My birthday came and went this year without an explicitly planned Birthday Cake of Immortality (BCI). It was no real skin off my back to skip a year, as the 13-course Peking Duck banquet we threw at Red Star suited me just fine.

It was brought to my attention, however, that the party favours that we created for our 30 guests not only made Halloweentastic gourmet treats but met the standards for a Birthday Cake of Immortality (a metaphoric eating of flesh).

Now that you’re done looking at previous BCIs and have managed to push your nausea down, I’ll share our tricks for creating these less controversial, delicious, and seasonally appropriate hand pies filled with pumpkin and Medjool dates.

The Filling

Time to meander over to The Cooking Photographer. Laura’s recipe is the one that came up when I Googled “jack o’ lantern hand pie”, and after seeing her handiwork, no other hand pie would do for my guests.

Since I needed 4x the number of hand pies that Laura’s recipe made, I naturally made 4x the amount of filling that a single batch called for. Big mistake!

That’s all we needed per hand pie: a spoonful! One batch of filling was therefore more than enough to fill the 30 hand pies we made. It’s not too horrible if you make too much, though; stuff the remainder into a normal-sized pie and you’re all set.

The Dough

My well-tempered friend Eagranie Yuh came over last August and taught me her tried-and-true pie pastry technique, which she had, in turn, learned from Kate McDermott, Seattle baker extraordinaire.

To give both ladies their proper due, I will simply link to their respective articles. Click away!

• Kate on making a plain pie crust and how not to stick your hand in an oven (bonus: recipe source from 1898!)
• Eagranie’s treatise on using leaf lard in pie

These particular hand pies were commemorating a Peking Duck dinner so I veered slightly off-recipe, using a smidgen less of leaf lard and making up for it with a heaping tablespoon of duck fat.

Specialized Tools

Since Laura clearly described how to cut, fill, and bake the hand pies, I won’t bother reiterating the assembly instructions here. Instead, I’ll share a few tips that may save you time and ruined tester pies.

To get your pies looking like a right old jack o’ lantern, find your neighbourhood Williams Sonoma and get these babies:

We chose not to cut out a nose in our hand pies, as doing so would have left us little room around the edges to seal the sides of the pie together. Similarly, we opted for the mouths and eyes that balanced our desire to have the filling stick out with our need to keep the pies sealed.

I didn’t want to create a separate label in the party favour bag to say thank you, so spending $30 on this message cutter set just to be able to press “Thank You” on the back side of the pie was well worth it. Also rationalized that this set would come in handy for future occasions where I feel like writing graffiti on my desserts.

I thought they came out pretty well, don’t you?

My mother taught me another recipe from our family’s archives the last time we visited her in Everett. It was an instant hit in our household, not only for its economy but for its amazing versatility. I’ve been tweaking and perfecting these variations for my non-Filipino and vegetarian guinea pigs; they insist that it’s time to share the details with them (and the world).

Since this recipe can make two different dishes, I’ve separated the ingredient lists and steps below into the base sautée, the green bean variation, and the potato variation.

Our favourite way to take advantage of this? We make the base, use a third of it for the green bean stir-fry to serve immediately, and use the same pan to make the potato variation from the remaining base, which is reserved in the fridge and then finished for a hearty breakfast the following morning.

When you try it out, let me know how you vary the recipe to suit your household’s palate.

The base sautée

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 lb lean ground pork [vegetarian: omit or substitute diced extra firm tofu]
• 2 tablespoons a) fish sauce, b) tamari soy sauce, or c) light soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 medium tomatoes, diced

Directions

1. In a large wok or skillet, sweat garlic and onion in oil over low heat until onions are translucent. Don’t burn the garlic.
2. Increase heat to med/high and add pork, fish sauce, and water. Stir to break the pork into tiny chunks. Cover and boil for 20 minutes until pork is cooked and liquid is completely absorbed.  [Vegetarian: skip step or use tofu and soy instead.]
3. Reduce heat to medium. Stir in tomatoes and cook until soft and thoroughly incorporated.

Dish #1: Ginisang Bitsuelas (sautéed green beans)

Ingredients

• 1/3 of the base sautée, above
• 1/2 lb green beans, thinly sliced on the oblique
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• Freshly cracked ground pepper to taste

Directions

1. Using a sharp knife or mandolin, thinly slice your stash of green beans at a steep 20 degree angle. (That’s about as steep as the slant of a sandwich board.) If you’re really handy with a razor blade or are as old-school as my mom is, take a razor like the one above and shave off the slices like you would peel a carrot. Just don’t catch your wrist in it…

Razor blade, by scottfeldstein on Flickr (Creative Commons)

2. Stir the green beans into the base sautée. Cover and cook on low/med heat until green beans soften and intensify their verdant colour. Don’t overcook – you want ‘em al dente for best mouthfeel results.
3. Add butter and pepper to taste. If it isn’t salty enough, reseason with fish or soy sauce. Serve on a mound of steamed rice.

