Corn Pancakes

French Friday with Dorie

This week's recipe seems more like an American recipe than a French one to me. My mom made corn pancakes for us often when I was growing up and we especially loved it when she made them with canned sweet cream-style corn. So I was a bit surprised when I read Dorie's intro to this recipe and she said that she first had them in France and never here in the states until French chef, Jean-Georges, made them for her. Maybe it is a regional thing, but corn pancakes were definitely a part of my mother's cooking repertoire and her mother and grandmother also made them.

With just a few ingredients, canned corn, flour, eggs, and salt, you can whip these up in just a matter of minutes. Since I was home alone on Wednesday I made some for my dinner. I dressed them up with a little bit of sour cream, scallions, and tomato. I left my kernels whole because I like a bit of crunch. They were okay, but they needed the toppings to give them flavor and I probably won't be making them again. I prefer making my mom's corn pancake recipe.

Visit French Fridays with Dorie and see what the rest of the group thought about the pancakes.

Mocha Semifreddo for Shelley's Virtual Baby Shower

One of my blogger friends, Shelley from franish nonspeaker, is having a baby! And what better way for her blogger friends to celebrate with her and to welcome her little one into the world than through a virtual baby shower. When Ilke, from Ilke's Kitchen, sent out the baby shower invitation she said that Shelley would like easy to prepare recipes that she can make ahead or freeze. Little Ruby is due to arrive in August and momma-to-be probably won't want to do a whole lot of cooking that first month and who wants to heat up their home during the month of August anyway? I decided to go with dessert because it is my favorite part of any meal and this dessert can be prepared ahead of time and put in the freezer until ready to serve. You don't even need an ice cream maker to make this soft-frozen, coffee and chocolate Italian dessert.

I thought this would be perfect for a new mom because it has some caffeine and some chocolate to keep her going, and it is cold and creamy as it starts to melt which will cool her off during those hot, sultry Austin evenings. It tastes like a frozen mocha frappuccino - only creamier.

Shelley, I am beyond excited for you and I am looking forward to hearing about your new adventures in motherhood.

A special thank you goes out to Ilke for organizing this virtual baby shower for Shelley and selecting such a cute baby shower invitation. 

For some really wonderful easy-to-prepare summer recipes , please check out the rest of the blogger sites below. Some of them have already posted their recipe for the shower and others will post by the end of the week.

Shelley (mom-to-be) from franish nonspeaker

Ilke from Ilke's Kitchen

Anna from Keep It Luce  

Carrie from Bakeaholic Mama

Christina from Girl Gone Grits

Esra from Irmik Hanim

Jennie from Pastry Chef Online

Jennifer from Scissors and Spatulas

Lana from Bibberche

Lisa from Lisa Is Cooking

Renee from Sweet Sugar Bean

Robin from A Chow Life

Sarah from Snippets of Thyme

Mocha Semifreddo
from Everyday Food

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
6 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder
2-1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 ounce dark chocolate shavings (chocolate shaved with a vegetable peeler)
Chocolate-covered espresso beans

Directions

1. Center a piece of waxed paper on the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan, so it sticks out a bit. It should be slightly larger than the pan. Put the pan back together, keeping the wax paper in place. Spray the side of the pan with nonstick cooking spray and line the pan with one long strip of waxed paper. 
2. In a large heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, combine 3/4 cup of the sugar with the egg yolks and espresso powder. Whisking constantly, cook until the mixture is pale, thickened, and almost doubled in volume, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool for about 10 minutes.
3. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat cream with the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar until stiff peaks form. Whisk 1/3 cup of the whipped cream into the cooled egg yolk mixture and with a rubber spatula, fold in the rest of the whipped cream. Pour the mixture into the prepared springform pan. Freeze until firm for at least 3 hours and up to one week.
4. Using a thin metal spatula, loosen the semifreddo from the paper and carefully slide from pan to a chilled serving platter. Return to the freezer until ready to serve. Just before serving, garnish with chocolate shavings and espresso beans.

