Why Bother? 2012 - Fondant

Sorry for the delay in this challenge post, my kitchen was all in boxes from our move!  Believe me when I say, this was worth the wait!

Fondant is a strange concept.  When explaining what I was making to my friends and coworkers, they were all confused.  They asked "What is fondant?"  "Is it that stuff you peel off of wedding cakes?"  "Why would I want to eat solid frosting?"  Those who watch too much Food Network knew exactly what I was talking about, most were still confused until I brought in the goodies.

 I'm sure you've all had an experience with fondant.  Generally it covers wedding cakes and has a minimal amount of flavor.  Mostly sugary, sweet, stretchy and tough, most people I see at weddings have removed the outer shell of the cake to eat the insides.  So I wondered, does fondant have to taste so gross?

I looked through several of my cake cookbooks, searched the internet and read through old baking magazines until I found two different fondant recipes.  Traditional fondant, made with gelatin and glycerin as additives, is pegged as the trickier version to make.  Marshmallow fondant, made with marshmallows and powdered sugar, is billed as the "everymans" fondant recipe.  I found this to be exactly the opposite.

I started the day with making the marshmallow fondant.  The recipe calls for melting an entire bag of mini marshmallows in the microwave.  Once the mini mallows are melted you pour in almost a whole 2 pound bag of powdered sugar and start mixing.  Then comes the messy part, you have to knead all of the sugar into the marshmallows, by hand.  Even with repeated greasing of my hands with shortening, I was a big mess.  The fondant was sticking to everything it touched.  It took a good fifteen minutes to incorporate all of the sugar into the marshmallow and form a smooth fondant.  My arms were tired.

Once the marshmallow fondant was safely in a zip-top bag, I started with the traditional recipe.  The most difficult thing required of me was to microwave some gelatin in water.  The remainder of the hard work was complete by my stand mixer.  Everything mixed together much more easily that in the marshmallow recipe and required only two minutes of hands on kneading to finish.

You might be wondering if there was a difference in the outcome of the two recipes.  First, they both rolled and shaped easily.  Other than a modest color difference (the traditional fondant was pure white, while the marshmallow fondant was slightly off-white), I found no physical difference in the recipes.  The major difference came with the taste. 

The marshmallow fondant tasted just like a marshmallow, like vanilla.  I used this fondant to cover the cookies and they were a smash hit.  People were raving about how good the fondant was and how delicious the cookies were (Click here for the cookie recipe).  The traditional fondant had the same texture, it was just almond-flavored (because I added almond extract).  I enjoyed the fact that I could flavor the fondant with whatever extract or oil that I wanted.  Imagine chocolate cake, covered in mint fondant or red velver cake covered in cheesecake flavored fondant.  So many possibilities!

In the end, I think that I preferred the traditional fondant recipe for two reasons.  1. The ease of preparation.  This fondant came together so much quicker and cleaner than the marshmallow fondant.  2. The flavor.  Being able to add different flavors to the fondant open up a whole world of possibilites. 

I don't think that I will be buying prepared fondant in the future.  Comparing all three recipes, the store-bought stuff comes out as a definite loser. 

Why Bother??? 2012 - Soft Pretzels

Shopping malls.  Sporting arenas.  A street corner in New York City.  An odd collection of places, but they are some of the only places that you can find a soft pretzel.  Sweet and salty, yeasty and warm, soft pretzels are one of the food items that you would rarely think to make on your own.  These huge pretzels are among the only reasons that I like going to sporting events.  Especially baseball games.  I have many memories of sharing a box of soft preztel bites with my mom and these memories also have to do with sporting events too.

Back in the days of the early nineties, the Buffalo Bills were a football team to be reckoned with.  In those years, we had Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith, Steve Tasker, Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed, all under the direction of Marv Levy.  You'll remember that I am indifferent to football these days, which means that these guys were a big deal, because I remember their names to this day.  The dream team went to the super bowl four times in four years.  They also had one devoted fan, my dad.

He would hunker down every Sunday in front of the big screen (or the radio) and watch his team fight their way to victory.  In the years of the dream team, wins outnumbered losses and it was a happy time.  Unfortunately, the dream eventually faded and we were left with a team that was recovering from the retirement of many of its stars.  The win-loss record suffered and so did their fans.

