Showing posts with label sweet treats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sweet treats. Show all posts

Friday, May 29, 2015

Almond Plum Tarte Tatin #FridayPieDay

This plum tart, baked upside down with caramelized sugar and slivered almonds then flipped, is perfect summer fare, for when stoned fruit is in season. Any fruit can be used in a tarte Tatin, although apples are traditional. Try it with apricots or peaches as well as plums. 

A couple of months ago my friend Heather from girlichef decided she was going to designate the last Friday of the month as Friday Pie Day and I vowed to join her. Then the last Friday in March came and went and I completely forgot. And I did have something to share in April (You are looking at it!) but other real life commitments got in the way. Despite being on the road, on my way to our younger daughter’s graduation from Rhode Island School of Design today, I just had to participate this month. Because, as Heather says, life needs more pie!

Ingredients
1 cup or 200g sugar
2 tablespoons water
8 ripe plums (about 1 lb 6.5 oz or 640g)
Good pinch salt
1/4 cup or 55g unsalted butter
8.5 oz or 240g block puff pastry
1/4 cup or 20g slivered almonds plus a little extra for sprinkling after, if desired.

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Halve the plums and remove the stones.

Put the plums in a bowl and sprinkle them with the remaining sugar and salt, mix, and leave to sit while you get on with caramelizing the sugar.



A note about the pan: I use one that goes from stovetop to oven so I can caramelize the sugar, add the butter and then add the fruit and pastry all in one. If you do not have such a pan, simply pour the caramelized sugar into a baking pan and continue as per the instructions.

In a pan, simmer half the sugar with a couple of tablespoons of water until a golden caramel has formed.



Stir in the butter.



(Here’s where you pour the sauce into a tart pan, preferably non-stick, if your stovetop pan won’t go safely into a hot oven.)

Sprinkle the almonds on the caramelized sugar.



Put the plums on top, round side down, and spread them out to cover the base of the pan.



Roll out the pastry until it is just slightly larger than your pan.

Cover the plums with the pastry, pushing it right into the sides of the pan. Cut two or three slits in the top to let the steam out. I was just messing around so I stuck a few scraps on top of the pastry but since we are turning this over to serve, they won’t even show.



Place the tart in the oven for around 25 to 35 minutes until pastry is puffed and golden brown and the syrup is bubbling up.



When the tart is baked, allow it too cool for about 10 minutes.

Put a large serving plate with sides on top of the pan and turn the tart upside down onto it. The deliciously sticky plummy syrup will come out over the pastry so a plate with sides is essential. Sprinkle on some more slivered almonds, if desired.


Serve nice slices with ice cream, thick pouring cream or a dollop of crème fraîche.


Enjoy!



FridayPieDay is the brilliant invention of Heather from girlichef.

I am pleased to start joining her on the last Friday of each month for pie and crust recipes, techniques, tools of the trade, and other inspiration.

For more information and recipes, please check out her #FRIDAYPIEDAY page!


Thursday, May 21, 2015

Culture Confusion Rocky Road Bundt #BundtBakers

This Bundt is a riot of cultural influences and flavors and colors that somehow come together to create one of the richest Bundts I’ve ever baked: Turkish delight, dried apricots, syrupy stem ginger, pistachios, dried cranberries and date molasses, in a Jamaican ginger batter, finished off with a decorative flourish of American marshmallow fluff.


This is the TCK or third culture kid of cakes, feeling the pull of the Far East, Middle East, Jamaica by way of the British Isles and the United States as well. This month our Bundt Baker host, Laura of Baking in Pyjamas, challenged us to bake a Bundt with the flavors and ingredients of Rocky Road. For those unfamiliar, rocky road is an unbaked confection that usually contains nuts, fruit, chocolate and marshmallows, sometimes cookies, but a little research soon revealed that the combinations depend greatly on where one lives.  I was intrigued by a recipe on Taste.com.au for a Turkish Delight Rocky Road and decided to use those basic ingredients, but baked in cake batter. (And substituting a North American ingredient, cranberries, for the glacé cherries because glacé cherries? Just no.)

