Stollen Time

Anyone who has spent time with Martha and Norman at Christmas in the past 10 years will know that their huge plum tree is abundantly laden with beautiful and delicious red plums at exactly this time. The plums are great but they have to compete with so many other delicious and special foods that they are more decorative than eaten.

My favourite thing about Christmas has always been Martha's cooking, especially her stollen and caramel coffee cake, made only once a year. This year, since I am living in Hamilton and not just passing through on a flying visit, I asked if I could help her make the stollen. Christmas Eve was thus spent baking.

Martha uses her trusty old Joy of Cooking recipe with variations based partly on memories of Grandma Ada's version, partly on refinements developed over decades of making this annual treat.

The secret is in the butter: starting with one and a half cups creamed til light and fluffy with caster sugar. Meanwhile the yeasty base has been rising, made with blood temperature milk instead of warm water. Testing the milk's temperature with a drop on her wrist reminds Martha of Ada, not only baking but also testing baby bottles: there were a lot of babies feeding from bottles when Martha was a girl!

After the yeast base has risen, it gets punched down which is always fun. Then the butter and sugar are mixed in along with fresh high grade white flour. The dough is very soft and loose. We divided it into four balls and shaped and filled them one at a time.

There were two wreath shaped stollens, made by first brushing the rolled dough with melted butter (I told you there was a lot of butter), then sprinkling it with cinnamon sugar, then chopped nuts. One stollen had almonds and lemon zest and the other hazelnuts and orange zest along with raisins and glace cherries.

The dough is then carefully rolled into a sausage and shaped into a ring on a baking tray. We cut the ring part way through and all the way round, then turned each cut section on its side and finally decorated the top with cherries and almonds. The caramel coffee cake and rolls were made the same way except with brown sugar instead of cinnamon, and the roll was sliced apart and the rolls set into tins awash in butter and brown sugar with a decorative nut under each roll.

The shaped dough was put to rise in a hot car (there is nowhere in mum and dad's shady house that is warm enough to rise dough). When doubled, it was brushed with milk and then baked for half an hour until golden brown.

I didn't get any photos of the caramel coffee cake, but that's actually my favourite. When turned out of the pan it's presented upside down so the caramel and nuts are on top. It's irresistible!
We always have a slice (or three) of stollen on Christmas morning while opening the presents from under the tree. Thanks David, Penny and Louise for your lovely gifts. We missed you this morning.

Merry Christmas to all the Kellerman clan around the world. I hope you think of us downunder as you are sharing stollen or other traditions from Ada and Jess.

No recipe ever calls for anger; many require regret

Last weekend Norman launched two new books. The launch was a little party at Martha and Norman's house in Hamilton, New Zealand. I offered to help with the catering. Norman especially requested bagels with smoked salmon and cream cheese and Martha filled a huge platter of these as bite-sized morsels. I wanted to make something else that would fit in with the book's themes.

One of Norman's new books is about secret Jews living in Mexico and the Southwestern US for the past four hundred years. I decided to evoke the secret Jew in Mexico theme by making chocolate hamantaschen. Hamantaschen are little pastries associated with the Jewish holiday of Purim which actually took place a couple of weeks ago. A sweet pastry is wrapped around a filling (traditionally a poppy seed mixture) in a triangular shape. Hammentaschen represent the ears, hat or pocket of Haman, the wicked villain in the story of Esther which Purim commemorates. Esther spends much of the story keeping her Judaism secret while living in the king's harem, until finally revealing her true identity to save her people from Haman's planned genocide of the Jews.

The chocolate filling in my hamantaschen represents the Mexican component of Norman's book of secret Jews. I mixed cinnamon and ground almonds with very dark chocolate, and if not for Martha's allergies I would have spiked it with a little chilli as well. To keep the traditionalists happy I also made some hamantaschen with poppy seed filling. Both flavours were gobbled up quickly!

The pastry was very fragile and difficult to roll and wrap. I got quite stressed out trying to patch together these little beasts that kept collapsing at every step. I remembered why, much as I love baking, I tend to avoid anything that involves a rolling pin.

