Progressive Dinner!

My dorm house prepares a Progressive Dinner every year. "Progressive?!", you exclaim! Doesn't that sound pedantic? Is this dinner some kind of ceremony involving juniors progressing into seniors? Or, did some professor in this school donate a ton of money to a dinner fund (I wish) in his/her name? Contrary to the typical nomenclature here at Penn (every festival, building, public area, and urinal is apparently In Memory Of or In The Name Of), the name "Progressive" simply means that you start off on the first floor, with salads prepared by the people/RA/GA on the first floor, and move progressively up each floor to scavenge for food! The second floor is soup, the third floor is pasta, and the fourth floor is desserts. And desserts galore! GALORE! You know why it was desserts galore? We made a lot! Myriad! We didn't just stop at two or three varieties of baked goods; we flipped the fridge inside out, along with flipping some crepes!

Since the fourth floor was in charge of making desserts, and since I honestly have not been able to focus on academic subjects (exam in 24 hours...), I decided to devote my afternoon to mixing and decorating desserts. In all honesty, we made way too many chunks of sugary dough; the other floors didn't have multifarious dishes (I'll get to that later).

Since my Victoria sandwich cake was already in the oven when I went to the kitchen, the GA asked me to start making a white chocolate and hazelnut (well, walnut, because we didn't have any hazelnuts) cake using a recipe that TM had submitted, in which the ingredients were listed with the metric system. This was alright, because I had submitted a Victoria sandwich cake recipe which was originally in grams. By approximating everything through comparison (mathematics!), I managed to get a pretty thick cake batter (much like the Victoria sandwich cake batter, actually, although fat-free yogurt was used instead of butter). While I was debating whether or not the chocolate chips should be melted, TM came in and we finished making the cake together. He actually was going to make it himself since he had emailed only the ingredients and no method (and no amount of baking soda either...). We did melt the white chocolate chips in the end, and the cake turned out dense, not too sweet, tasty, and had a rather gluey texture.

The one failure adventurous part of this baking event was the German chocolate cake icing. I used a recipe from online, but it called for three raw egg yolks. Since this didn't seem like a good idea, I just decided to make the icing without it. Unfortunately, there was too much milk in the mixture (I suppose the egg yolks would've made everything thicker), and the butter was melted. In other words, I ended up with a fatty sugar soup, with coconut and pecans as garnish. After adding 2+ cups of confectioner's sugar, I poured half the "icing" on the cake to see whether it would dry and glaze.
It didn't. It just made half the cake soggy.

I didn't to waste the other half of the icing soup, so I decided to stick it on the stove, and hopefully evaporate some of that liquid. After a bit, I realised that I could make caramel! However, I've never successfully made caramel before; somehow, I always end up with something like the image above: a sugar crumble. It's delicious, yes, and a great cake topping (I ended up sprinkling this on top of the German chocolate cake and it looked really pretty. I also used it for the macaroons. I'm telling you; people loved this! People ate it! Fast!), but it isn't caramel. This summer, I WILL make legit caramel. I think it has something to do with the time I add the baking soda; as soon as my sugar mixture started to caramelise, I poured in a LOT of baking soda. Since it didn't look like it was going to set, I dumped in A LOT MORE baking soda. Then, it looked like the mixture was turning into custard, so I poured it into a pan...

Then, I tasted some, and it tasted bitter and salty, so I was upset. I started to stir the "custard" to hopefully allow the CO2 to escape (?) from the mixture. The "custard" then started crumbling, and shrivelling...and I ended up with a crumble. I will definitely go more in depth with caramel-making when I actually get to make caramel this summer...anyway, digression.

My GA made almond cupcakes with amaretto poured into them. I decorated them. I also ate one; there definitely was an almond taste, and it was really moist. Technically I'm not supposed to consume alcoholic substances. I'm not sure what amaretto tastes like, so I really can't say whether it enhanced the flavour of the cupcake. People actually seemed to like the German chocolate cake more than these cute cupcakes, which is saying something about how plating doesn't really matter for college students, haha.

Banana cupcakes (above) and banana bread (below). The ones on the left are decorated with my glaze icing, and then topped with my awesome-crumble-icing.

Cakes decorated by someone else. G4! That's where I live.

We also dipped delicious, moist coconut macaroons (that were really irregularly shaped) with melted chocolate, and the crumble-topping. They are beautiful!!

And finally...here is my Victoria sandwich cake! I didn't bake it, but I jammed it and added powdered sugar. Someone else added the strawberries. I suppose the point of this post is that the Progressive Dinner is about teamwork.

As a side note, this Victoria sandwich cake was less rich, with more evenly shaped holes in the sponge part. I think this is due to the fact that the butter was melted (read = completely liquid) before being mixed. The one I made before was made with solid butter, and the uneven globs, spread throughout, perhaps created a more homemade/less uniform texture while baking. This one was still delicious, though.

Cookies made with leftover toppings, some in muffin pans! That's why they are so round and/or irregularly shaped!

