Chocolate Leaves

Halloween is my favourite holiday. I'm sure we've discussed in years past that this is probably to do with the fact that my birthday follows Halloween by less than a week, but regardless of why, Halloween is my jam. This year we decided to host our first Scottish Halloween party, and it was great. After years of throwing Halloween parties in Atlanta (nearly 10 years straight by the time we moved to Scotland, starting long before I met Judson!), it was a sad shift to stop doing so when we moved here- but Halloween isn't a big deal in Scotland, and it took a couple of years to get a decent enough group of friends who we could convince to dress up.

Also there were a couple of years in there where we were traveling for my birthday on the 31st- once in Paris, where, together with friends, we sipped glowing shots spiked with dry ice and served to us by a bartender dressed as Frankenstein, and once in Portugal, where Judson and I sat alone together on the southwesternmost tip of Europe, watching the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean while sipping ice cold beer bought from an enterprising guy with a cooler.

Those Halloweens abroad were amazing, don't get me wrong, but there's something that I love about throwing a Halloween party at home. Transforming my house into a Candy Land wonderland or a World War II USO building or, this year, a Haunted House is so much fun, and having friends over to eat Jello shots and candy and dance in the living room while shedding bits of costume is just the best. So this year, to keep it lowkey for the Scots who weren't super into the idea of dressing up, we did 'traditional' Halloween costumes. I was a witch, Judson a vampire and Holtzmann, who took home the award for cutest costume, a bat. Judson handled décor, which centred around spiderwebs, spooky old portraits of strangers we picked up years ago in a thrift store and foraged sticks, dried leaves, dead flowers and gourds. I took on the food, going for 'things that are tasty but still look spooky,' so there was tomato jam, beetroot dip, balsamic-roasted grapes and all the sweet things you can imagine, including this cake, which contained over a kilo of chocolate, all in.

Unfortunately, I froze the cake to make it easier to frost, and then frosted it with ganache which was so heavy it compacted the cake into a quite dense crumb, but it still tasted delicious and I think it might take the prize as prettiest cake I've ever decorated. The only portion of the cake that comes from the recipe box is the chocolate leaves, but through trial and error I've learned that these are not as difficult as I assumed, so here are all my best tips for making them, all in one place.

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. It's just chocolate, ladies- what did you expect?

One year ago: Crazy Crust Apple Pie
Two years ago: Taffy Apples & Popcorn Balls

the recipe:

Chocolate Leaves

the ingredients:

Baking chocolate (dark, milk or white)
CLEAN ivy, laurel, mint or other leaves with a prominent vein pattern

the directions:

Wash leaves carefully in hot water. Our ivy was a little suspect, so I used soap.
Line worktop in wax paper or parchment paper
Melt chocolate carefully over low heat in a double boiler or in 5-second bursts in the microwave.
Use a paintbrush or frosting knife to spread a very thick layer of chocolate over the veined side of the leaf (layer should be completely opaque, as uniform as possible, and should go all the way to the edges of the leaf).
Make sure your chocolate layer is VERY thick- mine was close to 1/4” in thickness. This will help when it's time to remove the leaf.
If you're using a sturdy leaf like ivy, you can lay them chocolate-side up on the paper to firm up or place in the fridge if you don't live in the frigid Scottish climate.
If your leaves are flimsier (mint, etc.), lay them over the handle of a wooden spoon to give them some shape and dimension when they are set.
Once all leaves are set, remove leaf by either tugging gently on stem to peel it away or using the point of a paring knife to get it started, then peeling gently away.
MAKE MORE THAN YOU THINK YOU NEED because you'll definitely break one or two.

Battle of the Apple Cakes: Apple Nut Coffee Cake vs French Apple Cake

It's officially fall here in Edinburgh- I mean, obviously, it has been for awhile, but we've had a bit of an Indian Summer here and it's been great. Judson and I have been taking the dog for long walks in crunchy leaves that she loves to pounce around in, and she's totally camouflaged when she goes frolicking in them. I've gotten out my tonka beans and my tiny nutmeg grater, have had my annual desire to spend an afternoon peeling and chopping apples and have finally given up on stone fruit and have started experimenting with pork chops, roasts, pies and anything I can think of with potatoes in it.

