This is where the internet shines – in pursuit of information of just this type. (I mean, that, and cats. The internet is really good with cats.) After confirming that it is indeed a Kentucky thing for real, and perusing several different versions of jam cake recipes, I made up my own and while I have no idea if it’s authentically a Kentucky jam cake, I am quite certain it is a fricking delicious cake. A whole cup of jam is mixed into the batter, along with a bunch of melty sweet dates. Buttermilk adds tang, and allspice, cloves, and cinnamon spice it up. The whole thing is covered with a brown sugar and evaporated milk concoction that’s straight out of the South.

To be honest, the icing for this cake is a little fiddly and requires a candy thermometer and some fast frosting skills because it hardens immediately after making it. While it’s traditional for this cake, it’s certainly not necessary. I think this would be great baked in a bundt pan and drizzled with a simple lemon glaze or just baked in loaf pans and eaten like a coffee cake with no frosting at all.

Kudos to the Justified writing staff for including reference to this regionally accurate culinary delight, and thanks for dropping the hints to make me pursue it. Now that I’m done with Justified I’ve moved on to watching The Wire, but I don’t foresee any recipes inspired by that show, unless cooking heroin in a spoon or drinking Jameson whisky straight from the bottle counts as a “recipe.”

Recipe: Kentucky Jam Cake with Brown Sugar Icing

makes one tall 2-layer cake

INGREDIENTS:

for the cake:

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 5 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• large pinch salt
• 3 cups + 1 Tblsp flour, divided
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup dates, chopped
• 1 cup blackberry or raspberry jam

for the icing:

• 3 cups brown sugar
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 1/2 cup butter

METHOD:

make the cake:

• Preheat oven to 325 F. Prepare 2 8-inch or 9-inch round cake pans by spraying with nonstick spray. Place a circle of parchment paper in the bottom of each pan and spray the paper.
• Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each egg.
• Add spices, salt, 3 cups of flour, and baking soda. Mix on low speed for a few rotations. With the mixer going, drizzle buttermilk in. Mix everything until just combined.
• Use your fingers to toss the dates with the remaining 1 Tblsp of flour so they separate. Add dates and jam to mixer and stir until just combined.
• Pour batter into prepared pans and bake XX minutes, until a knife comes out clean.
• Let cool for 10 minutes then invert on a rack to finish cooling.

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This is one of those recipes that has been around for a long time and has many subtle variations. Some recipes I’ve used have not worked as well, as the toffee has burnt, separated, not hardened, or what have you. This seems to be the one that works the best. I also add more stuff on top than most recipes–in this case, a mix of shredded coconut, sliced almonds, cocoa nibs, and a sprinkling of fleur de sel.

Around Christmastime, I make this with Saltines in place of the matzah, which is equally tasty. If you use Saltines, omit the salt on top or they will be too salty.

A note: this recipe is not kosher for passover. I think you would need to use kosher margarine and kosher vanilla for it to pass muster, but in case you haven’t noticed, I am not a rabbi. If you need to make it kosher, check with an expert!

Salted Chocolate Matzah Toffee
makes one half sheet pan

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 or 5 matzah crackers
• 1 cup butter, cut in pieces
• 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• small handful (about 1/3 cup) sliced almonds
• small handful (about 1/3 cup) shredded coconut
• small handful (about 1/3 cup) cocoa nibs
• 1 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• fleur de sel to taste

METHOD:

• Preheat oven to 350 F.
• Line a half sheet pan with heavy duty aluminum foil, ensuring that the foil covers the edges.
• Arrange matzah crackers in a single layer in the pan. Break up pieces to get a perfect fit in the spaces.
• Put butter in a heavy saucepan and turn heat to  medium. When butter starts to melt, add brown sugar and stir with a heatproof spatula. When butter is completely melted, bring to a boil and cook the mixture at a full boil for 3 minutes while stirring constantly. (At first the mixture will be separated but after the 3 minutes of boiling it should be emulsified together.)
• Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Pour evenly over the matzah and spread gently and evenly with the spatula.
• Bake for 15 minutes.
• Meanwhile, combine coconut, almonds, and cocoa nibs in a bowl with your hands to mix evenly.
• After 15 minutes in the oven, remove pan and wait for about a minute for most of the bubbles to subside.Sprinkle chocolate chips over the top of the hot toffee and wait 3-5 minutes, until chocolate melts. Carefully spread chocolate with a butter knife or offset spatula.
• Evenly distribute coconut mixture on top of chocolate and very gently press in with a large flat spatula. Sprinkle fleur de sel over the top.
• Let cool at room temperature, then put in the fridge for at least an hour to set. Break into pieces. Lay on a plate in a single layer with parchment in between.
• I would tell you how to store this in an airtight container, but it’s highly addictive and I predict you will eat it all within 24 hours so why bother?

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On another topic, for a blog that has the word “meat” in the name, I have been woefully under-representing carnivorous pursuits of late – with the last six (now seven) recipes being for sweet things. I hope you’ll bear with me just a little longer. It turns out pregnancy has turned my meat tooth into a sweet tooth, but as the baby is due very soon I imagine I’ll go back to my usual taste buds in the near future. As to whether I’ll have time and energy to blog very often… well, that’s another question.

In the meantime make this cake! I’m looking forward to another opportunity to make it again.

UPDATE: a commenter asked if the cake sank in the middle – so I should tell you that yes, it did sink in the middle. So once it cooled, I flipped it over on to a plate, removed the parchment, and frosted the smooth side. That’s why it has such a symmetrical shape – it’s upside down.

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I’ve noticed that the cookies taste a little more artificial to me than they did in my youth. I’m not sure if this is because they changed the recipes, or because my palate has grown more sophisticated. (The same thing happened with Twinkies: I couldn’t get enough of them as a kid, but now they taste disgusting to me.) At any rate, I think the Samoas are greatly improved by freezing them. My husband, a dedicated Samoas fan, agrees that this is quite possibly the finest way to enjoy this once-yearly treat.

Now if anyone has some good ideas as to how I can use up 12 boxes of Thin Mints… I’m all ears.

Recipe: Samoas Ice Cream Cake
makes one 9-inch cake

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 boxes Samoas Girl Scout Cookies (30 cookies)
• 2 Tblsp melted butter
• One 14 to 16 oz. container of Dulce de Leche ice cream
• 1 quart vanilla ice cream
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped semi-sweet chocolate
• handful of coconut for garnish (optional)

METHOD:

• Prepare a 9-inch round springform pan with a light amount of cooking spray on the bottom and sides.
• Put 1 box of cookies into the food processor and grind very well, until completely crushed. Add melted butter and mix to combine. Press cookie mixture into bottom of prepared pan evenly and tightly.
• Soften dulce de leche ice cream in microwave a little so it’s more spreadable. Spread evenly over cookie crust. Put in freezer for about an hour to re-harden.
• Arrange remaining box of cookies, chocolate side up, in a single layer over the ice cream.
• Soften vanilla ice cream a bit and spread out over cookie layer. Cover and put in freezer to completely harden, about 2-3 hours.
• Heat cream in a saucepan to almost boiling. Remove from heat and add chocolate chips. Stir with a whisk until completely melted. Let cool so it’s still pourable but not too hot to melt the ice cream.
• Uncover ice cream cake and pour chocolate mixture over. Sprinkle a little coconut on top, if desired. Recover and freeze again to harden.
• To serve, run a knife carefully around the outside of the cake to loosen. Gently unclasp the springform pan and remove the outer ring. Cut with a sharp knife that’s dipped in very hot water and wiped with a towel between each slice.

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It’s estimated that 99% of US-grown dates are from the Palm Springs area, so it’s not all that surprising they invented this delicious way to enjoy them. Originating in the Middle East, dates have been around for thousands of years, and many cultures believe them to be essential for health. They were introduced to California by Spanish missionaries in the 1700s, who found that the desert in the Coachella Valley, around Palm Springs, was the perfect spot to grow dates.

