Valentine’s Day is approaching.  This brings a tangle of complicated thoughts into my head.  On the one hand I love rose covered china (particularly certain iterations of Royal Albert’s Old English Rose (not to be confused with the same’s Old Country Rose pattern which is quite different) which I am currently stalking on eBay), I love fresh raspberry-colored roses, I love cakes decorated with icing roses, I love pink and white and raspberry colored ribbons, and making pretty paper valentines.

And as much as I love all that, and I truly do, if I think about it too much, I am entirely likely to begin thinking about how I have never experienced a romantic Valentine’s Day, and that will lead naturally into a catalog of disappointments, which will invariably end in feelings of bitterness and frustration, all of which I would prefer to avoid.

But then again, is not the failure of romance (with a lower case r) the right and proper stuff of Romance (with an upper case R)?  If Elizabeth Bennet was immediately attracted to Mr. Darcy, who was open and congenial from the start, and he proposed to her right away, there would be no story to tell.  (Certainly not one that would keep us interested for 200 years.)  And would we care so much about poor Jane Eyre if she came from a loving family and Mr. Rochester had no secrets hidden in the attic?

No, rather than wasting my time thinking about what might have been, perhaps it is better to steal away to one of little Johnny Keats’ secluded bowers and there share a cup of tea and piece of buttered bread with the Lady of Shallot.  Her days are numbered and I am sure she could do with a little tea and sympathy.  Perhaps we could convince dear Chopin to play a little for us afterwards.

Between now and then, however, I am planning a real Valentine’s tea party with living guests, so cherry and raspberry treats have been on my mind much as of late.

In fact, my visions of raspberries and cherries have been part of a larger color convergence that I have been experiencing over the past few weeks.  When did it start?  I can’t say definitively, but it does seem to have begun when I bought a cerise car at the end of December.

To begin at the beginning, I must return to my second-grade classroom and introduce you to my classmate Margaret.  I adored Margaret, for she could make me laugh unlike anyone else I knew.  And she did so all day long.  I was seated behind her, and she would turn and make faces at me or pass me silly notes or do any thing to make me giggle, which I did readily and with the honesty of a seven-year-old girl.  Our teacher regularly threatened to separate us, but I had no control over my giggling, no matter how dire the threat.

It was Thanksgiving time, and our teacher had visited Plymouth Planation the summer before, and was treating us to a slide show from her trip.  She had a terrible cold that week, and our classroom was heavy with the scent of Halls Mentholyptus cough drops.  Margaret, I can safely say at this time, was irretrievably bored by the Mayflower pilgrims, and was entertaining me more than the slide show was.  Our inattention finally drove the teacher to turn on the lights and distribute pictures of the pilgrims and the Native Americans for us to color.  Margaret asked to switch crayon boxes with me, and I agreed.

Certainly it is difficult to understand something that cannot be explained, but in Margaret’s crayon box, I found the most intriguing color red crayon.  Not a straightforward red, it was more of a deep raspberry color, not quite pink, with enough blue to be noticeable but not quite so much as to be purplish.  I was entranced by this color, and I was desperate to have the crayon – or rather the half crayon, because that is all that was left of it.  There was no paper label on it, so I couldn’t tell who had manufactured it or what name they had bestowed upon that color.  Innocent that I was, I didn’t think of stealing it.  Instead I asked where she had gotten it, what kind it was, where I could get one of my own.  She didn’t know, of course.  She was one of the younger siblings in a large family who had moved here from New Jersey.  She had a multitude of older brothers and sisters, so it is possible that the particular crayon I desired had been acquired long ago and far away.  The only thing certain was that it was not made by Crayola, the maker of my new box of 64 colors.

I asked Margaret if I could keep the crayon, telling her how much I loved the color and explaining that I had never seen another like it.  But Margaret, not being in the spirit of generosity that day, saw this as an opportunity for personal gain, and refused to part with it for less than my entire box of 64 colors.  I didn’t hesitate to trade away my new crayons, because I knew there were more boxes just like that one at the nearby department store.  My mother, however, did not approve of my dealings.  She could not accept that I would trade a whole box of new crayons for one old, worn crayon.  She made me trade back.

Since then, I have sought that color everywhere.  For many years, there was nothing at all made in that color.  (Think back to Miami Vice, Moonlighting, and LA Law:  did they ever feature anything a in deep raspberry red?  Not burgundy, not maroon, not wine, not dusty rose, but a deep, pinkish, raspberry red?  No, that was not a color of the 1980s.)  Then, several years ago, manufacturers started to produce an occasional item in that color – a ribbon, fine wool yarn, the lining to a cosmetic bag – but only occasionally, and always as unobtrusive accent.  Recently, more and more things have begun appearing in variations of that color, until I suddenly found myself in possession of some lovely little notebooks with deep raspberry red covers, tea cups and mugs with deep raspberry red flowers on them, three skeins of soft wool yarn to make a deep raspberry red wrap to cuddle up in, yards of deep raspberry red ribbons and fabric, and roses printed on a tablecloth.  I also bought a red-currant colored matelassé coverlet for my bed, and I discovered a piece of antique fabric in my collection that matches and is a fine fit as a tablecloth on the tea table in the bedroom.

