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Cocoa Nib-Buckwheat Pannacotta, Honey Marshmallows, Cocoa Brownies, Milk Chocolate Crunch Candy & Shuna's Famous Hot Fudge Sauce

Cocoa Nib-Buckwheat Pannacotta, Honey Vanilla Bean Marshmallows, Cocoa Brownies, Milk Chocolate-Cocoa Nib-Buckwheat Crunch Candy, Fried Kasha & Shuna's Famous Hot Fudge Sauce

Chocolate.

they say it's easy.

Chocolate. Who doesn't love chocolate?

Most people love chocolate. They don't like it, they adore it. They lust it. They obsess over it. They travel thousands of miles for it like Valhalla. They write off the carbon footprint. Because, really, who can grow chocolate in their back yard?

OK, so there are people who don't like chocolate. But they don't just not like it. They hate it.

Chocolate.

See my point? Chocolate is passionate. Opinionated. Strong. Beautiful. Dark. Libraries of flavour; nuanced, swathed in translucent layers, nude underneath. Just beyond reach. All sex and no awkward in the morning. Pleasure without excuse.

Chocolate.

It's iconic. Brick solid. No, more so. Marble granite earth volcanic lava black loam river silt blood deep sea ocean black. Solid. Deep. Inexplicable. Ineffable. Chocolate has more metaphors than love & hate together.

C H O C O L A T E

Fuck you and your chocolate self. O I know you can handle it. You're chocolate for g-d's sake. No last name. Just Chocolate. See, you can't even put 'just' in front of chocolate. Won't stand for it. Won't allow it. Bounces back like rubber. Puts up one hand. Stares you down.

You melt. Into nothing. It's you who can't handle chocolate. Not the other way around.

And so. Exhausted. Beaten. Into submission or malleable, tempered, molecular-ly re-aligned, surrender you go, dragging your weary humble self to chocolate. 'hello,' you manage weakly, 'what will you let me do with you?'

And if.

if you're really lucky. if chocolate is having a good day. if chocolate thinks you're good enough. if chocolate thinks you're humble enough, she may allow you

to think you're in charge. for a minute. ha!

O Chocolate you do beguile! You do bewitch. You have led men, women and in-betweens better than I up those steep Mayan stairs... Those stairs like fish hooks-- designed to enter swiftly, designed to climb up, designed to come out tearing flesh, designed for ascent only.

Chocolate, I tip my hat to you. I curtsy. I call you Mistress. You will forever own me.

Chocolate. I will be your apprentice. Will you allow me?

You may think me dramatic. But. I'm not. Chocolate is the conundrum of a pastry chef's life, menu. For most of the public thinks there's only one recipe you should have on your menu. Warm Chocolate Cake. Molten Chocolate Cake. Liquid Center Chocolate Fondant. Whatever you want to call it, it's the same. Same as all McDonald's French Fries the world over. One recipe. Easier than hopscotch, more cliched than calling your lover 'Honey,' as boring as missionary style. One fucking recipe.

So pastry chefs like me. Completely uninterested in cliches. So over warm chocolate cake they could plotz, are faced with the dilemma. What will their chocolate dessert be?

Because you know what, dear dear readers of eggbeater? Your chocolate dessert will sell even if it's the worst plate you construct. Diners will eat salmon and tuna until even farmed fish are extinct. And they will order chocolate even if all the other components are ones they despise. They will move aside garnishes, sauces, flourishes and innovations. To get to the heart of the matter. The important bit.

You guessed it. Chocolate. uh huh.

So anyone who knows me knows this: my chocolate desserts introduce. My chocolate desserts keep you on your toes. My chocolate desserts are about the breadth of chocolate. Because I loves me some chocolate. A lot. And I, like the rest of us, loves me some warm & hot chocolate, creamy chocolate, dark and milk chocolate, cocoa nibs, Dutched and Natural cocoa. Give me chocolate and I am happy. Or happier.

This dessert is not spectacular. It doesn't shock or stand tall or do something never done before. But it's chocolate in all sorts of ways. It's chocolate as a multi-personality'd experience.

I infuse/cook buckwheat groats and cocoa nibs with cream, steep and then blend for a long long time in a mightily powerful blender. I, just barely, set this liquid into pannacotta with as little gelatin as I can get away with. The buckwheat helps by lending its thickening starchy power to the mix. This is really fun to play with, should you want to experiment with it in your own kitchen. A little can go a long way with flavor & viscosity.

The brownie recipe is miraculous. It's dark and moist and chocolatey and has not a gram of actual chocolate in it! Check out Alice Medrich's cocoa brownie recipe. Soft, pliable brown brownie brownieness. And so easy. Marshmallows are for whimsy. I slow fry buckwheat groats in canola oil until they're cooked enough to eat out-of-hand. {Be very careful-- they burn easily!} If this turns you on, try tossing them in various salts or spice mixtures. I learned about this method from Anna Hansen at the Modern Pantry in London. Then, because I love high cocoa content milk chocolate, I make a quick crunchy candy with cocoa nibs, more buckwheat crunchies & feuillitene.

And to finish, at the very last minute before plate leaves my station, 'shuna's famous hot fudge sauce' is poured on. It's the sauce that transports all the dark chocolate you might be missing from the rest of the plate. And, because it's hot, it begins melting everything it comes into contact with.

