Cherry, Pistachio And Vanilla Biscotti

Happy Sunday, CT Readers!


It's been awhile, I know...but I'm here with a scrumptious biscotti recipe for you.  


This is the second in the series of baking my way through Susan Rosso's NYT article "Not All Biscotti Are Created Equal."  You may remember the earlier post on Traditional Italian Almond Biscotti.  


I really like this latest incarnation because they are hearty.  No delicate, fragile cookies here.  Of course, the whole point of biscotti is a cookie tough enough to stand up to dunking and these certainly make the grade.  But the sensual combination of vanilla (a whopping 2 TB!), toasted pistachios, and fat, juicy cherries put these over the top. 


I think next at bat in this series (well, it is Spring...) will either be the Anise, Orange And Pignoli Biscotti or Maple Walnut Biscotti With Maple Icing. Stay tuned...


Print recipe here!

My Sweet Clementine

Don't you just love those sweet, adorable, little Clementines? I have been eating 2-3 each day as a mid-afternoon snack, or sometimes after dinner (not exactly the equivalent of a post-dinner dessert, but definitely alot healthier).


According to Produce Pete (everybody's favorite authority on fruits & veggies), the clementine is actually a mandarin orange, imported from Spain and Morocco.  They are a cross between a sweet orange and a Chinese mandarin and they are only in season from October to February so we are almost at the end of prime clementine season.


After awhile, eating them just out of the peel gets a little boring.  And I thought it would be great to be able to use them in a more formalized dessert fashion.  Well, apparently, I wasn't the first one to think about this (imagine that) because there are quite a few recipes out there for clementine desserts.  But I wanted something easy and something with all the ingredients already at hand.  I found a great recipe at Cooking Light and I want to pass it along so you can take advantage of the last few weeks of clementine availability.  This is a terrific dessert that you can dress up by using martini glasses, or just use small, individual bowls (I used some vineyard wine glasses that were handy).  And, because it's low in calories, it will come in especially handy tomorrow (after we've eaten all those Super Bowl snacks today!).  Enjoy!


Printable recipe

Snowy-Day Cake

Edna Lewis, the wonderful Southern cook (also known as the Grande Dame of Southern Cooking) created a recipe called "Busy-Day Cake." I've had this recipe in my file for awhile now, squirreled way for the right time to try it. I believe Miss Lewis (as she is called by all who revere her years of incredible cooking experience) developed this cake as something you could put together on a "busy day."  

Well, I certainly didn't have a busy day today - I had a "snowy day," and hence the title of this post. We had a snowstorm (again) in New Jersey today - this is getting really tiresome. But it did present me with an official snow day off from work and the opportunity to bake something (and for that I am thankful). 

Back to Edna Lewis. She was born in Freetown, Virginia in 1916; in a town founded by three freed slaves (one of whom was her grandfather). She was taught to cook over a wood-fired stove by the women in her life. When she was 16, she moved to Washington, DC, and eventually to New York City. In 1948, she opened her own restaurant in New York (think how rare this was: a woman - an African-American woman - owning a restaurant in NYC in 1948) called Cafe Nicholson. Her cooking was legendary and her restaurant hosted famous celebrities of the day like Truman Capote, Marlene Dietrich, and Gloria Vanderbilt. After she sold Cafe Nicholson, she worked as the chef for many years at Gage and Tollner in Brooklyn. In the late sixties, she started to write down many of her recipes which resulted in the Edna Lewis Cookbook and later The Taste of Country Cooking (which is where Busy-Day Cake comes from). In addition to cooking and writing, she founded the Society for the Revival and Preservation of Southern Food. Edna Lewis died in 2006. If you'd like to read more about the fascinating life of Edna Lewis, the New York Times wrote a wonderful piece on her when she died.

Sorry for the digression, but I thought you would want to know this cake's heritage. The cake has very simple ingredients - eggs, butter, sugar, flour, vanilla, freshly grated nutmeg, some milk, and baking powder - nothing fancy here. But I noticed when I was in the final mixing, that the batter was almost sponge-like and it had a marvelous scent from the fresh nutmeg. As a baker, you really notice when a batter or a dough is different. This batter looked so smooth and inviting that I just knew the cake was going to be good. It bakes in a springform pan for about 30-35 minutes. The recipe says to serve it warm and who am I not follow the instructions of a legend? So I cut a sliver and savored it. It is moist, with a nice crumb, and a delicious, almost silk-like texture. You can just transport yourself to the South with this recipe. And on a snowy, cold day in New Jersey I can't think of a better place to be, even it is just in my mind.

