Spring + Winter: Sprinter or Wing?

This is a lesson in seasonality, kids. Namely, don’t go mixing up your seasons when you are on the east coast. Maybe you can get away with such things on the west coast, but in New York, May is May. Which is why I kinda don’t understand why I found this recipe in the “spring” section of this cookbook.

Sure it features lettuce, definitely in season in May. In fact, the lettuce we used was fresh from my brother’s girlfriend’s (of Irish Soda Bread fame) garden. No complaints there. And most of the reason I made this salad was because we had some very ripe avocados that were going to go to waste if left another day. So obviously the avocados were not an issue either.

No, my qualms here were with the citrus, which is where most of the flavor of this salad comes from. This recipe called for limes, oranges, and red grapefruit. I totally forgot to buy limes, but luckily we had some key lime juice in the fridge. A bit of a bizarre substitution, but it was just to kinda zest up the dressing, so it worked. The oranges and grapefruit were to be sectioned and put on top of the salad. Sounds lovely, right? Well, not if your oranges were drier than my tear ducts after watching the Lion King (Simba, stop pawing at Mufasa! He’s not going to wake up!!) and your grapefruits were more bitter than I was after I found out they canceled Pushing Daisies (Ned the Piemaker, I miss you).

The bitterness of the grapefruit took over EVERYTHING, and although the textures were all very nice together (lettuce [soft crunch], cucumber [wet crunch], avocado [smooth & buttery], citrus [crisp bursts], almonds [dry crunch]), all I could taste was out of season grapefruit. Lesson learned. You can only pull off inter-seasonal salads in California, where seasons don’t exist and fruits and veggies are ripe whenever the hell they want to be ripe. So now that I’m here, maybe we’ll give this salad another go. In the meantime, don’t file this away in the Never Make section. Let’s not judge wholly based on bad grapefruit.

Avocado Citrus Salad
from Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates! (last one from here for a while, mi promiso)

Dressing:
2 tbsps fruity extra-vrigin olive oil
2 tbsps fresh lime juice
1 to 2 tsps mild honey
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp minced shallots or red onions

Salad:
3 to 4 cups mesclun or mixed field greens, rinsed and patted dry
1 cucumber, peeled
1 ruby grapefruit, peeled
2 oranges, peeled
1 large ripe avocado, preferably Hass
1/2 cup lightly toasted sliced almonds, or toasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds
freshly ground black pepper

In a small bowl, combine the dressing ingredients and set aside. In another owl, toss the greens with 1 to 2 tbsps of dressing and arrange them on a platter or individual plates. Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, and slice crosswise into 1/4-inch thick crescents. Toss them with a little dressing and scatter them on the greens.
Section the peeled citrus fruit. Squeeze any remaining juice from the membranes of the citrus into the dressing. Arrange alternate sections of grapefruit and orange like a pinwheel or starburst over the greens. Slice around the avocado lengthwise, gently twist the halves apart, and remove the pit. Carefully cut the flesh into cubes right in the skins, scoop them out with a serving spoon, and arrange them on the salad. Drizzle the rest of the dressing over the fruit and avocado.
Sprinkle with nuts or seeds and serve with fresh black pepper.

Rhubarbon voyage

I’m typing this a mere 15 minutes from leaving for the airport, so there are some important things to note. This will be short and sweet. This will not do justice to the amazingness of this Rhubarb Crumb Bar recipe. And there might be a lot of typos. I’m excited, and I don’t have time to form coherent sentences or reread or be diligent about grammar. Apologies, readers.

To sum up, I was not super excited about making these. I was kinda going through the motions during the process.

And I was unenthusiastic about the rhubarb. But I upped the quantity called for, a tip I picked up in one of the comments on the recipe, and hoped for the best. I expected a sorta cakey and relatively uninteresting bar.

But here’s the thing. I unequivocally love these bars. I love them. I love them. You should make them. They’re amazing.

The end! See ya on the west coast!

