Category Archives: 50 Recipes

October 15, 2011 · 3:57 pm

A Childhood without Madeleines

I cannot claim to have had a Proustian moment with a Madeleine and cup of tea in my youth since the sad truth is I grew up in a Madeleine-less world. Somehow I managed to make it to adulthood on a diet which included snickerdoodles, sticky buns, and sour cream coffee cake but nary a nibble of the sweet cakes Proust remembered. Which goes a long way to explaining why I have become obsessed with rectifying this deficiency. Madeleines are divine and no childhood should be without a few dozen or more (over the years, not all at once). My friend Alexis, who lives in Paris, sent Shawn and I madeleine pans from France as a wedding present. Over the years I have acquired madeleine pans of all shapes and sizes am continually on the lookout for more (though I eschew the non-stick pans which the butter renders unnecessary). Next to the Best Chocolate Cake Cupcakes I find madeleines a quick, satisfying treat on the non-chocolate side of baking.

Madeleine pans of all shapes and sizes

One of the advantages of learning to make madeleines in adulthood is that I got to teach my sister Heather how to make them. It seems my teaching skills are somewhat limited since I received the following phone call shortly after giving her the recipe:

“Cindy you aren’t going to believe what happened to my madeleines. I used the recipe you sent me but they came out the size of baseballs and they’re hairy!”

It was very lucky I wasn’t eating a madeleine at that moment because I might have choked to death laughing. Yes I know I’m a rotten person to laugh at someone else’s cooking mistakes but hairy, baseball sized madeleines? You would have laughed too–admit it. The thought of these ginormous cakes in need of a haircut was amusing to say the least. Turns out she’d used an inexpensive pastry brush to butter the pans with and bristles had come out and stuck to the pan. Add to that the fact that Heather owns only one 12-madeleine pan which she used for all the batter rather than splitting it into two batches (the recipe makes 24). My advice was pragmatic – I suggested she get out her tweezers to remove the offending bristles and eat the oversized madeleines as long as they were cooked all the way through. No reason to waste a perfectly good madeleine just because it is deformed. I am happy to report that Heather now makes divine madeleines with nary a bristle in the batch.

Tea and madeleines

Years of madeleine taste testing has led me to a tweaked version of Julia Child’s recipe from her book Way to Cook. With recipes whose primary taste is butter my first bit of advice is buy the best butter you can afford. I always use unsalted butters though with the rise in the price of butter the brand varies depending what was on sale and how flush my pocket-book is that week. Land O’Lakes, Kerrygold, Vermont Creamery, and Plugrá are all excellent choices. I also love the taste of lemon so my version has much more lemon peel and juice in it than in Julia’s version.

Lemony Madeleines

2 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

1 stick unsalted butter (4 ounces), plus 1 Tablespoon more for greasing the pans

zest of 2 medium lemons, finely grated

juice of 1-2 lemons

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup flour, plus 1 Tablespoon more for greasing the pans

pinch salt

powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 375º F. Melt stick butter and let cool slightly. Mix eggs and sugar together until well blended. Add the lemon zest, juice, and vanilla. Mix in the cup of flour and salt then start beating in the melted butter. It will take a few minutes for that much butter to incorporate into the batter. Do not despair just keep folding. The batter will become smooth and glossy once you’ve fully incorporated it. Let the batter rest while you pop the remaining Tablespoon of butter into the butter melting pan along with the extra Tablespoon of flour and whisk them around the pan with a pastry brush (not the cheap kind that drops its bristles) until the butter is melted. Then paint two 12 madeleine pans with the butter-flour slurry and spoon the batter evenly into the 24 spaces. Bake 15 minutes or until the edges are browned and the centers of each madeleine have domed in the middle.

Batter ready to bake

When they come out of the oven give each pan a good whack on the counter or cutting board which should loosen the little cakes from their pans. Turn out onto wire racks and cool. When cool dust lightly with powdered sugar (if desired) and serve with tea or a cold glass of milk or a glass of champagne.

