Chocolate Coconut Marble Cake

14 Jun

Nostalgia can have a very powerful pull.  Sometimes in the summer, if the light is just right and the air is barely hovering below stillness, I can feel myself being a child, waiting for that hour between darkness and light when I could stretch my bedtime out a little bit further everyday.  A whiff of certain smells—Meyer lemons and eucalyptus trees—reminds me of my grandfather’s house.  Ak-Mak crackers, sad to say, conjure up memories of the three-plus months I spent being mind-bendingly nauseated and curled up, fittingly, in the fetal position while newly pregnant.  To this day, I can’t even look at one of those crackers without feeling mildly uncomfortable.

Marble cake, on the other hand, brings to mind a sea of childhood memories.  I am not sure if marble cakes were huge in the ‘80s, or if I just happened to associate with people with very much enjoyed the yin and yang of a cake marbled with two separate flavors, but when I was a child there was a lot of marble cake floating around.  A couple of weeks ago, when I shared some of this cake with a friend of mine, her first reaction upon seeing it was one of sheer surprise.  She hadn’t seen anyone make a marble cake in years.  Neither had I, and perhaps that is what drove me to make one in the first place.

It is worth pointing out, however, that this cake, with its gentle coconut undertones and light, chocolaty ribbon is a different animal than the marble cakes of my past.  Whereas my memories of marble cakes lie firmly in the layered-with-frosting realm, this is a more casual cake, fit for afternoon snacking or for taking along on a sunny picnic.  While you could certainly adorn this cake with some sort of light glaze or frosting, I believe it is perfect as is, and certainly not lacking in appeal with its unencumbered crumb.  In fact, I am feeling nostalgic for it already, since I have yogurt in the refrigerator, coconut milk in the cupboard, and, of course, an unrelenting love of cake and the joy it never fails to bring.

Last Year: Pear and Mascarpone Pizza, a fantastic twist on a pear tart

Chocolate Coconut Marble Cake Recipe

2 ¼ cups cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

2/3 cup sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

2 large egg whites, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup plain nonfat yogurt

2/3 cup unsweetened coconut milk (low-fat is fine)

For Chocolate Marbling:

1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

¼ cup sugar

¼ cup unsweetened coconut milk (again, low-fat is fine)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Grease and flour a 10-cup bundt pan.

In a medium bowl, sift together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a large bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until it is creamy, about 1 minute.  Gradually add the 2/3 cup of sugar, and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Reduce the mixer speed to medium, then add the egg, followed by the egg whites.  Beat until just combined, then beat in the vanilla.

Whisk together the yogurt and 2/3 cup of coconut milk.  With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with the yogurt mixture in 2 parts, starting and ending with the flour mixture.  Beat gently until just combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

In a medium bowl, combine cocoa powder, ¼ cup of sugar, and ¼ cup of coconut milk.  Whisk together until smooth.  Pour 1 ½ cups of the plain coconut batter into the chocolate coconut batter, and stir to combine.

Pour ¾ of the plain coconut batter into the prepared bundt pan.  Spoon the chocolate coconut batter on top of it, leaving it unsmoothed.  Pour the remaining plain coconut batter on top.  Using a knife of an offset spatula, marble the two batters together without completely blending them.

Bake the cake in the center of the oven for 30 to 35 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the middle of the cake emerges with just a few moist crumbs attached.  Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

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Multigrain Sandwich Bread

11 Jun

Since September, I’ve been baking bread for my son’s school.  I make two loaves of bread for his class, and the bread gets used throughout the week for work projects (in a Montessori school, activities that involve bread are the basis for learning, which should make obvious the variety of reasons I am a fan of a Montessori education), snacks, and the occasional almond butter sandwich that a kid will receive for lunch when his or her intended lunch ended up on the floor or, occasionally, in another child’s mouth.  It happens.

Before the start of the school year, I spent a lot of time working on a suitable bread recipe for my son’s school.  It was preferable to everyone involved that the bread be whole grain or whole wheat, and, because of the dietary restrictions of some students, the bread had to be vegan.  It also, most importantly, had to be something that a child would want to eat.  Knowing full well about children and their preference for foods that do not contain too many surprises or unexpected textures, the bread had to be on the soft side, with no big chunks of seeds or nuts that might possibly repel an unsuspecting child.  And, of course, it had to be delicious, because who am I to foist healthfulness upon a child without the added promise of tastiness?

