Gingerbread, whale sharks and cake pops oh my!

Hello, Life is Lemonade. I’m so sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written. Life has been very busy and full of lemonade making. Fall is the busiest time of year for my work at The Reynolds Group, and in addition to that – I’ve been working on a very special project that I hope I will be able to tell you more about in the New Year.

For now, though, I wanted to wish you happy holidays and catch you up on what’s been going on – and of course I couldn’t let this week go past without sharing a few recipes for this exciting time of year.

Every December, my family and I make a gingerbread house – it’s a festive, fun thing to share with your children (usually everyone ends up getting in on the act). We make it easy on ourselves by purchasing a gingerbread house kit; kits are easy to find at most Publix, Kroger and Michael’s as well as cake supply shops such as Cake Art in Tucker (or you can buy one online).

The kits make the entire process easy for you – they provide the baked pieces, candy decorations, plus icing tips and bags. They also come with icing, but I recommend you use royal icing rather than the icing that comes with the kit (it is runny and difficult to pipe – especially if you are beginner). Royal icing is perfect for this type of glue job and will hold its shape beautifully (I share the recipe, below).

When the beautiful ladies at “The Chat Room” heard from Atlanta magazine’s Richard Eldredge that I make a mean gingerbread house, they emailed to ask if I’d come on air and share some tips and fun with them. Shaunya Chavis and Kimberley Kennedy and their Sunday morning crew at 11 Alive WXIA-TV couldn’t have been more hospitable – my daughter (aka assistant, below to right) and I arrived and were treated like rock stars.

All in the family with "The Chat Room." What fun!

The show is taped at the Georgia Aquarium, which made the session even more magical. There’s nothing like piping a few icicles on the side of your gingerbread house while watching one of the aquarium’s whale sharks glide by. If Santa visits early at your house, wade through the wrapping paper and tune in this Christmas morning at noon to catch all the fun we had. If you want a step-by-step guide to gingerbread houses, my guide is still online with the AJC – complete with tell-all photos.

Even the fish get a visit from Santa!

In September, I presented a story I wrote for the AJC back in 2008 for “Chefs that Stir the Soul” at Theatrical Outfit in Atlanta. Four chefs – Steven Satterfield of Miller Union; Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene (and Holeman & Finch, H & F Bread Co. and H & F Bottle Shop), Cathy Conway of Avalon Catering and I all read from original works ranging from Linton’s “Ode to Butter” to Steven’s and Cathy’s stirring remembrances of times spent with their grandmothers, and the influence that had on their cooking and kitchen philosophies.

Linton and Steven backstage before the show.

The beautiful and talented Cathy Conway.

We all contributed to a bento box of goodies to eat, unveiled in the theater by the audience as we presented (I baked up a batch of lemon cake pops, of course!). This was an incredible evening for me, combining the three areas of my career(s) I had heretofore never been able to sew together in one place: writing, cooking and performing.

Lemon cake pops wrapped and ready for the show.

In November, I had the fun of recreating some of the recipes for “The Help,” originally created and styled by Lee Ann Flemming. The Southern stylist and food writer was in town promoting the recipes for the popular film, and needed a stylist (it’s awfully hard to bake spinach-stuffed squash, three cheesecake pecan pies, sweet potato casserole, Mamaw’s homemade rolls (her Mamaw – not mine) and “Mrs. Walter’s fruit salad” for an 8:30 a.m. visit to CBS Better Mornings). It was the first time in my career as a stylist and food writer that I used someone else’s recipes for a shoot instead of my own – and it was a thrill, too. Lee Ann’s cooking evokes lots of Southern goodness, and I made an extra batch of her rolls to freeze and bake for Christmas dinner.

Like Christmas dinner, only on TV!

Lee Ann and her publicists on the set.

