A Cake Bakes in Brooklyn

Have Fun -- Make Rolls

2012-01-28T08:36:00.000-05:00

A while back, I made Twenty Second Cinnamon Rolls, but when I found a 1953 pamphlet from the educational service at J. Walter Thompson Company, entitled Have Fun -- Make Rolls, I just had to try the four-hour version. The difference? The 20-second rolls are an afternoon quickie -- fast and sweet. These rolls are a romantic love affair -- sensuous and sophisticated. I would venture to say that these are the real deal, the cinnamon rolls of your dreams.

This charming 16-page brochure for children (really, only girls, for this is the 1950s) goes into great detail, complete with photographs and illustrations, walking one through the process of making clover leaf rolls, butterhorns, sailor's knots and cinnamon rolls. Of course, I picked the rolls with the extra sugar and butter.

These were much better than the 20-second version and worth every minute. The yeast dough is light and complex in taste (not to mention preparation). Recipe below, followed by almost step-by-step photographs.

Cinnamon Rolls
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 package active dry east
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Heat milk gently in saucepan; scald but don't let it boil. Measure sugar, salt and butter into large bowl. Pour hot milk into bowl. Stir to melt mixture.
While the above mixture cools, pour yeast into the water.
When the milk mixture has cooled to lukewarm, add one cup flour. Stir until batter is smooth.
Pour the yeast mixture into the batter and stir well. Add egg and mix until all combined.
Add remaining flour and stir well.
Turn mixture out on a clean counter and knead for about five to 10 minutes, until elastic.
Return to the bowl (which you've washed and and greased). Coat the dough with the oil, cover and let rise until doubled, about 1.5 hours. When it has risen, punch the dough.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Turn dough out on your board or counter, cover and let rest for 10 minutes.
Mix 1/2 cup of white or brown sugar with 1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon. (Take out two tablespoons of this mixture and reserve.) Melt two tablespoons of butter.

Uncover dough and flatten. Using a rolling pin, roll it into a long, narrow strip about seven or eight inches wide so it resembles a long, narrow scarf. Brush melted butter on the dough and sprinkle the sugar-cinnamon mixture on top.
Roll up, lengthwise. Press the seam by pinching it.
Cut into one-inch slices and place in either a muffin tin, or two eight or nine-inch round or square pans. Leave space between each roll, as they will expand. Sprinkle the reserved sugar-cinnamon mixture on top. Cover with a towel and let rise for one hour, until doubled in bulk. Bake about 25 minutes.

When cool, you can frost with confectioner's sugar mixed with a bit of water or milk. Enjoy!

Scald the milk, then pour over the butter and sugar.

Mix the yeast with warm water.

The dough resting.

Roll it out until it resembles a long, narrow scarf. Pull at the sides to make "corners."

Melted butter and sugar-cinnamon at the ready.

This is how it rolls.

Leave plenty of space between the rolls; you can see below how the dough expands.

If you use muffin tins, you'll get round rolls, instead of these post-modern looking beauties, below.

Girls from the brochure with their rolls. And Barbie-doll sized waists.

Gold Cup Cakes

2012-01-27T08:59:00.000-05:00

Do you believe in coincidences? Me neither. So I wasn't at all surprised to encounter a recipe to use up the bowl of egg yolks I had in my refrigerator, left over from a recent angel food cake. I just didn't expect to find it in the bedtime book I was reading, Anne Mendelson's 1996 book, Stand Facing the Stove, about the mother-daughter duo behind the original Joy of Cooking.

But there it was, on page 97, Gold Cup Cakes, a lone recipe in a sea of narrative detailing everything about the family and the fascinating story behind the publishing phenomena. I don't believe this recipe made it into the book; it was found in an undated mimeographed collection. The stroke of originality of this recipe (and all the Joy of Cooking) is the revolutionary way it is written: instead of a list of ingredients followed by a narrative method (the traditional way) , the recipe incorporates the ingredients right in the instructions, so that one could get right to the cooking or baking. (See below.) One other historic note: The Joy of Cooking was the first published cookbook to include pan sizes in the recipes, a very helpful piece of information.

Anyway, history aside, these are really wonderful cupcakes, simultaneously rich (on account of all those egg yolks) and delicate with an enchanting citrus flavor from the addition of zest. (I used lemon.)

They don't even need frosting. At least that's what I told myself at 1 a.m. when I took them from the oven. (They really just take a moment to put together; I started these rather late.) For color, I "frosted" with some raspberry jam, a topping that worked wonderfully. I also used mini-cupcake pans since that's what I pulled first from the tangle of baking pans in my Hoosier cabinet.

These mini-cupcakes had perfect domes! And no need to do all that sifting called for in the recipe. When this was written, probably in the late 1920s or early 1930s, flour was sifted to rid it of impurities and insects. Flour, these days, is free of both and the only cake you really need to sift flour for is angel food.

State of the Cookie Address (revisited)

2012-01-25T09:13:00.000-05:00

This is from last year (re-posted because I got an email from someone this morning, saying they couldn't find this entry on my blog). These are great cookies anytime.

Ok, I'll admit it. I didn't watch the State of the Union Address last night, but I did commemorate the occasion in a sweet way -- I baked gingerbread men cookies in the shapes of an elephant and donkey.

I received these Democratic and Republican Party cookie cutters from my friend (and former boss) Lyn, who planned to give them to me prior to the November 2010 election. But our dinner kept getting postponed and, by the time I received them in December, I thought I'd have to wait a year to try them out. But, since there always seems to be a partisan conflict in the news, I didn't have to wait that long.

And because Obama evoked Eisenhower in his speech (thanks NPR!), talking about our current "Sputnik moment," I figured this would be the perfect time to use this c. 1955 recipe for gingerbread men.

This batter is very easy to put together (use butter instead of "shortening"), very spicy and very delicious. But, it's very sticky, making it difficult to work with, kind of like some politicians. Even my French Silpat, which I bring out in situations like this, didn't release the dough easily. A sheet of parchment worked better, as a platform for rolling.

Having said that, I'd still recommend these cookies. Just be sure to refrigerate the dough at all times, except when rolling it out.

The dough before the dry ingredients are added. Gorgeous, isn't it?

Just dump the dry ingredients right in the mixer.

Cutting these out evoked memories of ~~Congress~~ kindergarten.

Corn Bread, Plain and Simple

2012-01-24T07:49:00.001-05:00

Traditional corn bread is not going to elicit oohhs and aaahh. It's a bit dry, a bit gritty, not that sweet. This cornbread is not the vivacious party guest in the glamorous gown; it's the the plain gal in the corner, the one with the sensible shoes.

Many modern-day recipes offer up a luxurious corn bread with ingredients like sour cream, canned sweetened condensed corn and grated cheddar cheese. The kind of corn bread Paula Deen (pre-diabetes announcement) would serve, probably with a big pat of butter melting on top. But being a traditionalist (and wanting to avoid needing the diabetes pills Paula is now pushing), I used a c. 1935 recipe from my collection.

I made the corn bread to serve with a black bean espresso chili for a dinner party we hosted recently. Now, some of you may be raising your eyebrows at the notion of serving chili at a dinner party, but here was my dilemma. One of the guests, when questioned, said that she did not eat mammals or birds and that her boyfriend did not eat cheese. Whoa...that's veering into "vegan country," a place I've never been. The guest was most gracious, pleading with us not to prepare something special, noting that she is used to "eating around" the contraband, concentrating on the side dishes. Still, I was reluctant to deliberately make something I knew she wouldn't eat and the chili turned out to be the perfect, if not the most elegant, entree.

The corn bread accompaniment is very simple to prepare -- it literally takes just a few minutes to throw together. I used buttermilk for the sour milk, but if you don't have any on hand, you can make some "buttermilk" by adding a teaspoon of vinegar to a cup of whole milk and letting the mixture sit until it clabbers.

I'm happy to report that this corn bread tastes even better the next day. And even better when you add a bit of glamour -- a pat of butter and strawberry jam.

Queen Elizabeth Cake: In the Buckingham Palace Kitchen

2012-01-19T10:01:00.000-05:00

We may not be able to live the life of Queen Elizabeth, but we can do the next best thing: Bake the only cake she makes herself.

At least according to a recipe card I purchased recently at the amazing vintage cookbook shop of Bonnie Slotnick, a true treasure in Greenwich Village. A note on the card reads:

Whatever its origin, this is a fantastic cake and one that anyone can make. It's a sheet cake, so one needn't fuss with layers and fillings. (Let the servants do that.) There's no heart-stopping moment wondering if the cake will release from the pan, as you serve your guests (or yourself) slice after delicious slice straight from the pan.

I love the instructions that say: Mix in the usual manner. The method I used is detailed below.

Although these look like sliced olives, I can assure you they're dates. And even though I didn't chop them up finely, they seem to blend into the batter so that they're almost indistinguishable in the finished product but add a lovely flavor and texture.

The frosting is as simple and easy as the cake.

Melt the butter, brown sugar and heavy cream in a small pan, above, and cook until it looks like the mixture, below.

Then spread it on the cake, below, and sprinkle with nuts and sweetened coconut.

Queen Elizabeth Cake
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch pan.
Pour one cup of boiling water over one cup of chopped dates and one tsp. baking soda. Let stand while the following are mixed.

Beat 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter and one cup sugar until smooth.
Add two eggs, one at a time.
Add 1 tsp. vanilla.
Mix 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour with one tsp. baking powder and 1/2 tsp. salt and add to butter-sugar mixture. Blend until just combined.
Mix in nut and dates (including the "date water.")
Pour in pan and bake for 25 minutes.

Follow the frosting recipe on the recipe card above.

Don tiara and enjoy with your subjects.

My Twinkie Defense (Featuring "Will the Real Twinkie Please Stand Up?" Quiz)

2012-01-16T16:18:00.002-05:00

Yes, I made Twinkies.

It was a confluence of events that brought me to this new high (low?). Last week, while walking in my neighborhood, I came upon a brand new Twinkie pan (who knew these even existed?) that someone had left in front of their brownstone. So I trash-picked it (as we say in Brooklyn). And then, the very next day, Twinkies were in the news: Hostess Brands, which has made Twinkies since the 1930s, had filed for bankruptcy. With such an iconic American cake at risk, I felt compelled to bake some.

And now, we break to bring you the Will the Real Twinkie Please Stand Up? quiz. In the two pictures below, can you identify which is the commercial Twinkie and which is home-baked? (Answer at the end of the post.)

There are all manner of Twinkie recipes online; I used one from a wonderful blog, Joy the Baker. Joy also provides instructions to make Twinkie molds, just in case you can't find your Twinkie pan.

The homemade version is delicious, though never having eaten a real Twinkie, I have no basis of comparison. One thing for sure -- the homemade version is much healthier, using just nine very recognizable ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, sugar, milk, etc. The commercial product uses more than 30, many of them unpronounceable, some of them, supposedly, made from five kinds of rocks.

In a terrific story in yesterday's New York Times, William Grimes deconstructs the Twinkie, reminding how it figures into American history and culture, from the Twinkie defense (in the Dan White murder trial) to its near inclusion in the National Millennium Time Capsule.

I thought I might be overfilling the molds, and the finished product, below, proved me right. But it's easy to slice off the overflow cake with a serrated knife. And the scraps are pretty good.

The recipe for the cream filling is also at the Joy the Baker site. It involved Marshmallow Fluff and butter, and is quite tasty. Below is the possibly endangered Hostess display at my local bodega.

Ok: Were you right? In both pictures, the home-baked Twinkie is on the right.

Delicious Waffles. Period.

2012-01-15T09:22:00.000-05:00

Because many of us have an extra "Sunday morning" during this holiday weekend, I thought I'd share this wonderful waffle recipe I made a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I can't share any production photos because, in attempt to upgrade the quality of A Cake Bakes photos (one of my 183 New Year's resolutions), I used a real camera and somehow lost all the pictures. Luckily, I snapped one of the finished product with my phone.

What I love about this recipe is the title: Delicious Waffles.
And this housewife was right: these are absolutely delicious, simultaneously egg-y (in a good way) and light. They were so good, in fact, that I broke another of my New Year's resolutions (involving diet, of course) and had a big plate of these, slathered with maple syrup.

The beauty of these waffles is that they don't call for buttermilk, just regular milk. But you do need to separate the yolks and whites, and beat the whites separately. This can be an annoying additional step, requiring the dirtying of another bowl and set of beaters, but the lightness the air-whipped whites add is truly worth the effort. (Just be sure not to overbeat the whites so they become dry. I always use a bit of cream of tartar during the process which nearly guarantees that they won't overwhip.)

When I tasted these waffles, I suddenly realized why the folks at Kellogg's selected the name Eggo for their frozen waffle product. But I do hope you'll try this earlier generation, an original iteration upon which the factory food version is based. Even if you break a New Year's resolution, I guarantee it's worth it.

Honey Nut Date Bread

2012-01-09T09:57:00.000-05:00

I love life's roller coaster; I crave drama and surprises and unanticipated outcomes. But even for us adrenaline junkies, once in a while it's nice to embrace the sure-to-deliver and guaranteed not-to-disappoint things in life.

And that's exactly what this Honey Nut Date Bread is -- a comforting, reliable confection that, while it won't knock your socks off, will make you very, very happy.

First, it's easy to make. It involves no tricky techniques that could potentially torpedo the finished product. If you can measure, chop and mix, you're good to go. Second, it tastes better the next day, and even better the day after that. Third, it's good any time: as delicious for breakfast as it is with your afternoon coffee.

