the greater the number and quality of the laughs. I want to share that warm, homey tradition with my wife and little chefs.

But when 2/4ths of us went seriously Gluten-Free, the idea of Pancake Sundays, (with Dad, Spatula at the ready, attending the Cast Iron Lady) seemed lost and heading the way of the Dodo bird. Walking the aisle of the grocery store last week, shopping for Cornstarch for SK Chef’s Valentine’s Appearance on ABC 15, I thought I spied salvation for Pancake Sunday on a mainstream grocery store shelf. King Arthur on his Flour Power Charger, seemed to be riding to the rescue under a “NEW” banner proclaiming a solution for King Arthur’s Gluten-Free, All Purpose Flour.

If you have tried any Gluten-Free baking or cooking, you know that there is a difference between claims and results. But I had faith in the King Arthur brand. Perhaps because of their generations of marketing with the bluegrass, musical  King Arthur Flour Hour or just the fact that they are an employee owned company from Vermont swayed me. I added the Gluten-Flour to our cart, in a separate, non-company, personal pile of course.

At home, we have  low-grade, ongoing, tug-of-war in the kitchen between the adherents of health and the adherents of taste. The neutral foods, “The Switzerlands of the Pantry,” that both sides can agree on, are few and far between. I am in the camp that tries to make healthy decadent. My wife, and by extension my little chefs, are most often in the camp that says “Leave it alone.” I had great hopes for this new flour turning the tide towards flavor and decadence and was excited this past Sunday morning to inaugurate Gluten-Free Pancake Sunday. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The success of our foray was really determined by the “Benchmarking.” The gluten free community, our 2/4 loved the new pancake recipe. Mrs. P Chef did her signature move and shouted  ”Great” before devouring her portion and then saying she could not have more because “the carbs would make her sleepy.”  I really enjoy her enjoying food I make and made her another single, heart-shaped, Valentine Pancake and called it a win. My 3 year old, little P Chef said “Dad How did you learn to make such good pancakes?” and asked for more. My daughter at 6, begrudgingly, when asked (no volunteering), said that they were good but the proof was that she had a big helping of seconds. A lot of the times the proof is in the eating.

As for me, I have been improvising from the Joy Of Cooking’s Pancake version for a few years now. I like the proportions and mixing the wet with the wet and the dry with the dry before combining them all. Needless to say, my benchmark is a bit higher than the Gluten-Free team when piloting our enameled skillet, The Red Warrior. The Gluten-Free pancakes bubbled up as they should and formed a nice crispy, butter-fried edge.

A Bit Doughy As Cooked and with Different Bubbling but Gluten-Free

They turned out a bit paler, and a little thicker than gluten pancakes but they had a good “Mouth Feel” which is one of the tougher things to accomplish with Gluten-Free cooking. Also, I forgot to mention that I “Cheated,” a tiny bit, in the tug-of-war competition between health and taste. I added a couple squares of melted Toberlone White Chocolate to the wet ingredients before incorporating them with the dry. This could also have made them paler and thicker.

A Bit Paler but Tasty & a Godsend for a Pancake Sunday Family

Ultimately, I will praise King Arthur, and not just because he is armored and carries a lance. They are trying to do something difficult by competing with Gluten. They mostly succeed and do it admirably. The product comes out tasting clean and a bit “ricey” which makes a very good blank canvas on which to slather butter and real Maple Syrup. Those tastes are winners that I am down for. Compared to all the other Gluten-Free preparations out there, King Arthur’s Gluten-Free Flour is a coup.

