BETTER-THAN-INSTANT VANILLA CUPCAKES

MINI TREATS & HAND-HELD SWEETS (a review)

A bottle of half-drunk wine sits on a rumpled, faded tablecloth on the coffee table in front of the darkened television set, silent remnants of a meal eaten late in the evening by a family too tired to carry everything into the kitchen when it was done. Old, scruffed and battered moving cartons, decades-old packing tape, yanked off and pressed back into place too many times to count hanging loosely off the sides, are piled willy-nilly in the foyer, bags of paperback novels are lined up like soldiers down the long shelf-lined corridor. A move is imminent, the house groans under the weight of too many belongings, the pressure of time tilting in the wrong direction, coming perilously close. Neither focus nor energy to cook or shop, just barely enough time to dash to the other apartment and back again, stopping off on the way to pick up prepared foods and that necessary bottle of red or white, depending upon our mood.

So when the craving hits – whether that uncontrollable urge to measure, blend, stir, whisk or that crazy need to eat something sweet and homemade (all the time, as my husband never fails to remind me) – I turn to something simple, fast and easy. I love my one-bowl cake recipes, whether my brother’s Spicy Carrot Snack Cake or one of my amazing, please-everybody Chocolate Cakes, my Chocolate Chip Banana Bread or my latest discovery, Lemon Pecan Quick Bread with a swirl of jam down the center. Nothing fancy, no imaginative masterpiece, just simple and sweet, comforting and good. Staple ingredients that I have on hand at all times, measure the dry, measure the wet, whisk and in the oven and do some ironing or writing while it bakes. The hardest part of each of these recipes is the waiting until it is done and cooled enough to slice and enjoy.

And this is where Abby Dodge comes in. I love Abby. Call it friendship, call it admiration and respect, call it a girl crush, call it what you will, I love Abby. Yes, she and I are friends and I’ve had the great good pleasure to spend face time with her in both Paris and New York, the time in between punctuated by the occasional phone call. She is warm and funny, so kind and generous. Friend and mentor. But don’t think that I promote her cookbooks because she is a friend. I would never offer empty praise nor would I make promises to my readers and fellow baking aficionados about something that I myself didn’t absolutely love. Abby is an astonishingly talented baker and creates desserts and cake and treats that are often incredibly simple to make yet hit the spot every time – delicious, perfect, satisfying and homey.

 With Abby and Gail of One Tough Cookie

I am the happy owner of three of Abby’s cookbooks – The Weekend Baker, Desserts 4 Today and Mini Treats & Hand-Held Sweets and I love baking from them. Her Espresso Chocolate Cake with Mocha Mascarpone is a stunner and more than worthy of any celebration! Her Creamy Espresso Pudding soothes the coffee lover in me every time. Her Raspberry Blueberry Coffee Cake is tender and delicate with the sweet tang of fresh berries, a family favorite for breakfast. And her Nutella Fudge Brownie Bites? Do I even need to explain? I have come to have complete faith in Abby’s recipes; I know each will work and each will make my very hard-to-please family smile. And eat.

I recently went scrambling desperately through The Weekend Baker for something chocolate. My son was complaining that there was nothing to eat for breakfast, no snack waiting when he got home from class. He is as persnickety and fussy as they come, and for him I needed something that he calls “plain”, which translates as: nothing fancy, no creamy additions, no odd bits and strange flavors. Something that is familiar, that he recognizes. You see what I am up against? He’s lucky, because I just happened to be craving, for some inexplicable reason, chocolate cupcakes. Sometimes, those odd cravings just hit, don’t they? Happily, I discovered something called Emergency Blender Chocolate Cupcakes in the index and saw that, indeed, they were super easy and fast to make. Since simplicity and plain are the keywords around here and I knew that I would be topping those cupcakes with no frosting or whipped cream, I would definitely not be pushing a single red cherry down into the batter or hiding a rounded teaspoon of homemade Salted Butter Caramel Sauce (something I always seem to have hanging around these days) inside the center of each cupcake, I had to think in another direction, find something to make them special. So I made them into mini Bundts. And they were perfect.

And Mini Treats & Hand-Held Sweets (100 Delicious Desserts to Pick Up and Eat) arrived on my doorstep just as the last Chocolate Cinnamon Bundtlet disappeared (I do believe he ate the last four all at once). I had just made Abby’s Brown Butter Apple Hand Tarts from her most recent #BakeTogether – a recipe based on one from Mini Treats. I wanted to make something son, husband and I would love and I selected Almost-Instant Yellow Cupcakes. Which I refer to as Better-Than-Mix Yellow Cupcakes! Again, these were together in a flash. Abby suggests frosting these cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Frosting but I topped mine with our favorite Easy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. The cupcakes, like the Chocolate Cinnamon Bundt Cakes, are perfect! Dense and moist without being gooey or sticky, tender and so full of flavor that no frosting will hide the vanilla tastiness. I don’t often make cupcakes and rarely make vanilla cupcakes, but I cannot get enough of these. I haven’t eaten anything so delicious for ages! Yes, yes, I should write something much more poetic, descriptive, evocative, but how can I think anything other than “ooooooh mmmmmmm” as I am pushing one fabulous cupcake into my mouth after another they are that good?!

