Applesauce

I recall sampling slices of Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, and Red Delicious apples and noting their different qualities as a class activity about the five senses in kindergarten. Was the apple sweet, red, crunchy? Since then, I have expanded my apple palate, but it’s hard to know what you’re missing when you’ve never had anything better. I used to be satisfied with Red Delicious apples. Apples are apples, right? Wrong. To the present version of myself, Red Delicious apples taste like old sponges with tough, inedible skin. 

I am incredibly lucky to have an apple orchard so close to my school. And I like having to work for my food...so I make an effort to go apple picking each fall. There’s just something special about pulling fruit right from a tree and eating it in the same place where it was grown. 

Apples are one of my favorite fruits to cook and bake with because they’re so versatile and there are so many different varieties with different flavor profiles.  The school cafeteria brings in apples from the local orchard, so if I can keep myself from eating them instantly, I can stockpile enough to whip up some applesauce.

Making your own applesauce is a breeze, and it tastes far better than anything purchased in the store. Even if you have never touched a stove, I am confident that you cannot ruin this recipe. 

Chunky Homemade Applesauce

Peel and slice 4-5 apples. Feel free to eat some of your slices, I always do. If you have a food processor or blender, peeling is optional. It'll give your sauce more fiber and turn it a pretty pink color. But I prefer chunky applesauce more than smooth. Throw the apple slices into a pot, put a lid on it, and cook over medium heat. If you want to add a little water, that’s fine, but it’s usually not necessary. The apples will release their juices and soften pretty quickly. When you can mash the apples up with a fork, your sauce is done! Add as much cinnamon and sugar as you want, and serve hot or cold.

Senior Year + Banana Soft Serve

Sorry it has taken so long to post. Moving in and adjusting to school takes time, you understand. I'm still kind of denying the fact that I'm a senior in college. Most of the time I still have no idea what I'm doing (or it least it feels that way). I've come to the realization that maybe...there's no defining moment when a person transitions into adulthood. Maybe you never really feel like a "grown-up". Just gotta fake it til you make it. I'm okay with a life of continuously learning. 

This is my room, or at least some of it. It's cozy and quiet, down two flights of stairs and tucked into an alcove. To get this space of my own, I had to sacrifice other things...namely, being near my friends. It can get isolated down here, but it's good for me to make an effort to go out. 

This little number is my kitchen. The dorm is so spread out that there are actually 4 or 5 of these. The oven probably has been there since the 80's when it was installed, and the numbers have more or less rubbed off the dials. A few days ago I attempted to make a peanut butter cake that I was all excited to blog about. It cooked to what appeared to be a beautiful golden brown. Deception! The entire top half of the cake cooked while the bottom remained a goo. I was enraged! Not really, but definitely discouraged. I'll have to figure out how to cook things evenly. It's too hot for cake anyway, so I made that trendy banana "ice cream". Those are not unnecessary quotation marks, it's really more of a sorbet. Easy, refreshing, though in my opinion, not a substitute for ice cream. Hopefully I'll get this oven problem solved soon. 

Banana Soft Serve/Sorbet

Cut two bananas into slices, put them in a ziploc bag, and freeze them until they are rock hard (it will probably take at least 8 hours). All you really need to do now is throw the banana slices into a food processor (or magic bullet dealio, which is what I used) until smooth and creamy. For extra goodness, add a spoonful of peanut butter and a splash of vanilla extract. Enjoy immediately!

The Wedding Cake

Normally around this time, I would be blogging about some cool Daring Bakers thing I made, but I didn't have time this month since I was kind of busy trying not to get engulfed by frosting. So if you're interested in this month's challenge, I'll redirect you to Hannah's blog. Go say hi, she's nice.

Anyway, wedding cake. I can't believe I did it. I'm honestly still kind of in shock. But you know what? I feel like I can conquer the world know. At least the baking world. I made a cake for one of the most important days of someone's life and it wasn't a disaster. In fact, people liked it. Really liked it. Sorry if I'm bragging. Getting a big head over one's achievements is unbecoming. I would love to show you some pictures if you would care to look! 

 

Some action shots my mom took. Thanks, mom! I'm looking kinda haggard at this point. If you're wondering what I'm doing, I was measuring a wooden dowel that I proceeded to saw down to size, then stick in the cake for structural stability.

Piping a border around the top layer of cake. Or at least, posing so it looks like I am. I'm sure my face would have been much more scrunched up and hideous if I was actually in the act of piping. The cake is sitting on a cake circle, which is on a non-slip shelf liner, which is on a pizza stone, which is on a turntable. Innovation!

The mostly decorated cake hanging out in the fridge. I'm freaking out at this point because I'm afraid some catastrophe could occur before the wedding, leaving me cakeless.

But it didn't! It survived! Hooray! I spent the twenty minute car ride in the backseat, hunched protectively over the cake. I should probably mention that the cake itself was vanilla with raspberry buttercream in the top layer, vanilla pastry cream in the middle, and chocolate ganache in the bottom. Yum.

The end. I'm so glad I now have this experience under my belt. If any of you are thinking of making a wedding cake and don't know where to start, I would highly recommend Heather's tutorial. It really helped me get a grasp of portion sizes, correct timelines, and other techniques.

350 Cupcakes

The masses have been getting antsy with my lack of posting. I apologize. This has been a weird summer for blogging. I came into it all inspired and motivated from my time abroad, only to find that I just...didn't have time for everything I had hoped to accomplish. Blogging got pushed to the side as I spent most of my weekdays working, too tired to blog by the time I got home. And my weekend baking aspirations had to be put on hold; instead I spent that time being shuttled back and forth from the Mayo Clinic (family health issues, I won't go into details). Now the summer is almost over and my posting level is at all all time low. Honestly? It scares me. I don't want the drudgeries of everyday life sucking out my will to bake and write. When life simply becomes a routine, it's time to stop and reassess. 

