Mexican Chocolate Snickerdoodles

Whether snickerdoodles got their name from German or are a result of New England whimsy, they are a popular cookie in the United States.  Traditional snickerdoodles are a variety of sugar cookie that are rolled in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon before they are baked.  My mother makes some that are excellent, perhaps not as popular in the family as her sugar cookies, but still mighty tasty.  They are chewy and buttery and bursting with taste of cinnamon.  As much as I like those traditional snickerdoodles, I wanted something a little different, something a splash of port or a dram of whiskey might accompany.

Mexican hot chocolate, for those who haven't had the pleasure of tasting it, is made with chocolate and cinnamon.  That being the case, chocolate snickerdoodles seemed a logical mash-up.  For anyone who has nibbled on a block of Ibbarra, these snickerdoodles will remind you of that moment of stolen pleasure.  Crisp, deep chocolate flavor with a hint of heat and spice, these are a cookie for adults.  Kids would probably love them as well, but it may lead them down a dark path.  I'm not suggesting it will lead to heroin or stumbling out of midtown bars at 9 in the morning, but it will change them.  They will suddenly find Barney and Rachel Ray too perky and upbeat.  After eating these, they won't want those overly sweet, insipid store-bought cookies that they beg for like mutant dogs happy for some post-industrial chemical scrap made by indentured orphans in a pollutant spewing factory in a smog blackened city in northeast China.  So it's up to you whether or not you share these with your children.

Mexican Chocolate Snickerdoodles

printable recipe

Cookie Dough

1 3/4 cups (8.75 oz) all-purpose flour

1 stick (4 oz) butter, at room temperature

2 oz unsweetened chocolate

1 egg, room temperature

1  cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ancho chile powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 cloves, finely ground

1/4 tsp salt

Sugar Coating

1/3 cup sugar

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Preheat your oven to 400º F.

To make the cookie dough, melt the chocolate and allow to cool.  Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl cream the butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.  Stir in the cooled chocolate and the egg and use the mixer to get a homogenous blend.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour and the remaining dry ingredients.  Add this to the chocolate mixture in two or three stages, mixing well to make sure all the flour is incorporated into the batter.

Scoop out pieces of the dough and form approximately 1" balls.  

In a small bowl, stir together the 1/3 cup sugar, the cinnamon, and the cayenne pepper.  Make sure you mix these together well.  Roll each ball of cookie dough in the sugar mix and place on parchment lined cookie sheets, spacing the cookies about 2 inches apart from each other.  Using the bottom of a glass, a bottle of scotch, a saucer, or some other handy object with a flat plane, press down lightly on each ball of dough.

Place the cookie sheets in the preheated oven and bake for approximately 10 minutes.  Slide the baked cookies onto racks to cool.  

Pour a splash of port, a dram of Scotch, or even a glass of hazlenut flavored soy milk and realize how lucky you are and how grateful you should be for this moment, no matter how shitty the rest of your life may or may not be.

Saffron Pistachio Shortbread

Shortbread is one of those simple, yet satisfying treats.  It is one of those elemental baked goods, taking flour, butter, and sugar and transforming them through the heat of an oven.  This is a recipe that hints of Spain's past.  It is lightly scented and tinted with a healthy pinch of saffron.  It also includes some toasted pistachios.  Like all good shortbread, it is rich and hard to resist, but takes little effort or time to prepare.  I prepared it in the morning before going to class.

The recipe comes from The New Spanish Table by Anya von Bremzen, a cookbook that is full of a great number of good recipes.  She credits Melissa Clark for creating the recipe.  The original recipe calls for toasting raw, shelled, unsalted pistachios.  I simply used dry roasted unsalted ones that I got at Trader Joe's. 

Saffron Pistachio Shortbread

adapted from The New Spanish Table

3/4 cup shelled, unsalted, dry-roasted pistachios

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar, plus extra for sprinkling on the baked shortbread

1/2 tsp coarse salt

1 cup (8 oz--2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cubed

1 large pinch of saffron, ground in a mortar, steeped in 2 tablespoons of warm water and cooled

1 TBS full-flavored honey

Preheat the oven to 350º F.  Position a rack in the center of the oven.

In a food processor, pulse the flour, sugars, and salt until mixed.  Add in butter, honey, cooled saffron water, and honey, and pulse until the dough just begins to come together.  Place in 9-inch square baking pan.  Press down to fill the pan with an even level of dough.  I find placing a sheet of parchment paper on top and pressing the dough down is the easiest way to quickly fill the pan.  Remove the parchment paper before baking.

