sugar apricots

I came back with a bunch of Turkish sugar apricots from my latest grocery expedition. They looked so cute and delicious, and they’re quite a bit smaller than regular apricots. And yes, they live up to the expectation of the name – they really are sweeter.

So what to make with them? This nectarine galette came immediately to my mind – rustic and flaky, and perfect for fresh seasonal fruit. It’s easy enough to make – I used a bit too much water while bringing the dough together, so it was a bit sticky, but sticking it in the fridge helped . I forgot to take it out in time to roll it out, and since I didn’t want a finished tart that was done around 11pm, I placed the rolled out dough in the freezer, just long enough for the dough to firm up, but not long enough to freeze. If you’re doing the same thing, make sure you check on your dough frequently and that you don’t get side tracked, otherwise you have a frozen dough with lovely cracks. Which defeats the whole no-tear concept and the juices will run out.

I used up every single apricot – sadness, since I wanted to eat at least one. But it sure did look pretty, with all those apricots arranged. I placed the tart on a pizza stone, which was great, and the tart came out really nicely. It’s easy peasey to make (God, I sound like one of those Food Network Chefs – I can’t remember who says that), and the crust is lovely and flaky and delicious. I made one with plums, and it’s just as good.

apricot tart, plum tart – baked on a pizza stone

The idea is good, but…

Sometimes an idea is better than the result. Such as in this case. I thought that brownies in a mini-muffin pan = perfect Toddler distraction technique. My nephew is a chocaholic, so instead of making a chocolate cake, I sold him on making chocolate ‘cupcakes.’ The recipe mentions that Deb from Smitten Kitchen had made them as mini cupcakes – the perfect small serving, especially for a toddler. I figured that he’d probably ask for frosting, but I think adding a chocolate ganache would be overkill. These brownies are decadent enough as it is.

The specific recipe is the ‘outrageous brownies‘ recipe – very yummy, and very chocolatey. But I do have to say that while delicious, I wasn’t that knocked off my feet. Then again I did modify the recipe. When I saw that 1 lb of butter would be required, I figured that the butter and chocolate content is the outrageous part. I mean really, 1 lb of butter? I can hear my arteries – and my stomach – groaning. Not to mention toddler teeth, which are hard enough to brush: “No! I want to do it myself” – which means lots of toothpaste eating with little brushing. Ah, the (nighttime) power struggles.

Back to the recipe. I had only half the amount of chocolate chips required in the recipe. But I did have a batch of chocolate truffles that had an unfortunate encounter with sunlight, resulting in a truffly mass. I figured that using that would approximately amount for butter and chocolate in the recipe. So instead I only used 8 ounces of butter (which is still plenty) and a bag of chocolate chips, which I melted together in a microwave. A double boiler is just too dangerous when you have a toddler stranding beside you who wants to help and stir every step of the way. Normally chocolate easily burns if you heat too long in the microwave, resulting in rather charred chocolate rather than a delicious chocolatey goo. But melting both butter and chocolate together seemed to do the trick. Then I softened the truffle mass in the microwave and added it. I didn’t include the 6 oz of unsweetened chocolate.

If I’m baking on my own, I don’t really mind multiple bowls. But with mister “dump it into the bowl?” assisting, I decided to add the eggs directly to the chocolate mix. I have to say though that by the time I added the eggs the mixture was still liquid, but only room temperature. No chance of chocolatey scrambled eggs. I used a lot less sugar, maybe 1/3 of a cup since the truffles were plenty sweet. I also omitted the coffee – I really don’t need a hyper toddler running around. He’s already energetic enough. I used baking soda instead of baking powder and left out the walnuts.

I baked the brownies in a mini muffin pan – and I ended up with 40(!!!) brownies. I should have stuck with my original plan of halving the recipe. And it was a good reminder that baking basically is about chemistry – if you mess too much with the recipe, you’re also messing with the proportions. There should sign for bakers saying: “Mess with the proportions at your own risk.”

Still, the brownies are delicious, but they didn’t meet my expectations. They aren’t the best brownies ever. They’re probably a lot better when the proportions are right, but really, 1 lb of butter? There are other great recipes out there. I’m going to have to try out a few other recipes on my hunt for the best brownie. Only my waistline will be complaining.

Failure. Tasty, tasty failure.

