The French Don't Diet Plan
Page 31
Time to the Table: 45 minutes Makes 2 cakes
YOU’LL NEED
3 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons finely minced fresh ginger
2 ½ teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Sprinkle of salt
1 cup dark molasses
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup sour cream
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
PREPARE 2 BREAD PANS
Smear a bit of butter around the bottom of them, followed by a small sprinkle of flour. Tamp off the excess flour.
IN 2 MEDIUM MIXING BOWLS
Mix together the dry ingredients (flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt) in the first bowl. Combine the wet ingredients (molasses, brown sugar, sour cream, eggs, vanilla, water, and butter) in the second bowl.
Mix the wet and dry ingredients together until smooth. Pour into the baking pans and bake for about 35 minutes, until a toothpick or fork inserted into the cakes comes out clean.
Play with Your Food
If the taste of molasses is too strong for you, reduce the amount to ½ cup of light molasses.
FAUX-FOOD EQUIVALENT: Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Spice Cake
Ingredients: Sugar, flour, vegetable shortening (partially hydrogenated soybean oil), leavening (baking soda, dicalcium phosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate), artificial coloring including Yellow No. 5 Lake, artificial flavor, cellulose gum, dextrose, polyglycerol esters, propylene glycol monoesters, salt, spices, wheat starch, xanthan gum.
Cuppa Cuppa Cuppa Apple Cobbler
This recipe is remarkably easy. 1 cup, 1 cup, 1 cup, 1 stick. That’s all you have to remember: “cuppa cuppa cuppa.”
Time to the Table: 35 minutes Serves 6 to 8
YOU’LL NEED
3 Golden Delicious apples, cored,-peeled, and sliced
Juice of ½ lemon
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon cornstarch
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup self-rising flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
Preheat the oven to 400° F.
IN A MEDIUM SAUCEPAN
First warm the apples over medium heat with the lemon juice, water, spices, and cornstarch. Turn the apple slices over, gently, to completely coat and cook—until just soft—for no more than 3 minutes. Remove from the heat.
Tricks of the Trade
My first try at this produced a cobbler that tasted wonderful but didn’t look so good because the dough didn’t fluff up and completely enclose the fruit. The solution is to press your fruit down into the batter just a bit. Then, when your dough springs up in the oven, it will cover the fruit and brown like it’s supposed to.
IN AN OVEN-SAFE CASSEROLE DISH
Add the butter and melt over medium heat. In a large bowl blend the flour, sugar, and milk into a silky-smooth batter. With a rubber spatula, scrape the batter out right into the center of the melted butter. Then add the fruit.
Bake for about 20 minutes. It’s done when the top is golden and bubbly around the sides. Serve right out of the casserole with some rich vanilla ice cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon over the top.
Play with Your Food
Apple, peach, cherry, and blackberry cobbler can all be made with ease. Seasonal fruits may come and go, but you can have cobbler anytime. Be careful with the gentler fruits like blackberries. When you’re coating them early on, turn them gently so they don’t smush.
FAUX-FOOD EQUIVALENT: Apple Filling
Ingredients: Sliced apples, water, high-fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, modified food starch, spice, erythorbic acid.
Comstock Cherry Pie Filling: Cherries, corn syrup, modified food starch, erythorbic acid, and artificial color (Red No. 40).
All-American Apple Pie
Because there is so little sugar in this pie, and no artificial ingredients, it’s perfectly fine to have a slice for breakfast. Enjoy.
Time to the Table: 90 minutes Makes 1 pie
YOU’LL NEED
1 five-pound bag Granny Smith apples,-peeled, cored, and sliced into ½-inch wedges
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 piecrusts
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
IN A LARGE MIXING BOWL
Add the apples (play with the thickness of the wedges, depending on how chunky you like your pieces) with the cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar. Thoroughly mix them until all the apple chunks are coated.
IN THE PIE DISH
Lay the first piecrust in the dish, making sure all the edges are covered, and then pour in the apple filling. Press the apples down, smooth them out, lick your fingers, and then dot with a few small pats of butter.
Set the second crust over the top and pinch the edges down or mash them with a fork. Go crazy here, and make whatever decorations you like. Put small vertical slits into the main part of the crust to allow some ventilation.
BEFORE BAKING
Tear off two 4-inch-long strips of aluminum foil. Place them around the edges to prevent them from burning. You will need to pinch the two ends of the aluminum sheets together. Then put your creation into the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and return the pie to the oven for 15 minutes more to brown.
