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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Chocolate Raspberry Babka

This past Friday I asked a trusted friend and advisor what I should make and write about in my blog this week.

“Babka,” came the answer, “Chocolate Babka. CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY BABKA,” the tone of voice making it clear that this was resolutely not a suggestion, but an assignment to be fulfilled in return for a favor recently delivered.

Now, aside from the fact that I have never actually baked a babka, I found this a really good – uh, suggestion. It’s been a while since I baked something that relied totally on my taste memories of years gone by. For most people I assume taste memory has nothing to do with it; for them, Chocolate Babka invokes the well-known “Seinfeld” episode where Jerry and Elaine get to the bakery too late and have to settle for a Cinnamon Babka – clearly (to their thinking) a lesser babka. To make matters worse, their babka has a hair in it. (This is also the episode where Jerry explains the profundity of the Black and White Cookie.)

In the past I have written about my obsession with food as it is portrayed on screen, but as you never actually see a babka in the “Seinfeld” episode, there is nothing for me to emulate. Anyway, I am not setting out to make a lesser babka, and certainly not a hairy one.

Here’s a game: in three words or less, describe babka for the uninitiated. I’m going to say “coffee cake on steroids.” I know: that was four words. A more complete description is a dense, sweet, filled, yeast cake. The traditional Jewish New York babka is made by filling and twisting or braiding the yeast dough. I see them all around the city in the shape of a loaf, but the babka of my youth was tall and round, notable for its hard, toasty, crunchy crust, its gooey filling, and its ample hat of crackling streusel. The tall, round cakes I remember must owe their shape to the traditional Russian – Polish version. The name Babka may come from “Baba” which translates as “Grandmother.” The theory is that the twisted, braided dough creates a design on the outside of the cake that looks like the pleats of a Grandma’s skirt. A version of this was made in the run up to Easter, so my timing is apt.

History lesson completed, I stepped out of the “Way-Back Machine” on a mission to build a better babka. In this case, I’m defining “better” as faster and maybe easier, because the traditional babka recipe I found is a bit of a lengthy project. As it turns out, no matter how you slice it (pardon the pun) making a babka is project baking, something best done when time is not an issue. The good news is that I have organized it into some easy steps. It still takes a little while, but none of the tasks are particularly difficult.

A babka recipe is really three recipes: the first, for the yeast dough, has the requisite rising time. The second and third recipes, for the filling and the streusel topping, are quick and simple, but contain a lot of moving parts.

This begs the question, “Why bother?” I have a couple of answers based specifically on my experiences baking babka this past weekend. The first answer is: because last Saturday night we New Yorkers experienced a howling, window-shaking rainstorm. In short, the perfect night for project baking, as I’m a terrible Scrabble player, so I stay stashed safely in the kitchen. The second answer is: I defy you to top the taste of babka straight from the oven, still marginally too hot to eat. My third answer (extra-credit) is: the aroma of baking babka will make you wish for more house-bound weather. Chocolate plus raspberry plus yeast. You do the math.

I’m not much of a coffee drinker, but I’ll pause in the coffee aisle of the supermarket just to smell the beans. Baking is the same experience; sometimes the aromas coming from the oven are worth the price of admission.

It would be fun to tell you that I got the recipe from my sainted great-grandmother, a legendary baker. But the truth is that the yeast dough recipe came from the back of a box of pearl sugar that has been sitting on my shelf longer than I can remember. It’s one of those recipes that gets a frequent look with the thought, “Someday…” The streusel is from my Butter Flour Eggs Crumb Cake recipe. The filling? I winged it. Oddly enough, I think the filling came out the best of the three.

I also added a small touch. Literally. Instead of baking one big babka, I baked two baby babkas. One for the previously mentioned friend and advisor, and one for me. A happy arrangement.

While I prefer the babka fresh from the oven, there is something gratifying about carefully toasted slices of day (or two) old babka with a dab of butter or cream cheese. (Don’t heat slices of babka in a toaster. The filling will drizzle out and make a mess. Use your oven and a cookie sheet.) The bonus here is that even reheated babka fills the kitchen with the same great baking smells.

