I hear the phrase “the best thing I’ve ever eaten” thrown around,  and ultimately, I call bullshit.  I mean the notion of “the best” is a fake idea. With subject like food which is completely psychological, The best? Well how many tacos have you eaten, faithful readers? How many burgers have you consumed?  Have you eaten enough chocolate chip cookies to definitively say that that is the best?  The tradition of chocolate chip cookies is well documented, and who the fuck are you to say “this is the best.”  Who the fuck am I for that matter?

As I re-read that last paragraph I realize that I to, am full of shit.  Because you know what? Sometimes things are simply “the best.”  Like my chocolate chip cookies.  I know, I know. But they are.  It’s like the old adage says: “if one person calls you a horse, tell them he’s crazy.  If twenty people call you a horse, go buy a fucking saddle.” And so I have started to believe the hype about these little god dammits.  We give them away for free at the restaurant, as part of out mignardises program, if you have dinner.  I go through about three or four hundred a week.  People come back in to purchase the cookies for a dollar a piece, not bad for a nineteen cent cookie.

The recipe is based upon a now classic by the famous Jacques Torres. I first tasted these years ago,  brought to work for sampling by a very close friend of mine.  The most important step in this recipe is the aging the dough.  Jacques suggests between 24 and 36 hours, and up to 72.  I imagine that this process would improve upon almost any cookie recipe, the flavor and texture improved by hydrating the flour.  I have been told recently that even cake batters can stand to sit and hydrate for a while, a few hours in the fridge improving the quality remarkably.  But that guy also boiled gelatin with a snarky look and kept his sugar and eggs mixed together in the fridge.   These are things that i cannot bring myself to do, even if the pastry chef from Valrhona says I should.

I improve upon Jacques recipe in two simple ways.  I substitute muscovado sugar for half of the amount of brown, and I use both semi-sweet and milk chocolate pistoles. Almost as important as the aging the dough is the selection of chocolate.  Pistoles, disks, or feves are a must, as they create s sort of layering of chocolate unique to the texture of this recipe.  Think you might want to skip the sprinkling of sea salt on top?   Don’t.  These are the best for a reason, and salt is part of that reason.  I believe Jacques likes fluer de sel and I prefer Maldon’s but any quality, coarse sea salt would work.  Also, batters of this nature always come together nicer when all your ingredients are at room temperature, even the eggs.  A note on baking: I typically am baking these from frozen in a 300 degree convection oven.  I like to pull them when they just puff up, and just barely start to brown on the edges.  These are little guys too, maybe a tablespoon of dough.  At that size they take about 12 minutes, with one rotation halfway through baking.  If you make them bigger, they’re going to take longer.  Our Chef at the restaurant enjoys the dough frozen, and I always smile when he grabs a handful.  This recipe makes A LOT!! it’s a rim-rider in my 600 pro-series Kitchen Aid. You might want to cut it in half.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/2 lb all purpose flour

3 tsp baking powder

2 1/2 tsp baking soda

3 tsp salt

1 lb 4 oz butter at room temperature

10 oz muscovado

10 oz brown sugar

1 lb granulated sugar

4 eggs

4 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 lb chocolate pistoles (64%)

1 1/4 lb milk chocolate pistoles (38%)

fluer de sel for sprinkling

Instructions:

• Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and set aside.

• Cream the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer until light and fluffy, at least ten minutes.

• Add the eggs on at a time, scraping after the second and final egg. Add vanilla.

• Sift in the dry ingredients and mix until well combined.

• Add in the chocolate and mix until it is evenly dispersed in the batter.

• Transfer the dough to a sheet pan and wrap tightly. Refrigerate for 36 hours.

• Preheat the oven to 350. Scoop the cookies to desired size and place evenly on a parchment lined sheet pan. Sprinkle each cookie with a touch of fleur de sel.

• Bake until golden brown but still soft, 15 to 18 minutes. Cool slightly before serving.

Does this look like barf to you? Does it remind you of that morning after close up you got of the contents of the toilet after that long night of too many PBRs and poor choices?  Me too! But that’s not what it is.  In fact, it’s popped popcorn infusing dairy product with its buttery goodness.  Last year I had pretty good success with sweet corn ice cream in a blackberry float. The idea of a float on a summer dessert menu is always a welcome one to me, both refreshing and decadent if done right.  So after several large bong hits and two bags of sour cream and onion potato chips I thought: “Dude…POPCORN…ICE CREAM!!”

