Thursday was going to be his birthday, though, and I was going to make him a cake. Not just any cake, though - I was going to make him the Freese Family traditional birthday cake.
I mixed everything together and tried to "pour" the batter into the pan. I had to scootch it more than pour it - it was rather thick. I didn't remember it being that thick in the past, but it has been a while since I have made it. I put it into the preheated oven and shut the door.
I started going back over the ingredient list: Did I put in the right amount of oil? Yes, I rechecked the measuring cup with the oil still clinging to its walls - it was a 3/4 cup measure. Did I put in enough water? Yes, half a cup. Did I put in enough rum? Yes, the 1/4 cup measure was fragrant with the elixir. Eggs? Yeah, I put in two......... Oh wait! It called for FOUR eggs!
I quickly re-opened the oven, thinking that I would yank it back out, pour it back into my Kitchen Aide, and remix the batter with a couple more eggs. However, when I opened the oven door and looked inside my bundt pan, the chocolate chips were already glistening and melt-y. I was afraid that if I remixed now, they would be obliterated into the batter, and, not only would I lose that beautiful snap of the chips sprinkled throughout the cake, but the cake texture may be altered adversely. I wasn't quite sure how, but I wasn't sure I wanted to find out either. I thought about starting all over, but I was out of chocolate chips (which is a weird thing - most people would have been stopped by the lack of cake mixes, and chocolate chips wouldn't be the issue, but then again, most people wouldn't have an entire shelf dedicated to cake mixes and instant pudding, but there was a deal, and you never know when you need to make an impromptu cake)!
Hmmm, maybe I should just let it go. I mean, the recipe doesn't say what size the eggs were supposed to be, and I did use jumbos. It couldn't be that far off. I called Mom - she is the expert for this cake. After all, she was the one who started this tradition. That is HER handwriting on the recipe. She reassured me that it should be fine. It just won't be quite as "fluffy", she said. I think she was just trying to make me feel better, and she did, so, I let it go. She also suggested that if it was too dry or too dense, we could just pour some liqueur over it, and it would be fine.
I checked it after 45 minutes, and it looked done. I tested it with a knife (where did those toothpicks go, anyway?), and it was done. Guess it takes less time if it doesn't have enough eggs. I let it cool on a rack and hoped for the best.
Meanwhile, I started on the brisket. I have never cooked brisket before. I don't think I have ever even purchased brisket before either. I have always been under the impression that it is an inferior meat. When I went to buy it at the grocery store, though, it was $6.99/lb. I was a little shocked. I ended up going to Sam's later in the week and noticed that THEY had it for $5.99/lb, and it was already cooked! I was tempted to buy it there and "save" the one I bought at Cub for another time. However, I resisted the urge, because I didn't need to spend any more money, and I thought it would be fun to cook the brisket. Also, if I ended up hating the meat, I would not only have the extra 7lbs from the Sam's Club buy, but the 1½lbs of raw brisket from Cub to contend with as well.,
I did some Internet research on how to cook such a beast. All of the recipes I found were for a 5lb or larger chunk. Can I convert one of these? I am a college graduate and not new to cooking- I thought I could make a good go of it. I decided on the recipe for the 5lb brisket. It used a "basting sauce" made of butter, Worcester, apple cider vinegar, and beer. That sounded good. It also suggested cooking the meat on a rotisserie over the grill. While I do have one of these, I thought that it wouldn't work with such a small piece of meat.
I decided to go with the sauce, but cook the meat on the grill - directly on the grill. I figured to simulate the rotisserie effect, I would just cook it on the cool side of the grill. I preheated the grill for a while (maybe as long as it takes to mix up rum fudge bundt cake batter). I seasoned the meat with Harley's, garlic, and fresh rosemary. I put it on the grill, fat side down, and turned off the burners that were underneath it, leaving only one on (the furthest one from the meat). I figured since the 5lb roast directions were to cook for 2-3 hours, I would probably only need to cook my little roast for an hour and a half or so.
I wasn't sure whether I should cook it fat side up or down. I didn't trim the fat cap off of it, like the recipe for the 5lb roast suggested, because I wanted all of that good, juicy flavor to melt into the meat, rendering it tender. For that reason, I thought I should cook it fat side up. However, if I am basting, how is the sauce going to penetrate into the meat with the fat acting as a barrier? I compromised. I put it on fat side down for the first twenty minutes. Then, I flipped and basted. I repeated this every twenty minutes. After an hour and a half, it reached 125º, which my thermometer told me was rare for beef.
Jeff was skeptical and made me leave it on the grill a little bit longer with the flame off. He thought the residual heat would bring it up just a little more in temperature, and hopefully add tenderness.
After I took it off the grill, I let it rest for another five minutes. Then I rechecked the temp, and it was falling. I decided to go for it and cut into it. I only needed half the roast for the pizza the next day, so I figured the other half would be dinner for us. I started slicing across the grain, and it looked beautiful.
