The crostata I made back at home -- this one with apricot jam and fresh cherries

While we were in Italy just last month we took a cooking class from a lovely Italian woman named Sonia. If your imagination is running to a graying mamma wielding a pasta roller and a checkered apron, think again. Sonia teaches French at the Lucca high school and graduated from Amherst College. Just wanted to set the scene…correctly! I was so excited to tackle crostata, the classic Italian dolce that is part pie, part cake. Sonia called it cake, but you’ll soon see why is shares more with our American pies than any cake we’ve come to know.

The husband and I lived in Italy an unmentionable number of years ago, and this was our long-overdue return. I had also taken cooking classes back then, and had thought I’d returned home with a fool-proof recipe for Torta della Nonna, a crostata-like cake/pie made with ricotta. It never, ever worked here, either because of my poor note-taking, even poorer conversions, or most likely, because the flour here just isn’t the same as it is in Italy. I think this time I’ve managed to get a little closer to the crostata we made in Italy, but the flour still affects the final outcome. I think our flour makes a softer crust, so I’m going to keep on the lookout for imported Italian flour to see if I can really achieve the intended flavor and texture.

Italian desserts are not terribly sweet. I think that’s why I like them (I’m a savory craver, not a sweet eater). And this dessert will take away all pie fears, if you have them!

Crostata | 6 to 8 servings

Made with jam it is a jam crostata (example: crostata dei fichi, or fig jam crostata) and made with fresh fruit it’s called a torta di frutta. This one is a jam crostata, but the pastry can be pre-cooked and filled with pastry cream and fresh fruit.

The pastry for crostata, called pasta frolla, is a pie dough almost like shortbread. To keep it tender and not too “bready,” have all the ingredients refrigerator cold. I’ve even mixed the dry ingredients and stuck them in the fridge for a few minutes.

Italian baking sugar is finer than ours, so if possible, use superfine sugar, available at many grocery stores.

Scant 1/4 cup ice-cold water
Zest of 1/2 lemon
1 egg
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup superfine sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup butter, or 1 stick, refrigerator cold
1 1/2 cups good-quality, naturally sweetened jam, such as apricot, raspberry, cherry, fig

Measure the water and put it in the freezer until needed. Prepare the lemon zest and set aside. Break the egg into a small bowl, beat until combined, and store in the refrigerator until needed.

Measure the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix together. Mix in the lemon zest.

Sonia is mixing the flour, sugar and lemon zest together but she's working quickly -- the kitchen was warm

Cut the butter into small pieces and add to the dry ingredients. Using fingertips and working quickly, pinch the butter into the flour mixture until it is crumbly and about the texture of steel-cut oats. A pastry blender works well, also.

The butter just came out of the fridge

Pinching and tossing very quickly

Mix in the egg, tossing quickly. Add the ice-cold water, tossing the dough as you go. Use just enough so that the dough will gather up but not be soggy. Punch the dough together until it forms a ball.

Divide the dough into a 1/3-sized ball and a 2/3-sized ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1/2 hour.

This was a double recipe, so we divided the dough for two "cakes"

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Butter a 10-inch round pan or line with waxed paper. Place the larger dough ball in the center and work the dough out to the edges of the pan using your fingertips, pressing from the center out.  Work the dough up the side of pan about 1 to 1 1/2 inches. Trim the top edge of the dough if necessary.

Try to make the thickness of the dough even all over

Sonia -- using her thumbs to push the dough up the side of the pan -- and Loren, watching!

It's optional to trim the top, but it makes a more even edge

With a fork, poke holes all over the bottom of the crust.

This keeps the dough from bowing up or bubbling and distorting

Spread the dough with the jam, evenly and to the edges.

This was a fig crostata, using Sonia's homemade fig jam made from her fig tree

Flour a work surface. With the other 1/3 of the dough, shape and flatten strips to lay across the top of the crostata.

Shape "logs" and flatten them

Here I am working on the second crostata while Sonia finishes the top strips for the fig one

Fold the crust down over the top edge of the crostata. Press with the tines of a fork. Brush the dough lightly with a little milk.

This makes the nice edge -- you can also make an edge with another strip of dough

Ready for the oven!

Bake in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes, or until lightly golden.

This is the one I made, but the crust was a little too thick

Here's the one I made at home, with a much better result! It has apricot jam and a handful of fresh pitted and halved cherries

Buon appetito, amici!

Kelly McCune © 2010

©2010 Kitchenelly. All Rights Reserved.

Straight out of the oven at full "puff"

There are certain recipes that catch your eye when have you have children in the house. That is how a certain “Huffy Puffy” entered our kitchen lexicon, with its ability to conjure little pigs and a wolf who might want a…bite. But it has remained a favorite, especially for breakfast, long since anyone around here was little enough to care about the name.

