Chestnut olive oil bread 栗とオリーブオイルケーキ

This is a variation on the theme of  “olive oil cakes” that my wife has been making recently. Previous versions were: “almond olive oil cake” and “Hazelnut olive oil cake”. The hazelnut olive oil cake was gluten-free but since our purpose in making these cakes was to use various unusual nut flours rather than make gluten-free cakes, she added a small amount of AP flour in the almond olive oil cake which appears to make the cake more stable by preventing the center of the cake from collapsing after it cooled. This time, she added more wheat flour and the cake consistency is closer to “regular” cake. The chestnut flour gave a really nicely distinctive flavor. Next time, she said she might add chunks of prepared chestnuts.

Ingredients
2 cups firmly packed chestnut flour
1/2 cup AP flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/3 extra-virgin olive oil (medium quality is OK)

1 cup sugar
4 large eggs at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 20 cm 8" springform pan with olive oil then line with baking paper (parchment paper), then grease the paper. In a medium bowl, mix the chestnut flour, AP flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, beat the olive oil, eggs and sugar for 2 to 3 minutes on speed 7 or 8 until it becomes pale and thick (like pouring cream or runny mayonnaise). Add vanilla extract and beat on speed one for 10 seconds. Add the Dry ingredients and mix in gently using a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes. It will puff up dramatically in the oven but it collapses as it cools. (This version did not collapse as much as previous nut olive oil cakes). Remove from the oven and allow the cake to fully cool in the pan before releasing from the springform pan. This is a rustic cake that has higher edges and a flatter centre.

This is a very distinctive cake. It has a moist dense texture and a deep rich nutty chestnut flavor. (The flavor is unique, in a good way, and very distinctive.) Because of the intense rich flavor a small piece goes a long way. We found it is particularly good served with a slather of blueberry flavored cream cheese. 

Almond Olive Oil Cake アーモンドオリーブオイルケーキ

This is a variation my wife made of “Hazelnut olive oil cake”. Instead of hazelnut flour (which is a very expensive flour), she used almond flour. She made a number of  modifications. It turned out very nice (#1). Since she used small amount of wheat flour, this is not gluten free.

Because of the olive oil, the cake is very moist and nice alomond flavor coming from both the flour and the almond essence. Since this is not too sweet, perfect for breakfast.

Ingredients
1 1/4  cups firmly packed almond flour
1/2 cup AP flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup + 1 1/2 tsp extra-virgin olive oil (medium quality is OK)
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
>1 tsp almond extract (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 20 cm/8" springform pan with olive oil then line with baking paper (parchment paper), then grease the paper. In a medium bowl, mix the almond flour, AP flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, beat the olive oil, eggs and sugar for 2 to 3 minutes on speed 7 or 8 until it becomes pale and thick (like pouring cream or runny mayonnaise). Add vanilla and almond extract beat on speed one for 10 seconds. Add the Dry ingredients and mix in gently using a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes. It will puff up dramatically in the oven but it collapses as it cools. Remove from the oven and allow the cake to fully cool in the pan before releasing from the springform pan. This is a rustic cake that has higher edges and a flatter centre.

This is nice variation on the theme of breads made with exotic flours. This has a very moist tender texture and a nice flavor from the combination of almonds and olive oil. (They go surprisingly well together).

Chestnut Flour Cake with Persimmons and Buttermilk チェストナッツフラワーと柿のケーキ

This is an another cake my wife made from the new chestnut flour.   She came across the recipe using chestnut flour, persimmons, and buttermilk. Since we happened to have all these ingredients, she went for it. The cake was very moist and had nice chestnut flavor but the persimmon flavor is very subtle (i.e. not discernible at all). It was not too sweet and perfect for breakfast.

Ingredients:
172 grams chestnut flour
148 grams or 5.2 ounces of persimmon puree. *
1/2 cup buttermilk (we used my wife favorite buttermilk from Harrisburg dairies.)
3 eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup melted unsalted  butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
generous pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder

* The persimmon came from Weee (#1 below). They are “Fuyu” 富有柿 (which is pronounced “fuyuu” meaning “wealthy”) variety and are called chocolate fuyuu because of the dark brown color of the fruit. They were not expensive but they were small with seeds. (Most commercially grown Fuyu persimmons are seed-less). They were irregular in shape with dark blemishes which made them look like they came from somebody’s backyard tree. But when ripened they are very good with pudding-like consistency and sweet. Only problem was that it was very difficult to remove all the seeds/stones.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Butter 9" cake pan. (Having learned from our previous experience with the chestnut flour cake we added a buttered piece of parchment paper to the bottom of the pan and the cake came out of the pan with no problem) 
Puree the persimmon and set aside (#2). Sift chestnut flour to remove any larger bits/chunks.
Mix dry ingredients in bowl and set aside. Using either an electric mixer or a bowl whisk and beat the eggs. Add other wet ingredients. Fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients until fully incorporated (#3).
Pour batter into buttered pan and put into pre-heated oven for about 30 minutes, until the cake is firm in the middle and a toothpick pulls out clean. Remove from oven and cool on baking rack for at least 30 minutes before serving (#4). We reheated in the microwave for 15 seconds (First picture).



