Oh my! We are fancy, aren't we?

The other day I was walking down my street when I spied a woman sitting on her stoop, a dog parked patiently and loyally by her side. This was a scene clipped out of a Ralph Lauren magazine ad: the woman, whippet-thin, prototypically WASP-y in bearing, and her dog, a spotted Springer Spaniel-style elegant creature whose own bone structure gave his mistresses’ a run for its money.

Aside from the fact that this slice of Connecticut Hepburn-style Americana seemed so out of place in my heavily Dominican-influenced neighborhood, what drew my eye was that the woman was sitting eating a peach. Yes, a wise choice of refreshment on a stinky-hot New York City Summer afternoon, but my internal dialogue tut-tutted, “Hmph. She would be eating a peach!”

Why so judgmental? Jealousy. I have never been able to eat a peach out of hand. I find them too mealy — and that’s after I remove the fuzzy skin. I love the flavor, hate the journey. Every summer rolls around finding me determined to “find the Zen” of eating a peach out of hand, and every summer rolls away having found me unable to do so. Could it be that I have never actually had a good peach? That hardly seems likely.

I have tried grilling peaches with a bit of brown sugar, albeit with mixed results: they taste good, but they’re still mealy. (Throw enough caramelized sugar on a baseball glove and it’ll taste good too.)

I do love peach ice cream, but the peaches have been chopped into small pieces, and the mealiness is frozen, so that’s cheating. Ditto Peach Crisp: “Yum-o” to borrow a Rachael Ray-ism.

So, like two other summer activities — sun tanning and riding roller coasters — where lack of success has forced me to redirect my ambitions (a/k/a “Quit”), I think I’ll just have to shelve my peachy ambition too. (The last time I rode a roller coaster I wasn’t “right” for days. Pale, queasy — and now peach-less, that’s me.)

So what does one do when life presents you with mealy peaches? One eats blueberries. (At least that’s what I do.)

What I like about blueberries is that they are so easy going; they will happily follow you down any path. When I was a kid we used to eat them straight off the bush — talk about a fresh and easy snack — but truly, there’s not much that is easier, faster, and more satisfying than cold blueberries in a bowl with a bit of milk and a few grains of sugar.

If, however, you are looking for something with a bit more ceremony, blueberries are just the ticket, no matter what the ticket happens to be. Think of them as the culinary equivalent of the fine worsted wool fabric a bespoke tailor uses to build a suit. (Wha??)

When I was a kid, my Mom always used to find tiny Wild Maine Blueberries. Unfortunately, here in New York I can only find those bagged and frozen. She always cooked them a bit, which only magnified their natural sweetness, making them pair beautifully with the aforementioned milk.

Even better, — for me — would be to drizzle the cooked berries and their juices over a small biscuit with a touch of very softly whipped cream for an instant shortbread.

Big fat New Jersey Blueberries are currently the easiest to find in New York, so I played with those over the weekend. You can see my comic “riff” on fine dining in the picture above. Laugh with me not at me: I painted the plate with a swoop of Blueberry Coulis, carefully placed a couple of quenelles of honey-sweetened Mascarpone cheese over a ladyfinger, arranged the berries so they’d look as if they didn’t care, and then finished the whole thing with a sprinkle of pearl sugar. A ridiculous exercise. The only reason to present food like this at home is to get a laugh, even if it is your own. But it does illustrate blueberries’ innate elegance and that they are versatile enough to stand up to anything. Evidently, they’re up for a laugh every now and then too.

You wouldn’t have laughed if you had tasted my silly, deconstructed, decaffeinated Tiramisu. The gently sweetened Mascarpone didn’t mask the blueberries; rather it added a creamy underscoring that plain whipped cream doesn’t have the chops to play. The coulis added sweetness and a bit of liquid to relax the cheese. Even the pearl sugar played a subtle role by adding a light crunch. I’ll be trying this again, although in a slightly more casual form.

I haven’t forgotten Blueberry Pie, but for me that’s just a happy excuse for ice cream.

I know that Blueberries have become the “vitamin-pill food of the moment” due to their high levels of anti-oxidants, but it seems a shame to obliterate them (as many do) by throwing them into a blender to make a breakfast smoothie. Okay, if that’s what works for you, go for it.