I've gotten really into having friends over for brunch lately- this new habit has two root causes: 1) the brunch scene in Edinburgh is fine, but it doesn't compare to the brunch scene in any other city I've ever lived in, so there aren't a lot of options outside of my own kitchen (or at least, not options for breakfast foods I enjoy) and 2) I now have a doggo who gets me up every Saturday morning at... well, not the crack of dawn but awfully close. Which means I've got time in the morning to put the finishing touches on brunch things I prepped the night before, like quiches and fruit salads and baked eggs and loads of danishes and coffee cakes.

My rules of thumb for planning a brunch are as follows, made up entirely by me so don't take these as etiquette gospel, but they've served me well in two cities in two countries for countless brunches with my lady friends, so you should probably still write this down:

1. One savoury dish (usually egg-based; baked eggs en cocotte are my current go-to, but in the past I've been really into quiches laced with bacon, cheese, mushrooms or onions, and I'm about to host my first large-scale poached egg brunch)

2. One salad (berries with mint or greens with bitter vinaigrette).

3. One sweet dish (pound cake or homemade danishes or muffins or a sweet bread or one of these apple cakes)

4. Hot drinks: coffee and tea

5. Cold drinks: OJ and sparkling water

6. OPTIONAL booze: prosecco or bloody marys or Bailey's to add to the aforementioned coffee

While banana bread or pumpkin squares or pound cake or gingerbread are all great options for a sweet dish because you can prepare them the night before, there's something about apple cakes that make your entire house smell like fall- a smell that somehow always persists until the next morning, and anyone who cooks always knows the faff that is peeling/coring/chopping a billion pounds of apples, so I feel like you enjoy it more because you know you worked for it.

So here are two different recipes for apple cakes- one marginally simpler than the other, both delicious, one coffee-cake bar-style and the other bundt-pan, sliced and served with sauce style, but both totally worth serving the next time you have weekend guests or friends coming over on a Sunday morning or you just need a treat to reward yourself for making it through another harrowing week.

The verdict:
Apple Nut Coffee Cake:

3 spoons out of five. This is very much my own preference, because this cake was great. Crunchy cinnamon mixture on top; pillowy-soft cake underneath? What's not to like? The answer: Nothing, I just liked the other one better.

French Apple Cake:

4 spoons out of five. I knocked a spoon off because the first time I made this, it broke coming out of the pan. Since then, I've made it successfully about a billion times, but I feel like I should provide you with the warning. Caramel-y and sweet with a brown sugar toastiness you'll love, this cake is everything I love about breakfast in the autumn.

One year ago: Red & White Delight
two years ago: Baked Noodles Romanoff

the recipe:

Apple Nut Coffee Cake

the directions:

Grease a 13x9 pan and preheat oven to 175C/350F.
Cream together shortening and sugar.
Add eggs and vanilla, then beat well.
Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, then add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream.
Fold in apples, then spread in prepared pan and set aside.
In a small bowl, combine nuts, brown sugar and cinnamon.
Stir in melted butter, then sprinkle nut mixture over pan.
Bake 20-30 minutes until cake batter is cooked through.

the ingredients:

½ c shortening or Stork
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 c sour cream
2 c apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped
½ c pecans, coarsely chopped
½ c brown sugar, packed
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp butter, melted

---

the recipe:

French Apple Cake

the directions:
cake:

Grease and flour a 10-inch tube or bundt pan.
Preheat oven to 175C/350F.
Beat eggs.
Add oil and sugars, then beat for another three minutes.
Sift together brown sugar, white sugar, cake flour, baking soda and cinnamon, then add slowly to creamed mixture, stirring constantly.
Fold in apples, nuts and vanilla.
Pour into prepared pan and bake for 55-60 minutes until a wooden pick inserted in the middle comes out slightly sticky (if in doubt, poke the cake a few times as batter will look thinner if you poke a piece of apple).

