A Birthday Cake to End All Birthday Cakes

Welcome to Wolf Chops, Thanksgiving Edition! In honor of the holiday, I present you with a guest post from my sister, describing the birthday cake she made me six months ago. But it's utterly excessive, so frankly I think it fits with the whole spirit of Thanksgiving, and it includes roughly 3 sticks of butter, which is almost the same as oil, so bam, Hannukah too. This recipe is picky, and time-intensive, and a crap-ton of work, and absolutely one of the best sweets I've ever eaten. And I now fresh apricots are basically impossible to find right now, but I don't see why you couldn't make the pastry cream with, say almonds or walnuts or pecans instead of pistachios and then put some cinnamon-poached apples or pears on top instead for something seasonal. Or roasted chestnut and quince. Or pumpkin pie filling. Whatever. It's more or less just a giant croissant with fruit and cream on top, so you can do what you like. Yes, it will have a million calories and take all day, but a) it's the holidays so it'll fit right in and b) worth it! So without further ado, Sarah's Insane Giant Croissant Cake. 

Pretty, ain't it?

***

Each year, I have to top the last birthday cake I made for Emily. Last year, I made a beautiful peach blueberry tart (pictured above in the sidebar). (EAG: That was a damn tasty tart.) Emily gave the in inspiration for my cake in April. She texted me a picture of a pistachio apricot danish that she gets at a local farmers market. She kept raving about that pastry, so I decided to make a variation of that. 

My first question was what to use a base. I wanted something denser than a cake. Emily suggested making a crust with almonds (EAG: gluten free so Mom could eat it!), but that was too close a tart crust. Then it came to me: I should base the crust on croissants I had experiment with making croissants last fall, and had found a really good recipe. The croissant dough would be similar to the danish base, but even better.

The tart that started it all...

There are basically three stages for making croissants. The first step is making the dough. You melt butter, add some milk, and once the butter dissolves and the temperature of the milk is below 90`F, you mix in the yeast. You then combine the milk mixture with flour (preferably King Arthur all purpose flour; it has the best protein content), sugar and salt in a mixer with a dough hook. The dough should form a slightly sticky ball. The dough then rests in the fridge on a parchment-lined baking sheet overnight.

While the dough was resting I tackled the pistachios. My first thought was to make a pistachio-flavored pastry cream, using pistachio extract, but that would be too close to last years’ again. Then I came across a recipe for "Snow Eggs in pistachio cream" in the Gourmet Cookbook. To make the pistachio cream, you grind the pistachios in a food processor with a little milk, and then refrigerate the mixture for at least 8 hours to develop the flavors. I originally made one batch of this, but it was so yummy, I made another.

The second stage or croissant making is laminating the dough. You beat butter into an 8" x8" block, then place the butter in the middle of the croissant dough, that has been rolled out to 24"x8". You then fold the dough over the butter block and seal it in the dough. Then you roll the dough out to 8"x24" again, and then fold the dough in thirds, like a letter. You repeat the rolling out and folding a couple more times (at least 3, I did 5), to layer the butter between the layers of dough. After it was laminated, the dough had to rest in the freezer for 2 hours. 

Decorating the tart.

While the dough was resting, Emily and I tried one of the apricots that had been bought for the cake. They were very tart and mealy. To improve the flavor and texture, I decided to roast the apricots with vanilla. I had hoped that it would add more sweetness, and the vanilla would mellow the tartness. After they were done roasting, they still weren't quite sweet enough, so I finished them off under the broiler, with a little vanilla sugar sprinkled on top. At this point, they were still quite tart, but the tartness was no longer overwhelming.

After the dough had rested for 2 hours, I rolled it out until it was about 1/4" thick at the center. I then draped the dough into a tart pan and molded the dough to the edge of the pan. Because the cake is a riff on a cheese Danish, I rolled 1 inch of the excess dough in to create a rolled edge. In hindsight, I should have painted the excess dough with the pistachio cream before rolling it, to break up the monotony of the huge crust. I set a straight-sided bowl in the middle of the giant Danish to stop the dough from rising too much and obliterating the center depression, and left it to rise for 2 hours.

An hour and a half later, I preheated the oven to 425`, and took the bowl out of the center of the Danish. I then painted the Danish with a basic egg wash, with a little extra sugar. When the oven was preheated, I put the Danish in and immediately lowered the heat to 400`. The Danish baked for 15 minutes, when it was nicely puffed and golden brown.

To assemble the cake, I spooned the pistachio cream into the depression, the draped the apricots on top. The blackberries were placed around the apricots, along with some almond slivers. The final step was to eat it. And it was very tasty. (EAG: Damn straight.)

By the slice.

Apricot-Pistachio Danish Cake

Croissant dough:

3
tablespoons unsalted butter plus 24 tablespoons (3 sticks) unsalted European-style-butter, very cold

1 3/4
cups whole milk

4
teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast

4 1/4
cups (21 1/4 ounces) all-purpose flour

1/4
cup (1 3/4 ounces) sugar

2 tsp salt

1
large egg

1
teaspoon cold water

Pastry cream:

1/2 cup shelled pistachios

2 tbsp sugar

7 tbsp of whole milk

Roasted apricots:

7 apricots

1/2 vanilla bean, seeded

1 cup white wine

1/4 cup vanilla sugar 

Slivered almonds

Egg wash:

1 egg

1/4 cup sugar

Dash of salt

Dash of water

Optional:

Fresh blackberries

Slivered almonds, after being roasted with the peaches.

