Blackberry Buttermilk Bundt Cake

When I was young, my mother and I would go blackberry picking in McDade, Texas. 

We always went to the same farm, which was owned by a very small old woman who had puffy white hair. 

We would get there in the morning, wearing old clothes and wide-brimmed hats. 

My mother always wore gloves, because she has beautiful hands, and blackberry bushes are very thorny. 

We would pick blackberries for hours. 

It was hard work. Because the thorns tore up our hands, and because there were fire ants. 

We always got stung by fire ants. 

It was fun though: my brothers and I would run between the bushes 

and eat berries until we felt sick and dig in dusty red dirt that coated our skin. 

Whenever I think back though, I  forget about the fire ants and the dirt and the thorns. 

Instead, I remember that when we drove home, after a day in McDade, 

in the trunk of the car, all of my mother's pots and pans

were filled with 

gleaming 

blackberries. 

It made me feel plenty.  

It's many years later now. 

These past months have been difficult, what with school and all the uncertainty and ache that I guess comes with being 

20.   

But it doesn't matter anymore. Like the thorns and ants and dirt didn't matter. 

Summer is here now. 

And I feel plenty. 

And life feels like blackberries. 

Life is all blackberries. 

XOXO

Blackberry Buttermilk Bundt Cake
via SmittenKitchen.com

SmittenKitchen suggested making this with a variety of berries. But I love blackberries. So there ya go. I've included her recipe for glaze, which sounds amazing, but which I was too lazy to make. 
This entire cake was eaten in under 24 hours. I kid you not. 


Cake
2 1/2 cups (355 grams) plus 2 tablespoons (20 grams) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons (10 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt or table salt
1 cup (8 ounces or 225 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups (340 grams) granulated sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup (175 ml) buttermilk
3 cups (350 to 450 grams) mixed berries
Glaze
2 cups (240 grams) powdered or confections’ sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon (15 grams) unsalted butter, very, very soft
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Generously grease a 10-cup Bundt pan, either with butter or a nonstick spray.* Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk or sift 2 1/2 cups flour (leaving 2 tablespoons back), baking powder and salt together and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer or large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and lemon zest until light and impossibly fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Then, with the mixer on a low speed, add your eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between each addition. Beat in vanilla, briefly. Add 1/3 flour mixture to batter, beating until just combined, followed by half the buttermilk, another 1/3 of the flour mixture, the remaining buttermilk and remaining flour mixture. Scrape down from time to time and don’t mix any more than you need to. In the bowl where you’d mixed your dry ingredients, toss the berries with the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour. With a silicon spatula, gently fold the berries into the cake batter. The batter will be very thick and this will seem impossible without squishing the berries a little, but just do your best and remember that squished berries do indeed make for a pretty batter.
Spread cake batter — you might find it easier to plop it in the pan in large spoonfuls, because it’s so thick — in the prepared baking pan and spread the top smooth. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, rotating the cake 180 degrees after 30 (to make sure it browns evenly). The cake is done as soon as a tester comes out clean of batter. At 10 minutes before my baking time was up, a tester was totally wet with batter and I wascertain it would never be done in the estimated time. 7 minutes later, the same tester was clean as a whistle, so fret not.
Set cake pan on a wire rack to cool for 30 minutes, before inverting the cake onto a serving platter to cool the rest of the way. Cool completely. Once cool, whisk together the powdered sugar, lemon juice and butter until smooth and very, very thick. (If you’d like it thinner, add more juice, but I like the thick drippiness of it, seen above.) Spread carefully over top of cake, letting it trickle down the sides when and where it wishes. Serve at once or keep it covered at room temperature for 3 to 4 days.

Cherry Slab Pie

Meeting new people is hard. 

What do you talk about?



I usually start off with fashion related preliminaries: "I love your scarf." Or "sweet shoes." 
Then I don't know what to say. Sometimes we talk weather: "Gosh it's hot." 
Sometimes we figure out who our mutual friends are: "Wow we know the same people." 