Dates can get a bad rap–probably because they’re easily confused with unsexy things like prunes–but a fresh date is a thing of beauty, sweet as candy and good in so many recipes. Dates feature in my all-time favorite cookie recipe, Robert’s chewy amazing oatmeal cookies. If you have really sweet, soft dates, you can also make them into a super simple frozen treat I call “ice cream dates.” Yes, dates have a pretty high sugar content, but they also have a lot of fiber, potassium, antioxidants, and other nutrients. People make some pretty outlandish health claims about dates, but there is some reasonably strong evidence to back it up: I found peer-reviewed journal studies showing that dates may stimulate the immune system, protect the kidneys, aid pregnant women with labor and delivery outcomes, and prevent certain kinds of stroke. Furthermore, nutrition scientists have found that due to their nutritional content, they may be “an almost ideal food.”

Of course, this date shake involves ice cream and milk, so you might be questioning just how healthy it is. Forgetting the ice cream for a minute, many Middle Easterners believe that mixing dates and milk enhances the nutritional qualities of both. In fact, dates in milk is a traditional way to break the Ramadan fast. Dates and milk together are also one of the first foods introduced to babies after breast milk. But it’s not really about the health for me, it’s more about closing my eyes and being transported temporarily to that desert date palm landscape I love so much.

Recipe: Palm Springs Date Shake
I asked how they make the shakes at Oasis Date Gardens and this is what they told me. Makes one. And don’t worry, this ain’t rocket science, y’all.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup fresh dates (I like to use Medjools)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup vanilla ice cream

METHOD:

• Remove pits from dates.
• Put dates and milk in a blender and mix until smooth.
• Add ice cream and blend until creamy.
• Drink immediately.

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Of course, shortbread is fabulous on its own, but I happened to have some fresh clementine curd on hand, so it was hard to resist drizzling some over the top. I also sampled it with a glass of milk, a mug of tea, with hot chocolate, by itself, and… well, don’t judge me, it makes an enormous recipe so I basically HAD to eat it so it wouldn’t go to waste.

You can (and should) get the recipe from Eating Out Loud. I would add a few notes in addition:

• I recommend sifting the dry ingredients so you don’t get any hard lumps. (True confession: my cornstarch might have been old and lumpy.)
• This makes an enormous amount (6 cups of dry ingredients!) so I made a half recipe and put it in a 9×13 pan.
• Perhaps because of making the half recipe in a different kind of pan, they took me about 1 hour and 20 minutes total to cook.
• I wasn’t able to prick the shortbread with a fork before putting them in the oven – they were too flaky to prick. So I did the pricking about halfway through the baking. Maybe I didn’t press the mixture down hard enough? So: press it down really well.

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Curds need a lot of acid, which is why you only see citrus-based curds like lemon or orange or grapefruit, and never apple or banana or strawberry. This is definitely not health food–it’s essentially a buttery, yolky, sugary suspension flavored with citrus juice and zest. You know, like hollandaise sauce or aioli, but sweet. I learned to make curd in a double boiler, but I’m lazy and 8 months pregnant and my giant belly keeps accidentally turning on the gas when I lean over the stove to stir, so I did not use a double boiler because it takes forever. Instead, I made it very carefully over low heat and then strained it through a fine mesh strainer. You can do that too, and you don’t even have to be pregnant. I should tell you that if you don’t strain it, a) you might get zest in your teeth, and b) more importantly, it might have little pieces of cooked egg in it, which in case you can’t figure out, would be extremely disgusting.

For the record, I hate hate hate the word “curd” – to my ears, it’s one of the least pleasant words in the English language. I know a lot of you are not fans of “moist” or “panties” or whatever, but for me “curd” rises to the top of my icky words list. Unfortunately, curds of all types are extremely delicious so for the time being I will just have to suck it up and try to embrace the curd for what it is and not what it’s called.

