Moveable Feasts

11.29.2011

Chocolate Sparklers for Christmas

You know how much I love to visit Pastry Studio. One fantastic recipe after another. This particular one doesn't need to be for the holidays, but as it turns out, I've offered to bring a cookie tray to our Garden Club Christmas party. I think it's a super idea that we each bring food to this event and then pay a small sum for drinks. Another holiday party I usually attend is my Antique Club's annual celebration. This year, they are charging $60 per person! Yes, it's being catered and this includes food and drink, but don't you agree that's a little over the top? I'm skipping that one, much as I love the women in that group.
So I've been having fun making all sorts of new cookies the past month for the Garden Club do. These "sparklers" don't have a deep, dark chocolate flavor like a lot of Christmas cookies, but are elegant and subdued. They'll be a super addition to the cookie tray and the raw sugar on the outside adds that all important sparkle. I think you'll find them more in the Christmas cookie spirit by dipping them in red sugar. I make them that way often.

Chocolate Sparklers
Adapted from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme and Dorie Greenspan by Pastry Studio

Makes about 30 cookies

Ingredients:
2 3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch cocoa powder
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of salt
10 oz (2 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg yolk
raw sugar, for coating

Method:
Sift the flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon and salt together.

Beat the butter on medium speed to soften. Gradually add sugar and continue mixing, until the mixture is smooth and creamy, but not airy. Add vanilla. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as you go to ensure thorough mixing. Turn down the speed to low and add the flour mixture, mixing just until ingredients are just about blended. Remove the bowl from the mixer and finish mixing with a rubber spatula to avoid overmixing. Divide the dough in half and shape each half into a log about 1 1/2” thick and 7 1/2” long. Wrap the logs in plastic and chill for 1 to 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silpats. Whisk the egg yolk with one teaspoon of water. Place a piece of parchment or wax paper on a work surface. Spread out a good handful of raw sugar on it. Working with one cookie log at a time, unwrap and brush lightly with egg wash. Roll each log in the sugar, pressing gently.

Use a sharp thin knife to slice each log into cookies about 1/2” thick. Bake for 15 - 18 minutes, rotating the pans front to back and top to bottom at the midway mark, until the cookies are just firm to the touch. Transfer to wire racks and cool completely. Repeat with second log.

11.26.2011

Damson Plum Cake

Aha! You probably thought this cake was going to use fresh plums. So did I when I first saw the title. But surprise...it uses plum jam. And it's yet another seasonal cake with lovely fall flavors. It was created by Bill Yosses as the cake version of Sticky Toffee Pudding, a British favorite. I wish you could have smelled this while baking....warm spices wafting through the house. The cake calls for some tart dried cranberries and the plum jam melts into sticky pockets while baking; the walnuts add a lovely crunch.

Damson Plum Cake
From The Perfect Finish by Bill Yosses and Melissa Clark

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs, room temp

1 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup canola oil

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 cup dried cranberries

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup damson plum jam

Method:

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9 by 5 loaf pan with some canola oil and sprinkle a bit of flour over it. (I lined it with parchment paper as well and then greased the paper. The jam is likely to stick to the pan if you don't.)

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon and salt.

In your mixer, beat the eggs and sugar until combined. Add the canola oil. Slowly beat in the flour mixture. Stir in the buttermilk. With a spatula fold in the cranberries and walnuts. Swirl in the jam in three to four strokes. (This is important because you want the cake to have sticky pockets of jam.) Pour into the loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes or until a cake testor comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 25 minutes, then turn it out onto a rack. Allow to cool for 5 minutes or so, then serve warm. This cake lasts a week well covered.

11.25.2011

Gourmet's 50 Women Game Changers in Food: #25, Paula Wolfert

Would you believe, when she was first married, Paula Wolfert couldn't boil water? Determined to change, she decided to take cooking classes at Dione Lucas's Cordon Bleu and found her calling.

In 1959, Paula moved to Morocco for 10 years with her husband. While there, she became fascinated with the local dishes and Mediterranean ingredients. As a result, she has written several cookbooks on the subject of Mediterranean cuisine. She moved to Tangier in 1971 and stayed for five years, during which time she wrote Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco (1973) and Mediterranean Cooking (1976). Both books were enthusiastically received by curious cooks who were searching for unfamiliar ethnic fare.

Ms. Wolfert was criticized for using hard to find ingredients, but remained adamant about using them. "Ingredients from a given region have amalgamated gracefully over the years, and if you change them, you simply won't get an authentic taste," she says. "When people return from their travels they want to replicate what they have tasted. It is my job, as a food writer, to explain how to integrate unusual tastes. Most of the ingredients are now readily available, at least by mail order. But you have to be romanced into searching them out. That's part of the fun."

