happy birthday to my dad!
this is a very very very very late post.
his birthday was on july 26, and he didn’t spend it with us.
yeah. he jetted off on a business trip the day before.
he got a cake from his hotel.
it was a pretty cake.
(goes into corner and cries)
BUT, for the last day of camp, i made a pretty cake too!
here it is:
i made a chocolate chiffon cake (on the bottom), which didn’t rise,
and the next morning my mother made another (the one on top).
that rhymes.
and then i used a frosting recipe that i’ve been meaning to use for a while now:
“That’s the Best Frosting I’ve Ever Had“.
it was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good.
i think that the frosting cost more to make than the cake.
it used a stick of butter.
sob, sob.
as you can see the chiffon cake was the kind with a hole in the middle.
i intended to frost the sides too, but in the end just dumped it all in the hole.
i’m so glad people actually ate it. and dare i say, liked it?
i really like my dad’s dSLR.
oh, and this is my studio II model!
it’s a house made for an aquaphobic guy and his aquaphilic wife.
it’s by the sea. it has a pool. life therapy, man. for his phobia.
unless he has a heart attack first.
i know. i’m cruel.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway,
for my dad’s birthday, i made caramel pudding!
the recipe is from Smitten Kitchen, and, well.
as usual, i kinda sorta screwed it up.
but that’s okay!
here’s the recipe after i played with it.
(quartered) recipe from Smitten Kitchen
serves 2~3, depending on how big your ramekins are
Ingredients:
1 cup milk
1.5 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla
pinch salt
1/4 cup sugar
- Whisk 1/4 cup milk w/ the cornstarch, vanilla + salt. Set aside.
- Combine the sugar in the saucepan with 1.5 tbsp water. Bring to a boil.
- Cook over medium high heat, undisturbed, until a deep amber caramel is formed, about 8 minutes.
- Remove from heat. Whisk in the remaining 3/4 cups of milk, very gradually.
- Return to heat & whisk over medium heat until he caramel has dissolved again. Simmer over medium low heat until mixture thickens + deepens (10 mins).
- Gradually whisk in cornstarch mixture, stir + cook over medium for 1 minute.
- Strain if desired; pour into ramekins.
- Chill for ~2 hours.
so let’s start!
this is actually a very simple recipe.
if you were to be absolutely minimalist,
you could leave out the vanilla and salt.
then this would be just three ingredients.
but anyway, here are your ingredients:
and i measured it all out, too.
(there are two portions of milk as you can see in the recipe.)
now take these four ingredients…
(1/4 cup milk, cornstarch, vanilla, salt)
and whisk them together.
cornstarch makes everything so extraordinarily thick.
take the sugar and some water…
and throw it into the saucepan.
let it come to a boil,
and let it cook for a while.
DO NOT TURN YOUR BACK.
"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
I REPEAT. DO NOT. TURN. YOUR. BACK.
-UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
sigh. this is the only saucepan small enough in the house,
to make such small amounts of pudding.
-UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"
excuse my foul language. so. let’s wash it.
it’s not as hard as i thought to clean.
but. guess what?
we’re out of sugar.
soooooooooooo…
ta-dah! my newest obsession. i love it on everything.
yogurt. fruit. pudding. bacon. (kidding. i don’t eat bacon.)
this is about 1/4 cup of honey.
i read that when you measure sticky stuff like honey or pb,
you can spray it with cooking spray (which i don’t have)
or dip it in boiling water (which i couldn’t be bothered to boil).
ah well, a little less sugar never killed anyone.
scrub scrub scrub.
swirl swirl swirl.
rinse rinse rinse.
the pot is clean! let’s get to work.
put it on the flame,
and bring it to a boil, once again.
by now i’ve figured out that you proooooooobably
can’t make caramel from honey.
daaaaaaang.
but, it can burn. so. be careful.
whisk in the 3/4 cups milk, and dissolve the caramel,
(which hardens immediately under the lower temperature)
and keep taking photos.
because i did. i totally did.
i just accidentally didn’t upload all of them to my computer.
anyway, if you’ve ever thickened a stew with cornstarch or flour,
this pudding works basically on that concept.
and my dad didn’t eat any pudding. because he left. as i said.
so i ate it. i ate it for breakfast. no shame.
**
What’s that technique called when you thicken a stew with starch? I know that in Chinese it’s called 勾芡, or gou qian, and honestly, I hate it when dishes are gou qian-ed. So goopy. Ugh.
很漂亮的蛋糕，好好吃的樣子。
You did a very beautiful cake.
This Sunday (8/8) is Father’ Day of Taiwan.
Cake seems a good present.
thankyou~
謝謝你~~ :D Are you from Taiwan? It is indeed going to be Father’s Day in Taiwan this coming weekend. I hope you celebrate well with your dad! :)
Wei-Wei
I think they just say “thicken”? Haha I’m horrible at translating, even more horrible at Mandarin =P
DUDE your chocolate chiffon cake looks SO DANG DELICIOUS! It’s like 5pm right now..you know..when you just start to get hungry? I had a late lunch at about 1:30pm, so it’s about SNACK TIME!!! Hahaha omg…reading food blogs when you’re hungry can’t be a good idea…
Haha I guess it’s just a very very thick, uh, demiglassé? Deglazing? (I think I’m thinking of like deglazing the pan with wine after cooking meat or something. Sorry for being insensitive…) And I keep forgetting that you’re in Taiwan! I’m getting a little hungry too. I’m having pear :D
Wei-Wei
It looks like your choc cake rose fine; it looks really delicious to me . . . I was wondering what the term for thickening soup in English is too; in Taiwanese it sounds something like “dau gee”, but I guess it’s kind of the Asian equivalent of using a roux?
Well, the one on top my mother made. The (squashed) one on the bottom is obviously the one I made. With my mother helping. :P I’ve never heard of “dau gee” before, but I think roux would be the right word! :D
Wei-Wei
The thickening word that you’re looking for may be “roux.” That’s the flour & butter mixture. . . Does this have a caramel / butterscotch taste? I have a recipe for butterscotch pudding for Cooking Light that I want to make! :)
It’s so cool how even the honey bottles look different in Asia. :)
Yes, roux would be right! Thanks :D I think I’m really coarse when it comes to flavours. It didn’t exactly have caramel taste (I don’t think you can make caramel from honey?) but it was sweet… (duh). I guess it would be more of a butterscotch flavour. Are they the same? I’m sorry :S
Hahaha I wish we had the ones that came in a bear! Those are too cute ;)
Wei-Wei
Hmm, do you know I’m not much of a cake person? I mean, it’s good! I think it’s the texture or consistency? I don’t know. I’d just much prefer ice cream, or pie, or something with a different mouth-feel for dessert.
Pudding though is right up my alley! And caramel pudding? Seriously yum. I ought to try that; I’ve made dark chocolate pudding, but no other flavors yet.
Thanks for sending me my cube results! That was fun. Where did you come across that game?
There’s a lot of different kinds of cake, though! Cheesecake, sponge cake, pound cake… if you want to talk about mouthfeel I think you’ll find what you need there. But I understand, sometimes you just want something different! Like pie. Pie is awesome. :D
I hope you had fun reading the results! I read it in a book, which you can find here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0786882573
Thanks for playing!
Wei-Wei
Happy belated b’day to ur dad. Great looking cake indeed and pudding is so a breakfast food :P
Thank you FFichiban! And yes. Cake is a breakfast food too, no? :D
Wei-Wei