Big Baking Weekend

I spent a lot of time over the weekend baking. Two items were noteworthy, each a notable addition to breakfast.

I made a German chocolate cake for the first time. For the cake, I used the chocolate pound cake recipe in the King Arthur cookbook. It turned out to be a great cake overall and perfect for this application: dense and rich. I also used King Arthur's recipe for the icing. Many recipes skimp with brown sugar; King Arthur calls for caramel. I looked at caramels at the store. They seem to be an endangered species. The ones I finally found were relatively expensive. So I made my own caramel, to which I added cream and ultimately the coconut. The result was superbly rich and flavorful.

I also made a banana cream pie. I made my own crust out of pie dough that I blind baked. I then made a bit of chocolate ganache to cover the inside of the crust. That thin coating is just the right amount of chocolate to accent the pie; it also provides a moisture barrier to keep the crust crispy. I then made the pudding and spooned it over the bananas. Delicious.

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Eating Around Georgia Tech: Ecco

Our Texas Instruments colleague Cathy Wicks was gracious enough to host several of us at Ecco tonight. This is one of those restaurants that has been on my list for a long time. Even though it is within easy walking distance of Georgia Tech, I hadn't made it there until tonight. The menu is a combination of Italian, Spanish, and French that make use of some local Georgia ingredients. The combination of those three countries is sometimes a little forced, although the georgia ingredients (fruit, cheese) were all great and perfectly appropriate. We started out with a meat and cheese board. This actually reverses the French tradition, where cheese usually follows the main course. Everything was excellent. The Georgia cheese was a big hit, as was the French cow/goat cheese. I thought the sauscisson was very subtle and very good. The waitress said that the roast pork pasta was their signature dish, so I had to try it. It had traditional broad pasta (fresh, of course) ...

DCA: Cava Mezze Grill

Cava is a DC area chain with light Mediterranean food. Saibal encouraged me to try lunch at their airport location and I was very happy with the experience. I ordered falafel on SuperSalad with assorted other toppings. The falafel was tasty. The SuperSalad was light, flavorful, and very easy to eat. Overall, a healthy and enjoyable lunch, something you can't always say about airport eating.

Pressure Cooker Candied Ginger

I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...

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