Recipe: Clementine Curd
Makes about 1 1/2 cups. You can substitute part oranges, blood oranges, tangerines, etc. for all or part of the clementines.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup butter, cut in pieces
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup clementine juice (I needed 10 but I think I am a wussy juicer)
• zest of 4 clementines
• pinch salt
• 3 egg yolks

METHOD:

• Put butter pieces, sugar, juice, zest, and salt in a heavy saucepan, like an enameled cast iron pot. Heat over low heat, stirring with a whisk, until butter is melted.
• Prepare a large metal bowl with ice and water and set aside.
• Put egg yolks in a bowl. Ladle a little of the hot liquid over the yolks to temper them and whisk. Add yolk mixture back to the pot.
• Whisk constantly over low heat, about 15 minutes, until curd is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon heavily enough to leave a clean line when you run your finger through it. (It will thicken more as it cools.)
• Put pot into ice bath and continue whisking to cool. You don’t have to whisk constantly – just whisk well, wait a minute or two, whisk again, and repeat until cooled to room temperature and thickened.
• Pour into airtight containers or jars and refrigerate. This will keep for at least a week.

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First of all, it drives me crazy when a recipe site asks for an email address to access a recipe. It seems ridiculous considering how many fantastic food sites are out there, both amateur and professional, that don’t require this. Second, a rainbow with no orange? Come on, people. Not cool. Orange is like, one of the best colors. Third, they use liquid food coloring, which not only creates insipid colors but also messes with the texture of the chocolate, by virtue of being a liquid. (Small additional point of irritation- the recipe tells you exactly how many drops of each color to use. Oh. My. Godthatissoridiculous.) And finally, if I’m rainbowing it up, I really like to go for vivid colors, none of this Easter pastel crap. You’re eating what is essentially a colored sugar bomb – why restrain yourself to subdued colors? So this is my take on rainbow fudge.

I considered other color combinations, and really, you could make this however you like- in team colors, flag colors, favorite colors, holiday colors, or what have you. 6 colors makes a really tall fudge so you could certainly make fewer layers if you need fewer colors for your scheme. If you require very specific colors, you can get a wide variety of food colors from Wilton here.

Added bonus of making this recipe: even your dirty dishwasher looks beautiful afterwards.

As to the taste… it’s pretty sweet, and pretty white chocolate-y, but good nonetheless. I made it for my 9-year-old niece’s birthday, and she likes white chocolate and super sweet stuff, so I wasn’t too worried on either count. It’s almost like eating a big piece of candy corn. Since it’s so tall, it’s a good idea to cut small pieces so it doesn’t overwhelm. I think you could even make a half recipe for each layer, because mine was so tall I had to call it “fudgehenge.”

I wouldn’t call this recipe “easy” because it takes a fair amount of time and fiddling around, but it is definitely easy in terms of cooking skills. You make each fudge layer in the microwave, with only 4 ingredients, so it’s not a recipe that requires a lot of technical kitchen skills. If you can microwave, stir, possess a reasonable understanding of what a rainbow looks like, and have a loaf pan, you can make this.

Recipe: Rainbow Fudge

Makes a lot even though it looks like a little. White chocolate chips are easier to use, because you don’t have to chop them, but they don’t melt as smoothly as a bar so I don’t recommend using them. Don’t get any amount of water in the white chocolate mixture, because it can cause the chocolate to seize and harden into lumps. I say this because between colors you’ll need to wash your spatula out – so be sure to fully dry it off with a towel.

