Italian Plum Cake

During any type of orientation, you are guaranteed to be asked: "Please share one unique thing about yourself". In a lunch meeting with a group of students and my academic advisory dean, I said I liked to cook and bake, especially when stressed out.

My dean laughed, saying, "You just made a bunch of new friends".  All week, I thought what to bring in to our next lunch meeting. When I saw the plump little prune plums at the Public Market last Saturday, I knew just what to do.

This has always been a favorite cake of mine, and since it's so seasonal (as far as I know, prune plums are only available in the fall)---it always feels like a rare and delicious treat. The otherwise too-tart plums bake up golden and sweet, perfectly complimented by the vanilla cake below them. The recipe is a hand-me-down from a family friend, one my mom made only once or twice every year....

I brought in the cake to the next meeting of our advisory group, and it sat, awkwardly, in the middle of the table as we discussed topics about the upcoming year. "Does anyone have any other concerns?" my dean asked after a while. When silence ensued, he said, "Well, my concern is how we're going to divide up this cake!"

The cake was as good as I always remember it to be. It is beautiful and delicious, tart and sweet. A friend of mine who claims to have lost his sweet tooth as a teenager ate two whole pieces. It seemed to prompt my advisor's comment: "Maybe you chose the wrong career." While I'm not giving up medical school any time soon, I will continue to bake as much as I possibly can.

Italian Plum Cake

• 1/2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 c sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1 c flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• about 12 prune plums, halved
• 1 tsp cinnamon mixed with about 1/4 c sugar

Preheat oven to 350º. Cream the butter in sugar in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the other dry ingredients. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar, and beat in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the wet one, and combine. 

Pour the batter into a well-greased 9" springform pan (a pie plate works as well--though I'll usually put a circle of parchment paper down before I grease the whole thing). Arrange the prune plums out (skin side down) in concentric circles, not overlapping, on top of the batter. Sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar over the top, and bake for 30-40 minutes.

**These pictures are not from the cake I made for my advisor (there was not even one crumb left from that version), but from a version I made this summer with a slightly different (non-dairy) cake bottom. If you are dairy-free, you can substitute this cake base for another recipe, but the batter I made this summer didn't hold up the plums as well as the version with butter. However, if your cake looks a little different, that's why!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches

Can I stop a moment and wax poetic about chocolate chip cookies? Gooey, salty-sweet, chocolatey melt-in your mouth cookies?  There are a million good recipes, but for me, the original Toll House recipe (the one found on the back of the bag) will always triumph. Maybe it's because they remind me of afternoons baking with family and friends, the scent of them baking emanating throughout the whole house.

On a cold winter afternoon, there is nothing better than a warm chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk. But, with temperatures reaching into the 100s warm cookies are less exciting. But ice cream sandwiches? Yes please!

Make the toll house cookies. Sandwich vanilla ice cream between two cookies, and roll in mini chocolate chips (or nuts). Freeze until ice cream is solid again.

Extra points if you make the ice cream yourself.....

Very-Close-to-Disaster-Cake, and its near relative: Rescued-from-Disaster-Cake

This is a post about mistakes. Delicious, frustrating, chocolate-y disasters.

Once upon a time, I made this really awesome chocolate cake recipe from Orangette. It worked perfectly that time, I remember it!

Upon getting back from the beach (at about 4 pm), I decided I would make the cake for my friend's 20th birthday that night. I was supposed to be there at 9:30. 5 hours is plenty of time to make and bake and frost the cake. I wanted it to be chocolate cake with raspberry filling and raspberry frosting (I know, I know--so much chocolate and raspberry! People keep asking for it though...).

The funny thing is, the recipe is called "Far-from-Disaster Cake".

I was in that crucial moment of adding all the dry and liquid ingredients when my neighbors came over. I got totally distracted, and completely forgot to put in the chocolate/coffee mix. I thought the texture of the batter was a little wonky, but figured it was just a different recipe than I was used to (there is both cocoa powder and the chocolate/coffee mix, so there was definitely still chocolate in the cake).

I rescued one of the two layers (both were somewhat dry) by pouring a coffee glaze over the cake and topping it with raspberries and powdered sugar.

The other one fell out of the pan.

But you know what? For a lot of people (especially four year olds whose eyes double in size at the site of cake--whether it has fallen apart or not), chocolate cake is, simply, chocolate cake.

So then I made it again, this time correctly (9:30 inched closer and closer). This time it turned out just fine--I filled it with raspberry jam mixed with raspberries (I used defrosted ones, separating the liquid from them after they melt and using it in the frosting). It looked fairly pretty when it was all together (not that you can tell because there is no appropriate light under which to photograph food after dark in my house)--albeit a rushed icing job.