I also did not exactly follow the directions on their package, which is a “No-No” when preparing a product for the first time to evaluate it. I substituted Guar Gum for the recommended Xanthum Gum because they are close substitutes, and because honestly, we had one in our gluten-free area of the pantry. At the moment, on that Pancake Sunday, improvisation trumped getting dressed and heading for the store. And of course, I got a small lesson in continuous cooking education. Guar Gum, as Smart Kitchen will tell you, is best used mixed into the wet ingredients, not the dry. Oops but also a good reason to re-state that cooking is a continual lesson and a re-learning of things forgotten. If ever the phrase “I’ve forgotten more than X,Y or Z!” applies, it is in cooking.  So now I know for next Sunday, Guar Gum with the wet. If they are even more in demand than the last batch, which had Dad working the Spatula ambidextrously, then great. We all decided to chalk up the experience as a win and I got to head back to bed for an hour with Julia McWilliams*, who is not Mrs. P Chef.

*For fun, I am reading An Appetite for Life by Noel Riley Fitch. It is a very classy, literate biography of  Julia McWilliams from Pasadena, Ca. As I was reading, she was just finishing up in the OSS (the pre-cursor to the CIA) in Asia after WWII where she met Paul Child, who she married to become Julia Child, the “Julia Child.”

The SS America (photo courtesy of www.usswestpoint.com)

At this point in the biography, Julia and Paul are just getting married after a war, a bad car accident, a home fire, a job loss, and some thefts. There are a lot of plot setbacks but they’re not inventions. They are based on the actual facts of their lives. I was anxious to see what happens after they sail for France on the S.S. America bound for the port of Le Havre and have Julia’s first truly FRENCH meal in Rouen at La Couronne, which is still there.

La Couronne, The Crown in Rouen, France

They had Oysters Portugaise and Sole Meunière with French Salad and turned it all around for Julia McWilliams, now Child, who, in turn, turned it around for a lot of us. I was excited to learn what happened next.

P Chef

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Baking / Historical Foods / Ingredients — 2 Comments
16
Jun 11

Summer is Cholula Seasoning Season but…

The Last Living Bottle of Cholula Seasoning

The other night, Mrs. P Chef pulled out our dwindling supply of Cholula Seasoning and the thought lept to my mind, “Put that down it is an irreplaceable ANTIQUE.”  And it is, for now.   After she availed herself of a shake or two, I shared the thought and we had a good laugh.

And, I had gained another project from the exchange. Cholula seasoning, as good as it is, or was, is just ingredients, which are listed on the package. I mentioned my project idea to our friend Dak while adding simple syrup to our home brewed Limoncello project (that will be another blog) and we decided to experiment like the Chefs Frankenstein (“Franken-Steen”) to make Choloula Seasoning live again in our kitchens.

All the Ingredients are Listed on the Package in Descending Order of Quantity Used

Cholula Seasoning, is a blend of paprika, kosher salt, dried red bell pepper, dried onion, dried garlic, sugar, citric acid and some preservatives that were combined by the company into a transcendant seasoning. Unfortunately, it is off the market, probably because the Jose Cuervo company, which owns Cholula, was not happy with the initial sales numbers. If it had been recalled for choking cats, or harming the ozone we would have heard about it, wouldn’t we?

A Noble First Effort, If not "Son of", then maybe "Second Cousin of Frankenstein"

Our first draft recipe, made with ingredients pulled impromptu from the provisions standing in the larder (including some very nice Penzey Spices, the fine Hungarian Paprika, still in its tourist package, and of course Sweet’s Zany Zest for the Citric Acid) was:

1/2 T Chipotle Pepper,  1 T Ancho Pepper, 1/4 T Citric Acid,  3/4 T Onion Powder,  1/2 T Garlic Powder,  1/2 T Paprika, 1/2 T Sugar, and 1/2 T Kosher Salt.  It was good but not the best approximation. The good news is that we can try again with dried onions and dried peppers to give the seasoning that chewier Mouth Feel.

Baking / Culinary Learning / Dessert / Smart Kitchen News — 1 Comment
11
Mar 11

The Four Levers of Cooking™ – Flair

a floral cupcake

Amber's Cupcake with a Definite Sense of "Flair."

At Smart Kitchen, we teach people to cook. One of the ways we breakdown the process is with the The 4 Levers of Cooking™, essentially a method of determining when and where to focus while making a meal.

