Icebox Cookies = Brownstone Brown Out

Not one to limit icebox cookery to merely cake, I also prepared the dough for Butterscotch Icebox Cookies this past weekend.

But when I turned on the oven to bake them last night, lo and behold, the kitchen lights all dimmed.*

"There's a brown out in the kitchen," I called to DH, who was upstairs, busy at work on his memoir (soon to be a book and major motion picture, I hope).  He thoughtfully shut off our one window air conditioner so I could continue baking, all the while shaking his head in disbelief that in this 90+ degree heat and high humidity, that the oven could triumph over a cool bedroom.

The idea behind icebox cookies is that one keeps the dough in the freezer and, at just a moment's notice, homemade cookies can be served hot from the oven.  The dough is rolled into logs, the precursor to all those commercial slice-and-bake cookie dough products in the supermarket.

So here's the problem with having logs of delicious cookie dough at the ready.  If you think the ice cream is calling your name from the freezer, just try keeping these around.   My logs have been shrinking, as DH and I check on them periodically and helpfully even out the ends, a quarter inch at a time.**

For those of you who can avoid temptation, please try these and do add some grated coconut to the batter for added flavor and texture.  I used unsweetened coconut, figuring that the sweetened product would have sent my tasters into a diabetic coma.

These are simple cookies, which reflect the era from which they emerged.  They're almost the opposite of today's popular cookies, packed with all sorts of yummy ingredients, like the fabulous Compost Cookies from Momofuko, which are over-the-top concoctions of pretzels, potato chips, Rice Krispies, lots of butter and chocolate. While I adore these new fangled cookies, sometimes a simple cookie is best.

The recipe I used, below, is from the Cookbook for Girls and Boys by Irma S. Rombauer and published in 1946.

*I just read this morning that Con Ed reduced power to several New York City neighborhoods last night, including my own, so it was more than just the window air conditioner that caused the brown out.

**My attempt at the South Beach diet only lasted five hours -- I caved yesterday when a colleague offered me a Compost Cookie.

Icebox Cake on a Hot Summer Day

What better way to combat the blazing New York City heat than to engage in some icebox cookery.

Yesterday morning, I had no idea what icebox cake was.  I had heard of it, for sure, and it always conjured up a simpler era, and images of a luscious homespun treat, the very essence of wholesomeness served with fresh lemonade to suntanned children running into the kitchen laughing, slamming the screen door behind them, after a rousing game of kick the can in the sunny backyard.

Ok, ladies and gentleman:  I am about to shatter your (or at least my) notions of icebox cookery.

First, it involves heat.  That alluring "icebox" is just part of the picture, and one that doesn't come into play until after you've turned on the oven to 350 degrees to bake ladyfingers and stood over a hot stove for at least 15 minutes, stirring (constantly) the custard filling.

Above, is the mixture for the lady fingers; below shows them piped out (using a pastry bag with a round tip) on the baking sheet and then the finished cookie. The lady fingers recipe is from the c. 1931 Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer.

I did a little research and discovered all manner of icebox cakes exist.  Most of those created after 1925 (and popular today) involve a combination of store-bought chocolate Nabisco wafers and sweetened whipped cream or pudding.   The wafers are either stacked on top of one another (forming a cake shape) or placed sideways to form a log, using whipped cream as the mortar to hold them together. The idea is that stored in the icebox (refrigerator) overnight, the cookies (sometimes graham crackers are used) soften and become infused with the cream or pudding mixture, a case of the sum exceeding the parts.
These are true no-bake desserts -- assemble, chill and serve. The photo below is from Billy's Bakery in New York, which sells this version of icebox cake.

The more traditional mocha icebox cake that I made from a recipe in the c. 1953 Settlement Cookbook predates that version and is probably a closer to a charlotte, a chilled dessert that was very popular from after the Civil War to World War I, in which lady fingers or spongecake was used to line a mold, and filled with chocolate, lemon or other flavored custard.

This old-fashioned icebox cake (shown above, before being filled with custard) was delicious and worth the heat and effort.  The mocha custard made the already delicious lady fingers even more so and although it's only 10 a.m., I've eaten more than half of it.  If DH hurries home from yoga, there may be just a bit left for him.

Update: DH arrived home just in time -- he got to try the icebox cake. And loved it.

Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?

Yes, if she has a lot of time, patience, sour cherries, a cherry pitter -- and a compelling reason.*   In my case, it was DH's Father's Day gift.  (He's not my father, but he is a fabulous father to our children, so I like to celebrate his parenting skills whenever I can.)

The pie baking was delayed after I realized that the sweet cherries I purchased were the wrong type for pie, so I returned to the farmer's market to get sour cherries.  I had made the pie dough early in the morning, so that was set.  But what a lot of work cherry pie is.  First you have to buy the right cherries and then you have to pit them all.  Luckily DD was visiting, and did about one-third of them.  I finished up. What a mess (see below).

When you're done with the pitting, you have a bowl of gorgeous cherries (below), to which you simply add some tapioca, flour, sugar, lemon juice and almond extract, spoon it all into a pastry lined pie pan and cover it with the top crust.

I used a recipe from A Cookbook for Girls and Boys, written in 1946 by Irma S. Rombauer, author of The Joy of Cooking.  (When my scanner is working again, I'll post the recipe.)

