A Kilo Plus Vanilla Bean Pound Cake with Rosé Glaze

I came back from France up a solid kilo, newly equip with a little more padding around my middle region and a liver that just wouldn’t quit.  Nice and all, but I felt in need of a detox. 

When I throw around a term like “detox” what I really mean is that I try to avoid drinking for a solid six days, try to eat more plants, and try not to sneak cookies at lunch.  Some of you may know this as “moderation.”  I lasted until Thursday. 

By Friday I was making a cake that contained three sticks of butter, lavishly glazed in rosé syrup.  Shoes don’t stretch.  Men don’t change.  And I don’t detox very well.  You can take these things as fact, friends. At least for as long as there are women who love dessert and pink-hued wine and who can talk themselves into buying ill-fitting shoes and the words of men they attract.

But I’m veering off course here. I need to keep this short and sweet because I have lunges to do. The inspiration for this cake came from Provence and from a recent recipe by Jess of Sweet Amandine.  She makes the cake without the syrup here, inspired by Hi-Rise.

While touring a winery in Provence, I came across some crisp, buttery cookies made with vanilla and a little rosé, biscuits vanillé aromatise au vin rosé de Provence if we are being fancy.  I wanted an excuse to use my new loaf pans.  I also wanted an excuse to bake this pound cake Jess spoke of and open a bottle of wine I lugged back from Provence.  You know where I’m going with this.

The biscuits I bought were delicate, barely sweet with just a faint hint of rosé.  There is nothing delicate about this cake.  It’s pound cake. 

It calls for eight eggs.  It uses four cups of sugar.  There is no moderate use of butter.  No moderate use of its sticky wine glaze.  And certainly no moderate use of vanilla beans, either.

It’s everything a real pound cake should be.  It’s dense, like a glazed donut in loaf form.  Cut in thick slabs and served with tart berries it’s pure summer.  And it’s delicious with a glass of rose, also pure summer.

So I’m off to lunge, stretch, and then take my middle section for a jog.  And afterwards, well, we’re probably going to eat some wine cake.

Vanilla Bean Pound Cake with Rosé Glaze 
Adapted from Sweet Amandine (and a few other places)

Ingredients:

For the cake

3 cups all-purpose flour

1½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp kosher salt

1½ cups butter, room temperature (plus extra for buttering your pans)

2½ cups vanilla sugar (see note)

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped out (save the pod)

1 tbsp vanilla extract

8 large eggs, room temperature 
sprinkling of fleur de sel (optional)

For the glaze

1½ cups sugar

1 cup rosé wine

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped (plus the pod from above)

splash of orange blossom water

pinch of kosher salt 

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Butter two-9 inch cake pans (or alternatively, loaf pans; I used 3 of varying size).  If using loaf pans, fit parchment paper inside your buttered pan, letting the sides of the paper hang out; butter the paper too.  

Sift the flour and baking powder together into a medium bowl.  Add in the salt; set aside.

Cream the butter and vanilla sugar until light white and fluffy in a stand mixer.  Add the vanilla bean seeds, vanilla extract, and then add the eggs one by one with the mixer on low speed.  Increase the speed and beat until well combined.

Add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar, a little bit at a time, until just combined. Scrap down the batter from the sides of the bowl and fold the batter a few times to make sure everything is well mixed; do not over mix.  Divide the batter between your cake pans (or among your loaf pans).  Bake 30 minutes and then rotate the pans and bake for another 15-30 minutes, depending on the size of your pans.  (The loaf pans took a total of 65 minutes.)  The cakes are done when a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean.

While the cakes are baking, make the syrup.  Combine the 1½ cups sugar with the rosé wine; add the vanilla bean seeds, split vanilla bean pod, plus the additional reserved pod.  Heat on medium, stirring occasionally until the sugar is dissolved.  Add in the orange blossom water and pinch of salt.

When the cakes are finished let them cool on a wire rack for 15-20 minutes (or until the pans are cool enough to touch).  Gently remove the cake from the pans (if you are using the loaf pans with parchment paper this will be very, very easy; just loosen the ends and tug at the parchment paper sides.  (Then remove the parchment paper.)

Brush the syrup over the top and sides of the cake.  You’ll want to do this a few times, about every 10 minutes or so.  (I ended up having about ¼ cup of syrup left.)  Sprinkle the top of the cake with a little fleur de sel, if desired. Let the cake fully cool and then serve, cover, or freeze.

