A Fool for Fools

When hearing the word "fool", dessert is probably the last thing to come to mind. Though when you hear someone say, "I'm making a raspberry fool", your mind starts to churn a little bit.
A fool, in the culinary sense, is similar to a trifle or parfait, at least in modern times. It is a British dessert and has gone through many variations over the years. My raspberry fool is not exactly traditional, but it is delicious without any doubt.
I wish I could take credit for this recipe, but sadly I cannot. This wonderful summer dessert is courteous of a magazine I hope to write for one day, Bon Appétit. The brilliant minds there managed to create a dish so bright and bursting with a refreshing fruity flavor. It's layered with complimentary textures, yet so wonderfully simple. The thing itself only has six ingredients and one of them is a pre-made angel food cake. Who doesn't like things simple to make and even easier to eat?
I actually made the dish this weekend per request from a friend whom I served it to at a dinner party a long, long time ago. Her craving for it inspired a post on the blog, so while I cannot take credit for the recipe, I can show you how to make it.
The dish begins with angel food cake. Now, many of you may not like angel food cake usually, I myself am included. I beg you to stay with me here because this angel food cake is about to be toasted. Yes, toasted. Dice it up and throw it in the oven till it's nice and golden. The cake becomes crunchy on the outside but stays so luxuriously soft on the inside.

While the cake is cooling, the raspberries get lightly mashed with some sugar and lime zest. The natural sweetness in the juice of the raspberries slowly builds up in the bowl and works with the lime zest to create an addicting, delicious syrup.

As you layer on the raspberries, that syrup I mentioned soaks into the toasted angel food cake and becomes a decadent little cup of heaven. While the raspberries are the "cherry on top" per say for me, the next step is my mom's weakness. The whipped cream. 

This is not your normal whipped cream. While it is heavy whipping cream beaten with sugar, this fool has a little trick up its sleeve; sour cream. 

It sounds strange but the tanginess of the whipped cream with the sour cream is what cuts through the sweetness of the raspberries. May I say one more time how good this dessert is?

Finish the whole thing of with a little lime zest and the dessert is ready to be eaten. Once tasted, everything about this dessert makes sense but the name. Maybe the British decided to name it a fool because when you eat it, all you can think is "I'm a fool for this dessert". I don't know and I guess I don't need to. All that matters is that it is yummy and easy to make. Even though I happen to be content with the dessert how it is, there are so many ways this fool could go. All sorts of variations of fruits could work here and they would all look and taste beautiful. After all this fool is dressed rather sharply in its martini glass. 

A Slightly Vegetarian Life

Life has been known to throw a curve ball or two, some rougher than the others. My most recent curve ball came when my mother, who began to do research on where the food we eat comes from, made a change in lifestyle when she decided to become a vegetarian. One might think this is not a big deal, but we are a family in the center of Texas, also known as cattle country. We love our meat, especially our BBQ. No one was ready to give up the carnivorous lifestyle but to accommodate my mother, it became time to be more of an omnivore style family. 

Now, I happen to love vegetables, so the situation is not all that bad for me. The down-fall of her new lifestyle is the fact that half of my family is of the male gender and are VERY picky eaters. My father and brother are stereotypical meat and potato kind of guys. They don't quite like things that are green, unless it's a jalapeño or a bell pepper. If they are eating vegetables, the dish has to be loaded with flavor. Luckily, my generation has the luxury of google and I never really have a hard time finding a good recipe online. Yet, I am one of those teenagers who has a soft spot for old school things. I love my Beastie Boys and Jimi Hendrix CDs that live in my car. There is no way I can forget to mention my Doors vinyl collection that resides next to the record player in my room. Classic comforts like these are why it began to make sense to me to switch my recipe searching from the internet and over to the pages of a cookbook. Granted, I did find my new cookbook online and had it delivered to my house but whatever, that's not the point being made here.

When the cookbook finally arrived, I spent some time with it in my backyard. My afternoon consisted of reading it while bathing in the warmth of the sun. The name of the cookbook you ask? Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London's Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolenghi. 

The book features tasty and solely vegetable recipes that work as both side and main dishes. A lot of the recipes are herbaceous and bright, something I really enjoy in my food. The herb-y recipes excite me seeing as my herb garden will be expanding this year, but that is another blog post. Plus, lots of recipes consist of yummy goat cheese, who doesn't love that? The best part is even though it is a cookbook, Ottolenghi actually made it a pretty great read. I have not made anything from it yet, but I cannot wait to dive into the recipes. The recipes are simple, the flavors make sense, and the cookbook itself is quite beautiful. 

