Toast

Apple Lady Apple Cake

I have a long standing thing for apples. A giant old round fruit crate label with a big green three-apple group portrait, front and center, hangs on my kitchen wall. When I had a garden, I planted two special dwarf rootstock apple trees- a Cox's Orange Pippin, and a Westfield Seek-No-Further. Passing my old place, I always check to see how the trees are doing, before glancing at the house behind. Every year when the Honeycrisp apple season arrives, I go a little crazy acquiring and consuming them in unreasonable numbers. It is fair to say that I'm crazy about apples.

I am also a sucker for all kinds of apple cakes and pies. There are traditional apple cakes on both sides of my family. I didn't get those recipes from the family cooks who served them to me, and they are both long gone now. But I have managed to duplicate both cakes with a reasonable degree of authenticity. They have sentimental value for me, which adds to their simple charm. You can find them here, and here.

There is no better dessert than a classic tart tatin, and a slew of other apple tarts and pies have their way with me from time to time. They all have their individual virtues and lures. And I am always hoping to find a quintessential apple cake.

So, although it is entirely unseasonal, I have taken some time in the midst of strawberry jamming, to try yet another one. The platonic apple cake to which I aspire is not a bakery product, but a humbler, home cooked item. These are my standards: It should be be simple to make; it should taste distinctly and primarily of apples, rather than supplementary flavors; and it should be good to eat the next day. Because I don't want to waste it or to eat it when all flavor and texture has fled.

A lot of otherwise excellent baked goods are, IMO, greatly diminished by sitting overnight. They may look the same, but their soul has flown away, and only a sad carcass remains. I live alone, and am sadly aware that it is best if I do not consume, alone, in one day, entire pies and cakes. Thus, I favor cakes which either stay the same for a bit, or are good stale and toasted- brioche, pound cakes, kugelhopf, and so on.

This recipe is from Patricia Well's Paris Cookbook, and it is very nice indeed. I am not sure if I would call it a cake or a sort of pie, or, perhaps, a flan. She reports having begged it from her produce market apple vendor, hence the name. It is custardy, and tastes pretty good, though a bit different, the next day. I used Golden Delicious apples, because I had some left from a tart tatin. This is an apple which is, IMO, useless for out of hand eating, bland and entirely uncrisp, but which miraculously develops a mellow caramelized sweetness when cooked. I would definitely recommend using only one apple variety , a sort you especially like, as the apple taste is prominent.

It is not quite the apple cake of my dreams, but it is very good, and I will be making it again. This is what you need:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbs. baking powder
1/8 tsp. fine sea salt
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
1/2 cup whole milk
4 baking apples (about 2 lbs. total), cored, peeled and cut into thin wedges (I use golden delicious)

The Topping:
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
3 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted

Serves 8
Equipment: 9-inch springform pan

This is what you do:

Preheat oven to 400°F.
Butter a 9-inch springform pan and set aside

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and sea salt and stir to blend. Add vanilla extract, eggs, oil and milk and stir until well blended. Add the apples and stir to thoroughly coat them with the batter.

Spoon the mixture into thhe prepared cake pan. Place the pan in the center of the oven and bake until fairly firm and golden, about 25 min.

Meanwhile, prepare the topping: In a small bowl, combine the sugar, egg and melted butter and stir to blend. Set it aside.

Remove the cake from the oven and pour the topping mixture over it. Return the cake to the oven and bake until the top is a deep golden brown and the cake feels quite firm when presses with a fingertip, about 10 minutes.

Transfer the cake pan to a rack and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Then run a knife around the sides of the pan, and release and remove the springform side, leaving the cake on the pan base. Serve at room temperature, cut into wedges.

Note from Patricia Wells - "When you make this cake, you will be surprised by the small amount of batter, the quantity of apples. In effect, this is more of a crustless pie, in that the batter is just there to hold the apples together. What I love most about this recipes is that it allows the full flavor of the apple to shine through."

Hungry Tiger Plum Cake

It is nearly September, and local Italian prune plums have begun to appear. It is time to go (plum) crazy eating them and cooking them up. As I do every year, I am making my daughter's plum cake. Repeatedly.

She, who is also known as the redfox, of the hungry tiger, writes an excellent food blog, and she has been around a lot longer than I have, though it seems like a funny thing to say about one's child. She helped me overcome my computer klutziness sufficiently to set up here, taught me the meaning of html, and exhibited remarkable patience throughout.

She is a very good cook, and this is her recipe, which appeared in the hungry tiger back in 2002. You can find it there, and see how simple it is? Pretty and delicious, and just the thing with a cup of tea. Or with your breakfast coffee.

I have deviated slightly, using a vanilla bean, scraped, instead of the extract. This is because I recently went mad, and bought a pound of gorgeous vanilla beans wholesale. About which, more later. Also, I use demarara sugar in the topping, because I am a sucker for a bit of sparkle. I make this cake frequently in the fall. Everyone likes it. There is only one bowl to wash. It keeps well. And that is all I have to say about that, for now. Bring on the plums!

Excuse the mysterious, swirling darkness of the photo. I took it indoors, due to the rain. I have definitely not mastered the non-daylight photo taking. Had I waited until it stopped raining, the cake would have been entirely gone.

