Alpha Bakers -- Pecan Pumpkin Pie

I've never hosted a Thanksgiving dinner, and for the first 20 or so years of my life, I wasn't even present at the creation of one, arriving as a guest just in time for appetizers. Nonetheless, every November my general predilections combine with the larger media input to prompt an almost subconsciously motivated flood of sympathy cooking. My usual dinner is a quesadilla with a cucumber nearby, or a few handfuls of whatever is lying around, but suddenly and suspiciously I start roasting chickens and root vegetables, over-buying butter, and tripling my oven output. This makes Thanksgiving more of a seasonal eating fad than a single meal, but seems to work out for everyone involved. I like pumpkins, puddings, panades, and roasted things, and at least it means more variety in the fridge.

I've given up on the notion of ever truly cooking for one. Even when I can manage food that will feed only me, or at least be appealing over a week of leftovers, I simply can't manage shopping for one. Abundance is my natural state, and as long as it's abundance of reasonably cheap ingredients, the Yiddishe mama in me surrenders to it. Yesterday, I tried immersion therapy, buying two pounds of butter and a pile of dried fruits and telling myself that the day's only task was to stay in and bake whatever I wanted from the piles of books in the living room. I'm particularly taken with The Violet Bakery Cookbook, by Claire Ptak, this month, and will be messing about with it some more soon.

On the list, though not at the top, was this week's Alpha Bake, Rose's Pecan Pumpkin pie. Essentially two fillings baked on top of one another in the same crust, a classic pumpkin pie on top of a classic pecan pie. Not entirely necessary, but why not? This week I played it straight, making the recipe more or less as written. Rose's flaky cream cheese pie crust, rolled out with a heavy lip to prevent early shrinkage (no par-baking in this one). The pecan filling is a simple treacle-y custard, made with corn syrup as I couldn't find the golden syrup that I thought was in my cabinet. It's probably in there somewhere. After that, a classic pumpkin filling is layered on top. I used an organic pumpkin puree, frozen and drained, mixed with some not very flavorful but nicely textured cubes of roasted cheese pumpkin. I baked the pie for a few minutes over the recommended baking time, which I worried was going to be too much for the pumpkin custard, but I really wanted to see some browning on the bottom crust. What's the point of a bottom crust if it's just going to be a layer of cardboard wax?

In the event, the pecan underlayer lent moisture to the pumpkin and there was no harm done, although it was a bit firmer than I might have cooked a plain pumpkin pie. The one co-worker who has tried it so far ate a slice very quickly and announced 'That was great!' Hopefully he and everybody else will take some home, as my freezer is filling up and I have tomorrow off as well...
although I'm already out of butter.

TWD Follow-Up: Classic Banana Bundt

Tuesdays with Dorie is in valedictory mode, with Dorie on Talk of the Nation, and articles in major papers all over the country.

The Tuesdays with Dorie group is moving on to Baking with Julia, a twice-monthly affair.

But me. As I’ve pointed out, I’m not done. Not every goal gets finished. Not every cheesecake gets made. Still, I’m keeping my list, like I keep all the lists of my goals, and because this one can be done in small increments, I’m going to keep at it. For what reason? Not sure. But all the same, I do it.

This week, I did it in the form of a banana-pumpkin bundt cake. It was supposed to be a Classic Banana Bundt Cake, but I wanted to save one of my bananas for a smoothie, so the roasted leftovers of our squash chanukkiah were pressed into service.

The original host of this recipe was Mary of The Food Librarian, who later went on to develop quite the bundt cake obsession, making 30 in 30 days two years in a row.

Dorie recommends wrapping the cake and serving it the day after baking, also frosting it with a simple lemon-confectioners sugar glaze. The latter inadvertently helped us do the former, because Matt was put off by the word lemon, and it took him a while to warm to the idea of the cake, which we both loved.

So the project continues. Slowly. Everything happens slowly here lately, perhaps in reaction to the feeling that time is rushing by, out of control. So many big changes are upcoming, it’s good to still have a few bundts to bake.

