Sunday, June 21, 2009

burgers and cake for daddy

First off...cheers to me that I finally bought the Baked cookbook. I confess I was being cheap and working off photo copies. But I figured it was silly to have all these recipes in my cooking repertoire and not have the book so now I have it.

Jeff requested burgers for Fathers' Day so I finally made the Turkey Burgers. What a great recipe! I love recipes with veggies and it is comforting to eat a healthy white meat rather than red. I used dried oregano and fresh basil (from my very own basil plant on the deck). Like Danielle, I used ~1.25 pounds of meat so I did 3 cloves of garlic and extra salt. I had plans to grill them, but we were out of propane. I did a combination of browning them in the olive oil on a skillet and broiling them in the oven. The consistency seemed like it would be fine for a grill, however, I realized after I shaped them into patties that I forgot the egg. I think it would have made them a little more moist. I'm going to make them again on Thursday for our ward recipe exchange (theme: 4th of July BBQ...perfect) and I will use the same amount of meat, remember the egg, and grill them. Though I don't think it would hurt to brown them with the olive oil first...I like the flavor of olive oil. Simon loves "cheegugers" so I figured he would eat this. He ate half of it and then said "no like it" to the rest...which he does often. I finished his and with no complaint.

I very seriously considered making Jeff the German Chocolate Cake since that is his favorite kind of cake. However, after reading through the comments I decided I will make it when more than one person will enjoy it. I don't like coconut so I don't like German Chocolate Cake...but maybe I will like this one. Instead I made the milk chocolate frosting and put it on a Devil's Food cake from a box. I had to make a few modifications. I only had just under 1 C of heavy cream so I made it 1 C with whole milk and then I made 2/3 of a recipe. It seemed a little runny even after I chilled it for 15 minutes so I added about 1/4 C powdered sugar. It might have been because it is rather humid here in Northern Virginia...but the kitchen wasn't especially warm or anything. I used Ghirardelli bittersweet baking chocolate and Hershey's milk chocolate chips so I felt like at least half of the chocolate was high quality. In the end I can't say I loved it. I was hopeful, but it was too bitter for my liking...and I'm even a dark chocolate lover. It was better than your usual homemade cocoa frosting. My favorite kind of chocolate frosting is the store bought dark chocolate, but I usually just stick with a cream cheese frosting on cakes. Jeff thought it was an 8 on 0-10 scale. I'd say a 6. I may try again when I am better prepared with all the ingredients. I will only make a 1/2 recipe next time because it makes a ton of frosting.


I hope to make the pasta this week. I was planning to get the ingredients yesterday, but I wrote my list on the back of my Border's coupon which I gave to the cashier at Border's before I went to the grocery store. I am a big fan of the concept of Deceptively Delicious, but I haven't tried a lot of the recipes so I'm looking forward to it.

Has anyone ever "fondanted" a cake? (Did I make up the word 'fondanted'? I guess fondant is a verb because when I google it I get things like "how to fondant a cake.") I'm thinking about it for Jack's birthday on Saturday. I don't think the frosting sounds all that tasty, but they look so beautiful.

4 comments:

Melanie said...

Luann- I've tried fondant once, a few weeks ago. I didn't like it. It was hard to make and tasted gross. It's worth trying once I think, but maybe not for Jack's b-day cake, I don't know. I thought I'd do Owen's cake in fondant but won't now. You can see a picture of mine on my blog.

Hyeyoung said...

I think fondant icing looks beautiful on a cake and you can make some super cute stuff with it. But I have to agree with Melanie...it's not that tasty. I have yet to taste fondant that I would classify as good.

Happy birthday to Jack...hard to believe a year has gone by so quickly...I was just thinking about being in the hospital last year and calling your room.

acandiedapple said...

Hey LuAnn. Sorry I didn't get your message until well after you left the store. I'm glad you got it figured out. You're right. That recipe makes tons of frosting.

And, I'll agree with everyone else, fondant is not tasty. Not tasty at all. It is very pretty though. You could do two cakes. One for eating and one for show?

Melissa said...

Fondant does not taste good, but an option is to use a cream cheese or butter cream under it and then when it is time for Jack to eat the cake you can pull the fondant off. My sister did that for he daughters first birthday. Any guests can also choose to eat it or pull the fondant off. I can't believe little Jack is one.