Then, to my greatest dismay, a bit of the top layer fell off in the car. The cake was so moist that it could barely hold together (I'm sure if it had been on a real cake transporter-thing it would have worked, but I brought it on a little plastic plate).

But, as I remembered, it tasted AWESOME. And my friend said it was the most delicious cake he had ever had.

If you haven't guessed it already, here is the moral of the story: appearances aren't everything, especially when it comes to chocolate cake.

Mulberry Peach Cobbler

So, I graduated from college one week ago today.  It's still completely surreal, but the feeling of summer is starting to seep in, one strawberry at a time.

***

In this age of ever-present technological devices equipped with the ability to just "Google it", there seems to be little exploring to do.  Once upon a time, finding "the nearest coffee shop" or a "café with local food for lunch" had the potential to be a whole adventure...it always seems as though you can find anything you would ever need by just looking it up on the internet.

That is, except mulberry trees.  While driving the other day, I saw the familiar sight of a black and purple splotched sidewalk below a leafy tree laden with mulberries. I would have stopped the car to pick a few, but I was on my way home and the tree was in someone's yard. Where, I thought to myself, are other good mulberry trees in Durham? I laughed when I realized that this, if anything, was certainly not Google-able.

When I went to the farmer's market with my mother this morning, there was a big mulberry tree, ripe with fruit, hanging over the path from the parking lot down to the market.

After our shopping (and a delicious strawberry crostada from Scratch bakery), we stopped by to pick mulberries.

***

One of my favorite things to do in the summer is to make cobblers. They are so, so unbelievably easy that they can be an almost instant desert. They highlight whatever fruit is in season at the market (or can be made in the middle of winter with a bag of frozen fruit for a nostalgic trip back to June).

At the market this morning, we bought fresh NC peaches in addition to many other gorgeous veggies that I can't wait to cook this week.

A cobbler is really only 4 steps.

1. Preheat oven to 375º.
2. Cut up fruit (in this case, 4-5 smallish peaches and then just throw in a cup or so of mulberries) and toss with juice of 1 lemon and a handful of brown sugar (maybe 1/3 c?).
3. Sprinkle oats and brown sugar on top.
4. Bake for 30-40 minutes.

Serve warm, maybe even with vanilla ice cream on top.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

I am so, so close to being done with college forever. I have 8 pages finished out of a 12 page paper, and 1,600 words out of 3000 for another. Then done. Just a few words....

That said, I am going to write more words right now, words that have nothing to do with Homi Bhabha's post-colonial theory or hunger strikers in the Women's Suffrage Movement. Words that get me no closer to finishing my undergraduate career...

This is a favorite old recipe, one my mom used to make every time we had bananas that were mushy and too ripe to eat. It's adapted from Fannie Farmer (I suppose I'm on a Fannie Farmer streak, if two recipes can count as a streak), but the substitution of chocolate chips for walnuts was a brilliant move on the part of my mother.

• 3 ripe bananas
• 2 eggs
• 2 c flour
• 3/4 c sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2-3/4 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

In a large bowl, mash the bananas. Add the eggs and mix together. Combine the dry ingredients in another bowl and add to the banana-egg mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips, and pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.  Bake at 350º for 50-60 minutes.

Glazed Lemon Coconut Cupcakes

Made these for Batten dinner tonight, inspired by a recipe from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Veganomicon. It's supposed to be made as bundt cake (which bakes for an hour and fifteen minutes), but I adapted the recipe and made it into mini cupcakes with a glaze. They are very moist, lemony, and quite delicious!! The glaze also makes them really pretty--I think they would make a great vegan party snack option....

Cupcakes

• 1 1/2 c sugar
• 2/3 c canola oil
• 1 (13.5 or 14-oz) can coconut milk
• 1/4 c soy milk
• 1/4 c lemon juice
• 3 tbs lemon zest
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 c flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350º. Line mini cupcake tins with cupcake liners (if you use mini loaf pans, line the bottom with parchment paper and grease the sides). In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, oil, coconut milk, soy milk, zest, lemon juice and vanilla extract. In another bowl, sift together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt).  Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. 

Fill the cupcake tins 3/4 full (or, the mini loaf pans 1/3 full).  Bake 12 minutes for mini cupcakes (20-25 for mini loaves), or until a cake tester comes out clean. 

Lemon Glaze*

• 3 tbs lemon juice
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1/4 c soy milk
• powdered sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla

*A quick confession---I didn't measure the ingredients for the glaze so this is an approximation.

