A Holiday Triple-Header From The Baking Sisters' Dad!

Ah, Thanksgiving: a weekend of gratitude, family, shopping (for some), football (for others), and food – too much food – for all. In addition to the traditional Thanksgiving dinner (at my sister- and brother-in-law’s home in Connecticut), our family has two long-standing rituals that involve food. The first began more than 30 years ago, before any of the Baking Sisters were born. Because we live near the start of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade route, we used to take friends’ children to see the parade. After standing in the cold for several hours, we would return home to hot cocoa and chocolate chip cookies (we still use the recipe on the package of Toll House chips). This tradition continued during the many years when we stood on the parade route with the Baking Sisters. Now that they are grown, we watch the parade on television, but we still bring out the cocoa and cookies when Santa gets to Herald Square. Next year, we hope to restore the full tradition and take our grandson to see the parade live and in person! The other tradition goes back only 15 years or so. We attend the Big Apple Circus with close friends and then return home, build a fire in the fireplace (it was 60 degrees this year, but we have to make S’mores), eat plenty of wonderful food and go through several bottles of wine. So it was a busy weekend for the Baking Sister’s dad. I started with my traditional Vermont Pumpkin Pie, based on a recipe I clipped from the New York Times many years ago which I adapted to make the pie non-dairy. Beaten egg whites give the pie a light texture, while maple syrup adds New England-style sweetness that seems to be the essence of Thanksgiving. For the post-circus feast, I made Apricot Tarragon Cocktail Cookies, which go wonderfully with cheese and wine. I saw the recipe in Rebecca’s Food & Wine magazine when I visited California in October, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the recipe was contributed by Dorie Greenspan. Here is a link to the recipe. I went all-out for dessert. I always have canned pumpkin left over when I make the pumpkin pies, so I looked for a pumpkin ice cream recipe to use it up. I found a great one on David Lebovitz’s blog. As he suggests, I included rum and chopped pecans. And since it didn’t seem right to serve just ice cream, I also made Moosehead Gingerbread from Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts. According to the book, the recipe came from an old-time fishing guide in Maine. In any event, the gingerbread and the ice cream were a great combination.

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: Have You Milked A Goat Today?

Here's one from the Baking Sisters' dad! Take it away, Dad!

It’s time for another guest blog by the Baking Sisters’ dad. This incredibly delicious recipe is adapted from the signature dessert of Eden Village Camp, the first (and only) Jewish environmental residential camp, located in Putnam Valley, New York. EVC is a wonderful place (you can see for yourself at www.edenvillagecamp.org ) that has what may be the best camp food in America – some of which is grown by the campers themselves!

Enough with the commercial – let’s get right to the recipe:

2-1/4 cups goat’s milk

2/3 cup sugar

scant 1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)

3/4 cup half & half

3/8 tablespoon vanilla extract

Pour 1-1/2 cups of goat’s milk into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat. Add the sugar and salt, stirring until the mixture is completely dissolved. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator. Puree the blueberries in a blender until almost completely smooth. When the mixture is thoroughly chilled, add the remaining goat’s milk, the half & half, and the blueberry puree. Stir to mix thoroughly. Pour the mixture into the prepared bowl of an ice-cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer’s directions.

As I said, EVC is an environmental camp, so the original recipe calls for milking the goats (I got my goat’s milk in the organic/specialty dairy case at Fairway) and pureeing the blueberries in a bicycle-powered blender (mine is electric). I don’t think either variation affected the taste.

NOTE: I would consider substituting heavy cream for the half & half. And I would add a couple of tablespoons of alcohol (vodka or a fruit-based liqueur) to give the ice cream a smoother consistency.

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: Keeping It in the Family

Note: Today's double-header is brought to you by Sarah and the Baking Sisters' dad, Irv.

If you're like me, then you believe that there are certain things that define summer. Beautiful sunset walks along the Hudson in Riverside Park...

Sunflowers...

And these small, ripe, intensely flavorful strawberries that start to pop up in farmers' markets around June.

For me, this summer has also brought some exciting news - I finally got a job! I started last week and I love it so far. Conveniently, the night before I started my job happened to be Erev Rosh Chodesh Av. For those of you scratching your heads, that means "the evening of the first day of the month of Av" (Av being the fifth month on the Jewish calendar, and Jewish days starting at sunset.) Despite my happy employment news, Av is considered the saddest month on the Jewish calendar because both of the ancient Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed on the Ninth of Av, plus a lot of other sodding things supposedly happened on that date that I won't get into here. One of the ways that we show our sadness is by not eating meat or doing various other happy things for the nine days leading up to the Ninth of Av. So between our impending meat deprivation and my entry into the world of wage labor, the situation obviously called for some meat. And when the situation obviously calls for some meat, there is an equally obvious call for parve dessert.

