Cranberry Upside-Down Cake

Here it is, "Thanksgiving" morning--we celebrated the Saturday after--in my new, improved kitchen. You can tell I've been busy: you can see, from the foreground, Brownie Schrumpf's brownies and Pennsylvania squares, some mango bread we ate for breakfast, some cheese straws ready for the oven, and way in the back on all my counter space, a bowl of toasted bread cubes waiting to become stuffing. Yes, even though I have a lot more counter space, I somehow manage to use it all.

This side of the kitchen is even more of a transformation: lots more counter space around the stove and a new sink. Of course we soon discovered that the wooden countertop doesn't like being near the sink, but I'm sure we'll very soon have a fix for that. Anyway, I am so very grateful to have a husband who's willing to put in the time and talent so that I can have a fabulous kitchen.

But back what I've been cooking in the kitchen. Of course I made pumpkin and pecan pie, but I wanted to do something for the blog as well, and Cranberry Upside-Down Cake seemed like the way to go. It's festive and easy enough to fit in with all the many other holiday dishes.

The fresh cranberries I got at my local supermarket (from Wisconsin) were huge! Underneath them is a thick layer of butter and sugar. Warning: the silicone pan was not the way to go here, as the sugar never caramelized. Use a metal cake pan and perhaps put a cookie sheet under it.

The cake batter comes together quickly, and you just pour and spread it on top.

Here it is fresh from the oven before being reversed on a plate.

And here's the result after being reversed but before being glazed (and set in a corner to wait while other dishes got the spotlight). Note the white patches of unmelted sugar. I was rather disappointed with that.

Of course, I got busy with cooking and guests (12 for dinner, a stretch for our small apartment) and didn't take a picture of the final product, but it was really delicious. It's got a refreshing tartness that was nicely offset by the crème fraîche I served with it. Mind you, like the Cranberry Grunt before it, this cake was the last to be finished, but I enjoyed every piece.

Here's the recipe. It's not pumpkin pie, but maybe that's OK.

Cranberry Upside-Down Cake

10 T. (5 oz.) butter, room temperature, divided

1 c. (7 oz.) sugar, divided

1 12-oz. bag cranberries, rinsed and drained

1-1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

Grated rind of one (organic) orange

1 t. vanilla

1 egg

1-1/4 c. (5 oz.) sifted flour (I used some whole wheat, of course)

2/3 c. (5.3 oz.) milk

1/3 c. red currant jelly

Heat the oven to 350. Find a 9-inch cake pan that is at least 1 inch deep, preferably deeper. A pie plate might do the trick if you don't have a deep enough cake pan.

Take 4 T. (2 oz.) of the butter and smear it in a thick layer on the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Sprinkle that with half of the sugar. Put the berries in a single layer over that. Set the pan aside while you make the cake batter.

Beat the rest of the butter (3 oz.) with the baking powder, salt, orange rind, and vanilla until fluffy. Add the remaining sugar and beat another minute or two. Beat in the egg and beat another minute. Add half the flour at low speed, then the milk, then the rest of the flour. Pour the batter over the cranberries and spread it evenly: it should cover them fairly thoroughly, and the pan will be quite full. Bake (on a baking sheet for insurance) for 1 hour (check after as little as 35 minutes: mine was done at that point). The top of the cake will become dark brown. Cool the cake in the pan for 20 minutes. After 10 minutes, cut around the sides of the cake. While the cake is cooling, melt the jelly in a glass bowl in the microwave for about 30 seconds, or until it has melted. When the 20 minutes are up, cut around the sides of the cake again, put a plate on top of the cake pan, and (using potholders) flip the cake upside down on the plate. If you're lucky, the cake will slide right out. If you're not, scrape out the cranberries, put them back on top of the cake, and remember that you're going to be covering them up anyway. Pour the melted jelly on top of the cake, using a spoon to spread it out to the sides. Cool to room temperature. Serve with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream or crème fraîche.