Hair is optional.

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Click here for my recipe for Chocolate Raspberry Babka.

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

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Profiteroles

“One nice thing eez, the game of love eez never called on account of darkness.” – Pepe Le Pew

Pepe Le Pew: now there’s a true romantic. He never gives up on love. He approaches it with a single-mindedness that could almost be enviable. And yes, you may have noticed that he is as French as une baguette. The last bit makes sense, given that Parisians, indeed all French, have had a reputation for romance grafted onto their identities like a tattoo. (That Pepe Le Pew happens to be a cartoon skunk is irrelevant to my thesis.)

I have been trying to find out why Paris is considered the most romantic city in the world. No matter who I ask or where I look on the internet, the closest answer I can get is that “it just is.” Songs have been written about it, movies have been made, and books have been published. So who am I to argue?

Perhaps you are familiar with the famous “French Paradox.” This is the observation that the French suffer a relatively low incidence of heart disease, despite having a diet relatively rich in saturated fats.

Pepe Le Pew

But herein lies my French paradox: how can it be that a place and a people so famous for being romantic can also be famous for rudeness? (Not like New Yorkers, who are sooooo nice.) It reminds me somehow of what Socrates said about love, “The hottest love has the coldest end.” So perhaps my paradox is explained by twisting Socratic reason: French passion burns white hot, but is icy cold when you ask for your vin ordinaire to be refilled. They may be rude, but they’re rude with style.

(Quoting Pepe Le Pew and Socrates in the same story must be some kind of journalistic breakthrough.)

The following bit of news is unlikely to come as a surprise: for me all roads lead to food, and any place where your visit isn’t considered complete unless you’ve partaken of an éclair or two (or three) gets a gold star on my map. So if the people are rude, I figure I can always drown my sorrows at les patisseries, non?

Valentine’s Day is this weekend. Last week I described baking Valentine Heart cookies. They are a sweet and wonderful thing to make for your special someone, but if something more transcendent is called for then may I suggest a really cheap trip to romantic Paris?

No, I am not saying that you should fly to Paris for a day in the middle of winter (although if you want to that’s good too.) But the Butter Flour Eggs Travel Bureau would like you to know that Paris can be as close as your kitchen, and just as romantic as the real thing. All that is needed is a touch of atmosphere, and, yes, some butter, flour, and a few eggs. Oh, and a big hunk of chocolate. Okay, two big hunks of chocolate.

Here’s the bottom line: if Paris is the most romantic city in the world, then why not toss out the flowers and the candy, and instead serve something typically Parisian? Life may be a box of chocolates, but for me, Valentine’s Day is all about Profiteroles.

Profiteroles are a staple of Parisian patisseries. In simplest terms, they are small cream puffs filled with ice cream and drizzled with chocolate sauce. Such an underwhelming description, yes, but like Paris, it’s more about the experience and the sum of the parts than about the mere bricks and mortar.

I don’t remember the first time I had Profiteroles, but it wasn’t in Paris. I’ve had them through the years here in New York at the venerable Café Un Deux Trois. While I was preparing to write this article I Googled, “Who serves the best Profiteroles in Paris?” Number one on someone’s list was a patisserie named Carette. (Warning to office dwellers, their website site plays music.) If you’ve been to Paris it is likely you are familiar with Carette as it is hardly an undiscovered secret. For several days I have been fixated on their website, specifically the pictures. Looks like a place I could spend an afternoon, eating.

You may be thinking, “Are you crazy? You want me to make cream puffs?” I’m not crazy (at least not measurably), the effort is all in the name of romance, and cream puffs – Pâte à Choux – are ridiculously easy to make. Really. Meatloaf is harder, I swear.

