Cakes and Tea

I grew up with a set of tiny, green hard backed children’s books; I imagine most of you, dear readers, did too. Our friends Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddle-Duck and the rest of the sweetly drawn creatures took us on adventures in gardens and quaint towns in a comforting Britain of the last century. Beatrix Potter wrote 23 of these just-right-size-for-children books, beginning in 1902 with The Tale of Peter Rabbit and ending in 1930 with The Tale of Pig Robinson.
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The exquisite illustrations immediately drew readers in and her non-sanitized stories entertained both parents reading aloud to children and children just beginning to figure out new words for themselves. Children have always appreciated some gore and mildly perilous situations: note that in The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Peter’s father has previously been “put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor” and Mr. McGregor is a perfect, mildly scary villain. The realism and charm has kept the books in print for over one hundred years and inspired numerous writers, illustrators, products, pilgrimages, movies, and spin-offs.

​Best known in America as a children’s author, in Britain, Beatrix Potter is a cultural icon, representing the ideal British countrywoman. Even as a young child growing up mainly in London, she longed to spend more time in the country, as the family did on annual Scottish vacations. She began drawing and painting from the natural world at an early age, one reason her animal characters are so accurately and beautifully drawn. As soon as her stories were published and became profitable, she moved permanently to the Lake District and began living her country life, ultimately preserving great swaths of traditional wooded farmland through a bequest to the National Trust. This 4000 acre gift helped preserve 20% of England’s Lake District that she loved so much.

I came across The Beatrix Potter Country Cooking Book, published in 1991, way back in 1997, after Louise and I had tried unsuccessfully to visit Beatrix Potter’s Hill Top Farm, near Windermere, in the Lake District. (We learned that most tourist destinations in rural Britain, at that time, closed for the winter, ahem.) The charming cookbook is illustrated with Potter’s drawings and paintings as well as photographs of Lake District folks and time-honored country dishes.

From the introduction:

“This cookery book was inspired by the works of Beatrix Potter and her love of traditional British cooking. Author Sara Paston-Williams, who specializes in researching recipes of earlier periods and creating delicious dishes from natural country ingredients, is a great admirer of Beatrix Potter.”
“Beatrix Potter’s little books famously celebrate the pleasures of country life. This cookery book reflects her enthusiasm for one most important feature of country living – the enjoyment of appetizing and wholesome food.”

Even when I have no intention of actually cooking anything from the book, it is a pleasure to read through its chapters, learning tidbits about Beatrix herself or what folks were baking in the 1900s or country food ways and lore. For American readers, a measurement guide and glossary help us figure out puzzling British terms and ingredients. The editors have not relied on everyone’s having read mounds of British novels in preparation for using their book, though I always recommend that course. (I believe Rose would agree.)

Chapters include the usual such as Starters, Fish, and Meat but intriguingly include Herbs and Flowers, Preserves, and Puddings. Of course, I delved right into Breads, Cakes, and Biscuits. Each and every recipe would be perfectly at home on any tea table. On page 133, we see a Potter drawing from The Pie and The Patty-Pan in which Duchess the dog is having pussy cat Ribby over for tea. On page 127, soft light spills onto Lake District baker Mollie Green’s tea room, replete with scones and cakes. We can imagine pussy and Mollie enjoying treats such as Buttered Oat Biscuits or Dear Little Muffins. Herby Soda Bread would be a cozy accompaniment to tea or a hearty soup but the compellingly named Hawkshead Seed Wigs might win my favor. Author Paston-Williams offers these clues in her introduction to the recipe:
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“Small cakes of spiced dough, known as wigs, used to be sold in Hawkshead, like many other Cumbrian villages and towns. They were usually eaten at Christmas, dipped into elderberry wine or mulled ale. The original wigs were made with yeast and were split and spread with rum butter while still warm. The more modern recipe is easier and very tasty. Beatrix was a regular visitor to the little market town of Hawkshead for shopping and business.” Who knew?

At the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London, a new show is celebrating all things Beatrix with a new exhibition, Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature. The show is up until January of 2023 so there may be time to get ourselves across the pond and take in her watercolor paintings, ephemera, and the original illustrated letters to children that turned into such classics.
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I first read about the exhibition online, in an article by New Yorker contributing writer Anna Russell, titled somewhat melodramatically “The Secret Life of Beatrix Potter.” The secret part being that she wrote her diaries from age 14 through 30 in very small handwriting, using a self-invented code that wasn’t decoded until 1958. Nothing very alarming seems to have been discovered, save that she was a woman of strong opinions and didn’t want people to read her innermost thoughts, much like many angsty teens of today and yesteryear. Apart from any manufactured drama, the show sounds wonderfully enticing.
 

Find the article here: The Secret Life of Beatrix Potter, newyorker.com article And here is the link to the Victoria and Albert Museum website, for more details and how to get tickets for the show: Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature exhibition V & A Museum There is also a book to support the exhibition, Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature by Annemarie Bilclough featuring cover illustration of Mr. Jeremy Fisher being pulled into the pond, fishing pole first.
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I’ll leave you here with my favorite quote from Beatrix herself:
“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”
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​For spring, you may want to try a daffodil cake. Technically a chiffon cake, daffodil cake is really an angel food cake dappled with bursts of egg yolk-enriched batter. Flavored with orange zest, the yellow swirls are meant to look like daffodils against a pale background. Seeing the daffodils in the random cake swirls may require imagination but is worth the effort.

As I write this in February, the days are in the 60s and trees are blossoming early. All the tender greens in the garden had me thinking about adding a touch of green to my daffodil cake, representing stems and leaves. I wanted a natural green food color so came up with matcha powder to make pastel green “foliage.” I love the particular pastel tint of green tea ice cream, naturally colored and flavored with the traditional powdered green tea.
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Four or five test cakes later, I backed way off from my original 2 tablespoons of matcha powder. The green parts of the cake tasted, um, like grass? And not in a good way. I finally ended up with one teaspoon matcha powder which made a vibrant green color and had a pleasant, subtle green tea taste. My spring daffodil cake would work beautifully for any spring celebration from Saint Patrick’s Day to Easter to Mother’s Day to a spring birthday to an afternoon tea party.

