Olive oil cake with orange and chocolate for Chanukah, or anytime

Hanukah foods are those fried in oil or cooked with copious amounts of oil, especially olive oil, in memory of the miracle of the Temple lamp with one day's worth of oil that burned for eight days.  The story is of course a bube meiseh, an attempt by the Amoraim, the Babylonian rabbis, to kasher both a holiday glorifying the Hasmonean dynasty, for which  had little love, and the Zoroastrian practice of lighting lights at the darkest time of the year, which many local Jews were adopting.  (For an intriguing discussion of this, see Judith Hauptman's article from a few years back, Shedding New Light on Chanukah.)  But who is going to complain when you get to eat lots of fried food: ricotta fritters, latkes, bimuelos, sufganiyot, fried pickles, fried mac'n'cheese, fried shoe leather even.  The frying  medium doesn't have to be olive oil, and the fat doesn't need to be used for frying.

It is in this spirit that I offer this olive oil cake recipe.  You can make it for Hanukah in acknowledgement of the story of the miracle of the oil.  You can make it for a pareve dessert after a meat meal.  It is also one of the easiest desserts around, so you can make it any time.  I based the

recipe of one that has made the rounds on the internet, using the version on 101 Cookbooks for a cake  made with spelt flour, chocolate, olive oil and rosemary.  Amy didn't care for the rosemary, so I developed this orange-flavored version instead.  She has given up desserts (to spectacular effect), but I liked this version so much that I keep making it.  In addition to changing the flavoring, I made it pareve through the use of almond milk and orange juice and lightened it up a bit.  I prefer to make it in a springform pan, since If ind that when cooked in a loaf pan, it is hard to cook it evenly since some of the dough trapped between the copious chunks of chocolate files to cook.

Olive oil cake with orange and chocolate

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup spelt flour
• 1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt (this will produce a cake with a slight, but noticeably salty edge; cut back to 1/2 teaspoons if you are not salinophiles)
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups olive oil
• 1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
• 1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (or other nut or coconut milk)
• grated rind of two oranges
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 6 ounces of bittersweet chocolate (I used Scharffenberger's 70%, which is pareve)
• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Sift together the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl.
3. Beat the eggs in a large bowl.  Beat in the oil, juice, almond milk, grated orange rind and vanilla.  
4. Pour the wet ingredients on top of the dry and stir with one or two good strokes, just to combine.  
5. Cut the chocolate into irregular chunks with a knife on a cutting board.  Part of the charm of this cake is the differently sized pieces of chocolate.  
6. Mix the chocolate into the batter.
7. Spray a 10 inch spring form pan with Baker's Joy, or other baking spray of emulsified oil and flour.  (If you don't have any, oil and flour the pan.)
8. Sprinkle the brown sugar on top.
9. Bake in the middle of the oven for 35-45 minutes.  Begin testing at 35 minutes -- it is done when a toothpick or skewer comes out clear.  
10. Broil for about 2 minutes to melt the sugar and give it a nice crunch.  Watch carefully, since it can burn very quickly, and shut it early if necessary.
11. Cool on a rack before serving.  This cake will keep for several days at room temperature, wrapped in foil.

A very Italian Hanukah

As the smell of oil and onions begins to clear from our apartment, and because I haven't blogged in a while, I think this is a good point to reflect on some of the better meals that we had during Hanukah, two of which were based on Marcella Hazan's Italian recipes. We skipped some of our usual favorites, especially homemade sufganiot (jelly doughnuts). The night we had planned on making them, we had a hoard of teens and twenty-somethings descend on our house, devour almost 100 latkes, and I didn't feel like making a double recipe. I hope we get to do them next year though. I generally don't cook many pastries, but these are lots of fun to make, and the dough is a soft as a baby's bottom. The recipe that we use is from Faye Levy's International Jewish Cookbook, which is one of those great cookbooks that doesn't seem to contain a single bad recipe (but which annoyingly includes the author's name in the title).

What we did have that night, which proved to be very popular, were ricotta fritters, which sort of come from Marcella Hazan's second cookbook, More Classic Italian Cooking. I say "sort of" because I couldn't find the book and didn't feel like following some of her rather strict directions anyway (she can come off a bit like an Italian Margaret Thatcher). It will come as no surprise to the readers of this blog that one of the reasons I don't cook many pastries and cakes is that I don't like having to follow precise directions. We winged it and it came out great. An approximation of my version is below, but don't get too hung up on doing it exactly as I say.