This week I made the last two loaves of bread that I will ever bring to his school.  School ends this week and my son will leave kindergarten and enter a new school in the fall, a grade school, where children eat en masse in a cafeteria, sit at assigned desks, and intermingle with other students who are twice their age.  It’s all a bit overwhelming, I would think.  I don’t say this to my son, of course.  Instead, there is a lot of talk of how great the garden is at the new school, how big the playground is, how nice the teachers are.  I want my son to transition as seamlessly as possible when he enters his new school, and it would be preferable that I instill him with a sense of confidence about his new surroundings, rather than a sense of doom concerning the fact that, dude, did you see that fifth grader?  He looked like he was one growth spurt away from needing a shave.

I’ll be making this bread for just us now.  The recipe makes two loaves, which is enough to last a family of three quite some time.  The funny thing is, even though I’ve made this bread so many times that I now have the recipe memorized, there has never been a time when both loaves turned out the same.  No amount of practice or repetition could ever remedy the fact that, no matter what I did, one loaf was always larger than the other.  Or sometimes one loaf rose faster than the other, resulting in some craggy tears along the top.  One time the loaves almost scorched on the sides, even though I baked them at the same temperature I always do, in the same pans I always do, in the same oven I always do.  It’s a mystery, really.  One entire school year, and I still manage to be a little bit surprised by this bread every time I make it.  I imagine I’ll continue to be surprised by it as the years go on, much like I’ll continue to be surprised by my son and the fact that, no matter how many times he tells me that he wants to be a whale-watching bunny farmer when he grows up, he is getting older, wiser, and ever more interesting every single day, right before my eyes.

Last Year: Pizza with Chicken Sausage, Fennel, and Spinach

Multigrain Sandwich Bread Recipe

Adapted from America’s Test Kitchen

1 ¼ cups Bob’s Red Mill 10 grain cereal mixture

2 ½ cups boiling water

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons olive oil

¼ cup agave nectar (if you don’t need the bread to be vegan, you can use honey instead)

2 ½ teaspoons instant rapid-rise yeast

3 cups (15 ounces) unbleached all purpose flour

1 ½ cups (7.5 ounces) whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

In a large bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer, combine cereal mixture and boiling water.  Stir thoroughly, then allow to sit, stirring occasionally, until the cereal has absorbed the water and cooled to a temperature of around 110 degrees Fahrenheit (this should take anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour).

In a medium bowl, whisk together all purpose flour and whole wheat flour.

When cereal mixture has cooled, stir in vegetable oil, olive oil, agave nectar, and yeast.  Stir until ingredients are fully incorporated.  If using a stand mixture, attach the dough hook to the mixer.  Slowly, about ½ cup at a time, add the flour mixture to the cereal mixture, mixing all the while.  If using a stand mixer, use only the first speed for this.  If using your hands, stir with a sturdy wooden spoon.  When the flour mixture has been added in its entirety, turn the stand mixer to the second speed and knead the dough for about 1 minute.  If using your hands, stir the mixture with a sturdy wooden spoon until all ingredients are completely combined, about 1 to 2 minutes.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow dough to rest for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, add the sea salt to the dough and knead the dough until it is smooth and shiny (5 to 6 minutes on level 2 for a stand mixer, and 7 to 8 minutes if kneading by hand).  The dough will be a bit sticky, but that is normal.

On a well-floured surface, shape the dough into a tight ball.  Lightly oil a large bowl, then place the dough in the bowl, turning the dough to completely coat it in oil.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap or a tight-fitting lid, then allow dough to rise until doubled in size.  This can take anywhere from 40 minutes to a little over an hour, depending on the temperature of your kitchen.

