Happy May, folks! I’m appreciating these few sunny spring days before there’s enough pollen to absolutely allergy-adle my brain. All the brightness and life outside has me in the mood for a fun new cooking project, so today we’re starting a menu inspired by STUART LITTLE! I just finished reading it with my 4-year-old as our first read-aloud chapter book, and he loved it (especially the roadster and Margalo). A light-hearted, kid-friendly menu would pair perfectly with the great weather. So let’s get started!
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Is there a woman in your life you’d like to honor who happens to love books and tea? Consider Mother’s Day sorted. 😀
My cookbook, A LITERARY TEA PARTY, includes a section with themed menu ideas for anyone who needs a little party planning inspiration. It also includes a section at the back with recipes for custom blending your own teas (all book-themed, of course). Since Mother’s Day is just around the corner, I think now is a perfect time for me to share a few of those themed menus. You can use these ideas to host a tea party of your own or make a yummy treat to give as a gift!
Keep in mind, these parties don’t have to be limited to biological mothers. They’re perfect for all the important women in your life. We like to include our kids’ godmothers in Mother’s Day festivities, but you could also do this for a close friend, favorite aunt, mentor, or more!
Dessert time! And I am SO ready. Though to be honest, I’m always ready to dessert. 😉
Given the carrot-y theme of today’s recipe, I was hoping to have this published by Easter, but alas, twas not to be. It seemed like to no matter how hard I tried, I could NOT make it to the store soon enough! But that’s ok, because this is fun to make for Mother’s Day too, especially if your mom is as big a fan of marzipan as mine is. 😀
While planning what to make for today’s HEIDI recipe, I took my inspiration from the tiny cakes Clara sends for Grannie to have with her coffee. The book gives no description as to the flavor of the cake, which left lots of room to get creative. I decided to make a mini version of traditional Swiss rüeblitorte, lightly sweetened carrot cake topped with little marzipan carrots.
In terms of taste and texture, the cake itself is more reminiscent of a breakfast bread. It’s the sweetness of the marzipan that really pushes it into the realm of dessert. I love the versatility of it!
The recipe I’m using today is a muffin-sized version of one by Thahn from Eat, Little Bird (the marzipan recipe comes from The Spruce Eats). My 4-year-old helped me mix the batter, a testament to the ease of the recipe, and also faithfully taste tested the results. Turns out he has something in common with my mom—he loves marzipan too! 🙂
When planning my HEIDI menu, it was very important to me that at least one recipe include goat cheese. Heidi and her grandfather are always drinking goat’s milk and eating cheese, and, along with soft white rolls, these are the foods mentioned most frequently in the book.
I toyed with the idea of making my own goat cheese, but most stores carry ultra-pastuerized, which is no good for making cheese. Instead I decided to incorporate store bought cheese into my side dish. I already knew I wanted to make a potato/cheese side dish, since Heidi eats them in the winter in Dörfli, so I started researching and discovered potato rosti.
Potato rosti are a traditional Swiss side dish (Heidi lives in the Swiss Alps). They’re essentially hash brown patties, sometimes made with fillings or toppings. I don’t need much of an excuse to make fried potatoes, and I was extra pleased when I found a potato rosti recipe with goat cheese and leeks by Serena from Domesticate Me. The only big change I made was swapping out the thyme for oregano, since I had some leftover from making baked walleye. It turned out amaaazing! I loved how the oniony sweetness of the leeks and creaminess of the warm cheese offset the oil of the fried potatoes.
With a few key tips, this recipe is really easy to make:
If using cast iron, make sure it’s very well-seasoned. Otherwise your potatoes will fuse to the pan, and there’s NO WAY you’re flipping that thing in one piece.
When adding your layers, move fast. Each side only needs to cook for a few minutes. You don’t want it to burn while you’re arranging leeks.
Did you know baked fish is the only entree mentioned by name in the book HEIDI? That’s lucky for me, since right now it’s the middle of Lent. Talk about a perfect time to test out fish recipes!
Heidi eats this dish while staying in Frankfurt with the Sessemans. Although they’re an affluent family who could afford to make this dish super fancy if they wanted, the Sessemans’ kind, down-to-earth demeanor made me feel like they’d appreciate a simple recipe that let quality ingredients shine. I used walleye, which is genetically similar to zander, a fish native to Germany (and Heidi’s home country of Switzerland!). Fresh lemon, oregano, and garlic were all the dressing it needed to create a refined dish celebrating delicate, tender fish. Also, I found out “oregano” means “the brightness of the mountain,” which is perfect for this book!
I enjoyed the simplicity of the flavors in this dish. Everything was fresh and light, a perfect reminder of the “the brightness of the mountain.” Enjoy!Read More
March is here and, with it, a new menu! For March-April, I’ll be making recipes inspired by the book HEIDI by Johanna Spyri. If you ever needed a sweet, wholesome read, this book’s for you. It’s a darling gem of a story about a little orphaned girl who goes to live with her grandfather in a cottage in the Swiss Alps, where she is a force for good in the life of everyone she meets.
If you’re familiar with the book, you know exactly what food we’re making today: the soft, white rolls! When Heidi befriends Granny, the goatherd’s grandmother, she learns the old woman cannot eat tough black bread. Since that’s the only kind of bread the family can afford, Granny hasn’t tasted bread in years. Heidi is extremely distressed by this, so when she’s served soft white rolls while staying in Frankfurt, she resolves to bring some home to Granny. At her departure, her friend Clara sends her home with a heaping basketful! The rolls are the most prominently featured food in the story–arguably synonymous with the book itself–so I knew they had to be the first item on the menu.Read More
Make way for bonbons! Today we’re making the last recipe in my Jane Eyre menu: bonbons inspired by Mr. Rochester’s time in France. Although the rest of this menu was heavily influenced by early 19th century recipes, I had a difficult time finding bonbon recipes from the period. Luckily, the basic process doesn’t appear to have changed that much over the years, so I decided to use modern techniques but stick with period-appropriate flavors. Let’s take a look at the flavors we’re using today:Read More
Today my foray into early 19th century cooking continues! I’m making a recipe for roasted potatoes I found in the 1823 cookbook The Cook’s Oracle by William Kitchiner. Roasted potatoes may sound like a dull choice, but I think this is the perfect recipe to showcase one of the fascinating differences between modern and historical cookbooks: the level of detail in the recipes. Read More
This year I have a special cooking goal. I want to delve into historical recipes and cooking methods, so I can create food from fiction that’s more accurate to the period in which the characters lived. Today’s recipe is inspired by a scene in JANE EYRE where Mr. Rochester is convinced Jane is a ghost or figment of his imagination. To prove herself, Jane promises to make him a breakfast of eggs and fried ham. Of course, there’s no harm in just throwing some eggs and ham in a hot skillet and calling it done. They’re good no matter how you make them! However, in this scene I saw the perfect opportunity to learn how people would have made such a breakfast in 1820’s England.Read More
Hello, 2021! If you guys caught my post yesterday, you’ve heard all about my blog plans for this year, so I won’t dive into the details here. The short, quick version is that I’m back to making 4-course menus for every book I cook here on the blog, albeit on a relaxed schedule. I’ll be spending 2 months on each book instead of 1 and posting a new recipe every other week.Read More
