FFWD – Cheesecake Tart

May 1, 2015May 4, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 13 Comments

Update: These are long ago memories I’m sharing in this post, though it’s true I’m still not a fan of birthday parties. Hope I haven’t upset anyone – it just came together as a nice little piece of writing for me.

I don’t have birthday parties, as a rule. Something awful happened to someone I cared about in the middle of the biggest birthday bash I’d ever had and I handled it badly. After that, I kept it small – a few friends for lunch, a date for dinner, sometimes a family get together. I broke that rule once and got some karmic payback as a reward.

The person who hosted the party had just broken up with a mutual friend, who’d also disappointed other people we had in common. The guest list was filled with people her ex liked, only two of whom I really knew. The cake was a horror of dank cream and hidden pellets of jelly. And the only other sweets, a box of cookies her ex brought me from one of my favourite bakeries, disappeared into the host’s cupboard shortly after the ex’s hasty departure. I spent the rest of the evening in uncomfortable silence as the host complained at length about her break up. I took it as a sign that I still had penance to do for failing my friend all those years ago.

Needless to say, I went back to small gatherings. But I’ve made sure that my birthday sweet, whether it’s a pie or a cake or a pile of homemade cookies, is excellent and shared widely.

This year, I made the Simple and Splendid Chocolate Cake from The Sweetapolita Bakebook, filled it with salted caramel ganache from this Bon Appétit recipe, then topped it with Sweetapolita’s Glossy Fudge Frosting. I was left with only two regrets: dropping the third layer onto the kitchen floor and not starting early enough to have enough time to ice the…two-layer…cake fancily. After the first round of slices, I sent some home with family and some to our lovely neighbours downstairs, leaving me with just enough for dessert (and let’s face it, breakfast) the next day.

This week’s French Fridays dish, the last dessert on our agenda, might just be next year’s birthday sweet. It’s light and rich at the same time, while being casually elegant – perfect for small gatherings, no?

I used dried cranberries, since raisins and I only get along one-on-one. Dried cherries or blueberries would be nice here, too. And I used a mixture of cottage cheese and sour cream, since fromage blanc is a bus ride away for me and I didn’t have the gumption to go far for ingredients. The mixture of cottage cheese and sour cream stood in admirably for fromage blanc.

We’ve ended the dessert chapter on a keeper, though that could also be said of almost every recipe in the chapter. Next week, we’ll have our last scheduled fish recipe (aren’t you glad, Mardi?). The week after that, we’ll have special posts for Food Revolution Day. And then, we cook the cover to finish off the last recipe.

Hard to believe.

You can find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Cheesecake Tart.

FFWD – Croquants

January 30, 2015January 31, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 16 Comments

Hello Doristas – I’ve missed you! I can’t believe this is my first French Fridays post since the beginning of the month, but it’s been hectic around here.

This week’s recipe is one of my favourite sweet treats from this book, one that I’ve made often when I’ve had extra egg whites in the kitchen. (Although its place as my favourite egg-white-using dessert may now have been usurped by Dorie’s Cranberry Crackle Tart.)

I’ve even made these cookies when I didn’t have egg whites to use up, which reminds me – I’d love it if cookbooks had an index section for egg yolk recipes, as well as one for egg white recipes. Pavlova lovers will agree with me, I’m sure.

I love croquants with any kind of nuts, but my favourite version uses a mix of different nuts – our co-op sells a ‘fancy nut mix’ that’s perfect for these cookies. I’ve tried them with unsalted nuts, but found the cookies were then too sweet, so I stick with salted nuts now.

These cookies are perfect with a cup of tea and keep quite well in a cookie tin. I brought a big batch of these to a training a few months back and the Chair took the leftovers home, as we had another meeting scheduled for the next night. He showed up to that meeting empty-handed, explaining that “a couple of friends dropped by last night and, uh, we ate all the cookies.”

I think that’s a ringing endorsement.

You can find David Lebovitz’ version of croquants here (or even better, you can get yourself a copy of Around My French Table). And you can find links to the rest of the French Fridays crew’s posts on this week’s recipe here: Croquants.

