2012 Happy New Year

The Wait is Officially Over

For anyone who has ever wondered what a loaf of banana bread looks like spinning on a cake rack in a light box surrounded by a random collection of origami, the wait is officially over.

For anyone who is just looking for a reliable recipe for a perfectly moist and flavorful banana bread, the wait is also officially over. I usually do this as a large loaf, but it also makes great muffins, cake layers, and best of all, an upside down cake. For an upside down cake, cream 1/3 cup butter and 1 cup brown sugar and spread in the bottom of a well-buttered tube pan. Top with sliced bananas and cover with the batter and bake. One other variation:  use a heavy duty nonstick pan (loaf, Bundt), butter heavily, and then dust with Turbinado sugar. For an upside down cake or a sugar-crusted cake, be sure to turn it out of the pan within a couple of minutes after taking the cake from the oven. 

And now, the recipe:

1/3 cup butter

1 1/4 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup mashed very ripe bananas, with 2 tablespoons of rum added

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup sour milk (add 1 tbs cider or plain vinegar to 1/2 cup milk and let stand 10-15 minutes)

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375. Grease the pan well. Stir together dry ingredients. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, and bananas. Add half of dry ingredients, stir until moistened. Add milk and vanilla, and remaining dry ingredients. Stir just until dry ingredients are incorporated. Bake for 35-55 minutes, depending on size of pan, until center is fully set. 

Steamed Orange Pudding

Against anyone who doubts that the lowliest ingredients can make the mightiest difference, this Steamed Orange Pudding is proof to the contrary. The main ingredient is breadcrumbs. Homemade bread crumbs. I save in the freezer all the scraps from my various loaves of bread during the year, and when I have a good supply I set them on a sheet pan in a 200 degree oven for about 90 minutes, until they are just showing a bit of color. Then I run them through the food processor, and back in the freezer they go. The pudding cracked slightly as I was turning it out of the mold, and I didn't get around to taking pictures of the pudding in pieces, since it doesn't look much different than it does whole and I was too busy eating it plain for snacking. This isn't exactly a showpiece, but it is mighty delicious. It keeps well for a few days wrapped in plastic, and I think it would make a perfect finish after a winter dinner, with a bit of custard or hard sauce or even a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It is sort like a bread pudding, only wonderful.

A couple of slight modifications:  The recipe says to steam for about two hours, but I found it was done after barely one hour. Also I added a couple tablespoons of Cointreau. Finally, as several of the reviewers at Epicurious noted, this makes a scant four cups, and to fill a regular mold it will make sense to increase the recipe by half.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Last week I had tacos for dinner. I softened some corn tortillas and filled them with some rice and black beans and then added some improvised pico de gallo, diced avocado, shredded iceberg lettuce, fresh cheese, and salsa verde. But really the whole point was the dollop of sour cream that finished them off.

The general supplies for the tacos lasted three days, and I still had a full cup of sour cream left over. So the search was on for a method to put the good stuff to good use. I've been on a roll with snacking cakes, or perhaps I should call them comfort cakes, so I gave this "Sour Cream Coffee Cake" from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cake Bible a try.

I've had this book since the day it was published, and it still continues to give up new treasures. The recipe is a touch fussy, but not in a bad way. The cake is delicate and dense and richer than the average sour cream coffee cake. It is more in the style I think of a crumb cake. Over the streusel filling I added one granny smith apple, diced fairly fine. The moisture and tartness of the apple rounded out perfectly the texture of the cake.

Pecan and Chocolate Caramel Chocolates

About the holiday season in itself I don't care much. But as an excuse to run up some additional mileage on my candy thermometer, I embrace the season wholeheartedly. These pecan and chocolate caramel chocolates are my first outing of the present season. In my dreams I have a chocolate coating machine in my living room and whenever the mood strikes I start it up and make a few thousand perfectly finished caramels and pixies and butter creams and fudge centers to box and share with friends and family. 

In reality the fanciest I get when working with chocolate is a ceramic bowl and a rubber spatula in my microwave, so that totally coating centers is a very tedious exercise. Especially since my method of keeping my chocolate in temper is to keep stirring into it big lumps of seeding chocolate. As a result I figured out a long time ago that dipping keeps everything moving along much quicker. Salted pecans it turns out make a neat little handle to hold the caramels for dipping. The look isn't super refined, and they are a bit awkward to box. But the taste is terrific.

