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Recipe: zebra torte

It’s a battle for time, energy, and daylight hours. I haven’t endeavored on many of the more involved baking projects since I’ve been well enough to ski. After my initial ski whore phase where I was willing to tele any thin veneer barely covering grass and rocks, I have now reached the picky phase – only if there are freshies. We had no such freshies yesterday and so you get the recipe for Zebra Torte.

slice layers from the vanilla chiffon cake

I made this once before in my pastry skills course last spring. Problem with that course was that we crammed as much as we could into each 5.5 hour class and wound up divvying duties between partners which meant I didn’t get my hands on each step of the torte.

folding in the dry ingredients for the chocolate roulade

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Recipe: crawfish phyllo triangles

I’ve had this recipe in the back of my head for well over ten years. Jeremy and I were driving from Ithaca, New York down to Virginia to visit with my parents way back in the late 90s when we stopped by my friend’s house in Washington DC along the way. I lived in northern Virginia for one year during high school and became close friends with Emily. It was nice to see her parents again (I love them, they are the sweetest people) and introduce them to Jeremy for the first time. While we chatted, Emily’s mom – the consummate hostess – presented us with a platter of hot, crispy phyllo triangles filled with… crawdads. Crawdads (crayfish) are these delicious freshwater critters that look like small lobsters and are practically religion on the Gulf. Mmmmm, mmmm, good.

crawdads, onions, celery, and spices, parsley and green onions

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Recipe: royal raspberry and almond cake

I trust everyone had a merry Christmas and/or federal holiday! I want to thank those of you who bid on my raffle prize as well as all of the other fabulous raffle prizes at Menu for Hope IV this year. What an awesome turnout. MfH raised 50% more than last year’s effort – over $90,000! That’s a whole lotta raffle tickets, kids!

Ever since I found out that my Aussie friends have lovely cold seafood picnics on the beach for Christmas, I have steadily rejected the traditional roasted animal – be it of feathered or four-legged persuasion – in favor of those animals who gurgle and bubble in the sea. Now *that* is a treat to me. I grew up on the water and spent far too much time in it or at its edge during my youth. This year we had lobster bisque, crawdad phyllo triangles (crawdads = crayfish = yabbies), shrimp cocktail, and king crab legs for our Christmas “meal”. The meal was neither lunch nor dinner, but a long drawn out noshing session. We didn’t have it in us to eat dessert. Who needs dessert after all of those lovely critters?

oh you little beauty

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