BAKE!

Iced Sweet Taralli for Easter

(Later today I'll post what you'll need for the sourdough starter ferment-along we'll begin later this week.)

Photo credit:  Tom Eckerle

Taralli are the ultimate southern Italian Easter pastry; they come in at least a dozen different varieties, sweet and savory, large and small, made with olive oil or lard (butter for the sweet ones today), leavened with yeast, baking powder, or just eggs.  Yeast-risen taralli are boiled before baking like bagels, then baked on racks so they become shatteringly crisp.  The ones here are a particular favorite of mine, based on a recipe shared by Marie Ciampi about 15 years ago.  I used it in my book, Cookies Unlimited, and make them every Easter.

Neapolitan Easter Pie

I haven't been here for a while due to computer woes (all settled now) and edits on BREAD! due out in the fall.  Things are finally starting to lighten up.  Watch for complete instructions on cultivating your own sourdough starter beginning Tuesday.

Photo credit:  Charles Schiller

PASTIERA NAPOLETANA

NEAPOLITAN EASTER PIE WITH RICOTTA AND WHEAT

Though the official name of this pie is Pastiera Napoletana, many Italian Americans also refer to it as Pizza di Grano, grain or wheat pie.  It’s a sweet crust filled with ricotta, pastry cream, and cooked wheat berries, and scented with orange flower water.  Please be careful when you purchase the wheat.  If you live near an Italian grocery store, they will always have it around Easter – you just need to ask for wheat or grain.  Or you can buy it even more easily in a health food store.  The wheat berries you need to buy are white, not brown or red.  White wheat berries cook relatively quickly whereas the unhulled darker ones take forever to cook.  If no wheat berries are available, substitute an equal amount of long-grain rice (boil it like pasta until tender, about 15 minutes) or pearl barley, which is cooked exactly like the wheat berries.

Old-fashioned Raisin Bread

Here’s another sneak preview of BREAD due out in September.  After a few tries this raisin bread turned out to be all I wanted – it has a slightly dense texture with just a hint of sweetness and some richness from a small amount of butter in the dough.  The golden raisins and currants stand out well with no distractions from cinnamon or any other flavors.  Let me know if you like it as much as I do.

Old-fashioned Raisin Bread

Nothing fancy here but a slightly sweetened and enriched white bread loaded with dark and golden raisins.  The recipe makes two loaves and they’ll be gone before you know it.

Buccellato: A Sicilian Christmas Wreath

Photo by Sandy Leonard

This is one of the treats I never fail to bake at Christmas, especially because it keeps well and may be prepared in advance.  The photo is from last year's Christmas Day dessert table.  Now it's time for me to get back to the kitchen and start baking.

Apple Tart/Pie for Thanksgiving

Photo credit:  Quentin Bacon

Apple pie is never missing from my Thanksgiving table whether I'm at home or invited to enjoy the holiday with friends.  When I started working on BAKE I knew it was going to be published in the UK, so American pie pans were banished from the book since they're not easily available across the pond.  After I recast this traditional apple pie in a removable bottom tart pan I realized that there's none of that destroying the first slice while trying to pry it out of the pie pan, plus it's so much easier to cut into even wedges.  If you absolutely insist on using a pie pan, a 9-inch glass one will also work perfectly with the recipe.  Another suggestion:  if you want a crumb topping on the pie instead of the lattice top in the recipe, look for Sour Cream Apple Pie in the recipe archive here; that recipe has a perfect crumb topping you can use.  Happy Thanksgiving!

LATTICE-TOPPED APPLE TART

I like to use a little flour to thicken the juices of an apple filling such as this one – it’s easy to do (just mix the flour with the sugar) and, unless you use too much, it provides just the slight thickening needed so the juices in the baked pie aren’t watery. Dicing the apples makes them bake through more quickly than cutting them into wedges, plus it makes the filling less bulky when placed in the bottom crust, creating only a small gap between the filling and top crust after the tart is baked.

MY FAVORITE CRANBERRY RELISH

I love to experiment with new twists on old recipes, but I never tamper with this one - I make it exactly the same way every year before Thanksgiving.  Aside from the fact that I love it this way my friends who depend on me for their yearly supply would be up in arms over any changes.  I posted this last year but I think it's worth a repost and I hope it will become a yearly tradition with you too.

CRANBERRY ORANGE RELISH

Get a head start on your preparations with this recipe - you can prepare it today and keep it refrigerated for your holiday meal.  The relish keeps well for a couple of months in the refrigerator.

Makes about 3 quarts

Three 12-ounce bags fresh cranberries, rinsed, picked over and drained

3-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated

1 1/4 cups light brown sugar, firmly packed

2 cups granulated sugar

One 12-ounce jar bitter orange marmalade (I always use Hero brand)

3 medium oranges, rinsed, quartered and seeded

2 cups water

1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine all the ingredients in a large non-reactive pan, such as an enameled iron Dutch oven.  Set on medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.  Skim foam as it rises to the surface

At the boil, reduce heat and simmer the relish until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and use a slotted spoon to find a piece of orange and press it against the inside of the pan to extract any remaining juices.  Repeat with the remaining orange pieces, discarding them after removing.

Cool the relish and pack it into pint or quart containers.  Refrigerate and bring to room temperature before serving.

Welcome back The Modern Baker

…in a brand new paperback edition (DK Publishing, $24.95).  Working on this book changed me forever.  It was my first foray into the world of British publishing where photos galore are the order of the day.  Writing this book was a real challenge, trying out faster and easier ways to get the same great results you might achieve with more work and more time spent in the kitchen, which few of us have to spare.

