Misty, berry-colored memories of the way we were

One of my first paying gigs was picking blackberries for the Hammer family fruit stand in Stockton, Calif. It was located on a big patch of dirt at the intersection of Eight Mile Rd. and Interstate 5, with nothing but more dirt and farmland surrounding it, as far as the eye could see. Mrs. Hammer would pay me $5 per flat of blackberries, all through the summer, until late in the season when the berries would become too mushy and soft to be sellable. In eighth grade, the $15 or so that I brought home each week was a king's ransom.

Stockton is in the heart of California's Central Valley, and the rural part of Stockton I lived in, on the San Joaquin River Delta, is criss-crossed with tributaries and sloughs and inland shipping channels. These waterways create de facto borders around some of the most rich and abundant farmlands in America. Eons of flooding and ebbing waters have created a dense, black, magical peat dirt that's perfect for the area's cherry and nut orchards and corn and tomatoes. Asparagus grew wild near our home, and every spring we'd set out with cloth sacks and knives to hack it out of the ground, take it home, rinse it off, parboil and drown it with butter and lemon.

The banks of the San Joaquin, where my family lived for years on a houseboat, are thick with patches of blackberry vines. They hang down low over the water, thick, impenetrable walls of thorns that are best approached by boat. I would cruise the banks in a rusty, blue dinghy equipped with a small outboard engine, nudging the bow into the brambles and picking the fat, juicy berries and collecting many cuts and scrapes for my troubles. Later in the season, when the outermost berries on my route had all been picked, I'd have to resort to throwing plywood or sometimes a strip of carpet on top of the vines and carefully crawling ashore on my knees and elbows to get at any unpicked berries.

I never let my mom have enough of my hard-earned berries to make dessert, but occasionally she'd pick some on her own and make a cobbler or dump them on top of vanilla ice cream.

All these years later, the Hammer family farm stand is gone and in its place is something called Park West Place, one of those huge, ultra-modern outdoor malls with a Target, Sleep Train and Bed Bath & Beyond. I couldn't help but snap a pic the last time I drove through Stockton.

Surreal. Six lanes of traffic speeding by a mega-mall where once was a bumpy two-lane country road and a patch of dirt. But I hear tell that there is a farmer's market there every weekend. If only they knew!

Funny, but nowadays I hardly ever have blackberries. At the supermarket, they're often way too expensive for what you get, and God only knows how far away the nearest patch of wild blackberries is.

But this weekend, the little six-ounce clamshells of berries were on sale, two for five dollars. On a whim, I grabbed a couple of containers of blackberries, and a couple of containers of raspberries, which were also on sale.

When I got home, I decided I wanted to make bar cookies, and found a recipe for Blackberry Crumb Bars on marthastewart.com that had intrigued me months ago, when it had appeared in the magazine, but blackberries at the time were about three times more expensive, so I mentally filed it away for later in the summer.

Now, who wouldn't find this photo of Martha's Crumb Bars exceedingly adorable? They look like tiny, bite-sized bits of crispity-crunchity, shortbready, berry goodness — all stacked there on top of each other — crying out, "Eat me, eat me, pass me around and eat me!"

The reality is that they are much cakier and gooier than this photo would have us believe. Still incredibly tasty, and with personality plus... but more like a cobbler or a betty meant to be served in slices or wedges, and mmmmm maybe with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I made two batches, one with the blackberries and one with the raspberries, but really, any berry or summery fruit could stand in here and be just as delicious.

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Blackberry Crumb Bars
www.marthastewart.com
Makes 16 squares

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter melted, and 1/2 cup (1 stick), room temperature, plus more for pan
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pan
• 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 containers (5 ounces each) blackberries

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan. Line bottom with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two sides; butter and flour paper, tapping out excess.
   
2. Make topping: In a medium bowl, whisk together melted butter, brown sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt; add 1 cup flour, and mix with a fork until large moist crumbs form. Refrigerate topping until ready to use.
   
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together remaining 3/4 cup flour, baking powder, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt; set aside. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat room-temperature butter, confectioners' sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy; add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Reduce speed to low; mix in flour mixture. Spread batter evenly in pan; sprinkle with blackberries, then chilled topping.
   
4. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs attached, 40 to 45 minutes. Cool completely in pan. Using paper overhang, lift cake onto a work surface; cut into 16 squares.
   

While you prepare the cake, refrigerate the crumb topping. This will help give it a nubbly texture once baked. To store, keep in an airtight container at room temperature, up to 3 days.
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Butter the pans, then put in the parchment paper. Then butter and flour the paper. Make sure to leave enough of an overhang on either side. You'll be grabbing those to lift the entire crumble out of the pan after it cools.


