What I've Been Eating

This is just a gratuitous pic to distract you from the lack of current ones . . . .

OK - I KNOW that 99.9% of blogging is the photos, but the one memory card died and the other one is full of wedding cake pictures and I just don't want to lose track of all the amazing stuff I am still managing to eat, even if I can't take pictures of it.

Roast pork with a blueberry-white-wine reduction. Green salad. Fresh corn.

Blackberries and cream and cake - layered together for a spontaneous triffle.

Raspberries - warm from the sun and cool from the shade.

Shrimp sauteed with garlic and butter and olive oil - parsley on top, fresh corn on the side.

Tree- ripened apricots - I've only had three, but I think they'll hold me until next year!.

Green curry rice with cream and corn and shrimp. OMG - really could eat this until I am sick!

Carne asada (steak) and carnitas (pork) tacos with green salsa from the taco truck in Monroe - hot and spicy and salty and perfect!

Insalata caprese with lots of fresh basil.

Summer Berry Tartlets

I couldn’t commit to just one berry – I’m pretty sure if I had to pick a favorite berry, it would be blackberries, but I figure there’s still time in August and September to use those – so I went with raspberries and blueberries. These are variations on a couple of recipes, and make a perfect little dessert buffet, or breakfast, or whatever . . . . I am a huge fan of dessert and coffee for breakfast, and these seem almost healthy if you think about it. Heee!

OK – true confession time – I am going to give you the recipe for a fabulous all-butter pie crust that you can use for the tartlet shells, but I do not use it for these tartlets – I buy frozen pre-made tartlet shells (raw) and bake them fresh right before I assemble the tartlets. The shells are GREAT, and this is one of those “life’s too short” sort of things . . . .

Raspberry Tartlets

Tartlet shells (recipe below)
Pastry cream (recipe below)
Fresh raspberries

Garnish:
Mint leaves
Sweetened whipped cream

Assembly: Prebake the tartlet shells – approx 12 minutes at 400 degrees F. Cool. Fill with pastry cream. Top with raspberries. Garnish with whipped cream and mint leaves. The really swanky among you might want to brush the baked shells with melted dark or white chocolate, for an additional flavor hit. Also, brushing with chocolate ensures that the shells stay crisp if you want to assemble them a bit ahead of time.

Double Blueberry Tartlets

Tartlet shells
4 cups fresh blueberries
¾ cup sugar
3 T. cornstarch
1 T. lemon juice
1 T. butter

Garnish:
Thin strips of lemon zest
Sweetened whipped cream

Assembly: Prebake the tartlet shells as above and cool. Take half of the blueberries and cook them with the sugar and cornstarch until they are cooked and thick, low heat, approximately 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in the lemon juice and the butter. Let cool a little bit, then stir in the fresh blueberries and use this to fill the tartlet shells. Garnish with whipped cream and strips of lemon zest.


Pastry Cream

1 cup milk
3 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 t. vanilla
1/2 cup well-chilled heavy cream

Scald the milk. In a clean pan whisk together the egg yolks, the sugar, the cornstarch and the vanilla. Whisk in the milk and bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly. Simmer for 3 minutes -- it will be very thick --transfer it to a bowl and chill it, its surface covered with plastic wrap, for 4 hours or until it is firm. (May be made one day ahead.) Beat the heavy cream until it holds stiff peaks. Whisk the pastry cream until it is smooth, whisk in half the whipped cream, fold in the remaining cream gently but thoroughly.


All Butter Pie Crust

2 cups flour
12 tablespoons chilled butter, cut in bits
1/2 t. salt
5 tablespoons ice water (more as needed)

Pulse flour, butter and salt in a food processor until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the ice water and pulse until the mixture just clumps together. Form into two balls, flatten each slightly and wrap in plastic wrap or waxed paper and refrigerate at least 15 minutes until firm. If you really need to use these right away, you can probably get away with it if you roll the crust out between sheets of waxed paper or plastic, or flour the rolling surface really well.

Makes one double crust, or use in tartlet shells – roll out to about ¼” thick and cut into rounds to fit into 3” or 4” tartlet shells.

