Blackberries

I live on a street that boarders a public park area. It is seriously infested by what we in Australia call prickles. Here in America I've noticed that they aren't really called that, instead they are called blackberries after the fruit, rather then the thorns.

I've been eyeing them off for a while, and as I've been riding my bike past the bushes laden with heavy ripe berries I've seen a lady come by and pick a whole bunch of them. This week I decided to do the same. Once again, my berry picking accomplice was Tricia (of the blueberry escapade last week). We picked around 2.5 pounds. I started using them straight away as they were gorgeously ripe. I simply rinsed them in cold water, tossed them with a bit of sugar (not much was needed to be honest) and then made a crumble with oats for the top. Baked them and voila! Breakfast for the next few days!

Note to self = blackberries are in most of August... at least that's when the lady has been picking them....

Kirche Mousse

I've been playing around with a mousse recipe I have. It has a serious amount of kirche and a bit of vanilla. I adore it because it packs a serious punch. I'm thinking of using it in a cake (the recipe for the mousse comes from a cake - but I wasn't brilliantly happy with the cake when I did make it). I'm thinking of using a recipe for a shortbread type cookie with a bunch of salt in it as the base - maybe a sponge with kirche soaked cherries or cranberries as another layer or maybe a cherry/cranberry gellee layer and then some more mousse. But I'm not sure yet.

For the top one it was simply put in a mold with the salty short bread cookie, the one in the wine

glass had mousse with layers of the cookies crumbled, and another layer of kirche soaked tart cherries.

Blueberry Muffins

I love oats. Seriously I love the texture (gritty and dense) and I adore the flavor (earthy and nutty).... and I had blueberries so I made blueberry muffins with sweet little gold muffin tins protecting their bottoms.

I used the recipe from: http://www.recipezaar.com/Blueberry-Oatmeal-Muffins-44023

I found they are a smidge dry, so next time I may add more blueberries (or more butter when I eat them...). But I have a whole lotta blueberry muffins frozen in the freezer ready to be defrosted and microwaved at my leisure!

Blueberry Shortcakes

I haven't tried making the American 'Biscuit' before. But I thought that I would give it a go this week, and an attempt to make blueberry shortcakes. The biscuit recipe comes from Dorie Greenspan's "Baking from my home to yours' and mostly involves a ton of butter and a light touch. They did turn out well though, buttery, tender and flaky.

For the blueberries I simply heated them in a small saucepan, added some sugar and some blueberry liquor and then reduced them so that they were pretty congealed.

The cream is whipped with sugar and a bit of marzipan liquor.

Overall a good tasting dessert, very simple, very clean and a little boozy. Pretty god by my books!

Blueberries - In Season Now

Tricia called me up and asked excitedly if I'd like to go pick blueberries with her the next day. Of course I'd love to so off we went. There is a farm down the road from where she lives. We aren't talking a rural gal' here either she lives downtown in a 'mini city' just outside of downtown Seattle. Needless to say, I was pretty impressed by this farm.

I grew up listening to the nostalgic talk of my Nana telling me about her childhood in Germany and how she had picked blueberries off the bushes in the forest near her house. One year mum decided she would get Nana a pair of blueberry bushes so she could in essence, re-live her youth. She loves those bushes, covers them with nets and picks the berries in the morning so she can make cakes with them.

The bushes we picked from were not the cute, baby bushes Nana has but scraggily bushes taller then I. Easier to pick let me tell you!

So we picked a bunch of blueberries, and I've been attempting to use mine ever since.

Note to self: August = Blueberry Month

Deniz's Birthday Desert: Brownies and Caramel Ice Cream

Once again, I won't be here for my good friend Deniz's birthday later this month. But I'm also seeing her today and knowing that she loves caramel and she always orders brownies when we go out I thought I would make her a brownie with lots of walnuts, and a caramel ice cream.

The brownies are rich and dark, rather sweet and nutty. They need a tall glass of milk to balance them out... or some ice cream! And it's hot... so ice cream is always better then milk when it's summer!

