I made an executive decision this year on our Halloween pumpkins.  Instead of buying carving pumpkins (note the helpful use of the word “carving” in the name), I assured my family that they’d be much happier with pie pumpkins.  Sure, they’re a bit smaller.  Yes, they may take a bit more work to carve.  But we can eat them!  Think of the salty roasted pumpkin seeds and the baked pumpkin that will keep us flush with pies, breads, and pancakes for weeks!  My daughter’s preschool field trip to a pumpkin patch provided us with two lovely pie pumpkins, and that clinched it.  Let’s carve some pumpkins!  Fun family activity!

My husband laid out some newspaper, selected a sharp knife, and prepared to carve.  He applied some pressure near the pumpkin’s stem, and then some more.  The knife didn’t budge.  We tried a heavier, sharper knife.  No luck.  I briefly ponder the fact that pie pumpkins are good for baking precisely because they have a very thick layer of flesh: soft and tender when baked, but seemingly impenetrable by human hands when fresh.  After an alarming series of violent stabs in and around the exterior of the pumpkin, my husband abruptly stood up and marched into the garage.

As I gently explained to my kids that maybe it would be better to paint the pumpkins this year, Dave rounded the corner with his power drill.  My kids let out squeals of delight.  Now this was some good family fun.  Who knew a power drill could create such perfectly-sculpted facial features?  As tiny flecks of pumpkin flesh flew through the air, our little gathering would never be mistaken for a traditional holiday ritual, but my kids were giddy at the opportunity to take turns holding the drill.  And after all that, I got my baked pumpkin.

Much of the drilled pumpkin was used in this holiday bundt cake with maple glaze.  Dorie calls this an “all-in-one” holiday bundt cake because it includes so many classic holiday ingredients: pumpkin, spice, cranberries, apples, nuts.  It’s all there.  This is a lovely bundt cake, full of flavor, but I have one little complaint.  Because it calls for butter instead of oil, a choice that prioritizes flavor over texture, the cake was a tiny bit dry.  For me, having a soft, moist cake is more important than the extra dose of buttery goodness (though I adore buttery goodness), so next time I would substitute oil and/or applesauce for some of the butter.  For the same reason, I also wish I’d used fresh cranberries instead of dried.  The cake would have been great with those little gems of plump, juicy flavor (instead of the relatively dry, chewy texture of dried cranberries).  All in all, the elements are in place for a great holiday bundt cake, but it’s worth playing around with a few ingredients to make it your own.

Thanks to Britin of The Nitty Britty for choosing this all-in-one holiday bundt cake with maple glaze.  You can find the recipe on her site or on pp. 186-187 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.

We had days and days of cold and rain here in North Carolina this past week.  So much rain that my kids’ weekly playgroup was cancelled.  The ever-intrepid dad in the group suggested an outing.  But one mom said she was making homemade applesauce with her son.  Another said she and her son were too cozy at home to face the wind and rain.  Uncertain whether to brave the elements or embrace the warmth of home, I settled on the latter.  We turned on the gas fireplace, pulled out some old home movies, and made a batch of sugar-topped molasses spice cookies.

The cookies were just meant to provide an afternoon activity, really.  My son runs the KitchenAid mixer like a pro (though he’s overly fond of the higher settings and tends to “take a mile,” as they say).  My daughter has a lighter touch and specializes in sifting, cracking eggs, and rolling dough.  But with the winds whipping the trees so their silvery undersides were showing and the rain pelting against the windowpane, I began to wonder if this might become one of those days my kids will remember for a long time.  The warm fire, home movies, and the sweet spice of freshly-baked cookies perfuming the entire house.  That’s my idea of home.

As it happens, the cookies were wonderful.  When baking with my children, I keep the expectations low so they can play around.  Otherwise, I’d be hovering over them on each step, carping about spills, slowing down the mixer (again), and generally extracting all the joy out of baking.  So, in this case, my son most definitely overbeat the dough and my daughter spilled a bunch of the dry ingredients in her overzealous sifting, but these cookies weren’t bothered in the least.

