Bear Cuisine

Caneles Bordelais

Diane Holuigue taught us to make Caneles when we were in France last spring. These are petite fours that you find all over the Bordeaux region of France and they just yummy. I've made them twice for my French class and each time they have been a hit. I offer two recipes here. Both make delicious little cakes.

CANELES BORDELAIS

1. 250 grams flour
2. 500 grams sugar
3. 5 egggs
4. 1 yolk
5. Vanilla Bean
6. 1 litre warm milk
7. 50 grams melted butter
8. 6 tablespoons rum

Mix flour, sugar eggs and vanilla bean in a bowl. Make a well in the middle, pushing the mixture up the edges of the bowl.

Warm the milk, but do not allow to boil. Pour about one third of the milk into the center of the well, whisking to blend in. Stir well at this pasty stage; then whisk in the rest of the milk, the melted butter and rum. Strain and allow to rest 24 hours in the refrigerator.

Pour the mixture into the special mould for this type of petits fours. If the mould is of the new silicone style, it should not be buttered or treated in any way before the batter is poured in. Bake at 160 degreees centrigrade for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, or until caramelized. Somettimes this takes longer than expected. A caneles may be taken out and tested, or the mould turned, in order to do the caramelization at its best.

(from Diane Holuigue)

LES CANNELES DE BORDEAUX

(makes 10 to 12 canneles)

1. 2 egg yolks
2. 1 cup sugar
3. 1 egg
4. 1 vanilla bean
5. 2 cups milk
6. melted butter, for the molds
7. 1 cup flour
8. 2 tablespoons dark rum
9. 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
10. 12 medium metal cannele molds,

Put the egg yolks in the bowl of stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat until mixed. Add the sugar and whisk at medium speed until course crumbs form, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the whole egg and continue whisking until light and the mixture holds a ribbon trail when the whisk is lifted.Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the egg mixture(save the vanilla bean for another use).  Whisk in the milk. Transfer the mixture to a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring with a hand whisk until it thickens and then curdles and separates, 3 to 5 minutes. Set it aside to cool, stirring often so the egg does not clump together.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 400 degress F/200 degrees centigrade. Brush the molds with butter and set them on a baking sheet. When the egg mixure is cool, sift ther flour on top and whisk until the batter is smooth (the curdled look will disappear). Stir in the rum and oil. Transfer the batter to a measuring jug and pour it into the molds, filling them about two-thirds full.

Bake the caneles until they have risen and browned, 45 minutes for a light crust or 55 minutes for a dark mahogany crust. A toothpick inserted in the center of a cake should be clean when withdrawn. Let them cool 2 to 3 minutes, then unmould while still warm.

(from Anne Willan's The Country Cooking of France.)

You can find the metal molds at Sur La Table and the silicon molds on Amazon.

Smith Island Cake

When I was visiting the Eastern Shore of Maryland a few weeks ago, we made a trip to Crisfield in search of a great restaurant I remembered that made some of the best crab cakes I have ever tasted. Time has taken its toll on the waterfront and, alas, the restaurant is no more. But we did find a bakery specializing in  Smith Island Cakes.

Smith Island is the only island in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay and has been known for its excellent seafood. It is also noteworthy as the home of the Smith Island Cake, a ten-layer confection that could send you into a diabetic coma. I'm not a big sweet fancier, but when this cake is well made it is heavenly. If you are counting calories, you will happily give your entire day's ration for a slice of it.I couldn't find a recipe in any of my cookbooks from that part of the world, but a search online gave me this recipe. (This recipe calls for cocoa because it wanted a chocolate frosting. My pictures are of a coconut cake which we purchased in Crisfield. If you want to make a coconut frosting simply substitute coconut for the chocolate. You may have to experiment with the ratios.)

A Smith Island Cake with Coconut Frosting

SMITH ISLAND 10-LAYER CAKE

Frosting

• 2 sticks butter
• 2-12 ounce cans evaporated milk
• 8 heaping Tablespoons unsweetened Cocoa
• 2 pounds confectioners sugar

Melt butter. Stir in evaporated milk off heat.

Whisk in cocoa until smooth, return to heat and cook for approximately 10 minutes. Do not boil or scorch.

Remove from het and whisk in confectioners sugar slowly.

Cook slowly until thickened and the mixture will stick to back of a spoon or to the whisk. (It will from a ribbon when you drizzle a spoonful onto mixture while cooking).

Approximate time: 45 minutes

Cake

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into chunks
• 5 eggs
• 3 cups flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 cup water

Cream together sugar and butter. Add eggs one at a time and beat until smooth. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Mix into egg mixture one cup at a time. With mixer running, slowly pour in the evaporated milk, then the vanilla and water. Mix just until uniform. Put three serving spoonsful of batter in each of ten 9-inch lightly greased pans, using the back of the spoon to spread evenly. Bake three layers at a time on the middle rack of the oven at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. A layer is done when you hold it near your ear and you don't hear it sizzle.

