When I told Mom I was thinking of making gingerbread cake, she told me she wasn’t a fan. Which didn’t surprise me a bit. She’s very spice-averse, particularly the warm spices: cloves, nutmeg, ginger. (However, she doesn’t realize that in the past several years she’s become much more tolerant of them. Don’t tell her I told you!)

Then Mom said something that set off happy little bells in my head.

“My mom used to make gingerbread and it was the best thing ever with canned peaches and whipped cream on top.”

Speak of the fruit-devil! I had just opened up a jar of peaches the other day and they had me hooked. They have me hooked. We’d just canned peaches again last summer and I vowed to actually eat them this winter. Damn, nothing better than home-canned peaches in February.

Now, toss those luscious, home-canned peaches atop moist, whole-grain gingerbread? Spray some fun canned whip cream on top?

Where do I sign up? Oh, that’s right. Here!

Maui interlude

Scroll down to the bottom if you want to get right to the recipe, because I’m going to yammer about my trip to Maui, courtesy Mom and Dad, while I show you a bit about how to make the cake.

Okay, you grease and flour the pan. Now Maui!

This is the fam posing under the banyan tree in the city square in Lahaina. My awesome cousin Roxanne took this picture. She lives in Honolulu studying zoology. How cool is that? She came to visit for her own mini vacation for three days. It was so amazing to see her and hang out with her again! Plus, she was a mini tour guide. Kick ass.

Crystallized ginger is so strong-tasting alone, but it is really good in baked things. I hate to be a brand snob, but Sis (I think) got me this Harry & David crystallized ginger for my birthday last year and I gotta say, it’s really the best I’ve ever tried. Probably the only ginger that I would eat out of hand as well as bake with. Oh hey — don’t use a food chopper on this. I tried. The ginger just gums up the works.

This is just one of the spectacular views, this one at Wai’anapanapa State Park, we got to enjoy in Maui. It’s just gorgeous, everywhere.

Putting the batter together! Brown sugar corn syrup is easier to find nowadays, but if you prefer, just use regular.

You ain’t kidding when you say “a room with a view.” This doesn’t even show all of the spectacular view. There was also a plate glass window to the right and a lanai (patio) to the left. The hotel, built in the early 1970s, was right on the beach. Today, you can’t develop that close to the water — it’s ecologically damaging. So this is like the only hotel on Ka’anapali Beach with such immediate beach/ocean access.

Adding the ginger to the cake batter. No need for a mixer here at all. Just the two bowls. And hell, the one with the dry stuff doesn’t even need to be washed. Go ahead, put it back up in the cupboard. I promise I won’t tell anyone.

Watch for falling coconuts!

The money shot

O’heo Gulch, aka the Seven Sacred Pools. Past Hana, on your way to the fun road with cliffside dropoffs 6 inches from the one lane road and lots and lots of cattle.

I’d just like to give a shoutout to Mom and Dad, who took us to Hawaii and showed us such a jaw-droppingly good time. Can’t thank ‘em enough.

Best.

Vacation.

Ever.

And go make some gingerbread cake and beg, borrow, or steal some home-canned peaches to eat with it.

Aloha!

Fairytale Gingerbread Cake

The crystallized ginger adds a bit of extra gingery zing. You can leave the crystallized ginger out if you want a completely smooth texture. Adapted with permission from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking.

Yield: 16 servings
Oven: 350°F
Time: 45 minutes to bake
Equipment: 9 x 9 pan

2-¼ cups King Arthur white whole wheat flour, or 2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1-½ teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
¾ cup molasses
¼ cup water
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk
½ cup diced crystallized ginger

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 9-inch-square pan.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon in a medium bowl.

Stir together the melted butter, sugar, corn syrup, egg, molasses and buttermilk in a large mixing bowl.

Stir in the flour mixture until the batter is evenly moistened.

Stir in the crystallized ginger.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until the center is set, 45 to 50 minutes. Mine was done in 45 minutes.

Serve warm, with peaches and whipped cream, if desired.

Sugar beets are a communal crop. It’s rare for one farmer to have both the specialized harvesting equipment and the manpower required to harvest all of his sugar beets by himself. It’s also a busy crop: as the beets are pulled from the ground by the mechanical harvester they are dumped into a truck driven alongside it in the field, and they need to be driven to the sugar plant ASAP. As a result, several farmers work together in the fall to get everyone’s sugar beet crop in on time.

Every fall, Grandma made doughnuts for the guys working sugar beets. I helped her more than once, probably getting in the way more than I actually helped. She made cake doughnuts in traditional ring shapes. Then she set an iron rod across the kitchen sink and strung the doughnuts on there like Christmas lights. She must have glazed them like that, because I remember the doughnuts hanging on the rod, dripping fresh glaze into the sink.

Doughnut Oppression

Making sweets for menfolk is so quaint. So old-fashoined. So not me.

Last spring I made these yeast-raised beignets for men who were working on the house’s foundation. I enjoyed baking for them.

But I wondered if I should feel oppressed.

I was having too much fun to feel oppressed, though. I wondered if I should stop having fun.

That was impossible once I began dropping simple rectangles of simple dough into hot oil. The dough bubbled up with bellies puffed full of air.

Birthday Beignets

A few weeks ago was Linda’s birthday. She helped me make the beignets last spring. She hasn’t forgotten them. She mentions them from time to time.

They were yummy.

As a surprise, I made beignets for her birthday.

People said I should fill them. I disagree. But I suppose you could.

Make them for your favorite doughnut lover. Extra points if that doughnut lover is you.

Check out Yeastspotting for more yeasty goodies.

Yeast-raised Beignets

I include a light glaze for these beignets, but you may dust them with powdered sugar instead. I like the sweet glaze. The recipe includes instructions for using a mixer with a dough hook or a bread machine. I like using my mixer, but then again, I haven’t tried it with the bread machine. The bread machine method is probably even easier! Adapted with permission from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking.

beignets

¾ cup (6 ounces) water
2 cups (8 ounces) whole wheat flour
½ cup (4 ounces) half-and-half
1 large egg
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) butter, melted
¼ cup (1¾ ounces) sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 cups (8½ ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

5 to 6 cups (about 2 pounds) vegetable oil for frying

beignet glaze

2 cups (8 ounces) confectioners’ sugar
¼ cup (2 ounces) water, coffee or milk
1 teaspoon vanilla (I do this, boring huh?) or other extract of your choice

To make the dough:
Pour the water into a mixing bowl or the bucket of your bread machine. Add the whole wheat flour and let the mixture soak for 30 minutes, to soften the bran in the flour.

Beat the half-and-half, egg, butter, sugar and salt in a small bowl. Stir this into the flour mixture. Add the yeast and all-purpose flour, program your bread machine for the dough cycle, and press Start. Whether you’re mixing by hand or machine, once a soft dough forms, knead for 6 to 8 minutes. Cover the dough with greased plastic wrap, and let rise until it has doubled in bulk, 1½ to 2 hours.

