Jamaican Rum Cake

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup dark or light rum
6 tablespoons crushed walnuts, optional
Rum Syrup, see recipe below

1. Preheat the oven to 325ºF. Grease and flour a 9- or 10-inch spring-form pan.
2. Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until they are fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, blending until smooth.
3. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, rum and nuts, mixing until smooth. Pour into the prepared pan.
4. Bake in the oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until the cake bounces back when pressed gently in the center. A 9-inch pan may take a little longer.
5. Prepare the syrup. See recipe below.
6. When the cake comes out of the oven, poke it with toothpicks. Pour the hot rum syrup over the hot cake.
7. Let the cake cool before removing from pan.
8. You might want to microwave each piece before serving. You can serve it with rum raisin ice cream which is yummy but not necessary.

Rum Syrup

½ cup (1 stick) butter
½ cup sugar
½ cup dark or light rum

1. Put the butter and sugar in a small saucepan. Stir to combine as the butter melts.
2. Add the rum and bring to a boil for a few minutes.

10 servings
Adapted from Joan Nathan’s The New American Cooking

Sally Schmitt's Cranberry and Apple Kuchen with Hot Cream Sauce

I have had The French Laundry Cookbook on my shelf since November 2003—a long time. In these many years, I have made exactly one recipe from it. This one, in October 2004. I swear it is the only recipe in the whole book that I felt competent to tackle. But it quickly joined my list of “keepers” and has become a fall staple. Sally Schmitt was one of the original owners of The French Laundry Restaurant. She and her husband passed the restaurant and this recipe along to Thomas Keller when they decided to devote themselves to their apple orchards some distance to the north.

6 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
¾ cup sugar
1 large egg
1½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ cup milk or half and half
3 apples
1 cup fresh cranberries, at room temperature, defrosted if previously frozen
Cinnamon sugar: 1 tablespoon sugar mixed with ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
Hot Cream Sauce, see recipe below

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Butter a 9-inch cake pan or spring-form pan. Put a round of parchment paper in the bottom of the pan.
2. Peel, quarter, and core the apples. Slice them into ¼-inch wedges.
3. Beat together the butter, sugar, and egg in a bowl large enough to hold all the ingredients until the mixture is fluffy and light in texture.
4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Add the dry ingredients and the milk alternately to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with the flour. Do not over beat; mix just until the ingredients are combined.
5. Spoon the batter into the pan. Press the apple slices into the batter, about ¼ inch apart and core side down. Work in a circular pattern like the spokes of a wheel. Put most of the cranberries in the middle of the cake and the remaining around the edges. Poke some into the dough. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
6. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until the cake bounces back when softly pushed in the middle. Set on rack to cool briefly or let cool to room temperature.
7. Serve the kuchen in a good-sized puddle of the hot sauce. Pass the remainder in a pitcher.

Hot Cream Sauce

2 cups heavy cream
½ cup sugar
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1. Combine the cream, sugar, and butter in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce the heat and let the sauce simmer for 5-8 minutes to reduce and thicken slightly.

8 servings
Adapted from Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry Cookbook

Lemon Pudding Cake

The miracle of this dessert is that the batter separates into a cake layer on top and a lemon sauce layer on the bottom. It’s magic.

1 cup sugar (divided ¾ cup and ¼ cup)
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup flour
4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter, melted
Zest of 1 lemon, see photos if you need them
1/3 cup lemon juice (1-2 lemons)
1½ cups milk
3 eggs, separated, see instructions below

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Butter a 1½-quart baking dish or an 8-inch baking pan.
2. Mix ¾ cup sugar, the salt, and the flour together in a bowl. Add the melted butter, lemon juice, lemon peel, and egg yolks, and stir until thoroughly blended. Stir in the milk.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the remaining ¼ cup sugar until they are stiff but remain moist. Fold the beaten whites into the lemon mixture. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish.
4. Set the baking dish in a larger pan at least 2 inches deep and pour enough hot water into the larger pan to come halfway up the sides of the baking dish. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned.
5. Serve warm or chilled. Blueberries or raspberries, or any other fruit of your choosing, would be great on the side.

6 servings
Adapted from Marian Cunningham’s Lost Recipes

How to separate eggs (the yolks from the whites)

The most important thing about separating eggs is to keep any of the yolk from contaminating the whites. Yolks are fat and fat keeps egg whites from expanding when whipped. Generally the whole point of separating eggs is to whip the whites into a froth, then into soft peaks and finally to fold them into something else.

1. Place two bowls side-by-side on your counter. One will be for the white and the other for the yolks. You’ll be working over the bowl for the whites.

2. Crack the center of your egg on your counter.

3. Split the egg shell apart with your thumbs, forming two small egg shell cups. The yolk should be in one of them.

4. Tip any white out of the other one and gently transfer the yolk to the empty half, allowing the white to run into the bowl.

5. Pass the yolk back and forth between the two halves until all the white has run into the bowl. Pop the yolk into its bowl.

If you are nervous about breaking the yolk and contaminating the whites, you can do this procedure one egg at a time. After you have successfully removed the whites for one egg into the small bowl, put that white into the larger bowl and proceed one-by-one separating the eggs. Doing it this way means that if one yolk breaks, you’ve only lost one egg. I have had it happen on the eighth egg, not using this one-by-one method, and had to start over again, sometimes by first going to the store to buy more eggs. Use this method until you are really confident or be prepared to occasionally make scrambled eggs for a crowd.

             
How to beat egg whites

1. Put your egg whites in a bowl large to hold the whites after they expand considerably.

2. Using a wire whip, a hand eggbeater, or an electric beater, begin to whip the whites. They will first turn frothy.

3. Continue beating them until the whites hold a soft peak when you hold the beater up. The whites will be shiny.

4. Use them (generally folding them into something else) immediately.