marius

PS for Polenta. I sent your symphony clip to several of my musician friends and they LOVED it!!!!!!! Thanks again. None of us knew that castenets could be featured as a solo symphonic instrument. It was wonderful!!!

polenta

Baldur, I have a question for you. There is a "cake" that is used mostly to cut it and fill it and then cover it with fondant or chocolate etc.
It's the simplest cake in the world but I don't suppose it's called cake. What's its name?
In general it has egg yolks beaten with sugar and maybe vanilla, etc and then you add very little flour and baking powder and finallyyou incorportate the beaten whites of the eggs (we call them beaten to snow or batido a nieve) By the way, how do you say that in English too? I mean the white of the eggs beaten " to snow"?
Thanks Baldur.

polenta

Glad you sent it to them Marius. Castanets are widely used in Spanish folklore especially flamenco, etc. In fact, this was the first time I had ever heard such a soloist with a symphony orchestra too.

Baldur

polenta, the little cakes are called by the French name here.
They are called 'petit four' (small oven), they are elegant little things meant for special occasions.
The word for egg whites beaten with sugar until fluffy (they will hold a shape when formed into it) is 'meringue'.
pronounced: meh RANG or sometimes muh RANG

Baldur

In English one should not confuse merengue for meringue.
Merengue here only refers to the Latin American style of music and dance.
However I do believe the name was taken from the Spanish word for meringue. It can get confusing.
In English Merengue would be pronouned 'meh-RENG-gay'.

Dragon

Dragon has been quite ill for the last couple of days (couldn't even drag myself off the couch long enough to turn the computer on yesterday, let alone keep up with the Think Draw crew) so I missed quite a bit and just got caught up.
I am actually shocked that Baldur does not own a pair of spats, they just seem so quintessentially Balduresque (+15 points). I will tell you that whenever I think of them I think of Uncle Scrooge (Donald Duck's rich uncle) and I always wondered why he wore them on his bare feet and how he kept them on.

marius, loved you're Missouri Moment, made me think of many an Alberta winter day too. Growing up in Calgary we got some very cold days but we were fortunate to get the full blast of the Chinook winds as well. For those who don't know of the Chinook winds here's a description ala Wikipedia:
Chinook winds, often called chinooks, commonly refers to foehn winds[1] in the interior West of North America, where the Canadian Prairies and Great Plains meet various mountain ranges, although the original usage is in reference to wet, warm coastal winds in the Pacific Northwest.[2]

Chinook is falsely claimed by popular mythology in Alberta and Montana and similar inland areas to mean "snow-eater" but it is really the name of a people in the region where the usage was first derived. The reference to a wind or weather system, simply "a Chinook", originally meaning a warming wind from the ocean into the interior regions of the Pacific Northwest (the Chinook people lived near the ocean, along the lower Columbia River). A strong Chinook can make snow one foot deep almost vanish in one day. The snow partly melts and partly evaporates in the dry wind. Chinook winds have been observed to raise winter temperature, often from below −20°C (−4°F) to as high as 10°C to 20°C (50°F to 68°F) for a few hours or days, then temperatures plummet to their base levels. The greatest recorded temperature change in 24 hours was caused by Chinook winds on January 15, 1972, in Loma, Montana; the temperature rose from -48°C (-56°F) to 9°C (49°F).

It goes on to mention that Calgary is a natural focal point for Chinooks due to the lay of the land and whatnot. I can clearly remember times in winter when the temperature could swing more than 20 degrees in a matter of hours. That blurb didn't mention the intensity of the Chinook winds which once blew so hard I couldn't ride my bike against them and had to walk it home with my head tucked down. We see the tail end of the Chinooks here in Red Deer but really don't get much of them and I don't think Edmonton gets them at all.

polenta

Baldur, I didn't make myself understood.
There is a basic "cake" (big size) whose ingredients are the ones 1've already mentioned. The dough is very fluid and runs very well. It's full of air given by the beaten egg whites and very little flour. This "cake" can be eaten alone but it can also be used in much more sophisticated real cakes by filling it and covering with something. Maybe it doesn't have a special name in English but since you know so much about cooking and baking , you must know.

polenta

As for meringue.... it's not the word I'm looking for. Meringue is beaten egg whites WITH SUGAR.
What I'd like to know is if there is a name in English for the beaten egg whites WITHOUT SUGAR. Here we call it "a nieve" or "to snow" because it's beaten up to the point that if you turn the bowl over, the egg whites DON'T FALL.
You are right. Merengue is a Spanish word which is applied both for meringue and for the Latin music. Thanks Baldur

polenta

Get better soon Dragon.

