Zucchini and Orange Marmalade Tea Cake

As promised, here's the recipe for the zucchini bread I baked a few days ago. The recipe is originally from The Tartine Cookbook, which so far has only given me great results. I've added a few ingredients to the original and marked them with an asterisk. The instructions are paraphrased from the original. Happy baking!

• all-purpose flour (1 3/4 cups and 2 tbs)
• baking soda (1/2 tsp)
• ground cinnamon (1 tsp)
• ground cardamom (1 tsp)*
• large eggs (2)
• any kind of vegetable oil (1/2 cup and 2 tbs)
• sugar (3/4 cup)
• orange marmalade (1/2 cup, I used D'Arbo's bitter orange marmalade)
• grated zucchini (2 1/2 cups, about one large zucchini with ends removed)
• grated carrot (1/2 cup, or one medium one)*
• sea salt (1/2 tsp)
• walnuts, lightly toasted and coarsely chopped (1 cup)
• sugar for topping (which I skipped)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and lightly oil and flour a 9x5" loaf pan.

What I like about loaf cakes is they rarely require an electric mixer. All I used was a whisk and a wooden spoon. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and spices.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, sugar, and marmalade until the mixture emulsifies. This will take a little bit of elbow grease, and will result in a thick batter.

Combine the dry and wet mixtures (it doesn't really matter which into which) and stir to incorporate. Add the nuts. There's no need to overmix the batter, just make sure there are no white spots. Transfer the batter into your loaf pan, smooth the top, sprinkle with sugar if you like, and bake for 60-70 minutes. The cookbook says to partially cool the cake, then transfer to a rack for complete cooling. However, I just left the cake in the pan until completely cool and the results were fine. The cake is nice toasted, but I like it even better straight out of the refrigerator: cold, dense, and so moist it can almost be described as juicy.

Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve, 20 Years

Bourbon is usually associated with rednecks and hillbillies, but a recent trip to Bourbon and Branch revealed that there are a few distilleries producing high quality sipping bourbon supeior to many single malt scotches.

Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve is one such bourbon. It's aged for 20 years, a nearly unheard of amount of time in the bourbon world. The resulting product smells intensely of vanilla and butter, and has a smooth rich mouthfeel. Even in alcohol-obsessed San Francisco, it was tough to find two bottles of this bourbon, which is rated #1 in the world.

Tartine Zucchini Marmalade Cake, with some twists

Success! Now I know; the toaster oven is more than adequate for baking loaf cakes, and the bake time landed smack in the middle of what was recommended by the cookbook. I know some people will balk at leaving appliances on while they're not at home, but to me this means I can set the toaster oven and leave the house because it will shut off immediately. Alternatively, if I'm home but completely space out and forget something's in the oven, it won't burn.

The taste test? Excellent. Everything a breakfast cake should be: moist, not too sweet, and full of a few healthy ingredients. In this case, there are eggs, zucchini, carrots, and walnuts. Bitter orange marmalade, cinnamon, and cardamom provide flavor. I wish there were less sugar and oil, but such is the nature of baking if you want bakery-worthy texture. My coffee's ready now, but if anyone's interested leave a note and I'll post the recipe later.

Late Night Baking

Grow, my precious, grow!

Some late night boredom resulted in my whipping out The Tartine Cookbook and trying my hand at the zucchini marmalade bread. I'm actually baking it in my toaster oven, so it's also a trial run to see if I'll be able to lessen my use of the big oven in the future. So far so good. I'm looking forward to the taste test and photo session.

TMM Desserts (Millbrae)

We spent Sunday south of the city this weekend. It's always nice to get out once in awhile. Our final destination was Mountainview, but we made a pit stop in Millbrae to check out TMM Desserts.


The curry squid and fish ball appetizer was just okay. I don't know what I was expecting, but I feel like this is more of an entree that should have come with rice. Instead, it was billed as an appetizer. It also could have had stronger flavors.

The deep fried tofu was incredible. Light, crispy, and piping hot on the outside, studded with tiny granules of salt. The inside was perfectly silken, which I rarely find to be true of deep fried tofu. Next time we're at TMM, we've vowed to try more deep fried dishes. Popcorn chicken and fried squid at the other tables looked divine. Fried food tends to be heavy, but not when the batter is airy and light like it is at TMM.

