Miskuta (Moroccan Pound Cake)

When Americans bake, we're pretty obsessed with measurements. It's gotten to the point now where many cake recipes don't even call for measured cups of dry ingredients anymore, but you're supposed to be weighing your flour - as if your cake will be a flat disaster if you don't have, say, a perfect 113 grams.

But in Morocco, it's different. Not only are recipes still a pinch of this, an eyeballed quantity of that, but the same goes for cakes. There's a wonderful pound cake that my sister-in-law makes, and I've been unable to approximate it without help, despite having a number of delicious American pound cake recipes. The quest ended this summer when I observed her making it from start to finish. And the best thing about it is that she uses a small tea glass for measurements - and it always turns out wonderfully, even if the glass varies in size from time to time. You'll also see some seemingly bizarre variations that actually turn out quite wonderfully - orange juice or milk, who cares? I've made it with both and seen her do the same. The best part is how easy this cake is-- in under fifteen minutes you can have it in the oven. I brought back a Moroccan miskuta pan, pictured in the back, which is more like a bundt cake mold than an angel food cake one. And you can use your American cup measures - no need to find a Moroccan tea glass.

Kenza's Miskuta (Moroccan Pound Cake)

1 cup milk (OR orange juice)
3 eggs
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup cooking oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups flour
2 Tblsp. baking powder
dash salt

Mix milk, eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla in a mixer OR a blender. Add 3 cups flour, 1 cup at a time, and mix well. Prepare bundt cake pan by buttering and flouring the surface. Pour cake in pan. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour (check with a toothpick to see when it's done; it should be golden brown). Leave as-is to serve, or sprinkle with powdered sugar, or glaze with honey.

Vanilla Sugar Cookies, No Refrigeration Required

I love sugar cookies, but I don't love the way many of the recipes I've used in the past require you to refrigerate the dough for an hour beforehand. (I want instant cookies!) I also love sugar cookies that are crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, which is also a challenge, since they usually turn out one way or the other. This recipe, adapted slightly from Martha Stewart's Living magazine, manages both challenges, allowing you to bake up a batch of soft/crisp sugar cookies from scratch in less than thirty minutes. No refrigeration required.

Vanilla Sugar Cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 3/4 cups white sugar
1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 sticks butter, softened
2 large eggs

Sanding sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt. In a mixer, blend butter and sugar until fluffy, 3 minutes. Add eggs & vanilla. Lower speed, add flour mixture until well mixed.

Place parchment paper on cookie sheets, making a tablespoon or so of dough, roll into a ball, then flatten. Sprinkle with sugar, brush with water using a pastry brush, then sprinkle with sugar again.

Bake until golden, 14-16 minutes. Cool on cookie sheets on top of wire racks for 5 minutes, then take off sheets and cool on wire racks.

Apricot-date-pistachio bars

I've been trying out some recipes from a cookbook called "Perfect One-Dish Dinners" by Pam Anderson (not the one of Baywatch fame). It's a pretty decent cookbook, with lots of ideas for food for entertaining that can also be adapted to family cooking, where you want to mess up a minimum of dishes and still want something that covers all basic food groups. My favorite recipe so far, however, has been for Apricot-Date-Pistachio bars. Sort of like a magic cookie bar combined with a granola bar, it has multiple textures, and is crunchy, sweet, soft, and gooey, all at the same time. It's also a good one to make with a kid who's interested in cooking with you - opportunities abound for stirring, pistachio cracking, etc. Here's the recipe, adapted slightly:

Apricot-Date-Pistachio Bars

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned oatmeal
6 Tblsp. packed light brown sugar
dash salt
1/2 stick (4 Tblsp) melted butter
3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1 cup shelled roasted pistachios
1 cup chopped pitted dates
1 cup chopped dried apricots

Spray an 8x8 pan with cooking spray. Take a 16 inch piece of aluminum foil, fold it in half, and fit it in the pan so that ends come up the sides a little bit. Spray pan with cooking spray.

Mix flour, oatmeal, sugar, and dash of salt. Stir in melted butter until well mixed. Press 3/4 of this mixture into the pan.

In another bowl, mix together coconut, pistachios, dates, and apricots. Add condensed milk, combine. Pour entire mixture over oatmeal mixture in baking pan, sprinkle remaining oatmeal mixture on top, bake at 325 for 30 minutes until lightly golden. Cool on wire rack five minutes. Lift out of pan with the foil, cool on the rack until reaching room temp. Cut and serve.

