Are you ready for summer berry season? I am so ready.
It may only be mid-June, but it's warming up and I'm ready for something cold and bubbly. I've pretty much given up on beer at this point, and a girl on my budget can't live on champagne....so when fizzy cravings kick in, I usually reach for the simple treat of a homemade soda. This one plays the sweet, jammy fruitiness of barely cooked blackberries off the tart kick of fresh lemon juice, with subtly herbal hints from the thyme.
It's refreshing. It's a teeny bit decadent. It's a mystical, deep purplish red. It's the fruity essence of summer in a glass.
Would you like one now? I'm already halfway through pouring myself one as I type this.
Blackberry, Lemon & Thyme Syrup
Makes about 4 cups of syrup, enough for quite a few sodas
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
3 half pints of blackberries (approx. 18 oz.)
a dozen sprigs of fresh thyme (plus more, if using for garnish)
juice of 5 lemons (about 1 cup)
Combine sugar and water in a medium sized saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Bring just to a boil, add blackberries and thyme, reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes, then remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Place mixture in blender and pulse a few times until just blended. Straining mixture through a fine mesh strainer* to catch thyme stems, blackberry seeds & solids, slowly pour into a storage container that can hold at least 5 cups of liquid. Pour lemon juice through the strainer to catch pulp & seeds, directly into the blackberry syrup. Stir or shake (depending upon whether you are or are not James Bond) to combine, refrigerate until cold.
To serve, pour one part syrup into a glass and top with three parts seltzer or club soda. Garnish with a sprig of fresh thyme for fanciness. Other ways to serve: I think this would be truly lovely as a more grown-up beverage. A splash of gin over ice before adding the syrup and soda would be perfect, pairing the herbal notes in the gin against the blackberry and thyme flavors sounds just heavenly. If gin's not your cup of tea, I think a touch of this syrup in a chilled glass of prosecco might just be the ultimate summer refreshment.
Try it! Tell me what you think! Happy summer to all! :)
[ *This step will take a while, because the syrup is thick and full of seeds and some leftover fruit that won't want to make it through the strainer. Take your time, although you can press on some of the fruit solids with the back of a spoon to hurry the process up a bit. ]
I'm not always good in social settings. I mean, I'm a reasonably well-educated thirtysomethingish woman with approachable facial expressions (this last observation is based almost entirely on the fact that people always--always!--come up to me on the street and ask for directions. Never mind that 99.9% of the time I am 100% unqualified to actually give said directions--even after nearly two years in the city, I still mostly couldn't tell you whether I was on the Lower East or the Upper West side without turning around clockwise three times, testing the winds and consulting an app--I have one of those faces that doesn't threaten), I guess. I read a lot of books and online magazine articles, AND I keep current on that fun medieval torture fantasy show that's so popular with all the people right now....I shouldn't ever worry about being awkward in conversational situations, right?
Aaaaaaaaand yet.
Like everybody with even a moderate amount of anxiety issues, I sometimes worry that I'll freeze, you know? Or that I might be confronted with a topic I know absolutely nothing about (hellooo, professional sports, I am looking at you). Or that, faced with either terrifying prospect, I'll go all unhinged and wild-eyed and start spouting off facts about kale or the difficulties of balancing flour mixes for successful gluten-free baking to some terrified stranger glancing over their shoulder for the door. And that is why, my friends, I enjoy events like the ones the BK Swappers put together so very, very much. When you get together with a group of like-minded pickling nerds, backyard gardeners, homemade jam fanatics and infusion enthusiasts, you can talk their ears off about about kale and gluten-free flour blends and they won't run for the door. They actually like it.
These are my people.
My offerings for the swap: three bags of savory almond & pepita granola, and three bottles of blackberry, lemon & thyme syrup (recipe for this is coming soooooon).
Yesterday's swap (these are held bi-monthly) was held in the beautiful backyard of the City Reliquary in Williamsburg, a charming little apartment-sized mini-museum that holds all manner of New York ephemera. The backyard is a little sun-dappled slice of wonder, just right for an event this size, and did I mention that it has a treehouse?
GUYS, IT HAS A TREEHOUSE.
