Air-Conditioned Marble Pound Cake

It was recently brought to my attention that, as much as I write about my New England roots, I have lived in New York—Manhattan—as long, if not longer than I lived “up nawth.” Or is it “Down East” (as they say up north). This was communicated thusly: “You’ve lived here that long? You’re a New Yorker.” The flavor, the tone, the “line reading” (as an actor would call it) was such that the declaration took on an almost accusatory character. The subtext (as an actor would call it) was, “You’re in this just as deep as we are.” Perhaps I’ve watched too many Jimmy Cagney movies from his hoodlum period, but that’s how it felt. Oh well, I hope the grub is good in the pokey (as Cagney would have said.)

True, I have lived in New York for many a year, but one thing (among many) that I will never get used to is that New York is just not an ice cream town. I’m sorry, but you cannot convince me otherwise, and, I’m sorry, but just because New York has more Mister Softee trucks than it does police cars doesn’t mean this is an ice cream town. Now, Boston: that’s an ice cream town.

My definition of an ice cream town is one that supports at least one chain of local ice cream parlors. An ice cream parlor was a place (usually blissfully air conditioned to perfection in the summer months) where you could sit down and indulge in a Hot Fudge Sundae that was served in a dish, not a paper cup. Boston used to have several of these—Bailey’s was my favorite—but Brigham’s was more pervasive. In their stead are more contemporary chains like Herrell’s and Emack and Bolio’s. If you are familiar with Steve’s Ice Cream, then you’ll want to note that Herrell’s is the company Steve started when he sold Steve’s, making Herrell’s the real Steve’s. Does that make sense? No? Have some ice cream and it will all come together. (Or drop me a note: I have an excellent workflow diagram I can send you that explains it visually.)

New York had Shrafft’s and Rumplemeyer’s, but now all it has is the Mister Softee fleet. Where have all the flowers gone?

While there is an argument to be made for the suitability of a fleet of trucks in New York that bear a name that could be used as a raunchy put-down to one’ s manhood, I think there’s actually a better explanation of this. New York is not an ice cream town because it is a cake town. This can never be a bad thing…or a put down to one’s manhood.

Neighborhood bakeries were the norm when I was a kid, then supermarkets started to horn in on that business by opening huge bakery departments. The little “Mom&Pop” baker who would be firing up the ovens at 4:30AM became a thing of the past, dying off (literally and figuratively) and taking their bliss-filled recipes up to their flour-dusted heaven.

The problem is that you can’t sit at a supermarket killing time over a piece of cake and a cuppa joe. The plastic-wrapped slice of cake at the bodega? Pass.

Say what you like about Starbucks. I’m a fan, and am eternally grateful to the Baristas at my Mom’s local Starbucks who dote on her and welcome her by name.  I think Starbucks has brought back the leisurely schmei over a piece of cake. You can’t do that at Dunkin Donuts. Yes, I prefer Dunkin Donuts’ coffee, but I’m not a donut guy and their stores have all the personality of a dry cleaning establishment.

Coffee chains are nothing new in New York, but I often wish that I could travel back in time to try a meal or two at the great cafeterias like Bickford’s, the Automat, or Child’s.

One of those great coffee chains has held on for dear life: Chock Full O’Nuts. I think there’s one left in Manhattan and it gets uniformly pounded by negative reviews on Yelp. That’s a shame.

You used to be able to buy Chock Full O’Nuts’ Marble Pound Cake frozen in the supermarket. Yes, Marble Pound Cake still abounds—Starbucks’ version is a dutiful version—but there was something about that frozen version, a vast, sugary, shortening-infused brick entombed in aluminum that sparks pleasant memories.

I am the first to admit that this is a memory play and that a trip in the “Way-Back” machine would likely find me underwhelmed. I don’t recall the thing having a great deal of finesse or delicacy, and instead of the intermingling of chocolate and vanilla flavors that the marble concept implies, there was one, uniform, damp sweetness. Um…it was great with ice cream.

It occurs to me that the passage of time, or perhaps the sum total of adult experience has made me value the finesse over the uniform sweetness. Has my tongue become a snob?

Bearing that in mind, I did something I always question: made my own version of something that is more convenient to buy.

Convenient, yes. But we don’t always know what’s lurking in some of the stuff we buy. And I thought while I was in the kitchen I may as well make my Marble Pound Cake have that implied intermingling of tastes.

The latter is easy: lots of vanilla, a heavy hand with the chocolate, and a shot of instant espresso powder for reinforcement. Butter was relieved of its duties in favor of canola oil.

There was a method to my canola oil substitution madness. I thought it might be fun to be able to eat the cake cold—and by that, I mean straight from the fridge. If I’d baked with butter, the cake would be too dense straight from the fridge. While canola oil doesn’t give you that layer of flavor you’d get from butter, you can eat an oil-based cake as soon as the little fridge light blinks on.

It also tastes better cold, the next day…like revenge.

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The recipe for my Air-conditioned Marble Cake

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“I’ve gotta have that marble tweet!”

A selection from the Pie Bar...

My cousin Ronni is so dumb she thinks you file your taxes with an emery board. She thinks a football coach has four wheels. She thinks…okay, perhaps I’m being too harsh.

The truth is Cousin Ronni doesn’t have a nasty bone in her body. As a rather jaded adult I often find myself thinking that I would be better off being more like her. For Ronni, everything is a surprise, everything is new, and everything is amazing.

