Cake Memories

Jen was one of the three interviewers that interrogated me during my second interview for my job. The questions I remember her asking were along the lines of “Do you have a problem sharing an office? Can you focus with distractions going on?” And I walked away feeling good about the interview, and pretty sure that Jen would be my new office-mate. I was right.

Jen was a great office-mate. Her kids are younger than mine, but she’s as proud of them as I am of mine. And she has a wonderful sense of humor with just the right amount of sarcasm thrown in.

Several months ago, she brought her leftover birthday cake in for the office staff to finish off. It was a fluffy, very light pink concoction. And it was then that I heard her sorrowful missed cake opportunity story.

The story takes place back when Jen was young…kindergarten or first grade. Back in the days when hopscotch and jacks mattered and holding hands with a boy was a serious commitment. Her family was attending the annual school fair. Little Jen was running with delight from one game to the next, giggling with her school mates and trying with all her heart to win a “cool” prize in the beanbag throw.

And then she saw IT. The ultimate cake. The cake that would haunt her far into her adult life.

It was fluffy and pink and a little lopsided and…and…and perfect! She had to have it.

Little Jen tried with all her heart to win the cake walk. Round and round and round she went, eyes never leaving that cake. But, alas, it was not meant to be. Right before her eyes, the cake was chosen by someone else, and through a misty veil of tears (did I mention that we also share a love for Anne of Green Gables?), she saw her dream vanish.

Fast-forward to 2008. She’s now happily married with two wonderful boys and a fantastic office-mate. But the image of that cake has never left her. Her loving husband tries every year to find someone who can re-create the cake. But every year, there’s something just not quite right. This year, it’s not quite pink enough, and the icing isn’t swirly and fluffy enough.

As I listen to this story and her description of her cake, a memory starts to form in my mind. A memory of birthday cakes made by my Mom and covered with what we referred to as “marshmallow frosting.” It was my brother Eric’s favorite frosting and what he always requested on his birthday cakes. I resolved to test my theory for her next birthday.

But, alas, Jen is moving on to another job. There will not be an upcoming birthday cake opportunity. So I decided I had to move, and move fast if I wanted to test my frosting theory. I decided to make her farewell cake.

Since she never saw the inside of the cake, it was really open to interpretation. Her interpretation was a white cake with a “yummy” filling. But it had to be a really yummy filling. So between the layers of the cake, I filled it with some of my homemade 3 Berry Jam. After all, homemade jam is yummy. Right?

Then I made the frosting. It’s really very easy to make. It’s just a meringue with corn syrup added. And to make it pink, I added grenadine which added a wonderful flavor. The most difficult part of the whole procedure was transporting the cake. I don’t have one of those cake carrier things (probably should put it on my Christmas list), and the frosting is REALLY sticky. But with ingenuity and a combination of skewers and plastic wrap I managed to wrap it well enough for transport. And off to work we went, the cake and I.

I told Jen the cake was in the kitchen, and made sure she understood that I would not be offended to hear if it wasn’t right. After all, I was just making an attempt. But when she came back from seeing it in the kitchen, there was joy in her voice and a smile on her face. It was incredibly close to her memory. It wasn’t tall enough – one more layer would have done it, and there weren’t enough peaks in the frosting. But otherwise, Wow!

But the satisfaction is bittersweet. I’m thrilled that I got so close to that distant cake memory, but Jen, I’m going to miss you around the office. We made a great team. Good luck with your new job, and I’ll be sure to say hi when we bump into each other in the grocery store (or casino!)

Marshmallow Frosting
3 egg whites
pinch salt
1/4 c sugar
3/4 c corn syrup
flavoring (vanilla, grenadine, your choice)

Beat egg whites and salt until soft peaks form.
Add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form.
With beaters still running, slowly add corn syrup and flavoring.

First, Take a Zucchini the Size of Manhattan…

This time of year you start dividing your friends into two groups. Those that have it and those that don’t. The “it”, of course, is zucchini. Cause if they’ve got zucchini, chances are you’ll get zucchini. So if you don’t want a bagful of random squashes (what is the plural of squash? squeesh?) you know who to avoid for the next couple of months.

