Floating over the past

It started in the baking aisle of the grocery store. A package of Bob's Red Mill poppy seeds: An aide-memoire, a coup de foudre, a sudden shock of recollection, and then a drifting, dreaming mind, floating over the past, landing on a specific memory and than a handful of fuzzier ones.

I was standing in a parking lot in the blazing heat, unfurling a twist tie and letting it drop to the ground, then pulling back the crinkly tight plastic that enclosed a sticky loaf of bread, little beads of condensation lining the inside of the bag, the loaf, sturdy and earthy-smelling and laced with black-as-night poppyseed filling.

I remember thinking that I couldn't believe that I had finally found one. That I actually held in my hands what I then thought of as a "poppy seed danish." It must not have been the first time, because I recall the sense of longing; the satisfaction of the surprise discovery; the memory triggers that shot through me. I think I was thirteen.

The romantic in me imagines that my first poppy seed sweet bread came from one of those charming old-world Eastern European bakeries on the lower east side of Manhattan. The ones that were warm and steamy against the cold winter, filled with familiar, heavenly aromas. Stewed fruits. Yeasted breads. Staggeringly sweet fondants. Butter and sugar and ground nuts. There is a little old lady behind the counter with dyed brown hair, a thick accent, and a gentle smile. She is Russian. Perhaps she asks me if I, too, am Russian, because my name is Vera.

I can construct this, and it must be drawn from some elements of truth, but I have no actual memory of the first poppy seed danish, which is odd, because my food memory is solid, whereas I mostly forget other things: family events, the names of my elementary school teachers, what I did yesterday.

For example, I remember the first palmier I ever ate, and the first meringue, and the first zabaglione, and the first time I saw the word "zabaglione," and the first apricot pastry (on the upper east side, from a fabulous, caricatured baker named Frederique). But the first poppy seed danish evades me.

Maybe it's not actually important if I remember it, though it does torture me just a little. I'd like to be able to trace this back, because I know it goes back a long way. I want to capture that part of myself that first tasted this unusual thing and was immediately transfixed.

But I am a better baker now than I was ever before, and so I can posses this thing today, in 2015, in my Oakland kitchen.

Let me describe it a little: It's a sturdy, yeasted bread, just slightly sweet. After rising and resting, the bread gets rolled out into a large rectangle, over which you spoon the most heavenly black mass—a paste of poppy seeds that have been ground together with nuts, honey, dates, and a little milk. You then roll this into a log, split the log lengthwise, twist the inverted pieces around each other, and nestle them into a loaf pan. You wait, you glaze with egg, you bake. What you get is an earthy, sticky, sweet bread filled with poppy seeds. It's the poppy seeds that make it. You will search out the dense crevices that deliver only a little dough and a mouthful of filling.

It's weird and completely wonderful.

It'll keep you going back for more slices, until the whole thing is reduced to a handful of crumbs. It'll make your kitchen smell like the most grounded and lovely place on earth. And it'll freeze great too, which allows you to be nice to your future self, some days off, if you can wait that long.


Poppy Seed Sweet Bread
Adapted from here and here

Dough:
1/2 cup warm water
4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/4 sugar (scant)
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 stick unsalted butter
2 egg yolks
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 cups flour

Filling:
1 cup poppy seeds
1/3 cup chopped dates
1/3 cup walnuts
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 cup honey

Egg wash:
1 egg with 1 tablespoon water, beaten

Prepare the dough: In a small mixing bowl, combine the water, yeast, and sugar. Set aside. Pour the 1/2 cup of milk into a small saucepan and bring just to the simmer. Turn off the heat, add the butter, and stir until melted. Let it cool for five minutes. Whisk in the egg yolks and mix thoroughly. Place this mixture in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, add the yeast mixture, and combine for a minute or so.

Add the flour and salt gradually, with the mixer on low, until combined. Mix for eight minutes on medium speed. It should become a smooth dough.

Cover the dough (in the bowl) with a dishtowel and allow it to rise for one hour, or until it has doubled in size.

