Desserts

77/365: National Oatmeal Cookie Day

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Feeling your oats? Then you’ll like today’s food holiday. March 18 is National Oatmeal Cookie Day!

Oddly, April 30 is also designated as National Oatmeal Cookie Day on some calendars. Turns out oatmeal cookies are honored on both days. We’d rather not celebrate the same food twice, and April 30 is also dedicated to raisins, so oatmeal cookies are on the menu today.

Not very long ago, oats weren’t considered fit for human consumption. They were seen as food for horses. Kilt-wearing, bagpipe-playing, Loch Ness Monster-harboring Scots were the first to incorporate oats into their own diets. In a friendly little bit o’ UK rivalry, the English used to say, “A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.” The Scots fired back,“England is noted for the excellence of her horses; Scotland for the excellence of her men.” This was proven true on the battlefield: when Rome invaded England they had no trouble dispatching the British army, but Scottish soldiers – who were fond of carrying around oatcakes for nourishment – put up a real fight. Lest you think that’s a coincidence, health studies show that a diet consisting of oats lowers cholesterol and contains large amounts of fiber, vitamin E, selenium, copper, manganese, iron, magnesium, and protein. Oats are good for you (though you may set off an airport metal detector if you consume too many pre-flight). Oatcakes were more like a pancake back then, but eventually evolved into cookies in the 19th century. The first known recipe for oatmeal cookies appears in Fannie Farmer’s 1896 Boston Cooking School cookbook.

Raisins are a common ingredient in oatmeal cookies, but Tara uses Craisins instead. Plus white chocolate. She whipped us up a batch this evening, and my mouth was watering while they were still baking in the oven. I love these cookies! Here’s the recipe:

3/4 cup butter flavored shortening
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups uncooked oats (quick or old-fashioned)
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup Craisins
1 cup white chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375 F and lightly grease a cookie sheet. Meanwhile, combine shortening, brown sugar, egg, milk and vanilla in large bowl. Beat until well blended. Combine oats, flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Mix into creamed mixture at low speed just until blended. Stir in Craisins/white chocolate chips. Drop 2 inches apart and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Oatmeal Cookies

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74/365: National Pears Helene Day

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Today we celebrate a dessert with all kinds of weird grammar symbols in the name. It’s National Pears Hélène Day! Seriously, what are those weird slash mark thingies over the letter e? And, for that matter, what is Pears Hélène?

An old-fashioned dessert that is rarely seen anymore, that’s what. The dish was created by esteemed French chef and restaurateur Georges Auguste Escoffier, the same fella responsible for Peach Melba, in 1864. (The guy was all over the food map, inventing dishes left and right. We’ll be talking about him again when we celebrate Melba toast). The dessert was inspired by the opera La Belle Hélène, a historical reconstruction of the love triangle between Helen of Troy (“the face that launched a thousand ships and a Brad Pitt movie”), Paris, and Menelas. Escoffier decided that pears poached in sugar syrup and served with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and crystallized violets would perfectly represent the opera. Over the years the dessert was simplified, with sliced pears replacing the poached ones and slivered almonds standing in for the crystallized violets. Whew! I’d have hated to try and find that ingredient.

Pears Hélène looked, and sounded, complicated when I first read about it, but in reality the simplified version is pretty easy. If we didn’t have plans tonight I might have considered poaching a whole pear, but we decided instead to go the simple route. Sliced pears, vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and slivered almonds. A little bowl at lunchtime. It was decent, though I’m sure using a real poached pear instead of a generic brand of pear halves in lite syrup would have upped the wow quotient.

IMAG0614

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72/365: National Coconut Torte Day

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Midwest Mark

If you’re a lawyer in the tropics, then today is right up your alley: it’s National Coconut Torte Day! (Torte…tort…a case in which damage, injury, or a wrongful act was done willingly or negligently…okay, this joke was a stretch). The truth is, I never really knew what a torte was before today’s challenge. I thought it was a pie-like pastry, but Tara informed me that’s a tart. Talk about confusing! As it turns out, a torte is a fancy name for a multilayered cake.