The funny thing was that our other very successful dinner was Hazan's chicken with red cabbage, with a little Filipino touch at the end. That night only Amy, Harry and I were home, and we enjoyed it with latkes, which are actually fun to make when you are only cooking for three. The combination of red cabbage with the latkes was more Middle European than Italian. Maybe this is what they eat in Tyrol. Again, my adaptation is below. It was surprisingly good, and Harry, a real meat and potatoes man, had seconds on the cabbage. There was quite a bit of cabbage with rich chicken juices left over, and one day I will turn it into a soup with chicken sausage and white beans. I'll let you know how it comes out. But meanwhile, the recipes:

Ricotta Fritters:

1. Take one pound of ricotta cheese and smush it around with a fork to smooth it a bit. I used fresh ricotta.
2. Beat in 2 large eggs.
3. Season with a pinch of salt, about a tablespoon of sugar, a tablespoon or two of rum, and a good amount of freshly grated nutmeg. Add a teaspoon of vanilla if you feel like it. (The original recipe calls for grated lemon rind, and I didn't want to bother so I used the other seasonings. The funny thing is that everyone raved about how lemony the fritters taste anyway. So, why bother?)
4. Mix in about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of flour. Don't overmix because the gluten will develop and it may get tough. (Think pancakes and muffins here.) Add a bit more if it looks too moist. The exact quantity will depend on the moisture level of the ricotta.
5. You may either deep fry or pan fry these. The method is basically the same, but deep frying uses vastly more oil, and as a consequence produces less greasy results.  To deep fry, heat a minumum of 2 inches of oil in a fryer or Dutch oven to 375 degrees.  To pan fry, use a skillet and about 3/4 inch of oil. Bubbles will form around a piece of bread when you dip it in.
6. Take tablespoons of batter and push them gently into the oil with another spoon. (Don't drop it from a height.)
7. Turn over when the underside browns with a spatula and a fork, and fry another minute or two. Regulate heat so that they cook quickly but don't burn.
8. Remove with a slotted spoon, seive, or tongs. Drain on crumpled paper towels.
9. Transfer to a serving platter and drizzle with Middle Eastern date honey (also known as date syrup) or a flavorful bee honey. Serve as soon as possible.
10. Serves 6-8.

If you are super lowcarb, you could also substitute ground almonds for the flour.

Chicken with Red Cabbage:

1. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a pot or skillet large enough to accommodate all ingredients later, and add a medium onion, quartered, sliced and salted lightly and saute for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. When the onion is soft, add about 4 cloves of garlic, sliced, and saute a few more minute.
3. Add about 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of red cabbage, quartered, cored and shredded finely. Season with salt and pepper and mix well.
4. Cover and cook about 10 minutes until the cabbage begins to wilt.
5. Add a smallish chicken (3 pounds or less), cut into 8 pieces. Mix into the cabbage, and pour 1/2 to 1 cup of red wine over it call.
6. Bring to the boil, turn the heat down to medium low, and simmer about 45 minutes until the chicken is just done.
7. Remove the chicken to a plate, and boil down the cabbage to reduce the juices as much as you want.
8. Put the cabbage in a bake and serve dish, top with the chicken, skin side up, and broil in the middle of the oven until the chicken is well browned and the skin is crisp. (This is the Filipino touch, from Chicken Adobo, and it makes all the difference, especially if you hate flabby stewed chicken skin.)
9. Serves 4, maybe with a little left over for lunch. Great with latkes. If not, serve roasted potatoes or a good baguette.

Note: You can easily double this recipe is you have a large enough pot. The ideal proportion is no more than 1/2 pound of red cabbage to pound of chicken. Don't be tempted to increase the cabbage or it won't be flavorful enough. If you want more cabbage, throw in some extra chicken backs or necks, or add some chicken stock and reduce it more.

The absolute best latke recipe

Hanukah starts tomorrow, so nobody should miss out on what I think is the absolute best latke recipe in the world, which is based on one that comes from, of all places, Reform Judaism magazine. (I may have some problems with the movement, but they do publish a good magazine, not like the dreck that United Synagogue produces for the Conservative movement.) The original recipe is by Tina Wasserman, and my version is fartaytscht und farbessert in some significant ways, but she deserves a lot of credit for making her method known to the world.

This is the only really good recipe that I have found using a food processor rather than a hand grater. Even most of today's hand graters don't work all that well -- the holes are too coarse or too fine. My grandmother used to use something that looked like a piece of wire fence, though I haven't seen anything like it in years. So save your knuckles, and try these.  Be aware that latkes, like pizza, bagels and chopped liver, are very personal foods.  They have to be just right (how your better-cook grandmother made them) or they won't quite do.  Some people like only coarse shreds so the latkes practically fall apart.  I think that they are crazy but who am I to argue.  Others like it much more onion-y.  I have even been told that my latkes lack tam (flavor).  Again, though I generally go for strongly flavored foods, I like my latkes with a whiff of onion and would prefer not to taste it all
night.  But if you swing differently, by all means use two onions instead of one. 

