They have adorable chubby cheeks

[sovay]

Rabbit, rabbit. I baked an apricot biscuit cake this afternoon.

It was for ratatosk. Between exhaustion, hell-cold, mouth-hurt, and general malaise, I hadn't been convinced I'd make it to his party, but I needed to bake a lemon cake for derspatchel's birthday observed tomorrow and I like Tracy and what the hell, I miss baking. Basically it was a sweet buttermilk dough rolled out flat, filled with apricot preserves, jelly-rolled and cut into rounds, and then packed into a round pan so that they melted back together into a single pastry as they baked. I drastically overestimated the quantity of apricot preserves necessary for the filling, meaning it kind of bulged out everywhere as each roll was cut, and I think I shall keep it this way in future iterations as it left the finished cake honeycombed and fragrant with apricot, aided by the fluffiness of the buttermilk and the cold chopped butter as in a scone; it was practically a pudding. No yeast. I would like to give it a more interesting topping next time, as I just treated it like a pear cake and glazed with a sprinkling of extra sugar; I think it could stand a little spicing, even if I need to think about what goes with apricot (I couldn't eat it with nuts and streusel feels like overkill). I had to go out to Lexington to bake it, since our oven is still kaput, but it was worth the travel time. There was nothing left but the festive striped plate by the time I went home.

Dinner was an assorted order from Pizza Pie-er in Inman. I am still at the stage with these braces where eating actual food rather than giving up and making some kind of smoothie feels like an achievement, as does eating at all, so I was glad I'd gotten there in time to order. The crust turned out to be more work than my mouth can currently handle, so I ate all the toppings off it and instantly stopped feeling stupid that I'd overloaded a seven-inch pizza with spinach, eggplant, mushrooms, and prosciutto. It was hot and nutrition-bearing and someday I won't have to chew on the left side of my mouth and very tasty. I still don't forgive the restaurant for burdening their specialty pizzas with untenable portmanteaux like "Meatichoke" (meatballs and artichoke) and "Brimp" (broccoli and shrimp), but the former was very nearly redeemed by the observation that no one would order a pizza by the name of "Artballs."

I spent most of the party itself talking to phi about everything from poetry to grad school to poisonous food staples and periodically eavesdropping lines from elsewhere in the conversation about cyanide and penguins. It was great.

And I got home and Rob showed me the first episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which is already brilliant.

I feel that I have salaged a good day and I am happy. Someday my life will not involve quite so many salvage operations, but in the meantime, I dunno, Mary Ellen Carter on.

Comments

[rinue]

Oh, how I wish I had some of that biscuit cake left over for breakfast right now.

Ugh your braces. Ugh. I did at one point have my jaws wired shut for six weeks after a surgery, and survived on smoothies, milkshakes, and thick sauces (gravies and the like) quite comfortably. However I think for a full year that is too much to ask.

With regards to portmanteaus, I feel like everyone is trying to make "cronut" happen for them. (I am skeptical of the cronut phenomenon beyond people wanting to say "cronut.") Saw an ad yesterday for the "doughscuit," a biscuit-donut hybrid. The name reeks of desperation.

[sovay]

Oh, how I wish I had some of that biscuit cake left over for breakfast right now.

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Thickly butter a round baking pan, bottom and sides; line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and thickly butter again. Given the amount of sugar caramelizing out of this recipe, it is the only way you are going to get the cake clear afterward.

Biscuits:

2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
6 tablespoons cold salted butter, chopped
3/4 cup buttermilk

If you do not have a Cuisinart, whisk all dry ingredients together in a large bowl, then cut in cold butter until the mixture has the texture of breadcrumbs. There should be visible bits of butter in the flour-crumble, not a paste. If you do have a Cuisinart, as in my mother's kitchen, pulse all ingredients together until desired texture is achieved. This is significantly faster. Either way: turn the crumbs out into a large bowl, add buttermilk, mix by fork until the dough is sticky and all liquid is incorporated; note that this will not prevent little butter-bits from falling off around the edges, which you'll deal with in a minute. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface. Do not worry about too much flour drying out the dough; what you have at this point is a slow liquid with delusions. Work quickly, because otherwise the butter will start to melt: knead the dough by folding it over itself a dozen times, at the end of which process you should have a sticky, but cohesive bundle of gluten with other stuff in. Re-flour your surface (or use another one), lay down a sheet of wax paper on top of the dough, and roll it out into a 12-by-14 rectangle. It is not a disaster if the dough doesn't stretch that far; it's more important not to have holes in the dough. Long side should be facing you.