They were soft, chewy, with an intense flavor of spice and musky sweetness from the molasses.  Well, mine were soft and chewy.  The recipe suggests that you flatten the balls of dough before placing them in the oven — to create a flat, crisp cookie — but I skipped this step.  I’m a sucker for soft and chewy.  Again, I have to give a plug to David Lebovitz for creating the perfect accompaniment to these cookies: cinnamon ice cream.  I’d post the recipe, but you must own The Perfect Scoop by now, right?

Chock full of ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and a few grinds of black pepper, I wondered if my kids would find these cookies too intense.  No worries on that count.  We all sat together on the couch, noshing on molasses spice cookies and marveling at how time flies, and it was a perfect afternoon.  Just before bedtime, of course, my kids tore off all the couch pillows and staged a series of acrobatic moves to rival any high-flying act of Cirque du Soleil.  Inevitably, they bonked heads, dissolved into tears, and my husband and I slowly carried them upstairs to bed.  Just one rainy, blustery day… but maybe they’ll remember.

Thanks to Pamela of Cookies with Boys for choosing these sugar-topped molasses spice cookies.  You can find the recipe on her site or on pp. 76-77 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.

I’m crazy about homemade macaroni and cheese.  I adore it.  Once I start eating mac and cheese, sprinkled with a bit of salt, I don’t ever want to stop.

My favorite macaroni and cheese is always pure and unadorned.  The modern twists and 21st-century updates lure me from time to time, but I always go back to the holy trinity: macaroni, cheddar, and milk.

Strangely, I’m still searching for the perfect recipe.  I tend to move through mac and cheese phases.  For a while, I made the NY Times crusty macaroni and cheese, which is, very simply, a pound of pasta held together with a pound and a half of cheese, with a little bit of milk thrown in.  It’s very much like the family recipe made by my mom and my aunt Barbara, and you really can’t go wrong with it, but I eventually wanted to find something a bit creamier.

So I switched to a fussier version of macaroni and cheese with Westphalian ham, lemon zest, and thyme.  A nice change of pace, but a flash in the pan.

When I discovered Patricia Wells’ macaroni gratin in The Paris cookbook, I thought I’d found the one.  It’s so simple and rich and creamy with a gruyere crust and fresh chives.  But I slowly realized that it’s just not quite homey enough to become a staple.  I missed the cheddar cheese flavor that dominated all the macaroni and cheeses of my youth.

Next, I fell in love the NY Times creamy macaroni and cheese.  It’s so thickly cheesy and robust and it seems to work with whatever cheese you have lying around the house.  Alas, the last time I made it, I could sense a slight lessening of its power over me.

I’m not sure where to turn.  I’ve tried the popular recipe from Martha Stewart, but that’s not for me.  A local restaurant recently published their mac and cheese recipe in a cookbook called Chefs of the Triangle — it calls for three cups of heavy cream and three cups of cheese (Gruyere, Asiago, and cheddar) for a half-pound of pasta.  I’m not one for cooking light, but I also don’t own a defibrillator.

It feels like there should be a personal ad designed to address this predicament.  “Desperately seeking perfect macaroni and cheese.  Prefer shapely cavatappi and classic elbows.  Must have at least a 1:1 ratio of pasta to cheese.  Open to high-maintenance roux bases and unusual cheese combinations.”

Since I know of no mac and cheese support groups out there, I put my request to you.  Send me your recipes for macaroni and cheese! It’s getting cold.  We’re all hunkering down for the long winter.  I, for one, can’t imagine how I’ll get through the next few months without a delicious, cheesy, go-to recipe for macaroni and cheese.  Think of it as a public service.  Help?!

I’ve never been entirely clear on the many varieties of fruit desserts, though I love their silly names.  Grunt, slump, crumble, crisp.  To be honest, I’d rather have pie.  Or, better yet, this chocolate cake.  Only recently have I begun baking my way through the wide world of fruit desserts with crumbly toppings.  It started this summer when my friend (and fabulous baker) Michaela brought over the ingredients for a peach and blueberry cobbler.  We worked on the cobbler together in the kitchen while our husbands played with the kids outside.  With a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on the side, it was the best dessert of the summer (and I learned all about the wonders of powdered buttermilk).