Combine the lemon juice, zest, soy milk and vanilla. Whisk in powdered sugar until the glaze is the consistency you desire (this is in the royal icing family, so it should be liquify but when drizzled on the cupcakes should harden a bit). Use a spoon to drip the icing onto the cupcakes (or mini loaves--see below).

Raspberry Blackberry Coconut Macaroons

As I thought about what to make for Passover this year, I came upon SmittenKitchen's Raspberry Coconut Macaroons.

As usual, I stumbled upon the recipe at 10 pm at night. I looked in the closet--I had an almost full 14 oz bag of coconut. I'll just halve the recipe, I thought. I was pretty sure I had some frozen berries, so I began to throw ingredients in the blender.

After putting in the three egg whites, I realized that I hadn't actually halved the recipe.  Oops!  I didn't have any fresh berries, so ignoring the advice not to use frozen berries, I threw in a small handful of frozen blackberries and raspberries (filling the palm of my hand, but not much more than that). I also used vanilla extract instead of almond. I didn't marble them as Deb suggested (another--"oops, too late!" moment so familiar to the impatient cook), but the pinkish-purple color was pretty anyway.

They took five minutes to make (plus another 30 in the oven), and were so delicious that they begged the question "Why the hell don't I make these more often?!"

The raspberries and blackberries gave a delicious tangy flavor that didn't let the coconut overwhelm the flavor of the macaroon.

I made them again the next day, after going to the grocery store to grab two more bags of coconut. I doubled the recipe and then drizzled chocolate on top.

Here's my version (adapted very slightly) of her recipe:

• 14 oz sweetened, flaked coconut
• 2/3 c sugar
• 3 egg whites (I added an extra half egg white when I doubled the recipe)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• slight dash almond extract (optional--I did it without the first time and they were delicious!)
• small handful frozen raspberries and blackberries (I would say maybe 10-12 berries total?)

Pulse the coconut in the Cuisinart for a minute or so.  Add the sugar and pulse again until mixed together. Pour in the egg whites, vanilla extract, almond extract (if using), and salt. Pulse again, and then lastly add the berries.  Mix together; the batter will be pretty wet, but it holds together! Bake at 325º for 25-30 minutes, until the tops are tinged with golden brown and look a bit drier.

Drizzle with melted semisweet chocolate chips--this makes the macaroons look almost like fancy truffles!

Eyeball Cupcakes: a Preschool Baking Project

         I love doing cooking projects with kids.  It can incorporate everything, from color mixing (frosting/food coloring) to math (measuring), to thinking about the senses (what does vanilla extract smell like? what does mixing flour feel like? etc.).  


         
         The kiddos I teach are 4 and 5. In the early spring, we do a "body unit", where we learn about our bodies. We start with emotions, then go into learning about our five senses, then germs, and then finally muscles, nerves, bones, etc. It's always my favorite unit of the year.... And of course, we needed to make cupcakes themed with the body (see Valentines Day cookies, Eric Carle cupcakes for environmental awareness/learning about our world unit). I thought about it, and realized that cupcakes lend their shape perfectly to EYEBALLS. We got to talk about why our eyes are different colors (genes="messages" from our moms and dads), what the different parts of the eyeballs are (iris, pupil, etc.), as well as remembering how our eyes help us see!

         The cupcakes are the same, reliable Lauren Chattman Vanilla Birthday Cake recipe (see Eric Carle Cupcakes). I made them with the kids, letting them do the adding and the stirring (and the reading of the recipe, if they were able to). I helped them spread on the white frosting, and we piped the irises and pupils on together.Here is my (very minimal) adaptation of her recipe, from Mom's Big Book of Baking (a much loved cookbook, I highly recommend it!).

Vanilla Cupcakes

• 4 eggs, at room temperature
• 1/2 c milk
• 1 tbs vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 c cake flour (though I use regular all-purpose sometimes and it's fine...)
• 1 1/2 c sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 sticks butter, softened

         Preheat the oven to 350 and line cupcake tins.  Cream the butter and the sugar, and then add in the eggs.  In a separate bowl, mix the other dry ingredients together.  Add the dry ingredients slowly to the wet ones, and then fill cupcake tins to 2/3 full.  Bake for 20 minutes.




Buttercream Frosting:

• 2 sticks butter (I used salted butter for the frosting this last time and it was AWESOME.)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• dash lemon extract (this keeps it from being too sweet--around 1/8 to 1/4 of a tsp)
• 1 16 oz. box confectioners' sugar
• 1 tbsp milk

         Blend butter, vanilla, and milk in large bowl with a mixer; mix on medium high until fluffy.  Add the confectioner's sugar a little at a time until frosting is light and fluffy. Add more milk and/or powdered sugar to adjust the consistency. For a very cheap, workable way to pipe the frosting, cut the corner off of a ziplock bag and spoon the frosting into it.

