The lemon is underneath the cherries

This floated into the kitchen because Jan 23 was National Pie Day*, an event that got a surprising amount of  PR, given that every day is pie day in most people’s estimations. It’s probably because good pie is still – compared to say, macarons  – in woefully short supply.

Ok. Deciding to bake a pie was easy. Deciding what kind of pie to bake was not, fresh local fruit also being in short supply in the Northeast just now. We’ve gone through all the frozen berries already; we’re eating too much winter squash to make pumpkin appealing, and while apple might seem obvious, it’s not if you breakfast on baked apples with yogurt pretty much every mortal day of the winter.

But then I remembered I had a whole bag of Meyer lemons in the cold room, bought on impulse simply because I was so delighted to see them. Very seasonal. Especially made into Shaker lemon pie, which by containing the whole fruit and getting baked between two crusts seems better suited to cold weather than lemon meringue, even if custard is a major player.

And yet, and yet… “cherry” is surely pie’s first name if “apple” is rejected. And since cherry is almost always made with canned fruit there’s no seasonality problem.

I dithered back and forth for a while, then came down on the side of lemon. Completed the first step – thinly slicing the lemons, mixing them with a LOT of sugar and letting them sit for a day to soften and mellow.

Then I got worried. The sugar didn’t draw enough lemon juice to completely dissolve and the visible bits of lemon peeking through the syrup-rivuletted pile of white crystals looked seriously lonely. I tasted the mixture and found it wasn’t notably over sweet, but doubts remained. And as there happened to be a can of cherries in the store closet….Genius! If I do say so myself.

Cut to Bill and me, standing in the kitchen enjoying. I allow as to how I’d better give at least half of it away as soon as possible, to avoid will power problems. (There are just the two of us and neither is slender.) His reply? “Don’t you dare!!”

Shaker Lemon and Cherry Pie

The lemon filling ingredients are more or less universal, but discarding the pithy end pieces is a nicety that comes from Ruth Levy Berenbaum’s excellent Pie and Pastry Bible. Shaker lemon pie has a closed crust; cherry is traditionally lattice. I compromised by making the lattice a bit tighter than usual.  A closed crust will work just as well.

For a 10 inch pie:

2 large lemons – Meyer are widely recommended for their less acid flavor, but I doubt the Shakers had them and the difference is pretty petitie.

2c. sugar

¼ tsp. salt

1 14.5 oz. can pitted sour cherries in water

1 tbl. minute tapioca

pastry for a 2 crust pie (easy recipe here)

5 eggs

1. Freeze the lemons for an hour or so to firm up. Grate the zest from each end into a medium sized non-reactive bowl, then cut fruit in half the long way. Cut off and discard the flesh-free ends, then slice the rest very thinly. Working over the bowl, remove seeds and drop the slices in. Stir in the sugar and salt and set aside covered at room temperature for a day.

2. Roll pastry between sheets of waxed paper into 2 roughly 11 inch rounds. Stack the waxed paper sandwiches on a baking sheet and refrigerate for 1 to 4 hours.

3. Drain the cherries into a small saucepan and reserve. In a small cup, mix 2 tbl. of the juice with the tapioca and set aside. Boil the juice until reduced by about a third, then turn the heat to medium low. Loosen the tapioca mixture with a bit of the hot liquid, then stir it in. Cook, stirring, until the liquid is thick and translucent. This will happen quickly and there will probably still be white dots of tapioca. Not to worry. Stir in the cherries and let cool completely.

4. Put a rack in the lower third of the oven, put a baking stone on it and heat the oven to 450. (I thought I had invented this – see Crisp Crust Maple Walnut Pie -  but as usual with recipes, no such thing. Ms. B. was well ahead of me and I’m sure she’s not the only one.) Give it a half hour or so to be sure the stone is thoroughly heated.

5. While the oven is heating, fit one crust into a pyrex pie plate. Separate an egg, adding the yolk to the lemon mixture. Beat the white just until thin and fluid, then paint the inside of the pie shell with it. Set aside in a cool place that is not the refrigerator. (If you’re going for the lattice top, prefabricate it on a sheet of waxed paper and chill until needed.)

6. Beat the remaining eggs into the lemon mixture. When the oven is hot, pour it into the crust and top with the cherries. They will be gloppy; it’s best to use your hands. Apply the top crust and cut some slashes in it if you’re not using the lattice. Crimp the edges.

7. Bake for 12 minutes, then lower heat to 350 and bake until bottom/side crust is well browned and top is golden, anywhere from a half hour to an hour more. Be ready to protect the rim so it doesn’t burn. The custard will of course be cooked long before the crust. Doesn’t matter; it’s so sweet and acid the eggs don’t toughen or separate. Cool completely before cutting.

Next time I make it I’ll probably double the cherries, which will not only boost their taste but also raise the top crust a little bit so it browns faster. The obvious alternative, crustwise, is a 9 inch pie, but the filling flavor is so intense it needs a lot of crust for balance.

* Concerning National Pie Day

It’s a brainchild of the National Pie Council, which I’m sure to no one’s surprise appears to be primarily a promotional vehicle for Crisco.

