Sylvia Cake

When I started Journey of an Italian Cook more than a decade ago, I had two teens living at home and we ate a lot of pasta (and risotto and polenta and bread). Fast forward (it's been a really fast "fast-forward") and one child has been living in Germany for a few years, while another has started her professional life in St. Paul. The days of "pasta and roses" have dwindled. A more vegetable centric, low-carbohydrate lifestyle (no pasta, no risotto, no polenta, no bread) eeked its way into our lives. 

Maybe it's the thirty-odd years of living in Minnesota, but a Scandinavian gene sneaked its way into my body.

It's not quite a fjord, but Minnesota has it share of the blazing-blue sky, frigid days. And I have fallen for its stark beauty. I have also fallen for Fika - a Swedish "coffee and cake" break - designed to be shared with friends. Part of that hygge lifestyle I fell into many years ago before I knew what it was.

I am working my way through Scandikitchen Fika & Hygge by Bronte Aurell. There's quite a lot for those with a semi-sweet tooth - just sweet enough without throwing scads of sugar into your bloodstream.

Above is the "Sylvia Cake" which Aurell surmises is named after the Queen of Sweden. It's also considered a "poor man's cake" (fattigmanskaka) because water is one of the ingredients. But what is important is not the name or the addition of water, but the fact that it is really one of the most satisfying, sweet-nibbles out there. Even my Italian ancestors would have a slice with their espresso. You should also.

Ingredients (Serves 12-16) or in my home: 8
Cake
3 eggs plus one yolk
160 grams or 3/4 cup minus 1 tablespoon caster/granulated sugar
80 grams or 1/2 cup minus 1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla or seeds from 1/2 vanilla pod
200 grams or 1-1/2 cups all-purpose-flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
a pinch of salt
100 ml or 1/3 cup cold water

Frosting
150 grams or 1-1/2 sticks butter
150 grams or 3/4 cup caster/granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla or seeds from 1/2 vanilla pod
2 egg yolks
1 few drops of lemon juice
75 grams or  i cup dried shredded coconut

a 20x20 cm or 8x8 inch square baking pan greased and lined with parchment paper

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F or 180 degrees C
2. Whisk (in stand mixer or by hand) the eggs with the granulated sugar, light brown sugar and vanilla until thick and fluffy.
2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt and then fold into sugar-egg mixture. Slowly add the cold water and fold until incorporated.
3. Bake in the middle of the preheated oven 25-30 minutes - until well-risen, golden brown and springy to the touch. A toothpick inserted in center should come out clean.

Frosting (Make while cake is baking)
1. Melt butter in saucepan (do not brown). Add sugar and vanilla and stir a bit to dissolve. With heat on low, add egg yolks one at a time, whisking until smooth. Remove from heat.  Add 1/4 cup (50 grams) of the coconut and stir until combined and thick.

Now the fun part that adds so much: Preheat broiler. Spread the frosting over the cake and place the cake under the hot broiler for just a minute or two. You want it lightly caramelized (so good).

Remove from broiler and add the rest of the coconut to cover the cake (add a little more if needed).  Allow to completely cool before serving. Cut into squares.

It's a cosy cake. There's no higher compliment.

So yes, there have been changes. But some things remain the same.

Wishing my USA friends a Happy Thanksgiving and everyone a sweet November.

Panforte Recipe and a Mouse

Don't you just love looking at ingredients. They are welcoming - just waiting to be used. And then the miracle of chemistry begins. My father was always bemused about my choices in life. He is retired but was a chemist. Daughter #1 (that would be me) did not seem to have a science or math gene in her body. But if you think about it - I did. It just mutated. For cooking is chemistry. Where the theatre gene came from - is a mystery for the ages.

Meanwhile I cook. And bake more than I used to - or it's the season. Lately I've been craving panforte. Not the $25.99/per pound panforte found in the specialty shops. They are too sweet, too cloying for me. I want dense, rich decadent chocolate - without tons of honey. I do want the sweetener! But I really want the chocolate ... and hazelnuts.