The Huffy Puffy is exactly like a Dutch Baby — a pancake that bears more resemblance to a popover or Yorkshire pudding than a griddlecake. It is thought that the Dutch baby is derived from the German pancake called an apfelpfannkuchen, and that a Seattle restaurant coined the name Dutch baby in the 1920s. It is a simple mixture of eggs, milk, flour and a dash of salt, cooked in a very hot oven. A heavy, ovenproof skillet is useful, especially a cast-iron one. It puffs up into a beautiful, golden cloud that stays puffed for a few minutes but begins to sink as it cools. Serve it immediately for the most crowd-pleasing effect.

Simple ingredients, likely to be on hand

I’ve added cooked bacon to the batter of this huffy puffy (don’t tell the little pigs), which makes it savory and something that can be served in wedges with dinner, even. There are all kinds of ways to vary it. Traditionally, the Dutch baby is served sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar and lemon juice just as it comes out of the oven. We’ve eaten it with syrup, jam, and honey. I’ve also sautéed apples first, and then poured in the batter. The center can be filled with a concoction of vegetables with or without meat, and served as a one-dish meal.

Huffy Puffy with Bacon | makes one

If your eggs are on the small side, cut back slightly on the amount of flour.

5 large eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup milk
1 1/4 cup unbleached flour
2 slices bacon
1 1/2 tablespoon butter

Preheat the oven to 475°F.

Whisk the eggs in a bowl with the salt. Whisk in the milk and then beat in the flour until the lumps are gone.

Whisk in the milk...

...and then whisk in the flour until smooth

Cook the bacon slices in heavy, ovenproof skillet. Remove, drain and chop.

Make the pieces any size -- I like them somewhat large

Add the bacon to the batter.

I considered adding a little chopped fresh rosemary here, too, right into the batter

Reheat the skillet over medium heat and add the butter to whatever bacon fat is in the pan. When the butter foams up, pour in the batter.

The butter should foam up but not burn

The butter and bacon fat help create a delicious crust on the outside of the huffy puffy

Place immediately into the hot oven and cook, without opening the oven door, for 18 to 20 minutes. The huffy puffy will be deep golden brown and puffy. Serve immediately.

Oh, and please don’t tell the wolf.

Hot from the oven is when it's best

Kelly McCune © 2010

©2010 Kitchenelly. All Rights Reserved.

Put this classic, moist cake in your arsenal

I have one dessert that I turn to when I need something that isn’t cookies. By that I mean something that demonstrates a little more effort put forth. Or is a little showier, perhaps, or that I can take to someone’s house and not seem like I stopped at Albertson’s. Hello, gingerbread. Humble, classic, dresses up beautifully. I’ve made this gingerbread for just eatin’, and I’ve frosted it for a birthday cake. My favorite version, my company version, is sprinkled lightly with powdered sugar using a stencil I got years ago in a Martha Stewart Living Magazine ad mailer. That was one great free-gift-inside.

Glad I didn't throw away the subscription solicitation

This gingerbread and I have been through all kinds of war stories. Like the time the oven was accidentally shut off for a full half hour in the middle of baking, turned back on, with a result that was as moist and delicious as ever. The birthday party after an emergency hand injury. This cake is the friend you call in a crisis, the back-up squad car, the smart bomb. Add it to your arsenal and I promise you’ll be ready for any battle.

Gingerbread

My recipe comes from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, 13th edition, edited by Marion Cunningham. I’ve really not changed it much at all, except that I cook mine in a round pan rather than a square one. No need to mess with a good thing. If your ginger has been hanging around in the cupboard for more than a year, indulge in a new jar. The fresher the ground ginger, the more intense the ginger flavor will be.

1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup molasses
3/4 cup boiling water
2 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
Powdered sugar
Whipping cream
Dark chocolate

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter and lightly flour a 9-inch round (or 8-inch square) cake pan.

Do this carefully and the cake will come out perfectly every time

Cream the butter. Add the sugar and beat together until light.

I don't even get out my big Kitchenaid for this quick cake

Add the eggs and beat well. Add the molasses, then the boiling water and blend.

Molasses, the syrupy byproduct of refining sugar and once the primary sweetener in America, adds the earthy, deep notes to gingerbread

Use the molasses measuring cup for the hot water to capture any molasses that clings to the cup

Add the flour, soda, salt, and ginger to the batter and blend until combined.

I don't even bother to combine them first in a separate bowl

Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

The dark color comes from the molasses

Bake at 350°F for 45 to 55 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes.