This cake was very moist, slightly sweet with a dense texture. The nutty chestnut flavor came through but we couldn’t identify any persimmon taste. This was a very good addition to breakfast.

Castanaccio Pugliese (Chestnut Flour Cake) カスタナチオ

We like pancakes for breakfast sometimes. One of the unusual ones we like to make is chestnut flour pancake”. Since we are now in the chestnut season, we decided to have the chestnut flour pancake for breakfast one weekend. We keep all exotic and whole grain flours including the chestnut flour in a small freezer in the basement. When my wife got it out, she realized its BUB (best used by) was in 2015. It smelled ok. We went ahead and made the pancakes which were very good but even by our standards this flour was a bit too far past its BUB. We decided it is the time to buy a new batch. We got a couple of bags of chestnut flour and my wife looked for some new recipes to use it. She came across this recipe for chestnut flour cake on-line. Actually, she made a chestnut flour cake with the same Italian name “Castagnaccio” previously. But that cake was quite different from this one. It was very savory and did not use any leavening agent, or sugar but did use fresh rosemary which provided good flavor. Overall, however, we were not crazy about it because it was rather dry and crumbly. The new recipe she found must be a variation of an Italian generic cake called castagnaccio. In any case, the major differences are this cake uses a leavening agent, sugar and coco powder. Instead of herbs such as rosemary this used a combination of nuts and candied fruit. It is much thicker as well. This version is more suitable for breakfast or dessert than the previous version which was more savory and as the original recipe suggested “should be washed down with red wine”. The common thing is that both cakes are quite crumbly. (We ended up eating both of them as crumbs with a spoon.)

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups chestnut flour
1/3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons cocoa powder, plus more for dusting
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for brushing
2 tablespoons honey, plus more for serving
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup of Harry and David’s medley of candied fruit. (The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup raisins and 1/2 cup dried cranberries, plumped in 1/4 cup warm water or wine - preferably Vin Santo).
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
1/3 cup roughly chopped toasted walnuts (As added measure we added chopped chestnuts)
Confectioner's sugar for dusting

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Prepare a 9-inch cake pan (The original recipe suggested lightly greasing it with olive oil but we had trouble getting the cooked cake out of the pan. We suggest next time greasing the bottom of the pan and adding a layer of greased parchment paper.)
Toast the pine nuts and walnuts. In a large bowl, swift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the olive oil, honey, eggs and milk. Slowly pour the liquids into the dry ingredients, whisking very well to avoid lumps. The batter should be smooth and a bit liquid. Add the nuts and dried fruit. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for 35 minutes, or until the cake begins to puff slightly and the middle is set. Remove from the oven and cool completely before removing from pan.
Dust lightly with confectioner's sugar and cocoa powder and serve with some warm honey.

We found it was difficult to remove the cake from the pan. A portion of it stuck to the pan and crumbled. (See the picture below). (Next time, we will use buttered parchment paper on the bottom of the pan). Even the portion that came out in one piece was difficult to cut into wedges since it kept crumbling. The only good thing was that even the crumbs tasted good.

Although eaten in crumbs this cake was very good. The chestnut flour added a nuttiness to the overall chocolate flavor. The pine nuts, walnuts and dried fruit added little bursts of flavor and texture. The dried fruit was particularly nice because it added a burst of sweetness. Interestingly, over time the chestnuts we added became rock hard and we had to be careful to remove them from every mouthful. We liked this cake better than the previous version my wife made. It would just be nice if it did not disintegrate into crumbs.

Fruitcake フルーツケーキ

My wife likes to have special baked goods for the Xmas season. After several attempts, we gave up on making panettone and now buy it. For stollen bread, she made  it a few times but now we also buy it. This year we got two different brands of panettone from Amazon and a large stollen from Williams-Sonoma.  We also used to buy fruitcake (Claxton Fruit Cake) in the past. We were not planning on including fruitcake in this year’s line-up but I came across a recipe for fruitcake on the WashingtonPost website. Supposedly this one goes well with cheese. So I mentioned it to my wife and she went into action. (Note from Wifey: We had bought various candied fruit from Harry and David. While munching on them as a snack I thought, ‘These would be perfect for a fruitcake. So when I was presented with the fruitcake recipe, it was ‘all-systems-go”.) As usual, she made some modifications due to availability nuts and dried fruit. I helped her by cutting up the dried fruit. It was remarkably good and indeed went well with cheese (and a glass of red wine). 

Ingredients (shown in the picture below)
2 cups (180 grams) walnuts halves
1 cup (140 grams) dried mission figs, chopped into ½-inch pieces
1 cup (140 grams) dried fruit medley from Harry and David cut into 1/2 inch pieces (Original recipe called for dried dates.)
1 cup (140 grams) combination candied pineapple and mangos from Harry and David cut into 1/2 inch pieces. (Original recipe called for dried cherries)
½ cup (170 grams) honey, (I used buckwheat honey which is very strong in flavor and dark in color)
½ cup (118 grams) brandy
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground mace (may substitute with ground allspice)
1 cup (220 grams) packed light or dark brown sugar
1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon fine salt
1 stick (4 ounces/113 grams) unsalted butter
2 large eggs.

