In my freezer were 3 containers of peaches from last summer, that I’d frozen. What’s better at this time of year than a fruit cobbler, but made with those luscious slices of fruit that were just so very ripe last July? I’d bought them at Costco, let them finish ripening, then froze them in batches.

The containers of peaches sat front and center in my kitchen freezer, and I looked at them almost every time I opened the darned thing. I’d invited Bud & Cherrie over for dinner (they’re doing a kitchen remodel and are so happy when somebody invites them over so Cherrie doesn’t have to try to cook something in their currently overcrowded outdoor barbecue area and small sink). And son-in-law Todd and granddaughter Taylor were still here too. I had tons of the Pork Shoulder Ragu to serve. Cherrie made a caprese salad when she got here, and I whipped up dessert. Neighbors had dropped off a basket of ready-made appetizers for me (crackers and cheese already combined in a sealed up thingie, some olives and salami too. Perfect. Easy.

In looking on the ‘net for something new and different in the way of a cobbler or crisp or galette or something, I ran across several recipes calling themselves Texas-style. I’d not heard of it, but soon learned that it means there’s more cake part than usual. And it means you pour in the batter first, then pile the peaches on top, but during the baking process the cake/pudding part rises up and nearly covers all the fruit. The fruit is completely encased in the cake part – no layers at all. Sounded good to me, and this particular one sounded especially good because it had a sugar and lemon zest topping sprinkled on the top just before baking. That meant that each serving had a bit of this lovely sugary crust thing, nicely browned in places. Yummy. The recipe came from Cook’s Country, though I got it from a website called scarletbakes.com.

The batter is rich – the whole dish requires 3 cubes of butter, but it does serve a bunch – at least 10 people if you don’t serve Texas sized portions. Just normal servings, and loaded on top with whipped cream, thank you! In Texas sometimes this is served with both vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. That’s seemed a bit much in my book. I prefer the whipped cream. Preferably you serve this warm, but a couple of nights later I took it to our son’s house for dinner and a couple of people preferred it cold. I think I like warm better, but room temp obviously would work too. Sorry you can’t really see the top of it – when someone put whipped cream on it, it kind of covered all the crunchy sugary lemon zesty topping.

What’s GOOD: loved the crunchy, sugary topping – a couple of people mentioned they liked that part best. The ratio of cake or shortcake or whatever you call that part was good, to the amount of fruit – I liked it, but then we served it with ample whipped cream to make it plenty moist anyway. It does have more cake/batter than most such cobblers. This is more like a cake with peaches in it than peaches with a topping. It has far more cake than that! Good, though. I’d definitely make it again. I used a slightly smaller oval dish – the recipe called for a 9×13 and I should have used that – because the cake part completely came up and covered the fruit. In a few photos I saw online you could see fruit poking up through the top. But hey, the taste is what’s it’s about anyway. If we’d had this left over the next day I think I might have had some for breakfast, but alas, we ate it up at the 2nd dinner, which was fine.

What’s NOT: absolutely nothing at all. Just be sure to use a 9×13, not something larger or smaller, either one. Exactly 9×13.

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If you’d told me any time in the past that I’d be raving about a gelato made with olive oil, I’d have thought you were crazy. Olive oil and gelato or ice cream just don’t seem to have any affinity for one another. But I was wrong. Dead wrong! This gelato is smooth and heavenly. And I’d have wondered about the prudency of using very expensive olive oil also. Trust me here . . .

Likely I wouldn’t have even made this gelato having seen the recipe – just because I thought it didn’t sound all that appealing. But, because Nancy Silverton devised the recipe for Dario’s Olive Oil Cake that you read about a couple of weeks ago (that I’ve now made twice and I’m very carefully hoarding the few pieces that are left), she offered up the recipe for this gelato that she serves with the cake in one or more of her restaurants. That was a good enough endorsement for me to serve it. The recipe appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

We were going to a dinner party. We have this 4-couple gourmet group that meets every few months, and Peggy & Gary decided to do something way different – we had a vegetarian meal. And oh, was it ever fabulous. Their coffee/espresso bar and café near downtown Orange, called Mead’s Green Door Café, is on the corner of Chapman and Parker, in case any of you are local readers. It’s the cutest little place – kind of eclectic and homey. They close early on Sundays, so Peggy & Gary hosted our group at the café at 5:00 pm. They’d set up a lovely long table and a kind of a serving/buffet table along another space. Bottles of wine were set out, glasses poured, an appetizer enjoyed, a short tour ensued for those who hadn’t been to the café before, including Peggy’s baking realm in the back. Three of the 4 women are bakers, and we all swooned a little over the TWO Hobarts (Hobart makes an industrial kitchen sized mixer) in the back kitchen, and the 8-foot  x 4 foot long work tables in the center.

