The Whites and the Yolks

My friend, Alicia, asked me to do the cake for her sister's bridal shower.  It was to be a white cake with a layer of strawberries in the middle and white chocolate buttercream with white chocolate shavings.  For 80 people.  It was a big cake.

The cake's design was inspired by the shower invitations (the graphic flowers)
and the bride-to-be's china pattern (Lenox "Chirp").

I don't mind doing white cake, but for that much cake I really have to find use for the remaining egg yolks.  All 28 of them.  Throwing them out is simply not an option.

Over the last couple of days I've discovered it's easier to find recipes (that I can actually use anyway) that require only egg whites versus only egg yolks.  My go-to recipe for egg yolks is curd.  So this morning I used close to half of the yolks made about a quart and a half of vanilla infused orange curd. 

The recipe I started with was from Martha.  Of course, we all know I'm not the best at following recipes.  Before I even started, I knew I would be substituting ingredients to use things I already had on hand. 

The recipe calls for cooking the egg yolk mixture in a heavy pot over direct heat.  Much like jams and jellies, curd is not something you casually turn your back on.  As such, I tend to lean toward the side of caution and always use the double boiler method when I make curd.  In this case, I used the mixer bowl of my Kitchen Aid so when the mixture was cooked, I could put the bowl back on the mixer and let it whisk while I added the butter.  Lazy?  Perhaps.  But I prefer to think of it as "working smarter, not harder" - a favorite quote of one of my instructors. 

The brown sticks floating in the egg mixture are two left over pods from vanilla beans scraped for the cake.  I cut them up so they wouldn't be getting caught up in the whisk.  I did pull them out before whisking in the butter.  It would have been nice to show you pictures of the curd coming together as the butter is added in the mixer; however, I'm not coordinated enough to add butter with one hand and try to photograph with the other.  Being one's own photographer has its limitations. 

Because I like the bits of orange zest in it, I chose not to strain the curd.  I usually only strain if I've not been paying attention and have bits of scrambled yolk that need to come out.  And now what am I going to do with a quart and a half of orange curd?  I believe it's going to make a fine filling for some cupcakes.  Or maybe I'll try it as a filling for some mini eclairs topped with white chocolate.  Beyond that, I'm going to try to not just eat it with a spoon.

Vanilla Orange Curd

12 large egg yolks

1-1/2 cups sugar

2 Tbs orange zest

6 Tbs orange juice concentrate

4 Tbs water

5 Tbs lemon juice

1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

2 sticks plus 5 Tbs unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces

Combine the egg yolks, sugar, orange zest, orange juice concentrate, water, lemon juice and vanilla bean in the top of a double boiler set over medium-high heat.  Whisk to combine.  Cook 8 to 10 minutes, whisking constantly until the mixture starts to thicken, then switch to a heat-proof spatula.  Continue to cook and stir until the mixture is thickened and reaches 160°F.  Be sure to scrape sides of the bowl while cooking.  

Remove the bowl from heat.  Remove the vanilla bean pod and discard.  Transfer the bowl to the stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whisk on medium speed.  Add the butter continuously, one piece at a time, until all of the butter is incorporated.  Whisk 2 – 3 minutes more on medium high speed to cool the curd.   If desired, strain through a fine sieve into a bowl or covered container.  Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly onto the surface of the curd to prevent a skin from forming.  Refrigerate until chilled and very firm, at least 2 hours or up to 10 days.

 

Lucky Number Three

When I was a little girl, my grandma and I would visit my aunt in Southern California nearly every summer.  One year while Grandma and I were visiting, my aunt and her incredibly chic friend, Maxine, decided we should all pile into Maxine’s convertible and drive to Las Vegas.  So we did. 

