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Over the past several days I have been noticing that retailers — both on line and off — are trying to use what may turn out to be one of the hottest summers on record to their advantage. The other day while channel surfing I happened upon a show on QVC devoted solely to Christmas trees and wreaths. The show’s title (you guessed it) was Christmas In July. Well heck, these folks don’t trade in subtlety, they trade in cubic zirconia.

Can you blame them for trying? The thought of the holiday season may have a cooling effect on some folks, others will be enticed to start their shopping early, and still others — like me — watch in amusement from the artificial winter of my air conditioned living room.

As I sat watching the various ways you can adjust the trees to flash their twinkling lights, my air conditioner faithfully fighting off Mother Nature’s sticky panting, I thought of the song “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” most notably the line that beckons, “Oh bring us a figgy pudding.” (I would think of food.)

Wait. Did I think of the song or was it playing in the background as the host of the show demonstrated how the remote control on the battery powered wreath works?

No matter: it put the thought of figs in my mind. Fresh figs, happily, are actually in season during the summer months, unlike the PVC wreaths flashing their LED lights in tempo to “Jingle Bells.”

I love Christmas and the entire holiday season, but I hew to a different vocabulary of tastes during the summer months: a better way of putting it would be to say “a time and a taste for everything.” (Sounds like a T shirt slogan. On sale in the lobby gift shop.)

During the summer I gravitate towards lighter foods, and things with brighter, fresher flavors. That does not mean that cake is out of the question. In fact when the thought of figs came to mind so did an old recipe of mine, one that I’ve been anxious to revisit for quite a while. It’s the first recipe I ever wrote that got published. Make that ghost-published.

You see, I have a friend who spends a great deal of time away from New York, so when he’s in town we always try to get together and catch up. Usually this involves gabbing in a Chinese restaurant until the staff makes it abundantly clear that they’d like us to leave. One time a few years ago he came over for coffee and cake.

He liked the cake so much that he asked for the recipe. A while later, with my permission, he volunteered the recipe for a book that was sold for charity, adding an amusing back-story that bore no relation to the truth. Did I care? No! I had published my first recipe. (I have no idea how well the book sold.)

The funny thing is that when I baked the cake I faced a kitchen with dwindling supplies, including – uh-oh – not enough sugar.

So, winging it with whatever I had in the cupboard, I came up with an adaptation of a basic Italian Olive Oil cake recipe that was satisfyingly plain. Don’t confuse plain with boring, because the cake was flavorful, moist, and had an unexpectedly hearty crumb. (Is using the term “crumb” a little high-falutin’? Apologies. It sounds like we’re having a cake tasting the way folks have wine tastings, but instead of comparing bouquets we’re comparing crumbs. A slippery slope. I promise to use caution.)

Some people hear the words “olive oil” and “cake” in the same sentence and get a little worried. If you’ve cooked with olive oil you know it usually has a scent that ranges from grassy green to turpentine. In salads or cooking that’s usually not a problem; in chocolate chip cookies this could be objectionable. But with the right cohorts olive oil can be a welcome addition to the sweet part of the meal.

Just like when you’re making chicken, a touch of lemon is compatible with olive oil. Maple syrup lends a bit caramel, and vanilla adds…well, vanilla.

The real difference is using semolina flour. This adds a texture, color, and a slightly sweeter grain flavor than plain flour. The result is like a big, moist corn muffin with hints of undecipherable influences. It’s good cake, and I thought, perfect for a re-visit, fresh figs in hand.

The figs I found were just on the cusp of going past their prime, so I carefully diced them (a serrated knife helped), and gently folded them into the batter. For a touch of crunch I sprinkled Demerara sugar on top before baking, the large sugar crystals lending a touch of molasses crunch to the finished cake. The figs dissolved slightly into the finished cake, but not enough that the little pop-pop-pop of their seeds – a la “Fig Newtons”—was lost. Their gentle honey flavor mellowed a bit, mixing beautifully with the other sweet ingredients. It all sounds kind of icky sweet, but in truth, not so much. Mellow is the best adjective here.

A perfect light summer dessert, yes, but not a bad choice with coffee, even for breakfast.

And this time the recipe’s all mine. No ghosts.

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Click here for my Semolina Fig Cake recipe.

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Chocolate Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Meringue

Like many New Yorkers, my kitchen is air conditioned only on special occasions. As luck would have it, I have several friends and family members whose birthdays fall during the summer. I grew up in a house where birthdays were always marked by a cake, so as an adult I feel compelled to extend the courtesy by baking birthday cakes for my friends. Those are the special occasions when I crank the kitchen a/c to its chilliest setting, which, to my liking, is just short of snowfall.

This weekend as our nation celebrates its birthday (“234?? You don’t look a day over…”) I’m lucky enough to have a friend who has invited me to watch the big fireworks display from her rooftop aerie. I’m using the description “rooftop aerie” more for fun than for accuracy. The truth is, her apartment is relatively modest, although she does have a postcard view of the Empire State Building and shared use of the roof. I’m not sure if her kitchen is air conditioned, even on special occasions. I’m too shy to ask. The question “Is your kitchen air conditioned?” seems a tad too close to “Is your refrigerator running?” for my comfort. I’m a little long in the tooth for what we used to refer to as “chicken calls.”

(You don’t remember “chicken calls?” When we were kids we’d pick folks at random from the phone book, call them, ask, “Is your refrigerator running?” and when they’d say, “Yes” we’d say, “Well you better run and catch it!” and then hang up.)

(Yes, I know it’s not funny. But I was – what – 8 or 9 years old? Where I grew up this was practically considered gang warfare.)

(No, I didn’t learn to cook at the reformatory.)

My second favorite modern convenience, after air conditioning – caller ID – has all but eliminated the scourge of chicken calls.