Ronni, (short for Veronica) and I grew up together. Even though she’s my first cousin and she lived on the next street over, our family experiences were very different. Ronni is the oldest child of my Mom’s older sister, Aunt Polly, and her husband, my Uncle Frank.

Uncle Frank wasn’t Jewish, he was Roman Catholic. I’ve always assumed that he and Aunt Polly must have been a pretty daring match back in the day. She was a nice Jewish girl who ran off with an Italian trumpeter. My Grandmother wasn’t pleased, and never quite got over the match. Through the years she would continue to say Uncle Frank’s name in a way that sounded like she was telling you the milk in the fridge had soured.

I always liked Uncle Frank. He taught me how to shake hands “right”. This probably started when I was three or four. He’d stick out his hand for me to shake, I’d offer mine, and if my grip wasn’t firm enough he’d say, “Aww, c’mon.” As I got bigger and stronger the “Aw, c’mon” was followed by an approving, “…ehhhhre ya go”. It always seemed like the bigger I got the smaller he got, and when he grew elderly we’d shake hands and he’d pull his away, shake it as if in pain, and say, “Cripes, whaddaya trying to do to me?”

When I say he and Aunt Polly “ran off” I’m not exaggerating; their first years of marriage were spent travelling with an orchestra that specialized in playing debutante balls and society weddings. Aunt Polly wasn’t particularly musical, so her job with the band seems to have been keeping her eye on her Italian Trumpeter. I don’t think she had all that much to worry about. Uncle Frank was kind of a quiet guy and, while he wasn’t a bad looking guy, he never stood taller than about five-foot-four.

After some years of travelling they decided to settle down and start a family. Uncle Frank became a high school music teacher and taught trumpet in a little knotty-pine paneled studio that he and my Dad built in their basement. Unfortunately Aunt Polly and Uncle Frank had trouble starting a family—I never found out if it was her fault or his, but at some point I guess it became obvious it just wasn’t going to happen.

They adopted Ronni the year I was born, and a few years later they adopted her little brother Frank junior. (Yeah, Frankie and Ronni.) This has always fascinated me. I know nothing about her biological family, but Ronni always seemed like a little half Jewish, half Italian kid. Maybe that’s why as an adult I always think Jews and Italians are so much alike. Except, Italian food is better than ours.

On the other hand, Little Frankie had ice-blue eyes, and wheat-blond hair. I swear that from the cradle he sensed his displacement and acted accordingly. Aunt Polly’s most frequent epithet was, “FrankieFrankie…gawddammitFRANKIE!”as he squirmed, flailed, and wriggled out of her grasp. If you were nearby you were usually enlisted to try and wrangle him.

By the time we reached High School I had become adept at pretending that I had no connection to Frankie, and even better, developed “Frankie Radar” which enabled me to always be at the opposite side of any room—or building—or city—from him. My Mom would just shake her head, and tut-tut, “Poor Polly. At least she has Veronica.”

True. I never knew Ronni to be anything but bubbly, happy, and blithely unconcerned with…well, anything. She’d just roll her eyes and with a soft giggle, say, “Frankie…”

I get along with Frankie pretty well now, although this status is aided and abetted by the fact that we rarely see each other more than once a year. I think he’s given up on me ever joining him in his thug-dom, and I actually find him kind of funny in his ridiculous but admirable fearlessness. (Frankie likes to jump out of planes. If god meant me to fly I’d have feathers.) Actually it’s Frankie who taught me all the “Ronni is so dumb” jokes. It’s okay, she laughs at them too. Like being able to decipher hieroglyphics or some other hidden language, she “gets” Frankie like no one else can.

One day Ronni announced that she was getting married. I think Frankie took the news badly. Maybe he thought she wouldn’t be there for him anymore? Maybe he didn’t like her fiancé? I don’t know, I just know he looked grim.

“Wait ‘till you see the dessert…” she warned me about the wedding. I hadn’t been to that many weddings at that point in my life, so I had nothing to compare it to. I just expected to be given a slice of a big white cake to take home in a little waxed paper bag imprinted with wedding bells and the names “Veronica & Carl.”

What I got was a “pie bar.” This was Ronni’s proud invention. You lined up, took a plate, and a man in a chef’s hat filled a little pie shell with whatever you wanted. They had hot apples, fresh berries, chocolate Bavarian, ice cream, lemon curd, meringue, and a bunch of other stuff.

As Ronni walked around to each table, she glowed with pride as her guests congratulated her. I think she was glowing more about the little pies than about anything else.

Even Frankie was his old self that day. He said, “I love you, Sis,” and as he went to hug her he tilted his pie plate and slipped a scoop of vanilla ice cream down the back of her dress.

As she let out a loud, “Hooooahhhh!” I heard my Aunt Polly yell, “AwwwwgawdammitFrankie!”

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Wedding tweets are ringing…

Lemon Bars

Passover? Check. Easter? Check. Let the games begin. I have an unfailing, infallible, city-boy barometer that tells me every year when Spring has truly sprung: my eyes itch, my nose runs, and my throat gets raspy—a timbre somewhere between the earthiness of Bea Arthur and the pan-pipe squeak of Walter Brennan. Appealing.

No, this isn’t one of those city-boy rants about disliking nature, for Spring is to be celebrated. Even after the mild Winter we had, I still get the drift of the whole reborn/renew thing. It’s nice, right? I get it.

The change can be jarring though. Just about a week ago I was up in Massachusetts actually shivering and freezing my gougères. Today is warm and sunny. Spring weather makes me want to go on a picnic. I’ve always loved picnics since I was a tot in front of the TV watching Yogi Bear steal “pic-a-nic” baskets.  Just how die-hard of a city boy can I be if I like picnics?

