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I don’t know if you remember, but I made another version of this pie back in December. That was the “winter” version; cranberries & cinnamon. This, however, is the summer version. Inspired by this.

Yes, sometimes I keep my lemons in a mortar & pestle…

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And also inspired by MCA’s lyric in one of my favorite Beastie Boys’ songs, “No Sleep ‘Till Brooklyn“; “Like a lemon to a lime, a lime to a lemon, I sip the def ale with all the fine women.” As you probably know, MCA a.k.a. Adam Yauch passed away on May 4th. The Beastie Boys were always a favorite of mine, and they play a big role for me in the soundtrack of my life. I’ve got some awesome memories that match up with songs off more than just one of their albums, and some of the songs are just sentimental favorites. I think that’s the one thing that is comforting about “famous” people passing, whether it’s John Lennon or Johnny Cash or Kurt Cobain or Mozart or Adam Yauch- the fact that they never really die. The music lives on in our memories and on records and CD’s and iTunes forever. As far as my computer is concerned, The Beatles are all alive & kicking, just like it’s 1965. But it made me really sad to hear MCA died for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that he was only 47 years old, and that he left a 14-year-old daughter. Fucking cancer. The older I get, the more I realize how young 47 is, and just how much cancer really bites the big one.

Anyway, I was listening to some Beastie Boys songs, I knew I was going to bake something up, then I heard that lyric & saw the bowl of lemons, and I got an idea. Plus, add the fact that I was going to make something for my dad, and he loves blueberries… I came up with this idea of altering the infamous crustless cranberry pie into a more summery dish. Whereas last time this pie was made with cranberries & cinnamon, blueberries & lemon zest are the two main players this time, along with the sliced almonds. You can add a bit of lemon extract just to boost the flavor, but it’s not 100% necessary (I didn’t). You could also add lime zest too, if you really like that particular lyric. Another option would to be to dollop some lemon curd on top of it over the streusel before baking. It’ll brown and bubble up and get all creamy warm, like a lemon custard. Or, you can swirl some lemon curd in it before baking, or just serve it with some lemon curd & cream. It’s not really a pie. It’s not just a cake. It’s more like a coffee cake, or cobbler. And so, a new version was born. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the Beastie Boys, but it’s just inspired by a lyric. It’s not like I wanted to create a literal interpretation of B-Boy Bouillabaisse. Although, shit. That would’ve been a great idea.

Like a lemon to a blueberry, a blueberry to a lemon, I eat the def pie with all the fine women.

Listen, I’m not a lyricist. I bake.

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As you can see, streusel hates me. It always melts down into nothing. Oh well.

And just in case you’re wondering, I got that pie plate for a whopping $2.50 after Thanksgiving at Michael’s. I love the color (goes especially great with blueberries) & the large ruffle around the edge. I think collecting pie plates might be my new “thing.” I’ve only got three so far (this one, a pink one and one that was my mom’s that has a recipe for apple pie on it), but next on my list is a regular old Pyrex clear glass one. I’ve heard they’re the best for baking pies with a crust. Emile Henry makes some really nice decorative ones. Do you have a favorite pie plate?

Sorry, I got off-track there for a bit. Let’s get back to the goods.

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MCA’S “LIKE A LEMON TO A BLUEBERRY” CRUSTLESS PIE (altered from the original cranberry-based recipe which was from All Recipes, also with alterations)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons set aside for topping
• 1 cup white sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup whole fresh blueberries (or whole frozen)
• ½ cup sliced almonds, divided, half set aside for topping
• ⅓ cup light brown sugar
• zest of one whole lemon
• ½ cup butter, melted, plus 2 tablespoons butter just softened, set aside for topping
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• ¾ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• drop of lemon extract (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° degrees F. Grease one 9″-inch pie pan (or 8″ x 8″ glass baking dish).
2. Combine the 1 cup flour, white sugar, lemon zest and salt. Stir in the blueberries and half the almonds, and toss to coat. Stir in the ½ cup melted butter, beaten eggs, vanilla and lemon extracts. If you are using frozen berries, the mixture will be very thick. Spread the batter into the prepared pan.
3. In a small bowl, mix the 2 tablespoons flour, 2 tablespoons softened butter & light brown sugar together to make a streusel-like topping. Sprinkle mixture on top of pie. Sprinkle remaining ¼ cup almonds on top of that, or arrange neatly if that’s your bag.
4. Bake at 350° degrees F for 40 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted near the center comes out clean.

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The coolest thing about this ‘pie’ is exactly the fact that it’s not really a pie. It’s called a ‘crustless pie’ but you can call it anything you want. It’s like a zombie-pie-cobbler-coffee-cake. It doesn’t even require a pie crust! But even cooler than that- you can eat it any time of day. Because of the fruit-y aspect & the nuts, you can eat a slice for breakfast just as easily as for dessert (with some whipped cream or ice cream). And depending on how you make it, you might make it more breakfast-y or more dessert-y. Use whole wheat flour or add some oats for a totally different spin. And another amazing thing? You can use any fruit or berries in it, any kind of nuts, any kind of extract and zest.

Some other ideas include:

• Blackberries & raspberries with almonds
• Chopped strawberries with lemon zest & sliced strawberries & almonds arranged on top before baking
  
• Peach slices with vanilla beans & chopped pecans
• Chopped pineapple with Macadamia nuts & orange zest
  
• Cranberries with cinnamon, walnuts & steel cut oats
• Mango with flaked coconut, coconut extract, lime zest & pine nuts
• Dried cherries with dark & white chocolate chips & walnuts
• Banana slices with chocolate chips
• Raisins & golden raisins with cinnamon, nutmeg, chopped walnuts & steel cut oats- “Oatmeal cookie pie”
• Chocolate chunks with chopped hazelnuts & marshmallows (minus the streusel)- “Rocky Road pie”
  

Of course, some of those aren’t 100% seasonally appropriate right now, but that’s up to you. You could even mix some marmalade in with the batter, then top it with some chopped or sliced nuts, then brush it with more marmalade right out of the oven (so it gets all melty like a glaze) and make a sort of marmalade-pie-cobbler-whatever. Honestly, it’s so easy, and it’s so easy to change it up that you can totally do anything with it. You can tinker with it ’till your hearts content. Plus, it’s basically the perfect last-minute picnic or barbecue dessert. It takes no time to make,  doesn’t even require a mixer, travels well & a trained monkey could do it. Or someone who’s been drinking some Brass Monkey. Whatever. It’s easy, trust me. Blast some Ill Communication and get on that shit!

Rest in peace, Adam.

“He who sees the end from the beginning of time
Looking forward through all the ages:
Is, was, and always shall be.”

“B-Boy Bouillabaisse (A Year And A Day),” Paul’s Boutique

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What’s that? Oh nothin’, just lemon ricotta cupcakes with powdered sugar.

Did you just fall off your chair? I know, ’cause I almost did myself. Ricotta is fuckin’ amazeballs. Pardon my French- er, Italian. But it seriously is. It can be sweet or savory, used as a condiment or a filling, mixed with sugar… never-ending possibilities.

Ricotta (Italian pronunciation: [riˈkɔtta]) is an Italian dairy product made from sheep (or cow, goat, buffalo) milk whey left over from the production of cheese. Although typically referred to as ricotta cheese, ricotta is not properly a cheese because it is not produced by coagulation of casein. Rather it is made by coagulating other milk proteins, notably albumin and globulin, left over in the whey that separates from the milk during the production of cheese. In fact, ricotta is safely eaten by individuals with casein intolerance.

Ricotta (literally meaning “recooked”) uses the whey, a limpid, low-fat, nutritious liquid that is a by-product of cheese production. Most of the milk protein (especially casein) is removed when cheese is made, but some protein remains in the whey, mostly albumin. This remaining protein can be harvested if the whey is first allowed to become more acidic by additional fermentation (by letting it sit for 12–24 hours at room temperature). Then the acidified whey is heated to near boiling. The combination of low pH and high temperature denatures the protein and causes it to precipitate out, forming a fine curd. Once cooled, the curd is separated by passing through a fine cloth.

Ricotta curds are creamy white in appearance, slightly sweet in taste, and contain around 13% fat. In this form, it is somewhat similar in texture to some cottage cheese variants, though considerably lighter. It is highly perishable. Ricotta comes in other forms as well.

RICOTTA CUPCAKES

Ingredients:

What an interesting song to come on randomly as I was typing this post. Because I do. I like food. I like making it, I like eating it, I like talking about it. Me & Jay have long conversations about food sometimes. Planning meals; either making them or eating them out someplace. I just enjoy it. We both do; I was lucky enough to find someone who gets as excited over it as I do. And furthermore… I like creating it. I like making something from something else- that’s probably the artist in me talking, but making a totally different “thing” out of a lot of random things is amazing. Like how using a mess of powders & liquids to make a cake is insane, when you think about it. Or using lemon juice, sugar & pectin to make jelly. The chemistry & artistry of cooking/baking is what gets me, I think. Oh, and eating. Eating too.

Remember back a few weeks ago, when I got all those Meyer lemons? They looked a little something like this:

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If not, I suggest you refresh your memory. For the rest of you… well, back when I was going ‘Meyer lemon looney’ I also made some other things not included in that post. Specifically something pink. Pink jelly. Pink-colored Meyer lemon-cranberry jelly, actually. I can’t help it. I like pink… and I had to use up all those lemons, not to mention a half-bag of cranberries in my fridge!

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It’s actually just a Meyer lemon jelly, but it turns a pinkish-red when you add cranberries. Also, the cranberries kind of get suspended in it. So it’s very cute. And perfect for the upcoming month of pink & red. Ah, but we aren’t up to that yet, are we? Nope. But… there is a special giveaway happening in this post that pertains to pink & Valentine’s Day. What kind of giveaway? Well it just so happens to be for a handmade table runner! Yes, me & Yoyo from topstitch.org are doing a giveaway for a 100% homemade, handmade Valentine’s Day table-runner! If you remember the one she made me for Christmas, then you know it was super adorable & made a perfect showcase for my table decorations. Well this one is just as cute, if not cuter! Look:

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Even if you don’t like Valentine’s Day, how can you not like that? It’s pink! And red! And it has hearts! So… what do you have to do to win? Stay tuned, keep reading. The details are at the end of this post. Jelly first, people! Jelly first!

Funny thing is, long after after I made this but before I wrote up this post, the Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking blog posted a recipe for the same jelly! Except hers doesn’t have whole berries. Great minds think alike; or maybe the cliche I should use is that there is nothing new in the world? Either way, that’s another idea of executing the same basic concept. People ask me why I bother canning, well this is a perfect example. Have you ever seen Meyer lemon-cranberry jelly for sale in stores? No? Yeah me neither. Have you ever seen green coriander pickles for sale? Nope. How about candy apple jelly, have you ever seen that at Stop & Shop? Or gingerbread spice jelly? Nah, me neither. I rest my case. Although really, it goes beyond all that. There are tons of factors. The least of which being that it’s fun & enjoyable, and also much less wasteful. I mean, I got a ton of lemons from Molly & instead of letting them go bad by just letting them sit in a bowl looking pretty, I gave each lemon a new life: lemon curd, candied lemon peel, lemon cookies, and this jelly.

MEYER LEMON-CRANBERRY JELLY

Makes about 5 half-pints

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Meyer lemon juice (it took me about 9-10 lemons, they were on the small side)
• 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice (for an acid boost)
• 3 ½ cups white sugar
• 1 ½ cups whole fresh cranberries
• 1.25 ounces Certo liquid pectin (about ¾ of a pouch)

Directions:

1. Juice the lemons and combine in a pan with bottled lemon juice and sugar. Bring to a boil for 1 minute.
2. Remove the foam on the top of the mixture and add cranberries. Cook until the cranberries “pop”, being careful not to get burned by any liquid sugar, then add the pectin. Bring back to a boil. Remove from heat.
3. Pour it into sterilized jars placed on a clean tea towel, wipe rims and place lids. The berries will probably all settle at the top, but that’s okay- don’t worry. Screw on the covers and turn upside down for 5 minutes. Turn the jars back over right side-up and allow to cool completely. After 12-24 hours make sure that the lids are sealed. Any jars not sealed, refrigerate & use immediately.

Because of all the acid, you don’t need to do a water bath for this recipe. Just be sure your jars & lids are fully sanitized. You will get some bubbles in there, just because of the addition of the floating berries & the flipping of the jars, but don’t worry. As long as your seals are good, you’re okay. If you feel as though you need to process it, then go right ahead. Just be sure to not over process it, because over-processing of jellies can cause them to darken and can make it soften so it won’t hold it’s shape and, well, it essentially can cease to be “jelly.” One thing to note: Meyer lemons are less tart than regular lemons. If you don’t have access to Meyer’s you can use regular lemons, but you will have to up the sugar amount slightly, maybe a half cup.

Oh- also, don’t overcook this jelly! Well, I mean, don’t overcook any jelly, but especially this one. You might be tempted to, but don’t. Between the lemon juice, packaged pectin & the pectin in the cranberries you’ll end up with a rock in a jar if you do. Seriously. You’ll end up with something similar to candy.

