Domestic Friday: Marmelade Cake and Wellington's Special Pale Ale

Ah, marmelade cake. It's so good it survives even my accidental screw-ups. Like the slight charring of the edges. Or my dislike of fiddling with parchment paper, so the top and bottom both become a little too brown. Whatever, it all looks fine if you take the time to pose it just so in the afternoon light. Don't worry, I'm usually drinking my tea out of the same mug I've used for the past two days, and the only plate is the shirt that catches my crumbs. But I figured I would make the effort for you guys.

The recipe is Lucy Waverman's, printed years ago in the Globe and Mail. I've reproduced it below, just in case the Globe ever takes it down. Take her advice though, and put the effort into cutting out the parchment paper. You won't have to fluff your cake as much I did.


Ingredients:
Cake:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup room temperature butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup Seville orange marmalade
• 1 teaspoon grated orange rind
• 2 eggs

Glaze:

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup orange juice

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Place parchment paper on base of an 8-inch round cake pan. Butter sides of pan (I would grease the underside of the parchment paper first too.)
2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl.
3. Add butter, sugar, marmalade, rind and eggs. Beat with an electric mixer until well mixed. Spoon batter into prepared cake pan (it's pretty thick).
4. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes in middle of oven or until a toothpick comes out clean. *Place a layer of parchment paper over top of the cake during the final 15 minutes of baking to keep if from becoming too brown.*
5. Bring sugar and orange juice to boil. Remove from heat. Prick holes in cake (or stab it with a fork!!) and brush with glaze. Cool for 30 minutes, then remove cake from pan and let it cool some more.
It tastes wonderful with tea, but give this cake its due and skip the bags for loose tea leaves.

You could also drink some beer. This blog will not judge you. This week's beer is a shout-out to my hometown of Guelph. Wellington Brewery is Ontario's, and apparently, Canada's oldest indie. Founded in 1985, it is still going strong in the G-spot, as well as wherever its distinctive rubber boot taps can be found. The Special Pale Ale is, surprisingly, mild on the hops. It's good for drinking in quantity, but if you're expecting a West Coast-style IPA, you'll probably want more bitterness. But then nothing will ever make you happy, will it?

Domestic Failday: Crappy Cooking and Trafalgar's Irish Ale

Instead of my default domestic activity, I was going to do something different. I was going to photograph my cooking. Then I would talk about how I lost my cooking mojo, but now I wanted to experience the joys of cooking for myself again, etc. etc. Cooking brings us together. Cooking will save the world. Unfortunately, it's hard to get all poetic about food when you've just produced a big pile of blah. Or, rather, a puddle of blah, as my attempt at making the Mushroom Curry from the original Moosewood Cookbook resulted in a big pot of spicy-flavoured water. Every so often, though, a mushroom floats by at its leisure.

Frankly, I blame those hippies at Moosewood. I'm not in Victoria anymore, so I can go back blaming hippies for everything. (Though to be fair to our hemp-wearing, kombucha-raising brethren, it was my fault for adding too much water.)

At least there's beer to dull the pain! I pulled this out of the fridge, telling my roommate that "this will make things allllll better." He seemed confused. "So, you're going to add more liquid to something that's already too liquidy?" "No," I replied, "I'm going to add more liquid to me." And indeed I did. Now, I know that's not the perfect glass to be serving a brown ale like this in, but post-dinner disaster, I didn't much care. Oh, the mushrooms I had sliced and the onions I had diced. After all that, my Irish Ale from Oakville's Trafalgar Ales and Meads (who also brewed this Smoked Oatmeal Stout) was going into the nearest glass. Let's all be glad it wasn't a sippy cup. It's a nice beer, not aggressive at all, and with a flavour that's more sweet than bitter. It also seems to sometimes appear under the name Celtic Pure Irish Ale, but I prefer the simpler name. It reminds me less of Michael Flatley.

Domestic Thursday: Whoopie Pies and Stout

American Thanksgiving has passed. The piped-in carols have arrived. The Christmas season is upon us. Truth is, I have always loved Christmas, in spite of my atheist cred. But even those who don't get as excited as I do by the sight of holiday specials on the TV schedule likely appreciate the baked goods and booze. Recently, I made a recipe that combined them both.


