My Food Geek

Here’s one of the last pastries I dared to make in our San Diego kitchen before our east coast relocation. This month’s Daring Bakers challenge was to construct a strawberry Bavarian with a strawberry mirror glaze. Like any DB, I accepted the challenge.

The cake wasn’t too hard to make and only comprised of a few basic parts to assemble: genoise, strawberry Bavarian cream, and a strawberry mirror glaze. Probably the hardest part of the whole cake was the Bavarian; although it may seem daunting to some, it really isn’t much of a hassle either.

This cake turned out to look very pretty, but made it on neither the eater’s nor my top ten lists for cake flavors. The eater reported that the Bavarian cream was the weak link. It was a bit gelatinous and heavy for her taste and made up too large a portion of the cake. I, on the other hand, thought the flavor was good, but the texture of the Bavarian just wasn’t as good as I hoped. I was expecting more of a mousse texture and this came out with a firmer, more gelatinous texture.

A word to the wise: this cake has about a one-day shelf life, after about 12hrs, the cake turns to rubber. Make it for a party and hope there’s no leftovers.

Strawberry Mirror Cake

3 eggs
3 egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
2 TBSP sugar
2/3 cup sifted cake flour
½ cup water
1/3 cups sugar
2 TBSP kirsch or strawberry liqueur

Strawberry Bavarian Cream
2 ½ TBSP unflavored gelatin
1 ½ cups strained strawberry puree(1 ½ baskets)
5 egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
1 ½ cups milk
1 TBSP lemon juice
several drops of red food coloring
1 ¾ cups whipping cream

Strawberry Mirror

1 tsp lemon juice
1 TBSP kirsch
1 TBSP water
1 TBSP unflavored gelatin
Few drops of red food coloring

Strawberry Juice
1 ½ pints of strawberries(18 oz)
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup water

1.Preheat oven to 450F. Butter and flour the sides of an 11-by-17 inch jelly roll pan(rimmed baking sheet). Line bottom of pan with a sheet of parchment paper cut to fit bottom pan exactly.

2.Beat eggs, egg yolks and ¾ cup sugar together in a medium bowl until thick and light. Beat in the vanilla.

3.In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy, ad cream of tartar and beat until
whites begin to form peaks. Add the 2 TBSP sugar and beat until the whites hold stiff, glossy peaks(do not over beat).

4.Sift flour over the egg yolk mixture and fold in . Stir in one fourth of the whites. Then carefully fold in the remaining whites.

5.Spread batter evenly in pan. Bake until light brown and springy to touch(7 to 10 minutes). Cool in pan 5 minutes. Run a knife along edge to loosen. Invert cake tin to cut out 8 ¼ inch circles of cake. Wrap the cake layers, separated with waxed paper, and set aside. Cake may be frozen at this point.

6.To make soaking syrup: Combine water and the 1/3 cup sugar in saucepan; bring to a boil to dissolve sugar. Cool to room temperature; flavor with liqueur. Set aside or refrigerate in glass jar until ready to use.

7.To assemble cake: Brush sides of 10-inch springform pan lightly with flavorless salad oil or almond oil. Cut out a cardboard circle that is exactly the same size as the bottom inside of the pan; cover cardboard with aluminum foil and fit into bottom of pan. Center one layer of the cake bottom of pan. Brush the cake with some of the soaking syrup to just moisten(not drench) the cake; set aside.

8.Prepare Strawberry Bavarian Cream. Immediately pour about half of the Bavarian Cream over the first layer of cake in the pan. Set the next layer of cake on top of the cream. Pour remaining Bavarian Cream over cake and smooth top of the cream with spatula. Refrigerate until the cream sets(1 to 2 hours).

9.Prepare the Strawberry Mirror.

10.To serve: Wrap a hot towel around the outside of springform pan for a few minutes. Run a small sharp knife tip around the edge of the Strawberry Mirror to separate it form the sides of pan. Mirror will tear when sides are unlatched if it is stuck at ANY point. Slowly unlatch the pan and slide it off the cake. Slice cake in wedges and serve in upright slices.

Prep Work

Strawberry Bavarian Cream

1.Sprinkle the gelatin over the strawberry puree in a small bowl and set aside until spongy.

2.Combine egg yolks and sugar in a bowl’ beat until light. Bring milk to a boil in sauce pan. Pour hot milk into yolk mixture and stir with a wooden spoon(it doesn’t say so but I would temper the egg mixture first to be safe). Return this mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until your finger leaves a clear trail in sauce when drawn across the back of the spoon.(Do not boil or mixture will curdle.) Immediately remove from heat and stir in softened gelatin mixture. Pour into a stainless steel bowl places over a bowl of ice water. Stir in lemon juice and a few drops of red food coloring. Cool over ice water, stirring occasionally, until mixture thickens to the consistency of softly whipped cream.

