My food magazines seem to pile up quickly these days so to encourage myself to sit down long enough to look at them, I make a small pile and carry them from one room to another thinking their physical presence will be a reminder.  It’s not an effective plan on most days for obvious reasons, such as, I’m busy doing other things?

But last Friday the sun unexpectedly graced us with its brilliance burning through the June Gloom, and I found myself daydreaming out the windows instead of doing the dishes, listening to the dribble of water from the fountain on our patio my husband diligently worked on to get the large spout at the top to run well enough to fill the smaller ones.  Will wonders never cease.  It’s a nice sound that distracts me from the traffic just over our wall and watching the hummingbirds trying to bathe themselves in it is hilarious.  I haven’t been able to get a shot of them yet, but give me a few weeks.

I give in to the urge to go out and sit in the warmth.  The sun feels good, so I relax a bit and begin to thumb through the magazines remembering how much I enjoy the summer issues.  Everything is fresh and the recipes are relatively uncomplicated.

It’s not long after I’ve had some time to make a mental list of my favorites that I email my best friend and invite myself and husband to dinner at her house.  It takes a bit of arm wrestling to get her to agree to let me make the entire dinner, but she loves the recipes I mention, so dinner it is.

I make a quick run to the store for ingredients, do some easy prep, and everything is ready to pack up and take to her house for a night of food that comes one dish at a time — with wine, of course.

When’s the last time you grilled lamb?  This recipe is truly delicious, and quite easy to make — even at the last minute.

Grilled Lamb Chops with Garlic, Chilies and Anchovies from Food & Wine

I used the little bundle of mint from one of my planters that always seems to have grown back after its last plucking by the time I next need it.

The recipe calls for 3 red jalapenos, and I didn’t think anything of that at first because they never seem to have that much heat.  But after cutting into one, I could smell the pungency, so only used one.

The chiles release all their spicy goodness into the oil.

Chop the rest of the ingredients up to make a nice paste.

Pour all the goodness over the lamb — or put it in a plastic bag so it can sit and soak up all the flavors.

We grilled the racks whole to sear them, but sadly, did not protect the very delicate bones with foil first.  Yes, we know we’re supposed to.  The grill master mentioned that they were actually on fire at one time.

After the racks were seared (uh, almost incinerated), and after much discussion, both racks were sliced into 2-bone chops and sent back to the grill for additional cooking.  Just a bit.

Thankfully, they were absolutely delicious.

Recipe Notes:

• The original recipe can be found here.
• If you’re thinking “Ewww…Anchovies!” try this.  Anchovies lend such great flavor to so many recipes. To me, they seem to enhance the other flavors.  If you’re not sure, then cut down on the quantity, but give them a try.  And when you take that first bite, think of what you’re eating instead of, “This has anchovies in it.”
• I marinated two whole racks of lamb for this recipe instead of individual chops, putting all ingredients into a zip-lock bag for about 3 hours.  It was enough.  Even using only 1 chile, we could taste just a hint of heat.
• For extra heat for those who enjoy it, grill extra chiles and slice them up for serving.  It’s a nice accompaniment to a bite of the succulent lamb.
• Why racks of lamb instead of the chops the recipe called for?  Lamb chops are so very tiny and tender.  I enjoy doing different things with racks of lamb, so searing them before moving on always presents a nice, tender product.  The idea of using the grill for those tiny things had trouble written all over it — especially considering the oil in the marinade which caused the flare up.  We grill quite often, but we’re not experts.  Wasting a lovely natural lamb product isn’t worth it.

At some point this month, Sass & Veracity will be four years old, and in blog years, that’s an accomplishment of sorts — one that could be classified as seat time, but that’s a matter I’ll continue to work on.

I can’t remember the first time I wrote here, but know it was near mid-March, 2007, about the time I’d decided to call it quits on my career.  Quits as in before my retirement date which is not something that is done when one has spent half a lifetime working with children and is within spitting distance of said date.  No, most would stick it out a few more months to get an entire 20 years in, but not me.  That would be far too logical.

A couple of months at home recovering from surgery gave me the opportunity to think about something other than my work, and I realized what I’d suspected.  I couldn’t go back.  Ever.  It was too remarkable finding out my brain was still capable of thought unrelated to the fine art of educating children or the not so fine art of working with ridiculous government policies and bureaucrats (but you might insert any career here that has overstayed its welcome).  I felt like a completely different person once I’d made my decision, and when alone at home during the day felt like I was playing hookey and about to get caught.  Bear in mind my husband was supportive of it and me, knowing that unless I wanted to find a different job, we’d be without half of what we normally lived on.

