Whatever Lola Cooks, Lola Eats

Good Cake Comes to Those Who Wait

I am not a patient woman. I drive too fast, I refuse to wait for tables in restaurants, I take the easy way more often than I should because I Just Can't Wait. This is not to say that I can't appreciate taking the slow route, or that I'm not learning to love doing things slightly less efficiently than I normally would--I am, really!--but more that my expectations are so: When the work is done, the product should be Ready To Go. 

So I was super disappointed in my second Cookbook Club offering last Sunday, a cake that I hadn't practiced At. All. But I liked the look of the recipe, and finding rosewater was a pleasant treasure hunt (which ultimately turned up the tiniest, dustiest bottle I've ever seen in a high-end supermarket. It was like the holy grail, and I chose wisely.), plus it's CAKE. I don't know about you, but that's enough to get me interested. 

Sunday morning dawned bright and beautiful, and I was up immediately with this cake on my mind. Ingredients were assembled, the pan was prepped, the oven preheated. I muddled my way through the recipe (though I admit that I was befuddled less by the directions and more by the fact that I hadn't taken the time to have my morning coffee BEFORE starting to bake. Stupid, stupid, stupid.)

It all came together relatively easily...and when I started slicing the cooled, syrup-soaked cake, it began falling apart pretty easily, too. By the time I had pried the second piece from the pan, I had amassed a pile of syrupy crumbs and my confidence was ebbing. I piled up my tumble of cake on the cake stand and hoped for the best. 

Aaaaand then those hopes were dashed when we dug in to the myriad desserts that were on the table. How could this dry, crumbly cake hold up next to Creme Caramel, Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, Milk Tart and Caramel Ice Cream? It was like eating crunchy, rose-flavored cornbread, and I hated it. I sent as many pieces home with the girls as I could get rid of and contemplated the remaining four chunks. They were covered on the cake stand and ignored for the rest of the day.

(here's where you start to lose faith, where you wonder why the hell I'm writing about a dry, disgusting cake. have faith, friends.)

But then there was Monday. The day after the cake was baked. The day where I woke up with a little bit of a Cookbook Club hangover (which, despite the prosecco+lemonade we were drinking, is not the typical hangover, but rather a feeling of profound sadness that Cookbook Club is over for another two months. And also a distinct heavy feeling, the kind that follows the most delightful of indulgent days.) and made my coffee a little too strong. What goes well with coffee? CAKE. What did I have left over? CAKE. And let me tell you--this cake, on Day Two, it is a miracle. The extra day of sitting around, being ignored in favor of sexier, more caramelly desserts (shut up, that's a word), it gave the cake the time it needed to soften and relax and find the peace within.

So that I could find a piece within. My mouth. Twice before I finished my coffee.

You'll need:

• 9tbs unsalted organic butter (that's 1 stick+1 tablespoon), at room temp
• 2 cup granulated sugar, separated (1 cup for cake, 1 cup for the syrup)
• 1 cup greek yogurt (the recipe asks for yogurt that is "not too thick or thin" which is utter bullshit. I don't know what that means, so I just used full-fat greek yogurt and it was fine.)
• 2 tbs rosewater, separated (1 tbs for cake, 1 tbs for syrup)
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1 tbs lime zest (I use a microplane, not a zester, and I don't pack the measuring spoon too tightly. The recipe asked for 1/2tsp of zest, which is bullshit as well. Even with 1tbs, the lime flavor is very, very difficult to detect.)
• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 cup fine semolina (NOT semolina/durum flour. I know, it's confusing, but here's someone else's blog post about the whole thing. Also, if you're really bored, you can google "semolina vs. semolina flour" and read about a lot of other people who are confused on the issue. Basically the semolina should be about the same grittiness and consistency of fine cornmeal, NOT powdery like flour.)
• 2tsp aluminum-free baking powder
• 1/2 cup ground almonds
• 1 cup water

Then do these things:

1. Preheat your oven to 350F. Prep your pan--the recipe called for a 9" square pan, but I think you could easily use a round pan if you wanted to slice this into wedges. The 9" square pan yielded TWENTY-FIVE squares of cake, but they were very hard to get out after being soaked in syrup. Be prepared to sacrifice a slice to the Cake Gods, as my first piece out of the pan crumbled entirely. Whatever pan you choose, butter it well and dust it. I used the semolina instead of AP flour.
2. It is helpful to do these preparatory steps before getting into the mixing: whisk together the flour, semolina & baking powder in a medium-sized bowl. Zest your lime. Grind your almonds in a food processor until they are fine crumbs but stop before they become almond butter. Separate your eggs. 
3. Cream together the butter and 1 cup of sugar until the mixture is smooth. Mix in the yogurt, 1 tbs of rosewater, egg yolks & lime zest. Once those ingredients are incorporated, mix in the ground almonds. 
4. Add the flour/semolina to the wet ingredients, being careful to stop mixing as soon as the dry components are incorporated.
5. In a separate, extremely clean bowl, whisk your egg whites until they form soft peaks. Scoop about 1/3 of the egg whites into the batter and stir vigorously so they are combined. Add the remaining 2/3 of the egg whites and gently fold them into the batter. (The first 1/3 is added quickly to lighten the batter a bit, the latter 2/3rds are gently folded in to add lots of volume, but you must be delicate with them.) Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes, or until the top of the cake is springy to the touch and GOLDEN (as Tessa Kiros is fond of instructing). A cake tester should come out clean.
6. While the cake cools in the pan, prepare the syrup. Combine the last cup of sugar, 1 cup of warm water and the last tablespoon of rosewater in a heavy-bottomed pan and bring to a boil. Let the mixture boil for 5 minutes, then pour directly over the cake. It will seem like A LOT of syrup, but I promise you, it works out for the best in the end. 
7. Let the cake sit. And sit. Just wait until the day after you've baked it, and it will be delicious! Yum.

Youvetsi, Ivetsi, Theyvetsi, Weallvetsi

I'm not going to lie to you: I love a good one-pot meal. I don't mind the prep work at all--a little chopping can go a long way towards making me a calmer, more rational individual--and frankly, anything that can go into the oven for an hour or so without me needing to be there, paying attention and worrying about overdoing it...that's a winner for me. 

So Ami Youvetsi was instantly appealing as I paged through Tessa Kiros' Falling Cloudberries, our selection for this month's Cookbook Club. Lamb baked with red onions, tomatoes, orzo and cinnamon? YES PLS. There is a relatively small amount of prep work in the form of chopping onions and garlic, as well as searing the lamb chunks, but it's worth it in the end when you can slide the whole thing in the oven and walk away without fear of a ruined dinner. 15 minutes before you want to serve, the orzo goes in with a stir. Firm, salty chunks of haloumi can be added at the very end for those who like cheesy goodness (or left out, so as to appease cheese-haters like my man--he's wonderful, but even after 10 years, I marvel at the depth and breadth of his cheese-hatred). Leftovers? You bet. Someone at Cookbook Club described this as the type of dish you make on a Sunday and save for lunches the whole week long, and I couldn't agree more. What time is it now? 12:30? That sounds like leftover Youvetsi time to me.

(You should know that the recipe below easily feeds 8 people as a main dish. We had 10 ladies at Cookbook Club and STILL had plenty for everyone to take some home and 3 more lunch-sized servings left in my fridge. Next time, I'm halving all of the quantities except maybe the garlic, so that we have a glimmer of hope towards eating it all in a reasonable amount of time.)

Adapted from Tessa Kiros' Falling Cloudberries

You'll need:

• 2 medium-sized red onions, chopped fine (total volume about 1.5c)
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced (the recipe calls for 2 cloves, but we're a pro-garlic household, so I doubled it)
• 3tbs olive oil
• 5 tbs unsalted butter, divided
• 2 lbs lamb leg or shoulder, cut into ~1" cubes
• 28oz can of crushed tomatoes (I like Muir Glen's Organic Fire Roasted version for an extra flavor kick)
• 4c organic low-sodium chicken stock (the recipe specified water but ugh, no thank you, I'm all for adding depth of flavor. DUH)
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 16oz. uncooked orzo
• Kosher salt & fresh ground black pepper to season
• 4-8oz. hard, salty cheese like parmigiano reggiano, pecorino, grana padano, feta or haloumi. I really, really loved the cubed haloumi, so you should probably just do that.