Make the crumb topping. I fluffed it all together with a fork. Could also be done in a food processor. Pop it in the fridge after you get it mixed. That'll keep it crumbly instead of melty when you put the whole thing in the oven.


Two six-ounce containers of berries go into each batch. The little raspberries look like singing mouths to me. Also, I cannot possibly look at blackberries without seeing and feeling thorns, as well.


The crumb topping goes over the berries. 

Final verdict: Super easy and tastes like summer. Store the finished product in the fridge, to firm them up for cutting. I served these like bar cookies, but it's a crumble. Do yourself a favor, scoop a big spoonful into a bowl and serve with vanilla ice cream. I will definitely make this again.

I Spy ... Icebox Cuppycakes!

I've made these once before, with the recipe for homemade chocolate wafers from the Smitten Kitchen website. They came out yummy, but were labor-intensive for what you get.



Since then, I have found an outlet for the Nabisco wafers, seemingly the only store in Northern Nevada that carries them. The checker at the register asked me if I had called earlier in the day about them, and I told her no. Apparently, someone else is on the prowl for them and I'm lucky I got there before her, because she asked how many boxes were on the shelf, and if there were any more on order. Whew.



The only reason anyone would want such a plain-ass cookie is to make an icebox cake, or in my case, icebox cupcakes. So I have no quandaries whatsoever regarding buying a box or two of these rather than making a batch from scratch.

The next day was Sunday BBQ with the fam, so I got started on these the night before, because they have to sit overnight in the fridge to soften and soak up all the fat globules from the whipped cream.

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Icebox Cupcakes
(from smittenkitchen.com)

Makes about a dozen cupcakes, but this will vary depending on the height of your stacks. I used four apiece, and made a few five-piecers because I sometimes lost count.

Ingredients:

Nabisco Chocolate Wafers (I used about a box and a quarter)
1 cup whipping cream
1 to 2 spoons of powdered sugar (adjusted to your preferred sweetness)
A dash of your favorite flavoring or extract (I used about 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, but vanilla would work, would someday like to try it with peppermint)

Directions:

Whip cream with a spoonful or two of powdered sugar and a dash of a flavoring of your choice, until the whipped cream holds firm peaks. Spread about two teaspoons whipped cream between each cookie, to the edges, and stack them until you reach the height you’d like. You can spread whipped cream on top of the final cookie -- you will end up with a softer lid -- or you can leave the final cookie plain.

Set them in the fridge at least overnight or up to a day. The cookies will soften as they set, and become cake-like.
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Whip until you get those stiff peaks. I added a dash of almond extract just because I had some, but any flavoring will work.


I think it's easier and faster to use a pastry bag to pipe the whipped cream onto the cookie layers, rather than spooning it on.


I have almond crumbs left over after I strain my almond flour prior to making macarons. I stick them in the freezer for just such occasions. But fresh fruit would work, too. Or a maraschino cherry. Or chocolate chips. Or just about anything.

Final verdict: Ohmigod-easy and almost no time at all to make. The hardest part is probably just finding the chocolate wafers in the first place. But I must say, the homemade wafers are tasty, too, and if you have a couple hours to kill, by all means, give them a try.

Adventures in kumquats

It was love at first sight.

We stopped off at The Fruit Bowl fruit stand outside of Stockton, Calif. to buy a farmers market basket. Among the early-summer offerings, nestled beside the plums and nectarines and peaches and pluots (all of which my son is allergic to...) was a small display of something called "kumquats."

Of course I'd heard of kumquats before, but had never actually *seen* one. They're like tiny, cute little pygmy tangerines, maybe about the size of a large grape:



We walked away with a new farmers market basket full of kumquats.

But what to do with them? Certainly not eat them out of hand, as suggested by numerous internet sources. I tried one; just bit into it, skin and all, and it was much as you would expect a citrus fruit to taste like if you left the rind on.

I came across an intriguing recipe for cupcakes, but it called for minced, raw kumquats. I imagined that even the 20-22 minutes the batter would spend in a hot oven would not burn away the taste of raw kumquat, so I thought maybe the ubiquitous candied kumquat recipe that I kept stumbling upon would make a fine substitute.

Side note: So how much tinkering is required to make a recipe one's own? I made many adjustments to a kumquat-and-coconut cupcake recipe, maybe even enough to render it unrecognizable? Can I call it mine? Do I have to refer to my inspiration? No? Okay.

So here it is, possibly the most complicated cupcake recipe yet:

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Kelly's Kandied Kumquat and Kokonut Kupcakes
Makes approx. 30 cupcakes

1 cup shredded, sweetened coconut, toasted
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk, stirred well
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
4 large eggs, preferably at room temperature
2 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup candied kumquats
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon orange zest (about one orange)
1 tablespoon lemon zest (about one lemon)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins with muffin liners.