Mentioning blueberries and breakfast together makes me think lovingly of the gigantic, sugar-crusted Blueberry Muffins that used to be sold at the in-store bakeries of the old Jordan Marsh department store chain in Massachusetts. More cake than muffin, you could frost those behemoths, stick a plastic bride and groom on top, and be ready for a wedding.

Hmmmm…Blueberry cake with white frosting…that sounds mighty tasty. I think I owe you a recipe.

Why wait for a wedding?

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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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Watermelon Ice with Seeds

A  couple of nights ago I met up with a couple of friends at an outdoor cafe. I had the grilled salmon: Salmony, but still rather good. But that’s not why you called. At some point the conversation turned to modern technology. In my own defense: I am not a technophobe. After all, I built this blog with my own two mitts, I own a rather technically advanced cell phone, and I set up my own Wi-Fi network at the Butter Flour Eggs World Headquarters. Yet, during this conversation, something snapped. Let’s just say that my inner Andy Rooney came frothing forth like a certain real housewife ready to tip over a table.

“It isn’t the technology,” I fumed, “It’s the way people use it. If one more person walks into me from behind without even the courtesy of an “Excuse me” because they have their head buried in their BlackBerry, I’m going to knock the thing out of their hands and throw it under the wheels of the next available taxi.”

To which one of my friends sniffed, “I’ll tell you what it is: it’s bad breeding.”

Yikes! I can just imagine what people eavesdropping on our conversation must have thought of us. But it was with that mindset that I went to the market to buy Watermelon for this week’s blog and was greeted by seedless Watermelon.

No, seedless Watermelon isn’t new to me; it has been out there for a few years. But in my cranky mood (and yes, clearly someone needed a nap) I looked at it and was somewhat offended by its seeming lack of modesty about its aesthetic incompleteness. It sat on its bed of ice, smiling at me with a big, pink, toothless grin.

The great masters have included Watermelon in their still life repertoire down through the ages, the ripe fuchsia melon always proudly speckled with little black seeds. Then we come along and change the game. What’s next: a horseless Merry-Go-Round? Barber poles without stripes? Ocean liners without smokestacks? (Okay, just how old am I?)

Of course, I like and embrace the purpose behind seedless technology: no spitting. It’s the visual that just doesn’t work for me.

I mentioned in my blog last week that I recently added an ice cream maker to my kitchen tool belt. Someone please knock the thing out of my hands and throw it under the wheels of the next available taxi. It is addictive. In an effort to stay on the healthy side of the (diet) law I am going to try and confine myself to sorbets, although you should not be surprised if a Creamsicle recipe shows up here before Labor Day.

That’s why I was shopping for Watermelon. I was craving Watermelon Ice. I doubt you’ll find a better remedy for a burning hot summer day. The seedless Watermelon reminded me though, that Watermelon Ice suffers from the same aesthetic deficiency as seedless Watermelon: no seeds. And without seeds it’s just sweet pink ice…yet you can’t really have seeds in Watermelon Ice. Can you?

What to do?

Whenever I am faced with a problem like this I usually assume that the answer is to add chocolate. This time was no exception — news that should make my Sister-In-Law very happy. If the Watermelon has no seeds, then I’ll add my own, in the guise of very edible, very unspit-able, chocolate chips.

Do I hear the sharp intake of breath that signals your collective skepticism at the combination of chocolate and Watermelon? Fear not. Unconventional, yes; unpalatable, a resounding no. Don’t forget: chocolate runs hot, cold, and frozen. The sharp crunch of the frozen chocolate chips masquerading as Watermelon seeds is a happy addition to the icy, delicately sweetened Watermelon, especially since the deep freeze mutes the chocolate, rendering it one half of a very happy buddy system of flavors. Make no mistake: this is not frozen water with a hint of Watermelon flavor. This is unmistakably Watermelon with a capital “W”, cold and as summery as a picnic table with a plastic gingham tablecloth.

The ice itself is fairly simple to make, if perhaps a bit time consuming. Chop the melon, strain the juice, add a touch of sugar and the Ice Cream freezer does the rest. Yes, you can make this without an Ice Cream freezer, but if you choose to do so be prepared for a slightly harder, icier consistency. This is not necessarily a bad thing; the Ice Cream freezer makes a slightly suppler ice that is easier to scoop. And the bonus is that once you’ve mastered Watermelon ice you have a year-round trick up your sleeve: Honeydew Ice in the fall is a nice treat, perhaps with white chocolate chips playing the seeds.

Ahhhhh. All of the sudden, I’m not so cranky anymore.