1) Melt 3 tbsp butter in over low heat. Take of the heat and immediately stir in the milk. Let cool til the temperature is under 90’. Whisk in the yeast, and pour it all into a stand mixer. Add flour, sugar, and 2 teaspoons salt, then knead on low speed using the dough hook roughly 2-3 minutes, until dough forms. Up the speed to medium-low and knead for another minute. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rest on the counter for half an hour.

2) Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper dump in the dough. Shape it into a 10-by-7-inch rectangle, about an inch thick. Wrap tightly with plastic and stick in the fridge for 2 hours.

3) Meanwhile, fold 24-inch length of parchment paper in half to create 12-inch rectangle. Fold the 3 open edges over to form an 8-inch square with enclosed sides. Crease the folds firmly. Place 3 (sliced) sticks of cold butter directly on the counter and whack them with rolling pin for a minute or so until the butter is just pliable but not yet warm, then fold butter in on itself using bench scraper. Beat it into rough 6-inch square. Unfold your parchment envelope. Using the bench scraper, transfer the butter to the middle of the parchment, then refold it enclose. Turn the packet over so that the flaps are underneath, and gently roll with the rolling pin until the butter fills parchment square, making sure it’s even. Refrigerate at for least 45 minutes.

4) Put the dough in the freezer for half an hour, then lightly flour your counter and roll the dough into 17 by 8-inch rectangle with the long side along the edge of the counter. Unwrap the butter from the parchment and place it in the center of the dough. Fold the sides of the dough over the butter so they meet in the center, and press the open edges together so they seal. Roll the butter/dough package out lengthwise into 24 by 8-inch rectangle. Starting at the bottom of the dough, fold it into thirds like a business letter. Turn the dough 90 degrees, then roll it out lengthwise again into 24 by 8-inch rectangle and fold into thirds again. Place the dough on your cookie sheet, wrap it tightly with plastic, and put it back in the freezer for another half hour.

5) Put the dough back on your lightly-floured countertop so that the top flap opens on the right. Roll the dough out lengthwise into a 24 by 8-inch rectangle and fold into thirds (yet again). Place the dough back on the sheet, wrap it tightly with plastic, and refrigerate it for yet another 2 to 24 hours.

6) Make the Pistachio Cream: Finely grind the pistachios in a food processor with the sugar. Add 2 tbsp of milk, and grind until it forms a paste. Add the remaining 5 tbsp of milk and mix in the food processor until well combined. Transfer the cream to a bowl and refrigerate for a few hours to develop the flavors.

Pistachio cream (can also be eaten straight with a spoon).

7) Shape the Crust: Remove the Croissant dough from the refrigerator and roll it out until it’s about 1/4" thick. Drape the dough in a tart pan, so that there is a least an inch of excess dough all around when the dough is molded to the sides of the pan (trim off any extra excess dough to use/eat later). Paint a little of the pistachio cream on the excess dough. Roll the excess inch of dough to make a Danish-like edge to the tart. Place a buttered bowl with straight sides in the middle of the pan to keep the dough from rising in the center, and let the dough rest of 2 hours.

8) Prepare the Apricots: Preheat oven to 400`. Slice each apricot into 4 flat slices with parallel cuts and place them in one layer in a baking pan. Scatter a handful of slivered almonds. Mix together 1 cup of white wine, the vanilla seeds, and 2 tbsp vanilla sugar. Pour the mixture over the apricots, and place the vanilla bean pod in the pan. Roast for 30 minutes, or until most of the liquid is gone. Put aside and let cool.

Apricots, pre-roasting.

9) Preparing the Crust: Raise the oven temperature to 425`. After it has sat for at least 2 hours, remove the bowl from the croissant crust. Combine the egg, sugar, and a dash of salt with a dash of water, and mix until well combined. Paint the croissant crust with the egg wash.

10) Bake the Crust: Place the croissant crust in the oven and immediately turn down the oven's heat to 400`. Bake the croissant tart for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. The dough will puff up a lot. Remove from the oven and let cool. 

Final assemblage.

11) Turn the oven to broil. Sprinkle the apricots with the rest of the vanilla sugar, and broil them, just until they begin to brown. (Keep watch so they don’t go up in flames!) Take them out of the oven and let them cool.

12) Assembling the cake: Spoon a quarter cup of pistachio cream into the center of the croissant crust, and spread it evenly. Cover the cream with the broiled apricots. Place the slivered almonds and blackberries on top of the apricots prettily. Add candles, sing happy birthday, and bask in the adulation of everyone there.

(with a bowl of pistachio cream & fruit for the gluten-free set)

A Moveable Crisp

My timing here is impeccable - now that blueberry season is thoroughly and inarguably over, I'm posting a recipe that calls for something like 6 cups of blueberries. Brilliant. But good frozen berries will work just as well, and soon enough it'll be summer again (right? right???), so I'm just gonna ignore that and go ahead and post anyway. Feel free to just bookmark this and come back in 9 months or whatever. Fine.

Two things happened to make this recipe happen. One was that my mother and I went blueberry picking, and it was a gorgeous morning, and the blueberry bushes were just bursting, and we had these big plastic buckets that hold more than you think, and long story short we ended up with something like twelve pounds of blueberries. The second thing is that my dear dear friend A., who lives in Syracuse, invited me up to his place for dinner. Which ended up more like munching/drinking/talking til all hours. But the food was damn good. (Pro tip: grill lime slices briefly before making mojitos out of them, for a lovely smoky caramelized flavor.) Me being me, I decided to make a blueberry crisp to bring along (along with a pile of cherry tomatoes from the garden, and some zucchini...). And no, plain crisp would not do. This would be coconut blueberry crisp! Because kind of like prosciutto, coconut makes just about everything better. And unlike prosciutto, coconut actually goes well in (non-savory) baked goods. And so a crisp was born.

Doggie bags.