While the dough rises, make the filling: Place the poppy seeds, dates, and honey in a blender (or food processor, or mortal and pestle) and process until the nuts are ground, the poppy seeds are somewhat crushed, and the dates bring the two together as a paste. Place this mixture in a small saucepan, and add the milk and honey. Simmer over low heat until it thickens, about 20 minutes, stirring intermittently.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Prepare the egg wash. Prepare the loaf pan, by lining with parchment.

After the dough has risen for one hour, punch it down, and turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface. Using a rolling pin, roll it into a rectangle, roughly 10 x 20 inches and 1/2–3/4 inches thick (it doesn't have to be precise). Spread the poppyseed filling over the rolled dough, leaving a half-inch border all around. Brush the exposed edges with the egg wash.

Roll the dough tightly into a log, starting at one of the short ends, as if making a jelly roll. Cut the log lengthwise down the center, so you have two halves that expose the interior filling. Twist these two halves together, keeping the filling facing out, and then arrange it in the prepared loaf pan.

Brush the surface of the bread with the egg wash, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rise again for 1 hour to 1 hour and a half.

After this second rise, remove the plastic wrap, brush it with egg wash again, and bake the bread at 325 degrees for about 1 hour, or until the top is deeply brown and glossy (begin checking it at 45 minutes).

Allow the bread to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, and then continue cooling on a rack. It is wonderful warm and equally good at room temperature. To freeze the bread, slice the loaf and then place the slices in a freezer bag. I ended up defrosting mine after only one week, but I imagine it would keep longer than that (maybe a month?). Defrost by warming in the toaster.

Near an open window

When you take a bite of strawberry shortcake—an action that is typically preceded by licking homemade whipped cream from a bowl—something carefree and lighthearted happens. I’m not sure that I can do it justice, but I almost always want to eat shortcakes outside, in the warm evening air, or near an open window. 

In an earlier draft of this entry, I toyed with the image of sitting on a swing, dangling my toes in the cool grass (almost identical to the one that I conjured two years ago in this post about strawberries and cream.) The image endures—this is really how it feels to consume them. There is something so innocent about the prospect of this dessert, something so naive and so earnest, that I am utterly flooded with a million-and-one cliché metaphors of childhood summers when I think of it.

In the summers of my youth, I remember eating macerated strawberries on thick slices of store-bought angel food cake—fluffy and sticky and caramelized on top, the bites of cake disappeared like air onto your tongue. Or there were those little pre-packed shells, labeled “shortcakes,” which were inexplicably yellow and subtly indented, like the rim of a volcano, to contain your fruit. Shortcakes, in other words, have an air of nostalgia. 

These particular shortcakes bring the deep roasted flavors of pie together with a more adult take on the classic shortcake. The shortcakes are made with rye, which creates a nuttier and heartier biscuit, and the macerated fruit is roasted until its juices are caramelized, instead of raw and dripping with sugary liquid. 

They were good. I can comfortably say that. But they weren't the shortcakes of old. I'll admit that I missed the simple—even store-bought—variety when I had these. I might have been happier merely eating my berries straight out of a bowl with heavy dollops of unsweetened whipped cream. Maybe if I was feeling fancy, I would have infused the cream with chamomile, but that's about as far as I think you need to ever go where ripe strawberries are concerned. 

But, if you are looking for something a little more grown up, something a little more complex and decadent; if, unlike me, you are not unjustly searching the bottom of the whipped cream bowl for traces of Mnemosyne (I can't help myself), you will be wholly satisfied. You will inspire oohs and aahs because you will have managed to pull the flavors of strawberry rhubarb pie into a shortcake. You will have rescued the shortcakes themselves from the doldrums of nostalgia (weep), and you will be happily living in the present (is that how it works?).

Two last little pieces of advice before you go forth this holiday weekend eating all manner of unsentimental sweets: seek fresh air when you eat this, if only from the breeze from an open window; and don't skip the whipped cream.

