Mother’s Day is on my mind this week. I am replete with motherhood. My belly is large with motherhood. I wake up in the morning with my fingers swollen with motherhood. My feet are so full of motherhood that my shoes don’t fit. My hips are aching with motherhood. A day? Ha! I deserve at least a week of celebration. Or a month.

Check back in two weeks, when all this motherhood will be external rather than internal, but I’m not quite up to the mother’s day celebration this year. So instead of making brunch, I made reservations. The Nuni, my mom and I had a lovely girl’s tea at the historic Langham Hotel right here in Pasadena. The view was lovely, the service gracious, and the sandwiches and pastries were delicious. We ignored the fact that our homemade scones are better. I told Ken that he is in charge of dinner on Mother’s day – we can go out, we can get takeout, he can cook — but I don’t want to be responsible for planning, executing or cleaning up.

If some of you are less lazy encumbered than I am, this blueberry cornmeal cake would be an excellent treat for Mother’s Day. The recipe is supposedly one from Huckleberry, which is one of the best bakeries in LA, and it’s a lovely crunchy, fruity, not too sweet cake. If you’re into mother’s day breakfast or brunch, this would be a great addition – it’s not too rich or decadent for morning. It would also be a standout at afternoon tea, or if you’re cooking dinner for the mother or mothers in your life, it would be excellent with a bit of ice cream (vanilla would work, or I’m thinking a lovely buttermilk sorbet if you want to get ambitious.)

(...)
Read the rest of Huckleberry Blueberry Cornmeal Cake and Mother’s Day (242 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2012. | Permalink |
Post tags: blueberry, breakfast, brunch, cake, Coffee Cake, cornmeal, Mother's Day, tea

My personal favorite take on a bunny cake (or a birthday cake, or a Sunday afternoon for no reason layer cake) is an orange layer cake with orange buttercream frosting. I love chocolate cake, and won’t turn up my nose at a good coconut cake, or carrot cake, but when it comes to layer cakes, orange cake might just be my favorite. Orange cake seems to magically straddle that divide between those who prefer what my friend Mike calls the “brown” flavors (caramel, nuts, chocolate) and those who prefer a fruitier touch. I’ve been making this particular cake quite a bit lately (layer cake happens to be a pregnancy craving) and it’s easy to throw together, with a nice orange flavor and a moist crumb.

(...)
Read the rest of Moist Orange Layer Cake with Orange Buttercream (706 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2012. | Permalink |
Post tags: birthday cake, cake, Easter, layer cake, sweets

I’m probably not alone when I say that mornings can be a little rushed in our house. I need some serious wakeup time with a cup of coffee and some reading material, but I pay for it dearly by the rushing that follows. Shower, dress, wake the Nuni, dress the Nuni (an ordeal at times — the girl has OPINIONS), get everyone out the door and into the car appropriately brushed and washed and with hopefully matching socks.

Did I forget something? Oh yes, fed.

I’m a big believer in a decent breakfast. If I don’t eat one, I’m climbing the walls and eating whatever I’ve packed for lunch at 10 am. The Nuni gets to eat at preschool, but their idea of a proper breakfast (waffles, mini bagels, cold cereal) is not my idea of a proper breakfast. There should be protein! Fiber! Preferably a little fruit! A breakfast that can get you through to elevenses, at least. Eggs and toast are lovely, or a bowl of oatmeal with lots of milk, but they don’t really help the morning chaos. These oatmeal breakfast bars are the answer to that.

On Sunday afternoon, I throw the ingredients together (which takes only about 5 minutes longer than it takes to chop an apple), bake them, let them cool, and wrap them individually. Stored in the fridge, I can grab them quickly in the rush of weekday mornings, and they can be eaten on the go. (In the car, at the desk). They’ve got plenty of satisfying fiber (apple AND oatmeal), some good protein from nuts, milk and eggs, and enough sweetness that the Nuni will eat them. I’ve given you my favorite recipe below, which I make with dried mangos, blueberries and cranberries, but feel free to use any combination of dried fruits and nuts and spices. I sometimes add in some ground flaxseeds, too, and the milk can also be substituted with soy milk, if you’re so inclined.
(...)
Read the rest of Fruit and Oatmeal Breakfast Bars – Morning on the Go (206 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2012. | Permalink |
Post tags: breakfast, fruit, Oatmeal, Vegetarian

Why is it that I have no energy for cooking, but I’m always up for baking? I come home at the end of a long day after a long drive, with an aching back, and I reluctantly make dinner. All I want to do is collapse on the couch (ideally with a glass of wine, but alas, THAT isn’t happening right now!) and go to bed early, but I have responsibilities, and a healthy dinner must be made. Some days I’m just not up for it, and pizza becomes our saving grace. But on weekends, I’m bright eyed and bushy-tailed and eyeing the butter and the sugar with alacrity.

