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That Plum Torte

08.15.2016 by J. Doe // Leave a Comment

Of the many gifts the internet has given us, I would argue the greatest may be this: Targeted recycling.

Yes, keeping stuff out of landfills is nice, but that isn’t why I recycle, and I suspect that’s true of a good many people. I will grudgingly separate out the recyclables in my trash because I am required to do so, to avoid a fine. I will happily recycle, though, when there is a monetary gain involved.

My most enthusiastic period as a recycler was during The Child’s infant and toddler years, when she required a new wardrobe with each change of season. Baby clothes are expensive, especially if you don’t have anyone passing along hand-me-downs, and even more especially when you crave only the most exquisite clothing for that baby.

It is entirely possible I was overcompensating for my own childhood, a time that photographic evidence suggests I spent wearing primarily hand-me-down boys’ play clothes, except for special occasions, which I spent in dresses sewn by my mother, and which was spent in the 1970s either way.

My Child’s photo albums would not suffer the same cruel fate, but my wallet could not bear the burden. I quickly discovered consignment stores, but then a magical thing occurred: Ebay.

I found out one could buy beautiful, slightly used boutique baby clothes at a fraction of the original price, and an obsession was born. I learned about internet auctions, and online payment systems, and bid sniping, and bid stalking, and became somewhat of a pro, buying at a discount, then selling what I could bear to part with once she had outgrown it.

Eventually, she preferred choosing her own clothes, and wore clothes long enough that they actually showed signs of wear, so I moved on from Ebay, unless I happened to be in the market for something from my childhood that I did want to remember, like a replacement for my favorite Christmas book, the now sadly out of print Grimble at Christmas.

I discovered other recycling sites had their uses, notably Freecycle, a Yahoo group that allowed me to get rid of large pieces of furniture without having to haul them to a donation site or pay for trash removal. I just emailed out to the group, and chose someone from among the replies, and that someone showed up with a pickup truck and an appreciative smile. The Departed’s massive, battered old desk was freecycled away to a grateful divorcee who needed it to study as she prepared to return to the workforce. Even he couldn’t find a reason to object to this hassle-free system.

Then Facebook came along, and with it, the Buy Nothing group. If you’ve never been in one of these groups, here is how they work: Group members, who live in a small geographical area, post pictures of things they don’t want anymore. Other group members comment on the photos if they are interested in having the item. The giver chooses a recipient. No one is allowed to ask for or offer money.

That’s it. Free stuff on the internet.

The posts are, not surprisingly, heavily tilted toward outgrown children’s items, but there’s quite a bit of other stuff. I posted quite a bit myself, after reading Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – a book we have two copies of, one for me and one for The Child – when I began my household purging, starting with my vast collection of last year’s handbags. I asked everyone who posted to come up with a creative name for each bag’s color, and whoever made the suggestion that tickled my fancy got the bag. I got some free entertainment and a lot of closet space from that.

Occasionally, I get chosen for other people’s items: On one occasion, some vintage cookbooks; on another, an elegant unused Kate Spade organizer, for The Child to keep track of her school assignments. A second batch of free cookbooks turned out to be mostly useless, but included a copy of  Fifty Shades of Chicken, which gave me a laugh and a very handy last-minute gag gift for a newly divorced – and, apparently, newly vegetarian – friend. I wanted to find a reason to need someone’s extensive rubber duck collection, but, much to my dismay, couldn’t.

It’s summer now, and people are posting their garden surplus – they have too much zucchini, or too many apples. I shared some of my rhubarb. A woman who was overrun with plums offered them to me, and when I couldn’t get over to pick them up that same day, she delivered them to my house, so that they wouldn’t go bad before I could get them.

Suddenly, I had too many plums.

Fortunately, I also had a recipe for a plum torte that I’ve been wanting to try, having read about it several times over the years on various food blogs. Created by Marian Burros, the recipe was originally published in the New York Times in 1982, and it made an annual appearance in the paper until 1989, when the editors decided it was time to move on.

The readers thought otherwise, and the Times was “flooded with angry letters.”

Of course, it is now freely available throughout the year through the Times online, and pops up elsewhere with some regularity. I was surprised to find a version of it in Burros’ 1967 cookbook Elegant But Easy (it includes blueberries, apples, and peaches, alongside the plums). It’s the standout recipe of the book, which can best be described at a mesmerizing culinary time warp, particularly the chapter on salads, which contains 19 recipes, of which 12 involve Jell-O and a mold.