I didn't have anyone to bring with me this time, which is another situation that would usually send me into an anxiety-fueled, knee-hugging tailspin, but I decided to just woman up and go alone. Don't get me wrong, I adore my boyfriend and my friends and their wonderful company more than I can say, but sometimes you've just gotta hitch up your pant legs and wade into an uncomfortable situation alone, then make it your own. I'm trying to be braver these days. Like that nice, sweet little thing, Arya Stark.
Maybe I should get a sword.
As it turns out, I really didn't need to worry as much as I had--the story of my life so far--because the crowd at a BK Swap is always welcoming and awesome, and they bring things like Brie with figs, bottles of rhubarb syrup, homemade cocktail bitters and date-infused brandy with them. It's really hard not to like these people. I met herb-growers, picklers, bakers....even yogurt-makers.
So tempted by all the jams, you have no idea. I could have walked out with just six jars of jam. But then Tim might have had to call Jam Hoarders on me.
Homemade vanilla! Spice blends! Dried seaweed! Fruit butters! Oh my.
I was a momentarily a little sad when I realized I'd have to give this gorgeous pink jar of chive blossom-infused vinegar a miss, because I already had homemade chive blossom vinegar chilling in my refrigerator at home. And then I realized what a kind of awesome dilemma that was to actually be in, and I had to smile.
At one point in the afternoon, it became clear that everyone was sniffing the air here and there, faraway dreamy looks on their faces. In that tiny little backyard, it smelled like heaven....like a sweet, cake-scented heaven filled with marshmallow clouds and frosting cascades. It was a little puzzling, though. While there were quite a few baked goods on offer on the table, it couldn't really account for the aroma which was like DELICIOUS COOKIES BEING FRESHLY PULLED FROM A WARM OVEN OHMYGOD RIGHT NOW. Finally, I heard someone ask the reason why. 'Oh,' someone else replied, pointing two doors down. 'Yeah. That's Momofuku Milk Bar right there.' Ahhhh. Of course. We were basically next door to one of the most famous bakeries in New York. What was filling the sky around us was most likely airborne particles of compost cookie, Funfetti birthday cake truffles, and the famous 'Crack Pie'.
I have to admit, it became a little hard to concentrate after that.
We circulated, each eyeballing the goodies brought by others, speculatively writing our names in scratchy ballpoint under each offering we wanted to trade for. Oh what, you've got homemade fig jam? HOMEMADE FIG JAM IS MY JAM. How about some blackberry, lemon & thyme syrup for you? And so on. After a certain amount of time was up, the hosts called time and the swapping was on for real. In a lovely, chaotic blur of generosity and trading hands, I was suddenly rewarded with a bouquet of Brooklyn-grown herbs, a jar of cinnamon dulce de leche and one of fig jam, a tub of blondies and one of chimichurri, and a gorgeous glass flask of date & cranberry-infused brandy.
So, a checklist: Met some really lovely, welcoming people....check. Spent a perfect sunny Sunday afternoon in June outdoors....check. Made another inch of progress towards becoming a more social & somewhat less anxious adult....check. Took some delicious & lovingly handmade treats home to share....checkity check check check.
Today, I have a special treat for you. May I present....The Timeline of the Creation of a Blog Post in the Mind of Sweet Laurel, in Twelve Hours:
7:47 AM: Wake up, stretch, blink in the sunlight. Allow cartoon bluebirds to alight charmingly on my outstretched finger. Think innocently to self, I'd really like to write a blog post today! I love the internet. Anyone can just start up a blog and share ideas and it's all wonderful.
But what to write about?
Going to pour a cup of coffee and think about that.
9:12 AM: BOOM. Avocado Lime Sorbet. So simple, so creamy, so delicious. So not-requiring-an-ice-cream-maker (a major plus if you're working in a tiny apartment kitchen like mine). I've made this before, and it's a winner. This recipe will make people happy! Hooray, to the blog!
9:13 AM: Better just check Facebook/Pinterest/email/Tastespotting/blog stats/Twitter first. Man. Every other blogger has about a million more followers than I do. Am I, like, the unpopular, quiet pigtailed kid on the playground, turned away and buried nose-deep in Jane Eyre while everyone else is whooping it up over hair tips in Sassy magazine? And where did I get this incredibly, painfully specific mental image from, anyway? Woe. Cry bitter tears into my coffee.
