Tag Archives: food

Butter Cake with Blood Orange Curd

20 Feb

There has been a lot of cake-making around these parts lately.  Over the holidays, I made several cakes for a Kickstarter campaign, and then came the holidays themselves, a time when all things cake flour and butter-laden are welcomed with open arms.  Since then, birthdays have come and gone, and, as per usual, there was cake-making involved.  So far I have already made four cakes during the month of February, and the month is only two-thirds over.

It’s a good thing I like making cakes.

It is also a good thing there is an abundance of citrus available at the market right now, since there are few things I enjoy as much as a nice, tart citrus fruit.  As luck would have it, this month’s most recent cake was a freestyle sort of affair, meaning that after I was recruited to make the cake, I was then told that I could make whatever sort of cake I pleased, so long as it somehow incorporated citrus and cream.  Well, ladies and gentlemen, done and done.

A fortuitous discovery of this great recipe for orange curd via The Kitchn made me all the more excited to dress up this cake of choice.  The fact that blood oranges are so wonderfully in season made me giddy with anticipation.  In my mind, I was envisioning a bright orangey-red filling, a sweet and tart balance to the rich and buttery layers of cake nestled above and below.  As you can see, my vision was not entirely fulfilled.  Yes, the blood orange curd was delicious—as tart and creamy as I could ever hope for—but, clearly, what you see before you is not so much bright or intense in hue, but rather what I can only brand as being “Barbie-worthy.”  Entirely by accident, I managed to construct a pink princess cake.  Pardon me, a delicious pink princess cake.

I am, of course, perfectly fine with this.  In fact, I now feel as though, if ever called upon to make a birthday cake for a small child who favors princesses—or perhaps even an adult who is a proponent of pink—I will have a top-notch cake in my arsenal of offerings.

Butter Cake with Blood Orange Curd

Adapted from the long-departed Caprial’s Restaurant

This cake recipe defies all cake-making logic by having you beat the batter extremely well as you add in the dry and liquid ingredients. Your cake-making instincts may tell you to only mix this batter lightly until things start to come together, but ignore those instincts and just keep beating things together really well until the batter is smooth and mostly lump-free. I know it might feel wrong, but just do it. The smooth texture of the batter really works wonders in this cake, strange as it may seem.

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¾ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

3 cups cake flour

1 cup whole milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease two 9-inch cake pans and line the bottoms with rounds of parchment paper.

Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Beat together on high speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl often, until the butter and sugar are light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Turn the mixer speed down to low and add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl and mixing well after each addition.  Add the vanilla and mix well, again scraping down the sides of the bowl.

Sift together the salt, baking powder, and cake flour.

Add about one half of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, then beat on low speed until well blended.  Add about one half of the milk and beat well.  Add the rest of the flour mixture and beat until mixed well.  Add the rest of the milk and continue to beat well until the mixture is completely combined.

Divide the matter between the prepared pans and bake until the cakes spring back when touched lightly in the center, 25 to 35 minutes. Allow cake to cool in pans for 10 minutes before inverting onto cooling racks to continue to cool completely.

Blood Orange Curd

Adapted from The Kitchn

1/2 to 3/4 cups orange juice from 2 blood oranges

zest from one orange

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 large egg

2 large egg yolks

1/4 cup granulated sugar

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks and softened

pinch of salt

Pour the orange juice into a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring the juice to a rapid simmer and let it reduce down to approximately 1/4 cup. This should take 2 to 4 minutes.

Transfer the orange juice to a bowl or cup to cool. Stir in the zest and lemon juice.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, yolks, and sugar. When the orange juice has cooled to room temperature, whisk it into the egg mixture in a steady stream.

Place a clean bowl with a strainer over the top next to the stove.

Pour the egg and juice mixture back into your small sauce pan and set it over medium-low heat. Stir slowly but constantly until the mixture has thickened to a pudding-like consistency, about 4-6 minutes or until the mixture is just under 180 degrees F.

Immediately remove from heat and strain the mixture into the clean bowl to remove the zest and any bits of cooked egg. (Alternatively, you can leave the zest in the curd for a chunkier texture.) Whisk in the butter and the pinch of salt while the curd is still warm. Continue to whisk until mixture is completely smooth.

