Category: Pastry

It seems like I’ve lived an age since I last saw you. So much has transpired it’s hard to know where to start. What did I do? I drove, drove, drove and drove some more. I consoled two friends whose son was killed in a car crash. I walked a creek bed in the shimmering light of dawn. I caught crayfish and turtles by hand. I baked a hundred cakes with a woman named Betty. I spun a giant roulette wheel until midnight. I made squash blossom pizza. I dabbed my wife’s forehead with a cool cloth after she fainted. I bought my first pink shirt (it’s actually light red). I visited a graveyard that has five generation of my ancestors in it. I listened to a new record by The Cars. I swam, I fished, I climbed, I ran, I sat in traffic, I went to meetings, I cooked outdoors…and now I’m completely exhausted.

But it’s great to be back!

NOT writing is harder. I’m looking forward to getting back to it soon!

It’s going to be a week or more until the next project. The hectic summer I referenced in the below post is in full swing. I’m traveling on business for the next two days, then on my return I’ll be volunteering as a camp counselor, teaching the youth how to shoot arrows, fish and tie knots. I’ll miss the baking but I confess — given I’m surrounded by females day-to-day — I’m really looking forward to a little boy time. After that it’s more business travel, then more volunteering, though this time I’ll be baking cakes and pies by the truck load for our parish fair. That takes me through the end of next week…but since I can’t imagine a full two weeks without at least a little blogging, I’ll probably find a way to work at least some small something-or-other in. I’m planning a new regularly-occurring feature on the blog called Stupid Chocolate Tricks. I’ll try to get the first one going in the near future. See you soon, campers!

Baked Alaska has been variously known as a “Norwegian omelette” and a “Swedish Omelette”, mostly on the Continent. The dessert has as much to do with Scandinavia as it does Alaska, but then they’re both pretty cold, also.

As you’ve no doubt guessed already, meringue is a terrific insulator. It’s made of thousands upon thousands of tiny bubbles, and each one of them works like a little air gap, slowing down the transfer of heat from the oven to the ice cream. Still air, you see, doesn’t move heat very well.

Thus meringue is great at putting the hammer down on convective heat transfer, i.e. movement of heat via air flows (or liquid flows). It’s not so good at preventing the other two major modes of heat transfer: conductive (objects of different temperatures in physical contact with one another) or radiant (electromagnetic radiation). The good news there is that most of the heat transfer that occurs in a home oven is of the convective kind. Clever fellow, that Rumford guy.

I get more questions about génoise than about any other type of cake. I understand that. Génoise batter can be tricky stuff. Oh not because the technique is difficult to master. The steps are mostly pretty easy. The danger lies in over-whipping.

It took me years of on-again, off-again génoise making to understand that the degree of whipping and the height of the rise only correlate up to a point. Once you pass it, more whipping begets less volume, even a complete and utter failure (fall). Why?

Under exactly what circumstances would an American-born British loyalist who fled North America and subsequently relocated to Bavaria introduce a dessert to Thomas Jefferson? It’s a darn good question. As far as I know, Rumford never returned to America after he left in 1776. Jefferson, on the other hand, traveled extensively in Europe in the 1780’s. Interested as Jefferson was in the sciences, it’s certainly possible he encountered Rumford there. However by Rumford’s own account, he didn’t invent his “omelette surprise” until about fifteen years later. So Rumford said:

Omelette surpirse was the by-product of investigations in 1804 into the resistance of stiffly beaten egg whites to the induction of heat.

Not Alaska, that much I know for sure. That name was invented, probably in America, around 1900. It appeared in print for the first time in the 1906 edition of Fanny Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cookbook. Why was it named for Alaska? Not because Alaska was admitted to the union at that time as some people claim (that wasn’t until 1959). No, it seems the Alaska part simply seems to be a trendy — at least at that time — reference to something cold.

So OK, the questions just keep on coming: why do athletes eat raw eggs? That from reader Nan. I’m not sure athletes eat/drink eggs like Rocky anymore, however I do know why eggs are considered a “perfect” protein by many nutritionistas. It has to do with their so-called “bioavailability.” It’s a long word but the idea behind it is simple. The food world is full of different kinds of edible proteins, but the degree to which the body can break them down and use them varies. Some proteins break down very inefficiently in the digestive tract, the result being that not all the nutrients they contain (specifically their nitrogen) can be absorbed. The most “perfect” proteins are those that give up the most nutrients. Egg proteins are 97% bioavailable which is, you know, a lot.