Meet Gingerbread Whoopie Pies with Rum Filling, the star of this week's domestic Thursday. The cookie base comes from this McCormick's recipe, which uses lemon crème for the filling. I ignored that part. Not nearly boozy enough. Instead I found a recipe online for rum buttercream icing, which seemed like an awesome idea, especially since I had some Kraken Spiced Rum in the cabinet. With a slightly I've made these twice this season. Paired with a Dark and Stormy made from the same bottle of rum, they've been making my spirits bright and it's only the first of December. Just imagine how jolly/bloated I'll be when the 24th comes around.

Instructions:
Cookies: This recipe, with some minor alterations:
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch of cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup blackstrap molasses
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Filling: Slightly adapted from this recipe:
1/2 cup softened butter
1 package powdered sugar
4 tablespoons rum
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Mix dry ingredients (flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg, cloves and salt) in a medium bowl. Set aside. Beat butter and brown sugar in a large bowl with your mixer until nice and fluffy. Add molasses, egg and vanilla; beat well. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until well mixed. Press dough into a thick flat disk. Wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 350°F. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. (I've found I've had better results getting cookie spread, and thus more manageable cookie sandwiches, if I press the balls flat-ish before baking.)
3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until edges of cookies just begin to brown. Remove and cool completely. COMPLETELY. Otherwise your icing will melt all over the place.
4. Beat butter for the icing with a mixer until nice and creamy. Slowly add about a cup of the powdered sugar, beating slowly until blended. Add the liquid ingredients (rum, milk, extract), beating until blended. Add powdered sugar until you get the consistency you like.
5. Assemble whoopie pies by taking one cookie, topping the flat side with a decent amount of icing, then adding another cookie on top. Then eat.


And here is this week's domestic beer, the Smoked Oatmeal Stout from Trafalgar Ales and Meads. Since my last experience with a smoked beer was like drinking a liquified charcoal briquette, I was wary. But this was only subtly smoky, and as hearty as any good stout. While we're on the topic of stouts, I was shocked to find out that most "chocolate" or "coffee" stouts are rarely brewed with either of those foods, with the flavour coming from the darker roast of the malt instead. There are exceptions, and I hope to talk about one of them next week. But oatmeal stouts are brewed with real oats, which makes them smooth instead of particularly oat-y. So, drink this or McAuslan's, and you won't be drinking A PINT OF LIES.

THIS IS NOT A LIFESTYLE BLOG

Do you see that picture? Doesn't it look perfect? Apple ginger compote, complete with vanilla ice cream. Local vanilla ice cream. You can see pieces of bean in the ice cream, so you know it means business. Basically, I've shot the compote as if I was the camera man for All My Children and I was filming Susan Lucci. Can't you taste the wholesomeness?

Well, this photo is a LIE. I am no lifestyle blogger. And that compote is basically inedible.

As much as I would like to blame the eerily perfect Swedes at Green Kitchen Stories for my failure- the place from which I grabbed the recipe, with its oh-so-Scandinavian whole cardamom seeds- the fault lies not with them. Actually, no fault ever lies with them. I secretly suspect they were cyborgs manufactured by Ikea, so I would feel bad about my imperfect life and try to fill the emptiness with Bjørnsklärn candle holders.

In any case, my problems began when I couldn't find lemon balm leaves at the grocery store, and figured lemongrass would make an able and unique substitute. East Meets West! Perhaps I could blog about this recipe too! And an attractive blond named Sven would love me for it! I had never cooked with lemongrass before though, and didn't realize it was one of those cook with and then remove seasonings, like bay leaves. I chopped it up into a million little pieces, and now a bitter, woody surprise awaits anyone who bites into the compote.

It's only edible if I drown it in ice cream. I have two jars of that stuff -that's a lot of ice cream. Still, even in death we are in life, and even in cooking failure I look towards potential success. Cardamom and ginger-flavoured applesauce is such a good idea, that it has to work somehow. Just with no lemongrass, and ground cardamom instead of crunchy, soapy whole seeds, and an attractive Scandinavian family unit I am importing just for the occasion.

Links To Entertain and Educate

Originally, I was going to write a long post today about street harassment, male privilege and more. Yes, I had yet another creepy run-in with some guy on the street last night. But after sleeping off my spleen, I just didn't want to. Maybe next week, when my bile is back at fighting levels, I'll get around to it. Until then, enjoy photographic evidence of my Indian adventures (matar paneer - paneer made by me, bitches! - saag and rice) and a few links.

I saw Whip It about two weeks ago, and thought it was a fun but predictable movie about doing what you love. Especially if it involves kicking ass on a roller derby track. But according to some dude in Psychology Today, it's really about being a big, old, clichéd lesbian. Fortunately, there's an awesome, line-by-line critique of why that analysis is a load of privileged crap.