3.White gelatin mixture is cooling, whip the whipping cream until it holds soft peaks. When the gelatin mixture resembles softly whipped cream, fold the whipped cream into the gelatin mixture.

Strawberry Mirror

1.Prepare strawberry juice.

2.Place lemon juice, kirsch, and water in a small bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over this mixture; set aside until spongy and soft.

3.Measure 1 ½ cups Strawberry juice into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer; pour over gelatin mixture and stir to dissolve gelatin. Tint to desired color with red food coloring. Place bowl over bowl of ice water and stir occasionally until the mixture is syrupy and just beings to thicken(do not let jell); remove from ice water.

4.When mixture is syrupy, pour a 1/16-inch layer over the top of cake. Refrigerate until set.

Strawberry Juice

Wash and hull strawberries; coarsely chop. Place strawberries in saucepan; crush to start juices flowing. Place over low heat; add sugar and water; simmer slowly 10 minutes. Pour juice and pulp through damp jelly bag or cheesecloth-lined colander and drain into a bowl for 15 minutes(Do not press down on fruit).
Adapted from Cakes and Pastries At The Academy by the California Culinary Academy 1993

The eater, the dog, and I are heading out of San Diego tomorrow; the kitchen is all packed up and we’re packing up the truck today. Our four plus years in San Diego were excellent but we’re moving back to Boston to new jobs, old friends, and the possibility of a house with a yard.

We’ll be shutting down for about two weeks, now is the time to subscribe to the RSS feed (if you haven’t already), read the archives, or just click madly on our links while we’re away. I hope to have some sort of exciting tales for everyone before the end of July.

See you on the right coast!!!

Laura over at eatdrinklive is hosting up HHDD#13 and this time it’s Sorbet. I really have no idea who this Donna person is, but I’m always ready for another challenge. The goal was to come up with a sorbet and we’ll all be judged and prizes will be awarded. Anyways, here’s my entry: Pineapple sorbet.

I have a real soft spot for tropical fruits and pineapple is no exception. I could easily peel a pineapple and eat the whole thing in one sitting, yes I love pineapple. On a recent trip to Hawaii I was lucky enough to find local pineapples, on sale, for ONE DOLLAR! Needless to say I had about a dozen pineapples during the week and probably should have smuggled a few in my luggage, just in case. Even after all of that pineapple, it is still one of my favorites.

This recipe is everything you’d want in an easy summer sorbet: minimal ingredients, easy prep, and PINEAPPLE! I decided to add rum at the last minute to keep the sorbet a bit soft, since pure fruit sorbets tend to get rock solid in the freezer. Feel free to adjust the sugar accordingly; all pineapples aren’t created equally so you will have to decide if the mixture is adequately sweetened before you let the ice cream machine perform its magic.

Pineapple Sorbet

1 pineapple
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
¼ cup dark rum

Combine sugar and water. Heat until sugar has dissolved. I used the microwave but you can use the stovetop if you wish.

Peel and core the pineapple. Coarsely chop and puree in blender. Slowly add syrup while blending.

Refrigerate mixture until thoroughly chilled.

Process in ice cream machine according to manufacturers directions.

No, I’m not talking about taking revenge on sea life; I’m talking about what we ate for dinner. I first made this dish back in my culinary school days in Cambridge. At the time, I thought it was very strange to be to go through all the trouble of cooking something only to later eat it cold, but I was wrong.

I served up this cold dish with a cilantro herbed polenta that I first cooked like normal polenta and then grilled it up in preparation for the tilapia. The polenta was also delicious cold, so there’s no real reason why this whole dish couldn’t be prepared a day or two ahead of time.

The eater also wanted to note that the tart, vinegar-y goodness of the raisin and nut mixture is very difficult to stop eating for long enough to get any leftovers.

Marinated Tilapia with raisins and pistachios
1 lb tilapia filet
flour to coat fish

½ c onions
½ c carrots
½ c celery

1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp red pepper

½ c raisins
½ c pine nuts or pistachios

1 ½ c white vinegar
½ c dry white wine

Coat both sides of fish in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet to medium high heat and pour in enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Fry fish on both sides to golden brown, about five minutes per side. Remove fish from pan and set in a shallow baking dish and reserve.

Add vegetables to the pan used for frying the fish and cook about two minutes or until slightly softened. Add spices and cook for about one minute or until fragrant.

Add raisins, nuts, vinegar, and wine and cook over high heat until the liquid is reduced by half.

Pour mixture into the baking pan with the fish. Let sit to allow the flavors to blend for 30minutes or place in refrigerator for a day or two.

Serve at room temperature.