Although I’ve had them bookmarked for over a year, I’d been hesitating to make these cookies, thinking they might be too simple and old-fashioned for my (ha ha) discriminating tastes. Well, they do look a little plain, don’t they? And I think it was a rather grave error for Gourmet to publish the recipe in their January 2008 issue — I mean, I’m sure they’re just fine in winter, but honestly, these are summer cookies all the way, ones that beg to be eaten in stifling heat while searching for a breeze on one of those big wraparound porches that old Victorian houses have. And maybe with a loyal dog nearby to snuffle up the crumbs? Ah, but my apartment kitchen (with a little imagination thrown in) makes a pretty nice spot, too.

When I brought them to work, I was surprised to discover that these were some of the most well-received cookies I’ve ever made. Even the coworker who is very picky and usually shies away from the sweets I bring in thought they were wonderful. I suppose that with so many exotic ingredients and decadent combinations featured in cookbooks and food blogs these days, it can be easy to lose sight of recipes like this that seem to come from a different era, before 65% cacao and açai became common parlance. I’m not saying that one is better than the other, but sometimes it feels good to be reminded of the value of restraint. I think Antoine de Saint-Exupery says it best:

“Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.”

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Baking | 6 Comments »

I don’t know about you, but this time of year turns me into a complete glutton for fruit. Between the CSA box bringing blueberries and peaches, cherries and nectarines on sale at the grocery stores, to say nothing of what delights wait at the farmer’s market (the other week I found elderberries!), it seems like nearly all I eat these days is fruit. Not that I’m complaining. But such hoarding does come with a price, when you realize you’ve been buying more than you can eat. So despite the temperature in my kitchen at times reaching a robust ninety, I couldn’t help but be tempted by the thought of roasted apricots and peaches touched with a little honey and a few sprigs of rosemary.

As much as I love the flavor of apricots, I don’t think I’ve ever had one that was delicious enough to eat out of hand. It’s the tartness that gets me. But roasted, dried, made into jam, or baked into cake…now you’re talking. And it sure doesn’t get much simpler than roasting. The way I made these hardly needs a recipe — just pit the little fellas, line them up in a cast iron pan or glass baking dish, drizzle with honey, and roast for about twenty minutes or so at 400ºF until they become soft and juicy. The honey I used was some fancy stuff I found at Dean and Deluca, but use whatever you like best. I think herbal flavors go so well with stone fruit, so a little rosemary in the pan added a delicious fragrance, and also enhanced the unusual herbal flavor of the honey.

After the fruit was roasted, I added a few tart blackberries to seal the deal. Warm or cold, eaten alone or swirled with some thick yogurt…I’m easy to please these days. Try it with whatever summer stone fruit you have on hand. And if you have a nice little convection or toaster oven to keep your heat (and sanity) contained, all the better!

Other Sweets | 3 Comments »

In case anyone was wondering, I haven’t disappeared just yet. I’ve felt a little uninspired lately, though, and when I get busy with work and nonbloggy pursuits, I tend to take a minimalist approach to cooking. However, I couldn’t resist this delightful entry in the June issue of Gourmet, especially since it fell under the heading of Quick Kitchen.

Since the article said that the cake only serves 6, I made two of them. This ended up being plenty for 15 people, so unless your friends or family like huge slices, one cake is probably just fine for 6-8 people. The crumb is tender and moist thanks to the buttermilk, and the appearance is charmingly bumpy and rustic, with little pockets of red berry peeking through. My mom has already posted this recipe on her refrigerator door, ready for a summer’s worth of variations with all kinds of fruit and berries. You might just want to do the same!

Raspberry Buttermilk Cake
Adapted from Gourmet, June 2009

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1 6-ounce container fresh raspberries (about 1 cup)

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Butter a 9-inch cake pan and line with parchment; butter parchment.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. With a standing or hand mixer, beat butter with the 2/3 cup sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add vanilla extract and egg, beating thoroughly. Turn speed to low and alternate adding flour mixture and buttermilk, mixing until just combined. Spread batter into prepared pan, smoothing the top. Scatter the raspberries evenly over the top (no need to push them down) and sprinkle with the 1 tablespoon sugar.

