All the Honey-Ginger Buttercream a Birthday Can Handle

Apologies. I got gusted up in the fall breeze and dropped in the middle of the brussel sprout harvest on a coastal California farm where I went on an unchecked pie-baking spree. The leaves fell and I was whisked home in time to move all my worldly possessions to yet another house before I was utterly incapacitated by the generous gift of a lovely old sewing machine. I spent days engrossed in anachronistic craftiness before I looked up in the middle of threading the bobbin to realize I hadn't yet unpacked so much as a sock. So I busied myself bulding a cozy fort in the basement nook that was to be my room, and before I even caught my breath it was time to bake a birthday cake.

I don't generally like cake. I like pies and cookies -- moist, rich, chewy things, not dry overly-sweet crumbly things. I was mulling over the cake problem as I chewed thoughtfully on a chunk of ginger root one morning (ginger is a stimulating and salutary habit I've recently developed). And suddenly I knew the cake I wanted, its flavor and texture wafted to me on the golden wings of a ginger-dream.

Molasses Cake with Honey-Ginger Buttercream

Prep: Set out 16 eggs, two and a quarter pounds (9 sticks) of unsalted butter, and a quart of soured milk (or fresh milk + 2 T. vinegar). Butter and flour two 9 or 10" cake pans (2" deep, at least) and a 9 x 13" baking dish. I have a woefully underequipped kitchen, aside from my cast iron treasures; so I used my glass-bottomed springform pan and the old #9 skillet. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.


In one very large bowl, whisk together 8 c. all-purpose flour, 3 tsp. baking soda, 4 tsp. salt, 2 T. ground cinnamon, 1.5 T. ground ginger (I ran out and had to use part fresh ginger, which worked fine), 1 tsp. ground cloves, and 2 c. oat bran. Yes, bran. Not because birthday cake should be healthy -- because that's silly -- but because it should be moist and chewy. Moist chewiness is the particular province of oat bran, not wheat or others, so don't substitute.

In another large bowl, cream 1 lb. butter and add 10 eggs, 3 c. molasses, and 1 qt. sour milk. Add the liquids to the dries, mix it all thoroughly but not excessively, pour the batter into the pans and spread it evenly. Bake about 45 minutes, till a knife comes out clean.

The cake can sit out, covered with plates or plastic, for a day at least, and stays plenty moist. When the cakes are entirely cool, loosen them from the pan-sides, invert the pans onto a cookie sheet, and rap them smartly till the cakes fall out. Trim off any unevenness and make the skillet-cake a little smaller and straight-sided. They are ready to frost and serve.

Honey-Ginger Buttercream

This buttercream can be prepared a few days in advance or just before use. Since the ingredients are so few, the honey must be exquisite and the butter perfect. Bring 1" of water to a simmer in a large, deep skillet. Separate the remaining six eggs, stashing the yolks in the fridge for custard or somesuch and keeping the whites in a metal bowl. Add 1 c. honey, and maybe a pinch of cream of tartar if you have it on hand (I didn't). Whisk till well-blended. Place the metal bowl in the skillet of water and immediately start beating it - at first on low, gradually raising the speed as the whites fluff. When the whites are glossy and form soft, curled peaks, remove the bowl from the heat but continute beating till the whites have cooled a bit (3 minutes or so). Beat in 1 tsp. vanilla and 1/2 tsp. salt.

In another large bowl, beat 5 sticks butter till fluffy and creamy. Add the egg white-honey mixture incrementally to the butter, beating thoroughly between additions. Now it is time for the ginger. I am still not exactly certain how much ground ginger I added, but I'll wager it was at least a tablespoon, and maybe two. The issue here is that the butter mellows out the ginger bite -- so you'll have to add more than you think you should. Taste and adjust, taste and adjust. You should have a fluffy frosting that sweeps in with a rich honey-butteriness and finishes with a warm ginger zing.


Pack the cakes in your backpack (they're sturdy; they'll be fine!) along with the frosting and bike 20 blocks to the birthday house. Assemble the cake on site just like in the picture. There will be just enough frosting for the two round layers and the back-up 9 x 13" cake, provided you don't eat too much in the process.

Mulled Wine and Free Rice

I sat down to write about Christmas music and mulled wine, but found myself sucked into an insidiously charitable vocabulary game instead (thanks, Ben). It's not an especially fancy game -- just matching synonyms of increasing difficulty -- but for every correct word, the FreeRice people donate 10 grains of rice. And you can watch the bowls of rice fill up just like your ego every time you get mouflon right.

