I am the edgy one in my family. The moody one. The one most likely to say something caustic and regrettable. Somehow I managed to marry a kind and reasonable man. We went on to have a kind and reasonable son. Even our dog, Edna, is kind and reasonable. In my dark and snarky moments, they all three look at me with good-hearted concern, wondering how they can help. It’s infuriating.

On a good day I like to think I just have a lively temperament. My prickly side is balanced by a sense of humor and boundless loyalty and affection. On a bad day, I think I’m a nasty little troll, profoundly undeserving of the gentle sweetness that surrounds me. Regardless of how I feel about it, it seems I’m stuck with myself.

Fortunately, my family raises the bar on my behavior. Tenderness towards them inspires me, increasingly, to zip my mouth when I’m in a mood. (Um, I haven’t perfected that part just yet…) I’ve also learned that energy gets barbed without an outlet, and I have deep reserviors of energy. Cooking gives that energy something to do with itself. Chopping, washing, stirring, and sifting have a calming effect on me.

We all have to eat. That’s one impetus for cooking. Then there’s my endless fascination with the flavors and textures and colors of food. But the main driving force behind my cooking is a longing to make some goodness for the people I love. Obviously, I get to eat it, too. My motives aren’t all altruistic. Still, it’s safe to say that preparing food makes me a nicer person.

While cooking doesn’t change my mercurial disposition, it does lend some equanimity. There is a measure of redemption in feeding friends and family. Each meal is a small, daily gesture of thanks for all the love and forbearance.  Even Edna wins. I offer her little bites, which she takes gently from my hand.

So there you have it. I’m not the sweetest person in the world, or even in my house. But I try to make amends. Can I offer you some cake? This rustic torte is a pure and simple homage to chocolate and almonds. It’s nothing but nuts and chocolate gently held together with sugar, egg whites, and air. It’s nubby, light, and altogether spectacular. The recipe was adapted from one in Pure Dessert, by Alice Medrich.

CHOCOLATE-ALMOND TORTE
12 servings 

1 cup (5 ounces) unsalted, unblanched whole almonds.
7 ounces good quality bittersweet chocolate, broken into big pieces (no need to chop)
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
7 large egg whites (about one cup), room temperature

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a nine-inch springform cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.

Combine the almonds, chocolate, ½ cup of sugar, and salt in a food processor and pulse until the almonds and chocolate are very finely chopped but not completely pulverized. Set aside.

Beat egg whites with remaining ¼ cup sugar until stiff peaks form when the beaters are lifted.

Gently fold one third of the nut mixture into the egg whites until just incorporated. Repeat with another third of the nut mixture, then once more with the last third.

Scrape batter into prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, or with just a little melted chocolate, about 30-35 minutes.

Cool cake completely and remove from pan. Cover or wrap tightly, and store for up to 3 days at room temperature. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

I have a little Thanksgiving issue. I don’t care for pumpkin pie. Go ahead. Report me to the House Committee on Un-American Thanksgiving Cooking.  I adore pie. I like pumpkin. I just don’t see what they need with each other. And as any of the nice people who hacked, drilled, or sawed their way through my pumpkin pie crust last thanksgiving will tell you, pumpkin pie senses my cool reception. It doesn’t like me, either. But I’m okay with that. I’m through making pumpkin pie for the tradition-bound. They can make their own pies. (Did you hear that collective sigh of relief?) Who needs pumpkin pie when there’s pumpkin cheesecake to be had?

Now THIS is a dessert worth giving thanks for.  This is no dense, heavy cheesecake. Dense, heavy cheesecakes are a disgrace. Like any good cheesecake, this one feels light and airy in the mouth. The pumpkin tastes delicate and flowery, buoyed as it is by fat-fluff and spice. The crust delivers a lively kick of ginger, and a satisfying crumbly crunch. The filling is the burnished orange of an autumn poplar. Between the scent of the spices and the silk of the filling and the sienna shade, this cheesecake makes a quintessential holiday dessert. So long, pumpkin pie.

If you have any pangs about trying out a new recipe at Thanksgiving, don’t. I’ve made this several times and I haven’t screwed it up yet. If I can do it, believe me, so can you. Word to the wise: The first time I made it, I ignored the “wrap the pan in foil” step. (I don’t follow instructions when I don’t understand why they’re there. This has caused me much grief in life, but still I persist.) I shouldn’t have skipped that step. The cake oozes what I assume is melted butter. So do as I say and not as I do, and follow the instructions. Then, for good measure, put it all on a rimmed baking sheet. You won’t regret it.

PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE WITH GINGERSNAP CRUST – serves 12
adapted from an old Bon Appetit recipe, which for some reason I can’t find on epicurious.com

CRUST

1 ½ cups gingersnap cookie crumbs (I ground up cookies in the food processor for these)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Wrap outside of nine-inch springform pan with foil. (Mine is a ten-inch pan, so I made some extra crust, and baked for a little less time because it was a thinner cake.)

Mix crumbs, butter, and sugar in a bowl.

Press mixture onto bottom and two inches up sides of pan.

Bake crust until slightly darkened, about five minutes. Set aside. Maintain oven temperature.

FILLING

3 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 cup canned pure pumpkin
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
Pecan halves

Blend cream cheese and sugar in food processor until smooth.

Add pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, and spices. Process until smooth. Transfer filling to crust.

Bake cheesecake until center is set and edges begin to crack, about one hour. Cool in pan. Chill until cold (a few hours). Run a knife between the cake and the pan sides. Remove sides.

Arrange pecan halves decoratively on cake.

Recently I spied a recipe for butter cookies printed on the inside of a Land-o-Lakes butter box.  It called for just a few simple ingredients, including my beloved butter. It used just one bowl. Excellent. The only problem I could discern was that the recipe didn’t call for almonds, and I am on an almond bender. That issue was easily enough remedied with a little almond extract and almond paste. Oh, and I added an almond glaze. My husband thought these cookies were possibly a little overly-almondy. As if.

My almond excesses were validated when the best cook in the neighborhood requested the recipe. Ha. Vindicated. Almonds reign supreme.  Almonds are elegant in every way. They’re great with sugar and with salt, and certainly with butter. They have a subtle perfume, and a silky texture, and a sleek shape. They are the jungle cat of the nut world. And these cookies? They’re the best cookies ever to cross these lips. This is not a claim I make lightly.

These cookies are so soft they’re nearly fluffy. There is no crunch here whatsoever. There’s just the tiniest give as your teeth break the glaze. A smidge of chewiness from the almond paste.  Then the cookie just melts in your mouth. (Not in a pasty kind of way, more in a “I-have-been-waiting-for-this-cookie-my-whole-life” kind of way.) So, if perfectly-pillowy, extra-almondy, one-bowl cookies tempt you, read on. I promise I’ll simmer down a little with the hyphens.

The dry ingredients in this recipe are not combined before adding them to rest. No whisking, sifting, or stirring. You just throw them into the bowl, willy-nilly. After a lifetime of mixing dry ingredients in a separate bowl, this struck me as akin to blasphemy. But there it was, printed oh-so-officially on the inside of the butter box.

After tasting these heaven-sent cookies, I blinked hard and pondered how many hours of my life I have spent sifting and whisking and washing that extra bowl. Was it all for NOTHING? Rather than sink into existential despair, I took a glass-half-full approach. I’m starting a list of all the meaningful things I can do with the time I’ll save not combining dry ingredients.  

I don’t think the texture of these cookies can possibly be improved upon. Naturally, this makes me wonder what other steps I could be skipping (in cooking and in life) with no negative fall-out. Professional bakers and purists among you should maybe read a better person’s blog.

SOFT ALMOND COOKIES

1 ¼ cup sugar
1 cup butter (2 sticks), room temperature
2 tablespoons almond paste (sold in tubes in most bakery aisles)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons almond extract
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a large bowl, beat sugar, butter, almond paste, and eggs until creamy.

Add remaining ingredients and mix on low until combined.

Scoop by round tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheets. (I lined mine with parchment paper, but I’m sure that’s not necessary. It just makes the clean-up easier.)  

Bake for 10 minutes – they’ll be very soft, but brown on the bottom. Cool for five minutes on the cookie sheet, then move to a rack or a flat surface to cool completely before glazing.  (I’ve never owned a cookie rack. I cool them on a cutting board. Pathetic, I know.)

ALMOND GLAZE

1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons milk

Place ingredients in a small bowl and stir with a spoon until smooth. If it seems too thick, add more milk. If it’s too thin, add more sugar. The glaze should be smooth and spreadable.

