Lake of Fire Key Lime Pie

Ah, it's that time of year again. There's a chill in the air, people are in jolly spirits, and everyone is waiting with baited breath for that one special night. You guessed it! The Dexter season finale!
I will try not to give away any spoilers, but this year's season finale involved something called "the lake of fire", so I knew that for our Dexter season finale party I needed to make a "lake of fire" dessert.
I considered many options -- baked alaska (but seriously, it's way too cold for ice cream), creme brulee (not lake of firey enough for me)... and then it hit me. I could make a meringue pie and pour fire on it, baked alaska style, without the too cold ice cream! Hooray!
And, if you are a Dexter fan, you will know that the pie had to be key lime (a la Dexter season 3).
SO, here it is! Lake of Fire Key Lime Pie! Enjoy!

Ingredients: 

Key Lime Filling:
4 t grated lime zest
1/2 c lime juice squeezed from 3 or 4 limes
4 egg yolks (save the whites for the meringue)
1 (14 oz) can of sweetened condensed milk

Crust:
1/2 c shredded coconut
1 c graham cracker crumbs
5 T melted butter

Meringue Topping:
1 T cornstarch
1/4 t cream of tartar
1/2 c sugar
4 egg whites
1/2 t vanilla extract

Lake of Fire:
1/4 - 1/2 c of 80 proof rum (depending on how big you want your firey lake)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Whisk the zest and yolks until they are well combined, about 2 minutes. The zesty yolky mixture should become a nice shade of light green.

Mix in the milk and juice.

Set the mixture aside to thicken while you tend to the crust.

Mix together all the crust ingredients, being sure to coat the crumbs and the coconut well in the butter. Press the mixture in to a 9" pie plate.

Bake the crust until it has browned sightly and smells delicious. It takes about 12-15 minutes.

Pour the filling into the crust and bake for 7 minutes.

While the pie is baking, make the meringue.

Mix the cornstarch with 1/3 c water in a small pan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, whisking until it thickens and forms a thick translucent paste. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Mix the cream of tartar and sugar together.

Beat the egg whites until they're frothy. Then beat in the sugar mixture, one tablespoon at a time, until the sugar incorporates and the egg whites form soft peaks.

Add the cornstarch paste, again, one tablespoon at a time, continuing to beat the mixture until stiff peaks form.

After it's baked for 7 minutes, remove the pie and cover with the meringue. The easiest way to do this is to make a ring of meringue around the edge of the pie, then plop the remaining meringue in the middle, spreading it around until it's vaguely even.

Bake for 20 more minutes, until the meringue is nice and brown on top.

Remove from the oven and cool to room temperature, then chill for at least 3 hours or up to 24 hours until it's well chilled.

Then. And this is the exciting part. Make the lake of fire!

This is easy, if a little scary. Put the rum in a small saucepan on the stove and heat it up a little. You want it to be warm, but you don't want to boil the alcohol off otherwise it won't flame.

Use a long handled lighter or a long match and set the rum on fire! All the rum in the pan will go up in flames, pour this over the pie and prepare for the 'oohs' and the 'aahs'.

Thalia Learns to Cook: Fish is dangerous.

Thalia Learns to Cook: Fish is dangerous.

Recipes and examples of dishes I can now make! Taken from a variety of sources and changed according to my abilities, needs, and dislike of doing dishes.

Today with bonus horror story of epic proportions.

So I have a bit of time this week (finally!) and have actually remembered to take pictures while cooking. It’s not that I haven’t been cooking. In fact, I’ve been cooking a good amount. It’s just that two things have gotten in the way of my putting together fabulous blog posts. 1) I haven’t been experimenting or trying anything new. Everything I made is something I’ve made a bunch before. So, it’s not really that interesting in my opinion. Which brings up a slight digression- once you really get in to cooking- once you know what you are doing and how to do it- cooking takes on a more meditative state. It’s not an actively attention needing activity. Instead, you can ease into it, do it while doing something else simultaneously, and then move on. Not very interesting to write blog posts about. So, you can blame my not providing you with any new content at all on my not wanting to provide you with boring content. It’s you I’m thinking of!