Then do these things:

1) Preheat your oven to 350F and get out your big dutch oven, you're going to need it. Heat the olive oil & 2 tbs butter over a medium-high flame.

2) Dry the lamb chunks thoroughly with paper towels and season liberally with salt & pepper. Brown the lamb in batches (I did about half a pound per batch), turning once or twice so you get a nice brown sear on the meat. Set the lamb aside in a separate bowl. 

3) You should have a good amount of fat & juices left in the pan, but if you don't, you can add a little more olive oil to the pan. Throw the onions and garlic in and sauté until the onions are softened, adding a sprinkle of salt so the onions release some of their liquid. Contrary to the recipe, they will not become "golden" at this point. (Did anyone else notice how often the book called for things to be cooked until golden? gah.)

4) Add the meat & any accumulated juices back to the pot. Stir in the crushed tomatoes, remaining 3 tbs of butter, the cinnamon stick and the 4 cups of stock or water, whatever you're using. Bring to a boil then cover and move the pot to the oven. I let mine hang out in the 350F oven for about 90 minutes, though the recipe called for 60. I did check on it about 60 minutes in but the lamb wasn't tender enough just yet. 

5) Remove the pot from the oven and remind yourself over and over that the pot is hot so that you don't grab the oven-baked lid with your bare hands. Continue reminding yourself of that fact. It might be helpful to have a friend nearby who can also just repeat that phrase over and over. 

6) Remove the cinnamon stick. Stir in the orzo and return the covered pot to the oven. Keep your oven mitts on. That lid is HOT. If you're going to serve the dish right away, leave it in the oven for 15 minutes, stirring once. If there will be a little bit of time before serving, leave it in the oven for about 7 minutes, then remove and leave it covered on the stovetop. Maybe put a note on it that says HELLO I AM A HOT POT.

7) Add the cheese! Stir it up! Serve it and then bask in the glow of feeding your friends a delicious meal that requires a minimum of effort! 

(a note about making this GF-friendly--substituting GF pasta or rice should be pretty straightforward. I'll try it soon and report back.)

It Took Cardamom Buns To Raise Me From Dead

...in the blogging sense, that is. My friend Gennie has a cooking blog that she referred to early on as "another asshole with a foodblog" and it stuck with me. Yes! So many assholes writing about food. I might as well be one of them!

But the urge to write and the actual writing of words that include recipes and have beautiful, well-lit photos of the food item at hand, these things do not always go together without effort, and so. This place was forgotten, but the cooking and planning and photographing went on. I continued to challenge myself fairly regularly to new heights in the kitchen, and these Cardamom Buns from Falling Cloudberries were no exception. I don't know about you, but yeasted doughs are kind of perplexing to me. I am 100% aware of the science of yeasted doughs, only the execution is a little weird for me. Is the liquid for proofing the yeast warm enough but not too warm? Is my yeast fresh enough and/or the right kind/quantity? How the hell do I build up the muscles in my forearms such that kneading isn't so...taxing? 

(a smart person answers: 1) use a thermometer, 2) that's what sell-by dates and your freezer and the internet are for, 3) just keep doing it and it will get easier. I tell that person SHUT UP.)

So the Cardamom Bun experiment left me a little skeptical at first! What if I wasn't doing things right? My dudes, I should not have worried so much. 

Beautiful, no? And completely attainable. I won't lie to you and say they are "easy" exactly, because there is some precision and work involved. But it is all worth it in the end--these little buns are delicious, a perfect morning snack with your coffee, a nice nibble for the 3pm Hungries (we all get them, right?). Best of all, they're easy to freeze after you've formed them, which means baking only a few at a time, which is crucial in a small household. 

