A Finger in Every Pie

Sweets Don't Fail Me Now

Have you ever felt that you had absolutely no business cooking at all?  You've planned something because you've offered or been asked to bring a dish (usually dessert, since they all know you bake, you retro little throwback, you)  to the party or picnic or soirée or barbecue, and then events conspire to make you feel that cooking is not only the last thing you want to do, but the last thing you should do.  And yet, there you are.  You've said you'll show up with dessert, and the expectation of your hosts is simply not going to be met by a bakery box tied with string, no matter how chic the patisserie from whence it comes.

But you should have nothing to do anywhere near a kitchen, because you're just not in the mood, and poison is as likely to drip from your spoon as manna.  You're already in the midst of two enormous life-crises and one slightly smaller although still rather daunting one, and then you get an ominous phone message, leading you to believe that crisis number four is well on the way.  And still, it's Memorial Day weekend and they're expecting you at the barbecue.  With dessert. 

I think about that passage from Bill Buford's book Heat, where he describes the critiquing that goes on the kitchen of Babbo.  "Was it cooked with love?" Mario asks the other chefs about a dish that he deems somewhat doubtful.  And this is one of the central criteria for whether or not the dish can pass through to the dining room.  This passage alone makes me want to RUN book a table at Babbo (where we still have not yet managed a meal), but it certainly does not make me want to run to the kitchen when  I just ain't feelin' the love. 

So, for those moments, you must simply give in and give thanks for people like Dorie Greenspan, whose unbelievably chocolatey cookies and fabulous sweet tart crust will not fail you.   I give you these two things, one much-blogged about, one slightly less so, either of which will make life delicious no matter what state you're in.  Trust me, I made them yesterday and barely paid any attention to what I was doing, since I was very busy having angry, bitter conversations in my head while mixing dough.  Not usually a formula for culinary success, but these things turned out just swell. 

Above are the often-blogged World Peace Cookies, invented by the brilliant Pierre Hermé and popularized by the no-less-brilliant Dorie Greenspan.  These cookies are so transcendently wonderful and yet so incredibly simple that you could probably make them with one hand while annihilating everyone who's conspiring to screw up your life with the other.  And they lend themselves to multiplication, in a good way.  I tripled the batch and stuck several nice slice 'n' bake logs in the freezer, just in case things don't get any better around here and I still need to bring dessert somewhere later in the summer.  Or in case I just need chocolate, which I'm sure I will if my appetite ever recovers.  My appetite, that is, for anything other than fantasizing about the ritual executions of a whole cast of characters who shall go nameless, at least for the moment. 

Ahem.  Yes.  As much fun as those little tangents about serial slaughter are, I know you just want me to go back in the kitchen.  Dorie's recipe for sweet tart crust truly delivers (you need to scroll down to the end of the article).  This was true even yesterday, when I got very angry at it because it didn't seem to want to form a dough.  It just wanted to stay in a mass of crumbs.  So I pressed it furiously into a couple of tart pans, fridged it and baked it this morning, when it became a perfect sweet sandy crumbly shortbready shell, ready to be filled with pastry cream and strawberries (see first picture above.  And yes, those are actually local strawberries, from Jersey and the Union Square Greenmarket, to be exact).   Examine the photo of the naked yet fully baked crust.  Perfectly browned, no nasty shrinking, no creepy cracking, no unseemly puffing.  And since I've made and eaten it before, and I know it's just like a yummy butter cookie, I didn't even need to break off a tiny edge to test its texture.  But I did anyway, of course, and it's as perfect as always, despite the fact that it was laced with my ire in the making.

I won't bore you with the actual recipes, since they are easily found at the links above.  But I'll link to them again, here and here.  If you can, make them with joy and happiness in your heart, knowing that your loved ones will be very grateful at dessert time.  But also know that if you can't quite accomplish the joy and happiness part, you'll probably still do fine, and no-one will be the wiser. 

So we're off to the barbecue, my sweet ever-patient G and I.  And all this will pass, and it will be better, I know.  And  I'll cook more things just for the joy of cooking them and enjoying real food and spring produce.  I've actually taken some ramps and asparagus and spring greens and rhubarb out for a few turns.  This has made a very welcome respite from the endless bags and containers and cartons of less-than-stellar take-out, which are the hallmark of weary evenings after extreme days.  More about all of that, later. 

Pi Day, My Way: The Whole Story

I gave you just the teaser in the last post, but here's the whole story of this galette, or rustic tart.  And I must say, while a large wedge of two-crust apple pie probably reigns supreme in G's heart, I like this a lot.  And yeah, so does he, judging from the second not-so-dainty slice which he cut for himself.

Pi day stole upon me, and I knew I didn't have time to think of, plan for, shop for, and bake a full-scale pie.  But I had apples in the fridge.  I just needed to create something a bit different from our favorite, already-blogged apple pie. 

Galette, I thought, rustic tart.  I could whip that up pretty fast.  After a quick perusal of that favorite cookbook known as the internets, I took a bit from here and a bit from there, and came up with a few secret weapons to set this galette apart.  The first was apricot jam, but not just any old apricot jam.  This was a jar of preserves bestowed upon me as a set of three (also including raspberry and blueberry-lime, both of which I have been seen eating straight from the jar with a spoon -- and I don't even like jam all that much, except for this jam and June Taylor's jam).  They were serendipitous birthday gifts from a cousin lucky enough to live in Cambridge, where she has breakfast at the Hi-Rise Bread Company every day.  These preserves are so good that either Hi-Rise is going to have to start selling them online, or I might have to move to Cambridge.  I was saving the apricot, doing my delayed gratification routine, since apricot is one of my preferred flavors of anything.  But what better sacrifice than to use a few tablespoons to waterproof a crust and flavor a filling in honor of pi day? 

