Donna Bell's Bake Shop

TWO THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW:

1. I hate, hate, hate this new fashion of preparing dessert that looks for all the world as though it has been dumped from the compost bucket or dropped on the floor, stepped on, swept into the dustpan, and dropped on a plate. Use as many tweezers, pastry bags, offset spatulas as you like, spend hours plating, but truth be told, it looks like compost. I don't want my cake ground up to resemble dirt or coffee grounds(and furthermore, I don't want coffee grounds IN my dessert), I don't want specks of frosting, dots of coulis, tiny squares of jello, itsy bitty bits of candied anything strewn across my plate in a decorative arch.  I want cake, not yesterday's compost.

2.  At sometime during every single day, NCIS is on my television, like right now. My cats love it. I can turn it on, and say, "I can name the killer in 22 seconds...because I have seen each and every one about 20 times...because anytime of the day or night, some channel is showing NCIS.

My bias is noted.

I got Donna Bell's Bake Shop for my birthday.  (Thank you Anne!)  It is the perfect baking book. Look at the cover.  Pauley Perrette is holding a cake. Yes, a cake. We know it is a cake because it has layers of cake, it has an a frosting on the layers, it has whole, recognizable fruit on the frosting. It is cake.  I like cake!  You will probably recognize Perrette as Abby Sciuto from NCIS. She started the bakery along with Darren Greenblatt and Matthew Sandusky. Perrette named her bakery after her mother, Donna Bell, who died of breast cancer in 2002.  Like me, her mother was from Alabama. Like me, Perrette's family moved around quite a bit, but even though she wasn't born there, she considers Alabama home.  

This cookbook is traditional, but don't for a minute think the recipes are ordinary. The book is filled with cakes and pies and cupcakes and bars and muffins and biscuits and cookies and they all look like what they are. Flip through the pages and you will exclaim, "That's a cupcake!" And you will be right though you might find that your cupcake has a homemade turtle topping of pecans, caramel, and chocolate!

There is a wonderful recipe for Lemon Bars, a very traditional and comforting dessert. But there are several great variations on your usual bar cookie, including this one.

Seasonal Magic Bars

Nonstick cooking spray
Shortbread crust

1 cup Reese's Pieces
3/4 cup shredded sweetened coconut
3/4 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries
1/4 cup white chocolate chips
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 c sweetened condensed milk
1/2 c evaporated milk

Heat the oven to 350F.  Line a 9-by-13-inch pan with aluminum foil, allowing enough foil to overlap the edges. Spray the foil with cooking spray. Place the Shortbread Crust into the prepared baking pan, making sure to distribute evenly.  Press down on the crumbs to form a crust. Bake until golden brown about 25 minutes. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix together the Reese's Pieces, coconut, pecans, cranberries, white chocolate chips, and semisweet chocolate chips. Remove pan from the oven and immediately spread the chips mixture over crust. Mix the condensed milk and evaporated milk together in a small bowl or measuring cup. Drizzle evenly over the top. Bake for 10 minutes. Cool completely in pan. Grab the foil handles with both hands and lift the pastry out of the baking pan. Cut into 24 bars.then cut into bars.


Shortbread Crust

2 cup flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 cup (2 sticks) cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Place the flour, sugar, and salt into a processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse a couple of times to combine. Add the cold butter butter and pulse a few times until mixture resembles coarse meal. Be careful not to process too long or it will turn into dough.

Or, to make by hand, in a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt.  Add the cold butter pieces and quickly press between your fingertips to break the butter into the flour until it resembles coarse crumbs.

I don't exactly know why this recipe is "seasonal"  but it sure is good. I made it "seasonal" by replacing the Reese's Pieces with Cadbury Mini Eggs left over from Easter. Whip up a batch today and settle down in front of the television, I'm sure you can find NCIS showing no matter what time you indulge. 

Tasia's Table

I am totally convinced that I have written about this book.   I waited months and months for it to be published.  It was on my waiting list forever.  How did I not post about it?   I am here to rectify that over site.   Largely, because Tasia Malakasis was featured in the new issue of Country Living.  I said to myself, Self, you love that book and you did a great post.  But I looked and couldn't find it.  I am going crazy!!

