Taste Memories

A Litmus Test for Feminine Charm

My Grandmother, bless her, does not hold much store in the traditional feminine arts. Rather than crotcheting, knitting, and baking, Nan reads, goes to galleries, and travels widely. She is well into her eighties, and is steadily working her way through all seven volumes of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. She has recently been to Africa, Italy, and New York. When she went to New York, she stayed in the YMCA, and declared it "perfectly adequate." She is not, shall we say, your typical granny. In fact, she puts me to shame.

Nan does, however, have an Achilles' heel: pavlova. Pavlova, if you've never tried it, is like the platonic form of meringue. One takes stabilized egg whites beaten glossy with sugar, and forms an enormous, cloudlike mound with it. One bakes it slowly, and then serves it lavished with whipped cream and fresh fruit. It's an Australian classic.

Somehow, for reasons hitherto unknown, Nan's sense of her status as a woman came to hinge on her ability to make pavlova. Yet, all through my Mother's childhood, Nan's unrelenting efforts to whip up this delicate confection fell flat – quite literally. The stories of Nan's pavlova's tendencies to collapse, bleed and burn are family lore. What should have been a delicate, white, heavenly dome would come out of the oven looking like a thin, black, hellish pancake. Poor Nan. She had quite given up on project pavlova by the time I came into being.

And so, in her honor, I decided to provide you with step-by-step instructions to the art of pavlova-making. After serving this for afternoon tea, I guarantee you'll feel like a good housewife (even if you're of the male persuasion).

Raspberry and Rosewater Pavlova (adapted from here and here)

Ingredients:

4 egg whites

A pinch of fleur de sel

1 tsp white vinegar

1 tsp rosewater (or vanilla extract)*

1 cup caster (superfine) sugar

½ tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot powder

 

For the whipped cream:

1 cup heavy cream

1 tbsp caster (superfine) sugar

½ tsp rosewater (or vanilla extract)*

 

For the raspberry coulis:

1 punnet raspberries, blended with a little water, strained through a fine sieve, and sweetened to taste

 

To decorate:

More raspberries (or other seasonal fruit)

 

* It is traditional to spike the batter and cream with vanilla, but (following an inspired pavlova I once had at Mecca), I use rosewater instead.

 

Method:

Preheat the oven to 250˚F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Draw a 7" circle on it.

Combine the vinegar and rosewater in a small bowl, and the sugar and cornstarch/arrowroot in a medium bowl.

Beat the egg whites and salt (preferably in a Kitchenaid) on medium speed until soft peaks form. Tip: it is important to make sure your bowl and beaters are spanking clean and grease-free. In aid of this, I always run a slice of lemon around the bowl before whipping commences (no bad jokes please).

Increase the speed to high and gradually add the sugar mixture. After a few minutes, add the vinegar mixture.

Continue to whip the batter until it forms stiff peaks (about 5 minutes). It should be very glossy.

Smooth the mixture into a sphere on the parchment sheet, using the circle as a guide.

Pavlova, pre-baking

Bake the pavlova for about an hour and fifteen minutes, until the shell is pale cream, and crispy. It is best to let it cool in the oven, with the door ajar, preferably overnight. This helps prevent cracking (perhaps this is where Nan went wrong).

Pavlova, post-baking

When it is completely cool, slather the pavlova with the whipped cream, and decorate it with the fresh raspberries.

Pavlova, slathered with whipped cream

Serve immediately (it will soften if it sits). And then eat piece after piece of this billowy marvel, preferably doused with the raspberry coulis.

Pavlova, cross-section

Pavlova is a masterpiece of textural contrast (the center is gooey marshmallow; the outer third is chewy and dense; and the shell dissolves into powder on one's tongue). You really must make this. It's my favorite cake in the world. No wonder Nan kept trying.

Sticky Slow-Roasted Pears with Orange, Cardamom, and Walnut Oil

Apologies for my absence. I've been trying to get into NaBloPoMo, but I totally misread the acronym. I thought it was NoBloPoMo. So instead of posting every day, I've been not posting every day. It's easy to see how that sort of thing could happen, isn't it? Also, the dog ate my homework. Ahem.

But I know I'll finagle my way back into your good graces with these pears. They are slick, sticky, and soft (but not mushy), and redolent with Middle Eastern flavors – orange, cardamom, walnut oil – that are so much more interesting than the tired old cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice routine.

The original inspiration for this recipe was Molly Wizenberg's post on Sally Schneider's marvelous roast pears. I made the pears this way a number of times, and loved the results; but I couldn't help but agree with Molly that it would be nice if the pears would slump more. Thus, I'm delighted to report that turning down the oven from 400˚F to 225˚F and tripling the baking time was just the ticket.

