Category: Food & Drink

Let’s Bake!

Last December, I bought a stand mixer and have been busily learning to bake ever since. Unfortunately, my decorating ambitions exceed my skill. I made a peppermint cake using ground candy canes. I wanted to make it look like a peppermint candy.

I think if you squint and tilt your head, it sorta looks like a candy.

Anyway, even if your decorating skills are like mine (or Sloopy’s) you can still make an impressive cake using the checkerboard technique. Of course, the most important thing to remember is: IT’S CAKE! People want to eat it no matter what it looks like.

I’m making a red velvet and devil’s food checkerboard cake. I like making a checkerboard cake because it has a high impact to work ratio. I am using the recipes from Diva’s Can Cook: Red Velvet Cake and Devil’s Food Cake. I am making half recipes of each type of cake because I don’t want to make a four layer cake. I am not going to show you how to make the cakes; I believe Glibs can follow recipes and UCS has already provided a great demonstration of how to make a cake. I want to show how to turn the layers into a cool looking checkerboard cake.

A few basic tips. Make sure your eggs have come to room temperature. Also, regardless of what a recipe says, I prepare my pans by buttering and flouring the pan. Don’t try to use cooking spray. It leads to flour lumps.

After you have baked the cakes and they have cooled*, make frosting. I made cream cheese frosting to go with the red velvet cake.

I have pie/biscuit cutters, but you can do this by making a template to cut around as well, or just use a bowl or lid and cut around that. I used a 9 inch cake pan and 6 and 3 inch cutters.

Center the cutters over the cake and cut it out – you should have two rings and a small round.

Separate the pieces.

These cakes are both made using oil instead of butter. That results in a very tender and fragile cake, so I need to be careful when separating and assembling the cakes. Normally, I would re-assemble the cakes and then stack, but with these cakes, I will assemble it on the cake plate.

When both cakes are separated, you’re ready to assemble the checkerboard. Put a ring of red velvet on the cake plate. Put frosting on the inside piece, then add a ring of devil’s food, add frosting and then put the round of red velvet.

Now do the second layer.

Once it is assembled, it’s ready to frost.

On the outside, it looks like your basic cake, but when it is sliced open Voila!

As a variation, you could make a vanilla cake. Pour out the first layer of cake batter into one pan, then add food coloring to the mixing bowl and pour the second layer in the other pan. I only cut one ring for this cake.

You could also skip the cutting and assembling, and just make each layer different. If you make each layer a little darker, you have an ombre cake. This one is white chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate. I put raspberry jam between the layers.

* these are both soft moist cakes, so I refrigerated them before cutting.

By CPRM

Okay, a good barbecue starts with the meat. Pork is great because it’s cheap and takes on flavor. The best cut of pork for this recipe is [REDACTED]. This cut comes out moist with a crispy exterior.

Ingredients:

8 pounds of pork [REDACTED]
2 22oz bottles of [REDACTED] mustard
1.5 bottles of [REDACTED] mustard
1 pound of [REDACTED] [REDACTED]
16 oz of [REDACTED]
1 Can of [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED]
2 [REDACTED] [REDACTED] peppers
2 [REDACTED] Onions
molasses
A smoker grill
[REDACTED] wood chips
16 pounds of charcoal

We’ll start off with meat. I’m assuming you bought it in a store. So take your 8 pounds of [REDACTED] and microwave 8 minutes/until par cooked. (sounds nuts, but it works). Use a fork to poke holes in it and set aside.

In The Large Yellow Tupperware bowl add one pound of [REDACTED] [REDACTED]. Pour in 2 22oz bottles of [REDACTED] mustard, followed by 1.5 bottles of [REDACTED] mustard.

Add 16 oz of [REDACTED]. Stir.

Next, take the molasses and pour around the Yellow Tupperware bowl in a Fibonacci sequence from the center out.

It should taste disgustingly sweet. The taste will temper as the sauce caramelizes on the grill.

