I try to mix things up, different types of recipes each week. But this week, I am continuing with a theme. I recently posted my recipe for Watermelon Sweet Tea, praising the benefits of good sweet tea in the hot Southern summer. And then I raved about my little ice cream maker for making Lemon Meringue Pie Ice Cream. So now I have decided to combine the two ideas with Sweet Tea Sorbet.

This is sweet and cold and refreshing and everything you want on a hot, hot day. It’s perfect for dessert, or as a palate cleanser, or as an interesting take on a pre-dinner drink. It can be scooped into great big balls, or served in little shot glasses. It’s a great refresher after a casual barbecue meal, or an elegant addition to a fine silver dinner party. But, mostly, its just plain good. Use the same tea bags you would for a regular sweet tea – I like Luzianne – and a nice big handful of mint.

1 family size teabag

3 cups water

2 cups sugar

1 bunch fresh mint leaves

½ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 lemons)

Place the tea bag in a 4 cup measuring jug or bowl (glass is easiest). Pour over 3 cups of boiling water and leave to steep until the tea is a dark amber color. You need a nice dark tea to get the flavor, a little darker than if you were drinking it straight up. Reserve the remaining cup of brewed tea in the measuring cup.

Pour 2 cups of the brewed tea in a saucepan with 2 cups of sugar. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Boil for one minute, then remove from the heat and drop in the mint leaves. Leave to cool and infuse.

When the sugar syrup is cool, strain out the mint leaves and pour into the measuring jug or bowl with the remaining 1 cup brewed tea. Stir in the lemon juice.

Pour the tea mix into the bowl of an ice cream maker. Freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. This will likely take 30 – 40 minutes, until the sorbet is light brown and grainy. Scoop the sorbet into a flat freezer container and freeze overnight, or at least 8 hours.

To keep the sorbet cold, try serving this in bowls or glasses that have been chilled.

Just under a year ago, I put up the first post on The Runaway Spoon, my instructions for real Buttermilk Fried Chicken with a story about my encounter with Julia Child.  It took a couple of years of consideration and many months of planning and design to get the site started, but here I am, going strong and loving every minute of it.  And of course, I have to thank all the readers who have stopped by and made the Spoon a success!  Keep those cards and letters coming!  Join me on Facebook for special recipes and ideas, or follow me on Twitter.

If you are like me – the cook in the family – you may have to make your own birthday cake if you want to celebrate.  Or maybe you’re always expected to make the cake for every one else’s special day.  Well, that’s what I am doing here.  Making my own celebration cake, in true Runaway Spoon style, the easy way.  This is the “oops! I forget my best friend’s birthday” cake. Or, as in this case, the “if I want a birthday candle wish I have to make it myself” cake. The ingredients are pretty standard and the cake takes minutes to whip up in the food processor.  It’s not a towering, multi-layered, perfectly piped and frosted confection. But it looks lovely and homemade and is a real, rich treat.

Chocolate Toffee Celebration Cake

I love toffee, but vary your extras as you wish – fresh raspberries, flaked coconut, nuts, bits of candy…

FOr the Cake:

1 ¾ ounces dark chocolate (the best you can manage)

1 cup self-rising flour’

¼ cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

¾ (generous) cups granulated sugar

1 ½ sticks butter, softened to room temperature

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Frosting:

1 ¾ cup confectioners sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened to room temperature

7 ¼ ounces dark chocolate

 Extra:

1 ¼ cup toffee bits

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Spray 2 eight inch round cake pans with cooking spray or line with parchment paper.

Place the dark chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and zap on high for 30 seconds.  Stir until smooth.  If needed, zap and additional 15 seconds until it stirs smooth.  Leave to cool.

Place all the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor with the metal blade.  Process until smooth, stopping once to scrap down the sides of the bowl.  This should only take about 30 seconds total; just make sure all the ingredients are well combined.  It will be a thick batter.