Anyway...

Malakasis has a great story.  In this great migration back to the farm era, she was a forerunner.  Here is the the Cliff Notes version.

Small town Alabama girl makes it big in NYC.
She goes into her local cheese shop and finds a chèvre from Alabama.  
Becomes obsessed.  
Visits the cheesemaker.  
Harasses the cheesemaker till they let her intern at the dairy.  
Buys the dairy and moves back to Alabama.   
Makes a fine cheese.
Then writes a cookbook.
But not, "The End."

Malakasis is Greek but also Southern and with lots of goat cheese around, she has managed to write a cookbook that encompasses all the parts of her life.  There is a recipe for moussaka right along side a recipe for grits and goat cheese.  While the recipes rely on a lot of Belle Chèvre, there is a definite Southern breeze flowing through them.  If you have ever complained that all Southern cookbooks are basically alike, this is one that will change your view.

Take the sideboard staple, potato salad.  Here it becomes a warm and unctuous side.  It looks like potato salad but with a classy twist.

Warm Potato and Belle Chèvre Salad

2 lbs Fingerling Or Yukon Gold Potatoes, cut in 1” dice 

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 cup dry white wine 

Clove garlic, minced

Salt and pepper to taste 

1/4 cup sour cream

1 medium red onion,  diced 

1/4 cup fromage blanc

1/2 cup fresh parsley 

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup Belle Chèvre Confetti 

4 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons fresh tarragon

Steam potatoes until tender. Drain and toss with with wine, salt and pepper. Add cheese, onion, and parsley. Stir together remaining ingredients. Toss with potatoes and serve immediately.

To read more about the Country Living article, head over to Lucindaville.

Gridiron Cookery

Are you ready for some football? I am sorry we are no longer allowed to use that phrase due to some some dumbass who should have known better. Oh well, every state has one, or two. However, the answer is... we are.

This evening Alabama is playing Vanderbilt for Homecoming because Agnes Scott doesn't have a football team.

In Alabama, Paul "Bear" Bryant is still the driving force in football. Hundreds of students, who weren't even born when Bear was alive, will file into the stadium wearing his famous houndstooth hat.




I will admit to being alive when "Bear" coached and to give you some idea of just how powerful Coach Bryant's influence was and is in Alabama, I can tell you that every time I hear about an event "marking 9/11, " I always ask myself, "Why are they celebrating "Bear" Bryant's birthday?"

In 1960, Frances Daugherty and Aileen Brothers published a collection of recipes from the wives of football coaches around the county. Gridiron Cookery boasts that these resourceful hostesses are:

"skilled at taming (and feeding) victory-mad mobs -- or reviving a few low-spirited losers."

One such hostess was Mrs. Paul Bryant. Here is a recipe she picked up when "Bear" was the coach at Texas A & M.

Cheese Biscuits

1/2 pound of butter
4 cups grated cheese (half New York and half American)
2 1/2 -2 2/3 cups flour
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
stuffed olives, cut in half

Cream butter and cheese; add flour and cayenne pepper. Press through cooky press in long strips. Place cut olives on the strips and roll like a jelly roll into small biscuits. Place on a cooky sheet, and bake at 300F until slightly browned.

There is time to make up a big batch of these before kick off. (Provided you own a "cooky" press.)

I know if was 1960 but it is now 2011. Mrs. Paul Bryant was Mary Harmon Black Bryant.

150 Alabama First Lady's Cookbook

We don't go in much for old spiral-bound cookbooks, but when one spends a lot of time studying Southern cooking, they are hard to escape. 150 Alabama First Lady's Cookbook was assembled by then Governor Albert P. Brewers wife, Mrs. Albert P. Brewer. (Rumor has it her Christian name was "Martha" but there is no sign of that in this cookbook.) The cookbook was compiled for the Alabama Sesquicentennial in 1969. It is just jam packed with recipes, quite a large number of them involving "canned" ingredients like mushroom soup, mushrooms and lots of Jello. There is the ever present lemon Jello and tomato juice aspic, cheese straws, and Red Velvet Cake.