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I say it makes 5 half-pints, but I didn’t use all half-pints. I actually used a mish-mosh of jars I had around: one 8oz. quilted jar, two 4oz. quilted jelly jars (regular mouth), one 8oz. Collection Elite jar & two 8oz. Kerr wide mouth jars. I just love those Kerr wide mouth 8oz. jars. I can only find them at one Ace Hardware store near me, why are they so rare? Anyway, this would probably be excellent on scones- especially a cranberry orange scone. Although I bet it’d compliment honey oat scones well, too. We had it with roast chicken & it was pretty spectacular, so keep in mind the savory option, particularly with poultry. But hey, anything is good on regular ol’ toast too, right?

And as per usual, I had to come up with a cute way to label them.

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So in case you’re wondering, this wasn’t even the last of the Meyer lemons! I still had some left. There was much lemon pound cake, lemon cupcakes, lemonade, lemon water, dehydrated lemon slices & preserved lemons in my life. At least we know I won’t be getting scurvy anytime soon.

Okay… so now you’re wondering, how do I get your hands on that table runner? Easy. Go comment on this post at Topstitch.org. Yoyo will pick a winner via random.org on January 31st. So you have until then to enter… so go enter! Me & Yoyo will be doing this A LOT more this year, we’re gonna try to do 13 giveaways in 2012. So don’t hesitate to follow me & Yoyo on Twitter or become a Facebook fan of Cupcake Rehab to find out when the next giveaway will be.

Before I get into how awesome my friends are, I just wanted to show off a little bit, & brag about a pretty piece of design I did. My Facebook fans already saw it, but I figure showing it off on the blog couldn’t hurt. Stroke my ego, will ya? A few nights back I was sitting home one rainy, miserable night, drinking an Irish coffee, listening to Lady Gaga (see above) & playing around on Illustrator when this little beauty above just kinda drew herself. Isn’t it pretty? I love it. I call it “Holy Lola.” It’s already on my new business cards (which are currently being printed & cost me nothing but shipping, thank you Klout & Moo Cards), and I’m even contemplating getting it as a tattoo, but I was undecided at first whether or not to use it in a new blog design. Clearly, I made up my mind, as you can see there’s a whole new thing goin’ on here. If you’re not seeing it, clear your cache & refresh the page. Just a word of warning: it’s copyrighted, it’s my work, and if I find anyone stealing it or passing it off as their own… your face will meet my brass knuckles. Or at the very least, you’ll be at the wrong end of a strongly worded e·mail & public embarrassment, which coming from me is just as bad. Just ask Sharon Luann Swann Stallings or whatever her name was. Whatever happened to her, anyway, is she still stealing people’s cupcake photos, claiming they’re hers & promoting “her business” on Craigslist? Or did I totally scare her off the internet? What a lying little rotten egg she was (the last paragraph of this post explains that incident a bit).

But sometimes, you meet the coolest people on the internet. There are a lot of assholes, yes. You hear about it everyday on the news: people pretending to be other people, people scamming people out of money, people who stalk other people they don’t even know on the ‘net, fake charities that rip you off, sneaky bastards that find out via Facebook when you’re going on vacation then clean out your entire damn house, etc. But all that said- there are tons of really cool people out there too. I have a gazillion awesome friends, some of which I’ve known for 9+ years, that I’ve met on the interwebs. Really genuine & truly special people: Yoyo, Anna, Rain, Becky, Cece, Ari, Percy, Jamie, Heather, Joey, Melissa, Tania, Susan, Carlos, Lyns, Miemo and more who I probably forgot (but who are no less important!). Some of these people I’ve had relationships with for years & years. I may not talk to every single one of them as much as I did at one time, but I still love & adore them. They’re all cooler than your friends, I bet *wink* And then there are people I only know through their comments on my blog, like Pola, who is sending me a super special present via Amazon! People I don’t even “know” are kind enough to send me awesome stuff.

Which brings me to one of the many really cool people I’ve met more recently- Molly. Molly is a very sweet, very cool makeup artist & blogger (with a sweet tattoo) who’s originally from Alaska, but now living in Arizona. She’s got an adorable chihuahua named Ruca & a Meyer lemon tree in her yard. Lucky girl, right? Well, I guess if you live in Arizona it might not be as unusual as I feel it is. Do you know how hard it is to get your hands on Meyer lemons if you live in New York? No? Well it’s really friggin’ hard. Almost impossible. We get mostly Eureka’s, maybe a couple of Lisbon’s, even some Ponderosa’s. We never ever get any Meyer’s, and if we do, they’re snatched up super quick from the gourmet market & are never to be found again.

Meyer lemons are a sort of lemon-orangey hybrid from China that are really popular on the west coast of the U.S. but over here on my side of the world, not so much.

Citrus × meyeri, the Meyer lemon, is a citrus fruit native to China thought to be a cross between a true lemon and either a mandarin or common orange. It was introduced to the United States in 1908 as S.P.I. #23028^[1] by the agricultural explorer Frank Nicholas Meyer, an employee of the United States Department of Agriculture who collected a sample of the plant on a trip to China.^[2]

The Meyer lemon is commonly grown in China in garden pots as an ornamental tree. It became popular as a food item in the United States after being rediscovered by chefs such as Alice Waters at Chez Panisse during the California Cuisine revolution.^[3][4] Popularity further climbed when Martha Stewart began featuring them in her recipes.^[2]

Citrus × meyeri trees are around 6 to 10 ft (2 to 3 m) tall at maturity, though they can be pruned smaller. Their leaves are dark green and shiny. The flowers are white with a purple base and fragrant.

The Meyer lemon fruit is yellow and rounder than a true lemon. The skin is fragrant and thin, coloured a deep yellow with a slight orange tint when ripe. Meyer lemon fruits have a sweeter, less acidic flavor than the more common Lisbon or Eureka grocery store lemon varieties. The pulp is a dark yellow and contains up to 10 seeds per fruit.

So anyway, I saw a box of all the lemons she picked in a picture she posted on Instagram, and then I saw a photo of all the lemons in a bowl & I kiddingly (I swear!) said to send some my way. And like I mentioned in my last marmalade post, she did!

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So I got a big, beautiful box of them. As soon as I opened it, I was hit with the best citrusy, lemony-sweet smell ever. It was amazing. And so basically I went lemon crazy. I made lemon curd, marmalade, candied citrus peels, lemon chewies with glaze from The Cookiepedia, made lemon-infused water, etc. I didn’t want even one of these babies to go to waste. I even reserved some seeds to try & grow my own, despite this crazy feeling that won’t work well at all. But it’s worth a shot! Maybe I can get my very own mini-Meyer lemon tree, I heard that even tiny ones are pretty prolific with the fruit. And of course, I’m  sending Molly some of the treats I made as a thank you for her generosity. I even re-named the lemon curd after her (okay, so it’s just for blogging purposes, but still!).

Sometimes with my lemon curd, little pieces of the zest darken, or caramelize (I guess?)… I’m not sure why that happens, but it does. If it happens with yours, you can strain them out before ladling it into the jars. I like the zest in it, so I leave them in anyway. If you do leave ‘em in, you can always eat around the darker ones if they bother you, but they’re only little bits of darkened zest. Nothing harmful.

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Again, I stress that if you aren’t familiar with the process of canning, you read this thoroughly before starting. It isn’t difficult, but you have to take certain precautions to be safe. Sterilizing your jars/lids & knowing what you can preserve using a water bath & what you can’t is important knowledge to have if you’re going to be doing this. The lemon curd doesn’t have to be processed, it can be put in a jar or Tupperware and refrigerated or used right away (cake filling, etc). Most curd recipes you find aren’t suited for canning, they’re simply meant to be eaten right away. This recipe is (very slightly) adapted from the USDA Center for Home Preservation’s curd recipe, so I’m pretty confident it’s up to par.

MISS MOLLY’S MEYER LEMON CURD

Makes about 5 half-pints

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ cups sugar
• ½ cup fresh squeezed Meyer lemon juice
• ½ cup bottled lemon juice (or, alternatively, use 1 whole cup bottled & omit the Meyer juice if you’re super anal & scared about acid levels)
• ¾ cup unsalted cold butter, cut into small pieces
• 1-2 tablespoons Meyer lemon zest
• 4 whole eggs, beaten thoroughly
• 7 egg yolks

Directions:

1. Bring boiling water canner to a boil. Wash jars and lids in hot soapy water. Put lids in a bowl and cover with boiling water from the canner.
2. Combine zest and sugar in a bowl, mix well, and set aside for 20 minutes to let the flavors meld. Juice your lemons while the sugar & zest are coming together.
3. Prep your eggs by thoroughly beating the 4 whole eggs until they are light and airy, with little bubbles. Make absolutely sure there are no white pieces floating around still.
4. Separate seven egg yolks, and whisk them into the beaten egg mixture. Now combine all the ingredients in a medium-large non-reactive pot.
5. Now turn the burner on, very very low, and whisk. Incorporate the ingredients together slowly and consistently, avoiding high heat that could cook/curdle the eggs.
6. Once the butter has melted, turn the heat to medium and keep whisking. Eventually the mixture will thicken, and resemble the consistency of pudding. After another minute or two, the mixture will be thick enough that when you pull the whisk across the bottom of the pan, you will see the metal for a few seconds. That means the curd is starting to hold its shape.
7. Remove the pot from the heat. You can run the curd through a fine sieve at this point to remove the zest. You don’t have to do this, but some people find it gross, and you’re really just imparting the flavor from the zest to intensify the lemon-yness, so it isn’t needed if you don’t want it. Ladle hot curd into hot jars leaving ½″-inch headspace. Wipe jar rims clean and attach lids. Processed the jars for 20 minutes.

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When I was a kid, I always thought the color of curd & lemon meringue pie filling was from the lemons. Not true. The color doesn’t actually have much to do with the lemons, it’s due to the egg yolk, but this curd just so happened to have an amazing color pre-processing. So amazing I had to get a few shots of it. It became slightly paler after the waterbath & sitting overnight. I happened to get four half-pints (8-oz.) and two 4-oz. jars from this recipe, which equals 5 half-pints. And just like everything else I make, 5 out of those 6 jars were practically gone before they were even cooled!

This has a shelf life of 3-4 months, and if the harmless darkening in color doesn’t bother you, that can extend to up to one year. Of course it tastes best when eaten as soon as possible. You can also freeze it instead of processing it, or put it right into the fridge and use it right away. As far as what to do with it, you can swirl it into ice cream or frozen yogurt, use it as an ice cream topping, or put it on scones, muffins or toast. It makes a terrific cake or cupcake filling, an easy pie filling (basically that’s what lemon meringue pie is filled with) and it’s delicious on pound cake or angel food cake. Alternately you can just eat it out of the jar; that’s how my mother likes hers. Although sometimes she likes it on Toast-R-Cakes or English muffins too.

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Ugh. That sucked. Needless to say, weather like that makes it hard to even get out of bed. Thankfully temps rose back up to the high 40′s again, but I know that won’t last forever. And so sometimes in the winter, you need a burst of sunshine. That can come from many sources, but in this particular instance… I’m talkin’ citrus. In particular, I’m talkin’ citrus marmalade. Lemon-orange, to be exact.

Nifty jar decorations, right? More about that later…

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However… another little burst of sunshine whose sure to warm you up on a cold day is Remi. Remi is a sweet little miracle dog that my friend Ariana (& her man Elliott) saved off the street. Poor Remi is less than a year old, has terrible mange & is pretty underweight. He was found a few days before Christmas & taken to get some medical care that Ari used her Christmas bonus to pay for. Ari & Elliott made the decision that they’d stop at nothing to help this dog, even if they weren’t going to keep him. Remi has his own blog now, where they’ll be posting updates. If you’d like to help out with medical expenses, etc. then by all means feel free to contact her. I’m sure it’d feel great for you to start the new year off by helping someone else. What better on a freezing cold winter day than the story of a dog who was thrown away, who had a sad life on the streets, being given a bright future?

And not only that, but how about some bright, zesty, citrusy shots of marmalade to make you think of sunshine? Yep, they’re both pretty great ways to remind you that all is not cold & dreary this time of year. I’ve certainly made marmalade before, but those had extras added in. This is a true citrus marmalade: just lemons, an orange, sugar & water.

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The principle behind marmalade is stupid easy. It boils down to a math equation, really, which I suck at… but luckily there are all sorts of iPhone/iPad apps & Internet web pages that can steer you in the right direction. Not to mention the good ol’ calculator. Thanks to this webpage, I now have a perfect marmalade-equation ready to be scaled down or up at a moment’s notice depending on who it’s for or how many/what size jars I have. I happened to make 3-4oz. jars of this lemon-orange marmalade using their method & this base recipe (except I used one large orange as well as a few lemons). You can add limes, grapefruit, clementines, etc. I got a shipment of Meyer lemons from the awesome Molly last week & I am totally psyched to marmalade the shit out of them. But that’s another post…

Drippy marmalade.