OK, and 2) when I have attempted something new, or something has gone horribly wrong, which would make a good post, I didn’t take pictures. And what is a blog, dear reader, without pictures? Nothing. So, yeah, sorry about that.

But now! I have made something new! Fish! Specifically, bluefish with herb, lemon and olive oil. And it was dangerous. In fact, it recalled a little too specifically, my most dangerous cooking experience ever.

Ingredients: (recipe from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything)

Bluefish fillet (although the recipe says mackerel will work as well)

Lemon

Fresh herbs. I used Rosemary, Sage and Tarragon, but others such as Chives, Parsley, etc will work well.

Olive oil

Special Tools: (If you want to be all fancy about it. I’m sure you could figure out other ways to get around having to use these).

Microplane zester

Sillicone brush

Method:

Zest the lemon into a bowl. I love the microplane zester. Although I don’t think I use it correctly. (I can never remember if you’re supposed to move the food or the zester. I do some combination).

Add 3 tablespoons of EVOO.

Juice the lemon into the bowl. Fun tip: Cut the lemon the long way. I used to cut it the short way, despite my husband’s many protestations. Don’t know why it made more sense to me at the time, but now that I have learned to cut lemons and limes the long way, it makes much much more sense.

Cut up the herbs.

Fun tip! If you just take all the fresh herbs and roll them together, you can cut them up really easily. No more chopping and chopping and chopping required. Hooray! Unless that’s how you get your frustrations out. Then, go forth.

Mix together the herbs, lemon, lemon juice, olive oil, creating sort of a paste/ sauce.

Spread the mixture on to the fish. First on the skin, then flip it over and put a lot on the flesh side.

OK, here’s where it gets dangerous. This is the part of the post you came to see.

There has been, for 12 years now, a word that strikes fear into my heart. I quiver when I read it in a recipe. And that word is: BROIL. (ugh).

Here’s why.

----

When I was but a wee college student- a sophomore – I had my first off campus apartment with two good friends (to protect the innocent- “J” and “S”). Being the mature and sophisticated ladies that we were, we decided to make ourselves a delicious dinner before the start of classes. I should pause here and say that my roommates both cooked regularly. At that time I was still in overcooked pasta and grocery store sushi- land. I hated cooking because I was terrible at it.

So, I was (for some unfathomable reason) put in charge of the main dish. We decided on Salmon broiled with Lime and Pear. Sounds delicious!

Think to yourselves about college off campus apartments. Not the most well kept of places. Not that this matters too much in the story, but just to set the scene.

I can’t remember almost anything about the recipe. It involved using lime juice on the fish, and then putting limes and pears in the pan with the fish that went into the oven. To broil, specifically. So, I followed the recipe to the best of my ability, until it came time to put it in the oven. 6 inches below the broiler using a broiler pan. The problem? We did not own, or really even know, what a broiler pan was. We think it must be close to a regular cookie sheet or something, and we use that.

We put the salmon, limes with juice and pears into the oven. And confidently close the door all the way. A few minutes later, the smoke alarm goes off. This being a college apartment, the smoke alarm goes off when someone boils water. We ignore it. A few minutes later, it goes off again and we smell a bit of smoke, so someone asks if perhaps checking the salmon would be a good idea.

I check the salmon. I gingerly open the oven door.

FLAMES SHOOT OUT.

AHHH!!! The salmon is on fire! We quickly scream, turn off the oven, and open the oven door completely. The entire pan is on fire. We start to panic. We open the front door to try and get out some of the smoke.

As this happens, our next door neighbors are coming home. They see through the now open door that we may be having a bit of trouble with our dinner. They come in to try to help.

Grabbing some towels, next door neighbor is about to put the still on fire pan under water, until someone smart remembers that grease fires will only get terribly terribly worse if put under water. We all yell, and he stops.

J pulls out the fire extinguisher, since the pan is still on fire.

“Wait!” S says. “That fish was really expensive! Don’t use the fire extinguisher, you’ll ruin it!” She has a point.

