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Archive for the ‘Holiday’ Category

Happy New Year!

Here’s a dirty little secret about me: I like reading the obituaries in The New York Times. There’s nothing ghoulish here. I actually think of these as sparkling little pocket biographies, for, if you are written up in The New York Times on the occasion of your death, chances are you did something notable in the years preceding.

Edie Stevenson, the woman who created the “Hey Mikey! He likes it!” television commercial? She was there last week. (My name is Michael. You can just imagine how many times I hear that line when I’m about to taste someone’s cooking.) She was right alongside Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong-Il. How’s that for democracy in death?

I’ve read some screenplay-worthy stories of folks by reading the obits: Gene Tunney, the championship boxer? Great story. The obits also tend to make an excellent history lesson, albeit one that is centered mostly on the mid to late twentieth century.

Hey, I realize this isn’t for everyone, but personally I found the story of the creation of the Dorito inspiring. No less inspiring than the fact that Arch West, the former Frito-Lay exec who helped create what is considered one of the ultimate “junk foods” lived to the ripe old age of 97.

I had a college art professor who was fond of saying, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” At the time I thought this was almost horrifically jaded. Now I get it. That was his way of saying, “Yes, by all means celebrate creativity. Just remember that someone may have done it before; it’s your version of it that moves things forward.”  (Plus ça la change:  the more things change, the more they stay the same.)

Blogs about food? There may be one or two others besides the one you’re reading. But this one is different because I am writing it. (I didn’t say better, just different.) I don’t claim to be moving blogs—or even food writing forward, but I’m trying to do my own thing. I’m following a path well trod by M.F.K Fisher, Craig Claiborne, Benjamin Franklin, and countless cavemen sitting around a fire.

This is true of the world. The computer? Done. The cell phone? Done. But then Steve Jobs got a hold of them…and no I’m not comparing myself to Steve Jobs.

When it comes to food we always have a foot in two worlds: the first is where we came from and the second is where we’re going. We can’t help ourselves: someone served us something that soothed our soul when we were young and impressionable (last week.) That is now the barometer by which we measure future, similar meals. Today’s earth-shattering discovery is tomorrow’s touchstone.

But then there’s the magic surprise of the new and undiscovered that is always lurking around the corner with everything you eat. Maybe it is a new flavor of ice cream, a different way of grilling a steak, or even a cookie with that slight twist you never thought you’d like. (Sea salt on chocolate chip cookies? Who knew?)

That’s why I enjoy old recipes so much. I could never navigate a slavish route through Julia Child’s oeuvre. I’d be stopping every few pages with my own “What ifs?” What if I used olive oil here or Asiago cheese there? (I do that in the supermarket too. Don’t go shopping with me if you want to get in and out of the market in one day.)

Last summer a man named George Lang was written up on the obit page. He took a dark, dusty old restaurant on the Upper West Side, cleaned a few murals, and made the menu a bit more accessible. Café des Artistes became a legend, as much a pre-performance location for Lincoln Center audiences as a neighborhood “place” replete with atmosphere provided by interesting locals.

On the surface his story may appear to be of interest only to foodies. But he wasn’t born with a menu in his hand, and indeed it was the life lived before Café des Artistes came under his purview that is the really interesting part of his lore. (I won’t recap it here. Follow the link and read for yourself.)

A couple of years ago after the restaurant closed its doors Alex Witchel wrote a wonderful memory piece in the Times. The article was accompanied by a recipe for Orange Savarin, a wonderful, rich “continental-style” cake that was served toasted, splashed with a shot of rum, and “mit schlag”—with whipped cream.

George Lang is gone, his version of Café des Artistes is gone (although the restaurant is again open, now as “Leopard at des Artistes”) but I’m serving the savarin to my friends this New Year’s Eve as a nibble to accompany champagne. My version is made with Meyer Lemons which are plentiful this week in my market, and I’m skipping the splash of rum, but the “schlag” will be there if anyone wants it.

One step forward, two steps…

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Click here for the recipe for Café des Artistes Savarin.

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

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

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What are you tweeting New Years Eve?

Santa isn't expecting these...

I recently received an email from a precocious youngster named Virginia questioning the existence of Santa Claus. Kids these days! Skeptics in a skeptical age. I replied by telling her to watch the coverage of the Kardashian wedding again. Watch that and, trust me, you’ll believe in Santa Claus. And flying reindeer. And elves.

Funny. I’ve never questioned the existence of Santa Claus. Sometimes you just have to roll with it. No, I’ve never actually met the guy. But I’ve never met George Clooney either, and no one questions his existence. Anyway I think the world is a better place with Santa Claus in it.

Therefore, every year Christmas week presents me with one crucial decision: what kind of cookie to leave for Santa Claus. Yes, I always leave him cookies and milk. I also leave carrots for the reindeer, although I doubt they’d turn their noses (so bright) up at the cookies. No, JOSN (Jolly Old Saint Nick) doesn’t indulge, but I suspect that has more to do with the fact that he’s in a hurry than with my cookies. It is strictly unofficial, but leaving goodies for Santa wins you points when it comes time to decide whether you belong on the naughty or nice list—whether or not he eats them.

This is an extension of something I learned from the folks on Wall Street: hedge your bets. (Santa has always been very generous with them. He must have quite a bit of cash tied up in derivatives.)

Over the years I have left different kinds of cookies for the old guy, usually reflecting whatever I had baked for the season’s parties, although there have been times when I baked a batch of Chocolate Chip cookies especially for Santa so that he would smell that they’d just come out of the oven.

This year with Hanukkah and Christmas overlapping I thought it might be fun to help Santa celebrate the festival of lights. I suppose I could leave him a plate of latkes; surely he doesn’t find those waiting at the base of most chimneys. But I don’t know if he’ll like cold latkes and somehow it just didn’t feel right to leave him anything other than cookies. Why not a latke that is actually a cookie?

