"mrs. child's famous sticky fruitcake"

As Julia Child notes, "[t]his cake isn't sticky at all, but it started out that way during my first experiements, and the name has remained, as a family joke."¹ And thus began my first experiment with fruitcake. I've made panforte and convinced my fruitcakephobic family to relish that, and Child's fruitcake seemed like good introduction to fruitcake (she has yet to fail me, from pastry to roast chicken).

 The fruitcake began with me making mixed peel: I blanched lemon and orange peel in water and then cooked them in syrup (I wasn't about to buy the overly processed peel at a grocery store, and I've never seen the higher quality stuff of which British pastry chefs talk).

The base is four pounds of peel and fruit: I used the aforementioned candied orange and lemon peel plus raisins, sultanas, zante currants, figs, candied ginger, sour cherries preserved in alcohol, unsulfured apricots, and prunes. This sits overnight with a pound of nuts (I used pecans and walnuts), a pound of mincemeat (I used some from Dan Lepard's recipe: I should have made it a month ago, but this'll be fine — and now I'll have mince for a Christmas pie), ⅔ c. rum, ⅓ c. bourbon, 1 tbsp. espresso, ¼ c. molasses, and a mix of 1 tsp. cardamom, ½ tsp. each cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and mace, and 1½ tsp. salt.

Above left is what that looks like after 24 hours of maceration, above left is tossed with 3½ c. flour with 1 tbsp. baking powder.

To that mixture is added ½ lb. butter that was creamed with 2 c. sugar, ⅓ c. brown sugar, 2 tbsp. vanilla and six eggs. This is then spooned into buttered and floured tins lined with parchement. I ended up with four loaves a little under a pound each, one toping two pounds and a sixth weighing in at almost three-and-a-half pounds (the smaller caked baked for 80 minutes, the larger for 120-130).

These smell lovely. I sprinkled more bourbon and rum atop, wrapped them up, and we'll see how they are in a month (if I can wait)!


¹Julia Child, From Julia Child's Kitchen (New York: Grammercy, 1975), 583.

birthday 2013

As often goes, documentation of birthdays easily is swept away with the flurry of food and libations, seen above before with my cat resting before an evening of him asserting his rôle as master of ceremonies and lead entertainer. in the foreground is anise seed and orange flower water shortbread, a delicious recipe from Deborah Madison's latest book.
  

 

Autumn approaches and I wanted to do something with my florishing sage plant: here we have asiago and mascarpone blended with fresh sage as well as salt and pepper, spread on a toasted slice of baguette and topped with fried sage leaves, a delicious finish.

I adore génoise, and have made them in the past, but I recently discovered a cake by Deborah Madison (from an earlier book): a hazelnut cake that is basically a génoise with most of the flour replaced with ground toasted hazelnuts (or hickory nuts, but those are not easy to come by). I split the cake into three, spashed the layers with kirsch, and layered them with Julia Child's chocolate mousse (with kirsch in place of the orange liqueur). Finished with kirsch-flavored whipped cream and sour cherries that have been soaking in grain alcohol with hibiscus and orange peel. Fantastic.

mousse de foies de volaille

For party food, you really can't go wrong with Julia Child's chicken liver mousse in aspic. Very simple (okay, not the aspic, but that's optional), and very delicious. And good chicken livers have become more and more available.

Julia Child, August 15, 1912 - August 13, 2004

I grew up watching Julia Child on WGBH Boston and her approach to cooking led to a lifetime of me being excited about food and all things culinary. Here are a handful of adventures from the last few years:

• Clafoutis aux pêches: a pear custard.
• Lapin au saupiquet: marinated rabbit with prunes.
• Julia Child's phenomenal and simple haricots verts with lamb or with rabbit.
• Hollondaise sauce: on eggs Florentine.
• Gratin de pommes de terre aux anchois: a delicious potato gratin.
• Gigot rôti: roast leg of lamb.
• Poulet à l'estragon: chicken with tarragon.
• Roast chicken: Julia Child is the reason that I can make a great roast chicken.
• A Bastille Day party: mini vol-au-vents (bouchées), foies de volailles à l'estragon en aspic (chicken liver pâté in aspic), gâteaux St-Andre (walnut cake), tartes aux framboises.
• Comfort food: biftek sauté au beurre, pommes Anna, champignons sauté à la bordelaise, chou frisé à la vapeur.
• The best pound cake I have eaten: quatre-quarts.
• A simple soufflé. And another.