National pi day (March 14, because that’s 3/14) is also a great excuse to bake one but other than that an altogether different kettle of pi. It’s been going since 1988 and was originally created by a physicist named Larry Shaw, who was working at the San Francisco Exploratorium when he came up with the idea.

from the wikipedia entry on pi day, which also includes this -

I love it! - portrait of Larry Shaw, the Prince of Pi

My take on King Cake, seasoned with thyme and marjoram, liberally studded with Gruyere, sprinkled with Parmesan instead of sugar but maybe next year I'll dye the cheese in the classic icing colors: green, yellow and purple

The classic King Cake of carnival season has many variations: coffee cake-ish, briochelike, or based on puff pastry. It may or may not include embellishments like candied fruit, frangipane, and colored icing. It may even be chocolate with coconut. But one thing will be for sure: it’ll be sweet.

Not around here. At this time of year I’m still recovering from the holiday cookie binge, and the idea of more of the same doesn’t hold much of a thrill. Yet I’ve always loved the idea of the thing, so our traditional King Cake is basically cheese studded brioche. Traditional tradition is honored in the ring shape and in the hidden token whose finder is the King.

Being King has its downside; it usually means you have to provide the next cake or throw the next party, which may come as soon as next week. (See the Wikipedia entry for an extensive exegesis of King Cake in its many, many manifestations.)

Savory King Cake

This recipe makes two roughly 10 inch rings because one very large one doesn’t always cook quickly enough. If you don’t need two you can freeze one and have it handy in case you wind up being King next time. It’s very simple and quick to make as far as working time goes. Just be sure to allow for the overnight cool rise.

What a difference an oven makes. I have two in my vintage stove, ovens in which these cakes were baked at the (theoretically) same temperature for the same amount of time. The paler one was in the little oven, the darker one in the bigger oven which I know full well runs hot and try to compensate for.

½ c. lukewarm water

1 tbl. dry yeast

1 egg

3 egg yolks

grated zest of 1 large lemon

3/4 tsp. dried thyme, crumbled

scant ½ tsp. dried marjoram, crumbled

1 tsp. salt

1 c. light cream or half and half

4-5 c. bread flour

4 oz. softened butter

6 oz. Gruyere or other nutty flavored hard cheese, cut into ¼ inch cubes

(1/2 c. chopped duck cracklings or crisp bacon, optional)

2 large dried beans, figurines or, so nobody breaks a tooth, large garlic cloves

1 c. coarsely chopped raw cashews, spread on a plate

1 egg, beaten with

1 tsp. lemon juice

Parmesan

coarse salt

1. Put the water in a large mixing bowl –  a stand mixer is ideal – sprinkle on the yeast and let it sit 10 minutes or so to foam. When it’s bubbly, whisk in everything else up to the flour.

2. Let the mixture sit a moment, then whisk in 2 cups of the flour, 1 cup at a time.

3. Add the butter. Switch to a paddle or wooden spoon and work it in completely, then work in enough additional flour to make a very soft, still sticky dough. This may take anywhere from 1 to 2 cups, depending on the size of the eggs, the moisture content of the butter and placement of constellations in the heavens above. The dough is ready as soon as it (more or less) leaves the sides of the bowl.

4. Scrape the dough into a rough ball, cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp tea towel and set it aside in a warm place until doubled, about 1.5 hours.

5. Turn the dough out on a lightly floured board and sparingly, a little at a time, knead in enough additional flour to make a smooth soft dough that is not sticky. Put it in a clean bowl, cover tightly and refrigerate overnight or up to 24 hours.

6. Punch down the dough; turn it onto a very lightly floured work surface and let it relax, covered, for ten minutes or so. Roll it out about ¼ inch thick, scatter on the cheese dice (and meat) and press them in. Roll up tightly like a jelly roll; fold into a ball, knead to further distribute the lumps and again let rest, covered, for about 10 minutes.

7. Divide the dough in half. Roll one half into a snake about 18 inches long, then coil it into a ring, pinching and pressing to join the ends firmly. Insert a token (from the underside) and press the ring firmly into the cashews to embed them in the base. Transfer to a lightly greased or parchment covered baking sheet. If you have room to bake two rings at once, repeat with the other half of the dough. If not, cover the other half, set aside in a cool place, then shape it when the first half goes into the oven.

8. Lightly cover the ring(s) with plastic wrap or a damp tea towel and let rise to not quite double, 1 to 1.5 hours. Heat the oven to 375.

9. Brush the ring(s) with the egg wash, grate on a liberal dusting of Parmesan and sprinkle sparingly with the salt. Bake until risen and well browned, half an hour to 45 minutes. It’s done at 190 degrees internal temperature (let’s hear it for instant read thermometers!), so start checking after a half hour. Cool on a rack and serve in thin slices.

The cheese coated holes make the cake seem light, but it's still tastiest to keep the slices on the thin side.

Concerning Recipes.

This bread in cake’s clothing is from one of my Good Food columns, now lost somewhere deep in history. I have the recipe only because I used it in The Modern Country Cook, itself now somewhat historical, having come out in 1991. The ingredients haven’t changed much but the instructions are a lot more streamlined.

I haven’t done any research but wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn this paring down is happening all over. For instance:

I’m currently in the middle of making a sort of bastard* Cassoulet, and as this is something I seldom do I turned for guidance to The Food of South-West France, by Paula Wolfert, a wonderful book when it came out (1983) and still a model of its kind.

Its kind is extremely thorough, however, so I also checked around elsewhere. Most of the elsewhere in my bookshelf was either equally thorough or not thorough enough, but when I looked again, there was Paula Wolfert’s World of Food (1988).

The Cassoulet recipe in that one is slightly shorter and easier to follow-while-modifying. Down it went to the kitchen. Then today (this is one of those recipes that takes at least 2 days and can easily be stretched out even longer) I was standing here at the computer trying to avoid work…

First recipe to pop up? Paula Wolfert’s, this time from Food and Wine Magazine in 2005. Considerably less involved, though still a bit of a production, and that’s the one down in the kitchen at the moment.