This kind of trompe l’oeil / kitsch baking isn’t my usual calling. Yes, it is just this side of Sandra Lee, but as we are in the hap-happiest season of all, it really adds up to a bit of harmless fun.

I got the idea last week when I went to a daytime holiday potluck. People brought things ranging from Devil Dogs to Toll House Cookie bars. (Trust me, my eyes went right to those Devil Dogs.) But sitting amongst all the sweets was a platter of latkes. They were hot, and I was hungry, so I could smell every ingredient, the potato, the onion, the egg, the matzo meal, even the oil in which they’d been fried. (I must have been really hungry.) Still, it was a “one of these things is not like the other” moment, and the thought flashed through my mind, “The latkes should be cookies.”

Back in my kitchen I pondered how I could “make it so.” It seemed as though the best way to do this would be to decide on the flavor. Obviously onion is out of the question. But many folks enjoy their latkes with applesauce, or sour cream. Some like them sprinkled with sugar. The latter felt right. ‘Tis the season for a sugar cookie, and for that extra “zetz” cinnamon and sugar seemed even better.

The technique of making the cookies look like latkes was actually the easy part. The best latkes are made by shredding the onions and potato on the side of a box grater. Why not shred the cookie dough the same way? Then, just arrange the shreds on a cookie sheet. I couldn’t use just any dough, though, because certain cookie doughs would spread too much, losing the shredded look as they bake. My standby “I Heart Shortbread” recipe was enlisted.

The trick is to be extra gentle with the shredded dough when arranging it on the cookie sheets. Also, as great as the cinnamon and sugar is when baked on the cookies, I may experiment by dusting a mixture of cinnamon and confectioners’ sugar on the cookies just as they come out of the oven. I think the result would have a sort of a crunchy / dough-nutty flavor.

I really think this may be the year Santa actually eats the cookies I leave for him. But if not, more for me!

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

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Click here for the recipe for Latke Cookies.

For your holiday baking you may also like my Christmas Fruitcake (for fruitcake haters), my Gluten-free Chocolate Crinkles, and Gingerdoodles, all perfect for your holiday table.

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Here’s the link to the Butter Flour Eggs Holiday Cookie Baking Primer 101. It also includes a recipe for Chocolate Pepper Cookies and some technique and equipment suggestions. Don’t start your holiday baking without it!

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

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

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I saw three tweets on Christmas Day…

Fruitcake (for fruitcake haters)

During the Christmas season it seems as though jokes about fruitcake are as inevitable as youngsters bursting into tears at the sight of Santa Claus. Hey, it happens. Pity the parents who waited in line for an hour at Macy’s for a photo of little Chelsea on Santa’s lap, only to have her experience the dreaded Christmas meltdown. Oh well, c’est xmas.

The thing is, fruitcake is an easy target. I don’t know anyone who likes it. The hunk of fruitcake I saw for sale at Duane Reade had a wrapper that looked like a joke (“…made from an old Southern recipe”). Perhaps this has more to do with America’s collective palate: I think we are a sugar cookie folk. The British seem to be more into the dark, spicy, and pungent. They love a good steamed pudding with hard sauce. (I read somewhere that Martha Stewart likes to give those away as holiday gifts. Martha, when you read this please note my preference for chocolate, and Happy Holidays to you too, doll.)

We all know the fruitcake jokes: that there’s only one piece of fruitcake, it gets passed around and around. Or everyone really uses fruitcake as a doorstop. (I didn’t say they were funny, I just said they were inevitable.) Mrs. Claus makes it out of reindeer droppings. (Love that one. Classy.)

So, why fruitcake on Christmas? Short answer: when people discovered that sugar made a good preservative for fruit, there was an excess of candied fruit available, so putting it in cake and giving it as a gift was a natural progression. Here’s my problem: the fruitcakes they sell now have candied fruit that I do not recognize, and the cake itself seems to be flavored with some kind of spirits that make it smell…er, funky (for lack of a better word.) Rum is one of the traditional fruitcake spirits. I’m not sure what the heck I smell in the fruitcake they sell in Duane Reade.

I don’t hate the concept of fruitcake, I hate the execution. It’s like a beautiful house with musty old furniture and peeling wallpaper. Clearly Fruitcake is a remnant of another age and is ready to be brought up to date. I think this is also an opportunity to highlight all the great seasonal flavors that we expect during the holidays.

One note: fruitcake will never be pretty. It is brown and lumpy. All I ask is that it tastes good. (And does not smell bad.) I will also admit that I know absolutely nothing about making traditional fruitcake. That may be an asset; I’m coming at this problem from a completely selfish place, answering the question, “What do I like?”

I like cinnamon. I like walnuts. Hmmm. It’s fruitcake, and I haven’t mentioned any fruit. Alright, I like figs, and candied pineapple, too. I also wanted to make something that would be relatively easy and fast because—let’s face it, during the holidays we’re all a little oversubscribed.

My cheat, er, shortcut, was that I was really looking at this as a bar cookie. Bar cookies have the advantage of a crust that gives each piece structure: it won’t fall apart in your hand and you don’t need a fork.

I vaguely remembered a blueberry bar I tasted somewhere. I don’t have the recipe, but what I have never been able to get the crust out of my mind. It was a shortbread made with dark brown sugar. It was, hard, had some crunch, and that toasty / sugary taste that dark brown sugar can lend food. If I could just figure that out then I knew the rest would take care of itself.

I kept it simple. Just a bit of flour, brown sugar, Earth Balance (which I use instead of butter), and cinnamon.  I made a mixture like wet sand and pressed it into the bottom of a brownie pan. Right on the money.

To bind my choice of fillings together I used a mixture that is not unlike what you use in Pecan Pie, but skipped the corn syrup in favor of just letting the natural molasses in the dark brown sugar do what it does best: make everything sweet and wet. This also makes the end result a bit less cloying. The walnuts melt into the other ingredients and bring to mind old-fashioned mincemeat. Not a bad traditional reference.