Being surrounded thus as I am at the moment with all things raspberry colored, and it being the dead of winter with summer raspberries but a dim memory, it is not surprising that I experienced a strong urge for raspberry scones this past weekend.

I had extra teenagers at my house this weekend, so I made an extra-large batch of scones.  I am glad I did, because for all I made, I managed to get only one for myself.  This is a good recipe to make if you have guests for brunch or want to bring in a treat for your friends in the office or for your next book group meeting.  Or, better still, this will make enough for you to freeze some so you can have one anytime you want one.  This will make 16 large scones.

Raspberry Scones:

4 c. flour

2 tbs. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

12 tbs. butter (1 1/2 sticks)

2/3 c. sugar

zest of one large orange

3 eggs

1 1/2 c. whole milk or part milk and part cream

raspberries, partially thawed if frozen

Preheat oven to 400° F.  Butter a large baking sheet and set it aside.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.  With your fingers, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine crumbs.  Toss in sugar and orange zest.

Lightly mix together the eggs and milk and/or cream (you can use half & half or all cream, if you prefer; richness is desirable here), and then slowly pour over flour/butter mixture, tossing the dry ingredients with a large fork (a pastry fork works very well for this), just until all the flour is moistened.  You will have a very soft dough.

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and flatten it slightly into roughly a 10″ circle.  Sprinkle lightly with flour and gently turn half the dough over on itself.  Flatten again and taking the dough from the opposite hemisphere, gently fold the dough over on itself again, lightly pressing the layers together to make another rough 10″ circle.  Spread the raspberries over the top of the dough and gently repeat the folding process again, pressing the berries into the dough without totally crushing them into juice.

Divide the dough in half, and form each half into a circle about 1 1/2″ thick.  Place the two rounds of dough on the baking sheet on diagonal corners, keeping in mind that the scones will rise quite a bit in the oven and giving them room to expand.

With a long, flat knife, or better yet, a bench knife, cut the rounds of dough into 8 equal portions by pushing the knife straight down into the dough and lifting it straight up again.

If you wish, spread a little milk or cream over the top of the dough and sprinkle with sugar or sanding sugar.  (I used coarse, sparkling white sugar.)

Place in the oven and bake until deep golden brown, about 20-25 minutes.

Soon your kitchen will be warm and smell of raspberries.

No butter or jam is needed for these, but a pot of Lady Grey or Darjeeling tea would be just perfect.  Or a large glass of milk.

I meant to make a quick little cake for teatime today, something light and bright and pretty to enjoy but leave me time to do other things, but I became so enamored of it (and all the colors of it) that I spent the entire afternoon photographing it and moving it in and out of the light, trying to capture its magic.  Needless to say, I didn’t get anything else done.  So I thought I had better write down the ingredients now, before I forget what went into this wonder.

It all started with a Moro orange that was mistaken for a regular orange and was consequently ignored and left to shrivel.

I meant to make a simple orange & lemon loaf cake, but when I decided to use that Moro orange for the glaze, not realizing what it was until I cut it, of course, it made the glaze such a bright, lovely color, that the normally delicious cake became irresistible.

I try always to buy organic lemons because I almost always use the zest, but this winter I have thrown away more lemons than I have used because they have begun spoiling as soon as I get them home from the store.  Even in the refrigerator, the lemons have been deteriorating rapidly.  I had only two little lemons that were unspoiled, so I decided to use the zest in the cake and add the juice to the glaze.  But since that wasn’t very much zest (or juice), I supplemented with the zest from a softball-sized navel orange.

For the cake:

1 c. butter

2 c. sugar

zest from two small lemons (or one large lemon)

zest from one large orange (or two small oranges)

2 tbs vanilla brandy (my favorite flavoring this winter)

4 very large eggs

I can hardly believe January is almost over.  Usually, January drags on for half of eternity, but this year, it has sped right by.

I suspect, this has much to do with Facebook.  I am relatively new to Facebook, having been forced into it late in the fall.  I have not taken advantage of it to reconnect with my high school classmates (and I will do my very best to avoid doing so), but I have befriended several of my cousins who were previously quite distant and unknown to me.

I like that Facebook makes it easy to share photographs, but since I have never really known most of these cousins, I am often in a sort of Limbo; a Facebook exchange is no substitute for actually sitting down with any one of them and having a genuine conversation, so they have become more than strangers but remain somewhat less than actual friends.

Similarly, through my work, I met a woman who lives in California.  I have spoken to her a few times (at length on one notable occasion), and I think I like her very much.  She is easy to talk to, and we exchanged a variety of ideas and minor confidences.  We could become friends, I suppose, but we might not.  It is difficult to predict which way things will go.  As with my previously unknown cousins on Facebook, I have an idea of her, but that idea is largely untested and may be inaccurate.

I am unaccustomed to this sort of uncertainty.  When I first met Crystal, and later when I met Tamika, there was no hesitation, there was no question of would we or wouldn’t we be friends.  These friendships were instantaneous.  And they are enduring because no matter how much time passes between visits, we are able to pick up exactly where we left off as if only minutes had elapsed since we last spoke.