Chocolate is not impossible. Not even close. But because it's a lead singer without a last name or need for fellow musicians, it can pose a challenge. As a pastry chef you'd be hard pressed to hear a lot of negative critique about your chocolate dessert, unless it's truly god-awful or your diners hold a molten chocolate cake gun to your head.

Chocolate dominates. Chocolate is, and will always be. Chocolate. There are few flavours that can bed chocolate, and be noticed themselves.

And so. If that's the case. Play dress up. Tie a bowtie for the first time. Hook in cuff links. Wear red lipstick, go commando, let her get on top, flirt with possibility, entertain new ideas, throw That One Recipe Away and reinvent, remake, realize and never, never ever rest on your laurels, on cliches.

Chocolate deserves better. And you know it.

Spicy Gingerbread, Brown Butter-Bacon Vinaigrette, Smuttynose Stout-Honey Reduction & Whipped Lebne

Spicy Gingerbread, Warm Brown Butter-Butterscotch-Bacon Vinaigrette, Smuttynose Stout-Honey Reduction & Whipped Lebne

I hear from the waiters this dessert might be scaring the restaurant's customers. Really? Seriously? Come on now. Please. This dessert, this flavor combination is a nerdy kindergartner compared with, let's say, American Mustard ice cream. It's gingerbread for cod's sake! Gingerbread. Made spicy with organic ground ginger. (All dried spices & herbs in the USA are irradiated unless stated otherwise.) Irradiation removes much of that spice/herb's flavor, so I go to a local health food store and buy all my gingerbread spices from their bulk section.

Warm vinaigrette made with brown butter & bacon fat. Unless you're on a lowfat diet (in which case would you be ordering dessert at all?), this fat combination in a vinaigrette isn't so far off a beaten path.

Gingerbread is warm. Warm flavors, warm colors, warm spices.

When creating plated desserts, or combining different foods in general, you begin seeing patterns. Pairings, whether classical or radical, come from a point of view, of taste, that certain ingredients 'go together.' Why? Why do figs & goat cheese or fresh cheese get paired together so often? Because they're in season at the same time. Cinnamon & apples, while I consider this to be the most boring cliche in the baking world, really makes sense. Apple pie feels naked, like one of those dreams where you get to school and you're naked, without even a dash of cinnamon. In certain cultures, countries, regions, flavor pairings are law. To combine 2 foods from completely different seasons would be considered the kind of sacrilege that would get a person ostracized for life.

In my creative process I think of a flavor. A season. It's cold outside. I want to be warm. I want to eat roasted meat, roasted vegetables, roasted roasty roastedness. I want deep. I want warm. I want wool & cashmere, slow sex & hot baths, caramel & chestnuts, deep sleep & toast & espresso, the scent of porridge on the stove for an hour. Warm spices are the ones you find in pumpkin pie. laid out, they could be a painters palette for a British fox hunt. Ochre, blood & brick reds, burnt sienna, dark chocolate, wet wood, a pretzel's sheen, ink, bergundy, cassis, charcoal, gold, persimmon orange, sepia.

In comes stout. Smuttynose Imperial Stout to be exact. One sexy motherfucker, if you ask me. Stout is mystery. Deep. Like falling into someone's eyes. Like stealing a kiss. Stout is a thousand secrets, none of them false. Stout is slow. Patient. Stout is black like licorice, like leather. And when you reduce it with honey? It's stoutness never departs. It gets fucking deeper, yo. And so intense you put in on a tiny tea spoon (no squeeze bottles on my station) and take your hat off to it, when drawing your inky line on the plate. Deference. Stout is bitter, is sweet, is a library of adjectives, none of them on spot.

And now all the components on the plate are warm, spicy, fatty, salty. You need a break. You need something completely different.

With all flavors, temperatures, hues, reprieve is needed. Fat needs acid. Sugar-- salt. Sharp & crunchy gets old unless a bit of soft, plush, is added to the mix. Paintings in primary colors hurt the eyes, but once a bit of mixing takes place, everything calms. 'Makes sense.'

And so, after all the warmth of gingerbread, and the fatty warmth of bacon and brown butter; while there's acid in the vinaigrette, one needs a bit of lightness, a component with neither sugar nor salt. And so, even though lebne is a full fat yogurt, and very sour, when whipped, it takes on another persona. It's light, it's bright. It's air. A breath.

Lastly, there's a 'tie-in.' A brunoise of candied ginger hiding in the shadow's fold of larger components, flavors, textures. You pick them up absentmindedly in your fork, in your spoon. They go along for the ride, with the vinaigrette, with the whipped lebne. A nice surprise. Dense, sweet, spicy. Just a little thing. A touch, a caress, a little lace under the skirt.

Lemon Sherbet Granita, Olive Oil Relish & Honey-Orange Blossom Sabayon

Lemon Sherbet Granita, white fig-golden raisin-preserved lemon-fennel seed-roasted candied fennel-arbequina olive oil relish, honey & orange blossom sabayon.

I love lemons. Lemony lemon lemonness.

But so few lemon desserts are everything I love about lemons.

too many hide the lemon's trickier sides ~ its bitter skin oil, it's catch-you-in-the back-of-your-throat-&-attack-your-eardrums kinda sour.

its pucker.

Not me. Not mine. I love love love me some citrus. I have been known to have a not-so-secret love affair with these orbs of sunshiny autumn leaf colored palette of tight pored shiny skin and segments of closely bound pressed droplets of juice.

mmmmmmm citrus.

acid.

perfume.

wet.

juicy.

thick, waxy, smooth, dense, Irish-Green leaves.

infusable blossoms.

citrus.

need I say more?

so when I began planning a winter dessert menu. I need not have looked further than this multi-shaped family of fantastic fruits.

