Silly illustration, above, from several years ago. Finally, a place to put it!

This is not new. If given a deliberately vague task I freeze and wait for purpose, which often doesn’t show but finally did, when I carved a mission from this meme-me-me: I’d share seven foods from my past, each with a small story. You, dear reader, pick the one you like – or the least boring, whichever comes first – and the most-voted food gets cooked and blogged here on Simmer, recipe, story and all. Thank you, Susan for your too-kind words and, indirectly, the gift of one blogging day made a little less random.

S’mores Tarts Baking at an upscale Chicago pastry shop, I was expected to devise new desserts for the case. New desserts that would please both customers and our novelty-driven boss who, if he sensed a trend, would have sold chocolate-dipped pig ears and motorized cake. I came up with S’mores tarts, novel in 1995, composed of graham tart shells, milk chocolate ganache and fluffy house-made marshmallows which we would – big finish – set ablaze in front of the crowd. Seemed like a winner, and all went great until we actually blew out flames, and a lady in the window shrieked heavenward that she’d seen our spit hit the tarts. So much for blaze theater.

Curried Mushroom Soup In high school Behavioral Science class, we had a semester-long project in which we’d be pretend-married to another student, and live on a budget, and work out issues, and all types of situations designed for maximum teen discomfort. One assignment required hosting a dinner party with other “couples,” and after planting my pink Converse Hi-Tops at mom’s stove to make Curried Mushroom Soup – a mature-sounding dish from her files – I served it in our dining room to twitchy, bickering pairs who’d rather be somewhere else. Dabbing soup off my ripped jeans, I considered that this might be how adults spent their days.

Stuffed Leg of Lamb In a combined young-bride and young-chef disaster, I once pounded, stuffed and rolled a boneless leg of lamb to entertain Greg’s law firm colleagues. The evening started with our crotch-sniffing Dalmatian and a clogged sink, continued with undercooked, untied lamb and finished with a wailing fire alarm. In truth, the mustard-garlic-whatever stuffing was delicious – but who among you would ask me to do it again?

Tortelloni with Gorgonzola Sauce In the post-college summer of 1990, Greg and I backpacked around Italy. One night in Bologna we splurged on a real restaurant, a place called The Black Cat, set on a square with flickering jar candles, wrought-iron tables and people in clean clothes. After slurping cheap red wine we ate carpaccio with parmigiana, lemon and capers, fat cheese-filled tortelloni in Gorgonzola sauce, and tiramisu. It may be the wine, the summer or the fact that an argument caused me to leave, walk away and come back, but it is still, many dinners later, the best I ever had.

Linzer Torte The classic Austrian dessert is just fruit jam under latticed almond crust, but the buttery dough is tricky, melting, fragile. Especially if you’re rolling dough in a small city bakery in July, and daft owner lady won’t pay for air conditioning, and still takes orders for Linzer Torte. You might get heat stroke and threaten to quit, right there over the breaking dough. Yes you might. But you’d never blame a torte this good.

Marjolaine When I ran a catering company, The Happy Ending, I supplied restaurants with Valentine’s Day desserts. One year I filled an order for 300 pieces of Marjolaine, a labor-intensive classic made with hazelnut meringue, genoise, and two buttercreams. At the time I worked out of my house, and with no catering staff and a sleeping toddler, it was just me and Marjolaine in the all-night kitchen. For hours I baked, whipped, stirred, threw spatulas and wept. All the while I Love Lucy played on my tiny kitchen TV, the Scotland episode where Lucy dreams it all. I know this because I saw it three times; I was at my table so long that Nick at Nite ran it three full times before sunrise. Three. If you vote for Marjolaine, rest assured it will be well-planned. One cake, no Lucy and Simmer off to bed.

Spaghetti Carbonara When I returned home on college breaks and my sister was in high school, we liked to whip up this spaghetti-bacon-egg bonanza late at night – and for a short obsessive time, every night. When I picture the bubbling cream and parmigiana and yolks it boggles my mind, a mystery how I made it through those snack years without total stomach collapse, or gaining 500 pounds. Because that would surely happen now if, at 42, I began lounging with midnight TV, two-liter Diet Cokes and pasta straight-from the-pot. Iris was my Carbonara ringleader, insisting the more cheese, more spaghetti, more talk shows the better. Our parents were asleep, we had metabolism on our side and to flop down and share one blue bowl again, even a few strands, my stomach would gladly say yes.

So. One of these memories gets cooked. If it’s Marjolaine or lamb, please give me plenty of notice so I can prepare, respectively, with extra sleep and string.

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Update 1/28: WINNER! S’mores Tarts it is, announced here. Voting over, but if you wish to leave a request – like lamb, oh you people – feel free. And thanks for playing along.

