Adam's Adventures in Baking, continued

[yendi]

Tonight's episode: No. More. Pie.


Having had a long day, I decided to relieve stress in the kitchen.

When baking, I knew that optimal conditions must be achieved. So I waited until shadesong had gone out with chelona, and Elayna was still awake and asking for things like dessert. This is the ideal time to be in the kitchen, as it allows you to focus on ten things at once, some of which may have something to do with the recipe. For ther ecipe, I chose the Chocolate Chiffon Pie recipe that had been staring at me for days, ever since I accidentally flipped to it while browsing through the food porn cook books.

Whipping the cream was easy. I'd whipped cream before, and since I now knew where the mixer was, it was just a few minutes of work. THen I got to the fun part -- melting the chocolate in the condensed milk.

Understand, I've never melted chocolate before. And melting it in another liquid was even trickier. I poured the milk into the pan, then tossed in the chopped chunks of chocolate. And waited for it to melt (the instructions were clear -- use low heat, going against my instincts, which are always to turn the dial up to "10").

Ten minutes later, nothing.

I look at the burner. Doesn't seem to be glowing. I hold my hand near it. Don't feel anything. But since I'm not used to using "low," I'm not sure how far heat would radiate. Eventually, curiosity gets the best of me (handily beating common sense, which never puts up much of a fight), and I touch the burner. Ice cold.

Fortunately, the other burners are working fine, so I switch to them. And eventually, melting starts happening. Slowly. Really slowly. Probably because I didn't break the chocolate up into small enough pieces, so I help things along by chopping away at the chocolate with the spoon as I stir and mix the chocolate and milk. Halfway through, Elayna comes into the kitchen asking for dessert. I manage to grab the Tofutti out of the fridge, scoop some into a bowl, and serve that, the vitamin, and her juice, all while darting back to stir the chocolate. Barry Allen has nothing on me!

After that's done, I make the gelatin. Something else I've never done before. You're supposed to let it sit in the water for a bit before stirring it. Alas, I got distracted by finishing stirring the chocolate (found a few lumps), and let it sit too long. The problem here is that the gelatin had started to gel up around dried gelatin powder, leaving clumps. Fortunately, gelatin comes four packets to a box, because they know about people like me.

I got it right on the second try, and mixed the gelatin, vanilla, and chocolate mixture. I then folded (another first! I never folded a non-solid before!) the whipped cream into the chocolate. It looked horrible at first -- it looked like it would never all mix together, and that I'd end up with a marble-looking mixture. Fortunately, after about an eternity, it all stared to come together, and it looked chocolaty!

I then poured it into the crust (store-bought, so bite me!), and put it in the fridge.

One of the dirty secrets of cooking is that all pie recipes leave filling that won't fit in the crust. This is why all good chefs are fat, and why I'd never trust a skinny cook. I therefore felt obligated to clean out the rest of the saucepan the old-fashioned way (since Elayna's allergic to milk, I couldn't offer her any -- I need to find some good milk-free recipes for next time). It tasted damned yummy. My major concern is whether the cake will be solid enough to be eaten with a fork (I'm not sure the whipped cream was whipped enough, as I tried to under-whip it, as folding heavily whipped cream can create butter (or so The Joy of Cooking tells me). But I don't know if it was too under-whipped (and wow, is it possible to talk about baking without making everything sound like an innuendo?), or the gelatin took care of it.

But the adventure is over for now -- the pie is in the fridge, and by 10:00 or so, it should be ready for human consumption!

Comments

[dwivian]

Let's see. I'm in East Cobb, and need a shower, so that leaves me about an hour....given a good headwind, and decent directions, I could get bitch-slapped by my wife for leaving her with three kids in about 35 minutes....

Damn. No pie for me.

[yendi]

One must always weigh the value of pie against the pain caused by being bitch-slapped by one's wife. If the pie is known to be perfect, it's worth the bitch-slap. But for an untested pie, it's probably not worth it. :-)

[dwivian]

Was it worth it, though?

*sigh*

I need to sneak out for pie, or invite people over for a PIE night, sometime soon.... (bring a pie, any kind, meat, veggie, dessert, whatever, and we all pig out)

Of course, that requires that I clean the house...

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Store-bought pie crusts are even smaller than home-made 9-inch pie crusts. Also, chiffon recipes assume one wants to pile the filling to dangerous levels.

Sounds SO yummy!

[yendi]

Store-bought pie crusts are even smaller than home-made 9-inch pie crusts.
Ah! Worth knowing! (Although this recipe explicitly suggested a store-bought one).

Also, chiffon recipes assume one wants to pile the filling to dangerous levels.

:-) Yeah. The walk to the fridge was interesting. And slow. No chocolate was spilled, however.

[mfree.livejournal.com]

My acid test to see if anything in the kitchen is hot is to either brush the wet dishrag up against it or fling a drop of water on it from my fingertip.

My favorite setting is 5-6 for sautee/boil, 2-3 for open simmer, 1-2 for closed simmer, notch up one for a really big pot. 10 is reserved for the teakettle and clear water. *note* I have an electric range... I have no idea how to cook with gas.

I rarely burn the pot, and I'm about the most inattentive chef you can find. I have a secret method which I'm willing to share if you care to hear :)

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Have to admit that I'd like to hear that one, as I can be very inattentive, and have spent many an evening scrubbing burnt pots.

Re:

[mfree.livejournal.com]

If you can hear it boiling, and nothing's happening on top (i.e. no heat plume, no rolling), then you're burining it.

[yendi]

My acid test to see if anything in the kitchen is hot is to either brush the wet dishrag up against it or fling a drop of water on it from my fingertip.

But where's the excitement in that?

Thanks for the tips on the burning.

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

That's why I hate electric stoves. I mean, with gas you can easily see if the flame's lit. And that's gas stoves, you sickos.

That reminds me, I have a coconut custard pie in the fridge (store-bought--like I've had time to bake!) in the fridge. I have to eat it all before it goes bad. Silly husband doesn't like it.

(Thank god for pilates!)

[yendi]

I agree with silly hubby. Don't like coconut.

(Thank god for pilates!)

You mean like the guy who killed that Jesus dude?

[edie22.livejournal.com]

You should post how it turned out and the recipe if it was good! =)

[yendi]

We had no milk in the house, so I won't be able to post about it until tonight. But yeah, if it's good, I'll definitely post.

The recipe was from the Eagle Brand cookbook we have (but it's not on their website, alas).

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

"food porn"

Oh, so inannajones and myself aren't the only people who sit in the kitchen slowly flipping the pages and saying things like "This one looks difficult" and "Do you think we could manage this?" and "I don't think I could whip it for that long..."?

:)

[yendi]

Hell, I've got a couple of books of Thai and other food that are there purely for me to look at the pictures and say, "I wish someone would make this for me." :-)