Last time we had blackberries, I’d planned to make these blueberry muffins, substituting blackberries for blueberries. But my berries were a bit smushy, so I wasn’t sure how they’d hold up in the muffins. So instead I made blackberry butter bettys, with blackberries rather than strawberries (obviously). I had too much filling, so I quickly made a few more toast pieces brushed with regular butter (I’d used up all my brown butter), filled all the little tarts, and popped them in the oven. Btw, if you’re using other fruit that you’re not cutting into pieces, make sure you make less of the crumb filling – the filling sticks to the cut sides of the fruit, but if you’re using whole berries or other whole fruit, they won’t really stick, so use less crumbs. Or you could sprinkle them over some yoghurt with fruit. Or make sweet dumplings and coat them with the crumb mixture.

The blackberry bettys were so delicious that I scalded my mouth a bit while trying eat them while fresh out of the oven. (Note to self – baked fruit can get really really hot). I did eat one with a dollop of creme fraiche, which was an excellent serving suggestions. The blackberry brown bettys were polished off so quickly, I’ll have to make them again. Plus, they’re an excellent last minute dessert – you just need some toast and some fruit, some pantry staples, and you can easily toss this together. I bet the betties would be great with apples, too – a quick non-pie apple dessert.

Blackberry sinkhole

Back to the topic on hand. We were invited to our friends’ place for a birthday party/barbecue/cookout (remember my post on the birthday dress and apron), and they have cherry trees, red currant bushes, a gooseberry bush, apple trees and a lovely lovely blackberry hedge. What’s better than eating sun-warmed berries directly from the bush? We went blackberry picking together and a took a portion home to eat with yoghurt for breakfast. I couldn’t finish up all the blackberries and so here was my chance to try and make those muffins. For breakfast. Yum!

I started mixing the butter and the sugar and started whipping them up. In the meantime, I measured the flour, got my other ingredients ready, and went to get out my eggs. But – no eggs. They were all gone. Even though there were still 2 left the day before. Someone – you know who you are – was my saboteur and didn’t tell me they’d eaten my eggs. If I’d known that I didn’t have eggs, I wouldn’t have started making the muffins. And I didn’t have any of the common egg substitutions on hand – no tofu, no smushed bananas, no egg substitute. I did have homemade apple sauce that a friend had made, but when I opened the bottle, the apple sauced started foaming. Not a good sign. It probably wasn’t conserved properly. So no apple sauce available. I guess I could have tried soaked flax seed as a substitute but I just couldn’t imagine it.

Then I started searching for recipes of muffins where the butter sugar mix would fit ingredient-wise – btw, I’d already buttered the pan. I also wanted a recipe where I could use my blackberries. I finally found a recipe for black-bottomed cupcakes. They called for a cream cheese filling with chocolate pieces – yum! – and though I didn’t have any cream cheese, I figured I could try and mix up a filling out of blackberries, yoghurt and bread crumbs that could kind of work.

I had to do some math to figure out all my substitutions – I didn’t have enough brown sugar, I added some oil to the butter (and had to do some match to figure out the additional moisture requirement), and left out the cocoa powder. I had some doubts if all the recipe would work out with my modifications, but hey, I figured it would be worth the experiment. I added my ‘filling’ and, taking care not to overfill the forms, I sent them off into the oven.

Well, I’d overfilled the muffin forms. I got quite a bit of muffin top (which btw tasted delicious). And then I tried to get a muffin out of the form. Which I’d made sure to butter beforehand – but failed to put in cupcake liners since I didn’t have any. Clearly I need to stock up my pantry, because I seem to need to replenish my staples. Anyway, the cupcakes refused to leave their forms. No amount of loosening along the edges and careful prodding with the spoon got them out of their form. Finally I ended up spooning pieces out and eating them right then and there.

As you can see, I had some ‘release’ problems

Since I couldn’t get them out of their form, you get a photograph of them pre-’release.’ The berry filling made for a sunken filling – but also tasty. Overall, the muffins were soooooo delicious. They were a bit more cakey, which probably was part of the problem with them sticking. This is a recipe worth tweaking I bet I can ultimately get some awesome blackberry muffins out of this. Ultimately, this experiment was a failure. But a very very tasty failure. And it was a good reminder that baking is really about chemistry, about proper proportions, and that you just can’t substitute all over the place.

Or, I could just try and make these lemon ricotta blackberry muffins instead. Don’t they look delicious?