I’m going to share some of the recipes from the dinner – including 2 fantastic salads that I can’t wait to make myself (from Sunset Magazine) and Peggy will, she said, share the lentil loaf with balsamic barbecue sauce that was so good, I can’t wait to try also. But today I’m telling you about the olive oil gelato.

The ingredients aren’t all that different – EXCEPT for the olive oil. And how it’s added is also very different. First you make the 6 egg yolk custard with milk, sugar, cornstarch, sugar and some powdered milk. Oh, and a bit of corn syrup and salt. It’s put through a sieve and chilled thoroughly (at least a few hours, but overnight worked for me). Then just before you pour this into the ice cream maker, you slowly pour in and mix gently the cup of heavy cream and the 3/4 cup of very good quality extra virgin olive oil. FYI: I used Trader Joe’s new Reserve EVOO. It mixed in beautifully – no streaks or separation. I poured it into the machine and it became gelato in about 40 minutes. I scooped it all into a freezer container and allowed it to completely freeze overnight.

What’s GOOD: Oh my, yes, this stuff is fabulous. I just can’t quite describe the texture – ever-so smooth and unctuous, is about all I can say. There was no vanilla in it. No flavorings of any kind. So it’s the olive oil that shines through, I guess, but it’s not like you can taste the olive oil. You can’t, really. It has a lovely yellow color with just a tinge of green from the EVOO. But not really green. Don’t for a second think this gelato/ice cream comes out green. It’s just that colors are made up of parts of lots of colors, so you can have yellow with a tinge of green. If I’d put the gelato in a green cup you might have been able to see more of the green. I’ll definitely be making this one again!
What’s NOT: I can’t think of anything we didn’t like about it – everyone raved about it when they tasted it. It did need to sit out on the counter for awhile to be soft enough to scoop, but once we did, it scooped nicely (which isn’t always the case with home made ice cream).

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So far this year I haven’t urged you, fervently, to cook or bake anything I’ve written up. This recipe is my first fervent call! Oh my goodness, this cake is so darned good. No wonder it was featured in the 2013 L.A. Times top recipe round-up. Read on . . .

The Los Angeles Times may be the only daily newspaper that still has a working test kitchen. As an institution, newspaper test kitchens have kind of slid into oblivion with the cost-cutting going on at nearly every major daily in the country. It’s so sad. I used to look forward to reading the big – really big – food section back a couple of decades ago. The Times still has a food section, but oh, it’s so small. I do read it online occasionally. Most newspapers rely on a bevy of written offerings from a variety of free lance food writers who prepare short stories and provide pictures. So the food editors need only pick and choose, within budget, to include this article, that article, decide which one to “feature,” which ones to discard.

Our more local newspaper, the Orange County Register, doesn’t have a test kitchen. The kitchen shown in occasional articles is the Food Editor’s home kitchen, with photos taken usually by one of the staff photographers. And my guess is that her budget doesn’t allow that very often.

But fortunately, the L.A. Times still tests recipes, still writes articles and has a small coterie of writers who write only for that paper. Like Russ Parsons. Who is likely reaching retirement age. I’ll be sad not to read his short stories when that happens. One of the food writing events at the Times is the annual best-recipe contest. The food section staff cook and bake the “best” recipes from the previous year and narrow them down and down and down. And the results are published in late January to great fanfare.

Anyway, back to this cake. The origin of it is Dario Cecchini’s butcher shop and restaurant deep in the heart of Tuscany – in Panzano in Chianti. It’s a cake his trusty baker Simonetta has been preparing daily for decades. Many people have written about it and there are a few recipes “out there” of a similar style. But this one – oh yes. This one that Nancy Silverton (of La Brea Bakery fame, and now Mozza restaurant) has revised and made possible for a home kitchen. Her recipe makes 2, so I tuned it down, dialed it back and made it for just ONE cake. Although – I’m telling you – maybe you should make TWO and freeze the other one. You’ll be glad . . . . .

Having made it and eaten it, I’ll just say there are very distinct things that are different about this cake: (1) naturally, that it’s made with olive oil as the fat, and GOOD extra virgin olive oil, at that; (2) that it contains 1 1/2 whole oranges, chopped up, peel, pith and all; and (3) the topping is different – sugar, pine nuts and fresh rosemary. And certainly this is a dessert cake, but somehow the pine nuts and fresh rosemary give it a savory tone. And it’s divine.

