Port cake and visual songs

Some of the songs I love, besides being great music, are very visual to me – I can picture the scenes as the lyrics go by a lot easier than other songs, it’s like having my very own private video clip inside my head. :)

While listening to “Am I Right?”,“Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” or “The Golden Path”, I can easily imagine all the actions while they’re singing because of all the details; I picture two gentleman having a conversation when Morten Harket sings the first verse of “Manhattan Skyline” – it’s impossible not to.

I could not however imagine what a cake with ½ cup of fortified wine in the batter would be like (in this cake the raisins got boozed up so heavily that there wasn’t much Marsala left to go in the batter), therefore the sherry cake recipe I saw on Delicious magazine got me really curious. I ended up baking it but used Port instead, and the result was a very unusually flavored cake – but not in a fussy way – and so tender it was hard to slice it.

Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea, but something worth trying at least once, especially if when it comes to cakes all you can picture in your head are the usual suspects like lemon, orange and apple ones. ;)

Port cake
slightly adapted from the always wonderful Delicious UK

225g all purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
125g unsalted butter, softened
125g granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200ml Ruby Port wine
Icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter a 20cm (8in) square pan, line the bottom with baking paper, butter the paper and dust everything with flour, taping out the excess.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Using an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy and pale. Beat in the eggs, one by one, then beat in vanilla. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in half the dry ingredients. Add the wine and fold in along with the remaining dry ingredients (at this poing I wasn’t happy with the consistency of the batter and added 20g all purpose flour).
Pour everything into the prepared cake pan and bake for 35-40 minutes until risen and cooked through (a skewer inserted in the center of the cake should come out clean).
Cool completely in the pan, then carefully turn out, remove the paper and transfer to a serving plate. Dust with icing sugar.

Makes 16 squares

Linguine with porcini and vegetable bolognese, soothing simplicity and striking complexity

“Sweet Sixteen” is not the only song I listen to five, six times in a row – I have other old favorites, songs that are so perfect to me that I hit the repeat button as soon as they start playing.

However, not all of them are as simple as Billy Idol’s beautiful creation: there are times when the only thing I want to listen to is Marc Almond’s powerful vocals, backed up with those loud and vibrant arrangements.

“Loving You, Hating Me” is a song I deeply love (as some of you already know), and I think it gets even more fantastic in the last one and a half minutes, with the arrangement going wild and Marc’s voice doing the same – depending on my mood I have to be careful not to sing it at the top of my lungs (which can be tricky if there are other people nearby). :D

There are days for Billy’s soothing simplicity, and there are days for Marc’s striking complexity, just as there are days for good old bolognese sauce and days for this delicious vegetarian version – it took me nine years to convince my husband to eat mushrooms and this was how I managed to do it (for the record, he loved the sauce and could not believe how tasty it was even though there wasn’t one single gram of meat in it). :)

Linguine with porcini and vegetable bolognese
slightly adapted from the amazing Delicious Australia

15g dried porcini mushrooms
400g linguine
2 small carrots, roughly chopped
1 large onion, roughly chopped
200g button mushrooms
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
handful of fresh basil leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves
½ cup tomato sauce – I used homemade
½ cup (120ml) red wine
3 tablespoons water
½ cup sour cream*
grated parmesan or pecorino, to serve

Soak porcini in ½ cup (120ml) boiling water for 10 minutes. Drain, reserving the liquid, and chop.
Whiz carrot, onion, mushrooms and garlic in a food processor to finely chop.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat and add the finely chopped vegetables. Cook, stirring, for 3-4 minutes until softened. Add the herbs, tomato sauce and drained porcini, then cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until fragrant.
Add the wine, water and reserved porcini liquid. Season with salt and pepper, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes or until slightly thickened. Stir through the sour cream and cook for 2 minutes.
In the meantime, cook linguine in a large saucepan of boiling, salted water according to the packet instructions.
Drain the linguine, reserving a little of the cooking water, and add it to the sauce. Toss to coat, adding the reserved water, if needed (I did not). Serve with the parmesan or pecorino (I used the latter).

*homemade sour cream: to make 1 cup of sour cream, mix 1 cup (240ml) heavy cream with 2-3 teaspoons lemon juice in a bowl. Whisk until it starts to thicken. Cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 1 hour or until thicker (I usually leave mine on the counter overnight – except on very warm nights – and it turns out thick and silky in the following morning; refrigerate for a creamier texture)

Serves 4

Cocoa-marzipan pound cake and a trailer that changed my mind

This morning I found out that there will be a TV show about Commissioner Gordon's life way before Batman and I have to say that the idea did not seem very interesting to me at first; however, after I watched the trailer, I changed my mind completely (again, the joy of a perfectly put together trailer!).