One of the things that used to drive me crazy about fruitcake was that I could never pick the candied fruit out (yeah I know: why bother having fruitcake if you’re just gonna…?) So, keeping that in mind, I reserved my candied pineapple to use only as garnish, and even added a few strips of sliced candied papaya for color. No mystery fruits allowed, and if people don’t want the candied fruit, it’s right there where they can pluck it out.

I nervously presented my new Fruitcake at a cookie swap. Folks were very enthusiastic.

Hello Fruitcake. Welcome to the Twenty-first century.

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Here’s the recipe for Christmas Fruitcake (for fruitcake haters).

For your holiday baking you may also like my  Gluten-free Chocolate Crinkles, and Gingerdoodles, both perfect for your holiday table.

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Here’s the link to the Butter Flour Eggs Holiday Cookie Baking Primer 101. It also includes a recipe for Chocolate Pepper Cookies and some technique and equipment suggestions. Don’t start your holiday baking without it!

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

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

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I’m dreaming of a tweet Christmas…

fudgy, chewy, and gluten free...

I am no stranger to allergies; I am a drippy-nosed, scratchy-throated, itchy-eyed dweller of a city with questionable air quality. Snow White called me the other day to ask if I’d fill in for Sneezy while he has some minor surgery. (Rim shot. Heigh Ho…)

My glamorous self-portrait aside, I was baking Christmas cookies the other day and realized that someone I admire very much cannot indulge because she is gluten intolerant. This is often referred to as an allergy, but it is actually the result of Celiac Disease which manifests itself by making the body unable to digest the gluten in bread, cake, and cookies. Clearly I have ignored these folks long enough; it’s time to invite them over to the cookie table, eh?

I completely understand. I don’t usually bake with real butter because it upsets my stomach. I use Earth Balance sticks, an excellent substitute, yet I recognize that some allowances need to be made to compensate for the various differences. As an example, I would never make a plain butter cookie with Earth Balance. No matter what they do to the stuff, it will never taste quite like real butter. Luckily—or perhaps because of this—I am drawn to treats with slightly more intense flavors. The latter, I think, is the key to baking without butter.

Call it gustatory sleight of hand if you like, but the fact is, if you draw attention to other flavors in a cookie, no one will notice or care about the lack of butter. (I should mention that I have no opinion about how healthy one type of fat is versus another. This is purely—and predictably—about my personal comfort.) I would only warn you to use caution with whatever product you use instead of butter; some do not match the fat-to-water ratio of butter and will compromise the texture of your baking. (Stay away from tub margarine and hedge your health bets by looking for something with non-hydrogenated oils and / or no trans-fats.)

Anyway, why reinvent the wheel? This sleight of hand philosophy can be applied to gluten-free baking as well. The trick is to find flour that will produce delicious cookies—not just good for gluten-free, but good AND gluten-free. This is not quite as straight forward as substituting Earth Balance for butter. Flour is a tricky item: even substituting different wheat flours can make a drastic difference in your baking. This can be caused by variations in the type of wheat, the grind, or even whether the flour was bleached—the latter is almost always the rule with cake flour.

Then there is gluten which is the product of the protein in wheat, barley, rye, and oats. Here’s the big problem: gluten is what makes bread, er, “bready”. It’s the magnificent “chew” in that baguette you just gnawed you way through while leaning over the sink so the calories wouldn’t count. (Yes, that’s how I think.) One of the reasons cake recipes often tell you to not over mix is so that you won’t over develop the gluten; in cakes and cookies you only want the protein for the structure it can lend the finished cake. Over mix that tender chocolate cake and you get rubber. That cupcake you just inhaled? Flour gave it its structure, sugar gave it its bulk.

Yeah, well, anyway, Merry Christmas, where are my cookies, you ask? Who are you: Santa with a couple million more chimneys to hit before the reindeers’ union mandated golden overtime kicks in?

Okay, I’ll cut to the chase. I found a flour called cup4cup which was created by Lena Kwak, of Thomas Keller’s famed The French Laundry restaurant. These folks seem to know what they are doing (!) so I decided this may be good flour for me to experiment with a bit of gluten-free baking. It is a mix of cornstarch, rice, milk powder, tapioca, and a few other healthy ingredients. The texture is powdery, similar to cake flour. Oh, by the way, it’s a little pricey; a three pound sack retails for $19.95.

I just needed a Christmas cookie with an intense flavor that would distract from any mischief the new flour may cause. A perfect candidate is Chocolate Krinkles, a dark, slightly chewy, chocolate cookie. The fudgy texture and flavor make this a cookie that is hard to ruin. (Put enough chocolate on a football and it would be delicious.)

My main concern, borne of many years using alternative ingredients for Passover baking was that the flour would smell funny (Passover flour often smells like wet paper when added to the wet ingredients.) I’m happy to report that other than a very powdery texture, cup4cup flour handles—at least in this recipe—just like all purpose flour. I’m even happier to report that a select group of associates did not notice anything amiss with the cookies and were genuinely surprised to learn that they were gluten free.

The folks who formulated the flour don’t recommend baking regular bread with the flour, but biscuits, brioche, quick breads, and anything that doesn’t have to rely on gluten for structure all seem like viable candidates. I’ll test a few out and let you know.

In the meantime my gluten-free friends can pack on some holiday pounds with the rest of us.

Ho ho ho…

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Here’s the recipe for the Gluten-free Chocolate Crinkles, along with information about where to purchase cup4cup flour. And don’t forget last week’s regular Gingerdoodles, both perfect for your holiday table.

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Here’s the link to the Butter Flour Eggs Holiday Cookie Baking Primer 101. It also includes a recipe for Chocolate Pepper Cookies and some technique and equipment suggestions. Don’t start your holiday baking without it!

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

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

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Holiday Tweets are gluten-free too!

