The recipe is easy enough. I love how through these cooking adventures I’m realizing how easy it is to make the food I crave. It’s a comfort to know that I can make delicious food for not only myself – cause I couldn’t finish a whole Tres Leches on my own – but my friends and family as well.

The cake was a simple white cake flavored with Frangelico. If you’ve never had Frangelico I believe you must be missing out on one of the great drinks of your life. The nutty and creamy flavors of this liquor create an absolute jubilee for your taste buds. I have to be honest, I drank all that was left in the bottle after using WAY more than was called for in the recipe. For the cake batter the recipe called for a lot of eggs and I suppose that’s because it needs to withstand the milk and cream bath it takes after the baking. Surprisingly enough I was happy to learn that the extra eggs actually doesn’t bog down the cake at all. In fact, I love the bounce in the cake after I take it out of the oven.

The cream bath for the cake was a splendid experience to make. Condensed milk, evaporated milk, and whipping cream. Oh god, doesn’t that just sound heavenly all by itself? But to bring out the hazelnut flavor I added –of course – more Frangelico as well as some Hazelnut flavored coffee creamer. Whooda thunk, right?? Anyways I boiled them all together and they made the apartment smell like it was made of pudding. Rich, dreamy, and warm scents of vanilla and sugar.

After the cake was done I put it in a large Tupperware container and I poked a bunch of holes in the cake to soak up for the cream bath. Pouring the cream bath over the cake was a very satisfying task in that you could see the cake slowly rise up and then sink as it soaked up the cream.

For my first attempt at Tres Leches, I made an almond whipped cream to top the cake with but I found that, even though it came out great and was a nice compliment to the cake, it took away from the subtle hazelnut flavor of the cake itself. Not to mention the cake is very rich on it’s own. There was no need for whipped cream.

Let me tell you, this cake was so well received by all my friends that have tried it. It made me so proud of my humble cooking abilities and myself. So thank you everyone, for keeping me motivated to keep on cooking. And whoever you are, come by and I’ll bake you a cake drowned in three different kinds of cream and perhaps I’ll share some Frangelico with you.

Since I didn’t have apple preserves, I used strawberry and raspberry preserves which was awesome! It comes out like liquid magma though, when they first come out of the oven! I was SUPER excited my puff pastry actually puffed since I had some major holes in it while I was making it. But all’s well that ends well right?

The pastry was extremely flaky and buttery, and didn’t hold up very well to idle hands touching it. The filling kind of spilled out during baking but I will blame that on the fact that I ALWAYS overstuff my baked goods. All in all they were delicious! I had extra pieces of pastry that of course do not go to waste, so I made them into little swirls and put preserves in the middle.

I wish I had a better oven to cook everything in. My parents oven is completely messed up! (maybe I’ll post a picture of it so you can see what it is I’m working with here!) For now a description will suffice: it is a very old gas oven with what used to be a black door. Now, the door to the oven has been stripped of half of its layer, is bent on one side so it doesn’t close properly, one of the hinges isn’t connected anymore, and the handle rattles. Oh, and you have to manually turn the fire back on when the oven starts cooling. Which means: you can’t possibly get an even temperature for your baking, and the heat (even if the oven were calibrated to the correct temperatures- though I know it’s not) would seep out the door because it’s unlined and doesn’t fit.

But! Even with these… minor? setbacks! Puff Pastry has come out victorious! And I still have half the puff pastry in the freezer for a cold and rainy day

Veggie Club

THIS is a classic sandwich from one of my favorite sandwich shops in the Tri-Valley area, Toasty’s. It is a hole-in-the-wall shop that a co-worker of mine found while looking for a Quiznos. It’s a fantastic little place and they have the cutest white and red checkered tablecloths on their tables, like a picnic. I don’t even know how to describe their sandwiches- at work we call them Magical Sandwiches. They are so flavorful and all the different flavors just work so well together.

They start with their own baked bread which is fluffy and unlike any bread I’ve ever had anywhere else (WAY better than Subway, there’s actual substance to their bread) and some spicy (as in chocked full of flavor, not my mouth is burning) mustard and then they throw every vegetable they could think of on there! It’s amazing. The shop itself is pretty humble which is why I think its so great and wonderful that they have these sandwiches that can just blow your mind! *kapow! I think I will have one for lunch tomorrow….

This was also the firs time I ever used white wine in any dish I ever made. Butter + White Wine = AWESOME!! However the scallops didn’t turn out as juicy as I’d hoped. More on the rubbery side, I would say. But nothing more butter and white wine couldn’t fix. When all else fails, MORE SAUCE.