Remove orange curd to a small bowl. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap over the surface of the curd (to prevent a skin from forming), and refrigerate until cool, at least one hour.

Makes roughly 1 cup of orange curd.

To assemble the cake:

When the cakes have fully cooled, brush off any loose crumbs and lay 1 cake on a large plate. Spoon all of the orange curd in the center of the cake then, using a spoon or a small offset spatula, gently spread the curd on top of the cake, leaving a 1 to 1 ½-inch border around the edge. Lay the second cake layer on top of the lemon curd, pressing down very lightly to ease the curd over the perimeter of the bottom layer. The lemon curd will eventually drip down the edges very artfully. Just go with it.

Top with a generous layer of whipped cream.

Note: The orange curd does not supply the most stable of bases for the top cake layer, so I suggest you shore up the cake’s structure by sinking two or three skewers, cut to just higher than the height of the assembled cake, into the cake to keep it from sliding apart.

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Dal with Coconut Milk

16 Feb

When I was in India, I ate lentils everyday.  Actually, that’s not true.  At first I ate lentils everyday, but towards the end of my trip I started to revolt against the lentils.  I don’t know if it was the fact that eating dal at every meal—breakfast, lunch, and dinner—was starting to make me crazy, or the fact that by that point I hadn’t had a decent cup of coffee in a month and, pleasant attributes of tea aside, when you are a coffee fan who is deprived of coffee for weeks at a time, life starts to fray around the edges a little.

Now, back in America for many years, I can’t seem to get enough of dal.  We don’t eat Indian food in our house as much as I would like to (see: five year-old child who can’t handle spicy food), but when we do, I like to make the meal a real occasion by not just making a standard main dish and side dish, but also making naan or parathas, a few condiments, some pickles, and, most of the time, a different dal, depending on my mood.  Madhur Jaffrey has several fantastic dal variations that involve yellow split peas, sautéed cabbage, and sometimes just a few chiles and a bit of garlic oil, and for years I faithfully made any one of those dals whenever I was in the mood for some pulses to accompany my Indian meals.

Changing up the game, however, comes this coconut milk dal from Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford.  As simple as can be, it is, once again, a perfect dish from two people who really seem to have a rock solid grasp of flavors and spices, and how one can highlight the best of both by using ingredients that nudge one another towards a grand conclusion.  The coconut milk is an unexpected treat here, and not something I usually see in dal.  Duguid credits this dish as being more prominent in Southern India—it is actually something she remembers eating quite a bit in a Tamil restaurant—which makes sense, considering the common appearance of coconut and coconut milk in the dishes of Southern India, but not so much in the cuisine found in Northern India (where my family is from).   No matter its origin, this dal is a fantastic addition to any Indian meal, large or small, elaborate or simple.  I’ve taken to eating it with this new favorite cauliflower dish, and I think it would be a wonderful pairing with this delightful chicken biryani.  Really, you could just eat it over plain old basmati rice and it would be a staggeringly good meal.  I suggest you get right on it.

Dal with Coconut Milk

From Mangoes and Curry Leaves, by Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford

1 cup masoor dal (red lentils)

5 cups water

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon of minced garlic, mashed to a paste

2 tablespoons minced shallots

6 or 8 fresh or frozen curry leaves (my Asian market was all out of whole curry leaves, so I used 1 heaping teaspoon of crushed dried curry leaves instead)

2 or 3 dried red chiles

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup canned or fresh coconut milk

Put the dal in a medium pot with the water.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a low simmer, then cook for 20 minutes.  Keep warm over low heat.

Heat a wok or a heavy skillet over medium-high heat, then add the oil.  Toss in the garlic and shallots and stir fry for 2 minutes.  Add the curry leaves, chiles, and ground coriander.  Mix well and cook for another 2 minutes.  Stir in the salt and coconut milk, then lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the coconut milk mixture to the hot dal and simmer for a few minutes to blend the flavors.  The longer you cook the mixture, the thicker it will get.  Serve hot.

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Crisp and Hearty Homemade Granola Bars

13 Feb

There are some things people just do not expect you to make at home.  No one gives you funny looks when you bake a cake from scratch or make pizza at home, or even when you admit one day that you’ve taken to smoking your own salmon.  Tell people that you’ve developed a keen interest in making your own granola bars, however, and all of a sudden you’re regarded as some sort of competitive cooking snob, someone who has crossed the line of cooking for pleasure and entered into the territory of cooking in order to prove something.

