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Pizza

So, we had to bow out of Tuesdays with Dorie. Nothing against the group, but we started coming up with our own ideas for weekly projects, and our plans weren't compatible with that group's weekly baking schedule.

One of our first projects was to make pizza. Lee used to make it, and we were convinced that we could make it at home again, not to mention better than he had before. The crust came from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible, and it is fantastic and fantastically easy. You can let it rise for just an hour or overnight, if you can anticipate the craving. The crust is thin but fluffy and is best for a simple, one-topping pizza. Come to think of it, we have some pepperoni in the house, in the same drawer as a big hunk of mozzarella. Perfect.

Tuesday with Rose, Mark, and James

matzo

Usually about this time, we're mulling over the results of our entry for Tuesdays with Dorie. This weekend, however, the cake baking clashed with Passover. So instead of baking with Dorie, Lee did a little baking with Rose (Levy Beranbaum, that is).

With a recipe from The Bread Bible, Lee made a batch of fresh matzot for our Saturday seder. He also cooked a beef brisket in the Mark Bittman style. And Jen tackled her first ever potato gratin using James Peterson's Essentials of Cooking as a guide.

We'll be back to Dorie next week with a peanut butter torte, as chosen by Ugg Smell Food.

TWD: Carrot Cake!

Success! Well, mostly. This week's TWD challenge, by Amanda of Slow Like Honey, was for Bill's Big Carrot Cake. I'd been intrigued by this one since I first brought home Dorie Greenspan's book. I love a big, beautiful cake and I've never made a carrot cake at home, although it's one of my favorites.

We baked the three-layer cake in 9-inch rounds, as suggested by the recipe. I checked the oven temperature with an oven thermometer to ensure that the heat was right. I left the cakes in the oven, undisturbed, until it was time to check for doneness. And still, the cakes sank. Just a few mm right in the center, but when we stacked them three-high, the sink was more apparent. This also happened with my 1-2-3-4 cake! What gives?

The taste, however, was extraordinary. We omitted the coconut (I can't stand it) and used walnuts and golden raisins as filler alongside the carrots. With the cream cheese frosting, the final product was delicate and moist and very rich. We served it to friends with homemade vanilla ice cream and iced coffee (this is Tucson, after all). More photos here.

I can't wait to make one of these for my mother's birthday. Carrot cake is her favorite, and this may be the best balance of richness/tenderness I've ever tasted in one.

Cake Friday: Olive Oil & Rosemary Cake with Orange Confit

Olive Oil & Rosemary Cake with Orange Confit

We've had the Babbo cookbook since it was released and for six years it has moved with us. That's three states and probably a dozen apartments. But have we cooked from it? I'm embarrassed to say no. We've been making a serious effort to either use or retire the cookbooks we've collected, so last week, we dusted off Babbo and quickly found the Olive Oil & Rosemary cake. It was love at first sight: a sweet and savory pound cake with six ingredients. The only item we needed to buy was the fresh rosemary and it was on.

The cake was incredibly simple to make, and the end result was moist and flavorful. It was dessert-like but not too sweet (which had its down side: we each ate two slices). We apologize, Mr. Batali. More recipes from Babbo will be made soon.

To accompany the cake, Lee made orange confit from a recipe we found on an old NYT Minimalist video. Here's how it works:

Take four whole oranges and blanch them in a dutch oven of water for 30 seconds. Dump the water and do the same thing again. Then quarter the oranges and put them in the pot with two cups of sugar and enough fresh water to cover. Keep the whole thing at a low simmer (just a stray bubble here and there) for eight hours. You might need to add a little extra water from time to time, to keep the oranges covered. When eight hours is up, you can take the oranges out and let them rest, covered and at room temperature, overnight. The next day, arrange the oranges in the bottom of the dutch oven with two cups of sugar and enough water to cover (again). Keep it at a simmer for eight hours (again). Let them rest over night. The third day: orange slices, sugar, water, simmer. The oranges are quite delicate by the end. They're soft enough to cut and eat with a fork (rind and all); the flavor is kind of related to that of marmalade, albeit with a fuller orange flavor.

We're definitely making this one again.

Cake Friday and news.

1-2-3-4 Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

A Year in the Kitchen has been quiet lately; my apologies. We have been busy with a new project around here... Jen is pregnant! We are expecting our tiny sous chef on September 27.

For the past couple of months, cooking has been limited, to say the least. This is mostly due to morning sickness. Jen hasn't had many cravings (potatoes, icy-cold foods and some chocolate, but that isn't too unusual) but has many aversions: namely chicken and fish. Now that we're safely into trimester two and the nausea has subsided, we're back in the kitchen baking up treats and trying new vegetarian dishes.

To celebrate, we've instituted a new tradition: Cake Friday! We kicked things off last week with 1-2-3-4 Cake, a classic yellow cake from Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food. It was relatively easy to make and delicious--very moist, very rich. We used farmers' market fresh eggs and homemade vanilla. We also used her recipe for buttercream frosting, adding in a little bittersweet chocolate at the end. Yum!

Mini Madelines

mini madeleine

We recently made a batch of mini madelines using Dorie Greenspan's basic madeline recipe (from her most recent cookbook, Baking: From My Home to Yours). The batter is mixed and then must rest overnight. The next day, gently scoop just half a teaspoon or so of batter into each tiny mold. The results were light, cakey and lemony. We'll definitely make these again (although I think I'd like a larger madeline mold--we have only one mini-mold and getting through the batter took several batches!

Scones

measuring cups

Our friend Tonya recently gave us the wonderful Rose Bakery cookbook, Breakfast Lunch Tea. Filled with recipes for brunchy treats, we kicked things off with their classic scone recipe. As we put the put the recipe together, I continually asked Lee: how is this different from a baking powder biscuit? It's essentially the same, albeit lightly sweetened (we did not mix any fruit or nuts into this first batch). The upside? We ate them with both breakfast and dinner.