Not Derby Pie » dessert

Butterscotch Pudding

rivka — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:34:46 +0000

2011, over already? Jeez.

It was a big year, 2011. Perhaps not as epic as 2010 (marriage!), but 2011 saw our first anniversary (with drinks at the W and dinner at Palena – lucky us!) and, in the same month, the purchase of our first home (an awesome condo with plenty of open space, a dream kitchen, and a deck…have I really not shown you pictures yet? Wristslap! We’ll solve that soon.)

D started a new job this year, and I’ve been busier than ever at mine. More direct reports, more travel, and generally more responsibiity have all thrown something of a wrench in my grand plan to post more in 2011. You see, I’ve got so much to share with you; all sorts of little tips and tricks, entertaining ideas, and tasty morsels I ate in restaurants and tried to recreate at home. I want to share them all with you. But time was scarce in 2011, so some of those tips, tricks, ideas, and recipes – well, they’re still lodged in a far corn of my brain, waiting patiently for 2012.

Some of our cooking, eating, drinking, and food-coma-ranting did actually make it to this space, though. There were bourbon pecan bars and ginger brownies that will make you swoon, I guarantee it; Easy green beans with pesto vinaigrette that I’ve made, oh, 20 times since first posting about them; and of course, my favorite fish dish ever, which took me only 5 years to finally share with you – Veracruz-style snapper. With a new year on the horizon, I’m ready as ever to find more memorable food – and to share it with all of you.

So let’s get the new year off to an auspicious start, shall we?

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Maple-Roasted Pears

rivka — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 19:30:55 +0000

‘Tis the season for cookies, and lately I’ve felt so bombarded by different shapes, sizes, flavors, and varieties, it’s hard to focus on much else. Ok, obviously I’ve still found time for applesauce cake and gingersnap pear cranberry crisp. But what I’m trying to say is, there have also been cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. An embarrassing number, some of you would think (if I were willing to estimate my personal intake, which I am not).

I find it difficult to forgo cakes and cookies for lower-key desserts year-round, and this time of year, it’s especially hard. But last week, after fiddling with the “surprise me” function on Deb’s blog, I stumbled on a recipe for roasted pears that caught this cookie-loving lady’s attention. The pears looked like they were melting into the baking dish, coated with a syrup of vanilla beans, sugar, and lemon. I wanted to scoop them right out of the screen.

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Bourbon Pecan Bars

rivka — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:20:44 +0000

People, it’s Thanksgiving time. Turkey and mashed potatoes and yams galore, brussels sprouts and cranberry sauce, and of course, you can never have enough pie.

Except you know what? I’ll beg to differ. I’m a pie lover like the best of ‘em, but at a certain point, I need a break. I want a crumble, a crisp, perhaps some bars. Thanksgiving may be about tradition, but it needn’t resist a change of pace, right?

Look, we can split the difference. These pecan bars are basically pecan pie, in rectangle form. They have crust, they have gooey chewy topping. Did I mention they have bourbon? You will like them. Your guests will love them. And if you want to push things over the top, dunk’em in chocolate. That’ll bring the swoons. No one will miss pecan pie. And if they do? Well, there’s always apple, and pumpkin, pumpkin-caramel, and apple-cranberry, and…

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Ginger Brownies

rivka — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:15:41 +0000

Brownie perfection is in the eye of the beholder. Some like a moist, chewy brownie. (Others inexplicably prefer the cakey kind, but I’m not judging.) Katherine Hepburn liked brownies so chocolatey, they were black – but I’ve also met strange folks who don’t want to be hit over the head by the chocolate. (Again, not judging. Kinda.)

The brownie debate extends quite far: even Duncan Hines lists two options on their packaged brownie mix – one egg for chewy brownies, two for cake-like brownies.

Me, I like a brownie that’s moist and chewy – but it’s important to me that they hold to hold their shape when sliced. Mushy brownies have a time and a place – midnight or later, straight out of the pan, eaten alone or with someone I like a whole lot. For the more civilized occasions, give me a brownie that slices up nicely.

In the past, I’ve looked to Alice Medrich and Dorie Greenspan, who have developed recipes for truly bittersweet, moist brownies. Neither of my standby favorites have any additions, which can disrupt the otherwise smooth texture of good brownies.

But I’m not a total purist. I’ve always been a fan of peppermint brownies, and just as curious about the supporting role other flavors might be able to play. So yesterday, I pulled a stack of cookbooks off the shelf and began looking for inspiration: I wanted to make ginger brownies.

That expedition ended with a thud. I couldn’t find anything I was excited to make. So I turned to the interwebs, and quickly found myself a Martha recipe that looked mighty promising. Spiced with ground ginger, nutmeg, and cloves, they suggested prominent fall flavor but didn’t look too overpowering.

And here I am, blogging abut the recipe, so yes, friends. They were every bit as good as I’d hoped. The texture of these brownies comes pretty close to perfect, for me at least. Chewy and moist, but firm enough to stand up to a knife. I topped them with some of the lovely ginger salt I received from Marx Foods a while back for some sort of contest (I forget the context, but I’m pretty sure it was open to everyone, and they’re certainly not paying me to discuss it here). I was enamored enough of the topping that I’m encouraging you to do something similar below. It’s simple, really: combine ground ginger with coarse salt. Alternatively, snag the ginger salt from Marx Foods. It’s – er – worth its salt.

Ginger Brownies
adapted from Martha Stewart
makes 9 large brownies or 12 smaller brownies (1 8×8 pan)

Note: The ginger salt is out of stock, but equally wonderful is the espresso salt. Try it! If you don’t have fancy flavored salt, just take 1/2 teaspoon of flaky salt in a bowl, add a pinch of ground ginger, and stir until combined. Sprinkle sparingly over the brownies. If you’re not keen on that fuss, just use regular flaky salt.

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for baking dish
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon grated peeled fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt, plus 1/2 teaspoon for sprinkling
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square baking dish. Line bottom with parchment paper, allowing 2 inches to hang over 2 sides. Butter parchment.

Melt butter and chocolate together in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients and spices. Stir to combine fully. Add eggs, vanilla, and cooled chocolate mixture, and stir to fully combine.

Pour batter into prepared dish and smooth top with a rubber spatula. Sprinkle sparingly with either ginger salt or regular flaky salt. Bake until a cake tester inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs, 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool in pan on a wire rack 15 minutes. Lift out, and let cool completely on rack. Cut into 8 squares or 12 rectangles. Brownies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 4 days.

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How to Use (Up) Zucchini

rivka — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:55:47 +0000

Friends, the zucchini glut is nearly over. Those plants have practically exhausted themselves these past few months. Before you know it, we’ll be talking apple pie. But we’ve still got a week or two more of zucchini overflow, and I thought I’d share a couple delicious ways to put zucchini excess to good use.

These are recipes I’ve been making all summer, and you should certainly take the opportunity to make them while zucchini plants are still producing. Lest you think we’re only talking about stir fry or gratin, I’ve got you covered for brunch and snacktime, too.

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Best Blackberry Pie

rivka — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:22:49 +0000

I do my best to keep up with the kids, to stay in the know about what’s new. I caught wind of the microbrew trend a couple years back, and I even went so far as to buy a beer-of-the-month club subscription for D. (She loved it so much, she told me to never think again about birthday presents: it’s beer club from here on out.) But every so often, a new tidbit of knowledge seems to sweep the food world by storm while skipping me completely, Passover-style. This time, it was tapioca flour, which has quickly supplanted corn starch as the best thickener, ever. Unlike corn starch, tapioca is undetectable in every way. It thickens up pies without any of that milky, gloopy, corn starch texture. It also doesn’t threaten to leave a raw-flour taste if it doesn’t cook completely. In short, it’s basically foolproof. Cook a pie with tapioca, and you’ll think there’s no thickener in it at all – until you cut the first slice and see that there is no puddle of murky fruit liquid swamping your pie. It’s an amazing feat. Your guests will ooh and ahh.

So how did I miss the trend? I don’t know. But I blame being late to the tapioca party for not sharing this amazing pie recipe until now. This, my friends, is the best blackberry pie. Ever.

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Sour Cherry Hand Pies, and the Perfect Pie Crust

rivka — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 23:02:34 +0000

I hope by now you’ve become as hooked on sour cherries as I am. I’ve been preaching some gospel about the fleeting summer fruit, pushing you all to make this sour cherry compote (and some of you have made it! and liked it! phew.). But this here, this is a recipe you absolutely need right this very moment, before sour cherries exit stage left for another year.

Reader, make some sour cherry hand pies. Not just any hand pies, but these – for these may be the most perfect hand pies I’ve ever made or eaten. And while I know in light of my raving about the whole sour cherry-ness of these pies what I’m about to say will seem strange, it all starts with the crust. That’s right: after years of making pie, using my old-faithful all-butter pie recipe (which I think I originally got from the lovely Deb), I’m changing my tune on the perfect crust.

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Sour Cherry Compote

rivka — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 14:13:34 +0000

It seems my latest attempt to test the temper of this bearable summertime weather has, gleefully, been ignored. DC persists in being comfortable. In June! No, I’m not complaining.

Instead, I’m reveling in the joy of walking down to the farmers’ market on Sunday mornings after a workout, all hot and prepared to stay that way, only to encounter 80-degree breezes and precious little humidity. Sacks full of produce, I can walk home without needing the day to recover. Call it the tyranny of low expectations, but it’s quite a thrill.

The nice (for summer) weather makes the bounty of East Coast produce an even greater bonus. To wit: I turned on my oven this week to make sour cherry hand pies, and guess what? No one fainted. Success. I’ll have a recipe for that soon.

For now, there’s this lovely compote, which you should make not next week, not tomorrow, but right now, before sour cherries vanish. It all happens so quickly, and I don’t want you to miss out. The beauty of this compote is that it’s a cinch to make, and it’ll keep in your fridge for weeks, extending the fleeting season of my favorite summer fruit.

You might wonder when you’ll have occasion to use a compote, but trust me: if it’s in your fridge, you’ll suddenly find ample uses. Over scones or pancakes; alongside grilled meats; swirled into yogurt; spooned over vanilla ice cream. If those possibilities aren’t sufficient, you could eat it straight from the jar. Or use it in these wonderfully sloppy sour cherry pies. Think of fruit compote as a headstart to all other desserts. Crumbles, pies, muffins, ice creams — all of these would benefit from some compote mixed in.

Sour Cherry Compote
adapted from Karen DeMasco’s The Craft of Baking

4 cups (1 lb.) stemmed, pitted sour cherries (fresh or frozen)
3/4 cup sugar
juice of 1 lime (or lemon)

Set a strainer over a metal bowl.

Combine cherries, sugar, and lime juice in a small saucepan and set over medium high heat. Cook — watching carefully, because it will inevitably bubble over the minute you turn away — until mixture bubbles and starts to foam, and cherries are soft, about 7 minutes. Pour mixture into strainer set over bowl; cherries will separate from syrup. Pour syrup back into sauce pan, and transfer cherries to the metal bowl.

Cook syrup over medium-low heat (you’re looking for a simmer here) until reduced by half, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool about 10 minutes more.

Put cherries into a glass jar, and pour syrup over cherries. Refrigerate. Compote will keep in the fridge for a few weeks, if it lasts that long.

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Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

rivka — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 23:04:06 +0000

DC’s pulled some fast ones this summer. I keep expecting those terrible Washington heat waves, and not that we haven’t had a couple — remember the day when I ate my way through a chili cook-off in 105-degree weather? dumby — but on balance, this city is seeming suspiciously temperate.

Still, I’m not one to press my luck. It wants to be 77 degrees out? Fine by me. And if Murphy’s Law is worth anything at all, I’m crossing my fingers that making ice cream might keep the summer demons away just a little bit longer.

Not just any ice cream, mind you. In this house, mint chocolate chip ranks right up there with mango, strawberry, and cucumber-basil as one of the most refreshing ice cream flavors there is. It’s an old favorite of D’s: she tends to alternate between it, oreo, and chocolate chip cookie dough. It’s probably obvious if you read this blog that I’m not big on either of those other two, but D surprised me with a trip to Portland over Memorial Day weekend, and I can’t let the wife-of-the-year award go to her completely uncontested. Enter homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream.

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How to Use: Ginger

rivka — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 01:38:44 +0000

Until recently, I’d always bought ginger at the grocery store. It always looked kind of dry and gnarly outside, but I’d learned that peeling it revealed a soft, fresh, meaty interior, as great in stir-fry as it was steeped in tea. But last year, I learned that the folks at Next Step Produce, a local farm, were selling the knobs of fresh ginger at the Dupont farmers’ market. The stuff was sort of legendary; a certain Jeremy Brosowsky had been singing its praises for months, and when fall finally rolled around, I was eager to pick some up. The fresh ginger was approximately 5,723 times more expensive than the stuff at Harris Teeter, so I had high hopes, and I wasn’t disappointed. The flavor was smoother and sweeter, and yet more pronounced. It was also easier to slice. I was hooked.

