Tapioca custard (p. 820)

I'll come right out and say it--I hate tapioca. I've always hated tapioca. It reminds me of fish eyes (I don't know why, it's not like people are trying to sneak fish eyes in to my food on a regular--or even irregular-- basis).

Josh has taken to bubble tea like a fish to water. I hate bubble tea. I learned how much I hate it while I was in Taiwan, where it seems to be the national drink of choice. Sucking up those boba is horrifying to me. So, it turns out I hate tapioca in all of it's forms. But when I realized that Josh liked bubble tea it dawned on me that he must like tapioca and a metaphorical light bulb went off. I could pawn Tapioca custard (p. 820), something I would never eat, off on him!

Obviously, I am not the only person who hates tapioca. The tapioca was on the very bottom shelf at the grocery store.

I whisked milk, sugar, quick-cooking tapioca, and salt in a saucepan, let it sit for ten minutes, and then slowly brought it to a simmer:



After about two minutes, I whisked in a beaten egg. I stirred it over low heat until it started to thicken:




I stirred a bit of vanilla in and voila! Tapioca custard!



It was everything I expected it to be but Josh liked it and it was certainly easy. The one bite I forced myself to eat did have a nice flavor but I couldn't get over the texture. I've decided my feelings are best described in haiku form:

Fish eyes or bubbles?
Is it really a dessert?
Ick! Tapioca

Random facts:

• Tapioca comes from the cassava plant. There are two types of cassava: bitter and sweet. Bitter is preferred by farmers because it naturally deters pests and animals due to compounds that convert to hydrogen cyanide. Eating untreated or mistreated cassava can (and has) killed lots and lots of people over the years. Cooking is enough to eliminate the hydrogen cyanide in sweet cassava but bitter cassava has to be more thoroughly processed before it's safe to eat. Apparently the cyanide gets carried out in the water ( On Food and Cooking, p. 305 and Wikipedia). One would think this would cause major environmental impact.
• Even so, cassava is the third most eaten carbohydrate in the world. It's particularly important in the tropics because it can grow in poor soil with low rainfall (Wikipedia).
• Cassava is a gluten-free starch (Wikipedia), so it would be good for Celiacs and people with gluten-intolerance.

New Orleans bread pudding (p. 822) and Southern whiskey sauce (p. 852)

As I mentioned in the last post, I decided to have a New Orleans tribute day which included jambalaya and New Orleans bread pudding (p. 822) with a Southern whiskey sauce (p. 852).

I am an experienced bread pudding baker--I love bread pudding and frequently make it. In fact, I'm the second generation of people who love bread pudding--my mom and dad used to make it from leftover donuts all the time in college. So the fact that this recipe confused me is really impressive--I don't know if I would have guessed my way through the directions correctly if I had never made bread pudding before.

The recipe says to cut French or Italian bread into half inch slices and then arrange the slices almost upright in tightly spaced rows.

What does that mean?

Usually the loafs aren't sliced--was I supposed to leave it in a loaf?

I figured no, I would slice it one way, and then slice it into strips:

I think that was correct, since the recipe turned out well. I sprinkled dried cranberries over the bread (I used cranberries instead of raisins because I like them more).

I mixed eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon in a large bowl until frothy:

I poured the liquid over the bread:

And let it soak for an hour. I then baked it for about an hour until the top was puffy and lightly browned:

And onto the sauce--

I melted butter in a small saucepan and then stirred in sugar, bourbon (Maker's Mark!), water, nutmeg, and salt). I used TJOC's trick for adding in an egg--I added hot sauce to a beaten egg and then added the mixture back to the sauce. I figure they want you to do it that way so you don't end up with scrambled eggs in your sauce.

I then cooked it for about a minute and set it aside for an hour (conveniently the amount of time the bread pudding needs to be in the oven):

I poured it over the bread pudding and it was done:

Not only was it good but it knocked two recipes off some of my more-neglected chapters (desserts and frozen desserts and sweet sauces). The bread pudding was light and fluffy, with a nice bite from the dried cranberries. The whiskey sauce was delicious but STRONG. I don't recommend bringing a serving of this to work--you would smell like you took a couple whiskey shots at work. The bread pudding kept really well, too. In fact, I think it got better over time, as the flavors melded.

Cocoa meringue kisses (p. 771) and Cherry marshmallow nut gelatin (p. 812)

I have had both a success and a fail with previous meringue kisses. I LOVED the nutty meringue kisses and had high hopes for Cocoa meringue kisses (p. 771). They were made exactly like the other meringue kisses (much like TJOC itself, I'm going to send you to previous posts if you want to know the beginning of the recipe) except cocoa is added with the sugar.

Again, the stupid cookies didn't rise!



And were flat!



ARGH! Why won't they consistently turn out? I loved the nutty meringue kisses when they worked! I know other people who live in high-altitude read this blog--any advice? The egg whites just won't whip up stiff.