Secret weapon number two is an old baker's trick -- using crumbled amaretti cookies to soak up fruit juices between the crust and the fruit. Fortunately I had some of my favorite pretty amaretti to crush into rubble and sprinkle atop the jam, under the apples.  And their toasted almond flavor would be perfect with the apples and the apricot.   

My favorite pie crust recipe, a bunch of apples, a shot of Calvados, and we were in business.  The lovely thing about a galette is that it's actually about half as much work as a pie -- only one crust to roll, less filling to peel and core and cut and season, and a rough, devil-may-care shaping.  None of your (or Martha's) cut-out leaves and hearts here.

The proof, however, as they say, is in the tasting.

"This might be the best crust yet," I said. 

"Mmmmff, I mfdunnommffff," said G, from around another large mouthful of galette.  He swallowed, and continued.  "The crust on the one you made at Thanksgiving was pretty great." 

"Well, that was a pie, and this is a galette or rustic tart."

"Yeah, well, maybe it's that the two-crust pie has more crust." 

"And it has more apples, too.  I use twice as many apples for the pie, and twice as much crust."

G seemed to experience a sudden "aha!" moment through his next mouthful.  "Now it all makes sense," he said.  "This is diet pie.  It only has half as much of everything."  Clearly this was ample justification for the second slice, as he got up and ambled toward the kitchen. 

Pi Day Apple Galette

Pi Crust

1 1/2 cups flour

1 Tbsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

8 Tbsp. unsalted butter

2 Tbsp. Spectrum shortening (w/o trans-fats)

2 Tbsp. vodka with 1 Tbsp. water and 3 ice cubes

Process flour, salt, and sugar in food processor until combined, about 2 one-second pulses. Add butter and shortening and process until cornmealy, and there are still some small, pea-sized pieces of butter and shortening.  Empty mixture into medium bowl.

Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture. With rubber spatula or your hand, use folding motion to mix, pressing dough until it just clumps together. Flatten dough into a 4-inch disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.

Pi Apples

5 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, sliced into 1/8 inch pieces

1 tsp. grated lemon zest

3 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. Calvados

1 tsp. cornstarch

4 Tbsp. apricot jam/preserves

3 pairs of hard amaretti cookies, crushed into rubble

2 Tbsp. butter

Cream and crystal sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Toss apples with zest, sugar and Calvados.  Roll out pie crust into a 15 or 16" circle on a piece of parchment.  Slide the parchment with the rolled-out crust onto a rimless baking sheet. Spread apricot jam in a circle in the center, leaving a one and a half to two-inch border for folding up over the apples.  Sprinkle with crushed amaretti, making a nice thick bed over the jam.  Arrange the apples over this in concentric circles.  Add the cornstarch to the liquid left in the apple bowl, and stir until dissolved.  Drizzle this over the apples until it disappears.  Dot the apples with bits of butter. Then fold and pleat the crust up to make a nice rim around the apples. Brush the crust with cream, and sprinkle the whole with crystal sugar.

Bake the tart for 30 minutes in the bottom third of the oven.  Rotate the tart, and bake for another 30 minutes in the top third of the oven, until the pastry is golden brown, the apple juices are bubbling nicely, and the apples yield tenderly to a knife point. Cool for a little while at least -- but eat while still warm. 

Pi Day, My Way

Consider this a mere placeholder.  Suffice it to say that I did bake this apple galette today in honor of pi day, which is being hosted by both the fabulous Alanna of Kitchen Parade and A Veggie Venture and  the delightful Krysta of EvilChefMom. 

We haven't eaten it yet, but I'll come back and fill in this post with some details, and hopefully a recipe.

Elemental Apple Pie

 

"Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness." -  Jane Austen

Miss Austen's words are certainly a truism in our household.  Long gone are the days when I suffered pie anxiety, thanks to good dessert gurus like David Lebovitz and Rose Levy Beranbaum.  But it was this recipe that put my tough-crust terrors to bed once and for all.  Like others, I'm not always a die-hard fan of the philosophies espoused in Cook's Illustrated (like any good rebel, I actually continue to eat green beans despite Chris Kimball's hatred of them).  However, sometimes the folks at CI really do hit the mark, like the time some clever cook thought of using vodka in the pie-crust.

Plenty has been written about this already.  People have experienced varying degrees of success.  All I can tell you is that I have yet to come out with an imperfect crust using this recipe, especially when combined with Rose Levy Beranbaum's baking techniques for two-crust pies filled with juicy fruit -- like apples. It's a stand-up crust -- flaky, buttery, flavorful as a dream, but refusing to become sodden under the weight of pounds of juicy fruit.

If you read this blog with any regularity, you probably know of G's penchant for apple desserts.  So it is our tradition that on Valentine's Day, instead of the chocolate fondue or chocolate soufflé or molten chocolate cake that everyone else is whipping up for their sweetie, I make apple desserts.  And G makes sure that my chocolate jones is met with a lovely big box of dark, delicious sweeties from this place.  Usually I bake a killer crumble, or apple toffee bars, or maybe a heart-shaped apple upside-down cake.  But not this year.

Several months ago, at Thanksgiving to be precise, I eschewed my usual dolled-up apple-toffee caramelized crunchy crumble-topped pie that I've made for the past few years.  My father, whose advanced age means that he must be obeyed, had asked for a traditional two-crust apple pie.  With a little help from the vodka bottle and another secret weapon, the cider jelly jar (and this must be a jelly made from absolutely nothing except pure apple cider), I made what my husband immediately dubbed the "Best.  Apple.  Pie.  Ever."  It was so good that I made another one, since we were expecting company for a belated Thanksgiving just a few days later.  Company didn't come, and we had the second pie all to ourselves.

