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)

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.

Happy Passeaster Fools' Day!

Today's Easter and Passover and April Fools Day all at once, which is pretty much winning the variable-date holiday lottery, and definitely cause for brunch. So I invited some people over, cooked something relevant for each holiday, and drank far too much of the sangria D. brought over. It all got devoured before I even thought to get out my camera, so no photos (update: photos of leftover charoset and sangria; you're on your own for the rest), but here's my recipes:

Passover: Coconut Charoset


This isn't traditional for anybody as far as I could tell, but it was all things I had in my pantry. I kept going back and forth over whether to make Charoset or just cooked apples; in the end I wound up somewhere in between and it was delicious. I like the slippery texture and extra protein from the flax seeds, but if you don't have any just up the amount of nuts to make up for it. This makes enough to serve many; all measurements are pretty rough since I made it up as I went along. Orange zest or a splash of wine would probably go well too.

4 apples
1/2 cup almonds (or walnuts)
1/3 cup golden flax seeds
1/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
~1 tbsp apple pie spice (or 2tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp alspice, 1/2 tsp cloves, pinch of nutmeg)
1 tsp cardamom
lemon juice
pinch of salt
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp brown sugar
Butter

1) Pulse the nuts in a food processor until roughly ground/finely chopped (or just buy them that way). Put aside in a bowl. Peel and core the apples, chop roughly. Either pulse the apples in the food processor until they're finely chopped (but NOT yet turned into applesauce) or mince them by hand. Put in a bowl and toss with some lemon juice.

2) Heat a good bit of butter in a pan over medium heat. Add the apples and nuts and stir for a minute. Add everything else (best to start with less than the total honey/sugar and spices and add to taste), plus another teaspoon or so of lemon juice. Mix thoroughly. Cook partly covered until the apples start to soften but don't quite lose all of their crunch, maybe 10-15 minutes. Serve with matzoh for the observant or crepes (below) for the not.


Easter: Arugula Zucchini Frittata
Easter for me is all about chocolate and jelly beans. But since I'm waiting for tomorrow's sales to buy my candy, second place goes to eggs, spring veggies, and salted pork products. I found this recipe from Bon Appetit for a leek-and-asparagus frittata, which seemed appropriately spring-like, then proceeded to change everything about it except the method, because I had a zucchini and onions in my fridge but no leeks or asparagus. Also I'm not too crazy about asparagus. Anyway, I encourage you to do the same. Serve with a slice of baked Easter ham, or some tasty crispy bacon. Feeds 5, apparently.

2 slices bacon (or some bacon fat, or butter, or olive oil if you're being responsible)
1 zucchini, sliced into half moons (I used the medium setting on my mandoline then cut the rounds in half, makes things way easier.)
1 onion, chopped
8 eggs
1 large handful of arugula, torn up a bit
1/4 cup ground romano cheese
S&P

1) In an oven-proof skillet (I used my cast iron), cook the bacon. When crispy, remove from pan with a slotted spoon and enjoy as chef's treat, leaving the drippings in the pan. Alternatively, heat up some butter, oil, or bacon fat reserved from last time you made the stuff.

2) Saute the onion over medium heat in the bacon (or other) fat. After about 2 minutes, add the zucchini. Saute until the zucchini is softened and the onions are transparent.

3) Meanwhile, beat the eggs. Add the cheese, arugula, a generous pinch of salt, and an equally generous dose of black pepper. Mix well.

4) Here's where my instructions start to match up with BA's. Pour the egg mixture over the veggies and stir once or twice to get it all mixed in. Cook partly covered over med-high heat until almost set - there will be a bit of raw egg in the center; don't worry about it. Stick the whole pan under the broiler for about 3 minutes, until it's puffed up and cooked through. Cut into slices and dig in.


Because they're delicious and it's brunch: Crepes
This recipe is very slightly adapted from the 1975 edition of the Joy of Cooking. It's the only thing I still make from that book, but I love it.

3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tbsp powdered sugar
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk (I used drinkable coconut milk and found I needed a bit more)
1/3 cup water
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp almond extract (optional but good)

1) Whisk together the dry ingredients.

2) In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. Make sure the eggs are well-beaten.