After the dough has risen, deflate it and turn it out onto a floured work surface. Knead out any stray bubbles and let rest for about 5 minutes to relax the gluten. While you roll out and shape the beignets, start heating the oil to 365°F. You should have at least 2 inches of oil in the pan.

To cut the beignets:

Roll the dough out to a rectangle roughly 12 x 20 inches and ¼-inch thick. Use a flour-sprinkled bench knife or bowl scraper to keep the dough from sticking. Note: this is a very wet dough!You may need to throw a bit of flour underneath from time to time to keep the dough from sticking. With a pizza cutter or a sharp knife, cut the dough into 4 long strips, 3 inches wide. Cut each of the strips into 8 pieces. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let them relax while the oil heats.

To fry:
Once the oil is hot, slip in 4 or 5 beignets at a time and cook for about 1 minute before you flip them over. Let them cook another 1½ to 2 minutes, flipping them back and forth so they brown evenly. Every once in a while you’ll have one that doesn’t want to turn over because its “tummy” is so fat. Use your spoon to turn it and gently hold it in place until the underside is brown enough. When the beignets are done, remove them with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel. Continue with the remaining dough.

After the beignets have cooled, toss them in a paper or plastic bag with ⅓ to ½ cup of confectioner’s sugar, or brush with glaze (below).

To make the glaze:
Mix the confectioners’ sugar and your choice of liquid and flavoring in a small bowl. You can dip one or both sides of your beignets or brush some glaze over the tops. I use the dip method. It’s less mess and more fun!

Looks like I fell off the edge of the world for a while there. It was an unplanned hiatus, brought on by minor crises and busy-ness. Here’s the tale, and a “recipe” for blueberries and cream.

Mainly it was the June Dental Crisis

For months I’d been having problems with “sinus infections” and tooth sensitivity and swelling/pain in my upper left jaw. “Sinus infections” is in quotes because I thought they were at the time; now I’m fairly certain some of them were caused by the tooth and not the other way around (“Your tooth hurts? Oh, that must be from a sinus infection”).

It all began with sensitivity in an upper molar last fall. Since I did have a raging sinus infection at the time, my dentist logically ascribed it to that, and told me to get in touch again if it didn’t go away. Go away it did, a few weeks later. Yay! I thought. It got better!

But then from that point on, that area of my mouth was odd. The gums there were prone to infection and swelling, and I babied that tooth’s area with constant flossing and brushing. Then one day, a sliver of the tooth broke off, inexplicably. My dentist had to replace the filling in that tooth and then it became really painful. It all seemed weird.

The new filling came loose after a few weeks and my dentist referred me to an endodontist for a root canal. When I arrived at his office I saw that some of what the $1,000 root canal fee was paying for was mood lighting and leather dentist chairs. However, I’m not complaining, because it was also paying for some really advanced equipment and the endo was not only very skilled and good at explaining things, but also quite relaxing to look at.

After some high-tech x-rays the endo did a football-style play by play for me, drawing lines on the monitor that had my x-rays on it to help illustrate what he was talking about.

That was probably my favorite part.

The giant top molar — you have one too; it’s the one 2 in front of your wisdom tooth, or 1 in front if they’re out; go touch it with your tongue now. I’ll wait. Welcome back. So the top molar was cracked, and cracked so deeply he couldn’t work on it.

“You said you experienced strong sensitivity last fall?”
*nod*
“And some weeks later it just went away?”
*nod*
“Yeah, that’s when the tooth died. All your problems since then are because of that.”

I was very sad over my dead tooth. And sad that I still had to pay $540 to not get a root canal. And sadder still that it had to be extracted. The next day I had it pulled. I’m seeing an implant dentist in September to get that business going, which will involve more annoying procedures and more healing periods.

I shouldn’t complain. I rarely get sick. I have no health problems. I’m really glad the worst problem I’ve ever had was a dead tooth. But meh. I can still be annoyed.

This affected the blog

Two ways this affected Shiny Cooking:

1. I didn’t want to post. I couldn’t eat properly, because of pain before the extraction and because of healing gum tissue afterwards. So I didn’t want to cook or try new things or talk about something I couldn’t enjoy much anymore. This was pretty much all of 2010 really, given that I was having constant little infections all winter/spring. It kept me from posting much or wanting to post. I was just sad every time I checked in here or read other food bloggers and wanted to try and do things but couldn’t.

2. Money. Cooking and taking pictures while cooking takes time, but that’s not too much worse than non-blogging-oriented cooking. The posts themselves though, they take quite a bit of time, from writing them to picking out photos and optimizing them to formatting the recipes properly in WordPress.

I get paid for none of this. I get a pittance from my sponsor’s advertising and usually when I post Foodbuzz-themed events I’m getting a stipend that’s quite nice for one post’s work but it’s not enough in the long haul.

Normally this isn’t too huge a problem but with the recent spate of medical expenses plus over $2,000 coming up for the implant I’ve been pushed to neglect Shiny Cooking in favor of other projects that provide some money. I don’t want to have to do that, but that’s the way it is. I’ve been considering some ways I could generate some revenue through Shiny Cooking, but that’s a topic for another post.

For now, you know what’s been going on. As for the future? I have dozens and dozens of post topics saved up, literally dozens. Shiny Cooking will live, because I can’t stop posting forever. In fact, the bug to document everything I eat is coming back.

blueberries and cream

We went blueberry picking at Montrose Orchards last Friday. It was hot and muggy and generally pretty miserable, but I got a little over 10 pounds of blueberries.

The first thing I did with the blueberries, after eating gobs of them by the handful, was make fresh blueberry pie in a walnut-oat pie crust.

The second thing I did with the blueberries was “make” blueberries and cream. I noticed I had a half-pint of unopened heavy cream in the fridge and knew I had no plans for it. So we poured a bit of it over a big bowl of blueberries, spooned on a teaspoonful of sugar, and it was good.

And that’s my return-from-hiatus recipe. Blueberries. Cream. Sugar. Ripe, taut-skinned blueberries bursting under your bite, bathed in silky cream and sweetened just a bit.

Go try some.

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.

I’m going to suck it up and pick one name to stick with for this post…so croquembouche it is. I like the sound of it and how it rolls off the tongue. Try it yourself: CROAK-EM-BOOSH. Isn’t that fun? “Piece montée,” on the other hand, means “mounted piece.” So you can see that, clearly, “croquembouche” is the superior term.

Croquembouche means “crunching in one’s mouth,” because of the caramelized sugar holding the pieces of filled pastry together. It’s a tower formed of profiteroles, or miniature cream puffs, which are made with pâte à choux pastry batter then piped with a creamy filling. The traditional filling, since we’re being French, is of course pastry cream, or crème patissiere. Once the cream puffs are ready you melt some sugar, dip the cream puffs in the very hot sugar, and assemble the tower.