The key is that I believe the word “picnic” can be very broadly defined.

When you mention the word picnic most people’s minds go straight to the image of the classic wicker picnic hamper. One summer during college I worked in a store that sold very elaborate (and very overpriced) picnic hampers fitted out with china, flatware, drinking glasses, gingham napkins, and a wet bar. (Kidding about the latter; just wanted to see if you’re paying attention.)

All that frippery is nice, but I think it is totally unnecessary. Admittedly the dishes and flatware were eco-green before their time, but that’s a sidebar to the main conversation.

My favorite picnic was a very New York experience, and while I do not remember the cost, I doubt it would be much of a stretch to call it dirt cheap. No wicker hamper. No blanket set out on the ground– in fact, no ground…but more about that in a moment.

First, I must cop to an embarrassing problem: I am rather prissy about washing my hands. If I eat something messy I am usually compelled to immediately wash my hands. Even too much vinegar in my salad triggers this compulsion. When I say “wash my hands” I mean wash my hands—little wet wipes usually will not satisfy. Obviously on a picnic this could present a problem, but I have it well under control via menu choices that support my apparent hand-related OCD.

Even under the best of circumstances it can be a trial to watch me eat a sandwich. No, I’m not messy. What I am is: annoyingly fastidious about everything staying in the sandwich. If anything falls out, then the entire operation must revert to fork and knife, except for the bread which at that point may be too soaked through with whatever for me to enjoy.

The other popular choice for picnic time is cold chicken. Based on my sandwich travails outlined above, how well do you think I’d do gnawing on a cold chicken wing? (Actually, this is a trick question. I just don’t like cold chicken. Put me next to a sink generously supplied with fluffy towels and skin nourishing soap and I’ll still be indifferent to cold chicken.)

By now you are likely under the impression that I am completely averse to eating anything without a utensil, but that it far from true.

Okay, enough of my soap and water blues; on with the picnic, city-boy style.

Let’s stop by Zabar’s on the way. While there we’ll be grabbing a baguette and avail ourselves of their slicing services.

We shall also step back into the cracker aisle (it’s next to the coffee). Any cracker is fine as long as the label is in a foreign language (and not ridiculously overpriced.) An alternative to crackers are my beloved Ines Rosales Tortas. I’d recommend getting both, but we’re going on a picnic and I like to travel light.

Next, depending on the weight of our purse (don’t you carry a purse? Mine is flat, plastic, and bears my name and a bank logo) we will choose a selection of thinly sliced meats and cheese. I’m a fan of Parma ham. (Sounds like a bumper sticker…) There’s also salami, speck, prosciutto—the beauty of a place like Zabar’s is that they’ll give you a little taste before you buy.

Let’s reverse course into the cheese aisle…a bit of razor-thin sliced Jarlsberg before we make our final and most important stop: the selection of chocolate bars up front near the cashier. I’m taking Damak pistachio-studded milk chocolate from Turkey, long my favorite , but go ahead and pick a dark chocolate so we can tell ourselves it’s actually health food, and then we’ll be on our way. (Grab a couple of bottles of water and I’ll meet you at the cashier.)

Because this is a city-boy picnic the first leg of the trip is—natch—the subway. We’ll jump on the 1 train and take it all the way down to South Ferry where we’ll meet our picnic destination: the Staten Island Ferry.

And I have a little surprise for you: hidden in my backpack are Lemon Bars that I baked just for this occasion. Is there anything that sings warm weather and sunny days better than a homemade Lemon Bar?

No, no, they’re all for you. Too messy for me…

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Here’s the Lemon Bar recipe.

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No. I didn't.

When I was a kid I had the most amazing wanderlust. This was, of course, in the days long before the internet, so I would buy pre-posted postcards at the Post Office and send them off to different companies requesting the most current brochures they offered. A few days later an envelope bearing my name would be on our doorstep. In those days travel brochures tended to be small tri-fold affairs, and I would voraciously unfold them like I was studying a map of buried treasure from a far-away island.

My favorites were ones from the steamship lines—in those days ships still looked like ships as opposed to the “hotel-with-a-smokestack” look they have now. I found it all endlessly entertaining.

I still do and evidently I’m not alone. There’s a thriving market for old ocean liner merch on ebay. A few years back I bought an enormous linen tea towel that had been sold as a souvenir on the famous liner “Queen of Bermuda.” I paid about three bucks for this pristine, colorful 1961 item, with the thought of having it framed to hang in my kitchen. The good news is that it hangs there as planned. The bad news is that it cost me an arm and a leg to have it framed. Add a couple of zeroes to the cost of the tea towel and you’ll get the idea. Oh well, I can honestly say that in all the years it has been hanging in my kitchen it has never lost its ability to make me smile.

My other passion as a kid was cars. This was during Detroit’s heyday. If you had money you lusted after names like Coupe de Ville and Corvette. A6? E300? Where’s the romance there? (Not that I’d turn my nose up at either of them, ahem.) New car showrooms always managed to stock enormous, glossy brochures, and if my little feet didn’t find me in a showroom, there was always the annual Auto Show.

The irony is that as an adult my travel wanderlust has all but evaporated, as has my interest in cars. There are probably multiple reasons why travel has lost its allure, not the least of which are: an ever more dangerous world, and the sheer discomfort of travel in the twenty-first century. For me the glamour of air travel is now all wrapped up in one question: does the airline have little seatback TV’s? Yes, that’s me. I’m the guy who goes on vacation to…watch TV.

