Sesame Seed Cake

I had some leftover buttermilk and wanted to use it for a quick, snack cake. I flipped through Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich and found a simple cake with ingredients that I had on hand. This sesame seed cake comes from the Grain, nuts, and seeds chapter. In the introduction, Medrich explains that the strategic use grains and seeds can add flavor, texture, and tenderness. The simplicity of her recipes allows subtler flavors to come forward, get noticed, and be appreciated.

Luckily enough, I had some black sesame seeds in my refrigerator. I actually store most seeds, nuts, and grains in my refrigerator to keep them fresh longer. White sesame seeds would work as well; they just wouldn’t be as visible in the cake. To add to the sesame flavor, some toasted sesame oil was also used in the batter. The flour and other dry ingredients were sifted together three times, and this resulted in a very fine cake texture. Butter and sugar were mixed, and then eggs, whisked with sesame oil and vanilla, were added. The sifted dry ingredients and buttermilk were added in intervals. Then, I really should have followed the instructions which stated that you should use parchment in the bottom of your cake pan. I skipped it, and the cake did stick a little. I managed to get it out of the pan still looking mostly presentable, and I let it cool before dusting it with confectioner’s sugar.

It’s a small cake that bakes in one eight-inch round pan, and that was just the right size to provide a nice snack or dessert for two of us for a few days. The sesame oil flavor wasn’t as evident as you might think. It just slightly boosted the flavor already supplied by the seeds, and the pretty seeds dispersed throughout provided tiny bits of crunch. The cake got better and better as it sat from the first day to the second and then the third. The tenderness and flavor really made it seem like it should have been much more complicated to make.

Minneola Tangelo-Buttermilk Scones

It’s great to see so many magazine articles authored by food bloggers these days. In the February issue of Living, Clotilde Dusoulier wrote about crepes, and Deb Perelman wrote about cupcakes. There have been several instances of articles by bloggers in other magazines too, and it’s a nice acknowledgement of the popularity of food blogs. In Living’s January issue, Clotilde wrote about citrus, and that’s where I saw these delicious-looking, tangelo scones. Kurt is a fan of scones since forever, and thus, these were destined to be a treat for our Valentine’s Day breakfast.

I had never made scones with buttermilk, or minneola tangelos for that matter, so I was intrigued. This recipe makes a lot of scones, and had I been thinking more clearly, I would have cut it in half. Although, having some of these in the freezer isn’t such a bad thing. For the full recipe, six tangelos were peeled, segmented, seeded, and chopped, and one was zested. The dough was mixed in a large mixing bowl and then turned out onto a floured surface and patted into a rectangle as usual for scones. I made a lame attempt at cuteness by trying to cut out heart shapes. This wasn’t the scone for cute hearts. The tangelo chunks squirted and were squashed in the sticky dough by the cutter, and the resulting heart shape was less than precise. I abandoned that quickly and cut the rest in triangles.

There is a lot of liquid in the dough from the chopped tangelos and the buttermilk, and the cut scones need to be chilled for at least a couple of hours before baking. I brushed the tops with an egg wash since I didn’t have any cream and then sprinkled on turbinado sugar. Just to make them extra fancy for my Valentine, I squiggled on a confectioner’s sugar glaze before serving. The juicy bits of tangelo were lovely in the scones, and the buttermilk balanced the sweetness. I’m guessing these scones will make repeat appearances in my kitchen each time tangelos are in season.

Crispy Biscuits

These buttermilk biscuits are from The Taste of Country Cooking and were part of the meal that I discussed in a guest post on Cooking Books. If you haven’t had a chance yet, take a moment to read that post and check out the fantastic Cooking Books site. When I read The Taste of Country Cooking, I noticed that almost every meal included biscuits or rolls served with homemade jelly or preserves, and that reminded me of how, years ago, my Mom got me hooked on putting jelly on leftover biscuits for breakfast. Biscuits with butter are wonderful things unto their own, but biscuits with sweet jelly provide a different experience all together. So, when I was choosing dishes to prepare from the Fall chapter of Taste of Country Cooking, biscuits simply had to be included.

The ingredients used here are pretty typical for a buttermilk biscuit. The difference is the thickness. These were rolled out to 1/4 inch and cut into two inch rounds. I usually roll out biscuit dough to about 3/4 inch or so. They were baked in a 425 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Inside, they are as delicate as can be, and the tops and bottoms have just a slight crunch making them even more delicious than you’d think was possible. Hot out of the oven, we sampled one with just butter and one with blackberry preserves. I would have been very full of biscuits by the time I chose a favorite, so I declared them both winners.

These biscuits are buttery and flaky with that nice, tart touch from the buttermilk which makes sweet preserves such a lovely counterpoint. Whether you partake of the jelly or preserves on your biscuits during the meal, after the meal, or for breakfast the next morning they’re equally good and well worth the effort of baking them.