Makes two-nine inch cakes or 3-4 small loafs

Notes:

-To make vanilla sugar just stick a few pods of vanilla, after you’ve used the seeds for something else, into a jar of sugar and let it hang for at least a few days.

- This recipe is a great use of leftover rosé, as it only requires one cup (a moderate amount).  This amount also dictates that one cannot drink an entire bottle.  (Unless, of course, there is another bottle.)

-This is a sweet cake.  Serve it with some fresh berries or a perky sorbet.

The Good, the Bad, and the French: With Minted Fava Beans and Peas

It’s about two pm as I write this.  Which means it’s nearly eight in France.  I still haven’t quite acclimated to being back home.  Around this time in Paris my mother and I would start our nightly ritual.  We’d head out for dinner.  We’d be tired.  This would be an early night, we’d say.  And then we’d find ourselves trudging home around midnight.  Sometimes later.

Travel changes you.  Challenges you.  Exhausts you.  But also replenishes you.  Nudges you to see the world a little bit differently.  Stay up a bit longer.  And perhaps drink a bit more wine.  The ten days I spent in France were certainly no exception. 

My trip was filled with little treasures that I carried back across the Atlantic.  I returned to my Boston apartment and put away narrow, petite cake pans from E. Dehillerin; cinnamon gros sel and fleur de sel from the Boulevard Raspail market; green olive tapenade from a winery we visited, Château de St. Martin; Bourgueil and Sauternes from Spring’s wine boutique; and unpacked my new memories.

There is the memory of my mother and I eating lunch at our first Parisian café, near the École Militaire, which served a delicate couscous with a crisp dice of zucchini and cucumber.  And an even better bun curry, a light orange brioche roll with the flavor of curry baked in. I wish I could remember the name of the café. We ate at a long, wooden table. Our waitress wore bright red lipstick and a bare face.  She brought us a basket of chewy sourdough bread.  She was kind and tolerated my very rudimentary French.So I suppose the name of the café matters only in that I cannot sing its praise more specifically. No-name cafés and forgotten carafes of wine remain lodged in the crevice of my vacation mind.

Another one of my favorite lunches was at a little café in the 1^st arrondissement. We sat outside under an awning and ate rich olive oil-laden ratatouille as it poured outside.  I drank a delicate glass of Chinon that cost as much as my mother’s Earl Grey tea.  Later that evening, we dined at Verjus.  I had seven wonderful courses, each paired with wine, and eaten in a dining room lit by candle in a way that only the city of lights could pull off. 

Duck breast with red onion ravioli and a 2009 Nicolas Réau Chinon, “Garance.” Grilled lamb with braised artichoke and gnocchi and a 2010 Domaine Bordes Saint-Chinian, “Les Narys.”  Strawberry tarragon sorbet and salted peanut butter mousse paired with a 2010 Château la Tour Grise Ze Bulles Zéo Pointé Rosé.  I could go on.

Later in the week we drove down the freeway from Paris to the French Riviera, listening to techno versions of Carly Rae Jepsen and Lady Gaga songs that played hourly, while snacking on Poilâne’s pain d’épices: a spice cake that wasn't overly sweet and was good even when dried out and eaten out of hungry desperation days later.  We drove through Burgundy and the Rhône, speeding by old French villages and all-white cows.

We sipped rosé the color of ballet slippers in Provence.  We sat on a dock on the Côte d’Azur, drank in its teal water and walked on sand that I could swear contained actual specks of gold.  We ate roast chicken with olives and lemon prepared by a chef from our resort in Mougins who dripped French charm and took a particular liking to my mother. Though—let me be frank—our trip was not filled with carefree with glasses of vin, charismatic men, and sandy beaches. 

Our Volkswagen broke down in a tollbooth lane somewhere along A6.  The police we talked to spoke very little English and sent us off down the highway in search of an SOS phone.  And driving back into Paris was sheer terror, quickly having to adapt a key French axiom: where I am, you cannot be.  Paris was, at times, quite unkind. The inside of my flats came to look like a murder scene from my blistered and bloodied feet.  We had our fair share of missed streets and crumpled maps.  And I had a near critical incident after consuming a midday cheese plate carelessly followed up by a croque-madame and soupe à l'oignon. (See: lactose intolerance.)