Got the blueberry blues

Picking your own blueberries. Picking them from a bush in a field that has been bathing in sunshine so that the blueberries are lovely and warm from all that sunshine. Eating fresh and sweet blueberries directly from the bush. Eating as many blueberries as you’re collecting in your basket. Mmmmmmm.

It’s berry season! That means it’s time to make all kinds of berry-licious things – cakes, tarts, muffins, jams, syrup, cobblers, crumbles, pies, waffles, salads and breads. I think I’ve listed all the possibilities but let me know if I’ve forgotten anything. Anyway, time to get picking. And whatever doesn’t get used up you can freeze easily.

I’ve added blueberries to salads before but I haven’t really found a recipe that has wowed me. My favorite thing to make out of blueberries is cake. Ok, cake and jam. But really, cake is a the god of desserts. And blueberries fit in perfectly.

lime yogurt cake sans blueberry sauce

I made a blueberry sauce to go with this delicious yogurt cake. It was pretty tasty so I didn’t get any pictures of the sauce before we ate it. The original sauce recipe called for blackberries, but I didn’t have any, and so I substituted blueberries. In retrospect I think I should have left out the water, or used a tablespoon at the max. I strained the sauce through a sieve but I should have used an even finer mesh sieve or a piece of muslin instead. As for the cake, it was very yummy. At least I thought so, even the rest of them weren’t wowed by it. Philistines. Oh, and I only had a smaller cake pan so I had a rather tall cake. Which meant that there wasn’t as much of the crust left which was unfortunate since that was the best part.

The blueberries really make the cake

Then there’s this cake. Well, boy bait. Yes, you’re probably wondering why it’s named that. I have no idea. Actually, some quick googling yielded this answer from Samantha’s Bread and Butter: “Blueberry Boy Bait is a buttery, thin, blueberry cake. It is said the name of this man-luring dessert was coined by a young girl in 1954 after she stole the show in a junior Pillsbury Bake-Off. She named this dessert “Blueberry Boy Bait” because of the effect it had on boys.” Ha, a boy luring cake. How awesome. It really was very tasty – see, I didn’t even take any pictures until this cake was almost all gobbled up. I can also imagine a raspberry or blackberry version. And if you really want to splurge you could always a add a bit of a mix of yogurt and whipped cream or creme fraiche as a topping/side with the boy bait.

Blueberries are easily suited to porridge, especially steel-cut porridge, or to a quick dessert. This one was a quick, last-minute dessert made of a mix of ricotta, blueberries, and a mix of frozen berries, plus a bit of whipped cream on the side.

Blue(s)berry Dessert

I remember Mom making a blueberry cake when I was little. She was making it for guests, and the dough was just too moist so she added some semolina to the dough. The finished cake was so delicious, but she doesn’t remember the proportions since she was fudging it. But here is another cake recipe that sounds really interesting. A moist blueberry cake with light lemon icing from I adore food. It uses a lemony frosting which is great since I love that kind of frosting. And the cake itself looks moist and fluffy. Plus you can use fresh or frozen blueberries, perfect. I’ll make this asap, and I hope it’ll be as delicious as it looks!

Doesn’t this cake look scrumptious?

Next on my plate - blueberry crumble, this one with an oatmeal crust (my favorite kind). And  I’ve eaten blueberry muffins before but haven’t yet found the recipe to end all recipes. Smitten Kitchen has one, and I’ve usually like all of those recipes. But let me know if you have any recommendations!

Mother’s Day deliciousness

(Yes, these are petit fours. No, I didn’t make them. But they were so ridiculously cute, so Mom got them for breakfast. Ok, we split them. I think a petit four per person is plenty. I didn’t have time to make a big breakfast anyway since we went to an Indian dance performance on Sunday morning. I will make my own petit fours one of these days, I promise).

Sometimes you’re fortunate enough to be in town so you can actually prepare a meal for your mom for Mothers Day. I already mentioned the salad that I made, but I also made a cake. Yum. I have a huuuuuge sweet tooth. I love cake, especially homemade cakes. You know that someone put in a time and effort to create something that you think and hope the recipient will like.

We have a few standards around here – nothing wrong with that, but sometimes you feel like branching out. And sometimes a recipe lands in your inbox that you just HAVE to make. That was the case this time around. I got an email from Sassy Radish with the recipe for an awesome cannoli cake. Cannoli. Cake. And Crepes. (I love the alliteration). Just repeat these words. You it has to be good. Add orange puree and you have a homerun.

