Salon: On a Footstool Doing Dishes, Mandelbrodt, Guest Chef July 2010

Topic:

Guest Chef

Tuesday, Jul 27, 2010 15:20 ET

On a footstool, doing dishes to pay for dinner

When I was a kid, you could tell how times were going by what was on the table, and it'd been weeks of hot dogs

By Lisa Horel

Courtesy of Lisa Horel

The author, unamused at her chores

This originally appeared on Lisa Horel's Open Salon blog.

Well-done roast beef dinner along with assorted pies, pastry and chocolate treats meant my Adman stepfather's clients had paid up and the bank account was fat. When the client list was lean, so was dinner; tuna casserole or diced hot dogs with beans meant the bank account was close to empty. Simple, plain cookies, like Mandelbrodt made from pantry staples, were the cookie jar goodies for hot dog casserole days.
It had been a long couple of weeks of tuna or hot dog & bean casseroles, and the Adman was cranky. Small enough to need a footstool to reach the sink, but hungry enough to want a second hot dog, I asked for seconds. Five mouths abruptly halted mid-chew and 10 eyeballs turned to me. The Adman frowned, squinting. I squirmed and asked again, just a little bit louder. One of my brothers kicked me under the table, but I ignored him. I just stared back at the stubborn Adman.
Silently and slowly, he slid the platter across the table to me.  I speared a hot dog. As I was about to savor that first bite, he warned that if I ate the hot dog I would have to do the dishes that evening, pots and all. There were six of us in the family. That would be a lot of dishes for a kid who couldn't reach the sink without standing on a chair, a bit of a challenge. I picked up the hot dog and watching him all the while, took a big bite (hello: apple, tree). I chewed slowly, wondering if perhaps I shouldn't have just gotten a cookie later, instead.
Ten minutes later I was standing on a chair pulled up to the sink watching it fill with sudsy hot water. It was my first time washing dishes solo, and I was extra careful not to break the (unbreakable) melamine dishes. Forty minutes later, still at it, tears of frustration mingled with the really disgusting cold, sudsless water. I finally realized why my middle brother always paid the others to take his turn. 
Right at the moment I thought I might fall asleep (and drown) with my face landing in the sink, my oldest brother tiptoed in to rescue me. I almost gave it away with a squeal of glee but thankfully he stuck his hand over my mouth. My mother, in stocking feet, minus her trademark red shoes, tiptoed in right behind my brother and began to organize my washing mess. We giggled our way through all the messy pots.
The house was no bigger than a postage stamp so even the whispered giggles would have given us away. Undoubtedly the Adman realized that almost everyone was in the kitchen helping the kid, but he pretended not to know a thing.
That next weekend the client checks were rolling in because my mother was busy making chocolate cookies, but there was still plenty of Mandelbrodt in the cookie jar. Not only did Mandelbrodt always last longer, but you could dip them in milk and they would taste awesome.
I still dunk them in milk and, these days, coffee. Mom's Mandelbrodt is another one of those things she made without a recipe. Fortunately she wrote it down for a relative who later sent me the recipe. Mandelbrodt reminds me of those austere days. But it also reminds me of a time when I knew that prosperity was way bigger than any bank account because my mother always made sure that no matter what the month brought, the food she prepared for us was full of love. No one can be wealthier than that.
Mom's Mandelbrodt

Ingredients

• 4 cups flour (add 1 teaspoon xanthan gum if using gluten-free flour)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch salt
• 1 cup sugar
• Zest of two lemons (more if you really like lemon)
• 4 eggs
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
• 1 teaspoon almond flavoring
• 1 cup toasted slivered almonds

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Prepare two baking sheets with silpats or parchment. 
2. In a small bowl combine the lemon zest with the sugar and blend with your fingers. Let sit 15 minutes to infuse flavors. 
3. In medium bowl combine flour (and xanthan gum if using gf flour) baking powder, salt and mix well with a whisk. 
4. In a big bowl, combine the sugar with the eggs and whisk until incorporated. Add the flavorings. Start to whisk in the flour and change to a wooden spoon midway. Add the almonds and keep stirring. Once mixed, use your hands and turn the dough a few times making sure all the loose flour is incorporated. It will be slightly sticky. 
5. Drop the dough ball on a floured board and shape into a log. Cut into four even pieces. Roll between your hands into long logs -- or roll them on the silpat. Pat down until they are about ½-inch tall and 2 inches wide. Place two on each baking sheet.
6. Let them sit out for about 15 minutes for the dough to develop. Place in oven and immediately turn the temperature to 325. Bake about 40 minutes rotating halfway. 
7. Cool 15 minutes. Turn oven to 275. Carefully place each log on a cutting board, and on the diagonal, using a serrated knife, gently saw into even pieces. Place pieces cut side down on baking sheet and return to the oven. Bake about 30 minutes.
8. Cool. Store in a cookie tin. 