9:17 AM: Still tearing up at the mere mention of Twitter. More coffee. Who cares about followers, anyway? I hate the internet.
10:25 AM: Tears dry. Hey wait, I have integrity. I started a blog because I wanted to share stories and meet readers who are as fanatical about ingredients and process and beautiful results as I am. I am a blogger because it creates a magical kitchen space for me to inhabit and bring others along with me. It's not all about page clicks and retweets and SEO is it? NO. It's about crafting a narrative. And today, it's about silky, pale green avocado sorbet. YES. Onwards! To the blog!
12:12 PM: Still having trouble crafting that first sentence. Come to think of it....what actually is 'SEO', though? I should probably know that. For all I know, it stands for Suitcase Engineers' Organization. Sweet Existential Outrage? Savory Elderberry Orecchiette? Salted caramel on Everything is Outstanding (a viewpoint I can consistently agree with)??
To the Google.
12:17 PM: Well. There sure is a lot here.
1:37 PM: Does anyone actually understand all of this? Reading about search engine optimization has the same effect on me as having just eaten a plain rice cake....I feel as though I've chewed and chewed for a long time on something, but in the end just taken in a lot of air and no actual content.
I've gotten a little sidetracked here. Avocados. Blended to a smooth, luscious puree with tons of fresh lime juice, whipped gently together with sugar. That's something we can all understand.
2:49 PM: Reading blog after beautiful blog by other people, starting to have dreams about white marble countertops and rustic farmhouse tables. Copper saucepans. Fresh flowers. Deep in a fantasy about quitting my day jobs to become a full time food photographer, blogger and self-styled 'lifestyle expert'. Suddenly realize that no one will take expert lifestyle advice from a woman with as many dirty dishes in the sink as I currently have.
2:50 PM: Doing the dishes, grumbling about unfairly perpetrated expectations of perfection as I scrape petrified mustard from plates.
4:51 PM: Write a couple of sentences on perfectly ripe avocados and how to spot them. Take a quick break to Google 'how to become a successful blogger'. Just curious. I mean, I'm sure there's no one right way to.....
....wow. Okay. There are a lot of things I haven't learned how to do yet. Books and books' worth of opinions on the subject of monetizing your blog space, utilizing keywords, optimizing search results and tracking metadata. What is metadata? 'Creating content'? I thought I was creating magic. All this seems at odds with the clean, sunlit kitchen fantasy I want to exist in, where I can happily stir sauces in my copper kitchenware and craft elaborate stories rich with detail around each of my recipes. 21st-century Julia Child with a DSLR. Deep in a new fantasy where I can afford to pay someone who understands all this behind the scenes stuff to write my keywords and track my metadata, while I flit merrily around in the kitchen taking exceptional photographs of my rustic wooden spoon collection. I love the internet. I hate the internet. I love the internet. I hate the internet.
5:37 PM: Finally getting around to writing up the recipe for the sorbet. Wow, this part actually couldn't be simpler. I......love the internet?
Avocado Lime Sorbet (no churning required)
3 perfectly ripe avocados
juice of 6 smallish limes (I know citrus varies in size quite a lot; my six wee limes yielded about 8 T juice)
3/4 cup confectioner's sugar
Peel & cube avocados directly into the pitcher of a blender, cover with lime juice. Blend until creamy, transfer to large mixing bowl. Using a wire whisk, beat in sugar until completely dissolved & evenly distributed. Transfer mixture to a wide container (this is to maximize surface area; I used a large rectangular plastic container from my favorite Swedish megastore), cover tightly with lid or plastic wrap and place in freezer.
Remove container from freezer every thirty minutes for the first three hours of freezing and stir mixture vigorously to homogenize ice crystals. After three hours, allow mixture to freeze completely. Serve (with toasted coconut flakes, ideally!) and enjoy.