Filling:

In my case, nearly an entire jar of Bonne Maman apricot preserves. I'd say about 10 ounces of the preserves of your choice, thickly spread but not piled, with a border of about an inch left around the edges of the rectangle. Starting from your side, roll the dough up like a jelly roll. The dough may object to being pulled from its surface, however carefully floured, which is why I used an icing spreader to loosen it from the cutting board before every roll. For the very last one, you may need to pull the opposing edge over on top of the roll rather than rotating the whole thing over again; this is immaterial to the finished cake. Seal the edges as best you can. Cut the roll across the grain in thirteen or a dozen pieces. The preserves will try to ecape and this is okay; you can scoop any real stragglers back in afterward. Place the round pieces in the baking pan apricot-side-up, like cinnamon rolls. Concentric circles filling inward are a good pattern. It will be a tight fit; it's supposed to be. I dusted the top with more white sugar, but feel free to experiment with toppings and spices. I plan to.

Baking:

The original biscuits with which I started this recipe are supposed to bake for 30 minutes. The liquid supplied by the apricot preserves made it more like 45. I checked it after the first 15 minutes, rotated the pan and baked for another 15, then checked every few minutes afterward to make sure the tops of the biscuits were golden brown but not blackened and the jam wasn't burning. All ovens are differently, so proceed accordingly. When the biscuits look done, remove from oven. Invert onto a cooling rack, remove pan, remove parchment paper (there will be boiling fruit sugar stuck to the underside of it, be careful), invert cake back onto a plate. I then had to travel for thirty minutes to get to ratatosk's, so cooling wasn't a problem, but I'd let it sit a few minutes no matter what just to let everything settle and cohere and not scald the roof of your mouth. Do not attempt to break into individual rolls. Slice like a cake. Enjoy.

It struck me at some significantly later point in the party that it is a cake that would probably do very well with whipped cream on the side, but I didn't think of it.

Aftermath:

Clean everything. There is so much flour everywhere. Eat the cake first, though.

I did at one point have my jaws wired shut for six weeks after a surgery, and survived on smoothies, milkshakes, and thick sauces (gravies and the like) quite comfortably. However I think for a full year that is too much to ask.

It's the year that's making this really feel daunting. I survived the Thanksgiving in 1997 where I had to drink my turkey through a straw because I'd had my wisdom teeth out the previous day, but I don't even think it took me until the end of the month to eat solid food again. At the moment, I am collecting recipes for things are interesting and do not require much chewing. phi had a great basic one for red lentil curry that I plan to put into effect this week.

Saw an ad yesterday for the "doughscuit,"

Gesundheit!

(Augh.)

[phi]

Thank you for writing up the recipe! I'm filing it away, because that cake was really good. I agree with movingfinger that ginger would work with the apricot.

phi had a great basic one for red lentil curry that I plan to put into effect this week.

Here, have some more recipes:

Seven greens rice porridge

My variant of Rose Lemberg's variant of baba ghanoush

Canteloupe chutney

Haleem, a stew of meat, wheat, and lentils

Apple cider and sausage risotto

Curried butternut squash soup I sometimes toss in a pear or an apple to make it sweeter.

These are all things I have made and bookmarked, and will vouch for the recipe working out as promised, not a random internet search, which you are perfectly capable of doing on your own.

Tragically, the awesome website with lots of recipes for baking breads and cakes in rice cookers, that got me through a year in an apartment with no oven, no longer exists.

[sovay]

These are all things I have made and bookmarked, and will vouch for the recipe working out as promised, not a random internet search, which you are perfectly capable of doing on your own.

Thank you! The cantaloupe chutney and the haleem look incredibly good to me. I am going to need to buy lentils no matter what.

Tragically, the awesome website with lots of recipes for baking breads and cakes in rice cookers, that got me through a year in an apartment with no oven, no longer exists.

What was it? At least it was there when you needed it.

[phi]

What was it?

It was nothing but plain black text in courier on a white background, hosted off a university web site, that some American grad student had put together in 1999 or something. It was a rambling assemblage of notes to self, recipes, and failed experiments the student added to over the course of three years spent living in Japan and trying to cook comfort food in his university apartment. It had advice on how to make a Thanksgiving turkey with no oven (parcel it into turkey parts and distribute to your friends; have each person cook a leg or a breast half in their toaster oven and reassemble), a recipe for rice cooker pineapple upside-down cake, and cautionary tales about not buying the thing labeled "margarine" in the grocery store because it was really solidified olive oil and did not bake like you'd expect margarine to. I no longer have the computer I was using in 2005, and at the time I wasn't storing my bookmarks in the cloud yet. My Google-fu isn't strong enough to track it down, since I can't remember the guy's name or his university.

[asakiyume]

*yoink*

now I have a new cake to make.

[sovay]

now I have a new cake to make.

Let me know how yours turns out! I never took any photographs of mine, which I regret.

[asakiyume]

Will do!