Ray's Hell Burger Update: A Good Thing Can Get Better

Last weekend, Tom and I stopped for a quick lunch at Ray's Hell Burger on our way to the airport to catch a flight to L.A. I am thrilled to report that the place is a tasty as the first time we visited, and in fact, has actually improved on what I thought was already a fabulous concept.

First, Ray's Hell Burger now offers some good side dish options besides just Route 11 potato chips. While they are still not serving fries, they were offering coleslaw ($1.25), macaroni & cheese ($1.50) and cheesy potato puffs ($2.50 for an order of 8). We tried the coleslaw (which was creamy and good), and potato puffs (which were like balls of silky smooth mashed potatoes, mixed with a little bit of cheese and deep fried). I prefer a sturdier fried potato (like a french fry or tater tots) and did not particularly care for potato puffs, but Tom liked them and every single customer in the place appeared to have ordered them.

The menu also included new burger toppings that we had not seen on our previous visit, including bone marrow ($3), seared foie gras ($10), and black forest ham ($1.50). They were also offering small 8 oz. bottles of Diet Coke for $2 (last time, no diet soda was offered). On the cold winter day of our visit, each burger was served with a quarter of an orange, and patrons were offered a complimentary cup of very rich hot chocolate on the way out. The chalkboard by the register also promoted "the big deal" of a cheddar cheeseburger or Mack burger, plus any side and a 16 oz. drink for $10. This place is still the best burger in town, and I hope that they continue to expand their menu and offer more creative and yummy options! Click on the images to enlarge the menus.


Previous Post: "First Taste: Ray's Hellburger," July 12, 2008.

Puddle of Caramel, Anyone?

So I tried making the fleur de sel caramels again, determined to make them come out a little firmer. Last time, I followed the directions to a T and boiled the caramel until it reached precisely 248 degrees. Candy making involves a bit of science and you should use a candy thermometer to make sure that you have your sugar mixture at the right temperature to get the consistency you want. At 248 degrees, a sugar mixture is at the top of the range of what is called "firm ball stage," when a blob of the mixture dropped into cold water will form a firm ball that is malleable, but will not flatten on its own. Caramels are cooked to this stage.

These sugar stages have these descriptive names because the cold water test is how home cooks used to make candy before you could run out to Williams-Sonoma and buy a candy thermometer. The sugar stages are, in order of ascending temperature, thread stage, soft ball, firm ball, hard ball, soft crack, and hard crack. (In the book and movie adaptation of Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate, there is a humorous scene where Gertrudis assigns former Mexican Revolutionary soldier Sergeant Trevino the task of making syrup to accompany her fritters, and he is temporarily stymied when he doesn't comprehend what the term "soft ball stage" refers to in the recipe he is following.)

This time around, I thought I would try cooking the caramel to just beyond 250 degrees, to the border of "hard ball stage," when a bit of the mixture dropped into cold water forms a hard ball. (I also took the precaution of testing the accuracy of my candy thermometer first to make sure that wasn't my problem; I put it in some boiling water and it read 212 degrees, on the dot.) Much to my dismay, the caramels actually turned out softer than they did last time. While I was able to cut them into neat 1-inch squares, if I let them sit for a little bit, I discovered that they expanded into little caramel blobs.


They were still delicious, but just a little homely. (I felt good enough about the caramels to gift some to our mail carrier -- although to be honest, I have some mixed feelings about him since although he does have to trudge through the rain and snow and such to deliver our mail, he also misdelivers our mail to the neighbors, or vice versa, at least a couple of times a week.) I'm not sure what the problem is, but I will probably make them again, since they are so tasty. Maybe one of these days I will finally get these caramels perfectly right!

Recipe: Fleur De Sel Caramels from epicurious.com.
Previous Post: "A Salty-Sweet-Creamy Treat," December 18, 2008.

A Salty-Sweet-Creamy Treat

So now that I've finally finished blogging about one holiday party, it's time to move onto the next one... This afternoon we had our office holiday party. I decided to make another red velvet cake, and it looked just like the one I made last week, so I won't bother talking about it any further.

I also decided to try making some Fleur De Sel Caramels. I have made other types of caramels in the past, but I've never tried this recipe before. It includes only 6 ingredients (cream, butter, fleur de sel, sugar, corn syrup, and water) and is pretty straightforward to make. I cut the pan of cooled caramels into 1-inch squares.

