Read Saveur: The New Comfort Food Online
Authors: James Oseland
Saveur: The New Comfort Food (32 page)
Don’t let the name fool you: This cake is a slice of pure Americana. The first known recipe, which appeared in a Dallas, Texas, newspaper in the 1950s, called for German’s Sweet Chocolate, a popular home-baking ingredient. This version is crowned with the traditional coconut–pecan frosting and leaves the sides bare for a just-right balance of deep cocoa flavor and luscious, nutty topping.
FOR THE FROSTING
:
1½ cups sugar
1¾ cups unsalted butter, softened
1½ tsp. vanilla extract
4 egg yolks
1 12-oz. can evaporated milk
1½ cups roughly chopped pecans
7 oz. package sweetened shredded coconut
FOR THE CAKE
:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened, plus additional butter for greasing the pans
4 oz. German’s Sweet Chocolate, chopped
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. kosher salt
1½ cups sugar
4 egg yolks
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
4 egg whites
Serves 12–14
1. Make the frosting: Combine the sugar, butter, vanilla, egg yolks, and evaporated milk in a 2-qt. pot over medium heat. Bring to a simmer and cook until thick, about 12 minutes. Strain through a sieve into a bowl and stir in the pecans and coconut. Chill the frosting in the refrigerator until firm.
2. Meanwhile, make the cakes: Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease three 9-inch round cake pans with butter and line the bottoms with parchment circles. Grease the parchment and set aside. Put the chocolates into a small heat-proof bowl, pour in ½ cup boiling water, and let sit for 1 minute. Stir until smooth, then set aside. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt and set aside.
3. In a standing mixer, beat together 1¼ cups sugar and the butter until fluffy. Add the egg yolks, one at a time. Add the melted chocolate mixture and the vanilla and beat until smooth. On a low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk until just combined; set the batter aside.
4. Whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Add the remaining sugar and whip to stiff peaks. Fold the egg whites into the batter; divide between the pans and smooth the batter. Bake until the cakes are set, 25–30 minutes. Transfer the cakes to racks and let cool in the pans for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes and invert them onto a rack to cool to room temperature.
5. Place 1 layer on a cake stand or a platter and spread one-third of the frosting over the top, leaving the sides bare. Repeat with the next 2 layers to assemble the cake. Slice into wedges and serve.
A group of friends drink masala chai at a dhaba, or truck stop, in Delhi, India.
A good drink revives and refreshes us, warming or cooling us from the inside out. The best drinks—a glass of milky-sweet masala chai, fragrant with cardamom; a spicy bloody mary spiked with vodka and horseradish; a rich black-and-white malted milk shake—complement the foods on the table, but they are just as wonderful when sipped on their own.
Masala Chai
A far cry from the so-called chai drinks sold at chain coffee shops in the United States, this sweet, milky tea gets its invigorating piney fragrance from the crushed pods of green cardamom.
½ cup evaporated milk
5 tsp. sugar
6 black tea bags
5 pods green cardamom, crushed
Makes 4½ cups
Bring milk, sugar, tea, cardamom, and 4 cups water to a boil in a 2-qt. saucepan. Remove from heat and let steep for 5 minutes. Strain and serve hot.
Of the two main varieties of cardamom, green cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) is the one that’s more common. Its floral perfume penetrates all sorts of invigorating beverages, both hot and cold, from Indian masala chai and frothy yogurt lassis to potent Turkish coffee; many gins are flavored with it, too, and some bartenders keep a bottle of simple syrup infused with cardamom on hand for mixing into cocktails. It brightens chicken curries throughout South Asia and dozens of Scandinavian sweets and pastries, like pulla, a braided challah-like loaf, and semlor, Finnish cream puffs filled with rich cardamom-scented pastry cream. Green cardamom pods are small and oval, containing tiny black seeds that are crushed or ground to release their sweet, eucalyptus-like fragrance. Its cousin, black cardamom (Amomum subulatum), which grows in much larger, brown pods, is smoky and bold from drying over wood fires. It’s perfect for infusing earthy depth into a Pakistani lamb biriyani or other roasted meats as well as full-flavored stews. Both spices are grown primarily in India; Guatemala, Costa Rica, Tanzania, and Sri Lanka, too, grow significant quantities of the green variety, while black cardamom also comes from the Himalayan regions of Nepal, China, and Bhutan. For the best flavor, buy the spices whole and grind them yourself in a spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle.
