I know it’s almost Christmas when I am checking the weather every hour hoping for snow and I start the annual plea for a Christmas tree with BF.  Fall has officially gone the way of the dodo bird for this year and the blustery streets of the financial district are making me wish for those hot humid days of this past summer. 

Christmas is also a good excuse to cook, and I cook everything, well it feels like it.  Growing up we used to have what was called a “dipping party” at a friend’s house.  There was a big group of local women who hand made, rolled, and dipped roughly 1500 chocolates to give away for the holidays.  My mom, my sister and I always went – I hung out with friends and avoided the dipping of chocolates, my sister was meticulous, and all of the adults laughed alot and drank a bit.  It was always a lovely evening this one night that really set Christmas off, it was usually the last day of school before the holidays and all of us kids were far too rambunctious so we were bundled and sent outside to play in the snow, it was delightful and almost always ended in tears (mine, mostly). 

But I still remember the chocolates, I remember coming back inside tearstreaked and cold to the warmth of the kitchen and the smell of melted semi sweet chocolate and paraffin wax and knowing that everything would be alright.  I would then grab a freshly dipped candy with chocolate still melty and pop it in my mouth before a parent saw, they always did.  Those chocolates were the best too- Peanut Butter balls, Needhams, Rum Balls, peppermint patties, they were Christmas in a coat of chocolate.  As I licked the melted chocolate off my fingers I always grabbed an undipped candy and went back outside; renewed and fortified to be picked on by my older sister and her friends.

These Peanut Butter balls are Christmas to me in the way very few things are.  With one bite of these little gems I feel like I’m in a time warp and I’m 11 again, the youngest of five kids trying to all fit on one long tobaggan and falling off because I was made to sit on the back.  We weren’t really a family of holiday tradtions, sure we put up a christmas tree and trimmed it; me demanding that my ornament (this really terrible thing covered in pink and opalescent netting) be on the highest branch it could be.  But this candy is what makes it for me.  The smooth Peanut Butter center, if you make it with crunchy peanut butter it isn’t christmas – it’s just candy, enrobed in the rich semi-sweet chocolate.  But it’s not just the flavor and texture of the candy it’s the process, watching Christmas movies and rolling Peanut butter balls or dipping the chocolates and leaving drops on the kitchen floor.  It’s messy and it’s totally wonderful.

Peanut Butter Balls
Note: When I made these I was actually short about 3/4 of a cup of Peanut Butter so I subbed in some Hazelnut Cream (like Nutella but no chocolate)  and they are fantastic.  I also went a little bit lighter on the Conf sugar (I said it was for sweetness but more accurately they were dry and sweet enough already).
This recipe halves very easily so have at it (pun intentional).  Otherwise plan to give these away as gifts, makes about 10 doz.

1 Cup (2 sticks) soft butter, (very soft butter like you can whip it into delicious peaks soft)
4 Cups smooth Peanut Butter, In my most recent batch I added 1/2 cup of organic PB which gave great texture to the PB Balls
2 Tsp Vanilla
1/2 Tsp salt (less if your butter is salted)
3-4 Cups of Conf sugar
1 12-oz bag Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips (I get the Ghirardelli 60% Cocoa)
2-3 shavings of food grade paraffin wax

Cream together the peanut butter and the butter until everything is even and smooth, I find that you will get a few chunks if you heat it a little bit (about 20 secs) everything will soften and you’ll have a much easier time of mixing it.  Add 3 cups of confectioners sugar and mix in completely, if your dough is crumbly (and it will be) it’s ok add up to 1 cup more conf sugar depending on how sweet you want your PB Balls to be (I like 3 1/2 cups).  Add the vanilla to the crumby conf sugar, pb and butter mixture and knead it a little bit.  Your hands will be covered in the mix but it will all sort of magically come together (this can be done with a dough hook as well but try not to use the flat paddle as it will over-aerate things).  Stick this pb dough in the fridge to firm up.  After 3-5 hours in the fridge your dough should be firm.  Using a teaspoon scoop out bits of dough and roll them into balls (I suggest a line up of Christmas movies to watch, my favorites were always the stop-motion Rudolph the Reed Nosed Reindeer and A Walt Disney Christmas) .  If you want yours to be larger then do them larger (a small cookie scoop works well), I like them as single bite snacks. Put the balls back into the fridge once they have been shaped and leave them to sit overnight or for at least 4 hrs.