Divide the batter between the cake pans and smooth the tops.  A small offset spatula works great for this if you have one.  Bake the cakes on the middle rack of the oven until a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 20 minutes.  Halfway through the cooking time, switch the pans around so they cook evenly.

Remove the cakes and place the pans on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes.  Turn the cakes out onto the racks and leave to cool completely.

While the cakes are cooling, make the frosting.  Clean out and wipe dry the bowl and blade of the food processor.  Melt the chocolate in the microwave as before and leave to cool.  It must be room temperature to make the frosting work.  Place all the frosting ingredients in the processor and process until smooth, stopping once to scrap down the bowl.  Again, this should take about 30 seconds until everything is smooth and combined.

When the cakes are completely cool.  Place one cake on a platter or cake round and spread half the frosting over the top. Sprinkle half the toffee bits over the frosting if desired, then center the other cake over the bottom.  Spread the last half of the frosting over the top (not on the sides).  Sprinkle the remaining toffee bits on top.

Let the cake set for half an hour or so to firm up the frosting before slicing, but covered with plastic wrap, it will keep on the counter for two days.

Serves 6 – 8

The iconic S’more.  That memory-provoking piece of gooey, melty childhood – summer camp, the Fourth of July, beach bonfires.  I am not the first to re-imagine the s’more in a slightly less drippy, sticky and potentially hazardous form, but perhaps I am the laziest.  The portable, storable S’more cookies need only six ingredients, one bowl to mix and a few minutes to bake.  But they are a little bite of all that is good about summer.  Kids can absolutely help make these, and have no doubt they will help devouring them!

S’More Cookies

These cookies will keep in an airtight container for several days, but good luck keeping them that long.

12 ounces milk chocolate chips

5 Tablespoons butter

1 cup flour

½ cup light brown sugar, tightly packed

1 egg

3 graham cracker sheets

½ cup mini marshmallows

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line 2 baking sheets with silicone liners or parchment paper.  The melty marshmallows make these sticky.

Place 6 ounces of the chocolate chips and the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl.  Microwave on high for 2 minutes, then remove and stir the chocolate until smooth and melted.  Add the flour and sugar and stir with a fork, then add the egg and continue stirring until smooth. The mixture will be very thick, but will loosen when the egg is added.

Place the graham cracker sheets in a bag and pop them with your fingers to break them into pieces.  You want small pieces here, not crumbs. Stir the remaining chocolate chips, the graham cracker pieces and the marshmallows into the batter, stirring to combine.

Using a tablespoon and your clean finger, scoop the dough onto cookie sheets, making sure the ingredients are evenly distributed.  Flatten the mounds slightly and bake for 7-9 minutes, until the edges have set but the centers are slightly undercooked.

Leave to cool completely on the baking sheets.  If the cookies have spread and lost their shape in some places, you can use the back of a flat knife to push in the overflow while still hot.

Makes 18 cookies

Peaches are to me the great herald that summer has well and truly begun. Just when you start to feel the weather change from warm to downright hot and the air from breezy to thick with humidity, peaches make their appearance at markets and roadside stands.  At summer camp, you could always get your hands on a peach, and biting into that juicy, fuzzy flesh, the juice dripping down your chin, sucking every last bit of flavor off the pit was just part of the camp experience.  A friend’s family has a lovely lake house several hours from here, and on my trips there, we always stop on the drives up and back at a roadside orchard stand for boxes of delicious peaches, scenting the car like a summer day for the whole journey.

And these peaches poached with basil may well be the perfect summer dessert.  It makes the brilliant use of summer’s best produce, it is easy but impressive, you can make it ahead, and it’s beautiful and truly unique.  And the fragrance that wafts through the kitchen during poaching is magical.  The beautiful pink globes served with a drizzle of syrup and a sprig of basil makes a lovely plate, but add a small scoop of vanilla ice cream or some sweetened whipped cream if you’d like.  Or my favorite, a dollop of mascarpone blended with a little powdered sugar. 

