Alpha Bakers -- Cherry Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Cherry Sweetie Pie. I have tried to make this pie, which is supposed to be comprised of sweet cherries and plums, twice now, and I can't seem to do it by the book. First of all, while cherries are in season, plums just aren't, and rhubarb and strawberries are everywhere. Second, while sweet cherries are one of life's greatest joys, they are just not the world's greatest pie ingredient. Pie is the achievement for which sour cherries were born. I prefer a pie of canned sour cherries to a sweet cherry pie, especially when I start thinking about how I could have just eaten all of those lovely cherries out of hand.

 

In the end, I ate a few too many of the cherries to make my pie an all-cherry pie, and I didn't even try with the plums, but my cherry rhubarb strawberry hybrid was a big hit, and Rose's cream cheese crust, which I sometimes find too bland, was flaky and lovely and got raves.

 

I served the pie after April Bloomfield's swiss chard cannelloni from her book A Girl and Her Greens, a dinner party recipe I'd been eyeing for a while, and which paid off in subtle, delicate deliciousness.

 

It was a good dinner party.

 

 

Alpha Bakers -- Spritz Butter Cookies

Buttery, simple, soft, and pretty. Rose's Spritz Butter Cookie recipe, with just the right touch of almond and softening cornstarch, is always reliably excellent. I've always wanted to mess with the flavoring on these a bit, so if I make them again this season I'll do that, but for now their basic reliability, style, and deliciousness will do. I didn't have any Jelly Tots, which one Alpha Baker used instead of glace cherries, so I used some fairly fancy and expensive Luxardo cherries, and they were...very good.

Finally, these long-keeping cookies rewarded me with one more amusement, filed in the 'toddlers have no skills at all' category, as I watched my friend's two year old son attempt to eat one face on, aiming his teeth directly at the center of the cookie rather than going in from the edge. These are the jokes, people.

Alpha Bakers -- Sour Cherry Pi

Adventures in pie this weekend. March 14 was Pi Day (3.14), always a fun day to celebrate. The Alpha Bakers were making Rose's Sour Cherry Pie, and since that is one of my favorite pies in the world, I was completely on board. I even knew exactly which Russian grocery to visit for my frozen cherries. Of course, it was all the way out on Kings Highway, and before I knew it I had just gotten lazy, and was scouring my local fancy bodegas for jarred cherries. Didn't find them, although I know about forty places where they can be found, so I changed things up and bought frozen sweet cherries and a plum or two to make Rose's Cherry Sweetie Pie. Despite uninspiring plums and a potato starch that thickened a bit too much, the pie was a more than reasonable stopgap for Pi Day. My co-workers, volunteers, and the kid who'd ventured out early for tutoring were pleased.

I had made two batches of crust--one of Rose's cream cheese crust and one of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds butter crust. To fill the second one, I used the bodega blueberries and a peach or two. Out of season fruit. Less than inspiring. Still, I had a bit of crust left, and so I finally caved, picked up a jar or two of sour cherries in syrup, and made two little Sour Cherry Pies, reducing the sugar to 50 grams. Those I ate all by myself. See that flakiness in the pie crust? Now I just want to keep on making pie forever. This always happens. One pie is just not enough.

Heavenly Cake Bakers: Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream Cake

After a few clear days, it's overheating again here in Brooklyn. Somehow, much to the dismay of my friends and boyfriend, that never stops me from turning on the oven. In fact, I made this week's Heavenly Cake Bakers cake twice, once at the bakery and once at home. Neither cake was a complete success, but both were learning experiences. 

I am a pretty accomplished baker at this point, but that doesn't mean that I don't make constant mistakes. It just means I'm more humiliated by them. Case in point: I walked into the bakery on Saturday morning to find all four of the loaves of bread I'd made the day before sitting in the kitchen on a tray, sliced in half to reveal their doughy centers. Some days just aren't my day, and I'm grateful that on those days I don't work in an ER or the Pentagon. I'm usually grateful about that on the good days too. 

 Good days are those days like Saturday, when a chance splash of water spilled onto a baking tray, evaporated under some metal bowls, resulted in a beautifully gelatinized crust on my sourdough loaves. My first attempt at the chocolate ice cream cake wasn't quite as beautiful, but it was pretty nice. The cake is just a partial recipe of Rose's German Chocolate Cake, filled with the ice cream of the baker's choice. 

