Angst with a side of cake

I used to write a lot. A lot. All the time.

It's so hard now, thinking while a little voice upstairs calls out regularly, "Quiet time over, mama? quiet time over mama?" The 50th time, my head explodes and all my words disappear.

***

I had one of those "wait a second, these aren't my people" flashes this weekend. We went to a party swarming with kids and pumpkins. I made a Deborah Madison cake with pears we scrounged freegan-style from the unoccupied rental next door.

And we took most of the cake home. I guess it looked weird next to the grocery store carrot cake. I was all, "who are these people, forsaking my monochrome lump of homeliness?"

I know I sound like a bitch no one would want to invite over to dinner.

But like everyone, I suppose, I walk around feeling like an alien. Sometimes it's lonely being so different.

I mean, seriously, this cake was nothing but fucking awesome. No one got it.

And on some level I really believe that if I can find the ones who will devour a pear-almond upside down cake—not Himalayan sea salt fussy, not ultra-sweet Costco cake—I will have finally found my tribe. And we'll sit around and drink cocktails and talk dirty and knit, and I'll feel like I've come home.

Then W. and I came home, tumbled the limp sleepy kid into bed, sat in a living room heavy with the scent of white lilies left on the doorstep by a good friend, and ate cake. And rued the frugal decision not to pick up a bottle of Black Label.

And realized that I have come home.

(My tribe is small. But I really did sit around and drink wine and knit and talk occasionally dirty with a few good girlfriends last night. So I'm counting my blessings and trying to enjoy the spark of being just a tad off typical.)

Pear-Almond Upside-Down Cake

(adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, by Deborah Madison)

3 T. butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

3 medium-sized pears

1/4 cup almond paste

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 t. vanilla extract

1/4 t. almond extract

3 eggs at room temp.

2/3 cup almond meal (they sell this at Trader Joe's, or you can grind blanched almonds yourself)

1 cup flour

1 t. baking powder

1/4 t. salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Put the butter and brown sugar in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet and heat on medium until the sugar is melted. Remove from heat. Peel, core, and slice the pears about 1/4 inch thick. Overlap the slices in concentric circles on top of the melty sugar/butter. Break the almond paste into pea-sized pieces and sprinkle over pears.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla and almond extracts, then the eggs, one at a time.

Stir in nuts and other dry ingredients. Spoon over the fruit and smooth out gently.

Bake in the center of oven until golden and springy, about 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool in pan a few minutes.

Now the tricky part. Put a big round cake plate upside down over the skillet. With potholders protecting your hands, grab the plate and the skillet firmly and flip over with authority. (This is easy for me to say. W. always does this for me. I'm chicken.)

If any pears are left in the skillet, just transfer them to the top of the cake and pretend the whole thing came out perfect.

Dutch baby

When the toddler gets a little out of hand, I can growl, "We're eating babies for breakfast. That's right. BABIES!"

Delicious with lemon juice squeezed over the top and then sprinkled with powdered sugar. Washed down with coffee.

We make a little sidecar for the kid:


We use a recipe for Big Apple Pancake from an old Gourmet magazine as a guide, but add all kinds of fruit. Strawberry isn't actually my favorite. I think apricot and blueberries might be. The original is awesome in winter.

***

And before I jump into the recipe, let me just clarify my stance on unsalted vs. salted butter.

I don't give a fuck.

Seriously, I don't know why so many cooks get so worked up about salted butter.

I like salty butter on my toast, so it's what I have in the fridge.

I keep track of work schedules and the daycare center closures and doctor's appointments and when the dog next gets her heartworm meds and a complicated orchid fertilization schedule and on and on and on.

I don't need to regulate butter usage on top of it all: "No, no, that butter's for baking. Use THIS one." I think my husband's head would explode. He still hasn't recovered from that time he snacked on the crust of bread that I was saving for that night's onion soup dinner.

And I cried.

Because holy crap, I was looking forward to that soup with the toasty bread.

Poor guy.

Anyway, back to babies.

Dutch Baby with Fruit
--based on recipe from Gourmet, Nov. 2004
--serves 2

1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup flour (white or whole wheat pastry)
4 eggs
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
sliced peaches or apricots, halved strawberries, frozen blueberries (about a cup of fruit)
lemon wedges and powdered sugar

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 450°F. Put butter into 10-inch cast iron skillet and put in oven to melt.

