Once upon a time: fruit pudding
plus the reason for a carrot cake in July and a question for you
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Your cook and writer, Monica
Once upon a time
Summer.
Once upon a time, there were big bonfires, families gathered to process fruits and vegetables, and desserts did not need the refrigerator but the cool dimness of the pantry.
Fruit pudding has an old-fashioned flavor, a smooth texture, and simple preparation.
I don't know how many fruit puddings and jellies I ate in the first part of my life. Then fruit disappeared from my life and table. Now I try to recover flavors, memories, and recipes.
And if it happens, it is also because of you reading and cooking with me.
Going back to fruit, it was never missing from the kitchen and table of my maternal grandmother, who was born and raised in the Romagna countryside. Her favorite fruits were apples and grapes, although she used everything from the orchard with equal benevolence.
Year after year, between spring and fall, Grandma coordinated a handful of brave azdore (azdora or rezdora are the terms used in Emilia-Romagna to indicate the woman who would keep the farmhouse running).
Brave because they faced thick, wet heat that took away strength and breath.
Imagine its intensity near the bonfires used to simmer preserves and passata.
Bonfires were placed in the middle of the farmyard. On top of the bundles of wood, large black cauldrons took place. Inside the pots filled with water, wrapped and held in place by tea towels, were all you can make with fruit: jars of jams, juices, syrups, and fruit in syrup.
After boiling, you needed to wait several hours before taking out the jars, and in the meantime, there was more work to do.
For example, some of the fruit that did not become jam (or syrup or juice) ended up in other pots to become jellies and fruit puddings.
To make jellies and puddings, fruit needed to cook until thick. Once there was no ready-to-use pectin. People used lemon juice and natural pectin made from apples (the pulp and the core wrapped in gauze for removing it at the end of the cooking). When they were in season, used quinces and pears were also good, naturally rich in pectin.
My grandma and the women of her generation used sugar differently from today.
For instance, when she made jams and preserves, she first used to boil the fruit on its own. When part of the liquid had reduced, nonna weighed the fruit, and only then she added the sugar. Then the pots would return to the stove on the large gas stove.
You understand that the process was long.
Again, the ripest fruit dried in the sun, resting on large wooden boards covered by nets.
Finally, not only the pulp was used. At home, nonna made sideboard liquors from leaves and pits. Even vinegar gained fragrance and flavor from the fruit.
As the evening light ended a long and tiring day's work, the atmosphere became cheerful and festive. Some drank a glass of wine while cutting salami to go with bread while fresh laughter filled the air. It was a choral work that involved everyone, women first and foremost, but also husbands and children.
At the end of the day, the women would divide the jars of processed fruit among themselves.
Each woman knew how many jars she would need over the year thanks to her experience that took into account family consumption and gifts reserved for relatives and friends, children's teachers, and family doctor who would arrive on a bicycle and stop by to say ciao and some chats. That was the way it used to be.
Everything that came from the garden and orchard had a function.
From my blog archive
I shared on the blog some fruit recipes that cheered my childhood. Nonna also made homemade liquors, but they were not for us children.
The peach liqueur is made using the untreated leaves of the tree.
It has a fresh, light flavor. You can serve it as an end-of-meal digestive or use it to flavor ciambelle and cookie doughs.
I also wrote about the ritual of bonfires in the introduction I dedicated to homemade fruit syrups. Today, as for fresh fruit juices, you can prepare modest quantities of them. If you make a liter of juice, you won't need to vacuum-pack. You will store it in the refrigerator and consume it within a few days. Of course, you can make the same for jams. Fruit does not develop botulinum toxin just from being cooked. However, it will mold in the refrigerator if you forget it.
On the blog, you will also find the recipe for lemon barley water that my grandmother used to make with the cooking water from the barley. In this case, you find the recipe with the story of a tragic event I lived in Madrid. It is a fact you can maybe read like the page of a novel.
Fruit jellies and puddings
Once cooked and thickened, nonna spread the fruit mixture into large metal pans. After cooling, stored them in the pantry and, after a few months, would cut squares which would dip in sugar.
At that point, the jellies would return to the pantry ready to gladden guests and relatives. Visits were frequent, especially during the holiday season. I remember it felt like being at the train station because of the hustle and bustle.
Once, you didn't leave a WhatsApp vocal message. You went in person to wish your relatives.
Fruit puddings have the same process as jellies. After baking, you have to pour the mixture into a mold. Once, we used copper and metal mold with decorated sides, and the puddings looked preciously dressed up.
What I give you is a modern version of fruit pudding. You won't have to build a bonfire in your backyard or the public park in front of your home.
Nor will you need cauldrons or quarts of fruit.
As with the puddings of my childhood, you can store the dessert for a long time.
What's left of mine, which you see in the photo, has been in the refrigerator, still perfect after a week. It's a shame I can't let you smell it.
If you have a memory, question, or thought to share: please leave a comment!
