Monthly Archives: July 2011

a souvenir for you

Posted in cake, fruit, gluten free by

I did not do much shopping on my recent trip.  I think this partially has to do with the fact that I work in the retail industry and the last thing I want to do most days is shop for stuff after being surrounded by it all day.  Sure, I still do my fair share of shopping, but it just doesn’t hold the same thrill it once did.  This is probably why I now measure most trips (and even just my daily life, for that matter) on food eaten and enjoyed.  And much food was eaten and enjoyed on this trip.

One of the best things I ate while in England was lemon polenta cake.  Polenta cake?  Craziness.  Polenta is often associated with savory Italian dishes, but it can also be used in sweet dishes too.  Love the versatility.  I also am growing to love lemon desserts more and more as I get older.  They are refreshing and usually not overly sweet and therefore the perfect ending to a large meal.

So when I returned from my trip I immediately started researching recipes and found one for this very cake and it just happened to be from an English foodie: Nigella Lawson.  I used to watch her program on the Food Network and loved how she never measured things perfectly and unapologetically licked spoons after mixing batters.  Sort of like an English version of Paula Deen who I also think is the bee’s knees.

I read recipes like I read books and I could tell that this one was going to be good.  I was also pleased to see that it does not contain wheat flour as I have been meaning to experiment more with gluten-free baking because I have a sneaking suspicion that I might have a wheat sensitivity.  Apart from the polenta (or cornmeal as many of us know it here) there is also almond flour which is very light and surprisingly easy to find even in conventional grocery stores.

The result?  At the risk of sounding immodest, I’d say it was just as good as what I ate across the pond…

Lemon Polenta Cake (adapted very slightly from a Nigella Lawson recipe found at www.foodnetwork.com)

Cake:

  • 1 3/4 sticks (14 tablespoons) soft unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
  • 3/4 cup superfine sugar
  • 2 cups almond meal/flour
  • 3/4 cup fine polenta/cornmeal
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder (gluten-free if required)
  • 3 eggs
  • Zest 2 lemons (save the juice for the syrup)

Syrup:

  • Juice 2 lemons (see above)
  • Heaping 1 cup confectioners’ sugar

For the cake: Line the base of your cake pan with parchment paper and grease its sides lightly with butter. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Beat the butter and sugar till pale and whipped, either by hand in a bowl with a wooden spoon, or using a freestanding mixer.

Mix together the almond meal, polenta and baking powder, and beat some of this into the butter-sugar mixture, followed by 1 egg, then alternate dry ingredients and eggs.

Finally, beat in the lemon zest and pour the mixture into prepared pan and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes. It may seem wobbly but a cake tester should come out with just a few crumbs and the edges of the cake will have pulled away from the sides of the pan. Remove from the oven to a wire cooling rack, but leave in its pan.

For the syrup: Make the syrup by boiling together the lemon juice and confectioners’ sugar in a small saucepan. Once the confectioners’ sugar has dissolved into the juice, you’re done. Prick the top of the cake all over with a toothpick, pour the warm syrup over the cake, and leave to cool before taking it out of its pan.

Make Ahead Note: The cake can be baked up to 3 days ahead and stored in airtight container in a cool place. Will keep for total of 5 to 6 days.

Freeze Note: The cake can be frozen on its lining paper as soon as cooled, wrapped in double layer of plastic wrap and a layer of foil, for up to 1 month. Thaw for 3 to 4 hours at room temperature.

blueberry morning

Posted in dessert, fruit by

Fact: I ate blueberry cobbler for breakfast this morning.  I had some left over from a cookout I hosted yesterday and the options were either the cobbler or yogurt and fruit and I eat yogurt and fruit for breakfast 297 days a year so the choice was clear.

I was kind of a picky eater when I was a kid and sometimes my mom would let me eat her home-made pies for breakfast.  She says she figured they had fruit in them and fruit was good for me, so why not.  I like this line of thinking and figure it applies to cobblers too.

I’ve been really into making pies lately but for this go-round decided to make a cobbler instead because they are slightly more low maintenance and I’m all about low maintenance.  No rolling out pie crust here.  In fact, cobblers encourage you to be sloppy and their recipes usually instruct you to “pile” “heaping” measuring cups full of dough on top of the fruit.  Awesome.

Looks like a pretty well-rounded breakfast, no?