Cars have lost their glamour because the air got polluted and gasoline got expensive, so the only guiltless pleasure behind the wheel is to drive an electric car or a hybrid. Zzzzzz.

My adult wanderlust is centered on food. This food wanderlust is, thankfully, easily explored within the walls of my own kitchen, and is at times, a bit silly. Let’s visit one of the sillier examples, shall we? (Grab your coffee: you’ll need the caffeine.)

I have no recollection of how the idea to make Canelés got into my head. Canelés are little pastries from Bordeaux that, like so many things in life, seem simple and straightforward, yet in truth require a strict observance of technique, timing, and practice. Also, the recipe requires the use of food-grade beeswax. Sans beeswax they are simply not the same thing, and disregarding the requirement is a little like saying that it doesn’t matter that Lucille Ball had red hair. No, wait, that’s a bad analogy. It’s a little bit like saying that it doesn’t matter if a Hershey Bar is made of chocolate. Okay, still not a great analogy, but you get my drift.

The beeswax in the Canelé is melted, often mixed with a bit of butter, and brushed into the Canelé mold. This serves to keep the batter from sticking, but also imparts a delicate flavor, a glossy sheen, a burnished warmth, and ever-so-slight crackle to the outside of the finished canelé.

The batter itself is a bit like a custard, and is definitely a close relative to the popover or the Yorkshire pudding. The common practice is to mix the batter, then allow it to rest for 24 to 48 hours. Here, unfortunately, are the shoals upon which my attempts to make Canelés have foundered. I never think to plan ahead. The sitting time is considered as essential as the beeswax.

I’ve been very motivated to try baking these, and even invested in a special silicone Canelé mold. It sat in my kitchen, in its box, in its Sur la Table shopping bag for weeks as I would trip over it, each time cursing it for being in the way, and myself for not having tried to bake Canelés yet.

Finally, I took the mold out of the bag and out of its box and declared that this would be the weekend when I would finally bake Canelés. And then I didn’t. But knowing that once unboxed a cake pan must be used (a cardinal rule in my kitchen), I decided to bake something a bit simpler, just to test the mold. Welcome, friends, to the department of reduced expectations.

My first thought was to bake Petit Fours. My second thought was that they are too icky, jammy, and sweet. What about something simpler…a l’il something to have with coffee. A nibble.

The result is a yummy little cake, dispatched with two or three bites. To give them a bit of finish, the little cakes are turned out of the canelé mold as soon as they are removed from the oven and dredged in superfine sugar mixed with just a hint of cinnamon. The silicone canelé mold gives them just a bit of crust and the sugar a sandy crunch. They’ll remind you of little raised doughnuts from some groovy country bakery.

Yeah, go ahead. Dunk them.

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Here’s the Mini Pound Cake recipe. (I’ve also included information on buying the Canelé mold.)

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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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What is the French word for Tweets?

Chocolate Peanut Birthday Cake

I recently had the pleasure of celebrating yet another birthday. I turned thirty-three, an age I chose because I enjoy the alliteration. (I received multiple Hallmark birthday greetings exhorting me to “do” whatever I want, after all, “…it’s your birthday!” I’m “doing” thirty-three. Thank you to Hallmark for the de facto permission slips.)

If you detect the slightest note of bitterness in my tone I will confess that I am not a big birthday guy. I don’t go around crowing, “Next Wednesday is my birthday! Yaaaay!” Just not my style. For me, birthdays help to tick the box on the following tasks: 1. Eat chocolate. 2. Check my surroundings and the overhead compartment to make sure I am still vertical, a/k/a breathing, a/k/a alive. Check. Double check.

The great thing about these reduced expectations is that I enjoy other peoples’ birthdays in a proportion equal to my own if not more—again, if there’s chocolate, and I’m still breathing, and they’re older.

On the surface it would seem ironic that I enjoy baking birthday cakes for my friends, but again, that simply ensures a socially acceptable source of chocolate consumption. Furtive chocolate consumption can be so…dreary. (Dreary is such a great word, but hard to use without sounding, well, dreary.)

Speaking of cake, a few months ago I got together with four or five friends to celebrate one of their birthdays. Someone had stopped by Magnolia Bakery and bought an enormous chocolate cake with frosting the color of a yellow highlighter. It was absolutely delicious. But the cake was so big that even after we all had seconds there was still enough left over for many, many more birthday boys and girls. I love birthday cake, but even a glutton like me has limits.

This is a scene repeated at birthday celebrations around the globe. Birthday revelers circled around a table, pointy hats perched jauntily on their heads, playing a game of, “Have another piece!”/ “No you have another piece.”/ “PLEASE, I’m just going to throw the rest away!”

Well, I’m here to end this game once and for all.

Here’s my proposal: I insist that it is easier to bake a little birthday cake than it is to bake a big birthday cake. Big cakes make you think of big metal pans, drums of frosting, and an endlessly whirling stand mixer.

But my little birthday cake concept is much more relaxed. Let’s break it down, shall we?

This is one time when baking from scratch has a clear advantage over a mix. When you bake from scratch you actually can scale down a recipe to make a smaller cake. Using a mix you are locked in to one or two pan sizes. While you could perhaps bake half a box of mix, the question would remain what to do with the other half? My easy chocolate cake recipe can be made with a big bowl and a wooden spoon or rubber spatula.

