Archive for Desserts

25 Feb 2013
Dairy recipe • Desserts • locavore log • Recipes

Panna Cotta By Any Other Name

Pannacotte with blueberry sauce

Panna cotta with blueberry sauce

Blanc-manger, panna cotta or molded cream, the idea is similar: gelatin is added to milk and/or cream infused with herbs, spices or nuts. The end result? A simple dessert perfect for a picnic (if made and left in small Mason jars and kept cool in a cooler) or — when nicely dressed — ready for a dinner party. How to dress it up? Vary the flavoring (change the herb; add rosewater etc), garnish with coulis and fresh seasonal fruit: perfectly ripe berries, barely sweetened sour cherries, rhubarb compote or, when in winter a cooked fruit sauce made with frozen berries.  Top it with a mint sprig or an edible flower. Substitute yogurt for the crème fraiche for a tangier and lighter alternative.  If you can’t have dairy milk, use almond milk or coconut milk (omit the almond meal in either case).  Once the basic technique is understood, there is no end to the fun!

You need to plan a little for that dessert: it needs to be made it the day before as it needs plenty of time to chill and set.

Honey & Creme Fraiche Pannacotta Read more

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21 Nov 2012
Desserts • locavore log • Recipes • Wild Food

Quince & Apple Tart with Virginia All-Spice

Photo by Molly Peterson (http://www.mollympeterson.com/) for FoodShed Magazine

Those who have read my blog for a while know of the fondness I have for quince – that almost forgotten fruit. Most of the cultivars grown in our area (and they aren’t that many, although they do exist) need to be cooked to bring out their surprisingly floral aroma.That’s probably why it has fallen out of favor: you can’t just bite into it. I have read though that there are cultivars tasty enough for that. But the quince we get here, you have to cook. And how well you will be rewarded.

It is lovely mixed with apples. But if you cannot find quince, use a good home-made or store- bought apple sauce, preferably unsweetened. Virginia allspice (also called spicebush) is a native understory shrub (Lindera benzoin) whose berries ripen to vermillion in late summer and early fall and taste very similar to the true tropical allspice, with a more peppery bite. I collect the berries in the fall and freeze them until needed. Omit them or use allspice if you do not have access to them.

Yes, the tart shell takes some planning. But the crust won’t be soggy!

I prefer to mix apples for a variety of texture and taste, and prefer to avoid apples that remain really firm when cooked.

Recipe for the Quince & Apple Tart with Virginia All-Spice on the FoodShed magazine web site

Prior entries on quince:

– a compendium of recipes from other blogs

– a non-exhaustive list of what to do with quince + quince ice-cream recipe

sylvie | No comments | Tags: , , ,
08 Oct 2012
Desserts • egg recipe • locavore log • Recipes

Gingery Custard Pear Tart

A recipe initially published in the October 2012 issue of Food-Shed Magazine.

Pears start to ripen in my area in August (apples in July), but I really don’t start to pay attention to them until after the stone fruit of summer are gone.

Almond and pears in custard – that’s a most classic flavor combination.  Add ginger for a little twist, actually a double twist with the double layer of ginger flavor: the pears are poached with fresh ginger and then candied ginger is added to the custard.

Make sure your pears are perfectly ripe: overripe pears are mealy, underripe pears bland and sometime astringent. Pears are generally sold underripe (most European pears ripen off the tree): keep them at room temperature to ripen them. They are ready to eat or cook when the area immediately around the stem yields slightly under the pressure from your fingers. If the whole pear is soft, it’s likely too gone, with the inside rotten. Once ripe, refrigerate and eat within a couple of days.

A tart pan with a removable bottom unmolds easily. And yes, it makes all the difference in the world, to bake the shell blind and let it cool thoroughly before adding the filling. An

Gingery Custard Pear Tart

Yields a 9″ Round or Square Tart, Serving 8-10 Read more

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28 Aug 2012
Desserts • Recipes

The Eggs and The Chocolate Mousse

Our small flock of hens are laying well – it’s not unusual to pick-up 6 eggs or more a day, meaning 3 1/2 dozen a week! Eggs make a nice hostess gift for hen-less friends, and although we like 2 eggs for breakfast once in while, and omelettes are ones of the most versatile and nutritious fast foods I know, that’s a lot of eggs for the 2 of us.

 

Classic Chocolate Mousse

So, at the moment, egg-based dishes are what I bring to pot-luck dinners – a double bonus as both deviled eggs and creme caramel (which takes twice as many eggs as a regular baked custard) are very popular.

