The Cookbook Challenge - Week 12 - Eggs - Strawberry Vacherin

I'm late, I know. I'm sorry. No excuses, I just didn't have time. Don't ask me what I was doing, I have no idea how I had no time this week, I'm not convinced I was actually doing anything, sometimes it just happens that way, that you're busiest when you're not. I always fit more in when I'm busy than when I'm free.

And, the recipe I chose this week was a bit of a production. I had ten egg whites in the freezer which I needed to stop adding to and start using (I have a weakness for carbonara pasta) so I knew my egg recipe needed to involve egg whites rather than whole eggs. Plus, I had a bunch of ingredients that I wanted to start using up, rather than adding more specialty ingredients to my baking pantry - I can't believe how lucky I am to have a dedicated pantry for these things!

When I came across the Strawberry Vacherin in delicious. magazine from May 2002, it was perfect. The only thing I had to purchase was strawberries for decoration. 

With flagrant disregard for food safety I took six egg whites out of the freezer (I freeze them in pairs in bags) before I went to work in the morning and left them on the bench so they'd be room temperature and ready for action when I got home. Turns out food safety was not to be my downfall..... I got a voicemail message about 4.30pm - "did you have eggs or something in plastic bags out? There's goo all over the floor. I'm running late for the cricket, I cleaned it off the carpet, but not the tiles, don't slip". That'll teach me.

Cats. I love them, but apparently the bench is their favourite playing surface when I'm not home. The bags of egg whites had been redistributed across the lounge and kitchen floors, and bitten into so that they'd all oozed out. The little buggers hadn't even tried to eat any of it, it seems they were just interested in making mess. 

Once I'd cleaned that up on my return home, the remaining four egg whites were removed from the freezer, and defrosted very carefully in the microwave. At least I'd achieved my goal of using up the egg whites in the freezer! In fact, I now have an egg yolk in my freezer, since I had to use an extra egg white. 

I also used some of the 1.2kg of Toblerone we were given for Christmas.

Ignore the missing Toblerones - they may have ended up in my belly

The recipe specified toasting and grinding whole almonds, but I already had almond meal, so I substituted it with no great dramas.

I would make this again (keeping in mind the proclivities of my cats) but I'd layer strawberries on the inside as well as on top, to counter the sweetness, and would halve (at least) the icing sugar in the cream. 

Strawberry Vacherin - delicious. May 2002

175g almond meal 

5 egg whites

225g caster sugar

110g melted butter, cooled

70g plain flour, sifted

300m thickened cream

150g pure icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

100g Toblerone chocolate

250g strawberries

I love it when I pour the exact amount first go - this time I managed it twice. Small joys.

Preheat your oven to 120 degrees. Cut three 20cm circles from non-stick baking paper, grease one side of each circle, and place greased side up on baking trays. The easiest way to do this is to trace around a 20cm cake tin, unless you have 20cm plates, in which case that would work too.

Beat together the egg whites and half the caster sugar, until stiff, then add the almond meal and remaining sugar and stir to combine.

Gently fold in the butter and flour (I almost forgot the butter and was wondering why the mixture seemed so dry, so it got a little more folding than it should have, but it was still ok).

Spread onto the baking paper circles to about 1cm thick, and bake for 50 minutes, then peel off the paper and set aside to cool.

 

I probably didn't really need to use the twins, but.....

Whip the cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract together until thick, and set aside.

Melt the Toblerone - delicious. recommend using a a bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, but I used the microwave - be warned if using the microwave, Toblerone will hold its shape, but still be melted, so check it by stirring regularly.

Place one meringue circle on a plate, spread with half the Toblerone and top with a third of the cream. Place a meringue circle on top of that, spread with the remaining Toblerone, and half the remaining cream. Top with the last meringue circle, and the rest of the cream. Quarter the strawberries and arrange on top. Dust with icing sugar.