Place the pan on the center rack of the preheated oven.  Bake for 35--40 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time.  Place the pan on a wire rack and let cool for at least 20 minutes before attempting to remove the shortbread.  While the shortbread is still warm, cut it into squares by cutting 6 strips lengthwise and 6 strips crosswise.  This will give you 36 1 1/2-inch squares.

Let the shortbread cool completely before dusting with the reserved powdered sugar.

Peach and Nectarine Tart

After a month in Indonesia visiting family, Tjing and I returned to summer here in Northern California.  It's the towards the tail-end of the season for stone fruits, and peaches and their clean shaven cousins, nectarines,  are at peak sweetness.  Going to the farmers market the morning after we got back, I picked up several pounds of perfectly ripe yellow peaches and white nectarines.  Although they were fine eaten fresh without any adornment, I decided to use some to make this tart which I came across while surfing the web in Java.  I liked the simple directness of the tart, its focus on the fruit, but I thought I'd give it an Indonesian tweak by using some lemongrass kaffir lime pepper jam instead of the red currant preserves it calls for.  I thought a touch of heat with the fruit would be a nice touch.

Other than using demerara sugar instead of white sugar to sprinkle on the fruit, and the substitution of the kaffir lime chili jam for the red currant preserves, I stuck to the Times recipe.  The crust is a straightforward pate sucree, a crust that is pretty much foolproof.  As the fruit is front and center, it's important that you use the best that you can find.  I wouldn't attempt to make this tart with any fruit that you wouldn't be as happy eating fresh. 

I served this with some crème fraìche, as suggested in the original recipe, but a good vanilla ice cream would also go well with it.  It is also fine just on its own.

Curried Butternut Squash Tartlets with Maple Bacon Topping

Butternut squash and curry seem to have a natural affinity, as do bacon and maple syrup. Add a ready to bake puff pastry shell, a little brown sugar and cream cheese, and you have a sweet and savory dessert that is ready in minutes.

Peel and thinly slice a small butternut squash.  Saute the slices in butter with some madras curry powder until just softened.  Combine a couple tablespoons of cream cheese with brown sugar.  Spread this on some thawed puff pastry shells that have been rolled out to 5-inch circles.  Overlap about four or five slices of the squash.  Bake in a hot oven for twenty minutes.  Top with crisped pieces of bacon in a reduced maple syrup.  Bake another five minutes.  Remove from the oven.  Cool and serve.  I suppose you could serve with ice cream, but they are awfully good by themselves. A more detailed recipe is below.

Curried Butternut Squash Tartlets with Maple Bacon Topping

printable recipe

1 package of Pepperidge Farm® Puff Pastry Shells, thawed

1 small butternut squash, peeled and sliced into thin slices (1/8 inch thick)

2 TBS butter

3 tsp good quality madras curry powder, divided

8 oz cream cheese, softened

6 TBS brown sugar

4--6 slices of bacon, crisped and broken into small pieces

1/2 cup maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 375º F.

In several batches, sauté the slices of squash in a skillet with the butter and 2 teaspoons of the curry powder.  Cook just long enough to soften the slices slightly, about 3 to 4 minutes.  Remove to a paper towel lined plate and cool.

Stir the brown sugar into the cream cheese, making a smooth, uniform mixture.  

On a lightly floured surface, roll each pastry shell into a circle about 5 inches in diameter.  Place the pastry circles on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Spread 1 to 2 tablespoons of the cream cheese mixture on each of the rolled out shells.  Top with five slices of the butternut squash, overlapping them in a circular pattern.  Bake the pastries for twenty minutes. 

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan stir together the maple syrup and the remaining teaspoon of curry powder.  Reduce the maple syrup by about half.  Stir in the pieces of crisped bacon.

After the tartlets have baked for twenty minutes, top with the maple syrup glaze.  Return the baking sheet to the oven and bake for an additional five minutes.  

When done, remove and cool for at least 15 minutes before eating.  May be served warm or at room temperature.

Gingersnaps

Some cookies aren't for kids.  Not that they won't eat them, but they would prefer something less complex, a more straightforward sugar rush.  These gingersnaps would go as well with a lowball of scotch as a glass of milk.  I first made them to use for the base of a cheesecake that I topped with some pineapple, banana, and coconut jam that I recently made. Since the recipe makes two logs, each of which yields 20--24 cookies, I put aside one log in the freezer to bake at a later date.  That date came due last night.