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Back-to-School Raspberry Bars

rivka — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 15:00:52 +0000

It’s true, I haven’t been in school in five years. A working girl doesn’t know from summer vacation, and there’s no annual school supplies shopping spree at Staples anymore. I miss summer break, and, like any school supplies nerd, I miss those colored sticky tabs I used to use to mark key pages in my textbooks. After five years in the workforce, I’ve somehow managed to wean myself off the small thrills of being a student (even the discounts at JCrew, which I’d love just about now). But there’s one school-time habit that’s still going strong, one that I imagine will continue for years to come. At the profession-steeped age of 27, I’m still making myself back-to-school snacks.

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Peach Blackberry Buckle

rivka — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:48:49 +0000

Hello, friends! I’m back from California, my tote fully stocked with edible goodies and pictures galore. I’ll be spending some time this weekend sorting through the 1,171 pictures I took for highlights beautiful or mouthwatering enough to share with you all. My fuel for the picture-perusing is a generous helping of this crisp, and while the post on NorCal technically should come first, this can’t wait.

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Apricot Basil Ice Cream

rivka — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:04:25 +0000

Admittedly, it all started with apricot curd. I know, I know…more curd? You must think I’ve gone mad. But consider the humble apricot, whose thrilling tang and sultry sweetness lies pretty much dormant until cooked. Rhubarb is much the same, and you’ll remember how that turned out – so can you blame me for trying again? No, you can’t. And let me tell you, that apricot curd was really, really good.

But then it got really, really hot in DC. When it’s 100 degrees out with 99% humidity, it’s hard to rationalize making anything but cold soup and ice cream. So I turned back to my humble apricots, wondering if I could turn them into something sweet, tangy, and frozen.

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Brownie Buttons

rivka — Thu, 20 May 2010 14:05:05 +0000

When I was a kid, my mom and I baked brownies about once a week. My mom had her homemade recipes, which of course are excellent — but as a kid, all I ever wanted was Duncan Hines. I would always make sure I was on my best behavior throughout, so that when we were done, I could take my spoon to the mixing bowl and lick it spotless. Duncan still has a special spot in my heart, but when I’m craving brownies these days, I turn to these. They’re a more grown-up, sophisticated version of the classic treat. Rest assured, they’ll quiet even the strongest of brownie cravings.

Other times, I want a nibble, an after-school snack of a brownie that’s just big enough and chocolatey enough to take the edge off my hunger and stave my appetite till dinner. That’s when these brownie buttons come in oh-so-handy. I can see the parents and babysitters sitting up straight in their chair: bring your kids one or two of these buttons, and I doubt they’ll give you a hard time for the rest of the evening. Ok, maybe just the babysitters will get off that easy — but I know I’d have liked to have these to give to those kids I used to sit for. Not that they weren’t wonderful. But pop a brownie in those little hands, and I can only imagine the little angels they’d have become!

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Chocolate Babka

rivka — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:57:50 +0000

When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait for Saturday to come. I’d like to say I loved the break from homework and the chance to spend time outdoors, but really, it was just the Babka. Green’s Babka, specifically. The chocolate came in the blue wrapper; if you wanted cinnamon, you went for the green. Inside were many countless sheets of paper-thin dough, folded accordion style as densely as could be, and protectively encasing layers of chocolate. A cross-section had the complex structure of brisket, with all those layers to cut through. I ate mine from the outside in, peeling the layers apart slowly and seeing how thin I could rip each piece. It was quite the treat.

The complex structure of the dessert was etched in my mind. So many layers! And so impossibly thin! However did they do it? For years, I (stupidly) assumed that homemade babka was out of reach. But after a brush with the old-school Green’s a couple months back, I was jolted from the romance reminded that Green’s is made with wow, so much margarine. And no butter at all. I was convinced that by using the real stuff, I could make an even better version of the childhood classic.

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Syllabub

rivka — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:11:46 +0000

To Amanda Hesser’s list of foods whose names alone command that you make them, I add this quirky dessert. Syllabub! Every time in the past two weeks I’ve called it by name, it’s been met with total crack-up laughter. Don’t you want to make it too, just to be able to say you whipped something up and it’s called Syllabub? Ha.

Now that I’ve made it, I can tell you the name shouldn’t be your only motivation for giving Syllabub a whirl. I came across the recipe in an old issue of Saveur (1996, maybe?) that I was reading last weekend at a friend’s lake house in Wisconsin. The picture caught my eye: a big, heavy-bottomed glass was filled to the brim with what looked like vanilla custard, topped with a bit of lemon zest and a sprig of rosemary. Intrigued, I read the piece: turns out, syllabub is basically whipping cream combined with sherry and some flavorings. Something about the alcohol or the acid of the lemon juice (or maybe both) thicken the cream without much whipping — it’s very bizarre! — so very little, if any, work is necessary.

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Goat Cheese Caramel Cheesecake

rivka — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:12:39 +0000

The last several times I saw cheesecake on a restaurant menu, it always listed some cheese other than cream cheese as its defining ingredient: ricotta, farmers cheese, and goat cheese seem to make regular appearances.

This is with good reason: traditional cheesecake is overly sweet and very dense. It feels to me like a 1980′s-era dessert, something that no one really serves anymore. I can eat only a couple bites of it before needing a break from the sugar shock, and while the texture is initially nice, it wears me out after a while. I suppose this is why I’ve made it only once or twice, ever. Inexperience notwithstanding, something about being a food blogger makes me foolish enough to believe that I’ll master a recipe immediately, and so when I got a hankering for cheesecake this weekend, I was determined to make the perfect version.

As often as my culinary hubris has backfired, this time, I’ve gotta say, I think I pretty much hit the nail on the head. I auditioned several recipes beforehand — everything from toffee crunch to chocolate-coffee to key lime — just to make sure I considered all the possibilities. Ultimately, I settled on something akin to New York cheesecake, with lemon juice and zest to offset the sugar. I also drew inspiration from all those restaurant menus, using goat cheese in lieu of much of the cream cheese called for in classic recipes. I like goat cheese’s tanginess, and I also find it lighter and thus more bearable than cream cheese.

I decided to top off my goat cheese cake with a coat of dark, smokey caramel. I added a bit of lemon juice to the caramel topping to echo the lemon in the cake and cut the sweetness, and included a generous amount of salt because I find caramel is no good unless it’s equal measures sweet and salty.

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Chocolate-Dipped Hazelnut Shortbread

rivka — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 15:51:24 +0000

If it wasn’t obvious from my cookie page, I’ve got something of a permanent craving for bite-sized crunchy/chewy treats. Hanukkah isn’t really a cookie-focused holiday — it’s more a celebration of your deep fryer. But Christmas is just around the corner, and every year, I get swept up in the holiday spirit. This year is no exception, and I’m more than happy to bake off a few batches in honor of the holiday cookie season. Just doing my duty, people.

Tonight’s first batch was my favorite chocolate chip cookies. Everyone’s got a favorite recipe: mine are pretty close to the NYT recipe, only I don’t mess around with the two different types of flour, I use natural sugar instead of bleached white stuff, and I use a mix of ghiradelli chocolate chips and chopped bittersweet chocolate for textural contrast.

After a few of those were in the oven — for D, of course, just wanted to please my lady — I moved onto batch number two: hazelnut shortbread. Less sweet but just as buttery and full of toasted nuts, these shortbread are chocolate chip cookies’ sophisticated sibling. They come together in a flash, and can be baked in any number of ways. If you’re in a rush, roll the whole pile of dough into a log and stick them in the freezer for slice-and-bake action later. If you have more time, form them into little individual log cookies. Either way, dunk the finished shortbread into shiny melted chocolate (or just drizzle the chocolate on top using a fork), and roll in toasted nuts on top for some truly elegant December desserts. Oh, and by the way: they make a lovely holiday present.

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Eggnog Ice Cream

rivka — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:15:23 +0000

A couple weeks ago, I went to a midday workweek lunch at Vidalia to take advantage of what was an excellent deal: $19.90 for app, main, and desserts — a large selection that included their signature lemon chess pie and pecan pie, for which they’re known. (By the way, the deal is no longer that good: $24 for lunch, and classic desserts aren’t included. A real shame — if they’d only keep offering that pecan pie I’d keep coming back.)

But I digress. The pecan pie at Vidalia truly is one of Washington’s great desserts. Its texture was smooth and silky, not at all jiggly, and both the crust and the filling are perfumed with toasted pecan. And if the bar wasn’t enough to please on its own, the clincher was a generous scoop of dark brown bourbon ice cream. My colleague and I couldn’t stop eating it.

When the ice cream was still on my mind two weeks later, I decided I had to give it a go in my own kitchen. I poked around online for a good recipe, but all I found was one that called for sweetened condensed milk. Why anyone would ruin the best dairy treat with sweetened condensed milk is beyond me; back to the drawing board.

How hard could it be? I figured I’d follow my usual formula for adding alcohol to ice cream, 3 tablespoons per quart, which seems to be enough to improve the texture without preventing proper freezing. I’d make a straightforward vanilla custard base, chill it, add the bourbon, and chill it in the machine. Easy enough. But right before freezing the custard, I dunked a spoon in to taste and adjust the flavors, and it was only then that I realized what I’d made: eggnog.

oops.

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Chewy Toffee Blondies

rivka — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:55:13 +0000

Can I just say how touched I am? You all left the sweetest congratulatory messages on the last post, and I’m really just tickled. We’re told this is a pretty exciting time in our lives, and if the last two weeks are any indication, exciting is quite an understatement. We’re floating.

But I digress: this is a food blog, not a get-all-mushy-about-my-engagement blog, and I think it’s about time I passed along some recipes! I was in Chicago on business for the past few days, and in New York with friends to celebrate before that, so the kitchen’s been dark lately, but in the past few weeks, I’ve made some pretty tasty things, including one thing I probably haven’t made in years…

When it’s mid-July and summer’s taken up residence here in Washington, the fruit are at their peak. With ripe peaches and juicy plums in abundance, there’s no good reason to make anything but fruit desserts. That’s why, for the past 10 years, I seem to have forgotten about blondies. They just fell of my radar entirely; when I think of dessert, I think of crostadas and pies and fruit crisps galore. Chocolate? Chocolate who?

The other day, I was moments away from making Dorie Greenspan’s Brown Sugar Bundt Cake (from her book Baking From My Home to Yours). I had the bundt pan out and ready to go, the stand mixer fitted with the paddle, and then, suddenly, had a second thought. Didn’t the recipe say that the bundt was better the next day? I wanted something sweet now. Maybe I should stick to something I know, something comfortingly chewy and chocolatey and altogether delicious, that’d be delicious in under 30 minutes. I flipped a couple of pages and there, staring back at me, were some thick, unctuous-looking blondies. I was sold.

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Sugar High Friday: Toasted Edition, the Roundup!

rivka — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:15:39 +0000

It always takes me a while to get over the end of summer’s abundance; I spend a good part of September missing peak tomatoes and fretting about corn’s impending end. But once October comes around, I’m fully ready for fall, which brings pleasure of a different sort.

Once I’ve left summer behind, I’m ready for the reds, oranges, and deep golden yellows of the leaves in Rock Creek Park. I’m ready to put on one of those big, chunky sweaters, a pair of my favorite jeans, and my steadfastly loyal black riding boots, and take a walk through the park. I love the crunch of those leaves beneath my feet. the crisp chill of the air that sneaks between my scarf and the neck of my sweater, the smell of my favorite lip balm that makes its annual debut this time of year. It’s fall, people.

When the air is as crisp as the leaves, I often find myself standing over the stove, watching walnuts toast and inhaling that intoxicating smell, and occasionally sneaking my hands out of my sweater sleeves for a quick toasting of their own over the hot pan.

Fall is the perfect time for all things toasted. Toasting can intensify the flavors of nuts and spices, caramelize the natural sugars in fruits and even some vegetables (like onions), and bring out rich, nutty undertones that might otherwise remain dormant in the food we eat.

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Sugar High Friday…Toasted!

rivka — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:37:19 +0000

Now that NDP is a whopping two years old, I think it’s time she and I finally hosted a blogging event. I’ve been a sporadic participant in these sorts of things, mostly because between keeping up with my day job, getting bloggable food on the table, and taking decent pictures of said food, I can’t find much time to keep up with the various blogging events out there. But one of my resolutions for this third year of blogging is to dip my foot into new networks of eaters, cooks, and bloggers. I’d like to be more in touch with folks who do what I do on this site. So here’s my first attempt: I’m hosting October’s Sugar High Friday.