I recently made a double batch of these latkes  with six pounds of potatoes to freeze for a party.  It yielded about 60  latkes and took 90 minutes including cleanup.  Plan accordingly.


Latkes

1. Peel 6 large Yukon Gold potatoes, about 3 pounds. Put in cold water.
2. Grate the potatoes in a food processor on the shredding blade. Immediately run under cold water and squeeze dry.
3. Change the blade on the processor to the usual grinding blade and grind an onion to a coarse puree. Add about 1/4 of the grated potatoes and puree these as well. Add salt (lots, about a tablespoon of kosher salt) some pepper, and 2-3 eggs, and mix briefly.
4. Stir all of this into the rest of the grated potatoes.
5. Mix in about 1/4 cup of flour, though you will need more later. (Most recipes call for matzah meal, but after much experimentation, I think that flour works best here.)
6. Heat fat in a skillet. We usually haul down my mother-in-law's old electric skillet for this one. Stainless or cast iron would also work, but non-stick is a waste here. For the fat, we usually use Crisco. You're frying latkes and you're going to worry about transfats? It should be at least 3/4 inch deep. The more fat, the less it cools when you put the latkes in, the crisper and less greasy they will be.
7. If using an electric skillet, heat it to 375; otherwise, heat it on medium high and test the fat with a piece of bread. If it bubbles, it is ready. Use a frying thermometer if you have one.
8. Put large tablespoons of the potato batter in the fat, but don't press them down. Fry about 3 minutes on a side. The later batches tend to cook quicker than the earlier ones. Try one latke first. If it looks to liquid (you will know that it is if it disintegrates in the skillet) add more flour. If it just spreads out into a pancake and holds together, you are good to go.
9. Drain the latkes on crumpled paper towel on top of a paper bag. Serve as hot and as fresh as you can.
10. As the batter sits, some of the juices will separate. Drain them out, and add about a tablespoon more flour at a time until the batter isn't liquidy. Also, you will probably need to skim out some of the solids so they don't burn and add more fat to the pan.  Just be sure to bring it back up to cooking temperature before adding more batter. 

Accompaniments? Some people like applesauce. (I think homemade is wasted here, but I am willing to be proven wrong.) I like sour cream, especially with a little smoked salmon on top. I think my mother-in-law said that when she was young, they would just sprinkle them with sugar. Before he had to worry about hypertension, my father liked them plain with some coarse salt.

How many does it serve?  Who knows?  The three pounds of potatoes will make about 25-30 latkes, which I would say serves 4-6 as the main event of the dinner.  But, a lot depends on what else you are serving.  With brisket?  Figure 2 each.  With sour cream and applesauce, maybe following a mushroom barley soup or tuna salad?   Figure 5 each.  Now that everyone is watching their carbs, it may go further.  If there are teen boys present, all bets are off.

Can I make them in advance? No, not really. But if you have a life and a large number of guests, say anything more than 3, you may want to. You can make them earlier in the day, drain them on toweling, and then leave them at room temperature for a few hours. Reheat in a 350 oven in a single layer on baking sheets. You can also freeze them, on sheets in a single layer, and then store them once frozen in a bag. Reheat them the same way, just a bit longer. For some reason, they tend to get gluey if refrigerated.

Why are these the absolute best latkes in the world? Coarsely shredded potato latkes fall apart and get too greasy. Latkes made from processed, pureed potatoes are just boring. This recipe gives you the texture of the shredding, the body of the ground potato and no bloody knuckles. Beyond this, there are many keys to latke success:  salting well, plenty of fat, frying soon after the mixture is prepared and adding flour or draining water as the mixture sits. Several factors keep the latkes from discoloring: rinsing and draining potatoes and shreds, working relatively fast so that the batter doesn't discolor, and using a light colored potato. There are few things as unappetizing as a gray latke.

To peel or not to peel? This is very controversial. If you use a light skinned potato and rinse quickly and properly, you should be OK. Don't even dream of trying this with russets (baking potatoes). Some people swear that the skins give incomparable texture and flavor. However, I think that the real reason that I peel is to make Bengali potato skins (potato skins sauteed in mustard oil with white poppy seeds, chick pea flour, and a touch of chili). Peeling potatoes for latkes makes Hanukah a great time to accumulate enough skins to make this dish, which is probably my daughter's favorite. She is coming home this weekend, so we will be prepared.

Why Crisco? I don't know. This is what my mother-in-law used so it is what I use. My grandfather said that in Pruzhane they would fry them in goose fat. I wonder if the fat could have gotten hot enough to crisp them, but they must have tasted delicious. There must be something about the crystalline structure of solid fats that contributes to the texture. And there is a certain visual poetry generally denied to Jews who don't cook with lard of seeing a vast amount of Crisco melt in a skillet. But use oil if you must.