178. Oatmeal Coconut Raspberry Bars (p. 692)

A few weeks ago, it was my wife's turn to host playgroup. In theory, the purpose of playgroup is for the babies to get to interact with each other. But, I have a suspicion that it's at least as much about the moms getting together to gossip ... and to eat. So, I wasn't surprised when my wife asked me to make something for her to serve to "the girls." I picked this recipe, and hoped they'd like it.

These were great, and pretty easy to make. In fact, I made them on a weeknight, which is a pretty good measure of how simple a recipe is. I usually get home from work pretty late, so, if I'm going to make something before bed, it's got to be quick and easy.

First, I toasted some sweetened, flaked coconut. After some less than stellar results in the past, I'm finally getting the hang of toasting coconut in the oven. The key is to stir it a couple of times while it toasts, and to keep a very close eye on it, since it can burn in a matter of seconds. Next, I pulsed together some flour, brown sugar and white sugar in the food processor. I added some cold butter, cut up into pieced, and pulsed it until a dough began to form. Then I transferred the dough to a large mixing bowl, and using my hands, kneaded in some old-fashioned oats and the toasted coconut.

To assemble the bars, I pressed the dough into the bottom of a baking dish, reserving some for the topping. I spread some seedless raspberry jam over the dough, and then sprinkled the reserved dough over the jam.

After the bars were baked, I removed them from the pan. The Book says to "loosen from sides of pan with a sharp knife, then lift out in 1 piece and transfer to a cutting board." Hmmm, sounds like a disaster in the making. So, to make it easier to remove the bars from the pan, I made an aluminum foil "sling." Before I put the dough into the pan, I lined it with the foil and let the foil overhang the edges of the pan. I was able to just lift the foil sling out of the pan and then cut the bars into 24 pieces.

These bars were delicious. Very sweet, and with a nice crunchiness from the oats and coconut, and a rich gooeyness from the jam. I think that the moms at playgroup liked them. I brought the leftovers to work, where they were gobbled up in a matter of minutes.

Date Cooked: July 6, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A

112. Raspberry Sauce (p. 876)

This could be one of the easiest recipes in The Book. All you do is blend together some raspberries, sugar and lemon juice until it's a smooth puree. Strain it through a fine mesh sieve, and discard the solids. That's it.

The main recipe calls for frozen raspberries in syrup, but the Cook's Notes say that you can use fresh, you just need to add a bit more sugar. I found some great-looking fresh raspberries at the store, so I chose to make it that way.

This was a delicious sauce. It was sweet and tart and very fresh-tasting. And versatile, too. I made it to go with the Chocolate Souffle that I made for Valentine's Day. Then I also served it with the Key Lime Pie that I'll blog about soon. It was the perfect compliment for both. Tomorrow morning, I'm even going to try it on oatmeal. I'll let you know how that tastes.

Date Cooked: February 14, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Very Easy
Rating: B

39. Apricot Raspberry Pie (p. 763)

On Saturday, we had dinner with our good friends Tricia and Kenny, and their adorable, thirteen-month-old son, Jack. We ate at Amrhein' s, an upscale neighborhood joint in South Boston where they serve comfort food on crack. My wife had a an outrageous chicken pot pie and a rich clam chowder garnished with a clam fritter. I had macaroni and cheese with ... wait for it ... lobster! The food was excellent, and it almost made up for the huge piece of broken glass at the bottom of Tricia's beer glass (Eeek!). After dinner, we went back to Tricia and Kenny's place to enjoy pie and good conversation on their deck.

I wanted to make this recipe while apricots and raspberries were still in season. I went to my local mega-mart to pick up the fruit I needed for the pie, but much to my dismay, they didn't have a single apricot. Not even one. But, you'll never guess what they did have ... the sour cherries I was looking for last week for my cherry pie. How's that for timing? But now that I know how hard they are to come by, I decided to buy all that they had, three pints. Here, I have to make a little aside about my glorious cherries.

I took the cherries home, washed them, pitted them, and froze them. So, I was going to tell you how much I love my cherry pitter. This seriously is the best kitchen invention ever. I've never used a kitchen gadget that was so perfectly suited to its task. There are lots of kitchen tools that don't work that great, or that do something that you just don't need a separate tool to do. But pitting an cherry or olive without one of these babies would be an impossibly frustrating job. Even if you only pit cherries once in your life, it's well worth it to have a pitter. As I worked my way through my three pints of cherries, I developed a nice rhythm, and it was a pretty pleasant and zen-like chore. In the end, I had over nine cups of frozen sour cherries packed away full of promise and possibility.

OK, back to the pie. I went to another grocery store in search of apricots, and ... success! Eight juicy apricots wrapped in that uniquely velvety skin. The filling for this pie is made up of apricot wedges, raspberries, sugar, cornstarch and just a bit of salt.


I put it into a pie plate with a rolled-out round of The Book's Basic Pastry Dough. This is the second time I've made pastry dough in just as many weeks, and you know what they say about practice making perfect. Well, I wouldn't say that it was perfect, but it was better, and easier to make and roll. I topped the pie with an egg wash and a generous sprinkling of sugar and popped it in the oven. Even though the oven temperature gets turned down after the first few minutes, the edges of the crust were still browning too fast. To keep them from burning, I pulled out my trusty pie shields. These little wonders have been knocking around in our kitchen junk drawer for a few years. I'm not even sure where they came from, and I only just recently learned what they were for.

