Strawberry Shortcakes
Aaaaaaahhhh…strawberry season. Time for some strawberry shortcakes to make an appearance.
First the shortcakes: I started my shortcake dough the same way I would a pie dough, just barely mixing the butter chunks into the flour, sugar, baking powder & salt. Once all mixed, I started drizzling in cream, mixing until it just began to come together.
I rolled the dough flat, until it was about 1/2″ thick.
Then I cut little circles out!
I let the circles hang out in the fridge while I started slicing my strawberries. I let the strawberries macerate in some sugar for a bit, and then baked my shortcakes and whipped some cream. And then I put them all together!
RECIPE (adapted from Alice Waters):
3 pints strawberries
3 tbsp sugar
2 cups flour
4 tablespoons sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 oz butter (very cold)
1 cup heavy cream (for shortcakes)
1 1/2 cups whipping cream (for whipped cream)
– Wash, dry and slice the (you can crush some of them if you like) berries. Toss with sugar to taste, about 1 tablespoon per pint. The strawberry mixture should be very juicy.
– Mix the flour, baking powder, 4 tbsp sugar & salt in a kitchen aid bowl. Use the paddle to blend in half the butter for1 minute. Then add rest of butter and continue mixing until butter is in ½ – 1 inch chunks (should take less than 30 seconds). With the mixer running, quickly add in ¾ cup cream, just until most of the dry mixture has been moistened. Turn off mixer and add a bit more cream, mix with your hands just until it holds together. Turn out on a board and knead just a few times, until the dough just comes together into a ball. It might still be a little crumbly at the edges. Roll into1/2 inch thick slab and cut out circles. You can re-roll scraps once.
– Put the shortcakes on a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush the tops with the remaining cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake in a preheated 425°F oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until the tops are lightly browned and the dough is set. Cool on a rack and serve while warm. Make the whipped cream while the biscuits cool.
– To serve: Split the shortcakes and spoon berries liberally over the bottom halves. Spoon whipped cream over strawberries and set the tops back on. There should be lots of berries and lots of cream.
F*ck it, Let’s fry some sh*t.
And by sh*t I mean cheese. And by cheese I mean ricotta, as in all the leftover ricotta from 2 weeks ago. It’s been sitting in the fridge taunting me, and I had no plans for it. As usual, I made way too much. But sometimes when you need to pull a quick dessert out of thin air, leftovers like that save the day. There was a potluck that needed a dessert, and I didn’t have much time for cooking & baking. I was gazing into my fridge looking at what I already had and remembered seeing a recipe for zeppoli, or Italian ricotta fritters. I found it and realized that these guys were a cinch to make. And well, I do have an unhealthy obsession with deep frying. What can I say, it makes me happy.
I made my batter (which really just involved mixing the wet stuff, mixing the dry stuff, and then mixing them together) in like 10 minutes.
Then I dropped spoonfuls of the batter into my hot oil and fried them for 2-3 minutes.
And then I dusted them with powdered sugar!
But I was feeling the need to dip them in something sweet. So I made a quick and dirty raspberry jam sauce. Perfect!
ZEPPOLI:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup whole milk ricotta
1/4 cup milk
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons sugar
1 vanilla bean
vegetable oil for frying
powdered sugar for dusting
– Heat 2 inches oil in a heavy saucepan until it registers 360°F.
– Whisk together flour, baking powder, lemon zest, nutmeg and salt in a bowl.
– In another bowl, whisk together ricotta, eggs, sugar, milk and vanilla bean seeds, then whisk in flour mixture.
– Working in batches, drop tablespoons of batter and fry, flipping occasionally, until deep golden, about 2-3 minutes per batch.
– Transfer to paper towels to drain.
– Dust generously with confectioners sugar.
– Dip and enjoy!
RASPBERRY SAUCE
1/2 cup raspberry jam (without pectin if possible)
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1-2 teaspoons sugar (depends on sweetness of jam)
– Just stir it all together!
Strawberry Vanilla Sorbet
It was a beautiful day. It was a hard day. I woke up and immediately ran out the door for a bike ride with my boss. My boss who is SO much more in shape than me that the ride left me crippled (well, crippled in that good kind of way – I’ll appreciate it in a few days, when I can feel my thighs again). But it was also a night of 90210 and dinner with the girls, and there was dessert to be made. After a weekend of heavy meaty man-food (not to mention Scott’s meatloaf that I DESTROYED for lunch after the ride), we were going light and springy. Since I was basically attached to the couch, I also needed it to be quick and easy. So sorbet it was. And what a better way to kick off strawberry season than a strawberry vanilla sorbet.