Two last wrinkles. 1) This crisp would be gluten-free, because my mother doesn't keep any normal flour in the house so that wasn't an option. And 2) this had to be something I could carry out in bags and assemble on-site at quarter to midnight after a couple of mojitos, 'cause a pan of crisp sitting on the passenger's seat for the hour-and-20-minute drive up to Syracuse is just asking for trouble, and besides it's so much better warm out of the oven anyway. What I ended up with (and made a second time the next week for a bbq at my aunt's place) was totally portable and pretty fantastic. I suppose you could probably use any kind of berries or even chopped fruit, like peaches or apples (see, it is seasonally appropriate!). Sub in different nuts, different spices, whatever. Ditch the flax seed (though I promise it's delish, and adds both protein and hippie street cred) or double it. Mess with the spices at will. But here's the basic idea.

Blueberry-Coconut Crisp To-Go
Filling:
6 cups blueberries
~1 tbsp cornstarch
2 tsp powdered ginger
1/4 cup shredded dried unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup almonds and/or walnuts
a good pinch of salt

Topping:
3/4 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup some sort of flour (I used tapioca, regular will do)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup coconut
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
1/2 cup almonds and/or walnuts
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 stick unsalted butter, at room temp

Assembled.

Ahead of time:
1)  Put the blueberries in a plastic ziplock or container. Coarsely chop (or grind in a food processor) the nuts. Put all of the filling ingredients in a bag (apart from the blueberries). Put all the topping ingredients except for the butter in another bag.

2) Go where you need to go.

3) Preheat your host's oven to 375. Put the blueberries in a roughly 2-quart baking dish. Toss with the contents of the 'filling' bag until everything's evenly distributed.

4) Borrow half a stick of room-temperature butter from your host. Cut it into small chunks, put it into a big bowl, then use a pastry blender or your hands to mix it with the contents of the 'topping' bag until everything starts to bind together. (You could probably use coconut oil here if you wanted to be vegan about it.)

5) Sprinkle the topping over the filling to get an even crust. Bake for about 45 minutes, until the filling is bubbly and the top is golden brown. Let cool as long as your self-control allows. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Baked.

Pepper Pops

So you know how I said last time I'd be posting popsicle updates? Well here's one already. (I'm in Germany for the week, so keeping this post short and sweet. Like a half-eaten popsicle.) In my searches for interesting flavor combinations I'd come across a few pop recipes involving strawberries and black pepper, which frankly struck me as kind of weird. (Not that that ever stops me, but.) And then the inimitable Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen posted her own version, so I had to try it. These are a combination of that and a roasted strawberry-pink peppercorn-orange zest pop I found at The Vanilla Bean, but with juice instead of zest because a) it fills up more space and b) I'm too lazy to zest, particularly when there's a bottle of fresh-squeezed OJ sitting in the fridge. (Yes, I'm perfectly happy to hull and roast strawberries but not zest an orange. I never claimed to be consistent.) These probably aren't the popsicles you'd want to serve to a roomful of children - they're tart from the lemon and a little spicy from the pepper - but there's no kids in sight where I am and frankly I think they're delicious. (Would I be writing about them otherwise?) And then there's the added bonus that since any resident little ones won't be wanting to eat them anyway, nobody'll mind if you follow SK's suggestion and slip a little tequila into the mix. (I didn't but I can't imagine it'd be anything but wonderful.) So without further ado:

minus one small bite.

Bright Pink Grownup Spicy Sour Strawberry Popsicles
(makes 2 half-cup pops; multiply as necessary)
3/4 cup hulled and halved strawberries
1 tbsp maple syrup
drizzle of olive oil
a pinch ground black pepper (start small, increase to taste)
small pinch salt
just over 1/4 cup good fresh OJ
just under 1/4 cup lime juice (tweak OJ/lime ratio to taste)

1) Preheat the oven to 400. Spread the halved, hulled strawberries on a baking sheet, then drizzle with olive oil and the maple syrup and sprinkle pepper over. Roast about 20 minutes, til the strawberries start to collapse, but watch out that the juices don't burn. (Browning is fine, blackening isn't.)

2) Scrape roasted strawberries and all the gooey mess around them on the pan into a glass measuring cup. They've probably reduced down to about half a cup. Fill the measure up to the full cup line with slightly more OJ than lime juice (exact amounts will vary depending on how much strawberry you end up with and how tart you want it).

3) Dump all that in the blender with a small pinch of salt. Whirr, taste, adjust, pour, freeze.

Popsicle-palooza

It's time.

I've been saving this one up for a while, trying to make as many kinds of popsicles as I could before posting. And while this is nowhere near 'as many as I could', it's still a heck of a lot of popsicles. I'll probably update as the summer goes on. Hell, why stop at summer, I'll probably update indefinitely. But summer is nice in that there's all sorts of wonderfully delicious fruits and herbs and things popping up in the garden and the farmers market, which makes for some spectacular pops.

Clockwise from top: stone fruit medley, cucumber gin & tonic, jasmine rhubarb, blueberry basil lemonade, honeydew-mint, and mixed berry smoothie.

It started early this summer, when I got a craving for ice pops that just wouldn't go away. Specifically the apricot rice pudding pops from last summer's Bon Appetit, which are fantastic (tweaked recipe below). After a week or so I gave in and ordered some molds from Amazon (pro tip: I later found the same ones at TJ Maxx for half the price), and started pureeing and freezing basically everything I could. And then I caved again and bough a recipe book from People's Pops, who make incredible if super-hipstery pops in Brooklyn, and tried a few of their recipes. And it was all delicious.

Matcha green tea, piña colada, roasted plum with rosemary, and blackberry-nectarine.