Directions:

Toast the walnut then roughly chop and place in a small bowl. In a medium bowl, toss together the figs, dates and dried fruit until combined. Whisk together the honey, brandy, lemon juice and lemon zest until combined, and set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together the cinnamon, nutmeg and mace. In a medium bowl, thoroughly whisk together the sugar, flour, baking powder and salt to combine then set aside.

Melt the butter in a sauce pan. Heat slowly to let the water in the butter boil off without exploding and then cook until the solids turn brown, about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the spices (this will help bloom the flavor of the spices and suffuse them into the fruitcake). Carefully, add the honey mixture — the contents of the pot may bubble up — and stir to combine. Add the dried figs and stir to coat. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool.

Once the mixture has cooled, stir in the eggs, one at a time, and mix thoroughly to incorporate. Stir in the dry ingredients until no trace of flour remains, then fold in the remaining dried fruit and walnuts. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan then line it with a piece of parchment paper long enough to have a generous overhang on each of the long sides. (Word of advice; be sure the parchment paper covers the entire bottom of the loaf pan because the cake really sticks to any exposed surface.) Grease the parchment as well. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth out the top with an offset spatula or spoon, if needed. (Next picture below) Bake for 1 hour 35 minutes in a 300 degree oven or until the fruitcake has just begun to pull away from the edges of the pan. Transfer the fruitcake to a wire rack and let cool in the pan for about 20 minutes. Use the parchment sling to lift the fruitcake from the pan, and let cool completely before serving. (Second picture below.)

This is a really surprisingly great fruit cake. Probably the best we ever tasted. (Yes I know the baseline for fruit cake is very low, but this one stands up to any baseline for pastry.) It is very moist. The brandy, browned butter and honey really work well together to create a very complex pleasing taste. The dried fruit is slightly firm and adds another taste dimension. It also goes extremely well with a slice of cheddar cheese. The gentle sweetness of the fruit cake juxtaposed to the rich saltiness is the cheese is very nice. Next time we’ll make the fruitcake in several smaller loaf pans. The smaller pieces are just the right size for a fruitcake cheese appetizer and that combination goes very well with red wine. 

Blueberry cake with miso crumbles ブルーベリーケーキとブルーベリー味噌クランブル

 We, especially my wife, have been exploring Western-style dishes using miso such as miso-peanuts butter cookie, miso maple syrup loaf, smothered chicken with miso and bourbon, carrot cashew spread with miso and avocado miso dressing. This is another one of these dishes made by my wife. The miso is in the crumbles.

This is a very moist and delicate cake/muffin with a nice crusty top. I can definitely taste miso.

I will ask my wife to fill in the ingredients and directions.


Ingredients:
For the crumble:
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (3/4 cup for the crumble, 1 3/4 cups for the cake)
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 Tbs. Butter melted
3 Tbs. White miso

For the cake:
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (mentioned as part of the 2 1/2 cups above)
1 1/2 tsp. Baking powder
1 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. Baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter melted and cooled slightly
2 large eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup whole milk greek yogurt
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 pint blueberries

Directions:
Mix the ingredients for the crumble until combined and set aside. In another bowl mix together the dry ingredients (flour through baking soda) and set aside. In another bowl mix together the wet ingredients (melted butter through vanilla). Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Fold in the blueberries. Spread in a 9X13 pyrex baking dish that has been light greased with a greased parchment paper on the bottom. Spread the crumble over the top. Cook in a 350 degree oven for a total of 60 to 70 minutes. Start checking every 30 minutes and tent the top with aluminum foil if the crumble starts to get too dark. Cook until the top is firm and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for a least 2 hours. 

This is a very unusual cake (in a good way). The combination of the whole wheat flour, miso and brown sugar makes a sweet/salty/robust flavor we have never tasted anywhere else. The miso is very pronounced. The blueberries add a burst of fresh sweetness which helps bring the other flavors back into balance. The crumble is nice and crunchy. It complements the tender texture of the cake. And the cake is extremely tender. I had trouble getting it into a storage bag in one piece even after cooling several hours. I couldn’t slice or serve it until it had been in the fridge overnight. Even then we had to eat the slices with a fork or spoon. Nonetheless it is a nice bread with coffee in the morning.

Wacky waffle cake bowl with ricotta cheese topping

In trying to decide how to use the waffle bowls we made a few days ago, my wife was inspired by two items. The first was the realization that there are several Pennsylvania Dutch desserts such as funny cake or shoofly pie  that are essentially cakes in a pie shell. In addition she thought of Japanese melon pan which is essentially a cakey bread covered in a cookie (and wasn’t the waffle bowl a kind of cookie?) So based on these inspirations, she decided, as an experiment, to fill several of the waffle bowls with a PA Dutch cake called Wacky cake topped with ricotta filling. She chose wacky cake because it is so simple to make. If the experiment didn’t turn out, it wouldn’t be a great loss. In fact the “experiment” turned out quite nicely. The picture shows a whole wacky waffle cake plus one cut in half to show how the ricotta filling dips into the cake as it cooks.

The waffle bowls were cooked again and got really brown and crispy. Then after some time, stored in the refrigerator they became a bit soft again. My wife  heated them up in the toaster oven just before serving which made the bowls crispy. I turn the platform over to my wife to describe how she made them.