Just baked madeleines

Proust may have been wrong about the memory of how they crumbled in a cup of tea, but he wasn’t wrong to remember how fantastic these scalloped shaped little cakes are. In my opinion they don’t deserve to be dropped in a cup of tea, but rather nibbled out of hand while sipping your beverage of choice.

Powdered and ready to eat with strawberries for Charline's birthday

Vegan War Cake

I find it intriguing to see how people put a different spin on the same old thing. During the second world war my Grammy Caldwell often had to make due with limited amounts of sugar, butter, and eggs in order to do her part for the war effort. Today I often do without those ingredients because I know or am related to so many people with allergies or special dietary needs. Same recipe, different rationals.

This applesauce cake comes from my friend Jessica and is a great example of the “something old is often the same as something new” theory. Her daughter V. was allergic to eggs and nuts as a baby and toddler and Jessica found this recipe in an old Fanny Farmer cookbook out of necessity. Before bookstores had shelves of cookbooks devoted to allergy free cooking and blogs targeted at any and all dietary quirks she needed a safe, quick, kid-friendly recipe to bring to school events and birthday parties ( after all it’s not too fun to be invited to a friend’s birthday party only to be told you can’t eat the cake or ice cream). This is the recipe she often used, leaving out the nuts and cutting back on the ginger and cloves which don’t often sell well with the under four set. It became her recipe for all occasions.

Applesauce Cake

I first tasted the by then infamous applesauce cake after Jessica and her family moved to Massachusetts. She served it to our knitting group one night warm and fragrant, straight out of the oven. It was divine, not just roll-your-eyes divine, but sneak away from the group and sit in the kitchen scarfing the whole pan down in one sitting divine. It’s not that this cake is a looker–it’s a plain Jane of cakes, but it tastes fantastic.

More quick bread than cake it has become one of the signature dishes I bring to soccer games, potlucks, and church coffee hours. It works for many allergy issues (when you leave out the nuts) and has the added advantage of being really quick to make. This recipe is the reason my cupboards are rarely without a box of raisins, bag of walnuts, and a jar of applesauce.

Walnut Raisin Applesauce Cake

7/8 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup applesauce

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans or almonds), optional

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 3/4 cups flour

Preheat the oven to 350º F and spray or grease an 8″ x 8″ pan.

Mix together all ingredients. Scrape into prepared pan and bake 35-40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. If there is a nut allergy you can leave out the nuts and add an extra 1/4 cup of raisins instead.

What is left...

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Tagged as applesauce, cake, dessert, Grammy Caldwell, jessica, vegan

September 18, 2011 · 6:55 pm

Presto Change-O

I was never much of a science lover in high school and the lone science class I took in college was Photographic Astronomy (which had the novel attraction of meeting at 11 o’clock at night). The irony of this seeming disinterest in the sciences is that I adore baking. There are a few desserts you can bake without paying attention to the laws of science (blueberry buckle comes to mind but it’s one of the few desserts you can just throw together and it always seems to work). In general baking requires the combination of specific ingredients in such a way so that they meld together with one another causing a reaction or reactions which help to create the desired end result–a risen souffle, an ethereally light angel food cake, smooth creamy custard, a crisp cookie or a soft chewy cookie. It all comes down to the science of how things go together*, including Lemon Sponge Custard.

Lemons ready to be zested

I did not grow up eating lemon sponge custard, though I wish I had. Instead I discovered it sometime after college when I wanted to shift gears from being a chef to working as a food stylist. Changing careers to a field most people have not even heard of is not easy, so I made many attempts at things which I thought would bring me closer to my goal of food styling. Some of these attempts worked while others did not. One of my plans was to apply for a job as a freelance test kitchen assistant because before any recipe was photographed for a magazine the recipe first had to be tested. My friend Nina suggested I send the head of one of the test kitchens some of my recipes, which were in truth her recipes. This did not get me the job I wanted (though I later did work briefly as a freelancer in another test kitchen) however more fortuitously it introduced me to a dessert I now count among my favorites.

