Pear Upside Down Cake
I've been whining about Bon Appetit for months (years)... I get that I'm not the demographic and I get that they're chasing after Saveur magazine with their unflattering photos, but it doesn't make it any easier when I'm looking through the mag... There's a lot about the magazine I just don't care for - their lack of page numbers and ugly pictures to name but two - but the (not flattering) cover photo of a Spiced Pear Upside Down Cake on the October issue did catch my attention - mainly because I wanted to know why they put a picture of a burnt-looking cake on their cover. I had picked up a bag of different pears the other day and needed a way to make them fattening.
You will note, if you click on the link above, what I mean about a not-flattering photo - the cake really does look burnt. But with a couple of minor tweaks, it came out stellar!
I switched out the walnuts for pistachios, to begin with. I was going to use walnuts, but I put them in the oven to toast and toasted them just a tad too long. Oh, well. And you really do need the pomegranate molasses! It adds a really great sweet/tart flavor to the cake. I didn't drizzle more on the cake for serving tonight, but probably will tomorrow. I had a couple of jars in the cabinet, but if you can't find it at your local store, it's pretty easy to make. Here's my recipe. I went through a phase where I was using it all the time in a lot of different recipes. I've slowed down a bit, but still keep it on hand.
So... Bon Appetit finally came through with a decent recipe! It really is a great cake with a great texture and really really good flavor. A coupe of caveats... You definitely need a 10" pan for this and you definitely want to put it on a baking sheet in the oven - it did spill over just a tad. But it's worth the time.
Give it a try!
Flourless Chocolate Cake
I got a text at work on Saturday to bring home some whipping cream. Victor said I wouldn't be sorry.
Once again, the boy was right. I wasn't sorry. I was thrilled. Flourless Chocolate Cake was awaiting me!
Victor found the recipe years ago from Tyler Florence and has tweaked it over the years - and every time he makes it it is better than the time before. It is truly one of my most favorite desserts. It is dense and fudgy with a wicked good chocolate flavor. It calls for a full pound of chocolate - and the better the quality, the better the cake.
Flourless Chocolate Cake
- 1 pound bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 9 large eggs, separated
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
- 1/4 cup strong black coffee
- 2 cups heavy cream, cold
- Powdered sugar, for dusting
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch springform pan.
Put the chocolate and butter into the top of a double boiler (or in a heatproof bowl) and heat over (but not touching) about 1-inch of simmering water until melted. Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar in a mixing bowl until light yellow in color. Whisk a little of the chocolate mixture into the egg yolk mixture to temper the eggs – this will keep the eggs from scrambling from the heat of the chocolate; then whisk in the rest of the chocolate mixture. Add the coffee and mix well.
Beat the egg whites in a mixing bowl until stiff peaks form and fold into the chocolate mixture. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until the cake is set, the top starts to crack and a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out with moist crumbs clinging to it, 25 to 30 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes, then remove sides of pan.
Serve at room temperature dusted with powdered sugar and the whipped cream.
Make one. You won't be sorry.
Apple Roses
Apple Roses have popped up on my Facebook feed a few times in the last couple of weeks, so I thought it was time to try them, myself.
They are just as easy as the video below states - and really, really good!
I used half apples - thanks Mike and Barbara - and half pears, and used seedless Marionberry jam with some and peach-apricot jam with the others. They all came out pretty stellar.
These really are easy to do and really impressive! They'll be great for a Thanksgiving dessert table!
Cherry Upside-Down Polenta Cake
Ah... what to do with 2 pounds of fresh cherries...
If you're a normal person, you just grab 'em and eat 'em. If you're me, you turn them into a dessert. I was actually a semi-good boy with this one. It's not nearly as over-the-top ooey and gooey as I could have gone. And not a drop of heavy cream!
The original recipe came from Bon Appetit about 10 years ago, I think. That was back when I actually still liked the magazine. They've pretty much lost me, nowadays. I stopped subscribing several years ago but had a subscription to La Cucina Italiana - another Conde Nast magazine I loved and always found recipes to make. Conde Nast ceased publication of the US version of La Cucina - it's still available in Italian - and I ended up with a subscription to Bon Appetit in its place. I should have taken the cash refund.
Oh well.