I have a lot of respect for Richard Dawkins. Sure, he can be a little condescending here and there, but the man knows what he's talking about. He's got a new book out that's on my to-read list and an interview in Salon. Proof you can't take the professor out of the pundit: he keeps on correcting the interviewer's terminology.

For all you Montrealers out there: How zoning laws and police crackdowns might be bleeding all the fun out of Mile End. I'm somewhat entertained that there's a "Morality, Alcohol and Drug" squad. It's like they came up with an Anti-Fun Taskforce.

Since it's the season of spooky, here's James Hynes' list of the best Halloween stories. The post itself is funny and there's some interesting-looking stuff on it. I'll cop to only having read two of the things on the list, but that just means I have my reading sewn up until October.

Adventures In Indian Cooking

Journey with me, if you will, back in time to January 2009. The world was still in love with Obama, Michael Jackson was still alive and nobody had ever heard of balloon boy*. I made my resolutions, flush with the promise of a new year. And one of them was to learn how to cook Indian food.

Now, as 2009 limps to a finish, it's time to see how I'm doing with that. I would show you pictures, but I'm actually fresh out of leftovers at the moment. Although, perhaps, that's for the best. Indian, while the tastiest to my palate, is really not the most photogenic of cuisines. There's a reason why whatever photos do exist usually include an artfully placed green pepper or two. And that's so we know the goo we're looking at is supposed to be for eating.

Tasty, tasty eating.

But I digress. Between graduating and moving, I didn't start on this resolution until a couple of months ago. Since then I've tried my hand at chicken korma, chana masala, safaid keema, dum aloo and tari aloo. Right now my dum aloo is awesome, my chana masala is pretty good and both my tari aloo and chicken korma are tasty but could use a thicker sauce. The less said about the unfortunate safaid keema incident ("It looks like finely spice baby diarrhea!"), the better. My spice collection has expanded and the limits of my cooking abilities have never been clearer. So here are my helpful tips, in case you want to clip n' save for your own Indian adventures.

1. That mystery bag of spice you've had in your kitchen since forever could be many things, but it is probably not garam masala. No matter how much you may wish it to be or even use it as such. The smart money is on it being nutmeg or cinnamon though.
   
2. To get real garam masala, you should head to a spice store or at least one of those tiny Indian food markets. If you're in a hurry and the only place you can hit on your lunch hour is the Provigo, you'll probably end up with a less than satisfactory substitute. I'm to embarassed to say what I'm using, but the initials of my shame are "C" and "H."
3. Trust the salt in Indian recipes, but no necessarily the oil.
   
4. Sometimes there simply isn't enough cornstarch in the world to fix a cooking mess
5. Cooking naan bread is never going to happen, so just grab the stuff from the fine folks at President's Choice and call it a night.
   

But I'm becoming more and more ambitious. Tomorrow I'm making a plain saag to use up some spinach in the fridge. Then I'm braving what will surely be the treacherous lands of paneer making as the first step towards matar paneer. And then- who knows? Maybe you'll see me building a real tandoori oven in the shared courtyard.


*Neither had I until I checked Twitter earlier today.

The Random Bits

Well, I think I waited too long to get back to the porn guys after they liked my write-up. D'oh.

In other mildly annoying news, I have cookies that need to be squirreled away for two whole days, TWO DAYS people, before I can eat them. This is after I had to brown butter, mix dough, chill everything for a few hours, shape dough in teaspoons, bake, heat preserves, strain preserves, and then assemble sandwich cookies. I have spent less time studying for some of my exams than I have making these cookies. When they've finished maturing, I'm going to post a picture. Not only as a monument to my blinkered dedication, but for educational purposes. To illustrate how graceful little sandwiches of wit and elegance on the recipe site can become lumpen oozing messes in the right hands. Not that I would care, as long as they come out delicious.

(Oh, and I wrote my last undergraduate exam on Friday. I hope. I do not want to be too noisy in my celebrations just yet, lest ye Administration gods smite me.)

University, or the Death of Culinary Aspirations

No knitting pictures today. The torso and left sleeve of the Greenbell sweater are finished now, but I want to wait until it's proven flattering to take pictures. My only other project is the seemingly endless lace mesh of my Everlasting Bagstopper, made from an everlasting skein of Butterfly cotton in a rich red. I know conventionally-grown cotton is the devil, but it was a cast off (ah, wordplay) from a friend, and I figure using vintage yarn would be better than going out to buy some hemp. So, instead you get a picture of the dinner I whipped up tonight, in the hour I had at home before I had to run to a class movie screening.

