Narrative and Cake

This is what happened.

I needed (still need, truth be told) to practice using the DHS-inspected topsy turvy cake pans before trying to make the pirate cake this coming Sunday. But I can never just make a cake. Everything in my world must have a narrative. There is nothing I can do to change this—it’s bred in the bone at this point. So there I was, flipping aimlessly through the channels late on Saturday night and considering my options, when I stumbled upon The Song Remains the Same on Palladia. I happened to turn it on during “The Rain Song” (one of my favorite Zep songs, though who can choose just one or even ten?) and that gloriously ridiculous scene of Robert Plant riding through the countryside on his way to rescue a damsel (or twenty). Oh, the horse, the hair, the mushrooms, the…“sword!”  Is there a way not to love any part of this? If there is, I’ve never found it. The film never disappoints, nor the band, nor the music. Especially not the music. And so it seemed obvious; a Led Zeppelin cake. Why not? In fact, I thought, amazed that the idea hadn’t occurred to me before, why not a whole series of rock and roll cakes? I have always wanted to recreate the cake on the Let It Bleed album cover after spending so much of my childhood poring over it and others in my dad’s collection (Sticky Fingers and The Velvet Underground & Nico were especially intriguing and unfathomable at the time). But the Rolling Stones cake would require a lot of planning, I decided. Maybe for my dad’s birthday coming up in July. If I get it right, my dad will appreciate it; he and I have had heated arguments about Zep vs. Stones. Well, one heated argument, really. After that, I realized it wasn’t worth arguing. The Stones are my dad’s band. Zep is mine.

So I set about building the narrative. First, I made these:

 out of tempered chocolate. Then I made a gnarled, bare tree out of modeling chocolate I’d made the day before and the leaves falling all around out of marzipan I’d also just made. Then I made the lemon—because one can’t really have a Zep cake without a lemon. Then I made a hobbity wizard out of marzipan. This took quite a while and by then I’d put in half a day. The stairway and whatever else I could think of would have to wait. Time to make the cake—tangerine flavored of course. This is where things started to go wrong. The topsy turvy cake pan is very deep on one end and shallow on the other. How much batter to put into the 8-inch pan (which, it turns out, is actually 7.5 inches, so already not what was advertised)? I turned to the Internet, which told me to put in 7 cups of batter. Yes, nobody’s fault but mine that I trust information from the Internet, but still. 7 cups seemed way too much so I put in 5. It rose beautifully and smelled great. Because the pan is so deep, I left it in the oven for quite a bit longer than usual. I was a bit nervous about this, but when I first pulled it out the cake looked fine. For about 10 minutes. Then the entire middle of it sank like a lead… 

What to do? 

The outer ring of the cake was perfect and because I loathe wasting ingredients I couldn’t stand the idea of tossing the whole thing. There is always something to be salvaged, no matter how far off track the narrative seems to have gone.

“Make a trifle out of it,” said G (who was becoming anxious at the thought of an evening without a cake on offer).

Brilliant.

A bit later, after the addition of berries, sugar, amaretto, and freshly whipped cream, we had trifle. I gave it a taste to make sure it was all working properly and then couldn’t stop eating it. Derailed by trifle. It happens. 

And at that point I was forced to ramble on. My sister-in-law is celebrating her birthday tomorrow and I had promised her a cherry pie (see: Cherry Love ). The cherry pie has now been made and is on its way to my SIL. And I am back to thinking about the pirate cake (which will not be made in the topsy turvy cake pans) and the elements I need to make for that narrative.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, my characters wait patiently for a book cake on which to land.

