Have you joined in the fun of Lewis & Clark Library's new Spice of the Month club? Last month, I picked up a free sample of cardamom along with a beautiful recipe card featuring a Cardamom Sponge Cake, or Doolsho. After making my own Doolsho cake, let me tell you, I LOVE MAKING THIS CAKE! The Doolsho cake is a Somalian sponge cake traditionally served in the afternoon with tea. The cake's main flavor comes from the cardamom and a splash of vanilla. It is delicious in its simplicity and the aroma of the cardamom is a dream. I chose to dust my first Doolsho cake with powdered sugar to add sweetness and decoration, but in subsequent cakes I've gone without any topping and enjoyed it as is. The cake's lovely golden color and its flavor is just right to accompany a nice Chai tea. (Hint: check your chai tea to see if it also uses cardamom.)
Although this cake is fairly simple to make, it's not a completely beginner friendly recipe. You'll need to carefully separate the egg yolks from the whites and an electric mixer will come in handy to whip those egg whites into stiff peaks. Another essential item for this recipe is the Bundt cake pan. Bundt cake pans come in many attractive designs and are essentially a ring shape. Bundt cakes are meant to be moist. The ring shape of the pan helps to ensure that the cake won't be undercooked in the middle. In all my years of baking, I confess, I have never made a Bundt cake so I invested in a new pan, and I'm so glad I did. I really enjoy making and sharing this cake. It's inspired me to try out new Bundt cake recipes, too. *See below.
On a side note, the Doolsho Cardamom Sponge Cake calls for standard all purpose flour, but if you need to make a gluten-free cake, it's a snap to convert this recipe. Just buy a pre-packaged 1 to 1 flour and substitute the gluten-free flour. Your cake will turn out perfect! This recipe calls for 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour, and given the expensiveness of most gluten-free baked goods, this cake is definitely more economical simply because it uses less flour. For this fact alone, I may use the Doolsho recipe as a base for creating more cakes in the future.
The Spice of the Month club has inspired and delighted my baking pursuits. I'm excited to see what future spices and recipes will be featured each month. And if you'd like to partake, stop by the library and head over to the cookbook/baking section. You'll find the spice samples and recipe cards on the end cap.
*In my pursuit of more Bundt cake recipes, here are a few of my new favorite baking books available at the library:
Everyday Cake by
Find Everyday Cake in the library catalog
Bake from Scratch (Vol 7) by
Find Bake from Scratch in the library catalog
Fruit Cake by
In gorgeous photos and dozens of fresh and flavorful recipes, acclaimed food stylist Jason Schreiber shatters misconceptions about that most maligned of desserts--fruitcake--by imaginatively breaking with convention as he pays homage to the delicious combination of fruit and cake. Forget those dried artificially dyed candied doorstops that everyone regifts and passes on. Fruit Cake is a tasty epicurean tour through dozens of cakes and other pastries that use a variety of fruits, combining them with diverse fillings, as well as liquor, nuts, and more. Interwoven with the recipes are stories, anecdotes and asides that are just as charming and intriguing as the lush, full-color photos that accompany them. Each recipe in Fruit Cake showcases one of thirty-eight fruit, whose natural sweetness and juice make desserts that are perfectly moist and sweet without being overpowering. Indulge your taste buds with his beautiful, fanciful creations, including:
Constant Cravings--cakes like Raspberry Tea Cake and Polenta Pound Cake with Spiced Mandarins that will satisfy your cravings at any hour of day Out of Hand--finger-focused treats perfect for pocketing or dressing to impress, such as Mango Coconut Cashew Bites and Blueberry Ginger Studmuffins
Showstoppers--cakes for the spotlight that you can humblebrag about "just throwing together," including Passionfruit Lime Pavlova and Horchata and Roasted Plum Sorbet Cake
All Rise--the next best thing to eating sumptuous creations like the Blood Orange Bee Sting Cake or Bourbon Peach Kugelhopf, and other sumptuous creations is smelling the just-risen yeasted dough
Soaked--try one slice of these decadent cakes that marinate in booze for days--whether it's the likes of the Pomegranate Molasses Cake or the Fig, Port, and Chocolate Cake--and you'll need a designated driver. Filled with divine desserts for all seasons, this wonderful cookbook will forever change the way you think about fruit and cake.
Find Fruit Cake in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Hoopla eBook
I hope you find as much joy as I did perusing cookbooks and checking out the Spice of the Month club offerings for October. For more information about the Spice of the Month club, check out the LCL website and stay tuned for more delicious suggestions.
Have you checked out the LCL Spice Club yet? This month's spice giveaway is thyme and the recipe card features Wild Gitigan Salad. I made this recipe last week and the salad received rave reviews from my family: "I think it's wonderful!" "I love the flavor combinations." "Wild rice is my favorite!" and one slightly less than enthusiastic response, "I'm not used to eating raw kale, but it's good." Overall, my family found it a unique and healthy meal.
