Oatmeal Cake

Last month, my dear friend Anna and her husband Josh came over to my humble abode for dinner. This was a particular treat, because Anna is one of my best friends from college, but I hadn't seen her since I graduated several years ago. Oh, sure, we keep up to date with each other through Facebook and occasional phone calls, but nothing beats face-to-face conversations. Plus, I hadn't yet met her husband, which I was very much looking forward to getting to do.

They had been on the road for a while doing the holiday family visitation circuit: they were able to visit because Rochester is conveniently located between Syracuse, where Anna has family, and Pittsburgh, where she and Josh currently reside. Knowing that they had been away from home for a while and had been stuffed to the gills with restaurant food, I offered to make them a homemade meal, an offer which they gratefully accepted.

I made more recipes that I am going to post tonight, but the rundown of the meal was: tomato and fennel soup with vegan "sausage," potato& rutabega au gratin, garlic bread, and oatmeal cake. Sure, a starch-heavy meal, but sometimes that's just what sounds good in the dead of winter. It was all wonderfully delicious, and the conversation was lively and laughter-filled. I was delighted to discover that I liked her husband greatly, and that the tenderness between them was immediately obvious. And their dog was absolutely adorable.

I made a specific promise to Anna to send her the recipe for the cake, a promise that has until now gone unfulfilled. Anna sent me a very kind reminder earlier today, and I figured since I'll be typing it up anyway, I might as well turn it into another post.

The downside of the time that has elapsed since our dinner is that I do not have a picture of the cake. However, this is a recipe I make fairly regularly, and I will be sure to upload a picture the next time I make this moist, flavorful pan of deliciousness.

This is yet another recipe that is adapted from The Joy of Cooking, which as you can tell from this post and the previous one is a book I refer to often. If you don't have a copy, I strongly suggest picking up this classic cookbook the next time you're at your neighborhood bookstore.

One gentle reminder: in order for the texture of the cake to turn out as good as possible, it is important that the ingredients be at room temperature (unless otherwise specified: good luck trying to get water to boil at room temperature!).

Also, you will notice that I do not suggest using parchment paper to line the baking pan, despite my previously-expressed fondness for the stuff. The thing is, the frosting for this cake is broiled, and the last thing you want to put under the broiler is paper. So, yeah, just this once, do NOT line the pan with parchment paper.

While many cakes are best the day they are baked, this is one cake that is actually better the next day. By all means, have a piece once the cake has cooled if you must, but I strongly suggest making sure a good amount gets saved for later. This is a trait that actually makes this an ideal dessert when entertaining, because it is optimal to prepare it ahead of time, making the day of the event that much saner and stress-free.

One more thing: there is a huge difference in the quality of flavor from freshly grated nutmeg and the pre-ground stuff you can get in a little plastic bottle. In my opinion, it is totally worth the initial investment to get whole nutmeg and a microplane on which to grate it. Feel free to disregard this suggestion and use the pre-ground nutmeg, but I can promise you it won't be quite as good. 

Oatmeal Cake

The cake:

• 1 c old-fashioned oats
• 1-1/2 c boiling water
• 1-1/3 c unbleached white whole wheat flour (King Arthur brand is commonly available at most grocery stores)
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 t ground cinnamon
• 3/4 t freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 c sugar
• 1 c packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 t vanilla

The frosting:

• 1 c raw turbinado sugar
• 5 T unsalted butter, melted
• 5 T heavy cream or half-and-half (or you can substitute Silk creamer)
• pinch salt
• 1/3 c shredded coconut
• 1/3 c chopped nuts

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9" by 13" baking pan. 
2. Combine the oats and the boiling water in a bowl, and let stand for 20 minutes. 
3. Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Whisk to combine thoroughly. 
4. Beat the butter and the sugars in a large mixing bowl on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes (really, let it take that long: when you cream the butter and sugar together well, the cake will end up fluffier and happier. And everyone likes a happy cake.). 
5. Beat the eggs into the butter and sugar, one at a time. Beat in the vanilla.
6. On slow speed, beat in the oat mixture. Then, beat in the flour mixture in three parts, scraping down the bowl between each addition. Scrape the batter in to the pan and spread evenly.
7. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean: begin testing the cake after it has baked for 30 minutes, but it can take almost an hour. Make sure the toothpick comes out clean, but don't overbake or allow the edges to burn.
8. Let cool briefly in the pan while you pre-heat the broiler and make the frosting.

Frosting:

• Combine all the ingredients. Spread on the slightly cooled cake and broil 3"-5" below the heating element: check it after 3 minutes, and then check it every minute until the icing is bubbly all over the surface. Take care that it does not burn!
• Cool before serving.

Bread Pudding

Today, I am going to not one, but TWO Thanksgiving meals: one with a friend's wonderful family, and one with the sangha at the Zen Center.

Seriously: there are so many things for which I am grateful.  Not only do I have the ability to cook, but I have the physical capability to do it (no small thing, when we're humbly honest with ourselves), food to cook with, and so many incredible people with whom to break bread and share water.

Just for today, I am going to set aside my righteous indignation regarding the injustices in the world and my frustrations about the genocidal roots of the historical holiday, and just be grateful. After all, if even Noam Chomsky can take a day off (http://bitURL.net/auac), then I can too.

 Each of the two meals is a potluck: after all, Thanksgiving is a lot saner when everyone chips in. I am going to make two Beet, Potato and Wild Mushroom Casseroles (http://bitURL.net/auae), the subject of one of my previous blog posts. I am also going to make the following recipe for Bread Pudding, just because.