And then I panic. What to say? What to say?

Depending on how poorly things are going, I inevitably ask: "Soooooo, what's your spirit animal?" 

This is may be the only thing I learned freshman year of college. 

For the clueless, your spirit or power animal is, according to Wikipedia representative of: "a person's connection to all life, their qualities of character and their power." It's tied up in Shamanism and totems and spirituality and all kinds of other stuff. The animal represents you and can be a symbol of your personal strength or guidance. 

Or something like that. 

People were into it. I've met cats, rabbits, lambs, mountain goats, wolves, butterflies, rabbits, birds of all kinds, dolphins, deer, pandas, monkeys... you get it. 

For a while I was a hummingbird: 
 
I think now I'm just a wren: 

But the thing is, only about 4% of the population REALLY likes talking about their spirit animal.

I think I'm going to start asking people about their spirit dessert. Because darling, I've found mine: 

I can envision this conversation at future parties: 
Me: (At a loss for what to say next) So. Umm. What's your spirit dessert?"
Other Person: (Begins backing away slowly) What?
Me: Oh, y'know! That dessert you have this really deep connection with, one that sort of describes your personality, that's a source of power and strength for you! Mine is Cherry Slab Pie! It's like a regular pie, except that it's flat and has like, DOUBLE THE CRUST, and there's this sweet/tart cherry filling and a drizzle of icing on top! And it's just, like, HEAVEN!
I'm telling you, I AM HEAVENLY! 

I'm going to make so many new friends. 

But really beauties, this pie. It is something else. Please make it. Enjoy it. Think of me. Because when I say it's my spirit dessert, I am so not kidding. 

xoxo

Cherry Slab Pie

via SmittenKitchen.com who adapted it from Martha Stewart

1 recipe Best Pie Crust (recipe below) 

6 cups cherries, pitted (I used regular cherries, however, if using sour cherries, adjust sugar accordingly)
3/4 sugar*
1/4 cup cornstarch
Juice of half a lemon
Pinch or two of salt
2 tablespoons heavy cream or one egg, beaten with a tablespoon of water

Glaze:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons milk or water or 1 tablespoon water plus 1 tablespoon lemon juice (I did this to make the glaze more interesting)

Preheat oven to 375°. In a large bowl, combine cherries, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and salt. Stir to combine; set aside.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the larger piece of dough into an 18-by-12-inch rectangle. Do your best to work quickly, keeping the dough as cold as possible (and tossing it in the freezer for a couple minutes if it softens too quickly; it is summer afterall) and using enough flour that it doesn’t stick to the counter. 

Transfer to a 15-by-10-by-1-inch rimmed baking sheet, (pastry will hang over sides of pan).  Pour cherry mixture into lined baking sheet; set aside.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out remaining piece of dough into a 16-by-11-inch rectangle. Drape over filling. Bring bottom pastry up and over top pastry. Pinch edges to seal. Using a fork, prick top crust all over. Brush with heavy cream or egg wash.

Bake until crust is golden and filling is bubbling, 40 to 55 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack until just warm to the touch, about 45 minutes.

In a medium bowl, stir together confectioners’ sugar and milk, water or lemon juice (or combination thereof) until desired glaze consistency is achieved. Use a spoon to drizzle over top. Serve warm or room temperature. Or cold. It's really good cold. 

Best Pie Crust 

from BAKED by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito 

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

3 cups flour

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup water

In a food processor whirl together the flour, sugar and salt. Cut the VERY COLD BUTTER into small pieces and blend until the mixture forms into pea-sized chunks. Dribble in water and whirl until dough just comes together.

Take dough out of processor and knead until dough comes together. Divide into two, wrap in plastic wrap and place in freezer for one hour before using.

xoxo

Embarrassment and Yellow Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Lemon Curd and Blueberries

All my efforts at social suavity tend to fail. 
I'm fine if I don't work at it and if I don't think about it.
But if I do...


Oh Lord Help Me.


What else can you do but laugh? 