Ingredients:

For the cake 

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tbs. vinegar
1/3 cup oil
1 cup water 

For the ricotta filling

1 cup ricotta cheese
1 egg 
1/8 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Mix all the ingredients for the ricotta filling until smooth and set aside. Mix the dry ingredients from the flour thru the cocoa powder in a bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in another bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients until smooth. I put the waffle bowls in a tin for large muffins to provide support as the cake cooked (and in case the waffle bowls fell apart during cooking the mess would be contained.) I then filled them with the cake mixture and topped them with a scoop of the ricotta filling. (These are shown in the bottom row of muffins in the next picture). I had some batter left over after filling the waffle bowls so I just made some large muffins by putting the batter directly into the muffin tin and topping them with the ricotta mixture. (These muffins are shown in the top row of muffins in the picture). I cooked them at 350 degree for about 30 to 35 minutes until the ricotta topping firmed up and a skewer came out clean. 

The wacky waffle cakes were surprisingly good. Even though the shell was double cooked and got a bit high done it was nice and crispy and tasted very good. The combination of cookie-like crispiness, soft sweet chocolate cake and smooth moist ricotta filling made each chew a nice complex texture experience. The three different flavors of each element also went very well together. I think I may be onto something here. Stand back! 

Banana carrot muffin バナナニンジンマフィン

 This is another muffin my wife made. We thought it was a bit unusual since it uses grated fresh carrot and banana. My wife got this recipe from her sister. It came from “Wild about muffins” by Angel Clubb.  Although we do not know the published date, this book appears old. After just a quick search on the internet, however, it appears that there are quite a few muffin recipes using bananas and carrots. So, apparently, although we have not heard of it before,  this is not such an unusual combination.

Some recipes add nuts but my wife added raisins as per the recipe she used.

Ingredients: (Makes 12 muffins)

Dry ingredients

1 1/2 cup (210g) AP flour

1/2 cup (85g) sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

One pinch of ground cloves

1 cup (125g) grated carrot

Wet ingredients

2 eggs

1 Tbs. molasses (this plus the white sugar results in brown sugar)

1/2 cup(125ml) oil

1/2 cup (125) buttermilk

1/2 cup (125ml) mashed banana

1 tsp vanilla

Other ingredients 

1/4 cup (40g) raisins (optional)

nuts (optional)

Directions:

Combine the dry ingredients and add the carrots stirring until they are coated with the flour. This helps keep them from sinking to the bottom of the muffin. Mix the wet ingredients together and combine them with the dry ingredients. Add the raisins and mix until they are incorporated. Using a large scoop put the batter in a well greased muffin tin. Cook in a 400 degree oven until a skewer comes out clean about 18 to 20 minutes.

These muffins were quite good. They were very moist with a mild nutmeg banana flavor. The raisins are a nice addition. They are a nice addition to any breakfast. Next time we might add some nuts.

Nectarine bundt cake ネクタリンバントケーキ

We received a gift for New Year which was a one-year-membership to Harry's & David monthly fruit club.  Although some of it is a bit hit-or-miss, most of the fruit was excellent.  This month was Dulcevida nectarines. A card with the recipe for nectarine pound cake came with the fruit. (It specified the use of a bundt cake pan, so it could be classified as a bundt cake). In any case, my wife made this cake one day using the last three nectarines.

We cut a wedge to taste.

I added fresh blueberry and mint sprig just for a photo shoot.

This is a quite good cake. Nice fresh nectarine taste.

Ingredients:
For fruit
2-3 nectarines (she used 3), peeled, pitted, and cut into slices.
2 tbsp, AP flour
2 tbsp light brown sugar (my wife used white sugar with molasses)

For cake batter
3/4 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
2 1/2 cup of AP flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
8 oz lemon yogurt (my wife used plain yogurt with the addition of lemon extract)(lemon zest would also work)
1 egg
1 egg white

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325F. Grease a 10 inch Bundt pan and dust with flour (My wife only had an 8 inch bundt pan, so she made additional cakes using some mini Bundt pans she had).
Blend 2 tbsp flour and brown sugar together, add nectarines and toss until well coated. Place the mixture in the bottom of the pan. In a bowl mix the the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In a mixer, cream the butter and white sugar. Add the egg and egg white and blend until mixed. Add the vanilla, yogurt and lemon flavoring (or lemon zest) beat for 3 minutes at medium speed. Add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture and mix until combined. Distribute the batter over the nectarines (the recipe said pour the batter over the fruit. Don't know what they were using but pouring was not an option. The batter came out very thick and stiff and had to be dolloped into the bundt pan.) Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes clean.  Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes. Invert onto a wire rack and cool completely before serving.

The cake is not too sweet and is very moist. The nectarines are nicely sweet and refreshing. This is a good cake. We can eat this even for breakfast.

