Berry Tart with Pastry Cream

Since it's now berry season, it seems appropriate to post Randall's favorite dessert recipe.  He starts begging me to make this in March, long before there's a possibility of getting a ripe berry.  While this recipe is long, no step is really difficult.  I try to do this tart in stages to make the process less onerous.  Since there's just two of us at home, there's enough tart dough and pastry cream to make this two weeks in a row!

I've spent years trying to find the perfect tart dough recipe.   The one below came from Sweet Life, and makes a very tender tasty tart.  However, it is quite fragile.  The book tells you to roll out the dough, but I don't see how this is humanly possible since it breaks constantly.  Instead I press it into the pan.  Other tart doughs, while more robust, result in a tough dough.

Note: use only seasonal berries.  Do not use out of season berries shipped from South America.  Not only is this not environmentally friendly but the berries are picked prior to full ripeness.

Yield: one 8-9" tart or six to eight 3-4" tarts

Berry Pastry Cream Tart

Sweet Tart Dough (enough for two 8-9 inch tarts or six to eight 3-4 inch tarts):

16 T (8 oz) butter, ideally at temperature, just slightly soft
1 1/3 cups icing sugar
Zest of 1 lemon or tangerine (optional)
2 egg yolks at room temperature (can put them in a warm bath to speed up warming)
2 cups plus 2 T flour
1/4 t salt

Cream the butter in a stand mixer for 1 minute.  Add the icing sugar and zest and beat on medium-high speed until fluffy and almost white in color, 6-8 minutes, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl.  The butter should not be so warm that it starts getting greasy, it's better to use cold butter from the fridge and beat longer.  If it starts looking greasy, put the bowl of butter in the fridge for 5 minutes and then finish beating.  (You can also use a hand mixer, but this means you can't multi-task.)  Beating well is important to capture little air pockets in the butter.

Add the egg yolks one at a time and continue to beat until incorporated and the batter looks smooth and glossy, 1-2 minutes.

While the butter is creaming, whisk the dry ingredients together in a small bowl.  Once the yolks are incorporated into the butter, add the dry ingredients.  Mix the dough on the lowest speed just until blended.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl and stir on low speed for another 30 seconds.  Do not over mix.

Separate the dough into two mounds.  Wrap each mound in plastic wrap and press to form two 1 inch thick disks.  Refrigerate for two hours or overnight.  I usually use one tart dough and put the other one in the freezer.  Well wrapped the tart dough will keep for weeks.

You can use one large tart pan or six to eight small 3-4 inch tart pans.  Using a butter knife, slice off an 1/8 inch thick piece of chilled tart dough and press it gently onto the floor of the tart pan.  Keep slicing and pressing until the bottom is covered.  Continue using the same technique for the sides.  Fill any cracks that form.  The trick is to be gentle and not over handle the dough while trying to get an even thickness.  As you finish up the dough it will be room temperature and quite soft.  At this point take a jar (or other implement) that has a flat bottom and straight sides and using a turning motion, press the bottom of the jar lightly to smooth it out to relatively even thickness.  Run the jar gently along the side of the tart to even out the dough thickness.  Uneven thickness will result in uneven shrinking (which can be unsightly and lead to filling problems).  This is a fragile tart dough, so be very gentle.

Freeze the tart dough for half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Remove the dough from the freezer and line with parchment paper or aluminum foil and fill it with a few pie weights or dried beans.  Do not add too many or they will cause the parchment to stick to the dough.  Bake for 25 minutes for a large tart or 20 minutes for smaller ones.  Remove the tart from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes.  This will allow you to remove the parchment without breaking the dough. Very gently remove the parchment and return the tart dough to the oven for another 5-10 minutes.  Bake until golden brown.  Do watch the cooking time, I've found this recipe to be erratic.

Let cool completely before filling.  This dough will keep well wrapped at room temperature for 2 days.

Pastry Cream (2 1/2 cups enough for one large tart or about eight small ones):
(Adapted from Chez Panisse)

2 cups whole milk
1/3 cup flour
7 T sugar
1/8 t salt
7-8 egg yolks (use 8 if making one large tart or 7 for small ones, you need increased thickness for the large tart to prevent the berries from sinking)
1-2 T butter
Vanilla extract

Mix together the flour, sugar and salt in a medium sauce pan.  Slowly add the milk and whisk until smooth.  Cook over medium heat stirring CONSTANTLY until the mixture has boiled for a minute or two.

