October Butternut Cake

Before October ends in just a few hours, I figured I'd better end my blog sabbatical and post this October Butternut Cake recipe --  though it is good enough to make in any month. It's a light and delicious white cake studded with nuts, and finished with a brown butter frosting.

When I first encountered this unusual vintage recipe, I expected it to feature butternut squash. But no. It doesn't even call for real butternuts (a type of walnut) or butternut flavoring. The butternut portion of this recipe refers to the instruction to saute almonds in butter.

After the cake ingredients are mixed, fold in half of the sauteed nuts.

Pour into a greased and floured pan and bake until done.

While the cake is cooling, start the frosting. Brown the butter carefully (it can turn from delightfully fragrant to burnt in just a moment). When done correctly, brown butter has a slightly nutty flavor.

The frosting will look rather unappetizing, until the liquid is added.

The original recipe card is below, and below that is my (clearer) instructions.

Production notes: Make sure the butter is quite soft, as it is added directly to the dry ingredients. I didn't have maple flavoring, so just used vanilla.

October Butternut Cake

Preheat oven to 350 F
Grease and flour an 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 cake pan

Cake
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. granulated sugar
2 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 egg
1 c milk
1 t. vanilla (or 1/2 t, vanilla and 1/2 t. maple flavoring
1/3 c plus 1 T butter
1/2 c chopped almonds (reserve 1/4 c for frosting)

In a small skillet melt 1 T butter and saute nuts until fragrant. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients well.
Add 1/3 c softened butter and mix well.
Add egg, milk and vanilla. Combine well.
Fold in 1/4 c almonds.
Pour into prepared pan.
Bake for 30 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Frosting
4 T butter
2 c confectioner's sugar
3 or 4 T milk
1/2 t vanilla or maple flavoring

In a small saucepan, brown the butter.
Transfer to a bowl and add 1 c confectioner's sugar. Mix well
Add milk, remainder of sugar and flavoring.
Beat until smooth.
Fold in 1/4 c almonds

Spread on cooled cake.

Zucchini Bread

It's hard to get excited about zucchini bread, but it's an excellent venue for this summer squash, which I always buy in enormous quantities intending to prepare as a vegetable but somehow always manage to transform into chocolate cake, cookies or even "apple"pie. 

So before the season ends, here's a moist and rather delicious, albeit not guilt-free, way to "use up" all those good farmer's market intentions.

Below is the mis en place. There are but two cups of sugar in the recipe, making the bread not overly sweet, which is typical of vintage recipes.

It's a very quick recipe, especially if you grate the zucchini in a food processor.

Pour the batter into two greased and floured bread pans.

Bake for about an hour.

And enjoy your vegetables!

Production notes: I followed this recipe exactly, using the larger quantity of sugar.  I did not seed the zucchini, but if you use ginormous ones, it might be a good idea. I used the larger quantity of baking powder, used vegetable (not corn) oil, used both cinnamon and nutmeg, and did not add the optional dried fruit. I covered one pan with aluminum foil and left one uncovered but didn't notice any difference between the two.

Little Mermaid Tuna Muffins

As much as I like to cook, I always dreaded preparing school lunches for my children. Both were picky eaters, and didn't care for sandwiches, making the task infinitely more difficult. Now that they're grown-ups, there are many things I miss about their childhood; making school lunches is NOT among them.

How I wish I'd discovered these handy portable tuna muffins sooner! They are simply delicious, easy to prepare and (dare I say) rather nutritious.

The recipe, though not on a handwritten card, is from a delightful, albeit out-of-print cookbook, Once Upon a Recipe by Karen Green. It is beautifully illustrated.

Here's the mis en place for the muffins. Quite a number of ingredients, but most are already in the pantry. The cooked brown rice is a take-out from a nearby Chinese restaurant.

Mix all ingredients, except the egg whites, in a bowl and combine well.

Beat the egg whites until stiff, but not dry (you can add a bit of cream of tartar to insure you don't over beat). Gently fold them into the mixture.

It should look like this.

Spoon the mixture into six greased muffin cups.

Bake for about 40 minutes. Remove from the pan by running a butter knife around the edge of each muffin.