Multilayered cakes date back centuries. In fact, the oldest known cake in the world was a Linzer Torte, an Austrian confection with a lattice top and a funny accent. Originally made in the town of Linz, Austria, the cake can be traced back to 1653 thanks to a recipe discovered in an abbey in Vienna in 2005. In the 1850s an Austrian tourist brought the recipe to Milwaukee, a city best known for beer, cheese, and Laverne & Shirley. From there, its popularity spread across the U.S.

If you’ve been reading this blog the past few days, you’ll know that I have recently learned that I do, in fact, have some baking skills. I found a recipe for a coconut torte that seemed easy enough (though perhaps a little too easy, as it was basically a box of white cake mix and a frosting made of sour cream, Cool Whip, sugar, and coconut). I can’t say it was difficult to make, though I did have to knock on my neighbor’s door after dark and borrow the sugar. She’s so used to me doing that, when she opened the door and saw me standing on her doorstep the first words out of her mouth were, “Do you need eggs or sugar?” So I’m giving a special shout-out to Andrea, who saved our coconut torte!

We brought it over to my parents’ house to share after dinner. And guess what? It got rave reviews! The first cake I’ve ever baked in my life turned out to be a rousing success.

Coconut Torte

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63/365: National Pound Cake Day

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Don’t let today’s food holiday weigh heavily on your mind. It’s National Pound Cake Day, and despite the name, this cake is light and buttery. Best of all, it can be enjoyed for breakfast or dinner. I love it when we have options.

Pound cake got its name from its original list of ingredients: a pound of sugar, a pound of flour, a pound of butter, and a pound of eggs. (Technically, wouldn’t that make it a Four Pound Cake)? Four pounds worth of ingredients makes a pretty big cake, which is why pound cakes were intended to feed multiple families. They would last a week, and were considered by many to be their “daily bread.” As long as you keep the same ratio of ingredients (1:1:1:1), your cake will turn out just as delicious, no matter the size. Pound Cake originated in the early 1700s in Britain, which begs another question: shouldn’t it be called 1/2-kilogram cake, instead? In 1796, the first cookbook authored by an American and published in the U.S. was released, featuring two recipes for pound cake. In 1881 Abby Fisher, a former slave, published the first cookbook written by an African-American; this also featured a couple of pound cake recipes.

Remember how I linked to Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” video on National Cherry Pie Day? Today, I’m showing off Van Halen’s “Pound Cake,” yet another hard rock song that uses dessert as a metaphor for sex. Is there some rock ‘n roll playbook that stipulates all bands must, at some point, come up with a double entendre-laced ode to dessert? No idea, but I’m looking forward to seeing who comes up with an R-rated celebration of Double Stuff Oreos.

Tara and I indulged in a slice of pound cake – washed down with coffee – for breakfast this morning. It may not have snapped, crackled or popped, but it was still a pretty tasty way to start the day.

Pound Cake

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61/365: National Banana Cream Pie Day

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Midwest Mark

March 2nd we celebrate yet another pie. Two months into this challenge, and we are already feeling all pied out. But there are more to come! Lots more: there are 20 different pie holidays this year. This means 5% of the time, we’re celebrating pie. Fortunately, a bunch of those holidays overlap with other food days, ’cause no matter how you slice it – that’s a lot of pie. Today is one of my faves, though: banana cream pie!

And I am not alone. In 1951, the U.S. Armed Forces conducted a survey asking soldiers which pie was their favorite. The top answer had to be censored (damn soldiers and their one-track minds!), but the top non-dirty answer was banana cream pie. This led the government to conduct a top-secret study to determine if banana cream pie could be altered to create superhuman strength in the soldiers who ate it. Sheesh…too much Captain America on the brain for some people! What a waste of time. Everybody knows that it’s canned spinach that gives you strength.

