hedge your bait

In an old Pillsbury Bake-Off cookbook that my mom has, of early 70's vintage, there is a recipe for Blueberry Boy Bait.  It's a very buttery and sweet, cinnamon-sugar-dusted one-bowl cake, but it almost doesn't matter what it tastes like, right?  The name does all the work.  We used to make batches and batches of it.  As near as I can recall, no boys were baited.  But it was a tasty cake.

I woke up thinking about Blueberry Boy Bait because someone left the freezer door open yesterday--not the Big Kahuna Freezer, thank goodness, because if that puppy defrosts, you will find me in the nut-house with all the nuts and the squirrels.  The mere notion of such an event gives me grey hairs.  This was just the little bottom-of-the-fridge freezer, where snacks are snatched hourly, and nothing much was lost besides a set of those yogurt & jam popsicles.  But a little bag of blueberries did thaw and then re-freeze, making me think that quickly dispatching them was best for all concerned.

When it came time to mix it all up, I found myself unwilling to use all the sugar called for.  Furthermore, I did not have, at room temperature, all the butter indicated.  Also, there is a cinnamon-resister in my house. I was planning to sub coconut oil for half the butter, and my little peanut brain, already excited by the alliterative "blueberry boy bait" thing crackling across its wires for hours, starting humming the song that any little peanut brain might hum under these circumstances:

and, with a few additional modifications, this was on the table not too long after. 

You could certainly make a case for using all butter if you had it, but the coconut was a nice accent.  I put almond meal in everything, but it is not a deal-breaker here; cornmeal would substitute comfortably, and so would an equivalent amount of regular flour.  If cinnamon has more curb appeal (or availability) than limes in your house, skip the lime zest and make the original topping.

blueberry cake with lime

uncertain, to a degree, of whom it might bait 

1 c whole wheat flour

1 c all purpose flour

1/3 c almond meal or cornmeal, or additional flour

3/4 c sugar

2t baking powder

3/4 t salt

5T butter, softened

5T coconut oil, room-temperature

2 eggs

1 t vanilla

1 cup milk

1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen

3 to 4 T sugar

zest of one lime, finely grated

Preheat the oven to 350 and lightly butter a 9 x 13 baking pan.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in the bowl of a mixer and mix well.  Add the butter, coconut oil, eggs and vanilla and mix on low speed for about half a minute, until lightly combined.  Bump the speed up one notch and slowly add the milk.  When all the milk has been added, and the mixture looks pretty uniform, take the speed up to medium and beat for 2-3 minutes, until the batter is fluffy and light.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread it evenly.  Scatter the berries across the top.  Combine the sugar and zest (or cinnamon), and sprinkle over the berries.

Bake 40-50 minutes, until golden and set.  Try to let it cool a little (it makes slicing it easier), or just make a mess of dishing it out and hasten the cooling process with ice cream.

but wait, there's more!

Are you lurking there in the wings, shy of telling me what it is that you cook that makes you wag your tail with pride and sends your self-esteem rocketing?  Are you shy because you wonder if barnyard animals roam freely around my house, and if you only could be sure that they did, then you would pipe up with your story?

Warm up the pipes!

is there anything here for moi?

Note to the file:  If you have hand-raised a chick in your house, and then introduced her to coop life, she will prefer coop life.  But she will never forget her roots.  Anytime wind or careless residents leave our front door open, this chicken (and only this chicken) wanders in.  There she is, seeing if the children have brought anything home from school for her.

If, on the other hand, you were waiting for a little teasing glimpse of the goodies so coyly offered yesterday with no hint of their identity, then consider this:

Bear in mind, if you are still tempted to lurk and not speak up for yourself, that this is a mere hint.

If, on the third and final hand, it was a recipe for a cake that is a pie that is a cake that stood between you and giving yourself a shout-out, then feast your eyes on that top picture.

A note: the first five times I made this, I neglected to notice that it was supposed to be baked in a tart shell, and consequently I omitted that step.  You can too.  Just use a regular pie pan, not a tart pan with a removable bottom, or your oven will require cleaning.

Another note: the original recipe called for pears, and it is heaven with pears.  With hardly any effort at all, you will create something (especially if you opt to brush on the apricot jam) that looks like it came from the French bakery that used to be on Third Avenue in the lower 70's where my sister used to indulge her weakness for financiers.  I used apricots this time, and it was also heaven with apricots.  I have made it with hazelnuts, pecans and almonds and each time: delish.  Substitute at will.