Glaze:

While cake cools, make the glaze.
Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and slowly bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
Turn off heat and allow to cool completely, stirring occasionally, before drizzling or pouring over cake.

the ingredients:
the cake:

2 eggs
1 ¼ c oil
1 c brown sugar, packed
1 c sugar
3 c cake flour (or 3 cups minus 3 tbsp flour, plus 3 tbsp cornflour)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
3 c apples, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped
1 c pecans, chopped
2 tsp vanilla

the glaze:

½ c butter
1 c brown sugar, packed
¼ c milk
1 tsp vanilla

Strawberry Charlotte Russe

In further efforts to continue to use up the massive Jell-O stash I came back from the US with, I decided to whip up one last summery dessert as these days are feeling more like Indian Summer than fall here in Edinburgh, and of course because I didn't want to eat an entire charlotte by myself (or even with Judson's help), I sent it to work with him. But I guess I didn't do a good enough job of explaining to him what it was, because the next time I ran into his coworkers at a happy hour a few days later, they all thanked me for 'the pink Jell-O cake', which actually only sounds marginally weirder than what a charlotte actually is.

This is one of those desserts I've always wanted to try (probably because my favourite shop as a kid was named after it) but never really had any idea what it was or how to make it, and the little amount of knowledge I had about it had me thinking it was way too difficult to experiment with. In doing some research before I started this, I learned that this is, in fact, a charlotte russe, differentiated from a regular charlotte by the fact that it's filled with fruit and bavarian cream (itself differentiated from pastry cream by the presence of gelatin) rather than cake or... other stuff. Confusingly, a charlotte royale is also completely different, being surrounded by swiss roll instead of lady fingers.

Lining for the pan

It turns out it's not too difficult (as long as you start with pre-made lady fingers!*), but it is a pretty weird dessert so I don't know that I'll be making it again any time soon. It's good if you have a large group you're making it for, because you're not going to want more than one slice of it and it's not a dessert that keeps well.

*Ok, so my grocery store used to sell lady fingers, and I always wondered why because they're a pretty boring biscuit. Of course, as soon as I decided to make this recipe, ALL OF THE supermarkets in Edinburgh seemed to stop selling them at once. I eventually found a single package at my local Scotmid... but when I unwrapped them, it turned out they read 'BOUDOIR' on one side. Why??

The verdict:

3 spoons out of five. Overall, it was totally worth it and I recommend making it if you really love pink... or if you have one last summer fling before autumn starts.

two years ago: Crab Souffle

the recipe:

Strawberry Charlotte Russe

the directions:

Line the sides of a springform tin with parchment or waxed paper.
Cut ladyfingers in half and arrange them vertically around the edge of the pan, flat side down. (Note that I was afraid the charlotte would be so deep that I only cut the ends off. This was unnecessary and meant that I didn't have enough pieces to fully surround the charlotte. If you're using a standard 8 or 9-inch springform pan, you'll only need lady fingers that are about 1 1/2 inches tall, so you can slice the cookies in half without a problem).
Set prepared pan aside while you prepare the filling.
Place gelatin in a large bowl and pour boiling water over.
Stir well until dissolved, then set aside.
Combine strawberries, lemon juice, sugar and salt.
Stir until sugar is dissolved, then add to gelatin mixture.
Gently fold in whipped cream, then spoon or pour carefully into the prepared pan.
Chill until firm, at least 5 hours, but preferably overnight.
Remove the sides of springform pan and the waxed paper.
Decorate top with additional whipped cream and whole strawberries.

the ingredients:

1 pkg lady fingers
6 oz. strawberry gelatin (powdered)
2 c boiling water
1 ½ c strawberries, lightly crushed + additional whole strawberries for decorating
1 tbsp lemon juice
½ c sugar
1/8 tsp salt
2 c whipping cream, whipped to soft peaks + additional for decorating