What a Different Some Iron Makes

I'm severely anemic. Sometimes I forget. I'm so anemic that I can't give blood because my blood floats in water. I'm so anemic that sometimes my skin turns gray and I literally look like a corpse. My hair starts to thin. I can't focus. Generally, I turn into a non-brain-eating zombie. And I get cranky (which is not fun for James, who has to live with me) because I'm so tired that I can't do anything, which is really, really frustrating.

So why, one might ask, would a person who is so very anemic stop taking her iron pills? Well, because said person is an idiot and forgot how bad her anemia could get - not blood transfusion bad, but bad. 

It took me a month of exhaustion and low-productivity and gray skin to realize "huh, I might be anemic again. Maybe I should go back to taking my pills." So I did, and I feel MUCH better now. Maybe next time it'll only take me two weeks to catch on....

Fail

So, it's really been one of those days. First, I promised my mom that I would make my dad a birthday cake today. The request was for "something with apricots". I thought, hey no problem. So no problem in fact that I waited until the last minute to make it. Well, I don't know if it was because it was really hot today and I have trouble with everything when it's really hot, or if it's because my oven likes to play tricks with temperature or if the pastry gnomes were just feeling mean, but the cake, while not a total failure, wasn't great - too dark on the outside, a smidge under-done on the inside, ok on flavor, but on texture a total thumbs down. Not thrilled with the results for my dad's birthday, given the occasion, I decided to make a second one just in case. By now I was really rushing because we were officially running late. So I make the batter for the second cake (different recipe, similar idea) and took the batter in the cake mold to my mom's house to bake. Now, my mom has a bitchin' pro-quality Thermadore set up, so I was thinking there was no way this was going to fail. It did. Total fail. And why? Completely overdone on the outside, underdone on the inside. It sucked. We ended up eating the first cake. So, ok, whatever. It happens.

Then we get home and waiting for me in my email in box is a lovely letter from a lovely editor who happens to be a bad-ass in world of children's book publishing. She read the manuscript that I'd sent her, and while she thinks that there's much in the way of good about it, it will be nearly impossible to market it, especially in this economy. Fail. 

So, I've had a less than stellar day, which makes me really fucking irritable because I don't like failing at anything. In fact, I loathe failing. And it's been a day full of fail, which sucks. So me and my bruised ego are going to go to bed so we can get up and do it again tomorrow, hopefully with less fail.

Chocolate Almond Torte

I've been baking a lot with almonds recently, mostly because I love almonds. My mom, however, loves chocolate, so dessert for Mother's Day brunch had to be pretty chocolate-centric. I'd thought about doing something ridiculously dense, but really dense chocolate was just too much for a warmish afternoon. Then I was flipping through Pure Desserts by Alice Medrich (which is awesome - it really, really is) and I came across a recipe for an Italian chocolate-almond torte. The only thing holding this thing together is whipped egg whites, so it's really light, despite the copious amounts of dark chocolate and ground almonds that go in to it.

I tried the recipe twice. The first time I did it exactly according to the directions but it came out a little grainy. I tweaked the proportions a bit and turned up the heat in the oven for the second try, and this time it was perfect. What follows is my version of the recipe, which worked really well with the chocolate I had on hand and my crappy, under-powered oven. For those with not so crappy ovens, preheat at 35o and bake for 25-30 min.

Ingredients:

- 1 cup (5 oz.) blanched or unblanched whole almonds

- 7 oz. good quality dark chocolate, roughly chopped (I used Ghiradelli 72%, but don't go any lower than 68% without reducing the amount of granulated sugar) 

- 3/4 cup sugar

- 1/8 tsp. salt

- 7 large egg whites (1 cup)

- 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

- 1-2 tsp. cocoa powder (I used Scharffenberger but any will do)

Equipment:

- food processor, or a heavy ziplock bag and a hammer / mallet

- parchment paper

- butter to grease the pan

- 9 inch springform pan

Process:

1. Place oven rack into lower 1/3 of oven and preheat to 350. Grease the sides of the springform pan and line the bottom with parchment paper (don;t grease the parchment)

2. Combine the almonds, chocolate, salt, cocoa and 1/4 cup sugar in a food processor and pulse until the almonds and chocolate are finely chopped but not pulverized. Set aside.

3. In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, beat the egg whites in a clean, dry bowl with the cream of tartar until it forms soft, moist peaks. 

4. Slowly add the remaining 1/2 cup sugar and continue to beat until the eggs whites are stiff and glossy, not dry. 

5. Add 1/3 of the nut mixture to the eggs whites and fold until nearly incorporated. Fold in 1/2 the remaining nuts. Then fold in the last of the nuts. 

6. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and spread it evenly. Bake until the torte has risen and is a rich, golden brown on top. A toothpick inserted into the center should come up clean or with a little melted chocolate. It should take about 25 -30 minutes.

7. Set the pan on a rack to cool. The torte will start to deflate. 

8. After about 10 minutes, release the sides of the pan and unmold it onto a rack. Remove the bottom and the parchment paper liner. Turn the cake right side up and let it cool completely. It will continue to deflate a bit and settle as it does.

9. Serve with sweetened whipped cream and berries or even creamy custard. The cake can also be wrapped tightly and left at room temperature for 3 days. It also freezes really nicely - cut it up into bite sized pieces for the occasional treat (this is dangerous). 

Any way you decide to slice it, enjoy! It's delicious and not too terribly guilt-inducing what with the shocking lack of butter, not that you could tell the difference from the yummy, rich taste.

Adverbs Rock!

I recently told a friend that I love adverbs (I do - the difference between "she walked down the hall" and "she tripped smartly down the hall" is huge. Credit to Dorothy Sayers for that fabulous use of "smartly".) Anyway, my friend sent me this, and just about made my day.

Drafting

I'm drafting a new short story right now. This part of the process is never easy for me. I can edit a piece for eight hours at a stretch and often do, but generating new material is exhausting - and this is with the jots and notes and outlines and thoughts that I write before hand. I drafted today for a little over three hours and had to take a nap, which frustrates me but I was cross-eyed. 

They, whoever "they" are, say that there are two kinds of writers - those who love the creative burst, for whom revision is something like death, and those who create in revision. I'm one of the latter. In fact, I could honestly say that one of the largest reasons I write is so that I'll have something to edit. 

There really isn't much of a point to this post, I suppose - except, of course, as a cleverly evasive form of procrastination. And so on that note, I'm going to go make myself something to edit.

Library Thing

I hit the free 200 book limit last night in the middle of cataloguing our fiction section, so I just signed up for a lifetime membership to LibraryThing! Hooray! Unlimited space in which to catalogue every book we own! I'm so excited.... I'm such a geek. Anyway, that link will take you right to my library, but you can also just check them out generally by going to www.librarything.com. Hooray again!

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.