Hello, Local Strawberries!

These really didn't last long.

They weren't served with cake, nor did they hail from Belgium; and last I checked they had nothing to do with tennis.

But they were sweet, and local, and so, so good!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Ch. 3...

Being able to modify recipes (or do without them) is the mark of a true cook, but I'm not sure that extends to abandoning tortes entirely and making shortcake instead.

You see, several circumstances conspired against me this weekend. 1) I had to work on Saturday morning, which meant I had to miss the North Saanich Farm Market, and my after-work trek to the Deep Cove Market turned up nothing but California strawberries. King Albert of Belgium might be able to get local strawberries, but no such luck for me!

Oh, and don't forget the people at Wimbledon.

The second circumstance was 2) that certain members of my family have to watch what they eat, and when I realized I was about to bake them a six-egg cake, split said cake in half and fill it with "2 cups of heavy cream, whipped," I had a slight crisis of conscience.

Normally cake wouldn't cause so much trouble, but this particular cake was meant to follow a (rather large) Father's Day dinner, and...well, in the interest of keeping all fathers present out of the ER, we opted for strawberry shortcake instead.

But not to worry. Next week's "exceptionally delicious" (p. 135) Mocha Almond Torte has a much better chance of becoming a reality!

Though I have to say, it is hard to argue with a good strawberry shortcake at this time of year...

YouTube Gadget

A.K.A. "unlimited access to clips from The Sound of Music without even having to leave this page." You know you love me.

My new YouTube gadget is on the left-hand side, right below the Weekly Menu. If you type in "sound of music," your first hit will be the brilliant Antwerp station flashmob set to "Do Re Mi."

And if you type in "edelweiss," your third hit will be a clip from SOM featuring the real-live voice of Christopher Plummer. Classic, except for the (Russian?) subtitles!

P.S. If you click on the videos, YouTube will open in a new window and you'll be able to see them full-size.

Ch. 2: Hazelnut Buttons

Surprise!

I know you were expecting Hazelnut Crescents, but that was before I lost my no. 5 icing tip and decided that buttons looked cuter anyway.

These cookies have only three ingredients: ground hazelnuts, egg whites, and sugar. First, whisk an egg white with some sugar, then add the ground hazelnuts. Second, beat a few more egg whites with a little more sugar, and fold them into the hazelnut mixture.

Voilà! Pipe the dough onto a cookie sheet (crescents, buttons, whatever - they won't lose their shape in the oven!) and bake for 20 minutes.

These are meant to be sandwiched together with apricot jam or chocolate cream, but mine looked nice decorated with melted chocolate and the occasional chocolate-dipped hazelnut. Not surprisingly, they are crisp, sweet, and nutty-tasting.

By the way, they smell amazing after 20 minutes in the oven - like a whole pan full of Purdy's Hedgehogs or Nutella!

It has been suggested (and I wholeheartedly agree) that this dough would make a perfect crust for a chocolate-apricot tart. I think I would paint the hazelnut shell with chocolate, then spread a layer of apricot jam on top and finish it off with a sprinkle of ground hazelnuts.

Speaking of Hazelnuts...

According to Wikipedia - AND the B.C. government, so there you have it! - Turkey produces most of the world's hazelnuts, but they're also grown as close to home as the Fraser Valley.

Hazelnuts have a 60.5% fat content (!), and were cultivated in Britain as early as 7000 B.C. What a sad world it must have been without Nutella, Frangelico, Ferrero Rocher, Hedgehogs, and yes - even Hazelnut Buttons...

Zabar's

This New York "epicurean emporium" (est. 1934) is listed by Reich as a good place to buy Unusual Ingredients and Baking Accessories.

Zabar's now has a website, a blog, a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter account.

Apparently, its Cheese Counter acquired a 150-lb. wheel of Beemster Graskaas on Friday to celebrate Saul Zabar's birthday and commemorate National Cheese Day. Sounds like my kind of place...

One More Thing...

On page 4 of the Demel Vienna menu (found at the bottom of this page), there is a cartoon of a man dressed as a Rehrücken. That is to say, he is dressed as a cake that's meant to look like a cut of venison.

...am I missing something here?

A Quick Note about Venison

...yes, venison!

Let me explain. There is a cake in Chapter 4 (Tortes Without Flour) called Chocolate Saddle of Venison, or Rehrücken. Apparently it is "a well-loved cake in Austria, with a great tradition - a favorite of connoisseurs" (p. 144).

Basically, Rehrücken is a long, thin chocolate cake baked in a small quonset hut. Seattle kitchen store Sur La Table will sell you the distinctive ribbed pan here for $27. Once baked, Rehrücken is decorated with chocolate icing and slivered almonds that stick out like porcupine quills. With a little imagination, says Reich, it looks very much like...well, a saddle of venison.

