Cake Talk

Rhubarb Pie

"Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb,
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb,
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie. "

Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie is a fictitious sponsor of A Prairie Home Companion, a National Public Radio program.  While you can listen to it on Alabama Public Radio, it really speaks all things Minnesota.

Like rhubarb.  Which doesn’t really grow in the south although I have heard there might be a variety that does.  But it's probably why most folks here have no idea what it is, or what it tastes like.

And it probably also explains why the local grocery store here, Publix, sold it with the poisonous leaves still attached, but I am getting ahead of myself.

I like rhubarb.  I love rhubarb pie.  It's tart and sweet at the same time.  Not too gooey.  Holds together nicely when you cut it.  Until I moved south, I always had access to it.  We grew it in California.  Had friends who grew it in New York.  Even had friends who grew it in Finland.  But it doesn't grow in Alabama, too hot and humid.  Which is a problem for me and all the other Yankee transplants (aka "damn yankees") that know and love it.

Most people cook it, it makes great jams, jellies or puddings.  And pies.  And you only eat the stalks.  The leaves contain oxalic acid, and you can't eat them cooked or raw.  You can read all about it at this website.  Anytime I have purchased rhubarb at the supermarket, the leaves were removed.  The Super Target in Tuscaloosa sometimes carries it.  And I found it last week at Publix, leaves intact, for $4.99 per pound (ouch!).

We had promised rhubarb pie to a customer so I spent $17 for enough rhubarb for three pies.  Our normal suppliers can't get it, but one of my chef friends has a produce supplier who is supposed to deliver a case on Tuesday.  So we'll have rhubarb pies next week.

The recipe is simple, and in our cookbook:

Rhubarb Pie

Unbaked pie shell
Additional pie crust dough
6-8 stalks fresh rhubarb
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 C. granulated sugar
1/2 C. instant tapioca
1/4 C. water
Cream
Granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 375^o F.  Wash rhubarb and slice into 1/2 inch slices/  In a large mixing bowl, combine the rhubarb, cinnamon, sugar, tapioca and water.  Toss to combine.  Pour the rhubarb mixture into the pie shell.  It should mound 1-2 inches higher than the shell.

Roll out additional pie crust dough.  Using a pizza cutter or rolling pastry wheel, slice about twelve 1/2 inch strips of pie crust dough.  Place over pie, forming a lattice design.  Brush lightly with cream and sprinkle with granulated sugar.

Bake at 375^o F for about 45-55 minutes, or until the pie crust is lightly browned and the rhubarb mixture is bubbly.  Once the center begins to bubble and thicken, remove the pie from the oven and allow to cool completely before serving.

Makes one pie.

The Traditional Bûche de Noel

I spent a considerable amount of time living in Paris in the late 1970's,  working as an apprentice in commercial kitchens.  As Christmas approached, just about every pastry shop window was filled with some version of the Bûche de Noel, the traditional French "yule log". Christmas eve dinner would not be complete without it.

They were mostly yellow or chocolate genoise (sponge) cake filled with buttercream and covered with whipped ganache to resemble a log ready for the fireplace.  Each shop had a unique way of flavoring and decorating their Bûches, but meringue or marzipan mushrooms were pretty standard, as were sugared rosemary "pine needles."  One end of the rolled cake is usually cut at an angle and placed on the side or top of the cake to form a branch. Confectioners' sugar is sprinkled on top to resemble snow.

We make a Bûche de Noel at Mary's and you can make it at home too.  We use a chocolate sponge cake recipe (in our cookbook, page 45), chocolate buttercream (page 71), ganache (page 75), meringue mushrooms (page 137) which we piece together with melted chocolate, sugared rosemary (page 139) and a marzipan Santa (page 108).

It's not too late to order one for the 23rd, or buy the cookbook and make it yourself.

Strong feelings about Fruitcake

People harbor strong feelings about fruitcake.  They either love it or they hate it.  I love the fruitcake we make, but hate the stuff you buy at the grocery store.  Not sure sure what it is about that $2 fruitcake, but I won't waste calories on it.

I 'm not crazy about the fruitcake they make in Britain either.  My sister lives in England and is married to a Scotsman.  I spent a few holidays there with her family.  One year, her mother-in-law brought a fruitcake she had made.  It was full of raisins - at least three different kinds, had no nuts, and had never benefited from alcohol of any kind.  I ate it to be polite, but I like mine better.

Fruitcake should have lots of whole nuts, real citrus peel, and red cherries.  Not too many (or any) raisins, and should be dense and rummy.  We start making ours in September, usually during the first home football game, and soak them in rum twice-weekly until Thanksgiving.  By then, they have become a dense block of fruit, nuts and rum.  We tell our customers not to eat and drive.

