summer stone fruit!

I am not really a huge summer fan I know I know I'm crazy but the heat makes me irritable and my allergies are terrible and my translucent white skin burns terribly easy even with loads of sunscreen on.  I usually start longing for brisk fall days before 4th of July even happens.  I live to go apple picking and love everything pumpkin.  Part of me has already started thinking about baked goods for the fall but a new part of me, one that wasn't there before is embracing the long hot days and more importantly the seasonal produce.  I started this past weekend with a trip to the market to have some snacks for some guests and came away with mountains of peaches, plums, blackberries and strawberries. 

With a stocked fridge and and over flowing fruit bowl my mind starting spinning with all the yummy things I could make.  First on the list was blackberry cornmeal pancakes and a yummy fruit salad but I forgot to take picture cause I was distracted and was chatting.  All I have to share is the reminisce of macerated blackberries.  The pancakes were tasty but the blueberries were by far the star.

I new I wanted to bring some yummy goodness to the pool on sunday but what to bring was a challenge I didn't want to slave away all day over a hot stove and a pie the prefect fruit dessert required rolling out dough in heat which was not gonna happen that would equal Katelin cranky time and no one wants that so I decided on a plum clafoutis.  Now a tradition clafoutis is made with cherries but I didn't have any and if I did I always eat them too fast to ever get the chance to bake with them so plums it was.  I thought about peaches but I have other ideas for those like this sounds good right??

This is my new go to dessert for the rest of the summer.  I want to try it with every berry and stone fruit I come across it is so stinkin easy!  It was the perfect end to a lazy sunday meal of juicy delicious ribs, fresh corn on the cob and a lovely summer salad.  The mixture of ripe fruit and custardy cake was light and refreshing and not to sweet.  It was extra delightful with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.


PLUM CLAFOUTIS from Martha Stewart 
serves about 6


1/3 cup sugar
3/4 milk
1/2 cream
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch salt
3/4 cup flour
about 3 cups of fruit but or enough to totally fill the dish you are using


Directions
preheat oven to 350 degrees then butter and dust with sugar a 9 inch pie pan or 8 inch square baking dish or 8 ramekins whatever floats your boat really
mix all ingredients except the fruit in a blender for about 1 minutes then let sit while you cut up the fruit. I cut each plum into 6 wedges but again this is totally up to how you want it to look small plums would look great just cut in
pour about 1/4 to 1/2 the batter into the dish then arrange the fruit how you like once all the fruit is placed add the remaining batter go very slow or the plums will float all over and ruin your pretty design.
pop that baby in the oven and cook for 45-60 minutes or until nicely golden and puffy.  I recommend serving slightly warm  if possible so the clafoutis is still a little puffy.  

also see what katie ate and orangette for more great clafoutis recipes

eggs please

This post will not be long just a quick little love to letter to my friend the egg.  I wasn't planning on this being my next post but I have been saving up some photos of some recent meals and decided why not share them with you my blog readers and by blog readers lets not lie what I really mean is my family and like 10 friends (thanks for reading love you!)

I eat eggs almost everyday which is way more then I should but its because they are damn good I just can't help myself.  Lucky for me I have a roommate who shares my love of eggs as well as a mutual love of cheese, coffee and butter and also an allergy to fruit (I know match made in heaven right?).  Oh but the point my roommate makes the best poached eggs she should totally go pro at egg poaching if it was an option.

Eggs can be made a million different ways which is way I love them.  They also make for some yummy baked goods and give foods amazing powers like a souffle light as air and fluffy and delicious.
My favorite type of egg would be soft boiled I have a huge love of egg cups and when my Mimi makes me soft boiled or "dippy eggs" as they are known to the children of my family I still use the same egg cup I had from childhood and still get my egg with a side of toast soldiers slathered in butter.  did I mention how great my Mimi is? I have upgraded a bit in my home and now use olive wood egg cups cute right??
If you are looking to make some scrabbled eggs but always think the turnout dry and gross check out this Mark Bittman article.  If you want to add a good egg cook book to your collection try the good egg or the farmstead
and like everything else these days buy eggs at your local farmers market they really do taste better and are totally worth the extra cost or better yet raise your own chickens


coming soon letter press recipe cards......

salty bits of heaven

look at those little buttons of joy! 

I had a few spare moments and left over heavy cream in the fridge so I thought it would be a perfect time to make some caramels.  It also happens to be Father's Day this weekend and I know a certain fatherly figure who loves caramels.  In truth this fatherly figure would like anything I make because well his is my grandfather and he has to love everything I do or at least thats what I tell him. 