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Click here for the recipe for Watermelon Ice.

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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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Of course the lyric of the Cole Porter song quoted here was all about discerning true love from mere passing fancy. (For the uninitiated, Cole Porter wrote many hit songs along with film and Broadway scores. Unfortunately he passed on before getting the opportunity to write for Beyoncé.)

However, I, true to form and blog content, am writing about food, in this case, frozen confections. Last week I wrote about desserts made with fresh cherries, and mentioned in passing what a shame it was that I didn’t have an ice cream freezer handy. Happily that has now been remedied and I am ready to freeze all manner of dairy products.

This isn’t my first time at the freezer, folks. I go back to the days of bagged ice, rock salt, and hand cranks. Let me tell you: hand cranked ice cream is manual labor, a clever trade off where you burn calories and then eat them back while hopefully avoiding the dreaded “ice cream headache.” Happily I have joined the twenty-first century: my Kitchen Aid now does all the work.

I should back up here for a moment and explain that I was all ready to write about something completely different this week. But the combination of fresh cherries waiting in my refrigerator, a rueful note from a friend about a late-nineties Cherry Garcia addiction, and the stinky-hot weather got me in the mood for making ice cream. Yet, something nagged at me, and I believe it was called vanity. I was afraid that with an ice cream freezer in hand I would shortly become a candidate for “The Biggest Loser.”

Thus my new mission: lowering the guilt quotient of frozen desserts (you can tell I mean business here because I used “thus” to start this sentence.) Clearly I have my work cut out for me; Ben, Jerry, and many others have been working on this mission for a very long time.

The science of ice cream is not a straightforward one. Indeed, Penn State has a world renowned course dedicated to ice cream science, nicknamed “Cow to Cone”; this is no mere “gut” course (although if you stop by Penn State’s Berkey Creamery enough you’ll have one. (A gut, I mean. Pardon the pun.))

Big companies have long been studying ways to compensate for the thin flavor and underwhelming mouth feel of low fat ice cream. What makes me think I could do any better? I don’t. I’m not out to remake the world of ice cream, I’m just looking to have something cool and delicious waiting in the freezer after a hot, stinky day. If I can manage to keep it healthy too then I’ll consider it icing on the cake (again, you’ll please pardon the pun.)

So, with lowered expectations well in hand I got work. I happen to be a big fan of Greek Yogurt. Even the low fat versions tend to be thick, creamy, and very satisfying. What if I combined the cherries and chocolate from last week’s blog with Greek Yogurt and took them for a spin in my new ice cream freezer? Sounds promising.

I combined a 37.5 ounce container of plain 2% Fage Greek Yogurt with two teaspoons of vanilla and five packets of Stevia-based sweetener, a supposedly healthy, herb-based non-sugar sweetener. I’m not big on artificial sweeteners, but I thought this would be a good occasion to take this one for a test drive.

Following the Kitchen Aid’s directions, I let that mixture spin around in the freezer for fifteen minutes before adding a cup and a half of sliced, pitted cherries, and a half cup of milk chocolate that I had cut into chocolate chip-sized chunks. (Slicing and pitting the cherries was the most labor intense part of the project, but even that was easier than cranking an ice-locked freezer. I pitted and sliced the cherries while sitting and watching TV. No biggie.)

The result just out of the ice cream freezer was still very soft, but very tangy, and with a pronounced cherry flavor – no doubt the sliced cherries gave up some of their juice as they were knocked around by the ice cream freezer’s dasher. Pinkberry came to mind, but better due the chewy cherries and chocolate that popped up with each bite.

After finishing the frozen yogurt with an extended stay in the freezer I dug in with crazed anticipation. Or I should say I tried to dig in: the frozen yogurt was frozen solid, and required well over a half hour before being ready to scoop and serve. Once scoop-able I thought it tasted even better, the intense cold muting some of the overly bright notes of the yogurt, the stevia, and the cherries.

But it was the texture that was a bit of a letdown, too icy in spots, and too “melty” in other spots, with no compromise in sight. Clearly science caught up with me and won. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the stuff was still delicious, cool, refreshing, and all about the fresh cherries. So, yes, it is definitely the mock turtle soup, but still yummy. (I’m not publishing a formal recipe. For now let’s consider this a work in progress.)