I used a combination of fabulous medjool dates (above) and lowest common denominator dates from Costco, and I think the bread would have been just as good using all Costco dates. If you don't have buttermilk, you can make your own -- just mix one tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice with one cup of milk and let it stand for about five minutes. Then proceed with the recipe.

Honey Nut Date Bread is really a cake, one with a mellow flavor from the honey and a finely textured crumb. Next time you're looking for a sure-thing baked good, I do hope you'll try this. No disappointment guaranteed.

Twenty Second Cinnamon Rolls. Really?

2012-01-02T16:04:00.002-05:00

Gimmicks are nothing new. Just look at the title of this recipe, written sometime in the 1940s.

While some steps (like kneading the dough) may take 20 seconds, truth-in-pastry would reveal that this recipe actually takes 20 minutes. Still, its intriguing claim prompted me to select it from among the dozens of cinnamon roll recipes in my collection.

These are very good cinnamon rolls, indeed, though they should not be confused with the traditional buns made from a yeast dough. Those take hours to make, as one needs to let the dough rise at least once (and usually twice). These 20-second rolls can be on the table in 20 minutes.

Although the recipe didn't call for it, I made a glaze to add a touch of glamour and sweetness. I suggest you do this too. Just put some confectioner's sugar (about one cup) in a bowl and add milk or water. Stir until it reaches the right consistency and all the lumps have disappeared.

This is a very easy recipe and the dough is a dream to handle. I'll walk you through the whole process below.

You can cut the butter into the flour by hand (use your fingertips), with a pastry blender or two knives. Or use the food processor (above).

The dough is very dry at first; don't be tempted to add more milk, as it will smooth out during the kneading.

Roll out the dough into a rectangular shape. I trimmed the edges of mine after this photo was taken.

Brush on some melted butter -- I used about three tablespoons. I also want to recommend using silicone pastry brushes. They work wonderfully and while I normally prefer natural to plastic, I've never had to pick natural boar bristles out of pastry while using this new-fangled kitchen tool.

Be generous with the butter, and also the cinnamon and especially the brown sugar, as the dough itself contains no sweeteners.

Roll it up, long-ways. You can use a bit of melted butter to seal the seam.

Slice and place into a baking pan that you've sprayed with Pam or greased, unless you want to spend the last of the long vacation weekend scrubbing the pan. Be sure to leave plenty of space between them, as they expand quite a bit during baking. I used an 8-inch square pan.

The Best of 2011: A Baker's Dozen

2011-12-30T10:37:00.009-05:00

Why are we all so obsessed with lists? Is it because no one has the time to read narratives any more? I think so, especially after a friend who wrote for several national women's magazines told me that the editors wanted to turn every story into a chart!

Having said that, I do love reading lists. Compiling them is another matter altogether. There were so many wonderful recipes this year that it was difficult to choose but I managed (mostly by adding a number of honorable mentions, all of which are good enough to make the list).

And so, in no particular order, I present The Best of A Cake Bakes 2011:

1) Eleanor's Amazing Date Cake
Not an easy cake to make, but well worth the effort. And it's an important reminder of the deliciousness of dates.http://www.acakebakesinbrooklyn.com/2011/07/amazing-date-cake.html

2) Lemon Meringue Pie
If my lemon chiffon pie had turned out better, it would have made the list. But this c. 1935 lemon meringue pie shows that good taste never goes out of style. Light and lemony, this overlooked pie should be revived in the home kitchen.
http://www.acakebakesinbrooklyn.com/2011/02/is-pie-new-black.html

3) Gingerbread Waffles
Just a wonderful way to start your Sunday morning and perfume your kitchen, without messing up more than one bowl. In the unlikely event that you have extras, they freeze beautifully.
http://www.acakebakesinbrooklyn.com/2011/11/gingerbread-waffles.html

4) Chocolate Pudding
Is there anything more comforting or evocative of childhood? I think not. This old-fashioned recipe will transport you back to the days before blogs, cell phones, and even Mighty Fine pudding mix.
http://www.acakebakesinbrooklyn.com/2011/08/chocolate-pudding-under-influence.html

6) Cookie Kisses
The absolute simplicity of these (just egg whites, sugar, vanilla and chocolate chips) make them perfect for Christmas and whenever you want a light and delicate meringue cookie. Did I mention how addicting they are?
http://www.acakebakesinbrooklyn.com/2011/12/cookie-kisses-wonderful-christmas.html

7) Pineapple Upside Down Cake
Fruit and cake make a lovely combination, and this one is a classic for a reason. Delicious, fun and dramatic.
http://www.acakebakesinbrooklyn.com/2011/06/pineapple-upside-down-cake.html

8) Buttermilk Pie
When I originally wrote about this, I called it the Crack Pie of the 1950s. And even though it didn't win a prize at the Daisy Flour pie contest, I'm a believer in "first thought, best thought" and stand by my initial assessment. Fantastic.
http://www.acakebakesinbrooklyn.com/2011/04/buttermilk-pie-crack-pie-of-1950s.html

9) My Best Gingerbread
Of all the gingerbread recipes I've tried (and there have been many), this truly is the best.
http://www.acakebakesinbrooklyn.com/2011/12/my-best-gingerbread.html

10) Old-Fashioned Apple Dumplings
For an absolutely adorable way to serve fall's fruit bounty, this high crust to fruit ratio dessert can't be beat.
http://www.acakebakesinbrooklyn.com/2011/11/old-fashioned-apple-dumplings.html

11) Aunt Jenny's Favorite Cake
The perfect cake for a birthday party or any occasion.
http://www.acakebakesinbrooklyn.com/2011/12/aunt-jennys-favorite-cake.html

12) Lemon Cake Pie
This vintage pastry delivers a pudding, a cake and a pie in one dessert. Deliciously.

13) Betty's Chocolate Cake
A simple, classic one-layer cake topped by a new-to-me (but very old-fashioned) foolproof vanilla icing. Why this frosting ever disappeared from the American kitchen is puzzling.
http://www.acakebakesinbrooklyn.com/2011/01/bettys-chocolate-cake-and-gravy-icing.html

And a few honorable mentions:
Praline Cookies
Lazy Daisy Cake
Grandma's Poundcake
Baked Custard
Television Almond Pastry

Aunt Jenny's Favorite Cake

2011-12-28T08:09:00.002-05:00

I know you're all stuffed with Christmas goose and Hanukkah latkas, but you will eat again and when you do, please try Aunt Jenny's Favorite Cake. It's a winner and I am thankful for the niece or nephew who jotted down the recipe sometime in the last century.

This cake was a "recovery" cake, as in I was making My Best Gingerbread when I realized I'd added double the sugar called for in that recipe. Just as I was about to toss the butter and too-much-sugar mixture in the trash, I remembered this cake and, sure enough, it started with exactly one stick of butter and one cup of sugar. So I quickly switched gears, and I'm glad I did.

This is a delicious, old-fashioned cake, perfect for a birthday party. It has a delicate crumb, but can easily support the chocolate frosting I chose from the same recipe box. Once upon a time, yellow layer cakes with chocolate frosting were called chocolate layer cakes.

The frosting recipe called for two tablespoons of shortening and one tablespoon of butter, but I used all butter. (I also doubled the frosting recipe, to make sure there was enough to cover two layers.) I can understand using shortening (sort of) in pie crust as it does add a flaky texture but the only reason to use it in frosting is to save money. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford flavor over economy. (I also buy butter in bulk.)

The frosting is delicious, but unless you work out in the gym all the time and have amazing arm strength, you'll definitely need an electric mixture to whip it to the right texture.

Some production notes:
Like many old, hand-written recipes, Aunt Jenny's Favorite Cake is simply a list of ingredients. Here's the method:
Aunt Jenny's Favorite Cake
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose or cake flour
2 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
3/4 cup whole milk
Beat butter and sugar until very well blended. Add the eggs and beat. Mix the flour, salt and baking powder together and add this to the first mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Add vanilla. Be sure not to overbeat. Pour into two 9-inch pans, which you've greased and floured. Bake about 25 minutes (It's done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and/or the cake springs back when pressed lightly on the top.)

Cookie Kisses -- A Wonderful Christmas Cookie

2011-12-24T15:44:00.000-05:00

It's not too late to prepare a festive, unusual, delicious-yet-light Christmas cookie. These are spectacular and addicting (all the better to make them last minute). This sleeper of the holiday cookie season is a snap to make and has just four ingredients: egg whites, sugar, chocolate bits and vanilla.

Cookie Kisses are simply meringue cookies with chocolate chips folded in, though when this recipe was written, in the 1930s, chocolate chips hadn't yet been invented, so the author suggests breaking up a large Hershey bar. You can use the convenient chips.

Just beat the two egg whites until stiff, adding the sugar while continuing to beat until the mixture is glossy. Add the vanilla, fold in the chocolate chips and simply drop onto a parchment covered cookie sheet. Bake for 35 to 50 minutes at 250 degrees, though I misread the recipe card (again!) and baked these at 200 for a bit longer and they were perfect.

A Cake Bakes in The New York Times

2011-12-22T17:25:00.000-05:00

I was shocked and thrilled to discover that A Cake Bakes made the "What We're Reading" list in The New York Times dining journal blog (along with Epicurious, Al Jazeera, the Washington Post, The Jewish Daily Forward and more!). The link is below and what writer Julia Moskin was reading was the praline cookie story.

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/what-were-reading-337/

My Best Gingerbread

2011-12-22T07:38:00.000-05:00

Because so many recipes over-promise and under-deliver (the Better Than Sex Cake, for one), it was with some trepidation that I set out to make the gingerbread on a recipe card titled "My Best Gingerbread."

But perhaps hyperbole wasn't as pervasive in the 1940s, when this housewife typed My Best Gingerbread on an index card. It was her best gingerbread, and now it's my best one too. My tasters agreed; they were still talking about it -- and looking for more -- days later.

Each gingerbread season I bake several, and I've rarely found one with this level of baking value (roughly the outcome v. the effort). The only modification I would make is to increase the amount of ginger if you like a more assertive spice kick.

This is a beautiful recipe, with clear instructions and very little guesswork. I baked it in an 8-inch square pan, which was fine, but a 9-inch round pan would probably yield a better looking gingerbread. It took just a few minutes to put together. At first the batter is stiff, but becomes very liquid-y once the hot water is added.

One of the joys of gingerbread is that it's a homey kind of cake, typically served without frosting, but I'm sure you won't hear any complaints if you make a lemon glaze (confectioner's sugar and fresh lemon juice) to drizzle on top. Or just slice and enjoy with a cold glass of milk.

Praline Cookies

2011-12-20T09:14:00.000-05:00

Wow! These are fantastic, their taste equal only to the when-worlds-collide story of how I got this recipe.

It comes courtesy of Ed Cahill, above, my date for the Firestone High School senior prom (way back in 1973). Ed posted the recipe cards to my Facebook wall a few weeks ago, explaining that they are his mother-in-law's who is still baking these at age 92! Ed, who is now a grandfather (!), is a wonderful artist and though you can't see it in the picture, made the jewelry (an abstract necklace and matching earrings) I wore to the prom. (I got him that carnation boutineer. Very classy.)

Above is the entire mise en place for these cookies. Butter, flour, brown sugar, an egg, vanilla and pecans. How simple is that!

Like most cookies, these are simple to mix and very time-consuming to bake. But so worth it because they are so unusual. They are incredibly thin, almost like lace, but packed with an intense praline flavor.

You can see how thin these are. That's a dime, at left.

Ed warns that they must be removed from the cookie sheet almost immediately, or they will be glued to said sheet. I didn't find this to be the case, either on the French Silpat or the greased and floured parchment paper I used. I found that if I waited a few moments, they released beautifully. You need to leave lots of space between the cookies, as they spread quite a bit during baking.

Ed said that the recipe cards, below, were typed on a 1960s Selectric, but the recipe goes back much further than that. Do try these, for an unusual and delicious treat.

Sugar Cookies Redux: My Go-To Recipe

2011-12-17T18:09:00.000-05:00

This is a repost from last year, but every bit as delicious today.

I love sugar cookies -- they're simple, direct and satisfying. Every Christmas I make a batch of these delicious cookies from a Martha Stewart recipe.

The dough takes about five minutes to put together. Rolling out, baking and decorating is another matter entirely. Have some company in the kitchen or call your mother to pass the time and before you know it, voila! a gorgeous batch of homemade cookies.

My idea of a starry night.

After the cookies have cooled, just mix up some confectioner's sugar with a small bit of milk (or lemon juice) in a shallow bowl to create the frosting. Keep mixing it until it's smooth and creamy. I find it easier to hold each cookie carefully on the edge and dip it in the frosting, rather than spreading it with a knife, but you can frost the cookies either way.

While the white frosting base is still wet, add some sprinkles for decoration. No need to be as obsessive as I am -- carefully placing tiny holly- and ball-shaped candies atop each cookie with a tweezer! This design was created several years ago by my uber creative daughter, so I like to carry on the tradition, even if it means staying up til 2 a.m. to finish. But I do think it's worth it -- see how festive they look, especially with a silver dragee added for sparkle.

Here's a link to the recipe I use.
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/basic-sugar-cookies

Bake Sales and Beyond - A Must-Read New York Times Article

2011-12-14T13:39:00.002-05:00

"The baking life is one of many sorrows, and I have seen or tasted them all," writes Jennifer Steinhauer in today's New York Times. Has there ever been a more brilliant story lead? I think not. (Which is why Jennifer writes for the Times and I write for A Cake Bakes, but I digress.)