The skewer will come out moist but not batter-coated

Invert onto a cake rack.

You may want to run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen the gingerbread before inverting it onto the rack

Cool another few minutes before sprinkling with sugar. Begin with a light coating of powdered sugar, sprinkled through a fine-mesh sieve.

Just a very light first coating

Place a stencil over the cake and sprinkle heavily through the cuts.

Cut a stencil out of parchment paper or thin cardboard, or simply sprinkle the cake with sugar

Add a little more sugar if you want

Serve warm with lightly sweetened and softly whipped heavy cream, and grate a little dark chocolate on top.

I’d go up against almost any dessert with this baby in my holster.

Kelly McCune © 2010

©2010 Kitchenelly. All Rights Reserved.

Simple, homey and such a good way to fend off the cold

A line from an e.e. cummings poem pops into my head from time to time: with up so floating many bells down. The line rings like the bell to me, back and forth, with the peal on one side different from the other. The name ‘upside-down cake’ made me think of cummings’ poem, so I’ve paid him a small tribute here.

I was craving a warm-from-the-oven cake the other day after returning from snow-bound Oklahoma, only to find days of straight down rain in my own town. I had some indifferent apples that I knew would cook up just fine, so I’ve modified a recipe from my trusty Fannie Farmer Cookbook. I was hoping for an American tarte tatin, and I think I got it. Enjoy this easy cake with a blob of slightly sweetened, not overly whipped cream.

Upside-Down Apple Cake

Pears will work beautifully here as well.

3 large apples
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks)
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Pare, core and slice 3 apples.

I've used 2 Granny Smiths and 1 pink lady

Melt 8 tablespoons of the butter in a 10-inch heat-proof skillet over medium heat. I like a cast iron skillet for this cake. When it foams up, stir in the dark brown sugar.

Stir well until the sugar is dissolved

Mix for a minute or two, until the sugar is melted and bubbly. Remove from heat. Pile the apple slices on top of the sugar, pressing down to flatten.

You can make a nice arrangement of the apples, but I think of this as a very informal cake

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Melt the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter. Beat the egg into the melted butter and then add the milk, mixing well.

The butter binds with the egg protein, making it much easier to make a smooth mixture once you add the cold milk

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry, mixing until smooth.

The batter should be smooth but not overly mixed

Spread the batter over the top of the apples.

It's a stiff batter -- don't worry about getting it all the way to the edge of the pan

Bake at 400°F for 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the cake top comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes.

Don't skip the step of letting the cake cool -- the apples will release from the pan as it cools, making it possible to invert

Run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen the cake.

This is mostly to detach any of the cooked cake that is sticking to the pan

Turn a plate over on top of the pan. Hold the plate firmly against the pan, and turn it and the pan over quickly.

Hold the pan over the plate for a moment or so to allow the apples to release

Warm and welcoming, very unpretentious

Serve warm, with gently whipped cream or ice cream. Enjoy, and stay warm.

Kelly McCune © 2010

©2010 Kitchenelly. All Rights Reserved.

These are cigar boxes -- great for the gift of toffee but wrap it in plastic so the tobacco smell won't "perfume" the candy

My friend Myron first introduced me to this recipe — well, really his high school daughter. Her senior year she went into a frenzy of baking, churning out toffees, a sinful little cookie called baci di dama, chocolate chippers, you name it. She was a flurry in the kitchen, all the while thinking this might be her destiny. She’s now in an advanced science graduate program, but I hope she shows up at seminars with some of her kitchen science experiments…like this toffee.

I am challenged in the baking department. I have only a few mad skills and one mean gingerbread. I am most certainly allergic to the candy thermometer. This toffee requires no thermometer — hallelujah! It is a little tricky, and in particular the stirring should be very gentle, almost like pushing, rather than vigorous. And don’t scrape the sides of the pan, since pulling undissolved sugar into the mix can “granulate” the candy. Yes, that’s bad, since it goes back to a sugar blob with butter on the side.

Dark Chocolate Almond Toffee

2 bars of good-quality dark chocolate, approximately 3.5 ounces each
3/4 cup walnuts
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, plus some for the pan
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unblanched whole raw almonds

Lightly butter a large pan (10 x 15 glass or a rimmed baking sheet). Line it with parchment.

The butter is to help the parchment stick and mold to the pan

Break the chocolate bars into large chunks and finely chop the walnuts. Set aside until needed.

Dark chocolate goes so well with the toasty flavor of the almonds -- I used 50% cacao here since some family members like their dark chocolate a little less bitter, but you can opt for higher

You will end up with about 1/2 cup chopped nuts

In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the sugars and salt and stir until they are dissolved.