My next attempt will find me substituting a bit of honey for the stevia. The natural glycerin in the honey may help the freezing qualities of the yogurt. We’ll see. I’ll happily trade a few carbs for a better consistency. I’ll report the results to you in this venue, but for now I’ll get to work on that second batch.

No, don’t worry about me. It’s okay: I’ll make the sacrifice.

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Read about my talented friend Fabiana Lee and her hand-crafted empanadas in The New York Times.

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A: Pull its tail.

Sorry. I never met a corny joke I didn’t like. Cherries are a different story. With apologies to lovers of Cherry Pie I must reveal that I can’t abide cooked cherries. Uncooked? Yes. Love ‘em. Cooked? I’ll pass. I think it’s a texture thing, although I think it may also be a taste thing too. Straight from the refrigerator they are so cool and refreshing. Why jump through the proverbial hoop of cooking them?

With all the fresh cherries now showing up in markets everywhere I know the expectation may be for one of those lattice-topped pies to appear in this venue, but I’m afraid the lattice work will, for now, be relegated to the trellis in the garden of my imaginary Hamptons beach house.

(One can dream, yes?)

In the meantime there are fresh cherries to eat. Here’s the thing though: If I’m sitting at home alone after a long day, I have no problem eating the cherries and spitting the pits into a small dish. But if there are other folks present I become self-conscious of such behavior. Perhaps I am overly sensitive. My friends and family are a non-judgmental group and wouldn’t take offense at a bit of cherry pit removal (a/k/a spitting), yet I still think there’s a better way.

Now, I know I said I don’t like cooked cherries, but that doesn’t mean that I hang up my apron during cherry season. The desserts that follow are baked, yes, but my dirty little secret is that I add the cherries uncooked at the end. 

One obvious solution here is shortcake. We’ve been enjoying uncooked strawberries in shortcake desserts for eons, so why not extend that courtesy to cherries? But instead of making a sandwich of the fruit, whipped cream, and biscuit why not turn the whole thing on end and fill a jelly roll with slightly sweetened, kirsch-spiked whipped cream and serve sliced, pitted cherries on top? Folks who don’t like “boozy” desserts can leave out the kirsch, or substitute vanilla. You can also bake the jelly roll recipe as directed then instead of rolling it, slice it into squares and make your sandwich using that instead of the biscuit.

Don’t think that I am ignoring the cherry’s magical, symbiotic relationship with chocolate. Li-Lac Chocolates here in New York has long been famous for their Cherry Cordial chocolates. As much as I admire the fine work that goes into making an artisanal product like that, every time I bite into a Cherry Cordial I can’t help but wish that there was just chocolate and cherry but no goo in the filling.

Here’s my chance to make things – or at least cherries – the way I want them. I have married the best features of Cherry Pie to the best features Chocolate Bark (How do you make…oh sorry. I did that already.) Call it Cherry Cordial Tart.

I prebaked a bit of Pâte Sucré dough in a classic rectangular tart tin. Once the pastry cooled, I poured in a layer of gently melted good milk chocolate, then patiently lined up rows of sliced, pitted fresh cherry halves.

The gimmick is that you’re really making two desserts here. Eaten now, the lukewarm melted milk chocolate becomes like a sauce for the cherries. Eaten later, after a rest in the fridge, it becomes Cherry Chocolate Bark. (What’s amazing is how much more of it you can eat while the chocolate is still warm. It’s very smooth.) My illustration above shows a dab of whipped cream. It is totally unneeded, except to dress up the plate.

Another slightly more portable variation is to use a very simple shortbread cookie dough cut into two or three-inch rounds. Dip them in or paint them with the chocolate, and place the cherry halves on top.

As I write this, I feel compelled to run out and buy an ice cream maker (the late hour makes it unlikely that I will find a local store open. Hmmmm. The internet is still open…) What could be better than my fresh cherries swirled into home-made vanilla ice cream? I could swirl in a bit of the melted milk chocolate – the freezer doing a bit of passive labor to transform the slippery melted chocolate into chunks that would play a counter melody to the chewiness of the deeply chilled cherries.

(I’ll experiment and report back to you.)

Now that’s a dream that doesn’t have to wait until I get that Hamptons beach house.

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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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Blackberry Tart - deconstructed

A trainer at my gym related an experience he had a few nights ago. Just to set the scene, this guy is in tip-top condition; not an ounce of body fat. A seemingly virtuous paragon of discipline and self control.

Until the cookies called his name.