But the good far outweighed the unpleasant. Perhaps my favorite memory of the trip was opening (and then later closing) the dinner service at Au Passage.  The first to arrive around eight, we drank a bottle of Le Cousin Rouge and had little plates of food.  A fresh, drippy burrata.  Smoked potatoes with dill and sea snail.  Grilled spring onions with pesto and parmesan.  Along the way we befriended two cute, quirky French men who asked if we cared to split a leg of lamb.  A slow braised lamb arrived that required carving, served with a large plate of mustardy lentils.  After consuming another carafe or two of wine, we were the last to leave, apart from our new French friends and the staff.

And so I have arrived back to Boston both inspired and admittedly a bit overwhelmed with all my new memories.  I have a long list of food to cook and a new collection of French tools to use.  But one of the first meals I made when I came back was this one, which is best explained as a dissected version of our trip.

Many of the restaurants in Paris had fresh ricotta on their menus. Green plants like zucchini, fava beans, and mint also made frequent appearances.  As for the bread, it’s Jim Lahey’s no-knead version with poppy seeds, lemon zest, and coarse ginger gros sel added. 

It's simple, elegant, and a bit of a pain in the ass to make when you are jet-lagged.  But as the coup de grâce for my French vacation, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Ricotta with Minted Fava Beans and Peas on Poppy Seed Bread

Ingredients:

A handful of shelled fresh peas (or frozen if fresh is not available)

A handful of shelled fava beans (still in their white outer coverings)

~1 tbsp bacon fat (bacon reserved for another use)

Fleur de sel

Black pepper

6-8 sprigs of fresh mint

1-2 tbsp olive oil

A few drops of lemon juice

Ricotta cheese (see note)

Poppy seed bread (or other variety, see note)

Instructions:

Cook peas briefly (if using fresh) in salted boiling water, for about 1 minute, and then remove them using a slotted spoon; set peas aside.  Add the shelled fava beans to the boiling water and cook until their inner flesh is tender when pierced with a knife (typically this takes less than five minutes).  Once cool enough, peel the white shell of the fava beans.  Add bacon fat to a hot pan and add the fully shelled fava beans; season with salt and pepper and sauté until the beans are crisp and slightly browned; set aside.

Meanwhile, finely chop the mint leaves; mix in the olive oil, lemon juice, and season with salt to taste; toss the fava beans and peas in the mint dressing.  Spread ricotta cheese on a slice of poppy seed bread. Top with minted peas and fava beans.

Notes:

-A recipe for homemade ricotta can be found here.  I halved the recipe and it made about a cup.  (You probably won't want to let it drain for an hour or it may get too dry.)  If you are looking for a little more richness you may want to try this.

-The inspiration for the poppy seed bread came from a jambon et fromage sandwich (on white poppy seed bread) from a French rest stop on the drive down to Provence.  You can find the recipe for making Jim Lahey's bread here.  (Though the original recipe I have calls for 1/2 tsp yeast and 1 1/2 tsp of salt.) I added the poppy seeds, zest of one lemon, and salt before the second rising of the bread.

-This is a very loose recipe. (Please excuse any errors that may have been made due to jet lag and/or excessive wine consumption.)

Caramel and Macadamia Nut Tofu, a Much Needed Intervention

I’ve been really overdoing it lately.  Carrying on as though there is an award for self-exhaustion.  And it needs to stop.  I need an intervention.  

I imagine it would go something like this:

You need to start getting more than five hours of sleep … ice cream is not an acceptable breakfast option … nope, not for dinner either … put down the cake … I mean it … have you even been reading Tender? … you know that’s a book about vegetables, right? … no, white Russians do not count as a serving of dairy … you should probably stop using that as an excuse to have cheese for lunch, as well … I know you just got a tetanus shot, but still … keep this up and you’re going to hurt yourself … seriously … I’m not checking you for ticks again … I’m concerned.

So before shipping off to Paris, I thought I’d instill some rules.  Bedtime at 10 pm sharp.  Eat more green, leafy things.  Please do limit the dairy, as you are lactose intolerant.  Step slowly away from anything that has been aged in a barrel. 