Lemon Sponge Custard

Lemon sponge custard is neither cake nor custard, but some happy amalgamation of both. There are recipes for sponge puddings or sponge custards dating back to the 1800s. The scientific explanation for what happens when you add a large amount of milk to eggs, sugar and flour is that the batter separates as it bakes creating a custard layer on the bottom and a sponge cake on the top. Similar to many custards, you bake this recipe in a bain marie which is simply a French term meaning you cook the food in one vessel by placing it in another vessel containing hot water. The technique was supposedly named after Mary the sister of Moses, who is said to have written a book of alchemical recipes many thousands of years ago. Whether you know the science of this recipe or not the results are the same. You start out with one batter and end up with two different desserts in one, a type of presto-change-o abracadabra cooking magic which happens as it bakes.

Personally I love to cook lemon sponge custard in individual glass custard cups so you can see the different layers, but any custard cup will work. Over the years I’ve collected many custard cups since they are ideal not only for lemon sponge custard, but also as olive pit spittoons and as micro hot fudge sundaes bowls.

Custard cup collection

I prefer my lemon desserts tart so I’ve boosted the amount of lemon juice and zest called for. I also love making this with local eggs from the farmer’s market which always seem to be a more intense yellow than the ones from the supermarket. They don’t seem to change the taste–it’s a visual thing.

Eggs from the farmer's market

Lemon Sponge Custard

3 eggs, seperated

pinch of salt

2 Tablespoons of unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

grated zest of 2 large lemons**

5-7 Tablespoons lemon juice

4 tablespoons flour

1 1/2 cups milk

Put a large kettle on to boil, preheat oven to 350ºF, and set six custard cups in a 9″ x 13″ pan. Beat the egg whites with salt until stiff peaks form. In another bowl cream sugar and butter together, then add the egg yolks and beat some more. Sprinkle in the flour, lemon zest and lemon juice, mixing until everything is combined. Pour in milk and gently whisk together. Fold in egg whites, stirring until nearly all streaks of white are gone. Pour batter into custard cups and set pan on edge of oven rack. Carefully holding onto the pan pour boiling water around the custard cups. You want at least 3/4″ of water. If you have enough water in your kettle you may pour it as high as half way up the sides of the custard cups. Gently slide the pan fully onto the shelf and bake for 38-45 minutes or until the tops are lightly browned. Be careful removing the ban marie pan from the oven. You don’t want to slop any of the hot water into the sponge custards. Likewise be careful removing the custard cups onto a dish towel or cooling rack as the cups are quite hot. Let cool at least 30 minutes. You may serve these either slightly warm or when they are all the way cooled you may put them in the fridge and serve cold. Delicious either way.

Stiffly whipped egg whites

"creaming egg yolks into butter and sugar"

Beating in egg yolks

Folding in egg whites

Ready to bake

Cooling lemon sponge custards

* If you want to read about the science of cooking I recommend Shirley Corriher’s books. She’s a biochemist with an astonishing wealth of knowledge about the why’s and why nots of cooking. Harold McGee is another great writer about the science of cooking.

**For decades I’ve used a microplane from Lee Valley Tools. They were one of the first companies to realize a secondary use for an existing tool. There are other companies who make micro planes, including ones with handles. I use my micoplane for three things. Zesting citrus, turning a chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano into a cloud of grated cheese, and for when I want a very fine dusting of chocolate for crêpes or to decorate a cake with.

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Tagged as desserts, lemons

August 30, 2011 · 11:49 am

Hurricane Irene Baking

Saturday morning I strapped down my bee hives. We cleared the deck of all chairs, tables, and plants. The kids helped take down the screen tent and put the kayaks under the playhouse. Fifty-five gallons of water are stored in every conceivable container are scattered around the house. The emergency candle box has been found and brought up from the basement. I bought a pyramid of canned soup from the store, as well as essentials like tonic (wouldn’t want to run out of G & Ts during the storm). Then we picked up twenty-seven hours worth of videos from our local library. We were as prepared as we could get for Hurricane Irene.

