Pumpkin Tea Bread

I am so excited for Fall. Last year we were so slammed at this time with the wedding preparations, I'm really not certain October 2009 actually happened. I'm pretty sure it was just a lie. Last weekend on a visit to PA I wore heavy sweaters, I sat near a bonfire, and I drank cider. It was lovely, but that's not why I'm excited. The pumpkins are back. They have returned to my muffins, my lattes, my Jamba Juice smoothies. They crowd tables at the farmers market and as I drove around last weekend, it seemed every town was involved in some kind of pumpkin gathering, pumpkin patch type pumpkin festival. This is the best time of year. Last year I introduced you to my consuming passion for Pumpkin Ice Cream. This year, I bring you Pumpkin Bread.

I was introduced to this bread when someone brought it to an office party. I demanded the name of the bread's creator, swearing I would marry him. It turned out the co-worker responsible was tall, lean, and named Will. I was in luck, I wouldn't even have to have the tux altered. Work Will declined my offer of marriage (I'm sure my Will is relieved) but he did provide me with the recipe which came from a bakery he loved in San Francisco, Tartine. The wonderful thing about this recipe is that it provides both "American" measurements (cups, tablespoons, etc.) and the European style of measuring everything in milliliters and grams. The European way is (A) More precise, a blessing for someone who struggles with the exactness of baking and (B) Gives me an excuse to play with my super fancy awesome digital scale. Win, win.

Quick tip. This recipe require somewhat huge amounts of spices, so check them before you do your shopping. Otherwise your husband (the non-work Will) has to walk to the store at 7pm to buy some. Also, this recipe calls for a large amount of safflower or sunflower oil, which I have found at Whole Foods. If you cannot find these and use something else, please let me know how it goes. If I was a paid test kitchen, I would have tried a loaf with vegetable oil, and maybe one with olive oil. I am not a test kitchen, however, and have a full time job. If you wouldn't mind writing to the New York Times and telling them to hire me, I promise I'll do a much more thorough job of recipe testing. I'll also get to go to cool parties, and then write about them. Doesn't that sound nice? Now come on. Start the viral campaign.

Pumpkin Tea Bread

From Tartine Bakery

Ingredients:

- 1 1/3 cups or 225 g All purpose flour

- 1 1/2 teaspoon or 7 ml Baking Powder

- 1/2 tsp or 2 ml Baking Soda

- 1 Tbsp plus 2 tsp or 25 ml Ground Cinnamon

- 2 tsp or 10 ml Ground Nutmeg

- 1/4 tsp or 1 ml Ground Cloves
- 1 cup plus 2 Tbsp or 25 ml Pumpkin Purée

- 1 cup or 250 ml Safflower or Sunflower Oil

- 1 1/3 cup or 270 g Sugar

- 3/4 tsp or 4 ml salt

- 3 Large Eggs

- Sugar and pepitas or shelled pumpkin seeds for topping

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325°F. Lightly butter the bottom and sides of a 9" by 5" loaf pan.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves into a mixing bowl. Use a wire whisk to make sure they are blended. Set aside.

In another mixing bowl, beat together pumpkin, oil, sugar, and salt on medium speed until well mixed. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition until incorporated before adding the next egg. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then beat on medium speed for 5 to 10 seconds to make a smooth batter. It should have the consistency of a thick purée.

Transfer the batter to the loaf pan and smooth the surface with a spatula. Sprinkle evenly with sugar and sprinkle seeds on top.  Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let cook in the pan on a wire rack for about 20 minutes, and then invert onto the rack. Turn right side up, and let cool completely. Serve the bread at room temperature. It will keep, well wrapped, at room temperature for 4 days or in the refrigerator for about 1 week.

This bread is delightful. I've brought it to parties or devoured the entire thing myself (followed by a week of guilt and gym attendance). The oil makes it super moist, and it is flavorful and inviting, a perfect thing for a Fall day.