Bon appétit and happy dunking.

Salon: Lemon Coconut Macaroons Passover, Guest Chef March 2010

Topic:

Guest Chef

Tuesday, Mar 30, 2010 12:31 ET

Lemon coconut macaroons to brighten dreary Seders

My early Passovers were a little painful ... but at least now, the food doesn't have to be (recipe included)

By Lisa Horel

courtesy of Lisa Horel

Whitefish, carp and pike are swimming circles in the bathtub. The house cleaning takes on a fevered pitch as every last leavened crumb is vacuumed. As the sound of the Hoover reaches the hallway, that is the five-minute warning. I scoop up the toys from my closet floor where I covertly (or so I thought) eat sandwiches and cookies. The year before, along with the secret stash of crumbs, I also lost all my fabulous Barbie stilettos to the Hoover.
The Jewish year is 5722 (1962) and Passover is approaching.
Preparing the Seder feast in advance, I watch my mother make chicken soup with matzo balls, dress chickens for roasting, and scoop potato kugel into casseroles. Thankfully, the family gets the bathtub back because Mom is finally using the very um, fresh whitefish, carp and pike to make homemade gefilte fish. Dessert is cardboard sponge cake, sweet and gritty with no flavor. Manischewitz canned macaroons on the side.
The evening of the first Seder arrives. I am sitting at one end of the small Passover table, squeezed between Fake Aunt Hope and my brother who seems to have eaten beans the day before. My 6-year-old stomach is churning from hunger and stage fright. As the youngest child I will recite the four questions from the Passover service booklet, the Maxwell House (yes, coffee) Haggadah. As the service drones on past my bedtime, I am so sleepy that all I want to do is lean on my brother and close my eyes, no matter how much he stinks.
Finally, all eyes turn to me. I squeak out the first questions in a whisper. Why is this night different from all other nights and why is it that on all other nights during the year we eat either bread or matzo, but on this night we eat only matzo? My elderly faux uncle yells out, “Can’t hear you, Missy!” Beet red and humiliated, I stutter, making my voice crack. Now I imagine that everyone thinks I am on the verge of tears. I am.
The Ad Man purses his ridiculously large lips, my mother audibly holds her breath, my brothers stifle giggles, and Fake Aunt Hope leans over and pats my arm enveloping me in her stinky perfume. I push the Haggadah up to my nose, adjust my geeky glasses, take a deep breath and loudly mumble each question into the fold of the book.
As the fourth glass of sticky sweet Mogen David swill wine is poured, the front door is opened to welcome the phantom Prophet Elijah who whooshes in, drinks up his wine with a little help from Fake Aunt Hope and apparently leaves as the door is closed. We are all awake now from the cold rush of air -- it is the middle of April and snowing in Syracuse.
Everyone raises their wine tumbler in a final toast: Next year in Jerusalem! they shout with imbibed enthusiasm. And it is finally time for dinner. The feast’s perfume has overtaken Fake Aunt Hope’s cloying scent and on this night, I am a grateful little girl.
But Passover isn’t over just yet. For seven days I construct matzo sandwiches for lunches. Tuna on matzo. Peanut butter and jelly on matzo. Egg salad on matzo. Ham and swiss on matzo. OK, kidding about that one.
Try eating a matzo sandwich. It's a little like taking 40 Ritz crackers, taping them together and smashing some filling inside, picking it up and crunching. The only possible outcome is a pile of crumbs. I use the matzo as the placemat and eat the filling with my fingers.
Over the years, Passover became more about how to make the food a little more interesting and still maintain the religious traditions. We tuned up the lowly, cloyingly sweet macaroon and made it a springtime delight. It has a deep coconut flavor infused with (Meyer) lemon.
Now, if only someone could think of a way to make matzo a little more interesting.
Coconut Lemon Macaroons

