Sunday Feast № 51 | Almond Frangipane and Cranberry Tart with Honeyed Pistachios

Ever since late fall, there was a bag of fresh cranberries still hanging around in the bottom drawer of my fridge. They should have been gone by now, meaning eaten, but no, and suprisingly still looked highly edible. Maybe it is the skin... Anyhow. Here I had in my hands the latest issue (December/January 2017) of Saveur magazine, with this tart on the cover. Well, "those cranberries are dead now!" The original recipe called for ¾ cup frozen cranberries, which I thought suprising considering my state of fridge affairs and perception of the season, but probably normal for other fridges-freezers, and the original recipe called more sugar to mix them in. Also, seeing all the butter mixture beating, this recipe pushed me to acquire a hand-held electric mixer despite trying to keep the kitchen as "decluttered" as humanly possible - for me. Hand-held since I am still not ready to graduate, spacewise and otherwise, to a standup mixer. Give it time. Before that, bake this tart.

Sunday Feast № 45 | Sabayon or Zabaione, or an exercise in tenacity

After making potato and onion frittata, I was left with egg yolks. Unusual situation for me, since majority of the time it is egg whites, and I know what to do with those; add to them an egg or two and have eggs your way, sunny side up in my case, for breakfast, brunch, or lunch. I haven't made dessert in a while, and that is where egg yolks are used the most. I looked around and found an egg yolk based one in “The Little Paris Kitchen” by Rachel Khoo - champagne sabayon. I had prosecco though, which makes me wonder if this is now officially zabaione, the Italian version. However, as it turns out, that was the least of my worries.    First time around I took "To test, draw a figure 8 in the mixture with the whisk. If it stays put, then sabayon is ready." too literally, was too heavy handed, and most of all missed the timing when to take the mixture off the heat, and ended up with rather tasty and sweet and smooth but scramble. I overcooked it. Truth be told, I needed to research the required consistency when cooking as I knew that the final product was too thick and lacked the expected volume all that whisking should produce. Time to learn.    This YouTube video at 5:09 showed me what I should be looking for, and I tried again. To say that I was gun-shy next time around is an understatement. I kept on taking the bowl on and off the heat, and kept on whisking furiously. When it seemed to head in the right direction, I took the sabayon mixture off the heat and "threw" it into the fridge, then proceeded to deal with leftover egg whites.    When I came back to it, it decreased in volume and liquefied under a layer of breaking froth. I undercooked it. Yes, I took it off heat too quickly. To save it, off I went whisking over the heat again and persisted and watched till the consistency was definitely right, this is why I am not telling you how long the whisking takes. I have no clue. Also, serve immediately. While whisking, I thought how this is too much. All that changed after having a serving with raspberries and prosecco with raspberry syrup. I will master.

Sunday Feast № 40 | Apple Tart

Unlike making sweet pastry from scratch, I am not ready (if ever) to do puff pastry from scratch. It's easy, some say - you just need cold but pliable butter and a good rolling pin and get a'rolling. I suppose with the cooling weather, butter is easier to keep chill on the counter, but all that rolling - I don't know, and I am feeling lazy. Prepackaged puff pastry has been used in many cooking shows, so who am I to get THAT busy? As for that cooling weather, it is apple season, although in the Midwest apples seem to be always in season. I suppose other regions have apples galore and some of those, OK - plenty of those end up also here. This recipe from “Everyday Food: Great Food Fast” by Martha Stewart Living Magazine is very easy once you do the prep, which truth be told is mostly around the peeling, coring and slicing of the apples. Truth be told, I changed and ignored some, but you don't have to. The recipe asked for Granny Smith apples but I used Jonathan apples first time around because that is what I had - made for a sweeter tart than with Granny Smith. It asked to roll out the pastry while it is unfolded, but I did not first time around. The texture and most definitely the taste did not suffer much, but I was not lazy next time around, and neither should you be, says Mum, unless ... Serves 4-6, and disappears very quickly.

