Pear and Beer Cake!

Happy New Year!

2017 is my year. I keep repeating it to anyone that will listen. I told it to myself in the mirror, trying to pat my cowlick down. I told it to the smoke that danced from a blown-out candle. I told it to my boyfriend as we held hands at the spa in my hometown of Bedford. I told it to my mother when she was doing dishes and to Milo when he was snoring on my shoulder while I answered emails.

I am ready to embrace this year. I hope it decides to embrace me back.

My resolutions are in invisible ink. Lemon juice on parchment that fades. A starburst behind my eyelids. I'll remember them, but they are a tetragrammaton I can't utter just yet. I am working on myself, on my food and my words. I am working on forgiveness, too. It's not at all easy, but I'm 25 and growing.

A year ago I moved back to Pennsylvania. A year ago, I stopped worrying about money and a career and the eternal sunshine of a coast I never fully understood. I made this cake to remember that time, to look back on who I was and how I have grown. I made a French cake, one from Dorie Greenspan, and spiked it with Yuengling and roughly chopped pears, so dull and brown and juicy in their diffidence. 

Pear and Beer Marie-Hélène Cake

This cake is a throwback to one of my oldest recipes I ever baked in California. It's Dorie Greenspan's Marie-Hélène apple cake and it is, in its original format, delicious. As I said, I wanted to honor last year's move home by tying in flavors of Pennsylvania with Pittsburgh's most famous beer, Yuengling. This cake is super moist, super easy, and honestly, one of my favorites (but that goes with anything Dorie does). Of course, feel free to omit the beer and sub in apples. Further, I made this in a compact, taller cake pan. If using a standard 8 or 9 inch pan, your baking time will be reduced by about 15 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup AP flour
• 1 TB cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 pears, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
• 3 TB beer
• 2 TB dark brown sugar
• 2 TB orange juice
• 1 TB orange zest
• 1/2 TB pure vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup white sugar
• 8 TB butter, melted and cooled
• Confectioner's sugar, for dusting

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F and prepare your pan with butter, flour, and parchment paper
2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt
3. In a separate bowl, stir pears, beer, brown sugar, juice, zest, and vanilla together, making sure to coat the pears evenly with the liquids
4. Finally, in your stand mixer (or a third bowl!), whisk together eggs until foamy, then continue whisking while you slowly pour in your cup of white sugar
5. Create a well in the center of your dry mixture, then, with a rubber spatula, slowly stir in the egg mixture. It will be a bit thick and very dry
6. Now, add your butter and the pear mixture, including the liquids in the bowl
7. Stir again with your rubber spatula
8. Pour into your prepared cake pan and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Check at one hour for doneness
9. Allow to cool completely before removing from pan
10. Dust with confectioner's sugar before serving

In the thick of summer and routine: S'mores Popovers

“Today I woke up to my mom knocking on the door with coffee, she wanted to watch an episode of I Love Lucy with me. The door was open and the cats watched squirrels through the screen door's mesh. Milo sat on my lap and I had some toast. It's been a good day so far.”

I wrote those words to my friends yesterday, in the morning before I worked outside for five hours. I wrote those words to have others share in my experience, to bear witness to the new life I’m living. How I’m not so scared anymore, not running away. I won’t be moving for a while, but I’m sure as hell happy about my decision to be here.

New rituals. That’s how I am living now. In between the concept and the creation, there is this part of me that remains languid, relaxed in this new routine. Wake up, drink coffee, kiss my mother good morning. Check emails, feed the outside cats, feed Milo, and take it a little slow. Get frustrated, take a nap, bake a cake. I go down on my lunch breaks to see my mother again. We talk about my sister’s pregnancy, we talk about how I would beg her to draw stick figures for me when I was little. We don’t ever talk about her mother, her childhood, when she lost her job, but the gaps in conversation do all the talking for us both.

I mowed the lawn for two hours, long expansive lines that waver on the small inclines of the backyard. We cut down trees yesterday, piled them up and set them on fire. The pit my friends and I would roast marshmallows around is now a burn pile for old trash, dead wood, sick grapevines, and junk mail my dad wants rid of.  Melted bottles and pale, pale ash.

My parents moved on, took over the things that were once ours, made it their own. The house wasn’t kept how I left it when I moved out seven years ago. My old bedroom now houses a cat that is too old and sick from surgery. The quilt my great-aunt made me hangs like a tapestry in the stairway. And the pool we received from donations when my brother had cancer now has a wrap-around deck. Unfinished, only half painted, the wood a little rough and the towels snag.

This is my routine now, to be complacent with where I am. How I live. What I am doing. I’m raised in the meeting point of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and the Appalachian Mountains.  I smelled the apple trees’ smoke on my clothes and there was soot underneath my nails. And I didn’t know why my eyes were watering so bad, but I didn’t bother to wipe them right away.

S'Mores Popovers

While you do not need a specialty pan for these, they do make for a nice presentation and a more consistent baking. With a popover pan, this recipe yields 9. With a muffin pan, it yields 12-15.

