Fresh Corn Fritters

Do you have fear of frying? I overcame mine a few years ago with some -- as it turned out, unnecessary -- reassurance from a nearby fire extinguisher. And a whole new world opened. Frying is easy, quick and adds so much flavor and texture to ordinary ingredients.  And by ordinary, I mean things you probably already have in your pantry or refrigerator like eggs and flour. It's a good way to incorporate fruits and vegetables into one's diet! I recently discovered two ears of corn lurking in my fridge from an overly ambitious farmer's market trip at the same time I found a vintage recipe for corn fritters. Kismet!

This recipe is from Grace Johnson, a Park Slope, Brooklyn, resident, whose wonderful 1940s handwritten book of recipes I purchased from a stoop sale a few years ago.  You can read her story here.

These are light, fluffy and savory fritters. Really, really good. (And you can whip them up in a jiffy when a friend unexpectedly rings your doorbell on Sunday night -- see end of post.)



Begin by organizing your ingredients.  Beat the egg, mix in the milk and other ingredients.

It will seem like there's not enough liquid, but there will be.  Add the corn in last.

Drop the batter by teaspoon...



...into the hot oil. Fry until golden on one side.

Then flip the fritters over using a slotted spoon, or even a fork.



I've included the original recipe, and then thoughtfully wrote it out (you're welcome).

Corn Fritters

1 egg

1 cup milk (divided)

1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups whole kernel corn (about two ears)

1 tablespoon liquid shortening (melted butter)

Oil for frying (depending on the size of your frying pan*)

In a bowl, beat the egg.

Stir in ½ cup milk.

Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Add to egg-milk mixture.

Add remaining ½ cup milk.

Add the melted butter and corn.

Mix well.

Heat the oil in a frying pan. When very hot (you can take its temperature or just drop a bit of batter in to test).

Drop the batter by tablespoons into the hot oil.

When golden brown on one side, flip over to continue cooking. (Use a fork or slotted spoon).

Remove from pan and drain on paper towels.

*Grace recommends starting with three tablespoons of oil, and replacing when necessary. I think it’s better to do this once – add oil so it rises an inch or more from the bottom of the pan. This way, you need not keep waiting for the new oil to reach temperature. You can always strain the used oil through a cheesecloth to reuse.

Our friend Alec, below, with a plate of corn fritters. He bicycled over on his hand-built bamboo bike just in time for dinner! Hmmmm.....

Ozark Pie

Are you watching season two of Netflix's Ozark?  I am, sort of. It's so contrived and crazy, but hard to get off the rollercoaster. The lives of Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) are so frenetic and stressful, one wonders why criminals (most of whom are very smart) just don't get regular jobs.

Ozark Pie (probably named for the geographic region of its origin) is a simple apple confection, and not really a pie at all. It's just that it's baked in a pie plate.  It is more than the sum of its parts. Favorite son-in-law loved the brown sugar -- but there's no brown sugar. It's just that the white sugar caramelizes so beautifully. It is really delicious, uses ingredients you probably already have and so easy to make. I'll bet it's something that Ozark's Ruth (or more likely her grandmother -- this is a vintage recipe ) would whip up in a minute.



The mis en place is below.  Cinnamon, egg, vanilla, flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, nuts and apples.



I love recipes where one is instructed to dump everything in a bowl and mix. Not only is it easy, but clean up is a snap.  For this, first beat the egg in the bowl, and add all the other ingredients (save the nuts and apples).



The mixture will be very thick.



Add the nuts and apples. It will seem that there's insufficient batter to cover these, but worry not.



See? Everything is beautifully coated.



Dump the entire mixture into a pie pan. I didn't grease the pan but you can give it a spray of PAM, mostly to aid clean up.  I used an 8-inch pie plate.



Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, depending on your oven.  As you can see below, the "slices" are removed from the pan like pie, but will not hold their shape when plated.



Vintage recipe card below. I followed the instructions exactly. I used two large Cortland apples, and about a cut of walnuts, and one teaspoon of cinnamon.  But you can add more or less of these, depending on taste. I baked it for 35 minutes.

Heart-Shaped Cakes

As a child, I adored Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books, her romanticized memoir of life on the western frontier in the late 19th century.  Just how romanticized these are I discovered in a wonderful new book, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Carolyn Fraser. Let's just say it wasn't all Pa's joyful fiddling and endless fields of wildflowers. 

Wilder's books spawned many offshoots, a television series and a book of recipes among them. I've made Molasses on Snow Candy from The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walter and, a few weeks ago, inspired by Prairie Fires, I baked Heart-Shaped Cakes, a recreated version of a confection made by Ma and placed in Laura's Christmas stocking to her utter delight.

Heart-Shaped Cakes are more like a shortbread or a scone than a cake, as Ma didn't have eggs or baking powder on hand.  They are simple to make and surprisingly good. (And would be a wonderful gift for your valentine!) White sugar was dear on the frontier, so gifts of cake, especially topped with sugar as these are, were an extra special treat.

