I saw this chocolate-sour cream cake on Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn last week and simply could not get it out of my mind. A two-layer chocolate-sour cream cake! I had to make it. HAD TO. Because Gil’s birthday was just a few days ago, it gave me the great excuse I didn’t really need (because I have this here blog, you see).

So I got to work as soon as Gil left for for the office this morning, and it still took most of the day because I’m not much of a baker. Nor am I much of an icer, from the evidence presented above. Still, a crumb coat must be applied, no matter how messily.

I think it looked pretty nice once I was finished. And even though powdered sugar-based frostings aren’t really my thing, I couldn’t stop sampling. I think it was the sour cream that made it so irresistible.

Just to be safe, though, I decided to add a layer of poured ganache. What could it hurt?

You really should’ve seen my absurd setup for this shot: Seated on the floor, camera balanced on my right knee with auto focus engaged (I hoped), while my left hand stretched as far as possible to get the ganache close to the center of the cake. Oh, and let’s not forget the big reflector balanced on my left shoulder. It’s a wonder I ever get anything in focus at all. The things I do for you!

Naturally, I allowed the ganache to cool just long enough lose the completely smooth surface I made it for IN THE FIRST PLACE, so I rummaged around in the fridge till I found a visual distraction — pecans. PECAAAAANS! (Have I mentioned that I’m not much of a baker? Because I’m not. At all.)

See? All you notice is the pecans, right?

I’m heading to Louisiana tomorrow for an extra-long (and warm-weathered) Christmas visit with my family! (Cue happy dance.) Gil has to work this week, so he’ll join us after spending a few days alone with the dogfaces. Since I won’t be around for the start of Hanukkah, I thought I’d make Gil a batch of chocolate-drizzled macaroons to remember me by.

I was still working on my drizzling technique with these first few, but they’re charming in a jolie laide sort of way, right?

Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate it! Next up: something savory to balance all of the sugar I’ve been posting…

recipe after the jump

Coconut-Almond Macaroons lightly adapted from Martha Stewart

I was out of slivered almonds, so I substituted an equal amount of almond meal this time around without a problem.

1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg white
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 cup slivered almonds, broken into small pieces
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of coarse salt
1/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chips, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a nonstick baking mat or parchment. Whisk together sugar and egg white in a large bowl. Stir in the remaining ingredients.

Form dough into eight 2-tablespoon mounds, and drop each onto sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake macaroons until golden-brown on bottoms and edges, about 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets for 5 minutes. Transfer to wire racks, and let cool. Using a spoon, drizzle melted chocolate over cooled macaroons.

Macaroons will keep, covered, for up to 1 week.

I’ll let you in on a little secret that maybe isn’t so secret: Cajeta is the food of angels. It’s essentially a milk caramel sauce, but what sets it apart from dulce de leche or confiture de lait is that it’s usually made from goat’s milk, which makes it more delicious by half, IMHO; it has a little tang and complexity the others don’t. Cajeta’s incredible on ice cream, with cookies or toast, over a simple cake, on a spoon, as a beverage (not that I’ve tried that…yet), or in a million other ways, I’m sure.

But because we have an abundance of pears in the market these days, I teamed the cajeta with crepes and topped them with, you guessed it, roasted pears. AGAIN.

I looked at a lot of cajeta recipes before starting, and most of them emphasized that you Must Stir Frequently, especially after adding the baking soda, or else! I liked Rick Bayless’s recipe because of his relaxed attitude to the whole thing and, you know, he’s Rick Bayless. So don’t worry too much when you’re making it; I just wandered into the kitchen every now and then (more frequently toward the end) to give it a stir.

