On Tiramisu, and Our Neurotic Food Culture

This is something of an existential piece. 

You might have noticed that it's been a while since I've posted regularly. There's the usual excuses (i.e. school, thesis research, my cookie sheet couldn't fit into the tiny summer dorm oven), but to be honest, I've had some doubts about continuing to food blog. I still love the baking, the photography, the wonderful bloggers I've met, and the excitement of sharing and finding new recipes. But then there's the massive social media pushes, the fact that these posts aren't really about the experience of creating food, the pressure to cook on trend, to create new or innovative or seasonal recipes, the strings of SEO-friendly buzzwords. And it makes me wonder what this blog is really contributing to.

A friend was talking about how much Food Network she watched: "If you gave me a set of ingredients, I could tell you exactly what a professional chef would do with them, even though I couldn't do any of it myself." We (and, I think, us millennials especially) spend so much time thinking and posting about food, yet so little actually preparing it and working with it ourselves.

Somewhere along the way, we seemed to have forgotten the that food is humble, cooking is approachable and, actually, terribly ordinary. To borrow a phrase from Michael Pollan, we seemed to have developed a sort of national eating disorder. We pick up our phones before our forks at restaurants, we spend hours in the living room worshiping celebrity chefs yet hardly set foot in the kitchen, we neurotically dash around an unfamiliar city looking for That One restaurant on Yelp with the five stars.

And I think we food bloggers have contributed to that look-don't touch mentality towards cooking as we work to make our food look immaculately delicious. We try so hard to create styled, edited, and Pinterest-ready photos, flooding social media feeds with beautiful posts that, intentionally or unintentionally, seem just  a little unachievably perfect (Well, some of us are much farther from "unachievably perfect" than others...)

Of course, I'm not accusing food bloggers of, well, actively promoting unrealistic standards of food beauty (though if you think about it, we are rather like the fashion magazines of food, staying a season ahead, publicizing the trends, carefully editing our shiny photos). But what we do is symptomatic of this generation's rather unhealthy relationship with food. Paradoxically, cooking and food are both over-hyped yet under-appreciated. They have somehow become a part of our social media identities, yet all this food culture has somehow made us forget the humble labor of providing nourishment itself. 

This isn't a sermon or a call to action, merely me just wondering out loud. I do plan on sticking around on this here blog (plus I just renewed my Squarespace payments, so...), but as I plan the next few posts, I am trying to focus on sharing what I genuinely feel like eating. It's a consideration that sometimes gets lost in the need to always be making something new, something with pumpkin spice (ick, fall is coming, you guys...), something to fill a gap in the recipe index, something that would look good on Instagram. I forget sometimes to enjoy my food.

To that end, I think tiramisu is a pretty good place to get started, not least because it translates to "pick me up" from Italian.  It's gone out of fashion a little bit since it was first introduced in the 60s, losing its novelty and becoming rather overdone. There's millions of recipes for tiramisu on the Internet, and mine isn't unique at all, but I wanted to share because I love it. Tiramisu is delicious and satisfying yet humble, in terms of presentation and assembly.

My first food blog post ever was about a tiramisu-flavored cheesecake. I didn't post the recipe (which included Cool Whip...) on my high school newspaper food blog, but a friend  on staff liked my terrible picture enough to ask for the recipe. She went on to make the tiramisu cheesecake, sending us photos, and posting her own takes on tiramisu.

That embarrassingly blurry and over-corrected photo is a reminder of what I love most about food blogging, of the ability to inspire others to get into the kitchen and start experimenting. We all love seeing the magazine-ready photos, speaking like food critics about mouthfeel and richness and paired flavorings, watching videos of professional chefs deftly handling delicate patisserie. But in the end, they all tell a simple story about people, a story about feeding others and creating enjoyment and nourishment through food.

So go pull out these ingredients from your pantry, and treat yourself to some tiramisu. I really do mean it.

