Blue Cayenne

Interesting (and entertaining) TED talk about food  and how we taste it.

After decades of procrastinating, I bought some sourdough starter from King Arthur Flour. Sourdough starter is “a fermented dough retained from one baking to another,” according to their site.  For $8.95, King Arthur sent me a small plastic jar containing one ounce of their classic starter.

I fed it. (I’m a good person.)

I gave it a name. (Kellyanne.)

And I waited.

Kellyanne frothed like she was supposed to. Then, after eight hours sitting on the top of my microwave, she began to emit little gas bubbles that floated to the top of the starter batter.

Kellyanne was alive!

(I felt like Dr. Frankenstein must have felt when the monster came to life–or, at least, like Gene Wilder did.)

Then, I procrastinated again. Kellyanne languished in my refrigerator.

Whenever I opened my refrigerator, there sat Kellyanne. Guilt. I felt guilt.

So I fed her every day or two. I owed her that.

Crankily (is that a word?),  it seemed to me that I had added one more hungry creature to my seemingly-endless morning feeding ritual here in Huntington Beach. Kibble for Juliet. Bananas and Harrison’s for Moti. Pellets for the Koi. And now, flour and water for Kellyanne.

Then, in one of my late night bouts of sleeplessness, I tapped in “sourdough recipes” and there was grandma–grandma’s sourdough biscuits that is–with forty-five positive reviews. “Pollen,” who posted the recipe, cooed that her grandma “makes these every time we go over to dinner.” Bleary-eyed, I decided that, if these biscuits were good enough for Pollen and her Grandma, they might be good enough for me and Kellyanne. I pushed print.

Before I post the recipe, let me me give you a little more of Kellyanne’s bio.

King Arthur’s Flour boasts that Kellyanne is a sourdough starter “lovingly nurtured for over a century.” This piqued my interest. It’s 2017. A hundred years would put Kellyanne’s birth roughly around the time of World War I. It was a stinking war but I liked the connection. Since sourdough starter  is a marriage of local wild yeast with lactobacilli, that means my Kellyanne is a modern-day bit of time travel. Kellyanne is related to the wild yeast that was floating around when Wilson was President, Ataturk was beginning the great republican experiment in Turkey (that Erdogan is destroying), Wilfred Owen was writing “Dulce et Decorum est”  and Siegfried Sassoon was writing “Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man.” How cool is that?

Moving beyond the history…  According to the King Arthur Flour site, when sourdough starter is fed,  you make it your own. The wild yeast, a tiny fungus, here in Huntington Beach insinuates itself into my Vermont-originated starter from King Arthur and a unique new living leavening is born. So, Kellyanne is mine. The biscuits you eat at my table are unlike any you might eat even a mile away. Again, how cool is that?

So, how long has this been going on? Apparently, records of sourdough microflora date back at least to 1500 b.c. and the Ancient Egyptians. Wild beer drinkers that they were (I didn’t know that.), there was a lot of wild yeast floating around Upper Egypt. Serendipitously, some of the wild yeast from the beer settled into some flour and there you were–sourdough starter.

Here is the link to King Arthur’s Flour:

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/classic-fresh-sourdough-starter-1-oz

Yields 8 Biscuits

Grandma’s Sourdough Biscuits

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Ingredients

• 1 C. flour
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1/2 t. baking soda
• 2 t. baking powder
• 1/3 C. butter (cold)
• 1 C. sourdough starter

Instructions

1. Sift flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder into a large bowl. Add cold butter and cut it into the flour mixture. Add the sourdough starter and mix until the mixture turns into a dough.
2. Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured board and knead the dough a few times until it becomes smooth and elastic.
3. Pat the dough into a 3/4 inch high round. Use a biscuit cutter to cut the dough into eight biscuits.
4. Bake in a 425 degree F. oven for 12-15 minutes until slightly brown.