So I made some. Except for warming the honey, it all comes together in one bowl.

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Panforte Recipe

1/2 cup flour

2 T cocoa powder

1 t cinnamon

1 t nutmeg

1/4 t ground cloves

a bit of pepper

1 cup chopped (or whole) almonds

1 cup chopped hazelnuts

1-1/2 cups dried cherries

1-1/2 cups chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli semi-sweet; altho' tempted to use bittersweet)

1-2 T orange zest

1 T almond extract

1 T Marsala wine

1/2 cup (little less actually) honey

Panforte Preparation

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Coat a nine-inch brownie pan with cooking spray. Mix your cocoa with the flour. Add the spices and mix, then the nuts and then the zest and dried fruit. Add the chocolate chips and coat with mixture. Warm the honey in a sauce pan till almost boiling. Add your extract and wine and mix thoroughly. Pour warmed honey over prepared mixture and stir quickly to cover all. Spoon, scrape, pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes.

Panforte is done when edges pull away from pan and become a bit "cake-y."

Dense and rich, a little bit goes a long way.

And it went down well with a glass of wine.

Meanwhile, I am spending my eves with this mouse. His name is Stuart Little and I have an assortment of 17 young performers and five adult actors. It's - busy, high-energy, filled with giant ping-pong balls, huge combs, a gargantuan engagement ring and chock full of Stuart's adventures. I've been having a few adventures of my own with them!

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Lovely bloggers have presented me with two awards which I shall happily display - after we open on Friday! Missing costume pieces, parents schedule for kid-wrangling, pot-luck for after the matinee and before the evening performance, publicity, shifts, photo call and oh yeah - the directing part have consumed me. And then there's this cookie-a-day I've been baking over at the Examiner. Which I know makes me certifiable for something...

Triple Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Peppermint Filling - When You Need to Bake and an Award

My goodness - this may be the longest blog title in my history - and I am wordy. When my daughter starting dating her boyfriend, they baked. Well, sort of. Box mixes and pre-made cookie dough lined the kitchen cabinets a few nights a week. That was when they were seniors in high school. That was then.

This is now. What a difference three years makes.

Why they needed to bake a complex holiday chocolate cake when the fridge was filled with turkey, yams, mashed potatoes, stuffing, chocolate pecan pie, pumpkin pie, apple tart, pumpkin bread, etc. remains to be seen. But the need to bake comes from a powerful zen-like place and Saturday was designated "Bake a splashy chocolate cake day."

They assigned each other duties: You make the ganache, I bake the layers, you mix the filling, I'll crush the chocolate squares.

The Christmas CD's went on in the kitchen and they baked and sifted and stirred and chopped and voila! A Triple Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Peppermint Filling straight from the pages of Bon Appetit.

The cake was split in half and each family got to sample the cake. Gooey, creamy, minty, lusciously velvety smooth, it is an offering of love.

In truth, we had a weekend of great poignancy. The very act of stirring and sifting and filling your head with the next step of a recipe is a wondrous thing. And in the end, just by the mere act of following directions, you can create sweetness. And that's what they did. Since they didn't change a thing, you can go to Bon Appetit and find the recipe here: Triple Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Peppermint Filling. It is a grand addition to your holiday table.

Meanwhile, an Apple and Pear Salad gets all dressed up for the holidays here.

I will confess to being remiss about posting awards. They are appreciated and I want to thank My Little Space for gentle reminders and Claudia at Pegasus Legend for thinking of me. It belongs on all of your blogs. Please, post it - some sparkly gold for the holidays is good for the heart.

Pumpkin-Mascarpone Pie, An Award and Thanks

I have a story about this pie. Well, actually - it's a secret. So I cannot tell you yet - because if a family member should read this ... But it has to do with my taking a perfectly good American tradition and then giving it an Italian twist. "Why can't I leave well enough alone," exclaim some people? (Non-Italians.) And I can't. I'm still tyring to figure out how to get pasta on my Midwest Thanksgiving table.