Beehives strapped down for the hurricane

Pyramid of soup

Vessels of water

Water jugs downstairs

Then, for some reason before the storm hit I felt compelled to bake. We still had power, and the fridge did need emptying for the upcoming storm since we so often lose electricity during bad weather. I quickly whipped up a batch of chocolate cupcakes from the best chocolate cake recipe. It was the perfect base to test my cream cheese frosting recipe on. Isabelle’s friend Charline who is visiting from France had tasted it on the miniature chocolate cupcakes I’d made for her birthday the week before and wanted the recipe (along with some of you). Since I don’t usually work from a recipe when I make cream cheese frosting (I taste as I go) I’d promised to whip up a batch and measure everything so Charline could make it when she returned to France.

Strawberries, madeleines, chocolate cupcakes, and the birthday hat

The birthday girl and friends

"chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and raspberries"

Charline's birthday cupcakes

As the rain poured down pre-Irene we watched videos, ate soup, and Charline deftly wielded a pastry bag. We didn’t have any raspberries that night so sprinkles showered over the cupcakes much as the rain was pounding down outside.

Frosting seven dozen cupcakes

Raining sprinkles

Here is the frosting recipe in english and french. Merci Charline for helping with the translation and letting me play with your camera!

Cream Cheese Frosting

I pull the butter and cream cheese out to soften before I start to bake. In the time it takes to mix and cook the batter the butter and cream cheese are usually the perfect temperature. If they are still too cool to cream together because it’s really cold in your house or you forgot to pull them out in advance simply cut them into little pieces and place them in a bowl near a warm spot in your kitchen. You don’t want them to melt, just be soft enough to incorporate with one another.

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened, 6 ounces

6 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 1/2 pounds powdered sugar

3-5 teaspoons vanilla extract

In a large bowl cream together butter and cream cheese. Add about half the powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Add three teaspoons of vanilla and beat in most of remaining powdered sugar. Add rest of vanilla if desired. The consistency should be spreadable – not too loose and not too stiff. The amounts will shift slightly depending on the weather outside, which is why I don’t have you adding all the powdered sugar at once.

For cupcakes I put the frosting in a pastry bag with a star tip. You could also use a plastic bag and cut off a small bit of one corner. Or you could use a small knife. Freeze any leftover frosting. I find this amount of frosting good for one double layer cake with some decorative work. You won’t need it all for cupcakes unless you like a mound of frosting as big as the cupcakes themselves.

Note: I originally posted this recipe for cream cheese frosting with a 2:1 butter to cream cheese ratio. A friend made it and thought it wasn’t “cream-cheesey enough”. I’ve changed it to a 1:1 ratio, though you could invert it so it is a 1:2 butter to cream cheese ratio too. The more cream cheese you add, the softer the frosting becomes. You can compensate for the softness by adding more powdered sugar, but that makes it sweeter.

Glaçage à la crème de fromage

Je tire le beurre et le fromage à la crème pour les adoucir avant de commencer à cuire. Pendant le temps qu’il faut pour mélanger et faire cuire la pâte le beurre et le fromage à la crème sont généralement a la température parfaite. Si ils sont encore trop frais pour mixer, car il fait vraiment froid dans votre maison ou vous avez oublié de les sortir à l’avance tout simplement les couper en petits morceaux et les placer dans un bol près d’un endroit au chaud dans votre cuisine. Vous ne voulez pas qu’ils fondent, juste être suffisamment souple pour intégrer les uns avec les autres.

170 gr. de beurre non salé, ramolli

170 gr. de fromage à la crème, ramolli

700 gr. de sucre en poudre

3-5 cuillères à café d’extrait de vanille

Dans un grand bol je mixe le beurre et le fromage à la crème. Ajouter environ la moitié du sucre en poudre et battre jusqu’à consistance lisse. Ajoutez trois cuillères à café de vanille et battre la plupart du sucre en poudre. Ajouter le reste de la vanille, si désiré. La consistance doit être tartinable – pas trop lâche et pas trop raide. Les volumes se déplaceront légèrement en fonction du temps qu’il fait dehors, c’est pourquoi je ne vous ai pas fait ajouter le sucre en poudre tout à la fois.