We have Mrs. Hardenburgh's $1000 Prize Recipe for Chicken which might have been awarded this vast sum because she actually used fresh herbs in the chicken... also canned mushrooms and canned cream of mushroom soup, but fresh basil and rosemary just the same.

So here is a recipe for Party Chicken. It would seem that "party chicken" was quite a popular dish as two, count them, TWO Mrs. offered up this recipe.

Party Chicken

4 whole chicken breasts, split, skinned and boned
8 slices of bacon
1 4-ounce package of chipped beef
1 can mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream

Wrap each breast in strip of bacon, cover bottom of flat, greased baking dish with chipped beef. Arrange chicken on chipped beef. Mix undiluted soup and sour cream and pour over chicken. Cove and refrigerate. Bake uncovered in a very low (275) oven for 3 hours.

I have spent a lot of time in Alabama and I have never been served chipped beef on chicken. Especially after it has been cooked for three hours. I just don't believe there is enough canned soup and sour cream to keep chicken breasts from totally drying out after three hours.

I suggest serving the Party Chicken with Company Beans.

Company Beans

2 packages French cut green beans, frozen
2 packages baby lima beans, frozen
2 packages English peas, frozen

Cook each according to instruction on the package.

Mix the following sauce, and keep at room temperature:

2 cups mayonnaise
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Dash of Tabasco sauce
1 medium sized onion, minced
4 hard-boiled eggs, minced
Salt and pepper to taste.

Drain liquid from hot vegetables, put into serving dish, and top with sauce.

Again, I lived in Alabama for years and never, never, EVER had a frozen green bean nor a green pea. (OK, we did often have canned English Peas.)

So my little Southern Belles, go forward and party.

Requiescat in Pace -- Kathryn Tucker Windham

The great storyteller, Kathryn Tucker Windham, died 12 June 2011. She was 93. In addition to many volumes of ghost stories, she also wrote two cookbooks. One of our early Lucindaville posts featured Southern Cooking To Remember. We have reprinted it below.

Here at Cookbook Of The Day, we featured her book, Treasured Alabama Recipes.

She was a lovely lady who constantly reminded people of the importance of listening. In 1940, after writing movie reviews for her hometown paper, she began a career as a police reporter for the Alabama Journal in Montgomery. At the time newspaper women were generally confined to the society pages. She gained the respect of the police by following the most grisly of stories, even scrambling down a steep ravine to get to the body of murdered child. Of the incident Windham wrote:

“When they saw me stay with them on that one, they accepted me. They knew I could do a good job, just like our male reporters."

But storytelling would always be her greatest gift -- storytelling and playing the comb. Here is a short video, in honor of her 90th birthday, describing an early comb playing class.

She will be missed. But don;t be surprised if you see her now and then, strolling down an Alabama road, or waving from a high, dark window...

REPRINTED from 27 February 2009

Famous Food Friday -- Kathryn Tucker Windham

If you were a child in Alabama, you know Kathryn Tucker Windham. She is a quintessential storyteller who made ghost stories a way of life. It all started in 1966 when a "friendly" ghost named "Jeffery " took up residence in the Windham house. When a group of kids came over and tried to "contact" Jeffery with a Ouija board, they succeeded and Jeffery was photographed. Jeffery became a kind of spirit world collaborator as Mrs. Windham collected stories that became 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. My favorite is the Red Lady of Huntingdon College. Kathryn Tucker Windham began collecting ghost stories and other tall tales from around the South. Now 90, she is still in demand as a storyteller. She founded the Alabama Tale Tellin' Festival, held each year in Selma, Alabama.




What people may not know is Kathryn Tucker Windham's first book was a cookbook. Later she published a second cookbook, Southern Cooking To Remember. In November, I was in a large, well stocked grocery store and found a lovely bag of sunchokes, which I thought was funny since they looked like Jerusalem artichokes to me. Actually, Jerusalem Artichokes are not from Jerusalem nor are they artichokes. They are indeed, sunchokes, tubers from a sunflower like plant. When an early explorer to America sent the tubers back to an Italian friend, he dubbed them, "girasole articicco," quite literally, "sunflower artichoke" or sunchoke. The Italian pronunciation was corrupted and "Jerusalem artichoke" stuck. What do you do with them, my friend asked and Kathryn Tucker Windham knew the answer. Most Southern larders have at least one jar of Jerusalem artichokes pickled in some way.