*Bastard may be a bit strong, this batch does involve multiple cookings and multiple meats (including plenty of duck confit), so perhaps it’s as legitimate as any named for someplace in the French countryside. To quote Elizabeth David:

“The Cassoulet is a dish which may be infinitely varied so long as it is not made into a mockery with a sausage or two heated up with tinned beans, or with all sorts of bits of left-over chicken or goodness knows what thrown into it as if it were a dustbin.” (French Provincial Cooking, 1960. Of course I looked. Are you kidding?)

The decorated dark ones are gingerbread; pale stars are sugar cookies. Little round coconut covered jobs are rum balls; crescents are vanilla crescents (known as Moth cookies in our family). Round ones in the back are two kinds of jumbles and the dark rounds in the middle are Mexican chocolate chocolate chip.

I expect to discuss the Christmas Ham in the very near future, and may also pony up a picture of The Tree.

But first, even without cues from the weather, little miss knee jerk has responded to the usual stimulae in the usual fashion. Five or six pounds of butter, along with a similar weight of nuts but vastly less sugar  -  one of the reasons home made cookies taste so much better than store bought -  have already been put to use and I can tell there’s more to come.

The recipe for the gingerbread is here; rum balls are here and vanilla crescents here. The jumbles are David Schama’s Jumbles, via Rose Levy Berenbaum. The dark ones are the original (almonds, pecans, bittersweet chocolate and raisin);  the  pale ones are  pistachio, white chocolate and apricot.  Recipe is at the end of this post, where there are also recipes for Bill’s favorite spritz and my favorite pffernuesse and a link to James Beard’s Let’s Sugar Cookies, the recipe I use -  with a little less sugar and a little more mace..

I told you I wasn’t finished yet.

Mexican Chocolate Chocolate Chip Refrigerator Cookies

The Mexican part is cinnamon and almonds; there is no hot pepper. (If after all the recent overuse that combo’s still ringing your bell, I’m sure you could add a bit.) Be warned that these are crisp cookies. They have only the chips in common with the kind of “chocolate chip cookies” the phrase brings to mind, and if you use chocolate without emulsifiers they won’t even have that.

For about 40 cookies:

1 ¼ c. all purpose flour

3 tbl. cocoa

1 tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. clove

(a generous pinch of salt if you’re using unsalted butter)

4 oz. butter, malleable but not squishy

¾ c. sugar

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla extract

½ c. small chips of bittersweet chocolate*

½ – ¾ c. finely chopped almonds

1. In a small bowl, stir flour, cocoa, spices (and salt if using) with a wire whisk until they’re well combined. Set aside.

2. Cream the butter and sugar; beat in the egg and vanilla; then stir in the flour mixture and lastly the chips.

3. The dough will be soft, but firm enough to form into rolls. If it isn’t, chill just long enough to shape. Set the almonds out on a plate. Divide dough in half.

4. Shape each half into a roll about 1 ½ ” in  diameter and roll in the almonds, pressing to embed them. Wrap the rolls tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or up to 3 days. The rolls freeze well for longer storage if wrapped again in something more protective.

5. At baking time, heat oven to 350. Cut rolls into slices about  3/8ths inch thick and put the slices about an inch apart on parchment lined baking sheets. Bake just until a broken cookie looks dry inside, 10 to 12 minutes or more depending on your oven. If the first broken cookie isn’t done, leave it on the sheet and break one of the halves for the next check.

6. Let cool a moment on the sheets, then transfer to a rack. Cookies will be soft when removed from the oven and become crisp on cooling.

* Chopped up high-end candy bar is fine. The chocolate chips I use are the little drops of  Michel Cluizel couverture Kayambe Noir (72%) sold by Chocosphere.

 A Note about the Jumbles:

Using chopped white chocolate (in this case Caillebaut) and apricots instead of bittersweet and raisins yields a very different texture because the fat melts out of the chocolate and the apricots don’t absorb as much moisture as raisins do. Result is a richer, crisper, flatter cookie.

If you want cookies with white chocolate chips to stand up, either cut the butter or up the flour.

Almost Al’s Ricotta Tart (with puree from our own Kaga plums and a few Johnny Jump-ups because why not?)

Summer and winter – and spring and fall; this is a treat that knows no season – my friend Alex Tuller’s ricotta tart has been a go-to dessert ever since I had the first piece, back in 2006.

It’s easy, delicious, handsome, ideal for making ahead…and on top of that it’s infinitely variable, which is why I call it “Almost” Al’s tart. Good as it is in the original I usually wind up playing around with it.

The plum puree is so intense only a very thin layer is needed. If using freshly cooked peaches, for instance, you might want it a little thicker

When I asked Alex about a few details, just to be sure I had it right, she was inspired to post the recipe on her food blog, Cooking Lola’s Way, so you might as well get it there. The darker crust in her picture may be a matter of taste,  or it may come from her “crummy” stove, which is central to the nifty story about how she got cooking locally, seasonally and in earnest when she moved to the country.

Additional notes on the tart:

1. The pan: A 9 inch tart pan with a removable ring is large enough if it’s a deep one (@ one inch). If you’re using a classic low rider French pan, 10 inches works better. Buttering isn’t essential, but it’s good insurance.

