Fruitcake Saturday

I had a great day of cooking and baking Saturday, with a cake count of six, and cake production pausing only for a quick trip to the bridal salon for Bella to be fitted for her dress. The girls and I had the Christmas crooners playing on a Pandora station and competed to see who could be first to identify Bing, Perry, or whoever else it was. Come what may this season, the fruitcakes are in the freezer.

The Cobbler of Deep Summer

Cobbler for our Sunday dinner crowd this week was peaches and blackberries. Biscuit topping was added moments after this photo was taken.

Always remember: heat your fruit on the stovetop (with a little sugar and a little flour) until it starts to release its juices and the juice starts to thicken. *Then* you can put it in the baking pan and put the biscuits on top, ready to go in the oven.

Not Everything Has Changed

Daisy's got some sophisticated taste in birthday cakes now--this is Nigella Lawson's Christmas-Spiced Flourless Chocolate Cake with a glazed almond and fresh orange juice topping. I sent pieces home with Elliot and Emma to the Stone House. "Eat it when you can concentrate."

But not everything has changed. She still loves fried okra,

just like when she was littler.

Rara Avis

We seldom bake cakes around here anymore, but when we have a weekend houseful, we bake two.

A Wedding Cake for Felix

Felix asked if we could provide his wedding cake--and I agreed, flattered that he apparently thinks I can do anything. Clara and I started baking the layers up to freeze. There are nine.

 She went to the kitchen and produced a test cake last week.

"This looks great!" I said. "Where did you get the recipe?"

"Cupboard door," she replied.

It's our beloved gingerbread, which will be trimmed, stacked, frosted, and decked out for the celebration.

Cobbler with Cream Biscuits

It's almost time to pick blackberries again but we still have several bags in the freezer, so Clara's been making frequent cobblers. Cobbler is super simple.

You can start it on the stovetop or on the oven, but one way or another I recommend you heat your berries up before you add your biscuit topping--especially if you're starting with frozen berries.

For about 4 c. berries in a saucepan, add 3/4 c. sugar and 1/4 c. flour, and 3/4 t. cinnamon. Stir over medium heat until everything is bubbly and the berries and releasing plenty of juice. Dump it in a casserole dish, and spoon a batch of cream biscuit dough over the top.

Bake at 400 for about 30 minutes. All of this is very flexible. I'm sure every cobbler we make is different, and they're all good.

Christmas Baking and Daisy's Dirndl

Such a busy day in the kitchen, and at the work computer.

Daisy executed her long-held plan of making marzipan mushrooms,

and putting them on our Buche de Noel.

Then it was time to get ready for evening church, the Christmas music service. Daisy had piano *and* clarinet solos, and thought she'd wear her dirndl.

I made this for her in the fall, faking it from a 50s pattern for a skirt and weskit.

She's very woodlandy.

That's why her mushrooms look so real.

Chocolate Shards

Or call them deconstructed truffles. I made the ganache from this recipe (which is super simple--Lindt chocolate, coconut oil, salt, vanilla, water) and let it harden in the fridge.

Instead of shaping the filling, I just broke it into bite-size pieces with a spoon, then dropped each side in cocoa. More interesting than a truffle, I think.

Chocolate Panforte for Giles

I baked Giles' yearly chocolate panforte, a sticky confection filled with dried cherries, honey, and chocolate. 

I shipped it two-day mail, G, so please share with your brother.

Blueberry Cobbler in a Skillet

The blueberries are ripe for picking and we've been to the berry farm twice this week. Clara made this cobbler for those who eat gluten. Besides that, we've been feasting on milk glass teacups full of them with every meal.

Almond Cakes Done Small

For tomorrow's Easter feast, I've made our favorite almond cake with the zest of a lemon, and put it in muffin tins. Each little cake got a single blackberry dropped in, though raspberry would have been good too. 

More from Flourless

We've been very happy with the baking from Flourless. Bella made the Coconut Cake (this was just before the Chocolate Ganache Glaze was added). It disappeared quickly.

The cake is structured around flaked coconut, eggs, and a little bit of cornstarch, and the ganache can be beautifully dairy-free made with nice chocolate and coconut cream from the can. 

Luxurious Almond Cake, in Chocolate

Remember how I said I was going to do our Almond Cake in chocolate? It took two tries, but we got it right. It's a simple substitution of cocoa for some of the almond flour. Here you go:

•Luxurious Almond Cake, in Chocolate•

Line a 9-inch cake pan or springform pan with parchment paper, and spray it with Pam. Preheat the oven to 350.

Separate the yolks and whites of 5 eggs.

In a large bowl, whisk the yolks together with 1 cup of sugar, from which you have removed 2 T.

Also whisk in a pinch of salt and 1 t. vanilla.

Using an electric mixer, whip the whites until they are almost soft peaks.

Then add the 2 T. sugar and whip until they are legitimate soft peaks.