Toast the coconut: Place in a dry skillet over medium heat, and gently stir until aromatic and golden brown, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together.

Pour the coconut milk into a small saucepan, add the butter, and heat until the milk is hot and the butter is melted. Remove from the heat, but keep warm.

Working with a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, in a large bowl beat the eggs, sugar, candied kumquats, orange juice, lemon juice, orange zest, and lemon zest at medium-high speed until thick and almost doubled in volume, about 3 minutes. Beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer to low and add the dry ingredients.

Keeping the mixer on low, add 1 cup of toasted coconut, mixing until just blended, then slowly add the warm milk and butter. After thoroughly mixed, pour batter into muffin pans, filling each cup about 2/3 full.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until the cake is golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before unmolding onto the rack to cool to room temperature.

Frost with lemon buttercream frosting, sprinkle with toasted coconut, garnish with candied kumquat.

Lemon Buttercream Frosting:
2/3 cup butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
4 tablespoons lemon juice

In a bowl, beat butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating well. Beat in grated lemon peel and enough lemon juice until desired spreading consistency.

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Candy the kumquats! Just sugar, water and kumquats. Boil it all down. The resulting, chewy little gems are tasty and evocative of something from the Victorian era. (Mumsy! Mumsy! St. Niklaus left me a candied kumquat in my stocking! Wot wot, guv-nah?!??)



And pretty! After straining the kumquats out, the syrup left behind cools into a loose and runny jelly. Also quite tasty.



I added an extra layer of flavor by warming up some of the kumquat jelly and brushing it onto the tops of the still-hot cupcakes.



So not a terribly *hard* recipe. There are just a lot of little processes involved in making one cupcake: candying the kumquats, toasting the coconut, heating the coconut milk and butter, etc.




The verdict: labor-intensive. I would file this one under "Very Special Occasion Cupcake." I wound up making these for my mom's birthday Friday night, so I guess that qualifies. And I might also add, they taste very, very good. The essence of summer captcha'd in a cupcake.

I'm here, I'm here!!!

Back when I was in school, I was the dipstick who always waited until the last possible moment to do my term papers. I mail my bills the day they come due, crossing my fingers and naively believing that every institution has a "grace period." I fill my prescriptions the day after I run out. Well, are you getting the picture? I'm a procrastinator of the highest order. I've elevated it to an art form. I figure if I miss out on something because of my procrastination, it clearly wasn't worth having anyway.

So what does my late ass do? I go and join this online organization called TheDaringKitchen.com. Ordinary home cooks and bakers like you and me sign up and receive a monthly assignment to either bake (Daring Bakers) or cook (Daring Cooks) something. Everyone in their category is assigned the same thing at the same time. You bake or cook that month's assignment, you blog about it, take photos, etc., and share with the rest of the community.

Sounds like great fun!

Of course, my very first assignment -- baklava with homemade phyllo dough -- is already botched, because life got in the way a bit this month, what with a vacation, being sick, being lazy, whatever. I was supposed to finish it up by the last day of the month, and well, here I am. It's the first of the month and a new assignment will be posted very soon if it hasn't already.

Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

As a show of good faith and intentions, I did half the project tonight, the last night of the month, albeit the easy half... I made the dough, the filling and the syrup (pictured above). Tomorrow night I'll finish up, rolling out the endless layers of phyllo, baking it and soaking it in syrup.

July will be different, i swear on my Braun immersive blender that I will never be late again! Ummm... There **is** a grace period, isn't there?!?!

Last of the lemons

I wanted to use up the last of the lemons last weekend, so I made what basically amounted to a cupcake version of the lemon berry cake from Father's Day.




I hollowed out the cakes a bit, using the open end of a large pastry tip, piped in a bit of lemon curd, replaced my divots, and topped with a lemony cream cheese frosting and a raspberry.




At least one person was happy with the results.

When your mother-in-law gives you lemons...

When I dropped the kids off at their grandma's for their annual summer stay, she wouldn't let me leave without a big bag of lemons from their lemon tree. What to do?

Anything lemon-y is worth doing super-lemony. So with Father's Day coming up, I jumped at the chance to make a lemon berry cake in his honor. Yes, yes, I know. He's diabetic. But he keeps his numbers low and is allowed to indulge every once in a while. Namely, when I get a wild hare up my ass to bake a cake.

The 1-2-3-4 Lemon Cake over at marthastewart.com fit the bill. Easygoing, but not overly so, as there are a few processes involved: making lemon curd, making cake, whipping up whipped cream. And shaving chocolate (yay!)