I have a folder full of recipes I've cut out of magazines over the years and if I actually stopped and made the recipes I already have, I wouldn't have time to make any others. I have slowed down on the cook book acquisitions, though. Well... except for the digital ones I keep downloading. But that's different. Sorta.
The cake is baked in a skillet, which makes for easy prep and clean-up. You will want to use a straight-sided pan - and one that can go into the oven for 45 minutes or so. It also calls for a couple teaspoons of balsamic vinegar in the cherries. I used a really nice, aged balsamic because we have lots and I figured if I'm going to pit 2 pounds of cherries, I'm going for the gold, so to speak.
Cherry Upside-Down Polenta Cake
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter, divided
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 1/2 pounds pitted fresh cherries
- 1 1/4 cups flour
- 1/4 cup stone-ground polenta or cornmeal
- 2 tsp baking powder
- hefty pinch salt
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs, separated
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
Preheat oven to 350°.
Mix 1/4 cup butter with brown sugar and vinegar in 10" skillet. Stir over medium heat until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Add cherries and bring to boil. Remove from heat.
Whisk flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt together. Beat remaining 1/2 cup butter in large bowl with sugar and beat until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla.
Add flour mixture alternately with milk in 2 additions mixing until just blended. Beat egg whites in another bowl with cream of tartar and beat until whites are stiff but not dry. Fold 1/4 of whites into batter to lighten slightly. Carefully fold in remaining whites. Spoon batter over cherries in skillet, then spread evenly to cover cherries.
Bake cake until top is golden brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool in skillet on rack 5 minutes. Place cake plate atop skillet and carefully flip. Leave skillet atop cake 5 minutes. Remove skillet. Rearrange any cherries that may have become dislodged. Cool at least 45 minutes.
Enjoy!
A few cherries stuck to the pan but they were easily placed back on the cake.
And it's a winner! Not too sweet and with a nice little corn crunch from the stone-ground corn. I'm thinkin' that this will be good with fresh peaches when they arrive...
I'll have to see what other fun I can have with this...
Strawberry Pie
Strawberries have been looking good. It seems to be kinda early in the season, for me, but... good berries are good berries. I don't know if the heat and drought in California are responsible, but here I am buying strawberries the first week in May.
I was hankerin' for a pie, so I thought I'd try my hand at a strawberry pie. I hadn't made one in years, but that never seems to stop me.
I just reworked the basic cherry pie I've made in the past - and seriously underestimated the amount of liquid the strawberries vs cherries would produce.
It was a bit of a runny pie.
I'm not posting a recipe because what I did really didn't come together all that well - although it did taste really good. Hell... How could it not with 2 pounds of sweet strawberries in it?!?
It's not a good picture, either, but what the hell. We ate it all!
Guinness Brownies
Guinness and Chocolate. Talk about a flavor match made in Gastronomic Heaven!
I had a recipe for a Guinness Chocolate Cake years ago that I have sadly lost, but here's something that can ease the pain a bit - Guinness Brownies!
I found a brownie recipe online quite a while ago that had potential but wasn't quite it, so I put a note in my calendar to revisit it for St Paddy's Day. I thought it would be something fun to bring into work...
It was something fun to bring into work!
Since I was baking for more than a few, I made this in an 11 x 17 half-sheet pan, but you will probably want to make it in a standard 9x13 pan...
Guinness Brownies
The Brownies
- 6 tbsp butter
- 8 oz semi-sweet or dark chocolate, chopped
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 12 oz bottle Guinness
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Caramel Topping
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 tbsp cane syrup (or corn syrup)
- pinch salt
- 1 can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
To make brownies:
Preheat oven to 350°.
Grease 9x13 pan and set aside.
In a medium bowl, slowly melt chocolate and butter over simmering water or microwave. Blend together until smooth. Add both sugars and mix until fully incorporated. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well before adding the next.
Sift together flour, chocolate, and salt. Add in three additions alternating with the Guinness.
Stir in the chocolate chips and spread evenly into pan.
Bake 25-30 minutes or until pick comes out clean.
Let cool slightly while making topping.
To make topping:
Mix butter, brown sugar, cane/corn syrup, and salt in a small saucepan until all is melted. Stir in sweetened condensed milk and heat to just below boil. Remove from g=heat and stir in white chocolate chips until melted and everything is combined.