Peach Crisp

Welcome to my new kitchen! I believe it's now the sixth kitchen I've used since I began this blog, not counting guest kitchens. But here's hoping it's the last for a while. It's a good kitchen. You'll notice the nice light and view from the window. Also the larger new refrigerator.

And my new gas stove and the oven I brought from our last apartment. Yes, that's a washing machine under the stove. Welcome to European apartment living.

Just for contrast, here's the kitchen as we got it. No appliances, but at least we got the counters and cabinets. Often you don't even get that here.

So if I compare and contrast with my last kitchen, it's easy: this one is bigger and has more cabinet space. But it has almost no counter space (and no room for my beloved butcher block unit, which is now serving as a buffet in the living room) and only two drawers. We have plans and dreams for improving the kitchen, but first we have to recover from the financial shock of buying an apartment at Parisian prices...

But maybe you're here for the recipe. It's definitely worth making. It's called "peach crisp", but what I made was neither purely peach, nor did I find it to be a crisp per se. But it was delicious and easy.

I had planned to buy a lot of peaches, honest! But I was at the market and the apricots and cherries, which are more in season than peaches, were calling out to me. So I decided to make an "early summer fruit" crisp. There are some peaches there under the other fruit.

Now to the crisp part. Maybe it's the egg or the flour/butter ratio, but this is not the streusel-y crisp topping I'm used to. Maida said it would be "crumbly", but even after I added more flour and some oatmeal, it was still more like dough. No matter: I just broke it up and crumbled it over the fruit.

And here's the final product. To me it's more like a cobbler than a crisp (this is my go-to crisp recipe), but that doesn't stop it from tasting great. We were six at dinner, and there was nothing left at the end.

So whether you're in a old kitchen or a new one, whether you have peaches or apricots or plums or whatever, you should make this for a great ending to a good dinner. Here's the recipe.

Peach Crisp

3 lbs. peaches (or mixed fruit of your choice), peeled and quartered/thick-sliced

1-1/2 T. lemon juice

1 t. vanilla

1 c. (4 oz.) sifted flour (some whole wheat is nice here)

3/4 c. (5 oz.) sugar

1/4 t. salt

1/4 t. almond extract

1 egg

6 T. (3 oz.) melted butter (consider browning it)

Heat the oven to 400. Butter a 2-quart baking dish. Put the fruit in the baking dish; sprinkle it with the lemon juice and vanilla and stir. In a medium mixing bowl, mix the flour, sugar, and salt. Add the almond extract, egg, and butter and stir well with a fork. It should be crumbly, but if it's not, you can still proceed without any problems. Sprinkle/crumble the topping over the fruit. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the topping is golden and the fruit is bubbling. Serve warm with ice cream.

Stewed Peaches

Welcome to my new kitchen in Le Pecq, France! As you can see from the tools mixed in with the utensils, it's very much a work in progress.

But still, it's a pleasant, sunny place to work, and Sami has installed a big transformer so that I can use my American appliances (though I'm still nervous about getting out the Kitchenaid).

We've been spending a lot of time shopping and moving and packing and unpacking--moving a large American-style household into a small French-style apartment takes a good deal of time and patience. And money. But we're getting there. I hope to be able to host a dinner party here soon.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying getting to know our new environs. One of my favorite parts of the 'hood is the market, which takes place three times a week, just a 15-minute walk from here. I roll my "Granny cart" up the hill and into town, and when I come back, it's filled with beautiful produce like these peaches (well, now it's more like apples and pears and prune plums).

And then I can get the Maida Heatter book out again and cook them up on my not-so-fabulous but fully functional stove in my favorite cast-iron pot--the pot I bought myself as soon as I found out we were staying in France.

Mmmm...the last peaches of the season cooked in vanilla syrup. Simple and delicious.

We ate these plain, but there's so much delicious syrup that they might be even better spooned over pound cake or ice cream--or both.

