A Finger in Every Pie

Treading Water While Running in Place

There really is absolutely no excuse -- or at least no good excuse -- for the fact that after a solid week of vacation, I still haven't managed to put up a new post.  In the past several weeks, I've failed to post about:  this blog's second birthday, my birthday (although I'm slightly farther along than my second) and the various food-centered celebrations surrounding it.  Recently I've experienced events such as wonderful dinners at Prune, Gramercy Tavern, Periyali and Blue Smoke, a champagne tasting with friends which had astounding results, the recovery of a recipe/grail that was actually in my grasp all the time, and a remarkable reconnection with old family friends -- which happened via this blog, and resulted in my being able to re-experience a food memory that I had thought was lost to me forever.   To my credit, I can say that I've been trying to plan various nuptial events while holding down a demanding job and finishing a graduate certification, but when all's said and done, excuses are just excuses.  I have at least four posts in mind, and I am going to do my level best to get some if not all of them up here soon.  Please stay tuned. 

Madeleines Mendiants

"Those look like some sort of big Klingon insects or something," G commented as he passed the cooling rack on the way to his second cup of coffee.

I didn't take it personally.  Neither did the little cakes.  Nor did the Klingons, as far as I know.

Sometimes I like to get up early on a weekend morning and bake.  I feel like I'm stealing a march on the day, as if I've gotten something accomplished even before breakfast or Saturday morning dance class.  This weekend I had more motivation than usual -- three motivations, in fact.  I was headed to a party later on, and then to a dinner (another opportunity to meet with a remarkable blogger).  And a colleague's mother had passed away.  All of these are events that, to my mind, call for baked goods.  Something homemade, something delectable, preferably; something chocolate is almost always a good choice when bringing a party platter, a friendship token or comfort to the bereaved. 

I've been working on a nutty chocolate chunk madeleine for a while.  I first made them last spring for a dinner party, and had liked them very much.  But I never noted down my recipe, and it had gotten lost somewhere in my memory.  It was one of those "I'll base this on my tried-and-true madeleine formula, and add a little bit of this, a little bit of that..." 

I made another stab at it recently, and didn't like it quite as much as I'd remembered.  It was the pistachios.  Within the context of the melting almondy chocolatey little cakes, the pistachios were still flavorful but had turned a bit soft.  It must have been true last spring as well, since my experience is that when you bake nuts into a cake, even if you toast them first, they invariably soften in the moist crumb.  Madeleines, and other cakes, are simply not like a crisp little cookie, where nuts will almost always maintain  their crunch and snap.  On a confessional note, this frustrates me.  I have a hard time accepting it.  I want the soft cakey madeleines, and the crisp, crunchy nuts.  Together.

Why not bake the nuts on top of the madeleines, I thought.  And so I gave it a try.  For this run, I used a mixture of pecans, almonds and pistachios.  Considering the nutritional value of nuts, and the health-giving properties of dark chocolate, this would make my madeleines practically a health food.  Especially since the batter has a base of almond paste, which makes the flavor of these not unlike the lovely Chocolate Nut Loaf of Pierre Hermé.  Once I sprinkled the nuts and patted them lightly into the batter so they'd stick, I was struck by the resemblance to one of my favorite confections, the mendiant: a chocolate disk (or in some cases, a bar) studded with any combination of nuts and dried fruits that strikes the confectioner's fancy.  The word mendiant means beggar in French; the confections are originally named for mendicant monastic orders.

G has decided that he prefers the original pistachios-inside version, since he's not as wild about nuts as I am (you may construe this last sentence however you like).  For my little party platter, I mixed both kinds.   For those whom I'm quite sure are as nuts about nuts as I, I gave the nuttified version.  Personally I'm very fond of these madeleines mendiants, with their crunch-nutty tops (or feet, depending on how you look at them).   It's true that after a day under wraps, the nuts have softened a bit. They're still crunchier than when baked inside the cakes.  And I feel sure that if I go to a little trouble and heat the madeleines a bit before serving, they'll crisp up.  This will have the added benefit of giving the dark chocolate chunks inside the cakes a chance to become melty again.  Crunchy little cakes with soft interiors, running with melting chocolate, crisp with nuts -- something for those in distress, good to have at a party, and a warm gesture of friendship. 

And Klingon bugs or no, you may want to consider that they wouldn't make a bad Valentine at all...