Take your whites over to the bowl with the yolks. Dollop a big spoonful of whites into the yolks, and with a rubber scraper, gently stir them in to lighten the yolk mixture. Then scrape the rest of the whites in, and fold them in lightly. Now sift 1 c. almond meal with 1/2 c. cocoa, and sprinkle that mixture over your batter, and fold it in. And then sprinkle another 1/2 c. almond meal into the bowl and fold it in too.

Scrape into your prepared pan and bake for about 35 minutes, or until the top is barely firm and springy to the touch. The cake gets moister the second day (ha! if it comes to that!).

Our Beloved Almond Cake

Really, this is "The Composer's Beloved Almond Cake." Because everyone else can eat, you know, regular dessert, but his treats have to be gluten-and-dairy free.

Also, this is the cake that powered him to a Boston-qualifying marathon time this winter. That's right,  he ate a whole cake each day the two days before his race, and qualified for Boston. Your results may vary. I know mine would.

I can't remember the source for this recipe, but here's how we do:

•Luxurious Almond Cake•

Line a 9-inch cake pan or springform pan with parchment paper, and spray it with Pam. Preheat the oven to 350.

Separate the yolks and whites of 5 eggs.

In a large bowl, whisk the yolks together with 1 cup of sugar, from which you have removed 2 T.

Also whisk in a pinch of salt and 1 t. vanilla.

Using an electric mixer, whip the whites until they are almost soft peaks.

Then add the 2 T. sugar and whip until they are legitimate soft peaks.

Take your whites over to the bowl with the yolks. Dollop a big spoonful of whites into the yolks, and with a rubber scraper, gently stir them in to lighten the yolk mixture. Then scrape the rest of the whites in, and fold them in lightly. Now sprinkle 1 c. almond meal over your batter, and fold it in. Sprinkle another 1 c. almond meal into the bowl and fold that in as well.

Scrape into your prepared pan and bake for about 35 minutes, or until the top is barely firm and springy to the touch. The cake gets moister the second day (ha! if it comes to that!).

Also, one of these days I'm going to stir some cocoa in and see what happens.

Snowflake Cookies for the Windows

We hung them from the branch that hangs in the sitting room window.

And we hung them from the wreaths we put in the living room windows for Christmas.

Another Sunrise, and Some Fruitcakes for the Gluten-Free

Another gorgeous sunrise, the first of the Return of the Exiles (as the Composer calls it when the adult children come home), and several fabulous fruitcakes.

*

Felix is the first one in the door of the three Away Kids. It didn't take him long to ensconce himself in what we call "Inventor's Corner"--a computer, a calculator, and a notebook not too far from the woodstove. Serious inventing going on today.

*

I've found fantastic fruitcake recipes that don't rely on any kind of flour at all! Just ground almonds and lots of fruit:

Christmas-Spiced Chocolate Cake by Nigella (oh my)

Gorgeously Golden Fruitcake also by Nigella, much more traditional

Alsatian Christmas Bread (not a bread at all. I didn't use this recipe, but it was the closest I could find. Mine required only dried fruit, fruit juice, spices, and ground almonds)

Starry Shortbreads

Any shortbready cookie that needs to be pressed with the bottom of a glass can be stamped with a punch cup--and will be pretty.

Plums for a Cake

This is not the first time I've made the delicious Plum and Almond Chocolate Cake from La Tartine Gourmande. First you caramelize some plum slices with a little brown sugar and cinnamon, then mix up a simple cake batter with melted butter and chocolate, and ground almonds and buckwheat (I think it calls for spelt, actually). The plums get poured over the batter and all gets baked, to pleasing effect. 

La Tartine Gourmande

For whatever reason, I have been excruciatingly slow to embrace gluten-free baking. Maybe because the gluten-free goods from the store have tasted so terrible . . . or the cookbooks remind me of the depressing unsold cookbooks at the thrift store, put out by the American Heart association . . . or the feeling that I've given up enough, cooking without dairy, beef, and pork. I've always preferred to make something *else* entirely, rather than bake with substitutions.

But La Tartine Gourmande is seductive. Beautifully photographed, oh-so-French, so . . . aesthetic. Beatrice Peltre seems to revel in her careful choice of flours, from hazelnut to buckwheat to quinoa. *That* I could get on board with. So I have finally laid in a supply of flours, and have enjoyed the sight of the Composer eating five oatmeal-apple muffins in one sitting, many hazelnut-banana muffins at once, and some beautiful tiny molten chocolate cakes for his birthday.*

(*Do not try this at home unless you too are running sixteen miles every Saturday and have the metabolism of a twelve-year old.)

Cake, Cake, and Cake

Felix is home for the weekend, and will be going back to a houseful of hungry college friends, so I made cake, cake, and cake. Mocha cake decorated with huge malted milk balls. Molasses cake cut into dark squares.

And the Dundee cake (a Scottish fruit-filled cake) was still in the oven.

All the recipes were from Jane Brocket's Vintage Cakes, which I adore, but the mocha cake recipe had some weirdness you will need to correct (change 1 1/28 cup sugar to the more doable 1 1/4. Also, there's too much batter for a single layer; make two).