We decide to put another pan on top of the STILL ON FIRE pan to try and quash it. At this point, the fire goes out and we all breathe a sigh of relief. Except the next door neighbors. They laugh at us like the idiots we are, and go back to their apartment. We never really speak to them again, except to leave them brownies as thanks. It was awkward.

In the end, we scrape off the burnt part of the salmon, which actually wasn’t that deep (it was mostly lime juice and olive oil that was on fire, and it burned away) and eat our fancy dinner. It turned out to be pretty good. We don’t attempt another fancy meal the rest of the time we live in the apartment. This episode remains one of our favorite stories- the Flaming Salmon Dinner.

---

So what does this have to do with dinner last night? This recipe should also be broiled. I decide to risk it. This time, I put a rack on top of a pan and place the fish on the rack. This way, drippings drip through and don’t stay so close to the heat source.

I also only put the fish in for three minutes before I check it.

HOWEVER, before I even check it the first time, I start to hear some… noises. Pops. Flashes. Small explosions. Yeah, the fish is sparking. It’s not on fire yet. But yet is the key word in that sentence.

Crap.

I turn off the oven. Ed pulls out the fish. We decide baking is just as good as broiling. We put the fish back into the nice center of the oven, and turn it on “bake” rather than “broil”. We bake it for 15 minutes.

Then we add some cherry tomatoes and roast them briefly in the oven.

It’s delicious.

I’m still afraid of broiling.

Serve with quinoa and salad.

Profiteroles

I'm back! Back in the land of cold cold temperatures, entirely too many clothes (what? I have to wear a sweater? AND a coat? AND GLOVES?? You must be kidding...). BUT most importantly, it's a land with a fully functional kitchen! And gadgets. So many gadgets.

Ahh... Have I mentioned how much I love my kitchen? Never again will I take a working oven (or for that matter, hot water) for granted again. Never.

Since I've been happily reunited with my kitchen, it's only fitting that I make some sort of grand gesture, something to show it just how much I appreciate it. No mere cake or pie will do -- it has to be something fabulous.

Fabulous, but not that fabulous, because there's no way in hell I'm going out to buy ingredients. Did I mention that it's COLD? Like, 20 degrees cold. Horrible.

What dessert can possibly meet these strict criterion? It had to be profiteroles. Look how pretty:

Profiteroles are perfect-- they are just fancy enough to make me feel like I've made my kitchen proud, just easy enough that I can unpack and sort my house out in the midst of the cooking, and plenty tasty enough so my friends will be glad to have me back in town!

Just because the end result looks fancy and looks like it's hard to make, don't be afraid! It's all an illusion. If you can use a pastry bag (and you can use a pastry bag, I promise) then you can make a profiterole!

SO, what is a profiterole exactly? It's kind of like a cream puff, except while cream puffs are generally filled with whipped cream and dusted in powdered sugar, profiteroles are filled with pastry cream and doused in chocolate ganache. And because chocolate is always the right answer, I decided that in my profiterole, I would use chocolate cream. And double the chocolate ganache. I can think of no better way to celebrate festivus. Now where did I put my festivus pole?

Ingredients

Puff Pastry: 

      3 large eggs 

      1 large egg white 

      8 T unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 T pieces 

      3 T milk 

      9 T water 

      2 1/4 t sugar 

      1/2 t salt 

      3/4 c all purpose flour

Chocolate Pastry Cream: 

      2 1/4 c half-and-half 

      3 T sugar plus 2 teaspoons 

      5 egg yolks 

      3 T cornstarch

      3 T cold unsalted butter

      1/2 c semisweet chocolate chips 

      3/4 t vanilla 

Chocolate Ganache: 

      6 T half-and-half 

      2/3 c semisweet chocolate chips 

      2 c powdered sugar, sifted

Pastry

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and spray a large baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray. Preferably cake release or one for baking (the kind with flour in it).

Beat the eggs and egg white in a bowl (or, you know, a measuring cup) and set aside. You should have about 3/4 of a cup. If not, add another egg white, mix, and dump out the excess until you do have 3/4 of a cup.

Bring the butter, milk, water, sugar and salt to a boil over medium heat.

As soon as the butter mixture reaches a boil remove it from the heat and stir in the flour until it's well combined and the dough clings to the sides of the pan. 