Most of the time he doesn't ask for much, that G, and tends to be pretty content with wolfing down whatever I come up with for dinner, most days -- as well as cleaning up the disaster-area of a kitchen I often leave in my wake.  But every so often, he slyly mentions the possibility of my making another apple pie.  So this year, I knew what I would bake for my sweetheart, Hallmark holiday or no.

It's going to be a while before those of us in the Northeast see fresh, seasonal, local fruit.  But even apples that have been in storage for a few months respond well to this treatment.  Give this lovely treat a whirl, and your longing for other fruit a rest for the moment.  And you needn't even wait for a holiday.

Apple Pie
adapted from Cook's Illustrated, Rose Levy Beranbaum's Best American Apple Pie, and probably other inspirational sources as well

1 recipe vodka pie crust for a double-crust pie (completed to the point of chilling the dough before rolling out)

3 to 3 1/2 pounds of apples (I used Empire yesterday, but I've used many other kinds, all with success, as long as they're tangy-sweet and flavorful), peeled, cored and sliced 1/4-inch thick
1/4 cup brown or muscovado sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup (Grade B organic, always)
1 tsp. Vietnamese cinnamon
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
juice and zest of one organic lemon
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. pure apple cider jelly
1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. cornstarch 

Cream; bakers' large crystal/sparkle sugar

Remove the dough for the bottom crust from the refrigerator. If necessary, allow it to sit for about 10 minutes or until it is soft enough to roll.

On a floured pastry cloth or between two sheets of lightly floured plastic wrap, roll the bottom crust 1/8-inch thick or less and 12 inches in diameter. Transfer it to a 9 or 10-inch pie pan (I use a 10-inch; this is plenty of crust, but you will need at least 3 lbs of apples). Trim the edge almost even with the edge of the pan. Cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for a minimum of 30 minutes and a maximum of 3 hours.

In a large bowl, combine the apples, lemon juice and zest, sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt and toss to mix. Allow the apples to macerate at room temperature for a minimum of 30 minutes and a maximum of 3 hours.

Transfer the apples and their juices to a colander suspended over a bowl to capture the liquid. The mixture will release at least 1/2 cup of liquid.

In a small saucepan, over medium-high heat, boil down this liquid, with the butter and the cider jelly, to about 1/3 cup (a little more if you started with more than 1/2 cup of liquid), or until syrupy and lightly caramelized. Swirl the liquid but do not stir it.  Meanwhile, transfer the apples to a bowl and toss them with the cornstarch until all traces of it have disappeared.

Pour the syrup over the apples, tossing gently. (Do not be concerned if the liquid hardens on contact with the apples; it will dissolve during baking.)

Roll out the top crust large enough to cut a 12-inch circle. Transfer the apple mixture to the pie shell. Moisten the border of the bottom crust by brushing it lightly with water and place the top crust over the fruit. Tuck the overhang under the bottom crust border and press down all around the top to seal it. Crimp the border using a fork or your fingers and make about 5 evenly spaced 2-inch slashes starting about 1 inch from the center and radiating toward the edge (yesterday I cut a heart-shaped steam vent instead). Cover the pie loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 1 hour before baking to chill and relax the pastry. This will maintain flakiness and help to keep the crust from shrinking.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees at least 20 minutes before baking. Set an oven rack at the lowest level and place a baking stone or baking sheet on it before preheating. Place a large piece of greased foil on top to catch any juices.

Brush the top of the chilled pie lightly with cream, and sprinkle with crystal sugar.  Set the pie directly on the foil-topped baking stone and bake for 45 to 55 minutes or until the juices bubble through the slashes and the apples feel tender but not mushy when a cake tester or small sharp knife is inserted through a slash. After 30 minutes, protect the edges from overbrowning by covering them with a foil ring (I generally need to keep most of the top of the pie covered for a good portion of the baking time, but that may just be the vagaries of my extremely poor oven).

Cool the pie on a rack for at least 4 hours (ha!) before cutting. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Store at room temperature, uncovered.  Reheat any leftovers gently before serving to crisp the crust.

Death By Chocolate: Late in the Game

Better late than never, as they say.  Just for fun, and because I'm really not in the mood to read the textbook for my Public Policy Analysis class tonight, I'm procrastinating by entering Culinate's Death By Chocolate contest.  Here's the post I submitted.  There are lots of wonderful entries, but should you feel moved to do so, please register and vote for me here.  A birthdayish trip to the Napa Valley would be pretty wonderful, methinks. 

 

The Cookie Chronicles: Pecan Sand Tarts

Let's face it, I should probably just re-name this blog "mea culpa."  It simply happens far too often that I drop the ball.  I promise you posts and recipes, and then life intervenes, sometimes in startling and good ways, sometimes in horrifying ones.  I know this happens to everyone.  Quite a number of my most favorite bloggers take a little hiatus here and there.  But I do feel neglectful; I promised you the story of my lovely Lisette baking afternoon with friends Peter and Karen, which happened fully three weeks ago.  As far as excuses go, I did have a family crisis, which has fortunately been resolved. Then of course there was Menu For Hope (thank you all so much for supporting this great cause), which took up my blogging time and energy for the past couple of weeks. 

