Persimmon bread

It's finally time for baking with ripe squishy persimmons! This is a variation on James Beard's persimmon bread, which appears to be the consensus persimmon bread of food bloggers (eg David Lebovitz). My only change was to swap the walnuts and raisins—which would have made it too close to last weekend's carrot cake—for chocolate chips and currants—which are probably better complements for the very generous dose of Bulleit anyway. The loaf is soft, dark, moist, and surprisingly spicy, with a good crumb and a delightfully chewy crust.

1 stick butter
1 c Hachiya pulp (2 Hachiyas)
2 eggs
1/3 c bourbon.
1.75 c flour (210g)
1.25 c sugar (250g)
1 t baking soda
1/2 t nutmeg
3/4 t salt
1 c chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
1 c currants

Preheat the oven to 350F, and butter and flour a 9" loaf pan. (Mine stuck to the pan a bit on the bottom, so you might want to try parchment.)

Microwave the butter in a 4-c pyrex until melted. Scoop the persimmon innards into the butter and stir to break up the chunks as much as possible. When the mixture is cool enough, stir in the eggs and bourbon.

In a medium bowl, stir together the dry ingredients (flour through salt). Stir in the wet ingredients until just combined, then stir in the chocolate and currants. Scoop the batter into the pan and bake for 60-70 min until a tester comes out clean.

Maple creme fraiche ice cream

Based on the Jeni's formula, to go with carrot cake.

1/4 c milk
4 t cornstarch
1.5 c milk
1.5 c cream
3/4 c maple syrup
1/4 t salt
1/2 t vanilla
4 oz (1/2 pack) creme fraiche

Stir the cornstarch into the first 1/4 milk, and set aside. Combine the rest of the milk with the cream, maple syrup, salt, and vanilla in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat until foaming, then keep heating and whisking for another 3 minutes. Pour in the cornstarch and cook until thickened. Dollop in the creme fraiche and whisk until thickened and smooth. Chill, churn, and enjoy.

Carrot cake

Just a regular old carrot cake for Laura's birthday. First birthday cake I haven't screwed up in ages though! Maybe I did learn something about cakes this summer after all. This cake is very moist and tender, which means it also sticks to pans and cooling racks, so you'll be happier if you actually use parchment and/or cupcake liners. Also pictured: maple creme fraiche ice cream.

cake:
3 c grated carrots
1.5 c pecan halves
2 c granulated sugar
1 c canola oil
4 eggs
2 c flour
2 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
2 t cinnamon
1 t cloves
1 t nutmeg
1/2 t allspice
1/2 t cardamom
3/4 t salt
1/2 c raisins

Preheat the oven to 325F, and prepare 2 8" cake pans (parchment and butter) and a 12-cupcake pan (cupcake liners).

Grate a crapton of carrots in the food processor, and transfer to a 4-c pyrex. Put the pecans in the food processor and pulse a few times to chop, and dump them into the pyrex too.

In a large bowl, beat together the sugar and oil until smooth, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the dry ingredients and mix to just combine. Fold in the carrots, nuts, and raisins.

Fill the cupcakes 3/4 full, then divide the remaining batter between the two cake pans. Bake the cupcakes for 25 min and the cakes for 40-45 min until a toothpick comes out clean.

frosting:
8 oz pack cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick butter, at room temperature
2 t vanilla
2.5 c powdered sugar (or to taste)

Beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth, then beat in the vanilla. Beat in the powdered sugar one cup at a time, tasting before each addition (it's ok to add at least another cup of powdered sugar if you want). This is enough to generously frost the layer cake.

Halloween fig+orange rugelach

Looks pretty much like fall around here these days. So I've been making loads of persimmon and fig baked goods, right? Wrong, sadly, because both have missing from the farmers market and corner store, somewhat bafflingly.

But since it's Halloween already, I decided to make do with non-homemade fig butter and orange zest to seasonal it up. Orange-and-black-ness = pretty good, flavor = delicious. Thanks for bringing the fig butter last weekend, Brandon!

dough and instructions:
2/3 batch of this
with no cardamom, and with 1 orange's worth of zest (about 1 T)

spread inside:
TJs fig butter with a dusting of cocoa powder

glaze then sprinkle with:
orange sprinkles

Vegan chocolate mousse pie

It was so hot here yesterday! So hot. Like normal summer temperatures anywhere else. I could wear a sundress at night and not wish I was wearing seventeen more layers. It made me really happy.

But when I wanted to make a dessert, turning on the oven didn't seem like a great idea, so I tossed this together instead. I thought the filling was nice like this without any added sugar—the salt and bourbon bring out the nutty chocolate flavors just fine by themselves—but you should taste it and see if you agree before pouring it on the crust.

1/2 pack oreos
3-4 T earth balance, melted
1 pack silken tofu
3/4 c nutella
2/3 c chocolate chips, melted
dash salt
1 T bourbon

Remove the insides from the oreos and set aside. In the food processor, grind the oreo cookie parts until fine. Add the earth balance and process until clumped up and moldable. Press into the bottom and sides of a pie pan. Put all the other ingredients in the food processor (you don't need to wash it in between) and process until smooth. Taste and adjust, then pour the filling into the pie crust and smooth the top. Stick in the fridge for an hour until set.

Blackberry bundt cake

Lester and I spent Labor Day afternoon picking a gallon of blackberries at Albany Bulb. Yes, a whole gallon of blackberries.

One quart was immediately made into 3 cups of blackberry juice, then into 2 1/3 c jam. Another quart was getting lonely in the fridge, so I worked from home the other morning to make this cake. That leaves two more quarts in the freezer for future blackberry fun!

This makes one rather large cake. My guess at scaling down the cake recipe from two 9" layers to one bundt cake--i.e., multiply by 3/4--exactly hit the capacity of my bundt pan, at least with the addition of all the berries. Folks at the office made quick work of it though, so don't worry about having a surplus of leftovers.

juice and zest of 1 Meyer lemon
1 c milk
1/2 c ricotta
1.5 t vanilla
3 c flour
3 T cornstarch
1.5 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1.5 sticks salted butter
1.5 c sugar
3 eggs
1 quart fresh blackberries, carefully washed

Preheat the oven to 350F and butter and flour a bundt pan. Mix together the wet ingredients (lemon through vanilla) in one bowl, and mix together the dry ingredients (flour through salt) in another. In a large bowl, cream the butter with the sugar, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the wet and dry ingredients in several alternating batches, mixing until just incorporated after each addition. Pour half the batter into the bundt pan, cover evenly with the blackberries, and pour on the rest of the batter. This left a thick layer of blackberry goodness near the bottom of the cake; I think just mixing the blackberries into the batter would work at least as well. Smooth the top and bake for an hour until a tester comes out clean.

Broiled okra and shishitos

The gchat conversation between me and Lester as I was leaving the office this evening:

me: what are you thinking for dinner?
Lester: not sure
we have quite a few things but I am short of ideas
could do something with the okra and shishitos, or eggplants
me: yeah let's do the broiled okra + shishitos :)
Lester: okey dokey
me: and maybe something with the polenta to go with it?
Lester: exactly what I was thinking
me: maybe with garbanzos?
Lester: again... exactly what I was thinking
me: so you do have ideas :)
Lester: roast garbanzos and baked polenta
me: yep
Lester: I'll get the oven on

That's pretty much the recipe, but I'll spell it out anyway. Toss garbanzos and polenta slices in olive oil, and bake at 400 for 15-25 minutes until starting to brown. Toss whole okra and shishito (or padron) peppers in olive oil, and broil for 8-10 minutes. Sprinkle everything with sea salt and eat.

The okra and shishitos were inspired by an appetizer we had at Pizzaiolo on Friday, as part of my "hooray I've finally submitted a paper!" dinner. They baked theirs in the wood-fired oven, but other than that their results and ours were pretty much the same: totally simple, and totally delicious. I expect nothing less from Pizzaiolo, of course, because pretty much everything about that place makes me happy. (Great coffee and internet in the morning, great dinner and cocktails at night!) But it's nice to see that you can get almost identical results without the fancy oven, so there's really no reason not to do this all the time while the ingredients are in season.