Cheesecake in July

It is almost impossible to bake in the summertime. We don't have whole house air conditioning, and besides, I refuse to heat the house from the inside while it's heating from the outside!

But this summer (so far) has been fairly lovely, and so on Saturday I ventured to bake a cheesecake. Anyone following this blog knows that I have declared the "perfect cheesecake" not once, but twice in recent months. And yet...

Lemon Cheesecake with Ricotta
(on the right is my personal recipe file project, still ongoing!)

Apparently, I need to fiddle with perfection. This weekend I made Mark Bittman's Lemon Cheesecake, but with twists. For the crust, I used Trader Joe's Triple Ginger Cookies (yum!). This was brilliant, a nice change from a straight graham cracker crust. The other innovation was to substitute ricotta for some of the cream cheese -- I used 15 oz. of whole milk ricotta with two 8 oz. packages of cream cheese. I didn't adjust the eggs, and perhaps I might have, but the happy noises coming out of my family's mouths last night confirmed that the ricotta added a certain lightness to the cheesecake. Again, yum.

The best part about cooking and baking, though, beyond the taste sensations exploding in the mouth, is the effort that goes into it. The same day I made a Quinoa Corn Feta salad (adapted from Rachel Ray) and a peach salsa for the bluefish we were grilling, and all that chopping and stirring was positively therapeutic.

Most importantly, for the cheesecake I needed lemon juice AND lemon rind. I walked down to the corner to buy the lemons at our bodega (a nice feature of city life), and then I rifled the drawers looking for my lemon zester.

I don't have a lemon zester in my other kitchen, so only in summer can I replay in my head that scene in the Brooklyn apartment of one of our favorite relatives. "A zester!" I exclaim. "I've always wanted a zester!" "Here, take it," says Uncle Roland. "No, really, I couldn't!" I retort, embarrassed. "Seriously, I've only used it once or twice myself. Take it, and you'll think of me when you use it."

How great is that for a dessert in mid-July? This recipe brought together creativity, fresh ingredients, the convenience of life in the city, the fun and precision of separating eggs, measuring and mixing, plus a chance to use my lemon zester and think about its provenance. Not bad for an experience -- and at the end there was cheesecake.

Thanks, Roland.

The Perfect Brownie

For years I have collected brownie recipes -- copied out of cookbooks, cut from newspapers, and so on, in search of the perfect brownie. Every brownie I make is too dry, or too cakey. In despair, I have purchased brownie mixes. My friend Jennifer expressed her disdain -- how could I, the queen of home baking, use a brownie mix? So sometimes I make Texas Brownies (Sue Kearney's recipe, with sour cream), very yummy, but that's a different treat entirely. (I'll post the recipe next time I make it -- great for a crowd. Requires corn syrup for the icing, though!)

Then last year I was at my sister's house and she had baked brownies for her husband's birthday. O my god. They were delicious!! And she said: "Why haven't you been making Foster's Brownies?"

I would have, really, if I had known they existed!

The recipe makes A LOT of brownies, so it's good to cut it in half. The key, though, is to manage the baking time. If you bake them too long, they are delicious, but too dry. If you manage just right, then someone in your family might say, like my son did yesterday: "There have been far too many cookies in this house over the years, and not nearly enough brownies."

Even a little piece deserves its own plate.

Here's the "modified" version (i.e. approximately a half recipe, but with my own tweaks).

Foster's Brownies

1 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder*
1/2 t. salt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar (reduced)
2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
1 T. vanilla
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)
2 cups (12 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325.
Lightly grease and flour a 9 x 13" pan (glass is fine). Set aside.
Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt in a bowl and stir to mix. Set aside.
Cream together the eggs, sugar, butter and vanilla in a separate bowl with an electric mixer until well blended.
Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix just until all the dry ingredients are moist and blended. Do not overmix.
Fold in the walnuts (if using) and chocolate chips and stir to blend. Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan.
Bake 25-30 minutes. They should be slightly soft in the center when tested with a toothpick. Remove from oven and cool 30 minutes before cutting.
Cut into 2 1/2 by 3 inch bars (for a smaller brownie, cut the bar in half down the center or on the diagonal.)

* I usually use Ghirardelli's chocolate or Ah!laska brand, but I was lured at the Freshgrocer (which had neither of my preferred brands) to purchase Hershey's "Special Dark Blend of Natural and Dutched Cocoas." Yum. It really is darker than most cocoas, and the contrast with the Ghirardelli chips was awesome. (I admit, I used twice as many chips as the original recipe called for. But at least I left out the walnuts!)

Of course, AH!LASKA is organic, fat free, and kosher, the first such cocoa on the market. See all about it here.

Blueberry Buckle: The Recipe

So I thought somehow that the photo of my recipe book would be legible to anyone interested, and it seems that it was not.