Squirrel Hill Past: The Babka Alias

I have turned out to be a remarkably provincial sort of woman. Though I went away to college in the midwest, crave travel, and married someone from Elsewhere, we moved back to Pittsburgh early on. I now live in an apartment only about 8 city blocks from the house where my parents lived when I was born. I am Squirrel Hill, born and bred. Hey, buddy, I got me some terroir. (Sounds cooler than "stick-in-the-mud.")

The Waldorf Bakery of Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh is long gone, and I'm not sure exactly when it disappeared, to widespread cries of dismay. Nor do I remember its beginnings, which I suspect preceded my own. It had always been there, as far as I knew. I believe it fell victim to over confident expansion plans, much like Sodini's Restaurant, which my parents had considered their neighborhood bistro. I know its demise occured before Rosenbloom's Bakery went up in smoke (literally), leaving all of Squirrel Hill wondering where our next real rye bread would come from. Certainly, it was still in business long after the closing of Weinstein's Restaurant- which I viewed as the height of elegance as a child. (Don't get me started.) I'm kind of hoping some Pittsburghers with better memories will stop by and comment, to fill me in on the relative dates of all these food-related goings on. I haven't found a photo of the Waldorf, though the most recent, homely pre-fire face of Rosenbloom's was available online.

The Waldorf was, at one time, a part of a row of shops including Authenreit's (sp?)- a real five and ten cents store- and the original National Record Mart store, where I bought my first 45 rpm record. (Though I lived only 5 blocks away, I had to have an adult come with me- the streets were too busy for me to cross alone. It was Chantilly Lace, by the ill-fated Big Bopper.) Now the row of shops has a Panera, a Bruegger's and a Barnes and Noble.

While the bread at the Waldorf was okay, they were really known for their sweet things, including excellent home-made candy; they had dark chocolate covered orange peel to die for. Many of their cakes were fabled, but my favorite reliable purchase was the chocolate coffee cake. Buttery, flaky, sweet enough for a dessert treat, not too sweet for breakfast with coffee, and you could go crazy with any stale remainder, toasting it, and even, sometimes, buttering that toast. When I was a child-bride of 23, I always bought one if we had company I didn't know well-everyone liked it.

For some time now, I have realized that this coffee cake was, in fact, a babka (greater, rather than lesser); the Waldorf was sort of intentionally (I think) non-ethnic; it certainly had a clientele from all over the city. But then, so did Rosenbloom's, and various other specifically Eastern European and/or Jewish-identified shops. I really don't know why it wasn't labeled a "babka"-perhaps they just thought some people wouldn't know what that was. You just kind of had to see one in the glass case to know you wanted it, anyway.

All this babbling was brought on by Joan Nathan's recent babka article in the NY Times. I do believe that's a permalink for you there. It includes the recipe I used, from one Anne Amernick, which has a filling which besides the chocolate, contains apricot. Instead of pound cake crumbs, I used the cake crumbs I had, from an excellent pannetone (how I do love Costco). It had bits of candied peel, very tiny, and sultanas in it, which I did not remove, feeling that they couldn't hurt in a babka filling. Also, I finely grated a little bittersweet chocolate over it while it was still hot- for pretty, as the Amish supposedly say, and also to advertise the chocolate inside. I think they did that at the Waldorf, but possibly I'm imagining this.

Initially it was my plan to do it in a bundt pan, so as to make it more Waldorf-ian and glamorous. The recipe offers the option of a bundt, or a more mundane, 2 loaf end product. I reluctantly went with the loaves, because Ms. Amernick- or Ms. Nathan-or their "adapter" at the Times- called for a streusel which gets applied before baking, but, according to the recipe after the bread goes into the pan to rise. Re the bundt pan- this is an anomaly, no? I mean, who wants a bundt cake which is larger on top than bottom. And anyway, how the hell could you hope to remove it from the bundt pan without turning it upside down, and dumping the streusel everywhere?*

I am an admirer of Ms. Nathan, and choose to believe this is not her doing. Recipe writing is certainly a demanding craft, and not one that I'm especially good at, myself. So I shouldn't be throwing stones. But I've got to say that Maida Heatter or Dorie Greenspan (goddesses of baking recipes, both) would not leave a person in such a fix. The Waldorf version was bundt shaped, and had streusel on top. I can only assume that either 1) the streusel went into the bundt pan first, or 2) at some point during the baking, the cake came out of the pan, got put on a baking sheet , streusel applied, and finished baking. I did not want to risk all those eggs and butter guessing which one to try.

There is however, much though I hate to admit it, having enjoyed my grousing, a silver lining. I can show you the inside, whilst keeping one whole cake in the freezer to serve to friends in one piece. This has the added virtue of keeping me from eating the whole damn thing myself. Maybe. These are the first photos with my new camera and new computer. Clearly, I am way over-enamoured with the gizmos for changing stuff around and need to spend some time to learn to use this equipment in a non-geeky manner. But in the meantime, it gives you some idea what the loaf looks like, inside and out. As you can see, I didn't roll tight enough- so there are gaps. Tastes very, very nice, especially the second day, but not as good as the Waldorf one, not at all.

Further babka experiments must insue. I am eagerly awaiting the advice of experienced babka-ists, as well as corrections from Pittsburghers who remember the old stuff better than I. Happy New Year, y'all. Pittsburgh is 250 years old this year. For europeans, that is as the blink of an eye. But for us here, a good long time, where the Allegheny and Monongehela meet to form the Ohio River.