Embarrassment is the strangest emotion. You want to die. But you want to laugh as you crawl into the hole you've dug for yourself. 


There are two kinds of awkward people, those who keep their episodes to themselves, and people who tell everyone about said episodes because somehow they believe that this will alleviate the embarrassment. Which it never does. 
Obviously, I'm in the latter category. 


In the past several months, my brain-t0-mouth-filter has been incapacitated. No. That's wrong. 
It's like my brain has been incapacitated. 
To say this is deeply unfortunate would be putting it mildly. 





Awkward Things

1. When you invite yourself along to other people's events,  and then they get annoyed because obviously they didn't invite you for a reason, and then you feel bad because you (wrongly) thought they wouldn't mind.

2. Facebook chat.

3. When you are so surprised by what someone else has said that literally you cannot get words out. I mean, you literally forget how to talk. 

4. Vibrams 

5. Not remembering people's names when they remember yours. 
6. When you accidentally drop the f-bomb as you give a wedding toast, in front of your entire extended family.

The list goes on for a long time but I don't really want to talk about this anymore.

Despite these unfortunate circumstances, I firmly believe that if you offer people cookies they will generally forgive you for all of your lack of social grace. 

Unless of course, you're awkward when you try to force the cookies on them.

Believe me, it's happened. 

More than twice. 

Anyways, the point of this is to say, DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT OFFERING PEOPLE CAKE . Because that's even more awkward than offering them cookies. Just, do not even think about it. Cake is messy. Cake has LAYERS. Cake can fall over. Cake has frosting. Just... don't even go there. 
Unless of course, you want to give cake to me, in which case I will be SO forgiving of your awkward flaws, because I like cake more than I like you. 

Or maybe I shouldn't say that.

Awkward.

Yellow Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Lemon Curd and Blueberries 

This is really fine. The cake itself is awesome, dense, light, filling, flavorful. If you're really ambitious you can make lemon curd yourself. I have done this before but it takes a lot of time. I simply used lemon curd from a jar. I am such a cheater.


For Cake
from SmittenKitchen.com


Yield: Two 9-inch round, 2-inch tall cake layers, and, in theory, 22 to 24 cupcakes, two 8-inch squares or a 9×13 single-layer cake (I have yet to audition the cupcakes, shame on me)


4 cups plus 2 tablespoons (480 grams) cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons (10 grams) baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon (5 grams) table salt
2 sticks (1 cup, 1/2 pound or 225 grams) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups (400 grams) sugar
2 teaspoons (10 ml) pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups buttermilk (475 ml), well-shaken
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans and line with circles of parchment paper, then butter parchment. (Alternately, you can use a cooking spray, either with just butter or butter and flour to speed this process up.)
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is just Incorporated.
Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then rap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles. (I like to drop mine a few times from two inches up, making a great big noisy fuss.) Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment, then cool completely, about 1 hour.



Cream Cheese Frosting
from SmittenKitchen.com
Makes 6 cups
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter room temperature
3 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Place cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl. With a handheld electric mixer, beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar and vanilla. Beat, on low speed to combine. If too soft, chill until slightly stiff, about 10 minutes, before using.


Make or Buy Your Own Lemon Curd

Blueberries


To Assemble Cake
Place first layer of cake on serving plate. Spread on a thick layer of lemon curd. Stack on second layer of cake. Frost the entire outside of cake with cream cheese frosting. You will perhaps have some leftover. Decorate creatively with blueberries. CONSUME. 

Raspberry Rhubarb Summer Dream Cream Pie

When I was younger, I had a mild obsession with Audrey Hepburn. 

And I read a biography of her. 

And I became rather depressed, because Audrey Hepburn was absolutely perfect. Absolutely perfect. 

She was a lady. 