You scrape the bowl like a housewife. In the culinary school bakery, that’s what you heard from Chef – my Chef,  a mentor known for good brioche and painfully dirty French puns – what you heard if you worked slowly, or if you left batter lining the bowl, or if you moved like the cake was for next Christmas. And if that was you, pushing batter at an aimless pace (only me once, Miss Speedy after that) then it would be your back Chef would immediately appear behind. “YOU,” he would announce in loud Franglish, “you scrape the bowl like a HOWZE-WIFE.”

He aimed at both male and female and never explained, just moved to the next unfortunate scraper. But it was clearly an insult, this wifey business, calling you sluggish and semi-pro. You were not quick enough, not efficient enough, your arm might have been reaching for bonbons, you might drop baking altogether and go shopping, you scraped the bowl like a housewife.

I filed that phrase and would hear his words in every working kitchen, chopping fast, prepping hard and scraping every ounce of cookie dough from stainless 12-quart bowls. I would clean all the cake batter from the 20-quarts, and lose my hat peering into 60-quarts to hand-scrape the day’s baguette. Years later I too would have underlings, and if I caught a whiff of whatever or saw idle utensils, I got my chance: Look at you. The way you scrape that bowl, it’s like a housewife.

Most rankled at the scorn, worked faster and got better. Once, after watching a new girl swirl pumpkin bread batter like moisturizer, I said it and she yelled “God I HOPE I do.” This I did not see coming.

“Are you kidding?” She placed the filled bread pans on the oven rack, one by one, letting out all the heat. “Have babies and make brownies and not open a freaking shop at five in the morning? Yes, thanks. Scraping the bowl like a housewife sounds pretty good.”

I told her to shut the oven door and mix muffins.

A few businesses and a thousand bowls later I’m in my home kitchen, the kitchen we carefully planned, every knob and drawer and foot of useful space. The kitchen’s cook, she no longer opens at five; I left restaurants to get some peace but still, I move like the lunch rush. The difference now is that a door needs answering, the dog requires feeding, a daughter needs talking. Sometimes batter waits on the counter. Some days I put the bowl in the fridge and bake later, and at some point I began leaving batter in the bowl, just a few chocolate stripes up the side. I might call loudly to the other room, “I think there’s some batter left,” and Josie will run in and grab it, jump on the counter, swipe it like finger food.

Then I think about Chef, and how he’d unfurl wallet pictures of five kids, and how often he mentioned his wife. He told us stories of his family’s bakery in Provence, how he had learned baguettes from his uncles and croissants from his father. He told us about the cake his mother baked at home, an ugly chocolate affair with a sunken middle and crusty sides. She wrapped him a piece every morning, and when his uncles gave him a break from kneading, he sat on flour sacks in the back and ate cake with his hands.

I imagine they were proud to see him succeed, to work as a great chef and teacher, speeding through perfection and showing us the same. As his student I thought of him that way, wholly efficient, but now I consider his drive home, and remember that we were surprised to hear his wife was the dinner cook, roasting chicken and mashing potatoes, simple things he liked. I think of him pouring a glass of wine and hugging five small children, some at his leg, some in his arms, all hunting for the little cakes and treats I knew he toted home in white bags. And now I think at the end of the day he loved the housewife, and messy hours, and the sly disorder of long, lazy strokes.

Because the owner friend was a guy, a special brand of chill out guy, he gave the guy cooks a pass. Guys who, while slapping out breakfast, enjoyed vodka and orange Crush. In that light it was difficult to wield authority, impossible really, when a red-rimmed dude could come in three days late and get promoted. What I could do was focus on pastry, which desperately needed attention. The bakers had no set morning menu, browning whatever came to mind any sunrise of the week. There might be cherry chocolate scones for three days, no scones for two days, and a creative burst of pistachio-pineapple-something toward the end of the week.

This would not do. I wanted to see a schedule. Schedules with headings, and attached pens, and clipboards.  I wanted staff and customers to know what to expect, sure that if flour, sugar and order prevailed, the line would be out the door. I held a staff meeting to discuss the impending change.

“Why do we need a scone schedule?”

“Because when you get here at five a.m., I don’t want you to have to think.”

They were looking at me, at their phones. What am I saying? They don’t think about anything now.

I proposed doing a plain scone every day – a traditional Cream scone – in addition to a variation, say, Blueberry Oatmeal on Monday, Apricot Pecan on Tuesday, and so on. They cast suspicious looks at the typed lists I passed around, as if I were an uptight mayor cracking down on deviant art.

“Does anyone have questions?”

One agitated look. “Yeah…what’s a cream scone. Don’t we put cream in all the scones?”

“Yes…but that’s just a traditional name, Cream scone. Something we can call the everyday one.”

Dead air.

“So customers know what the everyday scone is called.”

“But…it’s just, you know like, cream. It’s one word.”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

“All your other ones have two things in them, like two names.”

“Yes. But this is a CREAM scone. Our flagship scone!”

“Customers want two names for everything.”

“Fine. We’ll call it Cream and Sugar Scones. Two things.”

Grumbling, shifting of car keys, and one confounded cook.