While the milk is cooking you can beat the egg yolks in a stand mixer until thick and light colored.

Slowly add a cup of the hot milk to the yolks to warm them; whisk the yolks while doing this.  Add the yolks to the remaining hot milk in the sauce pan and whisk thoroughly.  Be sure to mix in the milk from the sides and bottom of pan.  Return to heat.  Cook over medium-low heat stirring CONSTANTLY until the temperature reaches 170 degrees F on a candy thermometer.  Do not cook too quickly as this breaks down the cream and NEVER let it boil.

Remove from heat and stir in the butter and vanilla.  Put the cream through a medium-fine strainer into a bowl.  Press plastic wrap onto the surface of the cream (this prevents a skin from forming) and refrigerate until cool.  You can do this several days in advance, it will keep well sealed in a container in the fridge.

Glaze:

1/2 cup red currant jelly
1-2 T water or lemon juice

Heat the jelly in a small sauce pan over medium heat until it simmers and is thin and runny.  If it is too thick, add a tablespoon or two of water or lemon juice.  Depending on the sweetness of your berries, you can choose to reduce the sweetness of the glaze by adding lemon juice.  Start warming the glaze as you begin assembly.  Glaze that is unused can be returned to its jar and reused at a later date.

Assembly:

I usually make the pastry cream and raw tart dough the day before.  The morning of consumption I bake the tart dough.  I wash the berries a few hours before assembly and let them dry on a clean lint free towel.

4-7 cups ripe berries; blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries; (you will need 6-7 cups for one large tart, much less for smaller tarts) well washed with stems removed, large strawberries should be sliced to about 1/4 inch thick

Fill the tart shell with pastry cream to about 1/4 inch from the top. Heap the berries onto the cream (or if you are extra ambitious, make berry patterns).  Using a brush, brush the tops of the berries with the glaze.  Avoid getting the glaze on the tart shell, it will become soggy.  The glaze will make everything look shiny and add some sweetness to tart berries.  It also acts as glue to hold the berries together, vital for transporting to a dinner party. If the glaze starts to harden, put it back on the stove to reheat.  Add a tablespoon of water if the glaze becomes too thick to spread.

You are ready to eat.  Note, a large tart is impossible to cut nicely, bring the tart out to your guests before cutting so they can ohhh and ahhh.  Or better yet, make individual portions.  This berry tart is best eaten the day it's made, preferably within a few hours.  And lastly, besides using local seasonal berries, do use organic berries.  Non-organic strawberries use a lot of pesticides, more so than other fruits and vegetables.  If you are particularly lucky to live in Austria (hint, Karin), use the small mountain strawberries, they are the best!

Chocolate Orange Ice Cream

In my youth and spent a year in Winnipeg.  At that time Winnipeg had no redeeming features except for a fabulous ice cream shop.  You could buy a bowl of ice cream with seven scoops of your favorite flavors (only a teen could eat it all).  My favorite flavor was chocolate orange.  Since then, I haven't encountered this flavor until I found it at Green Chilli Pie.  It was a rare hot day in San Francisco and I was walking home from visiting a potential client when I passed Green Chilli.  I thought, hmm a little cold something wouldn't go amiss.  They were carrying Three Twins ice cream and that day they had chocolate orange.  I had them make a shake and walked home with a big smile on my face.  I must have looked very happy because random strangers said hello and smiled at me.  Unfortunately, I never saw the flavor again.

So here is my version.  This recipe is an adaption of a recipe from Chez Panisse Desserts.  The surprising addition of butter makes the ice cream very creamy.  Ice cream is so easy to make and the homemade version is usually so much better than the store bought version that there's no real excuse not to make it except perhaps impatience.  (Happily Rainbow Grocery is now carrying Three Twins for those days I'm feeling impatient.)