It's called a 1-2-3-4 cake because of the old-school recipe that calls for one cup butter, two cups sugar, three cups flour and four eggs. I love this cake; it's rustic and toothsome, not all pillowy soft like a cake from a box. It'll stand up to any number of toppings you want to throw at it.



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1-2-3-4 Lemon Cake
www.marthastewart.com
Makes one 8-inch round layer cake

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Grated zest of 2 lemons
3 cups Lemon Curd (recipe below)
Sweetened Whipped Cream (recipe below)
12 ounces assorted fresh berries
Confectioners' sugar, for dusting

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Arrange two racks in center of oven. Butter two 8-by-2-inch round cake pans; line bottoms with parchment paper. Dust bottoms and sides of pans with flour; tap out any excess.

2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter on medium speed until softened, 1 to 2 minutes. Gradually add granulated sugar, beating on medium speed until lightened, 3 to 4 minutes; scrape down sides once or twice. Drizzle in eggs, a little at a time, beating after each addition until batter is no longer slick, about 5 minutes; stop once or twice to scrape down sides.

4. On low speed, alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk, a little of each at a time, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat in vanilla and lemon zest.

5. Divide batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake 25 minutes, then rotate the pans in the oven for even browning. Continue baking until a cake tester inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean, 10 to 20 minutes more. Transfer pans to wire racks to cool, 15 minutes. Turn out cakes; set on racks, tops up, until completely cool.

Lemon Curd
www.marthastewart.com
Makes 1 1/2 cups

NOTE: Make sure to double this recipe to make the three cups of curd that the cake recipe calls for!

3 large egg yolks, strained
Zest of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup lemon juice
6 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces

1. Combine yolks, lemon zest, lemon juice, and sugar in a small saucepan. Whisk to combine. Set over medium heat, and stir constantly with a wooden spoon, making sure to stir sides and bottom of pan. Cook until mixture is thick enough to coat back of wooden spoon, 5 to 7 minutes.

2. Remove saucepan from heat. Add butter, one piece at a time, stirring with the wooden spoon until consistency is smooth.

3. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd to avoid a skin from forming; wrap tightly. Let cool; refrigerate until firm and chilled, at least 1 hour.

Sweetened Whipped Cream
www.marthastewart.com
Makes 1 1/3 cups

2/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

1. Whip the heavy cream in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment on medium speed until soft peaks form, 2 to 4 minutes. Add the vanilla and confectioners' sugar; continue whipping on medium speed until the soft peaks return, 2 to 3 minutes. Use immediately.
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I'd had enough of using the wrong tool. I have the wrong kind of lemon zester, which is all well and good if you want only want long, thin, curly ribbons of zest, which is almost never. So for this project, I finally caved and bought the right kind of lemon zester.



"Cook until mixture is thick enough to coat back of wooden spoon." That phrase makes sense after you make curd just once. When it has cooked long enough, it gets to a point where it coats the back of the spoon, instead of ... not coating the back of the spoon.



ZOMG. Nectar of the gods, I tell you. Double the recipe. Triple it. Quadruple it. Just make sure you have enough to pour yourself a generous mug of it to sip on when no one's looking.



The recipe calls for 2"-inch deep round cake pans. The only 2"-inch deep cake pans I have are square. All my round ones are 1 inch deep.



So I skipped the dusting of confectioners sugar and opted instead for a mound of white chocolate shavings in the middle. Did I make the right call?

FINAL VERDICT: Lemon-y goodness is front and center in this one. A great way to put paid to a bushel of lemons foisted upon you by well-meaning in-laws. Would definitely make again. Thinking about a cupcake version, actually, cuz I still have a few lemons left. Stay tuned.

Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony, side by side on my piano keyboard, oh Lord why don't we?

Heh. No time for a proper post at the moment. Just wanted to post a quick photo, cuz they're so purty: Cocoa macaron shells with banana-chocolate filling and plain ol' shells with Nutella filling. Cocoa shells have some over-pronounced feet, but supposedly that's the result of over-mixing, so note to self -- step off a bit when folding and fluffing.

I packaged these up in small cream-colored boxes with chocolatey brown ribbon, tucked in Target gift cards, and gave to the kids' teachers today as thank-you gifts. That's Klassy with a kapital K, folks.

Lazy Sunday: "We love these cookies like McAdams loves Gosling"

Another not-so-lazy Sunday. Got an early start because Nana didn't take the kids to church this morning (Snowing too hard? What? The last weekend in May?!?). So it was lunch at Subway, a blustery, slushy ride on the V&T at the railroad museum, storm chasing down 395 that eventually led to a double-rainbow sighting (OHMIGOD! WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?!?!?) frozen yogurt (Mmmmmmmm) and that still got us home much too early. While I would've been more than happy to lay down and go to sleep at 4:30 p.m., the kids probably would've rebelled and burned something down.