At the beginning of the week I bought a bag of baby spinach and some radishes in a rare fit of health-induced shopping. I preceded to make a spinach and cheddar omelette, a large spinach salad with radishes and cherry tomatoes, dressed in an easy, homemade vinaigrette, and... still had a bag of spinach and a bunch of radishes left. But I wasn't about to go shopping again, so I just grabbed ingredients in the kitchen and hoped for the best. Praise the parents for sending a box of non-perishables. It's just fettucine, sautéed radishes with some spinach thrown in to wilt, a touch of herbs and garlic... and then a generous slosh from the mysterious Pad Thai sauce jar my parents sent up. Verdict? Surprisingly tasty, considering its chimeric origins. And yet... there's still spinach left. Screw the bag- now that's everlasting.

Baking, Cooking, and Butching It Up

Here are my hordes of cupcakes, ready for the greatest moment in any young girl's life: Cupcake Day at work! I did this last year with the other summer students. I bake the cupcakes, everyone else brings in a topping, and the decorating begins. The results can be used either as a Dadaist experiment, or to illustrate to disgusting (but delicious) consumption of Western culture. Now, my parents have a few old adages, and one of their most cherished is that People who use baking mixes are morally suspect. So don't tell them that I made these from a mix, and from the cheaper brand with the strangely irradiated, glowing tulips on the box. Usually I'm militant about making everything from scratch, but I can never muster that sense of righteousness for cupcakes. The baked part is just a holding pad for an inch of toppings anyway.


This is a photo from last Thursday, of a salad I made for a Last Hurrah for Guelph Party, a dinner/murder mystery before we all went back to school. It started out as an attempt to make Marian Burros's Farro Salad with Tomatoes and Corn, after I combed the archives of The Wednesday Chef for a salad that would be quick, simple and vegan. I figured the farro, an ancient, hearty grain, would be somewhere next to the kelp and the agave nectar at the Stone Store, the local purveyor of all rations hippie, so I sent my poor Dad down- the day of the party. A few hours later, we had no farro, and burnt quinoa that was supposed to be a farro-replacement. However, we did have one bag of orzo, a pasta with pieces the size of rice grains. So, it became Orzo Salad with Tomatoes and Corn. The only almonds in our house had to be slivered by hand, and the white wine vinegar replaced with a mixture of red wine and rice vinegars, but it turned out rather tasty. I do think it missed that certain nutty element of the farro, and next time I would replace it with spelt or bulgur but it was a qualified success.

Unlike my costume. I got to the party only to find out that I was supposed to be a woman. Which meant the twenty minutes I spent drawing on a mustache were wasted.

The Top 5: Online Baking Recipes

I've recently been on a bit of a baking kick lately. I had the People's Liberated Knitting Front of McGill over for tea and British comedy on Saturday, and a potluck later that night, and so I had to bake something. My secret shame is that I love baking more than cooking anyway. My parents let me bake before I could cook, because I was a notoriously accident-prone child and if I was baking they could just pop it in the oven after I was finished. I remember standing on a kitchen chair, carefully measuring out ingredients with my parent's yellow table and teaspoons, then levelling them off with a butter knife. I've always made sure to level off all my measurements just as conscientiously, convinced that disaster would surely follow if I did not. I usually used the recipes my mom had copied out in cursive on index cards, or the food-splattered Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, but now I use the Internet. The recipes are easy to find, free, and if I drop an egg on it I can just print off another copy. Here are my top 5 favorites.