Gobble Gobble!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Maple Walnut Bars

From Nancy Baggett's The All-American Cookie Book

Oh, And I Made Some Croissants!

For this batch I used the formula from Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the La Brea Bakery

But more often I use the formula from Baking with Julia

Two Elephants and One Giraffe, Matchbook and Book, and Kugel

Daylight savings time is ended and the origami is a bit off-schedule as a result. Earlier today I found a couple of elephants and a giraffe wandering across my table just before noon. Normally they would still be down for their mid-morning nap. 

Not far behind them I caught this matchbook and book relaxing together. No real sparks flying, as far as I could tell. But I am overdue for a smoke detector and they make  me think I should get me to the hardware store this week.

All this seasonal adjustment got me hungry, so for lunch I had the last serving from a Kugel I made for a dinner party last week. Such a simple dish, and such a popular dish. I like the recipe from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. My only change is to increase the amount of topping a bit. The recipe follows. (For the same dinner I also made a perfect apple tart -- really -- but no pictures. Just the memories)

Kugel

1 pound wide egg noodles

2 cups nonfat cottage cheese

2 cups sour cream

4 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup golden raisins

2 tart apples, grated fine

Topping

1 1/2 cups fresh coarse bread crumbs

1 1/2 teaspoons each ground cinnamon and coriander

1 tablespoon brown sugar

8 tablespoons melted butter

Butter 9x13 baking dish well and preheat oven to 350. Cook noodles in boiling salted water until just tender, then rinse in cold water. Combine remaining ingredients, stir in noodles, and turn into baking dish. Mix topping ingredients and spread evenly over top. Cover loosely with foil and Bake 35 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 15-25 minutes, until topping is lightly browned and Kugel is bubbling.

Raccoon and Little Black Book

Raccoon and Little Black Book

Perfectly Crispy

It goes without saying, and is all the more worth repeating as a result, that not all chocolate chip cookies are created equal. My own tastes are decidedly crispy and salty, and after a long time searching I've finally found the formula that perfectly satisfies my needs. The instant I saw the full tablespoon of kosher salt listed in the ingredients, I knew I was going to like, very much. (Persons who don't savor quite so much savory in their sweets probably should cut back to two teaspoons, but any less and you are cheating yourselves of a lot of flavor.)

Love at first sight, but not a case of total acceptance. I did in fact make a couple of minor adjustments. The recipe calls for chopped chocolate, but I used chips since nothing else gives the total look of a chocolate chip cookie. And in place of a cup of walnuts I used a half cup of finely chopped pecans. They add an extra layer of crisp and also evoke pleasing praline notes.

Here's a link to the recipe:  Thin-and-Crisp Chocolate-Chip Cookies

Happy Birthday John!

Devil from Genuine Origami

Rhinoceros, 255 (25.5%)

This green rhinoceros, not very photogenic, surrounded by a few pals from the local watering hole, is the 255th model I've made since I decided back in June (I think it was?) to make 1000 giraffes and other creatures. That equals 25.5% out of the way. And only 74.5% (745 models) to go. At the current pace it should take another ten to twelve months.

Apple Tart for the Jewish New Year

Peacock

Green Pig and Yellow Ox

Apple Cake Suitable for All Occasions

These days I am into snacking cakes. Cakes suitable for all occasions, which is to say cakes that require no occasion at all. And that are accordingly quick and easy to put together. Cakes that are just good to have around the house and that freeze well in slices. This recipe for an Apple Cake I clipped from Bon Appetit back in November 1999, though it actually comes from my aunt in Washington, D.C. For some reason the recipe doesn't appear on the Epicurious website. So here's an actual recipe for a change. A keeper.

2 1/2 cups sugar
1 tbs cinnamon
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup sour cream
4 large eggs
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tsp grated orange peel
2 tsp vanilla extract

4 cups diced granny smith or other tart and firm apples.
(A cup of walnuts mixed with the apples is also nice, though I prefer just the apples.)

