Archives for the 'Baking' Category
Busting Out with Bustrengo
September 3 is the festal day of Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, founded in 301 by one Marinus, erstwhile stonemason, future saint, but at the time, just an eligible bachelor on the run, seeking to be left the heck alone:
According to legend, Marinus died in the Winter of 366, and his last words were: “Relinquo vos liberos ab utroque homine.” (”I leave you free from both men”). This somewhat mysterious phrase is most likely to refer to the two “men” from whose oppressive power Saint Marinus had decided to separate himself, becoming a hermit on Mount Titano: respectively the Emperor and the Pope. This affirmation of freedom from both the State and the Church, however legendary, has always been the inspiration of the tiny republic.
I felt inspired myself, inspired to make something Sammarinese as a tribute to this sensible, freedom-seeking individual. Being of a one track mind, I turned to the dessert options and found a recipe for a cake called Bustrengo. It involves dried figs, and I am biased toward figs.
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Icing on the (I) Quit
Hate your job, but afraid of disappointing your boss? Well, here’s a way you can fix both problems: resign with a cake! You get your message across, but your (perhaps oblivious) boss gets to enjoy a delicious treat. Neil Barrett, a former employee of Hunters point Naval Shipyard gave his two weeks notice the other day, written out on a sheet cake for all to enjoy as he packed up his desk and left.
Dear Mr. Bowers,
During the past three years, my tenure at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard has been nothing short of pure excitement, joy and whim.
However, I have decided to spend more time with my family and attend to health issues that have recently arisen. I am proud to have been part of such an outstanding team and I wish this organization only the finest in future endeavors.
Please accept this cake as notification that I am leaving my position with NWT on March 27.
Sincerely,
W. Neil berrett
Talk about a sweet surrender! Although, in this economy, I don’t know how sweet it is to be unemployed. . .
Mmmm….Doughnuts….
In England, Shrove Tuesday is the day to eat pancakes. (Unless you’re Anglo-Catholic apparently. The local parish is having crepes, not pancakes. Sounds very Catholic and not so Anglo to me.) On the Continent, Fastnacht, Mardi Gras, Carnevale, etc. is the day to eat fried dough. Who, I ask you, has chosen the better part?
I plump (literally I fear) for the Continent and started off the day frying up Krapfen, Shenkli, and “Naked Ladies with Their Legs Crossed“. I remain skeptical of the fried cookie (the Shenkli were not that great), but the Naked Ladies are–as I guess one should expect naked ladies to be–winners.
C is for Cookie (And that’s good enough for me.)
ontent,
but still somewhat weighed down from the Thanksgiving repast, I awoke on Saturday to find the C season is upon us. No, not the Christmas season (As a liturgical fundamentalist, I don’t acknowledge Christmas as a season until the 24th of December.), but the cookie season, a season that provides its own challenges, wonders, sorrows, splendors, joys, and expenditures of cash.
The cookie season leads to somewhat deranged behaviors in my household, such as stockpiling butter, cornering the flour market, and having two cookie doughs mixed and chilling in the refrigerator by 7 AM, and all this happened just by day 2 of the season.
My sources for cookie recipes are probably like yours. Confronted with possibly an infinite number of cookie recipes (I intend to apply for yet another NAS grant to investigate this phenomenon.), I turn first to the familial Ur texts: the Christmas cookie sections of the 1975 and 1976 (or is it 1976 and 1977?) editions of The Ladies Home Journal.
Are these the definitive Christmas cookie recipes for all time? Certainly not. And some of the recipes are not even that good (Remember: Those who promise you that one cookie dough can be made into 8 distinctly different and delicious cookies are one step away from also selling you a mortgage on a house you can’t afford in “easy payments”.) But they are the cookies of my youth.
So while Ann Margaret croons forever in her “luscious” peach pants suit, Kay reveals and revels in the details about her affair with Dwight, and Virginia Slims assures me–in an over familiar tone–I’ve come a long way, I bake benne wafers
Ingredients:
• 1 cup sesame seeds
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Preparation:
Place the sesame seeds in a frying pan and toast until lightly browned. In a large mixing bowl cream the butter, the brown sugar, and egg until fluffy. Add the vanilla extract, flour, salt, baking powder and toasted sesame seeds. Mix together until blended.
Drop dough by half-teaspoonfuls onto a lightly greased (or parchment covered) baking sheet, leaving about 1 1/2 inches between cookies. Bake benne wafers in preheated 375° oven for 8 to 10 minutes, or until lightly browned. (Personally I think 6-8 minutes is nearer the mark once the oven gets going.) Let cookies cool for about 2 minutes on baking sheets; remove from baking sheets to a wire rack to cool completely. Store cooled sesame seed cookies in an airtight container.
Pie #2: Chocolate Chess Pie or Thursday’s Sin
Yes, I know. It’s Saturday, and I baked the pie on Friday. But the pie is Thursday’s Sin, a Blue Ribbon Winner in Historic Lexington Cooks. Even on Friday, it was a hit at the office.
