Birthday Treats

It was Smilosaurus' birthday yesterday. This daredevil, evil genius child of mine is now 2. I'm not at all prepared for it. I don't have a baby any more and that's kind of tough to accept. The only thing that keeps me going is the fact that she is an itty bitty thing, and the thought of cakes on birthdays.

We'd initially planned a low key day.  I was at a conference for work, running into doppelgangers of ex boyfriends and nervously parking behind Ferraris. Hubby was lost in a pile of wood and hardware, putting together our new swing set. But on the way home from work I felt like we simply needed a cake for dinner. 

This cake needed to be more than a carrier for icing. Yes, icing is really the best part, but I was actually craving cake and I was hoping to make the girls like it for once. Knowing that I'd preemptively bought cream so I could make ice cream this weekend I decided I would make a simple butter cake and serve it with cream.  Nothing fancy, but just the right amount of pomp befitting a two year old.

So I turned to a classic recipe in this house, one I've made a half dozen times in the year or so since I've had the recipe. Lemon Glazed Butter Cake comes from a treasured Gourmet before they folded. And yes, the girls helped me make the cake. Is it wrong that that kid had to make her own cake? Maybe.  But in my defense, she wanted to.

In my world, one of the best flavour combos is lemon and white chocolate. So I served our cake with white chocolate cream.

The Monster loved the cake so much she ate two pieces and left most of the cream of the side. And Smilosaurus merely played with her cake, rubbing it into her dirty, bare legs as if it was lotion.  So, I think she liked it too. Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

White Chocolate Cream

4 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped

1 1/4 cup heavy cream

1. Place chopped chocolate in a sturdy bowl.  Heat 1/2 cup cream on the stove or in the microwave until hot, but not scalding.  Pour over chocolate and stir immediately. Chocolate should melt with stirring.  If it doesn't, heat, in bowl, over a small pot of simmering water until melted. Let cool until room temperature.

2. When the chocolate mixture is cool, whip remaining cream with a sturdy whisk and bowl or an electric mixer. Whip until it starts to fluff up and the beaters/whisk leave marks in the cream. Slowly whisk/beat in the chocolate cream, beat until the cream reaches the desired whipped cream consistency.  Serve immediately. Alternatively, you can refrigerate it for a white chocolate mousse.

Cardamom Ice Cream

Save for a few days over Easter and our wedding anniversary I've been single parenting the last two weeks. What I wouldn't do for beer and chocolate every single night. And intravenous caffeine first thing in the morning. But it's just another week in an absolutely crazy month. And all you can do is put one foot in front of another, type another key, cook another meal, and eat another bowl of ice cream.

Yes, another bowl of ice cream. For every day that I remember to buy cream when I steal a moment to buy groceries I dream about ice cream. Okay, that's a slight overstatement, but only slightly.

Once I called my neighbour over to save me by digging through the mess in the basement (I can still can't make my way to the basement yet) to find the base of the ice cream maker I could make my dreams come true. Cardamom ice cream here I come!

And oh, did that ice cream do it for me. It's quite rich. Ridiculously rich. And while I doubted the cardamom taste when making the custard it came through perfectly in the finished product. Adding rhubarb was a way to tease myself into spring (despite the snow storm we got this week) and soften the richness of the ice cream.

Cardamom Ice Cream with Lightly Stewed Rhubarb

(Adapted from delicious March 2010)

Serves 6 (or 1 tired mom over a few days)

Ice Cream

1 cup heavy cream

1 1/4 cup milk

1 cinnamon stick

8 cardamom pods, lightly crushed

5 egg yolks

2 tablespoons sugar

300 ml can of sweetened condensed milk

Rhubarb

6 stalks rhubarb

4 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 tablespoons water

1. Steep the cinnamon stick and cardamom pods in the cream and milk. Bring to medium heat in a saucepan. Just before it boils turn off the heat and let it sit for an hour. Strain and discard the spices.

2. Whisk the eggs and the sugar until pale. Add the infused milk/cream, whisking constantly. Pour into a clean saucepan and cook over low/medium heat, stirring, for 5-8 minutes until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from heat, add the condensed milk, and pour into a clean bowl or jug. Cover with plastic wrap directly on the surface and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

3. Churn in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions. Pour into a freezable container and freeze until firm.

4. Half hour before serving chop the rhubarb and combine with the other ingredients in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat for 3-5 minutes until the rhubarb is soft but is still holding it's shape.  Set aside to cool.

5. Serve ice cream on top of cooled rhubarb.

Lemon Frozen Yogurt

For sittin' on the porch and pretending it's summer.

