My guess is the world doesn’t need another blueberry pie recipe. I mean, you can google and find … well… too many. (And which one is good?) You might even go old school and open a cook book or a baking book to see what you find. Is mine the very best? Probably not to some. But it’s the one that baked in my kitchen and it’s the one I know well because it got eaten right here. Quickly. And with big scoops of creamy vanilla ice cream, naturally. Is mine messy Bessy? You bet, for sure, and it looks darned homey, right? (Hint: It’s really hard to over bake or burn a pie. Sometimes, in order to get a golden brown crust, the filling may bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble right out of the slits or edges. Like in the photo above.)
A favorite episode of the tv series “West Wing” features a high school class stuck at the White House due to a security concern. They’re shuffled into the Mess –White House cafeteria– and fed apples and peanut butter for a snack. (I’ve seen the whole series 3 or 4 times now. I never tire of it.) Later on, the president, played by smart, savvy actor Martin Sheen, shows up to say, “I just came down for some apples and peanut butter,” only to find out the kids have cleaned out the entire supply! Just about everyone — including presidents — likes apples and peanut butter, though they’re maybe a little higher up on my husband’s list of favorites than on mine. I often cut an apple and serve it with peanut butter for part of his lunch if I really want a smiling table mate.
Recipes on cabinets– works wellfor us.
After I had made a King Arthur Flour Apple Crisp last fall, I left the recipe taped to the cabinet in the kitchen to remind me to make it again instead of automatically going with my typical Fanny Farmer Baking Book version. We liked the new one a lot with all of its nuts and oats. As it sat up there — even through the holidays when it got moved over and ignored a smidge–I kept wondering how it would taste with peanut butter somehow stirred into the mix. This is one way to get recipes mulled over: to simply leave them right in front of my eyes for days, weeks, or months. Sooner or later, something happens.
The bread that convinced me to bake more bread at home.
Alyce’s (aka Betty Crocker’s) cinnamon rolls.
I am the occasional yeast bread baker. You can look through my nearly 16 years of food blogging and while you’ll find beaucoup quick breads and muffins, biscuits, and other such deliciousness, yeast breads will not be terribly forthcoming. (Maybe my cinnamon rolls and dinner rolls are here somewhere? That would make my kids happy. My pizza is for sure on the blog.) It’s not that I don’t make yeast bread; I do. I just don’t do it every week and hence am not an expert in any way. I’ll admit I lived in Europe for a couple of years and became very used to incredible bread bakers nearly every block or two. (Why bake?) I’m also the sort of embarrassing yeast bread baker who still sometimes likes a bread machine for fun, easy bread. Truth in blogging here: I have the Cadillac of bread machines, a Zojirushi and — unlike many out there –adore it for more than just mixing dough–which is what a lot of good bread bakers use it for. I have gone through one bread machine (an Oster) and had to replace it. That’s an unusual claim to fame in today’s baking world. I also own a bread machine book by bread guru, the late, great Beth Hensperger. See: experts can like bread machines, too! (Today’s bread is, in fact, based on one of Beth’s recipes –not for the bread machine– adapted by KRISTEN BROWNING-BLAS in the Denver Post in 2014. I changed the recipe to suit my on-hand ingredients. Beth’s recipe called for both dry milk and buttermilk– neither of which I keep in the kitchen all the time. I do, however, always have plain Greek yogurt, which worked perfectly. Fun aside: my first copy of this recipe left out the yeast. I was an hour into making the bread when I realized it. I added it to the hour-old sponge and, while it took a while longer to double, double, toil, and trouble, it worked! Bread is forgiving. When I looked up the recipe a second time, the yeast was back in the ingredient deck. Hm….)
On a really special day, I’ll rev up both my slow cooker and bread machine and sit in my chair with a sleazy novel and an afghan til 5:30 when it’s time to uncork the wine and enjoy the fruits of my …non-labor. This is stretching the truth but not by much. Oh, how I love small appliances.
Because this not too sweet cake is a tweak of a tweak that even I have made a few versions of…. I’m including the introduction to my blogpost for an all-apple cake from last spring to provide background…
I’ve been baking this friendly cake for a few months now in one variation or another. First, I was just fascinated by the ingredients in the original Almond Cake recipe, which belongs to Molly Wizenberg and was adapted by Mark Bittman and Sam Sifton…and later by me along with a few thousand of my closest friends. It starts with boiling an orange and a lemon together for a half hour, removing the seeds, and puréeing the now softened peels. Nothing I’d ever done in my not-so-extensive cake baking career; still, I was sold. There’s no butter but there’s plenty of olive oil, making it taste and feel seriously Mediterranean or just Spanish… and keeping it moist for a few days right on the old proverbial counter. That’s even in Colorado at altitude where bread becomes crouton material in 15 minutes flat. The original “Tarta de Santiago” or St. James Cake (very similar to the almond cake I kept making) is a middle ages and Camino de Santiago specialty still baked each July 25, for the feast of St. James. One couldn’t have asked for a better plain cake or maybe even one with more spiritual flavor. Think gently citrusy and uber nutty pound cake only lighter. My dad, who abhorred all things frosting, would have inhaled it. Only thing my cake needed was a little barely sweetened whipped cream or a few berries, as you see in my photo (below the recipe in this post). Or just a cup of coffee if you were my dad. Maybe a small Armagnac if you were me. A wee dram or a cuppa if you weren’t.
Being known as a cook within your varied social circles has its distinct advantages. You get to bring what you like ( or make best) to the neighborhood potluck, the family birthday, or the church funeral lunch. Not terribly long before Covid (Are we saying that now?), I catered a funeral meal. The family involved was generous about letting me know their much-loved patriarch LOVED things like ham salad, chicken salad, etc. To keep the buffet interesting, I included CURRIED CHICKEN SALAD SANDWICHES. One lady — someone I’d trust — approached me to allow that my CURRIED CHICKEN SALAD was better than a top-shelf local restaurant’s version. I didn’t forget that. Who would, huh?
When someone’s turning 91, they deserve the birthday dessert of their choice. On second thought, everyone should get their most-loved confection each and every year! Birthdays are memorable causes for joyous toasts, laughter, and yummy dinners ending with apple pie/chocolate cake/strawberry cheesecake/butterscotch tart and, yes, great coffee. But 91 — wow. Not all of us make it to that special moment and those that do are blessed. My husband’s Dad, Gene, celebrated 91 great years this week and while it wasn’t a huge party, we had a few family members for a roast beef and twice-baked potato lunch (lunch is better these days and he loves roast beef) as well as Gene’s forever fave sweet — Lemon Meringue Pie.