Baking Chez Moi – Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake

January 29, 2015January 29, 2015 ~ Teresa ~ 17 Comments

There are many reasons why I love to bake, but eating what I bake isn’t at the top of my list. Don’t misunderstand me, I love baked goods and I think homemade ones are the best. But sharing what I bake rates higher for me, as does the act of baking itself. There’s something calming about the methodical nature of baking and something satisfying about the progression of a baking project. And though tasting is the final step in this progression, it’s the aroma of something delicious in the oven that’s really the sensory payoff for me.

This is especially true of this week’s Baking Chez Moi assignment. From the moment I started scraping the pulp from the vanilla pod, my home smelled wonderful. After the butter browned, the aroma was heady. By the time the loaf came out of the oven, it was intoxicating. I felt it was very unfair that I’d read Dorie’s comment that the loaf improves after a day’s rest, because I really wanted to slice into that cake immediately. Actually, I wanted to set it in front of me on my desk. Who needs a bouquet when you can have the scent of this loaf perfuming your space, instead?

Well, wait I did and the cake rewarded me with a tender, sponge-like crumb and a gentle crispness at the edges. There is no need to spread butter on this loaf cake – browned butter is present in every bite. It would be good used as shortcake might be, covered in macerated berries and cream. Stale, it might be perfect in a parfait. Right now, though, I like it just as it is, eaten out of hand. I’m looking forward to trying it toasted in a day or two, as well. Then, I might break out just a little more butter.

You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this recipe here: Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake.

Baking Chez Moi – Bûche de Noël

December 30, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 16 Comments

My mother’s sister, Lorraine, always brought a bûche de Noël to Christmas dinner. They were traditional chocolate logs from a bakery, but I remember them as being rich, delicious, and perfect. She died when I was an adolescent and bûche de Noël was only an occasional part of our holiday celebrations thereafter, but they’ve been a symbol of the season for me ever since.

I’ve always wanted to make one, so I was happy that one of the recipes chosen for our second month of baking through Baking Chez Moi was Dorie’s Gingerbread Bûche de Noël.

There are a lot of steps in making this dish, but some of the most intimidating parts of the process are also surprisingly easy. The pecan praline wasn’t at all difficult, the cream cheese filling was a snap to whip together, and the marshmallow icing was quite straightforward, once I’d braced myself for the task of pouring hot liquid sugar into the bowl of a running mixer.

My particular Waterloo on this dessert was the making of the sponge. I can’t seem to get sponge cakes quite right. This one didn’t turn out horribly and was quite tasty, but as you can see in the photo below, the cake is about half the height it should be. The batter deflated a lot more than it should have when I folded the butter mixture in. I guess it’s just a matter of getting some more practice, but I admit I was disappointed.

Luckily, the filling and icing made the bûche look beautiful, even with the imperfections in the cake. I’m going to try again with sponge cake and I think one of my few resolutions for 2015 will be to conquer the roulade. Next year’s bûche will be looking much prettier, I swear.

You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this recipe here: Bûche de Noël. And you can find more Tuesdays with Dorie catch up posts at this link.

Whipped Shortbread and Sucre à la Crème for French Fridays

December 27, 2014December 23, 2016 ~ Teresa ~ 17 Comments

For the third year in a row, the French Fridays with Dorie crew has exchanged Christmas cards. In the first two years, a few of us have included recipes along with the cards and this year, we’ve made it into a full-fledged virtual recipe exchange. I’ve been receiving cards and recipes from Doristas from around North America and around the world and it’s been nice to come home to a mailbox stuffed full of good wishes over the last week or two. Thanks to Alice, Christy, and Candy for making this such a special event.

We were asked to share one (or more) of the recipes we were sent, or to share the one we included with our card. Because I sent my cards out a bit late, I chose the latter option.

Most of my mother’s family recipes, handed down to her by her mother in a black, coil-bound notebook, have been in storage since my parents moved. So, for the last two years, we’ve been baking other people’s family recipes at Christmastime. Some of the best have come from my mother’s friend Gina, an incredibly creative person. She gardens prolifically, propagating dahlias and fig trees (both of which are now in my yard, thanks to her), and enough produce to feed her extended family and many of the members of her branch of the Catholic Women’s League, too. She bakes, cooks, volunteers, and does any number of other things well. My mother finally got Gina’s shortbread recipe this year, so I’m passing it on to you.