The croquembouche challenge appeared just in time for Mother’s Day, so I had a good reason to get off my ass and make it early in the month for once. Sadly, I’m terrible at following rules, and instead of preparing the challenge recipe for pâte à choux, I used the whole grain recipe from King Arthur Flour, because around here we love when whole grains work just as well as refined flours. And it did…but more on that in a few days when I put up the pâte à choux recipe proper.

The whole thing made me very nervous. Piping fillings into cream puffs? Dipping said puffs into burning hot caramel? Sticking them together in a stack so they don’t fall? Making spun sugar?

I found this video pretty helpful as far as the whole assembly process. At least it made me less frightened of burning my fingers off.

So how did the croquembouche go over on Mother’s Day? I wound up making two because I misjudged how large I could make the first, beribboned one. I kind of like the small one, on the red plate, a little better: it’s funkier in its irregularity, leaning like the Tower of Pisa and twisting like an insane DNA strand. Sis was more impressed with small croc’s spun sugar, too: my fork must have caught the quickly-cooling sugar at just the right temperature to drag thick, personality-filled strands of sugar the color and shiny, hard consistency of amber.

The family’s verdict: mini filled cream puffs are yummy. Croquembouches look really cool. But they’re a pain to eat: wrestling delicate, cream-filled pastry from its diamond-hard caramel sugar glue is an exercise in destructive futility. You don’t make one of these expecting them to stay purty once the guests begin pawing at it.

Unless your guests turn it into a game of Jenga. Then it’s kind of cool. Insert Jenga-like croquembouche picture here, because I’m in Chicago right now and forgot to upload it before I left.

Loved this challenge, because it reminded me of how dead easy cream puffs are to make. I’ll show you soon!

Boy was I excited earlier this month to find that February’s Daring Bakers challenge would be tiramisu. It’s a dessert I’ve always enjoyed in restaurants — that is, when I’ve had room…and who ever has room? Mom and I agree that one day we should order dessert first, and then if we’re still hungry get something after. Who says dessert has to be last, anyway?

Tiramisu is the classic Italian dessert, made with ladyfingers soaked in sweetened espresso and layered with a mixture of marscarpone cheese and zabaglione, a Marsala wine-tinged egg custard. The challenge recipe adds vanilla pastry cream and whipped cream to the marscarpone/zabaglione mixture.

One aspect of the challenge was making your own marscarpone cheese. I was looking forward to this as my aunt gave me a yogurt cheese maker for Christmas. It’s a wavy fine-meshed strainer that sits in a plastic container, making cheesecloth-sitting-over-a-bowl a thing of the past. Making marscarpone would have devirginized my cheese maker, but sadly I couldn’t find the right kind of cream. Ultra-pasteurized cream was all that was available, and ultra-pasteurized isn’t quite active enough to properly turn into cheese. So, sorry, I wasn’t able to do that part of that challenge. ;(

This tiramisu recipe has several parts: the ladyfingers, the zabaglione, the pastry cream, the whipped cream, and the putting-it-all-together bits.

My gods, it’s worth it, though

You’ll see why in a bit.

Allow a few days’ lead time when making tiramisu. The ladyfinger biscuits can be made a week ahead and kept airtight or frozen. The zabaglione and pastry cream need at least 4 hours to chill, so simply make them the night before.

I diverged from the challenge recipe for whipped cream because earlier this week I made strawberry shortcake. I made enough whipped cream for both recipes, and I needed it to be stable enough to wait a few days while I made the tiramisu, so I used the stabilized whipped cream recipe from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking.

Once all the components are ready and the marscarpone/zabaglione/pastry cream/whipped cream is mixed together, the production line begins!

That’s sweetened coffee spiked with a bit of rum in the middle. Just a bit. Had to save some for myself, you know.

After getting the ladyfingers liquored up and caffeinated a tad, they’re laid out in a layer.

And the creamy stuff is spread on, and the layering continues until it looks like you’d like to just fill a tub and swim in it. I thought briefly of making it look nice — assembling the tiramisu in a springform pan or parfait cups.

But I wanted it messy

I wanted it freeform and gloppy and a bit risque. I wanted it to be loose and unabashedly sexy. I would even call it insouciant, but I’m not sure what that word means, so I won’t.

Fits, though, doesn’t it? Insouciant. This is a dessert that drips grown-up hedonism. A bit of this tiramisu sings deep red wine. It sings rum, and coffee, and creamy textures wrapped around gently crumbling, moistened ladyfingers.

I love this tiramisu recipe. It’s involved, yet not particularly persnickety or time-consuming. It has quality notes like the lemon zest in the zabaglione and pastry cream: you don’t taste lemon at all in the final iteration, you simply sense a brightness shining up the dark flavors of the wine and coffee and the quiet flavor of the ladyfingers.

Tiramisu isn’t an everyday dessert. But for a dinner party? Absolutely. I can’t think of a better way to end a meal.

That is, if you still have room.

tiramisu

Recipe source: Carminantonio’s Tiramisu from The Washington Post, July 11 2007. This recipe makes 6 servings


For the zabaglione:

2 large egg yolks

3 tablespoons sugar/50gms

¼ cup/60ml Marsala wine (or port or coffee)

¼ teaspoon/ 1.25ml vanilla extract

½ teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

For the vanilla pastry cream:


¼ cup/55gms sugar

1 tablespoon/8gms all purpose flour

½ teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

½ teaspoon/ 2.5ml vanilla extract

1 large egg yolk

¾ cup/175ml whole milk

For the whipped cream:

1 tablespoon cold water
½ teaspoon unflavored gelatin
1 cup (8 ounces) heavy cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup (1 to 1½ ounces) confectioners’ sugar

To assemble the tiramisu:


2 cups/470ml brewed espresso or instant coffee, warmed

1 teaspoon/5ml rum (optional)
 (I didn’t use rum extract because it was imitation)
½ cup/110gms sugar

⅓ cup/75gms mascarpone cheese

36 savoiardi/ladyfinger biscuits — or 1 recipe’s worth from below (you may use fewer)

2 tablespoons/30gms unsweetened cocoa powder

Making each part

For the zabaglione:

Heat water in a double boiler. If you don’t have a double boiler, place a pot with about an inch of water in it on the stove. Place a heat-proof bowl in the pot making sure the bottom does not touch the water.

In a large mixing bowl (or stainless steel mixing bowl), mix together the egg yolks, sugar, the Marsala (or espresso/ coffee), vanilla extract and lemon zest. Whisk together until the yolks are fully blended and the mixture looks smooth.

Transfer the mixture to the top of a double boiler or place your bowl over the pan/ pot with simmering water. Cook the egg mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 8 minutes or until it resembles thick custard. It may bubble a bit as it reaches that consistency.