OK, I suppose it’s not that mysterious when you look at it that way. The point is, baking is fun cooking, frivolous cooking, and cookies seem to be some of the most frivolous foods you can bake. There’s no POINT to cookies. They’re merely there for enjoyment. And these might be my most enjoyable cookies.
(...)
Read the rest of Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies (432 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2012. | Permalink |
Post tags: chocolate chips, cookies, oatmeal cookies, sweets

I have waxed rhapsodic on this blog about my love of a traditional Christmas fruitcake, a classic holiday dessert, but my love of fruitcake extends beyond the Dickensian Christmas cake. During my first year of law school, my parents spent the year living in Florence, Italy, and the Christmas I spent with them that year was the only Christmas I have spent away from home (whether home was in California or New York.) What I remember from that Christmas was the cold, damp air, the lights everywhere, but most of all the food. We went to the Mercato San Lorenzo and loaded up on Prosciutto, Grissini, Pecorino, and even, memorably, whole black truffles that we shaved over pasta for New Year’s Eve. But what I loved the most were the sweets. Panettone in every bakery, and even better, panforte, a fruitcake like confection which may be the best thing I’ve ever tasted.

Panforte, a specialty of Siena, a hill town near Florence, dates back to the middle ages, when it was paid as a tax to monks and nuns, and was reportedly carried by Crusaders on the crusades. A combination of fruits and nuts, honey and sugar and spices, it is a cross between a caramel based candy and a cake. It is also utterly addictive, with a satisfying chew from the fruits and the caramel, and a crunch from the nuts.
(...)
Read the rest of Panforte Margherita (459 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: cake, candy, Christmas, holiday

I wasn’t sure what to call this. The recipe that I adapted it from is called a pie, and it bakes in a pie pan, but we all know a pie, and this is no pie. Cobbler would have a higher proportion of fruit, crisp would be, well, crisp. Torte seems too highbrow. This combination of sweet tart cranberries, caramelized sugar, crunchy nuts and a dense, sweet buttery dough is definitely not highbrow. It takes maybe 10 minutes to throw together (if you move slowly) and is homey and delicious and beautiful. Cake is perhaps the closest approximation, though light and fluffy this is not.

It’s always nice to have this kind of dessert around for the holidays. Something you can throw together for a dinner party, to keep around the house for visitors to nibble on, or to serve as an alternative to pie on any groaning dessert table. This is particularly good — the cranberries and pecans are pure Americana, making this a perfect dessert for Thanksgiving, and the cranberries are a gorgeous red color that sets a festive tone for Christmas. And butter is good any time of year. The tartness of the cranberries cuts the sweetness from the butter sugar topping, but the butter and sugar do give the cake a delicious sticky crunchy texture in the crust.

I like this flavored with cardamom — my favorite baking spice around the holidays — but if you’re of a more traditional bent, don’t be afraid to use cinnamon and nutmeg. Mine is flavored with vanilla, but almond extract or even a bit of rum or brandy would also be nice. You can serve it straight from the pan, perhaps topped with some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream — or turn it out onto a plate for a showstopper dessert. It’s rich, forgiving, and beautiful – just like your favorite relative — and perfect for the holidays.

Recipe
Cranberry Pecan Upside Down Cake
Adapted from Laurie Colwin’s Nantucket Cranberry Pie. Seriously, have you bought all her books yet? Why not?
1 cup melted butter, divided
1 1/2 cup sugar, divided
2 cups cranberries
1/2 cup toasted pecans (do not skip the toasting. Toasting the pecans is essential!)
2 eggs
1 cup flour
pinch salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon ground cardamom

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a 9″ glass pie plate, melt 1/4 cup (1/2 stick of the butter) and combine with 1/2 cup of sugar. Add cranberries, then pecans.

In a separate bowl, mix remaining 3/4 cup melted butter and 1 cup sugar with eggs, flour, vanilla, salt, and cardamom. Pour over the cranberry pecan mixture.

Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool slightly, then loosen the edges with a thin knife and turn out onto a plate.

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: Christmas, cranberries, desssert, holiday, nuts, sweets, Thanksgiving

October is probably my favorite time of year here in Southern California. The days are clear and sunny (and can be hot — supposed to be in the 90′s today!) but it invariably cools off at night, leaving clear skies, perfect for stargazing. October is also one of those magical food times, when we’re still getting a few tomatoes and peaches from the summer, but the cool weather produce is starting to come in — apples, peaches, butternut squash, and grapes.