There’s also a dirty little secret about Profiteroles: they can be made a day or two ahead and stashed in the freezer until you need them. Just thaw them for a fleeting twenty minutes or so – long enough to unwrap jewelry (hint hint) – glaze with the intense, oozing gloss of a special chocolate sauce and l’amour is alive in your kitchen. Feel free to eat them with a spoon, but they’re small, so why not pull a “Mickey Rourke” and feed each other with your hands? Messy? Ah, you’ll figure it out.

If your kitchen isn’t especially atmospheric, light a few candles and fire up some classic French love songs on your iPod; anything by Charles Aznavour, Edit Piaf, or Yves Montand will do the job, and they’re all available on iTunes.

As one of those songs says, “C’est si bon / Lovers say that in France / To the tune of romance / It means it’s oh so good.” I think that is as true for romance as it is for Profiteroles.

Of course on Valentine’s Day, I know a few folks who may prefer a little ditty sung by Beyoncé that beseeches the listener to, “put a ring on it.”

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Click here for my recipe for Profiteroles.

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

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Valentine's Day Cookies

A couple of classmates from elementary school “friended” me recently on Facebook. To protect the innocent I won’t say how many years have gone by since I’ve seen them. As happy as I was to hear from them after all these years, I also found that it raised some strange emotions for me. I think the passage of time has always had an ineffable quality for me; I can count the time passed in numbers but I can’t quite wrap my head around what it means.

One of these long lost school mates reminded me that when we were kids I always gave everyone in our classroom a Valentine’s Day card. I admit I found this a bit disconcerting:  you mean everyone DIDN’T give everyone in class a Valentine’s Day card?? What was going on there? Were they raised by wolves?

I remember vividly that every year there was the ceremonial carving of the shoe box: everyone decorated a shoe box with a slot cut in the top. Everyone placed them on their desks to serve as a Valentine’s Day mailbox. I remember a flurry of activity as everyone ran around the classroom delivering their cards. I do not remember why I was so generous with my little paper hearts and cupids. Was I sentimental or romantic? Was my Mom teaching me some early lesson about etiquette and letter writing? Maybe it was the simple math of me observing that there were twenty-something cards in the pack, and assuming that I was supposed to use them all?

Whatever the reason, it is a relief to know that for once, I had it covered. Phew.

Living here in New York, I am a witness every year to the adult version of this ritual. I always get a laugh out of seeing the long line of quietly panicked men at the florist and at the Godiva store much too late on Valentine’s Day. I never see women in those lines. I’m not sure why, but I got a hint the other day when my Baby Niece (or “B.N.”) called me – more than two weeks before Valentine’s Day – and asked if I would help her make a special treat for her boyfriend (lower case.) I think she’s trying to make him her Boyfriend (upper case.)

She wants to surprise him with cookies (he doesn’t read this blog so this won’t ruin the surprise.) I think this is a great idea. Anyone can go out and buy chocolate, but the extra step of making something or planning something is what makes a gift romantic on Valentine’s Day. It says, “I was thinking of you, and you mean enough to me that I took the time and planned something special.” I am not advocating stalking, rather, I am merely suggesting consensual obsession.

Nor am I advocating that you should forego including jewelry as part of your Valentine’s Day gift. If I did that I would likely be disinherited by my Mother and have to endure the scorn of the other women in my family, as well as countless others. Jewelers everywhere can now breathe a sigh of relief.

I was more than willing to bake the cookies for her and let boyfriend (lower case) operate under the delusion that she baked them – the sugary equivalent of Cyrano de Bergerac. (How’s that for romantic?)

But no, B.N., an intrepid young woman, insisted that she needed to do it herself under my supervision. My only concern was that my kitchen is a bit snug for two adults to comfortably work. Also, we were planning on dipping the cookies in chocolate; to bake them, wait for them to cool, and then dip ‘n decorate (can I trademark that term?) would mean perhaps a longer day than either of us was willing to give to the project.

In the past I have described my usual division of labor for projects of this type. To be brief, I prefer to break the work into pieces. For these Valentine cookies I decided that the pieces should be: A) I’ll make the cookie dough B) I’ll bake the cookie dough C) B.N. will decorate the cookies.