“Serving up dessert from this Mini Treats & Hand-Held Sweets means no plates, no forks, no spoons – no kidding.” explains Abby. “Easy-to-make and even easier-to-serve desserts that will dazzle” is the aim of Mini Treats & Hand-Held Sweets and Abby, as usual, hits it on the nose. The cookbook is filled with great recipes: Double-Trouble Chocolate Cupcakes, Streusel-Topped Double Cherry Slab Pie (the next on my own list), Lemon Meringue Pie Poppers, Mini Mocha Roll Cakes, Blood Orange and Creamy Tangerine Pops, White Chocolate-Cherry Popcorn to name a very few. And Abby, as she does in all of her cookbooks, gives extremely precise instructions that will give even the beginning baker confidence and great results, fun suggestions for twists to change up and personalize each treat, and her own Kitchen Wisdom oozing with her long experience.

Abby’s Emergency Chocolate Cupcakes and these Almost-Instant Yellow Cupcakes should be at the top of your baking repertoire, both perfect when you need a fast, easy, versatile and extraordinarily delicious treat, snack, breakfast or dessert. For more of Abby's great recipes visit her blog.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy as a gift from The Taunton Press but the decision to post a review and all opinions are my own. The decision to bake as much as I do from Abby's cookbooks is my own as well.

BETTER-THAN-INSTANT VANILLA CUPCAKES
From Mini Treats & Hand-Held Sweets by Abigail Johnson Dodge

1 ¼ cups (lightly spooned in the measuring cup and levelled with a knife) flour
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 tsps baking powder
½ tsp salt
6 Tbs (3 oz) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
½ cup water
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 yolk from a large egg, at room temperature
1 Tbs vanilla extract

Position an oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 375°F (190°C) – I have an unusually hot oven so I set mine to 180°C). Line 12 regular-sized (2 ¾-inch diameter) muffin cups with paper or foil liners (I used silicone cupcake cups).

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium or large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.

Put the melted butter, water, egg and yolk and vanilla in a small bowl and whisk until well blended. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and whisk until well blended and smooth, about 1 minute.

Portion the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full. (I poured the batter into a large measuring cup with a spout, which makes pouring easier and neater.) Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 14 to 16 minutes. Move to a wire rack and let cool for 15 minutes. Carefully remove the cupcakes from the pan, set them on a wire rack and let cool completely.

Frost as you please. Eat as many as you like, in thoughtful moderation and saving some to share.

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HOMEY CHUNKY BEST CHICKEN SALAD & MINI CHOCOLATE BUNDT CAKES

AMERICANA

Chicken salad has a certain glamour about it. 

Like the little black dress, 

it is chic and adaptable anywhere. 

- Laurie Colwin, Home Cooking, 1988

Chicken Salad. Simple, homey, banal old chicken salad. White bread, or toast if you are feeling audacious, a smear of mayo, a slice of tomato, one single lettuce leaf and a scoop of chicken salad. Nothing more American than chicken salad for lunch. Or tuna salad, come to think of it, but tuna is particular in its bold, distinctive, fishy flavor, often hard to please. There are only so many ways that tuna salad can be prepared, only so many ingredients that marry well with the assertive fishiness. But something about chicken is universal; its very blandness is the perfect backdrop, a tabula rasa for anything. As Laurie Colwin stated, it is so adaptable.

One can say that chicken salad’s very essence is American. Start with the chicken itself, poached or roasted, simple and tender, a blank page; chop it, mince it, shred it, precise, clean and elegant, or rough, frayed, ever so scraggy and casual. A spoonful or three of mayonnaise, of course, cool, velvety, rich and then, really, it can take on any personality at all. Slivers of sun-dried tomatoes, the sharp tang of mustard or vinegar, the salty pull of olives, the smoky masculinity of bacon or ham, the bite of your favorite pickle. Give it the hot, spicy kick of Tabasco or the gentle sweetness of grapes or pears, the crunch of apples or walnuts. Or bring in your own cultural touch, your very own personal taste: toss in curry, garam masala, chickpeas and coriander for an Indian twist; chunks of feta, cubes of ripe tomatoes, onions and dark, glistening, slippery, tangy olives for something reminiscent of the Greek Isles; Chinese, Italian, Russian, Irish, pull up something from your favorite cuisine or your own family roots, chicken salad is the Melting Pot of food.

My father baked. Choux, delicate and ethereal, filled with thick, creamy pudding; larger-than-life sheet cakes, perfectly marbled chocolate and vanilla; mile-high pies then topped with mounds of sweet, snowy whipped topping. My father loved to spend time in the kitchen, concentrating on stirring, pouring, simmering, his eyes absolutely twinkling with delight. Weekends would find him whipping up a batch of pancake batter, always for dinner, never for breakfast; by the time we kids straggled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen, dad would already be out in the yard mowing the scrappy patches of hard, tough Florida lawn clinging mightily to the Florida sand, digging up his poor little plot of a garden or have his head deep under the hood of a car. I often wax nostalgic about the hours I would spend, mesmerized, watching my father whip up a baked good or blend handfuls of dried fruits to create an ambrosial, sweet, shimmering compote. I inherited many qualities from him, and the passion for baking must be one of them.

But he did so much more than bake. He loved being in the kitchen. Weekends he would toss steaks or burgers on the grill when he wasn’t flipping pancakes on the griddle. And his hoagies! How we loved his hoagies! He would bake loaves of frozen, buttery garlic bread, split each one open, spread on the mayonnaise, and with the precision, exactitude and fastidiousness of the engineer that he was, he would layer and mound paper thin slices of cold cuts, salamis and cheeses, top with a row of tomato slices, lettuce leaves and, his secret ingredient, his final touch, a drizzle of Italian salad dressing. Ah, hoagie night.