One of the Levers, the final one in fact,  is “Flair” or making your dish your own. I was struck by the difference between a product with “Flair” and an ordinary product when I was shown the baking work of a friend of a friend.

The cupcake above was made by Amber (the friend of my friend) and if a picture is worth a thousand words, Amber’s cupcake describes “Flair” very well. Flair can elevate a cupcake to Culinary Art and show those close to you how you feel.

P Chef

Smart Kitchen

“The Smartest Way to Learn to Cook™”

@smartkitchen1

Baking / Smart Kitchen News — 1 Comment
22
Feb 11

Stromboli versus Calzone – The Twitter Debate

We have heard of a twitter debate recently from @azmegb that seeks to define a Stromboli, as oppozed to a Calzone, or was it a Calzone, as opposed to a Stromboli?

One group claims the two are separated by the ingredients used, another group (likely relying on an Internet Wikipedia post) claims that one has sauce served on the side.

As a good culinary citizen, the Smart Kitchen feels compelled to wade into the conversation and irritate both sides (hopefully temporarily) by claiming that neither answer put forth so far is correct. We do so relying on the inherent fairness of the esteemed groups of networked foodies and knowing that a nagging curiousity put to rest, has a satisfaction all its own. The pictures below speak a thousand words.

Our answer is that a Stromboli is traditionally more of a rolled, baked pizza equivalent (pick you favorite toppings), with sauce or without.

A Traditional Rolled Stromboli

A Calzone is more of a baked “Turnover” pizza equivalent (pick your favorite ingredients), with sauce or without.

A Traditional Calzone with Pepperoni

Hope that helps.

P Chef

Smart Kitchen

“The Smartest Way to Learn to Cook.™”

@smartkitchen1

Bakery / Baking / Breakfast / Dessert / French / Pastry / Restaurants — 1 Comment
3
Nov 10

Manon of the Fall (not the Spring)

                                                                  

This is not a post about old (but good) Girard Depardieux films, but a post about redemption and a fabulous patisserie in the most unlikely of places named Patisserie Manon that opened this fall.

Nearby is a blog post on the dining & BBQ tragedy of losing the Salt Lick BBQ in Las Vegas. On the same trip seeking some comfort, I sought out another old, eclectic, but hit or miss favorite from 2006: Bleu Gourmet, only to find it MIA as well.  

But a “Coming Soon!” banner flew facing the side street. Sucked in, I drove closer and was surprised to see wide open doors and some customers inside. It turns out the new place, Patisserie Manon, was open for take away service. It looked worth a stop.

Charleston Blvd in Summerlin is an unlikely place for the third outpost of a Tahitian bakery chain but the food gods work in mysterious ways. Seeing the gleaming display cases, I felt the excitement build and thought ”a new find.” 

Cream Cheese and Goat Cheese Quiche

Start the Car, We Need Another.

For sampling purposes, one must judge the product (mustn’t one?), I ordered the Mini Croissant for $1.10. (below)

Almond Croissant

Detail of the Mini Almond Croissant

the Mini Coco Rocher (coconut macaron) (below center) $.75, the pepita $2.25 and some Macarons (coffee, lemon peanut butter & chocolate) (below exterior).

macarons

It is hard to find a good macaron this side of France

For the heartier offerings I had to sample the most novel French dining options. I ordered the the Fougasse with Egg Tuna & Bechamel for $7.95 (below), the Cream Cheese & Goat Cheese Quiche $4.00 (far above),

Tuna Foughasse

Foughasse must be French for Tuna Melt

and the French Hot Dog w/Bechamel, Cheese & Mustard (below) $8.95. 

French Hot Dog

And Bechamel Lurks Beneath

Contrary to what gets posted here in the Smart Kitchen Blog, I hardly every eat rich foods because almost nothing is too rich for me and because I don’t like to unleash that caloric beastly side of my palette. It’s hard to put back in its cage and it disagrees with Mrs. P Chef, my doctor and my waistline. That being said, the French Hot Dog is such a tempting sandwich, especially after a loss like the Salt Lick. Looking at it shining there, it was a joy to order, even a joy to start in on, but after a few bites, it gets rich. Too rich, even too rich for me. Now this stunning richness may be because I had a cream cheese & goat cheese quiche appetizer, or it may just be a very rich cheese covered hot dog laying on bechamel sauce. 

