Fairy Cakes for the Mad Hatter's Tea Party

The current read for our Cook the Books Club is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, selected for us and hosted by Debra of Eliot's Eats.   My special vintage edition, beautifully illustrated with paintings by Angel Dominguez, was found online through Etsy.  If you'd like to read (or re-read) this old classic, and join the party, you have until the end of September.  What we do is read the selected book, get inspired by something in it to cook, then post our food and thoughts.

A Night of Miracles and Mango Coffeecake

Having just finished Night of Miracles, by Elizabeth Berg, I've got to say she's got another winner! I've reviewed several of Berg's novels in the past (The Art of Mending and Never Change), but am not letting that stop me.  When they're good, they're good, and you want to share it!

This one calls to mind the sadly late Maeve Binchey, featuring a number of diverse characters in a small town, whose lives are tied together in various ways. The central figure, an elderly woman, Lucille, is a consummate baking queen, who has begun to teach classes in her home, between fending off a few encounters with the Angel of Death.

So mentions of food abound, not just baked goods, but plenty of scrumptious Southern cooking turns up here, with another of the characters working in a local cafe.  Beware of constant temptations from the likes of Upside-down Chocolate Pudding Cake, Praline Cupcakes, and sugar cookies stuffed with raspberry jam.  Oh Boy!

Kauai Inn Papaya Cake for The Victory Garden

Rhys Bowen has outdone herself again with The Victory Garden!  I just love her Royal Spyness and the Molly Murphy Series, as well
as her terrific stand alone novels, as is this one.  What a great writer!  Bowen has the ability to draw in and engage readers with her created world.

From the Publishers:
"From the bestselling author of The Tuscan Child comes a beautiful and heart-rending novel of a woman’s love and sacrifice during the First World War.

As the Great War continues to take its toll, headstrong twenty-one-year-old Emily Bryce is determined to contribute to the war effort. She is convinced by a cheeky and handsome Australian pilot that she can do more, and it is not long before she falls in love with him and accepts his proposal of marriage.

When he is sent back to the front, Emily volunteers as a “land girl,” tending to the neglected grounds of a large Devonshire estate. It’s here that Emily discovers the long-forgotten journals of a medicine woman who devoted her life to her herbal garden. The journals inspire Emily, and in the wake of devastating news, they are her saving grace. Emily’s lover has not only died a hero but has left her terrified—and with child. Since no one knows that Emily was never married, she adopts the charade of a war widow.

Jump Down The Alley Way for Lemon Crunch Cake and Oxtail Soup

There is a little restaurant, in a bowling alley in Aiea, on Oahu, called The Alley.  This place is what you might call a hole in the wall, or a hidden gem.  Most local people do know about the place, but it took Marg the Intrepid, in Australia to clue me in.  She wanted to come to Hawaii to see the Arizona Memorial and partly for the Alley's Lemon Crunch Cake.  Now we don't hop over to Oahu all that often, and when we do go, it is not to Aiea.  However, Bob had his Kaiser eye surgery not too far away.  And we were taking advantage of Uber, so no worries about finding it. Our driver was an older Filipino gentleman who asked us how we knew about The Alley:)

Pear, Pistachio and Rose Cake At My Table

Some one of you out there mentioned this cookbook, At My Table, by Nigella Lawson.  Who can be blamed??  I checked it out of the library, then was forced to buy my own copy.  Me, who had earlier determined that there was a surfeit of cookbooks around here. It was just kismet I suppose.  The too lovely photographs and too delicious sounding meals.  Wonderful concoctions I needed to try for myself.  One of which was this Pear, Pistachio and Rose cake.  And another, her Indian-Spiced Chicken and Potato Traybake.  Both turned out so scrumptious.

Now I have all the rest of Nigella's book to have fun experimenting with.  Because, of course, as must be admitted, and along with many of you, I actually get inspiration more than anything else from a good cookbook; it's a take-off point.

Olive Oil and Fresh Rosemary Cake - Happy 21st!!

 Ever since the bit of time I spent in Greece, and subsequently buying Greek cookbooks, I've been intending to make one of those lovely olive oil cakes popular around the Mediterranean.   The idea is a little off-putting, but they have two good things going for them: 1.  the excellent taste and 2. the ease of putting one together.  Being as we are celebrating my grandson's 21st birthday today, and as I was making a chicken curry, my thought was that this Rosemary Olive Oil Cake would be an excellent dessert pairing , accompanied by a light sorbet.