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This pretty pastel cake is baked in a rather old-fashioned pan called a tube pan. Foam cakes, such as angel food and chiffon cake and some sponge cakes, are traditionally baked in an ungreased straight-sided pan with a removeble bottom with a hollow tube in the center. The tube allows heat to flow through the center, helping the cake cook evenly and more quickly, preserving the delicate loft formed by beating the egg whites. Leaving the tube pan ungreased helps the batter cling to the side of the pan. The angel or chiffon cake needs to be turned upside down immediately upon coming out of the oven, again, helping to retain the airy loft of these feather-light cakes. Some old recipes call for cooling the cake upside down on a wine bottle which works very well. However, you’ll notice little legs on the top of some tube pans that are meant for upside down cooling. Please do not try to substitute a bundt pan as you will be scraping out bits of stuck-on cake for days. Your local thrift store is the perfect place to purchase an inexpensive tube pan.
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​Preheat oven 375˚
Makes one 10” tube cake
Special equipment: 10” tube cake, ungreased, hand or stand mixer, 2 mixer bowls, 2 or 3 silicone spatulas, fine zester such as Microplane, 2 small mixing bowls (I use a 2-cup and a 4-cup glass measuring cups,) thin-bladed knife

Variation: substitute lime zest and a few drops of green food color for the matcha powder

Breakfast baked goods tend to have their moment in the spotlight then get replaced by the next popular thing. Bagels, doughnuts, croissants, cronuts, scones, and biscuits have all taken their star turn. Along with scones, muffins have had the best traction in the popular imagination. Though not as exciting as some of the newer morning pastries, muffins have held their own and can be found in super markets across the land. However, the once ubiquitous bran muffin has fallen out of favor and been eclipsed by blueberry, banana, and chocolate. All delicious flavors to be sure. Another problem is the once humble muffin has super-sized itself and added plenty of sugars and fats until it barely has anything left to recommend it. A muffin should not be a cupcake in disguise.

Recently, two friends were lamenting the lack of available bran muffins and how they’d been searching for a muffin packed with satisfying, tasty, and somewhat healthier ingredients. I made the rounds here in my hometown and found bran muffins in only one store. While we weren’t looking, bran muffins seemed to be fading into the sunset. I have always appreciated the homespun somewhat coarse nature of the bran muffin and understand that it is not for everyone, but I believe it has earned a permanent place in the baker’s recipe file.

During my bed and breakfast cooking days, we generally baked 4 to 5 dozen muffins each morning, changing flavors daily. I gathered a lot of really yummy muffin recipes and came to understand its versatility. The range of acceptable texture for muffins is much higher than any other baked good, making the muffin the ideal vehicle for ingredient swaps, substitutions, and leaps of fancy. A muffin can be anywhere from somewhat dry to almost too moist and still be a great muffin. I decided to break out the wheat bran and begin looking into creating a versatile bran muffin recipe.
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I’ve always liked my bran muffins to be more on the moist side and to be packed with as much fruit as possible. The plain-Jane look of the bran muffins takes to bits of colorful fruits and vegetables very well. I am partial to a very dark bran muffin, so I stick with wheat bran instead of the paler oat bran. The other ingredient that makes bran muffins dark is using molasses as the sweetener. To take the darkness even further, I use coffee as some of the liquid.

One of my other favorite muffins was the very popular and fruit-filled Morning Glory Muffins. These classic muffins have been served since the 1970s at the Morning Glory Café in Nantucket and include coconut, pineapple, shredded carrot and apple, and walnuts. A super tasty combination that was a reliable crowd-pleaser.

What if I married the fruity flavor profile of Morning Glory Muffins with my extra dark bran muffin? Several tests later, the answer was a complex, fruit-forward, hearty, delicious muffin that you can feel good about having for breakfast or at tea time if you are in need of some real sustenance with your hot beverage. I christened it the Stormy Morning Bran Muffin. I wrote out the recipe below, but a word about the possible additions and substitutions that are possible first.

The five components of these muffins are: dry ingredients, liquid ingredients, purees, sweeteners, and mix-ins. Besides swopping out all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour or unbleached flour, which is fine, you can adjust the spice to your liking. I have 1 teaspoon of cinnamon in this recipe, but you could add or change any warm spices you like. Ground ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, allspice, mace would all be nice.
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​The moistness of these bran muffins comes from liquid ingredients, liquid sweeteners, and a fruit puree. Below, I have made a chart of some different swap-outs for each of these categories. The mix-ins are almost limitless, and I will give a laundry list later on.

A quick note on the purees: these mashed fruits or cooked, pureed fruits or vegetables are a building block in moist muffins. For example, besides adding flavor, the pureed pumpkin in pumpkin muffins helps create that tender, moist crumb. Banana does the same job in banana muffins. The extremely old, black banana adds such great moistness, taste, and sweetness; old, frozen bananas are one of the baker’s best friends. For example, Fannie Farmer’s classic banana bread recipe does not call for any added fat because the extra ripe banana acts as fat in the quick bread. Also, applesauce and prune puree (known as lekvar) can be used to replace fat and add sweetness in baked goods. I have a quick recipe for lekvar following the Stormy Morning Bran Muffin recipe.
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These mix-ins are the part where you can try any combinations you can think of or use whatever you have at hand.
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​Favorite nuts and seeds, including flax, sesame, poppy, and pumpkin seeds
It is a good idea to toast walnuts and pecans before using in a recipe as toasting really enhances the nutty flavor.
 

Makes 14 to 16 standard-sized muffins
Preheat oven to 400˚F
Special equipment: large mixing bowl, wooden spoon, small whisk or fork, medium mixing bowl, muffin pans, lined with muffin papers or sprayed with baking spray, silicone spatula, cooling rack

​Dry ingredients:

• 1 ¼ cups wheat bran
• 1 ¼ cups flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt

 
Wet ingredients:

• 1 cup prune butter (lekvar)
• ¾ cup milk
• ¼ cup honey
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 eggs

 
Mix-ins:

• 1 cup grated carrot, about 2 carrots
• 1 cup chopped, well-drained pineapple
• ½ cup grated apple, about 1 apple
• 1 cup toasted, chopped walnuts
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​Oh, there is no added sugar (except honey) in this recipe, as I like the fruit to sweeten these muffins. Add up to 1/3 cup brown or white sugar, if you prefer a sweeter muffin.