What really gets me is not the existence of this cake, but the lack of a story to go with it. Was it invented when real venison was scarce? Is it evidence of early vegetarianism? Was some cook, a very long time ago, very, very bored?

I would love to find out, but everyone seems so blasé about Rehrücken's origins! Curmudgeon's recipe on Chowhound (which dates from 1860) says only this about it: "Rehrücken: A cake named after, and made to look like a tenderloin of venison." Nope, nothing weird about that!

My guess is that Rehrücken was meant to be a tribute to real venison. Live-Like-A-German.com (which has some great German recipes!) sure makes real venison sound good: "Rehrücken means venison tenderloin and it is often served with freshly made noodles such as Spätzle and a very nice gravy based on a dry red wine."

Mmm.

Cones that Unroll in the Night (Con't)

Cones Filled with Whipped Cream (first attempted June 5th, 2010)

Egg cookies rolled into cones, dipped in chocolate, and filled with lightly sweetened cream

THE COOKIES: I dropped an egg right off the bat when I went to make these, and found myself wondering: could it be a bad omen?

Ms. Reich did give me two warnings. First, she said to bake no more than eight at a time, or they'd harden before I had a chance to fold them. Second, she said that they tend to unfold, so it's important to keep them seam side down while they cool. She even gave me permission to use a toothpick "as an emergency measure" if things got really bad (p. 46).

Nevertheless, I kept calm and carried on. The batter itself is very simple - just a couple of eggs, some sugar and water, and some flour. It's dropped by teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet, then flattened into circles with the back of a spoon till each cookie is thin and three inches wide. The cookies are baked for 3-5 minutes, then folded and left to cool.

ROUND ONE: The first bake time was tense. I soon learned that the best way to fold cookies is to loosen and fold them on the cookie sheet - airlifting to the wire rack leaves them hopelessly stiff. Even so, I could only fold four cookies max before they hardened too much and splintered instead. I lost a couple that way, but my brother convinced me they'd be useful for quality control, so I wasn't too disappointed. On their own, the cookies are sweet, eggy, and chewy - very much like fortune cookies.

ROUND TWO: I made the second batch bigger and thinner, but big cones are just not as pretty as little ones.

ROUND THREE: I went back to the perfect three-inch size, but left them in just a minute too long. I couldn't fold them cause their edges kept cracking! (See tragedy below).

ROUND FOUR: All in all, I ended up with twelve cones to dip in chocolate and fill with cream. Final notes? The cookies have to be small and have an even thickness; they won't fold unless they're really hot and not too brown; and toothpicks might be useful in emergencies, but they do leave pretty obvious holes.

THE CHOCOLATE ICING: I used the recipe called Chocolate Icing II (p. 319). It's not really icing at all, just melted chocolate mixed with simple syrup and unsalted butter. But that's not to say it's not absolutely delicious. The best part is that it covers any ragged edges and gives the cookies a certain evening-wear polish.

THE WHIPPED CREAM: Obviously an icing bag works best to fill cones, but be warned: filling the bag is a two-person job, and filling the cones is a full-contact sport! My hands were covered in whipped cream and icing sugar by the end. I know, just imagine how awful that must have been.

THE VERDICT: They're rather like cream puffs. The whipped cream adds lightness and balances the eggy flavour, and they're fun to eat, cause the cream will get everywhere if you're not careful. But honestly? Too finicky for me.

Thank you, helpers and taste-testers!

...I am now on the lookout for hazelnuts.

Ch. 1: Cones that Unroll in the Night

As of right now? Everything I know about Viennese pastry, I learned from The Sound of Music.

“More strudel, Herr Detweiler?”

Uncle Max, that “very charming sponge,” strolls onto the Von Trapps’ terrace and encounters a maid holding a tray of strudel. The scene is so yellow with sunshine that I’ve always thought the strudel must be apricot-flavoured, made with jam and particularly golden pastry.

“How many have I had?”

“Two!”

“Make it an uneven three.”

How delicious.

Not only is he wearing a grey suit and lounging on a terrace, but the man has actually lost count of the number of apricot strudels he’s eaten. No wonder I associate Viennese pastry with luxury.

But according to Lilly Joss Reich, it’s not just professionals who make beautiful pastry! (Although she does recommend a place called Demel's - "perhaps the world's greatest institution devoted to the enjoyment of pastry" (p. 10) - if you don't believe her).

Reich was brought up on homemade pastries, and in 1970 she published an expanded take on her mother’s recipe collection called The Viennese Pastry Cookbook.

I found my copy of the VPC in my favourite used bookstore on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. Compellingly, besides being passed on through four generations, the recipes in the VPC also survived the Nazi occupation of France. Left in a safe-deposit box in Paris just before the city fell, Reich's mother's notebooks were passed over because they were "considered of no importance” (p. 14).

I feel lucky to have the book at all!