*Actually, it turns out that the streusel is pretty well soldered on, but we still have the big on top problem with the bundt.

Cinnamon Squares and Prattle

Making gingerbread, and reading about a beautiful bundt cake and lovely applesauce spice cake produced by The Wednesday Chef and the hungry tiger (a/k/a my own fine child), respectively, got me thinking about the kind of sweet baking that seems to be best done at home. Pastry chefs generally make the best croissants, tarts, and fancy pastries ( with the exception of certain strudel making grandmothers) and bakers make the best crusty breads. It is always fun to try these things at home, but it is also nice to make pies and plain cakes. It is a rare bakery or restaurant that offers as good an American style fruit pie or plain snack cake that is as nice as the one your friend makes, and gives you with a cup of coffee.

It may be that it is the person who comes with the cake that makes the difference to the subjective cake experience, and the friend is certainly a factor, but I think it is more than that. Yes, it's true, I have a theory on this topic, and I'm about to go on at length again. I'm so sorry, but I can't actually help it. There's a recipe at the end, though.

This is what I think, if you can bear it. I think that the proliferation of fast food sweet snacks, of the Little Debbie/ Hostess/Mom's Own Hydrogenated Muffins ilk, made with all sorts of xanathan gums and what have you, which look like cupcakes, cookies, plain cakes, and other things once commonly made at home, have caused upscale bakeries and restaurants to shy away from producing anything which might be mistaken for, say, a twinkie. Every once in a while there will be a fad for something-like the present yuppie cupcake business- trading on some sort of mix of nostalgia and camp, but for the most part, there's that unfortunate association with junkiness.*

And too, a lot of the homestyle treats are best made with minimal handling- piecrust especially. This leads to the appearance of imperfection, which pros and their customers may instinctively avoid when there's a cash register in the picture. Finally, many people have forgotten what a plain cake tastes like when it is not made from a box, and think it's bound to be boring, and not worth actually buying. So no one sells them, what with people thinking they will be just like the Duncan Heinz specials with canned frosting that folks make one another for their birthdays and bring to work these days.

So anyhow, I think that's why you can't buy them, and why it is so nice when someone serves you a delicious simple sweet they made themselves, from ingredients you would recognize if you saw them separately. We all have it in our power to make our important people very happy in this way which they cannot, as a general rule, buy. (Not that I would ever wish to discourage anyone from offering me fancy pastries at anytime. It's just another thing entirely..and bring them on, by all means. Got any french-type macaroons?)

So here's another recipe for a plainish sweet treat from Dorie Greenspan's recent book. It needs no special equipment, and reminds me that for most of the years I've spent hanging around one stove or another, I had no stand mixer, or food processor. A person can make some pretty good cakes with a few bowls and a wooden spoon (or as here, a whisk). This is one.

Adapted slightly, with a different method for the frosting, and because I didn't have instant espresso powder in the house:

1 1/4 cups, plus 2 tbsps sugar
1 Tbsp, plus 2 1/2 tsps sugar
1 1/2 tsps powdered cocoa
1 3/4 cups flour
2 tsps baking powder
pinch salt
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 tsp real vanilla
10 Tbsps unsalted butter (best with plugra or other very nice butter) melted and cooled
3 oz nice bittersweet chocolate, finelt chopped. or chip

for frosting:
6 oz. more of the chocolate-again, best with very nice chocolate
2 1/2 tbsps butter, cut in 4 pieces

Butter and flour a 9" square pan, line the bottom with waxed paper, and preheat your oven to 350F.

Assemble a small, medium, and large bowl, and a sturdy whisk. In the small bowl, mix 2 Tbsps sugar, 2 1/2 tsps cinnamon, and the cocoa.

In the large bowl, mix the flour, salt and baking powder with the rest of the cinnamon and sugar. Whisk well.

In a medium bowl, mix the eggs milk and vanilla. Whisk up well. Pour the liquid ingredients in the medium bowl over the dry ingredients in the large bowl. Mix until homogenous, and pretty smooth, but don't go on whipping it up too much. Now, fold in the melted butter gently, a bit at a time. the whisk works well for this. Again, as soon as the batter is smooth and uniform, stop.

Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan, sprinkle with the chocolate and sugar, cinamon mix, and gently pour the rest of the batter over the top. Spread it evenly with a table knife, being careful not to disturb the center. Bake about 40 minutes, until the cake is puffed, and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Let the cake cool 15 minutes, and remove from pan, peel off waxed paper, and reinvert onto a rack to complete cooling. When completely cool, frost the top only with the frosting described below. When the frosting has set, trim away the browned sides carefully. (These are an excellent cook's snack). Cut into 9 equal squares, like the blocks on a nine-patch quilt. These keep well in a closed container at room temperature for the very few days they may last uneaten.

Frosting: Put the butter and chocolate in a pyrex cup and microwave for 40 seconds. Remove and mix with a spoon until it is all unlumpy and frosting-like. If it seems too liquid, let it sit until spreadable.