In a double boiler (I use a ceramic bowl set over a pan of water) melt the chocolate and the paraffin until it is smooth, takes about 5 minutes.  The chocolate will run off the spoon in a steady stream when it’s ready and will look a little bit thin.  Dip your cold PB balls into the melted chocolate using either a toothpick in the top of a fork (I’ve recently  been of the fork mindset, it’s better for the environment and its less work), shake them briefly (to remove excess chocolate) and then put them on waxed paper in a cool place to harden (takes about an hour).  And eat them.  Like popcorn.  For three days.  Then give the rest away as you realize you have eaten 5 doz peanut butter balls and there’s still 5 doz more left.  Nom.

So this cake.  This cake is something that haunted/excited me for a week.  I was having dreams about it.  OK it was just a cake for a friend but it was also one of my first proper layer cakes – with pans that were the same :0 it was totally new.  So as with all good things though – it’s got a story.  While at John Harvards drinking beer – really really good beer (specifically the black watch stout) – my darling friend, let’s call her Hipster Girl, mentioned, in passing, that her birthday was next week.  I sat there appalled and asked her when.  She changed topics and tried to show me her newly spun wool.  I wasn’t dissuaded and asked my question again.  The 26th, she said, it’s no big deal, she said.  I’ll make you dinner, I said, and there will be cake (the rest of the dinner will be up later – it was epic).

So this is the cake, I sent HG an instant message the following day – I asked for a date she was available (she chose Weds the 1st) and then I created a menu.  The savory things were easy she had a main course she wanted and I was able to spin off of that fairly easily, but the cake – that required some research.  So I googled it – I looked at Smitten Kitchen, I looked at The Amateur Gourmet, I even looked at Cake Wrecks (mostly so I could tell what NOT to do).  The internet was unhelpful and I was distraught, until there was a glimmer of hope and I remembered this.  The bible of baked goods was sitting in my pantry clad in crinkly library plastic waiting to be hunted through for The-Perfect-Cake, and there in the middle of a section labelled “Celebration Cakes” I found inspiration – a four layer feat of epic proportions entitled “the-black-and-white-chocolate-cake”. 

So I researched it.  I read reviews and most people said that the cake itself was good but the frosting/cream was messy and tended to run, so given that I was cooking this cake in 90 degree weather I thought runny frosting was out.  What to do….  Obviously I did the sensible thing and came up with my own variations on the cake.  I used Dorie’s cake recipe – which was the best yellow cake I’ve ever had, seriously make this RIGHTNOW.  And then eat it warm – perfect.  But I created , from scratch, my own versions of a white chocolate frosting and a dark chocolate ganache.  I froze the whole thing and brought it out to watch my dear friend, HG, dance in circles with delight.  Frankly it was The.Best.Birthday.Cake.Unveiling.EVER. Even without the candles (which I totally forgot, whoops).

So the recipe – this is complicated, I won’t lie.  All the pieces are fairly simple, buttercream, ganache, jam, cake but there’s wait time and it really is one of those things that needs an opportunity to firm up so it is perfect (especially if there is a crazy heat wave plaguing your city and the butter keeps melting and getting everywhere and oh-seriously-can-we-please-not-try-to-make-anything-with-butter-again-when-it’s-this-hot-out).  True Story.

Kathy’s Decadent Celebration Cake
Adapted quite heavily from Baking, from my Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan
Note: This cake recipe alone is Fan-freakin-tastic.  It has all the right kinds of happy, from the custard like flavor to the perfect moist crumb, it’s totally love at first bite.  Also the ganache makes wonderful Ice Cream topping.

Cake (double it if you’re making 9″ layers)
2 Cups Cake Flour*
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/8 tsp Baking Soda
10 Tbs Butter, softened
1 Cup Sugar
3 eggs, plus one egg yolk
1 tsp Vanilla
3/4 cup Buttermilk**

Sift together the Flour, Powder, and soda – set aside.  Cream the butter until it is fluffy and light, about a minute.  Add the sugar and beat it for another 2 minutes or so until it’s evenly incorporated and its fluffy again.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating for a minute in between each, including the yolk and beating it too.  Add the vanilla.  (Dorie says that this may curdle but I didn’t have any problems, but if it does curdle it should come right back together).  Now add the flour and buttermilk alternately.  Mixing each in just enough to combine.  You should add the flour in three batches and the buttermilk in two.  Pour the mix into a buttered and floured cake pan, or use thisawesomespray, and bake it at 350 degrees until it’s golden brown and the top bounces back to the touch (20-25 minutes, or an episode of Avatar (not that movie-full-of-blue-cats), the Last Airbender).  If you are going to frost these, I suggest you freeze them – your life will be a lot easier.

If you made a double you will have a couple of cupcake amounts left over, I suggest making those cupcakes and eating them warm with a little tea.