These caramels are actually a lot like Frank(my grandfather) they are salty and sweet and a little hard to chew.  They are more of a melt in your mouth treat the soft and chewy treat.  Something you have to savor to really enjoy.  That's right I just compared my GRANDFATHER to caramel I think about food like a million times a day its was bound to happen! 

The best part about these caramels is that they have butter and salt in them two things I like a lot.  You are probably thinking I have really bad eating habits with all this butter and cream and eggs and now I am talking about salt.  I really don't eat bad I may eat to much on a very regular basics but it usually involves lots of good for you foods.  I am not the only person who loves salt there are blogs dedicated to the stuff and for good reason a tiny pinch of some really good salt can make for great flavor.  I used fleur de sel for these caramels which is expensive but as this article explains theres a reason for that.

 

SALTED CARAMELS (i don't remember where the recipe came from sorry)

makes about 40 pieces

3/4 cup heavy cream

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup syrup for rice syrup

4 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 plus 1/4 teaspoon Fleur de Sel 

directions:

Line a loaf pan with foil and grease lightly.

In a small sauce pan heat cream, vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon salt and bring to a boil then cover and remove from heat.

In 4 quart saucepan combine sugar and corn syrup and stir until sugar is dissolved.  Cook until sugar turns golden brown about 10 minutes and reaches 310 degrees on a candy thermometer (I am not gonna lie i don't have a working thermometer I just guess).  Do not stir sugar mixture swirl the pan as needed to avoid hot spots but don't stir.

Once the sugar is golden brown take off heat and pour in the cream mixture. This stuff is gonna bubble liek crazy stir until well combined then return to heat.  Cook for about 15 minutes or until thermometer reads 260 degrees.  At this stage you can also use the soft ball test.  which means drop a little bit in ice cold water and if it turns to a soft ball you are good to go.

Now take off heat and add the butter stirring until nice a smooth.  Pour into the prepared loaf pan asap.

After about ten minutes sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon salt on top and let cool.

slice with a sharp knife and wrap in 3" bits of wax paper. 

I then kept in a vintage canning jar you know cause I wanted to show off jar.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY FRANK! 

buttery goodness

The best part of making croissants is the amazing buttery smell that fills that air while they bake.  I mean its practically heaven at least in my mind where heaven involves lots of butter and probably lots of cheese too and definitely coffee. This is my very first time making croissants and I must say it was a success!  I have wanted to make them forever but as a top notch procrastinator I just never got around to it.  They take like 20 hrs total to make and when do you ever have 20 spare hour I ask?  Chances are it will be a awhile before  I make these again so I plan to pop a few in the freezer for a rainy day. 

Even though I did sort of just complain about the time it takes to make these guys I have to say I very much enjoyed the process.  It came at the end of a long and somewhat eventful week and I needed to let the anxiety and stress I have been harboring go. There is something relaxing about baking for me, I feel at ease and focused in the kitchen a nice change from reality. Like photography or printmaking the process and technique is what guides me I am not worried about the outcome just the steps to get there.  In life it is so easy to lose sight of the process because well there isn't one and its very easy to lose your way. I lost my way but somehow baking has kept me a float and has gotten me back on track it just took some time and way to many pounds of butter.

itty bitty apricots

I wish I could say these were from the farmers market but they are not.  These little gems are from Trader Joe's a place I love and hate at the same time.  I mean they always have cheap pretty flowers,the cheese section is usually good, I like their assortment of chocolate covered things especially the little peanut butter cups those are little buttons of happiness if you pop them in the freezer. Really I like everything in the store including the doggy chicken things that miles gobbles up.  Their assortment of frozen things is where the hate come in.  Any other store and I stroll past the frozen food like I don't even own a freezer.  But at Trader Joe's they have so many fun things (chocolate croissant being one of them) that I buy all of them and then I am poor and have no freezer space.   How the heck did I start talking about this lets get back on track to apricots!

So anyways the thing with buying fruit in a container is well you have to get more then you will probably eat before they go bad (I just have me to feed I realize this is not true when there are dependents such as children or significant others I don't have either).  All my little apricots got ripe so fast I was trying to eat them all in a day so they didn't go bad and that was just silly when I can bake with them instead.

Now I was thinking a tart or apricot upside down cake but I wasn't really in the mood for dessert type food so I decided to turn them into apricot scones. Morning has become one of my favorite parts of the day now that I actually have time to sit down and enjoy breakfast.  This had made me want to bake more breakfast treats. I have been struggling to find a scone recipe that has everything I want in a breakfast treat. I want a little bit sweet with a lot savory, slightly flaky and moist but can hold its own next to my morning americano. I am still not 100 percent there but it is progress and that is all I can hope for.  