2 large eggs, separated, using whites only
½ cup white sugar plus 2 tablespoons
1 teaspoon almond flavoring
Zest from 2-3 lemons (Meyers are perfect)
3 cups flaked unsweetened coconut (Bob’s Red Mill)
Pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 350. Turn oven down to 325 once the cookies go in.
2. Mix the sugar and the lemon zest with your fingers in a large bowl. Let the two infuse for about 5 minutes. Then, with a wooden spoon, mix in all the remaining ingredients until thoroughly incorporated. With wet hands gather a scant ¼ cup of coconut dough and form into haystacks on a silpat or parchment lined baking sheet. Pinch the tops to form loose haystacks (keep your fingers wet). Let sit for about 45 minutes before baking. Bake about 20 minutes at 325. Turn oven off and let macaroons sit until lightly brown about 10 minutes longer. Remove from oven and cool. Makes about 12 large macaroons.

Bon appétit and happy Pesach.

Salon, Chocolate Bread Pudding, Guest Chef July 2010

Topic:

Guest Chef

Wednesday, Jul 7, 2010 13:30 ET

Chocolate bread pudding, like our adopted grandma used to make

Back when we were living on cereal, a neighbor taught us the value of tea, sympathy and bread and custard

By Lisa Horel

Lisa Horel

Chocolate bread pudding, from Ivy's kitchen - very small

This story originally appeared on Lulu and Phoebe.

Stashed in the back of our stuffed chocolate cupboard is a well-loved box overflowing with handwritten recipes, food notes and wrinkled wine labels. It's a repository of our life in food -- a truer picture of our history than any ancestral chart.
Dearest to me are the handwritten recipes from our adopted grandmother, 80-year-old Ivy, shared with us when we were teenage newlyweds living in our very first apartment far from our families. It was a simpler time when all we needed was a home-cooked meal to make the world right again. I can even smell that first meal Ivy made for us, although at the time we weren't quite sure what to call it.
Entering the dingy apartment house foyer on that gray, bone-chilling, rainy New England autumn evening, the usual smell of old cat hair and l'eau de musty old building was replaced by the wafting aroma of warm-from-the-oven meatloaf and mashed potatoes. In the dark foyer we almost tripped over the foil-wrapped gift by our front door. It was the very first care-package dinner from our neighbor, Ivy. That meatloaf was love in a 5 x 8 pan.
That same evening, we returned the dishes and shared the first of many cups of tea with Ivy. In contrast to our modest junk-furnished flat, her apartment was a cozy chintz-filled slice of her previous life in England. Though she had been in the United States for decades by then, she still was a very proper English marm in diction, grammar, manners and food-making. That probably explained why her meatloaf was a cross between an American Good Housekeeping recipe and Shepherd's Pie. It was topped with some of the mashers, almost like Ivy couldn't help herself, along with the inclusion of very squishy peas scattered throughout the meatloaf. Nonetheless, it was comfort food to a couple of kids who relied on dry cereal and boxed macaroni and cheese to survive.
Once she caught on that we were not fit to feed ourselves, Ivy left her version of a balanced meal on our doorstep many evenings. We thought she possessed some crazy crystal ball because the food was always piping hot, but we soon realized that from her living room window, she could see us getting off the bus a block away. That gave her just the right amount of time to spirit the dish to our door and disappear like a magic food-elf. She had three or four dishes that were rotated and every single one included squished peas and potatoes. The only one we could not eat, but never told her, was the thing that included canned salmon. Even potatoes couldn't make that dish edible.
Ivy also introduced us to her favorite post-dinner delight, English bread and butter pudding. We ate so many variations of bread pudding, we lost count. Our favorite was tollhouse chocolate chip, again Ivy's way of being half American, half British. The chocolate was warm, gooey and a perfect accent to the mild pudding.
Many chilly winter evenings were over bread pudding and tea, as I snuggled in one of the handmade afghans she was continually crocheting. The blankets were stored in a cedar chest that looked like an antique you'd find at auction deep in the New England countryside, but it had been in her family for generations.
On that late spring day when we said goodbye before moving back to our hometown, we also told Ivy that we were expecting our first baby. Over one last shared pudding, we promised to come back with the baby to visit that next summer. Before leaving, Ivy gave us not only the handwritten recipes, but another gift that we still cherish: the afghan and a bow-covered cedar chest. Thirty-six years later the cedar chest stores not only the beautiful afghan but a tiny crocheted blanket that Ivy made for our first baby. Sadly, that next winter, before we could bring the baby to meet her, Ivy died quite suddenly.
Each one of her handwritten recipe cards begins: From Ivy's Kitchen - Very Small. Her cozy apartment kitchen may have been tiny, but her heart was huge and generous. I've a long way to go before I turn 80, but I hope I can be someone's Ivy one day.
Bread pudding is very forgiving and easy to prepare. Intended to use up old stale bread with a few eggs and milk, the recipe deserves a little update. Use some brioche or challah (egg bread) for a richer flavor and instead of tollhouse chips, chop some bittersweet chocolate. I'm pretty sure Ivy would approve and be thrilled that I finally figured out the purpose of a kitchen.
Ivy's Kitchen, Very Small - Chocolate Bread Pudding

