Mother's Day: An Orange-Ginger Cake

Some years we sat at the boondocks of my mother’s mind, waiting for her to show the slightest attention. Some years, we were all she had. We played the part of anchors, support, canes, crutches, and the wheelbarrows of her life.  It was backbreaking work and we’d ask for raises in our allowances. Then stopped asking and took the bills from her purse. In spite of the night shifts, double shifts, graveyard shifts. Even when my father bought a portable radio on a credit card to sit in his car for 8 hours on Saturdays, working as a security guard to pay for his kids’ three cars. Some years were like that, but not always.

We’d sit in the boondocks of her mind, at the periphery of conscious effort and wait for her to say, “Good job,” on my sister’s schoolwork, my poems, my brother’s career. When it didn’t come, we wouldn’t ask. She was busy, she was tired, she was mad no one put away the dishes and did she have to do everything around here?

She was every manifestation of Shiva and every epithet of Hera. As much an orphan as she was a mother. As much a Madonna as she was child. How hard she worked until her fingers bruised and calloused. Her kisses were tender when she’d check our foreheads for fevers. She fell asleep more than once waiting for the birthday cake to finish in the oven. One year we ate at the mall food court when I turned nine.

I left home when I was seventeen. When I moved to California and I hated the first house I had with my boyfriend, I called my mother and cried on the way home from school. She said I was too much to handle now, that all I ever did was bitch and moan. I hung up and didn’t call her back for two months.

But things change, I grew up. I forgave but the dust motes of resentment still hit the sunlight sometime. I never let it settle for long. This is the first year I’m celebrating Mother’s Day with her in six years, the first time in six years I can hand her a card and hug her tight. She makes the coffee every morning and leaves me post-it notes of how she’ll miss me when she goes to work. She took me in when that same boy in California kicked me out. She took me in even after all the time passed in wasted silence. She was a tough mom, an angry mom, a sad mom. But she’s also the only other person I know who has had to reinvent themselves more than they can count. And now she sits, crocheting in her reclining chair, being the anchor to some slowly dissolving memory I have of how it was, and just how good I had it.

Happy Mother’s Day.   

Ginger-Orange Layer Cake

This cake celebrates spring and the harsh, bitter, and sweet of any relationship. Three layers, swathed in buttercream and sprinkles, with layers of a quick orange marmalade in between. Makes a three-layer cake, 6 inches in diameter

Ingredients for the Quick Orange Marmalade

• 1 large orange, washed
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 TB grated fresh ginger
• 2 TB water

Directions for Quick Orange Marmalade

1. Cut the top and bottom of the orange and then cut into 8 sections
2. In a food processor, pulse whole orange until it is finely pureed and no large chunks are visible
3. In a saucepan, add all ingredients and simmer for 15 minutes or until marmalade begins to congeal
4. Take off heat and allow to cool
5. Note: this is a quick jam just for this recipe with no proper canning technique involved

Ingredients for Cake

• 3 ½ cup AP flour
• 1 ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 cup sugar
• ¼ cup honey
• ½ cup shortening
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 1 ¼ cup milk
• 2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
• 2 tablespoon orange zest

Directions for Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350*F and prepare pans with butter and parchment paper
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder and set aside
3. In a measuring cup, whisk to combine milk, vanilla, and vinegar and set aside
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add honey, sugar, and fats. With the paddle attachment, beat until mixture is pale and fluffy
5. Add one egg at a time, do not add subsequent egg until first is fully incorporated
6. With mixer on low, alternate between adding the flour and the milk mixture until batter is formed
7. Stir in ginger and orange zest
8. Pour into prepare pans (or pan, if you have to reuse) and bake each layer for 40-45 minutes until a knife comes out clean
9. Allow to cool completely before assembling
10. Note: While baking, use this buttercream recipe and add 1 teaspoon of ground ginger if you so desire

Assembly: Use squares of parchment paper under the first layer of the cake to help with a clean finish on the icing. Lay one cake layer down, add your marmalade, then the second cake layer, more marmalade, then final cake layer. Refrigerate 15 minutes. Take out of the fridge and add a crumb coat, return to fridge for 30 minutes. Remove and add final layer of buttercream, using a large angled spatula knife and a bench scraper for those fine edges.  Finally, you can decorate as I did, with sprinkles by basically putting some in your hand and gently pressing into the cake. Repeat until fully covered. Removed parchment squares. Enjoy!

Strawberry Almond Cake

I still pan for gold in other’s stream of conscious. I still make an effort to read between the punctuation of others, too. Words hang on my tongue, sometimes they crawl out like silverfish. Sometimes they escape, fast and poisonous. They hang in the air, dragonflies stuck in amber. You’ll turn them over in the palm of your hand a million years from now.  

I’m almost coltish when it comes to apologies; but I hardly ever think I’m wrong. I stumble, knock-kneed at the outskirts of empathy. I wait my turn, then play the victim. It’s worked this way for a few years now, but I’m giving up the plan these days. I’m saying sorry more, I’m hurting others less frequently. I take my time now and think of the electrons that must be passing between us when words come in asthmatic pulses. How finite the electricity is, but how it won’t run out anytime soon.