Usually, cajeta would be a bit thicker than you see in the picture above, but I was in a hurry to wrap things up and skimped on the cooking time a little. It was still mind-blowingly good. And it would make a great homemade gift for the holidays, if you’re into that sort of thing. I’m pretty sure the recipient would be.

recipes after the jump

Cajeta from Rick Bayless’s Frontera Recipes

2 quarts goat’s milk or a combination of goat’s milk and cow’s milk—or even with all cow’s milk (use whole milk in all cases)
2 cups sugar
A  2-inch piece of cinnamon stick, preferably Mexican canela
1/2 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon water

Simmer the cajeta. In a medium-large (6-quart) pot (preferably a Dutch oven or Mexican copper cazo), combine the milk, sugar and cinnamon stick and set over medium heat.  Stir regularly until the milk comes to a simmer (all the sugar should have dissolved by this point). Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the dissolved baking soda—it’ll foam up if the goat’s milk is acidic. When the bubbles subside, return the pot to the heat.

Adjust the heat to maintain the mixture at a brisk simmer (too high and the mixture will boil over; too low and the cooking time will seem interminable). Cook, stirring regularly, until the mixture turns pale golden, more or less one hour.

Now, begin stirring frequently as the mixture colors to caramel-brown and thickens to the consistency of maple syrup (you’ll notice the bubbles becoming larger and glassier).  Stir regularly so nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot. Test a couple of drops on a cold plate: When cool, the cajeta should be the consistency of a medium-thick caramel sauce.  If the cooled cajeta is thicker (almost like caramel candy), stir in a tablespoon or so of water and remove from the heat; if too runny, keep cooking.

Finish the cajeta. Pour the cajeta through a fine-mesh strainer set over a bowl or a wide-mouth storage jar.  When cool, cover and refrigerate until you’re ready to serve.  Warming the cajeta before serving (a microwave oven is efficient here) makes it extra delicious.

Working Ahead: Cajeta keeps for a month or more in the refrigerator.  Keep it tightly covered to keep it from absorbing other flavors.

Crepes from Dara & Co.

As always, I used Jules Gluten-Free AP Flour in place of regular in this recipe. I also added a pinch of salt because I find this GF flour needs it.

2 large eggs
3/4 c. milk
1/2 c. water
1 c. flour
6 Tbsp. melted butter, divided

Place eggs, milk, water, flour, and 3 Tbsp. butter in a blender and blend until smooth. Heat a small nonstick skillet over medium heat. Brush the pan with a little bit of the remaining melted butter, then swirl in about 3 Tbsp. of the batter to form a thin pancake the size of the pan. Cook until lightly browned, gently flip, and cook for just a few seconds on the second side. Serve warm.

Makes around 15 crepes

Roasted Pears adapted from Smitten Kitchen

4 pears, any type
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Peel pears if you like (I didn’t), halve them lengthwise and core. Place cut side up in a roasting pan and sprinkle with lemon juice. Sprinkle sugar evenly over pear halves and dot with butter. Pour water into the roasting pan and bake pears for 30 minutes, basting with pan juices a few times. Flip pears over and bake an additional 30 minutes, basting with pan juices a few times. Pears are ready when a knife slips easily into the thickest part. Allow pears to cool to room temperature before serving.

December’s nearly half gone, so I guess that means no Advent Calendar this year! Instead, I’ll be posting some gluten-free goodness that’ll get you in the holiday spirit. First up, gluten-free gingerbread — soft, spicy and completely addictive, especially with a dollop of sweetened creme fraiche.

The instructions called for baking this in one pan, but I tried five mini-loaves, thinking these could make nice homemade gifts.

I’d say it worked well.

After cooling in the pans for a few minutes, I moved them to a rack till they reached room temperature.

Even Mr. Movember approved…

And Mr. Movember’s alter-ego (Fritz? I think he looks like a Fritz.) could barely contain himself.

recipe after the jump

Gluten-Free Sorghum Gingerbread adapted slightly from About.com’s Southern Food

I first tried a recipe that used a very precise blend of several gluten-free flours and not only was it more difficult than this recipe, it just wasn’t very good. This one is. And all I did was substitute Jules Gluten-Free AP Flour for regular AP flour. It seems almost too easy just to use an already-prepared flour blend, but I think it’ll become my default option from now on. And this recipe originally called for shortening, but I refuse to eat it, so I substituted coconut oil instead. There was no discernible coconut flavor and the texture was a beautiful thing, so I declare this an overwhelming success.

