Heather says:
I have a friend who is looking for a dairy free, soy free cake. What a perfect Fearless Friday adventure, recipe books and sites are being scoured. Recipes are being scanned with a suspicious eye for obscure ingredients or funky textures. I won’t send a novice cook out to buy expensive ingredients they may only use once.
I have mentioned it many times in the past, but I am not a pastry chef. I worked my way up in my restaurant career and desserts were either brought in or one person came in after all the distractions had wandered home. Fearless Fridays are all about pushing our culinary boundaries. Whether it’s trying a new recipe, technique, ingredient, or simply committing to cooking at home, anyone can participate.
It looks pretty, but meh.
After doing some research I found a genoise cake. As you might guess, it is a French recipe with no butter or milk. All of the moisture comes from the eggs. Remember the saying “fat equals flavor?” There just wasn’t enough fat to carry the chocolate flavor I wanted for my friend. I did like the texture of the cake, so perhaps I should have stayed with the white version. This one would work well as a carrier for a rich chocolate frosting, but I couldn’t recommend that to my friend. So next week, the search continues.
Second lesson, try not to start these projects at 9:30 on Thursday. It leads to a late night which means a grumpy morning.
Bonus, I did finally manage to get a decent picture of myself cracking an egg. This is something I’ve been trying to accomplish for a couple of years. It’s not easy to operate my camera left handed and not smash the egg to bits.
Tell me, Home Eccers, were you fearless this week? Feel free to share a link to your blog post in the McKlinky below or share your story in the comments.
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{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
I'm sorry you had a flop, Heather. But I had a success so I'm excited to join in for the first time today! Yay!
It's all part of the adventure. Tortillas are definitely on my list, I would like to stop buying them . . . maybe.
This cake looks DELICIOUS! Maybe I should be your new taste tester.
I think it would have been delicious with a gooey hot fudge topping, but that would totally defeat the purpose of going dairy free in the first place. I will be giving a similar recipe a try sometime down the road, as I loved the texture.
I have a dairy allergy and use crisco (butter flavor) when I bake to make up for lack of dairy. It adds the fat and ends with positive results from flavor and chemistry standpoints. Believe me I have tried many a substitute. When i bake for chocolate flavor, Ghiradeli cocoa is my fave…good luck!
Ghiradeli is positively dangerous. I love that stuff.
You should try Wacky Cake next. It's actually vegan, no eggs, butter, or milk. Here's a link to a recipe:
http://www.cookscountry.com/recipe.asp?recipeids=...
Silver, thanks for the link, I will definitely look into that.
testing something
My fearless Friday wasn't in the kitchen. I actually started a blog of my own, and I haven't quit it yet, like most of my projects! Yay me! My next kitchen creation will be a chocolate lavendar torte. I'll send you the recipe once I get it right.
Yummy!
Hey that's fab! Oh, and I like zombies, too. So much so that I had played a waitress (now there's a stretch, eh?) in my friend's short zombie flick. Like most zombie movies, it has some salty language, so please keep that in mind before clicking over. http://www.vimeo.com/1073073?pg=embed&sec=107...
Oh Heather, I must ask — Have you any easy recipes for brains?
Oh Heather, I must ask — Have you any easy recipes for brains?
lol
Oh Heather, I must ask — Have you any easy recipes for brains?
*snort*
There are a few places I don't go, brains, kidney, liver, and chitlins pretty much top the list.
Fearlessly, I made pear jelly. I've done preserves and jams for years, but jelly is new for me. So are pears – but we got nearly a bushel of organic pears for FREE.
This jelly is so pretty, and clear. And runny. It hasn't set just yet. The pectin (Certo) said it may take a while, but it's been over 24 hours, so I'm not too certain of this Certo. ( Ha. Get it? I crack me up. )
So, a decision must be made.
Do I wait and see?
Do I remake it with more pectin?
Or do I just label it Pear Syrup and be done with it?
I love it!
I was fearless on Friday, and for company! Lamb chops, which I love love love but haven't tried making before. Turns out you can broil them and it's not so bad.
Way to go! I haven't made lamb in so long. I was recently talking to a lady who reminded me of a cabbage and lamb soup I made once (it's Norwegian). I think I'm going to have to make it again.
My daughter's preschool had lots of children with allergies and I was able to find this awesome recipe for a nut-, dairy-, soy-, egg-free chocolate cake. You do need to buy special chocolate chips w/o dairy & soy in it (I found some at Whole Foods), but that's the only special ingredient
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Egg-Free-Dairy-Free-...
I have to head to Whole Foods soon anyhow, so I will definitely be giving this recipe a try. Thank you!
Well, I don't know if it qualifies as "fearless," but I tried Heather's glazed chicken recipe from this week ON my husband's birthday. I totally messed it up in the first try, but started over and it was good. I'm not a big fan of sweet or glazed meats, sweet and sour, etc., but I liked this very much. I put more effort into this meal than into most others because each thing I made was newish for me. I made Heather's roasted vegetables, which I've made again since and like very much. I also made mashed potatoes. Okay, that doesn't sound too daring, but I've honestly only made them from scratch two or three times and a couple of those times weren't very good. These were good though. Also, I tried making a pizza cookie. There's a pizza place here in CA that has a dessert called a "Pizzooki" or something like that. It's cookie dough spread out onto a pizza pan made for a group to share. I made that with vanilla ice cream on the side for company. It was good.
Happy birthday to your husband! Stacy, that is exactly the spirit of Fearless Friday.
You made a meal that took more effort than normal, not completely sure of the results.
For some people Fearless Friday would be using an appliance other than the microwave or coffee pot. We all have different boundaries we've used to define our experience. Pushing against those broadens our horizons.