Buttermilk Cornbread

It’s the end of healthy January month, how did you do? Were you eating your vegetables and getting more exercise? I have to be truthful with you. While I’ve been posting all of these good for you, lower calories recipes for you, I’ve been secretly stockpiling deliciously evil, high fat treats. I know, I’m terrible. You’re in for a dangerous February!

Along with those sneaky desserts, I’ve been eating lots of soup. It’s been that kind of winter in the Northeast, a soup-eating winter. In fact there is another weather front heading for us tonight! The television keeps warning me about it every fifteen minutes. Warning, warning! Snow is coming! Then some ice, lots and lots of ice! Then you’re going to fall down tomorrow morning on your walk into work. Thank you television, now I know to wrap myself in plastic and pillows before I leave for work in the morning.

While the soup has been nothing spectacular, recipes still in the works, I do have some amazing cornbread to share with you. I have tried a lot of cornbread recipes, because nothing is better with soup. They are all different, too bland, too sweet, to bicarby (note: use baking powder when directed, not baking soda). This has become my favorite, it goes perfectly with chili. It’s best right out of the oven, crunchy around the edges and soft in the middle. Now go warm up and watch the snow come down.

Chocolate and Peanut butter Mousse Entremet

Welcome to a special Thursday in the kitchen! Why am I posting today? Because today is Daring Bakers reveal day! I have to say, when I originally read the challenge for this month, I was concerned. When I looked up ‘entremets’ on google, I found some pretty daunting looking pastries. Go ahead, Google entremets. You’ll find gorgeous looking French pastries with intricate designs and tempting fillings. Would I be able to complete this challenge successfully? Yes, I would.

Delicious layers, mmmm.  Read on, control your drooling.

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog Accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an entremets dessert.

My life has been a little crazy over the past month and I had to spread out preparation of this dessert. It took me an entire week, a few hours here and there, to complete this challenge. I can say that I am completely satisfied with my final result. Sure, there are imperfections, but I am amazed what can be done with the right directions. You too can perform like a pastry chef, without all that training.

The first step is to bake to Biscuit Joconde Imprime. When you say it, you must do it with a really bad French accent, it will make your day. Haw, haw, haw (French laughing). The imprime is where you can get fancy and creative. I decided I would get ready for Valentine’s Day and piped pink hearts into my imprime. (Check out some of the other amazing creations in the Daring Kitchen) You’ll see my step-by-step process of creating the shell of the entremets. Now you’re seeing where those fancy patterns come from, right? It’s so simple!

The next step is to get even more creative. What do you want to put in it? I had a massive number of ideas floating around in my head. A key lime mousse with a dark chocolate glaze, an entremets filled with ice cream and topped with meringue, a blackberry cream topped with lemon whip. Oh boy, the possibilities are endless! I decided to go with a personal favorite, Chocolate and peanut butter. Delicious. My entremets is filled with a solid chocolate mousse and topped with a lighter peanut butter mousse and finished with a bittersweet chocolate hat. From the mousse that I’ve licked from the bowls, spatulas and my hands, this is one amazing dessert. I don’t want to share… So here are the directions to make your own!

Chocolate Marshmallows

So we’re almost to the end of the month. Where has January gone? I can tell you where. Half of you were sick for at least a week. Facebook, twitter and blog posts have told me this. At least half of you were hiding inside, getting away from the horrific snowstorms, torrential rain and floods. The vast majority of you were busy avoiding your mailboxes and inboxes, afraid of those Christmas bills arriving this month. Luckily, we still had each other.

 

To celebrate our hard work this month, I thought we deserved some sweets. Did you know that you can make your own candy? For the longest time I thought those Hershey and Mars people were magical. How do they churn out those chocolate bars, filled with caramel and cookies? How are these gummy bears so cute? As a kid we didn’t have a lot of candy in the house. It was a special treat for when we went to the movies. I would get cherry Tangy Taffy, it was awesome. If someone can locate some Tangy Taffy, please send me a box!

When I was in college we got cable. Yes, college! I went to college in 1999, not thirty years ago. According to boyfriend, I was a deprived child. I never got to watch Nick at Nite or MTV and apparently I will make a terrible Trivial Pursuit partner in ten years. (Seriously, boyfriend has refused to be my future Trivial Pursuit partner!) This lack of cable until the new millennium meant that I didn’t get to watch the Food Network until ten years ago! And then I was introduced to Unwrapped.

Unwrapped, that fantastic show with Mark Summers (the TV game show host from Nick at Nite, see I know stuff) that shows us exactly how foods are made. Suddenly the mysteries were beginning to unravel. Snickers bars are made in layers, by a robot. Gummy bears are formed in cornstarch molds, by a robot. Luckily we don’t need robots to make candies at home. And for the fact that we do not use robots, we can call our candies “Artisan” chocolates. Enjoy.

Also, the secondary purpose for posting these chocolate marshmallows is... You can bid on them in an online bake sale on Monday, January 31st!  Stephanie at Steph's Bite by Bite is hosting an online bake sale to help raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  She will be running a marathon to benefit this cause and needs to raise $1,900 to help battle against Leukemia, Lymphoma, Hodgkin's Disease and Myeloma.  Stop by and check out all the goodies up for action and help surrport a good cause!