INGREDIENTS:

• 36 oz. chopped white chocolate
• 3 cups sweetened condensed milk (you’ll need to buy 3 of the 14 oz cans to get 3 cups)
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, divided
• gel or paste food coloring (like this or this)

METHOD:

• Line a loaf pan tightly with foil. Spray lightly with non-stick cooking spray.
• Get out 6 microwave-safe cereal bowls. Into each bowl, put 6 oz. white chocolate, 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk, and 1/4 tsp vanilla extract. Set aside.
• Put one bowl in the microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring well after each 30 seconds, until chocolate mixture is smooth and well combined with no lumps. (All microwaves are different but as a point of reference mine took about 90 seconds total.)
• Add red food coloring and stir very well so there are no white streaks, scraping the sides of the bowl and making sure you get all the way to the bottom. A rubber spatula works well for this.
• Pour into prepared loaf pan and bang the pan on the counter a few times to settle and even out the layer.
• Place into the freezer for 20-25 minutes, until hard to the touch.
• Repeat with remaining bowls, making orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Once the loaf pan and the layers have been in the freezer, the layer will almost immediately start to set, so you need to move quickly with spreading out the mixture and banging it on the counter so it’s not lopsided or lumpy.
• After the final layer, put it back in the freezer for 2 hours, then move it to the refrigerator to completely set for a couple more hours.
• When you’re ready to cut it, flip it onto a cutting board and remove the foil. Dip a sharp knife in hot water between cuts and wipe with a towel so the colors don’t smear together. It tastes better at room temperature and holds up pretty well for a few hours; otherwise, refrigerate it to keep.

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This is a recipe from my childhood, when I spent a lot of time with a well-loved, reddish orange, circa 1970s, 3-ring binder Betty Crocker cookbook. (I did a little research, and we must have had had the 1978 edition, because it looked like this.) My sister and I would ponder all of Betty’s incredibly creative frosting ideas, her cookies, her pie crusts decorated with fork tines–which of course, by now, seem pretty simplistic. To us, they were the height of sophistication. We were completely wowed and tried all of them.

By the way, while I was looking for a photo of vintage Betty Crocker frosting ideas, I came across this fantastically misguided and sexist ad for Kellogg’s Pep vitamins, and couldn’t resist sharing it. I have no words. And I feel quite certain that I would look cuter if I didn’t work so hard.

But back to the recipe. I was inspired to revisit this particular recipe when I got home from work at 6 PM one night–and had guests coming at 7 for dinner. I called my mom and asked her to take down the big Betty binder and give me the old toffee bars recipe. They take about 5 minutes to prep and 15 minutes in the oven, and were even better than I remembered. I made something much harder and more time-consuming for the next dinner party, but my guests preferred the leftover toffee bars to my fancy shmancy individual chocolate mint cakes, dammit. So for the next round I just made them again. They have no toffee in them and they require virtually no kitchen skills. And they are absolutely delicious beyond belief.

Say what you will about Betty, but she knew her stuff. Give them a try and they might become a multi-generational family favorite for you, too.

Recipe: Betty Crocker’s Toffee Bars
Makes one 9×13 pan. They are great with ice cream. Even Betty herself, back in the 1960s, suggested you could use whole wheat flour in these. If you plan to do that, I would recommend using either half whole wheat and half white or using whole wheat pastry flour, to maintain a good crumb.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• couple handfuls of chocolate chips

METHOD:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Cream butter and sugar well, in a mixer or with a wooden spoon.
• Add egg yolk and vanilla and stir to combine.
• Add flour and salt and mix to fully combine
• Press mixture into a 9×13 pan. Bake about 15 minutes, until beginning to brown.
• Immediately sprinkle chocolate chips over the top of the hot pastry. Wait about 5 minutes for the chips to melt, then spread with a knife or offset spatula.
• Let cool then cut into bars and serve.

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What’s extra great is that there is no flour nor butter in them, just egg whites for binding, so they are practically health food. (OK technically it would be more accurate to say they are practically candy, since the bulk is made up of sugar and chocolate.)

Now I know it’s been almost 2 weeks since Christmas, but do you still have some janky old candy canes lying around? Put them into a plastic bag and hit them with a hammer to make scraps. Sprinkle them on half the cookies before baking, so the chocolate-peppermint lovers in your life can have something nice, too. If you sprinkle them on after baking… well, sadly, they will just slide off. I know this from experience.

Get the recipe from Recipe Girl here.

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