Whipped Shortbread

Bea Hartel/Gina Alary

1 lb butter
½ cup cornstarch
1 cup icing (confectioner’s) sugar
3 cups flour

Beat all ingredients together until consistency of whipped cream.
Drop on greased cookie sheet. (with teaspoon) Press down gently, make edges round if too jagged. Red or green cherries on top.
Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.
Makes 5 – 6 dozen.
Enjoy!

Now, when my mother got the recipe, it was much simpler than this. These ladies come from a generation in which they expect you’ll already know how to go about making cookies. My Mom added some instructions, which you can see above.

I want to elucidate just a little bit more. I whip the butter in my stand mixer first, until it’s light and fluffy. Then, I sift the rest of the ingredients into the bowl of the mixer and run the mixer on low for a bit, just so the dry ingredients don’t go flying everywhere, before bringing it up to medium-high until the dough reaches the consistency of whipped cream. If you’re using the cherries, it’s best to halve or quarter them first. If you prefer not to use glacé cherries, decorate them with something with a little more heft than sprinkles or sanding sugar and keep it simple.

There is also an alternative to the drop method of forming the cookie. You can dust your hands with cornstarch, quickly and gently roll teaspoonfuls of the dough into balls, and press them down with a floured fork (just as you would an old fashioned peanut butter cookie). Then, instead of glacé cherries, you can decorate them with dragées, sprinkles, sanding sugar, edible glitter, or sugar stars. They won’t be quite as melt-in-the-mouth, but they’re still delicious.

And, since I wasn’t able to make any of the Dorista recipes I received for this post, I’m going to update a family recipe that I shared in 2011. Sucre à la crème is a French Canadian favourite that my mother’s family has been making for generations. There are as many versions as family members, it seems, and I’ve finally come up with my own favourite formulation. My mother’s family is Franco-Manitoban, so they use brown sugar in place of the maple sugar that’s more common in Québécois versions. Feel free to experiment with maple sugar if it’s easy to come by for you. You can see the versions I shared in my original post here.

Now, this isn’t the sort of fudge we usually think of in North America, in which you avoid the formation of sugar crystals so that it’s silky smooth. This fudge is more like Scottish tablet, in which the sugar crystals are part of the pleasure. So, you don’t have to worry about sugar crystals forming on the pan and stirring is encouraged.

Teresa’s Sucre à la Crème

3 1/2 cups light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 cups whipping cream
1 1/2 tsps vanilla

Butter an 11 X 7-inch pan, metal or heat-proof glass work equally well.

Combine the sugars and whipping cream, whisk together until well-blended and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until the mixture starts to thicken, sugars the spoon (a metal one is best), and forms a ball when dropped into a dish of cold water. The lower end of the soft ball stage (234-236°F) is just right. Remove the pan from the heat and stir vigourously, adding the vanilla when the candy is just beginning to stiffen. When the scrapings are becoming solid, it’s time to pour the candy into the prepared pan. Chill in the fridge for several hours or overnight, then cut into small squares. It keeps for a week in the fridge or several months in the freezer. Bring to room temperature before serving.

I made some sucre à la crème yesterday, after sharing a Boxing Day meal with my parents. I left most of it there for my Mom to share out with the family and took a small box home to share with a Québécoise friend who hasn’t had the genuine article in some time. There was also a bit for Kevin and me, but that seems to have disappeared. The shortbread is long gone, too, shared at all my parents’ holiday gatherings and even at a cookie swap.

If you try either of these recipes, I’d love to see your results – find me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and share a photo.

I’d like to wish everyone the happiest of holidays and a wonderful 2015. I also want to thank my fellow Doristas for making my weekends brighter with our weekly virtual get-togethers. I’m looking forward to the final few months of Around My French Table with all of you.

You can find the rest of the Dorista recipe exchange fun here: Holiday Card/Recipe Exchange or Makeup.

Baking Chez Moi – The Rugelach That Won Over France

December 16, 2014December 17, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 5 Comments

I’ve made rugelach before, over at The Family That Bakes Together with my nieces, so I was curious to see how this recipe compared to that one. Those rugelach were filled with rich apricot lekvar, lots of cinnamon sugar, and a mix of fruit and nuts. My nieces also inadvertently rolled them along the short end, creating pinwheels which were huge – and a huge hit with everyone that tasted them.