2. The dough is soft, so while it’s easy to press into the pan it’s tricky to roll unless well chilled and sandwiched by pieces of waxed paper. Chilling the rolled-out dough in the freezer enables a lazy lattice like the one in the picture, but it softens too much, too quickly for a real woven one. Don’t it roll too thin; in this tart the crust and filling are more or less equal partners.

3. A complete top crust helps prevent filling-puff. If you make the lattice or simply top with puree, the tart will rise in the oven and then, being a cheesecake, sink. Letting it cool in the turned-off oven helps.

4. Fruit toppings may be either jam or thick cooked puree, but don’t try to bake raw fruit on top or you’ll have a soggy mess. (You can bake with no top crust at all and then pave with raw strawberries or raspberries, if you want to take more attention away from the ricotta for some reason. Unprotected filling may overbrown before being fully cooked; have foil ready. And the cooked surface may wind up just a tad tough; brush with fruit juice or liquor before putting the fruit on.

5. Playing around tends to leave small bits of extra filling or dough or both. Filling is good baked in buttered custard cups. Crust is cookies. Leftovers from the plum one here made a mini deep dish rhubarb pie: stewed rhubarb almost filling pie plate; leftover filling dotted on, leftover crust rolled out rather thinly and placed on top.

Not.

It’s hot all right, but it isn’t remotely new. Where olive oil is the dominant fat, it has been used in sweets for – I dunno – centuries at least, possibly a millennium or two.

My new favorite cake, on a bed of Cointreau spiked orange slices, garnished with candy-ended clementines.

Fashion aside (and assuming you have a sturdy mixer), this cake is everything an everyday cake should be: easy to make, not needful of icing, versatile and durable, an overlooked virtue especially valuable to small families.

It’s not quite as good on day five as day one, but it’s still plenty tasty and still usable for re-purposing into things like Triple Citrus Petits Fours.

Triple Citrus Petits Fours, a matter of minutes once you have the cake.

The recipe – which says nothing about beds of oranges or doctored clementines -  comes (via my friend Nancy Jenkins), from Olives and Oranges, by Sara Jenkins and Mindy Fox.

Citrus and Olive Oil Cake

(as written up by Nancy)

1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of fine sea salt

3 large eggs

1 cup sugar

¾ cup plain whole-milk yogurt

Finely grated zest of 3 lemons

¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil, preferably one with good fruit flavors (see note)

Set the oven on 325º

Toss together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. In another bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together the eggs and sugar until they are pale and thick, about 5 minutes. Add the yogurt and grated zest and beat to mix. Now beat in the olive oil in a steady stream. Reduce the mixer speed to its lowest setting and gradually beat in the flour mixture until it’s just blended. Switch to a rubber spatula and fold the batter until it is thoroughly blended.

Using paper towels, spread about a tablespoon of oil all over the bottom and sides of a 9-inch round pan, preferably one with a springform release. Pour the batter into the pan and transfer to the preheated oven. Bake, rotating once, until the cake is golden, the center springs back, and the edges pull away from the sides of the pan, about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and set the cake on a rack to cool for a minute or two, then invert on the rack and let cool thoroughly before slicing.

You could sprinkle powdered sugar over the surface of the cake, or serve it with a dollop of whipped cream or vanilla or lemon gelato.

****************************************************************************************************************

Note:  My first cake, made with the full compliment of oil, tasted heavenly but was a bit on the heavy side. So I made the next one (the one in the pictures) with 1/2c. plus 1 heaping tbl. of oil. Less heavy, just as delicious, but I’m not done yet.

The next one, which may be flavored with a mixture of lemon and orange, will be made with genuinely large eggs, as specified in the recipe. The local eggs that we keep as staples are more on the jumbo side, and I think that may be one reason I’m not getting an ideally even crumb.

Nancy, who freely admits she’s not a baker, says hers always come out perfect and even though she’s Sara’s mother  - read/hear these two noted interpreters of Italian food discuss their relationship here on NPR – I absolutely believe her.

Candy Ended Clementines

Honesty compels me to admit they don’t really do anything for the cake, but as post-dinner nibbles all by themselves…

Peel and section the clementines, removing any stray strands of pith. Let them sit out at room temperature to dry off for an hour or two. Chop some roasted, salted pistachio nuts and put them in a shallow bowl. Melt some high quality white chocolate (see the instructions rather far down in the recipe for Dandy Candy if you haven’t got a favorite method).

Dip the ends of the clementine sections in the chocolate , trying for a thinnish coating, then roll the coated part in the chopped nuts. Not rocket science but one thing is essential: the salt. It brings out the brightness of the citrus and keeps the chocolate from being cloying; omit it at your peril.

Triple Citrus Petits Fours

Again, a simple assemblage (and the cake doesn’t have to be less than fresh; it’s just that this is a nice thing to do with it if it is). The only trick is finding impastata for the filling. This dense, ultra creamy, smooth version of ricotta has no substitute I can think of, but if you’re some place lots of Italians aren’t, you can probably fudge it with very well-drained ricotta mixed with tiny amounts of cream cheese and heavy cream.

Make the filling: Coarsely chop some good citrus marmalade. Mix it half and half with impastata and stir in enough Cointreau to make it spreadable. Taste. Fiddle as needed.

Cut long slices of cake about 1/4 inch thick. Spread half with a generous layer of filling and top with the other half. Cut into seemly pieces. Set the pieces on their sides and drizzle a small amount of Cointreau in the middles right next to the filling.

Rugelach, the cookie supreme: buttery, flaky, not too sweet, and small enough so you can pretend that eating a couple won't matter.