So is chocolate mousse. Read more

sylvie | 4 comments | Tags: ,
24 Feb 2012
Dairy recipe • Desserts • locavore log • Recipes

Of Chile & Chocolate (Spicy Chocolate Custard)

A Spicy Variation on 3-2-1 Custard

This recipe first appeared in the Virginia Wine Gazette.

Peppers (aka chiles) and chocolate are products of the Americas – unknown in Europe until the Spanish conquistadors brought them home in the 16th century. Can you imagine Belgium or Switzerland without chocolate? Calabrian or Greek cuisines without hot peppers?

Cocoa was an expensive beverage – and an acquired taste, too, since it was served without sugar or milk, both unknown in Mesoamerica, but with hot chilies and vanilla, both Mesoamerican native spices. Expensive, bitter and spicy, it’s no wonder cocoa was considered a medication.

Yet, once the Europeans added sugar and milk, hot cocoa, as we know it today, took off. Starting in the 18th century, various processes were developed to form chocolate bars and candies. The modern eating chocolate bar was born in the mid-19th century.

As other tropical areas of the world started to grow the cocoa tree for its seeds, the cocoa bean, which is dried and fermented, chocolate’s popularity was sealed.

Chiles and cocoa work great together indeed: a number of chocolatiers are teasing our taste buds by adding the spice to their gorgeous chocolate confections. You can do it at home too! Add unsweetened cocoa to your favorite chili recipe. Throw a pinch of hot ground chile in chocolate desserts.

I make no claim for their health benefits nor for their possible aphrodisiac qualities, but I can assure you that chocolate and chiles, alone or together, are wonderful winter fare – in fact wonderful fare any time of the year.

Below is a variation of what I called 3-2-1 custard: the Spicy Chocolate Custard. 3 eggs/2 cups milk/ 1 cup chocolate chips: those are easy proportions to remember, negating the need for printed recipe if you need to whip a dessert quickly. You may tweak the spices and flavoring endlessly for subtle differences. Read more

sylvie | No comments | Tags: , , ,
28 Dec 2011
Desserts • egg recipe • Fruit recipe • Recipes

The Third Day of Christmas

We make Meyer Lemon curd. Lots of it.

It takes less than 30 minutes to make a quart of it, and since it freezes beautifully, you may as well make a few quarts… provided you have eggs and lemons. And we do.

meyer lemon curd

Jars of Meyer lemon curd for the fridge and the freezer

 

Read more

sylvie | 3 comments | Tags: , ,
27 Sep 2011
Desserts • fruit • Fruit recipe • Wild Food

More on Pawpaws

This post first appeared – with minor modifications and without pictures – as an article “In season now: our fascinating native pawpaw” in the September 22, 2011 issue of the Rappahannock News.

Pawpaw puree

My favorite banana custard involves no cooking whatsoever. No, it doesn’t involve opening a package of store-bought “custard” either. In fact, it requires a stroll along the creek with my nose up in late summer: I am looking for native wild pawpaws (Asimina triloba) that are ripening now and in early fall, sometimes as late as October – depending on the tree and its location. They aren’t showy, but they are easy to recognize: small understory trees with large vaguely-tropical-looking drooping leaves that turn a bright pure yellow in mid-fall. They grow mostly along bottomland creeks, forming ever expanding thickets, often at the edge of the woods. Read more

sylvie | 7 comments | Tags: ,
31 Aug 2011
Desserts • Fruit recipe • locavore log • Recipes

End of Summer Cake

Nectarine & Almond Cake cooling on the window sill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You only need to know a few cake formulas to be able to look smart in the kitchen. Because once you understand the recipe, you can tweak it ad infinitum to vary the result: change the fruit, change the flour, change the flavoring or spice, change the filling, change the icing, change the pan shape… and suddenly the three or four basic cake recipes that you can do (almost) in your sleep become 40 different desserts. That’s why I call them “formulas”.

Witness this recipe for Italian plum cake.

In the spring, use cherries or apricots. In summer, replace the plums with slices of yellow peaches or nectarine. Or slices of sauteed apples or roasted quince or pears in early fall. Or a mixture of fruit. In winter, use rehydrated dry fruit or halved bananas. I more and more use less refined flours like whole wheat or spelt – they accentuate the rustic aspect of the cake. I bet any flour would work! When using stone fruit like peach, I also like to add a little cornmeal (or corn flour) as well as a few nuts. Almonds are great but so are pine nuts if you have them or chopped pecans. Or whatever you’ve got! (or none if you don’t have any).