Fresh Peach Pie

As some of you may have noticed, I've been somewhat AWOL from posting of late, but it's not for lack of baking, but rather for lack of time. Let's just say that the mild envy I once felt seeing people enjoying a leisurely mid-morning latte in a cafe or attending a yoga class at 2 p.m. is approaching full-on resentment. But if I didn't have my day job, I never would have met Josephine Lume, the lovely and uber talented CFO of Henry Street Settlement (where she plays a mean calculator!) who gifted me with these peaches from her father's tree, pictured below. (I'm convinced her father, a native of Italy, lives in an orchard in Queens, where he grows persimmons, figs, blackberries and, of course, peaches.)

About those peaches. They are certainly not "pretty as a peach" but what they lack in appearance is made up in juicy deliciousness.

For a fresh peach pie, boil the peaches for about 60 seconds and, if you're lucky, the skins will slip right off. If not take a paring knife to peel them before slicing.

Next, combine the sugar, cornstarch and salt.  Add water and stir until combined. Slip the peach slices in and cook until the mixture boils. Then cook another minute.

Pour the mixture into an unbaked pie shell.  You can see below I had too much liquid, so I simply spooned some out.

Cover with a top crust. I got a little fancy with a lattice.

Bake until done. Cool on a rack.

Enjoy in the garden, even if it lacks a peach tree.

This recipe is from a c. 1960 cookbook published by The Women of Circle "B" of the First Brethren Church in Ohio.

Production notes: I followed this recipe exactly, but had to spoon out some liquid. Next time, I would leave some in the saucepan. I used a nine-inch pie pan and five cups of peaches. Always bake pies on a foil-lined baking sheet for ease of removal from the oven, and also to prevent the bubbling juices from spilling onto the oven floor.

My favorite pie crust recipe

2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 stick of cold butter, cut into small pieces
6 T. cold Crisco, cut into pieces
2 t. sugar
1 t. salt
3 - 6 T. cold water

Place dry ingredients in a food processor and whirl to blend.  Add butter and Crisco and process until it resembles cornmeal. Transfer to a round bowl, and add the water, a couple of tablespoons at a time.  Blend with a fork.  When it holds together, transfer to a lightly floured surface and form a large ball.  Divide in half and either roll out between two sheets of plastic wrap, or refrigerate until it's a bit firmer and then roll out.

Chocolate Dream Cookies - No-Bake Cookies

Sometimes it's just too damn hot to turn on the oven (well, not for me, but the DH really, really hates it) and so last Sunday when the temperature was well into the 90s, and we were expecting dinner guests, I discovered a vintage no-bake cookie recipe whose time had finally come.

Now these cookies aren't lookers (as evidenced above) but they do taste pretty good, and can be made in about five minutes and without turning your entire kitchen into an oven.

I made these twice; the first time using McCann's Irish Oatmeal (not advised), and the second, using good old fashioned Quaker Oats, which made for a much better cookie. The McCann's oats didn't fully absorb the chocolate and the texture was a bit grainy (though that didn't stop me from trying about a dozen).  Sometimes, one can't improve on tradition.

Begin by cooking butter, milk, sugar, cocoa and salt in a saucepan.

Cook until it comes to a rolling boil -- not pictured below.

Remove from the heat and add oats, coconut and chopped nuts. It's best to prepare this before the cooking begins so they can just be dumped right in after the mixture boils.

Drop by teaspoon onto parchment or wax paper.  I popped these into the refrigerator to firm up.

Below are some of the cookies made with McCann's. Someone thought there were chia seeds in them -- that's what the texture was like.

Production notes: I made only half the recipe and had dozens! Otherwise, I followed the recipe exactly. I've written it out below the card for clarity.

Chocolate Dream Cookies

2 c. sugar
4 T. cocoa powder
1 stick butter
1/2 c. milk
pinch of salt
1 c. coconut
3 c. quick oats
1/2 c. chopped nuts
1 t. vanilla

In a saucepan, combine sugar, cocoa, butter, milk and salt. Bring to a rolling boil, stirring constantly.

Remove from the heat and add the coconut, oats, nuts and vanilla.

Drop by teaspoon onto wax paper or parchment.

They will firm up more quickly if refrigerated, especially if your kitchen is hot (and it is, because that's why you've chosen this recipe!).

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

The New York Times had an item about Twinkies today, on the occasion of their 85th birthday, so I'm reposting ye olde post about same. Enjoy!

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.