Aaron's Birthday Torte

I didn't mean to become a once-a-month blogger, but a lot has been going on lately.  September came and life got crazy busy, and it doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon although we're in more of a groove now than we were at first.  I do not excel at being super scheduled, but I've been enjoying the rhythm and structure that standing commitments provide.  In addition to soccer, the boys have started swim lessons and somehow working around those two commitments(which fall on three of our weekdays) seems to fill up all our days.  I like having things divided up into Days We Have to be Someplace and Days When Our Time is Our Own; it's not like we stayed home all the time before, but somehow having to be in a specific place at a specific time makes everything that happens before and after it feel more structured.

Speaking of specific times, Aaron turned 33 on Monday.  We are still keeping up our Monday Night Football soup tradition, which involves anywhere from 1-10 people(though usually just 1-2) coming over to watch football and me making a giant pot of soup.  Since Aaron's birthday fell on a Monday this year, I told him we could have Monday Night Football: Birthday Edition, or he could just choose whatever day or meal he wanted and I would make it for him.  Given free reign over my culinary arsenal, Aaron chose beef stew and flourless chocolate cake.  I tell you, it doesn't take much to make that man happy. 

I knew exactly who I wanted to consult about the flourless chocolate cake.  A few years ago, Anna gave me a copy of Fran Bigelow's Pure Chocolate.  It's one of those really beautiful cookbooks that is both well-written and well-photographed, so much so that you can curl up on the couch with it and read it from cover to cover.  What is even more remarkable about my love for this book is that I don't really care for chocolate or dessert in general, but I still think Fran's recipes are amazing.  As I was working on this torte, I realized that it's largely due to the color and texture of chocolate; it doesn't just feel like cooking, it feels like making art.  Thick, dark, velvety and lustrous, melted chocolate brings me all the satisfaction of really luxurious fingerpaint.  Add in the fact that often there is a lot of science involved, and you have my full attention.  I ate fully three bites of this torte, so I know it tastes good.  If you're into that kind of thing.

Flourless Chocolate Torte with Cayenne Pepper
Adapted from Fran Bigelow

1 1/4 pounds good quality semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 pound(2 sticks) salted butter
6 eggs
2 TB sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  Butter a 9 inch round cake pan.  Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and butter the parchment.

Melt the chocolate over low heat in a double boiler(to make one, place  stainless steel bowl over a saucepan of simmer water, making sure the water doesn't touch the bowl).  When the chocolate is nearly melted and only a few lumps remain, remove it from the heat and add the sugar, vanilla and cayenne.  Stir until smooth. 

Whip the eggs until fluffy and tripled in volume, about five minutes(if you have a free-standing mixer, whip them on high and set a timer for five minutes while you're melting the chocolate). 

When the eggs are whipped and the chocolate has cooled slightly(it should be warm but not hot to the touch), fold in the eggs gently until the eggs are well incorporated.  You'll lose a lot of the volume at this stage, but that's okay.  Pour the batter into your prepared pan. 

Place your 9 inch cake pan inside a larger, flat-bottomed pan(a rimmed cookie sheet or larger round cake pan works well) and pour simmering water into the larger pan, enough to come halfway up the side of the 9 inch cake pan.  Bake at 300 degrees for 30-35 minutes.  When the torte is finished the top should look dull, but the cake will jiggle slightly when you give the pan a gentle shimmy.  If you pull the torte out too soon the center will fall as it cools, but if you leave it in too long it will dry out. 

Cool the torte in the pan on  a rack for at least an hour.  When the torte has cooled, run a thin bladed knife around the edge.  Place a round of parchment cut to the same size as the cake on top of the cake, then place a cooling rack on top of the torte, press the cake pan and rack together firmly and invert.  If the torte seems a little stuck, gently tap the bottom of the pan until it comes loose.  Chill in the fridge for at least an hour before serving.

This torte is so rich in can be served as-is, but if you're into gilding the lily you can cover it in:

Chocolate Ganache

4 oz. semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream

Place the cream in a double boiler over simmering water and stir until melted.  Let cool slightly before using. 

To prepare your work space, place a sheet of foil on a counter.  Put the rack with the cooled torte over the foil so the foil catches any drips of ganache.  Working quickly, pour the ganache over the center of the torte.  Using an offset spatula, gently push the ganache over the edges of the torte so it drips down the sides.  If you have any gaps, use a small spatula to cover the them. 

ganache in a ziploc bag and cut a very tiny hole in one corner of the bag.  Carefully pipe three circles of white ganache around the outside edge of the torte, leaving about 1/4 inch between circles.  Don't worry if the circles aren't perfectly straight, you're going to mess them up anyway.  Starting at the top line of ganache, use a toothpick to draw figure 8's continuously making sure to come all the way down through the bottom line.  Without picking up your toothpick, gently drag your toothpick out to the side and back up to the top, leaving enough room to write enough figure eight directly to the right of the one you just made.  It sounds confusing, but your hand will find a rhythm.  I recommend practicing on a piece of paper with a pen.  Don't worry if your lines are wobbly, it's not an exact science and it will still come out looking really pretty. 