Tricks of the Trade
If making your own crust (and you should), put the crust together first and then make the filling. This really saves on time, because as soon as you finish peeling and doctoring the apples, the crust will be ready to roll out.
Play with Your Food
For Dutch apple pie, add ¼ cup cream to the apples prior to baking. And for Christmas, add cranberries and coarsely chopped walnuts, about 2 tablespoons each.
FAUX-FOOD EQUIVALENT: Wal-Mart Apple Pie
Ingredients: Apples, flour, sugar, water, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, high-fructose corn syrup, sweetened condensed milk, coconut oil, corn syrup, maltodextrin, water, butter, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, modified food starch, salt, potassium sorbate, disodium phosphate, carrageenan, vanilla, pear juice concentrate, artificial flavors, alpha tocopherol, mono-and diglycerides, caramel color, Red No. 40, annatto, vanillin, margarine (partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oils, water, salt, whey, vegetable mono-and diglycerides, soybean lecithin, sodium benzoate, citric acid, artificial flavor, vitamin A palmitate), modified food starch, white syrup (corn syrup, water, fructose, natural and artificial flavor, salt, potassium sorbate), dough (dextrose, gelatinized wheat starch, salt, baking soda, calcium proprionate, vegetable shortening [partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oils], sodium bisulfite), salt, cinnamon, natural and artificial flavors, natural and artificial flavor enhancer (with propylene glycol and water), sodium proprionate, and potassium sorbate.
Basic Milk Shake
Why are milk shakes considered bad for you? Normal ice cream is made of milk and eggs and often a fruit (such as strawberries), and these are all completely natural. If you had two eggs, a glass of milk, and a few fresh strawberries for breakfast, you’d receive high marks from any nutritionist. It becomes bad for you when served in enormous cups, and when commercial versions are spiked with corn syrup, dextrose, sugar, and high-fructose corn syrup.
You don’t have to suffer the portion distortion, sugar overload, or faux ingredients to have a milk shake. And this one actually turns out to be a perfectly healthy dessert.
Time to the Table: 5 minutes Serves 1
Tricks of the Trade
Yes, you can make ice cream yourself, but most of the time you’re going to use store-bought. Th
e good varieties, such as Breyers, have legible ingredients.
If you don’t have espresso cups, you can use a normal coffee cup filled two-thirds full.
YOU’LL NEED
All-natural ice cream
Milk, to your taste
IN A SMALL (6-OUNCE) CUP
Scoop enough ice cream to fill the cup to the top. Pour in the amount of milk you choose and stir until smooth.
Play with Your Food
Most ice creams favor a little fruit in them, especially blueberries. Try adding some cut strawberries as well.
FAUX-FOOD EQUIVALENT: Slim-Fast
Ingredients: Sugar, whey protein concentrate, fructose, soy protein isolate, gum arabic, dairy whey, cellulose gel, nonfat dry milk, guar gum, soy fiber, powdered cellulose, maltodextrin, soybean lecithin, carageenan, cellulose gum, dextrose, xanthan gum, aspartame, modified corn starch, artificial flavors.
Magic Chocolate Ganache
Magic is not magic to those who know the trick. This recipe will teach you how to make a dessert so fabulous your friends and family will just stare at you in amazement. Ganache is a perfect frosting for any cake, as the center for truffles, or as a covering for any fruit or unsalted nuts.
Time to the Table: 15 minutes Makes almost 2 cups
YOU’LL NEED
1 ½ cups half-and-half
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Tricks of the Trade
Chocolate will scald if you heat it too quickly. So when you’re melting it into the cream and butter, chop the chocolate and heat it slowly.
IN A HEAVY-BOTTOMED SAUCEPAN
Warm the half-and-half over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low, add the chocolate, and stir until completely melted. Fold in the butter and stir until it has melted in. Take the pan off the heat, and add the vanilla.
Chocolate ganache can be stored in the freezer for weeks—as if it’s going to last that long.
Play with Your Food
Add wonderful flavorings to this basic ganache, such as Baileys, Chambord, strong coffee, dark rum, mint, or bourbon. Try them one at a time, to see which you like best.
FAUX-FOOD EQUIVALENT: Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup
Ingredients: Water, sugar, fructose, cocoa, caramel color, xanthan gum, salt, citric acid, potassium sorbate, artificial flavoring, sodium benzoate, acesulfame, potassium, a nonnutritive sweetener [as if sugar and fructose weren’t enough], artificial coloring including Red No. 40, sulfur dioxide.
