Sour cream spice cake

Another Birthday cake for Roxane, For years I have made cake for Roxane. She and her husband have birthdays on consecutive days in June, it has always been a great reason for cake… but what isn’t a good reason for cake? Maybe if there was pie!

Sour Cream Spice Cake with Orange Butter Frosting

Makes a two layer 8” or 9” Round Cake

2 ¼ cups sifted cake flour

¾ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (fresh is best!)

½ teaspoon ground cloves

1 ¾ cups sugar

1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 cup sour cream

3 eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Frosting

½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature

3 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar

½ cup evaporated milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon orange extract

3 tablespoons dried orange peel (optional)

To Make the Cake

1. Center a rack and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare the two cake pans by buttering and dusting with flour or spraying a baking spray into them.

2. Dry whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves together. Whisk in the sugar.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer on medium speed, beat together the melted and cooled butter, sour cream, eggs, and vanilla extract until thoroughly blended.

4. Gradually add the flour mixture and beat until thoroughly blended.

5. Pour the batter into the cake pans and bake for 25 – 30 minutes (depending on the temp of your oven!) Until the cake layers test done with a tooth pick or cake tester.

6. Cool the layers in the pans for ten minutes, then unmold onto cake racks and cool to room temperature.

7. No need to divide the layers but do even up the top of the lower layer so the top layer stacks in a pretty manor.

To Make the Frosting

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter at medium speed. Beat in the confectioner’s sugar, evaporated milk, vanilla extract and orange extract until smooth. Add the orange peel and mix until incorporated.

2. Frost the cake and refrigerate for 20 minutes for firm up the frosting.

P.S. I think orange cream cheese frosting would be divine on this cake!

Brandied Cherries

Brandied Bing Cherries

Tom Douglas Tom’s Big Dinners

Makes about a cup

2/3 Cup sugar

1 Vanilla Bean, cut in half lengthwise

1 Pound Bing cherries, or other sweet cherries, stemmed & pitted, keeping the fruit whole. (Rainier’s don’t seem to work well with this recipe)

½ Cup Cognac or other good quality brandy

A step ahead: you can make the cherries a few weeks ahead and store them, covered and refrigerated. The flavor mellows and improves after a few days.

Combine the sugar and ½ cup water in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Use a paring knife to scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and add both the seeds and the bean pod to the saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the cherries and ¼ cup of the Cognac and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and strain the cherries from the cooking liquid, reserving both. Put the cherries and the vanilla pod in a heat proof bowl and return the liquid to the saucepan. Bring the liquid to a boil until syrupy and reduced to about ½ cup syrup. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the syrup over the reserved cherries. Allow the brandied cherries to cool, stir in the remaining ½ cup Cognac. Remove and discard the vanilla bean pod before serving. These can be used in the best Manhattan you'll ever have!

"Italian Stir Fry"

ITALIAN STIR FRY


One zucchini plant and a Father who loves to grow tomatoes is a lot of zucchini and tomatoes for one person! I was so hungry and tired after work tonight I had a little nosh of celery and peanut butter, a big glass of water, and started cutting up veggies to save myself from a can of Nalley’s chili(1). I was not sure which direction the food was going in but here is what I made and I am calling it "Italian Stir Fry".

Zucchini ¼ inch slice
½ Sweet yellow onion ¼ inch slice
A hand full of cherry tomatoes sliced in half
1 shallot sliced
1 clove garlic sliced
10 basil leaves julienned
1 tablespoon capers
olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
Parmigiano Reggiano

Heat the pan, add a tablespoon of oil saute the shallots, when soft add the onion and saute until almost clear then add the garlic and zucchini toss around in the hot pan with out burning the garlic and until the zucchini is also crisp tender, ad the tomatoes and gently toss until tomatoes are warmed through. Remove from the heat toss with the capers and basil serve as a vegetable side or over pasta or rice top with large grated Parmesgiano Reggiano and have a glass of your favorite red table wine.

ENJOY!

1. A well kept secret from my culinary foodie friends… I love Nalley’s chili in a can, but it has to be Original.

Peach Bruschetta

PEACH BRUSCHETTA
About a pound of ripe tomatoes cut into ¼” dice
1cup diced ripe peaches
½ cup red onion finely diced (sweet yellow onion would work well here too)
16 large fresh basil leaves finely shredded
2 seeded and finely diced jalapeno peppers (omit if you don’t want heat)
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
¼ cup plus 3 table spoons fruity extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 baguette
In a large bowl gently toss the tomatoes, peaches, onion, basil, jalapeno peppers, ¼ cup olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt & pepper. Let mixture sit at room temperature for about ½ hour.