Paper Panetone Molds

Okay let’s talk pans shall we? I don’t have the nerve to insist that you should go out and buy five inch cake pans. (Martha would, but she and I run in different circles.) Instead, I recommend paper Panetone molds which will break the bank at approximately fifty cents a piece. Admittedly this is not a green solution. You use them once then toss them. But you won’t have to worry about your cake sticking to the pan.

So, the cake is done, but what about the frosting? For that thick, creamy, sugary frosting don’t you need a mixer? Fear not mixer-less folk! I have a magic ingredient. Sweetened Condensed Milk is a worthy short cut—yes, you may think I am taking a page from Sandra Lee, but the end result is too noble, and…uh, addictive for it to be offensive. It is a bit wholesome, and will pull together and smooth out the few other ingredients you’ll need to make frosting. (Like a Kitchen Aid in a can!)

I toyed with this concept for a while. Too much sugar? Too much fat? Then it dawned on me: this is cake frosting we’re talking about. It’ll never be health food.

As it happens, peanut butter is one of my favorite foods, and combining it with chocolate makes my heart sing. My Chocolate Peanut Butter frosting is worthy of the most important birthday on your list. It also tastes like something from an old-fashioned ice cream and confectionary shop, so if cake isn’t on your mind, warm it a bit and pour it over some ice cream.

Finally, don’t be afraid of decorating the cake. Just spread half the frosting between the layers and spread half the frosting on top. Don’t fret about getting the sides just right; Leave the sides naked to the breeze. Even cake maven Rose Levy Beranbaum endorses this concept for its relaxing informality.

But don’t forget the candles. Thirty three. Yes. That’s all.

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Here’s the Chocolate Peanut Butter frosting recipe.

And here’s the All Occasion Chocolate Cake recipe.

And here’s more information about the paper Panetone molds. (Available at Sur La Table.)

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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 first tweet of spring!

Flourless Chocolate Napoleons

It should come as no surprise that I am an unapologetic Downton Abbey addict. I was a huge soap opera addict too. If any of the words you’re about to read appear smudged it is because I am still teary-eyed over the loss of One Life to Live. The latter has only been gone since January 13, yet I continue to stare longingly at the list of scheduled recordings on my DVR praying for a miraculous return from the dead (hey, this is after all soap opera we’re discussing. Anything can happen…)

Downton Abbey was a wonderful diversion from my loss, although it was a bit like being given one of those tiny four-piece boxes of Godiva chocolates when you are used to having an enormous Hershey’s with Almonds: it’s delicious, but gone in a blink. Are you sneering derisively at my choice of programming? That, chum, was part of the fun of being a soap fan, so there. If you have any illusions about Downton Abbey, let me help you out: it is a SOAP OPERA. All caps. Period. That’s why you loved it and can’t wait for it to return.

Part of its distinction is the amazing attention to detail that goes into its production. Predictably, my eye is drawn toward the many dinner table and kitchen scenes—seemingly more than most shows. The kitchen and the cooks, Mrs. Patmore and young Daisy, figure prominently in every episode. The folks upstairs eat a lot, and they eat well.

I have always been fascinated by the women who ran the kitchens in those houses. They were from a class of society where they had to “go into service.” Mrs. Patmore is portrayed stereotypically as a bit of a drudge: short, stout, and frowsy. (In fact, Lesley Nichol, the actress who portrays Mrs. Patmore, recently joked in an interview that when she reported to friends that she’d been cast in a sort of upstairs / downstairs series she replied to the question “Which one are you?” with the answer, “What do you think?”)

Yet, think about the skill, judgment, and knowledge required to do the job. I’m not talking about long hours here; walk into any contemporary restaurant kitchen and you’ll see folks putting in some mighty long days. I’m talking about the juggling needed. The Mrs. Patmores of the world fed the folks upstairs and downstairs, and did so while keeping within the budget set by the folks upstairs. You can be sure that she planned every menu around what was available seasonally and had to be able to credibly prepare meals that more than pleased the master and his wife—even if the meal was hunted by the master on the estate (would you know what to do with mutton?)

You can also be sure that special occasions had to be met with a worldly, well-informed eye keeping up with what the more fashionable houses were serving; not just any cake would do for dessert. If Lord and Lady So-And-So served it you did too.

(Okay, yes, perhaps I get too involved with these stories. But good story-telling does that to me.)

So I was thinking it might be fun to bake something in tribute to Downton Abbey and Mrs. Patmore (geek!). I’ve also been on a jag about baking stuff that is Passover friendly and gluten-free. Hopefully there’ll be chocolate involved. (No calories or fat would be even better; alas I’m not a magician.)

Flourless Chocolate cake is certainly nothing new in either the gluten-free or Passover realms. It’s a good idea, but it’s been around the block enough times that it could already use a new outlook.

Surely a woman like Mrs. Patmore was no stranger to the roulade and the genoise. These are cakes that rely on air beaten into the eggs for their leavening rather than baking soda or baking powder and are more what we associate with European-style cakes or tortes than the big fluffy monsters (and I use that as a term of endearment) we bake.

Yes, there is usually flour involved, but eggs are sturdy little creations and if you ask them nicely and treat them with respect they’ll do triple duty for you by adding moisture, structure, and lift to cakes, giving flour the day off. Roulade is baked in a small sheet pan—a jelly roll pan—convenient because roulade is filled with jelly and rolled…usually.

But I have other plans for it.

Rolling a roulade can be fussy. My roulade (chocolate by the way) is simply turned out of the pan and cut into shapes with a knife. You could also pull out your trusty biscuit cutter and make little individual layered tortes…drizzle a touch of lukewarm ganache on top.