The ice cream recipe (amazingly good - great texture - dense and rich) is from Tartelettes blog http://tartelette.blogspot.com/2009/07/recipe-chocolate-torte-caramel-ice.html and the brownie recipe is from Dorie Greenspan's "Baking: From My Home To Yours" and it's the 'classic brownie'.

Lisa's Tart: Lemon Cream And Blueberries

It's Lisa's birthday in August - but I won't be here to bake for her. I'm seeing Lisa today so I thought I would make her my favorite lemon cream tart (pate sucree and lemon cream) with some tasty, fresh and local blueberries from the local farmers market.

So simple, happy birthday Lisa!

Cherry Sorbet

It is cherry season, and as cherries are my utterly favorite fruit in the universe I decided to make a very simple sorbet from them.

A while back I read the book 'Animal Vegetable Miracle: A year of Food Life' by Barbara Kingslover This recipe (http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache%3AkzyPq7JAQcwJ%3Awww.animalvegetablemiracle.com%2FSorbet.pdf+cherry+sorbet&hl=en&gl=us) is one of theirs as mentioned very simple, cherries, sugar and water are all that is required. where she and her family decided that they would spend a year living off the land. Meaning eating seasonally, living local and sacrificing things like bananas in order to stick to those goals. A pretty amazing and inspirational book. I want a garden....

Strawberry, Raspberry and Balsamic Vinegar

Yet another jam with strawberry's in it. This is a beautiful rich spread with strawberry's, raspberries, lemon, balsamic vinegar and sugar. Such a simple combo, but it leads to a really beautiful color and tasting spread.

Great on a rich rye, the flavor holds its own.

Away Again

I will be having a break in posts for a couple of months.

On the weekend I leave for a farm in Washington State that makes goat and sheep cheese. I'm looking forward to learning about how to make and cultivate cheeses of various varieties, how to live without internet(!) and hopefully getting back to and experiencing more nature as well.

Wish me luck!

Gateau de Crepes with Green Tea Cream

I had a couple of fellow bakers and the idea was we would whittle away the afternoon with board games and trying out some food. The invite stated something along the lines of 'bring a baked good that you've been trying out/ experimenting with'. I really always experiment so I thought I would continue with the theme. I saw this at Desserts Magazine http://tartelette.blogspot.com/2008/08/two-chocolates-some-salted-butter.html It's from the book:'Chocolate Epiphany: Exceptional Cookies, Cakes and Confections for Everyone' by François Payard.

If you can roll out a ton of crepes in a small amount of time then let me tell you this is the recipe for you. If you can't then it's a labor of love...a seriously long, drawn out love. Let me tell you I spent over an hour making the crepes for this guy.

However, it is a visually stunning cake - all the lovely layers of brown contrasting with the vibrant green pastry cream (a light one - with the pastry cream being 'lightened' if you can call it that... with whipped cream). I tried the pastry cream without the added cream and it had a really intense matcha tea flavor. The interesting thing was, once you added the crepes and the whipped cream, the flavor wasn't really there anymore. It was lost - and only found at the end of a bite. Which, as I'm not a massive fan of matcha tea was a good thing. The crepes themselves are infused with orange zest which really dominates the flavor.

This is not a sweet treat - it is a rich treat. It's about the dense pastry cream and the rubbery crepes. I adore the way it looks utterly ragged on the outside, and yet when you cut into it it looks amazingly organized.

Ravioli/Lasagna

I've been meaning to attempt home made pasta for years but have been too wimpy to give it a go. Once again the farm I went to was an inspiration - they made pasta and I got to watch and feel the dough. So when it came to making the dough at home I wasn't as scared of giving it a go. I made mini lasagna's and with a ricotta (homemade of course!) mushroom and thyme filling, as well as a sauerkraut filling.

The ravioli has a mushroom filling as well, but Josh added a bit of white wine as well.

Light Rye 60%

I adore rye bread. Something about the flavor adds a heartiness and depth that you simply can't achieve using white flour alone. This rye has caraway, a little dark rye flour and has a sourdough starter using some of the levain I've been faithfully keeping alive for the past few weeks. So it has a little added sourness to it, and the flavor gets better as the bread ages.