It’s tough to explain to people who do not regard cooking as a pastime, a hobby, or even a treat, that when I want to make something new—no matter how silly it might seem to make it at home—it is because I like the time it allows me to spend in the kitchen.

My husband and I are both really, really into skateboarding (one of the many reasons we are married—because there were no other rational, responsible adults around to tolerate our interests), and we often talk about the time, sweat, and agony it sometimes used to take to learn a new skate trick (I speak in the past tense here because, though we are still into skating, neither of us is in any sort of position in life to be spending hours a day on a skateboard trying to will our bodies to complete a new trick that some kid less than half our age just thought up).  The focus you develop when you’ve just spent two solid days trying to land a fakie 360 flip (a trick that babies can now somehow learn straight from the womb, but back in the early ‘90s THAT TRICK WAS HARD) becomes almost maniacal, and two days start to seem like nothing if it begins to appear as though it might take another two days to finally land the trick without injuring yourself.

And this relates to making homemade granola bars how?  Because it’s the same dedication, the same enjoyment, that makes me want to get something right in the kitchen.  It may seem delusional to spend three days perfecting a granola bar recipe, but I swear to you, take one taste of these granola bars and you’ll immediately reverse that opinion.  Big bursts of dried fruit play against the hearty crunch of crisp nuts and lightly sweetened oats, while the subtle spices tie everything together with a pleasant mellowness.

These are no store bought granola bars, overly sweetened and packed with mystery additives.  These are a healthy, nutritious treat that belie the virtuousness of their ingredients by being utterly, fantastically delicious.  Because of their belly-filling goodness, these granola bars would make a great fortifying snack to take along on a hike, or perhaps a long ride on your bike (because apparently I am now channeling Dr. Seuss—you can eat them as a snack, just pop one into your backpack).  Right now, as I type this, I am eating one of these granola bars for lunch.  When I am done with lunch and typing, I will probably take a tiny little break to watch this, because now that the granola bars have been conquered, I have a bit of time left to devote to my other interests.

Crisp and Hearty Homemade Granola Bars

1 3/4 cups rolled oats

¼ cup dark brown sugar

¼ cup graham flour (graham flour has a great nutty taste, but you could also use whole wheat pastry flour or another mild whole grain flour, e.g. not rye flour)

½ cup wheat germ

½ teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup dried fruit, chopped into a uniform size if pieces are large (apricots, apples, etc.)—I used dried cherries, dried cranberries, and raisins, so no chopping was required

1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (I used almonds, walnuts, and pecans)

¼ cup vegetable oil

3 tablespoons unfiltered apple cider

2 tablespoons honey, agave, or maple syrup

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/3 cup unsweetened almond butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Line an 8”x8” baking pan with a parchment paper sling (this can be accomplished by trimming your parchment paper into a long rectangle that will line neatly against the bottom of the pan and drape over the sides.  In the pictures above, my parchment paper sling is not nearly wide enough, on account of the fact that I inconveniently ran out of parchment paper and was using the last 4 inches of the roll), then lightly grease both the pan and the parchment paper with vegetable oil or nonstick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine the oats, brown sugar, flour, wheat germ, sea salt, cinnamon, dried fruit, and nuts.  Toss to combine.  In a small bowl, combine the oil, apple cider, honey, vanilla, and almond butter.  Whisk to combine.  Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients.  Using your hands or a fork (but hands work best), thoroughly stir the ingredients together until it is uniformly wet and it wants to clump together.

Pour the granola mixture into the prepared pan.  Using your hands, firmly press the mixture into the pan, flattening the top, the edges, and the corners (it helps to have slightly wet hands when doing this, as the mixture is quite sticky).

Bake on the center rack of the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until the edges are brown and the middle is golden.

Cool for at least 1 hour before attempting to cut.  Remove granola bars from the pan by lifting them up using the parchment paper sling.  A serrated knife works best to cut these, and I have found that popping the granola into the freezer for 15 minutes to slightly harden them before cutting makes the process even easier.

Makes 16 2-inch granola bars.

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