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https://bluecayenne.com/grandmas-sourdough-biscuits

Here is the link to the original recipe for Grandma’s Sourdough Biscuits:

http://www.food.com/recipe/grandmas-sourdough-biscuits-18995

During the Middle Ages, rich European ladies slipped their favorite knights a bit of gingerbread before an important tournament. Sweet, aromatic, crumbly, swoon-worthy gingerbread. How utterly romantic is that!?

If you need proof, the painting below portrays a lady and her knight. Theirs was a chivalrous era when upper class marriages were loveless and arranged. To compensate for the emotional void, feudal society permitted (mostly) chaste courtly love outside of marriage. If you look closely,  I’m pretty sure (well…I’m almost sure)  the damsel in the painting has a bag of gingerbread tucked under her seat cushion.

Later, during the Renaissance, gingerbread and romance were once again joined. Famously, Tudor Queen Elizabeth I had her court bakers prepare sugar-iced gingerbread men to resemble the important dignitaries (and eligible suitors) who visited her court. At just the right moment, she ceremoniously presented the sweet tokens to her astounded male guests. (You know, of course, what a flirt Elizabeth was! Just look at this delightful clip from Rowan Atkinson’s silly and wonderful Black Adder series. I guarantee that you won’t be able to “unsee” Miranda Richardson’s giggley and imperious portrayal of the flirtatious queen.  Queen Elizabeth and Black Adder )

What is the moral of these two stories? Gingerbread is the go-to gift for the important men in your life.

If you don’t have a man in your life, no problem. Those medieval and renaissance ladies had that one covered, too. Wrapped in ribbons, gingerbread husbands were sold at most European fairs during those times. Also called fairlings, the husbands were  gingerbread cakes fashioned like men and decorated with gilt. Pitchmen touted them as talismen to improve one’s romantic prospects. Gullible and lonely young damsels took the bait and the husbands sold like hotcakes gingerbread.

Here is the recipe for an outstanding ginger cake from David Lebovitz’ Ready For Dessert cookbook. Incredibly moist, the cake delivers a real jolt of peppery ginger flavor. It is great for breakfast but also makes an elegant dessert served with a scoop of the best quality French vanilla ice cream you can find. Share it with someone you love. You have history on your side.

Fresh Ginger Cake

Spicy ginger cake

30 minPrep Time

1 hrCook Time

1 hr, 30 Total Time

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Ingredients

• 4 oz. fresh peeled and thinly sliced ginger
• 1 C. mild-flavored molasses
• 1 C. sugar
• 1 C. vegetable oil (I used canola)
• 2 1/2 C. all-purpose flour
• 1 t. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 t. ground cloves
• 1/2 t. ground black pepper
• 1 C. water
• 2 t. baking soda
• 2 large eggs (room temperature and slightly beaten)
• powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Prepare a 9-inch springform pan or a round cake pan by buttering the bottom of the pan and covering the bottom with a round of parchment paper.
3. Peel and thinly slice the fresh ginger. Put ginger slices into a food processor and process until the ginger is minced. Set aside.
4. Combine molasses, sugar and oil in a large bowl. Stir to combine.Set aside.
5. In another bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, cloves, and black pepper.Set aside.
6. Heat water to boil in a small saucepan. Add baking soda to the water and stir. Then, whisk the hot water into the molasses mixture. Add the chopped ginger.
7. Gradually sift the flour mixture into the molasses/water mixture while stirring to combine. Stir in the lightly beaten eggs. Stir mixture until all the ingredients are combined.
8. Pour batter into your pan and bake for approximately one hour or until the top of the cake springs back when touched and a toothpick comes out clean when stuck into the top center of the cake.
9. Cool on a wire rack. The cake is best served after sitting overnight to let the ginger flavor mellow and permeate the cake.
10. Serve with powdered sugar sprinkled over the top of the cake.

Notes

The recipe recommends baking the cake for one hour at 350 degrees F. My cake was baked in 45 minutes. I have a new oven that I'm breaking in and I'm still learning its eccentricities, but you may want to watch your cake carefully and test it for doneness earlier than the recipe's recommended one hour.

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https://bluecayenne.com/love-and-ginger-cake