Equally Amazing Feats

It has been a tumultuous week, to say the least. Never one to readily own the characteristic of being "dramatic," nevertheless, the passionate, artistic side of me does swing in stronger sometimes and paint life's moments with additional flair. But always while keeping my feet close to the ground, or so I hope.

With that preface, I can still honestly say that looking back over the last seven days, I've felt a whole lot of gratitude, anxiety, triumph, and despair. It's always a good exercise of humility to put oneself in situations outside of our full competence, and I felt despairingly incompetent as I struggled to smoothly shift gears and keep my car's engine running in the manual vehicle I was so graciously given in this time between owning vehicles. It was a good place to be in the long run, and it's a place I'm glad to have moved beyond...now maneuvering through parking lots and accomplishing other equally amazing feats.



I hopped on the Bart and enjoyed a day and night in one of my favorite cities, exploring it sans vehicle, which is my preferred manner. The smells of San Francisco's streets are sweet, sour, filthy, and homey depending which street you wander down, and I always leave inspired for future kitchen endeavors by what I eat and drink. I recommend Absinthe for a cocktail (but don't stop at the drink menu), Contraband for a cappuccino and morning pastry, and a donut from Bob's, especially if you see them pulling the buttermilk variety fresh out of the oil as you're passing by. Even (especially?) if it is past ten o'clock at night, and you know they're going to turn around, dunk it in that maple glaze and hand it to you so hot that you almost have to alternate it between each hand for a couple minutes. I've never really raved about a donut, and generally can pass them by without much regret, but this was worth every sweet bite.



A recent cake I baked turned out so well, I'll surely return to it and do wish there had been enough to share a slice with you. Half of it made its way to a brunch with some ladies who are fast becoming essential friends in my new city, and the other half went to work with me, where it quickly disappeared down to crumbs in the break room.

The base recipe is from Dolce Italiano, a cookbook I was introduced to at my pastry station at Ciao Thyme. I know it will eventually make its way into my personal cookbook collection because every recipe I've made and heard others have made from Gina DePalma's pages is worth sharing and repeating. Her recipe titles alone make my mouth water.

This zucchini cake is moist enough to improve over a day and last up to two or three. The original recipe includes walnuts and a crunchy lemon glaze, but I had my heart set on adding in blueberries. Whole grain spelt flour was hanging around my pantry, so I substituted it in for part of the flour and added toasted coconut. I was excited about the blueberry-coconut combination as well, but my coconut strands were so small and my measurement of half a cup so gentle that it hardly came through. Nothing was lacking without, though; this cake can stand well on its own without any tinkering. (If you want to fancy it up, though, go for that crunchy lemon glaze or a drizzled glaze of salted caramel and sprinkling of pine nuts.)



Zucchini Blueberry Cake
Adapted from Dolce Italiano

1 1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2/3 cup whole-grain spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups grated zucchini (about 2 small zucchini)

1 cup small wild blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter and flour a 10-cup capacity bundt pan.

Combine both of the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices into a medium bowl, whisk, and set aside.

In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs and sugar until well combined, about two minutes. Slowly add olive oil while mixer is on medium speed. Keep mixing until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, then beat in the vanilla extract. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Beat in the dry ingredients all at once on low speed until they are thoroughly combined, then switch to medium speed and mix for 30 seconds. Mix in the zucchini on low speed until just incorporated. Thoroughly incorporate zucchini in this final step by folding in blueberries and giving it all a final gentle stir.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan, smoothing the top with a spatula. Bake the cakes for 40 to 45 minutes or until a tester inserted in the cakes comes out clean and the cakes have begun to pull away from the sides of the pans.

After 10-15 minutes of rest on a cooling rack, poke down along the edges of the pan and the inner tube with a butter knife, invert, and de-pan.

Elsewhere: Meringue Espresso Cake

In the midst of my new pastry chef position, the luxury of blogging in this space has slipped away. I'll spontaneously return until I find a consistent rhythm, but that has not happened yet. In the meantime, please do visit Speaking in Food where you can find a recently composed post of mine plus the beautiful pictures and inspiring recipes of some of my dear friends.