Under no circumstances should you discard the excess poaching liquid.  Keep the pale pink syrup in the fridge in an airtight container.   You can drizzle it over plain ice cream or stir it into yogurt, use it to sweeten iced tea, add an outstanding twist to a gin and tonic, or just pour it over ice and top with sparkling water for a real refresher.  I sometimes think I make these peaches just for the syrup.

Peaches Poached In Basil

1 cup white wine

1 ½ cup water

1 ½ cup sugar

1 bunch fresh basil

6 yellow peaches

Place the wine, water and sugar in a wide bottomed saucepan and stir to dissolve sugar slightly.  Place the pan on the stove over medium heat and bring mixture to a boil.  Boil for 5 minutes and then reduce heat, leaving the syrup to simmer.

Cut the peaches in half and remove pits gently.  Drop half of the basil leaves into the syrup then gently place the peach halves cut side down into the syrup. Poach for about 3 minutes and then gently turn over using a slotted spoon.  Continue poaching for an additional 3 – 4 minutes until soft (cooking time will depend on ripeness of peaches).  Carefully prick the cut side of the peaches to check for tenderness.  The peels should be wrinkling up as well. You may cook the peaches in two batches if all the halves will not fit in the pan at once.

Remove the peaches to a plate with a slotted spoon.  When cool enough to handle, gently slide the skins off and discard. Add all but about six basil leaves to the syrup and bring to a boil, boiling until reduced by about half.  Remove from the heat.  Pour any juices that have collected on the plate with the peaches into the syrup.  Leave to cool to room temperature.

The peaches can be covered with plastic wrap and kept at room temperature for several hours.  When ready to serve, place two peach halves on a plate and drizzle with a little basil syrup. Reserve the remaining syrup for another use.  Garnish with basil leaves.

Serves 6

In the great and varied universe of classic Southern desserts, caramel cake is possibly the North Star.  A soft, white cake covered in thick, thick caramel frosting.  The center layer of frosting bleeds a little into the cake and the frosting on the top and sides takes on a slight crispiness – bite into the cake, and the frosting crackles a little, melts in your mouth, then blends into the pillow-y cake.

Alas, I cannot make caramel cake.  I lack the patience.  Believe me, I have tried.  It’s the frosting. A true, delicious, classic caramel frosting takes patience and timing.  Cooking the caramel to the perfect color, then quickly but methodically beating the frosting until it is just the right consistency, then spreading the frosting quickly but precisely over the delicate layers before it hardens up and all hope is lost.  Caramel Cake is favorite childhood memory of mine, and I think it is my brother’s all-time favorite treat.  It is for him (okay, for me too) that I have attempted to create a caramel cake.  I came close once, but it was so durn ugly, only its family could love it, and I’m not really sure they did.  There is a bakery in the area that makes a truly classic Southern caramel cake, and I actually considered passing one of theirs off as my own effort for my brother’s birthday one year.  I didn’t.  I would have been caught out.  My failed attempts have made it quite clear that caramel cake is not in my skill set.

I have not yet abandoned my quest.  I periodically gear myself up for another attempt.  Hopefully, you may see my triumphant success someday.  But in the meantime, I have created a perfectly reasonable stand-in for caramel cake.  Rich cake with a simple, fool-proof glaze (and I am the fool who proves that it works).

I give you this recipe now, admitting my own baking failure, because in addition to being extremely tasty on its own, this cake is the perfect accompaniment to all sorts of summer treats.  A slice of this cake with some fresh berries – on their own or juiced by a sprinkle of sugar is a delight.  Fresh sliced peaches partnered with the tangy cake and caramel glaze are a revelation.  And this is the perfect vehicle for homemade ice cream of any type. 