I stuck with something I thought Mrs. Patmore would be proud of, Napoleons. I piped a bit of sweetened vanilla whipped cream between two layers of the roulade, and finished with fresh raspberries and dusted the whole affair with confectioner’s sugar.

Gluten- free Passover at Downton Abbey anyone?

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Here’s the Flourless Chocolate Roulade recipe

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Tweet this Masterpiece…

Gluten-free, Passover-friendly, sauce on the side...

People throughout the ages have commented on the apparent similarities between foods of many cultures. Take pasta as an example. The Japanese have soba noodles; Italians have spaghetti. Chinese throw wontons into broth; Jews throw Kreplach into broth—and with this last example you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference.

This year I am struck by the similarities between baking for folks on a gluten-free diet, and baking for folks observing Passover. Okay, calm down. Yes I know there is a glaring difference, but the higher-level view is remarkably similar.

Gluten-free folks avoid wheat, oats, barley, and rye. Passover folks avoid anything with leavening. But the similarity is that in order to bake something good for either group you must remove something (usually flour) and substitute it with something else. Believe it or not there are some substitutes that are perfect for both groups. No, what follows is not a recipe for gluten-free Matzos. I did see those in the market last year, so yes, they do exist. (Speaking for me and me alone, if I were gluten-free I’d just skip Matzo altogether.)

Many of the same problems overlap when you are baking for Passover or for Gluten-free diets. Flour can be a delicate item, and baking is (to be unglamorous for a moment) an exercise in chemistry. Upset the delicate balance and your end result will be (to use a highly scientific term) yucky.

If you’ve never baked for Passover before, allow me to introduce you to the traditional Passover substitute for flour: Passover Cake Meal. It is made by grinding matzo into a fine powder. Imagine grinding saltines (minus the salt) into a powder and using that to bake cookies. Imagine soaking a bowl of saltines in water. Mmmmmm. Smells good, eh? That’s what baking with matzo is all about.

Not that there hasn’t always been a certain “soul food” charm to the endeavor. I’m good for one plate of Matzo Brei (a/k/a, “Fried Matzo”—broken pieces of matzo scrambled with eggs) per year. It’s a treat and goes with the whole “fat and salt” aesthetic of soul food. More than one per year and I swear you are just looking for trouble.

Walk with me for a few minutes, would you? (it’s the middle of winter, we could use the air). Let’s walk down Madison…yeah, I know, I never get over to the East Side either. But there’s something over there I want you to see: les macarons. We won’t have to walk far because they are everywhere. You’ve seen them. You’ve likely even gotten a Groupon discount offer for them in your Inbox. They’re the beautiful, multi-colored, perfectly round macaroons that are usually filled with buttercream. They are to the 2010’s what Godiva chocolates were to the 1990’s. They’re also incredibly tricky to make at home. So I leave these to the pros. Trust me, I’ve tried.

But what I learned trying to bake macarons was that I can make a version that is less strict, and that is a happy treat for folks on gluten-free diets and folks celebrating Passover…and folks who fall into both categories.

It frustrates me that on paper they seem soooo easy. A few ground almonds, some sugar, a little egg white. But if the almonds aren’t ground just right, and the sugar isn’t mixed into the almonds just right, and the egg white doesn’t…well you get the picture. (Or shall I continue?)

But if your ultimate goal isn’t the perfection of les macarons, then you can combine the ingredients with abandon, add your own magic tricks, and end up with chewy, almond-scented macaroons that will make you skip the seder and head right for the dessert table.

I’ve taken some liberties here: well, a cheat actually. I’m using almond paste in addition to ground almonds. I’m also not expecting to end up with perfect disks, rather, I’m happy with toasty brown, irregularly-shaped cookies.

You can actually make these without the ground almonds, but using them adds a bit of structure to the batter that makes the job of dropping portions onto your cookie sheets less drippy and messy.

By the way there’s no dairy in these either, unless you include the egg whites. (I don’t.)

Amazing, eh? A “one-size-fits-all-except-those-who-are-allergic-to-nuts” cookie!

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Here’s the Almond Macaroon recipe

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Tweet this and money will come in the mail…don’t break the chain!

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

When I was in high school we lived in a very charming old New England town just outside of Boston. There was even a town green which, as part of a charming tradition, was the location of our high school graduation ceremony. (We wore white dinner jackets instead of caps and gowns. Very picturesque.) It was a town full of charming areas to hike, a wonderful, progressive high school (it had a smoking lounge for the students), and some families could actually trace themselves back to relatives who came over on the Mayflower.

The one thing it didn’t have was a lot of Jewish folk. This was quite a change from the city we lived in prior, where you were either Irish or Italian Catholic or Jewish. WASPs? No.

That’s why I was taken by surprise when a friend invited me to a party at her house where my eyes and nose spied her Mother in the kitchen baking Mandel Bread. For all intents and purposes that was the same as waving a banner that said, “We speak Jewish.”

While I have never defined myself by my religion, it is an inescapable fact of being human that we are drawn to the familiar. I think it may be related to the reason we enjoy watching the same movies every Christmas, and listen to the same songs over and over again. There’s comfort in the familiar.

That’s also why you can call them Biscotti all you like, but they’ll always be Mandel Bread to me. And yes, I do have my high school friend’s Mom’s Mandel Bread recipe.