Yield: approximately 4 cups

1 C half and half
3/4 C sugar
6 egg yolks (use the whites to make panna cotta!)
5 ounces semi-sweet or bittersweet high quality chocolate (please do not use Hershey's or some other substandard "chocolate", it DOES make a difference)
1 ounce unsweetened chocolate
2 T unsalted butter
2 C whipping cream
1 1/2 ounce Grand Marnier
1 t orange extract

1 C semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chunks (optional)

Warm the half and half with the sugar in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally.  Whisk the egg yolks to break them up and stir in some of the warm half and half (pour the warm liquid in slowly so that the eggs don't cook).  Pour the egg mixture into the sauce pan and cook stirring constantly over low heat until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.  Strain into a bowl.

Break up the chocolate into small pieces and melt with the butter in a double boiler over warm water or heavy saucepan over very low heat (the latter can be done only if your stove has a very low setting, alternatively, use a microwave).  The chocolate should be smooth and glossy.  Remove from heat.

Whisk in the custard one or two tablespoons at a time into the chocolate.  Initially it will look like the ice cream is not emulsifying, but as you add more custard it will blend nicely. Adding the custard gradually will prevent little grains of chocolate from forming.  After all the custard is incorporated, add the orange flavors.

Chill the custard and make according to your ice cream machine's instructions.  Add the chocolate chunks during the last five minutes of churning in your machine.

Yule Limpa (Swedish Christmas Bread - No Knead Version)

This is an amazing bread.  It's a Swedish Christmas bread that my husband used to make.  I've adapted it to the no knead technique and now make it all year long.  It's a little more effort than some other breads but well worth it.  Yule Limpa is a light rye bread with a hint of orange.  It's best fresh, but will also keep fairly well for a couple days.  We've been known to eat an entire loaf in a day.

Yield: one loaf

Yule Limpa (no knead version)

Blend together:

1 1/2 C lukewarm milk (not above 100 degrees F)
1/4 C honey
2 T unsulfured molasses

Add to above and then let bloom:

1/2 t active dry yeast

Combine dry ingredients:

2 1/2 C white flour (I use bread flour when available)
1/2 C + 2 T rye flour
1/2 C whole wheat flour
2 T finely chopped orange rind (about 1/8" in size)
1 1/2 t aniseed
1/2 t ground coriander
1 1/2 t salt

Add dry ingredients to wet and stir.  Beat in:

1 1/2 T softened unsalted butter

If needed add:

1/2 C white bread flour

The dough should be somewhat sticky, not dry like most bread doughs after kneading.

Let rise covered with plastic wrap or towel in bowl for 12- 20 hours (18 seems ideal) at room temperature. The dough is ready when its surface is speckled with air bubbles.

Butter and generously flour a circular bread pan (about 8" in diameter with 3" high sides).  Grease a work surface.  Turn dough onto it (the dough will be stringy as you remove it from the bowl) and shape into a ball.  (Do not punch down dough!) Place in the floured pan (seam side down) and let rise two hours covered. The dough is ready to bake when it has more than doubled in size and springs back lazily when poked. (I don't find it rises quite that much.)

Bake at 375 degrees F 50 minutes.

Mix 1 egg with a bit of milk.  When crust is dark brown, about 50 minutes, brush loaf thinly with egg mixture.  Return to oven for 5 minutes more to brown the top.  Transfer to a rack and cool.

Cinnamon/Cardamom Buns (No Knead Version)

For years I killed anything with yeast and had to beg my husband, the bread baker, to make bread, an all day, laborious effort.  But now, thanks to my neighbor Nancy who turned me onto Jim Lahey's  no knead bread book, My Bread, I now make bread once or twice a week (his foccacia recipe is sublime).  It's so easy that even a child could do it.  These breads have a lot less yeast in them and rely on a long rise to do the work of kneading.  The no knead method can also be easily applied to other yeast recipes.  I've adapted my husband's Swedish cinnamon/cardamom buns to the no knead method.

These Swedish buns are not like the overly sweet sticky cinnamon buns that we get in most bakeries.  These are slightly sweet buns for adults.  The recipe makes 24 buns and I confess the last time we made them, my husband and I ate 13 of them in one day (but we didn't eat much else)!  The hardest part of this recipe is rolling out the dough, adding filling and rolling the dough up.  These buns are not nearly as good the following day (like most bread).  The best way to store left overs is to freeze them.  To serve, pop the frozen buns into a 325 degree F oven for about 15 minutes and the buns will be almost as good as the day they were made.