That wave carried me into fall where I made plum crumble with ginger ice cream, and that became my favorite dessert of the year.  Cobbler for summer, crumble for autumn, and now Tuesdays with Dorie brings a crisp.  Despite my newfound love affair with fruit desserts, I still had my doubts.  I’ve had crisps before, and I know crisps.  In general, I’m not a fan.  Even straight from the oven, they have a stale quality, like eating a week-old oatmeal cookie, that leaves me wanting something else.

So I entered this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie challenge with low expectations, and I did what I could to keep it interesting.  Instead of using apples and cranberries, I substituted fresh pears, apricots, dried cherries, and golden raisins.  And the topping called for a good bit of coconut, which I adore, so this recipe had serious potential.

Not so.  The crisp came out of the oven, I let it cool, added a dollop of whipped cream, and tasted.  Week-old oatmeal cookie.  Big time.  I ate a few more bites, then pushed it across the table for my husband to finish.

“You don’t like it?” he asked.

“Eh,” I said.  “Not really.”  He happily finished my crisp.

Fast forward 24 hours.  My husband suggests that we make vanilla ice cream.  I pull out The Perfect Scoop and note a few flavors I’ve wanted to try, including toasted coconut.  He leaps at the chance, in part because he’s on a mission to prove that he doesn’t hate coconut (god love him).  For 17 years, I’ve had a low- to no-coconut rule in effect, because he doesn’t like the texture.  He’s ok with coconut milk or coconut flavor in the abstract, but he’s horrified by the little chewy flakes.  I, on the other hand, never had a birthday as a child without a coconut cake covered in those divinely chewy flakes.

I hasten to add that this toasted coconut ice cream is steeped in coconut, but the coconut flakes are strained out.  So my husband toasted a lot of coconut (and even put a flake or two between his teeth, all the while grimacing like a man gnashing through penicillin), steeped to his heart’s content, then strained every last molecule of solid coconut from that custard.  You’ve never seen such a perfectly smooth custard in your life.  Let’s just say my husband would have done very well for himself during the gold rush.

At any rate, that evening we pulled out the crisps, again, this time with a generous scoop of toasted coconut ice cream on top (and, in my case, a few extra toasted coconut flakes sprinkled on the ice cream).  I’m telling you, it was a revelation.  The dessert was amazing.  And it dawned on me that all of my new favorite fruity friends — the cobbler, the crumble, and now the crisp — were topped with delicious homemade ice cream.  That just may be the secret.  Unlocked.  Fruit desserts with whipped cream.  Eh. Fruit desserts with ginger ice cream, toasted coconut ice cream, or the granddaddy of them all, salted caramel ice cream?  Transcendent.

So.  A note to all fruit-neutral kindred spirits out there.  Before you bake that grunt or slump or crumble or crisp, make sure the freezer is stocked with some interesting ice cream.  And marry a man who’s willing to pretend he doesn’t hate coconut, just for you.

Toasted coconut ice cream

Adapted from The Perfect Scoop

1 cup dried shredded coconut, preferably unsweetened
1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
Big pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise
5 large egg yolks [I used 4 egg yolks and it was great]
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, or 1 teaspoon rum

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Spread the coconut on a baking sheet and bake for 5 to 8 minutes, stirring it frequently so it toasts evenly. Remove it from the oven when it’s nice and fragrant and golden brown.

2. In a medium saucepan, warm the milk, 1 cup of the heavy cream, sugar, and salt and add the toasted coconut. Use a paring knife and scrape all the vanilla seeds into the warm milk, then add the pod as well. Cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.

3. Rewarm the coconut-infused mixture. Set a mesh strainer over another medium saucepan and strain the coconut-infused liquid through the strainer into the saucepan. Press down on the coconut very firmly with a flexible rubber spatula to extract as much of the flavor from it as possible. Remove the vanilla bean halves (rinse and reserve them for another use), and discard the coconut.