In honor of Native American History month, November’s Spice Club recipe is from First Nations, an organization dedicated to "uplifting and sustaining the lifeways and economies of Native communities." This salad was created by a group of entrepreneurial youth in Minnesota who wanted to create a nutritious food option that would promote healthy food choices. They actually sold this salad at a major league baseball game! (Go Twins!) “Gitigan” is an indigenous word meaning “garden” or a place to harvest locally grown foods.
Wild Gitigan Salad features black beans, wild rice, and fresh kale as its main ingredients. It is flavored with thyme, lemon zest, parmesan cheese and olive oil. This is a hearty dish could be served as a side or even the main dish for salad lovers. If you have vegetarians at your table omit the parmesan cheese topping and you’re good to go.
I found making this recipe to be a delightful sensory experience, the combined aromas of wild rice cooking with thyme is warm and comforting. The lemon juice/zest makes it fresh and zingy. Yum!
We hope you’ll stop by the library soon and check out the spice club offerings. If you're inspired to make your own creation using your sample of thyme, we'd love to hear about it!
For more amazing recipes from Indigenous chefs, be sure to check out the following cookbooks available at your Lewis & Clark Library:
Local foods have garnered much attention in recent years, but the concept is hardly new: indigenous peoples have always made the most of nature's gifts. Their menus were truly the "original local," celebrated here in sixty home-tested recipes paired with profiles of tribal activists, food researchers, families, and chefs. A chapter on wild rice makes clear the crucial role manoomin plays in cultural and economic survival. A look at freshwater fish is concerned with shifts in climate and threats to water purity as it reveals the deep relationship between Ojibwe people and indigenous fish species such as Ginoozhii, the Muskie, Ogaa, the Walleye, and Adikamig, Whitefish. Health concerns have encouraged Ojibwe, Dakota, and Lakota cooks to return to, and revise, recipes for bison, venison, and wild game. Sections on vegetables and beans, herbs and tea, and maple and berries offer insight from a broad representation of regional tribes, including Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Potawatomi, and Mandan gardeners and harvesters. The innovative recipes collected here--from Ramp Kimchi to Three Sisters Salsa, from Manoomin Lasagna to Venison Mole Chili--will inspire home cooks not only to make better use of the foods all around them but also to honor the storied heritage they represent. Heid E. Erdrich, author of five books of poetry and coeditor of Sister Nations: Native American Women Writers on Community, teaches writing, performs her work broadly, and gives lectures on American Indian art, language, and literature.
Find Original Local in the library catalog
2018 James Beard Award Winner: Best American Cookbook
Here is real food--our indigenous American fruits and vegetables, the wild and foraged ingredients, game and fish. Locally sourced, seasonal, "clean" ingredients and nose-to-tail cooking are nothing new to Sean Sherman, the Oglala Lakota chef and founder of The Sioux Chef. In his breakout book, The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen, Sherman shares his approach to creating boldly seasoned foods that are vibrant, healthful, at once elegant and easy.
Sherman dispels outdated notions of Native American fare--no fry bread or Indian tacos here--and no European staples such as wheat flour, dairy products, sugar, and domestic pork and beef. The Sioux Chef's healthful plates embrace venison and rabbit, river and lake trout, duck and quail, wild turkey, blueberries, sage, sumac, timpsula or wild turnip, plums, purslane, and abundant wildflowers. Contemporary and authentic, his dishes feature cedar braised bison, griddled wild rice cakes, amaranth crackers with smoked white bean paste, three sisters salad, deviled duck eggs, smoked turkey soup, dried meats, roasted corn sorbet, and hazelnut-maple bites.
The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen is a rich education and a delectable introduction to modern indigenous cuisine of the Dakota and Minnesota territories, with a vision and approach to food that travels well beyond those borders.
Find Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Libby eBook
Tawâw [pronounced ta-WOW]: Come in, you're welcome, there's room. Acclaimed chef Shane M. Chartrand's debut cookbook explores the reawakening of Indigenous cuisine and what it means to cook, eat, and share food in our homes and communities. Born to Cree parents and raised by a Métis father and Mi'kmaw-Irish mother, Shane M. Chartrand has spent the past ten years learning about his history, visiting with other First Nations peoples, gathering and sharing knowledge and stories, and creating dishes that combine his interests and express his personality. The result is tawâw: Progressive Indigenous Cuisine, a book that traces Chartrand's culinary journey from his childhood in Central Alberta, where he learned to raise livestock, hunt, and fish on his family's acreage, to his current position as executive chef at the acclaimed SC Restaurant in the River Cree Resort & Casino in Enoch, Alberta, on Treaty 6 Territory. Containing over seventy-five recipes -- including Chartrand's award-winning dish "War Paint" -- along with personal stories, culinary influences, and interviews with family members, tawâw is part cookbook, part exploration of ingredients and techniques, and part chef's personal journal.
Find Tawâw Progressive Indigenous Cuisine in the library catalog
Also available for digital checkout:
Hoopla eBook
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