I won't say that I haven't accomplished anything. Some of you may know that two weekends ago I made 350 cupcakes for a wedding. It was one of the most fulfilling (and yeah, stressful) things I have ever done. I'm still a little in shock that I did it all by myself without any major disasters. The kitchen was coated in a fine layer of sugar for a few days after, but that was easily remedied. Would you like to see some pictures of my work? 

After all the cupcakes were made. Oy vey.

I am so happy that nothing collapsed, melted or got crushed on the car ride over or in the heat!

Looking much calmer than how I felt. Kind of a fake smile though.

So there you go. Keep your eyes open for more wedding cake, and more posts in general (I hope) in the future.

Daring Bakers! - Cha Siu Bao

Gah, why do I suck so much? This post is days late, and I apologize profusely. I haven't been devoting as much time to recreational cooking and baking lately, because A. I unfortunately have less free time and B. That free time has largely been spent prepping and planning for the upcoming weddings for which I am catering. One of those weddings is this weekend, so I will be sure to post some pictures of my creations. 

Maltose is a very sticky, very sweet sugar similar to honey. It's found in most Asian grocery stores.

Daring Bakers this month was a kind of choose your own adventure, allowing us to sift through all past challenges from both Daring Bakers and Daring Cooks. Ooh. So many possibilities! Eventually I settled on Cha Siu Bao simply because I love them...and I've been looking for an excuse to make them for a while.

 The first time I had Cha Siu Bao was at the Hang-Ah Tea Room, a hole in a wall in San Francisco's Chinatown. I smile at the memory of those snow white, fist sized buns, soft and pillowy in my mouth, giving way to a surprisingly red filling of sweet and tender barbecued pork. Sigh. My cha siu bao, unfortunately, did not live up to that memory. They were good, don't get me wrong, but my sauce was just not right compared to my San Francisco experience. I'll just have to keep on practicing. I don't mind eating a few more cha siu bao, all in the name of research, of course. 

 

Cha Siu Bao 

In a "celebration" of past Daring Baker and Daring Cook challenges, Lisa challenged all of us to search through the Daring Kitchen archives and pick any one we'd like! The REAL challenge was picking which delicious recipe(s) to try!

Cha Siu (BBQ Pork)

Ingredients

1 pork fillet/tenderloin (roughly 1-1.5 pounds)
4 large cloves of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon (3 gm) ginger, grated
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 ½ tablespoons maltose (you can substitute honey)
1 ½ tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon shaoxing cooking wine
½ teaspoon (2 gm) ground white pepper
pinch of salt
½ teaspoon (2 gm) five spice powder
½ teaspoon sesame oil

Trim the pork loin to remove fat and tendon and slice lengthways so you have two long pieces, then cut in half. By cutting the pork in to smaller pieces to marinate you will end up with more flavorsome cha sui. If you want to leave the pork in one piece you can do this as well. Place in container that you will be marinating them in.

Combine all the other ingredients in a bowl and mix well to combine. 

Cover pork well with ⅔ of the marinade mixture. Marinate for a minimum of 4 hours, I find it is best left to marinate overnight. Place the reserved ⅓ portion of the marinade covered in the fridge. You will use this as a baste when cooking the pork.

Place marinated pork loin on the grill of your BBQ.

Cook on a medium heat, approximately 15 minutes, until cooked through.

Be careful to watch that you don't burn the pork.

Steamed Char Sui Bao (Cantonese BBQ Pork Bun)
Servings: 20 
 Filling Ingredients
350 gm (12 oz) char sui (finely diced)
2 shallots (finely diced)
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
¼ cup (60 ml) chicken stock
1 teaspoon (3 gm) cornflour
½ tablespoon vegetable oil

Bun Ingredients
1 cup milk, scalded
¼ cup (60 gm/2 oz) sugar
1 tablespoon oil
¼ teaspoon (2 gm) salt
2½ teaspoons (8 gm/1 satchel) of dried yeast
3 cups (420 gm/15 oz) plain flour
(1 cup=240 ml, 1 tablespoon=15 ml, 1 teaspoon=5 ml)
 
Filling Directions:
Heat the vegetable oil in a wok or pan. Sauté the shallots for one or two minutes until soft.
Add diced char sui to the wok/pan and stir.
Add oyster sauce, dark soy sauce and sesame oil to the pork mixture, stir fry for one minute.
Mix cornflour and stock together and then add to the pork mixture.
Stir well and keep cooking until the mixture thickens, 1 or 2 minutes.
Remove mixture from wok/pan and place in a bowl to cool. Set aside until ready to use.
Bun Directions:
Scald milk and then stir in sugar, oil and salt, leave to cool until it is lukewarm. Once it is the right temperature add yeast, leave until yeast is activated and it becomes frothy, about 10 - 15 minutes.
Sift flour in to a large bowl.
Add milk/yeast mixture to the flour. Bring the flour mixture together with your hands.
Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead for approximately 10 minutes. The dough should be smooth and slightly elastic.
Place in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Leave to rise until it is double in size. This will take from 1 - 2 hours depending on weather conditions.
Punch down dough and divide in to 20 equal portions.
Roll each dough portion in to a 7 – 8cm (2¾ - 3 ¼ inches) round.
Place 1 tablespoon of filling in the centre of the round, gather the edges together at the top and place on a 8cm (3 inch) square of baking paper. Repeat until all dough has been used.
Cover and let rise for 20 minutes. Place buns in bamboo steamer, leaving space between the buns.

Heat water in a wok until it is simmering and place steamers one on top of each other in the wok.
Place lid on top bamboo steamer and steam for approximately 12 minutes.