A Cake to Hold a Candle To

I love cheesecake.

I always have.  One of the first desserts I ever made was a recipe of my mom's for chocolate chip cheesecake.  It was written in green pen on a long, skinny strip of weathered paper, really two pieces taped together at a seam that was soft from folding and unfolding it's after dinner tale.  The cake had an oreo crust and was sprinkled with tiny droplets of chocolate chips that rather than sinking into the cake, rested on top creating sweet, miniature patterns.  In high school I'd make that cake for any occasion possible.  For example, Saturdays.  I still remember one in particular where I sat by a frosty winter window with my friend Al, noses pressed up against chilly panes, watching the cheesecake cool outside in the clearing we'd made in a snow bank. 

So, needless to say, I could relate when my friend Josh requested a cheesecake for his birthday...a fantastic fiesta of a party with Mexican themed food, decoration, streamers and a pinata...why not make a cheesecake?  I was giddy at the idea.  Peanut butter and chocolate.  Dark chocolate cinnamon.  Those little mini chips that steered me so right so long ago.  

Both feet in the candy aisle I learn, Josh doesn't like chocolate.  Slight devastation.  But my love cheesecake is true and a birthday is an occasion...specifically, as Josh would describe, one that deserves food  so good, "you want to roll around in it."  So I thought outside the chips and oreo crumbs.  Something salty sounded right...say, a pretzel crust!

And with berries still a few months away, and apples a few months behind us...mango for the top.

With streamer-like ribbons of peel on the cutting board, tiny squares of diced mango sizzled in the sweetness of brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice and butter in a pan on the stove.

Russ and I carried a still warm cake, topping on the side, across the park to our friend's house. The cake cooled in the fridge while we ate rice and beans, chips and seven-layer dip, empanadas, quesadilla casserole...some number of margaritas and one smashed pinata later...

...it was cheesecake time.  In the frenzy of spices and mango, vanilla beans in cheesecake, crushed salty pretzels, chile shaped pinatas and salt rimmed glasses, well, we forgot birthday candles.  In my senior days I will still remain a firm believer that a birthday cake is just a cake without candles.  And this was a cheesecake for a birthday fiesta.  So.

We did what we had to.  I suspect the bigger the candle, the more you get to wish for.

And for you dear readers and cake monkeys, whatever your occasion, my wish you for is that you try this cheesecake.  It is good.  SO good.  I think it may be the most delicious recipe I've shared with you yet.  And best of all, if mangos are your Josh's chocolate, this cake is the perfect blank canvas.  Add chocolate chips.  Fruit.  Spices.  Peanut butter.  Make the crust graham or oreo.  Make it something you want to roll around in.

But then eat it instead.

 Vanilla Cheesecake with Mango Compote and a Crushed Pretzel Crust

adapted from Bon Appetit magazine

For crust:

1 C crushed salted pretzels

1/8 C melted butter

1 T sugar

For filling:

3 8oz packages of cream cheese

1 C sugar

1 vanilla bean, scraped

2 large eggs

3/4 C sour cream

For topping:

1 mango, peeled, cored and diced

2 T butter

3 T dark brown sugar

1/2 t cinnamon

a pinch of allspice

a splash of rum

1.  For crust:  mix crushed pretzels, butter and sugar together in bowl.  Using the bottom of a jar, press the crumbs into the bottom of a 9" springform pan.  Bake at 350F for about 12 minutes, until dry and golden brown.

2.  For filling:  whip cream cheese till fluffy.  Beat in sugar.  Mix in the seeds of one vanilla bean.  Mix in eggs, one at a time.  Stir in sour cream.  Pour filling over crust and bake cheesecake in a water bath at 325F for approx. 1 hr, or until top is dry and slightly puffed.

3.  For topping:  Melt butter in a pan over medium heat.  Add sugar, mix until dissolved.  Add spices, rum and mango and cook until mango is tender.

Yield:

1 9" cake

Three Little Words

With thoughts of love floating through chilly February days, I've decided this month is just the time to send valentine notes to feel good, favorite eats.

To kick it off I have three words (fit to print on a pastel conversation heart?): macaroni, cheese and...bacon.

With a sweet tooth the size of an elephant tusk, it only illustrates the power of this crispy, smoked treat that I would consider forgoing the traditional seasonal box of chocolates for a few strips of bacon to call my own (though more than a few would be preferable).