We get grapes from so many places around the world now that we forget to think of them as seasonal fruit, but anyone who lives in or near wine country knows that fall is the time of the grape harvest, and that applies to table grapes as well. The best, sweetest, most flavorful varieties abound in fall – the red, green and black grapes we see every day, but also the headily perfumed muscat grapes and the classically flavored concord grapes. I had long wanted to make a grape pie, but the grapes with the truest “grape” flavor — the flavor of grape juice and grape jelly — are Concord grapes, which are also famous for their grape seeds.

(...)
Read the rest of Fresh Grape Pie (292 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: autumn, grapes, pie

Early fall kicks off birthday season in my family. Somewhere in there, my darling girl turned FOUR. When I started this blog, she was not yet two, a round cheeked, lisping toddler, and now she is a full blown kid, with opinions and ideas and a personality all her own. Also in there, I turn, well, let’s just say considerably older than four, and leave it at that.

I am of the school of thought (and trust me, the Nuni shares this with me) that in order to properly celebrate a birthday, you need cake. Not pie, not pudding, and not even cupcakes. But an old fashioned, frosted layer cake. And it’s nice to have a simple one you can whip out of your oven for just such occasions.

This is the easiest, most foolproof chocolate cake recipe I’ve ever made. I remembered an old internet acquaintance who happened to be one of the best bakers I’ve ever “met” making an offhand comment that her go-to chocolate cake recipe was a Black Magic cake. It was invented by Hershey’s, requires no fussy chocolate melting, or butter creaming. It’s just wet ingredients, dry ingredients, mix, pour into pans, and boom, you’re left with a meltingly moist cake. The cocoa powder and the coffee add that deep dark chocolate flavor, and the cocoa, coffee, oil and buttermilk all make it wonderfully moist. This is the cake to make for anyone’s last minute birthdays.

And because every cake deserves to be tarted up with frosting, I made this intensely flavored roasted pistachio buttercream frosting. The color is real, not artificial, from eight ounces of pistachio nuts. The frosting is very soft and fluffy at room temperature, but firms up nicely in the refrigerator, so plan accordingly, depending on how firm you like your frosting. The key to getting the frosting really smooth is to grind the nuts in the food processor for a good long time. I used olive oil in the frosting, because I thought the green color and peppery flavor would add a nice kick to the frosting.

Recipe
Foolproof Moist Chocolate Layer Cake
(Thanks to Hersheys)
2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder (not dutch processed)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup strong black coffee
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour (I used Baker’s Joy or an equivalent product) 2 9-inch cake pans.

In a large mixing bowl (or the bowl of your stand mixer), combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt, and whisk to combine.

Add eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil and vanilla, beat for about 2 minutes. The batter will be thin. Divide evenly between the pans (if you’re bad at eyeballing, a kitchen scale helps admirably with this) and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean (or with a few crumbs, no batter).

Cool the cake layers in their pans for about 10 minutes, then turn them out and cool thoroughly before frosting and assembling.

Pistachio Buttercream Frosting
8 oz. roasted unsalted pistachio nuts (I buy them shelled from, you guessed it, Trader Joe’s)
2 T granulated sugar
6 T powdered sugar, divided
1 tsp olive oil
3 T honey
1 cup unsalted butter
Pinch of salt, to taste

In a large food processor, process the pistachios and the granulated sugar until very fine. Take out a few tablespoons of the ground pistachios to decorate the cake, and set aside.

Add 2 T powdered sugar and the olive oil, continue processing until the nuts are smooth. Add the honey, and continue to process until the paste is smooth to taste, and not grainy. Add the butter and the remaining powdered sugar and beat until combined. Chill.

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: birthday, cake, chocolate, layer cake

When my dad died, well-wishers contacted me and asked, “What can I do?”

How do you answer that question? “Bring him back” “Turn back the clock” “Make me feel better”?

The truth is, it’s hard to do anything. The person you really want to talk to, to share the jokes with, to check in with, is the one person who isn’t there. And you feel very alone, even if you’re surrounded by people.

This week, my friend Jennie lost her husband. Much as I adored my dad, my loss pales in comparison to hers. I’ve seen well-wishers virtually surround her, asking, once again, “What can I do?”

Jennie has answered. She has asked people to bake a pie, for Mikey, today, the day of his memorial. A peanut butter pie, which was his favorite. To share that pie with loved ones, because she wishes she could share this pie with him.

