Star-Spangled 4th of July Chocolate Cake

Some people are so creative, aren't they? A friend of mine made a rich, decadent chocolate dessert last weekend. She turned it into a perfect 4th of July cake by arranging the wedges into the shape of  a star.  It is French Chocolate Cake from “The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Chocolate” by Christine McFadden & Christine France. I looked all over the internet trying to find the recipe so I could give you a link, but just couldn't find it.

There is a recipe over on the Saveur magazine web site that is very similar to the one pictured. The texture is similar to fudge. Each bite melts in your mouth. A few tablespoons of the flour in the recipe keep it off the list of flourless chocolate cakes.

I had my first taste of flourless chocolate cake when I took a cooking class in Fargo in the early to mid 1980's. Chocolateir magazine had just started publishing. I think it was the second issue that had a recipe for flourless chocolate cake. My cooking teacher made it for us in class. It was divine. I'm pretty sure I remember her referring to the decadent dessert as " Chocolate O." That was her name for it, not the magazine's. I've made it a few times since that long-ago introduction. It's rich with butter, lots of chocolate and a little sugar. And no crust.

You can click right here to go quickly over to the chocolate cake recipe in Saveur. And, lucky you if there is a copy of "The Cook's Encyclopedia of Chocolate" on your book shelf.

May your 4th of July be filled with fun and good food.

 

Posted by: sdoeden on 7/03/2009 at 12:12 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: 4th of july dessert, chocolate, flourless chocolate cake, food, saveur magazine

Whisk It Wednesday: A Trout Surprise

Last Thursday a friend called to tell me she and her husband, along with her daughter from Fort Worth, were coming to Bemidji to see the play (The Odd Couple) at the Paul Bunyan Playhouse. She wondered if they could stop by my house before having a pre-theater dinner downtown.

They arrived just in time for happy hour. They brought the wine. And a bag of trout they had caught and cleaned that day.

I've never eaten trout let alone prepared it. But before my friends headed off for dinner, I had taken notes with very specific directives on how to prepare the trout on the grill. I wouldn't need many ingredients, just lots of chopped onions and some dill. And a few slices of bacon.

I was planning to prepare the trout the next day for dinner. It was the same day my copy of Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father’s Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater, by Matthew Amster-Burton, arrived. Believe it or not, I flipped open the book and the page that I turned to had a recipe for preparing trout. No kidding! Now that's definitely a meal for an adventurous child. This recipe included a chopped fennel bulb, something my friends did not use when they prepared trout.

About 45 minutes before serving a trout dinner, I pulled the fish out of the refrigerator. There were three in the bag. Heads were removed and the guts had been cleaned out.

For these three trout, I chopped up 1 very large onion and 1 small fennel bulb and sauteed them until crisp-tender. I stirred in a generous amount of dried dill weed. I love the fresh taste of dill.

We generously stuffed the onion mixture into each trout.

I poked lots of holes into a large piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil, as my friends directed me to do. Trout is a rich, fatty fish, similar to salmon, but lighter with a more delicate flavor. Fat from the fish could drip through the foil as it cooked.

I preheated our gas grill with all burners turned on high heat. Once the grill was hot, I turned all the burners to medium, put the holey foil on the grill rack and on went the trout.

Just as instructed, I laid a piece of bacon over each trout.

The trout cooked over medium heat on a closed grill for a little more than 30 minutes. I was told it was better to overcook the trout than to undercook. That reminded me of the roast pork my mom used to make years ago. Back then, pork was much fattier than it is today. She would roast it at a low temperature in the oven for hours. It would be well-done and still moist and flavorful, thanks to all that fat. This fatty trout could handle overcooking without losing its flaky texture and delicate succulence.

When the skin was wrinkled and the meat turned to a light ivory-pink, the fish was done.

My daughter-in-law and I split the largest trout. The guys each had a whole fish. The skin was easy to peel right off of the trout. The meat was moist. The stuffing was aromatic and delicious. It was a new taste experience for all of us. It was a trout surprise.

You're probably wondering where the trout came from. Can't tell you. I was sworn to secrecy. Just like morel foragers, Minnesota trout fishermen don't like to share details about where they catch the fish. But it's definitely worth the hunt.

 

Posted by: sdoeden on 7/01/2009 at 12:01 AM | Comments (2) | Permalink

Tags: food, grilling fish, hungry monkey, trout

My Big Feta Greek Spreading

I've discovered there's no place in the middle when it comes to olives. People love olives or they adamantly, for sure, no doubt about it, can not stand them. I've never heard anyone say, "Olives? Oh, I can take them or leave them."

I'm one who loves them. As long as they are not from a can. Don't call me an olive snob, though.