Ah, but which cake batter? Sure, I could have done a plain cake but if you’ve been reading along here a while you know that I don’t often take the easy way out. I like a challenge. So I started looking for a cake recipe with Turkish delight and came across this moist and beautiful ginger loaf baked with fond memories of her English childhood, from my fellow UAE blogger, Sally of My Custard Pie. Now Sally’s ginger cake was already loaded with flavor and the only thing Turkish delight about it ended up being a gorgeous pink rose flavored icing. But I could already taste all of my added flavors baked in that fabulous batter. It’s a gift.

To finish it off Rocky Road style, I piped on some marshmallow fluff. Only after it was baked did I realize that, with so much going on, I forgot chocolate. Sorry, Laura!


Ingredients
For the cake batter:
1/2 cup or 90g dried apricots
1 cup or 150g unsalted pistachios, divided
1/2 cup or 85g dried cranberries
 3 1/2 oz or 100g Turkish Delight
1 knob of stem ginger
2 cups or 250g flour plus a little extra for flouring Bundt pan
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground (powdered) ginger
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 cup, firmly packed, or 100g brown sugar
1/2 cup or 113g unsalted butter
1/2 cup or 120ml golden syrup
1/3 cup or 80ml date molasses (Normal molasses can be substituted.)
1 generous tablespoon syrup from jar of stem ginger
1 large egg
2/3 cup or 155 ml milk

To decorate:
1/2 cup marshmallow creme or fluff or use a thick glaze of your choosing
Cranberries and pistachios, amounts as per the instructions below

Method
Finely chop about one quarter of your pistachios in a food processor. You are looking for a lot of pistachios dust, very fine crumbs and some small pieces.



Roughly chop the rest of your pistachios with a knife and set aside about one quarter of them to decorate the Bundt after baking.

Cut your cranberries, apricots and Turkish delight into small pieces.  Using scissors is easier than the knife. Mince your stem ginger.  Set aside about one quarter of the cranberry pieces for decorating the cake after baking.


Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and liberally butter and lightly flour your 10-cup Bundt pan. In case you are curious, mine is the Nordic Ware Fleur de Lis.  <affiliate link

Now sprinkle the finely chopped pistachios around the side and middle of the Bundt pan. The bigger pieces will not stick and will fall into the deep grooves of the pan. This is a good thing.



Sift the flour for the cake into a large mixing bowl and add in the baking powder, ginger, baking soda and salt. Mix well.

Add the cut apricots, Turkish delight and the bigger pile of cranberries to the flour mixture and use your hands to make sure they are all well coated and not sticking together.



In a large saucepan, gently warm the golden syrup, date molasses and the ginger syrup with the brown sugar and butter till the butter is just melted and the sugar has dissolved. Set aside.



Measure your milk into a measuring jug, add in the egg and whisk well with a fork.

Pour your barely warm molasses mixture into the flour bowl then add the milk with egg and the minced stem ginger. Mix lightly.



Fold in the larger pile of chopped pistachios.



Pour the batter into your prepared Bundt pan.



Bake on the middle shelf in your preheated oven for 40-45 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean. The cake should be pulling away from the sides slightly.



Allow to cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then use your wooden skewer to loosen any bits of cake adhering to the sides or middle of the Bundt pan, before turning the cake out.



Allow to cool completely before decorating.

To decorate, put your marshmallow fluff in a piping bag and follow the contours of your cake. My initial plan was for fuller coverage but the diamonds that appeared on top because of the pistachios were too cool to hide, so I ended up not using all the marshmallow fluff. If you have a traditional Bundt pan, just pipe that sticky stuff all over.



Poke bits of cranberry and pistachio all over the cake until you think there’s enough or you run out. Over the past 20 years I’ve had a couple of good friends who have baked and decorated with me and they will tell you that I often need to be stopped when contemplating the addition of just one more thing. But more is more, I say.



A note on marshmallow fluff: It’s not the best medium to stick stuff to a cake, even a cold cake, because it starts to slide. If you aren’t trying to mimic rocky road ingredients, feel free to substitute your favorite glaze. Perhaps even Sally’s pretty in pink Turkish Delight one or her alternate option, flavored with fresh lemongrass.