When the dough has doubled in size, turn it out onto a well-floured surface.  Using your hands, pat the dough into a 9” by 13” rectangle, with the long side facing you.  Cut the dough in half to make two 9” by 6 ½” pieces.  Starting at one 6 ½” end, roll one piece of dough into a tight log, pinching the seam closed at the end.  Place the dough in a lightly-oiled 9” by 5” loaf pan.  Repeat with other piece of dough.  Lightly brush or spray the tops of the loaves with oil, then cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size.  This can take anywhere from 1 hour to 1 hour and 45 minutes, depending on how warm your kitchen is.

About 20 minutes before it appears as though your loaves might be done rising, preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  When loaves are done rising, remove plastic wrap and bake loaves in the center of the oven for 35 to 40 minutes, rotating loaves after about 20 minutes.  The loaves are done when the tops are a deep golden brown and the bread has an internal temperature of about 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

Turn loaves out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 2 loaves.

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Baked Brown Butter Oatmeal with Blueberries and Pears

7 Jun

I am, as I write this, eating a plate of what you see above: the most wonderful oatmeal imaginable.  Oatmeal that is almost unrealistically delicious, and oatmeal that, as I mentioned in the previous sentence, is eaten on a plate, not a bowl, and with a fork, not a spoon.  Not that you have to eat it on a plate with a fork, of course.  If you wish, you can most certainly eat it in a bowl, and with a spoon, but my point is that this heavenly oatmeal, warmly spiced, barely sweetened, and studded with big bursts of fresh fruit, is unlike any oatmeal I’ve previously encountered.

But first, a confession: I am not a big fan of oatmeal.  I like oats, and I adore homemade granola, but oatmeal, boiled into a porridge for breakfast, has never appealed to me.  The texture is troublesome, the odd odor is off-putting, and, there just isn’t enough going on, flavor-wise, to entice me into eating it.

But if you take those oats and bake them?  Then you’ve got something.  In Heidi Swanson’s enormously popular (and for good reason) cookbook, Super Natural Every Day, a recipe for baked oatmeal has been calling my name ever since I first laid eyes on it.  With layers of fresh fruit baked into a lightly sweetened bed of oats, milk, and spices, it’s the sort of breakfast dish that perfectly straddles the line between indulgent and healthful.  And though Swanson’s recipe is nearly perfect as is, I fiddled with it here and there—swapping out some spices, reducing the sweetness, changing the fruit selection, browning the butter—and came up with something that might be a slightly different beast than the original, but it’s still quite a sight to behold.  Baked into a toothsome treat, bursting with fruit, and spiked with a shot of brown butter, it’s a whole new kind of oatmeal.

Last Year: Best Pizza Dough–it really is the best, and there is no kneading involved!

Baked Brown Butter Oatmeal with Blueberries and Pears Recipe

Adapted from Super Natural Every Day, by Heidi Swanson

2 cups oats, not quick-cooking

½ cup toasted walnut pieces, coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

big pinch of cardamom

small pinch of nutmeg

¼ teaspoon fine grain sea salt

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 cups milk

1 large egg

¼ cup pure maple syrup

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 pears, peeled, cored, and cut into ½-inch chunks

1 ½ cups fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Arrange an oven rack in the upper third of the oven.  Butter an 8” by 8” baking dish and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the oats, ¼ cup of walnut pieces, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, and salt.  Whisk to combine.

In a small saucepan, heat the butter over medium heat until it melts, then foams.  When the butter begins to smell quite nutty and develop small brown bits on the bottom of the pan, remove from heat and pour into a separate bowl.  Allow to cool slightly.

In a medium bowl, whisk together milk, egg, maple syrup, vanilla, and half of the browned butter.

Arrange the pear pieces in a single layer in the prepared baking dish.  Cover with 1 cup of the blueberries.  Sprinkle the oat mixture over the fruit.  Drizzle the milk mixture over the oats, then gently tap the baking dish on the counter to make sure the milk mixture settles all the way to the bottom of the dish.  Sprinkle on the remaining blueberries and walnut pieces.

Bake the oatmeal in the upper third of the oven for 40 to 45 minutes, until the top of the oatmeal is dark golden brown.  Remove from oven and allow to rest for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.  Drizzle each serving with the remainder of the brown butter.  Out of this world.

Serves 6-10 people.

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