Gingerdoodles

I was thinking the other day about folks who live down south. They are accustomed to a holiday season without snow. True, there have been plenty of holiday seasons up north where we had no snow, but we still had the fun of seeing our breath on a chilly winter morning, or hugging a friend just in from the cold and feeling their icy cheek against ours.

Sounds poetic, but deep down all I’m really thinking about is my personal comfort (natch!). I perspire when the temperature goes above fifty degrees; my Mother refers to me as a Polar Bear. Yes, I’m certainly as pale as a Polar Bear, and, yes, I’m the guy who opens his windows in the middle of winter—you simply have to here in New York because our apartments are all heated by steam heat. (Bob Fosse fans should now snap their fingers a couple times, and tilt their bowlers over their eyes.)

One year while “trapped” in hot, sunny Arizona, Irving Berlin coped with a palm tree encrusted holiday season by penning “White Christmas”—the best selling single of all time. While I don’t have orange and palm trees swaying outside my window (as Berlin mentions in the usually unsung verse to the song) it is sixty-five degrees as I write this, and I am willing myself to feel the holiday spirit. (The dozens of Cyber Monday offers in my Inbox don’t seem to be doing the trick.)

My sure fire remedy? Queue up Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” album, and start baking Christmas cookies. There now, that wasn’t so hard, was it? (I also placed a snowflake wallpaper on the screen of my phone. It helps.)

Anyway, allow me to introduce my first cookie of the season, the Gingerdoodle. As you can tell from the name, it is built on the chassis of the famous Snickerdoodle. Snickerdoodles are fine, but I always think they are Sugar Cookies with yearnings for greater things. With the Gingerdoodle, their ambitions have been fulfilled. (You think I’m crazy for ascribing ambition to a cookie?) All I have done is take a basic Snickerdoodle and add a bit of spice, heat, and texture. It is still a soft, somewhat cakey cookie, but, as Ina Garten would say, “…with the volume turned up.”

I’ve never understood the Christmas-time passion for sugar cookies or the big cheap tins of “Danish Butter Cookies” –many of which have never been within miles of Copenhagen. Even when decorated, sugar cookies tend to be a bit transparent in flavor, meaning you can roll them around on your tongue as much as you’d like but you’ll never taste anything more than flour, butter, and sugar. The “Danish” cookies usually hint at a bit of cardamom, which is not a bad idea, but it’s usually executed in a sleepy way.

I demand more, darn it. Give me complexity. Give me a bit of surprise. Make me want to come back for more. Throw in some chocolate if you can, and I’ll be abuzz with the holiday spirit. The Gingerdoodle is a chocolate-free zone so we’ll have to look elsewhere for our choco-fix. That’s what the holiday color foils on Hershey’s Kisses are for…this week.

The basic Snickerdoodle is only mildly spiced with a wisp of cinnamon. The overall effect is like cinnamon toast—this, of course, is not a bad thing at all. But here’s my question: this time of year, why do you bake cookies? Usually you give them to friends or coworkers, or share them in cookie swaps. Don’t you want yours to stand out a bit? Tut, tut, baking holiday cookies is not the time to follow the pack. So let’s bake a cookie that will stand above the crowd, shall we?

First let’s take a look at the spice in the Snickerdoodle. A mere two teaspoons of cinnamon is added to spice up a very large batch of cookie dough. It’s not even added to the dough, it is sprinkled on the outside before baking. I’ve added an additional two teaspoons to the dough, plus the heat of two teaspoons (or more if you like) of ground ginger, the fragrance of ground cloves, and the kick of a generous half cup of chopped crystallized ginger. The latter also adds little dots of sugary chew to the finished cookie.

As I mentioned, these are a soft, cakey cookie, but I like a little crunch, so the cookies are made with and sprinkled with demerara sugar, the large grain, honey-brown sugar. (Layers: it’s like a nice cashmere sweater over a really good white shirt.)

As they bake they will fill your home with spiced holiday scents that would turn a Williams-Sonoma holiday candle green with envy.

Luckily, green is a holiday color…

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Here’s the recipe for the Gingerdoodle.

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Here’s the link to the Butter Flour Eggs Holiday Cookie Baking Primer 101. It also includes a recipe for Chocolate Pepper Cookies and some technique and equipment suggestions. Don’t start your holiday baking without it!

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

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

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Have yourself a merry little Tweet

Bowl & Spoon Gingerbread

I hear this all the time: “Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it is not all about the gifts.”

I agree, except for the gift part. Wait! Don’t judge me. In the case of Thanksgiving, the meal is the gift we all give each other. If it is better to give than to receive, then on Thanksgiving we happily have both sides of that equation amply covered. If food is love, then the last Thursday in November finds us all swaddled in a pumkiny, sagey, sugary hug.

Still, the other side of the coin is that for the folks preparing and serving the meal the day can be an absolute test of endurance, skill, organization, and patience. For some of those folks the best thing about Thanksgiving is…the day after. “Fiddle-dee-dee.” (For the incredibly young, the latter is Scarlett O’Hara’s punctuation to the exhortation that tomorrow is another day. Google “Gone With The Wind.”)

My Thanksgiving is actually all about the Macy’s Parade. Even though I am a New Yorker and can easily walk just a few blocks to watch in person, I subscribe to a parade watching technique that I like to call “Warm/Hot”. Here’s how it works: I sit in my warm living room with a cup of hot coffee. There is also usually a restrained combination of toast/pancakes/waffles/eggs in the mix—diet be damned, but still not an oink-fest; there’s a big dinner coming up in just a few hours.

Thanksgiving must be pretty darned great for it to be my favorite holiday because it has one glaring omission: chocolate. Turkey is great and all, but I nominate chocolate as the national bird…uh, I mean, Thanksgiving meal. I look at it this way: your family sits down to a Turkey dinner and after every single American has finished the communal thought, “Mmmm. It’s good. For turkey…” the squabbling and bickering begins, the kids start running in circles, and your Dad falls asleep.

