I Have Moved!

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Fact: the world is better with bananas

Say you're a 17 year old girl, and it's your birthday.  If you can't have a new car, a cute new boyfriend, or a hassle free day from your parents, what would be next on your list?  Probably, Banana Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cupcakes. No?  You'd want one of those super skinny Macbook Airs?  Well let's say, for the sake of... me, that you'd want Banana Cupcakes.  Let's just pretend.  These little gems are far better than anything Steve Jobs could design.  Last time I checked, Steve Jobs didn't make anything that tasted like both banana and chocolate. So... I rest my case.  

Happy Birthday to you Carsen!  Maybe Steve Jobs will make your next birthday cake.  Cross your fingers, or something.

The recipe for this banana cake produces a super moist, but not super dense cake.  It doesn't have the heaviness of banana bread, but it has all the delicious banana flavor.  The walnuts give the cupcakes lots of flavor and texture variation.  And the chocolate chunks?  I try to sneak chocolate into everything, and these were no exception.

Super Moist Banana Cake

1 cup butter, softened

2 1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed

4 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup sour cream

2 cups ripe bananas, mashed 

(about 4 medium bananas)

3 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 cup walnuts, chopped

1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chunks

Preheat the oven to 350.  Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda.  Set aside.  Mash the bananas and add the sour cream. Set aside.  Cream the butter in the sugar until pale and fluffy, about 4 minutes.  Beat in the vanilla extract.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating each egg for 1 minute.  Scrape down the bowl after each addition.  Add the flour mixture alternately with the banana mixture, until just combined.  Fold in the nuts and chocolate.  Bake in cupcake papers, or a well greased and floured cupcake pan for 15- 20 minutes.  Check them after 15 minutes.

Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting

1 1/2 cups butter, softened

8oz cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2-4 tablespoons milk

4-6 cups powdered sugar

depending on desired consistency

Cream the butter and cream cheese together in an electric mixer.  (Be sure that the two are at room temperature.  Cold cream cheese or butter can make your frosting lumpy.)  Add the brown sugar and vanilla extract, and beat for about 2 minutes.  Turn off mixer and add 2 cups of powdered sugar.  Turn the mixer on a low speed so the sugar doesn't fly out of the bowl.  Slowly add more sugar alternately with the milk until you reach your desired consistency.  I like my cupcake frosting to be slightly more thick than cake frosting, so it can hold its shape on the cupcake.

Because of the moist bananas in these cupcakes, they hold up very well in the freezer.  Bake them off, and tightly wrap unfrosted cupcakes for freezer storage.  Take them out and defrost as needed (you could even sneak them into the microwave for quick consumption) for a breakfast treat or unexpected company.  They're delicious and flavorful with or without frosting!   Would I lie?  (No.)

Pink Hawaii

I was recently asked to create a Hawaiian themed cake for a girls first birthday.  Children's theme cakes usually run along a spectrum: from Sesame Street designs to Yo GabbaGabba characters.  I somehow can never find my creative voice in tracing an Elmo onto a cake.  It's just not my style.  Imagine my excitement in having free reign with a Hawaiian cake!

What I came up with is a three layered devil's food cake with coconut cream cheese frosting.  The hot pink dye seemed to call out to me, so the cake became a girly pink with toasted coconut dressing up the side.  On top I fashioned a gum paste (and paper) palm tree with shredded coconut sand, gumpaste coconuts and flip flops.  Yea... flip flops. 

I'm so pleased with how this cake turned out!  I was able to satisfy the desires of the customer and still create a colorful, hip design.  A little pink Hawaii for one year old Miss Lilly.

Devils Food Cake

3 cups sugar

1 cup butter

4 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 2/3 cups flour

3/4 cup cocoa

1 tablespoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/3 cup sour cream

1 1/3 cup hot, strong coffee

Preheat oven to 350.  Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.  Creaming the butter and sugar in an electric mixer.  Beat for about 4 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  The mixture should be pale in color and fluffy.  Beat in the vanilla extract.  Add eggs one at a time.  Beat each egg into the batter for 1 minute, scraping down the bowlt after each egg.  Alternately add the flour mixture, and sour cream, mixing until just combined.  The batter will be fairly thick at this point, almost like brownie batter.  See the picture above.  With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the hot coffee.  The batter will thin substantially.  Place in greased and floured cake pans ( I used three 10" pans) and bake for 18- 25 minutes.

This recipe produces a deliciously moist cake, but because of all of the liquids, the cake is a bit fragile.  Cake pans should be very well greased and floured.  When cakes come out of the oven, let them rest until cooled, then take a knife and loosen the cake from the sides.  Turn them out, and let them cool further on a cooling rack.  Don't turn them out to cool onto a plate, they'll stick.  Oh yes, I learned the hard way.  

Layer with any delicious frosting you fancy.  I went for a coconut cream cheese frosting.  Say you aren't a wiz at frosting the sides of the cake.  Here's a tip:  always work with a clean cake decorating knife.  Cake knives have a round tip, and no sharp edges.  As your working with the knife, have a deep bowl of hot water on hand.  Dip the knife in and shake it around to clean off the excess frosting.  Working with a clean tool with help ensure clean lines and edges.

When all else fails... hide your mistakes under a layer of delicious toasted coconut!

