Almond cake with chocolate glaze for winter magic

At first, this almond cake seems a humble cake. No curlicues, just a shower of melted chocolate over a dense, earthy cake. It is not spun sugar or light chiffon. This is not tiptoeing through the tulips. This is Scarlett O'Hara, digging up turnips vowing she will never be hungry again.




The chocolate caresses, it does not star. The almonds come center, Their scent permeates the cake. The chocolate may entice and bring you in. But it is the cake that makes you at home and begs you to stay.
Every culture has a nut cake. Just as we share variations of dumplings, breads and cheeses, so we have all devised ways to make nuts part of cookery and cuisine.

Cooking transcends boundaries. We all speak the same language when we devise ways to nurture and delight with cooking. Cooking has always been my time machine and personal jet. I wonder if cooking is also diplomacy.

The almond cake hails from Pescara in Abruzzo. It was a great favorite of the controversial and dramatic poet Gabriele D'Annunzio. It is said he ordered it regularly when at home and devised ways of having it sent to him when he was not in Pescara.

There are many versions of the cake - some use bitter almonds, some have chocolate throughout. This recipe comes from La Cucina: the Regional Cooking of Italy. It is a treasure trove of Italian recipes and their variations from region to region. It is my bedtime reading, my awakening of how Italian cooking developed - the realization that poverty created a cuisine. And that necessity brought forth art in cooking by focusing on what was available, local, fresh and if not always free, certainly cheap (and for most - free was better - Italians foraged.)

When you bite into the cake, you are taking a bite of the countryside. It's firmness is its strength. It's heartiness makes it a winter cake - perfect for the February days that continue under clouds with promises of wind and snow still to come.
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I have come to the realization (which my family has known for years) that I am not a winter person. I welcome it for three weeks and then I am done. Unfortunately, winter is not. But the baking and serving of the cake made me feel as if I took at swipe at winter. That I warded it off as I folded stiff egg whites into the nutty dough.
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Almond Cake Glazed with Chocolate Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup blanched almonds
• 5 large eggs - separated
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup corn starch

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Chocolate Glaze

• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate

Almond Cake Glazed with Chocolate Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Butter a cake pan (about 9 inches by 1-2 inches).
3. Sprinkle the almonds with 2 tablespoons from your 3/4 cup of sugar. Pulse them in a processor or use a mortar and pestle if you want a workout. Do not grind it into paste or flour. You want the nutty specks sprinkled throughout the cake.
4. Melt the butter on the top of a double boiler.
5. Add the egg yolks and the remaining sugar. Cook, stirring until thickened. (Be careful that the egg yolks do not curdle).
6. Remove from heat and add in your nut mixture. Mix thoroughly.
7. Add the flour and cornstarch in increments and again - blend it in well. It will be very thick. And if you are like me and don't use corn starch very often, you may be surprised how easily it puffs into your face, onto the counter and all over your clothes. And covers the cat.
8. Whip the egg whites until they are stiff and then fold them into the dough. At first it may seem that the dough will not incorporate it, but be persistent and bossy and the dough will succumb.
9. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan and bake for 45 minutes.
10. Cool for 5-10 minutes, remove from pan and cool completely.
11. When cake has cooled, melt chocolate in the top of a double boiler and pour over the center of the cake letting it ooze wherever it pleases.
12. If you like, you can top with additional almonds. Cool and serve. Because this cake is thick, I store it covered and don't refrigerate it.

While winter rages out side, the almond cake keeps us cozy. There are no spices in the cake and it is the flavor from the almonds that begs for another forkful until it is gone.

It is the almonds that bring solace from the winter. It is the almonds that cast their spell and enchant the chill from your being. I was sturdier with every bite. I swear my balance improved.

It's crumbs are delicate and stalwart. A steel magnolia or an iron orchid.

Which bring me winter smiles.

Stuffed, baked peaches and lemon pasta for a summer of simplicity

I started work with the elves today. My home is in need of some elves. New windows and siding means all the pictures are down and the furniture is crowded in the middle of all our rooms. I type with elbows in a tucked-in-wing fashion surrounded by things I have been meaning to go through for four years. The "boys" in the home were gone all weekend doing the MS 150 Bicycle fundraiser. Some organization is called for. My life needs to be cloaked in simplicity. As Minnesota slows into lazy, hazy days of summer, my work gears up.

No oranges or apples may cross my doorway. It is the season of stone fruits. I walk into the grocer and the sweet aroma of peaches swirls around my head. And I buy and I buy and I buy. Which means I could devour and still have some leftover for baking.