A much easier kind of pastry to work with is filo, which somehow manages to be quite sturdy despite cooking to a delicate buttery, paperish wrapping. I made dozens of these Moroccan meat cigars which were easy to make and eat. Both the cigars and the hamantaschen recipes came from one of my favourite cookbooks: The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden.


The other book being launched didn't receive the same culinary attention, though in retrospect we should have served Eskimo pies. Penguins of Ice are Fools is a sweet funny little book of about 200 short sayings by Norman, illustrated with 4 wood prints by Martha. The sayings give more of an accessible insight into Norman's personality than is usually available in his books. They are funny, poignant, cynical and nostalgic. Anyone who has ever enjoyed a conversation with Norman, will like this book which only costs $10. Email him directly, (or contact Meliors via www.meliors.net) to buy your copy now.

"At a certain stage between stew and soup, a fork becomes anomalous.
Why not begin with a spoon."

"Old black-and-white films are like mashed potatoes on cold rainy evenings."

Cigares a la Viande (Moroccan Meat Cigars)
from Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food

2 medium onions
3-4 tbsp oil (plus more to brush the filo)
500g (1lb) lean minced beef
salt and pepper
1 1/2 cinnamon
1/2 ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
pinch of cayenne (optional)
juice 1/2-1 lemon
4 tbsp finely chopped flat leaf parsley or coriander
250g filo pastry

Fry the onions in oil til soft, add the meat, crush and brown, then add all the seasonings except the parsley. Stir well, pour in ab.out 1 cup of water, cover and cook slowly for about half an hour until tender and most of the water has evaporated, Blend in a food processor until smooth then add the parsley.
Cut the filo sheets into quarters, pile on top of each other and cover with a damp towel while you work. Brush the top piece with oil. Take a walnut size piece of meat and roll into a sausage shape. Place along the short end of the filo piece and then roll up like a cigarette, turning in the ends about a third of the way along. Continue until all the meat has filled all the filo (I found the amounts matched almost perfectly).
Brush the tops with oil and bake at 325 degrees for about 1/2 hour until golden and crispy. Serve hot.

Banana Cake Fantasia

I can't eat bananas except cooked into a cake. I don't ever buy bananas but when I live with people who bring them into the house and then let them turn black in the fruit bowl I'm quite happy to make cake! One of the secrets of good banana cake is very very ripe bananas mashed very thoroughly.


I'm not actually sure of the origins of this recipe, but it is by far the best banana cake that I have made. Probably because of the large quantity of butter. I remember visiting Grandma and Grandpa in America and being surprised that butter was not ever put on the table, just used in baking and margarine was the table spread. New Zealand being butter-land, butter was not priced as a luxury until a few years ago. Now its expensive but I'm too attached to the taste, and concerned about the nasty chemicals in margarine, to give it up.


For an everyday cake, rather than a celebration one, I just sieve icing sugar on top instead of making icing/frosting. I think it actually looks more enticing than an iced cake, promising delicacy and fluff. It also reminds me of this super-sweet art installation I saw at a festival in Melbourne in January this year.

Best Banana Cake

This cake is perfect for making in a food processor. Make sure you cream the butter and sugar until they really are creamy, not just combined. The smoother those first ingredients are, the better the cake will taste.

Cream together:

• 250g (1 cup) butter
• 1 1/2 cup sugar (scant)

Beat in gradually:

• 4 eggs
• 4 mashed bananas

Mix in a cup:

• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tbsp milk

Sift:

• 2 tsp baking powder
• 450g flour

Add to the creamed mix, alternating wet and dry.

Finally add:

• 1 tsp vanilla

Pour into a cake pan and bake about 1 hour at 180/350 degrees, until brown and springy on top, and a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Lev Gonick Fudge

Ethereal shoe leather

When I was little I thought Lev Gonick Fudge was a standard flavour like Russian or Whiskey Fudge. There were certainly lots of things that we ate at home that no-one else seemed to have heard of, but which I understood to be due to cultural differences between New Zealand and America.