He reported that he woke up in the middle of the night and could not get back to sleep because a package of chocolate cookies was calling his name. He ate the entire package before returning to sleep.

Some of you reading this may think, “Well, if he has such discipline, one slip like that isn’t going to kill him.”

My reaction veers more toward relief: Relief that my struggle with will power is not as abnormal as I think. Relief that even those among us who seem to be paragons of self-control have their own “moments.”

And, relief that I am not the only one on a first name basis with his cookies.

Of course, it is my own darn fault. Nobody puts a gun to my head and orders me to bake cookies.

With that swirling in my mind, a friend called and invited me to a barbecue this weekend. Would I mind bringing dessert? (Is the Pope…?)

Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for the usual onslaught of news stories about how this is the “unofficial first weekend of summer.” For some folks this may mean that it is time to head over to Kmart for a new inflatable pool, but for me it means (and yes, I can tell you’re way ahead of me here) the official first weekend of summer eating.

Everyone loves the warm weather (except for pale, sweaty me.) But, I think there’s an unacknowledged caveat here: in the warm weather we have less material with which we can camouflage our various bodily flaws. So yes, everyone loves the summer, but everyone is self-conscious about this bump or that bulge (or both, in my case.)

Under the circumstances, I feel guilty foisting my usual parade of sweets upon a sun-baked, half naked, will power-compromised audience.  I sympathize: if I eat enough of my own desserts, it’ll be hard to distinguish me from the pool float, so light and easy does it.

A trip to the market answered all doubts about my ability to provide something summery, sweet, and light (ish), but still hit the proverbial “dessert spot.” (I can’t stand getting home from a party and feeling like I need to root through my fridge for a little something, so I want to make sure the other barbecuees will be equally sweet tooth sated. I take the request, “Will you bring dessert?” as a job description, not a social nicety.)

This week, California blackberries and strawberries are in abundance and cheap at the market. There’s the backbone of my Memorial Day dessert right there, yes, but the question remains: what to do with them?

The berries are very sweet and juicy, so it would be a shame to bake them into a pie or crisp. Nevertheless, dumping them in a bowl, even with whipped cream seems anticlimactic. What if I made a pie – deconstructed? Perhaps I’ve been watching too much of the last half hour of “Iron Chef” (the only part of the show I like; that’s when they eat) but here’s an example of what I mean: You and I both know what an Ice Cream Sandwich is, right? But as seen through the lens of a pastry chef, an Ice Cream Sandwich is really just ice cream and cookies. You could serve them in any order and still call it an ice cream sandwich, granted, at times what a pastry chef serves may be stretching the name of the item to the limit.

(Some years back we had a happy family meal with our 90-plus year old aunt at one of “superstar” chef Bradley Ogden’s restaurants. Auntie reveled in the whole thing, giggling like a schoolgirl as the waiter described the ranch from which her Veal Chop was sourced. Dessert time rolled around and the chef presented us with an extra dessert, Fresh Citrus Agar. As we dug in, we all had the same reaction: “Oh! Lemon Jello!” Yes, we are a sophisticated bunch.)

But I digress from my digression. The point is that I can do whatever I darn well please with my berries and crust, and still call it a pie or tart.

I checked my freezer and found some Pâte Sucré waiting for an assignment. (Doesn’t everyone?)

(Pâte Sucré is the slightly sweeter version of pie crust.)

When I was a waiter, I used to see the old cliché berry tarts all the time: fluted crust, frangipane filling, and berries glazed to within an inch of their lives. Delicious, yes. Berries in their natural state? No. For Memorial Day I’m stripping away some of the varnish.

I started by rolling the thawed Pâte Sucré to ¼” thick, and cutting 3” diameter round disks. Before baking I washed them with egg and sanded them with granulated sugar. As they baked briefly in the hot oven, they puffed slightly. The result is like a dryer version of puff pastry, the dryness being desirable because I’m not a fan of puff pastry, which always seems tasteless and greasy to me.

I dabbed a bit of Crème Fraiche on the cooled rounds, and plopped a few chilled blackberries on top. Other rounds got Chambord-spiked whipped cream and sliced strawberries, the latter being too plump whole to fit on the pastry. An ample sprinkling of Demerara sugar added sweetness, a bit of amber twinkle, and a soft crackle in the mouth. Three or four of these little pastries on a plate swiped with very, very soft chocolate ganache should keep everyone happy.