The final texture was somewhat soft; I had to be careful not to bend the caramels out of shape when I was wrapping them. Because they were slightly sticky, I wrapped each caramel in square of parchment, and then in a small square of colored foil (I buy the pre-cut foil from Sur La Table; it comes in a rainbow of shades and is very reasonably priced at $2.95 for a pack of 125 squares).

The caramels were very smooth and creamy, and fairly light in texture. They had a pronounced salt flavor, which was delicious (I did use twice as much fleur de sel as the recipe called for after reading some of the recipe reviews on epicurious). Tom suggests that if I make them again, I should try and see if I can get the caramel to set a little firmer. I think I'm up to the challenge!

Recipe: Fleur De Sel Caramels from epicurious.com.

Holiday Party Recap, Part III: Ready For a Throwdown!

A couple of reliable standards that I made for the holiday party included the Chocolate-Almond Souffle Torte (pictured here immediately after it came out of oven when it actually looked like a souffle, and before the it sank considerably upon cooling), and the Peanut Butter and Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookie. Whenever I have a lot of baking to do (meaning several days worth), I make a detailed schedule of what needs to get done when, balancing the workload as much as possible, and taking into consideration what items can be made earlier and what items have to be made at the last minute. I made the pretzel cookies two days before the party because I know that they are sturdy and would taste just as good on day three as they would the day they were baked.

I also decided to try, for the first time ever, making a red velvet cake. Tom and I recently watched an episode of Throwdown! with Bobby Flay featuring red velvet cake. If you've never seen the show, each 30 minute episode features chef Bobby Flay trying to best a professional cook at his or her own signature dish. For this episode, Flay challenged Cake Man Raven of Brooklyn to a red velvet cake throwdown. Tom and I both thought that Cake Man Raven was extremely likable, and his cake looked amazing -- fire engine red with loads of cream cheese frosting studded with pecans. Bobby Flay's version was a somewhat homely looking muddy shade of almost red with a cooked and rather haphazardly-applied frosting (you can find Flay's recipe here). I won't spoil the results of the throwdown, but suffice it to say that I was inspired enough by the episode to decide that I had to try making the cake myself.

I found Cake Man Raven's recipe online, here. It's actually very simple to make. You whisk together oil, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, vinegar and red food coloring, and then mix in the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa), which have been sifted together. The batter looks like red paint when you pour it into the pans. I only have two round cake pans, and so I made a two-layer cake instead of a three-layer cake. I also decided to use the frosting recipe from Pumpkin-Raisin Bars, which is very similar to Cake Man Raven's frosting recipe, except that it is less sweet and does not include vanilla. I think that the Pumpkin-Raisin Bar frosting is the most delicious frosting on earth. Really. I had to make a triple batch of it to have enough to fill and cover the cake.

This headturner is the natural center of attention in a sea of other baked goods. The cake itself is very moist and quite tasty, although if you asked me what it tastes like, I would say it could accurately be described as "birthday cake" (if that's a flavor). Together with the frosting, the cake is just incredibly tasty. The color and appearance of this intensely red cake is striking and gorgeous and I swear, it just screams out to anyone passing by, "I AM SPEC-TAC-U-LAR! YOU WANT TO EAT ME!" It's irresistible.

Recipes:

• Chocolate-Almond Souffle Torte from epicurious.com.
• Peanut Butter and Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookie, Sarah Croake's entry into the YWCA Centennial Chocolate Chip Cookie Bakeoff (2005).
• Red Velvet Cake from Cakeman Raven, recipe available online here.
• Frosting recipe from Pumpkin-Raisin Bars, from epicurious.com.
  

Previous Posts:

• "Bastille Day Treats," July 14, 2008.
  
• "A Prize-Winning Peanut Butter Pretzel Treat," August 27, 2008.
• "Holiday Party Recap, Part I: A Lovely Lemon Treat," December 14, 2008.
• "Holiday Part Recap, Part II: Bites, Bars, and a Holiday Standard," December 15, 2008.
  

Holiday Party Recap, Part II: Bites, Bars, and a Holiday Standard

As I mentioned in my last post, I do like to have a variety of shapes and sizes of baked goods to present whenever I'm putting on a party. So I decided to make Midnight Chocolate Brownie Bites, and actually make them bite size. I baked a 9 by 13-inch pan, and cut the brownies into 1-inch by 1-inch squares, yielding 96 squares (the finished size of the baked brownies was about 8.75 by 12.75 inches, which is why I only got 96 squares, and another 21 smaller crust remnants that I was contemplating maybe mixing into my next batch of homemade ice cream... but would you believe that I found a guest eager to take home these irregulars?). The tiny bite size servings turned out to be a great idea, as guests liked being able to pick up just a bite or two, leaving them with plenty of room to sample other offerings at the party.