First I made a vanilla sugar by spraping the seeds of a vanilla bean into the sugar and rubbing it in until it looked like this:
I mixed my vanilla sugar and bean with some water and brought it all to a boil. Once it boiled, I turned off the heat and let the flavors steep, occasionally stirring to dissolve the sugar.
While that was steeping, I washed, chopped and hulled my berries. I pureed them and pushed them through a fine sieve to get rid of the seeds.
I mixed the berries with the sugar syrup (minus the bean) and let it hang in the fridge for a bit before spinning it in the ice cream machine (How am I ever gonna survive without this guy once my landlord’s want it back?).
It was so cold and light and strawberry-ey. A perfect springy dessert. Made even more perfect by a crispy vanilla shortbread cookie, because, well, I need a LITTLE fat for it to feel like dessert.
RECIPE:
2 pints strawberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 vanilla bean
basically, do what I did above..there’s really nothing more to it!
Yummy Italian Lemon Ricotta Cheesecake. And Homemade Ricotta.
You know how some people bake a cake when they’re stressed? Or make a loaf of bread? I make cheese. When I feel overwhelmed, or bummed, or nervous, cheese makes me feel better. There’s something about all that milk, the cheesecloth, the thermometers, and the TIME (it ain’t no 30 minute meal)…it just relaxes me. So last night I was feeling the need to make some cheese, and didn’t have the energy to try something too wacky or new. So ricotta it was, the recipe that introduced me to cheesemaking.
Ricotta is super easy. I know I say that a lot, but this time I really mean it. Anyone could make ricotta. Well, anyone with a stainless steel pot, a thermometer & some cheesecloth.
I started with a ratio of 1:4 of buttermilk and whole milk. I heated them up to 180 on the stove, gently stirring occasionally. Then I let them sit for half an hour or so, until I could see nice strong curds separated from the whey. Then I scooped the curds onto a strainer lined with cheesecloth. I let that sit for a while and drain until it reached what I thought was the right amount of dryness (that is personal preference that totally depends on what your plans are for the ricotta). Then I salted it to my liking and was all done!
This time I went for a pretty dry ricotta. But not too dry.
But now I have about 3 lbs of ricotta…I guess I’ll just have to bake a cake out of it. An Italian Lemon Ricotta Cheesecake to be precise. It’s my first time making an Italian cheesecake. The first time I had one was while living in New York. My friend (and maker of magic in the kitchen) Kate baked one that was so fluffy and gorgeous that I still think of it when I see them. Hopefully mine will come close!
First things first, I needed a crust.
After I baked my crust I started on the filling. I put my ricotta in the food processor to fluff it up a bit, and break down any huge curds. Then I mixed some egg yolks, sugar & and a vanilla bean until they too were nice and fluffy. I mixed into this my fluffy ricotta and some lemon zest.
Then I whipped a meringue to just medium peaks.
I folded that into my ricotta base and poured it onto my baked crust.
It spent an hour baking in the oven and came out a beautiful souffle.
And then it slowly falls. I love fallen desserts. There’s something really honest about a dessert that souffles up as high as it can go and then sinks back down as it cools.
I served it with some strawberries that had been soaking in sugar and lemon juice.
It was so light and fluffy that people kept asking if it was really cheesecake. I think Kate would have been proud.
RECIPE (Adapted from Gourmet Magazine):
Crust
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 large egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Filling
2 lb whole-milk ricotta, drained in a cheesecloth-lined strainer set over a bowl until dry, chilled
6 large eggs, separated
1 vanilla bean
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Finely grated zest of 3 lemons
1/8 teaspoon salt
Powdered sugar
Make crust:
– Preheat oven to 350°F.
– Pulse flour, sugar, salt, and butter in a food processor until mixture resembles coarse meal.
– Add yolk, vanilla, and lemon juice and pulse just until mixture begins to form a dough.
– Spread dough with a flat bottomed cup over buttered bottom of a 24-centimeter springform pan and prick all over with a fork.
– Chill 30 minutes.
– Bake crust in the middle of the oven until golden brown, about 25 minutes, and cool on a rack.
Make filling and bake cake:
– Increase oven temperature to 375°F.