And he made all of the salads. He was the king of salads. Tuna and chicken salads, chopped liver, whatever you please. His chicken salad was thick and creamy, dotted with bits of carrots and celery for color and crunch, maybe an onion finely minced, salted and peppered and it needed nothing more than that to be turned into a perfect sandwich. We were plain, simple folk with a taste for something that simply said American comfort food, a meal that simply said home.

(An) an American can eat anything on the face of this earth 

as long as he has two pieces of bread. 

– Bill Cosby 

Now I am all grown up and have so many worlds, cultures and cuisines at my fingertips. That bowl of cooked, chopped chicken takes on many forms, so many different personalities depending upon the season, the weather and my mood. Often, I will fill my shopping cart or market basket with an array of condiments, flavors and textures that will bring a new chicken salad to life, to be packed for a picnic, served up for lunch or eaten at a buffet. But as we delve deeper and deeper into apartment renovations, as my time is sucked into a black hole…. No, no. As my time is taken up by painting and polishing parquet and making design decisions, I have less and less time to devote to cooking. Shopping is done on the run, cooking is now a thrown together affair, a “let’s dig through the cupboard and fridge” kind of smorgasbord event as we collapse in front of the television for the evening. Yet as I dashed to the market yesterday to pick up cheeses and baguette and fruit, whatever to make a quick, impromptu meal or two, chicken salad crossed my mind. I haven’t thought of chicken salad in years. I bought tomatoes, an avocado and a tiny bouquet of pearl onions and ran home. And I was on my way.

Tonight’s version of chicken salad is made up of what I had on had: mayonnaise, mustard and red wine vinegar for a creamy dressing with a slight bite and a slight tang. Slivered spring or pearl salad onions, chunks of avocado as well as a couple of minced hardboiled eggs and a cupful of cooked white beans for both added nutritional value and consistency. From there, toss in a handful of fresh coriander, chunks of feta, slivers of sundried tomatoes or sliced pickles. Or a handful of olives. I make mine rather plain and serve the extras on the side so each diner can create his own perfect flavor combination. And dad’s spirit hung over us, glided in and out of the kitchen and livingroom as we dined on the perfect American buffet, comfort food to soother body and soul after a long day of renovations. Serve with fresh bread, tossed salad, a cheese platter, a bowl of fruit and a bottle of light, fruity white wine. Yes, please.

I have decided to add to my menu chocolate cake. I have taken Abby Dodge’s fabulous Emergency Blender Chocolate Cupcakes from The Weekend Baker (a cookbook that I highly recommend to beginner and experienced bakers alike) and turned them into tiny Bundt cakes to serve simply (what else?) dusted with powdered sugar. Feel free to serve them with a scoop of your favourite ice cream, whipped cream or my Chocolate Whipped Cream or Coffee Whipped Cream.

This Chicken Salad and individual Chocolate Bund Cakes is for this month’s Monthly Mingle (a blogging even created by Meeta), hosted by my friend and fellow American expat Jenn of Jenn Cuisine. Her Monthly Mingle theme is Americana. And what is more American than Chicken Salad? And chocolate cake!

NOTA BENE: A home baker can never have enough easy, quick, one-bowl cake recipes. Why use a boxed mix when you can have a homemade, from-scratch cake with barely more time, energy or trouble? Here are a few of my own personal favorites:

Chocolate Espresso Layer Cake





 

Special Chocolate Cake

Eggless "Lickety Split" Chocolate Cake

Best Chocolate Chip Banana Bread





CHICKEN SALAD

This is the basic version, then add to it what you will. This serves about 4 people, American, French or whoever happens to be in your home and hungry, as part of a luncheon or light dinner spread.


2 large chicken breasts
2 – 4 cups chicken or vegetable broth or stock, enough to cover the breasts
3.5 oz (100 g) smoked lardons cubes (I use Matchstick) or bacon
2 – 4 large eggs
5 or more Tbs mayonnaise, homemade or excellent quality jarred
1 – 2 Tbs mustard, to taste
1 – 2 tsps red wine vinegar, to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 can cooked white beans, rinsed
1 ripe avocado, peeled and cubed
Spring or pearl salad onions, trimmed of the green and the white part thinly sliced
1 small or medium-sized carrot, trimmed and cleaned (peeled or scraped)
1 – 2 cups cherry tomatoes, rinsed and halved, optional

Pat the chicken breasts with paper towelling and trim off any excess pockets of fat. Place the breasts in a pot of simmering chicken or vegetable stock or broth (homemade, canned or from a stock cube is fine) and allow to simmer until cooked through (the center went sliced open should no longer be pink). This takes about 10 minutes, more or less depending upon the thickness of the breasts. Remove from the stock and allow to cool.

Hardboil 2 to 4 eggs, allow to cool, peel and rinse. Fry the lardons or bacon in a dry skillet until crispy. If use bacon, crumble or cut into matchsticks. Allow to cool.

When cooled, chop or mince. When the chicken has cooled, chop, cube, mince, shred or slice the cooked chicken and place in a medium or large mixing bowl. Grate the carrot into the bowl – I use the largest holes of the grater. Add the lardons or bacon, the thinly sliced onion and the minced hardboiled eggs. Whisk the 5 tablespoons of the mayonnaise with 1 tablespoon of the mustard and taste. Add more mayonnaise or mustard to taste. Whisk in 1 teaspoon of the red wine vinegar. Fold into the chicken salad. Salt and pepper.