Chocolate Chip Banana Oatmeal Cookies

My friend Charlene gave me a little bag of these amazing cookies with the recipe tucked inside. They were so good she must have known I'd want to make them. Which I did, repeatedly, which might explain why my clothes don't fit anymore. (There's also no picture because they didn't stay on the plate long enough to record for posterity). So I'll have to swear off desserts for awhile, though I'd like to find this recipe here, reminding me to make it, for once those clothes start to fit again.

These are like oatmeal lace cookies - slightly crunchy yet moist. My version is adapted from the original, from HEALTH magazine and originally a creation of one of the Real Housewives of New York. This is another excellent recipe if you get the urge to consume cookie dough, since there are no eggs involved. You can adapt it by swapping out chocolate chips and using raisins and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon instead. Also, despite the presence of banana, they don't taste particularly banana-like, so don't be deterred by that ingredient if not a fan. (Bananas help to bind in the absence of egg).

Chocolate Chip Banana Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup oat flour (grind up some old-fashioned oatmeal in the food processor for this - or just buy a bag at Whole Foods - Note:
don't use regular flour. Cookies will come out more cake-y and won't be as good.)
3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
2 Tblsp. ground flaxseed (optional)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
slightly more than 1/4 cup white sugar (you could probably experiment with something healthier)
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup milk (can be soy milk if you want it to be vegan)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 ripe banana, cut into tiny pieces
1/4 cup chopped walnuts or other favorite nut
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
a handful of dried cranberries or raisins (optional)


Preheat oven to 350°. Combine first 6 ingredients (through sugar) in a bowl. Whisk together oil, milk, and vanilla in a separate bowl. Add wet mixture to dry ingredients; stir to combine. Fold in banana, walnuts, and chocolate chips and cranberries.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Parchment paper is THE BEST - I use it all the time now. Scoop small spoonfuls of dough onto the baking sheet. Bake 25 minutes or until golden brown, turning baking sheet halfway through. Let cool on a wire rack. Makes about eighteen cookies.

Madeleines, a rough draft

There's a cafe in Fes, where our Moroccan half of the family lives, called La Villa. It's a state-of-the-art, trendy place in the Ville Nouvelle or new city, with wireless Internet, tile and mirrors everywhere, and air conditioning. It was there that I first had truly amazing madeleines. Morocco has a long tradition of great pastry making, some of which they inherited from the French, but I noticed that people referred to almost anything that was muffin shaped and cakelike as madeleines. But when I finally tried the real thing last summer in La Villa, I understood what made Proust so nostalgic. There are a few different varieties of madeleines, but the ones I'm talking about have the consistency of cornbread, the taste of the crust of a good lemon poundcake, and get their leavening from eggs alone. They are often described as cookies but to me are some intermediate form between cookies and cake. I recently decided to learn how to make them - and though the results haven't yet been beautiful, the taste is out of this world. With the help of Julia Child, I found the ideal recipe - now if I could just get my pan seasoned enough that they would take the scallop shape they are supposed to assume after baking, all would be perfect.

I first consulted two of my favorite food blogs, where one posted an attempt at madeleines that didn't turn out so well, while the other had a recipe that was claimed to be out-of-this-world. Bypassing the first, I attempted the second, which had 4 eggs in it and came out extremely eggy and gross. I decided then to look for a Julia Child recipe and discovered the perfect one. I had ordered a madeleine pan from Amazon.com since I couldn't find one locally, so perhaps the new metal pan just needs to be seasoned to keep them from sticking. Julia's solution is a butter-flour mixture to grease them with, which I tried, but to no avail. They still came out intact, but just not with that beautiful, golden-brown scalloped surface. Nevertheless, the pan and the recipe are great investments, since I will certainly be making them again.

Madeleines (from Julia Child)

2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 c. sugar
1 c. flour + 1 T for preparing pans
1 1/4 stick butter (5 ounces)
pinch of salt
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1/2 lemon, or slightly less (they were a little lemony- I will probably do less than this next time)
1/2 t. vanilla

Preheat oven to 375. Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan and let it simmer until it starts to turn caramel colored. Then reserve 1 1/2 Tblsp of this butter in a separate bowl, mixing with 1 Tblsp flour to grease the pan with. Set aside. Place the rest of the melted butter in a glass dish over a bowl of ice water to cool off, stirring from time to time so it doesn't congeal.

Beat the eggs lightly, then divide in half (should be about 1/4 cup each). Set aside 1/4 cup, put the other 1/4 cup in an electric mixer with sugar and flour. Blend until mixture is sandy. When butter is cool, mix with remaining eggs and add to flour mixture, along with lemon, zest, and vanilla. My batter was slightly looser than cookie dough, not as smooth as a cake.

