Author: doriwalker

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Donna’s Black Bottom Cupcakes

For more tasty bakes, see my collection of family specialties:

You Can’t Have Dry Coffee: Papa’s Excuse to Have a Nosh And Nana’s Perfect Pastries

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084WLZ1R7/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

My daughter told me that I see the world with my stomach, and I think she has a point. I connect food with people and experiences. That’s the case with these unusual cupcakes. Whenever I eat these I think about my exceptional friend, Donna, who first made them for me and Doug, in her kitchen in Alaska.

Doug and I had been married for six months when we moved from Chicago to Colorado. Doug had lived there before and with his long connection to wilderness adventures he was anxious to show me the sites he had loved. Once in Ft. Collins, we quickly unpacked our boxes and then got on a plane to Alaska. This would be our last grand vacation before the arduous years of Doug’s PhD work. We chose Alaska, where I had lived and worked for two summers, so I could show Doug the places I had loved.

Donna and I had both graduated together on June 6, 1980, and the day after graduation we were both on a plane for Anchorage. I spent two summers living and working there and then returned to my familiar world in Chicago. Donna never left Alaska. She and her family had a home just outside of Denali Park, and that’s where Doug and I headed for our vacation. We stayed in their friend’s cabin down the road, and joined Donna’s family each night for dinner. It was there that she made us these cupcakes. After growing up eating all of my mother’s delicious baked goods, it was unusual for me to be surprised by a dessert, but after the first amazing taste I wondered why in the world no one had told me about these before! I’d never tasted a cupcake that used two different batters—one like a chocolate cake, and the other like chocolate chip cheesecake. I seem to remember that Donna whipped up two more batches of these during the week.

Now when I make these, I am transported to Donna’s kitchen, her drawer filled with large bags of baking supplies, the snow in the woods, and I remember what an exceptional person she is and what a wonderful friend she has been.

Black Bottom Cupcakes

For the chocolate batter:

Mix together:

  • 1-1/2 c. flour
  • 1 c. sugar
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/4 c. cocoa
  • 1/2 tsp. salt

Mix together:

  • 3/4 c. water
  • 1/3 c. oil
  • 1 Tsp. vinegar
  • 1 tsp. vanilla

Add the liquid mixture to the dry, stir until blended. Using a 1/3 c. measure, spoon this batter into cupcake pans lined with paper cups.

For the cheese filling:

Beat together:

  • 8 oz. cream cheese
  • 1 egg
  • 1/3 c. sugar
  • 1/8 tsp. salt

Stir in:

  • 1 c. chocolate chips

Top the chocolate batter with a generous spoonful of the cheese mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 mins., or until the tops are just touched with a tiny bit of golden brown.

This is what they look like before baking.

Cautionary note: this is one recipe where you really must use paper liners.

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Hamantaschen Dough II — cookie dough

Rae Spooner and I, along with our kitchen sisters and teens, had our annual hamantaschen baking at temple this morning. We were assigned the task of making enough hamantaschen to feed the kids and parents at the Purim carnival, with no specific instructions as to the quantity needed. So Rae and I arrived at the temple kitchen with nine batches of dough pre-made and ready to do some production baking.  Lisa and Pat joined us, then Molly and little Helen, and then the teens in the baking class. We rolled, cut, filled, shaped and baked. We filled an industrial-sized tray with hamantaschen and every once in a while we’d wonder if we had enough. How many did we make? Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. Something my mother passed down to me kicked in—my mother who would count each piece of gefilte fish as they plopped into the yuch, every matzo ball as it hit the soup, every cabbage roll… you get the idea. I had to know the numbers. So Rae and I transferred all of the hamantaschen to a new pan, taking turns counting off by tens, scribbling numbers on a pad. I even opened the oven to count how many were baking. Our grand total: 555 pieces, and a very good morning.

This dough is something like a sugar cookie, but easier to handle and not quite as sweet. These are filled with canned Solo Cake and Pastry Filling, but you can also use a thick jam dusted with a little flour.

Ingredients

  • 3 c. flour
  • 2½ tsp. baking powder
  • 1 c. butter
  • 1 c. sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 4 Tbs. orange juice

Directions

  1. In a medium bowl, combine flour and baking powder.
  2. Cream together butter and sugar.
  3. Add eggs, one at a time.
  4. Stir in half of the orange juice, then half of the flour; remainder of orange juice and remainder of flour.
  5. Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.
  6. On a liberally floured board, roll out dough to about 1/8˝ thickness. Cut into approx. 2½” circles. Fill with jam or pie filling, form and bake at 350° for 10–12 minutes.

