Cake Talk

Rosie's Kentucky Derby-Like Pies!

What a difference a week makes. Just seven days ago I had no idea what a "Derby Pie" was. Today (right now to be exact) I have eight in the oven, with a promise of at least six more.

First, a disclaimer. The name "Derby Pie" is a registered trademark of Kern's Kitchen, which registered the name in 1968. The company uses the name in the form "DERBY-PIE®" in official literature and advertisements. According to Wikipedia, the Derby Pie was created by George Kern at the Melrose Inn of Prospect, Kentucky. It is a chocolate and walnut tart in a pastry crust, with Kentucky bourbon.

The Kentucky Derby is this weekend.

“The Run for the Roses” or “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports,” the Kentucky Derby is a 1.25 mile race for three-year-old thoroughbred horses. By-the-way, The phrase "Run for the Roses" was coined by New York sports columnist Bill Corum, who would later become president of Churchill Downs.

The race begins at 6:04 p.m. I watch it on television every year... besides the pie, here's what you gotta know:

• The Mint Julep -- is the official drink of the Kentucky Derby. It is an iced drink consisting of bourbon, mint, and a sweet syrup and is traditionally served in a commemorative Kentucky Derby glass. Early Times is the official Kentucky whiskey used to make Mint Juleps at the Kentucky Derby.
• Millionaire’s Row -- is the premium seating area that houses all of the rich and famous Kentucky Derby guests during the races.
• The Infield -- is the flat, grassy area inside of the track. The infield is best-known for hosting the largest Kentucky Derby party.
• The Triple Crown -- is a series of three races, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes, that is run annually by a group of thoroughbred horses. Only 11 horses have won the Triple Crown, the most recent was Affirmed, in 1978. The most famous was Secretariat, in 1973.
• The Derby Hat Parade -- takes place inside of Churchill Downs and refers to the sea of stylish and elegant hats worn by women and men alike during the Kentucky Derby.
• My Old Kentucky Home -- the song played when the horse are led onto the field, has been played by University of Louisville Marching Band since 1936.

But we digress.

Back to the pies. Here is a recipe similar to the one we use, only smaller...

First the flour and the sugar.

Then the melted butter and chocolate chips, eggs and pecans (or walnuts, if you have them).

Then the good stuff. I suppose any Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey will do, but this is what I like.

 Mix it all up (you can use a smaller mixer...).

Pour it into the pie shells and bake.

Easy as pie. Should go great with vanilla ice cream, don't you think?

Titanic Tribute -- Cabin Biscuits and Currant Rolls

Like a lot of people, I'm fascinated by the Titanic. I am also overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available about the ship, her passengers, and the 100-year anniversary of her ill-fated maiden voyage.

I've seen most of the movies, read lots of books, spent hours upon hours on the Internet, and visited the traveling exhibit of Titanic Artifacts when it was in Cleveland many years ago. I also own a copy of the blueprint for the ship and a signed and numbered (3/450) lithograph by Stephen J. Card. OK, sorry, that's bragging.

My obsession interest in the Titanic comes honestly.

Half Slovenian

I t's my birthday on Saturday and I'm a bit nostalgic. Something made me pull this cookbook off the shelf. It belonged to my dad's mother, and was published the year I was born.

Grandma Cesar was born in Ljublijana, Slovenia in 1904. Her father was a master cabinet maker, and worked in Southampton, England around the time the Titanic was being outfitted. But that is a whole other story. She emigrated to the United States as a young woman in 1921. 

Grandma's English was difficult to understand. She had a very strong accent and was always reminding us of our Slovienian heritage. I tried to correct her once, saying we were Yugoslavian, as Slovenia (at the time) was part of Yugoslavia and not an independent country. She was a tall, slender woman, but she was very strong. She took me firmly by the shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. Very matter-of-factly and without a hint of a smile, SHE corrected ME. "You are NOT Yugoslavian, you are Slovenian." It was many years before I truly understood and appreciated the distinction.