Let cool to room temperature and transfer the zabaglione to a bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

For the pastry cream: 

Mix together the sugar, flour, lemon zest and vanilla extract in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. To this add the egg yolk and half the milk. Whisk until smooth.

Now place the saucepan over low heat and cook, stirring constantly to prevent the mixture from curdling.

Add the remaining milk a little at a time, still stirring constantly. After about 12 minutes the mixture will be thick, free of lumps and beginning to bubble. (If you have a few lumps, don’t worry. You can push the cream through a fine-mesh strainer.)

Transfer the pastry cream to a bowl and cool to room temperature. Cover with plastic film and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

For the whipped cream:

Place the water in a small heatproof bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over the water and let it sit for 5 minutes to dissolve. Met the gelatin in the microwave on low power for 10 seconds, just until melted. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Whip cream in a large mixing bowl until it begins to thicken and the whisk begins to leave tracks as it moves through the cream. With the mixer at medium speed, pour in the gelatin. Once the gelatin is incorporated, stop the mixer and add the confectioners’ sugar. Resume beating the cream until it forms medium peaks. Set aside or chill until needed.

To assemble the tiramisu: 


Have ready a rectangular serving dish (about 8″ by 8″ should do) or one of your choice.

Mix together the warm espresso, rum extract and sugar in a shallow dish, whisking to mix well. Set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, beat the mascarpone cheese with a spoon to break down the lumps and make it smooth. This will make it easier to fold. Add the prepared and chilled zabaglione and pastry cream, blending until just combined. Gently fold in the whipped cream. Set this cream mixture aside.

Now to start assembling the tiramisu.
 Working quickly, dip 12 of the ladyfingers in the sweetened espresso, about 1 second per side. They should be moist but not soggy. Immediately transfer each ladyfinger to the platter, placing them side by side in a single row. You may break a lady finger into two, if necessary, to ensure the base of your dish is completely covered.

Spoon one-third of the cream mixture on top of the ladyfingers, then use a rubber spatula or spreading knife to cover the top evenly, all the way to the edges.

Repeat to create 2 more layers, using 12 ladyfingers and the cream mixture for each layer. Clean any spilled cream mixture; cover carefully with plastic wrap and refrigerate the tiramisu overnight.

To serve, carefully remove the plastic wrap and sprinkle the tiramisu with cocoa powder using a fine-mesh strainer or decorate as you please. Cut into individual portions and serve.

ladyfingers

Source: Recipe from Cordon Bleu At Home. This recipe makes approximately 24 big ladyfingers or 45 small (2 1/2″ to 3″ long).

3 eggs, separated
6 tablespoons /75gms granulated sugar
3/4 cup/95gms cake flour, sifted (or 3/4 cup all purpose flour + 2 tbsp corn starch)
6 tablespoons /50gms confectioner’s sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 F (175 C) degrees, then lightly brush 2 baking sheets with oil or softened butter and line with parchment paper.

Beat the egg whites using a hand held electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Gradually add granulate sugar and continue beating until the egg whites become stiff again, glossy and smooth.

In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks lightly with a fork and fold them into the meringue, using a wooden spoon. Sift the flour over this mixture and fold gently until just mixed. It is important to fold very gently and not overdo the folding. Otherwise the batter would deflate and lose volume resulting in ladyfingers which are flat and not spongy.

Fit a pastry bag with a plain tip (or just snip the end off; you could also use a Ziploc bag) and fill with the batter. Pipe the batter into 5″ long and 3/4″ wide strips leaving about 1″ space in between the strips.

Sprinkle half the confectioner’s sugar over the ladyfingers and wait for 5 minutes. The sugar will pearl or look wet and glisten. Now sprinkle the remaining sugar. This helps to give the ladyfingers their characteristic crispness.

Bake the ladyfingers for 10 minutes, then rotate the sheets and bake for another 5 minutes or so until the puff up, turn lightly golden brown and are still soft.

Allow them to cool slightly on the sheets for about 5 minutes and then remove the ladyfingers from the baking sheet with a metal spatula while still hot, and cool on a rack.

Store them in an airtight container till required. They should keep for 2 to 3 weeks.

Let me warn you, I’m slapping these in the “600 calorie death spiral” category ASAP. Nanaimo bars are sweet. Tooth-achingly, sugar coma-inducing sweet. Guess how much butter this recipe packs into an 8 x 8 pan?

Okay, you guessed two. I’ll give that to you, because it was obvious. How about this? What is that yellow, creamy middle layer 90% comprised of?

Drat, you guessed a stick of butter. And you were right.

Nanaimo bars — I keep wanting to call them Nanowrimo bars —are a Canadian invention, intended to nourish moose hunters in the frigid Yukon winters much like the Eskimos gained their needed calories from whale blubber. It’s common for moosers (as the great Yukon moose hunters call themselves) to fabricate dozens of batches of Nanaimo bars in the fall, pack them in their own dogsled, and thus haul the sweets with them throughout their winter hunting on the tundra.

quit making things up already

There were two required parts to this Daring Bakers Challenge: make your own graham crackers, preferably gluten-free, and make the Nanaimo bars. The gluten-free grahams recipe called for several specialty flours, and I didn’t look forward to a) hunting them down or b) spending $30 on flours I literally would never use again.

Instead, I made a graham cracker recipe I’ve made before: Whole wheat graham crackers from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking. As always with crackers, I had trouble rolling the dough thin enough (read: I couldn’t). However, even the crackers that came out thick and cookie-like were tasty, of course. How could they not be? Crackers are made using the same cutting-solid-fat-into-flour method as pie crust. Don’t expect homemade crackers to be similar to store-bought. They are very rich in comparison — not the kind of cracker you can eat a few dozen of easily.

Nanaimo bars are three layers: bottom is crushed grahams, cocoa, chopped nuts, coconut, butter. The butter middle layer is basically butter, with some powdered sugar and custard powder. I can only imagine those dry ingredients are added to the butter to stabilize it, because they don’t add much flavor. The top layer is melted chocolate chips with…guess. Come on, guess. Butter!

As you also may have guessed, Nanaimo bars aren’t quite my cup of tea. I found them cloyingly sweet (and I like sweets) with little going on other than chocolate and butter. The nuts, coconut, and grahams are entirely lost, and I have no idea what the custard powder is supposed to taste like because the layer it’s in simply tastes like a stick of butter.

However! Linda and Dad really liked them. Mom thought they were too dark chocolate-like. So I’m likely the weirdo here, missing out on something amazing.

whole grain graham crackers

Adapted with permission from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking.

oven: 350 degrees
yield: 6 dozen 3-inch crackers
baking time: 12 to 15 minutes

1 cup (4 ounces) whole wheat flour
1/2 cup (2 ounces) whole barley flour
1/2 cup (2-1/8 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (1-7/8 ounces) packed light or dark brown sugar
1/4 cup (1-3/4 ounces) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter, chilled
1/4 cup (2 ounces) milk
Cinnamon sugar (optional)

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut in butter until the mixture is crumbly. Alternately, use a food processor, and pulse in short bursts until butter is nearly pea-sized.