Ingredients

• 1 ¼ cup AP flour
• ½ cup graham flour (I love Bob's Red Mill's for this recipe)
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 TB brown sugar, dark
• 2 TB molasses, dark
• 1 TB clover honey
• 1 TB pure vanilla extract
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1 ½ cup whole milk, room temperature
• 3 TB unsalted butter, melted
• ½ cup store-bought marshmallow fluff
• ½ cup milk chocolate chips
• 1 graham cracker, processed to dust for toppin

Directions

1. Sift flours, salt, and brown sugar in a small bowl
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together molasses, honey, vanilla, eggs, milk, and butter until yolks are broken and liquids are a pale yellow
3. Whisking slowly, add flour mixture to wet
4. Whisk rapidly until bubbles begin to form
5. Let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes
6. Preheat oven to 450*F, prepare popover pan (or muffin tin) with cooking spray
7. When resting is complete, spoon mixture into pans ¾ of the way full
8. Top with a spoonful of marshmallow fluff and a few chocolate chips
9. Bake for 20 minutes at 450*F
10. Reduce heat to 350*F and bake for an additional 15-17 minutes (do not open the door, but check through your window to see tall sides that are golden brown)
11. Remove from oven, cut a slit into the popovers immediately to allow steam to escape
12. Turn popovers out of pan, sprinkle with a little graham cracker crumb and a few more chips and serve warm

Have all that graham flour leftover? Try making these graham crackers and milk waffles

And have you nominated Fig+Bleu for the #Savblogawards? If not, would you please?

"Peaches and Cream" Cornmeal Galette

The stunted peaches make for a good pie. Bruised and small, they drop like stones. I catch them before the birds have a chance. They’re more stone than flesh. They’re more figment than statue. They’ll be gobbled up when the cicadas come; so I made a couple pies now to enjoy with coffee in the morning.

"Peaches and Cream" Corneal Galette

Ingredients for the crust

• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 ¾ cup flour
• ¼ cup sugar
• 2/3 cup cornmeal
• 4 TB butter, cold
• 3 ½ TB shortening, cold
• 1 egg
• 2 TB vanilla
• 6-8 TB ice water

Ingredients for the filling

• 2-3 peaches, sliced
• Juice and zest from half a lemon
• 2 TB sugar
• 1 TB flour (can exclude if your fruit isn't that juicy)
• 1 cup crème fraîche (highest quality you can get. I am in love with Vermont Creamery’s)
• 2 TB butter, softened
• 1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 2 TB honey
• 1 TB vanilla extract
• Egg wash, one egg mixed with 1 TB of water, for sealing and browning
• Extra granulated sugar, for sprinklin

Directions

1. In a food processor, combine salt, flour, sugar, and cornmeal
2. Add fats and pulse until the size of peas
3. Add egg and vanilla, pulse to combine
4. With motor running, add water, one tablespoon at a time, through feeding tube
5. When dough begins to form, turn food processor off
6. Turn out onto a floured work surface and pat into a disc
7. Halve, shape into two smaller discs
8. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for half an hour
9. Preheat oven to 400*F and prepare a sheet pan with parchment paper
10. While dough is resting, slice your peaches and add zest and juice of your lemon
11. Put in bowl with sugar and flour, set aside
12. Whisk together crème fraîche, confectioner’s sugar, butter, honey, and vanilla until well-combined, set aside
13. After the 30 minutes has lapsed, remove one disc from refrigerator and put on your floured work surface
14. Roll out into an 8-inch disc and transfer to your prepared parchment to continue work
15. Leaving a one-inch margin on all sides, spoon half of your crème fraîche into the center of the disc and spread thinly around
16. Add peach slices
17. Using a pastry brush, dip into egg wash and run along the perimeter of your one-inch margin
18. Fold crust toward center, crimping and pressing to seal
19. Repeat with second disc
20. Add egg wash to crust and sprinkle with sugar
21. Bake for 28-35 minutes, checking at the 25 minute mark for any burning
22. Eat immediately, if possible, but can stay in a sealed container for two day

This post was inspired by Vermont Creamery, who excel at making quality dairy products. Check out their website, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter for more information. Thank you!

Orange Ginger Shortbread Cookies

The days are slowly creeping longer and I’m tired by seven. I’m working harder, longer hours. I drove something like 450 miles this weekend, and I’m glad I spent the money on toll roads, parking garages, bottles of wine, and cups of coffee. I’m making my own memories now. I’m paying off bills. I ate bologna sandwiches with my parents the night I came home and we sat and talked for an hour. My dad, with the TV turned loud, and my mom, with her wool socks and iPad on her lap. She checks for deals online and he checks the death toll in a five-car pile-up outside of Pittsburgh.

I don’t fear I’ll be here forever, but I’m taking my time here while I can. I made them cookies before I left, the smallest gesture to say thank you that I could muster. They’re orange and ginger shortbreads. The whole batch was gone by Monday. They were made with love and only the crumbs remain on the cellophane, now crumbled up in the trashbin by the sink.

