In Season

I hope you know by now that winter in California is my favorite season.  Not necessarily because of the weather-though I do love the years of rainy winters-but because winter is the height of citrus season.  Give me all the Meyer lemons, Eurekas, limes, blood oranges, Cara Caras, kumquats, Satsumas, and Navels!

Do you have a tree that prolifically produces citrus?  Don't know what to do with the overabundance?  Well, I'm your girl!  I will happily take the overflow off your hands.  What will I do with it?  I'll tell you.  I'll make curd, marmalade, have fresh-squeezed orange juice for breakfast, and bake a cake.  Or two.  Or three. 

A cake recipe that I come back to repeatedly is the yogurt cake.  I first came upon it while reading 'On Rue Tatin' by Susan Hermann Loomis.  It is my favorite kind of recipe.  One or two bowls, mixing with nary a hand mixer or Kitchen Aid in sight, pour batter into a pan, bake.  A yogurt cake is also the kind of cake that tastes better the next day, is totally appropriate to have for breakfast, and gives you the best reason to take tea time in the afternoon. 

Don't believe me?  Grab some of that winter citrus and try it.

Orange Yogurt Cake 

Makes one 9 inch loaf

Adapted from Jo Cooks Lemon Yogurt Cake recipe

For cake batter:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder 

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup plain yogurt

3/4 cup sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp orange zest

1/2 tsp vanilla extract 

1/2 cup canola oil

For glaze:

1/3 cup orange or tangerine juice

1/3 sugar

Pre-heat oven to 350°.  Line a loaf pan with parchment, leaving a bit of an overhang to easily remove cake from pan.  Grease short ends of pan.  Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl.  In a larger bowl, add eggs, sugar, oil, and orange zest.  Whisk until incorporated.  Add extract and yogurt, making sure all ingredients are mixed well.  Add dry ingredients to wet and mix.  Pour batter into loaf pan.  

Bake for 50-60 minutes until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  While cake is baking, make a simple syrup with the 1/3 cup orange or tangerine juice and 1/3 cup sugar.  Heat over medium flame until sugar melts.  Remove from heat and allow to cool. 

When cake is done, allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from pan.  Place cake on a cooling rack over a cookie sheet.  Poke a few holes into the top of the cake, then pour syrup over cake.  Allow syrup to seep into cake. 

Sprinkle with confectioners sugar and serve.  You can make candied peel and garnish with that also.  

Just Because...

There are days when you want to bake a cake.  Not because there's a birthday to celebrate, a dinner party to bring dessert to, a cocktail party that needs a sweet ending...but just because.  Just because you feel like cake, but not a fussy cake.  No buttercream, 7-minute, or Swiss meringue frosting needed.  No need to use any appliance more modern than a wooden spoon to mix the batter.  The kind of cake that is perfectly acceptable as breakfast, is close to perfect with a cup of tea in the afternoon, satifies that craving for something sweet before bed.

Also...apologies for the radio silence.  I'm looking to get back to regular postings even though I have taken it upon myself to foster more kittens this Spring.  My hands overfloweth with little balls of adorable fur.

In the meantime, make this cake.  Please.


Raspberry Yogurt Cake
Adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe
Makes one 8-inch round cake

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup raspberry preserves or jam
1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used low-fat)
1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
10x sugar for dusting
Butter and flour for greasing cake pan

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour an 8-inch cake pan (I also like to line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper), and in a small bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  In a large bowl, mix the wet ingredients well with a whisk.  Gradually add the flour mixture until combined, but don't over-mix.  Electric/stand mixer not necessary, a wooden spoon will work just fine.

Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake until a toothpick or cake tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 35-40 minutes.  Let cool for a few minutes in the cake pan before turning out onto a cooling rack.  Dust with confectioner's sugar before serving.

Summer Fresh

By this point, I think you know that when it's Summer, and temperatures are dancing the thermostat higher and higher, nearing the 100 degree mark, I like to make things to eat that don't require cooking.  Okay, maybe toasting bread for a sandwich, or a quick flip of a pita over an open flame to have with an antipasti platter, but no multi burners going, and certainly no oven turned on to roast a vegetable or bake a cake.