Fastnacht bread with sweet potato サツマイモ ”ファストナハト” ケーキ

My wife is a devotee of Japanese sweet potato "Satsuma-imo" サツマイモ. Whenever she sees it at our near-by Whole Foods, she will get some. The most common way we enjoy Japanese sweet potato is cooking it wrapped in aluminum foil on the Weber grill when we are cooking either chicken or pork roast (using indirect heat). She usually mashes the potato and adds soy sauce and butter. Then using the left-over mashed sweet potato, I make croquets (with ground pork, onion and shiitake mushroom) which is great (I have posted it). She has also used the mashed sweet potatoes to make gnocchi. This was a really good preparation because the sweetness combined with the saltiness of the soy sauce comes through very nicely. This time, my wife decided to make her "Fastnacht cake" using the mashed sweet potato. Her thinking was 'the recipe used regular mashed potatoes so how would it taste if I substituted the sweet potato?' She also modified the way she incorporated the " rivals*” and gave the bread a second rise which was not called for in the original recipe.

*According to the wikipedia definition of rivels, they are a type of spaetzle like small dumpling put in a soup. In the context of this fastnact cake, "rivels" are a sweet sugar crumb topping. (My wife did not make up this terminology. According to the ancient Pa Dutch cookbook she uses they specifically say "top with rivels" then give explicit instructions on another page under the heading of sugar topping. These include brown sugar topping, streusel topping and rivels. The main difference between them being the ratio of sugar, butter and flour).

The rivels are a crucial part of the cake. They are nice and crunchy and sweet. The problem is many of them fall off when they are put on the top and you end up picking up the crumbs eating them separately from the cake. She wanted the rivels to be a part of the cake. So, she decided to put a layer of rivels in the center. (pictured below). With this innovation, the rivels still come off the top and you still end up picking up crumbs (which apparently is just an inevitable part of enjoying this cake) but in addition there is now a guaranteed layer of lovely sweetness in each bite from the layer in the center of the cake.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup HOT mashed sweet potato (please note the recipe specifies HOT)
1 1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 pkg active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water if blooming the yeast
4 cups of AP flour to start, adding more as needed to make velvety dough.

Ingredients and directions for rivels (Crumb topping)
Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup flour and 4 tbs. butter softened until the ingredients are completely combined and look like fine crumbs.

Directions:
Put the hot mashed potatoes into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using a mixing paddle beat in the butter, then the egg and a mixture of sugar, salt and nutmeg. Beat until fluffy. Bloom the yeast in warm water.
Beat the yeast into the potato mixture. Switch to a dough hook and alternately add the flour and milk beating well after each addition. If necessary add more flour to make a soft dough. Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth and satiny. Put into a greased bowl. Grease the top of the dough, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled.

Punch down the dough. Since the recipe makes two cakes split the dough into quarters so the rivals can be put into the middle of the cake. Then put 1/4 of the dough in the bottom of the pan, sprinkle on 1/4 of the rivels and top it with another quarter of dough (#1). Do this for both cakes. Brush the tops with melted butter and cover both with the remaining rivels (#2).  Let the cakes rise in a warm place for about 30 to 40 minutes while the oven preheats. Cook in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.  The third picture shows the cake as it came out of the oven. And #4 shows the cake sliced. 

Both the use of the Japanese sweet potato, adding rivels to the center of the cakes and giving the cakes a second rise worked out well.  These were the the best fastnacht cakes ever—or at least the best my wife ever made. The sweet potato is completely substitutable for regular potatoes. The texture, however, was much better than the original recipe. It was much fluffier, more tender and slightly sweeter. The rivels in the center amalgamated into the  texture of the cake. But they also provided a moist layer of sweetness that was very pleasant. This may be the primary way my wife makes this cake in the future. 

Spinach and mint cake ホウレン草とミントの緑のケーキ

We posted green pancakes made with a combination of spinach and mint and we really liked them. We had some left over spinach that we had to use up. In addition, the mint was growing profusely in our garden. My wife found a recipe for cake made with spinach and she decided to make it. That took care of the spinach. Then she remembered the spinach mint pancakes and decided she would get the mint somewhat under control by substituting some mint for some of the spinach in the recipe. The cake is a bit like green tea cake  in appearance but the taste is completely different--and it is really good.

My wife made icing from cream cheese and honey.

The icing is not too sweet but added a nice taste and texture.

Ingredients:
1 cup raw spinach (packed) (or skip the spinach and replace it with 1 cup mint)
1 cup raw mint (packed)

3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup olive oil
2 tbs. lemon juice
2 cup flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Frosting:
1 block of Philadelphia cream cheese
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp. vanilla


Directions:
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and then set aside (#1).  Put the spinach, mint, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and sugar in a blender and puree. Then with the blender on a slow speed add the olive oil to make an emulsion (#2). Add the vanilla and mix in. Add the spinach/mint mixture to the flour (#3 & #4).  Put into a greased 6" x 8" inch baking pan that has been lined with parchment paper (to made it easier to get the cake out of the pan when it is done #5.) Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean (#6).

Frosting:
cream the cream cheese in a mixer. Add the honey and the vanilla and continue creaming until it becomes light and fluffy. Slather it on the the cooled cake.

This is a great cake. As with the green pancakes, the mint flavor predominates and is very refreshing. This is not too sweet and we had this even as a breakfast and was great with coffee. Although my wife found another way to use our prolific mint, it is still taking over.

