For a rainy day.

I love being lulled to sleep by the rhythmic sound of rain. Waking up to the same sound is a close second. The sloshing from the downpour and cars driving through puddles has the ability to transport me away and I just want to lie there and listen to the steady splattering. I can ruminate about the where all that rain water goes after it splashes against my window or reminisce about rainy days as a child when my mom would serve me a breakfast of hot sweetened milk and toasted french bread before school. It sometimes makes me long for simpler days that way.

The past couple of days, we've been having a bit of a rain storm (not really that stormy--I live in California) and it's been pretty nice waking up to the pitter-pattering against the roof. Monday was extra-special since I had that day off from work, so not only did I have an extra day to lie in bed and listen to the rain, I could spend all morning in my pajamas, nursing a steaming cup of tea (I'm a tea person, though I also love the way coffee smells). And that's pretty much what I did. There are few perfect mornings like that.


I took advantage of my leisurely morning and made a gingerbread from the Williams-Sonoma Dessert cookbook. When I go to the mall, I sometimes like to pass my time at the Williams-Sonoma store, where everything is so shiny and bright. Their cookbooks are kind of like that, too, with big, beautiful, colorful pictures for every recipe, and are maybe even more suitable for the coffee table than the kitchen. I don't know why I picked this recipe, it doesn't have anything to do with rainy mornings, except that it looked easy to make and the kind of thing you could have with tea like in Remains of the Day, though I don't know if the English really do have gingerbread with their tea. That evening I brought some of the gingerbread to a friend's place, who served it with ice cream--which I don't think the English would do while having tea--but any way you'd like to have it, it's kind of nice for a rainy day.


Gingerbread
Adapted from Dessert from Williams-Sonoma
Makes one 8" round cake, about 8 slices

Dry ingredients:
1-2/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 t. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda
1-1/2 t. ground ginger
1 t. ground cinammon
1/4 t. grated nutmeg
1/4 t. salt

Wet ingredients:
6 T. butter, room temperature
1/2 cup packed brown sugar (I prefer light)
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup molasses
1/3 cup warm water

Optional:
powdered sugar for dusting
vanilla ice cream or whipped cream

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees, and grease a 8" round cake pan or square baking pan, dusting it with flour.

Mix the dry ingredients together by hand with a wire whisk in a bowl. In another bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar together on low to medium speed until fluffy. Continue mixing on low, adding one egg at a time until combined well. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and mix in the molasses on low. Pour in the flour mixture and mix until the ingredients are just combined, then add the water and mix until the batter is even and smooth. Pour the batter into the pan and bake on the middle rack until a toothpick comes out clean, about 30 to 35 minutes. Allow the gingerbread to cool in the pan. Dust with powdered sugar and serve with the vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

A little zing.

I'm still on my vegetable kick this week. I know I put you through that whole thing on Swiss chard last week, but this time will be different--we're back to cupcakes! It's always been interesting to me how someone could have come up with the idea of putting a vegetable into a cake. I read somewhere that it was a ploy to get kids to eat more vegetables. Whatever the case, it works, and our topic du jour involves the zucchini!

To be honest, the zucchini is not really a personal favorite. The best thing about the zucchini is the crisp outside, but when cooked, it's mostly mushy and can be a little blah in flavor (in my opinion). Usually, when served as a side dish, steamed or sauteed, it seems to require a lot of salt and pepper to compensate for the blandness. I tried reading up on the zucchini to try to appreciate it a little more, and I learned from Wikipedia that the zucchini is the "swollen ovary of the female zucchini flower". Hm...think about that the next time you have some. All said, my relationship with zucchini is a little ambivalent. (So far, I'm not doing a good job of promoting the zucchini, am I.)

Zucchini cupcakes (and zucchini bread) are a whole other story, however. I was originally looking for something kind of different and unique to make for a friend's birthday, and I came across this zucchini cupcake recipe from Epicurious.com, which included honey, crystallized ginger and orange zest. Perfect. The flavor combination looked intriguing, and it didn't involve a lot of guilt (anything with zucchini must not be that guilty). Also, one of my favorite things about this recipe is grating the zucchini. Yeah, I know, a little weird. Zucchinis are firm, but not hard (like carrots! I generally avoid grating carrots by hand if I can) making the grating process nearly effortless and sort of therapeutic (repetitive, mindless motions get me into a zone).

The original recipe calls for coarsely grated zucchini, and when I made it the first time, the cupcakes seemed a little hearty but turned out really moist, with a nice subtle ginger and citrus zing. I made this recipe again last week, grating the zucchini more finely and baked it up as a loaf (I didn't care so much about presentation this time around--I planned on eating most of it). It turned out a little drier (just a little)--could it be a product of how finely I grated the zucchini? Or maybe because it was a loaf instead of individual cupcakes? Nonetheless, I offered to give some of the zucchini loaf to another friend to try, but it didn't quite make it to her. (I'll make this again for her another time.)

Zucchini Ginger Cupcakes
(adapted from Epicurious.com)
Makes about a dozen cupcakes or one 9" loaf

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 t. ground ginger
1 t. ground cinnamon
1 t. finely grated fresh orange zest
1/3 cup coarsely chopped crystallized ginger (or chop more finely, as preferred)
1 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder

3/4 cup vegetable or mild olive oil
3/4 cup mild honey (I've also used brown sugar instead)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 t. vanilla
2 cups grated zucchini (about 2 medium zucchinis)

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees and line the cupcake pan or grease the loaf pan.

