Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Twenty-two: Learning to bake a chiffon cake


Last Saturday I hiked up Multnomah Falls. It’s on my list, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the reward for making up and back down. By Sunday afternoon I was so sore and stiff that the only thing that was going to make me feel better was cake. 
I put “Learn to bake a chiffon cake” on my list after reading about Harry Baker, who invented this type of cake in 1927. What makes chiffon cake different is that it’s oil-based instead of butter, and since you can’t beat air into oil, the cake is leavened with beaten egg whites. How cool is that? I don’t think I could invent a new kind of cake. I feel confident saying that none of my culinary inventions will still be around in 85 years. 
I read a bunch of recipes online and settled on an orange chiffon cake. I’m not going to lie. It wasn’t a pretty process. There were a lot of dirty bowls. There was cake flour everywhere. There was a lot of swearing. There was especially a lot of cussing while beating the eggs whites: “whip whip whip damn it, whip whip whip DAMN IT, whip whip whip JUST EFFING MAKE PEAKS! whip whip whip.” It was about that point that I realized I didn’t know what stiff peaks are supposed to look like. No problem, back to the internet. Imagine my surprise that they were supposed to look like the fluff in my bowl. I folded them into the batter and stuck the cake in the oven and opened a beer. 
I started cleaning the kitchen. I put away the sugar, flour and baking soda. Baking soda?  Wasn’t I supposed to use baking powder? Didn’t I go to the store just to get baking powder? More swearing. I had no idea if the cake would rise with baking soda instead of baking powder giving it a lift. I peeked at the cake. It looked good. Bigger. Stronger. Maybe it would be okay. About 20 minutes later when my house started smelling orangey and delicious, I realized I’d forgotten to set the timer and didn’t know how much longer to let it cook, there was a little more swearing, and lot of poking it with a bamboo kabob skewer. 
Finally, it looked done. I took it out of the oven and turned it upside down on top of a wine bottle, so it wouldn’t settle back in the pan. I was sure it would fall out of the pan instead, but somehow it stayed put long enough to cool.  My official taste-tester, Jessica, came over and watched as I tried to figure out how to get the damn thing out of the pan.  After a little trial and error I figured it out. It looked good, kind of golden orange-brown. It was missing something though. I though with a little white icing running down the sides it would look perfect. This is when I made my last mistake. It turns out that icing and glaze are not the same thing (go figure). Fortunately, the orange glaze tasted great on the orange cake. It was light and moist and really good. I’m wondering if it would have been better with the baking powder and a proper icing. 

I can’t wait to make another one. This was good, but I can do better. Watch out Betty Crocker.

Death and gravity-defying cake

Taunting me while still attached to the bottom of the tube pan

The finished product

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Five: Warning! Not for Summer Reading!

You can’t like everything you read. 
The Beach by Alex Garland: Young guy bumming around southeast Asia falls in with a group of crazies on a hidden beach. His arrival causes problems, he mopes, he goes nuts in the jungle, some people die. Leonardo DiCaprio stars in the insomnia-curing movie version that I forgot to take out of my Netflix queue after finishing the book. The novel version actually started pretty strong before falling apart and suddenly ending. 
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown: I’ve really enjoyed Brown’s other books, especially Angels and Demons. In his latest, his hero Robert Langdon criss-crosses Washington DC, trying to solve a mystery involving the Freemasons. I was excited for this to come out, but disappointed that it felt so unoriginal after his other Langdon stories. 
Gideon’s Sword by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child:  I love this writing duo, and look forward to every Pendergast novel they put out, so was looking forward to the launch of a new series by Preston and Child. This felt like a mashup of discarded ideas from their other series, and I won’t be reading the next Gideon book. Nothing original here, and none of the humor that I like from their other work. 

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Five: I'm still reading!

My brother and sister-in-law gave me The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins for Christmas, and I devoured them over the course of a week. They’re supposedly young adult books, but don’t let that stop you — they’re a lot of fun. I don’t want to give much away with these because I want everyone to read them, so this’ll be quick
In “The Hunger Games” we meet heroine Katniss Everdeen, who has been chosen to leave home and represent her community in the Hunger Games. The competition is a to-the-death battle between one boy and one girl from each of 12 remaining communities in a post apocalyptic North America. It’s gruesome. There’s a love triangle.  The end is fairly satisfying, but I’m glad I didn’t have to wait to read the next book...
“Catching Fire” picks up immediately after the first book and suffers from literary middle child syndrome. It’s a good read, but it wraps up the first book and sets the stage for the last more than it tells its own story. 
“Mockingjay” was hard for me to put down. It was a fairly satisfying conclusion, though a bit rushed. I guess you can’t have everything. These books are at the top of my list to re-read someday. 

Way behind on posting. Will try to knock out several more books and a few other things this week!