Start making the icing when the first layer goes in the oven. Let the layers cool a couple of minutes in the pans. Put the cake together as the layers are finished. Run a spatula around the edge of the pan and ease the layer out of the pan. Don't worry if it tears; no one will notice when the cake is finished. Use two or three serving spoonsful of icing between each layer. Cover the top and sides of the cake with the rest of the icing. Push icing that runs onto the plate back onto the cake.

To Ice the Cake

Take one slightly cooled layer and spread with cooled frosting.

Add the next layers, frosting,  and repeat process till the 10th layer

Fisnish frosting the cake and sides. You may have to wait to ice the top and sides until the icing cools.

 

This recipe calls for adding crushed candy (Resses, Snickers, Milky Ways or whatever your favorite is) betwen the layers. This is optional and I don't think it adds to the finished cake.

I guess I will have to start haunting garage sales to find those additional 8 cake pans.

Kentucky Whiskey Cake

Every year I make fruitcakes to give away to friends. After years of scoffing taunts about fruitcake, I make sure that these friends are worthy of the gift. Our friends, Katie and Joseph, have been among the recipients of my efforts. After Christmas, Katie wrote an especially lovely note of appreciation which I reproduce here .

OK, let's discuss fruitcake.  I am one of those (I guess?) rare people who really love it.  My beloved Aunt Carol, my mom's really fun younger sister, used to make it in about July, wrap it in cheesecloth, drench and soak it in some fabulous forbidden spirit, and wrap the whole mysterious loaf in colored tin foil.  We'd get it in the mail around Christmas, and my mom would already start sucking in her breath and rolling her eyes about it as she opened the box.  She'd unwrap it and slice off impossibly thin slices that she'd pass around.  It was so fume-y, so aromatic from the brandy or whatever, that the inside of your nose would wiggle.  The cake itself was an astounding dark, loamy color that looked perfectly ancient.  The fruit was transparent.  The whole thing held together by some kind of trust or bond, between the evolved flour, egg; perfectly normal ingredients, I'm sure, that had reverted back to some primordial state.  As it settled upon your tongue, it would melt apart into weirdly rubbery (not in a bad way) nuts, chewy fruit, and that batter.  My mother, a complete teetotaler, would polish off micro-slice after micro-slice (for gods sake, give this woman something to drink!) as she exclaimed that it was the best year ever, sniffing inconspicuously at the damp, weathered cheesecloth.  As I opened your lovely fruitcake (we had waited very impatiently until January 1st as you instructed), all of those years of Aunt Carol's came rushing back in what is actually a very happy memory for me.  I'm not sure I mastered the micro-slicing, however.  Sadly, we ate the last of it tonight.  Thank you for carrying on this amazing, maybe medieval, unfairly scorned at, tradition!  love Katie

Aside from her thanks, which I gobbled almost as greedily as she ate the fruitcake, I love the associations that she has with this food. Love and family, which don't always go together, being chief among her memories. I know that when I cook a dish that is one of Hallie's particular favorites, I am consciously trying to create food memories for her. Whatever life may dish out, I hope that some of these meals have created a memory of a time when she was cosseted and cared for , warm and comfortable, loved and cherished.

One of the cakes I made this year is an "Original Kentucky Whiskey Cake" from My Mother's Southern Kitchen by James Villas. This cake should season at least a week before you eat it, but it is more than worth the wait. This year I mixed the fruits and the batter with a mixer instead of by hand. That change had the effect of making the cake a very Christmasy pink. We liked the results of this accident. Maybe we can replicate it next year.

KENTUCKY WHISKEY CAKE

1. 1 pound candied cherries halved
2. 1/2 pound seedless golden raisins
3. 2 cups bourbon
4. 1 1/2 cups ( 3 sticks) butter, at room temperature
5. 2 cups granulated sugar
6. 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
7. 6 large eggs, separated
8. 5 cups all-purpose flour
9. 1 pound chopped pecans
10. 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
11. 1 teaspoon baking powder

In a bowl, combine the cherries, raisins, and bourbon and let soak overnight.

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and two sugars together with an electric mixer till fluffy, then add the egg yolks and beat well. Stir in the soaked fruit and bourbon. In a bowl, combine 1/2 cup of the flour with the pecans and set aside. Add the remaining flour, nutmeg, and baking powder to the creamed mixture and mix well. In a bowl beat the egg whites with an electric mixer till stiff peaks form and fold them into the mixture Add the floured pecans and fold gently.

Grease a 10-inch tube pan and line it with greased brown paper or waxed paper.* Pour the batter into the pan, "spank" the bottom to distribute the batter evenly, and bake till a straw inserted into the cake coms out clean, 3 to 3 1/2 hours. Cool the cake, turn it out of the pan, peel off the brown paper and store in a tightly covered container about 1 week before serving.