3) Add the wet ingredients into the dry ones. Stir briefly. Don't worry if there's a few lumps; they'll disappear on their own. The batter should be somewhat thin, definitely of pourable consistency.

4) Heat a bit of butter in a smallish pan. Add about a quarter cup of batter. (I just use my quarter cup measuring cup, usually not filled quite all the way.) Tilt the pan so the batter covers the whole bottom, fairly thinly. Cook until the bottom starts to brown, then flip and cook til golden. Lather, rinse, repeat.

5) Serve with charoset, fresh berries and whipped cream, sliced mangoes and whipped cream, chocolate sauce, maple syrup, lemon curd, powdered sugar; you really can't go wrong.

Red wine = invisible fruits :-(

 

And because we're grownups and we can: Dolly's Sangria
This is roughly what I saw her do, with a little twist of my own.

1+ cup each:
-chopped peaches or nectarines
-green grapes
-fresh blueberries
-sliced strawberries
1 bottle white wine
2 cans Fresca
lemon or lime juice to taste
Ice
(1/4 bottle of red wine, optional but really good)

1) Mix everything in a big pot. Let sit for a while to soak the fruit. Drink in a large glass. Have seconds.

Crockpot Apple Butter

Wow it's been a while...

So about a month and a half ago I went apple picking with my parents, and came home with a half-bushel of mixed apples. That's a crapload of apples. And most of them, while delicious, were godawful ugly - clearly made for cooking rather than eating. So I made apple muffins and apple bread and squash-apple soup and cheddar-caraway apple pie, and munched on the few that looked presentable. And still I had leftover apples. So I made apple butter, two crockpots full. And it's awesome. Here's what I learned in doing so:

1) All those recipes that say to cook your apple butter for 11 hours in the slow cooker? They LIE. 36 hours seems to do the job.
2) You can use apples for this that have started to go soft, because you're cooking them for 36 hours so who the hell cares whether they were crisp to begin with or not, because now they're mush. Delicious, delicious mush.
3) Be careful peeling those soft apples though, because the vegetable peeler will be prone to slip, and peeling your fingertip is a painful experience, especially when you've got another 5 apples to get through and juice gets everywhere and it stings like a motherfucker. On the plus side, your apple butter will turn out dark brown anyway, so nobody will notice a few drops of blood. Consider it 'iron fortified'.
4) Leaving town for a week with a garbage can full of apple peelings is a surefire way to grow a fruitfly colony in your kitchen. Rice vinegar plus orange juice in a cup topped with a funnel is a good way to destroy said colony. Vacuuming up stray fruitflies also helps, and is way more fun than you'd expect.

And the recipe... (as always, amounts are approximate and everything is optional, except maybe the apples. But I bet it would taste good with pears or something instead.)

Halfway cooked.

Crockpot Apple Butter
A pile of apples, peeled, cored, and cut into chunks, enough to fill the crockpot (~1 gallon?)
1 cup or less of maple syrup and/or brown sugar
1 cup apple cider and/or orange juice
1 tbsp Pumpkin Pie Spice, or a mixture of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice, mostly cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla
Zest from 1 orange*
Pinch of salt

*My personal favorite citrus-zesting method: Peel the orange with a vegetable peeler, which gets you the nice orange part without any bitter pith. Then mince with a sharp knife. Saves you grating off your knuckles, especially if you've already managed to peel your thumb.

1) Toss everything in the crockpot. Mix. Cook, covered, on the high setting for an hour or two.

2) Stir. Turn to the low setting. Cook covered for another 12 hours. Stir occasionally.

3) Move the cover to one side just a little so steam can get out. Cook another 24 hours, or until you get sick of waiting. Scrape browned bits from the side and pour condensation from the top whenever it occurs to you. (The point here is to cook off the excess moisture. If you're really impatient you could probably shave off 12 hours by boiling on the stove for a while, but that kind of defeats the whole 'slow-cooker' idea.)

With homemade flatbread instead of a bagel.

4) Spread on bread, muffins, apple cake, bread pudding made from stale apple cake, etc.

Update: My absolute favorite way to eat apple butter: with garlic-chive cream cheese on a toasted pumpernickel or everything bagel, with a little salt and maybe some caraway seeds sprinkled on top. Heaven.