Add the milk and combine until you have a stiff dough. You may need to add a bit more or less milk depending on local humidity. Knead the dough lightly until it’s smooth. It’s okay to work with this dough a little bit, but take care to only knead until the bread is smooth — you don’t want to completely incorporate the butter; you want to be able to see bits of butter poking through.

Divide dough into 2 pieces and flatten into a rectangle. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill until firm, about an hour, or overnight. I chilled mine overnight.

Working with one piece of dough at a time, and leaving the other in the fridge, roll out the rectangle very thin on floured parchment paper, about 1/16th of an inch thick. With a sharp knife or a pizza cutter (I prefer the pizza cutter), trim the edges from the dough to form a clean rectangle about 9 x 12 inches. Save scraps to re-roll later.

Cut the dough into 3-inch squares, then cut each square in half. Prick the crackers with a fork or a dough docker. Transfer the parchment, dough and all, to a baking sheet.

Repeat with second piece of dough, saving its scraps as well. Re-roll the scraps into more crackers. The re-rolled dough bakes up surprisingly well, not much tougher at all, nearly indistinguishable from the “virgin” crackers.

Top crackers with cinnamon sugar, if desired.

Bake crackers until lightly browned, 12 to 15 minutes. I found 14 minutes worked well in my oven, and I did one pan at a time while rolling and preparing the next. Transfer crackers to a wire rack to cool.

For Nanaimo bars, place graham crackers in a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin to make 1-1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs.

nanaimo bars

Bottom Layer

1/2 cup (115 g) (4 ounces) Unsalted Butter
1/4 cup (50 g) (1.8 ounces) Granulated Sugar
5 tablespoons (75 mL) Unsweetened Cocoa
1 Large Egg, Beaten
1 1/4 cups (300 mL) (160 g) (5.6 ounces) Gluten Free Graham Wafer Crumbs (See previous recipe)
1/2 cup (55 g) (1.9 ounces) Almonds (Any type, Finely chopped)
1 cup (130 g) (4.5 ounces) Coconut (Shredded, sweetened or unsweetened)

Middle Layer

1/2 cup (115 g) (4 ounces) Unsalted Butter
2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons (40 mL) Heavy Cream
2 tablespoons (30 mL) Vanilla Custard Powder (Such as Bird’s. Vanilla pudding mix may be substituted.)
2 cups (254 g) (8.9 ounces) Icing Sugar

Top Layer

4 ounces (115 g) Semi-sweet chocolate
2 tablespoons (28 g) (1 ounce) Unsalted Butter

Directions:

1. For bottom Layer: Melt unsalted butter, sugar and cocoa in top of a double boiler. Add egg and stir to cook and thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, nuts and coconut. Press firmly into an ungreased 8 by 8 inch pan.

2. For Middle Layer: Cream butter, cream, custard powder, and icing sugar together well. Beat until light in colour. Spread over bottom layer.

3. For Top Layer: Melt chocolate and unsalted butter over low heat. Cool. Once cool, pour over middle layer and chill. Makes 16 servings.

Each serving is 312 calories. Two bars surpasses the 600 calorie death spiral threshold.

We love seaweed, how about you?

People were confused when I told them my aunt Linda and I would be making sushi for January’s 24, 24, 24 event. “Isn’t that raw fish?” they asked, knowing I’m not a huge fan of animal foods. Technically, sushi is rice that’s been specially prepared with vinegar and a little sugar, and topped with or rolled with…something.

It could be a shaped piece of rice with a slice of lightly steamed bias-cut carrot on top, tied with a scallion. This is nigiri sushi.

It could be a fat roll of rice bound in nori (seaweed) and filled with imitation crab strips, tamago (japanese omelet), scallion, and cucumber. This is futo maki.

It could be an inside out roll, with the rice outside the seaweed, all enveloping imitation crab, avocado, and pickled beets. This is uramaki. But everyone calls it inside out roll.

It could even be dessert.

Other forms of sushi include battleship roll (gunkan), which we didn’t make, temaki, which we didn’t make, and hosomaki, or thin rolls, which we did make, but I didn’t get any closeups of. Thin rolls use half a sheet of nori and are filled with only one or two ingredients besides the sushi rice.

what’s in this post, and what isn’t

This post isn’t going to include detailed instructions for making sushi. One, I’m no expert. I just made it for the first time. Two, if I started giving instructions, I’d never stop, and this would run 2,000 words or more. What I will tell you is what’s involved, the accompaniments, how our experience went, and a few links where you can get more information if you’d like to give it a try yourself.

And a recipe for rice for dessert sushi at the end!

accompaniments and fillings we used

One thing that’s absolutely necessary is a bamboo rolling mat. We got ours for $1.99 at a Chinese grocery. Well, we also got two more in a sushi kit Linda found at Barnes and Noble. The kit contained the book Sushi with Style, which turned out to be a clearly-written, informative resource. There’s a bamboo sushi rolling mat at Amazon for $6 that includes a paddle if you have any trouble finding one.

Pickled ginger.

Pink slivers of tangy ginger, these are meant to cleans the palate between bites of sushi. Right. Philistine that I am, I slap a piece of pickled ginger right on top of every piece of sushi I eat. It’s that good.

For this experiment, I made some pickled ginger of my own. Let’s just say that the inner, woody parts of ginger are not something you want to chew on, unless you really enjoy chewing.

Wasabi.

Green, insanely hot horseradish. Sold as a paste or powder. The lady at the Chinese supermarket and the sushi book both recommend using the powder as it’s better tasting. I wouldn’t know. I won’t touch the stuff. We did make some and use it, though. It makes a good glue for pasting toppings to the rice in nigiri.

Toasted sesame seeds.

Nice for decorating the outsides of inside-out rolls. Like a dumbass, I bought the unroasted kind a while back so now I have to toast them myself. Hey, look at my shiny new pan.

Tamago.

A Japanese omelet made with, among other things, mirin, a sweet rice wine usually found near the vinegars in the store. Or the Asian section. I made one of these, too.

Vegetables.

We used cucumber, carrot, scallions, pickled beets, and avocado.

Fish, raw and cooked.

We used imitation crab and raw tuna steak. I got to keep the leftover tuna to cook up later, slapped it in a lime-ginger marinade, pan-seared it, and it was good.

Rice!

You need sushi rice, a medium-grain rice. We used brown rice because of the whole whole-grain dealy. After cooking the rice, you mix in a vinegar-sugar sauce that lightly flavors the rice and helps it stick together. I’m not going to get into all the detail, because there was all this anal-retentive dribbling of the sauce into the rice down the back of the rice paddle (yes, the paddle actually has a groove for this, it’s nuts), fanning of the rice to cool its delicate little toes, and speaking to the rice in hushed tones so as not to break its pretty little grains. However, the people at The Global Gourmet have a good how-to guide on preparing your sushi rice, and the technique for cooking brown sushi rice that I used — in a pressure cooker!

so, how did it go?