I cannot wait to see how the villains will be portrayed, and I got especially impressed by Robin Taylor – I don’t think that I have watched anything with him, but that crazy look on his face, the nose and the hair look so perfect for Penguin the he won my heart over. I’ll just forget that Jada Pinkett Smith managed to suck in less than five seconds onscreen and consider this a perfect trailer. :)

And if I’m willing to forget one or two details that aren’t so great on what I’ve seen of Gotham, I won’t do the same with the almond paste I have in my freezer: there was some left from making Sarah Carey’s cookies, so I used it in David Lebovitz’ cake – as you can see, just as a TV show my kitchen is packed with celebrities. ;)

Cocoa-marzipan pound cake
slightly adapted from here

1 ½ cups (210g) all-purpose flour
½ cup (45g) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon table salt
¾ cup (200g/7 ounces) almond paste – I used homemade, recipe here
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
1 cup (226g/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 teaspoons Amaretto
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs, room temperature
½ cup (120ml) whole milk, room temperature
½ cup sliced almonds (optional)

Preheat oven to 160°C/325°F. Butter two 21cm (8½in) loaf pans and dust with flour, tapping out excess.
In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat almond paste and sugar until almond paste is broken up into very fine pieces. Add butter and beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in Amaretto and vanilla.
Stir in half of the dry ingredients, then the milk. Then mix in the remaining dry ingredients.
Divide batter between the prepared pans and smooth tops of the cakes.
Evenly sprinkle tops with sliced almonds. Bake cakes for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool completely in the pans over a wire rack.

These cakes will keep up to 3 days at room temperature, or if double-wrapped, can be frozen for up to 1 month.

Makes 2 loaves– a piece of advice from me: don’t halve the recipe – just make the two cakes. They’re so delicious one will be gone so fast you’ll regret not making the two loaves. :D

Milky Way and chocolate chip cookies and a movie that oscillates too much

Despite being addicted to both movies and music I’m not into musicals – with very few exceptions (one that comes to mind right now is Moulin Rouge), it seems impossible for me to enjoy that kind of movie, no matter how hard I try – like the four times I tried watching Chicago with no success (the movie made me fall asleep every single time and I wasn’t even tired).

Last night, however, I gave Hustle & Flow a go, because I remembered all the fuss created by the movie back when it was released and how praised Terrence Howard’s performance was; indeed Howard is amazing as Djay – and I never expected much from him as an actor – and I found really wonderful to watch a movie with a cast formed basically by black actors (how rare is that?), but by the end of it I had mixed feelings, and the reason was that I thought it oscillated too much: there were great scenes permeated with scenes that added nothing to the story or were poorly written/acted, and it kept going that way up until the end. It’s not a bad movie at all, but I certainly expected more from it.

Chocolate chip cookies, on the other hand, hardly ever disappoint, and Jo Wheatley’s are no exception – crunchy around the edges and soft in the middle, they are great all the way, no oscillation in sight.
The original recipe calls for dark chocolate only, but after I added chopped candy bars to brownies and got these as a result I thought it was about time I tried doing the same with another classic, and when I tried one cookie still warm from the oven I knew I’d done good. :D

Milky Way and chocolate chip cookies
slightly adapted from the oh, so delicious A Passion for Baking

185g unsalted butter, room temperature
200g light brown sugar
125g demerara sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
400g all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
100g dark chocolate, chopped – I used one with 70% cocoa solids
4 Milky Way bars, chopped

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Line two large baking sheets with baking paper*.
Using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugars until light and creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and scrape the sides of the bowl after each addition. Beat in the vanilla.
On low speed, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and mix just until combined. Still on low speed, mix in the chocolate chunks and the chopped candy bars (if necessary, finish mixing with a rubber spatula).
Place 2 leveled tablespoons of dough per cookie onto the prepared sheets, 5cm (2in) apart. Bake for 5 minutes, then remove from the oven and sharply bang the baking tray on the work surface to deflate the cookies, then return to the oven for a further 6-8 minutes until pale golden brown.
Cool on the sheets over a wire rack.

* some bits of nougat/caramel might melt and stuck to the paper once cold – to avoid that, while the cookies are still warm, gently release them from the paper and reshape the cookies into a circle if the melted bits run off and change their shape; I thought of using foil instead of baking paper to avoid the sticking issue, but then I thought the foil would transfer more heat to the cookies and make them too flat

Makes about 38 large cookies

Hasselback potatoes with oregano and lemon crumbs, a great song and simple things

Some songs have been favorites of mine for as long as I can remember, and I never get tired of listening to them.

As I was listening to “Sweet Sixteen” yesterday I kept thinking of the beauty of the song’s arrangement, and of how simple it is, with just a couple of instruments. Then I listened to it four or five times in a row, savoring those chords. It is truly a beautiful song (despite the sad story behind it), one that I first listened to when I was a kid and that I’m pretty sure I’ll be listening to when I’m 70.

From time to time I write here about simple things, how great they are to me. I guess that one doesn’t need much to create something beautiful like Billy Idol’s song, and that can be applied to food. Like cakes, simple savory dishes are also something close to my heart, something I feel like eating on a daily basis, and adding a twist here and there doesn’t change their essence – it just makes them even more delicious.

In today’s recipe, the humble potato, a root veggie I love (the German blood in my veins is probably responsible for part of that love) gets transformed into a flower, with full of flavor petals. The potatoes would be delicious already roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper only, but the zesty crumbs on top makes them extra special and irresistible.

Hasselback potatoes with oregano and lemon crumbs
slightly adapted from the always delicious Olive magazine

8 small potatoes
olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon fresh oregano, finely chopped
2 tablespoons dried breadcrumbs
finely grated zest of 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F.
Place the potatoes on a wooden spoon then slice downwards thinly until the knife touches the spoon (don’t slice all the way through).
Place the potatoes cut side up on a roasting pan and brush with some oil – making sure the oil drips among the slices – then season with salt and pepper. Roast for 50 minutes.
Mix the oregano, breadcrumbs, lemon zest in a small bowl, season with salt and pepper, then sprinkle over the potatoes and roast them for another 10 minutes or until topping is golden and potatoes are tender.

Serves 4