Raisins are in this cake – and you soak them in Vin Santo, if you have it. That’s an Italian dessert wine, and can vary a lot in sweetness from one winery to another. It’s a common little treat given to nearly everyone after dinner in restaurants in Italy. Well, I didn’t have any, so I scanned my liquor closet and finally settled on a very old bottle of tawny Port. It had faded to a light sherry color and had all kinds of lees in the bottle. I poured it through a sieve and had enough to soak the raisins for awhile. The raisins I have on hand right now are really large – jumbo size and from several varieties of grape, so they’re different colors – in the picture at top you can see one or two that had settled to the bottom of the batter. In the photo at top you can see the orange pith – but you absolutely don’t know you’re eating pith – it comes through clean and sweet.

The oranges are Navels, and I cut off the ends, cut them in half, then sliced into half-rounds and chopped to get a very nice mound of chopped orange stuff. I did that ahead. There at right was the plate full of oranges. It’s not necessary to do this in the food processor, although you can if you’d prefer. Just don’t pulverize them – it’s nice to bite into a little chunk of orange now and then in the finished cake.

The recipe calls for pastry flour. Since I didn’t have that on hand, I went online to read about it – all it means is flour that has lower protein, but not as low as cake flour, which is 7-8%. So, I mixed half all-purpose (10-12%) and half cake flour, to reach an approximate 9% protein, which is the level for pastry flour.

Mixing up the cake wasn’t difficult – eggs, the leavening and sugar were combined for several minutes in the stand mixer, then very slowly you pour the extra virgin olive oil down the side of the bowl and into the batter. If you go too fast it spatters anyway, and it might separate. Slow-slow. Then you add the soaked raisins and the flour mixture in 3 separate batches. Once that’s mixed, you turn off the mixer and use a spatula to fold in the oranges.

At this point you do something else a bit different – you let the batter rest for 10 minutes. Why, I don’t know. The only thing I can think of is that the batter is fairly thick, and in order to get the fruit (oranges and raisins) to not sink to the bottom of the tube pan (which they might do anyway) if they’re allowed to sink in the mixing bowl first, then when you pour it into the tube pan they’ll be at the top and perhaps not sink to the bottom before the lifting/leavening keeps them suspended. At any rate, the batter is poured into a buttered and floured tube pan.  You probably could use a springform pan, but the recipe indicates a tube pan – since the cake is dense (but not really heavy) it will cook more evenly in a tube pan. A Bundt pan will not work because those pans assume you’ll turn the cake upside down, and the top here IS the top in the finished cake. The cake top is sprinkled with granulated sugar (a really nice touch and you do taste it’s crunch in the finished cake), then toasted pine nuts and lastly you sprinkle on minced fresh rosemary, which sticks in the little crevices.

The baking was simple enough – but requires you to visit the oven every 10 minutes. It’s baked for 10 minutes at 400°, then you turn it down to 325° and bake another 10. Turn the pan around, and another 10, and another 10, until it’s baked a total of about 40 minutes. I should have measured the internal temp, but didn’t. The cake is cooled in the pan, then you’ll want to run a knife around the inner tube, and a spatula slid around the bottom to make sure the cake releases completely. Then you very, ever-so carefully turn the cake out onto your outstretched hand and forearm and carefully place it on a platter or cake plate. You will lose some of the pine nuts and sugar. The cook gets to eat those flying pine nuts (I only had about 10-15 of them fly off). My cake did have a few indentations – I suspect it’s from the amount of fruit. It did not detract one iota from the flavor. You’ll not care a bit.

At Mozza, Nancy Silverton makes this and serves it with olive oil gelato she’s developed. I’ll be trying that. It’ll be posted here if it’s good. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, I’m going to go cut myself another sliver of this outstanding cake.

What’s GOOD: oh gosh. Every single, solitary thing about this cake is exceptional. The taste – the oranges, the texture of the cake, which is light, surprisingly, the rosemary I loved, the pine nuts, and the sprinkling of sugar on the top that becomes slightly crunchy. Divine. Next time I am going to make sure I use small raisins – or I’ll chop the raisins – they were heavy so I think they did sink.
What’s NOT: nothing except you do need to have fresh oranges, and if you can find Vin Santo, fine. Otherwise use white port or a light port. Don’t use sherry – it would come through in the flavor. Do use really good olive oil too – this isn’t exactly a cheapo cake!

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Why is it called Fifty-Year Apple Cake, you wonder? Because it’s a very old-old apple recipe. Not, as I thought, that it has something to do with heirloom apples. And the photo above doesn’t exactly show you that this cake is mostly apples, cloaked in a small amount of batter that merely binds the apples together. Well, there’s the crumb topping added on top, too. But still, it’s mostly apples.

When we were having a big group at our house one recent evening, I wanted a delicious mid-winter kind of dessert. We are in a Bible study group that’s ongoing, reading the whole Bible in a year (our whole church), but synopsized in a book called The Story, NIV: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People. We get into the most interesting discussions in this group. There are 12 of us if everyone makes it, and we’ve been meeting weekly since late September with a break for Christmas. We enjoy each other. We’re all members of our church, but some of us didn’t know one another. It’s been a very pleasant bonding experience. And I’ve enjoyed having an excuse to bake since I don’t want lots of left overs hanging around for me to snack on.

Anyway, we’ve been hosting it at our house up until now and I’ve served dessert each time. A couple of times someone else helped out. Last week I scanned through my to-try recipes and decided on this one. I will tell you that I erred in the making of this recipe, but it actually didn’t make any difference. It was only now, days later as I’m writing this – and beginning this post that I went online and tried to learn more about the original recipe. That’s when I learned who Emily Luchetti is (a pastry chef in San Francisco). That’s when I realized that the recipe I had put into my MasterCook file was Cheryl Sternman Rule’s riff on the cake. If I’d gone back to her blog post and read it again before I started, I’d have realized it, but I was in a hurry and didn’t. Anyway, I got a little confused about the crumb topping. In actuality, the original recipe didn’t HAVE a crumb topping. That was Cheryl’s addition, among other things. She also took out the walnuts and raisins, switched out some brown sugar for white, and added a whole lot more apples. All of those things are good, and it made for a delicious cake nevertheless. One I’d make again, no question! But I’d be wary of the mistake I made – adding some of the topping to the dry ingredients, which didn’t have any negative effects; it just isn’t necessary, that’s all.

At left is a photo of the apple/cake batter before it’s spread out in the pan.

What I did find online is a video of Emily Luchetti making the original of this cake – if you’re interested  – you do have to sign up (free, but you know at some point they’re going to start charging for viewing the videos). The video of Emily will start playing, then it will stop and you have to sign up in order to see the rest of it. If they begin bugging me via email, I’ll just unsubscribe. I don’t know about you, but I get about 30 or more advertising emails a day – all websites I’ve signed up for for some reason and they send me something every day or two, 365 days a year. Some I like to get, but they send things way too often. Annoying.

Emily’s cake didn’t have any brown sugar in it, and half as much apples, so it was a bit more cakey, I’d say, than the recipe you’ll find below. I kind of liked this version, though it’s not true to the original. You’ll find many recipes for a Fifty-Year Apple Cake online (from some heirloom cookbooks, for instance). Even Emily says it’s probably more like 75 or 100 years old since it’s been around so long. She suggests you use a juicy apple (not a Pippin or Granny Smith, which she reserves only for pies). Cheryl used Fuji because it’s what she had. You can also use Gala or Braeburn or Pink Lady. Cheryl didn’t peel the apples at all, just cored and chopped. I mostly peeled mine. The addition (or substitution) of brown sugar gives the cake a much more caramely flavor. One that I liked.

At left is the batter all spread out in the pan. In making it, the apples are chopped and you make the cake batter using vegetable oil as the fat in it, add the topping and bake it in a 9×13 parchment lined baking pan. Once cooled, you cut it into squares and serve with powdered sugar, crème fraiche (Emily’s recommendation because she thinks the cake needs something a little tart on it rather than something sweet), sweetened whipped cream or ice cream.

There below right you can see the cake with the topping on it – ready to bake.

What’s GOOD: a great showcase for good, juicy apples. The cake is dark from the brown sugar and cinnamon (the only spice). It’s a moist and tender cake, worth making. The crumb topping gives it some crunch. Really delicious in every way. Yes, I’d definitely make it again.

What’s NOT: can’t think of anything I didn’t like.

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For a few days I considered not posting this recipe, just cuz this brownie dessert is super-sweet and cuz marshmallows aren’t one of my favorite things. But some people really like sweet-sweet desserts (or brownies) and some people (children?) think marshmallows are the cat’s meow.

The first disclaimer here: I didn’t make these myself. It was from a Phillis Carey cooking class, and that picture above was my serving at the class. But what got me to thinking about them was the little square I took home (of this). I waited 2 days, and had it with a mid-afternoon cup of coffee, so the over-the-top sweet wasn’t quite so over-the-top. With that, I decided I’d post it anyway, but with just one tweak (a little less sugar).

First you need to line the 9×13 pan with foil – including long flaps on at least 2 sides so you can lift these out of the pan after baking. Then you line up inside the pan the graham crackers, slightly overlapping them. A few are kept aside for crumbling on top. Then you melt the chocolate and butter together, add sugar and egg, then vanilla and flour. That mixture is poured over the prepped graham crackers and baked – actually it’s slightly under-baked because you bake these a 2nd time with the topping.

On top of the hot brownies you sprinkle chocolate chips and marshmallows and bake again for 3-5 minutes. If you have a kitchen torch, you can also lightly brown the marshmallows. Then while that’s hot, you press the remaining graham cracker chunks on the top of the sticky, melting marshmallows. You cool these, remove from the pan and cut into servings. The recipe indicates it’ll serve 15. I think it would easily serve 18 – because – as I said – these suckers are sweet.

