Monthly Archives: May 2010

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Flourless Chocolate Cake

The other day something unprecedented happened: I ran out of flour. I may not always have all the random ingredients required for my recipes, but I always have flour. And sugar. And butter. I have an entire box full of basic baking supplies that I always keep stocked so that I can whip up something tasty at a moment’s notice. Somehow I had let my flour supply dwindle into nothingness. Disaster!  Rather than going to Safeway to restock, I decided to Google recipes that didn’t require flour. (It’s a million degrees outside, I refuse to go out if I can avoid it.) The first recipe that popped up: flourless chocolate cake. How could I have forgotten about flourless chocolate cake? This was probably the...

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Eggs-in-a-Hole

Eggs-in-a-Hole

Dan (on the phone): “What are you up to?”  Me: “I’m making eggs in a hole.”  Dan: “…why are you in a hole?”  Me: “No, I’m making eggs in a hole. Like…cooking eggs inside a piece of bread.” Dan: ”Weird.” Actually, eggs-in-a-hole aren’t weird at all! Super delicious, maybe, but not weird. And it’s really easy to make. Just take a small drinking glass, cut a hole in the middle of a slice of bread, crack an egg into the hole, and boom — instant delicious meal. I had a little bit of trouble with flipping today. Usually the egg cooks right into the bread and it’s easy to turn the whole thing over at once. But I had the pan on lower heat than...

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Lemon Rum Madeleines

Lemon Rum Madeleines

I always thought madeleines were cookies. Am I alone in this? They look like little shell-shaped cookies. But when I gave them to my friends today, one of them took a bite and immediately said “Whoa, is this like, the tiniest cake ever?” Turns out…yes…yes they are. According to wikipedia, madeleines are actually very small sponge cakes.  Madelines are made with genoise cake batter, which means that instead of using chemical leavening, air is added during the mixing process to give the cake volume. Translation: lots and lots of beating make the batter light and airy. I had to bust out my electric mixer for this one. The recipe I was using called for orange extract and orange zest. I had neither orange flavoring nor...

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Chocolate Fudge

Chocolate Fudge

I was in Boston the last two weeks, visiting Dan. Unfortunately, while I’m done with school already, he’s still got weeks and weeks of classes and final labs left, and a thesis project to work on. Which meant, of course, that I was left to my own devises at home all day while he did complicated engineering stuff at school. I was bored. A lot. Like, really really bored. So I made fudge. As it turns out, fudge is not exactly a complicated thing to make, but it’s also not easy to make good fudge. The ingredients are simple, and the steps are straightforward, but a lot of monitoring and stirring and temperature-measuring are required.  I don’t have a candy thermometer. Dan definitely doesn’t have...

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