Buttermilk Cake with Caramel Glaze

For the Cake:

3 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup butter, softened

2 1/3 cup granulated sugar

3 eggs

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk, well shaken

For the Glaze:

¼ cup butter

½ cup light brown sugar, tightly packed

¼ teaspoon salt

1/3 cup heavy cream

1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted

For the Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a Bundt pan.

Sift the flour and baking soda together into a small bowl and set aside.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until pale yellow and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in the vanilla extract.  Add the flour and the buttermilk alternately, beating well after each addition, until thoroughly incorporated.  The batter will be thick, but spread it in the prepared pan and bake for 40 – 50 minutes until a tester comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the pan for 15 minutes, and then turn out on a wire rack to cool completely.

For the Glaze:

The cake must be completely cool, or the glaze will slide right off.  Place a piece of foil or paper under the cooling rack to catch any drips and make clean-up easier.

Cut the butter into cubes and place in a saucepan with the brown sugar, cream and salt.  After everything melts together, bring to a full, rolling boil over medium heat, stirring constantly.  When it reaches that boil, count to 60 Mississippi, then pull it off the heat.  Leave the pan to cool for about 5 minutes, then vigorously beat in the powdered sugar until smooth.

Immediately pour the glaze over the cake, but do so slowly and evenly to cover as much surface as possible.  Leave the glaze to set, then slice and enjoy.  Covered tightly, this cake will last a few days.

Serves 10 if you are lucky

I like the easy way out.  I’ll admit it.  When I see a recipe so simple that even I think it might not work, I have to try it out.  The temptation to create something wonderful from a minimum of effort is too great a lure.  This must be why I copied down a recipe for blender lemon pie many years ago and filed it away.  When I came across the recipe again in an old community cookbook, it was like fate calling me toward this simple idea.  Then I saw a similar recipe in an even older community cookbook.  And so my quest began for the perfect blender lemon pie.  A few misses, but a couple of great hits got me where I wanted to go.  I have now made this pie many times.  At first for testing, but since I got it right, just ‘cause.

So, what is Blender Lemon Pie?  Easy, that’s what.  And lemony and sweet and tangy.  In short, prepare a piecrust – in the spirit of taking the easy way, I buy mine.  Place a lemon – a whole, seeded lemon – in the blended with the ingredients. Whizz, pour, bake, voila!  Now, there is a little secret.  The lemon needs to have a thin skin, which can be kind of hard to figure out when buying them. Too much white pith makes the filling bitter. Look at the pointy end of the lemon – if it’s very elongated, there is likely to be a thick skin.  If the skin feels tough and hard, as opposed to having some give when you press on it, it’s likely to be thick.  You can poke through with your fingernail to see what you’re looking at.  Buy a couple of lemons with appropriate skins.  Cut into them and use the thinnest skinned one.  Use any other lemon for you gin and tonic.  No great loss.  I have also used the naturally thin skinned meyer lemons to great success.

Blender Lemon Pie

I happily use a store-bought rolled pie crust fit into a pie plate then blind-baked.  This is all about easy.

1 9-inch pie crust

1 thin-skinned lemon (about 4 to 4 ½ ounces)

½ cup water

1 ½ cups sugar

3 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt

2 eggs

¼ cup ( ½ stick) butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Fit the pie crust into a 9-inch pie plate, trimming the edges as necessary.  Line the crust with waxed paper and fill with beans or pie weights and blind bake the crust for 12 minutes until partially cooked.  Set aside to cool.

When the crust is cool, cut the lemon into quarters lengthways, the cut each quarter in half.  Carefully remove all seeds.  Place the lemon in the carafe of a blender with the water and blend until smooth.  Add the sugar, flour and salt and blend until combined, scraping down the sides of the blender as needed.  Add the eggs and melted butter and blend until everything is smooth and completely combined.

Pour the filling into the pie crust and carefully transfer to the oven.  Bake for 20 – 30 minutes until the pie is slightly puffed up and wobbles only a little.  Remove from the oven, cool to room temperature and refrigerate covered with plastic warp until chilled, preferably overnight.