Caroline

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Classic Tiramisu

Click here for the printer-friendly recipe
Yields: 5-6 servings
Ladyfinger recipe adapted from Martha Stewart, tiramisu recipe adapted from The New York Times

Ingredients
For the Tiramisu24 savoiardi, or Italian ladyfingers (recipe below)
3 eggs, separated
¼ cup granulated sugar, divided
2 tablespoons Marsala
8 ounces mascarpone cheese (see notes)
1 cup espresso, cooled
1 tablespoon cocoa powder, for dusting

For the Savoiardi
½ cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
3 eggs, separated
½ cup granulated sugar, divided
¼ cup powdered suga

DirectionsMake the savoiardi. Preheat the oven to 325 F. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper. Sift the flour, cornstarch, and salt over a piece of wax paper. 

Whisk together the egg yolks with ¼ cup of granulated sugar until the yolks become a very pale yellow and double in volume. Fold in the dry ingredients.

Add the egg whites and remaining ¼ cup of sugar to a mixing bowl and whisk until stiff peaks form. For best results, start whisking with the electric mixer set on low speed, and gradually increase speed.

Fold about ⅓ of the egg whites into the egg yolk/flour mixture to lighten. Fold in the remaining egg whites, until just combined. 
Spoon the batter into a piping back. Pipe fingers about ½ inch thick and 4 inches long. Sift powdered sugar over the cookies, and let sit for 1-2 minutes until the sugar dissolves, then sift again and let the sugar dissolve again. 

Bake the cookies for 25-30 minutes, rotating the cookie sheets halfway through, until golden brown and crispy. Let cool completely.

Make the tiramisu filling. Whisk the egg yolks with 2 tablespoons sugar until they have tripled in volume and become a very pale yellow. Add the Marsala; whisk for 3-5 minutes until pale/thick. Add mascarpone. 
In a clean bowl, mix together the egg whites and remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Whisk until stiff peaks form.

Fold about ⅓ of the egg whites into the egg yolk/mascarpone mixture to lighten. Fold in the remaining egg whites, until just combined. 

Assemble the tiramisu. Pour the espresso in a shallow bowl. Quickly dip the ladyfingers in the espresso and line them along the bottom of a 9x5 inch loaf pan, or individual containers.

Spread about half of the mascarpone filling over the ladyfingers, and top with another layer of espresso-dipped ladyfingers. Spread the remaining filling on top. Refrigerate the tiramisu for at least an hour, or overnight. 

Dust with cocoa powder and serve.

Notes
This recipe does contain raw eggs. Consuming undercooked eggs carries the risk of food-born illness. While the risks of consuming raw eggs are usually minimal, do be careful in your preparation and to whom you are serving. 

Mascarpone is generally found with the specialty cheeses at the grocery store, rather than with the milk and cream cheese. 

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Banana Cream Pie

For my roommates and me, Pride and Prejudice is the ultimate girls' night movie. There's quite a few squeal-worthy moments: the first time Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth make eye contact, Kiera Knightly's witty "dah-ncing" comment she throws over her shoulder at Mr. Darcy, touching hands as he helps her into her carriage, the rain scene, their silhouettes nuzzling each other in the dawn, and of course, the "Mrs. Darcy" scene at the very end in the firelight. 

It's a beautifully romantic, with grand English landscape shots and glittering ballroom scenes, pepped with old-fashioned and quaint yet wonderful gestures of love. There's something about Regency England that inspires "Keep Calm and Find Mr. Darcy" posters (not that we had one hanging in our suite or anything) and makes you wonder if chivalry really is dead for good.

I'm quite found of this picture, really I am, yet I'm also glad I've spent most of this semester dismantling this ideal. My big final paper for my history and literature major this year was about The Odd Women by George Gissing. It's gritty and rather disillusioned, peppered with off-putting characters (and not of the cute Mrs. Bennet variety) and misogynist passages. The novel's title is an allusion to a population phenomena in 19th century Britain, in which women outnumbered men by a good half million. It traces the lives of a few of the "odd women" (also flatteringly referred to as "superfluous women") who could not be evenly paired off in marriage; they exist on the edge of destitution, unable to find a husband to support them and kept from finding a sustainable profession by society's gendered expectations.