Here's some things I've learned about making popsicles:

1.  All you really need is something you can fill a mold with. I was gonna say 'liquid', but actually that's not true. Thick glop works pretty well too (see i.e. banana fudgesicles below). That can be as simple as fruit juice or a pureed plum, or as complex and full of spices and herbs and alcohol and whatever as you like. Personally I like a little textural contrast, like chopped cherries in a nectarine puree, whole blueberries in lemonade, or nuts and granola in an almond milk-banana mixture. (Yes, really. Best breakfast ever.)
2. Almost everything will work, but not everything everything. I tried two different black tea-based pops, and both ended up tasting funny. Pureed blueberries end up kind of slimy, making for a not-great pop: either strain out the juice and use that, leave them whole or halved in the mix (very pretty), or make sure they're just a small percentage of the total pop. Carbonated beverages will expand more than other things, so leave more room than usual at the top. Too high a percentage of alcohol and it won't freeze (though then you just get a booze slushie, and there are worse things.) 
3. Taste the mixture before you freeze it and adjust as necessary. Add a little acid to make the flavors pop. Supposedly things taste less sweet when they're frozen (?), so some say to add a little more sweetener (sugar, maple syrup, honey) than you normally would. I dunno. Experiment. If you hate what comes out, run some hot water over to melt it down the sink and try something else.
4. Know how much your molds hold, so you can make an appropriate amount. Mine are a half cup each, but models will vary, particularly if you're using juice cups or ice cube trays instead of actual molds. If you make too much, or don't have enough to fill a mold, remember that these are basically smoothies and can be drunk directly from the blender. A glass liquid measuring cup is good both because a) it's a measuring cup and b) the little spout makes it easier to pour into the molds without dripping everywhere.
5. They're really photogenic.

Ginger-peach, apricot-pistachio, and watermelon-kiwi-lime.

These are all vegan (I think one calls for honey, just use sugar), and (almost) totally fruit-based, so I see nothing wrong with eating, like five a day. As always, play around with these. Where I use almond milk, sub in real milk, or coconut milk, or hemp milk, or whatever. Replace my maple syrup with white sugar/brown sugar/agave/honey/dates. Sub peaches for nectarines. Roast the fruit to intensify the flavors, or not. Strain it for a more refined texture, or leave chunks in the puree. I like to leave the skins in for berries and stone fruit (looks like confetti!), but you can take it out. Same for berry seeds. If you don't wanna buy molds, use cups, with spoons for sticks. Just for the love of god use good, ripe fruit. Crap fruit = crap popsicle, so don't expect to use rock-hard peaches and underripe strawberries and get a good result. If it's good to eat, it'll be good to freeze.

Ginger-peach and peach-tarragon.

I've put a bunch of pop recipes here that I made and liked. More are described in the photos but not spelled out; a general recipe for those is to chop/puree the things in the name, then freeze. If there's an herb or aromatic (tarragon, ginger), you can either blend it straight into the mix or get a more pervasive flavor by steeping it in a little boiling water and adding that instead, either straining out the herb or, again, blending it. You can find more ideas on my popsicle board on Pinterest, as well as this one, this one, and this one. Or just google 'popsicle recipes' and wait for the 4.5 million or so hits to pop up.

Stewed apricot with star anise, bubble tea, jamaica (aka hibiscus flower, aka red zinger), banana-granola, chocolate banana faux-fudgesicle.

Banana-Granola Breakfast Pops
Ok seriously, I was skeptical when I first tried these. But for real, after all that, they're my favorite. (Well, tied with the stone fruit bonanza pops below. Those things were awesome.) Think of it kind of like oatmeal, but frozen. And wonderful. The original recipe came from The Frosted Vegan.

3 parts banana
1 part almond milk
A few drops of vanilla (or almond) extract
A spoonful of maple syrup
2 parts granola
Half as much fresh berries
A small handful chopped nuts (optional. Actually, everything but the banana, milk, and granola is optional)

1) Toss the first four ingredients in the blender, and puree til smooth. (Add more milk if the bananas won't puree, but give it a good go before you do.) Taste, and adjust for sweetness.

2) Pour the banana goop into a pyrex measuring cup (or something else with a spout; this gets gloppy). Stir in everything else. Pour into molds. Freeze.

The best place for a popsicle: a backyard barbeque.

Stone Fruit Cornucopia

Stone fruits are my favorite fruits. To make this pop I basically went to the grocery store in mid-June, bought every kind of stone fruit they had, and mixed them together. Turns out that was a great idea.

Ok, so I skipped the peaches and apricots, so sue me.

White nectarines
Plums with white/pale yellow insides
Peaches
Red/purple/black plums
Sweet cherries

1) Chop the nectarines, peaches, and light plums. Eat the peaches. Put the nectarines and plums in the blender and puree.

2) Chop the cherries and dark plums into a small dice. Mix everything together and pour into molds. Freeze.

Blueberry Basil Lemonade
Boil enough water to fill half your molds, and add torn basil leaves and a bit of sugar. (I used Thai purple basil.) Set aside to cool. Add a squirt of lemon juice. Halve about half your blueberries and leave the other half whole. Mix, pour, freeze.

Apricot-Star Anise
Slice your apricots into wedges and add to a pot with enough water to half-cover them. Add a pinch of sugar and a few star anise pods. Simmer til the apricots get nice and soft and fragrant. Pull out the anise - these don't puree well. Blend, taste for sweetness and acid,  pour, freeze.

Apricot-Pistachio
Slice your apricots into wedges, and add to a pot with some almond milk. Smash up some pistachios and add them too. Simmer til the apricots get nice and soft and fragrant. Blend, taste for sweetness and acid,  pour, freeze.

