apple nougatine tart

There's something about Tartine's apple nougatine tart that is simple and spectacular. The apples (three varities) are sautéed in butter and sugar beforehand, which creates a stable texture for the tart, reduces extra moisture, and creates a buttery-carmalized fillling.

The sautéed apples are layered in a fully-baked crust after being tossed with lemon juice and zest (which I used to deglaze the pan and reduced slightly). 

This is covered with a mixture of sliced almonds, sugar, and lightly whipped egg white (I prefer it slightly whipped to make the crust light).

And voilà: one of my favorite ways to consume apples. And it travelled well on the CTA to a friend's for dinner.

panforte

Have loved Tartine's recipe for panforte since I first made it. Quinces, orange peel, almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts, medjool dates, Zante currants and a whole lot of spice (black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, star anise) baked in a mixture of honey and sugar (cooked to 250ºF) with a little bit of flour and cocoa.


Once baked, it just begins to loose its sheen and puffs slightly. Cool for fifteen minutes or so, but not before it has glued itself to the pan.


Perfectly unmolded.


Finish with powdered sugar. Gets better after a few days and keeps forever: a medieval confection, panforte was one of the provisions crusaders took with them thanks to it keeping so well.

Happy 2011!

apple nougatine tart

This is another great recipe from Tartine, which has provided some great results in the past. I was actually amazed that I mentioned it in a post but have few details — I'm assuming we ate it all before I got to take photos.

It's a [pre-baked] flaky pastry crust filled with apples sautéed in butter and sugar (with a pinch of salt) that are tossed with lemon juice and zest. The tarts get covered with a mixture of egg white, sugar, salt and almonds, forming a delicious nougatine crust. The trick is for the apples to be cooked until not too soft, with some caramelized, some softer, some firmer. Once that all comes together the result is not to sweet with a brightness from the lemon. This was also one of my best pastry efforts crust-wise.

lemon-meringue cake

Baking with the Tartine cookbook always leads to success. I am very excited about the "Lemon Meringue Cake" — four layers of chiffon filled with caramel and lemon cream (lighter and more buttery than lemon curd) draped in a meringue and then torched. The lemon cream is so delicious I could eat it by itself.

« chocolate hazelnut ramekins »

I was planning to make a far breton for dessert for some friends the other night, having callously forgotten a friend's aversion to dried fruit (far breton is basically clafoutis with brandy-soaked prunes in place of the cherries), so I needed to find a substitution (which was, in hindsight, a godsend, as this was great).

I had eggs for the far and leftover cream from my pâté, and by chance came across my new favorite dessert. This one of the variations of Tartine's "Chocolate Hazelnut Tart" in their eponymous cookbook.


The filling starts with ½ c. butter, ¼ c. brandy and ⅓ c. sugar melted in a double boiler and then poured over 6 oz. bittersweet chocolate until melted and incorporated. Meanwhile, beat another ⅓ c. sugar with 3 eggs, a pinch of salt and ½ t. orange zest (or lemon, which worked wonderfully with the brandy).

At this point, slowly fold the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture, in thirds. (This part can be refrigerated and portioned out later). Divide into four 5- or 6-oz. ramekins and bake 9 minutes or so, until slightly puffed.

Serve immediately. I topped this with a barely sweet, boozy brandy whipped cream. As these are deeper than a tart would have been, they don't set up as much and you get a cross between pots-de-crème and mousse. Thanks, Tartine!

quatre-quarts

Julia Child's quatre-quarts ("four quarters," literally — "The English like the formula so much that they use a pound of everything — hence, of course, the pound cake" she tells us).

I hadn't made a pound cake before, I love the process. Six ounces butter is whipped until a mayonnaise-like consistency. Three eggs and a cup of sugar are beaten until fluffy and doubled in volume. One and a quarter cups flour are sifted in, and then the butter is folded in. And baked at three-fifty.

I glazed this with quince syrup leftover from candying quince for panforte. I then served it with Tartine's lemon cream: lemon curd with butter beat into it, essentially. Very very good.

strawberries

This is another recipe from the people at Tartine, a strawberry bavarian. I used a génoise as the base (this is the second I've made and I prefer it to the chiffon as a base cake. No leavening, just flour, sugar, eggs, salt — and a little butter). It's really wonderful. So then the cake layers get split, soaked in strawberry purée, and covered with a thin of layer bavarian cream (pastry cream, whipped cream and a little bit of gelatin to stabilize it all).

You then cover that in fresh strawberries, turning halves out on the edge for the final cake's presentation. More pastry cream is added, then the second cake layer and more purée and then that sets for a while. I like to finish it with whipped cream at my final destination as that's the easy part and — I fear — the first part that'd get messed up or melts in a car. Strawberries and calendula (picked from the CSA) finish this one off.

the devil and the shakers

I made a Shaker lemon pie using Meyer lemons last week -- it came out quite well. I might have used a bit more sugar -- or let the lemons macerate longer than over overnight -- but I was mostly satisfied. That -- as well as my next adventure -- came from Tartine. Just lemons, sugar and eggs in a flaky crust -- I was very careful to have a low-moisture crust and almost mangled it, but the extra work paid off as the crust was wonderful.


Next, for J.'s birthday, I made a devil's food cake with ganache and caramel filling and a ganache and crumb coat. The cake was a straightforward devil's food cake, rich with butter, cocoa and buttermilk.

