Reimagined

I find it incredibly strange to sit down and write once more.  There is a certain heady; slightly euphoric/post drugged feeling hanging in the air, the feeling of returning from a vacation.  Our kitchen was left alone for the past two weeks to sit and think about things it wanted to be cooking while the cats aimlessly walked about the countertops un-“shooed” from places they shouldn’t be.  I guess the kitchen needed the break as much as I did, a time to recuperate and daydream about baking possibilities, not just for fall, but for the future as well.

Fabulous Pastries turned two years old this week.  I’ve been thinking about the many things I became interested in creating over the past twenty-four months of baking. Through the process of making different desserts, learning new techniques and comparing and contrasting flavor profiles, I feel like I’ve come to a different place in my baking.  Once only interested in capturing memories and smells of the past, passing on remembered tastes to people in the now, I have discovered invention, inspiration and imagination all over again.

Before leaving for our vacation I’d been pondering reinvention.  The baked goods coming out of the stove were leaning toward the emergence of something new and different instead of being completely nostalgia-laced substances.  There is something to be said for spending a lot of time learning, studying and working with known elements before venturing off into exploratory realms.  It’s hard to imagine something new if old ground hasn’t been covered and understood.  My overwhelming sense is having spent two years learning not only how to become a better baker, but also how to evoke pleasurable moments for friends and family, often tied into my impression of past events.

I come back to the 1950’s over and over again, showcasing a potentially idealized America, one worth honoring above all others.  In focusing on this fantasy time in Americana it’s worth asking if the times were really so great, or are great from a beautifully painted distance?  I can’t answer that question, nor do I intend to, but understanding that looking at imagery of the period, or any illustrations Norman Rockwell ever painted brings a certain warmth and happiness to me.  For me, it’s a touchstone, but for others their touchstone is altogether something different.  Finding these points of entry into a fond memory or feeling is exciting.  Depending on the dessert, I’ve had people tell me what it makes them think of, this commentary ranging from Grandma’s kitchen to a café in Paris they ate in as a child.  The point here, dear reader, is that something powerful happens with food and the mind, particularly when it comes to desserts.

In reading a good portion of Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck Cookbook, he covers some of those first memories that turned him into a foodie and later master chef creating taste experiences for his diners.  Heston is above all else someone who understands food memory.  Whether playing with liquid nitrogen or other more modern techniques of food preparation, he spends a lot of time seeking out flavors from childhood, be that cereal, bubble gum or peanut butter and jelly, and turning them on their ear, changing the way the components of a dish come together resulting in a refined impression of a recognizable dish.  Experimentation is the key, playing with the recipe over and over again until he gets the desired result, Heston is a master of evoking the sense of something larger than the dish at hand, but a sense of place and time, having an ability to transport the diner to a happy place from his or her past.  Dining at the Fat Duck several years ago is still one of the top 3 food memories of my life

I am in no way comparing myself to Heston Blumenthal, but his philosophy about food certainly speaks to me and makes me want to produce something larger than its parts…. in my case making the butter, sugar and eggs into an edible experience both tasty and fun.  It is with all this in mind I began to tinker and invent in my own pre-vacation kitchen some new edible bites.  I think the catalyst for all of this was the Banana Bread Truffles that were made for the Labor Day Party last month.  I had received more comments from people about these chocolate banana bites than I can remember hearing in quite awhile.  The flavor was good, but the commentary was more about concept than anything else.

What was it about these sugary nuggets that made them so special?  Basically, it was taking something known and presenting it in a new way.  Sure, everyone knows what banana bread tastes like and they also know what it’s like to eat chocolate truffles, but it’s rare to eat them together.  The playfulness of these two things put into one rich bite was an exciting and yummy thing to consume.  It is in this mindset I began to approach a couple other desserts in a similar way, and made me think there could be a lot of desserts out in the world that need to be reimagined.  The first thing I came up with was a beautiful lemon, thyme and cardamom cookie with a filling of brown butter pears.  The recipe is as follows:

Spiced Lemon Pear Sandwich Cookies

Filling Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs pears, peeled, cored, and diced

1/2-cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons butter

1/2-teaspoon cinnamon

1-tablespoon vanilla bean paste (or extract)

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, brown the butter for a few moments until it turns a light amber color.  Add the pears and brown sugar, cook for ten minutes.  Add the cinnamon and vanilla, continue cooking over medium-low heat for another twenty minutes stirring frequently to keep from burning as the pears release their liquid and reduce.  Set the filling/compote aside to cool completely.