Dish #2: Torta (Filipino frittata)

Ingredients

• 3/4 of the base sautée, above
• 1 medium Russet potato, cut into 1cm cubes
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• Freshly cracked ground pepper to taste

Directions

1. Add potato to base sautée. Cover and cook on low/med heat until potatoes are softened.
2. Transfer to a large bowl and cool mixture in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. At this point, you can also call it a night and do the rest in the morning.
3. Whisk eggs. Pour into cooled base and mix thoroughly.
4. Heat oil on low heat in non-stick skillet or wok. Pour in a circle of the egg batter – about 3 heaping tablespoons’ worth. Season with pepper if desired. Cook, covered, until egg is firmly set.
5. Flip over – using a plate if the torta is larger than your flipper – and cook reverse side for 1 minute or till lightly browned.
6. Served with steamed rice and a side of (banana) ketchup or sweet and sour sauce.

T minus 24 hours till Super Bowl XLV! It totally sucks that my team didn’t make it this year, but I will still join fellow embittered football fans this Super Bowl Sunday to watch the remaining teams go head-to-head. At least they are two teams that I would be happy to cheer for: the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers. My money’s on the Packers for fear of the repercussions (they’re the team of the best man at our wedding, whose wrath I do not wish to raise).

Our usual Super Bowl ritual involves preparing a feast fit for the game, which is more often than not tailored to the teams that are playing. Since I’ve already done my due diligence about generic plus pro-Steelers football fare when I wrote about the big game in 2009, I will simply recap those details for you here so to pay more attention on how you could represent the Packers at your Super Bowl party.

Go Packers! Cheesehead food and drink

Photo credit: Bjorn Hanson (Creative Commons)

What you can make to celebrate Green Bay will likely involve cheese. Cheese made in Wisconsin, to be precise. Ideally, cheese that looks like the wedge above. If you can fashion it into a hat on your head, give yourself bonus points. You could probably make a drinking game out of it: take a swig every time you spot a close-up of a Packers fan in this head gear.

Speaking of drinks…Wisconsin is home to many a good brewery but the best are difficult to get in Vancouver. If you are really dying to get a beer of appropriate origin, you could always default to MGD.

Solids

• Fried cheese curds (The Nibble)
• Green Bay Packers bratwurst and cheddar pizza (Examiner.com)
• Bratwurst: serve with perogies for a Packers-Steelers dish duo (The Bratwurst Pages)
• Resource: Wisconsin Cheese (Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board)

Liquids

• Any WI beer from the Miller group (Milwaukee), which includes the award-winning selections from Hamm’s Brewery.
• Resource: Wisconsin breweries (Wikipedia)
• Resource: Search Twitter for #superbowlbeer suggestions

Go Steelers! Pro-Pittsburgh food and drink

Last time Pittsburgh was in the running, we created Ben Roethlis-Burger sliders that appeased our guests and all the meat-loving deities that exist in our universe. We’ll probably repeat these again to represent the Steelers as cooking this is probably easier than finding Iron City in town!

Want something you can just heat and serve? Apparently the perogy is much heralded in Pennsylvania.

Solids

• The Ben Roethlis-Burger, with bacon weave upgrade (BBQ Addicts)
• BBQ Chipped Chop Ham Sandwiches (Accidental Hedonist)
• Perogies (serve with bratwurst for a Steelers-Packers mash-up)

Liquids

• Iron City (Pittsburgh)
• Resource: Beers of Pittsburgh (Beer Expedition)
• Resource: Pennsylvania breweries (Wikipedia)
• Resource: Search Twitter for #superbowlbeer suggestions

Other football-friendly eats

If you don’t care to pick sides or just want to have stuff to eat that washes down nicely with a cold brew, consider these options. Warning: not for the faint of stomach, and definitely not for vegetarians.

• Bacon bourbon popcorn – Sarah Sprague had me at ‘bacon’. She had my husband at ‘popcorn’. With over a kilo of Chilliwack organic popping corn in our pantry, it would be a travesty to not attempt this recipe as soon as freaking possible.
• Our rendition of Spicy Oven-Baked Chicken Wings (adapted from Fearless in the Kitchen: Innovative Recipes for the Uninhibited Cook by Christine Cushing)
• Memphis Blues Super Bowl Party Pak - Don’t have a grill or the time? Feed 8 people with a slew of barbecued meats, chili and wings. Order ahead for this $95 eat-in /take-out special.