*Endless apologies for having a footnote. I attribute this dubious behavior to reading the blog work of one anapestic, whose digressiveness (charming) is pretty much boundless, allowing me to mentally brush off my own as minor league. Just wanted to mention the other side of this issue, which is that to some people, making a cake from scratch at home seems an affected, snobby thing done only by people who think they are Martha Stewart and/or have too much time on their hands, and no real responsibilities. The reason I know this is that I have actually had it said to me by more than one person who has been offered cookies and the like. So if you want to protect yourself from such remarks, it's a good idea not to mention much about where your cake came from, if you don't know the recipient real well. Or only bake for people you are sure you like!

Moosehead Gingerbread

Gingerbread is one of the classic comfort foods of the English-speaking world, and the stuff of nostalgia, real and imagined. There are endless variations, and I've never tried one I'd reject completely. Ruminations by John Thorne on the subject feature a version which actually included, if I'm remembering correctly, beef drippings. There is a lovely Laurie Colwin essay with two very nice recipes, one of which uses Lyle's Golden Syrup. Nika Hazelton's American Home Cooking has a serviceable, simple one, and I definitely intend to try the Chocolate Gingerbread in Dorie Greenspan's newest book; it looks gorgeous.

These, of course, are all soft, cake type gingerbreads. The gingerbread for cookie-cutter cookies (and gingerbread houses and the like as well) is a different animal entirely. I have favorite old standby recipes for both types. As to the soft kind, I use Maida Heatter's Moosehead Gingerbread, from her Great Desserts. That's the sort I made for dessert, to warm me up.

Gingerbread does nicely in my earthenware 9" square baking pan. I think that it keeps the outside edges from crisping up. Normally, I'm a sucker for food with crispy bits; I make gratins in very low pans, for maximum top, and love the corners of my jam bars. But I like my gingerbread soft all over, with as little hard, dark edge as possible. Using this sweet little Emile Henry number allows me to get that, without (eech) undercooking the gingerbread. The original recipe didn't call for this kind of pan, and of course you can make it in a regular metal one.

My brown pan is from the Emile Henry Artisan Series, which purports to be a reproduction of their original 19th century ware. Emile Henry stuff, in case you are not familiar with it, is made from some sort of special Burgundian clay, which causes it to be much less sensitive to temperature changes than most pottery. You can put it straight into the oven from the freezer, and even cook in it over a gas burner, with a flame tamer in between, and a careful eye. Unlike the other, more colorful EH lines, the Artisan items resemble el cheapo pottery outlet type bakeware. Perhaps this is why they seems to be often on sale, and hence more affordable. I kind of like the "fool the eye" effect myself, and all the EH things work wonderfully.

Maida Heatter's gingerbread, minimally adapted here, came from an "old time fishing guide in Maine." I can't remember which of the John Thorne books his essay came from, but I think he actually went in search of M. H.'s fishing guide. (Well, he did live in Maine then, but still.) It invariably cracks on top, but I don't mind a bit. To make it you need:

All purpose flour 2 1/2 cups
Baking soda 2 tsps
salt 1/2 tsp
cinnamon 1 tsp
powdered ginger 1 1/2 tsps
ground cloves 1/2 tsp
ground mustard 1/2 tsp
black pepper 1/2 tsp
butter 1/4 lb.
dark brown sugar 1/2 cup
eggs 2
molasses 1 cup
strong hot coffee 1 cup

Preheat oven to 375F.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, mix butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, and mix in one at a time. Now, beat in the molasses.

Sift dry ingredients together and add to the bowl, alternately with the hot coffee, ending with the dry mix. Pour into a 9" square baking pan, which has been buttered and dusted with dry breadcrumbs. Bake about 45 minutes, until done. Cool 10 minutes. Invert on another rack, and then back again, top up. It When fully cooled, cut into 9 squares. Consume, preferably topped with a dollop of whipped cream, or in a bowl with some runny custard poured over.

There's definitely a touch of heat in this gingerbread, what with the mustard and pepper. All to the good IMHO. As to the other kingd of gingerbread, we'll go there one day soon.

The Moosehead Lodge sign comes from the Adirondack Country Store, where they sell these wooden reproduction signs for home decor use.

"Visiting Cake" and a Pantry Visit

I'm sure I have mentioned that I am a huge fan of the supremely reliable and creative Dorie Greenspan, who has a new(ish) book out. It is also not a secret that I have a bit of a problem involving my collection of cookbooks, which is maybe too large to be in a private home-particularly the private home of an Apartment Dweller of Moderate Means. (The reason it is not a secret, is that it is Too Big to Hide.* It is not that I am not suitably embarrassed-I'd hide it if I could. Many a casual visitor- for example, the plumber- has been moved to ask me why I have so many cookbooks.) I'll bet you can guess what I just did.

Yup. After a perfunctory internal debate, I bought Ms. Greenspan's Baking, From My Home To Yours. This looks to be a pretty thorough survey of her approach to home baking, which is my kind of baking, for sure. Although there is a wide range of recipes, for all kinds of great looking stuff, I was drawn first to her selection of simple cakes and small baked goods, which can be turned out easily. I love sweets which are not too sweet, go well with tea and coffee, and have some nuance, flavor-wise. It looks like this book is just full of that sort of thing. Plus, it has a number of my personal favorites, including World Peace Cookies (a/k/a Korovas-best chocolate cookie ever) and her lovely sables.