{hey, I'm not the only chef smitten. David Kinch does an entire many coursed menu paying homage to rare & intriguing, beguiling citrus.}

When I come up with a dessert I think of one flavor. Then I close my eyes and think about what other flavors I want to have with that one lead.

I begin thinking about textures, about temperatures.

I write lists.

I consult my foundation component recipes. They may lead me to themselves, like an unplanned walk in London, or they may lead me to another idea, at which point I write a recipe as I move through weights & methods.

But a plated dessert needs composition. Arranging. Foreground, lead singer, front flavor, primary focus, shading, burning & dodging, cropping, sanding, priming, dress rehearsal, reading the play aloud, auditioning-- these are all metaphors, tools, for creating a composed; a plated dessert.

Because a film has to have a leading actor, because a band a signature style, because a company needs a vision, because a community-- a heart, because a structure needs walls before a roof, a plated dessert needs a thought process.

sometimes it takes plating it a few dozen, or hundred times, to get it just right.

sometimes a plated dessert will lead you, with its ingredients, its parts, to a shape, a vessel, a molding tool.
sometimes I have to ask for help. lay out all my mis en place, like paragraphs, and re-arrange them to fit the narrative.

and then you have to think about portioning. how much of this component leads you to eat that component? what overpowers what? who speaks first, who waits their turn, who interrupts, who acts like a cowboy, who is the wallflower, who can't whisper low enough?

and the crazy thing?

you'll never get it right.

Just Right.

you will always be tweaking. in your head. you will move the couch, centimeter by centimeter, and still feel like the Princess & The Pea.

This dessert may sound familiar to you. Yeah, I like these flavors together. I find I need to keep working on a dessert, job after job, kitchen after kitchen, menu after menu, season after season, in order to get it there. or get it out of my system. like the person you continue to sleep with long after the break up. or the wine you continue to drink long past the point of pleasure into drunkenness. or the record you wear out because you love it. to death.

or

you wear that sweater until it falls apart, and then you start wearing it to bed.

it's not about judgment. it's about attraction.

and then you might move on. or take it out when winter comes around again.

This is my favorite dessert on the menu. I know it's a little esoteric for the average person, but out of 3 desserts on offer for New Year's Eve, it sold neck in neck with the chocolate offering. If you make it in while it's on the menu, I'd love to know your thoughts.

Recipes vs. Intuition

Do you consider yourself a good baker? A great cook? A top notch chef? Are you a blue ribbon winning home baker? Have you begun an underground restaurant because you gave such stellar dinner parties? Do you think your palate is superior to anyone you eat with? Is your cookbook collection the envy of everyone? Is your recipe based blog highly trafficked? Do you give homemade candy as gifts? Have you taken innumerable cooking classes? Do you consume eggbeater for the recipes,  or for insight into professional cooking? Did you read Michael Ruhlman's Ratio? Did it radicalize or bore you? Inspire or confuse you?

Recipe: a method for achieving some desired objective.

I'd like to pose a question.

Do recipes get in the way of learning to cook, bake?

At what point does a baker, a chef, no longer need recipes, or, when are recipes needed and when are they crutches?

It's too many questions, I know. Not of which can, truly, be answered. But I'd like to involve you in considering them with me.

Because I've worked a number of professional cooking/baking venues, and I've recently jumped from large scale bakery baking to tiny batch plated dessert component baking, these questions have come banging on my door in the middle of the night. They're many, and loud. And they don't let me sleepwalk through. They don't let me stay still. They make me itch with their curved lines and that enigmatic dot at their end.

?

Questions.

Questions without answers.
But questions that beget learning, delving, growing, understanding.

And then there are more questions.

Recipes, to get back to the subject, are validated. Everyone likes a good recipe. Recipes are passed down on notes, in book, translucent oily index cards. Unique handwriting scratchings. Recipes are whispered, graffitti'd, brought to the grave, tattood and celebrated.

Millions of trees have been cut down in the name of recipes. A cookbook is born every second. Recipes are facts. Recipes are coveted. You can trade a recipe like money, and there are as many recipes that 'wprk' as there are that 'don't work.' No one can argue with a good recipe, right?

And some recipes will live forever. In our hearts, in our minds. O recipe, we love you. For cliches ever on.

Is it blasphemy, then, to want to do away with recipes? Will I be witch hunted and burned alive for public view? Should I now beg for mercy, while you're silently collecting stones?

Recipes.

What are they, though?

Recipes represent certainty. They are certainty. They represent logic, arithmatic, and maybe even math. And we hate, we despise, we murder, we denounce uncertainty. We approve of Empirical and we're not afraid to erase its opposite.

We love facts. We love when things make sense.

Well, many of us at any rate.

Intuition.

Intuition represents uncertainty. Intuition is touchy-feely. Intuition is something beyond logic and is sometimes re-named as common sense. Intuition is related to psychic and many people would disregard all such subject as hokus pokus, never even needing to wash their clean logical hands of it because to them it never existed in the first place! Intuition is not empirical. Intuition is heart and love and none of these things exist under a microscope.

You either have a good sense of direction or you don't.

Intuition.

What is it? We define it by what it is not because we don't know what it is. And we despise uncertainty. We discard illogical. We call it crazy, hysterical, ridiculous, a farce, a scam; we want to stand on the other side of it and put it in the dunce's corner.