Quick Roundup of the Unphotographed

Both of my cookthroughs are winding down, and before I get too invested in any other cookbook projects, I am going to try to finish up all or most of what I've missed over the last few years of participating in Tuesdays with Dorie and the Heavenly Cake bake-through. To that end, I've been taking stock, and wanted to mention in passing a few recipes that were made but never photographed, and so never blogged. As I leaf through the books, I'll put up a brief note whenever I discover one of these omissions.


The first was recent--I made Rose Levy Beranbaum's Pure Pumpkin Cheesecake the weekend before Thanksgiving, as kind of antidote to the pie frenzy. I left it crustless, with just a few graham cracker bits scattered throughout. With no crust to add salt and contrast, it was almost painfully rich, but well received at work. I've promised my sister a cheesecake for the successful completion of the GRE, so more to come shortly.

Eight Days and One Month: A Squash Miracle



Photo by Matt Korahais.

Some years, we make gingerbread. Some years, we give gifts. We did those thing this year too, but mostly, we celebrated with squash. A large warty squash brought both light and sweetness into our home this holiday season, doing double duty as a Chanukkiah (that's a Chanukkah-specific menorah, you'll understand when you're older) and as the base for Christmas pumpkin bread. I have a friend (hi Stacey) who says that stockpiling large winter squashes makes her feel safe. In addition to the root cellar element, I agree with her that they are comforting in their very presence, beyond their food potential. The firm knobby heft of the best squashes gives me a feeling of warmth, of substance, and that same solid awe that I feel when touching a stone pillar. Also, they're beautiful, and taste good.

Photo by Matt Korahais.

Each night of the Festival of Lights, Matt drilled a new hole into our kurbis friend, and when it was over, I cut off the waxy part and roasted the squash, pureed it, and froze it until Christmas eve.

Photo by Matt Korahais.

 On that night, it met its fate and became pumpkin bread, complete with cranberries, buckwheat flour, and olive oil. Thank you, little squash, for commemorating the return of the light and the birth (give or take) of one of the world's great freedom fighters.


Photo by Matt Korahais.

Pumpkin Bread with Cranberries Adapted from the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion
Ingredients:
1 cup (5 1/2 ounces) vegetable oil (I used olive)
2 2/3 cups (18 1/2 ounces) sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups (or one 15-ounce can) pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
2/3 cup (5 1/4 ounces) water
3 1/3 cups (13 3/4 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour (I subbed in about 1/2 cup of buckwheat flour for AP)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg (I used considerably more)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (4 ounces) chopped walnuts or pecans
Approx. 1 cup frozen cranberries

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cream together the oil and the sugar. Beat in the eggs, pumpkin and water. Add dry ingredients, stir into egg mixture just until blended. Stir in vanilla, then the nuts and cranberries.
3. Pour the batter into two lightly greased 9 x 5-inch loaf pans. Bake the bread for 1 hour or until a cake tester inserted in the center of one loaf comes out clean.

French Fridays with Dorie: November Round-Up

Remember French Fridays with Dorie? I'm still cooking from Around My French Table, but I decided that instead of a weekly post it would make more sense for me to do a monthly round-up. The rules of the group are very low-key, and this past month the recipes could be made in any order. I made three of the four selections (and will probably still make the fourth, eventually).

The first recipe of the month, Roast Chicken for Les Paresseux (the lazy folks), was a chicken roasted breast down in a dutch oven, surrounded by root vegetables and garlic. The chicken, which was never turned, rested on a large piece of sourdough, which was meant to absorb all the chicken juices and become crispy and delicious. It was delicious, but because I thoughtlessly put the tough slice crust down, I missed out on the golden bottom, and nearly cracked a tooth trying to chew it all. Still, delicious. Next best was the garlic, and it was all gone pretty quickly.

One of the forum posters mentioned that she had made stock with the chicken carcass right in the roasting pan, a genius idea that yielded a rich, browned stock, which we ate last night with some frozen Udon noodles and pork dumpling filling meatballs.

