Salmon Switch: Dinner and a... Breakfast?

It's easy dinner tiiiiiime!

Yesterday was a mental health day. I chilled. I only put on shoes once and I didn't even cross the threshold of my front door.

Don't get me wrong... I did things. I cleaned up my apartment. I did my P90x workout for the day (oh hey, Kenpo!). I wrote a couple letters. I returned some calls. I also... watched a lot of Food Network.

I think I probably watched three different episodes of Paula Deen shows. It was a beautiful day.

Anyway... in one of those Paula Deen shows, she was in the kitchen with her son, Jamie, making something ridiculously fatty and rich. To balance out that... whatever it was... I honestly don't remember... she made a salmon recipe that her youngest son, Bobby came up with.

Well... I love salmon. And I love Bobby Deen. You know him, right? The one who goes on the show and is visibly unnerved by his mother's liberal use of butter? The one who talks about making the traditional dishes just a little bit healthier? The one who looked like he wanted to die when Paula said, "Rub your meat, rub your meat, rub your meat?"



Yeah... that one.

I kinda love him.

So when he speaks (or rather... Paula tells me a recipe came from him), I listen.

Without any more fanfare, here is the quick salmon bake that Paula shared and I modified...

First, I gathered the ingredients that I had... and the ingredients I was going to make do...


Paula used sage, rosemary, and thyme but said we could use any herb combination we liked. I pillaged the cabinets and decided on basil, parsley, and thyme. It worked.

Paula used a lemon but said Bobby liked oranges. I had a tangerine. It also worked.

The salmon, butter, and house seasoning (salt, pepper, and garlic powder) were all above board. So... let's do this thing:


Step 1: Place salmon on foil, add a little bit of butter, season with house seasoning and the three herbs.


Step 2: Top each piece of fish with three slices of your chosen citrus.


Step 3: Fold up salmon packets of goodness and bake at 350 degrees for 13 minutes. Couldn't be easier.


Step 4: At 13 minutes, open up foil packaging and enjoy.

This salmon was flakey but moist. The tangerines provided a dynamite contrast to the fish. The butter... eh... didn't add much, perhaps because I use unsalted butter. Next time I'll swap it out for olive oil.

It was a good, protein rich dinner. And... this morning... I shredded and re-warmed the second piece of salmon, pulled the sections out of the tangerine slices, chopped up one hard-boiled egg and threw all of that on a toasted whole wheat English muffin.


Mmmmm... totally delicious.

Again, another big-ish breakfast that kept me happy all day long. I think I'm getting the hang of this eating and working out thing.

Maybe. I still need to figure out what to eat before my early morning workouts. I need the energy without the ew-I-just-ate-and-now-I'm-bouncing-around feeling.

I'll... umm... get back to you on that one. For now it's protein shakes... and that's not bad.

Julie, Julia, and Amanda (Part 2)

So...

Umm...

Earlier this week I shared my Julia Child-inspired cookies. They weren't a Julia recipe, but they look like Julia. What I have to share with you today is pretty much the Willy Wonka ("strike that, reverse it") of those cookies. These cupcakes come from a Julia Child recipe, but you wouldn't necessarily know that by looking at them. Just something interesting I thought about...


Anyway...

Julia Child's Gateau A L'Orange et aux Amandes (Orange and Almond Sponge Cake for those who, like me, do not read French) was actually not terrible to put together. The experience of making the cake and icing was a lot like making my first Martha Stewart cupcake. A lot of steps, none of them impossible. Let the record show, however, Julia Child's steps are significantly more difficult and delicate than Martha Stewart's.

The first thing that Julia got me to do that Martha never did was assemble and measure all my ingredients ahead of time.


Mise en place, she calls it. Here's what I had:

1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
zest from one orange
1/3 cup orange juice, strained
1/4 tsp almond extract
3/4 cup pulverized almonds
1/2 cup cake flour
3 egg whites
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon sugar

I do not have Mastering the Art of French Cooking, so I followed Danielle's very carefully posted recipe at Cooking for My Peace of Mind. Since I was largely baking for my peace of mind this weekend, it just all felt right.


I began by gradually beating 2/3 cup of sugar into the egg yolks until the mixture formed a ribbon when I pulled the beater up.


Note the ribbon in the bowl there and the amount of left-handed, perfectly timed picture taking skill it took for me to capture it.


Next I added the orange juice, orange zest, and almond extract. The orange et amandes bits. (Is that at all right, French speakers?) After the mixture became light and foamy, I added the pulverized almonds, mixed, and then added the flour, mixed again.


In another bowl, with another mixer, I beat the egg whites and pinch of salt to soft peaks. Once the soft peaks showed up, I added a tablespoon of sugar and continued to beat to stiff peaks, the ones you see in the picture there.


Back to the batter, I added one stick of melted butter and stirred yet again.


Finally, I folded the beaten egg whites into the gorgeously fragrant orange almond batter.


Julia and Danielle said I could fill my cake all the way to the top, but my fancy cupcake liners were quite a bit taller than my tin. So I kept it conservative and I'm glad I did. You'll see in a minute that the cakes rose perfectly.

Now for the topping bit...

