crafts and noms

Happy Spring, blogospheroids!
I was invited to a lovely dinner party a couple weeks ago and was asked to bring dessert. I inquired what the main course was going to be which turned out to be that oldie-but-goodie, Beouf Bourgignon. So upon hearing "Beouf Bourgignon" (buff bore-ging-yawn) the first thing that came to mind was... The Queen!

No no no. Not that queen, although isn't she cute? This one:

Yes, folks, for those of you who have been living in a cave, that woman with the fish is Julia Child: The Queen of Cooking. The woman responsible for bringing french kweezine into the homes of Americans, saving us from a world of chipped beef on toast and Jell-o ham salads.

Mmmm... Jell-o

So I thought if I was going to do it right and honor The Queen, the obvious choice of desserts would be Julia's famous "Reine de Saba" or "Queen of Sheba" cake. It's a very dense, very moist, quite stout little cake, made of chocolate, almonds, and rum. What's not to like there, right?

I got a slightly modified version from the interwebs that simplified the mixing process and went to work.

I do believe that almond extract has 0 calories.

I whipped up the cake pretty easily, popped it in the oven, and voila!

Agh!

I should have taken a picture of what really happened which was that, upon turning out the cake, the middle portion decided to remain stuck to the pan, while the outer edge came out rather cleanly. I was basically left with a giant chocolate donut and a few tears. I scooped out the very gooey center from the pan and attempted to shove it back into the center of the cake (shown above). Obviously, this was not going as planned.

This cake recipe is rather tricky in that it's not the usual "cook it until the toothpick comes out clean" situation. It's supposed to be slightly "underdone" which is a very hard thing to gauge as it forms that kind of shiny, brownie crust on the top so you can't really tell what's going on underneath.

This disaster was entirely my fault, though. I left my pizza stone in the oven like an idiot so of course the bottom of the cake did not get the direct heat it should have gotten. But you know what? Cooks make mistakes—I certainly have made more than a few—and I think it's only fair to share that with the world. No need going around thinking everyone else can follow recipes and turn out perfect food every time when that's simply not true.

Here's what you do. Option A: go out to Price Chopper and buy a ready made cake and tell everyone your house burned down, otherwise you would have baked a wildly amazing dessert. Option B: try, try again. Since I had enough ingredients, that is exactly what I did. I took the #$%@!&%*$ pizza stone out of the oven and lo and behold:

Parfait!

Those holes you see are from me obsessively poking it to determine whether it was just the right "not quite doneness". I decided to flip it over for the frosting part which I don't know if that's what one is supposed to do but nonetheless.

Flip.

My frosting came out very light and fluffy. There are many people who've made this who say the frosting comes out like a glaze or a ganache but for me that wasn't the case. I really don't know how it's supposed to come out but it was just enough for me to frost this cake with a very modest layer. I did use a 9" pan instead of an 8" so perhaps that was why the frosting just covered it and could also have been part of the donut disaster. But really, who has a 8" cake pan??
Anyway, here she is, clothed.

I decided to adorn her with a few sliced almonds and some raspberries.

She was a big hit at the party. Warning, this cake is a lot richer than you'd think for such a demure, petite little thing so you only need a very slender piece. We cut this one into 1/8s but even those pieces were a lot to handle (of course I didn't have any problem shoving it down).

Small but powerful. Like Mary Lou Retton.

Looks kind of like an alligator, too.

So there you have it. The Queen of Sheba!

Bon Appetit!

Reine de Saba Cake
adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle.

For cake:
4 ounces or squares semisweet chocolate melted with 2 Tb rum or coffee
1/4 lb. or 1 stick softened butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 egg yolks
3 egg whites
Pinch of salt
1 Tb granulated sugar
2/3 cup pulverized almonds
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/2 cup cake flour (scooped and leveled) turned into a sifter

For the Icing:
2 ounces (2 squares) semisweet baking chocolate
2 Tb rum or coffee
5 to 6 Tb unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter and flour a 8" cake pan. Set the chocolate and rum or coffee in a small pan, cover, and place (off heat) in a larger pan of almost simmering water; let melt while you proceed with the recipe. Measure out the rest of the ingredients. Cream the butter and sugar together for several minutes until they form a pale yellow, fluffy mixture.

