Call me if you buy this 2,400 page modernist cuisine cookbook. The title is Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking and it arrived last Monday! But not to my house. Amazon already has it on sale for $467.62. It weighs 49 pounds in a five- volume package. It all started with a Microsoft millionaire, Nathan Myhrvold who loves science and cooking and the combined science of the two. At one time 36 people worked with him on this project without a pesky publisher telling him to cut back on the number of pages and pictures. This guy had the money and proved it with a technically inspired behemoth of a cookbook! He is keenly interested in food and what makes it taste and look good. Sometimes, I simply want to cook it and eat it and I don't care what makes it come out the way it does. (I make trash ,too, and want it gone but I don't care to see the dump.) But, good for him. Modernist Cuisine delves most deeply into a realm of cooking called molecular gastronomy, the study of the physical and chemical processes that occur in cooking. Sounds yummy! But no thanks. This set might be excellent text books for the culinary arts.
When I traveled to London many times a year I always looked forward to the week end, Saturday afternoons, maybe Sundays, when Nigella Lawson would cook on TV. She is a beauty who has an easy gait in the kitchen and who loves to eat at all hours of the day and night. If she rides in a cab, you can be sure a sandwich is tucked in her purse, just in case. She is on TV in America too, at odd times on the food network. I never get to see her any more because of the changing (times) schedule which she is offered in the USA. This marble cake recipe is adapted from Feast by Nigella Lawson. She is not a complicated cook and she offers simple, reasonable, recipes with nary a mention of molecular gastronomy yet I bet she knows all about the subject.
Marble Cake:
1 1/2 sticks of soft unsalted butter
1/4 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp.baking powder
zest of 1 orange, plus 3 tbs. of its juice
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 tbs. unsweetened cocoa powder 1 tsp. instant espresso powder
1 tbs. milk
Makes about 20 slices (and Nigella could eat them all in one day.) LOL
Preheat oven to 350
Generously grease a 9-inch pan or rind mold.
Place butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking soda, baking powder and orange zest into the bowl of a food processor and whiz until combined. With a spatula, scrape sides of bowl, the add orange juice and vanilla and whiz until just combined. Spoon batter out of processor and divide between two bowls. In another small bowl, combine cocoa and espresso, whisking in milk until creamy. Fold this mixture into one of the cake batter bowls; color will darken. Pour batter into greased pan, alternating between dark and light batters.
Bake 35 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool 10 minutes before inverting.
See, it can be done without a mention of culinary movements through history, microbiology in the kitchen or the physics of food and water. Just mix it in a bowl, put it in a pan, bake it, eat it.
Lemon drizzle cake (the English have such wonderful names for things)
Ingredients:
2 large eggs
6 ounces sugar
5 ounces soft butter or margarine
1 lemon, grated zest only
6 ounces super-sifted self-raising flour
4 ounces milk
pinch of sea salt
***For the lemon syrup:***
5 ounces icing sugar
1 lemon, juiced
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350. Line the bottom of a well-oiled (9 x 5 x 3in) loaf tin with baking parchment. Put the eggs and sugar in the bowl of the food processor and process for 2 minutes, scraping the sides down once with a rubber spatula. Take off the lid and drop spoonfuls of the soft butter or margarine on top of this mixture, together with the lemon zest, then pulse just until it disappears. The mixture should now resemble mayonnaise. Add the flour, milk and salt, cover and pulse just until the mixture is smooth in texture and even in colour, scraping the sides down with a rubber spatula if necessary. Do not over-beat or the cake will be tough. Spoon the cake mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes, until golden brown on top and firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and stand the tin on a cooling rack. To make the syrup, gently heat the sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan, stirring until a clear syrup is formed, about 3 minutes. Do not boil. Prick the warm cake all over with a fork, then gently pour the syrup over it, until it has been completely absorbed. Leave until cool, then carefully ease the cake from the baking tin and remove the baking parchment. Just before serving, sift a little more icing sugar on the top. Serve in generous slices.
