Better Than Pie

A couple of months back, His Lordship and I checked out the newest upscale barbecue joint. I was pleasantly surprised by the vegetarian chili, which was pleasantly spicy and full of chewy seitan pieces and chunks of vegetables in a not-too-thick tomato base. I was equally impressed by their pecan pie, which nimbly sidestepped all the usual dangers of the genre. It was sweet but not tooth-destroying, had quite a decently flaky crust, and was bursting with nicely-sized pecan pieces.

Good though it was, the pie reminded me of an even-better bar cookie I’d previously made. The cookies poured a decadent honey and brown sugar caramel over a buttery base and covered it with a blanket of chopped toasted nuts, taking all the charms of a really good pecan pie and ramping them up to dazzling. A week or so later, I made the bars again, and was wowed all over again.

The price to be paid for this degree of wonderfulness is getting out the dreaded candy thermometer, but I promise it’s absolutely worth it. The bourbon-infused caramel offers all the symphonic roundness the standard one-note corn syrup substrate can’t. Since the cookie base holds up much better than pie crust, I’d even venture to suggest that these bars, cut into more pie-sized slices, would make the perfect make-ahead dessert for Thanksgiving.

Honey Caramel Pecan Bars
(Adapted from Nancy Baggett, The All-American Cookie Book)
Makes 36-48 small bars

For cookie layer:
9 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

For caramel pecan layer:
2 cups whole pecans
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter
1/2 cup mild honey
6 tablespoons light brown sugar
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons bourbon

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a 9 x 13 baking pan with nonstick aluminum foil, leaving several inches of overhang all around.

In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, sugar and egg and beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Whisk together the dry ingredients and add to the butter mixture, beating just until smooth. Spread the cookie dough in a thin, even layer in the lined pan. Bake on the center oven rack for 12-15 minutes, until golden in the center and a bit darker at the edges. Set on a wire rack while preparing the caramel layer.

Lower the oven temperature to 350 F. Spread the pecans on a baking sheet and toast just until they darken slightly and release a nutty aroma. Chop the pecans moderately fine and set aside.

Bring the butter, honey, brown sugar, and cream to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Insert a candy thermometer and continue to cook at a low boil until the caramel reaches 250 F. Remove from the heat and stir in the bourbon and half the chopped pecans.

Pour the caramel over the crust, spreading all the way to the edges, and sprinkle the remaining cup of pecans over the top. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until bubbling and browned. Cool to room temperature on a wire rack, then refrigerate until well chilled, at least 1 1/2 hours.

Use the overhang to lift the cookie slab out of the pan and onto a cutting board. Pull the foil away, then use a sharp knife to cut the slab into narrow bars, cleaning the sticky residue off the blade between cuts for a clean slice.

Notes:

The original recipe was made with hazelnuts, which are wonderful but obviously more work. It also had a chocolate garnish on top, formed by sprinkling the still-warm bars with very finely chopped chocolate and leaving it to melt. Uncharacteristically, I found it to be a wee bit overkill, since the chocolate distracted from the clean flavor of the hazelnuts and definitely would have overwhelmed the pecans, but feel free to add that back in if you disagree.

If you don’t have a thermometer, you can test the caramel for doneness by dropping 1/2 a teaspoon of it into a glass of ice water once it thickens and starts to darken. It should form a soft ball in the water which flattens once lifted out.

The unsliced slab can supposedly be wrapped tightly and frozen for several weeks, although I have never had the necessary level of willpower to put theory to practice.

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Psst! Wanna Know a Secret?

About a year ago, I finally cracked the elusive secret to His Lordship’s favorite cookies, the honey, apricot and pecan ones I blogged about a few years before that. At the time, I was celebrating the fact that I was just this-close to perfection, but frankly, that last little inch of close-but-no-cigar continued to drive me insane for quite some time after.

It turns out that I was just one tiny tweak away from the goal, one change so simple it was practically staring me in the face every time I opened the cupboard. The solution was so obvious yet so cunning that I felt both dense and smug when I tried it and it worked.