I was quite old when I realised that, really, even in America no-one knew about Lev Gonick Fudge. That's because Lev Gonick was not actually a culturally exotic flavour but the name of the teenage boy who developed the recipe, one of my babysitters in Canada, where I lived until I was three.

This is such a simple recipe that I learned to make it when I was about 5 years old. It's also delicious, and quite robust, surviving pretty much any variation you can throw at it. But don't bake it too long, which is what I did yesterday, or goes rather on the tough end of the chewy spectrum. It's still yummy, but you have to work quite hard at it, and with fragile teeth like mine, that's not the kind of workout you necessarily need.

This week I've moved into a new share house, so a new kitchen with a bulging pantry of exotic delights and redundancies. I was determined to make Lev Gonick Fudge with whatever was available so used the following substitutions for the fudge pictured above:

• instead of vanilla I used almond marzipan flavouring
• instead of brown sugar I used up the last of a jar of sticky raw sugar, and topped it up to a cup with castor sugar
• instead of walnuts I used half a bag of slivered almonds of indeterminate age

The resulting version of Lev Gonick has a heavenly, ethereal quality from the marzipan flavouring. It smells divine but tastes delicately (rather than intensely) of marzipan which is a bit at odds with the shoe leather texture.

Here is the original recipe copied from my old recipe book, recently unearthed from storage with glad cries. It's an ideal sweet to make when you are craving brownies but want to bake with cocoa instead of solid chocolate.

Lev Gonick Fudge

Combine:

• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 2 tbsp cocoa (heaped)

Mix in a medium sized bowl:

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup walnuts

Add the cocoa mix to the rest of the ingredients, mix well.
Bake in an 8" pan at 350 degrees for 25 mins (or just until firm).
Ice as soon as removed from the oven.

For the icing combine:
2 tbsp butter
1 1/4cup icing sugar
2 tbsp cocoa
2 tbsp hot water
When smooth and glossy spread over hot fudge.

Wait until cool and firm before eating (if you can resist that long).

I find my favourite recipes by turning to the pages stained cocoa.

Playing with the Devil

I flew back to New Zealand a few days ago, after nine months of living in Australia. Mostly I was living places where it was impossible, or almost impossible, to bake (which shouldn't lead you to assume that Australia is without ovens, just that I was living a bit rough). Starting this blog was like paying attention to an itch I couldn't scratch, so when I got to Hamilton I asked Martha and Norman if I could bake a cake at their house.

Martha keeps a copy of the Devil's Food Cake recipe on the pantry door

I wanted to try making the Devil's Food Cake with the controversial substitution of buttermilk for sour milk, and mum suggested I make cup cakes to make the result easier to freeze or give away. Given the general lack of enthusiasm for cake eating among most of the people around me in Hamilton (Norman made a face like I was forcing him to eat worms), combined with the chocolate alternatives available everywhere I go (chocolate mousse, chocolate macaroons, chocolate bars etc etc) this seemed like a smart move.



I was very excited to use the big enamel bowl in which the batter is always mixed in Martha's kitchen. It has a groovy '60's sunflower pattern and really high sides so the batter doesn't slop even after you pour in the hot water at the end. As a child I learned to bake using that bowl (which was also our big salad bowl for years and years). It was a wedding present to Martha and Norman in 1965 and is still going as strong as their marriage, if a little chipped and scratched- the bowl, not the marriage!


I can't say I was very impressed with the buttermilk version of the cake, which seems to me a less moist than the sour milk version, possibly with a finer crumb. Also the colour wasn't the rich reddish almost-black brown I remember. So, these buttermilk ones were a bit bland in colour, texture and taste. I'm going back to sour milk for sure next time.

A few years ago, I learned that using less sugar will stop the top of the cake from cracking in the oven, so I always use 1 1/2 cups instead of the 2 called for in the recipe. So these cupcakes have lovely smooth tops.


If you haven't checked back on my original Devil's Food recipe post, Martha added a detailed historical caption to the photo of grandma Ada and there's been a lively debate in the comments section. Worth a look if you are interested.

