Blue Cayenne

Just WOW!

This is such a good cake and a relatively unique cake flavor to place on your table to entertain your guests. I have to confess, though, that I’m not having a party and this cake is quickly disappearing off my counter!

This is a subtly-sweet cake redolent in tahini (sesame paste) flavor. 

Tahini (tehania and a lot of other spellings) is a common ingredient in many Middle Eastern cuisines. It is often enjoyed as a dipping sauce (with lemon and garlic), as an ingredient in hummus, and even as a coating for soft-serve ice cream. (The ice cream application sounds great to me–and familiar. I grew up near a Frosty Serve ice cream shop here in Southern California and spent many an afternoon after school enjoying soft serve vanilla ice cream dipped in melted chocolate and nuts. Sounds similar.)

Today, with the proliferation of international markets in our communities, it is easy to find tahini. Even Trader Joe’s carries it. According to the experts, the very best tahini paste is made from Ethiopian sesame seeds where the Ethopian gout de terroir is particularly prized. In addition to the many very commercial brands available, some small producers are now in the American market. I particularly like the Soom brand. (Soom Tahini)

In some Middle Eastern cultures offering a guest some food item made with tahini is a show to welcome and respect. So, in that spirit here on Blue Cayenne, here is a really wonderful Tahini Cake recipe. This recipe is from a new cookbook, Leon Big Flavors by Rebecca Seal. The cookbook is available through your local bookstore. (Leon, by the way, is a restaurant chain that started in The UK.) The original recipe was featured on the Splendid Table site here.

The original recipe called for serving the cake unfrosted, but it seemed to me that this Tahini Cake frosting would be wonderful on this cake. I used the Tahini Cake frosting recipe from Food52; you will find it. here.

Here is the Tahini Cake recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. 

Shirley Temple, remember her?

In 1935 she made the song Animal Crackers In My Soup insanely popular, performing the song in her movie Curly Top.

Here are the lyrics if you want to sing along: Curly Top/Animal Crackers in my Soup.

Curly Top takes you on a welcome journey back into simpler times.

No wait! 1935.

We were in the middle of the Great Depression. Forget that reference to simpler times. Curly Top must have provided a little escape from the collapse of the economy. Shirley played an orphan who charms a rich benefactor. Hope and resilience!

Unlike Shirley’s soup, there are no lions and tigers in today’s great soup recipe, but there is a lot of an equally unexpected ingredient: pears.

That’s right. There are pears in this soup.

Who knew you could even do that?

The original recipe comes from a cookbook More Mandy’s. (Mandy’s is a gourmet salad restaurant in Montreal, Canada. (Yay, Canada, by the way.) The book is available from your local independent bookstore or online.

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. 

For anyone out there who loves a good Alfredo sauce (you know who you are), this use of the classic sauce with beans is a revelation.  

That’s right.

Beans.

Who woulda thought?

I made my dish with the giant Royal Corona beans made famous by the Rancho Gordo Bean Company in Napa, but the original recipe simply used white beans from a can. It’s your call, but the Rancho Gordo beans are pretty wonderful in this dish. 

Here is a link to the Rancho Gordo site: Rancho Gordo Beans.

I’ve used Rancho Gordo beans on any number of recipes here on Blue Cayenne. They’re the freshest and most interesting dried beans around.  Founded by former web-designer and  jazz DJ  Steve Sando in 2001, The Rancho Gordo bean company has a huge and devoted following ranging from high-end restaurant chefs like Thomas Keller to home cooks like yours truly. The company’s laudable mission is to preserve traditional and rare bean varieties and to support sustainable farming techniques and small-scale farmers. While the company specializes in heirloom beans grown in Mexico, these particular Royal Corona beans are grown for them in Poland. Rancho Gordo advertises the Royal Coronas as beans  “created in Mesoamerica, bred in Italy and grown in Poland.”  That’s quite a biography for this pretty (and way large) bean. 

This recipe is from The New York Times. The original recipe appears here.

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen.