Coconut Frosting

1  tablespoon unflavored vegetable gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup sugar
3  egg whites, stiffly beaten
Juice of half a lemon
1 fresh coconut, grated

1. Soften the gelatin in the cold water; then dissolve gelatin in  the boiling water. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Set aside to cool.
2. When mixture begins to set, fold it into the egg whites, then  beat until mixture reaches consistency of soft marshmallow. Add the lemon juice and stir to blend. Use as a cake frosting. Coat the frosted cake with the coconut. Makes enough thick frosting for filling, top and sides of nine-inch two-layer cake.

Apricot Glaze

Heat the contents of one twelve-ounce jar of apricot preserves over low heat. When dissolved, force the mxiture through a fine sieve. Use as a glaze when hot. Makes one and one-quarter cups.

Coconut Cake with Apricot Glaze for Passover

On the last day of Passover I made the last Passover recipe. These things seem to have attracted a certain amount of attention. Apple Cake for  Passover got   39 hits. It may not seem like much, but for someone who went on for two years with a total of six hits on most of the recipes, it's a lot.
I made the cake on Friday night and the icing on Sunday when the Easter guests were here. The cake turned out beautifully, like a souffle. Passover cakes contain very little flour or matzo meal, in this case 1/4 of a cup and half a cup of potato starch. Cooks might think that it won't bake properly, but it does.
This is meant to  be a layer cake. My husband, who had the task of cutting the layers in half, wondered why the cake couldn't be baked in two springform pans instead of one, thereby reducing the mess involved with cutting the layers in half. An excellent idea. So, bake the cakes in two springform pans instead of one.
Another tip. The coconut frosting is made with gelatin.  When it is whipped and ready to spread, spread it. Do not, as I did, set it aside for an hour or so. I discovered, when Easter dinner was over and half the guests were leaving for their next Easter dinner, that the  icing had set. It was like trying to spread cooked meringues.  It tasted all right, but the lovely, marshmallow fluff consistency that Lin, my co-mother-in-law, achieved with the mixer, was gone.
We had a hilarious Easter dinner, with stories and jokes flying back and forth. The table was decorated with the  30 or so bunnies of various sizes and materials that we have accumulated over the years. We have tall china bunnies playing the flute, tiny wooden bunnies sitting in a chair, metal bunnies, smoking  bunnies, bunnies decorated with holly,  bunnies decorated with floral patterns. Every place had little baskets of jelly beans and chocolate eggs.
The cake got good reviews. Lin liked it because it wasn't too sweet.  Bob liked the apricot glaze.

Coconut Cake with Apricot Glaze for Passover

1/4 cup matzo meal
1/2 cup potato starch
1/8 teaspoon salt
7  eggs separated
1 cup  sugar
Juice of half a lemon
Apricot glaze
Coconut frosting

1.  Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. Sift together the matzo meal, potato starch and salt.
3.  Beat the egg yolks with the sugar and lemon juice until thick and lemon-colored. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them  into yolk mixture. Fold in the dry ingredients and pour the batter into an ungreased nine-inch spring form pan.  (Or two nine-inch springform pans if you do not want  to  be bothered with cutting the tall cake into two layers. Bake thirty minutes.
4.  Increase the oven heat to 325 degrees. Bake fifteen minutes longer, or until cake tester comes out clean. Invert to cool. Cut   into layers and spread with apricot glaze, then frost with coconut frosting.
Makes eight to ten servings.                 

Brown Bread II

This is one of those times where, when confronted with two recipes for the same thing, one ought to make them both at the same time to make an accurate comparison.  However, then, you are stuck with two  recipes for, in this case Boston Brown Bread. So, because Bob is trying to cut down on carbs and I don't eat bread, I didn't make them both at the same time. I made Brown Bread I for the church social hour in January, and Brown  Bread II for the same thing after the Easter service.  The church sent off an e-mail requesting donations and I leaped forward.  Aside from giving me another recipe to check off, it also gave me the opportunity to throw away the three cans I had been carefully saving on the corner of the counter since January.
Honestly, this  brown bread, although it has rye flour in it instead of white flour, does not seem to be markedly different from the other brown bread. This is an easy recipe. Let me translate a few things. Graham flour is whole wheat flour. If  you can't get buttermilk, add a tablespoon or so of cider vinegar to the milk. It curdles.  Rye flour seems to be easy to get. Look among the  Bob's Red Mill products.
Steaming  bread, which might seem counterproductive is also easy. As the directions say, fill the cans about two-thirds full with batter and cover them with wax paper or tin foil held on with rubber bands or string. Put them on something that will keep them off the bottom of the kettle. The recipe says a rack. I didn't have a round rack, although I do remember my mother having a couple. I used a couple of ramikins, which are tiny souffle dishes, put upside down and allowed to fill with water. I set the ramikins in the kettle, put the cans of dough on top and  poured in the water until it climbed half way up the cans. I let the bread steam for three  hours as instructed and took the cans out when the timer went off.
When it says cans, it means just that. Aluminum cans, 28 ounces, the kind canned tomatoes or beans come in.
The product is dark and moist, good with cream cheese or butter.