The first time I made it, I covered every inch of the batter with plums, since I had so many. The plums I was using were a tiny Japanese variety, so I couldn’t use the stated number of the recipe, and it looked quite pretty. It may have been a bit too much, because even baking the cake for a significantly longer time than called for, the center was still a bit more moist than it should have been. Delicious, but not quite right.

I decided to make the cake a second time, using fewer plums, and as I was washing out my springform pan, I happened to notice the diameter measurement stamped into the bottom: I was the proud owner of an 8 inch pan, rather than the 9 inch pan called for in the recipe.

When I say “the recipe,” I mean every cake I’ve made in a springform pan in the last ten years.

On the one hand, it’s rather disheartening to realize you’ve been fouling up any number of perfectly good cake recipes this way; on the other hand, it’s nice to have a reason to go to the cookware department and buy a shiny new 9 inch pan.

This cake comes together very easily, so making it a second time was a snap. I used fewer plums, and was probably a bit too cautious about it, as the plum to cake ratio was definitely tilted toward cake.  But, the cake did cook through, in the expected amount of time, and it was perfect in every way.

The recipe could easily be made with other fruit; it struck me that apricots in particular would be a nice variation, when they are in season. Sadly, the rest of my bounty of plums had gone off by the time I finished the second cake, but it’s something to look forward to next year.

Plum Torte

 

Plum Torte
 
Print
Author: adapted from Marian Burros, The New York Times
Ingredients
  • 1 cup/125 grams all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp/5 grams baking powder
  • salt
  • 1 cup/200 grams sugar, plus extra for topping
  • ½ cup/115 grams unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 large eggs
  • 12 small plums, halved and pitted, or six larger plums
  • 2 tsp lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
  1. Heat over to 350°F.
  2. Whisk flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl; set aside. In a larger bowl or stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, then the dry ingredients, mixing until just blended.
  3. Spoon batter into a 9-inch springform pan and smooth the top. Arrange the plums on top, skin side up, covering the surface. Sprinkle with lemon juice and cinnamon, then one to two tablespoons of sugar.
  4. Bake about 45 minutes, until the cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into a center part of the cake comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.
  5. And remember, once cool, if you can stand it, leave it covered at room temperature overnight as this cake really is even better on the second day. (But don't beat yourself up if you can't wait. We tried a slice on the first day and it was amazing then too.)
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // baking, cake

French Yogurt Cake

03.25.2016 by J. Doe // Leave a Comment

The Child comes home a few days before Christmas, and we settle into a quiet routine. Throughout January, I ask about homework she needs to do or assignments she needs to make up after her lengthy school absence, and I am offered assurances that feel hollow: I’m all caught up! Everything is done.

Eventually, the teachers start entering grades, and she cannot hide from the truth, reported online. She is overwhelmed. She is lost.

On a Friday evening, I begin emailing other schools, asking if they will accept a transfer, and discover there are new schools in the area that are looking for students. I give her the options, and an offer to help her organize her work, and for the first time since she started elementary school, she accepts my offer. She writes a list of things that are due, and I tell her to do the shortest ones. She does several, and I push her a bit. Do the other ones, and I’ll take you to McDonalds when they’re done.

When we pass through the drive-thru, she seems as pleased with her McNuggets as with her work.

I wake her early the next morning, and her worried look has returned, in spite of the incentive I offer: bacon and eggs for breakfast. She’s remembered more assignments, added them to her list, which is now longer than the night before. I notice that all the assignments are still there, and ask, why didn’t you cross off the ones you did?

I put x’s next to the ones that are turned in.

Do me a favor, I ask. Could you draw lines through the ones you’ve done? It’s hard for me to tell otherwise.

She draws lines through the ones she’s finished, and the list looks manageable once again. She brightens: maybe I should do it that way, then I can see how much I really have left. She dives in to her work, sitting on the sofa, laptop on her knees. I try to supervise, but not hover, so I make myself busy in the kitchen, checking in periodically to make sure her breaks don’t extend into hours, or to offer food and encouragement.

I make batches of marmalade, with varying results: Some too sweet and runny, another too bitter, but nicely firm.