I made one mistake in the making of the cake, because I didn't read the directions properly. Rose directs the baker to mix cocoa and boiling water in the mixing bowl that will then be used to mix the cake. I mixed them in a small separate bowl, and then was flummoxed when the next ingredients (oil and egg yolks) failed to achieve the buttercream-like consistancy Rose describes. Luckily, I figured it out after some re-reading, and didn't make the same mistake the second time. 

On a side note re: reading instructions carefully; Rose always instructs the baker to mix cocoa and boiling water, then let it cool. This instruction always seemed finicky to me, and as I was able to get a smooth mix with cocoa and warm water, I always just did that. In the notes for the German Chocolate Cake, though, Rose elaborates her reasons. Apparently, boiling water brings out a different texture and depth of flavor in cocoa. So much for my clever shortcuts.

At the bakery, I filled the 10-inch round cake with some white chocolate ginger ice cream that I had made a few weeks ago while testing flavors for ice cream sandwiches (any ideas?). I left it in the freezer there, and will take pictures if it proves picturesque. For my cake at home, I used a small glass roasting pan, one that I often use for small lasagnes or roasted chickens. It struck me that a round cake pan was exactly wrong for ice cream sandwiches, especially if I wanted them all to be evenly sized. The ice cream was a quick mix--some jarred sour cherries blended with almond extract, cream, and tapioca starch, and in retrospect I should have made a custard, as it came out a little grainy and hard, though tasty. I do like the color, though. 

The whole weekend's baking was an exercise in humility though, as even the things that worked out left their mark. Here's what happens when you inexplicably touch a hot pan full of German Chocolate Cake to your breastbone. Even when you ice it for quite a while. Just in time for beach vacations.

Gâteau au Yaourt

The other night, lost in the morass of craigslist apartment hunting, I was neglecting myself and every task I could think of. I was even unable to come up with something to eat that would make me happy. This is unusual, because more often the process of coming up with something to eat makes me feel happy. I just wanted something simple and plain that could be made with the ingredients on hand and would go reasonably well with slow-roasted turnips.

Voila, yogurt cake, recipe courtesy of Clothilde at Chocolate & Zucchini. The only changes I made were to use buttermilk instead of yogurt (which I think made it even moister) and to drop the rest of the sour cherries that have been waiting in the freezer into the batter at the last minute. I also made it in a slightly smaller, higher, tin than Clothilde recommends, which also added to the moistness and to the cooking time.

I understand from The Amateur Gourmet and others that this recipe has been sweeping the blog world, and justifiably. It's delicious, simple, and comforting. And very good for breakfast.

Cherry Pit Ice Cream with Cherries

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...the best ice cream I have ever made. Running with a theme from Eggbeater, I pitted a bunch of sour cherries, and froze them. Then I took the pits, wrapped them in a towel, laid them on a cutting board on another towel (those of you with driveways could try this outside), and bashed hell out of them with a hammer. That part was incredibly satisfying.

The pits have a sharp, fruity bitter almond smell. I vaguely remember from the Penzey's spice catalogue that powdered cherry pits are a big thing in Hungarian cooking. Guided by David Lebovitz's recipe for almond cherry ice cream (in The Perfect Scoop), I infused the essence of the pit crumbles into some warm milk and sugar, then used the infused milk to make a creme anglaise, chilled it, churned it, and added the frozen cherries at the last minute. It was stunning, so all-American and so sophisticated, with the tiny crunchy cherries. It was also almost instantly gone, along with the Bart's chocolate coffee cake with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream that I made for Jill's birthday party. (Everyone else made delicious things as well--grilling two nights in a weekend is very very good.)

The sour cherry season is very short, but I just grabbed a few more pints of them today at the market, and will pit and freeze them in preparation for a reprise of this ice cream as soon as we get back. In the meantime, it's wedding time, and most of the household is dispersing for the holiday weekend. Tuesdays With Dorie will post tomorrow from my parents' house in Northampton, where like it or not, they're having apple cheddar scones.