That weighty decision done, I unearthed a very simple, not too sweet, shortbread recipe I had cobbled together. This is one of those “double duty” recipes I always like. You can use it for cookies, but if you omit the egg it makes a great crust for lemon bars, or pecan bars. As B.N.’s boyfriend (lower case) prefers milk chocolate (I approve!), I thought this humble cookie would be the best delivery system for the milk chocolate.

We had a bit of time between “cookie day” and Valentine’s Day, so I knew I needed to be extra careful with the chocolate. During that time the chocolate could become streaky or discolored – especially if refrigerated. Tempering chocolate is a process that allows you to melt it and let it set again without streaking or discoloring. Tempering chocolate requires raising it to a particular temperature, then cooling it slowly by folding it over on itself on a cool marble slab. It requires a bit of skill, patience, and space. I’m one for three. Barely.

Instead, I found a shortcut technique in a really beautiful book titled, “Baking At Home with The Culinary Institute of America.” Their shortcut involves simply melting two thirds of the chocolate on top of a double boiler, then adding the remaining un-melted chocolate and allowing it to melt while stirring until the chocolate reaches 84˚F to 87˚F. Sounds convoluted? The fault is in my description, it is really very simple.

B.N. and I had a blast. This is a really low stress project. One of the reasons for the lower stress is the sheer scale of the project: at Christmas you feel compelled to bake enough cookies to feed a small country. On Valentine’s Day you can get away with as few as three or four and as many as a dozen. Unless you’re baking enough for the whole class.

You can see samples of our collaboration in the picture above. The question remains: will boyfriend (lower case) be promoted to Boyfriend (uppercase)?

We’ll see. But for now I’ve got another Valentine’s Day covered. Phew.

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Click here for my recipe for chocolate dipped shortbread cookies.

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

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All that glitters...

To fry or not to fry? That was the question. Allusions to William Shakespeare aside, I’ve been tossing around that question for a week or so. It’s not as profound as Hamlet’s version, is it?

Here’s why the question has been on my mind: The first night of Hanukkah is this Friday and in a cloud of creative confusion I find I am resistant to the idea of writing about latkes. You don’t need me to tell you how to make potato pancakes, do you? Step one: Shred potato. Step two: fry. Step three: top with sour cream or applesauce and eat. Thanks for reading, see you next week.

Oh sure, I know there are a zillion variations. Shred some carrot or parsnip into the potato mixture. Add various spices. Add an egg. All are really delicious, but truly it would be like me telling you how to boil a pot of pasta.

My other choice is to write about Sufganiyot. For the uninitiated, these are the jelly doughnuts that seem to have overtaken latkes as the Hanukkah food of choice in Israel.

How, you wonder, did they make the leap from potato pancakes to jelly doughnuts? It’s all in the story of Hanukkah.

After winning a battle against a supposedly unbeatable foe, the Jews went to re-light the eternal flame in their decimated temple. They found enough oil to keep the flame burning for only one day. Retrieving more lamp oil required an eight day round-trip ride. Miraculously, the oil lasted for eight days, keeping the eternal flame lit until the refill arrived. This is the miracle that is commemorated on the dreidel, the little top that kids spin during the festival. The letters on the four sides of the dreidel are the initials of the Hebrew words that translate as, “A Great Miracle Happened.”

It is the oil in this legend that Hanukkah foods all have in common: both the latkes and the jelly doughnuts are fried. Sephardic Jews fry fritters, and the Italians eat fried chicken. (Leave it to the Italians to really get it right.)

Which brings me back to my initial issues about frying: I really didn’t want to. One session of frying will smell up my apartment for days. Besides I operate under the shaky assumption that food fried at home will be bad for me; I only eat fried food in better restaurants. I trust them more. I am deluded.

I kept thinking, “I wonder if there is such a thing as a baked Sufganiyot?”; “Why don’t I just try to bake a doughnut recipe?”; “Google Baked Doughnuts.”