“I just…that just sounds weird, Cream and Sugar.”

“It does.”

“Yeah…I mean, one word sounds plain, and two words sound stupid, and…whatever.”

I took the sheet from his hand and pulled a pencil from my apron.

“Well, I’ll tell you what. I will take care of the menu, and I will make the scones, and you guys just come in late and drink heavily and clean the grease traps. Okay?”

This threw them. One elbowed another.

“Yeah. So I guess Cream and Sugar is fine.”

“Good.” I scratched out Cream and wrote Cream AND Sugar, then handed back the lists. “Meeting adjourned.”

DOUBLE CHOCOLATE GINGER SCONES

The slacker boys got this much right: people do love combination scones. This might be my all-time favorite, a signature flavor from my old Scone on the Range frozen scone business. I am happy to bring it back for your chocolate (and ginger!) enjoyment.

makes about 1 dozen large or 24 small scones

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon sea salt
6 oz. cold butter, cubed (12 tablespoons)
1/4 cup sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup semi-sweet (or darker) chocolate chips
1/2 cup roughly chopped crystallized ginger, in chunks

extra sugar for sprinkling

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Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large mixing bowl or stand mixer bowl.

Cut in butter. You can do this one of two ways:

Electric stand mixer With the flour mixture in the stand mixer bowl and the paddle blade attached, turn on the slowest speed and slowly add butter chunks, mixing to a coarse meal texture, with only a few remaining large flour-butter crumbs.

(or)

By hand Using a sharp-bladed pastry cutter tool, or two knives, “cut” the butter pieces into the flour mixture until you have a coarse meal texture.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, cream, and vanilla.

Add liquid mixture to dry ingredients by hand or with stand mixer on low, using “on-off” mixing. Stop just long enough to add sugar, chocolate chips, and crystallized ginger, then continue mixing briefly to form a soft and sticky dough. Scrape dough onto lightly floured surface and turn over a few times to combine, adding flour if necessary.

Form scones You can divide dough in half, form each piece to a 1″ thick round, and cut into equal wedges, or you can pat to 1″ thick and use floured cutters for rounds or triangles.

Transfer scones to cookie sheet pan, preferably lined with parchment paper.

If desired, brush the top of each scone with a small amount of milk or cream. Sprinkle the extra white sugar thickly over tops. Bake 15-18 minutes, or until set and tops are golden brown. For the chocolate-ginger variety, watch the bottom of the scones for darkened color. Cool on baking sheet a few minutes, then transfer to racks, and serve.

* For a look at scone-mixing process (same method) visit this post: Scone, Scone on the Range

Note: use the best cocoa powder you can find for a rich chocolate dough. Cocoa tends to dry out baked goods; these hold very well for several days wrapped at room temperature, but after 1-2 days are best briefly reheated in a microwave, for just a few seconds. This also gives you the added, insanely pleasurable bonus of gooey chocolate chips.

Take that holiday season, the one I spent baking a forest of buche noels. I piped hundreds of meringue mushrooms too, each one lovingly dirtied with cocoa, earthy and sweet. They delighted me, and when they seemed to delight the masses, I lined berry baskets with gingham, piled in faux shrooms, then cellophaned and ribboned the whole thing. I called them Champignons-Something-Or-Other and slapped a wildly Frenchified sticker on top. When a gourmet sales pal declared them fabulous, I raced up to Chicago’s Fancy Food Show with sugared mushrooms and dollar signs in my eyes.

I bounced into the aisles with a purse full of samples and a song in my heart, but one of the first booths we saw stopped me cold. People lined up, clamoring and craning for…meringues. Meringue mushrooms, to be exact, charm-ready and packaged. Clunky, I thought, but they were ready to go, first in a place where first topped best. I narrowed my eyes at the now-copycat stuff in my bag, now just sugar fungus, and saw torn wrapping and meringue crumbs on my keys. What would be next?

Well.  All kinds of bright stabs would be next, including a long-time favorite almost, Ooh La La! I’m a Pastry Chef. That was a book idea: sharing tips and tricks from the bakery world to make people appear almost pro. Why, and I mean why, Ooh La La? Because it’s silly French, and at the time – in truth, maybe still – my ideas held a wide range of glaring to obvious. I planned outlines, notes and a vividly detailed Paris book tour, but soon walked into Borders and found, in rapid succession, one book after another offering the exact same thing. Except they were…already books.

I like to believe that nothing is ever a total loss, and thus I’m certain that the gods send you already-ideas for a purpose. If Ooh La La! wasn’t destined for the shelf, perhaps its tips and tricks – obvious to me, but that’s my middle name – might be useful to you. It doesn’t matter if you’re an occasional baker or a perpetually flour-faced nut; adapt to these five essentials and your kitchen ideas will rise, elevating everything you make to (almost) pro status.