She had eyebrows that I will be envious of forever. She was gracious, charming, delightful, positive, humble, generous, lovely, loving, lovable, classy, beautiful, friendly, romantic, exquisite, kind, vivacious, witty, starry, inspirational, inspired, poised, wise, spiritual, and many other adjectives with positive and/or uplifting connotations. She had fabulous taste, was a muse to untold legions, had The Longest Neck, chewed with her mouth closed, was a ballerina, never farted, and walked a billion miles a day so that she never ever gained weight ever. Did I mention her eyebrows?

Only Audrey Hepburn can be that many good adjectives at once. 

But you know what?

That bitch never made a Raspberry Rhubarb Summer Dream Cream Pie, or else we would have all heard about it.

If she had made this pie, we would all be worshiping at her sainted alter. 

You know who makes Raspberry Rhubarb Summer Dream Cream Pie?

Me. 

And you should too. 

Show that dead starlet a thing or two. 

Oh I am being slightly morbid and very vulgar today. I do apologize. 

 It's just because I'm so envious of those eyebrows. 

Anyways, the thing is, this pie is so flamboyantly delicious it deserves a string of adjectives even longer than Audrey's. Because it is really that good. Tart and sweet and rich and not rich and comforting, toothsome, delectable, super fine, lip-smacking, melt-in-your-mouth, thrilling, marvelous, splendid, BOFFO, dreamy, peachy, ducky, colorful, crisp, soft, warm, cold, flaky, tender, delicious, deliriously good, gone-in-three-minutes, yum, fabulous, excellent, heart warming, soul warming, practically-a-spiritual-experience, summery, blissful blissful blissful goodness. 

My eyebrows will never be counted among the splendors of the world. But this pie certainly will be.

xoxo

Raspberry Rhubarb Summer Dream Cream Pie

I love this so much. A new favorite. We ate the entire pie in less than a day. 

One half recipe Best Pie Crust 

Filling:
5 eggs
1 scant c. sugar
4 T. melted butter
½ t. vanilla

1/4 t. cinnamon
1 pint raspberries

1 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb, plus an additional 1/3 cup sugar

Topping:
1 t. sugar
¹/8 t. cinnamon

Position an oven rack to the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°.

Lightly butter a 9-inch pie plate. On a well-floured surface, roll pie dough into a circle large enough to cover the pie plate and hang 1 inch over the sides. Fit the dough into the pie plate, crimp the crust and place it in the refrigerator to chill while preparing the filling.

Combine the chopped rhubarb and 1/3 cup sugar and cook over moderate heat in a medium size saucepan, just until sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat. 

Beat the eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla and cinnamon in a mixer, or with a whisk, until completely combined and pale yellow. Remove the pie shell from the refrigerator, pour rhubarb/sugar combination  and raspberries into shell making an even layer. Pour filling over the fruit.

Combine sugar and cinnamon for topping and sprinkle over entire pie. Place pie on baking sheet and bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the filling has set and the crust is light brown. Allow the pie to cool. Eat.

Chocolate Pecan Pie

Darlings,

From now on, when ever anyone asks me how I am doing, I am not going to say,

"I'm great."

"I'm good."

"I'm fine."

"Okay."

"Tired."

I am going to say:

"I am loving life." 

Because being alive is actually really spectacular. And it's inspirational to affirm the wonder of the world to other people, as well as yourself.

So there you go. 

Also it is Thanksgiving. And I am so grateful. My father likes to tell me that Gratitude and Forgiveness are the Most Important Thing.

And he's right.



I'm grateful for my family, what they have done for me and the love I have for them... There are not words for my gratitude it goes --beyond. I am especially grateful for my brother Michael, because he lets me call him and say everything that is in my head and he listens and we laugh, and that is good.



And I am grateful for friends, old and new, for laughter and good times and talking about everything and nothing. I am grateful for hugs and smiling and laughter. I am grateful for meals. I am grateful for books and blogs and the newspaper and long walks. I am grateful for music and lyrics and poetry. I am grateful for sitting on blankets and looking at the sky. I am grateful for clouds. I am grateful for professors and university. I am grateful for lipstick and cvs and dancing. I am grateful for yogurt and granola and bananas. I am grateful for sunlight. I am grateful for the cold. I am grateful for waking up. I am grateful for singing and pie.
And I am grateful for myself. And I'm grateful that I can forgive myself-- for being awkward and weird sometimes, and knowing that it is okay.



