growing up in the philadelphia area, and having a birthday that falls at the beginning of summer, icebox cake was a favorite dessert in the warmer months, and a frequent request of mine for a birthday cake.

both my mother and father grew up eating this easy to make treat, and thus i imagined that it was a staple in most households. as an adult, I have found this to be far from the truth. many, if not most of my fellow dessert-lovers have not even heard of this delicacy.

the traditional icebox is made with chocolate wafers and whipped cream. i found more or less traditional instructions here. (though i personally don’t add vanilla to my whipped cream, and certainly would never never include m&m’s.)

my father’s very new england side of the family were purists — simple heavy cream, whipped and then sandwiched between wafers. my mother’s slightly less traditional clan showed their brash new york ways by following the same traditional recipe as my father’s family…. and then smothering the final product with a healthy dose of chocolate sauce.

many a summer’s evening meal has ended with family debatiing the pros & cons of this condimental addition. personally, i am not a subscriber to the theory that “there’s no such thing as too much chocolate,” and will admit to falling on the side of my paternal ancestors on at least this issue. despite having made new york city my home, i retain this vestige of good old w.a.s.p.-y restraint.

today was a perfect day to revisit summer memories with a little easy assembly and looking forward to a delicious dessert after a great bbq dinner…

not finding the traditional nabisco famous chocolate wafers in the grocery store of my decidedly non-w.a.s.p.-y brooklyn neighborhood, i made an interesting discovery… ginger flavored wafer cookies!

i decided to take the plunge, and for the first time in my life, make a non-chocolate icebox cake.

my husband was skeptical. i wouldn’t dream of calling home to let my parents know what i was up to…

but in the end… I believe that i have started a new offshoot in the family icebox cake making tree. The ginger and cream combo is perfection, and take an already light dessert to a place that is hard to resist, no matter how many burgers have preceded it.

i don’t keep chocolate sauce in the house, so i can’t say for sure, but i am quite confident that in this case, the addition would be quite welcome. since it wouldn’t be an overdose of chocolate, i think the richness would be a great companion to the spiciness of the ginger. next time, we’ll know for sure.

so, there you go… innovation sometimes trumps tradition, and in so doing, may even solve a meal ending family debate.

and it couldn’t be easier… make one yourself! and let me know if there are any other new flavors on your horizon.

Thanks to our friend Jessica for Cream & Sugar’s very first guest blog post.
Please visit her blog, is it the first, for fun musings on fashion and style.

I do not question the three.  It could be two. Even one.  But, whatever.
I also do not question its origins.  Just like Southern banana pudding was not created by Jell-O, I won’t believe completely that tres leches (three milk) cake was developed by the likes of Nestlé… even when considering the number of cans used in this recipe.

Post-baking, post-poking, pre-milk

My first taste of the mysterious three milk (WHY THREE?!) cake was at El Rancho in Edmonton.  In their early days, the dessert menu usually only consisted of flan and tres leches.  Both coming dressed with a small swirl of canned whipped cream and a maraschino.  Having had one burnt syrup flans too many in my Central American restaurant journeys had me lean to tres leches one night.  Like, but not love.  I’m not a cake girl, so my attachment was very tentative.  But the bread pudding/custard-like texture made me return to it now and again.

Post-milk, pre-soak

For a casual dinner party chez moi, I needed to think of a casual Mexican dessert to accompany my quesadillas and tortilla soup.  Nothing says casual like cans, right?
My aversion to cake made me nervous as I started baking.  The toothpick test is sound, but I still always get thrown off by the browning.  What came out of the oven was a lovely sponge.  Extra golden from those crazy eggs.    As I soaked the sponge with the milks, I anticipated some magic.  The eggy aroma of the cake surely meant custard action would ensue overnight as it married with the milks.  Please, oh please.  That would move like to love.

Now I know that seems like an extraordinarily large dollop, but they don’t call me Cream for nothing.  As you can see, the cake indeed is a sponge.  With every depression of your fork tines, there is some weeping that reminds you of its namesake, but no giant pool.  My soup was pretty tasty, but this was the star of the meal.  As a dessert in the style of other soaked cakes like trifle or tiramisu, you often go back digging with a spoon for just one more bite.

