The space I’m clearing is chock ablock full of computers, CD’s, video games, books, and one of my mother’s metal recipe boxes.  I think I have six of them scattered around the house (time to pass some on to the nieces) and this one probably should not have been stored precariously on an upper shelf as a head wound waiting to happen. I levered it down and started to go through the cards and now I’m making a blog post rather than continuing to clear out new studio space. There was just no resisting categories like Dream Cakes, Not-Bad Fudge, and Risin – which turned out to be cakes made with yeast, not misspelled raisins. Or neuro-toxins.

I need snack food for a meeting on Monday, so tonight I’m starting the Connecticut Raised Loaf Cake, below. It is neatly typed on onion skin paper and the folds have worn thin but there’s very little spatter. There was a similar recipe on the next card attributed to Elsie Dresser Barnard but it makes 5 loaves and requires a fifth of brandy so I’ll wait to try that another time. Not that there’s anything wrong with adding 4 C of alcohol to a cake recipe, not at all.I can already tell that I’ll have to publish a post with all the changes I’ve made to this recipe. I added the shortening – where I used unsalted butter and my mother would have used Crisco – to the scalded milk, both to cool it quickly to a good temperature for the yeast and to avoid having to melt it separately later in the process. I plan to double the mace and nutmeg but then I find myself increasing the spice amounts with every old recipe. Were my grandmother’s flavorings that much more potent? Or her taste buds less spoiled by extremes? I imagine it’s the latter, in the days before candy bars came in flavors like dark-chocolate-pasilla chili-cayenne-cinnamon.

This recipe for “Caraque Cookies” is next in line. Three and a half sticks of butter, 6 egg yolks, filling AND icing – perfect for celebrating Valentine’s Day.

Today’s chrysanthemum drawing, 10 x 15 inches, charcoal on rag paper

Excerpted from “In Reference to her Children, 23 June 1659″

By Anne Bradstreet

• 3 very ripe (very soft) persimmons (1 1/4 lb total)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon mace (or ground cloves)
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup loosely packed dried pitted dates (5 oz), finely chopped
• 1 cup walnuts or pecans (3 1/2 oz), finely chopped

• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/8 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a 15- by 10-inch shallow cookie sheet/baking pan (1 inch deep).

If you have time, toast the nuts and then chop small in a food processor. Dump them out into a small bowl and chop the dates (you don’t have to clean the food processor between any of these steps) add to the nuts. Discard dried green or brown calyx (stem and leaves) from each persimmon, and scoop out the pulp into the food processor. Process until smooth. I’ve been making this recipe for a while and before I had a food processor I had to force the pulp through a sieve into a bowl, using a rubber spatula – which you can do but it’s a lot more work. Not to mention chopping walnuts and dates all day long. Transfer 1 to 1 1/2 cup purée to a small bowl and stir in lemon juice and baking soda. (The cake doesn’t change much with the varied amount of fruit.) The mixture will become foamy, then jell slightly.

Sift together flour, salt, and spices in another small bowl.

Whisk together egg, sugar, and oil in a large bowl until just combined. Add flour mixture and persimmon pulp stirring until just combined. Stir in nuts and dates.

Spread batter evenly in baking pan and bake until golden brown and a wooden pick or skewer inserted in center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool completely in pan on a rack.

Stir together all glaze ingredients until smooth, then spread over top of cooled cake.

Totally worth the wait. . .

We had two versions of buttermilk bread – seeded and unseeded – for our New Year’s dinner of roasted vegetables and cabbage-apple slaw last week. I promised our friend and dinner-guest S.P. the recipe, and now that it has been a week and I need a break from taking down the Christmas tree, here you go!

This recipe is adapted from Laurel Robertson’s “Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book” published in 1984 by the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation. As you might expect it’s a very calming, basic cookbook full of clunky woodcut illustrations and comprehensive descriptions of the rising process. I might not have purchased this book (perhaps thinking I knew enough about the basics) but then I inherited it from my father-in-law who was an engineer and appreciated this level of detail. Now I have to admit that some of my favorites have at least started with the incredibly in-depth instructions from Laurel’s Kitchen.