Mis-en-place

French culinary terms always seem snooty and unapproachable to me.  Mis-en-place is no different, but it's the concept behind the term that's important.  Translating into "everything in it's place" the term has everyday baking signifigance.  Simply stated, in American English, "get all your stuff together before the flour starts flying."  Soften the butter, get the eggs to room temperature, preheat the oven, measure the flour, leavening, salt, sugar and wet ingredients.  Also have a spatula, towel and greased and floured pan.  When all of that is ready, you know you've got all your ingredients in order. You're not going to find yourself an egg short in the middle of making cake batter.   It's a helpful trick.  Thank you fancy French culinary people!

I Am American Food! …and Other Blog Updates

I did it! I'm just not sure what "it" is yet. I graduated from About's guide program and will now be the guide for the new "American Food" site. I still have to complete a certain amount of content before it goes live in a week or so. Once it does go live, I will have a better idea of how the balance between the two sites will work. As those of you that visit About.com's sites, all the guides have regularly updated blogs. So, eventually you will be able to get your daily-recommended amount of Chef John from two sources.

Good News, Bad News

The bad news first; for the next week or so, I will pretty much will be working exclusively on finishing the American Foods site. I will also be filming some video clips for About, but for the near future no "Food Wishes only" clips. I will, of course, post the About clips I've already done for them as soon as they go live (like the Tuna al Tonno). I will be posting an Escargot video that just aired. Mmm…. snails, I mean, mmm… garlic butter!

The goods news is hopefully the income from the About site, along with the clips I produce for them, will be enough to keep this old chef out of a real job in a professional kitchen (60 hour work week = no blogging), and will allow me to continue to grow and expand this site, and it's foodie resources. Once the About site is build, it's just a matter of maintaining it, and I will be able to get back to a normal schedule, except now I will be able to pay my bills with money, instead of ravioli!

Culinary School Update

Yes, I still plan on putting all the large corporate culinary school out of business. Unless, of course they make me a huge offer to buy my site. I am working with someone right now in determining whether the course should be done as online classes, or as a collection of DVDs. As far as a time frame, I don't expect to have anything available until April 08. This also is related to the newly found income sources, as I will be able to afford to take off some time and just work on the culinary course, as I have done in acquiring the About gig(s).

And the Winner is….Me!

For the second consecutive month I have won the coveted iFoods.tv "Member of the Month" competition! I didn't announce anything the first time I won (I wanted to make sure it wasn't a fluke), but now that I've won two months in a row, I'm going to start rubbing the other competitors faces in it! If you want to check out the site,click this link. It's run by Niall Harbison, one of Ireland's best chefs, and they award points for uploading video clips and photos, etc. Quite frankly, I have crushed the field thus far.

Googlicious

I would like to thank Google, and their army of robots (that will eventually take over the world, and enslave us all) for raising my page rank to a 5 out of 10!! No, I don't really know what that means either, but hey, 5 is higher than 4, right? If any web-marketer techno geeks care to explain the ranking to us normal folk, please do.

Flagcake photo credit: Flickr user Owwee

San Francisco Here We Come... Have Some Pumpkin Brulee While You're Waiting

My wife and I are headed back to the City after a hectic, but very enjoyable visit to New York for my sister's wedding (see previous posts). We had a great time at the wedding, and I even managed to finish the About.com try-out. Now, I just have to wait to hear if I am chosen for the job. Regardless of that decision, I'll be back to a normal filming schedule in a day or two. Thanks for your patience, and while we are in the air, here is a nice seasonal re-run that I think you'll enjoy. Even if you already saw this clip, and made this delicious Pumpkin Brulee, go ahead make it again. Remember how good it was? Original post text to follow:

This is a great seasonal twist on the restaurant classic, and also a really great reason to use a blow torch! I recently had a request for a pumpkin flan. While I love to satisfy my viewers every culinary whim, sometimes I just can’t do it. The problem with a pumpkin flan is that the starchy, slightly grainy texture of the pumpkin puree would ruin the smooth, silky mouth-feel which is what makes a flan, a flan. You would basically be left with a crust-less pumpkin pie.

So, I decided to show this delicious Pumpkin Brulee whichs makes for a great winter dessert. The texture is actually closer to a pudding than a classic crème Brulee, and of course, the star of the dish is the crisp, “Brulee,” sugar top. This is great for your busy holiday schedule, since you can make them the day before and then finish torching the sugar before you serve. Crème Brulee blow torches are very easy to find in any kitchen store or online. You also should have a set of oven-proof ramekins. I use mine for many recipes, both hot and cold.


Ingredients:
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 egg yolks
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
white sugar
pinch salt

Where’s the Beef? It just fell out of the back of a truck, and is now running all over the road!

Today is my sister’s wedding, and I wanted to thank everyone for all the nice wishes and thoughts, and also for all the comments regarding my About.com try-out. I passed the second stage and the final decision comes on Monday. As I said before, I’m sure there are lots of great candidates, with more time, and no weddings to go to applying, so I’m not getting my hopes up too high, but I still appreciate all the encouragement I’ve gotten on this blog.

By the way, regarding the title of the post; my sister Val and fiancé Rick first met when she was a new police officer and received a call that a large truck carrying cattle had the back gate come open and dozens of very large and annoyed cows were running all over the road and terrorizing the surrounding areas. Rick, who is also in law enforcement, happened to be in the same area, and got a call from the dispatcher to help the local cops (Val) round up the cattle. So, that’s how they first met, and the rest is history!