I have been on a bit of a cookbook shopping spree lately, and my most recent acquisition is Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe by owner Joanne Chang. I have never had the pleasure of visiting Flour Bakery, but I did watch Chang give Bobby Flay a sticky bun smackdown on an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay. That alone was enough to convince me to buy the cookbook -- although I also can't help but get sucked in a bit by Chang's fairy tale success story, which is quite remarkable. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in applied math and economics, she worked as a management consultant for two years before deciding to pursue food as a career. With absolutely no professional experience or formal training, Chang managed to get hired at Biba, and also worked as pastry chef Rialto and Mistral (with a stint with Francois Payard in New York City in between), before opening her bakery Flour in the fall of 2000. Today, there are three Flour Bakery locations in the Boston area, and Chang and her husband also have a Chinese restaurant in Boston's South End.
But back to the cookbook. I flipped through the entire thing as soon as it arrived, and this is a fairly serious cookbook with some pretty complicated recipes; I would not advise it for beginners. I decided to start with one of the easier recipes -- and since fall is now upon us, the Apple Snacking Spice Cake seemed like a perfect seasonal choice.
The recipe seemed slightly unusual to me, as it does not start out with the usual creaming of butter and sugar. Instead, you start out by sifting dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, cloves) into the bowl of a standing mixer, and you then beat in sugar and room temperature butter, followed by eggs. At that point, you have a fluffy batter, and you fold in sliced Granny Smith apples, raisins, and pecans. You bake, cool, dust with powdered sugar, and serve.
The ratio of apple to batter is quite high, as you can see in the photo above. In fact, the recipe instruction to fold in the apples is accompanied by the note: "The batter will be very stiff and thick. It will look like too many apples and not enough batter, but that's okay."
Even though this cake contains a relatively small amount of spices (only 1/4 teaspoon each cinnamon and ginger, and 1/8 teaspoon cloves), the cake had an intense and irresistible aroma as it was baking. I cannot remember the last time I made something so beautifully fragrant in my kitchen. The cake was dense, but very moist and strongly flavored with apple. While this cake was certainly a solid performer and had a nice homey/comfort vibe, I don't think there was anything particularly memorable about it.
Recipe: "Apple Snacking Spice Cake," from Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe, by Joanne Chang.
But back to the cookbook. I flipped through the entire thing as soon as it arrived, and this is a fairly serious cookbook with some pretty complicated recipes; I would not advise it for beginners. I decided to start with one of the easier recipes -- and since fall is now upon us, the Apple Snacking Spice Cake seemed like a perfect seasonal choice.
The recipe seemed slightly unusual to me, as it does not start out with the usual creaming of butter and sugar. Instead, you start out by sifting dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, cloves) into the bowl of a standing mixer, and you then beat in sugar and room temperature butter, followed by eggs. At that point, you have a fluffy batter, and you fold in sliced Granny Smith apples, raisins, and pecans. You bake, cool, dust with powdered sugar, and serve.
The ratio of apple to batter is quite high, as you can see in the photo above. In fact, the recipe instruction to fold in the apples is accompanied by the note: "The batter will be very stiff and thick. It will look like too many apples and not enough batter, but that's okay."Even though this cake contains a relatively small amount of spices (only 1/4 teaspoon each cinnamon and ginger, and 1/8 teaspoon cloves), the cake had an intense and irresistible aroma as it was baking. I cannot remember the last time I made something so beautifully fragrant in my kitchen. The cake was dense, but very moist and strongly flavored with apple. While this cake was certainly a solid performer and had a nice homey/comfort vibe, I don't think there was anything particularly memorable about it.
Recipe: "Apple Snacking Spice Cake," from Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe, by Joanne Chang.
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