However, semantics betray me. Mandel Bread actually refers to a twice baked almond slice cookie. (Mandel=Almond) Most of the Mandel Bread I bake have never been near an almond. The one at the top of my blog that serves as a link to the subscription page is Cranberry Orange Cornmeal.

Admittedly my biscotti / mandelein are a rustic affair. The basic drill for baking this type of cookie is to mix the batter, shape it into a very flat loaf and bake it. Then you slice the loaves and return the slices to the oven to toast. There have been times when I may have gone overboard with the toasting and ended up with very hard cookies. Great for dunking, but perhaps not so great for eating as is.

I used to send these to an elderly aunt who lived in a nursing home. She called me and after effusive thanks mentioned that the cookies were a touch too hard, and asked if I couldn’t make them a touch less hard. I was happy to comply, but after another round of cookies produced the same request I was forced to ask her to clarify, which she did by explaining, “We’re old. You’re gonna break our teeth.”

I’ve always struggled with the toasting part. Too much or too little, it never seems as though I get it exactly right. Just what is exactly right?

A couple of weeks ago I was eating dinner with a couple of friends to whom I have forgotten to send a “Thank You” note for the dinner. (Thank you!) At the end of the delicious meal the waiter deposited a small plate of biscotti on the table and the rest of the world (for me) disappeared as the biscotti absorbed me. They were notable for being crispy, not crunchy, and not hard, but not soft either. They were, in a word or two, just right. (Goldilocks would have loved them.) There was also the faintest hint of almond. Hmmm.

This past weekend I was in the baking aisle of my local supermarket where I spied a box of Almond Paste. Just under the words “Almond Paste” on the front of the box was a picture of biscotti. And on the back of the box was a recipe for Double Almond Biscotti. Ah. Light bulb moment.

Let’s start with the Almond Paste / Marzipan question. Not the same thing. Marzipan is a kind of almond paste, but not vice-versa. Marzipan has more sugar and is often used for modeling into shapes. Almond paste is kind of like a very sweet vegetable shortening. (Very sweet. It’s about half sugar with slightly less fat per gram than shortening or butter.) Did I mention that it makes the best biscotti (and now, truly Mandel Bread) I have ever baked?

I followed the recipe as written (with the exception of substituting chocolate for sliced almonds—wouldn’t you?). As a test I slightly over-toasted them in the second baking. Instead of becoming forbiddingly hard they remained engagingly crisp, yet dunkers would still be very pleased.

They are, uh, were, the most perfect biscotti / mandel bread I have ever baked. I haven’t tried it yet but I suspect that you could substitute your preferred gluten-free flour (like my favorite, Cup4Cup) without sinking the ship.

I’ll be making these again.

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Here’s the Chocolate Almond Biscotti recipe

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Have a couple of tweets with your coffee

Executive Pinstripe Cinnamon Coffee Cake

My Mom has always spoken about her Grandmother’s baking in rapturous tones. This was once used for the forces of delightful evil against one of her sisters-in-law. As happens in many families, my Mother had a somewhat competitive relationship with her sisters-in-law. I’d like to say it was all in good fun, but if I did my pants may burst into flames.

So, please travel back with me to the early or mid nineteen-seventies, just outside of Boston. Nixon (or was it Ford?) was in The White House and…well, you don’t need that much detail, do you?

The sister-in-law who is the star of this cautionary tale made strudel for a family celebration and placed it upon a table fairly groaning with goodies. I don’t remember my Mother’s contribution to this horn of plenty, but it was likely one of the many Bundt Cakes she used to bake. (Pistachio Pudding Cake, a close relative of the legendary Harvey Wallbanger Cake, rings a bell, its green tinged mellowness a properly coordinated accessory to the avocado-colored appliances that were the order of the day.)

Sorry. Back to the strudel…as an instrument of torture, my Mother praised her sister-in-law’s strudel on high for all to hear. It was a trap, and her sister-in-law fell for it, hook, line, and phyllo dough.

The sister-in-law made the mistake of asking, “Is it as good as your Grandmother’s?”

If she had just left well enough alone, no one would have been hurt.

The answer to that ill-advised question? Therein lay the sharpened tip of the instrument of torture: “Hmmm, not quite like my Grandmother’s. Well how could it be? Her’s was…oh, but it’s wonderful though.”

The ability to explain the specific qualities of her Grandmother’s Strudel that made it so extraordinary seemed to elude my Mother that afternoon, a deficiency that tortured her sister-in-law with its every twist and turn.

The real irony is that the sister-in-law in question was not your typical mid-twentieth century homemaker. In fact, she was an entrepreneur who, with her husband, ran a popular retail business. That she threw herself into her kitchen with the same intensity she threw herself into her business is to me, in retrospect, both admirable, and perhaps typical of her generation.

Sister-in-law is long gone, but interestingly, my Mom still hangs out with the same friends she’s had since she was a young suburban Mother. Like some modern-day extension of the Diaspora, they have all migrated from chilly New England to the same warmer location down south and after more years than I am allowed to report, they have remained close.

Their “get-togethers” then as now are marked by one inevitable characteristic: noise. Time—and hearing loss—have only heightened this ear-shattering cacophony. Where the “get togethers” used to be centered around a game of mah-jongg or cards, they now take place in a restaurant—and pity the poor waiter who has to split all those salads with dressing on the side. A couple of Extra-Strength Tylenols would not be out of place on the tip tray.

