Read Saveur: The New Comfort Food Online
Authors: James Oseland
Saveur: The New Comfort Food (31 page)
According to one legend, red velvet cake was invented in the 1950s at Oscar’s restaurant, in New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel. Another tale—passed on by Raven Dennis of Brooklyn’s Cake Man Raven Confectionary, who also shared this recipe with us—traces the cake’s origins to the Civil War–era South.
FOR THE FROSTING:3 cups plus 2 tbsp. cake flour; more for dusting pans
1½ cups sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cocoa powder
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1½ cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 tbsp. (1 oz.) red food coloring
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. white distilled vinegar Butter, for greasing pans
12 oz. cream cheese, softened
12 oz. butter, softened
1½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1½ cups chopped pecans
Makes one 8-inch cake
1. Make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Sift together cake flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa, and salt into a medium bowl. Beat eggs, oil, buttermilk, food coloring, vanilla, and vinegar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until well combined. Add dry ingredients and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes. Divide batter evenly between 3 greased and floured 8-inch round cake pans. Bake cakes, rotating pans halfway through, until a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean, 25–30 minutes. Let cakes cool 5 minutes, invert each onto a plate, then invert again onto a cooling rack. Let cakes cool completely before frosting.
2. Make the frosting: Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla together in a large bowl with an electric mixer until combined. Add sugar and beat until frosting is light and fluffy, 5–7 minutes.
3. Put 1 cake layer on a cake plate; spread one-quarter of the frosting on top. Set another layer on top and repeat with frosting. Set remaining layer on top, and frost top and sides with the remaining frosting. Press pecans into the sides of the cake. Chill for 2 hours to set frosting, if you like.
Cooking butter with sugar causes its milk solids to caramelize and take on deep, toasty flavors as well as a gorgeous saffron color. What you end up with is butterscotch. The soda jerks at Franklin Fountain, in Philadelphia (pictured), serve it on cherry-topped sundaes and other old-fashioned confections, but butterscotch works equally well when simply drizzled over a couple of scoops of good vanilla ice cream.
8 tbsp. unsalted butter
2 tbsp. light corn syrup
¾ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar
1
/
3
cup heavy cream1 tsp. dark rum
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. fine sea salt
½ tsp. fresh lemon juice Vanilla ice cream, for serving
Makes 2 cups
1. Heat the butter, corn syrup, and ¼ cup water in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the butter has melted.
2. Stir in the granulated sugar and brown sugar, scraping down the sides of the pan with a rubber spatula. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, without stirring. Cook until the sauce is light brown and a candy thermometer inserted in the sauce reads 245°F, 6–8 minutes.
3. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Carefully add the cream, rum, vanilla, salt, and lemon juice and stir to combine. Let the sauce cool to room temperature. Serve drizzled over scoops of vanilla ice cream.
COOKING NOTE
Note To make a butterscotch swirl ice cream, spread softened vanilla ice cream in a baking pan. Top it with
1
/
3
cup or more of butterscotch sauce (cooled, not hot), and swirl the sauce through the ice cream using a rubber spatula. Return the ice cream to the freezer until the ice cream sets, then serve.
The Lilly Lunch Bunch—retired employees of the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company—having vanilla ice cream sundaes with their choice of toppings at the Hollyhock Hill Restaurant in Indianapolis, Indiana.
This cheesecake, a favorite at the Manhattan delicatessen Lindy’s, can be put together almost entirely in the food processor, which means it’s not only easy to make but also remarkably smooth and light in texture. The shortbread crust tastes of butter, lemon, and vanilla scraped straight from the bean; the airy filling is flecked with lemon and orange zest; and a blast in a very hot oven gives the top a golden color.
FOR THE CRUST
:
2 cups flour
¼ cup sugar
1 tsp. lemon zest
¼ tsp. salt
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped and reserved
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into ¼ -inch cubes
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 egg yolk
FOR THE FILLING
:
2½ lbs. cream cheese, softened
1¼ cups sugar
3 tbsp. flour
1½ tsp. lemon zest
1½ tsp. orange zest
½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
5 eggs plus 2 egg yolks
¼ cup heavy cream
1. Make the crust: Heat the oven to 400°F. Combine flour, sugar, lemon zest, salt, and vanilla seeds in a food processor and pulse until evenly incorporated. Add butter and pulse until pea-size crumbles form, about 10 pulses. Add oil and egg yolk and pulse until a dough forms. Press dough into the bottom and halfway up the side of a 9-inch spring-form pan; refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Bake until golden brown at the edges and set, 15 minutes; transfer to a wire rack and let cool.
2. Make the filling: Preheat oven to 500°F. Combine cream cheese, sugar, flour, zests, and vanilla in a food processor and process until very smooth, about 1 minute. Add eggs and yolks one at a time, processing 10 seconds after each addition, until smooth; stir in cream. Pour filling into crust (filling will come over the crust), set on a baking sheet, and bake until top is deep golden brown, about 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 200°F and bake for 1 hour more. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely to room temperature. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
3. Remove cake from pan and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour to soften slightly. Cut cake into slices and serve.
The story of New York cheesecake, like that of so many beloved American foods, is a narrative of immigrant tradition, disputed pedigree, and local pride. The city’s signature dessert owes its existence in large part to Philadelphia cream cheese, which was invented in Chester, New York, in 1872 and distributed by a company called Philadelphia Brand. Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe made do with the cheese when they couldn’t find fresh-curd varieties like cottage and farmers’ for their traditional baked goods. How this Americanized cheesecake was introduced into New York City mythology has long been a subject of debate. Arnold Reuben, of the Manhattan delicatessen that bears his name, claimed he was the first to serve it, around 1910. Reuben’s main competitor, deli man Leo Lindemann, lured away Reuben’s Swiss-born pastry chef, Paul Heghi, to re-create the dessert at his establishment, Lindy’s, where it became a New York icon.
Many traditional recipes for this custardy Mexican sweet call for cooking it on the stove top, but baking it is easier and results in an equally sumptuous texture and flavor. A rich combination of coconut milk, evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk makes for an especially silky flan.
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
¾ cup evaporated milk
½ cup unsweetened coconut milk
¾ tsp. vanilla extract
¼ tsp. kosher salt
3 eggs plus 3 egg yolks
1½ cups sugar
Serves 8
1. Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 325°F. Heat the condensed milk, evaporated milk, and coconut milk in a 1-qt. saucepan over medium heat until it just begins to simmer; remove from the heat. In a large bowl, whisk together the vanilla, salt, eggs, and yolks until smooth. Whisking constantly, slowly drizzle in the warm milk mixture until incorporated; set aside.
2. Stir together the sugar and ½ cup water in a 2-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook, without stirring, until the sugar turns a deep caramel color, about 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and pour equal amounts of the caramel mixture into eight 6-oz. ramekins; let cool.
3. Put 4 ramekins each into two 8-inch square glass baking dishes and pour an equal amount of the reserved milk mixture into each ramekin. Pull out the oven rack and place the baking dishes on it, side by side. Pour enough boiling water into the baking dishes that it comes halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake until the custard is just set but still wiggly in the center, about 30 minutes. Covering your hand with a kitchen towel or an oven mitt, pick up the ramekins, transfer them to the refrigerator, and let chill for about 3 hours.
4. To serve, use a knife to cut around the inside edges of each ramekin and immerse the bottom of each ramekin in a baking pan of hot water for 20 seconds; invert the ramekins onto small plates to release the flans.