Rhubarb Crumb Bars
from Everyday Food via Martha Stewart (you win this round, M)

FOR THE STREUSEL
* 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus room-temperature butter for pan
* 1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pan
* 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* FOR THE CAKE
* 1/2 pound rhubarb, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (I used 3 cups. Don’t use any less, believe me)
* 1 tablespoon light-brown sugar
* 1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
* 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
* 2 large eggs
* 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan. Line with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on two sides. Butter and flour parchment and pan, tapping out excess flour.
2. Make streusel: Whisk together butter, brown sugar, and salt. Add flour and mix with a fork until large crumbs form. Refrigerate until ready to use.
3. Make cake: In a medium bowl, combine rhubarb, brown sugar, and 1/4 cup flour. In another medium bowl, whisk 3/4 cup flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and confectioners’ sugar until light and fluffy; beat in eggs, one at a time. With mixer on low, beat in vanilla, then flour mixture. Spread batter in prepared pan. Sprinkle with rhubarb and top with streusel.
4. Bake cake until golden and a toothpick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs attached, 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool completely in pan. Using paper overhang, lift cake from pan. Cut into 16 bars.

The Great Egg Sandwich Exploration, part three-ish?

Next up in the meat trials, canadian bacon. Regular bacon’s friendly and possibly socialist northern neighbor. I know the standard thing to do when you have canadian bacon is to make eggs benedict, but we didn’t have english muffins. I also couldn’t really bring myself to make hollandaise sauce. It involves double boilers and egg yolks and craziness, and when I get back from a long run and I’m super hungry, Jesus Christ himself could not convince me I needed to waste precious time making some involved sauce.

So I went more standard, and I used some healthy wrappy type bread I found in our freezer. Not going to lie, was not a huge fan of the stupid wrappy rolly thing. But the contents within? They were wonderful. 2 eggs, swiss cheese, canadian bacon, avocado, tomato, tabasco, salt and pepper.

Conclusions? Canadian bacon loses to regular bacon because of the crunch factor. Canadian bacon also loses to ham because I’m a sucker for a thin slice. Avocado always wins. Swiss cheese loses to cheddar because of the tang factor. Fresh tomatoes + tabasco win over ketchup. Healthy wrap bread is the suck.

We’re getting closer kids. I can feel it. I think next time I need to do some experimenting with sausage. And potatoes. And peppers! And bacon. And butter. And bacon and butter and bacon and butter.

Now, eat pie again

I know, I should quit playing games with your heart (your heart), with your heart (your heart), with your heart (your heart). No? Don’t remember that one? Too old to remember the Backstreet Boys? Blocked it from your memory?

Either way, I know. I said stop eating pie, and now I’m saying eat pie. And since you look to me for guidance in all aspects of your life, how are you to know which one I really mean? Well, I’ll give you a hint. It’s the one that says to eat pie. More specifically, this pie. All the time. Until you die of gluttony, much like that poor man in Se7en (did you like that? well, it’s officially the correct spelling of the movie title. don’t believe me? LOOK IT UP, bitches.).

Know what I love about this pie? I’ll give you another hint. It’s everything. It’s the healthy-tasting but not undelicious wheaty crust. It’s the tart burst of each currant as you bite down. It’s the sweet sour cream custard that nestles its way in between the little red berries. It’s everything. Sticking with my Backstreet Boys theme, if I had to tell you how to make the perfect pie, I’d give you one of these and proclaim, “I Want It That Way.” Hah, so, full disclosure. Just looked at the wikipedia page for the Backstreet Boys to see if there were any other songs I could masterfully weave into this post. Turns out they had a song called “That’s What She Said.” Ooh, burn, I just looked up the lyrics. Non-hilarious. Bummer.

Er, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, this pie. I realize you guys don’t all have currant bushes in your yard (word to the wise, get on that). But I’ve totally seen them at Whole Foods, and you totally shop there, don’t you, you conscientious shopper, you. Even if you don’t (and I don’t blame you, it’s expensive!), seek out some red currants specifically for this pie. I think this is red currants at their very best. I suspect you can also get away with using blueberries, although you’d miss out on a lot of the tartness.