This is a very easy recipe that comes from David Lebovitz, or at least I discovered it on his site.  The actual recipe is apparently from Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food.  I made some slight changes to the recipe, adding cloves and nutmeg, options that the original suggests.  For the cheesecake base, I didn't top the cookies with the coarse sugar, but I do like the crunch it adds to the cookies.  I try to avoid having too many sweets in the house, so I am unlikely to make these very often.  I know if they were in the house, I would be unable to resist them. Anyways, I'm out of scotch.

Gingersnaps

2 cups (280 g) flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1½ teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground black pepper

4 whole cloves, finely ground

1/2 freshly grated nutmeg
11 tablespoons (150 g) butter, salted or unsalted, at room temperature
2/3 cup (130 g) sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup (80 g) mild-flavored molasses* (sometimes called ‘light’ molasses)
1 large egg, at room temperature

Coarse sugar crystals (I used Trader Joe's Turbinado Raw Cane Sugar) for topping the cookies

In a medium bowl mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices.  With a mixer, cream the butter until fluffy before gradually mixing in the sugar. Add the vanilla, molasses, and egg, and mix until thoroughly incorporated.  With the mixer running, gradually stir in the flour mixture until you have a smooth, uniform dough.

Divide the dough in half.  Roll each half on a lightly floured surface to form two logs, each about 2 inches in diameter.  Wrap each log in plastic wrap and freeze or refrigerate until firm.  (At this point, you may keep the logs in the freezer for up to three months before baking, and you now have something that is every bit as easy to use as those refrigerated cookie tubes you see in the supermarket.)

When you are ready to bake some cookies, preheat the oven to 350º F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; one baking sheet should suffice for one log.  If you are expecting company, have a large family, or should be checking yourself into a clinic to deal with your overeating issues, line two baking sheets and get it done with.

Slice the logs into 1/4-inch thick coins of dough.  If topping with the coarse sugar, pour about a quarter cup of the sugar into a small bowl.  Firmly press one side of a sliced round of dough into the sugar.  Place the sugared rounds on the parchment-lined baking sheet(s), sugared-side up.  

Bake for 10 to 14 minutes.  Let cool on the baking sheet for two minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.  Enjoy.

Pineapple, Banana, and Coconut Jam

Every year since I started this blog a few years ago, I have participated in Steph Chows Jam Exchange.  An annual event that takes place each summer, the exchange is a chance  excuse for me to make up some jam.  Although I like various jams and have enjoyed those I have received in the exchanges, Tjing and I rarely eat it.  We are not real big on breakfast, but if we do bother to have something more than a piece of fruit, we are more likely to have fried rice or a bowl of noodle soup than a piece of toast with jam. So, besides giving away most of the jam I make, I try to come up with other ways of using it.

One of the jams I made this summer was from Christine Ferber's Mes Confitures.  This book has a collection of a number of intriguing combinations for jams and preserves, most of which I'll probably never get around to unless I start making more than one or two batches of jam a year.  The translation of the recipes is sometimes suspect, and the conversion between grams and dry measurements seems a bit off, but the ideas for different jams are inspiring.

I wasn't sure that banana would work in a jam.  I thought it would probably turn to a brown and unappetizing mush.  I also don't like coconut in cakes, cookies, or candies.  For some reason, dried coconut triggers the gag response in me.  I do, however, like fresh coconut--which this recipe calls for--and the combination of pineapple, banana, and coconut seemed like it would make a nice tropical jam if it came together.  Thankfully, it did.

Since our toaster gave up the ghost some time ago, I wanted some way to use the jam to good effect.  I thought it would give a tropical flair to some cheesecake, but wanted something in a more manageable size.  Using a one-inch diameter biscuit cutter, I cut rounds from a ginger-snap crusted cheesecake and topped those with a spoonful of the jam.  The eight-inch square cheesecake produced 16 bite-sized rounds (and some delicious scraps to snack on).

Pineapple, Banana, and Coconut Jam

adapted from Mes Confitures 

400 grams of fresh, ripe pineapple, cored, cut into eighths lengthwise, then cut into 1/3-inch thick slices

500 grams of bananas (4 average bananas), sliced into rounds a little more than 1/2-inch thick

200 grams grated fresh coconut (I used frozen coconut I bought at an Asian market)

3 1/2 cups sugar (672 gr)

juice of one small lemon

In a large saucepan combine all the ingredients and bring to a simmer.  Stir well and make sure the sugar is completely dissolved.  Remove from heat and pour into a non-reactive container.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The following day, pour the liquid from the mixture back into the saucepan.  Bring to a boil and stir until the temperature reaches 221º F.  Add the fruit and coconut and continue cooking for five minutes or so.  Check the set of the mixture.  Put the jam into hot, sterilized 1/2 pint jars, seal and process in a water canner for ten minutes.