If, however, you have a KILLER recipe for zucchini bread, then welcome your friends wholeheartedly into your home and drop hints like crazy and you may just get lucky!

In order to take out some of the more processed ingredients (mostly white flour), I made a couple of substitutions from the original recipe. But this is excellent, and as Austin and Ryan will testify to, it doesn’t taste AT ALL like zucchini.

Zucchini Bread
makes 2 9×5″ loaves

3 1/4 c whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp grated lemon zest
1 3/4 c sugar
3 c grated zucchini
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 c butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla
1 c chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts are excellent in this)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 2 loaf pans.
Combine all ingredients in large bowl.
Divide batter between the loaf pans.
Bake 50-60 minutes until tester inserted in middle comes out clean.
Enjoy!

The Student Surpases the Teacher

There comes the realization in a parent’s life that the child is starting to connect the dots. The big lessons and the little lessons that you’ve taught over the many, many, many years start to lose some of their randomness in the child’s minds and becomes a cohesive mass of knowledge. And then they use that newly realized knowledge and perform beyond what you perceived their capabilities to be.

I have been concerned for several years now that we really messed up when raising Nick. Don’t get me wrong…he’s a great kid. He’s got an ever-ready sense of humor, a tenacity and work ethic that exceeds that of many grown men, a kind heart and a quick and sharp intelligence that makes conversing with him very enjoyable. Not the perfect child, but a perfect part of our family.

So where did we mess up? Well, he has grown up with a gourmet’s palette. Because of my love for and talent for cooking, he believes, with all his heart and soul, that food should always be great. An occasionally great meal isn’t sufficient for him. Pizza really ought to be homemade, or at worst the best (read expensive) of the takeouts. Spaghetti sauce should NEVER come from a jar unless it’s a jar of my homemade sauce that I’ve canned. I never need to bother with buying canned soup which is a completely unacceptable substitute for homemade. We don’t need to bother buying the pre-made cookie dough ’cause he would rather spend the extra couple of minutes making his own recipe that includes a touch of maple and is so much better. Even Rice Krispie Squares must be homemade. How did we manage to create this monster?

Last Spring he decided that he wanted to apply for the culinary program at the high school. It’s an alternative program that has the kids spend 1/2 of their day at a distant campus learning culinary skills and cooking, and the other 1/2 day in their regular classrooms. With kids (11th and 12th grades) from 14 school districts applying for the 40 openings, the competition is tough. During his interview he was asked what his first choice destination would be if he could go anywhere in the world to eat. You know what my gourmet child replied? Paris? Rome? New York? Wrong! He answered that he would go home for his Mom’s (that’s me!!!!) cooking. And he got accepted into the program. One of the very few Juniors who were accepted.

This rave of pride for my oldest child leads me to the photo you see above. It’s a cobbler filled…loaded…with peaches and blackberries. I bought a couple boxes of peaches for eating and canning purposes and of course, our property is covered with blackberry bushes. So while Farmer Paul and I were out for our Anniversary dinner, he recruited Austin as his sous chef and modified a peach cobbler recipe to include blackberries. And it was a total, complete, ultimate success.

So join me in recognizing the skill of my son who won’t let me get away with convenience if it sacrifices taste and who has been helping me in the kitchen since he was tall enough to peer over the edge of the counter. Here’s his Peachy Blackberry Double-Crusted Cobbler. The one thing we did decide that needed to be changes, was that the filling should be cooled down before putting the cobbler together to bake. Otherwise the butter in the pie crust melts as soon as it hits the fruit, and the crust doesn’t end up flaky.

DOUBLE CRUSTED PEACH COBBLER

FOR THE CRUST:
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for shaping and rolling
2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
16 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
7-10 tablespoons ice water
FOR THE FILLING:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon maple flavoring
Pinch salt
6 ripe peaches, peeled, pitted, and cut into 1/4-inch thick slices
2 cups blackberries
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons heavy cream (for brushing top)
cinnamon-sugar (to sprinkle on top)

TO MAKE THE CRUST:
Place flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor and process for 5 seconds. Add butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add water, a few tablespoons at a time, until the dough just comes together.