The Odd Women reveals the darker under-story beneath the idyllic romance and independent, intelligent women in Pride and Prejudice. It is a portrait of the grim economic need behind Lizzy's and Jane's marriages and suggests an alternate reality, one of debasing and restrictive gender roles and shabby-genteel existences in one-room flats. The Odd Women reminds us that for all we want to laugh with the witty narrator at Mrs. Bennet's matchmaking, her fears for her daughters' futures are quite valid; marriage with Mr. Collins is a heck of a lot better than starving.

Yet Gissing's grim novel also contains an element of hope. Among the odd women are a pair of feminists who aim to improve women's education and expand their professional opportunities. One of them, Rhoda, tells her friend, "You had other examples before you...who live bravely and work hard and are proud of their place in  the world."

There's something rather heroic in those words, in this idea of living bravely, facing the world and the male-dominated professional sphere on your own, struggling as best as you can to make a living for yourself at a time when such a practice was completely against social mores. Lizzy Bennet might be free-thinking and skilled at verbal dueling, but it's these stern, no-nonsense feminist working women who are really heroines.  It's hardly as romantic as the Pride and Prejudice movie, yet its hopeful idealism against this grim backdrop is far more compelling. 

Which brings me to this banana cream pie. I have that Odd Women quote written on a post-it on my wall, right next to one with hastily scribbled instructions for banana cream pie. I made it some four months back, and it's become associated in my mind with essay writing; I baked this pie over Thanksgiving break, squeezed in between drafting final papers. I had originally planned to publish this recipe before Christmas, but my multiple Ireland papers just kept dragging on.

It's delicious, nostalgic, and comforting, reminiscent of that dessert made with instant pudding, bananas, and Nilla wafers, but made more classy. (Fact: everything looks fancier when it's in a tart crust.) I think it was worth the wait--and the papers.

-Caroline

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Banana Cream Pie

Click here for the printer-friendly recipe.
Yields: one 9-inch pie
Loosely adapted from The Candid Appetite and Hummingbird High

Ingredients
For the Crust
1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup butter, very cold, cubed
¼ cup buttermilk, cold

For the Banana Cream Filling
1 ¾ cups whole milk
3 egg yolks
½ cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 medium very ripe bananas
1 ½ cup cold heavy cream
½ powdered sugar

Directions
For the Crust
Whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt.
Add the butter. Using your hands or a pastry cutter, work the butter into the flour until it is in small pieces. Alternately, place the flour in a food processor, and the butter, and pulse until same result is achieved.

Mix in the buttermilk, one or two tablespoons at a time until the dough barely comes together.Gather the dough together in a ball and refrigerate for at least an hour, or overnight.

Roll out the dough into a circle, about 10-11 inches in diameter, depending on the size of your pan. When if you place the pie plate face-down on the dough, there should be about an inch of dough around the edge. Place the dough into the pie plate or tart tin, and trim and shape the edges. If you’re using a tart pan, Roll your rolling pin over the top to trim off the excess.

Freeze the pie crust for 30 minutes to an hour. 

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Cover the pie with a piece of foil, and weigh it down with baking beans. Bake for 10 minutes, remove the foil and beans, then bake for another 10 minutes, until the crust is golden brown around the edges. Let cool completely.

For the Filling
Heat the whole milk in a medium saucepan until it is just simmering.

In another bowl whisk the egg yolks and sugar until the yolks are pale and fluffy. Whisk in the cornstarch and salt.
Temper the egg yolks: slowly pour the milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly the whole time. Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan and heat until the mixture comes to a boil; let boil for 2-3 minutes, whisking constantly the whole time.