The article in the Dining section can be read here and I ~~encourage~~ insist that you start it. (After that, you'll be hooked and read to the end.) The author -- using humor and insight -- bemoans modern-day bake sales, whose tables are more often laden with store-bought treats than the homemade goodies that gave rise to the practice. Jennifer highlights the contradiction between the food-obsessed (who eat only local-origin foods in restaurants where even the waiters are grass-fed) and the lack of love (for what is baking if not love) proffered at these old-school fundraising events. And she is profoundly sympathetic to the non-bakers among us: "I do not have anything against people who do not bake. The culinary arts, for those with no interest in them, are nothing more than housework," she writes.

Are you hooked yet? If not on baking, then at least this wonderful story.

Pictured up top is some gingerbread I made last night -- and will write about tomorrow. Come to think of it, gingerbread would be a fine addition to a bake sale table.

Monday Morning Pancakes

2011-12-12T07:40:00.001-05:00

Here's a cake anyone can make -- pancakes!

As I whipped up a batch of this morning, I thought how brilliantly easy they are and what instant gratification (and gratitude) they provide. With just a few simple ingredients that are probably already in your pantry, you can start the day with these toothsome and nourishing breakfast cakes.

Perhaps the most appealing part of this recipe (from a "new" box just purchased from a Colorado eBay seller), is its simplicity. It's just "pancakes," and not some triple cream macadamia nut concoction that's found on a million restaurant brunch menus.

Simply mix the wet ingredients (milk, egg and melted butter) in one bowl and the dry (flour, baking powder, sugar and salt) in another. Combine until the flour is incorporated, but don't overmix -- this should be a lumpy batter.

Spoon onto a preheated frying pan and let cook until the small bubble holes begin to appear. Flip and let the other side cook for a few minutes. And voila! It's breakfast. Add a pat of butter and plenty of real maple syrup.

You can make the pancakes in any shape. When my children were young, I used to form their initials to their great delight. These days, I favor silver dollar pancakes -- small and round.

Below is the recipe card. Because I didn't have any buttermilk on hand, I made the top recipe but I'll bet the buttermilk one is pretty good too.

Scandinavian Christmas Cookies: "Little Jewels to Grace Your Table"

2011-12-07T22:28:00.002-05:00

"They sparkle like little red and green jewels & your guests will love them," noted the late Olive Facey on this recipe in her collection. She was right. These may be the perfect Christmas cookie. Light and delicious, these aren't overly sweet or cloying like so many holiday cookies.

Couldn't resist creating a cookie tree with these.

The Scandinavian Cookies in this recipe are also known as thumbprint cookies, as the depression in each cookie is made by pressing one's thumb into the dough. They are then baked and the depression is filled with jelly when they've cooled. Once the jelly is added, the cookies should be served the same day. As per Olive's instructions, I used both red currant and mint jelly.

The mise en place for coating the cookies with egg white and chopped walnuts.

Although there are several steps in making these cookies, all are simple and straightforward. In fact, these are the perfect cookies to make with children. The only tricky part is rolling them in the egg white and then the chopped nuts. It's most efficient to do the egg white part exclusively with your left hand, while the coating with nuts can be handled with your right hand. If you don't keep these operations separate, the nuts will invade the egg white mixture, making quite a mess. But if you have a young helper, the tasks can be easily divided.

It's easy to overbake these cookies, as they don't really brown much. It's best to pull one from the oven to test after about 12 minutes. Overbaked cookies (as mine were) are a bit crumbly in texture, though still quite delicious.

Note the butter to sugar ratio. These cookies are not very sweet on their own,
but are perfect with sweetness added by the jelly.

Jack Berch's Mahogany Cake of 1947

2011-12-03T18:18:00.000-05:00

On the rare Saturday night when I'm in the kitchen baking (as opposed to sipping martinis at an A-list celebrity studded penthouse party in Manhattan -- just kidding), I always tune the radio to Danny Stiles, the "Vicar of Vintage," and listen to the dreamy, romantic and scratchy records he plays of music from the 1920s to the 1950s. (Think Steve Buscemi's Seymour in the film Ghost World, and you'll get the idea.)

So you can imagine my delight when in a newly arrived recipe box, I discovered this mahogany cake recipe typed in a real letter (remember those?) from old-time radio host Jack Berch, who chatted, whistled and sang for audiences from 1935 to 1954. "Keep a listenin' while I'm a whistlin" was his motto. The show was sponsored by Prudential Insurance and I'm not sure if it was aired nationwide or only in California.

I have all manner of mahogany cake recipes in my collection -- and I'm still not sure what distinguishes it from a chocolate one. Most, but not all, have coffee as an ingredient, and some include a small amount of vinegar (which I hope has some purpose other than to make the batter a lighter shade of brown).

This is an easy batter to put together and can be baked in two pans, as opposed to three which is what the recipe specified. Please grease and flour the pans, crucial step omitted in the instructions.

The cake was quite good but to me the real star was the frosting -- a whipped cream confection flavored with cocoa and coffee. Perhaps tastes have changed since 1947, but I found I needed to DOUBLE! the frosting recipe to have enough for three layers. (And perhaps therein lies the root of our current obesity crisis.)

I made this cake for DS who lobbied for a chocolate cake (when I wanted to make a white one). At the end, he didn't care for this cake calling it simply "round," and he described the frosting "whipped cream nastiness." So in this case, the apple did fall far from the tree.

Old-time radio still has its fans. Below is a Jack Berch album on eBay at the moment. And while I do enjoy listening to Danny Stiles, it's Saturday night and I'm headed out with the DH. Happy baking to all.

Chocolate Eclairs and the Jewish Deli

2011-11-29T09:49:00.000-05:00

Memory is a tricky thing; a story in today's New York Times says that "Memory is not so much a record of the past as a rough sketch..." And I was recently quite unnerved when I discovered that my clearest, most vivid childhood memory (of my mother's white blouse catching fire as she leaned against the gas stove) didn't actually happen. Which makes me wonder if we really used to buy chocolate eclairs -- that very French pastry -- from the glass case at the late great Lou & Hy's, Akron's only Jewish deli.

In any event, I've loved chocolate eclairs from the time I was a child. (If I'm remembering correctly.) They are not easy to recreate at home, as there are three separate components -- the pastry, the custard filling and the chocolate ganache.

But I decided to tackle the dessert, for the light, almost hollow pastry is prepared quite differently from all other pastries. Called pate a choux, the butter and flour mixture is cooked first on the stove top. Eggs are added and only then it is baked in the oven. I can't imagine who invented this unusual this pastry but it was popular among home cooks in the early 20th century -- there are many recipes in my collection, most of them labeled "puffs" or "cream puffs."

There's not a chocolate eclair among the cards, though. Instead, the cream puffs were dropped in heaps on the baking sheet, baked and then sliced open before filling with cream (or whatever).

So, even though I've posted a vintage cream puff recipe below, I'd advise my readers to use a more modern recipe when attempting chocolate eclairs. I used the vintage cream puff recipe, but followed recipes for technique, etc., on Martha Stewart and on Grace's Sweet Life, a wonderful new site I recently discovered.

The first step is to make the filling -- I chose a modern recipe, in part because I have a lot of vanilla beans, and vintage recipes don't use them. I doubled Francois Payard's vanilla pastry cream published by Martha Stewart. The mise en place for this delicious concoction is above.

While this is cooling in the refrigerator, make the pastry, below, by cooking butter, water and flour on the stove top until it pulls away from the sides of the pan.

Remove from the heat and add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each.

Fill a pastry bag and, using a plain round tip, pipe the dough into one-inch by four-inch mounds.

When they emerge from the oven, stick a wooden skewer in each end to create a bit of space for the filling.

Then, fill your pastry bag with the cooled pastry cream and squeeze it into the pastry.

When this is complete, make the chocolate ganache and dip each eclair into the chocolate, letting the excess drip back into the bowl.
And then enjoy, for you've earned it!

Leaf Lard (or Pork Fat for Pastry)

2011-11-28T08:23:00.000-05:00

My mother-in-law Lucy refers to some people as having a clear head, and she doesn't mean that their thinking is clear. Rather, there's a clear space where the brain should be.

I'm sure if she knew I'd spent my Sunday evening rendering two pounds of leaf lard she'd consider me among the clear headed. But once she tastes the pie crusts I plan to make with the finished product (pictured above), I don't expect any complaints, for pie crusts made with leaf lard are really, really good.

The gift of lard.

It all started early Thanksgiving morning when my neighbor Elizabeth rang my doorbell (actually knocked on the window, as our doorbell was stolen) and handed me two pounds of leaf lard, the prize lard found near pigs' kidneys. Her gift was to thank me for sharing my baking bounty with her family. (And now, I see a pie in her future.)

The cubed lard starts out like this, above, and after a few hours, looks like this, below.

There are plenty of websites with detailed lard rendering instructions, but basically you cut it into one-inch chunks, place in a large saucepan with a bit of water and let it render, or release the fat, slowly over a low fire. Strain through a cheesecloth and then refrigerate. While one can buy rendered leaf lard at farmers markets, if you do it yourself you get not only the lard, but the crispy cracklings, which are delicious.

The cracklings. Don't know exactly what they are, except delicious.

One of my Thanksgiving pies from this year. Next year, the crust will be even better because
it will be made with home-rendered leaf lard.

Gingerbread Waffles

2011-11-27T11:08:00.000-05:00

If you want to perfume your house with the aroma of gingerbread (and who doesn't want to do that) while simultaneously making an amazing worth-the-calories breakfast, do try this c. 1950s gingerbread waffle recipe.

These have so much flavor as to render maple syrup unnecessary, but as you can see in the photo above, tradition dies hard in my house.

Unlike more modern versions that call for a lot of extras (like pumpkin puree), this has just a few simple ingredients; you probably have most in your pantry. And, after the butter is melted, they're all just placed in one bowl and mixed together.

I use an electric waffle iron, well heated and sprayed with PAM. The first waffle is the test waffle, and always reserved for the cook ( in our house DH makes the waffles).

For the shortening, I used butter and melted it before adding it to the other ingredients.

The Perfect Pecan Pie

2011-11-23T16:44:00.002-05:00

Who Needs Corn Syrup?

A repost from last year, and it's not too late to bake it! I'm about to leave work and whip up one of these babies:

Thanksgiving, at least at my house, is not the time for the joy of discovery, but for the pleasure of the familiar. It's all about tradition and so every year we have both pecan and pumpkin pie (and also fallen chocolate soufflee cake for the family pie haters).
The pecan pie recipe I use is one by American food writer extraordinaire, outlaw cook John Thorne. And I like it so much, I'm sticking with it, instead of trying one of the several in my hand-written recipe collection.

Lyle's Golden Syrup is an excellent replacement for corn syrup.

Ever since corn syrup became the devil a few years ago, everyone has been looking for a viable replacement for this key ingredient in pecan pie. These discussions are all over the internet and can occupy one for hours on end, until you manage to pull yourself away from the computer, right before mental exhaustion prevents any baking at all.

But never fear, for in the midst of one of these discussions, someone posted this beauty from John Thorne. I've never looked back. And you won't either. It uses Lyle's Golden Syrup, a delicious sugar syrup made in England, but increasingly available here in the US.

My Pecan Pie

1 well-packed cup full-flavored brown sugar
Scant 2/3 cup golden syrup
2 T dark rum
4 T unsalted butter
3 eggs
1/4 t. salt
2 cups broken pecan meats
9-inch unbaked pie shell

Preheat oven to 350F. In a large saucepan, heat the brown sugar, golden syrup and butter to the boiling point. Stirring constantly and scraping back any foam that clings to the side of the pan, let this mixture boil for about 1 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool while, in a separate bowl, you beat the eggs until creamy.
When the boiled syrup has cooled, beat in the eggs, salt and pecans. Pour into the unbaked pie shell and bake for about 50 minutes. If the crust browns too quickly, make an aluminum foil "crown" and place it atop the crust.

Fine tuning:
Adding 1/4 to 1/2 cup of heavy cream into the filling before baking makes for a richer, lighter texture.
For a sweeter, lighter pie, add more sugar and fewer pecans; for a denser less sweet pie, add more pecans and use less sugar.

Old-Fashioned Apple Dumplings

2011-11-21T11:18:00.001-05:00

Want a novel, farmhouse-esque and dare-I-say adorable apple pie alternative this Thanksgiving? Try old-fashioned apple dumplings.

I don't know why apple dumplings fell out of favor -- or perhaps this home-grown dessert was never in vogue. And when was the last time you saw them on a restaurant menu? (Cracker Barrel DOES NOT count.)

Recipes are rare. Perhaps their simplicity -- peeled apples encased in pie dough -- defied the recording of ingredients and instructions. I couldn't find even one recipe in my collection of hand-written cards and only two published recipes (below), one from a 1952 pamphlet "250 Superb Pies and Pastries" and a 1955 Gold Medal baking retrospective.

These homey desserts (although they were commonly served as an entree in 1900) are easy to make -- certainly easier than apple pie. Simply peel and core apples (choose those recommended for pie, not applesauce), fill the cavity with a combination of butter/sugar/cinnamon, encase in a very thinly rolled pie crust, pop in the oven and voila -- a luscious result. You can make a sauce with them, or not.

Top picture shows one "naked," below is one with a sauce, which you serve on the side or pour over the entire dumpling.

Growing up, I considered baked apples a wonderful treat. Had I only known that they could be encased in buttery pie dough my entire childhood may have changed. This year, I hope to influence the lives of both adults and children -- I'm serving these for Thanksgiving.