Piña Colada
Blend 3 parts coconut milk, 2 parts fresh pineapple, a pinch of cinnamon, a bigger pinch brown sugar, and a splash of rum (Malibu?) until smooth. A squeeze of lime would be nice in place of the cinnamon too. Freezing is totally optional for this one, though if you're just gonna drink it you should up the rum content.

Cucumber Gin & Tonic
Cut into matchsticks enough cucumber to half-fill the molds. Mix one part gin to two parts tonic (or seltzer water), enough to almost fill them the rest of the way. Add a bit of sugar (seriously) and a squirt of lime. Leave enough room at the top of the molds so these don't bubble over everywhere like mine did.

Add mint and call it a mojito.

Banana Faux-Fudgesicle
Blend bananas with a good bit of cocoa powder, a spoonful of maple syrup, a touch of vanilla extract, and just enough almond milk to make it go. A bit of cinnamon or some chopped almonds would work well too.

Roasted Plum and Rosemary (yes, really)
Halve your plums, pull out the pit, and roast them at 400 for about 10 minutes til they get nice and soft. Meanwhile, boil a sprig of rosemary leaves and a bit of brown sugar in some water. Take out the rosemary (too tough), blend it all together, etc.

Roasted plums, rosemary syrup.

Apricot Rice Pudding Pops
(adapted from BA)
1 1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 lemongrass stalk, pounded with a mallet and tied into a knot
2 tbsp ginger, minced
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp short grain rice (arborio, sticky/sweet, etc)
1/4 cup dried apricots, chopped
1/4 cup brown sugar
pinch of salt

1) Soak the rice in a bowl of water. Simmer the milks, lemongrass, ginger, and vanilla in a pot. Don't let it boil, or the coconut milk can separate.

2) Pull out the lemongrass and toss it. Puree the spiced milk and ginger until smooth. Drain the rice. Put the rice in the milk/ginger mixture, add the sugar and pinch of salt, and simmer about half an hour, without stirring.

3) Stir in the apricots, pour into molds, freeze.

Watermelon-lime-kiwi. Figure it out yourself.

Peach-Tarragon or Ginger-Peach
Steep some tarragon leaves or chopped ginger in boiling water. Puree with sliced peaches and a bit of sweetener.

Rhubarb-Jasmine
Brew some strong (but not bitter) jasmine tea. Chop some rhubarb into inch-long pieces. Just cover with the tea, add honey, and simmer til the rhubarb gets all soft and starts to fall apart.Mash the rhubarb up a little with a fork, pour, freeze.

Blackberry-Nectarine
Puree nectarines. Set aside. Puree blackberries with a little coconut milk, some lemon juice, and brown sugar. Pour alternating layers of nectarine and blackberry purees into molds.

Raspberries work well too.

Etc, etc.
Make a smoothie. Freeze it. Bam.

The End.

Sweet & Sour

Continuing on the theme of spring... Last weekend at the farmer's market I bought a big bunch of rhubarb. I love rhubarb - it's nice and tart, with pretty red and green stalks, potentially deadly (only if you eat the leaves... didn't Agatha Christie write a story about that?), and borderline unusual (how many people do you know who actually cook wit the stuff?). Of course, like most of my borderline-unusual farmer's market impulse purchases, I buy it expecting great things and then immediately go blank on what to do with the stuff. Like, Bon Appetit just had a whole article on cooking with rhubarb, but suddenly I didn't want to do any of that. I just made compote, and how boring to repeat. So I left them in the bottom of my fridge for a week. (In my defense, it's been waaayyy too hot to turn on the oven lately. Not that that's stopped my from making socca [post coming soon] or apricot applesauce cake [see below] and bringing my apartment up to a toasty 84 degrees according to the thermostat, but whatever.) Somewhere along the way I got the brilliant idea to mix the rhubarb with apricots and plums, because as I've said before, apricots in baked goods are basically the universe's way of giving your tongue a hug. Smitten Kitchen had a rhubarb snacking cake that looked like about what I was hoping for, but it calls for 1/3 cup of sour cream, which I haven't got and didn't feel like going out to buy. So what's a girl to do?

Not for the first time, Mark Bittman came to my rescue. After coming up empty handed from Alford & Duguid's Home Baking (I've also said this before, but they're brilliant and you should buy all their books, including this one, 'cause even though it didn't have an appropriate thickened-dairy-product-free cake for this particular project it still makes me want to make everything in it every time I open it) and the big yellow Gourmet cookbook, How to Cook Everything yielded a beautiful orange-almond cake. (And I didn't even have to go out and buy butter!) So I didn't actually have any almonds, but nuts are nuts and everything else was in my pantry/freezer. (I've started keeping my flour in the freezer to avoid the moths. Lord help me, I'm turning into my grandmother.) I waited til after dark when the temperature had gone down and I could open up some windows (to no avail; it still got hot as hell in here), roasted some rhubarb, sliced up some stone fruit, poured the whole mess on top of the cake batter, and voila! Sweet orange nut cake with tart spring/summer topping. Breakfast of champions.

All the coconut sprinkled on top makes it look blurry.

Orange Nut Cake with Summer Fruit
Adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything (the original, not the new revised version, though for all I know it's in there too)
Bittman writes that "this cake is low in saturated fat but not flavor". Sure thing, Mark.