Enjoy the game around town

If the bar scene is more your style, check out what some of  Vancouver’s pubs and restaurants are offering for sustenance on February 6, 2011.  Know of others showing the game in the city? Drop me a comment here.

• Red Card – Settle in as early as 1pm to get your fill of $5 Kronenbourgh lagers and sample the game specials: hot wings galore and Super Bowl chili with the requisite cornbread on the side.
• Library Square Public House – or choose the Donnelly Group pub nearest to you. Come in after 3:30pm.
• Kingston Taphouse – 11am marks the start of Kingston’s Super Bowl specials.  Buy a $10 ticket to assure you a seat, a Prime Rib Burger and some Granville Island Beer. You might even win a trip for 2 to Vegas.
• Memphis Blues’ Super Bowl All-You-Can-Eat Party – If you haven’t called them to book your table yet, get on the phone right now. $20 gets you unlimited mini-ribs and fries, and buckets of Rocky Mountain Pilsner will be going for $10.

Other Super Bowl XLV resources

These additional sites may help you with the planning of this year’s Super Bowl shenanigans. Of note is the article with Southern recipes – a nod to the fact that the game’s being played this year at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas.

• Southern style cookin’ for Super Bowl (Vancouver Sun)
• Great beer for the Super Bowl (Washington Times)
• Super Bowl 2011 Craft Beer Poll: Wisconsin vs. Pennsylvania (Drinkcraftbeer.com)
• Packers Super Bowl Menu: Cheese, Beer, and More Cheese (The Stir)
• Planning a Steelers Super Bowl Party (About.com Pittsburgh)
• Green Bay sausages vs. Pittsburgh pierogies: a Super Bowl debate (Pittsburgh Business Times)
• The Ultimate Football Foodie Super Bowl Recipe Guide for Steelers-Packers Party 2011 (SarahSprague.com)
• Super Bowl Challenge: My Local Beer Quest (the Epi-Log on Epicurious.com)

What will you eat and drink on Super Bowl Sunday? Send me your tips and/or your favourite Super Bowl recipes.

This therapy would not be complete without plopping in front of the TV, tissue box in hand, in front of a feel-good movie – and more often than not, my selection is animated. In the weeks of my convalescence, How to Train a Dragon, Finding Nemo, and Ratatouille have gotten me through some of the worst of the spells. By this Monday, hopefully in a state of full recovery, I will be watching Ratatouille again – with ratatouille and not soup in hand – at Vancity Theatre’s Cinema to Savour screening. All proceeds benefit the Chefs’ Table Society of British Columbia.

Cinema to Savour presents Ratatouille
Monday, November 22, 6-8pm
Vancity Theatre & Film Centre
1181 Seymour Street | Vancouver
Tickets: $55 general, $15 children
More info on chefstablesociety.com

I’ve been working directly and indirectly with the Chefs’ Table Society for the past few years. They’re the guys that run the awesome Spot Prawn Festival each May and the ones that produced the Vancouver Cooks 2 cookbook (which recently won Gold in its category at the Canadian Cookbook awards). On Monday, board member Chef Scott Jaeger of Pear Tree Restaurant and friends will be serving up yummy French-inspired finger food while the film of the same name is shown on the big screen. I thought it’d therefore be fun to share a ratatouille recipe and offer a Ratatouille prize pack in advance of this event.

Our Meatless Wednesdays ratatouille recipe

When I took up David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge a few years ago, we picked one day per week where we ate no meat. The photo above shows our first attempt cooking the ratatouille that we often ate on our Meatless Wednesdays, based on this recipe from our favourite Cook’s Illustrated cookbook. We adjusted the scale of the recipe to serve two, eaten alongside hunks of French bread and a bottle of pinot.

Ingredients

• 1-2 eggplants, cut into large cubes (we used 2 because I’m an eggplant fiend!)
• 1 large zucchini, cut into large cubes
• 1 small-medium onion , chopped
• 2 cloves garlic , minced
• 1 lb of your choice of very ripe tomatoes, peeled and sized like the eggplant and zucchini
• 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
• 1 tablespoon basil, chopped
• 1/2 tablespoon thyme, minced
• Olive oil, salt and pepper

Directions

1. Salt eggplant pieces generously in a colander situated in your sink or over something to catch liquid. Leave for up to 3 hours, then rinse away the salt. Dry eggplant extremely thoroughly…you can’t overdo this step. They might shrink or shrivel some…that’s okay. We used clean dishcloths to extract the moisture instead of wasting paper towels. [Skip this salting process at your peril - you might need to if you're rushed, but the trade-off is a ton more mush in your dish.]
2. Preheat oven to 500F. Line 2 baking sheets with foil.
3. Toss eggplant and zucchini thoroughly in olive oil, then spread the pieces in a single layer across your baking sheets. Sprinkle with salt. Roast in oven for 30-40 minutes or until well-browned and tender. Every 10 minutes, open the oven and stir the veggies on the rack. Halfway through the roast, switch and rotate the position of your baking sheets. Turn off oven and leave them in there or set aside.
4. Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed roasting pan or Dutch oven.
5. Cook and stir onion in pan over low heat until golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes.
6. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds or till the pot exudes garlicky goodness.
7. Add tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes or until they start breaking apart.
8. Add eggplant and zucchini and combine until just heated through, about 5 minutes.
9. Stir in herbs and add salt and pepper to taste.