1. Alton Brown's The Chewy Cookie: Delicious chocolate chip cookies, with a little caramel bite. I make these every time I want to perk someone else up, and then scarf a few myself.
2. Orangette's Lemon Yogurt Cake: This has been making the blog rounds lately, and since she's had it up since 2004 that's definitely a testament. It's not a sweet cake, but it has an elegant simplicity and a refreshing lemony bite. It's also very easy to make. The batter is whipped up in one bowl without even needing beaters, and the glaze doesn't need to be boiled in a separate saucepan or anything. I've subbed olive oil in for the canola when I've been low and it's turned out fine, and I also recommend using Liberté's 2% yogurt if you're in Quebec.
3. Upside-Down Pear Cardamom Cake: There's a delicious blend of flavours here, with the simple cake lightly spiced with cardamom, and then topped off with Anjou pears softened during baking with a simple caramel. It doesn't take much more work than your average simple cake, and looks lovely on a simple white dish. The recipe gets a little shrill about the fresh cardamom, but you know what? I'm cheap, and I am lazy, and the McCormick's ground cardamom tastes just fine. That's a photo of a slice of leftover cake, which I'll shortly be enjoying for lunch.
4. Cakeman's Red Velvet Cake: Make sure to use the entire bottle of red food colouring for that unnatural red glow. The point with Red Velvet Cake is to make it look like it's fake! It should be at home next to a set of acrylic nails and a bottle of Aquanet. The cake tastes delicious too, and makes for some great cupcakes. I'm not one for cream cheese icing, so I usually ditch that for a simple white buttercream frosting.
5. Baker's Best One Bowl Brownies: Yes, it's a recipe from the back of a box. Yes, it looks a little pedestrian compared to the others here. But they are my favorite simple brownies, and I've been making them since I was a little kid. I lost the recipe I stole from home, but I found it online again! The official Baker's recipe seems to involve a microwave in some capacity, and has dropped the delicious, and very sweet, icing. Since my family was always microwave-less (my Dad was convinced we would all sprout tumors and die once one was brought into the house), and I love sweets this simply will not do. Here's the classic.

Pud!

Bread pudding does not get a lot of respect. Any time I tell anyone that one of my favorite desserts is bread pudding, I get a raised eyebrow. But I decided I would go ahead and make bread pudding for my friend's potluck anyway. Screw the naysayers! Bread pud forever!

This bread pudding is an unholy, university student-ized chimera of about three different recipes I found online, along with my own experiments. I followed the body of this one, mainly, except I used plain white bread instead of cinnamon challah because it's cheaper, and instead added some cinnamon to the milk mixture. Then I substituted a cup of eggnog for some of the milk, on a suggestion from some other recipe, and reduced the sugar a tiny bit. Then I ground chocolate, cinnamon, and sugar over the whole thing because the spice grinders that President's Choice makes have always intrigued me, so I finally bought some to entertain myself. I also made the vanilla sauce from this recipe because I didn't want to go and buy bourbon.

Oh, and there's a ring, thimble, coin and button in there too. I'm not trying to support the dentists of the greater Montreal area- I warned the kids before I served it to them, I swear. Rather, I thought it would be nice to engage in the old Christmas pudding tradition, where the one who gets the ring in their slice will be the next wed, the one with the coin will have wealth, and the one with the thimble will have a life full of luck. Conflicting stories tell me that the latter may stand for spinsterhood, but since I'm keeping the button (which supposedly means bachelorhood? Stupid conflicting traditions) in we'll keep that one happy. Totally outdated custom? Hell yeah. But that's what Christmas is for! Why else would I watch the early 90s commercials on all of my Christmas tapes? I want to re-live the time, no matter how backwards, when the GST was new, Eaton's still existed, and mullets were de rigueur at DeVry.
Here it is baking in the oven. I know it's a crappy picture, but I wasn't about to risk my life and limb (I have a phobia of heat, mmkay?) to get a better one.


I was supposed to take pictures of it before serving at the party, but alas... I forgot. It turned out much better than I expected. Here's the recipe, if you're interested in recreating my experiment:

Martha's Bastard Bread Pud For the Holidays

Pudding:
8 eggs
1 loaf of day-old white bread
1 cup eggnog
2 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 pinches salt
1 cup of raisins
President's Choice Cinnamon, Chocolate and Sugar Grinder*
Sauce:
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup whipping cream
President's Choice Cinnamon, Chocolate and Sugar Grinder*

*optional

1. Butter 9x13" baking or casserole dish, and set aside.
2. Tear bread into small pieces about 1" in size, place in large mixing bowl.
3. In another large mixing bowl, whisk eggs together to blend. Add eggnog, milk, whipping cream, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and salt. Whisk until-blended.
4. Pour mixture over bread pieces. Stir in raisins, making sure that all bread pieces are well-soaked in the mixture.
5. Spoon into prepared baking dish. Cover and refigerate for 2 hours.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If desired, grate PC Cinnamon, Chocolate, and Sugar generously over top of pudding. Bake uncovered for 1 1/2 hours, or until pudding is puffy and golden.
7. As pudding cools, mix sugar, vanilla and cream together in saucepan over medium heat. If desired, grate in a fair amount of PC Cinnamon, Chocolate and Sugar to the sauce.
8. Serve pudding warm with sauce.