Author Archives: Samantha

Simple Joys, Simple Desserts–easy microwave custard

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I don’t know what it is that makes complicated desserts so enticing. I can watch episode after episode of the Great British Baking Show (and the Great American Baking Show) and come away with an intense desire to create a Showstopper using multiple exotic flavors and fancy chocolate-work.
Or, if not a Showstopper, then at least something different and attractive and challenging, like the macarons that my daughter came home enthusiastic about. One of her classmates routinely makes macarons, apparently, and since macarons are made with egg whites, sugar, and almond, there was no problem about finding a gluten-free version.
 I’ve never been very excited about macarons, but they are pretty and it seemed like an interesting sort of project to make with her. We took the easy route on the filling, however, and stuck them together with Nutella.
The macarons were nice, if a bit sweet, but all those egg whites left me with egg yolks in the fridge, and that made me think of custard.
 This brings me to the puzzle behind this article:
Why spend all this effort on a dessert that isn’t really any tastier than a good chocolate pudding?
pink macarons on a plate
If I had to choose only five desserts that I could have for the rest of my life, chances are that one of those would be chocolate pudding (preferably topped with whipped cream.) I’m not sure what the other four would be, but the point is that there are a lot of desserts that are enormously more effort than pudding without being any more rewarding. 
Pudding got even easier when I found a recipe for making cornstarch-based chocolate pudding in the microwave, and then easier again when I discovered that Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Cocoa mix (ground chocolate, sugar, and cocoa) could be used instead of measuring out cocoa powder and sugar.
But here I was, with four leftover egg yolks—just the ingredients needed for custard. I knew from a recipe in Small Batch Baking that small amounts of custard could be made in the microwave. Why not a larger batch?
I found a recipe in Cook’s Illustrated for a rich chocolate pudding that used egg yolks, and made some modifications. (Did it really need all that butter in addition to the cream? What about semi-sweet morsels, since I didn’t have bittersweet?) I tried cooking it in the microwave more or less the way I do for regular pudding, but stirring more frequently. And since I had four egg yolks and only needed two, I made one batch of chocolate and one batch of vanilla.
Very good! I was afraid there might be lumps since I didn’t strain it, but it came out remarkably smooth. (I made this during a water emergency and I didn’t want to have to leave the strainer dirty for who-knew-how-long, or have to wash it in bottled water.)
So here it is—Dangerously Easy Microwave Chocolate Custard, and Dangerously Easy Microwave Vanilla Custard. (I know the original recipe said “pudding”, but when it’s that rich and eggy, I think “custard”.)
Dangerously Easy Microwave Chocolate Custard
3 ½ tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon dutch-process cocoa powder
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt
¼ cup whipping cream
2 egg yolks
1 ¼ cups 2% milk (or use what you have)
2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips (about 1/3 cup)
1 tsp vanilla
I like to use a 4-cup glass measuring cup to mix in, as it microwaves well and I can see whether the stuff at the bottom is really mixed in.

Mix dry ingredients in the measuring cup. Whisk in the cream. Whisk in the egg yolks, then the milk. (It’s easier to mix if you don’t add all the liquids at once.)

Microwave 1 minute. Stir well with whisk. Microwave in 20 second increments, stirring between each, till custard thickens. Give it 10 more seconds to be sure.
Add the chocolate chips and stir them till they melt in. Add the vanilla. Pour through a strainer if you think it needs it.
Pour into bowl or bowls, and chill. It may need up to 4 hours to chill in a large bowl, but it’s really up to you when you want to eat it. Cover it if you need to protect it from odors in the fridge, but if you cover it while it’s still hot, you may get condensation.
Whip the some of the remaining cream (if you have any) with a bit of sugar and vanilla. Dollop generously on top.
Dangerously Easy Microwave Vanilla Custard
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt
¼ cup whipping cream
2 egg yolks
1 ¼ cups 2% milk (or use what you have)
1 ½ tsp vanilla
Same procedure, but without having to melt chocolate chips into it.
 
Not-So-Dangerous Microwave Chocolate Pudding
5 tablespoons Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Cocoa
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 cups milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
In the 4-cup glass measuring cup, mix chocolate powder and cornstarch. Add milk. (It’s easier to mix if you start by adding just a bit, mixing, then adding more.)
Microwave for 2.5 minutes, then stir with a whisk. Microwave for a minute or half-minute at a time till it gets thick and shiny. (There may be a bit of foam on top from whisking in the chocolate powder earlier.) Stir in the vanilla. Pour into bowl or bowls and cool.
If you don’t like a “skin” on your pudding, you can cover the surface with plastic wrap. If you don’t have Ghiradelli’s, use the amount of cocoa and sugar that you would to make two cups of hot cocoa, or melt in some chocolate chips.

chocolate custard in a teacup with whipped cream and next to a ceramic sheep and flowers

Labels in the kitchen—how old is this mustard anyway?

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For my first try at a household hint (hello, Heloise!), I’m going to discuss labeling food with the date it was opened. There are two categories of foods that particularly benefit from labeling—leftovers and condiments.