Preheat oven to 350. Butter heavily a nonstick Bundt pan. Mix 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon in small bowl and set aside. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl. In a large bowl whisk remaining 2 cups sugar, oil, sour cream, eggs, orange juice, orange peel, and vanilla. Sir in flour mixture.

Pour half batter in pan. Sprinkle half of cinnamon sugar mixture over batter and half of apples. Add rest of batter and top with remaining cinnamon sugar and then apples, pressing them lightly to just submerge in the batter.

Bake about 50 minutes to an hour, until top is starting to brown. Then cover loosely with nonstick or buttered foil and bake another 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool just a few minutes in pan, loosen all around the sides, and then turn carefully onto heatproof plate.

For company a dusting of powdered sugar spruces up appearances.

Witch and Broomstick

A Cookie in a Hurry

The other week I was needing a cookie in a hurry so I made the recipe on the back of a 12 oz. bag of Nestle chocolate chips. Beyond the quick fix I was thinking one more round of ice cream sandwiches to mark the end of summer. Chocolate chip and coffee ice cream sandwiches. I got 6 dozen cookies out of the batch, plenty for snacking and other projects, so no hurry I figured to make the ice cream, and then ten days or so later I was still thinking about the ice cream sandwiches when I realized I was down to the last cookie. Here it is.

 

Some Random Images Captured Labor Day in the Vicinity of Midway Airport

Key Lime Ice Cream Sandwiches

Eating one of these ice cream sandwiches is sort of like eating a slice of key lime pie in hand out of the freezer. The recipe for the Graham Crackers is from Nancy Silverton's Pastries From the La Brea Bakery. (I omitted the cinnamon sugar topping.) For the ice cream I used bottled Key West Lime Juice. The flavor is surprisingly strong. Strong enough to take on some very hot and muggy summer nights!

A Tempting Slice of Mushroom and Onion Quiche

Stearns Quarry Park

This afternoon I went for a bike ride and stopped for a break at Stearns Quarry Park. From the street the park looks like nothing more than a mound covered in clumps of straggling prairie grass. But hidden behind the mound is a magical landscape of flowing water and limestone.  On a whim I had tossed my camera into the rack-top bag on the back of my bike, so I was able to get a few photos of the local fauna. Rats are admittedly pretty common in the city, especially in the vicinity of water. Rats this shade of red and violet are less common I think.

The pegasus I believe is a pretty rare sighting. Sometimes by the lakeshore there are infestations of dragon flies. Hordes of them swirling and dive-bombing and circling. In the courtyard of my building there are a couple of butterfly bushes and most afternoons a couple of butterflies drop in to prove the worth of the plants' name. The neighborhood where I live is renowned for the parrots living in the park canopies. But a pegasus I've never seen within the city limits. Until today.

Still Looking

Ant

From Origami Insects

An Eleven Inch Square of Paper Circle O-Gami Super-Thin Series and Three Hours Later

In my insomniac origami browsing I've encountered repeated references to Origamido paper, produced in a studio out of Haverill, Massachusetts. People wax ecstatical about the joys of this paper.  Sounds wonderful, except it is not available for purchase online. In fact it is only available in limited supply, and by appointment no less. After reading about how much difference it makes to work with a better paper, I've been wanting to see for myself. Some additional browsing then turned up a series of reviews of papers in the online magazine The Fold. Included was a review of paper from a studio in Ohio called Paper Circle; a new operation that is evidently looking to take on Origamido.

Over my morning coffee last Friday I ordered four sheets. The paper arrived yesterday and to test it out I did a second attempt of the Eastern Dragon. Three hours later the results are in. Working with this quality of paper is a totally different experience. A superior experience. Closed sink folds collapse crisply. Crimp folds snap in and out of place. Dreaded double rabbit ears do as they're told without even a whisper of complaint. More complicated folds that didn't quite make sense become obvious. And best of all, fine details pop into view. Which isn't to say that my abilities at all do this paper justice. Only that this paper inspires me to attempt more.

