America I AM Pass It Down Cookbook (34 page)

JUST DESSERTS

Many years ago when I got into the culinary arts, I tried my hand at baking because I love sweets, especially cookies, pound cakes, German chocolate cake, peach cobbler, and red velvet cake. My grandmother was the only person around me and my sister Junell who had a cookie jar, and of course I was always in it. My granddaddy was a janitor at several bakeries in the Wilshire district in Beverly Hills, and he always used to bring home sweets. He knew how to make desserts too though, including bread pudding. He didn’t use a recipe. My granddaddy just took the left over raisin bread and got some milk, eggs, butter, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a little caramel, and put it in the baking dish. Before you knew it, we had an excellent dessert. That dish and many others instilled the joy of baking in my soul.

In order to complete a truly great meal, especially in the African American community, you have to finish it off with a remarkable dessert. You know, it’s that one piece of sweet dessert that will put you to sleep and take you over the top at the end of the day—whether it’s a scoop of vanilla ice cream with some sautéed peaches or a slice of pound cake.

— CHEF JEFF

Chef Jeff’s Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

Las Vegas, Nevada

MAKES 12 TO 16 CUPCAKES

Red velvet cake has been a very popular dessert in the South for a long time. There’s a lot of controversy on how to make it best. Chef Jeff, who always wanted to be a baker, likes to keep it simple, using classic ingredients and just a bit of extra sugar. His family likes it sweet.

2 cups all purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
pinch of salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon white vinegar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons red food coloring
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1½–2 cups granulated sugar

CREAM CHEESE ICING

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1½–2 cups powdered confectioner’s sugar
½ pinch salt
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

CUPCAKES

Preheat oven to 350º F. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, and salt, and set aside. In a separate medium bowl, whisk buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, and white vinegar, and set aside. In a small bowl, whisk cocoa powder and food color until it becomes a paste.

With a table top or hand-held mixer in a large bowl, beat the softened butter and sugar on medium speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl, then beat 30 seconds to 1 minute. Add half of flour mixture and beat on low speed about 45 seconds until incorporated, then add half the buttermilk mixture and beat until combined. Repeat, adding remaining flour mixture, then remaining buttermilk mixture. Beat until thoroughly incorporated.

Line cupcake pans with paper cup cake liners. Spoon batter into paper liners until ¾ full. Place pans in oven on center rack. Bake cupcakes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 22–25 minutes. Remove pans from oven and let cool at room temperature.

ICING

Using tabletop or a hand-held mixer, add all ingredients. Beat on medium-high until mixture is fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping bowl as needed. Refrigerate until ready to use.

ASSEMBLY

After cupcakes have cooled, remove cream cheese icing from refrigerator. Using pastry spatula or butter knife, spread desired amount of icing on each cupcake.

Did you know?
Stevia is a popular sugar substitute that contains many health benefits, especially for those who are insulin-intolerant or diabetic.

1 Tsp Stevia (powered)=1 Cup Sugar

1 Tsp Stevia (liquid)=1 Cup Sugar

½ Tsp Stevia=1 Tbsp Sugar

6 Drops Liquid Stevia=1 Tbsp Sugar

A Pinch of Stevia=1 Tsp Sugar

2 Drops Liquid Stevia=1 Tsp Sugar

Mama Mabel’s Apple Dumplings

Atlantic City, New Jersey

MAKES 6 LARGE APPLE DUMPLINGS

Michele Washington, a designer who lives in New York City, remembers having apple dumplings at Philadelphia’s Wannamaker’s Department store on a day trip from Atlantic City, where she was raised. Cutting into the flaky crust, she took a bite—and nearly spit it out. “I told you they wouldn’t be like your grandmother’s,” her mother admonished her. Unlike Ms. Washington’s grandmother Mabel Hamilton’s dumplings, the Wannamaker version— like most—was simply a crust enveloping a whole apple that had been cored and had sugar with spices packed into the hollow. “My grandmother always used sliced apples and sweet crust and the apples were seasoned delicately and evenly,” says Ms. Washington. “I remember watching her make them, my head barely reaching the counter. Her dumplings were precious to me, like my very own small personal apples pies. Mabel was my grandmother’s name, but my mother, her brother, my own brothers and I all called her Mama.”

FOR DOUGH

3 cups all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
2 large egg yolks
3 tablespoons ice water or more as needed

FOR FILLING

6 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
¾ cup of turbinado or light brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon of whole nutmeg grated
½ teaspoon of mace
6 pats butter

MAKE THE DOUGH

Sift together flour, sugar, and salt and place in a large bowl.

Using your fingertips or a pastry cutter, cut in the butter until you have a coarse meal with pea-sized clumps.

Beat the yolks and water together in a small bowl and stir them into the flour mixture until well combined. Add more ice water, 1 teaspoon at a time, as needed, to form a rough dough.

Flour a board or work surface and turn the dough out. Sprinkle dough surface with flour and knead lightly until it is combined. This is only 5 or 6 kneads. Do not overwork dough.

Form the dough in two balls, and then flatten into disks. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

Place the apples in a large mixing bowl. In a smaller bowl, combine the cinnamon, grated nutmeg, mace, and turbinado sugar, and then sprinkle this mixture over the sliced apples in the bowl. Mix well to make sure the apple slices are all coated.

Set aside and cover the bowl with a damp paper towel or kitchen dish towel.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and let sit for 10 minutes on the counter. Divide each dough disc into 3 equal sections.

Working with one piece of dough at a time, place the dough on a floured piece of wax paper. Flour the dough surface and place another piece of wax paper on top of it. Press down on the wax paper with the palm of your hand to flatten the dough between the two pieces.

Using a rolling pin, roll over the dough to smoothly flatten into squares, roughly 8 inches by 8 inches.

Divide the apple filling into 6 equal portions and place one portion in the middle of dough squares. Place 1 pat of butter on top. Apply egg wash to all of the edges, then fold up edges neatly and pinch together to form a pouch. Repeat until all the dough and all the filling is used up. You will have 6 dumplings.

Place the dumplings on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and place in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375º F. Remove dumplings from the refrigerator and brush with milk. Bake for 45 minutes or until the crust is a golden brown. Remove from oven and cool 1 hour before serving.

The Ice Cream King

Augustus Jackson and America’s Favorite Treat

Augustus Jackson was one of the many African American chefs who produced delicacies in the White House kitchen. In 1820, when James Monroe was president, he left that position to forge out on his own in Philadelphia as an ice cream maker. Ice cream was a popular confection that Jackson would have certainly produced often during his tenure at the White House—though he did not invent it. Already popular in European courts, dignitaries from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison served ice cream at political events. Augustus Jackson’s contribution to ice cream really came with the new flavors he packaged in tin cans and delivered to the new and growing ice cream parlors around the city—helping to ensure that ice cream became a must have American treat.