Cinnamon & Cardamom Buns (adapted from Tessa Kiros' Falling Cloudberries)

Dough

1c lukewarm milk (I interpreted this as 110F, which is about 45 seconds in my microwave. The milk cools immediately upon hitting the metal bowl of my Kitchenaid mixer, so plan ahead!)

.5c organic granulated cane sugar (the book calls for superfine sugar but eff that noise. I used regular granulated sugar and had no problems.)

.5oz Active dry yeast (the book calls for cakes of fresh yeast but I only keep ADY, so I've converted this for you. Thank me later.)

1 large organic egg, lightly beaten

4oz. plus 1 tbs of unsalted organic butter (softened)

2tsp ground cardamom (I used black, not green)

1tsp kosher salt

5.25c unbleached all-purpose flour

Filling

2tsp ground cinnamon

.25c organic granulated cane sugar

5.5tbs unsalted organic butter (softened)

1 large organic egg, lightly beaten

Make It Like This:

1. Start with the dough: In a large bowl, stir together the milk, sugar and yeast, then let stand for a few minutes so the yeast can activate. Stir in the egg, butter, cardamom and salt. I used my Kitchenaid mixer with the paddle attachment--do not be afraid of the clumpy butter. Even soft butter does not mix perfectly into a puddle of liquids. 
2. If you are also using a stand mixer, switch to your dough hook and begin mixing in the flour a bit at a time. If you're mixing by hand, there is indication that a wooden spoon should be enough--good luck with that. This is a lot of flour. 
3. Turn the dough out on to a floured surface and knead with flour-dusted hands for about five minutes. This was a super easy knead, although my dough was never "beautifully soft" as the book indicated it would be. No matter. Put the dough back in your mixing bowl, cover with a towel and let it rise in a warm place for about 2 hours, or until the dough has doubled in size. We keep our house at about 66 three seasons a year, so I usually turn my oven on as low as it will go, then set the bowl of dough on the top next to the vent so that it actually has a chance to rise. 
4. While the dough is rising, mix the cinnamon and sugar together for the filling and set aside.
5. Once it's risen, plop the dough back onto your work surface, flour it, and separate it into 4 portions. One at a time, roll each portion into a rectangle that's about 10"x12" and 1/8" thick. Spread a tablespoon or so of softened butter over the dough (I use a small offset spatula to make my life easier), and sprinkle with a portion of the cinnamon-sugar. Roll the dough back up so you have a long sausage-looking thing and set aside. Repeat with the other portions of dough, butter and filling.
6. Once you've made your 4 logs of rolled, filled dough, start cutting. Make angled cuts, alternating the angles from right to left--it should look like this: \/\/\/\/\/\/ The wide part of the V should be about 2" wide, and the point should be about 3/4" wide. I made the mistake of cutting too closely and some of my buns rolled open! It's okay, they still tasted delicious. 
7. Line your baking sheets with parchment paper or a Silpat (i did one of each, they both left the same perfect un-stuck results). Set the V's on their "fatter" side and push down on the narrow point, smushing them all the way in. This makes them into pleasant little boat-shaped rolls, very cute! Leave at least 1-2" between rolls so they have room to rise and bake without sticking together. 
8. Brush the buns with the 2nd beaten egg and sprinkle with more sugar. Let the buns rise for about 30 min, which is just enough time for...
9. ...Preheating your oven to 350F. Bake the rolls for about 15 minutes, remove to a rack, eat while still warm! I'm drooling again just thinking about them. They keep okay for a day, but will never be as perfect as they were straight out of the oven. 

A note on freezing buns: If you are going to freeze some (or all!) buns for baking individually or in smaller batches, take a small detour at Step 6. After you've cut and smushed your buns, line them up on a parchment-lined baking sheet and pop the whole thing in the freezer for at least 2 hours, until they're frozen through. Then you can put them in a zip-top freezer bag and grab what you need as you go. The frozen buns will need more time to thaw and rise, but you can take them out the night before, put them on a lined baking sheet and cover lightly with some plastic wrap, and they should be perfectly ready in the morning. Brush with the egg wash, sprinkle with sugar, and bake as instructed. Aren't you so glad I thought ahead?