:: Chris and Rhiannon . com :: » Food

no such thing?

Chris — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:14:41 +0000

I know that it’s a reward for some of the work I do and finishing up a project, but when the company takes you out during the day, it really kind of feels like a free lunch.

the best part

Chris — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 05:06:29 +0000

Before the cold and cough and fever Brooklynn is currently making her way through, there was homemade whipped cream.

Brooklynn Licks Beaters from Chris&Rhiannon on Vimeo.

We’re just hoping we get to be that happy all the time again in the near future. Nothing seriously wrong, just a couple of long days.

cheesecake truffles

Chris — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 04:14:33 +0000

We like to make cheesecake. We like to melt chocolate to make a firm ganache coating for the top of some cheesecakes. It was only a matter of time.

Yes, cheesecake truffles. And they are every bit as good as they sound (and look).

When we were in Seattle last spring, there was a bakery near the Pikes Place Market that had cheesecake truffles for sale, and ever since that, we figured we should really learn how to make them. Turns out it isn’t nearly as hard as you would think.

Step 1: Get ingredients to make cheesecake. We’ve done this before, several times.

Step 2: Make cheesecake sans crust. I did miss food processing small graham cracker bears, but it makes the process pretty quick. The edges get brown in the pans, but we just sliced those off with a knife or dug around them with a spoon.

Step 3: Dig out cheesecake. Roll into balls with hands. This was way easier than what I expected and a little messier. Cold cheesecake is essential, and slightly damp hands help a lot too. When my hands were dry, the cheesecake started to get warm and sticky faster than I could roll them and ended up looking like fuzzy balls rather than smooth. I think the chocolate still would have coated smooth, but we wanted them to be good. If you have issues, freeze ‘em and roll them again once they’re firmer (but not completely frozen).

Step 4: Melt the chocolate and shortening and dip. We use a glass bowl set on top of pot of boiling water as our DIY double boiler for this sort of thing. It keeps the chocolate melted the entire time without the risk of scorching. We did do several small batches of melted chocolate. We found that after 15 or so cheesecake balls, the chocolate started to curdle. I don’t know if this was from the moisture in the cheesecake or what, but it happened every time.

Step 5: Decorate as desired. We used white chocolate and drizzled it with a spoon. Do it on the parchment paper that you set out the dipped cheesecake on, so leave some space between them. And, as a bonus, you can eat the scrap chocolate that falls on the paper when you’re done.

Step 6: Enjoy. Brooklynn approved. She would have liked to approve a couple of them, but we had to cut her off.

let’s all get messy

Chris — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 02:22:02 +0000

Today, we were invited to the first birthday party of Kaiya, one of Brooklynn’s friends. (Rhiannon used to teach with Kaiya’s mom.) Whereas Brooklynn never really seemed to keen on digging in to her cake, Kaiya had no such reservations. Once she figured out the cake was soft and sweet, it never really had much of a chance.

They had a cake just for the birthday girl and a cupcake butterfly for everyone else.

I think Brooklynn was trying to make up for her lack of mess at her own birthday (although she did very well using the fork). Now we just have to work on teaching her that attempting to upstage the guest of honor at a party is never good behavior for an invitee, regardless of how great a present you brought. It just isn’t done.

Fully enjoying the food that is presented is very acceptable, so I suppose we’ll let it slide this time.