Share your “Ratatouille moment” and win some Ratatouille

I had a Ratatouille moment 2 years ago when I tucked into the crab fritter at Atlanta’s Bacchanalia Restaurant. It was such a transcendent experience for me – triggering a flood of fond childhood memories – that the taste of this dish will never be forgotten. If I could dine every night at Bacchanalia, I would.

Comment on this post describing your own Ratatouille moment and you could win:

• A copy of Disney PIXAR’s Ratatouille (your choice of DVD or Blu-Ray format)
• 2 passes for the Cinema to Savour screening of Ratatouille on Monday, November 22nd

This Ratatouille prize pack is worth $150. The winner will be randomly selected (Congratulations, Brad!).

That gives you 2 days to submit your Ratatouille moment. Looking forward to reading about the dishes that spoke to you!

As 2009 winds down to a close, I’d like to share the most memorable stories, experiences, and images of our threesome’s year in food.

Key Moments

What a time of transition. A new business, new contributors, and a new life to welcome into the world. 2010 is gonna be huge.

• An introduction to Tiny Bites Consulting
• On eating for two
• Introducing Team Tiny Bites

Dining Out

These are just a few of the places that Bruce, Degan, and I adored in 2009.

• Are you too cool for Qoola?
• Chinatown double feature: Phnom Penh and New Town Bakery
• Filipino Restaurant Series: Pinpin
• Visual Bites: Medina Cafe
• One fish, half a poutine at Red Fish, Blue Fish
• Visual Bites: Tamarind Hill
• Three things I’ll miss about Fuel Restaurant
• Diamond Girl
• A Refined Look at the Cocktail List
• Patio favourites in Victoria
• Bon eats at Baan Thai

Events Around Town

As a newly occupied parent, I’m sure that I’ll have to bow out of and/or delegate many of the events that we had enjoyed in 2009. This list is mostly for me to dwell in nostalgia as I tend to my little one in 2010.

• A play-by-play of the 2009 Culinary Tourism Society BC Conference
• An anthology of the 2009 Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival
• A pictorial of the 2009 BC Restaurant Hall of Fame gala
• Wolfgang Blass: the other man who turned me on… to wine
• A Tasting With Bill Hardy
• Blogathon 2009 for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society
• Foodists BBQ BootCamp
• Recap and tasting notes of the 2009 Gastown Blues and Chili Festival
• Wines of Chile supertasting
• Celebrating Oktoberfest with La Brasserie
• Treat yourself to the last days of the 2009 West Coast Chocolate Festival
• Cornucopia: the sessions
• Live coverage of Shark Truth’s inaugural fundraiser at Wild Rice Restaurant

Home Cooking

We sure did a lot of cooking this year!

• Football-friendly recipes for Super Bowl XLIII
• Recipes for a romantic Valentine’s Day at home
• Foodists fun with Wanda and the Butchers of Gastown
• On being a Yaletown Hobby Chef for a Social Bites dinner
• Family pho recipe revealed
• Rouxbe Cooking School Series: fun with pho, part 1 of 2
• Birthday cakes of immortality
• On the making of an edible Stay Puft Marshmallow Man
• My mother-in-law’s Christmas Eve tourtière recipe

Culinary Travel

I’m not going to be able to do nearly as much jetsetting in 2010 as our trio did in 2009. Here are the highlights of where we’ve been.

• Bites of Asia Series: dining along the edge of a volcano (Philippines)
• Celebrating Chinese New Year around the Pacific Rim (Macau / Hong Kong)
• A tale of two Daniel Boulud cities (Las Vegas, NV)
• Tiny Bites does the Langley Circle Farm Tour circuit (Langley, BC)
• A taste of Victoria with Coast Hotels & Resorts (Victoria, BC)
• High Tea Series: The Empress Hotel (Victoria, BC)
• Battle of Chicago deep dish pizzerias (Chicago, IL)
• Bruce eats New York: Republic and Viet-Cafe in a Vietnamese showdown! (Pho-down?) (New York City, NY)
• Bruce eats New York: fried chicken overload at Momofuku Noodle Bar (New York City, NY)

Favourite Visuals

With so much going on this past year, it was difficult to write about everything we experienced. Consequently, these became hidden gems in my Flickr photostream. Here they are again for your viewing pleasure.