Red Wine Chocolate Cake(s)

         Last week, I made the famous Smitten Kitchen red wine chocolate cake with mascarpone whipped cream frosting.  It was, as promised, unbelievably decadent and delicious.  It's one of those cakes you can make to impress people...

         For the surprisingly easy recipe, go here. 

****

         When I got back to my lovely vegan co-op house, I wanted to try my own version--sans eggs, whipped cream, mascarpone, or butter. 

         I took my favorite chocolate cake recipe and adapted it.  I love what Deb says about red wine chocolate cake, that it's the "true red velvet cake".  I agree completely, as this cake comes out a beautiful, dark red color.


Vegan Red Wine Chocolate Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting

The Cake:

         Preheat your oven to 350º and line the bottom of two 8x8 pans with parchment paper and grease the sides. I made this cake square, but I think it might work better in round cake pans. Mix together in a large bowl:

• 2/3 cup oil
• 2 tbs vinegar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 c red wine 
• 1/2 c water
• 1 3/4 c sugar (you may want a little more depending on how sweet you want your cake--up to 2 c maybe)

Mix together dry ingredients in another bowl:

• 3 c flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 7 tbs (1/3 c + 2 tbs) unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

         Gradually add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix together. Split the batter into the two 8 x 8 pans, and bake for 28 minutes or so, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool.

The Frosting:

• 1/2 c Earth Balance (EB) or other vegan butter substitute, softened 
• 20 oz powdered sugar (I used 1 1 lb bag plus a bit more)
• 1/4 c unsweetened soy milk (these amounts are adjustable depending on texture)
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp lemon zest
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp egg replacer (this gives the frosting a really pretty shine, but it's not necessary!)

         Using an electric mixer, beat the EB until somewhat fluffy (it doesn't fluff up as much as butter).  Begin adding the powdered sugar a little at a time and mix at medium-high speed until combined.  Add the soy milk, cinnamon, egg replacer (again, optional), vanilla extract and lemon zest and beat at high speed for a few minutes until frosting is fluffy and smooth (it will not get as fluffy as real buttercream). You want it at a texture that is spreadable but not drippy (mine was a little on the drippy side, but I ran out of powdered sugar). Add more powdered sugar if need be to make the frosting the consistency you would like it.

         Put the first layer down on the plate, and spread some of the frosting on the top. Add the second cake, and frost the top and sides. For the cinnamon flower, cut out a flower (or any shape you choose) our of a paper bag, and place it gently over the top of the cake after the frosting has hardened slightly. Sprinkle cinnamon over the top, then gently and carefully lift off the bag.

Update: The cupcake version...

Update # 2: It's also adorable as a birthday cake (the following is the SK version, but I made it with cinnamon buttercream):

French Yogurt Cake with Mixed Berries

It's that weird season again, the one in between winter and spring but not quite either.  The weather is getting a little warmer, but the market is still full of only squash, root vegetables, and kale.

Missing summer, I decided to make a berry cake. It's based off of Chocolate and Zucchini's Gâteau au Yaourt à la Framboise. Her yogurt cake (apparently a French home cooking staple--something everyone's grandmother makes) has become famous in the food blog world, and everyone from David Lebovitz to Smitten Kitchen has come up with adaptations.

That adaptability is what makes this cake even more incredible---from lemon poppyseed to raspberry almond to chocolate (see SmittenKitchen's adaptation of David Lebovitz). My version calls for a bag of mixed berries (blackberries, raspberries and blueberries) and some orange and lemon zest. 

As soon as I took it out of the oven, it smelled amazing.  I brought it over to my neighbors' house, where my family was having dinner.  The three year-old's eyes got enormous as he looked at the cake. "What is it?" he asked.  "Cake! What do you think is in it?" I responded.  He got very close to me, and in a serious whisper, "Raspberries....."

Needless to say, he loved it--and it's a cake that will please anyone and everyone!

• 1 c plain yogurt
• 1 c brown sugar
• 1/4 c canola oil
• 1 1/2 c flour
• 3 eggs
• 1 tbs baking powder
• 1-2 tsp orange zest
• 1/2-1 tsp lemon zest
• a large pinch salt (maybe even 1/4 tsp)
• 1 c frozen berries (or so--however many you want to put in really)

Mix together the yogurt, brown sugar and oil in a large bowl, then add the eggs one at a time. Stir in the zest.  Combine the dry ingredients in another bowl; add this flour mixture (not all at once, but in 2-3 additions) to the wet mixture and stir until just combined. Pour half the batter into a greased cake pan (she calls for a 9" cake pan--all I had was a 10" pie pan and it worked just fine!). Layer half the berries on top of that, then add the second half of the batter topped with the second half of the berries. Bake in a 360º oven for 50-60 minutes.

