Boxing Day Cat

Lapsang takes his ease after breakfast.
--ml
tags: Dum Luks Community, cat blogging

Cooking is Science

Science is experiment.

Experiments do fail.

Saa-a-a-a...

My post, Another Fruit Cake, contains a recipe for Tropical Fruit Cake which came out of Dorothy's recipe file. It is a light, as in color, fruit cake featuring Brazil nuts, dates and maraschino cherries. I vaguely remember Dorothy making this, though I preferred her darker Royal King Fruit Cake.

Ann remembers it, too.

So, for the first time, I tried to follow the recipe on Dorothy's card. Uncharacteristically I stuck pretty close to the directions and measures on the card.

The result was not good.

It made eight small loaves. It over baked, slightly, in an hour, rather than an hour and a half to two hours, in a cooler oven than called for (because my oven usually runs about 25^o hotter than set). Each is an Andean diorama of Brazil nuts, cherries and dates barely connected at the bottom of deep crevasses with a rubbery sponge. There was not enough batter to cover the nuts and fruit, which is how I remember this cake. Separating the batter ingredients from the filler shows the recipe to be a basic sponge: Roughly equal parts of sugar, flour and eggs. (I think three eggs would be about three-quarters of a cup.)

So the problem would appear to be a mismatch in the quantities of fruits to cake. I would recommend cutting the fruit and nuts in half, or doubling the batter parts. Except. I double checked the recipe I used with the original card. They are the same. Here's an almost identical version of Dorothy's recipe that I found through Google.

Now I have about a pound of beautifully roasted Brazil nuts agglomerated to a scant pound of too dried out dates by a thin plastic sponge.

Maybe I could add more batter and steam it to rejuvinate the dates. Maybe I could break it up and start over with just the batter?

Maybe I could just start over?

Maybe I could forget it?

hmmm.....

--ml

Update: Steaming makes the dates soft and the sponge less rubbery which saves the cakes. Moral: Watch the oven to prevent over baking. Still don't like the proportions.
tags: Feast of Holidays, fruit cake, Christmas cake, solstice

Yes, If ...

I whole heartedly support Digby's point here ...

IF!!!

Like South Africa, who created the truth commissions AFTER the Blacks were freed to be equal to the Afrikaner Party of De Klerk and VerWoerd, The Re-Thugs and the Media grant that Democrats, progressives and all non re-thugs are equal to Capitalists.

--ml
tag: Dum Luks Stockpot

Order of Battle For the Cook's Christmas Day

Rather than consult a host of cookery books, or, infinitely worse, trust my memory, I like to print out a sheaf of recipes for the day and one or two preceding which I meditate upon during those clusters of moments when my frazzled ego screams at my dazed id: Fer gawds sake what comes next? Here is a sketch of one such. I will add to it to make it more complete:

Shopping List
Xmas 2006

Quantity	Unit	Item
10-12	lb	goose
1	lb	almonds
1	tsp	allspice
1/3	cup	bleu cheese
2	each	apples
1	qt	cream
2	lbs	bulgar
1	lb	filberts
1	lb	carrots
1	each	garlic
1/2	tsp	cloves
		olive oil
1	tsp	fennel seed
1/2	lb	pecans
1	bunch	Italian parsley
6	oz	shallot
1/2	tsp	nutmeg
1	cup	shitake
1	cup	oatmeal
1	bunch	broccoli
1	tsp	paprika
2	cups	buttermilk
6	slices	red onion
1	rib	celery
1 1/2	tsp	sage, thyme etc
1		curly endive
1		squash
12		eggs
1/2	cup	wild rice
13	cup	flour
1	lbs	brown sugar
1/2	tsp	ginger root
1 1/2	lbs	chicken breast
1		orange
42	oz	chicken stock
1 1/2	tbl	vegetable oil
1/4	cup	cider vinegar
1	cup	watercress
12	oz	cranberries
1		red pepper
6	cup	lard
12		red potatoes
1	tbl	molasses
6	med	onions
2	cup	sugar

Breakfast:
Popovers
Yield: 6 Servings

3 Eggs	1 Cup Cake Flour
1 Cup Milk	2 Tbl Butter

Preheat oven and popover pan (muffin tins) to 375°f. Beat eggs light in electric mixer or with whisk. Slowly add milk and flour until a consistency of heavy cream is reached. Add a dash of salt. Divide the butter into each cup. Fill with Pop over batter. Bake for 35 minutes.

