A Lovely Slice of Plum Cake

It’s about time for another cookbook recommendation and you’re gonna love this one. Helen over at Tartelette recently mentioned a book called Sweet Seasons by Richard Leach. Because I loved the recipe Tartelette chose for her post ( A Ricotta Cheese Tart in a Strudel Ring... which I am going to make as soon as I can find my pastry rings....) I went directly to Amazon, found the cookbook, bought it used and have been drooling on its pages ever since.

I bet I marked 7 or 8 recipes…. talk about impossible to choose which one to tackle first! But plums are a favorite so I decided to give the Plum Cake with Jasmine Ice Cream a try.

I think the great thing about this cookbook is you can make any part of the whole; Leach’s beautifully presented desserts have many components and the Plum cake was no exception.

Most of us aren’t pastry chefs, so it’s really not necessary to make the entire dessert. Just pick the main part- or any part you can’t resist. I ended up making just the plum cake portion. It turned out beautifully, tasted divine and was as pretty as the photo in the book. Nearly.

This was the first time I had ever used semolina flour in a cake recipe but it definitely makes the cake light and tender with just a bit of heartiness. I found it at Whole Foods Market although I imagine most health food stores would carry it. My regular supermarket, however, did not. And you could skip the making the ice cream if you want and just buy some vanilla. But I have to admit the Jasmine Ice Cream was just the right touch.

So….I picked a winner from Sweet Seasons on my first attempt. (Or more likely, they are all winners.) Hang in there- it looks complicated, but it’s not.

Warm Plum Cake with Jasmine Ice Cream

(Adapted from Sweet Seasons by Richard Leach)

For the Cake

Ingredients:

1 cup semolina flour

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

4 egg whites

1 cup milk

grated zest of 1 orange

½ cup unsalted butter, melted

2 red plums, pitted and thinly sliced

Method:

Preheat oven to 350° and butter and flour a 9” by 3” loaf pan. Mix all the ingredients except the butter and plums in a mixer until blended. Add the butter and plums and pour into the loaf pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes until golden brown, firm to the touch and a cake tester comes out clean. (It took mine slightly longer than this.)Unmold the cake and allow to cool. When ready to serve, cut into slices and reheat in a 325° oven for a couple minutes.

For the roasted plums:

Ingredients:

10 ripe plums

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

Method:

Preheat oven to 250°. Cut the plums in half and remove the pits. On a parchment-lined baking sheet, spread out the sugar. Place the plums, cut side down, on the sugar. Bake for 10 minutes. Turn the plums over and bake an additional 10-15 minutes. Remove the plums, cool slightly and remove the skin. Set aside. ( I left the skin on a couple to use for garnishing the cake.)

For the Plum and Orange Sauce:

Ingredients:

5 plums, pitted and cut into eighths

½ cup water

1 cup fresh orange juice

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

zest of ½ an orange

Method:

Combine ingredients and bring to a simmer. Cook for 15 minutes. Strain, cool and set aside.

For the Jasmine Ice Cream:

Ingredients:

4 cups heavy cream

2 cups milk

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

½ cup jasmine tea

zest of one orange

12 egg yolks

Method:

Place the cream, milk, sugar, tea and orange zest in a pan and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat and allow to steep for 20 minutes. Place back on the heat and bring to a boil. Meantime, beat the egg yolks in a bowl . In one motion, pour and whisk the cream mixture into the egg yolks. Strain, chill and then process according to your machine’s instructions.

To Assemble the Dessert:

Place some of the plum and orange sauce on a plate. Top with 2 roasted plum halves and then the warmed slice of plum cake on top of the plums. Cut one of the plum halves in slices for garnish. Serve with a spoonful of the Jasmine Ice Cream.

Serves 8.

Roasted Edamame Salad

Well, once again I am on a get-healthy kick so I’m on the lookout for some new salads. I’ve gotten incredibly bored with my old basic luncheon salads; I have a couple favorites I’ve already posted – but any new ones have to be comparatively simple to make. Who has time to take a couple hours just to make lunch? For one person? It has to be a salad you can make ahead at the very least AND it needs to satisfy the basic foodie in me too. I’ve been trying one after another; yesterday I made Giada’s Israeli Couscous salad. Uh uh. Not for me. Maple syrup in a salad? It looked so good with the almonds, apples and dried cherries and the reviews were excellent. But I thought it perfectly ghastly. Something about the sweetness with the fresh herbs maybe? Even writing about it today makes me cringe a bit.

Soooo…. after weeks of experimenting I decided on one I just know is going to become one of my favorites: Roasted Edamame Salad.

My introduction to edamame was years ago in New York City at a restaurant called Match. They brought a big steaming bowl of perfectly seasoned edamame in their pods and it was such fun to pop them out and nibble. They had some kind of lobster salad I loved too, but I guess not too many other people shared my fondness for Match because it went under ages ago. Now I wish I had asked someone there what seasoning they used on their edamame. With a little begging I may have gotten an answer. Oh well, too late now.

