Julia's Kitchen Wisdom (28 page)

Chocolate Ganache

To frost a 9-inch cake. Bring 1 cup heavy cream to the simmer in a 1½-quart saucepan. Lower heat and stir in 8 ounces semisweet chocolate broken into bits. Stir briskly until melted and smooth, then remove from heat. It will thicken as it cools.

Soft Chocolate Icing

For an 8-inch cake. Melt 2 ounces semisweet chocolate with 1 ounce bitter chocolate, a pinch of salt, and 1½
tablespoons rum or strong coffee (see box below). When smooth and glistening, beat in by spoonfuls 6 tablespoons softened unsalted butter. Stir over cold water until cooled to spreading consistency.

Brandy-Butter Cake Filling

For a 9-inch cake. Beat 1 egg over moderate heat in a small saucepan with 3 tablespoons cognac, 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, ½ tablespoon cornstarch, and 1 cup sugar. Boil slowly 2 to 3 minutes to cook the starch, remove from heat, and beat in 2 to 4 tablespoons additional butter. The filling will thicken as it cools.

Apricot Filling

Enough for a 9-inch, 3-layer cake. Pour the contents of three 17-ounce cans of unpeeled apricot halves into a sieve set over a saucepan. When well drained, chop apricots and set aside. Boil the apricot juice with 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, ⅓ cup sugar, and the grated zest and strained juice of 1 lemon. When thick and syrupy, stir in the chopped apricots and boil several minutes, stirring until thick enough to hold its shape softly in a spoon.

TO MELT CHOCOLATE

Chocolate Melted with Liquid Flavoring.
Always use the proportion of a minimum of 1 tablespoon liquid per every 2 ounces chocolate. For 1½ cups. Break into small pieces 6 ounces semisweet chocolate and 2 ounces bitter chocolate, place in a small pan, and add ¼ cup dark rum or strong coffee. Bring 3 to 4 inches water to the boil in a larger pan, remove from heat, cover the chocolate pan, and set it in the hot water. In 4 to 5 minutes the chocolate should have melted; stir to smooth it.

Melting Plain Chocolate.
Use the same system, but do not let any liquid near it. Or, for large amounts, cover the chocolate pan and set in a 100°F oven, where it will melt smoothly in about half an hour.

The Microwave.
I don’t use it for chocolate—too risky.

FRUIT GLAZES FOR CAKES AND TARTS

Apricot Glaze.
Sieve 1 cup of apricot jam, blend with 3 tablespoons sugar and, if you wish, 3 tablespoons dark rum, and boil it down until the last drops to fall from the spoon are thick and sticky. Use while warm.

Red Currant Glaze.
Make the same way, using 1¼ cups unsieved red currant jelly and 2 tablespoons sugar.

GLACE ROYALE—WHITE SUGAR ICING FOR THE TOPS OF CAKES AND COOKIES.
Using a hand-held electric mixer, beat 1 egg white in a small mixing bowl with ¼ teaspoon lemon juice and 1 cup sifted confectioners’ sugar. Beat in 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, then slowly
add up to about 1 cup more confectioners’ sugar, until you have a smooth, thick white paste that stands up in peaks. This will take several minutes of beating. If not used almost at once, cover with a slightly dampened paper towel.

COOKIES

Only one cookie! But a most useful one, since you can serve it not only as a cookie but as a liner for molded desserts, and you can turn the batter into a sweet container. Make a lot while you are at it, since they freeze perfectly.

Cat’s Tongues—
Langues de Chat
, Finger-Shaped Sugar Cookies

For about 30 4-by-1¼-inch cookies. Preheat oven to 425°F and set racks in upper- and lower-middle levels. Butter and flour 2 or more
baking sheets
, and insert a ⅜-inch round tube into your pastry bag. Briefly beat 2 “large” egg whites in a small bowl to blend, and set aside. Using a portable electric mixer, cream ½ stick of unsalted butter in another bowl with ⅓ cup sugar and the grated rind of 1 lemon. When soft and fluffy, start folding in the egg whites rapidly, with a rubber spatula, ½ tablespoon at a time. Do not overdo. Keep the mixture puffed and fluffy.

Then, by big sprinkles, delicately and rapidly fold in ⅓ cup all-purpose flour. Turn the batter into the pastry bag and form shapes 4 inches by ½ inch spaced 3 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake 2 sheets at a time for 6 to 8 minutes, until an ⅛-inch border around the edges of each cookie has browned. Remove from oven and at once, with a flexible-blade spatula, dislodge cookies onto a rack. They crisp as they cool.

VARIATIONS

• COOKIE CUPS.
  These make charming edible containers. For 8 cups 3½ inches across. Preheat oven to 425°F and set rack in middle or lower-middle level. Lightly oil the outside of 2 large teacups (or bowls or jars that flare out) and turn upside down. Butter and flour 2
  baking sheets
  , and mark four 5½-inch circles spaced 2 inches apart on each. Prepare the preceding cookie batter and, one sheet at a time, drop a spoonful of batter in the center of each circle. Spread out to 1/16-inch thickness with the back of a spoon. Bake about 5 minutes, until cookies have browned to within an inch of the center. Set baking sheet on the open door of the oven. Immediately and rapidly, remove one cookie at a time with a flexible-blade spatula, turn it upside down over one of the teacups, and press into place. It will crisp almost at once. Proceed with the second cookie, remove the first from the cup to a rack, and proceed quickly with the third, then the fourth. Close the oven door to bring temperature back up to 425°F before continuing with the second sheet. (Cookies will keep a day or two in a closed container, or can be frozen.)
  