Many thanks to Laura from Baking in Pyjamas for this great theme. I know you all are going to enjoy the variety of flavors and cakes we have for you today! Remember, just because it's called Rocky Road, doesn't mean it's all the same inside!


BundtBakers


#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on the BundtBakers home page.


Aaaaand, if you happen to have extra marshmallow fluff and a willing pooch (and by willing I mean he sits patiently waiting for a taste whenever I fill a green piping bag - he knows!) then by all means, give him a mustache and let him lick it off.  Hey, it's his 8th birthday on Saturday. Special treat.

















Sunday, May 10, 2015

Bourbon Peach Frozen Yogurt


Creamy Greek-style yogurt and canned peaches, blended together with sugar, fresh lemon juice and a touch of bourbon make a wonderful frozen treat everyone will enjoy! Especially my mother. 

My mom is on my subscribers list so she gets every new post by email. (Hi, Mom!) She doesn’t comment here on the blog much but she sends me her thoughts by return email and those often include the request that I make the recipe for her next time we are together. Or some additional family history is that is pertinent to my story. I love that this space is a place we can connect, even when I live so far away. And, because she is subscribed to the feed from other blogs as well, sometimes she shares those posts with me, which brings to mind a quote from Nobel laureate, François Mauriac:

“’Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are’ is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you reread.”

In this new day and age, I’d change that to say, “I'd know you better if you told me what you share.”

I’ve gotten to know my mother better from what she shares. And she has made it amply clear that peach is her favorite fruit. Also, she adores thick Greek yogurt. So, for Sunday Supper’s Mother’s Day event, I decided to create a frozen peach yogurt in her honor. It’s creamy, it’s peachy and I know she’d love it. And I’ll be making it again next month when we are together again! (You don’t even need to ask, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day! I love you!)

Note: The bourbon flavor is extremely subtle but the alcohol does help the frozen yogurt stay creamy.

Ingredients
1 large can (29 oz or 825g, drained weight 16.9 oz or 480g) peach halves in light syrup
2 1/2 cups or 625g plain whole milk Greek yogurt
1/2 cup or 100g sugar
1/4 cup or 60ml fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons bourbon

Method
Drain the peaches well and discard the light syrup. (Or use it to sweeten iced tea!)


Set aside three or four peach halves and chop the rest into chunks.



Put the chopped peaches, yogurt, sugar, lemon juice and bourbon in a food processor or blender and purée till the peaches are in tiny, tiny pieces.



Slice the reserved peaches.



Pour the creamy mixture into a bowl or plastic container and chill it in the refrigerator or freezer until very cold but still pourable.

Scrape it into your ice cream maker and follow manufacturer’s instructions.



Put the frozen yogurt in a freezer friendly sealable container and stir in a little more than half of the sliced peaches.



Top the mixture with the rest of the sliced peaches and put the container in the freezer.

Remove from the freezer about 10 minutes before you are ready to serve.



Once it has thawed slightly, scoop into bowls or pretty glasses to serve.



Enjoy!

Many thanks to Camilla of Culinary Adventures with Camilla for hosting today’s great Sunday Supper theme. If you are still looking for Mother’s Day menu inspiration, you’ve come to the right place! And Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

Celebratory Sips
Starters and Salads
Hearty Mains
Treats and Sweets



Thursday, April 16, 2015

Lemon Blueberry Van Halen Bundt #BundtBakers

This Lemon Blueberry Van Halen Bundt is a rich and buttery pound cake, filled with cream cheese and blueberries then drizzled with a lemon cream cheese glaze.

Food Lust People Love: This Lemon Blueberry Van Halen Bundt is a rich and buttery pound cake, filled with cream cheese and blueberries then drizzled with a lemon cream cheese glaze.



If you are a fan of Van Halen, you’ve probably discerned that my contribution for this month’s Bundt Bakers is a pound cake, so I'll elaborate further to say it's flavored with lemon and stuffed with blueberries. There’s also cream cheese and blueberry jam right up in there.

