Adventures In Cooking: Part 2

Sara, one of my coworkers, hosted a tapas party (Spanish appetizers/snacks) on Saturday for the rest of us from our school. Those of us attending were asked to bring drinks or desert. I decided to be adventurous and go with desert, hoping to make a tres leches cake. Ok, it’s not Spanish, but it’s Latin American and I love it. I knew from the beginning this was going to be difficult, but figured I could do it with equal parts Google and determination. I was sure to photograph the process so I could share with everyone my amazing talent… or my pathetic attempt – whichever one became reality.

Now, perhaps the most important part of this desert is the cake, but I lack an oven, so I opted for a store-bought cake. Muang and I went to the grocery store Friday before work so I could pick up my needed ingredients. We found a nice dense cake with relative ease and heavy cream was with the milk where one would expect it. Finding sweetened condensed milk, however, was a little more challenging. Muang eventually typed it into her phone, got the Korean translation, and asked a store employee for assistance. It was with the powdered milk and baby formula, of course.

Friday night after work I mixed together the “glaze” in my cooking pot, since I didn’t have any bowls. There is also no such thing as cream in Korea (at least as far as we know), so I used some whole milk and heavy cream instead. As I mixed this concoction of cream and sweetened condensed milk that would be poured over the cake and left to soak overnight, I began to wonder what I was going to soak it in. I opted for my sole piece of Tupperware, which was a large square (it wasn’t quite big enough, so I had to cut off the end of the cake, but I’ll enjoy it later).

As I worked I thought about my task for the next day, and decided another shopping trip was in order for some much needed tools.

Saturday I made some new additions to my kitchen supplies and went to work on the frosting.

This required mixing 2 cups heavy cream with 8oz of sugar until “stiff peaks are formed”, according to Alton Brown. Well, my cream was measured in milliliters and I had no measuring utensils for the sugar. However, since I know (or Google knows) that 250ml is one cup, as is 8oz I used one of the cream containers (which was conveniently 250ml) as a measuring cup for my sugar. I know. I’m brilliant.

Well, that was the easy part. I now had to beat this creamy goodness until stiff peaks formed...

(I know this is an awful picture, but do you know how hard it is to whisk and take a picture at the same time?)

I beat, and I beat, and I beat, and while it got thicker, the only things getting stiff were my back and arms.

I took a break and took the cake out of the container (then decided to put it back in and frost it once there since I had to transport it).

Back to mixing… I began to wonder if it was humanly possible to produce these elusive peaks without the aid of an electric mixer. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I ran out of time and had to stop beating before I had the chance to find out.

Once there, I frosted the cake and topped it with strawberries. The frosting was still a little runny, but tasted great.

It wasn’t as amazing as Mom’s, but I think I did pretty well, all things considered.

One Month

I arrived in Korea one month ago today. Wow. Has it really been a month? I feel like I should write some profound, or witty blog to mark the one month point, but I really don’t have anything that interesting to say. I do want to thank all of you who have been praying for me. I have been so blessed at every turn and I know I would not be having this wonderful experience without your support and prayers. Our God is so good and I experience His love and grace new every day.

This is week 10 at my school in a 13 week term. We’re doing testing this week, which you know the students just love. The tests they take this week will determine whether or not they “level up” for next term. So there is lots of pressure and they do a practice test their first class of the week and then the real test the second class of the week. I hope they all do well and make me look good... er, make their parents proud…

So Sunday I went to Deoksugung Palace with Muang. More pictures on flickr, but some highlights include…

This guy's teeth! Twins?

Contrast between old and new Korea...

SO THIRSTY!!!

Oops....

I also bought some notebooks at the craft/office supply store downstairs and then took pictures of them for you. What’s so interesting about notebooks? Well they each say funny things in English. Now, I know that we in America have clothes or other items with foreign languages on them that often make little or no sense. Unfortunately, I don’t speak those other languages and cannot appreciate the humor. I do, however, have a pretty good grasp of the English language and found the following things pretty funny. I hope you do too.

So the English on this one isn't that strange, but still funny since almost all the coffee I've seen here is instant. And do you think that's a coffee farmer? Hm.

Personally, I like the milk pan (what?) and yes. I do English today. Do you?

Sometimes, I anxious too, but then I remember that fruit...

Ok, first of all, "indefatigably" is a real word (I looked it up) but, honestly? It probably has not been used by a native English speaker in over 100 years and just sounds ridiculous. And then, "STUDT"? Obviously, someone needs to take their own advice...

I’ll watch for more creative usage of the English language, but that’s all for now.

There are many other thoughts rolling around in my head right now (I guess I had more to say than I thought) but I will save them for another day. I hope you are all well.

God bless!