what to bake when you'd rather be swimming
it's a low-key cake for hot vax summer.
One of my favorite curmudgeonly past times is explaining to newly minted knowledge workers that they will never again be as tan as they were that last summer of grad school. The only better feeling has turned out to be a summer coalescing around sweltering temps, remote work and my first regular access to a pool in five years.
Add to that a new gold chain anklet, some vintage crocodile skinned tassel loafers and a week in South Florida reading about 1990s style mob hits and I’m feeling unapologetically summer.
The long held romance of returning to nature by spending the season processing the peak farmer’s market produce into pies, pickles and pasta sauce is about as steamy and realistic as a teenage rom-com. I once boiled and canned fresh blueberry jelly in an unairconditioned kitchen in August. Emphasis on once.
The reality is humidity high enough to sweat the paint off your walls. It’s the futile attempt to control the temperature of butter on an 81 degree countertop and spending an hour pitting cherries only to have your blind bake crush your soul and your dishwasher.
Add to that a 15 month marathon of preparing 21 meals a week in your own kitchen and baking projects feel as upsetting as the prospect of a Paris Hilton cooking show. Except then a neighbor will bring over Brown Butter and Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies or a new friend will show up with another perfectly addictive variation of high fructose corn syrup and soy lecithin in the form of Golden Oreo Thins. Follow those crispy sweet temptations with a few days of summer rain and I found myself back in front of the oven.
Vowing to not repeat a masochistic summer of 2020 swearing my way through a swiss meringue butter cream Facebook live course, I thought I’d stick to cookies. Seemed safer. I was thinking back to my success with America’s Test Kitchen Oreos when I realized I’ve never made an icebox cake. A potentially non-baking baking project. Something to pull out of the fridge for houseguests both late night and with a cup of coffee.
It turns out, the icebox cookie element is essentially the same as making Oreo wafers. So this recipe could really do double duty. Or you could use chocolate Oreo Thins which according to my calculations should be comparably delicious and no less attractive because ice box cake looks pretty busted straight out of the fridge.
Generally speaking, the icebox cake isn’t that special. It follows the same story as many modern recipes:
Start with a food that is delicate to prepare and highly expensive or perishable - in this case charlotte or trifle which was wildly difficult to keep cold in the late-19th and early-20th century.
Cook it for rich people and write about it, everywhere rich people are not.
Have said not rich people try to recreate it at home, preferably failing miserably.
Devise a solution to said problem with a marketable convenience product(s).
Search for a marketing partner trying to scale a new idea.
And viola! Nabisco and the early refrigerator companies created a dessert that’s lasted almost 100 years unchanged.
What motivates you to turn on the oven in August?
orange-clove icebox cake
Orange and clove is a combination that can really work in any season. Coincidentally, cloves likely made there way into the American culinary psyche around the same time as the icebox cake, by way of the first noted Indian restaurants in NYC. Add gelatin stabilized whipped cream to the mix and you’ve got a depression era triple threat.
adapted from King Arthur’s Flour and The Baker’s Appendix
what you need
1 cup sugar ◾ 8 tablespoons/1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature ◾ 3/4 teaspoon salt ◾ 1/2 teaspoon baking powder ◾ 1 teaspoon ground clove ◾ 1 large egg ◾ 1 teaspoon orange or angostura bitters ◾ 1 1/2 cups AP Flour ◾ 1/4 cup black cocoa ◾ 1/4 cup Dutch-processed or regular cocoa
1 packet unflavored gelatin ◾ 2 ounces fresh orange juice ◾ 4 cups (1 quart) heavy whipping cream (very cold) ◾ 4 tablespoons powdered sugar
what to do
cookies: In a medium-sized bowl, beat together the sugar, butter, salt, baking powder, and cloves.
Beat in the egg and bitters, then the flour and cocoas. Cover the dough and chill for 30 minutes. While the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 350°F.
Line two sheets with parchment paper.
Using a mix of half cocoa and half flour, roll the dough about 1/8" thick. Use a biscuit cutter, or small cup to cut into 2 1/2"-round cookies.
Bake the cookies for 10 minutes. Since they do not really change color or rise, watch carefully! Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool completely.
cream filling: sprinkle gelatin over orange juice in a microwave-safe bowl and let it stand for 3-5 minutes.
Microwave the mixture in 5-second increments, stirring well between each heating, until the gelatin is dissolved and liquefied.
Using the whisk attachment of a stand or hand mixer, whip very cold heavy cream, starting on low speed until small bubbles form and then increasing the speed to medium. When the beaters begin to leave a trail in the cream, slowly pour in the gelatin mixture and add powdered sugar. Then increase the speed to high and continue to beat until soft peaks form.
assembly: Line a 6” round or 9”x5” loaf pan with plastic wrap so that there's a few inches of excess hanging over the edges on all sides.
Spread a 1/2” layer of whipped cream across the bottom of the pan.
Place wafers atop the cream, overlapping as necessary. Spread with a thin layer of cream, then place another layer of cookies on top. Continue this layering process until you've used all the cookies.
Cover the tops of the cookies with whipped cream, reserving any extra. Cover the pan and chill the cake for at least 4 hours, or overnight.
Turn the cake out of the pan to serve, spreading any remaining whipped cream on top.
Reading - From Mafia Murders to Pitbull: How the Strange Story of Miami Subs Epitomizes Florida by Miles Karp (VICE - 2017)
Listening - “Awaken, My Love!” by Childish Gambino (2016)
Watching - Never Have I Ever by Mindy Kaling (2020)
Smelling - REPLICA Beach Walk by Maison Margiela (2012)