Will the Real Cake Bow$s Please Stand Up

I finally watched an episode of Cake Boss the other night. I couldn't have been less impressed. Unless that guys cakes taste like the absolute best thing of all time then, in my opinion he is not that good of a cake maker. For me the cake is all about the icing. When all you do is put three cake layers covered in fondant on top of each other I'm not that impressed. He doesn't even mold them or do anything really that extravagant to them, maybe it was just the episode I saw but I know if I needed a wedding cake I would not buy it from him. Maybe I haven't ever had that good of cake before, but I feel like the difference between the actual cake of the best cake in the world and cake made from a box bought at your local supermarket is not that big. For me icing is what separates the great cakes from the just alright cakes. That is why I call my brother Vinnie the Cake Bow$s, not to be confused with that lame cake boss. While he does still only make his cakes from a box (which I burn him about), the icings that he creates are sublime.

a mad scientist with sugar and butter

The cake he made this past weekend was definitely his best, a hybrid chocolate and banana cake. The banana part had a peanut butter, butter cream frosting in the middle and chocolate buttercream on the outside, while the chocolate part had a vanilla buttercream with some crushed oreos in the middle, and chocolate buttercream with a few oreos covering its outside layer. I should have just eaten cake all weekend for every meal, because these cakes were unbelievable. The crazy thing about these cakes is how moist they stay too, since the he uses a buttercream icing, the cake actually gets more moist with age, and the flavor is always better with each consecutive day of the cakes life (which usually isn't very long).

There are not many desserts I would rather have than these cake creations, and it is all about the icing. To become really legit, Vinnie will have to eventually start making the cakes from scratch, but as long as he keeps creating icing the way he does now, it really doesn't make any difference to me.

The Cake Bow$s, son!

Eat well, Live well

Kitchen Disaster: Foodapalooza Update

Wednesday went from excitement for mexican to complete disappointment. I love mexican food and think that I'm able to cook it pretty well, but what happened the other day definitely made me think differently. I planned on having chicken enchiladas with a tomatillo salsa.

Both components tasted awful, I couldn't even finish the meal. For me dinner is the part of the day I look forward to the most. I am at school and study all day so being able to finish the day off with a tasty home-cooked meal makes me feel good, and is really something I look forward to every day. What happened Wednesday was a major disappointment and left me depressed until dinner the next day, it was hard to fall asleep that night thinking about how bad it was, plus being hungry was a constant reminder of an unsatisfying meal. I was definitely longing for a meal like what I had the week before while visiting my sister in Boston.

We went to a restaurant called The Chart House, which was absolutely unbelievable. I had a surf and turf that consisted of prime rib, shrimp scampi, and a side of lump crab meat and garlic mashed potatoes with chocolate molten lava cake for dessert. It was so good, the awfulness of what I created had me longing for a meal as complete as that one. Everything was cooked to perfection and tasted absolutely great, I will never go to Boston again without going to the Chart House and would recommend that if your in Boston do not miss out on this superb restaurant.

The cupcake I bought for dessert on Thursday to make up for the mess on wednesday, a maple cupcake with as much frosting on it as cake (the way I like it), with a fresh maple syrup drizzle, also helped to get me out of my awful dinner funk. I guess it isn't a complete loss when a bad meal is made, it does help to give me perspective and let me know that cooking is a learning process, and the only way to get better is keep trying and cooking even if what you make isn't very good. I love to do it so I won't let it bring me down too much.

Plus this weekend might as well be called Foodapolooza 2010. When my brother and I stay in Kent for the weekend each day is usually completed with a gluttonous meal, and we kind of have a few go to meals that we consider our "weekend meals". Friday is either beef stroganoff or spaghetti carbonara, Saturday is either chicken francais or the best fried chicken sandwich ever and Sunday is always linguine with chicken parm and sometimes fried cheese. Plus my brother will cook an over the top cake that we usually finish by ourselves over the weekend.

We figured there weren't going to be to many more opportunities to have weekends like this at our place up here since we have been going home most every weekend now, and we are moving out and back home at the end of May. The stroganoff last night was as good as I've ever made it and tonight we decided on the chicken sandwiches which should be as good, and if there is one thing I can count on it is that my spaghetti is always great, so there are no worries there. As for the dessert my brother is actually making two cakes a chocolate cookies and cream and a banana cake, so I might just have to eat a whole cake myself. Overall, what happened wednesday was certainly disappointing but what has followed, and memories of unreal meals past got me through it. Partake in Foodapolooza yourself, but don't be mad at me if you wake up with a couple extra pounds Monday morning.