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‘Cause see, truth be told I made this back before Christmas, and I just now opened it. The color & texture of this marmalade is just gorgeous. And the smell! Fuhgeddaboudit. It seems now that the little 4oz. jars I used were barely enough. I sorta wish I’d made more. Oh well.

Anywho, the concept is so easy it’s practically silly to cry over not making enough when I can make it in a snap any time. Here’s the basic idea just as it is, directly from Evil Mad Scientist:

The peels need to be cut into little slivers for the appropriate texture in the marmalade. If you stack up the pieces, you can cut a bunch at once.
Many recipes recommend removing the white pith because it is bitter. Other recipes recommend removing the pith and reserving it, cooking it along with the fruit in a cheesecloth bundle and removing it at the end, presumably to allow extraction of the pectin. Many jam and jelly recipes call for pectin to be added, but it isn’t needed for marmalade because of the amount of pectin already present in the skin and pith of the citrus fruit.
Some recipes call for a blanching or soaking stage. The primary purpose of blanching is to remove the bitterness from the pith and peel. We like bitter marmalade, so we left in most of the pith and didn’t soak or blanch the peels or fruit. That also keeps the recipe simple– just slice up the fruit and throw it in the pot with the peel pieces.
The fruit and peel are cooked in water until they’re good and soft. It takes a while (about an hour), but once you’ve got a nice simmer going, you can ignore it pretty well.
The sugar goes in. Lots of sugar. The original recipe calls for 4 cups of water and 4 cups of sugar (with ten lemons). The 4 cups of water barely covered the raw fruit (in a saucepan with roughly equal depth and diameter). For scaling the recipe up or down, you can use that as a rough guide: pour in water a cup at a time until the fruit is almost covered, then once everything’s soft add as much sugar as you did water. Stir in the sugar, and bring it up to a boil, stirring regularly.

You can add things too, of course. Star anise, cloves, a cinnamon stick, a tablespoon or two of whiskey or Grand Marnier, maybe even a little brandy, etc. You can 100% personalize the basic marmalade recipe to do amazing things. Anyway at this point, after it boils, using a candy thermometer you make sure it reaches 220° degrees (if you’re planning on making jellies & marmalades a lot, or if you’d like to venture into candy making at all, a thermometer is a must have item). Then let it boil it at 220° for a full minute. When the minute is up, test the set (there are numerous ways of doing this). If it hasn’t set, keep boiling. Eventually it will achieve the set & you can proceed with canning it.* I’d recommend processing for 10 minutes in a water bath canner, although many old fashioned marmalade recipes just require sterilizing, filling then sealing the jars. Better safe than sorry I guess, even with the high sugar content.

*Here I will state that I have read that sometimes marmalade can take up to 2 weeks to set. I never had such a problem, my marmalade has always set immediately.

If you’re wondering what exactly you can do with marmalade, besides using it on toast: you can use it to glaze a roast chicken or ham, melt it and use it to marinade shrimp, use it to make cupcakes or cake, use it as a glaze over warm pound cake, making muffins with it, whisk it into a vinaigrette to use as a salad dressing, etc. Once you use your imagination you can come up with tons of ways to use it! I ended up with a lot of jars of this since the summer, and of course I had to dress them up; using raffia & dried orange & lemon slices. I only show two jars because, well duh, I had to open one to eat it!

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Winter outdoor shots are always fun. Especially when it’s freezing cold. But when you’re looking for a rustic look, you’ve gotta go the extra mile… or whatever. At least it wasn’t snowing! Although come to think of it, snow would’ve made a prettier backdrop. Anyway, the dried citrus fruit slices are incredibly easy to make, & make perfect decorations for anything: for decorating jars of marmalade, for tying on to a Christmas tree with ribbons, for decorating a gift (wrapped in brown Kraft paper with twine) or for hanging in a kitchen. Also they can be eaten, as any dried fruit can be, pulverized & the powder sprinkled on foods, or put into a jug of water for instant rehydration and flavoring. It takes a lot of time (unless you have a food dehydrator) but it’s worth it!

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All you have to do is slice the fruit as thin as you can, preferably ¼” thick. Pat them dry with paper towels & gently press out as much juice as possible from each slice without ruining the shape. Either use a food dehydrator or put a cooling rack over a cookie sheet & bake them in the oven; 275° degrees F for the first two hours and then 250° degrees F for the next 2-4 hours. If they’re still not dry (test by “squishing” the pulpy part, if it’s moist or juice squirts out, they aren’t fully dried yet), then leave them on the rack in the oven & put the oven on the ‘warm’ setting (about 200-220°) for another 2+ hours. The least moisture left in there the better, especially if you’re using them for decorating. If you’re using them for food purposes, they can be less dry. Unless of course, you plan on storing them long term; then the less moisture the better. There are many different ways of doing it, mainly differences in time/oven temperature (Martha’s way differs from mine slightly, as do these directions) yet they all work equally well.

The best ones in my experience are limes & grapefruits. They both slice perfectly & never end up with holes or gaps when they’re finished drying. However, if you’re careful cutting them, they all look gorgeous once they’re finished. If you’re really nice, & after you used yours to decorate jars or gifts, & you’ve got a few left that aren’t looking that great or aren’t as perfect… try hanging them outside for the birds! I also heard that cats don’t like citrus fruit, so if you have a problem with strays marking your yard it might be worth a shot anyway (obviously on low-lying branches). My cat doesn’t seem to mind it at all, but she’s an anomaly. Tinfoil doesn’t frighten her either.

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My next mission is to make some lime marmalade & tie a bunch of slices of dried limes to each jar, with green ribbon & instructions for using the slices long after the goods are gone. Sounds good, right? I haven’t made lime marmalade yet.

And in case you’re wondering- my pantry has exploded in the past 6 months. Actually, I’ve given away a lot… especially just recently at Christmas, but currently what’s there is plenty (yes, there was more than this): lemon-orange whiskey marmalade, c-lemon-tine marmalade (all clementine & just a bit of lemon), one lone jar of habanero pickles (the only pickles that seem to not be grabbed at too quickly, hence the fact they’re still here!), champagne jelly, gingerbread spice jelly, candy apple jelly, vanilla-brandy chestnut jam, basil jelly, habanero rosemary jelly, pickled red & green tomatoes, peppers in oil (& some in vinegar), Earl Grey’s nectarine preserves, Van Gogh’s strawberry jam with chocolate liqueur, vanilla vodka cherry preserves, fresh tomato salsa, amaretto cranberry sauce, mint jelly, caramel apple syrup, canned peaches in syrup, one jar of Lady Grey’s lemon & tea marmalade and last but certainly not least- a few jars of Meyer lemon curd (recipe to come!). Whew. Sorry I don’t have recipes for all of them posted. But I think you’re smart… you can figure ‘em out. Google is an amazing thing. Plus with amazing resources like Punk Domestics, Food in Jars & Hungry Tigress right at your fingertips, you’re golden.

If you’re thinking about getting into canning, I suggest you start off with a case of pint jars, the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving, some vinegar & some cucumbers & start off making pickles, then graduate to giardiniera or other pickled veggies, then to easy fruit-based stuff like canned peaches or blueberry or raspberry jams. Save the more complex jellies made with homemade or commercial pectin, more difficult jams & marmalades for later. Work up to them. And, if you’re looking to buy jars but aren’t sure of what size(s) you want/need, Food in Jars made a handy guide to the available Ball & Kerr jars; but keep in mind there’s Weck too, if you like a fancier look (for a much more expensive price). I’ve also heard of Better Homes & Gardens brand jars but never seen them (they’re made in China, FYI). I’d prefer to stick with Ball® or Kerr® myself. They’re made in the U.S.A., readily available, have a long history of doing it right & they’re affordable (which is important regardless of how much canning you’re planning on doing).

]]> http://cupcakerehab.com/2012/01/good-day-sunshine/feed/ 2 http://cupcakerehab.com/2011/12/the-cranberry-saw-us/ http://cupcakerehab.com/2011/12/the-cranberry-saw-us/#comments Tue, 06 Dec 2011 04:35:31 +0000 Marilla @ Cupcake Rehab http://cupcakerehab.com/?p=16787 Sometimes people find out I have a website called ‘Cupcake Rehab’ & they’re surprised to learn that I not only bake, & most certainly not just cupcakes… but that I also cook, & occasionally I enjoy making things like pickles & jams. That might be because there’s an either/or mentality among some chefs (or pastry chefs- as in you either bake or cook but not both.. and if you do, you do one way better than the other) & even TV food personalities, or that people are way too literal. I’m good at a lot of things, but I’m certainly not perfect at anything- let alone anything kitchen-wise- it’s just that I enjoy doing it, so I don’t feel like I have to prove anything. But either way, my interests in the kitchen are quite varied, & I love finding new ways of doing old things in general. Or new ways of interpreting traditions or traditional foods. Like cranberries.

From Bilder ur Nordens Flora, 1905

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And that brings me to cranberry sauce. It’s practically against the law not to have it on hand this time of year. But why go the boring old regular cranberry sauce route, or worse yet, the canned sauce route? Especially if you can make your own in less than an hour?

Not to mention it has Amaretto in it.

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Yes. Homemade, boozy & delicious. And I’m totally not kidding when I say it took less than an hour to make, from start to finish. And it’s gorgeous looking (& smelling). And if you don’t ‘can’ or preserve foods, you don’t even have to do it with this recipe. Just alter the amounts to fit in whatever jar you’re using, make it, then refrigerate it & use it immediately (well, not like, within an hour… but you know what I mean). I got the recipe from Smedette via Punk Domestics. And it is fan-friggin’-tastical.

Like my mismatched jars? Heh.

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I made these back before Thanksgiving, so that I could use them on turkey day (along with my pomegranate-based Chinese Apple-sauce), but cranberry sauce is so Christmas-appropriate too that I felt I could post it now & it would still be relevant. Besides, cranberry fans eat cranberry all the time, right, not just during the holidays! And if you like cranberry, and you like Amaretto, and you like lemon zest… you’ll like this. If you don’t, well, stop reading & click here.

So I bet the rest of ya wanna know how it’s done, huh?

I’m telling you, it’s super easy. You’ll see.

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AMARETTO CRANBERRY SAUCE (recipe from Smedette, word for word)

Makes about 4 12-oz. jars, or less depending how long you let it cook

Ingredients:

• 3 12-oz bags of fresh whole unsweetened cranberries
• 2 cups sugar
• Finely grated zest from one lemon
• 2 cups Amaretto

Directions:

1. Put everything in a large pot over medium heat. Stir to coat.
2. Once sugar dissolves into the Amaretto and becomes thick and syrup-like, reduce heat and simmer; cranberries will start to burst as they simmer. Cook until desired consistency is reached; 30-60 minutes. Sauce will thicken as it rests/refrigerates!
3. You have made cranberry sauce; it will amaze your family and friends. Your in-laws may even start to like you.
4. Store in the fridge for a few days or can using the directions below.

To can the sauce:

Ladle hot cranberry sauce into hot, clean jars leaving ½″ headspace. Wipe rims, place lids and affix screw bands. Process using the water bath method for 15 minutes. Let cool on towel-lined counter/table top for 12 hours before checking the seal; label and store. If any jars failed to seal correctly, refrigerate and consume within a week.

The author of the original recipe says you can use brandy instead of Amaretto as well, just increase the sugar a bit.

Also, I altered it to fit into the jars I had on hand (which happened to be three 8-oz. jars, yet I ended up only using two because I cooked the berries down a bit more), but yet I kept the lemon zest amount the same. This made it nice & tart & lemon-y bright, but balanced well with the sweetness of the liquor. The Amaretto is not in-your-face, but nice & subtle. It’s just perfection. And best of all- it’s not the same ol’, same ol’ cranberry sauce from a can. And apparently, it’s excellent on ice cream, too, and even on salad (like a berry vinaigrette I suppose?).

Look! It’s wearing a little sweater!

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Which brings me to my suggestion of gifting jars of homemade preserves or sauces for Christmas (or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa). Its an easy way to save money on gifts as well… and it’s not only impressive looking but extremely personalized. Especially when dressed up in a fancy way, like these beautiful examples. For instance, Jay loves pickles (specifically my green coriander pickles), my mother loves peperoncini sott’olio, anything fig or cherry, or marmalade, my aunt loves strawberry jam, etc. I can make them big jars of what they love, tie pretty bows on them with lovely labels, and they know it’s a gift from the heart (although Tiffany’s is nice, too, haha). The jar above is just really simply decorated with the top of a wool sock (clean, mind you, & one that had gotten too many holes in it to fix, so was no longer of use in it’s original form), some twine, a little cupcake topper & a pink jingle bell. Old sweater sleeves, t-shirt sleeves & leg warmers are perfect to use too. Basically anything can dress up a jar or become a “jar cozy” & at the same time make it look more special for gifting. Thrift store finds like baby sweaters or baby hats can work too, as can old beaded necklaces twisted around the lid or a fancy pin or brooch pinned to the twine or ribbon. It’s fun, cheap, easy & quick to make a small jar of homemade preserves stand out. I entered the above photo in Well Preserved‘s ‘Pimp That Preserve’ contest, here’s hoping I win! Though I’m sure there’s some stiff competition out there. However… I did enter another stunning (well if I do say so myself) photo of some very interesting jelly all decked out in sparkly things… but that recipe won’t be posted for awhile… anyway we’ll see. You can find out exactly how it works/how to enter by going to the Well Preserved blog post about it. Pretty much, you can cast a vote for mine (or for others, or both!) on the Well Preserved Facebook page; just by going to the photo album for Pimp That Preserve 2011 & clicking like on the photo. Voting should begin around December 12th. For more ideas on dressing up your canned goods for holiday gifting or for entering your own preserves in the contest, Canning Across America has a bunch of swell ideas too, including plenty that should inspire you in your preserve pimpin’!