In spite of their undoubted splendor, I won’t be making Rugelach for Valentine’s Day this year. The problem is that I made them for Valentine’s Day two years ago and got reminded how good they are.

Doesn’t sound like a problem, but as a result I started making them frequently, and as a result of that they are no longer special enough to be this year’s Home Baked Gift of Love.

Besides, getting there is half the fun if you have a lot of clippings and cookbooks – and an appreciative husband to whom failed experiments are a kind of foreplay.

I know, I know, purchased high end chocolate is faster and easier. And even worse, the truth is my personal appreciative husband would be just as happy with low end chocolate (he really isn’t fussy as long as a cacao tree was involved at some point.)

But as it happens we already have some extremely classy truffles that a good friend brought as a house gift, so I can make something that isn’t chocolate which is very nice for me even if I don’t know what it is yet.

Heath Bar Cookies, home of all four major food groups: sugar, fat, salt and crunch

This isn’t supposed to be about me, so I could just cave and make Heath Bar Cookies, a rather louche item everyone adores. But I’m not going to do it, because in spite of not being crazy about chocolate I adore them too and they’re really ruinous in the girth department.

Winter Squash Brioche with Coconut Crust, where all this started out.

Backstory: Two years ago at around this time, I used the picture above as the coda to a long list of good things to make out of leftover mashed winter squash (an item that many of us will soon have in copious amounts).

What I did not do was post the relevant recipe – even after I was very politely asked. Why? Because the recipe didn’t exist.

That’s the great thing about bread. Unlike cake, you can just make it up as you go along, starting with pureed squash, for instance, faking your way toward brioche and then playing around with the dough.

The result was certainly good enough to revisit, but what with this and what with that I never did, so I never took the notes that add up to a recipe. Until now.

Here they are

Coconut Pumpkin Brioche

is actually somewhere between true brioche and very light, very eggy, very buttery bread, because you have to add extra flour to compensate for the moisture in the pumpkin.

You also have to want plenty of coconut pumpkin brioche products, because I decided – in the interest of standardization and because I hate dabs of leftover ingredients – that this recipe should use one whole can of caned pumpkin and that makes a lot of dough.

It also helps to like coconut milk, because standardization turns out to be not my thing again today and there will be a lot left over. On the good side, there’s always Thai curry and you can use up quite a bit if you make the sticky buns or something else that is improved by icing.*

For @ 4 ¾ lb. of dough, enough to make 2 dozen brioches and a large coconut ring, or 3 large coconut rings, or 33 brioches, or a dozen brioches and 16 sticky buns and a small coconut currant ring, or come to think of it I bet this dough would be extremely cool for kulebiaka**…

Note: the dough is easy to make – assuming you have a stand mixer –  but it does require an overnight rest; be sure to plan accordingly.

Sponge

1/3 c. warm coconut milk

2 ¼ tsp. yeast (one standard 1/4 oz packet)

1 ¾  c. solid-pack pumpkin (one 15 oz can) or winter squash puree

3 tbl. sugar

1 c. bread flour

Dough

2 tsp. salt

6 extra large eggs

6 ½ c. bread flour, plus more as needed

10 oz. very soft butter

Shaping and baking

Lots of butter for the pans

Shredded unsweetened coconut

Beaten egg for glaze

1. Make the sponge. Put the coconut milk in the bowl of a standing mixer, whisk in the yeast and let it soften for 5 minutes or so. Whisk in the pumpkin, sugar and flour and cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to rise until very light and spongy, anywhere from 1½ to 3 hours, depending on the warmth of the room.

2. Fit the mixer with the paddle. At low speed, beat the salt into the sponge, then beat in an egg. When the mixture is smooth, beat in 1 1/2c. of the flour. Add another egg, then a cup of flour, then an egg, etc., until all eggs and flour are in there.

3. Keep beating at low speed, scraping the bowl from time to time and pushing the dough down as it climbs the paddle. It will slowly come together and start leaving the sides of the bowl and then you will have a lump of soft, sticky dough.

4. Beat in the butter, a few tablespoons at a time. Keep beating after all is added. The dough will again begin to pull away from the bowl, but this time it won’t form a tidy lump. There will be some stretchy wings.

5. Test the dough by flouring your fingers and pulling off a walnut sized piece. Put it in the freezer until it’s very cold (not frozen), then try rolling it into a ball with lightly floured palms. If it gets sticky but keeps its shape, the dough is ready. If the heat of your hands turns it into paste, beat in 1/3 c. more flour and test again. If necessary, keep adding and testing, 1/3 cup at a time. The more flour you add, the easier the dough will be to handle, but try to avoid getting carried away. More than a scant cup of additional flour and you’ll definitely have egg bread instead of brioche. Not the worst thing in the world, but still…

6. When the dough is ready, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise double, 2 hours or so, depending on room temperature. Absolute double isn’t essential; if in doubt it’s better to err on the side of not quite enough.

7. Punch down the dough. Transfer to a large, thick plastic bag and thump so the dough’s in the bottom. Close the bag tightly at the top, leaving plenty of room for expansion. Refrigerate overnight (anywhere from 8 -12 hours or even a little more if more convenient). Punch down when ready to shape.

Shaping: Work with small amounts of dough at a time; it’s easy to handle when it’s cold.

Brioches (a 1/2 c. mold takes about 2 ¼ oz of dough):

1. Lavishly butter the molds and dust them with coconut, turning and shaking to ensure complete coverage.

2. Work with no more than 6 – 8 pieces of dough at a time, so they don’t warm up too much. Just roll them into balls or go the extra mile with the little topknot. (If you don’t already have a favorite shaping method, try this one. Being written for kids, it’s both short and clear). The ball part should fill the mold a little more than halfway.