Woman's Glory: The Kitchen is dedicated to the pioneer members of the Slovenian Women's Union of America. It was not her only cookbook, but it was certainly the one I remember the most. Not only did it contain recipes for almost every Slovenian dish I had ever eaten, but the pages were also filled with her own handwritten recipes, some in English, many not.

Grandma Cesar was the kind of person who made everything from scratch.

Plus, she grew her own vegetables and boiled (and ironed) her underwear. 

And if you knew what was good for you, you NEVER, EVER brought store-bought cookies or bread into her house.

As if all that was not enough, and like every true Slovenian woman on the planet, she made potica (ronounced "puh-teet-sa).

Potica is a rich yeast bread with a mixture of walnuts, cream and honey rolled in. It is traditionally baked in a round glazed terracota pan (similar to a bundt pan), or a long loaf pan, and served in slices to guests, and at holidays. If there were such a thing as a national food in Slovenia, it would be potica. 

The cookbook has an entire section on poticas, with four dough recipes. After grandma died, I remember my dad and aunts agonizing over the recipes in the book, and comparing them with their memories of how she made the dough. She never used a recipe that I remember and nobody had ever dared ask her which dough recipe to use.

So when the grandchildren were given the chance to pick one item from the house to remember grandma, I picked the cookbook.

And making potica reminds me that I am half Slovenian.

Grandma's recipe is in the Mary's Cakes cookbook, but here's the potica recipe , along with detailed instructions, from the Slovene National Society.

 

The Hunger Games Bread

I confess...I haven't seen the movie or read the book.

But I know about the bread. And that's because The Tuscaloosa News ran a story about foods inspired by the movie in the Wednesday food section just two days before the opening of The Hunger Games at the local theatre.

As it happened, the San Jose Mercury News asked readers to deconstruct the signature dishes of The Hunger Games a couple of months ago, and provide recipes for the distinctive breads, stews and other exemplars of Panem cuisine.

Some of the winning dishes appeared in the food section of The Tuscaloosa News, including Prim's Goat Cheese and Herb Bread.

According to the newspaper article, Antioch, California, English teacher Sherri Livingston and her Deer Valley High School English class collaborated on a bread inspired by Prim's goat cheese and the agricultural bounty of District 11. The result is a slightly sweet, oversized, crescent-shaped roll - stuffed with savory goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, pesto, nuts and seeds.

Without the slightest idea of who Prim was, or why her bread would contain goat cheese and herbs, the recipe seemed to stand on it's own.

I knew we might be on to something when I announced my intentions to the staff at the bakery and Maury practically danced with glee.

Alrighty then.

When Life Hands You Lemons...

Mom and dad have a lemon tree in their backyard. As fate would have it, I visit once a year, in January when the lemons are ripe.

And, there are only so many lemons my parents can use or give away. Especially in California, where every other house has a similar tree.

So in the suitcase they go.

Future lemon squares at Mary's Cakes and Pastries!

They are pretty easy to make, you just need fresh lemons. Don't even THINK about using bottled lemon juice.

I like them when they are heavy on the lemon custard and light on the crust. Tart and sweet at the same time. Makes them almost seem healthy. Here's a closer look.

Want the recipe? No mixer required, we make this ENTIRELY by hand in the shop so there is no fighting over Rosie (the new 60-quart Hobart mixer we won in the Get Back To Scratch contest last summer). The recipe is also in our cookbook.

You can use the crust recipe below or press unbaked shortbread dough into the bottom of the pan. Shortbread dough will make the crust firmer and stronger.

Mary's Lemon Squares

For the crust:

12 oz. butter or margarine (3 sticks)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 cups all purpose flour

For the filling:

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice (with zest from lemons)

For the crust: Cut the margarine into pieces. Add the margarine (or butter), brown sugar and flour to a large mixing bowl and mix with a fork, pastry cutter, or your hands until incorporated and the margarine or butter is in pea sized pieces. Press into a half sheet (12" x 18") pan. Do NOT line the pan. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until set. Crust will be slightly soft. Remove from the oven and let cool for about 10-15 minutes before pouring the filling over the crust. Lower heat in the oven to 325.