Edna Lewis' Busy-Day Cake

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

1-1/3 C granulated sugar

3 large eggs

2 t vanilla extract

2 C unbleached all-purpose flour

2-1/2 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

1 good pinch freshly grated nutmeg, or more

1/2 C whole milk, room temperature

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease 1 9" springform pan with butter or cooking spray (I used butter).

In the bowl of a stand mixer, blend the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. One by one, add the eggs, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract, and beat to blend.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg.

Add about 1/4 o the flour mixture to the butter mixture, and beat on low speed to incorporate. Add 1/3 of the milk and beat again. Add the remaining flour mixture in three more doses, alternating each time with a big of milk, and beating to just combine. Do not overmix. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the sides of the bowl and stir to incorporate any flour not yet absorbed.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it evenly across the top. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. This cake has a tendency to brown quickly on top, so after about 20 minutes, you might want to peek into the oven and tent the cake with aluminum foil if necessary.

Serve warm. It is delicious plain but you could serve it with a little creme fraiche or some warm, crushed berries.

Saturday Dinner with Friends

Ahhhh, do you hear that?  It's the sound of a quiet Saturday.  I love Saturdays - to quote a NY Times ad, "the word alone makes me happy."  I actually love Friday nights more - that prospective feeling of two whole days away from the usual weekday grind.

The day started out great with this wonderful new coffee from Counter Culture in Annapolis.  It's called Magnolia Blend, because this is the coffee served at the award-winning Magnolia Grill in Durham, NC (I knew there was a restaurant in Durham I wanted to add to "my list" - see recent post).  On weekends, we make coffee in our French Press - what a difference.

 

We are having dinner with some friends tonight and we are making Stretch's Chicken. For those of you not from NJ, Stretch's is a very well known Italian restaurant in northern NJ.  They make a dish called Chicken Savoy, served with fabulous crispy, thin potatoes (not unlike those great potatoes you get at Portuguese restaurants).  Through a friend of a friend, we obtained the original recipe for Chicken Savoy and although it takes a long time to cook and makes a mess of your oven, it's worth it. So, tonight's menu is as follows:

• Pre-dinner: Comte (a wonderful French cheese actually purchased at Costco) and Spanish Marcona Almonds (also a Costco item) - I was so excited when I saw these at Costco last week because these are the same wonderful almonds we had in Europe this past summer
• Stretch's Chicken with crispy, thin potatoes
• Sauteed Broccoli Rabe
• Crusty Italian Bread
• Pinot Noir
• For dessert: Cranberry Vanilla Coffeecake (from the December issue of Gourmet, photo above, recipe below)

I hope you are having an "ahhhh" kind of day. 

Cranberry Vanilla Coffeecake - this was very easy to make and the aroma of the vanilla sugar was deluxe.

• 1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 2 cups fresh or thawed frozen cranberries (6 oz)
• 2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened, divided
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup whole milk

• GARNISH:

   
  confectioners sugar

• Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle. Generously butter a 9- by 2-inch round cake pan. Line bottom with a round of parchment paper and butter parchment.
• Scrape seeds from vanilla bean into a food processor with tip of a paring knife (reserve pod for another use if desired). Add sugar and pulse to combine. Transfer to a bowl.
• Pulse cranberries with 1/2 cup vanilla sugar in processor until finely chopped (do not purée).
• Whisk together 2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt.
• Beat together 1 stick butter and 1 cup vanilla sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down side and bottom of bowl. Reduce speed to low and mix in flour mixture and milk alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour, until just combined.
• Spread half of batter in pan, then spoon cranberries over it, leaving a 1/2-inch border around edge. Top with remaining batter and smooth top.
• Blend remaining 1/4 cup vanilla sugar with remaining Tbsp each of butter and flour using your fingertips. Crumble over top of cake.
• Bake until a wooden pick inserted into cake (not into cranberry filling) comes out clean and side begins to pull away from pan, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 30 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely, crumb side up.

COOKS’ NOTE: Coffeecake can be made 1 day ahead and kept, tightly wrapped, at room temperature.