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Of Compote and Cranberries
Dec. 17th, 2019 03:36 pmFor the record, "eating it" is a less than ideal way to discover that less of the alcohol than one would like has cooked out of something, particularly when you can't really tell by taste and only figure this out when you start getting dizzy. I suspect this wouldn't be a problem for most people-- there's half a cup of port in the entire pan, it spent an hour in a 250-degree oven which would have cooked out some of the alcohol, and plenty of people ate it at the party without noticing-- but I am preternaturally sensitive to substances.
What is the food that set this off? Port-cranberry compote, from Wintersweet. I adore Wintersweet; it is a beloved favorite cookbook and I have not made nearly enough of the recipes from it. We had a party here at the House of Dancers and I made a lot of cranberry foods for it: cranberry cobbler, cranberry torte, and the aforementioned compote. I spilled the almond extract into the torte so a cake that was supposed to only get a couple of drops of almond extract got, at a guess, more than a tablespoon. I combined this with a brown sugar crust on top that's not in the original recipe and it was widely praised, so this may be a worthwhile modification. (A number of people wanted to know if I'd made it with almond flour.) It did kind of collapse in the middle, though, rather than puffing up, so that's something to consider, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing as regards texture. I kind of want to try doing it as muffins now and see how that changes the texture.
On a related note, the base pancake recipe from How to Bake Everything is like every other recipe in How to Bake Everything: it's perfectly serviceable and very simple and if you have time and spoons (which I absolutely did not last night), but if you can look for one that's in a more specialized, interesting cookbook, you really should. They come out very thick and without a lot of flavor. But they're pancakes.
(I do think I am finally starting to get the hang of scallion pancakes, though! Safflower oil seems to be the trick; it has a much higher smoke point than other oils so I can turn the stove up much hotter. I actually have no experience with other cookbooks' recipes for this, so I wonder what a cookbook specializing in Chinese food would offer-- assuming scallion pancake even *is* Chinese and not an Americanization.)
What is the food that set this off? Port-cranberry compote, from Wintersweet. I adore Wintersweet; it is a beloved favorite cookbook and I have not made nearly enough of the recipes from it. We had a party here at the House of Dancers and I made a lot of cranberry foods for it: cranberry cobbler, cranberry torte, and the aforementioned compote. I spilled the almond extract into the torte so a cake that was supposed to only get a couple of drops of almond extract got, at a guess, more than a tablespoon. I combined this with a brown sugar crust on top that's not in the original recipe and it was widely praised, so this may be a worthwhile modification. (A number of people wanted to know if I'd made it with almond flour.) It did kind of collapse in the middle, though, rather than puffing up, so that's something to consider, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing as regards texture. I kind of want to try doing it as muffins now and see how that changes the texture.
On a related note, the base pancake recipe from How to Bake Everything is like every other recipe in How to Bake Everything: it's perfectly serviceable and very simple and if you have time and spoons (which I absolutely did not last night), but if you can look for one that's in a more specialized, interesting cookbook, you really should. They come out very thick and without a lot of flavor. But they're pancakes.
(I do think I am finally starting to get the hang of scallion pancakes, though! Safflower oil seems to be the trick; it has a much higher smoke point than other oils so I can turn the stove up much hotter. I actually have no experience with other cookbooks' recipes for this, so I wonder what a cookbook specializing in Chinese food would offer-- assuming scallion pancake even *is* Chinese and not an Americanization.)