Half.

Giving up my food magazine subscriptions was probably not going to cut it.

I rationalized that my youngest needed me, and after raising three boys while spending more time with other people’s children, it felt like a gift to be home with at least one of them.  He was still in school and in need of some gentle but focused guidance to see him through high school — i.e., How to Survive The Geometry Teacher and Live to Tell About It – or not.

So how did this all begin?  I started another blog first, and because a good friend and I had committed ourselves to getting fit with a specified diet and exercise regime, I realized I’d have more to say about it all than what I wanted to write on one blog, especially if it involved food.  I thought writing about the healthy meals I was eating would be a great place to begin along with my never ending opinions about food in general.  It made perfect sense to start a second blog at the time.

Just.  Perfect.

It was perfect until our quest to lose 50 pounds stagnated at about 15 as did my motivation to write about food.  The struggle was more about my avoidance of this blog for the other which allowed me the space and freedom to write whatever I wanted whether anyone wanted to read it or not.  As much as I knew I could cook, making whatever I cooked look appetizing in a photo was another matter completely, so I begrudgingly realized I would need to spend more time than I originally thought I’d require to make Sass & Veracity work.  “Work” meant something I looked forward to, enjoyed spending time with, learning from…all of that.  But I just wasn’t interested in writing here — if I could actually call it writing.  It seemed more about the tedious task of recipe recording or revising.  Thankfully, the welcomed salvation of photography saved me — something I’d always been interested in, but had much to learn about.  There’s nothing quite like having to figure out how to shoot food which isn’t sporting a golden glow that will keep one thinking.

When I think of the blogs I first remember happening on to four years ago, 101 Cookbooks, Lucullian Delights, The Wednesday Chef,  and The Traveler’s Lunchbox come to mind with archives going back a year or two from that point.  They’d all been at it for a while.  With great photography and a clear voice in their writing, I had hope that maybe I would be able to make this a place to write well also.  Time went on and so many more food blogs surfaced.  I discovered The Daring Bakers when there were fewer than 50 members in the group and soon figured out that if I baked more instead of cooked, the food behaved better in front of my camera.  More time passed and  Foodbuzz surfaced along the way. Twitter began tweeting.  Facebook began its quest to take over the universe.  In the meantime, I have met lots of wonderful people who, like me, are interested in food.  I lost something along the way trying to write about food, though.  Writing for writing’s sake.

I miss that.

I’ve gotten to the point that too many of my thoughts — all of them –  are connected to where the next recipe is coming from.  Whether the ingredients are local or not.  How I’ll shoot the recipe, when I’ll edit the photos, and whether I’ll take the time to submit them to Tastespotting or Foodgawker.  It’s endless and the spark has gone from it on most days, but I’m working through some adjustments about where it all should settle into my life, which is so much more than food.

Evil thought, isn’t it?

So I’m here on this almost anniversary of an important time in my life to share something simple — at least in appearance.  To hopefully give you a bit of sass (which has been sadly missing for a very long time) with the always pragmatic veracity I’m prone to on whether there’s actually something that remains to be said about a brownie.

Please know that I am not a brownie baker.  In fact, it’s probably the only baking phobia I have, except that run-in with Julia Child’s french bread a couple of years ago.  My brownie phobia has been well-earned because no matter what I have done, the brownies that have come from my oven resemble cube-like hockey pucks more than fudge flavored treats.   The last batch of brownies I ruined came from a box mix sometime when my two older boys were in elementary school, a very long time ago.  The brownies that surface in our home have come from the grocery store in bite sized form ready for the snacking.

So today, I bring you brownies.  Surely it’s time I learned to make them properly.

The big question is, do you prefer them fudgey, or cakey?  With nuts or without?  Chocolate chips added?  Marshmallows, M&Ms, dulce de leche drizzled over the top? Or maybe plain with a bit of salt and washed down with a tall glass of ice cold milk enjoyed through a good old fashioned paper straw.

Salted Fudge Brownies

1-1/2 sticks unsalted butter

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped

1/4 c. + w T unsweetened cocoa

2 c. sugar

3 lg. eggs

1-1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 c. flour

1/2 tsp. Maldon sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line a 9×9″ baking pan with foil allowing the edges to hang over the sides.  Spray the pan and foil lightly with oil.

In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate, stirring occasionally until well combined.  Remove from the heat.

