GATHER JOURNAL

Photograph by Winona Barton-Ballentine Food Styling by Maggie Ruggiero Prop Styling by Heather Greene


    
Pippi Longstocking & Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables)

Upside-Down Carrot and Goat Cheese Skillet Cake

Mains from Issue 11 – Summer 2017 – Heroines

For literature’s most beloved redheads—bright, willful daydreamer Anne of Green Gables, and the adventurous, fiercely independent little outlier Pippi Longstocking—a skillet cake stacked with carrots and flipped like Pippi’s favorite flapjacks.

serves 6 to 8



  • 1½ cups stone ground yellow cornmeal
  • ½ cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 lb fresh goat cheese, divided
  • 4 Tbsp unsalted butter
  • 6 to 8 carrots, sliced lengthwise in half or thirds, no more than ½ inch thick
  • ½ cup Marsala
  • several sprigs fresh thyme, plus some leaves for sprinkling

  • 1

    Preheat oven to 400°F. Whisk cornmeal and flour with salt, baking soda, and pepper in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs and sour cream until smooth. Stir in 6 oz of crumbled goat cheese. (It doesn’t have to be smooth.)
  • 2

    Melt butter in 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat, swirling to coat sides. Arrange carrots, cut side down, in a single layer so they fit snugly from edge to edge. Cook, pressing down with a spatula until undersides start to color, about 4 minutes. Add Marsala and a pinch of salt, then cover immediately and cook until reduced and you hear butter sizzling, 5 to 7 minutes. Scatter thyme sprigs over the carrots and remove pan from heat, covered.
  • 3

    Stir egg mixture thoroughly into cornmeal mixture and spread evenly over carrots in pan. Bake until the top is golden brown and a pick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Run a spatula around the sides to loosen, then let cool 10 minutes. Place a platter tightly over pan and then invert onto it. Serve warm or at room temperature sprinkled with thyme leaves and black pepper and slathered with more goat cheese.