Kellerman Birthday Cakes

This memory is of a history of birthday cakes but, please,everyone add to this because my memory is not complete. Most of my memories of Kellerman family life end with Japan because that is when I started university and left home and only came back as a visitor.

When we were very small, at Scott Base, and quite young, at Paxton Illinois I remember Ada Ruth making rainbow cakes. There would be yellow, pink and blue layers which she put togeter with filling and then covered the whole cake with fluffy white frosting.* In Paxton we had a drafty old house with a coal furnace. One year the furnace blew up and coal dust sprinkled all over the colored layers cooling on the counter top. We were too poor to make another cake so mom vacuumed the coal dust off and covered it with a thick layer of frosting, No one at the party noticed.


Before Mom started making the Devils food cake, she made a rich chocolate cake which started with creaming the butter and sugar until fluffy. It may have been made with melted cooking chocolate rather than cocoa. I have a tactile memory of creaming the butter and sugar between my fingers squishing away until it was light and fluffy. When mom scraped the gritty mixture off my fingers with a spatula it wasn't such a nice feeling.


Mom got the recipe for devils food cake from her mom, Edna Taylor, in the mid fifties. Grandma Taylor learned to decorate elaborate cakes in California. One cake that I remember is that the cake was baked in a bowl and then turned over and a small doll was inserted to make a skirt and layers of ruffles were piped on. The devils food cake is sturdy and flexible enough for many variations. One birthday variation I remember is that the caked, baked in a sheet, was covered with a layer of marshmellow and a layer of fudge over that. For about a year many of us asked for that one before it seemed too disgustingly sweet.


At Camp Tadmor, where my parents met. and where the family lived after WW II and Jessie was born, later on we learned another recipe from Hulda Thorpe. Cherry Delight, a gooey sweetness made with cans of cherries. Does anyone have this recipe? that was a favourite birthday treat.


Sometimes we asked for marble cake, or angel cake, or golden layer cake. As a teenager, I always wanted lemon meringue pie. (Editor's Note: See the Lemon Meringe Pie post for the recipe!)

Everyone out there, why don't you post your favourite birthday cake?

Give me pie, give me sweet little pies: Lemon Meringue (Part 1)

Amy's recent visit to Kimberly's house inspired a ton of baking and eating.  Amy brought many lemons - so we decided to make lemonaide, lemon meringue pie, avglomeno soup and lemon bars.  Lemon must have been in the air - as Martha decided to post a lemon meringue pie at the same time!  We used the original recipe from the Original Betty Crocker Cookbook, a recipe Ada Ruth used, but had we only had this recipe as well we could have made both versions!!

Lemon Meringue Pie

Prepare a baked pie shell.

Combine in the top of a double boiler:

1 cup sugar

5-6tablesp0ons cornstarch

1/8 teaspoon salt

Add very gradually:

2 cups water or milk

Stir and cook these ingredients over (not in) hot water for about 8 to 12 minutes until the mixture thickens.  Cover and cook for 10 minutes more.  Stir occasionally.  Remove the mixture from the heat.

pour a little of it over

3 beaten egg yolks

Beat this and return it to the mixture in the double boiler. Cook and stir gently, stillover boiling water, ab out 5 minutes more. Remove from heat.

Beat in:

3 Tablespoons butter

1/3 cup lemon juice

2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind

Note: If you want a more lemony flavor add more rind--not more juice. Cool the custard by stirring very, very gently to relase any steam whch might thin the filling. Pour it cool into the cold pie shell

Cover with a meringue made with the 3 egg whites.

Meringue

Preheat oven to 325 -350 degrees

Whip until they are frothy:

3 egg whites

Add:

1/4 cream

Christmas Stollen

Every Saturday morning, while Jess supervised the cleaning chores we all were assigned, Ada Ruth would set a big bowl of yeast dough to raise. She did not seem to measure, but the bowl itself and the feel of the dough told her she had the right amount of yeast flour, eggs, milk and butter. For she wasn't making daily bread but the dough for sweet rolls, coffee cakes, caramel rolls. Every Saturday morning airmen would come to the house just about the time rolls were coming from the oven, the smells of cleaning products wiped out by cinnamon, hot raisins, lemon glaze and the heavenly smell of rich yeast bread. Not only sweet, rolls, but cakes, and pies were made every Saturday morning.