I like to call the style of cut I used on the bread "the comb over". From Hamelman.

Winter Sanity and Green Apple Pectin

I've been making an utter ton of jams, preserves and other fruity concoctions due to winter. Yes winter. It depresses me and in using the local delicious and oh so very in season fruits at the moment (note: cherries(!!!) and strawberries and soon to come raspberries) my theory is that when winter rolls around, then I will have some remnants of sunshine in the form of these preserves.

A lot of the jams using summer berries requires pectin which helps thicken the mixture as these tasty fruits don't have a large amount of pectin in them. I do use some powdered pectin but I'm really trying to use natural pectin donated by green apples instead. The idea is that the pectin derived from boiling down whole apples (simply quarter them and then put them in a pot just cover them in water and boil them slowly. Then strain the water - but make sure you keep it. Add some sugar and cook it down and then jar it. You should be good for pectin for a while) is enough to thicken a jam. I think it does. But the consistency is never that hugely dense, 'you can barely flick the stuff off a spoon' kinda thickness. Instead it's a soft gel. One that sometimes boarders on a syrup. But it's so good, and it's soaks your toast oh so well in it's sugar goodness.

Cherries and Preserving them

Cherries are my favorite fruit on earth. They are delectable when they are fresh and in season and local. Unfortunately the season isn't long enough for my liking so I decided to preserve some cherries in a sugar syrup with a bit of liquor added in. I made one set with rum and the other with brandy. I figure these beauties will be wonderful in tarts in winter.

The variety I used is called 'Tieton". They are mammoth, juicy and hold there shape well. I was talking to the people where I bought these pretties from, and they said they only have them for about 2.5 weeks per year. So sad. But I have a little treasure tucked away for the colder months.

Rhubarb and Spiced Meringue Tart

Ok this one is kinda bizaare. And it's weirdly more savory then sweet. It is a simple base called a 'flaky pastry' which requires very little sugar and butter (I know rather disappointing). It was a really awkward base to roll as it required massive amounts of force to get it into a semblance of the shape/thickness needed. The taste was nothing either - very bland, and the texture when baked was tough, not one to repeat again despite it being so cheap (little butter + little sugar + AP flour instead of pastry flour + no eggs = very cheap indeed).

The middle part was chopped rhubarb with a flan cream/custard on top. Once again a really savory sort of middle bit - with no sugar added to the rhubarb - only in the flan cream - which really didn't have a lot considering the majority is rhubarb.

On top however was a lot of sugar in the form of a meringue. A simple meringue made with egg whites, a ton of sugar and the addition of nutmeg and freshly ground black pepper. Out of the whole tart this was my favorite part. I made mini macaroons out of the left overs. Very tasty.

Overall, if I were to make this tart again I would not use the same base instead I would sweeten it up with a sucree. I also on the final product got carried away with a blow torch which I wouldn't do again (the photo's of the tart before it went in the oven and subsequently got torched by me later on). I really liked the top part (meringue) so I would make that again, maybe try it with another filling as well....

Macaroons: Choc Chip with Salted Caramel

I've been rather desperate lately to find the best recipe for macaroons - the french ones. You know the ones, all leggy on the bottom, slightly chewy yet crunchy. Yeah those, well I've had some issues with flavor and shape, and texture.

Usually they are too sweet. I can only handle a small one, and even then it may be too much for me. I've have also made flat pancake like macaroons that are bendable and bizarre looking.

These were little gems. They were nice in texture (chewy, yet a little crunchy), they were nice and small and I think the best thing about these guys was that they had a caramel filling.... I mean really how can you beat that?

I think the trickiest bit for me is the piping. I'm a little off, so I spent a while attempting to pair the macaroon halves with similar sized macaroon halves... This recipe is from 'Desserts Magazine' a great mag that is free online. It is from magazine issue #5. You can check out the recipe at: http://www.dessertsmag.com/desserts-magazine/issue5/. The recipe is by Gemmi Rizzzi and let me tell ya- this recipe works.