Grease madeleine pans, place about a tablespoon of the mixture in each form, and bake for 13-15 minutes. Dust lightly with powdered sugar.

Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake

This is a cake based on a Nigella Lawson recipe. It's made the rounds on the Internet. People talk about how ugly, yet delicious, it is. Most recently, I saw a variation of it on this site, and decided I had to make it myself. But I wanted to make the original version first, and I also didn't want to do the 101 Cookbook recipe, which involves spelt flour. I've already upset various family members with obsessive recent forays into vegan baking, experimentations with quinoa, marginally tasty black bean brownies, etc. It was important to prove to said family members that I was still willing to do the full-on, non-healthful, 2-sticks-of-butter version and see if it was really "all that" before trying to lighten it up. So I did. Nigella's original version can be found in a lot of places on the web, like here. And it was pretty good, but it lacks salt, and it NEEDS salt. I shared the cake with friends and family and then made it again, this time subbing other stuff in. White, whole wheat pastry flour. Smart balance in place of half the butter. Salt. It is still excellent, and in its second incarnation tasted better to me than the original. Other tasters who tried both agreed. The cake doesn't really need icing or a smear of cream cheese or any of the random recommendations I've seen on the web. Some claim it tastes better the next day, but it is just as nice once it cools. What's key, I think, is using very good chocolate. I used Ghiradelli's bittersweet baking chocolate. It will definitely be a recipe I'll make again.

Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake (adapted from Nigella Lawson, marginally healthier with less butter and more whole grains)

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup other shortening (I used Organic Smart Balance)
1 2/3 cup loosely packed dark brown sugar**
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 ounces best quality bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup white whole wheat pastry flour (it's important to buy PASTRY flour, otherwise simple whole wheat flour will be too heavy)
1/3 cup regular white flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup plus 2 Tblsp. boiling water

Preheat oven to 375. Grease a 9x5 bread loaf pan with shortening, then line with parchment paper - this keeps the cake from sticking. Grease parchment paper as well.

Cream butter and sugar together in mixer. Add eggs and vanilla. When blended, stir in melted chocolate. Mix dry ingredients, separately, and add 1/3 of the flour mixture to batter, alternating with 1/3 of the boiling water, then stir in the remaining flour and water in thirds. Pour batter into loaf pan.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes, turn heat down to 325, then bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, allow to cool completely. If top appears cracked and not runny, it's done - a tester inserted inside will come out doughy, so that's not a good test. Once cool, turn onto a baking dish. Serve. Enjoy.

**yeah, I'd try for Muscavado sugar if I happened to be going to Whole Foods, but good old fake brown sugar like you buy in any regular grocery store is fine. Store bought brown sugar is usually refined white sugar with molasses added.

Flan, Barcelona

We recently returned from a couple weeks in Morocco, followed by a few days in Barcelona. I always get to eat amazing food with my husband's family in Morocco, and from time to time I've posted family recipes on here. But Barcelona was fairly new for me. I'd been there ten years ago but didn't do much touristy stuff then - literally the Picasso museum and a couple nightclubs. Now, with a two-year-old whom we dragged to Japan in December, I was apprehensive. Japan was amazing, but she never seemed to catch up with the jet lag, and it was too cold and crowded everywhere for her to walk much, so she mostly got shuttled around in her stroller. But she did great in Barcelona and was a good sport about everything. We did everything we wanted to do -- eating in the Plaza Real on a late night when we arrived (she loved paella with mussels and chicken), riding the double decker open-top tourist bus all day, getting out to see things like Gaudi's unfinished, trippy Sagrada Familia church, walking endlessly up and down the streets from La Rambla, the wide, tree-lined walking boulevard in the middle of the city, to Barceloneta by the beach. We took the cable cars (which S calls "tiny houses") up the mountain of Montjuic, from which you can see the entire, breathtaking city and port spread below. Our daughter's favorite thing was the array of people posed on La Rambla who pretend to be statues, some of which were amazingly creative. Like the metallic, tin-colored chimney sweep who seems to be reclining on a chair, yet there's no chair visible beneath him.