Sugar High Friday (SHF) is a blogging event to satisfy the mother of all sweet-tooths (sweet teeth?). SHF was created by Jennifer Hamilton, i.e. The Domestic Goddess, and every month, SHF participants cook, photograph, and submit desserts on a theme. Past themes include desserts from your childhood, sweets containing alcohol, chilled desserts, and last month’s edition, “locavore treats.”

For the October 2009 edition of SHF, we’ll be making desserts in which something (or everything) is toasted. Toasted almonds and toasted coconut come to mind, but it doesn’t stop there: toasted spices can really perk up an ordinary recipe, toasted oats in fruit crisp add a lovely nutty flavor…I could go on. I’ve got something pretty unique planned for my entry, and I know you’ll all submit some really interesting things as well. (Ahem, I mean you!)

Speaking of submissions, here are the guidelines for submitting an entry:

Cook and photograph something toasty!
If you have a blog, post about your toasted dessert. (If you don’t have a blog, see below.
Email me at Rivka [at] Not Derby Pie [dot] com with “SHF-toasted” as the subject. Please include:
- your name
- the name of your blog
- a link to the post about your submission
- the name of your submission
- any other info about why you made what you made
- a thumbnail image of your creation. It should be no wider than 100 pixels, in jpg format, and should be named the same as your blog. For example, my image would be named notderbypie.jpg.
If you do not have a blog, please post your recipe, and a link to a photo if you’d like, in the comments section either here or in the round-up post.
Submissions must be in by midnight (EDT) on Monday, October 26th, or they will not be included in the round-up!

I’ll post the roundup on Friday of that week, so please do check back here to see everyone’s delicious creations!

Looking for inspiration? Check out these recipes, all of which rely on toasted ingredients:

As always, thanks to Jennifer, the Domestic Goddess, who created the whole Sugar High Friday concept back in 2004. Now get cookin’!

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Getaway Sour Cherry Pie

rivka — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 23:17:14 +0000

The dog days of August are no time to hang out in DC. That’s why D and I spent the first week of the month with her parents in Douglas, MI, a beach town on the eastern side of Lake Michigan, where every day is 75 and sunny and there’s a constant breeze rippling through the air. If I didn’t have east coast blood in my veins, I’d have been so swept away by the perfect Michigan summer weather that I might have packed up my things and moved.

Our cottage in Douglas was downright luxurious. The beds were plush, the couches were comfy, and there was a beautiful patio out back that was perfect for a lazy afternoon of reading, eating, and gazing aimlessly into the sky.

There was a grill, too — a brand new grill that the owner generously bought after we inquired. Needless to say, kabobs and grilled chicken were in order.

Our days effortlessly took on a routine. In the morning, we moseyed onto the patio for some coffee and our first glimpse of sun. K and I alternated on breakfast duty — I cooked a batch of blueberry buttermilk pancakes one morning, she made buttery biscuits the next. Some mornings, we stayed on the lighter side and spooned out some yogurt and berries. D and I lazed around until breakfast was ready, then took clean-up duty once our stomachs were full.

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Cherry Pistachio Crisp

rivka — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:22:42 +0000

Dear readers, as you are my witnesses, I’m hereby confessing a minor addiction to sour cherries. After a year-long wait for sour cherry season, I’ve put up a pitcher of sour cherry liqueur that’ll be ready in a few short months (and early tastes have been very, very promising) and I’ve made a couple pies as well. It seems I can’t get quite enough of them. I’ve even fancied myself the sour cherry connoisseur: when a (rather gruff) farmer declared last Sunday at the market that no one could taste her sour cherries because they’re too tart to eat raw, I happily (and loudly) piped up that I eat them raw all the time and had no idea what she was talking about. As you may have guessed, we made fast friends. Needless to say, I scurried right along to the next stand.

After two juicy, bursting weeks of our very short sour cherry season, I’m still high on the cherries, but less excited at the prospect of another pie-dough endeavor. The result is mighty tasty, but it involves just a few too many minutes hovered over the counter piecing together shards of butter-flour and hoping for a semblance of evenness. This time, with a pound of sour cherries in the fridge and an appetite that was burgeoning by the minute, I opted for the easy route: cherry crisp.
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Cherry Pit Ice Cream w/Caramelized White Chocolate Ribbon

rivka — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:56:24 +0000

Well, you’ve caught me red-handed. Not two weeks after I confessed my inclination toward only the purest of ice cream flavors when making it at home, I’ve gone stir crazy. First, I went nuts on vanilla by adding drizzles of chocolate; then I made maple ice cream (which, alas, was devoured before I could even get out my camera, but I’ll pass along the recipe at the bottom of this post for interested souls). Now I’m really pulling out the big guns. Cherry Pit Ice Cream? What exactly was I thinking?

I’ll tell you what. I was thinking that I’ve been reading about cherry pit ice cream since last year, and the strangeness, the sheer absurdity, piqued my curiosity and eventually won me over. People say it’s the best flavor of ice cream they’ve ever tasted, and all it is is milk, cream, sugar, eggs, and crushed cherry pits. Tell me you’re not curious! Who even knows what a cherry pit innard tastes like?

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Biscotti, the even-healthier way

rivka — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 03:35:43 +0000

Just thought you’d all like to know that we’ve been tinkering around here at NDP and I’ve managed to make some biscotti that are better for you and equally delicious. After some tinkering, I made the same ones I made the last time — cherry almond — with half white whole wheat flour and half turbinado (unrefined) sugar. I’m willing to bet you can even do all unrefined sugar with great results. For the eggs, I used 1 egg and 2 egg whites this time, and it produced a crunchy cookie that wasn’t too much of a tooth-cracker. Just a little FYI for the weekend. I’ll be back with an actual post soon…

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Vanilla Ice Cream with Stracciatella

rivka — Mon, 25 May 2009 22:31:37 +0000

Recently, I discovered something of an oddity in my ice cream-eating habits. When I buy ice cream, I’m pretty particular about how I like it: Ben and Jerry’s coffee heath bar toffee crunch. It’s really that easy. I’ve never been one to order vanilla, chocolate, or any other flavor that’s that simple. When I order chocolate, it almost always has some swirl, ribbon, or maybe even some of those little chocolate-filled bits. Cheesy, I know, but I like my ice cream with lots of stuff in it, what can I say?

That affinity for add-ins rapidly fades when I’m making ice cream. When I’m making the stuff from scratch, I’m a total purist. Vanilla is my most frequent concoction, and in my mind, it’s pretty hard to beat. If hard pressed, I think I’d probably pick my homemade vanilla over a pint of B&J’s Coffee Heath. Though not without some serious deliberation.

Why is that, you’d like to know? I think it has something to do with the sheer quantity of egg yolks and cream and not-so-cheap vanilla beans that go into a good quart of frozen. (That’s six egg yolks, 1 cup of whole milk, and 2 cups of heavy cream, thank you very much.) It’s also got everything to do with fear of failure — or, better put, fear that the cherry pit ice cream you were so curious to try is actually a total flop. When you’re working with farmers’ market eggs and organic cream, you’re spending a pretty penny; I guess I want to make sure I get my money’s worth. Call me a pincher, but you know what? Vanilla comes out just perfect, every single time. It also tastes so pure, so much like the ingredients that are used to make it, that I find it difficult to veer far from it.
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The Best Tea Cookies on the Planet

rivka — Sat, 09 May 2009 20:06:03 +0000

I’ve always loved the idea of having a local baker — someone whose shop was within a short walk of my apartment, where I could drop by in the morning for a baguette or a scone, pick up a loaf or two of fresh bread, and pop in on a lazy Sunday afternoon for tea and cookies. Sadly, I don’t live in Paris. I do, however, read an excellent blog of someone who does — that’s David Lebovitz, my friends — and his many posts about local bakers regularly elicit pavlovian responses from my growling tummy. The one that most recently got my attention was about Flo Braker, one of his all-time favorite bakers. (Don’t you just love that she’s Flo Braker, the Baker? Hardy har.) Among the many recipes in her arsenal is one for thin,, crispy, buttery almond cookies called “pain d’amande” (almond bread). While I’d never heard of Braker before reading David’s post, after tasting these cookies, I can assure you that now she’s one of my favorite bakers, too.

These aren’t just any almond cookies; they benefit from having become an obsession of Braker’s — she’s literally made the recipe countless times, each time adjusting the proportions of raw sugar and flour by slight amounts until she achieved the perfect ratio of each. As I said, we benefit from her rigor and perfectionism: these cookies are absolutely flawless, and I wouldn’t change a darn thing.

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Bouchon-Inspired Lemon Tart

rivka — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:52:30 +0000

On my last trip to New York, I stood on the third floor of the Time Warner Center for about an hour just waiting to get into Bouchon Bakery. It didn’t work out — the person we were meeting was on a tight schedule — so we ended up eating salads at Whole Foods. Ever since, I’ve been dreaming of Bouchon. Have you tried their chocolate bouchons? Oh, man. Delish.

In full stalker mode this Friday, I started googling Bouchon recipes and came across this little treasure, via Epicurious. It’s a pretty traditional lemon tart, with two exceptions: one, the crust is a pine nut crust. Two, the lemon curd is actually a sabayon. That means that instead of warming the lemon juice and sugar, adding the eggs, and heating until thickened, the eggs and sugar are whisked vigorously while being warmed over a double boiler, and lemon juice is added in stages as the custard thickens.
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Perfect Pound Cake

rivka — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:59:27 +0000

The spring season is upon us, and we’ve got the rainfall to prove it! I wanted to go with something clean and fresh-looking for the spring blog design, with bright colors and lots of white space. So clear that cache and check out NDP’s new layout — I hope you like it!

We went to synagogue every week when I was a kid. After services, the congregation would flood into the social hall for “kiddush” — meaning the prayer over the wine, but also the term used to describe the nibble-and-schmoozefest that occurs after prayers. The “kiddush ladies” would have set up long tables lined with silver trays full of herring (for the old men) and sweets (for the rest of us), and people would just go nuts. All the kids (including me) would wriggle our way in between the long lines of adults to score goodies before they were all snatched up, and like good children we’d compare plates to see who had accumulated the largest stash of junk food.

At a certain age, the game got old, as I realized that the goodies served at kiddush were actually really gross. The cookies were soft and crumbly, the chocolate was all non-dairy and really yuck, and the pound cake — don’t even get me started on the pound cake — was truly terrible. Soft and mushy, but somehow still totally dry and bland-tasting, it was an affront to everything a pound cake should be. It’s fair to say that kiddush ruined my appetite for pound cake, and even now, I struggle to get excited about it.

That is, I struggled to get excited about it, until I encountered Alice Medrich. As you might know from past posts, I’ve never made a recipe from Alice Medrich that wasn’t absolutely, positively perfect. Her Pure Dessert is by far my favorite dessert cookbook, and I’m on my way to making every recipe contained therein.
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Meringues (Finally)

rivka — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:54:32 +0000

For all those anticipating Passover, these meringues are the perfect Passover dessert. They require no flour or leavening, but actually taste good. I simply can’t go the week without them.

I was looking through my archived photos today and discovered something utterly shocking: I’ve had a website for…how long now? a year and a half?…and somehow escaped until today without posting a recipe for one of my most reliable, fool-proof, standby, can’t-live-without desserts. I make them all all all the time, especially when I have leftover egg whites. On top of being nearly effortless to make, they achieve one of the rare feat of being both non-dairy and delicious. Like I said, rare.

Meringues, my friends, meringues. They are a fundamental part of my dessert repertoire, and the basis for many other desserts (including, among others, this crazy buche de noel, and the ultimate meringue-based dessert, Macarons.

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Lemon and Rhubarb Mousse Parfaits

rivka — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:21:49 +0000

Today was an absolutely beautiful day in Washington. It was probably 75 degrees outside, and while the sky was cloudy in the morning, it cleared up quite a bit in the afternoon and the streets were packed. I’ve been waiting for a day like this for months, mostly because I so long for those lovely Spring and Summer Saturdays when lunch is lots of little salads, various breads and crackers and other dipping vehicles, a bunch of cheeses and spreads, and something uber-light for dessert. Today, that’s what we had for lunch. A big Greek salad (thanks to Jeremy and his chef de cuisine Jana), homemade chickpea-walnut hummus and labneh (yogurt-based cheese), muhammara (syrian pomegranate-red pepper dip), laffa (Mediterranean flatbread) and challah and pita chips (thanks Dina!), and an open-faced tart with mushrooms, dates and goat cheese. The table had so many elements on it, many of them fresh and most of them cold, and people built their plates out of bits and pieces of everything. Don’t forget a few good glasses of chilled rose to wash everything down (tx, Lilah and Dan). I have to say, it was pretty darned tasty.