So anyway as difficult as this first year without Uncle Pat & my Nana will be, we all plod on & drown our sorrows in a variety of alcohol-laced fruit sauces, jams & marmalades. Merry Christmas to all indeed.

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Yes, I wrote Lemon-Orange Whiskey marmalade.

Do I really need to say anything else about this? No. I think not. But I will anyway. My very first encounter with marmalade was reading Alice in Wonderland as a child. Oddly enough, I don’t remember it from the movie, but I seem to remember from reading my very favorite version of it as a little girl that as Alice was tumbling down the rabbit hole, she saw a jar of orange marmalade. But alas, the jar was empty. This isn’t Alice’s kind of marmalade, though. And unless that white rabbit was knocking back a few down there himself, I doubt he had any whiskey marmalade. Though if he did it would make a lot of sense, actually…

Illustration by Marjorie Torrey © 1955

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Not that that ever made me want to try it, especially once I found out it was like jam, which I hated as a kid. And jelly too- I never even liked PB&J’s. However as soon as I saw this recipe I knew I had to make it, no matter what.

Unfortunately, as with most newspapers today, the Times now charges you to view the content online, but I had found the recipe & printed it out before that. Please, UK Times, don’t sue me. For £1 (which is what, like $1.60 American?) you can subscribe to it online & view all of their other recipes (& I think there are quite a few), which, if they are anything like this one, are well worth it.

LEMON-ORANGE WHISKEY MARMALADE (adapted slightly from the UK Sunday Times recipe, by Jill Dupleix, Nov 2004)

Makes 4 16-ounce jars

Ingredients:

• 2 lemons
• 4 oranges
• white granulated sugar (see recipe)*
• 2 tablespoons good whiskey**
• 4 16-ounce screw-top jars, sterilized

Directions:

1. Scrub the fruit well, and dry. Cut off the rinds and cut them into thin strips. Finely chop the fruit, placing the pips in a small muslin bag tied with string†. Place the fruit, rind and pips in a large bowl and cover with 1.5l of cold water (about 6 cups). Cover and leave to soak overnight. Transfer the mixture to a heavy-bottomed pan, and bring to the boil. Simmer gently until the fruit is soft, about 30 minutes.
2. Remove the muslin bag and discard the contents. Weigh the fruit mixture, then measure out three quarters of its weight in sugar‡. Add the sugar to the fruit, stirring enthusiastically until dissolved, and boil rapidly for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until you reach setting point (place a little of the mixture on a plate and freeze for 2 minutes — if set, it will wrinkle when moved).
3. Add the whiskey and stir well, cool only slightly, then ladle into warm sterilized jars and seal, processing in a waterbath for about 10-15 minutes.

Before settling them, removing the air, wiping the rims & putting the lids on…

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I let it sit for 5 hours, but not overnight, per se. Just during the day while I did other errands, etc. I’d recommend you do that & not skip that step. It really helps to release all the pectin in the skin/pith of the citrus fruit. Citrus fruit peels have a whopping 30% pectin content! Don’t let that go to waste, take advantage of it. Without pectin, whatever form you get it in, you can’t have a successful jelly, jam or marmalade.

Pectin (from Greek πηκτικός – pektikos, “congealed, curdled”^[1]) is a structural heteropolysaccharide contained in the primary cell walls of terrestrial plants. It was first isolated and described in 1825 by Henri Braconnot.^[2] It is produced commercially as a white to light brown powder, mainly extracted from citrus fruits, and is used in food as a gelling agent particularly in jams and jellies. It is also used in fillings, medicines, sweets, as a stabilizer in fruit juices and milk drinks and as a source of dietary fiber.

- Wikipedia

I did not need to use added pectin with this, nor do you usually with any marmalade, but I have seen recipes with the addition of some added pectin. I suppose it also depends on how thick you like it or how much you want to leave things up to nature (see next paragraph down re: marmalade not setting fast). I also added the waterbath part, being an overly-anal and neurotic American, I’ve been tortured by fears of food poisoning & botulism so I figured the extra 10 minutes in boiling water couldn’t hurt matters any. Next time I’d also use wide-mouth jars, as for stuff like this I imagine it’s easier getting every last bit out, and perhaps use the 8 oz ones, since then I’d have more to share. It’s supposedly good for 12-18 months unopened, stored in a dark, cool spot.

Immediately after the waterbath, while cooling.

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This marmalade did not have the “set” my previous marmalade had. On that note, I’ve read that sometimes marmalade takes a while to “fully set.” Meaning, in the jar directly afterwards, it will appear on the runny side, but after 2 weeks it should be fully set. Apparently, if your marmalade doesn’t look right, just store it in a cool, dark place and wait. Now I don’t know how scientifically sound that is, so don’t hold me responsible. Although the freezing test included in the recipe is an excellent way of judging, it’s not always a perfect method. Of course mine wasn’t 100% set right out of the gate, but it seemed like it was on the road there. I was a bit concerned because my lemon marmalade was set immediately, but after a few days of receiving this one (which was about a week or so after me making it) my mother opened her jar & said it was amazing. However… I would say let it rest at least a few days before opening it anyway. If after a week you turn the jar upside down, and it takes a while to slide, it’s good. If you turn it upside down and it just sloshes, or the liquid runs quickly, it’s not. If it never seems to set in the jar, it won’t be a marmalade, but that doesn’t mean it’s a waste! You could try opening it, reboiling it and totally re-canning it, using all new lids/rings, but I can’t tell you how to do that ’cause I never did it. Do a Google. Or… as long as the seal is good, you could save it & use it as a lemon-orange-whiskey-syrup thing or a glaze on cakes (like Julia Child’s gateau a l’orange from Mastering the Art of French Cooking… this in syrup form would be to die for poured on that cake while the cake is still warm, as a matter of fact, even in marmalade form it would be amazing on that cake!). So either way, all is not lost. From what they say on this forum, this website & this website, apparently marmalade is a notoriously slow setter, so don’t be alarmed. If it isn’t set after 2 weeks, try waiting another 2. If not, start making that orange cake!

Requisite lid labels!

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Imagine if you will, how warming & delicious this will be on a cold winter day. Or even a fall day. Truly. Although, it was pretty damn bad-ass right now on some toast, too (see below). Other uses for marmalade: a delicious glaze for chicken, a filling for little tortes or tarts, on an English muffin/scone/crumpet, mixed into a muffin recipe, and some people use it on ham as well (as a glaze with honey). It will not go to waste, because even if you’re like me & think you don’t like marmalade, you’ll probably like this one. Maybe it’s the whiskey, maybe it’s the extra added lemon-y flavor, who knows. But I thought it was excellent. Speaking of whiskey, I used Jameson because I personally cannot handle Jack Daniels, but you could use any good-quality whiskey you like, including Jack. Just don’t use shit whiskey, it’s not worth it, you’ll wreck the marmalade. If you wouldn’t want to drink it, why the hell would you want to eat it!? Another idea: adding little things to it, like cinnamon or rosemary or a sprig of mint. I left mine plain according to the recipe, but many people like to sneak a little something extra in. I figured the Jameson was extra enough!

All melty on warm toast…
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If you had told me 11 years ago that my Saturday’s would now be spent making marmalade, Googling Rick Bayless’ habanero hot sauce recipes (to use my homegrown hab’s) or searching for good plum jam recipes, not to mention that I’d get excited over a KitchenAid mixer or a 12-pack of wide mouth 8oz Ball® jars on sale, I’d have told you you were nuts. But really, you can spend your days doing meaningless shit with people you don’t give a fuck about & spend your nights getting hammered, or you can do something worthwhile & enjoyable. And at 30 years old, if you’re spending most of your nights getting hammered anyway, you sort of need a reality check. Or to just grow up. Unless you’re a rock star- then you’re exempt from judgement. However personally these days I take my whiskey in the form of marmalade. Or cupcakes *ahem*

Oh and by the way-

“Pip” is the correct term for the seed of a citrus fruit such as an orange, lemon or lime. – source

Just in case you were wondering.

It all makes sense though. Sort of. Tomatoes à la Lady Gaga. Right?

Maybe. Has a certain ring to it.

By the way, did you know she went to a Catholic high school that has the same name as the one I went to, that’s also in NY? Betcha didn’t.

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Lady Gaga probably wouldn’t think so. And although she herself might be Italian, and I might be talking about Roma tomatoes, but this is really not an old fashioned Italian recipe at all. It’s more Russian or Romanian, as pickled tomatoes are really big over there. Roma tomatoes are known as the best tomatoes to use for canning sauces & for sauce in general, really. They have the most ‘meat’ on them, the least skin, and far less water content; meaning they make a thicker sauce with less work. This was my first year growing Roma’s, and I wasn’t really sure when I planted them what I was going to do with them, but once I started to get into canning I knew that I’d probably can ‘em up right away. Although I had prepared to jar them up as a sauce originally, what I ended up doing was pretty different: pickled green & red tomatoes, inspired by a Liana Krissoff recipe. And not just Roma’s, Better Boy’s too. Better Boy’s are juicy yet meaty tomatoes that are larger than Roma’s (yet really aren’t all that large) and the plants yield quite a large amount of fruit each season. There’s no song that immediately comes to mind when I hear “Better Boy”, however.

…Better Boy’s (top left & two green’s) and Roma’s (bottom)…

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I picked two Better Boy tomatoes while they were green, and two that were turning red/orange, also three Roma’s. I ended up with three half-pint jars of pickled tomato goodness. Of course, I adjusted the recipe to utilize the amount of tomatoes I had. If you have more, then by all means use them- but just adjust the recipe for your own needs. I have more tomatoes growing, but I thought a few jars of these were plenty. I don’t like to put up huge batches of things, I not only don’t have the room but I’m not a fan of monotony. I do this for fun, not to survive over a long winter… & canning 20 jars of the same thing gets tedious and boring. I like to mix it up.

Tomatoes, and their iffy acid levels are on the borderline of “what can be safely canned using a water bath process.” Many people will tell you not to can your own tomato sauce or whole tomatoes without a pressure canner. I think that’s silly, considering the addition of lemon juice or citric acid solves the acid dilemma right off the bat, and processing them for a good 20+ minutes definitely kills the bad guys that are in there anyway. Not to mention the fact I know plenty of people who make ancient (well, not quite ancient) family sauce recipes & jar them every year and none of them have ever died. With these, though, there’s not much of a chance for anything gross to even survive from the get go. The use of lemon juice ups the acid and the vinegar/salt & water bath do the rest. Of course, I’m not saying go out & can up some beef stew in a water bath… that’s a bit different. But tomatoes, tomatoes are okay, especially with the right acid level. So don’t let people make you feel bad for canning your own tomato sauce with that age old family recipe: you will not single-handedly kill your entire family. Unless you’re an idiot who shouldn’t be canning, period. But anyway… if the thought of it still scares you, try these to use up your tomatoes. They’re surprising. Very easy, very delicious & very unique.

I say green & red tomatoes, but really none of mine were 100% mature or fully red. They were more orangey, some with yellow. They look red in the jars, though, so there ya go.

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PICKLED GREEN & RED TOMATOES

Makes 3 half-pint jars

First you get:

• 2 pounds smallish green & red tomatoes, different varieties are okay just so long as they’re all in varying degrees of maturity, but none too soft, ripe or too small/large (make sure that when sliced, they fit in the jars nicely); or about 6-7 small/medium tomatoes
• 2 cups distilled 5% acidity white vinegar
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• 2 rounded tablespoons pickling salt
• 1 teaspoon celery seeds
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• pinch of dried sage
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• one medium sweet onion, sliced (optional)

Then you get your pickle on this way:

1. Wash the tomatoes thoroughly, remove the stem & “core” at the tops and slice them into ¼” -to- ½” thick round slices. Soak the sliced tomatoes in the lemon juice in a medium bowl for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, sanitize your jars & lids, keeping them hot.
2. Combine the vinegar, sugar, celery seeds, mustard seeds, sage and salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Place the tomato mixture in the hot jars, stacking them nicely and also making sure they’re packed as tight as possible (you can also add sliced sweet onion in between tomato layers at this point if you like). Ladle in the liquid, pausing to remove air bubbles & air pockets with a small rubber spatula or chopstick as you go. Fill the jars with the liquid, leaving ¼” headspace. Discard any extra liquid.
3. Wipe rims and place lids & bands on. Process in a water bath for 10 minutes. Remove to cool, dark area & do not disturb for 12 hours. Check for seal after one hour, and if it hasn’t sealed, refrigerate and use immediately. Refrigerate all jars right before opening & using, they just taste better chilled.

