If the way to someone's heart is through their stomach, wouldn't a sample of its special dishes tell you something about the country that it comes from? That was the question that Team Franklin decided to explore in our latest set of informal cooking challenges. Since we're not jetting off on any international culinary expeditions right now, we decided to use our kitchen as a backdrop and source all of our recipes on the Internet. Thinking less about making something "authentic" than making something that's just "fun", we launched into this with gusto last week.
Home cooking -- and especially baking -- have become
huge stress-relievers for me lately. As a
perfectionist-modern-feminist-turned-web-freelancer-slash-mommy-on-leave-from-her-office-job
(you get the idea), there can be too much happening and too little time
in which to handle everything. And spare time? Not a chance. That
said, home cooking has offered me an unexpectedly still oasis to
creatively problem-solve while getting food on the plate for the people I
care most about. It's the very ultimate in mutli-tasking, so I will
call that a win. Spending time in my "oasis", I've loved rediscovering
vintage cookbooks that help me learn terms and techniques that used to
be considered basic decades ago. And I love the challenge that comes
from moving from one project to another and making the tools I have work
for me.
Buoyed by such great programming like "Chopped" and
"Top Chef", my husband and I have both discovered that we both really
like expressing our creativity through cooking. We've discovered that it
is infinitely more satisfying to try or improvise a new dish until we
can do it well and make it our own than simply selecting the dish from a
menu somewhere. And what better incentive to excel than to cook for
people that you love?
Last week, I experimented with an eggless recipe for
Parkin (a ginger cake or gingerbread from Northern England). My biggest
discovery? Team Franklin really, really hates molasses. Though the
recipe wasn't a favorite, I really loved the weight of history behind it
-- origins of this dessert possibly stretching back into England's "Gunpowder Plot" of 1605 or even earlier into Viking times. A pretty impressive feat for what's essentially a one-bowl dessert. Here's a great Parkin recipe that serves up both the history and the "how-to" , similar to recipe I tried, this version includes one egg.
In honour of St. Patrick's Day, we've
tackled one Irish dish in the morning and planned another for supper.
Irish Soda bread was bumped till next year in favour of something with a
bit of sweetness. I found a wonderfully understated Irish tea cake recipe that I baked that morning. I have no idea if it's authentically Irish
but I still loved it. It's basically a simple butter cake sprinkled with
confectioners sugar. We ate it while it was still warm from the oven,
slightly more warm than our breakfast drinks . What I liked most was
that this recipe was not too sweet and presented with a nice delicate
crumb. Once this cake made it to the plate, I found it difficult to stop
eating -- especially after whipped cream and strawberries were added.
With many tasty returns,
Mrs. Franklin
1 comment:
Thanks again for doing this my love...
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