While butter is melting, dump milk, flour, eggs, granulated sugar, vanilla, and salt into a blender. Swirl butter around skillet to coat sides and bottom. Add about 2 T. melted butter to blender, leaving the rest in the skillet. Blend batter until smooth.

Place fruit in one layer in hot buttered skillet. It won't cover the bottom completely--if it does, you have too much fruit and will end up with a juicy mess of breakfast.

Pour batter over fruit.

Put skillet in oven. Bake until pancake is puffed and golden, about 18 minutes (depending on amount of fruit).

Serve immediately with lemon wedges and powered sugar.

Persimmon bread

I read a lot of food blogs, and in nearly every one, every winter, there is the rainy/snowy day, curl up on the couch under hand-knitted/quilted blankets with ridiculously cute dog/cat while drinking a mug of hot coffee/tea/hand-harvested stone-ground chocolate and eating assorted sweet breads/muffins/cookies/feats of sculptural bakery. And they claim to stay there all afternoon.

I'll admit it, I'm jealous. An entire afternoon! Time to layer mini cakes with home-canned jam. To knit scarfs that will be ready to sling around cold necks this winter, not next. To watch my children frolic in an adorably artistic pile on the vintage hardwood.

My afternoons are much more of the rush home from work and prevent the child from licking electrical cords variety. And if they weren't, I'd probably still skip the baking and head for the couch and the latest Michael Connelly mystery. (Which is where I've been the last week, for those who wondered.)

As for winter baking, I make endless versions of the following persimmon bread, break out the cream cheese, and call it good. Because this is one of those rare sweet baked things that can be totally over-stirred, it's easy to make with an enthusiastic toddler.

I pick persimmons from my parents' house at Christmastime, let them ripen into mush, whiz in the food processor, and freeze flat in Ziploc freezer bags. For this bread, pumpkin puree works great too, even better if that slightly astringent, squeaky persimmon flavor turns you off.

Persimmon Bread with Walnuts and Cranberries

1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 t. baking soda
3/4 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. ground cloves
1/4 t. ground nutmeg
1/4 t. ground ginger
1/4 t. salt

2 eggs
1/3 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 cup persimmon (or pumpkin) puree
1/2 canola oil
1 t. vanilla

1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup frozen cranberries (not defrosted)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.

Whisk together dry ingredients in one bowl. Whisk wet ingredients together in another, add to dry, and whisk until blended. Stir in walnuts and cranberries. Pour dough into prepared pan.

Bake in the middle of oven about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until it feels firm when you poke at the top with your finger and a toothpick or wooden skewer jabbed through the middle comes out clean. Cool completely.

Instead of walnuts and cranberries, try chocolate chips, pumpkin seeds, coconut, whatever you've got on hand. It's all tasty. The recipe also doubles easily, so you can snack on one loaf all week and freeze the other for later.

Not-so-chunky monkey

Warning: Gratutious baby shot ahead. Advance with caution.


It's starting to feel like fall--school starting, leaves falling. Even the hot days are bracketed by chill. And for some reason, as fall descends, bananas and walnuts seem just right. They've replaced the berries in our ice cream and the peaches in our pancakes.

This is my simple riff on the Ben & Jerry's favorite. Not quite the same, but I served it to a room of Chunky Monkey lovers and haters (something about the way the big chunks of walnuts get soggy), and everyone ate plenty.

I use my basic formula, doubling the berry recipe.

Smooth Banana Ice Cream with Chocolate and Nuts

3 cups milk and heavy cream, in combination
1/2 cup sugar
1 t. vanilla extract

1 handful chocolate chips, chopped
1 handful walnuts, chopped
1 1/2 overripe bananas, smashed into puree with a fork

Mix milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla and store in fridge until cool. Process milk mixture in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions until you have a slushy almost-ice cream. Put the chocolate, walnuts, and bananas in the freezer while you do this, so they are nice and cold. Then add them to the machine and run until you have ice cream that is pretty thoroughly frozen.