Crystal, Tamika, and Carol are among the people whose spirits I carry with me in my heart so that they are always present.  I have not experienced any such thing from a friendly (yet remote) “FB” acquaintance.  Thus, I find that the Facebook postings require deciphering, and it takes time to distill meaning from them, if there was any meaning in them to begin with.  Factoring in the time this takes, I think it accounts for much of the speediness of the month of January.  So far, the majority these postings have not been proven to be “value-added” communications.

I would prefer it if they could come over one or two at a time and spend an afternoon talking about things that matter to them over a plate of toasted teacakes and a lovely citrusy syrup-soaked cake.  And a large pot or two of tea, of course.

And perhaps a plate of crunchy coconut cookies for contrast:

Sharing a cup of tea would be every so much nicer than a status update about the weather in Ohio.  Or the traffic there.

This recipe is adapted from a book I bought in England (Afternoon Tea Parties by Susannah Blake), so the measurements are given mostly by metric weights.  The recipe works, so I am not making any mathematical conversions to keep it that way.  For anyone who doesn’t already own a digital kitchen scale, I highly recommend purchasing one.

225 g all-purpose white flour

1/2 tsp fine sea salt

1 tsp instant yeast OR 2 tsp regular yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water

15 g soft brown sugar

1/2 medium-sized whole nutmeg, grated

60 g (or a little more) “mixed dried vine fruits”  (I used a combination of equal parts red “Cheri” raisins, golden raisins, and small black “Flame” raisins for this batch, although any similar combination works well.  I would have included currants if I had had any in the cupboard.)

zest of one large orange

40 g butter

120 ml whole (full-fat) milk, plus a little extra to brush on the tops of the rolls before baking

butter, to serve

Combine the butter and milk in a small saucepan and heat just until until butter melts.

Mix together the dry ingredients (including the instant yeast, if you are using that, or with the dissolved regular yeast).  When the milk and butter are quite warm but not hot, add the liquid to the dry ingredients to form a soft dough.  Turn onto a floured work surface and knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.

Allow the dough to rise in a buttered bowl until doubled, usually 1 1/2 – 2 hours.  Divide the risen dough into 8 equal portions and shape each one into a small ball.  Place the shaped dough on a greased baking sheet a couple inches apart and flatten slightly.

Allow the teacakes to rise again until doubled, anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours, depending on the temperature of your kitchen.  Preheat the oven to 400° F.  Brush the tops of the teacakes with a little milk (or light cream, if you have some) and bake until golden brown.

The fresh teacakes are delicious right out of the oven, but they are traditionally served cut in half, toasted, and buttered.  My reading all confirms that they best toasted on a long-handled fork over an open fire, but since I don’t have either the toasting fork or the open fire, I use my toaster oven, and that works well too.

It’s worth making a double batch to share with your friends.  It will show them that you really do care.

ice formation on my living room window

Arctic air mass.

sunrise as viewed through my icy window

I like the words “arctic air mass.”

sunrise as seen through the ice on my living room window

Of course, I don’t actually like the arctic air mass itself, and one is moving in rather rapidly.

sunrise viewed through the ice on my living room window

Cold is one thing, frigid is something else altogether.

afternoon sunshine as seen through my icy kitchen window

afternoon sunshine through my icy kitchen window

silvery afternoon light through my icy kitchen window

That, by the way, is not a complaint.  I am not allowed to complain about the cold because I complain constantly about the heat all summer.  I figure I can want it one way or the other, but I can’t want it both.  I choose cold weather over hot weather every time.

sunrise through icy window

I haven’t started watching the second season of Downton Abbey yet.  Last spring, one day when I was feeling ill, I found the first season of Downton Abbey available for streaming on PBS.org.  I made a batch of apricot scones and a large pot of tea, and sat down to watch all four episodes in one go.  I couldn’t have stopped watching if I tried, but I had no desire to try.  I devoured the program and I felt ever so much better when it was over.  So this time, I know to wait for all the episodes to be available before I begin; I can wait a few more weeks to see the second season, but I couldn’t wait a week in between episodes.  I don’t have that much stamina.

The New York Times published a feature on the books that people are reading while they await their next Downton fix.  One of the books on the publishers’ list of recommendations is Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford.  I have been looking for a suitable used copy of the book for quite some time but haven’t found one locally yet.  The DVD of the televised version of it, however, made it to the top of my Netflix queue, so I have that to watch this weekend.  It seems wildly appropriate for the atmospheric conditions.

I just put three loaves of lovely beige whole-wheat bread in the oven.  I designed it specifically to be particularly receptive to peanut butter, composing it primarily from white whole-wheat flour, brown sugar, and milk.  And I bought a fresh jar of Teddy peanut butter too.  Tomorrow I am going to have a really good peanut-butter sandwich.

Tonight though, I’m going to watch my movie after I take the bread out of the oven.  In the meanwhile, here is a little something that will make the approaching arctic air mass a little easier to live with:  chocolate bread pudding.

Bread pudding is one of those things that is fabulous no matter what you put in it, and it is great for using up those little bits of leftover things that need to be used before they spoil.  You can put in whatever you have on hand.  Apples and raisins are traditional (and delicious), but sometimes I like to mix it up a bit and put in spinach and mushroom and cheddar cheese instead.  You really can’t go wrong if you keep your sweet and your savory a respectable distance apart (meaning don’t put cinnamon and spinach in together).