RIP, Julia.

clafoutis aux pêches

This is Julia Child's basic recipe for clafoutis (from Mastering the Art..., but I subsituted amaretto for vanilla and brandy) with sliced peaches and sour cherries that have been soaking in rum for the last year. The sour cherries, being on top, caramelized and had wonderful flavor. The peaches needed no peeling or preparation: simply sliced, they were great. This is probably my favorite clafoutis of those that I have made.

lapin au saupiquet

Lapin au saupiquet: rabbit marinated in vinegar and stewed in wine, finished with prunes cooked in stock, butter and brandy. The sauce/gravy is probably one of the best I have made... ever. So delicious. We started with shaved fennel salad and ate the rabbit with parsley potatoes. Finished with a plum-frangipane tart. This is from vol. II of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1970).

eggs florentine

Go in to work late today so I made myself a nice breakfast — a version of eggs florentine.


...with a side of Vermont Smoke and Cure bacon (I bought an uncut piece and sliced ¼-inch slices.)


Between sautéed spinach from a local farm (I can't remember their name at the moment) and the hollandaise sauce (with cute, small eggs from the same folks, and using Julia Child's formula in Mastering the Art...), I probably consumed a half-stick of butter.


But it was well worth it. Skipping english muffins and having toasted ciabbatine rolls was most definitely a great idea.

gigot rôti

Leg of lamb from Crabapple farm, seasoned and stuffed with garlic slices per Julia Child's suggestion.


Basting with butter and suet.


In the oven: 450º(F) until seared (≈20 mins), then at 350º until 150º.


Radicchio and endives, seared.


The gigot.



Carving.



(This meat was beautiful.)


(ditto.)


Voilà.


Lamb (background). Radicchio/endive (foreground).

poulet à l'estragon

I had a remaining chicken from this summer's slaughter in the freezer and a whole pot of tarragon that may not survive many more frosts. Logical conclusion: make poulet à l'estragon (chicken with tarragon). I followed Julia Child's Poulet poêlé à l'estragon (after a summer of telling myself I'd make the cold aspic version, Poulet en gelée à l'estragon, and now it's too cold for that).

The chicken is seasoned, stuffed with tarragon and butter, trussed and seared on all sided in a dutch oven. It then gets roasted — covered — until done. I had worried that the chicken would steam, and the skin wouldn't have that great roasted texture. I was wrong. The skin was great. A sauce of more tarragon, the drippings and some beef stock made this sublime.


This was easily one of the best ways that I have ever had chicken. This was also a larger cockerel (four-and-a-half pounds!), so it benefited from this tenderizing preparation. I served this with roasted sunchokes and brussels sprouts.

Tiffiniy declared that she had never known she could like white meat. It was that good. That was how I felt when I cooked the first one.

roast chicken

This big fellow was one of the roosters recently slaughtered; I wanted to make its preparation simple to highlight the bird itself — this is the first animal I have eaten in whose slaughter I was involved. I made an herb butter with unsalted butter, salt, tarragon, garlic, lemon, brandy and thyme. I spread that in and out and under the skin of the breast.


I started the bird at 425ºF, rotating it from side to breast-up-to side and then leaving it on it's side at 350º. (Julia Child suggests the majority of the roast to be on its sides — switch sides halfway through). It finished breast up.