• Bites of Asia
  • Sentro 1771
  • Bohol Bee Farm
• Day tripping in Chilliwack
• A lesson in chocolate with the Dirty Apron Cooking School
• Harvest Picking Party at Township 7
• A Thanksgiving Wine Tour in the Okanagan
  • Sumac Ridge
  • Local Lounge
  • Spirit Ridge
  • Le Vieux Pin
• Pie Day
• A Night with Theo Chocolate
• Foodists’ Decadent Dinner Potluck

Favourite Discoveries

These people, events, and treats helped make 2009 an even yummier year.  Please check them out.

• Anita’s Organic
• Foodists
• Shark Truth
• Social Bites
• Sustainable Sushi
• Theo Chocolate
• Xoxolat

I had to call my mother-in-law for the recipe this week. It was one of those family recipes that hasn’t really been documented. Technically, she does have her notes jotted down somewhere, and I’m sure it was based on someone else’s recipe once upon a time, but my MIL does this savoury pie with her eyes closed nowadays. I hope I can do it justice and transport my husband if only briefly to his mother’s dinner table tonight.

For the pastry

You could always buy pastry shells from your local grocer, but for me and my family, Christmas is about making everything from scratch!

• 5 cups all-purpose flour, unsifted
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 lb of (Tenderflake) lard, very cold
• 1 whole egg
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 2 cups ice cold water

Mix first 4 ingredients above in a large bowl. Integrate the lard using a pastry cutter.

Using a cup measure, break in 1 whole egg and add in 1 tablespoon of vinegar. Add enough ice cold water to make 3/4 cup liquid. Sprinkle this liquid over the lard mixture and toss together.

Divide into 5 equal pieces. For each pie you’ll make, roll out 2 pieces large enough for your pie plate. Shape remaining pieces into flattened discs and wrap in wax paper. You can freeze these in a large freezer bag for 3-6 months.

For the filling

• 2 lbs lean ground pork
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon pepper (generous grind)
• 1/2 teaspoon each of thyme, savoury, sage (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (1/3 teaspoon adding optional spices)
• 1/2 teaspoon cloves
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic (optional)
• 1 cup boiling water (kettle)
• 1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs

On medium to high heat, crumble pork into frying pan. Add water, garlic, onion, and spices. Cook uncovered for 10 minutes.

Cover and simmer for another 20 minutes. If there’s more than a 1/2 cup of fat in the pan, take out all but a 1/4 cup.

Mix in 1/4 cup of fresh bread crumbs and let cool completely.

Final Assembly

Lay one piece of your rolled out dough into pie pan. Fill to the brim with the meat mixture.

Lay the second piece of rolled dough over the pie. Press edges down with tines of a fork and cut excess off with a knife. Make Christmasy shapes to top pie with the excess dough. My mother-in-law does holly berries and leaves.

Brush top of pie with heavy cream or egg mixture (1 egg and 1 tablespoon water, beaten together). Lay down pasty dough decorations. Brush decorations very lightly with the cream or egg mixture.

Bake in oven at 375F for 30-40 minutes . You know it’s ready when dough is golden brown and sticking a knife into the very centre of the pie comes out piping hot.

Making ahead

If all you want to do on Christmas Eve is pop a pie into the oven, you can prepare everything in advance. As mentioned above, the pastry dough will keep 3-6 months in the freezer. You can make the filling up to a week in advance and assemble the final pie for the freezer.

To do so, wrap your uncooked pie in 2 layers of saran wrap and a layer of foil and place in your freezer. Thaw in the fridge the morning that you plan to serve your tourtière at dinner.

Bon appétit and have a wonderful Christmas Eve!

My 30th birthday called for another Birthday Cake of Immortality project. This time, we decided to re-create Ghostbusters’ Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in – of course – homemade marshmallow. No corners were cut: it was 3D with a little bit of help from my large cutting board to stay upright, with legs made of marshmallow fondant so not to collapse in an immediate heap during the party.

What you’ll need to make this yourself

Ingredients per marshmallow batch (2 batches made a week ahead)

We needed two batches of marshmallow for this project. The first gave us the first dome halves of the head and body plus Mr. Stay Puft’s hat. The second gave us the other halves of the head and body with enough leftover batter for a mini-muffin pan that would mold us cute little arm segments.

• 1/2 cup white/light corn syrup or the equivalent in liquid glucose
• 2 cups of granulated sugar
• Two separate 1/2 cup measurements of very (ice) cold water
• 1/4 teaspoon table salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 2 egg whites
• 2.5 tablespoons of gelatin (~47.5mL)

Ingredients for marshmallow fondant (1 batch, split into several colours, made days ahead)

Since we needed a denser base for the legs of our marshmallow man, we decided to employ marshmallow fondant for the legs. We also reserved a bit of this fondant, tinged with the appropriate food colouring, to give us Stay Puft’s clothing and hat detail.

