Sort-of Mohnkuchen

I made this cake for a party we had at the tail-end of summer, and it got completely over-shadowed by the sour cherry pie Paul made. I don't blame them, it was a damn-good sour cherry pie, but I still like this cake, even if it's not the most popular girl in the room. There's something delectable of the soft souffle-like cake made with ground poppy seeds and topped with tangy cream cheese frosting.



This cake is something I invented many years ago (years!), inspired by the Austrian sweet mohnkuchen. Mohenkuchen is a poppy seed cake, made with a crumbly shortbread bottom, a sweet pure-black poppy seed filling, and a streusel topping. This cake takes it inspiration from that poppy-seed filling, but turns to a French technique and a bit of my own improvisation.



To make the cake a bit healthier, I substitute prune puree for some of the butter. The prune puree also adds a depth of flavor and sweetness to the cake. If you don't feel like making the puree yourself, baby food work perfectly. This sounds odd, but if you think of baby food as just small jars of fruit purees, they're actually great for use in baking to add moisture and flavor to cakes.

Anyway, I don't mind if this isn't going to be the stand-out cake in the room, it's subtle and complex (and frankly rather expensive to make). But it's sort of a stealth favorite, sneaking up on you slowly until it takes a place in your repertoire.


Poppy Seed Cake (Inspired by Mohnkuchen)

6 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 cup prune puree (I use prune baby food)
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups poppy seeds, coarsely ground in a spice grinder
1/2 cup flour
4 eggs, separated
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (optional)
zest of 1 orange or lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
1/2 recipe cream cheese frosting*
candied walnuts for topping

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a springform tin and line with parchment paper, grease parchment paper.
2. Cream butter and sugar. Add in egg yolks and extract. Add in prune puree. Stir in the ground poppy seeds and flour.
3. Beat egg whites with a pinch of cream of tartar to stiff peaks.
4. Gently fold egg whites into cake batter in batches using a spatula until the mixture is just combined. Transfer to prepared pan. Bake 40-45 minutes, until puffed and browned on top. Let cool completely.
5. Top the cake with cream cheese frosting and candied walnuts as desired.

* Cream cheese frosting - beat together 1/2 lb cream cheese, 1/2 stick (4 tbl) butter, 2 cups confectioners sugar, 1 tbl vanilla extract.

The Maple Syrup Conundrum

Where I grew up and where my mom still lives, our neighbor is a grandmotherly lady who spends her summers in the cool air of Canada. Each year as she prepares to flee Baltimore’s hot weather, we assure her we will keep an eye on the mail and the elaborate system of timers that water her hundreds of prize orchids. And each year, in return, she brings us a bottle of the most wonderful maple syrup you ever did taste. Not pancake syrup, not imitation flavor stuff, but sweet scented liquid gold.

Now, my family loves maple syrup, but it seems we don’t make enough pancakes, because each year when she brought us a new bottle we still had half of last year’s left. Over the years my mom devised several recipes to whittle down our supply, a maple-glazed salmon is still a favorite. However, it seems we’ve been lax once again because between my mom and myself, we’ve got three bottles of maple syrup. Oh, the difficult problems we face. I briefly considered giving one of them as an emergency Christmas gift, but this stuff is so good that even with our surplus I couldn’t bear to let it go. After all, if I had only one bottle in the pantry I might start to get a little nervous, it’s a long way to next August.

Instead, I started searching for a recipe that called for maple syrup, not just a few measly tablespoons, but something by the cupful. I came across a recipe for maple-walnut cake that sounded just right, except for one thing. Problem is, I don’t love nuts in my cakes. Ground nuts, sure, but what I love about cake is the soft texture, something nuts just interrupt. I know, I know, trivial once again. However, I had an idea: I could use chestnuts, which have a nutty taste but a softer texture, and I could chop them very finely so that they sort of melted into the cake.

I suppose if you pour a few cups of fabulous maple syrup into something, you should expect it to be good, but this cake exceeded even my expectations. It smells as good as it tastes, supremely maple-y, with just the right soft nubby texture from the chestnuts. Keeping the chestnut theme, I made a frosting with sweetened cream cheese and chestnut paste, which is now one of my favorite new variations on cream cheese frosting. I have only two qualms with this cake: one, my cake lost some of its maple flavor after a few days, but this could be because I didn’t store it properly. Second, with the good maple syrup, chestnuts and chestnut paste, it can be a bit pricey, but I think it would be worth it for a special occasion. If you’re lucky enough to be able to afford candied chestnuts (marrons glacee) they would make a wonderful decoration on the top of the cake.

I love doing a fancy dessert on New Years, when you can serve some cute appetizers, skip the entree, and head straight for the sweet stuff with your glass of Champagne in hand. After all, it’s only tomorrow that you swore off sweets and committed to salads. Until then, why don’t you have another piece of cake?


Maple-Chestnut Layer Cake
This layer cake is best the first day it's made, that is, if you can resist the smell of the cake coming out of the oven. The frosting is delicious, but you could also use a maple buttercream frosting if you prefer.