Madeleines Mendiants au Chocolat

5 ounces bittersweet chocolate (85% cocoa solids works well here)
7 ounces almond paste, cut into small pieces
1 cup granulated sugar
5 eggs, room temperature
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup sifted unbleached all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
10 tablespoons(1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
7 ounces chopped bittersweet chocolate (something you like to eat; I used 70% for this purpose)
2 cups assorted nuts ( a mixture of coarsely chopped pecans, crisp pistachio halves, and slivered almonds, for example)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.  Brush madeleine molds with melted butter and dust lightly with flour, or spray lightly with baker's cooking spray.
2.  Melt the 5 ounces of chocolate over boiling water or in a microwave.  Allow to cool.
3.  Cream the almond paste and sugar in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Transfer to a large mixer bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the melted chocolate, and blend.  Add the vanilla extract and the salt and beat until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes.
4. Sift the flour and baking powder together and fold lightly into the almond-chocolate mixture. Gently fold in the melted butter just until combined. Stir in the chopped chocolate pieces. 
5. Spoon the batter into the molds, filling them three-fourths full. Sprinkle nuts to cover each madeleine, and pat them lightly onto the batter, so that they stick. 
6.  Bake just until they spring back in the center, 8 to 10 minutes.   Do not overbake.
7. Let cool for 5 minutes, and then gently remove to wire racks to cool completely. Allow the molds to cool before wiping clean and rebrushing with melted butter or cooking spray.
8.  Repeat the process with the remaining batter and nuts.

These madeleines keep very well for 4-5 days in an airtight container with waxed paper between layers.  They don't dry out as quickly as many others, due to the high proportion of almond paste.  They also freeze well wrapped in wax paper and sealed in airtight bags.  In both cases, it's advisable to refresh them slightly in a warm oven for several minutes. 

Approximately 48 large madeleines.

 

The Disaster That Wasn't

The flavors of the past can be deceptive.  Do the foods we try to recreate seem to fail us because they don't, in actuality, live up to the treats upon which we once feasted?  Or are they imbued with the savor of nostalgia, a flavoring essence that defies the possibility of true resurrection?   

Not long ago, I had an exchange with my brother in the comments field of a post on this very blog.  The subject was cakes we'd eaten in our childhood, including a chocolate studded ring-shaped cake, glazed in more chocolate and drenched in rum.  It was made by a small French bakery called Le Chanticler in the town of our youth.  This was not the other French bakery which also existed in the town, Le Gourmet.  That was the one where every mouthful was rich with butter.  No, Le Chanticler made bread, tough little cookies and had just a few workhorse specialties.   Their "rum ring" was the only one my mother purchased with any regularity.

I decided that I would try to reconstruct this delicacy for my brother's birthday.  I further decided that I would do it in time for the justly-celebrated David Lebovitz's edition of Sugar High Friday, using a brand-name chocolate.  This way I could do a test-run and repeat the cake the following weekend for the birthday celebration. 

I bought some lovely Green & Black's organic chocolate, and proceeded to construct a recipe.  My memory of the cake was that it was similar in texture to a savarin or a rum baba, so I found an excellent brioche-style dough for savarin in Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking, and made it up with quantities of chopped dark chocolate folded into the dough.  It rose beautifully, it baked gorgeously, and received its soaking of rum syrup as well as its glaze of dark chocolate. 

Then we sliced it and tasted it. 

G saw my disappointed face, and shrugged.  "I think it tastes good," declared my loyal fiancé.  It did taste reasonably good.  It just didn't taste like the cake of my memory.  Instead, it tasted like very good brioche with chocolate in it that had been drenched in rum syrup and glazed in chocolate.  It was, in fact, a little bit bready.  Kind of more bready than cakey.  The cake of my memory had had that sodden yet supple quality of a good baba au rhum.  My rummy chocolatey bready ring didn't quite cut it, as far as I was concerned. 

I wrapped it up, put it in the fridge and ignored it quite pointedly for several days.  Since I didn't serve him any, G promptly forgot about it as well.  I didn't post the photos I'd taken of it during its rising and after its baking, and I didn't write a post about it for Sugar High Friday.  I was too busy snubbing the sad rummy thing taking up space in my refrigerator.  And I was too disheartened to try another run in time for my brother's birthday, especially since I wasn't quite sure how to remedy the recipe.  [Instead, I ended up making the same cake I'd made for him last year -- *King of Chocolate* David Lebovitz's German Chocolate Cake, with a few of my own adaptations.  It had been such a success that I thought "well, once a year is certainly not too often for this cake."  It was received once again with much acclaim, including somewhat overblown statements like "This isn't just the best cake you've ever made -- it's the best cake anyone's ever made." ]

But the rum ring that refused to live up to expectations continued sitting coolly in the depths of the fridge.  Finally I decided to take it to work for an afternoon staff meeting.  Hungry high school teachers will eat anything, especially if it's sweet.  Surprisingly, it didn't just get eaten.  It got gobbled, amid declarations of love and avowals of fidelity to this cake/bread, if only I would ever make it again.  Breaching my own disdain, I cut myself a small slice.  To my surprise, although it still was not the rum ring of blessed memory, it was quite delicious.  Unlike most cakes and people, it had benefitted substantially from a combined process of neglect and aging. 

I will try the rum ring again at some point, I think.  I'll probably find another recipe -- something eggier, chewier, springier somehow.  I'll soak it in more rum syrup, and see once again if I can't recreate the Chanticler's special cake.   I'll just try to bear in mind that while cake may be replicable, memory -- experience -- nostalgia -- is not.