But you know what?

It's fear. We are terrified of uncertainty. We embrace safety & surety and we do everything in our power to keep groundlessness at bay or, better yet, throw it in the bay.

Can intuition be taught? Inspired? Can inspiration be dispensed? Does it take one great teacher to move you beyond, and delve you deeper, or many? Or none? Do you either have it or you don't?

What if you're somewhere in between? What if you sit on a fence, are a switch, can go both ways, are all ways, like bois & grrls, can see beyond what's at the tip of your nose, have a thing for sublimating the paradigm, live outside the pink box, use a recipe and intuition both, think with all of your brain, don't believe in opposites?

I believe in recipe and intuition both. Combined. In tandem. A guild, if you will.
I believe, though, that recipes can {sometimes} block intuition. {Especially when used alone.}
I believe if one places the recipe before what one knows to be true, that's where {some of the} trouble begins.
That's when "Bad Things Happen."
And, so, I beg of you to consider this.
I ask you to step outside the comfort and safety of recipes, especially only ever making a recipe once, or casting aspersions upon a recipe and it's supposed author/parent because 'it didn't work!' for you.

A recipe is a guide. A recipe is a series of suggestions, of possibilities. A recipe is a ratio.

One of the very first 'cookbooks' ever suggested to me was Le Repertoire de la Cuisine. While it is a compilation of recipes and methods, there are no measurements, no implicit instructions. Upon first glance there are merely lists. And yet, what one finds, upon closer and inquisitive inspection, is patterns.

And within patterns, there lies quiet learning.

Protein always does the same thing, whether in flour or chicken, egg whites or oranges.
Leavening can always be relied on to rise, whether via yeast, baking powder, egg whites, steam.

You may cook and bake for very different reasons than I, I know. You may not be seeking what lies around the corner from your tried and true tested recipes. You may think I'm relating recipes to life in a way that's silly and indulgent. You may not think everything is related, as I do.

I'm not asking you to set fire to your cookbook collection or never spend too many hours again on recipe based food blogs. I'm not even asking you to humor me by swallowing what I have to say whole.

All I'm asking, suggesting, is that you consider.

Consider stepping back from recipes. Consider how you learn, how you jump to the next level of learning, how you quietly cross lines and borders into new cooking/baking territory.

When you feel the bicycle under you, un-held, unsupported, for the first time, it's an exhilarating, terrifying, ebullient thrill! You don't know how you don't tip over; it's magic!

Baking is alchemy.

Tried & True Science, and mystery both.

Ingredients respond as much to logic as they do to love.

Recipes are ratios, but no ingredient stands still. Flour is not one thing, and neither is water. Ever block of butter, all around the world, will react differently. Even two sugars are not what you think they are, even though they look the same under a microscope!

If ingredients are alive, and changeable, then so must be recipes. And us; those who use, abide by, share, trade, give, alter, mix, fight with, discard, write & re-write, must also be amenable to holding on and letting go both, all.

Recipes & Intuition live on a spectrum. They are not opposites. Both are certainty & uncertainty. Two sides of one coin.

Hot Chocolate in London

When it gets cold out, or suddenly chilly, or Autumn's leaves begin to whisper in, or scarves begin living around my neck, I think of Hot Cocoa & Hot Chocolate {no, they are not the same.}. I want to drink hot chocolate liquid for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and I do, in secret or in public, as often as I can.

In London, part of the EU and in very close proximity to countries boasting the best chocolate making in the world, finding hot cocoa or hot chocolate worth a swallow, is harder than one might think.

But I have recently found 3 locations doing their best to convince me otherwise.

Pictured here on the right is Story Deli's little glass mug of deeply hot chocolate joy. Neither Novel, nor deli, Story Deli is a modern organic pizza restaurant deep within the folds of crazy manic super duper trendy Brick Lane madness.

When my ex pastry chef companion ordered it off the menu, we practically cried with happiness, after trial sips, at the fact that it was indeed real dairy & chocolate they had decided to put in that glass! Hot cocoa in London mostly consists of water, or skim milk if you're lucky, artificially flavored cocoa-ish substance and way too much sugar. {Can someone please tell me why a country producing some of the best dairy in the world has embraced skim milk for all of their cafes & restaurants?}

The second restaurant to completely take me off guard with it's organic milk and slow moving, practically ganache, river of chocolate wallop was Leon. With plenty of locations around London, I might have expected chain-like beverages & insipid concoctions, but no. I went to a knitting 'event' put on by Stitch & Bitch London last week, and when someone ordered the hot chocolate and the perfume attacked me from across the table, I knew. I knew I had inadvertently discovered another.

Pictured on the left is a hot cocoa worth runner up mention, for grace, poise and effort. Flat White's hot cocoa plate could be the best looking hot cocoa in London, but it was short on taste I am sad to admit.

So for third place I have to say The Modern Pantry is doing its very best to create a London hot chocolate worthy of mention. If you make it there, be sure to have a small one, at least, and tell me what you think. Being such a fan of theirs, I've secretly shared some of my opinionated thoughts with them.

Always on the lookout for fantastic hot cocoas & hot chocolates in London, please do share your favourite spots-- any list of liquid chocolate locations is a friend of mine!

Madeira Cake, shuna stylee. Or, The Best Ever Yellow Cake Recipe, full stop.

I want to tell you a story about a cake.

Once upon a perfect crumb of a time,
there was a cake
of utmost richness.
There, in that easy to read recipe,
there were all the normal characters;
butter, sugar, eggs, salt, vanilla, milk, flour.

