TWD: Brioche Peach Tart (one day late)

This week's TWD recipe was actually for a brioche plum tart, which I was excited to try, but alas the plums I purchased four days in advance hadn't ripened enough to use. I see some more roasted plum ice cream in my future, so I'm not complaining. Luckily, I found some gorgeous, ripe, sweet SC peaches. They worked beautifully.

This was a breeze to make, and even breezier to eat. I'm so glad that I'm involved in all of these baking groups, because without them who knows when I would have ever made brioche, and now I've made it three times!

This is a really yummy rustic-looking dessert, and one that was really easy to make sugar-free: I replaced the sugar in the brioche with agave, and just drizzled a little more on top of the peaches once they were arranged on the dough. As I said, I used peaches for the fruit; there is a layer of jam under the fruit, and for that I chose raspberry; for the nuts on top I went with almonds. It all worked together beautifully.

I was surprised at how quickly the crust browned, however. Dorie says to tent the tart at 20 min (in a 425 oven) but I checkd on mine at 15 minutes, and it was deep, deep brown already. Next time I make this, I'll tent it at 5 or 10 minutes.

Tune in tomorrow for basil ice cream (seen above)!

Thanks to Denise of Chez Us for choosing this recipe, you can find it on her blog.

SMS: Agave Sweetened Ricotta Cheesecake with Blueberry Compote

This week's SMS recipe was for a lemon blueberry cheesecake with cornmeal crumble crust. That is not what I made. I had been wanting to make a ricotta cheesecake for some time, so this seemed like a good opportunity to try one out. I also wanted to sweeten it with agave so that my son could eat it. I researched ricotta cheesecake recipes online, and drawing from several different recipes I sort of made it up as I went along. The result was amazing. Amazing. Smooth, creamy, light, oh my. I will be making this again and again and again and again and again... Oh, and it was fast, too. About 10 minutes of prep tops! 

I'd like to try Melissa's cheesecake recipe one day soon, but for now, here's mine:

32 oz ricotta

3 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla 

zest of 1 lemon

3/4 c agave nectar

3 c walnuts

1/4 cup agave

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 9 inch spring-form pan.

Crust:

Place walnuts, agave and salt in food processor. Pulse until crumbly in texture. Press into buttered 9 inch springform pan.

Filling:

Blend ricotta in food processor until silky smooth - about 2 min. Transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer. On low, add agave 1/4 cup at a time, blending well with each addition. Add eggs 1 at a time, blending well with each addition. Stir in zest and vanilla. Pour into pan. Bake for 60-70 minutes (I baked for 70), covering with a foil tent at around 35-40 min. Bake until deep golden brown, and still slightly jiggly. 

Blueberry Compote:

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

3 tablespoons maple syrup or agave nectar

1/8 - 1/4 tsp salt

Place all ingredients in a small saucepan and cook on med low heat for about 20 min or until blueberries break down and mixture thickens.

Thanks to Eliana of A Chica Bakes for choosing this week's recipe. You can find the cheesecake recipe on her blog. 

BBA Challenge: Challah

The next bread we were supposed to make in the BBA Challenge was actually casatiello - an Italian bread containing salami and cheese. I'm a life-long vegetarian, so I was planning on tweaking the add-inns anyway, but I needed a bun to take to 4th of July dinner, and it didn't seem as appropriate as challah. So, I'm going out of order here, and I hope to make the casatiello sometime soon.

Back to the challah. This is something I've never made, and honestly, never eaten much of.

This bread was amazing. It made equally wonderful buns and loaf, and let me say that it makes spectacular French toast.

It was easy and fun to make, and I'm sure I'll make it again!

To the other BBA slow and steady bakers: I know I jumped a little ahead here, I just couldn't help myself!!! I'll get back in step with the next bread...

TWD: Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies

Now I can add "brownie lover" to the long list of why I love Katharine Hepburn, and "Katharine Hepburn" to the long list of why I love Dorie Greenspan.

These brownies will not replace Martha Stewart's double chocolate brownies as my very favorite, but they are right up there. 

The simplicity of the method alone is enough for me to make them over and over: you melt butter in a large sauce pan, then add cocoa powder, eggs, instant coffee, cinnamon, 1/4 cup of flour, chopped chocolate and nuts to the pot. Pour into pan and bake. Couldn't be easier.

Though Dorie says to bake them for only 30 minutes, I found that they needed an extra 10.

The brownies bake up into thin, dense, fudgy super chocolaty treats that have light undertones of cinnamon and coffee. 

They were especially delicious when enjoyed with brown sugar vanilla ice cream.

Thanks to Lisa of Surviving Oz for picking this week's recipe. She is not an official member of TWD, but she did win the logo design contest that was recently held by Laurie - the TWD founder - and getting to choose a recipe was her prize!

SMS: Brown Sugar Vanilla Affogato

Affogato is one of my all time favorite desserts, and it is a wonder that it isn't served in more restaurants. Given the simplicity of it, perhaps the various pastry chefs feel that it doesn't showcase their talents enough... 