Use ½ the can of [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED]

Now, in a food processor, liquefy 2 [REDACTED] [REDACTED] peppers, and 2 [REDACTED] onions.

Add the peppers and onions to the sauce.

The flavor should be coming together.

Now, use the other half of the can of [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] to clean out the mustard bottles and food processor. Pour that into the sauce.

Submerge the par-cooked permeated pork [REDACTED] in the sauce. (If you are someone worried about food contamination, set aside ¼ of the sauce for cooking before adding the pork). The par-cooked pork will draw the sauce in as it chills.

Seal and store in the fridge for 16-24hrs.

 

THE NEXT DAY

Put 16 pounds of charcoal into your smoker grill and light by your preferred method.

In the smoker chamber add [REDACTED] wood chips or if you prefer, use [REDACTED] wood logs.

After the grill has reached temperature, fill it with as many [REDACTED] pork pieces as will fit. Close the grill, and close the chimney ¾.

Have a cigarette. Then open the chimney to full, this will prevent getting smoke in your eyes. Turn over all the pieces, add sauce to the part that was flamed. Close the grill, and turn the chimney back to ¾ closed.

Have a cigarette. Repeat the last step.

Have a cigarette. Repeat the step from before.

Have a cigarette. Repeat again.

The first round should be done.

Now repeat again, check to see if you need to add more [REDACTED]wood.

Do so until all the pork is cooked.

Place the cooked pork in an oven-safe container and cover with extra sauce. Place in the oven at 200 degrees adding the rest of the pieces as they cook.

When the pork is fully cooked, the outside should appear burnt, while the inside is moist.

If I do another article, we’ll add a side with my [REDACTED] salad!

Previously, I promised to explain how I translate a dish into my cooking method. I made a Chicken Adobo inspired dish using a chicken thigh. It deviates from the general steps I outlined because I don’t reduce, then extend the sauce before returning the chicken thigh to the pan. Instead, I return the chicken right away and bring the liquid to a boil, then let it reduce while the chicken cooks. I also don’t add extra vegetables. I serve the chicken and sauce with some rice. When the rice is done, I added a drizzle of olive oil, some chopped parsley and squeezed a lime over it.

This is good example of how to come up with a sauce. I saw a Chicken Adobo challenge on “Eat Your Words” a Netflix show. It looked good and I thought I would give it a try. So I went online and searched for Chicken Adobo recipes. I flipped through quickly because I wasn’t going to make any of the actual recipes. Instead, I was looking for what they had in common. I found that they all used vinegar, garlic, and soy sauce. Some used white vinegar and some used apple cider vinegar. They all used LOTS of garlic. A very few (and mostly the ones that had low ratings) used onions. Almost all used black peppercorns, although a few used ground black pepper. All had bay leaves. Some used red pepper flakes or added a habanero. I was surprised that none used ginger. The majority of the recipes boiled the chicken in the sauce, and some broiled them at the end to crisp the skin. I thought about what I had found and came up with a plan.

I decided to use apple cider vinegar and soy sauce. I used a rough proportion of 2:1 vinegar to soy sauce. I used three garlic cloves (the recipes call for a LOT of garlic). I used two green onions and chopped the white part and put it with the garlic. I chopped the green part and set it aside for a garnish with some chopped parsley.

My method was as follows: I put a little oil in the pan. I seasoned a chicken thigh and added it to the pan skin side down. I wanted that skin really crispy. When it was brown and crispy, I set it aside and added the garlic and green onions to the pan.

Once I could really smell the garlic and before it got brown, I added apple cider vinegar and soy sauce. I added a bay leaf, a pinch of red pepper and some peppercorns.

The liquid came to a boil almost immediately and I turned it down, returned the chicken thigh to the pan and covered it loosely. A loose lid helped the thigh to cook through and still allowed the sauce to reduce.

By the time the chicken was cooked, (as always, use a meat thermometer – 165 degrees F) the sauce had reduced to a syrupy consistency. I plated it with some rice and sprinkled the remaining green onions and some chopped parsley over it.