I make a version of this soup every Summer.  Based upon a recipe for Chilled Cucumber Soup from Real Simple, it is one of those repertoire items that is difficult not to turn to again and again.  It's easy, delicious, and can take a riff or two if you are so inclined.  I originally wrote about this soup a couple of years ago and shared my version.  Here I am again with the 2014 version.  Bigger.  Badder.  Faster.  Harder.  Or something like that.

Cucumber Spinach Chilled Soup
Serves 4 (as an appetizer)

3 Persian cucumbers, peeled and chopped
3 cups spinach, fresh
2 cloves  garlic, chopped
1/4 cup onions, chopped
3/4 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1 cup water
1/2 tsp shichimi togarashi
pinch of salt

In a blender, add the cucumbers, spinach, garlic, onions, water, yogurt, and togarashi.  Puree until smooth.  Add the feta and blend for 15-20 seconds.  I like the feta incorporated just enough that you'll still have crumbles.  Season to taste.

Note:  If you don't have togarashi, you can leave it out or substitute with red pepper flakes or even chili powder.  Alternately, if you don't want a hint of spice, you can leave it out entirely.  If you're substituting frozen  chopped spinach, I would probably cut the amount down to 2 cups.  

A World Away

In what seems a world away, a century ago, I remember the first tentative forays into foods that were unusual, foreign, and exotic to me.  Growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, there were a lot of weekends after I graduated from high school when I would take the train into New York City with a friend or two to see bands play at the Ritz or visit penpals (turned friends) who lived on Long Island.  I loved walking through Greenwich Village, down Canal Street, record shopping, vintage shopping, just hanging out and taking everything in.  

The first time I had Indian food was in New York City.  My girlfriend at the time, our friend from Long Island, and myself found ourselves hungry after a serious day of shopping and walking around.  Somehow we decided on Indian and thanks to Sue's love of roses we picked The Rose of India.  Yes...for the name and maybe an agreeable cursory glance at the menu posted near the door.  This place was truly awesome once we walked inside and let our eyes adjust to the serious change of lighting from outside to in.  It was a long and narrow space with a center aisle and tables that hugged the walls on either side.  Strands of Christmas lights (there must have been a few dozen) reached from the entryway to the kitchen, criss-crossing across the ceiling and winding their way up and down the wall.  Even more amazing was the fact that it seemed as though every square inch of exposed wall was covered in artificial flowers.  Silk, plastic, single blooms, garlands, bouquets, leaves, petals...all somehow attached or glued, making the dining room feel like a very dimly lit, strange 'garden' space.  Sue could not have chosen a better place.  We had a feast that evening, dish after dish after dish...curries, fritters, rice, fruits, vegetables, meats.  To this day, I think fondly of the banana fritters we had for dessert and the fact that our whole bill was just $22!  Even in the late 80's  that was a serious score. 

Of course, I had friends that lived in Philadelphia around this time too.  There was lot of time spent on the campus of Temple University, on South Street, and in Old City...hanging out in dorm rooms,  searching through the bins of Thrid St. Jazz, or dancing nights away at Revival.  But there was also a little spot, if my memory serves me right, on Fourth Street, just off of South, called Tuly's Middle Eastern restaurant.  Another restaurant in a small space, but bright and white.  Maybe 8 or 10 wooden tables and chairs populated the space as you walked in the entrance, past the small take-out counter.  More times than not, I wound up here with my friend, Amy, and we regularly took the table against the back wall.  It was a great vantage spot to watch the goings on or to lean up against the wall as we ate, smoked, and talked for hours.  We'd start every visit here with a plate of feta and Kalamata olives, drizzled with olive oil, and generously sprinkled with oregano.  My choices were usually lamb or falafel.  Falafel...who knew that chick peas could be that good.  Up until then, they were something that I would pick out of any salad I found them in, thinking their large, bumpy appearance was truly unappetizing.  I loved the crunch of each deep fried falafel ball, giving way to a chewy interior, mixing with the tang of the yogurt sauce.  

Over twenty plus years later, I finally took it upon myself to even try making Indian food.  But I did.  And it was really good.  Coming close to a year and a half later, I made falafel.  Now this isn't the first time I made it...but it is the first time where it didn't come from a boxed mix.  I know.  For some reason, I thought it would be one of those things that would be difficult.  Silly me.  I also don't do a lot of deep frying at home.  You know how the scent of frying oil just tends to linger in the air for a day or two?  Yeah...that.  It was worth it though.