Happy, Happy Birthday Baby

Well, it's happened. The moment has arrived. I am officially 27 years old. I'm not entirely sure how that happened. I'm pretty sure I was turning 21 about 10 minutes ago; I'm still half convinced when I wake up most mornings that I'm going to be late for my first class. Then I roll over and discover I'm in a grown up big girl apartment in Queens sleeping next to my husband. It's a bit jarring. Last week as I stumbled blearily out of my bedroom and into the kitchen to make some breakfast, a tiny bit miffed that there isn't a dining hall to just make it for me, I noticed a recipe tacked to the cork board. It's been there for quite awhile, last May to be exact. The title reads "Happy Birthday to Me, With a Spanish Lilt".

Last May as I rode the subway to work I was completely absorbed as Melissa Clark described her birthday cake that year--sophisticated, elegant, and with a bit of a European tinge. She had made herself an almond cake, and topped it with rich buttercream spiked with lemon and sherry. The article and recipe were so captivating that I nearly missed my stop, so for nine months this cake had taunted me. I wanted this cake.

At the time I read the article, as regular readers know, I wasn't much of a baker. I still struggle, last week I tried to make cornbread to go along with the Jambalaya, and forgot the egg. I got corn cracker, sitting sadly in the bottom of my cast iron pan. Baking and I tend to get in fights. At the time I found the recipe, I did not even own cake pans. It is entirely possible that the last time I made a cake I was 12 and there was a box marked "Duncan Hines" involved. This cake, however, was calling out to me, and it was more then your usual cookies and brownies type baking. It was grown up baking, challenging baking, figure out how to build a double boiler type baking (way easier then I had thought).

Along the way through, I sort of wandered away from Spain. Will brought home a bottle of cooking Sherry, a product I have never worked with, and it was awful. I don't know if this is typical to Sherries, but it had salt mixed in for no reason I could come up with. There was no way it was going in my icing. My eye caught on a bottle of Madeira I've been keeping around. Therefore, I took a bit of a detour around the Iberian Peninsula and ended up in Portugal. It was a damn good detour.

Almond Birthday Cakes with Medera-Lemon Butter Cream

Adapted from the New York Times

Ingredients:

For the Cake:

-1 Cup plus 2 tablespoons (2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons) Unsalted Butter, at room temperature; more for greasing pans

-3 large eggs

-1 cup sour cream

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

-1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

-2 1/2 cups cake flour

-1/2 cup finely ground almonds (can be done in food processor)

-1 1/2 cups sugar

-3/4 teaspoon baking powder

-3/4 teaspoon baking soda

-3/4 teaspoon salt

For the butter cream:

-4 large egg whites (yes Will made me a cocktail with one of the yolks)

-Large pinch salt

-3/4 pound unsalted butter (3 sticks) at room

temperature

-2 tablespoons Madeira (or to taste)

-1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

-1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9-inch by 2-inch deep round cake pans and line bottoms with parchment or waxed paper. In a bowl, beat together the eggs, 1/4 cup sour cream, vanilla and lemon zest.

In bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together the cake flour, ground almonds, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Beat in butter and remaining 3/4 cup sour cream until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Slowly beat in the egg mixture until fully combined.

Scrape batter into prepared pans. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center of a cake layer comes out clean. Let cake layers cool in pans on wire racks for 15 minutes, then invert onto racks and peel off paper. Let cool completely on racks.

While cakes cool, make frosting: In a heatproof bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water (or use a double boiler), whisk egg whites, sugar and salt until sugar is completely melted (130 to 140 degrees on a candy thermometer), 3 to 4 minutes. Remove egg whites from heat; beat mixture with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until completely cooled and thickened, 5 to 7 minutes.

Beat in the butter, a little at a time, until frosting is smooth and fluffy. Beat in the Madeira, lemon zest and cinnamon. Taste, add more Madeira if desired.