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This would also work with different kinds of heirloom tomatoes. The jars would look gorgeous piled high with different colored tomatoes- dark red, purpleish, yellow, green, red, orange, etc. Can you imagine how these would look? Phenomenal. Or these. But either way, plain ol’ tomatoes did the job just right. If you don’t have pickling salt, Kosher salt is fine. Regular Iodized salt will cause a cloudy liquid, however, so I’d avoid it for aesthetic reasons. You can certainly use all red tomatoes too, so if you’re getting bored with sauce or traditional canned tomatoes, maybe give a jar or two of these a try. I didn’t use the onion, myself, but Liana says it’s another option.

I highly recommend these on a sandwich; roast chicken with mayonnaise & freshly ground black pepper. Equally good on a sandwich also made with some sliced Bell peppers in oil, or even on a grilled cheese made with Monterey Jack cheese on sourdough bread, and apparently even delicious right out of the jar. So do as you wish as far as that goes. I won’t tell anyone if you eat them by themselves. It’ll be our secret. Wanna know one of my secrets? I like turtles.

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With this batch of tomatoes, I really wanted to jar up some sauce. But in the meantime, damn, I’m glad I pickled these.

How professional looking, right?

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Recently, I was lucky enough to be sent a large box (yes- a box of boxes!) from Bake-A-Box. Inside was a variety of different-sized bakery boxes. Needless to say, I was super excited about this. And when presented with an opportunity to go somewhere for dinner, I decided to bring some cupcakes in my nifty new boxes. Killing two birds with one stone; bringing a lovely dessert to my host & also testing out these convenient little portable cupcake containers. Not to mention the fact that this coming Monday, September 12th, is my blog’s 4th birthday! Usually, I do a giveaway or a big birthday bash, but this year I just wasn’t into it. However, at the very least, I thought we I deserved some prettiful cupcakes after almost 4 years of bloggin’, rockin’ & rollin’… & beating people with whisks.

So me & Lola got to work.

Lola lookin’ foine & reppin’ Sourpuss Clothing! Have you met Lola?

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You have to make a pretty dynamic cupcake to have it be prettier than Lola, just saying. My first attempt (strawberry shortcake cupcakes) was kind of a failure. Not for any other reason than they just weren’t “post-worthy.” They looked okay, tasted awesome, but just didn’t have enough oompf or pizzazz to blog photos of ‘em. I mean, look at these cupcakes I posted last week. They’re perfection. I can’t follow those up with average-looking, amateurish cupcakes. But not being one to waste perfectly good food, I packed up the boxes with them anyway to give to another deserving person. Not someone any less important, mind you, just someone who appreciates the taste more than the aesthetics. Then I went to Plan B: lemon marmalade cupcakes, all of them piped high with seven-minute frosting; some topped with marmalade, frosted, then toasted & some not topped with marmalade, but with candy lemon slices on the frosting. Ta-da!

See, I had an open 16 oz. jar of strawberry jam in the fridge & the urge to use it. Sure, it’s being eaten on toast & scones & bread, etc. But I wanted to bake with it. So the first batch was a vanilla cupcake filled to the bursting point with this strawberry jam, then topped with a Swiss meringue buttercream. Seeing as how those weren’t photo-worthy, I went on to make these, crossing my fingers they’d be better. But… the jam was mysteriously much emptier when I went back to use it. Not wanting to open another jar, I used the lemon marmalade I’d made recently instead of the strawberry jam (recipe here). The cupcakes are bright, lemony, sweet & tart yet had a slight complexity from the tea; plus they’re vintage-y looking. They were basically the perfect cupcake to showcase these awesome boxes- and celebrate 4 years of Cupcake Rehab!

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LEMON MARMALADE CUPCAKES

Makes about 18 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 1 8-oz. jar Lady Grey’s lemon marmalade
• 2 cups flour
• ¾ cup milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• pinch salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° degrees F. Line cupcake or muffin tins with papers; set aside. Into a medium bowl, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg & mix thoroughly. Combine vanilla with milk in a glass measuring cup.
2. In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Add flour mixture to butter mixture in three batches, alternating with the milk mixture and starting and ending with the flour. Do not overbeat.
3. Add ¾ cup marmalade, a ¼ cup at a time, until combined.
4. Spoon batter into prepared tins, filling cups about ¾ full. Bake until a cake tester inserted near the centers comes out clean and the tops spring back when pressed lightly in the center, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from oven; spoon a teaspoon of marmalade on top of each while still hot, then remove from pan after 10 minutes. Let cool completely out of the pan before frosting.

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SEVEN-MINUTE FROSTING

Makes about 4 cups, plenty of frosting for 18, possibly 24 cupcakes depending on how high you frost!

Directions:

1. Combine ¾ cup sugar with the water and corn syrup in a small saucepan; clip a candy thermometer to side of pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves. Continue boiling, without stirring, until syrup reaches 230° degrees.
2. Meanwhile, in the bowl of a standing electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk egg whites on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. With mixer running, add remaining tablespoon sugar, beating to combine.
3. As soon as sugar syrup reaches 230° degrees, remove from heat. With mixer on medium-low speed, pour syrup down side of bowl in a slow, steady stream. Raise speed to medium-high; whisk until mixture is completely cool (test by touching the bottom of the bowl) and stiff (but not dry) peaks form, about 7 minutes. Use immediately.

For those of you who have trouble with 7-minute frosting: the key is to accurately measure the temperature of the boiling sugar/water mixture. It MUST reach 230°! If not, the frosting will probably not work. I’ve never had a failed attempt at 7-minute frosting, and that’s because my candy thermometer is my best friend. If you don’t have one- get one. Especially if you plan on ever attempting cooked frosting’s or if you want to start to make candy or begin canning. Also, you probably need a stand mixer to make it. If not, your arm will most likely become numb & fall off long before the frosting is done. Have you ever tried to mix something with a hand mixer for over 7 minutes straight? You can also double the above recipe for frosting layer cakes or 24+ batches of cupcakes. Also, when it says use immediately, it means immediately. Do not wait. If you wait even a little bit, it’ll get clumpier and not pipe as smoothly. So make this frosting only when you’re 100% ready to use it.

Anyway, I piped the frosting high with my favorite tip, then toasted it slightly. For the rest, I used a quartered slice of candy lemon. Then of course I put them in my new Bake-A-Box boxes for delivery. Thanks to Lyns for the cute little yellow scalloped liners; they were perfect with these! Not only did the scalloping match the boxes, but the yellow was just the right color.

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The thing I hate about most boxes- the assembly- was a cinch with these. And they were really cute! Not boring or plain, even though they’re white they’re attractive. People even asked me where I got them, or suggested I bought the cupcakes at a bakery *gasp* AS IF! So yes, I’d definitely buy from them, and yes, I’d encourage my fellow bakers to do so as well. The cupcake holders inside pop in and out, so you could fill them with cakes, cookies or brownies too. And they come in a ton of different sizes. The shipping was super fast too! Go visit Bake-A-Box & tell them I sent you (I always wanted to say that).

Anyway, I love the yellow sunshine-y-ness of these cupcakes. The scalloped edges of the liners & the box not to mention the colors remind me of my marigolds.

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It’s been a tough summer, and I know that there’s more rough spots ahead. And between my grandma’s passing, my crazy neighbor’s antics (another story for another day), an East Coast earthquake & then a friggin’ hurricane, it’s been full of excess drama & bullshit that I really didn’t need. But I’m making the best of things, and trying to enjoy at least a little bit of every day. I want to thank Nicole at Bake-A-Box for sending the fantastic boxes… all you bakers out there, go buy some! They’re awesome. And I want to thank all my readers & followers! You guys are the best & you make every blog post worth it, not to mention the past 4 years.

I may not have the most popular blog ever, I may not make the most beautiful or most creative cupcakes (however I do happen think they’re pretty amazing), I may not have the best or even the funniest blog (although, shit, I think I’m fucking HILARIOUS), I may not get so many hits my server overloads weekly, I may not have KitchenAid giveaways weekly or 560 comments kissing my ass on every post. But none of that has ever been important to me, nor was it why I got into doing this. I got into it for fun, all I really wanted to do was to bake fun stuff & share it with other cool like-minded people. So to me the fact that I have almost 1,000 Facebook fans & over 800 Twitter followers just blows me away. Every single time I get a comment or an e-mail that praise me or compliment me or the blog in the slightest, it automatically turns into a good day. That’s how much I value all of you. And don’t worry- I’m doing just fine in the visitors department, by the way, of course I ain’t on Dooce level… but who is? Other than Dooce, I mean. So no, I don’t make so much money off the blog that I can retire at 30, I don’t get any huge compensation for it, I don’t get money or trips thrown at me, nor is it always easy to do this; between the tech aspect, the design aspect, the social media aspect & the recipe aspect itself, it’s actually like a full-time second job. But I adore it. And it’s my personal opinion that anyone in anything JUST for money or fame is a phony, so rest assured when you read this blog, you’re reading the work of someone who puts 100% into it just for the fun & enjoyment of it, and for the community of it, not for any monetary gain. Not that that’s a bad thing at all… it’s just not where I’m at. I don’t give a shit about getting a TV show that might air after The Neely’s, getting an advertising deal with Le Creuset, or that I may have too filthy of a mouth to impress Martha. But again, I don’t give a flying fig about that or anything else; especially what people may think of me. Never have, never will. I’m in it for my amusement & yours, and that’s all, whatever positive things come from that are greatly appreciated & welcomed, but definitely not needed. I’m having a blast just the way things are & I hope my readers are too. The day it becomes a chore or just a way to make a buck is the day I quit. I enjoy it, I hope you do too, and I hope it continues for a long time.

So it’s been four whole years! And I, for one, am not going anywhere. Not anytime soon. But I just want to thank you all… you all who’s e-mails & comments make it doubly & triply worthwhile… all of the amazing bakers & cupcakers I’ve gotten the chance to “meet”… all the great businesses who I’ve had the pleasure of discovering… THANK YOU! YOU LIKE ME, YOU REALLY LIKE ME!

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I look forward to spending many more with you.

Mary Elizabeth Ponsonby Grey, a.k.a. Lady Grey

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Lady Grey tea is a delicate, fragrant variation on the more famous Earl Grey blend, sold by Twinings. It consists of black tea scented with oil of bergamot, lemon peel and orange peel.

Lady Grey tea was named after Mary Elizabeth Grey, the wife of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, for whom Earl Grey tea is named. Mary Elizabeth was the only daughter of William Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Imokilly.

‘Lady Grey’ is also a registered trademark of Twinings. The Twinings blend contains black teas, Seville orange, lemon, bergamot, and cornflower.

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The tea is very similar to Earl Grey, except with more of a citrus-y punch because of the lemon & orange peel additions. I personally require a little more sugar in Lady Grey than in Earl Grey. But I figured it’d make a terrific compliment to a lemon marmalade because of that very reason. Lemon marmalade, is, by it’s very nature, bitter.

I have no use for large batches of things. I make things in little increments, usually give them away, and then get back empty jars (and more requests). So whenever I see a recipe that makes 8-12 pint jars full of wonderment, I groan a little bit inside. I mean, 12 jars!? Unless you’re seriously putting up for the winter, or you live in a place with a huge root cellar/pantry/storage area, how in the hell can you make (and store) 12 jars of everything? Maybe that’s just the New York in me talking. Even us New York suburbanites have a space-issue- we want all the space to be ours but yet always feel we don’t have enough. Like for instance my neighbors & their wacky ideas on property lines. But I digress. When I make my own recipes, I start small. First off, I’m not sure how it’ll turn out, so why waste good product & time on it. Second, like I said, I don’t have unlimited space for my jam experiments. Even though most of my creations are passed on to family/friends, I still couldn’t possibly house a dozen each of every idea I’ve had. So when this little idea came to me, I knew I’d have to make a small batch of it, and lucky for me I had these cute little quilted jelly jars. Cue the “awww” sound…

I was also inspired by this little still life; comprised of my grandmother’s vintage jadeite bowl filled with lemons, and her vintage Pyrex measuring cup.

Marmalade is a fruit preserve made from the juice and peel of citrus fruits, boiled with sugar and water. The benchmark citrus fruit for marmalade production in Britain is the “Seville orange” from Spain, Citrus aurantium var. aurantium, thus called because it was originally only grown in Seville in Spain; it is higher in pectin than sweet oranges, and therefore gives a good set. The peel has a distinctive bitter taste which it imparts to the marmalade. Marmalade can be made from lemons, limes, grapefruits, mandarins and sweet oranges or any combinations thereof. For example, California-style marmalade is made from the peel of sweet oranges and consequently lacks the bitter taste of Seville orange marmalade.