But let me tell you about the mulled wine last night. No, first, let me tell you about the hot mulled wine served up for a quarter in steaming plastic cups at the Hungarian flea markets early on a Sunday morning. A pleasant way to end a long, long night, or to give you just enough courage to try bartering in a non-Indo-European language.

So last night: we emptied three bottles of 2buckchuck (cabernet sauvignon) into a large kettle, and while gently, gently heating it, added one thinly sliced orange (not peeled), several stars of anise, several sticks of cinnamon, and large pinches of peppercorns, whole cloves, and cardamom pods. Once it warmed up enough to taste excessively dry, we added brown sugar, then decided to swizzle in molasses, and finally went straight for the honey. Alcohol tastes dryer the warmer it is, and we figured this is why:

In the first place, all alcohol feels dry in your mouth because it evaporates more readily than water -- enough to be perceptible to our sensitive tasting mechanisms when sufficiently concentrated. So of course when the alcohol is hotter and even more inclined to evaporate, the effect is multiplied. Which is why you should taste your hot mulled wine immediately before serving and add lots of honey. (Question: does the sweetness simply mask the effect, or does the sugar make the alcohol less likely to vaporize somehow?).

And then somebody turned on Christmas music. It was ridiculous, really.

A Prince in the Kitchen

I met my Prince about this time last year, when I lived in a shack up in Sparta. Not that Sparta; it's a Sparta known to just a handful of ranchers, hunters, and soul-searching recent college graduates. Like all good monarchs, the Prince of Sparta established his own standard of measurement: degrees 1 through 12. 12 is roughly comparable to 600 degrees Fahrenheit on the international markets.

I miss him. He kept me warm at least half the night, cooked my dinners, and only smoked occasionally when I hadn't got him stoked to a roaring blaze. A capricious lover, but a dear one. I sketched his likeness on a grocery bag and it hangs in my dining room still.

Coaxing a breakfast fire from the Prince began with assessing the temperature of the room by the density of the cats' breath-clouds, to know just how fast to run for the outhouse. Then I'd toss the ice block out of the cats' water dish, haul liquid water from the trickle of a spring, split kindling, and start stacking the firebox in that old ritual progression from pine cones to fence posts: close vents here open there, blow through the cracks cajole cajole curse light another match, etc....

One night a visiting German couple invited us over for dinner. The oil lamps were burning as we sat down to fresh walnut bread, buttery shrimp pasta, and perpetually full glasses of wine. "I read," said Hilde, a retired professor of painting, "that woodstoves produced the best flavor in double-blind taste tests." There is something crisp, pure, and wholesome-tasting about woodstove cookery. And a woodfired oven is the original convected breadbaking heaven.

My aunt taught me to gauge oven temperature by hand in her woodstove, which had no thermometer, degrees Prince or otherwise. I was caught off-guard the first time she asked, "does it feel like cookie-temperature?" but I realized that with a bit of focus, it wasn't hard to tell whether the heat would scorch the tender dough or leave it pale and raw. She didn't have measuring cups, either. "I had the whole 1950's home-ec training," she told me, "but I moved out here and cut my hair and saw that measuring cups meant more washing, too."

For Christmas, I made my aunt & uncle origami boxes out of the glossy pages of my alumni bulletin, and then the Prince and I filled them with six dozen dark chocolate truffles -- from kindling to cream.

Papa's "Stewp"

"This is a ‘pot and a pan and a board’ recipe that urges you to enjoy the assembly of your favorite ingredients. Plan to make enough for several days and alter, if you choose, when you re-serve it. By making it thick, you can decide later if it will be stew or soup. Another large potato two days later might be all that is needed for the extra guest, or to take the edge off those peppers that got hotter since it was first made.

It is not a ‘light’ meal. I try not to go there, but you may.
Use a large cutting board so you can feed directly into the cooking utensils as well as have a little space in the wings while the other ingredients wait their turns. Cut in large chunks so you don’t get bored, and can experience individual things as you eat. Skewed cuts add character.