David's Seaweed Sablés

French Friday with Dorie

The last time I ate seaweed or nori was in a soup that I had at a Japanese restaurant and while I thought it was a very tasty soup, seaweed is not something that I have in my pantry so I was surprised to find it at my local grocery store. This week's recipe is from David Lebovitz, a friend of Dorie's and his original recipe included French seaweed fleur de sel which is not easy to come by, so Dorie just makes her own by using toasted nori and regular fleur de sel.

There's really not much to say about these cookies other than that they were very easy to put together and pretty tasty. I made the log of dough on Monday night and kept it in the refrigerator until I got home from work yesterday. I cut the log into small coins and baked them for about 11 minutes. They aren't supposed to have color, but mine have a little around the edges which I don't think hurt them a bit.

Dorie suggests serving these at a cocktail party, but they were great with a cup of tea. The cookies have a very pleasant sweet and salty taste and the buttery shortbread flavor and texture that you expect from sablés.

Check out the links at French Fridays with Dorie to see what the rest of the group thought about these cookies.

French Strawberry Cake

Tuesday with Dorie

I have eaten sponge cakes over the years, but I have never eaten a French one before, so I wasn't sure what the look and texture was supposed to be like for this week's recipe. And even though I carefully followed the directions in the recipe, my cake didn't rise. I thought about trying to make it again, but it was Father's Day and I didn't want to spend all day in the kitchen. My daughter came in the kitchen and said that it looked beautiful and smelled wonderful, so I decided to go with it.

A few notes about this: it took me double the amount of time the recipe said to whip the eggs until they tripled in volume. After 7 minutes of mixing on medium and the batter looking the same as when I started, I turned the mixer up to medium-high and mixed for another 10 minutes. It got lighter in color and finally tripled in volume.

The technique for this cake was so interesting and when I added some of the batter to the melted butter as the recipe directed and then folded the mixture back into the batter my batter started bubbling. I didn't expect this reaction at all and nothing was mentioned in the recipe. It just bubbled away and I could see bits of flour still not incorporated, but I just gently folded before pouring into the prepared 8-inch cake pan.

The whipped cream was easy to make and really tasty. I loved the addition of sour cream and vanilla. I cut the vanilla to about 3/4 of a teaspoon because I didn't want an overwhelming vanilla taste. When I served the cake after our grilling on Sunday everyone thought it tasted wonderful. Some of them thought the cake was a bit odd in texture, but still tasted good. I will probably give this another try to see if I can really make a perfect génoise. Thank you to this week's hosts Sophie of Sophia's Sweets and Allison of Sleep Love Think Dine. You can see their beautiful cakes and get the recipe on their blogs.

Aunt Sabra King's Pudding Cups

BAKED Sunday Morning

These aren't my Aunt Sabra King's pudding cups. I don't have an Aunt Sabra. This recipe belongs to a former pastry chef at the BAKED Bakery whose Aunt was a gin-drinking, card-playing silver cadillac-driving woman, who apparently was also a pretty good baker.

The graham cracker crust is a simple mixture of crushed graham crackers, some dark brown sugar, melted butter, and a little bit of salt. I made half of the crust recipe and instead of pressing the graham cracker crust into a 9-inch by 13-inch baking pan, I pressed the crust into an 8-cup muffin tin. Even though I baked them the 10 minutes that the recipe said, I think I should have left them in a little longer because my crust was really soft and made it difficult to remove the cups from the ti, but they did manage to hold together with a few crumbs left behind. The crust sure smells good after baking.

The pudding is a pastry cream that is poured through a sieve over finely chopped dark chocolate. This was easy to make and was so rich and creamy. They suggested adding two tablespoons of whiskey which I am sure would add to the flavor of the pudding, but I just wanted to taste the dark chocolate without anything extra so opted not to add the whiskey. After filling the cups I let them chill in the refrigerator for a few hours.