Sadly, my pictures from Lisette-baking Sunday did not appear.  It's not just that they didn't turn out; they somehow or other vanished from my camera altogether.  But you've had a fair number of Lisette pictures, and you know what these dome-shaped, glazed little lebkuchen nut tortes look like, even if you can't lick the screen and find out what they taste like.  I have to see the vanishing of the pictures as something of an omen.  I'm simply not meant to share too much information about these cakes.  Suffice it to say that I had a lovely time with Peter, being his sous-chef for the Lisette-making process, and learning not to sprinkle too many nonpareils on top -- as well as sharing tales of childhood.  Peter told me several delightful stories about his family's erstwhile Lisette-making business -- how his father, an engineer, created a machine that could automatically grind large amounts of nuts by jerry-rigging their little old-fashioned nut-grinder; how his mother was invited to sell her luscious little cakes at some of Manhattan's poshest department stores.  It was indeed a glorious afternoon, and at the end, I went home with a large container of beautiful glazed Lisettes.  That batch is, unfortunately, long gone; I've bought the ingredients for more, but haven't yet had the time to put them together. 

In the meantime, I've been cobbling together time for my annual cookie-baking ritual.  I had thought, of course, that this year I'd get lots and lots of baking done, as I'm on sabbatical.  Somehow or other, just the opposite happened.  Here it is Christmas Eve, and instead of a dozen kinds of goodies for the cookie platter, I have a mere eight.  But they are eight very good ones.  I've also made some modifications to old favorite recipes that have worked out very well, and I'll share those with you anon. 

So far, I've managed a large batch of the good old-fashioned  oatmeal cookies with-everything-in-them.  In addition, I've made wallflower loaves, extreme gingers, double-chocolate mint cookies, linzer biscotti, espresso-toffee shortbread, World Peace Cookies, and oh, I don't even know what else.  And I've made the cookies I'm about to share with you.  You see, I'm thinking you might need another cookie at the eleventh hour, or perhaps you have plans for baking during holiday week or for New Years'.  So I'm going to give you one of the all-time, most-requested favorites of my repertoire, Pecan Sand Tarts. 

Oh, you say.  Yet another recipe for the Mexican Wedding Cookie/Russian Tea Cake clone.  ZZZZZ.  But I'm going to have to exhort you to give this version a try, because there are several things that set it off from the standard recipe for this treat. 

One is the ratio of pecans to flour/butter/sugar/etc.  This recipe has about twice the number of pecans as the standard formula, and the added crunch factor is quite noticeable.  And that brings me to the second point.  Instead of grinding the nuts to a powder, this recipe leave them chopped so that some of them are finely ground and some are quite chunky, which gives great texture to the cookie.  Next is the fact that cake flour is used, which makes the whole thing quite light, and increases the whole melt-in-your-mouth factor. 

Then there's the low amount of sugar in the dough, which means that you don't go on sugar overload when you coat them with powdered sugar.  Instead, there's a nice contrast of the only faintly sweet and nutty buttery cookie to the sugary coating.  And finally, there's the baking time.  These cookies are baked slowly, for a long time at a lower temperature than normal.  This gives everything a chance to develop fantastic flavor instead of leaving a generic nutty buttery pastiness in your mouth.  You can pre-toast the pecans if you wish, but I think the slow baking gives them the extra toasted crunch anyway. 

I've been making these cookies since I was about 10 years old, ever since the Christmas a neighboring family gave them to us as part of a cookie assortment and I begged the recipe from them.  They called them pecan puffs, but my father said they tasted like cookies he remembered from long ago, and he always called them sand tarts.  They're his favorite, and beloved of many other family members and friends as well.  So instead of apologizing any more for my bad blogger tendencies, I leave you with this, another recipe which has become a family heirloom for us, and will perhaps become one for you as well.

Pecan Sand Tarts (aka Pecan Puffs)

Approximate yield:  30 - 50 cookies, depending on how large you roll them.  I usually make this recipe times six during this season -- the demand for them is such that a large number of people would be unhappy with me if I showed up without them at holiday time. 

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons white sugar
fat pinch of salt
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract
1 cup sifted cake flour
1 cup pecan halves
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Line cookie sheets with parchment.  In a medium bowl or a stand mixer, cream together butter, sugar and salt until smooth. Beat in the vanilla. Roughly chop pecans in a food processor or blender so that you have a mix of textures; toss with cake flour. Stir the pecan mixture into the creamed mixture until well blended (at this point, the dough can be refrigerated and kept for several days, to bake at a later point. Or it can be frozen, probably for a couple of months). Roll the dough into balls "the size of a walnut," then place them 1 inch apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven, or until nicely golden brown (keep an eye on them; ovens differ, so I'd begin checking at 20 minutes). Roll warm cookies in confectioners' sugar (I often skip this step, not liking too much sugar -- I just roll them when they're cool). When cool, roll again.

Nuttiness as Promised, Part I: Torte Orzechowy

The tease is at least partially over, and here, as promised, is the recipe for a cake so delectable, I don't know why we're not all making it all the time.  It's a very perfect, slightly intense holiday dessert, meant to be enjoyed in thin slices.  It's excellent served either at a reasonable interval after a festive meal, or perhaps during an afternoon visit with friends, over tea.  It would also be great with champagne, or perhaps mulled wine.  I believe that even those who don't particularly like walnuts would enjoy this torte.  Somehow the bitterness that some people find problematic in walnuts is transformed into pure sweet spongy nuttiness with this recipe.  Balanced with the bittersweet lushness of plenty of dark chocolate in the filling and icing, it's simply a delight.  It is not a difficult cake to make, really, especially if you have a food processor and a stand mixer (and I used to make it even in the bad old days when I only had a hand-held mixer).  It is, however, a finicky recipe, and a bit time-consuming.  It warrants some degree of care, so it's best to make it when you can move through the steps in a relaxed way.  Rushing through something like this is, in my experience, a recipe for nothing more than disaster. 