We made about a dozen sheets like this.

Dry Coffee promo

For more tasty bakes, see my collection of family specialties:

You Can’t Have Dry Coffee: Papa’s Excuse to Have a Nosh And Nana’s Perfect Pastries

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084WLZ1R7/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

 

 

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10-minute Chunky Apple Sauce

Make this while your dinner is cooking and serve it warm, or with some vanilla ice cream for dessert.

I’ve had some heirloom apples in my fruit drawer since mid-December (that’s 3 months taking up prime real estate in the fruit drawer). They were a gorgeous deep purplish-red and tasted like something just this side of cardboard. But what a waste to throw them away! Today I peeled and cored them, put them in a pot with just a little water, sprinkled on some cinnamon, and for about 10 minutes of effort I have a bowl of fresh apple sauce. Surprisingly, the apple sauce tastes good as is—I didn’t add any sugar.

Chunky Apple Sauce

  • 8 apples, peeled, cored and cut into quarters or eighths
  • 1/2-1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 3/4 c. water

Put everything in a pot, cover and let simmer until the apples are very soft, about 45 minutes. Mash the apples using a potato masher. That’s all.

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Poppy Seed Filling for Hamantaschen (mohn)

Hamantaschen sitting on my Grandmother’s Civil War era plate.

I saw the can of poppy seed filling in the baking aisle last week, and wondered, “how horrible must that be?” Yes, I am a snob. I won’t go near a jar of gefilte fish either, for I was blessed to have a mother who made all of the Jewish delicacies from scratch. So every year she would send someone down to Devon Avenue, to the Jewish neighborhood in Chicago, to get a bag of ground poppy seeds for the Purim hamantaschen. She cooked up this magical concoction with honey, raspberry jam, ground almonds… once a year we got to taste this creation. If you enjoy cooking, then you know that the act of creating the dish is as good as enjoying the taste. What a pleasure to grate in the fresh lemon zest (I’ve been enjoying the lingering aroma on my fingers), and to stir in the dollop of jam, and watch as the pats of butter melt and the mixture thickens. Of course the best part will be rolling out the hamantaschen with the kids later today, and watching their pleasure as they taste one hot from the oven.

My mom would make about as many hamantaschen as she could stand, and then would roll out the rest of the filling into an elegant coffee cake, with tender layers of pastry and thin layers of filling, this was her little secret: the coffee cake is better than the hamantaschen.

Yeast Dough

Ingredients

  • 1 c. milk, warmed
  • 1 Tbs. yeast
  • pinch of sugar
  • 2 sticks butter, softened
  • ½ c. sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 4 c. flour
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. grated lemon rind

Directions

  1. In a small bowl, stir together the warm milk, the yeast and the pinch of sugar. Set aside to proof.
  2. Cream together the butter and sugar.
  3. Add the eggs, one at a time, mix together (it will be lumpy), then add the salt and lemon rind.
  4. Stir in half the flour, then the milk/yeast mixture, then the rest of the flour. Mix well.
  5. Refrigerate the dough for one hour or overnight.
  6. On a liberally floured board, roll out dough to about 1/8˝ thickness. Cut into approx. 2½” circles. Fill with poppy seed filling (next page) or jam, form and bake at 350° for 12–15 minutes.

 

Poppy Seed Filling (Mohn)

Ingredients

  • 1 c. poppy seed (plus a little extra to clean out your coffee grinder)
  • 1 c. milk
  • 2 Tbs. butter
  • 2 Tbs. honey
  • ½ c. chopped almonds
  • grated rind of 1 lemon
  • ¼ c. golden raisins
  • ¼ c. sugar
  • 1 tart apple, peeled and grated
  • ¼ c. raspberry jam

Directions

  1. Wipe out your coffee grinder, grind about a tablespoon of poppy seeds, then throw that away.
  2. Grind the cup of poppy seeds, and put them in a saucepan with all of the ingredients except for the apple and jam. Cook until thickened, stirring constantly.
  3. Let it cool, then stir in the apple and jam.

This coffee cake baked up a little flat (very sticky dough today). I made the side on the left with the swirls turned to face in to each other; the side on the right with them all turned the same direction. It is sitting on my mother’s monogrammed cake plate.

This one baked the way I like it, and held its shape beautifully. The dough had a little more flour and wasn’t so sticky to work with.

