Annalena is interested in many things, two of which come together in this tale. One is : how do people adapt, foodwise, when a situation is stressful? Now, when Annalena writes "stressful," she does not mean famine, or pestilence. Perhaps it's best to rephrase it as: what do people do in times of shortage? Do they adapt to new foods, go hungry, or what.
A second area that catches Annalena's interest, is what the "unmentioned" portion of a People did during a war. To elaborate: when Annalena grew up, she watched (not by choice), many movies about wars: WWI.. WWII. The Korean War. The Civil War. And so forth. She never saw a person of color in these movies, and rarely, if ever, did she see women. They were peripheral.
Well, we now know that women and people of color had very important roles in "modern" warfare: read "Code Girls" or "Rise of the Rocket Girls," or of course, "Hidden Figures" to learn more. Annalena will not even speak to the growing literature on food in wartime. Rather, she will speak to the area of desserts in war time.
Americans have sweet tooths. We are not alone in that regard. Indeed, we are far from the greatest per capita consumers of sugar (although we do our share). Sugar, as we all know, is used in cakes, pies, cookies, etc. Who hasn't had a fruit pie, or a cake with a sugary frosting, etc? These products all, inevitably, use sugar, butter, and sometimes, eggs. And in the case of many of them, fruit.
Well, during wartime, all of these items, were rationed. Try telling a sweet tooth that "I have no more ration cards we can't have desserts." American ingenuity responded, with what Annalena calls "the vegetable cakes." Zucchini bread, carrot cake, even beet cake, and so forth. As a general rule, if you see a cake or "bread" (the only difference in these seems to be the pan in which they were baked), based on what is not a fruit that you associate with "out of hand" eating, and if that cake or bread uses oil as its fat base, you have a war time cake. It was too difficult to save up cards for butter and fruit, and they were frequently not available. Oil was plentiful, and while eggs were rationed, if you knew someone who had a chicken, well... you were good to go. All you had to do was save your sugar rations. NOT the easiest thing to do, but much easier than securing all of the traditional ingredients for a cake. And so, a family of recipes, including this one, was born. Pumpkin cake, out of a craving and a need. And here comes Annalena's take on it.
First of all, when you make a "pumpkin" bread or cake, do keep in mind that all of the hard, orange and yellow squashes, are considered "pumpkin" by the FDA. When you buy a can of pumpkin puree, or pumpkin pie filling, there is a good chance you are NOT getting jack o'lantern puree. If you have a very discriminating taste, you may be able to tell them apart. Annalena cannot tell the difference in FLAVOR. She can tell the difference in TEXTURE. So, while canned pumpkin is wonderful, if you can, work with freshly made pumpkin puree.
And it's easy to make. You should work with pumpkins that weigh no more than 4 pounds each. More than that, and you are not getting good value, carini. Those larger specimens are awesome, but they are mostly shell, seed, and water. And they are a nightmare to work with. If you can get two, 2 pound pumpkins instead of one, 4 pound pumpkin, even better. For the recipe at hand, Annalena used:
See the jar in the background? That is an empty, 8 ounce jam jar. That will give you an idea of size.
Ok, so now you preheat your oven to 425, and line a baking sheet with parchment. Turn each pumpkin on its side, and make a horizontal cut, right down the middle. Scoop out the seeds. And then put the pumpkin halves, cut side down , on the paper. Do nothing else. Put them in the oven, and bake. And bake. You will know when they are done, when the thick shell collapses when you touch it. At that point, you should let the pumpkin cool. Hot pumpkin burns badly. Trust Annalena on this. Then, when cool, use a spoon to separate the pumpkin flesh from the skin. It will happen easily. Give the skin remnants to your friend who has a compost pile, and run the puree through a food processor. As a rough estimate, a pound of raw pumpkin will give you one cup of puree. Indeed, Annalena got four cups , shared two with her pal Ravioli the pit bull, and used two for the cake we are making.
Those two cups of pumpkin are combined with the ingredients you see below:
What you see are four eggs, 1 cup of vegetable oil, 2.5 cups of sugar (if you like things really sweet, you can add another .25 cups), and 3.5 cups of flour, to which Annalena has added 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder, 2 teaspoons of baking soda, 1.5 teaspoons of salt, and a tablespoon of fresh ginger. You can vary this spice: use cinnamon if you like, nutmeg, allspice, cardamom, anything you like.
What you do not see is the half cup of water, with a teaspoon of vanilla extract added to it (you could also use vanilla sugar), nor do you see the cup of toasted chopped walnuts (350 for five minutes, cool and rough chop). And of course, you see two cups of cooked pumpkin.
Now, you do not have to use the walnuts. You can substitute them by 1.5 cups of chocolate chips, or you can use them both, or you can use raisins, or chopped dried prunes or figs, etc. Or, you could just go "nekkid" and add nothing.
The first step in this recipe befuddles many people, because it looks, well, gross. You take the sugar and the oil, and put them in a mixer bowl, and churn, churn, churn. When you use butter, you get a nice, pretty , creamy product. When you use oil, well, you get wet sand:
And that's fine. That's what you want. Now, you add the pumpkin, the eggs, and the water. The resulting batter will be very light, and very wet:
Stop your mixer, and gently move in the flour mixture. Mix it with the blender, at low speed, and only until you don't see flour anymore (Annalena prefers to do this by hand, with a spatula. It is up to you).
Now, you are ready to pour. Get two, 9x5 baking pans (these are called quickbread pans, by the way), and grease them really, really well. Annalena uses a cooking spray. Divide the batter between them:
See how much thicker it got? Slide these into a 350 oven, and get set to wait. These take a while (that's why you make two). You will need at least an hour. Maybe more. Use the "straw test" to see if it's done: insert a straw into the crest of cake (you'll see it in the next picture), and see what adheres. You want either a clean straw, or one with fairly dry crumbs attached. No unbaked batter:
The cakes WILL crack. It's part of their charm. Let them cool for about 15 minutes, and then turn them out.
These cakes are dense. Pumpkin has very little intrinsic flavor, so the only way to tap into that "pumpkin essence," which is the REAL flavor of pumpkin , rather than the coffee sold everywhere, is to make a dense cake:
The advantages and disadvantages of this cake stem from the same factor: they are very, VERY moist. Such a moist cake, does not have to be refrigerated. Just place it in a bag when it is cool, and leave it on a counter. The disadvantage, is that such a moist cake will mold, in about 5 days. So if you are not going to eat them both, pronto, freeze one, or give it away.
And there you have it. These are great as they are, with cream cheese, with butter, and when toasted, you may get a marriage proposal. If you do, Annalena will send you her recipe for carrot wedding cake.
And that is all for now, ragazzi. Next week, we will make a coconut milk poached fish, and a vegetable soup, based on okra
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