Cake Stand

My iron-based Ateco is seventeen years old. In equipment years that’s a baby – and these babies will last a lifetime. Use a turntable stand and all frosting secrets will be revealed; with a little spin and the right spatula, below, you will learn – smooth or swirly – how to properly ice a cake.

Offset Metal Spatula

Think of an offset metal spatula as the diplomat in your kitchen: there’s nothing it can’t smooth out. You can use it to spread buttercream, layer preserves, swirl pastry cream in tart shells. It’s the right tool for thick batters like brownie, banana bread and pound cake. My favorite metal spatula trick: for a glossy buttercream finish, heat the spatula blade under very hot water, then quickly smooth the top of your cake.

Pastry Bag

Yes, with a little practice, you and a pastry bag can pipe shells and ropes and spirals – even roses – and all sorts of frosted goodies on your newly enhanced cakes.  But the pastry bag is no one-trick pony – it can also swirl pastry cream onto sponge cake, above, or pipe sweet potatoes into rosettes; portion jam into tartlets; it can pipe a hundred macaron halves for fifty perfect bites.  Once you get the squeeze of it, you’ll wonder how you lived without it.

Parchment paper

“I know I should use it,” said my mom, “but I don’t.”  Granted, parchment paper is a luxury, and a bit wasteful – if you’re not buying in bulk, those grocery-store tubes seem awfully small for the price.  Still, every baker should have one box around, enough to protect delicate spritz cookies, to evenly brown your layer cake, to line your lemon bars.  Advanced but essential for the serious baker: learn to cut and shape parchment triangles into mini paper cones, perfect for writing with melted chocolate, striping cookies with royal icing, applying dots of jam.  Become one with parchment, and all those little finishes will make a huge dessert difference.

Graduated Round Cookie Cutters

I don’t list knives here, because if you like to cook, you probably already have the one good big and the one good small knife you need.  Knives do the work of slicing, chopping, even layering – but for a truly creative arsenal, you’ll want a good-quality set of graduated cutters. The most important thing you’ll never hear about cutters? They’re called cookie cutters but are not just for cookies. Bake a sheet of brownies and turn them into hearts.  Cut circles of maple fudge, stamp square pound cake petit fours, shape your carrot cake, your polenta, your scones.  The leftover middle bits?  I believe we call those snacks.

Growing up, we had exactly one round, fluted cutter – I know some families used an upside-down glass – so personally, I can never get enough shapes. You can move on later to delightful squares and endlessly useful hearts, but start by investing in a set of graduated rounds. They’ll give all your desserts a polished, no-you-did-not-make-that look, leaving them thinking that clearly, you’re (almost) a pro.

The Five Essentials meet: brownies baked on parchment, cut into hearts, offset spatula-glazed and piped with tiny pastry bag roses.  The cake stand? It doubled as lazy susan, serving brownie bits in the round.

Today we review a fortnight stab at my dream job, an experience which, if your dreams are too cloudy, hell is delighted to provide. The original September 2008 post, in all its whiny glory, can be found here.

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A plate was flying toward me, so I ducked. “No sugar!” hissed Dieter, the headwaiter. “No….sugar!”

That was the night I mixed two soufflés – whip, fold, stir, I know how. I smiled when they left the kitchen and nearly choked when they came back wrong. When one orders a $17 dessert, one can expect sugar. I’d been an intern for fourteen days at this five-star restaurant – and between two botched soufflés and one smashed plate, I assumed I had about fourteen seconds left.

Second-year culinary students did internships, and this was the one for me – a place famous for gracious service and the second mortgage you’d need to eat there. There were a thousand city kitchens but I’d fought for this spot, and lobbied to win. It was plum, an expensive organic plum of a chance, and on the first day I laced my Doc Martens, tied back my hair and jumped.

Jumped fast, and fast was good. When you are the only woman in a cramped kitchen of men, it’s like working on a nuclear sub. Down in the lockers I learned to grab two towels, an apron, and get the hell out. In the darkest corners of the walk-in, I whistled loud and carried a peeler.

And on the line, I was invisible. “I’m here,” I told Mario, the pastry guy, “let me do something.”

He gave me a case of club soda and a stack of chargers, and I spent the day buffing Limoges. When I went for new plates, the dishwasher leered. He was a sulky, strung-out French cousin of a saucier’s cousin, but he smoked with the bakers and drank with the chefs. I prayed for a tragic scalding at the sink.

Though my shift started before noon and dragged past midnight, I began showing up early, when the produce arrived. Chef – the chef – would climb through the alley on wooden crates, pinching herbs and squeezing fruit. Safe behind the ovens, the pastry guys whispered and mocked.

“Oh yesss…yes, we must kiss the ass of every strawberry. Mwah!”

If I joined in - strawberry ass – ha ha, that’s good! – they turned and went back to work.

Without leadership and dying to be led, it occurred to me that Chef himself should be my teacher. He’d be flattered by questions, enchanted by curiosity, why yes, he’d say, but of course you are most natural. So much talent for one so young. And your shiny nose, tres chic. One morning I stood with my little notebook, watching him snap dough into onion tarts.