Then about two years after Modern Baker was published I heard from Phyl in Ohio that he was starting The Modern Baker Challenge, a group of baking bloggers who decided to bake their way through the whole book.  It’s still ongoing and you can visit the home blog for the challenge here.  I love seeing my recipes through the eyes of other bakers as well as reading their insightful comments and admiring the beautiful photos they take of the results.

Here’s one of my favorite recipes from Modern Baker. These little cheesecakes have all the wonderful creamy texture of a large cake in an easier to serve version.Photo credit:  Charles Schiller

INDIVIDUAL NEW YORK CHEESE CAKES

The quintessential New York cheese cake is creamy and light-textured, with just a hint of an acidic bite from the presence of sour cream.  The recipe is simple, and baking them in individual molds eliminates all the potential problems of a cracked surface, especially since these are served upside down after they’re unmolded.  I usually like to decorate the top with a single strawberry half or even a spoonful of a simple berry sauce – strained frozen raspberries cooked down with a little sugar and cooled.

Makes 9 or 10 individual cheese cakes, depending on the size of the molds used

16 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 large eggs, at room temperature

One 8-ounce container sour cream

Fresh strawberries, halved and/or other berries for finishing

10 4-ounce aluminum foil cups or porcelain ramekins, buttered and the bottoms lined with a small disk of parchment paper, arranged on a jellyroll pan

1. Set a rack in the middle level of the oven and preheat to 300 degrees.
2. Combine the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer.  Beat with the paddle on medium speed until well mixed, about a minute. 
3. Decrease the speed to low and beat in one for the eggs.  After the egg is absorbed, stop and scrape the bowl and beater.
4. Repeat step 3 for the second egg, then again for the third and fourth eggs.
5. Beat in the sour cream.
6. Spoon the batter into the prepared molds, filling them to within a quarter inch of the top.
7. Place the pan in the oven and add about 2 cups of warm water to the pan under in cheese cakes.
8. Bake until firm and slightly puffed, about 25 to 30 minutes.
9. After the cheesecakes are ready, turn off the oven and leave the door ajar.  If your oven has a strong spring that snaps the door shut, place a wide metal spatula or other non-flammable object perpendicular to the door to prop it open about 4 to 6 inches.  Leave the cheesecakes in the partially open oven for another 30 minutes.
10. Remove the pan from the oven and as soon as the molds are cool enough to handle, unmold the cheesecakes to a paper-lined pan.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap chill.

Serving:  Use a wide spatula to transfer the cheese cakes to dessert plates.  Decorate with a strawberry half, cut side up.

Storage:  Keep the cheese cakes refrigerated for up to 2 days before serving.  Plate and bring them to room temperature for an hour or two before serving.

VARIATIONS

INDIVIDUAL CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKES:  Add 6 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) chocolate melted with 1/4 cup milk.  Let cool slightly before adding to the egg mixture, before beating in the sour cream.

Ten Years Ago Today

 Photo courtesy of John Wolf

…I was sitting in the lounge at the Hotel Storchen in Zurich where I am as I write this.  I was waiting for my friend Andreas to come by after work and we were heading out for an early dinner because I was flying back to New York the next morning.  Jean-Philippe Jaussi who was the manager of the Storchen at the time noticed me and, as Andreas came through the door, pulled me by the sleeve to the television at the back of the lounge just in time to see the impact of the second plane into the World Trade Center.  Beyond shocked, I ran up to my room to phone my mother who was hysterical; I managed to calm her down by assuring her that no terrorist attacks were going to take place in either Newark or Zurich and that I would let her know when I got a flight home.  I was stuck for a few more days and finally left Zurich on the following Saturday, September 15.  Since then hundreds of people have asked me if I had still been working at Windows on the World, though I had left my job there in early 1984.  And my friend Andreas whom I met right after arriving in Switzerland to work in 1973 passed away a month ago, so I began this day filled with so many other sad memories with a visit to his grave.   I accept sadness and loss as part of life but the senseless destruction and death that occurred ten years ago certainly are not.

 

TEN-MINUTE BLUEBERRY JAM

This recipe is living proof that sometimes simplest is best.  Fresh blueberries and sugar are the only ingredients and they make for a jam that’s full of fresh blueberry flavor.  Blueberries have both the qualities needed for a successful jam – a good balance of sweetness and acidity and plenty of natural pectin to make the jam jell nicely. 

Blueberries, anyone?

What is it about blueberries that I find so addictive?  For me every summer is a continuous parade of blueberries into my kitchen and back out as pies, tarts, muffins, scones, jam, and just about anything else I can cram them into.  Maybe it’s my New Jersey roots – the modern blueberry was born in Hammonton, New Jersey just about 100 years ago – or maybe I’m just hopelessly addicted.  And I’m excited about just getting an assignment from Saveur magazine to write about blueberries, New Jersey, and of course, recipes that use them.  It won’t appear until next year when the official 100th anniversary of cultivated blueberries takes place, but I’ll be celebrating with plenty of blueberries before, during, and after that.

 
Summer is chugging away toward its inevitable close and last Sunday was one of those summer-is-ending milestones – this year’s last session of Summer Fruit Pies and Tarts at ICE.  We had an enthusiastic and friendly group as you can see from the photo – they’re holding the deep dish blueberry pie they had just made.

The pie is easy, delicious, and quick to prepare.  Like a classic British pie it only has a top crust; it’s like a thin baking powder biscuit and the filling is mercifully free of thickeners.  It’s a little soupy, but the juicy filling and tender crust are a perfect match; they send a clear message that they’d like a big spoonful of whipped cream to join them.  Try this now that blueberry availability is high and prices are low.