I've meant to blog about this recipe for years, but I don't make it very often, since it is rich, dense, serves a large number of people and is really a special occasion dessert.  Finally the perfect moment to make it arose -- and therein lies a tale. 

More than two decades ago, my mother's closest friend gave her a cookbook which had just been published, called Nela's Cookbook (upon recent examination, I discovered that this delightfully readable book was edited by none other than, of course, Judith Jones).  It was a tome of the recipes and anecdotes of Nela Rubinstein, wife of the famed pianist Artur Rubinstein.  Nela was a celebrated hostess and cook among "their set", who included fellow musicians, various politicians, intelligentsia and nobility as well.   Nela (who died in 2002, just three days before my own mom) was Polish, and many of her recipes reflect this heritage. 

Until I read this cookbook, I was not aware of the delicacy and refinement of many aspects of this cuisine, which also contains a balance of robust, somewhat heavier dishes.  In this way, as well as in other particulars of specific recipes, it's extremely similar to the Russian cuisine beloved of my mother, and, by extension, our whole family -- a sort of cooking that encompasses both highly refined, Francophilic food and hearty, peasant-based soups, stews and dark breads.   

My mother's favorite recipe out of this book was the Torte Orzechowy, a rich, chocolate-iced walnut torte, which, while she was up to it, she made every year for my birthday.  She was thrilled to have come upon this cake that I adored and craved, especially since I had long become the family baker.  My mother had felt for a while that it wasn't quite right that I should have to make do with a bakery cake when I was the one that always came up with extravagant confections for everyone else's birthday.  She made this for me for many years, as long as she still could.  My father would help her beat the egg whites, since they were still using an old rotary eggbeater and it took the kind of muscular strength that wasn't easy for elder people.

About a year and a half ago, the lovely Bakerina stayed up all night at my house in her quest to complete Blogathon 2006.  Before G and I crashed that night, I was doing my best to keep her entertained and give her blogging material.  I gave her homemade peach sorbet and showed her Nela's Cookbook, and, like any right-minded baker, she was immediately taken with the recipe for Torte Orzechowy.  "I want to blog about this," she said.  "Ummmm," I said.  "What is it?" she said immediately.  "Ummm, well, I've always sort of meant to blog about this cake.  I kind of have a history with it, you see.  My mom used to make it for my birthday."  "Ah, then I'll wait for you to blog about it.  Besides," said she, "There's another cake in here that I'm equally taken with, and I'll blog about that."  She was talking about the Sand Torte, which she of course not only blogged about, but also eventually made very successfully (this being a cake that I had a spectacularly gummy, unrisen, dead-weight failure with about a decade ago, and have never attempted since).  And of course I was being utterly small-minded and silly about this, since really, the world-wide interweb's most enjoyed and utilized recipes are those that many of us have blogged. 

In any case, when Bunni approached me about a surprise birthday party for Bakerina, I offered to bake the birthday cake -- and knew that there was only one cake that would do.  It rose and baked beautifully, and was eaten with delight by all the guests -- at least those who didn't have nut allergies (sorry, didn't know).  My one criticism of this particular effort on my part is that I was trying to gild pure gold, and used Nela's variation of raspberry jam as a filling, which she suggests using instead of chocolate filling for one layer.  I put it in along with the chocolate filling, going for overkill.  It was only after I tasted it that I remembered that I hadn't really loved this variation as much when my mother used it one year, preferring just the flavors of nuts, rum and chocolate, although I often love jam in things like this.  Most importantly, Bakerina was duly pleased and surprised by her soirée; our hostess Bunni made a copious, multi-coursed, elegant and delicious meal, and plenty of wine and conversation were enjoyed by all.

Since my mother's death, I've only made this cake a few other times -- notably for Passover seders where I was a guest, and wanted to bring something wonderful.  It makes an excellent Passover cake with the substitution of matzoh meal for the bread crumbs.  But Passover is far away. 

My current holiday hunch is that, since it is a rather spongy, springy, egg-based cake it would behave like a roulade batter and make an excellent Bûche de Noël.  I think the nut-rich batter could be baked in a parchment-lined, buttered-and-floured 10"x15" jelly-roll pan, and rolled while still warm to keep the cake layer malleable, then unrolled, filled, re-rolled and iced -- just as you would any other jelly-roll sort of cake.  The baking time would need to be monitored carefully.  I'd probably start with about fifteen minutes baking time, since the sheet layer may be rather thin, and begin testing for doneness from there. The filling and icing that go with it would work for this purpose too -- the texture of the icing would be perfect for striating into trompe l'oeil bark.  I'm aching to try this, and may just do it for a holiday party.    

Torte Orzechowy
(Walnut Cake)

I'm typing this pretty much as it is written in Nela's Cookbook, but interjecting a few modifications into the text -- some of these were made because I, in my haphazard fashion, thought I had everything I needed, but had to make a couple of quick substitutions.  The modifications in methodology (adding the sugar in three stages, mainly) I made because I think they give a better result, with more volume to the finished batter and thus more lightness to the cake.  I've put my own mods in italics, so you can distinguish them easily from the original recipe. 

Nela says:  "This rich, dark, nut layer cake is perfect for large parties, since one serves it in small pieces.  As a rule I cut a circular core, about 1 1/2 inches from the edge, then cut the circular rim in truncated wedges and the core in pointed wedges.  For this cake, I use the processor to grind the nuts and the big mixer (fitted with the whip) for the eggs.  This is one of my mother's best recipes, one we have always made for special events such as birthdays and Christmas." 