What’s GOOD: the chocolaty flavor, for sure – I think my favorite part was the brownies themselves. If you’re a fan of marshmallows, well, you’ll love these. If you like graham crackers, and the whole s’mores thing, you’ll be in nirvana. I’d think children would be enchanted with this recipe. Throw a few M&Ms on top of the sticky marshmallows and they might be in heaven. I wouldn’t do that, but that’s cuz I don’t love overly sweet desserts.

What’s NOT: nothing at all, unless you’re averse to marshmallows or grahams.

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Every year at Christmas time, my cousin from Northern California flies south to visit us. It’s been a tradition for many, many years. Only hitch for me – in the kitchen – is that he’s allergic to wheat, so I must keep that in mind as I cook for us.

We go to our son’s home for the big family dinners on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, then to our daughter-in-law’s sister’s home the other day. It’s just tradition that I bring a GF (gluten free) or wheat-less dessert. Everyone can have some of it, but I label it well and Gary makes sure he gets a slice before it’s all gone. I’ve made some very elaborate desserts in some years.

This recipe I’ve had for several years but never made. Some time back I couldn’t attend a class I’d signed up for, with Phillis Carey. A couple of my friends did go, and they gave me the recipes afterward, and this was one. I’d just never gotten around to preparing it. And actually, my cousin and I did the preparation of this together.

What holds this together (since it has no flour in it) is a meringue in the batter and a whole lot of ground almonds. Well, the egg yolks help too. And no, it’s not a meringue actually, just the whipped egg whites to give it lots of air, giving it a light texture and crumb. And it has 5 eggs in it (separated, whites whipped up separately).

What makes this cake Mexican is merely the addition of orange zest and cinnamon. It’s in the cake (a teaspoon) and if you want to be true to the recipe, you also put a bit of cinnamon in the whipped cream (or on top of each slice as it’s served), which is kind of fun to do, for something different. The sauce is very simple to make – semisweet chocolate, corn syrup, half and half and guess what – more cinnamon, but only 1/4 tsp.! The cake is served with warm chocolate sauce and a nice dollop of the whipped cream. I prepared everything earlier in the day. Just before serving I heated the chocolate sauce and whipped the cream. I cut smaller slices because there were several other desserts on the buffet table – I’m sure I got at least 16 slices.

What’s GOOD: well, the fact that it’s GF, for sure. I liked the texture of the cake – it’s lighter than most GF cakes. The chocolate isn’t overwhelming – it almost has the coloring of a spice cake. I liked that it could be made ahead – it’s made in an 8-inch cake pan. The almonds are ground very fine – actually we used almond meal (not almond flour) from Trader Joe’s, so it’s finely ground without it turning to almond butter.

What’s NOT: I wouldn’t exactly call this a “wow” dessert. It was very, very good, and my cousin loved it. I enjoyed it. I might wish it had a bit more chocolate in it, but am not sure I’d know how to doctor-up the recipe to include more chocolate in the cake without it throwing off the chemistry balance between nuts and egg whites.

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What’s the nomenclature – this is an adult beverage dessert? Made with Amaretto in the pudding part and more in the whipped cream topping. There’s not THAT much liqueur in this – 1/3 cup total, spread over 8-10 servings, so that’s about 1 1/2 teaspoons or so per person. Maybe too much for young children since this dessert isn’t cooked, so it’s the straight stuff . . . keep that in mind.

When the first bite of this hit my tongue, well, I sighed in contentment. At the cooking class with Phillis Carey where I learned how to make this, the classroom was in total silence as we all mmmm’d or sighed. Phillis has devised lots of tiramisu variations. She just loves the dessert in general, so she keeps coming up with new methods of making it. The orange one she made a few months ago was off the charts. And now this one with pumpkin. Wow.

Start making this several hours ahead because it needs to rest – so the liqueur soaks into the ladyfingers. It’s still the raw liqueur used, but once it sits with the pastry it seems to mellow some. First you must make a simple syrup (1 cup sugar + 1 cup water, the standard measurements). You do have to buy (well, find first, then buy) the soft ladyfingers. This time of year (as I write this, it’s Fall) they’re harder to find – if you find them (usually near the fresh fruit, such as strawberries, in the produce section) buy extra and stick those in the freezer so you have them when you need them. Since I had this I’ve looked in 2 stores and haven’t found them. I’ll keep looking.