Buttermilk Bread (APo’s abbreviated version)

1 Tbs SAF instant yeast *, 5 1/2 (or a little more) C all purpose flour, 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar

1 C very hot water,  and 1 1/4 C well-shaken cold buttermilk

4 Tbs softened butter, 2 Tbs olive oil

Using the “bread blade”, combine 5 C of flour and the rest of the dry ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and pulse a few times to mix. Add the liquid and pulse until mostly mixed, add the butter in chunks. Add the remaining 1/2 C to C of flour if necessary and process/knead until smooth and the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl – about 45 seconds in my machine.

Dump the dough out onto a floured board and knead just a few turns, form into a ball. Add the olive oil to a large bowl and drop the dough in, rotating it so the oiled surface is on top. Cover with plastic wrap or a plate and a dish towel. This dough tends to be soft and sticky and will stick to a dry dishcloth draped over it. Let it rise in a warm place for an hour and a half.

If you have time for a second rise, flatten the dough slightly and let it rise again for about 45 minutes. If not, press it flat (sprinkle with sesame seeds or a seed mixture if you like) and divide into two. Let it rest for 5 minutes, then shape it into two rounds and place in pie plates. These rounds make very good dinner bread. Let the dough rise again in the pans, another hour if you have time.

Bake the rounds in preheated 325 F degree oven for nearly an hour. The crust will be brown but not hard, and the bread has a wonderful fine texture. Brush with more butter if desired.

This recipe makes excellent rolls and breadsticks. Bake the breadsticks at the same temperature and amount of time for maximum crunchiness. It keeps well, too, as Laurel Robertson points out, “when hidden”.

If you can manage to have enough for leftovers, this is our favorite bread for croutons, homemade bread crumbs, and “Toad in the Hole”.

*If using regular yeast, use 1/4 C of water at lukewarm to proof first, then proceed with the recipe as written.

Completing the seed order is the way I mark my own personal start of the new year. Yes, the canning cupboard is full of glass jars of produce, the Rubbermaid boxes of potatoes and carrots sit ready to eat on the cold cellar floor, the garden is still holding parsnips, kale, and leeks, but all of that is just so 2011. Selecting seed varieties is my first foray into the new year and a snapshot of Garden 2012.  Here’s the list (in no particular order) and some highlights of my favorites from the catalog:

225 – Royal Burgundy Bush Bean OG ( A=2oz) 1 x $1.90 = $1.90
297 – Multicolored Pole Bean Mix ( A=1/2oz) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
338 – Marfax Bean ( A=2oz) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
658 – Silver Queen White Sweet Corn ( B=8oz) 1 x $7.50 = $7.50
678 – Dakota Black Popcorn OG ( A=2oz) 1 x $2.60 = $2.60
818 – Oregon Giant Snow Pea ( A=2oz) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
842 – Mammoth Melting Sugar Snow Pea ( A=2oz) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
1035 – Halona Muskmelon ( A=1g) 1 x $1.90 = $1.90
1311 – Boothbys Blonde Slicing Cucumber OG ( A=0.5g) 1 x $1.00 = $1.00
1409 – Raven Zucchini ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.90 = $1.90
1457 – Costata Romanesca Zucchini OG ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.40 = $1.40
1635 – Sunshine Winter Squash ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $2.50 = $2.50
1718 – Winter Luxury Pumpkin OG ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.60 = $1.60
2058 – Red Cored Chantenay Carrot ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $0.80 = $0.80
2068 – Atomic Red Carrot OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.80 = $1.80
2073 – Shin Kuroda 5" Carrot ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $0.80 = $0.80
2099 – Over the Rainbow Carrot Mix ( A=1g) 1 x $2.40 = $2.40
2186 – Bulls Blood Beet ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.00 = $1.00
2267 – Green Meat Radish ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
2306 – Andover Parsnip OG ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.60 = $1.60
2376 – Gold Ball Turnip ( B=1/2oz) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
2425 – Bleu de Solaize Leek ( A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.70 = $1.70
2504 – Bordeaux Spinach ( A=1/4oz) 1 x $1.20 = $1.20
2555 – Giant Winter Spinach ( A=1/4oz) 1 x $1.30 = $1.30
2738 – Antares Lettuce OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
2983 – DeLuxe Lettuce Mix OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.60 = $1.60
2984 – Freedom Lettuce Mix OG ( A=1g) 1 x $2.20 = $2.20
2992 – Mesclun ( A=1g) 1 x $1.10 = $1.10
2993 – Greens Mix OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.20 = $1.20
3034 – Perpetual Spinach or Leaf Beet ( A=1/16oz) 1 x $0.90 = $0.90
3075 – Speckled Friz Chickendive OG ( A=1/16oz) 1 x $2.30 = $2.30
3122 – Minutina ( A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.30 = $1.30
3740 – Sweet Pimiento Sweet Pepper ECO ( A=0.2g) 1 x $1.20 = $1.20
5210 – Tanagra Lavatera ( A=1g) 1 x $1.10 = $1.10
5263 – Mignonette ( A=1g) 1 x $1.00 = $1.00
5280 – Alaska Nasturtium Mix ( A=2g) 1 x $1.00 = $1.00
5320 – Ziar Breadseed Poppy OG ( B=0.3g) 1 x $3.00 = $3.00
5331 – Flemish Antique Poppy OG ( A=0.2g) 1 x $1.10 = $1.10
5421 – Selma Suns Mix Sunflower OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.10 = $1.10
5441 – April in Paris Sweet Pea OG ( A=2g) 1 x $1.20 = $1.20
5455 – Mrs. Collier Sweet Pea ( A=2g) 1 x $1.00 = $1.00
5506 – Hopi Dye Sunflower OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.10 = $1.10
5960 – Purple Majesty Millet ( A=0.05g) 1 x $2.30 = $2.30
5970 – Duborskian Rice OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.60 = $1.60
6333 – Beneficials Mix ( B=7g) 1 x $7.50 = $7.50

