Fruits of Fancy

Finally, one of those mornings where I sleep in until an unmentionable time (it’s approaching noon), the coffee is brewing, Paula Deen is on the television encouraging my fat intake and I have some time to relax and bake.  It may be sub-arctic outside, but with the furnace humming away and the oven set to 350 degrees it’s like a tropical island morning full of sunshine made of egg yolks and butter, and a breakfast of grapefruit…grapefruit cookies that is.

I’m in a vacation state of mind.  Brian and I were already planning getaways this week with plans to visit family and friends back in Missouri in the spring as well as possibly heading back to Provincetown, Massachusetts later in the summer if our schedules work out.  Provincetown, or P-Town as it’s called, is such a beautiful place that really captures the heart of New England for me and we had such a great time there last year that I really can’t wait to get back.  It’s the place that the Pilgrims stopped before going on to Plymouth Rock (something I didn’t learn in my Junior High Civics class)

I’ve also thought a lot about the island of Mustique, where we have recently gone in January’s past, but for various reasons didn’t seem the smart thing to do this year.  I can smell the salt in the floral laced breeze and it makes me want to lay out by the pool sipping Mojitos and watch my friend Nicholas do dance routines to Shania Twain…but that is another story.

My week wasn’t only about fantasy of place, but of home projects and really all things in life that I would like to be doing.  Aside from travel and making fun commercial projects, obviously there is blogging and baking to be done.  January has proven difficult because there isn’t a whole lot of inspirational activities going on.  I guess it’s Mother Nature’s way of making downtime for us all, but February is already proving to be different. 

February is about the Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, baby showers, catching up on Oscar movies before the March awards and also a fun Truffle and Treats class I was given by my friend Randy as a Christmas present.  The class is next Saturday afternoon and I’m really looking forward to it.  It’s been awhile since I’ve taken a class and it feels long overdue.

But back in reality…my coffee scented reality that is, I have some grapefruit sandwich cookies to tackle.  My original plan for the week was to make a peanut butter cookie, but as I was looking through the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook for the recipe, on the page corresponding is the recipe for Grapefruit Sandwich Cookies.  As most of January has been citrus focused, making a grapefruit flavored confection seems like a good idea.  I can’t recall any grapefruit dessert I’ve ever had, which is all the more reason to make one.  The first step is a cup of coffee to get me going. (Coffee isn’t called for in the recipe, but it doesn’t hurt.)

The dough is pretty easy to make, your standard fair really.  Combine 1 stick of room temperature butter and 1 cup of sugar in a mixing bowl on medium high speed and beat until fluffy (2-4 minutes), then add 2 room temperature egg yolks and the grated zest of one grapefruit.  Mix until combined.  Meanwhile combine 1 cup of all-purpose flour, 3/4 cup of cake flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder and a 1/2-teaspoon of salt in a medium bowl.  Whisk or sift all the dry ingredients to break up any lumps you might have in your flour.  Last, add the flour mixture to the butter mixture with the mixer on low, alternating with 1/4 cup of grapefruit juice.  Meaning… as you add the flour, take turns with the grape fruit juice…(add some flour mixture then some juice, some more flour, the rest of the juice and then the rest of the flour).  Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl and give it one more quick spin in the mixer on high for just a couple of seconds.  Turn out the dough onto plastic wrap and form a 1-inch thick disc.  Wrap and refrigerate for half an hour.

The dough is in the fridge right now.  I have to say it ranks high as deliciously edible dough, one that is in danger of never making it into actual cookie form.  It’s soft and buttery with a bite from the grapefruit juice and zest.  It has the consistency of yummy holiday butter cookie dough.  After it chills, I’m going to roll it out on the counter (floured) with a rolling pin to a 1/8 inch thick and cut with a 2 inch round cookie cutter.  In the meantime, I’m going to make the filling for the cookies.

In the bowl of your electric mixer put in 1 stick of room temperature butter and 2 cups of confectioner’s sugar.  Mix on low just to get it going (and to keep sugar from going all over the kitchen) and work your way up to medium high, blending for about 4 minutes.  Next add in 1 tablespoon of honey and 3 tablespoons of grapefruit juice, mixing 2 minutes more.  For a little color, I added 1 drop of red food coloring and one drop of yellow right at the end, and it turned a lovely orange-pinkish color.  As a grand total, I only needed one large grapefruit for this whole recipe.