Ingredients

• 2 cups of day-old challah, brioche or pound cake, cubed (or gluten-free pound cake or bread)
• 3 cups of (whole) milk, scalded
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 eggs slightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon
• ½ cup of chopped bittersweet chocolate

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325. Butter an 8 x 8 baking pan.
2. Scald milk, add butter and let stand about 15 minutes.
3. Add the other ingredients (except bread & chocolate) to milk mixture and whisk to incorporate. Drop cubed bread and chopped chocolate into the prepared casserole dish and gently pour tepid liquid over it. Cover with foil and place in hot water bath in the preheated oven. Keep covered for at least 30 minutes and bake for a total of one hour or until just a tiny bit wiggly in the center. Serve slightly warm with whipped cream on a puddle of dulce de leche.

Notes: Cube the bread the day before and let it sit uncovered overnight. It needs to be slightly stale and dried. A serrated knife will chop the chocolate easily.

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Salon, My First Cake Wreck, Guest Chef, July 2010

Topic:

Guest Chef

Tuesday, Jul 20, 2010 13:01 ET

My first cake wreck, and a way to avoid yours

Homework for Home Ec meant baking with Mom, and I was fresh out of mothers. But here's a favorite anyone can make

By Lisa Horel

Open Salon/Lisa Horel

Home Economics was a mandatory (girl) course in seventh grade, and every single project seemed to require a mother. Unfortunately I was fresh out of mothers for most of that year.
First up in the Home Ec curriculum was the "sew a dress with mom" project. My fondest wish tended more toward meeting the Beatles or marrying Illya Kuryakin, not learning to sew. My father enlisted a neighborhood mom to help, and she thought girls came in only one size: small and dainty. Over 5 feet 9 inches with feet past a size 10, I was nothing close to small. I did get credit for completing the dress, and lucky for me the teacher never noticed the masking-taped-seamed hem, or that it was a thousand sizes too small.
The next project, "baking with mom" lamentably meant one thing. Cake. The Home Ec teacher had great affection for all things cake, evidenced by the unending stash of Little Debbie treats in her desk drawer. I pleaded my case using the poor-sad-orphan-card to get a reprieve, but the teacher knew that I had one breathing parent left, which meant I was only one-half orphan. I was toast.
We had to bake the thing from scratch, which involved purchasing ingredients that were not labeled Jiffy Cake Mix. I didn’t have a lot of cash, so I brilliantly figured I'd buy only the important-sounding ingredients for my chocolate cake.
Nesquik seemed more versatile than Hershey's cocoa. Margarine was cheaper than butter and sort of looked the same. I'd use water instead of milk; who would know? Powdered sugar for frosting seemed extraneous since I had to buy the regular kind anyway. Why not use the same stuff for both? Why buy vanilla flavoring if the cake was going to be chocolate?
Baking at 350? I preferred even numbers, like 400, which sounded as though it would bake the cake faster. It did. Well-done to burned cake transpired in a matter of minutes. But hey, it was already chocolate; the dark part was well hidden and it still smelled mostly like cake.
The granulated sugar frosting was, well, lacking. When I found some sliced almonds in the pantry to pat strategically into the grainy frosting, I was feeling quite smart. It looked rather elegant if you squinted, which I hoped my home economics teacher would be doing when I brought it to school the next day.
I needn’t have worried about carrying it — the thing was as heavy as a brick and just as petrified. I dramatically carried the cake like it was fragile; leaving everyone to imagine that it was delicate. There were so many cakes that I easily shoved mine behind the surplus. Other girls were clamoring for the teacher to taste their creations. Something about the law of averages saved me; there were only so many bites of sweetness a person can eat before they surrender. Mine was left alone. But because it looked like cake I got credit. Even motherless, I managed the façade of cake and passed home economics. Barely.
These days I never forget to use vanilla even when I make a chocolate confection. The one lesson I learned from making that seventh-grade cake wreck was that any cake can be made to look presentable, but not all presentable cakes taste good. Given a choice, I opt for both, but taste wins every time. This chocolate and yellow cake is a favorite, and one day I will actually learn the art of marbling.
Chocolate marble layer cake (with gluten-free option)

