Pink Radio Cake

Pink Radio Cake
Fido, $4.25

A beet bonanza several years ago led Fido's pastry chef to experiment with using beet puree to add subtle flavor and not-so-subtle color to the coffeeshop's standard cake recipe.  The resulting "pink radio cake" is sort of a dialed-down red velvet:  cake moistened with buttermilk, oil, and vinegar and held together with cream cheese icing the color of a Barbie birthday party.  

Judging from other pictures I've seen online, some batches are definitely beetier than others, with one or more of the cake layers looking like a wedge of rouge.  Maybe it's a seasonal thing? 

Nostalgic old-Nashville aside:  I can so clearly remember the building's previous life as Jones' Pet Shop, where the puppies in their tiny cages were both adorable and pitiful, impossible not to look at.  

Fido 

1812 21st Ave S

Nashville TN
615/777-3436

Budapest Bistro and Schnitzel House

 
















Cheese Pocket and Almond Cookie (top)
Cheese Strudel (below)
Budapest Bistro and Schnitzel House

Growing up in Hungary in her grandparents' home taught Elizabeth Muszka a particular kind of self-reliance.  Since there wasn't much money to spare on restaurants or fancy ingredients, Elizabeth learned young that in order to eat well, they had to cook well. 

Today the owner of Mukilteo's Budapest Bistro and Schnitzel House specializes in Hungarian, German, and Gypsy dishes--and in cooking well.  Starting with traditional recipes and simple ingredients, Elizabeth lavishes attention on each item. 

The pastry case stuffed with fresh zserbo (apricot-walnut-chocolate pastry), dobos torte (layered sponge with chocolate and caramel), sour cherry cake, German chocolate cake, strudels (below), and cookies (above) is even more of a marvel when you consider that the strudel dough alone takes three hours to make.  

 
















But for ex-pats who hunger for something other than home cooking, Elizabeth also stocks a large selection of packaged European candies and treats (below).   

Budapest Bistro and Schnitzel House
12926 Mukilteo Speedway
Lynwood WA
425/513-9846

Cranachan

Rhubarb Cranachan

Cranachan is an old Scottish dessert designed to insulate against grey days and damp winds: hearty toasted oats are stirred together with cream cheese, whipped cream, honey, whiskey, and fresh raspberries (for the vitamins, presumably). Rhubarb cranachan is a modern reworking from Niki Segnit's inspiring Flavor Thesaurus (a kind of culinary choose-your-own-adventure book).

When the cranachan recipe is stripped down to its five main themes (sweetness, cream, acidity, booze, and crunch), even more variations start to suggest themselves. Later in the summer I plan to try a Georgian version, with ripe yellow peaches, Southern Comfort and toasted pecans.

Niki Segnit's Rhubarb Cranachan

Chop 6 stalks of rhubarb and toss with 3/4 c sugar; bake in a covered, buttered dish for 30 minutes at 350 degrees, then let cool. In a heavy skillet, toast 1/2 c oats until golden, then let cool. Whip 3/4 c cream into stiff peaks, then fold in the rhubarb, 2 T amaretto, 2 T honey, and three-quarters of the oats. Serve chilled in small glasses topped with the remainder of the oats and toasted, sliced almonds.

Gjetost

Gjetost and Waffle

Scandinavian Specialties, $0.75

Known in its native Norway as brunost (literally, "brown cheese") and in the US as gjetost (just say,"Yay, toast!") this cheese-like substance has more than enough personality to merit two names. Goat milk, cream, and whey are boiled down until the dairy sugars caramelize, giving gjetost a rubbery consistency, golden color, and trademark flavor. Eating gjetost is one of those call-and-response experiences in which two tastes engage in debate inside your mouth; in this case the goat milk's pungent tang adds some edge to the toe-curling sweetness of the browned sugars, while the caramel, in turn, rounds out the goat's sharp funk.

At Scandinavian Specialities, small slices of gjetost are served on top of tiny waffles.

Scandinavian Specialties
6719 15th Ave NW
Seattle WA
206/784-7020

Sweet Masterpiece

Bleu Cheese Truffle

Sweet Masterpiece, $2.50

Like the miso paste in matsukaze cake, aged blue cheese is a robustly umami foodstuff--rich, satisfying, and almost meaty. Although it is capable of adding a savory baseline to sweet treats, it is much more apt to drown out any softer flavors that try to share its stage.

Portland chocolatier Crystal Pyatt achieves a rare balance with her bleu cheese truffle, producing a tiny treat that bursts with complementary flavors. She blends three types of cheese into a silky, butter-soft dark chocolate ganache, covers each ball in a thin shell of dark chocolate, and tops it off with a few flakes of toasted nuts.

The bleu cheese truffle's only weakness is a short shelf life, thanks to the inherently moldy cheese. For the time being, it is only available at Sweet Masterpiece in Portland's Pearl District. This choco-centric cafe and winebar also features desserts, drinking chocolate, wine tastings, and live jazz.

Sweet Masterpiece

922 NW Davis St

Portland, OR

503/221-0055 ‎

Colombian-style Hot Chocolate

Colombian-style Hot Chocolate

While my part-time weekend job in a chocolate shop is not always as idyllic as it might sound, it certainly has its moments. One recent evening a couple came in asking to see the owner--not usually a good sign. When I explained that she was out for the day, they were crestfallen. Turns out that they had driven in from the far side of town just to bring her, out of the blue, a big block of cheese.

