Limoncello, Arancello, and Pompelmocello: Mashes Ready for Testing

It's been three months since we set the Limoncello, Arancello, and Pompelmocello mashes to rest. Today I tested peels from each to see if the mashes were ready. Simply bending a peel allows you to check its rigidity; when the peel "breaks" in half easily, the mash is ready. Here's a look at the peels and the infused Everclear from each batch:

Lemons

 

Oranges

Grapefruit

The lemon and grapefruit peels broke easily, while the orange peel did not break at all.  All three of the batches were full flavored, but light in color.  I've decided to let them sit a while longer.

The final steps, once the mashes are ready, is to combine the infused Everclear with a simple sugar, filter (or not), then bottle.  You can find the full recipe here with some tweaks on the mash prep here.

Good Cookies Gone Bad, Bad Cookies Redeemed

I'm on staycation this week and thought I'd make our favorite cookies:

Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies with Walnuts and Orange

Makes 4 1/2 dozen

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon orange extract
zest of one orange
2 large eggs
2 cups dark chocolate chips (60% cacao or higher)
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 375° F.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Mix the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, orange zest and orange extract in a larger bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture slowly, mixing well after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto a parchment-covered baking sheets.

Bake for 11 minutes or until golden brown.

Adapted from the Original NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.

I pull batch one out of the oven and they were completely flat ~ no discernible rise.  I'd realized when mixing up the batter that I accidentally put the salt and baking soda into the butter mixture and thought that was it.  On to the next batch of dough; same problem.

After double-checking my adaption of the recipe with the original, I realized I had done one thing different this time ~ weighed the flour instead of measuring it.  Per the package, 1/4c is 30g so I added 270g of flour.  That was the problem.

I was fortunate to stumble onto a blog entry on just this issue, Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies, at the Cooking for Engineers site. Michael Chu's analysis in this article says it all.  The key takeaway was that I needed more flour ~ about 80g more.

Additional flour added, the next batch was a significant improvement.  This really is a fantastic cookie!

Limoncello, Arancello, and Pompelmocello

Last year's Meyer limoncello was amazing, so we decided to do it again.  This year, however, we made mashes for limoncello, arancello, and pompelmocello.

The first time we tried limoncello we researched like crazy and measured carefully.  This time we took a more casual approach ~ results to be determined.  We started with our bountiful Meyer lemon, orange, and grapefruit trees and 6 one liter Le Parfait canning jars.  The steps are as follows:

• Pick and wash fruit; peel ~ avoiding as much pith as possible.
• Pack peelings into canning jars.
• Fill jars with alcohol of choice; we use Everlclear.
• Push peels down to press out the air bubbles; add more alcohol as needed to cover peels.
• Seal jars and place in cool, dark location.

As a ratio, it seems 1.5L of alcohol is what's needed to fill 2 1L canning jars well packed with peels.

Big lessons learned last year were:

1. Let the mash sit.  There is no hurry and the longer it rests the fuller the flavor.
2. Let the simple syrup cool before mixing with the strained mash.  Despite straining the mash well, our limoncello was cloudy as a result of mixing it with warm to hot syrup.

Of the three I'm most interested in the pompelmocello.  Stay tuned ...

Box Contents: April 16, 2010

This week's box contains:

• Leeks
• Gold Chard
• Cilantro
• Oranges
• Mystery (Strawberries)
• Baby Fava Beans
• Mystery (Orach)

We made fresh squeezed orange juice from the oranges and ate the strawberries out of hand for breakfast today.  With two sets of greens, and the remaining ingredients on hand, we're planning Hearty Greens Soup for dinner today or tomorrow.

I am looking forward to the fava beans.  They are lovely when you have the time to prepare them.  If you've not had the pleasure, it is a 3 step process: remove the pod, blanch the beans and remove the outer shell, then cook.  I like them best tossed with olive oil and salt.

As far as the rest of it goes, we've got another "not going to cook" week ahead.  Last week box contents are still resting comfortably in the refrigerator and the remains of this week's box will join them.  Weeknight cooking is not something we do well...