Summer's Cake: Peach and Ricotta Gateau Breton

The nights are slightly colder. I’ve adapted to the thick blanket of humidity at night. Milo at my feet and the air conditioner running. I keep a robe on a bedside chair, in case I ever get too cold. I wouldn’t dream of turning the air down, though. There’s no ceiling fan in this room, the ceilings barely hit six feet. So I stretch on the bed and shudder. I grab for the puppy in the middle of the night, check to see if he is still breathing, put his head on a pillow next to mine. I dream of Heathrow airport and look up how to how to say “damselfly” in Spanish. I stayed awake until one in the morning, reading cookbooks and scribbling notes. And at three in the morning, I woke up to a moth hitting my window in a manic apache dance, leaving small floury dust on the mesh window screen. A Catherine, disheveled from her cocoon.  It’s the pubescent hour of stretching and yawning, the transition between yesterday and today and I loathe it now, the beginning of summer ending. Too fast it’s already blurry and I find myself beating my shoulder against every window, begging to be left in. The only trace of me is dust, powder, particulate and leftover.

So I baked a cake to celebrate the season. An elegy, a eulogy. A begging for forgiveness for taking it for granted, being home and safe and wrapped up in bed, waiting for the heat to break.

Peach and Ricotta Gateau Breton

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cup AP flour
• 2 TB cornstarch
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• pinch of salt
• ½ cup butter, softened
• 1/3 cup ricotta
• 6 egg yolks, plus 1 for egg wash
• 1 TB pure vanilla extract
• 1 TB orange juice
• 1 TB orange zest
• 1 large peach, slice

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375*F
2. Prepare an 8-inch springform pan with butter and parchment paper, set aside
3. In a bowl of a stand mixer, sift all dry ingredients together
4. Add butter and ricotta and beat on medium-low with the paddle attachment
5. With mixer running, add yolks, one at a time (do not add subsequent yolk until previous is completely incorporated)
6. Add vanilla and orange juice and zest
7. Turn mixer off, use a rubber spatula to hand fold a couple times to ensure all ingredients are fully incorporated
8. Arrange peach slices on your parchment-lined pan
9. Gently pour batter over peaches in pan
10. Batter is very sticky, so sprinkle a little flour onto the top (or with floured hands) to help press dough into pan and along the edges
11. Bake for 15 minutes at 375*F, then reduce oven to 350*F and bake for an additional 30 minutes or until golden brown on top
12. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before removing from pan
13. Turn out onto a plate so peach-side is facing up
14. Serve cooled or warmed up a bit. Can keep for up to two days.

Lemon-Almond Cake with Toasted Coconut

I drove for the first time all week on Friday. Stopped at the gas station, bought a pack of Camels. More out of habit than craving. More to mindlessly let the cherry eat up the filter until the tips of my fingers were burnt a gentle blush of pink. The window rolled down when it was raining and the hair on my knuckle matted, I thought of nothing else that morning. I kept my windows down and my sunglasses off, my ears rattling with the whistle of the valley air. I go 80 on the turns and 65 on the back roads. I stopped once to see a fox lying dead on the side of the road. Orange as a hyacinth, its coat matted in enameled blood and the kind of thistles my cousin calls “pricklers”.

Small black feet that used to dance on uneven creek rock. I knew this fox. And while I don’t think orange has ever been a color for royalty, he was beautiful in a way I was not.

I swerved thinking of something my mother had said that morning, distracted by my own Prodigal anger at her. How casually she’s forgotten so much about me. How she whispers certain words in grocery stores. How she leaves out the best parts of a story if it’s at her expense. People have a way of forgetting and I remember a lot more moving back than I thought I would.

I drove for the first time all week, saw a fox on the side of the road, bought a pack of cigarettes and sat outside for a while. Thought about where I want to live, and how I consolidate those dreams when I am still paying off two degrees and a year of law school I never pulled the trigger to just get it over with and finish.  I went inside and baked a cake when it was 90 degrees in the kitchen. I ran out of containers, so I keep my almond meal in an old Maxwell House coffee canister for right now. I used some sun-warmed lemons and made it simple. Because, above all else, I can’t forget that’s the reason I moved back home. Because people have a way of forgetting.

