A Butcher’s Orange Rosemary Cake with Pine Nuts, Oh Boston

My brother, Eric, texted me on March 8th to say, “It’s official. Apartment hunting in Boston is the worst possible experience.” 

He is right. 

When he and his girlfriend, Amanda, entered what would otherwise be reasonable search criteria into Craigslist—namely they wanted a dog-friendly place with in-unit laundry for less than 2,000 dollars per month—one entry in all of Boston proper came up.  And it was a scam listing.

Finding an apartment here is not for weaklings.  You need about 6,000 dollars upfront, to cover first and last’s months rent plus a realtor’s fee, which often involves forking over a couple grand to a bro in his mid-twenties so he can physically open the door and lie straight to your face that the apartment comes with a dishwasher.

Eric and Amanda are planning to move here from the D.C. area and when they came to visit last weekend, we stopped into a real estate agency, hoping some face-to-face contact might improve their chances.  Eric relayed the same reasonable criteria—minus the laundry, which I assured was an illusory ambition—and the realtor made the kind of face a crummy oncologist might give before awarding you a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

Despite all of this, as we walked around the city, Amanda said she thought the people of Boston were nice.  To which I had a good laugh. The city was founded by Puritans, after all, and boasts a proud history as a place where angry mobs literally tarred and feathered people. It was ten degrees that day, which was not breeding any benevolence from inhabitants, either. 

While the city does not coddle, it does offer some fun.  We visited one of my favorite restaurants, Hojoko, a Japanese-style spot that until a few years ago, was a Howard Johnson.  They serve an addictive okonomiyaki and also offer something called wasabi roulette, wherein a pecan-sized nub of wasabi is encased in bits of raw fish and participants take turns eating similar pieces from a rotating dish until a poor soul stumbles upon the one with wasabi. This is the type of thing that the diseased people of Boston find hilarious. 

We also visited Eataly, which has imported pasta and limbs of meat hanging from the rafters, which is what sold Amanda on Boston, I think, once we discredited her nice Bostonian theory. We ended the night at a comedy club located on the third floor of a Chinese restaurant in Harvard Square, whose floors will allegedly bow if enough people are on them.

So we toured the city, ate and drank to fight off the cold, and despite the gnarly weather and depressing housing prospects, had a good time.

Before they left for their 7 AM flight back to the land of the cherry blossoms, I tucked away a few slabs of this cake for the airport.

The recipe comes from a butcher named Dario who has a restaurant in Tuscany.  You can read more about its origin here.

To make it, you throw a couple oranges, rind and all, into the batter, along with some wine-soaked raisins. It is perfumed by fronds of rosemary and studded with pine nuts, which I never really kept around before, because I felt pecans could do the job of a pine nut when it came to pesto.  But I will now. 

The result is a fragrant, citrusy cake with a moist crumb. I typically soak the raisins in amaro along with a splash of sherry, because the recipe calls for vin santo, which I do not have. Although I have many characteristics of an eighty-year-old Italian man, drinking vin santo is not one of them.

Though the cake itself is not overly sweet, thanks to the dusting of granulated sugar, it has a sparkly top layer that looks like icy snow crystals. Plus it involves a tube pan. I love a good tube pan.

It also serves as a convenient metaphor for Boston.  Its ingredients are a bit finicky and at some points you feel like things are going all wrong.  The recipe calls for less than a cup of sugar, so it is by no means a saccharine dessert. Even the natural sweetness from the fruit is tamed by bitter notes from the orange peel and amaro.

It is a solid, reliable dessert made for sturdy people.  Just don’t call it nice.

A Butcher’s Orange Rosemary Cake with Pine Nuts

Adapted from Food52

Ingredients:

• ½ cup raisins
• ¼ cup amaro plus 2 tbsp of sherry (or 3 ounces of vin santo)
• ⅓ cup pine nuts
• 1½ oranges, unpeeled and halved (seeds removed)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ¾ cup plus 2 tbsp granuated sugar, divided
• ½ cup plus 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1½ cups plus 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 3 tbsp cornstarch
• 2 long fresh rosemary sprigs

Instructions:

In a small saucepan, heat the raisins and amaro-sherry (or vin santo) on high heat until simmering. Turn off the heat and let sit 30 minutes. (So the raisins can plump and soak up the liquid.)

Set the oven to 325 degrees and roast the pine nuts on a baking sheet for 8 to 10 minutes, until they are golden brown and smell nutty. (Rotate the baking sheet halfway through to ensure even cooking.) Let cool.

Increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees.

Grease (I use butter) and flour a tube pan (or angel food cake pan), tapping out the extra flour.

Place the orange halves cut-side down and slice longitudinally into ¼-inch slices. Leaving the peels attached, chop the slices into ¼-inch cubes.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, place the eggs, baking soda, baking powder, and ½ cup plus two tablespoons of sugar.  Using the whisk attachment, mix on medium-high speed until the mixture becomes lighter in color and thicker (3 to 4 minutes).

With the speed on medium, gradually pour the olive oil down the inner side of the bowl and mix until emulsified.

Turn the speed to low and mix in one-third of the flour until it is barely visible and then one-third of the raisins until just incorporated.  Stop the mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Repeat two more times, each time adding one-third flour and raisins and then stopping to scrape the bowl. 

Remove the bowl from the stand and fold in the oranges with a rubber spatula (no bits of flour should be visible, but do not over mix). Let the batter rest for 10 minutes.

Scrape the batter into your prepared pan (it will be very thick and loaded with oranges) and gently smooth the top with your spatula.  Scatter the pine nuts over top and then sprinkle with the remaining ¼ cup of sugar.

Cut the rosemary sprigs into manageable pieces (I like mine a couple inches in length).  Stick the tufts into the batter so that they lay on the surface in a design of your choosing.