One could call this cake whatever one wanted to, but one eggbeater using pastry chef knew it to be Yellow Cake, because that's what she looked to make, and perfect, one day whilst consulting at her local food shop.

One day,
many a waxing and waning sweet moon later,
said pastry chef found herself making a long long journey,
across land and sea,
through high clouds and many a time zone.
She brought her trusty recipes with her.
She held them tight and unfurled them one at a time.
She introduced them to the metric system and a match was made.
Kingdoms of frostings and fillings,
chocolate curls & light-as-snow dustings of cocoa and icing sugar,
fruit jams and curds,
plain cakers and over-the-top concoctions,
alike
rejoiced!

A new cake came to London!

Or did it?

What's in a name?

Is a cake a cake a cake a cake?

Who writes the borders of cakes? Defines those borders?

Says what a cake is? Is not?

One day, just days ago, in fact
Yellow Cake thought to make another appearance,
re-invent intself
appear on another menu,
clear across Londontown,
in a whole other venue,
a whole new chapter.
Yellow Cake,
the most famous of all American Cake layers,
was creamed,
milk was brought gently to room temperature,
the Dry, Wet, Dry, Wet, Dry method was employed,
and voila!
Cake.

Warm cake out of the oven.

Warm scent wafted, seduced
intrigued.
Waiters from near and far came.
What is this, O Cake of yours?
And so she sliced and placed warm cake into people's hands and so it went into their hungry wanting mouths.
Warm cake.
Rich cake.
Buttery, vanilla perfumed cake.

First an Irishman, then a gal from South Africa. Three British mouths, a deeply handsome fellow from the Congo, two delicious Italian gentlemen, a Swede and an elegant & poised New Zealander.

All mouths, all ate warm cake, all OOOOHED and AHHHED and responded with an answer.

The Name.

The Name of The Cake.

But
all Named
The Cake
with
a
different
name.

Tea Cake (not to be confused with Teacakes which are a yeasted bread in the UK), Madeira Cake, Sponge, "Something my Granny made for tea with cream and jam. MMMMMmmmmmm!"

Not one person could agree. Except the 3 who said Madeira Cake, and the person who said, "It is definitely NOT Madeira Cake."

Madeira Cake is not what you might think. It is not a cake made with Madeira.

After much perusing through images and recipes, Madeira Cake appears to be what we in America would call Pound Cake. Although the amounts of ingredients might differ, the end result appears to be the same.

While my cake definitely can not be defined by the same characteristics as Britain's own Madeira Cake, it is the name that stuck, and the name it is sold under.

And the clincher? One very loud American hating customer says it's the best Madeira Cake in London. heh.

MADEIRA CAKE, shuna stylee

UNSALTED BUTTER, room temperature  200g
CASTER SUGAR 375g
PLAIN FLOUR 225g
BAKING POWDER 2.5 teapoons
FINE SEA SALT 1 teaspoon
LARGE EGGS* 150g
EGG YOLKS 80g
WHOLE MILK, room temperature 165g
VANILLA EXTRACT or vanilla sugar 1 Tablespoon

165 C in fan assisted oven or 175-180 C still oven

The method for this recipe is the same as for the Yellow Cake.

Shuna's Baking Hints:

*The eggs I'm using weigh between 50-60 grams each.

Know this: this cake attracts a fair amount of colour in the oven because it has a lot of fat in it. Do not judge whether it's done based on colour. I use the 'bounce-back' test and touch the middle of the cake. Also if cake pulls away from sides of pan it's done. A sharp something small inserted in the middle should come out dry, as well, when cake is done.

Because the batter is fairly liquid and has a fragile emulsion (all cakes utilizing the Dry, Wet, Dry, Wet, Dry method do), it likes to be evenly spread in shallower vessels as opposed to deep ones.

If you think cake is going to be done in 40 minutes, set first timer "long," meaning cake does not like to be looked at/checked in on before it has "set."

Butter & parchment-ing sides of pan will help cake rise and not topple over in oven if you have even slightly overfilled baking vessel.

I always place my cake tin on a baking tray. It makes it easier to turn the cake around in the oven, check on it and take it out when it's done. For the science-minded folks-- this trick also helps with even heat distribution, which sensitive cake batters appreciate.

Do not skimp on the ingredients here. Cake should taste of the best butter & eggs!

Shuna's Madeira Cake will keep for a lot longer than you might think after it has been made. In the above photo lemon zest and chopped rosemary was added to batter and just about anything would only compliment & complement this cake further.

Enjoy!