To be honest, the process is quite easy and the results are quite rewarding.  Sure, it takes three days.  Sure it uses three bags of popcorn that you could have just eaten.  But was Rome built in a day?  Fuck no.  Neither was a Raspberry Float.  The frozen custard is smooth and creamy but toasty and buttery.  It tastes just like it sounds.  I decided to pair it with raspberries in the float, it just seemed natural, like raspberry cornbread. I wish the fucking thing sold better, I guess it just sounds too weird for people.  Faithful readers know, though: I wouldn’t steer anyone wrong! I deal in delicious through and through people!! Now eat the shit!

Popcorn Ice Cream (makes a shit ton)

3 bags popcorn (no “light” bullshit.  Use something that sounds bad for you.)

6 cups half & half

2 cups heavy cream

16 oz sugar

1 cup glucose powder (optional)

16 egg youlks

More half & half as needed

1. Pop two of the bags of popcorn and place in a large sauce pot.  Add the half & half and heavy cream.  Bring to a boil and cover, then kill the heat.  Steep for thirty minutes.

2. Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate overnight.  Next day, pour the whole barfy mess into a chinoise and use the back of a ladle to push as much of the liquid through as possible.

3. Re-measure the cream and make up any difference with half & half.  Pop the final bag of popcorn and place it in your large sauce pot.  Add the popcorn milk and BTAB.  Cover and kill the heat,  Steep for thirty minutes.

4. Strain the dairy (use the ladle to push) again and re-measure.  Make up any difference with half & half.   Return to a pot and create a custard with the sugar and egg yolks.  Review how to do this here, be sure to read the footnote.

5. Pour the custard into an airtight container and refrigerate over night to ripen the flavors.

6. Next day strain the custard again and spin it in an ice cream machine according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

You could serve this in a float, or simply in a bowl with berries and caramel corn.  Have your friends over and surprise the living shit out of them with your culinary prowess.  I promise, there will be no barfing.

Suffice to say I been through some shit lately, and this blog has been the last thing on my mind.  When my thoughts did finally roll around to it, I was afraid of what I might write.  I figured my commitment to writing that is real, that is raw and personal, would get me into trouble.  Then I remembered at some point that getting in trouble is basically a fake idea, and I looked up and looked around and found myself doing not to bad.  Pretty fucking good, actually.  Great even.  I’ve come home to live with my brother and his housemates, dear friends all.  They found me a spot and built a wall, took me in and fed me well, gave me beer.  This is a place where meat is smoked, where wine is drank while fires burn.  A place where someone says “brisket nachos” and soon they are being made. The sink is always full of dishes, the fridge full of deli cups of mise. There is late night laughing and dogs; a constant roiling mass of fur and barking. Breakfast will sometimes involve ice cream.  Things are created for the internet at every turn, smart phones are always out and a subtle finger tapping can be heard late into the night.  Vegetables are cultivated in the back yard.   The transition into the next phase of my life has been in spite of everything, pretty painless.  Except for all the pain of course.  But that’s life.  And show business.  And we all live to fuck it up another day.  Thanks to all of those who have been there, you’ve always been there haven’t you?  You know who you are. Thanks to my dogs who’ve always kept their tails wagging.  Thanks work, my sanctuary, my safe haven; slaving away slanging treats saves me.  Thanks to my parents, who love me no matter what.  I must be a good person because I am surrounded be good people.  Last but certainly not least, thanks to my faithful readers; whom I know hell of represent.  Oh yeah and whiskey, can’t forget whiskey.

So one day I was thinking I’d make an apple cake.  Since I had never really made an apple cake, I turned to my good buddy Google and soon found this recipe on Group Recipes. Kate and I had gotten a Bakers Edge pan for Christmas and on a chilly winter evening soon after I first tried the Best Apple cake In 47 Years of cooking recipe.  At the restaurant I churched up this simple, outstanding, breakfasty cake into something a bit more.  Maybe another 47 years? Who can say without the benefit of time travel. The genius of the cake is it’s basic nature.  A true quick bread leavened with both eggs and baking soda you really just kind of mix it all up; not much to it.  When it comes out of the oven, let it sit for a few minutes ad then glaze it with the brown sugar glaze.  The smell stirs one to salivation, heads turn and sniff, they sniff-sniff.  I actually have a bit of a thing for the raw batter.  So anyway, give it a try.  I change up the recipe a little from the original: where it says 3 cups of apples I just slice three apples, Also and I brown the butter in the glaze before adding the sugar and cream.  At the restaurant I leave out the walnuts so people with “nut allergies” can order it too.  I get back at them by serving it with toasted walnut ice cream, sage caramel, brown butter struesel and candied walnuts.  I fucking love walnuts.  The sage powder is I cool trick I learned working with Chef Eric Suniga, a man of true kitchen prowess.  Pick a bunch of sage, pile up the leaves, and roll into into a blunt with plastic wrap.  Freeze rock solid and micro plane at service.

