Amaretto Almond Cake--A Snobbish Name for Polish Babka

The best babka, or a bundt cake, as it is called world wide, that I have veer had, was made by my grandmother. It was spongy, extremely moist, and aromatic. Most often she made a lemon babka, by adding lemon juice and grated lemon peel to the batter. Sometimes she made a rum babka with a chocolate swirl inside. They were as good two days later as on the first day, if only they could last so long.

Years ago, before the mixers era, my grandma was using a special wooden club and a special clay bowl to grind sugar, eggs, and butter together, until they turned into a very smooth mixture. She made them usually in winter, as a weekend treat, when not many fruits were available.

Unfortunately, although I was helping her often as a child, especially to lick the spatula, I have never taken down an exact recipe, and neither has any of her five daughters, including my mother. Grandma's secret for this amazing cake, will forever stay secret. So if you have a special family recipe that you love, please write it down, before it is too late. I keep asking all the good Polish cooks I know if they have a nice babka recipe. But almost all of them are very far from this perfect one I remember, mostly because they come out too dry.

But recently I got a recipe from a Polish lady who is a very cook and made it recently. First time I made it, the babka was very good, but I still would like it to be more moist. Then my mother reminded me that, although grandma used only best quality ingredients, she also added a little bit of cooking oil to her cake to lock in the moisture. I did it too and finally I got the cake that came close to what I had remembered. On my next try, I will probably make lemon babka, but for now please enjoy this almond version. I'm sure that this cake would also be excellent if you make it with hazelnut meal and Frangelico liqueur, for example.

Amaretto Almond Cake

Ingredients:
2 sticks butter, soft
1 cup sugar,
1 tbsp vegetable oil,
4 eggs (separate yolks and whites) at room temperature,
1 and 1/4 cup almond meal,
2/3 cup flour,
2 tsp baking powder,
2 tbsp Amaretto di Saronno, or any other liqueur or Cognac,
a pinch of salt.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Grease a bundt cake baking tin with butter and sprinkle with breadcrumbs--that will help to get the cake out.
3. Using a stand or hand mixer beat together butter and sugar for about 3-5 minutes, or until sugar almost dissolves.
4. Add egg yolks, one by one, still beating.
5. Mix in a bowl flour, almond meal, and baking powder, and add them to the batter.
6. When the batter is well mixed, add oil and liqueur.
7. Beat whites with salt until stiff and using spatula incorporate them gently into the almond batter.

8. Transfer the batter into the baking tin and bake it for 40-45 minutes.

Cool down the cake and dust with icing sugar or pour chocolate sauce on it. I prefer icing sugar, as it is more delicate, especially, if use chocolate for chocolate swirl babkas.

Smoked Salmon and Wine Linguine--A Leftover Idea

Sometimes, especially during such a socially busy time of the year, I find in my refrigerator unused leftovers from a dinner party and three different wine bottles with just a bit of wine in each of them. It must be a common dilemma what to do do with that--especially the wine leftovers--since some of the greatest culinary celebrities make entire TV programs on what to do with such remains.

Some advise just to drink it, which is always a good idea, others to use for marinating meat. Nigella Lawson advises to put the leftover wine in a Ziploc bag and freeze it for future use. I would not popularize this frugal idea, as I do not find the combination of wine and plastic, and frozen wine to it, too appealing.

Nevertheless, I still have in my refrigerator a couple of slices of smoked salmon and about a half glass of white wine. While browsing my recipe book for inspirations, I found a recipe for pasta, a friend of mine gave me years ago in Geneva. It calls almost exactly for my leftover ingredients, plus canned artichoke bottoms and fresh dill.

It so happens that I almost always have artichoke in my pantry, just in case, and I cannot live without dill. I buy a big bunch, chop it and freeze it in plastic containers. Dill helps digest food, and recently it has been discovered that it has rejuvenating properties and is being added to some, natural face creams. I am always happy to use it in a greater amount than the recipe calls for it.

Of course you can also open a bottle of wine to make that pasta and drink the rest with it, but doing it with leftover wine was a nice pretext to try this recipe, as pasta is one of my favorite foods.

Smoked Salmon and Wine Linguine
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
3-4 slices of smoked salmon (about 1 cup)cut into strips,
14 oz can artichoke bottoms (artichoke hearts can also be also used after cutting out their fibrous parts) cut into strips,
1/4 cup dill, finely chopped,
1 cup heavy whipping cream,
juice from 1 lemon,
1/3 cup white wine,
3/4 pack linguine pasta,
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese,
salt and pepper.

Preparation:
1. In a saucepan mix together cream, wine, and lemon. Simmer it for about 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, cook pasta in a big pot and. when al dente, drain on a colander.
2. Add salmon to the cream sauce, artichokes, dill, salt and pepper, and heat it all up for about 2 minutes.
4. Pour the sauce over the hot pasta, shred some Parmesan on top, and serve.

Wheat Rolls--Straight from the Oven

If I lived in Paris or even in Warsaw I would not even bother. I would just go down the street and buy it. But because I live in Washington DC, whenever I crave warm bread straight from the oven, I need to bake it. Yes, I can buy baguettes in my neighborhood's upscale stores, such as Balducci's or Marvelous Market, but they are not exactly what I have in mind when I recall the baguettes I used to buy in some places in Europe.

Actually, it was not in Paris, but in Geneva, where I ate the best baguettes ever--always gold and crispy on the outside, and fluffy and incredibly white inside. You could buy them warm, also on weekends. My apologies to all the French readers who may stumble upon this post, but during my last visit to Paris I spent 30 minutes on Saturday morning standing at a lovely boulangerie in Marais, to buy famous French bread--precisely a baguette--and have never been more disappointed. Unfortunately, this was not the only culinary disappointment that I experienced during that trip.

I come from a family of bakers--my grandfather owned a bakery before WWII and later he continued to work in a state-owned bakery. Therefore, appreciation for good bread runs in my blood and I eat quite a lot of it. I used to make bread in Poland, and I still experiment with different recipes here. Years ago, when I first came to the US, I bought a bread machine and made wonderful rye bread that once got even high reviews from my Italian friends, but recently, I bake bread directly in the oven, because I find the bread made in the machine too soft and lacking the crispy crust, which I like very much.

I still have not been able to make a perfect baguette. One of my French friends maintains that the secret of the baguette lies in the quality of the flour it is made of, and the best quality flour is not commonly available outside France. Having that in mind, I decided to make rolls of whole wheat flour and not be disappointed that they are not as perfect as they should be. Still, when I ate them warm, just with butter, they were exactly what I was looking for.

Wheat Rolls
(Makes 12-16 rolls)

Ingredients:
2 and 1/2 cups flour,
1 cup whole wheat flour,
1 and 1/2 cup warm water,
3 tbsp oil,
2 tsp yeast,
1 tbsp salt.
2 tbsp oatmeal or sesame seeds.

Preparation:
1. Put all the ingredients in a stand mixer and using the dough hook attachment let it run for about 5 minutes. You can also make the dough just with hands, and knead it until the dough is smooth.
2. Take small pieces of dough, roll in hand and place on a cookie sheet tin.
3. Cover with plastic foil and let it rise for an hour.
4. Preheat oven to 375 F.
5. Remove the foil and sprinkle the rolls with sesame seeds or oatmeal.
6. Bake for 20-30 minutes.

Let the rolls cool down a little bit before you eat them, but they taste best when they are still slightly warm. You can make a large batch and freeze some of them for later.