Simplified Summer Notations

When life gets busy this blog gets quiet, and while that's exactly the opposite of how I like things to go, it happens.

Somehow my camera activity quieted down this summer, too. It was a fun whirlwind, though, so I just spent some time going through my humble selection of shots from the summer to share with you.

I hope you enjoy the still images captured in often activity-filled moments. That's what I just love about photography. I can be blinking my eyes awake as I walk through the living room in the morning and see the light fall just right across a chair. It will cause me to stop and admire and crop in close before rushing into a day. It's the same thing with a dinner eaten alone on a wide white table. The prettiness of simple, seemingly mundane things.

I don't know how I'd make it through life's busyness without these mentally recorded or shutter-captured notations, and my soul gets extra hungry when I go too long without stopping for them.



In May my sister and I traveled down to Oregon to spend time with good friends, and spent time in the gorgeous wine country.



I finally made it to Honore in Ballard one Sunday morning in June. The next day I was ready to go back.



Friends and I began a book club with the book The Help, so I made my first caramel cake based on this recipe I've been wanting to try for years.



A trip to Texas happily coincided with getting to celebrate a dear friend's birthday there together. We took a well air-conditioned drive from Dallas to San Antonio and stopped at FoodHeads in Austin for a perfect birthday lunch.



July in San Antonio, Texas, was oh so hot but oh so worth it, with the priceless celebration of the marriage of two college friends.



I ended my season of working at our local artisan cheese shop, and this was the last bunch of flowers I got from the shop's neighbor and friend...a surplus bouquet from a Steven Moore wedding. I remember the secretly enjoyed pleasure of quietly walking through Fairhaven that Sunday evening with my treasures: a baguette under one arm and these with a bunch of pink peonies cradled in another.



A favorite recipe from the summer, but one that I'm not sure how to replicate: cornmeal, coconut milk, plum cake. I'll give it another shot and share the recipe if I'm happy with it.



These little legs belong to a nephew of mine. He and his not-much-bigger brother and parents visited Washington and brightened our days throughout their time here.



My little sister (and one of my best friends) turned another year older, so I made her a gluten-free crepe cake.



September brought the annual Greek festival hosted practically in our front yard, which meant four days of white tent peaks filling the view out our windows and music, gyros, and friends flowing in and out of our house.

[The photo at the top is of the front of our house with our rhododendrons in vibrant bloom.]

Memories [Old and New]

Life has circled back around, and it is March. I am stirring two separate bowls of thick batter, one of which is creamy white and the other bright green and bitter. Tulip bouquets are now available outside the co-op, and I have a pitcher-full in the living room. Four years ago so many things were different, but two things are the same: I am in the kitchen making Matcha and White Chocolate Cake; there are tulips in reach, and I swear they are lifting their chins for the nearest camera lens.



I have made this marbled cake to share before, and upon request I am layering a bit of green and a bit of white and swirling a fork throughout. A certain friend is coming to town, and if she asked, I would make her five batches of puff pastry, a Bûche de Noël (with meringue mushrooms, even), or Boeuf Bourguignon - she's that sort of friend. But all she wants is Matcha and White Chocolate Cake.

I delivered a slice of this cake on a plain napkin to her journalism department when we were students focusing on papers, dreaming of more sleep, and scheming up future plans. The latter hasn't ceased, and it never should. But now we gather and savor this precious opportunity for catch-up as we talk about our day-to-day professions, friends who are married or soon will be, and what life looks like in opposite areas of the country.

Three of us gather, the third being an integral part of this reunion, and completing a trio of girls getting a trio of days to laugh, to draw serious, and to savor the pre-spring feel all about Puget Sound.





We scoot close on beached logs lining a pebbled shore. We brave wind and persevere despite chilled fingers to nibble wheat berries mixed into a salad of greens, sweet potatoes, and walnuts, with an orange-shallot vinaigrette.







