David Lebovitz's Blog, page 15
July 26, 2020
Negroni Sbagliato Spritz
I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a better way to relax in the warm weather, than with a refreshing Spritz. I was introduced to the Spritz when I went to coffee school in 2007, in Trieste, Italy. I drank at least six cups of espresso every day – how could I not? – surprising even the Italian teachers. And by the end of the day, I needed to wind down.
So after class, I’d go to a local caffè in the early evening where I noticed everyone drinking colorful drinks in large, wide goblets filled with handfuls of ice. Since icy beverages are often hard to come by in some countries in Europe, it was surprising to see people drinking cold drinks loaded up with ice. And I wanted one.
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July 22, 2020
Amer Picon
When you write a book, it goes through several editing phases. The first is the developmental edit, which happens when you’re sort of on your way there, and your editor wants to see it. (And make sure you haven’t been sitting around watching Netflix all day.) Once that is read, you get pages of suggestions for what you should change, what should be kept, what needs to be modified, and perhaps suggestions on how to do those things. Then, you go back to work.
The next few steps are more edits, including a pass for grammar and spelling, and someone to check to make sure you said when there is “1 teaspoon of lemon juice” in the ingredient list, that it’s sure to be in the instructions for making the cake or cocktail. When you’re looking at the same words for two years, an errant keystroke or a reviewing a three-hundred-plus-page document filled with digital notes, comments, and directions laid over the text, can have unintended consequences.
Every step of the way, every editor (the main editor…as well as the copy editor, production editor, and proofreader) questioned the same thing in Drinking French: It was about Amer Picon. What would an amer be called in English? Is it Amer Picon or Picon Amer? (Or is that moot, since the most recent bottles now are labeled Picon Bière?). But most of all, the editors were inquiring why was I including a liquor in the book that had an ingredient that wasn’t available in the United States. What was I thinking?
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July 20, 2020
Texas Peach Cobbler
Peach Cobbler has become the most requested dessert around here this summer. I don’t think Romain had ever had a cobbler – I usually make crisps, which the French call crumbles. But I’ve been revisiting some cookbooks on my shelf that I hadn’t used for a while and pulled down The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather, who was the owner of several bakeries in Texas.
I met Rebecca when my first book, Room for Dessert, was coming out and I was slated to do a book tour that included Texas. I had never done a book tour and I had been in a very bad car accident and was worried about navigating and getting myself from place-to-place in an unfamiliar state, and doing baking demonstrations, which require a lot of planning and organization. I don’t know how we came to meet each other but Rebecca had a bakery in Texas and, being Texan, knew how to get around the massive state (someone told me the entire country of France could fit inside Texas), and she knew how to bake. So we became a team
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July 17, 2020
Coffee and Irish Cream Iced Shakerino
I’m not sure how I came up with the name Shakerino for this drink. It may have been a goof when I mixed up the Italian name, and concept of the drink. But this Shakerino is sort of dyslexian (or dystopian, if you’re an authenticarian – another word I made up) riff off the Italian Shakerato, a caffè drink made by shaking espresso and sugar syrup to a froth with ice.
I revisited it recently when I was cleaning out files on my computer and came across this recipe that I developed so long ago that my word processing program was struggling to find a compatible program or method to open it with. But I shook one up and after that first sip, I remembered why I liked it so much. In fact, I didn’t remember how good it was! (If that makes sense.)
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July 15, 2020
Summer Fruit Recipes
It’s summer! Whether you’re in or outdoors, hopefully for all of you there are beautiful summer fruits and berries to be had, and I hope that you’re able to get your hands on as many of them as you can. I am loading (actually, overloading…) myself up at the market. While a good portion on the fresh fruit gets eaten just as-is, some of it goes into the following dessert recipes that I continue to make year after year. Others go into jam, which is a great way to preserve all those summer fruits and berries, and make them last through fall and winter.
Cherry season is behind most of us (sniff…sniff…), but if they are still lingering where you live, you can type “cherry” or “cherries” into the search engine at the top right corner of the page to find cherry recipes. (And we don’t get a bountiful array of fresh raspberries and blackberries here, so I don’t have many recipes that use them on the blog.) But for nectarines, strawberries, peaches, plums and other summer fruits, here are some of my favorite recipes on the blog…
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July 8, 2020
Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto
During the lockdown, I did what everyone else did: Went through all my kitchen cabinets, cleaning them out, and finding little bits and bags and jars of stuff that I should have used a long time ago, but didn’t.
