This is a difficult time of year for me when I bake. I want fresh rhubarb, strawberries and blueberries (although the last I usually buy frozen because I don’t care for fat, cultivated blurriest, preferring Wyman’s frozen wild blueberries).
With no fresh fruit, I made two lemon loaf cakes from Ina Garten’s recipe. I took the cakes to meetings and they were eaten in no time.
Loaf pan cakes or breads are easy to make and, unlike most cakes, require no frostings. In addition, once you follow the recipe (flour, sugar, butter, egg and liquid), you can add dried fruit, nuts, coconut or chocolate or cinnamon chips.
I also noticed that I have too many cartons of buttermilk and too many plastic bags of walnuts. So I made the date nut bread along with this delicious buttermilk sorbet. Imagine it as dessert with the date nut cake or the nut bread sliced with cream cheese and pineapple as a tasty lunch.
The sorbet does, however, require an ice cream maker. Buy an inexpensive one, or borrow one from a friend.
Date Walnut Bread
I will double this recipe, make two loaves and use buttermilk instead of regular milk;
2 cups flour
1 tablespoons baking powder
one-half teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (you may use ground if you don’t have fresh)
5 tablespoons light brown sugar
5 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup finely chopped walnuts (I use a small wooden bowl and a mezzaluna)
1 cup chopped pitted dates (I chop them with a little flour so they are not sticky)
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons melted butter
Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a 9-inch loaf pan (I use Pam in the blue can).
Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Add brown sugar and mix. Add nuts and dates and stir together. Beat together egg and milk and add to dry ingredients, along with butter. Blend just enough to moisten the mixture. Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until top is cracked and a wooden skewer comes out dry. (I use these wooden skewers instead of toothpicks since the latter are too short to get to the bottom any bread or cake.) Cool slightly and invert onto a wire rack.
Buttermilk Sorbet
(From Martha Stewart Living, February 2000, page 193)
Yield: 1 and one-half quarts
1 and one and three-quarter cups sugar
2 cups water
2 cups buttermilk
1 and one-half teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Combine sugar in a medium saucepan with 2 cups water. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves completely, about 10 minutes. Increase heat, and bring just to a boil. Remove from heat and let cool.
In a large bowl, combine sugar syrup with buttermilk and vanilla. Transfer mixture to an ice cream maker and
Follow manufacturer’s instructions to freeze.
When freezing is complete, transfer sorbet to an airtight container and place in freezer for at least one hour. Sorbet will keep frozen for up to two weeks.
About the author: Lee White (left), a former resident of Old Lyme, has been writing about restaurants and cooking since 1976. She has been extensively published in the Worcester (Mass.) Magazine, The Day, Norwich Bulletin, and Hartford Courant. She currently writes Nibbles and a cooking column called A La Carte for the Shore Publishing newspapers, and Elan, a quarterly magazine, all of which are now owned by The Day.