Bake the cake for 10 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 325 degrees and bake for another 30 to 40 minutes, or until the cake is golden and an inserted toothpick comes out clean. (Rotate the cake once during the process to ensure even baking.)

Place the cake on a wire rack and let cool to room temperature.

Run a knife around the inside of the pan and gently flip the cake upside down to free it, letting it fall gently into your hand (or nearby plate).  Quickly flip the cake back and onto a serving platter, so that the pine nuts and rosemary are facing up again.

Notes

1. If you have pastry flour, 1¾ cups of it can be used in place of the all-purpose flour and cornstarch.
2. The cake can be covered and left at room temperature overnight, but I would freeze any leftovers beyond a day or two.

Rosemary Focaccia, Built to Roam

It is 8:13 AM.  On the street below a man is hosing down the entryway to a shrine for Saint Agrippina, garnished with over forty red roses.  There has been an Italian feast here in Boston’s North End, waging a war of sweets, meats, and muddied acoustics outside my window for days. 

The best way to describe it is to call to mind a state fair. The Great New York State Fair is my reference point.  Except picture more teeth and truncated consonants and swap out the secular wine slushies and spiedies for tents filled with blessed arancini balls and cannoli shells.

The smell of things fried in oil wafting up to a bedroom window may sound charming.  It can be.  The sound of when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie while cooking dinner may sound romantic.  It can be. 

The resonance of a cover of Donna Summer’s “Last Dance” at 10:15 PM when you are trying to sleep is neither charming, nor romantic.  Especially when it is not—in fact—the last dance of the evening.  Under the auspices of broken promises, the age of disco continues to rage for another half hour.

For most of July, I took things to the limit traveling up and down the northeastern coast to the Cape, Vermont, and Rhode Island.  Trampling across beaches, up mountains, and settling on green grass to listen to banjos and acoustic guitars.

I mention this because during these weekends away from the city I have felt stronger, often on less sleep, and more booze. I also found myself reflecting a good deal as, I think, traveling tends to nudge. There are things to help this process if you are willing to listen and open wide.

Recently, this has included a Texas gentleman who goes by the name Shakey Graves.  I saw him in Newport last weekend at the epic folk festival. His gritty, soulful lyrics are matched by his lone guitar and suitcase kick drum.  I have not felt this way about music since I was thirteen and discovering The Beatles for the first time. 

The man can sing.

So sit back and watch me go
Bored and lazy
Yeah, watch me go, just passin’ through
Follow me beyond the mountain
Yeah go howl at the ol’ big moon
Oh strip them clothes right from your body
Dress your skin in sticks and stones
Doesn’t matter where we’re headed oh
Yeah cause some of us were built
Yeah, well, some of us were built
Yeah, well you know that some of us
Oh we were built to roam

So there’s that. 

There has also been this here focaccia that has done its fair share of traveling.  To Barnstable County accompanying pan-fried fish and a tomato casserole. 

To Newport alongside smashed avocado and six-minute eggs. 

To a motor lodge with cheese from a farm in Vermont with rosé drank from Styrofoam cups. To my beloved wineshop on Hanover Street because those wonderful folks deserve good bread.

It goes most places, easily. With pockets of olive oil in its open crevices.  Seasoned with pins from a spindly rosemary plant I have had for a scant decade.  It is soft, and chewy, and incredibly simple.  

The recipe is worth holding tightly to and the focaccia slab is suitable to share with as many people as you can.

I am not spiritual in the sense of god, or saints, or shrines.  But I do believe in the power of an acoustic guitar and of things made of flour and of heart.  And for me, right now, that is enough to fill a soul full.

Rosemary Focaccia

Adapted from The Wednesday Chef and Saltie: A Cookbook

Ingredients:

• 6¼ cups (915 grams) all-purpose flour, sifted
• 2 scant tbsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 3½ cups warm water (a little warmer than room temperature)
• ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for the pan and to drizzle overtop
• pinch coarse sea salt
• pinch red pepper flakes
• 2 to 3 tsp minced fresh rosemary

Instructions:

the day before

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and yeast. Add the warm water and stir until all the flour is incorporated and a sticky dough forms.  In a 6-quart container (the bowl of most Kitchen Aids will do) pour in ¼ cup olive oil.

Pour the dough on top of the olive oil and scoop a little oil that pools at the sides of the bowl over top. (It will look like you’ve made a terrible mistake here, the dough will be very loose, almost like porridge.)

Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 8 hours and up to 2 days (I average about 24 hours).  During this time, the dough will rise and puff up.

the day of

When ready to bake, take the dough from the fridge, oil a baking sheet (about 18 x 13), and pour the dough onto your prepared pan.  Using your hands, spread the dough gently out to the corners, or as close as you can get it. 

Let the dough rise until it roughly doubles in volume (about 1 hour).  It is ready when it is puffed up and spread out. 

Meanwhile, in a small bowl combine a tablespoon or two of olive oil with a pinch of red pepper and salt, plus the rosemary. 

Set the oven to 450 degrees. 

Make a number of indentations in the puffed dough with your fingers, like you are playing the piano.  Give the olive oil mixture a quick stir and drizzle it evenly over the top of the focaccia, allowing it to pool in the dimples created.

Bake for about 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through, until the top turns golden brown. Let cool on a wire rack and then cut into slices in the pan.

Makes enough for 12 sandwiches (or 24 narrow strips for snacking)

Notes:

1. Start this recipe a day ahead.  This may seem annoying, but it is not a lot of work, and no kneading.
2. The focaccia will last up to 2 days sealed in a plastic bag on the countertop.  If you won’t use all of it right away, it freezes brilliantly.  (If you want it for sandwiches, slice before freezing.)
3. See Shakey sing "Built to Roam."