I used a small star tip and piped the whipped cream on top and with my microplane zester I grated some milk chocolate over the top. These were a hit with my family and even though they were a little crumbly, these were perfect -  well slightly imperfect in appearance, but perfect in taste - little dessert cups. What I couldn't wait for more than the pudding cups was the actual pudding itself because I have been craving pudding for the longest time, so I made the full recipe for the pudding and after filling the cups I had enough leftover for four dessert bowls.  Mmmm...my craving was finally satisfied!

This recipe is a keeper and I will be making the pudding and the pudding cups again. Visit BAKED Sunday Mornings to see what the rest of the group thought and get the recipe to try this for yourself.

Lime and Honey Beet Salad

French Friday with Dorie

Beets are another one of those vegetables I just pass by at the market and grocery stores. I don't know if it's because of the large clumps of dirt that are usually still clinging to them or the memories of the canned beets my mom used to fix that have put them in the 'No, thank you' category for me, but I just don't buy them. So this week's recipe got me to stop at the beets and give them a try. I opted for the orangey golden ones over the red primarily because they were smaller in size.

And even though it has been a hot week here, I opted to roast them in the oven because roasting is my method of preference for cooking root vegetables, but you can also boil or cook them in the microwave. My three little beets took about 45 minutes to cook in a 425 oven. While they were roasting I prepared the vinaigrette, whisking together some apple cider vinegar, fresh chives and dill from the garden, and sprinkled the mixture with salt and pepper. I whisked in the lime zest and juice and some Tupelo honey from Georgia and added some olive oil. After the beets had cooked and cooled they were easy to peel and I then sliced them into wedges and gently tossed in the vinaigrette as Dorie directed. They were then covered and put in the refrigerator to chill.

The verdict? Well, since I totally blew it and didn't read Dorie's "Be Prepared" sentence in the recipe until after I started making the salad last night, there wasn't enough time for them to chill for at least 2 hours as the recipe indicated, so we will be having the beet salad tonight. However, I did take a taste before I photographed them this morning before work and oh, my goodness this is tasty! The sweetness of the honey works together with the lime and apple cider vinegar to give this a sweet tangy flavor. Nothing like those canned beets from my childhood. In fact, I am taking some to work for my lunch today which means that there won't be very much left for dinner. Oh, well. I will just have to go buy some more beets and make more of this salad. I think my family is going to love it. I am so glad that I made this recipe and that it gave me an opportunity to give beets another try. 

See what the rest of the group thought about this salad over at French Fridays with Dorie.

Olive Oil Ice Cream

French Friday with Dorie

I love this time of year, but it doesn't love me very much. I have been suffering with a cold and allergies for the past couple of weeks and haven't felt like doing much. Certainly no cooking or baking, or blogging for that matter. And not even visiting your blogs and leaving comments which I have missed and hope to catch up with over the weekend. The last few days I finally pushed myself to get back in the kitchen to make dinner and dessert which was this week's olive oil ice cream recipe. I have to say that as much as I enjoy making ice cream, I was skeptical about the addition of olive oil.

I few weeks ago, while I was out shopping, I found a 'fruity' olive oil from Spain that I thought would be good to try for this recipe. The custard base for the ice cream was easy to put together and the olive oil gave the ice cream a very pretty yellow color. I chilled it over an ice water bath for about 30 minutes before churning. After being in the freezer for a couple of hours we had a taste and enjoyed the slight fruity flavor and the creaminess. My family was so surprised that it was made with olive oil.

In the recipe, Dorie says that the olive oil ice cream goes well with chocolate, so when I got home from work yesterday, I made some gluten-free fudgy brownies - a recipe from the June issue of Everyday Food - and served little fudgy brownie bits with the ice cream. 

It was declared 'fabulous' and right up there with Jeni's Roasted Strawberry and Buttermilk ice cream that I made a few weeks ago. Who would have thought that a little bit of olive oil in ice cream would taste so good? I am looking forward to seeing what the rest of the group thought. You can check out the links over at French Fridays with Dorie.