While this toffee is easy, it does require constant attention -- it doesn't take a long time to prepare, though

Raise the heat to high and cook the mixture over high heat, with an occasional gentle stir, until it gets a very sticky, foamy top, about 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to low.

These are not regular bubbles -- it's quite thick and molten-looking

On low, cook for another 5 minutes. Gently mix in the almonds raise the heat back up to high.

The mixture is quite hot, so be careful not to splash it

Over high heat cook and gently stir the almonds another 7 minutes. They may begin to pop or make a rumbling sound, and if that happens reduce the heat then.

Now the nuts are beginning to cook over high heat, the mixture gets foamy

Reduce the heat to low. Cook and stir the mixture for a full 7 minutes. If the mixture becomes darker than the nuts, remove it from the heat but continue stirring for the entire 7 minutes.

The mixture begins to get very dark during this 7 final minutes, but you don't want to let it get too dark -- it's fine to stir it off the heat

Pour the toffee onto the parchment paper, working quickly with a spatula to spread it out evenly.

The toffee is so hot, it will spread out mostly on its own, but you can give it a little help

Immediately place the broken chocolate pieces on the hot toffee.

The hot toffee will soften the chocolate

Wait a couple of minutes and when the chocolate is soft, spread it evenly over the top of the toffee.

The bars make it so easy to create the chocolate layer

Sprinkle the top with the chopped nuts and press lightly to embed them in the chocolate.

You could use hazelnuts or peanuts on the top

Just a light touch to adhere the nuts to the soft chocolate

Let the toffee cool completely. The chocolate will be completely hardened. Remove the toffee on the parchment to a firm surface and gently break into pieces.

It's easier to break on a hard surface than in the pan

It breaks your heart, it looks so good

Now if you can give this away, you’re a better (wo)man than I.

Kelly McCune © 2009

©2010 Kitchenelly. All Rights Reserved.

My love of almonds is showing

It would seem that Pumpkin Pie season is over, and we’re moving on to…what, Christmas Pudding? Ahem. Some of us didn’t get pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving — in fact, not even a hint of pumpkin was present in my Thanksgiving dinner (out, at a restaurant). Quince was the fall flavor that made its appearance more than once in our meal, most notably on the dessert plate along with a white chocolate mousse. I might consider a white chocolate thing as a Christmas dessert since it sort of looks like snow on the plate, but I wouldn’t really consider it because I don’t know what white chocolate is. It co-opted the word “chocolate” in order to up its profile, that’s what.

Back to pumpkin pie. It can be awkward to make (fresh pumpkin? crust?). It can be too sweet. It can be store-bought (like a job, sometimes, it’s such hard work to eat). But in a Pavlovian way we need our pumpkin flavor around this time, and since I missed mine I came home and made this one. I dug deep into the emotional well of pumpkin pie for this recipe — probably because I had been denied. Almond paste sprang to mind as a good underlying flavor for the pumpkin — I like almond paste since it contains more almonds and less sugar than marzipan. Finally, I thought a nice toasted almond topping would add a savory crunch. And click through for the crust recipe, because once you absorb the technique you’ll be able to breeze past the pre-made aisle every time.

Pumpkin Pie with Almonds | 1 pie

Make the lightly sweetened pie crust first — in fact you can make it a day ahead and keep it refrigerated until needed.

3 eggs
1 cup half & half
2 cups canned organic pumpkin
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Lightly sweetened pie crust, uncooked
3 1/2 ounces prepared almond paste
1 cup raw sliced almonds
4 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons melted butter
Small pinch of salt
1/2 pint whipping cream
2 teaspoons sugar

Preheat the oven to 400°F. In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs.

A whisk works well for blending the ingredients

Whisk in the half & half.

I prefer half & half to sweetened condensed milk in pumpkin pie

Add the pumpkin, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and salt. Mix well and set aside until needed.

I've used unsweetened organic canned pumpkin

Such good flavors go into pumpkin pie

Line the uncooked pie crust with parchment or foil and partially fill with pie weights or dried beans.

I wish I had those little pie weights, but instead I have to sacrifice some dried pintos

In the preheated oven, bake the pie crust for 8 minutes. Remove the parchment and pie weights and prick the bottom in several places with a fork.

Parbaking the crust will keep it from getting soggy and add a base for the almond paste

Bake the crust another 5 minutes. Remove from the oven. Place 12 to 15 thin slices of prepared almond paste on the bottom of the crust.

I used a store-bought brand of almond paste and froze what I didn't need

Pour in the filling.

Leave a little exposed crust -- you may have extra filling to discard as a result

Bake the pie in the preheated 400°F oven for 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 325°F and continue cooking for another 35 to 45 minutes, or until the filling is set.

