Blueberry haven

May 4, 2011May 2, 2012 | Green Card Gardener

Because we have a berry farm in the area where you can pick your own, I don’t bother growing blueberries. The place is perfectly organized: on peak days, such as around July 4^th, one family member greets you with a walky-talky alerting a second person, who leads you to your assigned spot. This way you don’t have to pace up and down the rows looking for ripe blueberries. One year, I spent 1.5 hours picking from a couple of bushes and came home with almost 20 pounds of blueberries. After we all have our fill, most of the blueberries go right into the freezer.

Today I used the last bag of those blueberries for a Blueberry Corn Coffee Cake. The recipe is adapted from Deborah Madison’s Sweet Corn Coffee Cake with Berries in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Her recipe is based on an 8-inch springform pan but this one is for a 9-inch cake, therefore the amounts are a bit odd. If you use frozen blueberries like I did, bake the cake a few minutes longer, and if it browns too much on top, cover with a sheet of aluminum foil. Just make sure no ice crystals are clinging to the frozen berries, which might make the cake soggy.

Blueberry Corn Coffee Cake

7¼ ounces flour

3½ ounces yellow cornmeal

5 ounces sugar

2¼ teaspoons baking powder

1 1/8 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

6 ounces buttermilk

3½ ounces sour cream (reduced fat)

Finely grated zest of 1 untreated lemon

2¼ teaspoons vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2¾ ounces corn oil

2 cups blueberries

Light brown sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9-inch springform pan.

2. Mix the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk buttermilk, sour cream, lemon zest, vanilla extract, eggs, and corn oil.

4. Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients until well combined. I find that a silicone spatula works best, as you can scrape over the bottom and pick up any lumps.

5. Fill the dough into the prepared pan. Distribute the blueberries on top and gently press them into the dough. Sprinkle with brown sugar and bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

6. Run a knife around the edge to loosen the cake from the pan and remove the rim. Cool completely on a wire rack.

A substitute for Quark

April 5, 2011July 25, 2013 | Green Card Gardener

Until Greek yogurt become more widely available in the United States in recent years, as a native German I felt extremely Quark-deprived. Creamy Quark, which is often referred to as cottage cheese without curds but is actually nothing like it, is my favorite dairy product. It can be made at home (the recipe is in my cookbook Spoonfuls of Germany), however, the process is lengthy and quite involved, and getting the right consistency is a hit and miss.

Greek yogurt is an acceptable substitute for desserts calling for quark, and other non-baking recipes. For cakes and pies, however, I find it rather flat. But don’t get me wrong, I am already quite happy to be able to make desserts that taste almost like Quark.

When I was a kid my mother used to make this vanilla custard with Quark, which I could eat by the tubful. She used instant custard powder while I make the custard from scratch. I topped it with our last own frozen raspberries but there is room for experimentation here.

Vanilla Custard with Greek Yogurt

1 cup milk (2%)

1 vanilla bean

3 egg yolks

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2/3 cup sugar

2 cups Greek yogurt

Fruit topping to taste (raspberries, blueberries)

1. Put the milk in a small pot. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds thoroughly into the milk. Add the vanilla bean to the milk and slowly bring to a boil.

2. In the meantime, whisk the egg yolks with the cornstarch and the sugar until both are dissolved. There should not be any lumps.

3. Strain the milk and pour it back into the pot. Put it back on the stove and whisk in the egg mixture.

4. Bring to a gentle boil until the custard thickens, whisking constantly. Make sure to also scrape with the whisk over the bottom to prevent the custard from sticking and burning.

5. When the custard is nice and thick, remove from the heat immediately. Let cool completely, stirring every now and then.

6. Add the Greek yogurt and whisk until creamy. Refrigerate. Top with berries or other fruit to taste.

Spring cleanup’s sweet side effects

March 14, 2011May 2, 2012 | Green Card Gardener

This weekend, I did a big spring cleaning of the kitchen. There were two surprises. I was not aware how much I have accumulated since I moved to the Pennsylvania mountaintop ten years ago (if I had not been into cooking already, I would have certainly started here, as the local restaurant scene is dire, especially if you come straight from New York City). Not that I don’t use all those tools and equipment. Everything is put to use some time, even if only once a year, like the cherry pitter. Yet I promised myself that I will try to stick mainly to replacements.