Linda arrived around noon bearing ingredients and her pressure cooker. I earned a well-deserved glower when I showed her the brand spanking new pressure cooker I had already borrowed from my friend Lori.

However, Linda’s old-school stovetop pressure cooker came in handy when the power went out just as I was about to get the rice going (it had been soaking, as instructed in the anal-retentive sushi rice instructions, for over an hour already). Twice. She took a batch of the rice to her house to cook on the gas stovetop.

Chubby gods smiled upon us and the power didn’t go out again, and we commenced work making the kitchen into a disaster zone.

As usual when we’re making something brand new to us, things were so hectic I didn’t get any nice step-by-step shots. However, I was able to sneak in a five-second breather to snap a pic of how rice looks spread on nori, ready for fillings. You’d just lay three or four ingredients lengthwise in the middle of the rice, next to one another, not on top, and use the mat to roll it all up.

Some fillings: steamed bias-cut carrot coins for nigiri, scallions, tamago.

dessert sushi?

The book offered a sushi rice recipe made with cream of coconut and rum instead of vinegar and sugar, and suggested trying dessert sushi. We didn’t have cream of coconut so I cracked open (get it? cracked? coconut?) a can of coconut milk and got some of the coconut cream that had solidified from that. We seasoned a batch of rice with it and shaped it into nigiri.

Instead of wasabi, which would be pretty damn gross with fruit, the “glue” we used was strawberry jam, boiled cider that I had in the fridge (don’t ask), or apple butter.

The fruit toppers were slices of kiwi and mango, and we topped those with flaked coconut, a slice of candied ginger, and/or coarse sparkling sugar.

sisterhood of the traveling sushi

Linda posited that we made a good $60 of sushi. This was kind of a lot for two people, so we took the show on the road, first to my sister’s.

After some trepidation, not only Jennifer, but her husband Dale, who isn’t the sushi type, tried several varieties. I was pretty shocked. The dessert sushi was a hit, as was the inside-out roll with crab, avocado, and pickled beet.

Maggie snubbed the sushi, instead making up a bowl of some soggy cereal and pretending to be shy for the camera.

Afterwards, we took some over to Mom and Dad’s, and Mom gamely tried a bit as well.

is this really something you want to do at home?

Absolutely! Don’t be frightened by our scary messy kitchen pic. That was from making like, a dozen? kinds of sushi, including both a sweet and savory rice. The actual technique isn’t that bad, nor is it very time-consuming. If you’re trying sushi for the first time, like I did, pick two or three varieties to try, and don’t stress too much over the rice. In fact, dessert nigiri might be just the ticket. You can make it up pretty quickly, it’s light on rolling technique, and looks absolutely stunning.

And on that note, I’m going to leave you with the recipe for dessert sushi rice.

rice for dessert sushi

Adapted from Sushi with Style by Ellen Brown.

2 cups hot cooked medium-grain rice
1/3 cup cream of coconut — the kind you mix sweet drinks with
2 tablespoons rum

Whisk together the cream of coconut and rum in a small bowl. Put hot rice in a medium bowl. Sprinkle cream of coconut and rum mixture over the rice, and gently mix in to avoid breaking the grains.

Once it’s mixed together, carefully turn over small sections of the rice to help it cool and allow steam to escape. The rice is ready to use once it’s cooled enough that it’s not giving off any steam.

Suggestions: shape rice into rectangular nigiri shapes, and top with sliced fresh fruit such as mango or kiwi. “Glue” fruit to the rice using jam or nut butter. Top with candied ginger, sweetened flaked coconut, or sparkling sugar (sugar will melt; do this immediately before serving).

Weddings. Baby showers. Christmas.

These are the some of the family gatherings where miloste, a Bohemian fried pastry, graced the banquet tables and spreads. Don’t bother googling; “miloste” is a phonetic spelling. We have no idea what the “real” name for these treats is. Hell, we usually call them “those fried things with beer in them and powdered sugar on top.”

Grandma’s wedding photo: Mary Masin got hitched to John Vondrasek. They had a large family — five children, and Grandma always called them by their full names: Marian, Alice, Don (Donald), Rich (Richard), and Charlotte (aka Mom). Mom was a surprise. At 40 years old, Grandma went to the doctor complaining of a swollen tummy and feeling icky. Doctor Schultz promptly diagnosed her as having a tumor, and gave her medication to kill the tumor.

Mom demonstrating how to roll and cut slits in miloste dough.

The tumor survived, and a few months later came squalling into the world. Mom’s brothers and sisters have passed away, not to mention Grandma and her four husbands, so Mom’s sort of the matriarch now, which I think she digs.

Thanks to Grandma, I have loads of cousins, and last year we girls decided to get together before Christmas and learn how to bake kolaches. We had a blast and decided to try to make it a yearly tradition. This year we made miloste.

Some I’ve talked to said miloste sounded like elephant ears, or fattimund, but from what I can tell it’s not like either. It’s a pie-type pastry, with butter being the fat that’s cut into it, with eggs added and most of a bottle of stale beer. Rolled thin and gently twisted, it’s then dropped into hot oil. If the dough’s been handled with a light touch, the fried dough comes out light and airy, with visible bubbles in it. It’s then dusted with powdered sugar. The recipe’s at the end of the post.

more family background, because i know you’re dying for more

Grandma with 2 of her 3 sisters, Vera and Rose. Her other, and oldest, sister Agnes had passed away by the time of this photo. I believe this was taken at Todd (her grandson) and Becky’s wedding reception. I just know someone will correct me if I’m wrong.

Mom and Aunt Jan shared some stories with us younguns about baking with Grandma and her sisters. Agnes was gruff; Vera would tell you you were doing it wrong and show you how to do it right; Rose would be sweet as always, and Grandma would help you by taking over completely. Mom remembered mixing up dough for kolaches with them. The dough was in a big bowl, and Mom was stirring it up a bit too lackadaisically for Aunt Vera’s tastes.

“Here, you have to do it like this,” Aunt Vera admonished, taking the bowl and wooden spoon. “Big, long strokes.” Mom punctuated the story by making sweeping arm motions to show us how briskly Aunt Vera showed her to do it. We’d all heard this story before, but Saturday’s baking day added a new twist: Mom had seen a chef on Food Network talk about the right way to mix that kind of dough: with a wooden spoon, and with sure, long strokes in order to relax and stretch the gluten in the flour. Turns out those ladies knew what they were doing after all!

Uncle Don, rockin’ the ‘stache. I think this was at Les (Grandma’s grandson) and Cindy’s wedding, in the late? 70s. Grandma’s on the left, and Don’s with John, Shannon, and Aunt Jan. Shannon and Aunt Jan were at Mom’s Saturday!