The filling will be puffed and cracked like this and not jiggly

Preheat the broiler. Combine the almonds, syrup, melted butter and salt in a small bowl. Distribute evenly over the top of the pie.

Maple and almond together make a nice wintery crust on top

I'm not skimping on the almonds here

Place the pie under the broiler to toast the almonds but watch it very carefully. The almonds will be brown within just a couple of minutes. Remove and cool the pie completely.

For the top of the pie, whip the cream with the sugar until very soft peaks form.

I prefer a very soft and very lightly sweetened whipped cream and it takes only a minute or two to make -- almost the same time it would take to shake the can

Serve the pie at room temperature with a dollop of soft whipped cream on top.

'Tis the season...all winter long

©2010 Kitchenelly. All Rights Reserved.

Really different and really tasty corncakes -- pink does taste good

Every once in a while you eat something you can’t forget. It might be associated with a memory — like Proust’s tea-soaked madeleine, it might be the amazing ginger cookie almost like the one you had on the way home from camp. It might be exotic, like roasted rabbit on a rainy Christmas Day in Italy. The category of food I’m talking about is the thing you can’t forget and mostly can’t find again. A standout in this group is the guava tamale I had seven years ago made by one Eva, who is as elusive as that tamale. I’ve talked about her before, and if I didn’t have a beautiful picture of her I would think I’d made her up.

Most tamales have a savory filling, and that holiday we ordered a number of those from Eva. But she included a dozen sweet tamales, most of the guava variety. Her tamales were perfect — light, almost soufflé-like masa, and just the right proportion of filling. What was striking was how good guava tasted with corn. It was a perfect match, it seemed to me. But then Eva was no longer selling her tamales in my neighborhood, and I couldn’t find her anywhere.

A year or two later, on a trip to Mexico, I asked everywhere we went for a guava tamale. Mostly I got perplexed looks, with maybe a response like, “I think they make those up North (or down South or in Guadalajara).” I have continued to look for that flavor combination, never thinking I could do it myself.

Then, the other day, I picked up some produce from a local homestead farm owned by the Dervais family called Path to Freedom Modern Urban Homestead. Cool, huh? I’ll talk more about the Dervais homestead later, because I plan to buy much, much more produce from them. But in my box were a couple of pounds of guavas, along with some other interesting vegetables not normally offered at the supermarket.

The items in my Path to Freedom homestead farm box

I immediately created a reality TV challenge for myself: I will make something out of every fruit and vegetable in my box, including that weird squash. But I started with the guavas. I thought of those tamales, and since I’m not a tamale maker (it’s really a big job, best when there’s a group of folks in mass-production mode) I thought of pancakes made with cornmeal. I was quite prepared to go through with cooking them knowing that they might be awful. Well, I’m writing more than a couple of paragraphs about it, right? It must have been a truly Proustian experience, yes?

A Little Guava Info: Guavas are so aromatic when ripe, it’s like having flowers in your kitchen. I don’t think there is anything quite like them. The variety I used here has green skin and pink flesh. I don’t know the variety (perhaps it was a ‘Ruby’ but there are dozens of cultivars), but the flesh of a guava can be pink like these or white, cream, yellow or deep red. The skin can be somewhat bitter and tough if underripe, but guavas are certainly eaten raw. Some people like to peel them first, to avoid the skin. Other folks dislike the tiny but edible seeds (up to 500! in some varieties) in the center of the flesh. The seeds can be scooped out — they are tiny but hard. Guava makes a great jelly because of its high sugar content, and guava paste, an intense and sweetened essence of guava, can be purchased in specialty stores and is primarily used in desserts.

Guava Corncakes | 12 to 14 corncakes

4 ripe guavas
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup unbleached white flour
1/2 cup medium grind cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter, plus more for the pan
1 egg
3/4 cup milk

Trim the stem and flower end off the guavas, halve, and scoop out the pulp containing the seeds.

Peel away the green skin. If the skin on your guavas is flavorful and tender, leave it on. You’ll just be adding a little more color to the corncakes.

The seeds are edible, but a little too hard -- you keep finding them in your teeth

Don't worry if you don't get every last spot of green -- the skin is usually flavorful

Slice the guava into chunks, add 1 tablespoon of the sugar, and mash it to a pulp.

Do your smashing on a plate

A fork is fine for mashing the tender guava flesh

Agreed -- it's not beautiful at the moment

Mix the flour, cornmeal, baking soda, salt, and remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar in a bowl.