And, the Backstreet Boys never made a song called “This is the Perfect Pie (So Perfect),” so the references end here. In conclusion, here’s the original recipe in Finnish, so we can all look at it and be baffled that a language like that exists.

Red Currant Pie
from that there piece of paper

Crust:
10 1/2 tbsps butter (yeah, so some things translate kinda wacky. deal with it)
1/2 cup  sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder

Filling:
2 cups red currants
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Cream together butter and sugar, then add egg and mix well. In a separate bowl, combine flours and baking powder. Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until incorporated. Press into a tart or pie pan (with wet hands).

Mix together sour cream, sugar, and vanilla extract. Pour berries into crust. Pour sour cream mixture over berries.

Bake at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes until the custard is set and the crust is browned.

Stop eating pie

Instead, eat this.

It’s a really great salad. The dressing is light and lemony and the cauliflower is crunchy but softened and the olives are salty and punchy. But maybe you’ll arrive at the end product less painfully than I did.

Which is to say, maybe you won’t spill oil on your shirt (which, at this point, let’s be honest, is pretty standard for me.)

And maybe you won’t ambitiously start the salad only to realize you have about half of the required ingredients. And only 5 olives in what is called a “Cauliflower Green Olive Salad.” Think the olives might be an important part of that? (I’m reluctant to admit that Martha Stewart saved me here. My mom happened to have just bought some Martha Stewart Olive Bruschetta that I used as a substitute. There. Are you happy now, Martha? Is this what you wanted? Well, you got it.)

And maybe you won’t pour boiling water down your bare leg while trying to drain the asparagus (well, you probably won’t, since this recipe does not call for asparagus).

But if you do, you’ll still think it was all worth it. THAT’S how good this salad is.

Cauliflower Green Olive Salad
from Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates

Dressing:
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tbsps chopped fresh parsley
pinch of salt to taste

Vegetables:
6 cups bite-sized cauliflower florets
1 red or yellow bell pepper, seeded and cut into 1/4-inch-thick strips (or, you know, some asparagus)
1 cup chopped celery, sliced crosswise on the diagonal into 1/4-inch-thick pieces
1 cup thinly sliced red onions
1 cup pitted green or spanish olives, rinsed

salt and cracked or ground black pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Meanwhile, use a whisk or blender to combine all of the dressing ingredients. Set the dressing aside.

When the water boils, cook the cauliflower florets for 4 to 5 minutes, until just tender; then transfer them with a slotted spoon or sieve to a large platter or shallow bowl. Add the bell pepper strips to the boiling water and cook for about 1 minute, until crisp-tender. Drain well and add them to the cauliflower. Gently stir in the celery, red onions, and olives.

Pour the dressing over the vegetables and toss well. Allow to sit for at least 10 and up to 60 minutes before serving–the long the salad sits, the deeper the flavor. Add salt and black pepper to taste and serve.

On Crystals

I have a confession. I have a terrible bias against the name Crystal. What’s that? Your mother’s name is Crystal? I’m sorry, I really am. It’s not that I don’t think your mom is lovely, I just think her name is kinda terrible. I have no real reason to think so. I’ve never met a horrible Crystal. In fact, the only Crystal I ever knew was a very peppy red-haired girl in 1st or 2nd grade who sang too loudly in chorus. But I don’t have any other complaints about her.

I’m just an asshole, basically, is what I’m saying. A random name hating asshole.

So I was hesitant to make this cake, and the only reason why is because the word “crystal” was in the title. Hesitant, even, after my friend Marge sent me the recipe proclaiming it was best cake she ever “made or tasted.” I was dubious. Just as I would be if someone claimed that they dated a Crystal and she was the best girlfriend ever. Really, dude? Reeeeally?

