Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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Home > gluttonfest
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Meredith made Chess Squares from Kevin & Amanda (LOCAL).
Meredith said it was outrageously easy! Almost too easy so she added a tbsp non-fat milk powder to the base and the custard. She also cooked it at 315°F and it still took a long time (55 minutes)
We liked it. It was very sweet
Chocolate Cake with Coffee Frosting -- back to top
Meredith made a chocolate cake with coffee frosting for "Gluttonfest" and in particular a friend's birthday.
For the cake, she used her standard Cakes by Courtney recipe. For the frosting she used Coffee Butter Cream Frosting from Imperial Sugar (LOCAL)
For the frosting, she added some extra butter and sugar since it was so loose. But some time in the fridge solidified it enough. And it just barely made enough. though could have been because it was so loose at first.
The cake was very good and well received
Toffee (FAILED) -- back to top
I tried to make English Toffee [Sally's Candy Addiction] but it didn't go well. I followed their direction on adding the nuts and, as it expected, it separated. I thought it was back together but it was not. As you can see in the picture, there was lots of butter all around it!
I also think it burned a little bit. I aimed for 285°F which is a tiny bit above the altitude-adjusted temperature but below that of the other recipes. But I started to also notice some more-cooked toffee coming up and got a mix of readings from 285 to 315!!!. I wish I knew how I mix it better while it was cooking!
Overall, it was fine but not particularly good in my opinion. Others at "Gluttonfest" liked it more than I did.
I would try this recipe again but I would not add nuts. I would either skip the nuts or pour over the nuts
Meredith made Mary Berry's Bakewell Tart. Unlike last time, this time she used the Pâte Sablée from Mary Berry as well. It may have been the recipe or the heat in the kithchen or something else, but she couldn't get the Pâte Sablée off the counter and ended up forming it in the pan. And Meredith also didn't trim the pan down.
So it wasn't as pretty as last time, but it was still very good and well received. Lots of almond flavor balanced by the sweet (maybe a tad too sweet?) icing. Meredith also had some trouble with the icing hardening but I thought the lines looked good
Meredith made tiramisu for Friday Night Potluck. She used her normal recipe which she finally let me copy it. The recipe is from Cibo 360 for tiramisu and zabaione (LOCAL translated, and PDFs)
Unfortunately, she didn't let me copy it sooner and it likely changed. She followed, or even went a little light, the amount of marsala but it was too much. The older version of the recipe had you do about half an egg-shell's worth per egg. She would go back to that too.
Also, as noted on that recipe, she uses butter biscuits (or Petit-Beurre) instead of lady-fingers. This is because when she was in Italy for study abroad, she asked a local friend for the best tiramisu. Instead of pointing her to it, she gave Meredith an ingredient list, included butter biscuits but not lady fingers, and made her some. It was really good so now that is Meredith's major change now too.
It was well received and we liked it. Just less marsala next time.
Meredith made Liege Waffles as part of another project. She decided to try the recipe from Spoon Fork Bacon (LOCAL)
Changes to liege waffles: 3/4 cup AP flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat. Granulated sugar instead of brown (didn’t want to open a new bag for such a tiny amount). Also, it took about 4 min per waffle. I did them 1 at a time instead of trying to fit 1/3 cup of batter into each quarter.
I wasn’t thrilled working with the batter. It was super sticky, and extremely easily deflated. The end result wasn’t as chewy as I’d like in a liege waffle. I thought I could have kneaded it a bit longer with the mixer, but the recipe may also need a little work.
Liege Waffle French Toast Casserole -- back to top
This was for the Friday Potlucks. Meredith made Liege Waffle French Toast Casserole (where "French Toast Casserole" basically means bread pudding but sounds fancier).
The waffles were a mix from yesterday and from New Years (which were frozen).
She used this Food52 recipe for inspiration but really, just used it for the basis. Her notes:
It was certainly good but not as decadent or amazing as we expected. I think if we were going to go through the effort to make waffles just for this, I would just have the waffles instead.
Cinnamon Pecans -- back to top
As one of the things (see also Cheese Kugel) to bring to Tony and Kacie's house, I made my mom's Cinnamon Pecans. My only changes were to add a 1/4 tsp of salt, go heaping on the Cinnamon, and add 1/4 tsp of almond extract as well.
They were good and well received. I may play with some other recipes for this too. Maybe ones that make it a bit more candy coated. Or stick with this since it was pretty easy!
My other thing (see also Cinnamon Pecans) for "Comfort Food Week" at Tony and Kacie's house was Cheese Kugel – Dolores from Israel's recipe. I really made near-zero changes to the recipe. I made it Thursday morning and froze it as directed.
It was good and well received. Probably not the kind of thing I would make often but fun to do. And fit the theme well!
Root Beer Float Cake -- back to top
Meredith made a Root Beer Float Cake from Cakes by Courtney (LOCAL) for this week's potluck theme "Fourth of July".
It was pretty good and unmistakably root beer!
I made Armadillo Eggs for the Holiday themed Gluttonfest. I used three tubes of sausage and about 1-3/4 cans of peppers and about 1 block of cream cheese. It made 22 of them. I miscounted and thought the first tube made 8 so I tried to get 8 from the second and it was tough. It is much better to just wing it.
I tried rolling out the sausage with a plastic-wrapped rolling pin and it didn't help much. Doing it by hand was better.
I baked them initially at 350°F and then finished them at the Pettit's house at 375°F until they were fully cooked (by temp). I didn't note times.
They were delicious as always!
Meredith made Zucchini Bread [Alexandra Cooks] again replacing some (~2/3rds this time) of the oil with apple sauce (like 2020-07-26). It was still very good! This recipe is a winner! This was in addition to Armadillo Eggs for the holiday themed Gluttonfest
Caroline also helped.
Basil Strawberry Shortcake -- back to top
Meredith made strawberry shortcake.
She made Easy Cream Biscuits [The Food Lab], but added the 3 tbsp of sugar to make them “scones”. Also, stuck closer to the amount of salt it calls for since I was going for sweet instead of savory.
Macerating the strawberries in a basil simple syrup. I’ll also use the basil simple syrup in place of powdered sugar in the whipped cream. Ended up not being sweet enough so ground basil leaves into sugar and added to the whipped cream. It kind of clumped so next time, will start with that.
Char Siu Chicken on a Stick -- back to top
This week's Gluttonfest theme was "things on a stick" so I made
Char Siu Pork [Asian Dumplings by Andrea Nguyen]. I followed the general recipe except, even though it isn't at all the same thing, I used Chinkiang vinegar for the dark soy sauce. And I used about 2 lbs of cut chicken thigh.
I marinated it overnight and then grilled it while basting the marinade (except the last flip where I wanted to make sure it was fully cooked.
I didn't love it but it certainly wasn't bad. Just not as good as I what we get at the local Chinese restaurant.
Mango Sticky Rice -- back to top
Meredith made Mango and Sweet Coconut Sticky Rice [Simple Thai] for gluttonfest
Also used this guide (LOCAL). Did not use the instant pot because already soaked.
For the coconut topping, she used cake flour instead of rice flour in the cream since all we had was glutinous rice flour (Mochiko) and we didn’t know what that would do
The final result was pretty good! We used the instant pot to serve (but not cook). The flavor was really good and it went over well! The coconut cream topping needed to be used sparingly as it wasn't sweet at all but as long as you did that, the mix of salty and sweet worked well!