In the midst of all this I went to the dentist. Sitting in her chair, waiting for the Novocain-induced haze to wash over me, I opened her copy of “Good Housekeeping” magazine, and, boom! flash! a holiday miracle: a recipe for baked Sufganiyot. That was my divine signal, my rainbow, my tap on the shoulder.

Setting to work on their recipe (triple tested in their kitchens!) I found myself giddy with anticipation. I could practically taste the fluffy little puffs of sugar-dusted, jelly-filled Hanukkah happiness. My thoughts went to a long-ago trip to Nantucket and the legendary subtle doughnuts from the Downyflake Restaurant. My Kitchen Aid did its work, the yeast then applied its airy lift to the sticky dough, and my oven baked them to a pale toasty brown. I eagerly cut little pockets into them and filled them with strawberry jam. After dusting them with powdered sugar, I stepped back to survey the finished result which looked so simple and beautiful. Finally I lifted one to my mouth and took that magical first bite.

How can I best describe this decisive moment in my baking experience?

My sufganiyot. Yech...

Easily: these Sufganiyot tasted awful. I’ll add a “Yech” to erase any lingering doubt. The cinnamon in the recipe was overpowering and the hoped for lightness was a missing. In its place was a heavy, bready, overly sweet lump. Yes, doughnuts are supposed to be sweet, but this was sweetness without balance. Sugar usually boosts the other flavors in things, but here it was all dressed up with no place to go.

So where’s my Hanukkah miracle? I think this year it came in the form of the realization that if you want a jelly doughnut, then have a real jelly doughnut. One fried doughnut once a year isn’t going to kill me. I’ve never been a doughnut guy; they don’t temp me at other times of the year. And if you don’t want to fry doughnuts, seek out the pros who do (I’ll be getting mine at Silver Moon Bakery, a wonderful place in my neighborhood.)

It was with a heavy heart (probably caused by the awful Sufganiyot) that I also discovered a “truth” about myself, a moment of self revelation, as it were. At the checkout counter of my local Duane Reade I spied their yearly stock of Hanukkah gelt, the little web bags of chocolate coins. I bought a couple of bags—mostly with the purpose of photographing them for this blog posting (I swear!)—and realized as I snapped open the coins and ate the chocolate inside, that I can live without jelly doughnuts, I can forego latkes, but I can’t imagine being without chocolate. The Israelis can have their Sufganiyot, the Sephardim their fritters, the Italians their fried chicken; henceforth my Hanukkah commemorative food will be chocolate.  

You don’t have to fry chocolate.

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A Cookie Triptych

This past weekend I made cookies for my friend, the artist Laura Loving’s Holiday Open Gallery. I could not help but to be inspired by her iconic art.

The cookies I made blended a little Christmas sensibility with her well known riffs on the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower. I added my own riff on an icon with little chocolate wreaths that were inspired by Wedgewood Jasper china.

More about Christmas cookies in an upcoming blog posting, in the meantime here are the cookies from Laura’s Open Gallery.

Take a bow...

There’s a Broadway theater named the Lunt-Fontanne—maybe you’ve seen it if you’ve walked through Times Square? Lunt-Fontanne was actually two people: Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, husband and wife, perhaps the biggest stars of the early to mid twentieth century. I could claim they were the Brangelina of their time, but that’s not quite accurate. They may actually have been bigger; their Broadway plays were invariably hits, they dutifully took them out on the road playing cities of every size (a/k/a, “the provinces,”) and they were pioneers of a natural, realistic acting style. One night while channel surfing I happened to catch a kinescope of a play they had performed live on TV in the late fifties. Even then, in their late sixties, they had timing, humor, and chemistry that would be considered contemporary today.

What in the world does this have to do with food?

It’s a stretch, but bear with me.

Anyway, during their down time, “The Lunts” lived on a farm (now a museum) called “Ten Chimneys” in Genesee Depot, Wisconsin (Lunt was a Wisconsin native.) While there, Alfred channeled his artistic talent into the kitchen, becoming quite skilled in that venue too.