That leads me to yesterday, when my kitchen was filled with a bevy of teenagers at my daughter’s 12th annual cookie party. This year, we eschewed cookies and went for – you guessed it – cake pops. A batch of chocolate and peppermint pops later, the girls all went home with a holiday tin-full.

I told you I was busy! So I hope you’ll forgive me for being such a stranger – I promise to write more often in 2012. In the meantime, share this blessed time of year with your loved ones and be happy and thankful for all that you have. I know I am. Remember, winter is a magical time. Its stillness leads to rebirth in the spring, and preparing for that is hard work.

Love to you and yours,

Meridith

Royal Icing

Makes about 3 cups

Hands on: 2 minutes

Total time: 7 minutes

Use this icing “glue” to put together a gingerbread house, or to pipe decorative designs on cakes and cookies. You can also use the recipe in the booklet inside the Wilton Meringue Powder canister.

4 cups confectioners’ sugar

3 tablespoons meringue powder

6 to 7 tablespoons warm water

With an electric mixer using a whip attachment, whip confectioners’ sugar, meringue powder and water in a bowl until incorporated, Continue beating on medium speed for 7 minutes. Keep the icing covered with a moist paper towel when not using.

Basic Cake Pops

Yield: 48 cake pops

1 box (18.25 ounces) cake mix (or a 9-x13-inch cake)

12-ounces frosting

48 ounces candy coating

Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare a 9-x13-inch pan for baking.

Bake the cake according to the instructions on the package. Let the cake cool completely (can be done a day ahead).

Crumble the cooled cake into a large mixing bowl with your hands. Add the frosting (if you are using ready-made frosting, you will only need ¾ of the can). Mix the frosting into the cake using a large spoon until completely combined.

Roll the mixture into 1 and ½-inch balls, place them on parchment-lined sheetpans, cover and place in the freezer for at least 15 – 20 minutes, or refrigerate for at least two hours. (Do not completely freeze the cake balls).

For dipping:

In a baine marie over a double boiler, melt the candy coating slowly, taking care not to overheat or get any water droplets in the coating. If the coating is too thick (it should pour from the end of a spoon in a thin, but not fine, stream), add one or two paramount crystals or a teaspoon of vegetable shortening (1 teaspoon: 2 pounds coating) to thin it out for smooth dipping.

While dipping, be sure to keep the cake balls chilled in the refrigerator.

Dip about ½-inch of a lollipop stick into the melted coating, then insert the stick into the cake balling, pushing it no more than halfway through.

Dip the cake ball into the coating and completely submerge the ball to coat, taking care to seal the pop to the stick with coating at the base. Twist the pop sideways to clear any drips. Place the pops in a Styrofoam block for drying. Decorate with sprinkles, etc., while the coating is almost set, but not wet. Decorate with piping, etc when the pops are completely dry.

August is hot and busy with making preserves

August has been an exceptionally busy month. For those of you who read Life is Lemonade regularly, please forgive my delay in posting something new: The first week of the month brought school, and with it, long, 12- to 14- hour days for my daughter and me. (I honestly wonder sometimes how we all make it through high school.) The quiet early mornings that I would normally spend writing have been taken up with work, school and a tyrant of a schedule. Add to that a blitz of birthdays: my husband, dad, mom and sister-in-law, and a canning class this past weekend at Cook’s Warehouse. Whew.

So, what’s up?

For me, late summer and early fall are canning time. Though the beautiful green kadota figs from my tiny tree were all eaten by the birds, I still had a chance to make fig preserves this year. August is fig time in Georgia, and a delicious evening at The Shed at Glenwood in Atlanta led to my making a couple dozen half-pints of fig preserves.

9 pounds of fresh figs perfect for canning!

The Shed’s talented chef, Lance Gummere, is heavy into learning the ways of canning and preserving, and our conversation sparked my volunteering to show him how. My daughter and I headed over to the restaurant early one evening in the middle of the month, enjoyed a plateful of Lance’s famous $3 sliders, and then Lance and I got to work. He had just received between 10 and 12 pounds of figs, and wanted to preserve them – a couple of pounds he had sliced and put in his food dehydrator to serve as dried figs, but the rest were left to us to make into the sugary, smearable orbs I love to spread on freshly baked biscuits or toast.