I thought I'd try this simple cake first. It appeals because of its ease (Ms. Greenspan's Swedish friend said her mother claimed you could start making it when you saw your friends coming down the road, and it would be ready by the time they settled in for coffee), its ingredients, and the fact that I am a sucker for any thing made in a well-seasoned 9" cast iron pan. ( I just like to show mine off, and it's fun to use.)

This is what you need for my only infinitesimally adapted version:

granulated sugar, 1 cup
grated zest of one lemon
2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almong extract
1 cup all purpose flour
8 tbsps melted butter-1/4 lb.
1/4 cup sliced almonds
demarar sugar or sanding sugar

Preheat your oven to 350F and butter a 9" seasoned cast iron skillet, or similarly sized cake pan. In a bowl, mix the lemon zest and sugar with your fingers, distributing well. Mix the eggs in one at a time, preferably with a whisk, until well blended. Add salt and the extracts and the flour, and switch to a rubber spatula or spoon to mix. Fold in the melted butter.

Scrape the batter into your skillet, smooth and sprinkle with the almonds, then some of the demarara or sanding sugar. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until it is golden and looking a bit crispy on the edge. Cool 5 minutes, then loosen the edges and bottom with a knife, or a thin spatula. Serve from the pan. It is moist in the middle-a bit marzipan-ish.

The non-cake pictues that you see are of the pantry of my Not So Tidy Kitchen* , because I told Karen I would. For reasons unclear to me, the walls look white. Actually, they are elephant gray. Maybe you will show your pantry too, for her collection?

*What is it that occasionally compels me to capitalize words in this apparently random fashion, ala Winnie the Pooh's Very Big Surprise? I suspect it has something to do with being embarrassed.

Ragu Redux and Christmas in Red

I grew up, like most Americans, eating a tomato meat sauce on my spaghetti which had no real Italian source, except in the imagination. In my neighborhood, it was sometimes called "Jewish spaghetti". I later learned that the same dish, more or less, was called "Irish spaghetti" in my husband's family.This is a dish which has been so assimilated that it is hard to believe it was ever seen as foreign, even exotic. But it truly was. My English grandmother actually refused to try it, and viewed it with deep suspicion, as recently as the 1950's.

Over the years, I have sometimes followed what I remember of the spaghetti rules of my friend's Italian mother (no oregano, just basil and garlic and bay, and a little sugar if the tomatoes are not so great, canned whole tomatoes, no canned sauce), and have also made numerous variants from Italian cookbooks. A favorite among these was a Neopolitan "kitchen sink" Sunday extravaganza, which contained pork bones, rolled stuffed beef and meatballs. It simmered all day, and made the richest sauce ever.

It is safe to say that on an ordinary day, when I want to make a tomato-based meat sauce for pasta or gnocchi, I generally follow a pattern, but not a recipe. So the sauces are never really exactly the same, and change with season and my mood. I expect you do this too, and at any given moment, you will be making this sort of sauce simultaneously with a gazillion other cooks, most of whom don't have a cookbook open either. I think this is a pleasant thing to contemplate, and somehow calming in the midst of frenzies of one sort or another.

In the summer, I use part fresh ripe tomatoes, and part canned, and I like the complexity of flavor this imparts. Also, fresh basil, because it is there, and a sin to ignore. In the beginning of winter, when I still have some (they go fast), I like to use my home canned organic San Marzanos, from an extra bushel of tomatoes I buy from my CSA farmer. I have also taken to adding a few finely chopped chicken livers, along with the ground beef, as I feel it adds some depth and silkiness to the sauce. It's not my own idea-I got it from an Italian cookbook, I'm fairly sure. Most recently, I tasted a sauce with something extra about it, and got my answer- a teensy scraping of fresh nutmeg. I'm putting it in my winter sauce these days.

Here are a couple of ways I have cheated, without too much damage, when I was missing something, and too lazy to run out shopping:

1. This one sounds the worst: Substitued a glop of ketchup for tomato paste. (True Confessions stuff here)
2. Thick sliced peppered bacon for pancetta
3. No wine...extra chicken broth and a dollop of red wine vinegar
4. chopped fennel for celery (I now prefer this option)
5. low on meat- minced portabellas and/or a handfull of chopped dried shitakes

The one thing (besides tomatoes and meat) that is completely indispensible as far as I am concerned, is garlic. Ain't no substitute.It would be my guess that no one who is motivated enough to bother reading a food blog needs to be told how to make a tomato meat sauce for pasta, and that is a nice thought, as far as I'm concerned. And everyone's is just a little different. Tasting the sauce, you can tell when you are home.

In case there is anyone who doesn't know the fundamentals, these are: In a big pot, heat some oil and cook a little bit of pancetta if you like, then add some chopped onion and any other little chopped veg you like, and cook until soft. Crumble in the ground meat of your choice, and brown it. Add the seasonings you like, especially garlic, salt and pepper,a bit of red pepper, but also basil, and parsley and some nutmeg or marjoram and a bay leaf.

Add a whole bunch of very good fresh or canned chopped peeled tomatoes and their juices, mooshed up a bit and some red wine and tomato paste, and cook the whole thing at a low burble for a long time, but at least until it turns a noticeably different sort of color, which seems to happen more or less all at once, after awhile. Add more liquid if it gets too thick in the meantime. You will know the turning color business the first time you see it happen, right ? It's quite obvious- not subtle or difficult to detect. If you were making a summery, fresh tomato sauce, you'd stop well before it happened; it's a depth and richness thing, and the brightness of fresh tomatoes doesn't survive it.