Ready? Here it is:

That’s right, bread flour. All the cookies needed were a tiny bit more structure, and using a slightly higher-protein flour was all it took to achieve it. No fiddling with the formula, no experiments with adding more flour in tiny increments, just one simple substitution. With that one change, I stopped the spreading and eliminated the need for all that guesswork about exactly when to take them out of the oven. I got all the puff, body and reliability I’d been after all along, and they received His Lordship’s full, effusive, grinning stamp of approval.

I know some might be looking at this recipe and thinking, “Yeah, sure, those sound yummy enough, but they can’t really be special enough for the holidays. And are they really THAT good?”

To that I say it may be difficult to believe given the absence of chocolate, but more than one person has informed me that these are the best cookies in the world. They’re intensely butterscotchy, sweetly multidimensional thanks to the honey, and simultaneously chewy, crispy, fruity and nutty. It’s all the kinds of decadence you’d expect from a holiday cookie, with the bonus of being low-effort enough to make throughout the whole year to come.

You’ll just have to make a batch to see whether you too think these are the best in the world, but even if you ultimately decide another cookie holds first place in your heart, I promise you won’t be sorry to have this one in your repertoire.

Honey Apricot Pecan Cookies, Perfected
Makes 5-6 dozen

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/4 cup honey
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups bread flour
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 cups pecans, coarsely chopped
2 cups dried apricots, coarsely chopped

Melt the butter and place it and the honey in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Allow the mixture to cool slightly. In the meantime, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt and set aside.

Once the butter is at room temperature, add the granulated sugar, egg, and vanilla, and mix well. Add the dry ingredients and stir on low until barely blended, then mix in the pecans and apricots. Cover the bowl and chill thoroughly, preferably overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 F, and line several baking sheets with parchment paper.

Scoop out the dough with a tablespoon-sized scoop and place two inches apart on the sheets. Bake 10-12 minutes, until golden brown in the middle and a bit darker at the edges. Cool the cookies on their sheets until they’ve firmed up, then slide them onto a rack with their parchment to finish cooling.

Notes:

I made twice this amount this time, because I was snowed into the house and had nothing better to do all day, so I’ll be mailing some out as well as taking them into the office. Apart from losing a few bits of pecan and apricot out the top of the nearly-too-full mixing bowl, it worked perfectly, so feel free to scale up.

Don’t be tempted to skip the refrigeration step, though. The resting period is important for hydrating the flour and developing the full magnificence of the dough, as I’ve pointed out before. You can also scoop out the dough, pop it into bags, and freeze it to have cookies on demand.

The bread flour does an excellent job of firming up the cookie dough, but the dough should still not be allowed to get too warm.  It wouldn’t hurt to put the mixing bowl back in the fridge while waiting for a tray to come out of the oven.

The now-defunct bakery that inspired this cookie also had a variation with dried cranberries and walnuts instead of apricot and pecan. I imagine you could split the batch in half just after mixing in the dry ingredients, and get twice the festive punch out of one dough.

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We Now Return You to Your Regularly-Scheduled Programming

It’s that time of the year again, in more ways than one. Early fall seems to be my usual time for disappearing and/or reappearing here, since it’s my usual time for starting new things, like degree programs, jobs, household projects, not to mention finally making an honest man out of His Lordship. It’s also the time we get a sizable shipment of dried figs from my father-in-law, which I’ve previously documented.

This cake, which marks my renewal of the Sunday baking and blogging tradition, is apropos of all of that, since it was inspired by a dinner out last weekend to commemorate our anniversary, the start of my new career, and our return to the East Coast.

We resume our narrative at a big-deal local restaurant named after an eating implement, which originally witnessed the very-long-in-coming decision to de-sin our relationship. While the meal was enjoyable and the company was naturally delightful, one of our “small-plate” desserts (a trend about which I have very mixed feelings) was quite the let-down. In principle, it sounded like the perfect not-too-heavy ending: an individual olive oil cake with Marcona almonds, garnished with figs. In practice, the cake was dry, crumbly, and tasted of neither olive oil nor almonds. The only saving grace was that the figs in the accompanying garnish were fresh and very nicely presented.