For the cake:
1/2 cup olive oil (He says light. I used extra virgin. Just don't waste your really good stuff on this.)
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup nuts, optionally mixed with flax seeds if you're feeling virtuous (He calls for almonds. I used walnuts. I bet pistachios would be spectacular.)
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp spice (I used cardamom. Cinnamon would be good if you used apples on top. Mix 'n' match.)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 tsp almond extract (or vanilla, maybe anise depending on your fruit choice)
1/4 cup shredded coconut (optional) (see below)
You could probably throw in 1 tbsp orange zest or minced ginger here if you like

For the topping:
1-ish lbs rhubarb
8 or so stone fruits - I used apricot and plum, but peaches or nectarines would go well here too. so would cherries. Or apples and/or pears. Maybe toss some berries in there. Pretty much pick two or three of your favorite seasonal fruits and go to town. Strawberry rhubarb, peach blueberry, apple cinnamon, papaya with lime juice, whatever. Tweak your spices above to go.
1 tbsp sugar (less for sweet fruits, like pear or apple; it's mostly to counterbalance the tartness of things like rhubarb and apricot)
3 tbsp orange juice (only if you're using rhubarb)

Coconut sprinkle:
This is totally optional, but I had some left over from making Papuan steamed buns (ba pao), so I tossed it in. You can use plain (sweetened or unsweetened) shredded coconut instead, or just forget it altogether.
2/3 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut
1 tbsp dark brown sugar (or palm sugar, if you're weird like me and keep some in your pantry)
1-2 tbsp hot water

1) Preheat the oven to 350. If you're doing the coconut thing, dissolve the sugar in the water, then stir in the coconut. Use as little water as you can get away with. Set aside.

2) Start roasting the rhubarb: Chop the rhubarb into 1cm-long chunks. Put in a 9x13x2 (or so) baking pan. Sprinkle with 1tbsp sugar and the oj, stir, and pop into the oven. (This is probably optional; the Smitten Kitchen recipe just puts raw rhubarb right on the dough. If you do that, leave out the oj and just mix the chopped rhubarb and sugar with the chopped stone fruit in a bowl.)

3) Make the batter (and here I'm paraphrasing Bittman): Mix the oil and sugar, then add the eggs and beat for about 5 minutes. (Unless you've got forearms like an Italian grandma, I recommend you use an electric mixer for this one.) Stir in the almond extract.

4) Toss the nuts (and flax seeds, if using; I swear they're delicious) into a food processor and grind  until fine. Mix them in another bowl with the flour, spice, baking powder, & salt.

5) Stir your roasting rhubarb so it doesn't burn.

6) Mix a little of the flour bowl contents into the wet ingredients, then a little oj (of the half cup from the batter list), then repeat til it's all in there. Stir in 1/4 cup of the coconut mixture (or not) and whatever zests you're putting in there. Lick the beaters. Set aside.

7) Cut your fruit into bite-sized chunks. (For small apricots and almonds, I cut around the crease in the fruit, pulled it in half, took out the pit, then cut each half into four slices and cut those in half the short way.) Pull the rhubarb out of the oven and dump it in a bowl (possibly the same bowl you're holding your chopped fruit in.

Cut like so.

8) Grease the rhubarb pan with a little oil, then pour in the batter, smoothing it out like you would a brownie into an even layer. Spread the fruit chunks on top, more-or-less evenly. Save the juice from the bottom of the bowl to mix with seltzer and drink. Scatter with the rest of the coconut mixture (or if you do a nice fruit crisp topping that's work well here too.) Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Mine took about an hour, but start checking at about 40 minutes; a lot will depend on how much fruit you use and how wet it all is. Thank Mark Bittman and the farmer's market for the inspiration.

I've got no in-progress pictures, so here's another one of the slice.

While we're on the topic of oil-based cake (see also: this), here's a bonus recipe, thanks to the fact that I've been cooking like mad recently and if I don't combine these two into one post I'll never ever get everything up here that I want to. The Co-op had samples set out the last time I was there on my grocery run of organic applesauce blends: plain apple, apple-apricot, peach, etc. And coupons. And they were delicious. So I bought a jar of the apple peach, and then immediately realized I had no idea what to do with it. (C.f. above rhubarb idea paralysis. This happens way too much.) So when Dolly had a party this weekend and I had to come up with something to bring, I pulled out my mom's old applesauce cake recipe and tarted it up with some slices of the apricots I had waiting in the fridge to accompany the rhubarb. So easy, so reliable, so awesome.

All that was left post-party.

Basic Applesauce Cake
This is the basic recipe. Feel free to mess with the spicing (I subbed out most of the cinnamon for cardamom to go with the apricot), use blended applesauces, and/or add slices of fruit, nuts, or berries on top.

2 cups flour
½ cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
less than ¼ tsp ground cloves
3 beaten eggs
16 oz applesauce
½ cup oil

Preheat oven to 350º. Combine dry ingredients. Stir in eggs, applesauce, and oil until thoroughly combined. Bake in greased and floured 15 x 10 x 1 pan for 25-30 minutes. (Or halve everything for an 8x8 pan)

While Rome Burns

Sausage + fiddleheads = dinner

It's spring, finally. (Or did we skip straight to summer? It broke 90 up here yesterday.) So after a month or more of reading about all the MIA seasonal delights - ramps, rhubarb, fiddleheads - that ought, according to magazine editors and food bloggers everywhere, to be overflowing at my local farmers' market, I finally managed to find two of the above. No ramps, alas, but the Co-op had rhubarb and ferns. I had no idea what to do with either, so naturally I bought them anyway.

Washed fiddleheads

Google, as usual, was quick to provide inspiration, with a nod to some French blog I'd never heard of for the rhubarb compote and Saveur for a link to a ramp recipe I didn't really follow. I usually go to Saveur first when I'm looking for something in particular, and they rarely disappoint. Anyway I didn't take any photos while making the rhubarb, so apologies for that 'cause it's all bright and colorful (ETA: I've added photos of the finished product), but the fiddleheads should make up for it. They're photogenic little things, that's for sure, all green and smooth and curled up. The ferns I'd eaten in Indonesia weren't nearly so pretty. At some point I'm gonna have to find some to transplant to my garden so I can pick my own - $10/lb at the store, ouch - because this was delicious. The taste of spring, while it lasts.