So I broke out the S'more Cookie recipe. The key ingredients were hidden from kids and husband in a wadded up bag in the back of the pantry since Friday the 13th, when the recipe was Cookie of the Day over at Martha Stewart.

You can subscribe here, and Martha will send you a cookie recipe in your email every day of the year.



I love baking with the kids, but sometimes it can be trying. They are constantly working on sharing, and equal division of labor, to the point that if one kid gets to put in a teaspoon of baking powder, the other gets to put in a teaspoon of baking powder, or there will be hell to pay. If one gets to stir, the other has to stir for the exact length of time as the first. Argh. My kitchenette has become the last bastion of culinary communism.

But in-fighting aside, these cookies are super-easy to make. A couple of notes: I was about a quarter cup short of the brown sugar called for in the recipe. I made up the difference with turbinado sugar, which, while brownish in color, is nothing like regular brown sugar. The large crystals, though, added a deeee-lightful bit of crunch to the finished product. Also, the recipe calls for bittersweet or semisweet chocolate. I decided to go with Hershey bars, just to stay more in line with the S'mores ethos. And also because it was on sale last week at Raleys. But next time I make these, I will go with something more bittersweet, to stand up to the graham and marshmallow flavors. The milk chocolate flavor kind of got lost in this cookie.

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S'mores Cookies
marthastewart.com

Ingredients

1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)
1 cup whole-wheat flour (spooned and leveled)
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup light-brown sugar
1 large egg
8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, cut into 30 squares
15 large marshmallows, halved horizontally

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a food processor, pulse oats until finely ground. Add flours, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt; pulse to combine. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, scraping down side of bowl. With mixer on low, beat in flour mixture just until combined.

2. Drop dough by tablespoons, 1 inch apart, onto two baking sheets. Top each with a chocolate square. Bake just until lightly golden, 11 to 13 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Remove sheets from oven; heat broiler. Top each cookie with a marshmallow. One sheet at a time, broil until marshmallows are lightly browned, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool.
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So yeah, I've always had problems with directions like "Drop dough by tablespoons." So I measure and cut, lest I wind up with 12 different-sized cookies on the same sheet.


Rolling, rolling, rolling...


Press the chocolate squares into the uncooked dough. It won't dribble out and run all over the place. In fact, the melted chocolate looks exactly the same as it does before it melts. Weird.


Tasty S'more goodness.

FINAL VERDICT: Easy, quick, fun project for kids and adults with all the classic flavors of campfire s'mores.

Sorry, Mike. I couldn't wait...

My friend and co-worker Mike, who has previously sent me into a macaron frenzy, now had me obsessing about rainbow cookies, also known as seven-layer cookies. He recently went to New York with his fiancee for a week and brought back bagels, rainbow cookies and a cold.

I'd never had one before, but they reminded me of something colorful and gooey that you'd find in the pastry case in a panaderia back home in California. Mike said he would bring me a recipe from a New York bakery, but I couldn't wait, and got on the Googles this weekend and found this Seven Layer Cookies recipe from Gourmet magazine.

No exotic ingredients, save an eight-ounce can of almond paste, which gives the cookie its moist structure and nutty taste. I have not seen a can of almond paste since I moved to Nevada. I decided to make my own, after yet another Google search, and because I have a Costco-sized bag of almonds that I hide in my closet. If I left them in the pantry, my husband Rob would snack on them all day and night, putting paid to a five-pound bag of almonds in less than a week.

This almond paste recipe at the Food Network site seemed the most do-able, and a fraction of the cost of a tube or a can or any other container of almond paste from the store.

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Almond Paste
www.foodnetwork.com

I cup plus 3 tablespoons (250 grams) sugar
1/4 cup (75 grams) honey
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons (100 grams) water
3 cups plus 3 tablespoons (500 grams) blanched, whole, almonds
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon (50 grams) Kirsch or simple syrup, optional
Scant 1/4 cup (50 grams) butter

Place the sugar, honey and water in a saucepan and bring to a strong boil. Place the almonds in the food processor and grind until coarse. Remove the boiling sugar from the heat and pour over the coarse almonds. Blend until smooth. This may take 10 minutes or more, depending on the strength of the food processor. Remember, food processors are not usually strong enough to yield the same consistency as the almond paste that you can buy. If your mixture is too thick and the food processor is straining, you can add a little Kirsch or simple syrup to the processor. Add the liquid slowly and stop when the processor is moving more freely. The quality of almond paste is determined by how smooth the consistency is.