Lemon Chiffon Pie (and Soup)

2011-11-20T17:16:00.001-05:00

There are so many ways to tell this story.
1) What do you do when life gives you a bowl of lemons and a perfect pie crust? Why make lemon pie, of course. About a week ago, a major women's magazine descended on my house to photograph some baked goods from my blog. The story will appear in March. Meantime, they brought some additional items prepared not by me, but by a professional food stylist in case of emergency. There were a few of those, but when all the magazine folks departed, I was left with a number of goodies, including a pie crust and a bowl of lemons. So I made a pie.

2) What do you do when you're invited to a fabulous penthouse apartment party in Manhattan and you're asked to bring dessert? Most people would bring a tried and true pastry, but not me. I decided to make said lemon pie and bring it. Only, on the car ride from Brooklyn to upper Manhattan, my pie transformed from the gorgeous dessert that left my kitchen into quite a mess. Pie soup, if you will.

Having said that, I would like to note that despite it's ~~rather~~ very runny consistency, the pie was devoured by the guests, for its flavor was terrific.

I'm posting the recipe (which I changed only by adding some lemon zest), and will get to work in the kitchen perfecting it. Lemon chiffon pie has legs, and I vow to make them stronger.

Production notes:
Lemon chiffon pie is basically lemon curd with Italian meringue (heavy cream whipped with some sugar) folded in. I forgot the add the butter (which is the entire reason I chose this recipe over several others, but whatever). My fatal error, I *think* is that I didn't cook the lemon curd mixture long enough.

A Wedding [Cake] at the Seaport

2011-11-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

When I purchased this card at the Seaport Museum New York a few months ago, it was with great sadness, for mismanagement had caused the museum to close nearly all programs, save the gift shop.

Bowne and Co., the museum's historic letterpress print shop which created this card, was shuttered. The historic fleet of ships was neglected. Galleries were empty and education programs had ceased.

These things rarely end well, but remarkably this one did. The Museum of the City of New York has taken over the seaport museum (and reinstated its original name, the South Street Seaport Museum), and is forging ahead to return the museum to its former glory. Cheers to Peter Stanford, founder of SSSM; Susan Henshaw Jones, president of the MCNY, and all the folks at Save Our Seaport and Friends of Bowne.

This definitely has all the ingredients for a marriage made in heaven.

For those who want recipes, here are links to two from The South Street Seaport Museum's cookbook pamphlet, printed in 1972, just a few years after the museum was founded to preserve the history of New York's port (which is more important in understanding the city's -- and nation's history -- than one might think).

Mocha and Spice Chest 3 Layer Cake:
http://www.acakebakesinbrooklyn.com/2010/01/birthday-cake.html
Canada War Cake:
http://www.acakebakesinbrooklyn.com/2010/01/canada-war-cake.html

Pumpkin Pie Squares

2011-11-15T10:42:00.000-05:00

I'm a pumpkin pie purist, but there's real appeal in these over-the-top Pumpkin Pie Squares.
For one, you needn't mess with a pie crust and for less work, you can serve a lot more hungry family members at Thanksgiving. The recipe says this makes 12 portions, but you can easily feed 20 folks, it's so rich and sweet. The three-layer dessert has a flour, butter and oatmeal crust; a pumpkin custard in the center, all covered with a praline-like topping. (That's the over-the-top part.)

I found this recipe in a large collection from Missouri -- I suspect it dates from the 1950s or so. Back when a can of pumpkin puree was 16 ounces. Nowadays, most cans contain just 15 ounces. So while the "supersize me" movement continues in fast food, the "shrink me and hope the consumer won't notice" movement is happening at the grocery store. But don't worry, because at least in this case, 15 ounces of pumpkin is fine in this recipe.

Prepare the crust first -- I used a food processor to cut the butter (oleo, called for in the recipe, is short for oleomargarine, but I wouldn't use margarine in this) into the dry ingredients. Press the crust into the pan (I lined it with foil for ease of clean-up -- thanks, Mom!), using your fingers.

While the crust is baking, prepare the pumpkin custard.

You can create mosaics with the sugar and spices (before dumping them in the liquid), if you feel that creative urge take over.

I baked the center about five minutes longer than called for in the recipe, removed the pan from the oven and then sprinkled the topping over the custard. Don't cut when it's fresh from the oven. Let it sit awhile. And then, dig in. Delish!

Cocoa Apple Cake

2011-11-10T07:10:00.000-05:00

What a perfect, yet unusual, combination -- fresh apples, cocoa and chocolate. And autumn is the perfect time to make this delicious cake, for apples are in season and chocolate always is.

Fresh apple cakes have been popular for decades -- I have about a dozen hand-written recipes in my collection, dating from about 1900 onward. There are also a lot of applesauce cakes, a genre invented, I suppose, as a way to use the canned surplus from the apple harvest (and only recently co-opted as a way to bake with less fat, as in replace the butter with applesauce).

Out of all my recipes, I chose this one just out of curiosity: would this odd combo work? The verdict: yes, and very well. And even better the second day.

Let's get started. Chop the apples into a small dice; don't worry if the the pieces aren't uniform.

This is a beautiful, smooth batter, until . . .

The chopped apples, nuts and chocolate chips are added.

The recipe, below, is unusual too. In some ways, it's quite detailed (ingredient amounts, method) but then it fails to mention which cake pan to use (I used a 10" tube pan) or a baking time estimate (I baked it about 45 minutes).
Enjoy!

Biscuit Amnesia

2011-11-08T05:53:00.000-05:00

You know you bake a lot when you can't recall making the exact same recipe for the same guests just a few months apart.

On Saturday, we had a last minute impromptu family (and children's friends) dinner, and I was delighted to come across a hand-typed recipe card for baking powder biscuits thinking I could whip these up for dinner (and later, my blog).

DD, left, and DS, right, enjoy some biscuits with DS's friend Ben (who just got into medical school -- congrats Ben!)

So I snapped a couple of pictures before these were gobbled up, but when I sat down to write the post I realized I had made these for DD and her boyfriend, the "evacuees" we sheltered during Hurricane Irene in August. I called them Drizzle Biscuits, because the storm in Brooklyn was just that.

But since these are quite good biscuits and can be made while entertaining a kitchen full of guests, wine glass in hand, I thought I'd post them again. I have a dozen or so recipes for biscuits, but I guess this one keeps calling my name because it has the highest fat content (and that's a good thing). Too bad it doesn't make them unforgettable!

Check out the vintage handmade biscuit cozy (top picture) I purchased at a stoop sale a while back. What a clever and ingenious way to showcase biscuits (and keep them warm at the same time).

Grandmother's Ice Cream Cookies

2011-11-06T10:34:00.000-05:00

I wish these were as marvelous as they sound. But instead of being "lovely for afternoon tea" as described in the recipe, the cookies tasted like, well, a cow pasture. And I know the culprit -- farm fresh butter that turned out to be a *bit* too assertive for the recipe.

I love butter to the point that in Paris, for example, I spend as much time in fromageries buying butter as in museums looking at art.

But this particular butter (purchased at the wonderful Saxelby's in the Essex Market) while delicious on bread, did not work in these shortbread-like cookies where butter is the star. I wanted to taste sunshine and cream; instead the flavor was of damp meadow grass.

Ironically, this is probably exactly what these cookies tasted like to Grandmother, who surely used farm fresh butter in baking.

The recipe is from Mrs. Osborn's Cakes of Quality, published in 1919. Those who want to try this, using a mild but good butter (Plugra, for example), will find that the dough is too soft to knead. I just formed it into a circle and placed between waxed paper in the fridge for a few minutes, before fitting it into a 9-inch cake pan and baking. Next, invite the grandchildren over for some cookies and ice cream.

Mom's Devils Food Cake with Chocolate Mocha Icing

2011-11-01T07:16:00.001-04:00

After my last chocolate cake disaster, I decided to get right back on the horse. Plus, I was visiting my mother and wanted to make her something sweet. And very chocolate-y.

Because I was in Akron, with no bodega nearby for last minute supplies, I ended up combining two recipes (found in the cookbook below): Mom's Chocolate Cake and Devil's Food Cake, taking the best of each (based, of course, on what was in the pantry). Both were easy -- and very, very good. As an added bonus, there wasn't a "cake slide," i.e., the cake stayed put on the plate.

Even though the cake batter at first will seem too crumbly, it will smooth out after the liquid is added. (When adding liquid and dry ingredients alternately, always start and finish with the dry ingredients.)

This is a very thick cake batter, and once you spoon it into the pan, you'll need to spread it using a knife or offset spatula until the batter covers the bottom of the pan. Don't worry if it's not perfect -- the heat of the oven will smooth it out.

The frosting is so old-fashioned as to have a raw egg yolk as an ingredient. Be not afraid. Use the yolk, as it adds a certain richness that can't be achieved any other way. I only use organic eggs, from chickens that are named on the carton (only kidding about that last one, but do buy local eggs laid by non-caged birds, for both safety and taste reasons). I made the frosting as directed, and left the cake unrefrigerated for a few days; no one felt any ill effects, other than pants fitting a bit too snugly.

The best thing about baking a cake is sharing it with friends and family. Below, from left, Aunt Toots, Cousin Debbie, Mother Bee and Debbie's Friend Jay.

Mom's Devils Food Cake
1/2 c. butter
2 c. flour
1 1/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 c. cocoa powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Sift together cocoa, flour, salt and baking soda; add alternately with milk to creamed mixture. Add vanilla extract.
Pour into 2 greased and floured eight or nine inch pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. Cool and remove from pans.

Chocolate Icing
1 box powdered sugar
2 sq. bitter (unsweetened) chocolate
1/3 stick butter
1 egg yolk
1 tsp. vanilla
cold coffee

Melt chocolate and butter together. Add to all other ingredients. Add coffee until desired thickness.

Loaf Bread Apple Pie

2011-10-31T09:44:00.002-04:00

Curious about this unusual recipe? I was too, and wondered: Was this something brand new, an alternate to the usual crisps, crumbles, cobblers and pandowdys, bettys, buckles and grunts? The answer: Yes. But, to my mind (and taste buds) although perhaps not *quite* as good as the other batter-topped fruit desserts, the ingenuity behind this creation is impressive.

The good news is, you probably have everything you need to make this; the entire mise en place for the recipe is pictured above. The better news is, it's easy and delicious and does taste like apple pie. The most time-consuming part of it was melting the butter. And for those who think pie is too much trouble, Loaf Bread Pie isn't -- so long as you can cut a slice of bread.

Slice up the apples, and sprinkle them with cinnamon and nutmeg.

Arrange the bread slices on the apples, and pour the mixture of melted butter, egg and sugar over the whole "pie."

It doesn't look great when it emerges from the oven, but cut a piece -- I used two bread "slices" per serving -- and it looks fine when plated. And no one will ever mistake your dessert for store bought.

DS's friend Andrew, a very enthusiastic eater, took a break from playing pool in our basement to sample a slice. He really liked it, especially the contrast between the crunchy bread topping and the cooked apples. After Andrew had his fill and, not wanting to devour the entire dessert myself, I called on my neighbor Elizabeth, mother of two teenage boys, who happily took the *pie* off my hands.

I suspect the recipe, below, was one of those created by a housewife who wanted to make an apple pie, but lacked either the time or ingredients and so came up with this gem, proving once again that necessity (and a sweet tooth) is the mother of invention.

Slip Sliding Away: Chocolate Soldier Cake

2011-10-16T10:41:00.000-04:00

The past few weeks have not been easy. I've had some bad news, some uncertain news and no news (which I don't think is good news). So to lift my spirits, I decided to make what promised to be a fail-proof three-layer chocolate cake. After all, the recipe is called Soldier Cake (implying a certain reliability, right?) and is from a 1935 cooking school (meaning it's tested, right?) Let's just say that next time I'll be having the wine, thank you.

This was a bit of a disaster from the get-go. The frosting turned to hard (albeit delicious) fudge, burning out the motor on my trusty hand-mixer. To salvage it (as the three cake layers were waiting patiently on the counter), I heated the mixture, transferred it to my Kitchenaid mixer and began adding butter. Only I wasn't as patient as the cake layers and too late realized that the butter was simply melting into the frosting and not adding the texture it needed.

Forging ahead, I simply frosted the cake with this mixture and crossed my fingers. That's when the fun began. The layers starting shifting, such that DH urged me to videotape the movement, which culminated with a section of the cake sliding off the cake stand, falling to the counter below.

Undeterred, I cut a slice. And lo and behold (not that I should have been surprised), something happened such that the cake had several white spots where some chemical reaction (which I'll investigate) occurred, marring the pure chocolate surface.

In the end, DS and his friends each had a big slice. There were no complaints (not that I expected any from a bunch of 22-year-old hungry young men) Of course, I too had a slice, and it was pretty tasty. Although this cake was the triumph I'd imagined, it made me laugh out loud. And what's better than that?

The Chocolate Soldier Cake class was taught on April 1. Hmmm....
Anyway, this goes to show that things aren't always as they appear and that published recipes are not necessarily better than those hand-written by housewives.

Candy Apples

2011-10-13T08:07:00.000-04:00

If October isn't National Candy Month, then it should be. And second only to candy corn as the season's most delicious sweet are candy apples.

These are really easy to make, and by doing so you can select the apples to use, thereby controlling the best thing about the treat, which is the contrast between the sweet hard candy coating and the juicy tartness of the apple.

I made these, not from an old recipe in my collection, but from a more modern one. I can't share this fail-proof recipe, but you can get it just like I did, by visiting betterbaking.com, the wonderful site of Marcy Goldman, where you can purchase this recipe and many, many others for a very reasonable price. (The recipe is called Big Red Candy Mountain Candy Apples, listed in the Miscellaneous Baking section.)

Although I failed to take step-by-step pictures, I can walk you through the process. After washing and drying apples, insert a wood skewer into the stem end of each and start cooking the sugar, corn syrup and water over low heat.