This was a great way to start back with Maida in our new kitchen. We've been here almost a month, and I've made lots more desserts, but I needed to get the photos uploaded before I could post them. I hope to post a lot more in the coming days. But in the meantime, here's the recipe--which you can also do with prune plums (I did that this week--delicious!) or pears.

Stewed Peaches

1-1/2 c. water

1 c. (7 oz.) sugar

1 vanilla bean, split (I used half a bean and there was plenty of vanilla flavor)

6 peaches, peeled (either with a knife or by blanching a minute or two)

In a large pot or even a deep skillet, mix the water and sugar. Scrape the vanilla seeds into the sugar water with a small, sharp knife and throw the bean in there as well. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Let simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the peaches and cook for about 15 minutes, turning them once. They should become tender but not mushy. Remove the peaches with a slotted spoon. Turn up the heat on the syrup and let it boil down until the bubbles get large and the mixture becomes, well, syrupy. Pour that syrup over the peaches and cool. Maida suggests serving these chilled. Enjoy them with yogurt for breakfast or with ice cream for dinner or just plain for a not-so-guilty pleasure.

Prune and Walnut Layer Cake

Welcome to my third (and final!) kitchen in Pontlevoy! This one is not as well equipped as the last one, and I sure do miss the microwave, food processor, and dishwasher! But this kitchen is fairly roomy and has a large table for prep work. It will do.

So blurry. Note the flea-market collection of furnishings.

One of my favorite parts of this kitchen is the refrigerator! I can actually fit some stuff in there, including a cake! Of course, it's now completely full. Note that we've just moved in and already it's full and cluttered. As our friend Dirk said as we settled in for dinner the day we moved, "You would never know you hadn't been here for weeks." Thanks--I think.

OK, ignore the clutter. Note the fireplace in the kitchen. No, I haven't had the guts to try it out. The stove is electric and the oven is pretty small. Also, it has very imprecise temperature markings, which should make things a bit of a challenge. But hey, it works. And so I made my first blog dessert here last week.

Let me just say a word about prunes. I love the prunes of France. So sweet and juicy. Julia goes through bags of them. So I was pretty stoked to make a prune cake, actually. But this one calls for stewed prunes, and I wasn't quite sure how to stew prunes. I ended up just soaking these in boiling water until they were soft. I think the result was very good.

Note also that while the recipe calls for buttermilk and sour cream, I used mostly plain yogurt and a bit of crème fraîche. That seemed to work fine.

Here are the frosting ingredients. Cream cheese plus butter plus cream plus eggs. And chocolate. Over the top, anyone? But it's really delicious. I couldn't get my cream to whip properly, so the frosting was perhaps not as mousse-y as it should have been. But let me repeat--it was delicious. It could be a dessert unto itself.

Um, a few deviations from the recipe worth noting. First of all, the recipe is for a three-layer cake. I have one cake pan; thus it became a one-layer cake once I'd halved the recipe. No problem. Second, if I had read the recipe correctly, I would have seen that I was supposed to have separated my egg (my one-and-a-half egg) and whip the egg white. Oops! Maybe my cake would have been a bit lighter had I done that. I think the texture was just fine, though.

Finally, as you see in the picture, I really need to learn that silicone pans do in fact need to be greased and floured. However, with enough frosting, no-one has to see the mess, and this way I could taste-test the cake.

Here's what was left over from the party I had--grilled burgers, potato salad, and cake. People seemed to like, not love the cake. One guest swore he could taste rum in it. I didn't mention the prunes, and no-one seemed to notice them. That could be good, since they're a controversial fruit for some.

I really liked this cake. With the heavy chocolate and all the walnuts, it reminded me of the rocky road eggs we used to get at Easter. And the prunes and spices added a nice touch. I think the cake recipe would make really good muffins as well.

Here's the recipe. If you have three cake pans and a lot of guests, make the full thing. Maida suggests decorating it with milk chocolate curls and powdered sugar. If you don't have quite so many pans or guests, cut the recipe in half.

