Blackberry Gin Cocktail

Blackberries. Sloe Gin. Anything else need to be said, really? This is sweet but sophisticated.

Blackberry Gin Cocktail

In a bowl, muddle a half-pint of blackberries with 1/2 cup superfine sugar. Whisk in 1/2 cup of fresh lemon juice. Strain and discard seeds and blackberry mush.

To make the cocktail, fill a lo-ball glass with ice and add about two fingers Averell damson plum gin. Add half an ounce cognac and approximately 2 tablespoons raspberry puree. Top with seltzer.

Serves 4.

Apple-Pear-Cranberry Coffee Cake

If you are like me, your fridge still contains half a bag of cranberries from Thanksgiving.

"Oh shoot, I should have frozen these. Don't they last only a month in the fridge? Oh well, they don't look so bad. [They are happily turning into Craisins.] I don't see any mold. Hmm, what can we do?"

You may also have bought a few very late season apples from the farmer's market that turned out to be more mealy than crisp, and perhaps you didn't get around to making that pear, blue cheese and walnut salad at Christmas, so you have a squishy, browning pear mingling with the celery in the crisper drawer.

"Hmm, I wonder if we put all together we can make something - I'm sure the texture won't matter once they're cooked." Rummaging in the cupboard and cookbooks ensues.

I'm sure by now you're thinking, "I am never eating at her house." Don't worry, I'm not some kind of crazy hoarder, and we do throw food out. But if it's salvageable, why not? One reason I love baking is you can turn something totally unappealing into something delicious - the magic of chemistry.

Here's a bundt coffee cake I made, with apple and pear in the filling and a cranberry swirl. It's very moist, with a strong taste of the fruit. It's a mix of several different recipes, mostly The Joy of Cooking mixed with a little Cook's Illustrated.

Apple-Pear-Cranberry Coffee Cake

Cake
1 apple and 1 pear (or 2 apples/2 pears)
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup sour cream or yogurt (I used 1 cup yogurt, 1/4 cup sour cream)
1 tsp vanilla
4 tbsp butter
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs

Filling
About 2 1/2 cups cranberries
3 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp lemon, lime or orange juice
pinch table salt
pinch ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

• Have all ingredients at room temperature. Butter and flour a bundt or tube pan (don't skimp - this is a very moist cake). Pre-heat the oven to 350 deg.
• Make the filling first: combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and cook over low heat until the cranberries begin to burst and the cornstarch has made the liquid jelled and glossy, about four minutes. Set aside to let cool.
  
• Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
• Combine yogurt and vanilla in a small bowl.
• Peel and chop apple and pear into 1/4 inch pieces and set aside.
  
• In a large bowl, beat sugar and butter together until light colored, a few minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time.
• Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the sour cream mixture. Stir until smooth, then fold in the apple and pear.
• Scrape 1/3 of batter into the pan, then top with half of the filling. Add another third of batter and the rest of the filling, then top with remaining batter. Take a small spoon and dip it to the bottom of the pan, repeating five or six times around the pan, to marble the filling.
• Bake for 45-50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool for five to 10 minutes, then invert on a rack to cool (be sure to tap the pan all around to make the cake come loose). Cool before serving.
  

Free-Form Plum and Apricot Tart

Question: How do you make fruit un-healthy?

Answer: Add two sticks of butter to it.

As much as I love reading Cooking Light and eating sensibly, there's something so satisfying about boatloads of butter. Somehow it feels a little bid badder to do it in summer, with so many fresh things around.

We signed up for a fruit CSA again this summer and came home this week with apricots and plums. They are tiny little things, and while I enjoyed one at lunch, they really begged to be cooked. More carnivorous chefs than me would probably make apricot chutney or jam to go over roast chicken. I can't help but indulge my sweet tooth.

I pulled together a free-form apricot and plum tart, one of those where you roll out the dough and fold it over the fruit, leaving the top open. I thought I'd be clever and cook the fruit down first. Bad idea. The filling became super soupy; meanwhile the butter crust started melting in the heat. Sigh.

In the end it was a lot more trouble than it was worth, and I wish I'd just saved the fruit compote to serve over vanilla ice cream. (Certainly more appealing than having the hot oven on for 45 minutes.)

Do you have a good recipe for a free-form tart? 'Cause I need one.

Raspberry Buttermilk Cake, Redux

A few summers ago I made this wonderful buttermilk cake originally published in Gourmet (ah, Gourmet - moment of silence, please). For the Fourth of July this year, I decided to try it again. This time, instead of strawberries, I made it with blueberries and raspberries - and voila, patriotic cake!




It's as good as ever.

Experimenting with Desserts

A few months ago at a party we met a guy who's opening an ice cream store not too far from us. He doesn't know it yet, but he and I are going to become best friends. He's going to let me taste all the new flavors before they go public, and he's going to love my peanut butter and jelly sandwich ice cream idea (I won't get royalties for that, but I'll get a free pint whenever I want it). Ah, the dreams of the sugar-obsessed.

(Edited to add... The ice cream shop is Ample Hills over in Prospect Heights. And they've (sort of) done the PB&J thing. Go check it out!)

This brilliant ice cream maker (chocolate-stout ice cream with chocolate pretzels? Sign me up) is also an ace baker - he brought some amazing blondies to the party, barely cooked through with giant buttons of white and semisweet chocolate oozing out.

They inspired me to make some of my own using the butterscotch chips I bought on a whim a while back. I didn't try the amazing-sounding malt blondies from the Baked cookbook but stuck with the uber-simple Joy of Cooking recipe. These turned out butterscotchy, chewy, and a bit too sweet for me. They were unfortunately kind of one-note - next time it'll be the Baked blondies.