Lekvar is a Hungarian cookie filling usually made from dried apricots or plums (prunes.) Three-cornered Hamantaschen cookies are traditionally filled with this thick prune puree, fruit preserves, or dried apricot filling. Typical lekvar has spices and lemon juice added but here is a simplified version. Besides being tasty, it lends natural fruit sweetness to baked goods, thereby allowing less white sugar to be used. Bakers also use prune lekvar (or applesauce) to replace fats in moist baked goods. Solo brand is widely available in grocery stores and comes in prune as well as apricot. It does have added sugar but sometimes point-and-pay is the way!
Makes about 1 cup
Special equipment: microwave-safe bowl or 2-cup glass measuring cup, food processor, scraper
1 cup prunes
½ cup coffee or water

1. In small microwave-safe bowl or glass 2-cup measuring cup, microwave the prunes and liquid for about 2 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes.
2. Place prunes and liquid into bowl of food processor. Pulse several times until liquid is somewhat incorporated. Scrape down sides of bowl. Process for 1 minutes until mixture is mostly smooth. Some larger bits of prune remaining is fine. Can be stored, tightly covered, in the fridge for up to a week.

In January, you may be in one of two possible states of mind: exhausted from the recent holidays and all their accompanying ado or at loose ends and ready for an absorbing project. Or perhaps just reading about one.

In the autumn, I began thinking about a pear dessert that would showcase the beautiful claret color of poached pears. I had previously baked poached pears into soft gingerbread cake and loved the flavor pairing and attractive presentation. I wondered how these complementary flavors would play against a creamy background. Panna cotta, a gelled Italian dessert, would serve as a vanilla-y base for the sweet wine and spice fruit.

Testers really loved the combination; it was even a hit with folks who were doubtful about the idea of red wine being introduced to a mild pear. I added ginger flavor in the form of little cookies in the shape of leaves. I used my old standby gingerbread cookie recipe, swapping out the molasses for a light colored honey so the cookie leaves would be a paler color. You may use your own recipe, and I’ve put in a link to a recipe for gingerbread cookies further down, if you need a recipe.
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The game plan for this pretty layered dessert is to break it down into steps over a few days or however it works best into your schedule. I would recommend baking the cookies first, as they freeze well, then poaching the pears up to a week ahead. Two days before serving the parfaits, make the panna cotta layer; then when that has thoroughly chilled, top with the poaching liquid gelatin layer. When ready to serve the parfaits, lean a poached pear against one side of the glass, crumble a cookie next to the pear then situate a leaf cookie on the edge of the glass. Here is a possible time frame:
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​Poach the pears. They can be made up to a week ahead and kept, covered, in the refrigerator.

1. Bake gingerbread cookies. They can be made up to a month ahead, if stored in the freezer, tightly wrapped. They will be fine for a few days, tightly wrapped, at room temperature, as well.
2. Make panna cotta layer. They can be made and chilled up to two days ahead.
3. Top panna cotta layer with poaching liquid gelatin. This layer can be added as soon as the panna cotta has firmly set or up to two days ahead.
4. Assemble dessert just before serving.
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Shown above, an early sketch of the poached pear dessert idea, with the addition of pastry cream piped over the panna cotta rather than the poaching liquid gelatin layer, with chopped candied pecans instead of crumbled cookies. The version as shown above would be delicious. Adding pastry cream to virtually ANY dessert is a grand idea. I decided to add the poaching liquid gelatin layer after tasting it and discovering it was too good to discard. It adds a deep, wintery flavor and pleasant contrasting color.
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Gingerbread cookie recipe from Taste of Home
I cut out a leaf shaped cookie with a paring knife, making a notch in the bottom of each cookie so it would hang on the edge of the glass. This only worked moderately well as it was difficult to get the notch just the right size for the thickness of the glass edge. Next time, I will probably make the leaf cookies about 2 ½” tall and set them right in the parfait, slightly behind the pear. Alternately, you could buy some gingersnaps and use them. They just wouldn’t be nearly as cute.
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​Makes 12 pear halves though only 6 are needed for the recipe
Special equipment: large sauté pan, wooden or large metal spoon, sheet pan or platter on which to chill the pears, fine mesh strainer
1 bottle inexpensive, fruity red wine such as shiraz, Syrah, or merlot
32 ounces pomegranate juice
1 cup sugar
1 or ½ a vanilla bean
1 star anise, optional
1 cinnamon stick, optional
6 small pears, halved, peeled, and cored

1. In a large sauté pan or wide stockpot, stir together wine, pomegranate juice, and sugar. Drop in vanilla bean and whole spices, if using. Add pear halves and simmer, uncovered, over medium-low heat, turning pears gently every 10 minutes or so. Check for doneness by poking a fork into the cut side of the pear (so the fork pricks won’t show on the round sides.) The pears are done when they are just tender. Remove pears to a sheet pan or platter to cool. Cover and store chilled for up to one week.
2. Turn up heat to medium and boil liquid until it is somewhat reduced, about 5 minutes. Strain liquid, discarding solids. Cool mixture and store in covered jar for up to one week.

 

Panna Cotta Layer
 

Makes enough for 6 parfaits
Special equipment: small bowl, mixing bowl, whisk, medium saucepan, silicone spatula, 6 small serving glasses or ½ pint canning jars
 
2 tablespoons cold water
1 teaspoon gelatin (an envelope of gelatin may have more than 1 teaspoon so do measure it out)
1 cup Greek yogurt, full fat recommended
1 cup heavy cream, divided
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla

1. In small bowl, soften gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes.
2. In mixing bowl, whisk together yogurt and ½ cup cream until combined. Set aside
3. In a medium saucepan, stir together sugar and remaining ½ cup cream. Heat mixture over low heat, stirring frequently until mixture is hot.
4. Remove from heat and add gelatin, stirring until it is completely dissolved. Stir in vanilla. Let cool about 5 minutes.
5. Whisk warm mixture into yogurt mixture, whisking until smooth.
6. Divide among small serving glasses or small (1 /2 pint) canning jars. The panna cotta should fill the glass no more than half full. Chill until set, at least 4 hours, before adding next layer.