In the spirit of compromise, things like whole grain muffins and dried fruit-studded rolls are encouraged.  As are meals that include more than cake.  A source of protein is required.  Ingredients like sugar can be used when intentions are pure. 

And, thus, I cannot tell you how pleased I am to present the resultant dish, born from excess and a little self-destruction.  Sure, it’s tofu, but don’t let that stop you.  Please.  Those in the tofu-hater club, particularly: take note. 

First, you’ll need macadamia nuts.  (A good start, no?) After toasting them, crisp up some tofu in oil until golden brown.  Sauté some aromatics; the shallot was born to play this role.  Then, add back the tofu and—are you ready for this?—toss in three heaping spoonfuls of sugar.  Yes, sugar.  After you let the sugar coat the tofu, add some liquid and a bubbling caramel glaze will form.  Fresh herbs go in at the end and become sweetly lacquered and crispy.  Lemon verbena is lovely, if you have it, but a number of substitutions could be made here.  Mint comes to mind.  Think green and bright and you’ll be fine.

I’m telling you.  This dish is so good it almost feels intervention worthy itself.  When paired with a loose slaw of shredded brussels sprouts, lemon, pistachio oil, and dried cherries it very easily makes it as my new favorite go-to dinner.  So it’s au revoir to all that excess.  Bonjour, tofu.  And hello to my sanity again.

Caramel and Macadamia Nut Tofu

Ingredients:

¼ macadamia nuts, chopped roughly in half

15 ounces tofu (or 1 package), cut into thick strips

~2-4 tbsp olive or peanut oil

½ shallot, sliced thinly

½ serrano pepper, seeded and diced

Pinch of salt

3 heaping spoonfuls of sugar (about 3 tbsp)

Splash of ponzu sauce

~7 lemon verbena leaves

Instructions:

Toast the macadamia nuts in a dry saucepan on low heat until they become fragrant and browned.  Meanwhile, pat tofu strips dry with a paper towel.  Remove the nuts from the pan and set aside.  Add about 1 tbsp of oil to the pan and then add about ½ the tofu strips.  Cook the tofu on one side on medium-high heat until golden brown on its underside and then flip and cook until well done on the other side.  Repeat with the remaining tofu, adding more oil to the pan when necessary and adjusting the heat as needed if the tofu starts browning too quickly.

Set the cooked tofu aside and add a little more oil to the pan to sauté the shallot and pepper.  Add a pinch of salt and cook the vegetables until they start to soften, about 1-2 minutes.  Add the tofu and the macadamia nuts back to the pan and then add the sugar, tossing gently with a rubber spatula to coat.  Add a splash of ponzo sauce; stir gently.  Add a splash or two of water (~1-2 tbsp).  Just enough to help the sugar start to bubble and caramelize.  Stir gently, just enough to help coat the tofu with the caramel glaze.  Add the lemon verbena strips, or other herbs, and cook just until the tofu is fully glazed.

Makes 2-3 rough cups of tofu strips.

Notes:

-The inspiration from this came from the lovely 101 Cookbooks.  The whole dish comes together in less than 30 minutes.

-I imagine a splash of citrus, such as orange juice, might be nice.  Perhaps as a substitute for the water.  Though watch the sweetness.  Surprisingly the caramel doesn't become overly saccharine against the tofu, but adding other sweet items might send it over the edge.

-This is the ponzu sauce I tend to use.

Rhubarb Cinnamon Cornmeal Cake in the Kitchen, #NigelSlater

I’ve finally succumbed to Twitter.  There.  I said it.  Phew. #thatfeltgood. I’m pretty sure the constant stimulation isn’t spectacular for my anxiety.  But I’m now one twitchy, instantly updated food enthusiast.

I’m not entirely sure how successful my Twitter career will be given my struggle to sacrifice correct grammar and substitute x’s where ‘anks’s and ‘icken’s truly belong.  I’m a bit stodgy with this sort of thing. Give me freedom to execute an oxford comma or give me death.  So this is a work in progress.

