Two Grandmothers' Cake

My mother celebrated a big birthday a few days ago. I won’t say exactly how old she is, mostly because it makes me feel incredibly old myself. Suffice it to say that she is at an age at which every birthday is a big birthday.

We were visiting my brother and his family and faced a couple of requirements for the birthday cake.

It had to be relatively small since all of us (except my mother) need to lose a little weight. And it had to be simple. My brother was in the hospital at the time. He is happily and healthily home now, but we didn’t want to make a complicated family time more complicated.

I had recently rediscovered my grandmother’s recipe for chocolate cake and decided it might fit the bill.

I recalled this cake well from my youth, when it was one of my mother’s standbys for a quick cake. She called it “Mother’s Chocolate Cake” (on my grandmother’s recipe card it is called “My Favorite Chocolate Cake”) and iced it with cream-cheese frosting.

My mother’s own version of the recipe had long since disappeared so I was happy to find my grandmother’s. It’s a great cake—and she was a lovely person. Here is she as she looked when I was little. (I do so admire a woman who can wear hats.)

The recipe turned out to be a teensy bit more challenging that I had imagined.

First, it was just old fashioned enough to be very confusing. My grandmother provided a range of oven temperatures and a range of flour quantities.

Second, she was unclear as to which ingredients were added when.

I standardized it as best I could and proceeded.

In hindsight, it seems to me that one could easily bake this in two layers for a bit less time, but the 8-by-8 inch pan made a nice thick cake that was easy to eat and frost.

According to my grandmother’s recipe card, she used a cooked icing on the cake. I stuck with my mother’s standby cream-cheese version, which is ever popular in our house.

My nephew Michael took charge of decorating the cake. He began with the word “Nana” written in orange lettering. He then went to town with candy corn and sprinkles. At ten, Michael takes the “more is more” school of decorating very seriously.

The birthday girl was pleased as punch with the results.


Tinky’s Grandmother’s Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

2 ounces bitter chocolate
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter at room temperature
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups flour
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8-by-8-inch baking pan.

Place the chocolate in a small saucepan, and pour the boiling water over it. Stir to dissolve, turning the heat below on very low if necessary.

In a mixing bowl cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time. Beat in the baking soda.

Add the flour and milk alternately, beginning and ending with the flour. Stir in the chocolate mixture, followed by the vanilla.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 50 minutes.

If you want to be informal and serve the cake out of the pan, that’s just fine. To be a bit more festive, let it cool for 10 minutes and then invert it onto a cooling rack.

Ice with cream-cheese frosting.

Serves 8 to 10.

A Sauce for Stress

We hope Mother Jan will soon be back to her normal form.

I don’t usually reprint old recipes of mine OR spend much of a blog post linking to another blog. But some weeks are a little crazy—and this has been a crazy week for me!

As we were getting ready to move my mother out of Daffodil Cottage a few days ago she fell and hurt her back. Add to that injury the stress of selling a house and a minor infection, and we have ended up with one sick mother.

Yesterday the doctor suggested it might be time to move her into a wheelchair. (Mother Jan was understandably NOT very excited about this idea. Her gait improved almost immediately!)

A couple of things are getting us through this stressful time. First, we never lose our sense of humor. Even when Jan is a little out of things (as she has been a lot in the past few days) she finds time to laugh.

Second, we have family around. My young nephew Michael in particular is a joy. He has just started his own blog, My World by Michael. It is officially hosted by me since apparently 10 year olds aren’t allowed to have blogs.

Michael’s current post, “Swimming in the Dam at Singing Brook Farm,” is charming. It reminds me of my own recent post comparing our country surroundings to The Trip to Bountiful.

He dwells on the experience of plunging into our cold dam water, on the sights and sounds of nature, and on the cuteness and doggyness of our cockapoo, Truffle.

Check out his post. It’s short and very sweet!

Meanwhile, here is a short and sweet recipe from my Pudding Hollow Cookbook.

When we called the doctor to ask for advice about my mother, one of the first things he suggested was that she eat plenty of ice cream to help her bones heal. Michael immediately volunteered to help.

We tried to keep things healthy by consuming frozen yogurt instead of ice cream. And then we ruined the whole healthy idea by covering the yogurt with this sauce. It made everyone smile, however, even our invalid.

Merry Lion Hot Fudge Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tablespoon sweet butter
5 ounces evaporated milk (a small can)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:

Combine the sugar and cocoa in a saucepan and heat them until they are warm to the touch. (This is the only tricky part of the recipe; make sure you stir them, or they'll burn!)

When they're hot but not melting, add the butter and the evaporated milk. Bring the mixture to a boil and boil for 1 minute.

Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. You're ready to have a sundae party! Serves 8.

Michael can make a toy out of just about anything.

Let Them Eat Birthday Cake (Part II): Washington Capitals Puck Cake

My favorite young goalie makes a save at the Verizon Center.

My nephew Michael loves to play and watch hockey. During hockey season he follows the exploits of the Washington Capitals.

He has even been known to read the newspaper (which I certainly never did when I was ten) in order to keep up with the latest Caps news.

I shudder to think what family life will be like when he realizes that entire chat rooms on the internet are devoted to analyzing the team’s performance on the ice.

When Michael’s birthday rolled around last week, his mother Leigh asked me to design a birthday cake that would (a) taste yummy and (b) look like a hockey puck.

“A” was not a stretch. All my cakes taste wonderful (probably because I’m so modest).

“B” was more challenging. Luckily, I knew I would have Leigh to help. She is much better at presentation than I am.

Even with her help the cake was a learning experience! As I mentioned in my recent cupcake post we had a couple of tries to get it right since like royalty Michael enjoyed a public birthday as well as a real one.

My concept was a chocolate cake with fudge frosting that would include a moon-pie-like marshmallow filling. (I know this is a bit excessive, but I also know kids love marshmallow filling.)

