Marcy Goldman is one of my favourite cookbook authors – reading her books and recipes always makes me hungry for more!
Goldman has a true “passion for baking”– which also happens to be the title of her latest cookbook, A Passion for Baking (Oxmoor House). Her book offers 220 picture-perfect recipes along with her favourite tricks of the trade to help her readers become better bakers. A professional chef and master baker, Goldman is also the author of The Best of BetterBaking.com and A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking.It doesn’t matter if you’re a novice baker or an experienced balabuste – you’ll love her latest book. The ingredients are easy to find and her recipes are user-friendly. It’s just like having a good friend in the kitchen right next to you sharing helpful advice and offering professional guidance to help you achieve excellent results. Goldman wants you to bake more often and she also wants you to enjoy the journey!
Goldman is extremely creative, often putting new spins on old favourites. Whenever she bakes, she always draws a heart in the flour on the counter top. One of her sons took a photo of her special “art/heart,” and this inspired the photo on the cover of A Passion for Baking.
“Homey stuff may not always be picture-perfect,” Goldman says, “but it is absolutely, undeniably beautiful. It is food created with care that is meant to nourish in every way. That said, I intend to share with you each and every trick ‘in the book’ on baking, to make your recipes foolproof and beautiful.”
When I interviewed her recently, I asked her what was her favourite recipe. Goldman replied, “If I’m not near the recipe I love, I love the recipe I’m near!”
She sweetly shared two of her favourite recipes from A Passion for Baking with you, my readers, to enjoy for the High Holidays. She also shared her amazing recipe for a bread pudding that she makes with the leftover honey cake from Rosh Hashanah. (The recipe is not in any of her books but is only available on her website at -www.BetterBaking.com.) Goldman loves to serve this “honey of a bread pudding” for breaking the fast after Yom Kippur. I can’t think of a better way to guarantee that you’ll have a sweet year! Happy baking, happy eating and a happy and sweet New Year!
Marcy Goldman’s top baking tips:
•First and foremost, I recommend double sheeting. It is my method of stacking two baking sheets so that there’s a cushion for even baking and no risk of scorched bottoms.
•Shred cold butter with a box grater if you forget to take the butter out to soften. You can also shred apples for a quick-and-easy fruit pie. And you can shred frozen pastry dough for an easy alternative to lattice pie topping.
•In home baking, unsalted butter is queen. Nothing tastes or performs quite like this classic choice, prized for its pure flavour that sings through with utmost clarity.
•To start, I advise you to first thoroughly read a recipe. It is the difference between good baking and superlative baking… reading a recipe beforehand and having ingredients at the ready are small musts that make the whole endeavour calming, which, in turn, contributes to the final outcome.
•When measuring flour, I recommend that you lightly whisk or stir it a bit in its canister first; then simply scoop the flour, using a metal dry measuring cup and level it off.
MARCY GOLDMAN’S -ROUGEMONT APPLE PASTRY CAKE
This is one of my favourite pastries of all time – one you will want to make again and again. Simply put, this cake, based on a pastry crust, will make you famous. The pastry crust lines a springform pan, and the filling is a mile high with apples. It is, as I always boast, worth the price of the book.
Rougmont, incidentally, is Red Mountain in French, and refers to the apple region just outside Montreal. Many apples from those orchards have met their destiny in this recipe. This dessert needs an overnight stay in the fridge before serving. If you have store-bought refrigerated or frozen pie dough on hand, using it is fine and will save you a step.
How many apples are enough? Ever find you follow a recipe for pie or anything requiring a fruit filling only to find out your filling doesn’t quite rise to the occasion? You want the filling to be almost flush with the top of your pan in any pastry or pie. To test out what is a sufficient amount of apples (or blueberries, peaches, etc.) for a specific recipe, prepare the fruit and place it in the empty pie pan and see if you require more fruit. Then prep whatever extra you need. That way, the fruit is prepped and you can be confident that you will have enough filling.
Pastry crust
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into chunks
4 to 6 tbsp. ice water or half-and-half
Apple filling
10 to 12 large apples, cored, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch slices
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1 tbsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins, plumped in hot water, drained and well-dried
1 tbsp. lemon juice
Vanilla sauce
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs
2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
Finishing touches
confectioners’ sugar
apricot jam, warmed
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Brush bottom and sides of a 10-inch springform pan with melted butter and place on baking sheet.
For the pastry crust, place the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Add butter and pulse to make a grainy mixture. Add water and pulse to make a shaggy dough. On a lightly floured work surface, gather dough together, kneading a few moments to make a smooth dough. Wrap and chill dough at least one hour before rolling out.
Meanwhile, for the apple filling, toss apples with sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, raisins, and lemon juice.