Stir in the following ingredients individually making sure each is well incorporated before adding the next:  cocoa, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and flour.

Scrape the batter from the pan into the prepared baking pan and smooth the top.  Sprinkle the salt over and swirl in with a knife.

Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted into the center is removed “with a little of the batter.”  Cool at room temp for an hour, then place in the fridge for an additional hour.  Remove from the pan and cut into either 9 or 16 pieces depending on preference.

Line the pan with foil and spray lightly with oil

 

Get the chocolate & butter melting over low heat

 

Have the rest of the ingredients ready

 

Make sure the chocolate & butter are well mixed

 

Look how silky it is

 

Add the sugar and cocoa

 

Mix well after each egg addition

 

It will get smooth again in no time

Add the flour and oops! I added the salt!

 

The vanilla is in there, too

 

Spread the batter in the pan

 

Bake until there's only a bit of batter on the stick

 

Notes:

• Insert happy jumping up and down with glee.  Or success.  Something.  Truly, this is the first batch of brownies I haven’t screwed up.
• They’re very fudgey.  Very.  I was worried about the “with a little of the batter” part because seriously — how much is little?  When you’re a failure at brownie baking like I am, I need details.  But they worked.
• Dense, chocolatey, and yes, you can taste that salt on the top (which I sprinkled on after the fact  because I blew it and added the salt with the flour).  We loved that part — especially with coffee in the morning when I’m wondering whether I need two instead of one.
• I did end up cutting the 9ths into 16ths.  They’re rich.
• Wait until you see what I made with these.  Just wait.  Fudge overload coming soon in celebration of my oldest boy’s birthday.
• Almost forgot:  This recipe is from Kate Krader as published in Food & Wine and which I followed the recipe almost to the “t.”  I figured if I was going to have success, then choosing a recipe that someone has made since she was 10 years old might help.  Thanks, Kate!
• When’s the last time you had some ice cold milk with a brownie?  It tastes different from a paper straw — just like it did when I was in school.  Go figure.
• Are there any other brownie challenged bakers out there like me?  Come on.  Fess up!  And if you’ve found success with a brownie recipe, send it to me at sassandveracity[at]gmail[dot]com and I’ll link it here with any comments you’d like me to add. Don’t be shy   Let the brownie chronicles begin.

There are some flavor combinations I never tire of regardless of what time of the year it is.  The classic flavors of basil and tomato with a sprinkle of minced red onion, squirt of lemon, and drizzle of fruity extra virgin olive oil will always entice me. Equally delicious are chopped fresh tomatos, green onions, cilantro, and jalapenos with lime juice — a combination so perfect, I can easily skip the tortilla chips and head right for a spoon to enjoy the salty-tart-spicy flavor that would never be the same without cilantro.  I think I love cilantro even more than basil.

But another combination has come close to pushing both of the others aside as being tops in my mind — or my mouth:  roasted peppers, capers, and briny olives. Ironically, the flavors in this combination would work quite well with many of the others I’ve mentioned, but I enjoy them in a mix like this one — assertively delicious with the unexpected addition of anchovies.

Anchovies?  Those little fish in the can with the curly lid that when I’m ordering a pizza to go topped with “the works” I always politely decline?  The little salty things whose absence would leave a Caesar’s salad an unappetizing plate of flavorless lettuce, and pasta puttanesca without anything to be sassy about beyond a sprinkle of dried red pepper flakes.

Do any of us ever really say we like anchovies?  Probably not, but the key to learning to stop avoiding them is to see them as an ingredient to be mixed with others instead of sitting on top of a pizza.  If the anchovies were mixed into the tomato sauce instead, it would intensify the flavor leaving us to wonder what made it so good.

Think about it.  How many other ingredients which enhance one another when mixed together are basically unpleasant when eaten alone?  Capers.  I’ve tasted them just to see, and they’re quite bitter.  Or in most recipes which call for capers, the directions will advise rinsing them first.  For years, I did just that, and to make sure I understood why, I tasted the brine.  Not pleasant.  But when it’s mixed into many other ingredients, it’s quite fabulous.  Soy sauce, fish sauce, vinegar — all are less than pleasant when tasted alone.

Freshly roasted peppers, on the other hand, are perfect alone sprinkled lightly with salt, but they’re truly delicious in this mix. It’s perfect tossed with pasta for a salad when you don’t feel like cooking, or spooned over grilled meat or fish.  It’s helps make an omelet interesting and is especially excellent spread over a piece of crusty bread slathered with goat cheese.