After a while, it will come to a boil. Stick in a candy thermometer and let the temperature reach 310 degrees, a process that is painfully slow. But you're free to move about the kitchen and straighten the silverware drawer or whatever. You just need to check the temperature every once in a while.

Add the red food coloring after you take the pot from the fire and dip the apples in the mixture, letting the excess coating drip off back into the pan. Have a parchment lined cookie sheet ready so you can place the dipped apples on it.

At the end, you'll end up with a mess of candy coated utensils, above. But you'll also end up with a tray of glistening candy apples, below. And you won't even need to go to Coney Island to get one. Though if you do go, stop at the classic Williams Candy Shop for a wonderful candy apple (a visit there on Sunday inspired this post) and other treats that are perfect all year round.

He-Man Toll House Cookies

2011-10-12T07:19:00.000-04:00

If regular old Toll House cookies are a bit too weak for you, then by all means try He-Man Toll House Cookies.

He-Man cookies (perhaps created in the heyday of Charles Atlas, above) differ from the traditional Toll House cookies by the addition of rolled oats. This wonderful recipe was one of many gems in Olive Facey's collection.

Like most cookies, these are a snap to prepare if you've let your butter come to room temperature. If not, mixing will be difficult and may cause you curse out loud and wonder why you just didn't buy that package of Pepperidge Farm at the grocery store.

This recipe makes a very sticky dough. You can use two spoons to form the cookies, or your hands, if you keep them wet. I opted for non-latex kitchen gloves and using these made forming the cookies quick and easy. I made medium size balls (think golf balls) and placed about six on each parchment lined cookie sheet, as they do spread during baking.

Baking these can be a bit tricky. You'll want to leave them in too long, but trust me. Take the cookie sheet from the oven before they look done (see above). Some magic happens outside the oven so that the cookies end up perfectly chewy and perfectly done (see below). It's a leap of faith, but one worth taking.

I followed Dot's recipe exactly, except substituted unsalted butter for the shortening. It makes for a much more flavorful cookie.

And is there a better way to package He-Man cookies than in some "purse" boxes? I think not.

A Cake Occupies Wall Street*

2011-10-09T08:49:00.002-04:00

Baking for the revolution that's happening just a few miles from my house seems the perfect way to show support and a wonderful way to channel both my inner radicalism and inner Betty Crocker.
Plus, those occupiers deserve cake.

To feed more people, I opted to make a sheet cake, inspired by Marty Reimer, who baked for the revolution in Egypt earlier this year. Commenting on my blog post, Egyptian Cake: When Politics and Pastry Collide, she wrote:
"i've been baking a sheet cake most days of the revolution and distributing it to my neighbors. every day i make a different recipe and call it something related to the revolution: "revolution cake," "tahrir cake," "curfew cake," "perseverance cake," etc."

The chocolate sheet cake I made (also called cookie sheet cake) is from one of my very favorite sources: the Indiana Rural Letter Carriers' Auxiliary Cookbook, published in Hope, Indiana in 1977, and given to me personally by the auxiliary president, Mrs. Howard D. [Katherine] Stewart, as she referred to herself. Southern Indiana is also home to some of my most conservative friends (that's you, John Beach!), a real contrast to the occupiers of Wall Street.

This is an easy cake to put together and is baked, not in a cake pan, but in a 11 x 16 inch cookie sheet, aka, a hotel pan. First heat the water, two sticks of butter (use that instead of the margarine called for in the recipe) and cocoa powder.

After a few minutes, the mixture will look like this. Let it come to a boil before pouring it on the flour and sugar that you have waiting in a mixing bowl.

The cake bakes in just 20 minutes. It's important to start the frosting about five minutes before you take the cake from the oven, as it needs to be poured over the cake while hot.

I didn't like the way the cake looked with just the frosting (the unfrosted cake is pictured above), so I put some sweetened shredded coconut on top. It adds flavor, texture and an extra yum factor. The occupiers are going the extra mile, so I thought I should too.

*Credit to DS for coming up with the title of this blog post.

Fearless Baking (and Living)

2011-10-02T22:22:00.002-04:00

The best baking advice is often the best life advice: Plunge ahead, do not overthink and jump off the cliff with joy (even if your eyes are squeezed shut).

Just as things can go wrong in life, baking is filled with its own landmines.

For example, do you know how many ways you can screw up a simple cake?

It might not rise properly, the center might sink, the sides might collapse, the texture may be too tough or tacky. It might also be crumbly, or too dry, or have tunnel-like holes or streaks of uneven color or its surface may be peaked or cracked. The causes? Oh, the baking powder was old or the butter was too soft (or not soft enough), the sugar was too course, the batter was over-mixed (or under-mixed), the oven was too hot (or too cold.) or the batter did not contain enough fat (or too much fat.)

These are just a few pitfalls, all beautifully articulated in Great Cakes by Carole Walter, a lovely book that Rochelle, mother of my dear friend Jay, send me as a gift last week.

Although I've created many a cake wreck and I'm grateful for Ms. Walter's trouble-shooting advice, I tend to not intellectualize baking. If I thought of everything that could go wrong, I'd never turn on the oven.

And I learned another lesson in fearless baking last week when I saw a pie-making video featuring writer Joyce Maynard. Instead of the beautiful and well behaved pie dough I expected (Joyce has been making pies for years), I was shocked to see a crust that was well, shaggy, and that frankly looked much worse than mine. But where I saw imperfection, Joyce saw "future flakiness." And she confidently put the whole thing together in a few minutes and you know it was going to be delicious.

It was 29 years ago today that DH and I jumped off the cliff with joy (and eyes squeezed shut) as we wed after knowing each other only a few months. And despite everything that *could* have gone wrong in marriage (but didn't), we're still holding hands.

Making Strudel the Old-Fashioned Way (despite my best intentions to go modern)

2011-09-28T12:17:00.003-04:00

I promise a new baking post soon, maybe even tonight, but in the meantime, please enjoy this post from the DH, Paul LaRosa, about my baking-related experience this weekend!

FedEx delivers from Brooklyn to Manhattan — by air!

Normally, I have no complaints about FedEx. They do a pretty good job with most everything I send but last night I entered into the twilight zone of FedEx and the experience left me feeling like Tom Hanks in “Castaway” without the coconut to keep me company.

My wife is planning an event this week called “Real Housewives of Henry Street” and the idea is to show how immigrant housewives lived on the lower East Side back around 1905. In fact, the event costs $19.05 to get in. Clever, right?

Anyway, one of the treats she’s cooking up is apple strudel and she plans to make a lot of it. She needed a dough hook to knead the strudel dough so she wouldn’t be tied to the kitchen all day like, you know, a 1905 housewife.

Taking advantage of a modern convenience, she went online and ordered a dough hook to be delivered to her by FedEx to her work address which is on Henry Street in Manhattan. That’s where the fun began because there is also a Henry Street in Brooklyn and, for whatever reason, FedEx took it upon themselves to make “an address correction” and sent the dough hook to Brooklyn. My wife found out about the mistake yesterday and told FedEx they had made “an address in-correction” but it was too late. The hook was in Brooklyn, not far from Red Hook coincidentally.

After many phone calls and hours on the phone, she told FedEx she would pick up the package at the FedEx “world center” in Brooklyn. Some anonymous person on the phone agreed. And that’s how we wound up on a very rainy Friday night on a long line at the FedEx “world center” in Brooklyn in a neighborhood where you definitely wanted to make sure your car doors were locked.

Finally, we got to the front of the line and, after much hemming and hawing, a FedEx gal produced a package. We signed, relieved and were about to walk out when I looked down at the name — it was not my wife’s.

“This is the wrong package,” I said.

The FedEx gal then disappeared into the back again and, when she reappeared, said another employee was doing her “a favor” by looking for our package. This is why I love when FedEx packages just appear and I am not forced to come face to face with this kind of customer service.

Another ten minutes went by and finally, a rain-soaked, frightened-looking FedEx clerk appeared. “Your package is here but I can’t give it to you,” he said. “It’s already been containerized and on the truck.”

Now mind you, we could see the trucks which were in the next room, a garage.

“What does containerized mean?” I asked.

“It’s in a container in the front of the truck and we can’t take it out without taking out a whole bunch of other packages. I’d get in trouble. We have to make the plane but it will be in Manhattan tomorrow.”

There were a couple of things about what he said that struck me. First that the package was going to the correct address, Henry Street in Manhattan but no one would be at my wife’s closed office the following day. She needed the dough hook to make a whole lot of strudel for the Sunday event. It was get it now or forget it.

The other thing that struck me was….THEY WERE PUTTING IT ON A PLANE TO GET TO MANHATTAN?????

“What do you mean, you’re putting it on a plane?” I asked. “There are no planes that go from Brooklyn to Manhattan!”

“Right,” he agreed, “we’re flying it from New York to Newark and then it will be delivered by truck to Manhattan.”

Even Mr. Rain-soaked man could see how insane this was. Remember, the package we desperately needed WAS IN THE NEXT ROOM AT THAT VERY MOMENT!

“I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do,” he said. “That’s just how we do things.”

I flashed on Tom Hanks with his stopwatch in “Castaway” where he plays a FedEx employee and realized he had nothing on this guy.

What followed were a lot of irritated sentences that ended with the phrase “you realize how insane this is” but he wasn’t budging. Finally, my wife told him to send the package back from whence it came — if she didn’t get it immediately, she couldn’t use it. The irony is that she wound up making the strudel by hand with no help from a motorized dough hook — just like they did in 1905.

I Was a Strudel Virgin

2011-09-14T10:51:00.000-04:00

I'm happy to report that I conquered my fear of strudel -- and then ate it!
I had a very compelling reason to practice -- on September 25th, I'm baking apple strudel for the 60 guests attending The Real Housewives of Henry Street, 1905, an event I'm hosting at Henry Street Settlement.

Making strudel dough is fun, much easier than you might imagine and very satisfying. I was lucky to get a fabulous recipe from Jane Ziegleman, author of 97 Orchard, who will be the event's main speaker and who will demo strudel dough, with audience participation!

Basic Strudel Dough (Jane Ziegleman)
Ingredients
2 cups bread flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 cup warm water
1/2 tsp. white vinegar
3 tbls. vegetable oil
4 tbls. melted butter for brushing the dough
1/3 cup breadcrumbs

Special equipment
clean cotton or linen tablecloth
pastry brush
rolling pin
parchment paper

Combine the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the center of the bowl and pour in the water, vinegar and oil. Stir from the center outward in ever widening circles until all of the flour has been incorporated into the liquid. The dough should look shaggy and somewhat dry.
Turn dough onto a floured work surface and knead vigorously for 10 minutes. Alternately, you can knead the dough in a standing mixer using the hood attachment for 3-4 minutes. After kneading, the dough should be springy and glossy. Coat lightly with oil and leave in a covered bowl to rest for at least 1/2 hour.

While the dough is resting, prepare your filling. (See recipe below.)
Preheat oven to 425.

Cover a fairly large table with a clean tablecloth and dust well with flour. Place dough on the dusted cloth, flatten with your palms and, using a rolling pin, roll into a 9 inch circle. Drape the dough over the backs of your hands, you fingers loosely bent, and begin to pull the dough outward, stretching it gently. Keep rotating the dough so it stretches in all directions.

When it gets too large to handle, lay it on the table and continue. Ideally, the dough should be rectangular, 3 - 4 feet long, and thin enough to see through. The edges will be comparatively thick; trim them off with kitchen shears.

Brush dough lightly with melted butter. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Spread filling along the bottom third of the dough. To roll strudel, hold the edge of the tablecloth that is closest to you and gently raise it above the surface of the table so the strudel flops over. Repeat until strudel is fully rolled.

Using the tablecloth as a sling, transfer strudel to a baking tray that has been lined with parchment paper. If the strudel is too long, bend it into a "U" shape. Brush one last time with melted butter. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden and crisp.

Apple Strudel
1 recipe basic strudel dough
Ingredients for filling
5-6 tart apples, peeled and finely sliced
1/4 cup sugar (or more to taste)
1 tsp. cinnamon
juice of 1 lemon
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup currents or raisins

Mix and knead strudel dough as instructed. While dough is resting, prepare the filling.

Preheat oven to 424.
Toss apples with sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice. Stir in chopped walnuts and raisins.
Ross out strudel according to instructions in the Basic Strudel Recipe. Brush with butter and sprinkle with breadcrumbs.
Spoon filing along the bottom third of the dough, leaving an inch or two on the sides to prevent the filling from oozing out the ends. Roll strudel. Transfer to baking tray. Brush the top with butter and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden and crisp.

Cheese Apple Cake

2011-09-09T10:28:00.002-04:00

This cake is like a lot of guys I dated -- they had possibilities, but needed some *work* to reach boyfriend perfection. And so it is with Cheese Apple Cake -- an excellent and unusual cake, but one whose execution needs a bit of tweaking to make it as good as it can be.

This is, in fact, not a cake but a very large biscuit flavored with cheese. Not that there's anything wrong with that! I've never been a fan of the cheese and apple pie combination, but if you are, this may be the perfect cake for you.

The bottom (biscuit) layer is made by cutting the butter into the flour, a normally tedious task made easy with a food processor. Just cut cold butter into chunks, add to the flour and pulse until the butter is the size of small peas, or smaller.

After the butter is incorporated, add the rest of the ingredients, including grated cheese.

When the batter is all mixed and you place it in the pan, it will look like it does below. You need to gently press it down until it is evenly distributed so that the entire bottom of the pan is covered.