I like to use cranberry-walnut sandwich bread when I make chicken sandwiches.  I made some in the fall, intending to write a post about it, but time got away from me as it so often does, and I stuck half a loaf in the freezer so I could do it “later.”  Then I bought several bags of cranberries when they were on sale and stuck those in the freezer too, apparently on top of the bread.  I spent the next several weeks thinking that whole pile in the back of the freezer was cranberries, but to my great surprise, this week when I took out some cranberries to make cranberry sauce, I found that half loaf of bread.  It cried to be made into bread pudding.  How could I resist?

Before Christmas, I bought two bags of oranges and some pink grapefruit.  Then I was given some red navel oranges.  Then I bought some clementines.  Then this week I bought some Moro oranges and some white grapefruit.  In between, we had (literally) a bushel of apples.  Needless to say, some of those first oranges (having rested in the refrigerator all this time) are reaching the end of their allotted time on earth.  And because oranges have such an affinity for chocolate, I thought a little orange zest in the custard would be quite welcome.

And let’s face it: it’s not chocolate bread pudding without chocolate.  I have seen recipes that call for the chocolate to be melted into the milk so that the whole of the custard becomes chocolate, but I like to have chunks of melted dark chocolate in my pudding, so I leave the chunks quite large.  And since the bread had cranberries in it, I thought the pudding could only benefit from the addition of more dried cranberries (also delicious with chocolate).

In a great confluence, I also had extra milk and eggs (a rare thing to be sure).

So as not to impede the spontaneity of the pudding, it is best not to give exact measurements.  The idea is to use up stock on hand, so whatever you have is what you will make.  My half loaf of bread filled my medium sized souffle dish perfectly, so that is how much pudding I made.  Sometimes I have far more bread collected in the freezer, and I fill a much larger baking dish.  Use what you have.

As for the milk-to-egg ratio, it is quite flexible.  Generally speaking, I use one egg to one cup of milk, but if you have only 3 eggs and need 4 cups of milk to cover the bread and assorted bits in your dish, then it won’t suffer.  The same applies if you have a few leftover egg yolks.

Sugar is added to taste.  For a quart of milk with four eggs, I might put in half a cup of sugar, or maybe a little more if I am not using chocolate.  (Use no sugar at all for a savory pudding, but do use half a teaspoon of salt and some pepper and herbs to complement the greens, cheese, and other vegetables.)  The sugar can be white or brown, depending on your intentions.  Both are good, but the brown sugar will provide a more pronounced flavor.  This can be desirable depending on what else you are putting in.  This time, knowing I already had chocolate, orange, and cranberries, I used white sugar so as not to add a competing flavor.

That said, do add a little vanilla, or better still, vanilla brandy.  I put in a couple generous tablespoons of vanilla brandy, and I could have added a little more still without it being too much.  Vanilla brandy loves bread pudding as much as I do.

In preparing the bread this time, I was in a rush, so I cubed it.  That was a mistake.  I should have take the time to tear it as I usually do.  The torn edges of the bread will readily coalesce with one another, making a solid, sliceable pudding when it is cold.  When the bread is cubed with perfectly straight edges, they cubes stay as cubes, and the texture of the pudding is adversely affected. Next time I promise to take more time and cut slices and then tear them into bite-sized pieces.

Butter your baking dish well.  Toss together the torn bread, chocolate, and cranberries.  Lightly beat the eggs into the milk.  (Whole milk will make a richer, more delectable pudding, but use any milk you have, particularly if it a choice between using almost-sour milk today and pouring spoiled milk down the sink tomorrow.)  Stir in the sugar and then add the vanilla or vanilla brandy to the milk mixture.  Stir in the finely grated orange zest and grate a little fresh nutmeg into it too, if you have a nutmeg hanging around.  It ties the whole thing together.

Pour this milk mixture over the bread, making sure all the bread is covered (add a little more milk if you misjudged it; it is okay to just pour it over the top until you have as much as you need) and allow the bread to soak up the custard for a half hour or more.  It is not necessary to refrigerate the mixture during this time.  If you are preparing it a day ahead, however, it should be refrigerated, but if you are baking it in the very near future, it is fine at room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 325°F.  My mother always used to bake bread puddings in a water bath, but I had trouble finding the right sized pans to do this with, particularly when I was making a lasagna pan full of bread pudding, so I gave it up.  You can if you want to and know you have suitable pans to do it.  Otherwise, it will come out quite nicely just baked by itself on the oven rack.

The length of time you bake it will naturally depend on how large your dish is and how many eggs you put in the custard.  You want the crust to be deep golden brown and the center to be set.  If the top looks done, but the center is just a little runny still, it is usually okay to take it out of the oven and let it cool; the center will firm-up as it cools.

This is a wonderful addition to any brunch, or as a breakfast on its own, or a warming snack.  It might be a little heavy for dessert, unless you have a very light meal, such a vegetable soup.  But any way you eat it, it will bring warmth and enjoyment into your day.

Today was what I have begun referring to as a “home day.”  I used to say it was my day off, but that is misleading, because I am usually as busy if not busier on my “day off” than I am on a work day, so the term “home day” simply means that all the work I did today was at home, and none of it was paid.  Amongst my many accomplishments today were making a chocolate bread pudding (recipe and photos to follow this weekend), roasting a turkey (complete with stuffing, roasted potatoes, roasted squash, gravy, and cranberry sauce), doing the laundry, washing dishes, sweeping the floor, and taking 359 photographs (but none of the turkey, although I wish I had had enough light to photograph the potatoes – they were beautiful!).