**  Ferber's recipe calls for 3 3/4 cups or 800 grams of sugar.  800 grams actually comes to more than 4 cups of sugar.  I found that 3 3/4 cups is a tad too sweet for me.  I would consider using less, but not sure if that might not affect the jam when canning.

Vietnamese Coffee Crack Pie

Having heard so much about Momofuku's infamous crack pie, I decided I'd make it for a recent bookclub dinner.  Essentially a variation of chess pie, Christina Tosi's crack pie is a rich, extremely sweet dessert; click on the recipe for it and a rash of links to diabetes control and information websites appear.  Had Jerry Garcia survived the heroin, this would have been his demise.  Give an eight-year old a suggested serving sized slice of this and pull him down from the ceiling eight hours later.

 

Reading the recipe for crack pie, I thought it seemed sweeter than something I would normally choose.  Still, I didn't want to just say no. I made Tosi's crack pie following her recipe verbatim.  It produced a luscious, enticing pie that everyone else in the bookclub enjoyed.  However, it was too sweet for my taste.  I loved the crust and the filling was wonderfully creamy and silky, but it was like mainlining sugar.

In as much I drink my coffee straight--black, no sugar, no milk--I still had some sweetened condensed milk in the fridge from making the Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream.  Hoping to make a pie that had the silkiness of Tosi's filling without quite so much sweetness, I decided to try a coffee flavored version of crack pie using the sweetened condensed milk.  The milk substituted for the cream and white sugar called for in the original recipe.

Vietnamese Coffee Crack Pie

printable recipe

1 prepared crust following Tosi's recipe
(I used a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom)

Filling

3 1/2 oz light brown sugar (about 7 TBS)
1/8 tsp salt
a scant 3 TBS milk powder
1/2 cup (1 cube) melted butter
1/4 cup espresso or strongly brewed coffee
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
4 large beaten egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla

Heat the oven to 350º F.  Place the pan with prepared pie crust on a large baking sheet.

In a large bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, salt, milk powder, butter, espresso, and sweetened condensed milk until you have a fairly homogenous mixture.  Gently whisk in the egg yolks and vanilla without whisking in too much air.

Pour the filling into the prepared crust.  Bake for 15 minutes at 350º, then lower the temperature to 325º and bake until filling is just slightly wobbly.  This took around 15 to 20 minutes for the coffee filling, which has more liquid than Tosi's original filling. When done, remove and cool on a rack.

Refrigerate for several hours.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar.  Slice and serve.
Tosi's recipe says each pie makes 6 to 8 servings.  I'd suggest 12 slices per pie.

Kue Soes Kopi Kapulaga--Cardamom Coffee Cream Puffs

 

As my blog is entitled Javaholic, many people assume that I focus primarily on coffee.  As much as I enjoy a good cup of coffee, which I do several times a day, this blog is more interested in exposing people to Indonesian food. However, after having gone more than two years without a post specifically related to coffee, I find myself having two coffee related posts this month.
 
When the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program offered interested bloggers a chance to create a post about a dish that would pair with some new blends Peet's was promoting, I leapt at the opportunity.  For one thing, I got two bags of Peet's coffee from the deal.  Yes, I can be had cheap.  I wouldn't have done it, however, if Peet's weren't already my choice for coffee.  It seems to be one of the few places where I can get a good cappuccino that is not just a frothy latté.  I also appreciate that it uses a lot of Indonesian textile motifs in its decorations.

The new blends--Café Domingo, which is a blend of Central and South American coffees, and Café Solano, which is a blend of African, Indo-Pacific and South American coffees--are medium roasts. Interestingly, Indonesian coffee drinkers tend to favor medium roasts.  During my visit to Kediri this past summer, my brother-in-law couldn't appreciate the dark roast Sulaweisi I brought, preferring a medium roast from Flores.  He would definitely appreciate the Café Solano.

I don't generally drink much coffee past noon, but I do enjoy it sometimes with dessert.  As one of the desserts that Tjing likes is kue soes, which is what Indonesians call cream puffs, I decided to make some with an Indonesian spiced pastry cream.  Topped with a simple dark chocolate sauce, these pair very nicely with the medium roast blends.