We started out with a pan from Williams-Sonoma with ridged edges, designed to mimic a chocolate sandwich cookie. The cake was adorable, but the ridges made it difficult to frost.

Even when we used a straightforward round cake pan we had a little trouble with the filling, which tended to melt and ooze when confronted with warm frosting.

Our solution was to refrigerate the cake and filling—and to make sure that the filling didn’t go all the way to the edge of the cake.

For one version of the cake we added butter to the frosting (you’ll see I’ve marked it as optional in the recipe). The butter made it possible to frost the cake later in the life of the frosting—that is, when the frosting was almost cool. It made the frosting a little less fudgy, however. This didn’t bother me, but Leigh was disappointed.

You may ice your cake either way. Frankly, delicious as both versions were, I don’t want to see another chocolate cake for a long time. It’s all yours now, dear readers……

Washington Capitals Puck Cake

For the Cake:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter, at room temperature
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 squares (1 ounce each) baking chocolate
3/4 cup hot water
2 cups flour
1/2 cup milk

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream together the butter and the sugar. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, followed by the baking powder and soda.

Melt the chocolate in the hot water. Add the flour to the mixture alternately with the milk. Stir in the chocolate and hot water. Pour into 2 greased and floured 9-inch layer pans (you may use 8-inch pans, but 9-inch pans look more puck like), and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Let the cakes cool for 15 minutes on a wire rack before removing them from the pans. Allow them to cool completely before frosting.

For the Filling:

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 7-ounce jar marshmallow cream

Instructions:

Beat together the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Fold in the marshmallow cream.

For the Frosting:

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
4 squares (1 ounce each) baking chocolate
2 eggs
6 tablespoons milk
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) sweet butter (optional)
2 teaspoons vanilla

Instructions:

Place the sugar, chocolate, eggs, milk, and butter (if you are using it) in a saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, and boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove the pan from the heat, and stir in the vanilla.

Cool the mixture for about 15 minutes. (If you use the butter, you may wait an hour before you use the frosting.)

For Assembly:

Ingredients:

2 layers of cake
filling
icing (you may have a little of this leftover, or you may skip the filling and use the icing between layers)
additional colored icing of your choice for decorating the puck

Instructions:

Bake the cake and allow it to cool completely. Assemble the filling, and spread it on the bottom layer of the cake. Do not go quite all the way to the edge of the cake. Refrigerate both layers, separately, lightly covered with foil to keep them from drying out.

Make the frosting. When it has cooled sufficiently to be usable assemble the cake layers and quickly but firmly spoon and spread the icing over the cake. Return the cake to the refrigerator until ready to decorate.

Decorate just before serving. Serves at least 10.

Here are a couple of our experiments......

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Let Them Eat Birthday Cake (Part I): 1-2-3-4 Cupcakes

I think I can speak for the entire Weisblat family when I say that we have had enough cake in the past week or so to last for several months.

My nephew Michael turned ten on Thursday. Naturally, a birthday cake was in order.

We ended up making a number of cakes—two identical cakes for his official party the previous weekend (he had invited quite a number of guests), a similar cake for the actual birthday, and cupcakes for his classmates at school.

None of them was hard to make individually—but en masse they pretty much exhausted us.

I do not want to talk about calories here. I will say that we have bought and used a HUGE amount of butter, eggs, flour, and sugar of late. Luckily, the birthday boy and his friends ate most of the cake(s)—and they were very happy indeed.

I’m starting with the cupcake recipe because, frankly, I’m not sure I can write with equanimity yet about the main event—a chocolate, marshmallow-filled cake in the shape of a Washington Capitals hockey puck!

The cupcakes were made with one of my very favorite cake recipes—a simple yellow cake that takes less work than a mix (well, almost). It’s the Platonic ideal of a yellow cake.

This old-fashioned combination is called “1-2-3-4” because it takes a cup of butter, 2 cups of sugar, 3 cups of flour, and four eggs.

If you want only 24 cupcakes (or a 9-by-13 sheet or 2 8-inch rounds), you may reduce the recipe by a quarter to 2-1/2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 3/4 cup butter, and so forth. Be sure to adjust baking times if you change pan sizes. You can probably get 3 8-inch rounds with this version, if you want a high and lovely cake!

Since my family is into excess we piled sprinkles on top of the cupcakes—red and blue for the Washington Capitals, of course (we already had white icing).

The birthday boy took cupcake decoration seriously.

1-2-3-4 Birthday Cupcakes

Ingredients:

3 cups flour
2-2/3 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) sweet butter at room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1-1/3 cups milk

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 32 cupcake tins with liners.

In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until they are light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the vanilla, and beat again.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Pour the batter into your cupcake tins.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the cakes pass the toothpick test. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and let cool. Ice with snappy butter icing (see below). Makes 32 cupcakes.

Snappy Butter Icing for 1-2-3-4 Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups (3 sticks!) sweet butter at room temperature
confectioner’s sugar as needed (I think we used a little less than a pound)
2 teaspoons vanilla

Instructions:

Cream the butter and add confectioner’s sugar a little at a time until the icing is tasty and spreadable. Beat in the vanilla. Ice your cupcakes, and throw on some birthday sprinkles if you want to. Ices 32 cupcakes generously.

Grandmother Jan went to town with the sprinkles.

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Run of the Mill Guacamole (But How I Love That Mill!)

It’s Cinco de Mayo, and I’m making guacamole.

My guacamole isn’t original or trendy. But it’s really, really good. It tastes as fresh as can be. And really what more do you need in guacamole?

It’s a dish the boys in my family enjoy making—and eating.

