Worth the Candle
Why make a meal when you can just smell it? Pasta Water. Elote. Pot Roast. Fruit Loops. Taro Bun. These are just a few of the various food-scented candles available on the market these days. Food cand...
Worth a Candle Pie
The first recorded lit cakes date to Ancient Greece. Full moon offerings to the goddess Artemis were adorned with candles. We know little about these cakes, as Diderot says, “Amphiphon, a cake made in honour of the goddess Diana which was surrounded by small torches. This is all we know about it.” Some scholars translate amphiphon as a cheese pie specific to Athens. In the absence of a recipe for these original candlelit cakes, we can look for inspiration at a few recipes for a variety of offering cakes transcribed in Latin. Many Hellenic cakes were composed of some combination of cheese and honey, with variations including egg, spice, grain, fruit, or nut. Cato offers two variations of cake, libum and placenta, in De Agricultura.
This “worth it” contemporary riff on classical cheese pie makes use of any leftover bay leaves, as laurel (today’s bay) was a central flavor in classical recipes. Cottage cheese substitutes for the fresh curd cheese that likely would have been used. The pie comes together “as easy as…” with few ingredients. Serve on a weeknight sweetly topped with fresh fruit and balsamic, or pile on roasted tomato, olives, and a drizzle of olive oil for a savory affair. Either way, this simple pie is worth the candle.
First published in the Winter 2023 issue of Edible Alaska.
Ingredients
SERVINGS: Makes 1 standard 9-inch pie or 2 5-inch pies Pie(s)
- 1 standard pie crust, store bought or homemade
- 7–10 bay leaves
- 2 cups cottage cheese
- 3 tablespoons good honey
Preparation
Preheat oven to 300° F. Roll out dough into 1 large or 2 medium circles. Gently place into pie pan. Crimp edges if desired. Chill until ready to bake. Par-bake pie crust for about 10 minutes. Remove and let cool completely. (Upright time 10 minutes.)
Meanwhile, grind bay leaves to a fine powder in spice grinder or clean coffee grinder. In blender or using immersion blender, combine cheese, honey and 1½ teaspoons of ground bay leaf. Chill filling for at least 20 minutes. Increase oven temperature to 350° F. (Upright time 10 minutes.)
Fill pie or pies with cheese filling. Bake for about 20 to 30 minutes until lightly firm and fragrant. (Upright time 5 minutes.)
Remove and let cool for about 10 minutes. Dust with remaining bay leaf powder, drizzle with additional honey, top with a glug of good olive oil. (Upright time 5 minutes.) Light a candle and enjoy.
Author’s note: this recipe incorporates pacing, attending to cooks with energy limiting conditions. Total upright time, 30 minutes.
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