In and Out of the Garden: A Blog

Palma did me a big favor this week by choosing the Grappa-Soaked Mini Sponge Cakes for our Sunday Slow Bakers challenge. You see, unbeknownst to Palma, I needed to bring a dessert to a dinner party and these fit the bill perfectly. This dinner party is with a group of three other couples who love to cook and eat. We meet once a quarter, rotating the locations so that we each host once a year. The host makes the main course and the other couples bring a dish. (You can read about when it was my turn to host here.) This time it was my turn to bring a dessert. Oh, and there is always a theme. This time the theme was exotic.

Now, Grappa-Soaked Mini Sponge Cakes are fairly exotic, but for my purposes I ended up making a few substitutions, a few additions and luckily everything turned out well. My apologies to Gina DePalma for tinkering with her lovely recipe, but sometimes you're just forced to experiment.

To start off, I didn't have the mini bundt cake pans that the recipe called for. I probably should have just bought a couple on Amazon, but I waited until the last minute thinking that my local Williams-Sonoma would carry them. When I finally got into the store to check, they didn't have any. I ended up picking up a mini shortcake pan at World Market. I liked the idea of the indented top that you could fill with fruit, so I figured it was a practical enough substitution.

The next hitch in the plan was that I didn't have any grappa in the house. So they didn't end up grappa soaked either. I did have a bottle of a delicious pistachio liqueur that I used to soak them with, and in the cake batter I used a vanilla rum. The batter came together easily and since I only had one pan of six shortcakes, I baked a couple batches. If I were to do these on a regular basis, I would definitely invest in another pan. But the baking of these cakes is pretty straightforward and that left me with plenty of energy to agonize over what to serve with them.

Sponge cake by itself is a bit boring. Even boozing it up doesn't seem to make it dessert on it's own. It may be fine perhaps to eat a piece with your caffe latte in the morning (which is actually what I did with one of my leftover cakes this morning—delicious!), but for a dinner party, I think a bigger effort needed to be made.

Since the theme of my dessert needed to be exotic, I went the tropical fruit route. I bought some passion fruit, a cherimoya and some tropical guavas at our farmers market. I also picked up a few mangos from the grocery store. When I cut up the fruit and mixed it together, I found that I didn't like the taste of the tropical guavas, so I ended up leaving them out. I also raided my herb bed for some nasturtium flowers which I used for garnish and I even mixed in a bunch of the petals into the fruit for added color.

Then, since fruit and cake didn't seem to be enough, I made banana ice cream. I used a recipe from Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert and added some spices to it to jazz it up a bit. The recipe couldn't be simpler: mash up 4 or 5 ripe bananas, add about 3 tablespoons of sugar, a cup of heavy cream and season with a little salt, freshly ground all spice and cinnamon. You don't need to make a custard or make it the night before, just chill the the mixture for an hour or so and freeze in your ice cream maker. How easy is that? And it's really delicious, super creamy and full of banana flavor.

So, there you have it: my Pistachio-Soaked Mini Shortbread-Shaped Sponge Cakes with Tropical Fruit and Banana Ice Cream. Thanks again to Palma for picking a recipe that worked so well with what I needed this weekend. I know she had no idea that I needed a recipe for an exotic dessert (unless among her other talents she is gifted in ESP!). But that does seem to be the beauty of this baking group. We have picked a really good variety of recipes, and I just keep looking forward to each week's challenge.

P.S. I have to say that some of the other slow bakers adapted the recipe beautifully to all sorts of pan shapes and sizes, including my personal favorite Jerry's easter egg cakes!

The roses in my garden are at their peak. The blooms are heavy and just beginning to show signs of slowing down. The extremely hot weather we've had this week is punishing them—pushing them to all open and be done. But before that happens, I plan to get maximum enjoyment out of them. I picked this bouquet and put it on the dining room table, so I could enjoy the fragrance every time we sit down to eat. I think the subtle smell of roses is one of the few fragrances that doesn't compete with eating. Lilies and many other fragrant flowers are too overpowering. This centerpiece doesn't compete with anything, and I think I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

Departing from the sweet side, this week's Sunday Slow Bakers challenge (chosen by Colleen) was Babbo Breadsticks from Gina DePalma's Dolce Italiano. In the recipe notes Gina refers to their rough, homemade appearance and I think I really took to this description. My breadsticks were irregular, somewhat lumpy in spots and definitely rustic looking. But I did take another bit of her advice and presented them standing up in a tall pretty glass. Not only does it look better, but it makes it really easy to keep grabbing another to snack on. Did I mention that these things are addictive?

These breadsticks are really flavorful. The small amount of cayenne pepper (1/2 teaspoon) adds just the right amount of spiciness. And the 1/2 cup of Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus more for garnish, makes them deliciously cheesy.

The recipe is pretty straightforward. I followed her directions, but didn't use her suggestion for making it ahead and letting it rise overnight in the refrigerator. I planned to eat them the same day I started them. But that is a good suggestion if you are making them for a party.