Return it to low heat and cook, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes. The mixture should be shiny and there should be a weird film on the bottom of the pan (don't worry, it's just fat).

Immediately transfer the mixture to the bowl of a standing mixture and mix for 30 seconds to a minute to cool slightly so you don't cook your eggs.

Add the eggs in 4 parts, mixing and scraping down the bowl after each addition. Mix until a smooth, sticky paste forms, like so: 

Ok, now for the pastry bag! Don't be scared, it's not that hard! All you need is a pastry bag and a plain tip -- Just fold the top of the pastry bag down to make a cuff, and fit the tip in the pastry bag like this: 

Hold the pastry bag in one hand and put the pastry mixture in the bag using a spatula. Then close the cuffs on the bag and push the pastry down towards the tip. You don't want to fill the bag too much, so you may want to do it in two goes. Twist the top of the pastry bag and squeeze the bag to pipe the pastry into small mounds. Space them about 1/2 an inch or so apart. 

Then dip your finger in a bowl of cold water and smooth the top of the pastries. You'll probably have to repeat the cold water business a few times. 

Bake for 15 minutes (don't open the door! you want it to be a super hot, very consistent temperature). After 15 minutes turn the heat down to 375 and bake for another 8-10 minutes. 

At this point the pastry should be golden brown and fairly firm if you squeeze it. Remove the baking sheet and cut a little slit in the side of the pastry, parallel to the baking sheet. This will allow the pastries to release the steam and crisp up nicely. 

Return the pastries to the warm oven, turn the oven off, and put a wooden spoon in the door to prop it open. Leave the pastries in the still warm oven for about 45 minutes or until they dry out mostly, but are still a little moist in the middle. 

You can store the cooled puffs at room temperature until you need them (for up to 24 hours). When you want to use them, crisp them up in the oven at 300 for about 6 minutes. 

Chocolate Pastry Cream

Heat the half and half, 8 T of sugar, and the salt over medium heat, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar. 

While this is happening, whisk the egg yolks until combined. add the remaining 2 T plus 2 t sugar, whisking until the mixture is creamy. Whisk in the cornstarch until combined and the mixture is thick and pale yellow. 

When the half-and-half mixture is simmering, mix it into your egg mixture to temper the eggs. Return it to the saucepan and bring back to a simmer over medium heat.

Whisk constantly until a few bubbles burst on the surface and the mixture is thick and glossy. It'll take about 30 seconds or so. 

Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter, chocolate and vanilla. 

Strain the fabulous chocolate mixture through a mesh strainer to remove lumps, then put in a bowl and cover the cream directly with plastic wrap (so it doesn't form a skin because that's just gross). 

Refrigerate at least 3 hours (or make it in advance, up to 2 days early). 

Chocolate Ganache 

This is the easy bit. Take the cream and the chocolate and microwave 45 seconds - 1 minute until the mixture is just steaming. Mix it until smooth and then add the powdered sugar. Ditto with the mixing until smooth. That's it. Seriously. 

Assembly

This bit isn't hard either! Cut the pastries in half (again, parallel to the cookie sheet) and place them on a wire rack placed over a baking sheet or paper towels, or something that will be easy to clean up... it's about to be covered in chocolate.

Use a cookie dough or ice cream scoop (or if you really had fun with the pastry bag, use that!) to scoop the chocolate cream mixture onto the bottom half of the pastry. Cover the pastry with the top half, and drizzle with ganache, letting the excess go through the wire rack (don't worry, you can eat it later). 

That's it! See! So pretty and yet so easy! Enjoy!

Chocolate Rum Cake

Rum Cake

Tropical islands conjure up certain ideas -- the surf, the sand, the palm trees, the fruity-rum-based drinks. My colleagues and I had enjoyed the surf, the sand, and the palm trees for several days when we decided we needed to have a dose of the latter. Rum.

To that effect, we visited the Bacardi factor and took a tour. For various reasons, I found this tour absolutely hilarious (why is the bacardi mascot a bat? cue dramatic music -- because … (suspenseful buildup)… one day…. Mrs. Bacardi saw a bat. No seriously. That's it). So hilarious, in fact, that I laughed until I cried. Yes. Tears streaming down my face. Hilarity. No one else seemed to find the tour quite as funny as I did, but they found my hilarity contagious and soon began to see the funny side.