Gently fold the rinsed and drained white beans and the avocado chunks. Add the cherry tomatoes and anything else you choose to add (pickle slices, slivers of sundried tomatoes, pitted olives, fresh herbs, seedless grapes, pear or apple chunks, coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts, etc.) and fold together.

Now taste to adjust seasonings: add more mustard, half a tablespoon at a time, or more vinegar, 1 teaspoon at a time, salt and pepper until desired taste is attained.

Serve immediately at room temperature or keep covered with plastic wrap and chilled in the refrigerator until ready to serve and eat.

ABBY’S ONE-BOWL CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES
Or mini Bundts

Abby uses a blender to prepare this batter – whizzing all of the dry ingredients together and then adding the wet ingredients and whizzing to combine. I do it the old fashioned way, with a whisk. I only change I made was adding ground cinnamon. All dry ingredients should be lightly spooned into the measuring cup and leveled with a knife blade.

Nota Bene: What I particularly love about chocolate cakes like this is that one can add a hint of any favorite flavoring one desires: add a tablespoon of Grand Marnier, Cointreau or Amaretto; add 2 teaspoons of dry, powdered espresso powder or replace some of the hot water with strong prepared coffee; add the grated zest of an orange or a lemon or a splash of orange or another fruit juice, measuring the liquid as part of the ¾ cup hot water. Add a pinch of another spice that pairs well with chocolate, such as a gingerbread, pumpkin or apple pie spice. Just for a few suggestions.

1 cup (130 g) flour
½ cup (45 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon, optional
¾ cup (175 ml) hot water
½ cup (120 ml) vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C) – I set my very unpredictable and overly hot oven to 185°C. Line 12 regular-size muffin cups with paper liners or butter and flour 12 individual mini Bundt cups (the easiest way to butter mini Bundt cups is with softened or just-melted butter and a soft pastry brush. Dust with flour and turn over the sink and shake/tap out all excess flour)

Combine the flour, cocoa powder (I sift the cocoa powder into the bowl), sugar, baking soda, salt and ground cinnamon into a large mixing bowl. Whisk in the water, then the oil, egg and vanilla until smooth and blended.

Pour into the prepared muffin or mini Bundt cups – I scrape the liquid batter into a large measuring cup with a lip/spout which makes the job of pouring into muffin tins easier and cleaner. Divide the batter evenly among the cups.

Bake until a tester inserted in the center of one of the cupcakes or Bundlets comes out clean; the top of one cake should spring back when lightly pressed and the edges of the Bundlets should be starting to pull away from the tin. Remive the pan from the oven onto a cooling rack and allow to cool for about 10 minutes before carefully popping out the cupcakes or mini Bundts. Allow to cool completely before serving.

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CINNAMON STREUSEL COFFEE CAKE

BAKE TOGETHER FOR FRIENDSHIP


My suitcases lie open on the bedroom floor, socks strewn from one end of the bed to the other; piles of clean laundry grace my creamy carpet, begging for attention, silently crying “Me! Take me!” each time I slide through the room. We scurry around the house in preparation, counting out purchases, checking our lists, dashing to this computer or that to finish a bit of work, answer an e-mail or two. The car has been given the once, twice, thrice over, new tires installed and brakes changed. Boxes of cookies and treats both salty and sweet begin to fill the basket that accompanies us on each road trip. And the second From Plate to Page workshop hovers expectantly on the horizon, luring me with promises of excitement, adventure, learning and friendships old and new.

October means the coming of autumn, chill, crisp weather brilliant with sunshine. The leaves gently turn from jade to burnished gold and drift down lazily, elegantly from their perch, carpeting the now exposed, austere park, devoid of all greenery, nestled amid the trees. The market stalls transform from vibrant cherry and raspberry red, violet, pale apricot and bright canary to darker-hued autumn colors of garnet and aubergine, burnt orange to flame, creamy chocolate, wine to pomegranate and gold, mellowing from dazzling jewel tones to an earthier, more carnal palette. Delicate berries redolent of summer, fragrant, girlish beauties shyly baring their all to the world and curious fingertips relinquish their place to the fleshy, voluptuous, worldly women of autumn, tough old roots and gourds, thick-skinned pomegranates, figs and grapes offering teasing resistance to eager tongues or stinky, gnarled carrots, pumpkins, onions and fennel, gritty with dirt, defying tenderness.


Smirking jack-o-lanterns, pale slashes gaping across orange, eyes burning in devilish delight; ghostly apparitions gliding between houses as mysterious as graveyard silence hanging heavy as mist; noises of impish laughter drift through the darkness, strange forms flash through circles of light which drip onto the sidewalks and mischief reigns, swallowing each one of us up in some netherworld of festivity: Halloweens of my childhood come back to me as a spirit haunting. Visions of my younger brother and I treading carefully across the lawn draped in a bedsheet, coin-sized circles cut out of the white allowing us to just barely find our way come back to me with fondness and glee. Knocking on door after door, amazed at the creativity of the decorations: construction paper cats in inky black, arched backs, hissing and spitting, scarecrows of jutting straw and baggy clothes, red lights amid shadows flooding driveways, screams emanating from hidden loudspeakers; the streets where I grew up in that tiny town a joyous and terrifying carnival of surprises, children and adults alike masquerading as someone whom they were not all in the celebration of Halloween.