“Is that pate brisee?”

“For you it is NOTHING.”

“Creme fraiche?”

“Go to hell. MOVE.”

Thanks, mon ami! I started stealing into the tiny fish kitchen, scaling three-foot tunas that hid me from view. In twenty years Alejandro had gone from dishwasher to fish boss – let’s see Le Dish Cousin do that – and his manner was shockingly kind. “They won’t let me do anything over there,” I whined, “they hate me.”

“You’ll make it.” Elbow-deep in sea bass, he yanked out some guts. “You will.”

Certainly I could make it as a plate shiner. Not counting club soda, I hadn’t touched an edible in seven working days. But just ten minutes before dinner on the eighth, Mario grumbled “you plate tonight.”

My head swam. Desserts…now. Plate.

On the line. That’s what I wanted, right? I’d watched them all week, the battery of sauces and garnishes, tart shells and torches and berries. I test-plated a poppyseed tuile on the sly and it shattered to the floor. I kicked the pieces under the counter.

When the dessert rush hit I was nauseous. Tickets poured in and Mario barked orders while I frantically tore mint leaves, piped swirls, curled chocolate. Line work requires the hustle of a trader, the fight of a bull and in my case, a skin of steel that I did not have.

“Move, MOVE!” Dieter snarled. “I will not SERVE this SHIT!” For a man who resembled a cadaver, he was surprisingly alive. “Why so slow, PIGS?”

“Yo estoy solo!” Mario yelled. I am alone.

I spoke decent Spanish. I’m on the line and he says he’s alone.

“I’m trying!” I wiped my hands and grabbed the next plate. “Look, I’m on it!”

Thirty-seven desserts later, I was given a five-minute break and flew down to the locker room, drenched and shaking on the…ashes. Every cook, waiter, and busboy topped this floor with Marlboro butts. Maybe if I just started smoking.

I threw up over a trashcan. Then I sat on the floor, pressed my face on a locker and cried.

Four minutes later I was back on the line. I drove down empty Lake Shore Drive at two a.m. each day and returned at ten a.m. the next. My body found a new brand of numb; even my skin hurt from the daily rounds of try, scream, fail. Maybe I did not have what it takes. Maybe I did not want what it took.

For two weeks, every man over twelve and under eighty welcomed me with open arms – hairy arms. Each night I worked between three dripping necks, boasting in three languages over my head what they’d like to do with me, for me, to me.

The day that Dieter fired a sugarless soufflé at my head I untied my apron, hung it on the peg and walked out to the night.

I sat five minutes in the car, breathing frost in my wet, filthy whites. The restaurant window showed in my rearview mirror, catching a diner raising her glass and a man clinking it, smiling. I yanked down my hair and sped off to the highway, thinking quitter. You burned your fancy bridges. Schooling was what I’d come for and schooling was what I got. I would quit my way into a different kind of kitchen, reasoning that if this was it, what I had was something else.

But it is never just once. I’m a habitual yes-girl, and what’s worse, the ideas – even today – are frequently of my own making, things I was not even asked to do. I propose an idea and everyone says “yes!” and I say “of course!” and twelve hours later I’m hunched over a counter, glaring at a mixer. I’d like to say I never learn, but somewhere after 38, I did.  The ghosts of three “sures!” past – all holiday, all gingerbread, all crazy – finally taught me to keep my sweet mouth shut.

Street of Broken Dreams

Fresh out of culinary school, I’m working for an overly ambitious guy at a do-everything shop in Chicago’s Old Town.  We plan our holiday open house, and even though I am already baking pastry, working catering, designing the menus and refereeing romantic staff spats, I raise my dorky hand.  How about a gingerbread Armitage Street?  Shops, snow, icing, lights?  Everyone seems pleased, and I work all week on the sugared city scene. It’s a candlelit hit at the open house, and I’m clapped on the back all night. But my eager-beaverness soon earns me every job that no one wants.  A famous name is brought in at great expense to draw customers and boss me around. In the end, Ambitious Guy declares bankruptcy and closes shop.

A Model Relationship

Older and ostensibly wiser, I am brought into a restaurant to whip the bakery kitchen and staff into shape.  The owner wants a partner, and says it will be me, in time; he has a difficult reputation but I believe him, and work my little heart out.  Christmas rolls around and – surprise! – I’m outside, sketching the restaurant for a gingerbread model.   I work on this one at night, at home, after work and when Josie sleeps.  On my tiny kitchen counter I cut through gingerbread slabs with an X-acto, and then a knife, and finally a hacksaw.  The iced model goes on display, and it too is a hit – customers ooh and ah over the little white bricks and candy awnings all week, but before New Year’s, Difficult Guy decides maybe…maybe he doesn’t need a partner.  I hang up my apron, but the gingerbread stays.