Pour over warm brownies and allow to set for about an hour. For best results, refrigerate overnight.
**To make in a sheet pan, follow the above instructions but spread batter into pan and bake about 15 minutes.
These really did come out good. You definitely taste the Guinness, but it's a pleasing compliment to the chocolate. I see a tradition in the making...
Zeppoles
One of the fun things about being married to an Italian is the recipes with the funny names. One of the fun things about having friends who are Italian is even more recipes with funny names - and links to websites with even more.
Our friend Judy turned us on to a site called Everybody Loves Italian and Victor has been having a blast reliving a lot of the recipes of his youth. Victor laughs and says he has the only Italian mother who didn't cook. There's a reason, though... She was number 10 of 11 kids and her older sisters did it all. The cookies and whatnot came from Aunt Tessie or Aunt Emma. You don't reinvent the wheel in an Italian family. The one who knows how to make something the best is the one who makes it. And if that something happens to be a signature dish, you really don't make it when they're around for fear of possibly showing them up. A Big Mistake.
Whether Zeppoles were in the family repertoire is questionable, but Aunt Emma, especially, used to make several different sweet and savory fritter-type items, so these could be a variation on one of her themes. Or not. it doesn't really matter, though, because he just made them and they are fantastic! They evoked a childhood memory and that's what's important. Well... that, and the fact that they're freakin' delicious. They're also easy to make, so... No excuses. Head into the kitchen and make some, now!
This recipe is adapted from Everybody Loves Italian.
Zeppoles
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup flour
- 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
- dash of salt
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 cup whole milk ricotta
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- zest and juice of 1 medium lemon
- neutral oil for frying
- powdered sugar for dusting
Heat oil 2" deep to 375° in a pan wide enough to fry several zeppole without crowding.
Mix two eggs into mixing bowl. Add all dry ingredients and follow with ricotta, vanilla, lemon juice and zest. Quickly mix until combined. Batter will be thick.
Using a 1 tbsp scoop or spoon, carefully drop into the hot oil, being careful not to let them touch. Turn them for even browning and cook about 3 minutes or until cooked through.
Drain on paper towels.
When still warm but cool enough to handle. sieve powdered sugar over them and consume!
They really did come out great. Very light and airy, not very sweet, and with a nice lemon hint. We figure there are lots of things we can do with these, from cinnamon in the batter to different liqueurs.
Methinks we shall have some fun with these!
Cake a l’Orange
Looks are ofttimes deceiving... Take that gorgeous slice of cake right there. One could look at it and imagine the beautiful cake it came from.
Or... one could imagine the mess I made when I flipped it out of its pan.
One could also imagine the words that came out of my mouth when I flipped it out of its pan and it went sliding across the island in a pile of crumbs. But that would not be a good thing, because they were not very nice words.
I baked a cake my mom made now and again - an orange cake with an orange and Cointreau glaze. Very simple and really really tasty. It's baked in a tube pan and calls for a glaze to be poured on while it's warm. I wanted to glaze it on its plate, so I took it out of the pan but it still had the bottom and the tube attached. Like an idiot, I tried flipping it, it slipped, and it went sailing. Did I mention bad words? When Nonna was retelling the story to Victor, she said "And he wouldn't tell me the words he said."
They were not nice words.
But the cake came out, in spite of my stupidity.
I semi-placed it back together and glued it with the glaze.
Parts of it were a little worse for wear, but, hell... It's cake. It's all edible even if it's not that pretty.
Cake a l'Orange
- 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 sticks butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 3 eggs, separated
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 tbsp grated orange rind
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- 1/3 cup Cointreau or Grand Marnier
Preheat oven to 350°.
Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
Beat butter, 1 cup sugar,, and egg yolks in a large bowl until; light and fluffy.
Add orange rind and mix.
Add flour mixture alternately with sour cream starting and ending with flour.
Beat egg whites in small bowl until stiff but not dry. Fold into batter and spoon into a greased 9" tube pan.
Bake about 50 minutes or until pick comes out clean.
For Glaze:
Combine orange juice and remaining 1/2 cup sugar in small saucepan and heat until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and add 1/3 cup Cointreau. Slowly pour over warm cake and let soak in.
