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!

Friday, 4:30 pm: In a blinding show of supermarket strength, I improbably stick to my own advice – “never buy candy you like.”

I hate Milk Duds.

Friday, 4:45 pm: making pom-poms for Josie’s “Undead Zombie Cheerleader.” First, be sure to make a frantic, yelling stop at the grocery store about two hours before said costume is necessary.

At the store, pick up one black plastic tablecloth for $1.26. At home, rip it in half (Death’s not neat), then roll up each half tightly and secure the top with rubber bands. Use a scissors to slash up each pom-pom below the rubber band, then tie with orange ribbon and pull out all the strips to “fluff” them out.

And you’re ready to go! The Undead Pep Squad never looked so good.

Saturday: baking for the annual Blintz Brunch & Bake Sale on Sunday.

But what’s this? Early birthday present! Greg & Josie thoughtfully give me a new camera, which allows me to taken even closer close-ups of coffee cake, cherry filling and wet dog noses.

Saturday evening: off with friends to see Waitiki, a live South-Seas retro cocktail music spectacular at Lawrence’s historic Liberty Hall, complete with tiki bar drinks and not one but two onstage gongs. Amazing.

A show that managed to somehow be both mellow and wild, and all broadcast live on NPR. I ordered a “Shrunken Skull” cocktail, and given the large amount of rum vs. the dangerously small size of my brain, one was enough.  Rock on, forty-one year old.

Sunday morning: Josie waits tables at the Lawrence Jewish Community Center’s annual Blintz Brunch, an enormous community-wide event, a blintz-lover’s paradise and a politician’s hand-shaking dream. There were were plenty of them on hand, too – congressmen and state senators and school board members, all there to buy chocolate babkas, kiss a few babies and eat thousands of cheese blintzes. Greg and I took our traditional posts at the Bake Sale table.

Anything look familiar?

Monday morning: Bleary-eyed and full of sugar.  Look, it’s like we shared the whole weekend – and if we had, you’d also have my cold, and be hacking your lungs out right now over hot tea and roses and birthday cards.  I think what I’d really like is a gift-wrapped pot of chicken soup.

I leave you with the cool sounds of Waitiki – have a great week, don’t eat too much leftover candy and don’t forget to vote!

Evening update: Just look what Fedex brought from my dear pal Jean today, a veritable hodgepodge of gifty delight -

Now here’s a girl who knows me: stickers for the Anglophile, “M” cards for the paper freak and a vintage pear painting, for, you know, the pear-lover that I am.  Nothing like a birthday that keeps on giving!

And then, once in a sugared blue moon you get the sort of feedback that makes you very, very happy.  Yesterday Simmer reader Amy, she of her own blog My Land, sent me something wonderful.

Her own Apple-Almond Braid, and doesn’t it look smashing? Now that’s what I call feedback. Feed-me feedback.

Delicious job, Amy, and thanks for sending it!

Her thoughtfulness ensures that our chief activity is an inordinate amount of snacking. At home, I’ve got room for three squares – here? Oh, excess is just a funny word. As in, here I can grab pretzels with one hand and dial deep-dish with the other – ha, puh-lenty of room! – and I’ll still find a reason to bake.

I bake differently in my mother’s kitchen. I do not make fancy things – not that things need to be fancy, but sometimes they do and here, they do not. Ambitious work used to end in where’s this sheet pan or that cutter or thanks for having like one cup of sugar – but I finally learned to go with it, and by now I actually find relief in the prospect of no layering, glazing, frosting or piping. All I’ve got to do is look in the fridge and poke around the pantry.

I pull out a Pyrex bowl, a white spatula, and a glass pan that measures a nice, rounded 9 x 13. After that it’s a surprisingly easy run of mixing, baking…

…and as soon as possible, eating.

These dreamy, cheesecake-y bars are loaded with chocolate chips, cranberries, cream cheese and cinnamon. Is it curious coincidence, or do all good things – see Chicago, Cleo, croissants – start with C?

———————————–

Pantry Dream Bars

8 oz unsalted butter, softened
grated zest of one large orange
1 cup light brown sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups quick or old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

12 oz mini chocolate chips
1 cup dried cranberries

8 oz cream cheese, softened
14 oz sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup orange juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease bottom and sides of 9 x 13″ pan with baking spray.

With electric mixer, blend butter, brown sugar and orange zest until creamy.

In a small bowl, mix flour, oats, salt and cinnamon to blend. Toss mini chocolate chips and dried cranberries through flour mixture. Add the dry mixture to the butter-sugar bowl and mix on low until a rough, crumb-like dough is formed. Measure 2 cups of the crumb dough and set aside.

Press all remaining dough into prepared 9 x 13 pan, pressing to form a thick bottom crust. Place in oven on center rack and bake for 15 minutes.