Blueberry Cobbler (from www.epicurious.com)

  • 3 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 6 cups picked over blueberries
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 stick (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits

In a large bowl stir together the cornstarch, sifted, and the granulated sugar and add the blueberries and the lemon juice. Toss the mixture until it is combined well and transfer it to a buttered 10-inch (6-cup) deep-dish pie plate.

In a bowl combine well the flour, the brown sugar, forced through a sieve, the baking powder, the salt, and the cinnamon, add the butter, and blend the mixture until it resembles coarse meal. Add 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water and stir the mixture until it just forms a dough. Drop 1/4 cupfuls of the dough over the blueberry mixture and bake the cobbler on a baking sheet in the middle of a preheated 400°F. oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the topping is golden and cooked through. Serve the cobbler warm with ice cream.

going to market

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I’ve been a baking machine this morning so later in the week I will return to sharing recipes and images of the goods I made, but for now I will share a few photos I took while at an indoor food market in Stuttgart, Germany.  Upon reflection these closely resemble pictures I snapped at food markets in Barcelona and Madrid a few years ago.  The variety at European markets is outstanding!  

Germans love sausage.  Below is but a fraction of what this particular vendor had to offer: 

There were cheeses…

…pastries…

…fruit…

…beautiful mounds of cream cheese!!

And approximately a kabillion different kinds of olives!  Kind of makes you never want to eat them from a can again, right?

european vacation

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I have just returned from a ten day holiday in Europe so alas I have not been cooking or baking and thusly have no recipes to post this week.  However, I did do my share of eating so I thought perhaps I’d share a few photos of the food on which I dined.  (My speech sounds very formal right now.  Must be leftover from being exposed to the Queen’s English in Cornwall…)

The first half of my trip was spent in Germany and one of the first things I did there was attend a birthday party in a castle.  Yep, a castle.  It was pretty neat. 

The surroundings were lovely and so was the food.  Below is the main course which consisted of spaetzle (ah-mazing), fingerling potatoes, roasted vegetables, shrimp cocktail, smoked salmon, some sort of smoked fish pate, meatballs, fish cake, baked fish, and thinly sliced cured meat.

There was also a venison stew, several kinds of German potato salad, cabbage and carrot salads, and probably a few other things I am forgetting but I wanted to save room for dessert so I showed a little restraint.

After the main course the waiters brought out dessert which was lovely and light: strudel, fresh fruit, pudding, and sorbet.  There was actually a second dessert later after coffee and cappucinos that consisted of various pies and cakes but I was way too full to partake.  Probably should have eaten less spaetzle… I couldn’t help it though– it was just too good!

I realized upon returning home that I had taken approximately 35 photos of food, 20 of landscapes, and 3 of family.  Oops.  Do my dad’s hands in the background of the below picture count as another family photo?  Guess I got 4 of family then.

The above were some very lovely, very tasty sundaes we ate at an Italian gelateria in Germany.  Apparently the family that runs the place do such a booming business during the warmer months that they return to Italy and relax during the off-season.  Sounds like a pretty sweet deal.  Pun intended.

Later in the week I will be posting pictures of a food market I visited in Stuttgart.  The selection and presentation were incredible!

Vanilla “malted”

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Fact: I love all things malted. I attribute this to the many “chocolate malteds” that my grandparents treated me to as a child. Malts are way better than shakes in my humble opinion.

I decided to make vanilla ice cream with a little malted powder thrown in for good measure. This is me opening a vanilla bean. Look at that manicure! Yeah, that didn’t last very long… Did some dishes later that day and there it went. Ah well.

I love the way the vanilla bean flecks dot the custard. Beautiful.

This ice cream was the perfect compliment to the strawberry pie that I made the other day but of course it is quite good all by itself too…

Malted Vanilla Ice Cream (adapted from a recipe from www.countryliving.com/icecream)

  • 2 cups whole milk
  • ¾ cup sugar
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
  • Pinch of salt
  • 2 cups half-and-half
  • 2 cups whipping cream
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup malted milk powder

In a medium saucepan, whisk together milk, sugar, egg yolks, and salt. Drop in split vanilla bean. Place pan over medium-high heat and whisk until mixture reaches a simmer. Lower heat to medium and whisk for 5 minutes or until mixture begins to thicken. Strain mixture into large bowl, then whisk in half-and-half, cream, vanilla, and malted milk powder. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, about 2 hours.

Pour mixture into ice-cream maker; process according to manufacturer instructions.