1/2 cup (4 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ginger
1 1/2 cups pure maple syrup
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped cooked chestnuts
Chestnut Cream Cheese Frosting, recipe follows

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease two 9" cake pans. Place chestnuts in a food processor and pulse to make a coarse meal (alternately, if you don't have a processor, you can chop them as finely as possible). You should have 3/4 cup chestnuts.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and ginger.
3. Beat butter and maple syrup together until combined. The mixture may look slightly curdled, that's ok. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Add the flour mixture in two additions, stirring to combine. Fold in the chestnuts.
4. Divide batter between prepared pans. Bake 40 minutes. Let cool on a rack.
5. Place bottom cake layer on a platter. Spread the top with some of the chestnut frosting. Top with second cake layer, frost top and sides of cake with remaining frosting.

Chestnut Cream Cheese Frosting
12 oz cream cheese
4 oz (1/3 cup) chestnut puree
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups sifted powdered sugar

1. Cream together the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add the chestnut puree and vanilla to combine. Slowly sift in the powdered sugar until the desired consistency is reached.

Of Bunny-Topped Cakes and Birthdays

There are recipes that every family keeps close to their hearts. Sometimes they are the source of mystery and intrigue, the ingredients closely guarded, the procedure taking days. "I heard she stirs counterclockwise for hours without stopping," someone might whisper at the table. Then there are recipes that just slip themselves into your lives and acquire the comfort of a well- worn tee-shirt. They may not be complicated but the smell wafting from the kitchen is the smell of home. This is one of those recipes.


The year I was born, Gourmet Magazine published a feature for a children’s birthday party, which included little croque-monsieur sandwiches and a carrot cake topped with marzipan bunnies. My mother saved the article and for my birthday party she made the carrot cake, 3 layers sandwiched with apricot preserves and covered in cream cheese frosting. She even crafted little bunnies to sit on top of the cake with tufts of carrot tops for grass, and marzipan carrots to go around the sides. The cake was such a hit, she made it the next year, and the year after that, and after that...

For my entire life I have celebrated my birthday with the same exact cake. Ok, well, there was one year when I was about eight and insisted on an ice cream cake, but that was only a temporary moment of rebellion. I am, after-all, a creature of habit. When I went away to camp for the first time, my mother made sure a carrot cake was delivered to my dormitory. After scouring Beirut bakeries for days, I conceded carrot cake was unheard of in the Middle East and attempted to make my own in a very tiny kitchen with a broken oven. These days I make my own birthday cake and even though I am way too old for a cake decorated with small animals, I still make them if I have the time, resulting in many late nights sculpting marzipan and some funny reactions from friends. However, if you make fun of my cake, you may not get any, and then you will be very sorry.


The folded, stained issue of Gourmet is a testament to the strength of the recipe (it's also a prized possession, since Gourmet's online archives don't go back that far). Despite my fiddling with the measurements, I still make it generally as written, at this point I know it by heart. Everyone has their own idea of what carrot cake should be, but for me, this is it. Chock full of carrots (a full 4 cups), absolutely no pineapple or raisins. The cream cheese frosting recipe always makes too much but I make the whole amount everytime, and steal spoonfulls from the fridge all week. Hey, it’s my birthday after all. This year, here I am once again, grating carrots, stirring batter, the smell of warm cinnamon reminding me of the inevitable passing of years. So here’s to twenty-ahem years and counting, may there be many more bunny-topped cakes to come.



Carrot Cake for Birthdays
I've had this exact cake for my birthday for almost every year of my entire life, if that isn't tried and true than I don't know what is. My mom always used carrots with their tops still on because she said they were fresher and the carrot tops could be used as garnish, but I'll admit I just use regular carrots as long as they are fresh. And yes, I still sculpt the marzipan bunnies, too. Adapted from Gourmet.

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar (I prefer brown, but white sugar is fine)
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp each cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
4 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup walnuts, optional (I never include them, but if you want to...)
to assemble:
1/2 cup apricot jam
cream cheese frosting (recipe follows)
marzipan and food coloring for bunnies, if desired

1. For the cake layers: Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line 3 eight-inch round pans with wax paper, grease and flour the pans.
2. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, spices, and salt. In a large bowl, beat the eggs until frothy, then add the oil in a stream, beating to combine. Gradually stir in the flour mixture just to combine. Fold in the carrots.
3. Divide the batter between the 3 prepared pans, bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes, then invert onto a rack to cool completely.
4. To assemble: Peel the wax paper away from the bottom of the cake layers. Place 1 cake layer on a platter and spread with half the apricot jam. Top with a second layer, and spread that with the remaining jam. Top with the final cake layer. Frost the top and sides of the cake with cream cheese frosting. If desired, sculpt bunnies and carrots out of marzipan. Arrange bunnies around top of cake, with carrot tops as grass, and place carrots around side of cake.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Some of the best stuff on earth. Using cold cream cheese and softened butter prevents any lumps.

1 lb cream cheese, cold
1 stick (8 tbl) butter, softened
4 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
2 tsp vanilla

1. With an eletric mixer, beat together the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until smooth and combined. Add the powdered sugar in 3 additions, beating only until sugar is incorporated (do not overbeat). Store in the refrigerator.

*Alterations: Over the years I fiddled with this recipe many times and if you're watching your calories I have found it is plenty moist with only 3/4 cup oil and with the sugar reduced by 1/4 cup; also whole wheat pastry flour does very well.
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