Apricot Buttermilk Scones

makes about 8

1 cup all purpose flour (plus more for kneading)

1 cup wheat flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoon sugar

4 tablespoons butter (cold and cut up)

1 large egg

1/2 buttermilk( plus a bit more for brushing)

4-6 fresh apricots chopped up tiny

pre-heat oven to 400 degrees

Either in a mixer or a large bowl combine flour, salt, baking powder and sugar.  The add in butter just until combined and sorta looks like wet sand. Pour in buttermilk and egg and mix just until combined, dump in apricots and mix till just combined dough will be wet that okay.

Now generously flour a work surface and drop that wet mess of dough on it and knead a few time lets say 5-6 until it sorta stays together.  I needed to add extra flour my apricots made the dough really wet.  For the the dough into a disk about 3/4 thick.  and cut into 8 wedges you can make to small disks if you want smaller wedges thats your call.  You can even make a big square and cut squares or cut out rounds whatever suits your fancy.

Put the wedges on a baking sheet and brush with buttermilk and a sprinkle of sugar and pop in the oven for 15 minutes or until brown on top.

so even though I made these for breakfast I had one as a bed time snack with some fresh whipped cream! 

Farewell Weekend....

The cutest dog you have ever seen

so my plan was to have beautiful croissants to post about but they take like a million hours to make and well I didn't have a million hours.  I was busy eating at yummy places for brunch and dinner and also seeing a movie. I was pretty pleased with all three.  Breakfast was cornmeal blackberry pancakes with vanilla butter.  Dinner was tuna tartar, fluke carpaccio, ricotta gnocchi, skate with asparagus and butternut squash all in a delicious brown butter, and we ended this yummy meal with crepes stuffed with dulce de leche and a banana bread pudding.  I know you are thinking where are the photos of the food??  Well I am having a bit an issue with my memory card so no photos until I figure that out. 

I also had a glorious day of antiquing with one of my most favorite people.  There was eating and shopping and lots and lots of talking it was amazing and cathartic and I loved it.  The roommate and I just discussed cutting back on all the stuff we have but I felt that old ball canning jars in a carrier and vintage glass chemical bottle where things I just had to have.  

and more things I feel I just have to have...

 

 what could be more fitting then a hare ring I mean really! 

the most prefect cream oxfords from madewell which thank goodness you can finally shop online!

goodnight sunday...hello monday

why i do believe its berry season!

I promised a pie recipe and this will not disappoint!

I had a conversation about pie not to long ago during a great bonding session with a new friend. Somehow the subject got to baking and eating (it may be all I talk about) and if we were pie or cake people and what it means to be one or the other. A pie is every so slightly savory and juicy and flakey on the outside but a cake is fluffy and has icing full of sugary and buttery goodness.  Both have their strengths but start asking people and see if they are pie or cake people everyone picks a side and you may be surprised who picks which.  If your anything like me you start to judge them for their choice. I mean who would pick cake over pie??  It turned out we are both crazy for pies so a friendship was born.

My love of pies goes back to my childhood like many of my food obsessions.  I can remember being maybe five and watching my Mimi roll out the pie dough, she always got it so very thin even to this day her 80 year old hands can roll a thinner crust then me.  I would always be right beside her waiting not so patiently to lick the spoon from the lemon pie filling.  Once the filling was in the crust  and the meringue top was on she would take the little scraps of dough and lay them on a cookie sheet with a sprinkle of sugar, they were for me a treat to savor since she knew I could never wait till after dinner to have the pie.

I bake pies all year round but spring and summer are my favorites with ripe berries at the farmers markets and peaches not far behind I knew a fruit pie would be the prefect first baked good of the farmers market season.   My family is huge as you will learn so when I saw a slab pie in the June issue of Everday Food I decided it would be perfect and blueberry happens to be my uncles favorite pie and it was his birthday so it was mean to be.

Problem was I don’t actually get everyday food and the the recipe was not on the website so I sorta made it up.  

Blueberry Slab Pie 

serves 12-15 (you know depending on size of the slice)

crust

5 cups all-purpose flour plus some for rolling

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 tablespoons sugar 

2 cups cold butter cut up in little pieces

1 to 1 1/2 cup water 

Blueberry Filling

2 pounds fresh blueberries

2 tablespoons cornstarch (okay i am not gonna lie I did not measure this I just sprinkled some on the berries)

1/4 cup sugar (you can add more if you like go off the flavor of the berries the ones i had were already very sweet

1 tablespoon lemon zest and juice of half a lemon

I use a kitchen air mixer but a food processor works really well for crust too.