Close your eyes and imagine a deep velvety peanut butter cookie with a sprinkling of crunchy peanuts on top. Now picture a generous stripe of raspberry jam shot through the middle. It’s moist, rich, salty, and sweet. A cold swig of milk leaves your palate refreshed and ready for more. You don’t have to be a kid to appreciate this.

There was a time in my life when peanut butter and jelly conjured images of sticky fingers and gluey mouthfuls. I considered it kid food, in a league with goldfish crackers, mac and cheese from a box, and chicken fingers. Kid food wasn’t anything I’d really want to eat, unless there was a natural disaster or something. Regardless, I eventually rediscovered peanut butter and jelly and fell in love.

I don’t remember the exact circumstances. I was probably raiding my son’s snacks while passing the time at the playground (which is an excellent candidate for one of Dante’s circles of hell, if you ask me). Anyway, I found that the PB&J sandwich actually holds some interest. The salty and sweet do a respectable cat-and-mouse with each other. Jam is a comforting condiment. And salted peanuts have a lot going on. Put one on your tongue and savor it for a second. It tastes like earth, sky, and a balmy sea.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars bring out the best in these humble pantry staples. These bars are not for dieters, or heart patients. They should probably come with a health warning. Numbers aren’t really my thing, but one bar contains approximately 90,000 calories and 4,000 grams of fat. Or something like that. This recipe makes about 1,000 of them. You do the math.

The first time I made these, 18 ounces of jam struck me as excessive. So I used about half that amount, which was a mistake. It turns out the bars really need all that jam to contrast with the buttery richness of the rest. So the second time I used the full 18 ounces. In truth, it was a bit much. But it worked. Go ahead and embrace the fact that these bars are altogether excessive. Now is not the time to succumb to any inclinations you might have towards restraint. And one other thing I learned from experience: Don’t attempt to cut these when they are even a little bit warm, or they’ll fall apart. They take forever to cool (about 217 hours), so plan accordingly.

PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY BARS – Adapted from Ina Garten’s recipe
makes one 9 x 13 pan – about 32 bars

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 18-ounce jar creamy peanut butter (I used Skippy, because Ina told me to.)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/2  cups raspberry jam (18 ounces)
2/3 cups salted peanuts, coarsely chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Grease and flour a 9 x 13 by glass pan.

Cream the butter and sugar with a mixer on medium speed until fluffy, about two minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the vanilla, eggs, and peanut butter and mix until all ingredients are combined.

With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the flour, baking powder, and salt to the peanut butter mixture. Mix just until combined.

Spread 2/3 of the dough into the bottom of the prepared pan. Spread the jam evenly over the dough. Drop small globs of the remaining dough over the jam. Don’t worry if all the jam isn’t covered. The dough will spread as it bakes. Sprinkle with chopped peanuts and bake for 45 minutes, until golden brown.

Cool and cut into squares. Alert your cardiologist.

Our son started kindergarten today. If you knew what a mama’s boy he is, you might expect me to do a little victory dance in the living room.  Don’t get me wrong. It’s mighty flattering to be his earth, moon, and stars. But it’s a lot of pressure, too. It leads me to say unkind things like “For the love of God, must you be touching me, or talking to me (or both) EVERY waking minute of your day?” To which he replies in his guileless way: “I just like to be near you.”

Behind his back, I’ve been known to refer to my child as a barnacle. I know. That’s not nice. And he is nice. Incredibly, almost unbelievably nice.  It’s quite a dance we do. He wants me closer all the time, and he’s so damn sweet about it. He lights up every time he sees me. I covet some breathing room. But still, I’d do anything to fill the needy spaces in that sensitive little heart.

So anyway, off he went, like kids do. And in my mind’s eye, I started fast-forwarding through the long string of inevitable goodbyes. Trust me when I tell you this is not a good idea. I caught a little weak-kneed glimpse of the loss he seems to wrestle every time I walk out the door. I didn’t wail and grab his legs and howl through a river of snot, like he did when he was one or two. I didn’t bravely blink back the tears, like he did at three or four. I gave a little wave and a resigned smile. Like a kindergartner. But I must admit, goodbye took my breath away today. It was a visceral longing. I take back all that barnacle talk. I do. All I wanted today was to take him home, so he could follow me in and out of every room, talking and touching incessantly, like he does. I just like to be near him. 

As luck would have it, his adoration of me didn’t wane on his first day of kindergarten. But someday it will. That day, you may just find me howling through a river of snot. I’ll be the one with the gale force wind blowing through the needy spaces in my sensitive little heart. So there you have it. I’m a big old walking, talking, sniffling cliché of motherhood on this, my child’s first day of school. 