In a bowl, use a wire whisk to combine the dry ingredients (not including the brown sugar, if using). In a separate bowl, whisk the oil, honey or brown sugar, eggs, vanilla and zucchini until just combined. Mix in the flour mixture on low or by hand.

Pour the batter into the cupcake pan or the loaf pan and place on it the middle or upper third rack in the oven. The cupcakes take about 20-25 minutes to bake, or 45-50 minutes if using a loaf pan. Allow to cool in the pan for about 5 to 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and cool on a cooling rack.

If you're making cupcakes, you can use the following cream cheese frosting recipe, which adds a little more verve!

Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 T. unsalted butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla
1/2 t. ground ginger
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. finely grated fresh orange zest

Cream the cream cheese and butter together in a mixer on medium until fluffy. Add the remaining ingredients and continue mixing. If the frosting is too thick, you can also add a teaspoon of milk at a time to soften it.

At last!

Standing in line, eagerly waiting to get in, I could peer through the window and watch as a worker lets what looks like deep, rich chocolate ganache cascade over equally decadent layers of chocolate cake. Witnessing such finesse, I knew I was in for a treat. A couple of weeks ago, some friends and I made a trip into San Francisco to visit the De Young Museum, and made a side trip to a bakery (the bakery was more of a highlight than the museum!). From the outside, you would not even know what it was--there are no signs, and it looks like an average quaint cafe characteristic of San Francisco, but once inside, it was unmistakable where we were. The glass case full of enticing pastries, cakes, cookies and breads, announced loud and clear that were at Tartine(!). As in, the Tartine, one of those elite bakeries that has a best-selling, award-winning cookbook bearing its name. The worst part of the experience was having to choose what to order--I wanted to try everything! In the end, I opted for a chocolate hazelnut tart, glazed gingerbread, and olive bread. I was not disappointed. And after one bite out of the gingerbread, I knew I had to find the recipe.

I am always on the hunt for the consummate gingerbread cookie recipe--one that would produce the perfect balance of taste and texture. I like my gingerbread cookies to be soft and chewy (though still holding its shape), and sweet and spicey (but one flavor cannot overtake the other). Tartine's gingerbread was everything I could have dreamed of in a gingerbread cookie. Did I just say dream?! You could say I'm a little enthusiastic about this gingerbread cookie. Searching for the recipe turned out to be easy--it was in the Tartine cookbook! But I had doubts about it--I could not believe they would they reveal their trade secrets.

The original Soft Glazed Gingerbread recipe from Tartine calls for some surprising ingredients. Freshly ground black pepper?! Cloves and cinammon are more typical spices for gingerbread, but black pepper? This made me hesitate, and I scaled back a little on how much to use. This was also the first gingerbread cookie recipe I've seen that calls for cocoa powder. Though it is not uncommon for recipes to use corn syrup (as the original Tartine recipe here does), I have an aversion to using it in my baking because of all the bad press regarding health effects it has received. In general, I prefer to use organic and more "wholesome" ingredients when possible, and I had to find a substitute that could work. I considered using honey instead, but when it came time to mixing the dough, I realized I was out! After looking through my pantry and refrigerator again, I only had maple syrup, so maple syrup it was. Instead of blackstrap molasses, I used a light molasses from Brer Rabbit, and instead of regular salt, I used sea salt. One bite of my own gingerbread cookie, and I knew this was it--this was the end of my search!

For my last post before Christmas, this is my gift to you, the perfect gingerbread cookie recipe. May you have a wonderful and joyous Christmas!


Gingerbread Cookies
(Adapted from the recipe for Tartine's Soft Glazed Gingerbread)
Tartine uses a patterned rolling pin to roll out the gingerbread, which gives the cookie an antique feel, and cuts them into sizable rectangles. I don't have a patterned rolling pin, so I cut the gingerbread out in the shape of teddy bears. This recipe makes about 32 teddy bear shaped cookies, each about 4".

1 cup (or 2 sticks) of unsalted butter, room temperature
4/5 cup of granulated sugar

3-3/4 unbleached all-purpose flour
1 T. unsweetened cocoa powder
4 t. ground ginger
1-1/2 t. ground cloves
2 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. baking soda
1 t. sea salt
1 t. freshly ground black pepper

1 large egg
1/2 cup light molasses
2 T. maple syrup

Mix together the dry ingredients (except the granulated sugar) using a wire whisk to remove any lumps. In another bowl, using an electric mixer, cream the butter on medium to low until the butter is fluffy. Cream in the sugar. Scrape down the side of the bowl, then mix in the egg. Continue mixing on medium to low, adding the molasses and maple syrup. Slowly add in the flour mixture, until the ingredients are combined and the dough begins to form and stick together. Divide the dough in half and flatten each into a disk about 1 to 2 inches thick. Wrap the pieces of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

When you're ready to bake, remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it sit for about 5 to 10 minutes. During this time, preheat the oven to 350F degrees, and line the baking sheets with parchment paper. Between two pieces of wax paper or parchment paper, roll out each disk to about 1/4" thickness, and cut out the dough into your desired shapes with cookie cutters. Transfer each cookie shape with a spatula onto the cookie sheet, leaving about 1" between each cookie. Bake on the top third rack of the oven for about 10 minutes, but this may vary depending on the size of each cookie. Cookies are done when the surface is smooth and slightly firm. Cool the cookies on a wire rack.

Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
4 t. water

Using a wire whisk, combine the powdered sugar with the water. If the mixture is too thick, add a little bit of water, 1/2 t. at a time. The glaze should be on the thick side, but thin enough to be brushed over the cookies.

After the cookies have cooled completely, brush the glaze over the cookies and allow the glaze to dry. Store the cookies in an airtight container.