I am hoping to discuss it with the owners, Rachel & Jean Paul, who rumor has it don’t speak much English the next time I visit and share an order of French Hot Dog after my quiche. I am not too worried about communicating with Rachel or Jean Paul, because though they may not speak much English, they certainly do speak food and have launched a worthy successor to Bleu Gourmet.

If you get the chance stop in at 8751 W. Charleston Blvd. Las Vegas, Nevada 89117. (702) 586 2666

P Chef

 Patisserie Manon on Urbanspoon

Bakery / Baking / Chefs / Dessert / Interview / Marie Jackson / Restaurants — 7 Comments
16
Jul 10

Interview with Marie Jackson of The Flaky Tart

James Beard nominated outstanding pastry chef Marie Jackson of The Flaky Tart

Always Running, Marie Jackson stops to speak with a Customer

*Note the children’s beach buckets in Marie’s hands. The Flaky Tart makes a great kids’ cake that looks like it just came from the beach with a full load of sand, but is really carrying a sweet surprise.

- Interview -

Marie Jackson of The Flaky Tart in Atlantic Highlands, NJ, an outstanding pastry chef, offered to answer a few questions for our members about baking and baking as a career. 

Smart Kitchen: What is the biggest lesson you have learned about baking since starting The Flaky Tart?

Marie Jackson:  The biggest lesson is that as much as baking is a science it is also an art that requires mastery. So even though you should read cookbooks or watch baking on TV, or take as many classes as you can, nothing beats experience. Having said that though, in order to master the skills you need to have them in the first place. So what I’ve also learned is to find great teachers and learn from them, whether it is a favorite cookbook author (Rose Berenbaum, Carol Walters, Nancy Silverton) or a favorite teacher (Ciril Hitz). You have to find someone you trust and then do the work over and over and over and over, you get the point, to get there.

Smart Kitchen: What is the biggest lesson you have learned about going from an enthusiast baker to an acclaimed commercial baker?

Marie Jackson: The biggest lesson is that they are two completely different animals. Baking at home is fun, relaxing and rewarding. You need to be precise and skillful but you also can relax and play. Mistakes are sometimes just as yummy.

What you need to be a commercial baker, beside skill and stamina, is bells of steel (a slight edit). In a business, things are constantly going wrong, walk-in refrigerators die overnight when you have special orders inside, though the fans keep running when the compressor dies, so your walk-in may hit a steamy 80 degrees while you are sleeping;   dishwashers don’t show up on holiday weekends when every bowl it the place is dirty by 5 am; huge, expensive batches of product get miss-scaled by interns, customers show up for orders you’ve never heard of because somebody screwed up the order; and the baby shower for 85 is in 2 hours and on and on. But you have to “stay calm and carry on” because you have to fix it. Being a commercial baker is for the few and the brave.

Smart Kitchen: Do you have any tips for bakers just starting out?

Marie Jackson: Go to the most fabulous place you know where they are doing work you love and beg (on your hands and knees if necessary) to intern with them. Wash dishes, hull strawberries, clean the gunk off their chef clogs if they want you to- whatever- but get into a great kitchen and learn from the best.

Smart Kitchen: Where did you get your initial baking interest and initial baking skills?

Marie Jackson: According to my Mom I used to make “cakes” in my sandbox and try to sell them to her. She was not surprised at all that I eventually opened a bakery. [Smart Kitchen: the sand box theme recurs]

My initial interest was not in making baked goods but in eating them.  We didn’t have a lot of money growing up (and any that we did have went to Catholic school education) so we never had store bought snacks in the house. Fruit was as good as it got. I can remember having that scary dinner of cut up hot dogs mixed with baked beans more often than I care to admit.  But mom did make awesome cookies and homemade bread.  And my grandfather, a retired army officer (he was a paratrooper in WWII) was always perfecting his bread recipe. He sent all his grandkids homemade bread when we were away at college.  He gave me my first and most personally valuable cookbook: Beard on Bread. 