With the first bite, I knew I could do it better, since I already had a great and easy olive oil cake in my repertoire. I had figs that, while not fresh, were so lovingly grown and processed that they were still brightly green and tender, which reminded me of a old-favorite recipe for figs and apricots reconstituted in a honey-lemon syrup. I didn’t have almonds, but since they had added nothing at all, I quickly dropped that element altogether.

My path clear, I proceeded to do it better the very next day, on the first try, in about an hour and with minimal kitchen messing-up. Unlike the original, this cake is moist and beautifully springy in crumb, and delicately perfumed in ways that really do hint at sun-dappled groves. The glistening green-and orange compote instantly clicked with the cake and added even more Mediterranean flair, not to mention perfect fall color.

Not a bad way to make a comeback, one-upping an award-winning institution. Sometime soon I’m going to try improving on the rather bland butternut risotto I had as an entree, after a faultless appetizer of wild mushrooms en croute and a Calvados sidecar that made me want to rush across the Ben Franklin to stock up on hassle-free apple brandy for future cocktail applications.

Olive Oil Cake with Honeyed Fig-Apricot Compote
(Adapted from Sally Schneider, The Improvisational Cook and The Moosewood Collective, Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant)
Serves 8

For the cake:

3/4 cup each “white” whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Scant 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 large eggs
Zest of one large lemon
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup each milk and yogurt (preferably Greek)
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter and flour a 9-inch cake pan, lined with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a glass measuring cup, thin the yogurt down with the milk, then whisk in the olive oil until emulsified. (I’ll warn you, it won’t look at all pretty.)

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, lemon zest and sugar by hand until frothy and and the sugar is starting to dissolve. Whisk in the flour mixture until mostly incorporated, then stir in the swampy-green yogurt and oil emulsion.

Scrape the batter into the cake pan and bake about 45 minutes, until the top springs back when gently pressed, or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake for five minutes in the pan, then invert, peel off the parchment, and cool completely on a rack.

For the compote:

3 cups boiling water
1/3 cup honey
2 cups dried figs, sliced into eighths
1 cup dried apricots, quartered
Juice of one lemon (the same one zested for the cake)

While the cake is baking and cooling, mix the honey and water in a medium saucepan. Add the fruit, bring to a boil, and simmer until the fruit is tender and the syrup has reduced and thickened, about 20-25 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice.

Once the cake has cooled, serve generous slices with the compote on the side.

While it’s best the day it’s baked, the cake will keep well for several days at room temperature, tightly wrapped in plastic. Any leftover compote can be spooned into a small container and schlepped to work the next day with a single serving of even more yogurt, turning your Monday morning into an entirely different experience.

Notes:

A good, but not great, olive oil is what you’re aiming for here. You want one that is fruity and flavorful, but don’t waste your $40-a-bottle, murky-green unfiltered Tuscan early-harvest on an application that will bake out most of its divinity. Save that one for salads, and grab the $5 a bottle California estate stuff from Trader Joe’s instead.

I use the “white” whole wheat flour both to add flavor and to make the cake marginally healthier — although with no butter and all that “good” fat, it’s already about as good-for-you as you can make a cake that’s still absolutely delicious. If you don’t have it on hand, go ahead and use a total of 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour instead.

You can use 1/2 cup of buttermilk instead of the yogurt and milk, although I don’t know about you, but I’m much more likely to have yogurt around during the last-minute, MUST HAVE CAKE NOW occasions when this recipe comes in particularly handy. Likewise, regular plain yogurt is fine instead of the Greek yogurt, but I usually stock the Greek kind, and there’s something particularly appropriate about using it in a cake based on olive oil.

Incidentally, the cake is equally wonderful in the summer with fresh berries or nectarines, preferably macerated with a tiny bit of sugar in orange juice or white wine.

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Breakfast on the Run and on the Cheap

You’d think I’d have more time on my hands now that I’m a student, but if the past two weeks are any indication, you’d be wrong.  I’d forgotten how students don’t really have down time, how you’re constantly shuttling between campus and off-campus, and how all off-campus time is time that could and ideally should be devoted to studying.  I’m not complaining; this is what I wanted, and it’s also going to be over sooner than I think.  It does two things simultaneously, though.  Contrary to my usual breakfast-denying norm, it makes me actually want to have breakfast before morning classes so I can have the energy to think my way through to lunch, and it also cuts the amount of time I have available for fixing and having breakfast.