 Kue Soes Kopi Kapulaga--Cardamom Coffee Cream Puffs

1 cup of bread flour (although all-purpose will also work)

1 TBS sugar

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup milk

1/4 cup water

1/3 cup butter (5 1/3 TBS) 

4 large eggs (at room temperature)

Sift together the flour, sugar and salt.  In a medium saucepan bring the milk, water and butter to a boil over medium heat.  As soon as the liquid comes to a boil, dump in the flour mixture and stir well to form a soft dough.  Off the heat, stir in one egg at a time, making sure that each egg is thoroughly incorporated before adding the next egg.  By the time the last egg has been incorporated, the dough should be satiny and smooth.  Using a pastry bag or two tablespoons, place twelve balls of dough on a parchment or silicone lined cookie sheet.  Bake for ten minutes at 400º F, then lower the oven to 350º F and bake another 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown.  Cool before filling.

Cardamom Coffee Pastry Cream

1 1/4 cups whole milk

1/4 cup espresso

1/2 cup sugar

4 egg yolks

3 TBS corn starch

the seeds from 4 cardamom pods, finely ground in a mortar

1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

Whisk together the egg yolks with the sugar until light and creamy.  Stir in the corn starch, making sure there are no lumps.  

Meanwhile, bring the milk, espresso, cardamom and nutmeg to a boil.  Pour the hot liquid into the egg yolk mixture while whisking steadily to temper the eggs.  Then add this back to the rest of the milk in the pan and stir over low heat for several minutes until it thickens.  Chill the pastry cream until you are ready to fill the cooled puffs.

Dark Chocolate Sauce

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1 cup whipping cream

8 oz dark chocolate (I use Trader Joe's) finely chopped

In a small sauce pan heat the corn syrup and whipping cream just until it comes to a simmer.  Pour over the chopped chocolate and stir to melt the chocolate.  Drizzle warm over the filled cream puffs.

Enjoy with a cup of coffee or the beverage of your choice.

 I'd like to thank Foodbuzz and Peet's for the coffee and coupons they sent me for taking part in this promotion.  

  

Olive Oil Pound Cake with Almond Meal

 

While my wife and I share similar tastes for most savory dishes, desserts are another matter.  I have a weakness for butterfat.  The higher percentage of butterfat in a dish, the more likely I am to love it.  My wife, however, has an aversion to butterfat.  Shortbread cookies--no.  Croissants, proper ones--no.  Traditional pound cake--no. My mother makes a very good traditional pound cake rich with eggs and butter.  I love it, but Tjing doesn't care for the buttery richness. Desserts are a cultural divide that finds us on two distant shores.  This olive oil pound cake helped us bridge that distance.

Catherine, a local blogger who is very active in the Sacramento food scene and is the author of Munchie Musings, helped organize a dinner for Sacramento bloggers at the Greek Village Inn last month that was also a promotional event for Star Fine Foods who wanted to showcase their release of a 100% California olive oil.  Besides a nice chance to meet and interact with some other local bloggers while enjoying a delicious Greek meal (Tjing also can't stand the smell of lamb, so any time I have it is a rare treat), I came away with a bottle of olive oil (the regular extra virgin--not the California terroir).  As fond as I am of butter, I did think this made a delicious pound cake, one that you could almost feel righteous in eating, good fat vs bad fat and all that.  Most importantly, it tastes good.

Olive Oil Pound Cake with Almond Meal

1 1/4 cups (160 gr) all purpose flour

1/2 cup (50 gr) almond meal

2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

4 eggs, room temperature

3/4 cup olive oil

finely grated zest of one lemon

1 tsp almond essence

Preheat the oven to 350º F.  Grease a 9" x 5" loaf pan.  You may line the bottom with parchment paper if you wish.  (I found it slightly easier to remove the cake when the pan had the parchment paper, but not that difficult to remove it without the parchment paper.  I use a pyrex glass pan, and I think I liked the crust a little more on the loaf without the parchment paper.)

Sift or stir together the flour, almond meal, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl set over a pan with about an inch of hot water, beat the eggs and sugar together until the volume nearly triples.  The mixture should be the consistency of whipped cream just before it gets to the soft peak stage.

Carefully fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture by sprinkling the flour mix over the top little by little and stirring it in.  Add the olive oil, lemon zest, and almond essence, making sure to stir well to keep the oil from pooling in the bottom of the bowl.  Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 40 to 50 minutes until the cake is a golden brown and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Let cool in the pan for five to ten minutes, then remove and cool on a rack. 

Delicious Vietnam--Chi Lang Profiteroles with Caramel Rum Sauce

The first thing someone usually says to me when they hear I have a blog called Javaholic is "oh, so you write about coffee."  And then I explain that no, my blog is not about coffee or coffeehouses, but deals mostly with Indonesian and Southeast Asian food, with a leaning towards the food of Java.  In fact, I believe this is my first post in the two and a half years the blog has been in existence that coffee is the primary focus of the post.  And then it's for Vietnamese coffee.  As the basis for ice cream.