There you go, that's something by Kate.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 1 - Citrus - No-Churn Lemon & Mascarpone Icecream

Rilsta from My Food Trail, Kat from spatulaspoonandsaturday, Iron Chef Shellie and Agnes from offthespork created The Cookbook Challenge. The idea is to create something each week over 52 weeks, from a set theme, using one of your cookbooks. It appears I may not be the only one who gets accused of never using the cookbooks I have and therefore not needing new ones (I don't know who comes up with this sort of nonsense - you can never have too many cookbooks).

It's been 30-40 degrees in Melbourne all week, so I thought icecream would be a nice treat, but I don't have an icecream maker. Along comes Valli, not only with a no-churn icecream recipe, but lemon & mascarpone icecream - perfect for this week's citrus theme! Is it cheating if I found this recipe on Taste but cooked it from the magazine?


Yes, I have Delicious magazines from 2005, and earlier.

I should have made this last weekend, as today it's not even supposed to reach 25 degrees, and has just started raining as I'm publishing this post. Oh well. Anytime is icecream time right?


The book you can see behind Valli (below) "Microwaving for 1 or 2 the Australian Way" by Sheryl Brownlee also made a guest appearance in the creation of this icecream. Originally published in 1987 it must have been popular as I have a reprint version from 1990, and it is part of a series which includes "Microwaving Main Meals and Desserts" and "Microwaving Vegetables the Australian Way" (first published as "Microwaving Vegetables the New Zealand Way" according to the National Library of Australia - I'm not sure how our methods would differ, culturally).

This book was found in an op-shop by my mother when I left home, and obviously she expected most of my cooking to involve only a microwave, and no crowds. While she was probably right, this book contains some interesting, simple recipes to do in the microwave like Nanna's special curry mix - old school style with sultanas, curry powder and apricot jam although, sadly, that's not featuring today, this book is still useful even though my skills have advanced somewhat. I pulled it out for the crispy meringues and basic lemon honey recipes to incorporate into the icecream.



Microwave Lemon Curd (Basic Lemon Honey) from Microwaving for 1 or 2 the Australian Way. Cooking times and temps adjusted for a 1200w microwave - the book uses a 650w. Makes 3 cups.

Combine 2-3 lemons, rind and juice (I used 4, I like it lemony), 250g sugar, 100g butter and microwave on medium (50%) for 3 minutes until the butter melts.




Hmmm, that seems like a lot of cornflour - I wonder if this will work?

Beat 2 eggs, 1 cup water and 2 tablespoons of cornflour in a separate bowl, then pour into the butter/lemon mixture and mix well. Microwave on medium for 3 minutes, stir, then microwave for a further 5 minutes.

Phase 1 complete.




Crunchy Meringues from Microwaving for 1 or 2 the Australian Way
All this needs is egg white and icing sugar. I used 2 egg whites, and a bit over 500g icing sugar - and ended up with far too much meringue mix, I used about a quarter of what this produced to make 175g of meringue. Whisk your egg white until it's frothy, but not firm, then mix in 2 tablespoons of icing sugar at a time until the mixture looks like fondant - it may take a while, the book suggests that it will take about 16 tablespoons per egg white. I got impatient and added a bunch at a time, which worked just fine.

Still not ready!

Once your mixture is dry to touch without crumbling, it's time to microwave!

Pinch off grape sized pieces and roll them into balls placing them, about six at a time, around the edge of a microwave safe plate lined with baking paper, I trimmed the paper to fit so that it wouldn't brush up against the sides of the microwave and knock about the meringues. Microwave on medium for 1 minute 45 seconds.


From this....

to this

Phase 2 complete.

This recipe will not give you chewy meringues, but they are very close in texture to the meringue nests you buy in the supermarket, and since that's what the Lemon & Mascarpone Icecream recipe calls for, they're perfect in this instance. If you have heaps left over, like I did, you can wrap the mixture in Gladwrap and keep it in the fridge for a week or so, and just make more meringues as you desire.

