Persimmon Cake with Brown Butter Icing

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.

The fre­quent expe­ri­ence of the cook liv­ing in the coun­try or sub­urbs these days to receive unex­pect­ed vis­its from friends who are tour­ing in auto­mo­biles, and she finds she must have some­thing attrac­tive, dain­ty and nour­ish­ing ready at a momen­t’s notice to sup­ple­ment the cup of tea or cof­fee so wel­come after a hot, dusty trip.

With a sup­ply of good eggs in the pantry the cook need nev­er be at a loss for a tasty cus­tard, and if she is wise enough to buy Armour’s Fan­cy Selects when she orders eggs from her mar­ket man their good­ness will be reflect­ed in her desserts. Aside from their good­ness their extra large size will always rec­om­mend their use to the wise cook.

There is inspi­ra­tion in the art that enters into the pro­duc­tion of a French din­ner, in the per­fect bal­ance of every item from hors d’oeu­vre to café noir, in the ways with sea­son­ing that work mir­a­cles with left-overs and pre­serve the dai­ly rou­tine of three meals a day from the dead­ly monot­o­ny of the Amer­i­can régime.

It is impos­si­ble to deal in a short arti­cle with the many vari­eties of Sum­mer Sauce, but there are three or four which can be touched upon. To have a thor­ough under­stand­ing of their good­ness one must not only read about them but taste them. They are the sta­ple diet in many for­eign coun­tries and in the Armour brand the native fla­vor­ing has been done with remark­able faithfulness—so much so that large quan­ti­ties are shipped from this coun­try every week to the coun­tries where they originated.

To have a thor­ough under­stand­ing of their good­ness one must not only read about them but taste them. They are the sta­ple diet in many for­eign coun­tries and in the Armour brand the native fla­vor­ing has been done with remark­able faithfulness—so much so that large quan­ti­ties are shipped from this coun­try every week to the coun­tries where they originated.

Pud­dings that are pre­pared by boil­ing, steam­ing, and bak­ing, and the sauces that make them appe­tiz­ing, receive a good­ly share of atten­tion. Pas­tries and Pies com­pletes this vol­ume, round­ing out, as it were, the cook’s under­stand­ing of dessert making.

To many per­sons, pas­try mak­ing is an intri­cate mat­ter, but with the prin­ci­ples thor­ough­ly explained and each step clear­ly illus­trat­ed, deli­cious pies of every vari­ety, as well as puff-paste dain­ties, may be had with very lit­tle effort.

Persimmon Cake with Brown Butter Icing

  • Serv­ings: 2–3
  • Dif­fi­cul­ty: easy
  • Print

For the hon­eyed pear top­ping, have ready a sheet of puff-paste made of five ounces of sift­ed flour, and a quar­ter of a pound of fresh but­ter. Lay the paste in a but­tered soup-plate. Trim and notch the edges, and then put in the mix­ture. Bake it about half an hour, in a mod­er­ate oven. Grate loaf-sug­ar over it, before you send it to table.

Ingredients

  • 1 tea­spoon bak­ing powder
  • 1 tea­spoon bak­ing soda
  • 34 tea­spoon ground ginger
  • 1 cup butter
  • 12 cup whole milk
  • 3 12 cups flour
  • 1 12 tea­spoons cinnamon
  • 1 12 cups gran­u­lat­ed sugar
  • 34 cup brown sugar

Directions


1. Stir the but­ter and sug­ar to a cream, and add the liquor and rose-water grad­u­al­ly to them.
2. Beat the whites only, of six eggs, till they stand alone on the rods; and then stir the beat­en white of egg, grad­u­al­ly, into the but­ter and sug­ar. After­wards, sprin­kle in, by degrees, the grat­ed cocoa-nut, stir­ring hard all the time. Then stir all very well at the last.
3. Break up a cocoa-nut, and take the thin brown skin care­ful­ly off, with a knife. Wash all the pieces in cold water, and then wipe them dry, with a clean tow­el. Weigh a quar­ter of a pound of cocoa-nut, and grate it very fine, into a soup-plate.
4. Grate the yel­low rind of the orange and lime, and squeeze the juice into a saucer or soup-plate, tak­ing out all the seeds.
5. Beat the whites of six eggs till they stand alone. Stir the almonds and white of eggs, alter­nate­ly, into the but­ter and sug­ar; and then stir the whole well togeth­er.
6. Have ready a puff-paste suf­fi­cient for a soup-plate. But­ter the plate, lay on the paste, trim and notch it. Then put in the mix­ture.
7. Bake it about half an hour in a mod­er­ate oven.

Tip: 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. 

To have a thor­ough under­stand­ing of their good­ness one must not only read about them but taste them. They are the sta­ple diet in many for­eign coun­tries and in the Armour brand the native fla­vor­ing has been done with remark­able faithfulness—so much so that large quan­ti­ties are shipped from this coun­try every week to the coun­tries where they originated.

Pud­dings that are pre­pared by boil­ing, steam­ing, and bak­ing, and the sauces that make them appe­tiz­ing, receive a good­ly share of atten­tion. Pas­tries and Pies com­pletes this vol­ume, round­ing out, as it were, the cook’s under­stand­ing of dessert mak­ing. To many per­sons, pas­try mak­ing is an intri­cate mat­ter, but with the prin­ci­ples thor­ough­ly explained and each step clear­ly illus­trat­ed, deli­cious pies of every vari­ety, as well as puff-paste dain­ties, may be had with very lit­tle effort.

There is inspi­ra­tion in the art that enters into the pro­duc­tion of a French din­ner, in the per­fect bal­ance of every item from hors d’oeu­vre to café noir, in the ways with sea­son­ing that work mir­a­cles with left-overs and pre­serve the dai­ly rou­tine of three meals a day from the dead­ly monot­o­ny of the Amer­i­can régime, in the gar­nish­ings that glo­ri­fy the most insignif­i­cant con­coc­tions into objects of appetis­ing beau­ty and in the sauces that ele­vate indif­fer­ent dish­es into the realm of cre­ations and enable a French cook to turn out a din­ner fit for capri­cious young gods from what an Amer­i­can cook wastes in prepar­ing one.

Fear no mess; it just means you’re a nor­mal, func­tion­ing human being.

Mar­ta had come to my work­shop in Croa­t­ia to lend a hand and is one of the warmest, sweet­est, and friend­liest peo­ple I’ve ever met. And not only that, but she is an incred­i­ble cook to boot! After we shot these savory pies they got very cold and I woofed it down since I hadn’t had break­fast that morn­ing, and even chilled these pies tast­ed insane­ly good. I can only imag­ine the heav­en that would exist being able to eat one of these guys warm from the oven! Savory pas­tries are severe­ly under­rat­ed, in my opin­ion, I think they should be as com­mon if not more com­mon than the sweet ones.

The word Rav­ig­ote means, lit­er­al­ly, “pick me up” and it is applied to minced tar­ragon, chervil, chives and pars­ley, the herbs being kept sep­a­rate and served with sal­ad on four lit­tle saucers. Rav­ig­ote but­ter, made by knead­ing but­ter with the four herbs and adding pep­per, salt and lemon juice, spread between thin slices of bread, makes deli­cious sandwiches.

Aside from their good­ness their extra large size will always rec­om­mend their use to the wise cook. 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.

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.

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