I was on a paella kick, and we stumbled upon a pretty good one our first night in La Plaça Reial (note: Catalan spelling, not Spanish), where the guys who gave us the keys to the apartment we'd rented (free sales pitch: apartime.com) had recommended we go. It was late, our flight from Morocco had arrived at 10, so we wandered around La Plaça Reial, which is down a street from the main drag, staring at the fifteen or so restaurants until we randomly picked one called Ambos Mundos. Of course there were a lot of tourists, but there were a lot of Spanish people, too, and I took this as a good sign. It was great fun to finally be off the plane, sitting outside in perfect weather, sipping sangria and eating patatas bravas (potato wedges with a spiced mayonnaise sauce). Paella had chicken & seafood and was very good, but it wasn't the place I'd planned to eat paella. That honor went to La Taverna Catalana, in an affluent neighborhood called Eixample, about a 45 minute walk from where we were staying. This neighborhood was built on a grid design in the 19th & 20th centuries and has some gorgeous modernista architecture and also seems designed for walking. (I'd read a book about Barcelona architecture ahead of time, by Robert Hughes, so I felt much more in-the-know about the buildings I was seeing than I normally do).

After a stop off at the department store El Corte Ingles, where of course I'd had to buy a 30 Euro paella pan to take home, we arrived at La Taverna Catalana at 7:30 and were told they didn't start dinner until 8:00, but they obliged us with cañas (little glasses of beer) and tapas (appetizers) while we waited. This place was not at all near hotels or anything touristy, and the few people dining that early were definitely locals. When it was time to order, we got another paella. This one was also really good, with grilled vegetables radiating out from a mountain of saffron-colored rice.

Non paella-related cuisine experiences included trying a fast food vegetarian restaurant called Maoz, which had incredible falafel with a million different colorful veggie toppings and sauces, and La Boqueria, this amazing central market that has been around for centuries and sells everything from fresh fruit and vegetables to cinnamon-sugar coated almonds, ham hocks, olives, baguettes, and cheeses. I was able to successfully eat my way through Barcelona, and found it surprisingly affordable.

So why is this post entitled "flan"? First of all, because although I've broken in the paella pan, I didn't make a paella I was ready to write about yet. Secondly, because flan is ubiquitous in Morocco, at restaurants and in homes, and it's pretty much everywhere in Spain, too, though I suspect in most of the places I have eaten it, that it's made from a mix. In Morocco you can buy Flan Ideal in every tiny drygoods shop-- instant flan mix, just add hot milk and refrigerate. (I even found these cool old commercialsfrom Moroccan t.v. for the flan mix.) Okay, so it's not terrible, but it's not great either. But I suspected I could do it better from scratch, and find a relatively simple recipe for it too so I could just whip it up anytime. After tinkering, I think I've found one. But with a caveat - due to the Florida humidity, although the caramel turned out perfectly the first time, the second time I made it, it turned into sugar. I redid it, only to have it crystallize again. I have made caramel before and never had this happened. I spent an hour and a half standing over the stupid stove, trying to get it right. I tried to be careful about not getting the sugar crystals back in the sauce to not contaminate it, but to no avail. With the help of Google, I learned a trick - a teaspoon of corn syrup will keep this nasty problem from ever happening again, so nothing now can stand between you and a show stopping yet simple flan...

Flan

Caramel sauce:

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tsp. corn syrup

Flan:

*1 14 ounce can evaporated milk
1/2 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1 tsp. vanilla

4 large or 6 small ramekins


1) In a small saucepan, bring water and sugar to a simmer, stir to dissolve sugar, then turn heat down low and allow to simmer until it starts to turn golden. Watch carefully until it turns amber (takes at least 20 minutes, but you can ignore it for most of the time), then pour evenly among your ramekins. Now preheat your oven to 350.

2) In a mixer (or with a whisk), blend milk with sugar, egg yolks and vanilla until bubbly. Pour among the ramekins and set them in a baking dish with high sides (I was able to use 4 big ramekins and a square, 8x8 baking dish). This is your water bath. Fill the baking dish with water up to the level of the milk mixture. Place baking dish/ramekins in oven, bake 40-45 minutes until golden brown and set. Remove from water bath and cool on a rack, then transfer to a refrigerator.

3) To serve, slide a knife around the flan and invert onto a plate.

*Lest anyone be suspicious or snobby concerning evaporated milk - it is basically milk from which 60% of the water has been removed, after which it is sterilized at 245 degrees farenheit, resulting in a slightly carmelized flavor which is nothing short of AWESOME. It is the secret ingredient in the best waffles I have ever had.

another chocolate chip cookie recipe...