Now picture the same scene, except everyone is served a plate full of chocolate. Yes, the kids will be running in even faster circles, but after you’ve eaten a plate of chocolate, who cares? And the caffeine in the chocolate will keep your Dad awake. Squabbling? Bickering? After chocolate? No way. (And clean up would be a breeze.)

However, until I am King of the World and can unilaterally enact this change, I will respect the current traditions. But that doesn’t mean that I will have Thanksgiving sans chocolate. And because I am subversive I shall sneak it in.

Case in point: dessert. Yes, I realize that Milton Hershey did not arrive at Plymouth Rock before the Pilgrims, and therefore was not waiting to greet them with a bag of Hershey’s Kisses, and therefore Thanksgiving has forever been the provenance of pumpkins and cinnamon. All of this has been carried down through the years in the service of “seasonal flavors”. Is there a season when chocolate is inappropriate? Not when I am King of the World and living in the Cocoa Castle.

I’m not reinventing the wheel here. Folks have been peddling Chocolate Pecan Pie for eons. My recipe for Alfred Lunt’s Famous Pumpkin Pie has been heroically adding chocolate to Thanksgiving tables for hundreds of days. Why stop there? If I am to be King of the World I expect to have to earn the title through (easily attainable, moderately) good deeds. Let’s use a recent request for Gingerbread (the cake, not the cookie) as an example.

A friend asked if I would bake Gingerbread for her to take to her family’s Thanksgiving dinner. She explained that her Mother has a fondness for gingerbread, but because my friend lacked a full kitchen (ahhh, New York apartments…) she didn’t think this was attainable. Oh and one more itsy bitsy little thing; her Mother hates molasses. The latter makes no sense to me because molasses is intrinsic to Gingerbread. But my friend insisted that her Mother always made hers without the stuff.

That’s when everything fell into place for me. My friend has just a tiny kitchen. Her “stove” is a couple of burners and a countertop oven. But that countertop oven is really good. It’s a Breville convection oven and is probably better than the stove in my kitchen, just smaller. My friend has no excuses; she can bake the cake herself. She doesn’t have a Kitchen Aid mixer, so I’ll be giving her a Bowl & Spoon recipe. It’s quick, which makes it perfect for last minute holiday baking.

Gingerbread really is just a spice cake with molasses which adds the well-known darkness and smoke to the sugar. Without molasses you really just have spice cake, but let’s dispense with names for now, shall we?

Molasses is frustrating to me because you may use a tablespoon or two during the holiday baking season, and then you’re stuck with an almost-full bottle staring at you from its shelf for the rest of the year. If you ask me we’re well rid of it. The question is, what can we use to replace the robustness of its flavor? Chocolate. (You saw that coming.)

There are a couple of ways you can use the chocolate. The first is for a subtle addition of dark notes—a kinder, gentler molasses. The other way is to let the chocolate do what it does best: be chocolate. It really depends on your audience. Are they traditionalists? Or are they in line with me, the King of The World? (In line waiting for our chocolate, that is.)

If it’s subtlety you’re after, then grate a half cup of dark chocolate with a microplane and swirl this powdery black snow through the batter just before baking. It will disappear into the batter, leaving behind only the dark, “caramelly” flavor.

If you want your chocolate to scream its presence, then add a half cup of chocolate chips, and swirl them through the batter. You’ll get little pops of chocolate with each bite, and you’ll find the synergy between the ginger and the chocolate to be a happy surprise.

(Yes, I know the microplane is a piece of equipment someone with a limited kitchen may not have, but they are cheap and can be used for everything from chocolate to shaved ice. You’ll get more mileage from a microplane than from a bottle of molasses.)

You can see from the photo that I finished my cake with a bit of powdered sugar, and a few grains of autumn-colored sanding sugar. But plain ‘ole whipped cream will be a hit, especially if you used the chocolate chips. If you happen to use whipped cream from the can, just don’t tell me. And for heaven’s sake don’t start a whipped cream fight or tell anyone you got the idea to do so from me. Unless you bring a can for everyone.

Happy Thanksgiving. Eat well, and be thankful for your bounty.

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Here’s the recipe for Bowl & Spoon Gingerbread.

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Keep these other Thanksgiving recipes in mind:

Maple Walnut Sticky Buns

Cranberry Sauce

Parker House Rolls

Anadama Bread

Baked Indian Pudding

Alfred Lunt’s Famous Pumpkin Pie

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

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

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Thankful for your tweets too.

"...wash your hands right this minute!"

I need your help. The title of this post, Yes, das ist eine bread basket, is ripped straight from the fractured memories of my childhood. I think it was one of the lyrics of a “list” song I learned as a tot, but that single line is all I remember. That, and when you sang the words “bread basket” you pointed to your stomach. If you know the song please refresh my memory. (Or titter at my lack thereof.)

Can you tell that Thanksgiving makes me a sloppy nostalgic sap? Why not? It’s a big family holiday, so my thoughts always go to my Pop.

I always thought my Pop had the strangest tastes. When we’d go to the deli counter he’d order Three Bean Salad. He just loved it. I used to think, “Who eats Three Bean Salad? Yech.”

When we’d go for ice cream I’d order chocolate chip with jimmies; he’d order maple walnut. I’d think, “Who orders maple walnut ice cream? Yech.”

On Thanksgiving he always ended his meal with Baked Indian Pudding, and I’d think, “Really? But there’s pie!”

Granted, I’m still not a fan of Three Bean Salad, but that has more to do with a general aversion to the whole cole slaw / potato salad / macaroni salad niche of cold salads. But make maple walnut anything and I’m in. When did that happen?

Naturally my Pop was special because he was mine. But in reality he was a fairly typical guy of his time: first generation American, very solicitous of his Mother, World War Two army vet. During times when I was youthfully undisciplined, his strongest remonstration to me was, “A little time in the service would straighten you out but good.” The latter was a show of exasperation: he would no more have wanted me to join the service than he would have wanted me to run away with the circus.