This means dealing with the problem of the easy-to-grab, on-the-go breakfast I haven’t had to face since my 45-minute commute days.  In those days, it was usually a fancy cereal bar and a latte from the Starbucks on the ground floor of my office building, but I’m also on a student budget now, and more creative and frugal thinking is required here.  What can I make that’s inexpensive, nutritious, portable, and forgiving of being forgotten on the countertop in my rush to catch the bus?

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Buzz Buzz Buzz

Chocolate Honey Cake with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting

Honey is my favorite souvenir purchase when I travel, because it’s easy to obtain, rarely ridiculously priced, takes up little luggage space, and keeps well when I get it home. More compellingly, each one will taste so clearly and uniquely of its place that it will be like being there again. This is why I have seven different containers to get rid of, representing five different states and two different countries. Pooh Bear’s got nothing on me.

In searching for honey-intensive recipes for Sunday baking, I remembered the cutesy Nigella chocolate cake with marzipan bees from Feast, which uses a good half-cup. I liked the idea of the cake, but decided to ditch the chocolate glaze in favor of a honey-laced cream cheese frosting, which would let me use up the second of the three blocks of cream cheese I inherited in addition to more honey. I also thought it would be nice to have a bit of a tangy contrast to what would undoubtedly be a very sweet cake.

The finished cake was really popular with the coworkers and had an interestingly fudgy, gingerbready texture and good strong honey base-note, but I was disappointed in the surprisingly weak chocolate flavor. As His Lordship observed, it was pretty much just sweet, without any identifiable characteristics. I do like the idea of a honey and chocolate cake, but next time I might start with a different, more deeply chocolate base recipe and experiment with the honey substitution myself.

On the other hand, the frosting, which was of my own devising, was great and highly repeatable as-is. It was nicely honey-flavored without being cloying, and would be equally at home over a carrot or spice cake. This is a great place to use a slightly more assertive honey, since all that creamy richness offers a supportive base for stronger herbal qualities.

The marzipan bees were seriously not going to happen, both because I don’t do cutesy and because I had no marzipan anyway. Since the cake has a very long baking and cooling time, I had ample opportunity to perpetrate a different act of candy-making insanity. Thinking that the finished cake would need some kind of decorative topping to relieve the white blankness of the frosting, I dug out a recipe for honey nut crunch from The Cake Bible, replacing the original almonds with some of the tons of sesame seeds I have in stock. I won’t give you the recipe for the resulting brittle, which I smashed into dust and sprinkled over the finished cake, because I wouldn’t want anyone else to indulge in that level of pathological ambition. Also, while pretty and certainly crunchy and redolent of honey when freshly made, it was incredibly sticky (duh) and clumped hopelessly by the next day, even in completely airtight conditions.

This week’s Sunday baking dented further my strategic chocolate reserves and used up the penultimate block of cream cheese. The cake, frosting and candy together used up an entire nearly-full jar of honey. One down, six more to go!

Chocolate Honey Cake with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting
(Adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Feast)
Serves 12-16

Cake:

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 cups (11 ounces) packed light brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups (7 1/8 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cocoa, sifted
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup boiling water

Frosting:
8 ounces (1 block) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a 16×4 inch loaf pan completely with aluminum foil.

In a mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy, then add the honey. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a tablespoon of flour with each egg. Fold in the melted chocolate.

Whisk together the remaining flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt, and mix gently into the butter mixture. On low speed, mix in the boiling water to create a very liquid batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the cake is firm and a tester comes out clean, 50-60 minutes. Cool the cake completely on a rack.

While the cake is cooling, beat together the cream cheese and butter for the frosting until light. Add the sugar and beat again until fluffy, then mix in the honey and vanilla. Cover tightly and refrigerate until ready to use. The honey will keep it very spreadable even straight from the fridge.

When the cake has completely cooled, lift it from the pan by using the foil. Peel away the foil, and spread the top generously with the frosting. Slice into 1-inch slices or 2-inch squares as preferred.