Here’s a detail showing the pretty layers.

Roll out the dough, cut into circles, put on a dollop of filling, then pinch up and around the filling to form a triangular shape.

Roll out a large rectangle of dough and spread on a thin layer of filling, being careful not to tear the dough, then roll it all up.

Form the roll into a U-shape and cut slices all the way through.

Slip a knife under each section, gently lift it up and twist it 90 degrees.

 

 

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Love Mom’s soup

I road my bicycle to work today. It was quite pleasant but at 33 degrees and the wind in my face, I wanted to make soup as soon as I got home. Over the past few years, I’ve taken some liberties with my mother’s classic vegetable soup by adding a can of black beans, some basil, garlic, some kale or maybe some sweet potato. It’s almost always delicious, but it hasn’t been tasting right to me. The best part about making Mom’s recipes is that they evoke such strong memories of family. It’s not quite like having my mother in the house, but it certainly works on many levels. So I thought I’d post this recipe again (first posted last March 25), with its original directions.

Ruth Gordon’s Vegetable Soup

  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1 Tbs. olive oil
  • 2 carrots, diced
  • 1 stalk celery, sliced thin
  • 1/3 c. chopped parsley (or a whole parsley root if you can find one)
  • 1 14 oz. can tomatoes, chopped
  • 2/3 c. frozen peas
  • 2/3 c. frozen beans
  • 1 medium potato, diced
  • a small handful of oats
  • a small handful of rice
  • a small handful of barley
  • salt to taste

In a large soup pot, saute the onion in the oil, add all of the rest of the ingredients and cover with water. If you’re lucky enough to find a parsley root, peel the root, leave on any greens, and throw the whole thing into the pot. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for at least 1-1/2 hours, keeping over a low heat until serving, and cooking all afternoon if you like. Remove and discard the parsley root before serving the soup.

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Breakfast Parfaits

Use any of your favorite fruits. Berries are especially good. These have sliced clementines and bananas with blueberry yogurt.

Here’s something different for breakfast, loaded with delicious nutrition, and the kids will love it. You can use any kind of clear glass—it doesn’t have to be as fancy as my mother’s crystal parfait glasses. When the kids were little I’d use a plain drinking glass.

For the yogurt I blended some blueberry sauce that I had made* with some plain yogurt. Choose any fruits that your family enjoys, and add raisins and nuts if you like.

Breakfast Parfait

  • yogurt
  • granola
  • fresh fruit

Layer the ingredients into a clear glass. Serve with a long spoon, if you have one.

Click here for an easy granola recipe.

*The blueberry sauce began as an attempt to make blueberry syrup. I cooked up blueberries with a little sugar, but then make the “mistake” of putting it all through a Foley food mill, which turned it all into a thick sauce. I canned it all, but didn’t know what to do with it until my friend Ann said that yogurt was the place for it. The blueberry sauce turns plain yogurt into superb fruit yogurt.

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Peanut Butter Cookies (with chocolate chips)

For more tasty bakes, see my collection of family specialties:

You Can’t Have Dry Coffee: Papa’s Excuse to Have a Nosh And Nana’s Perfect Pastries

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084WLZ1R7/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

When I was 11 or 12 I had a brief friendship with a girl named Evelyn Henzlick. I have very pleasant if somewhat fuzzy memories of her. The one certain thing I remember is making peanut butter cookies for the first time, and writing down her mother’s recipe—the very first recipe I collected. Today I threw in some chocolate chips, although these are really good without. They are unusually flaky and light.

Please use real peanut butter, the kind with only peanut butter, with or without salt, as the only ingredient.

Peanut Butter Cookies (with chocolate chips) makes about 28 cookies

Cream together:

  • 1/2 c. butter
  • 1/2 c. peanut butter
  • 1/2 c. brown sugar
  • 1/2 c. sugar

Stir in:

  • 1 egg

Stir in:

  • 1 c. flour
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 3/4 c. mini chocolate chips

Drop by heaping tablespoon on lightly greased cookie sheet. Criss-cross with a fork. Bake at 375 degrees for about 12 minutes.

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Braised Chard with (giant) Raisins and Pine Nuts

This chard was so colorful it was a joy to eat, and the combination of sweet with the peppery was wonderful.

