Anniversary Almond Cake with Raspberry Port Syrup

James and I had a wonderful wedding cake. Like, the best wedding cake I've ever eaten, and that was after James rescued my piece and brought it up to the hotel room for me. It was a really subtle white almond cake with raspberry mousse filling and it was delicious. Because of that, I always think of the almond cake/raspberry combination as a special one for us. So, for our anniversary last week, I decided to make us a raspberry/almond confection.

This almond cake is considerably denser that the lightly textured white cake from our wedding but god it is delicious. I found it in Alice Medrich's book, Pure Desserts, which is just full of things I want to make (she's *awesome*). I tinkered a little bit with it, but basically, it's just as she wrote it. The raspberry came in with a sort of reduction syrup that was a complete improv, since the raspberry sauce I was going to make didn't work out (the frozen raspberries I bought tasted like the plastic bag they'd been frozen in). This is definitely an adult's dessert - it's too dense and rich and not-sugary to appeal to kid-type palates, but wow is it easy and calorically dangerous - one of my favorite kinds of danger :-)

Almond Cake:

Ingredients-

-  3/4 cup plus 2 tbs. (4 0z.) unblanched or blanched whole almonds

- 1 cup plus 2 tbs. sugar

- 1/4 tsp. salt

- 1/2 tsp. pure almond extract

- 3 large eggs

- 1 stick of unsalted butter, cut into chunks and slightly softened

- 1 tbs. kirsch or tawney port (optional)

- 1/3 cup (1.5 oz.) all-purpose flour

- 1/4 tsp. baking powder

- powdered sugar and slivered almonds for dusting (optional)

  

Equipment-

- An 8 inch by 2 inch round cake pan

-PAM baking spray or a generous amount of butter to grease the pan with (this sucker likes to stick, so when I say generous, I mean *generous*).

-A food processor

Process-

1. Position rack in the lower 1/3 of over and pre-heat to 350. Generously grease the cake pan - see not above in Equipment. *If you want the cake to have a sort of crunchy crust, sprinkle sliced almonds into the empty buttered pan and spread as thickly as you like. Then sprinkle granulated sugar over the almonds. Pour the batter in as directed. When the cake is done, let it cool in the pan for 10 min. on a rack, then run a knife along the edge and un-mold it onto the rack to cool the rest of the way. I made it with this crust, and it was fantastic.

2. Place the almonds, sugar, salt and almond extract into the food processor and process until almonds are a pulverized coarse powder.

3. Add the eggs, butter and kirsch/port. Pulse to thoroughly blend.

4. Add the flour and baking powder and pulse until just blended (don't over blend).

5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly.

6. Bake until the cake is golden brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean, about 40 minutes. It goes from underdone to crispy quickly, so start keeping an eye on it at 30 min.

7. Cool completely in the pan on a cake rack.

8. When cool, unmold the cake by running a knife around the edges of the pan and then inverting it onto a plate. Wrapped tightly in foil, it will keep really well for several days - in fact, it tasted even better the second day, so I would recommend making it ahead of time and letting it sit overnight. 

9. Serve with the Raspberry Port Syrup, or with fresh fruit, whipped cream, custard, ice cream etc, etc, etc, or just pick it up with your hands and tuck in.

Raspberry Port Syrup:

Ingredients-

- 1 jar of red raspberry jam (Smuckers or Bonne Maman are good)

- 3 tbs. tawney port

- boiling water

Equipment-

- a bowl

- a 2-4 cup liquid measuring cup

- several small jars (like old jam jars)

- a strainer

- a spatula

Process - 

1. Put the jam in the bowl and dilute it with a scant 1/4 of hot water. Mix until it has the consistency of a very thick soup. You want to be able to strain this, so if it isn't liquid enough, add hot water, 1 tbs. at at time, until it reaches the thick soup consistency.

2. A little at a time, pour the jam/water mixture through a strainer and into the liquid measure, making sure to press the liquid through with the spatula while the strainer catches the seeds.

3. Once all of the jam liquid is strained through, add the tawny port to taste. I went with a generous 3 tbs., but James and I both like port.

4. Seal it up and let it finish cooling before putting it in the fridge. It can be stored indefinitely as long as it's kept cold. It can be served straight out of the fridge or gently warmed up over cakes and ice creams etc.

Lemon Mint Asparagus Pasta

While the name for this pasta is kind of creatively challenged, at least it tells you what's going on with it. I recently got a Microplane Zester and because it's so neat, I've been using citrus zest in everything (okay, not everything) just so I can Microplane the lemons or limes or whatever. I don't even really like lemon that much, although I have to admit that it's been growing on me.

So, last week I was confronted with the necessity of using up what I had in the fridge since we were going out of town for a couple of days. I had half a bunch of asparagus, a couple of sad looking lemons and some wilting mint. Toss all that in with pasta and butter and you've got something tasty and quick and really easy - perfect for a Thursday night after a long Thursday day. 