Strawberry Rhubarb Tart

I've been having problems setting pastry cream of late. I swear I cook it until it is thick and boiling, then leave it on the heat for a couple of minutes more. Yet time and time again my cream is not setting up very well. It turns into this gooey mass... a tasty gooey mass, yet not a very elegant mass when it is cut into slices. I don't want to use corn products in my baking unless it is fresh corn (although I do make some exceptions especially when I use chocolate or am making a candy) so I've been using potato starch instead of corn starch in the pastry cream. I'm wondering if this may be my downfall?

Anyway, back to the tart. A strawberry and rhubarb puree was made and then placed on a tart base (this wasn't a pate sucree...as I ran out of pastry flour. So I made an old tart base that I hadn't made in ages). I then put on the pastry cream and on top of that some strawberries. A very simple tart but devastatingly good.

Le Success

I've been petrified of making a cake. I'm scared of layers, and the hours of labor that goes into making one. So I've been putting it off and off and off.

I thought I'd give it a go as I have the time, and I really need to get some practice in before school starts again.

This is made with a nut marangue (hazelnut and almond), two types of butter cream (vanilla and a praline) and a ganache layer. It wasn't too hard to assemble, although the cream made it difficult to cut, but I froze it and that allowed me to trim the sides.

I attempted to make some caramel hazelnuts to go on top. However, the caramel thickened too fast, so they weren't brilliantly successful. But they look alright.

Crumpets

I grew up eating crumpets in the mornings. You'd pop one in the toaster, slather it with butter, and then honey. After a while all the liquids you had placed on top of the crumpet would ooze through the porous dough and leak out onto your plate.

These days I go down to the Crumpet Shop in Seattle near the market downtown. I sip a cup of tea, eat a crumpet and watch the people go into the strip show place across the road. I have to say it's one of my favorite haunts....

Anyway this is my first attempt at making these guys at home. It was an interesting experience. Basically there were two risings; the first was just the yeast (about an hour), the second was with baking soda added (around 30min). The second one with the baking soda was there to infuse the dough with little bubble, but there weren't enough for my liking. I think perhaps I waited too long and the bubble had destabilized. I would make them again though, as they were pretty good.

Strawberry, Mint and Black Pepper Jam

This is so good. It's a nice dense preserve, with a little bit of freshness from the mint, and a smidge of a bite from the black pepper.

Great on rye bread, and I think it would work really well as a base for a tart with a simple vanilla pastry cream and fresh strawberries and mint on top.

Once again the strawberries are magnificent. The colours are amazing, the flavors intense. I would recommend preserving these flavors for winter.

Taken from Mes Confiture

Strawberry and Mint Tart

Well, it is strawberry season after all....I realize I have been on a huge strawberry bend, but they are just so magnificent at the moment. So this is yet another tart featuring strawberries. It is from 'Mes Tartes: The Sweet and Savory Tarts of Christine Ferber' By Christine Ferber.

This tart has a simple pate sucree base, with a frangapani filling and a little vanilla pastry cream on top. On top of all that are gorgeous strawberries, some icing sugar and a dash of fresh mint.

It's amazing what beautiful produce can achieve!

Reject Macaroons with Strawberries

I've been on a fix lately to try and make macaroons like Thomas Keller makes in his at Boucheron

I had some cream, some strawberries and some marzipan liquor so I decided to make strawberry shortcakes with macaroons instead. I simply infused the cream with the marzipan liquor, let the strawberries macerate in some sugar and then assembled everything.

A delectable dessert, especially with gorgeously fresh strawberries. Bakery, but I failed miserably. The thing was they were really tasty, but they were just well, seriously flat.

Rustic Bread

I've been making all my breads by hand lately. There is something so satisfying in the knowledge that you really don't require machines (bar the oven) to make some really good bread. I also love touching the dough and learning through the feel of a dough if it is read; ready to be mixed some more, ready to have more water added, ready to be shaped, to be baked, ready to be eaten.

This was a bread that was pretty simple, again it did have a preferment, but it was a pretty easy bread to make and shape. It has a mixture of mostly white bread flour but with a bit of rye and whole wheat thrown in as well, so it's a little earthy in it's flavor. I added rosemary and salt to the top of the bread because Josh loves those two together.