Herbs & garlic

Rhubarb-Berry Compote
1/2 lb rhubarb
6 tbsp orange juice
~5 tbsp brown sugar
2 handfuls mixed berries, fresh or frozen (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, etc.)
1 tbsp minced ginger
lemon juice to taste

1) Preheat oven to 375. Cut the rhubarb stalks lengthwise, then chop into centimeter-long pieces. Put these in a glass baking dish, sprinkle with 2 tbsp of the sugar and 3tbsp of the oj, and roast uncovered for about 45 minutes, stirring halfway through.

2) Put the berries, ginger, the rest of the sugar, and the rest of the oj into a pot and simmer for about 5 min. Add the rhubarb and all the juices from the pan and simmer another 5-10 min, until things start to thicken up. Mash the berries a bit with a fork.

3) Take a taste. If you want it tarter, add a squeeze of lemon juice. If you want it sweeter, add a little sugar. Let cool until just warm and serve over ice cream, yogurt, biscuits, or on its own with a spoon.

C'est parfait.

Fiddleheads and Sausage (inspired by this)

1 link sweet Italian sausage
1/3 lb fiddleheads
1-2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 small handful mixed herbs, chopped (I used oregano, sage, and tarragon. Loooved the tarragon.)

Post-chopping.

1) Rinse & trim the fiddleheads. Make sure to rub the sides of the coil to get the little brown bits off. Set aside.

2) Cook the sausage in a pan over medium heat. (Cast iron works well.) Let it brown well on all sides, then cover a bit so the inside cooks. Cut it open to make sure it's not too pink. Set on a plate, leaving all the juices in the pan.

Mmm, Nica's sausage

3) Add the fiddleheads to the pan with the sausage juices and a little olive oil. Add the garlic and herbs and saute until the ferns are just cooked through but not soft or limp, 5 minutes tops. You want these fresh, not mushy. Add salt & pepper to taste.

4) Serve with the sausage and some good bread to mop up the liquid. If at all possible, eat outside on a patio while slapping away the season's first mosquitos and sipping prosecco.

Mid-saute.

TastyKakes

Um, yes. This. (Plus ~1 tbsp ground fennel seeds, just for kicks.)

www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Orange-Scented-Olive-Oil-Cake

ETA: Here's the actual recipe, straight from the Saveur website. I skip the glaze and the sea salt, and add the fennel seeds with the flour, eggs, etc.

Orange-Scented Olive Oil Cake

2 oranges
2 1⁄3 cups sugar
Unsalted butter, for greasing the pan
2 1⁄2 cups flour, plus more for pan
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 eggs
6 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1⁄4 cup fresh orange juice
1⁄4 cup confectioners' sugar
Sea salt, for garnish

1. Trim about 1⁄2" from the tops and bottoms of oranges; quarter oranges lengthwise. Bring 6 cups water to a boil in a 4-qt. saucepan; add oranges. Bring water back to a boil; drain. Repeat boiling process twice more with fresh water. Put oranges, 1 cup sugar, and 4 cups water into a 4-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring often, until sugar dissolves and orange rind can be easily pierced with a fork, about 30 minutes. Remove pan from heat and let cool to room temperature.

2. Heat oven to 350°. Grease a 10" round cake pan with butter and dust with flour; line pan bottom with parchment paper cut to fit. Set pan aside. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside. Remove orange quarters from syrup, remove and discard any seeds, and put oranges into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until oranges form a chunky purée, 10–12 pulses. Add remaining sugar, reserved flour mixture, vanilla, and eggs and process until incorporated, about 2 minutes. Add olive oil; process until combined. Pour batter into prepared pan; bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 40–45 minutes. Let cool for 30 minutes.

3. In a small bowl, whisk orange juice and confectioners' sugar to make a thin glaze. Remove cake from pan and transfer to a cake stand or plate. Using a pastry brush, brush orange glaze over top and sides of cake; let cool completely. Garnish cake with salt.

Blizzard food

Next in the Things I Made For Dinner series: breakfast. This is what I think of as perfect snowstorm food - it's warm, it's rich, it's cinnamony, it's vaguely tropical, and it tastes really damn good. Also, it makes your kitchen smell freaking awesome while it bakes. Good for giving you the stamina to trudge through those 3-foot drifts to class. Also it's lactose-free. Don't let that deter you; coconut milk has enough fat in it that you won't miss the butter & cream. (Damn you, milk allergy!)

Blizzard Bread Pudding
4 un-iced cinnamon-raisin buns, or 10-ish slices cinnamin-raisin bread, or cinnamon, raisins, and challah
1 can coconut milk
2 cups almond milk (or milk, but I actually like the almondy flavor)
3 eggs
cinnamon
cardamom
cloves
vanilla
salt
(Brown sugar to taste, but I didn't use any)

Preheat oven to 350. Chop the bread into 1-inch cubes. Spread them in a glass baking dish big enough that they just peek over the top.
.
On the stove, warm the milks. Beat the eggs in a bowl & add them. Add a pinch of salt, and roughly a 1:3:5 ratio of cloves:cardamom:cinnamon. Maybe 1 shake cloves, 3 shakes cardamom, spoonful cinnamon? I dunno, I don't measure these things. Also add a little vanilla. 1 tsp-ish? (And sugar, if you're into that.) Mix well.