Prune and Walnut Layer Cake

12 oz. pitted prunes, soaked until soft in boiling water
8 oz. (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. nutmeg
1 t. cloves (for the spices, I used a blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves)
2 T. cocoa powder
1 t. vanilla
1-3/4 c. (12 oz.) sugar
3 eggs, separated
1/2 c. buttermilk
1/2 c. sour cream
3 cups minus 2 tablespoons (11.5 oz.) sifted flour
8 oz. (2 cups) walnuts, cut, broken, or bought in medium-sized pieces

Heat the oven to 350. Get out three 9-inch cake pans, butter them, line them with parchment circles, then butter and flour them. (While you’re getting everything ready, now’s a good time to get the cream cheese and butter for the frosting out of the fridge)
Drain and chop the prunes with a knife or with scissors (I did mine with scissors).
Cream the butter with the baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cocoa until soft and fluffy. Add the vanilla and then gradually add 1-1/2 cups sugar and beat for about 3 minutes. Add the egg yolks and give it another couple of minutes. On low speed add the flour in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk and then the sour cream. Finally, stir in the prunes and walnuts.
If you remembered to separate your eggs, beat them until frothy and then gradually add the sugar before beating them just to stiff peaks. Fold them into the batter. Divide the batter into the three cake pans and bake 35-40 minutes (my single cake pan that had a half recipe in it only took 25 minutes or so. But who knows what my oven temperature really was?). Let cool for about 5 minutes and then turn out onto racks. Take the paper off, then carefully flip each layer over. Cool completely.
Now it’s time to make the killer frosting:

14-16 oz. semisweet chocolate (I used 7.5 oz. for my half recipe)
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
8 oz. (2 sticks) butter, also room temperature
1 t. vanilla
1/2 c. + 2 T (4.4 oz.) sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 cup cream
Pinch salt
You’ll need one large mixing bowl and two small ones, as well as some willingness to wash dishes. Melt the chocolate either in the microwave, in 30-second bursts, or on the stove over low heat. A double boiler is not necessary if you use low enough heat and have a decent pot. Set aside to cool a bit.
Cream the butter and cream cheese together until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and 1/2 cup sugar and beat some more. Now add the melted chocolate and beat until the sugar has dissolved. Then add the egg yolks and beat at high speed until the mixture is very smooth and somewhat lighter.
Now, rinse off your beaters or get out your hand mixer and whip the cream in one of the smaller bowls. Maida says to beat it until it’s almost but not quite butter.
In your last small bowl, you’re going to beat the egg whites. Make sure your beaters are really clean now. Add a pinch of salt to them and beat until frothy. Now add the remaining 2 T. sugar and beat the egg whites until they hold a shape. Now start folding in the fluffy stuff: first the whipped cream in two additions, followed by the egg whites. Try not to eat this stuff with a spoon.
Fill and frost the cake with this mousse however you see fit and refrigerate it. Serve it cold in small slices. And give some love to the prune.

8 (no, make that 5)-hour cheesecake

Welcome to my new, improved kitchen in Pontlevoy! Just a couple of blocks away from the old place, but oh so much better in terms of space and modern conveniences! Yes, it's messy, but have a look:

Big kitchen table for prepping and eating at.

