visitandine {ffwd}
Who wants cake? On deck this week for French Fridays with Dorie is a simple buttery cake called Visitandine, named after the order of French nuns who created this recipe.
I’ll admit, I had near tragedy with this one. I decided to halve the recipe and make two small cakes in 4-inch springform pans. All seemed to be going well. I browned the butter. I mixed the butter with the dry ingredients. It wasn’t as thick or hopeless as Dorie indicated it might be. I beat the egg whites until they were stiff. I folded the egg whites into the batter. I filled the cake pans. I put them in the oven. Then, I went down to the basement to move some laundry around.
I came upstairs to find a burning smell. I turned on the oven light and looked in the little window. The oven was filled with smoke. Uh-oh. I immediately turned off the oven and opened it up to retrieve my little cakes. I also opened a window and turned on the fans. The source of the smoke was a puddle of butter that had leaked from the pan onto the oven floor. I hadn’t thought to put the cake pans on a baking sheet.
I was so disappointed. The cakes seemed to have such possibilities! They were partially baked, but not all the way. I hated to throw them out, so I just stashed in the fridge overnight while I figured out what to do.
Overnight, I was weighing my options. Do I bake the saved cakes through and see what happens or do I start over? As I was reviewing the recipe in my head, I realized why the pans might have leaked. I halved the recipe EXCEPT for the butter. That probably explains why it mixed together more easily than expected. With that much butter, it might also explain why it exuberantly oozed out of the pan.
In the morning, I cleaned the bottom of the oven and decided to try just baking what I had. If it failed, I could start over. It worked!
The cake was light though rich-tasting (must be that extra butter). I’ll have to try it with the proper amount of butter, but this is just the sort of cake I enjoy. It reminded me of the financiers, and also an almond-browned butter cake I’ve been making when I have extra egg whites.
Howard wasn’t interested in this one, so I ate some cake plain (delicious) and also cake with rhubarb compote spooned over it (also delicious, but not very attractive). I still have one more cake to enjoy. I’ll be making Howard some chocolate pudding with the extra egg yolks, so he won’t feel left out.
To see how the other Doristas’ cakes came out, check their links here. You can find the recipe here or in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
If you missed it on Facebook or Instagram, here’s a photo of Mardi and I enjoying a fantastic meal at Coppa, a tiny enoteca (wine bar) in the South End neighborhood of Boston. We had a great time meeting though we missed the rest of you. Here’s to more Dorista meetups in the future.
vegetable barley soup with the taste of little india {ffwd}
I love a good bowl of soup. It warms me from the inside out. This first week of spring has been particularly cold, so this week’s recipe selection for French Fridays with Dorie, Vegetable Barley Soup with the Taste of Little India, was quite welcome.
As the name suggests, this soup is a root vegetable barley soup dressed up with Indian flavors: ginger, garam masala, and turmeric. We’re getting to the bottom of the barrel with the winter vegetables stashed in the makeshift root cellar in my basement, but I found carrots and a parsnip in there. The rest of the ingredients are staples in my kitchen. I reduced the chicken stock to one quart, as I usually do with Dorie’s soup recipes. This was very easy to throw together. And fast. A pot of hearty soup was ready in an hour, from start to finish.
However… I would say I’d have preferred the basic version of the soup. I love Indian food, so, in principle, it wasn’t that I don’t like the spices used. I just didn’t love it in the soup. And I did love the vegetable and barley combination. I particularly enjoyed the parsnip. It always adds a unique flavor to any dish. Next time, it’s plain vegetable barley soup for me.
On an exciting note, I’m having dinner with Mardi of Eat.Live.Travel.Write. tonight. It’s a mini-Dorista meetup, on a Friday, of course.
To see what the other Doristas thought of their Indian-flavored soups, check their links here. The recipe can be found in Bill Daley’s recent article in the Chicago Tribute about French Fridays and other online cooking groups. He interviewed me for the article, so you can also read a few quotes of mine. Of course, the recipe can also be found in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
A Plateful of Happiness 