I am worried about the relative coolness of her kitchen because of the all American menu that has been planned — take out Chinese food and my cupcakes. The Chinese food can take care of itself: I’m worried about the cupcakes. If her kitchen is hot I’ll worry about them sitting out on the counter too long (The frosting will melt.) I also have what they refer to as a scheduling problem, that is, I don’t really have time Saturday or Sunday to bake and frost cupcakes. My only choice is to make them a few days ahead, and then stare fear in the eye by calling ahead to reserve fridge space.

Unlike Mrs. Weasley in the “Harry Potter” books, I don’t have the skills to wave a magic wand and make food appear. So, instead of magic, I’ll let chemistry do the work. I know that many folks insist that you can only bake cookies and cakes with butter. I, however, do not subscribe to such absolutes in baking (or in much else, to be honest.)

Bakers down south have agreed with this tenet for years. True Southern Red Velvet Cake is made with oil, not butter. Aside from making a lighter, springier, cake, oil has the further advantage of solidifying at a lower temperature than butter. What this means for me and you is that we can bake cakes with oil, store them in the refrigerator, and they’ll be light and springy right out of the fridge, unlike butter cakes which need some time to come up to room temperature. In addition, cakes made with oil freeze and thaw beautifully.

All of this got me to thinking about my sister-in-law. One of the “givens” of any chocolate cake made within my family is that it must be large enough for left-overs. After the stress of a long day’s work my sister-in-law eats forks-full right out the box without even removing it from the refrigerator. (And she’s what my Auntie used to refer to as a “mere slip of a thing.”) The point is, sometimes chocolate cake tastes better on the cool side.

On a warm summer Fourth of July night under the stars a nice cool piece of cake would be yummy. Frosting and fireworks. That’s my kind of holiday. Chocolate frosting is okay cold, although I admit it is better when the chill is off. There must be a frosting that tastes good and is the perfect consistency right from the fridge. (Not to mention saving me the round trip down stairs from my friend’s rooftop aerie to take the cupcakes out of the fridge to warm up.) Clearly it was time to get to work in the Butter Flour Eggs Frosting Lab.

I had already decided to bake Chocolate Red Velvet Cupcakes, an oil-based recipe. Red Velvet Cake is usually frosted with a cream cheese frosting but I usually frost Chocolate Cake with Italian Buttercream, which is a cooked meringue beaten with butter. It is smooth and fluffy. Splitting the difference seemed to be the obvious answer, as in Cream Cheese Meringue. I made the meringue as usual, and then beat in the cream cheese. The result was a bit loose, but the advantage of that was that instead of standing frosting cupcakes I merely dipped the tops of the cupcakes in the frosting. Each one came out smooth and perfect, with a little “Dairy Queen” swirly top that drooped as the cupcakes sat a while which lessened the cupcakes’ appeal not a bit.

Yes, yes, I know, Italian Meringue requires you to cook sugar to a specific temperature, and by extension requires the use of a candy thermometer. Never fear. You can substitute a jar or two of Marshmallow Fluff and beat that together with the cream cheese. The result will be a bit sweeter, and perhaps slightly overpower the delicate Chocolate Red Velvet cake, but that fear may be a reflection of my own preference for making things from scratch. Short of a blind side-by-side taste test who’s gonna know?

Either way, they’re Yankee Doodle dandy.

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Click here for the recipe for Chocolate Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Meringue.

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Write to me at the email address below with any questions or thoughts you may have. Thanks!

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Jelly Roll with Rhubarb Jam

There it sat. Right where I left it, give or take the few inches I had slid it in either direction to get to something else. A visible reminder of my own over-reaching ambition. Would I ever actually use it?

Lest you think I am talking about a piece of exercise equipment, rest assured that I am not. I’m talking about the jar of Rhubarb Jelly I made last week. In my ambition to cook with ingredients that are fresh and local, I bought what I thought was “a little” rhubarb, and ended up with an exercise in, “Okay Smarty-Pants, now what?” a/k/a one quart of homemade jelly. Last week I baked my Mom’s jam-filled Thumbprint cookies, but they made only the tiniest of dents in my tank o’jelly.

I knew that I needed to put it to good use; indeed its fiery, ketchupy, redness practically demanded a return in front of my camera, like some botanical Norma Desmond ready for its close up.

If you read my blog last week, I can almost hear the “sssshhhh” of your pants /skirt / pajamas as you slide down in your chair thinking, “Aw jeez, again with the Rhubarb Jelly?” Fear not. This is less about the jelly and more about the use.

Let me make the briefest of detours now to correct myself. Even though I refer to it as jelly, what I made is actually jam, the difference being that jelly uses only the juice of the fruit; jam uses the entire fruit, seeds and all. By nature, it would seem to me that there could not be such a thing as Rhubarb Jelly: ever tried to juice a rhubarb?

The recent unseasonably summery weather got me to thinking of all the great things we eat during the warm weather. I was practically ready for a kitchen clambake and Strawberry Shortcake when the sixty-degree temperature returned. It’s a good thing I like the cool weather. I’ll put away my lobster bib until later.

All of this musing about hot weather food also brought to mind Jelly Roll. I can remember more than one warm Sunday afternoon meal that ended with a sticky slice of Jelly Roll. Aesthetically I doubt that there is a more humble dessert, but its humility belies a sophisticated heart. Yes, it looks humble, but there is a little technique required.

Jelly roll is known to bakers as Biscuit à Roulade, and shares a chunk of baking DNA with Ladyfingers. Ladyfingers are piped through a pastry bag. Jelly roll is made in a sheet pan and rolled unfilled just out of the oven.  This is a lesson in technique that is at once technical and chemical. If you wait until the cake cools to roll it, the sugar will have crystallized, and the cake will crack. (This same technique – and science – is used to make the little rolled “cigar” cookies.)

