Celebrating the Battle of Puebla with Tres Leches Cake!

Each year on May 5th, we have a Cinco de Mayo potluck lunch at work.  This year I decided to make something from the cookbook that counted as "Mexican enough".  I posed the question to one of our Power Team members and she decided I should make Janet's Tres Leches Cake (p. 116).  It didn't quite occur to me until I was making the cake that it contains a fair amount of rum.  I always assume that rum in any recipe mostly bakes or cooks out... but something to know about this cake is that the rum is blended into the sauce, which is added to the cake after baking and before storing cold.

I guess you could say it is fairly alcoholic, as cakes go.

The cake itself went together quite easily, with its base of yellow cake mix with pudding.  The smell of rum was quite heady as it was blended into condensed milk and evaporated milk, and then pored over the hot cake perforated with many fork holes. The topping is whipped cream, chopped macadamia nuts, and toasted coconut.  I reserved the topping for just prior to the Cinco De Mayo festivities because I was concerned the whipped cream would get runny.  Now, if you've ever had a Tres Leches Cake, you will know that that was ridiculous.  The cake itself is so soggy one would never notice if the topping were a little runny.

The hardest part of this recipe, for me, was the toasted coconut.  My friend Google let me know that I could toast the coconut on a cookie sheet in my oven, and warned me that I should check it often and make sure I didn't burn it.  I promptly burned by first batch.  For my second, I watched the oven like a hawk and it turned out ok (perhaps a little more done than I intended, but good enough).

Everyone loved the cake, except for my coworker who can't handle soggy bread.  This was absolutely one of the worst things she has ever had the misfortune to witness.  As I was leaving the party I thought I had better try a bite for blog purposes and was shocked by how rum-filled it was.  I'm not saying my coworkers like to drink but...no wonder everyone loved it! 

Salmon Terrine, or an Exercise in Errors

The weekend after Phil's birthday I thought it was about time to make another entree, after devoting so much time to cookies and dessert.  Furthermore, since it had been a long time since I did a recipe from outside the United States, I chose to make Marie-Christine's Salmon Terrine (p. 69).

There are multiple Salmon Terrines (or, rather, there are other Terrine de Saumon, which I am guessing is the same thing, I suppose time will tell) from Lyon in the cookbook.  I had no idea what a Salmon Terrine was or what it should look like, so I headed to Google Images and discovered Salmon Terrine is basically a loaf of salmon, which varies in fanciness depending on how many hours you put into the preparation or how much money you spend at the restaurant.  This Salmon Terrine calls for canned salmon, which Google indicated is a common way to make a "quick" Salmon Terrine.

The first problem I encountered was that I incorrectly assumed that shallots are the same thing as green onions.  Apparently I'm not the only one (based on further investigation and interviews) but the internet also assures me that the Salmon Terrine I made with green onions rather than shallots was almost certainly not even remotely close to the intended recipe. 

Nonetheless, it was time to start cooking or we would not be eating!  The first step was to remove the skin and bones from the canned salmon.  Let's not mince words here - this process was revolting and tedious.  Luckily, after the half hour of removing tiny bones and gross skin bits from my canned salmon, the remaining steps were quite easy.  I poured the mixture into a baking dish and put it in the oven at what I thought was a surprising temperature - 200°.  I checked the temperature twice just to be sure.

About a half hour later, I checked the Salmon Terrine.  It was still quite liquidy in the center, so I left it in for another 5 minutes... 10 minutes... 15 minutes...

Until finally it hit me - the recipe calls for a temperature of 200°C and my American oven was set at 200°F!  I increased the temperature to the required 390°F, and the terrine finished cooking in about ten minutes, whereupon I doused it with lemon juice per the recipe.  I served the Salmon Terrine with slices of french bread (I cheated and bought it) and the most delicious brussels sprouts ever (found by googling "French recipe for Brussels Sprouts"). 

Here is a picture of the Salmon Terrine:

My son and husband were not too enthused by this dish, but then they aren't big seafood eaters and suddenly I was asking them to eat it in loaf form.  I thought it was pretty good, but I can't help but wonder... would it have been great had I used shallots?

Happy Birthday, Phil!

It sure has been awhile since I posted!  I have a litany of excuses, but I also have a lot of recipes to talk about, so let's get right to it!

My husband's birthday was almost two months ago now, so a great place to start is with his cake.  As soon as I saw Jennifer's Oreo Cookie Cake (p. 106) when I first got the cookbook, I knew I would make it for my husband's birthday.  I baked the cake portion (box mix, following the directions on the box) the night before so that it would be nice and cool and ready to ice after work the following day. 

The icing is made of cream cheese, sugar, cool whip, and crushed oreos.  You simply mix all of those together and put it in the middle of the two cakes you made from the box cake.  Then you apply some dark chocolate fudge frosting to the top.  I will admit I was a little disappointed (I like my baked goods complicated)... until I sliced it and realized that this clever oreo cake is designed to look like a GIANT Oreo cookie:

Here is a picture of the slice:

And here is a picture of the cake itself (garnished with the recommended whole oreo cookies):

The cake was delicious, although I think I made a little too much of inside icing (the recipe called for a small container of cool whip and I'm wondering if there is a smaller size than what I used - or if I just wasn't supposed to use the entire amount of icing I prepared).

Thanks, Jennifer, for such a clever recipe!