USING DRIED ITALIAN LADYFINGERS: Phillis said you could make this with the hard Italian ladyfingers – in that case I recommend you add 1 1/2 cups of water to the simple syrup and Amaretto mixture – you’ll need a whole lot more liquid to make this work. The proportion for that came from my favorite tiramisu recipe where Cook’s Illustrated devised the amount of coffee needed to dip the dried ladyfingers (you need a total of 2 1/2 cups liquid to soak dried ladyfingers).  If you want to make your own soft ladyfingers, I found a recipe at the Food Network.

Layer the soft ladyfingers in a 9×13 pan and brush them with the Amaretto syrup. You’ll make a big bowl full of the pumpkin mixture – it’s sweetened condensed milk, brown sugar and Mascarpone cheese, and a whole bunch of heavy cream whipped up. Then you add in the pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spices. Half of it is layered on top of the bottom layer of ladyfingers, then another layer of ladyfingers, the balance of the Amaretto syrup is brushed on, then finally you add the last of the pumpkin cream mixture. That’s covered and refrigerated for at least 4 hours, or up to 24 hours. Then just before serving, whip yet more whipped cream with the Amaretto syrup and that gets spread on the top along with the crushed up Amaretti cookies. You’ll feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven, especially if you love pumpkin.

What’s GOOD: The pumpkin, the cream, the Amaretto. Oh gosh. Everything. The fact that you can make this 24 hours ahead is also very nice.

What’s NOT: should I mention it’s decadent? Certainly over the top with heavy cream, but we’re not counting, right ;- )

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Do you remember when I mentioned, after being on our recent trip to the Pacific Northwest, eating a fantastic piece of cake when we visited The Willows Inn, on Lummi Island. Tender slices of this cake (I thought it was a pound cake) were sitting next to the urns of coffee in the lobby, and as we checked out, our last morning there, having not had any breakfast yet, I took a slice. And thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

After we got back home, I emailed my friend Jerianne about our trip – and about the cake (because she loves to bake too) she just took the bull by the horns – she has a lot more gutsiness than I do – and picked up the phone, called the Inn and asked for the recipe. And they SENT IT to her! Oh my gosh. This was a couple of months ago now, and at the time I had just made a pound cake (in my feeble attempt to make some kind of a tender one from an online recipe) I thought I’d wait awhile before making this.

WELL! First thing is the chef called this a rum cake. Remember, I thought it was a pound cake. But having made it, I really think it has the texture of a chiffon cake, but those are made with oil, not butter. Since my head just tries to understand the chemistry, I dug out several of my baking cookbooks, and found the answers  (mostly) in the Sur la Table cookbook, The Art & Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet. This type of cake is called an egg-separated sponge cake. However, this one differs from the standard because it has quite a bit of butter in the egg  yolk batter. Most sponge cakes have little to no fat in them and their rising relies on the air incorporated in the egg yolks and whites. They derive their fat from the egg yolks themselves. But if it were truly a sponge cake it would have NO added fat. So that’s why it’s a kind of a combination of a standard butter cake and the egg-separated sponge cake.

Good, we have that settled now! (Maybe I should have been a chemist?) In the process of getting ready to make this I did rearrange the writing of the recipe, and clarified some of the instructions a bit, and added in my suggestions here and there too. The recipe was sent with ingredient weights rather than volume, and I’ve left it that way (and added in suggestions on approximate volume). I do think this is one of those kinds of recipes that will help if you use your scale. As elaborate as this is – well maybe elaborate isn’t the right word – it’s time consuming for sure – you don’t want to mess up on the weights and measures!

The batter has 3 parts – (1) the dry part (cake flour, and sifted at that!); (2) the egg yolk part; and (3) the meringue (egg white) part. Once all of those parts are prepared, it’s combined into a billowy, frothy batter and baked.

The recipe, in one area mentioned loaf pans. In another sentence it mentioned a tube pan, so I’m surmising that you could use either. I included instructions for both, although I only made it in a tube pan. Based on my recollection of the slice I ate at the Inn, I think theirs was made in loaf pans. The recipe indicated 45 minutes in the oven. Well, when I checked at 45 minutes in, the batter was still very jiggly and wet. My heart sank – I thought I’d most likely messed it up somehow, and even went back to the recipe to make sure I’d not forgotten something. No, it looked okay. I set the timer for another 15 minutes. I tested it with an instant read thermometer, my Thermapen, and it was only about 180°F. Another 10 minutes and it got to about 195°F. Each time, of course, the oven loses heat, so I have no idea exactly how many minutes it would take in one straight bake – but certainly a lot more than 45 minutes. Perhaps in loaf pans? I don’t know. Eventually it reached 200°F and I removed it from the oven.