When we were getting ready to leave someone happened to mention rum cake. My only experience with rum cake happened when I was young and the family dog, Coco, a petite 12 lb terrier, managed to eat a half a rum cake. Madness. Complete madness.

We were having a day of fun and decided upon leaving the bacardi factory that we should make a chocolate rum cake and watch Madagascar. This involved a frantic dash to the best buy and the grocery store for said supplies (mere moments before they closed!), and a traffic filled drive back from San Juan.

By the time we got back, we were definitely ready for some rum cake. We started strong -- Lindsey and Laurie were super excited!

When the rum cake came out of the oven it looked and smelled delicious! So delicious that we decided that waiting to cut it / using plates was just too much -- we would eat it right from the pan.

It was an evening of fun -- lots of fun, lots and lots of rum cake eating … (sorry for the dark pictures to follow!)

In fact, we managed to finish the rum cake off entirely…

Which then led to yet another overdose of fun…

A few days after the rum cake / Madagascar incident, when everyone left and went back to cold, wintery, new england, I got texts from most of these people saying "well this sucks"… if you don't know why this is hilarious, go watch Madagascar!)

Chocolate Rum Cake (adapted from this recipe)

Cake: 

1 package (18.25 oz) chocolate cake mix
1 package (3.9 oz) instant chocolate pudding mix
4 eggs
½ c water
½ c vegetable oil
½ c rum

Glaze:
½ c butter
1 c sugar
¼ c rum
¼ c water

Preheat oven to 325.

We used an aluminum foil casserole dish to mix and bake the ingredients. It worked well!

Mix cake mix, pudding mix, oil, ½ water, and ½ c rum until well mixed.

At first this seemed like fun.

But it requires a lot of furious mixing…

Bake at 325 for about an hour and 15 minutes (or 50 minutes if you use an actual bundt pan…)

Make the glaze -- melt the butter, mix in the sugar, rum and water. Bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes.

Pour the glaze over the warm cake.

And enjoy! Just try not to overdose on fun!

Cayo Cheesecake

Cayo Cheesecake

I've slipped into my old habits of not posting anything again… but this time I have an actual non-time-warp excuse! I've been here, Cayo Santiago:

Yes. My life is hard.

There are many many things I like about being here -- the weather, the ocean, the palm trees… oh yeah, and the DATA (did I mention that there are 1,000 monkeys living on that island? One. Thousand. What do I do with 1000 monkeys? I put on a show about magic fruit… no really, that's seriously what I do all day. Best. Job. Ever.)

If I had my dog, my kitchenaid mixer, and reliable internet I could stay here forever.

Speaking of a lack of a mixer, when thanksgiving came around last week, my colleagues and I decided that we would have a truly fabulous tropical thanksgiving feast -- pizza by the beach and cheesecake by the pool for lunch, followed by a traditional thanksgiving meal that night (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes etc). And more cheesecake. The only problem? We didn't have any kitchen equipment.

Ok. I exaggerate. We had a whisk. A pot. A potato masher. And a measuring cup. Yep. That's all. I didn't know exactly how we would make the cheesecake happen, but I had faith that we could figure it out.

Our original plan involved pumpkin cheesecake, and we bought ingredients for that, except, alas, there was no pumpkin to be had in all of Humacao, Punta Santiago, or Naguabo. So we had to improvise! We decided to make one a caramel cheesecake (regular cheesecake with a layer of caramel on the bottom) and one a peanut butter cheesecake with oreo crust and crushed up reeses cups inside.

The caramel cheesecake we ate at the pool -- it was delicious! A big hit!

Alas, tragedy occurred later that day, as, overcome by too much fun (that's what we're calling dehydration from being in the sun all day and drinking almost nothing but pina coladas), had to skip out on the thanksgiving feast to try to keep death at bay. However, while I was trying not to die, I got text messages from my colleagues -- peanut butter cheesecake was "the best thing I've ever eaten. so much love." and "this peanut butter cheesecake is crack. I have never eaten anything so delicious ever. It is insanely delicious!!!!!!!"