Ingredients:

- 1 lb. (ish) of fusilli or other fun shaped pasta

- 1 tbs. butter

- 2 tbs. extra virgin olive oil

- 2 med-lg. cloves of garlic sliced

- 1/2 -1 lb. asparagus, depending on how much you have and how much you like it

- 1 med-sm lemon, zested and juiced. (1/2 tsp. zest and 2 tsp. juice reserved)

- red pepper flakes (optional)

- a nice handful of fresh mint, chopped (if you don't have fresh mint, you can use fresh or dried parsley, or skip it altogether).

- sea salt or kosher salt

-pepper

Process:

1. Liberally salt a pot of water and put it on to boil. When it reaches boiling, put the pasta on to cook for however long the package says.

2. Meanwhile, zest and juice the lemon, chop the mint, prep the garlic and cut the asparagus into fairly even 1/2 in. pieces (cut the stalks in half first if you need to).

3. Heat the olive oil until just shimmering in a pan. Turn the heat to med. and add the sliced garlic. Cook until just fragrant (about 30 seconds).

4. Add the asparagus, a dash of salt and pepper and the red pepper flakes, if using. Saute, stirring occasionally, until the asparagus is cooked through but still very crunchy (about 3-4 minutes).

5. Add the lemon juice and zest to the asparagus saute, keeping some of both reserved (see above). Continue to saute the asparagus for another 2-3 min. until they are starting to get tender, but are still fairly firm. Take off heat.

6. Drain the pasta and put it back into the pot, reserving a little of the cooking liquid for later. 

7. Pour the saute over the pasta. Add the butter and put over very low heat.

8. Taste - if you would like more lemon add a bit of the reserved juice and zest to taste. If the pasta looks too dry add some of the reserved pasta liquid, tbs. by tbs. until the sauce's consistency suits your taste (you can also add a little more butter if you like, but use a light hand).

9. Once the pasta is warmed through, toss in the chopped mint. Serve with or without parmesan, depending on what you like, and enjoy!

Groove-Be-Gone

That's me - my groove is gone. Nearly three days of wonderful anniversary away-from-everything has totally side-tracked my get-stuff-done-groove. Wow, this post is hyphen-heavy. Anyway, that's the only bad thing about getting out of dodge - dodge just sits there, waiting for you to get back. 

Anniversary

It's our anniversary today! Both of tend to lose track of which anniversary it is, so I double-checked, and we have indeed been married for four years! Yay! 

To celebrate, we're getting out of dodge this week-end for an actual, vacation-type long week-end. What's even cooler, is that there's a good chance we'll get up to Tahoe in time to enjoy the last snowfall of the season, which is perfect for a couple of people who favor the frosty shades of winter.

facebook

So, James and I joined facebook last night. We might be the last people on the planet to join a social networking site, but then we're not exactly social. Anyway, it's a very strange thing - we joined basically so we could see pictures of our niece in Texas (lovely) and our nephew (ever so handsome), which is a good thing and well worth it. 

What's strange is that as soon as I joined, and with very limited information, facebook bombarded me with tons of people I had gone to high school and college with, including my estranged maid-of-honor who hit on my brother at our wedding in front of his lovely fiance (she also happened to be a bridesmaid). This was a kind of discomfiting, even as regards all of those people who hadn't acted like tools at our wedding. 

For the most part, my discomfiture is nothing personal, just sort of a crisis of relevance thing. It's very easy to feel that, because you've moved on with your life, all of those people you've moved on without have somehow ceased to exist. The blatant reminder that, no in fact, they don't, was interesting and weird and surreal and probably very good for me. Still won't keep me from locking down access on my personal information though. Like I said, I'm not so terribly social :-)

So Tempting it Hurts

Oh my god. That's all I'm saying....

http://www.sfraffle.com/Overview.aspx

Well, "oh my god", and even if we were lucky enough to win the house, we couldn't afford the taxes on it. But then, such is life, as someone said (I'll bet that someone didn't pay taxes...)

Easter Lamb Cake

When James was little, his mom made a lamb cake every Easter. She made it using a cast iron cake mold in the shape of a lamb, which she then frosted and sprinkled with fleecy coconut. My mom really liked the idea, so this year, for my nephew's first Easter, my mom bought a lamb cake mold and I made a fleecy lamb cake! Here's a picture of the two of us. 

The lamb cake can be made with a standard box mix, but I love to bake so I made the batter from scratch. It was a pretty standard white cake and surprisingly tasty (sometimes white cakes can be really bland). Still, next year I'm going for red velvet cake for a somewhat bolder effect :). While the cake was made from scratch, I went ahead and used store-bought vanilla ic

ing after my initial attempt with whipped cream failed (it melted and soaked into the cake too quickly). The fleece is, of course, shredded coconut, while the eyes are M&M's and the nose is a small pink jelly bean. 

