Best New Cookie
Commercial (& unattainable in North America)"Border Crunch Ginger Biscuits"
The Picky Eater discovered these spicy, almost mouth burning, biscuits at Partridges, an upscale Chelsea (London) food emporium. Sadly, when we tried to procure a supply for export they were sold out! With the help of her intrepid garden tour director, the P.E.'s redoubtable mother ordered eight boxes online from a shop in the Border Counties, had them shipped express to her Windsor hotel, and carted them back across the pond.
So far, attempts to recreate them using the esteemed Paul Hollywood's mother's recipe have failed rather spectacularly.
Homemade (but modeled after a favorite bakery cookie)
"Ina Garten's Spicy Hermit Bars" We searched many a website for these spicy raisin and nut filled bars, which was not easy given the fact that we didn't really know what they were called. Trust Ina Garten to provide an excellent version, which was further improved by the addition of a generous portion of nuts.
These bars need to be slightly under baked. With a terrible tendency to under bake as a matter of course, paranoia set in and I managed to almost over bake them. Fortunately, after a couple of days in a closed container, moisture from the icing seeped into the bars and made them just about perfect. Also well reviewed by a friend who has pretty much lost his sense of smell, but could taste the "spiciness" on his tongue.
Makes about 24 bars
1/2 cup unsalted butter (room temperature) or for non-dairy consumption, 1/4 cup margarine & 1/4 cup shortening
1 cup light or dark brown sugar (lightly packed)
1 extra-large/large egg (Did you know that the equilvalency charts claim that large/extra large eggs are equal? It's a mystery to me why Ina always lists extra large when large is the industry standard for recipes)
1/4 cup unsulphured molasses
2 cups all-purpose flour (plus 2 tablespoons)
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/3 cup crystallized ginger (minced, not in syrup)
1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
Icing
1 cup confectioner's sugar (sifted)
dark rum
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Put the butter and brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes, until light and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add the egg, scrape down the bowl, then mix in the molasses.
Stir together the flour, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. With the mixer on low, slowly add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, mixing until just combined. Mix in the raisins nuts, and crystallized ginger. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Turn the dough out onto a very lightly floured board, form it into a disk with lightly floured hands, and cut it in half. Roll each half into a log 12 inches long and place them 3 inches apart on the prepared sheet pan. bake for 20 minutes, the logs will still be soft in the center.
Meanwhile, whisk the confectioner's sugar with 5 to 6 teaspoons of rum to make a pourable glaze. While the logs are still warm, drizzle the glaze back and forth across the logs with a teaspoon. use more glaze if a thicker icing is desired. Allow to cool. Cut each log crosswise into 1 1/4 inch-wide bars.
Best New Cake
Commercial: The Bakewell Tart at Toms Kitchen, 27 Cale St, Chelsea, London SW7. Buttery crust, frangipane, and fresh poached apricots- what could be better? Evidently, there is some debate about the difference between a Blackwell tart and a Blackwell pudding, of the sort which only an Anglophile food enthusiast can appreciate, and it appears that the Tom's Kitchen version is another variant. Bye the bye, Tom's Kitchen also serves excellent fish and chips and an unctuous version of macaroni and cheese with truffles optional.
Homemade: "Poppy Seed Lemon Cake"
A delicious moist and tender cake, based on another Ina Garten recipe, with indulgent double toppings- a glaze applied while the cake is warm and an icing after it has cooled. As a foodie snob, I used to avoid Ina Garten's recipes, mainly because someone once told me that I looked like her when I was in the hospital, and also because she was just too popular. Well, her popularity is well founded. Her recipes are solid, simple to execute and reliable- they always taste great and don't fail. I put her in the Pantheon of cookbook authors' recipes whom I trust enough to make for company without a trial run through. Only Ina, Julia Child, and Deborah Madison rest in this personal Hall of Fame.
Poppy Seed Lemon Cake
Serves 8-10
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature (plus more to grease the cake pan)
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
Grated lemon zest of 4 lemons
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup poppy seeds
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
3/4 cup buttermilk, sour cream or yogurt (use 2% or whole fat)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Glaze
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
Lemon Icing
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 Tb unsalted butter, at room temperature
pinch of salt
1 Tb lemon juice
2 Tb hot milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 10 cup bundt pan.
Cream the butter and 2 cups granulated sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With the mixer on medium speed, add the eggs, 1 at a time, and the lemon zest.
Stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and poppy seeds in a bowl. In another bowl, combine 1/4 cup lemon juice, the buttermilk (or sour cream or yogurt), and vanilla. Add the flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately to the batter, beginning and ending with the flour. Distribute the batter evenly in the bundt pan, and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until a cake tester comes out clean.