Notes:

I used the loaf pan because I bought it an unconscionable number of years ago and had yet to actually bake Pullman loaf bread (its designated use) or anything else in it the entire time I’ve had it. I also thought it would be much easier to portion the cake among more people in neat slices from a loaf.

Nigella’s original recipe used a 9-inch springform pan, which you could revert to if you don’t have a similarly compulsive cookware buying habit. Just make sure you line the pan tightly and completely with the foil, since it’s a very liquid batter and will seep out any cracks in a springform pan if permitted to.

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While we’re on this theme…

Pistachio Yogurt Cake with Figs, Blueberries and Peaches

Wherein we continue to head in a vaguely Middle Eastern direction, with some promising initial results.

One of my stand-by choices for Sunday baking is the French yogurt cake I originally discovered on Chocolate and Zucchini, which yields grandmere levels of deliciousness from box-mix levels of effort, just the thing when I want cake now. It’s so simple and so good that I’ve used it in my class for foreign students with zero baking experience, and they were able to reproduce it perfectly all by themselves the very next day.

To take to work on Monday morning, I used the basic recipe to make cupcakes iced with an espresso and cardamom infused ganache inspired by Turkish coffee, and decorated along the edges with ground pistachios. They were fine, but considerably less interesting than I had hoped. In particular, the ganache was too rich and bittersweet for the chiffon texture and mild flavor of the cake and the pistachio flavor was negligible.

Since I still liked the idea of combining yogurt, cardamom and pistachios, on Monday evening I decided to try again. I put the pistachios inside the cake by replacing part of flour with ground nuts, and spiced it with a hint of cardamom and cinnamon. I added a few more regional elements to reinforce the theme: honey, a splash of orange flower water, and a compatible addition from a little further up the Mediterranean, in the form of Tuaca, an Italian liqueur with vanilla and citrus flavors that I find very handy to have around for baking.

This slightly different approach worked much better. The cake was nutty but not aggressively “pistachio” in flavor, and the honey, spices and extracts added a hint of perfume without evoking potpourri, which can be a real danger with flower water. The plain cake was summery and fresh served with a salad of figs, peaches and blueberries in a very simple syrup that moistened both the fruit and the cake. The addition of a dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream, while not necessary, certainly didn’t hurt.

Unusual but not outre, this would be a nice end to a meal featuring Northern African, Eastern Mediterranean, Middle Eastern or Indian dishes.

Pistachio Yogurt Cake with Fig, Peach and Blueberry Salad
Serves 8-10

Cake:
1 cup plain whole milk yogurt
14 tablespoons granulated sugar (1 cup minus two tablespoons)
2 tablespoons strong-flavored honey
1/3 cup grapeseed or other neutral oil
2 eggs
1 tablespoon Tuaca or brandy
1/4 teaspoon orange flower water
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup finely ground raw, unsalted pistachios
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon each ground cardamom and cinnamon

Fruit Salad:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups water
1/3 cup Tuaca or brandy
Juice of 1 lemon

1 pint blueberries
6-8 fresh figs, cut into wedges
2 peaches, peeled and diced

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a 9-inch nonstick cake pan with parchment.

In a large bowl, whisk yogurt, sugar, honey, oil, eggs, Tuaca and orange flower water until homogeneous.

In a separate bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, pistachios, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Stir dry ingredients into the yogurt mixture, gently but thoroughly, until no dry flour lumps remain.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until top is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 30-35 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes in pan, then turn out, remove parchment, and let cool completely on a wire rack.

While the cake is baking, prepare the syrup by combining sugar and water in a small saucepan and bringing to a boil. Simmer for two minutes, then decant into a heat-proof liquid measuring cup and cool to room temperature. Stir in the liquor and lemon juice. Combine fruit in a large bowl, pour over enough syrup to just cover the fruit, and allow to macerate in the refrigerator until ready to serve the cake.

Spoon a generous portion of fruit and its soaking syrup over each slice of cake before serving. Garnish with sweetened whipped cream if desired.

Notes:

The extra syrup can be used to sweeten iced tea, lemonade, cocktails, or any other summertime beverages. If not using immediately, cover tightly and store in refrigerator.