After a meal like this, the last thing I want is a big, heavy slice of cake. I’d rather end with something light, fresh, and (preferably) cold. Ice cream was one option, but I went instead with a layered mousse parfait that came out really tasty and served as the perfect finale to our lazy afternoon lunch.

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Cocoa Pear Crisps

rivka — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:24:39 +0000

It’s not every day that a half-eaten fruit turns into something truly out-of-this-world. I suppose I should thank the odd confluence of events that brought about these treasures: one, I bought a mandoline last week. After reading oodles of reviews about the best mandolines on the market, I learned that the two cheapest models (the Benriner and the OXO) are actually the best. My waffling back and forth about whether the 75 bucks was worth it was for nothing: I threw restraint out the window and got my new toy guilt-free. That’s one.

Two, Sarina and Robbie had iron chef night this weekend. Each of us picked a course, they revealed the secret ingredient, and we had a couple hours to make a dish featuring that ingredient and bring it over for show and tell. Is it screamingly obvious that there’s nothing I’d rather do on Saturday night than play iron chef? I was thrilled. And the secret ingredient was cocoa. Awesome.

Three, iron chef awesomeness notwithstanding, my fridge was pretty empty this weekend. Having come down with an ugly cold last week, I didn’t do much cooking at all — and this weekend, we were off the hook again, so my supply was limited, which meant I needed to get pretty creative for the competition.

Four, I took a sliced pear to work, and had only eaten half of it — so I had three and a half pears, the half of which was desperately in need of being used. After poking around in vain on Martha and Epicurious for some good pear recipes, I found one for pear chips. They were meant to be sliced paper-thin, sprinkled with a ginger-cinnamon-sugar mixture, and baked/dried in a very low oven until golden and crispy. What would happen, I wonder, if I added some cocoa to the mix? I’ll tell you what — pure magic.

Truth be told, I went cocoa-happy. I wanted the chocolate flavor to be assertive, despite its supporting role. I added 2 Tbsp of it, and I’m glad I did. Pears and cocoa get along marvelously, and the final product was tangy and spicy and a bit rich and bitter from the cocoa, not to mention perfectly crisp and crunchy. Is your mouth watering, too?

I should mention that I also added galangal, a lovely spice I got from Penzeys earlier this year. It’s similar to ginger, prominent in Thai cuisine, and has spicy notes but is also an assertively fruity flavor. It’s truly something special. If you have it, definitely use it here. If you’ve got a mandoline, you MUST try this recipe. If not, get yourself to amazon and have a mandoline for the price of dinner tonight. It’s kinda totally worth it.

Cocoa Pear Crisps
adapted from Epicurious

1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon galangal, optional
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons cocoa
20 paper-thin pear slices (from 1 pear)

Preheat oven to 275°F. Mix sugar and spices in small bowl. Place pear slices on rack set over baking sheet. Alternatively, place slices on silpat-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with spiced sugar. Bake until almost dry, about 1 hour. I flip the slices half way through to ensure even baking. Cool on rack or sheet. Store airtight up to 2 days.

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“Too rich and dark” chocolate pudding

rivka — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:56:23 +0000

A while back, I made some chipotle chocolate pudding parfaits. Humbly speaking, they were pretty darn awesome. At least, I thought so. D? Not so much. She prefers snack packs, I guess. But I don’t give up so easily. There’s no way those gelatinous, tasteless pudding packs can beat homemade chocolate pudding. Armed with my best chocolate (callebaut 70%), organic whole milk, and a little bit of love, I set out to make chocolate pudding that D might like.

“It’s too dark and rich,” she said. Really, I can’t win around here.

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Baklava

rivka — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:15:40 +0000

We’re chock-full of special occasions here at NDP. Two weekends ago, we celebrated with D and E as they hosted their first Friday night dinner as a married couple. It so happens that D and I were the first people to host D and E as a [not-yet-married] couple about a year ago, so Friday night we came full circle. D and E really went all-out and made a brisket, which was totally delicious. Needless to say, there was a ridiculous amount of other food, also super tasty. I had been asked to bring dessert. Now you know that non-dairy desserts have given me ulcers in the past — no, silly! Not eating them, just thinking and thinking about what to make til I’m blue in the face and dizzy and, well, ulcer-y — but this time, I was determined to figure something out. I’d planned on the very appropriate Mexican wedding cookies, but they’re either totally dairy or totally not kosher (from the use of lard), so that was out. But ever since getting back from the Middle East, where baklava is totally ubiquitous and consistently excellent, I’ve been meaning to try my hand at crafting my own.

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Cinnamon Palmiers (and cheat puff pastry)

rivka — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:45:43 +0000

File this under “things I’ve always wanted to make but thought I needed an excuse.” Not that they’re actually so hard, but let’s face it — nothing is easier than simple chocolate chip cookies, or my go-to dessert of late, chocolate pudding. It’s just that the recipe is very specific, and one must strictly adhere to it, or else the resulting cookie will be dense and tough. But follow the instructions, and your afternoon tea date will thank you. These cookies are the height of elegance, with their flaky texture and caramelized-sugar crust. They’re just the right amount sweet, and very crispy. They might be small and light, but I dare you to eat just one.

As you know, I’m always on the lookout for excuses to tackle culinary challenges. Bryce’s PhD soiree gave me one such excuse, so thank you, Dr. J!

On another note, looking at the recipe just now, I realized that it essentially calls for an easy puff-pastry dough layered with cinnamon sugar. Now I’ve never made my own puff pastry, but I think this is a very user-friendly way to fake it — so I’ll be filing this under techniques; the next time I need puff pastry, I may just make this dough.

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Sticky, Gooey Cinnamon Buns

rivka — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:30:27 +0000

If you’ve gone this long without making cinnamon buns (which, shockingly, I have), it’s likely not because you’re skeptical that they’ll be worth it. What other foods smell ridiculously appetizing, even when what you smell is usually a corporate chain version loaded with high fructose corn syrup and other delicacies? No doubt they taste fantastic and are worth the effort, so that’s not the cause of hesitation. More likely, you’re just a bit daunted by the task. To me, cinnamon buns have always sounded like a very work-intensive, time-intensive project, possible only for those with half a day to devote to the task. I just figured that with a project as seemingly complex as cinnamon buns, I should hold off until I had an occasion to do them. Perhaps you did, too.

Such an occasion arrived last Sunday, when a bunch of us threw a bridal shower for our friend D, who’s getting married in November. D’s not so into the gush-gush-rip-the-wrapping-paper-ohh-ahh stuff, so when B suggested a book shower, D readily agreed. It’s really right up her alley. We pitched the shower as a chance to get D a book that belongs on every shelf, a book you especially love, or a book that you thought D would love — and, considering we got lots of oohs and ahhs and no doubles, I think it was a success!
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Plum Ice Cream

rivka — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:38:04 +0000

This past December, D got me an ice cream maker for Hanukkah. “So that you’ll have a way to make us ice cream when summer rolls around.” That D’s pretty smart: ice cream makers are much cheaper in the dead of winter, but summer inevitably returned, and now tubs of ice cream line our freezer. What flavors, you ask? Well, currently we have wild honey, raspberry sorbet, apricot sorbet, and this here plum that I’m getting ready to tell you about. I’ve had some lovely organic plums in my fridge for a couple weeks. Most of them I took for lunch, but something had to be done with the rest. I’d gone back and forth between stone fruit crisp and plum tart tatin, until I remembered that The Perfect Scoop was sitting on my bookshelf, gathering dust. Sure enough, David Lebovitz had included in it a recipe for plum ice cream; the fate of my plumlings was decided.

Here’s the thing about fruit ice creams: they’re not chocolate. Now don’t you vanilla fans jump on me all at once — I appreciate a good bowl of white. (Scratch that: off-white. If it’s vanilla, it has to be custard-based, in my humble-o.) But people, chocolate and I are exclusive. We’re in love. And that’s just how it is. So you can understand why fruit ice cream has always seemed a little, well, not-quite-right to me — that is, until I made some myself. Plum ice cream is stupendous! Wonderfully creamy, sweet and tart, with all the assets of stone fruit and of ice cream in one. I’m a little obsessed.

With plums at every farmers’ market in town, now’s the time to try this one out.
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Date Swirl Cookies

rivka — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:03:29 +0000

Every once in a while, dates make their way into my shopping cart during my snacks run at TJs. The large, dark brown Medjool dates are my favorite variety (and, arguably, the best variety out there). I first discovered them during my time in Israel, where if you’re lucky, you can pluck some low-hanging fruit off a tree toward the end of a hike. Commonly considered the crown jewel of dates, Medjools are a deep, rich amber, and they’re coated with a thin, glossy skin that is at once smooth and wrinkled. Far less stringy then other dates, their texture is soft, chewy, and ever so luscious. No other date even compares.

When my officemate offhandedly mentioned these date swirl cookies, I knew instantly that they’d be next in my queue. Her prescription was simple: “make a refrigerator cookie, mix a paste of dates, brown sugar, spices, and some citrus, roll out the cookie dough, spread the paste overtop, roll up, slice, bake.” Sounded simple enough, but the instructions left me plenty of room to play.
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Rugelach

rivka — Thu, 29 May 2008 02:45:29 +0000

I rarely buy cookbooks. That probably comes as a surprise, considering how much I love to cook, and how pretty cookbooks can be — but I just don’t buy them that often. That’s partly because I tend to browse for recipes online, and partly because, not being able to help myself, I take all the pretty ones of the shelf at Barnes and Noble and before I know it, I’ve already looked at every pretty picture and no longer have any interest in buying the darn things.

On the rare occasion that I actually shell out the cash for one, the self control and patience I’ve been cultivating for years run out in a matter of seconds. I plop down on the couch, open the thing up, and soak up every last picture. Yes folks, that’s why they call it food porn.

Regarding the fillers between the pictures: sometimes I read those. Recipes, I think they’re called.

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Linzer Sables

rivka — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:45:13 +0000

If you love Passover, close your ears for a second…
YAAAYYY it’s done! we can eat bread again!

Ok. It’s out of my system.

Linzer Sables are fantastic. The fact that they involve water, flour, and a nice long baking time is just icing on the cake. I’ve always loved Linzer Torte — that fantastically dense and buttery torte made of almond flour and filled with black raspberry jam — and these cookies share those rich, buttery, nutty flavors, but they’re lighter, crispy, and compact. They’ve also got a fair amount of spice, and I like to add some orange zest, which I find really binds the flavors together. If you’ve got a scalloped cookie cutter, use it to make these cookies look more decorative (and sprinkle them with confectioners sugar for some extra zing.)

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Passover Dessert Ideas

rivka — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:54:45 +0000

It’s that time of year again, folks…the time when desserts all begin “flourless…”
To ease the pain of a cookie-less cake-less week, I’ll share a fantastic post by awesome blogger Deb over at Smitten Kitchen. She offers 17 dessert ideas for Passover — let’s face it, who ever knew there were even that many possibilities? — and they all look completely scrumptious. Go on, have a look!

Meanwhile, if you’re still itching for ideas, be sure to check out Susie Fishbein’s new cookbook, Passover by Design — you can buy it straight from here by clicking the picture in the sidebar right next to this post. I’ve already given three as pesach/seder presents, and have made three balebustas very happy. Have a wonderful holiday!

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Katharine Hepburn Brownies, Macerated Raspberry Sauce

rivka — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:56:02 +0000

When it comes to brownies, everyone has his or her preference. Some prefer cakey (though god knows why), others prefer raw, yet others favor the fudgey dense sort — there’s a recipe for everyone. I even know someone who made a habit of mixing up two full batches each time she made brownies: one to bake, and one to eat raw, straight from the mixing bowl. If that’s not enough to make your stomach turn, I don’t know what is.
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Nibbly Buckwheat Butter Cookies

rivka — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 03:36:46 +0000

I know, you don’t have to tell me — these look just like those whole wheat sables I posted in January. What can I say? I’ve fallen for nibbly sables and I can’t get up.

This is all Alice Medrich’s fault. I recently acquired her book, Pure Dessert, and ever since, I’ve been baking goodies non-stop. Her recipes are dead simple, and the sweets are addictive. Did I mention it’s called “Pure Dessert?” Yea, it’s pretty hard to go wrong there.
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Chocolate Coffee Mascarpone Tart

rivka — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:23:20 +0000

Mandy had a very big birthday a couple weeks back, and I made her this tart because every big birthday deserves a Sunday morning assault of chocolate, coffee, and mascarpone cheese. Did I hear you ask for a slice? Sorry folks, this one’s not for sharing.

