The Kitchen Reader - Julie & Julia

This month, The Kitchen Reader group is reviewing Julie & Julia - 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment (Penguin) by Julie Powell.

I had read this book earlier this year, but needed to re-read it to remind myself of the finer details. This book has become the flavour of the month because of the movie based on it, but I am yet to see the movie. For the purposes of this review, that is a good thing, because my comments are not influenced by the movie.

This book evolved from Julie Powell's blog, The Julie/Julia Project. Julie's blog chronicled her progress in making every recipe in the American classic cookbook, Mastering The Art of French Cooking ("MtAoFC") by Julia Child, in a 12 month period. The Julie/Julia Project commenced when Julie's husband Eric suggested that she attend culinary school as a way to escape the rut that she felt trapped in with her life as a secretary living in the outer boroughs of New York. Julie countered Eric with the fateful statement that, if she wanted to learn to cook, she'd just cook her way through MtAoFC (which she had snaffled from her Mom's house in the spring on the hunch that she'd found something important). Rather than being dissuaded, Eric suggested that Julie should do just that and write a blog about it - and so the Julie/Julia Project was born.

Julie & Julia chronicles, not only Julie's progress through MtAoFC, but also her interactions with family, friends and total strangers during the project and the ups and downs of her life. We are offered a "fly on the wall" perspective as Julie conquers her fear and loathing of eggs, then moves on to challenges such as tracking down and extracting bone marrow, making various types of aspic, cooking live lobsters and boning a duck. There are both triumphs and failures, not to mention Julie's incidental battles with a couch, the plumbing in the couple's apartment and an unintended science experiment under the dish rack.

Interspersed with Julie's story are reconstructed snippets from Julia Child's life with her husband Paul. Julia's story gives me hope because it wasn't until she was around my age that she began to cook, and discovered a whole new life for herself.

The contemporary timeframe in which Julie & Julia is set is readily apparent through, among other things, its pop culture references (Julie quotes Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs, and is an avid Buffy fan), and the discussion of 9/11 (Julie worked for a government department that dealt with the families of victims of the tragedy as part of their work in planning the redevelopment of the World Trade Centre site).

Through the Julie/Julia Project, Julie feels transformed, and indeed, her life does change from that of an anonymous suburban secretary to an author with a presence in cyberspace, on television and in print. Julie concludes that, rather than using MtAoFC to learn to cook French food, she was really "learning to sniff out the secret doors of possibility". If both Julie and Julia discovered themselves and their passions through these recipes, then MtAoFC has much to recommend it.

Overall, I enjoyed Julie & Julia, although Julie's anecdotes were sometimes amusing, sometimes annoying (perhaps like all of us). I was fascinated by the incredibly gross things that Julie sometimes had to do for the various recipes and the lengths required to track down certain ingredients (who would have thought that sugar cubes would be difficult to find?). As a food blogger, I was also interested in Julie's interactions with her blog readers and what motivated her to blog. You can check out the views of the other Kitchen Readers on Julie & Julia by visiting the Kitchen Reader blogroll.

The final word goes to Julia Child:

Bon appetit!

TWD - Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart

This week's Tuesday with Dorie is hosted by Carla of Chocolate Moosey, who has chosen Dorie's Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart. Effectively, this is a pate sable tart shell topped with a thin layer of caramel studded with honey-roasted peanuts, then topped with a thick layer of chocolate ganache.

This was a bit of a failed project for me, as the chocolate ganache didn't set up too well - it thickened, and at day 3, was almost firm, but prior to that, it tended to ooze like chocolate lava over the edge of any cuts that I made. This made it rather messy to eat (although delicious in a very rich sort of way). This explains the photo at the top of this post - you can't see the caramel because it is blanketed by ganache.

I loved the caramel layer studded with the nuts, and would try this again; however, I would use a different ganache recipe (as this is the first time I have had such a problem with ganache) or a different topping altogether.

To see how all the other TWD bakers went, check out the TWD blogroll. Carla will have the recipe, if this tart takes your fancy.

