I know it’s not plum season anymore, but back in September I bought some late summer plums, ate a few (they were too sour) and promptly forgot about them. Of course, by the time I remembered them, the were not only plenty ripe, but even overripe– not prime eating material. What to do? Bake!
I found a simple cake recipe online that didn’t require softened butter– always a plus in my opinion– and which set off the plum flavor with almond and lemon, which I thought would make a nice combination. The cake came together easily, and baked up nicely. It was somewhat breakfast-y, in that it was kind of rustic and reminded me of a coffee cake. It made for a nice bake for a fall afternoon, though it was homely enough that I don’t think I’d break it out for company (though that may just be my personal standards). Definitely good for breakfast (maybe topped with some vanilla yogurt), an afternoon snack (with a cup of hot tea), or dessert (ice cream, all the way!).
It’s spooky season! As you may recall, I enjoy making fun Halloween treats, especially when there are parties I can bring them to. While I don’t have any particularly fancy Halloween plans this year, that doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun with themed desserts– and this one is totally worth the effort!
I admit that I shamelessly lifted the idea (at least visually) from this Grim Reaper Galette from Ghoul At Heart, but since I didn’t have an entire bottle of Chambord to soak my pears in, and because I love the combination of pears and almonds, I decided to go in a different direction for the details. This tart uses a chocolate pate sucree, filled with chocolate frangipane and red wine-poached pear skulls. (Note: since I had extra ingredients I made some mini tartlets and spread some raspberry jam into the bottom of the crust before filling them– a tasty variation!)
The skulls were surprisingly easy to make– I used red D’Anjou pears, on the firm side to ensure that they didn’t fall apart, peeled, halved, and cored. I used a 1/4 tsp. measuring spoon to scoop out the eyes, and the tip of a paring knife to cut the nose and teeth. I poached the pears in a bottle of (cheap) red wine with an entertainingly goth-y label– you really don’t need to get the good stuff, since you’re pouring in sugar anyway! I will note that the pears don’t look all that red while in the wine bath (which worried me– I really wanted the color to pop), but once you take them out the color really comes through. And once they’re baked, they get even darker.
The finished tart was gothically gorgeous, not to mention delicious! The tart crust is almost cookie-like, while the frangipane filling is like a gooey brownie surrounding the boozy pears. Drizzled with a little red wine syrup (disturbingly blood-like), this dessert will be a fabulous finish to any Halloween dinner party!
I will note that there’s a decent amount of down time for this tart– your butter has to come to room temperature for the crust and frangipane, the crust needs time to rest and chill before rolling out, then more time to chill before baking. Then you need to blind bake and cool it the shell, and your poached pears need to be thoroughly chilled before assembling and baking the final tart. I split the work over two days, making my tart dough and pear skulls the night before and wrapping them in plastic to chill overnight, then making the frangipane and baking the tart the next day. If you want to serve this in the evening, get started in the morning to make sure everything is ready.
Now that you’re all finished ooh-ing and aah-ing over the adorable kitten in my pie photo, I’ll admit that I made this pie solely to use up a can of pineapple pie filling that I’d purchased ages ago (for reasons now forgotten). The pie starts with a frozen pie crust (because I made two pies and wanted to give one away without having to worry about getting my pie pan back), a layer of pineapple pie filling, a layer of coconut cheesecake, and then swoops of whipped cream topped with toasted coconut. I only wish I’d had a jar of maraschino cherries to decorate the top!
The creamy coconut cheesecake goes nicely with the pineapple layer, and the whipped cream lightens the dessert up a little while still staying rich. I think coconut is the dominant flavor– the pineapple is more of an accent– so if you really like pineapple you could adjust the proportions by decreasing the cheesecake amount and increasing the pineapple accordingly. I used one can of pie filling for two pies, so it would be easy to just make one pie instead!
Since you’re not using a water bath to bake the cheesecake, you’ll need to be careful not to overbake– jiggle your pie plate to see if the custard is set. It should be gently jiggly in the center, not firm– it’ll firm up the rest of the way as it cools, and you’ll get a creamy cheesecake rather than a grainy, overbaked one.
It’s strawberry season! And you know what that means! Yes, it means delectably juicy and flavorful strawberries… but it also inevitably means slightly-past-their prime berries that are going mushy, or never-quite-ripened berries that sneaked their way into your box. This recipe turns those berries into pure summer perfection. Plus, it has yogurt in it, so you can claim that it’s healthy…
I based these strawberry yogurt popsicles on a strawberry frozen yogurt recipe I fell in love with from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop, which is full of fabulous recipes. It’s a fantastic fruity frozen yogurt– full of bright strawberry flavor with none of the heaviness of regular ice cream. There’s so much fruit in it, it’s practically a sorbet. But I really didn’t feel like waiting to freeze my ice cream maker insert for 24 hours before I could use my fast-ripening berries, so I decided to just make the mix and freeze it in popsicle molds instead.
It was perfect. Ordinarily the churning action lightens the yogurt and makes it soft and scoopable, but frozen in molds it turned out to make the perfect popsicle texture– icy and firm, but still bite-able. And of course, that summery strawberry flavor still comes through perfectly. I’m betting you could make these with frozen strawberries just as well, if you’re looking for a taste of summer when it’s not the height of strawberry season. Enjoy!