7:47 PM: Finally hit 'Publish' on finished sorbet blog entry, pleased with the writing and the photography, and trying not to sweat too much over comparisons to other blogs, career self-doubt, and general existential angst. This recipe will bring joy to someone's day, even if no one ever mentions it on Twitter. I will keep the faith, and live to blog another day. And if only I'd thought of it twelve hours ago (five minutes of blending and stirring plus a day to chill in the freezer = dessert with practically nonexistent effort), I could be enjoying a sweet, luscious frozen scoop of avocado lime sorbet showered with golden flakes of toasted coconut myself right now.
I've been feeling tense and jittery this week, for reasons too innumerable to list here, just a jangled five-four-frame of coiled springlike energy. It feels like the last day before summer vacation, before the start of something grand, and it's hard at times like this to remember that I'm supposed to be a grownup lady instead of an antsy twelve-year-old tomboy with the jitters.
Then just now I ate a bowl of homemade granola I'd assembled with my very own hands and baked two days earlier, which is something that the twelve-year-old me would never have done, and came back to reality again, just a little bit. Something about the comforting, crumbly association of oats, nuts and a lingering touch of sweetness from honey has that effect on me.
I always imagined adulthood would be something I'd be solemnly ushered into one day, didn't you? After some kind of difficult entrance exam, like a prestigious marble-columned university.
Maybe there'd even be some chanting in Latin.
I'd get to a point, younger me imagined, where the right career seemed obvious, where relationships were clearly defined and my legacy seemed secure. Then what actually happened instead was that I arrived at various checkpoints along the way: fourteen, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-five, thirty....and no one showed up with a tasseled cap, or even so much as a Congratulations, you did it, you've made it handshake. Now? Now I'm thirty-three, and I think I finally realize that you show up to this adulthood thing with all the oddly-shaped life experiences and childhood phobias and bizarre tools, all the scrappy threadbare duct-taped notions you've managed to gather along the way....and nothing else. Well, maybe not quite nothing else. Maybe not alone, if you've been lucky enough to gather around you a circle of family, confidantes, lovers, supporters and antagonists as you went along. There's no marker along the way that says Congratulations, there's just you. Hefting that lumpy bag of strange, dinged-up tools along with you. Doing those things you do, whatever they are, with the people that you have.
Your adulthood takes the form in which you sculpt it, in other words. Whether you're waiting tables or researching a cure for cancer, what you're doing is living in the world you made (and if your world contains fragrant pans of warm, crumbly homemade granola, then so much the better, is what I say). The life you fall into, whether haphazardly or with great intent, is the life you're going to have.
Until you change it.
I know, guys. This is heady stuff for an intro to a blog post about cereal.
More to come, most likely sooner than later, about all this sketchy, vague, life-changing, growing-up stuff. I promise. In the meantime, here are two recipes for homemade granola that start off similarly enough in the bowl--oats, nuts, crunchy add-ins, a tasty oil for flavor and texture, a touch of honey--and then diverge pretty sharply into savory versus sweet. The former feels very 'grown up' to me, and whether that's due to the fact that it's unexpectedly not-sweet (even a little salty), or maybe the warm kick of smoked paprika and a little cayenne....I don't know, and I don't much care. I just call it good. This is a cereal for sprinkling on plain Greek yogurt, maybe with the addition of a couple of slow roasted grape tomatoes. Or for just snacking on out of the bowl, like you would a spicy handful of mixed nuts. Whatever is your bag.
Then there's the sweet variety, rich with coconut oil and the dark background notes of cocoa powder, crunchy and nutty from toasted coconut flakes and almonds. With the final flourish of chocolate shavings (buy the best quality you can find....and get one with roasted cacao nibs in it for an extra treat, if you can!), it's most definitely chocolate for breakfast. I most definitely wasn't allowed to have chocolate for breakfast when I was a kid, so maybe that makes this option feel very grown up, as well.
1 1/2 cups oats
1/2 cup pepitas
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1/8 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp orange zest
1 T almond butter
2 T olive oil
1 T honey
1 egg white
[ Each of these recipes makes a smallish batch of about 2 cups of granola, but can easily be doubled or quadrupled if your household is larger than mine. ]
Preheat oven to 300 degrees, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine all dry ingredients (oats, pepitas, salt, spices & zest) in a large mixing bowl and mix well. Add the first wet ingredients (almond butter, olive oil, honey) and stir gently, allowing clumps to form. In a separate bowl, beat egg white until foamy, then gently stir into granola mixture, forming even more clumps. You want these clumps. These clumps are your friends*.