Pour the liquid over the bread crumbs. Mix it a little so all the bread is covered and it starts to soak up the milk. Bake at 350 for roughly an hour and a half, but start checking after an hour to make sure the top doesn't burn. If you cut it open and the bottom is soggy, bake some more. Eat warm or cold, with a little maple syrup if you like. Go make a snow fort.

Stuffing myself in NYC

My aunt & uncle just spent the weekend visiting here in NYC, and while they're not foodies/hounds/pick your label of choice, they do enjoy taking poor little unemployed me out to dinner at places I might not otherwise make it to. So here's an account of our Big Weekend of Eating in New York:

-Thursday lunch: DB Bistro Moderne. This was actually the day before they arrived, but close enough. In honor of restaurant week and prix fixe menus at places I could otherwise never afford, my boyfriend and I went for lunch at DB Bistro Moderne. Apps were great; I got the Alsatian flammenku"che (listed as "tarte flambee" on the online version of the menu) with bacon & onions, and he got the sweet corn soup with shrimp. Boulud knows his produce (cf also our desserts), and the corn soup had a great clean pure corn flavor. As for my tarte, bacon, cheese, & onion happens to be one of my favorite flavor combinations, so I was happy. For the main course we both got the couscous, which came with a piece of lamb, a chicken thigh, and merguez sausage, along with some diced veggies & chickpeas. Good but not outstanding; if I were to do it again I'd order the risotto instead. Dessert brought it back up to a higher level - I got the peach & nectarine crisp, which had the most incredibly intense peach flavor. I wish all peaches tasted like that. The BF's chocolate hazelnut cake was delicious and rich without being overwhelming, and had a wonderfully silky texture. We both ordered orange spritzers ($5) to drink, which were nice and refreshing but nothing special. Verdict: I'd go back for sure.

-Friday dinner: More restaurant week reservations at Mia Dona. They're offering basically the same prixe fix menu they offer at lunch all year, extended for restaurant week to dinner as well. I started with the Mia meatballs, which were fantastic (the big piece of cured pork - sauteed prosciutto? pancetta? guanciale? - in the sauce with them certainly didn't hurt). Main course was the rigatoni alla Norma. In all a successful dish, but the smoked mozzarella in it seemed excessive - it already had smokiness from the eggplant and salty/cheesy richness from the grated ricotta salata, so the mozz was a little redundant. But aside from a few chunks of cheese I happily cleaned my plate. My uncle enjoyed his cod quite a bit, but since I didn't taste it I can't report in detail. To get some veggies in there we ordered a side of sauteed haricots verts for the table - buttery, garlickey deliciousness, topped with dill & fried breadcrumbs. Desserts were also quite good; my vanilla panna cotta was strangely jiggly (maybe a little heavy on the gelatin?) but delicious, and my aunt's tiramisu was the first thing on the able to go. I should also mention the bread basket here, which includes some fantastic foccaccia alongside the more traditional bread slices, and a head of roasted garlic. Again, worth another visit.

-Saturday lunch: Co. I've been here several times before and loved it, and this visit didn't disappoint. We skipped the apps entirely and just ordered 3 pizzas: a margherita, a ham & cheese, and a popeye. I'd never had a margherita here before, and I thought it was really fanastic. Perhaps my new favorite pizza at Co. Ham & cheese was a repeat for me, and with that much prosciutto draped across the top, how can you go wrong? The caraway seeds are a nice touch too. I wasn't as crazy about the popeye; some bites had great flavor but some were slightly bland. That was also the one pizza out of the three that was charred enough to taste burnt to me. Verdict: So happy I live on the same block as this place.

-Saturday dinner: Szechuan Gourmet. I love this place. Apps were steamed vegetable dumplings (good if not terribly exciting) and dan dan noodles (quite possibly my favorite thing to eat in all of New York, even if they went a little light on the szechuan peppercorns this time). My aunt, who doesn't like spicy foods, ordered the chicken & broccoli, and my uncle got General Tso's chicken. Both were sweet & sticky but better than what you get at a lot of American Chinese places. After smelling it at a neighboring table during my last visit, I had to order the crispy lamb fillets with chili cumin. The lamb was slightly greasier than I would have liked, but deliciously cuminy, with just a little kick of spice and a great crunchy/tender texture. As were were walking down the block to the subway afterwards our waitress chased us down outside to give me back my sunglasses, which had fallen out of my bag at the table. Verdict: Bruni was right about them.

-Sunday Brunch: JoeDoe. Final meal of the visit. We came by at about 11:15 (they open at 11 on sundays) and were seated immediately, but by the time we left around noon they were full up, so come early for good seats. We chose JoeDoe for brunch based on the recent writeup in Time Out New York's brunch issue and my hankering for chilaquiles, which I fell in love with in Mexico this winter and hadn't had since. We weren't disappointed. First off, the biscuits with honey butter they brought to the table were just so good. Biscuits were big and moist and the honey butter was a creamy salty sweet pot of addictive deliciousness. I gotta find me a recipe for that. My aunt got the challah french toast with fresh fruit, which was (I kid you not) about 2 inches thick and delicious. My chilaquiles were nothing like those I had in Zihuatanejo, but utterly delicious nonetheless. Instead of crunchy tortilla chips topped with sauce, melted cheese, and bits of meat & veggies, this was a puffy tortilla, topped with a mound of scrambled duck eggs, crumbled chorizo, beans, guacamole, crema, and sauce, more like an unrolled breakfast burrito. My uncle finished every last bite of his eggs benedict, but I didn't get to taste. I liked the ambiance, definitely trendy but in a Brooklyn sort of way, very low-key. Verdict: Can't wait for more relatives to visit so I can finagle another meal here.

Sunday dinner through the foreseeable future: I'm about ready to swear off food for good. So full. But totally worth it.