Subtotal: = $80.20
Maine Sales Tax: + $4.01
Adjusted Total: = $84.21
Shipping: + $0.00
Grand Total: = $84.21

I did not include the prices last year and had to field a lot of budget questions later. My biggest costs in the garden are seeds and trees, and the seed portion averages right around $80.00. Trees/shrubs/perennials go about twice as much (in a good year when I can afford that), and equipment costs are another $50.00. This year I have to replace my 20 year-old shovel for instance, and in 2010 I replaced my sprayer.

Two items that I think will be fascinating additions to Garden 2012:

3075CO Speckled Friz Chickendive OG (70-90 days) Open-pollinated. Chicorium intybus x C. endivia Unique, chic greens from master breeder Frank Morton who crossed Wild Garden chicories with frisée, curly endive and escarole to develop this colorful flock of individuals, more tender than chicory, more cold hardy and ornamental than endive, with a mixture and flavor range that goes well beyond either and the sweet bitterness of a good endive. This gene-pool has variation, some plants open, others semi-headed, others with full heads. Has overwintered and been permutating at the MOFGA garden for the past six years.

2984FO Freedom Lettuce Mix OG An inspiring mix with plenty of surprises, this gene pool was created by Morton in what he called the “Hell’s Half-Acre lettuce trial” identifying those varieties most disease resistant and crossing them with his best-tasting varieties to select and recombine for excellent traits. Contains exceptional material including some experimental forms that would stand on their own as named varieties. Morton invites growers and breeders to work with this mix to create new varieties for their farms or for the general public, while stipulating that nothing derived from it may be patented or protected from others’ use in any way. This strategy, originated by software developers, is now known as copyleft (as opposed to traditional copyright). Morton has adopted it to keep his varieties and their derivatives in the public domain as a protected commons. Seeds as nature’s software! See wwwgnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html. for more information on copyleft. These days freedom is a rather slippery concept and many things are being done in its name that I don’t approve, but copyleft has the potential to return to free use such shared resources as our plant heritage that rightfully belong to all of us. As Morton proclaims, “Adaptive breeding cannot occur under a system of restrictive ownership.” Open-pollinated.

And finally, today’s garden photo: Fedco Harris Model parsnips still green on January second.

1 C unsalted butter softened, or melted and cooled; 3/4 C sugar, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1/2 tsp almond extract, 2 1/4 C white flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp baking powder.

Cream the butter and sugar well, beat in egg and extracts. Gradually blend in dry ingredients. Fill cookie press and form on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 37 degrees 10 – 12 minutes. Yields @ 60 cookies.