When I was a kid, I had a voracious sweet tooth. My Pop had a sweet tooth too, but his was more measured. I never saw him eat candy. He was a cake and ice cream guy. It’s odd that I have sort of grown into that same type of sweet tooth and ironic that while I consider myself to still have a sweet tooth, I often complain about things being too sweet. How do I reconcile those contradictory claims?

Easy. I’m here to confirm the sad truth that, yes, we do become our parents, hair (or lack thereof) and all.

When I was a kid the first thing I’d grab out of the Thanksgiving bread basket was one of the sticky buns. Don’t confuse these with the lumbering, Sta-Puff Marshmallow Man-sized, mall-sourced Cinnabons. The little ones I’m recalling were designed to fit into a breadbasket, and seemed to always appear on Thanksgiving. Was this a New England tradition? Dunno.

As an adult my bread basket tastes have veered away from the sticky sweet and towards the savory: biscuits studded with cranberries, Anadama bread, and toasty, puffy white rolls—like Parker House Rolls. Even Northern-style cornbread—sweet—seems like a sugar rush. The sticky buns seem unredeemable and icky now, and the sticky fingered charm of my seven year-old alter ego fits my adult persona about as well as my old Cub Scout uniform. That is: not at all.

Yet people request them, and truthfully, who am I to deny today’s seven year olds the same fun I had getting everything and everyone sticky? And who am I to deny their Mothers the fun and frivolity of commanding them to, “… wash those filthy hands right this minute!”?

So here’s my version, ready for Thanksgiving.

To shake things up a bit I decided to not make the typical pecan sticky buns. To add a bit of flavor complexity, pay tribute to my Pop, and make preparation a bit easier, I reached deep down into my soul and got in touch with my Kitchen Wonk.

So, these are Maple Walnut Sticky Buns.  I recognize that these are a “project” and that if you are preparing an entire Thanksgiving dinner, you may want to farm out this “project” to a willing patsy collaborator. The good news is that I have built the recipe on the bricks of the Parker House roll recipe, so depending on the size of your expected crowd you can make the basic dough and make half of it into sticky buns, and the other half into toasty, white Parker House rolls. You can also double the recipe and…well you know what to do.

Besides being a wink and a nod towards Pop, using maple syrup makes prep a little bit faster because the filling and the topping are easier to mix together as opposed to using just brown sugar. I like to think it is healthier than the dark corn syrup called for in some recipes. (Yeah, I know, this aint health food.)

Because we are making really small buns—one or two bites—I recommend that you bake them in pie plates or round cake pans. This way you’ll end up with fewer of the dreaded “middle buns”, the ones that are baked inside the pan and therefore brown less than the outies.

The recipe also instructs you to carefully turn the buns out when they are fresh from the oven to let the syrup and nuts drizzle down. After careful tasting and consideration (a sticky job but someone had to do it) I am ready to declare that I think I like them upside down—with the topping left on the bottom. That way you won’t miss the toasty crust which remains barely kissed with the syrup.

You can make these a day ahead, but you will want to gently warm them prior to serving in case the sugar in the syrup has crystallized.

Phew! I think holiday baking season has arrived. I’m pooped already. Time for a nap.

But first I’d better go wash my sticky hands.

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Here’s the recipe for Maple Walnut Sticky Buns.

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Keep these other Thanksgiving recipes in mind:

Cranberry Sauce

Parker House Rolls

Anadama Bread

Baked Indian Pudding

Alfred Lunt’s Famous Pumpkin Pie

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

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

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So many tweets, so little time

Cranberry Sauce (in a few minutes)

I forgot how fragrant cranberries are. I opened the bag in the picture above and was struck by a sweet but refreshing smell. It is a sweetness that belies reality, for the irony is that you can’t eat cranberries out of the bag unless you enjoy being convulsed into a teeth-grinding wince. Nature made them very tart.

But there they sit, every Thanksgiving, front and center, playing Ringo Starr to the turkey’s John Lennon. I, for one, have other things on my mind whilst gnawing on my drumstick, but folks’ expectations being what they are, you simply can’t serve turkey without cranberry sauce. It simply isn’t done (he sniffed haughtily.)

I’m not sure how many people bother to make their own cranberry sauce for the holiday, but if you’re just buying any ol’ pre-made cranberry sauce, you’re missing out on a golden opportunity to be creative and to bring some individuality to your Thanksgiving table. Have I made the sale yet? No? Then, let me add that cranberry sauce is simple to make and you can—and should—make it a day or two ahead. (Sold!)

Here’s a related story with a tragic ending. (Have that box of Kleenex close at hand.) I have a friend who comes from a large family. Their default Thanksgiving dinner is a collaborative effort where people are assigned a portion of the meal to prepare.

A couple of years ago my friend was assigned cranberry sauce and decided to be creative. He carefully researched recipes, and asked advice from his friends who have logged kitchen time. The resulting recipe was a simple whole berry sauce sweetened with orange juice and perfumed with orange zest. His family’s reaction? Grab that Kleenex: they hated it. To be fair, they were used to the jelly-from-a-can sauce, and found my friend’s creation a bit overpowering.

So I’ll make a deal with you: I’ll get creative, but I will also include directions to make something close to jelly-from-a-can sauce, but with a touch of complexity. (No ridges from the can though, sorry. Someone’s bound to miss those. Tough noogies.)

The Ocean Spray cranberries I bought have a basic recipe printed on the back of the bag; that will be my launching pad. Hint: this is a bit subversive, for you will shortly be receiving a lesson in basic jam-making. Don’t worry, there will not a final exam.

My first addition to the bag recipe will be a cup of chopped apple. The apple is a big ally here because it adds sugar to counter the cranberries’ tartness, and pectin which will help the cooked berries jell a bit. (No one likes runny cranberry sauce.) Dice the apple into fairly small chunks, but don’t worry about technique because the apple will cook down and disappear.