The recipe calls for cutting the butter into the dry ingredients with cold fingers. That proved difficult, so I took a shortcut by using a pastry blender.  You can also use a food processor, but that seems a bit too modern.

  

Once the fat it cut into the dry ingredients, make a well and add the buttermilk.

The dough will look rather shaggy.

With your hands, form a ball.

Dust your work surface with a bit of flour and roll the dough into a circle.  Cut into six equal pieces.

Again, with your hands, shape each piece into hearts. I used a butter knife to make a small cut at the top and then formed them in the heart-ish shapes. (You won't get cookie cutter perfection using this method, but neither did Ma.) Place on a baking sheet and pop them in the oven.

I made these for my beautiful niece Dory who was visiting from Austin.  (She is not this red in real life; I have a new computer and new photo editing software which I obviously can't use properly yet.)

Here's the recipe, with my method below.

Heart-Shaped Cakes

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup white sugar (extra for dusting)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1/4 cup cold unsalted butter
1/3 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425F

Mix flour, sugar, baking soda and nutmeg in a bowl.
Using cold fingers, two knives or a pastry blender, rub the butter into the flour mixture.
Make a well in the center and add buttermilk.
Using your hand, work it into a dough.
Form into a ball.
Dust work surface with a bit of flour.
Roll the dough into an 8-inch circle.
Cut into eight pieces (cut in half, then halve again for uniformity)
Shape the top of each wedge into a heart. (I made a small cut with a butter knife to help this process.)
Place on a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake for 15 minutes, or until the cakes are a bit puffy and the tops are slightly brown.
Remove from the oven and sprinkle generously with sugar.

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Fresh Cranberry Cookies

'Tis the season for fresh cranberries and after making sauce, bread, cake and cobbler with these tart ruby berries, I was delighted to discover this vintage recipe for Fresh Cranberry Cookies. These would make a fine addition to your Thanksgiving dessert table, and a nice alternative to pie.

They are a snap to make, delicious and, most importantly, different. While Craisins (sweetened dried cranberries have appeared in numerous cookie recipe, this is the first I've seen using fresh berries.)

Gather your cranberries and, as the recipe instructs, coarsely chop them. I thought this was way too boring (and difficult) and was about to give up, but...

the DH, a former "deli man," decided to do it.  However, I do think these cookies would be fine using the whole berry if you don't have an ambitious sort at home willing to step up to the plate cutting board.

The recipe calls for two teaspoons of orange juice and, having none the house, I just juiced half an orange (and drank the extra!).

Make sure your butter is at room temperature, and beat it with the sugars. Add the milk, juice and egg and combine.

After you add the dry ingredients and combine well, add the cranberries and nuts to the batter. I used pecans, but walnuts would also be nice.

I used gloved hands to form the cookies into small balls, rather than dropping them by teaspoon onto the cookie sheet. They don't spread much so you can place them close to one another.

Bake for about 10 minutes and cool on racks.

Production notes: I followed the recipe exactly, using pecans for the nuts. The SIL, who adored these cookies, suggested gilding the lily berry by adding white chocolate to the batter. I will try that next time, Josh!

Pistachio Watergate Cake with Cover Up Frosting

These days, what's happening in Washington, D.C., makes Watergate seem like child's play, but at the time, it was THE BIGGEST SCANDAL EVER, commanding the attention of everyone -- even, apparently, bakers. And so, in the 1970s, just around the time that Jello introduced its new pistachio pudding mix, the Watergate Cake was born. It is full of nuts, and features cover-up frosting.  And therein lies the albeit random connection to the (now old-school) burglary and cover up that captured the nation. (I actually attended one day of the Watergate hearings in 1973 with two high school friends while on a road trip. I recall we just waltzed in to see John Dean testify -- it was that easy!)

This cake screams the 1970s in other ways, too. Check out the processed food ingredients required. It was no easy feat finding Jello pistachio pudding (thanks, Target in Brooklyn) and a box of Dream Whip (thanks, Walmart in Athens, Georgia).

Despite the ingredients, this cake is DELICIOUS!!  I could not stop eating it. Did I mention that it's a snap to make?  Once you locate the ingredients, that is.

First, the essential nuts. I used walnuts, but pecans would also be lovely.

Just dump all the ingredients in a mixing bowl, after beating the eggs separately, and combine.

The batter will look like this.

Spoon it into a well-greased bundt pan.

Bake until the edges of the cake just being to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Let it cool in the pan a bit, and turn it out onto a rack.

Start the cover up frosting. I mixed all ingredients together first, then added the sour cream.

Make sure the cake is cool before frosting. I had tons left over, btw.

The recipe I followed You'll notice there are no real instructions, but I was able to figure it out by Googling a bunch of other similar recipes. (Ruth C. Scott, whose name appears on this card, embellished the standard recipe by the addition of flavorings and sour cream in the frosting.) Basically, I followed the recipe on the cake mix box, adding the beaten eggs, and flavorings last.  You really can't mess this up.
If you want to make this cake without processed ingredients, please see the wonderful book Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson, who features a from scratch version of Watergate Cake with Impeachment Frosting.