• 1 16 ounce bag of mini marshmallows
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 lbs confectioners’ or icing sugar (~8 cups)

Ingredients for royal icing (1 batch on Assembly Day)

We used royal icing to glue together all the body parts. In retrospect, we should have allowed the body to set in the freezer so that the icing froze or dried before we made the cake upright. Keep this in mind if you re-attempt this project.

• 3 ounces (pasteurized) egg whites
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 cups confectioners’ or icing sugar

Supplies

Most marshmallow recipes call for a 9×13 baking pan, resulting in about 96 cubes of 1″ marshmallow goodness. Since we were creating a monster, we had to figure out how to mold our creation into round shapes instead. This is the arsenal we wound up collecting for this project:

• Parchment paper
• 3 round bowls for molds – we used 2 stainless steel mixing bowl for head + body and a tiny ramekin for the hat
• Mini-muffin pan or piping bag for arm segment molds
• Piping bag for marshmallow fondant / icing detailing
• 2 large cutting boards
• A heckofalot of icing or confectioner’s sugar at the ready (at least one package, but have 2 just in case)
• Cooking spray or vegetable oil
• Vegetable shortening
• Stand mixer with balloon whisk attachment
• Hand mixer
• 3 quart saucepan
• Candy thermometer (one that works!) and knowledge of what the candy soft ball stage looks like

Making the marshmallow

Grease molds with oil and line bottom with parchment paper. Sprinkle crazily with icing sugar till it looks like a blanket of snow. Better to have more icing sugar than you need, because marshmallow is extremely sticky.

Pour 1/2 cup of ice cold water into your stand mixer’s bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin on top and let bloom while you move on to the next step.

In your (small to medium sized) saucepan, stir together the sugar, salt, corn syrup or glucose, and remaining cold water with a wooden spoon. Set element to low heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to medium and stop stirring, using a combination of your candy thermometer and cold water tests to stop at the point where your sugar syrup reaches the soft ball stage.

Don’t rely just on a thermometer reading like we did for our first batch. Your syrup should be clear, around the 230-240F mark depending on your altitude, and should form a pliant ball when dropped into cold water. You’ve gone way too far if your syrup turns colour.

Pour your sugar syrup over the bloomed gelatin. It’ll start to bubble and froth so just be careful not to get hit by the candy splatter.

Set your bowl into the stand mixer and gear your whisk up to high (8-10 on a Kitchenaid mixer), starting slowing from Stir and making your way up to high speeds in increments. This will let your super hot sugar cool without splattering you and your home with liquid that will burn your delicate spots.

Once up to speed, whip for approximately 6 minutes until your mixture has tripled in volume, turned marshmallow white, and starts to pull away from the edge of the mixing bowl like chewing gum from the underside of a desk.

During those 6 minutes, whip your egg whites in a separate bowl with your hand mixer until stiff peaks form. Don’t do this step any earlier or you’ll find that your egg whites will deflate or re-liquidate on you.

Slip the vanilla and whipped egg whites into your stand mixer batter and whip just long enough to incorporate the three together into one silky smooth batter of marshmallow yum. It should look like this:

Pour into your readied molds, using a spatula if you need to, but try not to get anything else in the batter — it’ll stick to everything!

If you have extra batter left over, pour it into a prepped rectangular baking pan sized small enough to contain the batter in an inch-high layer.

Dust with another generous layer of icing sugar and place in your fridge, uncovered, at least 3 hours or overnight.

When your molds are set, take out your icing sugar and an airtight container system that you can use to store your marshmallow in the fridge. Dip a small, sharp knife into icing sugar and pry the marshmallow out of the molds. Remove the parchment paper from your marshmallow and dust the areas that were in contact with the mold with more icing sugar. Close your container and place in your fridge until assembly. These babies will keep like this for up to one week.