As I mentioned before, I consider Jennifer a virtual neighbor. The Nuni is the same age as her younger daughter. We’re both working moms, with young kids, trying to cook for our families, to raise them with authentic food. Though we live 3,000 miles apart, through the magic of the internet, we chat as if we lived 3 blocks apart. As if our lighthearted dinner invitations could be accepted on a whim. As if I could run over to borrow a cup of sugar, to share a cup of tea, instead of just running to her site for a recipe. And I wish with all my heart that I could just show up, with that cup of tea, and be there for her today.

I can’t show up, but she asked for this. So it’s the very least I can do. I woke up this morning at 5 am, and before I left for work, I made this pie. For Mikey. For Jennie. For their beautiful girls. And for my family. Jennie expresses love through food, and I do the same. I’ll share it with my darling daughter and my beloved husband, but I’ll also share it with my neighbors, over a casual dinner, a glass of wine. And wish that Jennie were sharing it with us. I hope that this small show of support makes her feel just a little less alone.

The recipe for peanut butter pie can be found on Jennifer’s site here. Make it for your loved ones, and give thanks that they are there to share it with you.

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: pie

I have this vision of summer. Long, twilit evenings spent outdoors. A cold glass of wine, some fairy lights. There’s music playing in the background. The kids are running around. There’s laughter, and good conversation, and the air is cool. We linger over dinner. The food is delightful — refreshing, light, playful. And then, since nobody wants to leave, we cap off the evening with dessert. Nothing too sweet or too heavy. Just a little something sweet, something light, something fun.

Summer should be FUN.

The reality of summer doesn’t always match my vision. Childhood doesn’t prepare you for the hard, cold, reality that most jobs don’t offer a summer vacation. My summer evenings are often spent in the car, in a long sweaty slog through traffic. I come home to a house that’s 90 degrees (in my fantasy life, I often forget that summer is HOT), and decide whether to open the windows, letting the dubious cooling effects of outside air rush into the house, along with flies, stinkbugs, and of course, mosquitoes, or whether to close off the outdoors, turn on the air conditioning, and cocoon. And get bitten my mosquitoes anyway. Friends are busy, or out of town, and dinner is a ham sandwich, as that’s just about all Nuni will eat these days. Summer reality has its joys – ripe tomatoes from the garden, and the twilights are long. We do eat outdoors. But my reality is that summer also has its aggravations, and isn’t any more fun than any of the other four seasons.

At least dessert can still be fun, right?

These tiny pies are fun. First of all – tiny pies? Always fun. Put them in jars and you double the fun (and make them super easy to transport for a picnic or a beach trip — see? More fun.) These are tart and refreshing and, unlike traditional key lime pies, light, low fat and relatively healthy. Lightened with egg whites, tangy with yogurt and lime juice, these mini pies are what summer was meant to be.

I was inspired to make these because, after a meeting of Food Bloggers Los Angeles at my house (which was, I admit it, quite fun, though also quite hot), I was left with a bag of key limes the kind people at Melissa’s Produce gave me, and a couple of tubs of Vanilla fat free Greek yogurt from Stonyfield Farms. Yogurt and limes ends up being an inspired combination.

Recipe
Mini Key Lime Yogurt Pies in Jars
Adapted from Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax

If you don’t have key limes, you can substitute with regular lime juice. I found the best jars for these are little 4 oz. canning jars. You can also pop them in the freezer with the lid on, and either let them thaw in the picnic basket or, on especially hot days, eat them frozen.

1/2 c. milk
3/4 packet gelatin
2 egg yolks
1/2 c. key lime juice (12 limes)
1/4 c. sugar, divided
1/2 cup nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt
2 egg whites
2 oz. Trader Joe’s cats’ cookies (these are easily replaced with gluten free cookies to make these gluten free)

6 4 oz. canning jars

Sprinkle the gelatin over the milk, and wait a few minutes until the gelatin has softened.. Remove 1 Tablespoon of the milk gelatin mixture and set aside. Heat remainder of milk mixture to nearly boiling.

Mix the reserved milk with egg yolks and 2 Tablespoons sugar and beat until combined. Add the hot milk mixture, then return mixture to stovetop and heat until thickened enough to coat a spoon. Add yogurt and lime juice. Chill until cold, stirring periodically.

Meanwhile crush the cats cookies until fine, and divide the crumbs among the jars.

Beat the egg whites with remaining 2 T sugar until stiff. Fold the egg whites into the chilled lime mixture, then pour the mixture into the jars on top of the crumbs.

Cap with the jar lids and chill until solid. Serve topped with whipped cream.

Melt

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: limes, picnic, pie, Summer, yogurt