– Pulse ricotta in food processor until fluffy and smooth. Beat yolks, vanilla bean seeds and sugar with an electric mixer until thick and pale.
– Beat in ricotta, flour, and zests. Beat whites with salt in another bowl until they hold soft peaks, and fold into ricotta mixture.
– Butter side of springform pan and pour filling over crust. Bake in baking pan in middle of oven until cake is puffed and golden, about 1 hour.
– Run a knife around top edge of cake to loosen and cool completely in springform pan on rack.
– Chill, loosely covered, at least 4 hours. Remove side of pan and transfer cake to a plate. Bring to room temperature and sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.
Cobblers Make Me Happy. And Homemade Ice Cream Too.
Borrowing this ice cream machine from my landlords has been very…dangerous. I just want to stay home spinning ice cream forever. When I’m not, all I can think about is ice cream flavors. I still have stacks of pecans to get through, so a butter pecan ice cream seemed appropriate. And then I found a recipe for a maple butter pecan in Gourmet magazine, and there was no turning back. I first fried the pecans in some butter, until it just started to brown.
Then I made a maple custard base for the ice cream.
After my custard chilled in the fridge for a bit, I spun it in the ice cream machine and put it in the freezer to finish out its freezing.
While that was going on, I needed a dessert. Something to serve that ice cream on. Since it’s almost time to say goodbye to local apples, but not quite time to say hello to strawberries (oh my god – you just WAIT, I am going to DESTROY some berries this summer), I decided to go with a classic, an apple cobbler.
Really, cobblers are like my two favorite things combined into one: delicious local fruit and biscuits. Need I say more. Obviously I do, or I wouldn’t have a blog. So here goes:
First things first – the biscuits. I’m still in the experimental phase with cobbler biscuit recipes. Being a bama girl, I like my biscuits crispy. As in, you could potentially do some damage if you threw them at someone. But that seems a bit much for a dessert, not quite delicate enough. But squishy, doughy biscuits are so…not what I want. So I’m looking for the happy medium. One thing I do know is not to overmix those puppies. You want to see that butter in the dough.
I let the dough hang out in the freezer for a while (you know, to get to know the ice cream a little better), and then cut it into chunks.
Then placed the chunks on my chopped and spiced apples.
Then it all went into the oven for a while, until my biscuits were nice and puffed and browned.
And after a little cooling, it was ready to be served with my maple pecan ice cream. And completely devoured it was. I even ate it for breakfast this morning.
MAPLE BUTTER PECAN ICE CREAM RECIPE (adapted from Gourmet magazine):
Ingredients:
3/4 cup pecans
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 large egg yolks
-Coarsely chop pecans. In a skillet melt butter. Toast pecans in butter, stirring occasionally, until golden and fragrant, about 5 minutes, and sprinkle with salt to taste. Cool pecans and chill.
-In a heavy saucepan bring cream, milk, maple syrup, and salt just to a boil, stirring occasionally. In a bowl beat yolks until smooth. Add hot cream mixture to yolks in a slow stream, whisking, and pour into pan. Cook custard over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until a thermometer registers 170° F. Pour custard through a sieve into a clean bowl and cool. Chill custard, its surface covered with plastic wrap, at least 3 hours, or until cold, and up to 1 day.
-Freeze custard in an ice-cream maker. Fold in chilled pecans. Transfer ice cream to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.
Tuesday night, my new favorite night of the week
Spring is SO close, I can almost taste it already. Well technically I did taste it tonight. Another Tuesday night of cooking and general happiness. My friend Brooke had a birthday that I missed out on, so a little dinner celebration was definitely needed. I had 2 heads of cauliflower that needed some love, and I can no longer ignore the California grown asparagus popping up in the grocery stores. And to confuse seasons even more, I just remembered a tupperware filled with cherries that I froze this summer (during a particularly crazed moment of “cherry season is ending – I need to store some immediately to get me through winter!”). I, of course, promptly forgot about them when pumpkins and citrus started showing up, but now I am ready to put those babies to good use.
So a feast was born: beet and arugula salad with homemade goat cheese and a meyer lemon dressing, asparagus risotto with poached eggs and pancetta, roasted cauliflower with lemon, capers, anchovies & bread crumbs and for dessert an almond panna cotta with a cherry almond caramel sauce.
Whew.
And it was delicious. Well, except for the goat cheese that never became cheese.