Cookie Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest (from two large lemons)

1-teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2-teaspoon kosher salt

2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for working

1 teaspoon dried thyme

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on high until light and fluffy, 3 minutes.  Add lemon zest, cardamom, thyme and salt; beat until combined, scraping down bowl as needed.  With mixer on low, add flour and mix until combined.

Form dough into 24 1 1/2-inch balls  (this is easily done with a small ice cream scoop) and place 2 inches apart, on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Use the bottom of a glass dipped in flour to gently flatten each ball of dough.  Bake until cookies are golden around the edge, 10-12 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through.  Transfer cookies to a wire rack and let them cool completely before topping with filling.

Turn half the cookies upside down and add one heaping tablespoon of the pear filling.  Place the remaining cookies on top, gently pressing down to distribute the filling, forming the sandwich.  Enjoy!

This recipe doesn’t exactly fit with the idea of the reinvented bit, but does fall under the umbrella of interesting, unexpected combinations.  It has the addition of herbs to a cookie, something I am becoming more and more interested in, and also the pairing of a very light, citrus cookie with an earthy, rich pear compote in lieu of some sort of buttercream or frosted filling.  The end result is completely flavorful, fattening, lovely and one I am convinced could become very popular.   I enjoyed trying to come up with an unexpected cooking and filling, two things you wouldn’t necessarily think might go together, but in fact produced something more astounding and interesting than either would on their own.  Pears and thyme are beautiful together along with brown sugar and butter…. everything is better with brown sugar and butter I’m convinced.  Cardamom is underused in my opinion and in this cookie gives an added bit of mystery flavor and spice.

Staying in this mindset of inventiveness and reinvented nostalgia we made a trip to Playland in Rye (which is in Westchester not too far from our home).  Our friends Maria, Noah and Rosie came to visit us from Tulsa, Oklahoma a few weeks back and we thought it might be a fun Saturday activity to do with our kids.  Noah is one year old and Siena is working her way toward nine months, so there wasn’t really a lot for them to do, but there was a special area in the park for younger children such as Noah where he could ride tame rides with parental accompaniment and still have some fun.  Siena was happy just to be out and about looking at all the people and the fabulous colors of the park.

Playland has been around for many years, and it happened to be the closing weekend of the season during our visit.  The park has been well preserved and looks like it stepped out of the 1960’s – 70’s.  All the colors have an aged look about them and the design is certainly of an earlier time, a time when amusement parks were all the rage and finding fun was as simple as hopping on a ride for a few moments.  The place was full of kids and adults alike, still a mainstay of Rye after all these years and seemingly a place you get a season pass to and bring your kids every year until they are too embarrassed to be seen in public with you.  After that, I supposed they go on their own.

Walking through the midway made me think of the fair coming to town every year when I was a boy, riding the Ferris wheel or any of the faster rides that went upside down and made me want to throw up all the contents of my stomach.  I used to go with my dad to the Ozark Empire Fair and we would down jugs of root beer and mustard covered corndogs in record time while walking around trying to figure out which rides to wait in line for and how much money we could lose at the duck pond before getting a special prize.  The fairgrounds are a great place for a kid and incredibly imaginative.  The signage is bold and bright, the creatures on the fun house are scary and morose, and there was always the hope that “this year” would be the year I was tall enough to get on that special ride. 

At Playland, the sense of all these hopeful things was present.  Cotton candy was being made on every corner and workers beckoned you to step right up and win a prize.  The carousel was full of nervous and excited kids, waiting for the horses to move while the bumper car children seemingly had no fear at all.  In essence, this park could have stepped out of any time and any childhood, never missing a beat.  I was of course busy photographing, trying to put my special stamp on the place and see as much as I could before our kids were tired and we had to leave.  There were two things that brought me particular fascination.  One:  the boardwalk, and Two:  caramel apples.