Now that the dough has chilled, roll it out and cut the cookies for baking.  I didn’t have a 2 inch round cutter I discovered, so I used a small bar glass designed for drinking Scotch, and in fact I remember getting the glass as part of the Scotch making tour/ride we took in Edinburgh last August.  Regardless, necessity breeds invention and the glass dipped in flour worked perfectly.  It was just shy of being 2 inches in diameter, so I ended up with extra cookies than the recipe indicates.  Normally, you will make 30 cookies, which become 15 sandwiches, but I ended up with 44 cookies and 22-sandwich cookies…portion control at it’s finest.  Brian is pictured here in the "Scotch" room on our tour posing with my make-shift cookie cutter.

Spread the cookies out 1 inch apart on the baking sheet.  Because the cookies are slightly smaller I found that I only had to bake them for 13 minutes at 350 degrees instead of the 18-20 minutes the recipe calls for.  Dollop about a tablespoon of filling onto half the cookies, and use the other half to top and make the sandwiches.

I just finished eating a cookie and I have to say it’s pretty outstanding.  Like I said before, I don’t remember ever eating a grapefruit based dessert.  I’m sure I’ve had it as a component, but not as the focus.  It’s certainly sweet, but with a slightly bitter and tart grapefruit flavor that lingers afterward beautifully on your tongue.  It did take a little time to make these cookies… a couple of hours with chilling and baking time, so if you are in a hurry these may not be the way to go, but if you have some time and feel like making an elegant and bright cookie, then these will do the trick. 

Am I transported to a far away island?  Do I feel the warmth of the sun and sand soaking into my skin and lifting my mood in a vitamin D sort of way?  Close, very close.  The creative act of making the cookies is transformative in and of itself.  It gets me out of the day to day headspace I’ve been in all week and moves me to a more relaxed place where I can treat myself to a bite of something simple and delicious. 

Now the rest of the weekend can be spent lazing about (after I go to the gym and work off the cookies), and figuring out what plants to put in the garden come spring.  I shall finish perusing catalogues in search of the perfect bulbs and flowers that will brighten up the yard in days to come.  The winter is almost half over and it seems like good things are headed our way.  I continually see a perfectly white pigeon eating seeds from the bird feeder outside our kitchen window.  Call me slightly superstitious, but I can’t help but think of her as a good omen.  Maintaining a sugar induced positive attitude doesn’t hurt either.  It’s how I survive, and it’s just who I am.

Lime-y

Key Lime Pie doesn’t travel well.  Transporting it from one place to another in multiple Tupperware containers (as opposed to it’s original pie dish) is not something I would recommend.  Travel certainly doesn’t affect the taste, but it does affect presentation…and as we know I’m a stickler when it comes to presenting.  When you jostle the pie around in a strange, seemingly Spring-like storm with 40 mile per hour winds, take it on the train, take it to the dentist and then take it to work, the pie has a tendency to move about on it’s own in an undesirable fashion which ultimately resembles banana pudding having a very bad hair day.   I just needed to get that off my chest first and foremost, nothing but glad tidings from here on out. (And no I didn’t take a picture because it made me sad)

Last Saturday marked National Pie Day.  I however wasn’t aware that such a day existed until a co-worker pointed it out to me this afternoon, so it was fortuitous that I already had a pie plan in the works.   Apparently this “holiday” is celebrated every 23rd of January and was first created years back to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Crisco.  I’m not sure that Crisco actually needed to create “pie day” to celebrate this…it smells deeply of a marketing ploy methinks, but you won’t find me knocking the product.  It certainly adds that certain something to a piecrust from time to time.  (Though, I feel my arteries clogging just thinking about it.)

Picking up on the citrus theme from earlier in the month, I decided to make a Key Lime Pie. (This is a very similar recipe) Having covered something orange and lemon, it seemed only reasonable to make a lime flavored desert.  I was in the mood for something tart, zesty and potent…a taste explosion if you will, and I think this pie certainly did the trick. 