A few hints:

• Don’t chill the dough. The cold dough will be harder to push through the die and won’t stick as well to the cookie sheet, but
• DO chill the cookies once they are shaped on the cookie sheet. The shapes will hold up better in the oven.
• Avoid handling the dough. It will soften almost immediately in the heat of your hands. If you need to scrape the sides of the barrel or clean residue off to change dies (and you will), use a spatula or a kitchen knife.
• If you use food coloring don’t color the dough all at once. Instead, fill the press canister with plain dough and add a few drops of color near the top. As you press cookies out, add more plain dough and then more food coloring. Better than tie-dye, and makes the dough less “stiff” than mixing it in.

I lived in Philadelphia in the 70′s and had a wide selection of part time jobs while I went to art school. Around Christmas-time I worked evenings at an Italian bakery that had plaster models of fantastical wedding cakes in the windows and specialized in traditional, labor-intensive treats for the holidays. We made anise biscotti and weird sponge cakes filled with lemon cream, almond crescents, white fruit cakes studded with golden raisins and sprinkled with gold leaf, but mostly we made seven-layer-cookies. Pink, white and green almond cake layers with apricot filling and a chocolate frosting on both sides, we made them in huge sheet pans, sold them all to happy housewives the next day and spent the night making more. I know all about how to make them in a bakery , with a walk-in freezer and professional ovens, but I’d never thought of making them at home until I read this post at SmittenKitchen.

I love this site and I’ve found that I can completely trust her work. So – hop right over there and read the recipe, study the comments, and then take tomorrow off to make cookies! Let me know how it goes.

One hint that’s not on SK’s list – at the bakery we added a 1/2 tsp of baking powder to the batter, and were free to add a Tbs (or more, if the ovens were blasting heat) of cream to the colored divisions right before laying them out in the pan. Both additions made the batter easier to spread in a thin, even layer. As a bonus, here’s a pic of the pink layer (colored with Ameri-Color Super Red gel paste) cooling on the table. Doesn’t that look like a fun way to spend an afternoon?

PS Because I just posted this and someone is already asking, the other cookies on the plate (equally delicious and a lot easier) are Excalibur cookies from Food from the Field’s blog. Great stuff!

In past years I’ve stored our hardy bonsai specimens in the bulkhead, but they are prone to damage from extremes of heat and cold, dry air and rodents. I’ve been reading about methods to winter the trees outdoors and the idea of burying them in the garden, as they do in Northern Japan, might solve those problems. We don’t have many non-hardy trees left in our collection because space by a window in our 20′ x 30′ cape is at a premium over the long winter.

For the trees that can spend the season outside, I dug the soil out of a bed close by the house and piled it on a tarp.

According to my very old and tattered Japanese paperback, the next step is to carefully place the pots in the bed. At least this is what I think is going on in the rather sketchy illustrations – I can’t read the text. Then dig out or fill in so that small pots are at the same level as the taller trees and point branches inward, rather than overhanging the outer edges of the bed where they might be broken or tripped over in deep snow.

I sprinkled Plantskydd rabbit and “small critter” repellent in and around the pots, and followed that with sprigs of tansy, lavender and garlic chive. I’ll put another layer on top when the bed is filled in. We have field mice, shrews, voles and red squirrels and, even though none of these bonsai are particularly edible, even the critter exploration can be damaging.  Then I filled the bed back in to the level of the pots with the reserved soil and tamped it gently into crevices to insulate against rapid changes in temperature. Watering the soil in helped, too.

Now the trees are overed over with a layer of insulating pine needles, another layer of rodent repellent, and waiting patiently for spring. If this works it will be how I store them going forward – it was a lot easier than carting the pots down cellar and making room.

Prettier, too.

I’ve been researching possible repairs since the snow melted enough to expose the break. Finally I came across a reference book  at a local library (crumbling tissue paper pages smeared with dirty fingerprints, the spine folded almost in half) with instructions for splinting a young tree. As long as there is still a strip of green cambium (the inner, living layer of bark that transmits nutrients and water up the trunk), this should work.

First, splint the trunk with a thin, flexible piece of wood or metal. I happened to have a scrap piece of ebony down cellar that would do. Thanks John and Ruth! Place the splint on the opposite side of the trunk from the intact layer and tie it in place at the top and bottom. Form a layer of clean melted beeswax around the break. (I melted about an oz of beeswax in a piece of foi, over a double boiler. It hardened into a paste on the way out to the tree – perfect.) Dip a strip of muslin in the wax and wrap the trunk, avoiding buds.

I finished this three days ago, and bud swell has continued on the upper branches. High hopes!