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Only there's no time to bake. I am prepping for my 32 elves. Organizing schedules, curriculum, editing the summer plays. Getting my ducks in a row because if you work with kids in theatre, the first day is destined to be baptism by fire. It's a truism. (And it was.)

In La Cucina, the Regional Cooking of Italy, I spied many simple recipes. I didn't exactly follow it because that would be too simple. I have devised my own version of simple. I routinely cut sugar and when serving to bike-a-thon adventurers, I decided to not send them on the road laced with grappa.

The MS 150 route actually wound its way near our home. 3 miles from the finish line, they were looking strong. I think it was the stuffed peaches. They biked 150 miles in two days. They went by - fast!

Baked-Stuffed Peaches - serves 4

4 peaches

2 tbs butter

1/2 cup sliced almonds toasted

4 amaretti cookies - crushed (can use small almond biscottis if cannot find amarettis)

1/4 cup honey

Garnishes: yogurt or creme fraiche or whippe cream or ice cream; berries

Baked-Stuffed Peaches Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Foil and spray a baking pan. Halve peaches. Cut out pit and scoop a little pulp out for a delineated indentation. I can't believe I just wrote "delineated indentation." Throwing simplicty out the window already! Put on prepared baking sheet. In a small, dry skillet, toast your almonds - for just a minute. Put in bowl and add butter to same skillet and melt. Crush amaretti cookies and put in bowl with almonds. Cover all with melted butter. Stir. Add honey and mix well. Fill peaches with honey-nut mixture. Bake just two minutes for medium peaches and 3 minutes if peaches are large. Remove from oven. Add a dollop of something creamy. The "boys" added berries. Serve and savor how simple summer fruit can be.

This is a wonder of a cookbook. I have used this all winter - it completes my circle of cooking by giving me a framework for discoveries of ingredients in new combinations. It shows me why my grandmother specialized in certain foods. And it is fascinating that an enitre cuisine developed out of foraging. Of what was local and fresh. From necessity to feasts of flavors. From peasant food to cuisine.
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And as pleasant as it would be to live on stone fruits, I need to find ten minutes to cook. To lose my elves, my stage directions, my piles of "things I am sure I will need some day" and enter a zone of aromas, simmer-sounds and almost-instant gratification.

(Elves and the Shoemaker logo by Lakeshore Players)

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The Shoemaker's elves do not cook. My 32 elves (ages 7-10) who I met today managed to lose two sweatshirts in fifteen minutes (without leaving their seats), asked if they could skip "break time" (needed more by the staff than the students) to do more creative dramatics and somehow morphed into 33 elves. Which meant a new role needed to be written immediately after returning home. In my effort to clear my work room, I broke a desk (it happens). Luckily, I have a dumpster sitting in front of my home.

They're out of season I believe, but my local grocer has some lovely Meyer lemons. Minnesota never does follow the crowd. Check out our politics. We had a wrestler for governor! It was the lemon's sheen that drew me in. Some people flock to diamonds. I like fruit with sheen. The aroma made me buy a few.

And my garden is filled with arugula, tarragon, watercress and basil. I took some of everything. I especially wanted the spicy herbs. I was interested in the lightness of Amanda Hesser's Lemony-herb Pasta from Cooking for Mr. Latte. Of course, I doubled the lemon, doubled the herbs and reduced the chicken broth further to have an intense sauce that did not drown the pasta in broth - it just sort of lightly danced around it. I also got dinner on the table in less than fifteen minutes. I was Super-Elf!

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Lemon-Herb Fettuccine
1 lb. fettuccine

2 cups chicken broth

2 Meyer lemons

3 cloves garlic

3/4 cup chopped favorite herbs (I did pick the spicier ones)

Freshly-shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano

Cook pasta according to package directions. Put chicken broth in medium sauce pan. Zest two Meyer lemons (regular lemons are fine) and add to the broth. Also add the juice of the two lemons and the garlic. Simmer and reduce to 3/4 of cup. Reserve 1/4 cup pasta water (I didn't need it). When pasta is drained, add sauce to the noodles and carefully mix to incorporate all. Add pasta water by tablespoons if some noodles are dry. Add 1/2 the herbs and mix. Add the other half of the herbs and mix. Serve. Pass freshly-grated Parmiggiano-Reggiano separately.

Even if you are not awash in high-energy elves as I am, we can all use a "Summertime and the living is easy" break. These recipes provided that.