We each took a couple of good sized slices and a heaping scoop of a corn salad I had made earlier and dug in. It had really good flavor, but it wasn't the tender piece of meat I had expected after almost two hours of grilling at low heat. It seemed like it was almost there, but there were portions of it that were still on the chewy side. My only hope at that point was that the meat would continue to tenderize on the pizza while it cooked the next day.
When I came home from work on Thursday, I realized that I had forgotten to take the doughs out of the fridge, so they could warm up and be pliable when I got home. ARGH!
After I took them out of the fridge, I went out to the garden to see if I was going to be able to use fresh, home-grown green peppers and jalapenos for the brisket pizza. Success! I had two godfather peppers ready and a gorgeous jalapeno. (Godfather peppers are sweet peppers that are shaped like large chilies. They look hot but are not).
I started chopping the peppers, when Paul and Leslie and Allegra arrived. Paul strode right into the kitchen and started unpacking his ingredients. I told him about my dough snafu and asked him to roll my dough out for me. Cold dough is really hard to work with. The dough snaps almost completely back into its original position after every stroke of the rolling pin. He started in assembling his pizzas first to give the dough a little more warm-up time.
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| Paul's Pizza Margherita (Uncooked) |
Once he got his two assembled, he started in on my cold dough. He informed me, after a few minutes of trying to stretch the dough into a pizza size, that he would not do this for me again if I was going to be so reckless as to leave the dough in the refrigerator all day.
He did a beautiful job, though. I think he actually rolled out the brioche crust too much. I realized that he had this large expanse of (round) dough, and here I had two wedge shaped pieces of brie to wrap up in it. I laid them in the middle of the dough in opposite directions of each other, so together they formed a rectangle. This left a large expanse of dough around the edges. However, the dough contained a lot of butter, so even if we ate it by itself, it would be good, right? So I wrapped up the brie and simply folded the extra dough together and tucked it under the cheese as I placed it on the preheated pizza stone. After I closed the oven dough, I remembered that somewhere along the line, eggs were supposed to be involved. A quick glance at the recipe revealed and egg-yolk wash. What is my problem with eggs this week? I pulled the precious package back out of the oven and brushed on the egg-yolk/butter blend and put it back in the oven. With this pause in the action, it was time to focus on our thirst. Paul doesn't usually partake in the Drink of the Week, but he said he would sacrifice on my behalf, since there were no sisters here to help me drink the concoction. That was awfully nice of him. This, on his birthday? What a guy! It was sweet, but not cloyingly so. It was light, and cold and I loved it!
Paul put both of his pizzas in the oven after we took out the brie, and we headed outside with the makings of my brisket pizza. We decided to snack on the brie while the other three pizzas were cooking. We couldn't keep out of it. It was rich and creamy, ooey
About the time that Leslie and I were able to tear ourselves away from the cheese (there was only a small corner left - mostly bread, really), Paul brought out his pizzas from inside. I checked on mine. It was done right about that time, too. Amazing! Unfortunately, my fairy GODMOTHER prohibited me from taking a picture of the finished product, so I cannot share that with you!
I think Paul's veggie pizza was the clear winner. He had a tomato-based sauce and added peppers, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, green olives, and black olives. It was salty and juicy, and the artichokes added a lemony tang to balance out the earthiness of the olives. It was delicious.
The Margherita was also delicious. The crust light with a nice crispness. The basil's liquorice-y overtones were mellowed by the cute little mozzarella balls sprinkled throughout. Paul's only complaint was that the basil shrivels when it is placed on top before baking. He has decided that he will put it on the pizza first next time.
The brisket pizza was o.k. I often wonder, when it takes a while to get dinner on the table, if a pizza wins the "best entree" award, simply because it was served first, and we weren't necessarily as hungry as when we had the next ones. So, mine may not have been the best of the three, but it may have moved up in the ranks had it been served first. I'll have to be quicker next time. However, in all honesty, the pizza had good flavor, but the brisket was still tough. It was very disappointing.
Allegra was enjoying the pizzas, too. They had forgotten to pack a bib for her, so I gave them a large kitchen towel to drape over her to protect her clothes as much as they could. Paul pulled her up on his lap in order to share his pizza with her. He tied the towel loosely around her neck and pulled a corner off of his slice of pizza in order to feed it to her. On it's way to Allegra's mouth, sauce dripped off of it and fell on her pants. Argh! Paul cleaned it up as best as he could and pulled another piece off for Allegra. this time the sauce blob fell in his lap. At the end of the evening, the towel was clean and two out of the three Dahlens were tomato laden.
Paul let Allegra try some. The only words I heard that evening from the little leprechaun were "hi", "more", "please", and - my favorite - "cake".
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