Well. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?

I’m not sure it’s necessary to bore you with details, but since some concerned friends did actually email/text/tweet me asking if I was okay after such a long silence on my blog, I thought I owed everyone some sort of explanation.

When I left a previous job, B and I planned to travel overseas, but I got side tracked by an offer to work in a restaurant for a couple of weeks, covering the Pastry Chef’s shifts while he was on holiday. The couple of weeks turned into something like 5 months (the PC did come back, but he spent some time at the stoves, being the multi-tasking genius that he is). During the 5 months, I discovered the meaning of the words complete+and+utter+exhaustion and why a physiotherapist can be your new best friend. I also rediscovered the true meaning of teamwork. The dedication, passion and camaraderie that this kitchen team bring to the workplace every day, is incredibly unique and is what I will miss most now that I have left.

That said, it’s very exciting to finally be on holiday. We’re off to New York and San Francisco, where a lot of eating is planned and I’m looking forward to meeting up with fellow baking enthusiasts like Anna, Caitlin, Hilda and Aran.

While I reacquaint myself with my kitchen at home, here is a cake recipe I’ve been meaning to share. I made Gaitri Pagrach-Chandra’s Torta de Tres Leches a few months ago and fell instantly in love with it. So much so that I was spurred to come up with a dessert inspired by its flavours and textures. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of this dessert, but if you ever come across it in a particular restaurant, you might recognise it straight away. It is a dish that is meant to be soothing, soft and yielding to the palate and that celebrates the flavour of milk in its many forms : milk, butter, buttermilk, sour cream, condensed milk, evaporated milk, powdered milk and yogurt all feature, as well as white chocolate. I think the end result almost comes close to replicating that sense of wonderment I got when I ate my first slice of :

Torta de Tres Leches :
(recipe from Warm Bread and Honey Cake by Gaitri Pagrach-Chandra)

Cake :

3 eggs
150g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
150g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons milk

Milk Mixture :

200g condensed milk
125ml sour cream
150ml evaporated milk
125ml milk

Preheat the oven to 180’C. Line a 20cm (8 inch) tin with baking paper.

Use an electric mixer to whisk the eggs, caster sugar and vanilla extract until thick and pale.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together, then fold into the mixture. Next, gently but thoroughly mix in the milk. Scrape the batter into the baking tin and level the top. Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes, or until dark golden brown. It will be cooked through before that, but the extra browning – slight overbaking – adds to the flavour in this case.

While the cake is baking, combine the condensed milk and sour cream thoroughly. Add the other two milks and set aside.

Turn the baked cake out onto a cooling rack and immediately cover the bottom and sides generously with tinfoil. Re-invert into the baking tin so that the tinfoil lines the tin. Prick several holes in the cake with a skewer and slowly pour the milk mixture over the warm cake, from the centre outwards. Do this in three batches, allowing the previous additions to be absorbed. It will look like too much liquid, but don’t be alarmed : the cake will soak it all up. Leave to cool. Chill until ready to serve.

Have you ever tried doing a skillet cookie, she asked.

Well no, actually I hadn’t, and was kicking myself that I didn’t think of it sooner. It seems almost a logical conclusion to reach, from skillet cakes to cookies. I suspect skillet cookies are the ultimate lazy but impressive dinner party dessert, brought to the table in all it’s piping hot glory, and served straight from the pan.

Try baking your favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe in a skillet by pressing the cookie dough into the skillet and baking for about 30 minutes or until just set. A standard chocolate chip recipe yielding roughly 24 cookies should be sufficient for a large 9 inch skillet. Or try my recipe below, which is based on Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito’s Black Forest Chocolate Cookie recipe as appears in Baked.

This skillet version of their cookie is best described as an amplified version of a brownie. A brownie cookie on ‘roids, if you will, with a crackingly good crust (my favourite part of any brownie) and slightly oozy interior (especially if you dig in while it’s still warm). Serve with vanilla ice-cream if you have no hips to speak of and would like some.

Black Forest Skillet Cookie :

220g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
75g unsalted butter
85g brown sugar
120g caster sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
55g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
80g dark chocolate chips (60% – 70% cocoa)
80g milk chocolate chips
80g dried sour cherries (or dried cherries/cranberries)

Preheat the oven to 175’C. Arrange a rack on the lower third of the oven.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together into a bowl and set aside.

Melt the 220g dark chocolate and butter together in a bowl over a bain-marie (or in the microwave). Stir and set aside to cool.

In an electric mixer, whisk the eggs and sugars on high speed until the mixture is pale and thick. Add the vanilla extract and cooled chocolate mixture and beat until just combined.

Fold the flour into the chocolate/egg mixture, then both the chocolate chips and dried cherries.

Scrape the mixture into a 7 1/2 inch skillet (if your skillet is larger or smaller, adjust baking time accordingly) and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the edges are well browned and the top is set. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Serve straight from pan.

My love affair with skillet cakes began a long time ago, when B and I used to make apple pancakes on a regular basis. The recipe for those pancakes originated from a newspaper cutting that has since been misplaced and is still dearly missed. My attempts to recreate the recipe have so far failed. Or maybe whatever we make now will never taste the same because we were younger then and more inexperienced in the kitchen, and it was a wonder to be able to combine shredded green apples with cinnamon, a pat of butter and a leavened batter to yield a large fluffy pancake which we proceeded to devour with vanilla ice-cream.

But as it turns out, I still have the capability to be in awe of how simple but soul-satisfying pancakes can be. If you’re in need of a boosted start to the day, I can’t recommend pancakes highly enough. I’m quite fickle when it comes to pancakes. Sometimes I like them thick and fluffy. Other times, I prefer them thin, drizzled with lemon juice and sugar, then rolled up and eaten without cutlery.

This week, I resuscitated my long forgotten omelette pan from the depths of the pot drawer, to whip up some sourdough pancakes and other skillet cakes. Of all the recipes I’ve been trying out, this gluten-free prune and buckwheat skillet cake is probably the most unusual. It is worthy of an attempt by anyone reading this because I think it has great potential to be tweaked according to your own tastes. To my surprise when I first saw this recipe, the cake contains no added sugar apart from the mere tablespoon of honey, and no butter or oil either. The sweetness contributed by the prunes is amazingly all the cake needs to make it the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea, when you’re craving something that’s not loaded with sugar. That is, as long as you don’t proceed to ruin things by pouring over a hearty dose of maple caramel sauce. That was just me trying (and failing) to resist the temptation to dessert-ify my breakfast.

Pain aux Pruneaux :
(from Home Baking by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid)

1 cup pitted prunes
1/2 cup cognac or Armagnac
1 tablespoon honey, heated until runny
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups light buckwheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup whole milk

Chop the prunes into 2 or 3 pieces each. Soak them in the cognac for 8 to 24 hours.

Place a baking stone or unglazed quarry tiles, if you have them (or a heavy baking sheet) on a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 190’C. Butter a 9-inch cast-iron or other heavy ovenproof skillet.

Whisk the honey and eggs together in a medium bowl until tripled in volume. In a small bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and pepper. Stir 1/3 cup of the flour into the egg mixture, then stir in 1/3 cup of the milk. Repeat, alternating until all the flour and milk have been stirred in. Fold in the prunes and any remaining cognac.

Pour the batter into the skillet. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a faint line of brown forms around the edges of the cake and the cake is starting to pull away from the sides of the skillet. There will be small bubbles or holes on the surface.

Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 or more minutes before serving. The top surface of the cake will be tacky, but the crumb will be firm and spongy. Serve from the skillet, or flip onto a plate.