It seemed like a good idea to cook something sweet. Very sweet. Like this nectarine upside-down cake. For the cake, I borrowed Molly Wizenberg’s French Style Yogurt Cake recipe. You can buy her wonderful cookbook here. I’m sure she never intended this cake to be turned upside-down, but it worked like a charm. The cake is moist and light. The texture is perfection. Better yet, it requires nothing but a measuring cup, a big bowl, and a wooden spoon. Her recipe is for a lovely lemon cake with lemon glazes. I made mine vanilla. Oh, and I added the brown sugar and butter and nectarines and that whole upside-down business. That part was just a shameless ploy to score points with my son before he grows up and leaves me.

This cake is FAST! It’s not exaggerating to say that when I got home from work at 1:30, cake was the farthest thing from my mind. And when I left home at 2:30 to pick up my son from school, the cake was cooling on the counter. In between I had to dream up the upside-down part, and raid the fruit bowl, and rustle through cookbooks for a simple, delicious cake recipe. A more balanced person than I could have this cake in the oven in under fifteen minutes. It’s pretty, with that fruit design. Even better, it’s sinfully tasty. The brown sugar and fruit form a sticky, decadent layer that gives way to the old-fashioned white cake beneath, soft and not-too-sweet. With a cold glass of milk, it makes for a memorable after-school snack. At least I won’t forget it anytime soon.

NECTARINE UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE

4 tablespoons butter
½ cup brown sugar
3 nectarines, sliced into 1/4 inch slices.
½ cup plain whole-milk yogurt (not lowfat)
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
½ cup canola oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt butter in a nonstick, oven-proof 10-inch skillet over medium-low heat.

Add brown sugar and stir. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about three minutes. Remove pan from heat. (If you don’t have an oven-proof skillet, pour the melted butter and brown sugar mixture into a cake pan and follow the recipe from here…)

Arrange nectarine slices on top of the brown sugar mixture in the bottom of the skillet (or cake pan).

In a large bowl, combine the yogurt, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir until well blended.

Add the flour, baking powder, and salt, mixing to just combine.

Add the oil and stir until you have a smooth, consistent batter.

Pour batter slowly on top of the nectarines, taking care not to move the fruit. I couldn’t quite fit all the batter into the skillet, but I got all but about a half cup in there.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the cake feels springy to the touch and a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool cake in pan for about 15 minutes. Place a plate upside down over the pan, then flip them simultaneously, while holding the plate onto the pan, so that you invert the cake onto the plate. Lift pan off cake. Replace any fruit that moved around during the flipping process.

Clafouti is a simple, custardy fruit concoction. It’s also a richly deserving home for those plums loitering in your fruit bowl.  You could try other fruits, too.  Consider this recipe a blank canvas for your fruity whims. Clafouti. It’s fun to say. It rhymes with snooty and booty, if you’ve got a hankering to write a limerick. (Keep it clean, people.)

Making this required distracting my child for the time it took to slice, whisk, pour, photograph, and write about the whole thing. Will I be named Mother of the Year for whipping up yet another fabulous homemade dessert with fresh seasonal fruit? Or will I be inducted into the Bad Mother Hall of Fame for letting my five-year-old watch Tom and Jerry reruns on a glorious summer morning? (“Ha ha ha, Mom.  You should see this. The cat stuck a stick in a snowball, and lit it, and it exploded.”)  Yes, well. Sacrifices must be made.

The recipes I read all said to mix the batter in a blender or a food processer. I used a whisk and a bowl, because it seemed simpler. That resulted in some unsightly flour clumps, because I grew bored of whisking after about thirty seconds. The lesson: Either use the blender, or whisk with with a little gumption, for crying out loud. The batter should be smooth.

(Why do I persist in not following recipes to the letter? Maybe because in my heart of hearts, I suspect people take perverse pleasure in making things seem harder than they really are. Are all those steps REALLY necessary? When my shortcuts work out, I feel all smug and superior. When they backfire, I feel all foolish and predictable.)

The clafouti came out of the oven gloriously puffed. It slumped as it cooled, but that’s just how it goes with calfouti. Or so I’ve read. This was my first attempt. There will most certainly be more. I don’t mind that it tastes better than it looks. Cherry clafouti is calling my name.