Spread granola in a single layer about 1/2" thick on the parchment, and bake at 300 for about 20-30 minutes, until just golden brown. Remove and let cool, then gently break up granola into a variety of clumps and store in an airtight container.
[ Some people like their granola to look like a loose collection of individual oats, without any clumps at all. You may be one of these people, in which case I do not understand your mysterious ways. CLUMP IT UP. ]
Sweet Granola with Toasted Coconut, Almonds, Chocolate & Cacao Nibs
1 1/2 cups oats
1 T cocoa
1/2 cup coconut
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/8 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 cup coconut oil
2 T honey
1 egg white
one 3 oz. bar of excellent quality chocolate*, shaved with a sharp knife or finely grated**
[ *I used a bar of Scharffen Berger milk chocolate with roasted cacao nibs, even though I'm generally more of a fan of dark chocolate, because I saw it in the store and was instantly coveting those crunchy little nibs for my granola. Either version, I think, would be delicious. ] [ **Pro tip: It really helps if you throw the bar in the freezer for about twenty minutes before attempting this, especially if it's June. ]
Preheat oven to 300 degrees, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine all dry ingredients (oats, cocoa, coconut, almonds, sugar & salt) in a large mixing bowl and mix well. Add the first wet ingredients (coconut oil, honey) and stir gently, allowing clumps to form. In a separate bowl, beat egg white until foamy, then gently stir into granola mixture, forming those tasty, tasty clumps.
Spread granola in a single layer about 1/2" thick on the parchment, and bake at 300 for about 20-30 minutes, until just golden brown. Remove and immediately sprinkle with chocolate shavings, gently breaking up granola into a variety of clumps as you go and allowing the chocolate to melt here and there into the little craggy, toasty oat crevices. Let cool, and store in an airtight container.
This is a cake that has been hovering at the edges of my brain for some time, the way things tend to (you wouldn't believe the things that are in there, hundreds of untested recipes for a cookbook someday, fragments of pop songs, classic rock guitar solos, flotsam and jetsam of high school and college memories, and the faintest notion of wanting to learn to play the banjo).
This cake, oh, this cake. It's just been waiting and wanting to be made; a dense, golden double layered creation, fragrant with orange zest. Sandwiched between a shockingly sweet glaze (not to mention the thin, fragile sugared orange slices that adorn the top) and an intense mascarpone-and-honey filling made poetic with rosemary, the layers of cake themselves are only subtly sweet, nearly savory by comparison. It's a wonderful balance. This is no instant satisfaction, no hummingbird sugar rush like a darling little grab-it-and-go cupcake. This is a slow cake. It demands slow time spent savoring first the deliberate slicing with a heavy knife, nudging a sweet wedge onto a dessert plate, then finally watching it disappear one golden forkful at a time, interspersed with sips of dark coffee and rich, slow conversation. Slow, slow, slow.
At least, that was the cake as it lived in my imagination.
First I had to make it, and to make it I needed blood oranges. I was pretty sure I'd seen them somewhere recently, and bookmarked that idea in my head (Hey! Blood oranges are so pretty. I should make something with blood oranges!). I'd been carrying that thought around for a while, when suddenly the image of a cake popped already formed into my head and wouldn't leave. Golden cake, creamy filling, a shiny top layer of glaze that just barely overslipped the edges here and there, running down the otherwise bare sides. And whisper-thin slices of deep ruby citrus, candied into translucency, decorating the top like stained glass.
I carried that image around for weeks before realizing where it had come from--a recipe I had pinned to my Pinterest recipe board ages ago. In retrospect, this cake is not really the cake I meant to make, although it does look wonderful (a tribute not only to the recipe but to the gorgeous photography on Linda's Call Me Cupcake blog), using whole boiled clementines instead of zest as flavoring. But like mine, it's based on ground almonds, and lightly glazed and topped with candied slices....looking back, I'd internalized this one photograph so much that even the eventual photograph I took of my own cake echoed this one! Great minds think alike about cake, I guess......