The main ingredient is obviously the Key Limes, which hale from the Florida Keys and are a very small, lemon-lime fruit.  They are quite tart, pack a punch and often you can find them in the regular super-market…especially now with citrus being “in season”.  I wasn't so lucky when I went on my search this weekend and returned home instead with a mixture of lemons and limes to stand-in place of the little missing fruit.  The recipe I used called for 20 Key Limes, which equals out to about 3/4 cup of juice.  Since I was unable to procure the necessary ingredient, I replaced them with the juice of 1 1/2 lemons and 3 limes.  I also used the zest from both a lemon and a lime to send the flavor over the edge…and it worked!  The result is a sweet and irresistible filling which packs a pucker.  This pie for me brought the kind of joy I only know from licking the spoon of a freshly made batch of lemon curd (yea, I said it).  Few things can compare.

Part of this dessert’s appeal for me was also the color.  The pie calls for a layer of meringue and freshly whipped cream mixed together and mounded on the top to give it some heft and fluff.  I wasn’t sure how well this would photograph so I did two versions, one naked and one all dressed up.  Visually I’m not sure which one I prefer, but certainly adding all of that cream and meringue didn’t hurt my taste buds when it came time to have a slice.

The other big news of the weekend, other than Crisco’s invented sales promo day (sorry Crisco) was that our dear friends Izabella and Jonathan are pregnant!!!  We couldn’t believe it!  As I get older, this seems to be happening more and more…as I suppose it must.  It’s such an exciting time for them and for us, and we can’t wait to meet the new baby later this summer.  Brian and I have been in the process of adopting for about a year now and we have our fingers crossed that this may be the year that we too have a tiny one in our house.

It’s strange to wait for a baby, something not like any other experience.  I mean, with baking, a bun in the oven is a VERY different thing.  With the “bun”, you hope it will rise and be the best bread you hoped it could be, but with an actual baby it’s a whole other set of hopes and expectations.  It’s a life you plan to share in, to nurture and to love (not unlike a temperamental yeast), but at the end of the day you never know what’s going to happen.  I’m hoping for an olive loaf myself. (My grandmother’s name is Olive).

The Key Lime pie I made is an almost perfect example of hope, expectation and working with what you have…sort of like a child.  I had planned to make Key Lime pie, but ultimately it ended up being just a regular Lemon Lime Pie…no fancy title, but still damn tasty (the pie, not the child).  Do my original expectations make it any less appealing, do I judge it differently, do I wish it had blonde hair and blue eyes like it’s father…?  No, I love it for being what it is.  It’s just who I am.

Reinvention

The dark, fudge-y deliciousness is complete…my masterpiece has been created… MWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA.  Well, maybe not exactly, but certainly it’s on the right track. 

Last night I finally got around to a couple of things I had been meaning to do, one being the “reinvention” of a brownie recipe.  More to the point, I’ve had a goal for a while to start coming up with recipes of my own.  It’s something I rarely do, but I’m finding the possibility more and more easy as I go along.  Practice does make perfect in the world of cooking and baking, and in my fantasy world where I have my own cookbook/photo book full of recipes for baked goods there has to be some original creations. 

Baking is basic science at its core, but it’s the creative embellishments that give a good pastry or confection some flare.  Recipes are generally adaptations of ideas that came before, and in a bigger way many creative pursuits in life fall under this umbrella.   Why do directors make the same type of movie over and over or painters continually try and capture the perfect subject?  It’s this endless pursuit of perfection that keeps us rolling along, trying to make improvements and give a baked good (or some other art form) a new and exciting twist.

For me, the same can be said for the brownie.  I love brownies, and I mean SERIOUSLY love them.  I can’t think of one I’ve ever met that didn’t at least pass across my lips for a bite or two.  Fantastic or just good, brownies are really a pretty hard thing to screw up.  The great thing about them is they don’t need leavening agents such as baking powder or baking soda.  Those two key baking elements seem to stress people out, make them nervous, and bring about a case of bake-a-phobia.  If you are that sort of person then the brownie is just the thing for you.  Not only are they crisp and crunchy on the outside, but if made correctly (in my opinion) will be moist and have a nearly fudge-like consistency on the inside.