I’m sure most readers know this, but in case jalapeño novices are lurking out there I offer a little warning:

BE CAREFUL while chopping the jalapeño. Wear gloves if you can; otherwise, just wash your hands as quickly as you can afterward, and be careful not to touch anything that could encounter any part of your body while chopping. These peppers can sting!

Tinky's Guacamole

Ingredients:

3 scallions (green onions), white and some green parts, chopped (I’ve also been known to use about 2 tablespoons of finely chopped red onion)
1 large garlic clove, peeled and minced
1 small jalapeño pepper (more if you like spicy foods!), with the stem and seeds removed, finely chopped
1 small ripe tomato (optional—only use it if in season), cored and chunked
5 sprigs fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
the juice of 2 limes
3 small, ripe avocados
1 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

In a 1-quart bowl, combine the scallions, garlic, pepper pieces, tomato (if desired), cilantro, and lime juice.

At this point, you may leave the mixture for a few hours. About 15 minutes before you want to eat the guacamole, get out your avocados. Slice them in half lengthwise, stopping at the pits.

Separate the avocado halves from the pits, and use a spoon or fork to scoop out the flesh of the avocado. (If there is brown flesh, don’t use it; aim for the light green stuff.) Put the flesh in the bowl with the onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, and lime juice.

Mash the avocados into the mixture with a fork, adding the salt as you mash so that it is stirred in. You don’t have to mash them too much; a few chunks add to the flavor.

Place the guacamole in a decorative bowl, and serve it with tortilla chips (homemade are the best, but they’re also the most fattening!).

Serves 6 to 8.

From left to right: Alan, Michael, and David mash avocados into guacamole.

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Slightly Spicy Super Popcorn

From left to right: Jackson, Michael, and Benjamin at the stove

I’m getting ready for Game Day.

I’m not a football person; I’ve never actually understood the appeal of this particular sport. I get tennis. I get baseball. I get hockey. I even get golf (a good excuse for walking). I especially get bridge. But guys running up and down the field in those huge pads and jumping on each other…?

Nevertheless, as a lover of popular culture I view the NFL’s big display every year. I can’t resist the spectacle of it all—the halftime show, the brand-new ads, the excited if broke fans (the prices on those tickets are scary!).

I even watch most of the game itself although I try not to listen to the “experts” as they blather on and on about it.

I don’t plan a huge menu for Super Bowl Sunday, but I do like to make something special in honor of this annual sports fest. I originally thought of making nachos for Sunday. I love nachos: they’re salty and fatty and satisfying and versatile (you can put just about anything you have in the house into them!).

After looking at the elegant, creative nachos in Wednesday’s Washington Post, however, I abandoned the nacho plan. I didn’t need the shame: my nachos were going to be pedestrian in contrast. And actually my family didn’t need the calories.

Instead I decided to spice up a little popcorn. I love popcorn almost as much as I love nachos. It’s flavorful. It’s cheap. And it can be made with relatively little fat (although I draw the line at air popping; the kernels need SOME fat).

My nephew Michael had a snow day from school on Wednesday so I enlisted him and his friends Benjamin and Jackson to help pop the corn.

Popcorn is a great project for kids as long as they are careful (which our boys were) and adults are supervising. (I know you can’t see us in the pictures, but there were three of us in the room!)

I decided to work with Indian spices. The first batch of popcorn we tried went a little overboard in the spice department: we threw in cumin, turmeric, garam masala, curry powder, paprika, and red pepper flakes as well as salt.

Michael ate one handful and went running through the house shouting “Water! Water!” The other two boys just kept their distance and laughed.

I tried it myself and found it spicy (although not overly so) and a little too busy in terms of flavors.

The second batch used the combination of flavors below. Its subcontinental flavor was subtle rather than “in your face”—perfect for young (or timid) football fans. It should complement rather than overwhelm any other munchies we consume as we watch the Saints and the Colts battle it out.

Enjoy the popcorn—and the halftime show—and the commercials. If you must, even enjoy the game!


Tinky’s Indian Corn

Here are a few hints before I start:

Check with your guests about allergies before you make your popcorn. Peanut oil is ideal for popping the corn, but canola will do if someone has a peanut allergy.

Popcorn pops best in a cheap, not-too-thick pan. Put away the Le Creuset and the All-Clad if you’re lucky enough to have them and get out an old aluminum pot. By the time the fancy pots heat up the popcorn will burn. A wok with a lid works very nicely.

The lid should be on your pot (so the popcorn doesn’t pop right out and hit you) but the pot should have a little room to breathe. Keep the lid slightly ajar so that steam can escape. Place one hand on the lid as you shake the pot with the other hand so the lid will stay in position.

To make your own popcorn salt (I got this hint from watching Alton Brown: thanks, Mr. Brown!) put kosher salt in a small food processor and pulse it 10 to 12 times.

Ingredients:

enough peanut or canola oil to line the bottom of your pot (3 to 4 tablespoons)
1/2 teaspoon popcorn salt (a tiny bit more if you must)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 cup popping corn
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon curry powder

Instructions:

Place the oil, the salt, the cumin seeds, and 1 kernel of popcorn in your pot and stir to combine. Put the pot over fairly high heat (see above remark about the lid) and start moving the pot gently back and forth over the burner.

When the initial popcorn kernel pops add the remaining popcorn, the turmeric, and the curry powder. Stir to combine and return the pot to the heat. Continue shaking. In a little while you will be rewarded with the sound of popping corn.

Listen carefully. (This was the hardest part of the whole recipe for the boys, who have the enthusiasm of youth and like to talk loudly through most activities.)

When the popping subsides enough so that you hear a pop only every few seconds remove the pot from the heat and pour the popcorn into a bowl.

Serve the popcorn immediately or cool the popcorn and then store it in a sealed plastic bag for up to a week.

Makes just under 2 quarts.