Addition number two is the seeds from half of a vanilla bean. Vanilla extract really won’t work here; we’re going for that custardy-floral note that only the seeds can lend the sauce. The apple gives the sauce body, but the vanilla with its round tones gives body to the flavor of the sauce.

Addition numbers three and four are a tribute to my friend’s attempt at cranberry sauce for his family meal: orange zest, and a tablespoon of frozen concentrated orange juice. These will give the sauce the citrusy zing that counteracts the hammered-down gaminess of the average turkey.

Now if you want to get really silly here, we can add two cloves and or a half stick of cinnamon. Be stingy with these ingredients; we just want a note or two, not the whole concerto. Keep your audience in mind.

Speaking of audience: if your turkey dinner will be an adults only affair, consider adding a thimbleful (let’s say a tablespoon) of brandy or calvados. The alcohol will (mostly) cook off, and you be left with some rather earthy, smoky tones that will work well with your Turkey’s lean roasted flavors—not to mention the sage that is likely in the stuffing.

This year I’ll be adding about a half cup of chopped walnuts just before I remove the berries from the heat. The walnuts will absorb some of the sweetness of the sugars while adding their own meaty, crunchy character.

If you’ve got your heart set on adding some of these flavors but remain a fan of the jelly-in-a can, then omit the orange zest and juice, cook the berries as directed, then strain the whole thing through a sieve before allowing it to cool and set.

If you really miss the ridges from the can you can always pour your home-made jelly into a clean can and let it set there.

Honestly who’s gonna do that?

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Here’s the basic cranberry sauce recipe. I recommend reducing the sugar to no more than one half cup if you’re using the apple and orange juice.

Ocean Spray Whole Berry Recipe – Makes 1 cup

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

1 x 12 oz bag of cranberries

Bring water and sugar to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add cranberries and return to a boil. Reduce heat and boil gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour sauce into a bowl, cover and cool completely at room temperature. Refrigerate until serving time.

Options:

1 cup chopped apple

Seeds from one half a vanilla bean

Zest of one half an orange

1 tbsp frozen concentrated orange juice

1 or 2 cloves

Half stick of cinnamon

1 tbsp brandy or calvados

½ cup chopped walnuts (add just before removing from heat.)

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Keep these other Thanksgiving recipes in mind:

Parker House Rolls

Anadama Bread

Baked Indian Pudding

Alfred Lunt’s Famous Pumpkin Pie

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

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

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Did you turn your Tweets back one hour?

Meringue Ghosts

Let’s dispense with the most important part first: I don’t think the guys in the picture look like the Klan. On the other hand, my head did go right there. I think they’re much cuter than that—their little curly points give them a Tim Burton quality. C’mon, only your waistline could find them demonic.

Oh well: modern life. If you’re a New Yorker you’ve probably lost count of the times you’ve seen people parading around town on Halloween (or any time, for that matter) and thought, “Oh, that’s just wrong!” So, why should I cook myself into a self-conscious stew over little blobs of egg white and sugar?

Confidentially, I find Halloween to be one of the trickiest times of the year to navigate. I was never one for dressing up; well into my twenties I was still wearing the same scratchy Yogi Bear costume my Mom bought me in Kindergarten. Oh, perhaps I exaggerate, but only to highlight that when it comes to Halloween costumes I feel totally devoid of creativity or desire. (Although, I have always thought it would be fun to dress as a matador. I like the hat. Um, is there a shrink within the sound of my voice?)

Only my friends who have kids dress up. The rest of us run home and eat our “just in case” candy. You know: the candy you buy knowing full well that you won’t get any Trick or Treaters, but buy just in case you do.

You would think that on Halloween someone like me would have all sorts of appropriately themed goodies on hand, but I resist the temptation of making anything pumpkin, orange and black, or blood red. I feel intimidated by the kitsch, for the truth is, kitsch requires a deft hand. Far from being predictable, Halloween kitsch knows no rules, and can be successful (or dreadful) when overdone, underdone, or somewhere in the middle. The recipe for Halloween is a tricky balance of humor, ghoulishness, and sugar. Look at the picture above. I think I got two out of three, and as the old expression goes, that aint bad.

In past years I’ve made cupcakes with orange frosting, Jack O’Lantern cookies (which were very cute), and other things, but I can never seem to step out of the shadow of the star of the day: that great big bag of tiny candy bars. I can’t make a better Kit Kat bar then our friends at Nestlé.

So where do my little meringue ghosts fit in? I consider them edible decoration—part of what Sandra Lee would call a “tablescape.” Scoff at Ms. Lee if you must, (and she is likely scoffing all the way to the bank), but she has a point. Yes, you can toss the bag of Kit Kats into a bowl. But then what? Sandra Lee would have the interns rig a black light, the better to make her “glow in the dark” cupcake frosting shimmer against the dry ice mist that the little fan hidden behind the table will swirl “just so”.

I don’t have a starving intern, so I made a very simple meringue (no cooking of the sugar is required), stuck little black dragees on them to look like eyes, and baked them until they were crunchy on the outside and still a bit gooey on the inside. Simple, but fun. They make a great souvenir, and the little “Boo!” banner can also be used to identify the food on a buffet table, or act as a place card for a sit down dinner. Place cards? Really? Yeah, why not. It’s a special day, and even your kids might get a kick out of them at your regular family meal.

If I am gun shy about Halloween kitsch, then I will happily practice the dark art of whimsy instead. (Ms. Lee and I are just very different people with the same goal. I’m okay with that and I’ll bet she is too.)

In a bit of timely irony, I became convinced while making the meringue ghosts this past weekend that my kitchen is again haunted. Yes, again. I was told when I moved in that the former occupant was a retired Nun. (I swear I am not making this up.) Evidently in her later years she became a bit of a recluse and pack rat, and when she died all of the stuff she had hoarded was tossed and a “to the studs” renovation was required. I get the feeling that she is mad and taking it out on me—in the kitchen. (Just ask any parochial school graduate about crossing a Nun.) Food would burn and things would fall off the counter when I was across the room. One day I heard an odd creaking noise and discovered that one of the cabinets was falling off the wall.