Lance putting our fig preserves into dry storage.

As a restaurateur, Lance’s chief concern with canning his own fruits and vegetables is food safety. Home canning, and in this case - restaurant canning – is perfectly safe as long as certain precautions are taken.

If you need a brief history and lowdown on preserving, this earlier post has all the details. Lance and I had so much fun that we plan to can again – this time in a challenging effort to preserve vegetables in duck fat. Our preserves have been a big hit at The Shed, too – many thanks to Creative Loafing’s Cliff Bostock for this shout out.

Fig Preserves

Yield: about 20 half-pint jars

Use any ripe fig, taking care to remove the stems, but leaving the skin intact. A little lemon juice will give preserves a better color and flavor.

5 pounds fresh figs, stemmed and sliced in half, peel on

5 cups granulated sugar

Lemon juice

Steps to water bath canning:

Wash and clean the figs by submerging them in water and draining.

Sterilize your jars and equipment by washing, then boiling in a water bath for 10 minutes. (Do not boil the lids and bands -- bring them only to a simmer as not to affect the sealant of the lids.) Keep the jars and lids simmering until ready for packing with preserves.

In a large bowl, combine the figs and sugar. Stir gently until the sugar begins to dissolve. Add the juice of ½ lemon. Let the mixture sit for at least 30 minutes, or overnight.

Stirring the sugar and figs together.

In a large, non-reactive pot, cook the figs on medium-high heat until the mixture boils, foams and a sugar syrup forms. Cook until the sugar syrup thickens to almost string stage – about 30 to 45 minutes. Stir often during cooking, skimming foam as needed.

During cooking, it's normal for the figs to foam - skim any excess foam from the surface before packing into jars.

Pack the figs into hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch headspace. Run the end of a wooden spoon down the side of each jar to release air bubbles.

A funnel is indispensable for packing the figs into hot, sterilized jars.

Wipe the rims of the hot jars well, then seal with lids and bands.

Hot fig preserves packed in hot jars.

Place the jars in a large pot, cover with hot water and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes (if I am only canning one thing, I often use the hot water and pot I used for processing my jars). Remove the jars from the hot water. After 12 – 24 hours, test for sealing - the top of the lid will indent just a bit, sometimes making  a "pop" sound when it does – the proof that your effort has been well-worth your time.

Our finished preserves!

Apple pie and heirloom okra

Pleasant outcomes often take circuitous routes before arriving. Last Saturday I had a morning full of music, fresh-baked breads and heirloom okra, but only because I was willing to get up at the crack of dawn and drive to Statham, Ga., to hang with my husband while he and his folk-rock band, Henry Porter, made a few musical waves at the Statham Farmers Market.

Henry Porter's folk trio: (L to R) Lawton Gafford, Andy Tegethoff and Michael Goldman.

The weather was gorgeous, and it didn’t even get hot until about 10 a.m. While the boys dug into the meat of some old standbys like “Froggy Went A’ Courtin,” I shopped the stands and bought everything from apples to heirloom okra (the latter from Jess Warner, a young heirloom farmer who sells rarified tomatoes, pole beans, squash, okra and eggs, among others).

Our friend Christy Beyer, who sells freshly baked goodies (including outrageously good sweet cheese rolls) every Saturday from her home bakery, Baked.

I walked the town, full of picturesque old homes with porches rocking-chair deep and a main street, just next to the railroad tracks, that is lined with antique stores, where I purchased an antique lunch pail for about $20. At home, I promptly filled it with the fresh flowers I had bought at the market, too.