Buttered Eggs With Sausage

1/2 Lb Ground Chicken	Salt & Pepper
1 Cup Matzo Meal	1 Tbl Olive Oil
2 Garlic Cloves. Smashed	6 Eggs
1 Tsp Sage	2 Tbl Heavy Cream
1 Tsp Thyme	4 Tbl Butter
1/2 Tsp Rosemary,Crushed	1/4 Cup Italian parsley
1/8 Tsp Cayenne

Mix Chicken, Matzo meal and herbs. Refrigerate overnight.
Make patties and saute in olive oil or schmaltz until done. Place on a serving dish to stay warm. Add a bit of oil or butter if needed. Crack the eggs into the pan. When the whites begin to set, add the cream and salt & pepper. Stir gently. When almost done, add parsely and butter.

Lunch
Crecy Soup
Yield: 6 Servings
Great British Cooking

1 tbl butter	20 oz water
1 lb carrots	1 tsp sugar
1 orange, juiced	3 medium onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped	1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup all purpose flour	salt & pepper
20 oz chicken stock	1 cup watercress, chopped

Cut carrots in 2" pieces. Melt butter in stock pot. Add carrots, onions and garlic. Saute for about five minutes. Add flour. Stir well and gradually add the stock. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the sugar and simmer 10 minutes more. Remove from the stove and puree in a blender. Return soup to stock pot. Add orange juice and cream. Season. Reheat it very gently. Do not boil! Garnish with Watercress. OR, to serve cold: Transfer to a clean bowl and chill for at least three hours.

Christmas Goose

10 lb goose	1 tsp celery seed
1/2 lb apricots, dried	1/2 tsp cayenne
1 miniature Frangelico	1 cup hazel nuts, chopped
2 tbl olive oil	1 cup tart apples, diced
2 cups wild rice	1 bunch Italian parsley, chopped fine
2 cups bulgar	20 oz chicken stock
6 cups water	1/4 cup flour
1/4 lb butter	1 qt buttermilk
1/2 cup onion, diced	2 cups peaches
1 tbl caraway seed	2 tbl butter

If frozen, thaw goose completely. Soak apricots overnight in Frangelico. Preheat oven to 350°f. Reserve innards. Remove fat (Save to render) Slide finger or rubber spatula between meat and fat layer under skin. Carefully prick skin to fat, but not into meat. Brush with olive oil. Cover loosely with foil. Put 2 cups water in pan. Place bird, breast down, on rack over pan. Roast 1 hour. Pour rendered fat and water out of pan. Reserve. Turn bird breast up. Simmer innards on top of stove. Return to oven. Raise temp. to 400°f. Roast 1½ hour more. Cook wild rice and bulgar in water. Add 6 tbl. butter at finish. Chop onion, apples, nuts and parsley. Saute onion in 2 tbl butter until translucent. Crush caraway and celery seed in a mortar and add with cayenne. Add apples, nuts, parsley and stock. Simmer 10 minutes. Mix into rice and bulgar. Fill casserole dish. Cover. Bake 30 minutes at 350°f.When bird is done, set out of the way for 20 minutes. Then move bird to platter. Pour off fat. Save for later use. Deglaze pan with water from innards. Reserve drippings.Make a roux of 6 tbl goose fat and ¼ cup flour. Cook. Add pan drippings and cook til thick. Add buttermilk. Saute peach halves in butter until brown to garish platter and plate.

Turnip Yer Nose
Yield: 6 Servings
-ml- 1999

3 lbs turnips	1 tbl sesame oil
3 tbl cilantro, chopped	1 tbl sugar
3 garlic cloves	1 tbl sesame seeds
3 tbl rice vinegar	2 tbl Canadian bacon, chopped fine.

Peel and cube turnips. Boil til just cooked. Drain. Mix remaining ingredients. Add to turnips and toss to coat.
--ml
tags: Feast of Holidays, solstice, Christmas goose, Christmas menu

Another Fruit Cake

UPDATE! Read before baking!

Ann reminds me that Dorothy made another fruit cake less molassesy dark, but also rich and moist and loaded with dates. Ann says she has encountered the recipe now and again in odd places. Once she saw it in Vogue magazine. It is called Tropical Fruit Cake and features red and green maraschino cherries and whole Brazil nuts. The last item is lacking in the Royal King Fruit Cake recipe as Dorothy made it which leads me to wonder if I have conflated the two recipes in making my own version. Hmm. frailty. Mumble...mumble.

