Well here I am back from a brief early spring break. My wife and I didn't travel anywhere or even take any time off from work, we just had a lot of baby prep going on and my weekends have been spoken for lately (nope, no baby yet). She has officially hit the 9-month mark and we're ready to give birth at any minute. So while I have the opportunity to get back into my home kitchen and dive into The Babbo Cookbook, I am going to take full advantage.
It's starting to get harder to find recipes to cook now that most of the simple ones are finished. This is also a tough time of year weather wise to source the produce that I need to complete these recipes. Many of these recipes are what I like to call 'restaurant recipes' in that they have everything but the kitchen sink added to them. This is fine for a restaurant in NYC that has access to anything imaginable, but to the home cook it involves longer trips to the market or several markets with the cookbook in hand to make sure that they have everything.
The recipes are detailed and complex I get it. But as a forewarning for anyone who is attempting to cook heavily from this cookbook, some recipes require a lot of produce and specialty items, some of which only becomes available at certain times of the year. This is why at this stage I bring the book with me to the market because I often find myself one or two ingredients shy of any particular recipe. This was one of the common complaints for those that did gripe about the cookbook on review sites. But the positive side is that you learn more about the seasonality of your food and you become like a modern day hunter and gatherer.
This next recipe is a dessert that I have passed over many times while flipping through the book. It's not that anything in the recipe sounds off putting and its not like something that I wouldn't try, but it was never on my 'OMG I have to eat this' list. As I have discovered many times when making something from this cookbook I am usually pleasantly surprised by the recipes that I don't think that I will be into.
Delizie means 'delight' in Italian and it was quite a delightful dessert to make in its ease of preparation and overall great taste. By now with the amount of desserts that I've made for this blog, you should have a pretty clear picture of how Mario approaches his dessert making at Babbo. It closely mirrors my preferences on desserts as well. I tend to like a dessert that's a little smaller of a portion, that's not overly sweet but yet at the same time I want to feel like I'm eating a dessert.
This little date cake could easily pass as a midday snack or a sweet little muffin like breakfast on the go. It almost has this "grandmas banana bread" quality to it without the addition of the sweet cream on the side. Add in the orange scented cream on the side and now you've kicked it up to full desert status. Let's get started with the preparation.
The oven gets heated to 350°. I then take walnuts and toast them lightly in the oven. This should take about 15 minutes, then once they are cooled I give them a rough chop.
While the nuts are in the oven, I grease foil cake molds for the batter that I am about to make.
Dates get put into a food processor with milk and pulsed to make a chunky purée.
In a separate bowl I sift flour, baking powder and soda, and salt and set it aside.
Using the kitchen aid I'm ready to make the batter. Eggs, granulated sugar, and brown sugar get beaten together until light and airy.
Vanilla extract and melted unsalted butter get added next.
Next the dry ingredients get added, and I scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Lastly I add the date purée, the walnuts, and heavy cream and mix until combined. I fill the molds about 2/3 of the way with batter and bake until brown and set. This took about half an hour in my kitchen.
The sweet cream that accompanies these cakes is really simple. I take creme fraiche, sugar, orange zest, and ricotta and whip it together until stiff peaks form.
The cakes are plated very simply with the orange cream.
As I've eluded to in the beginning of this post, this was a winner. The cake was flavorful on its own, but the cream really turned this into a more composed dessert. The recipe serves 12 but I was able to get 14 when using the handy disposable foil baking cups that Mario recommends. My wife and I brought over the extras to the family and our Aunt Lynnie, a long-time subscriber to the blog and occasional taste-tester, confiscated most of what was left.
For the next post I'm going back to the savory side with a salad that features mussels. Until next time...
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