Faux Canneles

We went to Portland recently and visited the bakery 'St. Honore'. They had some good looking stuff in their pastry case including a cannele, which I have to admit I had never had before. So I got one. They are really good. A mix of burnt sugar and rum and balled up in this dense yet moist cakey type thing. I wanted to try and make one. The only thing is they have this swanky mold they use, which I don't have. Nevertheless, as I'm not French and don't really have any attachment to having my cannele in the proper mold (so I used cupcake tins). I used the great recipe for 'Canneles Pretenders' of Tartelettes blog http://tartelette.blogspot.com/2007/06/canneles-pretenders.html.

They turned out really well. Also, strawberries are seriously good right now, and so is rhubarb...so I thought I would combine the beautifully tasty (remember burnt sugar and rum) with the sweet tart of strawberries and rhubarb. They paired surprisingly well!

Strawberry and Rhubarb Jam: Welcome Strawberries

Happy Strawberry season everyone! Make sure you hit the farmers markets and ask to sample the strawberries. I've found that last week many had no flavor but looked delicious, I found the strawberries I used in the jam after around 5 tasters at other stalls. I think we're getting more into the thick of strawberry season this week at least, so there shouldn't be such an issue with flavor.

have to say I'm new to the strawberry and rhubarb sensation - but I'm no less enthusiastic about it then a veteran. The combo is amazing. So in this is one of my attempts to create a bit of summer for enjoyment in winter.

Epi

I love baguettes, but I've made them quite a few times before so I thought I would try a different type of presentation - an epi. Epi is short for 'epi de ble' which translates to a 'sheaf of wheat'.

This baguette had a poolish preferment (a preferment is a type of fermentation which adds to the flavor of a bread, cuts down on the use of yeast and helps with time management). I do it mostly for flavor, and this is my favorite type of baguette. I like the epi because you can rip of a kernel and eat it straight away or dip it in something tasty.

Again, from Hamelman.

Plum and Walnut Cake

These are really stunning. They are moist, slightly sweet, just a tad nutty and get better with age. I had some of this gorgous cake at Quillisascut farm. We used walnuts from the walnut tree they had as well as plums they had gathered and dehydrated late last year. It was so good, so I thought I would try making this at home.

I also made these for my good friend Tricia's birthday - she said she liked them!

This recipe is from the book: 'Chefs on the Farm: Recipes and Inspiration from the Quillisascut Farm School od of the Domestic Arts' by Shannon Borg, Lora Lea Misterly and Karen Jurgensen.

Pain Rustique

Josh makes these amazingly good sandwiches with a local product called field roast, aoli and caramelized red onions. We usually go out and buy the bread rolls for them, but this time I decided to make them.

This bread is called Pain Rustique. It's a rather wet dough that requires more folding then punching, but it's a pretty easy dough to work with once you get the hang of it. I think they key is to not worry about the shape too much, instead spread the dough out on your counter top in a roughly rectangular shape, and use a metal bench scraper to cut the dough into squares. Easy as that!

This bread is once again from the Hamelman book 'Bread: A Bakers Book of Techniques and Recipes'.

Lemon Ricotta Cheesecake - with Homemade Ricotta

I've been fascinated with homemade everything lately. I think going to the farm in Quilisascut kinda inspires that. It's pretty amazing to look in a fridge and pantry and see cheese you made, preserves you've made, oil you've infused and other such delectable things.

So on that note I decided to make ricotta cheese. I knew it was easy I'd seen it made on the farm. All you need to do to make ricotta is add an acid to your milk (unpasteurized or pasteurized, ultra pasteurized won't work). I added citric acid, but I've seen it done with lemon juice as well as vinegar.

I've used the ricotta in a few applications, mainly pasta, but I wanted to make something sweet using it, so I made this cake; a lemon ricotta cheesecake using the ricotta I made the day before. Apparently this is a very Italian type of cake. I'm not quite sure what that means, but it was pretty tasty - so the Italians must be onto something! Beware thpough, as there is a bunch of fat in the crust it does burn easily so pay attention to the smells your oven is emitting...unlike me..