The recipe. Apricot pudding
Kitchen Notes
Make the pudding with your favorite fruit.
You can substitute gelatin sheets for 5 g of agar-agar powder (I wrote how to use both in the procedure).
Store the pudding in the refrigerator for a week or more.
Recipe
6-8 serves
½ liter round mold
Ingredients
apricots, 500 g
gelatin sheets, 12 g (or 5g agar-agar)
brown sugar, 100 g
filtered juice of ½ lemon
½ teaspoon natural vanilla extract
dark chocolate chips or grated chocolate to taste
ice cream or whipped cream to serve
Method
Wash and dry the apricots.
Cut the fruit in half and remove the pit using a knife or your fingers.
In a large saucepan, combine sugar, fruit, and lemon juice.
Cook over medium-low heat on a medium-large stove for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. When the fruit has softened, turn off the stove, wait 10 minutes, and use an immersion blender to make it smooth, even puree.
Put the pan back on the small stove on low heat, covering it almost entirely with a lid. Let the fruit mumble for about 20 minutes.
Turn off and let cool for 30 minutes.
Place the gelatin sheets in cold water for 10 minutes, squeeze them out, and add them while stirring to the puree.
Pour the mixture into the mold, and when you feel it is no longer warm when you touch it, place the pudding in the refrigerator overnight.
With agar-agar
When you turn off the stove, add the powder to the fruit while stirring.
Let it rest for an hour and pour it into the mold, which should rest in the refrigerator overnight.
Fruit pudding has a fragile texture only in appearance. Use a spatula to pull it out of the mold and place it onto a serving plate.
Grate dark chocolate over the pudding or sprinkle it with chocolate drops.
Serve the pudding with ice cream or whipped cream.
Do you like that recipe?
Please, share it with someone who might enjoy it :)
A mid-summer carrot cake recipe
Juicy, flavorful carrots from the summer garden are perfect for this cake that seems out of context only if we have forgotten that they, too, have seasonality.
Of course, summer-and-oven do not go hand in hand. However, even a hot summer offers some days blessed by milder temperatures. And that immediately makes me want to take over the kitchen again.
Or, as my ancestors did, I get up earlier than usual, and by the time the sun's rays have just begun to stretch, I have already turned off ovens and stoves.
At the organic farmer's market, I saw a bunch of tender tufted carrots and, on the boost of the moment, decided to pull out the old home recipe for carrot cake.
Today in Italy, this cupboard sweet is called Carrot and Almond Cake (or Carrot and Hazelnut if you prefer the second one). Once, its name was simply Carrot Cake. Perhaps it will make you smile to know that, at home, Grandma used to bake it only during Summer time. Among the ingredients, you will find a certain amount of apricot jam. It should not surprise you. Nonna had grown up in the countryside, where sugar was precious and rare, and she often used preserve instead of it.
In its preparation, you can use either almonds or hazelnuts. I prefer almonds, which work well with summer carrots because of their pronounced fruity note.
Carrots are composed of 88 percent water. This percentage may seem small compared to the 95 percent liquid contained in the cucumber. But beware, it is sufficient to compromise the leavening of the cake.
Don't skip reading my kitchen notes if you intend to make this cake.
Kitchen Notes
To add or not to add baking powder?
1) It’s your choice.
If you will not use it, you will have a firm but soft and moist cake (the slice you see in the photo is the version without the yeast).
2) if you opt for adding it, don’t forget to grate or chop the carrots, spread the pulp on a clean dishcloth, and let it dry for about two hours. Touching the pulp, you will notice that it is less moist. In this way, it will be easier for the yeast to act.
And, the same, use a large sachet of baking powder (16 g).
How to use the herbaceous top of carrots
Wash them under running water and dry the green part.
Chop the green with a knife and use it to make an Italian frittata or a sauce/pesto by blending it with some Taggiasca olives.
The Recipe. Carrot Cake
Recipe
6-8 serves
round mold, 20cm diameter
Ingredients
grated carrots, 200 g
shelled almonds, 200 g
brown sugar, 70 g
00 or spelt flour, 60 g
eggs, 3
apricot jam, 100 g
a pinch of salt
powdered sugar to decorate
optional: non-vanilla baking powder for cakes, 16 g
Method
Clean the carrots, then grate or chop them in the blender.
Finely chop the almonds as well.
Meanwhile, turn on the oven to 170C degrees (338F).
Beat the eggs with the sugar using electric whips. Then incorporate all the other ingredients, one at a time.
Line a cake pan, pour in the batter, and bake for about 45 minutes.
Remove from the oven, let cool. If you like, dust it with powdered sugar.
I have reached the end of this newsletter, and I have a question for you.
Substack allows me to create a section where I could save posts dedicated to the Emilia-Romagna as if they were postcards or pages of a book. In that way, anyone can always retrieve what will, little by little, become my and your guide to my beautiful region. I was thinking of a special newsletter to send out every so often, as a surprise.
What do you think about it?