Triple Sec Chocolate Biscotti with Toasted Walnuts

Last night was another night of thesis procrastination.  I'm starting to sense a theme. I was sitting in the library, staring into my computer. I'm getting nothing done, I thought. Maybe I should just go home and bake the bread dough I made this morning. 


Once I was in the kitchen, I looked into the fridge. I saw four lonely eggs sitting in the carton. Now, I really dislike eating eggs--I don't mind them IN things, but I am not one of those people who just makes eggs for breakfast.

Maybe I'll just make biscotti...it's only 10 o'clock. I went to the closet to grab the flour and sugar and looked at the bottle of Cointreau. Chocolate orange is one of my absolute favorite combinations, my favorite probably being brownies with Grand Marnier and orange zest. 

I decided to throw some in, adapting one of my favorite biscotti recipes from Lauren Chattman.

A few years ago, I discovered that the authors of two of my favorite cookbooks (Lauren Chattman and Jack Bishop) were, *gasp*, married! At the top of this biscotti recipe, Chattman writes, “my husband Jack Bishop’s grandmother’s biscotti recipe”. 

The recipe:

• 1 2/3 c flour
• 1/3 c cocoa powder (Dutch process)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt 
• 1 c sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-2 tsp Grand Marnier, Cointreau, or other triple sec
• 1 tsp orange zest (I didn't have any, but I think it would be a good addition)
• 1 c semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/3 c chopped toasted walnuts (or almonds!)

Mix together dry ingredients. Add eggs and vanilla and mix until combined with an electric mixer. Add chopped almonds and chocolate chips. Form dough into two flattened logs on a floured work surface (12” long and 2” wide or so), transfer to baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and bake at 350º for 35 min. (The logs will spread so make sure they are far enough apart, around 3”). Allow logs to cool completely, then cut them into 1” slices (I actually recommend slightly less than 1 inch). Place them cut side down (and up) onto baking sheet, and bake for 10 minutes at 325º until toasted. Transfer to racks and let cool. 

If you like, drizzle with melted dark chocolate (If I had any orange chocolate in my possession last night I would have done that!). 

Other variations of the recipe: 

• Chocolate with Salted Roasted Almonds and Chocolate Chips (I bought Trader Joes Salted Almonds and threw those in instead of the toasted ones, and decreased the salt in the recipe by a small fraction)
• Chocolate Cherry with Salted Roasted Almonds (in addition to the above, I added some chopped dried cherries--these burned a little on some of the biscotti, but it was still delicious!)

Valentines Day Part II: Thesis Procrastination, or Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Glaze and Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

This afternoon, I was supposed to work on my thesis. I planned to get home from work and immediately head to the library to write.  

During work at the preschool this morning, we decorated some of the plain Valentines Day cookies we made yesterday. 

I decorated a couple of them too.

 When I got home from work I realized that I did not, in fact, want to edit and finish writing the 10 pages of my thesis for my advisor. So, against all better judgement, I decided to make a cake. A big cake. An Epic Valentines Day Cake.

Of course, I used my chocolate cake recipe, as it never ever fails.  I doubled it, and put it into two cake pans--one square, one round.  The diameter of the round pan was equal to one side of the square pan. while the cake was baking, I made the frosting.

(Pink) Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

• Pink food coloring
• Butter (a stick or so)
• Vanilla extract (maybe a tsp?)
• Milk (depending on texture)
• Powdered sugar (a pound or two...depending on how much you want to make)
• Raspberry jam, to taste
• Lemon zest (1/2 tsp? It takes the edge off of over sweet buttercream frosting)

Soften the butter, and whip with the electric mixer until fluffy. Add the vanilla extract, and then slowly add the powdered sugar, mixing with the electric mixer after each addition. Add milk, food coloring, lemon zest, raspberry jam, and more powdered sugar until the frosting is at the desired consistency and flavor.

When the cakes were out of the oven and had cooled, I turned both of them over onto a large cutting board. I cut the circle one in half, and "glued" it to the square with frosting. I then glazed the cake with some raspberry jam.   

Then, I frosted it pink. (I used aluminum foil to protect the serving board from frosting drips....)

I should have stopped there. I sat down at my computer, and wrote a sentence or two. I looked at the cake. I realized that I had a lot of frosting left over--why not decorate it more?  I added more pink food coloring, and some powdered sugar to make the frosting more stiff.  I cut a hole in the corner of a ziplock bag, and piped around the edges.