Text 5564, 152 rader
Skriven 2008-04-17 16:39:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av RUTH HANSCHKA
Ärende: unpleasant things 157
=============================
 -> Until you put that not in, I was ready to call the nice young
 -> men in their clean white coats and send them to Windsor, CT.
 RH> I would have told you to go right ahead; I live in Bloomfield.

Oh, yeah. Who lives in Windsor? I forget; guess maybe I need to
work on my basket-weaving skills.

 -> That insect band under George Martin (I always think of
 -> George R. R. Martin) used orchestras to good effect at times.
 RH> Oh yeah, that bunch.  I've heard some of their stuff, but they broke
 RH> up when I was about four....  

See what happens when you get born?

 RH> Even record labels.  Rock stardom ain't what it used to be.  And you
 RH> classical guys work cheaper than most.

Probably not, actually. Though the stars of the rock world make
bunches of dough, the toiling rank-and-file (if rockers can
ever be so described) do quite poorly, compared to even the
poverty-stricken serious musicians. I think jazzers do even
worse, but that might be splitting hairs.

 -> But I need the cash!
 RH> Yeah, well there is that.  Is your artistic soul to be sold that
 RH> cheaply?  Oh, forget I asked.

Yep, who asked anything.

Serious Fruitcake
cat: Web, celebrity, holiday
yield: 1 large or 2 to 3 small

200 gr butter
200 gr cake flour
200 gr fine sugar
3 eggs
8 gr baking powder
30 gr almond powder
30 gr walnuts
350 gr candied fruit
60 gr rhum
h - For the syrup
100 gr sugar
100 gr water
150 gr rhum

Fruitcake extraordinaire prepared from Philippe Rochat's
own recipe.

I will use this jar of candied fruits I bought at G. Detout
in Paris. If you make your own candied fruits or know a
confectioner who does, use it. Is there something to these
fruits' garish colors? We'll see in a minute.

Weight about 350 gr/ 11 oz of fruits.

Chop them into cubes but keep the cherries intact.

We want to soak our fruits with rhum, so let's macerate them
for a couple hours. Sorry for the rhum I used, I know it is
one of the most prized rhums in the world and usually not
seen as cake fodder, but it's the only one I could find.
People who know how much this bottle cost will think I'm
nutty as a fruitcake.

In a nutshell, the secret of a good cake is a combination of
candied fruits and nuts. Break the walnuts open and measure
60 grams / 2 oz.

Our ingredients on my moroccan gsâa. Clockwise from the top:
candied fruit having their last glass of rhum, walnuts fresh
off the shell, almond powder from the fridge, butter, sugar,
flour in the three eggs in the center. Ready to roll.

Work the butter until it is soft but not melted. You can
take it out of the fridge an hour before, put it in the
microwave for 30 seconds or give your forearms a workout,
but whatever you do, do not use melted butter. We need
butter in the precise consistency French pastry chefs call
beurre pommade or 'butter in ointment consistency'.

Add the sugar and work it into the butter.

Our supporting cast is lined up behind the stage door.

Let the eggs join in, then the flour, baking and almond
powders. Work everything to a smooth mixture with a paddle.

Mix the rhum the rhum you have used to soak the candied
fruits in. Damned fruits, they show their duplicity now. The
green coloring used on the Angelica stems has leaked into
the rhum. Walnuts. After the candied fruits had one for the
road, drain them. They are ready for their last drop.

Time to work the paddle again until you get a smooth mixture.

Start filling your cake pan with the dough. If you use a
metal pan, line it up with baking paper or at least grease
and flour to ensure a smooth future for your cake. You can
make three small cakes or a large one with these
proportions.

My pan is filled. In it goes in the oven preheated to
200C/400F. How long? For a small cake about 30 minutes,
for a large cake up to 60 minutes. The only way to make sure
is to dip a skewer or sharp knife into the cake after 30
minute and every 10 minutes after that. Remove the cake only
when the knife exits the fruitcake with a dry blade. That
means the fruitcake's goose is cooked and he's ready to exit
the oven and be eaten. If you see the top become very dark,
wrap it in foil and continue baking until the inside is no
longer sticky.

Remove to a cooling rack and unmold as soon as the cake is
hard enough to hold together. If you like the idea of a
cooking rack but fear it might be too expensive for you, you
can buy one at Ikea, a Swedish furniture retailer, for less
than 10$.

We will now prepare a syrup to soak the baked cake in
spiritual sweetness. Melt 100 gr sugar in 100 gr water and
heat to make was French confectioners call a '30 degrees syrup'.

Wait until it is cold so as not to break the rhum's spirit,
then pour the syrup into a bowl.

Add the rhum you have used to soak the candied fruits in.
Damned fruits, they show their lies now. The green coloring
used on the Angelica stems has colored my rhum.

Soak the cake in the rich rhum syrup. Readers should not be
alarmed to see the cake darken as it sucks up the rhum, this
is quite normal and the serious gourmet should have nothing
against fruitcakes of a darker complexion.

Don't forget to let the cake's sides soak up some syrup too.
At first it might look like you've made way too much syrup,
but after 15 minutes or so, most will have disappeared
inside the fruitcake.

Ready to eat or to wrap and offer as a gift. Although it is
very traditional, this particular recipe was designed by
Swiss chef Philippe Rochat as food to be taken on an
expedition by Mike Horn, an adventurer and friend of the
chef. It is juicy, rich and fragrant - a very serious
fruitcake indeed.

http://FXcuisine.com/default.asp?Display=166
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