The Pot needs to hold everything in the end, and yet go in the refrigerator.
It is necessary to boil the dry beans or peas, but I prefer to do most of the veggies in it since the pan will be busy enough. I like about a cup of black beans and limas, but kidney, pink, split and chick peas, lentils and a host of others all work. The issue is often more about the texture or color. A closed fist of black beans make quite a visual impact to a gallon of soup. Variety packages of dry beans are both tasty and esthetic, but don’t necessarily cook at equal rates.
Boil enough water for all vegetables and add beans; cook till they begin to soften. Pre-soaking or pressure-cooking are better, but I don’t.
Chunk up two medium sized potatoes and add when you estimate potatoes and beans will both be cooked. If in doubt, cook beans a bit longer.
Select a whole onion and peel, disk slice, and cut up only the rings that need it. If necessary to prevent tears, slice under the tap.
Add garlic, leeks, chives, or scallions.
Cut up celery, with leaves, and add, but I always salt and eat the heart immediately as an entitlement of the cook.
Add dill, fresh or dried, bay leaf, parsley or cilantro.
Hot peppers you don’t trust can benefit from the uniformity of pot-boiling.
If you are using broccoli, be careful not to over-cook. Alternatively, stir-fry later.
Although I think carrots attractive, they have, in my opinion, a nasty flavor when cooked. Likewise tomatoes, with which it is an issue of gagiferous texture that I have yet to transcend. I mention it to make the point that this is about you and yours, not me, so add carrots and tomatoes if you must. Over fifty years ago I was forced to eat borscht with gross things in it and the trauma prevails. The nature of this recipe is joyful and precludes overpowering the will of children, I hope.
Pre-cooked items that only need heating are the final addition. (What did your garden produce?) Often I add whole kernel corn, and both ripe and green olives. Save the olive brine until last to adjust salinity.

The Pan needs to be covered, with good temperature control. Heat to the same temperature you would do eggs, then ‘glug’ olive or other oil around in it, liberally enough to be slightly standing at the beginning, but just enough not to stick when finished. Select about a pound of lean meat, steak or wild game. Trim fat. Cut in strips about an inch wide, roll in the oil, and fry. Alternately, fry about a third of a package of bacon cut in squares and use for pan grease. Remove bacon as soon as finished and set aside until later. Cut about six inches of ring bologna or prepared sausage such as kielbasa and disk about as thick as the pinky of the smallest person eating, and brown.

Season with wise abandon. Shake directly on meat, or pour small mounds into your palm to prevent surprises. I often select from cumin, oregano, marjoram, sage, garlic, adobo, a Creole mix, basil (dry or fresh), black pepper, cayenne, ( if I didn’t chop up something too hot in the pot earlier ), and more. The important thing is to accent with a few at a time to be able to learn and then repeat favorites. To get acquainted, sniff them and call them by name at the same time. Avoid MSG.

My South Indian friends would be adding curry, fresh chopped mint, cardamom, coriander, two types of cayenne, and et ceteras the western ear probably has not heard of. They also taught me that no recipe uses ½ an onion!

Keep a close eye on the steak or other meat, turning and removing at your exact preferred doneness. Add a little water if you care to, but keep your face back. Move to the cutting board and cut into bite sized pieces, and promote to the pot. This prevents overdoing the meat like sautéing little pieces would. Add a large handful of large pineapple chunks and slightly brown. If they brown too much, they will also absorb broth, so place them up on the meat, add some pineapple liqueur, and perhaps a bit of lime juice. Coarsely cut a ½ pound of mushrooms and stir fry. Add all Pan to Pot, and swizzle a cup or two of water or soup stock back into the pan, and cook a moment to absorb the seasonings and make cleaning easier. To adjust liquid and salt, consider that potatoes will thicken it and salinity increases overnight as it perks from any salted prepared food. Stir deeply.

I usually eat it on a plate with a fork. This is handier at potlucks, where there may not be bowls and spoons. You might also want to serve it on cheese or put cheese on it, or give it a few glumps of plain yoghurt, especially if it has curry in it. Likewise, sour cream or cottage cheese are married to cumin and hot peppers. Consider what you do or don’t like about it for development sake."

Let Us Don the Livery of Good Health

There's a recipe in More-with-Less called "Our-Children-Love-Liver." Underneath, Mama wrote in blue fountain pen, "We do too!"

Liver! Yes, it's the body's version of a tarry filter for our blood -- but a happy, nonsmoking cow should have a happy liver, unlike an antibiotic synthetic-hormone crack-smoking cow. When I inquired about beef liver at the deli counter over at New Seasons, I was told to go check the frozen pet food section. "It sells better as pet food," said the sympathetic butcher. What's the matter? Liver has a distinctive flavor and texture, but so do other things we all learn to like (guacamole, leftover pizza). Perhaps it's the reputation. Perhaps it's the fact that liver is healthy.