I also made Raspberry-Filled White Chocolate Bars, a Pillsbury Bakeoff recipe that I found in a booklet called "Bake-Off Cookies, Brownies & Bars" that I bought at the checkout lane at the grocery store in 1997. This recipe is one of my favorites and I make it regularly. The bars are extremely moist, and the white chocolate, raspberry, and almond flavors are fabulous together.

Another standard cookie in my rotation at Christmastime is florentines. I think these lace cookies are so beautiful and festive that I always make them during the holidays. (Also, because of the chocolate coating, I usually make these only in cold, dry weather conditions.) The recipe is from The Art of the Cookie by Jann Johnson, which is one of the very first cookbooks I ever owned (I got it back in college). You make the dough for these almond wafer cookies on the stove. You melt butter in a saucepan, add sugar, flour, salt, honey and cream, simmer the mixture for a bit, and then mix in sliced and ground almonds and almond extract. A cookie scoop and parchment paper are a necessity for this recipe; because the cookies spread so thin, they can go from undercooked to burnt very quickly and parceling out equal amounts of dough ensures that all of the cookies are done at the same time. The cookies are still soft and pliable when they come out of the oven, but harden as they cool; parchment paper makes lifting these cookies from the pan a breeze.

After the cookies are cooled, you spread a chocolate coating of melted chocolate and butter on the backside of each cookie. I draw a decorative design in the chocolate using a cake comb, a triangular piece of plastic with evenly-spaced teeth on each side that I drag through the chocolate. These cookies bake up with some small holes where chocolate can seep through to the front. It's an impressive looking cookie, and delicious to boot!

Recipes:

• "Midnight Chocolate Brownie Bites," from the Los Angeles Times, July 2, 2008.
• "Raspberry-Filled White Chocolate Bars," from the 1990 Pillsbury Bakeoff by contestant Mark Bocianski.
  
• "Florentines," from The Art of the Cookie by Jann Johnson.

Previous Posts:

• "Holiday Party Recap, Part I: A Lovely Lemon Treat," December 14, 2008.
  
• "A Mysterious Midnight Bite," July 8, 2008.
  

Holiday Party Recap, Part I: A Lovely Lemon Treat

Tom and I both love to entertain. Yesterday, we hosted a holiday bash attended by about 70 people, something we could never have done before in our respective one-bedroom apartments. I (of course) did all of the baking, starting on Thursday afternoon, working all day Friday, and putting on finishing touches (cutting, frosting, and filling) on Saturday. Tom did all of the savory food, preparing his amazing meat dishes on the grill and finishing them up in the oven throughout the night during the party.

When we were planning the party, I suggested to Tom that we have a labeled "Take Home Station" with ziploc bags, plates, and plastic wrap where guests could take home a doggie bag. I proposed this because I usually find guests wrapping baked goods into napkins and stuffing them into their purses and coat pockets on the way out the door anyway. I figured you might as well formalize and encourage the practice, which both increases guest satisfaction and reduces leftovers. (I really do not like dealing with leftovers after a party.) While we didn't end up setting up the station, guests did take home plenty of food and I am pleased as punch to report that there were only half a dozen cookies and bars and a single piece of cake left at the end of the evening.

The menu included a couple of obvious holiday choices, Caramel Pecan Cookies and Gramercy Tavern Gingerbread. I made the gingerbread into individual heart cakelets since I like to have a variety of interesting baked goods shapes and sizes to look at when I'm putting on a big spread.


I also decided to make Lemon-Poppy Seed Sandwich Cookies, a cookie I haven't made in over three years. At a friend's birthday party a few weeks ago, someone I haven't seen in years mentioned how much she liked the cookie, and it reminded me how long it's been since I've baked them. The cookie dough includes lemon zest, lemon extract, and poppy seeds, and the recipe directs you to refrigerate the dough for at least two hours before rolling it out. I refrigerated the dough overnight, and when I tried to roll out the dough the next day, I all of sudden remembered why it's been so long since I last made this cookie. The dough was extremely difficult to handle and it was impossible for me to roll and cut. (Then again, I am also pretty incompetent when it comes to rolling and cutting cookie dough -- I almost never make roll cookies for this reason.) To salvage the situation, I shaped the dough into logs, put it in the freezer, and then sliced it into rounds. This worked perfectly and I will definitely do this whenever I made the cookies in the future. The cookie baked up dense, very crisp, and buttery, like a lemon-flavored shortbread. I filled the cookies on Saturday morning and stored them in the refrigerator during the day, so that the cookies were a bit softer and easier to eat during the party. I have to say, though, the cookie itself is so delicious that it would be just lovely served without the filling.