So now I had my fully-formed idea for this dreamy cake, and there was only one hurdle left to overcome, find the blood oranges. It sounded so simple. I'd seen them somewhere, but now I had no idea exactly where.
Was it the expensive organic market I passed by every day in the neighborhood where I work? I stopped in one afternoon, it was not. Was it one of the small grocery stores in my own neighborhood? The next day, I made it a quest to find out. I had a nagging suspicion it might actually be the grocery store I visited most often, stopping in almost daily for staples like eggs, vegetables, and Haagen Dazs Chocolate-Chocolate Chip ice cream. But it couldn't be that simple, could it? No. First I was going to go to the funky little almost-entirely-Bristish-import grocery with the tiny produce section up front. No citrus at all. Then I was going to try the larger, nicer supermarket that Tim and I never seem to frequent because it's a few blocks further than the other options and a tad expensive. But more expensive, I reasoned, might work in my favor. They might have unusual produce there, at a higher price? Gentle readers, they did not.
At this point, I was getting a little angry. I'm almost embarrassed. This was only cake. But this city, damn it, this frustrating and inconvenient city, here it was yet again getting in the way of my dreams. ALL I WANTED WAS TO MAKE BLOOD ORANGE CAKE. And I couldn't find a single one. I seethed on through the neighborhood.
I even tried my luck at the filthy little market we always pass right by on the way to our actual market, bypassing it even though it's a block closer because the produce always looks a little tired and the ice cream is always freezer-burned. Predictably, I struck out. Lost in a black cloud of thought at this point, I only snorted and stomped onward.
Stalking through the doors of my everyday grocery store, I suddenly knew I'd find them immediately. And there they were, there they'd been all along. Shining at me like little orange globular beacons from a small basket over near the apples. Because I will never take the simple path when the more complicated and frustrating one beckons, I'd searched four other stores before coming to this one that I already visit at least five times a week. I'd missed them because I wasn't looking for them, and then when I was looking for them, I quested high and low in all kinds of unlikely places instead of making the logical decision to go where I might actually find my Holy Grail. Standing there in the produce section, holding $10 worth of out-of-season citrus and having a philosophical epiphany, I laughed and shook my head a little. I bought the oranges, and decided to go home and finally reward myself for my newfound wisdom with cake.
Here is what I've learned: have faith in the search. Have faith, and the oranges will appear. And if for some reason they don't appear this time around, then go ahead take the limes you find, the limes you didn't even know you needed, and make a creamy, frozen avocado-lime mousse with them instead (more on that coming in the next few days, I promise).
1 tablespoon orange zest (I bought two oranges, using one for slicing and one for zesting. I squeezed what was left into a glass and drank the juice. No leftovers, no regrets!)
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs, separated
For the filling:
1 cup mascarpone
1/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon rosemary leaves, finely chopped
For the candied blood orange slices:
1/2 c granulated sugar (plus extra, for sprinkling)
1/2 c water
Blood orange slices (you will only need a few for the top of the cake, but you may want to make extra so you can pick the prettiest ones....and eat the rest!)