Cream pies are also a favorite of comedians, who use them as a gimmick to throw in people’s faces. I always thought this was a waste of a good pie, until I read that most of these pies are really just tins filled with whipped cream or shaving cream.

What a waste of whipped cream and shaving cream!

For today’s challenge, we went to the ever-reliable Shari’s, which we are now officially renaming Pie Central. We bought, and shared, a slice of banana cream pie. As you might have guessed, it was heavenly! Those soldiers had the right idea.

Banana Cream Pie

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59/365: National Chocolate Souffle Day

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Midwest Mark

We rose to the occasion today in order to celebrate National Chocolate Souffle Day: Tara and I decided to have a chocolate souffle bake-off. Keep in mind, neither of us had ever made a souffle of any kind. We’ve watched enough cooking shows over the years to know that souffles have tripped up many a good chef before, so I’ll admit it: I was apprehensive going into the challenge. How’d we fare? Read on!

Souffle is French for “gonna collapse on your ass.” They can be either savory or sweet, and are traditionally baked in ramekins. European cooks during the Renaissance often used whisked egg whites in desserts, but it wasn’t until the invention of meringue that the souffle was perfected. The secret to a good meringue is to whip it. Whip it good. Famed French chef Antoine Beauvilliers (once the personal chef of none other than Louis C.K. – oops, got that wrong, King Louis XIV) – is believed to have served the first souffles at his restaurant, La Grande Tavern, in the late 18th century; he later published a cookbook, L’Art du Cuisinier, that featured souffle recipes. Another cookbook published in 1841, Patissier Royal Parisien, devoted so much attention to proper souffle technique that it’s obvious chefs for centuries have had problems with souffles collapsing on them.

Needless to say, none of this instilled confidence in my own souffle-making skills, but (understatement alert!!) Tara and I tend to be a tad competitive, so without further ado it was game on.

It was game on in front of a live audience, by the way.

Earlier in the day, a couple of our Facebook followers urged us to stream the competition online using a service called UStream. I had never heard of UStream before, but decided to swallow my pride and give it a go. So there we were, whipping up our souffles in the kitchen while simultaneously chatting live with a few viewers. It was a nerve-wracking and humbling experience, at least for me. And might have affected my cooking abilities. I’m not sure…maybe that’s just an excuse, because the winner of the challenge was…drumroll, please….

TARA!

By a country mile. Her souffle turned out light and airy. It rose perfectly and did not collapse. And most importantly of all, it was DELICIOUS! Mine, on the other hand? Well, it was darker. So there’s that.

Either way, we had a blast!

Chocolate Souffle

Tara’s winning souffles!

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51/365: National Cherry Pie Day

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Today’s food holiday warrants a big celebration: it’s National Cherry Pie Day! In case that reference is a little too subtle (or a little too 1990) for you, here’s what I’m talking about.

Warrant takes “innuendo” to a whole new level there! But they are singing about cherry pie, so it was only appropriate to share.

The fact that National Cherry Pie Day is celebrated in February – and within days of President’s Day – can’t be a coincidence. After all, George Washington will forever be associated with cherries thanks to his famous “I cannot tell a lie; I chopped down the cherry tree” admission of guilt. Even though cherry pies are a quintessentially American dessert, credit for their invention actually goes to Queen Elizabeth I of England, whom it is believed not only came up with the idea for the pie but allegedly baked it herself in the royal kitchen back in the 16th century. In fact, the girl in Warrant’s video is modeled after Her Highness. Pies (originally spelled “pyes”) have been around a lot longer than that, but were usually made with meat. During the Medieval period, whole birds were typically baked into pies and their feet were left dangling out of the crust, to be used as handles. You might think that sounds disgusting, but I say it’s handy and convenient! Fruit pies (or pasties) were developed right around the time of the Queen’s reign. When pies came to North America, colonists added sugar and spices to the crusts to make them edible; prior to this, crusts were called “coffyns,” oddly appropriate considering they once contained whole dead birds inside, and were virtually inedible. Thankfully, cherries are a whole lot more palatable than dead foul, which probably explains why cherry pie is such a popular dessert. It was, in fact, a favorite of Kyle MacLachlan’s character, Dale Cooper, on Twin Peaks, who enjoyed his pie with a cup of coffee.