I got in such a baking mood that I decided to try out some meringues (the blondies recipe leaves you with an extra egg white). I've forgotten how amazing meringue tastes and how beautiful and glossy it is.

Here's the meringue recipe I used - "sugar kisses." I loved this one because it only makes 2 dozen cookies and uses only 2 egg whites. The sad part is that I couldn't get it to hold its shape very well - I'm not sure if that's me or the recipe, but it was the same all three times I made it, so I am thinking recipe?

The first version I made had blue food coloring (they were to match a theme for a party) with green sugar sprinkles, and if I had been throwing a birthday party for a four-year-old boy, they would have been perfect - they looked just like dinosaur eggs. Not so much for a bridal shower, though. So I tried again. The second version was a disastrous experiment with mint flavoring - do not make a mint meringue. Don't. Please. Yuck. I did salvage the resulting minty fluff by whipping it into a batch of brownies (mint brownies are much better than mint meringues). The third batch was white(-ish - the oven kind of browns them), vanilla flavored, and topped with crystalline blue sugar. Though still egg shaped, at least these looked pretty and tasted good. Success? Success.

I made the recipe as printed in my cookbook, which is a bit different from the online version:

I mixed in a teaspoon of extract at the very end, after the meringue was almost holding a stiff peak. I didn't pipe the cookies but plopped them by the tablespoon onto the sheet. I also sprinkled some sugar over the top before baking and put them in a 250 deg. oven for 60 minutes, followed by about 1 1/2 hrs in the oven with the heat turned off and the door closed.

How lucky I am to work at an office of people who will take some of these treats off my hands...

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Next up in our food adventures: growing our own.


I planted cherry tomatoes ("bloody butchers"), parsley, basil, peppers (a mix of ancho, jalapeno, Hungarian wax, and others), and a red potato which has been growing like gangbusters in our little bathroom greenhouse. I am envisioning salads & salsas come summer.

Our Summer of CSA - Week... ?

Where does the time go? It seems to have flown by in a flurry of weddings, writing a lot for work, getting the house in order, and enjoying the last of summer and our beautiful fall.

In between, of course, lots of cooking. We made two kinds of butternut squash soup - one with ginger, one with apples, both delicious. We hosted a birthday party for my mom and cooked her a grand French feast: coq au vin, haricots verts, Yukon Gold potatoes, plenty of wine and champagne, and flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sorbet for dessert. Heaven, all of it.

We've also had more kale than we know what to do with; I've taken to making smashed potatoes and kale, kind of two steakhouse sides in one, which feels rich and special though it's easy as any mashed potato could be.

Last week came a bag of concord grapes, which turned in grape sorbet, which has since sat in our freezer. I guess a sorbet on its own, especially at the end of October, isn't super appealing. My dream is to make peanut butter ice cream, swirl it with the grape sorbet, and sandwich that between two shortbread cookies. Sandwich ice cream sandwich! Alas, see first sentence. Where does the time go?

One thing I've been cooking a lot of in the past month is apple crisp. Boy, we had a bumper crop of apples with the CSA. Pounds of them. And pears! I made one apple cake, didn't like it too much (nor did the hubby), so went back to crisps.

I love this recipe - it's superb with tart apples, but they don't have to be super crisp or fresh. I made it mostly with Macintoshes, which tend to disintegrate, and it's like eating apple sauce with a crumble topping. Make it with a mix of apples for the best flavor. We also received some hard, tart, very red-skinned apples (Rome? Winesap?) which were great.

Best Apple Crisp

Filling

1/3 cup light brown sugar (less if you like - and make your own!)

2 1/2 tbsp flour

2 tsp cinnamon (5 or 6 shakes)

Shake or two of salt

8 cups peeled, cored, and coarsely sliced apples (or mix of apples & pears, but use a little less sugar)

Juice of half a lemon (about 1 1/2 tbsp)

1 tbsp cognac, bourbon, rum, or brandy

1 or 2 tbsp apple cider or juice (give or take - depends on juiciness of apples)

Topping

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup rolled oats (I've been using quick - accidental purchase - and they also work here)

2/3 cup light brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

5 tbsp butter, cut into small chunks

(Optional: 1/2 cup chopped walnuts. I love adding them, husband doesn't.)

• Preheat the oven to 350 F. Find an 8 x 8 glass pan, deep-dish pie pan, or similar-sized casserole dish.
• In a large bowl, stir together the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt until blended. Stir in the apples, lemon juice, cognac, and apple cider and toss until the apples are coated with the brown sugar mixture.
• Spread the filling evenly in the pan and bake for 25 minutes.
• Meanwhile, make the topping: in a medium bowl, stir together the flour, oats, brown sugar, salt and nuts, if using. Add the butter chunks and blend in with your finger tips or a pastry cutter until they're well incorporated. You can add more butter if you like, but don't add less than 5 tablespoons - the topping won't hold together and will end up mushy after baking.
• Sprinkle the topping over the apples until no apples peek through. You might have a bit left, depending on what size pan you use.
• Increase the oven temperature to 375 F and bake for about 25 minutes more, until the filling is bubbly and the topping is nicely browned. Remove from the oven and let cool for at least 30 minutes before you serve (lets the filling set up a bit, and keeps you from burning your mouth!).
• This is great served with vanilla ice cream / creme fraiche / plain yogurt / whipped cream.

- Adapted from The All-American Dessert Book by Nancy Baggett