The cake gets it airiness because the only leavening in the batter is the air you whip into the eggs (the Kitchen Aid mixer proves to be your best mate here.) The only other technique-related task that may throw some aspiring Jelly Roll bakers is the need to separate the eggs. If you can handle that, you’re golden (and so is the cake.)

Savvy readers of Butter Flour Eggs may remember the Yule Log cake I made at Christmas. It was also a Jelly Roll, although filled with Coffee Buttercream instead of jelly, frosted to resemble a log, and decorated with Meringue Mushrooms.

I have a better reason for mentioning the Yule Log beyond just hyper linking to past glories. I realized as I was eating my slice of Jelly Roll that I was playing with my food. (I think the population of Earth is likely divided into two groups: those who play with their food and those who do not. I’m not talking about throwing my food at others, or other subversive activities. I’m talking about ritualistic eating.)

Okay, this needs explaining. I eat certain foods a certain way, all the time. Perhaps it is a mild form of O.C.D., but mild enough that if I can’t eat that food the prescribed way every time I do not feel that the world will come to an end. Examples: Bagels? I eat around the hole. Ditto donuts (on the rare occasions I eat them.) Pie? I eat the filling first, then the crust as a chaser. Soup? Crackers last—and never in the actual soup. You get the picture and probably have your own list of habits.

Jelly Roll? I was absentmindedly eating the Jelly Roll and realized that I was uncoiling it, scraping off the jelly, and eating the cake, exactly as I had done as a child. Noticing this made me think, “Maybe I’m just not that into jelly.” I mentioned this to a hungry friend whose attention skipped past my aberrant eating habits and right to making Jelly Roll. He asked, “Can you fill the Jelly Roll with Whipped Cream?”

I quickly topped that suggestion by proposing to flavor the whipped cream with my Rhubarb Jelly. Or even better: Chambord. How about a really perverse Strawberry Shortcake comprised of sliced strawberries sandwiched by two slices of the Chambord-laced whipped cream Jelly Roll? (Note that Jelly Roll’s name changes when you replace the jelly, becoming Swiss Roll.)

So if I’m just not into jelly, there’s a whole cast of characters waiting to take its place.

And, not that far off,  a whole summer to enjoy them. 

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Click here for the recipes for Rhubarb Jelly and Jelly Roll.

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Write to me at the email address below with any questions or thoughts you may have. Thanks!

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The Easter Bunny has been here...

I have to admit I love the kitsch aspect of any holiday. Paper honeycomb fold-out turkeys on Thanksgiving? Please put mine front and center. American flag toothpicks on Fourth of July? Can’t have enough. But for true kitsch lovers I think the real competition is between Christmas and Easter, although admittedly, Christmas wins by the sheer volume of electrically-driven things that light up, flash, and spin. Easter is slightly more analog.

Surely you can’t not smile at all the carrot-clutching stuffed Easter Bunnies currently lining store shelves? After a winter like we’ve had in the Northeast, I almost feel like I could get a tan from the jelly beans and yellow and pink Marshmallow Peeps smiling at me in the drug store. If their shiny pastel colors can’t cut through the gloomy weather, then the sugar buzz they deliver will.

My cousin Hope has invited me to her Easter egg hunt. She’s been arranging these hunts for her boss’ kids every year for a long time and I think she invites me because she has always thought of me as her “little cousin.” (We grew up a couple of doors away from each other, and she’s a decade older, so I think she’ll always think of me that way.)

I’ve always looked up to Hope for her artistic ability – there’s a strong artistic strain that runs through our family – and for her ability to marry a great business mind and entrepreneurial spirit with that ability. (She’s a catalogue merchant and jewelry designer.)

She’s also an excellent cook, although I suspect that what she really enjoys is supervising while her husband and I do the actual cooking.

This is my way of explaining that I find the thought of bringing her something from my kitchen a little intimidating. She is never less than supportive and complimentary of my baking, but in the past I have always copped out and brought candy. This year, there’s the blog you’re currently reading, evidence of my kitchen skills, and therefore an implied obligation to do more than just supply the elusive Avatar-blue Peeps.

I decided that a routine research trip down the Easter candy aisle at Duane Reade was the best way to start. While cruising this sugary Amazon, perusing the M&M’s bagged to look like carrots, the glowing jelly beans, and the foil-wrapped chocolate eggs, I realized that what I really wanted was to make something that included all of the above.

“Is there a way to bake an Easter basket?” I wondered. Hmmm. Why not?

Shredded coconut was my first thought – it would imitate the fake grass that people use in real Easter baskets. From that my mind went to the sticky, old-fashioned coconut cake I used to see protected by a plastic dome at Howard Johnson’s. That seemed ideal, except in scale. When the discussion centers on cake, scale is easily remedied by breaking out the trusty old cupcake or muffin tin. A cottony white cupcake, fluffy white frosting, the coconut, and just a few pieces of Easter candy on top. Each Easter egg hunter would have their very own, very edible, Easter basket, and that seemed just right to me. (And no chocolate mess.) (Well, from the cupcakes.)

White cake recipes usually try to dress up the end result with almond extract, but for my purposes the cake was merely there as a pedestal for other things, so no almond extract here. And to keep the coconut firmly attached to its pedestal I decided to use enough über-fluffy Italian Meringue to make the clouds in the sky jealous.

Obviously you’re free to use whatever Easter candy you prefer as the ingredients of each “basket,” but my choices were distinguished little gold-foil wrapped Lindt Milk Chocolate bunnies, a few Dove Milk Chocolate eggs, and a smattering of jelly beans. Enough sugar to sink a battleship. I skipped my original idea which was to tie licorice whips to each cupcake to simulate a basket handle; in theory it was cute, but in practice it set off the kitsch alarms.