Also, I was obsessed in high school (RBC) with the crumb cake from the German bakery on Monmouth Street. We used to sneak off campus before school to get it while it was still hot. It is still my favorite pastry memory of all time (including trips to patisseries in Paris!).  I also used to eat a chocolate cupcake from Freedman’s bakery (it used to be on the corner of Broad and Peter’s Place) every day after school.  And the Bagel Oven on Monmouth Street opened around then too. Those were the days when bagels were considered ethnic food- and I was also obsessed.  I’m pretty sure all my babysitting money went towards baked goods.  I baked birthday cakes and Christmas cookies growing up, and later got interested in bread baking but honestly never thought of it as anything more than a way to get really great stuff to eat.

Smart Kitchen: When you look back, what do you think now of your own baking skills when you were just starting the shop?

Marie Jackson: When I look back at my skills when I started the shop, I think that I’ve certainly come a long way but I still feel I haven’t even gotten past the tip of the iceberg as far as the learning process goes.  I didn’t know at the time how little I actually knew.  My skills were OK but I was a fanatic perfectionist so I did whatever I had to do, as many times as I had to, to put out a good product.  Now, I’m still a crazy perfectionist but at least I don’t have to kill myself on a daily basis to get the results I want. I have more experience and a better handle on why things go wrong and how to adjust factors so they don’t go wrong quite so much.

Smart Kitchen: We spoke a few years ago about your career change. But I don’t think I asked about your thought process or decision process in changing to a baking career. What was your thought process in changing careers? A lot of people have the fantasy. Do you remember the moment that gave you the confidence to believe you could switch from accounting, I believe, to pastry chef?

Marie Jackson: It went like this – I studied accounting because I had no idea whatsoever what to do with my life, although I did have a sneaking suspicion I would end up a business owner.  It was the early eighties and everyone was going to business school so I did too.  I liked the predictability and precision of accounting, as opposed to marketing or something, and I was good at math and everyone seemed to think accountants were smart (if nothing else) so that was it- accounting.  So when I graduated I had no desire to actually BE and accountant but I had a lot of student loans and not a lot of ideas or money so I got a job in NYC with a Public Accounting firm.  It was my first desk job ever and a year in hell.  My butt was huge, my skin was green, my hair was falling out and I was about one Absolut Martini away from becoming a full blown alcoholic, not really, but you know what I mean. So, I quit and decided that I would rather live in a cardboard box and do work I loved then ever take another job just for money.  And every job I ever loved was in the food business and of all the foods I love, it’s those pastries that steal my heart.  And also, pastry and accounting, as strange as it seems, are similar disciplines, demanding precision, accuracy, and math. So, I went to school for pastry.

Smart Kitchen: Thanks so much Marie.

Bakery / Baking / Chefs / Dessert / Marie Jackson / Restaurants — 26 Comments
14
Jul 10

A Flaky Tart

Now calling someone a Flaky Tart might sound a bit rough, and normally it would be. In this case though, when discussing The Flaky Tart Bakery in Atlantic Highlands, NJ it is both accurate (the tarts are flaky) and appropriate. The artistry in flour, butter & sugar that comes out of the small shop on a smallish street is the brainchild, passion and love of Marie Jackson. Jackson, who in a previous career was a financial professional, is not at all flaky. In fact, she is the complete opposite and has the discipline and fortitude to keep baker’s hours (in bed by 8 PM and at work by 4 AM) winter and summer. And we are all the better for it.

Introduced to The Flaky Tart by my aunt, I have been a morning coffee and muffin visitor, periodically, for at least 5 years. While visiting family at the shore for various holidays, I got used to popping in, speaking with Marie, watching a little of the work and drooling over the pastries. This visit, I decided to indulge and brave the display case.

