My Food Test Kitchen: October 2012

The Objective

Food is a hobby for me. It is not just fuel. It can be art and it can be flavor. It can make my day and, many days, is the highlight. As with anything, you can't get better without practicing and reflection.

We don't always know how well a recipe or idea will turn out. In my opinion, cooking is as much about the experience as the food. Exploring techniques and ingredients makes our culinary experiences interesting. My expectation is to report on recipes I try. The collection of magazine recipes (Bon Appetit, Cooking Light, Everyday Food, etc.) and cookbooks has grown over the past several months without using any of them. I would be remiss if I did not give them the opportunity to wow me. That said, the objective of this blog is simple: to cook food -at least 1 recipe per week. The complexity of the recipes reviewed in this blog will range and, at times, seem completely random.

Although my objective is plain, I hope to change the pace now and then with adding a few "special features" related to food or food events.

I welcome your comments and critiques and hope you enjoy my experience as much as I do.

Monday, October 22, 2012

The Buttercream Takes the Cake

Recipe from Bon Appetit magazine (available online :: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2012/03/chocolate-peanut-butter-fun-cake)

The sponge on this dessert was intensely dark from the high cocoa content. Moderately moist when baked up in cupcake form. But the pinnacle of this dessert was the buttercream. Made from a cooked merengue base with a silky, fluffy texture, this is by far the best frosting I've eaten in a long time, if not ever!

A couple of things I've learned in the meantime: 1) salted butter does not make for a good buttercream and 2) I will "bloom" my cocoa in hot water before adding it to the mix.

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Recipe Assessment Criteria

Whenever you decide to grade or assess something, it is good to have a set of criteria on which to do that; it provides some structure to the task. With this current endeavor, I have decided on a few categories to judge a given recipe*:

Difficulty: How easy was the recipe to make? Difficulty will be characterized as Easy,Medium or Hard. This category is with regards to cooking techniques with an assumption that the cook has a enough experience in the kitchen to know the difference between a onion and a potato or a slotted spoon and a whisk.

Accessibility: How easily can the ingredients be obtained? Accessibility will be characterized as Common, Limited Specialty (30% or less of ingredients from specialty store), or Specialty (greater than 30% of ingredients from specialty store). Also, comments will be included on the necessity of specialty tools required to complete the dish.

Visual Appeal: Is the finished dish/meal attractive to look at? Is it enticing to eat. This category will be a reflection on the color and arrangement of the food and garnishes.

Overall Taste: This category will be a reflection on the taste of the food. Would I eat it again?

Overall Experience: This category will serve as a reflection on the cooking experience, as a whole. *The right to amend the aforementioned criteria is reserved for the proprietor of this project.