There was another difficulty with the original recipe, however, which – in order to explain – requires me to confess a bizarre personal quirk. Generally, I don't care much for dessert after dinner, unless it's a nice piece of unembellished fruit. It's not so much that I have a sour tooth rather than a sweet tooth (I'll dispel that hypothesis in a moment); it's rather that I crave clean, tart, fresh flavors after a rich meal. But I happen to adore last night's dessert in the morning, straight from the fridge, for breakfast. (Before you ask, I also have a thing against microwaving leftovers… Look, don't get me started).

The point is: I like desserts that taste good both hot and cold. And dotting these pears with butter (as the original recipe called for) meant that, although they were fantastic hot, they tasted rather greasy and filmy and waxy when served cold. Yet the fat in the recipe was not to be omitted; the extravagance of these pears is integral to their charm.

The solution I dreamt up was to substitute nut oil for butter (I suppose you could also use olive oil; but I'm not sure how I feel about olive oil in desserts yet). After musing on the various possibilities, I fixed on walnut oil, which in turn steered my thinking in a more Middle Eastern direction, and led me to lavish the pears with orange blossom water and cardamom.

And so, last night, a recipe was born. It's the morning after, and I can now confirm that, yes indeedy, it's a keeper (*smacks lips*).

Ingredients:

1lb pears, peeled, halved, and cored (I used seckel pears, which are tiny and precious-looking; but any variety would do)

¼ cup agave nectar (or honey)

Zest and juice of 1 orange

1 tsp orange flower water

1 tbsp walnut oil

1 tbsp whole cardamom pods

A fat pinch of fleur de sel

 

To serve:

Chocolate sauce (I just melted a little dark valrhona with a splash of cream and a little sugar)

Vanilla ice cream

 

Method:

Preheat the oven to 225˚F.

Place a small skillet over high heat, and dry-roast the cardamom pods for a few minutes, or until they are lightly toasted (but not burned). Now grind them in a mortar and pestle, and pass the powder through a fine sieve to remove any large pieces of pod that remain.

Combine the cardamom powder with all the remaining ingredients aside from the pears, and then toss the pears gently in the resulting mixture.

Spread the pear mixture in a large (I used a 9 x 13") glass or ceramic baking dish.

Bake for 3 hours, or until the pears are incredibly soft and sticky. Serve with a drizzle of chocolate sauce and a quenelle of vanilla ice cream – or some Greek yoghurt, if you're having this for breakfast.

I think this might be the one

I've been yearning to make this cake (and this similar version) for approximately forever (or at least since I saw the recipes). And yet and yet and yet: something always gets in the way. But last weekend, there were three good reasons to finally make this (count 'em). And we're creatures of reason. So the fact that the cake ended up on our counter and in our tummies was, as we philosophers say, causally overdetermined.

Reason the first is that it has not been the easiest of weeks around these parts. What better way to usher in good cheer, then, than with chocolate cake? But this is not just any old chocolate cake, oh no. In fact, I cannot say enough good things about this cake. Nevertheless, let me try: it's dense, moist, intense, and decadent (there I go, flouting my daily adjective quota again). It's the kind of cake that makes you slyly lick your finger after you've finished your slice and run it around the saucer to catch any errant crumbs. You won't want to miss a morsel.

Reason the second is that last Saturday marked the second anniversary of our first date. To say that the cake (and making it together) was the highlight of our festivities is to say a great deal, since they also included dinner at Sorellina (and my very own serving of those aforementioned Kobe beef meatballs) and (joy of joys) tickets to a Keith Jarrett concert. (He's my favorite jazz pianist, and among my favorite classical pianists as well. The man's a genius. And to witness his notoriously weird gyrations as he plays – he acts like he's the conductor of his hands, which almost seem to have a will of their own – just added to the thrill. We were glued to the edge of our front row seats all night). But, yes, despite all of that, this cake took the, well, cake.

Reason the third was my friend K's drawing my attention to this possibility. I never would have guessed that such a fudgy cake could stack (and in truth, I've yet to try), but there is evidence that it just might work. Thus, by making this cake, I knew we might be one step further along the long road to making our very own wedding cake.

And so it seems to be. I mean, the cake is so easy to make it almost seems like a cheat (in sharp contrast to this seven-hour-time-sucking monstrosity), and it's the most delicious cake I can remember eating in recent times. D felt much the same. So we're now seriously countenancing the possibility of using this as our wedding cake, sandwiched lavishly with alternating layers of raspberry and mint cream. Stay tuned for a full trial…

I don't want to jump the gun here. This cake and us, well, we're still in the dating phase. But I'm tempted to say things I shouldn't. As in: this might be the one.