It seems like we're working our way through the classics first, and nothing is more classic than Pomme Dauphinois. My version used slightly lower-fat dairy products and so was a little juicier than it could have been, more like potatoes floating in the sauce. It was garlicky and good.

The last recipe I made for the month was one of those that looks really good, has great things in it, and never really gets eaten. It just didn't tempt me, somehow, although I was looking forward to it, and I didn't sell it well to the rest of the household.
Maybe another time, Pumpkin Flans with Gorgonzola (it was Chevre) and Walnuts.  Looking forward to next month's recipes, as I continue to dip into the book at my own pleasure.

Heavenly Cake Bakers: Pumpkin Cake with Orange Silk Meringue Buttercream

A few weeks ago, I accompanied one of my Tuesdays with Dorie postings with a little homily about the group itself, and there have been requests for a similar rundown on how my other cooking clubs work. For all of you out there who are perpetually baffled by my superfluous cakeage, this is how it works.


Rose Levy Beranbaum, author of The Cake Bible, The Bread Bible, and a few other equally influential tomes, has been one of the pastry world's go-to references for many many years. Her detailed, scientifically tested recipes, which include tables, weights and formulae, and no apologies for precision or difficulty, were a great help to me in planning last year's wedding cake extravaganzas. Also, because Rose is an Ashkenazi Jew with a New York background, I've always enjoyed the way her palate skews toward things like poppyseed and apricot. When I heard her new cookbook was out, my friend Catherine immediately volunteered to get me a copy. I didn't tell her my hidden motive, which was that I had to join up with this wonderfully crazy woman on the interwebs who had already schooled my bake-through self-importance by making it all the way through The Bread Bible, and nearly twenty cakes into Rose's Heavenly Cakes.

As soon as I had book in fist, I emailed Marie and begged to join the Heavenly Cake Bakers. She graciously agreed, added me to the blogroll, and it was on. While I've had my struggles with babycake overload and frosting glut, it's been an educational and enjoyable journey so far, often aided by Lily's willingness to let me bake the cakes over at Lily & Fig and sell them as specials. The Heavenly Cake Bakers group is much smaller than Tuesdays with Dorie, but still manages to span several continents. Each week, we bake a cake selected by Marie, the group leader, and post it in the neighborhood of Monday. Mid-week, Marie posts a much-appreciated roundup of everyone's efforts, and Rose and her associate Woody often chime in to answer questions or concerns. Some of us (Rose included) are precise sticklers, others of us (self included) fall more into the free-and-easy camp. Everyone, though, is very supportive, and the group discourse is lively, and sometimes pleasingly technical.

A few randomly chosen examples show the diversity of our membership. In addition to me, previously described, there is Mendy, my fellow Brooklynite, an orthodox Jew who bakes for his family in a toaster oven. Then there is Lola, who according to her blog lives in Mexico, and is part of even more cooking clubs than I am. There is Sarah (the Bear), whose profile photo includes poultry and who dreams of cooking school, someday, maybe. Raymond posts on Sundays and gets us in the mood...and the list goes on and on. Check out the blogroll on the Heavenly Cake Bakers site for more.

Because Marie baked quite a few of the cakes before the group's official start, every now and then she designates a 'free choice' cake to catch everyone up. These are selected from the roster of cakes that Marie or the group has already baked, but I haven't. My choice this week was very Halloween/Thanksgiving appropriate -- Pumpkin Cake with Orange Silk Meringue Buttercream. The cake almost didn't make it to the buttercream stage, but that's getting ahead of the story.

In Rose's book, the pumpkin cake is one of the most imposing decorating projects, baked in a double mold that creates a ball/pumpkin shape when the two halves are pressed together. Rose's picture is decorated with bright orange buttercream and fondant leaves. Mine was baked in a single fluted tube pan. The cake is a simple oil cake, with walnuts, walnut oil, and pumpkin puree. I used a CSA butternut squash, roasted, pureed, and drained (it lost nearly a cup of liquid). Eager hands surrounded the bundt almost as soon as it came out of the oven, and several slices mysteriously disappeared before frosting time. To be honest, we just don't love frosting in my house, and both Matt and Liana (and I) have a yen for these kind of rustic bundt-y banana-bread-pumpkin-bread style cakes, which Matt categorized somewhat vaguely as 'one of the three kinds of cakes you make' (bundt-y, creamy, chocolately).