But for Christmas, stollen was made. The dough was richer and filled with candied fruit. Ada would roll a portion of the dough into a square, spread it with melted butter, sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar, raisins, dried fruit and roll into a long pinwheel. Then Ada would form it into a circle and carefully slash only part way into the ring. Each segment would be turned on its side, the top decorated with perfect half pecans or walnuts and green and red glace cherries and left to rise again and then baked until golden. Finally the top would be glazed with lemon jice and powdered sugar glaze while the stollen was still hot. A perfectly beautiful flower or a wreath for Christmas breakfast.

Every Christmas I make stollen for my family and special friends. I use the recipe that Ada used throughout my childhood. When she went to Arizona she learned a great many shortcuts but they weren't part of my memories, so I use the one that I watched her make. Only I have to measure the ingredients.

Christmas Stollen

Have all ingredients at about 75 degrees

Sift before measuring 6 to 8 cups of all-purpose flour (or bread flour).

Crumble 1 1/2 to 2 caakes of compressed yeast

or 3 tablespoons of dried yeast into 1 1/2 cups 85 degree scalded, cooled milk until dissolved. Add one cup of the sifted flour. Let this sponge rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk.

While it is rising sift your sugar.

Beat until soft 1 1/2 cups butter. Add the sugar gradually as you beat the butter. until it is light and creamy. Beat in one at a time 3 eggs

Add

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon grated lemon rind

Add the raised sponge and the five cups flour and knead the dough until smooth and elastic. Add the larger amount of flour if it is too soft and sticky. Let it rise until almost double in bulk.

While it is rising prepare your fillings.

Candied fruit with chopped pecans or

Chopped hazelnut with grated orange peel and cinnamon or

Chopped almonds with cherry preserves or

Poppy seeds ground with raisins, sugar, sour cream and cinnamon

Variations are part of the fun.

Toss the raised dough onto a floured board. I divide it into three parts and prepare each portion a different way. Usually I make a stollen, a caramel coffee cake, and a braided apple and raisin loaf. the braided loaf, alled Vanocka is supposed to represent the swaddled Christ Child.

I used the measurements from the stollen recipe in the Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer et al, but modify the procedure to do it as my mother did.

Pantry Shelf Refrigerator Rolls (aka SweetRolls, Parker House Rolls, Crazy Carmel Rolls)

This is one of the classic Kellerman recipes and a versatile one at that.

This is from Ada Ruth's kitchen and was perfected over time and many, many bakings. Ada Ruth found this recipe in a local newspaper in the mid 1960's. It replaced another yeast-dough recipe she used because she and Grandpa Jess liked how easy it was to make, that it used potato flakes and it tasted better! For me personally, this is my mom Judy's specialty. It really doesn't feel like a holiday if we don't have her carmel rolls, sweet rolls and parker house rolls - all made from the same dough. I was lucky enough to learn how to make this from my grandma Ada Ruth in my teens. However, I've only made it a couple times because it is difficult to do it bette than my mom. (note: For a yeast dough it is very easy!)

PANTRY SHELF REFRIGERATOR ROLLS

1 ½ cups dry instant potatoes 3 eggs

½ cup dry powdered milk 2 packages active dry yeast

¾ cup sugar 2 cup all purpose flour

1 tablespoon salt 5 or 6 cups all purpose flour

¾ cup salad oil

3 cups very hot tap water

In a large mixing bowl stir together the potato flakes, powdered milk, sugar, salt and oil.

Pour in the hot water and stir well.

Beat in eggs.

When cooled to lukewarm, add yeast and 2 cups of flour.

Beat for 5 minutes with electric mixer.

Let the sponge set until quite light and bubbly, about 1 hour in a warm place.