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Mid-Week Baklava

I’m still writing up this week’s Sunday baking recipe, but as an appetizer, I’m putting up the baklava I made in the middle of last week.

And why did the crazy woman make baklava in the middle of the week? Because she can, darlings!

OK, truthfully, because she defrosted phyllo over the Fourth of July weekend, dreaming all kinds of big phyllo-wrapped dreams, but never actually got around to realizing any of them. Instead, I made a simple spinach, potato and feta pie for dinner on Tuesday, using one of the two individually-wrapped 8-oz sleeves in the pack. Then, looking down at the third of a roll of dough left in the sleeve, I thought, what the hell, I’ll make baklava while I’m at it.

Although I have a few legitimate Greek cookbooks, I chose the Cook’s Illustrated Best International Recipe version as a starting point because I had yet to cook out of that book despite having obtained it it nearly two years ago as a result of the temporary insanity that led me to sign up for the CI cookbook club.

In addition to roughly quartering the quantities to fit the amount of dough I had, I made a couple of modifications in terms of ingredients and technique. First, regardless of its supposed superiority over plain melting, there was no way I was clarifying butter at 9:00 pm on a work day. I also chose the more adventurous combination of almonds and pistachios over their walnut-almond mix.

The combination of almonds and pistachios worked well, because pistachios alone can be a little overwhelming in baklava, and almonds by themselves don’t have enough character to stand up to the honey syrup. The CI approach of creating three thin layers of nut filling produces a nicely flaky and cohesive pastry without the usual tendency to slide and split in half when picked up. It was nicely saturated all the way through with this quantity of syrup, but next time I might double it just to ensure a completely hedonistic experience.

Baklava is never going to be an effortless endeavor, but this was ready to bake by the time the spinach pie came out of the oven, and it makes a perfectly reasonable quantity for a small household instead of enough to feed an army. It does need to sit several hours to absorb the syrup, so you won’t be eating it until morning unless you’re an even more incorrigible night owl than I am. The reward for your evening industriousness is sticky, buttery, crisp, perfect baklava with your breakfast coffee.

Almond-Pistachio Baklava
Serves 2-6

Syrup:
5 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons honey
2 strips lemon zest
1-inch piece of cinnamon stick
2 cloves
1 pinch salt
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Pastry:
2 ounces sliced, unsalted almonds
1 ounce roasted, salted pistachios
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Generous pinch of ground cloves
1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/4 lb phyllo sheets

Combine sugar, honey, zest, and spices for the syrup in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat until sugar has dissolved, stirring or swirling the pot as necessary. Transfer to a heat-safe cup, remove the lemon peel and cinnamon stick, stir in the lemon juice, and set aside to cool.

Adjust oven rack to the lower-middle position and preheat the oven to 300 F. Liberally butter the bottom and sides of a glass baking dish approximately 8 x 6 x 2.

Process nuts in a food processor until finely chopped, and transfer to a small bowl. Remove 1 tablespoon of nut mixture for the final garnish, then add cinnamon, cloves, and 1/2 tablespoon of sugar to remaining nuts.

Unroll the phyllo and cut to fit the size of the pan. Place one sheet in the bottom of the pan, and brush the entire surface with melted butter. Repeat with 9 more sheets, then sprinkle the top with one third of the nut filling. Cover the filling with 6 more individually-buttered sheets, and the next third of the filling. Repeat with another 6 sheets and the final third of nut mixture. Top with 8-10 more sheets of phyllo.

Using your flat palms, press out any air bubbles in the pastry, then brush on the remaining butter. Using a serrated knife, cut the baklava into diamonds, making sure to pierce all the way through the bottom layers.

Bake 1 1/2 hours or until completely golden, rotating the pan halfway through. Remove from oven and immediately pour all but 2 tablespoons of the syrup along each crevice, then drizzle the remaining syrup over the top. Sprinkle a generous pinch of the reserved ground nuts on the center of each piece.

Cool on a wire rack for 2-3 hours, then cover with foil and let stand 8 hours or overnight.