If you’ve never made Italian Meringue, yes, it’s a bit convoluted. But don’t confuse convoluted with difficult;  with a Kitchen Aid mixer, a candy thermometer, and a little bit of patience, in short order you’ll be spooning little clouds of the stuff on top of cupcakes. (Meringue is also fat-free, not a bad trade off for all the sugar.)

The end result of my trial run was placed before a panel of experts pre-Easter to make sure kids would like the cupcakes. The panel (my brother, a rather large kid) declared that they were “…all about the meringue on top.”

Lavish praise indeed. Wait until the Easter Bunny tastes them.

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Click here for my recipe for Easter Basket Cupcakes.

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I couldn't wait. I started without you. Sorry.

It shouldn’t surprise you that I define holidays by the anticipated food, not unlike the way a teenager weighs where to spend Saturday night based on which friends they expect to see at which party. (“Omigod, Heather will TOTALLY be there!”)

The difference is that I divide holiday food into two categories. Category One: holiday food that I love. Category Two: holiday food that I tolerate due to nostalgia. At no time are these two categories more distinct than during Passover, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the Jews’ escape from slavery in ancient Egypt.

Here’s the deal: Passover food is a challenge game. Make anything you want, just make sure there’s nothing leavened. If you’re really strict (and I’m not), anything that is allowed to bake too long and puff up too much – even if it does not contain yeast, baking powder, or baking soda – will leave you out of compliance with the rules. The Rabbis who supervise the official baking of Passover matzo will force the bakers to discard a batch if it stays in the oven too long.

Flour? Sorry, no. The various Passover flours are versions of ground matzo. Some smell like wet paper when used in a recipe, also a challenge.

Some folks may find this sacrilege, but to me matzo is like Christmas. It should only happen once a year. I love them both, but any more than an annual visit and you wouldn’t appreciate them. The novelty is in the nostalgia value. I was probably 10 years old the last time I ate my Grandmother’s Passover Potato Kugel, and I can still taste its greasy, salty, goodness. But I’m a realist: I know that if I ate her Potato Kugel now, the word “agita” would get a sweaty workout. (My Nana was many things, but good cook was not one of them. I don’t remember her ever baking anything, but she did open a mean box of cookies.) (Sorry Nana.)

You get the point. Speaking solely for me, the main appeal of Passover food is its once-a-year novelty. The frustration is that those of us who enjoy baking and cooking and are spoiled by the fresh simplicity of the great stuff we make all through the year have a tough time eating macaroons from can. Or worse.

I think the answer can be found in a sort of a recipe for Passover recipes. The ingredients are big flavors, lots of texture, minimize the ground matzo, and find stuff that you would gladly eat and serve to anyone at any time of the year.

A while ago I remember seeing a cake baked on TV that was rustic and what I imagined to be typical of what you’d find if you’d been invited to dinner at a farm in cooler Northern Italy. It was a hazelnut cake that contained mostly ground nuts, sugar, and egg whites. That seemed like a good place to start. (I think with food it is always hard to goof if you start with Italian.)

I googled “Piedmont Nut Cake” and found “Torta di Nocciola,” which is indeed a traditional cake from that alpine region. A little tinkering would be needed to suit my needs. Well, one big tinker: I needed to find an elegant way to include a generous dose of chocolate with the cake. My sister-in-law is hosting our family Seder this year. If I arrive without chocolate in hand I will be turned away at the door. Naturally I am happy to comply with this requirement.

The basic recipe isn’t that far from Angel Food Cake. Whipped egg whites supply the loft; the only fat is whatever is in the ground nuts. Usually when you want to add chocolate to Angel Food cake you fold in ground chocolate as cocoa powder requires a lot of mixing which could deflate the egg whites. Why not apply the same principal to my Piedmontese Passover cake?

One stumble on the way to the altar: I couldn’t find hazelnuts anywhere. Channeling my inner Alice Waters, I grabbed what was fresh and available: whole raw almonds. (Use nuts with the brown skin still on. They’ll dot the cake with their earthy flecks.)

The resulting cake has a large-crumbed dampness that is usually missing in Passover cake. The egg whites reveal themselves in the cake’s snappy crust. The cake feels light, but beware its deceptive richness. The chocolate and the almonds skip hand in hand; a well-known match made in heaven. The almonds were actually a better choice in this version of the cake. The gods of baking were obviously smiling on me when they forced me to substitute almonds for hazelnuts.

All that was left was to test the cake on some unsuspecting victims to prove that it could be more than just a Passover dessert.

A tiny group of us met for dinner a few nights ago. I arrived, Piedmontese cake in hand, with visions of the old “We’ve replaced their gourmet brewed coffee with Folgers’s Instant Coffee” TV commercial dancing in my head. Fortunately our host was making pasta. As dessert rolled around I tried to act casual but failed. Yes, they loved the cake, but there was no equivalent of the “This is instant coffee? Really??” moment from the old commercial. I kept saying, “It’s a Passover cake!” They kept eating. Couldn’t have cared less.

Oh well, you take success where you can get it.

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Click here for my recipe for Torta di Mandorla per La Pasqua (Passover Almond Tort)

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Write to me at the email address below with any thoughts you may have. Thanks!

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uh oh...

Hey, month of January: I’m just not that into you.

When January starts I always feel as though I’ve been kicked out of a great party because the hosts want to go to sleep. Out into the hall I am booted, my coat and scarf tossed out the door after me. Every shred of holiday glitz has been stripped away or ripped down faster than you can say, “Jingle Bells.” The Rockettes have gone home to soak their poor, tired, feet, and discarded Christmas trees line Manhattan’s sidewalks, lying on their sides as if they are sleeping off a long bender.

Worst of all, the kitchen has been shuttered: I can no longer use the holidays as an excuse for one more cookie.