J had a chicken leg over rice. In keeping with the tofu and other fried appetizers, his fried chicken was nicely crisped and not at all greasy or oil-laden.

And here's my bowl of Taiwanese beef noodle soup, the reason we headed down to TMM in the first place. I had heard that it was better than any version in San Francisc and I can concede that it is true. The soup is nicely balanced, the beef is lean but each piece is meltingly tender and well-seasoned, and the toppings taste fresh and complement the dish without overwhelming it. No one flavor stood out, and I could enjoy the soup because it wasn't too salty. Next time, my only request would be for them to slightly undercook the noodles because I'm a slow eater and the noodles were a big soggy by the time I was through.

And last but not least, dessert. I ordered a steamed milk custard with coconut and loved it. It is a lot silkier and more even in texture than the version at Kowloon Tong. It also tastes less eggy. Does anyone have a recipe for it? I think it should be an easy matter of steaming together sugar, eggs, milk, and coconut milk, I just have no idea what ratios to use. But anyway, TMM was all in all a great meal for about $30.

City View Musings

fires are still going strong all over California, and it's affecting air quality even in coastal San Francisco. The unusually gray sky drew my attention to a distant rooftop.

It reminds me of a David Hockney painting: one brightly colored geometric shape against a blue gray backdrop, stark and silent but captivating just the same.

Mystery Present

Oh Britex, how you tempt me with your siren's call of four floors full of textiles.


I stopped in for something else entirely, but when I turned the corner onto the second floor I was stopped in my tracks by this bolt of fabric. I can only describe it as so cute it makes my eyeballs hurt. I knew I had to make something with it and give it to a friend.

Some thinking and an afternoon of hard work later, I had made a three-pocket skirt apron.

Inadvertently, I hade made the apron reversible! It was too late to add more embellishments, but it occured to me that three small square pockets in the patterned fabric would have been a great addtion.

All folded up and ready to go. It's hard to part with it, but the only reason I sew is because I find it fun and I like sharing little things with my friends. What am I going to do with a bunch of homemade stuff? Better to spread the love.

Crocker Galleria Farmers' Market

I stopped by the Crocker Galleria farmers' market today. It's a small market, and prices are somewhere between exhorbitant Ferry Building prices and common man's Civic Center prices, but all the produce and fruit was beautiful. It's a nice market if you don't need too much selection.

And I didn't know this, but there is a Bay Breads stall. I may show up every Thursday because of this temptation. It took every ounce of self control to buy only an apricot bar and a cinnamon orange croissant. I highly recomment the croissant. Not only is it beautiful (more elegant, I think, than a regular croissant), the crunch from the cinnamon sugar and light orange flavor makes it taste like a special occassion breakfast treat.

Lettuce mix, with plenty of flowers. I know edible flowers aren't for everyone, but I think they are beautiful. I'll probably rip up the biggest ones before I eat them, but the tiny blue, yellow, and pink petals throughout are just precious.

Even though farmers' markets in the financial district tend to be on the pricey side, I usually find one steal. Today's was soft stone fruit. Except that most of the ones in the bin weren't soft at all. Some were completely fine, some had a small puncture (like from a fingernail), and a few were soft from being bumped but not yet bruised. This bowl of a dozen fist sized fruit cost me 95 cents. At that price, I'm willing to deal with a few blemishes. I'll probably eat them all in two days anyway.

Birthday Schwag

My sister got me some really fun things this past birthday. So since I haven't been eating anything exciting this week, I'll just show off instead.

What is it? A pen? A pair of old lady reading glasses?

Any ideas yet?

They are retractable chopsticks! The rage to be green (or is it simply the desire to be assured of clean silverware?) has hit Taiwan, and these are getting very popular over there. I haven't seen them in the States, either in stores or on line, but I hope they catch on. The case is very slender, probably half an inch wide and no more than five inches long. The chopsticks expand to the size of normal restaurant chopsticks, and they handle nicely. I am trying to keep them in my purse so I remember to use them.

And because my sisters almost always get me a silly gift, this adorable piece of chotsky now graces my bookshelf. The only use I can think of is to hold cream and a few chopsticks if I ever serve coffee and fruit after a dinner party. I'm not even sure what the original intent was, other than adorability.