Wrap the almond paste in plastic wrap and allow it to cool. When you are ready to use it, knead in the butter. The butter makes it smooth and not so sticky.
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Also, did not have Kirsch or simple syrup, and I'll be damned if I'm going to whip up a batch of simple syrup in addition to "whipping up a batch" of almond paste. So instead I thinned out the almond mixture using the bottom of a bottle of white creme de cacao, a chocolate bean-flavored liqueur. Still the mixture was too thick and my food processor overheated and stalled on me. Thankfully it got going again after chillin' out for a few minutes, but at that point I was out of creme de cacao. So I rummaged in my pantry for something else, and the most simple syrup-like liquid I could come up with was a Torani pumpkin spice syrup, that I wound up using just a smidge less than a quarter cup.

I don't know what an eight-ounce can of almond paste tastes like, but it can't be anywhere near as tasty as this concoction turned out to be. The above recipe yields way more than is needed for the cookie recipe, and I'll be saving the leftovers for future projects.

With that out of the way, I could start with the main recipe:

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Seven Layer Cookies
www.gourmet.com

4 large eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
1 (8-oz) can almond paste
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
25 drops red food coloring
25 drops green food coloring
1 (12-oz) jar apricot preserves, heated and strained
7 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped

* Special equipment: a heavy-duty stand mixer; a small offset spatula

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 13- by 9-inch baking pan and line bottom with wax paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on 2 ends, then butter paper.

Beat whites in mixer fitted with whisk attachment at medium-high speed until they just hold stiff peaks. Add 1/4 cup sugar a little at a time, beating at high speed until whites hold stiff, slightly glossy peaks. Transfer to another bowl.

Switch to paddle attachment, then beat together almond paste and remaining 3/4 cup sugar until well blended, about 3 minutes. Add butter and beat until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add yolks and almond extract and beat until combined well, about 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low, then add flour and salt and mix until just combined.

Fold half of egg white mixture into almond mixture to lighten, then fold in remaining whites gently but thoroughly.

Divide batter among 3 bowls. Stir red food coloring into one and green food coloring into another, leaving the third batch plain. Set white batter aside. Chill green batter, covered. Pour red batter into prepared pan and spread evenly with offset spatula (layer will be about 1/4 inch thick).

Bake red layer 8 to 10 minutes, until just set. (It is important to undercook.)

Using paper overhang, transfer layer to a rack to cool, about 15 minutes. Clean pan, then line with wax paper and butter paper in same manner as above. Bake white layer in prepared pan until just set. As white layer bakes, bring green batter to room temperature. Transfer white layer to a rack. Prepare pan as above, then bake green layer in same manner as before. Transfer to a rack to cool.

When all layers are cool, invert green onto a wax-paper-lined large baking sheet. Discard paper from layer and spread with half of preserves. Invert white on top of green layer, discarding paper. Spread with remaining preserves. Invert red layer on top of white layer and discard wax paper.

Cover with plastic wrap and weight with a large baking pan. Chill at least 8 hours.

Remove weight and plastic wrap. Bring layers to room temperature. Melt chocolate in a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat. Keep chocolate over water.

Trim edges of assembled layers with a long serrated knife. Quickly spread half of chocolate in a thin layer on top of cake. Chill, uncovered, until chocolate is firm, about 15 minutes. Cover with another sheet of wax paper and place another baking sheet on top, then invert cake onto sheet and remove paper. Quickly spread with remaining chocolate. Chill until firm, about 30 minutes.

Cut lengthwise into 4 strips. Cut strips crosswise into 3/4-inch-wide cookies.
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Finally an opportunity to use my new offset spatula! I never knew the joy of properly spreading things around until this moment. Never again will I use a butter knife to do an offset spatula's job.


Perfectly stiff, slightly glossy peaks make me squee with joy.


I used a measuring cup to make sure the dough is perfectly divided into three portions. I'm not very good at eyeballing that kind of thing.


The recipe calls for 25 drops of food coloring for each of the colored layers. I might go 3 or 4 more next time for a wee bit richer color. But still very pretty.


Another variation on the above recipe: I used apple jelly instead of apricot preserves, because my son Jakob is allergic to any fruit with with a pit (apricots, peaches, cherries, plums, etc). He's inconveniently weird that way.


After an overnight stint in the fridge, the layers had coalesced nicely.


There are some very helpful notes at smittenkitchen.com regarding her Seven Layer Cookies, most notably about freezing the uncut cookies before attempting to cut. I cut a few here, pre-frozen, to see if they tasted okay (they do!) and the rest is chilling in the freezer for cutting tomorrow.