Couldn’t resist adding in this one, for the cigarette, and for Shannon hopping around from a rock in her shoe.

Grandma liked doing the chicken dance.

This looks like Grandma’s fourth wedding, where she officially became Mary Masin-Vondrasek-Colom?-Hendrickson-Devota. How’s that for a hyphenated name? That’s her new husband Charlie to the left, and Uncle Rich to the right, looking pretty damn dapper. Was he her best man?

the return of the baking cousins: the reckoning

Time to get down to business! At 10 a.m. sharpish we descended upon Mom’s kitchen: Aunt Jan, her daughter Shannon, her daughter-in-law Kelly, my cousin Timmery and her son Jackson (he was allowed to girly baking day due to extreme youth), my sister Jennifer, and me.

Shannon cutting the eggs into the dough. Sounds weird, I know, but the recipe said to!

Beer levels after adding to half the dough, and then after adding to the second half. Mom told us how she brought a domestic beer to one of her aunts’ miloste-baking days once, and Aunt Rose gently pulled her aside, gravely chastising, “You know, dear, German beer works better.”

Mom showed us how to knead the dough. Jackson kept Jennifer from getting into trouble.

Now to let the dough rest 30 minutes. What could we do to take up 30 minutes?

Ooh, it’s lunch time!

Mom provided chicken salad and puff pastry shells (Pepperidge Farm, not as good as the ones I made in September), Aunt Jan brought salad, and Timmery made, oh crap, I forgot to find out how to spell this…ceponky? They’re awesome poppy seed dinner/sandwich rolls. Don’t they look like they came from a store? And she brought a veggie tray. Or maybe Jennifer brought the veggie tray. I’m sure one of them will be more than happy to correct me.

The 28th was Timmery’s birthday, so Mom put some candles on the apricot scones she’d made for dessert.

back to work, ladies!

Mom demonstrated the technique for rolling and prepping the miloste. Or, she tried as best she could, as we were sort of winging it. No one knew exactly what happened to the dough between the cutting of the slits and dropping it into the oil. I love the looks on Shannon’s face as she watches this. Like, “Neat…wow…wait, you expect me to do that???”

Aunt Jan and Mom remembered that Grandma would grab a few slits with her pinkies, a miracle happened, then it was dropped into the hot oil. It was our job to suss out that miracle.

Shannon was game, and rolled out a lot of miloste. That’s Aunt Jan and Kelly, center and right.

And she’s having fun doing it! I’m pretty sure.

Timmery rolled out quite a few too.

Jennifer mostly just hogged Jackson. I didn’t hog him. I swear.

Here’s a few examples of the twisting we tried. The top one wound up being closer to what we remembered them being like. Twists like the bottom came out too much like a ball.

fry them balls!

After all our jokes about Schwetty balls, it was time to drop the rolled miloste into the oil, a few at a time.

Fried and powdered-sugared miloste cooling on brown paper. Mom ripped open a paper grocery bag and laid it out on a towel.

And one example of the final result. They weren’t as light as Grandma made them, which means we probably handled the dough too much. But they tasted just as we remembered — flaky, crunchy, and very slightly sweet.

Cleanup time! Notice Mom doing all the work while we slack.

Like last year, we all had a great time getting together to bake. I wish we had room for more people, but it’s hard getting around in the kitchen just with who we had! It was loads of fun catching up, laughing together, and scratching our heads trying to figure out the recipe. In a way, it also kicked off holiday baking in general — now I know it’s time to make nutty crescents, Mexican wedding cakes, and other yummy stuff for Christmas.

Here comes the recipe, but before we go, an artsy picture of Jackson:

Miloste – Bohemian fried pastry

Unless you have a very large bowl, you will want to mix this up in 2 batches.

prep: 20 minutes, 30 minutes rest
total time: We spent about 4 hours, though the entire process could probably be done in under 3 hours
servings: makes about 50 miloste
temperature: deep fryer at 375 degrees

8 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 pound butter, chilled
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1 can or bottle of German beer
powdered sugar, for dusting

The night before, open the beer and let it sit out.

In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, and salt. Cut chilled butter into approximate tablespoon size, and add to dry ingredients. Using a pastry cutter, cut in the butter as you would for pie crust: until pea-sized.

Add one egg, and cut it into the dough the same way you did the butter. Continue adding the eggs in this fashion until all four are incorporated into the dough. The dough will still be dry and not hold together. That’s all right — this is where the beer comes in. If you’ve ever made pie crust, this will remain a familiar process. You’re using beer in place of the usual ice water to add the needed moisture.

Sprinkle a few tablespoons to a quarter-cup of beer over the dough. Fluff with a fork to gently incorporate the beer. As with pie crust, your goal is to “work” the dough as little as possible, and add only as much liquid as necessary for the dough to hold together.

Continue adding beer in small increments, mixing it into the dough by fluffing it with the tines of a fork, until the dough holds together when squeezed. When we made this, the whole recipe used nearly all of one 12-ounce bottle of beer.

On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough — gently again, no need to be rough with it — until it’s smooth. Cover the dough with the bowl you mixed it in, or a towel, and let it sit for half an hour.

Near the end of the half hour, heat oil in a deep pan or deep fryer to 375 degrees.

After half an hour, divide the dough into quarters. You’re going to use one quarter at a time. Cover the remaining dough or wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until needed.

Cut the dough into pieces the size of half an egg and roll into ball shapes — again, with a light touch. Try to work the dough as little as possible throughout the process.

Roll the balls of dough out into thin discs, as thin as possible. You should have a very smooth, pliable dough by now, like a nutty crescent dough. Okay, like 32 old ladies know what I mean when I say that. Sigh. Basically, the dough will do whatever you want and not bitch about it. You don’t need much flour, if any, while rolling — if the disc sticks to your surface, it will peel up without complaint. Just use as much flour as needed to keep it from sticking, because it is kind of a pain to have to pull it up, and that awkward stretching probably doesn’t make it happy.

Your discs will probably be 4 to 6 inches in diameter. Bigger or smaller should be fine, but I’d shoot for 4 to 6; it will be a good size to handle and deep fry. With a sharp knife, cut several slits in the disc of dough, about half an inch apart. You will get 3 to 5 slits.

This is the grandma-magic part we never quite got down. I think the goal is to twist up the dough slightly to make it more attractive when fried. Mom says Grandma would cross her hands, slip each pinky under a strip, do some mysterious twist, and drop it into the oil. Do what you like; see the pictures in this post for examples. My main recommendation would be to avoid balling up the dough too much — it’s neater when it’s still mostly flat in shape with some twistiness to it.

So tuck a few of your slits across and/or into one another, and drop into the hot oil. Fry until light golden brown — about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from oil to paper towels or brown paper.

When miloste are cool, sift generously with powdered sugar.

