Even though it’s colder than some parts of a witches anatomy (for here, at least), I have to pass on the link to Ice Cream Magazine. Although I doubt I’m going to be digging out the ice cream maker for a while this looks like a fun website to explore this summer–since ice cream is one of my favorite sweet things. There are some savory tarts and things like that, too.
Category Archives: Desserts
Cake is in the oven…
…and I’m waiting, none too patiently for it to be done–it smells heavenly: buttery, coffee-y, nutty, with a little caramel-molasses-like overtone from the brown sugar.
(It’s a very easy cake to put together–you don’t even really need to use a mixer–but since it was sitting there on the counter, I did use it.)
The recipe from Promenade Plantings called for walnuts. I have to confess to not liking English walnuts–even when good and fresh they have a bitter overtone that I don’t like, so I substituted pecans in the recipe since I really like them.
The house is smelling SO good–it smells like it needs some good dark chocolate–hmmmm, coffee, chocolate, and nuts. If it tastes like my nose tells me it will, I may try it with some chocolate bits in it too. I can already tell that waiting for it too cool is going to be some sort of ordeal!
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Finally, it’s cool enough–just couldn’t stand it any longer. All the time I’ve been smelling it, I’ve resisted making some ganache–so far successfully, but the longer I smell that cake….
OMG, is that every good! Tastes every bit as good as I though it would–and as it smelled. It doesn’t scream coffee at you either–I suspect that even non-coffee drinkers would like this.
I’m enjoying it with a big glass of cold milk right now, but I definitely want to try it with coffee–probably with my breakfast coffee in the morning. This could be habit-forming!
A cake I want to bake
You can tell from the posts here that I don’t do a lot of desserts. I usually satisfy my sweet tooth with fruit (dried or fresh) or dark chocolate. Sometimes something like the brioche filled with chocolate ganache. I will admit to really liking so-called “pound cake” or pâte à quatre-quarts; otherwise, I pretty much leave cakes and pies, and the like alone; but then there are some like the bay-infused pound cake (which is fantastic by the way), or the lavender-lemon cake….you get the general idea.
Browsing about on one of the blogs that I follow (Promenade Plantings), I found a recipe for a coffee and walnut cake that looks like one that I might really like, so I though I’d pass this link on to all of you who don’t want gobs of terribly sweet icing or gooey glazes.
This image is from Promenade Plantings. If you think that looks delicious a click here will take you to the recipe for a cake that makes me want to bake–and make some espresso and sit and visit with friends and neighbors.
from Promenade Plantings: Coffee walnut cake
Spiced Strawberry Sorbet
It’s summer time–I know that you don’t want to hear me complain about heat and humidity, so I won’t. There are some things that are good about it–and one of them is strawberry season. I’ve enjoyed some of the local ones that I’ve gotten at Harris Teeter (so happy to see them carrying local produce). When strawberries are perfectly ripe I just want to eat them completely unadorned. But the hot weather makes me think about cool things like sorbet, ices, and ice cream.
Here’s a recipe that I’ve had for literally years. It’s so good that I wanted to share it with you as one more way to enjoy the season’s strawberries. (Thanks to Google, I can tell you that I got this recipe from Epicurious.com). Just as in making the sour cream strawberry ice cream, you don’t want berries that are just “okay” or “fine for ice cream”, you want them to be absolutely luscious–the kind where they are so fragrant that they make you feel like you’re right in the strawberry field feeling the sun shining down on your back and smelling the ripe, fragrant berries.
I’ve made one slight change to this recipe–I like to toast the black peppercorns in a dry skillet until they start to smell aromatic and peppery, then crush and add to the sorbet. I think it makes a more complex, spicier accent from the pepper.
Spiced Strawberry Sorbet
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2/3 cup water
- 3 tablespoons black peppercorns, coarsely crushed
- 1 quart strawberries, hulled
- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, or to taste
Preparation
- In a saucepan combine sugar and water and bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved.
