SUNSHINE contest II winners
Ajlr writes:
After a truly amazing outpouring of culinary talent and ideas over this last week, the winners – yes, two winners* - of a signed copy of the new and beautiful golden edition of SUNSHINE is cgbookcat1 for Chocolate Basilisk Balls with Kiss of Life sauce and DrRo for Berry Crumble Butter Cake. I can imagine happily eating the products from any cafe run by either of these forum members.**
If the winner(s) will PM me on the forum – soon*** – with the details of where their copy should be posted to, then all will be arranged. Many congratulations to both of them.
Now, where’s my mixing bowl…
Meanwhile . . . I was just explaining in a footnote† that one winner wasn’t enough. Well, clearly two isn’t either. So just as this contest is an addendum to the previous one, we are going to have an Addendum to the Addendum, to wit, a third winner of a signed shiny gold SUNSHINE is going to be chosen by popular vote, out of the recipes already posted for this contest.
I, of course, who can just about call up a new game of Fingerzilla††, have no idea how to run a vote on the blog. But ajlr seems to think it can be done. Since I kind of sprang the idea on her about twenty minutes ago she and her fellow mods haven’t quite worked out the details yet. But they will. And then I’ll post them here. So to get yourselves in the mood, here are our first two winners’ recipes. Then you can go cruise the Playing With Your Food SUNSHINE contest thread and think hard about who you will vote for. It will not be an easy choice. And when you go to bed tonight visions of sugar-plums (and chocolate) will dance in your head. Mmmmmm.
cgbookcat1
For the previous contest I said I would make “Chocolate Basilisk Balls with Kiss of Life sauce,” so I figured I’d better invent the recipe. These were inspired by the Indian dessert Gulab Jamun, although they are really nothing alike except that both feature spheres in sauces. The Basilisk Balls (basilisk eyes) are dark chocolate truffles, and the Kiss of Life sauce is a Cardamom Creme Anglaise. The truffle recipe is modified from Cooking for Engineers, and the sauce is modified from Epicurious.
The goal is to petrify the guests at the first bite, and slowly bring them back to life with murmurs of intense appreciation.
for the Basilisk Balls,
ingredients:
1 pound dark chocolate, cut into small pieces (not unsweetened — Ghirardelli dark chips are good)
1 cup heavy cream
about 3 Tbsp of a really good cognac (I used Hennessy)
unsweetened cocoa powder to coat
directions:
Heat cream in a saucepan until just boiling. Remove from heat and stir in the chocolate and cognac until your ganache mixture is shiny and smooth. Refrigerate until stiff.
Scoop truffles into small balls using a melon baller or tablespoon measure, and roll until smooth with your hands (this is a messy process). Place in refrigerator to harden for a few minutes. When solid, lightly coat with cocoa powder.* Eat a truffle to check quality control at this point.†††
for the Kiss of Life Sauce,
ingredients:
4 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup sugar, divided into halves
scrapings from 1/2 vanilla bean
1 tsp crushed cardamom seeds
directions:
Lightly whisk egg yolks and half of the sugar in a small bowl and set aside. In a saucepan, combine the cream, milk, vanilla, cardamom, and the rest of the sugar and heat on medium until almost boiling. You should stir almost constantly (and scrape the bottom of the saucepan) for the duration of the heating process. When the cream mixture is hot, reduce heat dramatically and slowly pour the egg mixture into the cream, stirring as you do so. Increase heat again to medium and stir until the mixture becomes a custard. You will know this has occurred when you can run your finger across the back of the spoon and the track will remain. The mixture will also look very slightly grainy. Remove from heat, cool, and put through a fine strainer to remove unwanted bits of egg.
To serve, place two basilisk balls on a small plate and cover with sauce to taste. The sauce also makes an excellent ice cream if there is any left over.
* The cocoa powder will make the sauce run down the sides of the truffle without properly sticking. This can be solved in two ways — leave off the coating and use just the ganache, or keep adding sauce until it looks right. I prefer the second method, because you get to eat more chocolate that way. ‡
DrRo
Ok, I admit I just joined so that I could enter the competition‡‡… plus Robin said something about needing more forum members who bake [smiley omitted because WordPress turns them into squiggles] ‡‡‡ Plus I’m rereading Sunshine, AGAIN… and it always makes me want to bake things.
This is an entirely original recipe in that the cake base probably originated from a golden Wattle cook book sometime in the 195/60s… my mum baked a lot of cakes (6 kids can eat a cake like locusts on a pea plant – gone in seconds) so I learnt it from her – using wooden spoon measurements – as in, 2 spoonfuls of butter! I’m trying to convert back to real weights. The rest came from one of those happy accidents of wanting to use something up and not knowing what to do.
Berry Crumble Butter Cake
Heat oven to 180 deg (C)
185g butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups self raising flour
~1/4 cup of milk
Berry mixture
Any combination of ~ 3cups of stewed berries. It works really well with stewed apricots or apples as well. The key to this is that the majority of the liquid is removed. Do this by sitting in a fine-ish sieve for several hours, or by sitting a heavy ladle in the mixture, and spooning out the fluid as it fills. The final mixture should be almost thick enough hold its shape when a spoon is drawn through the middle.
Crumble mix
2 eggs
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 cups dessicated coconut
Method:
Cream eggs and sugar, beat in eggs, then flour and finally mix in milk. Should be a nice smooth creamy batter consistency. Put mixture into a buttered and papered 23cm round tin (or about a 20 cm square one). Top with berry mixture.
Mix together crumble ingredients and strew over cake.
Bake for 1 to 1.5 hrs, until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. If the topping starts to over-brown, cover with alfoil
Yum!
* * *
* Yes. Well. There were so many amazing recipes, one winner hardly seemed enough. Is clearly not enough. And then Ajlr had the bright idea that since the Basilisk Balls do not, in fact, involve any baking^, maybe there should be a second drawing for something that involves baking. I’m not sure what we would have done if the second recipe didn’t have any baking in it either. Kept drawing possibly. Fortunately the second one did include some actual oven time.
But, speaking of extra winners . . . well, keep reading.
^ Although they are clearly something Sunshine would be all for. Maybe in the Sequel That Does Not Exist Paulie starts making truffles as a manifestation of his individuality. In which case he would certainly make not only these but also Magpie’s Cloud 9 white chocolate truffles.
** Okay, guys, I want to hear that you’re together at the negotiating table having a meaningful dialogue. Or the start-up counter at the bank.^
^ Don’t bother me with geography. Geography is boring.+
+ Except on Google Earth.
*** Let me put it this way: Fiona^ comes on Tuesday. If the books don’t go out Tuesday . . . gods know when they’ll go out.
PS: When you PM ajlr, be sure to include if you want them signed to anyone, or just my generic scrawl.
^ Fiona, who is not afraid of the post office and, furthermore, has not desired to murder any of our local postpersons this week.+
+ I say nothing about her attitude toward her own local postpersons.
† You do read the footnotes as they happen, right? You don’t just read them all in a lump at the end of the post and then have no idea what they refer to?
†† I have just bought an upgrade. Yes, to Fingerzilla. Six more levels. More stuff to blow up. Stay tuned.
††† Absolutely. Eat it slowly and thoughtfully, right? I can do this.
‡ Good attitude. Excellent attitude. An attitude that manifests the true spirit of this blog.
‡‡ Yaay!
‡‡‡ Yaaaaay!
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