Cool completely.
It really is good.
Christmas Jello Cake
I can't believe I bought Cool Whip! I don't think I ever have. I'm not even sure the last time I ever had it. As kids growing up, Mom usually had Dream Whip - the powdered whipping mix - or the can of whipped cream. Dream Whip could sit on a shelf and not take up valuable freezer space...
Regardless, Mom made this cake a couple of times when we were kids. I just remember I couldn't wait to have a piece. It was sweet, gooey, and all of the things I still love in a dessert. The ingredients may not be all that great, but every once in a while, nostalgia is going to trump nutritional standards. Once in a while.
Making the cake came about because we're having Ugly Christmas Sweater Day at work, today. You may ask what what a cake and an ugly sweater have in common, and if you answered "nothing," you would be correct. I just needed an excuse to make it and this seemed as good an excuse as any.
The cake is pretty straightforward. White cake mix and a couple boxes of Jello. Bake cake, pour Jello on top, frost with Cool Whip.
I thought of whipping fresh cream, but, somehow, it just didn't seem right. It probably would taste better, but... it's a Jello cake made with a cake mix. Sometimes you need to just go with it and accepot what it is.
The cake was pretty easy to put together, although I had to dip one of the pans in warm water to loosen it. Otherwise, it came together in minutes. Cool Whip is extremely easy to use as a frosting!
I'll take a picture of the inside when I cut it open at work.
Merry Christmas Memories!
Apple Cake
Ann and Julie left us with a bag of New York State apples when they were here Sunday... What a treat. All week long I've been waiting for the weekend so I could come up with something fun. Victor beat me to it!
He made his Apple Cake - with a twist. The original recipe calls for a tube pan. Victor decided to make this one in a 12" round cake pan, instead. What a treat! It came out great! The recipe below is for the tube pan - a large bundt pan works fine, as well. If you make it as a layer cake, just watch it and adjust the baking time, accordingly.
Apple Cake
- 3 cups flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup oil
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 4 tsp sugar
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- 4 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 5 large apples
Preheat oven to 350°. Peel and cut apples into small chunks. Add 4 tsp sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon and stir together.
Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and set aside.
Beat together eggs, OJ & vanilla. Add oil, mix in flour mixture.
In a well-greased tube pan, pour alternate layers of batter and apples. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top.
Bake at 350° for 1 1/2 hours or until cake tests done.
Cool before slicing.
This cake really is excellent. Not too sweet, with a great crumb, chunks of moist, delicious apples... Perfect as a coffee cake or as a fancy dessert. It's definitely our go-to apple cake recipe. And always will be!
Fun Food with Old Friends
We had dear friends stop by for an all-too-brief overnight visit.
The fun thing about overnight visits is being able to just sit and talk without having to look at a clock. Not that any of us really drink very much, but nor is there need for a designated driver. It's just sit back and relax.
I had to work, so Victor got the meal together. Bruschetta for starters with wine, and then tomato salad - with the last of the tomatoes from our garden - and lasagne.
Neither Ann nor Julie are large-portion eaters, so Victor actually scaled back his lasagne to a manageable size. A remarkable feat, considering how we usually do things.
We started off with a simple bruschetta.
Toasted baguettes with roasted red pepper, basil, and shredded cheese started the evening - along with wine, of course.
And then we sat down to a tomato salad.
Simple tomatoes with olive oil hand-carried from Sicily. Basil, salt, and pepper. You don't need anything else.
And then... The Lasagne.
The dish was layered with sauce, pasta, cheeses – mozzarella, provolone, asiago, parmesan, romano, and ricotta – pasta, sauce, sausage, more cheese more pasta, more sauce… Stunning in its simplicity, yet screaming with flavor. He does good lasagne.
Trying to keep with the small-portion mind-set, I did dessert crespelles. A crespelle is an Italian version of a crêpe. Made slightly different, yet, definitely the same concept. I decided to do an Italian take on a Crêpe Suzette - using an Arancello liqueur we brought back from Sicily.
I made the crespelle, and then, into a skillet, I added a pat of butter and then a couple shots of the arancello. I cooked it down a bit then added the juice of two oranges, boiled that down, a bit, then about a quarter-cup of heavy cream and some thin strips of orange zest.