I’ve often turned to the Barefoot Contessa as well as Martha Stewart for their brownie recipes.  Ina has the most amazing brownie pudding dessert in her Back To Basics cookbook.  Respectively, Martha has an irresistibly fudge-o-licious brownie in her Baking Handbook.  After making both of these for many different occasions, last night I decided to make my own version. 

As I searched through the pantry for the proper ingredients for either of these scenarios I realized I didn’t have what I needed.  It was late, and the grocery store wasn’t open, BUT I NEEDED A BROWNIE!!!!  It had been a long and semi-stressful week, the kind that only chocolate or a stiff drink can cure and suddenly I was on a binder.

Fortunately I had partial ingredients for both recipes, and I had the core elements like butter, sugar and flour in place, but it was the chocolate that was hanging me up.  Ina’s recipe calls for really amazing cocoa powder, Pernigotti, which I’ve only found at William Sonoma, and Martha’s recipe calls for 8 oz of semi-sweet chocolate of which I only had 3.5 oz of 85% dark chocolate.  After making some adjustments and figuring out how much of each element I wanted to try, I just went for it…not very scientific I admit, but it came out really good.  The recipe is as follows:

1 1/2 sticks of butter

3.5 oz 85% dark chocolate (in this case 1 Lindt bar) chopped

1/2 cup of good cocoa powder

2 cups of sugar (plus additional for sanding the bottom of the brownies)

5 eggs

1 Tablespoon of pure vanilla extract (or the seeds from 1 vanilla bean)

3/4 cup of flour

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Butter and line an 8-inch square cake/brownie pan with parchment paper.  Set aside.

Over a simmering saucepan of water, place the butter and chocolate in a mixing bowl (not touching the water) and stir until it melts.  Remove the bowl off the heat, mix in the cocoa powder and let it cool to room temperature (about 10 minutes). 

Meanwhile, sift your flour and salt together and set aside.  Once the chocolate/butter mixture has cooled down, mix in the sugar, then add the eggs 1 at a time, whisking after each addition.  Add in the vanilla.

Finally, gently fold in the flour mixture until it’s all combined.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for about an hour. 

Let the brownies cool in the pan for about 20 minutes.  Run a pairing knife around the edge to release them from the pan.  Cool completely on a wire rack then cut into squares.   When you are ready to present/stack them on a plate, dip the bottom of each in plain old granulated sugar.  This will keep the stacks from sticking to each other.

The brownies came out very moist and yummy.  They were a little on the dense side in my opinion, though it didn’t effect the deep, rich chocolate taste.  I’m thinking next time around maybe a little less sugar, a little more chopped chocolate and maybe some additional butter might balance it out a bit.  For now, I am happy with the results and the folks at work seemed to be as well.  I say give it a whirl if you like an INTENSE, RICH, naughty treat.

I think the chocolate inspiration came from a lovely dinner Brian and I had this past weekend.  We were fortunate enough to have a late anniversary dinner at the Farmhouse Restaurant, which is part of the Bedford Post Inn in Bedford, NY.  The restaurant is about a half an hour from our house.  I had heard of it on the Martha Stewart show one day when she had Richard Gere as a guest. He is part owner of the Inn.  The place was absolutely amazing and I would like to go back and spend the weekend there.  Of course I wasn’t prepared and didn’t happen to have my camera for our outing, but I did manage a shady snapshot of my dessert with my Iphone.  There wasn’t quite enough light where we were sitting, but I had the chocolate cheesecake covered in chocolate ganache for dessert.   The whole meal was amazing and I felt a bit like I was having dinner in a Pottery Barn catalogue…something I admittedly didn’t mind.  We had a romantic table for two facing a living room set-up with a fireplace, and no other table of diners in our range of vision.  It felt private and intimate, and the food was all around an A-plus.  There are a couple of good photos of the Bedford Post Farmhouse restaurant and a review on the Westchester Magazine website.

The drive to get there from our house took us over several backcountry roads in Bedford (out wear Martha lives).  Though it was nighttime, there were many grand homes, estates and gorgeous old stone walls surrounding the properties.  I can’t wait to go back for lunch and get a proper view of the countryside in the daylight.