Yield: 24 buns

Cinnamon/Cardamom Buns (no knead version)

Dough:
1/2 t active dry yeast
1/3 C sugar
7 T very soft or barely melted butter (90 degrees F, lukewarm to touch, not hot)
2 1/4 C milk
1 t salt
5 to 6 C flour

Filling:
 2-4 T butter  softened
1/3 C super fine sugar (you can use regular sugar, but it's not as nice)
2 T ground cinnamon or cardamom (we prefer cardamon)

Topping:
1 egg beaten
pearl sugar (optional)

Dough:
Heat up milk to room temperature or slightly lukewarm (90 degrees F, do not over heat or you can kill yeast, better to use cold milk than hot). Put in a large bowl with the sugar and stir.  Sprinkle yeast on top and let rest while you gather the remaining dough ingredients.

Measure the flour. Melt butter until lukewarm. Add to the butter to the milk/yeast. Add about 5 cups of the flour and salt and mix well.  The dough should be slightly sticky.  If it's too wet add more flour.  It should NOT be as dry as typical bread dough.  I found myself using about 5 1/2 cups flour, more on humid days.

Cover with plastic wrap and let rise 16-18 hours at room temperature (no need to put it in a warm spot, time will do the work). It will more than double in bulk and be filled with 1/2" diameter sized bubbles.  When the dough is removed from the bowl it will be quite stringy in texture.  Do NOT punch it down or knead.

Assembly:
Grease two rectangular pans (about 8"x11", we use pyrex pans) with butter and line with parchment paper.  Let parchment hang over sides to allow for easy removal of the buns later.

Mix together the super fine sugar and cinnamon or cardamom in a small bowl.

Grease a clean work surface with butter.  Divide the dough into two balls.  Grease your rolling pin. Start by patting out one ball to about 1/2" thick and then use the rolling pin to roll the dough into rectangle about 1/4" thick (about 8"x12" rectangle). 

Smear a thin layer of butter over the dough (I use my hands).  Sprinkle with half the flavored sugar.  Roll up the rectangle and cut with a greased butter knife into 12 equal pieces about 1" thick.  Place into one of the pans with the end pieces in the center.  Repeat with the second dough.

Cover pans with plastic wrap and let rise for 2 hours at room temperature.  It should rise and fill in most of the gaps between the buns.  Beat the egg and brush the tops of the buns with a thin layer of egg. (Optional: sprinkle pearl sugar over top.)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Bake for 20 minutes.  Grab hold of the parchment to lift out the buns from the pans and cool on a rack for at least ten minutes before snarffling your buns.

I usually start this the day before and do the assembly the following morning so that the buns are ready for lunch.

Brushing the buns with egg wash.  Notice that the odd sizes don't really matter as they all seems to increase to about the same size.

Dusting with rock sugar.

Buttermilk Panna Cotta

For my husband's birthday we went to Bar Agricole.  For dessert I had a sublime buttermilk panna cotta.  I tried many versions of panna cotta; most add too much gelatin which gives the panna cotta a jello-like texture.  The best panna cotta I tried came from my favorite dessert cookbook, "The Sweet Life" by Kate Zuckerman.  I switched out the milk with buttermilk.  However, the first time I tried it the panna cotta curdled slightly.  The trick, I discovered, was to add the buttermilk at the end, after chilling the cooked custard.

Yield: six 4 ounce dishes

1 1/4 t unflavored gelatin
1 vanilla bean or 1 t vanilla extract (for very inexpensive vanilla beans go to Vanilla Saffron Imports)
1 1/2 C heavy cream
1/2 C sugar
Pinch of salt
4 egg whites
1 1/2 C buttermilk

In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over 5 teaspoons of water and set aside for 10 minutes.  The gelatin will become a gummy paste.

Split the vanilla bean in half and scape the seeds into a medium sized pot.  Bring the cream, 1/4 cup of the sugar and the vanilla pod and seeds to a simmer.  Remove from heat, cover, and let steep for at least 15 minutes.