1 pound (450 grams) walnut meats, ground to powder
(makes 6 cups/1 1/2 liters, not pressed down)
1 1/2 cups (300 grams) sugar (divided into three 1/2 cups)
11 eggs, separated (I used 10 jumbo eggs, since that's what I had in the house)
1/2 cup heavy cream (I forgot to put this in [!] and it still turned out lovely, btw)
Grated zest of 1 large orange (I used the grated zest of a clementine, and 1/2 tsp. Boyajian orange oil)
1/2 cup (1 deciliter) unseasoned bread crumbs
1/3 tsp. salt
4 Tbsp. dark rum
Shelled walnuts for decoration (optional)

Butter and flour 3 9-inch layer pans or one 10-inch springform (I also used parchment circles, buttered and floured, on the bottom of each tin.  It's worth noting that this cake bakes very differently in different pans; I didn't have 3 9" layer pans of the same sort, so I used two heavy, dark pans, and one old light-colored, lightweight aluminum pan -- in which the cake took MUCH longer to bake, fell a bit, and was not as stable). 

If you grind the walnuts in the processor, grind them with 1/2 cup of the sugar to prevent oiliness (I zested the orange/clementine in long strips, ground it in the processor with the 1/2 cup sugar and proceeded to use this orange sugar to grind the walnuts). 

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until they become very pale and form the ribbon (I used only 1/2 cup of sugar here, and reserved the last half cup for beating with the egg whites, in order to stabilize them).  Add the cream (I forgot, but no matter).  Mix together the grated nuts, orange zest, bread crumbs, and salt.  Beat the egg whites till stiff (I beat them about halfway, then added the salt here, rather than with the bread crumbs, and began to sprinkle in the last 1/2 cup of sugar while I was still beating them, until they became thick and stiff and shiny, but still pliable, like Italian meringue) and fold them into the yolk mixture (I do this very slowly and carefully, trying to ensure that I don't break down the aeration in either mixture any more than necessary).  Sprinkle the nut mixture over the batter, gently folding it in until evenly combined.  Distribute the batter equally among the 3 layer pans or spoon it into the springform. 

Bake the layers for 25 - 30 minutes.  Halfway through baking, exchange the layers from the upper to the lower racks, from the front to the back of your oven, so that all will bake evenly.  The springform version takes 50 minutes to bake. 

Let the cake cool for 5 minutes in the layer pans, then unmold the layers onto racks.  In the springform pan, cool the cake for 20 minutes, then unlatch and remove the wall of the pan.

To cut a large cake into layers, cut it vertically in half, then cut each half into 3 equal layers.  When you reassemble the circles, the frosting will hide the cuts (I've never actually tried this). 

Before filling and frosting the cake, sprinkle the layers with rum.  They should then sit for 30 minutes (to absorb the rum) before you assemble the cake.   Spread the lower layer of cake with half the Chocolate-butter Filling (following recipe), put another layer of cake on that, and spread with the rest of the filling.  Top with the third layer, then frost the assembled cake with the Chocolate Mazurka Icing on page 337 (recipe follows).  Decorate, if you like, with halved walnuts. 

Chocolate-Butter Filling

4 ounces (115 grams) semisweet chocolate (I think this is a good place for at least a 70% chocolate, since it is cut equally with butter)
1 stick (4 ounces or 115 grams) unsalted butter, cool room temperature
2 Tbsp. dark rum
Pinch of salt

Melt the chocolate over very low heat, and allow to cool.  Cream the butter and combine it with the chocolate (which should be cool enough to touch comfortably) and the rum and the salt.

Chocolate Icing

Nela says to use a chocolate like Tobler "Tradition".  It's worth noting that this recipe was written before we had so many different chocolates with differing cocoa contents available to the home cook.  For this glaze, I use either a 60% or a 70% chocolate, depending on my audience and their tolerance for bitter chocolate, or I use a combination, which also works well. 

This makes a shining glaze 1/4 inch thick (on cooling, the glaze is quite a bit duller, especially after it's been spread -- but still delicious).

6 ounces (180 grams) best bittersweet chocolate
1/4 cup (1/2 deciliter) water
1/3 cup (3/4 deciliter) heavy cream
2 tsp. unsalted butter

Melt the chocolate with the water over low heat.  Add the cream and butter and raise the heat to medium.  Let a little moisture evaporate, but remember that this misture will thicken as it cools.  Take it off the heat when it has the consistency of thick honey.  (At this point the recipe directions diverge a bit from our intended use, since it is published first in the cookbook as an icing intended to be poured warm over a sheet of baked pâte sablée, for the Polish confection known as "mazurka".  Cool slightly, and pour/spread over the assembled Torte Orzechowy.)

Teaser

I've been waiting with bated breath since last March.  Lisettes weekend is finally here, and by Sunday evening, I'll have my own stash.  Can't wait to tell you/show more about it, although the actual recipe will not be forthcoming, as stated previously.  There are similar things from other sources:  I have a feeling that this, for example, may bear at least some small resemblance to the beloved tiny nut torte of my childhood. 

In addition, I'm making another rather fabulous nut-based confection today, which will be shared with you sooner rather than later, recipe and all.  I just can't disclose this one quite yet, both because I haven't made it yet and there are no pictures, as well as for another reason which will be made clear in due time.  But I assure you that it:  a) is something gorgeous, which deserves its own post, b) can grace your (or someone else's) holiday dessert table and elicit many ooohs and ahhhs, and c) will be given to you in its entirety.

I promise. 

Pie-Makers Anonymous

Help me.  I feel that I need a Twelve-Step program specifically geared to people who simply cannot keep themselves from making too many pies at Thanksgiving. 