I grew up on black olives from a can. My dad and I could eat a can together at one sitting. We never had to share. My mom and my brother were from the "can not stand them" camp. Now, though, I prefer them from a jar or from a bin in the deli case at the grocery store. Any color olives, with pits or without, stuffed with almonds or garlic or feta or jalapenos -- I'm there.

I created My Big Feta Greek Spreading for a cooking class I taught in 2003, shortly after I'd seen the movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." The spread, with a cream cheese base, becomes a little bit Greek with the addition of feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, olives and pine nuts. The flavors develop when the spread is made the day before you plan to serve it. This time, I used Aromatic Roasted Olives, pitted and chopped to mix into the cheese spread. The recipe for Aromatic Roasted Olives is in my column this week. You can click here to get to it quickly.

I serve My Big Fat Greek Spreading with big chunks of chewy bread. Pita chips are also good with the spread. And for lunch, spread it on a toasted bagel and eat it along with a salad of fresh greens.

My Big Feta Greek Spreading is full of big fat flavor. You may even be able to sneak it by one of those no doubt about it, can't stand olives people.

My Big Feta Greek Spreading

In a mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to blend cream cheese and feta. Add remaining ingredients and mix well with wooden spoon. Serve with chunks of chewy bread with crunchy crust.

 

Posted by: sdoeden on 6/28/2009 at 12:02 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: all about food, feta, food, greek spread

Whisk It Wednesday: Road Trip -- To Market, To Market, to Buy Some Calzones

It's my third Whisk-It Wednesday. As the professional organizer I am working with helps me whisk away the things in my office I don't need and whisk everything I do need into a system I can easily maintain, I've been trying to do the same thing with the files on my computer. I still have some photos and stories from a year ago that I never shared. This week, I'm whisking out several photos from a culinary weekend  last summer.

Dennis and I, along with two other food- and fun-loving couples, headed south on a sunny Friday morning. First stop, St. Joseph, Minn., where we visited Jim Degiovanni. He and his wife, Mary, own Dancing Bears Farm and Bed and Breakfast. I had heard that Jim baked bread in an outdoor brick oven he built himself. I've been intrigued with the idea of baking outdoors. In fact, I've got a spot picked out in my yard that I think would be perfect.

I called Jim and asked if he would mind having some visitors. We arrived as Jim was preparing calzones with yeast dough he makes himself and fresh ingredients to fold inside of each one. Jim's calzones are hot items at the St. Joseph Farmers' Market. They go fast.

In Jim's kitchen, just steps away from the brick oven, fluffy pillows of dough were resting, ready to be turned into calzones.

Jim invited his visitors to help pat the soft dough into a thin round.

Each disk of dough gets layered with spiced tomato sauce, fresh basil from Jim and Mary's herb garden, cheese, and some get pepperoni, too.

The stuffed and sealed calzones are ready for a trip to the hot, hot, hot brick oven outdoors.

Jim uses his peel to carefully slide the calzones into the oven.

Many calzones can bake together in the deep oven.

In little time, the hot pockets were golden brown and oozing with cheese. The yeasty, Italian-style aroma must waft through the countryside around Jim and Mary's farm on calzone and bread-baking days at Dancing Bears Farm. It must be one of the reasons people line up at the farmers' market, waiting for the gates to open. They're just following their nose. Jim shared his calzones with us. Oh, oh, oh. So, so good.

And off to the market they go. Along with some of Jim and Mary's chickens, loaves of Jim's breads, homemade granola, heirloom tomatoes -- you must go see them at the market.

Jim isn't the only who uses the oven. Two days after Jim is done baking calzones and loaves of bread, the oven is finally cool enough for his wife, Mary, to bake her special cookies that also go to the farmers' market.

It's one of those great Minnesota weekend trips -- a drive to St. Joseph on a Friday to be sure to get to the opening of the Farmers' Market at 3:00. If you get there early, browse around town and visit the campus of the College of St. Benedict. It's beautiful. They have a very nice gift shop, too. If you're hungry, my favorite place to eat in town is Bo Diddley's, a cozy little place with homemade soups and delicious sub sandwiches made on their homemade sub buns. And be sure to check out the St. Joseph Meat Market right in town. They have so many varieties of house-made sausages. Some very unusual! You'll have to take them home to cook them, though.

Then spend the night at Dancing Bears Bed and Breakfast. Meet Jim and Mary, see their gardens, all their farm animals and the brick oven. And I'll bet you'll get some homemade bread.

If you bring your bikes along, you can ride the Lake Wobegon Trail on Saturday. If you're feeling real energetic, you can ride the full 28 miles from St. Joseph to Osakis. But remember, you'll need to go back to where you started from, too.