favorite ingredients

demerara sugar
eggs
love
buckwheat flour
butter
honesty
inquisitiveness
rosemary
lima salt
bacon fat
espresso
humour
Jersey milk
cold water
freshly ground black pepper
goat yogurt
cocoa nibs
desire to learn
pink peppercorns
Madagascar vanilla beans
fennel seeds
patience
passion
humility
the ability to say a sorry you mean
beef bone marrow
crab
chocolate egg creams
leeks
Scharffen Berger milk chocolate
peach leaves
Royal Blenheim apricots
rhubarb
mangoes
passion
butter caramel
puff pastry
deep breaths
diplomacy
wet green peppercorns
lemon zest
orange blossom honey
mastic
strong black tea
homemade soy sauce
corn on the cob
roasted red peppers
overcooked broccoli
mama
family
research
Jane Grigson
Laurie Colwin
cherry blossoms
the scent of hay
cumulus clouds
roasted chicken
Little Gem lettuces
quince
sun warmed blackberries in August
wild blueberries
hazelnuts
kisses
French Horns
memories
egg bagels
red cabbage
fresh horseradish
playing bridge until 4 am
old school Adidas
holding hands
bicycling down a steep hill
sauteed foie gras
raw clams on a New York boardwalk
Coney Island
juniper berries
fresh blackcurrants
young ginger
asking questions
cardamon
jaggery
oats
thick cold tart yogurt
Meyer lemons
marmalade
crushes
sharp knives
baby offset spatulas
camaraderie
the banana song
homemade marshmallows
Yiddish
haroset
hip hop
raw fennel
eggplant/aubergine
canneles
bee's wax
persimmons
eating fruit off trees
Black Mission figs
mud pies
postcards
words
Sharpies
absorbent side towels
typewriters
silver quenelling spoons
stainless steel saucepans
parchment paper
lust
silpats
the color orange
sailors
unrequited love
novels
farmer's markets
craft
dark chocolate
leaf gelatin
green almonds
nocino
asking for help
golden raisins
rosewater
pistachios, untoasted
ripe tomatoes
the scent of rice on steam, cooking in your house
sesame oil
pomegranate seeds
soft brown sugar
hot porridge at dawn when there's snow falling outside
Thanksgiving dinner during the first week of November
flirting
compliments & complements
lobster
smoked fish
heirloom apples
dogs running through open fields
green olives
bread baking
brown butter
whisks
crushes
Santa Rosa plums
okra
tears
love letters
Doyenne du Comice pears
taking chances
having faith
walking through our fears
roux
Lyle's Golden Syrup
Damson plums
Meadowsweet pannacotta
sober sex
shallot-morel-puff pastry tart
black truffle
grapefruit
making new friends
teaching
learning
train trips
toasted English muffins
peeled chestnuts
whole roasted young fava beans
Muhammara
rolling pins
young coconut
forbidden black rice
confidence
seeded watermelon
green, opalescent fleshed H'aogen melons
pumpkin pie
sleep
vivid dreams
asking 'Why'
red quinoa
helping the most important person in your life die
walking through grief
Mara de Bois strawberries
scallops
swimming in the ocean
moving great distances
knitting
jokes you laugh at while telling them
corniness
adventures
loving
being loved
not being afraid of difference
redefining success
apologizing
watering all the plants on the same day
watching an orchid take weeks to blossom and stay for months
baths
organizing memorials
honey roasted peanuts
eating freshly churned ice cream off the spatula
adding baking soda to caramel and watching it froth up, turn opaque and later break it open and see why they named it Honeycomb, or Hokey Pokey
burning fingertips on tuiles
making lists
showing up for the hard stuff
surviving
glitter
a tongue on the inside of an elbow
torching meringue
raking leaves
lemon juice
hot fudge sauce
cucumbers
hot chorizo
padron peppers sauteed in olive oil and drenched in sea salt, eaten out of a black cast iron skillet
biscuits made with hand rendered lard
buttermilk
elderberry cordial
limes
gingerbread cake
yellow peaches
the desire to live.

Chocolate-Caramel Slice

When I first came to be introduced to this, er, dessert, I was underwhelmed. One could even say I did not like it. At all. Boring, insipid, blah, came to mind.

I heard the name, and a different sort of caramel than the one who met my mouth, upon eating said thing, had been my wish. I wanted buttery, creamy caramel, and instead it was merely milky. Dulce de Leche, to be exact.

The dough was dark as darkest chocolatey night and what happened on my tongue was a dry midnight desert sandy storm. ick.

Why, you might be asking, am I reviewing a confection I seem to despise so much?

Because my thoughts have recently changed. Now every time I make this easy going treat, I secretly slice off a piece of my own and eat it in tiny   slow   savoring   bites.

The story of Shuna and The Chocolate Caramel Slice is one of many layers.

Let me first say this:

You do not know what a good, bad or indifferent baker/pastry chef you are until you work alongside someone who is better/worse than you. This is not at all to say that if you are an outstanding home baker, you are deluding yourself. But as far as professional cooking & baking go, it is my experience that unless you push yourself really hard to stay away from your sweet spot comfort zone of I-Know-All-I-Need-To-Know-And-I-Feel-Very-Comfy-In-This-Job/Kitchen-Thank-You-Very-Much, and move kitchens or chefs or hire people who are much closer to your level than you feel comfortable having them, you will become stagnant in your baking skill and knowledge.

The professional cooking & baking world is alive, like bread dough. Just following a recipe, whether it be the one of your life or one for a soup, isn't enough.

Unless it is.

In which case you should stop reading now and move onto another blog/book/TV show that fits your mediocre lifestyle/career.

Becoming a better pastry chef isn't about copying all the bigshots and making food from non-soluble powders and mists and freeze-drying every plant you can get your tongue around. You can become a better ______ and still follow your heart.

This is what you have to ask yourself at some point: what am I learning? who is challenging me? why am I fighting change so violently? what scares me? how much failure can I live with? what are the absences/holes in my career/education and where can I go/who can I work with to fill them?

My inner critic demands a spot: How on earth can Chocolate Caramel Slice stand in for life lessons? Come on now, you have to be kidding me. Haven't you seen the headlines? The world is in crises.

But everything is everything, yes? In my world, all is language and all languages are about communication, right?