That being said, the flavor of the cookies was really good but extremely chocolatey. They were way lighter than they looked and were light and delicious. I love meringues, why don't they love me? I'm going to keep trying to fix the problem because I think the cookies will eventually be worth it. Honestly, these are the ultimate diet cookies. They only have egg whites, almost no sugar, and some extracts.

After eying some of those marshmallow fluffy desserts in the deli, I decided to try to make my own. I thought Cherry marshmallow nut gelatin (p. 812) might be close.

I mixed boiling water (I just read an article in Cook's Illustrated about how you should measure the water after boiled, not before, because of evaporation loss), cherry gelatin, and club soda (which made the mixture fizz furiously).



I mixed in cherries, almonds, and marshmallows:



And refrigerated it. While it wasn't what I was looking for, it was good. Really, really, really sweet though. If you don't like extremely sweet desserts (and I don't), this is not the dessert for you. The almonds and cherry flavors went well together--you don't realize how similar the flavors are until you smell almond extract.

If you've noticed an uptick in my cooking, it's because I am working on my PhD dissertation and finishing up my data so I can analyze it. It takes all of my brain power and I'm using cooking to decompress and relax. So, for the next two months, I think I will probably cook a whole lot. And the more stressed I get, the more interesting truly complex recipes look. Does anyone else calm down by cooking?

Vanilla pudding (p. 807) and Baked fresh fruit compote (p. 213)

I actually have no idea what motivated me to make Vanilla pudding (p. 807) when I don't like pudding whatsoever. I think it was stress over the fact that I haven't made almost any desserts, and while I'm doing well in most of the savory chapters, I'm not doing well on the sweet chapters.

Again, I don't like pudding. In fact, I don't believe anyone truly likes pudding. And I haven't made a pudding since my cooking class my freshman year of high school

I mixed sugar, cornstarch, and salt, and then slowly mixed in a little milk to make a paste. I whisked in some more milk:



And stir, stir, stir, stir until it simmers. I mixed a little of the milk mixture into a beaten egg and then added that back to the milk mixture. Make sure to mix it enough or you will have scrambled eggs in your pudding (a fast way to make pudding even more disgusting).

And stir, stir, stir until it thickens:



I mixed in some vanilla and poured it into a bowl:



And refrigerated the whole mess. It looked beautiful, exactly like pudding is supposed to look. I was quite proud of it. But, again, I don't like pudding, so I didn't really want to eat it. Unfortunately, it seemed a real waste to make it and throw it away. So I thought maybe a nice topping would help.

So for the topping I went to another chapter I haven't been doing well on--Fruits. I decided to make Baked fresh fruit compote (p. 213) with pears.

I chopped the pears into large slices--but didn't core them. It doesn't say to core pears or apples, which seems really strange to me. I poured a red wine/sugar/cinnamon/cloves/salt/lemon mixture over the top:



And I popped it in the oven. At that point, I noticed that the recipe doesn't say how long the fruit should be in the oven--just "until tender". I know this is likely because different fruits take different amounts of time. Even so, it took well over an hour to become tender which seemed really excessive. In fact, I'm not even sure I cooked it enough--it was fork tender but not tender tender (if that makes any sense).



Note: This recipe WILL make your entire house smell like cinnamon for a couple days. I don't like cinnamon, so it was making me nauseous, but people buy air fresheners to make their houses smell like the compote.

The pudding with the compote was good! The pudding is extremely creamy and vanilla and actually was pretty good! And the pears had a nice, fully flavored taste that really added. Vanilla and pears always go well together. I can't say the recipe sold me on puddings but at least it made it worth the effort.

Baked rice pudding (p. 820)

I have mentioned many, many times that I really hate making TJOC recipes that I already make terrific versions of. I make an amazing rice pudding. Honestly, it's like heaven in a bowl (I make a variety of extremely delicious old-fashioned desserts including blueberry buckles, bread puddings, and rice puddings). And my recipe is totally different from TJOC's Baked rice pudding (p. 820). I wasn't optimistic about TJOC's version...

It was a simple recipe. I combined milk, eggs, brown sugar, butter, vanilla, and salt in a bowl until well mixed.



I then added two cups of rice and some raisins and added them to a buttered casserole dish.



And baked it:



How was it? Pretty good. Not amazing. And certainly not as good as the version I already make, which is closer to Indian kheer than British pudding. I actually think this version was really bland--it needed more butter, cream instead of milk, and more sugar in my expert opinion :) And make sure to keep it in the refrigerator, otherwise it will mold...not that I would know anything about that...

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Chocolate chip cookie (p. 766) and Bread pudding (p. 822)

The Chocolate chip cookie (p. 766) recipe is an old TJOC standby, orginally in the wartime 1943 edition. I have a terrific chocolate chip cookie recipe that takes me about ten minutes (not including the cook time) because I make it so often--it uses shortening because I like soft cookies. TJOC's recipe looked pretty simple. Like most cookie recipes, I mixed flour and baking soda (more flour, less baking soda, since I'm at high altitude) in one bowl and butter, sugar, and brown sugar in another bowl.