The other surprise was a jar of canned pears from 2009, the last year we were able to enjoy the pears from our own two pear trees. Usually the other stakeholders to the pears, most likely raccoons or groundhogs, eat the pears before we can. One year when I went out with two large baskets for picking, all the pears were gone. Not a single pear on the tree. It had been loaded with fruit just a couple of days before.

Since I don’t know if and when we will have our own pears again, I wanted to use this last jar for something special. I made my favorite pear cake that my husband says must be eaten with vanilla ice-cream (he had two helpings sitting next to me on the sofa as as I write this, saying that the second was only a test to see if it still tasted as good as the first).

Spiced Chocolate Pear Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground allspice

½ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon cardamom

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 packed cup (10 ounces) light brown sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup pear nectar (from the canned pears)

¼ cup finely minced crystallized ginger

2 ounces finely grated bittersweet chocolate

2 cups canned pear chunks, drained

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Butter and flour a 9-inch-diameter springform pan.

3. Mix flour with baking powder, baking soda, salt and all the spices.

4. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until creamy. Add eggs, vanilla extract and pear nectar.

5. Gradually work in the flour mix until dough is smooth. Add ginger and chocolate. Fold in the pear chunks.

6. Pour mix into the prepared pan and even out with a spatula. Bake 45 to 60 minutes, until toothpick comes out somewhat clean (because of the pears, there will always be some moisture clinging to the tester, but it should not be liquid).

7. Cool cake 10 minutes. Release cake from pan sides with a plastic knife. Cool completely on rack.

Lists and leftovers

January 15, 2011May 2, 2012 | Green Card Gardener

First I felt a little silly putting up a detailed list with the freezer content to keep track of each bag I take out. But this is not my personal listmania. It saves me from digging around and getting frostbite on my hands. This list, and whatever else needs to be used up, often dictates what I cook.

A quart of milk with a passed “sell by” date (even after living in the US for 13 years I still don’t understand how this date tells you the actual expiration date…), and several bags of frozen red currants inspired me to make this lemon trifle. I used a mix of blueberries and currants, but only blueberries, or a mix of blueberries and raspberries, will taste good as well. Instead of drizzling the ladyfingers with the usual sherry I used homemade black currant liqueur (cassis) but of course store-bought cassis will be just fine.

Berry Trifle with Lemon Custard

12 ladyfingers

3-4 tablespoons cassis

14 ounces fresh or frozen blueberries and/or red currants

3-4 tablespoons sugar, or to taste

Lemon custard:

2 organic lemons

4 cups milk (2% or whole milk)

4 egg yolks

¾ cup + 1 tablespoon sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1. Cut the ladyfingers into 1-inch pieces and spread them in a decorative glass serving dish with a wide bottom. Drizzle with cassis.

2. Put the berries in a small saucepan and briefly cook so they pop and release their juices. Sugar to taste and cool slightly, then spread over the ladyfingers.

3. For the lemon custard, zest and juice the lemons. Slowly bring the milk and the lemon zest to a boil.

4. Mix the egg yolks with the sugar and the cornstarch to a smooth consistency without any lumps.

5. Strain the hot milk through a fine sieve. Discard the lemon zest.

6. Add a small amount of the hot milk to the egg yolks and whisk to incorporate. Add some more milk and whisk again. The mixing of the hot milk and egg yolks must be done very slowly and gradually so the eggs won’t curd.

7. After all the egg yolks and milk have been mixed, pour it in a saucepan and slowly bring to a gentle boil, whisking constantly. Cook and whisk until the custard thickens.

8. Remove from the heat. Add the lemon juice and whisk until cooled slightly. Slowly pour the custard over the berries so that the layer won’t be disturbed and the berries won’t rise to the top. Cool.