To frost cake, put a little dab of icing in the center of your platter to give yourself a little stability. Place 1 layer on a cake plate, rounded side down, trimming if necessary so it lies flat. Spread with a third of the frosting, top with second layer (rounded side up this time) and frost remainder of cake.

The "suspend a bowl over a simmering pan of water" thing is not nearly as hard as it sounds. Just take your largest mixing bowl (heat proof is more important then usual here) and rest it on top of a saucepan full of boiling water. Voila! You've built yourself a double boiler, and saved yourself $35.

When I ground my almonds, I ended up grinding way too many. Therefore I spread them on my toaster oven baking pan, and just toasted them for a few minutes. After the cake was iced, I carefully went around and pressed the crushed almonds into the bottom 2" of cake. I swear, I don't know if I'm becoming domestic or am just a show off.

The cake was everything I wanted it to be. It's a dense cake, with all of that almond, but richer and more complex then what you expect biting into what looks to be a vanilla cake. The icing was even better, all the heart stopping butteriness that you usually get from a buttercream, but with this very grown up something extra involved. It was certainly a cake I was happy to serve guests in my very grown up big girl apartment, because, lets face it, I am not a college student anymore. I am a grown up big girl of 27 years of age. But I'm still going to wear the tiara.

Red Velvet with that Slow Southern Style

Valentine's Day is coming up quickly--a time of flowers, red tinted everything and sweets. As I pondered what I was going to make my husband of three months and partner of seven years, it seemed like the obvious choice among the New York diet was that of the cupcake. It's a ubiquitous desert that threatens my willpower daily, working just a stones throw from both Cupcake Cafe and Billy's Bakery. My weakness lies in a popular cupcake, the Red Velvet, with its rich color and ridiculous cream cheese icing. I would have married a Red Velvet were it possible for woman and dessert to mate. With its intense red color, it is the perfect sweet for Valentine's. After digging myself out of two feet of snow in PA and returning to NY, I set out to find a recipe.

For a Red Velvet Recipe, there really is only one place to go. If you've ever turned on the Food Network and seen any episode relating to this type of cake, you've heard of Cake Man Raven. This amazing cake maker was born in Harlem but was trained in cakes in South Carolina. I make sure to stop in at his shop in Fort Green, Brooklyn every time I'm down in that area. Despite the rapid gentrification in the neighborhood, his is a no frills shop that reminds me of a suburbs strip mall bakery, not the trendy confectionaries and coffee shops that are so prevalent around it. They have what the hipster coffee joints don't however, case after case of amazing Red Velvet cake slices. He is the go-to man for Red Velvet, and luckily, not stingy with the recipe, as it appears both on his website and has been on Food Network.

His recipe, however, is for a three layer cake. That is hard to enjoy in small portions, and even harder to start giving away after you notice your scale ticking upwards for three days in a row after this cake sits there, begging you to eat it. Cupcakes, I decided, were more manageable and equally delicious. This recipe will make an even dozen, just enough for you and your sweetheart and maybe a friend or two at the office if you're looking to disperse them. If you're planning a Valentine's Day party with more people, the recipe is easily doubled. This makes a little more frosting than you are going to need, but it's so tasty I doubt you or your beloved will mind finding a use for the leftovers.

Red Velvet Cupcakes
Adapted from Cake Man Raven

Ingredients:

Vegetable oil for the pans
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder
3/4 cups vegetable oil
1/2 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tablespoon red food coloring (1/2 ounce)
1/2 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cream Cheese Frosting (Recipe Below)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake pan with liners.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In another large bowl, whisk together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla.

Using a standing mixer, mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined and a smooth batter is formed.
Fill cupcake papers 2/3 of the way. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out with only a few crumbs attached, rotating the pans halfway through cooking, about 18 to 22 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven and remove the cupcakes from the pans. Let cool completely.

Frost the cupcakes.