Make the glaze:
Combine 1/2 cup granulated sugar with 1/2 cup lemon juice in a measuring cup or bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves. When the cakes are done, allow to cool for 10 minutes. Remove the cakes from the pans and set them on a rack set over a tray or sheet pan; and brush the glaze over them. Allow the cakes to cool completely.
Make the icing:
Put the powdered sugar, butter, and salt in a small bowl. Pour the lemon juice, hot milk, and vanilla over them and whisk until smoothly blended. When the cake is completely cool, spoon the icing over the top of the the cake and spread it over the sides.
Best Presentation- Desserts: A tie between the "English strawberries with honeycomb, rose water ice cream and prosecco gelee" at Manicomio, Duke of York's Square, Chelsea, London.
Both were delicious, and it is up to you, gentle reader, to decide which is the lovelier.
Best Retro Dessert: "Nabisco's Chocolate Wafer Icebox Cake"
Much to the satisfaction of harried home cooks, in the 1970's a cookbook was published with the titleBest Recipes from the Backs of Boxes, Bottles, Cans, and Jars. (The newest edition was published in the spring of 2017.) Convenience foods were a miracle of the post WWII era, and staff home economists at processed food corporations worked long and hard to attract consumers to their products with delicious quick and easy recipes. This was (and still is) a favorite in the Picky Eater's dad, amongst its many (mostly male) fans.
Chocolate Wafer Icebox Cake
Serves 12
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (9 ounce) package chocolate wafer cookies
Best the cream in a mixer using the whisk attachment on high speed (or an egg beater) until stiff peaks form. Gently stir in vanilla.
Spread 1-1/2 tsp. whipped cream onto each wafer; stack 3-4 at a time, and stand them on edge on a platter. to make a log. Frost the log with the with remaining whipped cream.
Refrigerate the cake for 4 hours. Cut into diagonal slices to serve.
The Maida Heatter Lifetime Achievement Award: "Chocolate Dump Cake"
Since the 1970's Maida Heatter, a.k.a. "the Queen of Desserts," has been making the world a sweeter and more chocolaty place. She is the author of nine classic dessert cookbooks, including the James Beard Award-winning Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts. Ms. Heatter is a member of the James Beard Foundation Hall of Fame, has been named to Cook's Magazine's Who's Who in Cooking, and was one of the first people inducted into the Chocolatier Hall of Fame. A centenarian as of 2016, she continues to bake joyfully in her home in Miami Beach, Florida.
This cake, with its cake mix and instant pudding origins, isn't my usual modus operandi, but my mother made it for family birthdays for many decades, and it is well loved by my niece Samantha. Nadine always showered the rich chocolate ganache icing with a bevy of M&Ms.
Serves 10-12
1 box chocolate cake mix
1 box vanilla or chocolate instant pudding
4 eggs
¾ c. water
½ c. oil
1 c. sour cream
1 c. chocolate chips
1 c. chopped nuts
Chocolate icing:
6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
1/3 c. whipping cream
1 Tb. sugar
2 Tb. butter
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Mix together all the cake ingredients except the nuts and chocolate chips until well blended. Fold in the nuts and chocolate chips.
Bake in a well buttered and floured bundt cake pan for about 1 hour. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for about thirty minutes, and then turn it out onto a cake rack. When the cake has cooled, drizzle the icing over the cake and let it run down the sides.
Note: This cake can also be baked as a layer cake or cupcakes.
Make the chocolate icing: Melt all the ingredients in a saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate is almost all melted. Allow the icing to cool slightly before use.
Best Town for Chocolate Lovers: Oaxaca, Mexico
Oaxaca is one of the few places in the world where chocolate is a cultural and dietary tradition woven into daily life. Families routinely have their chocolate ground and flavored to their own personal specifications at chocolate processing shops such as Soledad or Mayordomo. Walking into one of these shops is to enter a chocolate lover's dream. The air is permeated with the scent of chocolate, you are invited to sample a variety of chocolate flavored with cinnamon, almond, vanilla, moka, etc. and watch grinders vibrate as the beans are processed. Or, order a hot chocolate drink to sip in the cafe at the rear. Soledad even offers hotel rooms above the shop, where I have no doubt that the sheets are impregnated with the perfume of chocolate!
As well as an ingredient in drinks and confections, chocolate is a basic component of some moles, another flavorful essential of Oaxacan cooking. There are seven basic flavors of moles which employ local chiles and spices, but for inventive Oaxacan cooks, the sky is the limit. If you visit, don't miss the lamb chops with dark mole at Casa Oaxaca. At the chocolate shops you can also purchase house made moles to take bring home.
So, there you have it, our picks for this year. Enjoy!! We always do.....