The Cake I Think We Want to Marry, closely adapted from Clotilde of Chocolate and Zucchini

Ingredients:

300g good semisweet chocolate

300g good unsalted butter

1 ½ cups sugar

6 eggs

1 tbsp vanilla

2 tbsp flour

 

Method:

Preheat the oven to 375˚F. Prepare an 8" baking pan by oiling it lightly, and lining it with parchment paper.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave (or in a double boiler if you want to play it safe. We, on the other hand, like to live dangerously. And lazily).

Stir in the sugar, and then add the eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly with a wooden spoon after each addition.

Next, stir in the vanilla and the flour.

Pour the mixture into the baking pan, and give it about 35-40 minutes in the oven, or until it is lightly set and no longer liquid in the center (note: we baked it a little longer than Clotilde called for, to assess its stacking potential. It was still unbelievably moist). Now turn off the oven and leave it for 10 minutes more.

Cool the cake on a wire baking tray, before turning out.

P.S. After sampling the results and giving it his stamp of approval, K's boyfriend (who apparently makes this all the time, how lucky is she?) made the brilliant suggestion of adding a soupçon of fleur de sel to the batter. Next time, we shall do just that.

Sample Wedding Cake, the First

This blog is supposed to be (mostly) original recipes, but I just had to take a moment to blow off some steam about an unoriginal recipe. For this week, you see, I baked the first in (a now doubtless long line of) sample wedding cakes. That’s right, folks, we’re baking our own wedding cake, despite the fact that both of us have hitherto baked little more than a pan of brownies. Gosh, just reading that last sentence fills me with fear. Clearly, we’re crazy.

Anyway, it’s a joint project, but I executed this leg of it alone, since the cake was also doubling as a birthday cake for Daniel. (Happy Birthday, sweet bean!) I used Dede Wilson's Wedding Cakes You Can Bake (er, as opposed to what, exactly?), an admittedly straightforward and user-friendly guide to the whole process. Since we are both mad for chocolate and cherries, I quickly fixed upon the kirsch-soaked cherry and chocolate shavings cake with Italian buttercream. Never one to leave a recipe completely alone, I used sour cherries in place of the kirsch-soaked dried cherries, and substituted chocolate buttercream for cherry between the layers of the cake. But other than that, I followed the recipe to a tee (and for that reason, won’t transcribe it here). I even dutifully used the recommended brand of baking tins (Parish MagicLine, for those who're interested) and Magi-Strips. 

Even though I just made an 8-inch cake (no tiers), the whole process was pretty drawn out. I had to:

 

(1) make and cool the cake layers;

 

 

(2) apply the kirsch moistening syrup and the chocolate Italian buttercream to the torted layers;

 

 

(3) assemble the cake;

 

 

(4) apply the crumb coat and chill the cake; and

 

 

(5) frost the cake with vanilla Italian buttercream.

 

 

It took me over seven hours, all told. I didn’t mind, especially since no step was particularly hard (even the buttercream presented no problem). Besides, I love a big kitchen project from time to time.

But when we blew out the candles and I tasted my slice, profound disappointment set in. Despite Wilson’s promise to deliver cakes that not only look good but also taste good, this was no show-stopper. Notwithstanding the 12oz of Scharffen Berger bittersweet chocolate in the creation, the chocolate flavor was far too subtle for my liking. The sour cherries were incongruously sour (my own fault, of course) in contrast to the extreme (and rather sickly) sweetness of the rest of the confection, and the Italian buttercream left me cold. Now, it's not that the recipe was bad, you understand, but just that the results weren't for me. Normally, that would have been fine, but in view of all the work it took to make the cake, I must admit that I was a little bitter. The birthday boy alleged to enjoy it, but I nonetheless sensed a lack of relish behind the gratitude. He didn’t even go back for seconds.

 

Still, I think I learned something. To wit:

 

1)     A crumb coat is not in fact made of crumbs. (I am blushing in shame at this longstanding misconception).

2)     When it comes to assembling layered cakes and frosting them evenly, too much practice is never enough (as the pictures show, this first cake is pretty haphazard looking).

3)     It makes sense to split big baking projects over a few days – by the time I got to the final coat of frosting, I was too tired to care.

4)     I don’t like Italian buttercream. Despite containing only egg whites, sugar, and butter, it tasted to me like Crisco. Blech.

5)     If you’re going to make a chocolate cake, go big or go home.

For our next attempt, we’re thinking of trying a rich chocolate cake with a raspberry cream filling, and a different kind of frosting entirely. Maybe 7-minute frosting? An American buttercream? Would that look as pretty as the Italian buttercream? Please help me, experienced bakers! I’m so lost! I’d be extremely grateful for any advice, especially other wedding cake or frosting recipe recommendations.