Update:

The gluttonous weekend of Foodapalooza was quite the success, full stomachs, greasy cheeks and sugar comas. The chicken sandwiches were as great as expected and pose a few questions when compared to francais. The chicken parm and spaghetti also could not be beat. The sauce I made this time may just have been the best I've made yet which is exciting, considering I made enough to freeze for at least the next month. As for the cake, it was unreal, and easily the best my brother has made...the Cake Bowss is back! The cake will get its own post soon, in the mean time enjoy some pictures from Foodapalooza '10.

Eat well, Live well

Cooking with a Friend

My best friend Joe, is on a little bit of a cooking kick and I couldn't be happier to do a little bit of cooking with him. Over the past two weeks or so we made steamed dumplings and crab rangoon. We are always getting chinese takeout and our two favorite sides are definitely dumplings and rangoon, there isn't a time we get chinese and do not have them along side whatever other meal we make.

My experience with cooking chinese dishes is that it never seems to come very close to how it does from a takeout place. So we were both excited to find out how each of our side dishes would turn out. The dumplings were alright, too much ginger for sure and they definitely weren't seasoned properly. We did however make the dough for them as well and that turned out really good. The dumplings weren't bad but they were just kind of bland and overly gingery (I have come to the conclusion that I am not a big fan of ginger).

The crab rangoon on the other hand came out amazing. It was as good if not better than any rangoon that I've had from our go to takeout locations. The best part about it was that it was so easy to make and not much work either. We used store bought wonton wrappers, which for some reason are kept in the produce section of the grocery store (which doesn't make any sense to me), they also had egg roll wrappers which may need to be the next chinese staple we take on.

All in all it was a great time cooking with someone else especially my best friend. Typically I cook by myself for myself and my brother, but it definitely is a good time cooking with somebody else. I can't remember the dumpling recipe but it wasn't very good so it doesn't really even need posted. Here is the crab rangoon recipe, and it was really good, give it a try.

Crab Rangoon

30-40 pieces

1 package of wonton wrappers

8-12 oz cream cheese, softened

2 green onions sliced thin

4-5 cloves of garlic minced

1 package of the cheep crab meat in the shrink wrapped package, minced

2-3 teaspoons soy sauce

1 bottle of vegetable or any oil of your choosing for frying

Combine all the ingredients together in a bowl. Place about a teaspoon in the center of a wonton wrap and pinch the corners together. Set aside, assemble all the crab rangoons and fry until golden brown.

Eat well, Live well

Easter Lamb

I have been excited for about the past month about cooking for my family on easter, because I was going to get to make rack of lamb. Just looking at the rack of lamb made me want to cook it because it just looks so cool and sophisticated, if I want to think of myself as a "chef" I needed to be able to cook something like that. For dessert I was going to make something I had recently seen Tyler Florence make on an episode of Tyler's Ultimate, banana cream pudding. With home made whip cream how could a creamy banana pudding be bad, he made it look so go I had to give it a try. Of course both the lamb and the pudding almost turned into a disaster, but I think I kept my cool and both still ended up coming out pretty well.

The recipe for the lamb I got here, from Emeril, for my first time cooking lamb I figured Emeril would be a chef I could trust. Well I'm not sure if my oven wasn't hot enough or what but after browning the lamb on all sides and roasting it in the oven for 15 minutes, I cut into the rack and it was still basically raw.

Raw!

I didn't realize this until I was cutting the lamb in to individual chops at my aunt's house to serve. So I was a bit flustered as I'm cutting into this lamb and realizing it was raw. Luckily we through it into her oven on broil and cooked the individually cut chops for about another 5-8 minutes, a couple minutes on each side. So either Emeril like's his lamb raw or if you are going to try this recipe out cook the lamb for at least an additional 7-10 minutes. I would think there is nothing worse than overcooked rack of lamb, but I could definitely say the same for undercooked raw lamb. The flavor was great and after the extra broiling, we all thought the lamb was great, and it was still a medium rare, the way it should have been cooked. One other thing I added to this recipe was some chopped fresh rosemary to the crust. I looked at a bunch of lamb recipes and most included rosemary, so I did and it really helped to brighten the flavor of the lamb.

The dessert, I was also really excited for, maybe for the simple fact that for the two weeks leading up to easter, when I saw the recipe, my brother bitched at me every day about not making it or how I could make it better. If you know my brother than you would know how particular he is. If something isn't his way then he will let you know about and keep letting you know until it becomes his way. He is under the impression that the only dessert worth eating is a cake with buttercream frosting, and if that wasn't going to be what I was going to make, he wanted nothing to do with it. So basically for two weeks straight I had him bitching and moaning that we weren't going to have a dessert that he wanted, so even if this was going to be the worst dessert of all time I was going to make it just to burn him.

