Adapted from “Ad Hoc at Home” by Thomas Keller with Dave Cruz

Back in Easter, I got the “Ad Hoc at Home” cookbook from Mr. Y2K, before our dinner at Ad Hoc later that day .  We decided to try out a recipe from it and we mutually agreed on this recipe.  You can find the ingredients and directions here from the LATimes.

This was a simple recipe and I surprisingly enjoyed the fat from the chicken.  And, as always, I loved the salty olives (although I substituted the Ascolane with Queens.)

For dessert….

TOFU CHEESECAKE (adapted from Kitchen-Em’s blog)!!!  The texture wasn’t the same  as regular cheesecake, but definitely had the cheesecakey taste.  It was also a no-bake recipe.  This is a keeper if you’re looking for a less caloric cheesecake.  The only change I made was reducing the amount of gelatin to 2 tsp.  I’m thinking of reducing it even further to only 1 tsp to get the texture I’d like.

I topped the cheesecake with an almond macaron with vanilla swiss meringue butter cream, blackberries, an almond dipped in carmelized sugar, and spun sugar.  It’s not the prettiest decoration, but I had a bunch of these random items around.

Yes, I made more macarons…mac attack!

Yogurt Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 ¼ cup rolled oats
• 1 cup wheat flour
• 1/2 cup oat flour
• 1 cup plain, non-fat yogurt (fage)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 2 large, really ripe bananas mashed
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 lightly beaten egg
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°
2. Mix rolled oats, wheat flour, oat flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, chocolate chips, salt, and cinnamon together in a bowl. Set aside.
3. Now mash bananas and egg together in a bowl.
4. Add oil and sugar to the banana and egg mixture.
5. Add banana mixture into the dry mixture and mix together well.
6. Fill greased or lined muffin cups 2/3 of the way. Bake for approximately 20-24 minutes.

Verdict:

The yogurt made the muffins amazingly super moist.  I expected the muffin to be dense due to only using wheat flour, but the texture was light and airy.   If you’re looking for a sweet muffin, I’d double the sugar amount and chocolate chips.  These were definitely easy to make as well as my original recipe but I’ll probably omit making the oat flour the next time and just bump up the wheat flour to 1.5 cups.

Villaware belgian waffle maker

Curtis Stone's chopping board

Shun classic 7" santoku

Thanks to Jess and Mr. Y2K!  Now, time to add more to my wishlist hahahaa

Pate a choux
Recipe from Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 5 large eggs, at room temperature

pate a choux

Directions:

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.

Bring the milk, water, butter and salt to the boil in a heavy-bottomed 2-quart saucepan.  When the mixture is boiling rapidly, add the flour all at once, reduce the heat to medium and, without a second’s hesitation, start stirring the mixture like mad with a wooden spoon.  The dough will come together very quickly and a slight crust will form on the bottom of the pan, but you have to keep stirring – vigorously – another 2 to 3 minutes to dry the dough.  At the end of this time, the dough will be very smooth.

Turn the dough into the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or, if you’ve still got some elbow grease left, you can continue by hand.  One by one, add the eggs to the dough, beating until each egg is thoroughly incorporated.  Don’t be discouraged – as soon as you add the first egg, your lovely dough will separate.  Keep working and by the time you add the third egg it will start coming together again.  When all the eggs are incorporated, the dough will be thick and shiny and, when you lift some of it up it will fall back into the bowl in a ribbon.  The dough will still be warm – it’s supposed to be – and now is the time to use it.

Using about 1 tablespoon of dough for each puff, drop the dough from the spoon onto the lined baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches of space between each mound of dough.

Slide the baking sheets into the oven, bake for 15 minutes, then rotate the sheets from top to bottom and front to back.  Continue baking until the puffs are golden and firm, another 10 to 15 minutes.  Transfer the cream puffs to a cooling rack.

Keeping:  You can spoon out the dough and either bake it immediately or freeze it.  To freeze, spoon the dough in mounds onto parchment-lined baking sheets and slide the sheets into the freezer.  When the dough is completely frozen, remove the balls from the baking sheets and wrap them airtight.  They can be kept in the freezer for up to 2 months and don’t need to be defrosted before baking.

