Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Meringue Clouds and Challah

Challenge #1 is complete. Success! Well... mostly.


The first recipe I chose to attack was the Meringue Clouds. I thought I would take it easy and just breeze through it. Funny. Every time I approach meringue with a cocky attitude, it knocks me flat. Such was the case in this seemingly simple recipe. Beware. It comes with hidden traps.

Everything started out just fine. I made the suggested 8 mounds of meringue and slipped the pan into the oven, ready to wait more than 3 hours to get my sugar fix. Two hours into baking I peeked through the tiny little oven window and was greeted by a puddle of liquid sugar surrounding each puff. I rushed over to find the source of my problem and there are two main reasons why a meringue leaks sugar: 1) you didn't mix the meringue long enough and all the sugar didn't dissolve; or 2) it's too humid. Reckoning that I'm having trouble petting my cats these last few months without shooting off sparks, I think I made rookie mistake number 1. Owned by a meringue. Damn.



All in all, though, it's a pretty tasty treat. It's simply a French meringue with extra icing sugar and some sliced almonds folded into it. And even if you muck it up like me, it's darned delicious. Personally, I find meringues a little bit on the sweet side, which the almonds help to counter. But I decided to serve my meringues up with a drizzle (ok, I'll be honest, more like a pour) of raspberry sauce. The tartness of the raspberries really offsets the sugar of the meringues and really brightens it up.

Another of the things that I find myself drawn more to lately is making bread. I guess it helps that I now have quite a bit more time on my hands. The latest loaf was challah - yet another recipe from Baking with Julia. I swear that tome just keeps on giving.


This challah tested my KitchenAid to it's limits, and the challah won. The batter was too strong and big for the mixer and slowly creeped up the dough hook until it threatened to envelope the entire mixer. It was reminiscent of a scene from The Blob. I think I'll be picking bits of dough out of the mixer for a good while yet.


With that method exhausted, I had to knead the dough by hand. After the last 9 months of pastries, I think I more closely resemble dough than the challah. So with grunts of effort and sighs of exhaustion, I punched that dough into submission. And ate the reward. So delicious! It was perfect in a sandwich with roasted eggplant and red pepper, soaking up extra soup or just simply as toast with a smear of butter.

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