I’ll start by noting that my decision to make this jam was mostly a happy accident– that being said, I’m so glad I did, because the results were *amazing*.
Anyway, I had some egg whites left over from my Dulce de Leche Flan, which made me start thinking about baking macarons to use them up (because why waste them on something easy?). And then I wondered what flavor of macaron I might want to make, and since Easter is coming up I thought about carrots, and carrot cake. But how to infuse carrot cake flavor into a macaron? Well, that’s where the carrot cake jam came in.
You’ll see the finished macarons later, but this jam is good for so many other things– it’s great with cream cheese on toast, delicious as a filling for cookies or tartlets, but my favorite use has to be for making the very best carrot cake ice cream *ever* (don’t worry, recipe to come).
The jam itself is sweet, spicy, and has a nice array of textures due to the variety of ingredients. I particularly like the pecans– without them the jam is awfully sweet, and they add a background savoriness that evokes the “cake” feeling of the original inspiration. You might also consider adding some shredded coconut, if you like it in your carrot cake generally. Either way, it’s sure to be sticky, gooey, and delicious!
Bakewell Tart is one of those quintessentially British-sounding desserts that I’d never tried to make for myself– I know I definitely saw it on an episode of The Great British Baking Show (albeit with a sickly-sweet-looking icing on top… ugh), but it didn’t appeal to me at the time. That being said, when I found myself with some extra homemade plum jam and a refrigerated pie crust, I figured I’d give it a shot.
In case you didn’t know, Bakewell Tart is traditionally made with a shortcrust pastry, raspberry jam base, and a baked frangipane filling. That being said, a good-quality refrigerated pie crust worked just fine for me, and I think any reasonably tart jam would be delicious here. Tartness really is key, because the frangipane is pretty sweet– a nice apricot would be excellent, or sour cherry, and I can definitely see this working well with some infused herbs like rosemary if you wanted to be a bit adventurous.
This recipe couldn’t have been easier– the only slightly tricky step was the blind-baking process, which does require pie weights (I use dried beans). Aside from that, it whips up with a minimum of fuss and the finished tart is delicious. The crust is crisp, the interior is nicely plushy with a warm almond flavor, and it goes perfectly with a cup of tea. I highly recommend this one, and will be adding it to my go-to recipe box!
Cherries are in season! They’re one of my favorite fruits, but sadly we have discovered that my daughter has an allergy to raw stone fruit– pretty common, apparently– so I feel bad eating them in front of her. I decided to try using them in a baked recipe, and since no one else in my family seems to like pie, I tried my hand at clafoutis.
Cherry clafoutis is a classic french dessert– basically an eggy pancake batter poured over cherries and baked. Traditionally the cherries are unpitted, supposedly because the pits will infuse an almond flavor into the dessert. While I’m doubtful about this rationale, I gave it a shot (and added almond extract in case it didn’t work).
The finished dessert was tasty, with a nice almond flavor that worked well with the cherries, but I couldn’t really get behind the texture– it was kind of a cross between creamy and rubbery, and not my favorite. I do wonder if it would have been better when fresh out of the oven– I let it cool completely to make it easier to slice, but that may have been an error. It’s definitely better warm than at room temperature, and like I said the flavor was good, but I think in the future I’ll just eat the cherries plain and hide them from the kid.
That being said, I’m glad I tried it, if only to say that I did! Maybe you’ll have better luck!
Breakfast at our house is usually pretty simple– cereal or toast, or on occasion a poached egg– but sometimes on weekends we like to splurge a little and have waffles or pancakes. Sadly, both of those require someone to stand at a hot waffle iron or stove and make them, while the rest of the family eats– it hardly seems fair. Breakfast casseroles are a great way to deal with this issue, especially where (as in this recipe) all the prep is done the night before, so all you have to do in the morning is pop it into the oven and wait!
I created this recipe on a whim because I saw a bag of dinner rolls on sale at the grocery store– day-old bread is probably the best because it’ll soak up moisture more easily, but you can use pretty much any kind of roll or bready item. The end result is basically French toast, stuffed with a cheesecake-y filling with nice pops of flavor from the berries. You could use raspberries, blackberries, or strawberries if you like, but I like the blueberry-cream cheese combination the best. And since we’re right in the middle of blueberry season, I recommend you take advantage of it!
What does one do with leftover buttermilk? I mean, other than make biscuits, which is a delicious but extremely risky course of action, because if you put a tray of freshly-baked biscuits in front of me I may just devour them before I remember that I’m supposed to be eating healthier…
Anyway, when I found myself with half a carton of buttermilk in the refrigerator and nothing to use it for, I decided that the hot weather warranted a batch of popsicles. Tangy, lemony popsicles that I put together in minutes with nothing more than sugar, water, a lemon, and the aforementioned buttermilk. And they were fantastic.
Seriously, these popsicles had the perfect texture– icy but not too hard to bite into– and were mouth-puckeringly tart in the best possible way. It’s almost enough to make me want to buy another quart of buttermilk, but since my freezer can only hold so many popsicles at a time, perhaps I’ll wait for more leftovers.
In any event, if you’re a fan of lemon you should definitely make these this summer. I know I will!
You need to make these– they’re so easy, so delicious, and honestly so pretty, that they’re easily worth the 10 minutes of time out of your day. I actually started making these last summer, and was shocked to realize that I’d never blogged about them!
It's All Frosting... 