The backstory: they had attended one of the tasting events our shop does for a local business and heard about our range of drinking chocolate. The woman, who grew up in Colombia, decided that we needed to experience drinking chocolate done Colombian-style, which involves soaking a piece of fresh, lightly salted cheese in the cup, then eating it when it's warm and soft and saturated with chocolate.

This generous pair of chocolate evangelists searched the Latino markets for a queso fresco that would best approximate the kind used in Colombia, then schlepped it all the way to our shop. Finding that the boss wasn't in, they left us the entire block of cheese (!) and some verbal instructions.

I finally had time to fix myself a cup today. Keeping to the theme of the experiment, I used a single-origin Santander chocolate from Colombia for the drink. Then I dropped in a cube of cheese and started sipping. As I drank, I couldn't detect any cheesy flavor, but when I got to the bottom there it was: still cube-shaped but soft around the edges, pale ivory mottled with brown blotches like some alien sweetbread.

Since I'm about to start an elimination diet that will exclude all of the components of this treat (dairy, chocolate, and sugar--among many other things), I was sort of hoping it would turn me off chocolate for a while. No such luck. The cheese was a little rubbery and squeaked against my teeth (which, as my fellow former eraser chewers will agree, is a rather pleasant sensation), and then the fattiness melted across my tongue and released alternating ripples of salty chocolate and sweet cheese.

I can't believe I'm going to have to wait at least a month before I try Colombian drinking chocolate again!

Tiramisu Class

"From Cheese to Tiramisu"
The Seattle Free School

Almost fifteen years ago I spent a week in Florence with my mother and my surrogate grandmother, Carleen, in honor of Carleen's 75th birthday. Carleen is a native South Carolinian who had heard about Florence when she was 13 and dreamed of visiting for the next 60 years. Teaching her a few requisite words of Italian was like a Laurel and Hardy routine:

Me: Buon giorno. Ok, now you try!

Carleen: Bone journey ooooh...

Several years before our trip, Carleen's husband, Bruce, had had a heart attack and a series of bypass sugeries; as a show of support, Carleen had joined him on his special low-fat diet. But in Florence, all bets were off: Carleen took a gleeful break from skim milk and fiber crackers and "heart healthy" spreads. We gobbled ravioli and pizza and panini and slurped full-fat cappucinos, and from the moment that Carleen discovered it, we ended every meal but breakfast with a helping of tiramisu. Carleen got pretty good at "per favore" and "grazie"!

Since that trip I haven't eaten much tiramisu. The name of course, means "pick me up", and a good tiramisu should put a smile on your face and a wag in your tail. The ones I tried stateside tended to be too heavy and sodden, too insubstantial (angel food cake and whipped cream), or too fusion-y (kiwi and goat cheese?). So my attention was snagged by an ad for a tiramisu-making class offered by the Seattle Free School ("The Seattle Free School is for the community by the community. All are welcome. No money ever exchanges hands. All we exchange are skills, knowledge and experiences.").

"From Cheese to Tiramisu" was held at the Cascade People's Center and led by Jessica, Free School founder and veteran cheese maker. Her premise is that homemade mascarpone elevates an everyday tiramisu to something extraordinary.

Jessica's Free School Tiramisu

For the mascarpone:

1qt cream

1qt half-and-half

1/2tsp tartaric acid

For the tiramisu:

2c mascarpone
3-4 eggs, separated
1 Tbs vanilla sugar (put a vanilla bean in a jar of sugar and give it some time)
3/4 c cold strong coffee (leftovers from the morning are perfect)
1/2-3/4 c Kahlua
18 (or so) ladyfingers
unsweetened cocoa powder

Pour the cream and half-and-half into a large pot and stir while heating it to at least 185 (it boils at 205); too cool, and it won't curdle. Since you have no way of knowing the acidity of your dairy products, start by adding a small amount of tartaric acid. Stir well for 3-5 minutes to see if anything will happen.

Still no curds? Add a little more acid and do the stirring act again. Unlike, say, ricotta, mascarpone will not separate dramatically; the curds are small and will always look creamy rather than watery, and the whey you pour off will look more like 1% milk.

When you think you have enough curds, it's time to strain. Dampen a good cheesecloth (not the supermarket kind; get one from a kitchen supplier and keep it lint-free by handwashing) and lay it over a collander. Put the colander over another pot to catch the whey (so if you don't have as many curds as you expected you can start again). Cool the mascarpone to room temperature (so it doesn't cook the eggs).

Whip the egg whites into peaks. If you choose to use sugar (some people find this tiramisu plenty sweet without it), stir it into the cheese, then add the yolks and gently fold in the whites. Mix the Kahlua and coffee together in a small bowl.

Smear a little cheese on the bottom of dish ("Just like lasagna, " says Jessica, "-lasagna with cheese and cookies." "And booze!" adds a wag in the audience.) Quickly dip the cookies for the first layer in the coffee; don't get them too damp because they'll be getting the brunt of the soaking as the tiramisu sits. Place them in the dish, breaking as needed to create a tiled layer. Spoon on some cheese. Let the cookies for the next layer soak up a little more coffee, rolling them around a few times until they darken. Gently spread on the last of the cheese and top with a generous sifting of cocoa powder.

Then comes the hard part: let it sit overnight. My heart sank a little as Jessica told us how much her co-workers would enjoy the demo tiramisu the next day, but I soon got over it. To be honest I did show up to the class hoping for a little taste, but you know what they say: teach a woman to make tiramisu...

Grazie, Jessica! From me and grandmother Carleen.