What I learned was that the cake is very fragile – and in making a tender kind of cake – it would be very easy to break or crack it. I was fortunate that mine stayed together. Unintentionally, I did leave a bit of the cake on the tube-pan bottom, but not enough to make any difference. The cake must be left to cool to room temp, then you remove it from the pan(s). The recipe was specific – the cake needs to sit for a day (overnight) before slicing. The cake, right out of the pan, is very VERY moist and with the meringue batter as part of it, the outside edges were a bit sticky, so if you tried to slice it at that point, I think it would tear or rip. That must be why it needs to rest overnight – by enclosing it in foil the outside edges all softened.

I used a knife and an offset spatula to make sure the cake was separated from the pan. The physical act of removing it from the pan – well that was a bit of a juggling act – I used my outstretched and splayed fingers and my forearm to gently tip the cake out, then righted it very quickly and let it sit. Meanwhile I had a huge piece of foil ready, and some additional rum. Some is spread on the bottom of the foil (otherwise it would stick, I suppose), then you place the cake on top, then brush the top and edges with more rum (maybe about 2-3 T.). It’s all sealed up in the foil and left to sit.

Next day I just couldn’t wait until our dinner to see if the cake tasted like I remember. We were having guests and this was dessert. What if it was a completely bust? I might have to fix some other kind of dessert on short notice. I needn’t have worried – the cake was absolutely just as I remembered. (Later note: I made this a couple of weeks ago and put part of it in the freezer. I was trying to find something else, pulled out a little package of these, defrosted it. Oh my. So delicious!) This leads directly into my ranking system . . .

What’s GOOD: there is absolutely nothing about this cake that isn’t good (fabulous is more like it), IMHO. It has texture (oh so very tender) and moisture (it almost drips with it) and sugar and mellowness. Everything about this cake makes it a winner. I served it with whipped cream and some fresh plums that I’d simmered in port wine. If you want to get the full impact of the cake, serve it plain, or maybe with just a little bit of whipped cream. A definite five-star winner in my book.

What’s NOT: the only thing I can say is that it does take a bit of time to make – there are numerous steps and you’ll dirty up a lot of dishes in the process. But it’s worth the effort and the elbow grease (you can ask my DH about that – he did have to wash everything). If you’ve never made a sponge cake before, it might seem a bit intimidating. Just make sure you have the butter and eggs at room temp and follow the directions. Don’t over mix anything.

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Can I just tell you – please make this. It is really extra-special in the taste department. But then, I love hazelnuts. And then I also love whipped cream (who doesn’t?). And the plum compote with the hazelnuts somehow is one of those magical pairings. Just make it.

Some of my friends – and my friend Cherrie’s friends – laugh at us – why do we need to go to cooking classes, since we both are pretty darned good home cooks? Neither of us has professional training. Neither of us really lacks for ideas. Neither of us lack cookbooks to get even more ideas. Neither of us dreads cooking. So why do we go? Well, sometimes it’s just to get us thinking outside of our own boxes.

We also go to classes because we’re close friends, and we enjoy spending time together, of course, but we always – and I mean always – learn something. You’d really think we would be past the stage where we could still learn, but yet, we do. And of course, the kitchen gadget inventors love to tweak us – about needing a new something to augment our already bulging kitchen utensil drawers.

This class was in a private home in an area near us called Nellie Gale Ranch. Seeing this house, in itself would have been a reason to go to the cooking class – I think the home (kitchen pictured above) was THE most beautiful home I’ve ever visited in my life – it was decorated in my style and every step I took, ever hallway I entered, every turn I made I’d find some new pretty thing – a niche, a decorator item, an arch, a room just exquisitely appointed. The hostess, Karen, designed the house herself – I mean everything – the architecture of it, every wall, doorway, bathroom, and she paid attention to minute detail. She also designed all the interior décor and does all of it herself. I was mightily impressed. The granite in the kitchen was honed first, then “leathered.” I’d never seen that before. Note the lights under the toe kick area. Note the windows behind the 2 cupboards on the far wall – so natural light brightens the entire room. There were 3 sinks in the kitchen, 2 of them farmstyle fronts. She has indoor table seating for 32 people (I counted) although 8 of those are in an enclosed solarium back 20 feet or so behind where I was standing taking the above photo. She has 2 laundry rooms, 5 or 6 fireplaces. Oh my, I could go on and on and on.

The class was taught by Tarla Fallgatter, who regularly teaches classes to this group Cherrie and I are in. We get together 4 times a year. And had I looked at this recipe in a magazine or even a cookbook, I might not have given it much thought. Nothing in it would have generated any kind of “wow” thoughts. I do like hazelnuts, though. But oh, was this dessert ever delicious. After eating it I concluded that it must be that hazelnuts and plums have a natural affinity – a food chemistry when they’re paired.