Although not a focus of this blog, I do drink several cups of coffee almost every day,  and have done so for most of the last thirty-five years or so.  I like my coffee black, no sugar, no milk--kopi pahit in Indonesia, kopi o kosong in Singapore and Malaysia, cafe den in Vietnam. However, I occasionally enjoy a glass of cafe sua da, Vietnamese iced-coffee with sweetened condensed milk.  So when I came across a recipe for Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream in David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop, I decided to use it as the basis for my submission to this month's Delicious Vietnam.

(Follow the jump for the recipe and the rest of the story.)

Oatmeal Streusel Ginger Berry Bars

Although my father was always a National League fan when it came to baseball, my mother adheres to Ted Williams' philosophy when it comes to freezing food.  Nothing can be frozen too long.  Roasts that were calves when Ted Williams still walked this earth reside in the back recesses of my mother's freezer, bargains that proved irresistible when the family still gathered for Sunday roasts. A bargain at today's prices will seem even more so when discovered a few years hence, shadowed with freezer burn perhaps, but still "perfectly edible."

 

Like my father, I am a fan of National League ball, the World Champion San Francisco Giants to be precise.  But like my mother, I tend to use the freezer like a time capsule.  There are some items that have been there for well over a year.  I believe we have some blocks of sauce for gado gado that we picked up when we were in Indonesia a half dozen years ago.  It's not that I am stocking up on bargains, but I sometimes don't get around to cooking something right away, so I shift it to the freezer.  Fortunately, we don't have a stand-alone freezer, so I am limited to what I can entomb.

I had had a bag of mixed berries from Trader Joe's in the freezer for some time.  I don't think they were as old as the bumbu gado gado, but I wouldn't testify to that under oath.  The berries seemed to have passed through several partial warming ages also, and the bag was half ice crystals when finally opened.  Still, they were perfectly edible, and featured prominently in these berry bars I made for Tjing's most recent knitting session.  

Oatmeal Streusel Ginger Berry Bars 

printable recipe

1 1/2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened and cut into small pieces
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt 

1  16 oz. bag of frozen mixed berries, thawed
juice and zest from half a lemon
1 TBS fresh ginger, finely grated
2 TBS corn starch 

Preheat the oven to 350º F.

Mix the oats, flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt together.  Cut the butter into this mixture.  Reserve a third of this mixture.

Line a 9" x13" pan with baking parchment, leaving several inches on each side to enable you to lift it out later.  Press the bulk of the oatmeal mixture into the parchment lined pan.  Bake in the pre-heated oven for ten minutes.  Remove and allow to cool.


While the base is baking, prepare the berry filling.  In a saucepan simmer the berries,  lemon juice, zest, sugar and ginger for about eight to ten minutes.  Mix the corn starch with a little water to form a slurry.  Stir this into the berry mixture and simmer for another couple of minutes, until the mixture thickens.  Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

Pour and spread the berry filling over the cooled base.  Sprinkle the reserved oatmeal streusel mixture atop the filling.  Return the pan to the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown.

Lift the parchment paper out of the pan and allow to cool completely on a wire rack before cutting. 

An Apple Cake from Kyrgyzstan

One of the benefits of being an ESL teacher is that students sometimes share foods and recipes from their native countries. We usually have a potluck about once a semester, and some days students just happen to bring in some food to share.  Whenever there is a dish I particularly enjoy, I do my best to get the recipe from the student.  As I generally teach the lower level learners, from literacy level to beginning low, this can sometimes be a challenge.  Occasionally, as with this recipe for apple cake, the directions are simple and straightforward enough that writing the recipe is not difficult at all.

Until recently I had been teaching a small group of students in a makeshift classroom on a troubled high school campus.  The idea behind the class is that I would teach the parents of struggling students who would then realize the value of education.  Unfortunately, most parents who have children who aren't doing well in school probably don't really give a damn.  And the majority of those parents are native speakers of English.  Many immigrants may be struggling with the language, but one of the primary reasons they have come to the United States is get an education for their children.  Among the few students the class attracted, one was a parent of a child at the high school. Ironically, Fatimah--not her real name--recognized the school was not very good and was doing all she could to get him transferred to another school. 