I have a specific wooden spoon that I use for all sweet mixures -- nothing savory or oily touches this spoon

Melt the butter in a measuring cup (I do this in the microwave) and beat in the egg.

The protein (egg) binds with the fat (butter) to make a smooth mixture before mixing in anything else

Add the milk and mashed guava and blend together. Pour this into the flour mixture and stir until the ingredients are combined. Don’t overmix.

Little flecks of pink and green are the guava in the batter

Heat a large skillet or griddle over medium-high heat and melt a small pinch of butter. Spoon the batter onto the hot griddle and cook corncakes until bubbly on top and drying on the edges.

Don't crowd the pan -- it's easier to flip them if they're not touching

Corncakes should be nice and brown on both sides and slightly puffy

The Husband liked his guava corncakes with cinnamon sugar but for me, a little syrup was just the thing. Honestly, they’re good plain, and if you close your eyes you could be eating a tamale.

©2010 Kitchenelly. All Rights Reserved.

No short-changing on the poppyseeds here -- tender and moist and peppery

I have spent years avoiding poppyseed cake due to a deep psychological reason we’ll call guilt/avoidance (my fingers are steepled). One of my earliest freelance food jobs in San Francisco was baking poppyseed cakes for a nearby coffeehouse/used book store on Chestnut Street. This was a job I inherited from one “Donna,” and my instructions were specific and firm — the cake was to be baked from a Duncan-Hines lemon pound cake mix with some poppyseeds thrown in. When I inherited this job (along with the bundt pan, which I still have!) I grumbled a little about the recipe, suggesting that maybe I could hunt up a better one that didn’t involve a store-bought mix, mumble mumble, used real butter, mumble mumble. No! The coffeehouse wanted this cake, and I was not to meddle. Anyway, she was resuming the job after a couple of months, and I would only complicate her life by changing the recipe.

I delivered the cakes twice a week, got my…$7?…upon delivery, but I knew they weren’t really very good. Making all those cakes put me right off poppyseed cake, and the few times I’ve ordered it since have been disappointing. It’s always yellowy (a mix?), synthetically lemony, and too sweet. Ah, but then I discovered this cake. It is dense with poppyseeds and there is no lemon flavor at all. I considered adding almond extract, which I may still do a few recipes down the road, but at this moment the cake is perfect as is.

I stumbled across this recipe last week in the New York Times in an article about the Strawbery Banke Museum (there is no additional “r”), a living outdoor museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Okay, I’m a sucker for living museums, historical reenactment, Old Sturbridge Village, women in period costume spinning yarn or bearded men running old printing presses. There was a beautiful Shaker town in Kentucky that I visited every summer with my grandmother, though I suppose it could have been the Inn’s puffy rolls, country ham and chess pie that really galvanized my attraction to historically accurate old villages.

Strawbery Banke, an early settlement in the Puddle Dock neighborhood of Portsmouth, was a destination for immigrants during the 18th and 19th centuries, and by the early 1900s was one quarter Jewish. The NYT article, timed to coincide with Rosh Hashana, offered this poppyseed cake recipe (with alterations in the dairy content) from one of the recreated Jewish households. I don’t know what caught my eye, but I tried the recipe and I can say I’m officially over my psychological disorder.

Truthfully, I recommend it for whatever ails you. Could it be the poppyseeds? My research tells me there aren’t enough alkanoids to produce an “effect,” but don’t serve this cake to a pal who has to take a drug test within 48 hours. And I swear I’ve been feeling great…

You need a goodly amount of seeds, so a little spice jar full won't cut it

Your grocery store may have poppyseeds in large enough quantity (you need one cup for the recipe) but my local supermarket didn’t have more than a spice jar full, which was overpriced at that. I’m fortunate to have a Middle Eastern market near me, and of course they had bags of poppyseeds. Any store that carries bulk spices or ethnic foods is bound to have them.

Strawbery Banke Poppyseed Cake

Adapted from the New York Times’ adaptation of the Strawbery Banke Museum’s recipe (got all that?)

1 cup poppyseeds
1 cup milk
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, plus 1 tablespoon for buttering the pan
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups unbleached flour, plus 1 tablespoon for flouring the pan
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Confectioner’s sugar

Combine the poppyseeds and milk in a small saucepan. Bring just to a boil, stir, and remove from heat. Let cool while you prepare the other ingredients, or about 20 minutes.

It's a thick, strange combination, but the milk softens the seeds

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Thoroughly butter and lightly flour a bundt or tube pan.

My beat up bundt pan still serves me well -- make sure you've buttered every nook and cranny

Shake and tap the pan to get flour on all the surfaces, including the center tube

Dab any bare spots with butter and add a little flour -- tap out the excess when the pan is well-coated

With an electric mixer, cream the softened butter with the sugar. Separate the three eggs, putting the whites in a large bowl. Set aside the whites.