Where twitter-speak truly sings is the hashtag.  I’ve become quite taken with its ability to convey wit or sarcasm in lieu of punctuation.  For instance, being both a New Yorker at heart and rhubarb aficionado, I instantly took to #rhubarbstateofmind, as noted in Charlotte Druckman's feed. (Thanks, Charlotte!) (Thx @cettedrucks)

Hashtags aside, I’m a book sentimentalist through and through.  And I've recently became intimately acquainted with a certain Nigel Slater; I bought both Tender and Ripe a few weeks ago.  I’m reading them like bedtime stories, tucking myself in a few chapters at a time.  I am currently up to Nigel’s eggplant seduction, though I cheated with Ripe and went straight to rhubarb.  And I’ve eaten close to five pounds of it over the course of a week. (I don’t have to say it: you know what kind of state I’ve been in.)

I’ve been roasting rhubarb with Pinot Gris and spliced vanilla beans.  I’ve been blanching rhubarb, letting it get acquainted with radishes and scallions in a spring salsa fashion.  And I’ve been making cake. Rhubarb cake. With cornmeal.  In Ripe it’s titled "Rhubarb Cinnamon Polenta Cake"—which is a lovely sounding name and an even better dessert—but I was a bit hesitant to carry on with the polenta namesake.  Technically it’s cake, not cornmeal porridge.  Though I do see where Nigel is going with this one. 

Once baked, the cake’s texture retains creaminess amid crunchy bits, courtesy of the cornmeal, and is reminiscent of the famed polenta squares from Northern Italy.  Either way, the coarse cornmeal is a wonderful partner for the slight raciness of rhubarb.  I added a bit more cinnamon than originally called for because it plays so nicely with tart fruit.  No disappointment there.

In fact, the leftover cake continues to have me under its spell.  So much so that I keep forgetting to drizzle the sauce, which the recipe makes as rhubarb byproduct, over top.  I have a feeling it will probably make its cocktail début with some bourbon later on this season.  Or perhaps as a spritzer.  For now, I have plenty of cake to keep me occupied.  And I’ve got rhubarb for days.

So I might be wise to loosen up on my tweets, after all.  I have quite a few rhubarb recipes that would probably take kindly to brevity. Houston, #wehavearhubarbsitch.

Rhubarb Cinnamon Cornmeal Cake

Adapted from Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard by Nigel Slater

Ingredients:

About 1 pound of rhubarb

About 1 cup turbinado sugar (see note), divided

4 tbsp fresh orange juice

Pinch of salt

¾ cup polenta (course ground)

1½ all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp cinnamon

Zest of an orange

10 tbsp cold butter, cut into ½-1 inch pieces

1 egg

2-4 tbsp half and half

Instructions:

Butter the sides and bottom of an 8-inch springform pan.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and put a baking sheet in the oven to get it hot.  Cut the rhubarb into pieces, roughly 1-2 inch in size, and place them in a baking dish.  Grind a very heaping cup of turbinado sugar in the food processor until powdered in consistency.  (You may want to grind a little more than this so you have extra, if needed.)  Scatter about ¼ cup of the ground tubinado sugar over the rhubarb and then toss with the orange juice and a pinch of salt.  Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the rhubarb is soft but still maintains its shape.  Place the rhubarb through a sieve to separate out the rhubarb from its juice.  Set the juice aside.

Place the polenta, along with sifted flour, baking powder, and cinnamon; ¾ cup ground turbinado sugar; and another pinch of salt in the food processor.  Add the zest and butter and process a few times until the mixture is still clumpy but has started to come together in rough crumbles.  Mix the egg with 2 tbsp of half and half in a small bowl and then blend it into the dough, being careful not to overmix it; the dough should still look shaggy and will be a bit sticky (add a little more half and half, as needed).

Place about two-thirds of the mixture into the buttered pan so that it comes about ¾ of an inch up the sides.  (Look out for any breaks in the dough and push the dough around to cover them up, as necessary.) Scatter the rhubarb pieces on top, leaving some space along the edges of the pan.  Crumble the remaining dough on top; there will be holes.  Scatter with about 1 tbsp of the ground turbinado sugar on top and place on the hot baking sheet in the oven.  Cook for 45-55 minutes or until it is golden brown.  Let cool before removing the cake from the pan. 

At this stage, you can serve the reserved syrup alongside the cake.  I reduced the syrup a bit, adding a pinch of sugar, a split vanilla bean, and a splash of orange blossom water: but it’s in my freezer for now, as I keep forgetting to use it.

Makes 1 cake.

Notes:

-Nigel calls for golden baker’s sugar, which I couldn’t find.  You can take turbinado sugar though and grind it down in a food processor to achieve a similar effect. I measured out closer to 1½ cups of turbinado to grind.