Brown Bread II

1 cup yellow corn meal
1 cup rye flour
1 cup graham (whole wheat) flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups buttermilk
3/4 cup unsulphured molasses
1 cup raisins

1. Combine the corn meal, rye flour, graham flour, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl.
2. Mix together the buttermilk, molasses and raisins. Add to dry  ingredients. Mix well. Fill well-greased pudding molds or cans about two-thirds full with the batter. It will fill about two 28 ounce cans.
3. Cover with greased mold covers or can lids and cover over with aluminum foil.   (I'm not even entirely sure what a mold cover is. The only can lids I have were used for the dog food. So relax and use wax paper or aluminum foil, held on with  rubber bands)
4. Place the molds or cans on a rack in a large kettle, with water extending at least halfway up the sides of the molds or cans. Cover and cook three hours, replenishing water as necessary. Makes two or three loaves.

Seven-Layer Chocolate Cake for Passover (Gluten Free)

This is in the nature of a definite experiment. I made it last night, using gluten free Passover matzos I found at Safeway. It's for the last Lenten night of the Bible study group, so I haven't tried it.  I felt like God was speaking to me, right there in the ethnic foods section.
 "Chase! Make that cake with the matzos. You can actually eat it." The matzos, in case anyone else is trying to procure the gluten free variety, are made by Yehuda and imported from Israel. I bought them at the Safeway on Davenport Street in DC. Rodman's, just down the street, has matzo cake meal, if on the eve of Passover itself, you (A.) are still looking, and (B.) live in or near the District of Columbia. Rodman's also has the Elite Chocolate, with the picture of the happy cow on the wrapper.
This recipe tells you to do some improbable things. The most improbable thing the cook is to do is to "moisten, not soak," matzos in a dish of wine. I was thinking, I would end up with a sodden mass.  Well, you can do this. I may have left the matzo in for all of 30 seconds while I groped for the camera to take a picture. It came out wet from the wine, but still intact and perhaps a tiny bit softer. I confess, I did not test for consistency, I just laid it on top of the last one and frosted it.
I was afraid that if the matzo did not dissolve in the wine, that it would shatter while being frosted. It didn't. The frosting is fairly liquid, and if the cook applies it gently, the matzo stays intact.
There was just enough frosting, which I was pleased as punch to be able to make with my own marmalade. Heh, heh. It looks like,,,maybe one of those tortes that an improbably named catalogue store of my youth called Italian Swiss Colony used to sell. Tiny, skinny little layers, separated by layers of frosting. It is not a high, fluffy cake, as matzos are not light, fluffy crackers. (I didn't see any round matzos, although the square ones come in white and whole wheat, and chocolate covered.)
In case anyone is still wondering, I finally got the definitive word on matzo cake meal from my Judaism expert, rabbi in training Margaux Yael-Buck, of St. Louis. She says, grains such as wheat, barley, oats, and even rice, and food made from them are forbidden at Passover because they could conceivably ferment if left in water. Anyone who has made sourdough starter can attest to this. Mix flour and water and leave it out long enough, and the microbes in the air will start it bubbling away. Matzos, though made from flour, are baked in a very short time, thus cutting off the fermentation process. Therefore, I guess, even if you mixed matzo cake meal with water and left it out in the air, it would not ferment.
(This sounds like a science fair project. Hypothesis: If I mix matzo cake meal and water and leave it someplace warm, it will ferment.) Joke, readers. I am not saying matzo cake meal will ferment. Margaux has spent an extremely long time studying this stuff, and if she says it's so, it's so.

Seven-Layer Chocolate Cake for Passover

1/2 pound Elite bittersweet chocolate (three bars)
1 tablespoon margarine
1/2 pound orange marmalade
2 eggs
2 tablespoons brandy
1 cup semi-dry white wine
8 round matzos
chopped nuts

1. Melt the chocolate, margarine and marmalade in the top of a double boiler over hot water.
2. Add the eggs and beat with a wire whisk until the  mixture is as thick as sour cream. (Be careful to turn down the heat under the water. If the mixture is too  hot the eggs will cook and you will have chocolate marmalade scrambled eggs.) Add the brandy and remove pan from the heat.
3. Continue beating until mixture again attains the consistency of sour cream. Pour the wine into a large, shallow dish.(like a square baking dish.)
4. Dip the matzos, one at a time, into the wine just to moisten but not to soak. Place moistened matzo on a cake plate and coat with a layer of the chocolate mixture. Top with another moistened matzo and more chocolate, continuing until all matzos are used. Use remaining chocolate mixture to frost sides. Decorate with nuts and let set at room temperature. Makes six to eight servings.