The runny batch was the first attempt: it was pleasantly sweet, but slid off my morning toast and covered my fingers with sticky mess. I looked for ideas to fix the problem, but then, recognizing a losing battle, give up and simply look for recipes that use marmalade.  Somewhere in my pinterest pins, I found this simple recipe for yogurt cake with a marmalade glaze, which makes the jam’s pourable quality into a virtue. As an added incentive, the recipe involves only ingredients I happen to have handy.

I ended up making this cake twice: The first time with the grated zest of half an orange, and the second time, with the grated zest of a small lemon. Even though the original recipe calls for lemon, and numerous other recipes for similar cakes call for lemon, The Child and I both preferred the first version with the orange, which allowed more of the almond flavor to shine through. That said, both cakes were consumed in the same amount of time.

In the end, we liked the cake so much that it was half gone before I remembered I had meant to glaze it, so I never got around to it. Certainly, some marmalade glaze would be nice on it, as would some fresh berries and whipped cream, or almost anything, really. Or, just set it on a plate next to your laptop, and nibble on it  while you do your homework.

French Yogurt Cake

French Yogurt Cake
 
Print
Author: adapted from Emily Weinstein, New York Times
Ingredients
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • ½ cup ground almonds
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • Grated zest of ½ orange
  • ½ cup plain yogurt
  • 3 large eggs
  • ¼ tsp vanilla
  • ½ cup canola oil
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8½-x-4½-inch loaf pan and set aside.
  2. Whisk together the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl, and set aside.
  3. Put the sugar and zest in another bowl and work the zest into the sugar with your fingertips. The sugar with become moist and aromatic. Put the sugar into the work bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and at a medium speed, whisk the yogurt, eggs, and vanilla into the sugar until thoroughly incorporated. Continue whisking and add the flour mixture, then turn off the mixer and fold in the oil using a spatula or wooden spoon.
  4. Scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top.
  5. Bake 50 to 55 minutes, or until the cake begins to come away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for about five minutes, then use a knife to loosen the cake and remove it from the pan to cool completely.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // almonds, baking, lemon, orange

Sweet Rice and Ricotta Pie

11.29.2015 by J. Doe // Leave a Comment

I didn’t cook the first Thanksgiving meal I hosted. My roommate and I had my mom’s old dining table, and my grandmother’s old dishes, which meant that if enough people brought their own chairs, we were equipped to host twelve people for Thanksgiving. I handled the table setting, my roommate the cooking. He knew all about what to do, he said, speaking with such conviction about the virtues of giblet gravy, that I simply readied myself for a showstopping turkey feast.

There would be giblet gravy, and sage stuffing, and not one but two turkeys – an absolute necessity if we were to have a place to stuff all the stuffing that would be needed for our twelve guests. My mother heard about the two turkey plan and pronounced it asinine, but I saw no cause for alarm – it was her usual reaction to nearly everything she hadn’t thought of herself.

I remember we had a merry meal, though as to the meal itself, I don’t remember much. There were pumpkin pies in supermarket boxes, and probably some mashed potatoes, and there were indeed two turkeys, and they were mostly cooked through. What really sticks with me, though, was the stuffing.

My roommate made stuffing from a recipe he made up on the spot, tossing in his best guess as to ingredients, and then filling both birds. He used white bread from the local supermarket, of the sort that instantly liquefies upon coming into contact with any sort of moisture. I believe he may have tried to dry it out beforehand, but maybe not, and it wouldn’t have mattered either way: this bread was chemically engineered not to dry out.

So, my grandmother’s antique serving dishes were filled with balls of sage-scented slime. Each guest gamely took a small helping and graciously pronounced it delicious.

The next time I hosted Thanksgiving, I had long since moved into my own apartment, which came with a battered chrome table, at which I hosted my mother, my boyfriend, a coworker who would have liked to be my boyfriend, and another coworker who was temporarily without any boyfriend. I didn’t have much to guide me, except the knowledge that I probably didn’t need to make two turkeys, and that some guidelines should probably be employed when making stuffing. I bought a copy of Food and Wine magazine and followed their Thanksgiving recipes to the letter: there was turkey basted in butter, and a stuffing of prosciutto and escarole and some country bread that had been air-dried ahead of time and held up quite nicely, thank you very much. I steamed Brussels sprouts and tossed them with red grapes, a colorful dish that my boyfriend objected to, on the grounds that the grapes would compromise the integrity of the Brussels sprouts. They didn’t, of course, and in fact were quite tasty, but the  real hit of the evening was the cranberry sauce, which was spiked with Wild Turkey.

