The Scientist's Valentine

It's Valentine's day, and you haven't planned anything. And — just so we're clear — this is not one of those foolproof last-minute Valentine's Day desserts that will distract your special someone from your failure to produce flowers / dinner reservations / bling on the day scheduled by the greeting card industry. 

But you know what? Anyone can make reservations and buy flowers. But can just anyone waltz into the kitchen and whip up a rich, creamy, decadent chocolate mousse? Can they do it using only chocolate and hot water? 

No, they can't.

Apparently, neither can I.

Millet risotto with butternut squash and purple cauliflower

Last week I found a bulk bag of millet tucked into the corner of the freezer, where it had escaped notice after the Terrible Pantry Moth Infestation of '12, when all new grain products were quarantined in cold storage.

I'd scrawled "1:2.5 / 25" on the twist-tie — the notation I use for bulk-bin grains to indicate the ratio of grain to water (1 cup grain to 2 1/2 cups water) and cooking time (25 minutes). I've never made millet before, so I don't know if my numbers were wrong or if the prolonged freezing did something to the grain or what, but instead of cooking up fluffy and nutty and delicious, it came out kind of gummy. 

Unfortunately, I'd made a lot of it. 

Oatmeal cake

Blogging has caused some changes in the way I cook, especially when I'm baking. I do more measuring and less eyeballing these days, even if I'm making things up as I go along. I usually remember to take notes. And if I'm testing a recipe and make a mistake, I might even start over. 

This cake started out as a test batch of my garam masala oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe, until I accidentally added four eggs instead of two. This is not like doubling the amount of chocolate chips or cinnamon; those are changes that you can and should make whenever possible. Structural ingredients like eggs, milk, and flour really do matter, and while you can get away with fudging them a bit, doubling any of them is going to seriously change your texture, and probably not for the better. 

After whipping out a fresh batch of cookies (and confirming that my measurements were just right), I came back to my first bowl. It was a well-blended mess of butter, brown and white sugar, eggs, and vanilla. This is actually a pretty common base for all manner of delicious baked goods. The difference at this stage is more a matter of proportion than ingredients. I figured with two too many eggs this blend was too wet for cookies, but might be salvageable as a cake of some sort.  

As I like to tell novice bakers when they're worrying, anything whose main ingredients are butter and sugar can't taste too terrible. It might be too dense, or too gooey, or too floury, but toast the pieces up and top them with sliced strawberries and whipped cream, and you've got shortcake, no matter what you were trying to make. It is at this point that my friends get calls like, "Hey, I totally screwed up this cake (or pie, or whatever). It's weird. But not bad. You should come over and eat some of it." 

Lemon-zucchini cake failure

This story does not end well. I think you should know that before you become emotionally invested or, even worse, follow my example. After the tasting but before the photo editing I considered whether I should try again, and again if necessary, until I'd produced a reliable cake whose recipe I could share in good conscience. On the other hand, the internet is full of reliable cake recipes. This one was kind of a disaster, but it was a beautiful disaster.

I love dishes that put ingredients into an unusual context and make it work. Olive oil ice cream. Rosemary chocolate. Basil sorbet. Finding myself with another overlarge zucchini on a bright summer day, I thought that instead of our typical chocolate zucchini cake I might try making a zucchini cake with lemon, rosemary, and thyme.