4. Pour the remaining 1 cup heavy cream into a large bowl and set the mesh strainer on top. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm coconut-infused mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

5. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Mix in the vanilla or rum and stir over an ice bath until cool.

6. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

***

Thanks to Em of The Repressed Pastry Chef for selecting this apple-cranberry crisp that transformed into a pear-cherry crisp with toasted coconut ice cream.  You can find the recipe on her site or on page 422 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.

When I was growing up, my little town had a free book exchange located on a small patch of grass, just off Main Street.  It was a rustic-looking thing, just a covered box on stilts, but it strikes me now as a delightful symbol of small town life.  Every neighborhood should have a book and magazine exchange.  We’d learn about our neighbors, discover shared interests, pursue new ones, and have something to talk about other than our lawns.  I have this dreamy image of families sitting by the curb discussing the latest issue of The New Yorker, or circulating favorite recipes from old cookbooks, or teaching one another how to train for a marathon, learn about wine, bake.

So imagine my delight when my parents retired to a village that has its own book exchange.  It’s a converted old smokehouse, dark and musty inside, but the walls are lined with books.  People leave all kinds of stuff that nobody would ever want to read: cheaply-bound booklets on microwave cooking or computer manuals dating from the late 80s.  Last month, however, I hit the jackpot.  Someone dropped off approximately 30 back issues of Saveur magazine, all from the mid-1990s.

On the cover of one issue, I spotted Neapolitan pizza and knew I had to try it.   I’ve been making flatbread pizza on the grill all summer, but with the time change and the colder weather, I needed a pizza fit for the oven.

This recipe became an instant classic.  The dough is chewy inside, crispy outside, and it requires very little work.  So far, I’ve used it for a basic margarita pizza; basil pesto white pizza; prosciutto and balsamic onion pizza; and (pictured here) andouille sausage, roasted red pepper and artichoke pizza.

So I’m deep in the midst of my mid-90s-Saveur-fest, and what do I discover?  Saveur magazine chose my blog as one of their “Sites We Love”!  I’m so honored, and humbled, and pleased.  Specifically, my lemon-curry roasted chicken was chosen as “Best of the Web,” which is fantastic, since that is, without a doubt, my all-time favorite chicken recipe.  If you haven’t tried it yet, don’t just take my word for it.  Saveur loves it, too. 

After I finished reading the back issues of Saveur, I returned them to the Smokehouse book exchange to ‘pay it forward,’ you might say.  As I placed them back on the shelf, an elderly woman looked over and said, “Oh, were you reading those?”

“Yes!” I said.

“How nice,” she said.  “They came from me.  Though they’re old, I thought someone might like to read them.  They never go out of style.”

How true.

Master Pizza Dough

Adapted from Saveur magazine

Makes 2 12-inch pizzas

1  7-gram packet active dry yeast
1 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1⁄2 cups cake flour
1 tsp. salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
1⁄2 cup cornmeal

1. Dissolve yeast in 1⁄4 cup lukewarm water in a large bowl. Set aside until yeast begins to activate (it will foam a little), about 10 minutes. Combine flours and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.

2. Add 1 cup of the flour mixture to yeast and stir well with a wooden spoon or your hands. Mix in 1⁄2 cup water, then add another cup flour mixture and continue to stir. Add remaining 1 cup flour mixture, then gradually stir in about 1⁄4 cup water and mix well. The dough should be fairly soft, but not too wet.

3. Turn out dough on a lightly floured work surface and knead with the heels of your palms until it has a smooth, uniform texture, about 10–12 minutes. Divide dough into 2 even balls. Coat the insides of two medium bowls with 1⁄2 tsp. olive oil each. Place dough in bowls, cover bowls with damp cloths or plastic wrap, and set aside to rise until doubled in bulk, about 2 1⁄2–3 hours.