Here is a selection of the breakfast photographs; I might write more about them another day when it is not so late and I don’t have to get up so early in the morning, but on the whole, I think they speak well for themselves:

It is good to start each day with a healthy breakfast.  (If only there was more time to enjoy it…)

I have an idea of Christmas that I keep close by in my head, within easy reach, a ready vision whenever it’s needed throughout the year.  It’s a charming and delightful vision, full of hot cocoa and ice skating parties with bonfires, picture puzzles and mystery novels, cookies and bowls of popcorn, hot baths and warm blankets, late nights and lazy mornings, snowmen and toboggans and wools socks, with cats and dogs and family and a great many friends.  My ideal Christmas isn’t a single day, but the whole 12 days, which would make today, December 6th, Epiphany, the last day of my ideal Christmas.

If given my way, I would spend the whole 12 days of Christmas at rest, enjoying the company and the season, with no appointments, no obligations (other than to a good night’s sleep), and no stress.  Unfortunately, my reality has been as far from my ideal as it can possibly be.  During these 12 days, I have bought a used car out of necessity (oh, the stress of that ordeal!); worked 10 of those days (and bought the car on the 11th, and spent the 12th day with a ferocious headache); baked 30 lbs of flour (and uncounted pounds of butter) into innumerable breads, cookies, and pies; driven over 1,000 miles; marked the 11th anniversary of my husband’s death and the first anniversary of my father’s death, and been informed of the death of my aunt yesterday (my mother’s sister) and the death of a good friend who passed away in mid-December.

I wish it was different, and maybe someday it will be.  I certainly hope I will never get any further away from my ideal than this, as I can’t imagine any time more difficult than this has been.  And as such, I dread the usual question-greeting, “So, how was your holiday?”  Skim the question, change the subject.

Sleep has been elusive, the children demanding, the weather cold.  So I am tired and in need of seclusion.  It is at this time of year that I enjoy listening to the early Anonymous 4 albums; they are, as the woman who introduced me to them said, peace-making:  the austerity of the music is well suited to the frigidity of the season.  Austerity and frigidity, however, must be offset by large doses of cinnamon.  Only cinnamon can accomplish this Herculean task (although having a bowl of oranges in reserve and a bottomless pot of tea nearby can be of additional comfort).  And while there are many delightful ways of enjoying cinnamon, the one that is perhaps best suited to the rigors of January is Applesauce Spice Cake.

At first glance, the unadorned applesauce cake looks much like my homely pear gingerbread:

But upon closer inspection, the completed applesauce cake is full of raisins and walnuts and has a delightful coating of cream-cheese frosting flavored with vanilla brandy.  Best of all, it smells heavenly while it’s baking.

It should surprise no one that I don’t like store-bought applesauce.  I don’t like the texture – it’s too fine and often grainy and not at all like homemade – so I always make my own.  I like to leave the skins on while the apples cook so the applesauce turns out pink.  Then I just use the food mill with the largest disk to remove the skins and make a chunky sauce.

The applesauce needs time to cool before being added to the cake batter, but it doesn’t take long at all.

This is one of my first original recipes, and one of which I am very proud.

2 1/2 c. flour

2 tsp soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp mace

1/4 tsp ginger

2 tbs raw wheat germ (optional, but gives the cake added nutrition)

raisins and walnuts to taste (I like to add about a cup of each)

1/2 c. butter, softened

1 c. brown sugar

2 eggs

1/2 c. whole milk

2 c. chunky applesauce at room temperature

icing – either cream cheese (recipe follows) or 7-minute icing works well with this cake

Preheat the oven to 350°.  Butter and flour two 8″ round cake pans.  (You can use two 9″ pans if you prefer, or one 9 x 11″ sheet pan, but I like the thicker cakes made in the 8″ pans.)

Combine the flour, soda, salt, spices, wheat germ, raisins and walnuts, whisking well.

Beat the butter and brown sugar until light.  Add the eggs and beat until very light, scraping down the bowl as necessary.  Add the applesauce.

Add the dry ingredients and milk alternately, stirring just until all the flour is moistened.  Divide the batter evenly in the pans and smooth the tops.  Bake until the cakes are pleasantly brown and the centers spring back when touched lightly and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Allow cakes to cool in the pans on a rack for 5 minutes, then remove from pans and allow to cool fully on a rack.

For the cream-cheese icing, beat together 8 oz cream cheese and 4 oz butter (both at room temperature), adding a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of vanilla or vanilla brandy.  Gradually beat in 1 lb. of confectioner’s sugar and whip the whiz-bang out of it, until the icing is light and fluffy.  No additional liquid is necessary.  The cream cheese will become very soft as it is whipped.  

Make sure the cake is completely cool before applying the icing.

This is a simple, old-fashioned cake, and it doesn’t really need any decoration, but if you want to dress it up for a party, the best thing to do is to chop additional walnuts and gradually press them into the sides of the iced cake, as in the top photo.

