Saturday, January 26, 2008

Cake in the Morning

Samantha and kids were here for the weekend; so, there’s an excuse to make a cake. After perusing various cookbooks and the current Bon Appetits, I settled on Cranberry-Maple Pudding Cake.


I kept meaning to make the cake all weekend, but it was busy with them here. They really like (need?) to get up and GO, those Goodwins. So, off we went, skiing at Titcomb both days (Saturday and Sunday). By the time we got home, I was exhausted and it was pretty much time to start drinking the wine and feeding the hungry. All efforts at cake-baking were out the window.


The last morning they were here, though, I did manage to get it together and I made the cake. I had sort of given myself permission to have it be cake for the morning – not just because I couldn’t get it together to make it at any other time, but also because the recipe noted that it was “great for dessert or breakfast.”


Furthermore, we have been having a lot of talk about “cake in the morning.” What I really mean is that Milo often talks about “cake in the morning.” This comes of all our reading of Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen (which I have always called Mickey in the Night Kitchen – a line from the actual text). So it seemed fitting to actually produce cake in the morning for him.



It was pretty yummy. Though with a full CUP of maple syrup, probably on the pricey side. And, I have to say, all the maple syrup was not all that noticeable. In fact, the fruit part (where the maple syrup was) was still pretty damn TART. Then there was the crumbly cake part, with secret ingredient: cornmeal. Kind of like cornbread, only way better, especially since I am not a big cornbread fan.

I’ll talk more about this cake and its construction in a subsequent post. I promise.

Kira kept talking about how she liked the crumbly part. I think she really meant it (I think she is a big cornbread fan), but I think it was also code for: "I don’t much like the fruit [cranberry] part."


A word about the cranberries: this cake spelled the end of a GIANT bag of cranberries I bought way back in November. In fact, I think I still have two cakes, made with cranberries from this giant bag, that I need to document here. And, the cranberry sauce I contributed to the Thanksgiving feast also came out of that bag. Can it really be that I got three cakes and one cranberry sauce from one bag? Maybe….


At any rate, while the cranberries were not organic, they were local, from Ricker Hill Farm (site of our fall apple-picking adventure). So, not perfect, but, pretty darn low carbon footprint.


Also, really good excuse for eating whipped cream for breakfast.