The flour mixture was then added to the butter mixture:




An egg, some salt, and vanilla were added:





And then I added the chocolate chips. I would normally add pecans but Josh doesn't like nuts in his cookies (insane!) so I held off (this time).



They only take about eight minutes.



They were soft and had a great consistency but had a strange off-flavor. I don't think it was due to the recipe, I think my vanilla might have had a strange taste. It was disappointing though--all that work and the cookies weren't very good. I figure I will make them again--I'm sure the problem was due to me and not to TJOC.


I have mentioned before that I'm usually not very excited about TJOC recipes of which I already have a terrific version on hand. There isn't a huge list of these--Bolognase sauce, rice pudding, chocolate chip cookies, and maybe a handful of other things. Bread pudding is absolutely on the list.

When my parents were young and in college, they were very poor. Somehow they had a supply of cheap, day-old bakery goods on a regular basis. My parents would make bread pudding out of the leftover donuts. When I was an undergrad, I stumbled upon a bread pudding recipe of my own and it was a staple item in my kitchen--an easy way to use up bread, eggs, and milk that might be nearing their expiration dates (and it's terrific both hot and cold). TJOC has three bread pudding recipes and two of them are quite a bit different from what I used to make (one is chocolate and one is New Orleans-style) but I decided to make the one that was the most similar--Bread pudding (p. 822).

To begin, I sprinkled dried cranberries (I like them a lot better than raisens) over about a pound of bread that had the crusts removed and had been cut into cubes (use a serrated bread knife--otherwise cutting bread slices is a nightmare).


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Eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a tiny bit of salt were whisked together. I measured the milk into my giant measuring glass and then just added everything else to it--less dishes.



The liquid was then poured over the bread, the bread was pushed down with a spoon, and it was let sit for a half hour.





It did make a difference--the bread started to break down by the time it went in the oven.



About an hour later the bread pudding was done:



It was really good and very attractive--I would make this for company, especially since it can be made a few days in advance. Is it as good as my stock recipe? Surprisingly, yes. It heated up amazingly and was delicious. I will definately make it again. What do you consider your "stock recipes"?

Desserts index

The great indexing project! Because I can't think of any other better way to do this...I'm listing all of the recipes in a given chapter and linking them to the post where I cook it. I would ADORE if you would comment on the index, especially if you can comment onTJOC recipes (in the respective chapter) that you have made and your thoughts on it :)

I'm terrible about updating the indexes, so if you stumbled on this page from Google and nothing is linked from the dish you are looking for, be sure to search for it.

Desserts:
Number of recipes: 84
Number of recipes made:
May 2009: 1 or 1.2% --pretty sad
Oct 09: The same--uh oh!
Mid-Jan 10: 4 or 4.8%--actually, a real improvement!

Mid-Jan 2011: 5 or 6%
Mid-May 2011: 6 or 7.1%

Boiled custard
Rich custard
Baked or cup custard
Caramel custard
Flan (creme caramel)
Flan with condensed milk
Creme brulee
Caramel glaze I
Caramel glaze II
Maple creme brulee
Raspberry creme brulee
Vanilla pots de creme
Coffee pots de creme
Chocolate pots de creme I
Chocolate pots de creme II
Floating islands
Lemon sponge custard
Orange sponge custard
Zabaglione
Vanilla pudding
Butterscotch pudding
Old-fashioned chocolate pudding
Banana pudding
Banana pudding with meringue
Coconut milk pudding (trembleque)
Fried cream (creme frite)
Vanilla souffle
Grand marnier souffle
Chocolate souffle
Lemon souffle
Fresh fruit souffle
Sour cream apple cake souffle cockaigne
Lemon gelatin
Orange gelatin
Fruit molded into lemon or orange gelatin
Pineapple gelatin
Fruit gelatin
Quick fruit gelatin
Raspberry tea gelatin
Cherry marshmallow nut gelatin
Stained glass gelatin
Blancmange
Panna cotta
Molded custard
Fruit whip
Pineapple snow
Snow pudding
Chocolate mousse
Chocolate mousse with gelatin
White chocolate mousse with toasted almonds
Chocolate terrine
Cold lemon souffle or Bavarian cream
Cold orange souffle or Bavarian cream
Cold lime souffle or Bavarian cream
Chocolate or coffee Bavarian cream
Bavarian berry cream
Charlotte russe
Chocolate Charlotte
Coffee Charlotte
Tiramisu
Trifle
Baked rice pudding
Rice pudding brulee
Stovetop rice pudding
Tapioca custard
Baked pearl tapioca pudding
Coconut tapioca pudding
Farina pudding
Rote grutze I
Rote grutze II
Bread pudding
New Orleans bread pudding
Chocolate bread pudding
Cottage pudding
Perisimmon buttermilk pudding
Pumpkin buttermilk pudding
Indian pudding
Sticky toffee pudding
Steamed chocolate feather pudding
Steamed caramel pudding
Steamed plum pudding
Coeur ala creme
Cherries jubilee
Bananas foster