Green tea cake with "Kuromame" black beans 黒豆入り抹茶ケーキ

I usually do not make deserts but this was an exception. I saw the recipe (in Japanese) in one of the food blogs I follow. The blogger is a very talented and her cooking covers a wide range of international and Japanese cuisines.  Since I had leftover "Kuromame" 黒豆 black beans from the Osechi box and green tea powder or "macha" 抹茶, I decided to make this cake. Sushitaro osechi included a similar cake one year.  Since this is not my usual area of cooking my wife advised me on several of the techniques (such as creaming sugar and butter) and even though I had a slight "hiccup" in the butter creaming department, the cake came out extremely well. We had this as an afternoon snack with "sencha" 煎茶　green tea (from Hibiki-an 響庵).

The cake is moist with a nice green tea smell and flavor. Although I did not brush the cake with brandy as suggested in the original recipe, the brandy flavor came from the black beans since they were soaked in brandy before baking. This is an excellent cake.

The below are English translation of  the original recipe in Japanese.

Ingredients: (for one loaf of 19cm x 9cm)
100g unsalted butter, room temperature
65g  sugar
50g AP flour
20g potato starch (Katakuri-ko)
40g almond flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1tbs green tea powder (macha)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3tbs plain yogurt
1tsp vanilla essence
Japanese "Kuromame" black beans in a syrup, arbitrary amount, drained and soaked in 2 tbs brandy.

Ingredients: X2 (for 2 loaves of 19cm x 9cm)
200 g unsalted butter, room temperature
130 g  sugar
100 g AP flour
40g potato starch (Katakuri-ko)
80g almond flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs green tea powder (macha)
4 eggs, lightly beaten
6 tbs plain yogurt
2 tsp vanilla essence
Japanese "Kuromame" black beans in a syrup, arbitrary amount, drained and soaked in 4 tbs brandy.

Directions:
1. I mixed all dry ingredients (including the sugar) together and sifted to remove any crumbs.
(I made the mistake of not creaming the butter with the sugar. My wife (always helpful) pointed out that this process is very common in cake making or cookie baking. So in an attempt to recover from my mistake, I punted).
2. I added the butter and eggs to the plastic mixing container for the immersion blender. Using low speed, I mixed the butter and eggs. I added all the remaining wet ingredients and further mixed (This worked. All wet ingredients were nicely mixed).
3. I added the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mixed until no dry ingredients were visible (#1).
4. Since we did not have a loaf pan of the size specified in the original recipe, we used a disposable aluminum baking pan, well-buttered with the bottom lined with parchment paper  (in retrospect, we could have used a smaller pan which we did have). I placed half of the batter in the loaf pan and smoothed the surface (#2).
5. I drained the black beans soaked in brandy and mixed into the remaining batter (#3).
6. I layered the second batter on top of the first layer and smoothed the surface (#4). (This process results in the black beans being evenly distributed in the cake).
7. I baked the loaf in a preheated 350F oven for 40-45 minutes or until a bamboo skew inserted in the center came out clean.
8. After the loaf cooled down, I removed it from the pan (#5).
9. The black beans appear evenly distributed (sort of).

When the cake came out of the oven, the smell of green tea was really good. For the very first cake I ever made this is an unqualified success (thanks in part to my wife's guidance of course). We are thinking that instead of kuromame, we can make this cake without it or with nuts. We really enjoyed this cake. It is truly special.

PA Dutch Fastnacht cake ペンシルバニアダッチ ”ファストナハト” ケーキ

Although my wife is not Pennsylvania Dutch, she grew up in rural PA Dutch country and has many food memories associated with traditional PA Dutch dishes. Fastnachts or donuts were ubiquitous and taken for granted in her childhood. As a kid and until just this year, she always thought  "fastnachts day" just meant donut day. She never realized that "Fastnachts day", was the same as Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras i.e. the day before Ash Wednesday. Fastnachts were a way to use up the previous year's fat and sugar before lent.

(Digression alert: My wife told me, that while out "doing the rounds" with her father, he would occasionally stop at one of the old houses on main street of a nearby town for fastnachts. The residence was the local bakery. The living room of the house was the store front from which the baked goods were sold. The room was empty except for steel racks displaying the bake goods available that day. The kitchen of the house was where the magic happened. There was no counter or cash register. The baker, a portly man sporting a flour covered apron, would come out of the kitchen when they entered. They would point to the items on the shelves that they wanted and he would put them in a plain paper bag, take the payment and bid them a good day as they left with the goodies. And the donuts he made were certainly something for a kid to remember; particularly the creme donuts made with sweet rolls the size hamburger buns, cut in half with a full inch of sweet whipped cream filling and don't even get her started on the sticky buns).

My wife became sentimental about the fastnachts of her childhood and wanted to make some. She consulted her old PA Dutch cookbooks. The traditional fastnacht is a fried, potato based, yeast donut.  In our household division of cooking labor, I am chief-in-charge of frying. Although I am the one who introduced my wife, many years ago, to the concept, that you can make deep fried donuts at home, I was not keen on the idea of frying up two dozen large donuts which was the quantity the old recipes she consulted yielded. So, she compromised and in the same old cookbook found a recipe for "Fastnacht cake" and made that instead.