The apples were for a pie I was making for my brother-in-law’s birthday. He grew up in southern Illinois, and wanted a pie reminiscent of his mom’s – nothing fancy: apples, sugar and cinnamon, with a little flour for thickening (and butter). I’ve shared my recipe, below.

The market was well worth the drive if you take a notion to go on a little Saturday morning jaunt. It’s from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. every Saturday morning.

 Apple Pie

Yield: One nine-inch pie

The only thing time consuming about making apple pie is peeling the apples. Be sure to place them in water that’s been laced with a little lemon juice to ensure that once peeled, they don’t oxidize and turn brown. Keep them in the water until you are ready to measure them for the pie filling, then strain.

Pie pastry, enough for a double crust

6 cups apples, peeled, cored and sliced

1 cup granulated sugar

3 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits

Egg wash:

1 egg

Milk or water

Pinch of salt

In a small bowl or cup, whisk together the egg, milk or water and salt until light. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Prepare the pie crust and keep cold until ready to use.

In a large bowl, mix together the apples and sugar and stir until the sugar begins to dissolve and a juice starts to form. Sprinkle the flour over the apple mixture and fold in until incorporated. Fold in the cinnamon.

Roll out the pie dough to fit the bottom of a nine-inch pie pan; fill with the apple filling. Dot the surface of the filling with the butter. Using a pastry brush, brush the sides of the pastry with a little of the egg wash. Roll out the remaining dough and cover the pie filling, pressing the sides to seal. Turn the dough under around the rim, then create a flute using your thumb between two fingers. Brush the entire top crust with the egg wash (sprinkle with a little sugar, if desired), then cut a few air vents into the surface.

Bake the pie at 425 degrees until the crust begins to slightly brown, about 8 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and continue baking until golden brown – about 25 to 30 minutes.

Recipes are like old friends

As a former chef, I’m a big believer in understanding ingredients. It’s important for someone who cooks professionally to be able to know how and why flavors fit together – or why they don’t. So these days when I’m cooking at home, I rarely use a recipe. With a classical knowledge base and an understanding of the “families” of flavor profiles, it’s more fun for me to throw things together than to follow a specific guideline.

That is, of course, unless I am baking. Baking requires exact measurements and strict adherence to the specifics. I used to tell my baking students at Johnson & Wales University International Baking and Pastry Institute that throwing a little this or that into a sauce as you are cooking (and of course, tasting) is a common way to discover what works best. But if you throw a little extra baking powder or butter into a cake batter, you’re not going to be happy with the results.

So baking recipes – called formulas by professionals – are golden to me. I have gathered hundreds over the years. I sat at my grandmother’s elbow in my high school years jotting down her recipes for “silver” cake – a light, moist layer cake she made with Crisco instead of butter (which in rural Texas during the 50s was unheard of); her coconut pie reserved for the Christmas table; her sister’s – my aunt Milly’s – incredible recipe for chess pie. My other grandmother was not much of a baker, but she did create one legacy in the family – delicate form cookies she politically incorrectly referred to as Chinese chewies.

I kept all these recipes tucked inside a cookbook – A Cook’s Tour of Athens, compiled by the Junior Assembly of Athens, Ga., in 1963 – which was a treasure trove in and of itself: recipes for the Lowcountry classic Country Captain, as well as red velvet cake, became steady and stalwart additions to my repertoire as I grew up, married and became a chef.

When I moved from Rhode Island back to Atlanta seven years ago, my life was in as much disorder as the hordes of boxes I found myself endlessly unpacking. A divorce and a new job as the AJC’s dining critic left me little time to spend on gathering – or even finding – recipes. A lot of my books, including my precious Cook’s Tour, were lost to me – stacked inside a dusty box somewhere in my attic. I told myself I would find them and get them organized again, but I knew that my attic was fast becoming a place where I put the things I would never get back to.