Jerusalem Artichoke Relish

2 pounds Jerusalem artichokes
4 yellow onions
3 red peppers
1 cup salt
1 quart cider vinegar
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon mustard seed
1 tablespoon celery seed

Use a stiff brush to scrub artichokes well. chop coarsely. Chop onions and peppers coarsely. Put chopped vegetables and salt in a large bowl and cover with cold water. put in the refrigerator overnight. being sure to cover it tightly. Next day, pour off the water and place vegetables in a large kettle. Add other ingredients and cook over moderate heat, stirring , until sugar is completely dissolved and mixture boils. Reduce the hear and simmer for half an hour or until relish is thick. Stir right often during the simmering. ladle into sterilized pint or half-pint jars and seal. This makes four pints.

Grab yourself a sous chef, spectral or not, and make a batch of this relish. And afterwards, I'll tell you the story of the Red Lady...

Purefoy Hotel

We did a post on the famous Purefoy Hotel Cookbook. I once read this from a book dealer: Frankly, I'm not quite sure how this book became one of the most sought-after cookbooks in America, but it is! So true.

People are often asking me if they can buy my copy. Some people collect the various editions and every time I mention it, I get e-mails from people.

Recently I got an e-mail from Alan Anderson. He told me his parents always stopped in at the Purefoy twice a year. He wrote:

"My mother's recipe book is very well used, dog eared would be an understatement. There is a menu she kept in the book."

He sent me a copy of his mother's old menu from the Purefoy that she had kept tucked in her copy of The Purefoy Hotel Cookbook.

There is no better reason to do a blog.

Thanks, Mr. Anderson

Baked Explorations

Baked is one of my favorite cookbooks and I wrote about it back in April of 2009. Well, the Baked boys are back with a new cookbook. Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito have another winner with Baked Explorations.

Baked Explorations features traditional American baked goods with exciting twists. Check out this interview at Eater for more incites into the Baked experience. To get a look at the actual bakery check out their Baked web site.

And now, without further ado...Wait! Let me just say here that the recipe is long and seems complicated. But here is the truth. The recipe has two components -- sweet and salty. Then the two components have to be assembled. So you really do not want a recipe that leaves out valuable sets do you? My advice is to read the recipe -- read it again -- and when you fully grasp the steps, you will see it is not nearly as complicated as you might think from looking at it.

So now, really, without further ado... a recipe.

Sweet & Salty Brownie

Caramel:
1 c. sugar
2 tablespoon light corn syrup
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp fleur de sel
1/4 cup sour cream

Brownie:
1 and 1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons dark cocoa powder
11 ounces quality dark chocolate (60-72%), coarsely chopped
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 & 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
5 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla

Topping:
1 and 1/2 teaspoons fleur de sel
1 teaspoon coarse sugar


Make the Caramel:

In a medium sauce pan, combine the sugar and corn syrup with 1/4 cup water, stirring together carefully so you don't splash the sides of the pan. Cook over high heat, until a thermometer reads 350 degrees and is dark amber in color.

Remove from the heat and slowly add the cream (it will bubble up). Then add the fleur de sel. Whisk in the sour cream. Set aside to cool.

Make the Brownie:

Preheat oven to 350. Butter the sides and bottom of a 9 x 13" pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Butter the parchment.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, salt and cocoa powder. Place the chopped chocolate and butter in a bowl over simmering water. Stir occasionally until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and combined. Turn off the heat, but keep the bowl over the water. Whisk in both sugars until completely combined. Removed bowl from pan.

Add 3 eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until just combined. Add the remaining eggs and whisk until just combined. Add the vanilla and stir until incorporated. Do not overbeat the batter at this stage or your brownies will be cakey. Add the flour mixture. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the dry ingredients until there is just a trace of the flour mixture remaining.