Teatime

There are a few things about which I am a little obsessive. (Can one be a little obsessive? Is it like being a little bit pregnant?)
One of these things is cotton. Specifically, cotton sweaters. I’m allergic to wool, which, for some reason I’ve never been able to figure out, nobody quite believes. I think perhaps the reason is that our definition of “allergy” has changed over the years. And it’s true that wearing wool will not send me into anaphylactic shock, but it’s also true that what happens when I put wool (and this is any kind of wool; sheep, cashmere, angora, mohair, etc.) qualifies as more than just itchiness—it’s misery. I can feel whether or not a garment contains wool just by holding it in the palm of my hand. It’s  a princess-and-the-pea kind of thing. And if I dare to wear the garment anyway (“Oh look, it’s only got 3% wool”), I will suffer as soon as I put it on. At first it will feel mildly disturbing as if my skin is telling me, seriously, you’re at this again—giving you ten minutes to take it off. And then it begins to feel itchy. Then as if a million tiny pins are pricking my skin. By then, too, my skin will be red, hot, and bumpy where the wool is touching it. So. No wool. Every winter I begin the quest for cotton sweaters anew. It’s usually a futile quest. Therefore, the obsession. When I was a baby, the story goes, my mother used to wonder why I always had a rash around my neck and chin. Alas, it was quite a while before she figured out that it might have had something to do with the woolen hats she put me in to guard against the English chill.
English chill brings me to my next obsession; tea. Specifically, black tea with a spot of milk (or, these days, coconut creamer). My mother will admit to the woolen hats, but she denies putting tea with milk into my and my sister’s bottles when we were little. Well, she can deny all she wants—I know she did it. As a result, I think that some small percentage of my blood may actually be made of tea. Tea is good for all things; headaches, stomachaches, exhaustion, insomnia, happiness, sadness, contemplation, conversation… I could go on. I love the smell, taste, and the very idea of tea. For years, I’ve been searching in vain for a black tea perfume oil, which would be the ultimate in aromatherapy.
We drink PG Tips, imported from England, which we buy (at about 10 cents a teabag) from our local mom-and-pop liquor store (why the local mom-and-pop liquor store carries tea and English chocolates is a whole other story). When we start to run low, everyone in the house gets panicky. On the box, PG Tips extols the health benefits of tea, which contains antioxidants. A “moderate” amount of tea per day, they say, is very good for you. What do they consider “moderate”? 5 to 6 cups. A day.
My obsession with tea has led me, naturally, to experiment with it in baking. Discovering culinary green tea matcha (which is finely milled, powdered green tea) was a revelation. The color is a beautiful deep green and the flavor is subtle and delicate. Green tea cakes are among my son’s favorites, especially when paired with raspberry and/or almond. Though I love baking with green tea, it’s the taste of black tea I love the most. I’d experimented with Earl Grey cupcakes and using tea in cake batter, but it wasn’t quite as strong as I would have liked. Then, some time ago, I discovered black tea matcha, which I ordered from a specialty store. Another revelation. There wasn’t much experimenting with this one. There was, however, a great deal of eating. Most popular? These black tea chai cupcakes with cardamom frosting.
Mmm.

Chai Cupcakes with Cardamom Cream Cheese Frosting
These are very easy and can also be made vegan by substituting non-dairy versions of the milk, butter, sour cream, etc. I've done this and they come out just fine.

Ingredients:
1 cup milk (any kind)
2 tsp. black matcha. If you don't have the matcha, you can use 4 teabags of the best quality black tea you have or 2 tablespoons loose black tea.
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp. fresh ground black pepper

For the frosting:
1/4 cup butter (softened)
1/4 cup cream cheese (softened)
2 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.
Heat the milk until just scalded and then remove. If using the matcha, add and whisk until dissolved. If using teabags/loose tea, steep in the milk for ten minutes then remove the teabags (squeezing out excess liquid) or strain the milk to remove the leaves.
This is a one-bowl effort, so use a large one. Whisk together the oil, sour cream, sugar, vanilla, and tea/milk mixture until smooth. Sift in remaining dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. The batter will be fairly wet. Fill liners almost full (these don't rise very much) and bake 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
While the cupcakes are cooling, make the frosting:
Beat butter and cream cheese until combined. Use a hand mixer to add the confectioner's sugar in 1/2 cup increments until smooth and creamy. With the last 1/2 cup of sugar, add the spices. Add the vanilla and beat a bit more. Refrigerate until ready to spread.

Sweet Illusions

Sugar or beach glass?

Cake or candle?