Hey, it's got natural AND artificial flavors!

Hey, it’s got natural AND artificial flavors!

Perhaps that was the inspiration for our celebration this morning. Or maybe we were just feeling lazy. There are other pie holidays to celebrate this year, and I promise at some point we’ll make a homemade one – when the ingredients are in season (i.e. strawberry rhubarb pie in June). But today, we shared one of those cheap prepackaged cherry pies that didn’t even have the decency to be Hostess, for crying out loud! But hey, it still counts. And, much like Agent Cooper, we had ours with coffee.

Thank you, Queen Elizabeth I.

Thank you, Queen Elizabeth I.

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50/365: National Chocolate Mint Day

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Today we celebrate two great tastes that taste great together: chocolate and mint. It’s National Chocolate Mint Day!

Granted, it seems like we just celebrated this holiday last week with Peppermint Patties. But there are enough combinations of chocolate and mint that we could eat (or drink) something different every day for a couple of weeks. Not that we’d want to do that, of course.

Chocolate pairs well with many different foods. Classic pairings include chocolate and red wine, chocolate and strawberries, chocolate and orange, and chocolate and muenster cheese. Chocolate and mint are no exception, either. Mint is derived from the Latin word mentha, which in turn comes from the Greek word minthe. In Greek mythology, Minthe was a female spirit…okay, she was a nymph…who tried to seduce Hades with her feminine wiles and awesome cleavage, but Queen Persephone stepped in and turned Minthe into a mint plant. Boy, when they say there’s no such thing as a woman scorned, they mean it!

Mint is classified as an herb and belongs to the same family as basil, rosemary, sage, oregano, and catnip. It grows vigorously when planted, and can take over an entire garden. I know this firsthand: I once planted a single mint plant in the backyard, and before long every time I cut the grass it smelled like a Junior Mints factory had exploded. Good stuff, but man, be careful or it’ll get out of control, much like bamboo and the ridiculous claims over at Fox News.

We could have gone in a dozen different directions with today’s challenge, but since it’s Girl Scout cookie season, we decided to go with Thin Mint cookies. A timeless classic, if you will (and straight out of the freezer, ’cause that’s how we roll). Yum!

Thin Mints

Thin Mint cookies are in season, so we indulged!

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43/365: National Plum Pudding Day

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Today is National Plum Pudding Day! If you’re wondering what plum pudding is, you’re not alone – so were we! Imagine our surprise when we learned that plum pudding contains no plums, and is more of a cake than a pudding. Before you scream “false advertising!” you have to understand that in Medieval times, when the dessert was first invented, raisins were called plums.

Plum pudding is also known as Christmas pudding, and in England – where it originated – it is traditionally served at Christmas time. It was historically prepared with 13 ingredients, to represent Jesus Christ and the twelve apostles, and made on the 25th Sunday after Trinity (which occurs on the 8th Sunday after Easter, which itself occurs on the first Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox (March 21). How anybody keeps track of all that is beyond me). It all roughly translates to Christmas time anyway, hence the name. Tradition dictates that all members of the family grab hold of the wooden spoon and help to stir the batter while making a wish. (If it were me, I’d wish we were making something other than plum pudding, but more on that later). This was known as “Stir-Up Sunday,” not to be confused with “Stirrup Sunday,” the popular gynecological holiday. Plum pudding was actually banned during the Puritan period in England because it was deemed “sinfully rich.” It used to be baked with silver coins and miniature thimbles, anchors, and wishbones, to signify wealth, thrift, safe harbor, and luck. This practice died out because people could never find their Monopoly pieces when they were ready to play.