Pour les cupcakes j’ai mis le glaçage dans une poche à douille avec un embout étoile. Vous pouvez également utiliser un sac en plastique et couper un petit morceau de l’un des coins. Ou vous pourriez utiliser un petit couteau. Congelez les restes toute glaçage. Je trouve cette quantité de glaçage bonne pour un gâteau à double couche avec quelques travaux de décoration. Vous n’aurez pas besoin de tout pour les cupcakes sauf si vous aimez un monticule de glaçage aussi gros que les petits gâteaux eux-mêmes.

The Westbrook River raging after Irene passed through

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Tagged as chocolate, frosting, hurricane irene

July 23, 2011 · 4:58 pm

Muffin Meltdown

I got up at 6am yesterday to make muffins for the kid’s last day of camp. It was 80ºF before I even turned the oven on to preheat so you might ask if I was suffering from heat stroke (I wasn’t) or if I’d simply lost my mind (not that I know of). What would have inspired me to make muffins in the middle of an excruciating heat wave in an un-air conditioned house? Because my kids had asked me to.

It’s my achilles heel being asked by someone I love to cook for them. I can say no to people I’m not related to, though I often say yes. I can even be quite snappish with my own two offspring when they tell me they need something baked in a mere two hours (but Mom I forgot to tell you I needed them…..). This time Russell asked on Monday–four days in advance, and he said please. Once Isabelle heard I was baking magnificent muffins for him she asked for some too. So of course I agreed. Which is why I was turning the oven on the day the thermometer promised to top 100ºF.*

Ready for the last day of camp

I like muffins. They’re a happy, all-American breakfast food that you can hold in your hand. These muffins are particularly delicious, hence their name – magnificent muffins. Moist with pumpkin, zippy with blueberries with a nice messy streusel topping make them hard to resist. This recipe is adapted from Ken Haedrich’s book Feeding the Vegetarian Family. Besides the great taste this is a vegan recipe, which means it will work for folks who are allergic to dairy (if you’re baking for people with tree nut allergies you’re out of luck). I’ve come to believe that while I don’t personally want to be a vegan, it’s always a good idea to have a few vegan recipes in your recipe box, especially if you live here in the happy valley. The final selling point I have for these muffins is that you can make your wet and dry mixes the night before. Store the wet in the fridge and the dry and streusel mix on the counter, have your muffin pans ready so by the time the oven has preheated you’ll be ready to slide them in to bake.

Magnificent Meltdown Muffins

I use frozen blueberries in the winter and fresh in the summer. One can of pumpkin will make two recipes.

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 cup orange juice

½ cup maple syrup

½ cup vegetable oil

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup whole wheat flour (sometimes I use white)

1 cup walnuts chopped super fine (measure first then chop)

1 ½ teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon allspice

1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Streusel (see recipe below)

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Oil or grease 24 muffin cups then dust with flour or extra streusel topping or wheat germ. Whisk together pumpkin, oj, maple syrup, and oil. In a separate bowl stir dry ingredients together. If using frozen blueberries plop them into the flour mix to keep them from smearing too much when you combine the wet and dry mixes. Gently mix together pumpkin mix with flour mix and if using fresh blueberries add them in near the end. Spoon batter into muffin cups and sprinkle with streusel mix. Bake 35 minutes, cool in pan for 10 minutes then finish cooling on wire rack.

Streusel Mix

This topping is so good that I usually make a triple batch and store it in the freezer. It’s good for simple fruit crumbles, on top of plain yogurt, or as the topping for magnificent muffins.

1 1/2 cups walnuts

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup oatmeal

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2-3 Tablespoons vegetable oil

Pulse walnuts in a food processor until fairly fine, then add rest of ingredients and pulse to combine. You don’t want the mixture to be too oily or too dry so pinch a bit between your fingers to test as you’re adding the oil.

*Weather Update: After camp we went into Northampton to grab a few things at the store. When we got back into the car (which was parked in the shade) the thermometer read 106º. After we rolled down the windows and drove for a bit it climbed to 108º! As we wound our way back to Whately we watched it drop – to a cool 87º!

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Tagged as blueberries, muffins, vegan

Category Archives: 50 Recipes

A Childhood without Madeleines

Vegan War Cake

Presto Change-O

Hurricane Irene Baking

Muffin Meltdown

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