In languages other than English, “marmalade” can mean preserves made with fruit other than citrus. For example, in Spanish the term usually refers to what in English is called jam (and “jalea” is similar to the English jelly). In Portuguese “marmelada” applies chiefly to quince marmalade (from “marmelo”, quince).^[1][2] In Italian too, marmellata means every jam and marmalade.

Marmalade recipes include sliced or chopped fruit peel simmered in sugar, fruit juice and water until soft. Marmalade is sometimes described as jam containing fruit peel but manufacturers also produce peel-free marmalade. Marmalade is often eaten on toast for breakfast.

Pre-processing…

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The set on this marmalade is amazing. As soon as I took it off the heat, it started to “wrinkle” when stirred. However, I did use really large-sized lemons that had a lot of thick white pith. But really, in general, marmalade is very easy to make, especially with lemons, because of the super crazy high pectin content. No extra pectin is needed at all, and it comes together really quick. And the smaller the batch, the quicker it does. So this small-batch recipe is done really really fast. Although it can also be doubled, tripled or quadrupled with excellent results… just remember to factor that into your blanching/cooking/boiling/etc time. Each time frame I give in this recipe will have to be extended as per the amount of marmalade you’re making. People seem to have a hard time with marmalade’s, I don’t know why. There are tons of websites & forums that talk about how it can take up to three weeks to set, etc, etc. Didn’t have a problem myself, & I’m really new to all of this. Who knows!? Maybe it’s like the mystery of where your socks disappear to in the dryer; totally unexplainable.

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Also, clearly, one of my tea bags had a little hole in it. Heh. Tiny little bitty tea leaves snuck out into my marmalade. Oh well, no biggie. If that bothers you, check them first or strain your tea before mixing it with the rinds & pulp.

LADY GREY’S LEMON MARMALADE

Makes one 16-ounce (1 pint) or two 8-ounce (half-pint) jars

Ingredients:

• 3 large lemons
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 Lady Grey tea bags

Directions:

1. Pour the water into a small saucepan. Place the tea bags in and boil. After it boils, wiggle the tea bags around to get the tea flowing, the water should get darker. Allow it to cool completely.
2. Meanwhile, slice the ends off the lemons, scoop out the pulp, and remove the seeds, careful not to lose all the juice (do it over a bowl). Place the seeds (or pips) in a small pouch of cheesecloth or a muslin bag and set aside. Slice the lemon rind into thin strips, removing large chunks of pith but not removing it all (unless you like a sweeter & less “set” marmalade).
3. Place the lemon juice, the pulp and the rind into a medium saucepan, along with the bag of pips. Pour the cooled tea over all the lemon and squeeze the tea bags gently over the lemon mixture to get any remaining tea out. Throw away the used bags.
4. Allow the mixture to sit for 10-20 minutes. Then heat to medium-high and simmer until the rind is soft (mine took around a half hour). Once it’s soft, remove the bag of pips and add sugar, stirring and cooking until it’s dissolved. Once the sugar is dissolved, heat to a boil and then reduce just so the mixure gently simmers. Boil this way, uncovered & stirring frequently, until a candy thermometer says the mixture has reached the magical 220° degrees (anywhere from 20-25 minutes, perhaps even less). Once it’s reached that point, boil for one full minute. Check for set.
5. While that’s going on, sterilize your jars and place lids in a bowl of hot water to soften sealant. If set, remove from heat. Ladle into jars, leaving ¼” headspace, wipe rims, and place lids/bands. Process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Remove & cool. Should be eaten within 12 months of making.

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So easy. SO EASY. I used some of it in another capacity (which you’ll read about soon!) and it’s deliciousness translated so well. Excellent on toast, a scone, or even just bread or a roll. Also excellent spread on a warm slice of pound cake, served with a cup of tea. Cheerio!

I actually forgot that I made this. I made it, took some pictures the next day and then promptly forgot about it once it was labeled & on the shelf with my other jams, probably because not only were the jars small, but mint jelly isn’t something often eaten. It’s usually eaten with lamb, but some people like it with pork chops. I like neither, so now that it was all ready to go, I gave it to my parents. I read that real mint jelly is not only rare & hard to find most times, but sorta expensive. I wasn’t aware of this fact at all, but then I remembered when I was a little girl, whenever we’d go meet our family at a restaurant for Easter dinner & they’d order lamb, the mint jelly came in a teeny tiny little cup. And most times, if you asked for more, it seemed like a big deal. Maybe that’s because it was real mint jelly. Apparently, mint-flavored apple jelly is more common than real mint jelly, and it’s cheaper. Which to me is so bizarre, considering mint plants are so cheap & this recipe was so easy. You can have a mint plant in your kitchen year round, or you can even use dried mint! But nowadays you can even buy fresh mint in little bunches at the supermarket, so there’s really no excuse.

Just goes to show you how stupid society has become. It cost me a total of $4.00 for the jars (a 4-pack of 8 oz. wide mouth Ball® ‘Collection Elite™’ jars costs actually a few cents less than that at Walmart), the mint was already growing in my garden from previous years, the pectin was about $3.50 for a double pack (also Walmart), the water is straight from my faucet and the lemon juice was already in my fridge (although I had organic lemons here too I could have used, but it only required such a small amount). So for $7.00 I made 4 little jars (32 ounces) of 100% pure, homemade, homegrown mint jelly. Just for one example, Polaner Real Mint jelly costs roughly anywhere from $2.79 – $3.90 per 10 oz. Either price, I still win.

“Good jelly is clear and sparkling and has a fresh flavor of the fruit from which it is made. It is tender enough to quiver when moved, but holds angles when cut.” – R. Berolzheimer, 1959

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I opted to not use apple juice, because I didn’t want a brown-tinted “mint-flavored” apple jelly, I wanted a bright, crystal clear, pure mint, sparkling Kelly-green one (which I think I achieved, don’t you?). But there are tons of apple-based recipes too, so take your pick. I’m not a purist. I’d personally rather use some pectin if it gives me a nice colored, aesthetically pleasing jelly. I don’t want to eat something that looks like aspic, even if it smells like mint. But even if you’re one of those people who’d prefer to make it without the green food coloring, the color of this jelly is a nice, pleasant, not-brown pale green. I am not one of those people. I like fake colors, my hair used to be a variety of them. I used Sure-Jell for this particular batch, it was my first time using it (I usually use Ball® RealFruit) and it was great. I have no complaints with either brand.

This is a true mint jelly with a delicious, mild yet definitely mint flavor, no apple to be found. Increase the mint if you want it really powerful. If you like pieces of mint leaves left in it, then by all means, do leave some. Just make sure they’re small & easily chewed or they’ll ruin the texture (which is lovely).

MINT JELLY

Ingredients:

• 1 cup fresh mint, washed thoroughly or ½ cup dried mint leaves
• 3 ¼ cups water
• green food coloring (optional)
• ½ teaspoon lemon juice
• 1.75 ounces (3 ½ tablespoons) pectin
• 4 cups granulated white sugar, sifted

Directions:

1. Chop and crush mint leaves in a saucepan, then add the water. Bring to a rapid boil.
2. Remove from heat, cover and let stand for about 10 minutes. Strain the leaves out & discard.
3. Add food coloring (if desired) and lemon juice, stir well. Add pectin, dissolve and bring to a rapid boil. Add sugar. Cook fast, stirring occasionally until it comes to a rapid boil that cannot be stirred down, then cook 1 minute more.
4. Pour into hot, sterilized jars and seal. Process in a water bath for 10 minutes. Allow to cool in water until you can safely remove it. Then set in a cool, dark place until ready to open. Refrigerate after opening, of course.

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This recipe makes 2 pints, or four 8 oz. jars, or eight 4 oz. jars. I’d recommend using the either the 8 oz. or those cute little 4 oz. jelly jars as people don’t really use that much of this, and they make adorable gifts. In theory, I should’ve waited until St. Patrick’s Day & made a bunch to give away, tied with little shamrock ribbon! Ah, hindsight is 20/20. As with most things, this will last on the shelf for 6-8 months, maybe a year. I’d use it before that, though.

I’m here talking about mint jelly while Jay is in Muotathal, Switzerland playing the Mountains of Death festival with his band. Oh the glamorous life of a rockstar wife girlfriend; mint jelly & death metal music. Yes, you all read that correctly, I wrote Switzerland. He is actually in Switzerland, playing bass in his death metal band at an open air festival. Clearly, someone is having a not-quite-midlife crisis, no? Haha. Kidding. I do miss him, though. He went to Illinois last month on tour, but it seemed like it wasn’t really so far. Switzerland is, like, totally far away from NY! *sad face* Good luck, Jay! I love you, get home safe & bring me back some Swiss chocolate.

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I happened upon an interesting recipe in the August 2011 issue of Bon Appétit. There was an article all about canning & preserving, and there was a recipe called ‘Lord Grey’s Peach Preserves.’ It immediately caught my eye as it was preserves steeped with tea. Earl Grey tea, to be specific. Earl Grey tea is a delicious tea, traditionally black, with a flavor and aroma that comes from oil of bergamot, extracted from the bergamot orange, a citrus fruit which is quite fragrant and looks more like a lemon/lime than an orange.

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, KG, PC (13 March 1764 – 17 July 1845), known as Viscount Howick between 1806 and 1807, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 22 November 1830 to 16 July 1834. A member of the Whig Party, he backed significant reform of the British government and was among the primary architects of the Reform Act 1832. In addition to his political achievements, Earl Grey famously gives his name to an aromatic blend of tea.^[1]

- Wikipedia

I love tea. It’s a trait that’s inherited from my grandmother’s side- those crazy Irish & their tea! I miss her so much. And I even miss her tea obsession. She drank it in a big coffee cup I bought her from Anthropologie that had a big A on it. She drank her tea morning, noon & night. We made her stop drinking it after a certain hour (or tried to) because we were afraid the caffeine wasn’t good for her. But she insisted, and she continued drinking tons & tons of tea. I swear, she would’ve dove headfirst into the harbor if she had been around for the Boston Tea Party! My aunt loves tea too (I bet you could have already guessed that I gave a jar of this to her). My mother is more of a coffee person, but even so she loves her tea. I love coffee too, but I love all kinds of tea, & I go nuts in Teavana. It just so happens, though, that I’m a big fan of Earl Grey tea. I have a really good one that I love, it’s by Stash teas. It’s not expensive but it’s excellent quality. So I decided right then & there, as soon as I read the article, that I’d make this recipe. I didn’t have a lot of peaches, but I had a lot of nectarines, so I decided to just use them instead. Because of that, I’m just going to go with calling this version ‘Earl Grey’s Nectarine Tea Preserves.’

Nana reading something very important, 1937, Crugers Park, NY

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It sucks hardcore my Nana isn’t here to try this. She’d go crazy over it, as she did everything I made. But preserves made with TEA!? Oh please. She’d be so excited. Last year for her 92nd birthday I made her Earl Grey tea with lemon frosted cupcakes, and she thought those were the best things ever. She loved to look at all the jars of stuff I made, and say “I don’t know whether to stare at them or eat them.” I hate that she’s gone. Yes, she was 93 years old. Yes, she had a good, long life. But there’s never, EVER a good age to lose someone… and you’re NEVER prepared for it, especially when they’re in excellent health & it’s unexpected. I miss her terribly, especially when I think of anything that has to do with tea. *insert long, wistful sigh here* I’m sorry if anyone is tired of hearing about this. But this blog is slowly morphing into a “more than just baking/cooking blog”, I chronicle my life here in a way, and this is how I’m feeling. So like it or lump it. Writing about it helps & I’ve never been one to shy away from writing about anything just because someone may not like it.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that for almost 3 weeks, this has been ALL that I had been doing- mourning, jarring, mourning, canning, crying, jarring and canning some more. It was so goddamn hot out I couldn’t bake… doing this was my only saving grace. Although I suppose there’s worse things I could be doing with my grief than making pickles & Earl Grey jams. And I am starting to see the light at the end of the grief tunnel. For sure. There are some rough patches but I can feel my heart getting a bit lighter, & I find myself smiling at her memory more than crying. This is a good thing.

And so are these preserves. The smell of it cooking was amazing. Between the tea scent & the nectarine scent, it was heavenly. And comforting. The tea makes the preserves have a darker, sort of caramelized look, which is so pretty. If you aren’t a fan of the tea leaves in the actual jam itself, just skip that step. Your tea flavor might not be as intense, but it should still have an aroma and taste of Earl Grey. Another option is to make canned sliced peaches or nectarines in an Earl Grey-infused syrup. Lady Grey tea would also work very well in this.

And yes, you could use a lemon-y herbal tea as well, I’m sure, for those of you who are anti-caffeine or can’t tolerate it.