FINAL VERDICT: This candy-like cookie is easier to make than they appear. The baking portion is minimal, the work likes in the construction. It's a fun and pretty one to add to your cookie repertoire. I look forward to trying out Mike's straight-from-the-bakery recipe.

'BOUCHE!!! There it is! 'BOUCHE!!! There it is!

One of the projects we made in 8th grade home ec class was cream puffs. The only other project I remember making in the cooking portion of our home ec class was apple pie. The apple pie I still make -- using a recipe pretty darned close to that first 8th-grade recipe, but the cream puffs... not so much.

The sewing portion of home ec is a whole 'nother story, involving a blouse that fell apart the first time I wore it and a little embroidered bird that fared a bit better, and the beginnings of an aversion to sewing altogether. Luckily for me, years later I would discover the joy (and frugality) of making my own fancy pillows and window treatments and shower curtains, and were it not for the demise of my sewing machine a few years ago, this might have been a blog about creating funky home fashions on a budget.

Back to the cream puffs. I didn't care for them. I still don't. I'm not a big fan of pate a choux dough-based pastries, which includes cream puffs, eclairs, crullers.

But my recent research and forays into spun sugar-land also brought up lots of info on croquembouche: cream puffs dipped in a caramel glaze, arranged into a tall, skinny pyramid and wrapped in an ethereal cloud of spun sugar. The challenge stuck in my craw, despite my dislike of cream puffs. I mean... dipped in caramel? Anything tastes better dipped in caramel.

Easter dinner at the folks' was coming up, and I volunteered to make dessert, so I wanted to make something more original than carrot cake (which I do love, btw). I know croquembouches are more associated with Christmas than any other holiday, but what the hell, right?

My favorite cookbook in all the world is Sherry Yard's "Secrets of Baking":



The awe-inspiring recipes herein and the helpful and vast know-how that Yard imparts will one day spawn my year-long "Julia and Julia"-type adventure, where I bake every single recipe in the book, in order, much to my family's chagrin.

Yard's croquembouche recipe breaks down the project into three smaller, more manageable projects, each of which I tackled on three different days. First up, the pate a choux:

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Pate a Choux 
(from "The Secrets of Baking" by Sherry Yard)

1 cup bread flour
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup whole milk
6 tbsp butter
4-5 large eggs

For the egg wash:
1 egg plus 1 yolk

Sift together the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.

Bring the water, milk, and butter to a boil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Once it boils, remove the pan from the heat and add the flour mixture all at once.  Using a wooden spoon, stir vigorously to combine.

Return the mixture to medium heat and stir constantly in figure eights. Cook for at least 4 minutes, or until the mixture has a smooth, mashed-potato-like appearance. This helps to break down the starch and develop the gluten. Remove from heat.

Transfer the hot mixture to the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or use a hand mixer. Mix on low for 1 to 2 minutes. Add 4 eggs, one at a time. Be sure to let the batter absorb each egg and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula before adding the next. Before adding the last egg, test for consistency. Pinch off about 1 tsp of the dough with your thumb and index finger, then pull your fingers apart.  The dough should stretch rather than break. If it breaks, add the last egg.  Mix on low speed until thoroughly incorporated, about 2 minutes.  Do the finger test for consistency again. The dough should be shiny and smooth.

For cream puffs: Fit a large plain tip into a large piping bag. Make a big cuff at the top of the bag and fill the bag halfway with choux paste. Uncuff and twist the top of the bag to push the contents toward the tip. Pipe mounds 1 1/2 inches in diameter and 1 inch high.  

Preheat the oven to 425 F. Adjust the rack to the center of the oven and place a heatproof baking dish or pan on the floor of the oven.

Line a baking sheet with a Silpat.

Make the egg wash by whisking the egg and yolk in a small bowl. Brush lightly but evenly over the piped dough.

Place the baking sheet in the oven and pour hot water into the baking dish on the oven floor. Quickly close the door to keep all the steam in the oven. Bake for 10 minutes, or until the puffs begin to rise, then turn the heat down to 350 F and rotate the baking sheet. Prop the oven door open slightly with a wooden spoon and bake for about 15 more minutes, until the pastries turn nutty brown.

Remove from the oven and cool completely on a rack.
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So I did this all the first night, two days before Easter, and packed them carefully in freezer bags and set them in the freezer. Easy and pretty, and the one puff that offered itself up for a taste test reminded me that yes, indeed, pate a choux is not my favorite. Still that bland, slightly leathery vehicle for gooey pastry cream delivery.