While crust is baking, make the topping: whip cream cheese in electric mixer on low-medium speed until smooth. Slowly add sweetened condensed milk, orange juice, vanilla, egg and 1 tablespoon flour to blend.

Remove pan from oven and pour cream cheese mixture over hot crust. Sprinkle remaining crumb dough evenly over the top, then return to the oven for about 30 minutes, until edges are brown and top appears firm and golden. Cool until safe to handle, then refrigerate to firm. Cut into generous squares and serve cold.

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.

———————–

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

The evening before, I’d mixed up some rugelach dough – cream cheese dough – planning to make a batch of pick-me-up cookies for a slightly depressed friend.

But I had a slab of incredible pepper bacon sitting around, and unable to resist its black-peppered, smoky goodness, I decided to use half the dough as a base for Tarte Flambee – sort of a bacon and onion pizza – for Friday night’s dinner.

Inspired by my head still in France and modernemama‘s enthusiasm, it was bacony perfection, a license to eat four kinds of fat. Oh my.

Now it was Saturday and I was annoyed in the kitchen. I’d abandoned the white chocolate mess and was huffily munching cold bacon tart. Last I checked I’d come in here to do something, not just eat leftovers. I took another slurp of limeade, grabbed the remaining rugelach dough and looked in the fruit bowl.

Slim pickings. Josie eats drippy nectarines all summer like a fruit bat, and there was only one left.

But with a bit of cream cheese dough for crust, one nectarine turned into four little tarts.

There was still a little dough left. I could make a few rugelach for that sad friend of mine, or – nibbling the last chunk – I could finish it off myself.

Hmm. I had a rapidly decreasing ball of dough, and a few strawberries in the fridge. And a lone kiwi.

After a few minutes of rolling, pressing, more nibbling and baking, there were tart shells.

And the presence of tart shells called for the whipping of cream.

Now I had tart shells, honey whipped cream, strawberries, a peeled kiwi and one bowl of lonely, hardened white chocolate in the corner. I narrowed my eyes.

Please?

Oh, fine. Who wouldn’t forgive white chocolate? You can play too.

So the sad friend led to rugelach which didn’t get made, which led to a tart flambee, four nectarine tarts, some failed white chocolate curls, sliced strawberries, a kiwi and freshly whipped cream.

Finally, it led to a few pretty things at the end of the day. Just for fun, and just to show how when you least expect it, when you are hot and frustrated and sucking down limeade, everything has a way…

…of coming full circle.

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.

Roll, shape and bake into tart crusts, sweet turnovers, rugelach, and other cookies.
Keeps several days wrapped in the refrigerator, and freezes well.

I wasn’t going to bore you with the standard, ooh-that-stunning-eggplant market stuff – well, maybe a little – but heaps of ripe, stemmed cherries are everywhere in Paris, and I mean everywhere – tumbling off fruit stands into pools of creme fraiche, glistening on tarts and popping from every man, woman and child’s hand to mouth. And it’s not the only thing that’s red – back to the cherries in a minute:

So much sunlit red, and dizzy red wine – and with that, let’s get back to small red fruit. I have never seen so many cerises in my life – and believe you me, it’s painful to ogle the goods with no kitchen around.

So I am counting on you to bake Julia Child’s recipe for Cherry Clafouti, a traditional and traditionally easy no-crust French tart that bakes ripe cherries right into eggs, milk and sugar. This happy match-up makes Clafouti acceptable for breakfast – or whenever – and preferably cold, and eaten standing up.

Cherries are falling at home, too, so please make one for me! Merci buckets.

Julia Child’s Cherry Clafouti

1 1/4 cups milk
2/3 cups sugar, divided
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 cups cherries, pitted
powdered sugar, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Using a blender, combine the milk, 1/3 cup sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt and flour, and blend.

Lightly butter an 8-cup baking dish, and pour a 1/4-inch layer of the blended mixture over the bottom. Set remaining batter aside.

Place dish into the oven for about 7-10 minutes, until a film of batter sets in the pan but the mixture is not baked through. Remove from oven (but don’t turn the oven off, yet).

Distribute the pitted cherries over the set batter in the pan, then sprinkle with the remaining sugar. Pour the remaining batter over the cherries and sugar.

Bake in the preheated oven for 45 to 60 minutes, until the clafouti is puffed and brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve warm. Serves 6-8 for dessert, 4 for breakfast, or one Marilyn for about 2 days. (Julia totally didn’t say that. But I wish she had)

I don’t care that’s it getting a bit warm outside.

When quiche calls, you answer. Crank up the air, flour your hands and keep the butter cold.

So what if this blog has been Quiche’d with Lorraine-love before? Slice that cheese! Dice that bacon! Pay no attention to the calorie-counter behind behind the curtain.