For the filling: While crust is cooking, combine eggs and sugar in a bowl and whip with a hand whisk. Then add flour, lemon juice and zest. Mix with whip until combined and the mixture is lump-free.  Pour lemon mixture over cooled crust and return to oven. Bake at 325  for 20-25 minutes or until set. Do not brown or create a hard crust on top.

When totally cooled, dust with confectiiners' sugar and cut into squares. Makes 48 2-inch squares (or more if you cut them smaller).

 

Rosie's Cinnamon Raisin Nut Bread

I've been waiting months to make this. Ever since the Retail Bakers Association conference last summer where I heard about cinnamon chips as a way to add a burst of cinnamon flavor to breads and other baked goods.

At lunch, a guy started talking about his hummingbird cake recipe, and how he used cinnamon chips instead of ground cinnamon for pockets of concentrated cinnamon flavor.

When someone asked him where he got them, he replied "Wal-Mart."

And that's where it started.

We've made cinnamon bread in the past, but the cinnamon was either mixed into the dough (and the flavor was somewhat lost in the yeast and flour) or rolled in (which requires way too much effort to mix the cinnamon, sugar and butter and have a loaf folks can afford). We also make an outstanding cinnamon roll (which I wouldn't dare mess with). The cinnamon chips sounded like a great alternative.

And I figured it would be easy.

Our local Wal-Mart had semi-sweet chips, milk chocolate chips, peanutbutter chips, white chips and toffee chips. But no cinnamon chips. Publix? No. Target? No. Winn Dixie? No. Brunos? No. Food World? No. I was getting tired.

I even called my suppliers, but they had never heard of them.

Off to the Internet, and I found Hershey's.

Ok, I know Hershey's is not REAL chocolate. And their cinnamon chips are probably not real cinnamon. But the bakery buys refined sugar, bleached flour, shortening, margarine, corn syrup and food colors galore. I am hardly going to get all snobby about cinnamon chips.

In our defense, we DO use lots of real butter, real cream and real chocolate.

Back to the supplier, who said they would try to order them. That was in August.

They arrived Tuesday, December 6.

And today I dusted off the recipe for cinnamon nut bread, doubling it for Rosie, our new gigantic 60-quart mixer.

Got all the ingredients mixed, adding the cinnamon chips, nuts and raisins last.

The dough was lovely and soft to work with. There is a certain feel to good dough and I get all excited when I know it's just right.

We sprinkled a little sugar on the tops of the loaves and we all stared at the oven for the last few minutes of baking. We even had customers in the shop who waited for the bread to be done so they could take some warm loaves home.

It looked a little plain right out of the oven, and I could't resist drizzling some glaze over the top.

Simply yummy comfort food.

And it will make the perfect toast tomorrow morning.

Here's the recipe (you will have to do your own math if you don't want to make 30 loaves).

 

Rosie's Cinnamon Nut Raisin Bread

• 14 lbs. bread flour
• 5 quarts water
• 6 oz. instant yeast
• 2 lbs. sugar
• 1/2 cup salt
• 5 lbs. cinnamon chips
• 2 lbs. pecans
• 2 lbs. raisins

Combine first five ingredients in mixer. Using dough hook, mix 8-9 minutes. Watch dough and add additional flour or water if needed within the first three minutes. Add cinnamon chips, pecans and raisins at end and mix until incorporated.

Oil dough and transfer to large bowl. Bulk proof at room temperature until doubled. Divide into 1-pound loaves and place in oiled loaf pans. Proof again until doubled. Brush tops with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 350oF until done, approximately 35-40 minutes.

Drizzle with sugar glaze when cool.

Gingerbread Persons

 

Rosie helped make this year's gingerbread persons. All 220 of them.