Qsilv

I'm thinking Chiffon cake... light and moist and dead easy to make. Major difference from Angel Cake is the Angel doesn't use the yolks. (When painting in egg tempera using yolks as a base, one tends to bake a lot of Angel cakes!)
;>

polenta

Thanks Qsilv. I'll see the recipe of Chiffon cake on the Internet. You are a darling!

polenta

Qsilv, I went to the Internet and even though it's not exactly the same, it seems to have millions of variations and it is the one you can use for a birthday cake. I guess I make my own variation and it is probably not the right one. And thanks to you, I have discovered that I shouldn't have used the word DOUGH but the word BATTER. You learn everywhere!

Qsilv

hm.... have you checked out "sponge" cake? I thought it was just an older term, but it actually may be fundamentally different somehow... pff... where's Chef B when we need him? ;>

Baldur

You may be right Qsilv, Sponge cake could very well be the answer.
I did misunderstand polenta's original question.
Baldur also doesn't know of a specific word for stiffly beaten egg whites that do not contain sugar.
A search of the internet only revealed 'egg foam' and that doesn't seem correct

Baldur

Baldur needs to head off to bed after his evening of comedy, it was wonderful.
I even saw a short film by them that was completely new to me.

Robindcr8l

Glad Baldur enjoyed the Stooges. It might be just that they remind me of my 3 brothers, none of whom I much liked, that I've never really enjoyed the humor. The violence is worse than Bugs Bunny, for goodness sake!

Regarding egg white, Polenta, when beating them here a recipe will call for one to beat them until "stiff peaks form", or "soft peaks". I think that would be similar to your snow reference. I was thinking of sponge cake also, when you mentioned the ingredients. There is a reality show on the food network here called Ace of Cakes, where they make and sculpt elaborate cakes. They often use a songe cake vs a pound cake vs a chiffon cake, depending on what they are designing. The texture apparently matters to the process.

I am, by coincidence, signing up tomorrow for a 4-week class in cake decorating. JoAnn Fabrics offers the class, and tomorrow there is a special going on there where if you sign up for a class, you get half-price! So next time I am expected to make a ridiculous bachelorette party unmentionable cake, I will REALLY impress the girls!

It is quite cold here today, too...only in the teens I believe...but no snow. On Fridays, I have to leave for work about 20 minutes before my son leaves for school. Our front door latches very hard, and if you're not careful to check it, you may find it open when you return home. So, after 13 hours away from home today in 14 degree weather, I returned to my house to find the front door open several inches. Luckily I have a gate between my kitchen and living room to keep the dogs at bay, otherwise they'd have been long gone. But as it was, my upstairs is now sweltering hot from the heater running all day and the heat rising. And my downstairs is bitter cold from the door being open from 6:45am til 8pm. 12yo boys can be REALLY frustrating sometimes.

Qsilv

Ack... you soooo have my sympathy on that open door, Robin! (Have you done that bit where you fix him with a penetrating stare and, barely above a whisper, ask HIM what it'd take for him to WANT to double check the latching?)

And yep, "stiff peak", "soft peak" "beaten egg whites" are absolutely all I can think of... "egg foam" is frothed just enough to break up the gooey quality.

On a completely different note --

Opera singers disguised as shopkeepers were selling produce at various stalls last November at the central market in Valencia, Spain. Suddenly Verdi's Il Travatore started playing over the loudspeakers, and... watch what happened!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds8ryWd5aFw

;>

Robindcr8l

Well, now, Qsilv, THAT was FUN! Wouldn't it feel like winning the lottery to happen to be at the market on that special day?? These things always seem to happen in Europe. A while back someone here posted a similar video of a musical in the middle of a busy train station. I think that one was in Belgium or somewhere. I want this very thing to happen right here in Boise Idaho. Maybe right in the middle of the hospital I work at, just so there's a stronger chance that I'll be present for it. Plus, think how healing it would be for our patients. Laughter and music...what more could they need??

Robindcr8l

And, by the way, Qsilv, I DID use the penetrating eye, but haven't yet perfected the whisper. He SWEARS he checked the latch. Obviously he didn't. So the new rule is that he will leave through the garage door, and use the keyboard on the outside to close it behind him. My downstairs still feels chilly this morning. UGH!

Dragon

My brother and his wife went away with the kids over Christmas and when they walked back in the house they could see their breath. The funace had broken down while they were gone and it was during a stretch of very cold days. Every toilet in the house was frozen solid and the ice had risen through the pipes and knocked off several bathtub and shower fixtures but they were lucky to have come home just in time, no pipes had burst and they were able to get things thawed out in good time. One more day away and there would have been major damage so their gaurdian angel was looking out for them that day.