The Best Apple Cake in 47 Years of Cooking.

3 c flour

2 c sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 large eggs, beaten

1 c vegetable oil

1/2 c apple juice

2 tsps vanilla

3 finely sliced apples

1 c packed brown sugar

1/4 c butter

1/3 c whipping cream

Preheat The oven to 350. Grease and flour desired pan. (9×13 or 7 - 3X2″ cake pans)

• In a large bowl mix flour, sugar, soda & salt. Make a well in the center & set aside.

• In a medium bowl mix eggs, oil, apple juice & vanilla. Add the egg mixture to dry ingredients, just until moistened.  Add the apples and mix until homogeneous.

• Bake for 45-50 mins.

• In a small saucepan brown the butter, then in mix the brown sugar & cream. Cook & stir till bubbly & all of the sugar is dissolved. Cool slightly.

• Drizzle warm sauce over cake, when it has cooled for 5 minutes, so it can seep into the cake, keeping it moist.

Enjoy the Best Apple Cake (In 47 Years of Cooking) recipe.

A week or so ago I woke up to several voice mails, text messages, and emails from loved friends and loved ones wondering how I ended up in the UK, and why they should send me money.  Somebody had gotten a hold of my password and was using my personal information against me to try and make a quick buck.  As if facebook wasn’t annoying enough, now it’s literally fucking with my life.  My poor friend Meghan was on her way to Western Union to send me money from Malaysia, the perps had instant messaged her that my wife Kate was in the hospital.  What the flying fuck?!  I immediately logged on and posted a message on my wall: I am safe and sound in Oregon, don’t send me money!!  Later that day the facebook team shut down my account because I violated the terms of use.  I violated? The level that these fuckers will stoop to is so low, they have given new meaning to the word “scumbag.“  I swear I must have a sign on my internet forehead that says: Hey everybody, exploit me!! Luckily Meghan thought better of it at the last minute and emailed me directly to find out what was up.  Thankfully ALL of my friends were smart enough to avoid sending me money before talking with me, but the whole situation made me feel dirty.  It really made me think about why I need this silly service in my life, if the pros actually outweigh the cons.  Sure, I’ve “met up” with some people I haven’t seen in some years, I’ve enjoyed some of the shared videos and pictures.  I finally figured out how to shut off the email alerts for everything, so I’m not immediately notified when John from eighth grade social studies “achieves” in Mafia Wars.  As if I fucking care about your rabbit in Farmville.  Get a life “friends.”  If they ever unlock my account the first thing I’m going to do is log on and delete a bunch of “friends.”  If I haven’t talked to you or received a personal email from you in the past ten years, or ever; sayonara.  I just don’t care that much.  I don’t need a website to validate me as popular or friendly, faithful readers know I’m neither.  This has all been so bitchy and depressing.  I will attempt to cheer the internet up now with this video I took of a man in a carriage being pulled by a shetland pony.  Enjoy!

A fucking bomb went off! Chocolate flourless cake, salty caramel core,  milk chocolate shell and blood orange ice cream.  The dessert is inspired by a pastry I had in Paris, from the shop of the revered pastry Chef Pierre Herme.  It was a bombe, tempered shell and caramel core, I enjoyed it on a park bench in Luxembourg gardens. Mr. Herme ingeniously used a macaron base, his desserts were all marked by inventive skill and imagination.  I employ a compressed devil’s food cake sealed with icing to seal in the oozing salty caramel, just a candle held towards Chef Pierre’s brilliance. The milk chocolate shell is just that, tempered 38% milk chocolate.  Here’s a recipe for my faithful readers.

Blood Orange Ice Cream

2 cups milk

2 cups blood orange puree

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 oz butter

pinch o’ salt

2 cups heavy cream

3/4 cup egg yolks

P.S.  See this in the Willamette Week?

Two thousand and motherfucking TEN?!? The future is now my faithful readers. I command the powers of the internet in my pants. I make ice cream base in an immersion circulator. As a race we fringe on symbiosis with technology; and I can’t wait to realize this next phase of evolution. Anyway, I been busy as shit.  The holidays kicked my ass; and with in-laws in town and hell of prep, plating and me plowing through it all it went by in a pop!  Shit 2009 was a pop, a bang, a blast, dice cast and rolled and truth be told past year was fucking fast. I turned thirty, I got married, I’ve become a half way decent pastry chef and an annoying blogger.  I’ve made some bad-assed desserts and also learned some killer savory food. Pretty standard actually.  Looking to the new year, I’m hoping to step up my game.  Turn it up to eleven so to speak.  I just need to work harder, cleaner.  The desserts will be smaller, more precise.  Flavors? Louder.  Here’s a recipe bitches.  I adapted it from one of the best recipes I’ve learned in a long time.