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​Makes enough for 6 parfaits
 
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon gelatin
¾ cup reserved poaching liquid
2 tablespoons pear brandy or other favorite liqueur or brandy

1. In a small bowl, soften gelatin in water, letting soak for 5 minutes.
2. Heat reserved poaching liquid in microwave-safe bowl until boiling, 1 ½ to 2 ½ minutes. Add softened gelatin to hot liquid and stir for 1 to 2 minutes. (It is important here to make sure the gelatin is completely dissolved, or it might not set correctly.)
3. Cool gelatin for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in pear brandy.
4. Remove panna cottas from the refrigerator. Divide poaching liquid gelatin among the panna cottas. Return to refrigerator and chill until set or up to two days.

 

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​Place a poached pear half on top of each gelatin parfait, leaning against the side of the glass. Crumble a cookie over each pear. Place a leaf cookie on edge of each glass. Serve immediately

I’m planning to mix up the Italian Christmas Eve menu. Though I generally come down on the side of the traditional holiday, I’m not a huge fan of the salt cod stew, and sure, pizza is always welcome, but I make it all year. Delicious cannoli is always a “yes, please!” to eat, but who wants to deep fry the shells? I’d much rather get cozy by the fire and eat a big bowl of something creamy, yummy, and sweet. Yes, I am going to make baccala stew and anchovy pizza for my dear father this Christmas Eve, but I will add a lovely dessert from another tradition in our American melting pot.

I didn’t have to look any further than my own beautiful sister-in-law whose family is of Danish descent. The former Miss Garroutte grew up with grandparents who returned from visits to the old country with clogs for the little girls along with handmade mittens and socks, and ornaments from the outdoor Christmas markets. What a darling picture the four little blonde children must have made in their new clogs and socks, hanging simple, traditional ornaments on the Christmas tree.
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As hinted at by Danish modern home décor seen in American homes from the 1960’s on, Danish design is simple and makes use of the natural world for color and materials. The sleek lines of wooden furniture and uncluttered interiors make a clean background for a Nordic pine type of live Christmas tree. A limited palette of ornaments keeps it looking fresh and crisp.
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Of course, being Italian and Scottish, I am too fond of Christmas tartan, gold ornaments, and elaborate Christmas cookies to go completely minimal with my holiday décor. A photograph of our Christmas Eve table from last year celebrated the tartan and buffalo plaids but we did mix in embroidered red Dala horse napkins along with fresh holly and holly-themed china. I suppose a little Nordic was sneaking in even then.
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Back to my creamy Christmas dessert. Enter Risalamande, or the creamiest rice pudding on the planet. It starts with rice porridge, ricengrod. According to Annette at the Soquel Curves, my expert on all things Danish, the ricengrod is made and eaten on December 23rd. The unsweetened milk and short-grained rice porridge is stirred over a low flame for about half an hour, similar to how risotto is made. This is eaten with cinnamon sugar.

About this constant stirring for the better part of an hour. I usually avoid recipes with prolonged stirring, as I am most likely doing several other kitchen tasks at the same time. However, this holiday season I am instituting a less frantic pace, hoping to enjoy the season more and run around crazy less. In aid of this goal, I slid a kitchen stool up to the stove and gave myself over to stirring the pudding. It was almost mesmerizing watching the raw rice and cold milk slowly turn into this thickened, creamy, white mass. I also noticed that if you stay in one place, people can come to you, if need be, and as nothing is more important than not burning the rice pudding, most likely they will not bother you. Score!

On Christmas Eve, the leftover porridge is turned into risalamande by having sweetened whipped cream and chopped almonds folded into it as well as one or two whole almonds. This is important because whoever finds the whole almond is the winner of this game. And there is strategy; the finder hides the almond under their tongue or surreptitiously in their napkin because guests are tasked with eating more and more pudding until the almond is “found.”
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Here is where I am going to diverge from the traditional pudding forced feeding game, fun as that sounds, because I (and you) really, really want to have leftover rice pudding to make rice pancakes, klatkager, from the remaining pudding on Christmas morning. These pancakes are truly a revelation in how delicious a pancake can be. As a bed and breakfast cook, I have flipped my share of pancakes, but these are special. The chopped almonds, which a few testers thought odd when encountered in the rice pudding, combined with the slightly chewy rice and heavenly whipped cream component, make the pancakes light and hearty at the same time. You definitely would love these cooked-in-butter pancakes with maple syrup and perhaps sausage or bacon at Christmas breakfast, preferably served fireside, with strong black tea.

Wait, I forgot about the rice pudding’s ruby-hued cohort, the cherry sauce. The contrast of the creamy pudding and slightly tart cherry sauce is magical as well as visually stunning. I used frozen cherries from Trader Joe’s, to make a simple cherry, water, sugar, and corn starch cherry sauce. Opening a can of cherry pie filling, thinned with a little water or cherry brandy would also be great. However you do it, just get some cherry sauce on top of your pudding.
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​I used the recipes for klatkager, ricengrod, and Risalamande from Nordic Living Christmas which is run by an adorable Danish guy, Kim Nielsen. Not only is the website graphically clean and fresh looking, his photographs are mouth-watering and his writing charming. Do look not only for his recipes for the rice porridge, rice pudding, rice pudding pancakes but aebleskiver, Danish butter cookies, rum balls, and many other tantalizing savory and sweet recipes.
I hope you all can find a cozy fireside to gaze at the lit-up tree, be with loved ones, and eat some creamy sweet stuff.
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Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and God Jul!
 

Most baked goods, in their natural state, are some shade of ecru to golden brown to deepest espresso: the shiny hard tops of freshly baked baguettes, the sandy beige of sugar cookies, the deep mahogany of a chocolate cake. Browns make us feel warm and cozy and that there may be a delicious treat in store.