It’s not “an old time, long lost recipe” but one I adapted off of my friend Jenni’s blog, Pastry Chef Online, who in turn adapted it from an original recipe by a certain Miss Patsy. And while I don’t know Miss Patsy, I’m going to hazard a guess from her name that she is “home grown and down home, “ so the renaming of her pound cake is maybe appropriate, if you don’t think too hard about the rest of the Van Halen lyrics. As Jenni has proven myriad times, this recipe is easily adaptable and a great jumping off place for buttery rich pound cakes of various flavors.

This month our theme for Bundt Bakers is Hidden Surprises so, even after adding all the lemon, I couldn’t leave Miss Patsy’s recipe well enough alone; I had to try and put something inside. I chose blueberries and cream cheese, which sounded like a great idea, until the filling sunk. And that is when I added a glaze to the instructions because I had to hide it again. If you don’t mind the look of a blueberry upside down Bundt, leave off the glaze because it was delicious. Rather ugly actually, but definitely delicious. On the other hand, a lemony cream cheese glaze is never a bad thing. Your call.

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups or 285g flour
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/4 cups or 450g sugar
1 1/8 cup or 255g unsalted butter, softened
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup or 60ml whole milk
1/4 cup or 60ml cream
1/4 cup or 60ml fresh lemon juice

For the filling:
2 1/2 oz or 70g cream cheese, cold
1 3/4 oz or 50g fresh blueberries, plus a few extra for decorating, if desired
1/4 cup or 80g blueberry jam

Optional lemon glaze:
1/2 cup or 60g icing sugar
1 1/4 oz or 35g cream cheese, at room temperature
1 teaspoon butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2-3 teaspoons milk

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 10-cup Bundt pan by greasing and flouring it or using the non-stick spray that has flour already in it.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a bowl and set aside.

Measure your milk, cream and lemon juice together in a measuring cup and stir well. It's going to kind of thicken and get all sour creamy/buttermilky and that's a good thing.





In the bowl of your stand mixer or with electric beaters, cream the butter and the sugar together until light and fluffy.

Add in the vanilla and then the first egg.



Beat well until combined. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl with a rubber spatula and add the other two eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.





Add in half your flour and beat well, followed by half your liquid mixture and beat until thoroughly combined.





Scrape the sides of the bowl well and continue beating, adding the balance of the flour and then the balance of the liquids, along with the lemon zest. Beat well.

Spoon two-thirds of your batter into the prepared Bundt pan. Use a spoon to make a very shallow channel in the batter.




For the filling, cut the cream cheese up into small chunks and mix lightly with the jam and fresh blueberries.




Spoon your filling into the channel.



Then top it with the balance of the batter and smooth it out.




Bake in your preheated oven for about 45-50 minutes or until the top is nicely golden and the Bundt begins to just pull away from the sides.



Let the Bundt cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

This is not a thing of beauty



The filling will probably sink to the bottom of the pan, which becomes the top of the cake, making an upside down blueberry cream cheese topping. Which, as I mentioned, while delicious, is not particularly attractive. At least in my opinion. If you’d like to hide it with a glaze, whisk all the glaze ingredients together, adding just enough milk to get it to the consistency you'd like, and then drizzle it (or use a piping bag) to decorate the top of the Bundt.

If you've added the glaze, top with a few blueberries, if desired.


Food Lust People Love: This Lemon Blueberry Van Halen Bundt is a rich and buttery pound cake, filled with cream cheese and blueberries then drizzled with a lemon cream cheese glaze.
Enjoy!

Food Lust People Love: This Lemon Blueberry Van Halen Bundt is a rich and buttery pound cake, filled with cream cheese and blueberries then drizzled with a lemon cream cheese glaze.

Many thanks to our host this month, Anshie of Spice Roots for a great, if somewhat vexing, theme and for all the work it takes to host. Have a look at how the rest of our group handled the Hidden Surprises challenge:


#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.


Pin this Lemon Blueberry Van Halen Bundt! 

Food Lust People Love: This Lemon Blueberry Van Halen Bundt is a rich and buttery pound cake, filled with cream cheese and blueberries then drizzled with a lemon cream cheese glaze.