Gas stove and electric oven. Lots of appliances. Even a dishwasher! Not much counter space, but whatever.
So my first Maida dessert in this kitchen was the 8-hour cheesecake. By the way, Maida's seeing a bit of a revival: David Lebovitz did a nice tribute to her in his blog today (and please, whatever you do, make those popovers!! They are super easy and irresistible.). And I found through his blog that another woman blogged through Maida's cookie book from 2005-7. Very fun.
OK, so the cheesecake. This is a recipe that Maida adapted from a recipe written by Andrew Schloss, and it involves baking your cheesecake at a very low temperature (200 F or 95 C) for a very long time. I was worried about it because I wasn't sure yet how reliable my oven was going to be or how this all would work out. And how would I know it was done, aside from the 8-hour cooking time? Through an Internet search, I found that some people put their cheesecakes in the oven, went to bed, and woke up the next morning to a brown and rubbery disk. Their advice: bake the cheesecake during the day and check on it after 4 hours or so; it will be done at about 180 F.
This turned out to be an excellent suggestion: I put my cheesecake in the oven at 2 and it was ready at about 7. Which was perfect because I actually needed the oven to prepare dinner. And you'll see that it's white and creamy and mostly everything a cheesecake should be.

OK, here are the ingredients. You see that this is a pretty straightforward recipe, aside from the baking technique. The French make this stuff called "fromage à tartiner" (spreadable cheese) which is pretty much cream cheese. I got 5 packs of it and still needed to add about 2 oz. of crème fraîche to get to the 2 lbs. of cream cheese required. The vanilla is not pictured here. And that bottle of Cognac was empty when the cheesecake went in the oven, and I don't drink Cognac...

Here's the cheesecake on a pretty cake plate. Note its firm white creaminess. When I say it's almost everything a cheesecake should be, I mean that it's crustless. I like a little crunchiness with my cheesecake. Fortunately, I had some crunchy spice cookies in my purse (they come with coffee here), which Julia and I crumbled up and used as ersatz crust. That made a perfect cheesecake experience.

Mmmm...cheesecake on a plate, ready to be eaten. This is about how much is left, less than 24 hours after I first served it.

Here's the recipe. Plan your day around it!

8-hour cheesecake

2 lbs. cream cheese, room temp
1 heaping c. (7.5 oz.) sugar (in a strange twist, I felt that this recipe needed more sugar than called for!)
2 T. (1 oz.) vanilla extract (yes, that's right!)
2 T. (1 oz.) brandy
2 T. (1 oz.) dark rum
5 eggs, room temp
Graham cracker/cookie crumbs

Heat your oven to 200. Get out a one-piece cheesecake pan or a deep cake pan or a soufflé dish and butter it. You'll also need a large roasting or sheet pan to put the cheesecake pan in. Beat the cream cheese until it's smooth and fluffy, scraping the bowl and beaters to be sure. Then add the sugar, vanilla, brandy, and rum and beat until incorporated. Now add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated. Pour this mixture into the cheesecake pan. Put the cheesecake pan into the roasting pan and carefully pour hot water into the roasting pan until you have a couple inches of water. Then carefully put all of this into the oven and set the timer for about 4 hours. Go about your business. When 4 hours have gone by, assess your cheesecake. Does it look dry on top? Is it not too jiggly? Is its temp 180? Does the thermometer come out clean? If you can answer yes to all these questions, your cheesecake is probably ready. If not, let it go another hour or so, checking every once in a while.
Once you feel good about the doneness of the cheesecake, take it out of the roasting pan and let it sit at room temperature for a while until it is completely cool. Then unmold it onto a plate and refrigerate it for a few hours or overnight. Serve with or without cookie crumbs sprinkled on top. This should serve at least 8, unless one of your guests is Claire, in which maybe 5 is a better bet.

New York State Apple Cobbler

Welcome to my new kitchen in Pontlevoy, France! This is where I'll be attempting to produce American desserts for the next 6 months or so. It won't be quite as easy as it was in Mississippi. Take a look at my (already messy) kitchen.

See the shelf over the microwave (which doesn't work)? That's my pantry. A far cry from my walk-in pantry. Also note that under the microwave is the fridge. Rather tiny by American standards. It's already full of yummy stuff--cheese and yogurt and such.

