Category: Vegetarian Dishes

DeKock Nantucket Cake

Covered with a generous mound of real whipped cream, the warm coffee cake was fragrant with the scent of almond extract and cranberries. When I transferred the first forkful to my mouth, I knew right away that I had lucked into a winning recipe for “Courage in the Kitchen.” I had never heard of Nantucket Cake, so I asked Nina for the recipe. She photocopied the handwritten card for me.

If you look for Nantucket cake recipes on the Web, you’ll find a few grouped with recipes describing how to make Nantucket Cranberry Pie. Cranberries grew wild in what was the largest contiguous cranberry bog in the world on Nantucket, the large island south of Cape Cod, so the recipe may well have originated in some housewife’s kitchen there a long time ago.

Cranberries are still harvested on the island from two bogs preserved and managed by the Nantucket Conservation Foundation. Almost two million pounds of the red gems are sent to market from Nantucket’s Milestone Cranberry Bog every year, but Massachusetts no longer leads the world in cranberry production. Wisconsin achieved that honor a few years ago, which means we need to do our part by baking a Nantucket Cake once in a while with genuine Wisconsin cranberries.

This recipe includes a cup of rhubarb, another fruit that grows well in Wisconsin. The cranberries, rhubarb and walnuts create a flavor combination that I think works something like the different peppers in a really good chili. Though both fruits are tart, they have distinctive flavors that complement each other. The walnuts add texture and yet another flavor. Finally, the almond extract merges with the fruit and nut flavors to give your tastebuds a real treat.

I asked Nina how the cake came to be called DeKock Nantucket Cake, and she said she didn’t know, other than the fact that she got the recipe many years ago from her mother-in-law who copied it out for her on the recipe card she showed me. Whether Mrs. DeKock created the recipe herself or got it from a friend, it is a quick and easy cake that will wow your guests.

INGREDIENTS:Nantucket Cake
1 cup rhubarb
1 cup cranberries
1 cup walnuts
1 1/2 cups sugar, divided
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks)
2 large eggs
1 tsp. almond extract

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 350º and butter a ten-inch round baking pan or pie plate. Clean and chop the rhubarb into half-inch pieces. If you use fresh or frozen cranberries, cut them in half. Coarsely chop the walnuts. Put the fruit and nuts in a medium bowl, add a half cup of sugar and mix well with a wooden spoon. Spread the mixture on the bottom of the pan.

Stir the sugar and flour together in the same medium bowl. Melt the butter and beat the eggs with a fork in a small bowl until they are lemon colored. Beat the almond extract and butter into the eggs and stir the mixture into the dry ingredients. Stir with the wooden spoon until you have a smooth batter.

Spread the batter evenly over the fruit and nut mixture and put the pan on a center shelf in the oven. Check the cake after thirty minutes and turn it to brown evenly. Set the timer for another ten minutes and bake until the top is golden brown, about forty to forty-five minutes.

Serve warm with ice cream as a dessert or with whipped cream as a coffee cake for breakfast or brunch.

NOTES: If you use unsalted butter, add a heaping quarter teaspoon of salt to the batter. When Nina couldn’t find any fresh or frozen cranberries, she used dried cranberries. Both work just fine, but the fresh/frozen cranberries make for a juicier cake.

Potato Pancakes

Jerri likes potato pancakes and often chooses them when they are on the menu. I enjoy them once in a while, but I think that I had enough potato pancakes when I was growing up to last a lifetime. They are not high on my list of favorite foods.

When I queried my sisters about Mom’s potato pancakes, replies ranged from “Ugh, we had them all the time” to “You know Dad planted lots of potatoes, so we ate lots of potatoes. Better than just all boiled spuds.” The most useful reply included some information about how Mom made her potato pancakes: “I remember that she used eggs and flour to make them stick together. Pretty good.” Not exactly enthusiastic reviews, but they show a certain acceptance of a staple food that north country families ate when we were growing up.

Potato pancakes are very popular in Austria and Germany. When we ate them on our travels last fall, I tasted something besides salt and pepper mixed with the potatoes. Those pancakes were delicious so I started researching potato pancake recipes.

There are lots of them. Many start with mashed potatoes, others with grated potatoes. Some include garlic, green onions or parsley. A few call for cheese, flour and baking powder or even biscuit mix. One that especially intrigued me was a Chinese potato pancake made with sweet potato starch and flavored with a little black pepper and Chinese five spice powder.

Some time ago one of our nieces mentioned that her husband really likes potato pancakes but had not yet found a recipe he was satisfied with when he made them at home. She wondered if I had a good recipe, so I started looking in earnest.

I couldn’t find one that tastes exactly like the ones we ate in Germany, but I did find a recipe for German potato pancakes that listed nutmeg in the ingredients. Following Mom’s lead, I used both flour and egg to bind the grated potatoes together and added a little nutmeg for a more complex flavor. We like them this way and think that the nutmeg makes these potato pancakes especially good with applesauce.

Potato pancakes are a great side dish to eat with bratwurst, braised pork chops or ham steak. They are good with fried fish too. That’s why almost every good fish fry in Wisconsin offers potato pancakes with applesauce as a choice of potato on Friday nights.

INGREDIENTS:

2 or 3 medium russet potatoes (a generous pound)
1/2 medium onion (2 1/2 to 3 inch diameter)
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg (scant)
1 T all-purpose flour
1 large egg
Vegetable oil for frying

PROCEDURE:

Peel and grate the potatoes into a bowl. Transfer the grated potatoes to a clean tea towel and squeeze into a bowl as much liquid as you can from the potatoes. If there is any liquid in the bowl let it stand a few minutes while you grate the onion, then pour off the water and leave the potato starch in the bottom.

Return the potatoes to the bowl, add the onion, salt, pepper and nutmeg and sprinkle the flour over the potatoes. Mix everything together, then beat the egg until it is lemon yellow and stir it into the potatoes.

Pour about an eighth inch of oil into a heavy skillet and set it over medium heat. When the oil is hot, spoon quarter to half cup mounds of the mixture into the pan. Press the mounds to about a half inch thick with the spoon or a spatula.

Fry the cakes about four minutes, then turn them and continue frying until they are golden brown on each side. Unlike batter pancakes, you can safely turn potato pancakes a couple of times without making them tough.

Set them to drain on paper towels on a warm plate. Serve with applesauce on the side.

NOTES: Be sure to use russet potatoes because they have more starch than the thin-skinned varieties like Yukon Golds or red potatoes. Some potatoes have more liquid than others. The last time I made potato pancakes, the towel became damp but only a half dozen drops of liquid ended up the in bowl. On other occasions, I have poured off a half cup of water.

If you wonder whether the oil is hot enough, drop a little potato mixture into the pan. If it starts sizzling right away, your oil is ready. Spoon more mixture over the test potatoes. You may have a slightly darker spot on that pancake, but all will be well.

It is difficult to judge exactly how much salt you need. If you prefer foods with a definite taste of salt, use a little more.