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Posts Tagged ‘Rhubarb’

Jelly Roll with Rhubarb Jam

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Rhubarb Thumbprint Cookies

So, this past weekend I made Rhubarb Jelly. Yes, I know: I lead an exciting life, and you’re living vicariously through me.

I’ll get to the specifics in a moment, but for now I need to explain that I ended up with a quart of jelly. I was wondering what to do with that much jelly – even several slices of toast every morning, and many cups of yogurt won’t make a dent in it. A friend recommended that I pour it into little jelly jars and give it to away at a friend’s upcoming birthday party.

Now, putting myself into my friends’ various forms of footwear for a moment, I can’t help but worry about my poor friend Mikey who is taking this whole food blogging “thing” too seriously. Did he really give everyone little jars of jelly? And what kind was it? Rhubarb??

(Okay, now I’m “me” again.) So, no little jars of jelly. I‘ll explain why I am awash in Rhubarb Jelly. I was walking through the market and saw Rhubarb. It is the first of the season, and its bright blushing glow drew my attention. I have this strange fear of the stuff. After all, it looks like celery over which a Wicked Witch has cast a spell. To top it off, you really can’t eat the stuff unless it is cooked, and to make matters worse, its leaves are poisonous.

Angry celery?

All of which begs the question (in my mind, anyway): who was the first person who saw this stuff growing and decided, “Mmmmm, looks good. I think I’ll make a Strawberry and “What-Ever-That-Stuff-Is” Crisp?” I see all sorts of questionable greens growing, but my mind doesn’t make the leap to eating them. (This also makes me worry about the first person who saw Poison Ivy growing and decided to use it in a salad. This itchy scene was never documented, but I figure the same trial and error that landed me with a quart of Rhubarb Jelly also taught us to steer clear of the shiny green leaves.)

I had never made Rhubarb Jelly, but jelly is pretty simple to make. When I was a kid I remember an Aunt making jelly, but that was just the beginning. There was also the whole canning process for “putting the jelly up.” This involved boiling the mason jars, their lids and seals, and topping the filled jars with paraffin wax before closing.

I had a much smaller-scale project in mind, figuring I’d buy a few stalks of rhubarb and make enough jelly to last a few days. Lesson learned: a little rhubarb goes a long way. And the stuff isn’t cheap: at $6.99 per pound its blushing red color brought to mind precious gems like rubies.

Why jelly? Because I’ve made Rhubarb Crisps and wanted to expand my repertoire. I was also curious to see if I could answer one simple question: “What does rhubarb taste like?”

My answer: a little grassy. A hint of soapy bitterness. Very tart.  Kind of herbal in a clean kind of way. Add enough sugar and it is very sweet.

If you’ve never made jelly it’s not an understatement to declare that if you can boil water you can make jelly.

This brings us back to my original question: what should I do with all that jelly? My technique to force an answer was to stand in my kitchen and stare at the pan of cooling jelly for several minutes as if divining from a steaming ruby-tinted crystal ball.

Maybe it was the steam or perhaps the concentrated sugar vapors, but most certainly it was the hot, jammy, fruity, smell. The latter brought me back to the days when my Mom would bake what she called “Spry Cookies.” Spry doesn’t refer to how you’ll feel when you eat the cookies; rather it refers to a long-ago departed brand of vegetable shortening. Mom’s cookies were basically a thumbprint cookie made with Spry instead of butter, and filled with the jam or jelly of her choice. (Actually I remember my Mom using Crisco, which used to confuse little me.)

The tough part is that Mom’s recipe was somehow lost in the march of time. But you and I both know that you can find anything on the internet. Sure enough a search for Spry on eBay yielded the little 1955 promotional cookbook pictured here. (It would have been a little scary to find someone selling cans of Spry, which Lever Brothers stopped making back in the 1960’s. Scary, yes. Surprising, no.)

The cookies I made, lovingly dotted with my home-made Rhubarb jelly, are not quite like my Mom’s. These are a bit cakeier, but otherwise their home-made, rather simple quality speak Grandma and picnics, and summer barbecues. They are correct in spirit if not in accuracy.

My Mom shuddered a bit when I mentioned Spry, reflecting that back in the day no one knew about trans-fats, and that people even thought it was a healthy alternative to the lard that was used before.

The good news is that nowadays we really do have healthier shortening. The brand I use (Earth Balance) is made with non-hydrogenated oils, and contains no trans-fats. (I’m not saying it is health food.)

In the meantime, dive in: the jelly’s fine.

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Click here for my recipes for Rhubarb Jelly and “Spry” 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