Falafel

From a recipe on Epicurious

1 15 oz can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup onions, chopped

2 tbsp cilantro, chopped

1 tbsp parsley, chopped

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

4 cloves garlic

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp baking powder

6 tbsp flour

oil for frying

Yogurt Sauce with Celery

1 cup plain yogurt

1/4 cup celery, finely minced

1 tbsp olive oil

Sumac

Add all the falafel ingredients, except the baking powder and flour, to the bowl of a food processor.  Pulse until ingredients come together, but are not pureed.  Add baking powder and flour, again pulsing to bring ingredients together.  The mix should still feel a little chunky, but not too sticky.  Refrigerate for a couple of hours to overnight.

For the yogurt sauce, mix the yogurt with the celery and olive oil until well blended.  Sprinkle generously with sumac and refrigerate to let flavours mingle.  

To fry the falafel, form into small walnut size balls or patties.  Bring oil to 375 degrees in a large saucepan.  Only fry 3 or 4 at a time to keep oil temperature from dropping.  Fry until golden brown (about 2 minutes each side), flipping to fry evenly.  Remove from oil with slotted spoon and allow to drain on paper towel lined plate.  

You can serve the falafel in a pita topped with the yogurt sauce or do what I did and top a bed of romaine with falafel and yogurt sauce.   

A Cake by Any Other Name

Mix flour, eggs, sugar, and vanilla with a few other things, pour the batter into a pan, bake it, and you'll have a cake.   There are so many options:   chocolate, vanilla, lemon, coconut...I can change the taste with different flours, I can change the texture by adding nuts or bits of fruit.  All these mixes will come out of the oven and they will still be cake.  But sometimes the final result seems so special, so different, that I feel a need to call it by the French word: un gâteau. It helps when the recipe comes from the book, 'On Rue Tatin:  Living and Cooking in a French Town' by Susan Loomis.

It also helps you use an ingredient that might turn people off by the mere mention of its name, but call it by the new incarnation (thank you, marketing and PR), soak it in a little brandy and amaretto and the cake becomes worldly and continental.  Prunes...or as they're called now, dried plums.  I know, I know...prunes remind you of your grandparents, say, about 20 years ago.  It was old people food...like having a bowl of bran every morning.  But these same prunes, sorry, dried plums, make a spectacular cake.  This is the kind of cake that makes me want to bring out the nice china and have tea and cake, sitting at a table in a gazebo, surrounded by blossoming magnolia and jacaranda trees.

At the same time, I don't see it as a fussy cake.   The fussiest thing you have to do is melt butter and let it cool before adding it to your batter.  There's no buttercream to whip up, no layers to build...just bake in a loaf pan and dust it with confectioners' sugar.  Less time fussing with a cake and more time to sip tea under the trees.

Brandy Soaked Prunes and Almond Yogurt Cake
(Adapted from the Gateau Au Yaourt recipe by Susan Herrmann Loomis 'On Rue Tatin')

1 cup pitted prunes, chopped
1/2 cup roasted almonds, chopped
2 tbsp brandy
1 tbsp amaretto liqueur

1 ½  cups all purpose flour

¾ tsp baking powder

Pinch of sea salt

3 large eggs

1 cup sugar

½ cup plain yogurt 

1 tsp almond extract

6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Confectioners’ sugar, optional

In a small bowl, add the prunes, almonds, brandy, and amaretto.  Mix well and let sit for 30 minutes to an hour to let the flavours mingle.

Line a loaf pan with parchment, allowing a couple of inches to hang over the edges and butter lightly.  Pre-heat over to 375 degrees.  Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl or on a piece of parchment.  

In a small pan, melt the butter and let cool.  Whisk together the eggs and sugar in a large bowl until light and pale yellow.  Gradually add the flour, whisking thoroughly to incorporate into the eggs and sugar.  Fold in the yogurt, almond extract, and the cooled butter.  

Add the prunes and almonds (with the liquor) and mix until well-combined.  Pour batter into loaf pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 50-60 minutes.  Allow to cool for 15 minutes on cooling rack in pan before removing from pan.  Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar. 

Notes:  I used non-fat Greek yogurt and think you'll be fine using whatever yogurt you have on hand.  The loaf pan I used measures 9.5 x 3 inches.  Watch your baking time with a smaller loaf pan, as you'll probably need less time.  You can also bake this cake in a round 9-inch cake pan, in which case your baking time will be around 35-40 minutes.