A Morsel of St. Patty's Day

First off, Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Or...as Paul says..Happy St. Paddy's Day.  I tried to tell him it is Patty like Patrick - but he assured me it is Paddy as is Pádraig.  Touché!

I don't remember if we wrote about it on here or not, but last year we tried to go authentic Irish with soda bread and brisket.  The soda bread (recipe compliments of Mary Vaca!) was great.  The brisket was pretty good - but probably still the most expensive piece of meat we've ever bought.

So this year we are taking a slightly different angle.  We're saving the soda bread for the weekend when we'll be home.  And we're skipping the brisket, hoping that the Irish pub we're going to tonight has good Irish food.  If not, we'll go to a different butcher and have brisket with our soda bread this weekend.

Instead - I made a few Irish-esque treats for work.  First, to be culturally sensitive to our Muslim colleagues who don't drink, I made shamrock sugar cookies with green frosting.  They were delicious!  Although, like other attempts to be culturally sensitive, I found that many (not all) of the Muslim colleagues preferred the second treat:  mini-chocolate Guinness (stout) cupcakes with Bailey's Irish cream frosting.  Delicious little bite-size treats! 

Finally - the best of all...a Chocolate Guinness Stout Cupcake (full-sized) with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting and....drum roll.....a Chocolate Whiskey Ganache filling!  Hmm!  I think there are enough calories in this to count for a weekend's worth of treats!  The top picture was sent from my phone to let my friend know to come grab one.  And then I forgot to take a picture until I was half-way done with mine.  Oops.

I used to wonder why my roommate made treats to give away at work and now I know....first, if you keep them at home (which we've done with 2 cakes now) you start to notice that your stomach doesn't feel so flat in the morning.  :(  But more importantly - you should see the looks on people's faces when they try them!  The big surprise in these treats (to me) was the reaction to the cookies.  Three or four colleagues said they were only going to break off a small piece...and then came back for the rest of their cookie.  Another three colleagues asked for the recipe!  Another said I should be selling these cookies!  Another said it was the best cookie they'd had..."when is the next holiday!?!" 

Maybe 25% of what they said is just them trying to make me feel good...but I can tell when you are just trying to make me feel good and when you really do like my food. 

If I may pat myself on the back for a moment - I made the cookie cutter from scratch!  And I didn't even slice open any fingers in the process.  Also - the cookies really did taste like those ones you buy at the store that have the powder on the bottom and are super super soft and thick.  And...do you see the swirls in the frosting on the cupcakes?  Finally got that right!  But...so you know that I don't think I'm all that and a box chocolates...it took me three tries to get the right shape for the cookie cutter...and one batch of frosting just slithered its way off the cupcake...and the cookies probably should have been thicker.  (Ha!  No one even touched the box of thin mints on my desk - do you think that means I can have them all!?)

The answer to when the next holiday is?  Tomorrow!  It's Purim!

Soliel - the Perfect Orange Cake

Today is a great morning because I got to bring this cake to work that I've been research, buying things for and making for the past 4 days.  Paul says it has consumed me.  This may be slightly true.  But enough about that...on to THE CAKE! (I feel that it needs a name...not a name like Jen's Perfect Masterpiece but something more like Soliel (a French name for "sun" - fitting as most of the recipes are from Julia Child!). But I'm not that obsessed, so we'll skip the name and stick with "the cake.")

The cake has two layers of orange sponge cake, one layer of yellow butter cake, two layers of orange curd filling, and Cointreau butter cream frosting - garnished with fresh orange slices (and curled orange rind).  So you see - "the cake" is just not a sufficient name.  And since you can't see it in person or taste it, I'll tell you all about it.  After all, I have to record my 4 days of research/planning/baking somewhere!

Like I said, the cake has three layers, two are orange sponge cake which i think is fabulous because it is light (in weight, in flavor, in consistency) and delicious!  The orange kind of makes it taste healthy and the cake part makes it like a sweet indulgence!  It is more substantial than angel-food cake, but much lighter than and fluffier than normal cake. (The technical explanation is that I beat and whisked lots of air into the batter and then delicately folded it all together and quickly popped it in the oven.)

The third layer is a yellow butter cake - it is only there because I wanted to try the recipe.  I watched the Cake Love video on making that cake like 3 times. Before you think eh, butter cake? let me tell you that it only has that name because of its appearance (not its ingredients) and it is only yellow because of the egg yolks.  It tastes good but it is much heavier (weight and density, slightly like a pound cake.) and it has a shiny buttery look.  (But it doesn't taste like butter...it has a hint of vanilla and the bourbon I put in it! Haha).