What this tart lacks in sweetness, it more than accounts for in richness. Put less subtly, this cake isn’t overly sugary, but it packs a fatty punch, yes it does. And lest you think only two bites will be enough, I assure you that real tart fans will have no trouble at all finishing every last bite of one (cough two) slices. And they’ll be licking the crumbs from their plates in between helpings.
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Poached Pear with Cajeta and Mascarpone

rivka — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 17:19:25 +0000

Dulce de Leche has quickly become this blog’s most popular post. The one-step recipe for caramel has generated more traffic, more comments, and more general excitement on this end of things than any other post. I was thrilled to read so many great comments offering alternative names for the treat, as well as several creative recipe ideas. I’m planning on trying the one with a graham cracker crust soon!

Here’s one more way to use all that caramel sitting in all of our fridges: top poached pears with it.
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Dulce de Leche

rivka — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:31:39 +0000

Imagine a creamy, rich, brown caramel made from the simplest of ingredients — milk and sugar — and involving little more than a pot of boiling water and a couple hours. Hard to believe, but the best way to make dulce de leche is also the easiest way. And tell me you’re not salivating as you eye the caramel I’ve got sitting in a jar in my fridge. This stuff is to die for, people.
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Chocolate Pudding Parfait

rivka — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:23:40 +0000

Lovin’ Deb at the Smitten Kitchen right now. I may or may not have spent two full nights sitting paralyzed in front of my computer, debating what the hell to make for Friday night dessert. I made a Mexican-themed meal (kinda) and simply couldn’t decide on an appropriate finale. I debated making a torta from Diana Kennedy, a lemon cake, a ricotta tart, and countless other things that surely would have been tasty, but just weren’t making my mouth water. Then, Deb posted a fantastic and easy chocolate pudding recipe from John Scharffenberger. I fretted not a moment longer. Pudding — unlike mousse, souffles, etc — is rich without being overkill. People would actually be able to eat an entire (small) bowlful. And from Deb’s pictures, I could tell that this pudding would be thick enough to support a hefty spoonful of whipped cream and some berries. All I’d need now was something crunchy, to offset the soft and rich textures of pudding and whipped cream.

Enter Danielle of Habeas Brulee, another one of my oh-so-favorite bloggers. A while back, Danielle posted about some nutmeg-chipotle tuilles that she rolled and filled cannoli-style with chocolate mousse. I decided to roll half and stick them into the parfaits, and serve the rest flat so that people could crumble them into the pudding for some added crunch. Admittedly, the recipe seemed a bit finicky, but I gave it a go, and it produced excellent results after only one round of messups. And even they weren’t really messups. I mean, I ate them all without complaining so they couldn’t have been too bad.
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World Peace Cookies

rivka — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:09:03 +0000

Lots of thank yous in this post! First, thanks to Sarina for pointing out that today is National Don’t Cry Over Spilled Milk Day. I know, it’s apropos of absolutely nothing, but it had to be said. Second, thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes! Now that I’ve got a quarter century worth of silliness behind me, my little bro loves to call me an old fart, and I guess I am. 25, baby!

Now, onto the more relevant thanks:
Thank heavens for Pierre Herme and Dorie Greenspan. If you’re scratching your head and wondering, “who?” then you’d better catch yourself up to speed. Pierre Herme: world-famous pastry chef and dessert god. Dorie Greenspan: baker, cookbook author, and chronicler of both Pierre’s unforgettable creations and her own. Exhibit A: Dorie Greenspan’s fantastic book, Paris Sweets, in which she includes Pierre Herme’s best-ever chocolate cookies (there called Korova Cookies). Exhibit B: Dorie’s latest book, Baking: From My Home to Yours, in which the same recipe appears under a new name: “world peace cookies.” The new nomenclature implies that enemies would find it tough to argue with a plate of these cookies in front of them; however, fight me for one of these cookies, and I guarantee, YOU WILL LOSE.
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Ginger Spice Cookies

rivka — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:01:26 +0000

I’m going away for a few days this week, and wanted to leave D with an ample supply of goodies for while I’m gone, so yesterday was a non-stop baking marathon chez moi. I’ll admit that I find myself constantly reverting to tried-and-true recipe favorites, like those cranberry cornmeal cookies and whole wheat sables. But these days, when making an old recipe means no blog post, I’m shockingly motivated to seek out new, potentially-delicious recipes. Save the occasional failure and the very infrequent disaster, my adventurousness has been paying off.

As it happens, the only new recipe I made this weekend involved eggplant and feta cheese, so no, it’s not a cookie recipe. But that’s another story for another day. The cookies I made yesterday are all old favorites that have somehow slipped to the bottom of my mental stack, and ginger spice cookies top this list of wonderful but forgotten cookies. No sooner had I sliced up the crystalized ginger than my ginger spice memories came flooding back. After taking a warm, moist, molasses-y bite, I doubted that I’d ever forget these cookies again.
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Cranberry Cornmeal Cookies

rivka — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:05:23 +0000

I am a total sucker for cornmeal. Perhaps it’s a texture thing: cornmeal is both grainy (in a good way) and soft. It’s responsible for creamy, buttery, polenta, and for crumbly, steaming-hot cornbread. Substitute 1/2 a cup of flour for an equal amount of cornmeal in your go-to pancake recipe, and I guarantee you’ll be pleasantly surprised. If you like cornmeal, that is. D conveniently hates cornmeal. Isn’t it funny how things work out?

Even the confessed cornmeal hater didn’t hate the cookies I made last night. In fact, D said “they’re good, they’re just not cookies.” (Cookies=chocolate chip cookies, for those in need of some translation.) Admittedly, these aren’t soft and chewy like tollhouse or the delightful blue chip variety that Deb made this week, but they’re not meant to be. Cranberry cornmeal cookies have a texture more like shortbread: buttery and not overly sweet, with an irresistible melt-in-your-mouth quality. And cornmeal sets them apart from your average icebox cookie. For one thing, it turns the cookies a pleasing shade of yellow. It also gives each bite a coarseness that can’t be achieved with regular or whole wheat flour. Finally, lemon zest and cranberries team up with cornmeal’s flavor so harmoniously that the final product is a song in your mouth. Have cornmeal and I won you over yet?
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Blackberry-Pear Clafoutis

rivka — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:42:28 +0000

Our apartment building overlooks a charming little street packed with bars and restos that’s bustling both by day and by night. While it’s wonderful to live where things happen, sometimes that means 3am powows and lots of “hoot….rah! hoot…rah!” from drunk frat-boy types. Last night’s “visitors” were loud and rowdy, and I got precious little sleep. Needless to say, it was a slow, slow weekend morning chez nous. And slow weekend mornings call for some serious kitchen therapy.

Enter the clafoutis (pronounced cla-FOO-tee), a cross between a pancake and a custard (or, as D. put it, “kind of like a crepe but a little more runny.” Yum.) Simple to prepare, beautiful once cooked, and rather fun to eat, a clafouti is where comfort food and luxury meet. It’s often served as dessert, but I love it for breakfast on those days when you need more than a spoonful of sugar to wash the previous night down.

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Whole Wheat Sables

rivka — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

All my culinary kudos are going to Alice Medrich these days. She does that thing none of us want to do: she makes the same darned thing over and over again, each time tweaking the recipe until it comes out just perfect. All that toil translates: Alice’s chocolate pecan pie is to die for, her chocolate cheesecake in The Joy of Cooking is the best I’ve had, and her new-ish book Pure Dessert tops my wishlist.

The recipes in Pure Dessert tend toward the less-chocolatey, and use complex flavors like sesame and olive oil. Those I’ve tracked down and tried have been nothing short of perfect, and the whole wheat sables I made this weekend were no exception. Within a minute of leaving the oven, they were crispy but not hard to bite, and nicely sandy without being too crumbly. You can hardly tell that half the flour is whole wheat, but the wwflour gives these cookies a really wholesome flavor, rounded out by cocoa nibs and a bit of grated chocolate (my addition). Yes, these are the anti-chocolate chip cookie, so they probably won’t please traditionalists in your house (they didn’t make D’s eyes light up, that’s for sure) but they’re truly wonderful cookies, best enjoyed under a blanket with a piping hot cup of tea. Many thanks to The Wednesday Chef, where I finally found this much-desired recipe!
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Chocolate Pretzel Success

rivka — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 04:11:00 +0000

A while back, Deb of Smitten Kitchen fame blogged about the shortcomings of Martha Stewart’s chocolate pretzel cookie recipe. “Dry, bland, and not chocolatey enough” and more colorful adjectives described a cocopretzel that just didn’t cut it. She suggested trying to make pretzels out of Dorie Greenspan’s very flavorful and buttery chocolate rollout cookies, which I had been planning to make later that day. I figured what the hell? Chocolate pretzels they would be.

Needless to say, nothing is ever that easy. Dorie’s chocolate rollout cookies are awesome cookies, but they make lousy pretzels. In the oven, they flatten out and spread a bit, losing their pretzel shape, and once cooled, they’ve got the texture of great cookies, not crunchy, crispy pretzels. Pretzels: 1. Rivka: 0.
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Daring Bakers bake Buche de Noel

rivka — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:19:00 +0000

In honor of the holiday season, Daring Bakers’ took on what may be the holy grail of daring recipes: Buche de Noel, or Yule Log. Until Lis and Ivonne charged DBers with making this, I didn’t even know it was a food. See, traditionally, the Yule Log was a large, thick piece of wood burned by Pagans just after winter solstice (which was on Friday), in order to thank their gods for making the days longer and the weather warmer in the months to come. Today, not many people burn Yule Logs, but apparently, loads of people eat them around Christmastime.

Now I’m not one to balk when the going gets tough — but that doesn’t mean I won’t bring in reinforcements. Fortunately for me, my dear friend Dellie was visiting from Boston, so we devoted a few hours one night last week to this undertaking. Boy was I wise — both to set aside lots of time and to enlist a cooking compatriot: Buche is quite the project!(...)
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Holiday Cookies

rivka — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 18:06:00 +0000

With candy canes and sprinkles lining grocery store shelves, holiday season just screams, “sugar cookies!” Around this time each year, I toss aside my fanciest dessert recipes and opt for the more humble sugar cookie instead. Sugar cookies can be enhanced any which way, from flavoring the dough to adding crushed candy to topping with sprinkles and frosting….with so many variations, there’s truly a sugar cookie for everyone.

I made sugar cookies twice this season, both times differently than I have before. When Jackie hosted a cookie-making-and-decorating party (a blast, as you may have guessed), I was introduced to the wonder that is maple extract. It’s not the easiest to find, but I’ll be keeping it close for those times when I’m craving maple flavor, but adding maple syrup would change the texture. Apparently 5 lbs. of cookie dough and lots of intermittent nibbling wasn’t enough for me, so I decided to make another batch at home. For those, I used vanilla extract and just a bit of molasses, which imparted an earthy flavor to otherwise regular sugar cookies. I highly recommend these recipes, and I’ve included both of them below.(...)
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Good ‘Ole Apple Pie

rivka — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:29:00 +0000

Apple Pie has been done, done, and done again. If you skim anyone’s list of cookbooks or blogs, you’ll find infinite declarations of how to make apple pie. Some claim to have the definitive recipe. Since I have never (to the best of my memory) actually made an apple pie, start to finish, from scratch, I’m certainly not going to promise that the results of this first attempt are worth repeating. However, I can say that I learned a great deal, and I’m positive that this post will impart at least one valuable apple-pie baking recipe (which so many others have discovered before I did): apple pies are best with regular top crusts. The lattice doesn’t trap enough of the steam inside, and the apples either don’t cook through, or don’t get coated with that lovely apple pie sludge. Next time, I’ll forgo the beautiful lattice and stick to the easier top crust. Save your lattices for berry pies and other juicy things.

That said, the sludge that this pie produced (in my humble opinion) perfectly balanced sweet and tart. The apples were soft but still toothsome, and the syrup that oozed from each slice was delightful. By the time the pie was actually gone, the dish needed very little scrubbing, as I’d been sneaking fingerfuls of the goo all along.

Here’s the info about my pie, element by element:

The Crust
It’s fashionable to avoid transfats these days. They’re pretty darn bad for you, and you’re definitely better off with butter. Plus, never growing up with much margarine or shortening in the house, they freak me out a bit, and I tend to associate them with spam and other such delicacies. However, Friday night dinner was meat, so I couldn’t use butter in the crust, and frankly, oil is simply an unacceptable substitute in proper pie dough, so I caved and used margarine. I now understand why people use it, scary as it may be: it produces a perfectly flaky dough that’s neither tough or overly dense. I’d say I’d do it again, but I won’t. Hey, it was good while it lasted.

As for the lattice top, it’s really not as complicated to make as it looks. An instructional video can be found here. Basically, the methodology is as follows: cut 16 1/2-inch strips from your second disk of rolled-out dough. Lay eight of them across the pie in one direction, equidistant from each other. Now, fold every other strip back over itself almost all the way, and lay down your first crossing strip. Unfold the folded strips over, and fold the other strips over themselves (that is, every other strip, but the ones that run under the first cross strip). Now, lay the next strip down. Unfold the folded strips, fold the unfolded strips, and lay down the next cross strip. Keep alternating this way until all strips are laid, and you’ll find a perfect lattice crust.

