Daring Bakers Challenge... cake and ice cream!

Somehow I ended up going for the cliche on this one, and I made this on Valentine's day. Now it's been a couple of weeks so I need to emotionally recreate the evening for myself. You can come along too.

OK, OK, here we go...
My friend Molly was coming back from Istanbul, and her mom and brother came over too. Joey fulfilled his constant fantasy of valentine's day lasagne by making it himself, and then we at cake and ice cream.


It was very good.
All of it.

The next day there was more cake, luckily, because the kids slept through the first time. It was still very good.


The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

Although the hosts provided an ice cream recipe, they also encouraged creativity in this part of the challenge. I had a freshly borrowed copy of David Lebovitz's Ice Cream Bible for food bloggers, and I went delving there. Somehow I ended up at Anise Ice cream, which sounds not so delicious to me, but in his golden pages David said that I should try it with chocolate and it would blow my mind, so there I landed. I felt very daring.
Let me say here that this is a cake that should be in everyone's repetoire. It is easy and really amazing if you are a chocolate person. So after you finish reading this, go buy yourself a large hunk of chocolate and make this cake.




Preparation Time: 20 minutes
16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped (I used dark chocolate, but you can be creative here)
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.

2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

David Lebovitz was entirely right about the anise ice cream. It's subtle, and has a fantastic texture, and it brings out the flavor of the chocolate. I have a licorice hating family, and everyone gobbled this one.

Anise Ice Cream from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

makes one quart

2 tsp anise seeds
2 c heavy cream
1 c whole milk
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 T honey
pinch of salt
5 large egg yolks

Toast the anise seeds over moderate heat in a medium saucepan for about 3 minutes, or until they become fragrant. Pour in one cup of the cream, then add the milk, sugar, honey and salt. Heat until warm, then cover, remove from heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.

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

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. Discard the anise seeds and stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze in your ice cream maker.

home again

So I've been back not quite 24 hours, and I'm a little sick, a little jetlagged, and a little fragile. I have a few culinary and other adventures to report from my travels, but the words just aren't coming. So I wait, and I say, the words will come, but the truth is that when I step away from here for too long, I feel a little sad. So, I'll tell you this. In the midst of the working, I was walking. And miraculously, in the midst of all the expensive shoes and handbags, there was something I really support spending money on, cupcakes.
Now I've read about how cupcake bakeries are all the rage in LA, and the whole thing seems a little too cute for me, but as my walking partner and I passed this especially famous cupcakery, I thought, Come on, let's be cute and trendy just this once for adventure's sake. And my little walking partner was totally game.


She picked the double chocolate, and I went with the recommended red velvet. She definitely won, because I forgot that I hate red velvet cupcakes. But this one was pretty good anyway.


And yes, I have more stories. Especially one about stealing lemons. But you'll have to check back again for that one.

Orange Poppyseed Muffins

Well, here I am on the eve of a work trip, and I'm writing instead of packing. It's school vacation, and months ago Joey booked a solo trip to Denver with my full blessing for this week. Then a few weeks ago, some exciting things happened with work, and here I am off to California. We're such homebodies, we've been so rooted to home, that I feel a little bit like I'm lacking a center tonight. The girls will be happy at Grandma's, and we'll be off, all in separate places. So I dropped Joey at the airport today, and now I'm home, procrastinating the packing and trying to get myself together. It's almost ten pm, and I'm listening to "Piano Jazz" on NPR, which I really despise, but at my oddest moments, NPR grounds me no matter what is playing- totally nerdy, I know.
So I thought before I leave I'd pull out a recipe that I've been holding on to a little while. A comforting, grounding recipe for anyone else who might need one. A few weeks ago, Joey left really early on a Saturday morning to go to a lecture in Boston, and I woke up to the girls who were unusually gracious and polite for a Saturday morning, and so of course I woke up in a good mood, and I said, I'm making muffins. And of course through the whole process, Sadie would come in to the kitchen and complain, "I hate oranges" and "Aren't you putting poppy seeds in those? I only like poppy seeds". And truthfully by the end of the thing, I almost threw a muffin at her. But they were a big hit, and one of my favorite muffins in a while.

Orange Poppy Seed Muffins loosely adapted from Lorna Sass Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way

2 Cups Spelt Flour
2 T poppy seeds
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 large egg
3/4 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
6 T melted butter, plus more for greasing
1 T grated orange rind
2 1/2 T fresh squeezed orange juice
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter your muffin tin.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, poppy seeds, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In a medium bowl, lightly beat the egg. Whisk in the yogurt, brown sugar, butter, orange zest, juice, and vanilla. It will look lumpy.
Stir wet into dry. Do not overmix.
Divide among muffin cups, bake until a knife comes out clean, 11 to 13 minutes.
Eat same day, or freeze.

A date with Joey

I had a date with Joey this weekend! A city, 24 food and music date, with a little bit of shoes involved too. Honestly, sometimes I just feel old, and I'm not ready to feel old yet. So these little 24 hours things we do every so often, we pack with age appropriate activities.
The event of the weekend was Joey's gift to me from way back in December, (age appropriate experience number one) tickets to see Beirut at BAM. Before city walking to the show, we ate at (age appropriate number two) Belleville, where we ate unpretentious French food and I got schnockered. It was very dark in there, and there were three desserts on one plate!