I am also grateful for my ability to rationalize eating tremendous quantities of pie.

Speaking of which:

Chocolate Pecan Pie. My mother wished it had bourbon in it. I agree. Add a splash of something boozy while you bake.

Endless love. I am so grateful you're here.



also, i just realized that all of my posts lately have been about how gorgeous life is. how magnificent is that?

Chocolate Pecan Pie
from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

This is really, really good. NB: Dorie specifies a partially baked crust, which frankly, I rarely have time for. Partially/blind baking crusts always exhausts me as it requires too much hovering around the oven. Anyways, I baked this in an unbaked crust and it all worked out fine. Though the crust on the bottom COULD stand to be a little crisper, who cares? Regardless, I wanted to leave that decision up to you, so I left the recipe as is.
xoxo

1 9-inch single pie crust, partially baked and cooled
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 large eggs, preferably at room temperature
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup (about 7 ounces) pecan halves or pieces
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
A splash of something boozy

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat oven to 425 F. Put the pie plate on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat blah blah blah.
In a large bowl, whisk the corn syrup and brown sugar together until smooth.
Whisk in the melted butter, then add the eggs one at a time, beating until you have a smooth, foamy mixture. Add the espresso powder, vanilla, cinnamon and salt and give the batter a good mix. Rap the bowl against the counter a couple of times to pop any bubbles that might have formed, then stir in the pecans and chocolate.
Turn the filling into the crust.
Bake the pie for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, make a foil shield for the crust by butting a 9-inch circle out of the center of an 11- or 12-inch square of aluminum foil.
Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Place the foil shield on top of the piecrust, the filling will be exposed, the crust covered by the foil. Bake the pie for another 15 to 20 minutes (total baking time should be 30 to 35 minutes), or until it has puffed (the middle and the edges should be fairly evenly puffed), is beautifully browed and no longer jiggles when tapped. Transfer the pie plate to a rack, remove the shield and cool to room temperature. 

Cranberry Yogurt Cake

There are many things that do not last at my house. Socks disappear. I can't find my olive green datebook. We never have clean towels in my bathroom. Never. Car keys vanish. I swear that the library books migrate.

This cake is the next Houdini. I can see the headlines already: Here one day! Gone the next!

Or maybe that just has something to do with the fact that I live with a 15 year old boy. His only state of being is starving.

The point is. This cake doesn't last long. You can make it with blueberries or cranberries (like I did), swirls of jam would be good. Chocolate would be interesting, because chocolate + lemon = heaven. You could add rosemary, for an unexpected touch, or maybe substitute olive oil for the canola if you're really getting adventurous.

And it will disappear, it will disappear. Because it is moist. And gorgeous. And cakey. And good. The good die young. Socks and datebooks vanish to the netherworld. Cakes get eaten by brothers. Nothing lasts. Nothing lasts.

Lemon-Blueberry Yogurt Loaf
from SmittenKitchen.com who adapted it loosely from Ina Garten

1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour (if you’re skipping the fruit, you can also skip the last tablespoon of flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
3 extra-large eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (approximately 2 lemons)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen, thawed and rinsed (miniature wild blueberries are great for this, and pose the least risk of sinking) OR cranberries, which is more holidayish.
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8 1/2 by 4 1/4 by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Grease and flour the pan.

Sift together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt into 1 bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 cup sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and oil. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Mix the blueberries with the remaining tablespoon of flour, and fold them very gently into the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50 (+) minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Meanwhile, cook the 1/3 cup lemon juice and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Set aside.

When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before flipping out onto a cooling rack. Carefully place on a baking rack over a sheet pan. While the cake is still warm, pour the lemon-sugar mixture over the cake and allow it to soak in (a pastry brush works great for this, as does using a toothpick to make tiny holes that draw the syrup in better). Cool.