The apples
People are so particular about which apples to use in a pie. These taste better, these hold their shape better, those are just horrible in pies, etc. I say, there’s no such thing as an apple that’s horrible in pies. They’re all pretty darn good. So I picked up the “seconds” at the farmers market: with a couple of bruises here and there, seconds run about 89 cents a pound — not bad for farm-fresh apples. It turns out that I used a mix of braeburn, honeycrisp, jonathan, and jonagold, and I was very pleased. The verdict? Use whatever’s in the fridge. Just stay away from red delicious which taste less-than-wonderful and macintosh, which get kinda mushy.

The add-ins
I’m a big fan of quinces. The little suckers will give you quite a run for your money if you dare try to peel or (gasp!) slice them up, but once chopped, sugared, and cooked, quinces elevate any old apple pie and impart an unparalleled complexity of flavor. Quinces should be sauteed before added to pie, as they take longer to cook than apples (and are quite unpleasant if undercooked). I like to boil them in a very diluted simple syrup with a bit of vanilla and cinnamon.

Basic Flaky Pie Crust
adapted from The Pie and Pastry Bible (© 1998 Cordon Rose, Inc.) by Rose Levy Beranbaum

(Pastry for a 9-inch lattice pie, a 9-inch deep-dish pie, a 10-inch pie shell, or a 12- to 14-inch free-form tart

9 tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine, cold
1 1/2 cups (dip and sweep method) bleached all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 to 4 1/2 tablespoons ice water
1 1/2 teaspoons cider vinegar
1/8 teaspoon baking powder (optional, and I didn’t use it; if not using, double the salt)

Divide the butter into two parts, about two thirds to one third: 6 tablespoons and 3 tablespoons.
Cut the butter into 3/4-inch cubes. Wrap each portion of butter with plastic wrap, refrigerate the larger amount and freeze the smaller for at least 30 minutes. Place the flour, salt, and (optional) baking powder in a reclosable gallon-size freezer bag and freeze for at least 30 minutes.
Place the flour mixture in a food processor with the metal blade and process for a few seconds to combine. Set the bag aside.
Add the larger amount of butter cubes to the flour and process for about 20 seconds or until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the remaining frozen butter cubes and pulse until all of the frozen butter is the size of peas. (Toss with a fork to see it better.)
Add the lowest amount of the ice water and the vinegar and pulse 6 times. Pinch a small amount of the mixture together between your fingers. If it does not hold together, add half the remaining water and pulse 3 times. Try pinching the mixture again. If necessary, add the remaining water, pulsing 3 times to incorporate it. The mixture will be in particles and will not hold together without being pinched.
Spoon the mixture into the plastic bag. (For a double-crust pie, it is easiest to divide the mixture in half at this point.)
Holding both ends of the bag opening with you fingers, knead the mixture by alternately pressing it, from the outside of the bag, with the knuckles and heels of your hands until the mixture holds together in one piece and feels slightly stretchy when pulled.
Wrap the dough with plastic wrap, flatten it into a disc (or discs) and refrigerate for at least 45 minutes, preferably overnight. (For a pie shell and lattice, divide it in a ratio of two thirds:one third — use about 9.5 ounces for the shell and the rest for the lattice, flattening the smaller part into a rectangle.)
Store, refrigerated, up to 2 days; frozen, up to 3 months.
The Pastry Bible’s explanation of what’s goin’ on:
Pastry flour offers the most tenderness while maintaining flakiness, but it is the addition of vinegar that relaxes the dough without losing flakiness, making it easier to roll, shrink less, and be even more tender. The baking powder lifts and aerates the dough slightly without weakening it, but it makes it seem more tender.

Thes secret to success is finely incorporating about two thirds of the butter into the flour, which keeps the flour from absorbing too much water and forming gluten, which would make the crust tough. The remaining one third of the butter is incorporated in larger pieces, which serve to seperate the layers, resulting in the desired flakiness. This pie crust does not shrink or distort as much as the standard all-butter crust because there is less gluten development.

If when adding the water, you find you need more than indicated in the recipe, chances are you haven’t moisture-proofed the flour adequately (you haven’t used the correct amount of butter or processed it fine enough), leaving the flour free to absorb more liquid. The resulting crust will be flakier but less tender.

If you find you need less water than specified in the recipe, chances are you divided the butter incorrectly and used too much of it to moisture-proof the flour, preventing it from absorbing an adequate amount of water. The resulting crust will be more tender but not very flaky.

Flattening the newly formed dough into a disc or discs before refrigerating makes it easier to roll without cracking. The dough is refrigerated to relax the gluten, making it less elastic and easier to roll. Chilling also firms the butter, preventing sticking and the need for extra flour when rolling, which would toughen it. Dough that has rested overnight before baking shrinks less.

Apple Pie adapted from Deb at Smitten Kitchen

3 1/2 lbs apples (about
1 quince
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise, or one dash vanilla
2 cups water and 1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons juice and 1 teaspoon zest from 1 lemon
3/4 cups sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

Over medium heat, combine 2 cups water, 1/4 cup sugar, and vanilla. Stir until sugar dissolves. Peel and chop quince, removing the core. Add sliced quince to simple syrup and cook over medium for about 20 minutes, until quince pieces are soft-ish.
Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat rimmed baking sheet and oven to 500 degrees. Remove one piece of dough from refrigerator (if refrigerated longer than 1 hour, let stand at room temperature until malleable).
Roll dough on lightly floured work surface or between two large sheets of wax paper, to about 1/2-inch thick. Fold dough in half, then over itself again into quarters, and transfer dough to pie plate, placing dough point in center of pie plate and unfolding. Working around circumference of pie plate, ease dough into pan corners by gently lifting dough edges with one hand while pressing around pan bottom with other hand. Leave dough that overhangs lip of plate in place; refrigerate dough-lined pie plate.
Peel, core, and slice apples into about 8 slices each. Toss with lemon juice and zest. In a medium bowl, mix ¾ cup sugar, flour, salt and spices. Toss dry ingredients with apples. Add cooked quinces and toss. Turn fruit mixture, including juices, into chilled pie shell and pile heavily in center.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Roll out second piece of dough to 1/2-inch thick disk. Slice into 16 strips, and follow the instructions above for a lattice top. Alternatively, simply lay the second disk atop the apples in the same manner as you lined the pie plate with the first disk. Trim top and bottom edges to ½-inch beyond pan lip. Tuck this rim of dough underneath itself so that folded edge is flush with pan lip. Flute edging or press with fork tines to seal. For a non-lattice top crust, cut three slits on dough top. If pie dough is very soft, place in freezer for 10 minutes.
Place pie on baking sheet and bake until top crust is golden, about 25 minutes. Rotate pie and reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees; continue baking until juices bubble and crust is deep golden brown, 30-35 minutes longer.
Transfer pie to wire rack; cool to room temperature, at least 4 hours.

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Saffron-Nutmeg Rice Pudding: Sugar High Friday!

rivka — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 01:24:00 +0000

Something has happened. There used to be no stopping me from gravitating straight toward the chocolate. In Baskin Robbins, I had no control over my constant need for chocolate raspberry truffle, and therefore tasted almost no other flavors for about six years. My mom could hide all the candy in the house and I wouldn’t notice, but if chocolate had a hiding place, I could find it in a flash. Lately, my long-standing chocolate obsession has taken a backseat to simpler things. Exhibit A: this little rice pudding number, featured in the latest issue of gourmet. I turned the page to the letters section, noticed the recipe for rice pudding with (gulp) nutmeg as the only flavoring (not even vanilla!) and thought, I. must. make. this. now.

So I did.

Where has all the chocolate gone? No matter. If you make this rice pudding, I guarantee you won’t miss chocolate, no, not one little bit. Nutmeg may sound “simple” when you shake it from the jar into your carrot soup (the subject of a later post…stay tuned!) But when it’s freshly grated, when it stands alone on arborio rice — with just some milk, cream and sugar to pull the pudding together — why, nothing could be more complex.

Nutmeg is a “warm” spice, at once spicy and sweet, with a real bite and a pleasant bitterness that make it irresistible. In the jar, its flavor gets somewhat muted, so grate some from a whole nutmeg whenever possible. I bought 20 whole nutmeg pieces for a buck fifty, so it shouldn’t set you back much, and it’s truly worth it.

Now, I’ll be honest: I didn’t stop at the nutmeg. After all, something as simple as rice pudding provides a golden opportunity to play around. I happened to buy a (relatively) big box of saffron a couple weeks ago, and I’ve been waiting for a chance to use it. What better than a bright yellow, saffron-nutmeg flavored rice pudding? So it was settled.

Aside from the nutmeg, what drew me to this recipe was the stirring — or lack thereof. Typically, rice pudding means hovering over the stove until your back aches, stirring the thing around and around so it doesn’t clump or stick or overcook. Needless to say, it’s a pain. But this recipe was for baked pudding: simply mix the ingredients in the ramekins themselves, stick’em on a baking sheet, and bake’em in the oven for an hour. Let’s face it — not much could be easier. And I’d be surprised if you don’t scrape your bowl clean, as I did. Saffron-Nutmeg Rice Pudding: my entry for this month’s Sugar High Friday.

Saffron-Nutmeg Rice Pudding adapted from this month’s Gourmet
serves 4.

2 cups whole milk
1/3 cup Arborio rice
8 tsp. sugar
salt
whole nutmeg
12 threads saffron
4 Tbsp. heavy cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees, and put rack in the middle. Butter the ramekins.
Add 1/2 cup milk, 4 tsp. rice, 2 tsp. sugar, and a pinch of salt to each ramekin. Grate a bit of nutmeg over each, and put 3 threads of saffron in each. Stir well to combine, and ensure that the spices don’t float, if possible.
Put ramekins in a shallow baking pan and bake until most of the milk is absorbed and the tops are golden-brown, about 1 hour.
A skin will form on each ramekin; remove the skin.
Stir 1 Tbsp. cream into each pudding until creamy. Allow to cool, and if desired, refrigerate 30 minutes until chilled.
Enjoy — don’t forget to scrape your ramekin to the last drop.

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Blueberry Tartlets and Cooking Club #2

rivka — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:14:00 +0000

Sunday night was another installment of “Ladies Who Cook….Sometimes.” This month, the theme was “dishes with color.” My attempt was quite the adventure — but I’ll get to that in a moment.

It was all sorts of wet and ugly outside, and our first course of squash and pear soup was a perfect foil to the cold, rainy weather. Not surprisingly, it was our orange/yellow element. We also had beet salad (purple), shells with light cheese sauce (white), pesto bread (green), cranberry bars (duh), and my creation….blueberry tarts.

Now it’s safe to say that by making blueberry tarts, I was intending to bring something blue. That said, the tart dough came out green, the blueberry mixture was a deep shade of purple, and the whipped cream was…um, periwinkle. If you put them all together and mix them up, they’d probably make blue, though, right?

Anyway, what really matters is how they tasted….and that, my friends, was pretty darned good. Especially considering I made them without ever referencing a recipe, I was pleasantly surprised when I bit into one. The filling was slightly sweet, with still-intact blueberries bound together by a substantive but un-goopy sauce and a hefty dose of brandy. I’d make them again in a flash, if only to do the flambé part again!

I’ve posted the recipe below, as usual, along with two other recipes from last night’s event: cranberry bars and squash-pear soup. If you make any of these, it shouldn’t be tough to draw a hungry crowd.

Brandied Blueberry Tartlets
makes 22 tartlets

Tart Dough (adapted from Tartelette)

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 stick and 1 Tbsp. butter
1 egg yolk
2 drops blue food coloring, if you’re so inclined

Blueberry Filling:

1 pint blueberries, washed and dried
2 1/2 Tbsp. sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp. flour
2 Tbsp. butter
a generous splash (1/4 cup) Brandy

Make Tart Dough:

In food processor, combine butter, flour, and sugar. Blend until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add egg yolk, and pulse until dough comes together. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes, until no longer soft.
Unwrap chilled dough and hit a couple times with a rolling pin to soften. Take thumb-sized pieces and press them into tartlet molds. Using your thumb and forefinger, press the dough up the sides of the molds.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Now, make the blueberry mixture: In a shallow pan, combine butter and flour to make a roux (melt the butter and stir it around in the flour; this will thicken the blueberries). Add blueberries, and toss to coat. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Now, add brandy, all at once. At this point, you can either: a) shake the pan around over a gas flame until the flame licks the edge of your pan and the brandy catches on fire, or b)take a match to the brandy and let it burn, baby!
Once the flame has burned off all the alcohol in your brandy the blueberry mixture should be well emulsified and ready to use. Turn off the stove.
Anchor the tartlet shells by piercing them a couple times each with a toothpick. This should prevent them from puffing up. Pre-bake the shells for 10 minutes, or until golden.
Meanwhile, whip your cream (and add some blue food coloring if you want to be wacky).
Fill baked shells with blueberry filling, and top with whipped cream. Don’t get them all over your face, now!