Leftovers are the most obvious candidates for a date-label. You don’t want them to sit around so long that they become unsafe. But how long has that leftover casserole actually been in there?
When I put a plastic container of leftover soup in the fridge, I can’t imagine forgetting that I made soup on Monday. But perhaps Tuesday I go out for dinner, and maybe Wednesday I don’t remember the soup till I’ve already started something else, and Thursday I don’t even think about it. On Friday I pull it out and cudgel my brain. Was it Monday or Tuesday that I made soup? I wasn’t here Tuesday—wait, was it over the weekend? No, surely not. It couldn’t have been last week—or could it?
The situation is even worse in the freezer. I’ve pulled things out only to realize they’d been in there two years (and I know this only because they were labeled.) Not only does it help to put a date on leftovers before freezing them, it also helps to write down what they are. After a few months, vegetarian soup and chicken cacciatore start to look a lot alike. Even pizza sauce and strawberry puree have a vague similarity when frozen.
Condiments usually have a long life compared to leftovers, but in a way, that’s part of the problem. Condiments that don’t get much use—say, plum sauce–can sit in the fridge for quite a long time without getting used up. After a while, it’s hard to remember if that plum sauce has been there for six months, or eighteen. Or thirty-two. Even if it hasn’t gone bad, it isn’t going to be good.
An example: Many years ago, when visiting my parents, we needed dijon mustard for some recipe.
“Oh, I don’t think that mustard can still be good,” my mother said. “It’s been there for ages.”
“It looks okay.”
“Really, I think it’s been years.”
But it was mustard, after all, and it didn’t smell bad. So we used it (and nothing bad happened.) But since my mother had insisted it was old, we bought a new jar of dijon to replace it. We brought it home, opened it, and compared the jars.
It was shocking! The new dijon was brighter in color, with a sharper, more dijon-y smell and taste. The old jar was clearly long past its prime.
In focusing on leftovers and condiments, I don’t mean to suggest that dates can’t be helpful on other food products. When I was single, I didn’t eat much peanut butter, and the longer I’d had the jar, the less I liked the peanut butter and the less I ate of it. Then some reason would come up to buy a new jar, and I’d suddenly discover that peanut butter was actually delicious! I had similar problems with corn meal (a fresh bag made really good corn muffins) and olive oil.
So if you find yourself pulling containers out of the fridge and wondering just how long that lasagna has been in there, and whether the cooked rice is from Monday’s stir-fry or the chicken and dumplings the week before, try labeling your food.
As far as how to label food, I like blue painter’s tape and Sharpie. It’s easy to spot, easy to write on, and comes off plastic containers with no trouble. It also works well on many other food containers, but sometimes it’s just as easy to use Sharpie directly on the label or jar top.
Till next post.

Scented candles—fragrance and squishy wax

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There’s a lot to like about scented candles.

First, there are all the different fragrances available. I’ve been fascinated with fragrance most of my life:  perfume, flowers, homemade potpourri, and soaps wrapped in delicate tissue. But candles have always been the easiest way to accumulate a lot of different scents in a compact and relatively inexpensive form.
When I was growing up, I read a lot about perfumery and the fragrance industry. I could have told you the difference between a top note and a base note, cologne as opposed to toilet water, and distillation versus enfleurage. I was particularly interested in people’s ability to identify different smells and the psychological effects thereof. Since I had a large collection of scented candles, I ran a totally unscientific study in which I blindfolded family and friends and handed them candle after candle, asking them to guess at the scent and describe their reaction to it. There wasn’t really a purpose behind the questions, just curiosity.
More recently I tried to make use of scent psychology by deciding to pair my stories to particular scents. For the Cinderella story I’m currently revising (The Slipper Ball), I decided to use Yankee Candle’s “Sage and Citrus”. The idea was that I would burn the candles as I worked, thus forever linking the fragrance to the work and making it possible to get into the right frame of mind simply by striking a match. So far I haven’t been consistent enough to get the plan to work, but I’ve still got plenty of revision ahead. And when I get back to the story about the psychic teenager (The Summer of the Deer), I’m going to run through my collection of Tyler Candle Company’s “Head Over Heals”(sic).
But scent isn’t the only appealing thing about scented candles. The wax itself has fascinating qualities as it goes from solid to liquid and back, with a soft, putty-like stage in between. As a kid, I loved to pour some of the melted wax out and squish it around until it hardened. My father showed me how to melt blocks of paraffin and make new candles in Dixie cup molds. Later, I graduated to dipped and braided candles, candles made in a duckie mold, “whipped wax”, and trying to carve designs in wax with wood carving tools (hint: warm wax is less likely to break off in chunks.)
I haven’t done much with candle-making for a long time, but some of the fascination with wax got passed on. For my birthday a couple of years ago, my daughter borrowed some essential oils and presented me with lemon- and peppermint-scented candles that she had made while I was out of the house. Aww…
On top of having fragrance and squishy wax, scented candles are an opportunity to use decorative candleholders, thereby delighting the eyes as much as the nose. Elegant or fun, sparkly or subdued—there are holders for every taste.
And then finally, scented candles are candles. 
Their flames are so pretty in a darkened room.
Till next post.