Serves 8

I would hazard a guess that for many people, the image that comes to mind with the words strawberry shortcake are those electric yellow sponge cake cups with the little crater on the top that are sold as “shortcakes,” usually next to the berries in the produce section. Maybe served with fresh berries, maybe with frozen berries in syrup or maybe even gel-glazed pie filling.  Whipped cream on top, or frozen topping or the kind from a can. These became so ubiquitous, that I remember a high-end cookware shop sold a cake pan that made little baskets with the indention on top to mimic that grocery version.

But that version has never meant strawberry shortcake to me.  I am glad to say, in fact, that I have never consumed one of those little pucks.  For me, strawberry shortcake is a sweet version of a classic biscuit, split open, with macerated strawberry slices soaking the bottom half with their sweet juices, piled with sweet whipped cream.  That is how I picture strawberry shortcake.  And I generally thought those were the only two versions that existed.  But I have a very close friend who rather eschews my version, protesting that it is not strawberry shortcake at all.  I never knew what nonsense she was talking, until her mother prepared her family version for us.  Sweet sliced strawberries and whipped cream in a bowl with lovely squares of flaky, crispy, homemade pie crust, sprinkled with sugar before baking. Now, I hesitate here, in case refuses to ever make it for me again, but as delicious as it is, it is still not how I think of strawberry shortcake.  But it’s a fascinating revelation on how many forms a “classic” dish can take on.

Year-round strawberries are a fact of life now, but I don’t buy them year round.  Hothouse, hydroponic, million-mile imports just don’t taste like strawberries to me.  Not the strawberries of my childhood, bought on the side of the road or at little local produce markets.  In the days when the “big” grocery store was locally owned.  Strawberries grow beautifully here, in fact just to the northeast of Memphis there is a town that holds a strawberry festival, complete with a Strawberry Queen.  That’s where I like my berries to come from.  I love good, fresh, local strawberries undoctored and not messed about with, but when I see them arrive at the produce stand and the farmer’s market, my mind immediately turns to shortcake.  My kind – a sweet biscuit, here infused with vanilla, and lots of juicy strawberries.

Strawberry Shortcake

You can skip the step of infusing the milk and just use plain milk and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, but I promise you will be glad you added this extra, easy step.

For the Strawberries:

1 pint strawberries

2 Tablespoons sugar

For the Shortcake:

1 cup milk

1 vanilla bean

2 ½ cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup (1 stick) butter, cold and cut into cubes

1 Tablespoons milk for brushing

1 Tablespoon sugar for sprinkling

For the Whipped Cream:

1 pint heavy whipping cream

3 Tablespoons confectioner’s sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Strawberries: Wash and dry the berries, the remove the green stems and leaves.  Slice thinly and place in a bowl with the sugar. Toss to coat and leave to sweeten and release the juices, at least an hour.

For the Shortcakes: Pour the milk into a small, heavy bottomed saucepan.  Cut the vanilla bean open and scrape out the seeds.  Add the seeds and the bean pod to the milk.  Heat the milk over medium heat just until small bubbles begin to form on the surface.  Take the pan of the heat, stir the milk, and leave to cool to room temperature.  Stir it a couple of times to prevent a skin from forming.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. When the milk in cooled, place the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into the bowl of a food processor and pulse a few quick times.  Add the butter cubes.  Pulse in short bursts until the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs.  Remove the vanilla bean pod from the milk and add the milk to the food processor with the seeds, scraping the pan to get as much of the seeds as possible into the shortcakes.  Pulse until just combined.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  With floured hands, gently pat the dough into a rectangle about 4 by 8 inches.  Flour a knife or bench scraper and cut the dough into eight squares.  Carefully transfer the shortcakes to a greased baking sheet.  Brush the tops lightly with milk and sprinkle with sugar.  Bake the shortcakes until golden, 15 – 20 minutes.  Cool on the baking sheet.