Wolfert set out to write The Cooking of South-West France in the late 70's after traveling around the region in search of the perfect cassoulet. (And that book is where I found today's recipe.)
More recently Wolfert has been addressing concerns about the benefits of a balanced, healthful diet. When meat is used, Wolfert has a lot of tricks to maximize its flavor while cutting fat. Then, when Wolfert traveled across the Euphrates, she came back with a new daily routine that gets her eating vegetables in the morning in what she calls her Biblical Breakfast Burrito. As a result of healthier eating, she's lost over 30 pounds, slowly---a pound a month over the past couple of years.

Paula Wolfert has won the Julia Child Award (twice), the James Beard Award (three times) the Tastemaker Award, the M. F. K. Fisher Prize, the Cooks Magazine Platinum Plate Award, and the Perigueux Award for Lifetime Achievement. A regular columnist for Food & Wine, Wolfert lives in Sonoma, California.

I read an interesting article about Paula's favorite lunch when she's eating alone. It's called Pa amb Tomàquet (In the Catalan language this means “Bread with Tomato ... and Ham.” ) which she says sums up all that is best in the Mediterranean, an area whose cuisines and flavors she's been studying her entire adult life. So here's a bonus second recipe today:

"Pa amb Tomàquet
Cut a rustic style bread with a serrated knife into ½-inch slices. Lightly toast the slices on a grill or in a toaster-oven on both sides. Slather the toasted slices with freshly crushed ripe tomatoes. The layer must not be too thin—or too thick—more like a thin, even red sheen. Sprinkle with fine salt. Slowly drizzle a light, golden extra-virgin olive oil on top on one side.
If you like, you can top the bread off with paper-thin slices of Serrano ham or large, fat fillets of anchovy, preferably imported from l’Escale.
You may want to rub some garlic on the bread as well, but I’ve yet to meet a Catalan gastronome who would approve. Eat with a knife and fork."

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Does everyone love a boozy ice cream as much as I do? Especially around the holidays. Now I know Ms. Wolfert is best known for her Mediterranean cooking, but don't forget she also wrote "The Cooking of Southwest France". And in that gem this recipe for Prune and Armagnac Ice Cream is to be found.

The prunes have to macerate in Armagnac for a couple weeks in advance, but the wait is worth it. I just kept the jar in the fridge for two weeks and when I opened it to make the ice cream, I took a sniff and was in heaven. My spoon was in that ice cream maker frequently...tasting....tasting. I could barely wait for it to be done. Serving it with extra prunes was suggested, but frankly, in this case, less is more.

Paula Wolfert's Prune and Armagnac Ice Cream

Ingredients:
For the prunes
2 pounds extra large prunes
3 cups warm brewed tea, preferably linden, orange pekoe or camomile
1 cup superfine sugar
3 cups Armagnac (or enough to cover the prunes)

Method:
For the prunes:
Soak the prunes in the tea overnight so that they swell up.
The following day, drain the prunes, discarding the tea. Roll each prune in paper towels to dry well. Place them in a sterilized 1 1/2 -quart wide-mouth canning jar.

Make a syrup with the sugar and one-half cup water; bring to a boil, stirring. Boil undisturbed for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Pour the syrup over the prunes. Completely cover the prunes with Armagnac; stir. If the prunes rise above the line of liquid, add more Armagnac. Let the prunes soak a minimum of 2 weeks in a cool, dark place or in the refrigerator. Use clean wooden tongs or a wooden spoon to remove the prunes as needed (keeps up to one year).

Ingredients:
For the ice cream

1 quart milk
1 small piece of vanilla bean, split down one side, or 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
10 egg yolks
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon superfine sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup heavy cream
30 cup sugar prunes in Armagnac, pitted, plus 1/4 cup of the syrup, plus extra prunes for garnish, if you have them (15 prunes)

Method:
For the ice cream

A day before serving, in a heavy enameled saucepan, scald the milk with the vanilla bean; set aside, covered, to keep warm.
In a mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together until thick and pale and a ribbon forms when the whisk is lifted. Whisk in a pinch of salt.
In a heavy enameled or stainless steel saucepan, warm the beaten eggs and sugar over very low heat, stirring constantly. Gradually stir in the hot milk. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon, the froth on the surface has disappeared, and the custard registers about 165 degrees on a candy thermometer. Do not boil. Immediately remove from the heat.
Strain the custard into a chilled mixing bowl set over ice. Cool down quickly, stirring constantly. If using vanilla extract, stir it in at this point. Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.
Meanwhile, coarsely chop the prunes with a large sharp knife or by pulsing in a food processor. When the ice cream is half frozen, add the prunes and the Armagnac syrup. When almost frozen, add the cream. When the ice cream is done, transfer it to an airtight container and set in the freezer overnight.
To serve, place a whole, soaked prune on top of each portion and drizzle with a teaspoon or so of the syrup.
Makes 2 quarts