It’s really a matter of outlook. I need to stop concentrating on January as the end of something, and start concentrating on January as the start of something; the frosty mug into which a happy, exciting, foamy, root beer will soon flow.

(Poetic? Hardly. You’ll notice there’s still something sugary on my mind.)

I should really be grateful to January for being the “tough love Mom” of the year. “Time to get back to the gym. Time to start eating properly again. You’ll look and feel better.” Yes, Mom. Okay, Mom. I will, Mom.

Oh, I was full of good intentions, one of which was to start the New Year writing about food that was less “sugar-centric.” With practically everyone now on a diet I confess that it wasn’t altruism that drove this editorial direction; I was afraid I might drive folks away if I kept up a steady stream of cakes, pies, cookies, and milk chocolate.

My personal belief is that cooking well for yourself is the keystone of a great diet. However, the trick for me is to get the ball rolling, which I have been gradually psyching myself up to do (I’m moving a little slowly these days due to all that holiday bloat.)

Then I got an invitation to a New Year’s Weekend Brunch. My mother trained me that you should never go to someone’s house empty-handed, so what was I going to bring: a bunch of celery? Heck, as I write this it’s still the holidays, so I’m having one last blast of sugar. Wheee!

(As you read this, I will have gone on the wagon. I swear.)

Breakfast is my favorite meal, so I am naturally drawn to the breakfast-y aspect rather than the lunch-y aspect of brunch. My hostess is well known as a skilled and discerning cook, so I really needed to be on my game. (She was certainly on hers!)

I don’t know why my head went directly to crumb cake. If this was the food equivalent of psychologists’ ink blots what would this say about my psyche? I wanted to make one of those old fashioned coffee cakes where the cake part merely serves as support to masses of cinnamon-infused crunchy crumbs. I’ve made things like this once or twice in the past, but noted that the recipes floating around out there always seemed to shortchange the streusel or crumb topping. Why be chintzy with the part that is always everyone’s favorite? So right out of the gate I knew that I would double the usual amount of crumbs usually called for.

The cake portion of our program was fairly straightforward: a touch of vanilla here, a hint of cinnamon there (to echo the streusel). My only twist was to replace half of the sugar with brown sugar, which would give the cake a mild glint of caramel. The thought of bringing a big tube pan-shaped cake seemed a little heavy duty for a small home brunch, so I pulled out the trusty loaf pan.

I would rate the cake a true first draft effort. The first problem was that there was too much batter for the pan. In a wink toward impending New Year diets, the recipe was designed to not be as rich, so I replaced the butter with oil. I also used regular plain non fat yogurt which left the batter a touch too runny to support the hefty middle layer of streusel crumbs. Next time I’ll experiment with either sour cream or Greek yogurt; both are thicker and should help produce a batter more up to the task of supporting the crumbs. I may even dial back on the brown sugar to restore a stark contrast between the toasted spicy crumbs and the downy cake. We’ll see.

Really though, what’s the point of all this fuss? Most folks will just eat the crumbs and push the cake aside. Well, I like the cake, so this is a personal errand.

Worst of all was that the top layer of crumbs over browned a bit in my oven. Using less batter or a different pan will reduce the baking time and reduce the chance that the crumbs may over-brown. I’m posting the recipe, so feel free to take a look and send me your suggestions. It’ll be our little collaborative project for the year.

Meanwhile a more earthbound question would be what to do with the big bunch of celery I bought to photograph. When I was a little kid my mother used to fill the hollow with peanut butter. I’m not averse to a dab of peanut butter every now and then—even on a diet—but I really thought I could be a little more imaginative. Yes, I could chop it and use it as part of the aromatic base for some hearty winter soup, and likely will use some of it for that. But I need a snack to replace the cookies which have been rotated off the menu.

If you’ve never heard of Bagna Càuda, it’s not an academic achievement, it’s a dip served hot, fondue style – Bagna Càuda translates as “warm bath.” The best part (right now) is that unlike fondue it is very light and its few ingredients shoehorn it comfortably into the Mediterranean diet. While this simple Piedmontese recipe usually starts with just olive oil, anchovy, and garlic, you can play around with the ingredients to suit your whim. I’ll be using it to dip that big bunch of celery and other veggies, but you can also drizzle it over cooked meat, or even use it as a side for antipasti.

All right! Now I’m hungry. Luckily there’s something good waiting!

Happy New Year!

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The kind folks at Saveur Magazine found my August 31^st, 2009 posting about Ines Rosales Sweet Olive Oil Tortas and asked me to distill it for inclusion in their readers’ 2010 Top 100 list. You’ll find it in the Jan / Feb 2010 issue of the magazine, now on newsstands everywhere. Take a look and let me know what you think!

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Click here for the recipe for Crumb Cake and click here for the recipe for Bagna Càuda.

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Write to me at the email address below with any thoughts you may have. Thanks!

Let me email you when the blog has been updated! Opt in by clicking the biscotti at right or by sending your email address to michael@butterfloureggs.com

In glorious Technicolor, and Stereophonic Sound

Every time I watch a holiday movie, an angel gets its wings. I can’t help it. During the holiday season my fascination with food as it is portrayed on screen dovetails with an obsession I’ve long had with holiday-themed movies. Yes, I know everyone loves “It’s A Wonderful Life”—me too. But there are other movies I watch that are perennial favorites which also tickle my foodie-bone.

“Holiday Inn” is a veritable buffet. Most folks would be content with Fred Astaire dancing and Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas” beside a glowing hearth in an empty inn. Not me. I look for the scenes where Bing is in the kitchen plating New Year’s dinner to music, and later, lovesick over losing the girl (you know the formula: boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back), he refuses to eat “Mr. Jones”, the Thanksgiving turkey, claiming he knew “Jonesey” too well. The Thanksgiving dinner he refuses always makes my mouth water – startling when you consider that the movie is in black and white.