And now the icecream. I needed a container larger than the 2 litre container specified because, although the recipe calls for 1 jar of lemon curd, I used the full 3 cups I made earlier and, like with the curd, I used more than the 2 lemons listed (2 zested, 3 squeezed), plus I stirred through 175g of meringue instead of 100g since some of the comments on the Taste website suggested the meringue isn't noticeable at the suggested quantity. The resulting mixture is delicious by itself without freezing, and would make a great dessert by itself, like a zesty, creamy, cheesecakey Eton Mess. If you can't wait, put half in the freezer to make icecream, and serve the other half straight away, layering with some larger meringue pieces, swirling in some blueberries. Now that's what I wish I'd done. Why didn't I think of that before I put it all in the freezer?

I was tempted to make my own mascarpone, like NotQuiteNigella did, but given I'm also supposed to be studying for exams this weekend, I thought that might be going a bit too far. If you aren't procrastinating like me, you can use purchased lemon curd and meringue nests, and save yourself some time while still impressing family and friends by making your own icecream.

Et voila! Creamy, homemade icecream, that you can't tell wasn't churned. It's gorgeously smooth, and has a strong, but not overpowering, lemon flavour, while the mascarpone gives it a cheesecake-like taste. If you prefer your lemon taste mild, following the recipes' recommendations rather than mine should give you what you're after. I didn't grate the rind in either the icecream or the curd finely enough, so I'll probably wait until I obtain a Microplane zester before making this again.

Week 1 of The Cookbook Challenge down with 3 recipes prepared, 2 books used and icecream to eat! Although, having used my freezer and microwave for this week's challenge hasn't advanced my justification of needing two ovens.

Looking forward to next week's challenge - Indian. Any suggestions?


UPDATE - Check out everyone's posts for Week 1 over at My Food Trail.

[Insert Exciting Title Here]

Ok, so that's not the best name for my first ever post but it's the best I can do being a complete left-brainer.

Welcome to SomethingByKate. Since I'm about to move into my new house with two ovens (I can't say that without a massive smile) and many people just don't seem to understand, I thought I'd share how great it really is with other food nerds out there.

Well I don't have my two ovens yet, but this weekend I found evidence as to why I need at least one new one - half my meringue kisses were crunchy and half were chewy. Which is great, I like both, but was certainly not my intention! I had real trouble keeping my oven at a constant low temperature, it's almost 20 years old, gas and tends to go out if you keep it too low. Although, a contributing factor may have been my inability to pay attention and adding twice as much sugar as I needed for the number of egg whites. I couldn't work out why the sugar just would NOT dissolve and then I realised that I'd only used 2 egg whites, but 1 cup of caster sugar, so I needed to add more beaten egg whites. For everyone's reference - 1 egg white needs 1/4 cup of caster sugar. 1/2 cup is just too much!

What prompted my meringue massacre? A Sunday visit to the Yarra Valley Farmers' Market at Yering Station produced a jar of tangy and smooth 'Unforgettable' passionfruit curd. Unforgettable products suggested purchasing their mini meringues to use to sandwich the curd, but given I have far too many egg whites in my freezer, I thought I'd make my own.


See my stash? And I was very restrained, there were many, many delicious things.



I do love vegetables that taste like vegetables, and not moist cardboard. The gentleman manning the stall told me that the light purple and white eggplant is a variety called Angelina, although Google was unable to confirm this for me. It's a delicately flavoured eggplant, which when roasted was very creamy.

Ricci's Bikkie's cinnamon sugar turkish bread crisps were awesome - they were the first thing I tried when I walked in, but didn't want to crush them by having them at the bottom of my bag, and it was so good I remembered to go back and buy them! I also appreciate the Ricci's Bikkies' stall holder pointing me in the direction of the coffee stall - it was 9am on Sunday after an hours drive to get there! The chilli and parmesan sables' had a bit too much kick for me for that time of the day, but they were very good according to my companion, with a chilli hit afterwards.

Well, long first post. I intend to keep blogging, maybe I can bribe myself - if I can go 12 months and average one post a week, do I deserve a KitchenAid benchtop mixer?

Tell me, what do you do to to reward (read bribe) yourself when you've achieved something?

To find a farmers market near you visit the Victorian Farmers Market Association website.

Yarra Valley Regional Food Group Farmers Market
Unforgettable Products (website under construction)
Ricci's Bikkies