Another Ambitious Menu: Cooking Lamb for 40+

Greetings, "Learning through Food" readers! I feel an apology is in order (if not for you, at least for me), regarding my recent pause on keeping up with this blog. The semester is quickly winding down here on campus, meaning my available free time to write is becoming much more limited by the day. This said, it's events such as the one I'm about to share with you that help me get centered, to take a break from the academics and take on an intellectual experience of a different sort. The challenge--had I chosen to accept it--was not to recreate as close as possible the first initiatory banquet menu (1906) of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. (1,2). Rather, it was to do so with a low-cost budget for an unspecified number of guests (though we were aiming for somewhere in the 40-person range), bearing in mind lack of on-site kitchen facilities and the main protein being lamb. Thankfully, I received the call about two weeks in advance and the dinner itself would take place during spring break. And so, challenge accepted. On the menu of which I was responsible: 1st course: selected cheese and crackers; 2nd course: creamy tomato soup, with salted wafers; 3rd course: shrimp salad on endive lettuce and broiled lamb chops, with wild apple jelly, green peas, mashed potatoes and dinner rolls; 4th course: chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache; and 5th course: Neapolitan ice cream with lady fingers.

Celebrating National Chocolate Cupcake Day 2011 with Dark Chocolate

If you didn't know, today is National Chocolate Cupcake Day and quite naturally I had to celebrate this unofficial food holiday that's nevertheless recognised this time of you. Combining my adapted dark chocolate cake recipe (based off of the recipe found on the back of Hershey's dark cocoa powder containers) and this one offered by online specialty foods magazine The Nibble, I woke up this morning prepared to bake some cupcakes in acknowledgment of this 19th century treat. The one issue I faced was the fact that I don't have any cupcake pans in my apartment and so I baked two cupcakes in ramekins and poured the rest of the batter into a baking dish; by definition, a cupcake is typically a cake made as a single serving and so at least the ramekin versions fit the celebration. On the menu: Dark Chocolate Chunk Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Orange and Almond Cream Filling and Dark Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.

Don't Scramble the Eggs! ...That's Easier Said than Done (Pairs of Pictures)

As you may or may not have noticed by now, I typically select a single photo to kick-start each blog posts. However, with the way the rest of this post is set up, I have done away with this short tradition. Covered here is a post which describes a night which began at 9pm and somehow ended about 4.5 hours later. Time certainly flies when you are having fun!

Couscous and Cake: Cooking in the College Kitchen

Prior to the Easter weekend, I joined a group of students in dancing/performing a traditional and "modern" version of one of the Philippines' most popular dances--tinikling--at the Cherry Blossom Festival held on campus and sponsored by Asian Culture Club, one of the campus's multi-cultural student groups. As promised to the group, I cooked a dinner and timed it to coincide with last week's 90-minute episode of "Glee." And as suggested by the above photo, the meal overall was rather dessert heavy... not that any of us were complaining.

The Visit of Sungara, the Easter Bunny's Kenyan Cousin

A few days ago, I was asked the question "Have you ever had bunny cake?" Not having been a huge fan of coconut, I responded with "No." It is from that point forward the bunny cake challenge was proposed. And so it happened; after baking, sculpting, frosting, coating, and shaping, Sungara was born. As I explained to some of my colleagues, in celebration of the first day of sun in what has seemed like ages, Sungara (Swahili for "rabbit") (or roughly translated in "Erik"-speak, "Pete") came to visit our office. In actuality, Sungara is made of a white butter cake and coated with buttercream frosting and coconut, with jelly bean eyes and a nose.