I plan to get back to St. Joseph, Minn. this summer on a Friday so I can check out the farmers' market, visit Jim and Mary to see what's new at their farm and bed and breakfast. And while I'm there, I'll stop next door to visit their neighbors, Mary Ann Friederichs and Steve Nelson, owners of Collegeville Artisan Bakery. You'll probably see Mary Ann at the Farmers' Market, too, with all kinds of freshly made Collegeville Artisan breads. Can you imagine how that country neighborhood smells? Not like cows, that's for sure.

On Saturday morning we headed south again to the Minnesota Garlic Festival. You can read more about that in my blog post from last August. Just click here. This year's Garlic Festival will be held on Saturday, August 15th in Hutchinson, Minn. at the McLeod County Fairgrounds. I'll be there! Time for another road trip.

Mediterranean Bruschetta on Foodista

Posted by: sdoeden on 6/24/2009 at 12:01 AM | Comments (6) | Permalink

Tags: bo diddleys, brick oven, calzone, collegeville artisan bakery, dancing bear bed and breakfast, food, minnesota, minnesota garlic festival, st joseph, st joseph farmers market, st joseph meat market

Have your cake and eat 7-Up, too.

Everytime I look through my mom's old recipe file, I get a surprise. It's not often that I take time to flip through the very organized file of cards.  Some recipes she typed onto the cards, others are clippings from newspapers and magazines that she taped onto white recipe cards. I usually go to the large file when I'm looking for a recipe that I remember her making. The other day I was looking for a rhubarb cake in my mom's recipe file, and I came across 7-Up Cake. It sounded like a pound cake, with lots of butter, way more sugar than what you'd put into a traditional cake and several eggs. The only liquid was 7-Up. I always like a good pound cake, so I made the 7-Up Cake.

I brought the butter and eggs to room temperature. I measured the 7-Up and lemon flavoring into a cup and set it beside the butter and eggs. When I was ready to mix up the cake. I pulled out my heavy-duty stand mixer. I beat the butter and sugar together for close to 10 minutes. I think superfine sugar works best. It dissolves much faster than regular granulated sugar. The eggs went in, one at a time, with each egg incorporated completely into the butter mixture before the next egg went into the bowl. I added the flour in 1/2 cup increments, alternating with some of the 7-Up/lemon flavoring. Just as my mom taught me, I started and ended with the dry ingredients. Lots of fluffy batter.

Although the recipe directs to bake the cake for 1 hour to 1 1/4 hours, I baked it to doneness in about 55 minutes. I'd suggest testing the cake for doneness with a long wooden pick after about 50 minutes of baking. Too much time in the oven will make the cake dry. When the tester comes out clean, the cake is done. Let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a cooling rack.

The cake is quite good sprinkled with powdered sugar and eaten as is. Just for the fun of it, I decided to cut the cake through the middle and sandwich some white frosting and blueberries between the two layers. I'm not very good at making straight cuts. I use toothpicks as my guide as I move the serrated knife around the cake.

The frosting/filling concoction I mixed up is acutally a traditional frosting for Waldorf Astoria Cake, sometimes called Red Velvet Cake. I made the Waldorf Cake as cupcakes for this week's column, topping the bright red cupcakes with whipped cream cheese frosting and fresh blueberries, creating a patriotic red, white and blue dessert for the 4th of July. Traditionlly, though, the red cake is topped with a frosting made of a base of cooked milk and flour.

The cooked frosting is another job for the stand mixer. The cooled mixture of milk and flour is blended with butter and sugar that has been beaten for 20 minutes.  The sugar needs to melt into the butter, becoming light and very smooth. The recipe I offer here is the one I got from my 4-H leader years ago, along with the Waldorf Cake.

The cake is lemony fresh, a bit crunchy on the outside and moist and tender on the inside. If I ever make this dessert again, I would spread the frosting between the two layers of 7-Up Cake and serve fresh berries along side rather than layering them with the filling. I felt I needed to refrigerate the cake with the fresh berries in the middle.

Slices of just plain, unfilled 7-Up Cake would be delicious topped with fresh berry sauce and a dollop of whipped cream.

Blueberry and Cream-Filled 7-Up Cake

Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Add flour, lemon flavoring and 7-Up. Pour into well-greased 12-cup Bundt pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Turn out onto cooling rack. When cake is completely cool, slice in half. Spread filling over bottom layer, saving some to spread on cut side of top layer. Arrange blueberries over filling. Position top of cake over the filling.

Cream Filling:

Cook flour and milk together until thick. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Cream sugar, butter and vanilla together with electric mixer for 20 minutes until very fluffy and sugar is dissolved. On low speed, blend cooked mixture into butter mixture in bowl. Frosting should be consistency of cold oatmeal.

Posted by: sdoeden on 6/21/2009 at 12:25 AM | Comments (2) | Permalink

Tags: 4th of july dessert, 7-up, baking, blueberries, bundt cake, food, lemon