Lemon-Almond Cake with Toasted Coconut

Ingredients for Cake:

• 2 cup AP flour
• 2/3 cup almond meal (fine, my preferred is Bob’s Red Meal)
• 1 ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 ½ cup white sugar
• 1 cup crème fraiche (can substitute sour cream or ricotta here as well)
• ½ cup olive oil
• 1 TB vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoon almond extract
• Juice from one lemon
• Zest from two lemons
• 4 tablespoons butter, extremely softened
• 2 eggs + 1 yolk, room temperature
• 1 TB white vinega

Ingredients for buttercream:

• ½ cup vegetable shortening, softened
• 2 tb butter, softened
• ½ TB vanilla extract
• 1 ½ cup confectioner’s sugar
• 3 TB whole mil

Directions for Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F
2. Prepare an 8-inch springform pan with butter and parchment paper
3. Into the bowl or your stand mixer (or, if you prefer, you can do this by hand), sift together flour, almond meal, baking soda, and salt. Repeat twice more (this step isn’t necessarily, but I really believe in getting the almond meal as light and aerated as possible here)
4. In a separate measuring cup, vigorously whisk together crème fraiche, oil, extracts, lemon, butter, eggs, and vinegar. It will be clumpy even when fully mixed
5. Create a well in your dry ingredients with a wooden spoon and, while slowly mixing by hand, pour in your wet ingredients in a lumpy, gentle stream
6. Now, with the paddle attachment, beat batter on medium-high for about 20-30 seconds until thin and pale yellow ribbons form
7. Pour batter into your prepared pan
8. Bake for 45-55 minutes or until top is golden brown and edges are separating from the side of the pan
9. Allow to cool completely before adding buttercream and coconu

Directions for buttercream:

1. Vigorously whisk fats, extract, and confectioner’s sugar together until you have a dry paste
2. Add as much milk and whisk until it is thin, but not runny
3. Set aside. This will be a very small amount to just do a crumb coat on the cake for the coconut to stick t

Ingredients and Directions for coconut:

In a large, dry skillet, heat on medium for about a minute to get warm. Add 1 ½ - 2 cups of sweetened, finely cut coconut to the pan and continuously stir (allowing to sit for a few seconds between stirs to warm up) until nutty and beginning to brown on the edges. Remove from heat and dump into a bowl to cool

To Assemble

Place cake on plate and, using an angled spatula or butter knife, cover cake in buttercream. This will be a thin, thin layer and will resemble a crumb coat or “naked cake”. Now, grab a handful of coconut and lightly press into the cake. Repeat until fully covered. Grate a little more lemon zest over cake and maybe a little confectioner’s sugar because why not. Eat immediately. Ideal with hot coffee and can keep for up to three days (maybe even four or five if you are careful and it is airtight)

Wild Berry Shortcake: In Partnership with Nordic Ware

My sister was supposed to swim today. She’s 6 months pregnant and hot all the time. To stretch, lay out, relax, she said it would be heaven to her. Instead, it rained, so she fell asleep on the couch, curled up in an old blanket a great-aunt made. The room is dark and the light through the lace curtains is grey. Summer is fickle and sometimes you can only lie down for an hour and wait out the storm.

This morning we talked about two uncles we had. One died in a war, the other died from smoking a pack a day. I don’t miss either anymore, really, but we live in the shadows of their totems: tan lines from mowing Tanglewood Baptist Church’s cemetery, a gold ring one wore on his pinky finger, the distrust of feminine men and women who don’t put wear makeup. We live in these totems and don’t talk of them much. My dad keeps a used shell from his brother’s 21-gun salute. My mother had a bumper sticker on her Nissan for the longest time: “All gave some, some gave all” for her brother, too.

They were uncles with nothing to do with one another, but we visited both in one day. One July in Indiana, a few days in the Midwest so we could visit our family there. We played basketball with John and picked blackberries with Mike. I remember the clouds were as curt and monosyllabic as their names. The sun was hot, no shade out in farm country. We rode our bikes to Dairy Queen and John sang “Sex and Candy” under his breath the whole way there.  I remember it because later, on the way to my uncle’s to pick berries, I said her brother said a curse word.

It stormed when we got to Mike’s. Summer is fickle and so we made dessert. He kept an old ice cream bucket in his fridge that was full of bruised berries, smashed and crammed to close the lid. We stayed there for two hours, my mother made a yellow cake. We ate it with ice cream and those bruised and bleeding berries. I remember it all so vividly, a world I was only acquainted with. One July when the summer was still fickle, too.

Wild Berry Shortcake

Inspired by my summers in Indiana and Nordic Ware's Shortcake Basket Pan. Makes 6 shortcakes or 2 8-inch square cakes.