It’s the best party food even if you’re the only one at the party, because then you don’t have to share.

Be brave.  Don’t forget the anchovies.

Fresh Roasted Pepper and Olive Bruschetta

4 bell peppers, any color, roasted

1 c. good olives, such as kalamatas, cerignola, or picholine

4 anchovies, oil-packed

2 T capers

2 big pinches chopped fresh rosemary

2 cloves garlic, minced

splash red wine vinegar

drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

goat cheese

crusty bread

Roast the peppers whole on the stove top over an open flame or cut in half and placed on a baking sheet under the broiler until skin is well blackened.  Wrap in a clean, soft cloth about 15 minutes, then remove the peelings, the stem, and the seeds.  Do not rinse the peppers.

Slice the peppers into thin strips and add them to a bowl with all ingredients except the goat cheese and bread.

Slice the bread into rounds, or into sandwich sized lengths, drizzle very lightly with olive oil and rub with a clove of garlic.  Broil or grill until golden.

To serve, spread some goat cheese on the toast, and spoon over some of the roasted pepper salad.

Swoon.

Mix everything but bread and cheese in a bowl

Toast bread, spread cheese, spoon roasted pepper mix over

Notes:

• This recipe was adapted from one of Mario Batali’s published in Food & Wine.  Credit to him for getting me to try the anchovies like this.  So good.
• I know olives can be difficult to find at times.  When I look at the kind of olives stocked in my grocery store, it’s a bit ridiculous.  There are essentially two choices:  canned black and “Spanish.”  Lots and lots of labels, can sizes, sliced or unsliced…really?  I can find kalamatas as well, but they never have the shelf space that the typical American olives do.  Food times have changed — why hasn’t the shelf space in markets?  Do people still eat that many plain black olives?  Thankfully, there is an olive bar, so I’m able to try a different variety from time to time.  When I really want to sample different varieties, Whole Foods is the best source here.
• “Give Anchovies Another Chance” is a great article about anchovies.  Take a look.
• On the bruschetta:  We think it’s easier to mince some fresh garlic and add it to a couple of glugs of extra virgin olive oil and let it sit a bit before brushing it on the bread.  Rubbing that piece of garlic over the surface of the bread is maddening, but maybe I’m just not gifted in that particular skill.
• More on the bruschetta:  Unless you enjoy eating soggy food, plate the toast, goat cheese, and a bowl of the roasted pepper and olive mix so that guests can make their own bruschetta.
• Make this ahead — the flavors intensify and are even better after they’ve had some time to mix.  Cover and leave at room temperature instead of putting it in the fridge.

Something happened to our Sunday dinners this busy season.  They’re usually what I manage to hang on to after watching our weeknight dinners dissipate one by one from thoughtful, healthy salads and planned entrees, to a quick forage through the wilted inhabitants of my veggie bin for something to saute with rice or pasta.  Throw in some garlic and it’s dinner, right?  Hardly, but it can be eaten in a bowl, sometimes as late as 9:30 p.m. while we’re huddled in our dimly lit family room in front of a recorded show and making weary attempts at questioning one another about the day.

It’s no wonder that looking forward to uninterrupted time in the kitchen draws my attention to the weekend where the result is pleasant time together over a meal that is special — read:  is served on a plate at a reasonable hour.  The idea of “special”  seems to be part of a process to me;  a recipe catches my eye and lingers on the periphery of the minutiae that accumulates in my head, and somehow I manage to remember the main ingredient while on one of my less than stellarly organized grocery shopping trips.  The remembered ingredient is then wedged into my freezer, which just might contain the very same ingredient somewhere in its depths, as a reminder that Sunday dinner is a possibility.  Hopefully, this classifies me as an optimist.

Time goes by.  Other ingredients are collected in other stop-after-work trips to the store for the cat food or laundry detergent I forgot on the previous trip, and because those ingredients are often perishable, they become part of a different meal (see above).  It’s a vicious cycle.

Finally, the day arrives as it does each year.  Busy season ends, and glimmers of a normal life surface.  The long-awaited day in the kitchen and meal are planned and the big question looms:  Will it have been  worth the wait?

Absolutely.

(And this has nothing to do, of course, with the fact that Chef Voltaggio not only took the time to comment on my effort, but put a shout-out about my speck in the food universe on his site, Voltaggio Brothers in “Food Writing.”)

A gracious and hearty thanks to Michael Voltaggio!