BY THE WAY, if you're looking for additional Super Bowl ideas, here are a few suitable posts:

Mexican Chicken Pizza

Apple-Sage Cheese Spread

BOLTs (in honor of the COLTs)

Red Beans & Rice (in honor of the Saints)

Amy's Super Chili

Fabulous Fudgy Brownies

(Courtesy of ebay--I can't afford the darn things myself!)

Popovers and a Story for Groundhog Day

We have made it to winter’s midpoint! Poised between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, February 2 is Candlemas. This ancient holiday celebrates the longer and brighter hours of daylight we now notice and enjoy.

Traditional foods for Candlemas usually contain grain of some sort, in celebration of the stirrings of crops deep beneath the still frozen ground. These foods are also often round and golden to mimic the sun.

Last night my family and I enjoyed a winter treat that nicely embodies those criteria—popovers. SOMEWHERE I have my grandmother’s recipe for cheese popovers; I recall that she gently folded 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese into her popovers. We had these at Christmas, and they were lovely.

I couldn’t find that recipe this week so instead I used the basic popover formula shared by most cookbooks I have on my shelf, a proportion of 1 cup of of milk and 1 of flour to 2 eggs.

Instead of folding the cheese in, I tried sprinkling a bit of cheddar on top of the popover batter. Alas, it fell in a bit, making little holes in most of my popovers. They were still awfully tasty, however, so I wasn’t upset.

The recipe appears below. Before we get to it, however, here is a story that celebrates another name for February 2, Groundhog Day. As you know, on this day the groundhog is alleged to wake up from hibernation and peer out of its den to look for its shadow.

If the shadow is visible (that is, if the day is sunny), winter will last another six weeks. If not, spring will come early.

Where I live in Massachusetts we are ALWAYS guaranteed another six weeks of winter (at least!) on February 2. The holiday retains its appeal, however, and my nephew Michael certainly enjoyed writing about it.

He also enjoyed eating the popovers.


THE PROBLEM
by Michael Weisblat

This is a story of how two groundhogs get mad at each other, fight each other, and fix their problem.

One day in a hole two groundhogs are so peaceful and happy. Their names are Michael and Collin.

Collin said, “It’s almost Groundhog Day. Who will go up?”

Michael answered, “Me. I want to go up!”

Collin said, “No, I want to go up!”

They both started to argue about who would go first. Then Michael had an idea. “Let’s make the hole of our house wider. Then we could pop out at the same time.”

So that’s what they did. They lived happily ever after.

THE END

P.S. They did not see their shadow.

Whether or not you see your shadow today, I hope you enjoy this recipe. Happy Groundhog Day (and Candlemas)………


Cheese Popovers

Ingredients:

1 cup milk at room temperature
2 eggs at room temperature
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese (use a little more if you wish, but don’t overdo!)

Instructions:

In a bowl vigorously whisk together the milk, eggs, and melted butter. Stir in the flour, salt, and pepper. If you wish to add the cheese now, do so gently. Let the mixture sit for 1/2 hour.

While the batter is resting preheat the oven to 450 degrees and lightly butter the insides of 9 muffin tins. When the oven has preheated place the tins on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven for a minute or two to preheat.

Take the sheet out and quickly fill the muffin tins with the batter. If you have not yet added the cheese, put a small amount in the center of each muffin tin. If you are using a set of 12 muffin tins, be sure to pour a little water in the empty tins to keep them from burning.

Put the filled muffin tins back in the oven and bake the popovers for 10 minutes. Turn the oven down to 350 degrees and bake the popovers until they are brown and firm and nicely puffed up—15 to 20 minutes.

Do NOT open the oven door to look at the popovers until 15 minutes have passed—unless of course you smell something burning horribly! (This should NOT happen unless your oven thermostat is way off.) If you do, your popovers won’t pop over.

Remove the popovers from the oven and serve immediately. Makes 9 popovers.

Let’s All BOLT….

Michael eyes a bolt.

In general I’m not a big fan of sandwiches—mostly because I spend so much of my life avoiding carbohydrates. Carbs are pretty much de rigueur in a sandwich. In fact, I just learned that a Boston court ruled in 2006 that a sandwich involves two pieces of bread not only by definition but BY LAW.

Nevertheless, this has been a crazy summer, and sandwiches have prevailed in our household despite my normal carbophobia. This trend has been exacerbated by the proximity of my nine-year-old nephew Michael, who is staying with his parents down the street.

Michael can eat a sandwich at any meal (or even as a between-meal snack). Sometime soon I’ll go back to salads and soups, or I’ll end up as big as a house. In the meantime I’m joining Michael in his sandwich consumption and enjoying myself.

Sandwiches historically served as a convenience since they did away with the need for dishes and flatware and were quick to prepare. To some extent they still appeal because of their simplicity. When Michael comes in from swimming it’s easy to slice a little bread; find some meat, veggies, and/or cheese; and call the resulting combination lunch or supper. (I confess: once in a while it’s breakfast, too.)

Sandwiches are a terrific way to let seasonal produce star. Michael’s very favorite sandwich is one we make only at this time of year—the BLT. There just isn’t any point in combining bacon, lettuce, and tomato unless farm-fresh tomatoes are in season; winter imports need not apply.

If you have a favorite summer sandwich, please let me know what it is by commenting below. Meanwhile, I’m sharing recipes and photos from a recent BLT night at our home. My mother, sister-in-law Leigh, and Michael helped me start sandwich bread. My friend (and former cooking student!) Chas Fox stopped by just in time to help knead.

When it was time to eat, Chas’s son Matt helped make mayonnaise for the sandwiches. The bacon was the thick-cut variety from Avery’s Store in Charlemont, Massachusetts. The lettuce came from Chas’s garden, and we bought the tomatoes at our newest local farm stand, Hager’s Farm Market in Shelburne. (We don’t have fresh tomatoes in our gardens in the hills yet.)

