B

Brown Butter Pumpkin Cake with Whipped Cream Cheese and Honey

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.

How to make pure food, bet­ter food and to econ­o­mize on the cost of same is just now tax­ing the atten­tion and inge­nu­ity of domes­tic sci­ence teach­ers and food experts gen­er­al­ly. The aver­age cook is intense­ly inter­est­ed in the result of these find­ings, and must keep in touch with them to keep up with the times and run her home in an intel­li­gent and eco­nom­i­cal as well as health­ful routine.

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. They are par­tic­u­lar, how­ev­er, to be con­sis­tent in the use of garnishings.

An ordi­nary bread pud­ding becomes ver­i­ta­bly a queen of 14 pud­dings as, indeed, it is called, mere­ly by hav­ing a lay­er of jam through its cen­tre and a sim­ple icing spread over the top. 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.

Before using lemons for any pur­pose, always roll them awhile with your hand on a table. This will cause them to yield a larg­er quan­ti­ty of juice. 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.

Brown Butter Pumpkin Cake with Whipped Cream Cheese and Honey

  • Serv­ings: 4–6
  • Dif­fi­cul­ty: easy
  • Print

I sim­mered down some rhubarb with recent straw­ber­ries, sug­ar, a splash of water, and also the husk of the fla­vor­er pod that was left when I scraped it out. This cre­at­ed the fore­most refresh­ing & sour sweet­en­er with a splen­did­ly sweet how­ev­er not too there­fore fla­vor that sole­ly vanil­la will bring.

Ingredients

  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tea­spoon vanil­la extract
  • 1 tea­spoon orange zest
  • 1 cup flour
  • 34 cup almond meal
  • 12 tea­spoon cinnamon
  • 14 tea­spoon salt
  • 2 table­spoons sugar
  • 34 cup butter
  • 12 cup sugar

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.

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 14puddings as, indeed, it is called, mere­ly by hav­ing a lay­er of jam through its cen­tre and a sim­ple icing spread over the top.

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.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.