Michael Voltaggio’s Indian-Spiced Short Ribs

1/4 c. coriander seeds
2 T cumin seeds
1 T black peppercorns
1 T ground ginger
1 T ground cardamom
1 T cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
3 bay leaves, crumbled
2 T canola oil
4 boneless short ribs (10 to 12 ounces each), trimmed of fat
Salt
1 lg. sweet onion, thinly sliced
2 carrots, chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
3 plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped
2 heads of garlic, halved crosswise
2 cups dry red wine
1 quart chicken stock or broth

Preheat the oven to 325° F.

In a cast iron skillet, toast coriander and cumin seeds slowly over medium heat until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.  Transfer seeds to a spice grinder and add peppercorns, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, crushed red pepper and bay leaves.   Pulse to a powder and set aside.

In a large casserole pan, heat the oil. Season meat with salt and cook over high heat until browned and crusty on all sides, about 15 minutes. Remove to a platter and set aside.

Add onion, carrots and celery to the same pan and cook over medium until softened and lightly browned, about 7 minutes. Add tomatoes, garlic and 3 T of the spice mix.  Cook until tomatoes begin to fall apart, about 3 minutes, then add wine, scraping up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan.  Bring to boil and reduce by half.  Add stock and bring to a simmer. Add the browned meat and juices to the vegetable mixture and season with salt. Cover with foil or a lid and place in the oven about 2 hours or until just tender but not falling off the bone.

Remove meat to a baking sheet and pour the rest of the mixture through a strainer into a saucepan. Press against the solids with a spoon to extract more juice before discarding. Boil the liquid over high heat until reduced to 1 cup.

While the sauce is reducing, preheat broiler placing a rack about 6- 8 inches from heat. Brush meat with sauce, then sprinkle lightly with some of the remaining spice mixture.   Broil briefly until sizzling.

Serve short ribs with some of the sauce spooned over.

We enjoyed this recipe with Aloo Gobi, a spicy Indian cauliflower and potato dish flavored with green chilies, cilantro, and turmeric which was also fabulous.

Notes:

• This fabulous recipe can be found in the April 2010 issue of Food & Wine and is one created by last season’s winner of Top Chef.  He and his brother Bryan have a great food forum at Voltaggio Brothers.
• The spice blend is a type of garam masala.  Ingredients for this blend vary from one recipe to another, and I’ve found it’s fun to try a variety.  This one is much different than others I’ve tried as it contains both cinnamon and cardamom.  The cloves are also an addition I’m not used to.  For the spice in my blend, I chopped up half of a red serrano chili, seeds and all.
• I rarely make a recipe as written but was fairly close with this one because it is so much different than any short rib recipes I’ve tried. I was intrigued from the start.  When I make short ribs, they’re always smaller than what is described in recipes of this nature and a couple make a nice individual serving.  There’s no way to slice anything off of the bone and arrange it as I might another cut of meat that’s been braised.
• This was almost a one-pot recipe.  I used my Mario Batalli orange enameled cast iron lasagna pan for this.  (And no, I’m not selling them.)  It works great on the stove top when I want a high brown that will be deglazed, then the whole recipe popped into the oven.
• I used hot-house tomatoes because I had them on hand.  A jammy Rosenblum Cellars California Zinfandel was used in the braise– about $12.
• This is truly an excellent recipe that seems like a lot of work, but isn’t.  Many parts can be made ahead if need be — like the garam masala.  This recipe makes enough for the short ribs and leaves a scant 3 T left over for other recipes.
• We liked this so much that I’m going to try it with a larger cut of meat just to see how the incredible flavor holds up.  I’m thinking that finishing it on the barbeque would be great.

It was only a matter of time before I gave into temptation and changed one of the cookie recipes I’ve been sampling from Bon Appetit’s Holiday Cookie assortment this year.  Actually, that’s only partially true.  The collection includes several mix and drop cookies, and I strayed early on to experiment with a recipe for the perfect oatmeal cookie that I may share, but I digress.

When I saw the festive-looking Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies, I truly wanted to try them — but without the peppermint. I decided that if a hazelnut chocolate chip cookie could be classified as a holiday cookie, then why not chocolate and caramel?  All I needed to do was find a different filling for them since peppermint and caramel aren’t flavors I’d want to sample in one bite.