Now to talk about the actual dinner! I started off on the first floor, with the salads. There was pasta salad (with two types of pasta), which was pretty oily, and not really salty, which was nice. The leafy salad had tangerines inside, which was pretty neat.

...And then there was potato salad! FIVE huge containers of potato salad! It was absolutely amazing! I've decided to fall in love with paprika now.

The second floor was soup, and the only vegetarian one was creamy tomato soup, and I got literally 750ml of it. It was only a bit creamy, which was wonderful because I've had a really negative experience with the too-creamy-it's-almost-weird-it's-sour way like the one made by Pacific Natural Foods (you know, the one in the carton).

The third floor included many trays of pasta. I don't have pictures of these because the lighting was terrible, and, although the pasta and soup were delicious, they weren't that exceptional or photogenic. The main focus = dessert!!

Almond Nut-Thins

These remind me of the rice cracker things that I used to eat when I was in HK, so it's not such a novel concept. The ones in HK were cheaper and did not advertise so blatantly. I'm still very irked by the "Wheat and Gluten Free" label, as though not eating gluten is somehow "healthier" than eating gluten for 99% of the population (a.k.a. the non-celiacs).

Also, "Irresistible Snacking!" = "Smart Eating" ??? DOES NOT COMPILE. How can snacking 24/7, which is what I do (unfortunately), equate smart eating?

Also, I know this happens for every single packaged good, but Blue Diamond really should make the box smaller. The crackers take up half the space of the box. Okay, fine, 60%.

After my fragmented paragraphs above (I'm running on 4 hours of sleep right now and I just did not-alright on an exam)... I will now talk about the Nut-Thins themselves.

They are very pretty.

They do NOT taste like almond, but the "rice" texture is basically similar to the crunchy puffed rice texture of those soy-rice thingys in the snack mixes with the wasabi peas and peanuts (you know what I'm talking about).

There was some form of "smoky" flavour, with a bit of umami, but the majority of the cracker tasted salty. Not potato-chip salty - not even bottom-of-the-bag-potato-chip salty. It was literally smothered in salt crystals. Initially, I was fine with it, because the smoky flavour was initially pretty prevalent (not barbecue smoky though). After a while, though, all I could taste was salt. For some reason, a lot of the gluten-free food that I buy ends up being super salty. I'll blog about these tortilla chips that are also just really salty, later, but so far, that's how it's been.

This may be because the foods that generally have the "Gluten Free" label also have a bunch of labels touting "All Natural"/other stuff that relates to not using "synthetic" ingredients (although isn't everything, in some way, synthetic/processed?). This means that they refrain from using umami flavouring, colouring, and other flavouring that is GRAS (perhaps). In this aspect, there are limited additives that the company can add to the product to make it taste great and remain fresh/not stale. So, by adding salt, a "flavouring" is added.

International Dinner!

My dorm house holds an International Dinner each year, which isn't super international, but is chill nevertheless. There was Chinese, French, Spanish, Mediterranean, and Swiss food. I stayed far far away from Chinese food...because I don't like commercial Chinese food in the U.S. The "French" food was baguette with fondue, although technically speaking [according to my Swiss friend, who's an exchange student], fondue is actually Swiss. He made some swiss potato cheese thing which I didn't get to try :(. Also, he said that you're supposed to make the fondue first, and THEN stick it in the fondue warmer thing, to keep it liquidy. I'm not going to comment any further, because, when found by the Penn Internet Police [hey, they probably exist], I'm going to get suspended for criticising a professor's personality [or, my grade's going to go down].

Anyway, the cheese cubes basically sat in wine in the fondue-maker, because that's not how you make fondue.

This is some Spanish omelette, some corn or flour fried tortilla thing [It. Was. Drenched. In. Oil]. Soooo delicious though!

Mediterranean rice with pita. This pita was the thinnest pita I've never seen in my life... it was wafer thin. Interesthin'. Haha.

I'm not sure what ethnicity this cake was supposed to represent, but the chocolate truffle was extremely soft and ganachey, so I'm guessing it's French. It seemed to be really fresh, actually...Nothing hard and oily, like lower-grade truffles. This cake is definitely not American because it was a small slice by American standards [Think, 1/3 of the size of an American "slice of cake"]. It was extremely moist and gooey, and very dense. It didn't taste like bitter cocoa chocolate, but it wasn't overwhelmingly sweet either. It was almost pudding-like, and most definitely not a brownie. I would say there were plenty of eggs in this cake.

This is amazing... from the Mediterranean table: an almond stuffed into a fig! Amazing!

Not in photos: I had some potato [really nice spices] and dulce de leche [not to my liking] from the Spanish table, and I also didn't try the gazpacho :( since I didn't bring a cup. It's BYOUtensils/vessels!

Soy Butter

When we were in Weymouth, MA, I bought some soy nut butter because it was on sale. It was $1.43 for 425g, and this was only because its sell-by date was in two months. I, however, consume nut butters at a rate greater than 212.5 grams/month. Actually, I long to consume a jar of peanut butter within 24 hours, but I think that might kill me, or I might end up regretting it after going through seven rounds of liposuction. Anyway.