Ingredients

• 2¼ cups cake flour or Featherlight gluten-free flour, sifted
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum (if using gluten-free flour)
• 1 cup almond flour sifted
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• Pinch salt
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 2 scant cups white sugar (superfine works well)
• 6 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
• 1 teaspoon almond flavoring
• ½ teaspoon fiori di sicilia (a citrus-vanilla extract)
• 2/3 cup cream
• 2/3 cup milk
• ¾ cup boiling water
• 2/3 cup valrhona unsweetened cocoa, sifted

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter bottom and sides of two 8-x-3- or 9-x-2-inch round cake pans. Line with parchment and butter. Coat with flour. Tap out excess.
2. In a bowl, whisk together sifted flours, xanthan gum (if using), baking powder and salt. In a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time. Add flavorings. Mix together milk and cream. Add flour and milk-cream mixture alternately until incorporated, being careful not to overmix.
3. In a bowl, mix sifted cocoa with boiling water until it is sludge. Scoop about 3 cups of the batter into the chocolate mix. Whisk until incorporated.
4. Alternate scoops of chocolate and vanilla batter in baking pan until both pans are filled evenly. Using a butter knife, gently draw a figure 8 to marble the batter.
5. Tap pans on counter to settle the contents and remove air bubbles. Give pans a quick shake and place in oven. Bake about 35 minutes until lightly brown or toothpick comes out clean.
6. Cool 5 minutes and turn out on a rack. Cool completely.
7. Cut each layer in half.
8. Brush with simple syrup, if desired, and frost with your favorite: dark chocolate glaze, ganache, buttercream or combination.

Notes: To marble correctly, don’t mush the knife through when you make that figure 8. Make sure to draw distinct lines, and working it less is more. Really. In the photo, I used both ganache and buttercream just because I wasn’t sure which I wanted. Next time I will use a thinner layer of ganache between the layers and pour a glaze over the top and sides. Still, there is no such thing as too much chocolate.
Bon appétit, and let us eat cake.

Salon, Fudgy Pudding Cake, Guest Chef April 2010

Topic:

Guest Chef

Tuesday, Apr 27, 2010 20:20 ET

Fudgy pudding cake

How this chocolate treat helped my family sit through even the most brutal childhood string concerts