Crack the egg on the countertop for an even break

Add the yolks and vanilla to the butter mixture and beat until smooth.

I use a hand-held electric mixer for small jobs like this

Add the cooled poppyseed/milk mixture and combine well.

You'll need to scrape out the seeds

It makes a very seedy batter

Add the flour, baking powder and salt and mix well. Do not overbeat.

Whip the egg whites with a whisk or beater until stiff peaks form.

Any yolk in the whites will prevent them from frothing correctly

Stiff peaks but no farther -- you don't want the whites to get dry and begin to break down

Gently stir 1/3 of the whites into the batter.

This "lightens up" the batter, making it easier to fold in the remaining whites

Dump the remaining whites into the center of the batter and fold them in, folding from the center to the outside and turning the bowl as you go. I use a rubber spatula for this task, and keep it flat against the batter. It’s really not like stirring — it’s a gentle turning motion, since you want to avoid deflating the “bubbles” of the egg whites.

This is the standard technique for folding -- 1/3 of the whites lighten the batter, the remaining 2/3 are folded in working from the center out and turning the bowl for each fold

Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

The egg whites give the cake its light texture

Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until a skewer or cake tester comes out clean.

Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack and cool until ready to serve.

The upside of a well-prepared pan is no chunks or divits removed. The downside is no little "samples" left behind on the pan

Sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar before serving.

I have a fine strainer that I like to use for sugar sprinkling

Okay, I just thought both these pictures were cool, with the falling sugar, etc.

This cake goes really well with a good cuppa English tea

©2010 Kitchenelly. All Rights Reserved.

A twist on traditional chocolate chip cookies

There is a person in our home — I won’t mention names here — who is truly addicted to chocolate. Sweets in general, really. She (oops!) gets that from my mother, who’s first sentence is reported to have been “Baby needs a cookie.” “Needs” is impressively distinct from “wants” for an emerging talker. My grandmother made some exceptionally good chocolate chip cookies, which we all craved and demanded, and my mother inherited the gift. But both my grandmother and then my father had to hide the cookies from Mom — trunk of the Cougar (found), basement loo (found), jelly cabinet (found), freezer (found, but a delicious discovery) — you name it, mom could ferret out the c.c. cookie in 15 minutes or less. Well, same with my household dweller, and they do say these things skip a generation.

Now that I’ve established said family member as being a chocolate fiend, I have to credit her for the innovation to our own chocolate chip cookie recipe. Why not use Mexican chocolate instead of chocolate chips? asks a person who’s thinking these things through. We tried it, and wow. It’s fantastic.

I’ll confess my own dependence on coffee now, since I need to balance out the accusations. One coffee drink that I particularly love is Café de Olla, a Mexican coffee made by steeping cinnamon, brown sugar (piloncillo), optional cloves, anise, or orange peel with ground coffee. When we tried our first Mexican chocolate chip cookies I thought of adding ground coffee (why not?) to give it a Cookie de Olla flavor. Wow again.

The two most commonly available brands are Ibarra and Nestle's Abuelita

Mexican chocolate is available in most grocery stores, and these two are what you’re likely to find. Like all things, each brand has its die-hard fans. I prefer Ibarra — it has a little more cinnamon flavor and the chocolate has a more bitter bite. Inside the boxes are six disks of chocolate, made from bitter, dark cacao nibs, sugar, and cinnamon. Here is a cross-section of the two brands:

Ibarra is the chocolate on top, Abuelita on the bottom

Mexican chocolate is most often used to make hot chocolate, which you do by heating 3 cups of milk with a broken up disk of chocolate, a big pinch of sugar and a pinch of salt. Froth the hot milk with a whisk or a molinillo — the wooden implement used just for this purpose — and pour into 4 mugs. Froth again in the mugs and serve with a stick of cinnamon.

On to the cookies, though, and of course the coffee.

The chocolate disk, brand imprinted in the wedges, and a few coffee beans

Mexican Chocolate Chip Cookies con Café | 36 cookies

1/2 pound unsalted butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup golden brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 disks Mexican chocolate, 3.1 ounce each
4 tablespoons freshly ground coffee (not instant), optional

Preheat the oven to 375°F. With a mixer, cream the butter.

Starting at room temperature makes this very easy

Add the two sugars and cream together with the butter. Thoroughly beat in the eggs and vanilla.

In a bowl, mix the flour with the baking soda and salt. Add the flour in two additions, beating after each one until the flour is incorporated.