Baking the brownies was also another excuse for reinvention, but this time on the photographic front.  For our anniversary, Brian gave me a lighting set to create a small shooting space in our basement.  Normally, as may be apparent from previous blog pictures, I generally rely on daylight to take most my photos.  Now I will be able to create beautifully lit set-ups regardless of the time of day or the weather outside.  It was very exciting and I think these brownie pics were a nice way of breaking in the new lights.   How else am I going to photograph pastries at 2:00am?  It’s just who I am.

Let the Sunshine In

It seems as if I hadn’t seen the sun in days before yesterday afternoon.  My work schedule has me getting up reasonably early, taking the train into the city and then spending my day in an area of the office without any windows.  By the time I leave the sun has gone away and I’m left to a cool evening trek back home.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but with the grey, wintry short days the notion of spending time out in the warm sunshine is the furthest thing from my mind…until I was on the train platform waiting for the 11:04. 

The sky was clear and blue, the breeze, which has been plaguing us decided to take a hike and the sun was beaming down brightly.  It occurred to me in that moment I had been missing it.  It’s a funny thing to take something for granted then all at once become aware of its absence.

I went into work for a couple of hours to take care of a few things, but then was left with the day to do what I wanted.  Rarely am I in the city on a Saturday afternoon with nothing planned.  It seems my life is often planned out to an extreme degree and it’s such a delightful thing to discover an expanse of free time.  As I started to walk toward the subway I again had the feeling of taking something for granted, but this time it was New York. 

When you live so close to such a place as New York City, are in fact in it everyday trying to get “business as usual” accomplished it starts to become part of the routine of life as well as part of the background noise…”I wish these people would get out of my way, stop being so loud, would pay attention to what they are doing” can become a constant through line in your head as you try to make it from A to B on a day to day basis.

It was now around 2:30pm and the sun was displaying its full glory.  Granted the temperature outside was certainly cold, but not unbearable, and I decided to go for a walk around.  Strolling through the city aimlessly can be exhilarating.  Not rushing to get anywhere opens up a world of possibilities.  The architecture that you usually blow by on a weekday morning suddenly can look amazing in broad daylight.  Restaurants are all lit up with people having late lunch or early brunch, boutiques and bodegas are full of families shopping at a more relaxed pace, and with the sun shining brightly the disposition of everyone seems pretty fair instead of the usual stressed out frown. 

I decided to walk up from Greenwich Village into Chelsea and over near where I used to work when I first moved to Manhattan.  My first job was right near Union Square and the year round farmer’s market was still in full swing.  The items there are considerably limited compared to other times of the year, but there were still plenty of stalls full of baked goods, apples, potatoes, honey and preserves…all the things that are still “in season” here in the northeast.  After a quick breeze around the market I wandered up to 18^th St and over to City Bakery.  I haven’t been there in years it seems, not since I took my parents there a couple of years ago.  The reason I went was for their hot chocolate.  I can honestly say with a straight face that a more rich and beautiful creation couldn’t exist anywhere else on the face of the Earth.  This beverage (if one can call it that) is pure luxury, creamy, dark and flavorful, a taste sensation that borders on erotic and even that doesn’t do it justice…you can imagine why I would stop by for cup.  It was just as good as I remembered and melted away the chill from my lengthy walk-about.

I decided when I got home that I would like a little more sunshine in my life and began to search for a dessert to fit such a warming and pleasant day.  Although I did something citrus-y last week it still seemed the appropriate way to go, so I went on the hunt for something “orange”.  Orange is not a flavor I’m normally drawn to, though I do like it with chocolate from time to time, but maybe there was some psychic connection happening between me and all the light I was exposed to during the day.  It just sounded good.

I pulled out a not often used tome called The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook:  The Original Classics.  I was looking for something reasonably quick because it had been such a busy week and I wanted just a taste of something yummy.  In the cookie section I found a delicious little ditty called “Chewy Orange Almond Cookies”.  Reading through the recipe I was shocked on two accounts.  A) The recipe called for crushed anise seed…a.k.a. licorice flavor.  B) There is no butter!!!!!!!!  How could I possibly make a reasonable and respectable dessert without any butter???  It didn’t seem possible, but I decided to put my suspicions aside and give it a whirl…plus I had all the ingredients in the house and that was a plus.  The recipe is as follows:

4 1/2 ounces sliced almonds (about 1 1/4 cup)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4-cup all-purpose flour

Finely grated zest of 2 oranges (about 1/4 cup)

1-teaspoon anise seed, crushed.