At the last minute Chas observed that a little thinly sliced red onion might make a nice addition to the sandwiches—and so the BOLT was born. I highly recommend it.

If you’re serving vegetarians, substitute extra-sharp cheddar cheese for the bacon in your sandwiches. You’ll have a COLT.

Our BOLT evening was delightful. Jack from across the street (minus his Betsy, who was toiling in the big city) brought a bottle of red wine. We sat on the porch with a few fairy lights and excellent company for illumination. New and old stories were told, and many sandwiches were consumed.

Family, friends, and simple food are an unbeatable combination–in summer or any other season.

Chas kneads.

BOLTs

Obviously, you may make your BLTs or BOLTs with store-bought bread and commercial mayonnaise. They are divine with homemade products, however, so that’s what I used.

Ingredients:

homemade bread as needed (see recipe below)
homemade mayonnaise, with or without basil (see recipe below)
lots of cooked, thickly sliced bacon
sliced ripe tomatoes (don’t even bother if they’re not fresh)
thinly sliced red onion (just a few slices per sandwich: less is definitely more in this case!)

Instructions:

Toast the bread if you want to. (Many BLT connoisseurs insist on this, although homemade bread is pretty fabulous untoasted.) Assemble sandwiches as generously as you like. Watch your guests smile.

White Bread for BOLTs
(or any other sandwich)

This recipe is adapted from King Arthur Flour’s basic sandwich loaf. That bread is excellent all by itself, and I highly recommend it. I wanted to make two loaves instead of the one it provides, however, since I tend to serve a lot of people at this time of year. And I cut back just a bit on the butter and sugar.

The amounts of those below still make a loaf that is rich, sweet, and easy to cut. In wet weather (and we’ve had no other kind lately) it takes quite a while to rise. It is worth the wait.

Ingredients:

1 packet active dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup milk
1 cup hot tap water
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
6 cups flour (all-purpose and/or bread; you may also add a bit of white whole wheat here for extra whole-grain goodness), plus a bit more for kneading
2 teaspoons salt

Instructions:

First, proof the yeast in the lukewarm water in a small bowl, along with 1 tablespoon of sugar. This will take about 5 minutes.

Combine the milk, hot water, and warm melted butter. In a large separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, and remaining sugar. Briskly stir in the dissolved yeast and the liquids.

Place the dough on a lightly greased or floured surface, put a little oil on your hands, and knead the dough for 8 minutes, until it feels just right. You may add a little more flour as you knead, but try not to add too much.

Transfer the dough to a greased bowl and cover it with a damp towel. Let it rise until it puffs up and just about doubles in bulk. This may take as little as an hour—but in our recent extremely damp weather it has been taking a lot longer in my kitchen!

Butter two loaf pans. Gently deflate the dough with your hands, and cut it in two with a serrated knife. Place each half in turn on an oiled board, and shape it into an 8-inch log. Place the logs in your loaf pans, and cover them loosely with lightly greased plastic wrap. Allow them to rise to a nice height. (Mine didn’t soar too high because of the humidity, but eventually they did rise respectably.)

Bake the loaves in a preheated 350-degree oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until they are a light golden brown. I like to remove them from the pans for the last 5 minutes or so and let the crust crisp up a tiny bit in the oven. Makes 2 loaves.

Mayo in the Making

Homemade Mayonnaise

Life is full of risks. I say this to remind readers that eating raw eggs ALWAYS carries a very small risk of salmonella. If you or your guests worry about this problem, there are a couple of things you can do.

First, you can buy pasteurized eggs. The disadvantage here is that you can’t use fresh local eggs, which I always prefer. (I like to buy them from my neighbors who have chickens!)

You can also try to pasteurize your own eggs. I have found several web sites that list ways in which you can semi-cook your eggs and/or yolks. I haven’t actually tried them but provide a link or two for your reading. Some involve the microwave; others, cooking the eggs with a little liquid for a few minutes or even by themselves. I think I may try one of the non-microwave techniques next time. On the evening of our party I used raw yolks, and luckily everyone is still alive.

ANYWAY, on to the recipe. If you’re worried, skip it and use commercial mayonnaise. The homemade stuff awfully good, however. It’s easiest to make with two people—one to add the oil and one to whisk.

Ingredients:

1 fresh egg yolk at room temperature (I keep it refrigerated until almost the last minute to minimize risk of illness and then plunge it into very warm water for a couple of minutes to bring it to the right temperature)
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
3/4 cup canola oil
a tablespoon or two of boiling water if needed
finely chopped herbs (optional; basil is nice in the BOLTs)

Instructions:

Place the egg yolk, mustard, salt, cayenne, and lemon juice in a clean bowl, and combine them thoroughly with a whisk. Whisk in the oil a drop at a time. As the sauce begins to thicken, you may add slightly larger drops, but don’t get carried away; this is a slow process.

If the sauce becomes too thick or starts to curdle, whisk in a small amount of boiling water. When the mayonnaise is nice and thick, add the herbs if desired and serve. Leftover mayo may be kept in the refrigerator for a few days. Makes about 1 cup.

Matt and Truffle needed to relax after making mayonnaise--and eating BOLTs.

A Sweet Sandwich

July is National Ice Cream month—and my nephew Michael pointed out to me recently that I haven’t posted a single ice cream recipe in the past 31 days. With August on the horizon, I am rushing to rectify this shocking omission.

I recently put out a call for summer sandwich suggestions on Facebook and Twitter. Most of the responses involved tomatoes. After all, at this time of year none of us can get enough of those lush red fruits disguised as vegetables. I’ll post a couple of tomato sandwich recipes soon, I promise.

One warm day, my honorary cousin Deb Parker bucked the tomato trend by reminding me of one my (and Michael’s) favorite summertime treats, the ice cream sandwich!