1/4 cup unrefined/organic virgin coconut oil (I buy mine at Whole Foods, but it’s pretty easy to find.)
1/4 cup butter
1 cup hot water
1 cup sorghum molasses or regular molasses
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (use Jules Gluten-Free, if necessary)
2 large eggs, well beaten

For various reasons there was no farmers’ market for us this weekend, but we did eat our weight in ice cream sandwiches, so it wasn’t a total wash.

Who cares if the ice cream was store-bought? Just sandwich some Haagen-Dazs vanilla between homemade spicy molasses cookies and call it a party.

Like I did with the popovers, I subbed Jules Gluten-Free Flour in place of the AP flour in the recipe and the cookies came out great. It’s been my experience that gluten-free cookies spread a bit more than regular, so I used a smaller amount of dough per cookie and they were absolutely perfect. Next time, I’ll try using coconut oil instead of the butter to see if that firms them up a little bit. (There’s less moisture in the cookies from the original recipe because it calls for shortening instead of butter, but man, that stuff gives me the willies.)

recipe after the jump

Spicy Molasses Cookies adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
2 cups AP flour (or an equal amount of Jules Gluten-Free Flour)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
dash ground mace
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix sugar, butter, molasses, and egg together until well combined.

Stir dry ingredients together lightly, then add to sugar mixture. Mix together until dough is combined.

Roll dough into walnut-sized balls, then generously coat each ball with sugar. (If using gluten-free flour, roll the dough into somewhat smaller balls, maybe 1/2 – 3/4 the size of a walnut.)

Place balls on a baking sheet and bake for 9 to 11 minutes, allowing to bake for about a minute after cookies begin to crack.

Remove cookies from baking sheet and allow to cool. Put them in the freezer for 10 minutes or so before assembling ice cream sandwiches if that’s your ultimate goal.

Aaaaaah, cinnamon-sugar popovers. Remember them? I thought they’d remain nothing more than a pleasant memory, but I had a craving and decided to test the claim that Jules Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour can be subbed one-for-one with standard wheat flour.

I tried it once before with biscuits, and wasn’t entirely pleased with the results, but these popovers sure looked like the real thing:

But the flavor, the texture? How did they taste?

Indistinguishable from the real thing, which is to say, eggy, moist, light and springy.

I suspect the problem with the biscuits was just a lack of moisture. Popovers are made of a fairly thin batter, so that wasn’t an issue here. But I’ll test my biscuit theory again sometime soon and let you know.

recipe after the jump

Popovers, or Sugared Puffs from David Lebovitz in the New York Times Magazine

I used Jules Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour one-for-one in this recipe and the popovers turned out perfectly. I haven’t tested any other GF flours, but if you have one that works well, please let me know! I do love a good substitution. Also, I used a muffin pan with smaller indentations than called for, so I made an even dozen instead of nine. Whatever size pan you use, just make sure not to overfill.

For the puffs:
Softened unsalted butter, for greasing the pan
2 tablespoons butter, melted
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup flour

For the sugar coating:
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Liberally grease a nonstick popover pan, or a muffin pan with 1/2-cup indentations, with softened butter.

For the puffs, put the 2 tablespoons melted butter, eggs, milk, salt and sugar in a blender and whiz for a few seconds. Add the flour and whiz for 5 to 8 seconds, just until smooth.

Divide the batter among 9 greased molds, filling each 1/2 to 2/3 full.

Bake for 35 minutes, until the puffs are deep brown.

Remove from the oven, wait a few minutes until cool enough to handle, then remove the puffs from the pans. You may need a small knife to help pry them out.

Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Thoroughly brush each puff all over with melted butter, then dredge in sugar and cinnamon mixture to coat completely. Let cool on a baking rack.

It’s been too long since I last posted — a heady combination of travel, an insane work schedule and a cold that wouldn’t quit conspired to keep me from updating — but I had to kick off the Memorial! Day! Weekend! with something grilled, so here you go: Lamb burgers with gluten-free buns.

Atypically, I tried a new recipe for the burgers instead of going with the tried-and-true kofta concoction. It was as essentially burgery as you’d expect but I missed that depth and balance of flavor from spices thrown in by the handful, so I’ll likely stick with it next time. But I did love the toppings enough to keep them on future burgers — sun-dried tomatoes, oil-cured black olives and arugula.