EARL GREY’S NECTARINE TEA PRESERVES (adapted from Bon Appétit, August 2011)

Ingredients:

• 5 lbs. ripe nectarines
• 4 cups granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 5 Earl Grey teabags, divided
• powdered pectin (optional, see note below*)

Directions:

1. Cut a small, shallow X in the bottom of each nectarine. Working in batches, blanch them in a large pot of boiling water until skin loosens, about 1 minute. Transfer to a large bowl of ice water; let cool. Peel, halve & pit. Cut into ⅓” slices. Combine with sugar & juice in large bowl and let stand for 30 minutes.
2. Place a small appetizer or dessert plate in the freezer. Transfer fruit mixture & 4 tea bags to a large heavy pot. Open the remaining tea bag; crumble leaves slightly, add to pot. Bring to a boil, stirring gently, and cook 15-20 minutes.
3. Test doneness by scooping a small spoonful onto frozen plate and tilting it. Mixture is ready if it does not run.
4. Remove teabags. Skim foam from surface of jam. Ladle into sterilized, HOT jars. Wipe rims, seal and process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath (remember- start timing when the water is at a rolling boil).

This recipe makes roughly 2 pints. I made four 8 oz. (half-pint) jars instead of two 16 oz. (pint) because I think the smaller ones are better for preserves, jellies & jams. I find that people you give them to always open the large jars, eat from them (maybe even a few times), then put them in the fridge & they get shoved to the back & forgotten, like most jams or jellies people buy. Did you ever notice how long most people have jars of jelly? It’s kinda crazy. Anyway, this way, if that happens, you aren’t wasting the majority of your hard work. My fourth jar was a little skimpier than the rest, so I guess I didn’t quite have 5 lb. or my nectarines were on the smaller side. About 3-4 medium sized peaches/nectarines equal a pound.

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As preserves & jams go, this is relatively easy. *You might not need to add pectin to this. But if it’s not coming together, to avoid losing it all, I’d toss a bit in there and see if it helps. Also remember, as it cools it firms up more, and once it’s chilled it’ll be firmer still. So don’t go too crazy with the pectin. You don’t want nectarine cement. It just so happens nectarines are a low-pectin fruit, and mine needed a little boost. So I added a little pectin to give it a kick in the ass. But preserves have a slightly looser consistency than jam or jelly does, it’s more like a marmalade. Also, the word “ripe” is key here. Use ripe fruits only, and cut off any bruises or dark spots. Unripened fruits aren’t soft enough for making this, you’ll be standing there forever stirring it, hoping for the best, and end up with chunks of fruit in a sugar syrup. One or two of my nectarines weren’t ripe, and they didn’t cook down, but they left themselves in lovely, random little chunks throughout. This has started me on a tea-infused tirade. Raspberry Six-Summits Oolong jam? Perhaps. Kiwi jam with Frutto Bianco white tea? Maybe.

The number one question people ask me about canning is, “Why bother? Why not just go buy some at the store? Surely it’s cheaper & easier?” or “Why waste your time with this, aren’t pickles cheap enough?” And my answer is, “You’re an idiot.” No, I’m just kidding, it’s really not. My answer is usually a long diatribe about self-sufficiency, about the D.I.Y. movement I so believe in, about how I find that mentality of ‘why make it when I can buy it’ to be so sickening and also to be a large contributor to the downfall of society. But the short answer is really easy: like baking- it keeps me sane, it’s fun, and it’s useful. I mean, where can you buy nectarine preserves with Earl Grey tea? I know I’ve never seen them. It’s like baking for me- why buy a shitty bland-tasting sheet cake when I can make my own from scratch using Bourbon vanilla? Why buy soggy, over-moist supermarket bakery cupcakes with too-sweet frosting when I can make my own, that taste way better, from scratch and personalize them with things like crumbled bacon on top? Same thing with canning. I’ve been an artist & craftswoman my whole life- I do a lot of things myself. From cutting my own hair, to dying it, to piercing my own ears, to making my own pickles and growing my own vegetables. From painting garage doors myself and repurposing old tables to painting & replacing the knobs on an old chest to freshen it up and turning an old cashmere sweater that shrunk into a winter throw-pillow cover & a hot water bottle case. From making my own lemon olive oil body scrub to rolling out my own pasta & making my own ice cream. It’s a certain kind of ethic I learned from my mother. I’ll never stop doing that stuff, ever, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. D.I.Y. forever!

People also have this crazy idea that making this stuff from scratch is hard or really complicated. I swear it isn’t, really. I promise you. Anyone with a basic knowledge of chemistry/pH balances & acidity/the degree food has to be heated to kill bacteria/Harvard degree can do this. Haha. Joking. Anyone with a canning kit who can read directions can do this. And should. Ignore the people who make it seem like you need to have attended Oxford University to figure out how to seal a jar.

You’re either a leader or a follower, and I choose to be a leader. If you don’t get why I make my own jam, then maybe you’re the one missing out. And if you don’t understand my grief, then you’re also missing out. Grief means you loved someone so much, you can’t believe they’re no longer here & your heart hurts when it hits you. If you don’t feel that way about anyone… then you haven’t loved. Or lived. So as I find my way into a “new normal”, I at least know that I have feelings (which is more than I can say for a lot of people I know) & that I knew what it was to truly love. And in this day & age, I’m not sure a whole lot of people really know what that means.

My parents are big blueberry people. Not blueberry people like Violet Beauregarde, blueberry people as in they like blueberries. My parents aren’t blue or round or anything. They look normal. They are normal, I mean. Well as normal as they can be, they did create me. My dad is actually the bigger blueberry person, remember when he requested blueberry cupcakes in January when they aren’t in season? I do. I had to buy frozen or pay 6 million dollars for a pint. But both of them do enjoy those little blue orbs that stain everything including your teeth. I did make those blueberry muffins for my mother, after all. So I figured why the hell not make some of this for 4th of July weekend/my mom’s birthday since the blueberries in my fruit market were humongous & absolutely gorgeous (and the raspberries & blackberries were buy one get one free- but that was already talked about!).

That is not a muffin. That is jam.

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Speaking of blueberries, I recently, on a bit of a whim, bought a blueberry bush. Vaccinium Corymbosum, or Northern highbush blueberry to be exact, also known as blue huckleberry, tall huckleberry, swamp huckleberry, high blueberry, and swamp blueberry. It was on sale for 50% off and there were only 2 left, so I grabbed one. Of course I’m not expecting a harvest this year, but certainly next year I ought to end up with a few. I bought it more as a novelty than anything else; I think it’s a cool thing to have. If I get some fruit, then awesome, if not… oh well. For $4.50 it’s worth a shot, though it needs a little TLC (some browning leaves, etc). I’m also looking forward to seeing the leaves change to “a brilliant red” in the fall. It’s in a medium sized pot for now, I’m debating whether or not to plant it in a bigger pot or in the ground. I’m leaning towards a larger pot. Let’s see how it fares after this winter.

Just call me “Tall Huckleberry Finn”, a.k.a. the girl who adopts lonely plants…

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Alright so basically, this jam was just as easy as the rhubarb-ginger jam, and just as tasty. Super quick & simple… and it lasts up to a month in the fridge! Save your jars, people. Every jar you buy, make sure it’s rinsed & cleaned out thoroughly so it’s odor-free & sparkly and then save ‘em. You can make loads of stuff like this to fill them, but they’re also great just for storage; nails, screws, paper clips, beads, nuts & bolts, etc. But you can also use regular Ball jars that you’d use for canning, or buy jars like the one above in a place like Williams-Sonoma (glass, like mine in the picture) or Bed Bath & Beyond (plastic, like this one). My great-grandmother never, ever used a plastic anything. She saved every glass jar and stored her leftover food in them, and even used them as drinking glasses, which is an idea I love. Maybe she was on to something?

I’m pretty sure that with the lemon juice this is safely acidic for canning, but don’t quote me on that. I’m a newbie. Either way, I’m sure it can be made into a canned blueberry jam quite easily, and not with much more hullabaloo. But did you ever have a day where you just didn’t want to make any effort further than the very basic one? Yeah. That was me the (sweltering, blistering, scorchingly hot) day I made this. Like I said, lazy. And very hot & sweaty.

EASY BLUEBERRY JAM

Ingredients:

• 5 cups blueberries (about 2 ½ pints)
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• ¼ teaspoon Kosher salt

Directions:

1. Combine ingredients in a medium saucepan and using a potato masher or wooden spoon, mash blueberries until they release their juices.
2. Cook on medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 18-25 minutes. Allow to cool slightly, transfer to containers, and refrigerate for up to 1 month or freeze up to 1 year.

This recipe can also be made with frozen blueberries instead of fresh; just buy two 10-ounce bags and cook them for 2-3 minutes before mashing, then reduce the total cooking time to 15-17 minutes.  I will say this about the cooking though… be ye ever so careful of the splatters. Don’t wear a white apron or a white t-shirt while making it. But other than that, it’s so easy, really a trained monkey could do it. So do it.

Here’s a dollop of it on some of that French vanilla ice cream I made. You could even mix it into vanilla ice cream while it’s in the ice cream maker to make a blueberry-vanilla ice cream.

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Seriously, go try it. I’ve heard it’s insanely good for a 5 minute recipe. You can have it on ice cream, an English muffin, spread it on a delicious scone or piece of bread and sing this song with Fats Domino…

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‘This’ being David Lebovitz‘s “improved” lemon curd. For those of you not in-the-know about fruit curd, here’s a little Wikipedia to help you out:

Fruit curd is a dessert spread and topping usually made with lemon, lime,^[1] orange or raspberry.^[2] The basic ingredients are beaten egg yolks, sugar, fruit juice and zest which are gently cooked together until thick and then allowed to cool, forming a soft, smooth, intensely-flavored spread. Some recipes also include egg whites and/or butter.^[3]

In late 19th and early 20th century England, home-made lemon curd was traditionally served with bread or scones at afternoon tea as an alternative to jam, and as a filling for cakes, small pastries and tarts.^[4] Homemade lemon curd was usually made in relatively small amounts as it did not keep as well as jam. In more modern times larger quantities are feasible because of the use of refrigeration. Commercially manufactured curds often contain additional preservatives and thickening agents.^[5]

Modern commercially made curds are still a popular spread for bread, scones, toast or muffins. They can also be used as a flavoring for desserts or yogurt. Lemon-meringue pie, made with lemon curd and topped with meringue, has been a favorite dessert in Britain and the United States since the nineteenth century.^[4]

Curds are different from pie fillings or custards in that they contain a higher proportion of juice and zest, which gives them a more intense flavor.^[6] Also, curds containing butter have a smoother and creamier texture than both pie fillings and custards; both contain little or no butter and use cornstarch or flour for thickening. Additionally, unlike custards, curds are not usually eaten on their own.

This recipe is actually a Meyer lemon curd, but by adapting the amount of sugar you can use regular lemons (as I did). I really had no idea that Meyer lemons were that different from regular lemons until I did a little reading on it. Apparently, they’re native to China & are thought to be a cross between a mandarin orange + lemon, and are milder & sweeter than regular lemons, Eureka for example. Meyer lemons were actually banned in the U.S. for a while! DISEASED REBEL LEMONS! Sounds like a punk rock band.

By the mid 1940s the Meyer lemon had become widely grown in California. However, at that time it was discovered that a majority of the Meyer lemon trees being cloned were symptomless carriers of the Citrus tristeza virus, a virus which had killed millions of citrus trees all over the world and rendered other millions useless for production.^[5] After this finding, most of the Meyer lemon trees in the United States were destroyed to save other citrus trees.

A virus-free selection was found in the 1950s by Don Dillon of the California company Four Winds Growers,^[6] and was later certified and released in 1975 by the University of California as the ‘Improved Meyer lemon’ — Citrus × meyeri ‘Improved’.^[7][8]

Crazy the shit you find out just by looking up recipes. Anyway, this post is going to be pretty huge, because it’s really two recipes in one. See, with this lemon curd, I made a French vanilla ice cream. Or, ‘vanille français.’ Why? Because a) it was a request by my mother for her birthday on the 5th and b) I had seen during my numerous searches on this big, beautiful interwebs that some people mixed their lemon curds with frozen yogurt or ice cream, and it sounded good. Although lemon curd is also great on toast, scones, crumpets, or as a filling in cakes or cupcakes.

The curd cooking away…

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LEMON CURD (from David Lebovitz)

Makes 1 cup

Ingredients:

• ½ cup freshly-squeezed Meyer or regular lemon juice
• ⅓ cup sugar (or ½ cup, if using regular lemons)
• 2 large egg yolks
• 2 large eggs
• pinch of salt
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed

Directions:

1. Place a mesh strainer over a bowl, and set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, whisk together the lemon juice, sugar, egg yolks, eggs, and salt.
3. Add the butter cubes and set the pan over low heat, whisking constantly until the butter is melted. Increase the heat and cook over moderate heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture thickens and just begins to become jelly-like. It’s done when you lift the whisk and the mixture holds its shape when it falls back into the saucepan from the whisk.
4. Immediately press the curd through the strainer. Once strained, store the lemon curd in the refrigerator. It will keep for up to one week.