I believe people who hate fruitcake have never had a really good one.  Like everything, there are good versions and bad versions.  One of my chef instructors at Culinary School used to say you should try something at least twice, with different preparations, made by different chefs, before you decide you really don't like it.

There are two basic kinds of fruitcake: light and dark.  Light fruitcake typically contains golden raisins, pineapple, apricots, almonds and has a light-colored cake base. Dark is usually made with molasses, brown sugar, raisins, dates, cherries and pecans. Our version has a light brown sugar cake base, but contains citrus, cherries, almonds and pecans, and is lightly spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, so it is somewhere in-between.

If you've never had a fruitcake you like, come in and give ours a try.  We usually have a few pieces on hand that we dip in chocolate.  And the recipe is in our cookbook.

Dog Biscuits and the Northport Barbershop

Only in Alabama.

I'm on my way to work this morning.  Almost there in fact when my cell phone rings.  It's the shop calling.  The news co-anchor from the local WVUA News (and a cameraman) are in the bakery wanting to do a follow up on our dog biscuits.

Two days ago, we were interviewed on the "WVUA First at 4",  local news.  I was promoting the cookbook and had brought two trays of goodies from the shop to illustrate the various recipes.  Included were a couple of dog biscuits (recipe on page 141).

Apparently, after I left, one of the anchors, Robert Stevenson, popped one in his mouth -- ON CAMERA.  He's a news co-anchor and the weather anchor.  He also files a Friday night segment called "The Northport Barbershop Report," from the local barbershop around the corner from us on Main Avenue.  It's a small-town "Mayberry-esque" piece that they have fun with. 

During the taping today, Jim Burt and the guys at the barbershop were giving Stevenson a hard time about the dog biscuits, called him Robert "Bow-Wow" Stevenson.  Seizing on an opportunity to further promote the show, he hopped across the street to Mary's to tape a follow-up.

Over and over he repeated "Three, two, one...As it says on page 141 of Mary's Cakes Favorite Recipes, dogs love 'em and people do too..." He never actually ate one, but I'm sure it will be fun to watch.  It'll be on the 6pm and 10pm news tonight.

Promoting our Cookbook on Fox6

Saturday morning I took that familiar drive to Birmingham and the Fox6 studio to promote our new cookbook.

I got up at 5 a.m. for my 8:10 segment.  Coffee is king, and I would never start the day without it.  So I sat on my porch in the dark with a hot cup of coffee in my hand and two warm dogs on my lap until I was good and ready to face the day.

If you knew my sense of direction (or lack thereof) you would understand why I left almost an hour-and-a-half of travel time for the 50 mile trip.  I still managed to take a detour through Birmingham's downtown district before finding my way to Vulcan Park and the studio, but arrived with plenty of time to spare.

The 7:48 segment was a fashion consultant from New York who was going to talk about fall fashion.  When I asked him which part of New York he was from he said smugly "Manhattan, of course."  Big whoop, I figured he could not be that hot if he was being interviewed in Birmingham, Alabama.  But he WAS wearing make-up and had two very nicely dressed (off-camera) assistants.

1. At 8:10, I glazed and decorated petit fours and talked about the cookbook for all of 4 1/2 minutes.  You can watch online, or just buy the book.  It's available in our shop, at the Kentuck Gallery, or at Barnes & Noble in Tuscaloosa, or online through our website, or through amazon.com.

Barnes & Noble vs. Books-A-Million and our new cookbook

  Tuscaloosa has two bookstores:  Books-A-Million and (only recently with the opening of the new midtown mall) Barnes & Noble.  There are of course several "bookstores" on the various campuses (University of Alabama, Shelton State Community College, Stillman College) selling textbooks, but no independent bookstores (except for the Christian Bookstore on McFarland Boulevard).

A couple of years ago, as the midtown mall was being built, our newspaper (The Tuscaloosa News) ran an anonymous letter in the "Sound Off" section (which I read for laughs every morning - it is better than the comics) where a reader complained that we did not need a new mall because we already had one, we did not need Barnes & Noble because we already had Books-A-Million, didn't need Best Buy (which was slated at the time to open in the new mall) because we already had Circuit City.  They went on and on...you get the picture.  I remember thinking at the time of the adage "better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt" (attributed at times to Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain and Albert Einstein).  Competition is a good thing, and more retail choices will only make our growing city a better place.

Fast forward to yesterday.  Our new cookbooks were delivered on Friday.  Nine hundred and fifty-three of them.  And they look great!  Sunday, my first day off, I marched into Barnes and Noble to show the book to the manager.  I had spoken with him a few months ago (also on a Sunday) and he had some very helpful suggestions about how the book should be put together (mainly getting an ISBN number and bar code so the book could be scanned, and perfect binding so the book would not "disappear" on the shelf).  It was Sunday but he was on the floor working the customer service booth.  He was excited to see it and offered to help us get it placed in his store. I could not have been more satisfied with the personal treatment, especially since Barnes & Noble is the nation's top bookseller.

