How To Make Blueberry Fig Tarts in 16 Easy Steps.

(Or: On Baking with Two Five-Year-Olds and a Puppy)
Step 1: Steal figs from your neighbor's yard:


Step 2: Go try to buy a lemon from Tod's Tasties, because you can't bear to get in the car on your day off:

(Tip: if you are accompanied by two adorable children and a puppy, they might just give you the lemon)

Steps 3-6:
Make the dough. I used a recipe from a cookbook my bank teller gave me, Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters:
Whisk together:
1 egg
1 Tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar

Combine in Food Processor:
1/3 cup sugar
3 cups flour
1 cup cold butter

process until mealy; add liquid and process just until mixture comes together. Knead, wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.


Step 7:
Take an arty picture of your ingredients:


Steps 8-10:
Make the filling:

I used my tried-and-true filling method:
4 cups fresh fruit (in this case it was contraband figs and some blueberries that had been in my fridge for a little too long)
1/2 cup sugar
zest of one lemon

juice of one lemon
generous pinch of salt
Stir together and let sit.

Step 11:
Now back to your dough.
Cut your dough into 6 even sections, and roll each one out, on a floured surface, into a square shape of even thickness.


Step 12:
Place a good sized dollop of filling in the center of your rolled out dough.


Step 13:
Fold and press the edges of your dough to seal in the filling.


Step 14:
Egg Wash.
Gently beat one egg in a bowl and coat the dough with a pastry brush dipped in the beaten egg. Now, say, for example, that you own a Cake Shop and all your home baking utensils have absconded to said Cake Shop, and so you can't find a pastry brush? Well, fear not, dear reader, you can just as easily use one of your 5-year-old son's watercolor paintbrushes. Its totally clean, I promise.


Step 15:
Bake tarts at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes. Ignore that black stuff on the bottom of the pan- its not burnt, its "caramelized."


Step 16:
Eat the tarts, and enjoy one of the last true days of summer.



Love.
ps. It's hot.

Petit Fours, for Fun and Profit!

Or: Southern Petit Fours: An Illustrated Sort-of Recipe (with instructional video)

In Europe and elsewhere, all manner of small, elegant desserts are known as "Petit Fours." In the South, the term usually refers only to the category technically known as "petit four glaces," tiny cakes, glazed with soft cooked icing, and decorated with small, elegant icing designs. French for "Little Ovens", petit fours developed in 18th century Europe, as a means of taking advantage of the last, slow heat of coal ovens in the process of cooling down.

One of my inspirations for the Cake Shop was the Pat-a-Cake Bakery in Marietta, Georgia. I don't know if it still exists, but when I was little, Pat-a-Cake was where we sometimes would go to pick up rolls, cakes, or pies for special dinners. I don't remember it very clearly, but I remember that the place was very clean, and had wide, bright cases full of pastries. I remember the Folgers Coffee in the styrofoam cups for the grown-ups, and when we would go in and wait to get our order from the folks behind the counter, I could have a colorful petit four, a treat I relished.

I've often thought about Pat-a-Cake in creating the Cake Shop, in that I respected that it was not a cafe, but a special-order bakery. I liked the formality and deliberation of the arrangement of ordering a cake, much like arranging to get your shoes fixed, or picking up the dry cleaning, or getting your hair cut. I wanted to bring some of that formality into the Cake Shop, and the attention that can be paid to the cakes, and the customers, when you have that kind of arrangement. While trying to come up with a use for the tops we cut off of the cake layers to make them level, I remembered the petit fours at Pat-a-Cake, and decided to try my hand at using scraps of cake to make them.

While many recipes will point to sponge cakes as the base for petit fours, really they can be made with any combination of leftover cake, icing and filling, layered and sliced, and then coated with glaze.

To Make Petit Fours, I used the icing recipe from the beloved Southern Heritage Cakes Cookbook:


To begin, combine in the top of a double boiler, over boiling water:

6 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon water
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
food coloring and/or flavoring of your choice (optional)

Stir until mixture is very hot, melted, thin, smooth and glossy. Add water if necessary to achieve desired consistency. Leave it aside while you work on the cake:


Today I used some cake from a batch of Strawberry Cake that was accidentally made with some of the sugar missing- not our normal Strawberry Cake recipe, and therefore not sell-able as such, but still tasty and moist.

I spread macerated strawberries between the layers, sliced the cake into small squares, and then poured the hot icing over the little cakes, coating the top and sides. When the icing solidified, I scraped the petit fours off of the rack and onto a cupcake liner, and then decorated the top with different colors of cream cheese icing in an icing bag with a writing tip. (Candied or fresh flowers would be a worthy substitute to icing, too.)

