I love Labor Day because it doesn’t engender that icky discomfort that creeps up on me when the Fourth of July, Columbus Day … Thanksgiving … roll around. It’s about workers! And really, workers organizing with general strikes, unions, boycotts, divestments are one of the few things that can help us weather — or get us out of — this whole mess we’re in!
It’s the unofficial end of the summer, and yet, I still haven’t eaten even one good heirloom tomato or juicy peach!!! So I’m staying firmly on summer mode for at least another week (at least until I can brave the farmers market tomorrow) before launching into, as I like to call it, ORANGE AND BROWN FOOD SEASON. Here are some recipes to send off summer this weekend:
Plum Almond/Blackberry Pistachio Frangipane Galette
Tomato Tart with Feta-Goat Cheese Filling
Watermelon-Strawberry Jello Bars
Updates
In case you missed it, here’s the video of me making the corn cream trifles from two weeks ago! There’s also the extended version on TikTok.
This Week’s Recipe
Stone fruits and almonds (extract, flour, frangipane) just go together. So whenever the summer is yawning like it is now and we’ve experienced at least one Fake Fall, I know it’s time to get some really good apricots, peaches, plums, etc. and bake them into the most tender, plush cake made all the more tender and plush by almond flour.
This recipe also employs a heavy-handed dose of almond extract: 1/2 teaspoon. If you really love that (very potent) flavor, you could even spring for 3/4 teaspoon. If you don’t, you can leave it out, as well as the optional sliced almonds on top, which are mostly there because I thought it looked too plain otherwise. Alternatively, some pitted and halved cherries would also look pretty on top.
Three top tips for this recipe:
Please make sure all ingredients are at room temperature before mixing the batter. Split batters happen when cold eggs hit warm butter and curdle it, or when cold sour cream separates from the room-temp batter. TLDR: when it comes to batters, ingredients that are at the same temperature like to combine, which will lead to a silky smooth emulsion and a loaf that is moist, not greasy.
When it comes to getting the perfect drips down the side of your cake, err on the side of your icing being too thick. You should look at it and say, there’s no way that’s going to spread! But trust in the slow work of gravity and you’ll get cascades of icing that drip in a very demure way, not run right off the side and onto the serving tray. That being said, if you prefer a thinner icing, go for it. I would just use a pastry brush to brush the top and sides of the loaf on a wire rack to allow the excess to run off.
Rich loaf cakes like this one can take a long time to bake properly. The material and shape of a pan are both factors that can affect bake time. I use a tall, straight-sided pullman loaf tin made from aluminum (because I like the way it looks). Metal tins tend to bake faster, but you might only have a classic glass or ceramic 9x5-inch tin with sloped sides. That is fine, but just know that those materials tend to bake slower. Using an oven thermometer to fiddle your oven to the correct temperature, and an instant read food thermometer to check the interior temperature of the cake, are both good ways to make sure you’re not flying blind here.
Cherry Almond Cake
Serves about 10-12
Ingredients
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