Delicate tender greens, rosy rhubarb, and many lavender shades of crocus are showcased in spring while vibrant vegetable and fruit hues celebrate summer’s produce. The New England autumn is justifiably famous for the bright gold, orange, and vermillion of its turning leaves, but here in Northern California, dusty golds and olive greens mark the subtler changing of the season. California gold is not only the famous ore deposits but the soft color of our hills when spring has ended. We love the deep golds, honey and deep amber, perhaps chesnut brown and freshly grated nutmeg’s sienna hue. The palette of ground spice browns is one of the familiar favorites of fall.  

I look forward to getting into the spice cabinet at the beginning of fall baking season and seeing what needs updating or replacing. In addition to the spices in the above photo, I also like to keep two spice blends on hand: apple pie spice and pumpkin pie spice. Each spice company makes their own blends, but in general, apple pie spice is made up of mostly cinnamon, with lesser amounts of nutmeg and possibly allspice and or cardamom. Pumpkin pie spice is also made up of mostly cinnamon but then usually ginger and cloves, as well. You can mix either spice blend up yourself, of course, but a I really like Penzey’s blend of apple pie since, so I keep theirs on hand.

Last year, Rose gifted me with a set of charming miniature baking forms in the shape of pinecones and I have been waiting for fall baking season to try them out. The recipe that came with the set is for gingerbread pinecones, but I changed the spice profile to cardamom, mace, and nutmeg. I followed the somewhat skimpy directions, and the mini-pinecones turned out of the non-stick molds beautifully. They tasted really good warm but as with gingerbread and other heavily spiced baked goods, even better after being stored for several days in a cookie tin.

​A little powdered sugar sifted over the top just before serving looks like a light dusting of snow over your pinecone. The molds don’t seem to be available this season at the beloved baking website Fancy Flours, so I tested part of the dough without molding. I rolled walnut-sized pieces of dough into balls then rolled the balls in granulated sugar. I flattened each ball with an old fashioned potato masher which made them look somewhat like a peanut butter cookie and they baked up very well. Feel free to customize the recipe using your favorite warm spices.
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Makes about 3 dozen

Special equipment: mixing bowl, hand or stand mixer or wooden spoon, sieve or sifter, silicone scraper, baking sheet pans lined with silicone mat or parchment paper, potato masher or fork to press down dough balls, cooling rack
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
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• 2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon mixed spice* (I used 1 teaspoon each cardamom, nutmeg, and mace)
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup sugar
• ¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) butter, softened
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup honey, molasses, or maple syrup
• Extra granulated sugar for rolling

 

​Stir togther flour, mixed spices and baking soda. Sift if lumpy. Set aside.

1. In mixer bowl, beat sugar and butter together until incorporated, about 1 or 2 minutes. Beat in egg and honey, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Stir the flour mixture into the batter just until no flour is visible.
2. Roll into balls then roll balls in granulated sugar. Flatten gently with a potato masher or fork, and place the cookies 1 inch apart on prepared baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until just firm to the touch. Cool on pan for 5 minutes then remove to cooling rack to cool completely. Store in air-tight container at room temperature for quite a while.

*For classic gingerbread spicing, use 1 1/2  teaspoons ginger, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon each nutmeg and cloves.

Pumpkin Soup with Puff Pastry Leaf “Lids”
Miniature Beef Wellingtons
Picked Beet Deviled Eggs
Cranberry Maple Pecan Scones
Queen’s Shortbread
Autumn Fruit Butter Tarts
Pumpkin Donut Party Favors
 

​I loved Rose’s two-part chocolate blog so much, I wanted to jump on the chocolate bandwagon and add a few favorite chocolate cookie recipes. She is correct when she says chocolate is appreciated in all seasons and is sorely missed when absent. A chocolate cookie or brownie is a little piece of heaven in your hand.

At the inns, I made large quantities of brownies weekly but for the past 17 years, I’ve had a non-brownie fan in my house. I know: I didn’t know such a human existed. It’s perplexing. I’m a little rusty on my brownie game which is a grand excuse to test a few of my old favorite brownie recipes. Back in the 1990’s, Gourmet magazine, had a lovely article devoted entirely to brownies. I made all the varieties, such as cream cheese-swirled brownies, chocolate cherry brownies, espresso and coffee bean brownies. They were all really tasty and all had fans among the guests, but my favorite is always the fudgy, plain chocolate ones with the shiny chocolate frosting.

Brownies call for the best chocolate or cocoa you can find. Recipes using cocoa or melted chocolate can both be dark and delicious, as long as you chose high quality products, as Rose explains in her chocolatey blogs. When making cocoa brownies, I favor Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa which is a bit darker and richer than their traditional cocoa. I use the Pound Plus bar from Trader Joe’s which is a good Belgian chocolate at a price that can’t be beat.

Scharffen Berger fine chocolate company’s chocolatier, Robert Steinberg, adapted this Maida Heatter recipe to use 70% bittersweet chocolate but you can use any good chocolate you like.

Makes 16 2-inch brownies

•  *It is always better to undercook brownies than to overcook them. Watch the baking time closely for best results.

This Epicurious recipe from November, 2003, is from legendary baker, Alice Medrich. She notes that “Cocoa brownies have the softest center and chewiest candy-like top crust of all because all of the fat in the recipe (except for a small amount of cocoa butter in the cocoa) is butter, and all of the sugar is granulated sugar rather than finely milled sugar used in chocolate.” Use the best cocoa you know in these brownies. Personally, I don’t care for the crackly top which led me to turn my pan of cooled brownies upside down, smooshing that crackle top, and then frosting the smooth bottom which is now the top.

​Yield: Makes 16 large or 25 smaller brownies

​Here are a few of my brownie tips:

Uncut slabs of brownies freeze very well if completely cooled, chilled until firm, then wrapped airtight in plastic wrap and put into a zip-top freezer bag. To serve, unwrap brownie slab and let come to room temperature then cut into squares or frost entire slab before cutting.

I’ve successfully doubled both these recipes and baked them in 13” by 9” pans. The baking time is a little bit trickier, but as mentioned above, better to under bake them than risk drying them out.