After arriving, finding a hotel and going up to our room, I wanted to go back to the car to get something.  No one else was interested in leaving the air conditioning and, at that time, no one thought anything of sending me on my own to retrieve what I wanted from the car.  On my way back to our room, a well-dressed gentleman in a smart black suit called out to me, “What’s your number?”  Being the naïve, Midwestern girl I was, I started to look at the room key in my hand for our room number.  “No, no.  Your lucky number!”  Feeling a bit embarrassed I sheepishly replied “Oh.  Three.”  He then flipped me a silver dollar and said he was going to go bet on it.  I was too dumbstruck to even say thank you.  I never saw him again and to this day I wonder what he played and if he won.

I don’t remember every detail of that trip (I think I was only six at the time) but a few things have stuck with me:  I’ll never forget Maxine and her red convertible; I’ll never forget that we stayed at the Stardust; and I’ll never forget “lucky number three”. 

Apparently, the pâte de fruit needed a lucky number three. 

This is only about a quarter of the berries I have.

I bought a flat of strawberries yesterday, doing so with the intent of trying another batch of pâte de fruit.  This time, given the quantity of berries I bought, I decided to go with the full recipe instead of cutting it in half.

While I was in school I had purchased a pea-sized melon baller in anticipation of needing it for a final project.  That need never arose, but I discovered yesterday that it’s an awesome tool for hulling strawberries.  Making quick work of nearly five pounds of berries made it worth it.

Before getting started, I made sure that this time the parchment would be greased.  Instead of buttering it, I sprayed it lightly with our olive oil mister.  The fact that I finally remembered this was a good sign in and of itself.  The next step was to make sure all of my ingredients were assemble and measured out.  (I can’t stress how important this is.) 

This is where I hit a small snag and got a little panicky.  I had run out of sugar 100g – about a half of a cup – shy of what I needed.  A jar of vanilla sugar stashed in the cabinet with my tea came to my rescue.  And since I was using a bit of vanilla sugar, why not toss in a vanilla bean? 

mise en place

The procedure was the same as for the mango-chile pâte de fruit.  I did make sure to whisk the pectin thoroughly this time, and made sure it was at a full boil before adding the glucose and sugar.  So far so good.  I boiled and stirred and dreamed of perfect pâte de fruit.  Waiting until this morning to find out was excruciating.  Could it be?  It could.



These cut like a dream compared to the mango.



Since I wanted to cut even squares, the ruler came out.  To keep it from sticking to the pâte de fruit, I coated the top with sugar before removing it from the pan.  My first hint of success was that when lifting the parchment from the pan, the pâte de fruit separated cleanly from the parchment.  I believe I felt my heart flutter.  I still went through three knives and a pizza cutter trying to decide on the best tool for the job.  In the end, a thin bladed, sharp knife dipped in warm water seemed to do just fine.  They were cutting cleanly and lifting cleanly off of the parchment.  My excitment was building as I rolled them in the turbinado sugar (the only sugar I had left).



While I’m not certain that these are perfect (they're a wee bit soft and extremely sweet), I think I’m thisclose to pâte de perfection.

Almost Forgot

I intended to include the caramel recipe(s) with the last post but, well, I did forget - no almost about it.  Since all of my caramels thus far are adapted from the same recipe, I'll give you the recipe for basic caramels and tell you what I've done differently.

So here's the recipe:

Basic Caramels

Recipe adapted from Charlotte Albright

Yield:  depends on how big you cut your caramels

1 Tbs butter

1 cup evaporated milk

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup water

2 cups light corn syrup

2 cups sugar

1/2 tsp salt

4 oz (one stick) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Lightly spray a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with cooking spray and line bottom and sides of the pan with parchment.  Rub the parchment with the one tablespoon of butter, paying particular attention to the corners.  You can also melt the butter and brush it on the parchment.

 In a small heavy saucepan, combine the evaporated milk, heavy cream and sweetened condensed milk.  