Coconut Rings:

1. Tube pans work better than bundt pans, but bundt pans are perfectly ok. Allow enough dough to fill the pan a bit more than halfway, about 1 ½  lbs. for a 6 cup mold. If you’re not sure, do a crude experimental fill before preparing the pan.

2. Butter and coconut dust as the brioche pans (above).

3. Roll the dough into a rectangle, then roll it up tightly into an even snake and fit it into the pan, pinching and pressing to make the ends meet securely. You can go directly to rolling a snake, but doing the flatten and roll routine helps keep the thickness even.

Rising and baking:

1. Lightly cover the shaped breads with plastic wrap and allow to rise double, about an hour. Heat the oven to 400 when they’re roughly three-fourths of the way there.

2. Gently but thoroughly paint the tops with beaten egg, then sprinkle lavishly with shredded coconut. Put them in the oven and turn the heat down to 375. Bake until well risen and brown and pulling from the sides of the pan: 195 degrees on an instant read thermometer. The brioches take abut 18 minutes, the rings anywhere from 25 to 40 minutes, depending on size. Have foil handy to cover the tops if they seem to be browning too quickly.

Butter might seem to be painting the lily, but for some reason...

Triple Coconut Pumpkin Sticky Buns

Coconut flakes on the bottom, shredded coconut inside, coconut icing on top

For 8 buns:

1 lb. coconut pumpkin brioche dough(above)

2/3 cup raisins

3 tbl. soft butter

1/3c. plus 2 tbl. brown sugar

1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

1 tsp. cinnamon (optional)

3 tbl. unsweetened shredded coconut

coconut glaze (below)

1. On a lightly floured board, knead the raisins into the dough. Set it aside covered to relax.

2. Coat an 8 inch cake pan with the butter, being especially generous on the bottom. Sprinkle on 2 tbl. of the brown sugar, then sprinkle on the coconut flakes, pressing them in slightly.

3. Roll the dough into a rough rectangle about 1/8 inch thick. Use your palm to brush with the cinnamon, if using, then sprinkle on the remaining brown sugar and the shredded coconut and spread them as evenly as possible.

4. Roll up the rectangle from a long side, pressing and tucking tightly as you go. Press in the ends to get the roll as even as possible, then cut it into 8 pieces and arrange them in the pan, 6 around the outside, 2 in the middle. Loosely cover with plastic wrap and let rise double, about an hour. Heat the oven to 400 when they’re about three-fourths of the way there.

5. Bake the buns for 5 minutes, then turn the heat down to 375 and bake until well risen and brown and pulling from the sides of the pan: 195 degrees on an instant read thermometer. This may take as long as 25  minutes total and the top may need protection to prevent over-browning; be sure to have foil handy.

6. Turn out onto a plate, then put another plate on top and reverse. Allow to cool before drizzling on the glaze. Two layers of glaze are not a bad thing. Let the first one dry before applying the second.

Coconut Glaze

For  a generous cup, enough for 16 sticky buns:

½ c. coconut milk

1 tbl. rum

@ 2.5 c. lump-free confectioners sugar

Mix the coconut milk and rum, then stir in sugar until the mixture is a little thicker than honey and a spoonful dropped on the sticky buns stays in place more than it runs .

Coconut Pumpkin Currant Ring

Prepare a 6 c. tube or bundt pan as for the coconut rings. Knead ½ c. currants into ¾ lb. of dough. Divide dough in half, then roll out and roll up each half as though for the sticky buns, sprinkling each rolled out rectangle with 2 tablespoons each of brown sugar and roughly chopped coconut flakes. Twist the two rolls around each other, put the rope into the pan and join the ends, pressing and pinching to seal. Omit the egg wash, but otherwise bake the same way as the coconut ring, starting the doneness checks at about 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack and glaze the same way as the buns.

* Sticky buns do have the merit of freezing well and thawing quickly, very handy when people drop by unexpectedly and it’s too early for wine, but maybe you’d rather bake one-bowl Old Faithful, The Little Black Dress of Chocolate Cakes and play around with that.            .

**Kulebiaka is a sort of Russian Wellington: Sturgeon or salmon filet spread with mushroom duxelles, chopped hard boiled egg and similar Russian embellishments, then baked in a casing of brioche dough. Kulebiaka is often fancifully decorated with loops and swirls of extra dough, so it’s pretty as well as delicious, and it was a popular party dish – at least in some circles – back in the late 1960’s…

(American circles, I mean. As far as I know it’s never gone out of style in Russia)

Very similar to the sticky buns but better suited to the toaster (watch out for burned icing, however)

Blueberry Peach Upside Down Cake ( actually this one is about half white nectarine)

My friend Nancy is not big on baking, but she does love belonging to the Maine Slice of The Cake Committee, so I suggested she try the impressive-for-how-little-fuss-it-takes Blueberry Peach etc. cake from The 3000 Mile Garden. Then I got to feeling uneasy, on account of not having made one for quite a while…

Decided it might be smart to bake one up, just to be sure I was still proud of it. Did. Am. But

I am here to tell you the people who say multitasking isn’t all it’s cracked up to be have a point.

This is an easy cake:  no complicated procedures, no split second timing, so (conveniently forgetting the part about having to photograph the damn thing) I figured I could sort of do it on the side while occupied with several other things.