If I had to choose, I would always choose peanut butter over any other nut butter [okay, soybeans are legumes... not nuts...so it's technically out of the count. So, let's just say, out of all butters, I'd pick peanut butter]. However, the past few days, I have been utterly obsessed with this crunchy soy butter. Jar appearances aside, this stuff. Is. Creamy. With a nice random crunch, once in a while. Unlike crunchy peanut butter [which I haven't had in at least five years], the crunchy soy parts do not get stuck in my teeth, and nor do they make the butter hard to spread. It's a win-win situation! It's quite neutral tasting, so even people who don't like toasted soy beans will probably enjoy this, although it does not in any way taste like peanut butter. The jar is actually kinda cheesy in both appearance and company name/logo [haha... I.M. Healthy...]. It is not completely healthy though, in my perspective, since there are 15 grams of fat per serving. "Good" fat, yes, but "bad" in the sense that it's, well, fat. As a vegetarian, 90% or more of my fat comes from the monounsaturated or polyunsaturated variety, yet I am not skinny. So, it really depends on how MUCH one consumes. In which case I lose. Every day. So, they should instead name themselves SoyJoy, if that name hadn't already been taken by a granola bar company. This is literally Soy Joy.

The last time I tried soy butter was the creamy one from Trader Joe's... two years ago. It didn't leave that much of an impression on me, and I preferred almond butter to it [Have you noticed how THICK and CREAMY almond butter is? It is literally the densest [read: oiliest] butter out there.

So, this is a completely biased and laudatory post, but I do blog about what I consume, and I basically have been chugging through the jar the past week or so.

Nut Crunch

My mum bought this thing from Costco that is basically cashews, pumpkin seeds and almonds, smothered in hard sugar coating. It's a "cashew nut crunch" thing... and I tried to emulate it.

I think I dumped in some baking soda into the corn syrup way too early... it was when the syrup was at the soft ball stage, rather than the hard crack stage. I poured it over the fruit and pine nut and almond and peanut and soy nut mix at this point, and, a few hours later, the whole mixture was still gooey. In other words, it was more "chewy" bar than "crunchy" bar, if I were to liken it to granola bars. So, I started microwaving chunks of it, 20 to 30 seconds per batch. In my first timid batch, the fruit completely burned out from the inside... but the nuts were really crunchy and flavourful. The remaining batches were zapped to a crunchy consistency, but they're still rather soggy, due to the fruit. The sugary stuff has solidified, though, but still isn't crunchy. I need to learn how to make candy. In the past, when I made caramel, taffy, and fudge, I never went past the soft ball stage. I don't think I dare myself to. Next time... however...

I wonder what chocolate gummies taste like. I have some leftover corn syrup and a lot of cocoa powder... this is gonna be interesting, when I try it out.

Sesame Chocolate Cookies!

In the book Chocolate by Nick Malgieri, I found a recipe for almond chocolate cookies on page 179. Actually, they're called "Sicilian Easter Hearts", although after my tweaking, they are official not such an object. I also didn't bake the cookies. I just microwaved them.

Ingredients:

1.5 cups of flour and cocoa powder. Use whatever ratio you want.

1 cup of ground sesame - We happen to have ground sesame [a.k.a. sesame flour?] at home. You may have ground almonds.

Ginger powder

0.5 cups of honey

0.5 tbsp baking soda

Some sugar and/or instant coffee powder. Just 'cuz.

Water

So, you just mix everything except the water. Then, add water at about a tablespoon at a time until you get something that resembles dough. This dough must be really dry, but it also has to be malleable. In other words, you can roll balls of it in your hands without it crumbling. If it gets too sticky, too bad, you're out of luck :P.

I stuck mine in the fridge for easy slicing. Then, I sliced three of them [small pieces] and microwaved it for 30 seconds. Seeing that it was still a tad gooey, I microwaved it again for 20 seconds. This time, two of the cookies turned out fantastic, but the third one was a bit too hard in the middle. Either way, this is way more efficient than actually baking the cookies. I'm not sure how many these yield, since I have the rest of the log in the fridge, but the book says that it "makes about 15 large cookies".

Although eating this raw had the same texture as... say, almond paste, I think I prefer it cooked. I prefer it cookied. Haha. It's a bit too dry. So, after microwaving, I prodded them, and they were really poofy and looked like mini pastries, even though they were technically "low fat" [technically, there is a ton of fat in sesame and cocoa powder. However, the fat in those substances pales in comparison to the % of fat in oil or butter or cream cheese, which is basically 100%]. They even tasted like some sorta cakey-cookie thing! The cookie above was really moist in the middle, as you can see. I couldn't really taste much cocoa powder, due to the fact that there was three times as much ground sesame as there was cocoa powder... so I think this leans towards the more "exotic" and "non-traditional" flavourings of cookies, which is cool. I couldn't taste much ginger spice though :(, which is a bit of a letdown. Guess I'll add more next time. I think I'm going to experiment with the microwave a lot more now... since I have proven that it does NOT produce inferior cookies. I mean, the past few years, the microwave has yielded disasters concerning cookies... but this was a nice change.