My usual shine chocolate brownie glaze is 6 ounces good quality chopped chocolate melted with 4 ounces (1 stick) of butter. I usually melt my butter-chocolate mixture in a 2-cup glass measuring cup, in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds, just until melted. Pour chocolate mixture over brownie slab, gently smoothing with an offset spatula or the back of a table knife. When frosting has set up, cut into squares. You can chill briefly in the fridge to hasten setting up, but the topping may lose its shine if chilled for too long.

Leaving the velvety dense chocolate of brownies for a minute, I have a special place in my heart for deep chocolate wafer cookies and chocolate and vanilla ice box cookies. I make these often as rolled-out sheets of dough, or rolled-up logs of dough can be chilled in the fridge for a few days or frozen for longer storage. Baked cookies also freeze beautifully, if well wrapped and stored in zip-top bags or my preferred method, cookie tins.
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Chocolate pinwheel cookies are eye catching on a cookie tray and have the perfect sugar-cookie-meets-chocolate-wafer-balance. I used to carefully stack the chocolate and vanilla doughs to make checkerboard cookies but it is just so much easier to roll the two doughs together in a tight spiral and cut off slices. Save the mingled dark and light doughs to reroll at the end and make into randomly swirled cut out cookies. For all-chocolate wafers, roll the chocolate dough thin and cut out with a round or scalloped cookie cutter.
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 Pinwheel Cookies
 

​One recipe of Suzi’s chocolate sugar cookie dough
Vanilla dough:

I am fortunate to be surrounded by lots of enthusiastic eaters, many excellent cooks, and a few passionate bakers. My interest in baking started when I was about six years old and has continued into a long cooking and baking avocation and career. One of my earliest multi-tiered cakes was a 50th anniversary cake for my Pedulla grandparents, circa 1978. I was joined in this daunting task by my cousin, Laura Jamieson (now Sampson), who is also a baker since childhood. I think it might have taken three nerve-racking days for the two of us to get this towering construction ready for the party. It seemed as if we’d completed an almost impossible, magical quest. It was far from perfect, but it was beautiful and delicious and most importantly, our grandparents enjoyed it.

Laura has been keeping gluten free for twenty years now and has developed recipes and strategies for making truly decadent and delicious gluten free dishes for every occasion. She shares this wealth of knowledge on her blog, Mama Laura's Kitchen . She has most graciously consented to do a guest blog here. I saw her recipe for sourdough discard crackers on her Instagram account, gfgirlmamalaura. Not only do I think baking homemade crackers is super rewarding, I am also always looking for ways to use sourdough starter discard. I also love that those bakers who need to keep gluten free can join in the sourdough craze, yay!

I was going to write a little biography of Laura’s baking life, but she has done such a good job of it herself, I decided to crib the bio from her blog and reprint it here. Thank you so much, Laura, for sharing your recipes with us. Without more ado, here is Laura:
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​Enjoying simple pleasures when you are needing to eat gluten free is a wonderful thing. Making and eating delicious gluten free crackers is one of those pleasures! Developing a gluten free cracker that is equally crispy, light and just as delicious as any gluten filled cracker, was a wonderful discovery. Processed gluten free baked items have become much more sophisticated and better tasting over the twenty plus years I have been eating a gluten free diet. Originally, I started writing recipes for gluten free food for myself, as I was tired of eating sub-standard tasting and texture food. I knew gluten free food had to be better than that! So, long before blended gluten free flours were a thing, I came up with lots of recipes using different gluten free flour combinations to attain a desired end product that was tasty and not full of salt or sugar. 
 
Now blended flours have come a long way in the past years, but I still want to control what is in the “blend” that I am making. Many purchased blends have added dairy, added cellulose (which my body does not tolerate), xanthan gum, and other emulsifiers, plus lots of other ingredients that may be unneeded for a particular recipe.
 
Here we have a simple cracker recipe, using gluten free sourdough discard. These crackers are so addicting! My husband, who does not need to eat gluten free, not only loves them, but also can't stay away from them! It's okay, I'm fine with sharing, because they are so simple to make and use the “discard” from my sourdough starter, which I'm always looking for new, fun ways to use. Just a few ingredients to stir together, then spread them on the pan and pop in the oven, and in about thirty minutes, you have crispy, savory, herb crackers! The best part of making your own gluten free crackers is that you can make any flavor combination you like. This week I made one pan of rosemary and garlic and one pan of sun- dried tomato and herb. Last week I had lots of chives from the garden I wanted to use, so I made fresh chives and cheddar crackers. The possibilities are endless! This recipe makes two pans worth, so there are plenty to share with family and friends, pop on a charcuterie board, or just grab a few to snack on. They stay crisp for about 6-7 days sealed in an airtight container. 
 
My daughter, who is dairy intolerant and gluten free, tried making these without the cheese and said they are still delicious and even still taste like cheese! This is due to the sourdough starter in them. The tangy sharp taste resembles the taste of sharp cheese (plus they are buttery...yum). They taste like an incredible Cheez-it cracker, except way better! Enjoy! And I challenge you to not eat them all at once! I’ve included a substitute if you do not have a gluten free sourdough starter. See below for the recipe for the “biga” dough overnight fermentation.
 
In all my recipes, I have noted with a “gf” after the ingredient, for each ingredient which needs to be labeled gluten free, if you are accommodating someone who has Celiac or gluten intolerance. Even herbs and spices, vanilla, chocolate, flour types which are by nature gluten free, all need to be labeled and certified “Gluten Free” in order not to have cross-contamination. If you cannot find the certification on a product, look for ingredients that are made in a facility that does not process gluten.
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Prep time: 15 minutes, plus prep and time for the “biga” if you don’t have a gluten free sourdough starter
Bake time: 10 minutes at 350 degrees F, 15-28 at 325 degrees F
Yields: 4-5 dozen, depending on the size of crackers
 
Ingredients:
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Topping (Mix together or use a mortar and pestle to combine):
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​1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. With a mortar and pestle, crush the rosemary and coarse salt together for topping. Pour into a small bowl. Stir in one to two teaspoons of parmesan cheese (if using cheese). Set aside.
3. Stir together in a medium bowl, the sourdough starter or “biga”, almond flour or meal, olive oil, butter, salt, garlic or garlic powder, cheese, and herbs to get a smooth batter.
4. Line two stone bar pans or cookie sheets with parchment paper. Divide the dough evenly between the two pans, and spread with a rubber spatula until very thin and even on both trays. Using a spatula dipped in a small amount of water, or your fingers dipped in water, smooth the top of the cracker dough. Sprinkle with the topping ingredients, reserving enough for the second pan. Repeat the process for the second pan.