I don't have a huge crowd of eaters gathering at my father's table this year, so I don't really have any good excuse to make the five or so pies that I'm dreaming of for Thursday's dinner.  Five pies for six eaters seems slightly excessive, right?  I'd like to say that we have eight coming to Thanksgiving, as that would give me more leeway.  Considering that the five-month-old twins will be dining on (organic) formula and rice cereal, I'm not sure I can get away with that one.

I know it just sort of looks like a study in brown, with fluffy clouds on top, but above is a plate showing samples of the three pies I made for Thanksgiving 2006 (and Thanksgiving 2005, and 2004, and so on), back to front:  Souffléd Pumpkin Cognac Pie, Pure Maple Pecan Pie, and Toffee Apple Crumble Pie.  They are all more or less my own inventions, and yes, I've been making them for years.  This year I'm chafing at tradition a little, and have a nudging little feeling of wanting something new.   But my brother loves that maple-pecan, and my sister-in-law craves pumpkin, and G and my dad both want apple. 

The rest of Thanksgiving dinner presents no turmoil for me.  I'm very happy to go with our tried-and-true menu of favorites:  the crisp-skinned turkey, its gravy made from pan drippings and turkey broth, cornbread and sausage stuffing, cranberries made the way my mother always made them.  I look forward to these things, and so do my family members.  I might hesitate slightly between plain baked yams, and a lovely sweet potato purée, or whether or not to dress up the brussels sprouts in a new way.  But for the most part, the savory menu is set. 

I'm really struggling with the sweet table, however.  I've been railing against the old favorites in my mind, and looking at new possibilities:  A chocolate-espresso pecan pie featured in Fine Cooking magazine.  Deb's (and well, The New York Times') gorgeous nutmeg-maple cream pie.  The idea of pumpkin cheesecake laced with cognac and bedded in a ginger-pecan crust caught my fancy for a while -- I'd made one some years ago for a holiday party, and always wanted to make one again.  But I always cave in to the traditionalists in my family, who want the same old, same old. 

Even the  apple pie presents some conflict -- both G and my father love apple pie best for Thanksgiving dessert, so there's certainly going to be one.  At least one.  But what kind?  My dad wants the two-crust traditional, and while my husband loves that too, I think in his heart of hearts he really wants the crumble-topped kind. I swear to you that I'm fairly well tempted to make two apple pies...along with everything else.

Step one:  We admitted we were powerless over pie...

Sexy Peach: Get Her While You Can

Peaches are female; I've always thought that.  I suppose all fruits are, since they are, after all, the bearers of seeds. Ovaries, basically.  But there's just something particularly femme about peaches, not to say that real men don't eat them, of course.  Peaches are what bring me here today.  Not just peaches, but naked, blushing, jewel-tone peaches suspended in a richly scented cream custard above a blissfully crumbly crust.  Naked, you ask?  Yes indeed.  At first, of course, your sweet peach is softly, delicately fuzzy -- but then, oh then, you coax her to slip off her skin, and take a warm bath in cream. 

I've been thinking and dreaming and envisioning a sort of peach-cream-custard-tart dessert for weeks now.  I kept buying bags of peaches and nectarines at the farmers' market, tenderly giving them their last day's ripening in a paper bag, planning their transformation into peach-cream-custard-kuchen.  But I still wasn't feeling great for a while there and it was hot, too hot for oven-lighting, so I ended up happily eating them out of hand or sliced into bowls, topped with Greek yogurt and drizzled with a tiny thread of wildflower honey.  So good.  This may be one of the first summers in recent years when I've almost, almost gotten my fill of peaches.  Corn and tomatoes, berries and melons croon their summery songs, and gladden my heart and my mouth. But the ripe, drippy peach is summer's quintessence.  And although these days there are many mournful screeds about summer's end, there are still peaches in Northeastern U.S. farmers' markets and farm stands.  Gather them while ye may.

So I didn't make this dessert I'd been envisioning, and I still didn't make this dessert. Then, however, two things happened.  The mercury dropped back down into the 70s, and we had friends over for dinner.  Not just any friends, but the darling friend who a) threw me the loveliest and poshest bridal shower ever, b) gave me her mother's gorgeous antique gold mesh bracelet as a shower gift, c) along with her husband, did all the flowers and decorations for the larger of my wedding parties and d) again, along with her husband, gave us our beautiful wedding night at the London Hotel in midtown.  And that's just what she's done for me recently.  Not only that, but her husband is my husband's very clever and hard-working business partner.  Last but not least, these friends are living at the moment in a studio sublet while they wait for lagging contractors to finish renovations on a new home.  All their meals are restaurant meals or take-out, so a home-cooked dinner is a huge treat for them these days.

Lots of motivation here to pull out all the stops:  truffled foie gras mousse brought back from our recent trip to Montreal, thick (antibiotic and hormone-free, vegetarian-fed beef) porterhouse steaks, fresh corn, a farm-stand vegetable melange so delicious it could be a meal in itself, and dessert:  skinless naked blushing cream-custard-cloaked crumbly-crusted peaches.

Often when I conceive of a new recipe, I play around with it too much, and it doesn't quite come off as planned.  Not being a food professional, I generally don't have the wherewithal to test and re-test something until it comes out just right, so instead it waits for me to make it again, by which time, if I ever do get around to it, I may already have forgotten what wasn't right in the first place.  This time, however, I got it on the first try.  I might modify it on another go-round: try nectarines, add some berries to the stone fruit, use a different kind of sugar and maybe just a tad more, since it's not too sweet.  But really, it's just so exactly what I had in mind that it may overcome even my relentless desire to tinker. 