Stir in about 51/2 to 6 cups flour. Avoid adding too much flour; keep dough on the soft side.

Turn out dough onto a floured board and knead lightly until dough is smooth and elastic, about 6 to 8 minutes.

Place dough in a lightly greased (buttered) bowl, turning once to grease surface.

Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Punch down.

At this point, dough may be refrigerated for later use.

Recipe makes 6 dozen dinner rolls, or 3 dozen dinner rolls and 2 ½ dozen cinnamon rolls.

To make, simply shape, let double, bake in well greased pans for 12 to 15 minutes at 400˚F.

Parker House Rolls

Take ½ of the prepared dough and roll to slightly less than ½″ thick. Cut with a biscuit cutter, brush with melted butter and fold in half. Place in well greased pan 1/2″ apart and cover with plastic. Let double. Bake 12 to 15 minutes at 400˚F until golden. Remove from oven and brush with butter.

Cinnamon Milk Buns

Take ½ of the prepared dough and roll into a rectangle, 15″ x 9″ x 1/3″ thick (approximately). Spread with 2 tablespoons softened butter and sprinkle with ½ cup sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon. Roll into a long roll, starting on the long side, as for a jelly roll. Cut roll into 1″ slices. Place, do not crowd, in a 13″ x 9″ greased pan*. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 40 minutes. Bake in a preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes at 375˚F.

• For a stickier and softer bun try pouring over ½ cup evaporated milk just before putting in oven.

• *For Carmel rolls, pour ½ cup melted butter into bottom of pan, (cast iron skillet is good) to cover bottom, sprinkle with light brown sugar to cover butter lightly. Place cinnamon rolls on top and continue as above

  Turn out on lined tray, carmel topping will be on top.

Frost the rolls while warm with a thin confectioners’ sugar frosting dribbled over the tops of the rolls.

You may add pecans bits, raisins or red and green cherries for the holidays, or a brown sugar glaze for variety. This dough is also excellent for coffee rolls or coffee cake.

Ada's Devil's Food Cake

Grandma Ada Ruth gave this Devil's Food Cake recipe to Martha, who made it as her signature cake through most of my life. It is one of my most valued family heirlooms. I don't know where Ada got this recipe, does anyone else? Does anyone remember her baking this one?

This cake is virtually fool proof, responds well to an apparent infinite number of variations, stays moist for over a week if not entirely consumed sooner and is super easy to make. The secret is the sour milk (1 tbsp of vinegar in a cup then fill it up with milk and leave in a warm place til it starts looking like runny yoghurt) and I suspect this is responsible for the slightly reddish tone of the dark chocolate and the amazing, unique smell when you stir in a cup of hot water right at the end.

The cake is so moist it is delicious without being iced/frosted: just a sprinkle of icing/confectioners sugar makes it look elegant. And a dollop of whipped cream or vanilla icecream on the side for extra indulgence. However, any good chocolate icing turns this into a special occasion cake.

Extra-sinful variations I have tried and enjoyed have included:
- stirring cherries into the batter at the end
- replacing vanilla with brandy
- making in a bundt (tube) pan, or as cupcakes, and then hollowing out the middle and filling with chocolate mousse (there are still people who remember that version fondly from some 20 years ago!)


Grandma Ada Ruth's Devil's Food Cake

3 cups plain flour
2 cups white sugar*
6 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup cocoa
2 eggs (beaten)
1 cup sour milk
1 cup cooking oil
1 tsp vanilla

Sift the dry ingredients into a big bowl.
Mix the wet ingredients together.
Stir wet into dry until completely combined.
Stir in 1 cup of hot water.
Bake at 190/375 degrees until the top springs back (about one hour).

*I use half a cup less which stops the top of the cake from cracking, and is still sweet enough for my taste.

This portrait of Ada Ruth Taylor was sent to Jess when he was in France. At the same time portraits of ther first two babies ,Ruth Jean and Martha Taylor, and her Mother-in- law were taken and they were combined on a single card , small enough to fit in a breast pocket. I seem to remember the card said, ' Greetings from Home'