Some people like a little zest in their curd, feel free to add a teaspoon or so of it if you do. David says it makes a cup, but I actually got 1 ¼ cups myself. My lemons were pretty big though, and I didn’t want to waste any juice so I just squeezed it all out. Haha. That entire sentence sounds dirty. Anyway, I’m sure this could be doubled or tripled easily if you want to use it to fill a cake, etc.

Alright, well that ends the fruit curd portion of our program. So now, on to the ice cream! Vanilla ice cream has always been my favorite, just like vanilla cupcakes have always been my favorite. Some may find that boring, but really, when you’re as awesome as I am, you can’t have too much other stuff going on, you have to let the awesome-ness speak for itself. Vanilla is always the perfect backdrop or companion for everything. But have you ever wondered what the difference was between vanilla & French vanilla?…

While today’s ice cream enthusiasts may view vanilla as a bland or generic offering, it used to be considered a very exotic flavor indeed. Because it became such a popular choice for consumers, vanilla became the standard bearer of the ice cream family, closely followed by chocolate and strawberry. The complex flavors created by the vanilla bean, a member of the orchid family, were never intended to become a generic base, however.

There are several variations on the standard vanilla flavor, including a particularly rich and creamy variety called French vanilla. While both traditional vanilla and French vanilla ice creams can still be used as a base for milkshakes and other dessert treats, there are a few differences between them. Traditional vanilla flavor is derived from the seeds of a vanilla bean pod, or at least a synthetic chemical equivalent called vanillin. French vanilla is more of an egg custard before freezing, and contains egg yolks for a richer consistency.

Traditional vanilla ice cream is also likely to contain small flecks of vanilla beans, but French vanilla is often strained to remove these flecks. Because of the egg yolks, French vanilla ice cream also appears to be a deeper shade of yellow than traditional vanilla ice cream. French vanilla ice cream is often viewed as creamier in texture than many standard vanilla ice cream brands, which may be a result of starting with a custard base instead of cream.

- Wisegeek

..

The term French vanilla is often used to designate preparations that have a strong vanilla aroma, and contain vanilla grains. The name originates from the French style of making ice cream custard base with vanilla pods, cream, and egg yolks. Inclusion of vanilla varietals from any of the former or current French dependencies noted for their exports may in fact be a part of the flavoring, though it may often be coincidental. Alternatively, French vanilla is taken to refer to a vanilla-custard flavor.^[19] Syrup labeled as French vanilla may include custard, caramel or butterscotch flavors in addition to vanilla.

-Wikipedia

Well that settles that, huh? Ya learn somethin’ new everyday. The reason for that particular little culinary history lesson is that I’m sharing today a recipe for French vanilla ice cream. It does not have the little black vanilla seeds in it, true to form, and it is indeed quite an off-white color.  This recipe is from the little booklet that came with my KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment, so the directions given are for that particular brand. The thing is, it requires an ice cream maker. If you don’t have the KitchenAid one & you have another brand/model, that’s totally fine, just mix the ingredients together either with a hand mixer or another stand mixer, refrigerate for the 8 hours +, and then just freeze according to the directions of your ice cream maker. If you don’t have an ice cream maker- buy one. But be forewarned: you’ll make a lot of new “best friends.” Anyway, I mixed mine for 30 minutes in the freezer bowl and then froze it for a while (couple of hours) since it wasn’t firm enough for me. It was like soft-serve consistency, which is nice, and I won’t lie… I ate more than I should’ve while it was soft. But I like it better firmer, and it was pretty hot & humid, so it melted fast anyway.

There’s Lola, mixin’ it up…

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THE MOST AMAZING HOMEMADE FRENCH VANILLA ICE CREAM

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ cups half-and-half
• 8 egg yolks
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 ½ cups whipping cream
• 4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• ⅛ teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, heat half-and-half until very hot but not boiling, stirring often. Remove from heat, set aside.
2. Place egg yolks and sugar in a mixer bowl. Attach bowl and wire whip to mixer. Turn to speed 2 and mix about 30 seconds, or until well blended and slightly thickened. Continuing on speed 2, very gradually add half-and-half and mix until blended. Return half-and-half mixture to the medium saucepan; cook over medium heat until small bubbles form around edge and mixture is steamy, stirring constantly. Do not boil.
3. Transfer half-and-half mixture into large bowl; stir in whipping cream, vanilla and salt. Cover and chill thoroughly, at least 8 hours.
4. Assemble and engage freeze bowl, dasher and drive assembly as directed. Turn to STIR (speed 1). Using a container with a spout, pour mixture into freeze bowl. Continue on STIR for 15-20 minutes or until desired consistency is achieved. Immediately transfer to serving dishes for soft-serve or freeze in an airtight container until firm. Prepare yourself for the deliciousness.

Served with lemon curd, blackberries & raspberries

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Okay… this is the most amazing ice cream I ever had. The absolute best French vanilla ice cream EVER. I must stress the pure vanilla extract here. Usually, I don’t make a fuss because in a cupcake, especially chocolate or other flavor, it’s not really that big of a deal. But in this, you really need a good, true, real vanilla flavor. For a vanilla lemon curd ice cream, just spoon some of the curd (or all of it, depending how much you made/like) into the ice cream maker a few minutes before it’s ready. If you want streaks of it throughout, add it much closer to the end, just so there are ripples of lemon curd in it. If you want it mixed in completely, add it about 5-10 minutes to the end. The curd is also excellent served on top of the ice cream and then topped with fresh blackberries or raspberries, like I did above. The blackberries & raspberries were huge & beautiful… and also buy one, get one free, so you better believe I bought those babies. Vanilla ice cream is so easy to build on, you can top it with anything, or add anything. Add crushed cookies, fruit, jam, chocolate chips, brownie pieces, broken waffle cones, etc. Top it with chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, butterscotch sauce, whatever! An Italian restaurant me & Jay go to serves their French vanilla ice cream in a parfait glass with two delicious, soft almond cookies. Amazing. You could even freeze it until it’s really firm, then sandwich it between two chocolate chip cookies to make a homemade Chipwich!

I know, there are like 10 egg yolks and 2 extra eggs in these recipes combined. A whole dozen. But, like the coconut cupcakes that take 5 eggs, it’s so worth it. And you can freeze the whites and use them to make meringue later on! Or, use the whites to make meringue, use the curd to fill little pie shells or tart shells (even store-bought ones), then top them with the meringue- and you have mini lemon meringue pies! So cute.

And that, children, concludes the most epic Cupcake Rehab post ever, a.k.a. the post of the century. After writing all of this up, I will now go and collapse on the floor and cradle my newly Carpal Tunnel ridden-wrists.

So this particular jam is a ginger/rhubarb combination, which I’ve heard (from people who’ve tasted it) is an amazing duo. Usually it’s strawberry/rhubarb that you see in pies, etc. Anywho… yes, I made this lovely, quick & easy jam like a good daughter. The best part? It doesn’t even require a canning kit! You don’t need anything fancy to make this… and it really is ridiculously easy.

As far as the ingredients, I’ll leave the details to Wikipedia:

★ Rhubarb is grown primarily for its fleshy petioles, commonly known as rhubarb sticks or stalks. The use of rhubarb stems as food is a relatively recent innovation, first recorded in 17th century England, after affordable sugar became available to common people, and reaching a peak between the 20th century’s two world wars.

Rhubarb can be dehydrated and infused with fruit juice. In most cases it is infused with strawberry juice to mimic the popular strawberry rhubarb pie.

Rhubarb root produces a rich brown dye similar to walnut husks. It is used in northern regions where walnut trees do not survive.

★ Ginger is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale, consumed as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It lends its name to its genus and family (Zingiberaceae). Other notable members of this plant family are turmeric, cardamom, and galangal.

Fresh ginger can be substituted for ground ginger at a ratio of 6 to 1, although the flavors of fresh and dried ginger are somewhat different. Powdered dry ginger root is typically used as a flavoring for recipes such as gingerbread, cookies, crackers and cakes, ginger ale, and ginger beer.

Candied ginger is the root cooked in sugar until soft, and is a type of confectionery.

★ Natural brown sugar is brown sugar made by partially refining sugar cane extract, whereas most brown sugar is made by adding molasses to fully refined sugar.

Golden coloured natural brown sugar is produced by extracting the juice from sugar cane, heating it to evaporate water and crystallise the sugar, then spinning in a centrifuge to remove some impurities and further dry the sugar. It is commonly used in baking and to sweeten beverages such as coffee and tea.

In the United States, a similar sugar is commonly called turbinado sugar, after the centrifuges or turbines in which it is spun.^[1] In the United States, most turbinado sugar is produced in Hawaii and is often sold as an organic product. A product sold in the U.S. is marketed under the name brand “Sugar in the Raw”.^[2] There are slight differences in taste between turbinado and demerara sugar.^[3]A third, somewhat lighter, type is produced in Mexico under the name Azucar Morena^[4].

All three of these ingredients are interesting in and of themselves, but who would’ve thought by just boiling them together with a little citrus zest you’d get a quick little jam? And …I had to make a pound cake to go with it, just to make it more interesting for me. Rhubarb is a very ‘stringy’ vegetable/fruit/thing, and when cooked it gets gluey very fast, despite being low in pectin, and the caramelized sugar helps to hold it together really well. It gets firmer after being in the fridge for a while, it’s looser if you use it warm. And who doesn’t like some jam on pound cake? I mean, aside from me, that is. Either way- this pound cake is terrific, with or without the ‘barb jam. More about that after the recipe, though. First- jam!

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RHUBARB GINGER JAM (From Local Kitchen Blog/adapted from Bon Appétit, July 1997)

Yields about 1 and ½ cups

Gather yer stuff:

• 1 lb rhubarb, trimmed, washed and sliced to ⅛-inch pieces (fresh or frozen)
• 1 cup turbinado sugar
• 3 oz crystallized ginger, chopped (about 9 tbsp)
• 1 ½ tsp lemon & orange zest (about half:half), coarsely chopped

Then do this:

1. Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly to dissolve sugar and prevent scorching.
2. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring frequently, until jam thickens and mounds on a spoon, about 20-30 minutes.
3. Transfer to a glass bowl or jar, cover and chill in the refrigerator. Store refrigerated for up to 3 months, or canned & kept in a cool, dark spot for up to a year.
4. Options: Evaporated cane juice, or processed white sugar, will produce a more rosy colored jam than the turbinado sugar, but turbinado gives a hint of caramelized flavor.  Your choice. · This produces a quite gingery jam; if you don’t love ginger, try making it with 1-2 oz ginger first. If you adore ginger, try 4 oz. · Given the acidic rhubarb and dried, candied ginger, this recipe is safely acidic for water-bath canning should you want to increase the amounts and save some for room temperature storage.

I used about half, maybe a little more than half of the amount of ginger in the recipe, and it was more than ginger-y enough (or so I heard). I also used the turbinado sugar, because I figured it was in the original recipe for a reason. The caramelized color/flavor was enjoyed very much, so I doubt I’d stray from it. I plopped the jam in a cleaned-out spaghetti sauce jar (I told you, SAVE YOUR JARS) and had room to spare (the above photos were taken after liberal amounts were dispersed among slices of pound cake & into people’s mouths). The recipe can easily be doubled or tripled, though. If you aren’t quite ready for real canning, there are tons of these quick jam recipes out there that are really easy and a good foray into the real thing. By the way, this post is in the ‘vegan’ category because of the jam, not the cake. Duh.

Okay, now on to that pound cake. I got this recipe for a traditional pound cake from that book I mentioned a while back Sweets: Soul Food Desserts & Memories by Patty Pinner. I figured, if I’m gonna make a pound cake, why not go for the gold and make a real, authentic Southern one. I used a plain tube pan, but a fancier bundt pan would be nice too. The cake itself doesn’t need a lot of bells & whistles; it’s perfect plain, as I said, but also an awesome backdrop for ice creams, any kind of jams or jellies &  especially sauces (raspberry sauce, rhubarb sauce, strawberry sauce, chocolate sauce… you name it). Also, a sprinkle of confectioner’s sugar is always nice on top, but not 100% necessary.

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Talk about a beautiful goddamn pound cake! It was perfect, from the texture to the crumb to everything. Best pound cake ever.

POUND CAKE

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 ½ cups granulated sugar
• 3 cups cake flour, sifted
• 5 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Confectioner’s sugar (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350º F. Grease & lightly flour a 10-inch tube pan. Set it aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream the butter with an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes, or until creamy. Gradually add the sugar, beating 5 to 7 minutes, until the mixture is light & fluffy.
3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Then add the flour to the creamed mixture, alternating with the milk; begin and end with flour.
4. Beat on low speed, just until blended, after each addition. Stir in the vanilla extract. Mix well.
5. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Then run a knife around the inside edge of the pan. Unmold the cake carefully onto the rack to cool completely.
6. Transfer the cake to a decorative platter and sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar, if desired, before serving.

So there you have it. A perfect combination of treats to bring to a barbecue or picnic. Or, to make for your mother.