Here's the recipe I used:

Blueberry Buckle

1/2 c. shortening (I used unsalted butter, softened)
1/2 c. sugar (not reduced as per my usual)
1 well-beaten egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1/2 c. milk
2 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (325 if using glass pan). Grease a 11 1/2 x 7 inch pan. (9x13 is okay, but the buckle will not "buckle"...)

Thoroughly cream shortening and sugar. Add egg and mix well. Sift flour, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Pour into well-greased pan (pour?!? the consistency of my batter had me "patting" the dough into the pan). Top with blueberries. Sprinkle "Cinnamon Crumbs" (a.k.a. streusel) over blueberries. Bake 45-50 minutes or until done (possibly less if you're using a larger pan).

Cinnamon Crumbs: Mix 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (okay, I used 1 t.). Cut in 1/4 c. unsalted butter until crumbly.

Here's what it looked like before baking, in a 9x13" glass pan.

The after picture is here.

This was delicious, especially when warm and topped with fresh whipped cream. Next time I will try to make the "crumbs" more crumby (maybe the kitchen was too warm and so the streusel effect was lost?) and try a smaller pan (perhaps a 9 or 10" square metal pan?) to get the effect of "buckling" from the cinnamon layer, now that I know why it is called a Buckle. My friend who lives in Georgia recommends mixing up the fruit -- she uses blueberries and nectarines. Could one do blueberries and pomegranate seeds, or would that be too crazy?

Summertime Blueberry Buckle

I am in the midst of creating a personal cookbook -- trying to organize my recipes in some fashion that is both useful and attractive.

For a number of years I have been carting around a 3 ring binder with file folders stuffed into it: Breads and Muffins, Soups and Salads, Ethnic Recipes -- you get the drift. But now I am hoping to rewrite all the recipes I've been saving into my New Improved Book.

The problem? I'm actually fairly attached to the recipes as they are. I remember, for example, writing out one of my Russian recipes on the back of an orange flyer advertising George Kalbouss's Russian 522 course ... in about 1996. My friend Sara and I were planning a Russian feast. So looking at that recipe reminds me of the apartment where we held the feast, the guest list, the menu... How can I give that up?

I have recipes cut out of newspapers (including my Chocolate Roll Cake from St. Louis circa 1997 or so, when I was there for the AAASS conference in November); recipes handwritten on notebook paper or other random scrap paper; recipes cut out from magazines; recipes typewritten or handwritten on recipe cards, by myself, my aunt, my grandmother; recipes printed from epicurious.com or other recipe websites...

There is even a certain serendipity. Which brings us to the Blueberry Buckle recipe. My mom sent me her cornbread recipe, copied out from her new Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, but she also sent me the page from her old cookbook, and on the reverse of that page is the Blueberry Buckle recipe. And it's summer. So I copied it into my new book, and then prepared it -- for the first time. (I will adapt and change it in future -- stay tuned!)

Leaving room on the left for my Aunt Em's
Oatmeal Muffin recipe, the tastiest ever because made with sour cream!

I learned several things, about the Recipe Book project and about the recipe itself. First of all, by writing in ink I am guaranteeing that my book has "character" -- already I smeared the ink when preparing the first recipe! Secondly, this BH&G recipe makes word choices that don't necessarily reflect reality. For example, there is no way I could have "poured" the batter, since it was quite stiff. Instead I "patted" the dough into the pan. Third, though I only had a 9X11 glass casserole, that worked fine. No need to be hung up on exactitude! I admit, too, that I am doubtful about the "Cinnamon Crumbs" -- just a way to get more butter and sugar into the dish, since the texture did not live up to the name: there were no "crumbs" involved. Perhaps because it was too warm in the kitchen? I'll experiment some more in future to see if I can justify the BG&H vocab.

I got to thinking that adding basil to this recipe might be really nice. My daughter says no -- she thought adding chopped pistachios on top would be better. My son says that if I never make this recipe again, he will have no reason to live. So I guess I'll do it again next weekend when we have guests, as long as the blueberries are still in season.

Delicious -- especially with fresh whipped cream!

The designation "Buckle" seems so old-fashioned somehow, so I thought I'd better investigate. To quote this recipe site, "A buckle is an old-fashioned single layered cake interspersed with berries and with a streusel-type topping that “buckles” as it cools. Not sure mine did that -- maybe this is why I needed the smaller pan?

Finally, as I copied out this recipe and made the dish I was thinking of my stepdad. Over the holidays I accidentally overheard him talking to my mom about something I had baked (not even sure what!) and commenting that Angela should learn that sometimes sugar can be a good thing. (Generally I cut the sugar in all recipes in half, with the result that nothing I bake is particularly sweet!) So this time I did not reduce the sugar, and I agree -- it was tastier. Thanks, Allan.