Christmas Coffee Cake

I have a recipe that I have been making for over 40 years that to my knowledge has been well received by anyone that has tasted it. I make this coffee cake other times of the year but I have always made sure to make it for Christmas Brunch. Here is the recipe and I hope that whomever you make it for loves it as much as my family does.

Christmas Coffee Cake

Preheat Oven 350°

 

Cake

½  Cup Butter*

½  Cup Sugar*

1 Cup Sour Cream or a Non/Low-Fat French Vanilla Yogurt*

2 Eggs Unbeaten

1 Tsp Vanilla

2 Cups Flour*

1 Tsp Baking Powder

1 Tsp Baking Soda

Cream butter and sugar, add sour cream/yogurt. Add 1 egg at a time blending thoroughly. Add the vanilla. Combine the dry ingredients and gradually add them to the batter.

Topping

2/3 Cup Brown Sugar

1 Tbsp Cinnamon

2 Tbsp Butter (cold)*

1 Cup Chopped Pecans*

Put the brown sugar and cinnamon together with the butter. Tip: I cut the butter into small pieces. Put the ingredients in a food processor and process with an on/off technique to incorporate the butter into the brown sugar and cinnamon. Stir in the pecans but don’t process.

Pour ½ of the batter in a 9” spring form pan. Sprinkle with ½ the topping. Then put the rest of the batter over that and sprinkle the rest of the topping. Put in the preheated oven and bake for 35-40 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

If you can wait, which my family doesn’t seem to be able to, let it cool. Then serve.

What do all those *’s mean? Those are places that I have been able to alter the recipe to accommodate changes in diet or allergies.

Here is the list of substitutions I have used:

Butter – Use a good stick of margarine in place of the butter for lower fat and lactose intolerance.

Sugar – I only use a ½ cup of sugar so the batter isn’t too sweet. The topping is enough.  If you would like the cake sweeter, you can go up to 1 cup.

Sour Cream/Yogurt – If there is a lactose intolerance a soy yogurt can be used.

Flour – To make this coffee cake gluten free I use 2-1/4 cups of gluten free flour.

Pecans – Toasted Walnuts are also good. If there is a nut allergy leave them out and add more brown sugar as desired.

Season’s Greetings to all of you.

Fall Farmer's Market

The farmer’s market season ends today in my city. Most of the small ones have already ended.  The biggest one, the one I have gone to since I was a child, remained open until today.  But this does not mean that there is a lack of fresh vegetables and other goods. The vegetables are just different. Gone are the fresh corn and beans.  They are now being replaced by the squash and cabbage families.

Now on to what many call the fall vegetables. First there is the lovely head of creamy white cauliflower.  Also you can find dark green cabbages.  Then there are the piles of exotic looking squash, a still life all on their own.  It’s the squash that I want to talk about today.

I am not a squash lover. It’s not that I have not been exposed to different kinds of squash and that is the cause for my distaste.  What it comes down to is texture.  For me it is too mushy and watery.  Now some would say it just wasn’t fresh enough, but that isn’t the case either. My Dad used to grow Summer, Zucchini and Acorn squash in his garden. It was a garden to cooking pot experience with no middle man. It wasn’t until I discovered Butternut squash that I truly enjoyed squash. Maybe it was its similarity to sweet potatoes, which I love, that sold me on it. I can’t remember how I started to eat this squash but every year I can’t wait for it to show up at the market.

I have had it as filling for ravioli, just roasted with olive oil, and my favorite as Butternut Squash Soup. Here is my newest version of the soup. Use your judgment as to the proportions for each of the ingredients.

·         Butternut Squash - Peel, seed and cut up in about 1” cubes

·         Large onion - Peeled and cut into the same size as the squash

·         Apples – Peeled, cored and cut into cubes

Toss all the ingredients together in a bowl and lightly coat with canola oil. Spread coated ingredients on a low sided baking sheet and put it in a preheated 350° oven for 30 minutes. Check to see if the vegetables and apples have caramelized to your liking. If you want more caramelization keep roasting.  Check in 15 minute intervals until it is the color you prefer. I personally like them on the dark side. Let everything cool. Then put small batches in a blender to puree, slowly adding water or chicken stock to create the consistency you want. Reheat to serve.

Some garnishes for the soup could be:

·         A drizzle of flavored olive oil

·         Sour Crème or Plain Yogurt

·         Croutons

I hope you enjoy this recipe. It’s good on a cold night, maybe pair with a nice pressed sandwich.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is on Thursday and I want to get ahead of everyone to plead a case for the much-maligned brussels sprout. This vegetable and the lima bean are the two I feel to be the most hated vegetables in America. But, back to what my family called little cabbages: the brussels sprout.

