Blue Cayenne

It’s all about the texture.

A generous dollop of ricotta cheese gives this delightful (and simple-to-make) vanilla cake an elegant fine crumb. Throw in some beautiful raspberries and this delicate cake becomes fragrant and even more delicious. Serve it with whipped cream or a scoop of high quality vanilla ice cream and you will have a memorable dessert–one that is special enough for a dinner party but also awfully good for breakfast.

Ricotta is a creamy curd–light and slightly sweet. Food historians trace its origins to Sicily where there is a long and gloried tradition of crafting ricotta-based desserts and pastas.

Here is an illustration showing the making of ricotta during the Middle Ages. Note the dog begging. I’m pretty sure that is Juliet in an earlier life.

This recipe is adapted from one that appeared here:  Bon Appetit’s Ricotta Cake With Raspberries.

I’m nibbling one of these wonderful Salted Chocolate Cookies as I type this post, smearing chocolate on my keyboard with wild abandon.

You are in for a treat.

These Salted Chocolate Cookies are sophisticated, ever-so-chocolaty and wonderful on a cool fall evening with a shot of brandy.

We all know that quality chocolate brings us pleasure and enhances our moods, but why (and how) does salt enhance the whole chocolate experience?

First, salt  intensifies the body’s ability to taste the sweetness of sugar. Salt triggers our taste buds to make them more receptive to sweet flavors and to suppress bitter tastes.

Secondly, salt adds texture to our foods. This is particularly true if a large-crystalled salt like Maldon or fleur de sel is used.

Finally, salt adds a layer of contrasting flavor to chocolate’s sweetness. Salt enhances the aroma of chocolates and other foods, too.

Food experts extol the affect of salt on foods. According to food expert Harold McGee in his acclaimed food reference book On Food and Cooking, salt “is the only natural source of one of our handful of basic tastes, and we therefore add it to most of our foods to fill our their flavor.” Samin Nosrat, the hot new cookbook author (Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat), devotes 38 pages of her bestselling book to a discussion of the effect of salt on foods.

History has borne out the importance of salting food, too. The flavor-enhancing properties of salt transform the taste of foods so significantly that governments have turned to salt as a revenue source, an act that has sometimes sparked rebellions. Remember that government salt monopolies and salt taxes led to revolution in France and inspired Ghandi’s salt march to Dandi.

Today, there are a number of salts available to cooks. Among the choices are granulated, iodized, flake, Kosher, unrefined sea salt, fleur de sel and flavored and colored salts. If you look for them, you can find some pretty fancy salt curators on line. Seasalt.com, for example, sells artisanal salt collections composed of salts collected around the world–even a “Snowflake Pacific Northwest Salt” with a texture similar, they advertise, “to freshly fallen snow.” Wow!

My favorite salt of the moment is Maldon. I once took a cooking class where the instructor mentioned that one of her chef friends carries an elegant little box of Maldon in her purse to use on her meals when she is away from home. That, of course, piqued my curiosity and I bought my first (of many) boxes of Maldon. It turns out that Maldon has been made in England since 1882. It is crunchy and wonderful. Here is a link to a very well-done video from the Maldon company: Maldon Salt.

This recipe is adapted from a NYTimes recipe that appears here.

Cue the music.

Wild celebration here.

Juliet is salsa dancing down the hall and I’m wearing a silly party hat. This month marks Blue Cayenne’s fourth birthday.

Here we are writing our 315th blog post. Who knew?

Thank you for reading this blog and thank you to those of you who have given us words of encouragement. Particular thanks go to those who have served as recipe tasters for Blue Cayenne (Sarah and Gene, you know who you are!), to Marion Sutton who is Blue Cayenne’s biggest fan and promoter, and to Al Nomura, my patient and talented photography mentor. It turns out that it takes a village to sustain a food blog.

Here is a great celebratory cake: Brown Butter Cake With Bruised Pears And Walnuts. The brown butter flavor in this cake is definitely worthy of an important celebration. The cake is moist and almost puddingy (is that a word?). You will definitely want to try this one!

This recipe was adapted from one that appears on the James Beard Foundation site here.