Here’s a great way to use up Italian prune plums you may have lingering in the fridge. Sweetened just a bit and roasted in the oven, their flavor is intensified, and the plums create a rich, tart sauce. Caramelized Italian plums make a great topping — spoon them on ice cream, pound cake, or rice pudding.

Don’t get me wrong. Prune plums are best eaten straight. In fact, before this fall, I’d never cooked with them. But, after pruning away the black knot fungus that had been choking my two plum trees last year, we wound up with a pretty good yield this year. And eventually I shoved a few dozen plums in a plastic grocery bag in the back of the fridge.

Since I’ve never caramelized/roasted plums before, what gave me the idea? Well, before I did this, I made a kind of craptacular plum tart. The plums tasted really good cooked, but the skins were an off-putting texture to have in a dessert, and kind of wrecked it overall. Which is why you haven’t heard a peep about the plum tart here until now.

So…why not roast just the plums, and see what happens? I poked around online a bit looking for some basic structure — oven temp, time, etc. — and stumbled across a Martha Stewart recipe that was just what I was looking for.

Oh, plus, I really needed to think up a sweet vols-au-vent filling, and I had a bunch of prune plums withering away in the fridge.

When I first prepared my prune plums this way, caramelizing them for the vols-au-vent filling, I had a pleasant surprise: when I took the plums out of the oven, the skins had separated from the flesh, and were easily picked off. Now you get the plum flavor without the texture conflict of the skin!

The picture of the plums in the pan is a half recipe. Use a cookie sheet, or half-sheet pan when making the full recipe.

caramelized italian plums

prep: 10 minutes
oven time: 15-20 minutes
to table: 30 minutes
servings: 4 to 6
oven temp: 400 degrees

Adapted from Martha Stewart’s “Roasted Italian Plums” recipe.

1-1/2 pounds Italian prune plums
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons sugar

Slice the plums in half and remove the pits. The pits should come out very easily. If they do not, the plums aren’t ripe enough. Put the plums in a medium bowl.

In a custard cup or other small, microwaveable dish, melt the butter. Stir in the sugar and add to the bowl of plums. Mix well, coating the plums with the butter and sugar mixture.

Place plums face down on a cookie sheet or other large, flat pan with sides. No need for parchment or greasing; they won’t stick to the pan. Bake in 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Pull out the pan, and tug on one of the skins. It should come away from the flesh fairly easily. If it doesn’t, roast the plums a few minutes longer. You don’t want to have to mess around with pliers and a spoon like I had to last time when they weren’t done quite enough.

When done, either let the plums cool a bit and remove the skins with your fingers, or, if you just can’t wait, use tongs.

Store in a covered container in the refrigerator. Be sure to scrape all the juices into the container as well — they’re the best part.

Consider caramelized prune plums as a chunky sort of fruit sauce. It’s good on ice cream, pound cake, with rice pudding, and should be pretty awesome stirred into plain or vanilla yogurt.

Or just eat them plain for an under 100 calorie snack. At 85 calories a serving, you could add 3 almonds to get some protein (okay, a teensy bit of protein) with it and still remain at 100 calories.

It was also good with lemon curd in the vols-au-vent.

Here’s one amazing thing to do with leftover scraps of puff pastry: make mini palmiers. A good idea for snacks for a crowd. They’ll go fast, though!

Warning: drunken post ahead

My cousin Tone is in town, and he brought a big ass RV and several other modes of transportation with him. I countted five: the RV, the pickup, motorcycle, 4-wheeler and…kayak.

He’s set up house across the driveway. Yay.

He’s from Texas, like his mom —my aunt — who paradoxically was originally from right here. Like, right in this house. The oldest of my paternal triumvirant, Geriann, is his mom, and okay, this is getting both involved and a bit pedantic.

He came over tonight and we played 500 rummy. Four times. He completely, totally obliterated my ass the first two times. He played it a bit gin rummy style, holding things back to kick my ass, playing mind games, and so forth.

I fixed that right quick

Here, have some Wal-Mart wine, Tone.

Did you know that Wal-Mart, like Trader Joe’s, has a house brand of wine that will blow you away? In fact, I think the Wal-Mart brand is even better. It must be, because I’m having to spell-check this very carefully, and I don’t get this buzzed unless the alcohol is very good.

Wal-Mart markets two (at least) wonderful varieties under the Oak Leaf label: cabernet sauvignon and sauvignon blanc. Since I’m partial to reds, I buy the cabernet quite often. It used to be $2.97, and therefore comparable to two-buck chuck. I think it’s better. They just raised it — today— to $3.49, but I still think it’s a steal.

And I’m not some rube. I’ve had some very good wines in my day. This compares.

The first two games of rummy he smoked my ass. However, he was drinking this lovely cabernet the whole time, and by the third game I was able to smoke him, 605 to 390. Yay! I have to say he was a good foil; I’d never played 500 rummy with someone who played so strategically.

And man that was hard to spell.

Ultimately, we went through 2 and a half bottles of Wal-Mart cabernet. He is going to go buy more tomorrow if he knows what is good for him.

As for snacks, we began by stabbing, literally, at a pink brandywine. My tomatoes just succumbed to late blight, and I’m pulling all the tomatoes off the vines. It is very sad, and let us all share a moment of silence for them. He loved it; it was nearly as flavorful as my previous crop of pink brandywines, which means very smoky and rich.

A bit afterwards, in the third game actually — coincidentally, the one where I smoked him — he got peckish again. The cad.

how dare he get peckish

I had a smallish pat of scraps of homemade puff pastry in the fridge, and I whipped it out, sprinkled some cinnamon sugar on it, and made a bit over a dozen mini palmiers from it.

He snarfed them.

Granted, anything puff pastry is going to be melt-in-your-mouth delicious, but include cinnamon sugar and you have little bursts of melty spiciness.

P.S. Did I mention I won the third game? Yeah, the one where the mini palmiers came out.

Song for this recipe: Carrion by British Sea Power.

mini palmiers

oven: 400 degrees

You might not use all of the cinnamon sugar mixture. Simply follow the recipe and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar in a thin, but complete, layer over the rolled puff pastry. Do not ball puff pastry scraps. Instead, stack them before rolling again. They will not rise as much as the original puff pastry, but they work excellently in recipes like these palmiers.

leftover scraps of puff pastry dough
3 tablespoons white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

With a rolling pin, roll the stacked puff pastry scraps in a rectangle roughly 1/16 of an inch thick.

Sprinkle cinnamon sugar in a thin layer over the rolled puff pastry, covering it completely.

With your hands, roll one side of the sugared puff pastry to the middle of the rectangle. Repeat on the opposite side.

With a sharp knife or pastry scraper, cut the rolled pastry in 1/8 of an inch wide increments. You now have your raw mini palmiers!

Place the mini palmiers on a parchment paper-covered baking sheet. Leave ample space between them; they may still expand quite a bit as they bake.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, or until very lightly browned.