Happy Valentine's Day

I don't have a recipe for you today, or tales of recent food travels, but I do have a report on my most recent kitchen endeavor: Valentine's Day sampler boxes.  If you are in the Philly area, and would like one, I have a few left!

It took a few days to plan out the recipes, gather supplies, and of course make each recipe.  I used flavor, texture, and eye appeal to guide my choices.  At the start, I wasn't sure what I wanted to include, but I knew that I didn't want to re-create the typical Valetine's Day chocolate box.  I wanted a variety treats, rather than a uniform box of chocolates, to convey thoughtfulness and care.

Contents: Brown butter almond cakes, sour strawberry pâte de fruit, wrapped salted caramels, chocolate cupcake, hazelnut dragées, assorted tea cookies (pistachio, chai, or citrus cranberry), peppermint meringue hearts with dark chocolate ganache.

Now that I've finished the boxes, I realize that its contents reflect my time in professional kitchens.  For example, I taught myself how to make the 'love' cupcakes after an informational interview with a pastry chef.  She told me I needed to start a portfolio if I ever hoped to be allowed into a kitchen.

I remember I used to cook five pound batches of pâte de fruit (fruit gelees) at a Michelin restaurant in SF, and every time I felt like one of those witchesfrom Macbeth.  Do you know the scene with the giant pot? "Double, double, toil and trouble.  Fire burn and cauldron bubble."  No...?  Ok, moving on.  

Whenever I pipe anything, I can still hear the voice of a very French chef correcting my pastry bag grip. 

Hazelnuts with caramel coating, but before adding chocolate and cocoa powder 

My friend Liz and I experimented one day, and taught ourselves how to make dragées in her kitchen using a Culinary Institute of America textbook.  This fundamental technique proved useful in every pastry kitchen I've ever been in since.

Financiers with raspberry hearts

Lastly, financiers (brown butter almond cakes) were my official introduction to mignardise, which is the term for the small little treats that typically accompany the check at fine dining restaurants.  I remember thinking, "I can't believe we're making all of these miniature cakes! WHY?"  To be honest, I was probably just disenchanted by the process of carefully placing three tiny huckleberries into a hundred of these cakes, because the answer has always been very clear for me.  Every time I make something in the kitchen, no matter how routine the recipe might be, I am making a gift for someone to enjoy.  For example, if you've ever watched other people at the table when the small plate of mignardise arrives, it's amazing what happens to most diners.  You go from thinking "I'm so full, I'm never going to eat again" to "these are the most precious little bites, and I feel incredibly special right now".  The magic of that transformative plate of goodies is something that drives my passion for dessert, and I've tried to replicate with these sampler boxes.  I hope you enjoy!

Inspired Abroad: Bread

I was not prepared for the copious amounts of delicious bread that I would eat while we were in Israel.  I figured that I'd try typical middle eastern dishes like falafel, hummus, and israeli salad, but I certainly didn't expect that bread would end up being the main attraction.  Maybe it was a case of low expectations, but almost everywhere we went, we were greeted with pleasingly textured, full-flavored, and generally well-crafted bread.  The pictures below could imply that the great bread owed its success to the varied dips, spreads and pairings, but don't be fooled.  While these supporting actors were worthy of sharing the limelight, the bread was the star of the show.

Jerusalem - Crusty wheat loaf with pestos, sun-dried tomato, tapenade, 
and deliciously sticky butter
This bread helped us get over the 14 hours of flying.

Aboulafia & Sons in Old Jaffa near Tel Aviv - Baked pita with z'atar 

Eating this freshly baked bread straight from the oven was the stuff dreams are made of.

Dallal Bakery in Neve Tsedek, Tel Aviv - French-style Chocolate Babka
If you haven't had babka before, it's like the best cinnamon roll ever, but with chocolate.

On the bus, in the blinding snow, across the border in Jordan -
Me and my festive birthday Challah!  

Back in the kitchen...

Bread making is not my strongest skill, so I consider myself a novice.  As a novice, I like relatively quick and easy recipes where I don't have to wait multiple hours for dough to rise, or worry too much about a perfectly formed loaf.  Therefore I bring you an adventure in bread making and eating with Laffa, a flat bread seen on the streets in Jerusalem (see this post for the beautiful laffa wrapped falafel).

Left: Flour & salt
 Right: Water, yeast, and olive oil

Combine.

Mix.

Rise for 1 hour.

Portion and flatten.

Cook for a few minutes on each side.

Enjoy!

This blog had a very easy recipe with straightforward instructions.  The bread was incredibly easy and delicious.   Although I could've eaten the entire stack of laffa by myself, I made the even easier labneh to go with it.  Labneh is a spreadable cheese-like substance made from drained yogurt.

Pour plain yogurt into cheesecloth-lined colander, over a bowl.

Drain until you reach your desired consistency.  I left mine in the fridge overnight.

Remove from cheese cloth. 

Add a salt.  Z'atar and olive oil optional.

No instruction necessary.

I found an easy recipe for labneh here.  I used Trader Joe's European Style plain yogurt (~$3).

Did I stop there?  Of course not.  I also tried a slightly more complicated bread: Chocolate Babka.

Clearly there are more steps here, but if you are a well-practiced bread maker, or even an intermediate pastry enthusiast, this recipe was very satisfying. I used a recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook (my favorite book), it's also available online.

Tips: The original recipe says it yields three loaves, I cut bread dough and chocolate recipes perfectly in half, and it still yielded two 9x5 loaves. The proportions for the streusel are off, so if you halve the bread recipe like I suggest, use 4 tablespoons butter, 1/3 cup flour, and 1/2 cup powdered sugar.

Obviously bread takes some practice and little patience but I encourage you to at least try the laffa recipe. It's pretty hard to screw up, and it really, really yummy. Do I need to say more?