Blatz showed Lunt in his kitchen (left)

I found this out a few years ago, and was amused enough by it that I decided to name one of my recipes in his honor, giving it an imaginary “back story,” and the aura of mystery that goes along with it. (Food geek? Me? Hi! Have we met?)

The question was: which recipe? Then Thanksgiving rolled around. After a quick tour through my recipe file, the answer became obvious. For many years I have been making a pumpkin pie with a chocolate cookie crumb crust. The original idea came from seeing the pre-made chocolate cookie crumb crusts stacked near the canned pumpkin in the supermarket. It was as easy as asking, “What if I tried those two together?”

One year, I couldn’t find the pre-made chocolate cookie crumb crusts, and realized I would have to make my own. That’s when I found Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers. You may have seen those: they are packaged in a cellophane wrapped yellow box. A plain, simple, dark chocolate cookie, they are more than just a bit addictive, and, after a spin in the food processor, perfect in a crumb crust.

(If you doubt me that the cookies are addictive, I’ll admit that more than once I have had to run out and get another box because I no longer had enough to make a full crust. Oink.)

Although I have never been able to find out why the cookies are called famous, pairing the most famous stage actor / cook of the twentieth century with a cookie named “famous” just seemed natural to me. Could there be a better match? That’s how “Alfred Lunt’s Famous Pumpkin Pie” was born. The recipe is all mine, but its cachet is borrowed.

So, now, to the pie itself. I have written in this venue about a tendency I used to have to over spice pumpkin pie, a nasty habit swiftly broken by my mother’s insistence that she wanted to taste the pumpkin in the pumpkin pie. So I tempered my recipe, putting the pumpkin center stage, and relegating the spices to supporting roles. The spices are all still there; in fact I used a kitchen sink approach, just in smaller quantities, sometimes as small as a pinch. A restrained twist of orange zest adds a spring to the pumpkin’s step.

To give the pumpkin custard a bit of complexity I used three different sweeteners: white sugar, and smaller doses of maple syrup and molasses. The maple syrup adds a bit of smoke, and the molasses makes the sugar less cloying, effectively keeping the whole thing with two feet planted firmly on the ground. If you’re a fan of using sweet potato instead of pumpkin (and why wouldn’t you be?) I suggest using a bit less of each sweetener, and give some thought to employing them in different ratios than you would with pumpkin. Perhaps a bit less of the sugar and maple, and a bit more of the molasses?

I use a light version of the classic pumpkin custard, omitting the egg yolks, and using fat free evaporated milk. The remaining egg whites are whipped to soft peaks, breathing a bit of lift into what is usually a very dense pie. Pumpkin is rich enough on its own, so the resulting pie retains its heft, but you’ll have room for all the other goodies that are sure to find themselves under your nose on turkey day.

Because the pumpkin mixture is so liquid when poured into the pan, it soaks the chocolate cookie crumbs slightly, but the result seems like providence rather than poor baking skills. You get a dark, dense, mildly chocolate crust that sets off the rusty pumpkin better than a predictable pie crust ever could. Contrary to the expectation that the chocolate might upstage the pumpkin, they actually work together in a well rehearsed banter.

This all reminds me that the holidays are a perfect time to bring some theater to the table. I bake this pie in a Springform pan. This serves two purposes: first, you pop open the pan and the pie is freed, easier to slice, and ready to do its job; second, the perfectly upright sides of the pan give each slice a pleasingly symmetrical discipline. Why not take the slices out of the pan and line them up on a rectangular platter, like a line of whipped cream-topped Rockettes ready to kick their way across your table. Ta da!

And the cachet? I’ll be telling folks that Alfred Lunt used to bake this pie every Thanksgiving at Ten Chimneys. So when I offer seconds, it is in the tradition of the man himself exhorting Noel Coward to, “…have another piece of pie, old boy.” You can make up your own story if it pleases you. That’s “thee-a-tah.”

Hmmm: I wonder what I did with that recipe for Kathie Lee’s Crab Cakes?

Click here for the recipe for “Alfred Lunt’s Famous Pumpkin Pie.”

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