We break apart the homemade loaf, view foreign shores, and pose with a whimsical bottle opener.





We ferry to Bainbridge Island. The pace is slow; the sun appears and disappears; there is wine to be sipped, and as the Seattle skyline draws close again, it is agreed that dinner at Delancey will be the right end to the night.








Morning comes with a few last stops squeezed in before a dear friend's plane departs: chocolate samples before noon; decadent cupcakes boxed for carry-on back to Texas; hopeful spring blossoms; a visit to the Fremont Troll and his bridge.

So we return to this memorable marbled cake. Its flavors are simple and yet exotic, and each slice reveals a different pattern of gorgeous color. I really don't know why I let four years go by without making it again. I followed the same recipe practically to the letter, so I will simply refer you back to the beautiful blog La Tartine Gourmande by Béa. My original post is here.

Brazen Proclamations: The Best Damn Meyer Lemon Cake

Sometimes the name of a recipe can make all the difference in its appeal. Beyond just listing tasty components like chocolate, cardamom, anchovies, lavender, or fresh fennel (preferably not all together), I am likely to dog-ear a recipe if its name includes something like "The Cake That Got Me Fired" or "The Winning-Hearts-and-Minds Cake".



Around the time that I discovered Saveur magazine (thanks to my culinary-savvy uncle), I stumbled across the recipe on its website for "The Best Damn Meyer Lemon Cake." Such a brazen proclamation caught my full attention and has held it for at least two years.

Finally, I got around to making the recipe last week when I decided to veer off my grocery list (a frequent occurrence, actually). Too evocative of the coming spring season to pass by, I scooped up six meyer lemons and have been squeezing them into pasta and zesting them into vinaigrettes, but not before I set aside three for this set purpose.

Even though my experience in lemon cakes is limited, my results from this cake recipe were indeed damn good. The crumb was tight and moist. The taste was pure and gentle with fresh lemony tang around the golden crusted edges. I probably could have achieved more lemon flavor throughout but did not want to purchase lemon extract, since it is so rarely called for in recipes I encounter. Zesting an extra lemon ensured sufficient flavor, and I would use the same method all over again.



The Best Damn Meyer Lemon Cake
Adapted from Saveur

Serves 8-10

I did not use the pan the original recipe specified (a light-colored metal loaf versus a dark one). Because of this, my cake did brown to a degree, but in no way that altered its taste. I simply needed to slip foil over it about twenty minutes into the baking process. Also worth noting before getting started, this cake improves with some sitting time, so try to bake it well enough ahead of serving. I allowed twelve hours from baking to slicing, but twenty-four is recommended.

8 Tbsp. melted butter, plus more for pan
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. fine salt
2 eggs, at room temp
1/2 cup whole milk, at room temp
1/2 cup almond meal
Zest of 3 meyer lemons
Juice of 2 meyer lemons

Heat oven to 350°. Butter a loaf pan measuring 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" x 2 3/4" and, for extra security, you may tuck in a square of parchment paper to line the long sides for easy removal.

Melt butter and allow it to cool slightly as you sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Combine butter and 1 cup of sugar in the large bowl of a standing mixer (or large bowl with electric hand beaters within reach). Mix until well combined, about 1 minute. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating just long enough to incorporate.

Next, alternate additions of the flour mixture and milk: on low speed, add a third of each batch at a time, beginning and ending with the flour.

Using a broad spatula, scrape down sides of bowl and gently fold in the lemon zest and almond meal to complete a sunshiny yellow fluid batter. Turn it into the prepared loaf pan and bake for approximately 60 minutes. (Depending on the tint of your pan, it may start to brown around 20 minutes. If so, cover with foil). Once a toothpick comes out of the center clean, remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack.

In the last ten minutes of baking your cake, prepare the glaze: in a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the remaining 1/3 cup of sugar and the lemon juice. Stir frequently until dissolved but not boiling.