Anyhow, I made some tomato sauce because I've got a friend coming for our annual celebratory pre-Christmas dinner , and we are having spaghetti and presents. I saw a fancy all red holiday dinner in Gourmet Magazine. This is not it. But I liked the idea, and when I saw Julie's cranberry upside down cake at Kitchenography, I had to have it. If you look there you will find not only the recipe, but a picture of what the cake actually looks like. (Mine has a hole in the center, though..I had to use the ring shaped springform, because I haven't picked my other one up yet. Last I saw it, there was still some banana cake in it, so I didn't take it home). This is such a pretty cake. I roasted my last remaining farmbox beets, and made a salad with beets, roasted walnuts, and feta. It's a red Christmas here, complete with some red Christmas crackers.

I'm off to Cleveland for Christmas with the offspring. Be back soon.

Bananarama

At the Kennywood Amusement Park, when I was a whippersnapper loving the rollercoasters and fearing the Ferris Wheel, there was a lot of food of the sort that appeals primarily to the young and very hungry. Much of it was destined to cause alarming rumblings in tummies that went upside down, and spun all around. There were the usual corndogs, cotton candy, caramel corn mixed with peanuts, and iceballs topped with brilliantly colored chemicals. Among these goodies, some more dubious than others, was one treat that did not promise more than it delivered- chocolate covered frozen bananas.

A lot of the appeal was about the textures- the strangly transformed, exotic frozen banana, surprising against the thick coating of hardened chocolate. But the taste combination was very fine, too. I thought it could make a nice cake...I'm very fond of banana tea breads and so on, and who doesn't like chocolate icing? So I figured I'd try it for a simple, homey cake for my friend's birthday. He's allergic to almonds, and a disconcerting number of my favorite cake recipes rely on them.

The banana cake recipe is adapted from Tish Boyle's The Cake Book, and the frosting is just a plain chocolate buttercream, made with two melted Lindt's Excellence dark chocolate bars, a cup of butter, and 2 cups of confectioner's sugar, beaten into submission. At first I planned to slice the cake into layers, for a more traditional birthday cake look, but it was really moist, and it sunk a bit on top. I was afraid it would fall or crumble, or slide apart, and I'd have to start over. I hate starting over, though I will if something goes too wrong. But I really didn't want to start over today..I was out too late last night, and have been promising myself a nap. So I went with the single layer, coward that I am.

Silver dots? Well, I never could leave well enough alone. I tell myself that I prefer a cake which looks simple and handmade; whether this is because I'm not terribly good at traditional pastry bag type cake decoration, I'm not sure. Quite possibly. I do like to decorate cakes with flowers, colored sanding sugar, and old fashioned stuff like the silver balls, even though the finished product often has an elementary school look. We'll call it "rustic" and "hand-crafted", okay?

I'd say this was a pretty good cake and frosting combo. I think if you cooked it longer, you could probably split it into layers, without too much trouble, it's fairly firm. But really, I wouldn't bother with that. The cake is very moist, and doesn't seem to need a dividing layer of rich icing as a drier, spongier sort might. I'll make it again. And it's got me thinking about future birthday cakes with fruit based batters- maybe a pumpkin layer cake, with a cream cheese frosting?

And here's what you need for the banana cake. Don't forget to toast the walnuts, it's important. ******CAUTION: Don't try this recipe until I sort out the following problem: As kindly noted in the comments I haven't said when to add the oil. Worse yet, I don't remember adding it. I'm not at home and can't consult the cookbook. I have the awful feeling that I may have left it out. Hard to believe,since the cake was very moist. Buti f I did leave it out, well,I'd do it again,since it was so good. Bottomline-I've got to make this cake again to be sure.I'm going todo that-pretty soon,and willcorrect the recipe accordingly when I do. Sorry, so sorry, sorry as can be******

2cups cake flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsps ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp cardamom
3 large ripe bananas, pureed or very well mashed-I used the food processor, as mine could have been riper
11 tbsps unsalted butter-room temp
6 tbsps oil
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted

Preheat oven to 350F, and grease and flour a 9" cake pan, preferably springform, and 3" tall or so. Whisk together dry ingredients and set aside. Mix bananas and sour cream, set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter 30 seconds. Add the sugars and beat until light, about 3 minutes at medium high. Add the eggs, beating in one at a time. Scrape down sides with a rubber spatula. Beat in vanilla. Add the banana mix and the dry ingrdients alternately, dividing each into 3 parts, beating on low until just blended. Stir in nuts by hand, using the rubber spatula. Scrape into pan, and smooth out. Bake about 40 minutes, or until the sides begin to pull away, and the top is set. Cool ten minutes in pan then remove carefully from the pan, and cool until room temperature. Frost with chocolate buttercream, made as described above, or using your own favorite kind. Decorating with weird little silver balls is entirely optional.

When I served this one up at the birthday dinner, I heard tell that chocolate covered bananas are still being sold in various places, including Trader Joe's. Browsing images in Google, I found most of the photos of chocolate covered bananas were, um, well amusing, but...So anyway, here's a look at Trader Joe's chocolate covered banana chips. (Although, on second thought, these have, in their own way, some unfortunate connotations.)