Beat in the egg yolks until well blended.

Beat the egg whites and salt in a separate bowl until soft peaks are formed; sprinkle on the sugar and beat until stiff peaks are formed.

With a rubber spatula, blend the melted chocolate into the butter and sugar mixture, then stir in almonds, and almond extract. Immediately stir one fourth of the beaten egg whites to lighten the batter. Delicately fold in a third of the remaining whites and when partially blended, sift on one third of the flour and continue folding. Alternate rapidly with more egg whites and more flour until all egg whites and flour are incorporated.

Turn the batter into the cake pan, pushing the batter up to its rim with a rubber spatula. Bake in middle level of preheated oven for about 25 minutes. Cake is done when it has puffed, and 2-1/2 to 3 inches around the circumference are set so that a needle plunged into that area comes out clean; the center should move slightly if the pan is shaken, and a needle comes out oily.

Allow cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Run knife around the edge of the pan, and reverse cake on the rack. Allow it to cool for an hour or two; it must be thoroughly cold if it is to be iced.

For the Icing:
Place the chocolate and rum or coffee in the small pan, cover, and set in the larger pan of almost simmering water. Remove pans from heat and let chocolate melt for 5 minutes or so, until perfectly smooth. Lift chocolate pan out of the hot water, and beat in the butter a tablespoon at a time. Then beat over the ice and water until chocolate mixture has cooled to spreading consistency. At once spread it over your cake with spatula or knife, and press a design of almonds over the icing.

Happy Fall Dearest Bloggites!
Before this summer our chair situation at home was dire. We had a bizarro collection of dining room chairs that consisted of a few cafe chairs with too-small seats, a couple IKEA hand-me-downs, and a school chair we'd picked up on the streets of Brooklyn back when we couldn't even afford IKEA. On the porch we'd been through a few sets of cheapo lawn chairs from Target. It was a sad state of affairs.
While I was visiting the folks in Ohio, my dad took me to the annual Seville town-wide garage sale. While there we saw this funny dog whose owner was trying to sell his modified vintage VW. Apparently, his dog wasn't too keen on that idea because he would pace around and growl at anyone who tried to check out the car too closely.

Then his dog buddies from the neighborhood decided to join him which was hilarious.

So after the photo opportunity, I found this vintage lawn chair set in very nice condition. Two chairs and little table. Just what our porch needed!

So I managed to cram them into my Honda and drove them back to NY.

First we lightly sanded over the chairs to get any rough, rusty spots off. Then we got some metal furniture primer which comes in handy spray cans.

We chose our Krylon colors (went with a creamsicle theme).

This is when we realized we were going to need lots more cans. Like half a dozen more. Anyway, when all was said and done and we had inhaled lots of hazardous fumes we had brand spanking new/old chairs!

Ready for a summer cocktail!

As part of our former decrepit porch ensemble was an old Sunbeam aluminum lawn chair that some friends had foisted on us when they moved out of town. It basically disintegrated one day when someone sat in it.


So sad :(

We were going to pitch it but then I found out that you can buy new webbing for these chairs and re-seat them yourself. So I ordered up the kit and in about 20 minutes the chair had itself a lovely face lift.

Happy chair!

My final chair project was the most satisfying one. I am a craigslist junkie and am always trolling around for treasures/crap-I-don't-need. I came across a set of Heywood-Wakefield chairs that a pair of empty nesters were getting rid off. It was a real steal to get six chairs in good condition. A few months later I got another, even better, deal of the mid-century. It was a danish modern table that opened from a square to a rectangle in perfect condition. A score for $75!!

Pip approves

The only problem was that the chairs came covered in a less than desirable fabric.

I bought some Marimekko fabric on Ebay (another unhealthy obsession) and went to work. I had to rip out a lot of staples to get the original fabric off. The padding was in ok shape so I just cut the new fabric using the old as a pattern.

With Robin's help using a heavy duty mechanical stapler we nailed those suckers down one at a time. It took awhile to stretch the fabric so there weren't a lot of creases, especially in the corners, but it was so worth it. Look how cute!