Israel

I pride myself on my ability to sleep anywhere when I'm tired, just ask anyone who knows me really well.  However, if I skip a few time zones, even a cozy bed, in pitch black darkness, isn't going to lull my wide awake brain to sleep.  So, rather than force my jet lagged mind to form coherent sentences, with correctly spelled words (high standards, I know), here are a few photos from our trip.

Waking up at 3am didn't seem so bad after we saw the view.
From top to bottom: Sun over the Jordanian Mountains, 
the Dead Sea and Masada

If you want to feel out of shape try Masada's Snake Path.  38 minutes to the top and 900 stairs.

Judean Desert: Glad we were visiting in January

The Dead Sea has the lowest elevation on earth at -427 meters.  
Yes, you float, but don't drink the water.

Old City Jerusalem from Haas Promenade

The most delicious felafel off of Jaffa Street in Jerusalem.  I really, really
wish I was eating this right now.

A tea stand at a large street market, Machane Yehuda, in Jerusalem.  Best food crawl, ever.

Afternoon stroll through Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv

Winner of cutest and most appropriate graffiti ever
on Sheinkin Street, Tel Aviv

I went on a food tour and our first stop: Best hummous in Tel Aviv!  Warm, creamy, and satisfying.  
I even tried eating it in a more local manner with raw, white onion.  
A bold move, but surprisingly good.

 HaCarmel Market displays strawberry season in Israel

In retrospect, I should've eaten more ice cream.

I could've sampled every bowl, but I think the vendor was getting sick of me.

Fortunately I timed my one and only run along the Tayelet with the best sunset of the trip.

An unexpectedly delicious breakfast at the hotel.  Muesli, yogurt, and fruit.

Birthday trip to Petra, Jordan.  Look familiar?

This long distance photo illustrates my comfort level with camels.

I've never eaten so much good bread in my entire life.  
More to come on this tomorrow.

A Little Spice is Nice

It's been a crazy week and I imagine it's been the same for pretty much everyone.  The holidays always feel rushed, but since Thanksgiving weekend spilled into December this year, I think we've reached a special level of chaos.  Throw in a little holiday travel gone wrong (thanks US Airways) and well, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Good times with red hots.

So, short and sweet is the name of the game today.  Without further ado...

Gingerbread Cookies & Royal Icing

Yield: 2-3 dozen cookies depending on size

Note: These are not designed to be soft and chewy, they are designed to be easy to roll and strong enough to package in bags as gifts without breaking.  See note at the end of the recipe if you want something softer.

Ingredients:

1{      1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

         3/4 cup brown sugar

         1/4 cup molasses

2{     1 egg, separated into yolk and white

3{      2 1/2 cup AP flour

         1 tablespoon ground ginger

         1 teaspoon soda

         1/2 salt 

4{     ~1 3/4 -2 1/4 cups powdered sugar, sifted

Tools: Large mixing bowl, medium mixing bowl, small mixing bowl, measuring cups and spoons, wooden spoon, spatula, baking sheet pans, sieve

Directions:

1. Combine butter, brown sugar, and molasses into large mixing bowl.  Mix with a wooden spoon until completely homogenous.

2. Add in yolk, mix until homogenous.  Place egg white in a small mixing bowl and set aside.

3. Combine flour, ginger, soda, and salt.  Mix to distribute ingredients (no need to sift).  Add dry ingredients to butter, sugar, and yolk mixture.  Mix until flour is incorporated.

It may seem a little dry, even crumbly, but don't worry!  Roll up your sleeves, and use
your hands to finish mixing and you'll notice the dough start to come together.

4.  Remove the dough from the bowl and wrap in plastic.  Chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.  This time in the fridge will help hydrate the dough and make it easier to work with.

5.  Remove the dough from the fridge, and working with 1/4 to 1/2 the dough at a time, roll it out to 3/8" thickness with plenty of flour.  You'll learn quickly that without the flour between every 3-4 passes it will get stuck.  It's also easier if you roll it out on parchment.

The dough will inevitably soften so you can return the dough at any time to the fridge
to make it easier to roll or to to make it easier to transfer any cut out cookies.

5.  Cut out shapes! 

6.  Place cookies on a parchment lined cookie sheet (it should fill about 3 pans).  Bake at 350°F for ~15-20 minutes.  Cookies are done when the edges are slightly darker than the rest of the cookie.

Note: This recipe is designed for a crunchy/crispy cookie that travels well, if you want a softer cookie, bake for a shorter time and roll to thicker thickness (1/4").

For Icing: 

1. Sift 2 cups of powdered sugar.  Then add 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, to the egg white and mix until smooth.  If you want to pipe royal icing onto the cookies, you'll want an icing that drizzles off of your whisk or spoon in a thin, slow stream.  If you want something more spreadable, add one tablespoon of powdered sugar at a time until you reach your desired consistency.

2.  Place into a piping bag or a zip-top bag if you want to pipe it.  If you aren't going to use it immediately, make sure it's in an airtight container in the fridge otherwise it will dry out quickly.

Tie off your pastry bag with plastic wrap to keep it from leaking.

Now, I know I'm going to get some comments about raw egg white.  It is generally accepted practice in bakeries across America to use raw egg white royal icing (culinary schools also teach this).  It is completely safe to eat once it is dry due to the unfriendly environment that all that sugar creates for any lingering bacteria (which is already a very unlikely occurrence in a fresh clean egg white).  If you just aren't in a place to accept that, then just place your decorated cookies into a 160°F oven for 15 minutes.  Just make sure that the decor you use can withstand this temperature.  Certain wax-based sprinkles or chocolate probably won't make it.  When in doubt just test a few pieces first to find out.

All right kiddos, go forth and bake.  Don't forget about Santa, he'll love these.