Really a large tart, this has its roots in an old recipe from Edward Espe Brown's The Tassajara Bread Book, a slim tome which slightly pre-dates California Cuisine but in which you can find much of the thinking that informs our current foodways.  I made enough changes that I'm pretty sure it's become my own recipe: cutting back on the sugar, ditching the cinnamon and replacing it with nutmeg, since cinnamon is generally overused in fruit desserts (it doesn't really suit the peach's delicate floral nature -- although a bit of nutmeg does); adding excellent peach liqueur (Mathilde) and vanilla in the form of vanilla sugar in order to enhance without overwhelming; blanching the peaches and leaving them in their round pink-cheeked halves; changing the  proportions to create a higher ratio of fruit and custard to crust; and finally adding a sprinkling of crushed amaretti to soak up juices and provide another layer of flavor.  So it's related, but not really the same any more as the original, which (despite its Zen Center pedigree) I suspect may have had its roots in an old Betty Crocker cookbook -- where I found even earlier references to something remarkably similar. 

But enough blather.  I cannot recommend more strongly that you act now, before peaches disappear from your local farm stand or market.  Trust me, you'll have plenty of time to play with apples, or even plums.  The window for peaches in all their golden-pink pulchritude is rapidly closing; there's just about enough time for you to enjoy a last fling with these lush orbs.  Even G, who places himself firmly and manfully in the camp of apples, thought this dessert was a winner (of course, he also thought it would be even better with a creamless filling of apples and a judicious layer of crumble on top, thereby resembling the original only in the pat-in bottom crust, which was, in his words,  Best. Crust. Ever).  Go now and get those peaches, strip them of their skins, crust them, cream them, bake them -- and then tell me whether, girly fruit or no, this dessert is not beloved by all, gender prejudices notwithstanding. 

Peach Cream Custard Kuchen
serves 15 moderate eaters, or fewer voracious types

A few notes:  you've already seen from the pictures that this is not really a "presentation" dessert.  It's not going to have the drama of a gorgeously decorated cake or pie, but I strongly recommend it for guests or a special occasion dessert because it's so damn delicious.  Think of it as a homey sort of thing which can be dressed up to your heart's desire with fruit slices or fruit coulis or mint leaves at the plating stage -- if you wish.  In our case, the eagerness to begin snarfing it down prevented us from playing frou-frou with it.

I don't recommend serving it with ice-cream or whipped cream as I've seen suggested in some similar recipes.  There's plenty of cream in there already -- oh, and in case the dessert police are after me (hi bro!) because of that 2 cups of heavy cream, please remember that this makes a LOT of servings.  Practice portion control, and realize that you're consuming far less cream than you would if eating a piece of pie served with a scoop of  ice-cream -- unless it's a very small scoop.

As always, quality ingredients (preferably local fruit and organic dairy goods) make all the difference between a dessert that is transcendant and one that is merely good.

9 just-ripe peaches ( you can use nectarines here, if you wish -- no need to blanch them or skin them in that case)

2 Tbsp. crème de pêche or other good peach liqueur (optional)

2 cups a.p. flour

3/4 unsalted cup butter

1/4 - 1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

8 small amaretti biscuits (hard dry almond macaroons)

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

2 cups heavy cream

1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

3/4 - 1 cup vanilla sugar (demerara or turbinado could also be nice here, in which case you could add vanilla extract to the custard)

 

Preheat the oven to 400F.  Butter a 9 x 13 inch pan, line the bottom with parchment paper, and butter the parchment. 

Blanch the peaches:  submerge them in boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds, then plunge them into an ice-water bath.  The skins should slip off effortlessly, leaving the blush on the peach flesh.  If they're still hard to remove, give them another 30 seconds in boiling water.  You don't want to cook them, however, since they'll receive plenty of cooking later.  Once peeled, cut them in half, stone them and place in a bowl.  Sprinkle with the optional peach liqueur.

Place flour, 1/4 (or 1/3) cup sugar, salt and baking powder into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse in butter until the mixture is blended, somewhere between "little peas" and "cornmeal." Press gently into the prepared pan, covering the  bottom and going up the sides about 1".

Place the amaretti into the workbowl of the food processor (it is unnecessary to wash the food processor between tasks for this recipe). Process until you have a coarse rubble.  Sprinkle this over the bottom of the pastry-lined pan. 

Arrange peach halves, rounded side up, in 5 rows of 3 peaches each. You'll have 3 halves left.  Slice two of them into thin slices, and tuck as many of them as you can between the peach halves. Reserve the remaining half and any extra slices, as well as all the juices/liqueur from the bowl of peaches.  Sprinkle the peaches with 1/2 cup of vanilla sugar.  It will seem like a lot when you're sprinkling, but it's not.  In fact, if you have a sweet tooth, you may want to add the greater quantity of sugar here, since this is not a particularly sweet dessert. Place the pan in the center of the oven, and bake for 15 minutes.

While the crust is baking, place the reserved peaches in the food processor workbowl, along with all the accumulated peach juice and liqueur.  Process into a purée.  Add the cream, the eggs, the egg yolks, the remaining vanilla sugar, and the nutmeg.  Process until well-blended, about 10 seconds.

Remove the pan from the oven. Don't be alarmed if there's lots of liquid in the bottom of the pan; the bottom crust will still become crisp and flaky. Pour the cream mixture evenly over the fruit and return to the oven for 15 minutes, then lower heat to 350F and bake for another 15 minutes.  At this point, the custard in the center should be just barely set.  If it's still liquid, continue baking, checking every five minutes for firmness.  You want the custard to be set, but just barely, as it will continue to cook when you remove it from the oven.  When done, take it out and let it cool in the pan.  Cut into squares, each one containing a peach half, and serve.

This is probably best eaten the day it's made, but it was still delicious and crisp-crusted on the second day, after a night in the fridge.