A Different Kind of Fruit Cake

I’ve never made a layer cake with frosting in my life, but I do like baking fruit cakes. Not the kind you make for Christmas (though I suspect they get an undeservedly bad rap), but simple cakes that involve fruit covered in batter. They’re easy to make, reasonably light, work for breakfast or dessert, go well with coffee, tea, milk, etc.

Sour apples like Granny Smith work really well in these cakes, but so do rhubarb, strawberries, peaches, blueberries--anything that's tart. You don't need to do anything with the fruit besides cut it into chunks, and frozen berries work great. It doesn’t hurt to add a bit of vanilla or cinnamon to the batter. See the recipes below for details.

These are the variations I like:

The classic Russian charlotte: 3 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, ½ tsp. baking powder; mix; pour over fruit chunks; bake 60 minutes at 370. Here's my old apple charlotte recipe.

Yogurt cake: Similar to the above, but with 1/2 cup of  plain yogurt and sour cream, and a bit of oil for extra richness.A few weeks ago I made this cake using peaches for the fruit; recipe here.

Buttery cakes with a bit of yogurt or kefr for richness and moisture. See this rhubarb cake recipe for details.

Summer Slacking Series: Milwaukee Farmers Markets & More

What I’m doing during my summer slacking season:

-Not blogging.

-Making random-ingredient salads on weeknights. Here’s a tomato-brie-scallion-sausage-and-crouton creation with balsamic vinegar. I also made a tomato-bacon-pea salad that was surprisingly good. Sauté some chopped bacon, add a few handfuls of frozen peas and cook until the peas are just done. Let cool a bit, mix with sliced tomatoes. Chop up some scallions or parsley, if you have them on hand.

-Making fake Mexican huevos rancheros: Heat up some refried beans in a small pan. Add an egg or two, sunny-side up. Cover pan with lid; cook 3-4 minutes (see the Beyond Salmon blog for more guidance on cooking eggs). Eat with salsa, chopped red peppers, scallions and sour cream.

-Making iced tea with fruit flavorings: lime juice, lemon juice, whole strawberries (add strawberry chunks to the pitcher).

-Checking out farmers markets in downtown Milwaukee. Here’s my brief guide:

East Town Tuesday Market, 3 p.m.-7 p.m., Cathedral Square Park. The crowd: office people and various East Side types. This market is new in 2011, and, judging by the small turnout, I'll be surprised if it continues next summer. Atmosphere: Sparse. Chill. Buy:  Necklaces, hand-made soap, art prints, baked goodies. I haven’t seen a single fruit or vegetable for sale here. Bring: A wad of cash for the $50+ handmade jewelry.

Westown Market, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., Ziedler Union Square. Crowd: Office workers. Atmosphere: Company cafeteria. Buy: Flowers for your desk, lunch from the many food vendors and trucks, cookies for the afternoon slump. Bring: Your co-workers.

East Town Saturday Market, 8 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Cathedral Square Park:  Crowd:  Crowded. Students, young professional types, young families. Atmosphere: Festive. Buy: Hey, this place sells produce, so buy a vegetable that’s in season. Bring: Kids, if you have them—the action’s at the playground.

For addresses and a complete listing of Milwaukee-area farmers markets, see this guide in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Weeknight Dinner Diaries

Suggested ideas for weeknight dinners and a dessert, all made and enjoyed around these parts.

Monday: Tomato, cucumber and bacon salad. Slice up tomatoes and cucumbers and fry up some bacon.  Let the bacon cool, then add to the vegetables, along with some sliced onions, if you like. For the dressing, a bit of mayo and sour cream is good. Salt and pepper liberally.

Tuesday: I’m such a lobbyist for leftovers. Let’s say you have leftover pork loin (cooked in a crock pot with apple juice and soy sauce, surprisingly delish) and roasted potatoes from the weekend. Cut them up and sauté in a pan with some spinach. Add curry spices. Eat with dollops of sour cream.  

Wednesday: There’s more time to mess around in the kitchen mid-week, so make this zucchini-bacon-and-cheese goodness. Slice up 4-5 zucchini and sauté in olive oil for 10 minutes or so.

Place the vegetables in a foil-lined pan and grate some cheese over them—mozzarella and Parmesan are always good. Add some diced ham or bacon. Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes, and broil last five minutes. Let cool a bit before eating.

Thursday: If you’re running low on groceries by the end of the week, look around the pantry. You may be pleasantly surprised by the delicious things you can make using frozen, canned or jarred ingredients. For example: this posh-looking pumpkin soup had an unsexy start: an onion, garlic, canned pumpkin puree and chicken stock in a box.

Method: Dice and sauté a big onion in some olive oil and butter. Add a few minced garlic cloves when the onions are almost done. Sprinkle on some spices—I used Penzey’s Southwestern mix, but you can get creative here. A bit of curry spice is always good. Add the pumpkin, stock (I used about 12 ounces) and ½ cup milk, and bring the soup to a boil. Turn heat to a simmer and cook on low heat for 10 minutes or so.

Adjust the flavor to taste--I added 2 tbs. fresh lemon juice, 1 tbs. brown sugar, and ¼ cup plain yogurt. Play around until it tastes right to you. Add more stock or milk, if you like. Some diced ham or bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces and sautéed, is really good in this.  Eat with crackers or croutons, and extra yogurt.

Friday: Have dinner out but make dessert! Slice up some strawberries, sprinkle with sugar and top with sour cream. Some cookies or chocolate wouldn’t be amiss here, either.

Summer Non-Recipes

Hello, readers. Did you miss me? No? I didn’t miss this place either. I haven’t been cooking much lately, you see. Instead, I’ve been having dinners of cut-up vegetables and salsa, raw sugar snap peas and dip, grilled zucchini with feta. Simple and summery. You don’t expect me to dig out my camera and spend my evenings blogging about that, right? Right.

Over the past couple of months, though, I did come up with a little arsenal of quick non-meals that might inspire you to give up cooking for a while, too. (For more on this phenomenon, see Mark Bittman’s 101 simple summer salads piece from last week’s New York Times.)

Here are some ideas:

Thinly sliced cucumber round sandwiches with cream cheese and turkey (above).

Grilled zucchini and summer squash slices, cut into chunks and eaten with some feta and cubed ham or turkey.

Grilled zucchini slices topped with cheese or bacon or thinly sliced ham, like open-faced sandwiches.

Cut-up carrot sticks with black bean and corn salsa.

Slightly sautéed sugar snap peas or green beans, topped with feta.

Hot, grilled onion rounds (especially red onions) topped with cheese.

Sliced radishes, sprinked with kosher salt and topped with cheese or turkey.