But this cake shut me the hell up real quick. Because it’s delicious. First of all, it’s incredibly moist because of the almond paste (kinda reminiscent of rainbow cookies). Second of all, the lemon sugar glaze is pretty much perfect. You let it sit until it hardens up and becomes all crackly, and that coupled with the moist almondyness of the actual cake is a wonderful combination. If someone dated this cake and said it was the best girlfriend ever, I would say, ok, yeah, that’s a good one.

And then I remembered The Dark Crystal. Which is something that has “crystal” in the title that is awesome. Also, I am a fan of the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, OR. So my irrational bias is going all to shit, which I guess is a good thing. Because why hate something randomly and with no real cause?

Oh, and make the cake. You’ll thank me later. Well, you should really thank Marge. Thanks, Marge! Also, Marge, you’re getting a ton of play time on my blog. Aren’t you kinda psyched? Yeah! You should be! You’re practically famous.

Crystal Almond Pound Cake
from my friend Marge, adapted from Flo Braker’s “The Art of Simple Baking”

(makes one 9×5-inch loaf or a small bundt cake)

Cake ingredients:
3/4 cup sifted pastry or cake flour (I used regular flour and replaced 2 tbsp of it with 2 tbsp of corn starch…magic!)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
5 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7 ounces (3/4 cup) almond paste, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 16 pieces
1 tablespoon finely grated meyer lemon zest (regular lemons are fine)

Glaze ingredients:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons freshly squeezed meyer lemon juice (again, regular is ok)

Position a rack in the lower third of an oven. Preheat to 350°F. Lightly butter and flour a 9×5-inch loaf pan; tap out the excess flour.

To make the cake…

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt twice. Set aside.

In a small bowl, combine the eggs and vanilla. Whisk to just combine. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, beat the almond paste on low speed until pea-size crumbs form, about 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Slowly add the granulated sugar in a steady stream and beat until incorporated. This should take about 2 to 3 minutes. If you add the sugar too quickly, the almond paste won’t break up as well.

On low speed, beat in the butter, tablespoon by tablespoon. This should take about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of bowl.

Increase speed to medium and cream the mixture until lighter in color and fluffy in appearance, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Still on medium speed, slowly pour in the eggs, cautiously at first, tablespoon by tablespoon. After each bit of the eggs have been absorbed, add more. If at any time the mixture appears water or shiny, stop the flow of eggs and increase the speed until a smooth appearance returns. Then decrease the speed to medium and resume adding the eggs.

Continue to cream, stopping the mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl at least once, until the mixture appears fluffy, velvety and white, and has increased in volume. Including the time to add the eggs, this should take about 2 to 3 minutes.

Fold in the meyer lemon zest. Then fold in the flour mixture.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface gently with an offset spatula. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the top springs bake when lightly touched, about 45 to 50 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let the cake cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes.

Make the glaze while the cake is cooling in the pan…

In a bowl, stir together the sugar and meyer lemon juice until smooth.

Set the wire rack over a sheet of parchment paper or foil to catch any drips of glaze. Invert the loaf pan onto the rack and lift off the pan. Using a pastry brush, generously brush the entire warm cake with the glaze. Let the cake cool completely on the rack, at least 3 hours, or until the glaze has set. The cake is fragile when warm so don’t try to move it.

When the cake is cool, gently transfer it to a serving platter by crisscrossing 2 large icing spatulas or the base of a 2 part tart pan to lift the loaf. Serve at room temperature.

This way to the Beach…Plum Jelly

Don’t you love jelly? Don’t you love it on toast and in plain yogurt? (Side note: part of my crazy dream the other night involved me making yogurt because I won a heating pad from some charity auction. Number one sign you think about yogurt too much.)