It’s not a sophisticated looking cake, like, oh say, a Reine de Saba, but is a satisfying not-too-filling dessert, moist, with a little crunch and lots of fruit – great for breakfast too. Best of all,  it’s an easy recipe to memorize, and by playing with it, it will look like you know 10 different recipes!

End of Summer Cake (with nectarine & almonds) Read more

sylvie | 2 comments | Tags: , ,
25 Jul 2011
Desserts • Fruit recipe • locavore log • Recipes

Tequila Yellow Plum Sorbet

I am canning. Jamming. Pickling. Wining. Infusing. Freezing. Chutneying. Syruping. Cordialing. And otherwise having great fun in the kitchen. And the garden is calling most insistently: “Yo! When are you picking that corn? Have you checked the cabbage lately? The beans, the beeeeans…” and “It’s hot. I am thirsty. Where’s the water?” and always, always “Weeeeeedds!!!! Squash bugs!!!!! Mexican bean beetles!!!!”  So… I have not gone away… just busy in the garden and the kitchen.  Glad you asked!

Seriously, despite the most recent heat wave and lack of rain (a predictable complaint… since I so whine every July), it’s been a good harvest so far. And the harvest needs processing. We eat a lot of fresh veggies and fruit, but I also process a bit for the dark months. While a few of those recipes will follow in future post (pickled zucchini maybe? or Tomates Aigre-douces? or peaches pickled with basil and balsamic vinegar? or peach chutney?), I am posting a simple immediate-gratification dessert here – so that I have at least one post in July! Tequila Yellow Plum Sorbet! Just what’s needed when it’s 105 outside…. or after a canning session.

Tequila Yellow Plum Sorbet

  • Yellow Plums (never weighted them – all the leftovers from a peck that we’ve been munching on all the prior week), to yield 3 C puree
  • Mild honey, 2/3 to 3/4 C (depending how sweet the plums are)
  • Simple sugar syrup 3 T (as needed)
  • Tequila, a shot

Prick or slash the plums. Put them in a non-reactive heavy bottom pan with a little water so they don’t stick and cook on medium to low heat until they are very soft and have completely lost their shape (20 to 30 minutes; adjust the heat as needed). Let cool until you can comfortably handle, then squeeze the plums with your hands to clean the pits of flesh as much as possible. Discard the pits (ALL the pits!).

Puree the plums in the blender until very smooth.

While still warm: For each 3 cups of puree, add 2/3 C honey. Taste, as needed add the rest of the honey and the 3 T simple sugar syrup. Blend to mix completely. Let cool completely. Chill if you have the time.

Whisk in a shot of tequila. The larger the shot, the creamier and the boozier your sorbet. But don’t go overboard or you’ll have a slushy plum margarita. I would say no more than 1/4 cup (I used 2 tablespoons… more or less).

Process in your ice-cream maker, following manufacturer’s instruction.

Enjoy as is or with fat juicy blackberries and a few fragrant peach slices. If you aren’t driving anywhere, give the fruit another shot of tequila and a sprinkling of sugar and let marinate up to an hour at room temperature first.

aaaahhhhh…..

Locavore Log: yellow plums from Jenkins Orchard in Sperryville and our honey

 

 

 

sylvie | One comment | Tags: ,
18 Jun 2011
Desserts • Fruit recipe • locavore log • Recipes

Sour Cherry Cake

I’ve picked lots of cherries this year. How much exactly?  87 pounds to date both sweet & sour, over a few weeks in 3 different places. This past  Wednesday  morning I picked 40 pounds from about 7:45 AM until 10:00 AM on a hill top orchard: 20 pounds were mine to keep and 20 was the owner’s share. I love those “shared” deals!

Anyway, when you pick so much, you really cannot eat them all “as is” (no matter how many cherries you can eat at one sitting …. which when it is me, it not negligeable). You’ve got to process them. I have mentioned already the easiest recipe (Cherry Liqueur), and yes, I jam & freeze (and make ice-creams & sorbets. Of course!)

I spotted this recipe for Hungarian Sour Cherry Cake in Saveur Magazine last year, tried it, and after a few modifications (including the not inconsiderable change in cooking time), it’s now part of the dishes I make: it’s easy and adaptable and flavorful. I also make it with other fruit, especially blueberries. Read more

sylvie | 3 comments | Tags: , , ,
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