I am more likely to drink a tall glass of cold milk with this cake and then have a cup of scalding-hot tea afterwards.  There is something about the coldness of the milk that really complements the cake, and the tea finishes it off smoothly.  Oh, to cuddle up under a blanket with a good book and a great snack – a nap is sure to follow, and that can only be a good thing.

Sweet dreams and good rest.

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Winter is here.  The season of dry skin, sniffles, and cold feet is upon us.  And yet with so many warming ways to counterbalance these wintry conditions, I would be untruthful if I said any of them was a source of displeasure for me.

I love having the soup pot simmering on the stove.

I love having loaves of freshly baked bread cooling in my kitchen.

I love having hot lemon and honey to soothe my throat.

And even more than all that,

I love having gingerbread at tea time on a cold, snowy afternoon.

Of course, I would love it even more still if I had a fireplace next to which I could snuggle, but I make do the best I can with candles.  It’s not the same obviously, but they do give off a nice light.

I have spent my whole life trying to manufacture opportunities to curl up under a warm blanket with a good book and a pot of tea.  Winter is an opportunity just waiting to happen.

I have always loved gingerbread.  To me, it represents security and warmth; it is protective and comforting.  And despite its homeliness and unpretentious old-fashionedness, the disguised complexity of gingerbread stirs my imagination.  There is more going on in a small gingerbread than meets the eye.

I have made gingerbread in a wide variety of ways: with wholewheat flour, with marmalade, with pumpkin, with apples, and countless other varieties.  This one, with little chunks of pear, is by far my favorite.

The pear helps to keep the gingerbread moist and its succulence is a pleasant surprise.  If you don’t have a ripe pear or two hanging around, just waiting to realize a higher purpose, it is still good without.

The real secret to this gingerbread is the molasses.

Many gingerbread recipes call for no molasses at all, and many other call for only a small quantity, often as little as 1/4 cup.  To get a full-flavored, moist gingerbread, use a full cup.  I use Grandma’s Molasses.  I do not like Crosby’s Molasses.

it's old advice but true: to get the molasses (or honey) out of the measuring cup, coat the inside of the cup with a thin layer of oil and the sticky stuff will pour right out.

Pear Gingerbread

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. butter, at room temperature

1 egg

1 c. molasses

1 c. orange juice (freshly squeezed if it all possible – it really does make a difference)

2 ripe pears, peeled, cored, and cubed

2 1/2 c. flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Butter and flour the pan(s) of your choice.  The first time I made this recipe, I wanted a loaf of gingerbread, so I used a 9×5″ pan, but there was too much batter, and it spilled all over the bottom of my oven and made an unattractive mess.  I don’t have any 8×4″ loaf pans, but if I did, I would use two.  The gingerbread might work nicely in a Bundt pan, but the kugelhopf mold I have is very large, and I wanted to be able to cut small slices, so I did not choose that one.  However, just before making this batch, I had been looking at the Miette cookbook online (that one is going on my Christmas list), and although the pages available to preview did not contain many of the pretty photographs that I really wanted to see, there was a note in the introductory pages stating that the San Francisco bakery makes only 6″ cakes.  The author, Meg Ray, asserts this is for aesthetic reasons, and I was admittedly a bit dismissive of this idea at first.  (At the opposite end of the scale, I am the one who was enchanted by the enormity of the cake in the picture book Carl’s Birthday, and as a direct result of the charming illustrations, I bought a pair of 11 x 3″ cake pans so I could make such a beautiful, gigantic cake for real.)

But thinking about it clearly, I realized that 6″ cakes are perfect for tea time, and they are in keeping with the proportions of my tea table, and therefore 6″ gingerbreads were perfect.  This recipe makes three 6″ cakes:  one for today and two to freeze for later.

Beat the butter and sugar until very light.  (It is for things like this that I am most grateful to have Carol’s stand mixer at my house; I would never have the patience to beat them as much with the handheld mixer.)  When the butter and sugar are as full of air as they can be, add the egg and continue beating until the sugar is completely dissolved and the mixture is no longer grainy.  Stir in the molasses.

While the eggs and sugar are being aerated, combine the dry ingredients, whisking until thoroughly combined.  I don’t particularly care for the flavor of cloves, so I used to use a scant measure.  But when combined with other strong flavors, such as molasses, the cloves are balanced, and the full 1/2 tsp is necessary.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/egg mixture alternately with the orange juice, stirring just until smooth.  If you choose to do this with the mixer, be careful not to overbeat the batter at this point.  I have been hand-finishing most of my batters lately, having mistakenly overbeaten a couple things with the mixer recently that turned out disappointments.  Gently fold-in the pears.

Pour batter into the prepared pan(s), smoothing the top as much as possible.  Bake until the top springs back when lightly touched and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Baking times will vary depending on the number and size of the pans used.

Light the fire, put the kettle on, whip the cream (with a little sugar and vanilla), and gather up a good book.  Let it Snow, let it snow, let it snow!

All the pie is gone.  Does that mean Thanksgiving is over?

It is a gray, drizzly sort of day, the kind that some years comprises the entire month of November.  The rain is melting what is left of last week’s snow, making a thick white fog all around.  I have not cooked a thing in three days; we have been managing quite well on Thanksgiving leftovers.  But with the weather such as it is, and with the roasting pan muscling the milk out of the refrigerator for the last three days, and the refrigerator door not being reliably shut for the last three days as a result, today has become the day for making soup.