Daring Bakers - Vols-au-vent

A fellow TWD baker, Steph of A Whisk and A Spoon, is our Daring Bakers host for September. Without further ado:

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

This involved us making puff pastry. This is the third different puff pastry recipe that I have tried (who knew? a year or so ago I thought puff pastry came from Mr Pampas), which is rolled out and cut into rings for the vols-au-vent. (I am glad to have been corrected, because Aussies tend to call the plural "vol au vents").

Here is my lovely layered puff pastry:



and here are the finished vols-au-vent of assorted sizes, complete with little "hats" (which I didn't end up using):

This is my Weight Watchers chicken curry that I used to fill the large savoury vol-au-vent:

and again in the vol-au-vent:

At the top of the post, you will see my lovely little sweet vols-au-vent, filled with stewed apple (the left-overs from the TWD apple turnovers that I cooked up!) and lemon curd (Stephanie Alexander's recipe). One of the apple vols-au-vent is dressed up with a scoop of vanilla icecream and a puff pastry hat, while the lemon curd vols-au-vent are complemented by a blueberry on top.

Thanks to our host, Steph, who will have the vols-au-vent recipe on her site. For a rainbow-coloured spectrum of ways to use your vols-au-vent, check out the Daring Kitchen blogroll.

Melting Moments

One of the biggest fans of my baking is my friend Ruth, who was very disappointed when I didn't bring anything in on Monday. When I asked her what she would like me to make, Ruth without hesitation suggested biscuits.

Hmmm - well, biscuits covers a huge spectrum, so I flicked through my books looking for a recipe that took my fancy. As Ruth is from New Zealand, I chose a recipe from one of my New Zealand books, Gran's Kitchen - Recipes from the Notebooks of Dulcie May Booker. I decided on Dulcie's Melting Moments, which was evidently an inspired choice, as I learned that Ruth loves shortbread.

I am not sure whether my biscuits turned out as they should have - I used teaspoonfuls of mixture for the biscuits and expected them to spread, when in fact they barely spread at all. Consequently, I flattened the tops a little with a spoon halfway through baking and ended up with dainty button-like biscuits. Maybe I should have used tablespoonsful of mixture, as Dulcie's biscuits looked much bigger. (Unfortunately, the recipe did not specify.)

Regardless, these biscuits tasted delicious! As mentioned above, they are a light, buttery shortbread, and I sandwiched the biscuits together with lemon curd flavoured icing. They were a hit with Ruth and Israel, which is all that counts.

To make your own melting moments, you will need:

1 tablespoon icing sugar
110g plain flour
115g softened butter

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Sift the icing sugar and flour together, then add the butter and stir to combine. (I found using my hands was the most effective.)

Spoon "small quantities" (teaspoonsful make button size cookies) onto a baking tray lined with baking paper or a silicone mat (and flatten slightly with the back of a spoon), and bake the biscuits for around 15 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool on the trays.

To assemble, sandwich pairs of the biscuits together with your choice of icing. (I used water icing flavoured with a tablespoon of lemon curd.) Buttercream will not really work for these as it does not set hard; however, royal icing would probably work just as well as water icing.

The recipe does not make a big batch of biscuits; even with only teaspoonsful of mixture, I only made 22 biscuits (11 once assembled.) Accordingly, if you are feeding a crowd, you will need to multiply the mixture to suit.

Strawberry mousse cake

It's taken me a little while, but as promised, I have finally gotten around to posting the recipe for the strawberry mousse cake that I made for my birthday last week.

This cake is from Cakes, Tortes and Gateaux of the World by Aaron Maree, a book which I found through Crusader's site. It is full of tantalising cakes, many of which take a significant degree of effort but look impressive. However, there are other simpler cakes which, although they don't have the same visual "wow" factor, look equally tempting.

The strawberry mousse cake is reasonably involved, but can be done in a single evening, as I did. It consists of an orange flavoured sponge, sandwiched with orange mousse with alcohol-soaked strawberries through it, and is topped by glazed strawberries. It tastes delicious - light and airy and fruity, while visually quite a feast.

