Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

No real time to post. We had an interesting week of birthdays, deaths, Urgent Care visits(my ankle again) and trying not to melt. I dug this cake up out of my archives(which after I post this, there is nothing left in the archives…yikes).
I was most interested in this cake because you have to boil the oranges and lemon for an hour. Not something I do on a regular basis. Also if you make this, make sure you have enough almond meal. I didn’t pay attention to how much it needed(luckily I had enough) and it wiped me out of my whole bag. What you get in return is a lovely citrus scented cake that is crispy on the outside and super moist on the inside. The recipe calls for melting apricot jam and glazing the cake when done, I didn’t do that. Just plain old whipped cream and some lemon zest did the job quite nicely.
I promise to get a real post up sometime this week. Till then, have a great week and keep cool.

Orange Almond Cakes

unsalted butter, for greasing
2 oranges
1 lemon
6 eggs
2 ¼ cups superfine sugar
5 ½ cups ground almonds
1 rounded tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 350F.
Butter 8 individual tins and line the bases with parchment. I made two larger loaves.
Put the oranges and lemon in a saucepan and cover with water. Place a lid on and bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for about 1 hours, or until the fruit can be pierced easily.
Deseed the oranges and lemon, put them in a food processor and process to make a puree. Put in a bowl and set aside.
In another bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until they are just combined-do not overbeat them as this will aerate the mixture too much.
Add the orange and lemon puree and finally fold in the ground almonds, with the baking powder.
Mix well, spoon into the prepared tins and bake about 35 minutes(mine took about 50 minutes because I made larger) or until a knife inserted in the center of one of the cakes comes out clean.
Remove form the oven and cool the cakes in their tins before taking them out.

Adapted from Breakfast, Lunch, Tea Rose Bakery by Rose Carrarini

The calender has turned over a new year but that is not the big turnover in my life.
Hockey.
Yes, that is right, you thought you had escaped hockey talk now that Summer was here, but no. My favorite player became an unrestricted free agent. What does that mean? That means he gets to pick whatever team he wants to go to that offers him the best deal…starting July 1st. I knew he would not remain a Buffalo Sabre and had actually braced myself that he would be a rumored Montreal Canadian(Ivonne and I were not in favor of this)…rumored so much that I signed up to take the second session of conversational French this Summer. Over half of the broadcast for Montreal are of course in French. And well, after having 10 years of Spanish in school, my French is down right horrible and not recognizable as the French language. Yes, everything was all set in my mind…and then I read TSN.com. My beloved player, Daniel Briere, is now a Philadelphia Flyer. Ugh. What? This was so not where I was thinking he was going. Their uniforms are orange. I look like a giant pumpkin in orange. Ugh. I have to wear orange. Worse, orange and black…I will look like Halloween threw up on me.
The good news for him is that he will make 52 million dollars over the course of 8 years(seriously, my favorite player and all, but no one deserves to make that much money…no one), oh and they can’t trade him(or any movement for that matter). Good news is, once I buy the Halloween vomit jersey, I know it will be good for at least 8 years. Now if only someone would come along and offer me 52 million to run my blog for the next 8 years!
Go Flyers!

Flaky Apple Turnovers

Recipe adapted from Baking Illustrated (2004) by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated magazine.

1 recipe Quick Puff Pastry (below)

4 large Granny Smith apples (about 2 pounds)

2 cups sugar, divided use

3 teaspoons lemon juice from 1 lemon

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1. Roll dough into 20-by-15-inch rectangle, about 1/8-inch thick. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Trim and cut the dough into 12 5-inch squares and place 6 on each sheet. Place both sheets in refrigerator until ready to use.

2. Peel apples and grate them. Combine with 11/2 cups of the sugar and the lemon juice and salt in a bowl.

3. Working quickly with one sheet at a time, place dough on a work surface, put 2 tablespoons filling (squeezed of any excess liquid) in the center, then moisten two adjoining edges with finger dipped in apple liquid. Fold top portion of dough over the bottom, making sure to overlap the bottom portion by 1/8 inch. Crimp edges with a fork. With wide metal spatula, transfer turnover to baking sheet. Repeat with remaining pieces of dough. Chill the filled turnovers 30 minutes, or cover with plastic and refrigerate up to 24 hours.

4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions. In a small bowl, combine remaining 1/2 cup sugar with cinnamon.

5. Brush or mist turnovers lightly with water, then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake until golden brown, 30 to 25 minutes, rotating sheets from front to back and top to bottom about halfway through baking time. With a wide metal spatula, transfer turnovers to a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 12 turnovers.

Quick Puff Pastry
Recipe from Baking Illustrated (2004) by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated magazine.

3 cups (15 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces

9 tablespoons ice water

2 teaspoons juice from 1 lemon

1. Place flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add a quarter of the butter pieces and process until the butter is in dime-size pieces, four 1-second pulses. Add remaining butter and process to coat the cubes with flour, two 1-second pulses. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl.

2. Combine ice water and lemon juice in a small bowl. Add half of the liquid to the butter mixture and toss until just combined. Keep adding liquid, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough will clump together in your hand. Turn the dough out onto a work surface. The dough will be quite dry and shaggy at this point. Working quickly so butter in the dough does not melt, brace the heel of your hand against the work surface and drag small portions of dough forward in short, brisk strokes to fraisage the dough. Gather dough together, then repeat the fraisage. Press dough into an 8-by-4-inch rectangle, wrap in plastic and refrigerate 1 hour.

3. Place dough on lightly floured piece of parchment paper and roll into 15-by-10-inch rectangle. Then fold dough lengthwise into thirds. Starting from narrowest end, loosely roll up the dough. Press rolled dough into a 6-by-5-inch rectangle. If dough is sticky, rechill it. Repeat this entire step, starting with rolling out dough into a large rectangle. Wrap dough and chill 1 hour, or until ready to use. Well-wrapped pastry will keep 2 days in the refrigerator or 1 month in the freezer.

Makes enough for 12 turnovers.

Recipe Source from: http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FHTMLPage%2FWSJ_HTMLPage&c=HTMLPage&cid=1128767485710

Ah, yes. It is that time of year again, my birthday. Being one who has gone to pastry school leaves friends far too intimidated to make me a cake(I’ll eat anything people). But this year, one brave friend, was wonderful and stepped up to the challenge….and did an amazing job I might add. Now I have to laugh because she did do trial runs(2 actually), so it made me feel extra special because she tried so hard. She made me a wonderful key lime cake(you know how I love me the key lime) and for a filling she made the lemon-lime curd from my tarts and then covered it with buttercream! YUM. YUM. YUM. Not only did I get it at my birthday party(Saturday) but I snagged pieces for my actual birthday(today…Monday if you are reading this late)….so that I can eat it for breakfast !
Bye for now, I am off to celebrate my mom being in large amounts of pain for 36 hours (love you Mom).
P.S. For those who celebrate it, I hope you had a lovely Canada Day.