Can this blog stand yet another chocolate chip cookie recipe? I admit I came across this one under rather dubious circumstances. Having a craving for cookie dough, yet continuing with my resolve not to eat raw eggs while still breastfeeding the baby, I was scouring the web for eggless dough recipes I might consume. I found this one, which apparently originated in a vegan cookbook by author Chandra Moskowitz.I didn't have high hopes for the recipe at first-- where's the brown sugar? Where are the eggs? but if I could consume a little dough in the process of baking the cookies, I figured I would be happy. I was surprised when this one actually turned out to be quite delicious. Really good, in fact I'd make it just for the cookies alone. (And the dough doesn't taste half bad either). Again, the recipe is good enough to make me curious about the cookbook-- it's now on my Amazon wishlist.. I adapted it with less salt from the original recipe and with nuts.

Eggless, vegan chocolate chip cookies...

1 cup Smart Balance butter substitute, i.e. margarine
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon molasses
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt (doesn't need much if your margarine already contains salt)
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (or vegan carob chips)
1/2 cup walnuts, pecans, whatever

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Cream margarine and sugar until fluffy. Add molasses and vanilla, then dry ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts. Drop by big spoonfulls onto an ungreased cookie sheet, bake 8-10 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool slightly on baking sheets before transferring to cookie rack.

holiday cookies

I found two recipes for cookies this year that I will add to my library of cookies: Lemon Cornmeal Cookies (from this month's Cooking Light) and Triple Chocolate Cookies (originally from the Food Channel, altered slightly). The Lemon Cornmeal cookies are unusual; they develop a sugary crust on the bottom but are chewy on the inside from the cornmeal. The chocolate cookies are great-- and their ingredients can be altered slightly to make a different type of cookie each time. I will definitely be making these again.

LEMON CORNMEAL COOKIES

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup softened butter
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup light-colored corn syrup
2 tsp. grated lemon peel
2 large egg whites

Preheat oven to 350. Mix flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt together, set aside. In mixing bowl, blend butter and sugar until smooth. Add oil, corn syrup, lemon peel, and egg whites until well mixed. Slowly add flour mixture, mix well. Drop by tablespoons one inch apart on greased baking sheet, bake 10 minutes or until edges are golden. Cool cookies on tray on top of wire rack-- this helps to crisp them up a bit.

TRIPLE CHOCOLATE COOKIES

1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch processed)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips (OR 1/3 cup brittle chips)
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2/3 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mix butter and sugar in mixer until well combined, add oil, egg, vanilla and mix until creamy.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, cocoa powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix well. Stir in the two kinds of chocolate, and the walnuts and mix well. Using a tablespoon, scoop the batter onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12 minutes. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool.

Blueberry Coffee Cake

I got this one from my friend Laurel. It's definitely as good as my standby coffee cake recipe; even better, in fact, since it features blueberries. It has a great, sugary streusel topping that will melt in your mouth. Make this one while it's still summer.

Blueberry Streusel Cake

1/3 c. butter or smart balance
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1/2 c. sour cream
2 TB milk
1 3/4 cup flour
2 t. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. blueberries

Streusel:
4 T. butter, 4 T. flour, 2/3 c. brown sugar, 2 t. cinnamon

Cream butter and sugar until light and then add eggs. Beat well. Add remaining ingredients and pour into a greased 9" pan. Top with streusel and bake 40-45 minutes at 350.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies, a recipe from my friend Darla, are unusual-- there is no flour in them, but you would never guess from eating them. I altered her recipe to substitute organic Smart Balance instead of butter to keep out some of the fat and cholesterol, and it worked just fine. I like to think that these are somehow healthy, perhaps to justify having polished off an entire bag of them in two short days. (In my defense, I halved the recipe). They are, however, delicious, and will easily stand up to any oatmeal cookie recipe I've tried before:

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

2/3 cup butter or smart balance
6 cups regular oats
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cups raisins
3 eggs, beaten
2 cups chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups crunchy peanut butter

Preheat oven to 350. Melt butter and pour in a mixing bowl. Add sugars, eggs, and peanut butter. Add oats, baking soda, raisins, and chocolate chips. Form into balls on a cookie sheet, flattening slightly. Bake fifteen minutes.

Chocolate & cream cheese pie, with secret ingredients...

I was really curious to try this recipe for heavenly pie from 101 Cookbooks. The recipe came from a 1970s hippie manual on living off the land. It looked so delicious on the website, and I was intrigued by the secret ingredient: silken tofu. And graham cracker crusts are my favorite. So I made it, and it was good. The filling is kind of like a combination of chocolate mousse and chocolate cheesecake, and I'm convinced the secret ingredient remains well-hidden. It definitely needs to be fully chilled to be at its best, but it slices nicely-- I just need to get better about figuring out how high to make my pie crusts so the filling comes just to the top. I've renamed it here, since "heavenly pie" sounds a little too ecstatic for me.

Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake

2 cups crushed graham crackers
1/3 cup melted butter
2 tablespoons honey

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
8 ounces organic silken tofu
1 large egg
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla

Sweetened Greek yogurt or whipped cream for topping

Combine the cracker crumbs, butter, and honey in a food processor. Press into a 9-inch pie pan.

In either a mixer or a food processor, blend together the cream cheese, tofu, egg, chocolate, and vanilla. Scrape down the sides once or twice. Blend until smooth, looking out for any renegade cream cheese lumps.

Spoon the filling into the pie pan and bake at 350F degrees for about 30 minutes, no longer or surface starts to crack. CHILL COMPLETELY BEFORE SERVING. Serve with a dollop of sweetened yogurt or whipped cream (if desired).

I don't know if it would work with lowfat cream cheese, since that sometimes refuses to solidify in pies. I like the semi-sweet chocolate chips here-- they add just the right bite to it, whereas dark chocolate might be too bitter, while milk chocolate might be insipid.

chocolate pudding

This is a good, low-fat recipe for chocolate pudding, originally from Cooking Light. I've experimented with different types of chocolate, and you can't go wrong, whether you prefer semi-sweet, bittersweet, or milk chocolate. I actually like to eat the pudding when it's still hot, but technically you're suposed to refrigerate it:

Chocolate Pudding

2 1/2 cups fat-free milk
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

Bring 2 cups of the milk to a boil in a medium saucepan. Remove from heat. In a large mixing bowl, mix sugar with cornstarch and salt. Separately, combine remaining 1/2 cup milk with egg yolks, mixing well. Add egg yolk mixture to sugar mixture, stirring with a whisk. Slowly add half of the hot milk to the egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly (you do this so the eggs don't curdle). Return everything to saucepan, bring to a boil, then simmer one minute, stirring, until thick. Add butter, vanilla, and chocolate, mixing until melted.

Spoon pudding into a bowl. Place bowl in a large ice-filled bowl for 15 minutes or until pudding is cool, stirring occasionally. Or eat it while it's hot, then cover remainder and chill.

pears poached with mascarpone

After the gluttony of the holidays, here's a simple dessert recipe that you can make that won't feel excessive... The mascarpone cheese is creamy without being overbearing, almost like a whipped cream or creme fraiche.

Pears poached with mascarpone cheese
2 Bosc pears, peeled, halved, & cored
2 Tblsp. lemon juice
1 cup water
1/2 cup white wine
6 Tblsp. honey
1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
2 tsp. sugar

Toss pear halves with lemon juice & set aside. In a saucepan, combine water, wine, & honey, scraping in seeds of vanilla bean. (If you don't have a vanilla bean lying around, add 1 tsp. vanilla.) Heat until honey dissolves, add pears & simmer on medium low until pears are tender, turning halfway through cooking, 15-20 minutes.

Remove pears to a bowl and boil liquid until reduced to 3/4 cup. Cool syrup & pour over pears, cover & refrigerate. The recipe said to refrigerate at least 8 hours but I only did it for three-- it was really good, but perhaps would be even better if I'd waited longer... Remove vanilla bean.

Beat mascrapone cheese & sugar until smooth, add 1/4 cup of the chilled poaching syrup and whisk until soft peaks form. Place pears on plates, pouring syrup over, and add scoop of mascarpone cream into middle of pear half. Serve & enjoy...

swordfish, orzo & chocolate souffles

I am still "learning" to like fish, something I disliked immensely as a child (with the exception, I'm embarrassed to say, of Mrs. Paul's fish sticks). In college I started liking sushi of all kinds, but I still had issues with cooked fish. Now in addition to sushi, I love shrimp, tuna, salmon, particularly when well prepared. There's a baked Moroccan fish tagine with chermoula marinade, potatoes and peppers that is out-of-this world. But my efforts to prepare fish recipes that rely on the unadulterated flavor of the fish itself never seem to amount to much. I always feel like I'm dutifully eating the final product-- last night, a lackluster swordfish with orzo. I've had wonderful swordfish before, but I can't remember where. I'm wondering if it's the condition I buy the fish in. At the grocery store the swordfish was just sitting there in the case looking kind of pathetic, along with the other bottom dwellers, the obligatory tilapia, and the frozen shrimp. It's all been pre-frozen, even though we live an hour from the ocean. I've been told of a real fish market in town, which I hope to check out, but I haven't been happy with what's on offer at the grocery stores.