I forgot to take pictures when she removed the cake from the pan. So the cake was already cut by the time I took this pic. It has PA Dutch hallmarks of "crumb" topping.

The cake has yeast and potato in it. It is a cross between bread and cake.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup HOT mashed potato (please note the recipe specifies HOT)
1 1/2 cup potato water. (my wife used 1/2 cup potato water and the rest milk)
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 pkg active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
4 cups of AP flour to start, adding more as needed to make velvety dough.

Ingredients and directions for rivels (Crumb topping)
Mix together 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour and 2 tbs. butter softened until the ingredients are completely combined and look like fine crumbs.

Directions:
Put the hot mashed potatoes into the bowl of a mixer.
Beat in the butter, then the egg and a mixture of sugar, salt and nutmeg. Beat until fluffy. Bloom the yeast in warm water.
Beat the yeast into the potato mixture. Alternately add the flour and potato water/milk beating well after each addition (#1). (While adding the flour my wife accidentally dropped the mixing cup into the mixing bowl while the mixer was on. The result is shown in #2; bent mixing cup and a shower of flour all over everything...not recommended).
If necessary add more flour to make a soft dough.
Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth and satiny(#3).
Put into a greased bowl. Grease the top of the dough, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled (#4).
Punch down the dough and divide into two portions. Fit each portion into a greased 8 x 8 x 2 in cake pan (#5).
Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with rivels (#6). Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes (#7). Final product (#8).

This is typical of PA Dutch cakes-- baked like a pie with crumb topping. The texture, however, is unique and extremely pleasing. It is not really like a cake. It is moist and dense-- more like a pleasantly, not too, sweet bread. Despite the large amount of fresh nutmeg my wife used, it does not have a strong nutmeg flavor. My wife has never had this kind of cake before but we both really like it and are glad she "discovered" it. It is a perfect cake for breakfast.

Vanilla Buttermilk Breakfast Bread a.k.a Pound Cakeバニラバターミルクパウンドケーキ

My wife was looking for a recipe to use the luscious Harrisburg Dairies buttermilk she just bought at Whole foods. This recipe was in her collection of buttermilk recipes and since she had never made it before, she glanced at the ingredients and thought it would make a nice breakfast bread.

Ingredients:
3 cups AP flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla
3 large eggs
1 1/3 cup buttermilk

Directions:
Put the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside. Cream the butter until fluffy. Add the sugar and continue creaming. Then add the eggs one at a time and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. Finish by adding the vanilla.

Alternately, add the butter mixture and buttermilk to the flour and mix. Put into greased 8 X 4 loaf pan. (I used a 9 X 4 1/2 load pan and one 5 3/4 X 3 3/4 pan because she didn't have an 8 X 4. )
Bake at 350 for 40 minutes for the small loaf and 1 hour for the large loaf. Cool completely before trying to take it out of the pan

This came out very light and tender with a very delicate vanilla flavor. My wife served it for breakfast and it was very good but something kept tickling the back of my mind. Finally it came to me. It tasted like pound cake. I mentioned this to my wife. After a moment of thought, she went to her buttermilk recipe file and took off the paperclip that kept the top of the recipe page obscured. And there it was in black and white: "Vanilla Buttermilk Pound Cake". It tasted like pound cake because it was pound cake...and a very good one too I might add. My wife had been so concentrating on the ingredients and directions, she didn't register exactly what she was making. That provided us a pretty good laugh. Also, I feel confident, that although it is not officially a breakfast bread, I will be able to "choke it down" for breakfast.

Mayonnaise cake マヨネーズケーキ

This is a very moist and chocolaty cake and the ingredients include a surprising item--mayonnaise!. This is a Pennsylvania Dutch recipe that my wife got, from a neighbor on a recent visit to the town in Pennsylvania where she grew up. Many Pennsylvania Dutch cakes and pies are unique and a bit unusual. My wife loves collecting these old recipes as nostalgia for tastes of her childhood and admiration for the creativity of the cooks who invented them. My wife made a few of them such as crumb cake, wacky cake, shoofly pie and funny cake. But, as far as I am concerned, the mayo cake is the most unusual. My wife also admitted that she never had this cake before. It came together very quickly and it was really good. If you happened to be a "mayoler*" マヨラー, this is a "must" recipe.

*"Mayo-ler" is a Japanglish word meaning "somebody-who-really-(really)-likes-mayonnaise". Apparently mayonnaise is quite the craze in Japan. We have seen TV reviews of restaurants in Japan for Mayolers in which all items are made with mayo even including mayo drinks! While we certainly appreciate mayo as a condiment on sandwiches or in salad dressing we have never gone to one of these restaurants. (And in all honesty, since we are not that crazy about mayonnaise, I doubt we ever will).

This is a small serving and, just for pics, we decorated it with whipped cream and Maraschino cherry.

Ingredients:
Dry:
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
5 tbs. Hershey's cocoa (being a PA dutch recipe, it has to be Hershey's chocolate of course).

Wet:
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup hot water

Directions:
Sift dry ingredients together 3 times (#1). combine the mayo and water until smooth (#2).  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated (#3 and #4). bake in a greased 13 X 9 inch pan at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes (#5 and #6).

