Happy August, everybody! Our new book of the month is The Odyssey! That’s right. We’re taking the term “classic” to a whole new level this month. Maybe the hot weather’s had me craving a sea voyage. 😉
Category: Book of the Month Recipes
Secret Garden Bonus Post: Candied Flower Cookies
Since July is extra long, we get to do a Secret Garden bonus post! Garden-themed menus leave so many great options for dessert, so I decided to make a companion dessert to go with our Lavender Lemon Eclairs. I’ve been DYING to make candied flowers for this menu, so sugar cookies with lemon icing and candied violets sounded ideal. Like most of our bonus recipes, I’m keeping this one simple, so we’ll mostly just cover how to make the candied flowers (in the ingredients list, I’ve included links to the cookie and icing recipes I used). You can make your own cookies and icing, but if time is of the essence you can totally go with store bought. That’s what I love about this recipe—it can be as involved or as easy as you want!
Lavender Lemon Eclairs
For our Secret Garden menu, I wanted to make a truly elegant dessert. Eclairs (one of my greatest weaknesses) immediately sprang to mind. Of course, they needed to fit the theme of the story, and what better way to tie in the garden than adding a little floral touch? Thus, these lavender lemon eclairs were born! I’m not normally into flower-flavored things, but I found these to be light, sweet, and fragrant in all the right ways. The lavender-infused pastry cream perfectly complements the lemon glaze. I used a pate a choux (that’s pastry dough) recipe from Flavor the Moments and made a variation on a pastry cream recipe from Ricón Cocina. Enjoy!
Hot Cross Buns: Mrs. Sowerby’s Currant Buns
Have you ever had one of those days: a day when you’re convinced that every power on earth has conspired to make everything go wrong? I had one of those days on Monday when I made these buns for our Secret Garden menu. My plan was to get up early to allow for the dough’s two long rising periods, so I started the day off right…by sleeping through my alarm. I also planned to make authentic British hot cross buns with golden syrup and flour paste crosses. Instead, the sugar for my syrup absolutely refused to caramelize (I tried 3 different ways), and the flour paste crosses spread into nothingness when baked. Long story short, I used an Americanized recipe instead. Add in the fact that I managed to lock myself out of my apartment halfway through taking pictures, and it’s really no surprise that 3 pm found me drinking a giant glass of wine.
Still, I have to admit, these guys are pretty darn delicious. 😉
Misselthwaite Manor’s Young Fowl with Bread Sauce
In The Secret Garden, the cook at Misselthwaite Manor creates some darn tasty dishes, but she admits to pulling out all the stops when she makes this young fowl with bread sauce. We recreated the dish here by pairing thyme-seasoned roasted chicken with traditional English bread sauce (adapted from this recipe). An entree fit for a true English manor!
Miss Mary’s Porridge
This time last year, we were just starting our Anne of Green Gables menu. In a way, we’ve come full circle. We’re greeting July with a the story of a displaced young orphan girl who breathes vibrancy and life into her new home: The Secret Garden! But this time the home (Misselthwaite Manor) is breathing life into the heroine too. While Anne Shirley was flighty and dreamy, Mary Lennox is serious and grim.
Tom’s Whitewashed Jelly Doughnuts
Oh, doughnuts. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:
- You give me that awesome sugar fix, reminding me that sweet things are of paramount importance.
- You’re so fluffy you make clouds jealous.
- You couldn’t be a better dessert for Tom Sawyer if you tried.
Missouri-Style Honey Cornbread with BACON!
Here in the Midwest, cornbread is a very serious business, and anyone who comes from a cornbread eating culture will tell you that regional recipe differences are important (i.e. in the south, cornbread is make with white cornmeal and no sugar). So when I set out to find a Missourian cornbread recipe for our Tom Sawyer menu, it had to be authentic. I rounded up a bunch of potential candidates and ran them past my native Missouri friends, who selected this honey cornbread recipe from a restaurant in Branson.
Tom’s Fried Catfish
In so many ways, Tom Sawyer reminds me of Peter Pan. He’s not just a child; he’s childhood. He’s all the good and bad of that stage of life, given shape. He’s Instinct, Whim, Innocence…and more than a little Mischief. Never is this more evident than when he convinces his friends Joe and Huck to run away with him to an island in the middle of the river to become pirates. Smitten with the adventure of such a life, they spend their days eating catfish and searching for buried treasure, thinking little of home.
Becky’s Peach and Apple Salad
I read Tom Sawyer for the first time this past year. I’m a huge Mark Twain fan, so I wasn’t really surprised when I loved it. I relished Tom’s innocent yet roguish nature and the endless trouble he and Huck always seem to make for themselves. As the quintessential chronicle of golden boyhood summer, I selected Tom Sawyer as our Book of the Month for June.