Orange Ginger Shortbread Cookies

Yields 12-14 cookies, depending on shapes used

Ingredients:

• 1 ¾ cup flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons butter, room temperature
• ½ cup white sugar, plus more for sprinkling
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 ½ tablespoon orange zest, plus more for sprinkling
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger
• 1 tablespoon orange juice

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or oil to prepare
2. In a medium bowl, sift flour and salt together
3. Mix butter and sugar in stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, until it is well incorporated but still pretty firm
4. Add vanilla, orange zest, ginger, and juice
5. With mixer on a low speed (or, if you prefer to use a wooden spoon, that is perfectly fine), add flour mixture until dough begins to come together
6. It will be fairly dry but should hold its shape
7. Dump onto a floured work surface and pat into a disc
8. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes in refrigerator
9. Roll out onto a dusted work surface and cut into shapes that are about 1/3 inch in thickness
10. Sprinkle with sugar and orange zest
11. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until brown and crisp around the edges

Hot Cross Buns for Easter: In Partnership with Red Star Yeast

So suddenly the winter’s gone and the salt-stained boots lying in the mudroom are the only indication it ever stopped by at all. Without invitation, Spring trespassed on the cold mornings, stretched her arms and I kept my windows open to greet her. A lot has happened in six months and this persephonic heat wave doesn’t remember any of it. And I thank her for that.

I’m drinking my coffee on the porch these days, a blanket and a dog on my lap. I take my time. I don’t wear cologne these days, all my clothes smell like the breeze. A finch sat on the porch swing last night and didn’t seem to notice me. I’m enjoying the times I get to be invisible. A truck broke down a mile from my house; but I just kept driving.

This week is almost Easter and that, too, crept up on me. I haven’t celebrated in a few years—I let life get the best of me and was too busy trying to forget about others. We’re celebrating early, my parents are driving to their house in North Carolina and my sister works the weekend shift now. We’re meeting at a truck stop and eating at a diner. My dad says I can order anything I want on the menu, he’s just happy to have me home now. My mom apologizes for the last-minute choice, but the candy store’s busy and she’s too tired to cook when she gets home. I say it’s all fine because it really is. As long as I’m with them, I’m happy.

But I kept one tradition going this year, to keep the memories of cellophane grass and hollow chocolate bunnies alive. I made hot cross buns for tomorrow, for Good Friday. I made these for every tradition I thought I forgot, for every year I thought I could leave them all behind. I’ll give a few to my sister and her husband and pack the rest in a basket for my mom and dad. It may not be much, but it’s all I can give. It’s been a long six months of winter for me.

Coconut-Roasted Carrot Hot Cross Buns with Pineapple Ginger Icing

Yields 12-18 buns

Ingredients for the Roasted Carrot Puree:

• 5-8 carrots, cleaned
• 3 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions for the Roasted Carrot Puree

1. Preheat oven to 425*F and prepare a pan with aluminum foil
2. Lay carrots on foiled pan, spread out
3. In a small measuring cup, whisk coconut oil, sugar, olive oil, pepper, and salt
4. Pour mixture over carrots and stir with a wooden spoon to coat
5. Roast for 25-35 minutes or until browned, tender, and a little caramelized
6. Let cool and puree in a food processor

Ingredients for Coconut-Roasted Carrot Hot Cross Buns:

• 2 cups water, warm to the touch
• 5 teaspoons Red Star Active Dry Yeast
• 1/2 cup white sugar, packed
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup roasted carrot puree (above)
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons softened butter
• ½ tablespoon of orange zest
• 4 1/2-6 cup AP flour 

Directions for Coconut-Roasted Carrot Hot Cross Buns:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, add water, sugar, salt, and yeast. Let sit for five minutes until foamy
2. Add egg, puree, orange zest, and butter. Turn mixer on low to mix all ingredients together
3. Keeping the mixer on, begin adding flour, one cup at a time. Keep adding flour until dough begins to stick away from sides of bowl (if you add too much flour and dough becomes "sandy", add a small amount of water or milk to reconstitute)
4. Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead for 3-5 minutes until springy
5. Place in a well-oiled bowl, turning once. Cover with a towel and let sit for an hour in a warm, dry place until doubled in size. 
6. Turn back out onto floured surface and punch down slightly. Cut into 12 or 18 equal pieces and place well-oiled pan
7. Cover with a towel and allow to rise for 20 minutes
8. While rising, preheat oven to 350*F
9. Bake for 25-32 minutes or until golden brown on top.
10. Allow to cool slightly before icing tops of crosses

Ingredients for Pineapple Ginger Icing:

• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 tablespoon pineapple juice
• 2 cups confectioner’s sugar

Directions for Pineapple Ginger Icing:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a whisk attachment, mix cream cheese, ginger, and pineapple juice on medium-high until well incorporated
2. With mixer reduced to a medium-low speed, begin adding confectioner’s sugar, a half-cup at a time until icing is a desired viscosity with no lumps
3. Spoon icing into a piping bag and pipe crosses onto buns
4. Allow to sit for two minutes
5. Enjoy!

Thank you to Red Star Yeast for sponsoring this post. I believe in using quality products when it comes to baking and I am always confident my dough will rise beautifully with Red Star! Check out the active dry yeast I used for this recipe and others on their website, follow them on instagram and like their Facebook!

And while you're at it...like my Facebook and Instagram too!