Cream Cheese Frosting


Ingredients:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 stick unsalted butter (1/2 cup), softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand-held electric mixer in a large bowl, mix the cream cheese, sugar and butter on low speed until incorporated. Increase the speed to high, and mix until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. (Occasionally turn the mixer off, and scrape the down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.)

Reduce the speed of the mixer to low. Add the vanilla, raise the speed to high and mix briefly until fluffy (scrape down the bowl occasionally). Store in the refrigerator until somewhat stiff, before using. May be stored in the refrigerator for 3 days.

Okay, so I'm still working on the whole "Pretty Frosting." But look how red they are! And even if the icing isn't spread on the prettiest, it's still amazing and you want to lick it off.

Upside-Down Heirloom

Planning ahead for the many vacation days I would need to use for the wedding this year, I never took a summer vacation. Planning for the expense of Ireland, I never even took a weekend shore trip or a few days in the Poconos. And so I baked in my air condition-less apartment, sipping rum drinks Will concocted and reading the New York Times food section as it went on and on about how lovely it was to take a jaunt down to "The Cape" and cook sea food and walk on the beach. One article in particular caught my eye, talking about the limited kitchen resources in a rental, but how one place she had stayed at had big cast iron pans hanging on the wall. She went on and on about how the pans were so very useful, handling everything from fried potatoes to a baked peach crisp. I was enchanted, and decided it was absolutely necessary to add a cast iron pan to my arsenal.

Conventional wisdom holds that the ideal cast iron pan is handed down from your grandmother, has cooked 800 meals, and has never seen a drip of soap. By cleaning only with hot water and a stiff brush the flavor and essence of those 800 meals clings to the metal and infuses itself into every new dish. In serious culinary families severe divides have been created amongst siblings gunning to inherit such a pan. My family has no such pan, as far as I know (insert suspicious glares at my cousins here). This being New York City, lineage can be purchased if the price is right. I know for a fact that The Brooklyn Kitchen--where I took my knife skills class--sells refurbished antique cast irons, but they were a bit out of my price range. Onto my registry went a 9" cast iron pan, and every few weeks I would peek at it, dreaming of the family heirloom I was about to start. Well big thank you to childhood friend Lucy (spoiler alert: she's a soon to be mommy! yay!), cause this week it arrived, heavy, black and ready to go.

I have heard that if you aren't a cast iron heiress then the first order of business for the new pan is to cook up a big batch of bacon to get the flavor absorption started. Bacon, it seems, is wonderful and has many uses. Every now and again, I catch Will trying to pour bacon grease on his cereal instead of milk--an eerily attractive concept. Unfortunately, I had no bacon on hand, but I did have the leftover panchetta from last week's stuffing. Into the pan it went, fried up beautifully and an heirloom was born. Carefully studying the care instructions I cleaned with hot water and a brush, sprayed with vegetable oil while still warm, and put in a cool dry place.

Now that I had started the seasoning, I needed the first real recipe to break in the new pan. The article that had first piqued my interest was all beach focused, and the snow swirling past my window Saturday night did not put me in the mood for such fare. I needed something built for cold weather, something with a winter comfort food feel. Searching a bit more on the NY Times website turned up an article I had seen last month from Mark Bittman about a Pear Upside-Down Cake. That's right, not only was I going to bake, I was going to invert it. Fuck you Isaac Newton.

The video included in his blog told me that I had found a kindred baking spirit. He gets frustrated at having to complete two steps at once, and really doesn't feel that making things pretty when baking is an absolute necessity. Also hysterical is when he decides that if a little egg shell gets in, well that just adds "crunch." Brilliant. He doesn't actually use a cast iron when he makes it, but it turned up in the search because someone in the comments suggests it. Searching the website of Lodge Cast Iron, the company that made my pan, turned up a recipe for Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, and a confirmation that upside cake is really meant for a cast iron. That was all the prodding I needed, so I plunged in.