To make this cake, you will need:

Cake

75g plain flour
45g cornflour
5 egg yolks
155g sugar
75g grated orange rind
100ml orange juice
30ml Grand Marnier (I used Cointreau)
100g marzipan
5 egg whites
50g sugar, extra

Mousse

350g hulled and coarsely chopped strawberries
60ml Grand Marnier (or Cointreau)
6 egg yolks
120g sugar
250ml milk
180ml orange juice
10 teaspoons gelatine
60ml water
500ml whipping cream, lightly whipped

Decoration

250g strawberries, halved
1 quantity strawberry glaze (see instructions below)
100g flaked almonds

Strawberry glaze

250g strawberry jam
60ml water
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Cake

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and grease and line a 23cm springform pan.

Sift the flours twice and set aside.

Beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a stand mixer until they form a ribbon when the beater is lifted. In the meantime, put the orange juice, rind, Grand Marnier and marzipan into a saucepan and bring to the boil over low to medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually beat in the extra sugar, a tablespoon at a time.

Fold the egg yolk mixture into the marzipan mixture, then fold in the sifted flours. Finally, gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Pour the batter into the prepared springform pan and bake for 35-40 minutes or until cooked through. Remove the cake from the oven and cool in the pan on a wire rack:


Mousse

Soak the strawberries in the Grand Marnier for one hour. Put the egg yolks, sugar and milk in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and heat until it is just warm to the touch.

Mix the gelatine and water together in a small bowl and set aside.

Put the orange juice into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Add the soaked gelatine and stir until dissolved. Allow the juice to cool slightly, then stir in the egg yolk mixture. Chill and allow to thicken slightly (I left it for around 20 minutes). Fold through the strawberries and the whipped cream.

Assembly

Cut the cake into 4 layers. Line the base of the springform pan with baking paper, and place one layer in the base of the pan. Spread one third of the mousse over the top of that layer, then top with a second layer. Repeat with the rest of the mousse and the remaining layers of cake. (It is fine for mousse to spill out between the layers and down the sides of the cake, because as I understand it, this outer mousse spillage is what the flaked almond decoration sticks to.) Chill the cake in the fridge for 2 hours.

Make the strawberry glaze (see below). Remove the chilled cake from the fridge, and brush the top of the cake generously with the glaze. Arrange the halved strawberries as you like on top of the cake, then brush the strawberries with the rest of the glaze. Refrigerate for a further hour.

Strawberry glaze

Put all of the ingredients into a saucepan and stir over low heat until smooth. Bring the mixture to the boil, then boil for 10-15 minutes. Sieve the mixture and use while still warm.

Remove the cake from the fridge, remove the outer collar of the springform pan, and press the flaked almonds into the sides of the cake where the mousse has spilled over.

Serve!

TWD - Cream cheese pufflets

This week's unusual Tuesday with Dorie challenge is hosted by Jacque of Daisy Lane Cakes, who has chosen Dorie's cottage cheese pufflets.

What are cottage cheese pufflets? They are little triangles of cottage cheese based puff pastry filled with a smidge of jam. "Sweet samosas" is an apt description of these.

The dough used to make these pufflets is very sticky and soft - you don't have long to work with it before it turns into something akin to wallpaper coated with glue. I also found that the pufflets made from re-rolled dough did not hold as nice a shape as the ones made "first go".

I found the pufflets to be rather unusual in flavour - definitely on the cheesy side. They tasted OK, but not a favourite in my household.

To see how everyone else fared with these, check out the TWD blogroll, and visit Jacque's site for the recipe.

Blogger Gift Exchange

Marthe of Culinary Delights recently organised a blogger gift exchange to celebrate her first blogoversary, and my parcel arrived today! My "secret Santa" is Natalia of Gatti Fili E Farina from Italy.

Natalia sent me the lovely hand-made notebook with the applique tulip flower at the top of this post, and the sweetest, tiniest fold-out book of pictures of famous Roman landmarks, pictured beneath.

Thanks so much Natalia - what a lovely surprise! Also, thanks to Marthe for organising this exchange.