4. Place pizza stone or unglazed tile in oven and preheat at highest setting (not broil). Sprinkle a baker’s peel or inverted baking sheet with cornmeal. Punch down dough from one bowl, make a ball, and flatten it on the pan. Taking care not to overwork dough, stretch it into a thin 12″ circle with a slightly raised edge. Add Margherita or Marinara toppings and slide onto hot pizza stone.

5. Bake until crust is golden brown and crisp, about 12–15 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare second pizza. Remove first pizza from oven and bake the second on the same stone. Drizzle a little olive oil on each and serve.

I’ve made so many brownie recipes in my lifetime, there should really be a separate 3-ring binder to keep track of them all.  Ideally, my notebook would include all the recipes, ranked from best to worst, with detailed notes on why they succeeded or failed.  Otherwise, I’m at risk for making the same so-so brownies more than once, and that would be a darn shame.  Life’s too short for mediocre brownies.

At the moment, I have two reigning champions.  In the deep, dark, rich, fudgy, perfect chocolate brownie category, there’s the Baked brownie.  In the buttery, nutty, gooey, perfect blondies category, we have Bobby Flay’s blondies (which, unforgivably, I haven’t photographed or written about yet).

These cherry-fudge brownies with a sweetened whipped cream topping are dark, dense, and fudgy, studded with dried sour cherries.  The recipe calls for a hefty shot of black pepper — utterly unexpected and totally delicious.  I’ve been drawn into the sea salt frenzy this past year, whipping up batches of sea salt caramels, salted caramel ice cream, and even sprinkling a little extra salt on chocolate chip cookies before they go into the oven.  It was nice to give the old sidekick, black pepper, a chance to shine.

These brownies offered a nice change of pace, but they will not unseat my beloved Baked brownies.  And that’s a disappointment and a relief, both.  I find comfort in returning to a well-loved family recipe, the one written out by hand on an index card, spattered and stained, annotated, amended.  The Baked brownie may well become such a treasure.  And yet, I equally love the discovery of a new recipe that surpasses all other versions.

Cooking is a quest, for those of us who love it, with endless opportunities to improvise, experiment, rise and fall, succeed or fail.  It can provide immense pleasure as a solitary pursuit in the pre-dawn hour or as a bustling enterprise where one generation stands alongside another to learn the special touch or secret ingredient or, simply, to experience the pleasure of chopping, stirring, and mixing, elbow to elbow.  And when we all sit down together at the table, Virginia Woolf describes it best:

“Now all the candles were lit up, and the faces on both sides of the table were brought nearer by the candlelight, and composed, as they had not been in the twilight, into a party round a table, for the night was now shut off by panes of glass, which far from giving any accurate view of the outside world, rippled it so strangely that here, inside the room, seemed to be order and dry land; there, outside, a reflection in which things wavered and vanished, waterily.  Some change at once went through them all, as if this had really happened, and they were all conscious of making a party together in a hollow, on an island; had their common cause against that fluidity out there . . . Of such moments, the thing is made that endures” (To the Lighthouse, 97, 116).

Thanks to April of Short + Rose for selecting this cherry-fudge brownie torte and giving me a reason to pull out my dusty, but cherished, copy of To the Lighthouse.  You can find the brownie torte recipe on her site or on pp. 284-285 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.

When my husband and I met in graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, we ultimately managed to create a more perfect union; but we came at it from entirely different points of view.  He came from Florida, and announced to all of his friends and family that he was going “up north” for a Ph.D.  I was born and raised in the Northeast and a little hesitant about going “down south” for graduate school.

I distinctly remember hanging out in the graduate student lounge one afternoon, musing aloud about the sticky, humid nights that never cooled off properly, the ominous kudzu twining around trees, and the strange ritual of undergraduates dressing up for football games (who wears a tie to a football game?), when a native North Carolinian and fellow student cut me off with an abrupt, “Well, then, go home, Yankee.”  Yikes.

I’ve since settled in Chapel Hill, and over the years I’ve grown rather fond of the temperate year-round climate (as long as I can spend the summer in Maine…), the relaxed pace, and, of course, southern food.