Crosby is perhaps better known for singing “White Christmas” in a later movie named for the song itself. As much as I enjoy that movie, and in spite of the fact that it is also set at an inn, it doesn’t have the same culinary appeal as “Holiday Inn.” The most we get to see is a glass of Coke and the remains of a sandwich. But that’s okay, the movie has other charms.

This year though, my attention has been drawn to a lesser-known holiday movie, “Christmas in Connecticut.” I have been writing this blog for several months and writing about the charms and limitations of cooking in my small New York apartment is, I think, part of what makes the engine run. “Christmas in Connecticut” shares a similar theme, albeit with the conceit that in addition to working from a tiny New York City apartment, the protagonist, Elizabeth Lane, “America’s Best Cook” (played by Barbara Stanwyck), actually can’t cook. (I can!) But here’s a taste of what I mean, and why, this year, I am so tickled by this film:

The camera pans from a close up of a woman’s hands typing on a portable typewriter to a grimy window from which we can see the backs of several New York City buildings. In the foreground, waving in the wind, laundry is drying on the clothesline of a neighboring apartment.

Elizabeth: “From my living room window as I write, I can look out across the broad front lawns of our farm like a lovely picture postcard of wintery New England.”

The camera tilts down to a radiator, which is hissing loudly as steam escapes from a valve.

Elizabeth: “In my fireplace the good cedar logs are burning and crackling.”

The camera pans back to the desk to reveal Elizabeth Lane as she takes a bite of her breakfast: a plate of sardines.

Elizabeth: “I’m just about to go into my gleaming kitchen to test the crumbly brown goodness of the Toasted Veal Cutlets á la Connecticut in my oven. Cook these slowly…”

I’ll spare you the plot synopsis—rent the DVD from Netflix—but suffice it to say that Stanwyck finds herself in a bind and ends up having to go to great lengths to live up to the farm housewife image she has created. It’s a charming film, perhaps a bit old fashioned, but if you’re looking for lessons about life to reflect on during the holiday season, this is not the movie to screen. Stick to “It’s A Wonderful Life” for sermonizing; this flick is purely a romantic comedy.

But it’s that small patch of real estate that Elizabeth Lane and I share that makes me reflect on some of the hoops through which I must leap in my own cracker box-sized urban kitchen. The flip side is, of course, that I think I could teach a thing or two about project planning, including risks, milestones, and scope creep. Cooking or baking is the supreme exercise in organization. Start with a concept, make a list, end with a birthday cake; it’s not magic, it’s organization. (That thumping noise you hear is yours truly patting himself on the back.)

I always joke that if, someday, I am blessed to have a huge, fully tricked out kitchen, due to my experience in my itty-bitty kitchen, I will still use only a few square inches of space, and continue to balance all the bowls on the edge of the sink (uh, the huge, deep, white porcelain farmhouse-style sink.)

Ha ha ha.

The truth – hopefully—will likely find me luxuriously spread out around a marble-topped island while in the background, the oven of my six burner restaurant-grade stove is preheating. “Where did I leave those eggs? Uh-oh, they’re all the way over there.”And ‘round and ‘round that island I will trot, lap after lap, burning off the calories of the goodies I am preparing.

Ah, one can dream. Are you listening, Santa?

Many years ago I waited tables in a distinguished Manhattan restaurant run by an equally distinguished chef. The dirty little secret was that the kitchen was smaller (and hotter!) than most home kitchens, including some New York apartments. Yet, they turned out four-star cuisine (still do.)

I always consider eating to be one of life’s great pleasures. There’s a reason food tastes good. There’s a reason why food in every culture is an expression of love. Consider the word “feed.” We feed our stomachs. We feed our souls. Sometimes if we’re lucky we accomplish both in the same exercise. Food maintains us, helps us thrive and grow—sometimes to excess, yes, but you get the point.

So, it isn’t the size of the kitchen, is it? It’s the size of the heart.

(I’ll just keep repeating that over and over the next time I feel hemmed in by my kitchen.)

Okay, my holiday sermon is done. I’m hungry! Let’s eat!

You’re wondering: what is that big, fat, chocolaty concoction in the picture above? That’s the Buche de Noël I made for a friend’s Christmas party. Also known as a Yule Log Cake, it is not exactly subtle or delicate. Calling it sweet would be an understatement. While transporting it to the party I kept referring to it (in my mind) as “The Beast”—understandable, as it was large enough to serve at least fifteen people. What makes me laugh is that folks at the party were a bit intimidated by it. Someone had to drag me out of the kitchen (where all good parties end up) with the exhortation that, “Everyone wants to eat the Yule Log, but they’re afraid to touch it unless you make the first cut.”

Really? That wouldn’t have stopped me: I would have asked, “Hey, where’s the knife?”

Of course I also made cookies for the party, but I wanted some kind of special focal point on the dessert table, something epic. If I were in the movie business this would be my big holiday release. Consider it my “White Christmas in Connecticut at Holiday Inn.” It stars two flavors of buttercream (chocolate and coffee), with cocoa biscuit á roulade (jellyroll cake) in a supporting role. A chorus of beautiful meringue mushrooms rounds out the cast.

I hope you are duly entertained.

Happy Holidays to you and the ones you love! Don’t forget to leave cookies for Santa and the reindeer.

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A few days ago I had the great pleasure of spending time with a wonderful woman named Helen Stafford of the Ronald McDonald House of New York. Helen gave me a tour of this amazing facility which provides a temporary “home-away-from-home” for pediatric cancer patients and their families. The Ronald McDonald House is supported entirely by private donations. Please read about this amazing place, and keep them in mind when considering your year-end charity donation.

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Want to make your own Buche de Noël? Write to me at the email address below if you want the recipes and process for the Buche de Noël—or any other thoughts you may have. Thanks!