Do I have pictures? No. We ate it so fast that I forgot to snap some to share with my friends. Oops.
Well maybe just one…
and just one more…
Happy Birthday Abbe!
This weekend my landlord Abbe is celebrating her birthday and her husband Jim asked me to bake a cake. Of course I couldn’t refuse. He wanted me to recreate a cake he tasted on a recent trip to the south: a Caramel Pecan Cake. I’m not sure if my interpretation was a close match, but I’m certain it’s tasty…
Since I’m a buttercream fan, I like to start there when putting together my cake combinations. I wanted to make a really caramelly frosting (surprise sursprise) and needed a cake that could stand up to that amount of flavor. After some poking around, I found a recipe on Epicurious that called for mixing a caramel syrup and roasted pecans straight into the cake batter. Since I hadn’t done that before I decided to experiment. The first test run sunk like crazy, but after adjusting the amount of batter in the pans it rose beautifully.
I actually did a decent job of keeping it looking like a cake while assembling the layers, a rare treat for photographing.
A bunch of toasted pecans thrown on the sides later and I had a cake for Abby!
And now I’m off to Napa for the weekend! but first – the recipe:
For caramel:
3 cups sugar
2 1/4 cups water
For cake:
1 1/2 cups pecans
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup heavy cream
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
Make caramel:
Bring sugar and 3/4 cup water to a boil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved, then wash down any sugar crystals on side of skillet with a pastry brush dipped in cold water. Boil, without stirring, swirling skillet occasionally so caramel colors evenly, until dark amber. Remove from heat and carefully and slowly whisk in remaining 1 1/2 cup water (mixture will steam vigorously and may stiffen). Return to a boil and stir until caramel has completely dissolved. If necessary, simmer until just syrupy, 1 to 3 minutes. Cool to room temperature.
Toast pecans for cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.
Toast pecans in a 4-sided sheet pan in oven until fragrant and a shade darker, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool and coarsely chop.
Make cake:
Put 2 cups cooled caramel syrup in a bowl and add butter, egg, and cream, whisking well after each addition.
Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and sugars into a large bowl. Make a well in center, then add caramel mixture and gradually whisk in dry ingredients until smooth. Fold in pecans. Chill, covered, until cold (or 12 to 24 hours for best results).
Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.
Butter two 8″ cake pans.
Divide batter among the pans. Bake until cakes just spring back when lightly pressed, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool cakes to room temperature. Remove from pans and frost.
How Tessa Got Her Teeth Back
After 1 year of being a certified metal mouth, my friend Tessa got her braces off yesterday. Since this is OBVIOUSLY a cause for celebration, we are celebrating. Tonight. With 2 things gooey and forbidden to the contemporary braceface: Candied apples and homemade cracker jack popcorn.
I got a little excited about the caramel apples, even made a special trip to Flax for supplies (Why don’t grocery stores sell popsicle sticks?). I found some festive colored sticks and the rest is history. As in, I jabbed them into some apples.
Then I made a caramel sauce with yummy things like molasses, maple syrup and lots of sugar and butter.
After the sauce cooled down a bit, I dunked the apples.
It was harder than it sounds. There was some serious temperature regulating that did not happen. Too hot and it all slides right off the apple, but too cool and it looks all thick and gloppy (I gave that one to John, he didn’t mind). I dipped them in crushed pistachios too, but most of them slid into a little puddle at the bottom. Kind a little nut stand to prop the apples up. In the end I did get a few that looked halfway decent.
Yes, it’s a ribbon. Got that at Flax too.
After that it was on to some more stickiness. Crackerjack is super easy to make, and I think this one will go into the regular rotation.
I could’t remember what it even tasted like, but when I popped some of these in my mouth it was like “wow – THAT”S what it tastes like!” Highly recommend making a batch for yourself.
RECIPE:
1/2 cup unpopped popcorn
4 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 cup shelled peanuts
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
2 tablespoons molasses
1 teaspoon salt
– Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
– Put the popcorn in a brown paper bag, pour in 4 teaspoons of olive oil and close the bag with a piece of tape. Heat it on high in the microwave for 3 minutes. Put it in a bowl.
– Add the peanuts to the popcorn.
– For the caramel, heat the butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, molasses and salt in a pan on the stove until the butter is melted and the sugar is smooth and not grainy anymore. Pour this mixture over the popcorn and peanuts, stirring well. Pour it all onto a cookie sheet and place in oven for 10-12 minutes, stirring once or twice. It will be gooey and wet.
