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This Book makes me cook, is a book club by few bloggers, with whom I joined with, just to read some books at least once a month!!, these days I have never been able to read any serious books at all, when I found this club, I was truly happy and they also welcomed me into their club. This is my second book, This time again I got hold of this book only after the 15th of last month, I was a bit confused with the posting dates, which I came to know a little late, Now I know exactly when to post the next one!!, Anyways as usual I think I am the last one to post!!.
This month (april) book choosen by the book club was ''Julie and Julia'', 524 recipes, 365 days, 1 tiny apartment by Julie Powell.
As many of you who might have read the book or seen the movie know that Julie powell is a secretary who lives in a tiny apartment with her husband and how she found this book in her mom's collection and her saga or journey through this book of Julia Child's Art of French CoMastering the oking, and this is how the project was born!!
Julie begins to cook everyone of the 524 recipes in the book, within the span of just one year- 365 days!!, Once she plunges herself into this project, she just thinks only about this, it just becomes a breath to her life, The life with her family, friends and work all becomes secondary in her life when she starts the project.
The book particularly I liked in it was her hard labour in trying out all the recipes to the perfection of Julia child, was quite a tedious task for somebody who knew very minimal things about cooking!!, her journey was really a tough one, as she had issues mentally with some of the things which wouldn't eat!!.
The other thing was her husband's involvement in her project was what I most appreciated, juggling between everyday work, his sickness and his wife's project, hats off to him, caring and encouraging her in every step of her project, sometimes his defensive tactic of selective hearing as julie says, made him survive with his wife's venture!!.
what I didn't like in the book was too much of the 'F' word, and talking too much about sex was what I did not like, there was not much of anything about the cooking or baking, as what I had expected!!, Nothing much about Julia child at all, The book is all about her struggling with her life and her living with her family and friends, I could see some of the names of some dishes and reading it I came to know that it is more about cooking meat and not much vegetarian cooking in it.
In the end I felt really sorry for Julie as she felt that she was not at least recognised by Julia child, but as she herself says - what it takes to find your way in the world, It's not what I thought it was, - I don't know confidence or will or luck. Those are all some good things to have no question , But, there's something else something that these things grow out of - It's Joy!!.
I do not blame Julie, being a blogger myself, I know how each one of the bloggers out there dedicate their life into blogging and how much it involves and revolves around their life, through this book I take this opportunity to give a big bow to all the food bloggers who love their bleeders and think them as part of their life.
Meryl streep as Julia child has taken the movie into an excellent setting, she just blends in with Julia child's character and feel us more rapport with that lady in name and fame. After seeing the movie 'Devil wears Prada' I am a big fan of Meryl streep and just loved her in ''Julie and Julia'' too!!.
I should say that I loved the movie than the book, Reading a lot of MAofFc in googling I came to know that this Recipe was the last in her book, as I think I am the last one to write about this book, this would be quite an appropriate choice, I really do not know if Julie or Julia would approve my cake..., but as Julie says I tried my best to bake this cake!!
REINE DE SABA (QUEEN OF SHEEBA CAKE)
INGREDIENTS:
3 Oz Semi sweet Baking Chocolate
1 oz Unsweetned chocolate
2 tbsp Strong coffee (dark rum)
1/2 cup Unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar
3 egg yolks
3 egg whites
1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
pinch of salt
2 tbsp Granulated sugar
1/3 cup blanched Almonds (Pulverised in blender with 2tbsp of Granulated sugar)
1/4 tsp Almond extract
1/2 cup Plain bleached Cake flour (I used Self-raising flour)
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (Gas Mark 4)
In a sauce pan melt both the chocolates and strong coffee (/dark rum) by using a double boiler set over a pan of 2 or 3'' of water, combine and let chocolate melt stirring smooth and turn of heat
In an another bowl take softened butter, beat it add sugar and yolks and beat until soft and fluffy
In an another bowl beat the egg whites add cram of tartar and salt and beat until soft peaks are formed add 2 tbsp of sugar and beat until shining peaks form leaving a trial behind.
Now Blend the warm melted chocolate into the yolk mixture, then blend in the ground almonds and almond extarcts.
Immediately stir in 1/4th of egg whites, delicately and rapidly fold in the quarter of the flour, this way alternatively keep on adding the egg whites and fold in the flour until completely both of them are used up.