Let me email you when the blog has been updated! Opt in by clicking the biscotti at right or by sending your email address to michael@butterfloureggs.com

Three martini lunch?

Here at Butter Flour Eggs, my mother is Executive Vice President of Food Nostalgia. Full disclosure: before she could be lured out of retirement to take the job, I was forced to sign a contract approximately the thickness of the Manhattan phonebook that contained a waiver forbidding me from referring to her age in any way. (So read on, and you do the math.)

Mom reminded me recently of a happy food memory she has carried with her for many years. Before my parents got married she worked for one of the high mucky mucks at the State House in Boston. On the days when she felt she could slip away without any risk that the wheels of state government would grind to a halt in her absence, she’d pop over to Schrafft’s for lunch.

Schrafft’s was before my time, but a couple of years ago I read a fun little book called When Everybody Ate at Schrafft’s by Joan Kanel Slomanson. More a reminiscence than a deep dive into the sociology behind the famous chain restaurant, I learned that in spite of Schrafft’s fame as a New York chain (they were almost as ubiquitous as Starbucks are now,) the company actually had deep New England roots. In fact, the Schrafft’s sign still hangs prominently on the Charlestown, Mass. landmark building that once served as the company’s candy factory.

My mom uses the same reverent tones when mentioning Schrafft’s Cottage Pudding that she uses when talking about some of the far-flung trips she and my Dad took.

I had no idea what Cottage Pudding was, and assumed it must have been something amazing. I grilled my mom: was it like bread pudding? No. Was it like those molten chocolate cakes that I just read have been declared old hat? No. Well, what was it then?

As she explained it, Cottage Pudding was a piece of plain white loaf cake served on a plate with warm chocolate sauce.

A piece of plain cake with chocolate sauce inspires a lifetime of reverent memories in a woman who is intelligent, cultured, and well travelled? Go figure, right? But that’s food: you never know what will grab you. And who knows what kind of emotions are tied up in the food we eat. With the weight of running the Commonwealth of Massachusetts practically resting on my Mom’s shoulders, maybe Cottage Pudding was some kind of soothing comfort food. Food is a primal urge. We can’t explain it.

Actually, a nice piece of cake with some warm chocolate sauce doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

But why is it called “pudding?”

I started with a little detective work. Cottage Pudding seems to have been around for a long time before my mother found it. There is a recipe for Cottage Pudding in the early Fannie Farmer cookbooks. A lot of people remember the name Fannie (or Fanny) Farmer from the chain of candy shops that disappeared a few years back, but actually she was a prominent New England cook and teacher, and wrote one of the first cookbooks that used standard measures (i.e., cups and teaspoons) in the recipes. The recipe for Cottage Pudding in the 1918 edition of her The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (now available on line here) is clearly for a cake.

The umbrella word that the British use for most desserts is “pudding.” If you take this somewhat wider definition of the word “pudding” into consideration, and keep in mind that Farmer was a product of the late 19^th century when there was still a British colonial influence on American food you’ll see that it isn’t much of a stretch for this dessert to be called “pudding.”

I hear you: you don’t want a history lesson, you want cake and you want it NOW! Fine: class dismissed. I’m off to the kitchen. The Schrafft’s chain is long gone but Cottage Pudding lives. I’m performing CPR on it.

I have two tasks at hand. The first is to create a modern version of a “homely” old dessert. The second is to try to provide my mom with a little reunion with a consoling old friend.

The Schrafft’s book I mentioned above was a good source for the Hot Fudge Sauce recipe. It is a basic cream, butter, sugar, chocolate sauce. True to its Schrafft’s roots, the sugary sauce is very “candy-shoppe” in its influence and easy to prepare. But the book doesn’t mention Cottage Pudding, so for the cake I first considered Fannie Farmer’s recipe. It is also very basic, and is likely very simple to make. But it also seems plain to the point of being austere. I think a better challenge would be to bring a little vitality to this party while still staying within the confines of Schrafft’s reputation for plain, home-style cooking.

So I went to my old fallback recipe: Ina Garten’s Lemon Yogurt Pound Cake, which I mentioned in this space a few weeks ago. With a few changes, and perhaps a bit of cosmetic surgery, this would give me a foundation on which to build, and a chance to bring Cottage Pudding into the 21^st century.

I started by scrubbing all of the lemon out of the recipe (Lemon and chocolate never seem to go well together.) But I thought the cake needed some kind of quiet counterpoint to the sticky ooze of the chocolate sauce. Vanilla seemed like the obvious choice, but not just the perfume of vanilla extract: I thought adding vanilla bean would give the cake its own vibrant personality to stand up to its overbearing saucy sister.

But how much vanilla bean? The normal rule in cooking is to start with less, because you can always add more of something but you can’t remove it. But this seemed like one time when breaking that rule was appropriate. I wanted to see what too much vanilla would taste like, so I added the contents of a whole vanilla bean.  This gave the dough an intense vanilla scent and a picturesque speckle of the little black dots from the bean.

In a nod to the current obsession with cupcakes I thought it would be fun to leave the loaf pan on its shelf for now, and try baking the dough in a muffin tin. That would accomplish portion control, yes, but also awaken the primal childhood instinct of having your very own cake (and yes, eating it too.)

My first hint that I was on the right track was the heady vanilla cloud that enveloped me and my kitchen when I opened the oven door to remove the cakes. Don’t be afraid to serve this dessert warm from the oven! The combination of warm sauce and warm cake throwing off its breathy vanilla-ness is intense. The combination of warm sauce and cool cake is equally gratifying—when the warm sauce hits the cool cake you get a slightly less aggressive vanilla hit, more like a poke on the shoulder reminding you, “I’m here too!”