Happy Birthday Beth

As it turned out, the birthday of Beth (our ISS/MCSA Administrative Assistant) was mid-week last week, but in the tumult of all the event planning, we had waiting until last Friday to celebrate it. Before Friday and the great Flash Mob, I asked Beth what her favourite cake was and she responded with the one type I was hoping she would not say: red velvet cake. As you may know by now, dear Reader, I am up for a wide range of culinary challenges, but there was something about the traditional flavours of a red cake and cream cheese frosting that made it seem like quite a daunting task. To boot, I am not all that familiar with this cake of cakes so it was a bit difficult to determine as I was putting this together as  to whether or not I was on the right path. All this said, I set off knowing I would deviate from tradition and, after at least an hour or two comparing at least a dozen recipes for red velvet cakes and frostings, as well as devouring sites such as this one which focused on experimentation and even the technical science behind baking a perfect red velvet cake, I came up with this concoction which I have officially added to my list of very lucky culinary results.

This One Takes the Cake (Literally): My "Books 2 Eat" Entry, pt 3

Parts 1 and 2 of my cake posts have so far chronicled the journey of my Books 2 Eat entry. And now, it's time to find out how everything came together, how others interpreted their books, and how the cake actually tasted.

This One Takes the Cake (Literally): My "Books 2 Eat" Entry, pt 2

Part 1 of my cake posts focused on marshmallow fondant work I had prepped Wednesday night. Undoubtedly one of the largest (if not the largest) photo food albums I have to date is of the construction and painting of my Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows cake entry to this year's Books 2 Eat contest, which is the focus of this second part of this recent series of posts.

This One Takes the Cake (Literally): My "Books 2 Eat" Entry, pt 1

Some time last week (followed by a subsequent blog post), I read that there was to be an edible book contest which would be taking place in the campus library. After a bit more reading (ironic, eh?), I found out that this was actually an annual international event. And so, in the spirit of culinary challenges, I set off to enter the contest; little did I know how much prep, bake, and execution, work I would be clocking in for this one. After learning that the general theme was the representation of a favourite book in food form, I seemed to quickly settle on replicating the final book of the Harry Potter series. With the foresight of a time turner owner, I made sure to take quite a few photos for this one, and have divided the photo collection and blog posts into three, more readible posts. This first post focuses on the fondant preparation which I had read is best done overnight to 1) save time the next day since it would already be done; and 2) allow the fondant to have ample time to set, both in terms of consistency and colouring.

Six Courses for Six (or More)

Greetings, dear Reader. As I'm sure you can tell from the timing of this post, I've continued the tradition of late night blogging. One thing I've recently noticed about my blog, and have had confirmed earlier tonight, is that none of the dishes I have prepared and posted on-line have not been traditionally laid out as you'll find on other blogs and websites. Indeed, my approach is to guide you step by step through the process of multi-tasking a variety of dishes; however, in situations such as tonight's dinner, whereby chronological detail would get too involved and not accurately convey simplicity without me showing you in person, I have grouped my notes as closely together as possible.

Tonight, I had five guests over in celebration of two birthdays, as well as for our post-Valentine's Day get-together. In actuality, if I served smaller portions, I think I could have served at least twice as many... but then again, I've built up a reputation from my study abroad days in France that in order to get through one of my multi-course meals, the best advice is to eat as little as possible beforehand (if not to fast completely).

Super Bowl "Unity" Dinner... Because I'm Not Officially Choosing a Team

After the official coin toss and start of play, I got to work on last night's dinner. For those who don't follow the Super Bowl, or were perhaps less inclined to turn on the game as I was, yesterday saw the meeting of the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers, with the former eventually winning the game. And as alluded to in the title of this post, I had no strong preference either way as to who would win; unofficially, if your team name somehow has my favourite colour incorporated in it and you come from the midwest, chances are my support may lean in your favour. In any case, I attempted (and I think succeeded) in cooking to unite both teams, and using lemon as the common thread in my meal, created a fabric of flavour that was coloured with green, black, and of course yellow.

First Angel Cake Trial (with Orange Blueberry Reduction)

Back in the day, I was first and foremost a baker and was into the measurements and precision that go into baking from scratch. One of the cookbooks that made it into the early days of my cookbook shelf was one titled "1000 Class Recipes," from which I drew most of my non-chocolate creations. Again, given all the "free time" I had today because of the freezing rain, I returned to the kitchen and made my first attempt of adapting an angel cake recipe (p 480).