welcome to camp telophase

New Museum of Cooking coming in Rome. When the website is done, apparently we'll be able to read English translations of the books in their collection. English site: https://www.museodellacucina.com/en/

Article from bbc.com on the museum, with that info: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220307-romes-new-museum-dedicated-to-cooking

Yesterday we ran by the Container Store for clear plastic boxes for the closet--the previous weekend we Kondoed the shit out of our master closet. Technically we Reesed the shit out of the closet as I was inspired by Anuschka Rees' The Curated Closet, which is about figuring out your personal style and building a wardrobe around that. Only we skipped the first half, which involves things like taking photos of yourself for two weeks and writing down how what you wore made you feel to figure out what you feel most comfortable in because we already have a handle on that. I basically wear a uniform 90% of the time--soft pants, plain shirt or camisole/tank under a cardigan, mostly in greys, blacks, burgundies, and rose--but it gave me permission to get rid of the stuff I just don't wear, and tools to figure out what the holes in my wardrobe were (like I don't have a black cami/tank shirt, and I didn't have a white one) and info on how to evaluate the quality of the fabric and construction.
( cut for more on the closet, my exasperating day, and a photo of a Skyrim-inspired dinner )

So that post I made last week asking for suggestions for semi-spectacular desserts? This is what I ended up with:



And this is what it looks like when cut open:



It's Serious Eats' Chocolate Decadence Cake, which is a triple-layer bittersweet chocolate cake with chocolate filling, buttercream frosting, and topped with chocolate ganache.

It's denser than it ought to be because it calls for cake flour, and I made it, and as I was icing it, I idly looked to my left, and as my gaze fell on the unopened cake flour box I thought "Huh. I wonder why we bought that?" and then it struck me and I thought "Oh, fuck." Everyone who ate it told me it was great anyway and that they didn't think it needed to be fluffier and I silently thought YOU ARE ALL HEATHENS IT SHOULD BE FLUFFIER and ARGH DO THEY THINK I'M FISHING FOR COMPLIMENTS but merely said "Thank you." It was good that it was flat, in a way, because that meant it fit into a 10x10x4" box, and that fit EXACTLY into the soft-side freezable picnic cooler we got, so it stayed refrigerated all the way down to Mom's, and then all the way to Toby's parents, and then the leftovers made it to my aunt and uncle's house, and the last couple of slices made it back to Mom's.

It was almost a $500 cake, as the recipe I was using for the buttercream frosting had you pour a hot sugar syrup into an egg/butter mixture as you were beating it, and said to beat for 5-10 minutes, until the bowl was no longer warm. 30 minutes of beating later I resorted to wrapping ice cubes in a dish towel and surrounding the base of the bowl on the stand mixer to get it cool. I was terrified that our 25-year-old inherited stand mixer's motor would burn out, but it powered on through, despite getting quite hot to the touch, and seems to have survived. I have to admit that I am vaguely disappointed at not having an excuse to start saving for one of the latest KitchenAid mixers and various accessories (the bowl goes up and down! there's a lid with a spout so you can pour powdered sugar into the bowl while it's mixing and not have a cloud arise and cover the room!).

But the buttercream icing was DELICIOUS, tasting like vanilla ice cream base, so there's that.

Next time: cake flour, a different buttercream that won't kill my mixer (sigh), and perhaps a different recipe with only two layers because as I get older I am finding I much prefer the cake part to the icing part, an opinion that my twelve-year-old self would find HERETICAL.


P.S. I also made whoopie pies. :D

So my subconscious created a cake last night in a dream. It was on the order of the three-layer stacked cake from Momofuku Milk Bar's cookbook, that I talked about earlier.

The cake base was made of plain yellow or white cake. The first filling was a bit spicy, something like a jalapeño jelly (jam for you non USAians). The first crunch layer was chopped pecans. Then another round of cake, and a non-spicy filling that was, I think, a plain buttercream (to allow people who didn't want spicy to eat it), then the third round, topped with chocolate ganache and pecan halves, with a little pile of jalapeno jelly piled in the middle. Although in the dream, I was describing the spicy filling as "like that stuff you get on the table in Chinese restaurants" and when I woke up I realized I was picturing a cross between sweet and sour sauce and Thai dipping sauces made of vinegar and sugar.

In the plain light of day I can see that I forgot the soak, which is a flavored liquid dabbed onto the cake to moisten it and add flavor.

So I told Toby this, and he said that it actually sounded good, if it weren't too spicy. :) I can see that I'd have to make a few modifications. I'd toast the pecans, for one and thinking about it, pineapple and jalapeno make pretty durn good paletas, so I'd consider adding a pineapple-juice soak. I think maybe I'd replace the buttercream with a dulce de leche-based filling, to fit with the vaguely Tex-Mex theme.

Thoughts?







And now I want caaaaaaaake.

Also, last night I made bagels and pretzels.

( WITNESS my MAGNIFICENT bagels and pretzels! )