From Our Kitchen To Yours
We’re honored to have an award-winning culinary program at Willow Valley Communities. Together, our amazing team of chefs create unique and delicious senior living dining menus for our campus’ 12 culinary venues. We’re excited to share some of those great dishes with you.
Featured Chef: Chef Josh Manny
Featured Recipe: Holiday Cranberry Cake
About Chef Josh:
Chef Joshua Manny is the executive chef at Local Table, the full service gourmet restaurant at The Clubhouse at Willow Valley Communities. Chef Josh is expert at creating local, seasonal cuisine and ensuring that the menu stays fresh and exciting. Residents and their guests enjoy fresh and delicious “farm-to- table” creations paired with selections from the full service bar in an elegantly relaxed environment.
Chef Josh admits he fell into cooking by accident. When he was 15 he joked with the owner of a restaurant he was bussing tables at about working in the kitchen. The owner called his bluff and that’s how he started. Josh says he is naturally artistic and cooking is a wonderful way for him to channel that energy.
Chef Josh has been with Willow Valley Communities for 5 years. He received his culinary education at the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College. He spent much of his career in Philadelphia with notable stops along the way like Matyson BYOB and Terrain at Styers Garden Café. But he says that he loves the Lancaster food scene, especially the abundance of fresh produce and availability of quality, sustainably raised meats.
Holiday Cranberry Cake
This holiday cranberry cake is made with fresh cranberries and is perfect for as a sweet dessert after a big holiday meal or even as breakfast the next morning. Very similar to a coffee cake, it is comprised of three layers that when baked, meld in to one delicious cake.
For the cake batter…
1C all-purpose flour
¾ C sugar
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of kosher salt.
8 tablespoons butter (small diced, kept cold)
3 egg yolks
5 ounces sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
For the cranberry filling…
10 ounces fresh cranberries (can sub frozen)
Squeeze of half a lime
2 ounces sugar
2 tablespoons corn starch
Pinch of salt
½ teaspoon of cinnamon
For the topping…
½ C all-purpose flour
½ C rolled oats
½ C brown sugar
8 tablespoons butter (small diced, kept cold)
Begin by preheating your oven to 350 degrees…. In the bowl of a kitchen aid (or you can do this with a hand mixer) combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and butter. Beat on medium speed until combined and the butter begins to break up into pea sized bits. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg yolks, sour cream and vanilla. On low speed, pour egg yolk mixture into flour mixture. Continue to mix on medium speed for about one minute or until just combined. (there will be small chunks of butter, that’s okay!). From there, grease (with cold butter) and flour a 9 inch spring form pan (you may also use a deep pie pan). Place batter in to greased and floured pan.
For the cranberry filling, simply combine all ingredients and sprinkle over the cake batter evenly.
For the topping… mix flour, rolled oats and brown sugar until incorporated. With your hands, add in the cold diced butter. Crumble and break up butter until the chunks are slightly smaller than peas. Evenly sprinkle over cranberries.
Bake on the middle rack of your oven at 350 degrees until a toothpick comes out clean. If you have a conventional oven this should take about an hour. If you have a convection setting, it will take about 45 minutes.
Once a toothpick comes clean, allow to cool for 20 minutes. Gently slide a knife around the edge of the cake pan to release the cake from the sides. Remove the ring from your cake pan. Slice and eat!
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