The filling between the three layers of cake is an orange curd. (You are so from Wisconsin, putting curds in your cake!) This sounds gross, but it is a lot like lemon curd - which isn't really curd at all.  It is somewhere between a jelly and a frosting - like the jelly filling in a great doughnut.  Then the cake is topped with an orange butter cream frosting, flavored with some Cointreau.  The last few times I made the frosting (which involves boiling sugar, stirring over simmering water, over ice, and then quickly mixing...in short: it is a very complex frosting.) So the last few times I made it I cooked the sugar too long and ended up with a darker more caramelized frosting (which is delicious but more difficult to make).  This time I aced the recipe - but the frosting is very yellow from the butter and tasted pretty buttery...until I threw in an extra tablespoon of Cointreau :)  The butter color and flavor are not bad - I buy my butter fresh from a particular guy in the market and I've done my share of reading up on butter (inspired by a 2008 New York Times article).  I'm going to say it was the good butter and the fresh Orange that gave it the color.

As you can see, I have put a lot into this cake and have learned a ton.  The payout of all of this is a delicious cake that I am so proud of.  (As a sophomore in college I would have been very offended if you told me I would one day be proud of a cake that I made.)  Technically there are 20 servings but I think you would be hard pressed to get 20 pieces (they will be small) - which brings me to today:  I brought the cake to work and hid it in a small refrigerator on a floor where only 4 people work (one of them being my best friend here).  People are already asking how the cake turned out, telling me they saw me come in with it this morning, and asking what time the cake is coming out.  Do you see where this is going?  There are more than 20 people who literally want a share in the cake.  An honor - but it also means that I may only get 2 bites (half of Paul's small piece...he takes big bites). But do you really think I've been researching and planning for 4 days to only have two bites?  No!  That is why I shaved off a little from the middle and tasted it last night!  In addition to giving my friend a cake for his birthday it was lots of fun, a learning opportunity, friends will like me more, lots positive attention, and by the time you split the cake into all those pieces:  only 40 calories.  :)

*Three side-notes which I couldn't fit in:  1.  The butter article also inspired my orange Christmas cookies which are prominently featured...not my cookies, but the original recipe; 2.  This is a much improved version of the cake from the last posting which was only 2 layers, back in the day before I aced the recipe; 3. Greg saw the cake on Skype last night and said it looked like it belongs in a magazine!  He is my favorite for being the first to inflate my fluffy butter cream ego :)  I really hope no one sets their lunch on top of the cake before we bring it out!

Epilogue:  Of course everyone loved the cake!  Our friend cut really thin pieces (which was okay because it was so tall) and about 20 people had some (including the big boss!).  The biggest compliments were a.) asking for the recipes, b.) a few people sneaking in a second piece, c.) 3 people wiping up the frosting and filling from the tray (with their fingers!) and d.) two colleagues saying I should sell my cakes!  :)  Maybe I'll practice a few more times before I do that.

Butter Crisis!!!

I'm not kidding. There is a butter shortage in Israel.  A CRISIS!  This is serious. You don't believe me? Click here. How do I know this? We are hosting a 16-person Thankgiving Dinner complete with a 22lb bird on the grill (with butter patties between the skin and meat), mushroom rice (with mushrooms sauteed in butter), mashed potatoes (obviously, with butter), buscuits (luckily I already made these with butter, but we still need to do the herb-butter to put on them!), and a sweet potato pie (1/3 cup butter in the crust).  Ahh!!!

On Thursday Paul ran to the store for milk, butter and flour.  He said the store was out of the butter we usually buy.  The second store was also out. Only margarine. Julie Child would not approve! And after reading this New York Times article last year, I just cannot bring my self to use anything but real unsalted butter. (PS. the oragne cookies in that aricle are delicious!) The third store: no butter. Fourth: no butter. Fifth, sixth...Ahhh!

At dinner the waiter brought us bread and butter to start with the largest blob of butter ever served! It was at least 1/2 cup.  I have to tell you that honestly I wanted to take that butter home with me. But I didn't. The butter sparked a conversation about butter shortages and how this really felt like a serious problem of unstocked shelves and wartime shortages. I explained to the wiater that this couldn't happen at a worse time (for us) given the amount of butter needed for Thanksgiving...not to mention the Christmas cookies!

This morning at work my worry continued (as did my stomach ache from all of the rich food and the blob of butter). "I heard something on the news. The government as ordered a stop on all butter production, prioritizing cheese as a need." Seriously?!?! Yes, they are serious. "Hopefully imports will increase soon...."