No More Mr. Nice Pie
  • About
  • Blog
  • Pies About Town
  • Pie-Ku
  • Recipes
    • Recipe Index

A RUCKUS WITH RHUBARB

5/20/2021

1 Comment

 
Picture
Rhubarb and I have reached a bit of an impasse, and it’s not even Memorial Day.
Giddy with the not-so-novel idea of an upside down cake featuring stalks of pie plant, I hold up a photo. Rhubarb sighs. “What’s the problem? This is a stunning bake!” Totally nonplussed, Rhubarb shrugs his poisonous leaves and dismisses my upside down cake dream. The harbinger of spring then poses the obvious question, “Can’t you simply leave upside down cake to Pineapple? Why must you drag me into the mix?”

​Setting down a parchment-lined springform pan, I cajole. “C’mon… you know you’re perfectly suited to this role. You’ll love this cake- it’s spiked with ginger and healthy from yogurt, and of course…” I point in his direction. “What’s not to love?” Rhubarb pauses before replying. “What’s not to love is being subjected to a poaching syrup of hot caramel. What’s not to love is being wedged into the confines of a pan held together with a massive latch and then being smothered in cake batter. Call me petty, but withstanding fifty minutes of moderate heat under glaring lights before someone flips you on your head isn’t a pie plant’s dream. We’re a common garden vegetable, for crying out loud, not Cirque du Soleil!”
 
Rhubarb continues. “Once again, you’re only thinking of yourself. Your breakfast slice, your post running snack, your dessert. Have you ever considered my feelings?” I hadn’t. Rhubarb lashes out, “You try standing on your head in a 9” springform pan with nowhere to turn.”
 
Rhubarb is right, after all.  It’s not easy coaxing lightly poached stalks of a spring vegetable into a tightly confined space. Refusing to line up with precision, the vegetable wiggles and rolls over, refusing to surrender to the blade of a small paring knife, overlapping in the wrong places and leaving unsightly gaps where the pan bottom meets the side.  My fingers are scorched from the caramel syrup and unlike the photograph, the brilliant pink stalks are less brilliant post-bake. Still, the cake bakes up perfectly tart from the rhubarb and spicy from the candied ginger and just sweet enough from the caramel. I have a slice for breakfast and another later in the afternoon. And despite the hullaballoo from the star ingredient, I’d call this Ottolenghi recipe a wild success.

1 Comment

HUNGARIAN SHORTBREAD

5/14/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Jam-filled shortbread knows many variations. Perhaps the most popular is Hungarian shortbread, a match made in cholesterol heaven, with plenty of butter cozying up to sugar, flour, and sunny egg yolks. Julia Child is credited with the recipe and so is Gale Gand and Dorie Greenspan. Czech cookbooks dub the cookie omlos teasutemeny, roughly translated into ‘short pastry biscuit.’ South African cookbooks share a similar shortbread recipe and plenty of Jewish grandmothers baked a version, adding ground walnuts to the mix because they couldn’t leave well enough alone. My friend Jane DeAngelo who lived to be 100, made an Italian version she called Biscotti con Marmellata. Some recipes called for hard boiled egg yolks, but Jane used yolks directly out of the shell, flavoring the dough with just a hint of vanilla or almond extract. Once the dough was mixed and then frozen, Jane subjected the dough to a box grater, letting the shards fall into a rimmed cookie sheet. The next layer was jam, sometimes apricot, sometimes raspberry, followed by another layer of grated dough. Hot out of the oven, the bar cookies received a liberal dousing of confectioners’ sugar. I vividly remember Jane’s knack for cutting the bars into perfectly identical, slender, rectangular fingers without benefit of a ruler. Gliding a thin bladed knife through the hot tray, the fluffy crumbs of shortbread would shatter, sending tiny wisps of powdered sugar into the air.
 
I encountered two roadblocks on my way to Hungarian shortbread nirvana this week. The first was the dreaded ‘pan conversion.’ Despite more than enough resources available for guidance, I fumbled through my kitchen cabinet, stacking an assortment of square and rectangular pans on the counter. An entire pound of butter seemed awfully excessive for a mid-week bake, and half of a recipe seemed overly generous for two people. I didn’t want to use a springform pan, and I didn’t want to line anything with slings of parchment paper. Sorting through a stack of tart pans felt promising, unearthing a long forgotten fluted rectangular pan measuring eight inches by eleven. The shortbread dough filled the pan generously but without excess, negating any reason to steal a glance at that damn pan conversion chart.
 
My Hungarian shortbread experience was far from flawless, however. In the final moments, just after retrieving the hot pan from the oven, I set it down on a level, heat-proof surface. Carefully filling a fine mesh strainer with an avalanche of powdered sugar, I promptly bumped the strainer on the edge of the counter, watching in slow motion horror as the indelibly white sugar blanketed my very navy blue shirt, sweats, and sneakers.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

0 Comments

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    Ellen Gray

    Professional Pie-isms & Seasonal Sarcasm

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Artwork by Retsu Takahashi
© Ellen Gray All Rights Reserved 2014
  • About
  • Blog
  • Pies About Town
  • Pie-Ku
  • Recipes
    • Recipe Index