Plenty of raspberry whipped cream is always a good idea

As the pictures show, it came out very nicely… unless you look at them closely, in which case you will notice that the crumb of the cake is suspiciously pale.

This didn’t register at all while I was fooling around with the camera; mostly I was worried about losing the light. Photography was followed by Bill eating two pieces but also – in retrospect somewhat suspiciously –  saying nothing about its deliciousness before going out for a night’s fishing.

Those other tasks I mentioned occupied me for some time, so a couple of hours passed before I got around to tasting it. Aargh! How on earth could I have put my name on such an uninteresting piece of pastry – and included it in a book, no less? Talk about a heart-sinking moment. It wasn’t absolutely awful but it sure wasn’t good. Definitely too sweet, for one thing, also a little dry and kind of bland in spite of all the fruit.

Then the aha moment: forgot to put in the butter!

Well then, probably fine, but of course now it’s really essential to put it to the test. And of course now I’m out of nectarines, peaches, even plums. Even canned versions of these fruits. Nada.

“No big deal,” I comfort myself, “the thing that must be tested is the cake. You can still bake it without the fruit layer and learn whether it’s ok or not. (Fortunately there were plenty of blueberries).

But given that I had to bake another cake, why not do something with it – and while we’re at it, why not a few cupcakes?

Summer Cake

This recipe reflects the fact that I’m really more of a pie person – between the peaches on top of it and the blueberries in it (and the raspberries beside it), there’s almost as much fruit as cake. You can bake it in a 9 inch pan if you don’t have a 10-incher, but the cake to fruit ratio will change and not in my opinion for the better, even though it’s still pretty good, especially if you like cake.

For a 10 inch square, anywhere from 10 to 16 servings:

Fruit layer:

butter for the pan, @ 2 tbl.

½ c. sugar

(grated zest of) 1 lemon

4 large or 5 small firm-ripe nectarines or peaches, peeled and cut into @ 1/3 inch wedges

1 tbl. flour

Batter:

2 c. all purpose flour*

½ c. sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. kosher salt

½ c. cold butter

2 room temperature eggs

@ 3/4 c. milk

1 1/4c. wild Maine blueberries**

Topping:

1c. heavy cream

1 c. raspberries, crushed (strawberries may be substituted)

1 tbl. Cointreau or similar

2 tbl. sugar, or to taste

1. Heat the oven to 400 (375 for a glass pan or a 9 inch pan). Thickly butter a 10x10x2 inch baking pan.

2. Mix the fruit layer sugar and lemon zest and distribute it as evenly as possible over the butter. Pave with the fruit wedges, in very closely spaced but not overlapping rows. Sprinkle on the flour.

3. Put the batter dry ingredients in a wide mixing bowl and stir with a wire whip to thoroughly combine. Cut or rub in the butter to make a mixture the texture of coarse meal – a little finer is better than too coarse.

4. Break the eggs into a 2 cup measure and beat well with a fork. Add milk to make 1 ¼ c. liquid. Using as few strokes as possible, stir it into the dry mixture, adding the blueberries about halfway through. The batter will be very thick.

5. Distribute the batter over the cut fruit, gently spreading to the edge. Bake until risen, browned and pulling from the sides of the pan, about 20 – 25 minutes. The “toothpick emerges dry” test would work if you could find a blueberry-free place to insert the toothpick, but this is not possible.

6. Cool on a wire rack for two or three minutes, then reverse onto a serving plate. While the cake is cooling, beat the cream until slouchy, then stir in the raspberries, liqueur and sugar. Serve the warm cake in squares with the topping on the side.

* Bleached flour makes lighter cake; don’t say I didn’t warn you.

** “Wild Maine blueberries” means the low bush kind, about the size of small peas, that grow all over the northern US but are I’m happy to say most closely associated with Maine. Cultivated high bush berries – aka rabbit eye or “New Jersey” – are too large to work in this recipe.

Lousy Cake Lesson #2: Before baking the original cake I’d promised to bring it next door for dessert at what turned out to be about 10 minutes after the revelatory taste test. There wasn’t anything in the house to substitute at the last minute, so being grateful next door is family I brought it anyway, with the story, an apology and the butter dish (it was marginally better split and spread with butter as though it were still the muffin that gave birth to the recipe).

Response from Jeff and Lois, who had admittedly had wine with dinner, “It’s fine, what’s the big deal?” Response from Eli, presumably moved by the wine toward truth, “It tastes like those healthy cakes I’m always getting in the city; better than a lot of them, actually.”

What’s the lesson? Don’t bother with healthy cake; it’s unhealthy to think this oxymoron has any basis in fact; whatever the thing lacks in fat it probably more than makes up for in sugar and the carbohydrates in the flour haven’t gone anywhere either.

Blueberry Coconut Pecan Crunch Cake (or Cupcakes)

As above except for the fruit layer and topping.

After thickly buttering a 9 inch square pan or dozen muffin cups, “dust” with dried unsweetened coconut as though you were dusting with flour, making an even and complete layer all over the bottom and sides.

Sprinkle the bottom(s) lightly with sugar and thickly with coarsely chopped pecans. Proceed as above, baking at 375. Turn out on wire racks and cool completely.

For topping, beat the cream stiff instead of slouchy, stir in the crushed berries etc. and use the result as frosting.

The crunch doesn't show up very well, but at least you see the correct color of the crumb - also that I rather overmixed the batter, but nobody complained.

For information about the Maine Slice of The Cake Committee, send them an e-mail at

the.cake.committee.maine@gmail.com.