The following year, I bought a copy of Gourmet, and carefully followed the Thanksgiving recipes in that issue, and decided that was going to be my menu, so each succeeding year, until last year, my spattered magazine made its annual appearance. I’ve fine-tuned and simplified the stuffing recipe, my favorite part of the menu, and vary only the cranberry sauce – although I’ve found several recipes I like, I’ve not found one that improved upon my Wild Turkey spiked cranberrypalooza, which, due to the presence of children, has not been served since.

This was the menu I served in my next apartment, to whatever friends happened to be around, and to The Foreigner the one year I hosted Thanksgiving during our marriage. This was the meal I served to the friend who flew in to keep me company when I found myself a single parent of a small toddler, alone in a new city. I served this meal to The Departed each Thanksgiving, and to his children on alternating Thanksgivings.

After he left, I hosted one final Thanksgiving, and then I was done.

I had eaten the same meal off and on for over fifteen years, and I didn’t really care if I ate it again. The Dog was nearing the end, and having guests would be trying for him, and The Child was less interested in hosting children she only saw once a year than she was in finding out what Black Friday was all about.

So I made reservations, and we had fish for dinner, followed by a trip to the mall and an electronics store; we looked at the stuff, and mostly the crowds, and didn’t buy a thing.  This year, we had steak, and a somewhat more productive evening of shopping in a department store downtown.

I expect that at some point, we’ll feel nostalgic for Thanksgiving and return to it. At the moment, though, we don’t really miss it, with one lone exception. I miss Pie Friday. You know what I mean. The day after Thanksgiving. The one day of every year that it’s socially acceptable to eat pie for breakfast.

I don’t care much about pumpkin pie – though most pumpkin pie is simply mediocre, the fact is, when it’s good, it’s quite delicious. The truth of the matter, though, is that I simply enjoy having a lazy day that begins with a slice of slightly soggy-crusted pie from the fridge.

So, this year, on the night when I’d normally be drying out cubes of cornbread in the oven, I made ricotta cheese. If you’ve never done this, I highly recommend it – it sounds very difficult but in fact is comically easy, so for very little effort you get some very nice ricotta with an ego boost on the side. I used the recipe from Epicurious.com, and produced about 16 ounces of very creamy, mild ricotta. I let it drain longer than called for in the recipe, so the end result was a somewhat dry ricotta, which was what I wanted so as not to end up with too much moisture in the final pie.

I found this recipe on the Anson Mills website, and no, I don’t know how or why I found myself on the site. The company, if you’re not familiar with them, specializes in heirloom grains, and offers overly complicated and somewhat pretentious recipes to go with them. I attempted to print out this recipe, which would have resulted in 11 pages to navigate, so I cut-and-pasted only the pertinent parts of the recipe into a Word document, which I managed to trim down to three pages of exceedingly dense text.

I’ve trimmed the recipe down further for you, dear reader: Don’t be deterred. I didn’t create a lattice pie crust that I baked separately, then laid into place on top of the pie, and neither should you. I also didn’t use their special heirloom grains, which seems like the wrong place to skimp given the people selling the grains created the recipe for the purpose of telling you how to use them, but then again, the instructions for the recipe say you should overcook the rice, so it struck me that any decent-quality rice would work fine. I used arborio. I think it came from Costco, but I could be mistaken; certainly, it’s been in my pantry for a while, and thus might possibly qualify as an heirloom. Regardless, it was quite tasty.

The place you shouldn’t skimp is the ricotta – it’s the absolute centerpiece of this pie. Get yourself some good quality fresh ricotta, or make your own, but please avoid the supermarket stuff if you possibly can.