In Boca Raton we have a charming Japanese Museum and Gardens called Morikami. They have a restaurant called Cornell Cafe and steamed edamame is on the menu. The seasoning doesn’t hold a candle to Match, but it’s a charming little cafe just the same. And they serve a killer ice cream dessert called mochi. Traditional daifuku mochi is a Japanese confection made from sweet glutinous rice paste and normally filled with sweet azuki bean paste but in Morikami’s case they serve yukimi daifuku which is mochi filled with ice cream- green tea, chocolate or mango. It’s dusted with something like cornstarch or maybe confectioners sugar. Oddly enough, Tea and Cookies discussed this very thing in a recent post. Well anyway, I hope you’ve tried it, because it’s fantastic. And if you haven’t, it’s worth a search.

Okay, now back to the important stuff: Roasted Edamame Salad. Delicious, chewy and all the colors make for a lovely presentation. It would make a great picnic salad too- it travels well, and is best served at room temperature. On the other hand, I have made it, had it for lunch, refrigerated it and served it for dinner and then again the next day. It was still wonderful. Not many ingredients and amazingly simple to make considering the wonderful flavors that result.

Roasted Edamame Salad(Recipe courtesy Alton Brown)

Ingredients:2 cups edamame (I use frozen, thawed)

4 ears of corn, uncooked, kernels cut off the cob

1/4 cup sliced green onions

1 minced garlic clove

2 tablespoons olive oil

kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

1 cup diced tomato

1/4 c. fresh basil, minced

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Method:
Preheat oven to 400°. Mix first 7 ingredients and place on a baking sheet.  Roast about 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned. Place in a bowl and cool in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Add the remaining 3 ingredients. Correct seasoning. Serves 2-3, depending on appetites.

It's a Good Thing......

Michigan Memorial Day memories: it was the first day we were allowed to go swimming; the first day we could wear white shoes; the first day of summer….. well, we thought it was. We scrubbed down our porches and painted and put out the summer furniture. And I vividly remember something else for the gardeners among you: our porch was surrounded by bushes called viburnum carlesii. The wonderfully scented May blooms of this bush could be detected over 30 feet away- and it wafted through our home, perfuming the air. Sheer heaven and a welcome sign of summer after the long winter. Alas, it does not grow in Florida.


Then there were the picnics, parades and memorial services at the city cemetery, And the first swim of the season? Brrrrrr. The water in the lakes of Michigan is icy cold in May. OMG. But we were determined to take a dip- usually not much more than that though.

Florida's not all that different: we still celebrate with picnics, parades and memorial services. ( But, and I don’t mean to rub it in or anything, when we take a dip- it’s warm.) Anyway…this year I got an invitation to a barbecue and was asked to bring some cupcakes. I have to admit I don’t make a lot of cupcakes and maybe they don’t travel as well as cookies, but everyone loves a cupcake. So festive somehow.

Because it’s been raining like crazy down here all week I have been reading and watching a little more of the Food Network than usual which has resulted in my coming up with some novel ideas for my cupcakes. First of all: I actually do read Martha Stewart’s Living magazine. I’m fessing up because I’m going to tell you about one of her “good things”: parchment paper cupcake liners. But there’s a little more to this story. I also happened to catch Nigella Bites -a show I rarely watch. ( I had forgotten how funny Nigella is- cooking while giving slinky looks to the camera.) She made some cupcakes entirely in her food processor, baked them and then topped them with some royal icing and sugar flowers. They were smashing. I went right to the computer and printed out her recipe; really not like me because as I said, I don’t often even make cupcakes.

So now three coincidences came together: a novel idea for cupcake liners, a new cupcake recipe and an invitation to a barbecue with a request to bring cupcakes. And would you believe: I even had some red sugar roses in my pantry. Would rather have found some American flags or something, but let’s not get carried away. You’re going to love this idea, whether you use it for muffins or cupcakes. Take a look:



Let’s start with the cupcake liner idea. Instead of the boring old paper liners, Martha’s Living magazine suggested cutting white parchment paper into 5 inch squares. Then spray your cupcake tins with Pam and press the parchment squares into the muffin cup- folding in the sides neatly. It kind of ends up looking like a handkerchief.

Repeat for 12 muffins. You notice I say muffins because that is what was used in the article, ( see photo below, taken from the magazine) but I decided to make cupcakes, with frosting.

And now for the cupcake recipe; Nigella was telling the truth- it really was easily made in my processor.

Nigella's Cupcakes
(Adapted from Nigella Bites)

Ingredients:
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon butter, room temperature
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 to 3 tablespoons milk

Method:
Line your 12 muffin tin with parchment paper as described above. Preheat oven to 400°.
Put all your ingredients except the milk into your food processor. Pulse until smooth. Pulse while slowing adding the milk down the funnel to make a smooth dropping consistency. (I used the entire 3 tablespoons)
Using an ice cream scoop or large spoon, divide the mixture into the 12 muffin tins- about 1/3 to 1/2 full. It takes less than you would think- I used 1/2 an ice cream scoop- which seemed to be the easiest thing to use when dealing with the parchment paper liners.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. They should have risen and be golden on top. Let them cool in their tins before frosting.

Royal Icing

Ingredients:
2 large egg whites
3 cups confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Method:
Combine the egg whites and the confectioners sugar in your electric mixer bowl. Beat on medium speed until opaque and shiny, about 5 minutes. Pour in the lemon juice and beat another couple minutes until spreading consistancy.