As soon as the cake is out of the oven, and while the glaze is still hot, begin to brush it over the slopping surface of the cake. Patiently brush layer over layer until all the liquid has been absorbed. At this point, turn the cake out of its pan and allow it to cool upright on the cooling rack. When it has reached room temperature (or close to), wrap well in plastic wrap and let it stand at room temperature for at least 12 hours.

But a World in You: Norwegian Apple Cake

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.
- Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth

Today I walked along the beach with Rangitoto to my left. Glittering water beneath a summer sun spread wide between islands and shorelines. And as my heels sunk into the sand with each wave that washed away my footing, I thought about all the salty ocean water that has romanced me.



Hawaiian waves were the first, faced in the safe grasp of my father or mother when my legs were still too wobbly and chunky, but even long after my baby fat was shed, my family would make our returns to Hawaii. Dad and I would slip out the back door together and cross the field to soft white sand and cool water for our early morning swim.

Years later I met the turquoise blue waters of the Mediterranean as they lapped against the stone wall on which I sat with an I "heart" Naxos sticker in my purse. Friends and I shared moments of awe and wonder from high on a ferry deck as we journeyed back to Athens, dark blue starry sky closing in on an orange sun that slipped beyond the horizon. Hundred Islands in the Philippines; Pacific waves that crash with Costa Rican flair; late night Mexican sand lit by beach fires and glowing cigars. Beaches along the Santa Barbara coast that acquired terms of endearment such as "good ol'" and "dear" refreshed my body and spirit, whether alone or bonding with new friends. There's homey Puget Sound, and there's the orange-lily-speckled Ibaraki coastline too.

I carry these images and memories in my heart, which tugs no less for the people with whom I shared each season than for the individual shorelines. Pebbles, shattered shells, black sand, and speckled white: I find pleasure in each circumstance and value in each face.

This little world living inside me, this world that Buechner speaks of, is indeed strongly comprised of people and places but it would not be complete without tastes. The taste of Norway on Christmas morning, India through friends' curries scooped up in wet orange fingers, Washington experienced in the sweetest of summer's berries and fall's apples.

And it's not all about geographical locations. It's about smelling coffee in the kitchen in the morning and thinking of my dad's espresso machine, eating leftover pear clafoutis with plain yogurt for breakfast and knowing my mother would have made extra for the exact same purpose, and it's about sitting down to a dinner without any vegetables in sight and wondering where the rest of the meal is. It's a marvel how much these stomach habits influence the psyche. Their disruption can depress, and their presence can comfort, restore, and inspire.

So it was that I was inspired in the making of this Norwegian Apple Cake. I was comforted in the process of halving crisp apples and turning their exposed pale faces down on the cutting board to be diced and swept into a pile on the side. I was restored in biting into something light and sweet and simple tasting that my own hands had made.

You see, I rarely spend time in the kitchen these days. And with that I have to say I miss it. I miss meal-planning and grocery shopping and knowing exactly what's going into my body. I miss the art and therapy and practicality of it all. But, in turn, I'm so grateful for the hospitality available to me in this season and will feel forever blessed by those who have opened their homes so freely to me.

Thus we return to the cake. (Sorry, this is what happens when I go too long without visiting this blog -- my fingers run away with me.) Mainly, what I'm wanting to say is that this cake was lovely. It puffed up airily in the oven and then settled into itself for a thin eggy inside and lightly crunchy top. The apples are the structure of the cake because the batter is thick and minimal in ratio, but if you use the back of a spatula it will spread out well enough in the bottom of your pan and all come together in the heat of the oven.





My accompaniment to this cake was a barely sweetened cardamom whipped cream. I wanted to emphasis the Nordic origin of the cake since it was being served at an international dinner and knew the warming presence of cardamom (so reminiscent of my grandmother's Christmas cookies) would pair well with apple. I got generous compliments on both and will be making this cake again. It's just the sort of thing that can cross over into breakfast the next day, like a proper fruit-filled crisp (or the aforementioned clafoutis).

I found the recipe on a brilliant food blog called Everybody Likes Sandwiches, which features a promising looking coconut bread recipe in the same post. And I must include the blog she got the original recipe for Norwegian Apple Cake from, as it is equally brilliant and lovely: Bunny Pie.