As I was growing up brussels sprouts were a yearly adventure. How could this green vegetable be an adventure?  Well I will tell you. My Dad would always grow brussels sprouts but he would not harvest them until the first frost. He said they needed that frost to make them sweet. Even if there was a frost earlier in November we left them in the garden waiting for the Thanksgiving harvest. The long leaves protected the sprouts and if it snowed they looked like frosted Christmas trees. The tree theme went further because we had to chop them down to harvest. My Dad would take his hatchet and cut close to the ground. Then we would take the leaves off and of course put them in the compost pile. After we got them in the house the fun would really start. You could cut the sprouts off the stalk, but it was much more fun to pop them off. They make this snapping sound very much like popping large bubble wrap. This sometimes met with sprouts flying around the kitchen. After that was getting them ready to steam. Peel the rough leaves off and into the steaming basket to cook. This is where I think brussels sprouts got their bad rap. They seem to have universally been cooked to long and become mush. If they were already bitter and then mushy I wouldn’t like them either, and I love them.

I have noticed that a lot of cooking programs for the Holiday Season are trying to enlighten the world about brussels sprouts and how good they can be. Whether you watch Ina Garten roast them (which she states is the only way she likes them) or chef Brad Farmerie on Martha Stewart this morning making them with an Asian flavor, they show brussels sprouts don’t have to be a mushy mess.

Since I no longer have access to a garden I went this last weekend to the farmer’s market. It’s almost done for the year. I found these small stalks of sprouts which pleased me since those have the tinier and what I feel are the best tasting sprouts. This year I am going to try something I have thought up.

Note: The proportions for the Pancetta/Bacon and Vinegars are to taste.

1. Cut Pancetta or Bacon into crosswise strips.
2. Sauté until brown but not crisp. 
3. Now for the Brussels Sprouts.  If the sprouts are really small, just halve them.  But if they are large, blanch and shock them in an ice bath before cutting in half.
4. Toss the cut sprouts in with the Pancetta/Bacon.  Sauté until the sprouts are heated through.
5. Deglaze the pan with Balsamic Vinegar. Here you can be very creative using flavors such as Pomegranate or Fig.  If you do not want the dish to have a brown coloring, use a White Balsamic.
6. Serve.

Now for a movie to watch on Thanksgiving Day: What’s Cooking? – It is a cross-cultural look at how four families celebrate Thanksgiving. I watch it every year.

Happy Thanksgiving

The Birthday Box

It is my son’s 32^nd birthday today. Since he lives in California we won’t be celebrating the occasion together. But this doesn’t deter me from sending what is now known as The Goodie Box. This is a well thought out box of surprises that takes in consideration my son’s lactose intolerance and his girlfriend’s gluten intolerance.

My daughter and I look all year for different things to send that are fun and tasty. The initial box was sent the first birthday my son was in California over five years ago. Now we send three boxes a year, one for each of their birthdays and Christmas. We have sent many things such as Star Wars cut out cookies, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, and the most popular to date homemade chocolate and caramel pretzel bark.

I have to tell you that my son’s favorite nut is a cashew. So every time we send a box there is a cashew somewhere. Sometimes it is fancy flavored cashews in a bag or cashews on the caramel chocolate pretzels.  This birthday we sent him cashew caramels from a vendor at our local farmers’ market.

We sent an assortment of gluten free chip dips also from a farmers’ market vendor. You see my son has one of those televisions that is just about as wide as I am tall. I’m 5’4”. His house has become football central so I thought well at least everyone can eat the dip.

I have been noticing in all the commercials and cooking shows that brownies have made a come back. You can get diet ones in a box ready to eat. I’ll leave that to someone else to try. With that thought in mind, and a gluten free baking class at Williams-Sonoma, I made brownies to put in the box. I just took my old family recipe, which has only ingredients and no instructions how to make them, and substituted the usual flour for gluten free. They turned out well. I haven’t heard the final verdict from the birthday boy yet.

I did learn a tip in the baking class as to how to measure the flour. I am a classically trained baker and weigh all my dry ingredients to make a consistent product no matter what time of year. They told me that gluten free flour is best done with the scoop method. This means dip into the flour with the appropriate measure and after bringing it out of the flour level it off with a knife. I tried it and it did work better than my other attempts at family favorites when I weighed the flour. This has been a learning experience trying to make things taste like they are the same as baking done with regular flour.

Happy Birthday, Matushka

Shopping Tip #1

Gluten Free Nut Chips by Blue Diamond. If you like the nut crackers made by Blue Diamond you’ll really like their nut chips. The come in three flavors, Sour Cream and Chive, Sea Salt and Nacho. I have tried the Sour Cream and Chive and the Nacho and found them delicious. Here is something new to take care of that chips and salsa craving.