When ready to serve, whip the cream with the confectioner’s sugar and vanilla until stiff.  Split the shortcakes in half, spoon over the strawberries and juice and top with the whipped cream.

Makes 8 shortcakes

Any good Southern cook has a supply of sweetening syrups that would put Willy Wonka to shame.  Corn syrup, light and dark, and generally known by its brand name Karo (pronounced KAY-Ro).  Molasses, regular and blackstrap.  Sorghum.  Cane syrup.  Maybe even maple syrup, though that smacks somewhat of the Yankee.  I use them all. Corn syrup for chess pie and pecan pie, molasses in cookies, sorghum with beans.  And all are good drizzled over fresh biscuits. They each have a subtly different taste, from pure sweetness to rich complexity. But for me, cane syrup has a distinctly Southern taste. 

Cane syrup is made from a sugar cane breed, ribbon cane, that grows in the South. Sorghum is made from sorghum grass, molasses from sugar cane, but by a different process, and corn syrup is, of course, made from corn. Real cane syrup can be hard to come by.  It’s generally found at country stores, farm shops and roadside stands.  A few years ago, I was thrilled to find some cane syrup at Boomland, an emporium of country products on the way to a friend’s grandmother’s house in the boot heel of  Missouri.  On the shelf next to the homemade fig preserves, pickled watermelon rind and chow chow, across from the country ham slices and thick bacon, I found the elusive jar of ribbon cane syrup.  I brought it home and went on a little cane syrup spree, stirring it into my baked beans, baking cookies, Acadian gateau de sirop, drizzling over biscuits and pancakes.  The next time my friend was heading to see her grandmother, I asked her if she wouldn’t mind picking up a jar of the cane syrup for me.  In her generous way, she returned with half a case of jars.  That really set me on the path to discovery – all the many ways to use cane syrup.

I now find Louisiana’s Steen cane syrup at the local produce market, so cane syrup never has to be an imported item anymore. And like everything else, I have no doubt it can be bought online.  These simple cakes, with their crumble topping, really feature the flavor of cane syrup.  You’ll be impressed by how such a simple recipe can produce such a nuanced flavor.

Cane Syrup Cupcakes

If you really can’t find cane syrup, you can use molasses (not blackstrap) instead.

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups light brown sugar, packed

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup cold butter, cut into cubes

2 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups boiling water

1 cup cane syrup

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line two 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners or spray well with non-stick spray.

Combine the flour, brown sugar and salt in the large bowl of a stand mixer.  Add the butter and mix until the mixture is crumbly.  Set aside one cup of this mixture for the topping.  Add the baking soda to the remaining mixture and combine thoroughly.  Beat in the boiling water and the cane syrup until just blended.

Fill the muffin cups two-thirds full.  Sprinkle the reserved topping mix over the cupcakes, spreading out evenly.

Bake the cupcakes for 20 – 25 minutes until a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes 24 cupcakes

Every time I buy rhubarb at the grocery, at any store, the cashier has to ask me what it is and then struggles to find it on the produce code chart.  Is it a vegetable or a fruit (technically a vegetable, by the way)? Once a cashier suggested I memorize the code to make it easier on everyone.  Inevitably, this leads to the question “What do you do with it?”  And on the occasions I have prepared a dish with rhubarb for people, I generally get a somewhat skeptical look.

I love rhubarb, but it is a relatively new introduction into my life.  I have friends who grew up eating their grandmother’s strawberry and rhubarb pie, but it never much figured in my life.  I first remember tasting rhubarb in England, in a fool.  A fool is basically simple dessert of whipped cream and fruit and rhubarb seems to be a favorite British incarnation.  It was many years later that I even noticed that rhubarb was available in the grocery store here, though I imagine it was there all the time.  I don’t know much about rhubarb’s natural growing climate, but I have never seen it at a farmer’s market or produce stand here in Memphis.  I do think it must be growing in popularity though, because I now find a regular supply of lovely, red stalks at groceries here, both winter forced and spring-fresh.