We walked and walked down 5th Avenue in Park Slope, and when we arrived at BAM, all I could do (schnockered) was to sit and look at people's shoes. Have you ever noticed all the shoes in Brooklyn? No muck boots here.



Since the show, I've been only listening to one song over and over, worth while even for it's title, My night with the prostitute from Marseille. You can also become obnoxious about this song by finding it here. Then imagine it with a full orchestra, and there is the highlight of my evening.


After the show, we city walked some more (45 degrees in February!), got some bubbly water at a corner market that had cats sleeping in the plastic bags, and dropped into bed at the illustrious home of Laurie Kellogg, who has recently opened up her amazing home to travelers in search of health care reform and really amazing breakfasts.

Did I mention breakfast? These waffles have bananas and applesauce inside of them.


If you find yourself devoid of lodgings in New York, email this woman at lauriekellogg@gmail.com She provides a fabulous room with your own bathroom, excellent conversation, and yes, I'll say it again, breakfast. Her place is also very child friendly and and she offers babysitting if you need it. Email her. Really.

A word about dates. I know a lot of couples make the decision to hold off on having kids, and they travel the world together, having couple-centric culinary experiences and looking at art. And I know that there are many good arguments for following this schedule. But let it just be known that this was not our schedule. "Joey and Alana" as some sort of identity came over us hard and fast, and before we could catch our breath, it was "Joey and Alana and Sadie," and well you get the picture. I think that the experience can be a little different for people who have had eons of time without kids, but then again, I'm not sure. But my experience is that when Joey and I are on our own for more than a few hours, everything takes on kind of a surreal, other worldly quality. And we tend to have all of these conversations about what life would be like if the girls weren't with us alternating with conversations about how much we miss them. Makes for dynamic dates, maybe tinged with a little bit of exhilarating guilt anyway. And the other good thing is that we tend to come back home with plans about all sorts of things, and this proves to be good for the marriage in general.
So much for my relationship musings. But as I sit here a few nights later, after having physically dragged Rosie to bed as she squeaks like a mouse (and she's still squeaking, every 10 seconds or so- I hear her through the closed door) and we're picking up the remnants of chaotic valentine creation and uneaten squash soup, I'm choosing to ruminate a little on the importance of long dates, and of unpretentious french food and interesting shoes. Keeps me feeling balanced, I guess.

about me

I'm Alana, a mother of two girls, one stubborn and one dreamy, and wife to an artistic preschool teacher. Having become a mother about as soon as I threw my cap at graduation, it's now time to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. In between mothering, I have fallen into many jobs. I have taught classical geometry and modern dance. I have worked in international publishing rights, architecture and design, and film. And for many Saturdays over the last few years, I have worked at our local farmer's market for Indian Line Farm, where my family has a CSA share, which has been hands down my favorite thing on the list.
In the summer of 2008, having a bit of a crisis over the whole life profession question, I came to the realization that I absolutely lived for my Saturdays at the market. As people came up to me and asked me about escarole and garlic scapes, I not only found that I had an answer for all of them, I felt myself come alive as I got to give advice on what they should make for dinner. And so I decided that whatever the future would bring, it should have something to do with me and a pot of soup. And so I started this blog, so that I could get my recipe giving fix during the week too.
I'm still working on figuring out the end result. And I must admit that I'm impatient to get there. I don't know what combination of writing and cooking it will be, but as long as I can keep writing and cooking here, things seem to be working out. Thanks so much for visiting, and please say hello! Comments make me happy, and I'll do my best to answer any questions that you might have about food, or kids who will only eat noodles, or traveling, or anything else I might cover here. If you're shy, you can also contact me directly at alanachernila[at]gmail[dot]com.

Soup of the Week: Black Bean Pumpkin Soup

I find myself wanting to start a lot of posts lately with something like, "Another weird week," or "feeling a bit ungrounded lately," so I think that I'm just going to have to let that go for fear of repeating myself and getting a bit dull. And I find that as I get busier and busier, so much so that my feet seem to be lifting off the ground a bit, what I really want to do is cook. As Joey so eloquently put it the other day, "When you're stressed about cooking, cook less, but when you're stressed about life, cook more." So, I'm trying here, and I'll share it too. And I find that one of the soothing activities at the moment is menu planning, which of course involves a whole lot of pantry organization, which led me to this soup. Got black beans? Got an old can of pumpkin? Make this. Make sure that it's cold out- it's a good one for that.

A Gift

I can't even say that I knew this would be the case when I woke up this morning, but for the first time in a while, I seem to be having a day. Work is slower today, and I seem to be more on top of things than I thought. It's warm today, almost 40, and in a grumpy haze at the supermarket yesterday, I bought daffodils. The house is clean-ish, and we ran out of oil yesterday, so I have no hot water to do the dishes (oh well!) and I have a fire going in the living room and it is the only warm room in the house, as well as the sunniest. So I'm sitting here, drinking Harney and Sons Rose Scented Tea, which is an amazing liquid, listening to American Wife on cd, which I just got from the library. Did you know that Laura Bush used to be a democrat? And that she killed a friend in a car accident when she was 17?
Anyway, I'm working on a very exciting soup which I will share with you when it's done, and I think I might even make bread. I don't know how long this will last, but I'll grateful for it however it proceeds- I don't know if I could have taken another day where I felt like- well, like I felt this week.
I hope that there are some other good days happening out there, feel free to share your own exciting details of the day. And you're welcome to share my daffodils...