At any rate, I baked this with a lemon and olive oil dressing. Eh. The accompaniment was really nice-- I cooked some orzo, sauteed garlic and a few cups of spinach, mixing it with the orzo, some halved cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, and olives. Spicy red pepper to taste. Feeling deprived, I decided to make a chocolate souffle with pistachios, a lightened version that is good if you're trying to be good and not eat too much (Nice with new "lowfat" Haagen Dazs, which is actually delicious). This was on my old website when The Barbecue was at a different address. Now, back by popular demand...

Chocolate Souffles with Pistachios
6 Tablespoons sugar
1 ounce semisweet chocolate
4 1/2 teaspoons butter
2 Tblsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
2 Tblsp. flour
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 cup lowfat milk
3 large egg whites
4 teaspoons chopped pistachios

Spray 4 ramekins with cooking spray and scatter a teaspoon of sugar over it lightly. Melt butter and semisweet chocolate over low heat, adding three tablespoons sugar until dissolved. Whisk in cocoa, flour and salt, then add milk little by little until thick, about three minutes, stirring all the time. Remove from heat and cool. I do this by putting the mixture in a metal pan and sticking it in the freezer briefly.

Beat eggwhites over high speed in a mixer until foamy. Add three remaining tablespoons of sugar one by one and beat until eggs form stiff peaks. Fold egg white mixture into chocolate mixture in four equal additions, being careful to blend it without losing the air. Then divide souffles between ramekins, sprinkling pistachios on top. In a 375 degree preheated oven, cook for 20 minutes and remove. Serve with ice cream.

Lemon Pound Cake

I've been thinking about cake this week. I watched a special on the Food Network about the founder of Cake Love, a bakery in Washington D.C. that my friend Mara introduced me to on my last visit. The owner dropped his law career to create a bakery, one that places more emphasis on taste than looks-- in some of the cakes, the filling is bursting out of its lovable and misshapen contours. But who cares? The desserts are delicious. And there's the name -- Cake Love-- which sounds like some sort of supportive, hippie religion dedicated to the worship of baked goods. I went there more than once on my last visit to DC to sample cupcakes and other delights. When I go back this December for an academic conference, Cake Love will definitely be on my list of places to go, along with Ben's Chili Shop, Lebanese Taverna, and Bistrot du Coin in DuPont Circle...

Although I have a wonderful family recipe for pound cake that is called "Crust Cake," which develops a sweet and crunchy crust, it is somewhat heavy and therefore the kind of thing I only like to make once a year or so. This recipe is a little lighter, brighter, and less heavy. It's from the magazine Cook's Illustrated, which I love for their thorough testing of recipes in search of perfection. I knew this would be a winner, and it was-- sweet yet tart, moist yet not gummy, delicate yet substantial. I will definitely make this again.

Lemon Pound Cake
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 Tblsp. grated lemon zest plus 2 tsp. lemon juice
4 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Lemon Glaze
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9 by 5 loaf pan with 1 Tblsp. softened butter, dust with 1 Tblsp. flour and tap out excess.

In medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt, set aside.

Melt the butter on the stove and stir it up to make sure it's mixed. In a food processor, process sugar and zest until combined. Add lemon juice, eggs, and vanilla until combined. Keep machine running and add melted butter, remove mixture to large bowl. Sift flour mixture over eggs in three batches, mixing just to combine after each step. Pour into breadloaf pan and bake 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325 and bake until golden brown, about 35 minutes more. When toothpick comes out clean, it's ready. Check after 35 minutes, but I found mine took another 5-7 minutes longer. Cool for 10 minutes, turn out onto wire rack, brush Lemon Glaze onto top and sides with a pastry brush.

Lemon glaze: bring sugar and lemon juice to boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat to low, simmer 2 minutes until thick.

Chocolate Butter Creams

It was a fairly forgettable week for cooking, mostly because I was so busy at work I only had one night where I attempted anything dramatic. I made a Pakistani chicken curry and potato-spinach patties, but both turned out to be forgettable and therefore not worth reporting. (I was checking out some sample recipes from a new Indian cookbook, but I probably won't buy it since Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking, along with a few books by Madhur Jaffrey already have me covered...)

Which brings me to the week's one culinary success: butter creams. My mother often made these. She said her favorite way to spend her birthday as a child was to get to eat butter creams all day and read comic books. These are decadent and impressive, rich dark chocolate coating a creamy, buttery center-- it's like making your own chocolates and will impress everyone, though it's not at all difficult. The only drawback is that they stick to the plate, and I haven't figured out a way around that-- I tried putting these on a plate coated with Pam, but to no avail. They have to be pried up with a sharp knife, or if you take them out of the refrigerator for a few minutes, they usually are soft enough to pull off more easily. But they are worth it.