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1/2 c. butter
2 (1 oz.) squares unsweetened chocolate 2 eggs 1 1/4 c. sugar 1/4 c. milk 1 tsp. vanilla extract 1 unbaked 9″ pastry shell Melt chocolate and butter; set aside to cool.Beat eggs well. Add sugar and beat until light. Add chocolate mixture, milk, and vanilla and beat well. Pour chocolate mixture into pastry shell. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until set. Let cool completely. Yield: 1 (9″) pie.
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Respect for Crust
My friend Julie tells a heart-warming story about her grandmother teaching her and a friend how to make the famous familial pie crust recipe. They were in high school at the time, and Julie’s friend was a sweet, shy, people pleaser sort of girl.
Grandmother instructs girls on how to make the crust, starting with the cutting of fat into the flour. Girls start cutting away. Grandmother observes Julie’s technique for a while and then turns to Julie’s friend. Next thing Julie hears is her Grandmother’s piercing shriek.
“You’ve ruined it! You’ve ruined the pie crust! No one will be able to eat that! We’ll have to throw it out! I told you to cut it to the size of peas! That’s like (a horrified pause) CORNMEAL!”
Whilst fuming, Grandmother heaves mixture into the trash. Pale and wan, friend recuses herself from the scene and flees for haven in Julie’s bedroom. Julie leaves kitchen to run emotional triage on friend. And that was the end of the lesson.
It’s the sort of story where the heart bleeds for both sides really. I feel for the tender teenager (who I fear may have developed a life-long aversion to pie), but I confess I tip my hat to Julie’s Grandmother. I like her crust. Horrors are being perpetuated under the name of crust, and it is time to take a stand.
I lay my crusts on the table: Crust is the sine qua non of pie. If you’re not going to go to the “trouble” of providing a decent crust, just bake the filling without a crust. Or go make a cake. Or skip dessert.
Remember, Julie’s grandmother is watching.
Pie #1-Kentucky Apple Pie
Crust:
2/3 cup of lard
2 cups of flour
1/2 tsp. salt
ice water to bind
Cut the lard into the combined flour and salt until it is the size of dried peas. Bind with ice water. Divide into two balls. Roll out one and line the bottom of a 9 in pie plate. Roll out other for top. Reserve.
Filling:
Peel, core, and slice enough tart apples to fill a 9 in pie plate (Unhelpful I know. I think I used about 7 medium apples, possibly 8, when all was said and done, but then I also used a 10 in pie plate. As you can see, precise measurement is not my gig. This may explain issues with cakes.)
Combine apples with
1/4 tsp mace ( I used mace because I could, and because I am out to prove Mario Batali wrong. (My spices and herbs get a lot of turnover, thank you, Mr. Molto.) You could use nutmeg or something else. Never let ingredient lists cramp your style, but remember the story of the strawberry cake.)
1/4 t. cinnamon
2/3 cup of brown sugar (if you use sweeter apples, drop the sugar to 1/2 cup)
2 T. arrowroot. (Again, I used it because I could. I am slightly obsessed with arrowroot. My mother, not having this obsession, would use 3 T. of minute tapioca, which works splendidly.)
a generous jigger of bourbon.
Pour into lined pie plate, top with other crust, crimp edges, and cut vents in top, bake in a 400 F oven for 45 minutes or so (until browned to your liking and bubbling). Remember to cover the edge with foil before baking to prevent burnt edges.
In Praise of Pie
Someday the NAS will see fit to give me a grant to fund my ground-breaking studies on the genetic component of baking, but until then I am just going to have to put it as a truth universally acknowledged that some people have the cake gene, and some people have the pie gene, and it’s the rare mutation that gives a person both.
There, there, calm down. Stop waving around your fingers and spluttering, “Pastry chefs!” As in most things, genetics is not destiny. You can overcome your genotype, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. With much patience, wittering, and the invaluable guidance of the splendidly anal Rose Levy Beranbaum, I can bake a decent, even an above average, cake, but there is no doubt in my mind that I am the possessor of the pie gene. Cake is hard. Pie is simple pleasure.
I know from whom I inherited this gene too. My mother. Now, I know she’s my mother, and I love her, and no one else’s cooking beats that of your mother, but I wish to state truthfully, without bias or reservation, that my mother makes some of the best dang pies I’ve ever eaten.
And I’ve eaten a lot of pies. I am the Diogenes of pie. I am looking for a honest pie in a deceitful world, and let me tell you, they are hard to find. The things that some people do in the name of pie make my knotted and combined locks do the fretful porpentine dance.
This is a great pity, because pie isn’t hard to make, and good pie is a national treasure. Oh I know other countries have pie, and some are even quite good, but the American pie is its own category of wonderfulness, and as we lead up to one of the most American of holidays, it seems only right that we celebrate the American pie.
Let the pie blogging begin!