Now the important question: do I really have to wait an hour after eating before jumping into the inflatable pool?

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Coconut Oatmeal Nutella Cookies

As this is a blog devoted to that magic mixture of eating/baking/cooking/eating I wouldn’t blame you for seeing the title of this story and assuming that it is about Angel Food Cake. Apologies: there’s none of that spongy, pure-as-the-driven-snow cake this week, although there is an egg-less cookie. But more about that in just a moment.

I don’t think of myself as angelic; does anyone? But I have a friend who just made it easy for me to be an angel – and I’m still very much alive (last time I checked, anyway.) My friend Brian Hampton is a playwright of some note. He has written two plays which have been successfully produced all around the country. His first, a play named “Checking In” is about a small group of high school friends who reunite for a weekend in Atlantic City ten years or so after graduation.

This play is kind of like his first born child, so he feels a great deal of attachment to it. That’s why he wants to adapt it for the screen and produce it as an independent film. I told him years ago to sell it to Lifetime Movies for TV, but I think he just doesn’t have the stomach to sign away control of his baby and watch Valerie Bertinelli play a 28 year old.

(Who am I to judge? If they made a Butter Flour Eggs movie they’d try to cast Richard Deacon as me – if he weren’t, shall we say, otherwise engaged. But I think if the script is good enough, perhaps Matt Damon would be available? Why are you laughing?)

ANYWAY, I am now an angel, but in the old show biz meaning of the word: a backer, a patron of the arts, a philanthropist. Stereotypically these folks were old ladies who thought of themselves as artistically astute, but as with so many other things, the internet has not only flattened the playing field, it has built a whole new stadium. I am speaking of Kickstarter.

Kickstarter is a new venue for artists and entrepreneurs to put their ideas in front of the public and get them the funding they need to turn their ideas into reality. This is the link to Brian’s Kickstarter profile if you’re interested, but I also recommend the site as a good read.

His other fundraising idea – and the reason we’re here today – is that he is throwing a Prom. Yes, a prom as in: rented tuxedos and sneakers. Like any good benefit there is a raffle planned, and that’s where I (and the cookies) come in. I’ve been asked to prepare a Butter Flour Eggs sweets basket that will go to the highest bidder. Cookies for sale! Going, going, gone…

Keeping with the prom / high school theme my mind went to school lunch – my high school held its proms in the cafeteria, decorated for the night with a special theme. (I think the theme my year was Venice, as I have a foggy memory of one of my less graceful classmates puncturing the cellophane “water” that filled the canals with her stiletto heel. Doh!)

My usual brown bag lunch was some kind of sandwich, so I’m rolling out the sandwich cookies for the prom. Among the planned choices I’m making are PB&J’s, a simple square shortbread cookie filled with the obvious. Kitschy, yes?

The other cookie idea is inspired by a recent walk around midtown Manhattan when I happened on the Street Sweets truck , one of the great trucks roaming New York with upscale sweets that, during my walk, I couldn’t resist. One “Macarella” later I was hooked. Yes, the “Macarella” sounds like a late nineties line dance, but actually it’s a cookie. Two crunchy, pancake-flat coconut macaroons with a layer of Nutella in the middle. That is my inspiration for the second sandwich cookie.

Copycat? Not quite. I wanted a softer cookie to go with the oozing smoosh of Nutella. The big, crunchy macaroons made the Nutella leak all over my hands. A softer cookie will keep the Nutella off the raffle winner’s fancy Prom clothes. The actual cookie recipe – as previously mentioned made without eggs – is an old World War One recipe called ANZAC Biscuits (ANZAC stands for Australia New Zealand Army Corps.) The lack of eggs helped the cookies stay fresh longer.

No, smart aleck, I wasn’t around then, I found the recipe in a cookbook. My contributions? Baking a slightly smaller cookie to use as a sandwich, and substituting sweetened coconut for the original recipe’s dried coconut to make the cookies soft and chewy.

Nutella is very cool again, and yes, it’s good stuff, but I just saw a TV commercial for it that claimed it can be part of a healthy breakfast. Listen, it’s yummy, but let’s be honest: nutritionally it’s not much better than frosting in a can. Don’t give it to your kids for breakfast.

Save it to stuff my cookies.

By the way, I do have a groovy After Prom Party planned. It goes something like this: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

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Click here for the recipe for Coconut Oatmeal Nutella Sandwiches.

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Derby Pie (or reasonable facsimile therof...)