Do you have a freezer-full of beach plums from last year’s harvest? No? Well, fret not, I’m pretty sure you can also make this with grapes. What, you don’t have any concord grapes lying around? Well, sorry. This is all for show then. Actually, depending on where you live, you may have never even heard of beach plums. They’re indigenous to the northeast coastal areas, only growing in sandy soils (hello, all of Long Island). My dad is a native plant species buff, and in his opinion no Long Island garden would be complete without a few bushes of these tiny, slightly bitter plums. He makes a take-the-paint-off-a-new-car-strong type of liquor out of these babies, but wanted me to explore a less esophagus-ruining way to enjoy them.

I’ve never made jelly before. I’ve only made jam, and only of the strawberry-rhubarb variety (thrice!). At least I think I made jam. It could’ve been preserves. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what the differences are. Jelly, jam, preserves, marmalade, fruit spreads, conserves. I can’t sign on to know what is what. I think I’m a jam fan though, because I think jam means that parts of the fruit are incorporated into it. To the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, this is jelly because it is made entirely from the juice of the fruit and doesn’t contain any actual fruit parts.

I’m posting this recipe even though the final product was a little…off. It was more gloppy and less that nice cleaving you get with grape jelly. I think it’s because I didn’t add any pectin. The recipe said that including slightly less ripe fruits would contribute all the pectin this jelly requires. Trouble was that our frozen goods didn’t contain any underripe fruit at all. They were all gloriously purple, and apparently, gloriously pectin-less.

But you know what? It tastes good on toast and it is really unclear to me what else can be done with 10 cups of beach plums, so let’s just eat it and move on.

Mom’s No Pectin Grape or Beach Plum Jelly
from Cooks.com

About 8-10 c. fruit or more (depending on pot)
Sugar (1 c. for each c. of juice)

Clean, wash fruit and take off all stems and pick out bad ones. Put in large kettle. Squash a bit to make a little juice and add 1/2 cup water. Put on high and then simmer covered, stirring once in a while so fruit does not stick to pot until juices are out of fruit (skins are loose and some of the pits too). Drain or drip on cheese cloth for 2-3 hours.

Measure juice into very large pot (no more than 6 cups of juice at a time). For each cup of juice, you will be using 1 cup of sugar. Put sugar in separate bowl or pot with handle. Heat juice until it comes to hard rolling boil. Add sugar very gradually and stir until dissolved, keeping mixture boiling (do not allow boiling to stop).

After last sugar is placed in and dissolved completely, let boil; do not touch (jellying time) for 3 minutes. Then begin testing by dipping soup spoon and watching the drips of the spoon slowly dripping back to pot. If it drips like water, jelly is not ready. If it drips very slowly, one drop at a time, and drops joining together as it drops to back to pot, then it is ready. Do not boil any more than 6 minutes.

Look up “jelly testing” in cookbooks with pictures to tell you when it is ready. Place jelly in sterilized jars. Let cool; do not move until fully cooled. Seal with wax. 7 cups juice plus 7 cups sugar equals 8 jars jelly.

Rhubarb out the wazoo

And so begins rhubarb season. For the past few days my dad has come in from the garden every afternoon saying “wait till you see what I have for you!!!” Inevitably it is not a new car, but about a million stalks of freshly-cut rhubarb. Which is great, really, but minus strawberries I am always kinda perplexed about what to do with all that tarty tart tart rhubarb. We already boiled it down and added sugar and ate it like applesauce.

And although I always think of rhubarb as sort of the Art Garfunkel of the strawberry and rhubarb duet, that doesn’t mean that rhubarb can’t shine on its own.

Confession: I just spent about 10 minutes searching for any decent songs by Art Garfunkel. I can’t say I’m familiar with his solo work, but I just checked all the Simon & Garfunkel albums and they all said “Songs by Paul Simon except where noted,” and I gotta tell you….none of the “noted” songs were by Art Garfunkel. I so wanted to find out he wrote, like, Song for the Asking or something. No dice. Did he do anything at all?