Ingredients for Shortcakes

• 1 ¼ cup AP flour
• ½ cup corn flour or a fine-ground cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• ¼ cup half ‘n half
• 1 TB pure vanilla extract
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 5 egg

Directions for Shortcakes

1. Preheat oven to 350*F
2. Prepare your NordicWare shortcake pan with vegetable shortening and flour, as recommended by the care instructions
3. Sift together flours, baking powder, and salt four times until very airy and light. Set aside
4. Whisk together half ‘n half, vanilla, and lemon until well-mixed. Set aside.
5. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
6. Add eggs, one at a time. Make sure you turn off mixer once in a while to scrape the edges and bottom with a rubber spatula. Mixture will look curdled, but it is just fine
7. With your rubber spatula (not with the stand mixer), lightly fold in flour mixture, a half-cup or so at a time
8. When all flour is incorporated, your mixture will be pretty thick. Thin it out with your milk mixture and beat for fifteen seconds with the stand mixer on medium-high to aerate slightly
9. Split batter between your 6 prepared shortcake cups
10. Bake for 24-28 minutes or until tops of cakes are golden and slightly puffed (while this is baking, make your whipped cream)
11. Allow to cool completely before removing from pan and assembling your desser

Ingredients for Cream

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream, cold
• ½ cup confectioner’s sugar
• 1 TB pure vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt
• ¼ cup crème fraiche (or  Greek yogurt)

Directions for Cream

1. While cakes are baking and cooling, work on your cream
2. In the bowl of your stand mixer, now fitted with the whisk attachment, whip your cream until soft peaks form
3. Add your vanilla and continue beating on medium
4. Slowly add your confectioner’s sugar and your pinch of salt
5. Turn mixer off
6. Gently fold in your crème fraiche or yogurt. The whipped cream will deflate slightly, but the added dairy will thicken the mixture to a nice, heavy consistency
7. Set aside until ready to assemble cake

Assembly: When cakes are cooled, top each with a couple tablespoons of your cream mixture and a few wild berries (as I did in this recipe) or blackberries (really, though, any berry will work). Sift a little more confectioner’s sugar for good measure and enjoy! 

A special thanks to Nordic Ware for sponsoring this post. Nordic Ware has been producing quality kitchenware products in their 70 years and are now one of America's most beloved and iconic brands. For more information or products, check out their website!

Beardy Boys: Pecan Choco Ice Cream Affogato

Before I moved away, I spent a summer not working. I did it to read, to tan, to dye my hair and pierce my ears, and try my damnedest to reconnect with my mother. I drank a lot of coffee, heavily-creamed and sometimes four sachets of artificial sugar. Water bottles thrown in a corner, they piled up. I didn’t work. I smoked a lot of cigarettes then; stubbed them out under a rock next to my sister’s Marlboros. I was leaving for the West Coast when my boyfriend and I had saved up enough.

We never saved up enough, though. Never had enough to fly home unless someone else was paying my ticket.

And now I sit back in my old house. Four years later and working from home. Coffee is black and my hair is a different shade of blonde than what it was. I hide a pack of cigarettes in a grey duffle bag. Mosquitos kiss my feet when I dangle them off the porch swing.  The constant hum of the rural mower drowns out the crickets, the peepers, the owl that built a nest where lighting struck the oak out back. I sit in air conditioning and feed my mother’s nine cats. My hair is a different shade of blonde four years later, but I have my father’s laugh lines and I notice them in this summer heat against my tanned face.

Pecan Choco Ice Cream Affogato

Ingredients:

• 6.5 or 7 oz nut butter (my preference is by far Beard Boys nut butter and here I used their Pecan Choco for a nutty, buttery taste against the coffee)
• 12 oz sweetened condensed milk
• 1 ½ cup heavy whipping cream
• 2 cups strong black coffee, freshly brewed

Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl, use a rubber spatula to mix together your nut butter and the sweetened condensed milk. Set aside
2. In a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, whip your heavy cream on high until stiff peaks form
3. Put a little bit of the whipped cream into the condensed milk mixture to lighten it and then dump the condensed milk mixture into the whipped cream
4. Fold together gently but thoroughly (it may deflate a little, but that is better than having pockets of whipped cream and no pecan butter!)
5. Pour into a loaf pan and freeze for about 6 hours before serving
6. When you are ready to serve, scoop ice cream into your bowls (the ice cream will not firm up to be hard due to the condensed milk) and pour your coffee over
7. Serve immediately.
8. If you are not making an affogato or have leftovers, ice cream can stay in freezer (covered with a bit of plastic wrap and aluminum foil) for 2-4 weeks, but check for freezer burn after week one

This post was sponsored by my partners at Beard Boys, Inc. Their nut butters really are superb and provide a natural, delicate flavor in every spoonful of this dessert. Check them out on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

Cherry and Beer Poptarts

When I was 7, I got my first pair of glasses. My brother cried because he said I didn’t look the same. We haven’t spoken in three years.