By Lisa Horel

Open Salon/Lisa Horel

A version of this post first appeared on Lulu and Phoebe's Open Salon blog.
We come from a long line of classically trained, yet fickle musicians. We play instruments, compose, and some have even (briefly) attended Juilliard. Careers as virtuosos don't happen in our family, but it is almost mandatory that an instrument be handed to a child at a young age, nonetheless. Careful not to anger the musical spirits of the ancestors, we enrolled the 4-year-old in a Suzuki string methods class.
The child attended philharmonic concerts from the age of 3, sitting with us in our steeply student-discounted seats. Fidget free, she seemed taken with string instruments. When asked which her favorite string instrument was, she eagerly pointed a chubby finger at the violin section. Or so we thought.
On her first day of class she talked nonstop about getting her new violin -- just like the philharmonic musicians. She skipped into class, dragging us by the hand. The teacher proudly presented the child with her first violin: a brand-new 6-inch cigar box wrapped in wood-grain contact paper with a ruler sticking out of the end for the neck. The bow? A skinny little stick.
The child's face was pinching into the look that happens right before she melts into tears. She squinted at us like we had offered her worms sautéed with peas for dinner. Oblivious, the teacher sealed the meltdown by giving her a cardboard circle with two feet drawn in marker – a diagram for her to stand on to get into the correct form for playing the violin.
We weren’t even worthy of her pitiful look anymore. Stifling a hiccup/sigh, she turned away and merely stared at the ground. Little tears fell on the floor. Did our health insurance cover therapy for victims of well-meaning, but really stupid parents?
Her homework was to practice holding the pretend violin correctly using all the props. The girl was beside herself with misery, but she diligently practiced.
Her younger sister borrowed the violin daily for special projects, like smashing spiders. She broke it so often we finally ran out of duct tape. We also went through three containers of pick-up sticks as substitute bows before we realized that the deviously clever little sister was using them as lock picks. Obviously, her career would clearly not be in music.
Finally, the 4-year-old graduated to her first ¼-size violin.
Have you heard the catchy tune "Mississippi Hot Dog"? It goes like this; mis-sis-sip-pi-hot-dog. Repeat, a lot. If you’ve not had the pleasure of listening to a pint-size violinist play it (badly) 400 times in a row, consider yourself lucky. It is hard to screw up the tune since it involves one solitary note. But given how many ways there are to bow a string on a violin, chaos will ensue; as in, your ears will bleed.
Eventually, she was fiddling reasonably well and liked to practice with the door closed because she was shy. Each day it seemed like the sound got more muffled. That should have been a clue.
Imagine my surprise when I opened the door to find her in the closet sitting on pint-size chair. The little violin was now playing the role of cello. That’s right. Apparently she didn't have the heart to tell us that we'd been mistaken. She wasn't pointing to the violins at the philharmonic. She was pointing beyond the violins and the violas to the cellos.
We made a deal. She could play cello right after she finished the classes we had already purchased. "Mississippi Hot Dog"? Sounds exactly the same on the cello as it does on the violin.
Perhaps she had the right idea with that closet. Juilliard would not be calling.
The other thing the wayward young musician and her lock-picking sister had to look forward to on Suzuki concert days was Uncle Jake's dessert. He came to most of the concerts and always brought dessert. Knowing that fudgy cake was waiting for us at home made 30 kids sawing away in unison (sort of) at "Mississippi Hot Dog" tolerable. Almost.
The cake uses ingredients that are usually in the cupboard. Serve warm with a favorite ice cream, whipped cream or fresh berries. Or all of the above.
Jake's Fudgy Pudding Cake

Cake:
1 cup flour or gluten-free flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
Pinch salt
½ cup white sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
½ cup whole milk
2 tablespoons butter melted
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon Godiva liqueur (optional)
Topping:
1 cup brown sugar
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 ½ cups boiling water

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8-by-8 pan. Mix together flour, baking powder, salt, white sugar, cocoa. Add in milk, butter, liqueur and vanilla. Stir. Pat evenly into prepared pan. Mix together cocoa and brown sugar, making sure no lumps remain. Sprinkle on top of batter. Pour 1 cup plus a scant half-cup of boiling water over the top. Place in oven and bake for about 35 minutes.
2. Cool for about 5-10 minutes and scoop and serve. Best served slightly warm. It will be gooey. Serves 9-12.

Bon appétit.

Salon, Honey Cake, Guest Chef June 2010

Topic:

Guest Chef

Monday, Jun 7, 2010 08:01 ET

A baking hero shares his recipe for honey cake

A favorite old bakery faded away. I found its owner decades later, and he can't keep his recipes to himself