We adapted this recipe from one in Thoroughly Modern Milkshakes, by Adam Ried. Unlike the classic black-and-white, in which chocolate syrup and vanilla ice cream are blended together, this shake has alternating layers of vanilla and chocolate ice cream, with ripe banana and malted milk powder mixed in to add body and rounded sweetness.
½ cup cold milk
1 tbsp. malted milk powder, such as Horlick’s
1¼ tsp. vanilla extract
½ ripe medium banana
1 pint vanilla ice cream
1 pint chocolate ice cream
Serves 2
1. Place ¼ cup milk, malted milk powder, 1 tsp. vanilla, and banana in a blender and blend until smooth. Add vanilla ice cream and blend, pausing once or twice to mash the mixture with a rubber spatula, until smooth, about 45 seconds. Pour mixture into a pitcher and set aside in the refrigerator.
2. Place remaining milk and vanilla extract along with the chocolate ice cream in the blender and blend, pausing once or twice to mash the mixture with a rubber spatula, until smooth, about 45 seconds.
3. Layer vanilla and chocolate shake mixtures in 2 large chilled milk shake glasses, beginning and ending with vanilla. Serve immediately with straws.
We love milk shakes of all sorts, but we’re especially ardent devotees of the malted version. Malteds get their toasty, rich flavor from malted milk powder, a combination of malted barley, wheat flour, and whole milk, mixed together and evaporated to a fine dust. There are several brands to choose from, including Carnation and Kitchen Krafts, but we’ve always preferred Horlick’s malted milk powder, which has a wonderfully rounded, mildly sweet taste. The late founders of the company that makes it, James and William Horlick, also happened to be the inventors of the ingredient itself, which they conceived of as a digestive aid and fortifying food for babies. They patented their invention in 1883 in Racine, Wisconsin, where their company was based. In 1890, James brought the company to the brothers’ native England. Over there, Horlick’s powder mixed with hot milk became a popular bedtime treat. Stateside, however, the malted milk powder went on to inspire the early-twentieth-century milk shake craze. It’s often cited that a soda jerk named Ivar “Pop” Coulson invented the malted milk shake at a Walgreens store in Chicago in 1922 when he blended together scoops of vanilla ice cream with Horlick’s milk powder and chocolate syrup to create a chocolate shake called “Horlick’s Milk Shake.” Prior to that, malted milk drinks were made by mixing milk, chocolate syrup, and malted powder in a glass. Coulson’s invention went on to become Walgreens’ signature shake, and it has inspired countless variations around the world.
This sophisticated rum cocktail with its dark, spicy depths comes from the Tiki-Ti, a Los Angeles institution and a shrine to well-made tropical drinks. Puka Punch is a relic of the golden age of tiki cocktails, roughly from the 1930s to the 1950s, when some of the most talented mixologists were focusing on exotic drinks. This recipe calls for three different rums, but you can substitute either dark or white rum for any of them.
2 oz. white rum
1 oz. fresh lime juice
¾ oz. dark Jamaican rum
¾ oz. fresh orange juice
¾ oz. pineapple juice
¾ oz. passion fruit syrup
2 tsp. honey mixed with
2 tsp. hot water and chilled
¼ oz. falernum (optional)
1 dash Angostura bitters
¾ oz. 151-proof rum (optional) Pineapple slice, orange wedge, and maraschino cherry, for garnish
Makes 1 cocktail
1. Put 1½ cups ice cubes into a blender and crush. Add first 9 ingredients and blend on high speed. Pour into a tall glass.
2. Slowly pour 151-proof rum over back of a spoon into cocktail. Garnish with pineapple, orange, and cherry.