Paintbrush or marzipan?

Cherries or...?

 

Smooth and Sweet and Light and Lovely

My son is listening to “The Girl from Ipanema” in preparation for a quiz he’s about to take for a World Music class. The dulcet Portuguese floats over to me, wrapping me in smooth sunny sound and reminding me of how much I’ve always loved this song since my mother played it for me when I was a very small child. (She also played “The Songs of Leonard Cohen” at nap time, but that’s an entirely different story.) But since at least part of the song is in Portuguese, it also reminds me of the Portuguese couple who used to come into the restaurant where I worked many, many years ago. Those were the days when I was still working Sunday brunch—a most hated shift if ever there was one—and they’d come in on Sunday mornings (the only hours of the week they took off from their small bakery/restaurant), order mimosas, sit in the sun on the patio, argue with each other in rapid, loud Portuguese, and go back to work to argue with each other some more from behind their own counter. There were never two people who worked harder than this couple. They slaved away at their restaurant, which was always teeming with people, and sniped at each other constantly. He flirted shamelessly with any female who happened to pass by, whether she swayed like a samba or not, and she glowered at him with sleep-deprived eyes. But except for those few hours on a Sunday morning, they pounded out delicious treats ceaselessly. They had some terrific pastas and salads on their limited menu, but their drool-worthy specialty (as least for me) was their fresh mango tart.

Oh, it was beautiful! Perfectly shaped mango slices arrayed in concentric circles atop a light pastry cream-covered crust. A yellow-orange sunburst on a plate. Each bite tasted—as really good mangoes will—like honeyed gold with a buttery, flaky finish. The tart was outrageously expensive (no discount for their “favorite” waitress, alas, but it I never held it against them; they were, after all, excellent tippers) and I could only afford to buy it on very special occasions. But as soon as I became even halfway confident in my baking skills, I attempted to replicate it in my own kitchen.

While it’s difficult to screw up a mango, I managed to do it. Anyone who’s ever attempted to peel and/or slice a mango knows that there’s an art to it not easily mastered (and as for those “mango slicers,” just say no—that was the most useless kitchen tool I have ever purchased; it cut me, not the mango and ended up in the trash) and it is difficult to find mangoes that are consistent in color and taste. Plus, there was the issue of what kind of crust and how to make the pastry cream. Though I still have not figured out how my Portuguese friends managed to get those perfect slices of mango on their tarts, I eventually got the rest of it together. Not too sweet. Best with mangoes that have been sampled and deemed perfect.

I think I will go find some now. 

You will need a nice tart pan if you want to make this one. This recipe makes 1 9-inch round tart, but I used my (13” x 4”) rectangular tart pan for the one above and used the leftovers for a couple of small tartlets (it took two math majors to figure out that the rectangular pan was almost 1/3 smaller than the round one).

INGREDIENTS:
For the crust:
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup almond flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon orange zest
1 1/2 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Filling:
3/4 cup (or more) Greek-style yogurt
2 tablespoons (or more) honey
1 vanilla bean, scraped
About 3 ripe mangoes (more if you’re sampling)
Fresh raspberries
Glaze:
About 1/4 cup good quality apricot preserves, heated with a little water, strained, and cooled

PREPARATION:
Combine all crust ingredients except for water and lemon juice in a food processor and process until the mixture looks like wet sand . Add water and lemon juice and process until the mixture just comes together in a ball. Press into your tart pan, going all the way up the sides.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place tart pan on a baking sheet and bake for 5 minutes. Dock the bottom of the crust with a fork and then bake another 10-15 minutes or until the crust is golden brown. Cool.
Make the pastry cream by whisking the yogurt, honey and vanilla together and then spread it evenly in the cooled tart shell.
Slice the mangoes as neatly as you can (my kitchen looks like there's been a battle to the mango death after I get finished, but there are always some casualties in this business...)
Arrange the mangoes in a pretty pattern on top of the cream and finish decorating at will with the raspberries.
Use a pastry brush to gently spread the cooled glaze on the tart.
Serve as close to immediately as possible because this one will get soggy if you let it sit.
 