Young woman, I traded in the balmy evenings and warm ocean breeze of a Florida October for the foggy chill and romantic autumn season of Europe. Throughout my years in France and Italy, Halloween has taken a backseat to All Saints’ Day, the pagan festivities a far away second to the solemn religious ceremony of visiting the dead. Flowers spill out onto sidewalks and into the streets in front of every flower shop as the first of November rolls around; armloads of chrysanthemums find their way into cemeteries, brightening and soothing the sadness. In Italy, these days of Tutti i Santi and Ognissanti (All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days) are sacrosanct, families picking up the grandparents and driving miles and miles, sometimes to the other end of the country to spend a few hours at the family plot, brushing off dead leaves, discarding withered blooms and saying prayers amidst the fresh bouquets.


And bakeries are filled with seasonal treats. No candy corns nor caramel popcorn balls grace the shelves of shops, but rather Pan dei Morti: a rich, dark, earthy pastry heady with spices, infused with a multitude of flavors; cocoa, cinnamon, nuts, wine weave in and out of each mouthful, each flavor distinct yet balanced and blended together into one surprising taste, the flavor of autumn. And as you chew, the crackle of ground cookies and figs and the crunch of pine nuts remind you of dead men's bones, a sweet reminder of loved ones long gone. I miss this intriguing confection, a reminder of that Halloween period in Italy, as beloved as those long ago evenings of my girlhood spent trick or treating for a treasure trove of sweet, store-bought goodies. This is just one of autumn’s little treasures, an Italian tradition that I hold deep in my heart and which ignites memories each October.

And once again, I will be in Italy. We pack up the car, almost ready for our trip down, JP, Simon and I, heading back to our old stomping grounds, to friends who were once family, to see and breathe in the sights and sounds, the aromas and sensations that we lived day in and day out for so many years, so many years ago. They drop me off for a weekend in Tuscany where I will hug Jeanne, Meeta and Ilva once again, no doubt screaming, screeching, laughing, shedding a few tears. And then another From Plate to Page, our second, another group of eager students ready to work (no shop) for 3 full days of writing, styling, photographing, cooking, eating, talking, living. And we learn as we impart knowledge, appropriate as we share, growing together in our craft, our art, our profession during a weekend that flies by all too quickly.

And then it ends as it began, with hugs and tears and laughter and the promise to keep in touch. And my men come to scoop me up, heavy with goodies from our fabulous, generous sponsors, camera and computer overflowing with pictures, and off we go to hit the road one more time. We head up to Milan where we will visit old friends and new, stroll through this beautiful city we once knew so well and still love. We will spot changes in the décor while memories will return as shops and restaurants pop into view. And then we leave Simon for three months.


And as the temperature drops to nippy, as brilliant mornings droop to bleak afternoons, the furnace bursts to life, sweaters are tugged more closely around the body and we wander into the kitchen, pulled in, captivated by the heady scent of coffee and cajoled by the warmth of a freshly baked cake heavy with cinnamon. What better way to celebrate autumn than with a coffee cake to share with our closest friends and loved ones, simply, over a cup of something steaming hot and the latest gossip or plans for a brighter future? Abby, wonderful, warm Abby, has offered us her Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake for our October Bake Together adventure, an event to share with friends countries and continents apart.


Please find the recipe for this fabulous Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake on Abby’s blog HERE… and follow her so you, too, can join in on our monthly Bake Together! And keep posted on all our Bake Together treats and results on Twitter with the hashtag #baketogether. (Nota bene: I replaced the sour cream in the recipe with buttermilk)


And for all those who could not make our second From Plate to Page Workshop in Tuscany, you can join us live as it happens through Twitter by using the hashtag #plate2page. And for all workshop impressions as well as updates and news on all future workshops, please visit our Plate to Page website and sign up for e-mail alerts! Don’t miss anything!


And please visit the Plate to Page website blog for our latest three guest posts in our on-going series featuring fabulous, talented professional food stylists, photographers and writers. This month, Cape Town food writer and journalist Sam Woulidge, Chicago-based Prop Stylist Paula Walters and Seattle-based food stylist and photographer Kelly Cline each share their personal and professional journey as well as thoughts, insights and advice on each of their professions.

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PECAN CARAMEL CHOCOLATE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE

SOMETIMES A FLOP IS NO FLOP!


Success!

I hate failure. More particularly, I hate failure in the kitchen. My dread of a baking fiasco began so many years ago when, young girl barely in her teens, I attempted to recreate in our own kitchen the cranberry muffins I had fallen in love with during 7th-grade home economics class. Those cranberry muffins, warm and delicate vanilla-scented cake laden with plump, tangy ruby red fruit and memories, my first love, were my initiation into the joys of baking. But after a disastrous re-edition of these muffins for my family a year or so later when I mistakenly blended in 3 CUPS of solid shortening instead of the required 3 tablespoons, producing a muffin top afloat a pool of liquid fat, I pushed this newfound love to the back shelf like a rejected suitor, and didn’t dare make an attempt to produce a baked good until my college days. I was horrified at my error, felt it deeply and have been scarred ever since.

I am not one of those bloggers who grew up learning to cook from the best. No mother or grandmother whipping up those special dishes she was famous for, sharing kitchen secrets, taking me by the hand and showing me the ins and outs of how to be an amazing cook. Baked goods were mostly from a box, no matter how passionately prepared. I grew up in a Space Age kitchen where we reveled in every new-fangled food invention, from the powdered and freeze-dried, the boxed, canned and frozen. So, while my chic New York cousins were dabbling in gourmet fare and preparing dishes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I was living the American Culinary Dream of the 1960’s and 70’s: recipes learned at Girl Scout Camp, all the odd flavor and textural combinations I could make starting from a peanut butter sandwich and, well, boxed brownies.