How the Cookie Crumbles

I didn’t even work there. My friend owned a little gourmet shop, and was brainstorming holiday windows. I suggested a gingerbread Eiffel Tower. Would I have time, with a toddler and a catering business? Oh, sure. Why not?

Glaring at twenty pounds of dough three days later, I wasn’t sure.  My design was clear but painstaking, and as the baked brown slabs filled my dining room, tagged with yellow Post-Its – “2nd level left,” “tower deck B,” “base foot DON’T CUT!!” – it became a dark architectural headache. I was thrilled when we set it safely in the window, aglow with tiny lights. My friend’s door clanged with jingle bells, and shoppers brightly elbowed and jostled for truffles and sausage and cheese. People took pictures, the local paper came, and my friend loved it, too – she loved it so much that weeks later, when royal icing began to crack off, she refused to take it down.

“Please take it down,” I’d say. “The season’s over. It’s porous, you know – not meant to last forever.”

But she would not, and there was some argument over who the tower belonged to – me, the rightful baker, or her, owner of the window. I gave in – yes, keep it up – and it sat there falling apart bit by bit, which is more than I can say for our friendship, which fell apart immediately.

So. What have we learned?  Be careful with saws in the kitchen. Don’t glue monuments with egg whites, and don’t eat raw dough before sunrise. Enjoy playing holiday elf, and if you’re able to say yes, say yes. But if you just can’t say no, tread gingerly.

Happy Holidays!

I don’t leave home without dessert. Call it fate or my fault, but I can’t appear at birthdays, baby showers or tax meetings empty-handed. I no longer run a kitchen or own a bakery – but even when I did, this sort of dessert was greeted, time and again, with the same phrase: you didn’t make that.

Well yes I did, I’d say, I did make that. Oh come on, they’d sputter, that came from a bakery. It was cute, it was flattering, and eventually, annoying. No, that looks like professional bakery.

Uh…I work in a bakery. I am a bakery. You’re paying for it. It’s bakery.

This went on. Even now with the apple-almond braid, even with family, fifteen years among them and still the same tease:

“You didn’t make that.”

(eyes roll into back of my head)

“Yes.” I hand a slice to Millie, on my right, who takes it and smiles. “I did.”

“Come on – did you stop at the bakery?”

“No,” I said, plating a slice, “I didn’t.”

“You did not make that.”

“Mm…sure did.”

“You stopped at the bakery.”

“Fine. I stopped at the bakery, okay?” Now they were listening. “Yeah. I stopped at the bakery – the bakery of me. Now who wants a slice?”

Today we are stopping at the bakery of…you.  You’re going to make this Apple-Almond Braid and amaze them – you’re going to coolly cut slices while they search for the white box.  This looks fussy, but it isn’t, and looks tricky, but it’s not.  It also looks delicious, and it is.  Bakery?  Uh-uh.  Today, this is how you roll.

Apple-Almond Braid

Slice apples and saute with sugar, just caramelizing to a tasty gold.

Lightly chop the cooked apples. Run out of the kitchen in an effort not to eat the cooked apples. Come back and vow to eat just a few.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the cream cheese dough out to a wide, slightly squared oval shape, long enough to fit lengthwise across a cookie sheet. Transfer dough to ungreased cookie sheet, allowing a slight overhang off the edges.

Spread almond filling lengthwise down center of dough strip, leaving about 2 inches bare on either side.

Pile those golden cooked apples on top of the almond filling, mounding evenly lengthwise down the strip…

…like so. And now we do a great trick, the one that will make them demand to see your bakery receipt: using a small sharp knife, slash diagonal lines along both sides of the filled strip. Start with your knife on the inside, closer to the almond filling, and pull the knife out, creating short strips, about 3/4″ wide. Cut short strips along both sides of dough, leaving “overhang ends” uncut and in tact. The strip should look fringed…

…sort of like a big apple-almond fish. Now, starting at one end, pull each strip toward the center, creating a “V” with each pair, loosely pinching together in the middle. Continuing pulling and pairing strips all the way down, until filling is covered and you have a “braid.”

To finish the ends, pinch overhang dough together, then pull up and roll over the cookie sheet, pinching to meet and seal the braid.

Oh my god, look what you did!  You’re some kind of domesticated bakery superstar, and you’re almost done.  Sprinkle finished, unbaked braid thickly with cinnamon-sugar mixture and sliced almonds.

Bake to a gorgeous crusty brown, sprinkle some powdered sugar, and prepare for bakery heaven…

…because that’s it. You get true bakery sights, sounds and tastes with just one chunk of dough, a few ripe apples and a new trick up your sleeve. Don’t forget to keep those sleeves rolled up – and by all means, remove that bracelet.
—————————–
Apple-Almond Braid

1 batch Cream Cheese Dough (below)
1 batch Apple Filling (below)
6 oz almond filling (available in supermarkets, canned)
1/2 cup sliced almonds
cinnamon and sugar, for sprinkling

1. Make one recipe of Cream Cheese Dough, below. Flatten into a smooth oval shape, wrap in plastic and chill until ready to use.