Recipes:

• Caramel Pecan Cookies from epicurious.com.
• Gramercy Tavern Gingerbread from epicurious.com.
• Lemon-Poppy Seed Sandwich Cookies from epicurious.com.

Previous Posts:

• "It's Starting to Taste a Little Like Autumn," September 17, 2008.
• "Good Things Comes In Small Packages," October 14,2008.
  

Candy for Breakfast

Yesterday at the office we hosted a going-away breakfast for our college interns, who are leaving us at the end of the semester. I was looking for a new breakfast baked good since I've been making an awful lot of scones lately. I decided to try a Toffee Bar Coffee Cake recipe from epicurious.com. The batter is made with dark brown sugar and buttermnilk, and the topping contains a generous amount of pecans and Heath Bar bits.

I though this cake was okay, but I don't know if I would make it again. It was definitely moist, and it was unusual darker shade of brown because of the dark brown sugar. But I didn't actually think that the cake itself had very much flavor. Nevertheless, this cake was very warmly received, although my theory is people would enjoy almost anything with a lot of nuts and Heath Bar on it.

Recipe: Toffee Bar Coffee Cake from epicurious.com.

A Fond and Fudgy Farewell

This afternoon we had a party at the office for Matt, an attorney who is retiring after 37 years of service. I asked Matt if he had a baked goods request, and he mentioned his favorite flavor combination of chocolate and raspberry. I knew exactly what to make to fit the bill -- the Fudgy Chocolate-Raspberry Bar, a recipe I actually first discovered a few years ago when Matt asked for a chocolate raspberry dessert and I put the terms "chocolate" and "raspberry" into the recipe search engine on epicurious.com.

These bars are easy to make, and they have raspberry jam in both the brownie batter and the frosting to impart a distinctive raspberry flavor. They are decadently fudgy, and they give off an intoxicating and wonderfully intense aroma. We are all sad to see Matt leave, but I will always think of him when I make these bars!

Recipe: Fudgy-Chocolate Raspberry Bars from epicurious.com.
Previous Post: What Goes With A Cookies 'n' Cream Ice Cream Cake?, June 11, 2008.

Chocolate-Pumpkin (Not) Layer Cake With(out) Chocolate Frosting

A few weeks ago I saw a recipe in the New York Times that I filed away in the back of my head to make on a future date. The recipe appeared with an article on make-ahead desserts aimed at addressing the problem of not having enough time or oven space on Thanksgiving; it provided detailed advice on freezing and thawing baked goods. I am often asked about freezing baked goods, or if a specific recipe freezes well. I wouldn't know. I have never in my life made baked goods and frozen them. I always make baked goods when they're needed; if I'm short on time, it just means less sleep or taking some time off from work. If there are leftovers, I give them away.

Anyway, I was intrigued by the combination of pumpkin, pecans, and chocolate in the Chocolate-Pumpkin Layer Cake recipe, so I decided to give it a try last night.

The cake batter was very thick, and baked up dense and moist; all of the mix-ins remained suspended instead of sinking to the bottom as often happens with thinner batters. I made it in a 9 x 13 inch pan instead of two round cake pans. However, the frosting was a total loss. I melted the chocolate in a double boiler and set it aside to cool. While the chocolate was cooling, I got distracted by some other tasks and by the time I got back to it more than a hour later, some of it had re-solidified. So I briefly put the chocolate back on the double boiler and mixed up the frosting. The frosting was extremely stiff, and I saw bits of unsweetened chocolate solidified in it (even though the chocolate was completely liquid when I added it). It tasted terrible and did not in any way resemble buttercream. I whipped in some milk, hoping to get it more spreadable, but it didn't help. So I decided to just call it quits and I threw the entire batch of frosting away.

Fortunately, the cake it still tasty without it (although I have to admit, it probably would be improved with some chocolate frosting). The large bits of chocolate chips and pecans add great texture and terrific bursts of flavor. I think I'll have to try the recipe again and see if I can get the frosting to work out.

Recipe: Chocolate-Pumpkin Layer Cake from the New York Times, November 12, 2008.