For the glaze:
1/2 c confectioner's sugar
1 tablespoon water
Preheat oven to 350. Take one teaspoon of butter from the stick of softened butter and use it to cover the inside of a 6" cake pan (I made a double layer cake by baking one tall, 6" layer and slicing it in half once it had cooled. If you would like to bake 2 separate layers in 6" or 8" rounds feel free to divide the batter, but you will want to shorten the baking time accordingly). Cover the bottom of the pan with a round of parchment* and set aside. [ *There are all kinds of fancy methods for this. I like to use an unfancy method called 'tracing the outside of the pan on a sheet of parchment with a pen, then cutting the circle a little smaller than that'. It seems to work just fine. ] Gather three mixing bowls; in the first, combine flours, salt and baking powder. In the second, cream together butter and sugar then add milk, orange zest, vanilla, and yolks from the 2 eggs (separate the whites into the third mixing bowl). Add wet mixture to dry mixture, stir until it is thoroughly combined. Using a wire whisk, beat the egg whites in the third bowl until they hold soft peaks, then fold these gently into the rest of the batter mixture until just barely combined (you don't want to squash your delicately beaten egg whites, do you?). Pour the batter into your prepared cake pan, and bake for 55-65 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center of the cake can be removed clean. When cake is done, remove it from the pan and let cool completely on a wire rack. While the cake is baking and cooling, prepare the candied orange slices, filling and glaze. In a wide saucepan, combine water and sugar (you can use more or less than the quantity called for here, as long as the ratio is 1:1) and heat just barely to boiling, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Reduce heat to low and add the orange slices in a single layer, covering completely in syrup. Simmer them in the syrup for 20 minutes, gently flipping them once after about 10 minutes. Remove from syrup* and set aside on parchment paper to cool, sprinkling with extra sugar. [ *Pro tip: take the fragrant, orange-scented syrup you have left over and use it to sweeten iced tea, or combine it with seltzer. You're welcome!! ] To make the filling, combine mascarpone, honey and rosemary. To make the glaze, combine confectioner's sugar and water until thick and smooth. So easy, it barely needs to be described. Once cake has cooled completely, slice in half with a long serrated knife held horizontally, set top layer aside. Apply mascarpone filling smoothly to the top of the bottom layer, then replace the top layer. Pour glaze into the center of the top layer, nudging it into place here and there with a spoon until it spreads as thoroughly as you'd like it to. Decorate the top with candied blood orange slices, then set aside cake until the glaze has set up a bit. Serve this to someone you really love, with dark strong coffee. Make sure they're worth it. :)
Epilogue: I never used to refer to myself as a baker. I was even a little disdainful of the idea, 'baking' seemed like something ladylike, ohhh you mean that thing you do where you have to measure everything precisely in fussy little cups and spoons or else whatever you attempt will fall flat as a dropped souffle on the floor? Pssshhhhhht. Please. I wanted to do the more adventurous work of 'cooking' (cooking was from Mars, baking was, apparently, from Venus) which I viewed with a touch of macho swagger. Braising! Grilling! Sauteing! No measurements! Guided by pure taste instinct, and ADVENTURE! These were the territories I wanted to explore. I wasn't even all that into dessert, really, so what did it matter?
I'm not sure when the switch flipped over, but I obviously did get interested in baking. I think the science of it started to appeal to me when I began exploring gluten-free options....suddenly everything was a quest for knowledge. It's all still work in progress, even this cake isn't perfectly perfect--it's delicious, but the crumb is a bit sturdy where I'd like it to be dainty. Rice flour versus spelt flour? Almonds? Dairy? Flax seeds? Use xanthan gum or not? I couldn't resist the challenge, and I began (probably with just a few experimental muffins here and there, but muffins are a well-known gateway pastry) turning out desserts on the regular. It goes without saying that I, and my household, did get into dessert as a concept, a whole lot. But then, I also walk ten miles a day. I can't recommend either practice, but do what you must. :)
What I do recommend is that whenever you bake anything, in particular this cake, you should always make sure to have this Fleet Foxes album playing on repeat:
One day--for thousands of years, actually--it's just a humble green leafy vegetable doing its thing, which is to say being all kinds of rich in omegas, essential amino acids and vitamins....and the next day it's suddenly been discovered. It's trendy, in the way a leather handbag or celebrity gossip is trendy. You're not eating kale? You've got to try kale! You've got to have it, not because it's a tasty superfood (it is), but because the blonde actress lifestyle guru and the television doctor say so. KALE! It's in soups, in salads, in smoothies, in baked chip form. In cakes. In ice cream. It's also, apparently, a baby name that's rising in popularity. It's even in nail polish (why, I am seriously asking....why? Am I supposed to lick it? Does it provide extra nutrients for nailbiters?). And with the passage of time and all this exposure comes the inevitable fall from grace, the branding of kale as 'hipster roughage.'
'Ugh,' I hear people groaning at the mere mention of the ruffly leaf, 'I am SO OVER KALE.'
Poor, sweet kale is a punch line now, like 'quinoa' or 'juicing'. You don't think I'm serious? Google 'kale backlash' or 'kale hype' and you'll see what I mean. Kale feels the way tofu must have felt in the late 90s, overhyped, abandoned and unloved.
And yet.........