Pour the water and corn syrup into a large, heavy saucepan.  Pour the sugar into the center, avoiding contact with the sides of the pan.  Add the salt.  Let sit for 15 – 20 minutes, then bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and cook and stir until the sugar is dissolved, about 6 to 8 minutes. Brush down the sides of pan with a pastry brush dipped in water to remove any sugar crystals.  Stop stirring, insert a candy thermometer, reduce heat to medium and let come to a boil.  Cook, without stirring, until temperature reaches 260°F (hard-ball stage).  This may take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes, depending on your pan, stove and altitude.

Meanwhile, place milk mixture over low heat and stir until warm.  Do not boil.

When the sugar mixture reaches 260°F, stir in the warm cream and the pieces of butter.   Stirring constantly, cook over medium heat until the thermometer reaches 244°F (firm ball stage), 30 to 60 minutes.  Stir in the vanilla.  Immediately pour the caramel into the prepared pan without scraping the pot.  Allow to rest, uncovered, at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours without disturbing.  

Unmold caramel by lifting the parchment paper out of the pan.  Place the caramel slab on a cutting board and cut into pieces with a very sharp, heavy knife.  If necessary, rub the knife with butter or spray with cooking spray.  Wrap the caramels with waxed paper squares, twisting ends to seal, or with foil candy wrappers.  The caramels will stick together if not individually wrapped.

And here are the variations:

For the red wine caramels, I reduced two cups of red wine (in this case, Merlot) down to half of a cup.  Keep a heat-proof measuring cup nearby to check your progress.  If you go too far, just add a little water to make it half of a cup.  The red wine reduction replaces the half cup of water in the recipe.  Everything else is the same.


For the bourbon-vanilla bean caramels, I reduced one cup of bourbon down to a quarter of a cup and decreased the water in the recipe to a quarter of a cup.  (You could also just reduce the bourbon to half a cup, but I got a little carried away with my reduction.)  This takes the place of the half cup of water in the recipe.  I split one vanilla bean lengthwise, scraped the seeds out and tossed the pod in with the milk mixture.  The seeds were reserved and added with two teaspoons of bourbon (instead of two teaspoons vanilla) at the end.

There you go.  And there will be more variations to come.

Caramel Overload

Yesterday I did drag myself to the store as I absolutely had to do; and I did make the second batch of caramels I wanted to test.  These caramels were bourbon and vanilla bean.  I didn't bother taking photos of the process, because one batch of caramel doesn't look that much different than any other (except the mauve thing).

What I wasn't thinking about in my zeal to try these caramels, was that eventually I was going to have to cut them.  Two hours and four knives later, they're finally done.  Just in time because I think my patience was about done, too.

The bourbon-vanilla bean caramels had to be poured into two 8" square pans because the Merlot caramels weren't ready to come out of the 9" x 13" yet.  I tried to pour the caramel evenly between the pans, but one of them was slighted a bit which left me with some skinny caramels.  I wanted to cut hearts like I did for Valentine's Day, but the caramel wasn't cooperating with that idea enough for me to pursue it beyond the three it begrudgingly gave up.  These caramels were definitely the most difficult to cut of all the caramels I've made. 

Until I tried cutting the Merlot caramels.  These were just a bit softer than the bourbon-vanilla bean caramels so I thought since I had three bourbon-vanilla bean hearts, I'd cut three Merlot hearts.  The first one attempted made it quite clear there would be no Merlot caramel hearts.  The generously buttered cutter is still soaking.  I managed to get about six squares cut before my thoughts started turning to caramel sauce.  These things stuck to everything.  I buttered the knife; they still stuck.  I buttered the cutting board; they still stuck.  I buttered my fingers; they still stuck.



Now while I thought cutting all of these caramels was a major pain in the posterior, you want to know what's even worse?  WRAPPING THEM!!!  I think I'll be buying some mini cupcake liners or candy cups or . . . something other than wrapping each and every one of these in little foil squares!

I still have more ideas for caramels.  They're going to wait awhile.  And I'm going to see how much a caramel cutter costs.