Then fold this mixture into the cake tin immediately and press in well with the help of spatula and bake this in the lower middle rack of a preheated oven
Bake the cake for around 25 minutes or until a tooth pick comes clean when inserted in the cake, But, You need to keep in mind the cake in the middle should be still soft or glooey, and should move when shaken.
Remove it from the tin once it is cooled and then do the Icing.
I did a chocolate Icing with :
4 oz of chocolate
A knob of butter
1 tbsp of sugar
1 tbsp of milk
I melted the chocolate, with knob of butter, sugar and tbsp of milk and made an Icing on to top it.
I had a real problem my cake tin which locks is loose came of when I lifted it to put it in the oven, came off and I felt like crying, and i tried my best to push the mixture into the tin and I had no hope that it would really bake or not !!, thank God!! it did bake and came out really well, I really wanted to show a piece of how it looked but my kids were more interested in eating it than taking photos!!, when I came back I saw that they had just left me a piece of it and as it was late in the night I dare not take any photos, As most of photos are crap !!
I used some flaked almonds to top it which I saw in one of the blogs, when I googled for this recipe, I had 3 to 4 blogs to go through for this recipe, then I decided to take the recipe from this blog and Nigella's blog which were almost similar.
Hope you all enjoyed my post as I enjoyed this cake!! c u soon..., I think I will be on time for the next time.
will be off to see what my friends have cooked from the book... and you also my friends do check out their blogs.
We both did a window shopping around the city centre and came back home quite tired, we had a subway sandwich then had a pack of crisps and went around the shops thought we will go to the station and we would be home soon, she had and kept telling what I need to cook today, but when we came to station we came to know that we need to wait almost an hour and half in te cold weather !!, so by the time we were back home it was nearly half seven, so we sorted somethings out in the house and thought of cooking something up soon, I then remembered this recipe which I wanted to try out from this blog, PJ of Ginger and Garlic has lovely recipes which would be very interesting to my kids, so I was showing my daughter if she would like this than what she had already asked for, so we sat down to check out the recipe, she was really not very interested with eating Tofu today, so we were checking out more recipes from this chef Mr. Mark Bittman, well I really didn't know who it was and I came to know about him through PJ, so I started googling and I stumbled on this blog called I Heart cooking club, I really was so interested to participate in the event, so I had think fast what I could muster up, this was all daughter's idea and she was with me and helped in doing this too..., It was really tasty, but I did tweak them a little, I should say Mark Bittman talks very well, and as he says you can do it your way, if you know the ingredients, lick and see if that is how you want!!, then that's just fine so here is my recipe and of course I did a back up check with the procedures with Joy of cooking.., just to make sure I wouldn' t make anything wrong, like cross checking.. as in the video of Mark Bittman doesn't give you exact measurments.
STRAWBERRY WITH ALMOND CREME ANGLAISE
INGREDIENTS :
Strawberries as you wish
1/2 cup Cream ( I used full creme)
1/2 cup milk
1 and 1/2 tsp Custard Powder
2 Egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
10 Almonds
1/2 tsp Almond essence
METHOD
Take a pan and toast almonds slightly and keep aside.
Take a bowl put the toasted almonds and pour in the cream, milk and sugar and keep stirring and when it starts heating up add custard powder and the yolks and keep on stirring until it thickens, do not boil and if you allow it boil as the yolks are in their they might get curdled up, as both Mark and Joy of cooking say it might curdle up and if it does Joy of cooking says put it in the processor and it would become alright.
But I was, should I say both us worked together and it didn't curdle up and my daughter reminded me as Mark says turn your spoon around and pull a straight line on it, to check the right consistency of the Almond sauce it will not waver!! ahem!!, mum it is perfect said my little sweet heart and here my Almond sauce was ready.
Take a bowl and strainer and strain the sauce and take the Crushed almonds out and set aside, put this Cre'me anglaise into the refrigerator for the sauce to cool
Cut the strawberry and then pour the Almond Sauce over it and sprinkle crushed almonds to decorate and serve it chilled.
Hope you enjoyed as we did, check out a precise recipe for the above sauce in Mark's/Joy of cooking or by Googling with some of wonderful bloggers who would have tried it out !!.
I would also send this to Thanda Mela event and cooking with kids both hosted by Srivalli.
Here are some more pics of my strawberry almond sauce.
Thank you and c u soon......