By the way, Fannie Farmer recommended that the cake be served with Vanilla or Hard Sauce. Somehow it ended up at Schrafft’s served with their famous chocolate sauce. I wonder if that was Schrafft’s twist or my Mom’s? She’s been known to ask for a dollop of hot fudge sauce on everything but french fries.

Either way, my first thought on my first bite was, “Ohhhh! Ice Cream Shop!” Eat this and you are taken back in time to the cool air of a marble-lined neighborhood confectionary. I get it now, Mom. You just earned your cushy corner office.

By the way: if you’re into fondue, bake the cake in a loaf pan, cut it into cubes and serve with the hot sauce. I know fondue normally has some alcohol added: might I recommend the merest tipple of Cointreau?

And Mom? Please get back to work. That reminds me: I asked Mom what she had for lunch besides the Cottage Pudding. The famous Schrafft’s Chicken Sandwich? No. Their celebrated Lobster Newburgh? No.

Just the Cottage Pudding. That’s my Mom.

Click here for the Cottage Pudding recipe.

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Pumpkin Apple Praline Cake

No, I am not calendar-challenged; this Friday marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year holiday, which starts with Rosh Hashanah, and ends the following week with Yom Kippur. 

On the lunar-based Jewish calendar this year will be 5770, and yes, I agree, time flies: seems like it was just 5760.

Here’s the “Emily Post”: Yes, by all means wish your Jewish friends a Happy New Year, but do not say, “Happy Yom Kippur.” Yom Kippur is all about fasting to atone for your sins, and mourning those we’ve lost. Stick with, “Happy New Year” and you’re covered.

In spite of the fact that the holiday includes a day of fasting, as with any big holiday there is also a big meal. My baby niece (that’s what I call her in spite of the fact that she is a college graduate) is the event planner. I have been tasked with providing desserts. Baby Niece (or “BN” as she will heretofore be known) assigned me this task as much for my skills in the kitchen as for the fact that we are simpatico when it comes to our choice of which desserts should be served on any given holiday.

The tradition of desserts on this holiday is not a particularly rich one. Traditional Jewish New Year desserts include apples dipped in honey (a symbolic gesture of hope for a sweet new year,) Honey Cake, Sponge Cake, and Taiglach, which could be wonderful, but ends up being soup nuts coated with “honey” (I use that term loosely), and tossed with chopped almonds and a few confused-looking maraschino cherries. This is usually sold in a disposable aluminum pie tin.

Maraschino cherries in a disposable pie tin. Tempting. If you’re a smelter with a sweet tooth.

Jewish food is basically a reflection of the various places we have lived; for some this means a largely Eastern European influence, and for others a largely North African and Southern European influence.

As I am several generations removed from the Eastern European experience, I think it is time to reflect (and celebrate) the rich traditions of the place where I grew up.

Welcome to “Extreme Makeover: Jewish New Year Desserts” edition.

The sponge cake is the first to be shown the door. The role has been recast with Lemon Yogurt cake, a simple recipe from Ina Garten, a/k/a the Barefoot Contessa, which has a fizzy lemon intensity that belies its humble name. (My family and I do not observe kosher laws, so we can have a cake made with yogurt, a dairy product, in the same meal as meat.)

I have a few ideas for the Taiglach, but they’ll need some work in the lab before I can use them, so I’m moving on, for now, to the honey cake, which is joining its sponge cake buddy in blessed retirement.  Perhaps they’ll drop us a note now and then.

BN and my mom have been tempted of late by pumpkin which I think fits the harvest celebration aspect of the New Year beautifully.  But flabby, over spiced pumpkin loaf recipes abound, and frankly, with the homey simplicity of the Lemon Yogurt cake something equally rustic, but slightly more stylish is needed. There’s also the fact that I learned my lesson about over spicing pumpkin several Thanksgivings ago when my mom, between shovelfuls of my Pumpkin Pie paused long enough only to breathe and say, “Delicious! But I can’t taste the pumpkin.”

So, a light hand with the spice. The earthy intensity would come from the use of brown sugar and maple syrup which would sweeten the cake, and reflect my New England background. A few wisps of orange zest would supercharge the pumpkin flavor. With a nod towards the apples and honey tradition, there would need to be apples in the cake, but more fun I thought, if the apples could be sliced and end up on top of the cake. The goal is like the lovechild of a cake and a clafouti.

Then I had second thoughts.  It sounded good, but the lily needed a bit of gilding: the cake still seemed a bit plain, and I like things to have a bit of crunch, which, unless I was clumsy with an eggshell, is not something for which cake is usually known.

Hmmm…my mind lingered for a moment on the almonds and honey in the Taiglach. What if the honey and almonds could somehow be a source of crunch on the cake? This is frequently done using crushed praline, which is simply sugar cooked with nuts, then allowed to harden, and crushed into a powder. Why not do the same thing with honey and almonds?

The story, I’m happy to report, has a happy ending. A trial run revealed the need for a few adjustments: a bit less orange zest here, a slightly greener apple there, and the use of cake flour instead of all purpose flour to dry the crumb a bit. But all in all, a wonderful makeover for that tired old honey cake.

The cake, once cooled, was first dusted with confectioner’s sugar, then with the honey praline. The apples were cooked on the bottom of the pan so they would be on top when the cake was turned out of the pan. Combined with the confectioner’s sugar they formed a thin, almost “jammy” layer. The pumpkin cake retained the buttery brightness of the pumpkin and orange zest, but revealed the smoky sweetness of the maple syrup. The praline was the best surprise of all, starting and ending each bite with a toasty, honeyed crackle that said, “Happy New Year!”

And the good news is that the cake is perfect for any occasion during fall and autumn, from a gathering as big as Thanksgiving, to one as intimate as coffee with a chum.

Click here for my recipe, and “L’shana Tova!”