Next, slice some apples -- I used about three or four medium ones -- and arrange them atop the bottom layer. The arrangement, like most relationships, need not be perfect to work.

The next step is where the recipe can use some tweaking. Instead of using confectioners sugar, as the recipe calls for, use regular old white sugar. Confectioners sugar, which contains cornstarch, does not melt in the heat of the oven, leaving the just-baked product with an odd and kind of displeasing powdery topping. You can see it in the picture at the top and below. (I ended up over-baking the cake because I kept waiting for the sugar to melt -- don't do that!)

But after I let it sit for a day, some kitchen magic happened: the confectioners sugar dissolves into the apples, creating a lovely European pastry-like glaze on top. That was a nice and unexpected surprise, which tends to happen a lot more in baking than in relationships. (Although DH turned out to be a nice and unexpected surprise, so it does happen!)

Brownies (Best Recipe)

2011-08-31T11:19:00.000-04:00

A new study from the University of Cambridge touting the health benefits of chocolate sent me right to the kitchen last night to whip up a batch of brownies from a recipe in Olive's collection. The recipe, attributed to one Babe Gregware, is labeled (Best Recipe), so I just had to try it, health benefits or not.

The verdict? Excellent, very chocolate-y brownies. DH called them "old-fashioned," quickly adding "not in a bad way." They are not exceedingly sweet and have a lovely, fudge-like texture that hold together much better than more modern versions. The recipe didn't specify what size pan, so I used a 9 x 12 one, thinking that because of the four eggs, they would rise. But they didn't, yielding a thin brownie. I do think this recipe would work well in an 8 or 9-inch square pan if you want a heftier brownie.

Whenever chocolate is the star of a recipe, as it is in brownies, I suggest using a high quality product (like Scharfenberger or Valrhona) as opposed to Baker's. The result is well worth it and, after all, it's for your good health, so splurge a little.

Two Zucchini Cake Wrecks

2011-08-28T21:14:00.001-04:00

While Hurricane Irene was "raging" outside, inside my kitchen I experienced a natural disaster of another sort. Not one, but two, cake failures.

Both were for zucchini cakes. Never a fan of serving vegetables (in any form) for dessert, I nonetheless relented when I found two seemingly good, and intriguing, recipes in Olive Facey's collection.

The bottom half of the cake *finally* released from the pan after much banging and maneuvering.

The top half clung to the pan.

In fact, one of them was quite delicious -- it just didn't release from the pan, a "fancy" bundt pan I had purchased at a garage sale. Even though it was non-stick, I went the extra mile to grease and flour it, so as to insure a smooth release. That pan is headed for the recycling bin, just as soon as we scrap every last bit of cake out!

(Failures like this probably deters a lot of people from baking --you can do everything right, but make one mistake (like choosing the wrong pan) and all effort seems for naught. But that's not the case, because each mistake is one you'll never make again. And most times, you can eat your mistakes and sometimes even serve them!)

Serving an intact cake with the orange glaze I had made (fresh-squeezed orange juice with confectioners sugar) dripping down the cake's crevices would have been the perfect send-off for evacuees DD and her boyfriend. They had stayed with us during the storm, and were just about to go back to their apartment when this came out of the oven. But, despite its unappealing appearance, everyone loved it -- even DD's boyfriend who told me he does not like zucchini cake. If only I had used my tried and true aluminum bundt pan, this story would have had a happier ending.

And it almost did. I had them wait a few more minutes, while I took cake #2 out of the oven. It looked ok at first, but then the center of the cake sunk deeper than a tropical depression. Plus, despite the promise of a really interesting flavor (ginger and orange peel), it just wasn't that great. And oddly, even though there was just 1/2 cup zucchini in this cake (as opposed to two cups in the other one), it had a much more pronounced vegetable taste, not always a good thing. Still, I've saved it and hoping the flavors will develop into something delicious overnight.

Both recipes are below. The first one is definitely worth another shot.

Drizzle Biscuits

2011-08-28T15:12:00.000-04:00

There's nothing drizzle-like about these traditional baking powder biscuits, except that I made them this morning during the "Drizzle of the Century," as we're now calling Hurricane Irene's descent on New York City.

But these are so good and so easy to prepare, that there's no need to wait for a storm to make them. The most difficult part --cutting the butter into the flour -- is easily accomplished using a Cuisinart. But even if you don't have one, you can do it the old fashioned way: using two knives or even your fingertips. The idea is to quickly incorporate cold pieces of butter into the flour until it's a crumbly mixture, a process that makes the dough quite tender and flaky when baked.

I happened have a biscuit cutter, but you can simply cut out the biscuits using a drinking glass, as the c. 1950s recipe suggests.

This recipe makes about ten biscuits, or more, depending on the size of your biscuit cutter, or drinking glass.

These were a big hit, especially among the evacuees (DD and her boyfriend) we were sheltering during the storm.

Lemon Cake Pie, Competitive Baking and Zelda Fitzgerald

2011-08-24T08:03:00.002-04:00

Lemon cake pie is a pie for cake lovers. Its traditional pie crust is topped with lemon custard which is topped with a thin layer of lemon cake. This is one of these real kitchen magic recipes: One just pours the batter into an unbaked pie crust and the discrete layers form during baking.

This is a delicious, lemony confection, a true winner or so I thought until -- for the second time this summer -- my pie failed to take a blue ribbon at a pie contest. But I stand by this pie and encourage you to try it at home.

This vintage recipe -- and the only pie in Olive Facey's collection -- calls for ingredients (pictured above) commonly found in American pantries. A little research revealed that this unusual recipe may have originated with the Pennsylvania Dutch. (Olive's son Stephen explained that while his mother loved pie, she didn't love making pie crust. I can totally relate.)

Zest the lemons before juicing, and if you have a pilot light atop your oven, it's the perfect place to melt the butter. The recipe calls for butter the size of an egg -- I used four tablespoons, or half a stick.

The most complicated part of the recipe (aside from making the pie crust) is beating the whites and yolks separately, then folding the whites into the yolks.

Below is a small lemon cake pie I made as a test before attempting the 9-inch pie for the competition, pictured here because I failed to photograph the larger (and much better looking) version.

The pie contest was part of the Jazz-Age Lawn Party held last weekend on Governors Island, a short ferry ride from Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. It was a beautiful day and the setting was lovely and I was shocked to bump into this whole subculture of people who embrace (in dress and music) an era whose heyday was nearly a century ago. You can see DH's excellent photographs of the costume party here (or check The New York Times tomorrow or Sunday -- Bill Cunningham was there taking pictures, too.)

One of the joys of competitive baking is meeting the other contestants and they just don't come more charming than Lee Chappell who made two of the most gorgeous pies I've ever seen (and generously told me the secret to making candied lemons). This photograph below does not do them justice. One is a lemon pie with lavender and the other is a plum pie made with several kinds of heritage plums. He won for his third pie, a strawberry rhubarb.

My humble (but really, really good) pie is below.

Soft Dutch Cake: The Anti-Fruitcake

2011-08-19T11:16:00.003-04:00

Soft Dutch Cake is the opposite of fruitcake: a moist, very soft cake whose white crumb is studded with gorgeous pieces of fresh fruit. I used sugar plums and apricots, but the recipe says "any kind of fruit," not even specifying if one should use fresh fruit or how much. But I love stone fruit, so thought I'd post this recipe before its all-too-short season comes to an end.

I bought this beautiful fruit at the Lower East Side Youthmarket, a farm stand operated by GrowNY and staffed by graduates of Henry Street Settlement's Young Adult Internship Program. Folks on the LES get farm fresh produce and the youth get business experience -- how perfect is that! (The stand is open Thursdays from 3 to 7 p.m. in front of the Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street.)

The fruit glistens like jewels in the batter. As it bakes, the batter rises up and surrounds the fruit, hiding it until one cuts into the cake, revealing the delicious surprise.

Like many of the hand-written recipes in my collection, this lists ingredients and doesn't give a method, so I just mixed all the dry ingredients together first, and then added the softened butter, milk and the egg (which I beat lightly before adding). After mixing these wet and dry ingredients together, I poured the batter into a 9-inch cake pan and placed the slice fruit atop the batter. Next, I followed the instruction to mix sugar, cinnamon and butter together and then dotted the batter with this mixture.

Recipes like these -- flexible, fun and easy -- show that baking is as much an art as a science. And you can create all sorts of different cakes, based on the fruit you choose. Do try this at home.

The Gift of Olive's Recipes

2011-08-17T09:33:00.000-04:00

Ever have a Christmas morning where you received one incredible present and everything else faded away as you reveled in that spectacular gift? I missed out on that -- we celebrated Hanukkah at my house. But I finally did have my Christmas morning last Thursday night at the Essex Bar when my friend Stephen handed me an enormous shopping bag.

Inside were five recipe boxes filled with hand-written recipes (mostly desserts!) and all manner of vintage cook books and pamphlets. I couldn't believe my eyes. And, everything else faded away as I pulled out one fabulous card after another, and book after book of intriguing recipes. Even my blood orange cosmopolitan sat undisturbed at the bar.

All of these treasures belonged to Stephen's beloved mother, Olive Facey, who died in May at the age of 97. I am honored to get to make her recipes (and hope some of them bring back some taste memories for Stephen!).

What amazing recipes she collected! Just the titles on the cards make me want to whip out my Kichenaid: Barney's Brownies, He-Man Toll House Cookies, Chinese Chews, Kiss Pudding, Raisin Puffs, Date Squares (original old recipe), Grapefruit Pudding #2, Orange Zucchini Bread, Cottage Pudding, Brownies (BEST RECIPE), Chocolate Bark, Polvorones Mexican Wedding Cake, Scotch Shortbread and so much more. I love her note on the Scandinavian Cookies recipe card: These are little jewels to grace your table.

Olive's recipes span the arc of a life -- and more. In the boxes are cards that date from the 19th century, written in her mother's careful hand, and those that require the use of a microwave oven. Many recipes are attributed to friends, their names recorded at the top of the cards.

Below is a picture of Olive, corsage in hand, taken three years ago on the wedding day of Stephen and his partner Jay in Massachusetts. When the couple told her they were getting married, she hesitated for a few minutes -- only because she was trying to figure out what to wear to the wedding!

I never had the pleasure of meeting Olive, but I'm sure I would have liked her a lot. And as I have the privilege of baking from her recipes in the coming months (and years -- she has a lot of recipes!), I have a feeling I'll get to know her. They say when you cook from someone's recipe, they're right beside you in the kitchen.

Two Peanut Butter Pies

2011-08-13T21:27:00.000-04:00

I made two peanut butter pies today, one from a modern recipe and one from a hand-written vintage one. The pies are a tribute to Mike Perillo, husband of food writer Jennifer Perillo, who died suddenly last week. Jennie asked people to make a peanut butter pie, her husband's favorite, and share it with someone they love. In an amazing show of support, hundreds of bakers made pies and posted on Twitter at #apieformikey. Sudden death is often incomprehensible and the only thing to do is hug those you love tight. And, perhaps bake a pie.

The pie pictured at top and above is from the recipe Jennie posted on her website. This is a very creamy pie, though if you wait the three hours as suggested, your slice will look much better than the one above. (I've pasted the recipe below.)

Pictured below is the pie from a vintage recipe, intriguing because it was jotted in pencil on the back of a personal check written (and never cashed) in 1958. I found it in an old recipe box at a flea market in Pennsylvania.

This is a cooked custard pie in a regular pastry pie crust. It is not as peanut butter-y as Jennie's, as it has only two tablespoons of peanut butter instead of the one cup she calls for.

I am not a fan of peanut butter at all, yet I found both these pies strangely addicting. DH gave two thumbs up to Jennie's pie. And then gave me a hug.

Jennie's recipe is below:

Creamy Peanut Butter Pie

Serves 10 to 12

8 ounces chocolate cookies

4 tablespoons butter, melted

4 ounces finely chopped chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup chopped peanuts

1 cup heavy cream

8 ounces cream cheese

1 cup creamy-style peanut butter

1 cup confectioner's sugar

1 – 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Add the cookies to the bowl of a food processor and pulse into fine crumbs. Combine melted butter and cookie crumbs in a small bowl, and stir with a fork to mix well. Press mixture into the bottom and 1-inch up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave. Pour over bottom of cookie crust and spread to the edges using an off-set spatula. Sprinkle chopped peanuts over the melted chocolate. Place pan in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

Pour the heavy cream into a bowl and beat using a stand mixer or hand mixer until stiff peaks form. Transfer to a small bowl and store in refrigerator until ready to use. Place the cream cheese and peanut butter in a deep bowl. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and gradually beat in the confectioner's sugar. Add the sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract and lemon juice. Increase speed to medium and beat until all the ingredients are combined and filling is smooth.

Stir in 1/3 of the whipped cream into the filling mixture (helps lighten the batter, making it easier to fold in the remaining whipped cream). Fold in the remaining whipped cream. Pour the filling into the prepared springform pan. Drizzle the melted chocolate on top, if using, and refrigerate for three hours or overnight before serving.

Bake a Pie for Mikey

2011-08-12T09:04:00.000-04:00

Social media creates some amazing communities and what's happening today in the baking/cooking sphere is an around-the-world baking event to show support for Jennifer Perillo, a food writer and mother of two young children in Brooklyn whose husband died suddenly last weekend.
Jennie is asking everyone to bake a peanut butter pie (her husband's favorite) to share with someone they love to honor his memory.
Even though I've never met Jennie, I love this idea and will be baking two peanut butter pies this weekend, one from a vintage recipe and one from the recipe she has posted on her blog. Her recipe looks like it will result in a spectacular confection. What a lovely, loving tribute.