When I was 17, I moved out. Went to college, rode the train. When I was 17, I had my first boyfriend; the string of inconsistencies that have allowed me to know who I am through a process of elimination. When I was 17, I got lost in downtown Pittsburgh, throwing up in alleyways and walking back to campus. The next day, I got my lip pierced. I think to show others I could be tough, even if I couldn’t grow facial hair or hold my liquor.

At 18, I stayed in Italy. I worked at a gas station to pay for my ticket. My mom kept the apron for when she cleans the house. I didn’t keep in touch with those I lived with abroad. I didn’t see a point. They saw me as a child who shaved his head and smoked short cigarettes. I think I spent that time convincing myself I didn’t need anyone. I moved back to Pennsylvania December 16th. I started dating my boyfriend on January 1.

In May, he went to China and I got my first tattoo. I didn’t need him for anything. A small act of rebellion, small needles and antiseptic smell mixed with the blood-rust under the cottonball.

I tanned before moving to California, still wore a lot of black, still smoked a lot of cigarettes. I drank juice and coffee; I ate candy during law school finals.

Got more tattoos, lost a job.

Moved to Texas, put to roses on my arm.

Moved back to California, fell in and out of love. Fell in and out of a understanding of what I wanted, but I know I wanted out.

This time I got the word “eleven” tattooed on my arm for my dad. It was his baseball number. They retired it when he graduated from South Ripley County, Indiana.

And last week I got a nose ring. I’m 24 and still changing things. Still speaking through layers of performance, latent cues and failed attempts at seeming aloof. That’s the beauty of being so young still—I have grown accustomed to being someone else and somehow all the iterations of that person are all still me.

And today I was someone who created photo backgrounds, who propped the board up with an old coffee mug from my week in Belgium. I was someone who made poptarts, handpies, whatever you want to call it—like I used to when I was six and the world was blurry and my skin unblemished.

Cherry and Beer Poptarts

Ingredients for the crust:

• 8 TB unsalted butter, very cold
• 6 TB shortening, very cold
• 2 cup AP flour
• 1 cup almond meal
• ¼ cup white sugar
• 1 TB pure vanilla extract
• ¼ to ½ cup ice water

Ingredients for the filling:

• 2 cups cherries, pitted and halved
• ½ cup brown sugar, dark
• ¼ cup beer, any variety (can sub red wine if you’d like)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 TB lemon or orange zest
• Juice from half a lemon or ¼ of an orange
• A slurry of cornstarch (1 TB cornstarch whisked in 1 TB water) – do not make until cherries are reduced by hal

Directions for crust:

1. In a food processor, pulse together butter, shortening, flour, almond meal, and white sugar until fats are pea-sized
2. Add vanilla extract and pulse once or twice
3. With motor running, pour ¼ cup of water into feeding tube in a gradual stream until a dough forms. You may need an additional couple teaspoons of ice water until dough clumps and begins to pull away from edges of the bowl
4. Turn out onto a floured work surface and divide into two discs
5. Wrap both discs in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes to res

Directions for filling:

1. In a medium sauce pan, combine cherries, sugar, beer, salt, and lemon, stir with a spoon to ensure liquid is covering everything
2. On medium heat, allow for cherries to release their juices and for sugar to dissolve
3. Continue heating until juices simmer and reduce by half (during this time, whisk together your slurry)
4. Reduce heat to low and vigorously whisk in the slurry
5. Mixture will begin to thicken and continue thickening as it cool

Assembly:

1. Preheat your oven to 400*F
2. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper
3. Take one disc of dough out of the fridge and roll out onto a heavily-floured work surface into a rough rectangle that is about 12” by 10” (this will vary slightly, so don’t stress it too much)
4. Using a sharp knife, cut your dough into rectangles. For a guide, I actually used a 3”x4” index card, but you can measure with a ruler if you so choose
5. With each rectangle, carefully place onto your prepared baking sheets. You should have 9 rectangles total (if using the very scientific Index Card Method)
6. Now, re-flour your board and roll out your second disc of dough
7. Measure and cut your rectangles out again, but do not immediately place on your sheets
8. At this point, you will have to do three things in succession: make an egg wash to brush edges of the dough, spoon in some of your cherry filling onto each rectangle (I’d say about 2 TB per pie, but this is based on preference mostly), and place second top dough layer on top
9. Do this for each pie
10. Crimp the edges of each pie with a fork, pressing slightly to seal
11. Brush tops of pies with remaining egg wash and sprinkle with a little sugar
12. Using a paring knife, cut a couple small nicks in the top crust to vent dough
13. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown on the edges and tops
14. Allow to cool completely before adding your topping (my glaze was ½ cup confectioner’s sugar, 4 TB half and half, and 1 TB vanilla extract, then topped with almond slices and sprinkles)
15. Can be kept for up to 3 days in an airtight container, but I like them served warm.