I placed each crespelle into the pan, covered it with the sauce and folded then into quarters. Onto the plate with a bit more sauce on top. It came out a bit like an orange creamsicle.
Early morning pumpkin rolls and they were in the car and on their way.
Way too short of a visit - not even 18 hours - but we had a grand time, nonetheless.
And promises to have a longer visit really soon!
Bahamian Rum Cake
Mom would have loved this cake!
While I was putting it together, I kept thinking of her making cakes, poking holes in them, pouring syrupy goodness over them... she had a lot of fun in the kitchen baking cakes and making desserts. It's obvious, considering her "Dessert" cook book is twice as thick as her cook book for everything else!
She baked a lot of cakes in her time and one memory will always be the missing little tiny corner of the 9x13 cakes. She had a habit if nicking a teensy corner - about a half-inch square - of the cake for herself. She would have killed one of us for doing it - but... she baked it!
I'm more of a batter-eater/beater-licker, m'self. And I don't usually go for teeny corners. I go large.
And large I went, today!
I just got a copy of David Lebovitz' book "Ready for Dessert." I am always ready for dessert, so I had to get it. David worked at Chez Panisse in Berkeley and has become my go-to for great baking ideas. I love that his recipes are good - not fussy. He uses real ingredients that most people have access to and explains what he does while also explaining that it's what he did - you can actually change things and it's okay.
I saw this particular cake and immediately thought of a Tortuga Rum Cake I made right after we got back from the Cayman Islands. That was one sad cake compared to this one. But then, that's why he baked at Chez Panisse and I baked on an aircraft carrier.
But even an old salt like myself couldn't screw up this perfect recipe.
There's a goodly amount of sugar in this but it never comes off as cloyingly sweet. Perfect crumb and a perfect sweet balance.
This is a three-part recipe. The 2nd and 3rd parts - both syrups - can be accomplished while the cake is baking
Bahamian Rum Cake
adapted from Ready for Dessert by David Lebovitz
The Cake:
- 3 cups flour, sifted
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
- 1 cup butter, room temperature
- 2 cups sugar
- 3 eggs, room temperature
- 2 egg yolks, room temperature
- 1 tbsp vanilla
- 3/4 cup good-quality canned coconut milk
Preheat your oven to 350°. Butter a 10-cup bundt pan and dust it with flour, tapping out the excess. Set aside.
n a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.
In the bowl of your stand-mixer, beat together the butter and sugars, slowly increasing the speed to medium – allowing the batter to become light and fluffy (approximately 5 minutes).
In a small bowl, beat together the eggs, egg yolks and vanilla. Slowly drizzle the mixture into the creamed butter, scraping the sides as needed. Once the eggs are completely incorporated, gently stir-in one-third of the flour mixture, then about half of the coconut milk.
Mix in another third of the flour mixture, the rest of the coconut milk, and the remaining third of the flour; until just combined.
Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake about 55 minutes or until cake is set.
While the cake is baking, make the coconut rum syrup.
Coconut Rum Syrup
- 3/4 cup coconut milk - the rest of the can you used for the cake
- 6 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 cup dark rum - like Meyers
In a medium sauce-pan , warm the remainder of the coconut milk, and the sugar , stirring until the sugar dissolves. Remove the syrup from heat and add the dark rum. Mix well and set aside until the cake comes out of the oven.
When the cake comes out of the oven - while hot - poke about 60 holes in it with a skewer. Slowly spoon about 2/3 of the syrup over the cake, letting it soak in. Cool completely in the pan.
When cool, invert onto a cake plate and brush with the remaining coconut syrup and then cover with the coconut glaze.
Coconut Glaze
- 4 tbsp butter, cut into pieces
- 6 tbsp heavy cream
- 6 tbsp brown sugar
- pinch of salt
- 1 tbsp dark rum
- 1/2 cup sweetened coconut, toasted
Toast the coconut flakes either in the oven or in a small skillet on the stove.
Combine the butter, cream, salt and sugar together in a small saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil. Stir the mixture to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat, whisk in the rum and toasted coconut.
Spoon the glaze over the top of the cake, letting it run down the sides.
This was one awesome cake!
I'm thinking it will make a great breakfast cake, too. I know mom would approve.