Now I’m regretting comparing rhubarb to poor Art, because I feel like rhubarb would’ve made a decent solo album or two. Maybe rhubarb is more like the Sonny to strawberry’s Cher. You know, strawberry’s all in your face and often chemically injected with dye and flashy and red and sweet and inappropriately clothed. And rhubarb’s like, well, whatever dude, I’m just going to become a politician.

I think it’s pretty clear that at this point I’m not going to be making any apt comparisons, so let’s just get back to the cake. It’s simple and sweet and the rhubarb is tart and surprising, and if you are sitting in rhubarb up to your eyes like us, you’re going to want to have an arsenal of recipes at hand to make it disappear–deliciously.

Erma Mabel’s Rhubarb Cake
from Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
3 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups rhubarb chopped into 3/4 to 1 inch pieces (about 4 stalks)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 7×11″ baking dish and lightly dust it with flour.

With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Combine the milk and vanilla in a small bowl or cup. Alternate adding the dry and the wet ingredients to the butter mixture, beating well after each addition.

Spread about 2/3 of the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle it with all of the rhubarb pieces. Top with the rest of the batter, spreading it as evenly as possible but with a light touch–try not to push the rhubarb pieces into the bottom layer of batter. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean and the cake is golden brown.

Runeberg and his tart

Hey you! Do you know about Johan Ludvig Runeberg? Well, aren’t you in for a treat.

Runeberg (Roo-neh-berg) is the national poet of Finland. He wrote the lyrics to Finland’s national anthem. Apparently, he also ate one of these tarts every morning with some sort of nordic liquer. This tart is really supposed to be made for Runeberg’s birthday, which is February 5th (something to get excited about next year, right?!), but in general I run a few months behind, and we did eat these mostly on May 5th, so I’m gonna count it.

These tarts are very strange. First of all, I don’t know the definition of tart, but usually they involve some sort of crust pressed into a tart pan, and then some filling. These were more like muffins, and I don’t just say that because we made them in muffin tins. Traditionally they’re supposed to be made in small cylinders, but I just don’t have that kind of random kitchen equipment lying around. Secondly, there are 2 cups of bread crumbs in this. It makes for a very very crumby (yet not dry) texture. I see why they’re a breakfast sort of tart. They’re not too sweet and with the jam on top I am totally fooled. With a nice cup of tea, or, you know, random liquor, this could be quite nice.

In addition to the muffin pans I used some ramekins and small mason jars to bake these babies. These containers approximated the cylindrical mold shapes best. The muffin shaped ones just felt wrong. Some pointers: when you put the batter into the cooking pans, press it in there and try to even out the top. Unlike other batter, this doesn’t really spread out while baking, so if you don’t want a snagglepuss top, be vigilant. If you do get a snagglepuss top (like the one pictured below) it is that much more difficult to plop a perfect circle of jam and pipe a non-deformed circle of icing on the surface.

Aren’t they kinda cute? They’re tasty too. Pencil them in for February 5th, 2010.

Runeberg’s Tart
from stockmann.fi

2 eggs
3 dl sugar (about 1 1/3 cup)
2 dl cream (about 1 cup)
2 tl baking powder (2 tsp)
1 dl crushed almonds (about 3/4 cup)
200 g melted butter (about 1 3/4 stick, or 14 tbsp)
4 dl bread crumbs (2 cups)
4 dl flour (2 cups)
punch (i used cranberry raspberry juice but apparently you’re supposed to use liquor) to moisten the tarts
raspberry jam (you’ll probably need about 1 cup)
white sugar icing (a few cups of powdered sugar with a tablespoon or so of water will do)

Melt the butter and let it cool slightly. Beat the egg and sugar until fluffy. Combine dry ingredients. Add cream and melted butter into the egg and sugar mixture. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the batter.

Divide the batter into 20-24 small buttered cylindrical moulds and bake at 200 degrees C (392 degrees F) for about 12 minutes. Moisten the warm tarts with punch (optional). Let the tarts cool down, then top them with raspberry jam and a white icing sugar ring.