Recipe link: Norwegian Apple Cake.

Three Lemons Make a Loaf

While this blog has diffused over the last several months into less and less of a food-centric blog, that has not necessarily meant that my activity in the kitchen has ceased. I'd never allow that to happen. But it certainly has declined.

Having just counted up the weeks since I arrived here in New Zealand (Eight! It's been eight weeks! I've been telling everyone five.) and then tacking on the ten days of road-tripping prior to our departure, I haven't been in a familiar kitchen since August 30th.

No wonder I was starting to get antsy for the browning of onions, drizzling of olive oil, creaming of butter and sugar, and the habit of a watchful eye on the oven.

I've made a few cakes for events and put together individual lunches but only enough to count on my fingers, and that's more than slightly out of the ordinary. My old ordinary anyway. Being in a home-stay situation for three months means that I'm getting to experience the hospitality of initial strangers, and I am so thankful for having been invited into family rituals such as the sharing of food. At times sitting down to a communal meal is far more important (and delicious) than having put together my favorite salad or soup.



While at a friend's last week, I noticed her two lemon trees full of large sunny yellow fruit. As I made my selection from the tree branches, I couldn't help smelling the sweet skin of each beautiful citrus. There's no comparing these and the thin-skinned ones at the supermarket.

I decided to modify a favorite recipe for these lemons. I had noted the suggestion of substituting lemons when I first read the recipe but always stuck with oranges, sometimes the Cara Cara variety. Making the switch to lemons proved entirely worthwhile. I held off on the suggested glaze until tasting the loaf (yes, I used a long, skinny loaf pan lined with baking paper instead), and I was glad to discover that the additional sugar wasn't necessary.

Everyone seemed to love this loaf and commented on its moistness. I love the visible bits of rind in each slice from coarsely mincing the boiled lemons. Bonus: it is gluten-free and dairy (not egg) free with very little fat.



If you're making it for an event, just be sure to give the cake/loaf a day for the flavors to brighten. If there's no particular occasion, do your best to practice self-control and save at least half for the next couple days. The taste will only improve.

Photos of my previous versions are here and here.
Recipe found here.

Friends and Chocolate

It is a widely known fact that I did not move back to Abilene two years ago for the scenery. It wasn't the art department that wooed me either. It was a certain few relationships that I just had a hunch needed more time and investment because they were worth at least that.

Tonight, standing and then eventually sitting around the kitchen of this house that has brought four somewhat random girls together, I loved the reminder that there are relationships I'm taking with me that I could have never predicted.





For a simple belated birthday celebration for one of my house mates, I made these cupcakes tonight. My other house mate and I surprised the birthday girl with a single candle stuck in the middle of one and a rather sloppily harmonized rendition of "Happy Birthday".

The recipe was excellent, and it was a lot of fun to do some baking and shoot photos at a leisurely pace along the way as I haven't been able to do that for a while. However, I will comment that if you decide to go the cupcake route with this recipe, definitely use muffin tin liners. The cake's crumb is wonderfully tender and moist but makes for some rough looking cupcake bottoms without them. Also, it called for a hefty amount of baking soda, and I'm a bit skeptical that the full amount is necessary. I feel like it contributed a slightly tinny flavor, though my friends didn't notice.

Oh, and disregard my runny ganache. I simply didn't have heavy whipping cream, so I subbed half & half and barely had time to bring it to room temperature before using. The flavor worked out just fine, though the presentation was less impressive than PaperSeed's.

Go on over to her blog if you're interested in the recipe:
Chocolate Buttermilk Layer Cake

Starter and Chocolate

Light and fluffy and subtly spiced, this chocolate cake was a perfect alternate recipe for my sourdough starter that needed some feeding and nurturing last week.



The sun had gone down by the time I inverted it out of its pan, so I don't have a shot of the chocolate ganache I poured on top. It was a gorgeous cake, though, if I do say so myself. Rather, the oohs and aahs of friends said it better.