By Lisa Horel

Lisa Horel

Every year at Rosh Hashana I make honey cake. Inevitably heavy and almost inedible, I imagine all kinds of ways to repair the recipe, but promptly forget about it until the next year, when tradition compels me to make another one. We never eat it, but the leftover cake, wrapped in foil, is great: As a doorstop, paperweight and, in a pinch, a substitute brick to flatten pan-roasted chicken.
It took my new Uncle Milt to fix my honey cake wrecks, but it's not often adults get to adopt new uncles. Months ago, I wrote a story featured in Salon's Food section about our family tradition of making half-moon (aka black-and-white) cookies, and I reminisced about being a kindergartner going to the Snowflake Pastry Shop in Syracuse, N.Y., to buy them. I was extra-tall then, standing in the bustle of the morning rush, lucky enough to see all the goodies in the cases without having to jump. The ladies in the white uniforms and hairnets would give me a cookie for not leaving fingerprints on the glass. I'm sure I saw owner Milt Zeigler there, but back then I didn't know him, too distracted by the cookies in the case.
Someone in Milt's family saw the article I wrote and sent it along to him, Milt's son e-mailed me, and I found myself one day on the telephone talking with Milt Zeigler, learning all about those Snowflake Pastry Shop days from the other side of the counter.
He told me about the early days at Snowflake, how it began as a family bakery in the Bronx. How his dad, Isidore Zeigler, went to Hungary at the turn of the last century to learn baking and make his own mark. How the family ran the shop for about 80 years, and how in heady times, their black rye bread was so famous that a restaurant in Alaska had it shipped and a patron recognized it just from the look and smell alone. The lines at Snowflake were always out the door early in the morning when people still went to the bakery to buy their daily bread and morning pastries.
But before long, our phone calls turned from a chance connection and stories about the old days into something else. We became friends. I started converting some of Milt's old recipes to home-kitchen proportions. He'll call without hesitation: He says hello and begins talking in the middle of a thought. Fortunately, I am pretty good at catching up. We talk about the neighborhood, about life decades ago in Syracuse, about friends and family and doctor's visits and various ailments of the day, and his wife chimes in from the background. But mostly we talk about the bakery.
As I was getting ready to work on the black-and-white cookie recipe, Milt called me out of the blue, saying immediately that I need to add five more pounds of flour to the recipe. "OK. I'll use five pounds of flour," I said. To which he replied, "No, dear. Add five more pounds of flour!" The light bulb went on. "Add five pounds to the nine pounds already in the recipe? I'm going to be making cookies for the entire city, Milt!"
He laughed. "That you are!"
And making cookies for the entire city, of course, is what Milt used to do. But the family sold the bakery in the '80s, and the sad news is that bakeries like Snowflake all over the world are vanishing one by one. Snowflake's original building has been razed. Gertel's on Hester Street in NYC is now condos. In Paris, on Rue des Rosiers, the heart of the local Jewish community for centuries, Sacha Finkelsztajn, a lone Jewish patisserie, hangs on.
I am a very lucky to have Milt just a phone call away. To be able to make authentic Snowflake half-moon cookies and feather-light honey cake? Awesome. I only hope I make him proud.
Uncle Milt's Honey Cake

½ cup white sugar
1/3 cup veggie oil
1 cup of your favorite honey
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of ground clove
Pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
2½ cups plus 3 tablespoons light rye flour
4 fluid ounces water
3 teaspoons baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour a large loaf pan.
2. Pour the sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. In a smaller bowl, mix together oil, honey, eggs and spices with a whisk. Add that to the sugar and mix on medium-high for a minute. In a measuring cup dissolve baking soda in water. Set aside. With the mixer on low, blend in flour. Turn mixer on high for a minute. Switching mixer to low once again, add the water and baking soda mix. Once incorporated, turn the mixer on high for about 30 seconds.
3. Immediately pour into prepared loaf pan. Set cake in oven. Leave the oven door ajar on the first stop (yes, open!). Once the cake reaches a good height, close the oven door and continue baking for about 40-50 minutes more or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes. Invert on a rack. Tastes best as it ages — wrap tightly and store in the refrigerator. Serve at room temperature.

To make gluten free: Use gluten-free flour instead of rye. Add ½ teaspoon xanthan gum. Add 2 tablespoons molasses to the honey-egg-oil mix.

Salon: Half Moon Cookies, Guest Chef June 2010

Topic:

Guest Chef

Thursday, Jun 24, 2010 12:01 ET

At last, the greatest black and white cookie

When life is tough, baking makes it better. Losing a job means it's time to finally learn to make my old favorite