3 large egg whites, room temperature

1/4-teaspoon kosher salt

2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar

This is very simple.  Just put a cup of the almonds in the food processor along with 1/2 cup granulated sugar and anise seeds (I used fennel seed).  Grind it up fine and put it in a medium sized bowl.  Add the orange zest and flour. 

In the bowl of an electric mixer combine the egg whites, remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and salt.  Using the whisk attachment, mix on medium high for several minutes until soft peaks form.  Fold the egg whites into the almond/flour mixture. 


Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

On 2 baking sheets lined with parchment paper scoop out level tablespoons of batter onto the sheets…you can get a dozen per sheet…and this recipe only makes 2 dozen, so it’s fast.  Now you take the reserved almonds and artfully place 3 onto each cookie and sift the confectioner’s sugar all over the tops.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are just golden.  That’s it!

When they were all done, the cookies made me think of sand dollars.  They are very pretty and the confectioner’s sugar really stuck to the almonds during the baking process.  It’s a clean and attractive cookie, and one that is FULL of flavor.  I couldn’t really believe it, but they pack quite a punch.  The anise flavor is very subtle and in the background, a nice spicy back note, but the star of the show is the orange zest; very strong and full of citrus flavor.  You know what I don’t miss?  The butter.  The egg whites made these cookies light and airy without any thought of my missing golden pats of fatty goodness.  The outsides are crisp and the insides are unbelievably moist, something I think you should try if you are feeling adventurous and don’t have a lot of time on your hands.  These cookies seem deeply Italian somehow, and I can imagine the ingredients lending themselves to a great biscotti recipe.

I think the cookies were a great approximation of the day:  bright, airy, crisp and so sinfully delicious.  As for taking things for granted, I will think of oranges differently from now on, not to mention licorice.  Who knew the two could come together to pull off such an interesting combination of flavors?  The combination is a little like New York City and the people walking through the concrete jungle; sometimes dreary and bleak, but often friendly, beautiful and unexpected…like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. 

I’ll take Manhattan any day, it’s just who I am.

Back To Life

Happy New Year one and all!!!  I have had a spectacular little vacation the past week and a half, but am gearing up to return to the land of the living.  It’s funny how taking some time off really changes your perspective for the better.  Maybe it’s because I’m sleeping more or maybe it’s because I’ve done little else besides watch movies and eat baked goods…needless to say, my mood has been elevated along with my waist size.

We took a few “down days” after Christmas with me playing video games and Brian catching up on work, but I’m not one for sitting too long.  The baking bug bit quite hard and I decided to try and find something to make for New Year’s Eve.  I surrounded myself with cookbooks and began to scour.  The search wasn’t particularly fruitful because I wasn’t sure what sort of “food mood” I was in.  The thought of making a fancy cake or some other dessert didn’t feel quite right.  I wanted something clean and simple, something to symbolize the way I wanted to move into 2010.

I had originally considered doing a cake with black fondant to indicate mourning for the loss of 2009, but I didn’t feel particularly sad to see it go with all of it’s ups and downs.  Welcoming 2010 with open arms seemed to be a better plan.  After spending an hour or so and still coming up short I decided to use my old friend Google and look for some New Year’s recipe traditions.  I’ve always heard you are supposed to eat black eyed peas for luck, and apparently collared greens (or any other kind of green) are good because the leafy green represents money.  There are a slew of fruits and vegetables that represent money and financial growth…I guess it makes sense because Americans in particular equate happiness with financial growth.  Cakes were also on the list…but as I said before I wasn’t interested in cake this time around.

