[ad_1]
My mom was satisfied that baking genes skipped generations. In any case, her mom was a wonderful baker, she herself baked under no circumstances and I baked on a regular basis. I want I’d identified my grandmother as a baker, however I didn’t present curiosity within the craft early sufficient to study at her elbow. I’ve bought just one reminiscence of her within the kitchen: She’s leaning over a small enamel-topped desk, it’s coated with a skinny fabric and he or she’s rolling out dough. What I keep in mind most is watching her roll the dough up and across the pin, raise it excessive, bathe the fabric with flour after which return the dough to the desk. When she spun the pin and unfurled the dough, it rippled like silk and appeared like a magic trick to me — it nonetheless does, even after I do it myself.
Trying again, I’m guessing that my grandmother will need to have baked rather a lot, as a result of she got here to our home in Brooklyn each weekend carrying brown paper baggage and various cardboard packing containers stuffed with selfmade sweets. Unfailingly, there can be a loaf of honey cake topped with a row of entire blanched almonds — or a minimum of it was when it arrived. My mom, who didn’t notably like honey cake however adored almonds, would choose the nuts out of the cake as quickly as she opened the wrapping. There was an apple cake, which I’ve spent years attempting to recreate and nonetheless tinker with, understanding I’ll by no means get the cake I keep in mind however blissful to spend the hours attempting. And there have been cutout cookies, some topped with cinnamon sugar — my grandmother gave these to my brother — and a few topped with poppy seeds, which she made just for me.
It was an indication that she beloved me that she baked one thing particularly for me, however it was a misunderstanding: I didn’t like poppy seeds. I all the time wished my brother’s cookies, however he by no means shared them, and I used to be too good a child to set my grandmother straight. As a substitute, I’d attempt scraping the seeds off with my fingers, solely to return up towards grandma’s egg glaze — it cemented these seeds in place.
Other than the sugar cookies, it was straightforward sufficient to keep away from poppy seeds, and I did for years, till I used to be a grown-up and an aspiring residence baker residing on Manhattan’s Higher West Facet. A pal made me a sour-cream loaf cake that wasn’t simply sprinkled with poppy seeds — it was virtually black with them. She’d made the cake with store-bought poppy-seed filling and adopted the recipe from the again of the can, and I mimicked her for years.
All that modified the day I took the crosstown bus to Yorkville and found Mrs. Herbst’s Hungarian pastry shop, the place you might purchase strudels each savory and candy, together with one stuffed with poppy seeds, and the close by shops Paprikas Weiss and H. Roth & Sons (also referred to as Lekvar by the Barrel), the place poppy seeds have been bought by the scoopful, and you might have them floor to a paste on the spot. The contemporary poppy seeds have been a revelation. They have been teensy, oval-shaped, oily and a stunning blue-black coloration. Their aroma was faint however earthy, their taste was nutty, and I beloved how they cracked below a lightweight chunk. I baked my first poppy-seed-studded loaf cake with seeds from Paprikas Weiss and steering from the individuals who labored there.
Its texture is all the time a pleasant cross between the shut grain of a poundcake and a spongecake’s little bit of bounce.
I made that recipe with solely barely much less frequency than my grandmother made cookies, after which I ended. There wasn’t a selected cause, besides perhaps culinary curiosity — I had new recipes I wished to study, new cuisines to discover, new elements to attempt. However a number of weeks in the past, I unearthed a kugelhopf pan that had come from Roth. With the discover got here recollections, and earlier than the night was over, I used to be making a poppy-seed cake.
My new cake makes use of contemporary poppy seeds, however not from Yorkville — all of these outlets are gone. I purchased them in a sack on the grocery store. And as a substitute of bitter cream, which was within the authentic recipe, I now use heavy cream. I like the feel I get from it, and I additionally like that the flavour is extra impartial, giving the poppy seeds an opportunity to shine brighter. There’s lemon juice — a traditional in a poppy-seed cake, however tangerine is an alternative choice — and vanilla, a bit of greater than I used to make use of. Over time, I’ve discovered myself going heavier on vanilla in lots of recipes; it provides its personal luxurious taste and pulls collectively all of the others too.
The batter is combined by hand, and it’s a pleasure to make. As every ingredient is stirred in, it takes on a distinct look, till with the addition of the melted butter, its floor has a velvety sheen. When the seeds are folded by means of the batter, they dip beneath the floor, emerge after which lastly speckle the batter. It’s not fairly as magical as my grandmother’s unfurling dough, however it’s enjoyable to observe.
Generally the cake varieties a crown that cracks, and generally it doesn’t, however it’s all the time lovely. The straightforward elements conspire to make it so. It all the time cuts simply — I like thickish slices — and its texture is all the time a pleasant cross between the shut grain of a poundcake and a spongecake’s little bit of bounce. It’s good with both espresso or tea no matter whether or not it’s iced (although the icing is fairly).
My little-girl self can be stunned at how a lot I now love poppy seeds. I’m wondering what she’d suppose if she knew that I all the time have them within the freezer, that I take advantage of them to make muffins and breads in addition to this cake and that, like my grandmother, I sprinkle the seeds on my sugar cookies, sticking them on with an egg glaze and maintaining them protected from small fingertips.
Recipe: Poppy-Seed Tea Cake
Dorie Greenspan is an Eat columnist for the journal. She has gained 5 James Beard Awards for her cookbooks and writing. Her new cookbook is “Baking With Dorie.”
[ad_2]
Source link