Affogato means "drowned in coffee" and is simply a scoop of ice cream with a shot of espresso poured over it. Heaven...

Not the easiest thing to photograph successfully - as you can see from the soupy mess above -but what it lacks in beauty, it more than makes up for in taste.

For Sweet Melissa Sundays this week, Karen of Karen's Cookies Cakes & More chose the brown sugar vanilla ice cream for all of us to make this week. 

Honestly, I wasn't excited. I've never been much of a vanilla ice cream person, and I put this off until the last possible minute. 

The recipe contains nonfat dry milk which is something I would normally skip if I saw it in a recipe - we drink raw milk fresh from the farm, so dehydrated dairy isn't really my cup of tea - but in the recipe notes, Melissa says that this is the secret ingredient. She states that it absorbs some of the moisture in the mixture and allows the ice cream to be extra creamy. 

I don't know if it was the dry milk, the 5 egg yolks or something else, but this was some of the most unbelievably creamy ice cream I have ever had. I even loved it on its own, which says a lot about how amazing it is. I think it would be a great base for all kinds of flavors.

I was going to post a few scoops of this creamy goodness naked in a bowl, when I noticed some coffee from breakfast still sitting in the French press, and I knew exactly what was to become of the ice cream.

Thanks to Karen for picking this surprisingly amazing recipe, please visit her blog for the recipe, and visit the SMS bakers page to see everyone else's yummy ice cream.

Roasted Plum Ice Cream

I was reading a blog not long ago that mentioned roasted plum ice cream, and I was intrigued. I bought plums in anticipation of making it, but I couldn't find the post for the recipe when I looked for it again. Then a week or so ago, Nancy of the wonderful blog The Dogs Eat the Crumbs posted plum ice cream, based on a David Leibovitz recipe, so I got right to work. 

This ice cream was fantastic. Slightly tart from the plums, light, so creamy and delicious. It was so easy to scoop even after being in the freezer for several hours. Unlike the peach ice cream I made a few weeks ago, which was quite difficult to scoop. 

I can see using this recipe for all kinds of fruit, and I will certainly be trying many out over the coming sweltering weeks. 

Best of all, this recipe is so easy because it isn't a custard base, and there is very little actual work involved. Also, it is free from refined sugar. My son loved it. 

The original recipe that Nancy linked to is here, but I made few changes. This is what I did:

Roasted Plum Ice Cream

8 plums, quartered with the skin on

1 cup heavy cream

3/4 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup water

1/2 teaspoon olive oil

Preheat oven to 400. Rub oil into 8x8 baking dish, just so there is a light coating. Place plums in baking dish and pour 1/4 cup maple syrup over them. Toss with your hands until all plums are coated and place baking dish in oven. Keepp plums in oven for 30-35 minutes - stirring every 10 minutes - or until they have softened and the edges are browned and slightly caramelized. Remove from oven, cool for 15-20 minutes, then pour entire contents of pan into a 1 qt jar. Place lid on jar and refrigerate overnight or until completely chilled. When chilled, pour cream, water and the remaining 1/2 cup maple syrup in the jar, and blend with an immersion blender until plums are completely pureed. Put back in fridge while you ready your ice cream maker. Pour mixture into ice cream maker, and follow manufacturer's instructions. When churned, transfer to container with lid and place in freezer for at least 2 hours before eating. Enjoy! I know we did!

Food blogger in the making?

Nibby Buckwheat Butter Cookies

I recently purchased Alice Medrich's book Pure Dessert. If you don't already own it, you should.

Pure Dessert is a beautiful book. The premise behind it is that desserts shouldn't be overcomplicated - so that flavors get lost - but pared down so that individual ingredients really come through. The book is divided into sections: The Flavors of Chocolate; The Flavors of Grain, Nuts and Seeds; The Flavors of Wine, Beer and Spirits, to name a few. And each section focuses on bringing out all of the complexities of flavors of each of those elements.

In Pure Dessert, Alice Medrich also uses ingredients in unusual and fresh ways, taking a common dessert and putting an unexpected spin on it. Some recipes that immediately come to mind are Golden Kamut Shortbread, Lebni Tart, Red Wine Granita, and the first (and only) recipe I've had a chance to try: Nibby Buckwheat Butter Cookies. Though trust me, you will be seeing all of the above - and then some - in the coming weeks!

One of the things that drew me to this cookie was the buckwheat flour. I don't think I've ever had it in anything except pancakes, so I was intrigued by its use in a cookie, and had no idea what to expect. Of course the nibs and the word "butter" were equally as enticing...

They don't look like much - they're rather homely little cookies - but boy are they fantastic!!! These have shot straight to the top of the list of my favorite cookies of all time. They are very sophisticated with the buckwheat and the nibs, both of which lend a bitterness to the cookie. They are just slightly sweet, and oh so buttery. Actually, the only change I would make to these - though I love them just the way they are -would be to try them with a little less butter. The recipe calls for 2 sticks, and they are a little on the greasy side. However, I would hate to mess with these too much, because they are so delicious.

I can't wait to try everything else in this book - and I do mean everything.