Sunday Feast № 14 | Cherry Poppy Seed Cake, or how I survived baking after not paying attention to loaf pan size

While and after reading "The Sweet Life in Paris" by David Lebovitz, I started frequenting his blog, where recently he posted his adaptation of the cherry poppy seed cake from newly released "Sweeter Off the Vine" by Yossy Arefi.    Still in the throws of "I can do baking" and having acquired a loaf pan, I had a go. It looked very easy compared to the blind bake followed by baking with the filling that the lemon tart required. No sifting. No kneading. No whisking, per say. Just dry ingredients and wet ingredients eventually combined and poured into a loaf pan en masse. Even the streusel topping looked easy. The fact that he clearly and up front calls for a 9 in/23 cm loaf pan I didn't note.    You see, I still remembered reading his loaf recipes from "The Sweet Life in Paris" and noting that all of them required an 8 in/20 cm pan. An autopilot, especially in a non-baker, is a dubious thing. No biggie you would think, right? Seeing mine filled not far off the brim with the batter and the streusel and ending with streusel surplus gave me a pause, but then I ushered it all into the preheated oven. I would like to say that me putting a baking tray underneath the pan was a learned trick to prevent possible spillage onto the over floor. Alas, no. It was a matter of convenience and prevention: easy sliding of the goodies from and to the middle oven rack, while avoiding the inevitable, in my case, singes of my hands, typically below the thumb, from the top oven rack. You'd think I'd invest in some oven mitts instead of making do with folded over dish cloths. Nonsense! But I digress. The advantage of an oven door with a glass panel and an inside light is that you can watch like a hawk the proceedings within without opening the door and tempting fate with temperature drops.    And there it was.

Sunday Feast № 13 | Tarte au Citron: The "ooh la la" of Lemon Tart

I guess I could wax poetic about spring and sunshine and how lemons are yellow like the sun in child's drawing and awaken with their tangy freshness and tartness. All beautiful and true, but not quite were my head was at.    I have not made a desert in eons, and especially one that requires some layering where one layer is the dough, pastry dough. Dough can taste doughy if mishandled, and with mounts of sugar to boot, it's a disaster. "But lemons might help the "lemon"! Dress up the disaster!" Alas, that was just wishful thinking. Yes, I've made some baking mistakes. The best way to address this situation was head on, and try again, sweetly and lemon-y.    At $1 for 10 lemons, and more sugar types than my kitchen has seen not just in years but ever, the weekend called for a lemon tart with sweet pastry made from scratch. Reminiscent of pasta making, the flour well contained what became effectively a goop-y mess of butter, sugar, and eggs, all stuck to my fingers. Flour saved my perturbed sanity as the mix finally coalesced into a ball of smooth dough ready for chilling after I chilled myself and summoned patience. Exhale. Rolling it out - easy. Lining a tart tin with it - no problem. Shell baking - fingers crossed and exhale regardless. Mixing and pouring the filling - good to go. Final bake and cooling - not fast enough.   It was worth it. The recipe is from “The Food of France: A Journey for Food Lovers”. I stuck to one set of measurement units (grams and milliliters). It is baking after all where precision serves a novice or a scaredy-cat. Leftover pastry or filling? No worries! There are solutions for that. Now watch me go pro! OK OK. Not quite that ready.

Fun with the leftovers Filling Preheat the oven to 180°C/355°F. Using small oven proof cups or ramekins, spoon in the filling to fill each. Place the cups or ramekins in a baking dish and pour enough close to boiling or boiling water into the dish to come halfway up to the sides of the cup or ramekin. Cook for 25 min or until set. Remove from the oven and baking dish, cool completely and then refrigerate for couple of hours. Sweet pastry Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to thickness similar to that when rolled out for the tart. Cut out shapes - I cut 4.5 cm/~2 in circles, rolled the remains into a ball and rolled out again, cut circles and repeated as often as needed till all the pastry was used. Place shapes on a floured baking tray - they can be relatively close to each other but not touching - and bake for ~15 min or till golden. Remove and cool on a rack.