Coconut Layer Cake

Looks ain't everything. Initially inspired by a coconut cake in Nika Hazelton's American Home Cooking, my version has gone through many changes over the years. It is extra good with freshly grated coconut. However, made with a bag of sweetened coconut, or the nice new unsweetened frozen stuff, it is quite a production, (and very good). So if you are not up for attacking a big hairy rock, and peeling and grating your fingers off, then don't do it that way. This will be more than enough fuss without that- and I have set the whole long business out, so don't be holding your breath. The custard filling was, by the way, a later addition. The idea of using the custard to flavor the buttercream came from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle. In its current state, this recipe is a pretty close adaptation of hers.

I have never before made this cake in cold weather-I think of it as a Fourth of July or Labor Day picnic sort of thing. Simultaneously luxurious and plain, it looks the hokey part on a picnic table covered with a checked cloth, surrounded by platters of fried chicken or barbeque, pickles, coleslaw and baked beans, and the like. And I was going to make it this summer, and post a picture, because it is a classic bit of americana. I just didn't get to it. But then, I volunteered to do a birthday cake this Friday night, so here it is. Out of season, in all its trashy yet subtle splendor.

Nothing snooty about this cake. But how can it be tacky, when it is all shades of white? Like the garden of some insanely refined aesthete, it glows quietly in the moonlight. Nonetheless, it has a deceptive look of cake mix and Cool Whip. Its trailer park aura cannot be denied. Serve it with ice cream (dark chocolate is wildly good with it) or with berries, or plain. It will surprise people when they taste it, which is fun. And if you like coconut, you are sure to like it.

Once, I filled the cake and frosted it thinly with a dark chocolate ganache before covering it with the buttercream and coconut. This was good, but gilding the lily really. I love chocolate and coconut together, but this oversized reversed Mounds bar was not my favorite. Better to let the coconut cake speak for itself, and add the chocolate with some ice cream, if you're longing for it. Up to you.

It is made with quite a bit of butter, 6 egg whites, cake flour, vanilla, and a mixture of canned coconut milk and whole milk. The custardy filling has a base of coconut infused milk. It uses up 4 of the remaining egg yolks, and has , like the flavoring syrup, a bit of rum. The icing is a very simple butter cream, with about half a cup of the custard mixed in, and there's plenty of coconut pressed all around. Some might find this a lot of bother for a cake that looks like a 12 year old's first shot at a box of Duncan Hines, but , to repeat myself, looks ain't everything.

I forgot to take a picture of the whole cake, but you can probably tell from the leftover slice, complete with hole from a birthday candle, that it is not especially elegant looking. Made with the two 9" layers divided into 4 thin ones, it would be eligible for display under a glass dome atop the counter of a classic diner. But if you go that route, make half again the recipe for the filling and for the buttercream. I think my two layer one is more the family reunion model. This is what you need for the 2 layer version:

Ingredients for Cake, Filling, and Frosting
Cake flour 3 1/2 cups
baking powder 1 tbsp
salt 1 tsp
Whole milk 2 1/3 cups
canned coconut milk 2/3 cup
Coconut, peeled and grated 2-3 cups
egg yolks 4
egg whites 6
sugar 2 1/2 cups
cornstarch 2 tbsps
rum 3 tbsp
butter 5 sticks (20 oz), softened
powdered sugar 1/2 cup
vanilla 3 tsps

Make the cake

Preheat oven to 350F, and grease and flour two 9" cake pans. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. Mix 2/3 cup whole milk and the canned coconut milk together well, and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat 1 1/2 cups of sugar and two sticks of butter until light colored and smooth. Add the egg whites, one at a time, beating until well combined. Scrape down sides from time to time, with a rubber spatula. Add 2 tsps vanilla. Alternately add the milk and flour mixes, about 1/3 of each at a time, mixing and scraping down until well blended. Divide batter between the 2 pans, and bake on a centre rack until the cake bounces a bit in the middle- about 25 minutes. Cool on rack for 10 minutes, remove from pans, and continue to cool on rack.

While the cake bakes, make a bit of rum syrup and soak some coconut

For the syrup, mix 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar with 2 tbsps rum. Bring to a bowl, mixing sugar til dissolved. Cool.

In a little pan, mix 1 1/2 cups milk and a cup of coconut. Heat until milk is warm, and turn off heat. Let it all sit for an hour. Now your cake should be cooled. Brush the bottom part of each cake layer with plenty of rum syrup.

Make custard

Strain the coconut milk, retaining the milk, and discarding the coconut. (Press hard on the coconut, to get as much milk out as possible.) In a 4 cup pyrex cup, mix the egg yolks and 1/4 cup sugar and the cornstarch until sooth. Keep by the stove. Heat the strained milk until simmering. Quickly mix a little of the hot milk into the egg yolks in the cup, and then pour the yolk/milk mix back into the hot milk. Heat until it begins to thicken up, whisking vigorously. Turn off the heat and continue whisking. Scrape it into the pyrex cup, and whisk some more, until it is cooled to lukewarm, and thick and smooth. Spread half of the cooled custard on one layer of your cake, which you have set on the serving plate. Put narrow strips of parchment all around the bottom of the cake, just tucked under the edge of the cake, to protect the plate from the mess to come. Set second layer on top of first.