And when I ate this fine looking sweet treat and I hated it, I delved into why. When I asked the baker about it, she became defensive and said, "People like it! It's a regular thing of ours!" And I thought, that's not an answer, it's an excuse.

Because, let's face it y'all, People Like Things Made With Sugar. Very fucking few people are critical about sweet things. It's the baker, the author, who needs to be discerning. JUST FOLLOWING THE RECIPE IS NOT ENOUGH. No, it ain't. "Well, I followed the recipe..." Is not an excuse for mediocrity. A recipe is merely a guide. It's a secret language for people at various levels understanding its hidden grammar, meaning, message.

Ever wonder why one recipe can achieve countless results?

Because IT DEPENDS ON THE BAKER/COOK, yo.

Make that recipe yours.
Own it.
Learn it.
Make it more than once, more than thrice.
Taste it as you go along.
Eat it. In full. Taste every component/ingredient as you assemble it.
Find out why the author cast flour as the leading role, or butter, or egg whites!
Sing it.
Whisper it close.
Sleep with it under your pillow and ponder it while sitting on the dock watching the buggy skaters do their thang.
I'm serious, yo.
Learn, don't just follow.

And so, without further ado, I introduce you to

'the recipe' for the Chocolate Caramel Slice:

Here's the thing. It's dead easy.

Line a shallow baking pan (preferably with removable bottom) with parchment paper. Make sure parchment reaches up sides at least one inch above pan's edge.
Line with chocolate short dough, let's say 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick.
Bake until just done (best to err on the side of under-baking here).
Spread slightly salted (I prefer sea or Kosher) dulce de leche [ddl for short] over cooled chocolate crust. Thick, at least 1/4 inch thick, but really I don't know the amount. (recipe for dulce de leche - boil one unopened can of sweetened condensed milk, with water covering the can completely, for at least 3 hours. open can when it's not super duper hot. voila! caramelized milk. if you want a much more complicated, highly finessed method, please climb over the wall to Chez Pim's house.)
"Crumble" chocolate short dough over top of ddl & bake again until crumbled dough on top is done.
While I agree it's difficult to tell if chocolate dough is 'done,' look closely at how the colour of it changes in the oven. Touch it--it's shouldn't feel like mashed potatoes, but it shouldn't feel like wood either.

Pull parchment away from slice when cool-ish. Parchment walls are there to hold caramel in place during baking.

Slice with non-serrated knife, straight down motion, when cooler. (I'll admit I prefer eating it when it has a bit of warmth to it.)

Refrigerate slices you're not going to inhale the day you bake it. While I don't usually believe in refrigerating pastry, this one could use the extra hit of moisture it will get inside your cold box.

I have come to like and appreciate the Chocolate Caramel Slice because of it's stupid simplicity. That's a compliment. Sometimes the easiest things are the easiest to mess up. Look at bread. Flour and water. And who the hell makes it at home anymore?

I have come to enjoy eating and making the Chocolate Caramel Slice because I made that recipe mine:

• I cooked the dulce de leche until it was nice and dark. {colour is flavour in baking}
• I added delicious tasting salt to the ddl. {I have been appalled at the use of Table Salt in professional kitchens in London.}
• I under-bake the bottom crust slightly.
• I taste every component and make sure they're just right before I bake it. {I am not relying on the recipe, I am relying on me as a baker/taster of many a baked good [of my own and others' making]}
• And I do not sell the Chocolate Caramel Slice after more than a few days of it sitting out at ambient (= retail bake speak for room temperature.)

Do tell me what you think if you make it. Perhaps you'll have a process too?

Newington Green Greengrocers & Fruiterers

Living in London has humbled me, when it comes to fruit loving & eating. The seasons baffle me, (rhubarb appears to be in season right now!}, not to mention that seasonality for all of the world's fruit has to be taken into consideration! Because when you're buying fruit and vegetables in the UK, it comes from as nearby as 100 or as far as 4000 mile. oy vey. And you thought keeping up with all the peach varietals was hard.

I can't keep up.

So instead I buy what looks and smells good. And I relish in the fruit America won't import. HehI feel especially lucky because I just happened to move into an area that is home to one of the best produce shops I have ever come across in London. Newington Greengrocers. All they sell is fruit & veg. O, and locally made jam/preserves, and little 1/2 dozen containers of eggs. 

If I'm not sure what's in season on British soil, I go here. If I want the best price (better than a restaurant's produce purveyor!) on Pakistani or Indian mangoes, I go here. If I want to make sure my fruit and veg hasn't been in the crates since last week, I go here.Live in London? Have a great Fruiterer in your postcode? Post a link in the comments section-- it would be great if we could make a list together for all the other nerdy fruit lovin' people of Londontown.

~ Yours humbly in Greengage & Damson plums. (Two new varietals I might not have otherwise been introduced to had I not moved here.)

101 Cookbooks & Big Sur Bakery Hide Bread

If you want to know what I'm doing right now, just about every day, for hours upon overlapped hours at a time; I'm working. Restaurant schedules, otherwise known as ROTA's in London, are quite a bit different than they are in the US. Most restaurants have 1 shift per day-- it is a day. Lunch & Dinner is what you work, if you work that day. Especially in Michelin rated restaurants.

My job is a little more human. If you work from morning to morning it's considered 2 shifts and it's called a 'double.' But we don't work them every day. In fact most of us only work 1 double a week, with a cap on 7 shifts.

But tomorrow I go in for a double which will be followed by a double, so I won't re-surface until my 'lie in' on Saturday. And then I work Saturday night.