Maple Pear Upside-Down Cake

Adapted from the NY Times

Ingredients:

11 tablespoons butter

3/4 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

3 to 4 pears, peeled, cored and thinly sliced

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk.

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a 9" cast iron pan over medium heat; add maple syrup and brown sugar and cook, stirring, until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil and cook for another 2 minutes; remove from heat and set aside. When mixture has cooled a bit, arrange pear slices in an overlapping circle on top.

2. With a handheld or standing mixer, beat remaining 8 tablespoons butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs, one egg at a time, continuing to mix until smooth. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt.

3. Add flour mixture to butter mixture in three batches, alternating with milk; do not overmix. Carefully spread batter over pears, using a spatula to make sure it is evenly distributed. Bake until top of cake is golden brown and edges begin to pull away from sides of pan, about 45 to 50 minutes; a toothpick inserted into center should come out clean. Let cake cool for 5 minutes.

4. Run a knife around edge of pan; put a plate on top of cake and carefully flip it so plate is on bottom and pan is on top. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Pie!

As yesterday's blog was getting a bit lengthy, I decided to cut the pie stuff. But as you have all hung in there with me as I suffered through the challenge that baking presents, I couldn't deprive you of a great recipe that resulted in a (nearly) perfect pie.

I made the pie the day before Thanksgiving, as I didn't want to pile the entire feast on one day and then kill myself. Taking a deep breath, I did something I have never done successfully before. I made my own crust. I have rolling issues every time I try something like this, I always end up thin on one side and thick on the other, with an oval instead of a rectangle, with the dough either cracking like crazy for being too dry, or gluing itself to my rolling pin for being too moist. Frustration mounts, curse words fly, and a frozen crust comes out of my freezer...then possibly more curse words.

Bracing myself I found a simple butter crust recipe, one that involved the usual suspects of flour, water, sugar and salt, and threw them in my food processor. (Side note: if I didn't own a processor I would probably never try this. Hand mixing dough looks like the worst idea ever, and I am far too lazy for that) The ingredients mixed just like the recipe said they should, I refrigerated the disk for an hour, and then got rolling. Okay, it wasn't the prettiest crust in all of human history, but for right now I was happy it didn't end up in a gooey mess in my trash can. If it tastes good, awesome. I'll work on my baking aesthetics later. Since the filling recipe I used calls for a frozen crust, I stuck the pie plate with the homemade crust into the freezer to chill it. The pie filling is super easy. The original recipe calls for light molasses, but I had dark and it worked just fine. Either will probably do. Also, I did end up with extra filling. If you have a deep dish pie plate I would use it, or if you have little tart pans you could make smaller pies. I may or may not have thrown out the extra, like a lazy, wasteful, worthless American. God bless this holiday.

Spiced Pumpkin Pie

Adapted from Bon Appetit

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 1/2 cups canned solid pack pumpkin
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup whipping cream

Directions:

Place baking sheet in oven and preheat to 450°F. Whisk first 8 ingredients together in large bowl to blend. Whisk in pumpkin, molasses and eggs, then cream. Pour mixture into crust.

Place pie on preheated baking sheet in oven. Bake 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 325°F and bake until sides puff and center is just set, about 40 minutes. Cool. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and re-frigerate.) Serve at room temperature.

The pie was like 90% perfect, or some such percentage. It looked all nice and set and puffed when I took it out of the oven, but ten minutes later the center fell and I ended up with quite the dent in my pie. Probably could have left it in the oven a tiny bit longer. It's an extremely tasty pie, however, with more spice then pumpkin on the palate. See above note for my feelings about taste over aesthetics. I felt my dented pie had character.

