A book, a cake, and a giveaway

First off, I've got a giveaway for you! This one is particularly good, because the prize is a $60 gift certificate to CSN stores, where you can find any number of fabulous kitchen goodies. Yes, that means if you win, you can buy whatever your hungry little heart desires. The sales rep appealed to my vanity by telling me I was a preferred blogger based on the success of my previous giveaway.  So here I am, plugging their website, mostly for you but a little for me.

More about the giveaway in a moment. I also want to talk about a book, and a cake.

I recently read Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life. I'm sure this book needs no introduction to most of you; she's every blogger's envy. Who doesn't want their humble blog to take off like wildfire and lead to a book, a  column in Bon Appetit, and her very own restaurant?

I enjoyed the book, although I've never gotten hooked on Wizenberg's blog, Orangette. I know I'm in the minority here. It's probably more a reflection of my idiotic need to resist what has been deemed great by the masses than anything else. But I was hesitant about the book for other reasons: I'm still young enough to be skeptical of someone younger than me writing a memoir. But she pulls it off neatly enough. I can't say I liked the book as much as some other food-related books I've read, like Heat or  The Sweet Life in Paris, but I finished it. That means something, because I'm not afraid of putting a book down and walking away forever. You might think this is terrible, but I see it as cutting my losses. I already have to work for a living; shouldn't the rest of my time be spent doing things that are fun?

Beyond the writing, a sensible test for a book like this is: do the recipes work? Wizenberg doesn't plug A Homemade Life as a cookbook, but sprinkled throughout are lots of recipes, some of them unusual, and many of them delicious-sounding. I decided to give her  chocolate cake a try.

The cake only calls for five ingredients, which wooed me right away. And it didn't require anything being at room temperature, which made it possible for me to throw it together on a whim the other night as I was heating up leftovers for dinner. Nothing gets you through a plate of reheated roast chicken like the promise of warm chocolate cake for dessert.

The cake turned out very nicely indeed, although I underbaked it by a sliver. For my taste (and the husband's) it was a little too gooey. Next time I'd let it go another 2-3 minutes. But it was delicious nonetheless and pushed over the edge of decency with a scoop of coffee ice cream. I shall certainly be making this simple, rich cake again.

Now, for the giveaway. Tell me what your favorite food-related book is and why. Don't forget to be clever, because I will be judging you, fiercely. Winner gets a $60 gift certificate to CSN. Ready? Go.

Molly Wizenberg's chocolate cake
From A Homemade Life

7 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (I used a combination of bittersweet and semisweet)
1 3/4 sticks (7 oz) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" cubes
1 c. plus 2 T. granulated sugar
5 large eggs
1 T. flour
Lightly sweetened whipped cream, for serving (or ice cream)

Preheat the oven to 375 and butter an 8-inch round cake pan. Line the bottom of the pan with a round of parchment paper and butter the paper, too.

Put the chocolate and butter in a medium microwavable bowl. Microwave on high for 30 seconds at a time, stirring often, until just smooth. Alternatively (this is what did),  melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler or heatproof bowl set over, but not touching, barely simmering water. When the mixture is smooth, add the sugar, stirring well to incorporate. Set the batter aside to cool for 5 minutes. Then add the eggs one by one, stirring well after each addition. Add the  flour and stir to mix well. The batter should be dark and silky.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 25 minutes, or until the top is lightly crackled, the edges are puffed, and the center of the cake looks set. Molly recommends setting the timer for 20 minutes to start with and then checking the cake every two minutes after until it's done. She says: "At 20 minutes, the center of the cake is usually still quite jiggly; you'll know it's done when the center only jiggles slightly, if at all. " I took mine out after 25 and wished I'd left it a bit longer; it will depend on your oven and how gooey you like your cake.

Remove the cake from the oven to a cooling rack and let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Carefully turn it out using the following method: Place a sheet of aluminum foil over the pan and place a large, flat plate (not the serving plate) on top of the foil, facing down. Hold the cake pan and plate firmly together and quickly flip them. The pan should now be on top of the cake with the foil between them. Remove the pan, revealing the upside-down cake. Peel off the parchment paper. Place the serving plate atop the cake, flip and remove the foil. Cool completely before serving (or don't.)

Summer days

The days have been slipping away from me. In part it's the summertime effect; even though we're deprived of heat here in San Francisco, it feels like summer in its own way. It's foggy and cool in the mornings and evenings, burning off in the afternoon for a few hours of sunshine. The city seems less crowded; the pool where I swim, which belongs to a university, has endless open lanes now that students are gone; and scheduling with friends is all of a sudden trickier, with vacations and kids being out of school.

My days are busy and productive and largely enjoyable, but they leave less time for writing than I hoped. My poor blog is feeling neglected. While I still love this little space, I'm not cooking as much, nor am I carving out enough time to put together decent posts.

Luckily, a few weeks ago I did make one of my old standby recipes that I haven't yet posted about. This is yet another favorite from St. Marcella; I believe it was the second recipe of hers I ever tried (the first being her delicious and simple tomato-onion-butter sauce.)

This is a quick and satisfying recipe; the only thing you need to plan ahead for is to defrost the spinach. Not a big deal for those of you with microwaves, but for the microwave-less like me, defrosting spinach can take awhile. Once you've got that taken care of, the sauce, such as it is, comes together in less than the time it takes to cook the pasta.