And how many years did it take before I could turn out a decent loaf of yeast bread? How many loaves of sweet quick bread or cream tarts ended up in our well-fed trash bin for lack of experience and understanding, my rushing precipitately through a recipe in not enough time or simply trying to substitute one thing for another in my mad desire to bake? We all make mistakes, but some of us use that fallen soufflé or leaden loaf of bread, curdled custard or green cake tasting of metal or reeking of oven cleaner as an inspiration, a learning experience, an incentive to work harder and try again. While those of us who doubt our own talents or who lack patience and self discipline drag our sorry body out of the kitchen and go and hide in the bedroom, nose buried in a novel, waiting for the baking gods to forget we exist or, better yet, to flog us silly for our inexcusable behavior!

My dirty little secret.

I approach new recipes and experiments tentatively, as I do most things in my life. Self-doubt is in constant battle with my sense of adventure and curiosity, each elbowing the other for just a little more room, trying to force their way forward like teens at a standing-room-only concert. Each dish that I serve, every cake or sweet treat that I pull out of the oven gets the once over, a poke and a prod, a taste and my brow furrows with apprehension, my fists clench with tension and my heart pounds in worry and anticipation of the worst. Too dry? Undercooked? Flavorless? Just plain didn’t work? And my men just sneer or slap their foreheads in disbelief, wondering why I just didn’t stick to the tried and true or angry because “There you go again, complaining, all flustered about nothing and not able to enjoy what you put so much time and energy into.” Call me crazy (and they do), but I just cannot help myself or my baffling, complex reaction.


But then sometimes an apparent flop turns out to be an unexpected success. I lovingly measure and stir with pleasure, feel the knife push through a fragrant mound of pecans with that gentle, satisfying give and snap, watch the smooth, creamy batter ribbon down thickly into the pan, the heady scent of chocolate tickling my nostrils and setting my tastebuds aquiver. Anticipation mounts as I peer into the oven, nose practically pressed against the burning window. And I wait. I pray. I watch as the cake rises and firms, hoping aloud that the edges don’t burn or turn crusty before the center is set. And I pull it out and place it on the rack with a clickety clack, allowing it to cool just as it demands. So what can go wrong? My instinct kicks in and….

I love The Weekend Baker! This fabulous book for bakers of every level is a wonderful collection of homey, comfy recipes both old fashioned cozy and contemporarily cool by my wonderful friend Abigail Johnson Dodge (Abby to her fans and friends). This is a book for a passionate home baker such as I to read, coddle, indulge in and dream over. I have made several of Abby’s recipes from The Weekend Baker, Bon Appetit Magazine and from Desserts 4 Today and they were each stunning and so delicious. So after much thought and consideration, I decided to make her Nutty Caramel-Chocolate Upside Downer, a cake I was sure would please everyone in my family. So I made the caramel – a snap – and chopped the pecans – pure pleasure – and whipped up the chocolate cake batter – simple and sumptuous! And the cake baked. I followed the instructions to a tee – although I knew that my caramel had turned out too watery; I ran and twittered Abby asap… but it was too late and neither one of us could figure out the snafoo. And so as I flipped the cake over onto my pristine white cake platter, well, the caramel did not so much ooze thickly down, velvety smooth, lusciously creamy as caramel should but rather it rushed out of the pan, ran down watery and thin and puddled onto the table. So of course, hysteria set in. I screamed, cursed and panicked! I succeeded in salvaging the cake – well I am being a bit overdramatic as the cake was in perfect shape, but, yes, I made my usual scene. So there was no caramel other than the lovely essence that had soaked into the top of the chocolate cake now studded with pecans. After allowing the cake to cool, we sliced. We tasted. And, lo and behold, we absolutely loved it!

So my flop was no flop at all. No gooey caramel dripping elegantly down the sides, but the cake was perfect, dense, moist with an incredible chocolate flavor heightened by the crunch and earthiness of the pecans. And my sons, the biggest test of all, two fine young men who refuse my baked goods more often than not for such reasons as “I don’t like the flavor of caramel.” “It isn’t the chocolate cake I asked for.” “Why don’t you just keep making the cake I like the best instead of always trying new recipes?” and my favorite “Stop all the baking already! Stop forcing food down our throats!” Well, they couldn’t eat this cake fast enough.

Abby’s Pecan Caramel Chocolate Upside Down Cake was a roaring success.


The Weekend Baker is a fabulous and perfect gift for anyone who loves to bake: beginner, the more advanced or you!

Disclaimer (as bloggers love to say!): I purchased this book on my own. It was a gift from no one and no one asked me to say wonderful things about this book. Yes, Abby is a great friend of mine, but I bake from this book because I love to bake and I absolutely love the recipes in this book.