See the foot of space between the stove and sink, where the boiler and coffee maker are? That's my counter space. I'll have to get creative. But at least the oven works well. However, this is an old house with "creative" wiring. That means that when I use the oven, I have to turn off the heat and perhaps also the lights so that I don't blow a fuse.
But why am I complaining? I'm living the dream--cooking in my own kitchen in France, using all those fabulous French ingredients. There's a producer of chèvre a 10-minute walk from our house, and a winemaker 2 minutes away. I can join an organic CSA, buy chicken and eggs from the local chicken lady, and go to the weekly market. I have crème fraîche in my fridge! Life is good.

Look! Local butter. Yum.

I love this picture. It's a preview of the recipe to come. The first dessert I made here was one of the desserts in the book I feared. Maybe the picture will tell you why.
My grandfather, Grandpete, was from upstate New York. Most of the time I knew him, he was suffering from early Alzheimer's, but he was a kind and gentle man who enjoyed his apricot orchard and being bossed around by my grandmother. One of my last memories of him was one I didn't even experience. It was a story told by my grandmother, who had just been to visit him at the hospital. He wasn't very verbal by that point, and he couldn't really recognize his visitors. But for some reason she said to him, "Apple pie without the cheese..." and he mumbled, "...is like a kiss without a squeeze." Funny what you remember.
Thus the New York State Apple Cobbler. Apple cobbler with cheese in the crust. I was skeptical. I like fruit with cheese--apples and cheddar are awesome together--but I wasn't sure how this dessert would go over. My husband believes that apple pie without the cheese is like a kiss without a slap. Sweet and savory do not go together, in his opinion. To top it off, we were having a French-American couple over for dinner and I was serving this for dessert. The pressure was on.
But it was OK. First, this was a great dessert to start with because it involved no special equipment. I don't have a mixer or anything at this point, though I'm hoping to expand my equipent soon. I could mix this with my bare hands, which have been quite reliable for many dishes lately.
Second, everyone loved this dessert! They ate almost the whole thing, and Claire ate the rest for breakfast this morning. They called it a "crumble," which has become a popular dessert in France. I kept my mouth shut about the cheese thing, and no-one seemed to notice it. I noticed a slight cheesy edge to the topping, but it was pretty much overwhelmed by the spices and apple filling. I think that if you don't fear the apple/cheese combo (and I know Natalie loves it), you want to go with a really sharp Cheddar. Cheddar is a cheese that's hard to find in France, so I went with something called Mimolette, a Dutch cheese that looks like Cheddar but tastes pretty mild. Also, I recommend serving this with ice cream. I really dislike French industrial ice cream, so I made a custard sauce to go with this, which turned out well, if a bit liquidy. But if I had the option, it would be good vanilla ice cream all the way.


Here's the oven-ready crumble. I didn't take a picture of the finished product, because it looks weird to take pictures of your food in front of guests. At least I think so...

Here's the recipe:
New York State Apple Cobbler

6 oz. Cheddar, grated
4 oz. butter, room temperature
1 c. (4 oz.) sifted flour
1/2 c. (3.5 oz.) brown sugar

Mix the cheese and butter with an electric mixer (I cut the butter into small pieces and smooshed it together with my hands). Then add the flour and sugar and mix into a crumbly mass. Set that aside while you get the apples ready.

2.5-3 lbs. tart apples (I didn't have enough, so I threw a pear in there as well), peeled and sliced
1/2 c. (3.5 oz.) brown sugar
1/2 t. cinnamon
3/4 t. grated nutmeg
2 T. bourbon or brandy

Heat the oven to 350 (or if you want to assemble the cobbler ahead, don't.). Get out a 2-quart baking dish and butter it. Put the apples in the dish and sprinkle them with the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and booze. Toss all that together with your hands. Then sprinkle the apples with the cheese crumble mixture. Press down on the crumble to make it nice and flat and even. You can let the cobbler sit on the counter for a while until you're ready to bake it. Just remember to preheat the oven. So, now or later, bake the cobbler for 45 minutes or until the apples are bubbly and the topping is golden-brown and crisp. Serve warm with ice cream. Serves 6-8.