Note: Make sure to do the figure 8 work while the ganache is still warm.  If your base layer of ganache sets too quickly or doesn't spread evenly, you can soften it up very carefully by running a hairdryer over it briefly.  Make sure not to have the hairdryer too close or the ganache will splatter as it warms.

In Which I Become Totally Suburban

 The boys started soccer last week, and it is pretty hilarious. 

 Jack having a casually athletic moment.

See that yellow flag Jack is holding?  They played a game where some of the kids had those flags tucked into their shorts as "tails" and the rest of the kids had to chase them around the field and yank their tails out.  The tricky part was that the kids with tails had to run while dribbling a soccer ball, the goal being to get the kids to dribble really fast.  It was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long, long time.  Jack got his tail yanked out pretty quickly by a girl who, failing to catch him from behind, ran directly in front of him so he had to stop or run her over, and once he'd stopped she reached around from the front like she was hugging him and swiped his tail.  Strategy. 

When it was Matteas' turn to chase, he grabbed his coach's tail and then stopped running to do a victory dance while the rest of the game continued without him.  Team participation is a skill which largely eluded most of the kids on the field, but they all seemed pretty thrilled to be there even though actual soccer doesn't seem to be much of a focal point for the kids.  They're all, "Other kids!  Open space!  Running!  An adult is paying attention to us!  We don't really care what happens next!"

Meanwhile, I was standing on the sidelines in my anthropologie shirt and pearl earrings when Aaron came over with a latte for me.  I didn't even make that last part up. 

Other stuff that's happened: I've made two wedding cakes which have not yet appeared here but I'll get to them eventually; we are homeschooling with great success and learning life lessons during math; our chickens are molting and therefore not laying eggs.  Life is pretty exciting in a domestic kind of way.

That Was Fast

Today, Matteas turned four.  My baby is four years old.  Somehow it feels like he can't possibly be that old, even though it seems like he's been part of my life forever.  I have to try really hard to think about what it felt like not to be his mom.  I think that's partly due to the fact that in many ways, my 28 year-old self doesn't feel all that different to me than my 17 year-old self.  A little less dramatic maybe, more sure of who I am, but basically the same personality.  For the same reason I sometimes feel a little panicked that I am responsible for two whole children; some days I feel so young, I feel like I still need a mother.

It has been so much fun to watch Matteas develop his personality.  There is never a dull moment with this boy; he is always sharing his boundless knowledge with anyone who will listen, following the neighbors around as they water the grass and get the mail, making sure they get their daily dose of Matteas Wisdom.  I love this about him.  He had such a sweet personality as a baby and is still very sweet most days, but somewhere in his third year he turned a corner and became really challenging.  One of my least favorite parts of parenting is how unpredictable it is, because I'm the sort of person who likes to have a plan.  If I have a plan, I know what to do.  I don't like not knowing what to do, but my kids are really good at teaching me over and over again to let go of my expectations, to roll with the punches.  Lately, Matteas has been the more challenging child to parent.  I never thought I would say that, but there it is.  He is so, so stubborn and will NOT admit when he's wrong(I have no idea where he gets this).  I've been feeling kind of weepy about him getting older, I think because I enjoyed him so much as a baby.  With Jack, I couldn't wait for his infancy to be over; he was so angry about being an infant, and the older he got the happier he got.  Plus he was so tiny when he was born and wouldn't nurse, and pumping two bottles a night really taxed my sanity. 

But Matteas was different.  Quiet and sweet from birth, he took long naps during the day and nursed with ease.  He slept better than Jack did, and seemed quite content to be whatever age he happened to be at the time.  He loved to chat, and would sometimes smile so hard during a "conversation" that his big brown eyes would turn into little half-moon slits that almost disappeared into his enormous grin.  He was, and still is, a boy who loves life and relationship.  Until him, I didn't know that a baby could be so satisfying.  So I'm kind of bummed that we seem to be getting to the hard part of our relationship.

Speaking of unpredictable, we haven't had a party for Matteas yet because Jack has had a fever since Thursday.  Today was his first day of not running a temperature and trying to get warm through fits of chills, so we had a quiet dinner at home and then took the boys out for ice cream cones.  We ended up eating them in the parking lot because the ice cream place was so stinkin' hot inside.  For presents, we got him a scooter(which he's had his eye on for a while) and: a popcorn popper.  Yes, he actually asked for one.  I have a feeling he's going to feel so empowered that we will be eating popcorn for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The Trouble with Red Velvet

 I'm  not a fan of dye or artificial ingredients, so when I was asked to make a red velvet wedding cake I was determined to do it naturally.  The baking frenzy that ensued was the most obsessive cooking endeavor I've ever been involved with, and included the boiling, roasting, pureeing and reducing of many many pounds of cooked beets.  I won't lie; it got ugly. 