Pumpin Ice Cream and Soft Ginger Cookies

I am a loyal customer to places that I have genuine affection for. I will go back for years and order the same things over and over again if there are truly dishes that make me happy. Since I was a little girl I have enjoyed the coffee and ice cream at a place known as Coffee and Cream in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. My mother would take me there after trips to the library, it has a deep nostalgia factor for me. They roast their own coffee in a huge machine by the door, so the shop always smells fantastic, and they serve local ice cream in a variety of flavors. In addition to this they also sell baked goods like cookies and bagels.
A few years ago on a chilly fall afternoon they were advertising a special, where they took one of their large ginger cookies, heated it up a bit in the microwave, and topped it with pumpkin ice cream. It was one of the most fantastic things I have ever eaten. I remembered it all year and the following October I headed back intent on ordering it again. I didn't see a sign for the special, but they had ginger cookies and they had pumpkin ice cream. I asked the girl behind the counter if she knew about the special from last year. She blinked at me.
The thing about places like this is they employ a rotating cast of teenage staffers, essential to the economy of girls 16-19 years old, but fairly useless in remembering the history of a business. I patiently explained about the cookie and the heating and the ice cream. She looked at the register in terror. "Um, let me go ask how to ring that up," and she scurried off to find the manager. What the big deal was about just ringing me up for a cookie and a scoop of ice cream I'm not sure, but eventually she got herself sorted out and I got my dessert.

I have gone to great lengths to continue to get my fall treat every year. One year I missed the window of when they had pumpkin ice cream and was nearly beside myself with grief. Since Will and I usually back and forth to New York by a bus whose station is in Doylestown, I convinced Will's parents to take us into town early to catch the bus last year, just so I could eat this desert. Each time I ordered I had to explain to the new crop of teenagers how to make this treat all over again. This year I finally decided that as a permanent resident of New York and the proud owner of an ice cream machine, I needed to stop being a slave to locale and the blank stares of teenage girls. I was getting my fall treat dammit, even if I had to make it myself.

I hunted for recipes. Now that I had conquered my fear of baking, I could handle cookies. It was especially important that the cookies be soft, so they could be broken apart with a spoon. This meant no switching out the Crisco for butter, like I did last Christmas when I produced a batch rather difficult to eat cookies on the recommendation of a Times article. I was fortunate to find a recipe on Epicurious that actually billed itself as Soft Ginger Cookies. The website failed me on a pumpkin ice cream recipe, so I had to look elsewhere. Food Network only had a recipe submitted by a viewer, not one that they had tested. I found a few more on the less rigorously tested recipe sites, and was wary. This was an important desert, not to be trifled with. That's what desserts like trifles are for. I finally found a solid looking recipe on the Williams Sonoma website, and was ready to go.
First up, ice cream. It's important to note here that little direction where the pumpkin and vanilla need to be wisked together and then chilled for 3 hours. I missed that so I didn't get started on the custard until three hours after I had meant to. Oops.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup fresh pumpkin puree or canned unsweetened
  pumpkin puree
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 5 egg yolks
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (Yeah, I'll pretend I
  grated some nutmeg. Sure...)
• 1 Tbs. bourbon

Directions:
In a bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or up to 8 hours. (Again, oops)In a heavy 2-quart saucepan over medium heat, combine 1 1/2 cups of the cream and 1/2 cup of the brown sugar. Cook until bubbles form around the edges of the pan, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine the egg yolks, cinnamon, ginger, salt, nutmeg, the remaining 1/2 cup cream and the remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar. Whisk until smooth and the sugar begins to dissolve. Remove the cream mixture from the heat. 

Gradually whisk about 1/2 cup of the hot cream mixture into the egg mixture until smooth. Pour the egg mixture back into the pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon and keeping the custard at a low simmer, until it is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon and leaves a clear trail when a finger is drawn through it, 4 to 6 minutes. Do not allow the custard to boil.

Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. Place the bowl in a larger bowl partially filled with ice water, stirring occasionally until cool. (See Stef, that's what the strainer should look like :P) Whisk the pumpkin mixture into the custard. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly on the surface of the custard to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until chilled, at least 3 hours or up to 24 hours. Transfer the custard to an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturers instructions. Add the bourbon during the last minute of churning. Transfer the ice cream to a freezer-safe container. Cover and freeze until firm, at least 3 hours or up to 3 days, before serving. Makes about 1 quart.

The five egg yolk thing almost made me crazy as I stared at the bowl of five egg whites that I had remaining. I use organic cage free eggs because I'm an East Coast Liberal Elitist, and those suckers aren't cheap. I solved the problem by covering the whites, sticking them in the fridge, and making a kick ass egg white omelet with mushrooms and shallots the next morning. Not being wasteful is awesome and delicious.


As the custard chilled I worked on the cookies. When I moved out my mother practically threw her Kitchen Aid standing mixer into the moving van. She had not baked since I was nine and didn't want the massive appliance in her cabinets anymore. I took it gleefully, the thing is a war horse. It's older then I am and shows no signs of stopping. I'm pretty sure I could throw a cinderblock in there and in five minutes have a smooth meringue. I have registered for the pasta maker attachment, but as my mother never used any attachments on it I'm not even sure if that part works, so I have my fingers crossed. The Kitchen Aid makes cookie making way easy, and was even able to deal with the cup of dark molasses, which is a goo that I personally was terrified of. Sticky sticky heavy goo.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup robust (dark) molasses
• 1/2 cup pure vegetable shortening (for the love of god,not butter)
• 1 large egg, beaten to blend
• 1/2 cup boiling water

Directions: Combine first 8 ingredients in large bowl. Add
molasses, shortening, and egg. Using electric mixer, beat until well blended. Beat in 1/2 cup boiling water. Chill dough 1 hour. 

Preheat oven to 400°F. Roll chilled dough by generous tablespoonfuls into balls. Roll in additional sugar to coat. Place dough balls 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake until cookies are puffed and cracked on top and tester inserted into center comes out with some moist crumbs attached, about 12 minutes (do not overbake). Transfer cookies to racks and cool.

By the time Will got home I had cookies cooling on every available surface. I probably could have halved the recipe, but my office enjoyed the leftovers. It was time to dump the custard into the ice cream maker. According to my manufacturers instructions it should churn for 20-30 minutes. By minute 18 I was a tiny bit afraid the custard was going to pour out of the machine, it was forming so beautifully. I let it churn for about 24 minutes before I decided that, no seriously, we have to turn the machine off. As always it was a bit on the soft serve side the night I made it, but the true excitement took place the next day, after it had set in the freezer overnight. Cookie warmed and ice cream scooped, it was everything I had dreamed of all year long, but without the five minutes of explaining "No, you put the ice cream on the cookie" to a girl in a Miley Cirus tee shirt. Coffee and Cream and I are still friends though. They still make me REALLY fresh roasted coffee every time I'm in town. But as far as my very favorite autumn treat--that's now self served.

Before I sign off the week I'd like readers to know the my friend and reader of this blog Evan Reehl Ryer is part of an art show at Union Gallery at 359 Broadway. I went Friday night and it's got great pieces, so I encourage those in the area to check it out!

Does Baking Make One "Domestic"?

So baking and I don't get along. At all. When I attempted to make my Grandmother's Apple Twists (a recipe that she got from the 1958 Pillsbury Bake Off) I went to pour boiling water into the baking dish, and this happened.

Yeah. I exploded stuff in my kitchen. Screw you Isaac Newton, what with your laws of thermodynamics. Regular readers will also remember the blueberry muffin disaster. In a way I held my inability to bake as a point of pride. When people (Stef) would mock me for my domestic side, I would insist that I was not a domestic little Martha Stewart or Giada type, I was an Iron Chef goddammit. The dishes I cooked were forms of high art, challenges, gourmet, not comfort food. To illustrate this point, I would point out that I couldn't possibly be domestic, as I can't bake. I have a very bad habit of tooling around with ingredients and trying to be creative, which apparently your not supposed to do when playing with what is essentially chemistry. I'm a mad scientist, I suppose. I even tried to convince Will that he could bake, despite the fact that I had no evidence of this, so that I could have baked goods without actually having to put the work in myself. He pulled off this supremely decent batch of cheesecake marbled brownies.