So I set about creating one. I wanted a cookie base that would hold up fairly well without being hard. I settled on the infamous Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe. As most people know, this recipe (which is also occasionally said to originate with Mrs. Fields) is passed around the internet with a supposedly true story about a friend of a friend. (I ALWAYS suspect those stories!)

The woman is said to have enjoyed eating the cookie at a Neiman Marcus café and to have asked for the recipe. According to the story, the waitress says that she will have to charge the customer “two fifty” for the recipe, and the woman happily agrees. When her NM bill comes she finds a charge for $250 rather than the $2.50 she has been expecting—and she vows to take revenge on the high-end department store by passing the recipe along to everyone she knows. Before the internet the story and recipe were spread via letters; now they make the rounds by email.

The Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookie story is a classic if fun urban legend, one that Neiman Marcus has finally acknowledged by inventing its own cookie recipe and placing it on the NM web site (for free, natch). That recipe looks good, but I wanted the chewiness that oatmeal lends to the “original” recipe. So that’s what I’ve used, cutting it down a bit since it makes a ton of cookies.

Here, then, is my ice-cream sandwich recipe, thanks to whoever made up the faux NM recipe years and years ago.

You may of course use homemade ice cream. I used Snow’s, a local brand that is creamy and old fashioned–just right for an ice cream sandwich. The sandwiches were wonderful, although next time I might try to make the cookies smaller and flatter. They were extremely filling this way.

Tinky Marcus Ice Cream Sandwiches

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
1-1/4 cups blended oatmeal (oatmeal pulverized to a powder in your blender)
1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, pulverized to a powder (optional)
1 cup chocolate chips
2 ounces milk chocolate, chopped into small chunks (Hershey’s will do!)
6 scoops vanilla ice cream

Instructions:

First, make the cookies. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cream together the butter and sugars. Beat in the egg, followed by the baking powder and salt. Stir in the flour, oatmeal powder, and nuts (if desired). Stir in the chocolate chips and chunks.

Divide the dough into 12 good-sized balls. Place them on parchment- or silicone-covered cookie sheets and bake for 12 to 14 minutes. Let them cool on the sheets for 2 minutes; then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

When you are ready to eat, place a scoop of ice cream between 2 cookies and press them together. Repeat with the remaining cookies. Serves 6 generously.

Community Easter Bread

Leigh watches Michael and Benjamin place their eggs in the bread.

Easter just wouldn’t be Easter without the Easter egg.

This symbol of spring represents fertility, youth, and new beginnings—all the hopes that suddenly arise in our breasts when the sun rises higher and earlier again in the spring.

This braided loaf is made more festive (and more seasonal) by the inclusion of eggs in its folds. Plain eggs work just fine, but I always welcome an excuse to get kids coloring things so I asked my nephew Michael and his friends Benjamin and Carson to dye some eggs for my loaf.

Carson rolls an egg in dye.

I got extra help from my sister-in-law Leigh, who is MUCH better at braiding bread than I am.

So my Easter bread is a community event. I hope yours will be, too!

Leigh braids the rolls of bread.

Ingredients:

2/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons sweet butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 packet yeast
2-1/2 cups flour (approximately)
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs for the batter4 to 5 eggs in their shells for the braiding (dyed if you like)

Instructions:

In a small saucepan heat the milk and butter just to lukewarm; the butter will be soft but not melted.

In a medium bowl combine 1 teaspoon of the sugar and the yeast. Pour the milk/butter mixture over them, and leave the yeast to proof for 5 to 10 minutes.

Beat in 1/2 cup flour, the remaining sugar, the salt, and the 2 eggs; mix well. Add 1-1/2 cups more flour, and stir.

Turn the dough out onto a floured board. Knead it for 1 to 2 minutes, adding a bit more flour as needed. Allow the dough to rest for 5 to 10 minutes; then continue kneading, adding more flour as needed, until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Grease a medium bowl, and place the dough in it. Cover with a damp towel, and allow the dough to rise until it doubles in bulk, about 1 hour.

Uncover the dough, punch it down, and divide it into 2 mounds. Let them rest for 5 to 10 minutes. Stretch each mound into a roll at least 24 inches long.

Form a rounded braid with the two rolls, sealing them at the ends. Place the bread on a greased (or parchment-covered) baking sheet. Insert the eggs in their shells into spots in the braid. (If you wait to do this until the bread has risen again, the eggs will pop out of the bread; this happened to us!)

Cover the braid with a damp dish towel, and let it rise until it doubles, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees about 15 minutes before you want to bake the bread.

Bake the braided bread until it is a golden brown, between 35 and 55 minutes depending on your oven. Makes 1 loaf (well, one round; I’m not sure whether this shape should be called a loaf!).

A King Cake for Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras is a time of taking chances—so I decided to try once more to make a King Cake. Readers of this blog may recall that I tried making one at Epiphany and was less than thrilled with the result. My mother taught me to persevere, however, and luckily King Cakes are eaten in Louisiana from Epiphany straight through to the beginning of Lent. I sifted through many different recipes identifying the cake elements that most appealed to me and went to work.

I’m actually very happy with my new cake, although the filling gushed into the middle so I didn’t end up with the classic ring. Mine was more of a round blob. Nevertheless, it puffed up beautifully and tasted like a sweet, creamy coffee cake.

Like the previous King Cake, it concealed a quarter (more authentic bakers would use a bean or a toy Baby Jesus) within its yeasty folds. The person who found the quarter in his or her cake was crowned King or Queen for the Day.

So—from my house to yours—here is a King Cake recipe. The biggest trick is to take your time; since it uses yeast this cake can’t be rushed. It’s a big cake so you’ll help your sanity and your waistline if you have young eaters in the house. Feel free to cheat a little and ensure that one of them gets to wear the crown! As you can see from the picture below that’s what we did at our house.

