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Brett Braley-Palko Brett Braley-Palko

Caramel Cherry Upside Down Cake

This week, Nolan housesat for his parents while they were in Mexico. For me, I stayed home with the dogs and chickens and did the usual chores. I pulled the couchbed out in the living room and sprawled my books and writings and computer and bags of chips across the flannel sheets and sat in silence, save for the dogs snoring and the rain gutters overflowing.

There's a routine to the way we live now. The way we argue. The way we spend our Sundays. The way I do the chickens and the way I play with the dogs. It's not mechanical, but it is familiar. I like it. I myself am a frenetic ball of stress, so the calmness of monotony is good for me.

And when I am home alone, I don't eat that great. I pick like a bird. I graze on candy and yogurt and forget to eat. I'm too wrapped up in the small luxury of expansive hours of reading to care. And when I wanted to bake this weekend, I did it in the simple way--thrown together with leftovers from the fridge.

Caramel Cherry Upside Down Cake

Ingredients:

  • 15 oz frozen cherries
  • 1/4 cup caramel sauce
  • 10 TB unsalted butter
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 2 eggs + 1 egg white
  • Zest and Juice of 2 lemons
  • 1/2 cup whole milk or buttermilk
  • 1/2 TB vanilla extract
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 cup AP flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375*F
  2. Heavily grease and line the bottom of a 12-inch cast iron skillet
  3. Pour cherries and caramel sauce onto parchment and evenly distribute with a rubber spatula
  4. In a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar
  5. Add eggs, zest, juice, milk, and vanilla
  6. Sift together your dry ingredients
  7. With mixer on low, slowly add in flour mixture a 1/2 cup or so at a time
  8. Mix on high for one minute
  9. Pour over top of cherries and caramel
  10. Bake for 40 minutes. Because of the moisture of the cherries, it may not be done at this time, so keep checking every five minutes until middle is tanned and set
  11. Allow to cool for about 15 minutes before turning onto a plate
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Brett Braley-Palko Brett Braley-Palko

Toasted Cornmeal "Dutch Pancake"

It's been unseasonably warm lately. The dogs are learning to play Frisbee and I am learning to play Monopoly (I haven't won, but I have a rematch with Nolan tonight). We ordered a rug; we are decorating slowly. We are researching composting and burned all of our trash in the firepit just off the trail to our creek. The smoke still stuck to his hair while we watched TV last night, I could smell it on my fingertips this morning, too.

Or maybe it was the brand of Camel he likes to smoke. A pile of them, stubbed out at different angles, hide under rocks and in porch crevasses like small mushrooms. He'll stop when things slow down. I only smoke to look cool to strangers. It's never worked, but I keep trying.

I'm writing to the local papers more, telling them how I feel about the world these days. My best friend is going to London in May. I traced my mother's grandmother's grandmother back to Ireland and bought three pairs of reading glasses with a coupon I had in my email. Life keeps moving forward, slowly but surely. I keep baking, I keep drinking more coffee than I should. I keep forgetting to pay bills and I sleep to pass the time. But I'm happy. Happier than I have been in years and years and years.

Toasted Cornmeal Dutch Pancake

This recipe is if a Dutch Baby and a cornbread had an affair in a skillet. It's eggy, sweet, nutty, and light. It's not dense, but is denser than it's dutch baby cousins, so will not puff up to the same extent. It's perfect with lemon, cherry jam, or even just more sugar on top.

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup cornmeal, as fine ground as you can get (but not flour)
  • 2 TB butter, unsalted
  • 2 eggs, room temperature
  • 3/4 cup whole milk, room temperature
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

 

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 425*F
  2. Pour your cornmeal into a dry cast iron skillet (11 or 12 inches) and heat on medium-high
  3. Stir once or twice so as to prevent browning, but allow your cornmeal to toast and give off a nutty-sweet scent
  4. Now, pour your toasted cornmeal into a bowl and replace with your butter in the pan
  5. Put pan into oven to melt butter
  6. Whisk all remaining ingredients together vigorously. Remove pan from oven for only a second to pour batter into skillet and then return to oven
  7. Bake for 20 minutes. As the ingredients are slightly heavier, they will not puff up, but dish will still be light
  8. Enjoy immediately
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