Normally, when we go out for burgers, I’ll order mine without the bun and be perfectly happy, but I wanted to give gluten-free buns a try this time around since I was doing the burgerizing myownself. As always, I turned to Gluten-Free Girl for the recipe and think it’ll be my go-to for the rest of the summer. That’s assuming the buns freeze well, anyway — they took forever and a day to prepare, but were so worth it (and most of the time was resting time for the dough). I was out of potato flour, so I substituted equal parts rice flour and sorghum flour, which might’ve made the buns a little heavy, but the buns were so yeasty and, dare I say, bread-like I ate one on its own.

But you can’t have a burger without fronsh fries (why, that’s un-American!), so I dug deep into the archives for my standard oven-baked garlic fries that I see no need to depart from.

So Happy Memorial Day Weekend and unofficial start to summer! Hope the weather’s as nice where you are as it (finally) is here, and you can take advantage of it with a little grilling.

Oh, and our weekly Ringwood Farmers’ Market starts again this weekend! So much to look forward to . . . fresh vegetables, organic fruits, and quality meats and eggs that only traveled a few miles to get here. Can’t get better than that.

I worked up a batch of gluten-free biscuits this morning, adapted from Ms. Edna Lewis’s recipe. They were just a touch dry so I’ll add more buttermilk next time, but they went down just fine with a little Meyer lemon curd (much more on which later).

Happy first day of spring!

You know, this whole gluten-free thing hasn’t been quite the pain in the ass I expected at first, and not just because I’m lucky enough only to get joint pain when I eat gluten (meaning I can cheat without major repercussions from time to time). I work in New York, so GF lunches are fairly easy to find, and once I got over my egg sandwich craving for breakfast it was pretty smooth sailing. The difficulties I’m having are in finding acceptable pre-packaged bread and pasta. I’ve turned out a few decent loaves of bread on my own in the past few months, but dried pasta offerings have been uniformly disappointing so far. If you have any recommendations, I’m all ears!

One of these surprisingly good homemade bread experiments was a gluten-free redo of a Concord grape focaccia I first tried last year. It took a couple of weeks to get to the point of baking that bread, just because focaccia is a favorite of mine and I knew no wheatless version could compare to the real thing… but then I sucked it up, put on my big girl pants and got to work.

And you know what? The weeks of anxiety were just a silly way to spend my time — it turned out great! Gil and I ate about half of it that first day, so I’d consider it a success. Also? It’s much, much easier than baking honest-to-goodness bread — no kneading involved and no overnight rest in the fridge, so the time between craving and craving fulfillment is much abridged.

I just received my copy of Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, which has another version of focaccia that I’m dying to try. Let’s hope those Concord grapes hold out one more week!

recipe after the jump

Gluten-Free Focaccia with Concord Grapes adapted from Carol Fenster’s Gluten-Free Focaccia

I didn’t bother seeding the grapes, though I found them unpleasantly crunchy this time around. I’ll try them without seeds next time for a less al dente treat.

3/4 cup warm water (110 degrees)
1 teaspoon sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
1 1/2  teaspoons dry yeast
1 cup brown rice flour or sorghum flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin powder
1 1/2  teaspoons xanthan gum
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, chopped and divided
olive oil, for drizzling
1 pint Concord grapes
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1/4 cup turbinado sugar

Combine first 10 ingredients in medium mixer bowl along with 2 tablespoons olive oil and 1 tablespoon rosemary leaves. Beat with electric mixer (regular beaters, not dough hooks) for 2 minutes. Dough will be soft and sticky.

Transfer dough to greased 11 x 7-inch nonstick pan. Cover with aluminum foil and let rise in warm place for 30 minutes or until desired height.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

When dough has risen, press dimples in it with your fingertips and drizzle with remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Sprinkle with remaining rosemary, scatter Concord grapes across the surface, and top evenly with coarse salt and turbinado sugar.

Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Nicoise Salad from A Twist of the Wrist

Bad Ass Mocha Cream Cake from The Crazy Kitchen