My main comment would be that I was expecting some sort of sour-ish flavor underlying everything in the batter, and it wasn't there. Maybe that's a good thing, but I was curious what it would taste like nonetheless. If the idea of sourdough in your chocolate dessert sounds unappealing, then you'll still enjoy this recipe, because its taste or smell are not present at all. Just a nice lively fluff.

The lovely Molly posted this recipe a while back:
Sourdough Chocolate Cake

A Good Cake Indeed

Yesterday I mentioned that I baked a cake, and I feel that I simply must bring it up again.



From the moment my eyes finished grazing the ingredient list, I knew I'd like it. So it only seemed appropriate to spend some time on Sunday afternoon baking a cake with my roommate, who is very eager to learn how to bake and has elected me as her know-it-all resource (eek!).

One of my favorite cakes has an almond flour base, so I knew Nigel Slater was on to something when he added pistachios and rosewater to his cake.

I know you might not all agree when you hear the word "rose water" (ahem, Mom, I'm thinking of you) because roses and lavender and such are supposed to be smelled and not digested, but I have been enjoying every drop of my bottle of rose water. And that's the key. Just a drop or a splash can add a sweet undertone to a dish. It reminds me of English tea gardens and baklava and lassi and corners of the world I'm wishing to see.

While I'm getting all dreamy, let me tell you about a dreamy book I've been thumbing through lately. It's Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries, and it earns its "dreaminess" through each turn of the sturdy warmly cream-colored pages. Photographs are smoothly printed in a matte finish throughout the book, and they include plenty of shots of Nigel's equally dreamy garden. The layout and font choices are clean and simple, which matches his casual and inviting writing style perfectly. Not to mention the recipes.



Oh, the recipes. Some of them, frankly, I don't think I'll ever attempt (no thanks, oxtail) but I've also been surprised to find myself drawn to a radish, mint, and feta salad (I'm still learning to appreciate radishes). And then there is a countless number of winners. From simple salads to pastas to trifles that make my mouth water, I'm reluctant to hand this book back over to my local library.

But let's not forget about that cake.



Rose and Pistachio Cake
Adapted from Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries

Serves 12.

Cake:
1/2 lb. (2 sticks) and 2 tablespoons butter
1 cup sugar (fair trade, please)
3 large eggs
2/3 cup shelled pistachios
2/3 cup ground almonds
2 small lemons
1/3 cup white grape juice
1-1/4 teaspoons rose water
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Icing:
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice (can be squeezed from lemons above)

Preheat oven to 325°F. Line the bottom of a non-stick 9-inch cake pan with parchment paper.

Prepare by grinding your pistachios into fine crumbs in a food processor (or in small qualities in a coffee grinder, as I did), and zest and squeeze your lemons dry.

Now, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating between each addition. Add almonds, pistachios, butter, and sugar to bowl and mix. Set aside 2 tablespoons of lemon juice for icing and add remaining amount along with white grape juice and rosewater to mixture. Lately, fold in flour with a large spoon or spatula.

Scoop mixture into the lined baking pan and bake for 45-50 minutes, covering lightly with foil for the last ten minutes.

Check cake by inserting skewer into center. If it comes out fairly clean, then take out and let it cool completely in the pan. Run a knife around the edge and turn it out.

For icing, sift sugar into lemon juice and mix together with a fork until smooth. Pour over cake and leave for half an hour to set.

Compromising

I am telling you, I would be such a better student if my homework could be done in a kitchen. I tend to spend my spare hours in that room.

Maybe that's how food photography became a hobby of mine. Surely, making food is an art in itself, but the opportunity to satisfy a guilty conscience by also turning my energy toward photographic exploration has proved to be a good compromise.

Today this compromise worked out quite nicely. As I baked a cake with my roommate and persevered in the dream of a perfected pâte brisée, I took some shots from a new perspective. It reminds me of a shy little peek or an abstract promise (i.e. there is more to come, and it seems to be beautiful; the-whole-picture-just-doesn't-get-to-be-revealed-yet sort of thing).







What do you think?