Gooey St. Louis Butter Cake for Lovers Everywhere

I'm reading The Architect's Apprentice, by Elif Shafak, a truly Byzantine epic, and romantic tale involving, among other things, the doomed love of an elephant-tamer/architect's apprentice and the Sultan's daughter.  Hence the heart-shaped pan above, with my Valentine's dessert, a Gooey St. Louis Butter Cake.

The book is quite an adventure, full of historical interest, and lots of local color, as it's partly set  in the royal menagerie of the sultan's palace in Istanbul of the 14th Century.  However, books are something like desserts.  Sometimes you just have a taste, and stop, occasionally you get maybe halfway through and put it aside.  This was one of those, more than halfway finished, and I am unapologetic about this, it was too much or not enough, either way,  I think I prefer a more continuous flow going somewhere in a life.  Not the whole life, with countless occurrences.

 First time making this particular cake, though it  has been on my bucket "to cook" list for awhile.  Apparently it is a tradition in Missouri.  I added some dried cranberries on top for a bit of red, as well as balance against all the sweetness.  Nice for breakfast the next day too.  Especially with blueberries added on.  I do love my fruit, and we are between tropical fruit seasons at the moment, in our gardens at least.  Aside from lemons.

The Bee's Kiss and Madeira Cake with Passion Fruit Glaze

This seems to be the season for slightly shady or shall we say perversely themed novels on my shelf.  The Frida thing done, I picked up The Bee's Kiss, by Barbara Cleverly, another in her Joe Sandilands mystery series.  I've enjoyed them so far, and am reading the books in order, this being her 5th in the series. The year is 1926 and Joe is back in London after a number of cases had kept the Commander in India.

A prominent, aristocratic feminist leader, Dame Beatrice, with high up connections, who turns out not not to be entirely what she seems, is bludgeoned to death in her suite at the Ritz.  Often mysteries will have a really unsympathetic and despicable character murdered at the start, and I am privately cheering.  This is definitely one of those.  Still the crime must be solved, the backstory discovered, and that is where we readers get involved and interested in the motives and whodunit.   Of course, this one does get resolved, not quite as we would expect, with all the internal betrayal, and upper level corruption going on, but still with unexpected twists and turns, solved in the end.

Fresh Pineapple for Upside-down Cake

 When you are literally surrounded by ripening, falling over pineapples, just cannot wait, and succumb to the urge to pick one on which, after all, there was a streak of yellow on one side, a leaf came out (one of the signs) fairly easily, only to discover it is NOT QUITE ready.  Here is what can be done.  Pineapple upside-down cake.  This is not headline news.  Just an old standard, only not out of a can.  Better.  And, with a hint of tartness to offset all that sweet.

First, the cored, peeled, sliced  pieces must be cooked a bit, in a little butter.  Then set aside until you are ready for CAKE!!  And, some of us consider cake a breakfast food.  But I baked it in the early morning, mainly because it's so hot later in the day I knew it probably wouldn't get made otherwise.  This is Alice Waters' recipe, which is a bit unnecessarily complicated, in my humble opinion.  Whilst separating, some of the yolk of the 1st egg went into the white, and I said, what the hey, lets beat them all together with the other stuff.

The Year of the Kumquat

 A very small portion of them shown here.

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, or in my case Lemon Mead, and when you've been blessed with a load of kumquats, you need to be creative with them.  We haven't really had a whole year of them, it just sounded good, and sometimes feels that way.  Bob has had a strange obsession with the fruit ever since Thanksgiving when I made a Cranberry Kumquat Sauce.  I know it was only partly my delicious creation, with the other driving factor being humor.  Really, the name is not that funny.  He started with Facebook posting a W.C. Fields film clip on kumquats.  Yes, that was funny, ha ha ha.  Then Googling and posting all sorts of information on the fruit, health benefits, recipes and etc.  And which has caused other people to give him kumquats.