Despite the mess and the time, it was worth it.  This pie is spectacular, and made more special by the very short (approximately three week) growing season of sour cherries in the northeast.
It wasn't until about 8 p.m. on Father's Day that DH was able to enjoy his present, but he loved it.  And unlike Billy Boy (see below), he already has a wife (and a cherry pie, for that matter).

*Other reasons to bake a pie may have to do with finding a mate.  The lyrics to Billy Boy, a nursery folk song about a man searching for a wife, ask in one refrain:

Can she make a cherry pie,
Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Can she make a cherry pie,
Charming Billy?
She can make a cherry pie,
Quick as a cat can wink an eye,
She's a young thing
And cannot leave her mother.

In examining the song, British writer Robin Fox observes that food and courtship are closely linked and that cooking ability is highly prized in a bride -- in some cultures, more valued than virginity!

What Would You Do?

DH just returned from a week in the Pacific Northwest, where he enjoyed delicious cherry pie.  So being that it's Father's Day (and he is such an extraordinary father), I thought I'd bake him one here in the Northeast.

But, as I went through some recipes this morning, I realized that I bought the wrong kind of cherries. I didn't know that one was supposed to use sour (not sweet) cherries in pies.

As many of my readers know, I often make mistakes *during* baking, and then meeting (or not) the challenge to correct them.  This is a first, though, knowing in advance that something is wrong.

I'm hoping an answer will emerge during yoga this morning: Just plunge ahead and bake a pie that may not be so good, or abandon the project entirely.

A Tassie by Any Other Name is....an Ozone!

After a brutally hot weekend, I succumbed to DH's desire to buy a bedroom air conditioner and last Wednesday I stayed home to await its delivery.   The weather turned quite cool that day (as it always does once air conditioning is an option), enabling me to turn on the oven and bake these yummy treats while I waited.

These bite-size pecan pies have been a favorite on dessert tables for years, and I found two recipes, c. 1950, for them in my collection.  They are identical except for their names:  One is Tea Time Tasses [sic] and the other is Ozones (found in the recipe box from Texas).

What can I say?  These are delicious and a real crowd pleaser, but certainly not exciting (though there was a moment of drama when I thought the filling would overflow the cups while baking). And they are so easy, that one can make these, and still find time for a nap and an episode of Judge Judy.

I'm coming to realize the value of adding cream cheese (like Philadelphia brand) to pastry.  Although it seems a bit too commercial, it really does impart a really lovely flavor and texture, a je ne sais quoi. The top rated pie crust recipe (after extensive testing) in Rose Levy Berenbaum's Pie and Pastry Bible lists cream cheese as an ingredient.  So while I am a pie crust purist (flour, salt, butter/shortening) in theory, I concede that a little cream cheese can go a long way.

Layer Cake -- A Fine Wine

Layer Cake, a wine I bought for the label (which is how I choose wine anyway), turned out to be fabulous, so I thought I'd share my happy discovery.

Here's one description I found on the internet, which is pretty much how I would describe it, if I had a good palate (and vocabulary) for such things:  Dark, dense and creamy, complex aromas of black plum, Bing cherry, blackberry and pepper merge with licorice, tobacco, mocha and dark chocolate. This is one inky Shiraz... Chefs will save this cake for themselves…

I bought the bottle pictured above in Shisler's, a store in Copley, Ohio, that features Amish cheeses (and the butter I bought, below, but sadly forgot in my mother's refrigerator).

When I returned to New York and asked for Layer Cake at my local wine store, the descriptively named Big Nose, Full Body, the guy there said something like, oh, that wine is very popular in the suburbs. They obviously didn't have such an unsophisticated wine in the well-curated shop, but luckily I found it -- on sale --in a small liquor store in Lambertville, New Jersey, where DH and I spent Memorial Day weekend.
Sometimes the suburbs are better.

English Muffins in America

Last Monday morning, I made English muffins for breakfast.  I mean, I "made" English muffins -- as in, from scratch.

I had been wanting to make these for a while but lacked English muffin rings -- really, not even I had those in my kitchen drawer. But I was able to track some down at Sur la Table in SoHo, where I conveniently had a gift certificate, thoughtfully given to me by my good friend (and future boss) David.

The recipe I used was published in the 1908 New York Evening Telegram Cook Book.  I don't know much about the genesis of the cookbook, as the six-page introduction is missing.  I do know that there were a lot of New York daily newspapers at that time, maybe dozens (historian friends -- please correct me here), and now we're down to just three all, very sadly, barely hanging on.

The recipe for Toasted Muffins, written in narrative form, begins: "The English housewife usually serves toasted muffins with sole for breakfast."  Being an American, I served them with jam and butter.

These couldn't have been easier to make.  Just mix a few ingredients together in the Kitchen Aid, and spoon the batter into the rings (which I greased and placed on a well-heated electric frying pan.)

These were easy, but were they good?  I was pleased to see that they looked just like English muffins, complete with nooks and crannys, but DH and I thought they tasted a bit, um, gummy.

It was only several days later that I realized the problem -- and I'm almost embarrassed to admit it -- we forgot to toast the muffins!  That would have surely addressed the slightly gummy texture and toasting seems to concentrate the flavor of bread, so I bet they would have been really delicious.