Making the marshmallow fondant

I don’t have pictures of this process as Jason had followed this recipe and this two-part video tutorial from the comfort of his own home. Hayley, our resident fondant expert, did email the following steps and tips to share with you:

1. Prepare a workspace: Using shortening, grease a counter top or cutting board large enough to knead the fondant. Keep shortening accessible and in a container from which you can scoop out additional shortening with your fingers (I usually put about 1/2 c. in a small bowl).  Open your bag of icing sugar.
2. Put entire bag of marshmallows in a microwave-proof bowl and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of water.
3. Melt marshmallows in 20-30 second intervals, stirring between each.
4. When all the lumps are melted, start adding icing sugar in intervals, stirring gently to incorporate.
5. After several additions of icing sugar, the dough will become stiff enough to knead. You will use almost the entire bag of icing sugar.
6. You are now ready to start kneading. Grease your hands generously! Front and back of both hands plus in between your fingers.
7. Remove mixing spoon and with greased hands, begin kneading in the bowl until all the incing sugar from the bowl has been incorporated.
8. Remove dough from bowl and knead on greased cutting board/counter top, adding additional icing sugar as needed.
9. Keep your workspace well greased! Until your dough comes together, it will be very sticky and re-greasing of both your hands and kneading area will be necessary.
10. If your fondant looks tough or dry, add additional shortening.
11. Knead until the dough comes togther and is smooth in texture.

Your end product should be smooth and even in texture, very pliable but strong. Rub fondant with a small amount of shortening on both sides and cover well in plastic wrap until ready to use.

Game Day finishing touches

Piecing together the head and body

Prepare a batch of royal icing using this Alton Brown recipe or something similar. Spread a layer of icing on each of the flat sides of the 4 domes you have for the head and body. Form a large sphere for the body and a smaller sphere for the head.

Unlike what we did, place spheres uncovered in the fridge or freezer to let the icing harden as you assemble the rest of Mr. Stay Puft.

Marshmallow fondant and icing details

Based on the size of your body, warm up and shape flattened discs of marshmallow fondant to create 2 stacks of fondant legs, like above. We used 75% of our fondant batch to form 6 discs.

The rest of the fondant was then tinged generously with blue food colouring and rolled out into a 1/8 or 1/4″ thick layer, from which we cut a large rectangle for Stay Puft’s bib and a long stripe to wrap around the base of his hat. We draped the bib over the top of the body and piped lines of white royal icing to achieve his sailor panache.

We bought a tube  of brown gel and red icing paste to paint on eyes, a mouth, and the red ribbon at the bottom of the blue bib. You can do the same or choose different methods to attach these details to your marshmallow man.

Final assembly

On a cutting board wrapped in cling film, we attached the head, body, hat, and fondant legs to each other using the remaining royal icing. We pierced the body with two bamboo skewers where the arms should go, and stacked the arm segments from our mini-muffin molds onto the sticks until we achieved an arm length we liked. The final arm was not skewered through all the way and was stacked with the non-flat side out to imply ghostly fingershapes.

It’s Alive!

Throughout our house party where we served him up, Mr. Stay Puft remained horizontal on said cutting board until we were ready for dessert. We then used two cutting boards to get him upright for 5 minutes – long enough for our guests to take rounds of photos with him intact.

Before long, our hunger and the non-set state of our royal icing caused our dear marshmallow man to be pulled apart and knifed into 1″ segments, to be served on the cutting board along with graham crackers and mini-Rolos for a s’moretastic cake alternative for my 30th birthday.

To our immortality and amateur vampirism…the secret is eating babies.

I cannot fathom how this inside joke was ever spawned, nor do I fully understand their propensity towards the macabre, but ever since my cousins described this rite to me a few years ago, a spin-off ritual emerged. We’ve become known for holding baking days for Birthday Cakes of Immortality: concept cakes that do not cater to mainstream tastes.

Have you run away yet? No? Then take a look at the three cakes that we’ve concocted in my kitchen to date.

The Baby Cake

The first Birthday Cake of Immortality evolved out the discovery of my cousins’ birthday ritual. We pondered how to append the “eating babies” part of the toast to the act of drinking red wine without getting arrested for indecency, cannibalism, or worse. The answer: rounds of sponge cake layered with strawberry jam; flesh-coloured buttercream frosting; licorice umbilical cord. A friend belatedly suggested a strawberry Jell-o placenta.

Of the 5 witnesses present on this day, only myself and my cousin Leanne were able to dig in. Team member Jason could only stomach the cake bits that were shaved off the final product.

I know I will look back at this project after birthing our daughter in January and throw up in my mouth a little.

Operation ‘Operation’

My 29th birthday was the occasion for trying a cake that looked and acted like one of our favourite Milton Bradley board games. Dubbed Operation ‘Operation‘, the project called for a gigantic dessert in the shape of a man under surgery. Jason, Leanne, and I again formed the core cake-making team. Four red velvet cakes layered atop a large wooden cutting board formed the basis of the body and flesh-coloured fondant was rolled on top. Marshmallow fondant bones were precisely shaped by our guest contributor, Hayley.

We took this cake to Boneta and had a blast playing and ingesting this edible board game with our dinner guests and curious kitchen / front-of-the-house staff.

The Bacon Cake

Our latest project focussed on Leanne’s favourite ingredient: bacon. I had long wanted to make her a cake infused with pork — can you think of a better way to pay compliment to a Filipino?

