(Re)Quest

Gluten Free Dacquoise aux Marron (ダコワースのマロンケーキ)

“Probably Strawberry Short Cake” my son said for his birthday cake selection. “Every cake you make is (very) good” he added. He basically said “Whatever”. I should have recorded that conversation. When I presented him this Chestnut Cake he goes “Whaaa…t?” like that. Happy Birthday to you!

The matter of truth is I didn’t have strawberries. I went to the market yet I spaced out completely. Like he said, whatever I make is SUPER ( he omitted this word but I know he meant to say it) good so let’s try this new recipe, in all honesty, I was really not in the mood for one more trip to the store – request denied.

The origin of dacquoise name perhaps came from the town of Dax, southwest of France and means ‘People of Dax’. However the person who developed this recipe is Japanese.Takao Mishima (三嶋隆夫), a chef who worked at Arthur, Paris’ 16th district restaurant in the 1970’s. I have made many chestnut cakes in the past but I think this is the easiest so far. Because of almost identical ingredients, the flavor is similar to a macaron without footwork. Anyway, my quest for the perfect chestnut cake continues.

Ingredients and direction for dacquoise

Equipment you need: Food scale, 12x9 baking pan lined with parchment paper

• Egg whites 135g about 4 large eggs (the eggs below are gift from my husband’s co-worker, nice aren’t they?)
• Granulated sugar 25g
• Almond Powder 100g. Sift with powdered sugar 70g below. Note: use coarse mesh strainer, it’s tough to get the almond powder through.
• Powdered sugar 70g plus an additional 2-3 Tablespoons for dusting.

1. Preheat oven to 410F.
2. Beat egg white with electric hand held mixer or stand mixer at medium speed till it gets cloudy.
3. Add 1/3rd of granulated sugar and continue whipping till you can see the solid white color and when you lift up the beaters, they leave a trace.
4. Gradually add the rest of the sugar and make meringue with stiff peaks but still shiny and not dry.
   
5. Sprinkle in 1/4 cup of the almond and powdered sugar mixture and gently fold it in with spatula until the almond disappears. Repeat until all the almond flour has been added.
6. Pour batter in the prepared pan and sprinkle powdered sugar through a strainer. When the powdered sugar disappears, dust again with powdered sugar.
   
7. Put in the oven. Close the oven door and immediately turn down the temperature to 392F. Bake for 15 minutes.
8. Cool cake in the pan on the cooling rack. When it’s completely cooled, flip onto a clean flat surface. Cut cake in 3rds. Then carefully remove paper.

Make Filling

• Heavy cream 120g
• Granulated sugar 20g
• Chestnuts about 16 pieces – I used a jar of chestnuts from William Sonoma- chopped small. 4-6 whole chestnuts for decoration later.
  
  

1. Whip heavy cream and sugar till soft peak with electric mixer.
2. Add chopped chestnuts and gently combine with spatula.

Make Chestnut cream

• Unsalted butter 100g softened
• Can of chestnut cream 200g – similar item available in Whole Foods.
• Rum flavoring 1/2 teaspoon (optional). If using real rum 10g

1. Put butter in the bowl and whip with electric hand held mixer till the butter gets pale and fluffy.
2. Add chestnut cream and mix with lower speed till well incorporated.
3. Add rum and mix.

Syrup – although it’s optional, this will keep the cake moist.

• 1/3 cup warm water
• Sugar 2 Tablespoon
• Rum flavoring 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon (optional)

Dissolve sugar in the water and add rum flavoring.

Assembly

1. Lay first of three cakes on the plate.
2. Brush with syrup repeatedly using about 1/3 of syrup.
3. Spread 1/3rd of filling evenly on top.
4. Lay the second piece of cake and repeat step #2 and #3.
5. Lay the third and final piece on top and repeat step #2 and #3.
6. Put chestnut cream in the pastry bag with tip (I used a multiple hole tip but a one pin hole tip will work too).
   
7. Pipe out diagonally and  then again to form a cross-hatch or diamond pattern.
8. Clean sides with a pallet knife.
9. Decorate with chestnuts on top (optional). I used chestnuts in heavy syrup.I proudly announced that this cake is gluten free. ” I’m ok with gluten, you know that right?” said my husband. Yeah but this does not taste like it. Hummm, this looks like soba noodle.

Putting the kids to bed was an exhausting job indeed.

This is one of my first paintings.  

I needed to make amends with him with his favorite dish –  crab cream croquette but he was out with friends. Fine!

My son made us beef stroganoff over egg noodle under the guidance of Betty Crocker. It’s good though, my recipe is betty…better.

We went out for dinner last Saturday then stopped by the Petite Provence for a little treat. From the right – chocolate, vanilla, caramel, orange, half eaten raspberry and missing is pistachio.

 

 

 

 

Footwork

Macaron au Chocolat

I was totally enticed into making these cute little sweets, blinded by their innocent looks. At the second failure, my hands were half way up. Who said ‘Every failure is a route to success’? Oh yeah? I always could take the high road to Pix where amazing macarons are waiting for me. I have more egg whites to spare however – if I suck at it thrice then, really, this is not the charm.