  Serving Suggestions:
  Fill with ice cream, sherbet, fresh berries, or a dessert mousse.
  

• TUILES.
  Rather than being flat, these are curved, like a roof tile. Form the cookies on a rolling pin or bottle, to make a curved shape. Or wrap them around the handle of a wooden spoon for cylinders, or around a cornucopia shape, and fill with something like a sweet raspberry mousse.
  

  TO PULVERIZE ALMONDS AND OTHER NUTS.
  Grind up to ½ cup at a time in an electric blender with on-off pulses, or up to ¾ cup in a food processor, always adding at least 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar to prevent the nuts from turning oily.
  

• ANOTHER FORMULA WITH GROUND NUTS: TUILES AUX NOIX—ALMOND OR HAZELNUT WAFERS.
  Use exactly the same formula as for the cat’s tongues, but fold into the creamed butter 1 cup of toasted and ground hazelnuts or almonds and 2 tablespoons heavy cream. Then proceed to incorporate the egg whites, and finally the flour.
  

P.S. BISCUITS

I forgot the biscuits! You can’t have a cookbook, however short it is, without a proper recipe for baking-powder biscuits, and you can’t have a proper strawberry shortcake without them, either. Just before putting the proofs for this book to bed, David Nussbaum and I worked this out in Judith Jones’s Northeast Kingdom Vermont kitchen.

Baking-Powder Biscuits

When the talk is about biscuits I always think of Leah Chase, chef and owner of Dookie Chase’s in New Orleans, and those she baked for us on one of our
Master Chef
TV programs. They were the tenderest, the lightest, and really the best I ever remember eating. This is our interpretation of her method. The key to tender biscuits is using light, rapid movements, so that you activate the gluten in the flour as little as possible, and the flour itself plays a role. Southerners make their famous biscuits with soft wheat (low gluten) flour, and to approach its equivalent use part regular all-purpose and part cake flour as indicated here.

For about 1 dozen 2½-inch biscuits, baked in a 425°F oven. Preheat the oven. Provide yourself with a pastry blender or 2 knives, a pastry sheet either covered with parchment paper or buttered and floured as described, and a round 2½-inch cookie cutter.

Measure into a large mixing bowl either 1½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour and ½ cup plain bleached cake flour or 2 cups soft wheat (pastry) flour, plus 1⅔ tablespoons fresh lump-free double-action
baking powder
, ¾ teaspoon salt, and 1 table-spoon sugar. Mix thoroughly and then, with the pastry blender or 2 knives, rapidly cut in ¾ cup vegetable shortening (I use Crisco) until the flour-covered fat particles look like small peas. With a wooden spoon or your hands, lightly and rapidly, but in big dollops, fold in 1 cup of milk to make a rough, somewhat sticky, dough—do not attempt a smooth mixture at this point.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured work surface and, as a gentle type of kneading, lift the far side up over onto the near side, pat it out gently into a fat circle, sprinkle on a little flour as necessary, then lift the left side over the right, the right over the left, and so forth, giving 6 folds in all. Finally spread and pat the dough into a reasonably smooth rectangle ¾ inch thick.

Cut out biscuit circles and place them close together, but not touching, on the pastry sheet. Gently gather the scraps together and give 2 or 3 folds as before, pat out again into a rectangle, cut out the circles and place them on the baking sheet, and continue until
the dough is used up. Finally, pressing the sides of each biscuit shape with your fingers all around, plump them up slightly. Set in the middle or lower-middle of the preheated oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until cooked through and slightly browned.

Serve warm or at room temperature. (Leftovers, if any, are best frozen, then set from freezer for a few minutes into a 350°F oven.)

BAKING POWDER
in an opened can loses its strength after about 6 months, so always test it by stirring a teaspoonful into ½ cup of hot water. If it doesn’t bubble up in a lively way, throw it out. Before you use baking powder, be sure to smooth out any lumps.

VARIATION

• STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE.
  Use 2 tablespoons sugar rather than 1 in the dough, and you may prefer to form it into a single large cake 1 inch high. Plan on about 2 cups of fresh ripe strawberries per serving. Leaving one whole big fine berry for decoration, halve or quarter the rest, toss in a bowl with drops of fresh lemon juice and a good teaspoon or so of sugar for each quart. Let stand for 10 minutes or more, allowing the juices to exude. Toss again and add a little more lemon and sugar if needed. When it’s time for dessert, split the biscuits (or single large cake) in half horizontally, spoon strawberries and their juices over the bottom halves, set on the tops, crown with a generous dollop of sweetened whipped cream (see box, below), center the reserved berry on top, and proudly serve. You may wish to pass around extra whipped cream separately.