OK, one more note: this totally rocks as a gluten-free dessert.  So little flour is required for the filling that it matters not one whit what type you use, and the eternal bugaboo of pie crust is gluten, so GF flours lend themselves admirably to the creation of pie crust.  I needed more flour than the recipe called for to make a roll-out-able crust, but otherwise the substitution worked like a charm.  I used a new GF flour mix called Maninis, and was quite impressed.

pear and hazelnut frangipane tart

adapted from Gourmet Entertains, November 2001

1 c hazelnuts, toasted, loose skins rubbed off in a towel

1/2 c sugar, divided

1/4 c flour

6T unsalted butter, softened

2 large eggs, room temperature

1 t vanilla extract

3 firm-ripe Bosc or Anjou pears, or 6 apricots

optional: 1/4 c apricot preserves, heated and strained

 1 recipe pie crust

Preheat oven to 350.

If you are using a crust, roll out the pastry and fit it to a 10" tart shell with a removable base.  Chill it while you do the other steps.

Pulse hazelnuts with 1/4 c sugar until finely ground, then add flour and pulse to combine.

In an electric mixer, beat together the butter and the remaining sugar until pale and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each.  Then beat in extracts.  Reduce speed to low and mix in nut mixture until just blended.

Spread this filling evenly in your chilled tart shell.  Peel, halve and core the pears, then slice lengthwise into 1/4" thick slices, holding slices together to keep pear shape intact.  Arrange these on the filling, fanning them slightly.  If you are using apricots, quarter and pit them, and arrange them on the filling, pressing them lightly down.

Bake until filling is puffed and lightly golden, 30-40 minutes.  Brush the pears only with the apricot preserves.  Cool completely in the pan, then remove sides.

Are you ready to enter the prize sweepstakes?  Go to yesterday's post and leave a comment there!

topsy turvy

I have wanted to tell you about this cake since last week, but I have faced a number of obstacles. One, it's supposed to be a rhubarb cake, and the rhubarb is not up yet. Two, my son had the chicken pox. Three, I myself have been just as sick as a dog. I had a workaround for the first problem, as you can see, but nothing but time could address the other two.

In case you are wondering if I am bandying about that expression--“sick as a dog”-- with no serious foundational understanding to back it up, let me reassure you. This was a week which saw my older daughter, my son, myself and one of our actual dogs in the throes of some illness or another, and though our complaints differ it is the dog whom I feel I most closely resembled at the low point. He had one of those epic nights other dog-owners may be familiar with, the ones titled “Upon Reflection, I Probably Should Not Have Eaten That Thing I Found,” and someone could have made their fortune by setting up a camera to capture the raw comedic power of a person in their sleeping attire learning, at 3 am, that the dog crate will not fit through the sliding door onto the porch, but the dog will--and he will also fit through the porch railing onto the second-floor slanted metal roof, off of which, still making the ‘hooka-hooka’ pre-hurling noise, he will try to jump while you manhandle the crate that is corking the door that separates you from him and the possibility of convincing him that life is full and rich and well worth living.

But I think we may have slid off the topic. (The dog, please note, did not slide off the roof).

Cake! Rhubarb cake! Once the first little croci and daffodils begin poking their heads up here, I start getting excited for rhubarb. As fruity as it may seem, rhubarb is in fact a vegetable, one that is not native to these parts (it originated in China as a potent medicinal) but has been cultivated here since the early 19^th century. It has the distinction of being one of the first local foods to come into season, so I think it deserves its own holiday.

Judging by the nubbin pictured above, we have a few weeks yet to plan the party, but we can do some pre-season warm-up by trying the cake out with something else in its place.

The cake isn’t very hard to master. It is stupendously simple, in fact, and a great cake to have up your sleeve even when your life is right side-up. On its own it is a very tasty layer cake if you bump into a birthday cake emergency, and a tweak here and there will give you, for example, a lemon-poppyseed cake. But like most of us, its true mettle is revealed when life turns it upside down.

A few notes. Lacking rhubarb, but suddenly rich with lemons, I went with a mixture of those and oranges, but you could substitute apples or pears just as easily. A well-seasoned cast iron skillet is ideal here, as it is ideal in many other applications. Mine is 10” in diameter and suits the quantities perfectly and I think everyone should have one, so much do I rely on it.