I hear people say the phrase like ‘some things are better left to professionals’ and this may be one of those. Like croissant, for example. To achieve the buttery, flakey crust that the bakery sells is not easily attainable thus $2.75 for a plain croissant (at some stores) is a reasonable price for not making yourself.  I would even shell out $3 for it. Besides, who’s going to clean up all the mess? Ah…honey? Come in for sec.

The recipe I used seemed simple with lots of color photos. I prepped the egg white for 2-3 days. And powdered sugar… wait.. it said here – Do not use powdered sugar has corn starch in it. I grab my car keys and headed to a near-by store to get pure powdered sugar, I need Sucre Glace! Ay ya,ya! They did not have it. Plan B – make your own powdered sugar, Holy Google said I can. I put regular sugar into my food processer and voila! Well, not quite, the simple recipe is not so simple anymore. Look at all the sugar dust making my counter white!..and my hair!

A successful macaron has nice pied (pi-e French for foot), all around the shiny ‘round’. In other words, macaron without foot is pas bon (not good)! Whew! At least mine had foots to walk on. I think I had enough of this learning curve without getting it straight but the reward of my effort came when my son liked them and ate all my mistakes too.

Ganache/ganache au lait

• Heavy cream 100CC. If you’re using milk chocolate 90CC
• Corn syrup 10g
• Dark chocolate or milk chocolate 90g. Use quality baking chocolate. I used Guittard dark chocolate tablets.

1. In a small sauce pan, boil cream and corn syrup on medium high heat. Turn off heat and set aside.
2. In a metal bowl, put chocolate (if you’re using sheet or block chocolate, chopped in small pieces).
3. Pour cream mixture over the chocolate.
4. Mix well with rubber spatula. Cool to room temperature then cover, keep refrigerated.
   

Macaron batter – supposedly make 30 rounds/15 pair.

Necessary equipment – food scale, food processer, hand held mixer, card dredge

• Almond – raw, skinless 65g
• Powdered sugar with no corn starch 100g
• Cocoa powder 8g
• Egg white 45g and 5g – Leave egg white covered with plastic wrap at room temperature for 2-3 days. Do not use cold eggs.
• Granulated sugar 15g
• Red food coloring 1 drop This is optional but richen the color of chocolate.

1. Put almonds in food processer and run for about 2 minutes to turn into powder.
2. Add powdered sugar and mix for 30 second.
3. Add cocoa powder and mix for 30 second. Put in a large bowl. Set it aside.
4. Put 45g of egg white in large bowl. Using hand held mixer beat egg white until cloudy. Add granulated sugar a little at a time and whip on high speed using a big circular motion until the white forms very stiff peaks and has sheen, about 5-7 minutes.
   
5. In the almond powder mixture bowl, pour 5g egg white and red food coloring and combine.
6. Add meringue at once into almond mixture bowl. Scoop up from bottom with rubber spatula fold in meringue. No need to combine perfectly. You may see some white.
   
7. With a pastry card dredge or sukeppa, scrape off batter and push against the side of bowl to burst meringue bubble – this is called makaronju (makaronaju). This is where I stumbled twice. Do not over do it. 3-4 times is enough I think. What you want see is when you gather the batter in the middle, it slowly spread out. Doing too much will result in runny batter, make it hard to pipe out and won’t rise.
   

Pipe out the batter and baking process

Necessary equipment – 16X11 inch insulated cookie sheet (if you don’t have it, use two cookie sheets, one top on the other), parchment paper, pastry bag with 1/2 inch round tip

1. Line the cookie sheet with parchment paper
2. Put batter in pastry bag with half inch round tip.
3. Pipe out 1-1/2 inch size round. You should have 2 inch space between.
4. Rest for 20-30 minutes until dry to the touch. 10 minutes in, preheat oven  to 300 F.
5. Put in oven and turn down oven to 270 F. Bake for 16  to 18 minutes. The macaron should rise, develop foot, sheen and has dry surface.
   
6. Take out from oven and cool in cooking sheet to room temperature.
7. After it has cooled then carefully remove macaron from paper. Finish cooling on a wire rack.

Finish line

Congratulations! Your goal is almost there! Take ganache out of the refrigerator to soften, about 30 minutes.Then stuff into pastry bag with 1/2 inch round tip.Be a Match Maker – match two same size macarons, pipe some ganache on one and put mate macaron on top.

 

Ice Apple

I was cooped up in the house for a couple weeks needed fresh air. My husband and I went to Al’s nursery in Sherwood for ice apples. Ice apples (actually, Fuji apple) are left on the tree and are harvested after the frost to intensify the sweetness. We had a first 1 pound free coupon. This place is HUGE!This caramel was from a company in Utah.

We tasted every available sample.

This was good but I am not sure I want this much.

There were both Ducks and Beavers there.

Wow! It is time to clean the lens on this camera.I’m always in mood for dance!

Hi, Hello deer (there).Put a shining star up on the highest bough. I can’t help but start singing!

I was not the only one who kept busy in the kitchen. My husband made this cheese cake for co-workers.

Chinese chicken noodle soup for a neighbor friend and left over for our evening meal. Hmmm warm your soul.