Pastry Cream
Recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s book “Baking: From My Home to Yours”

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole milk
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into bits at room temperature

Directions:

1. Bring the milk to a boil in a small saucepan.
2. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the yolks together with the sugar and cornstarch until thick and well blended. Still whisking, drizzle in about 1/4 cup of the hot milk. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remainder of the milk.
3. Put the pan over medium heat and, whisking vigorously, contstantly and thoroughly bring the mixture to a boil. Keep at a boil, still whisking, for 1 to 2 minutes, then remove the pan from the heat.
4. Whisk in the vanilla extract. Let sit for 5 minutes, then whisk in the bits of butter, stirring until they are fully incorporated and the pastry cream is smooth and silky. Scrape the cream into a bowl. Press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the cream to create an airtight seal and refrigerate until cold or, if you want to cool it quickly put the bowl into a larger bowl filled with ice cubes and cold water and stir the pastry cream occasionally until it is thoroughly chilled, about 20 minutes.
5. The pastry cream can be kept, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

cream puff

Using a pastry bag, I filled the pate a choux with the pastry cream.  It tasted heavenly…

Strawberry Tart

I used Dorie Greenspan’s sweet tart dough recipe (same one from my pear tart post) and the pastry cream recipe below.  These were better after chilling them in the fridge overnight.  This recipe definitely doesn’t disappoint!

Pastry Cream

Recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s book “Baking: From My Home to Yours”

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole milk
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into bits at room temperature

Method

1. Bring the milk to a boil in a small saucepan.
2. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the yolks together with the sugar and cornstarch until thick and well blended. Still whisking, drizzle in about 1/4 cup of the hot milk. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remainder of the milk.
3. Put the pan over medium heat and, whisking vigorously, contstantly and thoroughly bring the mixture to a boil. Keep at a boil, still whisking, for 1 to 2 minutes, then remove the pan from the heat.
4. Whisk in the vanilla extract. Let sit for 5 minutes, then whisk in the bits of butter, stirring until they are fully incorporated and the pastry cream is smooth and silky. Scrape the cream into a bowl. Press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the cream to create an airtight seal and refrigerate until cold or, if you want to cool it quickly put the bowl into a larger bowl filled with ice cubes and cold water and stir the pastry cream occasionally until it is thoroughly chilled, about 20 minutes.
5. The pastry cream can be kept, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Assembly:

1. After crust has cooled, spread chilled pastry cream.
2. Slice up strawberries and place on top of pastry cream.
3. Brush some softened apricot jam on top of strawberries for a nice sheen (optional).

books galore

And it so happened that we were going to eat at Ad Hoc on Saturday….

so I got this:

autograph of Chef David Cruz

Apparently, Chef David Cruz still thinks we’re in March.. LOL.  Regardless, I’m grateful he signed it!    ^___^

simple sign...love it

The food was okay.  Here was the menu:

Menu for 4/3/10

The duck breast was pretty large, but was really tough to cut.  I got a nice arm workout trying to cut it into pieces.  Is this normal of duck breast?

Liberty duck breast + farro

The farro however was mighty tasty, especially with the tangerine.

broiche + apple butter + tarentaise

The brioche was definitely a rich man’s brioche – the butter was literally oozing out of it and the apple butter helped cut the fatty-ness.  Tarentaise is probably the hardest cheese I’ve ever had.  Not really a favorite of mine.

tres leches cake + coffee

The dinner however end well with the tres leches cake.  We ordered coffee as well and it paired really nicely with the sweetness of the cake.  YUM.

mini slider

but next to my thumb…

mini slider next to my fat thumb

Isn’t that the cutest mini burger slider?  Everything about this burger was made from scratch, and yes, even the buns!  I used the recipe from the NY Times for the light brioche burger buns.  The only change I made was using half AP flour and half whole wheat flour.  I’ve never tried the original recipe so I can’t compare/contrast, but I must say that the buns were delicious!  I made 2 buns the size of quarters to taste test.  The other buns were the size of regular slider buns.  They were definitely better than the store bought ones.