Fatimah is a middle-aged woman from Kyrgyzstan.  Her father was Tartar and her mother Russian.  In Kyrgystan she was a businesswoman, operating a shop that sold Swarovsky crystal.  Although her husband has been here several years and is currently working on an MA at the local university, Fatimah and her children have just been here since last August. 

Most of the nearly 300,000 Russian speaking immigrants in the greater Sacramento area are evangelical Christians.  Although I have had many students from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan (as well as Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova), Fatimah is the first Muslim student I have had from one of the former Soviet republics.  While many students from the northern countries have a dour, almost humorless affect, Fatimah, like many other students I've had from the "Stans", has a very upbeat and cheerful outlook.

Tattoos are rare among the Russian speaking immigrants, save for the occasional crude army tat that some men have.  Fatimah has a prominent abstract tattoo of intertwining geometrical shapes on her left shoulder.  Curious, I asked her about tattoos in Kyrgyzstan.  She told me that while some younger people have them, most people don't approve.  She got hers a few years ago, when her husband was over here and she was still in Kyrgyzstan.  "I like," she said, "so I get.  I don't care what people think.  My husband very surprised when he see. 'Why?,' he ask. I tell him I think it's beautiful, so I get.  I am 35 years old when I get.  I old enough to do what I like. My son not like, no understand.  My daughter happy, smiling, says it beautiful."

Last week this class was shifted to the morning, allowing me to return to a much larger class at the adult school.  Even though I am pleased not to have to travel between schools anymore, not to have to tell students that they couldn't come to class until the school completed a criminal background check on them, not to have to lock up whiteboard markers and erasers, and to have a regular class of more than a handful of students in a real classroom, I felt bad abandoning those students. 

On the last day of the class, Fatimah brought an apple cake she made.  It's one she makes frequently for her family, she said.  Apples, flour, eggs, and sugar, it is made without oil or butter.  Still warm from the oven, it was a delightfully moist, not too sweet cake.  It was a lovely treat on a bittersweet ending to the class. 

Oil-free Apple Cake

3 to 4 apples, peeled and thinly sliced

3 to 4 eggs, beaten

1 cup of all purpose flour, sifted

3/4 to 1 cup of sugar

(I added about 1/2 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg)

Preheat oven to 350º F.  Line the bottom of an 8-inch round cake pan with parchment paper.

Mix apples with sugar, using less sugar for sweeter apples, more for tarter apples.  Stir in beaten eggs.  Stir in flour and mix well.  Pour batter into the prepared cake pan.  Bake 30 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool.  Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar and serve warm or at room temperature.

French Apple Tart--Tarte aux Pommes

The hard part of maintaining a food blog is not the work involved, which is considerable, it's finding and establishing the rhythm of cooking, taking the pictures, writing, and posting.  It takes time to find that rhythm while still balancing the other demands in one's life: work, love, friends, household chores, and alcohol. I might be able to put off doing some chores, but that evening cocktail is not to be trifled with.  This is why most of my posts are written early in the morning, usually several hours before school starts.

Like anything that demands a certain amount of discipline, running, for example, or studying a foreign language,  any break in the routine of maintaining the blog makes it that much more difficult to get back into the rhythm of posting.  It's always easy to find an excuse to put off writing up a post, to find something else that needs to be done, an additional hour of sleep perhaps, or an episode or two of 30 Rock that you hadn't seen yet.  Having found myself in a work-and-state-of-affairs-of-educational-funding-in-California-induced-funk, I decided I needed a brief break from blogging.  I didn't realize how difficult it would be to pick it up again.  It's like Michael Phelps after a few weeks of hitting the bong and then jumping back into the water.  Whoa! Dude, 100 meters seems like a mile!

Tarte aux pommes is an elegant looking, relatively simple and straightforward apple pie.  Although it holds no candle to my mom's apple pie, it is a very delicious dessert.  The apples are not masked by an excess of sugar or cinnamon as sometimes happens in apple pies; they are front and center in this tarte.  A fan of thinly sliced apples rest on a bed of a lightly sweetened purée of sautéd apples.  It seemed a fitting dessert for our book club's discussion of Parrot and Olivier in America.

For the crust, I used the recipe from The San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook.  It really is, as advertised, the perfect pie crust.  Don't use a food processor to do this.  You can, but by the time you do the clean up, what's the point?  This is something that can be done so easily in a bowl with a fork. 

The Perfect Pie Crust

(adapted from The San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook)

1 cup unsifted all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
3 TBS chilled, unsalted butter, cut in 6 to 8pieces
1/4 cup shortening, chilled, also cut in pieces
3 to 4 TBS ice water (I use a cocktail shaker to chill the water and easily pour a little at a time.)