Remove dough and knead lightly on a lightly floured surface until it just comes together. Divide the dough in half and form into disks. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Once dough is chilled, remove from the refrigerator and roll each disk into a the approximate size of a 9×13″ pan, approximately 1/4-inch thick. Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheets and return to the refrigerator to chill until ready to assemble.

TO MAKE THE FILLING:
Melt butter in a large high-sided saute pan over medium heat. Add the sugar and water and cook until sugar is dissolved. Add remainder of ingredients and cook for 15 minutes until thickened. Refrigerate until chilled (1 hour or more)

TO MAKE THE COBBLER:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Place half of the peach mixture in the bottom of a 9×13 buttered baking dish using a slotted spoon. Top the peaches with 1 layer of dough.

Bake until the crust is light golden brown.

Remove from the oven and top the crust with the remaining peaches and cover with the other crust. Brush the top crust with heavy cream, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar, and return to the oven.

Bake until the crust is golden brown and the juices are bubbly. Let cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting and serving.

Yield: 12 servings

A Cobbler from the Wild

Life up here just keeps getting better and better. First the garden started coming in, then the chickens and now blackberries.

When we moved in, there were wild blackberry bushes everywhere and getting them under control was one of the first tasks that they guys tackled. They knocked down tons of bushes with the tractor and then we got six goats who have been eating them and keeping them from growing back. But we still have plenty left.

A couple weeks ago, Farmer Paul took a hike around the property to collect enough blackberries for dessert and came back with a dozen. That’s is…12 berries in the bottom of the 2 gallon bucket. So we waited. And waited. For two weeks. And then today happened. I came home from work to a bowl on the counter overflowing with the luscious, sweet fruit.

But then I had to make the most difficult decision of my entire day. What to do with them! Just eating them with some whipped cream was tempting, but didn’t seem celebratory enough. After all, at this point I can walk out my back door and eat as many berries as I want. It needed to be better than that. What Farmer Paul wanted was a wedge of pie crust tucked into a bowl of berries and topped with whipped cream. What Nick wanted was pound cake covered in berries and cream. Austin and Ryan are easy, they just wanted dessert. Pie crust and pound cake take too long for a weeknight dessert and since I didn’t want to have to wait until 10 before we had dessert, I still had to decide what to do. I started going through my cookbooks.

Then Mom swooped in and rescued me from my indecision. She brought in an old cookbook of hers and flipped it open to a Quick Fruit Cobbler recipe. Quick and easy to whip together…bakes in 40 minutes. Works for me.

Unfortunately, the 40 minutes was more like 60, so it was still later than I wanted before we had dessert, and it was just O.K. Everyone else liked theirs, but I didn’t even bother finishing mine. It wasn’t good enough to waste the calories, especially with our anniversary weekend coming up. I’ll save my calorie allowance for that!

Quick Fruit Cobbler
from the More-with-Less Cookbook
Preheat oven to 350.
Combine in bowl:
3/4 c sugar
3/4 c flour
3/4 c milk
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
Pour into 9×9 greased baking pan.
Add:
3 c. fruit – fresh, frozen or canned.
Bake for 40 minutes. (or an hour!)
I also added about 1/4 c rolled oats to the batter because I was afraid that the fresh berries would add too much juice to the batter.

Baking Bread

I know-it’s July and who in their right mind bakes bread in July. Well, who in their right mind ever said I was in MY right mind! But if you could smell it baking, you would forget any criticism that you have of me and beg, BEG for a piece slathered with real butter and then you would coyly ask if I still had some of that strawberry jam that I made a couple of months ago, and then you’d pout when I said I didn’t cause Austin and Ryan gobbled it down, so you’d “settle” for the triple berry that I do have, and you’d be in heaven.
Especially if you were Farmer Paul.