Chocolate Pudding, Under the Influence

2011-08-09T10:55:00.000-04:00

I had a little medical procedure yesterday that involved a lot of anesthesia and the last words I recall the doctor saying as I was leaving the clinic were: Don't use any kitchen appliances for the rest of the day.
But always one to defy authority, I turned on the stove to make old-fashioned chocolate pudding.

Chocolate pudding is one of those childhood favorites that is now appearing on upscale restaurant menus, a nod to retro after decades of dishing out its fancier cousins: pots de creme, chocolate mousse and the like.

I had my choice of two recipes; I chose the one with egg yolks, which add a lovely richness to almost everything. (Of course, perhaps I should have listened to the doctor as I had to toss my first batch -- I didn't see the "or" between chocolate and cocoa on the recipe card, so I added them both.)

This recipe calls for cooking the mixture over direct heat and then in a double boiler. If you don't have one, you can simply jerry rig one, as I did, using two saucepans.

This pudding is delicious -- and not too sweet at all. In fact, there's just 1/2 cup of sugar in the entire recipe. I used very high quality unsweetened chocolate (and not the cocoa powder, in the end).
The other wonderful thing about stove top desserts like puddings is that the entire kitchen doesn't get hot, like it does when the oven is on. And that's a good thing when you want homemade dessert and it's August in New York City.

The Eight Hour Chicken Sandwich

2011-08-07T10:33:00.002-04:00

DH arrived home yesterday from a long business trip and, wanting to make him something special for dinner, I decided to surprise him with a chicken sandwich. But, as the late great Laurie Colwin said, a really good chicken sandwich takes hours -- one needs to roast a chicken, bake a loaf of white bread and whip up a batch of homemade mayonnaise. So that's exactly what I did. Eight hours later, dinner was served!

Using a vintage bread recipe (see the bottom of this post), I put together the dough and then seasoned and roasted a chicken.

Next, I made some delicious mayonnaise in just five minutes, using the ingredients below. One *should* hand whisk the oil, but I did it all in the blender and it was perfect.

Using the best quality ingredients -- like this olive oil (axiomia.biz) and Edmond Fallot mustard (from France) --
will make for an excellent mayonnaise.

Finally, at about 6 p.m., all the elements were in place and the sandwiches were ready to be made. (But it's not like I spent all those hours in the kitchen -- I went to the gym when the bread was rising, shopped the farmer's market when the chicken was roasting and worked on a freelance job while the bread was baking.)

I halved the bread recipe and got two smallish loaves. The kitchen was perfumed with the aroma baking bread for hours.

I let the roasted chicken cool before slicing it. Only white meat for DH.

Once you see how easy and delicious homemade mayonnaise is, you might never go back. I used a modern recipe I found on the internet.

These sandwiches were wonderful; the addition of farmer's market tomatoes and lettuce only made them better.

Of course, chicken sandwiches can be made in five minutes with store bought bread and mayonnaise and a supermarket rotisserie chicken. But there's something quite satisfying about going back to the very basics, to the elemental building blocks to create something -- that kind of activity is too often lost in our swirling busy world. (Of course, maybe it's lost precisely because making a chicken sandwich takes eight hours, and we have better things to do with our time.)

The bread recipe I used is below, but I wouldn't recommend it. I much prefer this recipe, if you're going to make the effort to bake bread.

Grandma's Chocolate Layer Cake for George Stoney's 95th Birthday

2011-08-03T13:56:00.000-04:00

On Sunday night, I found myself on the J train headed to Chinatown to celebrate the 95th birthday of documentary film legend George Stoney. Of course, I baked a cake.

Even though this a yellow cake, it's called a chocolate layer cake. (Didn't they think anyone would notice that it's not chocolate??) The recipe is from my very first childhood cookbook which is old enough to "qualify" for my blog.

This is one of those old-fashioned, delicious cakes that's a snap to make because nearly all the ingredients are simply placed in the mixer and, well, mixed all together. No need to follow a lot of complicated steps to get a wonderful result.

Butter, flour, milk and vanilla are mixed together to form the batter. Two eggs are added later.

Like many cakes, this one forms a dome when baked, which can make for a lopsided looking confection when frosted. So to get two flat-top layers, simply take a serrated knife and carefully slice off the dome of each cake, keeping your knife parallel to the cake layer.

Hard to see in this picture, but the layer at the top still has its dome;
the one in the foreground has had its top sliced off so that the top of it is flat.

The dome is a wonderful treat for the baker (and anyone else who wanders into the kitchen) and it's a perfect way to taste the cake to make sure it's good. (Adding some leftover frosting never hurts either.)

George's birthday party was a lot of fun. There were many people, several of them former students, eager to sit with him for a few moments. (I think he still teaches at NYU!) He held court, surrounded by his fans, friends and fellow filmmakers including Albert Maysles (Grey Gardens, Gimme Shelter).

George Stoney, right, with Albert Maysles

During my few moments with George he told me that when he worked at Henry Street Settlement (my current place of employ) in the 1930s, Lewis Hine taught photography there. George and I had exchanged a number of emails prior to his party and have plans to spend some time at his apartment as he reminisces about his time at the Settlement.

Among the guests at the party was Suzanne Wasserman (above, having her cake and eating it too), a filmmaker and historian who first told me about George's involvement with Henry Street. Thank you, Suzanne!

For those of you who have read this far, I'll share a secret. I cut a slice of cake to photograph it. Determined to deliver a "whole" cake, I slipped the slice back into place and covered the tell-tale cut lines with some extra frosting. And then packed up the "patchwork" cake and brought it to the party. And no one knew (except Suzanne, and only because I told her).

Eleanor's Amazing Date (Cake)

2011-07-26T14:19:00.002-04:00

At the beginning of the 20th century, and right through the 1950s, date cakes were commonplace. They were served at church dinners and picnics, at afternoon tea and Sunday supper. Nearly all of my recipe boxes and cookbooks feature at least one, and often several, date cake recipes.

I don't know why date cakes fell out of favor; dates add moisture and a unique complex sweetness to baked goods. (Plus, they are a truly sensuous fruit, unlike raisins which I associate with disappointing childhood snacks and dried up pellets whose only use was to turn their cardboard box containers into rattles.) I bought the box of dates (above) and they were so addicting that I had to put them in a cake before I ate every last one.

Try to get "real" buttermilk, instead of the commercial product sold in most supermarkets.

This takes a *bit* of work to put together, but your efforts will be rewarded with a stunning, scrumptious cake. The steps are many: grate the orange peel, chop the nuts and dates and flour them, separate the eggs and whip the whites, alternate adding the dry ingredients with the buttermilk -- you get the picture. The dates I used were so moist that even after being chopped and floured they clung together in clumps, as if they were on teenagers on a date.

Using good eggs (not the cheap supermarket variety) makes for a better cake.

Grating orange rind is easy if you use a microplane.

To avoid overbeating the egg whites, add a bit of cream of tartar to them shortly after you start whipping them. Fold carefully into the batter, so as not to deflate them.

This recipe calls for a topping to be spooned over the cake while it's still in the pan. Don't cook the ingredients (as I did until I realized my mistake). Just mix them together and spoon atop the warm cake while it's still in the pan. I was worried that the sugar in the topping would cement the cake to the pan, but it released beautifully. It was a sweet, comforting, real taste of the past.

What Happened at the Pie Contest?

2011-07-24T15:31:00.000-04:00

The Daisy Flour Pie Baking Contest, held yesterday at the Brooklyn Kitchen was a fabulous event, and it was truly exciting to just how many accomplished pie bakers are around. There were several super imaginative entries -- a frozen watermelon pie and one called chubby hubby that had pretzels arranged on top. And I don't believe that there were two pies alike. They ranged from coconut cream to blackberry, and beyond. The only rules were that entrants had to use Daisy pastry flour and that the pie be a sweet, not savory, one.

Pies on parade. There were about 40 entries.

The event was packed and I didn't get to taste -- or even see -- all the pies. It was a bit chaotic, and I'm not sure exactly who got second and third place (one was a fruit pie), but the first prize winner entered a lemon chiffon pie. I was glad to note that the pie baker was a woman "of a certain age." Probably my age, but I think everyone is older than me (especially the older I get -- call it denial).

Once the judges got their slices, it was open pie season (read: feeding frenzy).

It was disappointing not to win, but once I tasted a piece of my buttermilk p ie I knew I wouldn't. The filling, which should have been smooth and creamy, was a bit grainy. Perhaps I overbaked the pie, or maybe it was because I inadvertently bought skim buttermilk instead of full fat and it was too late to get the right stuff by the time I realized it. However, DH, who was roaming the event with his camera (he took all these photos), said that my pie created a lot of buzz -- everyone's talking about it, he reported. Everyone but the judges, I guess!

After.

Still, I learned a valuable lesson and you can too: Always, always use pastry flour in the crust. It made a world of difference. The dough was much easier to handle, and it didn't brown too quickly in the oven, eliminating the need for the always annoying aluminum foil collar. My filling wasn't first rate, but my pie crust really rocked.

My entry, a buttermilk pie

Pie Contest on Saturday!

2011-07-22T22:38:00.000-04:00

Here's an idea for all you pie-loving New Yorkers out there -- come to the Daisy Pie Contest at 4 p.m. tomorrow (July 23rd) at the Brooklyn Kitchen in Williamsburg.

The $5 ticket (all proceeds go to the Greenpoint Soup Kitchen) will get you a taste of the entries -- 40 sweet pies in all. The first, second and third prize pies will be judged by baking experts, but the Grand Prize can literally be bought. For just $1 per vote, you can vote early and often for your favorite (all proceeds go to charity). So bring lots of money and vote! And I wouldn't mind if you all cast a few ballots for my entry, a buttermilk pie.

My Mother's Mandel Bread

2011-07-22T10:24:00.000-04:00

Mandel bread -- aka Jewish biscotti -- is among my mother's favorite treats so for her 82nd birthday (today!) I prepared the cookies from her own handwritten recipe card. Of course, the recipe called for chocolate chips, a rather nontraditional ingredient, but to my mother, it's not dessert unless there's some chocolate involved.

Like biscotti, mandel bread is baked twice, first in a loaf form. When the loaf is still warm, using a good serrated knife, slice it just like you would a loaf of bread.

Lay the slices (they will be somewhat soft) on a cookie sheet or hotel pan and then bake them at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes. (This detail is not in the recipe below.)

Is this easy? Absolutely. IF you're not making it for your mother. (You can read about some previous issues in my post, Calling Dr. Freud.) I had to toss the first dough -- I had forgotten the sugar. You can see the loaf below, leaching oil, on account of this essential missing ingredient.

And for my second attempt, I mis-measured the oil but, determined to save the dough, I simple added some extra flour and sugar. Although the loaf spread way more than I thought was normal, I plowed through and it all turned out ok.

Mandel bread is not my cup of tea (or coffee), but it makes a nice gift. Happy birthday, Mom!

Red Currant Tea Cake

2011-07-15T10:36:00.001-04:00

Impulse buying is among my favorite hobbies, which is how I ended up with a pint of fresh red currants from the farmer's market. Who could resist these glistening ruby-like berries?

I nearly succumbed to a modern recipe for a financier-like cake which would have been appropriate because yesterday was Bastille Day, but I found a c.1904 blueberry tea cake recipe that I thought might work. And it did, beautifully. Both the folks at DH's workplace and mine quite enjoyed these tea cakes, although one wag suggested that a glaze would "enhance the experience." (Of course, he works with DH, and not at the illustrious Henry Street Settlement with me.)

Except for the truly tedious task of removing the stems from the currants, this may be the easiest recipe I've made this year. No need to add ingredients in stages, mixing this with that, beating eggs separately, etc. -- all the ingredients (except the currants) are simply poured into a bowl and mixed together.

The currants should be "floured" before adding to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the cake. Just put them in a bowl with some flour and shake them around to coat. Then carefully fold them into the batter.

Like many old recipes, this one didn't specify the size or number of pans to be used. I guess everyone simply knew what should be used to make tea cake. Luckily, at the last minute (when the batter was already prepared) I remembered a vintage mini-loaf pan I bought a while back at a flea market in Pennsylvania. I quickly greased and floured it and spooned the batter in. Miraculously, I had the perfect amount of batter to fill all 12 molds.

A few production notes:
If you don't have one of these molds, don't worry. A loaf pan would be fine, as would a round cake pan or two. And you don't even need currants to make this -- blueberries are called for in the original recipe. I added about 1/3 cup extra sugar above what the recipe called for and sprinkled some on top of the cakes before baking because I thought the four-cups-of-flour to one-cup-o- sugar ratio would yield a cake that wasn't sweet enough. Plus, currants are much more tart than blueberries.
And finally, watch the butter closely while melting it. If you're fortunate enough to have a pilot light on your stove (like I do, below), simply set the butter in a small saucepan or measuring cup atop that for a few minutes.

Dutch Apricot Cake

2011-07-11T11:35:00.000-04:00

While one can buy apricots all year round, the only ones worth eating -- the really delicious local ones -- are in season for just a few weeks. I was thrilled to find some at the farmer's market on Saturday.

Ah, but what to make with these pale pink blushed beauties. I had eaten too many out of hand, so didn't have enough for a pie, but then I discovered an unusual recipe -- an adaption of a Dutch Apple Cake -- in the 1931 edition of The Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer.

If you like biscuits and fruit, you'll love this. And it took literally five minutes to make. First, I cut the butter into the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder quickly using my food processor. Then I poured the milk in slowly and mixed until the dough came together. The batter is easy to work with; you just pat it into an eight-inch pan.

Pit and slice the apricots and place atop the dough.