5. Bake one pan at a time on the middle rack, or if baking both trays at the same time, evenly spaced in the oven. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the trays from the oven and score with a sharp knife or a ravioli cutter (making straight lines for your cracker squares in the size you like). You do not need to push the knife or cutter through to the bottom of the pan. This scoring will help you break these into nice square crackers once cooled. 
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6. After scoring the dough, reduce the oven temp to 325 and return each tray to the oven, rotating the pans. Bake for 15-20 minutes, rotating again after each 10 minutes. Bake until the crackers are golden brown and crispy. 
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​7. The crackers may not brown evenly on the entire pan. If some crackers are crispy and brown, remove by strips to a wire rack. Next, separate the remaining crackers to cook evenly and return to the oven for 5-8 minutes more. 
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​8. Remove the remaining crackers from the oven when crackers are crispy and golden brown. Cool completely on wire racks before breaking on the score marks and removing from the parchment to an airtight container (whatever is left after you enjoy some!)

 
**If you don’t have a gluten free sourdough starter to use, you can make an overnight “biga”, a dough fermentation which is similar in texture to sourdough starter. Into ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon (112 grams) of cool water, stir ⅛ teaspoon of active dry yeast (a gluten free brand). Stir briskly and make sure some bubbles form before adding 1 cup (110 grams) of gluten free millet or gluten free brown rice flour (Ryze Gluten Free Flour Mix, yellow bag, is also fine). Cover loosely with cellophane and let sit on the counter for 18-20 hours. The mixture should be bubbly at this point and will yield the 1 cup of gluten free “sour” dough needed for this recipe. The result will not be quite as tangy, but it will still result in a slightly sour crispy cracker.

My main goal in July is keeping the oven off and being out of the kitchen, preferably in a pool, in the shade. That said, there are some summer celebrations that warrant a beautiful, show stopper dessert. Summer fruit is at its best and if you can work in some ice cream, that is an ideal combination. Creamy, fruity, cake or crust? Yes, please! As I’ve mentioned before, you really can’t beat a summer fruit cobbler, pie, or stunningly hued summer pudding, as Rose writes about in her blog this month, but an ice cream cake is uniquely festive and can be made further in advance than either a cake or pie.

There is Fourth of July to plan for certainly but my favorite celebration planning is for my brother, Peter Patrick, whose birthday is in mid-July. He is one of those easy-to-please eaters who likes most everything and is happy to try any new flavor combination I can dream up. If he sees an unfamiliar tropical fruit at the Mexican grocery store, he’ll bring it home and we all get to taste the novel treat.

Me and the birthday boy, in the back of Dad’s Chevy Nova wagon.

For Pete’s ice cream cake birthday cake, I put together a combination of flavors I thought he would especially enjoy. The basic components of the ice cream cake are cake, ice cream and or sorbet, fruit, liqueur, and any additional accompaniments such as pour-over toppings.

For the cake layer, I considered a light ginger spice cake, an applesauce cake, or a purchased Sara Lee pound cake. The Sara Lee pound is always a good go-to if you really don’t want to turn on the oven. Since it wasn’t quite as hot as Hades yet, I baked a light fresh ginger cake in a square pan and cut it into three or four horizontal layers. I added freshly micro-planed ginger root to the butter and sugar mixture of a standard yellow cake recipe along with ½ a teaspoon each of ground ginger and ground cardamom, added to the dry ingredients. I specifically used a retro-looking glass heat-proof dish, a so-called “refrigerator dish.*” This dish was deep enough to hold all the layers and would be pretty enough to serve from. I think cold desserts look more charming and chillier, if you will, in glass. Two deep glass bread pans would be a good alternative.

I chose blackberries as the starring fruit role partly in homage to our delectable summer Driscoll’s berries, partly to honor our history of childhood berry-picking forays into the countryside, and partly because our Grandpa Pat’s birthday cake was traditionally chocolate cake with blackberry jam filling. Chocolate and blackberry is a divine combination but I wanted to create something unique for Pete. Peaches, plums, or apricots that have been pitted, chopped, and cooked down with a little sugar would be yummy. Pitted cherries and all the summer berries can simply be mashed and sugared or cooked down a bit to thicken. Let your fruit mixture cool before constructing your cake, of course.

For the “blackberry” ice cream, I used Tillamook’s Marion berry pie ice cream with cooked down, cooled, sugared blackberries folded in. Homemade berry ice cream would be fantastic! The ice cream can be homemade or store-bought but do try to use a premium ice cream. I like the Tillamook brand and Haagen-Dazs never disappoints. I wanted a mango sorbet to complement both the blackberries and ginger in the cake. Plus, the bright mango color against the lavender berry ice cream would be splashy. I had to make my own mango sorbet because there was none to be had at my local grocery store. A quick Google search found a simple recipe for mango sorbet made from frozen mango chunks, processed in a food processor. https://www.asweetpeachef.com/mango-sorbet/ I skipped the lime juice and water and the sorbet was perfect. Subsequently, I found a few mango sorbets to purchase.

The liqueur plays a role not only in bringing a complementary flavor note, but also in keeping the cake layers not quite as solidly frozen due to alcohol’s resistance to freezing. That said, you may leave it out if serving it to children. Fruit juice or thinned down jam may be substituted. I chose black raspberry flavored Chambord liqueur because I’d used up all my favorite Clear Creek Distillery loganberry liqueur. Any blackberry brandy or rum or cognac would do.