Chocolate Butter Creams

1/2 cup butter (one stick), slightly softened
4 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 Tblsp. Condensed milk
Semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate-- a couple ounces

Cream butter using electric mixer, sift powdered sugar gradually into it, incorporating little by little. Add vanilla, mix everything well and form into balls by rolling in the palm of your hand. Place in the refrigerator on a plate for one hour to harden.

I then took a bar of Ghiradelli's semisweet baking chocolate and melted it over low heat with a couple squares of unsweetened baking chocolate (the bitter contrast is nice with the sweetness of the interior). Once melted, I took out the butter cream balls and used cooking tongs to quickly dip and coat each ball with chocolate, removing and placing on perhaps a greased cookie sheet. Cover and return to refrigerator to chill for another half hour or so, then eat and enjoy, or serve to guests. Decadent.

tres leches

tres leches
Originally uploaded by rachelita2.

I finally succeed in preparing tres leches cake. I decided to make a whole meal around it, inspired by having my first real day of summer vacation to indulge in a marathon cooking session. The menu, all recipes taken from the Three Guys from Miami website: skirt steak marinated in mojo criollo with chimichurri sauce, black beans, fried plantains (tostones), and the piece de resistance: tres leches cake.

I started out by making the mojo marinade for the steak: tons of garlic cloves, salt, black peppercorns, sour orange juice (a good use for our tree that bears sour oranges), minced onion, oregano, and olive oil. I put that aside, with the meat soaking in its tenderizing bath. Then I made the black beans, which were pretty delicious-- I saved three tablespoons of the marinade, sauteed finely chopped onions and green pepper in olive oil, added garlic, the marinade, 3 tsp. of cumin, and once everything was translucent, a cup of canned black beans that I mashed up. I then added the remainder of that can and another can, both drained, and cooked this for 20 minutes. It was very flavorful-- this could have been from the added kick the marinade gave it.

The chimichurri sauce was a nice accompaniment-- a sauce composed of vinegar, fresh cilantro, olive oil, garlic, lime juice, onion, and cayenne pepper, all whirred together in the food processor. I cooked the steak on our tiny Weber grill and it sizzled and browned and came out delicious... The fried plantains didn't turn out to be quite so delicious-- they had a curious preparation, whereby you cut them into 2 inch chunks, deep fry them, take them out and drain them, smash them with the bottom of a coffee mug, and deep fry them again, adding salt and pepper at the end. They were just okay-- not nearly as good as some of the different kinds of tostones I've had at restaurants.

But the tres leches cake lived up to all expectations. I was really pleased with it, no, knocked out would be a better word. I didn't think somehow that it was possible to prepare this delight on my own. I compared two recipes ahead of time and decided on the Three Guys recipe because the other one involved slicing a cake into three layers and coating each with syrup, which I thought I probably didn't have the tools to do. (I could just envision the cake breaking up into a million pieces.)

Making tres leches cake basically involves three steps: first, preparing a delicious golden layer cake, redolent of vanilla. No mix will do-- this cake is terrific, and it puffs up golden brown because the egg whites are whipped up to a froth and folded in at the end. I cooked mine for exactly 35 minutes, as the recipe said, and it was perfect.

Step two involves the syrup-- the three milks that make this so unique-- mixing together a can of condensed milk, a can of evaporated milk, and a cup and a half (!) of heavy cream. I followed the timing of the recipe and waited until the cake had cooled twenty minutes before doing this. Then you poke lots of holes in the cake with a fork, spooning the syrup slowly over the cake and helping it to absorb by poking more holes in it before you add more syrup. It pools around the bottom of the plate and then sits in the refrigerator for three hours, waiting to be iced.

The icing was a meringue of sorts, egg whites, sugar, water and hot corn syrup beaten together. I didn't use the entire recipe of meringue-- it was an acceptable icing, but it wasn't the icing that blew me away (In restaurants, I remember whipped cream on top). It was the final product, which did give the full experience of having the cake in a good Cuban restaurant. Amy, who helped me prepare the icing, and Nour, who helped with grilling and eating, agreed.

The full recipe is here. I definitely would make this recipe again, but maybe sleuth around a little bit to find out a different version of the icing. I would also certainly use the marinade for steaks again, and the black beans were terrific... After these experiments, buying the actual Three Guys cookbook, advertised on the website, looks tempting as well. Pictures of the whole belt-busting extravaganza appear below.