I used the dough hook on my stand mixer and the dough came out smooth though a little sticky. I found that I needed plenty of flour on my hands and board to work with it. After letting it rise for two hours, I began forming my breadsticks.

So, I really fussed over the first one. I got out the tape measure so I could get it 14 inches and I tried to roll it as evenly as possible. Of course it still looked pretty rough and I realized that if I was going to do 30 of them that it was going to take hours. So I set aside the tape measure and just grabbed each bit of dough and rolled them out fast and furious. I rolled them vertically between my two palms with the classic preschool technique that one uses when making brightly colored play-doh snakes. Yes, they looked rustic, but they got done and into the oven before everyone starved to death.

I tried baked half on parchment paper (as the recipe directed) and half on Silpat liners. I couldn't tell the difference between the two, so in the interest of saving paper, I might do them just on the Silpat next time. Gina says that the recipe makes about 30 and I ended up with exactly 32. She suggests using 3 baking sheets with 10 to 11 per sheet. I only have two racks in my oven and only two baking sheets, so I did them in two batches. I reused the parchment paper on the second batch and it didn't seem to be a problem. Mine did take a couple minutes longer—16 minutes instead of the 12-14 minutes in the recipe—so my oven might be slightly off.

Once out of the oven, they do not take long to cool. You should pick the ugliest one and sample it right away. They are delicious while still warm, so I like her idea of reheating them before serving. But I also served them cool with dinner and no one complained. They went quite nicely with a Caprese Salad and some Shrimp Scampi. Luckily, there are still some left and I'll see how they taste the next day. I can't promise, however, that any will last the two days that she says they will last. Did I mention that these things are addictive?

This week's baking challenge was Sicilian Pistachio Cookies chosen by Deborah over at Old Shoes - New Trip. I'm not sure that I've ever even made cookie bars. I'm more of the drop, roll, press or cut type of cookie baker. So this was a new thing for me. I liked the idea that this would be easier to make than shaped cookies, but I somehow I managed to fuss over them just as much as if I was creating each individual one.

I followed the recipe exactly and made it easy on myself by buying a bag of already shelled pistachios. I found that the batter was stiff one and spreading it in the jelly roll pan was a challenge for me. I think it took longer to spread than it did to assemble the ingredients and make the batter. I did use an offset spatula as the recipe called for, and I think that helped. But getting it perfectly even, especially the corners just didn't happen for me. When I took it out of the oven and saw my ragged browned edges I thought they were a disaster.

But, as in baking, as in life, things are frequently not as bad as they seem at first. After they cooled and I started cutting them, I realized that is exactly the beauty of bar cookies. You can cut off the bad edges! Not only that, but you can nibble on those toasty edges and they taste pretty amazingly good. So, I proceeded to cut up my bars on the bias to give me diamond shaped cookies and I took a plate of 2 dozen to a garden party that day. Everyone loved them and they went very well with the mint ice tea that the hostess served.

Later that night I took another dozen over to my neighbors and my neighbor Harriet declared them wonderful. She really loved the buttery, nutty quality to them. I think they are a perfect tea cookie with subtle flavors of lemon and pistachio. And since I still have a bunch of odd ends and broken pieces, I plan on enjoying them later today with some tea. Thank you Deborah!

Italian Crumbly Cake from Dolce Italiano by Gine DePalma

Here is my first week's effort, just out of the oven. I meant to bake yesterday, but wouldn't you know it, we had a heat wave. It was 92! That is fairly epic in Santa Barbara and it was enough for me to do the shopping and laze around the garden all day with the fountain running. I didn't even get to cooking dinner until about 9:00. So, this morning I got up and immediately after my caffe latte, I started baking.

The cake came together pretty quickly and easily. I used the almond flour and the "00" flour called for in the recipe. Since it only called for 1/4 cup of almond flour, I now have almost an entire package that I will have to find a way to use, which shouldn't be too hard—especially if I make this cake again.

The batter was a bit stiffer than I am used to and definitely needed a spatula to spread it into the pan. I'm glad the recipe mentioned that or I might have been alarmed by the stiffness of the batter. The recipe called for baking 25 to 30 minutes. After checking it at 25 and 30, I let it go a few more minutes because the toothpick was still coming out wet. I think the top got browned a bit more than it should have, but it does look nice and toasty. Next time I would go ahead and take it out of the oven, I think it would be fine. Also, I used slivered almonds with skins, rather than the blanched almonds specified in the recipe. So, mine has an overall browner look, which I rather like.

The flavor of this cake is exactly as described in the book. It is dense and delicious with a perfect crunch of almonds on top. It would be wonderful to serve with brunch or afternoon tea. My husband thought it would be good served after dinner with ice cream. I like the fact that the steps are simple and the ingredient list not too elaborate. The trick was finding the "00" flour and the almond flour, but once you have that, it's a snap. I definitely plan on making it again. It's a real keeper.