- Stir in peppercorns and remove pan from heat.
- Cover pan and let syrup stand 1 hour.
- Strain syrup through a fine sieve into a food processor or blender and discard peppercorns.
- Puree hulled strawberries with syrup until very smooth and force though sieve into a bowl, discarding seeds and other solids.
- Stir in vinegar and chill, covered, until cold.
- Freeze mixture in an ice-cream maker, following manufacturer’s instructions.
- Serve sorbet with sliced strawberries.
The Epicurious recipe suggests an accompaniment of toasted almond Phylo crisps; that recipe is given at the link above. The balsamic vinegar does not need to be absolute top of the line–but it should be authentic–not a cheap imitation. To be frank, I’ve never gotten around to making the phyllo crisps to go with the sorbet, though I can attest that a good traditional pound cake, tuiles, or madeleines are excellent with it.
After tasting strawberry with green peppercorns in a Hachez Cocoa d’Arriba chocolate bar, I want to try this using green peppercorns, probably bloomed with heat before putting them into the sorbet.
Another taste combination that occurred to me was to add cilantro (tiny, newly sprouted plants). If you’re questioning my sanity on that one, there is a reason it occurred to me. When I was in San Antonio for the national American Society for Indexing convention, I had dinner at Los Ramblas (Spanish cuisine), and I had a strawberry gazpacho with tiny cilantro “microgreens”–those with just the cotyledons–not even the first true leaves; it was an awesome flavor combination that I think might adapt nicely to sorbet. (The microgreens are not nearly so strongly flavored as fully grown cilantro.)
alpine strawberry
Choicest summer fruit–figs!
ripe and unripe figs on tree
One of the high points of summer for me is when figs are ripe–eat them fresh, ripe from the tree early in the morning while they are still cool from nighttime, or in the heat of the afternoon when they are fragrant and warm from the afternoon sunshine. Absolutely luscious! They never even make it into the house. Should the crop be so plentiful that they do make it into the house, then get out the prosciutto–fresh figs are even better than melon with that lovely ham! Or, some good cheese–goat cheese, or Gorgonzola, or other blue, or a sheep’s milk cheese like Etorki or aged Manchego They are never better than when you can pick them truly tree-ripened.
Too many times, figs are sold unripe, mostly because they are very perishable and delicate when at peak ripeness. Another reason figs are frequently picked before peak ripeness is the competition: birds, squirrels, bees, wasps, and ants–all those critters have an eye for the perfectly ripe fig! If you want to eat them ripe from the tree you have to be willing to share because unfortunately, figs do not ripen after they are picked–pick a green fig and you’ll always have a tasteless fruit that will leave you wondering why anyone would want to eat them, much less get excited about them.
It’s really hard to describe the taste of a fresh, ripe fig–it’s certainly much different from dried ones, and a world away from Fig Newtons. I think that a ripe, fresh fig has some peach and berry flavors–it will vary somewhat with the variety of fig, but still—it’s not likely to be what you’d expect from eating dried ones.
So how do you tell if a fig is ripe? They should be soft–but please be gentle when you press on them. Really, you can tell if they are going to be soft by looking at the color (you do need to know the color of the variety when ripe). The Brown Turkey figs first turn yellowish-green–they will likely be just starting to soften then, but still do not have much flavor yet. As they ripen more they begin to turn a lovely rosy brown–but wait! They’re not ready to eat yet.
Figs hang in a drooping way from the tree (you can see how the stem ends are curved in the photograph above). When ripe they should separate easily from the tree when you lift them up against that curve. If they don’t they are not ripe!
For best flavor, they should begin to show some tiny surface fissures in the skin (not deep cracks) almost like crazing on pottery glaze, and the small round area at the blossom end should have started to open or to show a split. On some figs you may actually see a drop of clear liquid there.