Cut the baguette into ¾” slices and brush with olive oil. Brush each slice with olive oil and toast under the broiler or grill until golden brown. (If you are going to use the broiler, don’t Walk Away! It turns from perfect to incinerated in an instant! Trust me!) This step can be done ahead a day as long as you give the peach mixture time to meld at room temperature before serving on the toasts.
To serve arrange toasts on platter and spoon peach tomato mixture and serve immediately. I had to rush off to the BBQ before this was photographed. It was entirely eaten and raved over. It is such a pretty dish and most flavorful, all I could think about was Grilled Halibut!

GARDEN ZUCCHINI... BREADS

Here’s what happens overnight when you don’t harvest the zucchini the day you see it is the prefect size!


I didn’t want to stuff this big zucchini so I made zucchini bread!


I started out thinking with nostalgia that I would hand grate the squash like I did for my Mom when I was a kid, also, I didn’t want to get out the food processor and then clean it up after…



So much for nostalgia!


I did, however run a knife through the squash “threads” after grating them in the food processor to give them a shorter more uniform appeal.


ZUCCHINI BREAD
Preheat the oven to 350 de3grees F. And grease two standard loaf pans.
3 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I will only nut meg I grate myself with a micro plane and not this much)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil (I used walnut oil)
4 beaten eggs
1/3 cup water
2 cups grated zucchini
1 teaspoon lemon juice (Well singe the cobbler I still haven’t been to the store, I used orange juice again)
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Mix dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in another. Mix wet into dry and fold in nuts. Divide into the two prepared loaf pans and bake for an hour or until a tester comes out clean.


Well... I did all of the above, took it out of the oven, let it sit for 10 minutes and tried to turn it out of the pans and it stuck… I am thinking back and may have used two cups of oil! It is not pretty...It tastes fantastic!

With the left over two cups of grated zucchini I have two loaves of chocolate zucchini in the oven now.

CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI BREAD
Preheat the oven to 350 de3grees F. And grease two standard loaf pans.
3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup cocoa powder
(Not Dutch process, I had Hershey’s on hand and as you know I haven’t been to the store!)
1-teaspoon ground nutmeg
(I will only nutmeg I grate myself with a micro plane and not this much)
1 ½ teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1-teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups sugar
1-cup vegetable oil (I used only one cup this time but I used olive oil)
4 beaten eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk
2 cups grated zucchini
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup semi sweet chocolate morsels

Mix dry ingredients in one bowl but sift the cocoa powder and mix the wet ingredients in another bowl. Pour wet into dry, mix until incorporated and fold in nuts. Divide into the two prepared loaf pans and bake for an hour or until a tester comes out clean. We’ll see how these tow come out!

PEACH BLUEBERRY CRISP

PEACH BLUEBERRY CRISP
Last night I had rice and peas, a staple here at my house, that, and the ever popular dinner of popcorn and white wine sprinter has kept this single cook very happy, perhaps not nutritionally sustained but content.

Tonight the temperature outside has dropped and the oven is on! I am making a Peach & Blueberry crisp. I was trying to follow the recipe in Ina Garten’s cookbook Barefoot Contessa at Home while on the phone to Lyn and mixed up the crumble and the fruit portions so I dropped our call and resorted to scooping flour off the top of the peaches, re-measured the sugar and realizing I had no lemons for the zest and juice that it called for. So here is what I ended up doing:
PEACH AND BERRY CRISP
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and butter ramekins or a baking dish
For the Fruit:
6 ripe, peeled and sliced peaches
3teaspoons of orange juice
½ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup rice flour
(Who knows how much flour… after spilling and scooping off excess)
1-pint blueberries
Add all above ingredients in a bowl and toss lightly and set aside.

For the crisp
1 cup spelt flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar
1/3 teaspoon kosher salt
¼ pound (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, diced
Measure all above ingredients into a sieve and sift into a bowl. Dice your butter and toss each piece into the flour mixture and toss so that each piece is coated and begin to press the butter pieces between your fingers into the flour. Do this until it is the consistency of peas and sand. You don’t want to over work this step and make it greasy. I greased an oval baker I have, I am sorry I don’t know what size it is poured the fruit mixture in and leveled it out. I placed this on a sheet of parchment on a cookie sheet and sprinkled the crumble over the fruit leveling it out almost to the edges of the dish. Place in the middle part of the oven and bake for 40 – 45 minutes until the edges are brown and bubbly. It is in the oven now and I will let you know how it turns out!

Don't forget the Tillamook vanilla bean ice cream! It was delicious!