I'm in love with this recipe. Spinach and ricotta is a heavenly combination; it reminds me of the version of gnocchi my mother always made when I was a kid: creamy dumplings of ricotta and spinach, bound with a little egg and flour, cooked in gently simmering water, then baked under a covering of parmesan and melted butter, and finally served with fresh tomato sauce.  I don't think I have to elaborate on my feelings about ham, although I'm willing to.

Like many of Marcella's recipes, I've adapted/Americanized this one over the 14 years I've been making it, and often add extra ham or ricotta. Although you can use fresh spinach, I'm not sure why you'd want to. Frozen spinach is one of the great joys of the modern world. In any case, I've reproduced the recipe here (nearly) in its original form so you can decide how faithful you want to be.

Spinach sauce with ricotta and ham
From Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

2 10-oz. packages frozen leaf spinach, thawed
1/4 lb. butter
2 oz. unsmoked boiled ham, chopped
salt
whole nutmeg
1/2 c. fresh ricotta
1/2 c. freshly grated parmesan, plus extra for the table
1 lb. pasta (ridged penne or rigatoni)

With your hands, squeeze the moisture from the spinach, chop it fine, and set aside.

Put half the butter in a saute pan and turn on the heat to medium high. When the butter foam begins to subside, add the ham, turn it two or three times, then add the spinach and liberal pinches of salt. Bear in mind that aside from the ricotta, which has no salt, the spinach is the principle component of the sauce and must be adequately seasoned. Saute the spinach  over lively heat, turning it frequently, for about 2 minutes.

Off heat, grate in nutmeg--no more than 1/8 teaspoon.

Toss the cooked and drained pasta with the sauce, plus the ricotta, the remaining butter, and 1/2 c. grated parmesan. Serve at once, with additional parmesan on the side.

Alice's upside-down plum cake

Based on what I've been posting recently, you'd think I was made up of about 75% sugar. There was the blueberry buttermilk cake, the honey and vanilla pound cake, the almond rhubarb snack cake, and amidst those I was able to loosen my belt for some rhubarb streusel bars and chocolate chip cookies. I  have no business eating like this, but look at me go.

Recently, I had some plums that needed attention. Now, while I'm a friend to the crisp and the cobbler, over the last few years I've really developed a love of baking cakes. There's something infinitely satisfying to me about the simple steps involved -- creaming the butter, smoothing the batter into the pan, pulling the warm and fragrant cake from the oven -- and it never causes me the anxiety I feel with pastry dough. So while I may not be 75% sugar, I do think if I were a cartoon character and you could see clear through me, I'd be 50% cake, with the other half neatly split into quarters of wine and pork products. Sometimes I find it amazing that I open my eyes to live another day.

My most recent cake escapade took retro form: an upside-down cake. I have a few memories of upside-down cakes from growing up in the 70's; for some reason I never much cared for them. I wonder if it's because they were by and large pineapple, with freakishly bright maraschino cherries tucked inside the rings, which were themselves plucked from a can. I love pineapple, but I like it fresh and raw: hot pineapple seems weird to me.

I'm not afraid of other hot fruit though (although the phrase hot fruit sounds horrible) and after a bit of searching, I found a delicious-sounding recipe in Alice Waters's The Art of Simple Food for cranberry upside-down cake. I would have swapped the fruit anyway, but even the divine Ms. W. herself suggests you try whatever fruit you like.

The cake was both rich and light--a nice payoff from the effort of whipping and folding in the egg whites. And while I had to make the caramel in a saucepan and then transfer it to my cake tin, as I don't have either an 8-inch cast iron skillet or a flame-proof baking pan, it posed no problem. The sweet-tart caramel-soaked plums settled into the moist, buttery cake just the way I hoped they would, and to my surprise, the entire thing lifted easily out of the pan without leaving a single stray plum behind. Though it would have been doubly good with vanilla ice cream or softly whipped cream, it was perfectly delightful on its own: for dessert the first night, and breakfast the day after.

Please note that the original recipe (for Cranberry Upside-Down Cake) calls for 2 3/4 c. fresh cranberries cooked in a saucepan with 1/4 c. orange juice until the cranberries start to pop. Remove from the heat and pour over the cooled caramel.

Since I used plums and the recipe did not indicate how many, I used 8 or 10, which was plenty.

Upside-Down Plum Cake
From The Art of Simple Food

1 1/2 sticks (12 T) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 c. brown sugar
8-10 plums, depending on the size, pitted and cut into eighths, lengthwise
2 eggs, separated, at room temperature
1/2 c. whole milk, at room temperature
1 1/2 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1 c. granulated sugar
1 t. vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350.

Melt the brown sugar and 4 T. butter in an 8-inch cast-iron skillet or heavy-duty cake pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the butter melts and starts to bubble. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. (If, like me, you had to make the caramel in a saucepan, go ahead and pour it now into an 8-inch round or square cake pan.) Arrange the plums, rounded side down, in a ring around the outer edge. Working inward, make concentric circles with the plums until you fill up the pan.

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl or in a stand mixer, beat the remaining 8 T. of butter to lighten. Add granulated sugar and cream until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time. Stir in vanilla.

When well mixed, add the flour mixture alternately with the milk, starting and ending with one-third of the flour. Stir just until the flour is incorporated.

Beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Fold one third of the egg whites into the batter and then gently fold in the rest. Pour the batter over the plums and smooth the top with a spatula.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan. (Mine cooked for 45 and came out perfectly but I'm starting to wonder if my oven runs cool).  Remove from the oven and allow the cake to cool for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the pan and invert the cake onto a serving plate.