It doesn't get any easier than this. This cake is lusciously moist and chocolaty. Truly amazing!!  Oh! I just realized we did not post shoo-fly pie, wacky cake or funny cake. Maybe, my wife would like to make these so that we can post them (hint, hint).

Chestnut Flour Cake: Castagnaccio 栗の粉のケーキ：カスタナチオ

Since my wife got chestnut flour, she searched for some recipes and came up with this Tuscan chestnut cake. This is indeed an interesting cake. As the recipe indicated, it requires wine to "wash it down".



This is a flat cake without any leavening agents. It is savory in taste with rosemary, pine nuts, walnuts and raisins.

 

My wife put some of these in the batter and some on the top.

 

We made a few variations from the original recipe.

INGREDIENTS

2 ounces raisins
16 ounces chestnut flour
2 tablespoons sugar
Zest of one lemon,
Pinch salt
2 cups water
3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for pan
1 fresh rosemary sprig, leaves picked and finely chopped
1 ounce toasted chopped walnuts
1 ounce toasted pine nuts

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Place the raisins in a ramekin of water to soften for 20 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, sift the chestnut flour. Add the sugar, lemon zest, and pinch of salt, mix well and then gently start adding the water to the mix.

Using a whisk, beat the mixture well making sure to eliminate any lumps, then add 2 tablespoons olive oil, and half of the raisins, nuts and rosemary and mix again.

Lightly oil an 11-inch pie plate with 2-inch sides with olive oil and pour in the batter it should be no more than 1/3-inch thick. Sprinkle the cake with rosemary leaves, the remaining softened raisins, walnuts, and pine nuts. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon olive oil and bake for about 40 minutes.

We used a rustic looking ceramic pie pan.



We used finely chopped fresh rosemary from our herb garden.



This is a very interesting cake. It has the texture and taste of a very large chestnut smashed into a flat piece. The predominantly chestnut flavor and texture is accented by intriguing overtones on rosemary and pine nuts (I couldn’t detect any walnut flavor). The original recipe said that this was not “kid friendly” and they were right. This is definitely not for desert and will not go well with coffee or tea. But the flavor grows on you. Also over time the rosemary and pine nut flavor marry into the chestnut flavor and the cake gets better.  We were probably too careful about adding too much rosemary. This time of year the rosemary in our garden is extremely aromatic and tacky with oil—probably at its best for the season.  Next time we can be a lot more aggressive with that herb. This cake reminded me of when I was introduced to the Italian liquor Compari. When I first tasted it, the flavor was very strong/bitter, unique and distinctive and I wasn’t sure I liked it. But then it grew on me. The cake is rather crumbly and we ended up eating it in chunks rather than slices. Since the raisins, pine nuts and rosemary we put on the surface just fell off as we ate and while we stored the cake, my wife suggested that next time we just mix all of it into the batter.

We had this with red wine and that combination worked out well. This cake ranks next to my wife’s anchovy black pepper cookie . They are of a similar  genre. Both go well with sipping wine rather than as a "dessert".

PA Dutch Crumb Cake クラムケーキ

Recently we visited rural Pennsylvania where my wife grew up. The trip was very nostalgic for her. One of the highlights was stopping at two regional grocery stores; Henning's and Landis. When she was a girl they were just small country stores which have grown a lot larger. (Henning's boasts 57,000 square feet). She was beside herself standing in front of the deli department stocked with all the Pennsylvania Dutch goodies such as beet pickled eggs, chow chows of all types, multiple types of scrapple. I had to remind her that  there was only so much room in the car. The real piece de resistance was the stop at Landis. Every Christmas she mail orders shoofly pie and funny cake from them. There, she stood confronted with shelf after shelf of shoofly pie, funny cake, apple sauce cake, apies pie, hard tac cake and others.  They even offered free samples with a small cup of coffee!! She couldn't resist and loaded up. Despite the mother load she brought back with her, she was inspired to make some PA Dutch dishes. This is one of them called "Crumb cake". It is not too sweet, and is very moist with interesting rough texture. I really like this cake. (Like many Pa Dutch baked goods although it is a cake it is made in a pie pan).



The name "Crumb" comes from the fact the whole cake; both top and bottom are made from "Crumbs".



Ingredients

3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup butter
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract

Directions

Sift together flour, baking power, salt, sugar and soda.
Using a pastry cutter, cut in the butter until the mixture has the consistency of course meal or small peas. (These are the crumbs for which the cake is named. )
Reserve about 1 1/2 cups of this mixture and set aside.
Combine the eggs, milk and extracts and stir into the remainder of the dry ingredients and blend. (First picture below)
Pour into 2 well-buttered 10-inch pie pans.
Brush the top of the dough w/ butter and sprinkle with the reserved crumb mixture. (Middle picture below)
Bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes or until cake is done. (Last picture).

(Pie pan filled with wet and  dry "Crumbs" mixture).

(After reserved dry "Crumbs" were put on).

(After baked at 350F for 30 minutes).

The cake is mildly sweet with a lovely moist texture. The combined flavors of the brown sugar, vanilla and almond is very distinctive but delightfully mild. The cake went so well with our espresso. The cake is so easy to make. We'll be seeing this one again.