But I wanted to pass something on to you.

A bread I'm obsessed with making/perfecting.

Heidi, over at the inimitable 101 Cookbooks, has kindly passed on a recipe from the new (anyone wanna send me one?) Big Sur Bakery Cookbook. It's called Hide Bread and you'll have to read her post, or better yet the cookbook, to know why it's called that.

All I know is that it's one helluva bread, and you don't even need yeast or a mixer to make it! Two bowls, a floury surface, a knife and an oven. Check.

Here in England the flour is really different than it is in the States, so I've been tweaking and toying and teasing this fine bread bun into healthful submission, a wee bit at a time. Know this before anything else: flour is REALLY absorbent here. If you think you need more moisture to feed this thirsty beast, you do. Do not keep cakes and muffins and cookies and bread away from the hydration they crave.

If you do, you will be left with a crumbly mess, a baked good worthy of nothing more than a smudge of forgiveness, something to drown under cream or custard; or is in the case with bread: Breadcrumbs.

This bread, this resource, is a keeper. It is an amazing bread toasted. It keeps, wrapped after cooling down completely, for 3-5 days on your kitchen counter. It's great sliced for eating and cubed for croutons. I love it with butter and marmalade, but it's also great at room temperature & naked.

I'm serious when I say I have a fixation on getting it just so. And now I have a kitchen to do it in.

As one word of 'warning': sunflower seeds, when baked, put out some sort of plant-chemical and they turn seriously green inside the bread. Do Not Be Alarmed-- this is natural and normal and it is not mold.

Until I recover from my four shifts, my two doubles, my deep immersion into the land of breakfast-brunch-lunch-and-dinner, retail baked goods, new & improved plated desserts and bread basket baking, I bid you farewell.

Please consider making this bread. And if you do-- tell us all your results, yeah?

Cheers, thanks. Ta.

plated desserts, in words

devil's food cake
crunchy buckwheat
amedei milk chocolate cream
chocolate-almond-buckwheat dacquoise
hot fudge sauce
dark chocolate granita
milk chocolate-cocoa nib-crunchy buckwheat-maldon salt 'candy'
        --plated on a plate

crunchy buckwheat is buckwheat groats simmered in oil until toasted
'candy' is made by melting cocoa butter & chocolate, rolling between layers of parchment & chilling
dacquoise is not a true dacquoise because I've added buckwheat flour as well as crunchy buckwheat, but it still has that light but unleavened quality indicative of an egg white cake

spicy thai coconut soup sorbet
cilantro (fresh coriander)-kalamansi lime-cucumber-thai basil soup
mango slivers, diced jicama, cherries, nectarines, watermelon triangles
        -- plated in a bowl

coconut sorbet is infused with galangal, ginger, green & red chillies, fresh & dried coriander, mustard seeds, basil, and dessicated coconut, then mounted with coconut milk
dessert is inspired by highlighting summer fruits & veg in gazpacho

ginger jelly
forbidden black & sticky rice
coconut cream
coconut caramel
fried sticky rice, two ways, sprinkled with amchur-salt-sugar
fresh dice pineapple
        --plated in a glass

ginger jelly has a kick from a long infusion/boil
forbidden black rice has one of the most amazing flavors & colours of any ingredient i've come accross. it's purple and black & blue mixed. while it is not 'sticky,' it works well with a sticky rice because both have their own distinct personalities
sticky rice is fried after it is cooked and sheeted single layer. it is also fried after sheeting much finer between two pieces of lightly oiled parchment, left to dry on stove & fried. the former method created little crunchy bits, the latter creates a rice 'cracker,' ---- light and aerated, like a puff

Royal Blenheim Apricots. buy & eat me now. Northern California & beyond.

Now is the time.
The time is Right Now.
If you live in California, USA or anywhere close by, and you love apricots

{photo by Anita Crotty of Married ...with Dinner}

The Royal Blenheim Apricot is in season right this minute.

AND YOU DO NOT WANT TO SEE THEM GO EXTINCT IN YOUR LIFE TIME

support the few farmers left growing them.

All this information just in from my favorite group, Bakers Dozen.

Dear Bakers Dozen Members:
The Blenheims are Here!  If you’d like to organize a carpool to pick some up, here are some sources:

 ♦Apricot King—Patty Gonzales’ orchard
Email:  [email protected]
Phone:  831/637-1938

Visit their farm in Hollister, or check them out at these local farmer's markets:

Santa Cruz
2:30 to 6:30 Wednesdays – Lincoln & Cedar, one block off Pacific in downtown Santa Cruz
Los Altos
4 to 8 p.m. – Thursdays, downtown Los Altos
Palo Alto
9 a.m. to 1 p.m. – Sundays (California & El Camino)
Mountain View
9 a.m. to 1 p.m. – Sundays (Hope & Evelyn Streets)

 
♦Andy's Orchard
1615 Half Road
Morgan Hill, CA 95037

Store Hours:
10:00am - 5:00pm Weekdays
10:00am - 4:00pm Weekends
(408) 782-7600 and ask for Lorene

or
•    Sigonona's Market (Palo Alto)
•    Cosentino's (San Jose) carries Andy's fruit
•    Local Farmers Market @ Garden Accent
•    11155 Lena Ave, Gilroy, CA 408/846-4555 Thur  2-7 pm
or look on the local harvest website.

More lovely photos can be found on Flickr of Royal Blenheim Apricots on the branch, taken by Spidra Webster.