I’m more grown up now than I thought I would be in the two months since I’ve been back home. I still have a teddy bear on a chair by my closet. I still have a thousand love notes left in me. I still have an old receipt from a turnpike when I thought I’d run away tucked in my wallet. I still keep track of the cigarettes I hide in my glove compartment when I think quitting is for losers. I’ve forgotten to water the flowers by my bed again, but I’m too busy drinking my fourth cup of coffee to notice.

Strawberry Almond Cake

Yields one 6-inch cake, can top with creme fraiche or whipped cream.

Ingredients:

• 3 large eggs, separated
• 1 cup almond meal, as fine as you can get it (I used Bob’s Red Mill)
• ¾ cup AP flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon almond extract
• 1 ¼ cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon orange juice
• ¼ cup strawberry jam
• ½ cup whole milk
• 3 large strawberries, hulled and chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F and prepare a 6” cake pan with parchment paper and butter
2. In a bowl, sift together almond meal and flour. Set aside
3. Using a stand mixer, fitted with a whisk attachment, whip egg whites until stiff peaks form, set aside
4. Switch out the whisk attachment and replace with the paddle attachment. On medium-high, mix yolks with sugar, vanilla and almond extract. Beat until light and fluffy (ribbons will not form properly, as the sugar ratio is too high)
5. Turn mixer speed to medium-low and add juice, jam, and milk. Continue mixing until well-incorporated
6. Add flour mixture, a half cup at a time, until all flour is mixed into batter
7. Turn mixer off and, using a rubber spatula, spoon in a small amount of beaten whites into the batter. This will lighten the batter. When first spoonful of egg whites are incorporated, mix in remainder, folding gently so as not to deflate
8. Pour in strawberries. Fold twice to mix in
9. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes, but begin checking at the 25 minute mark for browning. Tent foil over cake if too much browning occurs
10. Cake will be done when a toothpick comes out clean (the meringue component of this may cause middle to not set as timely as the outer part, be congnizant of this). Berries may cause pockets and dents in cake when cooking, but it will be gorgeous nonetheless
11. Allow to cool completely before taking out of pan and top with crème fraiche and a small amount of honey or suga

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!

Remembering Rome: Fruitcake Biscotti

This week marks five years since I rode a carousel of gilded horses somewhere in the middle of Rome. I had too much wine and the piazza was celebrating Christmas early. There were witches on strings sold for seven Euro and small keychains where the gold was peeling off. They were one Euro. I bought five for everyone in my family. Good enough. They’d appreciate the sentiment. A week later, I found all five in the trash. All the gold scratched off with fingernails and spare change.

The lights of the carousel swirled manically in my memory and we weren’t even going that fast. We all seemed so much happier than I think we really were. I think it was raining then. I think I had forgotten my coat at the bar we went to later. I think we bought roses from a beggar and gave them to a nun cleaning when we got back to the dormitory (it was attached to a monastery). I think that memory sticks with me now because I felt both so vertiginous seated on the carousel and so grounded to the holiday season. I felt like I was home in a country where I had to carry my student visa to get into any of my classes.

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But it has been five years. Two of those years I didn’t celebrate Christmas. I haven’t done much of anything since I’ve come out to California. But I think about that day, that night, that moment I felt so connected to a world where I still had to nod eagerly and point to order a pastry.  Not too much eye contact, ask a stranger for directions.

I still feel like a foreigner sometimes, like a fraud. There’s a personal dissonance for me when I see strands of lights wrapped around palm trees. I feel like I’m betrayal some primal Appalachian roots being in the West during the holidays. It rains in California more than it snows. So I try to make the best of it, to recreate the moments when I felt most festive. When it felt wholesome and good and I felt worthy to enjoy Christmas.  I’ve felt like a necromancer, resurrecting all those memories back to the surface, those feelings of nostalgia, of carousel rides and white Christmases. This week I made hot chocolate the way my mother does—full of cream and chocolate chips melted in the microwave. I made the sugar cookies my brother likes for a potluck at work. And with the help of West Elm, I made fruitcake biscotti for that night in Rome. And while the memories keep fading away, while they aren’t as bright in my mind as they used to be, I keep trying. 

Fruitcake Biscotti, makes 12-16

Ingredients:

•  1/2 cup flavorless oil 
•  2 whole eggs, plus one yolk
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon molasses
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons dried cranberries
• 2 tablespoon dried oranges, diced
• 2 tablespoon candied ginger, diced
• 2 tablespoon heavy cream

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Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325.  Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper
2. In a measuring cup, measure out and whisk together oil, eggs, extracts, and molasses and set aside
3. In a mixing bowl, sift together sugar, flour and baking powder
4. Create a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and slowly pour wet mixture into well, mixing with a wooden spoon until it begins to come together
5. Dump out onto a floured work surface and sprinkle dried fruit on top of dough. Work dough by hand, kneading five or six times until it has come together
6. With a sharp knife, cut dough in half and shape each piece into an 8-inch log that is about 1 inch high. Place on parchment-lined baking sheet. Coat each log with a small amount of cream.
7. Bake logs for 30 minutes, and take out of the oven.  Using a serrated knife, slice both logs into ½-inch segments
8. Lay all slices evenly onto baking sheet with one cut side up.  Reduce oven to 300 and bake on each side for 6 minutes, until crisp
9. Allow to cool before serving. 
10. Buon appetito!