This time, I went back to the green market and got more scallops and some beautiful oyster mushrooms to go in my sauce. I am so excited about this meal!! I am actually cooking it as I type this. I am on a break in prep for the actual searing but I have to wait a few more minutes for my guests to arrive. I have already made a lemon and parsley quinoa to go with the scallops. It turned out a little less tart than I had anticipated but thankfully I bought plenty of lemons to make up for it. I have also decided to grill some yellow zucchini to go along with the meal. I’m so excited to finish and then we will see if this 2nd chance seared scallop dish will be a triumph as the salmon was.

No need to hold your breath, but there will be more to come.

Oh, and if we didn’t already announce it, Kawaianiani has apparently mastered the elusive puff-pastry!

Alrighty!! I can’t really call this dish a triumph but it was a good 2nd attempt. I seared the scallops in butter and garlic – as we all know should be their own food groups – and they turned out wonderfully. Not a rubbery bite in site. The skin on the outside has a beautiful golden-brown crust and the inside was juicy and sweet. The sauce on the other hand was a bit on the salty side.

Yes, I got carried away with the salt. Which isn’t too surprising for me because I am an avid salt lover. The mushrooms were absolutely fantastic and to bring in a little crunch I added diced zuccini. Leeks, more garlic, and fresh parsley made the sauce a little ‘green’ but I must have gotten a little excited about the leeks because I think they overpowered the sauce. They were just such gorgeous leeks I found at the market I just couldn’t help myself!  I placed the scallops in the sauce to warm them up and then placed it on top of a bed of the lemon quinoa I made. Grilled up some yellow zuccini and that was that. It was a delightful dish but perhaps next time… less leeks.

Melanie's first triumph!

So, once upon a time there was a bottle of Honey Ginger Balsamic VInegar that was in lust for a nice slab of salmon. I understood their need to be with one another and married them. Thanks to the genius that is my Ani-face, Salmon and the HG Balsamic were baked together to make a fantasticly juicy dish that I was quite impressed I could pull off.

I placed a nice fillet of salmon in bit of foil and diced up some garlic and rubbed it all over the fish. Garlic makes all magic possible. I swear, Tinker Bell’s fairy dust is really garlic sprinkles. I also chopped up a bunch of parsley to give the fish a little color variation and I love how parsley gives any dish a very subtle “green” taste. Salt & Peppered. Then I poured on the balsamic vinegar to coat the fish. I rolled the foil to completely package the salmon and placed it on a baking sheet and popped it in the oven at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes. Mind you, I had a whole butternut squash in the oven cooking as well, so cooking time may vary if the only thing you’re baking is the fish.

Back to the squash. I had picked up the b-nut squash when Matthew, Andrew, and I had gone to Westchester to pick pumpkins and apples. It was a great day! Anyways, I labored at opening that squash but after some lip biting and elbow grease, it cracked open. I sprinkled some Black Truffle salt (graciously provided by Ani-face, yet again), ground black pepper, and drizzled some olive oil- which also made me realize how much I need a real oil-drizzling bottle for my olive oil. I place the b-nut squash face down on a baking sheet and baked it for what seemed like forever!!! I don’t even know how long it really took, but I want to say at least an hour.

The second side we had was some garlic and butter asparagus which of course was fantastic and also the very first time I didn’t overcook the asparagus. So, all in all, this meal was my very first true triumph!! Go Melanie!

Makes: 2 pounds, 3 ounces dough

Détrempe

2 cups unbleached all-purpose four, plus more for rolling out the dough

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

About 1 1/3 cup heavy cream, as needed

Beurrage

¾ pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into tablespoons

3 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour

Ingredients

détrempe

Anyways I wanna get started. So I was working hard the other day – ok, fine I was totally breaking in the middle of my work to write this blog about Hazelnut Cake. I was on the Godiva website and saw they had hazelnut cake and I was inspired! Next thing I know I switched off the reruns of Home Improvement and started looking up a recipe for hazelnut cake. Excoooooze me, Food Network, who has a triple hazelnut cake with buttercream frosting. Oh…. Oh now that I read this thing I think they actually expect me to do this thing without cake mix. Oh- there it is, “Level: Diffucult”. I knew it. Damn you Food Network bastards! Now I have to weigh out my need for hazelnut cake against the energy, time investment, and brainpower it will take to make this.

If you know me, I’m NO BAKER. Nor am I a candlestick maker but that’s probably for a different blog. As far as my cooking experience goes I know that baking is more a science than an art. Not to say baked goods don’t look deliciously artistic but baking takes a patience that I definitely don’t have. So, let me re-read this recipe and we will reconvene in a line or so.

Holy shit I need a mixer?? That was not listed in the ingredients list. Fail. Now I need to see how I can get away with mixing this thing myself. Or cough up the whole $20 to buy a mixer.

Until then – hazelnut cake on standby.