Rather than having the lamb sit on the somewhat traditional green coconut grass, I surrounded it with little Easter Bunny Nests - macaroons with jellybeans nestled in the middle (I used the recipe from The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper which I did a post on here).

Overall, I've got to say that it was pretty tasty, which is nice since this particular cake's real purpose is to be really, really cute - which, I have to say it was, sitting there on the platter, all sweet and innocent and adorable as a, well, lamb.

Pasta All'Ubriaco!

It sounds kind of fancy, but directly translated it means Drunken Spaghetti, and it's lovely. I came across the recipe on the food blog, Serious Eats, posted by Gina DePalma, who does their weekly Serious Italian posting, and it sounded so unusual and so good that I couldn't resist. The whole idea is that you cook the pasta in equal parts red wine and water, so the pasta itself takes on the wine flavor. Then you toss it with a little olive oil, sauteed garlic, butter and parsley and you've got yourself a whole new kind of comfort food. Couldn't be easier!

One thing to keep in mind though - you really do taste the wine, even if the alcohol is cooked off (for the most part), so choose a wine that you like. It definitely needs to be drinkable, although I wouldn't break the bank on it. I used a nice $5 bottle of Argentinian Merlot, but any fuller-bodied red will do - just make sure you like the taste in the glass before you taste it in the dish!

Ingredients:

-2 quarts of water

-2 quarts of inexpensive (but yummy and drinkable) red wine, plus 1/2 cup for the pan  - about 1 & 1/3 bottle

-1 lb. thick spaghetti or linguini (you could also use rigatoni or penne etc.)

-2 fat cloves of garlic, or four small cloves, sliced

-2 tbs. butter, salted or unsalted

-1/2 extra virgin olive oil (this was a bit much for me - next time, I'll probably go with 1/4-1/3 cup)

-dried red pepper chili flakes to taste (optional)

- pepper to taste

-1/4 cup chopped, flat-leaf italian parsley (or 4 tbs. dried)

Process:

1. Put the water and the red wine (reserving 1/2 cup) into a 6 quart stock pot and bring to a boil over med-high heat. Generously season the water with salt.

2. While the wine and water are coming to a boil, peel and slice the garlic, and put the butter and olive oil in a saute pan over low heat and cover to slowly melt the butter.

3. When the water and wine come to a boil, add your pasta, stirring often to engulf all of it in the liquid. Continue to stir often to prevent sticking - there will be considerably less cooking liquid than usual, especially as it absorbs (think risotto almost).

4. Add the garlic to the pan with the butter and olive oil and saute until it sizzles - keep the heat low so as not to scorch it. Add the red pepper flakes and black pepper to taste.

5.When the garlic is sizzling but pale, add the reserved 1/2 cup red wine and a generous splash of the pasta cooking water. Turn up the heat until the liquid simmers.

7. Test the pasta for doneness. When it's al dente, drain it and transfer it back to the pot. Pour the saute over the pasta and stir over low / med-low heat. 

8. Add the parsley and continue to gently stir over low / med-low heat until liquid is absorbed.

9. Serve immediately. It's delicious alone, but also very nice with a little parmesan.

Notes:

- a quick warning: if you use spaghetti, it will look a little like purple-ish earthworms when it's cooked. This didn't bother me as I was too busy snarfing it up, but if the idea is less than appealing, definitely use what James calls "fun shapes".

- You can easily cut the proportions down. Just make sure to do an equal part wine to water. For example, for a single 4 ounce portion of pasta, use 2 cups water to 2 cups wine.

- I *love* this stuff. It's not terribly healthy, but it's buttery and tangy and comforting all at once - the adult version of the noodles and butter than I loved as a kid. This recipe is so easy and so unusual, it'll do the trick for a quick week-night meal or for cool, funky company. It's great. I love it. Try it. Yum.

Simon

So, the Ford minivan died on us last Friday. It died a fairly thorough, smoke-coming-out-of-the-engine-lurching-sputtering death. This left us with a choice that wasn't much of a choice: throw more good money after bad (we just spent quite a lot on minivan repairs several months ago) or bump up our plan to buy a new car. 

We bought a new car. 

His name is Simon. He's a spiffy black 2010 Honda Insight, the resurrection of Honda's original hybrid from a few years back. So now James is commuting in sleek eco-efficiency, and NPR is getting a minivan in not-so-working order (we hope - we're still waiting to here if they'd be willing to tow the donation). 

Overall, it's pretty exciting and kind of ironic - we'd just decided the week before to wait to buy a new car and get our money's worth out of the minivan. I guess we did. So, lesson learned. Getting your money's worth out of a Ford means something different than getting your money's worth out of something (anything) else. But hey, at least we did out bit to stimulate the economy... by buying Japanese. Just don't tell Detroit.