This recipe for sweet potato biscuits reflects two southern staples rolled into one.  It gave me a chance to use some local sweet potatoes, which are plentiful at my local farmer’s market, and the low-protein flour so widely available in the south.  And I had biscuits!  Hot from the oven, this is one of my favorite southern treats: cream biscuits with homemade jam; herb biscuits with bacon, egg, and cheese; buttermilk biscuits slathered with butter.

Dorie suggested that we use canned sweet potatoes in syrup, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that.  So I baked the sweet potatoes and mashed them with a fork.  They gave the biscuits a pretty orange hue without making them heavy.

These are soft, with a light and tender crumb, and they’re a nice combination of savory and sweet.  My husband and I had ours with cheddar corn chowder and that was great, but really, who needs to pair biscuits with anything at all.  Just eat them straight from the oven with some good butter.  Come to think of it, these would be great for a fall football tailgating party.  Just remember to wear your high heels….

Thanks to Erin of Prudence Pennywise for selecting sweet potato biscuits.  You can find the recipe on her site or on page 26 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.

Sometimes you wake up and it’s a cinnamon roll morning.  And when you’re in that frame of mind, the yeasted dough, with it’s achingly long rise, is not an option.  No, you have to have cinnamon rolls in the next 30 minutes.  This is the recipe for you, and it is not courtesy of the Pillsbury dough boy.  These cinnamon rolls are delicious and they come together as quickly as you can make a batch of biscuits.  I was afraid they would be vastly inferior than their rich, brioche-based cousins — too craggy, crumbly, or dry.  Not at all.  These are sweet, tender, gooey, and fast.  The recipe is loosely based on a quick biscuit recipe from Moosewood Restaurant New Classics and an amazing cinnamon sugar filling and creamy glaze from The 150 Best American Recipes. For me, it’s the perfect quick cinnamon roll recipe.  Ready, set, bake!

Quick Cinnamon Buns from Heaven

Yield: 9 cinnamon rolls

Cinnamon-Brown Sugar Filling

* 3 tablespoons butter, melted
* 1/4 cup brown sugar
* 2 teaspoons cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
* 1/2 cup golden raisins or currants (optional)

Biscuit Dough

* 2 1/2 cups unbleached white flour (use low-protein flour, like White Lily or Red Band)
* 2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup buttermilk
* 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream

Creamy glaze

* 3 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
* 1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
* 3/4 teaspoon vanilla
* 2-4 tablespoons hot water

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

2. For the filling: In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Set aside.  In another small bowl, melt butter.  Set aside.

3. For the dough: In a large bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. Add 1 cup cream and 1/2 cup buttermilk, and stir until the dough forms a ball, about 1 minute. With your hands, fold the dough over a few times in the bowl, until the dough is smooth.

4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Lightly flour your hands, and pat the dough into a 1/2-inch-thick rectangle, about 9 X 13 inches. Brush the surface of the dough with the 3 tablespoons of melted butter. Sprinkle evenly with the cinnamon sugar topping.  top the cinnamon sugar with the raisins, if you’re using them.

5. Starting from the long side, roll the dough into a cylinder. Slice into 9 equal rounds. Place the rounds, cut side down, into an ungreased 8-inch square baking dish or a pie plate. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the biscuits are lightly browned.

6. To make the glaze:  In a medium bowl, combine the melted butter, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla.  Add the water 1 tablespoon at a time until you have a spreadable glaze.  (This makes a lot of glaze, so cut back if  you like it less sweet.)  Spread the glaze over the buns and serve warm.

My good friend’s husband recently calculated how many meals he has left before, well… before it’s too late.  He came up with a number, in part, as a way of importuning his wife to amp up the home-cooked meals, to make ‘em count.  I sympathize with the guy, and I’ve had a version of this same thought myself.  Mine wasn’t focused on the number of meals I have left.  But I occasionally lament the wonderful food (or wine) I might never get to try in my lifetime either because I haven’t heard of it or, worse, never got around to it.