Assemble:

Pour half of the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the top with an offset spatula. Drizzle and 3/4 cup of the caramel sauce (not all of it) over the batter, trying to stay away from the edges. Gently spread the caramel sauce evenly. In heaping spoonfuls, scoop the remaining batter over the caramel layer. Smooth the brownie batter gently over the caramel.

Bake the brownies for 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through. Brownies are done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with a few moist crumbs. Remove the brownies from the oven and sprinkle with the fleur de sel and the coarse sugar. Completely cool before serving.

What else? Oh yeah, Matt went to the University of Alabama so no wonder he knows how to bake. I know that many of you are quite distraught that Alabama has a "buy" this Saturday. I know I am at a loss for what to do. Well, here's and idea -- BAKE!!!

Doves (not a cookbook per se)

Over at the blog To The Manner Born, I read a wonderful entry about dove hunting, which is a great way to spend an autumnal day in Alabama. When I commented on the post, I got a nice note from the author, David Bagwell. I also got a picture of the day's spoils and his wife's recipe for said spoils. (And now I would like to say how truly upset I was to have not been invited to share in the bounty... but I digress.)

Here is David's note on the recipe.

Here are my dove breasts, stuffed with basil goat cheese my wife made from organic goats, organic jalapeño and wrapped in bacon and grilled!

Seriously, he hunts doves and she makes goat cheese, these are people to party with, I must say.

Purefoy Hotel Cookbook

I grew up in a small town in Alabama. Fine dinning was the Dairy Queen. Yet, hovering in the air was a remembrance of one of the best restaurants in America. Just twenty five miles up the road in Talledega, was the home of the Purefoy Hotel, founded in the 1920's. Sold in 1944, the hotel was razed in 1961. Fortunately for us, in 1938, Eva Purefoy put together a spiral bound cookbook of recipes from the hotel and various household hints that made the hotel run smoothly.

I never had the opportunity to eat at The Purefoy Hotel, but the memory lingers in the air. Everyone that ever ate at the Purefoy can wax poetic on the food. Dinner was served “family style, with everyone crowded around a table with a starched white tablecloth that was ladened with food.



An everyday dinner at the Purefoy included:

Baked Chicken
Dressing
Rice
Gravy
Turnip Greens
Creamed Irish Potatoes
Candied Yams
Macaroni and Cheese
Escalloped Oysters
A Good Rump Roast or Home Baked Ham
Fresh Spinach
English Peas
Cranberry Relish
Homemade Hot Rolls
Corn Muffins
Creamed Chicken or Chicken Croquettes
Fruit Salad
Lettuce
Cabbage Slaw
Gingerbread
Lemon Pie or Boiled custard
Coffee
Tea or Milk

For Thanksgiving another 10 to 20 dished were added. I’m really sorry I missed it! But you can recapture a bit of the charm with this recipe for their famous oysters.

Delicious Scalloped Oysters

1 pint of fresh oysters, out a layer of cracker crumbs in the bottom of a baking dish, then a layer of oysters, sprinkle pepper, salt and butter.
Cook 1 cup of finely cut celery 20 minutes and mix with each layer of oysters. Repeat until dish is 2/3 full, cover top with cracker crumbs.
Pour enough rich chicken broth over this to moisten the crackers well. If broth is well seasoned no salt or pepper is needed.
I always roast my chicken with a little celery and onion –1 medium onion, 3 stalks celery for each hen.
The oysters should be fixed and let the hot broth stand on them 5 minutes before baking. Bake in a hot oven about 20 minutes, till well set and light brown.
Beat 1 egg thoroughly and pour over top and brown well. Serve piping hot. Do not crumble crackers too fine.

Clearly, the oysters are better than the writing of the recipe! One can tell that the oysters were made every day, so the recipe was second nature to Eva. To actually explain how to make the oysters, led to rather convoluted instructions. This is definitely a recipe that needs to be read before making.

While the hotel has been gone for decades but the recipes live on in the Purefoy Hotel Cookbook. A cookbook that is still in print, with older copies being quite collectible. Many a book dealer wondered why people are out there looking for a spiral bound cookbook from a long closed hotel. While most people think of Talladega as another stop in the NASCAR circuit, many people remember it as the beginning of fine dining in Alabama.