3.5 ounces was plenty.

3.5 ounces was plenty.

I’m glad we planned ahead for the plum pudding, because lemme tell ya, it is a bitch to find in stores. Maybe it’s common in Liverpool, but in Portland? Not so much. So we looked up some recipes, and to say they looked daunting is an understatement. The ingredient list is a mile long (13, my ass!) and includes things like suet, mace, and currants. Oh, plus, after steaming it for six hours, you’ve got to let it all sit – in order for the flavors to blend together – for three weeks. This food holiday might easily have tripped us up had we not planned in advance. Planning in advance, in this case, meant ordering a small plum pudding online from Blue Moon Tea, an importer of teas and foods from the UK located just a few hours north in Tacoma, Washington. Whew! We ordered a small 3.5-ounce container of plum pudding, and believe me, that was plenty. The stuff is dark (because of treacle and other dark sugars, and the long cooking time) and not very appealing in appearance. We microwaved it for 30 seconds and each had a fork full with our morning coffee. It is cloyingly sweet and fruity, and reminds me of fruitcake. Suffice it to say, neither Tara nor I were real impressed with plum pudding.

Mmm!! Your mouth is watering now, huh?

Mmm!! Your mouth is watering now, huh?

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41/365: National Cream Cheese Brownie Day

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Midwest Mark

Whew! Thank goodness today’s food holiday celebrates a dessert. It’s been two whole days! (Even though we ate our molasses bars for breakfast). Today is National Cream Cheese Brownie Day.

Brownies are delicious. Cream cheese is great. Combining the two verges on genius, if you ask me!

I already discussed the history of brownies back on January 22nd, when we celebrated National Blonde Brownie Day. Chicago World’s Fair, Bertha Palmer, yadda yadda. No need to rehash the past. I guess that means I’ll have to focus on cream cheese instead! Early versions of cream cheese date back to the 16th century, but the American version was another of those happy accidents. In 1872, New York dairy farmer William Lawrence was attempting to make a batch of Neufchatel, a type of soft white cheese popular in France, but screwed up the recipe. His cheese was richer and contained cream, so he capitalized on his mistake and called it “cream cheese.” As if that were his intention all along. Typical entrepreneur! He ended up purchasing a Neufchâtel cheese factory and mass-producing cream cheese with his business partner, Samuel Durland. In 1880 a cheese distributor named Alvah Reynolds began selling Lawrence & Durland cheese, and he created a new brand name for it: Philadelphia Cream Cheese, based on that city’s reputation for making really good movies about down-on-their-luck boxers named Rocky cream cheese. Eventually Philadelphia merged with Kraft, and to this day those silver rectangular boxes are considered to be the gold standard of cream cheeses. Neufchâtel, by the way, is still manufactured, usually as a reduced-fat version of cream cheese, since it contains 33% less fat and a higher moisture content. Tara, in fact, is quite fond of Neufchâtel. The first time she bought it, I asked her where the “real” cream cheese was. I’ve since learned not to question her in matters of cheese. Cream cheese brownies consist of regular chocolate brownies with cream cheese swirled in to the mix.

Before I get to our brownies, I wanted to mention that once again we had a surprise visitor to the blog. Or a pair of visitors, actually: Alfredo and Ilse Di Lileo, the grandchildren of Alfredo Di Lileo, the inventor of Fettuccine Alfredo. I told his story here, and his grandkids happened upon the article and dropped by to say hi. They gave me a little information on what happened to their grandfather after his pasta dish achieved acclaim, and offered a slight correction, letting me know the current name of the restaurant in Rome is Il Vero Alfredo. We were honored and humbled that they would stop by and take the time to write us. This blog continues to surprise us in unintended ways!

So, the cream cheese brownies. What can I say? What else is there to say?? They were, of course, fantastic!

Cream Cheese Brownie

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