-You’ll want to avoid finely ground cornmeal for this recipe; the course cornmeal texture is a nice contrast in the cake.

Girl Eats Pistachio Cake

I’ve had a very hard time trying to put this cake into words.  So I’m just going to introduce it to you bare bones. Dick and Jane-style.  Ready. Set. Go.

Girl sees pistachio cake. Girl orders carrot soup.  Girl takes a bite of boy’s cake he has ordered.  Girl does this sort of thing from time to time. Girl recognizes this behavior is probably annoying. Never mind. Girl tastes pistachio cake.  Girl will never be the same.

I first had this cake in 2010 at Rose Bakery in Montmartre. Though I was pretty involved in my bowl of soup at the time, I cannot live on soup alone.  At least not well. And certainly not well when in Paris. 

Admittedly, I had a simple meal at Rose Bakery. But it was a meal to remember. Particularly the cake.  It didn’t matter that I only had a taste of it off my patient travel companion’s plate. It was enough.  


And recently one bite was all it took to bring me back to the stark white walls of Rose Bakery. To see their square-shaped tarts.  And remember the wine at lunch which painted the rest of the day in a verre de vin rouge-colored tint. 

Flash forward to 2012. I was in my pajamas in my apartment in Beacon Hill, reading food52, when I came across a recommended cookbook.  Breakfast, Lunch, Tea: The Many Little Meals of Rose Bakery.  I thought about buying it for all of 6 seconds. 

You probably aren’t shocked by this: as my first order of business, I made pistachio cake.  And it’s a charmer. Don’t be alarmed if the batter initially portrays itself as a bit of a waif, despite its heavy reliance on nuts, eggs, and butter.  And after the ingredients get creamed and folded, it presents with an almost soufflé disposition, which is a tad worrisome for a loaf cake with such unapologetically rich building blocks. 

In fact, there is potentially a lot to question here.  It uses only a 1/3 cup of flour.  It requires an aggressive amount of rosewater.  The pistachio nut glaze is called in to cover the cake after the cake has cooled.  No matter.  The slightly sticky syrup, laced with lemon, seeps down into the cake’s middle and helps keep it moist and glistening.  And it manages to do all of this without coming off as heavy or overdone (despite all that rose).  Which is all so very French.

Once cooked, it morphs into the cake you might expect.  Or the cake that you might remember, if you’ve been to Rose Bakery.  The memory of it traveled quite easily, across the Atlantic, and a little down the coast.  And it tasted just as it had in Paris.  

So in the end this is a very happy story, kids.  Girl eats cake.  Girl bakes cake.  Girl eats cake, again.  Girl plans to bake cake again, immediately.  So girl can be transported back to Paris whenever she damn well pleases. Girl is going to get a folk.

Pistachio Cake

Adapted from Breakfast, Lunch, Tea: The Many Little Meals of Rose Bakery

Ingredients:

For the cake

1 cup butter, softened

1 generous cup caster sugar (see note)

Zest of 1 lemon

1 tbsp of rosewater

Splash of vanilla extract

4 eggs, at room temperature

1 cup ground almonds

1 cup ground pistachios

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

For the pistachio topping

½ cup pistachios, whole

¼ cup caster sugar

1 lemon, juice and zest

Pinch of salt

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Butter the sides and bottom of a loaf pan and then line it with parchment paper so the paper fits snuggly in the pan without crinkling too much (it will need to be a little shorter in length than your cake pan to do this).

Beat the butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy (a few minutes) and then mix in the lemon zest, rosewater, and vanilla extract.  Slowly add in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg.

Fold in the ground almonds, ground pistachios, flour, baking powder, and salt and pour into your prepared pan.  Bake until a knife comes out clean after being inserted into the center of the cake.  (The recipe states this should take about 40 minutes, but it took me a good 90 minutes, so you may want to keep that in mind.  I was getting a bit nervous, until I remembered Molly posted a similar recipe ... and she recommended a similar bake time.)  When the cake is done, remove it from the oven, and let it cool on a wire rack.

After the cake has cooled, heat the ingredients for the topping together in a saucepan, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is just melted; pour over the cake.

Makes 1 loaf.