I've had problems with slushy ice cream that then hardens into a rock in the freezer. I prevent this by

• making sure the ice cream maker's bowl( I have one of those small Cuisinart ones) has been in the freezer for at least a couple days,
  
• chilling all the ingredients thoroughly,
  
• running the machine way longer than the instructions say,
  
• and scooping the ice cream immediately into a chilled container and popping it into the back of the freezer as soon as humanly possible.

I resist the temptation to scrape every last bit off the stirring bit while the bulk of the ice cream gets more and more melty. A little haste and waste pays off here.

Dutch babies

Blackberries: Part 2

Sunday mornings mean Dutch babies around here, or pancakes, or eggs and bacon and fried potatoes. I make the bed with the baby, shaking out fresh sheets over her head again and again, waiting for the scent of coffee to waft upstairs.

W. does the baking--I don't like to bother with those fussy kinds of things like measuring. Which is funny, since I pretty much make my living being anal.

We set powdered sugar and lemon slices out on the table and make a big deal when the Dutch pancake comes out of the oven puffed and brown. It's good.

These summer mornings sound ideal, and after devouring breakfast we load the baby and dog into the car for a trip to the creek and a morning swim. But we only have time for all this loveliness because babies don't take Sundays off. Believe me, pre-kid, our asses were in BED until at least 10 am.

5:30 wake up call, anyone?

Peach & Blackberry Dutch Baby
(based on a November 2004 Gourmet recipe)

3 T. butter

1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
4 eggs
3 T. granulated sugar
1/2 t. vanilla
1/4 t. salt

1-2 peaches, each cut into 8 wedges (if you have very big or very juicy peaches, use1 or 1 1/2--the more fruit you use, the longer it cooks)
1 handful blackberries
Lemon wedges and powdered sugar for topping

Put butter in heavy 10-11 inch cast-iron skillet and put in middle rack of oven. Turn oven to 450°F.

While butter melts, put milk, flour, eggs, vanilla, and salt in blender.

When butter has just melted in preheating oven, remove skillet. Swirl butter around skillet and pour excess into blender. Blend well.

Arrange fruit in buttered skillet and slowly pour batter on top. Put into the oven and baked until puffed and golden, about 20 minutes.

Cut and serve right away. It will sink pretty much right away--don't worry about it. We're not making souffles here. Squeeze lemon on top of each slice and dust with confectioners sugar.

We switch out fruit based on the season--sauteed apples, as in the original recipe, or pears, or strawberries...

Simple Blackberry Ice Cream

Blackberries: Part 1

They are seedy, messy, and small. And I am obsessed.

Stained fingertips and baby fists. Scratched forearms. Precious hours exchanged for a paltry pint or so. But there is something about setting off down the dusty lane that runs by our house and competing with the blue jays, squirrels, crows, and deer for our share of our neighbor’s wild blackberries.

We’ve made a deal with him: We can pick all the blackberries we want, so long as we give him a share of whatever we make. He’s a beef rib and takeout pizza kind of guy, not one to be beguiled by the rustically interesting character of berries in the morning oatmeal. So clearly, I have to work some magic on these seedy little nubs.

It’s taken multiple cartons of heavy cream, sticks of butter, and pounds of sugar. Rough job, but at the end of the day, I can turn the fruits of our labor into something little resembling fruit.

Progress? Maybe not. But lots of deliciousness to be had along the way.

Very Basic Blackberry Ice Cream

This ice cream is ridiculously easy if you have an ice cream maker. It's intensely purple, a little seedy, and not too sweet--rustic. Our neighbor asked if we put food coloring in it to get that shocking purple.

Mix in a bowl:
1 1/2 cups milk and heavy cream, in combination (I usually use 1 cup cream, 1/2 cup whole milk, but sometimes lighten it up a little)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 t. vanilla extract

Smash with a fork in another bowl:
about a cup of blackberries
2 T. sugar

Chill both bowls in fridge until cool. Process milk mixture in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions until you have a slushy almost-ice cream. Add the berries and let the machine run until you have ice cream that is pretty thoroughly frozen. Eat or store in a container in the freezer.

I've found that if I run the machine a little longer than I think is necessary, my ice cream stays lighter and doesn't turn into a brick in the freezer.