Of course the card and mah-jongg games were just an excuse to host the group at home, something that required endless reciprocation. The food was usually little deli sandwiches for don’t forget, this was long before the now well-trod path of platters of Costco Wrap sandwiches. Desserts usually met two important criteria: nothing sticky so that the cards or mah-jongg tiles would stay clean, and they had to be coffee-friendly. If one or two of the items were homemade you were assured a victory. (Fortunately this was not a tough crowd as long as you followed the rules…and left some for fat l’il Mikey when he got home from school.)

My Mom had one standby that fit these occasions perfectly. Family lore is vague on where the recipe came from—my Mother’s Grandmother? A cherished Aunt? We may never know, but what is clearly important is that at some point I had the foresight to write down the recipe. I carried the recipe around for years and never made it…I was put off by the large infusion of Crisco, an ingredient that has not stood the test of time.

After ignoring the recipe for many years, I happened to re-read it and was struck by its simplicity, its potential, and its retro style. It is the perfect Cinnamon  Coffee Cake. Why perfect? Moist. Fluffy. Delicious. Easy. Fast. (In no particular order.)

Well, it became the perfect Cinnamon Coffee Cake after I made one vital change: I use canola oil instead of Crisco. (I knew you’d approve.) The temptation remained to make other changes: brown sugar instead of white sugar? No. A touch of chocolate? Not necessary. It is one of those recipes that could go precariously off the rails if fiddled with too much.

It goes without saying that I rarely have occasion to have a group in for cards or mah-jongg, so just when do I use this cake? There are times when I meet with folks over coffee in a business setting. People who know I bake and write about it have certain expectations about me, one of which is that I won’t show up empty-handed. The perfect Cinnamon Coffee Cake fits the corporate meeting room like a pin-striped suit.

I wonder: what’s the cake version of the “power tie”?

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The recipe for my Executive Pinstripe Coffee Cake. Enjoy! Get a raise. Or a promotion.

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Just like Grandma used to Tweet?

Pavlova Sweet Heart

If certain magazines are to be believed, true love is only an exercise / diet / new outfit / new attitude / new rule away. Yes, it’s that easy.

As I am a skeptic, I question whether love can be found by following someone else’s template, like learning to salsa by using one of those old home dance lessons where you put the footprints on the floor and followed them by number. Where’s the magic? Where’s the chemistry?

I know couples for whom love came in the blink of an eye. The late playwright Arthur Laurents agreed that it’s all about the dance, that look in the eye. “Some enchanted evening you may see a stranger across a crowded room. And somehow you’ll know…” was Oscar Hammerstein’s version, and depending on the singer, it has the breeze of truth.

Every February we celebrate love, or at least toast its possibility, by eating chocolate, drinking champagne, and sneezing over roses. I am on the fence with this one. Every year I see the line flowing out the door onto the sidewalk as the clerks at the Godiva store near me struggle to keep up with the desperate hordes. Every year I cannot decide whether I think that kind of predictable, clichéd behavior is really fun, or tragically lacking in imagination. That must mean it’s both, yes?

Here’s one side: some folks want—expect—to get that stuff on Valentine’s Day. To deviate from that checklist would be a cardinal sin. On the other side are the folks who couldn’t care less. For them the real hearts and flowers derive from using your imagination. “I dunno. Surprise me,” would be their credo. Who can say which is right and which is wrong?

Me? I dunno. Surprise me. Let nature take its course. As long as there’s chocolate involved I’m good.  I thought of that the other day while at the supermarket. Winter is not traditionally a fertile time for fruits and vegetables. Our bounty of year-round fruits and vegetables really only dates back to the beginning of the jet age. Berries used to be only a summertime treat. Now you can get strawberries in February from South America or Florida. Personally, I think Strawberries are often overlooked on Valentine’s Day—not forgotten mind you, just pushed to the bottom of the list.

Yes I know Godiva comes in the pretty gold ballotin, and a rose is a rose is a rose, but to me strawberries are like Gisele Bündchen. You can dress them in anything and they look amazing. Think about it. Put them in a brown paper bag and they retain the berry version of great cheekbones.

Dress them in something special and oo-la-la. Valentine’s Day is a special occasion, so Gisele had better throw on more than just a pair of blue jeans.

I’m not sure why Pavlovas aren’t as popular in the US as they are elsewhere—especially on Valentine’s Day. There’s something unexpectedly luxurious about Pavlovas—including the fact that the dessert was created as a tribute to a Russian ballerina during one of her world tours in Australia or New Zealand.

Essentially a big meringue topped with fruit, when executed just so, Pavlova has a rather ethereal appearance, mimicking the dancer’s tulle skirts. Where most people expect meringue to crunch away into powdery oblivion after a couple of bites, Pavlova stays gooey in the middle.

For Valentine’s Day I made the usually round or freeform Pavlova into a heart, by piping the meringue, but that is purely formality; shaping with a spoon will do the same duty, without the formality. If you’re ambitious but not feeling dexterous or confident with the piping bag, feel free to make a square basket.

After baking, I dipped the bottom of the Pavlova in chocolate then filled it with fruit, and dusted it with a puff of confectioner’s sugar. I used Star Fruit to give my big strawberries a color counterpoint, but use what looks good to you. An extra swoop or two of chocolate (made by sweeping melted chocolate on parchment paper, letting it set, then peeling it off) serves as anxiously amorous punctuation.

Or there’s always a box of Russell Stover from Duane Reade. I meant it when I said, “If there’s chocolate I’m good.”

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You can use the same meringue recipe I used to make Halloween ghosts to make these Valentine’s Day Pavlovas.

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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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Will you be my Tweet heart?