Next Up: Muffins

No, not English muffins, just good ol’ American-style muffins. I get steady requests for muffin recipes, and I figure now’s a good time. Shall we then?

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Random Notes on Basque Cuisine

My old Basque roommate didn’t like to talk very much, but when he was in the mood to speak he talked about two things: politics (most often) and food. Until I met him I’d never known a person who’d prefer to go hungry than eat food that didn’t meet his standards. I remember one evening he came in late from a study session having missed the evening meal. I suggested he go down to the dorm kitchen, grab a few slices of sandwich bread and a hunk off a big block of cheese that was in the refrigerator (I cooked there a few days a week). He paused, then turned and looked at me gravely. “That is not food, those are war rations,” he said, then turned away and went to bed.

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Lotta Yellow Cake Questions

Regarding yellow cake, reader Sandra submits a flurry of interesting questions:

What about the fat used? Oil or butter? Cake method or muffin method? In this times, when healthy rules, what do you think to use oil for a cake? In your opinion which are the main differences in the crumb using oil instead of butter? Baking powder appears at the end of 1800 right? Do you know how Careme use to do his fluffy cakes for Maria Antoniette?

Hey Sandra! Butter is undoubtedly the preferred fat for an American-style layer cake. The flavor of butter is, at least to my way of seeing things, a crucial component of the overall flavor profile. That’s not to say that layer cakes can’t be made with oil. Oil cakes are generally quite moist and tender because the fat remains liquid even after the cake has cooled. However they can be tender to the point of being wet inside depending on how much oil is used. They can also weep oil, which I find rather unappealing. In general I’m not a fan of oil cakes, though I confess I have a soft spot for Italian olive oil cakes, which have a very unusual flavor.

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How Old is Gâteau Basque?

Very hard to say, reader Don. Obviously this version has baking powder in it, which would make it a relatively recent invention. Yet somehow I have a feeling that chemical leavening only came to gâteau Basque this past century. Unleavened, yet still sweetened and enriched versions probably go back a few hundred years, and unsweetened […]

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On Yellow Cake Layers

Reader Rosemarie writes in with an interesting question:

Of all the cakes, including Sponge, Chiffon, Genoise… which type do you think is the CLOSEST in light consistency and texture to a boxed yellow cake mix for a layer cake? I tried a Sponge, which although spongy, the air holes are bigger and the crumb is more coarse. My jelly roll is most like it but I can tell that it wouldn’t have the strength to bear up under frosting and other layers. I think it has to have some fat content.

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On Basque Cherries

Basque Country is known for many things, among them meat and fish, but also cherries. That makes sense in that it’s a mountainous region located right at the far-Western edge of where France and Spain meet, where the Pyrénée mountains hit the Bay of Biscay. Basque black cherries thrive all around the area in the cool high-altitude climate, however the most famous come from a town called ltxassou.

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Um..excuse me…what exactly would a “good luck swastika” be?

I had a feeling somebody might bite on that little morsel of blogger bait. Reader Wendy, I made up that term, but it’s a fair paraphrasing of what the symbol meant prior to its adoption by the Nazis. The swastika is one of mankind’s oldest symbols. In fact it’s so old nobody really knows exactly what it means anymore. Swastikas have been used at one time or another just about everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, from Japan all the way around to the pre-Columbian Americas, where it was a sacred image among peoples as diverse as the Mississippeans, Navajo and the Kuna of Panama.

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The Cross and the Swastika

Several folks weighing in so far telling me what they want to see as the filling in the gâteau Basque. As I mentioned below, classically they come in fruit versions (usually black cherry) and pastry cream versions. In Basque country they generally make one or the other. And while French pastry makers like Daniel Boulud no doubt make a great French gâteau Basque that combines both, the French aren’t Basque — just ask any Basque person, even and especially the French Basques.

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