Author: Emerald Thunder

Baking

Le Pain Quotidien

Emerald Thunder

From time to time my dorm actually has events I want to participate in, especially when they involve baking. I signed up to go to Le Pain Quotidien to learn how they make their dough. Playing on the dough pun, this outing was also an educational event about how to negotiate your future contract and salary. I learned a lot of good things from the faculty-in-residence who led the event, and I think I’m definitely going to be in contact with him when it’s my turn to do this.

We got to the restaurant and sat down at a long wooden table while we waited for our turn in the baking class room. While we waited we  sipped hot drinks and went over the educational portion of the trip. I tried my first latte ever, and I have to say it wasn’t half bad.

Once we got in the room, we donned our aprons and hats and gathered around another giant work table. The woman teaching us went over the ingredients we would be using and demonstrated the proper techniques to make the dough. They actually use the same dough for their sweet and savory things, so we only needed to learn to make one dough for both the chocolate-filled rolls and the pizzas.

It was a very sticky process, with dough sticking to everyone and everything with every touch. I got the hang of it quickly enough, so I wasn’t quite as dough-y as others who have had less experience. Give them time and they’ll learn too. We didn’t end up using the dough we made for our pizzas because they had to rest and rise, so we got to take it home to make more things. Also, isn’t this oven great! It’s HUGE!

We had a choice of toppings for our pizza, and I went with mozzarella, parmesan, and bacon(!!). Their sauce is pretty much just crushed tomatoes, and they don’t even cook it at all. I LOVE this sauce. It’s perfection, with no onion bits that I can’t stand for me to pick out.

The chocolate and butter rolls were also really good. I took a couple home to share with my suitemates, and they approve of them as well.

I baked my little ball of dough and covered it in butter, cinnamon, sugar, and powdered sugar. I really love this combination. It brings me back to fried dough at the lake and the beach when I was younger.

Baking

The Infamous Birthday Ice Cream Bomb

Emerald Thunder

My suitemate has a very soft spot for ice cream. We were talking about what type of birthday cake she wanted, and she asked if I could make an ice cream cake. Of course, I replied, do you want something like Carvel’s? What’s Carvel’s, she asked. Oh dear. My heart stopped at that response and I had no idea what to say. How could she have never heard of a Carvel ice cream cake? Fudgie the Whale? I guess it’s not as prominent on the West Coast.

After this complete shock, I asked if she might like an ice cream bomb. I wasn’t as shocked that she’d never heard of this, so I tried to explain the concept. You layer ice cream and cake and anything you want in a bowl, and then you turn the giant frozen mound out onto a plate. This description resulted in her mouth hanging open in amazement because this proposed bomb was the perfect dessert for her. In the days leading up to its creation, she still didn’t completely understand what I was going to make, but she didn’t care as long as it had ice cream. I thought about what flavors to use, and settled on Half Baked, Starbuck’s Signature Hot Chocolate, and Trader Joe’s Mint Chocolate Chip. I also included a brownie base and fudge sauce between each layer of ice cream. It was going to be epic!

Building the bomb went fine, but freezing it was another matter entirely. My other suitemate and I had gone to Trader Joe’s earlier in the day, and because she and my roommate don’t really cook, the freezer was full to capacity. So much so that we had a hard time keeping the door closed because it would always pop open when we closed the fridge. I thought we had shifted things around well enough to get the bomb to fit, but at the unveiling I realized I was wrong. Evidently the door was left popped open, so the bomb had been slowly melting all day, but I didn’t find out until I tried to turn it out onto the plate. Complete disaster. It was fine for a second, but then I swear time slowed down as we just watched it collapse into itself. Cue four freaking out girls and a rush to throw everything out of the freezer to shove the exploded bomb back in.

In the brief time is was out of the freezer and then on the plate, it had melted all over the place and lost any shape it may have had. We were scared to open the freezer to check on it, in case it had spilled over even more. We had another problem because we had a ton of frozen items just sitting on our couch. Thankfully our RAs are fantastic and one of them let us put our things in her freezer.

We let the bomb stay in the freezer for the rest of the night and vowed to try again the next day. I managed to coerce it back into the bowl and into a semi-dome shape, but by then the different ice cream flavors had sort of mixed, so the layer effect was lost. We sang Happy Birthday and got ready to eat, but we found that the brownie had also frozen rock hard, so I could barely cut through it. Not to be deterred, the four of us cast aside our bowls and dug right in with our spoons. It was delicious!

We also made a birthday dinner, which consisted of: Butternut Squash Ravioli, Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli, Parmesan and Arugula Ravioli, a vegetable mix, artichoke hearts, and my creamy garlic bread. Despite how good dinner was, dessert definitely out shined it. You just can’t compete with five pints of ice cream and a giant brownie!

Baking

Irish Soda Bread

Emerald Thunder

I guess it’s about time I post about the Irish Soda Bread I made a while back. Leading up to St. Patrick’s Day, I searched and searched for the perfect recipe, and I found one that looked rather promising. However, just before I was going to make it, I got a different recipe from a friend, who said it was amazing. So my plans changed because I just had to make this other one. However, I have no idea where the recipe comes from because I only got a picture of the ingredients and steps from the cookbook it’s in.

This bread came together pretty easily, albeit extremely messily. My hands were absolutely covered in dough despite liberal flouring, and the counters and floor looked a bit worse for wear afterwards, too.

Mine was definitely a more rustic-looking soda bread, because I might have taken the “don’t knead it until it’s smooth” bit a tad too far. Oh well. The interior was super fluffy and moist, so I’ll sacrifice aesthetics for taste for the moment.

Hot out of the oven the bread looked delicious, and it was painful to have to take pictures before digging in.

I think I’ll definitely break out the soda bread every now and then, since it’s a bread I know I can make without messing up. I’m still not BFFs with yeast yet, but I think we’re slowly becoming more fond of one another, as evidenced by the light and fluffy pizza I made on Sunday. Baby steps, people, baby steps.

Baking

Brown Butter Oatmeal Chip Cookies

Emerald Thunder

Brown butter. Oh my goodness, why didn’t I make or use this delicious thing before? I’ve been reading about brown butter everywhere, but I never took the time to actual make any of the recipes I saw. Until now. And oh boy do I wish I had done it sooner!

I’ve been craving chocolate chip cookies for a few days now, and if not for my lack of vegetable oil I would have made a batch of my regular cookies. But now I’m glad for my kitchen not being fully stocked. How Sweet It Is posted these Brown Butter Oatmeal Chunk Cookies, and wow are they good!

They’re more than just a regular chocolate chip cookie. The cinnamon and oatmeal create a banana bread-y flavor, and there’s also an extra bit of a spicy kick in your throat. So not only are they like a hybrid cookie, they are exciting cookies!

These cookies are also super soft, but ever so slightly crumbly.

I rolled the first batch into balls like the recipe said, and they didn’t spread out much at all. I pressed down the second batch a bit and they spread out more, but still stayed nice and thick. Of the two, I’m more a fan of how the second batch turned out.

The brown butter was much more evident in the cookie dough than in the final product, which is slightly unfortunate. There are hints of it working with the cinnamon and the banana bread-y flavor, but it’s definitely not as prevalent once baked.

All in all, this was a delicious little foray into the world of brown butter and alternate types of chocolate chip cookies. Delicious results overall!