P. S. Something else to do with rhubarb.

Rye Shortcakes with Roasted Strawberries and Rhubarb
Adapted from Food52

Notes: In this version of the recipe, I simplified the ingredients a bit, omitting the ginger and vanilla bean (I really just can't afford vanilla beans at roughly $8 a pop). I also did something crazy before I roasted the fruit—I tried it raw, strewn over a warm biscuit, with plenty of cream, in the manner of this salad. The rhubarb was too tart, so I roasted the fruit as instructed. This might works for you, however, if you cut back the amount of rhubarb and up the sweeteners.  

Shortcakes:
1 cup rye flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1-inch cubes
3/4 cups chilled heavy cream
1/3 cup chilled buttermilk (or substitute)

Heavy cream or milk to brush on top
2 tablespoons turbinado sugar for sprinkling

Fruit:
16 ounces strawberries, hulled and cut in halves or quarters
2 stalks rhubarb, thinly sliced on the bias
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons sugar
A squeeze of lemon

Whipped cream:
1/2–3/4 cups heavy cream

Garnish:
Mint leaves, torn

Make the shortcakes. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment. In a large bowl, lightly whisk together the dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar). Cut the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives, until only pea-sized pieces of butter remain. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, and add the cream and buttermilk. Toss it gently with a spoon until it is just combined (it is okay if some dry areas remain).

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Pat it into a rectangle about 1-inch thick, and fold it in half. Gently press it into a 1-inch thick rectangle again, and repeat once more, folding in the opposite direction.

Using a floured 2-1/2 inch round cutter, or the rim of a drinking glass, cut out the shortcakes. Reform the scraps (be gentle on the dough) and cut out more shortcakes. You will end up with 8 to 10.

Place the shortcakes on the baking sheet, and place the baking sheet in the freezer for 10 minutes. When the shortcakes are chilled, brush the tops with milk or cream, and sprinkle generously with sugar. Bake until they are nicely browned, about 25 minutes.

While the shortcakes are cooling, prepare the fruit. Turn the oven down to 375 degrees. In a medium bowl, toss together the strawberries, rhubarb, honey, sugar, and lemon juice. Allow the mixture to sit for about 10 minutes, then spread the fruit and juices out on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the fruit is soft and the juices are slightly caramelized.

In another bowl, whip the cream with a whisk by hand until it holds together as a mass, but is still somewhat soft (a balloon whisk is ideal for this job).

Assemble the shortcakes by slicing open a shortcake, and layering it with strawberries and cream. Scatter torn mint leaves around the whole thing.

Not a Single Day

I’ve been thinking a lot about loss, what with the news of hurricane Sandy that’s been streaming in from the East Coast (my thoughts are with you New York, my beloved city).

I spent the duration of the storm living a sort of parallel reality, from my bed, stricken with the flu. In my feverish state, all sorts of things surfaced in my mind—there was a sort of psychic wreckage blowing around in there. And then, when I awoke, when I really awoke, when I was finally getting better, I began to see the images of overturned cars and uprooted oak trees, a blackened city skyline, and deserted streets.

There was only one other time that I remember this profound sense of emptiness that can be felt when the city’s buildings, its life force and visceral landscape, could be seen as darkened and unmoving. I hesitate to go back there in my mind.

When I was little, I used to look at the city skyline from my father’s moving car and think of how each light, in each square window, in every apartment building, represented an individual life—I remember feeling overwhelmed and comforted by this thought at the same time: that lives cross in these oblique yet profoundly intimate ways; that we are small; that moments in time can’t be counted; that things and people are constantly lapsing in and out of being.

I think of my sister whenever I think of loss—someone who I haven’t seen in six years. The story is—as they often are—a long one. I can’t go into all of it here, at least for the moment. But the sadness that pervades her loss is always with me. And though this has been said before, perhaps by many, there truly is not a single day when I don’t think of her. It’s been long enough now that I am beginning to remember her again as she once was—when she was a little girl. How we fought, and laughed, and fought again. She used to bribe me with food items: bits of butter coated in sugar and other weird childhood concoctions. I remember her chubby fingers reaching out to pass me some little morsel, and I, hungrily and greedily, leaning in to accept it. I emulated her sense of strength—the way she laughed heartily and threw passionate fits. She was always very convincing.