Chocolate Ganche
1 Cup Bittersweet Chocolate, chopped (semisweet is acceptable too if you want something a little bit sweeter)
2/3 cup Heavy Cream
2 Tb Butter
2-3 Tbs Liquor (I used brandy but whiskey or cognac would also work, go with your preference) (optional)

Warm the cream up on the stove until it is almost simmering, it should be steamy.  Pour the cream over the chocolate in a medium bowl and stir.  The cream should be able to melt the chocolate down fairly well, if you find you still have lumps you can microwave it for 15-30 seconds and stir or put it back on the stove over a gentle heat (low to med-low) for a minute or two.  Stir in the butter and the liquor (if you’re using it) and put that ganache in the freezer to stiffen a little bit – 10 minutes or so.  Don’t forget about the ganache though as it’s not particularly spreadable when it’s frozen.  Best stay in the kitchen and have a dance party.

White Chocolate Frosting
4 oz good quality white chocolate, melted (look at the ingredients – if it has cocoa butter in it you’re solid, if it’s soy or something else DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY, I like the Ghirardelli Baking Bar)
2-3 Cups Confectioner’s sugar (powdered and icing sugar are the same thing)
1-2 Tbs Bailey’s (optional)
1 Tsp Vanilla
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup butter, softened

Cream the butter and chocolate together on medium speed until uniform, you may have to scrape the bowl a couple times.  Add the Bailey’s and vanilla and mix to combine.  Add the sugar 1/4 cup at a time until you have reached the consistency you want.  If you reach desired consistency but want more frosting and cream 1 Tbs at a time alternating with 1/4 cup sugar until you have the amount you want.  The white chocolate taste won’t be as strong but it’ll still be delicious.

Assembly
So, I am not a professional baker at all, as is apparent by my not-so-high-quality-but-I-love-it-anyway kitchen gear, but I recommend using your studier cake as the base for this cake.  Put it on your cake stand (if you have one) or just on a big flat plate, and line around the bottom with parchment or waxed paper to make it that much more awe inspiring when you bring it out to watch people squee.  Spread about 2/3 of the ganache filling on this layer of cake and throw it into the freezer and dance, or have a piece of cheese.  Pull the ganache covered cake out and spread a thick layer of your favorite jam on there – blueberry or strawberry is probably best.  Set cake number two on top and throw the whole thing back in the freezer while you make the frosting.  Pull that cake out and frost it.

Serve to oohs and aahs with a cup of coffee or milk.

* To Make your Own Cake Flour: Replace 2Tb of AP flour in every cup with 2Tb of Cornstarch.
**To Make your own Buttermilk: Measure one cup regular milk out, replace 1Tb of milk with 1Tb of vinegar.

I love August.  I love the cicadas calling in the high grass and the smell of blueberries ripening on the air.  I love swimming in the afternoons and trying to get the purple out from under your fingernails after a long day of raking. And I love the blueberries.  There is something so intensely satisfying in picking a sun warmed blueberry and popping it in your mouth with that tartness on your tongue.  It’s also a very short window this heaven of blueberries in Washington County Maine (it’s one of the best parts of the whole year there… long hot days and blueberries for as far as you can run along 1A).

This year the blueberries are not cooperating – they’re super early (like when I was little raking started last week and the season ran for two weeks)and at this point have completely gone by.  I went home last week and in a panic of not getting blueberries for my year demanded my mom help me out – she did because she loves me and raked about 20 pounds of blueberries for my big sister and I to split when I got home.  I of course got home and promptly came down with a cold that put my out of commission for two days, and my blueberries sat in the fridge wiating for me to feel better.  On Thursday I did feel better.  With that good health came THIS PIE.  This pie is my ode to perfect fresh pie.  As a late night snack or breakfast it is delicious – the tartness of the berries makes it a not-too-sweet dip into the delightfulness that is this pie.  Top it with sweetened slightly whipped cream and its “practically-perfect-in-every-way.”

With August running hot and humid everywhere this is cooling in all the right ways, not to mention picking the berries on the right piece of land makes you feel as though you should live in the country slowly getting sunburned while berries pop off of their stems forever, though I may be a bit partial. 

Fresh Berry Pie a la Mom
Note: This pie can go in a crust or just in a bowl topped by whipped cream, it’s delicious either way.  Either way its a “day-of” kind of pie.  You can use frozen berries to create the glaze, thus preserving your fresh if you like.

For the Crust – Buy it.  Brush it with egg white and bake at 350 for 10-15 mins until its golden.   Let it cool completely.