The shortcakes are easy enough – the only caveat there is to NOT overwork the dough. If you do, the shortcakes will get tough. Tarla pressed the dough to about an inch thickness and made very short wedges. She cut them erratically in order to get a short triangle (see photo), not a long tapered one, as she says more often than not that thin, tapered end will fall off when you pick it up to plate it. To make it easier, cut rounds with a cutter instead. And really, it makes no-never-mind what shape it’s in anyway – cut squares if you want. If you make them thinner they’ll be more crispy. If you make them thicker than an inch, they’ll be more soft. The 1-inch one was absolutely perfect.

Plums happen to be in season right now, and they just were so perfect for this – different too. Don’t we first think strawberries? If the plums you buy are not ripe/soft, you may need to cook them awhile longer – you want them to be tender (not mush, though). Add the raspberries at the last minute – otherwise they’ll completely fall apart. You’ll not even know they’re in the fruit mixture.

When I looked at the nutrition/calorie count of this, I gasped. It must be the volume of whipped cream. Perhaps you could make do with 1 cup of heavy cream – that would cut down some. But the shortcakes do need an ample amount of whipped cream – it’s more than just decoration here.

What’s GOOD: there isn’t anything about this that ISN’T good in my opinion. The hazelnuts are different in a shortcake and you definitely can taste them. Toasting them enhances their flavor so much. The plums were piquant and sweet at the same time; mixed with the whipped cream the flavor mixture in my mouth just . . . well, it was sinfully good.
What’s NOT: absolutely nothing, except the calories!

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Yes, I know . . . the photo says Clementine and I titled it Tangerine. You could use either, depending on the citrus season. It could even be orange for that matter. Sounds more elegant to say it’s clementine, though, doesn’t it? Whatever citrus you DO use, it’s a really nice cake from Israel.

And isn’t that honeycomb Bundt cake shape just the cutest thing? My friend Dianne made this for our Israeli dinner we had a couple of weeks ago, and a friend of hers, who is Jewish, loaned her the pan. These 2 gals work at Sur la Table, and Dianne loves to bake. Dianne thought the pan was available at the store, but it isn’t on their website. In the event you want one of these, here’s the Amazon link for the Nordicware Jubilee Bundt Pan.

The recipe, is another one from Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Ottolenghi & Tamimi. In deciding on the menu, this dessert, of the many in the cookbook, sounded the most interesting to me. Since I know Dianne loves to bake and some of the other recipes were really complex (even more than I’d want to do), I chose this one.

The only thing unusual about the cake is the use of almond meal. I spent some time looking at lots of other bloggers who have posted this recipe already, and some did it the way the recipe indicated – grinding up almonds to get finely minced almonds. Dianne used almond meal (you can buy it at some markets – Trader Joe’s carries it at a more reasonable price). I think (and I can’t guarantee it, but it’s my humble opinion) that people who ground up nuts ended up with a heavier cake. I suspect this is because whatever machine type you use to grind the nuts (blender, food processor, coffee grinder) could vary – if you stopped it 3 seconds before the next person did it, you’d end up with different textures in the finished cake. I think the Trader Joe’s almond meal is a lighter – and less dense meal.

Now some stores have a completely white almond meal (no skins used) and perhaps that would be the best, but it shouldn’t make any difference, really. Almond meal is done in some process that gets it to a dry meal – not a wet and moist mixture, which would make a difference in the end texture. So, just keep all that in mind. The way to counteract all this is to use weight rather than volume. The recipe calls for 280 grams of ground almonds. So if you used whole almonds, it might be less than 2 1/2 cups. And that would make a difference for sure. And the flour – 100 grams are called for.

Anyway, the cake is a cake – eggs, butter, flour, salt and the ground almonds. The original was baked in a 9 1/2 inch springform pan. Do not use an 8-inch or a 10-inch. Use a 9 or a 9 1/2 incher. Several bloggers said that the size variation made a big difference. Dianne used the Bundt cake pan. Whatever you do, measure the internal temp of the cake – and remove it when it reaches 200°F. The recipe says when  a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. As we learn more about the chemistry of cakes, it’s pretty reliable to do the internal temp method.

As soon as the cake is removed from the oven, you’ll need the syrup to be ready. Pour it all over. If you want, use a wooden pick or toothpick to help get the syrup to ooze further down into the cake. That info wasn’t in the original recipe, but I’ve included it below because we noticed the syrup stayed mostly at the surface and you want it disbursed as much as possible. Allow the cake to cool (if using the Bundt, remove the cake after about 20 minutes) and frost when it’s reached room temp.

What’s GOOD: The texture – it’s a heavier cake – don’t expect lightness here. But it’s far from being a brick, either! Enjoyed the flavor. Also liked that it wasn’t too sweet. The chocolate just melts in your mouth. All good.
What’s NOT: really nothing other than making or finding almond meal.

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