Cabbage and Potato (Gluten Free)

This recipe is similar if not identical to the Irish dish, colcannon. It is a hearty side dish, just the thing for a cold early spring/late winter night. It is also fairly fast. It takes about 20 minutes to boil and mash the potatoes and boil the cabbage. Then you just make the gravy and eat. It goes well with roast chicken, or pork. We had it with some mini steaks from Omaha Steak House.
 I made it about 20 minutes before we actually ate because Bob's arrival at night depends on the vagaries of Metrobus. Although the buses are supposed to run every half hour, in reality sometimes it's more like every 50 minutes. Grrr. The result was a little runny because the gravy seeped down into the potatoes, so I would hold back the gravy if you aren't planning to eat it right away.
The recipe says boil the potatoes in their jackets. Frankly, I see no reason to do that. Peel the potatoes, cut them into chunks and boil them. Trying to peel hot, boiled potatoes is not a lot of fun. "Riced" means mashed with a standard potato masher. If you don't have one, you could use a fork.
As I type up the recipe, I notice that I was supposed to scald the cream. I confess, I did not even see that direction. If you don't want to scald the cream, I don't think the dish will suffer much. It does call for flour. If you want the recipe to be gluten free, you can use gluten free flour, or rice flour, or potato starch.

Cabbage and Potato

1/2 head cabbage, roughly shredded
salt
1/2 cup boiling water
5 medium size potatoes, boiled in their jackets, peeled and riced
1/4 cup butter, melted
freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup heavy cream, scalded
1/2 pound bacon diced and cooked until crisp
3 tablespoons flour (I used rice flour.)
2 cups milk

1. Place the cabbage, one teaspoon salt and the boiling water in a saucepan. Cover and cook ten minutes, or until the cabbage is tender. Drain well.
2. Beat the hot riced potatoes with the butter, salt and pepper to taste and enough cream to give a smooth consistency that still holds its shape. Stir in the cabbage.
3. Remove the bacon bits from skillet in which they cooked and reserve. Discard all but three tablespoons of the bacon drippings. (fat). Add the flour to the drippings and cook, stirring until the mixture browns slightly.
4. Stir in the milk and bring to a boil, stirring. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Pile the cabbage potato mixture in a serving dish. Make a depression in the middle and pour in the gravy.
5 sprinkle the reserved bacon bits around the edge.
Makes six to eight servings.

Indian Pudding (Gluten Free)

Indian pudding is an old New England recipe. When the early colonists landed here, they brought with them a fondness for a dish called hasty pudding, which was wheat flour boiled in water or milk until it thickened into porridge. But, alas, wheat did not grow very well in New England, so the colonists, learning from the Indians, used corn meal. They gradually began to add molasses, spices and milk as life and cuisine became more civilized.
This Indian pudding tastes a lot like pumpkin pie. After all, it has all the same spices. I made it for dinner yesterday evening when the young marrieds came to dinner. We had corned beef and cabbage as a salute to Saint Patrick's Day, and because everyone loves corned beef and cabbage. They really loved it. I was looking forward to corned beef sandwiches for lunch, but it was not to be. My son handed me the last scrap of meat, about the size of a slice of American cheese.
I reminded my son that we had made Indian pudding 27 years ago, when he was four. He didn't remember. I won't tell you what he said it looked like. Use your imagination about something a four year old boy would say. We had it with vanilla ice cream in the living room around what might well be the last fire of the season. We had tried to have a fire two weeks ago, at the creamed lobster dinner. It turned out, although we opened the damper we knew about, there was another one that the heat auditors had closed. Smoke spewed everywhere, and the guests had to retreat to the addition. This time, both dampers were open, and we sat around the fire talking and throwing logs on.
The only tricky thing about Indian pudding is putting the corn meal on gradually. You just want to float a teaspoon at a time on top of the boiling milk. If you put too much on at one time, corn meal clumps up. So sprinkle, stir, sprinkle, stir. Don't dump. Because my son asked to wait for dessert, ours was not as moist as it should have been, but it was still good. It is also possible that I let the corn meal mush thicken too much before I stopped cooking it. I cooked it until it was pulling away from the side of the pot.

Indian Pudding

4 cups milk
1 cup yellow corn meal
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup finely minced suet (I left this out. It makes food fatty and greasy tasting.)
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup light molasses
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
vanilla ice cream

1. Bring the milk to a boil, and add the corn meal gradually, beating vigorously with a wire whisk. When mixture starts to thicken, set it aside to cool.
2. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
3. When the mixture is nearly cool, stir in the remaining ingredients except the ice cream and mix well.
4. Pour into a buttered baking dish. Bake two hours. Serve piping hot, with vanilla ice cream on top. Makes ten to one dozen servings.