Or piece.  Which I did shortly after my guests left.
If I hadn’t given them some to take home, it definitely would have been a tres tres leches night. Wuh-wuh.

Tres Leches Cake
adapted from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food

Serves 6

Unsalted butter, room temperature, for baking dish
3 large eggs, separated
0.5 cup sugar
0.5 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
0.5 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
0.5 can(12 ounces) evaporated milk
0.5 cup whole milk
0.75 cup heavy cream
0.5 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar
0.5 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter a 8-by-8-inch glass baking dish. In a mixing bowl, beat egg yolks and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy. In another bowl, beat egg whites to soft peaks. Using a rubber spatula, fold whites into yolks until almost combined. Gently fold in flour (do not overmix).
Spread batter in prepared dish. Bake until golden and pulling away from sides of dish, 20 to 25 minutes. Poke many, many holes in cake with a toothpick. Cool cake 20 minutes.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the three milks; pour evenly over cake. Cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate overnight.
To serve, prepare topping: In a mixing bowl, whip heavy cream with sugar and vanilla to soft peaks. Chill cake and cut into squares; serve topped with whipped cream.

In preparation of a simple Sunday supper for a friend and I, I was hit quite strongly as to why I’ve become attached to food and cooking these past few years:  love.

Cooking for others has become the most tangible way for me to tell them that I love and care for them without directly saying, “I care about you and want to do something to show you that I do.”  It’s done not by thinking those words, but by feeling them.  This is hardly revolutionary.  But as someone who is trying to put that caring toward herself (Solo Suppers Beyond Cereal), I need to regularly remind myself.  It’s not about keeping up with the Culinary Jones’, but keeping on top of making my special peeps feel as special as I can make them.  Food is nourishment.  For the body and the heart.  The act of sharing it with another person or showing a little love to yourself is so basic, yet so important.  It is nourishment for the soul.

The act of making a simple supper made me happy, made me busy.  The simple supper made someone else happy after a long week.  Thus, it was one of the best of recent memory.

Cornmeal-Crusted Tilapia

3 bowls:  One, about 0.5 cup of flour, salt and pepper.  Two,  a beaten egg.  Three, about 0.5 cup of cornmeal.
Dip tilapia fillets (washed and dried) in flour, then egg, then cornmeal.  Place on greased, tinfoil-lined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees.  Then broil for about 3 minutes until lightly browned.
Serve with sauce made with 0.75 cup of plain yogurt, 1 minced garlic clove, 1/4 cucumber, seeded and chopped, juice of 1 lemon, salt and pepper.

Shaved Asparagus and Fennel Salad

I skipped the capers, topped with shaved Piave Vecchio.

Last-Minute Salad

8 halved cherry tomatoes, 3/4 cucumber, seeded and thinly sliced, 1 sliced mango, few teaspoons of chopped mint.  Dressing of 3 parts sesame oil, 1 part rice vinegar, 1/2 part honey, 1/2 part Sriracha.

Rice pudding and Blueberry-Lime Compote

Compote:  1 cup of frozen blueberries, zest and juice of 1 lime, 2 teaspoons of sugar.  Simmer everything together for about 20 minutes. Cool completely.

Vietnam still holds me.  I miss the food, I miss the weather, I miss the people, I miss the noise, I miss the energy.

So when an opportunity arises for me to somehow connect back to it, I grab on.

At the last book club meeting I hosted, we were discussing a book that took place partly in Cambodia.  And for my purposes, Cambodia is close enough to Vietnam to make a culinary cheat leap when deciding what to make for snacks.  The book does mention a character often eating a baguette sandwich… which of course is Vietnamese banh mi by any other name.  So really, I wasn’t cheating all that much.  And when I found the perfect recipe for a banh mi mise en place, the menu was shaping up perfectly.

While the chicken was well flavoured from the marinade, the standout ingredients were the pickled carrots and fresh bread.  I kept to the recipe closely with the exception of the onions, daikon, lime (a member’s allergy caused me to use lemon), and the salad.  I marinated the carrots for about 6 hours and everyone raved about them.  I placed a special order at Cobs for the small baguettes.  They were all chewy, golden goodness.