For the Pie
2 Qts fresh berries (any kind though I like blueberry) cut to bite sized pieces, washed and picked over, 3/4 cup reserved
1 cup Sugar
1 cup water
1/2 tsp Ground Nutmeg (optional)
1/2 tsp Cinnamon (optional)
3 Tbs Cornstarch (shaken with 1/4 cup water)
1/2 Lemon, juiced (about 1 Tbs)

Add water, sugar and 1 cup of the berries to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil.  Once the water/sugar/berries/nutmeg/cinnamon have come to a boil add the cornstarch/water to it.  Continue to simmer that sauce for 5 minutes until it is clear and think (this is a great fruit glaze in general).  Remove the sauce from the heat and stir in the lemon juice.  In a large bowl gently fold the sauce into the fresh berries, evenly coating them.  Drop this pie filling into your pre-baked crust and smooth it out until it’s even, it will slightly overfill an 8″ crust and come to the top of a 9″.  Top the filled pie with the reserved berries and refrigerate for 2-3 hours – I suggest taking this opportunity to locate more berries for your second pie.  Serve with a generous dallop of very slightly whipped cream. DELICIOUS.  Enjoy.

So… Failure in the kitchen makes me horrifically sad.  I nearly start to cry and Boyfriend always has to steal whatever I have deemed unacceptable away from me so I don’t throw it out in a fit of anger.  Most of the time these failures can be attributed to one of two things 1) I got sloppy and missed a step or 2) I was hurrying and just didn’t wait properly.  This failure falls into the didn’t wait category.

When I got home from work and saw that I had missed a UPS package I immediately called them and asked the UPS office to hold it, in the distribution center down the street for pick-up the next day.  Then I googled ice cream recipes for 10 hours, custard, sorbets, fro-yos, sorbettos, gelatos, you name it I was obsessively searching for it on google as a break in for my new Ice Cream Maker attachment for the KitchenAid (otherwise known as Esther).  I found four to try and printed them out for later and trekked home in a downpour.  Did you know there are 3 UPS buildings in a 1 block radius in Watertown?  Neither did I.   I had to go to all of them before finding my ice cream maker and heading home with it to freeze.

Now: Day 2 Ice Cream Maker is frozen and I can’t find the Ice cream recipes I so carefully weeded through – ANYWHERE.  They’re gone the way of the cooler temperatures so I’ll use the one from the KitchenAid book that came with it, it can’t be that bad right?  And you know in all fairness to the KitchenAid people – it probably wasn’t, the custard base tasted fine and the berries were delicious (like a big kid slushpuppy glazed in Chambord).  But I couldn’t wait and poured the STILL STEAMING custard into the nicely frozen ice cream maker.  Failure.  SO.MUCH.FAILURE.  I turned it on and went to watch 30Rock, nothing happened but some sweat peeing onto the counter.  Sadness.

The next morning it was full of shard of ice – like it had melted and refrozen all wrong.  The worst experience ever with ice cream.  Maybe take two will be better?  Keep your fingers crossed for me because those stillettos of ice were just not pleasant melting in my mouth.  Not at all.

Custard Ice Cream with Mixed Berries
Note: I’m sure with patience I can actually make this ice cream.  Now if I only knew where I had put that down.

Mixed Berry Mash
2 cups mixed berries, I used raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries
2 Tbs of your favorite liquor or brandy (I used Chambord and it tasted EXACTLY like a blue slush puppy)

Mix the berries together in a bowl with the liquor and mash them a bit with a masher so they’re all about he same size and some of the juice has been a little pressed out.

Custard Ice Cream Base
2 1/2 cups half and half
8 Egg Yolks
1 cup sugar (I used 2/3 cup)
2 1/2 cups whipping cream
4 tsp Vanilla
1/8 tsp salt

In a saucepan heat the half and half to just bubbling – stirring often to keep it from scalding.
Mix the sugar and egg yolks together in a medium bowl stirring until they’re thick and ribbony, about 2 minutes of mixing by hand.  Mix in the half and half to the eggs and sugar slowly while continuing to stir to keep the eggs from scrambling.  Stir the whole thing until it has set and is a light yellow color.  Return the egg, sugar, and half and half mixture to the pan and bring to a second simmer stirring constantly until it starts to lightly bubble on the edges – DO NOT BOIL IT. Put the hot custard base back into your mixing bowl and gently stir in the vanilla, salt and cream.  Cover and do what I was too impatient to do and CHILL IT.  Watch a movie, have a nap, go to bed then make breakfast.  AFTER cooling put the chilled custard in the bowl of your ice cream maker and follow the instructions.  Add the mixed berries at the very very end just in the last two or three twirls of the ice cream maker.  And there it is.  I hope you have better luck than I did.