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I made orange-cinnamon buns. I just used a basic sweet dough recipe, with a couple of additions for the flavor. I used about 2 tablespoons of orange juice concentrate in the dough. After I rolled it out, I brushed the dough with orange juice concentrate, sprinkled it with brown sugar mixed with cinnamon, and chopped candied orange peel (not the commercial stuff, but some that I had made). I put some orange juice concentrate into the frosting also. These turned out really good, although next time I would increase the amount of the cinnamon and the orange peel.
One of my Christmas presents was a book, The Noma Guide to Fermentation, by René Redzepi and David Zilber. René is the guiding force behind Noma, the innovative Copenhagen restaurant. It has been named the best restaurant in the world by Restaurant Magazine four times and is currently ranked #2. It has two Michelin stars. (A 20 small plate tasting menu at Noma will currently set you back around $295, and the wine pairings are another $185.)
I'm not sure it's fair or accurate to call it a cookbook. Rather, it is a guide to the seven types of fermentation and how they're put to use at Noma.
I'm not quite half way through a first read-through of the book, but I can see it is going to completely change my approach to fermenting. Among other things, their preferred temperature for fermenting is 82 degrees F, though the instructions say temperatures in the mid 70's (ie, room temperature) are OK, too. I think that requires a bit more hands-on approach to monitoring something that is fermenting. But it means that a batch of sauerkraut would be ready in about a week. When my mother would make it, she used a crock in the basement, where the temperature was in the 60's. Sauerkraut would take about 3 weeks, though it started tasting interesting after around day 7.
I'm not sure how many of the fermenting methods I'm likely to use, I'm not really into kombucha, though that may be just a case of having only had kombucha that was over-fermented and not as innovative as the formulas in this book. (Kombcha made with maple syrup, for example.)
But the idea of having carrot or celery vinegar to use in a vinaigrette or a sauce is intriguing, even if it does require some equipment I don't currently have. Likewise, making lacto-fermented tomatoes is something I REALLY have to try next summer.
And even if I don't make them myself, I may be more likely to use commercially made fermented products like koji, miso and garum. (Fish garum is a fish sauce that dates back to Roman times and is, gastronomically speaking, the great-grandfather of ketchup, but there are instructions for several other types of garum, including beef garum, rose garum and grasshopper garum.) [pause for a chorus of 'EWWW']
The book also has instructions for making black fruits and vegetables, like black garlic.
On Tuesday night, I baked a pumpkin pie, using the last of the "peanut" pumpkin puree that I’d frozen in November. I realized as I was assembling my ingredients that I had only 2% evaporated milk instead of full fat. At 8:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve in a small town, I either had to use the 2% or not bake the pie (traditional for my husband at Christmas), so I used it. The pie did set up, so I hope it will be fine when we cut it for Christmas dinner dessert.
I had another issue as well that came up when I baked the pie at Thanksgiving, That was with the full-fat evaporated milk, so it would not be related to this other issue. A spot develops in the filling where it bubbles up—not the entire pie, just that one spot. At Thanksgiving it was a 1-inch slit on the left side close to the side, only in that one spot. It didn’t affect the taste, but I’m used to nice smooth tops. This time, I baked the pie one rack higher, thinking maybe the lower shelf was too hot. The pie developed a circular area, about the size of a quarter, where the filling was bubbling. Again, it was along the side. I’ll need to figure out if I’ve altered how I do the recipe, without realizing it, or if somehow this new oven encourages a “break out” with this pie.