And yet – I just had to tinker around with the recipe. No great modifications, but something to suit my tastes, and the ingredients I had handy. For example, I had a few overripe mangoes that were just too mushy to use in a salad. Ergo – mango puree mixed with the orange puree. I modified the crepe recipe to get thinner crepes. I used orange and lime zest. I used less sugar – most recipes can stand a reduction of sugar, and still taste just as great.

This was my first time to make my own ricotta. It turned out beautifully and I think I’ll try to use as much homemade ricotta as possible. I couldn’t find any cheesecloth for the life of me so I just used an organic baby diaper cloth made of muslin. With that fabric it took 6 hours til I got the right consistency of ricotta. I got about 2 1/2 cups of ricotta out of the recipe. The 2 cups of ricotta filling weren’t enough for me, so I stretched the filling by using that last 1/2 cup with lime zest, and approximately 1 1/2 powdered sugar. I also used less powdered sugar in that first batch of ricotta filling.

The crepes: The first crepe was thicker which was perfect for the bottom layer. But I didn’t like that thickness for the remaining crepes, plus I would only end up with a few layers. I stretched the crepe batter by adding a bit of milk and some water – probably 1/4 cup of milk, and 1/2 cup of water. I used less than a 1/4 scoop of batter – however much I needed to just coat the bottom of the pan, resulting in perfect thin crepes. They also didn’t cook as long, max 1 minute on the first side and about 20 seconds on the other side. I had an awesome non-stick pan where I barely needed any butter to cook the crepes.

And the orange puree. I had 3 mangoes which were going to into that puree. I had one orange – and no zest. My zest had been used up in the ricotta filling, and smarty pants that I am, I didn’t read the recipe closely enough and realize that I’d need two oranges. So, no orange zest, and no simple syrup. The mangoes were sweet enough to make any added sugar unnecessary. The resulting sauce is still ridiculously delicious – I had it for breakfast, for example on my porridge. Mmmm.

The finished cake. Don’t you want to try some, too?

Since I had so much orange-mango puree I used about 1 1/2 tbsp fruit puree between the layers. And since I wanted the finished cake to look extra pretty, I added a final layer of fruit puree on top. It almost looked like a fruit glaze. So good. I refrigerated the cake before serving it made it easier to cut lovely wedges that wouldn’t slide apart during serving. I served the cake with extra fruit puree and a slight dusting of powdered sugar. I let the photos speak for themselves:

6 bucks

Sometimes you end up being overcharged. You might be in a tight spot and without alternatives so you have to give in, but still, it burns when you pay a ridiculous amount for something that really shouldn’t be that expensive. Are you wondering what I’m talking about? Well, this is the culprit:

The petit fours looks delicious right? The taste was delicious too. I ended up buying three of them – and I had to pay $6.50 for them!!!! That’s total price gouging. I had to pay that much for these little bites???? My problem was that I had to buy them. You see, I had this whole French themed photoshoot going on for Day 1 of the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week – and I didn’t have any alternatives.

See the delicious petit fours? I savored each one of them (not all on the same day!)

Next time I’m making my own petit fours – it’ll probably be a process with lots of little steps, and I’ll have to work very cleanly. Or I could make a petit fours cake. Mmmm, delicious. I just have to find someone/many someones to share it or my waistline won’t thank me.

Petit Fours Cake from Smitten Kitchen

Mmmmm, donuts

I sound like Homer Simpson. But DCist (ok, all those _ists out there) have this post out on how to make your own donuts. Tempting, so tempting…

I so totally want to make donuts. But I expect that they warm and melty and delicious like Krispy Kreme donuts. I mean, who doesn’t love a Krispy Kreme donut that’s just hot and fresh, and melts in your mouth? Heaven! I remember the world before I discovered Krispy Kreme and I used to – very rarely – go to Dunkin Donuts. In fact, I recently bought a few donuts there to bring as dessert to a friend’s last minute dinner get together – and we were all horribly disappointed. They were dry and hard and, oh, just terrible. Is it just me, or does Dunkin Donuts really not make good donuts any more? Are they all about the coffee now?

Then there’s the beignet version. I haven’t had any – heresy, I know – but I’ve heard great and delicious things about them. I’m sure there are great ones and not so great ones out there. Btw, did you know that they’re the official state doughnut of Louisiana? I didn’t even know that there’s such a thing as a state donut!