To find ripe figs if you don’t have your own tree, you need to head to the farmers’ market. The common fig here is the Brown Turkey which is in season approximately from July to September. I’ve just harvested several pounds of figs–but the tree still has lots of small green figs that should ripen in a second flush in a few weeks.
Should you have an excess of fresh figs, you should use some with duck–the recipe is complicated, but the result is unforgettable–worth the effort. What else can you do with fresh figs? Fig ice cream, poach some and serve with pound cake or vanilla ice cream, fresh fruit tart….but best of all, just eat them unadorned.
If you find you have some that are not quite what you’d like to eat out-of-hand, then you can make a lovely dessert by poaching them in Campari. This is a recipe that I found in Jacques Pepin’s The Shortcut Cook (page 248) for which I’ll give you the basics here:
Poached Fresh Figs with Campari
Ingredients
- 1 cup fruity white wine
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup lime juice
- about 20 small, ripe figs
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch dissolved in 2 tablespoons water
- 2 tablespoons Campari
Preparation
- Combine wine, sugar and lime juice and bring to a boil.
- Add figs, cover, and simmer for about 4 to 5 minutes. Figs should be tender when tested with the tip of a knife, but should not burst open.
- Transfer to a bowl with slotted spoon.
- Reduce the liquid in the saucepan to 1 cup if there is more than this.
- Add cornstarch slurry and bring to a boil to thicken.
- Cool sauce to room temperature then stir in the Campari and pour over figs.
These are delightful served over pound cake with a dollop of sour cream or crème fraîche, or spooned over good vanilla ice cream. (I like to add just a hint of cardamom to this poaching liquid.)
ripe Brown Turkey figs
Roasted figs
Figs are one of my favorite fresh fruits; unfortunately, the figs here aren’t ripe yet, so when I saw some at Costco (a two-pound carton) that looked as if they were at least reasonably ripe, I had to try them. Thing is, figs are perishable–so after eating some fresh (these were much better than what you usually find in the supermarket (but not perfectly ripe to the point of splitting and having that lovely drop of sap oozing from the blossom end as they should for eating out of hand), I searched through some of my favorite food blogs and something to do with the rest of them.
Here’s what I found that looked really good to me! Every recipe that I’ve tried from this source has been a resounding success, so I’m going to try this one.
Roasted Figs (From David Lebovitz living the sweet live in paris)
Six to eight servings
Use a baking dish or pan that will allow you to bake the figs in a single layer. One that is 2 quarts (2l) should do it. Depending on where you live, fresh fig season is near the end of summer and mid-autumn and the best place to find fresh figs is at a farmers market.
1 pound (450g) fresh figs
4-6 branches fresh thyme
2 tablespoons red wine or liquor, such as Chartreuse, Pernod, Grand Marnier or Cointreau
1 tablespoon dark or light brown sugar
2 tablespoons honey
three 1-inch (3cm) strips of fresh lemon zest
1. Preheat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC).
2. Slice the tough stem end off the figs and slice each in half lengthwise.
3. Toss the figs in a large baking dish with the thyme, red wine or liquor, brown sugar, honey, and lemon zest. Turn the figs so that they are all cut side down in the baking dish, in a single layer.
4. For figs that are softer and juicier, cover the baking dish snugly with foil and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the figs are softened and cooked through.
For figs that are firmer, with less liquid, roast them in the oven, uncovered, for 30 minutes, or until cooked through.
5. When done, remove the baking dish from oven, lift off the foil, and let the figs cool completely.
Variation: For more savory figs, replace the liquor with one or two tablespoons balsamic or sherry vinegar.
Storage: Roasted figs can be stored in the refrigerator for up to one week.
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The figs are out of the oven and I’ve tasted them–wonderful! Some of these are going to be dessert after the French chicken in a pot, with just a dollop of sour cream, and the rest will get used with breakfast Greek yogurt or, perhaps, with oatmeal.