In a small bowl whisk together the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, salt and egg whites.  Slowly, using ladle, whisk some of the hot milk into the egg white mixture to warm it.  Gradually pour the warmed egg mixture into the hot milk, whisking constantly as you pour.

Cook the custard over medium heat (on my stove I use medium-low, don't cook too fast or your custard may curdle), stirring continuously (really, she means constantly and gently or your custard may curdle) and scraping the bottom with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Remove from heat and add about 1/2 cup of the cooked custard to the gelatin and whisk until the gelatin dissolves.  Add this small amount of custard back to the remaining custard and whisk the two together.

Strain the custard through a fine-mesh strainer.  Chill the custard over an ice bath until it comes to room temperature.  Remove the vanilla bean.  Add the buttermilk and mix it in thoroughly.

Pour the custard into the molds and refrigerate for at least 6 hours to allow the gelatin to set.  You can eat it plain, but it's nice with my lemon syrup and butter cookies.

I rinse and dry the vanilla bean and then put it into a jar with sugar to make vanilla sugar (it's good in coffee and I use it for baking).

Vanilla Saffron Imports is located on 949 Valencia St.  You can get vanilla beans and saffron for unbelievably low prices there.  If you don't live nearby, buy on-line and they will ship it to you.

Lemon Syrup

Peel of 1 lemon sliced into match sticks, approx. 1"x1/16"
Juice of 2 lemons, filtered through a very fine strainer, preferably a clean empty tea bag
2 C water + 1 C water
1/3 C sugar

Boil the lemon peel in 2 cups cold water until the peel looks transparent.  Let sit for 15 minutes.  This removes the bitterness from the peel.  Strain out the peel and discard the water.

Add all the ingredients; peel, 1 cup water, lemon juice and sugar; into a small sauce pan.  Bring to a boil slowly.  Cook until peel is translucent and tender, sugar is completely dissolved and syrup is slightly thick.  Let cool completely, the syrup will thicken.  Pour a teaspoon or so of the lemon syrup over the panna cotta when serving.

Caramel Popcorn

My husband is hooked on gourmet caramel popcorn.  In an effort to save some money, I downloaded several recipes from the internet and started experimenting.  It took a month of trial and error, but this final result is very addictive and fairly easy to make.  We found brown sugar had the nicest flavor, but you can use white sugar instead in a pinch. A candy thermometer is necessary, though being familiar with caramel I used white sugar initially and browned it until it looked right.  I then took the temperature and switched to brown sugar for this finally recipe.  (This is NOT a kid safe recipe for obvious reasons.) 

1/3 C popcorn

3 T canola oil

Pop the popcorn in a very large pot with a lid. Put the popcorn into a large roasting pan with high sides. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F.

1 C brown sugar

2 T  agave or honey (we prefer agave)

10 T  sweet butter

Slice the butter into tablespoon sized pieces.  Put the brown sugar, butter and agave into a medium pot.  At medium heat allow the butter to melt.  Stir to mix all the ingredients (the butter will separate a little, not to worry).  Put a lid on a the pot and allow it to come to a vigorous boil.  Remove the lid and continue to boil until the temperature reaches 285 degrees.  (Other recipes used 250 degrees or simply said cook for 5 minutes, but we didn't get a nice caramel flavor from that.)  Remove from heat. 

2 t vanilla extract

1/2 t baking soda           

Add the vanilla extract and stir quickly. Add the baking soda and stir again quickly.  The soda causes the caramel to foam and will help distribute the caramel more evenly.  Pour caramel over the popcorn and stir well.

Bake 45 minutes in a large roasting pan, stirring well every 15 minutes.

1 t flaked salt

Remove from oven and sprinkle 1 teaspoon flaked salt over caramel corn and stir to mix.

Tip: ideally use non-stick implements to stir and a non-stick roasting pan.  Some recipes suggest using spray-on anti-stick.  To clean pots, let soak in warm water for a few minutes and the caramel will come off easily.

Next we're working on a caramel nut version... 

Postscript: We have tried doubling this recipe.  I has worked on some occasions but the last two times the caramel did not stay emulsified which resulted in a wet, greasy popcorn.  It does seem that slight variations can cause things to break.  I'll be weighing the ingredients next time and will post the results.