This is the recipe, courtesy of probably my favorite food network chef, Tyler Florence. The flavor was great however, it didn't set right, it stayed basically like a liquid. So the next time I make this I will probably add about another 1/4 cup of corn starch, and see how that thickens it up. The pudding is basically like any other sauce that you would thicken with flour or cornstarch, which I have done plenty of times, but this pudding just wouldn't thicken, so I figure if I add more corn starch it should get to the thickness that you would want from a pudding, or pastry cream, which Tyler said it basically is. One change I also made to this recipe was instead of just lining the bottom of the serving dish with vanilla wafers, I did the wafers but added a chocolate ganache to wafers, so the ganache and wafers basically became like a crust, which was a really good addition. There is not many better flavor combinations, for me, than chocolate and banana's.

All in all I thought the meal came out about as good as it could have, considering I was making two dishes I had never done before. With the tweaks, that I know now the next time a make either of these dishes I think they should be even better.

Eat well, Live well

Crab Cakes with Roasted Vegetables and aioli

The weather is finally starting to get nice again (today the high is 85 and I have no class!), so it's time to start thinking about those recipes that you just don't feel like cooking when it's 15 degrees, dark by 5 o'clock with a foot of snow on the ground. One such recipe is crab cakes. I love crab cakes and they're so easy to make, the only problem for me is the lack of fresh crab. I usually buy the shrink wrapped pre-cooked crab that probably isn't real crab but tastes like it, but this time I bought a can of crab meat that was more expensive thinking the higher price meant better crab, but I'm not so sure it was much better than the other stuff. It is definitely much better using lump crab meat when making crab cakes, and the crab I bought in the can was shredded plus I don't really think it had that much or at all better flavor than the cheaper crab I usually buy, but either way the crab cakes still turned out pretty well and it definitely got me in the mood for the warmer days of spring and summer to come.

Crab Cakes with Roasted Vegetables and Aioli

Serves 2

For the Crab Cakes:

1 pound of crab meat

1/2 sweet onion diced

2 garlic cloves minced

1/2 red pepper diced

1 egg white

2 tbs mayonnaise

1 lemon juiced

1/2 c bread crumbs

1 tsp old bays seasoning

2 tbs olive oil

1 tbs butter

salt and pepper

On medium heat in a frying pan fry the onion and red pepper for 5-10 minutes to caramelize, in the last minute or two add the garlic and cook until fragrant. Set aside to cool.

In a bowl combine the lemon juice, egg white, mayonnaise and old bay. Stir to mix together, then fold in to the wet mixture the crab meat and onion, pepper and garlic.

Next mix in the bread crumbs and mold into about 4-6 cakes, depending on the size you prefer. Cover the cakes with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for a couple hours.

When ready to fry the crab cakes, bring a frying pan with the olive oil and butter in it to medium heat. Fry the cakes until golden brown, 3-4 minutes per side.

For the Roasted Vegetables:

1 zucchini

1 eggplant

1 red pepper

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and cut the vegetables into bite size pieces.

Spread the vegetables out on a baking sheet with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Roast in the oven for about 45 minutes turning them about half way through the baking time.

For the Aioli:

3 garlic cloves

1 egg yolk

1/4-1/2 cup canola oil

juice from half a lemon

1 tsp red wine vinegar

a pinch of cayenne

salt and pepper

Mince the garlic cloves, then with the side of your knife start smashing the garlic to turn it into a paste. Add a little bit of salt, which will act as an abrasive and make it easier to turn the garlic into a paste. This takes a little bit of time, just keep smashing the minced garlic with the side of the knife and it will turn in to a paste.

Put the garlic in a mixing bowl with the egg yolk and whisk together until the yolk starts to lighten in color.

Now while whisking add a few drops of the oil to the egg and garlic mixture. Drop by drop keep adding the oil slowly so the egg and oil combine. If you add too much oil at a time the mixture will break and you will have to start over. This part of the process takes a little bit of time and work but it is well worth it. As the mixture starts to thicken you could start adding more and more oil at a time without risk of it breaking.

When almost all the oil is combined, add in the lemon juice, vinegar and cayenne. Taste a little bit to how much salt and pepper needs add, then whisk in the rest of the oil.

*the aioli is not only good for this recipe but is great with many other foods and should keep in a refrigerator for about a week.

Eat well, Live well