Vanilla Pudding
If you’ve always resorted to those little powder packets of pudding, this recipe will give you the tools to finally give them up forever.
Time to the Table: 7 minutes Serves 4
Tricks of the Trade
The amount of flour added determines the consistency, which ranges from thin, like a sauce, when there is no flour added, to thick, like pie-filling custard, when there is up to ½ cup flour added.
The flour also helps prevent the eggs from scrambling as you heat them.
YOU’LL NEED
1/3 cup sugar
4 large egg yolks, beaten
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
IN A MEDIUM MIXING BOWL
Blend the sugar into the yolks, flour, and cornstarch.
IN A MEDIUM SAUCEPAN
Scald the milk. Then add it into the egg-sugar mixture in very thin stream as you stir constantly with a spoon.
AFTER ALL THE LIQUID HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE BOWL
Pour the mixture back into the saucepan used to scald the milk over barely medium heat. Stir the custard for 15 minutes, or until it thickens up, coating the back of a spoon. Stir off the heat to cool, and add in the butter and vanilla. Pour through a fine-mesh strainer into ramekins or small cups, cover with plastic, and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour to cool and set.
Play with Your Food
For chocolate pudding, add 1/3 cup cocoa to the egg-sugar mixture and reduce the vanilla by ½ teaspoon. Add a pinch of cinnamon.
For mocha pudding, add 2 full tablespoons of strong brewed coffee to the milk.
FAUX-FOOD EQUIVALENT: Kroger Vanilla Pudding & Pie Filling
Ingredients: Sugar, dextrose, corn starch, modified food starch, salt, polysorbate 60, calcium, carrageenan, artificial flavor, corn syrup solids, sodium caseinate, Yellow No. 5, Yellow No. 6.
Chocolate-Coated Fruit
A great surprise to pull out of the refrigerator to finish a romantic dinner for two.
Time to the Table: 10 minutes Makes ½ cup of ganache
Tricks of the Trade
Be careful when turning the fruit over, especially if using delicate berries such as raspberries. They are easily crushed.
YOU’LL NEED
3 1-ounce squares semisweet chocolate
3 tablespoons heavy cream
3 tablespoons dry sherry
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pinch of salt
Red fruit of your choosing, such as cherries, strawberries, and raspberries
IN A SAUCEPAN
Over medium-low heat, melt the chocolate with the cream, sherry, vanilla, and salt. Allow it to lightly simmer for 5 minutes.
Dip the fruit into the chocolate to coat. Keep the coating light. Remove to a small plate and place in the refrigerator to cool until ready to serve.
Play with Your Food
You can create various textures of ganache by varying the proportions of cream and chocolate. Baileys makes a great flavoring for the ganache, as does cognac or brandy.
FAUX-FOOD EQUIVALENT: Dolci Frutta Chocolate Coating for Fruit
Ingredients: Sugar, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (palm kernel and palm), reduced mineral whey powder, dutched cocoa, nonfat dry milk, lecithin, salt, sorbitan tristerate, and vanillin.
Silky English Cream
Just as a sauce enriches and expands the flavors of your meat dishes, this Silky English Cream is perfect to complement your desserts, particularly chocolate cake.
Time to the Table: 30 minutes Makes about 2 cups
Tricks of the Trade
There are two things to watch out for here, and both come from the same cause-trying to rush through it.
First, if you pour that hot milk in with the egg mixture too fast, you get egg drop soup. Second, if you try to thicken the sauce too fast, you get egg drop soup, because the yolks will be cooked.
YOU’LL NEED
1 1/3 cups milk
4 large egg yolks
1/3 cwp sugar
3 teaspoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
IN A SAUCEPAN
Scald the milk and over medium-high heat, and then remove from the stove.
IN A MIXING BOWL
Using an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks into the sugar and cornstarch for a couple of minutes until smooth. Set the beaters to a high speed. Dribble in the milk, right on top of the blender blades to distribute the hot milk so the egg mixture is warmed only slowly. When all of the milk has been added, you should have a thin frothy mixture.
IN A SAUCEPAN
Return the mixture to the stove and heat over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes before it will start to coat the back of your spoon.
Add the vanilla and serve.
Play with Your Food
You can also try some type of liqueur (orange is very nice here in combination with the vanilla, as is brandy; use 1 teaspoon of each).