Of course, without Suzanne, they'd be plain or ordinary.

And that's not the kind of place that Mary's Cakes is. Neither plain nor ordinary.

So every year, about this time, we mix up a batch of gingerbread cookie dough and roll out the naked bodies.

Then we mix up a really big batch of royal icing, and Suzanne gets to work clothing each one in his or her unique costume.

Each one is different, but there are themes.

There are always Bama and Auburn fans (Suzanne went to BOTH UA and AU). Party persons with tacky Christmas sweaters and pinstripes and bow ties. Glamorous gals in swimsuits and evening gowns. Funky folks in all types of sportswear and Hawaiian shirts.

And of course there are brides in off-the shoulder dresses and veils, holding bouquets.

She adds incredible details like Pearls. And flip flops. And wristwatches. And hats. You never know what her mind will come up with next.

This year there is even a pirate with an eye patch and sword, a ship's mate with a striped shirt, and a mermaid.

Plus Santa (with a big "S" on his belt buckle).

When the icing dries, we attach a ribbon for hanging on the tree (better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it...) and package each person in a protective celophane bag tied with another ribbon.

They are suitable for hanging on the tree, but also deliciously edible.

Come on down and pick out your favorite. They'll be ready and hanging from our tree at Dickens Downtown.

Or make your own. Here's the smaller version of Rosie's Recipe...

GINGERBREAD PERSONS

Shortening	1 c.
Granulated Sugar	1 c.
Dark Molasses	1 c.
Cold Water	1/4 c.
All Purpose flour	6 c.
Ground Ginger	2 tsp.
Ground Cinnamon	2 tsp.
Salt	1 tsp.

Cream shortening, sugar and molasses. Add cold water and mix thoroughly. Add Dry ingredients and mix to incorporate.

Roll out and bake at 350F until done, about 10 minutes. Makes about 2 dozen.

Decorate with royal icing.

Note: Dough rolls and cuts better if slightly chilled. Pierce head  with straw or decorating tip before baking if you plan to add a ribbon to tie on the tree.

Saponification

sa·pon·i·fy. verb \sə-ˈpä-nə-ˌfī\:

to convert (as fat) into soap; specifically to hydrolyze (a fat) with alkali to form a soap and glycerol.

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Making soap is like baking. It's a process that involves mixing quality ingredients according to a recipe to create a finished product.

Fortunately, you can do it decently without having all that much knowledge of chemistry.

Which is a good thing since I never got beyond high school chemistry.

Yesterday I made soap from saponified olive oil (cold press, extra virgin), dried lavender and organic lavender salts (which I originally bought to take a bath with, but hadn't gotten around to using).

It has just recently been cut into bars and smells WONDERFUL. Just like lavender.

I used a lye calculator to determine how much sodium hydroxide was needed for the amount of oil I planned to use. The online calculator also gives a range of liquid (water, milk or herbal tea) needed to activate the sodium hydroxide and I used the high end of the range. The soap is still pretty soft and will need a few weeks for the water to fully evaporate.

So I just had to do it again. With less water. To see if less water will produce a harder soap. Soap-making ingredients can be expensive and hard soap lasts longer than soft soap.

Today's ingredients include various fats purchased at the local health food store...

• Almond oil, 16 oz.
• Cocoa butter, 7 oz.
• Shea butter, 7 oz.

I'm going to saponify these with 3.8 oz. of sodium hydroxide (NaOH, or lye) from the local hardware store, liquified in 8 oz. of water (from my tap) -- the low end of the range which is 8 - 11 fluid ounces.

To this I am adding coffee grounds (for texture and color -- and because I think coffee and chocolate and almonds go well together) and sea salt.

Sea salt contains skin nourishing minerals such as magnesium, zinc, calcium, potassium and iodine. Some of the many benefits include:

• relaxes skin muscles
• cleanses and detoxifies face and body
• sea salts draw toxins out of the body, which will naturally lead to feeling refreshed
• grainy and therefore makes for a great scrub
• increases blood circulation

The mixture is poured into a mold to set (looks just like cake batter, huh?). When firm, it will be cut into bars and left to cure and continue drying for about three weeks.