(Don’t tell Michael!)

Le Roi du Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras King Cake

Ingredients:

for the cake:

2 packets yeast (do not use instant)
2 teaspoons sugar plus 1/2 cup sugar later
4 to 5 cups flour
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
the zest from 1 lemon (save the lemon to make juice for the glaze)
1/2 cup lukewarm milk
5 egg yolks (you will not need the whites)
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) sweet butter at room temperature

for the filling:

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, at room temperature
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon flour

for the glaze:

2 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
the juice of 1 lemon
a little water if needed
food coloring as needed

Instructions:

Place the yeast and the 2 teaspoons sugar in a small bowl. Cover them with lukewarm water, and allow the yeast to proof for 10 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl combine 3-1/2 cups of the flour, 1/2 cup sugar, the nutmeg, the salt, and the lemon zest. Stir them together thoroughly (I like to use a whisk for this).

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and pour in the yeast mixture and warm milk. Stir in the egg yolks, and combine the mixture thoroughly.

When the batter is smooth, beat in the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time. (This takes a little while but eventually works.) Place the dough on a floured board, and knead it, adding more flour as needed. Your dough may end up slightly sticky but should not stick to the board.

Knead the dough until it feels smooth; then knead it for 10 minutes more. Don’t be discouraged. This kneading is what gives the final product its wonderful puffiness.

Place the dough in a buttered bowl, cover it with a damp cloth, and allow it to rise until it doubles in bulk. This will take at least 1-1/2 hours and perhaps more.

When the dough has risen, punch it down. Using your fingers, pat and stretch the dough to shape it into a long, short rectangle, at least 24 inches long and 6 to 8 inches wide. Let the dough rest while you beat together the ingredients for the filling.

If you want to, place a quarter or a bean in the middle of the dough. Gently spoon the filling down the center of the strip of dough. Fold the edges up over the filling to form a cylinder that encases the dough. Pinch the edges together to seal the filling as well as you can. Your seams don’t have to be perfect; they will be hidden by the glaze.

Pinch the ends of the cylinder together to form a ring, and place it on a silicone- or parchment-covered baking sheet. Let it rise, covered, until it becomes puffy, about an hour. Preheat the oven to 375.

Bake the King Cake for 25 to 35 minutes, until it is golden brown. Remove it from the oven, and allow it to cool completely.

For the glaze: beat together the sugar, vanilla, and lemon juice, adding a bit of water if needed to make the glaze thick yet pourable. Divide the glaze in three, and color the three glazes purple, green, and gold. Drizzle them artistically over your cake.

Serves at least 12.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Creole Potato Salad

Next Tuesday is no ordinary Tuesday. It marks the holiday of Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), also known as Shrove Tuesday and Carnival. The day before the beginning of Lent was officially added to the Catholic calendar in 1582 by Pope Gregory XII. The good times have been rolling ever since.

Mardi Gras is a day of excess. Diets are broken. Jazz is trumpeted through the streets. Costumes are worn. In New Orleans the day is the highlight of the year. The Louisiana-based company Zatarain’s (manufacturer of my favorite Creole seasoning) is working on a petition to ask Congress to make Mardi Gras a national holiday. This campaign may just work: ever since Hurricane Katrina many Americans have felt a special kinship Louisiana and its residents.

I obtained this recipe from the helpful people at Zatarain’s. The colors of Mardi Gras are purple, green, and gold so I made the recipe more festive by using baby purple and gold potatoes. I threw in a bit of the tops of the scallions to give the salad a touch of green. The salad is refreshing and not too heavy, with a little zing; the Creole mustard has extra vinegar so there’s no need to add that to the mixture.

Ingredients:

3 pounds baby potatoes (you may use red if you don’t have purple and gold)
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup Creole mustard (Zatarain’s makes this, of course!)
1/3 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon Creole seasoning (again from Zatarain’s; I used a bit more because I love this seasoning)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1-1/2 cups diced tomatoes
1/2 cup crumbled bacon (optional but delicious)
2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onions (scallions)

Instructions:

Boil the potatoes in lightly salted water until they are fork tender but not soggy. Drain and quarter them.

In a bowl, combine the mayonnaise, mustard, sour cream, Creole seasoning, and sugar. Add the warm potatoes, and toss to coat them with the dressing. Add the tomatoes, bacon (if desired), and scallions, and toss lightly.

Cover the salad, and refrigerate it for at least to hours to let the flavors blend. Serves 12.

Getting Ready for Mardi Gras: Anna, Gaby, and Michael don masks and beads.

Happy Birthday, Miss Anthony!

Susan B. Anthony (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

February is chock full of holidays and commemorative days. My second grade class staged a presentation in which our teacher, Miss Asman, asked each of us to represent one of these days. I was assigned a few words about Charles Dickens, who was born on February 7, 1812.

A ham even at that early age, I made the most of my role. Nevertheless, I was secretly jealous of the person who talked about Susan B. Anthony, born on February 15, 1820. I had read a book about Miss Anthony’s life and her participation in the struggle for women’s rights. I thought she was an inspiring person to talk about. I still do.

Born near Adams, Massachusetts (not far from my home in Hawley), Susan B. Anthony was brought up Quaker. Well educated and articulate, she became active in abolitionism and the temperance movement. In her early 30s she found her true calling as one of the strongest voices this country has ever heard arguing for women’s rights and suffrage.

Along with her friend and colleague Elizabeth Cady Stanton she formed the National Woman Suffrage Association. She also wrote and lectured extensively. She actually cast a vote in 1872, although she was arrested and tried for violating the law. She responded to her sentence with an eloquent speech in which she said, “It was we, the people, not we the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the union.”