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Sunday Night Sweets Blogging: Honey Gingerbread with Apple-Quince Compote

I am woefully behind on the blogging, and I’m afraid I still don’t have the time or energy right now to do this anywhere near as well as I’d like to, but something is better than nothing, right? Anyway, in a (probably futile) attempt to catch up, here is the Sunday project from two weeks ago: Honey Gingerbread, served with a compote of apples and quinces and topped with a generous dollop of sweetened mascarpone. While I love ordinary gingerbread, using honey instead of molasses gentles the cake, letting the spices warm and soothe you instead of being overwhelming, and serving it with the sweet fruit and the creamy cheese turns a humble snack cake into an unpretentious but still elegant dessert that could unapologetically round out a fancy meal.

Since the accompaniments are so simple (just add quinces to your favorite applesauce recipe, and stir a spoonful or two of sugar into a container of mascarpone), I will only give the recipe for the gingerbread. I will, however, encourage you to consider serving it with the garnishes, since the combination of textures and flavors is fabulous. If you don’t have access to quinces, you could use a combination of tart and sweet apples instead, but quinces add such a wonderful, exotic floral note to any fruit dessert that they are absolutely worth paying the extortionate prices whenever you can find them.

Honey Gingerbread
Serves 8-12

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 cups honey
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in 2 tablespoons warm water
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Grease a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking pan and line with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, spices and salt.

In a saucepan over medium-low heat, melt together the butter, sugar, and honey. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly, then mix in the milk, eggs and dissolved baking soda.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well. Pour into the pan and bake until firm but springy when touched, 45-60 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely in the pan before cutting into squares.

Notes: This gingerbread, like any gingery, cinnamony cake or cookie, will only improve if you give it a bit of time to sit. While it’s wonderful fresh from the oven, it will be even spicier and more flavorful for breakfast the next day.

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Sunday Night Cookie Blogging: Memory Quest Edition

When we were students, His Lordship and I used to frequent a bakery that specialized in cookies, not high-impact cookies like tuiles or madeleines, but homey, chock-full-of-bits variations on the basic chocolate chip cookie. They were all unassumingly wonderful, but there was one for which His Lordship, who can otherwise take or leave desserts, would take regular detours. It was a honey-apricot-pecan cookie, moist and chewy because of the honey and full of nuts and fruit, and despite the fact that we’d buy a pound of them at a time, they never seemed to last until the next day.

We finished school and moved away, and then the bakery closed, depriving His Lordship of the opportunity to buy them ever again. Since he never stopped pining for them, I decided to try reproducing them at home, and began a long and occasionally frustrating quest for the right recipe. I began by trying to modify a standard chocolate chip cookie with nuts, exchanging some of the sugar for honey and replacing the chocolate with the apricots, assuming that that’s what the bakery had done. The taste was fine, but the texture was wrong. His Lordship wanted it to be chewier, and to have a more pronounced honey flavor. Since nothing I could do to a basic creamed-butter dough would produce the level of chewiness he wanted, I decided to switch the paradigm to a modified ginger cookie instead, which had the double virtue of built-in chewiness and one-for-one substitutability of honey for molasses. Using the same basic recipe underlying the five-spice and bourbon-infused cookies I previously posted, I added a cup each of chopped pecans and dried apricots. His Lordship proclaimed the results closer than any of my previous attempts, and they’ve been a big hit with family, friends and coworkers as well.

I appear to be on the right track, but I’m still not perfectly satisfied. Although the combination of flavors and the level of chewiness are right, they still spread quite a lot, producing a much flatter cookie than the one I remember, and, if not watched carefully, they over-brown and become almost praline-like. I’ve tried increasing the proportion of nuts and apricots to add more structure, thoroughly chilling (even pre-freezing) the dough, lowering the baking temperature, and making sure to remove the cookies from the oven while just barely golden. All of this has helped, but not enough. I’m starting to suspect that I may need to play around with adding extra flour for additional support. Next time, I will try increasing it by a quarter of a cup, to see if that makes any difference. In the meantime, it’s still a damn good cookie, even if it can still use a bit more refining, so I’m putting up the in-progress recipe. Keep watching this space for ongoing installments of the Great Cookie Quest.