Notes:

-Instead of using caster sugar, I ground up granulated sugar in the food processor until it was powder consistency. (You’ll likely be using a food processor anyways for the nuts, so you can avoid this speciality item if you don’t have it.)

-The recipe called for 2 (!) tablespoons of rosewater.  I love rosewater, but I was a bit nervous about all that perfume.  1 tbsp worked out fine, though you could always experiment with less.  I wouldn’t necessarily recommend more.

-I ground the almonds and pistachios in a food processor, being careful to watch that they didn’t start to turn into nut butter.  You want them as finely processed as you can get them.

-This cake kept quite well in a ziplock bag for a number of days (at least 3).

-This girl just so happens to be going to Paris in less than a month!  This girl is very excited.

Simply Chocolate Avocado Butter.

I’ve thought quite a bit about what I might call this.  Avocella (like Nutella, but with avocado). Cocoa avocado crema (Alice Waters style). Or perhaps avocat et chocolat (poorly translated French).  

All of this in an attempt to convince you that I have not lost it.  

I am normally not one for messing with dessert. Particularly when there is chocolate involved.  But I am also a firm believer that everyone has the right to cake.  And sometimes people have food allergies.

In fact, I work with a population of patients that have very, very severe allergies.  Are you ready for this?  No soy.  No wheat.  No dairy.  No eggs.  No nuts.  No corn.  No fish.  No shellfish.  No kidding. Try making a gluten-free vegan dessert without the use of nuts or corn, friends.  Welcome to the world of Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE).

So I set out to make a chocolate cake that would essentially be (1) allergen-free and (2) edible.  And, well, it wasn’t terrible.  But it wasn’t something I’d ever like to make again, either.  I brought it to work and a coworker kindly referred to it as brownie slop.  The recipe in its entirety is not worth mentioning here.  Though it could have doubled quite nicely as a chocolate body scrub.

The “frosting,” however, was something that held real promise.  Coworkers were knifing it, scrapping it off the leftover cake and onto their plates.  Which I took as a good sign.  Bad table manners can be a good indicator of great food.

And if you choose to eat this by the spoonful, say, standing in the middle of your kitchen in your bathrobe, you might detect a faint, almost mossy note that could possibly be linked back to avocado.  If you were really looking for it.  That said, I’m the one who made the spread.  I knew precisely what was in it.  I had no problem eating it all by itself.  And getting it on both my chin and my pajamas.  But consider the source.

It worked wonderfully—and much more daintily –on a piece of French bread with a sprinkling of coarse sea salt. And it was equally as enjoyable playing peanut butter’s counterpart, sandwiched between bread slices.

So I settled on chocolate avocado butter for its name because it works very well as both a nut accompaniment and as a substitute for one.  Sure, it can still be used as frosting.  But I believe the role it was born to play is as a silky chocolate spread with the guts to offer up more rewards than risks. In fact, I’ve never felt so good eating chocolate. 

It’s chocolate meant for all.  And all for chocolate.  It tastes good.  And it’s just that simple.

Chocolate Avocado Butter

Ingredients:

1 ripe avocado

~¼-½ unsweetened cocoa powder

~ 2/3-1c powered sugar

Pinch of salt

Splash of vanilla extract

1-2 tbsp leftover coffee (cold)

Instructions:

Puree the flesh of an avocado very well until it lightens in texture in a food processor (this will take a minute or two).  (A blender may also work, just make sure you don't have any avocado chunks left.)  Sift ¼ cup of cocoa powder and 2/3 cup of powdered sugar together in a bowl. Add to the avocado and blend until well combined.  Taste and add more sifted cocoa and powdered sugar to your taste.  (I added quite a bit more.) Add the salt, vanilla, and coffee; blend and retaste.  Adjust as needed.

Makes about 1 cup.

Notes:

-If you have EoE you may want to make sure you find a vanilla extract without a corn-based alcohol, depending on your allergy severity.  (Or you could try making your own with some vanilla beans and a potato vodka, but it would take time before you could put it to use.)  I do think the vanilla helps to meld the avocado, though when I first made the frosting I left it off to make sure it would be edible without the flavoring.  And it certainly was, though I recommend the vanilla if you have the ability to use it.

-This firms up nicely in the fridge but it also remains more spreadable than a frosting would since there isn’t much saturated fat to solidify here.