Then I went down the street to Books-A-Million.  I went there because I did not want to put all my eggs in one basket.  The store was messy, dusty and almost empty.  The only visible employee was a lone cashier.  I asked him if I could speak with the manager, whom he called out to the floor.  I introduced myself, told him about the book, and handed him one.  He glanced at it and, in the most business-like-but-obviously-annoyed tone possible, explained that all their book purchases were handled by a distributor, then disappeared in the back to find me the phone number.  He handed me a sticky note with the initials and phone number of the distributor and ushered me (and my book) out of the store.

Where do you think I will do my book shopping from now on?  And if that anonymous writer a few years ago had his or her way I would not have a choice.

Our signature rose cupcakes

Not everyone can make buttercream roses.  Personally, I hate them on a cake.  For the main reason that they scream SUPERMARKET!  The other reason is I'm not good at making them.  It's not the rose itself that's the problem, but getting the rose from the rose nail or skewer it is made on to the cake itself.  Buttercream is a soft and slippery little bugger.  I suppose if we used that ready-made icing from a bucket it might be easier...

We have one decorator, Miss Pat, who makes great roses.  When they get requested for a cake (the only way you can get them on a cake at Mary's is to practically beg for them, unless you are 90-years-old or a grown man getting a cake for his mother, then we don't make you beg), I make sure Pat is scheduled to work so she can do her magic.

Cupcakes, on the other hand, are perfect vehicles for making roses.  You can hold a cupcake in one hand and twist it while piping, which is a required movement in rose-making, and once the rose is made, you don't have to move it.  Perfect!

Rose cupcakes also fill another basic need - the desire of most cupcake-eaters for lots of icing.  Just look at them, the icing is almost as high as the cupcake.  Absolutely perfect icing-to-cake ratio.

And they are pretty.  Almost every chef instructor I had in culinary school preached the mantra "you eat with your eyes."  This is also why rose cupcakes are on the cover of our new cookbook.  Hopefully they will sell books.

Rose cupcakes are also economical.  In the sense that they can double as beautiful but edible centerpieces.

And they are delicious!  What more could you want?

Caramel Icing Recipe: Tastes just like brown sugar...

We make wonderful caramel cakes.  For those of you who have never had one, we're talking sinful.  It's a moist white cake with cooked caramel icing (recipe - which will be in our new cookbook - follows).

There are lots of ways to make caramel icing but the best results come from cooking the sugar, butter and heavy cream.  The icing should NOT contain confectioners' sugar but it DOES melt in your mouth with plenty of calories.  If you are a glutton for punishment, you start with white granulated sugar, caramelize it, and continue from there.  We start with brown sugar, which saves time and (in my humble opinion) does not sacrifice taste.  Letting the icing rest overnight, then beating it until fluffy, makes it easy to spread on a cake, a major problem with many caramel icing recipes.

So we made one of these a few weeks ago.  It was beautiful.  It got picked up on a Saturday.  On Monday I get a phone call.

Cookbook Cover

Here it is.  Cookbook front and back cover. Got most of the artwork today.  Still need some drawings, and waiting for the section dividers to be scanned.   The ISBN number and bar code will be inserted during printing.

Dave Crutchfield did the photos and artwork on the covers.  Suzanne did the drawings.

Most of the recipes are edited, will have the last few tomorrow. It's funny how you see what you want to see.  I've read through them dozens of times (times 201 recipes!).  Still, there were misplaced commas and periods, a few spelling errors and (God forbid!) a few words either completely misplaced or left out altogether!

I will be happy to see it go to the printer so I can get back to baking.  By the way, I know the title is not lined up evenly.  It looks crooked to me, but that is the way it was designed.  Does it bother anyone else?  Cause it is not too late to change it.  It's more visible on the back cover than the front cover, but they are both aligned at the same angles.  Comments anyone?

Cookbook Update

The deadline for getting the cookbook to the printer is Tuesday.  That's why I am still at the shop editing.  The drawings are coming in, should have most by tomorrow.  Still don't have the cover graphics.  And about ten of the recipes are missing the directions.  (Most of the recipes we use have ingredients only -- the "how to" part is in my head.)

This is one of the drawings.  Suzanne Gray is doing them, and this one shows our frog cookies.    Cookies, especially when Suzanne does them, take on a life of their own.  The frogs have painted nails and a pearl necklace, and lipstick.  We're putting the drawings in where the recipe does not take up the entire page.

Of course when I decorate them, they are slightly underdressed, missing the mascara, the full Angelina Jolie lips, and handlebar smile

You can be sure that the illustrations in the cookbook will be dressed and decorated. They are exceptional.