Blueberry ice cream recipe
Since blueberries are in the market–as well as blackberries, I’m getting ready to try blackberry ice cream (an adaptation of the strawberry/sour cream ice cream that I made at the peak of strawberry season)–there will be a follow-up report on that.
Meanwhile, I thought that this recipe for blueberry sour cream ice cream might be appreciated. It looks sumptuous–and seems close to the strawberry sour cream recipe that I used so it’s easy since there’s no custard to make. In this hot weather, easy and cool are both much appreciated!
A must-try dessert
Since I’ve gotten Trillian installed I get all these quick updates from Twitter and Facebook zipping across my desktop. This one, given that it’s berry season, looked like something I should pass on.
I’m not usually “into” cakes particularly, but I do have a weakness for good pound cake, especially with fresh berries, figs, and good ice cream. (Good pound cake means one that does not shy away from the good stuff like butter.)
It’s from David Lebovitz. If this recipe is anywhere near as tasty as the recipes in The Perfect Scoop, it will be a real keeper! Take a look at this Bay-leaf-infused Pound Cake!
Lemon cake
Seems that a lot of thing lately have been absolutely screaming summertime to me. I was browsing some of my favorite websites this afternoon and came across a recipe that looked just fabulous. As you can tell from most of my posts, I’ve not said much about sweets…but this was one that really made me salivate: Meyer Lemon Lavender Cake.
That link will take you to the recipe on one of my favorite blogs, Former Chef. That’s a great website to look for recipes.
Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream
This was scheduled for a later post, but the HOT weather and the impending end of strawberry season dictates it should be shared now. I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did–and will be for a bit yet.
I’ve just realized that strawberry season may be coming to an end and I’ve not yet make strawberry ice cream–so that has become the project of the day. I brought a huge basked of strawberries home from the farmers’ market with me. Ate a bunch, and now it’s ice cream time. In the past I’ve not really make a lot of ice cream, but I received a wonderful book of
recipes for my birthday: The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz and I’m finding lots of things that I want to try out. (This is a Philadelphia style ice cream–a particular favorite of my as it does not have me making custard, so it’s really fast and easy to put together).
Strawberry-Sour Cream Ice Cream (Adapted from “The Perfect Scoop” p. 90)
Ingredients:
- 450 grams fresh strawberries, rinsed, hulled and sliced.
- 150 grams sugar
- 1 tablespoon (15 mL) vodka or kirsch
- 240 grams sour cream
- 250 mL heavy cream
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice.
Assembly:
- Slice the strawberries and toss in a bowl with the sugar and vodka. Let stand at room temperature for one hour, stirring occasionally so that the sugar dissolves.
- Pulse the berries and liquid with the sour cream, heavy cream, and lemon juice in a food processor/blender until almost smooth, but still slightly chunky.
- Refrigerate for 1 hour, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions.
How simple is that. The hard part is waiting until it’s frozen. The strawberry aroma is intense if you start this with good ripe strawberries…I’d never really though about smelling ice cream before–but while I was peeking into the ice cream maker I realized that I WAS smelling strawberries–and that made the waiting even more difficult.
It took about 25 minutes for the ice cream to be really thick and
showing indentations where the blades had gone through. It expanded to reach the top of the canister, so I stopped at that point.
The recipe suggested having a dip while it was still at that creamy 
stage–for harder, put it into the freezer in air-tight plastic containers. I did have an immediate sample but some did get put into the freezer for later–in single-serving portions.
This may be the most intense strawberry ice cream that I’ve ever eaten. I’m sure that part of the credit goes to starting with really good, ripe strawberries–not supermarket berries. These were from the farmers’ market.
Now that blueberries, blackberries and peaches are on the way, I’m sure that the canister for the ice cream maker will absolutely have to live in the freezer. (Makes me glad that I have a small chest-type freezer on the back porch). I also have to say hearty thanks to the friend who gave me the Perfect Scoop for a birthday present!
a-single-serving.com 