A couple of months ago, they turned up in a box that had been stored at my parent’s house. There, in a small box, were dozens of cookbooks I thought had been lost to me forever – the smallest of prices to pay, I wagered, for a dissolved marriage. And tucked under my textbooks from Johnson & Wales, it was there, stuffed with the hand-written pearls I had scripted so long ago.

Flipping through the yellowed pages, it was like a meeting with old friends and family over the decades; loved ones long lost to me through death or neglect. Here, I could hold them again. Here, they were alive and knew how deeply I cherished my time with them. And when I bake one of these recipes, I conjure my memory of them as if they were standing beside me, giving me guidance.

I suppose, in some way, they are.

Pam Peters’ Pound Cake

This recipe for pound cake is from a dear friend, Pam Peters, I knew at Johnson & Wales University. She is a terrific chef and lady. I’ve lost touch with her over the past ten years, but I hope she is well. This is the best pound cake I have ever eaten: dense, yet really moist with lots of butter flavor. Pam’s father had passed the recipe to her. She passed the recipe to me in an email many Novembers ago, so that I could bake the cake for Thanksgiving. Serve it with the excellent crop of Georgia peaches we have this year, sliced and sugared, for a summertime treat. Thanks Pam.

Yield: one large bundt cake

1 pound unsalted butter

3 cups granulated sugar

3 cups plus 5 tablespoons cake flour, sifted

5 large eggs

1 cup whole milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon lemon extract

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Grease and flour a large, 9-inch bundt pan. Set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, scraping the bowl periodically. Add the eggs, one at a time, until incorporated. Add the flour and milk in three alternating stages, beginning and ending with the flour. Add the vanilla and lemon extracts and blend until smooth.

Bake for two hours.

Arnold Palmers are perfect 4th of July mixers

I’m from the South, but I had never heard of an Arnold Palmer until I moved back to Atlanta from a long stint in New England. At the time, I was writing a cocktail column for the AJC’s food section, and I remember featuring a local recipe from Atlanta restaurant South City Kitchen.

Their drink was a cocktail, though, with vodka blended into this neo-classic mix of equal measures of iced tea and lemonade, commonly referred to as a John Daly, after the boozing golfer and his antics.

There’s hardly a drink, save for the mint julep, that evokes the South more, though  “the King” actually hails from Pennsylvania. He supposedly asked for the mixture from a bartender after a golf game and was overheard by a woman nearby, who followed suit. The drink, and the story, became urban golf legend. No matter the origin, though we thank Arnie for it: the refreshing mix of two of summer’s greatest sips is good anywhere, anytime – but particularly delicious on the Fourth of July.

Classic Arnold Palmer

Who better to make lemonade than Life is Lemonade? Serve Arnold Palmers in pretty glasses with lemon wedges for a distinctive drink this Fourth of July.

Yield: 2 Quarts

1 quart Southern sweet iced tea (see below)

1 quart lemonade (see below)

Ice

Lemon wedges, for garnish

In a large two-quart pitcher, mix together the iced tea and lemonade. Place ice in glasses and pour the mixture over the ice. Garnish with lemon wedges.

For a John Daly: Add one ounce of vodka to each glass, shake, and serve.

For Southern sweet iced tea:

1 quart water

5 tea bags

1 cup superfine sugar

In a large pot, boil the water. Remove from the heat and add the tea bag and sugar. Cover and let steep for 20 to 30 minutes (longer if a stronger tea is desired). Remove the tea and stir well. Pour the tea over ice in glasses, or use is the Arnold Palmer, above.

For lemonade:

1 cup superfine sugar

1 cup water

1 ½ cups freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 6 to 8 lemons)

3 ½ cups cold water

Ice

Lemon wedges, for garnish

In a large sauce pot, create a simple syrup by boiling the sugar and 1 cup water together just until the sugar is dissolved. Set aside to cool.

When the sugar syrup has cooled, add the lemon juice and water. Stir until well blended. When completely cool, pour over ice in glasses and garnish with a lemon wedge.