I made a quick gravy with drippings, butter and vermouth and we had this with lightly steamed and buttered zucchini and squash (thanks Molly!), a fennel-potato-spring onion gratin, and a brown rice "risotto" with porchini and reduced stock from those feet. The meat was incredibly tender, flavorful and incredibly satisfying. Nothing compared to those industrial birds.

Served with raspberry-cranberry braggot and finished with Molly's tart blueberry-peach crisp, this was perfect.

fête nationale

Mini vol-au-vents (bouchées) with a creamed kale-leek filling.

Foies de volailles à l'estragon en aspic — chicken liver pâté with tarragon in aspic (from those feet!) — grâce à Julia Child, bien sûr! Gateaux St-André and Quatres-quarts (pound cake) in background.


A new creation — cardamon meringues! (1 white, 1/2 c. sugar, pinch salt, pinch cream of tartar, six pods caradmom, ground).


Ensemble: Gâteaux St-Andre (Walnut cake), vegan pâté, pâté, Emmenthaler, chèvre from Colrain.


And tartes aux framboises : I made an almond pastry cream that was heavenly. Red and black raspberries from the Tuesday market.

a(n anti-) celebration

Once there was a time. And I posted this. I had made the decision to become a baker. And I took it very seriously, reading Calvel, Hamelman, Kaplan; I made more bread at home, I came to have intuitive understanding of bread.

And then, this winter, I've had more respiratory illnesses and flus than I can remember in a winter. Allergies? But I can eat wheat. Allergy to yeast? Then I'd never be able to eat anything fermented. Yesterday I was preliminary diagnosed with "Baker's Asthma," wherein I have asthma somehow triggered by all the fine particulate that I inahale on a daily basis (even with a mask for the last few months). And all that comes with an inhaler that "may increase the risk of asthma-related death."

Whoa.

So I needed something (and have been craving red meat, maybe I don't eat enough kale?), and I needed to recognize the comfort of knowing — after months — what is wrong, and I need comfort in knowing that I need a major change in my life.

And there she is — Julia Child — waiting to comfort me.

Biftek sauté au beurre — Pommes Anna — Champignons sauté à la Bordelaise — Chou frisé à la vapeur

First, these beech mushrooms need to be noted. Them come white, as picture, or this beautiful mottled brown. And are just wonderful.

So, pan-broiled steak : a sirloin seared in butter (with some of the rendered fat I cut off), mushrooms sautéed and tossed with scallions, garlic, breadcrumbs and wine (so 1960, but really f—ing good), Pommes Anna, and kale, steamed and tossed with some raw red wine vinegar. Even better, I had everything except the steak (a mere 8oz) and wine (a great Syrah-Grenache for seven bucks).


And next? (anyone want to foot the capital for pickle bar?)

quatre-quarts

Julia Child's quatre-quarts ("four quarters," literally — "The English like the formula so much that they use a pound of everything — hence, of course, the pound cake" she tells us).

I hadn't made a pound cake before, I love the process. Six ounces butter is whipped until a mayonnaise-like consistency. Three eggs and a cup of sugar are beaten until fluffy and doubled in volume. One and a quarter cups flour are sifted in, and then the butter is folded in. And baked at three-fifty.

I glazed this with quince syrup leftover from candying quince for panforte. I then served it with Tartine's lemon cream: lemon curd with butter beat into it, essentially. Very very good.

really?

At the end of a long day (week, month, year, actually), I was in need of some comforting food. I didn't want to go shopping. I had eggs, some Finlandia cheese, some canned salmon, and a Julia Child book. I decided to make my first soufflé — a traditional soufflé au fromage. I made the base, a béchamel with yolks added and then cooked again, half of which I reserved for a chard-salmon gratin, and whipped the whites. I folded the whites in with the cheese. I baked that and the gratin until it seemed just right. It it was. It was the ultimate comfort food: cheese and eggs elegantly preserved — for a fleeting moment, it seemed — in air.

The soufflé seems so démodé, but it's really easy, and really good. Melt-in-your-mouth good.