Bob notwithstanding, I still needed to deal with the second large bagful of those tasty little citrus, thanks due to Nancy, whom some of you might remember from my fabulous post on chocolate making.  First up was marmalade, which I simplified.  I did not like the sound of most of those lengthy recipes.  So, rather than mincing them all, one at a time, I tossed the halved, seeded fruit into a food processor and voila.

Chocolate Cake with SECRET GF INGREDIENT

I am posting about this cake for two reasons.  One, due to being absolutely ashamed of myself for neglecting this blog.  Have not been posting consistently, and mean to change that.  Secondly, not only was that cake totally delicious, but gluten free.  Now I'm not "normally" a gluten free person.  My husband, Bob, thinks it the joke of the year to ask at the Natural Foods store if he can have some of that free gluten that's going around.  But when our local supermarket coupon booklet came in the mail, with a GF cake on the cover, that was my heads up, knowing I would be having a group of women over, one of whom is, yes GF.

The Chocolate ganache icing was simplicity itself, consisting of just cream and chocolate chips.  The recipe called for coconut milk, but if you have an opened container of cream on hand, I figure go with it.  And, truly the taste cannot be beaten.  Unless you are also lactose free.

Blackberry Mochi Cake and Sticky Lemon Cake

Our current Cook the Books Club selection, Baking Cakes in Kigali, by Gaile Parkin, was a wonderful glimpse of life in a distant land and culture, modern-day Rwanda, albeit in a place (University housing) heavily influenced by Western thinking, customs, food, etc., with a resultant struggle by some of the local people to hang on to African traditions. 

In spite of all the horrific experiences endured by many of the characters in Parkin's book, an upbeat and hopeful mood was maintained.  There was humor and flavorful individuals aplenty, encountered by the heroine, Angel Tungaraza, through her home business of catering special occasion cakes.

I thought all the negative references to "white cake" as opposed to the brightly colored frostings on Angel's cakes was particularly funny.  Cake itself is not "African", and the bits of recipe we were given certainly had no claim to outstanding taste.  Similar to The Cake Boss, TV series.  It's all in the design and decoration, rather than any wonderful or distinctive flavor.  But that is quite aside from the chef's artistic outlet and entrepreneurial creativity.

 In case you don't know what's going on here, we read a book selection bimonthly, and then cook something inspired by the work.  For my submission, I was tempted to bake three white cakes, with differing flavors.  About this time last year I made Black Cake, a West Indian specialty, so why not?  One of my very favorites is coconut cake, made with coconut cream and topped with shredded coconut on a fluffy white frosting.  Then the Sticky Lemon Cake, which I'd been wanting to make since reading a Nancy Atherton book which included that recipe, Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea.  Perhaps to be followed by a Butter Mochi Cake.   However, what I ended up with was the Sticky Lemon Cake and a Blackberry Mochi Cake.

Italian Plum Cake and Mysteries of Life

There are books, wonderful books, well-written, which I have enjoyed and appreciated, yet if asked later about the story line, I might only be able to tell you about a bit of food.   Plum Cake, case in point, from the recent and excellent novel by Donna Leon, The Golden Egg.

As one reviewer, Ms. Goring at The Herald, stated: "We find ourselves once more in the company of Commissario Guido Brunetti, a gentlemanly, bookish policeman who never takes a short cut if it would impede his ruminations on life."  A domestic tragedy, and mystery involving the death of a local boy, a deaf-mute, his neighbors believe.  Things are not always what they seem on the surface, and Paola, Brunetti's equally bookish wife, refuses to let things alone.  She encourages her husband to find out more about the sad-eyed young man, and why he died.

And she bakes her family a fabulous Plum Cake.  Her son equates it with God.  I don't know that I would go that far.  Though God did give us plums.

Guava Crumb Cake with Galangal

We're back to guavas dropping off the trees season here.  Being inventive with them in cooking, hopefully.  I find recipes in books and online, then adapt for the tropics.  Just because it calls for apples, or pears, there is no reason we absolutely must go to the store and buy fruit brought in from the mainland, most likely picked on the green side of ripe.  Not that they can't be pretty good, but when you have fruit where you live, or close to it, I believe in using that first.  Hence, the guavas here.  Also, since my galangal is multiplying, I thought it might sub for cinnamon in the Streusel topping.  However, if your fruit at hand is apples or pears, just use those instead.