Three Eggs

It doesn't look like three eggs, but they laid the foundation for this coffee cake. After the last batch of ice cream (six egg yolks) and some egg salad (three eggs hard boiled; lots of capers; a couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise; a pinch of kosher salt and a spin of the pepper mill; spread over two slices of lightly toasted dark rye bread; finished with some shredded iceberg lettuce, sliced tomato, and oil and vinegar; a perfect summer lunch) three eggs sat neglected in their cardboard carton. Two eggs is obviously a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Four eggs is starting to look a lot like a pound cake. But three eggs? So I scoured my copy of Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts and found this recipe for Budapest Coffee Cake. Years ago I used to make all the time a smaller version of a sour cream coffee cake, following a recipe from one of the first cookbooks I ever owned, The Tassajara Bread Book. I'd forgotten how incredibly simple and satisfying these cakes are. My only modification is that I omitted the raisins. Next time though I think I will probably plump a generous cup in a lot of rum and fold them right into the batter. A soak overnight in a rum syrup also wouldn't hurt this cake I think, though honestly it is amazingly good as is.

Two Hours Later

Here is a first attempt at the Eastern Dragon from Genuine Origami. The details in the head and feet are a bit mushy, and also the final crimp folds. Plus I didn't get their placement right. The more advanced models really are finicky about the paper. The end of summer is in sight and I have a long long ways to go to really get these models crisp and clean.

Underwhelming

This is my second attempt at the reindeer from Lang and Weiss Origami Zoo. The book as a whole is underwhelming. So far the praying mantis is the only model I am eager to repeat. (The pegasus is also cool.) On this model the antlers are a mess, and it doesn't really look like a reindeer. It looks more like a unicorn that got hit by lightning. Or maybe a bull having an identity crisis. Lang is definitely the master of insects, but John Montroll's models of mammals I find are more whimsical and charming and balanced and economical to fold also for bit players like me. The moose I spotted outside my hotel in Florida last weekend stumbled out of the final pages of his book North American Animals in Origami.

Cicada, Take 3

Poolside

Military Trail and PGA Boulevard, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

I have no idea how this little fellow wandered so far from his native north woods habitat, but I spotted him looking a bit dusty and lost in Palm Beach Gardens this afternoon.

The Last Scoop.

 Here is the last scoop of the ice cream leftover from the malted vanilla sandwiches.

Origami Insects

Cicada

A few weeks ago I bought a used copy of Robert Lang's Origami Insects. I had no idea the trouble I was getting into. On my sofa in front of the air conditioner I attempted a treehopper with a sheet of purple kami paper. An hour later I was pondering a lumpy mess, so I tossed my first attempt aside and jumped ahead to the praying mantis. But I didn't get very far. I was totally mystified by a simple seeming series of folds to the front at the tip. Then I tried the cicada. Again totally stymied about half way through by a simple seeming symmetrical crimp fold. I didn't like to give up though, and my fortunes finally turned with the grasshopper. In a single afternoon I got a pair of respectable life-size creatures (see On the Banks of the Choptank River), and also the courage to go back to the cicada and the praying mantis and try again. Only this time I sought out some help. For each model I used a sturdier paper and googled the numbered step that had seemed an insurmountable obstacle. In both cases I found a quick and easy bit of extra instruction. Here are the results. Not the most refined origami insects. But getting closer at least.

Praying Mantis

Strange Happenings

Recently I've been suspecting strange happenings in my freezer when I am not looking. Every morning I wake to the eerie sense that I wasn't alone during the night, but when I check, everything looks exactly in place where I left it before getting into bed. When I question them the double-wrapped squares of puff pastry, the bags of walnuts, pecans, poppy seeds, blueberries, and everything bagel topping, the can of frozen lemonade concentrate, the tubs of egg whites and home made mango mole; they all look back at me blankly and shrug. "What?" they all say. "Eat your breakfast and stop thinking such paranoid thoughts." Despite their chilly aplomb, I haven't been able to shake the feeling that they are covering for someone or something. Yesterday afternoon I finally took action. I built a blind out of some ice cube trays and the butt ends from a loaf of brioche and I hid my camera inside, set to catch-in-focus mode. Whenever anything moves into the focal plane -- snap! I was astonished this morning when I checked my camera at the images recorded during the night. I am a light sleeper and even the smallest disturbance in the courtyard or hallway of my building tends to wake me, yet somehow just before dawn CDT a wild dachshund, a horse, and a whole herd of vanilla malted ice cream sandwiches migrated through my freezer without making a peep.

1000 Hours

Terminal A, Philadelphia International Airport