My contribution came in the form of brownie bites from Kosher by Design: Short on Time. They are a snap to put together, they are moist and fudgy and last for ages, and when I gave one to my friend she didn't even realize they were parve! You obviously don't have to cut them just the way the recipe says but I agree with Susie Fishbein that it's waaaay fun to eat the edges around the brownie circles. I didn't do all that business with flipping the brownies out of the pan; I found that if you just use a biscuit cutter, they come out pretty easily. I also didn't roll them into balls because in my experience that's always made a huge crumbly mess, but if you want to try it best of luck to you.

Brownie Bites

From Kosher by Design: Short on Time (page 240)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted margarine, melted and placed in refrigerator to cool for 10 minutes

3/4 cup good-quality Dutch process cocoa powder

1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil

2 cups sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Coating: confectioner's sugar, cocoa powder, chopped nuts, edible glitter, colored sanding sugars

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Line a 7- by 11-inch brownie pan with parchment paper and coat with non-stick cooking spray.

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, combine the melted margarine, cocoa powder, oil, sugar, flour, eggs and vanilla. Beat to combine.

Spread the mixture into the prepared pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and place into the refrigerator for 20 minutes or until cool enough to handle.

When the brownies are cool, run a knife around the edge of the pan. Flip the brownie out onto a piece of parchment paper on a hard word surface in one whole piece. Using a 1 1/2 inch diameter round cookie cutter, cut circles from the center of the brownie, leaving the harder crust. Roll the circles between the palms of your hands to form into balls, and roll into coating of your choice.

Store in airtight container.

Over to you, Dad!

The Baking Sisters’ father is glad to be back for a guest blog. When Sarah graduated from college and returned home with her ice cream maker, I decided to experiment. (I guess it’s in my blood, since my father owned a drive-in ice cream store when I was growing up, and I worked there every summer when I was a teenager.) This recipe was one of my best finds.

Everyone knows that there are two kinds of strawberries: those made for travelling and those made for eating. The travelling kind – the ones you get in the supermarket year-round that are bred to make it across the country in one piece – look beautiful but are hard and white on the inside and have no taste. The eating kind are small, sometimes misshapen, but red all the way through and almost oozing sweet juice. So while summer lasts, get to a greenmarket or farm stand and buy some locally-grown berries. Then turn them into this amazing strawberry sorbet with flavor even more intense than the berries themselves. You can make it with “travelling” berries, but why bother?

This recipe is adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. It makes about 4 cups.

1-1/3 lbs. (yes, pounds) fresh strawberries, rinsed and hulled

1 cup sugar

1-1/3 tsp. kirsch (optional, but it adds a nice punch)

1-1/3 tsp. freshly-squeezed lemon juice

Pinch of salt

Slice the strawberries and toss them in a medium bowl with the sugar and kirsch, stirring until the sugar begins to dissolve. Cover and let stand for one hour, stirring every so often.

Puree the strawberries and their liquid with the lemon juice and salt in a blender or food processor until smooth (I prefer the blender). There is no need to strain out the seeds.

Chill the mixture thoroughly, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Enjoy, and plan to make more soon, since this batch won’t last.

Guest Post: The Baking Sisters' Dad

For those of you who regularly read this blog, you might notice that we never reference our mom's homemade baked goods.  That's because she doesn't bake.  However, our dad does.  He is a great baker and cook and we get most of our skills from him.  If you don't believe us, here is the proof.

Let me start by thanking the Baking Sisters for inviting their dad to guest blog.  I must admit that, with three such wonderful bakers in the family, I’ve gotten out of the baking habit.  When I had occasion to make cakes two weeks in a row, it seemed right to blog about them. 

In my baking heyday, Maida Heatter was the high priestess of baking.  Her recipes were not only wonderful, but also so detailed and clear that they were foolproof as long as you mastered the techniques.  For this reason, I thought of her as the Julia Child of baking.  Flash forward to the 21^st century, and I’m very pleased to add Dorie Greenspan to the cookbook shelf.  She is, of course, one of the Baking Sisters’ major inspirations.

But these cakes come from other sources.  Both cakes were prepared for Shabbat dinners, and since they were meat meals, I needed recipes that contained no dairy products.  The first cake was for the birthday of the Baking Sisters’ mom, so it had to be chocolate.  The second cake was to take along to dinner at the home of our friends Richard and Rae Janvey, so Torta Del Re seemed appropriate.  (It’s also almost Passover, and this makes a wonderful dessert for the seder.)  When we served the cake, the conversation turned to baking, and then to the Baking Sisters, and then to Sarah’s seven hour round trip from Providence to New York to attend Dorie Greenspan’s three hour master class for Dalton School alumni.  Low and behold, who did we discover is the Janveys’ next-door neighbor?  None other than Dorie Greenspan!