Use a low speed to beat in the flour but don't overmix

Chop the chocolate disks with a heavy knife. They will crumble somewhat, so aim to have chocolate chip-sized pieces and you’ll end up with some of those and a coarse crumble.

You'll use all the "chips" as well as the crumbled chocolate

Stir all of the chopped chocolate — crumbles and chips — into the batter. If you want a coffee flavor, stir in the ground coffee with the chocolate.

When you add the coffee the batter gets a little dark and grainy

Lightly butter a cookie sheet. I like to use the paper from the sticks of butter before tossing it out. It has just enough to thinly coat the surface.

Uses up every last bit of butter

I tried three different types of cookie sheets to see which one I like best. I have a heavy French baking sheet, an inexpensive cookie sheet/jellyroll pan, and a double-wall cookie sheet (it has an insulated bottom to prevent burning).

Heavy French sheet on the left, insulated one in the middle, and traditional sheet on the bottom

Of the three, I liked the result I got with the heavy sheet and the traditional one. They both gave the cookies a nice bottom crunch, which the insulated sheet didn’t.

Using a tablespoon (mine is a soup spoon), drop blobs of dough on the cookie sheet about 3 inches apart.

I have a cookie scooper -- a mini ice cream scoop -- but I don't like it! I use my finger to slide the dough off the spoon and onto the pan

If you added the coffee, place a coffee bean on the top of the cookie dough. Bake cookies 9 to 10 minutes until golden. Cool on a cookie rack.

Oh, and don’t tell — this time I’m hiding them in the dryer.

Kelly McCune © 2009

©2010 Kitchenelly. All Rights Reserved.

Cherry pickin' the cherries

“Life is just a bowl of cherries” can mean both that everything’s marvelous and its ironic opposite. Perhaps I felt both ends of that emotional spectrum when The Husband brought home over six pounds of Raniers and Bings. Too much of a good thing?  We washed, we ate, we spit stones and still there was an undiminished pile of cherries. In a dash to do something with them lest they get moldy, I decided to cook them all with a little sugar — at least that would hold them until I figured out how to use them.

The cooked cherries I ended up with are not only delicious, they have conjured up a childhood memory of the cherry pie at Tulsa’s local buffeteria, my six-year-old self’s idea of fawncy dining. Yes! The cherry pie there was the gelatinous variety, and the crust made with tastable lard. But I still crave the concept of cherry pie. With these cooked cherries I’m going to make an open-faced tart with fresh pastry cream, cherries arranged on top and sprinkled with chopped mint.

That’s what I’m making next week — our first go-round with the cherries was to spoon them over Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream.

Try shaving chocolate on top instead of mint

But now that I think of it, the cherries would be wonderful over cooked chicken and sprinkled with toasted almonds, served alone with a dollop of sweetened sour cream, or over waffles.

Cherries bring out one of my favorite kitchen gadgets — mostly because I gave it so little respect until the moment I needed it — the cherry pitter.

A tool I thought of as an "inessential" until I had to pit a pound of cherries

That moment came when, years ago, I decided to try making a cherry clafoutis — a sort of eggy, puffy custard dessert with fresh cherries in it. Traditionally the clafoutis is cooked with unpitted cherries, but my dinner guests were not expected to be that adventursome. So I started in pitting with a paring knife and ended up running to the nearest Williams-Sonoma for a pitter. Can’t keep the cherry whole without it!

Start by washing the cherries and removing all the stems

Cooked & Sweetened Cherries | Makes 4+ cups

2 1/2 pounds or 6 heaping cups whole cherries (can be a mix of varieties)
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
Dash of Kirschwasser (cherry brandy) — optional
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
Pinch of salt

Wash the cherries and pull off the stems. Pit the cherries using a cherry pitter. I like to do this over a trash can, since the pit will fire out the bottom of the cherry and the juices can stain the counter. I also wear an apron!

Center the cherry in the bottom ring, with the stem end under the hammer. Squeeze and watch the pit shoot right out!

Put the pitted cherries, water, sugar and Kirschwasser in a large saucepan. (Kirschwasser is a clear cherry brandy that is not sweet and has a slight almond flavor.) Bring to a boil.

There isn't a lot of water but the cherries will give off juices

Stir the cherries and cover the pan. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook the cherries, covered, for 30 minutes. Stir in the balsamic and salt — the vinegar adds depth and the salt highlights the sweetness of the cherries. Let the cherries simmer uncovered for another 30 minutes. Allow to cool in the saucepan.

Most of the cherries will hold their shape

When the cherries are cool, spoon them into a jar and refrigerate until needed.

Share half with a friend!

I guess life is just a bowl of cherries.

©2010 Kitchenelly. All Rights Reserved.