The best part about this recipe is that the formula can be adapted for any quantity. Just use 2 tablespoons butter for every 1/3 cup flour. So a small, single crust works out very well with 1 cup flour and 6 tablespoons butter, while a larger single crust would take a stick of butter and 1 1/3 cups flour.

See what I've been up to!

http://buttercupbakeryblog.blogspot.com/

Raspberry Tarts ala Z

This is great! Z does a great deal of the work, and I get to post the picture! We baked off the tart shells on Thursday the 26th of June, then painted the inside with chocolate to protect the crispiness of the baked shells. Then we packaged them up, and Z took them to eastern Washington along with a cooler filled with pastry creme, (some cookbooks list this as creme patisserie), raspberries, fresh mint, and piping bags. Then the assembly - pretty self explanatory really - fill tarts with pastry creme, arrange raspberries decoratively, pipe on some whipped cream, add a mint leaf or two and a shaving of chocolate and voila, you've got wedding dessert for 80 people.

Now I personally think you should always have a wedding cake, but this turned out wonderful. And we threw in a side serving of pine nut tarts!

Pastry Creme

1 cup milk
3 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 t. vanilla
1/2 cup well-chilled heavy cream


Scald the milk. In a clean pan whisk together the egg yolks, the sugar, the cornstarch and the vanilla. Whisk in the milk and bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly. Simmer for 3 minutes -- it will be very thick --transfer it to a bowl and chill it, its surface covered with plastic wrap, for 4 hours or until it is firm. (May be made one day ahead.) Beat the heavy cream until it holds stiff peaks. Whisk the pastry cream until it is smooth, whisk in half the whipped cream, fold in the remaining cream gently but thoroughly.

Danish Braid - Daring Bakers' June Challenge!

Cherry Cream Cheese Danish

June's Daring Bakers' Challenge - Danish Braid.

This is a lovely and versatile recipe - for the complete text see Kelly of Sass & Veracity, and Ben of What’s Cookin’? Thanks to them for being the host and hostess this month - the recipe was well written and the explanations were great, with one exception. You cannot make this "on the counter" if you don't have a mixer - it will be a huge stinkin' mess! You have to just put it in a bowl and mix it up by hand - the dough is not that big, and it can be done in a large mixing bowl with a wooden spoon with no problem.

I made it twice - once with lemon and vanilla in the dough, once with orange rind. Both times I made sweet and savory versions - cherry cream cheese for the sweet, but oh the savory ones were fabulous - the sweetness of the danish dough is a great counterpoint to the saltiness of a savory filling.

Below is the individual danish with goat cheese and carmelized onions. I also did a cheese/tomato/basil braid, and a shrimp braid. All of them were so good! Though I can't say that eating an entire recipe of this dough in one weekend is really wise . . . .

Lemon Glazed Cake

This cake is a delight - very verstatile to change the flavors around - lemon, orange, almond, rum - you get to be creative with whatever is around. And frankly, I haven't baked it in a while - confession - this is an OLD picture. But I get tired of seeing the same old thing on my page, and I am flat out of time this week, so here ya go! Z and I are baking tomorrow, so there may be tartlettes to post later this week. Then, the Daring Bakers' Challenge gets posted on Sunday the 29th - whee!!! It's a good one!

Lemon Cake
350°F

3 cups flour
1/2 t. soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 t. vanilla
Grated rind and juice from one lemon
1 cup buttermilk

Sift dry ingredients together, set aside. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs, vanilla and lemon. Beat with an electric mixer 3 minutes. Add dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Pour batter into a very well greased and floured tube or bundt pan and bake 60-70 minutes or until golden brown and cracked on top. Do not remove cake from pan until it is completely cool. It should come out perfectly.

Lemon Glaze: Mix confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice to make a thin glaze. Brush/pour over cooled cake.

S'mores

I don't really like graham crackers - never have - I think it has to do with their early pairing with lukewarm milk out of the carton in grade school. Anyway, they're ok in a cheesecake crust, but that's about it . . . .