I followed the recipe for Julia's Italian Meringue in Julia's Kitchen Wisdom. This book I actually do have. :)

Here's what I gathered (and forgot to photograph):

2/3 cup egg whites (4-5)
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (I didn't have this so I went without)
pinch of salt
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water

Julia's instructions: Beat egg whites, cream of tartar, and a pinch of salt to soft peaks and turn machine to slow. Meanwhile, boil water and sugar to the thread stage. (Amanda's note: You'll know you've reached this when you drizzle a bit of sugar water off a spoon into a glass of water. The sugar should form a thread in the water. Also... don't ever stir the sugar... Idk why... but it must be important b/c everyone stresses that.) Beating the eggs at moderate speed, slowly dribble in the hot syrup. Increase speed to moderately fast and continue beating until the meringue is cool and forms stiff, shining peaks.


Let me just say... this takes a hot minute. You can go ahead and walk away. And then walk away again after you check it. And then walk away again when you talk yourself out of checking it.

I'm just sayin... it takes a minute.


But... oh em gee... when it works? It's a thing of absolute beauty. This meringue is Julia's basic meringue. She provides variations for making this into a buttercream, flavoring it, and all sorts of other things... but honestly... this pure form is better than my attempt at her buttercream.


I frosted my mini cupcakes with an offset spatula and they look almost as if they were piped. Gorgeous. I'm... in love. I cooked sugar - I cooked an icing - and I'm in love with the result. I am as surprised as you are.


And what of the cupcake as a whole?

Well... I told you the batter was fragrant and lovely? The cake was just as nice. The sponge is light and fluffy and just slightly sticky. Both the orange and almond flavors are noticeable but delicate. Pairing the fresh, airy sponge with meringue was an excellent choice, since I'm certain anything heavier (an American buttercream, for instance) would have killed it. The Italian Meringue, on the other hand, provided sweetness that was as subtle as the cake itself.

Mmmm...

In the words of my idol, Ms. Paula Deen, "Y'all are gonna have to excuse me while I finish makin love to my tater."

Happy Birthday, Cupcake Rehab!

I'll be honest. I'm pretty excited about this post. Yes, it my first cupcake post in over a month. But. BUT! More importantly, this post details my Cupcake Rehab tribute cupcake!

Many of you will remember my blogmother, Marilla of Cupcake Rehab. She's known for her fierceness, both general and cupcaked. Well, this September marks the second birthday of Cupcake Rehab and Marilla is offering a giveaway for the occasion.

The rules are simple. Build a Cupcake Rehab themed cupcake and tell her about it by October 12th. (There is clearly still pleeenty of time, so check it out HERE and build a cupcake yourself!)

So... drumroll...


TA DA! This is my humble submission to the Cupcake Rehab 2nd Birthday giveaway extravaganza. What makes this cupcake so Cupcake Rehab?

Ah... thank you for asking. Most esoterically (is that a word?!), this cupcake is Cupcake Rehab inspired because both Marilla and I have had epic failures with Paula Deen cupcake recipes (hers Red Velvet, mine Arnold Palmers). This cupcake involved the hybridization of two Paula Deen recipes. Yes, children, two. I went there.

In a more obvious, on the nose way, this cupcake looks kinda like the one she created for this Undead Logo:



Orrr... at least that's what I was going for. :) Don't flip back and forth between the two pics... then it's just silly.

But wait! There's more!

If you think this undead cupcake couldn't possibly get any cooler or more twisted, then you've got another thing coming. And that thing is...


liqui-freakin-faction. That's right, my sweets. The rotting corpse of the undead, bones (or walnuts) and all, is lurking just below the surface of these cupcakes.

I really wish I could upload a picture of the sick smirk on my face as I type out the grotesque details. It's just too good. The cupcake, that is. The smirk is probably ridiculous and very unflattering. So I'll leave it at that.

Back to the cupcake: It's delish! The putrid body of the undead is actually a chocolate caramel turtle baked inside the chocolate cake in a two-layered baking process.

The icing is nothing to brag about, so I'll leave that out, but here is the hybridized Paula Deen recipe for Undead Cupcakes, or what she might call "Chocolate Sybil Turtle Cake" if someone forced her to.

Cake:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 cup AP flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 16 oz. can Hershey's chocolate syrup

Turtle:
1 14 oz. package caramel candies
1/2 cup butter
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 6 oz. pkg semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts


Process:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Ready cupcake tins.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift dry ingredients, add to creamed mixture, beat. Add vanilla and chocolate syrup to batter and mix well. Pour about 1/8 cup batter into bottom of cupcake liners. Bake for 7 minutes. (I got 24 cupcakes from the batter. Because of pan concerns though, I had to do these 12 at a time.) Remove from oven and allow to cool completely. Yes... really.

Meanwhile, prepare turtles. Melt caramel candies with butter in a saucepan. When completely melted, remove from heat and stir in condensed milk until smooth. Let mixture cool completely (we might have rushed this). Add chocolate chips and nuts.


When cupcakes are cool, dollup turtle mixture on top of cooled cake. I'd say a scant tablespoon.

Cover turtle with batter until cupcakes are 3/4 full. This cake doesn't spread much, so it's okay to get it close to the top. Return to oven for about 12 minutes. Check for doneness and re-evaluate.

A lot of work? Perhaps.

Worth it in the end? Without a doubt.

I'll be singing the praises of this undead cupcake for a loooong time.

So Happy 2nd Blog Birthday, Marilla!

And, in closing... I'll extend the same warm wishes that my brother recently extended to me: I love you, but if you were a zombie, I'd blow you apart so stinkin fast...