Make Icing

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat 3 sticks of butter, the powdered sugar, the last tbsp of rum, remaining custard, a tsp of vanilla and a pinch of salt, until smooth.

Frost the cake

Once the cake is frosted, press generous handsful of coconut into sides of cake, and sprinkle over top. Go crazy, skimpiness will not be rewarded. Clean up the platter, and refrigerate for a couple of hours to set up nicely.

And that's the whole deal. Pretty is as pretty does, or something like that. Please let me know if I have made proof-reading mistakes-I feel I must have, this is so long, and typing it up has made me woozy eyed.

As American As....

Sometimes I envy home cooks who are firmly entrenched in a regional tradition, and make the classic dishes of their cuisine with the confidence normally associated with breathing. While it is a pleasure to investigate new foods and preparations, it is also a (different sort of) pleasure to entirely lose yourself in what you are doing,as if you were on a roll painting, or listening to music or something. And then,too, it is so interesting when individual cooks put their own stamp on some such traditional dish, and discuss the variations among themselves.

Many North American home cooks, as I do, try out and adopt a wide range of dishes with origins beyond our regions, from different culinary traditions. I guess is not surprising, given our "melting pot" population. It has given us a freedom with our food that has only recently been available to cooks elsewhere. There are a few dishes, though, which feel quite uniquely American, and which carry with them the sort of feeling of home that say, a Belgian might associate with moules and frites.

One such delicacy is the BLT. Made with the necessary in-season juicy sub-acid local tomato, crispy bacon, tender lettuce, and a slick of mayo, this is a unequaled flavor and texture extravaganza which, as far as I know, has no precise non-american equivalent. Excluding vegetarians, and folks who keep kosher or traditional Muslim homes, the BLT is pretty much universally beloved. I am eagerly awaiting the first tomatoes of the year, so I can make some.

Another is the pineapple upside-down cake. It is hard to find anyone who dislikes this dessert, which became suddenly popular around the turn of the (20th) century, when canned pineapple began appearing all over the US, for the first time. It has remained a popular classic. The subsequent inexplicable craze for cake mixes and fear of scratch baking does not seemed to have touched this recipe. I don't know anyone who makes this cake with a mix, it's just too simple to bother. Generally, if you are served some, you can be sure it will be pretty good, and will not have weird chemical tastes and textures.

Okay, the PUDC does have something in common with inverted pies and cakes originating elsewhere, but not much. This gooey, fruity, buttery-cake stuff is really nothing like a tart tatin at all. The following version, based on the one in the Gourmet Cookbook, is gussied up with the use of fresh pineapple and (my addition of) homemade maraschinos. It is also made in (overlarge) individual servings, which I think perhaps is not the best idea. I succumbed to the lure of using my sweet mini-tube pans. It's all very cute, but really, this sticky cake is both easier, and better looking, made as one large circle or square. Often, it is made in a cast-iron skillet, which really does the trick, topping-wise.That way, too, you can give people custom-sized portions.

The maraschino cherries are made, quite simply, by soaking good quality dried sweet cherries in maraschino liquor for a couple of weeks. They keep almost indefinitely in the fridge, and are always a delightful surprise anyplace you might expect to see a commercial maraschino plopped. The hardest part of making them is finding the lovely Luxardo Maraschino liquor. Kirsch is really not an adequate substitute. I also dribbled a bit of the cherry-soaking liquor over the top of the upended pineapple. I believe that in one of the Marcella Hazan books, she said that you could make a popular simple Italian dessert, by drizzling maraschino liquor over canned pineapple slices. I think it's nice on the cake, too.

Here's what you need-I don't see why you couldn't make this same recipe in an 8" pan, cooking a bit longer. but I haven't actually tried that with this exact recipe, which makes 6 individual cakes, the size of mini-bundts.

Pineapple Part

unsalted butter, 4 tbsps
dark brown sugar 1/3 cup
6 slices fresh pineapple

Cake

cake flour 1 1/2 cups
baking powder 2 tsps
pinch salt
milk 1/2 cup
vanilla 1 tsp
unsalted butter, softened 6 tbsps
sugar 3/4 cup
egg yolks 2 large
1/4 cup homemade maraschinos and their liquor

Use a nonstick mini cake an or xtra large (i cup ea.) muffin tin. Spray with a bit of light tasting oil spray. Preheat oven to 350F.

Pineapple layer:
Melt butter in a small saucepan or in a microwave. Stir in brown sugar until dissolved. Pour mixture into each min, dividing equally. Fit one pineapple ring in the bottom of each mini pan.

Cake: Mix butter and sugar with electric mixer, until light and creamy. Mix in vanilla. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl with whisk, set aside.

Add yolks to mixer, beat well. Mix dry ingredients and milk alternately, at a low speed, stopping when just mixed. Spoon mixture into minis, dividing equally. Smooth down a bit, and bake 25-30 minutes, or until pufy and pale gold. Cool 15 minutes on rack, then invert onto another rack. If you have mini tube pans like mine, you can fill the holes with your little cherries. If they are smooth topped cakes, push one cherry into the surface, mid-pineapple slice. Drizzle with maraschino liquor, or if you haven't got any, a little rum. Cool completely and serve, with whipped cream if you really want to go to town.