So, I was curious to try Dorie’s chocolate version. I used a semisweet chocolate that was a little darker than was called for and substituted dried cranberries for the cherries, but otherwise stuck to the recipe. The dough was surprisingly easy to work with for something that soft, though getting the rolls started needed a little gentle help from my bench scraper. I left three of the rolls in the freezer and sliced and baked the other.

The oven I used seems to run a touch hot, so the rugelach were a bit browner on the bottom than I’d like. Next time, I’ll turn down the heat a touch and perhaps take them out sooner, too.

I was a little disappointed with them when I first tasted them – they seemed a bit dry and the flavours didn’t meld very well. But, the next day the leftovers were terrific. The flavour of the cream cheese dough became more pronounced and the filling was moist and delicious.

I still love the version we made for Baking With Julia best, but I think I’d like to have rolls of both kinds of rugelach in the freezer, to serve together. I’ll just bake this version a day ahead.

A very happy Chanukah to everyone who observes it! I hope these eight days are filled with food, family, and friends.

You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this recipe here: The Rugelach That Won Over France.

Baking Chez Moi – Cranberry Crackle Tart

December 1, 2014December 2, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 33 Comments

Our second Baking Chez Moi recipe is deceptively intricate looking. It’s a simple meringue tart on a pâte sablée base. It’s easy to put together, but the results are sophisticated in look and flavour. I made a gluten-free version of Dorie’s sweet tart dough for this one and as I’ve told you before, my gluten-free conversion of this dough needs a little refinement. The tender crust crumbled as I cut it, but it didn’t matter, because it tasted delicious. If I had been serving it for guests, I suppose I could have called it a cranberry meringue on sable cookie dirt and gotten bonus points for cheffiness. (Those of you who know me know I’d be too busy parsing my mistakes.)

I’ve got a disk of regular sweet tart dough in the freezer, so I’m going to make this again for the rest of my family during the holidays this year. In the meantime, Kevin and I are going to enjoy the leftovers of this one. The contrast between the tart cranberries and the sweet, melting meringue is wonderful, especially with the shards of cookie-ish crust.

If you’d like to try this tart for yourself, you can find the recipe on Dorie’s website. It’s a perfect, pretty dessert for the holiday table.

You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this week’s recipe here: Cranberry Crackle Tart.

Almond-Orange Tuiles – A French Fridays Fail

November 14, 2014November 15, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 19 Comments

You won’t find any evidence of it on my blog, but I did make Citrus-Berry Terrine way back in July, 2011 when it was assigned. I didn’t realize that there was pineapple juice mixed into the juice I used for it and it refused to set. Worse, it spilled as I removed it from the refrigerator and that part of it set very well on the corrugated shelf. A good deal of scrubbing later, I was reluctant to try the recipe again.

I haven’t had too many failures during my French Fridays run. Some things haven’t turned out as beautifully as I’d hoped, but they weren’t a failure in anything but my artistic ability (of which I have none). And if there was a failure, I usually corrected my mistakes and had a better version to post about by deadline.

This week, though, I decided to tackle what I thought would be a quick catch up, since I had no time at all to go to the butcher for duck or to source kumquats. Unfortunately, I had a Canadian moment when I was reviewing the recipe and read 1/2 a stick as 1/2 a cup. I realized this after I mixed everything and with twice the butter and no more almonds in the house, I adjusted the recipe as best I could, put the dough in the fridge and hoped for the best.

You’re probably thinking that the cookies up top don’t look that bad, right? Well, I have another photo to share with you.

In one of the few instances where there can be too much butter, the top two tuiles were the only ones that made it to the plate looking like, well, tuiles. And they are a little greasy, I have to admit. I’m going to try these again some time, because the flavour combination is terrific, but that may or may not make it to the blog.

So my lesson this week (one I thought I’d learned by age eight) is to read the recipe carefully before beginning. Thanks to Adriana for the inspiration to keep it real.

Find out what these tuiles are supposed to look like here: Almond-Orange Tuiles.

Everyone else made duck this week and you can find those links here: Pan-Seared Duck Breasts with Kumquats

Baking Chez Moi – We Begin!