Bake at 400º for about 25-30 minutes or until cake is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

General | 8 Comments »

Four. That’s the number of times I’d tried to make Lori Longbotham’s Ultimate Lemon Pound Cake. It’s also the number of times I have been reduced to a quivering, demoralized failure on account of it. The thing never — and I mean never — would come out of the pan for me, and it would either be too brown on the outside or mush inside. While the cake does make an excellent base for trifle, I’d begun to have a highly antagonistic, somewhat unhealthy relationship with the recipe. I couldn’t stop myself from going back to it every now and then, hoping that all those past misunderstandings could be left aside, one of us would finally realize the error of our ways, and the cake would come out perfectly. Maybe we all have recipes like that…for whatever reason, the stars never line up correctly and they fail over and over, while you sit dolefully in the corner and whack your head against the butcher block, wondering what you keep doing wrong.

While some may be tempted to stretch that metaphor even further (to personal relationships, perhaps?), let me say instead that unlike my dear Moz, I did get what I wanted this time. At least in terms of pound cake. And I am here to sing the praises of Ultimate Lemon Pound Cake at last. Whether it was that whispered incantation over the Kitchenaid, the half-inch of Crisco I smeared on the pan so the bloody thing wouldn’t stick again, or just dumb luck, who cares — victory is mine, all mine!

I suppose my slightly unhinged gushing might sound a bit silly to someone who is lucky to never screw up a recipe, or who (wisely?) doesn’t keep returning to one that only makes her feel like a schlump. But there are few things sweeter than the rush of success after many failures, so I intend to milk this little triumph for as long as possible. The cake has a beautifully tight golden crumb and delicious tart lemony flavor, thanks to being generously soaked in lemon syrup. Since I made the cake for a party, I added a cosmetically-enhancing confectioner’s sugar glaze, but it was really unnecessary as the cake is lemony and delicious enough without it.

I think I’ve said about enough, though — it really is just about perfect. And maybe striving for perfection really can pay off, as long as you don’t mind pounding away a little dignity in exchange.

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Baking | 6 Comments »

I took a little drive yesterday and ended up vaguely lost somewhere in Braddock, where the street was lined with older, slightly run-down homes and a few boarded-up storefronts. As I turned on to a gravelly road in order to go back in the direction I’d come, I was astonished to see that it led to an absolutely stunning set of murals. If I hadn’t picked that particular street in which to turn my car around, I would have missed them completely.

One of the squares was painted to promote the local aviary, but I can’t imagine why this place was chosen — it didn’t seem to be a very high-traffic area, and the adjacent underpass was littered with broken beer bottles, cigarette butts, and various bits of detritus. I would love to know the story of how they got there. Are people in Braddock especially fond of the aviary? Was this part of an outreach endeavor? The art was in vivid, flawless condition, so I’m inclined to guess that the work was done recently (within the past year?). Whatever the case, I was thrilled to have discovered them.

General | 2 Comments »

I spent a recent weekend in DC for the cherry blossom festival, and was fortunate to have absolutely splendid weather and even lovelier company. Although it wasn’t necessarily a food-centric trip, I did get to visit the Dupont Circle farmer’s market (next time I’m bringing a cooler!), and an adorable bistro called Montmartre that had excellent moules with chorizo. One of the friends that I stayed with also gave me some containers of duck fat that she’d brought back from her home in Bordeaux. Let me say that it is wonderful to meet someone new who within four hours knows me well enough to understand why I would get excited about a jar of fat. Duck confit, anyone?

Before my little retreat, though, I made a big batch of caramel bars to liven up some stressed-out, anxious-for-spring moods. These are probably rich enough to be called candies, but who says you can’t celebrate spring with rich caramel and dark chocolate? The recipe was particularly interesting in that that it uses some ingredients that are a little atypical for me — the base is made with saltine crackers (!) and the caramel layer uses condensed milk — not from my normal camp of obsessively-made-from-scratch endeavors. But I was sweetly rewarded for not turning my nose up at these little gems. They are hardly less elegant looking (or tasting) than the usual make-your-own caramel bars, and so bloody easy it’s practically a crime not to have them in your repertoire, especially for holidays or times when you need to feed a lot of people on short notice. Perhaps if forced to choose, I’d admit a slight preference toward the make-you-own version, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t make these again in a heartbeat. I squirreled a container away in the freezer to nibble on, cold, when my caramel jones strikes at odd hours.

The bars are very rich, so I recommend cutting them into quarters. The recipe makes quite a bit — around 40 bite-size bars — so they really are perfect for a crowd.

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Baking, Candy Land, Eating Elsewhere | 6 Comments »