Then a childhood friend sent me, as a wedding present, a book. How to be a Domestic Goddess, Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking by Nigella Lawson. Uh oh. At first I was ready to file the book on the shelf, but then I started reading the recipes. They looked yummy. Really really yummy. And since Will was working that weekend, the only way I was going to get to eat them was if I buckled down and tried this baking thing again. Plus citing lack of knowledge or ability as a point of pride is something I try not to make a habit of. Scanning the book I decided I should start with something on the less complex side. I also decided it would be nice if I made something that could be eaten as a breakfast treat alongside some coffee. I selected, from the very first section of the book, the Lemon-Syrup Loaf Cake.

For this I needed to actually purchase a 9x5 inch loaf pan. I told you, I haven't tried baking much. Once Amazon dropped that off, I had to settle the difficulty of "Self-Rising Cake Flour." Nigella Lawson is British, so I have to assume this is a product available in London--damned if I could find it in New York City. Since there are a number of websites explaining how baking powder and a bit of salt can be used to convert regular flour to self-rising, I simply applied the same principals to cake flour. I was crossing my fingers pretty hard on this part, since changes like this are usually where I chemically fuck up my baking.

The Ingredients for the Cake:

• 1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter
• 1/2 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon Sugar
• 2 Large Eggs
• Zest of 1 Lemon
• 1 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon Self-Rising Cake Flour (or Normal Cake Flour with conversion)
• Pinch of Salt
• 4 Tablespoons Milk

The Ingredients for the Syrup

• Juice of 1 1/2 Lemons (about 4 Tablespoons)
• 1/2 Cup Confectioner's Sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and butter and line you loaf pan with parchment or wax paper. Make sure the lining comes an inch or so up the sides of the pan for easier unmolding later.

Cream together the butter and sugar, and add the eggs and lemon zest, beating them in well. Add the flour and salt, folding in gently but thoroughly, and then then the milk. Spoon into the prepared loaf pan and put in the oven. While the cake is baking, get on with the syrup: put the lemon juice and sugar into a small saucepan and heat gently so that the sugar dissolves.

Bake the cake for 45 minutes, or until golden, risen in the middle (though it will sink a little on cooling), and an inserted cake tester comes out clean. As soon as the cake is out of the oven, puncture the top of the loaf all over with the cake tester or suitable implement. Pour over the syrup, trying to let the middle absorb it as well as the sides, then leave it to soak up the rest. Don't try to take the cake out of the pan until it is completely cold, as it will be sodden with syrup and might crumble.

Serves 8-10

Yeah, that "cake tester"? I've never owned one. My mother always used a wooden toothpick. I don't even own those, we just have fancy cocktail toothpicks made out of bamboo that we had to order off a website, a testament to how shmancy Will gets with his cocktails, so I used one of those. I also didn't pour on the entirety of the syrup, as once you stare at a 1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar, which you know is in addition to the 1/2 cup of normal sugar you put in the batter, it starts to seem pretty damn bad for you. How did this current attempt at baking turn out? You tell me!

And it tasted pretty good too. I love lemon a lot, so this was the perfect treat, and was breakfast for both and Will and me for three days. I got through a baking project without giving Isaac Newton the finger. Good for me. Now I just have to deal with the complex I've developed now that I'm a "Baker." Now I'll never live down the vintage aprons I'm partial to. I'm not domestic dammit! I'm an artist! And an adventurer! I'm hoping to bring to cooking what Indiana Jones brought to archaeology--danger, intrigue,...who knows? Maybe I can kill a couple of Nazis in the process.