Susan B. Anthony died 14 years before women achieved the right to vote. She is nonetheless remembered as a pioneer in that effort and as a remarkable person, both an indefatigable warrior and the beloved “Aunt Susan” of younger feminists. Just before her death in 1906 she gave her final speech, which ended with the rallying cry, “Failure is impossible.”

Last week my friend Peter suggested that as a food writer I should pay culinary tribute to Miss Anthony’s birthday. I called the Susan B. Anthony House in Rochester, New York, and asked whether the people who worked there had any idea what she liked to eat. To my delight I was informed that they had just been discussing this topic. Sue Gaffney kindly sent me the text of a letter draft from 1898 in which Miss Anthony was responding to a group of college juniors who wanted the recipe for her favorite cake.

Miss Anthony couldn’t find the actual recipe. (It’s reassuring to know that someone of her stature could have trouble finding things since this is one of my own more frustrating habits.) Instead she gave her correspondents a sponge-cake outline:

Dear Junior Girls: My favorite cake is the old-fashioned sponge, made of eggs, the whites lashed to a stiff froth, the yolks beaten thoroughly with cups of pulverized sugar, a pinch of salt, a slight flavor of almond. Into these stir __ cups of flour – first a little flour, then a little of the white froth – and pour and pour the foaming batter into a dish with a bit of white buttered paper in the bottom. Clap into a rightly tempered oven as quickly as possible and take out exactly at the proper minute, when it is baked just enough to hold itself up to its highest and best estate. Then don’t cut, but break it carefully, and the golden sponge is fit for the gods . . .

Well, the dickens is to pay – I can not find the old cook book – so just put in any good sponge cake recipe for me, and then add: “It matters not how good the recipe or the ingredients may be, the cake will not be good unless there is a lot of common sense mixed in with the stir of the spoon.”

My helpers and I didn’t quite follow Miss Anthony’s formula, but we came close. We substituted vanilla for almond extract since one of the kids in the neighborhood is allergic to nuts. It seemed a little odd making a feminist’s birthday cake with boys, but I was impressed that these young males had actually heard of Miss Anthony (two of them had coins with her face on them). And after all part of feminism is part of making sure that the traditional “feminine” arts like baking are open to both genders. So I offer kudos to Michael Weisblat, Carson Carr, and Sam Duffett.

We topped our sponge cake off with a little raspberry sauce and whipped cream. It was indeed fit for the gods. I guess we must have blended a sufficiency of common sense into the bowl.

The Susan B. Anthony House is hosting a birthday luncheon on Wednesday, February 11. Journalist Lynn Sherr, author of Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words, will be the featured speaker. At the time of this posting tickets were still available on the house’s web site. If you can’t attend the celebration, feel free to make this cake at home.

From left to right: Sam, Michael, and Carson take turns lashing egg whites to a stiff froth.

Susan B. Anthony Sponge Cake

Ingredients:

5 eggs at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1 pinch salt
1 cup flour
raspberry jam or sauce for garnish (optional)
whipped cream for garnish (optional)

We ended up with ONE girl. Michael's friend Anna Capper stopped by in time to break off pieces of cake.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Cut a piece of wax paper to fit the bottom of a 9-inch tube pan.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat together the egg yolks and extract until they lighten. Gradually beat in half of the sugar.

Wash your beaters thoroughly. Beat the egg whites and salt until they form soft peaks. Gently and gradually beat in the remaining sugar. When the peaks are glossy and beginning to stiffen, remove the beaters from the bowl.

Fold a quarter of the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture. Pour the remaining egg whites on top, and sift the flour on top of them. Gently fold the flour and egg whites into the batter.

Delicately pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake until it is a golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Invert the cake over a cooling rack and let it cool completely before coaxing the cake out of the pan. This will probably involve running a knife delicately around the sides of the pan and the tube. Peel off the wax paper.

Gingerly break off pieces of the cake. Serve with or without jam and whipped cream. (With is better!) Serves 10.

Cooking with Sugar

My nephew Michael enjoys having my mother and me in the house. Although I’d like to attribute his joy to our adorable personalities, I’m afraid that the real lure is, in Michael’s words, “cooking with sugar.” We tend to make delicious sweet things for and with him, particularly during the Thanksgiving and Christmas season.

As far as I’m concerned, the sugar we cook with is really our boy. If you haven’t cooked with children lately, grab yours or go out and borrow one and head right into the kitchen. Kids remind us that sifting, kneading, and stirring can all be forms of play. Young cooks tend to make a bit of a mess in the kitchen, but grownups almost always end up smiling as they mop up. Moreover, the junior chefs are usually game to help erase the marks of their work in the kitchen, especially if bribed with a home-made treat.

Last Monday, Michael, his mom Leigh, my mother Jan, and I all got together to work on one of Michael’s cub-scout tasks, reading and following through on a recipe. Naturally, he chose to make something sweet–butterscotch brownies. This recipe is a great starter for kids because it takes only 15 to 20 minutes to get into the oven, and all of the prep work can be done in the saucepan with which you melt butter at the very beginning.

Michael proudly took the brownies to his scout meeting that evening. He did save one or two for home consumption, however.

Butterscotch Brownies

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter
1 pound light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon vanilla

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9-by-13-inch pan with aluminum foil, and grease the foil as well as you can (it’s a little awkward to work with).

In a 2-quart saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the butter, stirring frequently to keep it from burning. Remove it from the heat.

Using a wooden spoon, stir in the brown sugar, being careful to crush any lumps in the sugar. Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time, and then stir in the baking powder and salt. Stir in the flour, followed by the vanilla.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan (the batter will be thick so you’ll need a spatula), and bake the brownies for 25 to 30 minutes, or until they are ALMOST firm to the touch. Allow them to cool on a rack; then slice them into squares. Makes about 32 squares (depending on how big you cut them!).

More Cooking with Sugar: Nana's Birthday Cake