The best place to look for inspiration usually comes back to what items are in season.  Right now, that thing is citrus.  Granted we get most of our fruits flown in from some tropical location, but if one were inclined to have a greenhouse, their fruit trees would be getting into the swing of production right now.  I, sadly, do not have a greenhouse, but citrus was my answer.  Then it hit…a lemon tart, simple, elegant and tasty.  Lemon is my all-time favorite dessert flavor next to chocolate.  In my review of years past, I have made more lemony cakes than any other dessert.  Several times I’ve done a yellow cake with lemon curd and buttercream as my go-to fancy dessert.  Pictured here is the aforementioned cake I had done for New Year’s Eve 3 years ago and topped with sugar cookie numbers.  This was the year I really got into baking and took classes at the French Culinary Institute…ahhh, a glorious year.

For the finale of my classes, we had to create a specialty cake of some sort.  I made this two tier yellow cake, again with lemon curd and buttercream (hiding under the fondant).  It is one of my most special cakes to date and has a warm and fuzzy space in my heart.  I particularly like the sugary daisies painted with luster dust.

Additionally, the birthday cake I made last year (with help from my friend Izabella) was this very same cake once more.  I’m seeing a pattern here.

It was no surprise then that I chose to do the lemon tart for New Year’s.  It just felt right.  What was exciting about this recipe is it’s from Thomas Keller (Per Se, The French Laundry and Bouchon).  Normally, most of his recipes are rather complex, but this one taken from the Bouchon cookbook is pretty straightforward and one most people could do without any difficulty.  I think people always get caught up on the crust…mainly not wanting to make it because they think they are going to mess it up.  This crust couldn’t be more fool proof.  It relies on pine nuts as it’s base component, and isn’t overly sweet.  All you need to do is put all the ingredients in a food processor, blend, and then divide the dough into three portions because it makes enough for 3 tart crusts.  Most doughs you have to let rest and chill in the refrigerator before you work with it, but this one needs a mere 10 minutes of chill time and you are ready to push it into your tart pan and bake. 

As for the filling, it is achieved through the sabayon method… which literally translates to standing and stirring until your arm wants to fall off. (Really)  You place the sugar, eggs and lemon juice in a bowl over a pan of simmering water and stir until it just starts to make a thick, creamy filling…it took about 9 minutes of actual stir time.  This would be a great time to practice being ambidextrous.  Pour the filling into your cooled crust and magically you have a tart.  You can put the tart under the broiler for a few seconds to get the pretty sugar caramelization on top.  I added the powdered sugar numbers for graphic accents after the tart cooled.  It’s sweet and super duper lemony, bright and cheerful, a proper dessert to take you into the New Year smiling.

The dessert went over well with our friends Lisa and Izabella who joined us for the evening of celebration and pigging out.  Lisa spent the night with us since she lives in the city and trains stop running between Ossining and Manhattan between 2 and 5 am.  We got up on the morning of the first and I made some cheddar sage biscuits to pair with scrambled eggs and Canadian bacon.  There is nothing quite like biscuits made from scratch and hot out of the oven to get your day started.  These were a snap to make and came out beautifully.  Just like the tart crust, all the ingredients go in the food processor and with just a few pulses you have wonderfully tender biscuit dough, which should look shaggy when it’s done (not overly combined).  Roll out the dough and get those biscuits in the oven!!!

(Pause:  had another biscuit with sunny-side egg and bacon for this morning’s breakfast…still delicious after a couple of days stored in a Ziploc bag.)

Now that all the festivities are done, it’s time to get back to regular life, or at least semi-regular life.  Brian is headed back to Florida for a week and a half, and I’m headed back to work, full steam ahead on a new project.  The past couple of weeks have been such a nice change of pace, but one I’m not good at maintaining.  I’m naturally a busy person and too much down time makes me a bit crazy.  It’s time to think about the new year, new responsibilities and also a good time to get those pots of stew going on the stove and other slow-cooked numbers bubbling happily away, filling the house with delectable aromas.

(And as a side note:  it’s also a good time to look through gardening catalogues and start planning spring and summer additions to the landscape.  I always try to order summer bulbs and plants around the first of February to get the best pick.  This site is one of my favorites:  White Flower Farm) 

Why think about this now?  Well, the weather outside is frightful, windy, and cold and is going to stay that way for a while.  It’s important to have things to look forward to.  I’m looking forward to a snowy winter giving way to a spring full of new growth and some seasonal baked goods to go along with it.  It’s just who I am.