If you are interested in growing galangal or ginger, check out Pick me yard for more information.  I had been wondering why my plants were looking sick, and the edges of the leaves turning brown.  Finally made the move to look up growing conditions on the web.  Brilliant, no?  It sometimes takes me awhile.  Turns out ginger loves shade, shelter and moisture.  Poor dears they weren't getting enough of any of that.  Out in the blazing sun.  Amazing they lived through my ignorance.  So we are moving them to a shady location.  And watering more in dry conditions. 

I also discovered that slicing off a new rhizome (as you see above) gives a nice tender piece for cooking.  The more mature roots are pretty tough.

I had saved this  recipe from Adam's site, The Amateur Gourmet, awhile back, and he got it from Gale Gand's Brunch, so down the road we have my version adapted for the tropics.  I increased the cake's sugar to compensate for the tart guavas.

 Guava Crumb Cake

The cake:
Unsalted butter, for the baking dish
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (I used  part spelt flour)
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup sugar (unless you are using pears, then 1/2 cup)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 large egg
1/3 cup whole milk
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups guava, any bad spots peeled, then seeded and chopped

Streusel topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut up
1 tablespoon galangal, finely minced

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square baking dish.

To make the cake, combine the flour with the baking powder, sugar, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the egg and then mix in the milk and melted butter. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, add the pears, and mix well. Pour this into the buttered baking dish.

To make the streusel, mix the sugar, flour, cold butter, and galangal in a bowl by pinching them together with your fingers until well combined. Sprinkle over the top of the batter.

Bake the cake for 35 minutes or so, until it is golden and dry on top. Cool in the pan, and then cut into squares. The cake will keep for up to 4 days, covered, at room temperature. If it lasts that long at your house.

This cake is moist, its sweetness balanced with a little tang from the guavas (or tart apples) and really delicious.  Good enough to share at Week-end Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Astrid from Paul Chen's Foodblog.  I learn so much every time I read the round-ups for this event.

Easy Buttery, Fruit Coffee Cake, using Sourdough Starter

Use that Starter, go ahead, it doesn't make this coffee cake at all sour.  Also, use whatever fruit you have handy.  The original, from Heather Horn at the Atlantic, calls for rhubarb.  That is not a tropical fruit.  We don't get it here, unless it comes from the Mainland, and who wants to go that route, with plenty of other choices dropping off the trees?  So, the possibilities abound, tart apples if you have them, green peaches, plums would probably be good, or sour cherries.  And for you tropic people, greenish mangoes, guavas, or as I did, mountain apples and okay, a few frozen cranberries.  I just felt those bland mountain apples might need some help in the flavor and tartness department.  Looks like I'm not always consistent.

Her recipe first called to me mainly because it uses sourdough starter, which if you have one in residence, you know how demanding it can be.  USE ME, USE ME.  I was waiting for just the right fruit, when these mountain apples appeared. 

What I've done with them before, besides just eating a few out of hand, is make wine.  Doesn't that sound lovely, Mountain Apple Wine?   And, it is. This time, I had chopped up what there was, and popped them into the freezer until I knew what they might like to do with their lives. Then, something about them reminded me of this rhubarb recipe.  The color, maybe?  

Colombian Cassava Cake

 Basket of Manioc (Pia in Hawaiian)

I just watched a video of some villagers in Brazil preparing manioc.  Incredible!  What a tremendous amount of work goes into the preparation of tapioca or manioc flour.  You see, I had the, no doubt idiotic, idea to make some of the traditional Colombian/Brazilian, etc. (South American) bread, called Pandebono, or Cheese rolls. From scratch, turning the above, rustic looking, tubers into flour??  After watching said film clip, I don't think so.  We won't be doing that here.  I mean I'm all for using the products of the land, etc. etc., but there's a time and place to farm out certain procedures.  Brake jobs, sewer cleaning, brain surgery...   you get the picture.

Instead, I will be turning the roots into a Colombian Cassava (another of the many names of manioc) Cake, called Enyucado.  I've written about cooking with this starch before, but this will be a completely different approach for me.  In the past, I've only used it as a sort of potato replacement.  This recipe calls for shredded manioc.  I can  will do that. Often choices are involved. The task here is not so daunting.