So over the years, I have expanded my rhubarb repertoire – though I still have a long way to go.  I frequently buy it, chop into chunks, sprinkle it with sugar, bake it until it’s soft and mash it into a stringy puree.  I keep this in the fridge and stir into yogurt drizzled with honey for a breakfast treat.  I also make a lovely Rhubarb and Vanilla Jam.  If asked nicely, I might even share that recipe with you.  But my favorite incarnation so far is this classic crumb cake with tangy pieces of pink rhubarb studding the sweet, cinnamon-y cake.  It’s great for breakfast, with a good English cup of tea or as dessert.  So please, give rhubarb a chance.

Rhubarb Crumb Cake

For the Crumb Topping:

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup packed light brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ cup cold butter

 For the cake:

12 ounces fresh rhubarb (to produce 4 cups chopped)

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ cup butter, softened

1 ½ cups sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 10-inch round cake pan.

Cut off the dried ends of the rhubarb and cut the stalks into chunks about a ½ inch thick.  If the rhubarb is fat, cut them in half lengthwise first.  A quick note: rhubarb will turn what it touches pink, so use a washable cutting board and wash your hands immediately.  Wear gloves if you have just had a manicure so you don’t ruin your polish.

For the crumb topping: In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Transfer to another bowl and set aside.  Wipe out the mixer bowl.

For the cake: Combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and baking powder in a small bowl.  In the bowl of the mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in the vanilla.   Add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk and mix until combined.  Stir in the chopped rhubarb.  Spread the batter in the prepared pan.

Sprinkle the reserved crumb over the cake batter and spread out to an even layer.  It may look like an awful lot of topping, but that’s what makes this so good.  Bake the cake for 40 – 45 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the middle come out clean.  Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

Serves 8 – 10

St. Patrick’s Day is a silly holiday – in the best possible way.  Grown folks dressing in green fuzzy wigs and big hats.  Pinching co-workers and friends who forget to wear green.  Drinking green beer.  Singing Irish songs as if you just came over from the old country.  In fact, celebrating a holiday largely based on snake-driving has an element of silliness to it from the get go. St. Patrick, it seems, never did have anything to do with snakes.  Now you know.

Except for college, when I am sure that it was a big beer drinking occasion (I assume that because frankly, I don’t remember), I have never really gone in for too much St. Paddy’s Day fun.  My only St. Patrick’s memory is a family spring break trip to Chicago right during the St. Patrick’s Day festivities.  Of course, my brother and I were too young to appreciate the principal activities of the day. But the Chicago River was dyed green, and we could watch the parade down Michigan Avenue from our hotel.  George Bush, Senior was staying in our hotel.  He’d just started his first presidential run (boy am I dating myself now), so the Secret Service were everywhere.  I can only imagine that Chicago on St. Patrick’s Day is a Secret Service nightmare.

So in celebration of the silly, I created these Kiss Me, I’m Irish Cookies.  I am not, by the way, Irish, but that’s sort of the fun of St. Patrick’s.  Everyone is Irish for a least a day.  The cookie base is flavored with Irish cream liqeuer, topped with a chocolate kiss.

Kiss Me, I’m Irish Cookies

½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened

½ cup sugar

½ cup light brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ cup Irish cream liqueur (like Bailey’s)

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

24 Hershey’s Kisses, unwrapped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Cream the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and vanilla, beating until combined.  Add the Irish cream, beating well.

Combine the flour, baking soda and salt and add to the dough, mixing until fully incorporated.

Roll generous teaspoons of dough into balls and place on the prepared baking sheets.  Press a kiss into each cookie ball, letting the dough form up around the kiss.  Bake the cookies for 8-9 minutes until lightly golden. Cool on the cookie sheets for a few minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 24 cookies