Fresh Fruit Tart in January

I know it seems unseasonal, but everybody loves a fresh fruit tart. The combination of a buttery crust, subtly sweet pastry cream and neatly arranged whole and sliced fresh fruit, glistening under an apricot jam glaze presents a beautiful pastry that is difficult for many people to resist! This particular fruit tart (shown directly above and below) was made at the request of my roommate for her 22nd birthday. It received many oow's, aww's and yuuum's as everyone munched down after singing happy birthday. Needless to say, it was a big hit! Most important, I believe the birthday girl was quite pleased (in fact, she said she liked it better than one from a pastry shop!)

The recipe I used for both the crust and the pastry cream filing came from this blog. I know it sounds a bit daunting: making the sweet tart dough, chilling it, blind baking it, waiting for it to cool, making the pastry cream, waiting for that to cool, washing, slicing and arranging the fruit and finally, making and brushing on the glaze. But if you space it out over a few days, you'll find that it's pretty do-able. This tart was a 3 day process for me, but everyone is different. This tart had blackberries, raspberries, blueberries and sliced anjou pears. My first time making a fruit tart was probably last spring, when I followed this same recipe. It was met with popular success then and now! The crust recipe makes 3 batches, so you can make some ahead of time, freeze it and then when you are ready, thaw and bake. I know it says you can freeze it for a month, but trust me, once your friends and family taste this fruit tart, they are going to start asking you when you'll get around to making 2 more :)

This is a tart I made from my first batch of sweet tart dough last year. It had mangos, strawberries and kiwi. But the great thing about fruit tarts is that the possibilities are endless. You can make it all berries, or all sliced fruits, or poached fruits, or any combination you like. Give it a try. In the end, you'll produce something that's as delicious as it is beautiful!

Christmas Sweets and Treats

Christmas time is a wonderful time of year. I love everything about the sights (Christmas lights and decorations), the sounds (beautiful, warming Christmas music), the smells (Christmas trees, gingerbread) and of course, the tastes!! Among my favorite flavors of Christmas time are things like Alton Brown's fruitcake, anything with peppermint, and pumpkin and it's entourage of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and clove spices (although technically, that's a Thanksgiving taste too). This year, since finishing up my first set of law school finals, I've been Christmas baking like crazy! So crazy in fact, it has taken me this long to post a few of things I made. I say a few because I also made a couple other desserts that were eaten before I got a chance to take of picture of them!

This Peppermint bark recipe was so easy to make! It was my first year making it and I will definitely do it again. The only hard part is crushing all the little peppermint hard candies, that is, unless you have a food processor. Which, of course, they don't provide you with at the law school housing. The recipe is pretty basic: melt some dark chocolate (I used a 8 oz bag of semi-sweet chips) and stir in about 1 teaspoon of peppermint extract. Spread that onto a baking sheet lined with wax or parchment paper. Then melt some white chocolate (Again, one 8 oz bag of real white chips) and stir in the crushed peppermint candies, reserve some to press on top for decoration and spread this layer on top of the dark chocolate. One it cools and hardens, break it up and much away! (or be nice and give it away)

I also made some Easy Fudge and decorated each piece with a walnut half. It was my first attempt at making Fudge myself and since I didn't bring my candy thermometer with me to school, I figured I should go the safe route and do the easy fudge recipe. Still tasted great though!

Next up is something I made when I got home. This Apple Carmel Crisp was a BIG hit at school when I made it one night that I decided to try it at home for my family. My brother ate one serving, said it was good, and then about a half hour later, was eating another serving! And he never does that! Needless to say, it was crowd pleaser at home too. 

Next is Libby's pumpkin roll cake! My mom loves pumpkin flavored things so this was a request from her. She enjoyed it thoroughly, as well as the rest of my family. I followed the recipe pretty closely except I used splenda in the cake instead of sugar. It same out a little thinner than usual but that just means that there is a high frosting to cake ratio! No complaints there!

Lastly is my pumpkin cheesecake. Basically, I took my favorite cheesecake recipe and method, found here by Alton Brown, and added 1 cup of pumpkin puree and it's spice groupies (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg...you know the drill). I made the crust from ginger spice cookies I found in the bakery section at the grocery store. This cheesecake was creamy, smooth and the flavor of the pumpkin was not overpowering at all. And the best part is my family loved it!  