Honey Apricot Pecan Cookies
Makes approx. five dozen

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup strong-flavored honey
1 large egg
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups pecans, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 cup dried apricots, coarsely chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 F, and line several baking sheets with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt.

Melt the butter and place in a large mixing bowl, allowing it to cool to room temperature. Once cool, add the granulated sugar, honey, egg, and vanilla, and mix well. Add the sifted dry ingredients and stir until barely blended, then stir in the pecans and apricots. Cover the bowl and chill thoroughly.

Scoop out the cookie with a tablespoon-sized scoop and place two inches apart on the cookie sheets. Bake 9-10 minutes, until just beginning to turn golden. Immediately slide the cookies, parchment and all, onto a cooling rack and leave to cool completely and set up.

Notes: Next time, I will try increasing the flour by 1/4 cup to see what that does, and I will probably also increase the amount of nuts and apricots again.

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Another Legitimate Thirty-Minute Meal: Roasted Asparagus Salad

In my ongoing valiant quest to present legitimately quick, easy, delicious and nutritious meals, here is what His Lordship and I had for dinner last night, courtesy of our Saturday trip to the farmer’s market, where the signs of spring are truly undeniable, as evidenced by the asparagus, radishes, baby greens, scallions, rhubarb, early tomatoes and fresh herbs we picked up. I also stopped by my favorite cheesemonger and picked up some of the lovely and sharp Canadian cheddar he recommended a while ago during a side-by-side tasting with several imports from the UK, during which the Canadian stuff beautifully held its own while costing half the price.

By the time we’d gotten the goods home, we’d already decided to roast the asparagus, and I decided to combine it with the salad we’d also planned to have instead of serving it on the side. Because radishes can be peppery and a little bitter, His Lordship suggested a sweeter dressing, so I threw together a basic honey-mustard vinaigrette, which worked very well with all the components. The cheese shavings on top were not only decorative but gave a nice sharp-but-smooth contrast to the sweetness of the asparagus and the dressing and the crispness of the radishes, to say nothing of adding some extra protein.

This is a really delicious, satisfying, and pretty salad which would make a very nice first course as well as a light main course.

Roasted Asparagus, Radish and Canadian Cheddar Salad
Serves 4 as first course, or 2 as main course

2 bunches asparagus
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

2 tablespoons dijon or other smooth European-style mustard
2 tablespoons clover or other light-flavored honey
Salt and pepper
1/3-1/2 cup fruity extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons-1/4 cup sherry vinegar
2 large scallions, white parts only, or 1 shallot, minced

4-6 cups mixed baby greens, washed and thoroughly dried
1 small bunch radishes, finely sliced
The reserved green tops of the scallions, sliced
2 oz Canadian or other sharp, aged dry cheddar, finely shaved

Preheat oven to 425 F. Clean asparagus and use a vegetable peeler to peel away the tough and woody outer layer on the end of each stalk, or bend each stalk gently until the tough lower portion snaps off, saving those parts for soup. Toss the spears with the olive oil, salt and pepper, and lay in a single layer in oven-proof dish. Roast the asparagus uncovered for 15-20 minutes, or until easily pierced with a sharp knife, but not so long that it loses its bright green color and becomes mushy. Once the asparagus is cooked, remove from the oven and cut each stalk into two or three smaller segments.

While the asparagus is roasting, combine the mustard, honey, salt and pepper in a bowl, stirring with a small whisk or a fork until thoroughly combined. Slowly add the olive oil in a thin stream, stirring briskly to emulsify. Once the oil has been incorporated, add the minced scallion and drizzle in the vinegar.

In a large bowl, toss the greens, radishes, scallion tops and asparagus with salt and pepper, then add half the vinaigrette and toss, tasting to see if it’s sufficiently dressed. If not, add the remaining vinaigrette to taste and toss again. Divide the salad between plates, and sprinkle over the cheddar shavings before serving.

Notes: Parmesan, gruyere, or another sharp and dry cheese should work equally well here. If you’re not a vegetarian, poached or roasted chicken or duck, or perhaps even pork, would be a good addition to round out the salad into a complete meal.

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