I love turkey soup.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  Despite the dirty dishes.

Thanksgiving had long been my favorite holiday before the experiences of one particular Thanksgiving day set it miles above every other day of the year.

For two and a half very short years in the mid-1980s, my family lived in a large, beautiful house several miles out in the woods.  I fell in love with the house instantly upon seeing it, and I have never forgiven my father for selling it, as there has never been any other house in which I have been as comfortable as I was there.

The dirt road to that house had at one time gone through and connected to another dirt road — or two, depending on how you choose to view it — so that together, the roads made a wishbone shape.  But over time, through neglect and disuse, the roads became separated by an overgrown section that was rapidly returning to forest, making our house effectively near the end of a dead-end road, so that the only traffic that came by was people going to our neighbors’ house off the end of the road.

Our house had a large, sunny kitchen with a narrow breakfast area which had picture windows facing both east and west.  There was a spacious dining room with a bay window facing west, an enormous sunken living room with a proportionately enormous bowed window (also facing west) and a proportionately enormous fireplace.  There was a substantial and somewhat formal front hall with a wide staircase and a cozy first-floor sitting room.  Upstairs, there were three comfortably large bedrooms.

My mother had never had a dining room before (we had always eaten in the kitchen), so as soon as she had finished wallpapering and painting the entire house (which she did in generally excellent taste, although it took her the entire summer to accomplish), she had to buy dining room furniture (which she did rather ceremoniously).  She found a large table with tall, sturdy chairs and a lighted china cabinet.  Our everyday dishes had come out of laundry detergent boxes many years before, and were not, as you might guess, quite right for display in the china cabinet.  Luck was with her though, as we found a nearly complete set of white china with a green floral border and gold trim quite reasonably priced at a yard sale that fall.

And so it was that we came to our first holiday season in that house.

We woke up to a Thanksgiving snow storm, and the world all around us was magical.  I was ecstatic setting the table, taking the pretty plates out of the lighted cabinet.  I garnished extensively with parsley that year.

The snow kept falling, and after dinner, I couldn’t wait to take the dogs out for a walk.  We had two labrador retrievers, one black and one blond, and they were rather naughty dogs, although we loved them very much.  That day, the snow was nearly 30″ deep, so I didn’t need to keep them on a leash — the road hadn’t been plowed (it was a holiday, after all), and the dogs couldn’t run towards mischief in the deep snow, so they just jumped and played in the snow as we walked.  The tall maple trees made a canopy over the road, the branches bent with the heavy snow, a thick blanket of white over everything.  The only sound was the sound of snow falling.

I have never experienced another peace such as I felt that day.  Never have I known such beauty in nature.

Finally the dogs began to tire, and we headed back towards the house, arriving just before dusk.

My father had uncharacteristically built a fire in the fireplace and then taken my brother out for a walk in the snow, so they were nowhere to be found.  My mother, taking advantage of the quiet, was napping in her chair by the fire.  So when I came into the living room, the fire was burning brightly and all was quiet and warm.  I savored every delicious moment as the day turned to evening and dusk turned to darkness.

I will never forget the peace and the simple joy I felt that day.

I have never come close to repeating that experience, but I am always hopeful that some day I will be able to better it.

Dinner this year went well.  The table was beautifully set, all glimmering and shimmering with gold and and candlelight and optic glass and orange roses.

The food was very good, the turkey completely cooked and not too dry, the stuffing excellent.  The wine was good, the children were calm.  The pie was plentiful.

We were, however, very crowded.  This apartment, while of reasonable size for three people, was slightly over-capacity with eight for dinner.  Since we didn’t all fit in the kitchen to eat, I set up the dining table in the living room.  The table seemed to be more than large enough before we set it, but once all the dishes and glassware were on the table, there was no room left for the food.  And since the table we were eating on is the table that usually holds the lamp and the framed photographs, I cleared off the desk and covered it with a tablecloth so I could put the lamp and desserts on it, since there was no room in the kitchen for the pies and other desserts.  But the desk is small, and there wasn’t room for the coffee and punch, so I brought in the (very small) sewing table, covered that with a tablecloth, and made it a beverage station.  But there still was no room for the food, so we set up the ironing board (without a tablecloth) in the last of the floor space, and used it as a sideboard to hold the serving dishes.  The comfy living room chairs were pushed back against the wall to make room for the table, so there was no place to go after the meal, no other place to sit, so we stayed squeezed around the table until it was time for coffee and dessert.  This wasn’t bad, but not as nice as being able to get up, walk around, and adjourn to another room.  A room with sofas.  And a fireplace.

Clearly, I need a house with a dining room.  And a fireplace.

There was neither the space nor the light at the table for taking photographs, and my brother started carving the turkey while I was making the gravy, so I didn’t even get a picture of the turkey, although it was a desirable dark golden brown.  I will, however, have another chance next year.  I do, on the other hand, have plenty of photos of the food being prepared, so I can post them with the individual recipes.

Before next Thanksgiving, I will find some bookshelves, a rug, a china cabinet, and a few other things that I need to make us more comfortable.  I will continue to edit my collections and finish unfinished projects to make better use of the available space.  And having learned from this, my first Thanksgiving at home, I will be better prepared next year, but alas, I will not have a fireplace.  Someday I will.  But not next year.