In the years of awakening, those sad years after 1995, the Buffalo fans held out hope that their team could rebuild and return to their old glory.  Those of you who follow football know this, Buffalo has yet to return to those dream win-loss records.  Sundays of those post-1995 years were spent escaping the house, running from the game and hiding from the darkness it brought over the house.  Football meant sadness and depression (and yelling and the TV). 

To escape the football fog, my mom and I would head out Sunday afternoons.  We would hit the mall and shop to our hearts content.  Trying on clothes, looking at sparkly jewelry, but mostly just enjoying some time together.  At the end of each shopping trip, we would head to the pretzel stand and get a pack of pretzel bites.  I'd get the nacho cheese and mom would get the cheddar.  These buttery little bites of bread would be the prefect end to our escape day. 

The decision to make soft pretzels at this time of the year was motivated by the upcoming Super Bowl.  Of the two recipes I tried out, I preferred the buttery mall pretzels.  The boiled pretzels just didn't turn out like I wanted them.  My verdict on this challenge?  It was totally worth it to make these guys.  They didn't take nearly as long as I thought they would and were completely delicious.  I think that I can skip the mall pretzels now, because these were just as good. 

I was unable to replicate the stadium pretzel.  This just means that 1. I'll have to keep trying and 2. I'll have to keep going to sporting events until I get it right!  Let's go BUFFALO!

Why Bother??? 2012 - Stocks

Welcome to the first post of the Why Bother??? 2012 challenge!  Have you had a look at the schedule of events for this year?  Do you have a post that you are already looking forward to?  I'm excited about this years challenge and I'm very happy that all of you were instrumental in creating it.  All of the challenges for this year were thought up and posted by you guys, whether it be here on the blog, on Facebook or through Twitter. 

While the challenges were set out by all of you, I took the liberty to choose when to complete each of these tasks.  Condiments and buns wound up in the weeks prior to Memorial day weekend so that you could make some for your own summer parties.  Jams are set to be prepared in the midst of the summer fruit season, when I can get the best produce from our local farmers market.  Stock was set for the first post of the year because we are in the midst of soup season, with months of winter left ahead of us.  Unfortunately, my friends in the southern hemisphere are on the opposite schedule as I am...  Maybe we can meet up in the middle, spring and fall?

Boyfriend and I spent this weekend at home in New Jersey.  We decided to relax at home and enjoy the nice weather in our town.  I spent much of last week reading my many cookbooks, researching stocks in all of their incarnations.  There are many options when it comes to making your own stock.  First you must choose what flavor you would like, chicken, beef, fish, vegetable?  Then you have to decide what your background notes will be, veggies, herbs, spices?

I decided to make the two stocks that I am always buying at the store, chicken and vegetable.  Once I completed all of my reading, I discovered that it is a very easy task to make stock.  Simply choose your flavors, cook them up in a big pot of water and strain to collect your stock.  Do you own an 8-quart pot?  Do you have some paper towels?  Can you purchase food at the grocery store?  If you said yes to those three questions, you can make stock.

The vegetable stock was beyond simple to make.  I chose a variety of vegetables and some of my favorite herbs to make a flavorful stock.  Fennel is used as the major flavor in this stock, with celery, onion and carrot as the milder flavors.  The house smelled of herbs and anise while this stock was simmering.  Boyfriend asked if I had spilled a jar of pepper on the floor.  After simmering for two hours, filtering of the stock gave a golden colored stock with a pleasant aroma.  I used this stock as the base for my cheese potato soup.

For the chicken stock, I decided to stick with classic flavors - celery, carrots, onions and parsely.  My only concern was simmering the stock long enough to cook the chicken and impart the right amount of flavor into the stock.  After averaging the times in each recipe, I decided that between 90 minutes and two hours was the right amount of time to cook the chicken and make good stock.  This stock needs to sit overnight to allow you to skim off the chicken fat, so make it one day ahead of time.  You'll see this stock in use this weekend in a tasty Thai-style soup.

Would I make stock at home again?  I definitely would, the flavor varieties offered by making your own stock has made me a convert.  However, I don't really need to make or buy more stock for a while.  Each pot of simmering ingredients gave me about ten cups of stock.  My freezer in now well stocked...