Cranberry Bars from Sara Rahnama

Makes 12-18 bars
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 cups whole wheat all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar
3 cups fresh cranberries
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp lemon zest
Confectioners sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.
Line a 9-inch square baking pan with parchment paper, leaving anoverhang.
Blend butter, flour, salt, and 1/2 cup sugar in a foodprocessor until mixture begins to clump together. If the mixture is toodry, add up to 1 tbsp cold water. Press into bottom of pan.
Bake until pale golden and sides begin to pull away from pan, 25 to 30 minutes.
While crust is baking, cook cranberries, remaining 2/3 cupsugar, lemon zest, and water in a 2-quart heavy saucepan over mediumheat, stirring occasionally, until berries burst, 6 to 8 minutes.
Pour cranberries over crust and bake until edge is golden, about 25minutes.
When the bars have cooled completely, sift confectioners sugarover top. Lift out of pan using overhang and cut into squares.

Butternut Squash Pear Soup From Joey Loewenstein
(from Noteworthy Two, A New Recipe Collection from the Ravinia Festival)
Serves 6-8

1 and ½ quarts chicken broth
2 and ½ pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, in 2-inch pieces
3 ripe pears, peeled, cored, quartered
1 large onion, chopped
2 medium shallots, peeled, chopped
½ t. nutmeg
½ c. half and half
salt and pepper to taste
6-8 T. sour cream, optional
1-2 t. cinnamon, optional

In large pot, heat chicken broth. (We used vegetable broth and it worked great….so for all you kosher folks out there, vegetable broth works just fine!)
Add squash, pears, onion, shallots,and nutmeg. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes or untiltender.
In food processor, puree mixture in small batches (OR, BETTER YET, GET A HAND BLENDER. TOOK ME 2 MINUTES! CAREFUL, THOUGH, NOT TOSPLASH! TURN THE BLENDER ON AFTER YOU PUT IT INTO THE MIXTURE).
Return to pot, stir in half & half, salt & pepper. Cook over low heat untilhot. Serve with dollop of sour cream and sprinkle of cinnamon.

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A Brittle Perfect for Fall

rivka — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:29:00 +0000

When a blogger-hero of mine, Danielle from Habeas Brulee, posted a while back about pumpkin seed cocoa nib brittle, I knew I’d be making it sooner or later. For starters, the recipe is uber-simple. Just combine sugar and water with a bit of cream of tartar, heat ‘em up, let them turn golden, add the rest of the ingredients, and pour out onto a sheet of silpat (or, in my case, parchment paper) in a thin layer. The hardest part of the recipe is waiting for the brittle to harden before digging in.

Even if it weren’t easy, this brittle would be worth making. The sheer fact that it contains cocoa nibs makes it absolutely to die for. Cocoa nibs are raw, unsweetened cocoa beans in little bits that are perfect for everything — including noshing.

In my experience, brittles made of just water and sugar (without butter or milk) are a bit too sugary for me. That’s why I decided to add some dried black currants, those perfectly tart berries with quite a bit of zing. In keeping with the other proportions, I added 1/4 cup. I really enjoyed their tartness, and they cut the sweetness exactly as I’d hoped.

I also happened to have some already-roasted squash seeds, which had some sugar, salt, cayenne and cinnamon on them. They were perfect for this brittle, and I actually added a pinch of salt as well. It’s still super-sweet, and Danielle’s right — it would be perfect atop a cheesecake or some other less-sweet dessert. That said, this is one classic fall treat you’ll be sorry to miss.

Squash Seed Cocoa Nib Black Currant Brittle originally at Habeas Brulee
(adapted from Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate</a> by Robert Steinberg and John Scharffenberger)
1/4 cup raw green pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup cocoa nibs
1/4 cup black currants (can sub other dried berries)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
a pinch of salt
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
A pinch of cayenne

Toast the pumpkin seeds in a dry pan over medium heat, shaking very frequently, until they begin to pop. Set them aside to cool.

Set up a baking sheet covered with a Silpat or piece of parchment paper (something non-stick and flexible).

Bring the sugar, water, and cream of tartar to a simmer together in a small saucepan. Continue to simmer until it starts to develop a nice light caramel color that appeals best to you. Stir in the other ingredients, then quickly pour it all out onto the baking sheet and spread it thin as you can with a silicone spatula or wooden spoon.

Let it cool and harden before breaking off pieces to serve and devour.

Or you can just play with the sugar while you wait….

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Chocolate Souffle, much improved!

rivka — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:49:00 +0000

Ghirardelli in the double boiler, egg whites in the mixer, and D asking for Duncan Hines yellow cake to no avail…it all can only mean one thing: chocolate soufflé. That’s right folks, I’m at it again.

Major differences between my first attempt and this recipe were the amounts of egg whites, milk, cream, and chocolate. Specifically: for the same amounts of butter, sugar, and egg yolks, recipe 2 had half the cornstarch, double the egg whites, 3x the chocolate, no cream, and 5x the whole milk instead. Yes, obviously the more chocolate, the better; but I’d also guesstimate that less cornstarch means less cake-y; more egg whites means lighter; more whole milk and less cream, again, lighter. In short, this is the kind of soufflé I’ve been craving all along. And hey, it only took one mess-up to hit the jackpot!

I was a bit concerned that when I was ready to fold in the egg whites, the chocolate mixture was still warm. (If you add egg whites to a warm batter, the air that you’ve whipped into the whites can quickly escape, leaving you with flat, heavy batter.) However, my fears did not materialize, and the soufflé held its volume quite nicely. The result was light, fluffy, warm, and ever so sinfully chocolate-y. So to all those who think souffle is this uber-delicate little gem never to be tampered with, ha! It can handle the heat.

Truthfully, people. There’s almost nothing like taking the first bite out of a chocolate soufflé and watching the rest “relax” in the ramekin. Try it yourself; it’s not as hard and scary as you might think. And, if it’s not clear from my enthusiasm, the results are worth one or two mess-ups.

Chocolate Souffle

from Epicurious

serves 6.

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
10 1/2 ounces (10 squares) extra-bittersweet chocolate
1 1/3 cups whole milk
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 large egg yolks, room temperature, lightly beaten
6 large egg whites, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar; more for soufflé ramekins

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Butter and sugar six 6-ounce soufflé ramekins. Place on a rimmed baking sheet; set aside.

2. In a double boiler over medium heat, melt the chocolate until smooth. Remove from the heat and keep warm. (I found I had to stir it around with a fork every so often to keep it from getting chunky, but that will depend on your chocolate. The higher percentage of cocoa, the more you may need to stir.)

3. In a medium heavy-bottom saucepan combine milk and cornstarch. Stir well with a wooden spoon to combine. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring continuously, until thick.

4. Remove milk mixture from the heat, remove any skin that may have formed on top, and stir in warm melted chocolate. Let cool slightly. Add a bit of this mixture to the egg yolks to temper them, then add the lightly beaten egg yolks back into the milk mixture and stir until well combined.

5. In the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer, whip egg whites on medium speed until soft peaks form. Slowly add sugar and increase speed to high. Whip until shiny and stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes.

6. Using a whisk, lighten the chocolate mixture with about 1/3 of the beaten egg whites. Stir until well-combined. Using a large rubber spatula, fold in remaining egg whites until just incorporated.

7. Spoon mixture into prepared souffl  ramekins; the mixture should come up to the top of the ramekin. Transfer filled soufflé ramekins on rimmed baking sheet to oven. Bake until risen, 12 to 15 minutes. Serve immediately.

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My quest for the perfect chocolate souffle

rivka — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 02:06:00 +0000

Three months of blogging and I actually have managed to not write about chocolate. It’s really an embarrassment. Rarely does a day go by when I don’t eat the stuff; how have I not blogged about a chocolate recipe yet??

Time to solve that.

Chocolate Souffle may be light and fluffy, but it’s one of the richest ways to have your chocolate. When done properly, a delicate crust gives way to light but shockingly-rich innards, which deflate and melt on your tongue. Even better is when it’s cut with straight cream at the table…ok, drooling.

I’ll sing the praises of chocolate souffle forever, but finding the perfect recipe is proving to be a challenge. That’s why this is the first in a series of posts, in which I’ll try various recipes for chocolate souffle, rate them, and (hopefully) find or develop a foolproof recipe.

Recipe 1 comes from one of my favorite bloggers, Bea at La Tartine Gourmande. Her version calls for infusing the milk with fresh cardamom pods, which I love but don’t have around the house, so I left them out. Here’s the rundown:

Pros

the batter had a nice, light texture that stood up to a bit of over-mixing
the 20-25 minute cooking time was exactly right
the recipe called for equal numbers of yolks and whites, which means no egg-parts sitting in the fridge and a very happy Rivka

Cons

mine didn’t rise to the heights that Bea’s did. Who wants pouting souffles?
I used more chocolate than Bea called for, and my souffles were simply not chocolate-y enough. More chocolate more chocolate!

The search continues…

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Lemon curd raspberry tartlets

rivka — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:20:00 +0000

It is super-duper chilly this morning and fall is finally setting in. Crisp air in my face and the crunch of leaves beneath my feet give me a serious hankering for some pumpkin soup!

But this post is about tartlets.

Everyone makes muffins; nobody makes tartlets. Yes, they’re not as quick and easy to make as muffins are, but they’re so much cuter and (IMHO) more delicious. Can’t compare muffins and tartlets? Yes, yes I can. I just did! Tartlets > Muffins. Make some tartlets!

Here’s the good thing about the tartlets I make: they’re delicious. Ok, just kidding — they’re also not as time-consuming because the steps overlap with each other, as follows:

make the dough (about 5 minutes in a food processor)
make the filling while you refrigerate the dough
make and bake the tartlet crusts while you refrigerate the filling
let the tartlet crusts cool while you get the filling ready to pipe
fill tartlets and serve

See? Not so bad.

And the lemon curd filling is really not too hard to make. It does involve some pot-watching and some vigorous whisking, but it’s worth the effort; whatever extra filling you have after finishing the tartlets is wonderful eaten out of the bowl, just so.

Today’s post is about the lemon tartlet in the background of the picture above; the tartlet in the front of the picture is a posting for another day.

Lemon Curd-raspberry tartlets
makes about 25 tartlets.

Tart Crust: taken from Tartelette
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 stick plus 1 Tbsp unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
1 egg yolk

Blend dry ingredients with a hand or stand mixer. Add butter and blend until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add egg yolk; blend until dough comes together. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate while preparing ingredients for the tart.

While the dough refrigerates, prepare the curd:

zest of 2 lemons
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs

1. Bring the zest, lemon juice and sugar to a simmer in a small saucepan.
2. Meanwhile, beat the 2 eggs until light.
3. When all the sugar has dissolved, add some of the hot lemon juice mixture to the eggs by the spoonful while beating the eggs, to temper them (in order to ensure that they don’t get scrambled.)
4. After you’ve added about 10-15 spoonfuls of the hot liquid and successfully incorporated it, pour the egg mixture into the saucepan with the rest of the lemon juice mixture, and bring to a simmer (not a boil) over medium heat until it thickens, about 5 minutes.
5. Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate until cooled completely, at least 1 – 1.5 hrs.

Back to the tarts…

After about half and hour, the tart dough should be just chilled enough that it can be worked with, but will not disintigrate. Take a walnut-sized piece of the dough in your hand, roll it gently into a ball, and, using your thumb, press it into a tartlet mold (in my case, I have a tartlet pan wth 24 molds). Try to ensure that the dough is spread evenly throughout the mold. This will make for even baking.
“Dock” the dough by spearing each tartlet a couple times with a fork – this ensures that they’ll keep their shape as they cook. Bake the empty tarts in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes, until golden.

Assembly:

Scoop cooled lemon curd into a plastic bag, and cut off the very tip of the bag. Hold the bag just above the inside center of a tartlet, and squeeze, raising the bag as the tartlet fills. Repeat for each tartlet.

Top with either fresh raspberries or (as I did) frozen raspberries that I cooked down with a bit of sugar.

Enjoy!