......it's pretty. Just get a look at those delicate, intricate ruffled edges. 'Oh yeah,' it says, 'I'm here to stay. I can go the distance. Trend or no trend. Kale loves you, baby.' The leaves can range in color from deep, brilliant sensual fuchsia to emerald to dusky blue to pale, whispery chartreuse. It can grow taller than a human if left to its own miraculous devices. It's packed with nutrients, and maybe the most important qualifier of all.......it tastes good. Heartier than kind-of-insipid spinach, with more personality than cabbage. Pity the humble, yet gorgeous kale leaf, and consider setting hipster prejudice aside and revisiting an old friend. Don't do it for me, and don't do it for the blonde lifestyle guru or for the is-he-or-isn't-he-really-a-medical-professional television doctor. And especially (please, really) don't name your baby Kale.
But maybe do eat some kale.
You can start with this recipe, one of the nicest things that could ever happen to a leaf of Brassica oleracea (at least, when you're not making kale pesto, that is), and one of my perennial favorites*.
[ *Also, I apologize for the title of this post, but it really, really made my inner twelve-year-old laugh. Had to be done. ]
Savory Kale Bread Pudding with Mushrooms & Gruyère
Serves 4
1/2 bunch of your favorite variety of kale
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 cup button or crimini mushrooms, sliced about 1/4" thick
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, stems removed
1 teaspoon minced fresh garlic (about one good-sized clove)
1 tablespoon chopped shallot
salt and pepper to taste
3 cups of the stale* bread of your choice (this can also be made with gluten-free bread!), sliced into 1" cubes
1 cup grated Gruyère cheese
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
salt and pepper
[ *I know what you're thinking, 'does it really have to be stale bread?' Yes, trust me, it really has to be stale bread. Fresh bread cubes will go soggy on you in a hot minute. Think of it as a good way to use up bread that's on its way out--as in stale, NOT moldy! Don't go eating moldy bread and telling everyone that's what Laurel said to do--or, if you really want to be thrifty like your dear friend Sweet Laurel, you can keep a bag of pre-cubed stale bread handy in your freezer at all times. You know. For those bread pudding emergencies**. ]
[ **'But wait,' you're saying, 'I still don't have any stale bread around! Just this stupid, perfectly good fresh bread. Damn you, fresh bread. What do I do now?' Well, preheat your oven to 200 degrees, and spread your cubes of fresh bread evenly on a baking sheet. Bake at this low temperature, shaking the pan occasionally, until your bread has dried out a little and taken on the appearance and texture of stale bread. There you go! ]
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place all kale leaves in a colander and rinse thoroughly under running water. Shake out as much excess water as you can. Remove ribs from each leaf and chop roughly (into pieces about 1" long), set aside.
Heat olive oil over medium-high heat in a wide skillet and add the mushrooms. Cook, stirring often, for about 3 minutes until they begin to soften, then add chopped kale and continue to stir. Cook for another 3 minutes until kale is bright green and beginning to wilt, then add the thyme, garlic and salt and pepper to taste.
Continue to cook for one more minute until it all becomes fragrant (don't forget about tasting it at this stage, being careful of the heat! After all, that's what 'to taste' means!), then remove from the heat.
Lightly rub a glass casserole or ceramic baking dish (I used a nonstick loaf pan, as you can clearly see in these photos. Everyone knows the importance of improv skills in the kitchen) with oil or butter. In a large mixing bowl, combine bread cubes, mushrooms, shallot, garlic and kale, and toss together.
Transfer this to the prepared baking dish by alternating layering a handful of bread mixture and a sprinkling of Gruyère, ending with a sprinkling of cheese on top.
In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs and milk together. Add salt and fresh ground pepper to taste, as well as the tablespoon of grainy mustard. Pour this savory liquid goodness over the bread mixture. You want to let the whole thing stand for about 10 minutes prior to baking so that the bread cubes can absorb as much as possible of the liquid.
Seriously.
Just go away and do something else for 10 minutes. Watch a Youtube video. Feed the dog.
Let the bread do its thing.
After 10 minutes is up, place baking dish in the oven and bake uncovered for 40 to 50 minutes, until your bread pudding is beautifully puffed and browned on top. Remove from the oven and serve warm. Any leftovers, if you actually have them, will still be fabulous the next day.