You did do that – right?
Mine was quite a purge. I’ve had so many things from travels, friends, food companies, houseguests, strangers, etc. that my drawers and cabinets were out-of-control. I posted some pictures on social media of the things that I appeared to be running low on, but that I was anxious to use up, and people, kindly, offered to send me more…which would have negated the whole idea of the purge. The time had come to use things up.
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July 5, 2020
Zucchini Cake with Crunchy Lemon Glaze
A few years ago, I was extremely fortunate to meet Gina DePalma, who was (at the time) the pastry chef at Babbo in New York City. Being bakers, we struck up a friendship and she gave me a copy of her gorgeous book, Dolce Italiano. After we had dessert and coffee together, we ambled the streets of New York City for a bit, and made plans to meet in Rome, where she was moving to work on her second book.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to have our Roman holiday, but I often thumb through her book and dream about how much fun we would have had lapping our way through the gelaterias of Rome and eating all those pastries with little sips of Italian espresso in between bites. Before she could plant her roots too firmly in Rome, Gina was diagnosed with cancer and returned to the States.
It’s been noted that her accomplishments were often overshadowed by the owner of Babbo, whose empire eventually fell. Gina was tough and although I never worked alongside her, co-workers noted that she didn’t suffer fools gladly, but she made such masterful desserts, and was such a talent, that you couldn’t help but have the utmost respect for Gina.
Her book, Dolci Italiano, has become a baking classic and is one of those exceptional cookbooks that makes excellent reading (as well as being an entirely enticing collection of recipes), especially the chapter on Italian ingredients, which isn’t just a rote list of what to buy. She discusses the importance of baking ingredients and what they mean to Italians: Olive oil isn’t just to moisten, it’s a flavor. And why citrus figures into Italian desserts more often than vanilla.
I was reminded of Gina recently when a reader alerted me to some links in this post led to the website of an adult film star who shared the same first and last name as Gina. Gina always got a chuckle out of that but after her passing, it seemed that Gina DePalma’s website (the one for the pastry chef and baker) somehow got co-opted by her, uh…racier counterpart. As I was switching out the links, I remembered how much I loved this Zucchini Cake of hers.
Since it’s summer, people with gardens are often bemoaning they have too many zucchini and are always looking for ways to use up their bounty. With a crunchy lemon glaze, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s the most delicious way to present a zucchini cake, whether you zucchini comes from your garden, or not.
The genius of the glaze is adding granulated sugar, which gives it an especially lemony, sweet, yet tangy crunch. The glaze is not a looker (which finally made me break out my silicone pastry brush for the first time, and I’m never going back to bristles again) but it tastes amazing with the spicy zucchini cake and I’m happy to let looks step aside to give way to flavor.
Zucchini Cake with Crunchy Lemon Glaze
Adapted from Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen by Gina DePalma
This is a substantial (and very good) cake. The crunchy glaze with the tang of fresh lemon juice really makes the cake special. Be sure to grease the cake pan well to make sure it slides out easily (I use a non-stick one) and also make sure the cake is fully baked.
Gina recommended olive oil in her original recipe, which is very good, but the cake also works with neutral vegetable oil in its place.
The best way to invert the cake is to lay the cooling rack over the top of the cake pan, then grasping both the cake pan and the rack simultaneously (if it’s too hot, wear oven mitts), flip them both over at once. Lift off the cake pan, then liberally brush the glaze over the warm cake.
ServingsServes 12-16
Ingredients
For the cake:
1cup (135g)
almonds,pecans, or walnuts, toasted
2cups (280g)
flour
1teaspoon
baking powder
1/2teaspoon
baking soda
1teaspoon
kosher or sea salt
2teaspoons
ground cinnamon
1teaspoon
dried ground ginger
1/2teaspoon
freshly ground nutmeg
3
large eggs,at room temperature
1 3/4cups (350g)
sugar
1cup (250ml)
extra-virgin olive oil
2teaspoons
vanilla extract
2 1/2cups (300g)
grated zucchini
For the lemon glaze:
1/4cup (60ml)
freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/3cup 65g)
granulated sugar
1cup (140g)
powdered (confectioner’s) sugar
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Grease a 10 cup (2.5l) bundt or tube cake pan* with non-stick spray (preferably) or butter, dust with flour, then tap out any excess.