It’s a holiday, so get in there and make some. Try my favorite Quiche Lorraine recipe of all time, the one that has graced many a brunch table – and dinner plate, and, um, small snack plate – here. Happy Quiche Day!

Here is what we do:

Make enough brownie batter for a generous half-sheet pan (or 11 x 15″ jelly-roll pan) – add some cold coffee or espresso for extra oomph.

In a small bowl, mix Skor Toffee Bits or Heath Bar Baking Bits with chopped almonds, pecans, or hazelnuts. Sprinkle nut-candy mixture over half the brownie batter, pressing lightly to adhere, and leave the other half plain. Bake, and cut each side into squares or shapes.

Of course any brownie is good by itself, but now you’ve got two, with names -Toffee Almond Brownies and Espresso Brownies – you’re a genius! Two looks, two tastes, two textures, for the price of one pan.  That crowd will think they’re in brownie heaven.

My apologies to readers who have seen this tray before.

But it’s not too hard on the eyes. That reminds me…I need to make some rugelach.

When that door swung toward my desk, I could catch another world, and when I wasn’t confirming the luncheon for trophy wives, I began to sneak small bites: salty prosciutto and runny brie, streaky pancetta and French green beans, currant butter and fresh-baked scones - melting sugar that was never too sweet, glorious buttery bread that oh my god was not bread at all.

I stopped going out for subs and started lunching at my desk, crumbly scone-currant butter-prosciutto sandwiches, munched on napkins with sips of Orangina. After the first scone I was hooked, and instead of trying to beat them, I’d spend the next twenty years trying to join them.

Now scones are an everyday thing, and they inspire strong feelings; more exotic than a biscuit, more homey than cake, always utterly delicious. We didn’t invent them, but there they are in our coffee shops, our groceries, our airports and kitchens. Are they ours? The British would hmph and the Scots would say they are not even scones, but what of it? Holding a tray from the oven, arguments disappear and the scones do too.

I should tell you that the gourmet shop fired me, and I’d never been fired before, or since, and when that swinging door kicked me it broke my hungry heart. But it also pushed me into the kitchen for good, and eventually I would spin that first taste into a business called Scone on the Range.

And that is a story for another day.

Hmph…now I’m all worked up. Let’s make some scones.

Scones aren’t a perfect science, so don’t fret about all the steps – after a few rounds of mixing, cutting and eating, it’s like riding a bike. A very warm, buttered bike.

We’re making Orange Chocolate Chip Scones, and to get them truly orang-ey, we need orange zest.

You can finely chop thin strips of orange peel, or use a fine-holed cheese grater, or spend seven hours with a shmancy zester tool. But if you’re a zesty girl like me, consider investing in a Microplaner. It is a most heavenly and efficient tool.

Whisk together the eggs, heavy cream and vanilla.

Mmm. I’m thinking eggnog.

Put the dry ingredients (except the sugar) in a mixer bowl, and add the cubed butter. Yes, you can make perfectly good scones without a stand mixer – but this leaves me one hand to push Cleo off the counter.

Cutting in Butter Like biscuits, you want the butter to disappear into the flour. Here, we do it by running the mixer on low – and I mean low, or it’s hello, white volcano - until the butter is reduced to large floury crumbs.

Grab those lovely whisked eggs. With the mixer on low, slowly pour in the liquid…

…turning the mixer on and off, on and off, like the ‘pulsing’ of a food processor.
Before the dough comes together, add the sugar, chocolate chips, and orange zest.

Keep mixing on low, on and off, until it just comes together…

…like so. Is it slightly wet and sticky, is there flour at the bottom? Does it look shaggy and uneven and not done? Good – you made scone dough!

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Using floured hands or a bench scraper – a metal pancake turner works, too – turn it over a few times, pressing lightly but not kneading, until it just comes together, soft, thick, and smooth.

Beware of lurking labs. They are a scone’s natural predator.

Pat dough 1/2″ to 1″ thick (thicker = higher, but fewer scones) and cut as desired. You can cut wedges or use a floured cookie cutter to stamp out rounds. Below, I’ve cut fluted triangles…

…because the tall wavy edges make me happy. Can you spot the lucky butter chunk?

For a ‘browner’ scone, brush lightly with cream or milk. Then sprinkle the remaining sugar in a thick layer over the tops. See that imperfect scone in the corner? That’s for Josie. She can spot an earmarked leftover blob a mile away.

It’s the homeliest, the tastiest, and the first one gone.

—————————–

Scone on the Range Scones, Orange Chocolate Chip

(click here for a printable recipe)

makes about 1 dozen large scones

4 cups all-purpose flour
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 plus 2 tablespoons sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
finely grated zest of one orange

extra sugar for sprinkling

———————

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and sea 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 orange zest, 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. Cool on baking sheet a few minutes, then transfer to racks, and serve.