This is about the laziest dessert one could make, aside from cutting up fruit and pretending it's a treat. Of course, it only works if you own an ice cream maker. That's not true, you could just stick a container of yogurt in the freezer, but you'll miss the churning and the joy of soft serve fro yo as it comes out of the ice cream maker.

Recipe:
Take a carton or two of your favourite yoghurt such as Liberte Mediterranee Lemon. Dump it in a frozen ice cream maker. Turn on. Eat when frozen. Dream of green grass, ocean breezes, and blazing sunshine.

Scotch and ...

In a fit of accidental drinking and eating Hubby and I discovered a fantastic food/liquor combo. Scotch and caramel corn.  In particular, peanut and sea salt with my caramel corn and a smoky scotch like Caol Isla. Okay, so the drinking wasn't accidental, but the insane hunger that led us to the Scouts caramel corn was.

Not wanting to repeat ourselves, nor get into that beyond sweet caramel corn again, as well as prep for My "Whiskey for Dinner" class tonight I set out to make my own caramel corn. How refreshing it was to discover that it is so damn easy. Pop some popcorn, make some caramel, toss together, and bake at low heat. That's it. I even encouraged the men in our class tonight that it was dead easy and hopefully they are logging on to get the recipe right now.

One of the surprising things in my research was that 99.99 % of the recipes I found used brown sugar.  Actually, I didn't find any that used white sugar, but I can't conclusively say that there isn't one out there. The first batch I made was with the "best brown" sugar I keep in the house for oatmeal and cookies.  It was good, once I got over the concept of adding baking soda to the recipe. But I knew I wouldn't have enough, plus I wasn't that fond of the colour.

The second batch was with the "yellow" brown sugar I borrowed from the neighbour when I realized that the nanny had used the last of my brown sugar making cookies - not that I was complaining. And, I'll admit it, I was afraid to try white sugar since I found no recipes with it. So yellow brown sugar it was. 

Can you tell the difference in the photo above? Best Brown on the left, yellow brown on the right.

So I had my caramel corn ready to go. Good to go. Loaded up I joined a great group of guys at J. Webb tonight. Where are my single ladies?  Seriously, develop a taste for scotch or an open mind, because there are always a fun, intelligent group of guys at scotch tastings. 

The caramel corn was on deck to serve with those lovely smoky or peaty scotches.  When it comes to scotch and food pairings you don't want to pair smoke with smoke. The sweet and salt of caramel corn matches perfectly with the smoky drinks. Actually, the caramel corn went with almost all the scotches.  As does chocolate, especially the fruity ones from Venezuela and Guatemala.

But pairing scotch and food is more than the sweet stuff. At its most basic level, pairing is pretty straight forward - match the basic characteristics of the scotch to your food. For example, the Lowland scotches are lighter, so they work well with rich cheese, honey, and fruit. Something like a pear and brie tart, or a cream of leek soup. And think about where the scotch comes from, The Island and Speyside styles work really well with seafood and both clean and salty flavours.  Even sushi works really well, or mussels with fennel.  The Lowland and Highland styles lend themselves to the richness of game meat, the sweetness of peppers, and even some spice.

But the star of the night was the caramel corn.  And the Glenfarclas 17 year old.

The caramel corn recipe I used was a slight variation on this one.  I added a bit more salt, used the roasted peanuts I had in the cupboard, and that yellow brown sugar. It isn't cloying, has the burnt sugar saltiness, and the baking soda makes the carmel crackle, but not crack.

Caramel Corn

Makes about 10 cups

1 3/12 ounce package plain/orginal/natural popcorn

OR 10 cups air popped popcorn

1 cup yellow brown sugar

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1/4 cup unsalted butter

2 tbsp water

1/2 teaspoon sea salt (cut this back if you prefer it without the salty taste)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup peanuts, cashews, or pecans

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper or spray with non-stick spray. Spray a large bowl.

2. Pop your popcorn and toss in the bowl, being careful to keep out any unpopped kernels.

3. Whisk sugar, corn syrup, butter, salt, and water in a small saucepan.  Melt and boil for 3-5 minutes until it reaches 250 degrees F on a candy thermometer. You need the candy thermometer, so don't try to just eyeball this step.

4. As soon as you reach temperature stir the baking soda and vanilla into the caramel.  Pour over the popcorn, add the nuts, and stir together.  You won't get a complete cover over the popcorn, but stir well and try to get a little on each bit of popped corn. Spread out on the cookie sheet.

5. Let cook slowly in your low oven, stirring gently every 20 minutes, for 1 hour. Let cool completely before enjoying.