I do love making frosting, though, so the buttercream made it onto most of the cake. Orange silk meringue buttercream is a multi-step process, that begins with caramel creme anglaise, takes a stop at Italian meringue, and ends by combining the two with a fair amount of butter.

Two caramels for one frosting, folks. It can be difficult to make such a small quantity (based on one egg white) of Italian meringue, but none of the steps were hard, and the final result was more addictive than I had expected. I didn't eat it on the cake, but kept taking little nips. The final result was flavored with orange oil and lime zest and colored orange to boot.

I am terrible at frosting bundts, so it wasn't terribly photogenic, but the texture was excellent. Final verdict, though, was that it was better unfrosted.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Pie for Breakfast

Pie for breakfast is a solid New England tradition. It's hearty, easy to eat, sweet without being cloying, and full of fruit (or squash, in this case). A small side benefit is that it makes me feel pleasingly rustic. A large side benefit is eating pie for breakfast.

My pie of choice for this activity, which I would classify less as a habit than a response to pie being in the house at all, was Dorie Greenspan's Caramel Pumpkin Pie. A classic pie in most ways -- milk, sugar, eggs...the main twist here was that half the sugar is caramelized prior to being added to the other fillings, making a darker and more complex pie. I have a vague memory of making this pie a few years ago, and not being overly impressed, but this particular version was one of the best pumpkin pies I've ever made. I kept the caramel a little on the light side, and used mashed squash from a mix of squashes that I happened to have recently roasted.
The crust was also standout, and here is where the confession comes in--I fear that I may owe its awesomeness to the addition of a nasty margarine/baking goop/can't believe anyone would think this is butter product, which I used quite a bit of. As normally a fan of the all butter crust, I do have to say that the few crusts I made recently using said product were memorable. Also, because the pumpkin pie crust spends quite a bit of time in the oven at a gentle heat waiting for the custard to firm up, it gets baked to a crispness that fruit double-crusted pies rarely achieve. I remember Emily of Four and Twenty Blackbirds describing a similar phenomenon in the creation of the deeply caramelized crust of her Salty Honey Pie, and she was right. Mine didn't make it to quite such long-cooked glory, but it was one of my better crusts for sure.

Although I did eat several slices of this pie for successive breakfasts, I didn't eat it all--I took the last few slices to the ladies of Polybe + Seats, who seemed pleased that I'd made such a sacrifice. One eater was in fact heard to remark, "But this is better than pumpkin pie!"

It was pretty great. Not better than pumpkin pie, because what could be? But a pretty great pumpkin pie. I hope to make many more. Next week's TWD continues the pie love with the all-American classic apple.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Pumpkin Muffins

I love pumpkins. I would fill the house with them if it didn't mean lugging them home from the farmer's market. Luckily, this recipe was the perfect excuse I needed to buy my very own, a ritual I observed faithfully as a child.

Again, because of the aforementioned lugging, and the fact that I'm only feeding myself this week, I substituted a nice little acorn squash for the pumpkin. It roasted quickly, and reminded me of the time I demanded Halloween in Buenos Aires, to the tune of some poorly carved butternuts.

These muffins are Dorie's take on a recipe from Sarabeth Levine, the namesake of Sarabeth's, the legendary upper West side brunch place. A version of the recipe can be found here.

I used only 5 tablespoons of butter instead of the recommended 8, and made up the difference with applesauce. With some good beating, this didn't hurt the recipe at all. I also was out of buttermilk, so I used some souring milk with a hint of lemon in. I subbed in about 1/3 of a cup of graham flour for white, and used chopped cashews instead of chopped walnuts or pecans, and dried cherries in with the raisins.

I made these in the big muffin pans, and topped them with bits of seeds from the squash, and they are delicious.