PECAN CARAMEL CHOCOLATE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE
From The Weekend Baker by Abigail Johnson Dodge

For the Nuts and Caramel:

¾ cup (6 oz/170 g) firmly packed dark brown sugar (I used packed light brown sugar)
5 Tbs (71 g) unsalted butter
2 – 3 Tbs water (I used 3 and it was obviously too much)
1 ¼ cups (6 oz/170 g) coarsely chopped nuts (I used pecans, Abby suggests adding slivered blanched almonds and walnuts as well), toasted

For the Cake:

1 1/3 cups 170 g) flour
½ cup (45 g) unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process), sifted if lumpy
¾ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp table salt
10 Tbs (145 g) unsalted butter softened to room temperature
1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar (Abby’s measure was 227 g)
1 tsp vanilla
3 large eggs, well beaten
½ cup (115 ml) buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and position the oven rack on the middle rung. Lightly grease the sides (not the bottom) of a 9 x 2-inch (23 x 5-cm) round cake pan.

Prepare the nuts and the caramel:

In a small saucepan, combine the brown sugar, butter and water. Set the pan over medium heat abd cook, stirring often, until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth. Bring to a boil and pour into the prepared pan, swirling to coat the bottom evenly. Scatter the toasted nuts evenly over the caramel and gently press into the caramel.

Prepare the cake:

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt and whisk until blended. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and continue beating until fluffy. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating briefly after each addition. Sprinkle half the flour mixture over the butter/sugar and mix on low speed until the dry ingredients disappear. Add the buttermilk and beat until blended. Add the remaining dry ingredients and beat just until blended. Scoop the batter by spoonfuls into the pan evenly over the caramel and nuts. Very gently and carefully spread to even out the cake batter, trying not to disturb the nuts. Tap the pan a few times on the counter to settle the batter.

Bake in the preheated oven about 45 minutes until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven when done and immediately run a knife around the sides of the pan to loosen the cake. Using a thick, dry kitchen towel to protect your hands, invert a large serving or cake plate on top of the pan and, holding both the pan and the plate, invert them together. Leave the pan over the cake for about 3 minutes to allow the caramel to drip onto the cake then lift off the pan. Using a small spatula or knife, scrape out any caramel that remained stuck to the pan and spread on top of the cake.


Serve the cake warm or at room temperature.

Just slightly undercooked, but just the way we love it.

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RASPBERRY-BLUEBERRY CINNAMON COFFEE CAKE

GOOD DAY, SUNSHINE!

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.
~Sam Keen

Sunday. Summer has finally swept over us like a warm blanket. Waking earlier than usual, our sleep disturbed by a tumult of angst, a jumble of confusion, we felt the sun squeeze through the slats of the shutters and reach towards the bed, chasing away the discord of the night like a prayer chasing away the darkness and fear. We knew that today was the day to head outside of the city for a walk or a ride, a day to revel in the second coming of summer. After what has been a melancholy, dismal season, overnight the world has seemed to shift to right.

We pulled out the bikes from the garage, loaded them into the car and headed out, deciding on a whim to pedal the Canal de la Martinière. This short 15-kilometer canal was constructed for commercial reasons in the late 19th century at a time when Nantes was a major port city. The passage from the Atlantic to Nantes was made, up until this time, by traveling the Loire River, but the Loire wasn’t always navigable nor reliable due to the seasons, tides and the constant build up of sand, and another access had to be built for the ships carrying products and goods. So a network of canals and basins was built to ease the passage of this transportation and create a waterway that was constant throughout the seasons. The canal, which would even afford access to large ships, saw an important and intense activity for about 20 years until, in 1913, technological progress allowed for a return to the Loire River for transport. The Canal became, until its re-use during WWII for naval purposes and followed by the German Occupation, simply a great boat cemetery. And finally, after a brief period of use by NATO in the Fifties, its uses were exhausted and the canal was no longer needed.

Today, we ride up the now boat-free canal, her borders dotted with lone men or fathers and sons nestled companionably amongst the reeds, fishing poles reaching deep into the water. July in France finds the roadway that lines the canal unencumbered with Sunday strollers who are to be found here in the beautiful weather of June and September. These summer months only give us the occasional group of friends out for a bit of fresh air and men decked out from head to toe in professional biking gear like some odd, local leg of the Tour de France, men still working through the month until they can join their wives and children who are already out at the beach enjoying the long summer school vacation. Today’s ride is easy, almost languorous even though it is somewhat of a physical effort.

In summer, the song sings itself.
~William Carlos Williams

We’ve never been a vacation family; you know, those who grab at each and every opportunity to pack suitcases, close up the house and head out of town to some beach spot, second home in the mountains, a fancy cruise or jazzy club. No skiing, boating or camping, no safari adventures or road trips to odd and unusual places. “School out”, unlike for most French families, does not mean bags and baggage and good-bye city, hello outdoors and sun. Nope. Neither JP nor I were raised that way. His family rarely went anywhere, the plight of true blue collar working families in those days. And my own father had only 2 weeks off every year and that meant visiting relatives, moving our family life to another home, either our grandparents’ or my aunt and uncles’. All those other weeks of school holiday were spent running in and out of the house, playing ball in the street or biking up to the public swimming pool. And time spent in the cool of the public library, reading to my heart’s content. Spending school holidays at home was a much-loved way of life.

So, needless to say, fancy holiday spots or time away for the sake of “getting away from it all” are just not part of our culture. When the boys were small and we lived in Italy, we would place them on an airplane alone and pack them off to their grandparents’ in the French countryside for the month of July where the two of us would join them in August; JP and I would enjoy the calm of summertime Milan for one month as lovers rather than as parents, a time for ourselves. That’s not to say we didn’t have some fabulous family adventures: JP and Clem took month-long trekking holidays in both France and Morocco; the four of us spent an incredible summer discovering New England, driving from the Poconos, up through New York all the way to Montreal, then back down again via Vermont, Connecticut and Long Island. Enchanting and memorable! We’ve traveled around Italy, thrilled to share culinary, historical and visual discoveries with our sons. We’ve visited New York City from top to bottom, from Brooklyn to Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan and loved every inch of it, every restaurant, monument, museum, zoo and park. Yes, we love to travel and are thrilled now that our boys want to travel and discover the world as well.