Tropical Fruit Cake

Categories: Cakes
Yields: 6

3 cups Brazil Nuts
1 pound Dates Pitted
1 cup Maraschino Cherries Red & Green Mixed
0.75 cup Flour All Purpose
0.75 cup sugar
0.5 teaspoon baking powder
0.5 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Dump nuts & fruit into a large bowl. Sift dry ingredients together. Add to fruits & Nuts. Mix with hands until well covered (The nuts and fruit, not your hands, silly.) Beat eggs in a small bowl until foamy. Add vanilla. Pour over fruits & nuts. Mix well. Bake in greased, papered loaf pan in a 300⁰f. oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

--ml
tags: Feast of Holidays, fruit cake, Christmas cake, solstice

Sinterklaas Dag

So yesterday the Kid^tm informed me that it had been years since I had made a Peppermint Roll. There was no arguing with this. It is true.

Too late for the Dutch observance of Saint Nick's day, and all but too late for the day itself when much of the rest of the world celebrates the grand bishop of Turkey, patron of children, who mostly made it a practice to rescue young girls, whose families could not dower them, with sufficient of the ready to find a proper husband and avoid a life of desolation as either a spinster or prostitute. To this humble foundation the World and his Wife have added substance and structure over many centuries and in much of the planet. Many cultures remember his generosity by giving him vast scope to gift all the children of the world with ephemera of far greater worth (to toy makers and retailers and multifarious and nefarious bankers) then dozens of dowries. Some have changed his name: Father Christmas, Santa Claus, Pere Noel, Nikolaus, Sinterklaas, or more colloquially: De Sint. The time of his appearance has been moved about to suit the convenience of whatever establishment there may be. Even his costume changes along with his avoirdupois.

The Dutch call him Sinterklaus and welcome the jolly gent on his arrival from Spain a day or two before the fifth of December as he saunters in his red and white Bishop's rig, complete with miter and crozier, from the docks into town on his white horse, Amerigo (or maybe Schimmel). Gamboling at his side is his faithful servant, Zwarte Piet. Black Peter is a moor. Thus the whole set up ties in with a 16th century milieu as the product relaunch for this version of Saint Nicolas. Piet's function is to toss handfuls of Peppernotten indiscriminately at all and sundry, and to hand out the gifts after Sinterklaas has pronounced judgment on the behavior of the household's children. Sometimes these character assessments are delivered in verse. Whether doggerel or poetry depends on the ability and taste of the writer (usually der Pa or der Ma). Willful miscreants were suitably treated to Morally edifying gifts such as a bit of coal, in mindfulness of their current destinalion, or a wisp of nutritious straw. The ones who sweet talked their way past the parental sense of duty to cuddle in the indulgence spot got more various things, useful or otherwise.

But, today, Piet makes some uncomfortable. Is he a racist stereotype? Depends. While folk argue that one, some turn Piet blue or orange, which possibly will offend any old punk rocker in the neighborhood. Perhaps the most true position is to concentrate on his role as helper, rather than his appearance which is true to the historical context, but not germane to the modern role.

Here then are this year's Peppernotten and the Peppermint Roll, which is a chocolate meringue rolled around whipped cream and crushed peppermint sticks.

Peppermint Roll

Categories: Dessert
Yields: 10

3 tablespoon Droste's (Dutch processed) Cocoa
0.5 cup powdered sugar
5 Eggs separated
0.75 cup heavy cream
0.5 cup peppermint sticks

Preheat oven to 350f. Line a jelly roll pan with wax (parchment) paper and butter and flour it. Sift together cocoa, powdered sugar and a dash of salt. Separate eggs. Beat whites stiff. Beat yolks light. Add dry ingredients. Fold in whites. Pour into jelly roll pan. Bake 20 - 25 minutes. Turn onto a cloth sprinkled with powdered sugar. Cool slightly. Beat cream stiff. Spread over meringue. Crush peppermint sticks between two sheets of wax paper. Sprinkle on cream. Roll. Wrap in wax paper and chill.

Adjust the time and temp to suit your stove.
--ml
tags: Feast of Holidays, solstice, St Nicholas, Sinterklaas, De Sint

Unconventional Conventional Wisdom

The old quote (slightly racist):

Fool-a-me-once: Shame on you!
Fool-a me twice: Shame on ME!