All this talk about Christmas baking has put me in the mood to make something sweet. Oh no, the cycle continues!

American Classics: Red Velvet Cupcakes and Cheesecake

I should probably own stocks in Philadelphia Cream Cheese. No kidding, I have a least one block of cream cheese in my fridge at all times (if not more)! Even now that I'm not living at home, I still feel the urge to wander down the aisle at the grocery store where I know the cream cheese will be patiently awaiting my arrival and check to see if my little blocks of goodness are on sale. And if they are, I have to fight the instinct to buy 3, 4, maybe even 5 blocks! Oh and the real danger is at Costco! It's probably a good thing that there isn't a Costco anywhere in sight in Malibu, because they sell cases of the cream cheese... *sigh* 

The issue is that there are so many applications for cream cheese, so many DELICIOUS applications, that is. Cheesecake, cream cheese frosting/filling, danishes, I even throw it my baked Macaroni and Cheese! But by far, my two favorite uses for cheesecake come in the form of two American classics: Cheesecake and Cream Cheese Frosting (as in here on top of Red Velvet Cupcakes). 

(The tastiest lint in the world!)

Hands down, this is my favorite recipe for Red Velvet. It's Paula Deen's and can be found on the food network website. They are moist, tender and down right scrumptious! One warning though, this recipe makes way too much frosting, (Yea I know, you can't really have too much frosting) but the past few times I've made this recipe, I've cut down the frosting by half and still had some left over.

As for cheesecakes, there are all kinds: Firm, dense cheesecakes, light and fluffy cheesecakes, and of course, there's that category of cheesecake wanna-bes (dare I say, no-bake cheesecakes!). But honestly, no matter which way you look at it, cheesecake is not really a cake at all. It's a custard. It's a mostly fat and egg based dessert that is cooked low and slow in a water bath. Not at 350º for 45 minutes or anything that sounds like you're baking an actual cake.

No, in fact the best cheesecakes are ones that are fully cooked and yet still soft and smooth. My favorite cheesecake is by Alton Brown and can also be found on the food network website. The man is genius and this recipe just goes to show it! This cheesecake comes out perfect. And it's all about the texture, which in most custards, is what is necessary to the flavor of the cheesecake. I have tried many, many, many cheesecake recipes and this one is absolutely my favorite!

As a plus, it's always a crowd pleaser. I mean, who can resist 10 pounds of perfectly delicious cheesecake when it stares you in the face??! (not me!)

A Quest for The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

There is something uniquely heart warming about freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The sweet smell the fills the room as you watch the little dough mounds puff and spread, that for some reason, has an affect that is unmatched by any other cookie. Looking at the cookies as they cool on the baking sheet, it's becomes very easy to forget the meaning of self-restraint. You want to bite into them while the chocolate is still melty and the centers are still gooey but, as you know from childhood, that two bad things could happen if you do: 1) you can burn your tongue with the hot goodness and 2) you might get a tummy ache afterward (though you know that in both cases, it's well worth it)! 

So in order to receive the full effect of a soft, freshly baked cookie that lasts for days, I began experimenting with recipes to get the perfect chocolate chip cookie: one that is thick and not flat, moist and soft in the center, crisp on the edges, and the right ratio of chocolate chips to cookie dough. This started as a simple project...but it soon developed into a little obsession of mine. I researched cookie recipe after cookie recipe. I considered using different flours, butter or shortening, brown sugar to white sugar ratios and various types of chocolate chips. Finally, I came across a concept that really opened my eyes and is a drastic change in the type of leavening. 

Instant Yeast! Yes, you read that correctly! I started with a recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies that I knew would result in the soft center, chewy cookie that I was looking for and replaced the leavening it called for with the ingredient known to add a lift while maintaining the shape of the baked good. The cookies turned out to be simply the best! They were lightly browned and crisp on the outside, yet incredibly soft and moist in the center. But the best part was not the texture, although that was nearly perfect. The best part was the flavor! The cookies tasted clean and sweet, unobstructed by the "chemically" taste of baking soda/baking powder. The texture was that of the perfect cookie but the flavor was like a chocolate chip cookie flavored sweet bread! 

I highly recommend that you take your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe (or any drop cookie recipe for that matter) and replace the baking soda or baking powder with about a teaspoon of highly active dry yeast. I can guess what you will be quite pleased with the results. 