– Let air dry until crisp, then store in an airtight container until ready to be devoured.
Bacon + Ice Cream = Happyface
We finished off the rest of the Meyer Lemon gelato last night, and I was feeling the need to fill the void IMMEDIATELY. Also, I have my landlord’s ice cream maker on loan and am itching to put it to good use. Whilst poking around on the interweb for ice cream recipes, I found one for candied bacon ice cream on David Lebovitz’s site. I really can’t think of a flavor I’d like to make more. Well, except maybe some of the Humphry Slocombe flavors (government cheese flavored ice cream? BLOWING. MY. MIND.), but anyways. I don’t care how cliché the bacon dessert trend is, I am all over it like salt on caramel.
As all good things in life start, this one started with candying some bacon strips. It sounds kinda fancy, but it really just means baking bacon with brown sugar until it caramelizes. The hardest part is not stuffing it all in my mouth.
I chopped the bacon into little bits and hid them to keep from eating them.
Then I made a custard flavored with brown sugar and cinnamon. The recipe called for rum, but we don’t have any and I was much too lazy to go get some.
I chilled the custard and put it in the ice cream spinner. Once it was thick and creamy I tossed in the bacon bits. Then I spooned it into a container and stuck it in the freezer to firm up. This is always the hardest part, waiting and waiting until it seems “ready”.
As usual, we only made it an hour, long before it was completely firm. But to be honest, I like the pre-firm squishy moment of ice cream. At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m digging in.
Wow.
Update: I just went for a run in the rain to justify coming back to the house and eating bacon ice cream for lunch. I think I might be in trouble.
RECIPE:
For the candied bacon:
5 strips bacon
about 2 tablespoons brown sugar
For the ice cream custard:
3 tablespoons (45g) salted butter
¾ cup (packed) brown sugar (170g), light or dark (you can use either)
2¾ (675ml) cup half-and-half
5 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons dark rum or whiskey
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
optional: ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
To candy the bacon:
– preheat the oven to 400.
– Lay the strips of bacon on a baking sheet.
– Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over each strip of bacon.
– Bake for 12-16 minutes. Midway during baking, flip the bacon strips over and drag them through the dark, syrupy liquid that’s collected on the baking sheet.
– Continue to bake until as dark as mahogany. Remove from oven and cool.
– Once cool, chop into little pieces.
To make the ice cream custard:
– melt the butter in a heavy, medium-size saucepan.
– Stir in the brown sugar and half of the half-and-half.
– Pour the remaining half-and-half into a bowl set in an ice bath and set a mesh strainer over the top.
– In a separate bowl, stir together the egg yolks, then gradually add some of the warm brown sugar mixture to them, whisking the yolks constantly as you pour.
– Pour the mixture back into the saucepan.
– Cook over medium low heat, constantly stirring and scraping the bottom with a heatproof spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula.
– Strain the custard into the half-and-half, stirring over the ice bath, until cool.
– Add liquor, vanilla and cinnamon.
– Refrigerate the mixture.
– Once thoroughly chilled, freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
– Add the bacon bits during the last moment of churning.
A Weekday Fruit Crisp
“But Brandi”, you say “It’s Friday night, the WEEKEND.” It’s true, but for me Friday nights are really Wednesday nights. I’m in the middle of my work week and I’m usually exhausted. But since it’s Friday night for everyone else I know (well, except all my architect friends that were laid off – they’re looking down a long line of Saturdays), I try to make an effort to go out into the world. My friends Mindy and Jimmy invited me over for dinner (mac and cheese, yay!) and of course I’m bringing dessert. Lucky for me I keep emergency crisp topping in the freezer! I had pears leftover from the upside down pear cake (when John was doing the shopping, I panicked on quantities and asked him to get as many pears as he could carry, and ooops – we only needed 3). Following some Mark Bittman advice, I keep a chunk of ginger in my freezer so I didn’t have to do much of anything!
First I chopped the ginger into tiny little bits.
Then I chopped up the pears and tossed them with the ginger, brown sugar and some spices.
I popped it into the oven for 20 minutes and then added my already made pecan crisp topping.
I baked it until the crisp was crispy and I could see the juices bubbling up over the sides.
A scoop of ice cream later and it was on! I would show a picture of a cute little slice, but it was eaten before I remembered to take one…
I made that! 
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