Print Page |
Email story |
A Piece of Cake
June 2009: Second Slice
Newsletter written by Anne Byrn June 16, 2009
A Word from Anne
 Every great recipe has a story. Some of my favorite cakes have tales to tell - the Darn Good Chocolate from my late aunt Louise who baked it once for my mom and my mother completely claimed that recipe, as only sisters can do! And Susan’s Lemon Cake is not, as it turns out, from Susan’s kitchen but from her Atlanta friend Sally Roy.
There is Bereavement Corn from my What Can I Bring? Cookbook, the epitome of Southern funeral food, prepared to console many Nashville families. And there is Eighteen-Minute Salmon, which I share in this newsletter, a recipe that has made its way through the creative recipe pipeline, the fastest and most delicious way to fix salmon in the summertime. Why do we tell food stories? It’s not just the taste of food but it’s the anticipation of it, the planning, prepping and presentation. We used to joke that our family was so food-obsessed that we’d hardly finish one meal when we were discussing the next. A weeklong trip in the mountains involves not only packing hiking shoes and tennis racquets but also pasta salads and crabmeat dips and ripe tomatoes and fresh banana bread for breakfast. We love good food and we love to talk about it.
Stories are something you hang onto once the meal’s over. They become memories and memories become traditions and all of the sudden your children know the stories and they pass them on.
This summer, when life slows down, why not share recipe stories with your friends and family. It’s as simple as baking a cake or cookies and telling everyone where you got the recipe. I’m sharing a cookie recipe in this newsletter that has a simple story. It was given to me several years ago by food writer Sylvia Carter of Newsday. Sylvia was interviewing me in a New York Starbuck’s and we were talking great, fast recipes. Sylvia said these cookies were her favorite and everyone is amazed they don’t contain flour. I couldn’t wait to get home and bake these mystery cookies, and believe it or not, you don’t miss the flour. They may be perfect for gluten-free diets. Bake these cookies this summer for the lemonade stand or a picnic or just to start a new tradition at home.
Happy Baking!
Anne
[ Back to top ]
A Word from Workman
Celebrations and cake always seem to go together, and we're celebrating a lot this summer! Not only do we have Anne's newest book, The Cake Mix Doctor Returns, to look forward to, but it's also the 10 year anniversary of the book that started it all--The Cake Mix Doctor. To help us celebrate, share your own food stories. Send us photos of your cakes--birthday cakes, valentine's day cakes, anniversary cakes, or just-because cakes! Post them on our forums or e-mail them to info@workman.com, and you might be featured in Anne's blog!
[ Back to top ]
Bits & Bytes
Dinner Doctor: Summer Strategies
No doubt, our dinner table is a different place in summer. We tend to eat later because of the heat and the more relaxed pace. Meals are designed around fresh local produce. We grill a lot. And what goes into the oven had better be able to be done quickly. That’s why I love this salmon recipe from my cookbook, What Can I Bring? A salmon fillet is covered with a quick mix of honey, soy sauce, ginger, and garlic any time during the day – in the morning or at the last minute – chilled until time to cook, and then only spends 18 minutes in the oven. We eat this with sticky rice the first go-around and cold leftovers with potato salad or pasta salad if there are remainders. This is also a delicious marinade/glaze for chicken.
Eighteen-Minute Salmon
1 salmon fillet (about 1½ pounds)
1/3 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
1/3 cup honey
2 tablespoons grated peeled fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1)
Place the salmon in a 13- by 9-inch glass baking dish and set it aside. Place the soy sauce, honey, ginger, and garlic in a small mixing bowl and stir to combine. Pour the soy sauce mixture over the salmon, lifting it up with a fork so that the marinade can run underneath and coat the salmon well. If you have time, cover the baking dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate it 2 hours. Or set the salmon aside while the oven preheats.
2)
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
3)
Uncover the salmon and bake it until the soy sauce mixture forms a glaze and the dish flakes around the edges, about 18 minutes. If the fillet is thicker in the center than at the edges, the center will cook less quickly; add a few minutes more baking time if needed. If you cut the salmon into pieces, the edges will be less likely to overcook. Remove the pieces of salmon from the oven as they test done. Or, do as we do in my house – cook the salmon all at once, saving the edges for the kids and the more rare center for the adults who prefer it that way.
Do Share:
Nadine Fox writes that she clipped a chocolate cake recipe from Real Simple magazine and cannot find it. The cake began with a mix and the icing was made with Cool Whip and chocolate and it turned out like a ganache. Nadine is wondering if anyone else clipped the recipe and might share it? It is, as she says, “the best chocolate cake ever!” Please send to anne@cakemixdoctor.com because now we all want to bake it!
[ Back to top ]
Recipe Swap
You must use Skippy peanut butter in this recipe, says Sylvia Carter. I took her word for it and bought a 16.3-ounce jar, and it was just the right amount needed. After spooning 1-inch rounds of dough onto the cookie sheet, press down the rounds with a fork to get that classic peanut butter cookie top. Then bake. And let the cookies rest on the cookie sheet for 3 to 4 minutes to firm up before removing with a spatula.
Sylvia’s Peanut Butter Cookies
Makes 4 to 5 dozen
Prep: 10 minutes
Bake: 12 minutes
Cool: 3 to 4 minutes
2 cups Skippy creamy peanut butter
2 large eggs
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1) Place a rack in the center of the oven, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2) Place the peanut butter, eggs, sugar, and soda in a large mixing bowl and blend with an electric mixer on low for 30 seconds to combine, then increase the speed to medium-low and blend for another 1 to 1½ minutes, until the batter is smooth. It will be stiff.
3) Dollop 1-inch rounds onto cookie sheets, leaving about 2 inches between each round. With a fork, press down on the top of each round in a north-south direction, then turn the fork or the pan and press down in an east-west direction for a cross-hatch pattern. Place the pan in the oven, one pan at a time, and bake for 12 minutes.
Remove the cookie sheet from the oven and let the cookies rest on the pan for 3 to 4 minutes, or until firm. Remove with a metal spatula to a wire rack to cool or eat while warm. Repeat with the remaining dough. These cookies freeze well.
[ Back to top ]
Next Issue: August 2009
A reader’s amazing chocolate and coffee glaze for summer vanilla ice cream, gluten-free cake mixes, and some sneak peeks inside the new Cake Mix Doctor to be released in the fall.
[ Back to top ]
|