This recipe is deceptive: for as layered and exquisite as the flavor is, it is surprisingly easy to make. It is also a great recipe to help prevent food waste: whenever I get a few too many bagels, or if a loaf of bread isn't getting eaten as quickly as it usually does, I save them in the freezer rather than discarding them. Of course, it is important to wrap the bread well, so that it doesn't get freezer-burnt, and to thaw it thoroughly before using. After thawing, go ahead and double-check the flavor, just to ascertain that there is no freezer-burn taste. It's better to check now than to wish you had later.

 Because I am taking this recipe to two different celebrations, I will be baking it in two separate pie pans instead of in a 13-by-9 inch baking pan. You, too, can choose to bake it in bread pans or a Bundt pan: just be sure to be EXTRA attentive to the cooking time if you do so, because it can change quite dramatically when differently-sized pans are used.

Bread Pudding

• 1/2 cup (slightly heaping) golden raisins
• 1/4 c amaretto
• 4 T butter, melted
• 12 oz. (approx. 4-5 cups, depending on the density of the baked goods) bread, bagels, or pastries, day-old
• 1 qt. light cream
• 3 eggs
• 1 2/3 c sugar
• 1 T vanilla extract

1. Combine the raisins and the amaretto in a small saucepan. Heat just to a simmer, cover, and set aside.
2. Use a portion of the butter to thoroughly coat a 13-by-9 inch baking pan or two 9-inch pie pans. Reserve the remaining butter.
3. Tear the bread into chunks and place in a large bowl. Pour the cream over the bread and set aside until soft. 
4. Beat the eggs and sugar until smooth and thick. Add the vanilla, the remaining melted butter, and the raisins and amaretto.
5. Toss the eegg mixture with the bread gently to blend. Pour into the pan(s) and bake at 350 degrees F until browned and almost set, approximately 45 minutes. 
6. Serve warm.

Yumminess Chip Cookies

Cookies have such simple ingredients: flour, sugar, butter, eggs, salt. It's pretty much impossible to get them completely wrong: unless you seriously fucked up, the end result is going to be yummy.

But like so many deceptively simple things in life, attention to little details makes all the difference between good cookies and oh-my-god-give-me-another, melt-in-your-mouth yumminess cookies.

Here are some important things to keep in mind:

• Do not  substitute anything for the butter. I cannot emphasize this enough: if your cookies are going to be worth the trouble of making in the first place, just do it right and use whole-fat, salted butter.
• Get the extra-nice chocolate (or butterscotch) chips. Ghirardelli is great. Scharffen Berger is better. The cost difference is more than made up for when you bite into the cookie and, without meaning to, roll your eyes back a little because the delicious melted-y sensation is just too good to handle.
• Use pure vanilla extract, not that imitation crap. And go ahead: if the spirit moves you, pour in an extra splash.
• Most recipes for chocolate chip cookies call for light brown sugar. Do not listen to them. They are in line with The Man, and they are lying to you, to ensure that the Common Man (or Woman, or Tranny, or Whatever) is denied the best possible cookies. Dark brown sugar gives the cookies a more satisfying, caramel-y flavor.
• Make sure that the ingredients are all at room temperature while making the cookie dough, but then chill it for a while before shaping and baking the cookies. Do not skip this step. It makes sure the butter doesn't melt too soon in the baking process, so the cookies stay soft and chewy. 
• Use parchment paper. Just trust me on this. I don't care how nice your cookie sheets are: your cookies will turn out better in the end if you bake them on parchment paper.
• Make them as big as I tell you to. You know you want to. Fuck that 1-tablespoon-sized cookie that the cookbook tells you to make, in some neo-Victorian plot to make cookies decently small instead of pleasantly palm-sized. Just keep a close eye on them while they bake, because it will affect their cooking time and you don't want them to burn. That would be sad.

With those things in mind:

When I made them yesterday, I divided the dough in half, and mixed 1 cup of butterscotch chips into half the dough, 1 cup of milk chocolate chips into the other half. I did this because my sweetie wanted chocolate chip cookies and butterscotch chip cookies. And I like baking things that make my Boo happy. Feel free to to the same, or to substitute any of the crazy-flavored chips they have available now. Or to make the whole batch with one kind of chip. Whatever, as long as you use a total of 2 cups. Have fun.

(Adapted from the classic cookbook that belongs in every kitchen, The Joy of Cooking)

Yumminess Chip Cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Whisk together:

• 2 1/4 c unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 t baking soda

 Beat in a large bowl until well blended and creamy:

• 1 c (2 sticks) salted butter, softened
• 1 c white sugar
• 1 c dark brown sugar

Add to the sugar and butter mixture and beat until well combined:

• 2 large eggs (at room temperature)
• 3/4 t salt
• 4 t vanilla

Stir in the flour mixture until well-blended and smooth.
Stir in:

• 2 c chocolate chips (or butterscotch chips, or cinnamon chips, or peanut butter chips...)
• 1 1/2 c chopped pecans (optional)

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for 30-45 minutes.

Using a 1/3 cup measure (or the palm of your hand, if you don't mind getting cookie dough on your hands), drop the dough about 3 inches apart onto the cookie sheets. You will only be able to fit about 6 cookies to a sheet, but remember: big cookies are the best cookies. Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until golden brown, which can take from 10-15 minutes.

Let the cookies stand briefly, then remove to a rack to cool.