There happened to be some mascarpone in the fridge, and if I used a few drops of…

Chocolate Caramel Cookies with Orange Mascarpone Cream

For the cookies…

• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 large egg

For the filling…

• 4 oz. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter at room temp
• 4 oz. mascarpone or cream cheese, softened
• 1-1/2 c. powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp. orange extract

• One bad of hard caramel candies, crushed

Don’t forget to check out my fellow cookie bakers this holiday season.  Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen, Courtney of Coco Cooks, and Judy of No Fear Entertaining who are all returning this year, and Michelle of Big Black Dog, Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook, Renee of Flamingo Musings, and Tiffany of The Nesting Project who will be joining us this year.  A special nod goes to Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes who started the group last year, but cannot join in on the craziness this year.

The very last issue of Gourmet sits in a stack along with the most recent issues of Saveur, Bon Appetit, and Food & Wine — all barely touched.  Holiday catalogs I’d rather not receive lay scattered in the mix as well reminding me that I should probably pay attention.  How can it be the end of November?  The month has flown by and with it my favorite season of the year, leaving only a few days to think about recipes I’d like to try this year for Thanksgiving.  Outside of making a simple list of traditional dishes and leaving it to sit on the kitchen counter, I’m still not prepared.

I’ve accepted that this just won’t be the year to try yet another way to mash and flavor potatoes with the likes of parsnips or roasted garlic, white truffle oil or black truffle shavings.  I won’t have to wonder why a stuffing recipe calls for freshly made cornbread that has to sit on the counter for a day before it can be cubed and tossed with other ingredients to make an herby stuffing.  And I’ve decided that deep-frying a ton of microscopically thin onion rings to flavor a new spin on the classic green bean casserole won’t be happening, either, even though it was quite a fabulous recipe.  No, we’re going to be relatively conservative this year which is why I was able to spend some time in the kitchen today trying a new recipe with some of my favorite flavors:  apples, pecans, and cinnamon with a hint of orange.

David Guas’ Spiced Upside-Down Apple Bundt Cake was perfect from the moment I saw it in Food & Wine’s “Last Bite.”  Even though I’ve never owned a bundt pan, it was the least of my worries because the recipe calls for buttermilk.  Whenever I buy buttermilk,  it gets pushed to the back of the fridge and is forgotten until long after the date stamped on it, then ends up down the drain.  Not this time!   I found it with a day to spare — not that I could tell given its characteristic pungent smell.

How does one tell whether buttermilk is sour when it always smells badly?  It’s a very good thing that it works so nicely as a cooking ingredient, don’t you think?

Spiced Upside-Down Apple Cake

The recipe can be found here in the November 2009 issue of Food & Wine.

Make the streusel first and make sure to add the pepper.  Yes, it’s unusual, but it’s very nice with this cake since the apples are sweet.  They compliment one another well.

The spiced apples are so tasty I had trouble keeping myself from spooning them right into my mouth.  Make sure you saute them only until just beginning to soften and then spread them out on a baking sheet to set in the fridge to cool.

The cake batter is thick and easily spooned over the cooled apples in the generously oiled (Pam) cake pans.

The brioche tins baked for 45 minutes, and the 6″ round cake for 1 hour.   Test for doneness with a wooden skewer.  After they come from the oven, let them sit for 5 minutes before turning them upside-down on a baking rack positioned over a baking sheet.  You may have to rescue a few apples stuck to the bottom of the pan.  Just add them to the top of the cake.

Divide the streusel evenly over the cakes, pressing gently into the apples.  They’re quite moist so let cool an hour before serving.

Notes:

• I used cardamom in the streusel instead of cinnamon. I couldn’t resist. Its somewhat citrusy taste had me thinking of lemon pepper, but that didn’t quite pan out.  Although I could taste the pepper in the streusel when eaten alone, it was less noticeable when I sampled the finished cake.  I’d definitely add more pepper next time.
• I didn’t have Calvados so used Laird’s Applejack instead.  No, it’s not quite French apple brandy from Normandy, but it worked out quite well in this cake.  There is no boozy taste at all — something I don’t enjoy in baked desserts.  If you’d rather not use alcohol, apple cider will work just fine.
• Fuji apples were substituted for the Granny Smith’s because I was out of those as well.  Fuji’s aren’t as tart, but they held up well and the flavor was excellent.
• We enjoyed this cake.  It’s super moist and surprisingly light in texture with hints of orange laced through it.  The streusel topping provides a perfect crunch.  Although pecans are ground in the streusel, I think next time I’d enjoy chopping a few more to add to the apples before spooning the mixture into the pans.
• Raisins or dried cranberries would be a nice addition to this cake as well.
• Definitely a keeper!
• Oh — of course you can make this with one 10-inch bundt pan.