Mix together the flour and salt.  Cut in butter.  Then cut in shortening.  Sprinkle with the ice water, a tablespoon or so at a time and stir.  Add just enough water so the mixture is moist enough to gather together in a ball.

Wrap the ball of dough in a sheet of plastic wrap and press into a CD sized disk.  Chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface.  Place into a 9-inch tart pan.  Prick the bottom of the crust with a fork.  Line the shell with parchment paper and fill with dried beans or pie weights.
Bake in a pre-heated 425º oven for 10 minutes.  Remove the parchment paper and weights, and bake for another 3 to 5 minutes until the bottom is lightly browned.  Allow to cool before adding the apples.

 

I used two varieties of apples for the filling.  I used golden Mutsu for the purée, and Granny Smith for the top.  Any good, tart apples would work.

To make the purée, core, peel and slice three to four apples.  Sauté the apples with  a tablespoon of butter, a squeeze of lemon, a sprinkle of cinnamon, 2 tablespoons of panko breadcrumbs and about a 1/4 cup of sugar, more or less to your taste. Cook until the apples are soft enough to mash with a fork.  Mash into a chunky purée and cool.

Core, peel, and slice another 3 apples for the top of the tart.  You want the slices to be a uniform thickness.  Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet and saute the slices until just slightly softened, three to five minutes. 

Spread the purée of apples on the cooled crust.  Fan the slices of apples in a decorative pattern on top of the purée.  Sprinkle with several tablespoons of sugar and bake in a 375º oven for around 25 minutes, until apples are soft and lightly brown. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

This tart is best served the day it is baked, but I found that it still tasted very good the next day.

Mexican Spiced Lava Cakes

 Who doesn't like a lava cake?  Properly made, they are light clouds of rich chocolate with an oozing core of molten ganache.  While easy to whip up, they do require a reliable oven and careful attention to timing.  However, even if you miss the mark a little as I did with these, they still taste wonderful.  Chocolate with chocolate, butter, cream, sugar, flour and eggs, what's not to like?

These were another book club dessert.  They preceded a spirited discussion on home-schooling that nearly resulted in the dissolution of the book club.  As spirited discussions are no strangers to my family's get-togethers, I was surprised to hear several of the participants were too upset to want to continue to meet every six weeks or so.  I like to think I could even be civil with Dick Cheney were we to get together once every six weeks,  although I would ask him to check the shotgun at the door.  Matter of fact, it would be my pleasure to serve this dessert to Cheney, but he'd have to get his own transportation to the hospital if it triggered yet another cardiac arrest ; )

The book we had read for that night was The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver.  Since much of the book is set in Mexico, I prepared a Mexican meal for the night.  To give a Mexican twist to the lava cakes, I adapted a Ghiradelli recipe by adding some cinnamon and ancho chile powder to the molten centers.  Both complement the chocolate nicely and are not in such quantities that they overpower the chocolate, remaining more a back note than a jarring blast.

Mexican Spiced Lava Cakes

(makes 2, can easily be doubled or tripled)

for the molten centers
1 ounce dark chocolate (I used Trader Joe's Pound Plus 72% Belgian Dark Chocolate Bar)
2 TBS whipping cream
1 tsp ancho chili powder (available in Mexican markets and many supermarkets)
1/2 tsp cinnamon

for cakes
2 ounces dark chocolate
1/2 stick butter (4 TBS)
scant 3 TBS sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 TBS cake flour

To make the centers, melt the chocolate and whipping cream in a double boiler or in the microwave.  Stir in the ancho powder and cinnamon until completely mixed.  Chill this mixture in the refrigerator.  When chilled, form into two balls.

Preheat the oven to 400º F.  Butter 2 six-ounce ramekins.

Melt dark chocolate and butter together in double boiler or microwave.  Whisk to thoroughly incorporate the butter into the chocolate.

In a small mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to whisk egg, egg yolk, sugar and vanilla until light, about 5 minutes. Gently fold in the chocolate mixture and flour until just incorporated.  Pour the cake mixture into the prepared ramekins.  Press a chocolate ball into the center of each ramekin.

Bake about 10 minutes, until cakes are firm.  (My oven is terribly erratic, making it a guessing game each time as to when the cakes will be done, anywhere from 7 to 12 minutes. )  Let cakes sit on a rack for 3 to 5 minutes.  Run a knife between the edge of the cakes and the ramekins.  Invert a plate on each ramekin, flip plate and ramekin over, remove ramekin and serve.  Garnish with powdered sugar, raspberry coulis and fresh raspberries.