Summer afternoon - summer afternoon;
to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
~ Henry James

But vacations are best spent at home, that quiet time when the city empties out, when the French abandon their homes, apartments, markets, restaurants and streets. For those of us living in France and sticking around, spending the soothing summer months in our own apartments, a kind of Zen-like sensation settles upon the city and it is a true pleasure to take walks through the streets, window shop and stop for an ice cream without having to push our way through crowds of students, parents with small children and strollers, gaggles of teens oblivious to the world around them. No traffic slows down our occasional excursion outside the city for a walk in the vineyards or forest on the rare sunny day. No noise breaks the calming silence as we sit in our livingroom and read, windows thrown open to catch the soft breeze, weather permitting. We gather up the courage for the occasional bike ride or picnic enjoying the empty space we are sure to find. The vacation spirit descends on our city and even those of us left behind find serenity and peace from the madness of the rest of the year. We have always wondered at the number of people who feel the obvious need to escape hearth, home and city every chance they can, every weekend, every school and work holiday. We have created a home that we love filled with books, kitchen paraphernalia, our music and films and we are absolutely content. Why leave, indeed?

Yet now that Nantes is unnaturally calm and quiet, there is little to inspire me: no holidays or special events, no festivals and no bustle of young people in our home. All I want to do is curl up with a book and a cup of coffee or a bowl of bright, sweet, juicy summer fruit and a film. I am finding it difficult to gather together the energy to bake, even more difficult to find motivation and imagination to write. Summers home are slow and languorous, although both of us try and work on our many projects. Neither son is at home, so we can live the days at our own rhythm, our own pace. The house is ours and ours alone to do as we please. Yet little conducive to work and thought.

And when I do feel the urge to bake, I choose recipes that are simple and laid back, taking little effort and time to put together. I try and take advantage of the gorgeous summer fruit, the sweet nectarines and peaches, plums and berries that are now abundant on the market. There is nothing we love better than a simple coffee cake, nothing rich or heavy, no creams or frosting, no guilt-inducing chocolate to speak of. A cake light and airy yet so rich in flavor and topped with the perfect amount of fruit is truly a favorite in our house, eaten morning, afternoon and for desserts. This is truly summer at her best when, indeed, the living is easy.


My wonderful friend Abby Dodge has taken upon herself to gather us around her table, in her kitchen for a bake together. Each month she proposes a recipe and challenges each of us to bake along, twisting, tweaking and adapting the recipe, as we desire. This month she proposed a simple Summer Fruit Cake topped with berries. I turned to her cookbook, The Weekend Baker, where she had introduced the same cake with slight variations, variations that suited me just fine. I added raspberries to her lone blueberries and just about doubled the amount of fruit to create this fabulous coffee cake, redolent of warm cinnamon and bright with the sweetness of a jumble of berries. As there were only the two of us to enjoy this treasure, the cake lasted several days, and stayed moist and delicious to the last slice. We absolutely loved it and you will too! Hurry before summer ends and the berries fade away. But no need to fear, frozen berries work the charm!


Don’t miss the International Food Blogger Conference held in the grand city New Orleans 25 – 28 August. Great food, great fun, so much information and a group of incredible speakers! I will be presenting the topic Food & Culture with Pim of Chez Pim. Register now!

RASPBERRY-BLUEBERRY CINNAMON COFFEE CAKE
From The Weekend Baker by Abigail Johnson Dodge

1 1/3 cups (170 g) flour
¾ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
¾ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
6 Tbs (85 g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup (200 g) granulated white sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup sour cream (I used 3% lowfat fromage frais)

For the topping:
1 cup berries, one kind or mixed (I used slightly more than a cup of a mixture of fresh raspberries and frozen blueberries)
2 – 3 Tbs granulated brown sugar
1 Tbs flour
½ tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Lightly grease and flour a 9 x 2-inch (22/23 x 5-cm) round cake pan, tapping out the excess flour. I lined the bottom of the cake pan with a round of parchment paper, lightly buttering the pan then again the parchment before dusting with flour.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl and whisk to combine.

In a large bowl, cream together the softened butter and sugar with an electric beater until creamy, light and smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding the vanilla with the second egg. Using a rubber spatula, fold the combined dry ingredients into the butter mixture in 3 additions (in thirds), alternating with the sour cream in 2 additions, beginning and ending with dry. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes.

Once the cake has been slipped into the oven, prepare the topping by combining the sugar, flour and cinnamon in a medium-sized bowl then toss in all the berries until evenly coated.

Once the cake has baked for the initial 10 minutes, carefully pull the pan out of the oven and sprinkle the fruit topping all over the top of the cake, trying to evenly distribute the berries. Go ahead and sprinkle on any remaining flour/sugar/cinnamon remaining in the bottom of the bowl.

Return the cake to the oven and bake for another 30 minutes or until the cake is slightly puffed, the center is set and a tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove the cake to a cooling rack and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Run a sharp knife carefully around the edges to loosen the cake from the pan and invert onto a rack, remove the parchment then invert onto a serving platter so the berries are on top. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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