Unexpectedly, banh (loosely, bread/cake) became another theme of the evening.  While walking aimlessly one night in Hue, I decided to try a sweet I had seen a few times in display cases.  Simply labelled “banana cake,” it had the look of an upside-down cake; caramelized bananas atop a moist, white cake.  The flavour, however, was more like a bread pudding.  When I started searching for a recipe, I found that the cake I had tasted and had wanted to make for book club was called banh chuoi nuong.

Like any good bread pudding recipe, eggs and milk make over stale bread.  And like many good dessert recipes from tropical climates, coconut and banana have leading roles.

After a few bites, you immediately understand why banh is such a widely used prefix in Vietnamese cooking.  Everything it touches turns delicious.

Banh Chuoi Nuong

8 bananas

2 day-old/stale French loaves (not baguettes)

2 eggs

1.25 cups sugar

2 cups milk

2 cups coconut milk

4 tablespoons melted butter

1 tablespoon vanilla

0.5 teaspoon cinnamon

Slice bananas and mix with flour, 0.25 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons of the butter, and cinnamon.  Beat eggs with the remaining cup of sugar.  Then add coconut milk, milk, vanilla, and remaining butter.  Remove crusts from bread.  Slice into 0.5-inch slices.  Grease a 9-inch glass pie plate.  Quickly dip the bread slices in the egg mixture and lay the slices into the bottom of pan to create the first layer.  Squish bread down as much as you can.  Add half of the banana slices.  Repeat bread layer, squishing down again.  Finish off with the rest of the banana slices.  You may have leftover bread and banana slices.  Bake at 350 degrees F until golden, about 45 minutes.

Let cool completely.  Serve at room temperature.  A scoop of vanilla ice cream wouldn’t hurt it.

If I lived in Bon Temps, you would call me a fangbanger.

Ever since watching The Lost Boys as a too little girl, I find it easy to fall hard for undead heroes.  I spent most of high school daydreaming about Louis and Lestat. 

While late on the bandwagon, I’ve quickly become a devoted fan of True Blood.  Now, I daydream about Bill Compton and his southern drawl.

In honour of the Season 2 premiere, I reached into my freezer and pulled out a leftover treat from my Baking By Hand Made Easy course; the same course where I made the white bread and the addictive vanilla pastry cream.

The real reason I took the course was to learn how to make a pie crust.  The elusive pie crust.  It has always seemed such a daunting task, and truth be told, still does.  But, under the watchful eye of an excellent instructor, I pulled it off and at the end of the night I had two cherry pies ready for the freezer. (My initial inspiration was Agent Cooper.)

There was never a more perfect time to bake my last blood red pie than for the return of Bill and the rest of the colourful crew from Louisiana.

After Sugar served a perfect pappardelle main, we took plates of cherry pie and vanilla ice cream into the living room to await all the bad things that were sure to take place on television that night.  The episode did not disappoint—neither did the pie.

There are many pie crust recipes available, and every family seems to have a tried and true recipe.  So, instead of giving you another one, I’ll pass along the pie tips that Sugar and I learned to help you on your way.  With the summer fruit season upon us, put any crust trepidation aside and go for it.

Pie-making Tips 

- When adding the liquid to your dough, blend just until the liquid “clears” or is absorbed.  The average time in class was about 7 seconds.

- Pies are best baked from frozen.

- Don’t introduce new ingredients.  For example, if there are no eggs in your dough, do not use an egg wash on top.  Simply use water.

- Don’t wash the edges of your crust with egg/milk/water.  Just the centre.  And sprinkle lightly with sugar…again, just the centre.

- Your pie is ready to be taken out of the oven when you jiggle the pie pan and the pie freely moves from the edge.

See you at Merlotte’s!

Having a name that rhymes with banana meant I had to decide early on if I was going to be its friend or faux.

I chose friend.

As the start of my day, sliced over ice cream, or mashed into muffins, few fruits rival the toothsome give of a banana’s starchy-sweet flesh for me.