We immediately lusted after the Coconut Cake, and got two slices for our party of three. I am embarrassed to admit, for myself and the group, that the cake did not survive long enough to be recorded in a video or photo. It lives on in my mind though, a tall, airy wedge of vanilla / coconut creaminess, which I will be returning for one day.  While in coconut heaven, I happened to notice some press clippings on the wall. Apparently, since I first visited,  Marie has been nominated, not once but twice, for a James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef. I can’t imagine a nicer person getting the recognition.

Not that I needed an excuse, but I got the thought that further sampling of such a prominent pastry might improve my own baking and I decided to sample some of Marie’s Key Lime Tart. By sample, I mean buying a whole Key Lime Tart, ostensibly for Mrs. P Chef and the two little P Chefs and having a piece or two with them. I’m glad I had the foresight to make the purchase.

A Key Lime Tart from the Flaky Tart

It looks Great and Tasted Better

That tart, which did survive long enough to be shot, outdid most of the tarts I have had and most of the key lime pies too. It was at the same time, both more sophisticated, and more tartly flavorful (tart like limes) than others I have had here or abroad. I give it 5 limes out of 5.

Along with the pastries, The Flaky Tart is best known for its croissants, which customers swear are the best this side of the Atlantic Ocean. If they are, which they might be, it will be because of attention to detail, which all starts early in the morning with the doughs. Lesser bakeries often purchased frozen doughs but not at the Flaky Tart where the doughs are stretched, fussed over and rolled out daily.

If you can’t tell, I was impressed and am impressed with Marie, her place and her work. I thought she might have some pointers or tips for our members and when asked she graciously agreed to discuss her career and her baking which I will put up in another post shortly.

If you are visiting the street address is below. I’d call ahead to make sure they are open when you plan to stop by. As of this post they are closed Mondays and Tuesdays and their hours are Wednesday – Friday 6.30 AM to 4 PM. Saturdays 8 AM to 4 PM. Sundays 8 AM to 1 PM.

The Flaky Tart on Urbanspoon

Baking / Farming / New — No Comments
24
Jun 10

Low Grain Prices in our Future?

What was Scarcity is Becoming a Glut

Grain Traders and economists are speculating that we may be headed for grain surpluses this year. Great growing weather in the Mid-West may deliver record domestic corn, soy bean, and wheat crops this year. Also adding to our domestic abundance are modified seeds, which have improved yields much more than anyone expected. All that supply will be coming to market as the Global economy is on life support and not ready to buy.

Overseas, Asian farmers seem on track for record rice harvests as well. And Russian and Latin American growers are on a tear, seeking to convert their abundant time and land into cash through the production of grain crops. The Wall Street Journal reported on June 21 that global acreage devoted to the 16 biggest grains has climbed by 82 million acres since 2006. That much additional acreage is about the same as creating another US Corn Belt.

For chefs this might be good news. As product comes to market when demand isn’t there, prices come down. If grain prices fall, so to do the costs to feed farm animals. Traditionally wholesale & retail meat prices follow. If the scenario plays out as expected,  we will have lots of terrific cooking options. Be ready to take advantage by learning what to do with the ingredients. Sign up with SmartKitchen.com, “The Smartest Way to Learn to Cook Like a Chef from your Own Home(tm).”

P Chef

Baking / Ingredients / New — No Comments
15
Mar 10

US Sugar High

The US May Rectify High, Quota Induced, Sugar Prices

The Department of Agriculture is under pressure from confectioners and other sugar users to rectify the gap between Global sugar prices and US sugar prices. On average American companies pay 78% higher prices for sugar because of a Department of Agriculture imposed import quota of 1.3 million metric tons. The Department of Agriculture should decide in April, 2010 if they will give in to the user’s demands and raise the quota amounts or continue to protect American sugar producers from Global Competition. We will keep you posted as the issue and decision unfolds.

PChef