Here's a demo:


Voila! Happy Eating. I think next time that I will make them a little smaller, but I like the rustic, irregular look of them too. And, yes, we will be selling these from time to time in the shop, and yes you can order them. Yay! Call us at the Cake Shop at 505.4822 to order. xo

Beignet Day!

I've been promising my little one that I would teach him to make beignets for quite a while now. But now that he is currently obsessed with "The Princess and the Frog," a Disney movie set in New Orleans with a Mardi Gras plot theme and beignets figuring centrally in the story, he's become more persistent. Today being Tuesday AND Mardi Gras (my day off coinciding with a holiday for once!) we decided it was the perfect day for Beignet making. It's Beignet Day, if you will.

My mom taught me how to make beignets- most every Saturday morning growing up we would make them for the family. It always delighted me how the little fritters would flip themselves over when they were done on one side (if the fat was deep enough in the skillet), and making, and eating beignets was such a special treat that signified long, lazy pajama mornings. Making them today, and sharing it with my son, was a special treat, too. Here's my mom's recipe, and its wonderful. (we're from Georgia, so we make no claims to be making authentic, NOLA-style beignets- my understanding is that traditionally, beignets are yeasted, whereas Sally's is leavened with baking powder. Well, my mom's recipe is awesome so I don't want to hear about it.)

Sally Rhoden's Beignets (or French Doughnuts, as her recipe is titled)

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
pinch salt
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 beaten egg
1 cup warm milk

Fill a deep skillet with vegetable oil and set on medium high heat. (you'll know the oil is hot enough to fry when a drop of water dropped into the skillet pops)

Sift together the dry ingredients.
Add all other ingredients, beat with a wooden spoon until combined but still a little lumpy, and drop by spoonfuls into the hot oil. Fry until golden brown on both sides. Remove from skillet, drain, and sprinkle (actually, douse) with powdered sugar. If you are out of powdered sugar like I am today, cinnamon sugar works just fine.

My first batch, the oil wasn't hot enough, so the dough sort of broke up in the skillet and didn't fluff up (but was still delicious in that funnel-cake kind of way). The second batch was PERFECT, making fluffy little pillows of soft, moist, light crumb. Observe:



The perfect specimen, along with one that was shaped like a duck:


The next generation of Beignet makers, eaters, and appreciators:


Joyeux Mardi Gras!

Happy Solstice! Here's How to Make a Buche De Noel.

This holiday season in the Cake Shop has been busy, bustling, warm, and cozy! I keep feeling this rush of joy when making new recipes that I haven't perfected before: the Gingerbread People that Lucy figured out, the Sweet Potato Spice Cake making the perfect base for Bread Pudding. But the one thing that has brought me the deepest sense of elation, dare I say, triumph, is our mastering of the Buche De Noel, or Yule Log Cake.
Here follows an illustrated recipe, taken from the beloved Southern Heritage Cakes Cookbook (Oxmoor House, 1983).

Grease and line with parchment paper a quarter sheet pan. (roughly 15 x 10)

To make the cake:
Combine in a mixer and beat until light:

4 eggs
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Slowly add:

3/4 cup sugar

beat again until light.

Fold in by hand:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa

and then pour into the lined pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes, until the cake springs back when touched with your fingertip or until a knife inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

When its done, it should look like this:

(except smaller, because the Buche De Noel that we make in the shop is double this recipe)

Immediately flip the cake onto a tea towel, a-like-so:

Then peel the paper off like this:

And roll it up like this:





Then set it aside for a few hours to cool completely.

Make a batch of whipped cream:
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar
beat with the whisk attachment of your mixer until it can hold a soft peak.

Carefully and gently unroll your cake, and spread the whipped cream all on the inside.

Re-roll the cake, securing the bottom edge, and refrigerate.

Make the icing:

Melt 3 1-oz squares of unsweetened baking chocolate.

Whisk together with 1/3 cup of coffee and 1/4 cup of butter until smooth.

Set the mixture aside to cool. When completely cool, beat (in the mixer) 2-3 cups of powdered sugar until spreadable consistency.

Spread the icing on the roll:



And then cut the edges off with a serrated knife, and attach to the sides by globbing the icing around the joint.



Decorate with fresh holly, from your neighbor Peter's yard, for example, and, voila: (or viola, as we sait it back in Georgia):

A Buche De Noel.