Then we will have the most lovely soaps.

They will be available in Mary's Cupboard before Christmas.

Rosie's Recipe for Yea, Alabama! King Cakes

Yeah, I know that King Cake season doesn't start until January 6, but we could not resist making a batch in honor of the Bama-LSU game this week.

With Rosie Towanda "Precious" Hobart (our newly won-in-the-Get-Back-To-Scratch-Signature-Item-Contest 60-quart mixer), we've stepped up the game. Here is her recipe:

Rosie's King Cake Dough

(All proportions are in pounds and ounces unless noted)

Starter:

• 11-0 bread flour
• 0-8 instant yeast
• 1 gallon cold milk

Mix together with dough hook at speed 2 for 6 minutes. Scrape out into a large bowl and proof until doubled in size.

Dough:

• Starter (above)
• 11-0 bread flour
• 12-0 butter
• 1-0 granulated sugar
• 1-0 almond paste
• 0-8 salt
• 0-4 orange zest (we use Orange Rappe from Albert Uster Imports)

Use dough hook, mix all ingredients at speed 2 for 8 minutes or until dough is forms a smooth ball. 

Divide into 1-4 balls (makes 38).

Roll out with rolling pin to form a rectangle about 4 inches by 15 inches.

Fill generously with cream cheese filling  (we mixed 15 pounds of cream cheese, 3 pounds of granulated sugar, and 1/2 cup of Lemon Rappe), roll up to make a rope and shape into a circle. Tuck ends in and pinch the seams to form a continuous circle.

Place on sheet pans (four per pan). Proof until doubled in size, then bake at 325 until golden brown and cooked through (20-40 minutes, depending on your oven).

Cool, put plastic baby inside from bottom, glaze and sprinkle with colored sugar.

Traditional Mardi Gras colors are gold, green and purple. While the vast majority of the King Cakes we made were red and white, we also made a few purple and gold for our LSU fans.

Reauxll Tide!

Bakers I follow...

Thanks to the Get Back To Scratch movement, I've discovered an online world of passionate food artists. I visit anonomously in the middle of the night and am awed by their work.

There are some amazing bakers out there. Many one-person shops that bake from shared kitchens or their homes, take online orders, or sell at local farmer's markets. They are incredible artists, and extremely passionate about their baking. These are real people, local treasures, and inspiring individuals.

I follow several of them; here are a few of my favorites.

Sugar Tooth Bakery, a.k.a. Meghan. You gotta love her, she was our main competition in the Signature Scratch Item Contest, and named her new mixer after me. She makes beautiful and edgy sweets for vegans and folks with food sensitivities in Austin, Texas; I'm sure there are many people in Tuscaloosa who would love for her to be within shopping distance. These are her Sesame Street cupcakes. She has a great website, but I follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Southern Scratch, a.k.a. Kathryn and Reid, and their brand new baby, Josephine. They live on a farm in Washington, Georgia and bake for private events and the Washington Farmers' Market. I get hungry reading detailed descriptions of the yummy comfort foods Kathryn makes for her husband and their customers. She has also has a webpage and blog, but the best place to follow her is on Facebook. Here it's not so much about the photos, but the vivid descriptions of her food.

Les Pop Sweets, a.k.a. Elizabeth, makes cake pops in South Orange County, California. Beautifully decorated cake pops. She's just getting started and is incredibly fresh and candid with her discoveries and accomplishments. Also on Facebook.

Bake at 350, a.k.a. Bridget, is one of those overachievers that you just have to love. The best place to follow her is the blog, beautifully designed and chock full of lovely photos of cookies. I found it searching for images of cookies and visit for sheer cookie envy. They are NOT part of the Get Back To Scratch movement.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, what baking blogs, facebook pages or websites inspire YOU?