To assemble the cake, place the bottom cake layer in the serving dish. Sprinkle with a generous amount of liqueur. I don’t measure my sprinkles of liqueur but 3 or 4 tablespoons would work. Spoon on a layer of softened ice cream. Add another cake layer and sprinkle with liqueur. Add more ice cream or a layer of softened contrasting sorbet. Continue layering until you run out of ingredients or reach the top of the dish. Wrap dish securely with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 8 hours or up to 2 weeks. Let cake soften at room-temperature about 10 minutes before serving. Garnish with fresh berries. I used a small metal pancake spatula to make cleanly cut servings.

To serve along with the chilly squares of ice cream cake, I wanted three accompanying sauces. In vintage glass pitchers, berry sauce and custard sauce can be passed. (Also known as crème anglaise, click for recipe.) For the berry sauce, I cooked down about 2 baskets of plump blackberries, with sugar to taste, microwaved in my 8 cup Pyrex batter bowl: less stirring over the hot stove is good. A little cut glass dish of thick chocolate sauce would please the chocolate lovers among us.

In case you want to serve the ice cream cake for a Fourth of July dessert, pick a shady spot to set up a table with ice tea, ice cream cake and accompanying sauces. Crisp vintage linens, a few pillows, and a summer rose bouquet set off our American flag-draped patio corner.

*The term refrigerator dish refers to square or rectangular glass storage containers with lids that were introduced with the advent of electric fridges. The new-fangled electric fridges were thought to be drier than the ice box, so pre plastic wrap, the lidded dishes were said to retain moisture in stored food. They can easily be found in antique stores and reproduction versions can sometimes be found with Pyrex baking dishes in home stores. I bought the above Anchor Hocking lidded dish at the kitchen store several years ago.

Here at My Tea Planner, we have a special love for shortbread. While many cookies go wonderfully with a hot cup of tea, buttery, crumbly, just sweet enough shortbread makes a perfect companion. Traditional shortbread appears at nearly every tea party that I give, year-round and certainly is anticipated on all holidays. As shortbread freezes extremely well, there is usually a tin of shortbread hidden in the back of my freezer. Recipes for no less than eight flavors of shortbread can be found at My Tea Planner. We have recipes for shortbread versions featuring poppy seed, Kona coffee, rosewater, lavender, black sesame, chocolate, and the recipe rumored to be Queen Elizabeth’s favorite shortbread. In my 2018 holiday blog, I gave a large batch shortbread recipe that makes a solid sheet pan’s worth of squares or bars. Find that recipe here: Sheet Pan Scottish Shortbread Recipe.

Though shortbread is found throughout the tea-drinking British Commonwealth, it is associated most closely with Scotland. In my research on shortbread, I found a real gem of a website called Historic UK which has both intriguing articles on many British topics and a searchable database of historic accommodations including castles, bed and breakfasts, county hotels and canal boats. Their article, “The History of Scottish Shortbread,” gives a good recipe and lays a pretty good argument for Mary, Queen of Scots, bringing a shortbread-like cookie from the French court. It is a quick, fun read, here:   The History of Scottish shortbread . For the anglophiles among us, we’ll want to bookmark their website and take a fantasy trip through British lore and castles while having our tea and shortbread break.

As much as I love plain shortbread, I am a baker who can’t leave well enough alone. The traditional shortbread ratio is roughly one part sugar, two parts butter, to three parts flour. The texture of shortbread is what sets it apart from a blondie, a butter cookie, or vanilla wafer. Shortbread’s dominant taste should be butter, so here is the time to use the freshest, highest quality butter you can find. This is a good use of the European-style high fat butters. Shortbread is also much less sweet than most cookies.  Shortbread recipes do not contain eggs or any leavening. The little holes seen on the surface of shortbread help to keep it from puffing, much like you’d prick a blind-baked pie crust. Pricking with a fork every half inch or so looks pretty and will help the texture. If you happen to have a fancy spiky wheel called a dough docker, it can be used instead of a fork.

When Louise and I were in Scotland, we were served a creamy, local bleu cheese on wholemeal oat biscuits. They were thicker and sweeter than American crackers, almost like an American cookie. The combination was just heavenly. I searched around for recipes to replicate them and found a Martha Steward recipe that called for ground oats and almonds and a tiny hint of cinnamon. While not precisely like the British ones, they were very tasty and similar in texture. The downside to these was they were fussy to shape into rounds and they called for a ton of butter.

I decided to morph these cookies into bars that had a sandy, crumbly texture similar to shortbread. The flavor of almonds and toasted oatmeal, with that slight warming hint of cinnamon, was a hit. Over the course of a few months, I baked batches of them for different occasions and always got rave reviews and requests for the recipe. I love that oats and shortbread, two most Scottish ingredients, have found each other and have been so in love.

I can’t remember exactly when I started toasting the oatmeal along with the almonds but it is a really good idea. The oats not only take on a toasty depth of flavor, they also make them dryer and less likely to add moisture to the bars. I ran across this essay by David Tamarkin at Epicurious.com How to toast oatmeal and why you should. I had usually toasted the oats in the oven, but he also gives a rather poetic description of toasting oats on the stovetop: “When you stand over a stove first thing in the morning, sleepily stirring dry oats in a hot pan, time moves slowly; what feels like five minutes might actually be just one or two. But depending on the heat you’re toasting over—medium-high works for me—toasting grains does take the full five minutes. You’ll know they’re done not by their appearance (the change in color will not be dramatic), but by their smell: the toasty aroma will waft up to you and be unmistakable. When it does, stop—you don’t want the oats to burn.”

This was my first working recipe, above. The final recipe, below, has less butter and less sugar than the former. Both recipes work as written. There was also an intermediate version with all brown sugar that was deliciously caramel-y but it softened the texture too much for my liking. This recipe can be doubled very successfully and baked in a 13” by 9” baking pan. Vanilla is not a usual ingredient in shortbread, but I do thinks it adds a little extra something. Feel free to leave it out.

Makes 3 dozen 1” squares

Special equipment: baking sheet, metal spatula, medium mixing bowl, food processor or blender or coffee grinder, hand or stand mixer, silicone scraper, 8” or 9” metal square pan, lined with parchment paper, knife or bench scraper, cooling rack

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F