2. While dough chills, make Apple Filling, below.  Set apples aside to cool while you roll dough.

3. Preheat oven to 375 F.

4. Roll & Assemble the Braid: remove Cream Cheese Dough from refrigerator. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to approximately 1/4″ thickness and roll to a large, flat oval shape, about 8-9 ” wide and as long as your cookie sheet, 17″ or more. Transfer dough to ungreased cookie sheet, allowing “overhang” off the edges at either end. Trim away any excess dough and refrigerate for other use (like…dough snacks).

Using spoon or offset flat spatula, spread almond filling lengthwise down dough strip, leaving about 2″ bare on either side. Mound cooled apples evenly on top of almond filling.

Using a small sharp knife, slash diagonal lines along both sides of the filled strip. Start with your knife on the inside, closer to the almond filling, and pull the knife out, creating short strips, about 3/4″ wide. Cut short strips along both sides of dough, leaving “overhang ends” uncut and in tact.

Starting at one end, pull each strip toward the center, creating a “V” with each pair, loosely pinching together in the middle. Continuing pulling and pairing strips all the way down, until filling is covered and you have a “braid.” Sprinkle finished, unbaked braid thickly with cinnamon-sugar mixture and sliced almonds.

5. Bake: place braid in lower third of oven and bake for approximately 35 minutes, until golden brown. Bake another 10 minutes on top rack of oven, until almonds are browned but not burnt, pastry is a dark golden brown and fruit juices begin to bubble. Remove from oven and cool.

To serve, lightly sift powdered sugar over whole braid. Serve slices warm, if desired, with vanilla ice cream.

serves 10 – 15

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Cream Cheese Dough

8 oz cream cheese, cold
8 oz unsalted butter, cold
2 cups all-purpose flour
pinch salt

Place flour and salt in food processor and process a few seconds, to blend. Chunk butter and cream cheese in pieces over flour, then process, using on-off motion, until dough just forms a ball. Turn out onto floured surface and knead lightly into a smooth mass. Wrap with plastic and chill until ready to use. Rolls best when cold but still pliable, on a lightly floured surface.

Apple Filling

5 Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored, and thick-sliced
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn starch
4 tablespoons water
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

Using a large and preferably non-stick frying pan, saute apples over medium-high heat with sugar and water, shaking pan occasionally, until just golden, browning and slightly sticky. Turn apples with heatproof spoon or spatula for even color. Cook until soft but not mush – watch carefully and do not burn. Reduce heat to low.

In small bowl, mix water and cornstarch to combine. Over low heat, add corn starch mixture to apples, stirring and shaking to thicken and distribute evenly. When done, apples should appear golden, glistening and still in soft slices. If too thick and pasty – i.e., white chunks of cornstarch appear – add a bit more water as necessary, turning to combine. Turn off heat, sprinkle with cinnamon and toss to distribute.

Remove apples from stove and cool until just safe to handle. Spread on cutting board and lightly chop, making large chunks. Set apples aside to cool before using as filling.

“Ganache is really the mother chocolate,” I was saying to the host, “just this simple mixture, but you can use it hot or cold, as a glaze, a frosting, a filling. In France it’s everything – it’s the chocolate building block for everything!”

Was I saying that? I heard my words sharp and separate, the way you hear yourself on the answering machine. I felt ill. I’d never cooked on camera, I’d skipped breakfast, and now I was two gulps away from heaving on the host. Then, something amazing happened – I not only heard my voice, I saw my hands moving, grasping a whisk, stirring cream into chocolate.

“You just pick it up around the edges a few times,” I said, stirring, “and move in wide circles.” Pick it up. What, the dry cleaning? Is my hair okay? Did I just touch my nose? I was still talking.

“…and then, toward the center. You just stir-stir-stir, and form a vortex.” The host was staring into the bowl. She doesn’t seem to know what a vortex is, I thought, clearly I was speaking a foreign language, in my head it sounded like bird language – so I whisked more vigorously, to show her.

It’s…a spinning circle, a whirling dervish, a swirling eddy. See how the cream and chocolate make a uniform, shiny center? The vortex.

After ganache, the show went on. The host cooed when I glazed chocolate hearts, and then the kirsch truffles looked divine, and aside from that unplugged mixer glitch, I began enjoying the lights, and the talking. I got bolder, gradually warming to my new, network-ready voice. Rolling truffles in cocoa powder, we went to commercial. “We’re rolling right along,” I sang, “and we’ll be right back!”

“Oh, that’s great,” said the producer, “I love that!”

I grinned the whole break, and turned to the host, giggling.  “This is going pretty well, don’t you think?  Next we’ll do the plating, and the rose petals, and…”

She was still, no longer rolling, frozen-eyed and tapping a fingernail on the stove.

Oh.  Now I sounded like a sick crow again. “O-kay….soooo….what are you going to say when we’re back?” Nothing.  “Should I roll more in sugar or more in cocoa?  Ha ha, is this thing on?”