So. Um. Yeah, I guess it was a success. Many thanks to Alia and Lindsey for struggling through this with me! Alia proved to be an energetic crust crusher, and Lindsey amazed us all with her abilities to whip cream with only a whisk. Amazing.

If you find yourself in the tropics, without any pumpkin, without a mixer, without any kitchen equipment at all except a whisk and potato masher, now you know what to make for dessert--peanut butter or caramel cheesecake! (Forgive my inexact and creative measurements and lack of pictures!)

Peanut-Butter Cheesecake

Crust:
8-12 oreos (whatever you've got, and if that's not enough to make sufficient crust you can add more oreos or supplement with graham crackers if you've eaten all your oreos).
½ stick butter

Cheesecake:
1 ½ lbs cream cheese
½ lb peanut butter (just fill up one of your cheesecake tubs with peanut butter and use that)
1 ¼ c granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 t vanilla
¼ c heavy cream
¼ c whipped cream (I swear it can be done with a whisk! just whisk the hell out of it!)
reeses cups (we used about 12 - 15 small ones, again, a matter of preference)

First, set the cream cheese out on the counter to soften. This works really well if you're somewhere where it's 85 degrees -- they soften up really well really quickly! If you're somewhere less tropical, you may need to leave them out for a couple hours to reach the desired level of creaminess.

Then make your crust -- crush the oreos with your potato masher and incorporate the butter. Add more oreos or butter as needed until you have a crust you're happy with. There's no right answer here, totally a matter of preference.

Make your cheesecake -- use your whisk or potato masher, whatever you've got, to mix together the cream cheese and peanut butter. Add the sugar and mix until you can no longer feel the granules of the sugar if you smoosh some batter between your fingers. Add in 1 egg at a time until well mixed.

Stir in the vanilla, heavy cream, and whipped cream.

Then smash up some reeses cups and fold them in. Try not to eat them all. You know you want to.

Bake at 325 for about an hour. You know it's done when you poke the side of the pan in the sides are firm but the middle jiggles like jello.

When that happens, turn off the heat and let it cool for about an hour. I recommend taking this time to go boogie boarding.

Remove the pan from the oven and let cool. Chill for 3 - 4 hours and enjoy!

Caramel Cheesecake:

Caramel Sauce:
½ stick of butter
1 c packed brown sugar
½ c heavy cream

Crust:
6 or 7 graham crackers
A sprinkling of sugar (about 1 T or so)
4 or 5 T of butter

Cheesecake:
1 ½ lbs cream cheese cut into 1 inch chunks
1 c granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 ½ t vanilla
¼ c heavy cream
¼ c whipped cream (whipped with a whisk! it can be done!)


First, set the cream cheese out on the counter to soften. This works really well if you're somewhere where it's 85 degrees -- they soften up really well really quickly! If you're somewhere less tropical, you may need to leave them out for a couple hours to reach the desired level of creaminess.

Then make the caramel sauce -- melt the butter in whatever saucepan you happen to have around, then stir in the brown sugar and cream and bring to a boil. Reduce to low and boil for 5 minutes.

While you let this cool, make your crust. Use your potato masher to mash up your graham crackers. Add in some sugar. Melt the butter and add to the crumb / sugar combo. Stir until it begins to cling together. Push into the bottom of your pan (we bought the walmart special -- an aluminum casserole pan).

Now pour your caramel sauce on top of the crust and set aside to cool a little.

Make your cheesecake -- use your whisk or potato masher, whatever you've got, to mix together the cream cheese and sugar. Once you can no longer feel the granules of the sugar add in 1 egg at a time until well mixed.

Stir in the vanilla, heavy cream, and whipped cream.

Bake at 325 for about an hour. You know it's done when you poke the side of the pan in the sides are firm but the middle jiggles like jello.

When that happens, turn off the heat and let it cool for about an hour. I recommend taking this time to go boogie boarding.

Remove the pan from the oven and let cool. We actually ate it when it was still warm and it was delicious!