Graham Cracker Sponge Cake

250 g soft butter

375 g sugar

5 g salt

6 eggs

375 g fine ground graham cracker crumbs.

7.5 g baking powder

100 g A.P. flour

1.  Preheat your convection oven to 300 F.  Spray and line with parchment one half sheet pan.

2.  Cream the butter, sugar and salt light and fluffy in the bowl of a stand mixer.

3.  Weigh the crumbs, baking powder, and flour into a bowl and whisk them together well.

4.  Add the eggs 2 at a time, allowing the batter to fully absorb each addition of eggs.  Scrape the bowl twice during this step.

5.  Scape the bowl again and add the dry ingredients all at once.  Mix the batter on low speed until homogeneous.

6.  Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake 12 minutes, rotate the pans, and bake an additional 6 to 8 minutes, or until golden brown and springy.  Use as a base for a no bake cheesecake or serve it warm with a cream cheese ice cream.

My good friend and fellow Chef Arturo Lopez was quite suddenly and shamefully deported back to Mexico over a year ago.  It was so sad the way it went down; one day he was there, the life of our kitchen, the backbone of it’s mise en place, the next he was gone.  It was hard to shake the bottomless pit feeling of this for some time, hard to come to terms with an inconsiderate and fucked up system.  In my mind it was the beginning of the end for my friend and mentor Jack Yoss at ten01.  I know it just wasn’t the same for him anymore; this place that he and Arturo built together.  Fortunately however, Arturo and Jack both still prosper on.  Pictured below is some proof that my good Latino buddy is doing well.  He sent me these pictures a few weeks ago and I just had to get them up here.  This is him baking a cake for his new girlfriend.  We miss you Arturo!!

It’s funny how one idea leads to another and sometimes the most obvious idea is the best one.  Looking at my Fat Spouse dessert, it was good; hell it was great even.  What it lacked however was a warm element.  Something to start melting that malted milk ice cream and pretzel bark.  Something rich and fatty.  Like pootang…BREAD pootang. All peanut butter chips and compressed devil’s food cake stratifying a rich brioche custard.  There’s been some discussion of pootang technique in the kitchen as of late, and one thing again leading to another, I’m now pureeing my base.  It creates an even, dense, almost cakey texture.  The chunks of devils food are compressed in the vacuum sealer then diced.  Finally a good use for that bomber technique.  You can get cool potions this way, but a realized dessert was tricky. Now how about that fancy cruise ship garnish?  I got the idea from a dish wifey had dining when we dined at Spago Beaver Creek.  A simple piped lattice of tempered chocolate onto acetate, scored and bent in a PVC half pipe.  The other tile of tempered chocolate underneath the ice cream is a buffer between the cold scream and the warm pootang.  Cocoa nibs help it grip.  I brought back the dulce dessert Watchmen blood drip plate saucing technique for good measure.  This fucker gets oohed and ahhed every time it hits the table. Here’s the recipe for enjoyment of my faithful readers.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bread Pudding

6 oz butter at room temperature

6 oz sugar

2 oz dark chocolate

4 oz peanut butter

5 eggs

3 cups heavy cream

12 -15 brioche buns

2 cups diced compressed devils food cake that has been diced

1 bag Reeses peanut butter chips

1.  Cream the butter and the sugar with the paddle.  While they are achieving light and fluffy in your stand mixer, melt the chocolate and peanut butter over a double boiler.

2.  When the sugar and butter are light and fluffy, add the melted chocolate and peanut butter.  Mix until well incorporated, scraping the bowl as necessary.

3.  Add the eggs one by one, scraping and incorporating.

4.  Switch to the whisk and add the heavy cream on low speed.  Keep the machine going while you prep the bread.

5.  Cut the bread into large chunks.  Take the custard off the machine, add the bread and mix thoroughly.  You need enough bread to make a messy paste.  Too much and your pootang will be dry, to little and it will be a custardy mess. Cover the mix and let it soak over night.  This is essential to chingon pootang.

6.  Next day pull the base and puree it in the food processor. Transfer to a large bowl and mix in the chunks and chips.

7.  Prepare one half sheet tray with sprayed parchment.  Pour and spread the base into an even layer.  It should ride the rim of the pan.  Cover with plastic wrap, then cover with aluminum foil.  This will create a nice even top.

8.  Bake in a 300 degree convection oven for about 25 minutes, rotating once. It is normal for the pootang to souffle a bit while baking.  When it is done it should be dry (baked looking.)

9.  Cool completely before slicing to de-molding desired shape.  Reheat portions in the microwave for 20 seconds.