I used two loaf pans which worked very well.
 

Golden Fruitcake

I seem to have been in a fruitcake frenzy this year. I had made three different kinds and was going to stop there. Then I read a recipe for "Golden Fruitcake" in Canal House Cooking, Volume No. 2 and I just had to try it. I'm so glad that I couldn't stop myself. This cake has a lively tart and tangy quality and is cooked more like a pudding than a cake. The result is a cake that is quite light while at the same time dense with fruit. I liked it very much and sent one of the cakes off to my friend Tina in Philadelphia for her family's visit the week after Christmas. I hope they like it as much as I do.

GOLDEN FRUITCAKE

1. 1 1/2 cups sliced almonds, toasted
2. 3/4 cup candied lemon peel, minced
3. 3/4 cup candied orange peel minced
4. 1 cup golden raisins
5. 1 cup dried apricots, minced
6. 1 cup candied ginger, minced
7. 1 apple, peeled, cored and grated on the large holes of a box grater
8. 1 cup orange liqueur
9. 1/2 pound plus 3 tablespoons, unsalted butter, softened
10. 1 cup flour
11. 1 teaspoons baking soda
12. 1 teaspoon ground mace
13. 1/2 teaspoon salt
14. 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
15. 1 cup dried fine white bread crumbs
16. 1 cup sugar
17. 4 eggs
18. 1/2 cup sour cream
19. 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
20. 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
21. Cognac or brandy

Combine the almonds, candied citrus peel, raisins, apricots, ginger, apple and orange liqueur in a bowl. Set aside. Let macerate at room temperature overnight.

 Fruits and nuts in orange liqueur

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two fluted 4-cup tube pans with 2 tablespoons of the butter and set aside.* Sift or whisk the flour, baking soda, mace, salt and cloves together in another mixing bowl. Stir in the bread crumbs and set aside.

Beat 16 tablespoons of the butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed, gradually adding the sugar and beating until the butter is light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, then beat in the sour cream, lemon juice, and vanilla. Gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until well combined. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold in the macerated fruit and liquid.

Divide the butter between the prepared pans. Grease 2 sheets of foil withe remaining 1 tablespoon butter then cover the tube pans with it. Set the tube pans into a deep roasting pan. Ad enough hot water to come one-third up the sides of he tube pans. Bake the fruitcakes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Unmold the warm cakes onto a rack. They are ready to serve. If you like them a little boozy, sprinkle them with a little Cognac each day for a week Wrap in plastic and refrigerate. Unwrap them each day to give them a little drink.

*I used loaf pans which worked just as well as tube pans. The cooking time remained the same.

 

Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

Olive oil sounds as if it wouldn't be such a great ingredient for a cake. Believe me this is one of the best chocolate cakes I have ever eaten-moist, dense and so, so chocolaty. When I say this is a great cake, believe me. Usually, I don't even like cake and I couldn't stop eating this one. Before I forget this is another of Christine Hickman's recipes. What a treasure she is.

CHOCOLATE OLIVE OIL CAKE*

1. 4 cups unbleached all=purpose flour
2. 2 cups sugar
3. 6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
4. 1 teaspoons baking soda
5. 1/2 teaspoon salt
6. 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
7. 1 tablespoon white vinegar
8. 1 tablespoons vanilla extract
9. 2 cups cold water

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Butter and flour 2 9-inch cake or spring form pans.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together into a large bowl or the bowl of a standing mixer. With a hand mixer or the standing mixer on low speed, beat in the oil, vinegar, vanilla and water until smooth. Pour the mixture into the prepared pans.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Do not overbake. The cake should be firm to the touch.

Place the cake pans on cooking racks and cool for 15 to 20 minutes, then remove the cake from the pans to cool completely.

Makes 2 9-inch layers.

* This recipe is for high-altitude cooking. (Santa Fe is at 7000 feet above sea level.) At sea level, use 2 teaspoons baking soda and 2 tablespoons white vinegar. Decrease flour to 3 1/2 cups.

I frosted the cake with Sour Cream Chocolate Frosting from Anne Byrn's The Cake Mix Doctor. Not too sweet with just a hint of tanginess from the sour cream. Perfect for this cake.

SOUR CREAM CHOCOLATE FROSTING

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 3 ounces semisweet chocolate, finally chopped
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 21/4 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted
• 2 tablespoons hot water
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Place the butter and chocolate in a small saucepan and melt over low heat for 3 to 4 minutes. Stir the mixture until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Let cool slightly, then stir in the sour cream.

Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl With an electric mixer on low speed, add half the confectioner's sugar and 1 tablespoon hot water, beating to incorporate. Then add the remaining sugar and water and continue beating until the frosting comes together into a spreadable consistency without lumps. Stop the machine, add the vanilla, and blend well, 30 seconds.

Use at once.

 This was all that was left after our dinner party