Cherry Love

It’s time to talk about cherries.

Cherries are my favorite fruit. They might even be my favorite food. I can destroy a giant bowl full of cherries without blinking and then go back for more. I have never eaten too many cherries in one sitting. I don’t think it’s possible. At the height of cherry season I have been known to eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My birthday is in the middle of June (cherry season!) and one year, my father brought me two gifts; one was a flat of cherries. I can’t remember what the other one was. But I’ll never forget the sweetness of the cherries and how I mowed my way through them with abandon.

It’s not just the flavor of cherries—the sweet, subtle crimson taste of them—but the fact that you can’t eat them mindlessly (though you can eat them fast). You have to be careful with a cherry. There is, after all, a very hard pit in the middle. Zombie-like chewing is likely to result in a broken tooth. So you eat them one by one, nibbling the flesh, drinking the juice, feeling for the pit with your tongue, spitting it out, and then gobbling the rest even while you reach for the next. There is an awareness that comes with eating cherries. They force you to slow down and enjoy them. Although my cherry pitter is one of the most useful tools I own (my family scoffed at me when I bought it but it is worth its weight in cherries, which, these days, is quite a hefty sum), I would never use it to pit the cherries that I eat out of hand. It would be a crime not to savor each one.

I don’t know if I would love cherries as much if the season were longer. (Yes.) As it is, cherries show up later and later with the first round or two in supermarkets being utterly flavorless. Last year, frost delayed the cherries even longer. We didn’t get our California cherries until July and into August, although those late cherries were divine. I kept buying pounds of them at a time, vowing to freeze some for the rest of the year and failing to do this before I ate them all.

Well, that’s not quite true. I didn’t eat them all—I made pies with some of them.

Cherry Pie. The whole conversation (by which I mean any conversation) could stop with those two words. Is there anything better than a cherry pie? Let me clarify; is there anything better than a good cherry pie? There are plenty of bad cherry pies out there just as there are plenty of not-cherries out there (I’m talking to you, maraschino).

My love of cherries and my desire to make a good cherry pie led me to try many different recipes with varying results. The thing is, there aren’t that many ways to make a cherry pie—the basic ingredients are the same. It’s how you put them together that really counts. I finally discovered a crust, filling, and process combination that worked. The key was twice-baking the bottom crust. This made the pie sturdy and resistant to sogginess while still being buttery and flaky. The cherries have a little help in the filling (a dash of kirsch among other things), but there isn’t much top crust to speak of—just enough to make something pretty.

But the secret ingredient (and this will sound extremely crunchy) is love. Love. Of cherries.

I tested out my new cherry pie a couple of years ago in the five minutes when there were actually cherries in the house that weren’t being eaten on the spot. My father, notoriously hard to please when it comes to this sort of thing, pronounced it his favorite.

Some time later, I made the same pie for my in-laws. My father-in-law, by nature abstemious, could not stop eating it. “This is the best pie I have ever had,” he told me. And he meant it. My mother-in-law and my sister-in-law felt similarly, going as far as to attempt to cajole other family members out of their slices.

Months later, in October, I asked my mother-in-law what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday the following month.

“I want that cherry pie,” she said.

“But those were fresh cherries,” I said. “There are no fresh cherries in November. Unless I go to Chile or something. They probably have fresh cherries there.”

My mother-in-law shrugged. “Yo sé que las cerezas no están en temporada, pero si realmente me amaba, irias a Chile para conseguirlas para mí,” she said.

G—my husband—started to translate but I cut him off. “Not to worry,” I said. “I understand.”

Needless to say, she got her pie. But even though I used expensive organic cherries, they were still frozen cherries (I was not, as it turned out, able to go to Chile for cherries). She loved the pie, but I was not entirely satisfied.

My sister-in-law’s birthday is next week.

The cherries can’t come soon enough. 

This is a pie I made with the very last of the season’s cherries. There weren’t quite enough so I had to supplement with some blueberries and a few raspberries. If you want the recipe, let me know in the comments and I’ll include it in an upcoming post.