Braised Swiss Chard with Onions, Raisins and Pine Nuts

  • 3-4 large leaves of Swiss Chard, thinly slice the stalks, chop the leaves
  • 2 Tbs. olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, sliced
  • 1/4 c. raisins
  • 1/4 c. pine nuts, toasted
  • balsamic vinegar, a drizzle
  • black pepper, coarsely ground
  • salt to taste

Brown the onions in the hot olive oil, stirring in the stalks when the onions are almost how you like them. Add the chopped leaves along with the raisins. Season with salt and pepper and cook until the leaves are wilted. Stir in the pine nuts and drizzle on a little balsamic vinegar. Eat. Enjoy.

I’m making my first product endorsement tonight for these giant organic raisins. Since I’ve started buying these (at Meijers, or from the company’s web site), I can’t go back to regular raisins.

These raisins are huge and have an intense flavor.

The raisin on the left is a regular raisin (golden because it's the only regular raisin I have in the pantry). The giant on the right is a Sunview raisin. (photo enlarged to show detail)

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A family classic: Mom’s Stuffed Cabbage Rolls (sweet and sour)

Once a year, after the really big cabbages arrived in the store, Mom would make stuffed cabbage. This was a family delicacy and we four kids loved this dish. I remember taking a piece of that good white bread Mom would buy and dunking it right into the serving bowl, and then eating the soggy, sweet, orange-colored slice.

The recipe was lost, but my sister recently found it scrawled on the back of an envelope. Mom’s version called for using the juice from a jar of sweet pickles but, quite honestly, even though it was common practice when I was a kid, the thought of using that now makes me a little ill. Tonight I made it without the pickle juice, and I think it’s a perfect taste-replica of Mom’s recipe. Unfortunately, unlike me and my siblings, 2/3 of my kids won’t even taste it, and I made 15 pieces. Fortunately, it does quite well in the freezer.

makes about 15 pieces

Ingredients

  • 1 large cabbage, approx. 4 lbs.
  • 2 lbs. ground beef
  • 28 oz. can tomato puree plus ½ can of water
  • ½ c. sugar
  • ¼ c. cider vinegar
  • 12 ginger snaps
  • 1 onion, sliced
  • ½ c. raisins
  • 9 oz. prunes, pitted
  • salt
  • flat toothpicks

Directions

1. Core the cabbage and place it cut side down in a large pot filled with a few inches of salted water. Steam the cabbage for about 10–15 minutes, run it under cold water, and gently remove the outermost, steamed leaves. Return the cabbage to the pot and steam again, repeating as necessary until you can easily remove all of the biggest leaves. Chop up the center of the cabbage and set aside.

2. In a very large roasting pan or deep soup pot, add the tomato puree, water, sugar, vinegar, ginger snaps, onion, raisins, prunes, the reserved chopped cabbage and 1½ teaspoons of salt. Bring it to a boil and reduce heat to a low simmer.

3. While the gravy is heating up, prepare the cabbage rolls. Mix the ground beef with 1 teaspoon of salt.

4. Roll up a 2″ x 1″ oval portion of meat inside a cabbage leaf, and secure with a toothpick.

5.
Place each roll, toothpick side down, into the pot, on top of the gravy. Chop up any extra cabbage leaves and put them, along with reserved chopped cabbage, into the pot. Simmer, covered, for about 3 hours, basting occasionally, until the leaves are very soft and somewhat transparent, and the meat is fully cooked. Serve over egg noodles or rice.

Click here to watch a video of rolling up the cabbage.

Place the cabbage rolls on the gravy.

These are best served over rice or on top of egg noodles.

 

This recipe is included in my cookbook:

The Plate is My Canvas: Recipes and Stories from My Family’s Interfaith Kitchen

https://www.amazon.com/Plate-My-Canvas-Recipes-Interfaith/dp/1790773431/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+plate+is+my+canvas&qid=1582410159&s=books&sr=1-1

Written in the style of a family memoir, with stories from the author’s family, this book includes all of the Jewish classics, from rugelach to latkes. Married to a Lutheran man, Walker learned to cook her husband’s family’s classics as well—with help from her mother-in-law’s handwritten recipes. Stunning photographs accompany each recipe. A perfect gift for an interfaith family.

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Valentine cookies

For more tasty bakes, see my collection of family specialties:

You Can’t Have Dry Coffee: Papa’s Excuse to Have a Nosh And Nana’s Perfect Pastries

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084WLZ1R7/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

These are plain sugar cookies with pretty icing and a variety of sprinkle-like toppings. Last year we discovered that with different sized heart cutters we could add depth to the cookies by cutting out little hearts from big ones, then sandwiching or stacking the shapes.