Mix the flour salt and sugar until all combined, then add butter slowly and mix or pulse until  until the mixture looks like coarse meal, the butter should still be in small bits like peas. While still mixing add 1 cup water until dough it still crumbly but starts to hold together when you squeeze it.  You may need more so start to add it very slowly on tablespoon at a time I didn’t need any more water but I think my dough was getting to warm.  Do not over mix or you will ruin the dough and that in no fun trust me.  Divide dough into 2 disk and wrap in plastic.  Refrigerate about one hour or overnight

Preheat oven to 375 degrees 

Make the filling by mixing in a large bowl blueberries, sugar, cornstarch, and lemon and set aside. Flour a large work surface and roll out a rectangle of dough about 12 by 16 inches and place in a 1- by 14 inch jelly roll pan or similar size pan with one inch sides.  Pour in the blueberries and then lightly brush the edges of the crust with water.  roll out the second disk of dough every so slightly smaller. I recommend actually rolling this out on a large piece of parchment it makes it so much easier to lay over the top of the pie since its so large.  Lay the dough over the pie filling firming press and crimp the edges folding under any overhang.  Cut a few slits for venting and pop in the oven for about an hour.

make sure to let this bad boy rest for at least an hour before transporting it. I didn’t and had a little blueberry juice spill in the car and all over the top of the pie.

cream+eggs+sugar

Welcome to my blog!  I am so excited to have finally created a place to share my baking it took me awhile to give into the world of social media but here I am figuring it out one step at a time. oh and I should mention the first post yeah no baking I promise i will makeup for it later this week with a very scrumptious pie recipe.

This past holiday weekend was filled with food and family like many of my weekends to come this summer.  Memorial Day always signifies the start of long Saturday by the family pool with lots of kids running around, a dog or two jumping in the pool and my favorite part good libations and even better food.  With my excitement for summer super huge this year I decided to start if off with a bang! and made 3 batches of homemade ice cream Lemon Basil, Strawberry, and Vanilla, let me tell you it was totally worth it.

lemon basil 

The funny thing about ice cream is until recently it was probably my least favorite food.  I mean I always love a scoop of vanilla or my personal beach favorite of soft serve with rainbow sprinkles but I have never been one for crazy flavors or ice creams with chunks and bits of treats in them I would rather just have a sweet.  Somehow this changed and suddenly I can't get enough ice cream. I frequent capogiro's on a way to regular basis and even found time for some gorgonzola and fig ice cream in LA.  So this began by desire to make ice cream. it helps that this pretty little machine is at my mom house to help me make ice cream in oh 20 minutes!

professional gelato maker i am in love with you

So rather then tracking down 3 different recipes I decided to just find one good vanilla and improvised the basil and strawberry.  Now seeing as a spend most of my time reading food blogs I new i would be trying out a David Lebovitz recipe from The Prefect Scoop which I don't actually own but that will be changing since I know want to make ice cream all the time.  

VANILLA ICE CREAM

make about 1 Quart

1 cup whole milk (I added 1 1/2 cups milk)

a pinch of salt

3/4 cup sugar

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

2 cups heavy cream

5 large egg yolks 

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the milk with a paring knife, then add the bean pod to the milk. Cover, remove from heat, and infuse for one hour.

2. To make the ice cream, set up an ice bath by placing a 2-quart bowl in a larger bowl partially filled with ice and water. Set a strainer over the top of the smaller bowl and pour the cream into the bowl.

3. In a separate bowl, stir together the egg yolks. Rewarm the milk then gradually pour some of the milk into the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk back into the saucepan.

4. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula.

5. Strain the custard into the heavy cream. Stir over the ice until cool, add the vanilla extract, then refrigerate to chill thoroughly. Preferably overnight.

6. Remove the vanilla bean and freeze the custard in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Variations
BASIL LEMON - omit vanilla bean and extract.  in step one add a zest of one lemon, and a large bunch of basil to milk, salt, and sugar mixture infuse for 1/2 hr then remove basil leaves from mixture
before freezing in the ice cream maker add the juice of half a lemon
STRAWBERRY - omit vanilla bean and no need to infuse.  while mixture is chilling finely chop 2 cups of strawberries and mix with 1/4 cup sugar (i didn't actually measure this) combine with mixture before freezing in ice cream maker.
store in an air tight container in the freezer should be good for 2 weeks if it last that long