And for that reason, it makes an excellent ingredient for a pie—especially, ahem, a Cream pie.  Nestled between layers of crust and cream, banana slices retain their shape yet can be easily cut with a knife.  Cream pies also tend to be a favourite of mine because they require little, if any, baking.  I ate many cream pies growing up that were nothing more than instant vanilla pudding poured into a store-bought crust.  Slice some bananas and reach for the Reddi-Whip, and you’ve got your classic no-bake banana cream pie.  I’ve not let that kind of ease go completely, but with the task of bringing dessert to a friend’s and wanting that dessert to be a banana cream pie, I looked for something slightly more arduous.

Knowing that my hosts were chocolate fans, I narrowed my search to finding a chocolate-banana cream pie.  The one I found was outstanding.

Many no-bake pies are made with crumb or pastry crusts that have been quickly baked and then cooled before the cream filling is added.  This was truly no-bake in that it was simply melted butter and chocolate added to chocolate crumbs and then cooled until firm.  The chocolate became the magic binder that only added to the decadence of the pie.  Layers of banana and a vanilla pastry cream are to be expected, but atop a layer of chocolate ganache?  Sinful.  For nostalgia’s sake, I bought a can of “Real Whipped Cream” to accompany the topping of sliced bananas.

While perhaps sacrilege to some, for those of us in the room that were slightly intoxicated and singing 80s rock tunes with PVR karaoke, the canned cream was more than fine.  I provided backing to Livin’ on a Prayer while slicing the pie and then joined the silence during Paradise City as we all became enthralled with my pie’s creamy goodness.  So much so we threw caution to the wind, went for seconds (which finished off the pie), and declared Love in an Elevator one of the greatest songs of all time.

While the light of day tends to change your opinion on some things… there is still no question for me that this pie is top notch.

Black-Bottom Banana Cream Pie

The recipe came from Bon Appétit.  A vanilla pastry cream recipe is provided, however I made the one I learned in my recent baking course.  It’s so good you will want to make extra just to eat out of a bowl with a spoon.

Next time around, I likely will put all the ganache on the bottom instead of marbling it.  I made the pie one day ahead of time.

Vanilla Pastry Cream

50 g sugar

20 g unsalted butter

300 g whole milk

60 g whipping cream

30 g cornstarch

1 whole egg

1 g salt

5 g vanilla

Combine butter, cream, milk, and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.

In another bowl, whisk cornstarch, egg, and salt so that all the cornstarch dissolves.

Slowly whisk (to temper) the boiling cream mixture into the cornstarch mixture.

Return to the heat, bring to a boil again and cook for 1 minute.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Pastry cream needs to be cooled before using.  To prevent a skin, sprinkle sugar on the top and then tightly cover with plastic wrap.

This makes enough for one pie.

As I’ve said before, I find it hard to cook for myself.  Boiling water or depressing the toaster lever is usually all the energy I put into Me.  I all too often fall into an eat-to-live rather than live-to-eat mode and the results end up being a kitchen full of mostly condiments.  Cooking is an activity I enjoy because it is one that so easily brings pleasure to others.  It is very easy to tell a meal that is made with love.  Whether in or out, it’s what makes something “good.”

There are times in life when loving Me is important.  And as attractive as that easy lever can be, I know that putting a little elbow grease in for tonight’s dinner might just make life a little rosier.

I can easily go overboard on my lust for carbohydrates, so I’ll just say that my white bread needed to be on the menu.  Pasta could be an obvious accompaniment, but that screams  emotional eating.  Especially when I had decided that I would make rice pudding for dessert.

Soup, then.

I wanted something healthy and hearty.  Not a cream soup.  And not a puree.  I just wanted to dump everything into a pot and wait.  This barley, lentil and chard soup from Bon Appétit did the trick.  I halved the recipe, but kept the same amount of tomatoes and topped up the red chard I was using. 

It was delicious.  The fresh dill was a nice change from a more expected herb like basil.  The lentils added a hidden body, and the barley gave the substance I was after.  You feel no guilt about a meal when it has something like red chard in it.  The soup nicely coated my bread when dipped—coat rather than soak is to me the mark of good bread and appropriate soup thickness.  The crusts served their purpose of pre-cleaning the bowl before dishwashing later.