This experiment of mine is still on going and I would also love any input you have after trying out this happy little accident :)

A little Law School "Pick me up"

Tiramisu in Italian means "pick me up." As we now enter the third month of our first year of law school, I think that it just about goes without saying that my classmates and I need a little pick me up! So, in order to spread the boost around, I made Williams-Sonoma's Tiramisu recipe. 

And I glad that I did. Whipped heavy cream, mascarpone cheese and fluffy eggs over coffee, liquor, sugar soaked Lady Fingers...sounds like a great pick-me-up to me! I'm also pretty confident that all those who enjoyed a slice (or two, or three) agreed. 

If you like Tiramisu, I highly recommend the Williams-Sonoma recipe. However, I have a small (but big) warning: this recipe makes a lot of tiramisu! Like, two trays worth of the creamy stuff! So unless you have a endless supply of hungry graduate school boys around, I suggest cutting down the recipe by at least a third. It wasn't until after we finished making the Tiramisu and I realized that the recipe makes enough for a 6 quart dish! We used the only thing we had available which was a 2 quart baking dish and then filled my 8 by 8 brownie pan with the overflow. Trust me, it tasted good, but it's been 5 days since we made this recipe and there is still half of a tray sitting in my neighbor's fridge (and some secretly stashed away in my freezer). 

Speaking of 5 days though, this tiramisu holds up pretty well and still tastes good after a few days. Another quick little suggestion is that when you soak the lady fingers, try not to exceed dunking each piece for 2-3 seconds because they really are little sponges and could get soggy and runny later on down the road. Other than that, make this recipe a night in advance, let the flavors chill and mingle in overnight in the fridge, and have a piece for breakfast instead of your morning coffee! Buon appetito!

Chocolate Coma: Quintuple Chocolate Brownies

If you love chocolate, I mean really, really, LOVE chocolate, you must make these Quintuple (that's 5!) Chocolate Brownies by Dori Greenspan. I've admitting my deep adoration for chocolate before, but it wasn't until I made and tasted these brownies that I discovered my profound appreciation of a cold glass of milk. Because, trust me, when you eat these, you will need a least one glass of milk per brownie!

As the name suggests, this recipe calls for 5 different types of chocolate: a quarter cup of cocoa, three ounces each unsweetened and bittersweet chocolate and six ounces of milk chocolate chips. And if with this list, you have not yet reached the point of a chocolate coma, the baked and cooled brownie are finished with a white chocolate glaze! And I know this sounds strange, but the extra layer of creamy white chocolate helped to offset the intense chocolatiness of each deep square. So you are planning on making these, go all the way and don't skip the glaze! Although I do suggest using less cream to make the glaze then the recipe calls for because a nice thick layer gives a better balance and makes for beautiful brownies.  

For the purpose of this blog, I cut the brownies into 16 squares but they were so dense that we ended up cutting them down in size again. Overall, the reaction to this recipe was a big hit. I thank all those loyal friends who did me the favor of eating these brownies so that I wouldn't be tempted to eat the entire tray myself!

Dori's Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Dori Greenspan's Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

I like poppy seeds. I like lemony baked goods. And I love icing! Put those three elements together and bake them into cute little muffins and you'll win my heart! These delicious muffins come from a book by Dori Greenspan called Baking From My Home to Yours. I've heard this book described as the baking bible and after trying a few recipes from it, especially this winner, I can honestly say I'm a follower :)

This muffin was tender and sweet. The poppy seeds gave it a delicious textural crunch and the little specks of lemon zest added just the right touch of lemon zing. The best part, though, has to be the icing! It's simply made up of powdered sugar and lemon juice but dipping the muffin tops into the icing and slowly letting it drip down the sides made the whole experience all the most tantalizing. After attempting to drizzle the icing, it became clear that in order to maximize the icing to muffin ratio, the best way to go about it was just to dip the top of each muffin into the icing, quickly flip it over, set it on a cooling rack with some old newspaper underneath, and just let the goodness descend. Once cooled and set, these muffins were definitely worth the wait!

If you're interested in baking up a batch of these (which I highly recommend for you lemon lovers out there) you can find the recipe on p. 10 of Baking: From my home to yours. I followed the recipe closely and was met with sweet success. A little hint though, when the batter is distributed, the muffins seem a little scarce, but trust me, they puff up considerably and in my book, the bigger and billower the muffin, the better!