The boardwalk is from the movie Big with Tom Hanks.  I can remember watching this film over and over as a kid along with a host of other classics such as Poltergeist and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  Big fascinated me because it features a kid in an adult’s body living out the fantasy of working in New York and helping create and play with toys all day long.  What youngster doesn’t have that as a fantasy I ask?  My friend Dana and I used to sit around the table in the playroom of the babysitter’s house we went to, imagining how one day we would both grow up and have lunch together in the big city, I of course was going to be Tom Hanks working for the toy company and designing fun playthings for a living.  I can’t say I missed the mark too much when it comes to my job, though the characters I sometimes develop for commercials don’t get fabricated into reality I still have that sense of getting to play everyday.  It’s a lucky thing.

The boardwalk at Playland was sunny and bright on that late summer day.  Ice cream carts were out in full force, the water was lapping up on the sandy beach and the light had a melancholy quality found only at the end of summer.  The air smelling of salt water and early fall, combined with the last weekend Playland was open, brought the finality of summer fun ominously into the present.  I’m not so devastated by the season change, though, because fall has to be my favorite time of year hands down. 

Walking through the park with Big in mind, strolling and clicking away on my camera, I came across not a fortune telling gypsy, but a candy stand.  There was a large glass case featuring colorful treats to catch the eyes of any age.  Nestled among the bright lollipops was a tray of candy coated apples.  I must admit that I’ve never been such a huge fan of these apples solely because of their messiness factor.  Whether glossy and red in their candy coat, or a burnished caramel outfit, the apples are always delicious and endlessly difficult to keep from getting all over your face.  They looked like jewels sitting in the case so I took their photograph, but when I was home later going through the film the idea of reinventing these apples struck…what if they weren’t such a pain in the butt to eat?

On this summer/fall threshold with apples coming into season (right now is the height) I thought it might be a nice experiment and gateway treat to lead us into harvest time.  Pulling from the concept of the banana bread dipped in chocolate I thought it could be interesting to “fake” a caramel dipped apple by baking a simple apple cake, playing with its flavor profile a bit by adding in some sage (a nod to Thanksgiving) and then cutting it into bite sized pieces and dipping them into a creamy, caramel sauce. 

Though this all sounded like a great and yummy idea, there were two problems remaining to be solved.  The first was the sticky caramel adhering to fingertips when picking up the bite.  Thinking more on this, the idea about lollipop sticks glared into view and I ran to Sur le Table to find the smallest ones they had.  Perfect!  The second issue to solve was the play on the crispness of an apple.  The apple used in the cake is grated and made into an apple butter/sauce of sorts before going into the batter.  There are no crisp apples to bite into in this dessert.  What would be a crunch addition?  Salt!  The old standby of sweet/salty pairing made perfect sense and was the exact finishing touch this dessert needed.  Not wanting to make the Apple Caramel Minis too salty I combined Fleur de Sel with some clear sanding sugar to keep the “crunch” idea going without encasing the caramel in a suit of salt.  The recipe is as follows:

Caramel Apple Minis

Applesauce Ingredients:  (makes 2 cups)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter,

1/4 cup light brown sugar,

1 tablespoon fresh sage, chopped (about 6 large leaves)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon,

1/4 cup sparkling apple cider

6 apples (I used Empire) peeled, cored and diced.  (about 5-6 cups of diced apple)

Begin by making the applesauce.  In a medium saucepan over medium heat, brown butter for a few moments until it becomes a nice amber color.  Add the brown sugar and sage, stirring for one minute to dissolve sugar.  Add cinnamon, cider and apples.  Cook covered over medium low for 30 minutes.  Remove cover and puree in the blender.

Cake Ingredients: (Makes one 8-inch and one 6-inch cake)  Adapted from the Caramel Apple Cake in Baked Explorations

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1 1/2 teaspoons ground sage

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes, at room temperature

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 large egg

2 cups homemade applesauce

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Butter your 8-inch and 6-inch round cake pans, line the bottoms with parchment paper, and butter the parchment.  Dust the parchment with flour and knock out the excess flour.

Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, allspice, sage and cloves together into a large bowl.  Set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until creamy, about 4 minutes.  Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Add the egg and beat until combined.

Add the flour mixture to the mixer bowl in three parts, alternating with the applesauce, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.  Scrape down the bowl, then mix on low speed for a few more seconds.