Bringing Bagel Back

There are some things about which I’m terribly snotty. Not wine, not books, not clothing labels. Bagels, however? Don’t even get me started. I’ve had so many bad ones, thanks to Yale University Dining Services, slathered in peanut butter and wrapped hastily in napkins en route to a track bus waiting to haul ass to Ithaca or Hanover or Providence or god knows where. They hurt my Long Island born soul. They’re all bready and light and the texture is just ALL WRONG.

Growing up, bagels were an every Sunday type of thing. They were also a twice to three times a week lunch thing, either with turkey and cheese and pickles, or with an egg sandwich. My friend Marge and I have a long history with bagels. I think we might both agree that much of our 25 year friendship in some way incorporated bagels at almost every phase. So, when Marge asked me if I was interested in going on a homemade bagel adventure with her, there was no other option. It had to be yes. Emphatically, yes.

the dough was a might bit sticky

marge, outfit #3

I don’t even know why I bothered to post the recipe below (it took forever). I know you, reader. You’re not going to make these. You’re going to look at the recipe and say, bah, too complicated, I can just buy these at the store you fool. Ok, yes, you can. BUT, but…good bagels are dwindling by the month. One of our mainstays here in Bayport was recently bought out by my old boss from Subway. He expanded his empire into the next-door bagel shop and started to sell reheated FROZEN BAGELS. ON LONG ISLAND. It’s total blasphemy, and if you’re ever in Bayport, please boycott “Friendly Bagels.” You’re going to have to make the trip to Sayville for Hot Bagels. Or, you can come over and (with 3 days’ notice), you can have some of mine.

And you’ll say, holy shit Svoboda, these are better than bagel store bagels. And you’ll be right. This dough is awesome. Peppery, chewy, doughy. It’s perfect. It’s perfect and it’s such a shame that you’ll never make them. While Marge and I were making them we kept saying, this is the last time we’ll do this. Not that it was especially annoying. I mean, there’s a lot of down time, a lot of rising, a lot of refrigeration. But nothing you experienced rainbow-cookie-makers don’t know. We were just assuming it wouldn’t be worth the 3-day-span it took for all the stages to come together. BUT WE WERE WRONG.

We were so wrong, and we’ll never say such things again. I can’t even stop talking about how good these bagels are. Did I mention how peppery and lovely they are? SO PEPPERY AND LOVELY.

Do you want to know how good they are? Look at how they make my dad smile, after spending the entire morning outside in the cold rain, weeding:

Ok, so, he also just retired. But I promise, most of that is the bagel. If you need further convincing, please observe the egg sandwich I made with one of the everything bagels:

I’m sorry, is that you weeping?

Levy’s Bagels
from The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Dough Starter (sponge)
1 tsp instant yeast
2 1/4 liquid cups water at room temperature (70 to 90 degrees F)
3 cups high gluten or bread flour (we used bread flour mostly, and some whole wheat flour)

Flour Mixture
3 tbsp unsalted butter (optional)
2 1/3 cups high gluten or bread flour
1 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp malt powder or barley malt syrup (we used brown sugar)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp black pepper

Make the sponge: In a mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, place the yeast, water, and flour. Whisk about 2 minutes, until very smooth; scrape down the sides. The sponge will be very thick. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

Combine the flour mixture: In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 cups of the flour, the yeast, malt, sugar, salt, and pepper. Sprinkle the mixture lightly over the sponge; do not stir. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand for 1 to 4 hours at room temperature, or, for the best flavor development, 1 hour at room temp and then refrigerated overnight or up to 24 hours. (That’s what we did, because we are hard core).