Then Del rectified:

Fool-a-me-once: Shame on you!
Fool-a me twice: Shame on ME
Fool-a me three- times: NO CAN BE!!!

Now, go see Digby for Fool-a-me-37,858,576,372¹⁸.
--ml
tags: Dum Luks Stockpot, Del Stories

Moral Certainty in Economics

Somewhere in the midst of stagflation two brothers meet. Drink. Discuss.
Marty (Artistè): The economy is out of control.
Henry (Banker): Nonsense. The Fed has complete control. But it takes time, maybe six months, for a Fed action to show up in the economy. Kind of like you turn the steering wheel and a bit later the car begins to turn.
Marty: So, if I'm on a mountain road full of switch backs and the fed turns the wheel to go 'round a curve, six months later the car will turn?
Henry: That's right.
Marty: And six months later where, exactly, is the car? If I turn the wheel even three seconds too late I know where it will be: Bottom of the ravine.
Henry: Mmphf.
Marty: So, tell me, How long does it take the Fed to figure out how much to turn the steering wheel and which way? A month? Three? Instantaneous?
Henry: You have to gather the statistics and analyze the data.
Marty: You call that control?

The rest is irrelevant drunken muttering.
--ml
tags: Dum Luks Stockpot, economics

Holiday Noises Off

Of the early signs that Christmas would come, Dorothy's making of Fruit Cake was near the first. Dark, rich, moist, more fruit and nuts than cake, its complex flavors delight the palette and signify the joyous munificence that is supposed to be the hallmark of the season.

Dorothy's was all of that with a hint of spirits -- a cheap California brandy -- to preserve. Well, when I reached an age to be interested in such, I swore she used the same small flask of brandy year after year with the tide line barely budging. As a senior in High School I judged it time she got a new bottle. So, over a week or two, I and a pal or two diluted our orange juice with a dab that might have served Beau Brummel as cologne, but took some doing to finally evaporate the contents. What rips we thought ourselves! But I digress.

October, or early November. the aromatic loaves lay on the counter when I returned home from. Small, mahogany cakes, glistening with the baptismal alcohol, awaited their foil wrapping. Once wrapped they disappeared into a high closet shelf to mellow and age several weeks before taking the center of many a holiday sweet tray. Frequently it was arrayed in a white frosting that the unsuspecting might be forgiven for thinking was some sort of crême or fondant. One bite and the sweet tang of well brandied hard sauce disabused the unfortunate youngster who sampled a generous fingerful.

To judge by its name, I think Dorothy's recipe came from a woman's magazine of the thirties or forties. It has the sound of a publicist's best insinuation: Royal King Fruit Cake.

It's most salient feature was a modest admixture of black walnuts. These get harder to find as time regresses ever-relentless forwards providing us with more and more of less and less.

But the essence of fruit cake is the glacé fruit. This is a lengthy process of preserving fruit by replacing the moisture in fruit or peel with a sugar syrup. Traditionally this is strictly cane sugar and water transfused slowly over several days to preserve the texture of the original fruit. In US manufacture the process is sped by the admixture of corn syrup, dye, and the rest of the food chemist's bag of tricks. For more on the process see here. Dorothy's recipe calls for two pounds of glacéd fruit, plus a pound and a half, each, of currants and raisins. This, with a pound of coconut and a pound or two of nuts, is divided among eleven loaves and a modest round pudding basin.

It makes for wonderful seasonal gifts ... always assuming that you are the sort who likes mostly people with a fondness for fruit cake. If they blench on opening, you have encountered one of the majority with no stomach for the crittur. Curiously there is no middle ground. No one can "take it or leave it alone" like Mr Thurber's bear. Growing up with the stuff, I belong in the minority who have a notion of what is good. At least I do when it comes to fruit cake.

After I left home, whenever I thought there might be access to an oven, I would pester Dorothy for the recipe. She obliged every time. Once, at one odd juncture, I managed to organize, briefly, my recipes. All told I found a dozen copies in Dorothy's fist, either by pen or typewriter. It was among the very first recipes I digitized. A random sampling of copies from my current files:

Royal King Fruit Cake
11 Loaves
Dorothy made this every fall. So do I.