I will write about her more here in bits and pieces, as the memories come. She is in everything that I do and in most things that I think and feel. We suffer chronically around the loss of her.

*

To this parade of sadness and sickness today, though, I will also add some cake—because that’s what we do; that’s what I’ve always done. 

My mother and I would take to the kitchen armed with butter and sugar and a few more spare things and whip together something that could be relished and consumed. I hope that in the way that cake can be shared, so too can these thoughts—that perhaps they shore up some distant part of some other human, in their own small illuminated corner, whose life is occurring at this very moment, in parallel. There might be a little girl marveling at the light cast from your window as I type this, and you would never know it.

*

Now, the cake:

It’s from Nigel Slater’s beautiful book Ripe. It’s a pear cake. No—it’s an almond cake, scented with brown sugar; with a hearty, courageous crumb; topped with the most beautiful mess of pears: pears that have been simmered in butter and cinnamon, that have been doused in maple syrup, that have created—in this process—the most luscious, sticky syrup clinging to every bite.

It really is a lovely thing. And, perhaps most importantly, it is a perfect fall thing—it is cake that is also nourishing. It tastes like the season.

If you take care not to over-bake it, your crumb will be less firm, slightly more on the ethereal side, not as dry. That’s what you should do. But, if you forget about your cake for a moment while you are reading something—as I did, in my bedroom—you can also rest assured that your slightly over-baked cake will remain moist with maple syrup–drunk pears in every bite. And, in this state, you can also eat it out of hand.

New York friends, I wish I could share this with you. We could feel happy, at least, to have the taste of pear on our tongues, no matter the weather.

Until soon. 

Almond Cake with Pears, Maple Syrup, and Cinnamon

Adapted from Ripe by Nigel Slater

Nigel calls this "a cake of pears, muscovado, and maple syrup." I couldn't find muscovado sugar, so I dropped it both in recipe and name. But you can use it here instead of the brown sugar, if you are so inclined.  

Cake:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup (scant) light brown sugar 
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup group almonds 
3 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pears:
3 ripe pears (I used Concorde)
4 teaspoons unsalted butter
2 generous pinches cinnamon 
3 tablespoons maple syrup (plus more for serving)


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch round cake pan and line with parchment; the parchment should extend over the edge of the pan on two sides to make the cake easy to remove. Butter the parchment and dust the pan with flour, tapping out the excess. 

Peel and core the pears, and chop them into 1/3-1/2 inch pieces. Place them in a shallow pan with the butter and cinnamon, and cook over medium heat for 10-12 minutes, or until just softened, stirring occasionally. Add the maple syrup to the pan—the juices will bubble up; stir the mixture once or twice, and remove the pears from the heat. 

Cream together the butter and sugars in a large bowl (I do this with a wooden spoon, but you could use an electric mixer too). In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder. Add the ground almonds to the flour mixture. In a small bowl, beat the eggs and milk. Add about 1/3 of the eggs to the butter and stir to combine; then add 1/3 of the flour mixture and stir. Repeat this process until all of the ingredients are combined (do not over-mix). Stir in the vanilla extract. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth out the top. Pour the pears and all of their sticky syrup over the cake in an even layer. 

Begin checking the cake at 50 minutes. It should be golden all over, and a toothpick, when inserted into  the cake (avoiding the fruit, if possible), should come out clean. 

Nigel suggest serving this with a little cream and maple syrup. I forgot about this part when it came time for me to eat the cake—but I would try it next time. He also suggests that it can be consumed warm. It is also the sort of thing that you can grab a slice of and eat out of hand. And, as I can attest to at this very moment, it makes a very good breakfast.