So, I have been feeling like I am significantly missing out on the "s'mores" phenomenon, but overall not feeling too terribly deprived, what with the entire other universe of desserts out there . . . . But still, in the back of my mind - you know . . . .

Yesterday at Trader Joe's (god I LOVE that place - now there's a place that should deliver) they had the whole little s'more set up - swiss chocolate, artisan vanilla marshmallows, cinnamon graham crackers, etc. I almost fell for the whole package, but I had a chance conversation with a woman in there when we almost backed into each other, and her solution was pure genius - just use a different cookie. (doh!) well, of course. Patrolled the cookie displays for 15 minutes - shortbread? gingersnaps? almond biscuits? All have promise, but finally I settled on the TJ brand of butter waffle cookie - an amazing little confection made of pronounceable ingredients!

It's pretty simple really - chocolate on one cookie, halved marshmallow on the other, a few seconds under the broiler, smash them together, let cool sufficiently to avoid second degree burns on the roof of the mouth, and then consume. They are sublime! Yes, all you 70%-er's out there, you can use dark chocolate! No campfire necessary. And I still have most of the ingredients left, so it's looking like s'mores again tonight. . . . .

Maybe I can get the macro function to work and get a clear picture!! But you pretty much get the idea from this one.

With macro functioning. . . . .

and just for fun, one more

Molten Chocolate Cake

OK, first, I have to thank Ann at Velvet Lava for the inspiration for this dessert. I mean, her whole blog is inspired by the lava cake and the chocolate velvet cake, so after a few months of reading her posts, I finally got off the dime and made this recipe, which truthfully has been in the house for five years! It was in the newspaper in 2003 - well, what can I say, it's been busy around here . . . .

And I am way late posting, because I made these many days ago. But they are so very cute and so very delicious! The recipe - one of probably 127 of the recipes out there - is at the end of the post. There are lots of variations on how much chocolate, how much butter, etc. But I love it that you can make them early in the day and keep them in the fridge until the last minute and bake them cold. The one picture that didn't come out so well was the one I took after the kitchen towel caught on fire when taking these out of the oven! YES, full on flames! Crap. I stood there like an idiot, pizza pan in my hand with the little ramekins on it, thinking, hmm, is the pan steaming? why is my hand so hot?? I did't drop them though. Apparently, with an oven at 500 F, you don't need much towel contact with the heating element for it to ignite. I suppose there's a lesson there about using pot holders, but it's a lesson I will probably never learn.
Anyway, the recipe says to serve these in the ramekins, but I liked them baked for one or two extra minutes so they would pop out and be served on a plate - the lava effect is so much better if it flows across the plate. . . .

Molten Chocolate Lava Cake

3 1/2 ounces (7 tablespoons) butter
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 large egg yolks
2 large whole eggs
3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
7 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
Additional confectioners' sugar, for garnish
Whipped cream, for garnish
Have ready 4 half-cup ramekins.
In a double boiler, melt the butter and the chocolate together. Meanwhile, lightly beat the eggs and egg yolks. In a separate bowl, sift the confectioners' sugar together with the flour.
When the chocolate has melted, whisk the egg mixture into it, blending well. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients, until they are just incorporated into the batter.
Divide the batter evenly between the four ramekins, and refrigerate until ready to bake.
Before serving, preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until each cake has a high rounded dome and a single crack that oozes a bit of chocolate.
Dust with confectioners' sugar, and serve with whipped cream on the side.

Almond Cake

Just thought I would share a lovely little almond cake recipe that is divine with berries! More recipes to come . . . .

ALMOND CAKE
325°F 50 minutes

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ cups sugar
1 ½ cups flour
2 tablespoons milk (or orange juice)
pinch of salt
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
(grated zest of one orange, optional)

Preheat oven. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan. In a large bowl cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add flour, alternating with milk, in two additions. Add salt. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Stir in almond extract and orange zest, if using. Pour into prepared pan and bake approximately 50 minutes, or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool on a rack before removing from pan. Dust with powdered sugar to serve.

Variation: Orange almond cake. Use the orange juice instead of the milk, and add the orange zest with the almond extract.