 I baked between two and five sample cakes a day, a single-layer eight inch round, auditioning different recipes and trying different tricks between crazy amounts of googling.  I have read everything ever published on the internet about red velvet cake.  The results were mostly cakes that were decidedly neither red nor velvety, and the only one I succeeded in keeping red tasted like borscht. 

 The problem is pH.  Baked goods that are red are acidic; baking soda, the main leavening agent in baked goods, is alkaline.  An alkaline cake = brown cake.  I tried and tried and tried: I added more acid, left out the baking soda, reduced the beets for longer, added tons of lemon juice directly to the beets.  I'd end up most times with a beautifully scarlet batter, but 30 minutes later I'd pull a brown cake out of the oven. 

 I finally gave in and bought red dye, then baked off the wedding cake, wrapped it and froze it.  Then proceeded to have nightmares about how brown the cake still was, and woke up with a conviction: I'm not proud of that cake. 

So I started again.

 In all, I baked 27 layers of cake over the course of four days.  The final result, while brown on the outside, was a satisfying ruby red on the inside thanks to the four jars of red gel dye I used.

 It was an interesting lesson in delivering a product I was not, in an ultimate sense, proud of.  I don't believe in sacrificing flavor for visual presentation, and the nature of red velvet cake is such that only a minimal amount of cocoa powder can be used without turning the whole thing brown.  In my rebellion, I added extra vanilla, lemon zest and a pinch of cinnamon.  I'm not going to bother putting up the recipe, because taste-wise it was unremarkable.  I realized the next day that when I scaled up the recipe I finally settled on after dozens of changes and substitutions, I forgot to scale up the amount sour cream I used and the final cake came out a little dry.  I got lots of feedback about the frosting, which confirmed my belief that cake is really just a vehicle for frosting.  I hate that about cake. 

Flowers by Maureen Arpin

I'm not sure what I'll do if I'm asked to make another red velvet cake.  I understand the appeal of a jewel-red cake visually, but the flavor trade off still troubles me on a deeply spiritual level.  Pleasure should be about pleasure, and when all is said and done I'd rather eat an ugly tasty cake than a beautiful flavorless one.  That's what troubles me about this wedding cake; it failed to maximize the opportunity for pleasure, something I feel confident my previous wedding cakes accomplished.  

Still, it was an interesting experience to add to my cake baking evolution.  I look back at some of the cakes I've made and cringe with embarrassment that I served them in public, but I realize that I had to make those first, lumpy cakes to get to the smooth, sleek ones.  Because I'm all about growth.

A Few Rash Decisions and a Good Vacation

 A million years ago, when I was pregnant with Matteas, I tried contacts.  With no success.  So I'm trying them again because even after 13 years I'm not used to my glasses, and I hate them every day.  It's kind of working.  I don't hate them as much as I did the first time, and my optometrist saw fit to order me six months worth of contacts because he assures me that I'll eventually get used to them, and because his whole face lifts a visible inch when he smiles I'm choosing to believe him. 

But it's weird, because I've worn glasses for such a long time and now my face looks so naked, and my eyes look so small and my lips are enormous so I thought I'd level the playing field a bit and cut some bangs.  And now I have no idea what I look like: bangs, no bangs, glasses, no glasses?  What does anyone look like, anyway, and what does it matter?  Cue existential crisis.  But during all this we went to Whidbey Island, and it was magical.

 This is as normal as it gets.  I have over ten of these; Matteas will not make a normal face in any of them.  I'm not really sure what his deal is right now, because for once in his life he is being The More Difficult Child and this is new for everyone.

Our last night there, I asked my cousin Christopher to make a bonfire so we could have Cousins Bonfire, and he was all over it.  We drank cheap wine and watched the crazy half moon get eaten by the mountains, and it was epic. 

Warmer Days

 It never fails to impress that, while we've had some excellent parties that involved careful planning and extensive preparation, some of our most magical dinners have happened spontaneously.  You can't plan on making the kids climb up into an apple tree to eat their dinner at sunset; these things need to happen naturally.

 Anna's back yard is a lovely place for an outdoor party.

 After dinner, the kids kept each other entertained on the swing while the grown ups finished their wine and the sun sank lower, and for a few hours life felt magical and safe and lovely.

As I type this, Matteas is walking around naked and crying because the gingerbread man tatttoo he wanted got ripped because he didn't know how to put it on and wouldn't let Jack help him, and Jack is being domineering and bossy about how Matteas should have let him help.  Also, it's raining which makes me extra pleased that we ate crab and drank wine in the back yard last night.  Carpe diem. 

Crab and Cancer

The theme continues.

Tomorrow my mother in-law gets the results of extensive tests to see if her cancer has spread; her oncologist doesn't sound terribly optimistic.  Again again I say to you, fuck fuck fuckety fuck. 

However, the spectre of potential bad news didn't keep us from having a mighty fine evening anyway, and we enjoyed cold wine, buttery crab, garlicky Ceasar and flank steak with chimichuri in the back yard.  It occurred to me that regardless of the test results, there wasn't anywhere else I'd rather have been.