Next, sprinkle on some sugar and cinnamon. The amount isn't specified; next time I will be much more generous with the sugar. For good measure, and because butter can only improve everything, I deviated from the recipe by dotting it with butter before placing in the preheated oven.

Voila. After a while in the oven (I forgot to time it, but an intoxicating aroma will alert you when it's done) a gorgeous cake emerged, the top all caramelized from the butter and sugar. This is less a cake than a very moist and toothsome biscuit with fruit, and one perfect for an afternoon snack with a crisp white wine or cup of fresh brewed coffee.

The basic recipes are below. Make the shortcake and then simply substitute apricots for the apples in the recipe below. Fannie calls this fruit kuchen. Peaches or plums can be used, as well.

Cold Oven Cake on a Hot Summer Day

2011-07-06T14:13:00.000-04:00

Much to DH's dismay, the name of this delicious cake is a bit of a misnomer. It's not like this miraculously bakes in a cold oven, but it is placed in a cold oven (and then you turn the heat up to 325 degrees). As you might imagine, this is not ideal in 90 degree July temperatures. In New York City. In a house without air conditioning. Ah, the sacrifices one makes for pastry.

There seems to be a whole genre of cold oven cakes. I have many in my collection; most are from the 1920s, 30s and 40s. I selected this one because I found two cards, each written in a different hand, each bearing this exact recipe. Cold oven cakes go against the prevailing baking chemistry that the batter needs to be placed in a hot oven so that it can properly rise. Baking powder, for example, reacts with heat to help raise the cake. But this cake has no leavening in it -- save for the beaten egg whites folded in at the end. Yet, rise it did.

The key to easy cake and cookie baking is having the butter at room temperature. This way, you (or your mixer) need not fight with it, but instead beam with pride as it whips easily, smoothly blending with the sugar. (Of course, I just this minute realized that I misread the recipe and used just two instead of three sticks of butter.* I also mistakenly used the skim milk instead of whole milk. I even can't blame the heat of the preheating oven for clouding my judgement.)

Even if I was a stick short of butter, the five egg yolks added a rich texture to the cake.

Although this recipe doesn't mention it, I'd advise greasing and flouring the pan. It makes releasing the cake so much easier, and practically eliminates the possibility that you'll be scooping out chunks of stuck cake from the pan. If that should happen, as it did to me once during a dinner party, simply put the cake pieces in large wine goblets, and spoon fruit or chocolate sauce over them and pretend this was your intention all along.

Most tube pan cakes are turned out from the pan and served as is, so that the cake at the bottom of the pan becomes the top. But, as you can see (above), the cake looked upside down when I did that, so I just flipped it over (below), to create a more pleasing presentation. Don't be afraid to buck convention and flip your cake.

This was an absolutely wonderful cake, with a dense texture and nice, subtle flavor reminiscent of Sara Lee pound cake, only far better as homemade cake tends to be. I can't imagine how much this cake will rock when I make it again -- using the right amount of butter and whole milk. I look forward to turning on the oven for this cold oven cake -- as soon as it's November!

*This recipe, like so many others, calls for Oleo, but I always use unsalted butter.

Viola Keele's Potato Chip Cookies

2011-06-28T21:56:00.000-04:00

Even though I have a sweet tooth, I adore potato chips and was especially excited when I uncovered this gem of a recipe, buried deep inside a c. 1960s recipe box. What could be better than the sweet and salty combination promised by these unusual cookies?

The recipe called for butterscotch chips, but having none on hand at 11 p.m.when I made these, I substituted chocolate chips. I also bought some sort of yuppie gourmet potato chips, which I wouldn't recommend for this. Stick with something basic.

These couldn't be easier to make, especially if you start with room temperature butter. It's fun to crush the potato chips; just put them in a plastic bag and smash with a rolling pin or wine bottle.

Using a small ice cream scoop makes quick work of the most boring part of cookie making -- forming the cookies. And placing a sheet of parchment on the cookie tin eliminates the need to wash the pan. You can reuse the parchment for the entire batch.

The verdict? These cookies are not overly sweet (or salty, for that matter) and if I make them again, I'll use butterscotch chips, which are sweeter than semi-sweet chocolate. I was somewhat disappointed with these, i.e., I thought they'd be sooooo much better, that the unusual combination would create some new taste sensation. However, my tasters loved them and they disappeared pretty quickly. Proving once again that if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, taste is in the mouth of the eater.

Blueberry Pie

2011-06-27T10:11:00.001-04:00

A Father's Day request by DH (a terrific dad to our children) and beautiful blueberries at the farmer's market meant just one thing -- a homemade blueberry pie for dessert last Sunday.

Determined to find a recipe on a hand-written card, I went through hundreds in my collection and turned up NONE! I came to realize that blueberry pies are so simple, that no one bothered to record the recipe; to those housewives in the first half of the 20th century, it would be akin writing instructions for boiling water. So I did what any self-respecting c. 1940s housewife would do -- I used common sense and put together a delicious pie.

I used my go-to crust (2.5 c. flour, one tsp. each salt and sugar, one stick of butter and 6 tbsp. of leaf lard, and about five tbsp. ice water) and rolled out the dough for an eight-inch pie. I rinsed the blueberries, put them in a bowl and coated them with a bit of flour. I added some sugar, maybe 3/4 cup, some tapioca for good measure (perhaps about 2 tbsp.), squeezed a lemon over the berries and placed in the unbaked pie crust. For good measure, I dotted the pie with a generous amount of unsalted butter.

Let's just say that this was so good, that in some ways I'd wished I'd recorded the recipe exactly. However, I do like being part of the tradition that embraces the notion that making pie is as easy as pie and baking is indeed an art sometimes (and not a science). And the good news for my readers is, if I can do it, you can too!

Double Fudge Disappointment

2011-06-21T09:54:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, the most promising things in life turn out to be the most disappointing. And so it was with this Double Fudge.

The recipe looked amazing -- a two-layer bar candy whose ingredients are chocolate, heavy cream, sugar, butter and nuts. And all cooked in a single saucepan. What could be better? My mouth was watering as I prepared the bottom layer, even though I could sense not all was going well. The mixture seemed a bit too grainy and the instructions to cook for seven minutes were a bit cryptic. Should I stir the entire time, do I start timing after the butter melts, how high should I make the flame were just some of my unanswered questions.

I especially wanted to make this because I'm reading a fascinating new book, The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Paul Collins, which chronicles the rivalry between William Randolph Heart's New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The Double Fudge recipe is from The New York Evening Telegram Cook Book published in 1908.

The bottom layer was ok. But the top layer was a disaster -- it somehow seized in the pan, turning into a sandy mess instead of the smooth caramel topping I was expecting. Still, in the face of disappointment, I continued on hoping for the best. But it was not to be.

I let the candy cool after I somehow managed (using an offset spatula and a lot of force) to spread the top layer.

But when I tried to cut it into squares, it mostly crumbled and fell apart; the two layers had an almost reverse magnetic force and seemed to repel one another. Plus, between the odd texture and the EXTREME sweetness (and I like sweet), it was unpleasant to eat. Luckily I had another dessert to serve for Father's Day dinner, a blueberry pie, the subject of a future post.

But never one to let disappointment have the final word, I plan to research and apply more modern-day candy making techniques to this diamond-in-the-rough recipe. Sometimes, when things don't work out as we plan, we're reluctant to throw good sugar after bad and walking away seems the easiest path. But, with attention and nurture and compromise, almost every problem (in baking and in life) can be solved. And the reward is perfectly sweet and rich. And sometimes, with luck, the best ever.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

2011-06-05T11:42:00.000-04:00

It's June, and I should be making all sorts of desserts with local strawberries and rhubarb, but I found myself with a very ripe pineapple -- and an intriguing c. 1950s recipe for upside down cake.

Fresh pineapple makes this dessert exceptionally delicious. I used a biscuit cutter to remove the core after I cut the fruit into 1/2 inch slices. And, as you can see in the picture at top, I used the extra pieces of pineapple in place of the maraschino cherries which, while colorful, are full of quite undesirable chemicals. (Full disclosure: I was actually saving my cherries for ice cream sundaes.)

Although the recipe (below) called for a cast iron skillet, I don't have one at the moment. I've had many, many in my life, but no matter what I do, they end up rusting, even after I follow all the seasoning directions. I didn't even have luck with one of the new-fangled pre-seasoned cast iron skillets. So, I just used a regular old frying pan, and the cake worked beautifully.

Unlike many recipes for upside down cake, this one called for separating the eggs and beating the egg whites with sugar into a meringue. This is an extra step and one that requires using another bowl and set of beaters, but the results are worth it.

The cake puffed up a lot (by the time I took this photo, it had settled a bit) in the oven, but it slipped out of the pan beautifully. Just put the serving plate upside down atop the cake and flip. And, in the picture at top, you can see that, despite not using cast iron, the top was caramelized.

You may notice that there's some liquid on the plate and I attribute that to the fact that I removed the cake from the oven ten minutes early because I wanted to get to a protest rally against the recent staff cuts and closings at the South Street Seaport Museum. So even though I thought I was sacrificing my cake for a higher cause (read about the Museum's struggles here), it turned out quite well. I only pray for the Museum to enjoy the same good fortune.

Dessert for the Rest of Us

2011-06-03T10:21:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, after a lively visit with DH's mother at "the institution" as she calls the assisted living residence where she lives, we stopped for dinner at Don Pepe II, a restaurant in New Jersey we'd passed many times.

This Spanish restaurant specializes in seafood (always a challenge for DH who is deathly allergic to shellfish), and everything was delicious.

I was quite looking forward to dessert, as always, but my heart sank when the waiter brought the menu. Listed at the top was a cliche of mediocre desserts, the kind I suspect were made in an Iowa factory six months earlier and shipped frozen to restaurants throughout the country. But then -- much to my delight -- below that list was one that said "Home Made Desserts." Bingo!

After a lengthy discussion with our waiter, I ordered the cherries jubilee (pictured above) and it was so fabulous, that even though I'd promised myself I'd just have a taste, I devoured the whole thing. (I did *allow* DH a few bites, however.)

Rhubarb "Pudding"

2011-05-31T21:51:00.004-04:00

I adore puddings so was thrilled to discover this c. 1950s recipe for rhubarb pudding, especially since I had just bought a gorgeous bunch of the red stalks at the farmer's market. So with great anticipation, I prepared the recipe. But what emerged from the oven wasn't pudding, but something else entirely, proving the axiom that one generation's pudding is another's cobbler.

Among the challenges of baking from old recipe cards is interpreting instructions across a generation (or two or three) and "blind" baking (i.e., there's never a glossy photo so one can see the final product). In fact, some of the recipes don't even have a title or instructions, but are simply a list of ingredients on a scrap of paper or a card, leaving me to wonder if I'm following a recipe or "baking" someone's shopping list.

Having said that, this "pudding" was absolutely delicious, and had the very high crust-to-fruit ratio prized by many. Do try this at home. If you don't believe me, just ask Karin and Jim, pictured below, who are very enthusiastic (and honest) eaters.

Chop up the rhubarb into about a 1/4 inch dice, below.

Combine it with the pineapple tidbits in an 8-inch pan.

Mix the pudding batter (sugar, eggs, flour and lemon juice) and pour over the fruit.

The topping is prepared like pie crust, so I used my food processor to make quick work of cutting the fat into the flour.

Sprinkle the topping on the fruit and pudding mixture and bake. And voila -- in under an hour you'll have a unique (in this century, at least) rhubarb dessert.

Jim and Karin enjoying some dessert. Note the large bottle of raspberry wine (aka "hootch") they brought over.

Coconut Tapioca Pudding

2011-05-25T07:42:00.000-04:00

This is a pudding so delicious that one of my tasters described it as a "Mounds bar on Ecstasy." And it literally took me 90 seconds to prepare. But there's a small catch. The key ingredient in this dessert -- a coconut powder -- must be ordered. From Hawaii.

The packaging of this coconut powder looks slick enough to be part of the Kraft Foods family, yet it's a product produced by a Kauai family who sell it at farmer's markets on the island. In fact, the telephone number on the package is the owner's personal cell phone!

Above, at right, is Barbara Oki, whose restaurant on Kauai served the famous Oki pancakes until it closed recently. Barbara then developed this coconut powder, which is sold by her, along with her son and daughter-in-law. I bought three packages from Barbara, a very enthusiastic salesperson who created the recipes. She insisted that I call her cell phone (the number listed on the package) should I have any questions while making the tapioca pudding.

This pudding calls for Minute tapioca, a more processed product than regular pearl tapioca, and one that avoids the "fish eyes" texture of the traditional.

I actually made this twice, first for our excellent house painters Bruce and David, below, but forgot to take pictures, and later for some folks at work. (If you need fabulous painters, I'll send you their numbers.)

The coconut powder was originally developed to make coconut syrup, used in Hawaii in place of maple syrup on pancakes, etc. It is fantastic. But, if you check Barbara's website, you'll see that there are many delicious desserts that use the powder. Below is the one I used.

Haupia Tapioca Pudding (Updated)

Bring 3 cups of water to a boil (Use bottled or purified water for best results).
Add 4 Tbs. (Level Tbs.) of Tapioca (Kraft Minute Tapioca) dry mix to boiling water.
Stir tapioca for 1 minute (water boiling).
Whisk while adding entire package of coconut syrup powder mix to boiling water.
Whisk vigorously and allow pudding to thicken (20 to 30 Seconds).
Remove pot from stove and continue to whisk until mixture is smooth (Pudding thickens as it cools).
Pour into a large serving bowl. Refrigerate after it cools (Stir before serving).