Preheat oven to 350. Roll or press out dough evenly and fit on bottom and sides of prepared pan (dough should be 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick). Fill with apple filling, pressing gently. For final layer of apples, arrange apples in concentric circles. Apples should come to top of pan. If they don’t, prepare more to fill out the pan, tossing with 2 tablespoons sugar and a touch of cinnamon.
Cover pan lightly with aluminum foil and place on baking sheet. Bake cake 60 to 75 minutes or until apples are soft, removing foil after 20 minutes. The top apples might seem dry and browned around their edges, but interior apples should begin to feel soft – use a skewer to test apples.
For the vanilla sauce, in a small bowl, blend melted butter, sugar, vanilla, eggs, flour and cinnamon. Pour this over hot pastry cake, trying to get sauce to drip into crevices. Bake another 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
Refrigerate pastry cake at least 6 hours or preferably overnight. Dust with confectioners’ sugar or brush with warmed apricot jam just before serving. Makes 12 to 16 servings.
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Honey cake history
Some bakeries sell huge honey cakes that are cut into mammoth slabs. Sometimes they are baked in industrial baking pans, their sides lined with greased brown baker’s paper. Goldman likes the look and generous cuts that result. Here is a home-style version from A Passion for Baking that features great homemade taste with the wonderful, commercial look of a real bakery-style honey cake.
THE BIG HONEY CAKE
This is, regardless of which holiday you celebrate, a huge, totally awesome, exceptionally flavourful honey cake. It lasts up to a week covered, or two to three months if frozen. Use leftovers to make bread pudding.
7 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp. ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1 1/2 tsp. ground allspice
2 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
2 cups vegetable oil
1 cup honey
3 cups white sugar
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 tbsp. pure vanilla extract
1 tsp. pure orange extract or orange oil
7 large eggs
1 1/3 cups brewed coffee or tea
1 cup cola
1/2 cup orange juice
1 cup slivered almonds, optional
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
Preheat oven to 350. Line bottom of a 13×9-inch pan with parchment paper. Spray paper and inner sides of pan with nonstick cooking spray. Cut out pieces of brown paper (do not use recycled paper) to line the inner sides and make a cake collar for the pan, letting pieces extend 3 to 4 inches above pan. This is a cake “girdle” that will support the cake as it rises high. Spray paper collar with nonstick spray. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place pan on it.
In a very large mixing bowl, hand-blend flour, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Make a well in centre and add, in order, oil, honey, white and brown sugars, extracts, eggs, coffee or tea, cola and orange juice; blend well. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl occasionally to ensure batter is evenly blended. Pour or spoon batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle with slivered almonds, if desired.
Bake 1 hour and then reduce oven temperature to 325 and bake 45 minutes. Test cake for doneness, and if not quite done, reduce oven temperature to 300 and bake until done, another 10 to 15 minutes or until cake is firm to the touch. Cool completely in pan. Dust with confectioners’ sugar.
To serve, cut cake lengthwise down centre and then into big slabs. Makes 24 to 30 servings.
HONEY CAKE BREAD PUDDING
Leftover honey cake? Don’t even think of throwing it out. Cut up in hunks, bathed in an egg/cream bath and baked, it becomes a bread pudding. Serve warm or cold, with cream or sour cream. It is subtly spicy, delicate, eggy, and sweet – replaces blintzes and updates tradition. Frugality is the motherhood of creativity. Creativity reinvents tradition. It can be baked and frozen or made ahead and baked just 40 minutes before serving.
5 to 6 cups leftover honey cake, in coarse chunks
6 eggs
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
pinch salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups evaporated milk or half and half
2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
To serve, use sour cream, or dusting of confectioners’ sugar or a drizzle of half-and-half or (if you are ambitious) crème anglaise.
Preheat the oven to 350. Generously spray a 3- to 4-quart oven-proof casserole or serving dish with nonstick cooking spray.
Whisk all the ingredients (except the honey cake) in a large bowl.
Place the honey cake chunks in the baking dish and pour the egg mixture over it, making sure all the chunks are coated. Bake 35 to 45 minutes until the custard just begins to brown. Serve hot, warm, cold or at room temperature with sour cream or cream. Cut in squares to serve. (Freezes well or stays 3 days in the fridge – you can also prepare it, refrigerate it and bake it just before you require it.) Serves 6 to 8.
(The above recipe is for sole, personal use of visitors of BetterBaking.Com Online Magazine. Marcy Goldman/ BetterBaking.com recipes are for your enjoyment but not to be posted or reprinted without express permission of the author/baker. Thank you kindly for respecting my copyright and happy baking. BetterBaking.Com, established 1997.)