The Yule Log is a symbol of the warmth and light of the hearth in the dark of winter. On this Solstice, as we honor the darkness and welcome the light in our lives, I wish to extend to you love, warmth, and ample fuel for your fire.
xo
jodi
PS. If you wish to eat a fresh Buche De Noel, and do not desire to make one on your own, a 20-serving Yule Log is available for $50 by advance order at Short Street Cakes by calling 505-4822. Tomorrow (Wednesday, December 22) is the last day to order a Buche De Noel for pickup on Christmas Eve.

Fresh Coconut Cake with Seven Minute Icing: an illustrated recipe in 30 parts.

Or: On Doing Things the Hard Way.
By Jodi Rhoden
Short Street Cakes

My mom has been in town for the past week, renting a house in Montreat for her lady friends to come visit, as is her tradition every summer. On Tuesday, as I was hanging out on the porch with the ladies, the conversation turned to cake. Several of my mother's guests were reminiscing about making cake "the old way," and how they had to crack and peel coconuts for their mothers, because "you just couldn't BUY shredded coconut back then, you had to make it." My mom said that her mom (my Mimi, from Cordele, Georgia) used to make fresh coconut cake for special occasions. The kids would have to crack and peel the coconuts, and the Mimi would grate it. She used seven minute icing and would put loads of fresh coconut on top. After gathering the descriptions from the my mom and her friends, I went to work this morning on making a cake from fresh coconut. Here's what happened:
To get fresh coconut from a coconut, first, you poke a hole in one of the three eyes. (two of the eyes will be too hard; one will be just soft enough for an ice pick or candy thermometer).

Puncture the coconut, then wiggle your pick around to widen the hole, then drain out the water.

(Shannon Approves.)



Taste it. The water should be fresh, and coconutty. If it is at all greasy, or foul-tasting, start over with a fresh coconut. (Mindy told me today that coconut water has the perfect balance of sugar and electrolytes for the body. So if you are ever in a tsunami, and need a source of nourishment, try to find some coconuts.)

Then place the coconuts in the oven at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes to loosen the hull.

Pull the coconuts out, and go at them with a mallet until they crack.

Peel off the hull with your hands,

and peel the inner rind with a vegetable peeler.

Grate your coconut meat.

Here's where it got tricky. The coconut was really hard, and was making the food processor jump and whine. Eventually, we had to cut the coconut meat into small chunks, and coax the food processor a little bit at a time. And eventually, we had all the coconut grated.

Viola! Those two small organic Mexican coconuts yielded a surprising 5 cups of grated fresh coconut.

And now: The cake.
I will reproduce the recipe here, and you can follow along in the pictures below. This recipe is Short Street Cakes' adaptation of several basic coconut cake recipes.

Sift your dry ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream in a mixer:
8 ounces salted butter (softened)
2 cups sugar

add, one at a time:
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Add, alternating with dry mixture:
1 cup coconut milk

when combined, add 2 cups fresh grated coconut.



Divide batter into three nine inch pans (we did two eight inch layers and a dozen and a half cupcakes)
Bake at 350 degrees until the sides pull away from the pan and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Now: The seven minute icing.
(recipe straight outta the Joy of Cooking, Seven Minute Icing Method I.)
combine in the top of a double boiler:
2 unbeaten egg whites
1 1/2 cup sugar
5 tablespoons cold water
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar



(By the way, this recipe is from the beloved Joy of Cooking- 1975 edition)


Place ingredients over rapidly boiling water and beat constantly with a wire whip, for seven minutes.

Remove from heat, whisk in one teaspoon vanilla, and beat until spreadable consistency. (I had to ask Anna to take a turn, as my arm was getting tired). Y'all, I swear to god, this stuff tastes just like marshmallows.

Spread it on yer cupcakes.

Put some of that there fresh coconut on it.


Spread the icing between the layers of the cake.
Ice the sides and top, pulling the spatula back from the icing every so often to form soft peaks.

Cover that mammajamma with fresh coconut.

Make it beautiful.

make some people happy.




My thanks to Shannon and Anna, who tolerated my coffee-and-sugar-buzzed self today, and who helped me with the recipe, the photos, and creative direction.
Thanks, also, to my Mom and my Mimi, who inspired me to (re-)create this cake.
Look for this cake in the "deluxe" section of the new fall menu, coming out sometime in the "future."
And who's the lucky duckling who got the pretty cake? Why, Duncan, of course. Happy Father's Day!
xo
jodi