Mix the dough: (I’m printing the hand method here, because the full recipe doesn’t fit in dinky 5-qt kitchenaids, and I’m assuming none of the people who read this blog own anything other) Add the butter, if using, to the sponge/flour mixtre. With a wooden spoon or your hand, stir the flour mixture into the sponge until it becomes too stiff to mix. Knead the dough in the bowl until it comes together, then scrape it onto a lightly floured counter. Knead the dough for 5 minutes just to begin to develop the gluten structure; use a bench scraper to scrape the dough and gather it together as you knead it. At this point it will be sticky. Cover it with the inverted bowl and allow it to rest for 20 minutes.
Knead the dough another 10 to 15 minutes or until it is very smooth and elastic. It should be barely tacky to the touch. If desired, add the remaining flour until it is no longer tacky. More flour will make heavier, chewier bagels, which some prefer.

Let the dough rise: Place the dough in a 4-qt container or bowl, lightly greased with cooking spray or oil. Press the dough down and lightly spray or oil the top. Cover the container with a lid or a plastic wrap. With a piece of tape, mark the side of the container at approximately where double the height of the dough would be. Allow the dough to rise, ideally at 75 to 80 degrees F, for 1 to 2 hours or until doubled.
Deflate the dough by firmly pushing it down. Give it an envelope turn and set it back in the container. Oil the top of the dough, cover it, and refrigerate it for at least 4 hours, or overnight for the most flavor. (At this point it can be wrapped and refrigerated for up to 2 days).

Shape the dough and let it rise: Allow dough to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Set a sheet of parchment or lightly floured towel on a countertop near the stovetop. Transfer the dough to an unfloured counter. Cut in half and place one piece, covered, in the refrigerator. Cut the dough into 5 equal pieces. Allow the dough to rest for about 10 minutes.

Shaping the dough (our favorite method): Begin by drawing up the sides of the piece of dough and pinching them together to form a round ball. Turn the ball over so the pinched seam is on bottom. Stick your  index finger all the way through the center of the ball, to make a hole. Hook the bagel over your thumb and insert the index finger of your other hand into the hole, stretching and rotating it to make a hole about 2 1/2″ in diameter.

Allow the bagels to rise about 15 minutes or until they puff slightly.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F 30 minutes before baking. Have an oven shelf at the lowest level and place a baking stone or baking sheet on it before preheating. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Water Bath:
2 tbsps molasses or 1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda

Glaze and Toppings:
2 large egg whites
1 tsp cold water
poppy, sesame, or caraway seeds; kosher or sea salt; minced onions sauteed in vegetable oil; and/or dried garlic chips or dehydrated onions softened in hot water

Boil the Bagels: Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Stir in the molasses or sugar and baking soda until dissolved. With a skimmer, transfer the bagels, one at a time, to the boiling water, without crowding them; cook them in batches of 2 to 3 at a time so that they can swim around without touching one another. If they are slightly underrisen, they may sink at first but will then rise to the surface. Boil for 30 seconds to 2 minutes on each side, gently flipping them over with the skimmer; the longer time will make a thicker crust. Remove the boiled bagels, shaking off excess water over the pot and set onto parchment or an unfloured towel to drain, then move them, using a pancake turner, to the prepared baking sheet after just 30 seconds to 1 minute, so that they don’t stick. The bagels will look wrinkled at this stage–don’t worry, their appearance vastly improves on baking.

Glaze the bagels: Whisk together the egg whites and cold water to break up the whites. Pass through a sieve into a bowl, and brush each bagel with the glaze. Do not let the glaze drop onto the baking sheet, or it will glue them down. Brush with a second coat of glaze and, if desired, sprinkle any topping of your choice evenly over the bagels.

Bake the bagels: Place one baking sheet directly on the hot oven stone or baking sheet. Bake for 5 minutes. Lower the temperature to 450 degrees F and bake for 20 minutes. Turn off the oven, without opening it let the bagels remain for 5 minutes. Then open the oven door and leave the bagels in the oven for 5 more minutes.

Cool the bagels: Transfer the bagels to a wire rack and cool completely (or eat them when they’re still too hot to handle)

Store: The bagels will keep well for 1 day at room temperature in a paper bag. For longer storage, wrap each in plastic wrap, place in plastic freezer bags, and freeze for up to 1 month. Thaw, still wrapped, at room temperature.