Traditions and Tahini Gingerbread Men (in collaboration with West Elm SD)

We are cookie makers and pie bakers. Stepsons and second marriages. We grew into these roles through years of calloused hands that held the hands of distracted women in the back rows of church. You can trace my family back to the 17th Century and they’ve always held the same thing close to heart: tradition for tradition’s sake, tradition to anchor themselves to some higher meaning than the myopic, the provincial. The utterly human qualities of my family that are somehow inescapable in our genome. My family is built on a tradition of never valuing what they have.

We are cookie makers and pie bakers. Bread bakers, too. I had a grandfather who drove trucks and brought home a crate of oranges that fell off a truck once. He said he liked being on the road, how it gave him an obligation to run away every week. He said he only came home to get his paychecks; he didn’t care much for his family then. My other grandfather was a farmer and described how to properly collect eggs one Christmas when I was rolling out some dough. He told me how to keep the hens from getting restless. Sometimes he played them music and sometimes he whistled to them. He said he wish he knew how to keep himself from getting restless, so he kept the radio on at night.

My uncles were called the Tanglewood Pretenders when they got it in their heads that they were descended from a lord in England. They were named so after the Baptist church on their grandfather’s farm. They told people in their town they were kings to some degree. They rode horses to help their own grandfather with his store in town and one fought in a war instead of being crowned. Now he’s married and works a desk job and the other hasn’t been seen for almost six years.

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Tradition. How we all grew up in the same chain link lots as our parents before us. Tradition when the fruit salad falls out of the fridge and the turkey is a little too dry. Tradition when the cake is eaten before the meal. Tradition is when we fight over scorekeeping during card games. Tradition so engrained in us that we can never seem to escape it. And we want to escape so bad sometimes.

This will be the first time I’m going home in four years to celebrate Christmas. The first time I’ll wake up to presents again. The first time I’ll see a tree decorated with the papier-mâché angel on top. The first time in four years that I’ll appreciate the tradition for what it is, for who we are, for what it all means to come from a long line of men who put food on the table and women who wanted to run away from it all. There is comfort in that inescapable reality and I’m facing it head-on next week. I’m ready. I’m waiting.

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I wish I knew how to keep myself from getting so restless.  So I’m trying to keep my home as enticing as possible. I’ve been baking cookies this week to keep busy, to keep distracted, to stay inside and not feel the need to run away. I created a hearth. I baked in that hearth. I made gingerbread cookies. Painted faces with crooked smiles from my shaky and unsure hand. I made a home this week, attempted to bring some holiday cheer while I think of all the traditions I didn’t value when I was younger.

I kept busy by making this cold bungalow in California feel like home.  I needed some help from West Elm. And while I’m still waiting for Christmas to get here, they’ve made the wait a little easier. I’m a little less restless. I’m a little more comforted by the traditions that I didn’t understand before.

Tahini Gingerbread Men (makes 36 cookies)

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Ingredients:

• 3 cups AP flour, sifted twice
• 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of pepper
• 6 tablespoons butter, softened 
• 1/4 cup shortening, softened
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, tightly packed
• 2/3 cup molasses
• 1/3 cup tahini
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg + 1 yolk
• 1/4 cup candied ginger, finely chopped
• Royal Icing (I added a little orange blossom water to mine)

Directions:

1. Sift together flour, soda, and all spices in a large bowl and set aside
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, mix butter, shortening, and sugar on medium-high until light and fully incorporated (will be lighter in color)
3. Add molasses, tahini, egg and yolk, and vanilla to the butter-sugar mixture. Beat for a minute
4. With motor running on low, gradually add dry ingredients in thirds. Allow one third to fully incorporate before adding the next. Dough should be a homogenous browned color
5. Turn out onto a floured work station and shape into a round disc. Cut into quarters and shape into discs again. Wrap and refrigerate for half an hour
6. While dough is chilling, make royal icing, preheat oven to 350*F, and prepare a couple baking sheets with parchment paper
7. When dough is finished chilling, take one disc at a time from the fridge and unwrap. Roll out onto a floured work surface into a rectangle (helps with sizing and spacing) to be about 1/4". Cut into desired shape and place on parchment-lined sheets, about 1 inch apart from one another. If making gingerbread men, you may want to use a spatula. Repeat for remaining/desired dough
8. Bake for 12 minutes or until browned and crisp around the edges. Allow to cool before decorating.

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