It's four layers, with a layer of caramel and ganache in-between, then coated in two layers (a crumb coat and a smooth coat) of ganache. Then, before it cools, it gets coated in toasted cake crumbs (from the domes of the cakes) that have been pulverized in the food processor. I wish I had taken a photo of it sliced.

panforte

I made, among other things (mostly cookies), panforte for the holidays. The recipe was from Tartine.

I candied two quinces and four oranges worth of peel. With that, figs, zante currants, hazlenuts, almonds and pistachio nuts. Add to that coriander, black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, chocolate powder and some (honestly, not a whole lot) flour. Over that is poured honey and sugar cooked to a soft-ball stage and it gets baked. It came out really incredible. Even sworn spice cake haters liked it.

thanksgiving

Cranberry-Walnut Bread — Pumpkin Pie — Parsnip — Apple Pie

Thanksgiving happened — and at my house for the first time. Went with lots of traditions: apple pie (American as... right?), turkey (fresh from Wendell, Mass.), mashed Hubbard squash, mashed turnips.

I brined the Turkey overnight with bay, ginger, peppercorns and allspice berries. It was great. Cranberry-orange relish and cooked cranberries with ginger. The parsnip pie was a new creation: half roasted, half steamed parsnip puréed with a hint of nutmeg, eggs and milk baked in an herbes de provence-laced crust. It was quite good. Almost cheesecakelike in consistency. The potatoes were one-third celeriac, and that went quite well. The dressings were of chestnuts, sourdough bread, corn muffins recycled from breakfast, apples, turkey liver, celery, onions and lots of butter. One also had sweet Italian sausage. Both were very good. The sausage was nice, but I'd say ultimately not necessary.

The pumpkin pie was had sugar pumpkin-half kabocha. Otherwise it's a Tartine recipe. The apple pie was yellow delicious apples from Outlook Farm and straightforward.

Mulled cider with cloves, allspice, cinnamon, star anise whet our appetites.

And Mom made here "Sweet Potato Puff." Dad, his mincemeat pie. Steve made his famous "Cinnamon Salad" (red hots, applesauce, Jell-O). Judi made buttery rolls.

And we all ate a lot. And they did the dishes. Success abounded.

a quick project; a new project; cauliflower

Today I bought a bunch of zucchini and made a zucchini-marmalade bread. Zucchini, orange marmalade and lots of walnuts made for a moist, dense bread. It's a Tartine recipe, from the book that M. gave me for my birthday last year...

...And, I started making pickles. I bought a dozen small cucumbers (they at least look like pickling types) at a farm stand on Hadley. I've yet to find a good pickle crock, so I used a two-liter jar with a locking lid (I'll save the lid for when I put them back in the fridge).

I made pickles back when I was canning, but those were pickled in vinegar. They did come out quite well, although more than one clove in a pint jar is way too much. Even one clove made for a strong pickle -- I liked it moderation (only 3 cans had any cloves).

This time I used the Wild Fermentation recipe. It's a real pickle, vinegar-free and preserved by lactic acid fermentation. I'm excited to see how it come out. Because the jar tapers, I couldn't fit a plate in there so there's just a weight (and grape leaves). (I'd love one of those fancy water-sealed Harsch crocks, but they start at a hundred bucks.)


Last night we have some of L.'s interns over for dinner and had mostly vegan fare: orecchiette with grilled red peppers, basil and pine nuts, a slow-cooked onion tart, mizuna-pear-walnut salad and cookies and a cake were brought. The discovery of the evening, an experiment really, was grilled cauliflower. I've roasted it, so I figured I could grill it. I seasoned it, drizzled it on olive oil, grilled it until browned and chopped it up. I grated some nutmeg on top and it was really quite incredible.

fiddleheads, chiffon

Wednesday, while on the bike path, I passed a patch of ferns and thought "shit, is it too late?"; On the way back I passed two friends harvesting fiddleheads! Obviously, it just took it little more work than a quick pass. I went back last night, since Wednesday I was without bag or pockets, and collected some.

I boiled them for the sake of pulling out any potential toxins (I did some research, and these should be the Ostrich ferns, whereas the Bracken have been tied to stomach cancer), and then sautéed them in butter and ate them with toast and 4-minute eggs. It was really good. Very green, very earthy.

I'm also making a birthday cake (for my Dad), a strawberry chiffon (from Tartine's recipes)... the chiffon cake rose (& fell) like a soufflé. It cut into rounds well. I halved a 10-in recipe into a 7-in (10in² is roughly twice 7in²). It's two layers of cake soaked with strawberry purée with strawberries in a layer a pastry cream and whipped cream. This is the first real cake I've made... we'll see.

& lasagne

Stephanie was here for a wedding, and Jonathan due to his new location. So...

While the tomatoes were brining, I made lasagne -- a white lasagne with delicata squash, carrots, mizuna and the standards (ricotta, paramsean, parsley).

Meanwhile, Jonathan documented the lasagne noodles on the rack. (Nothing special this time around, just eggs, semolina and salt...)

And then Stephanie and Jonathan prepped apples for the nougatine tart that was heavenly. Recipe courtesy of Tartine.

(I'm having a major internal debate: grad school or cooking school?)