It occurred to me again, recently, when I first tasted Vietnamese coffee.  I just couldn’t believe that 1) I’d never had it before and 2) I almost turned it down that afternoon, again.  I adored it.  I went out and bought myself a Vietnamese coffee maker.  I checked Vietnamese cookbooks out from the library. I made Vietnamese coffee ice cream.  It was a revelation.  But it was a near miss.

In a way, the same can be said for ingredients that I use, but never really attend to in any meaningful way.  Take allspice.  I’ve used it in plenty of pies, muffins, and quick breads.  It’s the wallflower of spices: a quiet, unassuming little companion to cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.  The other spices all have distinct individual identities (in my experience).  I grew up eating buttered toast with cinnamon and sugar.  I’m unusually sensitive to nutmeg and instinctively cut back on the amount recommended in baked goods and creamy pasta dishes.  I can’t think of Christmas at my parents’ house without remembering the smell of oranges studded with cloves.  But allspice?  It’s just along for the ride.

So it was a pleasure to make muffins that feature allspice as the main ingredient.  It has its own sweet, spicy bitterness that combines the best of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, and it deserves a shot at star billing.

My allspice received particularly close attention, because I only had dried allspice berries in the house, so I had to grate each one on my microplane.  I promise you’ll never forget the taste of allspice again after spending a good portion of the morning grating these tiny berries, with your nose inches from the grater, fingers micro-centimeters from being shredded.  If you’re looking to achieve zen-like mindfulness in the kitchen — or perhaps its opposite, depending on your temperament — this is a good hobby.

These muffins were subtle, delicate, and lightly sweet.  I tend to like muffins very moist, so a bit of sour cream in the batter would have been a welcome addition.  And I forgot, as usual, to lightly press the streusel into the batter, so it didn’t stick particularly well.  But these muffins are the perfect vehicle for most any spice and it has me thinking it would be fun to make them again with cardamom, mace, star anise.  So many spices, so little time.

Thanks to Kayte of Grandma’s Kitchen Table for selecting allspice crumb muffins.  You can find the recipe at her site or on pp. 16-17 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.

Hands down the best fruit dessert I’ve made all year: sweet, lightly-spiced plums topped with a chewy, crunchy, cookie-like crumble.  The topping is crustier than a cobbler, chewier than a crisp, and as soon as we finished the first one, I wanted to make a second. So I did!  With apples.

Served warm and topped with lightly-sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, this is a lovely dessert.  I didn’t have any candied ginger for the filling, so my husband made ginger ice cream to serve on the side.  Smart guy.  Good husband.

I liked the plum crumble best.  My husband liked the apple crumble best.  It looks like we’ll just have to rotate between the two… on a weekly basis.  Or maybe we’ll just keep experimenting until we find the perfect fruit for this crumble.  Next up, I’m thinking pears and dried cherries.  Maybe a little caramel sauce drizzled on top….

Plum Crumble
Serves 6 to 8

12 purple Italian or prune plums, cut in half and pitted (or 6 large plums, quartered)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons plus 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon plus 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
2 heaping tablespoons finely chopped candied ginger (optional)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, well beaten
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
Vanilla ice cream, ginger ice cream, or whipped cream

1. Place plums in medium bowl. Heat oven to 375 degrees, with rack in center.

2. In a small bowl, thoroughly mix brown sugar, 1 1/2 tablespoons flour, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, ground ginger and the (optional) candied ginger. Add to plums and mix well. Arrange plums skin side up in an ungreased, deep 9-inch pie plate.

3. In a small bowl, combine granulated sugar, baking powder, remaining flour and cinnamon and the salt. Mix well. Stir in egg. Using hands, mix thoroughly to produce little particles. Sprinkle over plums.

4. Drizzle butter evenly over crumb mixture and bake 30 to 35 minutes. Crumble is done when top is browned and plums yield easily when pricked with cake tester. Remove from oven and cool.

5. Serve crumble warm or refrigerate for up to two days or freeze, well covered. If reheating, bring to room temperature, then warm at 300 degrees.  Serve with ice cream.