You may find it an additional surprise that I've put mac and cheese above a plethora of sticky, sugary, doughy delights...given my past aversion to cheese itself. But again, in the spirit of love, and having chosen food as my crush, I couldn't help it. Especially after finding an incredibly creamy, crunchy on top, rich and comforting recipe in a past issue of Gourmet magazine. Adding bacon and a touch of chopped chives, it was one of those recipes you can hardly stand to put time into making because all you can think about is fixing yourself a heaping hot serving to eat right then.

On Sunday night, over the phone I could hear Russ lift out of his seat when told he was coming home to mac and cheese. Stirring the thick sauce on the stovetop I got to thinking; who wouldn't sit a little taller on the ride to hot homemade macaroni? What is it about good ol' mac that makes us feel so great?

I have my suspicions. Rich cheese mixed up with curly little wheat noodles...and we are allowed to feel small again. You can take care of someone by putting a dish into the oven. You can be taken care of with a steamy bowl in your hands. Salty, smoky, soft and well, isn't that crunchy topping reason enough in itself?

I share recipes with you every week. I always hope they tickle and feed you well. But this one my friends, I know it will. I'm feeling bold, and I believe in the power of this simple little meal. It has big flavor. It feels good going down. It has just the right amount of bite and warmth to make you fall in love (perhaps again) with this classic favorite that loves you right back.

Swept up in the glow I tossed a handful of kale into the frying pan still coated in bacon fat, cooking it just until soft and bright green. Love makes you do crazy things. Crazy, delicious, wonderful things.

So make yourself some macaroni and make it cheesy. Sizzle up some bacon. Catch the love bug in the air and toss in some greens for good measure. And if that little candy heart asks the question, "be mine,"...say yes. And turn with a fork to your bowl of mac and cheese.

Whole Wheat Macaroni and Cheese...and Bacon

adapted from Gourmet magazine

For topping

1/4 stick butter

1 C unseasoned bread crumbs

3/4 C extra-sharp Cheddar, grated

1/4 C Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated

For sauce

1 stick unsalted butter

4 T flour

2 1/2 C milk (any % will do!)

3 C extra-sharp Cheddar, grated

1/4 C Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated

2 t salt

1/2 t pepper

8 oz whole wheat macaroni pasta

8 strips bacon

1 1/2 T chopped chives

1 C milk

1. To make the topping: melt butter and stir in bread crumbs and cheese until combined. Reserve.

2. Boil macaroni until al dente, drain. Reserve.

3. Cook bacon until slightly crispy. Chop into rough pieces. Reserve.

4. To make the sauce: melt butter in a medium saucepot. Whisk in flour and over medium heat continually whisk for 3 minutes. Stream in 2 1/2 C milk. Bring to a boil, whisking frequently. Return to a simmer and cook for 3 more minutes (still whisking often). Stir in cheese, salt and pepper, and mix until smooth.

5. In a large bowl combine cooked macaroni, sauce, bacon and chives.

6. In a buttered casserole dish, pour macaroni and sauce.

7. Cover the dish with reserved crumb topping.

8. Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the edges of the pan are bubbling.

Yield

10 servings

Snow Gets In Your Eyes

My legs are still achy.

Normally I take my sleepy Sundays to work on cooking up something curiously delicious for you.  This week I traded sleep and snacks for skis, bought a sweet, funny little hat with a pom pom and ear flaps, and spent the day whizzing and whirring circles down a small mountain in Pennsylvania.  

On the mountain I decided three things.

1.  Ear flaps are amazing.  I've been wearing my hat all throughout the much-more-stylish-than-I city of New York with a silly grin on to match.

2.  There is no better place I can think of to drink hot chocolate than in wooden ski lodge.

And, sadly:

3.  A day spent on the mountain = a day of generally terrible food.

Aside from that steamy cup of hot chocolate needed mid day to thaw out my 9-degrees-outside frozen cold toes, the lukewarm waffle fries and dry and, well...kind of crunchy ribs didn't make for much to talk about here.

So my kitchen is dark this week.  But with my legs up on the couch (and a 60% chance of 2-4 inches of snow tonight) I've thought of something you may just like to try.  Part of my little girl-world years ago included the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her little house on the prairie.  In one of my favorites stories she and her sister make snow candy; cooked molasses and brown sugar that they pour and drizzle into squiggles and swirls, which freeze hard in a pan of fresh snow.

Years ago my sister and I settled on stirring together maple syrup in bowls of white snow.  I still think about that lovely idea of homemade candy cracking and coming alive in a wintry backyard.  

So for you this week I did a little snooping around and found that recipe for snow candy.  I have yet to try it myself.  But in these gray and chilly days deep into the heart of winter, (and until I'm back on strong land legs again in the kitchen) you may just find this recipe a new reason to wish for snow days.