I'll keep everyone updated on my progress as I go through the book , but for now I recommend you buy a copy for yourself. Here is to hoping the omnivore life works out for my family.

Enjoy.

-Madison 

Cake Fail Turned Cake Balls

Though I may be young, I have made many cakes in my life. This is why when I was strolling the aisles of my grocery store and spotted coconut flour, my mind jumped to using it in a chocolate cake. The coconut flour went in my cart and excitement flooded through me. When I arrived at home, I pulled the most wonderful chocolate cake recipe in the world out of it's hiding place and went to work.
I assumed that coconut flour would be a great and more delicious substitute for the all-purpose flour the recipe calls for. I assumed wrong. Not about the delicious part but definitely about it being a great substitute. The coconut flour completely changed the consistency of the cake, making it seem more like a mealy brownie batter. I would have tried to fix it but I was also running short on time. Seeing as I still had to get ready for a party, I dumped the batter into two eight-inch round cake pans and threw them in the oven. When I came back and the timer went off, the cake looked horrible. This is not an exaggeration, it was lumpy and uneven all across the surface. Yet, the consistency of it was still cake-like. My hope returned to me and then was crushed once again after letting the cakes cool and taking them out of the pans. The cake fell apart. It was like all my hopes for this wonderful gluten-free coconut chocolate cake were thrown up the counter before me. I glanced at it and thought, there's only one thing I can do; cake balls.
It's really important to note that I am not a particular fan of cake balls. For one thing, I don't like frosting typically unless I make because then I get to control the sweetness of it. Two, I don't like the outer chocolate coating. I know, I'm weird about them but it's whatever. So since I didn't want to dump a perfectly tasty cake into the trash, I went to work on a coconut cream cheese frosting. When the cake and frosting were combined and had not yet been dipped in chocolate, the cake was like a Mound candy bar (these cake balls, despite much mental debate, were almond free). I was pretty satisfied with them but they still needed that dreadful coating of chocolate.
After rummaging through my pantry I managed to find Ghirardelli dark chocolate, yum! I started melting the chocolate (15 second intervals in the microwave) and began dreading what I was about to do. I wanted my cake balls to be pretty, like the ones sold at professional bakeries, but I knew if I was dipping them, that was not going to happen.
They did not turn out perfectly smooth but they turned out kind of cute, nonetheless. All I can say is at least a tasty cake did not go to waste. Plus if you are gluten-free, these aren't healthy but you can totally eat them! Get the recipe at my allrecipes page.

-Madison

Savory Sweet Potato Pie

The name sounds contrasting, "savory sweet potatoes", but I guarantee this combination of flavors is delicious and worth every calorie. Many of you are probably familiar with the fantastic combination of sweet potatoes, rosemary, and olive oil. As I roasted those ingredients together the other night, an idea came to me, why not make it a pie? Seeing as I had never even made sweet potato pie before and I wasn't even really a fan of the sweet version, a lot of research was in order. After an hour or so on the internet, I developed a recipe of my own and I have to say, I am quite proud of myself for doing so. Especially after tasting the test pie, I can say I am rightfully proud. I made one whole pie but as my family and I dined on as a side dish, we all came to the conclusion it would make a wonderful appetizer if made in a mini cupcake pan. You could even keep it as a side dish but make it individually portioned by baking them in a regular sized cupcake pan. If you choose to do this, biscuit cutters are your friends when it comes to pie dough. If you feel up to trying to make this cheesy, flavorful, and super easy to make pie, head over to my allrecipes page.

Those are Parmesan shavings on top, they make the pie a little prettier.
-Madison

Teenage Taste Buds, A Welcome to My Foodie Life in Austin, Texas

My name is Madison and I reside in one of the greatest food cities in the country, Austin, Texas. Austin has been my home for over nine years now and as a teenager growing up in such a wonderful city, it's hard to not fall in love with all the food created here. With such a pallet-pleasing town practically in my backyard, I though what the heck, let's take a food journey. So that's why this blog is here. Plus my dream is to become a food journalist, this is like a step in that direction. Here I have the freedom to post about the restaurants I go to and the recipes I conquer. Maybe some people will go on this journey with me, especially seeing how practically everyone considers themself a foodie these days. I have a serious passion for food and I want to share it with everyone I love, and apparently now the internet too. So here's to Austin, here's to food, and here is to my teenage taste buds. -Madison