A couple of years ago who did I find at the other end of the doorbell but the UPS man bearing an unexpected surprise. Consulting the calendar I realized that Angry April (as in, the month of rain and Tax Day) was careening on its usual collision course with Mild Mannered May (as in, flowers, seventy-degree temperatures, and Memorial Day weekend.) The box bore the return address of a concern named “A Taste of Kentucky.” Thus, like Rubik figuring out his cube, I figured out the puzzle of what was in the unexpected box without opening it: Derby Pie.

My old friend Dori, a native Kentuckian transplanted out west, had sent it. I also deduced that without opening the box. She had been telling me about Derby Pie for as long as I had known her, and now, on the eve of The Kentucky Derby, there was one in my hungry paws.

I’m not an avid horse race fan, but I doubt that I have ever missed watching The Kentucky Derby on TV. I think it has something to do with the formality of the occasion. Very little in American life – save for the odd over the top wedding here or the glitzy Senior Prom there – has retained the cheerful formality of Derby Day.

As I was researching the race I noticed that the corporate sponsor is a company named “Yum!” Foods.

Who knew food could be so funny? (Well, I laughed for you.)

Anyway, many racing seasons ago, a man named George Kern invented Derby Pie at a Prospect, Kentucky restaurant named the Melrose Inn. It was his sugary tribute to the big race.  The local success of this pie should not be underestimated. The Kern Family continues to keep the recipe a closely guarded secret, and has registered the name “DERBY-PIE®” as a trademark. They have even sued to protect the sovereignty of the pie.

Therefore, please be advised that any pies I made in connection with writing this piece are not Derby Pie. (Phew! The Butter Flour Eggs Legal Department can now rest easy.) (Kern’s pie can be purchased at many Kentucky supermarkets, and on line here. There. I’m covered.)

Any cloak and dagger is unnecessary: I come to praise Derby Pie, not to bury it.

So, with all this yadda-yadda about the history of the pie, you’re probably shifting impatiently in your seat waiting for me to describe what the heck this pie is when you bring fork to mouth. When Dori first described it to me all those years ago I thought it sounded like Pecan Pie, but with walnuts instead of pecans. But according to her there was so much more than that to Derby Pie.

Finally, that fated day – and the pie-bearing UPS man – arrived. As Dori directed, I warmed the pie gently, and served it with a dab of vanilla ice cream to, as they say, “…cut the sweet.” Cut the sweet? Too late. When it comes to sweet, this pie is unrelenting. Even a hardened old sweet tooth like me found the pie Sweet-with-a-capital-S. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like it.

Okay let’s step back for a moment. I decided to make my own facsimile of Derby Pie. I used a recipe I found on the internet. (After all, what the heck do I know about Derby Pie?) The recipe, yes, bears a bit of resemblance to Pecan Pie. Did I mention that it contains three types of sugar? A stick of butter? Enough Kentucky Bourbon for me to need a designated driver? Oh, and chocolate chips? (I felt as though I’d been locked in Paula Deen’s kitchen and was cooking my way out.) As I was making the pie I literally thought, “There’s nothing redeeming in this thing.”

And yet…there’s an undeniable Southern Charm to the pie. It is crunchy where it should be crunchy. It is gooey when it should be gooey. The chocolate seems almost unnecessary but then hits you just in time to mellow the sweet boozy sting of the bourbon. The walnuts lend a slightly oilier crunch than the sweet dryness of pecans would. It is rich and too sweet, and how many Southern Belles can y’all describe with those very words? And y’all love ‘em. This pie is like that.

I know that I am usually writing in this space to advocate getting into the kitchen to cook and bake for your own enjoyment. But this is definitely one time when I wouldn’t blame you for ordering the real Kern’s “DERBY-PIE®” instead of making your own. If you decide to use the recipe I linked to above, I suggest that you use more walnuts than called for in the recipe: closer to 1 ¾ cups will give you more caramelized walnuts – I think they are the best part of this pie – and be sure to not fill the prepared pie crust any more than ¾ full, erring on the side of less. Greedily, I over filled mine, it overflowed and burned on the bottom of my oven. (There’s something particularly stinky about burning sugar.) At the very least place your filled pie on a sheet pan or cookie sheet before putting in the oven.

And don’t forget the ice cream to cut the sweet. (!)

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Click here for the recipe for something very similar to Derby Pie, or here to order the real thing.

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

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