 

Or an excuse to buy yourself a hat, earflaps included.

Snow Candy

from Little House in the Big Woods

1 C molasses

1 C brown sugar

Fresh, clean, beautiful snow

1.  In a medium pot, cook molasses and brown sugar together until a candy thermometer reads between 300 and 310 degrees F.  (if you want you can test for the "hard crack" stage by dropping a spoonful of the hot syrup into a bowl of cold water.  If when you take it out and try to bend it, it breaks, you've reached the right temp!)

2.  Remove the syrup from the heat.

3.  Using a wooden spoon, drizzle spoonfuls of the syrup over packed fresh snow.  Once the syrup sets, remove it from the snow and lay on a paper towel to dry.

In The Inventing Room

What if Willy-Wonka was a bar man? Fizzy lifting drinks on the rocks. Chocolate martinis and gold-ticket-schlager. In a city where you can get a brioche infused liquor with raisins, and rum mixed with pumpkin puree, the whir of starry New York night traffic almost hints that Slugworth has taken up as a cabbie.

There is some magic in mixing drinks. Grapes turn from summer snack to vintage treasure. Grain changes to amber. Green fairies spring from wet sugar cubes on silver spoons and champagne explodes a foamy geyser in a bottle. I look at a bar and see intriguing, shiny bottles...but in truth I'm a bit like Charlie. Cautious because I don't know how it all works. And yet, still wanting to take a sip.

Enter Russ, the Wonka of whiskey. With so many of you loving last season's fall harvest whiskey, the snowy days of January in Brooklyn have just shy of required that we venture into a new project. There is no need to check your chocolate bars folks, no shiny tickets required to see the latest creation from our inventing room: the Brooklyn Winter Rye.

The Three-Course Dinner Chewing Gum of rye whiskey. Substitute tomato soup with dried figs. Roast beef and baked potato with clove and ground allspice. Blueberry pie with wide, thin strips of orange zest. A jar is the gum wrapper...toss it in, seal it up and let the flavors infuse.

Ok so its not a meal exactly, but think of all that's going on inside one little jar! And there again, some magic; the rye is changing, improving, and all the time zest and spices and figs simply float, still, unassuming and delicious. Spiced fruit petrified inside that rye grain turned amber.

That amber will turn chocolate. The chocolate will turn licorice. It amazed me how dark and mysterious the whiskey looked by day three. Full of fig and spice that you could smell but not see.

So full of fig, so dark...well, as Violet turned violet from that blueberry pie, I was afraid a sip of the winter rye straight may have shriveled me up into a little dry fig. So I turned to my Wonka with eyes for a cocktail...

Gumball-red cranberries, powder-white fine sugar and a crust of sugar in the raw shortly yielded a rosey, whimsical little cocktail following in the tradition of "smash" drinks (traditionally a muddling of sugar and mint, in this case with berries instead). Roll out the red carpet! Do a somersault! The sweet and spicey and slightly tart drink is just the thing to lift you out of the snow and up off your feet.

From book pages where we read about cows that give chocolate milk and fizzy lemonade swimming pools, to our world with fanciful infusions, berry smashes and sugar crusted Wonka whiskey, cheers to you, bottoms up my friends!

Brooklyn Winter Rye

750 mL Rye whiskey (of your choice)
1 1/2 C dried black mission figs, chopped

1 T whole cloves

1 t ground allspice

1/3 of a large orange, zested (in large strips...easily done with a peeler!)

1. Add figs, cloves, allspice and orange zest to a large jar.

2. Pour rye into jar and seal.

3. On second day, remove orange zest. Reseal jar and gently turn over once to stir up contents.

4. Let rye sit for two more days.

5. On the fourth day, strain contents through a cheesecloth. Pour rye into clean container. Sip straight, add to cider, tea or substitute in your favorite whiskey drink! Or try something new, like say...

Winter Rye Smash

a cocktail

6-8 fresh cranberries

2 t superfine sugar

3 oz winter rye

Sugar in the raw for garnish

1. In the bottom of a shaker, muddle the cranberries and superfine sugar until berries are pulpy and have released their juice.

2. Add the winter rye and fill the shaker with ice. Shake vigorously.

3. Wet the rim of a serving glass with lime or lemon juice (water would work but something sticky is a little better!) and roll the rim in raw sugar to encrust.

4. Pour the contents of the shaker into the glass and say cheers to a warm-you-up winter smash.

Yield:

1 drink