The logistics fell into place as Leanne, Jason, and I toured the grocery store on Baking Day for inspiration. The cake base would be savoury rather than sweet, the cornbread recipe coming from the new cookbook by Memphis Blues (my cousin’s favourite eatery). Use of maple syrup and Pralines & Cream ice cream would eliminate the tedious task of making and applying frosting. My recently acquired skill of bacon weaving would be leveraged to top the cake with the star ingredient; the remaining bacon slices in the pack were crumbled up and inserted as layer filling along with a generous drench of maple syrup.

The outcome was divine. It was like breakfast, lunch, and dessert rolled into one.

Brainstorming for October 28th

The next Birthday Cake of Immortality will be for my birthday around the Halloween season. We’re currently at a loss for what to make, but there’s still time to think of something. Any ideas? Please share.

And you are more than welcome to participate in the next round…as a baker, eater, or both.

Jason Lau did, and he not only won the Tiny Bites Grand Prize, worth $450, but a batch of Winnipeg Folk Fest cookies to boot.

After I shared the good news with him yesterday, he pointed out a few things:

• He is already a happy Lifetime Member of Rouxbe and its Online Cooking School
• He is already getting a batch of Winnipeg Folk Fest cookies as part of the Grand Prize
• He’d like to bake a bundle of goodies himself to give away to a fellow Blogathon 2009 contributor.

That means that we have 3 more draws to do from our pool of donors!

Jason’s baked goodie bag

Congratulations to Mark B. for winning 3-4 varieties of baked treats from Jason Lau, who I can attest to be a baker extraordinaire. We’ll share pictures and recipes here once Jason passes them along.

Winnipeg Folk Fest cookie bag

Congratulations to Scott W. for winning a batch of Winnipeg Folk Fest cookies, baked by yours truly. I’ve posted the recipe for those of you that wishes to try it in your own kitchen.

One-year premium membership to Rouxbe

Congratulations to George F. for winning this 1-year premium pass to Rouxbe’s Online Cooking School, worth $99. We hope you get as much value out of it as Jason and I already do.

A few notes about how I prepared the final soup for my tasters:

• I had trouble sourcing certain ingredients from my immediate grocers, so not all of the garniture matches the recommendations from Rouxbe. Bruce helped me to find substitutions to create a “poor man’s pho” – re-purposing of the broth meat instead of getting sliced tenderloin, bean thread (glass noodle?) vermicelli that proved too difficult to find at H-Mart, and a abstinence from the recommended serrano chilies, since they were nowhere to be found.
• Because I made the broth last night and finished it this afternoon moments before heading to the Workspace, I didn’t do the extra step of chilling the broth in order to remove most of the oils and fat. This makes my broth oilier than it should probably be; I will update you on any differences once my husband and I complete this step for the broth that remains in our kitchen.

Feedback from my fellow Blogathoners

Four Blogathon participants that neighbour me here at The Workspace have this to say about my pho attempt:

Victor, in support of the Developmental Disabilities Association:

The pho was great. The broth was lighter than the usual pho I’ve had, but the flavor was a little bit different.  It was a bit oilier, but didn’t have the MSG flavor to it (a good thing). Unlike other pho, I didn’t feel very thirsty immediately after drinking the broth.

The noodles were different than regular pho, but I actually liked the difference. It was a refreshing change.

Only thing I would change is a little bit more flavor to the broth, but overall it was very yummy!

Lorraine, in support of the Federation of BC Writers:

The Pho was delicious, especially the broth, which was rich with subtle flavours without being heavy. I enjoyed the noodles too.

Raul, in support of the BC Cancer Foundation:

This Pho tastes a tad too delicate, almost too light. The flavors are smooth but not characteristic of a Vietnamese pho. My belief is that there is a lack of richness and complexity of flavor (something we would expect in a Vietnamese pho).

Karen, in support of the Vancouver Public Space Network:

The broth meat and sprouts added great texture. The soup was very tasty and rich with tendon taste, and the herbs perked up every bite.

Thank you all for your donation of your tastebuds and stomachs, and best of luck with your Blogathon efforts!

Giveaway time – 1 more annual Rouxbe premium membership

Another sponsored gift from Rouxbe for the Tiny Bites Blogathon effort, this time going to Raf A. (YaletownYuppie).  Congratulations, Raf!

Feel sad that you’re missing out on all of these giveaways? Donate to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society before 5:30am on July 26th to qualify for the $450 Tiny Bites Grand Prize. Every $10 you donate gets you one entry to the draw.

Of course, you can also go for the gold and top Dawn D.’s $175 donation to win Top Donor bragging rights and an incredible 3-restaurant progressive dinner for two.

You decide.