Take the cream off the heat and and stir in the butter, followed by the vanilla. Transfer to a bowl, and cover with plastic wrap, placing the plastic directly on the surface of the cream. Allow to cool to room temperature, and then refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight.

Pour the heavy cream into a large mixing bowl and whisk until it forms soft peaks. Whisk in the powdered sugar. 

Fold about half of the whipped cream into the custard mixture. Set aside the other half.

Slice two the bananas into ¼ inch slices. Layer them on the bottom of the pie crust, spread half of the custard mixture on top, followed by another layer of bananas, and another of custard.

Slice and serve the pie, garnishing with the remaining whipped cream, and additional banana slices, if desired

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Feel Good Cake + Vegan Chocolate Pudding from The Holistic

Vegan? Nutritious? Caroline, where's the butter and sugar I came here for? I guess that stuff is alright, but really? How about I just slip out and come by next week...

Noooo, don't leeeeave meeee! (Insert image of me clutching your shirttail while digging in my heels and making skidding noises across the floor like in the cartoons).

Okay, you still there? Promise? Because you see, this cake is actually pretty terrific. I recently started working with the amazing Alice and Nina, two undergrads here at Harvard who founded The Holistic, a healthy foods start-up. One of their main products is this lovely Feel Good Cake, which they were kind enough to let me sample and photograph.

I first met Nina sometime freshman year, very briefly in the communal kitchen of the Matthews dorm. While I was gleefully working a hunk of butter into some scone dough (these scones, I think), she was making raw vegan brownies that she sold to people on campus.

In the past two years, Nina and Alice have expanded The Holistic (while travelling the globe with a toaster oven, baking cakes, how cool is that??), doing catering events and retail, and perfecting this Feel Good Cake. It's an all-natural, gluten-free, vegan chocolate cake, made from things like chickpeas, avocado, and almond flour (and has no refined sugar!). While I won't lie and say it tastes exactly like butter and sugar-based chocolate cake, it is delicious, rich, and moist, indulgent without being too heavy. 

I don't approve of the gluten-free or paleo fad (or rather, going gluten-free when you don't actually have a wheat allergy), but I do believe in eating healthy (really guys, I do!), being aware of what we eat, and knowing where it came from. Nina and Alice have created a cake that really is good for you, and isn't just masquerading as healthy under the guise of being "gluten-free." That doesn't mean you should go and eat a whole cake and call it dinner (I believe moderation is just as important as healthy eating), but it is made with ingredients that are naturally healthy and nutritious.

Nina and Alice are looking to expand The Holistic outside the Boston area, and launched a Kickstarter campaign to get the funding. (So hop on over to their page if you think this cake looks amazing and you want to get your hands on some.)

They were also kind enough to allow me to share their vegan chocolate pudding recipe with you today. If anything, it's better than traditional chocolate pudding, richer and more chocolate-y. This pudding gets its creaminess from avocados, and is ridiculously easy to make (easier than its egg and cornstarch-based counterpart!) It's a perfect afternoon snack to have on hand and might just keep you from reaching for the junk food. 

So give this pudding a try, and check out The Holistic's Feel Good Cake. It's not the end-all be-all to healthy eating (I have some issues with the "super food" idea too), but it's a good start. And, you know, delicious.

-Caroline

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Vegan Chocolate Pudding

From The Holistic
Yields: 2 servings

Ingredients
1 medium ripe avocado
1/3 cup maple syrup, agave nectar, or honey (or to taste)
5 tablespoons cocoa powder or raw cacao powder
1/4 cup water* (see notes)

Directions
Peel the avocado and remove the pit. Place in a blender with the maple syrup (or your sweetener of choice). Blend well until smooth.

Add the cocoa powder and water, and blend again until smooth. 

Pour into serving cups and serve at room temperature, or chilled. Decorate with fruit, if desired.

Caroline's notes:
*You could probably sub in almond or rice milk here, or coconut milk for some extra richness.

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