By Lisa Horel

Open Salon/Lisa Horel

Snowflake Bakery's Half Moon Cookie, the home version

When life gets challenging, I retreat to the kitchen and bake. I've been baking a mountain of confections and feeding our neighborhood since we found ourselves in the growing ranks of the suddenly unemployed two weeks ago. And whenever I listen to the news and hear some talking-head cheerfully report that the economy is improving, it merely means another baking flurry is about to commence.
Yesterday I decided to bake with purpose, tackling my holy grail of childhood memories: Snowflake Bakery's Half Moon cookie, which most people call black and white cookies.
Converting my Baking Hero Milt Ziegler's commercial recipe for the home kitchen took a certain amount of faith and a very competent geek who happens to have some spare time these days -- I mean, when you start with 15 pounds of cake flour, you have to do a lot of math to get it to fit in a home Kitchen-Aid mixer.
There I was, biting my lip, double checking my math with a calculator, hoping I was not making a mistake. From over my shoulder there was suddenly the sound of Pink Floyd's Money in the form of a tiny hum coming from the Geek. Math word problems give me hives and a headache, and my pencil paused, waiting in air. He let out a small but audible "ah ha," and I heard his footsteps receding to the kitchen. I followed.
A few moments later, reading glasses perched carefully on his nose, he squinted and leaned in to watch the numbers shifting in my test beaker filled with water -- I'd taken to using visual aids to help me out with the math -- and suddenly, he was dropping in whole eggs, one at a time. Rising up from that stooped over, back-aching bend, he grinned and said, "Two large eggs and a half cup of milk." I checked. He was right. One fancy spreadsheet later I had my recipe.
I've auditioned many black & white cookie recipes through the years trying to duplicate the Snowflake Half Moon Cookie memory from my childhood. Alas, not a single one came close. Until now. My adaptation of Uncle Milt's Half Moon recipe is the best version I've ever made, and, well, it helps that it's the original recipe of the cookie I had as a kid.
There isn't a week that goes by that I don't pass a bakery in my neighborhood and wish it were Snowflake. After a story I wrote on the bakery appeared in Salon's Food page, a Facebook group, Snowflake Bakery Memories, was created by Milt's son, Jeff. After just a couple of weeks almost 250 people have joined the group. Almost everyone wistfully remembers the fabulous Half Moon cookies.
The Facebook page is the closest we will get to Snowflake Bakery these days, but with Milt's generosity, now we can have a home version of the popular Half Moon cookie. Go ahead. Close your eyes when you take that first bite. It will take you all the way back to our wonderful Snowflake Bakery days.

Ingredients

Cookies:

• 2 oz. unsalted butter, softened
• 2 oz. Crisco shortening
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs (mixed well)
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla
• 1/8 teaspoon pure lemon flavoring
• Splash of fiori di sicilia (optional but seriously worth it)
• 2 1/2 cups cake flour (gluten free flour, add 1/2 tspn xanthan gum)
• 1 scant tablespoon baking powder
• Pinch salt
• 1/2 cup whole milk (plus a tablespoon if needed)

Glaze:

• 2 cups sifted confectioner sugar (King Arthur has no additives)
• 2 tablespoons valrhona or other quality unsweetened cocoa powder (sifted)
• 1 teaspoon light corn syrup
• Splash of vanilla and fiori di sicilia

Directions

Cookies:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silpats. Makes half a dozen, 5 inch Half Moon cookies.
2. Mix together flour, baking powder, salt (xanthan gum) and set aside. In stand mixer, cream butter, shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Add mixed eggs and incorporate well. Add flavorings. Alternately mix in flour mixture and milk. Beat on high just until incorporated and fluffy. Add a tiny bit more milk if the batter seems too stiff. You want the batter to be sturdier than cupcake batter, but not like cookie dough.
3. Scoop by half cups, five mounds to a baking sheet, well spaced. Using a small offset spatula or the back of a spoon, flatten the mound into a 4.5' to 5" circle until it actually looks like a Half Moon/Black & White cookie. They will spread slightly, but not much.
4. Bake about 8 minutes and rotate pans. Bake about 10 minutes more until lightly golden. Cool completely.

Glaze:

1. Sift the sugar into a bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of hot water and stir until the mixture is a spreadable glaze. Add the flavorings and let set for about 30 seconds. Spoon onto one half of the flat side of the cookie. Using a small offset spatula or the back of a spoon, spread the glaze thinly to the edges. Let set while finishing up the others.
2. Add the sifted cocoa to the remaining glaze and more water if necessary. Using the same method finish the glaze on the other half of the cookie.
3. Let set about an hour until hard.

Notes:

1. Once scooped, you have to spread the batter to the diameter just under what you want for the cookie size. Don't worry about it being too thin. They rise. Don't over bake because they will get crispy. Half Moons should be soft.
2. The glaze can get runny if you add even a tiny bit too much liquid. To remedy that, add more sugar. You want it thin, but not liquidy. It is easier to do the white glaze first and then the chocolate. Just be cautious to not hold the cookie over the others while spreading the chocolate glaze or you might spill it onto the other white glazed halves.
3. I cannot emphasize enough the addition of fiori di sicilia flavoring from King Arthur. A tiny bit goes a long way and makes your pastry smell and taste like it came from the pastry shop, or in this case, from Snowflake Bakery. It is an enhancement that will make you swoon. I promise.

Bon appétit and thank you to celebrity baking hero, Uncle Milt!