The crust used in this recipe is called a pasta frolla – basically a very sweet pastry crust. I had trouble working with the dough – it rolled out fine, but refused to lay nicely in the springform pan I used, or give me a nice edge. It also got overly dark on the edges when I blind-baked it. Some of these were my errors – I used a nine inch pan, rather than the eight-inch pan called for; if I’d used the correct size, the filling would have come to the top edge as it should have. I also neglected to refrigerate the dough before baking, which probably contributed to the overly-browned edge. Still, if there is one thing I’d still change about the original recipe, it’s the crust; the ricotta filling is so sweet, a sweetened crust isn’t really needed. (The recipe makes enough filling for two store-bought crusts, if you’re in a hurry, or, like me, have impaired pie-crust skills.)

The pie, though? It is lovely. It’s sort of a cross between a cheesecake (without the tang) and a rice pudding – a little custardy, a bit of bite from the rice, with a lovely milky ricotta sweetness reminiscent of the finest cannoli Little Italy has to offer, but better.

It is very filling, so you won’t need much to feel sated and spoiled.

Some tips on baking: The Anson Mills recipe says you can take the pie out of the oven after 45-50 minutes, and the center will still be a bit jiggly. The center was a lot jiggly at that point in my oven, which always requires extra baking time. I needed to add an extra twenty minutes to the baking time; your mileage may vary, too. The real tip-off is the degree of jiggliness of the center – if it’s a lot jiggly, it’s not done yet. You are looking for just a little jiggle. If we use a Charlie’s Angels jiggle scale, you’re looking for Kate Jackson, not Farrah.

I know Thanksgiving is over, but since this is technically an Easter pie recipe, you can get in plenty of practice before you serve it to guests on the correct holiday. Or not. It’s great for breakfast, too.

Sweet Rice and Ricotta Pie

Sweet Rice and Ricotta Pie
 
Print
Author: adapted from Anson Mills
Ingredients
Filling:
  • 3.5 ounces arborio rice
  • 16 ounces whole-milk ricotta
  • 3 ounces heavy cream
  • Finely grated zest of 2 lemons
  • ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 2 large eggs, room temperature
  • 4 large egg yolks, room temperature
  • 7.5 ounces granulated sugar
  • 1 ounce cream sherry
Pastry:
  • 2 large egg yolks
  • 1 ounce heavy cream
  • 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 15 ounces pastry flour, plus additional for rolling out the dough
  • 4 ounces granulated sugar
  • ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 8 ounces cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
Instructions
  1. Make the pastry crust: Whisk together the egg yolk, cream, and vanilla in a small bowl. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse together the flour, sugar, and salt. Scatter the cubes of butter on the top, and pulse everything together until the mixture resembles coarse meal. With the machine running, pour the egg mixture through the feed tube, and continue to process until the mixture forms a ball. Remove the dough from the processor, and divide into two equal portions (each will weigh about 14.5 ounces). Wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least a half hour and up to two hours.
  2. Unwrap one piece of dough and put it on a floured piece of parchment. Using a floured rolling pin, roll out the dough into a round large enough to line the sides of an eight-inch springform pan. Fit a piece of aluminum foil into the dough, and line with dried beans or pie weights. Refrigerate about 45 minutes.
  3. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Bake the crust about 20 minutes; don't let it get too brown.
  4. Cook the arborio in about two cups of water, until it is softer than you'd normally eat it,then set aside to cool.
  5. Stir the ricotta, cream, lemon zest, and salt together in a medium bowl, set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk, beat the eggs and egg yolks until they begin to thicken, then slowly pour in the sugar in a thin stream. When the mixture has thickened and increased in volume, reduce speed to low and add the ricotta and cooled rice, blending thoroughly.
  6. Pour the filling into the prepared pastry; it should come up to the rim.
  7. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Bake the pie about 45-50 minutes, until just the center still jiggles slightly.
  8. Let the pie cool in the pan on a wire rack for at least an hour before removing the pie to a platter. Dust with confectioner's sugar, if you like; the pie is plenty sweet without it.
Notes
Ingredients are measured by weight in this recipe - you'll get the best results if you use a digital kitchen scale. The recipe for the pastry makes enough for a pie base and top crust, so you will have extra pie crust at the end - enjoy it, or go ahead and cut the ingredients in half. Finally, if you don't have pastry flour on hand, go ahead and substitute all-purpose flour cut with corn starch - you will use about 2¾ cups of AP flour and 6 tbsps corn starch. Make sure to check the weight - 15 ounces - so that the overall proportions are correct.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // baking, pie, rice

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