I ended with what I can only call a Quick ‘n’ Dirty Rice Pudding.  Not much thought, only the effort of stirring, and hardly perfect.  But it was what I wanted:  sweet and creamy and chewy and vanilla-y.  And after being completely cooled in the fridge, it also had the sticky, glutinous texture I (maybe not you) love in rice pudding.

I sat at my table alone eating dinner, listening to Carlos Gardel, and reading a magazine.  I lit a candle and enjoyed the sunshine of the longer Alberta days.

I felt the warmth of the soup in my body and the love that was made just for me.

Quick ‘n’ Dirty Rice Pudding

Makes two generous servings.

0.5 cup Arborio rice

2 cups milk

3 tablespoons sugar

Pinch of salt

Seeds of one vanilla bean

1 egg yolk, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon butter

Bring rice, milk, salt, sugar, vanilla seeds, and now-empty vanilla bean to a boil.

Reduce heat to low and cover, stirring often, until rice is tender and pudding is to desired thickness—more milk may need to be added.

Take pudding off the heat.  Remove the bean pod.  Continually stir the pudding as you slowly add the egg yolk, which further thickens the pudding.  Stir in butter.

Enjoy warm or cool completely in the fridge (with plastic wrap pressed onto pudding for skin prevention).

I finish with a little cream as I like my pudding extra thick.

My cookie tins only ever have room for three cast members.  Shortbread gets a spot without question.  The other two roles are filled on a whim and if I’m impressed enough, I might give them the role again.  Sometimes a chocolate chip base with holiday-coloured M&Ms makes the cut.  Last year, burfi stole the show.  This year, costar #1 was a soft ginger cookie from Epicurious and #2 was a cookie I have not made in a few years:  rugelach.

Rugelach made its debut that first Christmas I gave away cookies.  I think my motivation was to be ambitious, as I felt the other two cookies seemed rather easy to make.  A little elbow grease added to the love and thought-that-counts could only make things sweeter.

However, I am descended from women who are bakers—not pastry chefs.  I came home after school to homes that were filled with the perfume of quickbreads and muffins and easy drop cookies.  My grandmas didn’t fool around being fussy with butter temperature and overmixing.  They kneaded and stirred for hours to ensure they always had a freezer full of sweet carbohydrates for little empty stomachs who ran off their lunches during afternoon recess.

I blame my ill-preparedness when tackling my first batch of rugelach on them. 

Who needs a rolling pin when you can use a large can of tomato sauce?

Who needs a food processor or mixmaster when you’ve got fingers?

This year I bought myself a rolling pin.

While I tend to fool myself at times into believing that perfection is attainable, I have never had an issue with my awkward little rugelach that come in a variety of sizes.  I don’t know how to be fussy with food and I’m not sure if I ever want to be.  Fussy is not fun.

But, fig jam in a sweet pastry made with cream cheese and butter definitely is.

Basic rugelach (not kosher)

2 cups all-purpose flour

0.5 cup sifted icing sugar

0.5 teaspoon salt

1 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

4-oz (125 g) block cream cheese, cut into cubes

Filling—I like to use fig jam.  Jam, dried fruit, nuts, chocolate chips, coconut (read: whatever you want) can be used.

1 egg

sugar

I added about half a teaspoon of cinnamon to my dough this year.  Why?  Because I can.

Stir first three ingredients in a large bowl or processor.

Cut in (or process or use your fingers) butter and cream cheese until dough is crumbly.  Then work until dough comes together and no crumbs remain.  Divide dough into three.  Flatten each part into a disc that is about 0.5 inch thick.  Wrap each in plastic wrap and put in fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Let dough soften slightly at room temperature for around 10 minutes.

On a lightly floured surface and using a floured rolling pin, roll each disc into a circle that is 12 inches in diameter—a perfect circle is not required.

Spread about 2-3 tablespoons of filling on each disc.  Cut each disc into 16 wedges using a pizza cutter.

Beginning at wide end of wedge, roll up toward the point.  Place each wedge (point side down) on parchment-lined baking sheet.

Brush tops with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake in oven until golden, around 13 to 16 minutes.