Today, I will have turkey soup.  Or rather, I will have turkey stock today and turkey soup tomorrow.  Since it is better to cool the stock, skim the fat, and then clarify the broth, it is easiest to do as a two-day process.

I like to make as much turkey soup as I can.  It is one of those things that gets better overnight, and if I can go a few more days without cooking, so much the better.  I don’t recall ever getting tired of Thanksgiving leftovers.  In fact, as I have often said, for me, the real holiday is the day after Thanksgiving.  It is on that day that I get to relax and sleep in because there is no cooking to do.  In a good year, the dishes will all be done and the kitchen clean.  (This was not one of those years, but I was okay with that under the circumstances.)  And for the record, I will never go shopping the day after Thanksgiving.  For me, Black Friday is a day of rest without exception.

This year’s turkey was nearly 23 pounds.  The carcass was so large, I had to break it into pieces to fit it into my 7-quart Dutch oven, and then I had to cook it in two batches.  It is not a pretty process.  It is practical, and good in the end, but not particularly inviting of photographs.  So I did not even attempt any photos of the stock-making.  The process is simple and I hope familiar to everyone.

To begin, I removed as much of the remaining meat as I could and set it aside.  I will add the bits of turkey into the soup near the end of the cooking time.  The turkey wasn’t quite as ready to be made into soup as I was to make it, and I managed to fill a large glass baking dish with (mostly dark) meat.  I put the bones and the skin and miscellaneous meat scraps into the pot with the pan drippings that I didn’t use in the gravy (less the fat), all the leftover gravy, and the last bit of chicken stock that was leftover from making the stuffing.  To this, I added all the leftover wine from Thanksgiving dinner (about 2/3 of a bottle), some leafy celery tops, a little bit of leek, some bay leaves, peppercorns, and a few sprigs of thyme.  I let this simmer for about 3 hours with the cover ajar, then I scooped out the first half of the bones and replaced them with the bones I couldn’t fit in the first time around, and let it simmer for another couple hours.  Try to keep it at a simmer, not a boil.  This should be a slow, relaxed, lazy process.

The wine is an essential part of the stock.  As I learned a few years ago when making turkey soup after Thanksgiving, some flavors are fat soluble, and other flavors are alcohol soluble.  Therefore, in order to get the most flavor from your turkey, it needs both fat and alcohol.  I prefer to use white wine, but if red is all that is available, it will work just fine.  You can add a few cloves of garlic if you prefer.  I often do, but I didn’t today for no reason in particular.  And while garlic is optional, bay leaves are not.  (Lisa has a lovely bay laurel tree in her back garden, so she has fresh bay leaves available at all times.  I am envious.)  Stock made without bay leaves lacks the depth of flavor that stock made with them has.  I don’t add carrots or onions because I find they are too sweet in the finished stock.  Also, I will in all likelihood add carrots and onions to the finished soup, and so will have their contributions then.

When I have decided that the stock is done (after two or three hours of simmering), I strain out all the solid bits (bones, meat, skin, vegetables, herbs) I can, and put it to chill.  Once it is cold, I can easily scrape off the solidified fat.

To clarify the stock, I will bring it to room temperature and stir in two (or in this case, with such a large quantity of stock, probably three) beaten egg whites.  I will then bring it to a simmer over medium heat.  As it begins to get hot, the egg white will start to cook, trapping all the little bits that make the stock cloudy.  The cooked egg white (looking like a dirty snow bank) will rise to the top of the pot where it can be skimmed off, leaving the stock clear in the pot.  Do not allow the stock to boil while the egg is still floating; it will break up the egg-white “raft” and you will disperse tiny pieces that will be difficult to skim away.  You may wish to strain your stock through a fine cheesecloth at this point.  If your stock is still slightly cloudy after this, you may wish to repeat the process.  Do not, however, add the egg white to hot stock; it will cook immediately rather than slowly, and it will not capture any minute particles.  None of the clarifying steps are strictly necessary; it is just a little nicer to have clear stock for your soup, but you can omit the clarifying and simply make soup as soon as the stock has finished simmering.

I don’t know yet how I will prepare my turkey soup this year.  Turkey noodle, perhaps.  In the past, I have made turkey & rice, turkey chili with chocolate and squash (one my better chili efforts), and all manner of turkey vegetable soups.  We will have to wait and see how the spirit moves me tomorrow once I have the stock clarified.  At this point, anything is possible.

Oh, before I go, I must add that my bread & butter pickles were perfect.  Even my sister-in-law who likes sour pickles had a second helping of bread & butter pickles.  They were just like my grandmother used to make.  I was very pleased with them.

I will post some bread and pie recipes over the next few days.  The pumpkin pie made with maple syrup and maple sugar is truly delightful, and the rum-raisin apple pie will be a welcome addition to anyone’s upcoming holiday offerings.  And the salad too, since even my brother liked it.  Halfway through the meal he said to me, “I watched you make that salad, and I thought it was going to be the grossest thing in the world, and I didn’t think I was going to be able to eat it, but really, it’s very good.  I like it.  I didn’t think I would.”  Thankfully, I don’t get compliments like that every day.