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Pumpkin-Chocolate Chip Ring

rivka — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:15:00 +0000

On Sunday, D and I are hosting thirty-ish people for a housewarming. Our freezer is full to the top spinach-feta filo pies, tartlets and muffins, all shaped like my one tartlet pan. I’m making a meringue pavlova tomorrow, but I wanted another dessert, and I can’t make any more tartlet-shaped things or my house will become one big tartlet. Enter David Lebovitz — acclaimed chef, lucky Parisian, and expert food blogger. His pumpkin-chocolate chip ring recipe looked tasty, but I had no applesauce or orange juice in my fridge. I did, however, have some homemade yogurt (thanks to my new Salton yogurt maker). So I took David’s recipe and messed around with it a little, substituting yogurt for the applesauce and orange juice, altering some other proportions slightly, and doubling the recipe. I also added some toffee bits, which practically melt into the cake while it bakes. The result is an incredibly light yet moist cake that tastes rich with pumpkin and chocolate but won’t break your calorie bank. I’ll most definitely be making this again.

Here’s my one confession about the recipe: David Lebovitz is a professional. He used to be the pastry chef at The French Laundry, an acclaimed restaurant, and has written several fantastic cookbooks (including The Perfect Scoop, which has the best ice cream recipes EVER.) The point is, being a pastry chef means that he’s very precise in his instructions, and I’m sure he’s right that following those instructions will yield a better, lighter cake. having said that, I didn’t follow any of his instructions (see all my asterisked notes throughout) and my cake came out fine. Do as you please….but I’m telling you, my “wrong” way works, too.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Ring
adapted from David Lebovitz.
serves 10-12

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/3 cup chocolate chips

1 1/3 cups canned pumpkin
2 cups plain yogurt or sour cream
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoons vanilla

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees.
2. Mix together dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside.
3. In another bowl, mix together the wet ingredients and blend with a mixer on high until frothy, 1-2 minutes.*
4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients. Stir together JUST UNTIL MIXED and add the chocolate chips. DO NOT OVERMIX.**
5. Grease a non-stick ring pan. If using a regular ring pan, grease and flour to ensure that the cake comes out cleanly. Spread the batter into the pan (and as usual, other pans will work — the ring does look pretty, though.) David says “spread using a gentle touch.”
6. Bake until top of the cake springs back when touched, about 40-42 minutes depending on your oven. DO NOT OVERBAKE.
7. Let cool on a wire cake rack, then invert. Let cool completely, then sprinkle with powdered sugar.
*I didn’t use a hand mixer — I just whisked the wet ingredients with a fork for a minute or two, until well mixed and light.
** I committed the sin of adding dry to wet — and my cake still came out light and fluffy.

**Note: I’ve gotten a couple questions about how to make this pareve (non-dairy). The answer: subsitute David Lebovitz’s wet ingredients for mine:

1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon canned pumpkin
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
grated zest of 1 orange
1/4 cup fresh orange juice or water
3 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg 1
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

The instructions in this recipe are the same for a pareve version of this cake, as they’re mostly taken from Monsieur Lebovitz himself.

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Not Derby Pie (revised, with recipe!)

rivka — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:20:00 +0000

One Friday night many years ago, this dish landed on my dining room table. Being the ever-obnoxious 9-year-old that I was, I immediately spat, “what’s that?”
“Not Derby Pie.”
“Not Derby Pie?”
“yep.”
“Well if it’s not Derby Pie, then what is it?” and, after a moment’s hesitation, “what is Derby Pie, anyway?”
My mother laughed, as she often does — then told me to just try it already.

The backstory: Derby Pie® is the exclusive product (and name) of Kern’s Kitchen. According to their website, “Derby Pie® was born nearly a half century ago as the specialty pastry of the Melrose Inn, at Prospect, Kentucky. Once developed, a proper name had to be given. Because each family member had a favorite, the name DERBY-PIE® was actually pulled from a hat.” While I’ve never had the original, the concept of the pie is genius. A deep-dish pie shell is sprinkled generously with chocolate chips, then loaded to the top with nutty nougat filling and baked just until set. What more can a pie-lover want?

In 1982, in an article by Phyllis Richman profiling Kern’s Kitchen, The Washington Post featured a recipe for Not Derby Pie. My mom took hold of this recipe and never let go — she made it very often and it was an instant hit among friends. Admittedly, I was a nut-hater at the time, and the pie didn’t much strike my fancy. I did, however, manage to eat the entire bottom layer of two slices and pick through the nougat a bit before calling it quits. Once I discovered how fantastic nuts are, this pie quickly climbed high on my favorites list. It’s one of my go-to recipes for Friday night dinner parties, and an unfailing success.

Not Derby Pie (adapted from the Washington Post)
serves 8-10.

1 pie crust or graham cracker crust
1 stick margarine or butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup flour
1 cup chopped or ground walnuts
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Combine sugar, eggs, vanilla, and flour; mix until ingredients are incorporated.

2. Melt butter, and allow it to cool a bit; pour butter into mixed ingredients very slowly. Mix to combine. Add nuts and stir just until incorporated.

3. Sprinkle chips into the bottom of the pie crust. Pour mixture over.

Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour.

…really, that’s it.

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The easiest cake ever

rivka — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:27:00 +0000

Many thanks to Elena, who gave this recipe to my mom, who practically forced me to make it. This cake is deceiving: its ingredient list and instructions are so short and sweet, you could make it blindfolded. But don’t let the ease deceive you; this cake is definitely better than the sum of its parts. Throw the ingredients in a bowl, mix (by hand!), chop the fruit, throw it all into a springform (or regular pan), bake, and voila, a perfect dessert is yours.

Make sure your fruit are ripe; this will really add to the overall flavor and moistness of the cake. Also, as this recipe is so darn basic, feel free to improvise! Here are my favorite variations:

-pears, lots and lots of pears
-plums and peaches
-blueberries and pears
-raspberries
-raspberries and peaches

You get the drift — do whatever you like. One last note: I tend to arrange sliced fruit on the bottom of the springform, so that when I turn the cooled cake onto a serving platter, the bottom (now the top) looks pretty. This is entirely optional. In fact, I didn’t do it this time because my pears were very ripe, and too delicate to mess around with. If you’re using a regular, non-springform pan, you can do as my mother does, and arrange fruit on top of the batter. They will sink in a little as the cake bakes, but you’ll still be able to see them.

The Easiest Cake Ever
serves 8-12.

1 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tspoon baking powder
1 tspoon vanilla
zest of 1 lemon
3 cups of fruit, any variety, but soft and juicy!

Combine all the above ingredients, reserving 1 cup of the sliced fruit.

Grease and flour a 9″ round or rectangular baking pan or springform pan.

At this point, EITHER:
1) pour in batter and add the last cup of fruit on top OR
2) arrange the remaining sliced fruit in spiral design in the springform, and pour batter overtop.

I sometimes sprinkle a bit of sugar ontop for a crunchy crust.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

I often serve this cake with a fruit sauce or reduction; it’s pictured here with quince sauce, and I’ll post that recipe soon.

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Strawberry Rhubarb Tart with Almond Streusel

rivka — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:11:00 +0000

Rhubarb is finally, finally in season … it’s about time.

It has the perfect sweet-tart flavor that complements the summer’s last strawberries and pairs perfectly with many fall foods. If you can’t spot rhubarb in a crowd, think “sweet, red celery.” That’s what rhubarb looks like. It’s incredibly versatile; I use it most frequently to make sauce, jam, cake, crumble, and pie.

When I got my CSA box this past week, I was pleasantly surprised to find rhubarb among the contents. I later realized that this was because I had ordered rhubarb, then forgotten about it…but still, what a pleasant surprise! I’m entertaining this weekend, and rhubarb is a great place to start.

I promise to post more rhubarb recipes as more of it pops up in my CSA box. For now, this tart is a riff on my usual strawberry rhubarb pie recipe. Unlike pie crust, tart crust is sweet and less crumbly. While my pies usually have a lattice or crumble top, this tart is open-faced, garnished with a simple almond streusel. I do enjoy a good lattice crust, but this tart is an opportunity to show off your fruit-arranging skills. What? Yes, your fruit-arranging skills.

Strawberry Rhubarb Tart with Almond Streusel
serves 8.

Tart Crust: taken from Tartelette

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 stick plus 1 Tbsp unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
1 egg yolk

After about half and hour, the tart dough should be just chilled enough that it rolls nicely. Place dough between two sheets of plastic wrap and roll out into a circle slightly larger than the size of your tart pan. (I use a round fluted tart pan, but any shallow baking pan will do.) Peel off the top layer of plastic wrap. Hold the dough from the layer of plastic wrap beneath, and carefully turn onto your pan. Once your dough is on the pan, remove the top layer of plastic and start fitting your dough to your pan, pushing it delicately into the crevaces and corners without changing the thickness of the dough too much. trim the ends, and make a decorative outer lip if you desire.

“Dock” your dough to the pan by spearing it with a fork in several spots, and bake for 10-15 minutes at 350. This will ensure that the crust holding the (liquidy) ingredients will still taste flaky, and not mushy.

Filling:

3 stalks rhubarb, cleaned and cut into 4-inch-long slices
1 piece of the rhubarb thinly sliced (for the tart’s center)
about 12 nice strawberries, cleaned
1/2 cup granulated sugar, more for dusting
1 tsp. cinnamon
grated zest of one orange
powdered sugar for dusting, optional

Mix sugar, zest, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Set aside.

Put your rhubarb into the bottom of the pre-baked tart crust as spokes of a wheel, with their tips touching at the center. You’ll find that the center will have an empty circle, where all the tips of the rhubarb slices meet. I usually fill this with thinly sliced rhubarb and sugar, as in the pic below.

Slice strawberries one at a time, and arrange, fanned out, between the rhubarb slices. Sprinkle the whole thing with the sugar mixture.

Streusel:

1 cup sliced almonds (I prefer toasted but raw is fine too)
1/2 cup light brown sugar
pinch salt
half a stick of butter
1-2 Tbsp. flour

Bring butter to a simmer in a small sauce pan until it melts and starts to turn golden. Add sugar and let it dissolve completely. When mixture has no remaining sugar granules, add almonds, make sure heat is on low-med, and stir. When almonds are fully coated, add 1 tbsp. of the flour and stir. the mixture should turn cloudy, and thicken. if mixture isn’t thick and goopy, add the second Tbsp. Stir. When mixture starts to clump, remove from the heat and allow to cool. When it’s cool, break it up with your fingers and sprinkle it on top of the tart.

Bake the tart at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until rhubarb is soft and has released some of its natural juices.

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"Île flottante" or Floating Islands

rivka — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:55:00 +0000

I first encountered floating islands at Le Petit Vatel, a quaint little bistro in Paris. is a light and delicate dessert that charmed me as soon as I saw it sailing toward the table. It starts with crème anglaise, a light, vanilla-scented custard. Poached meringue floats on the crème anglaise, and the whole thing is topped with toasted almonds and warm caramel.

The dish is shockingly easy to make; all in all, I used one small pot, one shallow dish, one slotted spoon and one fork. In typical Rivka form, I got sucked into whatever D was watching on TV and totally burned my caramel. As a last-minute substitute, I drizzled a bit of buckwheat honey on top. Most would say that the buckwheat overpowers the delicate vanilla notes. But hey, my palate simply isn’t that refined. I thought it tasted darned good. Let this be a lesson to those who are easily intimidated by scary-looking recipes: this one is REALLY not hard! please, I implore you, try it. Try it, please.

It’s a simple job, and it’s sure to impress your guests. Mine spend at least five minutes staring suspiciously at me and at their ramekins, finding it hard to believe that they were meant to eat these little balancing acts. I’ll certainly be making these again.

“Île flottante” or Floating Islands
serves 6

crème anglaise: Meringue:
2 cups milk 2 cups milk
4 egg yolks 4 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Honey of any variety, or caramel.

Crème Anglaise:
Put the milk and the vanilla in a pot, and bring just to a boil. Meanwhile, mix the eggs and sugar until they combine and the sugar dissolves.
When the milk is ready, remove from the heat and add, by the spoonful, to the egg mixture, beating rapidly all the while. This is to “temper” the eggs: if you add them to the milk mixture all at once, little bits of egg will cook. This way, the egg mixture is slowly brought up to the heat of the milk.
Gradually add the milk until it has all been added to the egg, and continue to beat briskly. When all has been added, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour.

Meringue:
Bring the milk to a simmer in that same pot (rinsed out) on low heat. Meanwhile, whip egg whites with an electric hand or stand mixer until they form stiff peaks. Add sugar by the spoonful until all has been added and meringue has thickened and is shiny. By now, milk should be hot. Scoop meringue by the spoonful carefully into the milk; allow it to poach one minute; flip, and leave one minute more. With a slotted spoon, remove meringue and put into a shallow dish that can accommodate all the pieces. Do not stack on top of each other. When all meringue has been poached, cover the dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

To assemble:

Divide crème anglaise among 6 cocktail glasses, small bowls or ramekins. Top each with a piece of meringue. Sprinkle toasted almonds over meringue, and drizzle with honey. ENJOY!

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