Store in an airtight container or the fridge for up to one week.

It was five years ago this Christmas that I started giving cookies away as gifts.  On a budget and with a long list of people I wanted to give to, baking seemed a good choice.  Not only was I being thoughtful in the it’s-the-thought-that-counts kind of way, but I was also giving time and love. 

Love, hey?  Maybe not so much. 

My bake-a-thons become like a night of heavy drinking.  The next day I swear “I’m never going to do that again.”  My nausea comes in the form of the dishes upon dishes waiting to be cleaned.  My headache is the flour and sugar and spices that coat the floor.  The spins occur as I curse my inadequate kitchen equipment.

But like any good party, the fond and fun memories come to the fore as the headache fades.  And the next time you are in a similar situation, you don’t pass on the wine.  Hangover shmangover.

I’d do dishes upon dishes upon dishes for the feeling I get when someone says they enjoy my cookies.

_______

Whipped shortbread is my “must.”  It’s the only cookie that holds any Christmas nostalgia for me.

Without fail, Christmas dinners at my aunt’s old house would end with movement toward the basement for cozy couches and a wood-burning fireplace.  Festive festive.  My little girl ears were always overstimulated with adult conversation and a crackling fireplace.  Respite from the storm?  A jaunt to the furnace room where the deep freeze lived.  I would be on tiptoe as the frozen coffin revealed its cold wonders.  A tin would be reached for and opened right there and then.  Whipped shortbread branded with red and green maraschino halves.  Solid, cold, white like snow.  The tin would be brought to those round the fire for late-night snacking and added holiday indulgence.  My preference was always for the one I ate while the freezer top closed.  Cold on my lips with a noticeable bite; the butter not yet warm enough to leave greasy fingertips in my warm embrace or melt too quickly in my mouth.  Like a nice Christmas kiss.

I’ve left the maraschinos in the 1980s. 

Whipped Shortbread

1 pound unsalted butter (454 grams)

1 cup icing sugar

0.5 cup cornstarch

3 cups flour

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Cream butter. 

Sift together icing sugar, cornstarch, and flour.

Beat together dry ingredients, butter, and vanilla until the consistency of whipped cream (I use only a handheld mixer, hence the cursing.)

Drop by teaspoonful onto parchment lined cookie sheets.

(I flatten slightly with a fork.)

Bake for 8–10 minutes.

Makes 60+ cookies.

Pudding, custard, flan—variations on a theme I love:  creamy.  I’m happy set in front of a bowl that contains any variation of these variations.  A plastic cup of the Bill Cosby J-E-L-L-O incarnation has even been known to float my boat.  My favourites though have to be the rich eggy recipes that are little more than cream, sugar, and egg yolks; the ones that give it up to the Old World by being baked in a bain marie.

Like any pumpkin dessert, I find it hard to resist a crème brulee when confronted with one.  The pleasure of cracking the sugar crust is legendary, but my enjoyment tends to end at that.  Shards of sugar always end up in my back molars or pushed up against my front teeth, my wayward tongue more of a hindrance than a help when trying to pry the melting shards free.  Crème caramel is an obvious solution, but that damn caramel can be so tricky and I can be easily turned off by wobbly cream.

Looking for a dinner party recipe that could be adjusted for three, I made what essentially is a sugarless crème brulee.  Pots de crème.  Chocolate, yes, but that’s just a formality of flavour. 

Eggs + sugar + cream.  All there.

And what else?

Whipped cream.

I simply cut this Epicurious recipe in half.  Didn’t do the espresso as I’m not big on mocha.  Added a lightly sweetened, lightly vanilla’d whipped cream.

I could tell you that you need to use a dark chocolate with x% of cocoa solids from such and such a brand, but why stress?  Sometimes you’re in the bulk foods aisle and the easiest thing to grab is dark chocolate wafers or chips.  Of course a better chocolate will yield something better.  Do so if you like.  But, unless you’re baking for Pierre Hermé, I’m sure your guests or friends or lover (or yourself) won’t be offended if you use the chips.

Although it *would* be nice if at the end of a rainbow there was a pot of gold, I’d be just as happy finding a pot de crème.