Berliner

Germany has its own donut version: the Berliner, the jelly filled version, and Krapfen, non jelly filled. The Berliner is typically filled with raspberry, red current, plum or strawberry jam, or some mix of that, while the Krapfen is the dough by itself, which is then deep fried, although there are also apple versions, which include apples in its dough. The dough is a sweet yeast dough, and the finished Berliner/Krapfen is typically dusted with sugar or powdered sugar. You’ll find especially in the days – ok weeks – leading up to Fasching, aka carnival or Mardi Gras. Nowadays you’ll also find newfangled versions filled with pudding or even ‘black forest’ versions with cherries and whipped cream.

Btw, I always found President Kennedy famous speech “Ich bin ein Berliner” rather hilarious, at least when I was a child, because it basically translates to “I am a jelly filled donut.” Yes, I know it is meant to show his solidarity with the West German people, particularly those of Berlin. But it still makes me chuckle.

Oh, and all for all those Simpson lovers out there:

a tart

whole lemon tart

Definition:

• Delicious cream or jam-filled treat
• A female who is attractive and has the air of being promiscuous, even if she isn’t
• sour, acid, astringent
  ….

Yum! :)

I’m a huge fan ouf things sour, and I love lemon tarts. Sometimes when I’m lazy but have a hankering for lemons I buy one of these small, one person serving size lemon tartlets from Whole Foods. I also love lemon bars, key lime pie, lemon syrup, lemon pasta, lemon in my risotto - basically lemons in all of their iterations. I haven’t tried to make preserved lemons though – at least so far, but it sounds delicious, with many uses.

Anyway, I had planned to make this gorgeous lemon tart as a my contribution for a dinner with family friends, but alas, lunch was cancelled since the lady of the house wasn’t doing well. So I ended wondering when I’d get to make this lemon tart again. I mean, I could have made the dessert just for us, but really, an entire pie just for us? Oh the horror, what a temptation to eat lemon tart for every meal. My waistline wouldn’t thank me. Plus, my mother had made this delicious Mocha cake for me (I’ll post about this another time) – a cake that’s usually made just once a year, for my birthday, and that’s associate with lots of nostalgia and family history.

Back to the topic at hand. Matthias and his wife Lena called Friday morning, saying that they’d like to come over for a short visit. They’ve going moved Toulouse in October so opportunities to meet them are rare. They wouldn’t have much time since their little munchkin Marius would need to be put to bed on time. I’d hoped that I could make them dinner since I’ve had this yummy asparagus, artichoke and shitake mushroom recipe on the backburner, but dinner just wouldn’t work out. So at least I could make a dessert, and now I finally had the opportunity to make that lemon tart.

lemon tart and tea: breakfast of champions

The amazing and usual part about this recipe is that the entire lemon is used in the filling. Ok, the pits are removed, but otherwise the entire lemon is is processed. Not just the rind or the juice (I really need to invest in a microplane grater since I’m usually annoyed to pull out the regular grater – the rind just end up small enough for my taste. Plus it’s not a box grater, so I have the lovely job of holding the grater while using pressure on the end to get the rind off. Clearly it’s time for a microplane grater). I’m all in favor of recipes that put a twist on normal – okay, classic – recipes.

The tart was a huge hit. The center was still slightly warm at serving time, but it was of a great consistency, and we demolished over half of the tart. However, I’d agree with Deb’s assessment – i.e. Smitten Kitchen – to serve the tart cold. Take my assurances for it, the tart is still delicious the next day and the day after – although only a teeny tiny sliver lasted that long. Try it out for yourselves, and I’m sure you’ll agree that this tart is worth making it again. If you have a half-done pie crust in your freezer/fridge, then this is an easily whipped up, last minute dessert. Or a great contribution for a summer cookout. Really, it’s perfect for summer, although it’s surely a lovely reminder of summer in the middle of winter.

Blueberry boy bait

Interesting name, awesome dessert. Note that there’s hardly anything left, we ate almost every piece before I could take a picture.

Blueberry Boy Bait

Ricotta (ice) cream

I was asked to whip up a last minute dessert for guests we had over for dinner recently. After I’d just come back from shopping. Without planning to buy ingredients for dessert. Sigh. So it was time to get creative. I came across a recipe for a raspberry ricotta mousse that decided to heavily modify […]