Divide the batter among the prepared pans and smooth the tops.  Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the baking time, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.  I found the 6-inch cake baked for about 35 minutes and the 8-inch cake for 45 minutes in my oven.  Transfer the pans to a wire rack and cool for 20 minutes.  Turn the cakes out onto the rack, remove the parchment, and let cool completely.  Cut into 1-inch cubes and insert lollipop sticks.

Caramel Sauce Ingredients:  (recipe from the Baked Explorations cookbook)

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 cup corn syrup

1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter, softened, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

In a medium saucepan with high sides, combine the sugar and corn syrup with 1/2 cup water.  Stir the mixture gently so you don’t slosh any of it up the sides of the pan.  Turn the heat to medium-high and continue stirring until the sugar dissolves.  Increase heat to high, stop stirring, and allow the mixture to boil.  Once it begins to turn a rich caramel color (if you don’t want to eye-ball it, take the caramel to 300 degrees on a candy thermometer), remove it from the heat, add the butter and cream, and stir until combined.

You can save the caramel sauce, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.  Let it come to room temperature before using it.

Once the caramel has cooled to room temperature, dip the cake bites into the sauce, covering completely.  Allow to dry and drain on a wire rack set inside a baking sheet.  Top with fleur de sel and sanding sugar. 

I think it quite possible that these bites were my homerun, baked good of 2011…so far at least.  More people commented on this dessert than I can remember to date.  The cake is easy to make, the caramel is easy to make, the only patience comes in letting the caramel cool off enough so that you can pour/dip the apple cake into it, otherwise it will break down the cake into mush if its too hot.  For those who like cake this dessert is a winner, for those that like fruit this dessert is a winner, for those that like candy this dessert is a winner and you won’t have to worry that its laced with razor blades because the bites are too small to conceal any weapons.  Halloween treats anyone?

Did I just write Halloween?  Eek, I think I did.  I’m as shocked as anyone that it’s October again.  We went on vacation to Tuscany where it was still unseasonably warm and lovely, still allowing me a few last days of laying out in the sunshine.  I returned to a much cooler New York, an impending fall New York and I know for certain it’s time to get out my jacket.  Leaves are doing their perennial change, mums are starting to show up at every garden nursery and grocery store, the pumpkins and gourds are filling up the bins at the farmer’s market and we have a costume to plan for little Miss Siena.

It was important to have some time away and get a little life perspective.  Brian and I hadn’t taken a proper vacation in a long, long time and had certainly never vacationed with a baby…a whole new experience.  Siena was the best traveler of the bunch with more energy than most of us.  Vacation doesn’t necessarily mean relaxation in the way it used to, but something more along the lines of a break from the grind of life, a reminder to stop and smell the roses (or olive trees and rosemary) in this case.  While away I really started to think about new directions and avenues of interest, what I want to be doing now, what I want to reimagine and reinvent for myself.  It struck me that it was time to work on an upgrade.

The upgrade I’m speaking of has to do with my website.  I have owned the domain name fabulouspastries.com for years…since 2004 in fact.  This blog has been a great catalyst and training ground with which to test my pastry skills and see how interested I am in baking.  I learned I am still very interested, even after two years have come and gone.  As I stated earlier, for me the baking is about sharing, making tasty food for friends and loved ones and having an anchor to some really unforgettable experiences.  My vacation decision has been to start work on my website after all these years, using it for now as an archive of photos and recipes as well as eventually a new home for the blog and other pastry related things I happen to be thinking about.  It’s a process that will take some time, but I’m up for the challenge.  There are certainly a large number of desserts and recipes to cull through and photos to reexamine.  This upgrade process gives me time to pause and think about new directions and concepts for my baking.  I think I’ve covered the past for long enough and am interested to see what sort of baking ideas I can reimagine for the future.

With that said, this is my last post to this particular blog site.  I will be coming at you with fresh baking inspiration and ideas from the forthcoming fabulouspastries.com.  Please be patient with me as I take time to develop the site and make it a fun, user-friendly place to be.  I hope to see you there; hungry for new takes on old favorites and undoubtedly a few traditional baked goods from time to time as well…it’s hard to leave my roots.  I’m ready to experiment.  It’s just who I am.