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This is pretty close to the pumpkin pie recipe on the canned pureed pumpkin! I periodically lower the sugar amount - thinking pumpkin is sweet enought, thank-you. But I was determined (shh) to make this pie a tad Italian. And why not celebrate harvests world-wide? I'll start with Italy and you can run with the ball!
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Oh and the crust! make your favorite. Use pasta frolla, use Cook's Illustrated - whatever works in your day. Or buy a prepared one!




Gather your ingredients:

1 can pumpkin puree

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar (sometimes I flip-flop the sugars)
2 eggs

1t cinnamon

1t ground ginger

1/2t nutmeg (I freshly grate it and guess and usually use more)

1/4t ground cloves

1/4t salt

1t vanilla

1 8-oz container mascarpone



Mix your pumpkin, sugars and eggs.




Add the spice and vanilla.


Watch the color brighten after the creamy clouds of mascarpone are blended in.Pour into favorite pie crust and cook at 350 degrees F for one hour till set. (Stoves vary so check your pie after 50-55 minutes. Mine took exactly one hour.) Cool and serve with spoonfuls of whipped cream. (Can be made one day ahead of time. Cool, cover and refrigerate. If desired, rewarm in 325 degree F oven for 5-10 minutes.)

Piping hot.

And perfect.

But going ...

going ...

and....

gone. As American as apple ...well pumpkin pie and as rich as the tapestries of Italy. Layered, sweet, spiced, creamy and "worth the calories!"

I would like to offer thanks and .. apologies. My Little Space presented me with the sweetest of awards:

... in October. As I have only been posting on the run and once a week these days, I have yet to post it. So I am posting it proudly and happily and thankfully. My Little Space
is a treasure trove of wonderful recipes: breads, sweets, yams, dim sum. Pay a visit. I promise you you'll stay.

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I am grateful for so much: being busy which means I have a rich full life, cyberspace friends who I feel I chat and drink coffee (and ahem wine) with many days and that my table does have a harvest when so many do not. I would like to pass to all but last time I did that, there were no takers. You are all so shy. So for today, the friendship blogger will go to:

Bunny's Warm Oven

Lynda's Recipe Box

Chow and Chatter

My Food and Life Encounters

Meatless Mama

Dish 'n That

My Unbirthday Olive Oil Cake

Well, here it is: an unbirthday cake for my unbirthday. I was getting so many sweet well-wishers for my sixtieth - and I just turned 57 - that I have been feeling positively spry. Serves me right for complaining about turning 60 three years ahead of time! (I do like to worry extensively before any major event - but I suppose three years was excessive - even for me.)
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I did my Cover Girl Dinner midweek. And with my gimpy but amazing technicolor ankle combined with sounding like Sneezy-the-dwarf, I was going to keep it simple. And I yearned for a not-gooey dessert but something fresh, moist, cakey and sunny.

The Olive Oil cake from Abraco Coffee Shop in New York City did the trick. With a hint of orange zest, it soothed without making my teeth tingle, courted me sweetly and gave me the illusion of sitting on a Tuscan hillside.

And so quickly it went...

And was gone. The recipe is from September 2009 Bon Appetit. I changed little - except to add some extra orange zest.

1-1/2 cups organic unbleached white flour*

1 cup organic sugar*

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp coarse Kosher salt

2 large organic eggs*

3/4 organic whole milk*

1/2 cup mild-flavored organic olive oil*

2 tsp finely-grated orange peel

*My amazing-technicolor ankle won't let me walk much or drive, so I used organic if it was in the house - and if it wasn't - I used regular

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Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Oil and flour a 9x5x3 metal loaf pan. Whisk first 5 ingredients in large bowl. Whisk eggs, milk, olive oil and orange peel in medium bowl. Gradually whisk egg mixture into dry ingredients. Transfer to prepared pan.

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Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, 60-65 minutes. (Mine took 60 minutes.) Cool in pan on rack 20 minutes. Invert pan to remove cake. Cool completely top side up! Watch it disappear.