Claufouti is best served warm.  I am here to tell you that it is silky, sweet, and sumptuous served warm. If it happens to reach the ideal temperature at 10:30 in the morning….well, who’s going to stop you? I’d like to believe that eating warm clafouti on the porch with his mom had a bigger impact on my son’s psyche this morning than cartoon explosions.

Clafouti recipes abound. They’re all variations on the same fruit-custard theme. I cobbled this together after skimming half a dozen recipes, so I can’t properly attribute it. Nobody owns clafouti, right?

PLUM CLAFOUTI

3 large plums, pitted and sliced into eight wedges each
½ cup plus one tablespoon sugar
4 eggs
1 cup milk
½ cup flour
¼ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 tablespoon brandy
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
confectioners’ sugar

Put rack in middle of oven and preheat to 375 degrees.

Butter a nine-inch cake pan.

Spread plums in one layer on bottom of pan. Sprinkle one tablespoon sugar over plums.

Blend together eggs, milk, flour, salt, butter, brandy, extract and remaining ½ cup sugar until smooth.

Pour batter over plums.

Bake clafouti until it is puffed and golden and the center is set, about 45 minutes. (The center will be a little jiggly. It’s meant to be soft. If it looks flat-out liquid, keep cooking.)

Cool clafouti for ten minutes on a rack.

Dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve warm.

Guilt is a powerful motivator. I’ll start with the confession.  My friend Sarah left some of these cookies on our porch, wrapped individually in red-and-white checked paper, and nestled on a tiny scalloped tray. She’s like that. She doesn’t just bring a thoughtful surprise. She wraps the thoughtful surprise in a charming package with a bow.

There was one cookie for each of us. In the course of a few hours, I ate all three. It was gluttonous and wrong on many levels. My conscience has been hounding me ever since that greedy greed fest.

And so I bring you cookie penance. If there’s anyone whose spirits you’d like to lift, or if you’re feeling contrite about that thing you did (you know who you are), I recommend you buy yourself some butter and get started.

For me, it was like this: The overflowing basket of clothes was STILL sitting there, not folding itself. Emails were backing up. The dishwasher needed emptying. But rather than bite the bullet and cross a few tasks off my list, I broke out the mixer and three sticks of butter.

A good cookie can put any pile of laundry into perspective. These beauties are just the ticket for existential grumpiness.  How grumpy can you be, really, with velvety chocolate and vanilla having a dance party in your mouth?  Oreos will never again cross your lips. They are feeble imposters.

By my standards (which are really low, or really high, depending on your perspective) these cookies are the teensiest bit fussy. Despite the short ingredient list, you still have to make cookies AND filling. I won’t lie to you. That means washing the mixer and bowl twice. I know, I know. The blog is called “Unfussy Fare.” But rules are made to be broken, and in this case it’s worth it. Life’s petty concerns will wait for an hour. They can hang out in the corner, with the dust bunnies.  You’ve got amends to make.

The chocolate shortbread cookie recipe came from Sarah, who tells me it was originally Martha Stewart’s. Sarah also helped me realize I could make up my own vanilla filling, which I did. If you like a more refined-looking cookie, you can take more care than I did to roll, cut, and fill them evenly. Mine are, shall we say, rustic-looking. That’s because I am lazy and I cut corners wherever I can.

CHOCOLATE COOKIE SANDWICHES WITH VANILLA FILLING
makes 18 sandwiches

1 ½ cups flour
¾ cup cocoa
½ teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk together flour, cocoa, and salt.

In a mixer, beat sugar and butter together until fluffy.

Add egg and beat until mixed.

On low speed, add dry ingredients. Mix until the dry ingredients are incorporated.

Shape the dough into two round discs about one inch thick. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and chill for one hour. If the dough is too sticky to roll out, chill it some more. If it’s too hard, let it warm up a little.

Roll the dough out on a well-floured cutting board until it is ¼ inch thick.

Cut cookies with a two inch cookie cutter (or an espresso cup, if you’re me and you don’t have a two-inch cookie cutter). Gather up the scraps, roll them out, and cut a few more cookies.

Bake on a parchment-lined cookie sheet for 12 minutes, or until they look dry to the touch.

Cool cookies completely.

VANILLA FILLING

¾ cup powdered sugar
6 tablespoons butter, room temperature
¾ teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon milk

Beat ingredients together with a mixer until smooth.

Spread one tablespoon of filling on the flat side of a cool cookie. Top with another cookie.