Later I’d gather up my sprinkles and platters, and stuff my chocolate-splotched jacket in a grocery bag. I handed out chocolate-glazed hearts and cherry truffles to the crew, on little cocktail napkins. Thank you, I told them, thanks for having me, certain I wouldn’t be back. I passed the burly cameraman on the way out and he was munching a truffle, cocoa on his chin. I said goodbye, and whispered, “I think the ganache segment came out pretty well, don’t you?”

Chocolate Ganache
from Chocolate, by Nick Malgieri, HarperCollins, 1998

1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 pound (16 ounces) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Optional ingredients can be added for flavor, richness and smooth texture. Pick one or all three:

1/4 cup light corn syrup (sweeter, shinier)

-or-

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened (richer, more flavorful)

Let the butter stand at room temperature until softened but still cool. Add the butter in chunks to combine during mixing.

-or-

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder dissolved in 1 tablespoon Kahlúa, any liqueur, or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

To make ganache:

Place chopped chocolate in a medium-sized, heat proof bowl. Note that hot cream will eventually be poured over it and must cover it entirely. If whipping later, use a stand mixer bowl, which is perfect.

Pour cream into a medium saucepan over medium heat, and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and immediately pour over chocolate. Shake bowl, and allow to stand for about 2 minutes.

Stir with a whisk until smooth. If using ganache for a frosting, whisk in the optional room temperature butter chunks and corn syrup until smooth. If desired, whisk in the optional espresso powder dissolved in liqueur.

* Ganache can be poured warm as a glaze, cooled and spread as a stiffer icing, or whipped. Allow to cool less time if pouring (should pour like corn syrup), more for spreading consistency (like buttercream) and the most time for whipping (stiff, but not hard). Don’t let ganache get too cold, or it will not spread as frosting. To re-warm, place the heat-proof bowl over a pan of hot water while stirring to desired texture. Do not reheat to “hot.”

* Ganache can also be refrigerated or set aside. Cover with a piece of plastic wrap pressed atop the ganache and store. If refrigerated, bring to room temperature before using by letting it sit in a warm kitchen spot, about an hour to soften.

* Whipped ganache is used for making truffles, piping, filling or making a mousse. It must be cool to lukewarm when whipped, to whip faster and hold better texture. To whip, place ganache in a mixing bowl and whip it vigorously hand or with an electric mixer on medium-high, until mixture is fluffy and has lightened in color. Do not overwhip or mixture will become grainy. Use whipped ganache immediately.

They stared at me and laughed, sliding the fruit under buttery doughs and into the oven. Yes, but it will be the finest mush to ever sweeten your tongue.

And it was. The bakers had sweetened the deal by cloaking peaches in cobbler, and every working sunrise that summer, it smelled like heaven cooling on the racks. They proved to me that steaming, drippy magic resides in every peach.

It’s been love ever since.

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Peach Cobbler with Blueberry Cream

peaches:

7 large peaches – peeled, halved, pitted and sliced
1/4 cup granulated sugar – blended with 1 tablespoon cornstarch, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
finely grated zest of one lemon

topping:

2 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks
4 tablespoons cold solid shortening
1 cup pecan halves, roughly crushed
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream, blended with 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Lightly butter an 8-cup ovenproof baking dish that measures about 2 inches deep. Set aside, and preheat oven to 425 F.

In a large bowl, toss the sliced peaches with the sugar-cornstarch-spice blend and set aside for a few minutes. Toss the peach mixture with the lemon zest, then spoon peaches into the buttered baking dish, along with any juices from the bowl.

For the cobbler topping: Sift the all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the chunks of butter and shortening. Using 2 butter knives or a pastry blender, “cut” the fat into the flour until it’s reduced to small bits. With your fingertips, further reduce the fat to small flakes by dipping down into the mixture and crumbling it. Toss in 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar and the pecan halves. Pour the cream-vanilla blend over the flour mixture and in a few quick strokes, use a fork to combine into a rough dough.

Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and gently knead a few times combine. Pat out dough approximately 3/4 inch thick. Using a 2 1/2 – to 3-inch round cookie cutter, cut biscuits from the dough, and place the biscuits on top of the fruit, overlapping slightly. Sprinkle the remaining 2 teaspoons granulated sugar on top of the biscuits.

Bake the cobbler on a rack in the lower third of the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 400 degrees and continue baking for 20 minutes longer, or until the topping is golden brown and the fruit is bubbly.

Serve cobbler warm or at room temperature, with ice cream or Blueberry Cream, below.

Blueberry Cream

1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/4 cup blueberries, chopped and smashed to release juices

In a small bowl, stir powdered sugar into sour cream to combine. Fold in smashed blueberries until fully blended. Refrigerate until served. Blueberry Cream will keep, covered and refrigerated, for several days.

cobbler adapted from Fruit Desserts