Shortly after I moved in a friend gave me a sage smudge stick—basically a bundle of dried sage leaves artfully lashed together. I had never heard of one before and had no idea what to do with it. I was told to light it so that it smokes, and that the smoke would drive away any bad spirits. Heck, I must have “he’ll try anything” stamped on my forehead. But try it, I did.

I can totally understand how this would drive away bad spirits. The dense smoke the thing gave off almost drove me away, but I persisted, frantically waving the smoking thing in every corner as instructed (supposedly bad spirits retreat into the corners), and then standing there, burning bush in hand, I wondered, “How the heck do I put this thing out?” (I snubbed it out in the sink.) It seemed to work for a while. Things stopped falling off the counter on their own. Peace reigned.

Then last week all heck broke loose. A can fell off a shelf and directly onto my foot. (It didn’t hurt. Much.) The first batch of meringue ghosts browned in the oven like they had gone down to Puerto Rico for a little beach time. (They’re supposed to stay white.) And the kicker, the thing that convinced me that something was awry? While making the second batch, my piping bag burst open at the seams. I thought those things were supposed to last forever. I was wrong.

Or was I haunted?

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Click here for the recipe for Meringue Ghosts.

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

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

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Scary tweets…

Crunchy Peanut Butter Cookies

I am not an appliance junkie. That does not mean that I am immune to the charms of the shiny, beautifully lit toys in the Williams-Sonoma catalogue. I find them endlessly fascinating, especially the coffee makers. But that is purely window shopping on my part. I’m strictly an analog, boil-water / pour-into-Melitta kind of guy.

This reminds me of the “My Stuff” section of the magazine “Vanity Fair” where they question successful creative types about the brands of clothes and household items they use, including underwear, toothpaste, and coffee makers. I always imagine the Luddite thud that would reverberate off the page if the “Vanity Fair” editors ever asked little ol’ me for my preferences. “Ah, Melitta. How unstylishly retro…,” they’d smirk in caffeinated superiority. “Crest? Sounds so rugged…”

If I ever start depending on an eleven-hundred dollar coffee maker for my daily brew, there had better be an exponential increase in the square footage of my bank account.  No sir, for now, I get suckered in a much lower rent district. If it’s under ten dollars I’m in. I look at it this way: if I were to buy a niche appliance for several hundred dollars, I may use it once or twice then pack it back in its box until the next time I need it. Under ten bucks? I’m less likely to feel guilty about tossing a failed experiment to save space. Don’t misunderstand: I’m not appliance averse. I just prefer workhorses like my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Yeah, I have a waffle iron, and I do use it. Once a year.

Certain smaller specialty food markets are ideal for shoppers like me because they tend to carry items rife for discovery. I’ve actually made some great discoveries this way, including Ines Rosales tortas, and Damak chocolate. This past summer I fell under the spell of Bindi Coffee Gelato. Bindi is not a new name in the freezer case, but I’d never seen their gelato in a market here in New York before. I kept telling myself that it was lower in fat than regular ice cream. So is crack. They have a lot in common.

During one of my trips in search of some Bindi crack gelato, I happened to pass the display of various brands of peanut butter.

PB2 Peanut Butter Powder

I’m not sure how things catch my eye. I have a friend whose career is centered on the art and science of brand recognition. I have my own scientific approach: I have the supermarket memorized. Shopping for me is a gigantic game of “one of these things is not like the other.” In other words, the new stuff sticks out. On the trip in question it was powdered Peanut Butter that stuck out. Far from being a skeptic, my first instinct was to assume that there was some important use for this product about which I knew nothing. Therefore I simply had to buy it.

As it turns out, I am not the only one playing the “one of these things is not like the other” game. The cashier was right there with me. She gave the jar a close examination, gazed up at me and asked, “What do you do with it?” I told her I’d have to get back to her on that one.

Bringing home an item like this is not unlike adopting a new puppy from the pound. (A very quiet puppy.) You sit and stare at it for a few minutes, and wonder, “Okay, what do I do with you now?” Indeed this period of wonder extended to several months as the powder sat on my kitchen shelf until I could think of a use for it.

This is not to say that the product has no reason for being. It is perfect for folks who are on a low-fat diet but still want the flavor and protein of peanut butter. Finally, it occurred to me that the easiest way to get inspired would be to just open the bottle and taste a little bit of the powder. Good news: It tastes like peanuts. (Duh.)

But this got me thinking about it not as a peanut butter substitute but as a flavor source. When you add peanut butter to a recipe you get the moisture of the fat in the bargain. The downfall with that is that whatever you are making can end up too “loose.” Peanut butter powder has the potential of providing the opposite service: all the flavor, plus it can act as a thickener—or at least not loosen things up. Hmmm. Peanut butter frosting? Satay sauce? All good uses for this stuff.

With Halloween coming up I am test driving a few things that I will be bringing to a friend’s party. Peanut Butter Cookies seemed like a perfect old fashioned treat that kids and adults would enjoy. They can be tricky though, because sometimes they simply lack peanut flavor. So, I added a generous two tablespoons of the powder to my recipe.

The result is a bit crunchier than the usual peanut butter cookie, but that’s all for the better. The peanut butter flavor is pronounced, making these cookies as addictive (to me) as a jar of peanut butter. In fact, that’s how the cookies taste: like a sweetened, crunchy slab of peanut butter.

The basic recipe is great even without the peanut butter powder, but with it the flavor can stand up to a few chocolate chips thrown into the cookie dough.

Hey, Vanity Fair editors! How about a new section called, “My Cookies”?

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Click here for the recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies.

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

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

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Mmmm: Crunchy tweeter butter…