2. Pulse the nuts in a food processor until finely chopped.
3. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. Set aside.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs, 1 3/4 cup (350g) sugar, and olive oil for 3 minutes on medium speed, until light and fluffy. Stop and scrape down the sides of the mixer, then add the vanilla.
5. Mix in the dry ingredients, scraping down the sides of the mixer bowl to make sure everything is mixed in well, then beat on medium speed for 30 seconds.
6. Stir in the chopped nuts and zucchini.
7. Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan, smooth the top, then bake the cake for 45 to 50 minutes, until the toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the cake has begun to pull away from the sides of the pan. Do not underbake the cake.
8. During the last few minutes of the cake baking, make the glaze by whisking together the lemon juice, 1/3 cup (65g) granulated sugar, and powdered sugar.
9. Let the cake cool for 10-15 minutes, then carefully invert it onto a cooling rack. Brush the glaze over the cake with a pastry brush and let the cake cool completely.
Recipe Notes
Storage and Notes:
-This cake is very good served on its own, but it could be accompanied by whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, cherry compote, or honey ice cream.
-The cake can be wrapped (or put under a cake dome) and will keep for a few days. You can freeze the unglazed cake. However to apply the glaze, you’ll need to defrost the cake, then warm it so the glaze will adhere properly.
-If you don’t have a bundt or tube pan, I noticed that both Adam and Sara made the cake in a regular round cake pan with good results.
-I haven't baked it in two loaf pans, which would likely work just fine. You may need to reduce the baking time to compensate for the smaller pans.
Related Posts and Recipes
8 Tips for Choosing and Using Olive Oil
Ingredients for American Baking in Paris
Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
July 2, 2020
Cucumber Mint Cooler
I was astonished when I was eating a sandwich at Mokoloco, which I can pretty confidently say makes the best sandwiches in the world. Okay, perhaps that’s a bit of hyperbole, but every sandwich I’ve had there has been spectacular. From the Cuban sandwich made with pulled pork, ham, pickled vegetables, spicy mustard, and griddled on house-made bread, to a Katsu Meatball “burger” served with anchovy mayonnaise on a toasted brioche bun, it’s always a tough decision to decide which to have. The menu changes daily so you never really know what’s going to be on offer, but lately they’ve been doing an excellent Fattoush salad, the best I’ve ever had, which I guess I should be glad is a seasonal thing because I’d be in there every day they’re open, all year round.
The restaurant is owned by Moko Hirayama and Omar Koreitem, although calling Mokoloco a restaurant is a bit of a misnomer. (The couple owns the nearby Mokonuts, which became so popular that they created Mokloco sandwich bar to offer more casual fare.) It’s a sandwich bar in the best sense of the word, with the friendly staff making sandwiches and salads to order, handing them off to customers who either get them to go, or to enjoy perched on a stool in the sparse, modern space.
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June 28, 2020
Cherry Jam
One of the first “recipes” on this blog was No-Recipe Cherry Jam, posted in 2005. Why some hyperventilated about making something without an exact recipe, a lot of people successfully used those guidelines to make cherry jam over the last fifteen years. The basis for it was how I’ve been making jam forever; use 3 parts sugar to 4 parts fruit puree. The standard ratio is to use equal parts sugar to fruit puree but I like to use less.
When I scored a full flat of griottes (sour cherries) at the market last week, which are a rare find at the markets. They were well-priced (€10!), which made them even harder to resist bringing them home. Sour cherries don’t last long after they are picked; within 24 hours they’ll start losing their luster and need to be used. So I made cherry jam.
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June 26, 2020
Bakers Against Racism, Paris Bake Sale
This Saturday, a group of bakers in Paris will be gathering for a bake sale in support of La Ligue des droits de l’Homme, a human rights organization in France that fights for the rights of victims of discrimination and racism, as well as other inequalities.
I’ll be there from 1 to 3pm with copies of L’Appart in hardcover and paperback. Each sale will include a homemade chocolate chip cookie with 100% of the book (and cookie) sales donated to the Ligue des droits de l’Homme.
In addition, I am offering original copies of Room for Dessert and Ripe for Dessert in brand-new condition for sale as well. Quantities of these books will be very limited since they are out-of-print.
For the event, proper hygiene will be respected in line with French government recommendations. See you then!
*For more info about the Bake Sale, visit the Baker’s Against Racism Paris Instagram page.