Oldfashioned nutritionists fall all over each other to tell us just how healthy it is. Everyday Foods (home-ec text from 1949) gushes about the nutritional value of liver, what with all its iron, copper, niacin, and Vitamins A, B1, D, and G. Sally Fallon adds that liver has zinc and antioxidants, too!

"Wait, Vitamin G? Is that Spanish for Vitamin P?" "Not actually. Back in the good old days when butter was one of the Basic Seven food groups, riboflavin was called Vitamin G." "Riboflavin stinks." "Yes, honey, I know."

Liver is easiest to slice when partially frozen. I then follow Sally Fallon's advice to marinate it in lemon juice (today it was lime juice), which improves the texture and draws out impurities. "Our-Children-Love-Liver" calls for thinly sliced, well-seasoned liver fried in bacon fat -- not such a far cry from Housekeeping in Old Virginia, which recommends frying thin strips in hot lard till browned. If you're concerned about the fat, Cooking for Engineers has a lovely article on saturated fats that might persuade you to join with the housekeepers of Old Virginia.

When frying: keep the pan hot and uncrowded. Frequently be flippant, and briefly cook beef liver -- but cook it till it's browned. Place the done strips on something that can blot up the oil till you've finished all the batches. Serve with sauteed onions or crumbled bacon.

In Which the Waffle Ventures into Cream Puff Land

The interior of a perfect cream puff shell is webbed with (just a few) moist eggy fibers, which the baker plucks away when she goes to ladle in the pastry cream. These delicate, rich dough tendrils are among the finer perquisites of baking, much like streusel crumbles, beaters coated with fluffy egg whites, and, of course, cookie dough.* So imagine my delight when this morning I bit into a waffle and found it not cakey and bready, but chewy, moist and eggy! I didn't make the cream-puff-fiber connection till I'd topped the waffle with a good dollop of whipped cream and raspberries and realized I was eating my favorite crusty fluff.

The key? A quart of sour cream. W. Crawford sifted 2 c. flour, 2.5 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp. salt, 2 tsp. sugar, and 2 tsp. baking soda. R. beat 6 egg whites till frothy, and I started whisking up 1 c. heavy whipping cream with a tablespoon of honey and a teaspoon of vanilla. Then Crawford beat the egg yolks and incorporated them into the flour, followed by a quart of thick, cultured sour cream and the whites, gently folded in. Cook the way your waffle iron dictates. This morning's condiments were raspberries, the whipped cream, more honey, and maple syrup.

*Don't under any circumstances consume raw eggs. Real people do get salmonella! There was this girl once who thought it was so hot to drink from her stream. But the streams in Rockingham County are the most polluted in the whole state of Virginia, what with all the farmers putting chicken shit on their fields so the grass grows tall and the cows get fat and poop in the streams. She was sick forever -- and your cookie dough is just like those streams! I recommend shortbread cookie dough if you don't want salmonella.

Blackstrap

My blood hasn't been rich enough lately for the vampires, who favor salty & ironic flavors. So today I bought myself a bottle of Plantation blackstrap molasses -- while wondering what marketing manager was naive enough to think the name Plantation wasn't, at the very least, encumbered with much too heavy a load of historical baggage.

Blackstrap molasses -- according to Everyday Foods, and my mother's copy of Joy, and Harold McGee, too -- is better for fattening cattle than feeding to people. It's the final by-product of sugar production. After cane syrup has been boiled and evaporated down three times, dark sticky mineral-rich blackstrap is left behind. What primarily interests me is the fact that 1 tablespoon has 20% of your recommended daily iron intake, plus calcium, potassium, magnesium, and chromium (do keep in mind that iron from vegetable sources isn't as readily absorbed as that from animal sources). The flavor has all the rich intensity of the deep caramelization found in roasted coffee, seared meats, licorice, and dark chocolate, along with a downright metallic zing of particular interest to the bloodthirsty anemics among us. I put blackstrap on ice cream, cornbread, pumpkin pie, porridge, sweet potatoes, yogurt, and bananas, and drizzle it into stir-fries and baked beans with some cider vinegar.

Incidentally, a good friend of mine is lucky enough to come from a sprawling old Mennonite family with its very own Tigermilk recipe for the nutriment of its pregnant women. It includes both blackstrap molasses and orange juice -- a shocking combination until you consider that their babes are all healthy, and vitamin C helps with iron absorption. I plan to track down the recipe someday when it's needful. In the meantime, let us toast the vampires with shots of blackstrap and join in that rousing old chorus:

I gave myself to sin
And I've been there and back again
I gave myself to Providence
The state that I am in