-The ranges for the cocoa and powdered sugar are key.  I ended up adding in more cocoa powder to deepen the chocolate flavor.  As I added more cocoa I also upped the powdered sugar to around 1 cup, perhaps even a tad more.  Taste as you go.

-Many brands of powdered sugar have a little cornstarch mixed in.  Wholesome sweeteners makes a version without it.  Be sure to check the package's ingredients if you have a corn allergy.

-I almost forgot ... I'm now on twitter!

Baked Herb and Pistachio Falafel, Willingly

I am not currently wearing raw linen.  Or hemp underwear.  I have not started making my own soap. Nor do I have plans to unite a ragtag gang of loners to start a banjo band.  This much I can assure you.  

But things have definitely gone a bit "granola"  in my apartment. I’ve been hooked on homemade pita.  I have no fewer than five jars of assorted nut and seed butters in the side compartment of my fridge. I've all but made friends with Pancho and Lefty after one too many nights with Willie Nelson.

I’m not entirely sure when or how this transformation happened.  Actually, that’s a bit of a fib.  A steay supply of bulk grains and dried beans has crept quietly in along with Dr. Bronner’s magic soap and some early crow’s feet.  

And I can tell you precisely when my preoccupation with the falafel started.  It was after an early evening trip to the Falafel Palace in Central Square.  Specifically, after special #6, which consisted of a simple plate of falafel on a bed of shredded lettuce and tomatoes and a soufflé cup filled with hummus well laced with tahini.

I’ve had falafel on the brain ever since.  And when I found this recipe, I figured it was time to pack up and move straight to the chickpea commune.  It’s the kind of recipe that doesn’t require a lot of skills.  It just requires some pistachios and fresh herb, along with the obligatory beans and basic kitchen equipment.  And it gently suggests you be laid back when you make them.  And that’s about it.  Which is what you might expect from a baked falafel.

Since these guys aren’t fried they have a tendency to crumble once you bite into them.  But I wouldn’t consider this a weakness.  Especially if you have them properly sandwiched in a pita and sauced.  They’re baked, after all, man.   They're also downright delicious.  I'll spare you the adjectives.  Just know that these guys are easy to love.  And easy to hold.  Unlike cowboys.  And perhaps people that live on communes.

Baked Herb and Pistachio Falafel with Tahini Dressing

Adapted from Green Kitchen Stories

Ingredients:

For the falafel

8 sprigs fresh mint

8 sprigs fresh flat leaf parsley

½ cup pistachio

2 cups cooked chickpeas

1 clove garlic 

1-2 tbsp minced onion 

~2 tbsp olive or pistachio oil 

5 cardamom seeds, ground (and shells discarded)

1 tbsp flour 

pinch cumin 

pinch red pepper flakes 

dash orange blossom water 

1 tsp baking powder

For the tahini dressing 

~2 tbsp tahini 

~1 tbsp cashew butter 

juice of  ½ lemon 

1-2 tbsp olive oil 

pinch of red pepper flakes 

pinch of cumin 

pinch of coriander 

salt to taste

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Remove the herbs from their stems and blend them in a food processor (or blender); add the pistachio and pulse until well combined. Add the chickpeas and remaining ingredients and process until combined, keeping the texture of the mixture a little choppy with individual bits visible. Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed. (Do be careful with the salt as there is sodium in the baking soda.)

Scoop out about 1 heaping tbsp of the mixture and gently roll it into a ball, cupping it and packing it with your hands to firm it up a bit.  Place each ball on a baking sheet greased with a little olive oil.  Bake for about 20 minutes, or until they start to turn brown.  (You may wish to turn them occasionally to allow them to get color on all sides.)

While the falafel are baking, combine all the tahini dressing ingredients together in a food processor (or blender); thin the dressing with a little water and adjust the seasoning as needed.  Serve the falafel and dressing in a pita ... perhaps with lettuce, tomato, onion and thick Greek yogurt.

Yields about 15 falafel and about ½ cup dressing

Notes:

-I used dried chickpeas that I cook and keep on hand in my freezer until they are called into falafel duty.  If you are using canned chickpeas, you may want to rinse them first. 

-Dear falafel, it wasn't intentional that I pushed you off for cake and frozen yogurt. If I made you feel second best, I'm sorry I was blind.  But you were always on my mind.  You were always on my mind.