1/2 Lb Citron Peel	1/2 Lb Lemon Peel
1/2 Lb Orange Peel	1/2 Lb Fruit Mix, Your choice
1/2 Lb Coconut, Cut Fine	24 Oz Currants
24 Oz Raisins, Seeded Muscats	2 Cups Sugar, Brown
1/2 Lb Butter	4 Eggs
1 Cup Molasses	1/2 Cup Milk
4 Cups Flour, Bread	1 Tsp Baking Soda
2 Tsp Cream Of Tartar	1 Tsp Cinnamon
1 Tsp Nutmeg, Or Mace	1/2 Tsp Cloves
1 Cup Walnuts, Black

Cream brown sugar and butter. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Add Molasses, milk. Sift dry ingredients together, add. Add nuts and fruit. Pack in small loaf tins or molds. Butter and paper the pans, first. Bake in 300⁰ oven for 2 hours. Place a pie pan of water in lower part of oven to keep cakes moist. Splash with dark rum or brandy as it cools.

Cream of tartar and baking soda make a leaven similar to Baking powder. With the arrival of modern commercial baking powders,that are more controlled and therefore predictable in their effects than home brewed, cream of tartar has become hard to find. Substitute 3 Tsp baking powder.

Oh.

Hard sauce?

Brandy Sauce

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 Tbl cornstarch	mix all three in saucepan
1/8 Tsp salt
1 cup hot water	add slowly stir constantly to keep sauce smooth
1 Tbl butter	add both
2 Tbl brandy	cook until clear

Serve over pudding, mince pie, or fruit cake

My annual visit to this has changed the ingredients some.
I add:

• A half pound of filberts
• A half pound of Brazils
• A half pound of Australian ginger root. That's the kind in cubes. I cut those in half or quarters to match the raisin and fruit pieces
• Or a half pound dried cranberries or dried cherries or neither
• The fruit and nuts are mixed together with a wineglass or generous tot of a dark flavorful rum(more recently that has changed to a darkish malt) in a large bowl the night before I mix the cake batter
• As the cakes come out of the oven they get a generous baptism of the rum or malt.
• Do watch the time. My smallish pans bake the cakes unless than two hours. Check yours early and often as they say about voting.
  

I've been tempted to try dried blueberries but haven't done so yet. I have used smashed ginger root in place of the dried ginger powder.

Here's this year's crop:
These get vacuum sealed and labeled.

One year I gave a cake to my mentor Doc Shaffer. He took it to a gathering in Seattle. Norm Rice, then Seattle's Mayor, was among the guests and liked the cake. "It's the nuts!" Norm Rice said as Doc reported to me.

But my most treasured reaction came one year from my Father-in-law: "Anybody who puts whole Brazil nuts in fruit cake can't be all bad!"

--ml

Update: Several folk have made remarks about the "dense" fruit cakes of their youth. This puzzles me. My fruit cake is basically a bunch of fruit and nuts held -- sometimes quite tenuously -- together with the cake. (All by itself the cake batter makes an excellent spice cake.) Perhaps people mean dry and brick like when they say dense. This cake remains soft if not over baked. A generous hand with the malt or rum helps to keep every article (and person) in suspension.
2nd Update, 7 December: Ann prompts me to what I have not brought to mind in many, many years. In the forties we lived in a brick "square deal" bungalow in a failed development near Chicago. Only a half dozen or so houses had been completed before the builder's 1929 bust. Another was occupied by a family named Reinerts who had children of similar ages to Dorothy's and so all became friends. Mary Reinerts made a wonderful fruit cake. Dorothy requested the recipe, please. Mary allowed friendship to overcome her reluctance. But, she explained, the recipe was one that must be guarded. Her family had been cooks to the Royal Family of Austria when they developed this recipe for them. Dorothy promised. Yet all her children are furnished with their copies and who knows where else the recipe has traveled. Nay-the-less, it appears I have acquired yet another karmic debt by publishing it here. Saa-a-a.
--ml
tags: Feast of Holidays, fruit cake, Christmas cake, hard sauce

Word Inflation

One of Earle's favorite comments was:

"The first fifty years are the hardest."

But I first encountered word inflation, not through Victor Borge's twoderful skit, but when Earle turned 45. Overnight the comment grew:

"The first hundred years are the hardest."

Now is Dum Luk's time. About 11 am PST visitor number 10,000 (according to Sitemeter) came calling from Princeton, New Jersey, in quest of portable beehive ovens.

So now all of you kind readers are "among the lucky first twenty thousand".
--ml