tuesdaybaking@44 : rhubarb

since tuesday baking always seems to fall on, well, tuesday, i think it will stay on tuesdays. perhaps a literary theme would be fun when i finish my list of "things i want to make." it was only a few years ago that i realized that many of my favorite childhood books were the ones with lots of food descriptions: all-of-a-kind-family, a tree grows in brooklyn, heidi, a girl of the limberlost...

this tuesday was originally going to be pie day, but ended up as rhubarb day, since the banana cream pie would have needed 8 hours to set and chill, and it seemed like it actually needed all 8 hours. on the menu: rhubarb streusel pie, and strawberry-rhubarb "courting" cake. and, more leftover desserts from our party!

i was surprised by my ability to finish everything in 2 1/2 hours - usually doing two recipes at once doesn't work for me. but the pie went in the oven and then i was just making the cake, which is essentially a butter cake layered with whipped cream and a rhubarb-strawberry jam/compote. i didn't like the compote, but it must have tasted fine in the cake, since people ate the cake. to me, the compote tasted like smarties - the chalky american kind - so maybe i should have added more sugar. probably more strawberries would have been good as well.

the other details of the cake went fine. supposedly the leftovers are better than the cake on the day of, because it turns into a trifle-like mush...at any rate, it looked quite nice on the new cake plate (simple and stainless steel). i slightly overbaked the cake, since there's no oven timer and i was somewhat forgetful. the pie turned out pretty well - i think it got cooked slightly too long as well, since the rhubarb was pretty much a puree by the time it came out - really it should have more bite to it. but the crust, which is the part i had been worried about, was fine, and not a piece of floury cement like it seemed to be when i prebaked it. not having a rolling pin is really quite a pain - we need to buy a regular wooden one sometime.

random opinions/thoughts:
- milk in a recipe is always whole milk
- never use skim buttermilk
- butter is always unsalted
- rolling pins should always be without handles and wooden; this will teach you how to tell what thickness you're rolling things out to, and give you more control over the rolling pin itself
- bread makers are the devil's instrument, as are kitchen aids
- when you're making cookies, you might as well cream the butter by hand
- the internal temperature of everything rises after you take it out of the oven. things you should take out slightly before they're done: meat (rises 5-15 degrees depending on thickness), quiche, custards, etc. things you shouldn't take out: cakes...that sort of thing where the structure requires, well, real structure.

the market for well-made cookbooks

cookbooks for writing in, that is. i don't understand why i can't find a nice, sturdy book in which i can write down recipes. there are plenty of books that are slim, but not enough that are hand-down-to-your-children worthy, which is really what a cookbook should be, right? at some point, all commercial cookbooks are the same. it's dangerous (or, more realistically, boring) to rely on them too much. cookbooks are there for guidance, not religion.

will there be enough dessert?

leftover desserts from our party: 1 bowl of brownies (out of 2), about 1/4 of the cookies, 1 plate of nanaimo bars (score!), and half of the key lime bars.

completely gone: the vegan brownies. you try to figure that one out...

the brownies turned out pretty well; i think i still like lisa yockelson's recipe over Cook's Illustrated. the nanaimo bars needed more custardy filling, but they turned out fairly well. the black and whites almost went completely; i don't know if it's because they looked pretty (i hate powdered sugar icings) or because they were actually good. probably a bit of both. the key lime bars were quite good - kind of like cheesecake bars - but were impossible to cut neatly. i wonder how the cookbook solved that problem...

but the vegan brownies. they were too dense, and not sweet enough...i must find a better substitute for sugar, as the all-natural cane sugar i used had, well, an all-natural cane sugar taste. i was going to make a frosting for them, but then i ran out of of vegan chocolate. oops!

experimental baking has gone fairly well so far this summer. not too much of it has actually been experimental - mostly we end up ingredients that lend themselves to things i already know how to make: bread pudding, fruit crisps, etc. although i admit to shamelessly exploiting the fruit crisp recipe from The Best Recipe.

next up: strawberry rhubarb pie, and banana cream pie. i wish i had a rhubarb plant (and as long as i am in wishful thinking mode, i wish i had a nanaimo bar plant).

obviously the job i should have taken this summer

Off-Campus
Non-Technical
Summer
Academic/writer couple with house on ocean in Wellfleet on Cape Cod looking for someone to shop and cook dinners this summer. live in, room with bath; own car preferred.
Hours:Flexible
Salary:negotiable