As for the patty, I used 80/20 ground beef and mixed it with garlic, lemon thyme, rosemary, lemon zest, grated parmesan, salt and pepper.  Surprisingly, the patties came out super moist and almost buttery.  From the base of the bun I added gorgonzola, the herbed beef patty, arugula, tomato and dijon mustard.  Sooo good!  So from this little experiment, I learned that homemade buns and patties are the way to go.

However, this time I wanted to try a different spin to the cake.  I can’t seem to find it anymore, but I saw some posts on zebra cakes where it essentially had two different batters: chocolate and vanilla.  Anyways, I used the recipe from Diana’s Desserts.

cheesecake and butter mixture

soft peaks

egg whites folded into batter

in the oven

right out of the oven

zebra cheesecake

The zebra effect is pretty cool, don’t you think?   I did this by scooping out about 1 -2 cups of the original batter and incorporating about 3 tbsp on cocoa powder into it.  Then I poured a bit of the original batter into the pan the alternated it with the chocolate batter.  Make sure NOT to spread the batter out as it will spread on its own.  I kept alternating the batters until it filled up the pan.

The only thing I did different this time was not use a water bath during baking.  My cake came out more fluffier, but still not as fluffy as the ones sold in the Japanese or other Asian grocery stores.  It also tasted more sour.  I’m scratching my head on that one.  hmmm maybe it was super sour lemons?

(Not my picture)

My parents taught me how to cook bacon in a pan, on top of the stove.  I always thought this was the ONLY way to cook bacon…until I saw a show in the Food Network (might have been Alton Brown).  I first thought, “Baking bacon?  WTF?!?!?”  I tried it a couple of weeks ago and it’s the best technique, EVER.

It’s not only easy to do, but it also strangely prevents the bacon strips from curling up so that you have flat, evenly cooked slices.   All you do is place the strips of bacon onto a sheet pan fitted with a rack and place into a cold oven. Turn the oven to 400 degrees F and cook for about 12 to 15 minutes, depending on how crispy you like your bacon. Remove from rack and drain on paper towels. Enjoy.

Easy peasy.  Try it and you’ll never go back to stove-top cooked bacon.

This is what almost 3 cups of butter looks like:

block of heart attack

I think I may want to try to use less butter the next time.  Some of it melted during cooking and a pool collected at the bottom of each croissant anyways.

Laminating the dough was probably the hardest part of making croissants.  You have to keep the dough relatively cold to prevent the butter from melting, so I had to roll it out then stick it back in the fridge for a b it, then repeat the process.  My arms were pretty tired at the end of it.

First turn

layers of dough + butter

I cut the laminated dough into 4, 1lb pieces for easy freezing and future usage.  I was really excited to bake my first batch, but holy moly there was so much drama!  Other people mentioned that there would be a pool of melted butter as the dough was cooking, but I didn’t realize how large of a pool it would be.  I used a baking sheet w/o the sides so all the melted butter ran off of my pan and onto the bottom of my oven, causing it to smoke.  My fire alarm was going off like crazy.  I had to take out my partially cooked croissants and clean out the oven before I could put them back in to finish cooking.  This caused my croissants to look like the following:

first batch = fail

It was dense and weren’t really flaky.  Despite the texture defects, the taste was okay.  *sigh *

inside + Mr. Y2K's model hands

I decided to make top one with maple syrup and bacon…a heart-stopping treat.

bacon maple croissant

I was so disappointed with the first batch.  I made another one a week after.  Learning from my first mistake, I created sides using foil (I don’t own any baking sheets with sides).  I also made chocolate ones.

all rolled up

2nd batch - success!

The 2nd batch looked much more like croissants with the flaky layers and were so much better than the first.  They were still a bit weighty so I may try cooking them a bit longer the next time.

decorated chocolate croissant

chocolate croissant

Would I make these again?  Eh, probably not for a very long time.  I can’t justify eating that much butter and dough AND it was just a pain in the @$$ to make.  I’m planning on making Tartine Bakery’s morning buns with the 3rd batch….I can’t wait!  Those are just sweet, sticky, gooey goodness!