As you can see from the photo at the beginning of this post, the finished pie wasn't going to win any beauty contests. The filling oozed out onto the top crust, and I was a couple of minutes late in putting the pie shields on, so the crust was a little dark around the edges. But what it lacked in good looks, the pie made up in taste. The crust was flaky and delicious. The sprinkling of sugar gave the crust a nice sweetness and just a little bit of crispiness. The flavor of the filling was an intense combination of sweet and tart, and it had a beautiful magenta color. It reminded me of the strawberry rhubarb pie that my grandmother made when I was a kid with rhubarb from her garden. This was an excellent and unusual celebration of some of summer's best fruits. A real treat.

Date Cooked: August 10, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

32. Lemon Semolina Cake with Raspberries and Whipped Cream (p. 708)

I really didn't know what to expect from this recipe, since it's so different from any other cake I've ever made. But, in the end, I was very happy with how it turned out, and I'll probably make it again when I'm looking for an impressive-looking, yet easy-to-make dessert for a spring or summer gathering.

The first thing that's unusual about the cake is its use of semolina flour. Up until I came across this recipe, I had only ever heard of semolina in the pasta context. So, when I went to the grocery store to look for semolina flour, all I was able to find was pasta flour. It said "semolina" on the box, so I figured that it must be the right thing. But I just learned, thanks to Wikipedia, that there are two kinds of semolina: durum semolina (which is made from hard wheat and is used to make pasta and couscous) and soft wheat semolina (which is also known as farina or, more commonly, as Cream of Wheat). So, I'm not sure if I used the right thing, but I don't really care since I was happy with the end result.

Another strange thing about the recipe is the inclusion of ground almonds in the cake. The Book calls for exactly twelve whole blanched almonds, finely ground in the food processor and incorporated into the batter. Why twelve? Would something horrible happen if I used thirteen almonds? Since I'm still in the early stages of The Project, I haven't yet acquired the bravado to flout The Book's directives, and so twelve almonds it was. But I'm still puzzled by their inclusion. The Book's blurb says that the ground almonds give the cake a "pleasant grainy texture." They did. But beyond that, it wasn't clear what else they contributed to the cake. There wasn't any perceptible almond flavor. And anyway, since when is "grainy texture" a positive attribute in a cake? Next time I make this, I'll probably leave them out. (See, that bravado is already starting to develop.)

The last wierd thing, at least for me, was the absence of any chemical leavening agent, like baking powder or soda. Instead, the lift in this cake comes from the beaten egg whites folded into the lemon-juice-and-zest-infused batter just before baking. The fluffy egg whites, along with the absence of any butter or other fat, make for a very light, airy cake. If I knew more about my cake types, I could tell you if it technically qualified as a "sponge cake," but it clearly had that light, springy texture that you'd expect a sponge cake to have.


After the cake comes out of the oven, with a nice golden top I might add, you let it cool in the pan for ten minutes and then invert it after running a paring knife around the edge a couple of times. You let it cool completely, and then slice it horizontally. I've done this a few times before, but it always makes me very nervous. Here's the beautiful cake that you've slaved over, and, just like that, you could wreck it with one little slip of the knife. When you're frosting the cake, you can salvage some errors by covering them over with the frosting. Here, the cake is unfrosted, so there's no hiding. I held my breath and sliced. Miraculously, I was left with two perfect cake halves. (Not bad considering that my inexperience in this regard is exacerbated by the fact that my serrated knife is only eight inches long - the same length as the diameter of the cake. I really should get a bigger serrated knife if I'm going to be doing this kind of thing on a regular basis.)


The bottom cake half is topped with a half cup of plain whipped cream and six ounces of fresh raspberries. (I was really lucky to get some beautiful-looking and fresh-tasting raspberries at my local mega-market). I took this picture because it's just so gosh darn pretty that it's a shame to cover it up with the other cake half, but that's exactly what The Book tells you to do. The next time I make this, I might repeat the whipped cream and raspberries on the top as well as the middle. (More bravado by the minute!) Would that be too much whipped cream? Is there such a thing as too much whipped cream?

The cake is finished off with a dusting of confectioner's sugar. (The raspberry garnish on top was my idea.) As I said at the beginning of this post, I was really happy with how this cake turned out. It was sweet and delicious while still being light and airy. The cake has a great spongy texture (With the "pleasant graininess" from the almonds. Whatever!) and just a hint of lemon flavor. At first I was surprised that the whipped cream isn't sweetend or flavored with anything, but after I took a bite, I realized that I wouldn't want it anyother way. The slight tang of the plain whipped cream was a nice counterpoint to the super-sweet raspberries.

Finally, I was really happy that the cake held up well to refrigeration. I was worried that the whipped cream would deflate and leave a yucky, creamy mess. But, we were able to enjoy the cake days after I made it.

Date Cooked: July 27, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-