The picnic classic, downeast edition

Usually, when I give a party, I prepare the food. But at our recent garden soiree for the Maine Farmland Trust, these cookies were my only contribution. (Food luminary Nancy Jenkins, an ardent Trust supporter, did all the rest, leaving me free to obsess about weeding.)

Because we wanted to showcase raw materials that come – or could come – from Maine,  the cookies were made from Maine-grown oats. Local eggs. Butter was my regular butter, Kate’s. The blueberries… well, of course…

The upper path is empty of people because everyone kept on going (the party was in the lower garden).

Maine Blueberry Hazelnut Oatmeal Cookies

This recipe is basically the one from the boxtop, that being a recipe it’s difficult to improve. The uniquely downeast ingredients are the blueberries and – potentially – the hazelnuts.

Hazelnuts, aka filberts, aren’t a commercial Maine crop yet, but they could and should be, so I wanted to use the occasion to demonstrate their non-traditional possibilities. It’s a simple substitution but an extremely happy one: oats and hazelnuts turn out to be made for each other, especially if you cut back on the cinnamon and put in some nutmeg.

For 6 to 8 dozen cookies, depending on size:

1 ½ c. all-purpose flour

1  tsp. baking soda

1/2  tsp. salt (gently heaped if using unsalted butter)

¼ tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. freshly grated  nutmeg (1/2 tsp. pre-ground)

6 oz butter, at room temperature

½ c. firmly packed brown sugar

½ c. granulated sugar

2  eggs

2  tsp. vanilla

3  c. rolled oats

1 c. dried blueberries

1 c. skinned toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

1. Heat the oven to 350. Put flour, soda, salt and spices in a small bowl and stir with a wire whisk to combine.

2. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter with the sugars until creamy, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Beat in the vanilla and then the flour mixture.

3. Switch to a wooden spoon and stir in the oats, blueberries and hazelnuts. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper and distribute the dough in tablespoon-sized lumps.

4. Dampen your fingertips and press down the tops of the lumps, just enough so the cookies are flattish rather than peaked. Bake until rich golden brown, 10 – 14 minutes, depending on your oven. Cool on wire racks and store airtight.

The cookies will be crisp. If you prefer soft oatmeal cookies, put them in an airtight container with a slice of apple for a few hours or serve them on a humid day. Ours remained crisp for about 10 minutes after we put them on the platter.

Note: Maine flour is on its way back, in large part thanks to the efforts of Jim Amaral at Borealis Bread, but it’s not widely available retail yet, and retail buyers can only get whole wheat. (Whole wheat flour does not make great cookies, inconvenient as that truth may be.)

However

The pie that makes people say “ I thought I hated rhubarb, but this is wonderful!” is Carol’s Mother’s Deep Dish Rhubarb Custard Pie.

Both title and ingredients may raise warning flags to experienced cooks: rhubarb and custard sound like curdled filling just waiting to happen; the custard itself contains enough flour to suggest the result might be more than a tad stodgy. Fear not.

The custard is soft and smooth, and although this pie is far from light, that’s just because it’s big; the flour has nothing to do with it.

All credit goes to my friend Carol – the wine colored dahlia Carol, not the Heath Bar Cookie one.  When she sent me the recipe, back in 1992, she said: “This is straight out of my mother’s copy of the Betty Furness Westinghouse Cookbook (Simon and Schuster, 1954). I just doubled all of the ingredients…” so, with credit where due, Carol’s transmission of

Carol’s Mother’s Betty Furness’ Westinghouse Cookbook Deep Dish Rhubarb Custard Pie

Place in a 9 inch pie-plate (deep dish variety) pastry for a 1-crust pie. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. The baking time is 50-60 minutes (I’ve found it to be closer to 60 than 50).

Fill the pastry lined plate with 6 C. cut rhubarb. Over this, pour the following mixture: 4 beaten eggs, 4 T. milk, 2.5 C. sugar (white or brown as you like), 6 T. flour, ½ t. salt, ½ t. nutmeg. Then dot with 2 T. butter.

You can add a lattice top, but if you have pretty strawberry rhubarb, you really don’t need that sort of camouflage.

Cooks’ Notes:

1. (Pastry recipe here if needed) The deep dish must be very deep, and it pays to build up the pastry rim to add a bit more height. Even then there may be a bit of custard left over, depending on your pan and how you measure the rhubarb. Stop pouring a bit short of the top or you’ll have custard all over the oven.

2. Size of rhubarb slices isn’t critical, but they should be somewhere around ½ to ¾ inch wide.

3. Custard is smoothest and least inclined to puff over if you mix the dry ingredients first, then stir in the lightly beaten eggs. Brown sugar adds both color and flavor, enriching the experience;  the pie is prettier and clearer-tasting with white. Warning: this custard is very sweet, a real souvenir of the 1950′s. I haven’t experimented with using less sugar – our rhubarb is very tart – but you might want to.

4. I like having the lattice, not so much for decoration as because additional pastry makes a better balanced pie.

5. This bakes so long the bottom crust isn’t as soggy as you might fear, but it will be crisper if you use a baking stone as described in the recipe for Maple Walnut Pie (which is very good served frozen, btw, should you be looking for an excuse to make one for summer consumption).

6. If you do have extra custard, see it as a bonus. Pour it into a greased dish that it will fill halfway, add some more rhubarb and put the leftover pastry (lattice always leaves a little) around the edge and over the top. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the dish, and keep the little pudding at home when you take the pie to the party.

This little pudding also includes a few lumps of ricotta - there wasn't that much leftover custard and I wanted to have enough for both of us.