It helps in the magical process of mixing the batter to have the ingredients for the cake at room temperature, or at least not ice-box cold. Finally, I have made this with a gluten-free flour blend and not minded the outcome, so you could consider that, too.

upside down cake

4 T butter (half a stick)

about 6 stalks rhubarb, sliced into 1/2" slices, or enough of some other sliced fruit to cover the interior of your pan

4-5T light brown sugar

1 ½ c flour

¼ c golden flax meal or almond meal (or equivalent amount of flour)

3/4 c sugar

1 ½ t baking powder

½ t baking soda

pinch salt

½ c buttermilk

¼ c milk

1 egg

2t vanilla

1 stick butter, soft

possibly a scrape or two of lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350.

In a cast iron skillet, melt the 4T butter until foamy. Sprinkle the sugar as evenly as possible over the butter and continue to heat a minute or two, until it is mostly melted (not all of it will be). Remove from heat. Sprinkle the rhubarb slices (or arrange the fruit slices) evenly over this mixture--you should have one flat layer covering all of the sugar. Don't stir.

Put all the remaining ingredients in a bowl (a kitchen aid/stand mixer is ideal); first the dry, then the wet. Mix on low speed until everything is combined, then mix at medium high speed until the batter is uniformly fluffy (1-2minutes). Glop the batter over the rhubarb mixture and gently even it out as best you can, trying not to disturb the fruit layer. It is pretty remarkable how messy a job of this you can do and still have it come out OK--it smooths out quite a lot as it bakes. Bake until cake tests done in center (30 min or so). Cool a few minutes in the pan, then loosen sides with a butter knife and using the necessary hot pads and mittens, invert onto a serving plate.

piece of cake

I do not have a funny story to tell you. I do not even have a picture. But I do have cake.

My mother made friends with the man in the bakery, where she cannot buy anything because all the nice treats in it are made with wheat flour. It’s a general truth (with certain exceptions, as most general truths will have) that wheat flour is what makes things in a bakery tasty.

The man in the bakery said he knew how to make a cake with no flour that he thought my mother would like. Ha, I said, when I heard this. Treats without wheat flour sometimes taste good, say if you buy these cookies, or sell your car and use the proceeds to buy some of this flour, but generally speaking fluffy yummy cake is well outside the reach of the home cook, especially if that cook is unwilling to get involved with xanthan gum, which the very costly flour does contain.

The bakery man scrawled out a recipe on a piece of yellow paper for my mother, and we made it. I was a little too relaxed about folding in the egg whites, and also the man in the bakery conceded he may have been a little off in the amount of baking powder he had written down. More flavor was called for, too. So the first cake, while nice, was texturally a little off.

That’s all behind us now. All necessary adjustments have been made, and now all of us know how to make a gluten-free cake that has no weird gums in it and does not keep your incisors sanded down thanks to its gritty undertones. It is fluffy cake, bless its soul. You could serve it to anyone, whatever their position on gluten.

We scarfed it down plain, but vision of berries and cream, or heaps of delightful frosting--birthday cake!!--danced in my head. Apologies to egg-not-eaters and potato-avoiders--your day will come.

fluffy cake

4 eggs, at room temperature, separated

1 c unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 c sugar

1 ¼ c potato starch

1 ¼ t baking powder

pinch of salt

1 ½ t vanilla

finely grated zest of two lemons

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 9” cake pan, line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper, and re-butter the parchment. Now dust the pan with a couple of teaspoons of potato starch. Have a baking sheet ready. Make sure the oven rack is in the center of the oven, not too high, not too low.

Cream the butter well with the sugar, until light. Beat the yolks in one at a time, beating well after each, and beat in the zest and vanilla.

Combine the potato starch and baking powder, and add these to the butter mixture.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt to firm peaks. Gently combine about a fourth of the whites with the butter mixture, to lighten it, and then, using a large spatula or balloon whisk, very gently and patiently fold in the remaining whites.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and gently smooth the top. Place the pan on the baking sheet and bake 20 minutes. Reduce the oven heat to 325 degrees, and bake for another 20 minutes. It will look very done before this, but gird up your loins and keep baking.

Let the cake cool on a rack for as long as you can restrain yourself, then invert onto a rack and remove the parchment. Turn right side up onto a plate and have at it.