Black & Blueberry Brown Butter Cake

With the kitchen redesign mov­ing grad­u­al­ly, I was expe­ri­enc­ing con­sid­er­able dif­fi­cul­ties hav­ing the capac­i­ty to cook for a devel­oped time­frame, par­tic­u­lar­ly since cook­ing is one of my favored tech­niques for stress alle­vi­a­tion. In this way, this past Fri­day I said ‘to hell­fire with it’ and made a cake in my half torn down kitchen. The broil­er was in work­ing request and there was ledge space enough for the blender, and that was ade­quate for me.

I also had quite a few peach­es on the counter that were get­ting a bit too ripe, so I sim­mered them all down into a jam. This is great for when peach­es get too soft to slice prop­er­ly and just kind of turn to mush in your hands when you try to pull the sliced parts off – you still get to keep all the peachy fla­vor, and the mushi­ness doesn’t mat­ter once it cooks down into a soft, fruity compote.

They are par­tic­u­lar, how­ev­er, to be con­sis­tent in the use of gar­nish­ings. Flow­ers and fruits are reserved for sweet dish­es, except in the case of nas­tur­tiums, which they regard as much a veg­etable as a flower and use freely with meats. It isn’t essen­tial that every dish should be turned into an elab­o­rate work of art, as if it were to be entered at the annu­al exhi­bi­tion of the Société des Chefs de Cui­sine, but nei­ther is there any rea­son, even with mod­est means at com­mand, for giv­ing cause for that old slo­gan of the great Amer­i­can din­ner table: “It tastes bet­ter than it looks.”

Vanil­la and lemon have an almost uni­ver­sal appeal to the palate, and know­ing this, the Amer­i­can cook, like the gen­er­a­tion before her, has always sea­soned her rice pud­dings, for instance, with one or the oth­er, just as her apple sauce has invari­ably been fla­vored with lemon or nut­meg, her bread pud­ding with vanil­la, and so all along her restrict­ed line. An ordi­nary bread pud­ding becomes ver­i­ta­bly a queen of pud­dings as, indeed, it is called, mere­ly by hav­ing a lay­er of jam through its cen­tre and a sim­ple icing spread over the top.

I didn’t have to stir it quite as often as I usu­al­ly do when I make jam, and I think it was because the heat was com­ing at the peach­es equal­ly from all sides of the pot which helped cook every­thing at the same pace, and made my cook­ing job eas­i­er since I didn’t have to hov­er around the pot.

Black & Blueberry Brown Butter Cake

  • Serv­ings: 2–4
  • Dif­fi­cul­ty: easy
  • Print

For the top­ping, I sim­mered down some rhubarb with fresh straw­ber­ries, sug­ar, a dash of water, and the husk of the vanil­la bean pod that was left after I scraped it out. This made the most refresh­ing & tangy syrup with a won­der­ful­ly sweet but not over­ly so fla­vor that only vanil­la can bring.

Ingredients

  • 10 ounces black­ber­ries, for cake batter
  • 6 ounces blue­ber­ries, for cake batter
  • 2 eggs
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 1 tea­spoon cold water
  • ½ table­spoon lemon juice
  • 1 salt spoon salt
  • ½ cup flour

Directions

  1. Boil the sug­ar, water and tar­tar­ic acid five min­utes. When near­ly cold beat into the syrup the whites of the eggs, beat­en until foamy, and the fla­vor­ing extract. Store in a fruit jar, close­ly cov­ered. To use, put three table­spoon­fuls into a glass half full of cold water, stir in one-fourth a tea­spoon­ful of soda, and drink while effervescing.
  2. A pint of any kind of fruit juice may dis­place the water, when a tea­spoon­ful of lemon juice should be added to the con­tents of each glass before stir­ring in the soda.
  3. Pre­heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahren­heit. Grate the choco­late, put it in a dou­ble boil­er with the milk; stir until hot, and add the sug­ar, vanil­la, cin­na­mon and one pint of the cream. When cold, freeze; when frozen, remove the dash­er and stir in the remain­ing pint of the cream whipped to a stiff froth.
  4. In a large bowl, mix togeth­er the flour, salt, bak­ing pow­der, bak­ing soda, and cin­na­mon. Mash the rasp­ber­ries; add half the sug­ar and the lemon juice. Put the remain­ing sug­ar and half the cream in a dou­ble boil­er; stir until the sug­ar is dis­solved, and stand aside to cool; when cold, add the remain­ing cream, turn the mix­ture into the freez­er, and stir until part­ly frozen.
  5. Place the pans in the oven and bake for 40–50 min­utes, or until they’re gold­en around the edges. In mak­ing pies of juicy fruit, it is a good way to set a small tea-cup on the bot­tom crust, and lay the fruit all round it. The juice will col­lect under the cup, and not run out at the edges or top of the pie.

Tips & Tricks: Fruit pies with lids, should have loaf-sug­ar grat­ed over them. If they have been baked the day before, they should be warmed in the stove, or near the fire, before they are sent to table, to soft­en the crust, and make them taste fresh. Rasp­ber­ry and apple-pies are much improved by tak­ing off the lid, and pour­ing in a lit­tle cream just before they go to table. Replace the lid very carefully.

I used Falk’s cop­per jam pot for it, which was by far the pret­ti­est pot I’ve ever made jam in, and also cooked it real­ly even­ly and effi­cient­ly. I didn’t have to stir it quite as often as I usu­al­ly do when I make jam, and I think it was because the heat was com­ing at the peach­es equal­ly from all sides of the pot which helped cook every­thing at the same pace, and made my cook­ing job eas­i­er since I didn’t have to hov­er around the pot.

A stew or a creamed dish is mere­ly a more or less indif­fer­ent some­thing to eat when it is dished up any old way and set upon the table. But if it is heaped dain­ti­ly on a pret­ty plat­ter, sur­round­ed by a ring of brown mashed pota­to, its sides dec­o­rat­ed by dain­ty shapes of toast­ed bread, per­haps but­tered and sprin­kled with minced pars­ley, it has become some­thing to awak­en the slum­ber­ing or indif­fer­ent appetite and at prac­ti­cal­ly no extra expense of time or money.

It isn’t essen­tial that every dish should be turned into an elab­o­rate work of art, as if it were to be entered at the annu­al exhi­bi­tion of the Société des Chefs de Cui­sine, but nei­ther is there any rea­son, even with mod­est means at com­mand, for giv­ing cause for that old slo­gan of the great Amer­i­can din­ner table: “It tastes bet­ter than it looks.”

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