Next up: pastry cream. This part wasn't quite as easy or as pretty as the puffs. For one, Yard's book, as excellent as it is, contains a grievous error at a critical point, and B) I not only stumbled at that critical point, but also at enough critical points along the way that I wound up with the dreaded "grainy pastry cream."

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Chocolate Pastry Cream
(from "The Secrets of Baking" by Sherry Yard)
yield: 2 to 2 1/4 cups

2 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 t finely chopped orange zest (I forewent the zest for this variation)
2 t vanilla extract
3 T all-purpose flour or cornstarch
pinch of salt
5 large egg yolks or 3 large eggs, chilled
1 T unsalted butter, softened
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate

If you will need to cool this quickly, line a baking sheet with plastic film and set aside.

Bring the milk, 1/4 cup sugar, and vanilla to a simmer in a medium nonreactive saucepan over medium heat

Meanwhile, sift together the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, the flour or cornstarch, and salt onto a piece orf parchment paper. Whisk the egg yolks or eggs in a large bowl. Add the sifted dry ingredients and whisk until fluffy.

When the milk comes to a simmer, remove from the heat and ladle out 1/2 cup of the hot milk mixture. Drizzle it slowly into the eggs while whisking. Once the 1/2 cup milk is incorporated into the eggs, pour the mixture back into the hot milk, whisking constantly. Be sure to scrape all the eggs into the pan with a rubber spatula.

Immediately begin to rapidly whisk the pastry cream. In less than 1 minute, it will boil and begin to thicken. Continue to whisk for about 3 minutes, or until it has the consistency of pudding. To test the cream for doneness, tilt the saucepan to one side. The cream should pull away from the pan completely. Rinse and dry the large bowl.

Strain the pastry cream through a fine-mesh strainer back into the bowl. Add the butter and chocolate and stir until it is metled and incorporated. If the cream seems grainy, pulse it in a food processor until smooth. The cream is now ready to use, or it can be cooled to room temperature and refrigerated for up to 3 days. To cool the pastry cream quickly, spread it out on a baking sheet lined with plastic film. To prevent a skin from forming as it cools, place a sheet of plastic film directly on the surface.
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In the next-to-last graf, and the graf before that, the recipe instructs you to remove the pan from the heat. In no way, shape or form does it tell you to at any point return the pan to the heat. So I'm standing there whisking like a madwoman while my cream gets cooler and cooler and not thicker and thicker. It finally twigs that I should try maybe returning the pan to the burner, and that further cooking is required.

So yes, I'm hoping that it's Chef Sherry's fault that I am a lousy pastry cream maker. It was grainy, and while the taste was ... okay... it would've tasted better if it was actually creamy and grain-free. Any number of instant Jell-O puddings would've tasted better than what I ended up with. Anyway, I covered it with plastic wrap and popped it in the fridge.

The next day was Easter Sunday. After the egg hunt at my parents' house, and while my mom finished making our late lunch/early dinner, I ran home and finished up the dessert.

First I got the puffs out of the freezer and started defrosting those, while I filled a pastry bag with the pastry cream. With a sharp knife, I made a small X in the bottom of the puffs, then impregnated it with chocolate goo:



I ran out of pastry cream before I ran out of puffs, so note to self: plan on a smaller 'bouche next time, or make more pastry cream. This batch was enough to fill about 25 puffs.

I heated up a batch of Yard's master caramel recipe, and started dipping. The resulting sticky puffs were unwieldy and almost impossible to wrangle into a tree shape. Next time I will fashion some kind of cone for a base to help shape it up. As it was, I wound up with basically a pile of puffs on a plate.



Still kinda pretty, but not a classic croquembouche.

I ran into the same problem with the spun sugar that I did when I made the spun sugar tumbleweeds for my dad's cupcakes.

I was supposed to use the last of the dipping caramel to shake out a froth of spun sugar atop my 'bouche. But since I had to stop and reheat it a couple of times while I dipped the puffs in it, it managed to further cook to a more brittle consistency. So if there is a next time, I will probably make two separate batches of caramel, the second batch made especially for spun sugar.



So while the spun sugar clumped and dripped a bit, I still managed to get some on the 'bouche. Of course the first thing my son says when I unveil it back over at my mom's house is, "Looks like it's covered in dog hair!"

Lovely.



But everyone seemed to like it, although no one really seemed to know what to think of it, having never, ever seen one or heard of one previously.

VERDICT:

1) A lot of work, but manageable when broken down into several tasks performed over two or three days.

2) Find a better, more fool-proof pastry cream recipe, and then make more of it than the croquembouche recipe calls for.

3) I can't trust my construction skills on this one. Especially when there is hot caramel involved. So I might have to use a form of some kind to make my 'bouche a bit more tree-like

3) More practice with spun sugar.