Is there anything better than cream and sugar gently cooked together? YES! It’s cream and sugar and freshly scraped vanilla bean AND EGG YOLKS cooked gently together, then topped with yet more caramelized sugar!! Wanna know what’s even better than that? Adding coffee extract to the sweet melange, and then topping the custard with not just sugar, but salted caramel turbinado sugar!! Swoon… Not only is #35 Creme Brûlée one of the most delicious desserts ever created (plus it allows me to use those cool little French accent marks!) it is eminently open to interpretation. The Pioneer Woman stopped at just plain old vanilla, probably because her husband would have had a stroke if she dared introduce flavors like “pomegranate” or “blood orange” to his dinner table that early in their marriage. My Other Half however, is going into our wedding knowing full-well there could literally be anything served on his plate at any given time, and I’m not even telling him what’s in it if I think he’ll fuss! There were no complaints to be heard with this scrumptious dessert, which was smoother and creamier than almost any I have been served in a restaurant, and surely more flavorful. Often the jury is out on whether it’s better to use an extract or the real thing when flavoring a dessert. Just watch any baking show and observe the look of sheer disgust on a judge’s face when they ask, “Did you use peppermint extract in this frosting?”, while the blood drains from some poor contestant’s face who didn’t steep fresh peppermint leaves in sugar water to create their own simple syrup from scratch. Well, I’m no Gordon Ramsay so I’m not that fussy, but I also have a solid reason to stand behind my choice. I considered adding strong coffee or even a shot of espresso made from boiling water and espresso powder to my custard as it was cooking to get the taste I wanted, but when cooking with fats like egg yolks and heavy cream, it’s risky adding too much other liquid. I didn’t want to potentially “break” the silky texture I had going on (making it grainy or resist setting up) or have the thinner liquid “cook out” of the custard and ooze onto the surface in a puddle. The simple addition of a dropper-full of coffee extract did the trick, lending a faintly brown color and gentle hint of java. You never want your creme brûlée to smack you in the face with a dominant flavor; this is all about subtlety! For the topping, it’s often recommended to use superfine sugar (also achieved by putting regular table sugar in a food processor and pulverizing it for a few seconds) because it will burn and melt fairly evenly with a kitchen torch. I prefer the torch method to the broiler any day, because, come on, it’s a flame thrower for food! I was going for the dessert equivalent of a Starbucks Salted Caramel Mocha, so the specialty turbinado (just unprocessed raw) sugar I’d purchased from a local spice store was the perfect accompaniment. One warning: while sugar melts under a torch, salt tends to actually catch fire and pop! I avoided any major injuries and learned to keep my skin covered while torching, and the resultant salt-laced sweetness over the coffee cream was sheer bliss. This recipe is flawless, and you can take it any direction you want for taste, so this one gets a 10 out of 10 from our household!
I may have waxed poetic about the creme brûlée, but truly, it deserved sonnets written about it! Another personal favorite food of mine is #36 Fried Chicken, but I will try to be more succinct with this description! The first thing you need to know is that Ree Drummond does not like fried chicken. I’mma let that sink in for a minute… What self-respecting, ranch-dwelling human doesn’t like fried chicken?!? But it’s ok, I can forgive her. (Reference the above dessert if you have questions why.) Nonetheless, since she is literally the only inhabitant of Drummond Ranch who doesn’t like it, she learned to cook it anyway, since the nearest KFC is an hour away and her hubby and kids clamor for it regularly. For some reason unknown to me, I had a real hankering for chicken and waffles during the week this recipe was planned, though I’d only ever eaten this combo one other time. Normally I’d stick with the traditional mashed potatoes and gravy, but the siren song of the waffle won out. Not enough that I made scratch waffles, but Eggo’s turned out to be surprisingly good! There is nothing groundbreaking in her recipe flavors, so I’ll leave it at “flour seasoned with typical spices”, but her most unique step is adding buttermilk to the dry ingredients. Normally you just soak the chicken in buttermilk the day before you plan to cook it, and that is the limit of the “wet” step. By adding a small amount of liquid to the large amount of flour, you end up with a pebbly coating that resembles pie crust or biscuit dough when you rub in the cold butter. I instantly recognized the signature look of store-bought fried chicken when I began coating the drumsticks in the moist flour dredge. She recommends frying in vegetable oil on the stovetop, then transferring the chicken to a sheet pan to continue the cooking in the oven. I felt vastly more comfortable using this method, since frying in oil only always makes me nervous that the inside is not quite cooked while the outside starts to get too dark. The legs came out perfectly, and I went full-Southern with some hot honey. People who know me will be shocked, but I intentionally and willfully made a spicy accompaniment to my meal! Using some of my jealously hoarded Mother Tucker honey (available from my friend’s local apiary and I’d gladly share contact info if you want to purchase!), I added a generous spoonful of straight cayenne and stirred until the honey was deep red and flecked with the ground pepper. I microwaved it for just a few seconds (the “hot” honey name is derived more the from the spice than the temperature) and drizzled it over the chicken right out of the oven. OH. EM. GEE. Perfectly crisp, flaky chicken topped with sweet/hot honey followed up with a bite of waffle is inexplicably delicious. My Other Half was skeptical about this combination of foods, but he devoured it nonetheless once he got a mouthful. Another 10/10 winner!
And now… it goes off the rails. I do not like #37 Red Velvet Cake. I do not like it from a box, I do not like it with an ox, I do not like it covered in lox… Ok, probably no one likes that, but my point is, most people think red velvet is great. Meh. And here is why: this cake called for 1 ounce of cocoa powder, and one ounce of food coloring!! Is she insane?!? No one needs to ingest a full ounce of red dye #40. Or even one slice-worth of that quantity of dye. I added maybe 3-4 drops of gel coloring, and the “pink velvet” it produced was good enough. I can taste the red dye in most versions of this cake, and I’ll tell you right now, it’s not yummy. The myth I’ve always heard before is that red velvet is “just chocolate cake with red dye added”, and I ask you, WHY? JUST GIVE ME CHOCOLATE CAKE! And may I refer you to the part where I said “1 ounce” of cocoa?? That’s barely enough to flavor a cup of milk, much less a whole cake. As far as I was concerned, this was straight up cake flavor. Which is no flavor at all. If it wasn’t pink, I’d say it was white cake, so this is a big no-thanks from me. I had one bite but wanted no more of it, although the frosting was pretty tasty. If you want red velvet, I can’t in good conscience recommend this recipe, but then again, I wouldn’t know a “good” red velvet cake if it slapped me, because I don’t think it exists.
And back onto the rails!! Thank goodness there are very few Pioneer Woman recipes that I just don’t like at all. #38 Chicken Pot Pie is firmly in the YES pile! To be fair I like ALL chicken pot pies, and I even messed this one up. I was so intent on checking to see if I had all the ingredients that I made crust assumptions, which turned out to be incorrect. Evidently, the crust was supposed to go on top, and I had already dumped in the filling before I realized. I do feel like that would have been an improvement so the crust could be flakier, but my real preference is to skip the pie crust altogether and top it with puff pastry. Hands down, the best option! Nonetheless, this pot pie had all the hallmarks I look for: lots of veggies and plenty of chicken, and most important, a creamy, thick sauce. Eat with a spoon, eat it with a fork, but whatever you do, just eat it!
Have Book, Will Cook 