The chocolate cake comes from Kosher by Design, by Susie Fishbein (the first of several books in the Kosher by Design series).  It’s actually Chocolate Banana Cake, which automatically rules it out for Rebecca (who hates bananas), although I thought the banana gave the cake moisture with little or no banana taste.  To make it parve, I used parve margarine, Tofutti “sour cream” and non-dairy “whipping cream.”  If dairy is OK, you can use the real things.  Here’s the recipe, with my comments in brackets.

CHOCOLATE BANANA CAKE

Kosher by Design, by Susie Fishbein

Serves 12

Cake:

1 cup pure vegetable shortening

2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

2 ripe (not brown) bananas, mashed [I pulsed them briefly in a mini-food processor]

1/3 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/3 cup cocoa

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup boiling water

Glaze:

6 tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine

6 tablespoons heavy whipping cream or non-dairy whipped topping

3 ounces milk semi-sweet chocolate [I used bittersweet instead]

1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels

1-1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat over to 350 degrees.  Grease a 10-inch tube pan or bundt pan; set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the shortening and sugar until fluffy [I used a stand mixer].  Add the eggs, one at a time.  Add the bananas, sour cream, and vanilla, and mix until all are incorporated.

In a separate large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cocoa, and salt.  Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture in three parts, alternating with the boiling water.  Mix.  The batter will be runny [it actually wasn’t too runny].  Pour into prepared pan.  Bake for one hour.  [Allow the cake to cool for 15 or 20 minutes before removing it from the pan.  Place it on a cake plate and place strips of waxed paper under all sides of the cake to catch the excess glaze.]

For the glaze, combine butter or margarine, cream, chocolate, morsels, sugar, and vanilla in a heavy saucepan over low heat.  Cook, whisking constantly, until smooth.  Cool slightly.  Pour over the cake, letting it run down the sides and trying not to manipulate the glaze too much.  Let the glaze set.  Cake can be refrigerated, but bring to room temperature before serving.  [It keeps well and stays moist even without being refrigerated.]

I found Torta Del Re (King’s Cake) in volume one of The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews by Edda Servi Machlin.  The author grew up in Pitigliano, a medieval village in the hill country between Rome and Florence that had had a flourishing Jewish community for centuries.  Her story of life – and food – in Pitigliano and how it all came to an end in the aftermath of the Nazi occupation of Italy must be the most beautiful, poignant tale to be found in any cookbook.  The 20 pages that describe life in Pitigliano are worth the price of the book, although it has many terrific recipes, too. 

TORTA DEL RE

The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews, by Edda Servi Machlin

Serves 12 

2 tablespoons sweet butter or [to make it parve] non-dairy margarine

2 tablespoons fine breadcrumbs or matza meal

5 eggs, separated

1 small pinch of salt

1-1/4 cups granulated sugar

2-1/2 cups (10 ounces) blanched almonds, chopped very fine [in a food processor]

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

Grated rind of 1 lemon

Confectioners sugar

Sliced almonds, toasted [spread on a baking sheet and put under the broiler, far from the heat, for a few minutes; stir a couple of times and watch carefully to make sure they don’t burn]

Grease a 10-inch spring form pan and sprinkle with breadcrumbs or matza meal; set aside.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Beat the egg whites with salt until stiff and dry.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until foamy, then gradually add the sugar and continue beating until the mixture is lemon-colored.  Gradually add the chopped almonds, then the two extracts and the lemon rind.  You should have a very hard paste.  [For this reason, I strongly suggest using a stand mixer.]  Mix 1/3 of the beaten egg whites with the almond mixture to make it softer.  Delicately fold in the remaining egg whites and pour into the prepared pan.

Place in the center of the middle rack in the preheated oven and bake for one hour without opening the oven door.  After the hour is over, leave the oven door ajar for 10 to 15 minutes; then remove the pan from the oven and place it upside down on a cooling rack [I’m not sure why it has to be upside down; and no, the cake doesn’t fall out.]  When the cake is thoroughly cool, remove it from the pan and place it upside down over a cake dish.  [Since the bottom will be the top of the cake, you will want the cake to come out cleanly.  Try running a sharp, thin knife between the cake and the bottom of the pan to make sure nothing sticks.]  Top with confectioners sugar, using a sifter, and sprinkle with toasted sliced almonds.