November 11, 2014November 11, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 33 Comments

There’s nothing like the excitement of a new book, is there? Especially one that you’ve been anticipating for a long while. I finally got my hands on such a book on November 2nd, when I headed down to Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks to pick up my copy of Dorie Greenspan‘s eleventh cookbook, Baking Chez Moi.

Dorie was in Vancouver for the only Canadian stop on her book tour and I was lucky enough to be able to attend the taping of her interview with CBC’s North by Northwest Cooking Club. (Some even luckier folks got to have dinner with her later that evening.) She told stories about living and baking in Paris and shared tips and tricks while she demonstrated putting together her Pink Grapefruit Tart from the book. CBC has posted the interview now, which you can find here.

Meanwhile, the audience got to munch on miniature versions of the tart, while sipping Barbara-Jo’s signature tea blend. (If you think my idea of heaven would be listening to one of my culinary heroes, while munching on a delicious tart and sipping a cup of perfect tea, in a bookstore devoted to cookbooks – well, you’d be right.)

After the interview, she fielded questions from the audience and engaged in some banter with her husband, Michael, who is accompanying her on the tour. His version of the stories she shared were sometimes a little different from hers and he quite charmingly interjected when he thought it was necessary.

At the end, I introduced myself and Dorie gave me a big hug. It was lovely to finally meet her after cooking through Around My French Table with the French Fridays with Dorie group for the past four years.

Which brings us to the first entry in Tuesdays with Dorie‘s newest project – baking through Baking Chez Moi. We’ll be posting together twice a month as we work our way through the book and I’m quite excited to be joining in. Just browsing through my copy of this cookbook left it bristling with bookmarked recipes, so I’m glad that TwD is here to provide me with some structure. (I’ve joined in with Tuesdays with Dorie before, along with my nieces, over at The Family That Bakes Together for some Baking with Julia assignments.)

The recipe chosen to kick off the bake-a-long was Palets de Dames, Lille Style, a sweet, cake-y vanilla cookie topped with a shiny lemon glaze. I made these three weeks ago, when the French Fridays crew celebrated Dorie’s Birthday. I thought about making them again this week, but they are far too addictive. I will wait until I’m sure I have plenty of people to share them with.

I’m looking forward to reading through everyone’s posts and connecting with old friends and new through this new group. Our next assignment for Baking Chez Moi is in two weeks, when we tackle Dorie’s Cranberry Crackle Tart.

You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this week’s recipe here: Palets de Dames.

Happy Birthday, Dorie! A French Fridays Celebration

October 24, 2014October 31, 2014 ~ Teresa ~ 47 Comments

Today’s French Fridays with Dorie assignment has been set aside for a celebration. Not only are we wishing Dorie Greenspan the happiest of birthdays, but we’re also baking from her soon-to-be-released cookbook, Baking Chez Moi. This celebration has been orchestrated by two of our fabulous French Fridays collaborators, Liz and Susan, who gave us four recipes from the new book to choose from.

I chose two, but the good news is that I’ll be baking through the entire book with Tuesdays with Dorie, starting in November – and you can, too. All the details are in this post on the TwD site.

Paletes de Dames, Lille Style

These little cookies manage to be elegant and homey all at once. The cookies themselves are flavoured with vanilla and have a cake-like quality, while the icing has a few drops of lemon juice and sets in that shiny, smooth, pastry shop way. They can be dressed up with tinted icing or some sanding sugar, but really I think they’re perfect just as they are.

Brown Butter-Peach Tourte

One of the things I love about French baking (well, besides all the butter) is that a good number of the desserts are far less complicated than the results would suggest. This tourte, with its free-standing crust and its sparkling surface, looks like it requires effort and expertise to carry off. The truth is that once you’ve mastered pâte sablée, the rest is easy. And if you have Dorie’s instructions for pâte sablée (or sweet tart dough), that part’s easy, too.

I used some of the last of this year’s peaches to make this tart, but I think it would work equally well with any juicy tree fruit. In fact, I think I might try it again with mango this winter. I think it made an admirable stand in for a birthday cake and might be even more welcome than cake at the height of peach season.

It’s been an amazing four years cooking and baking with French Fridays and I’m looking forward to the last six months or so of working through Around My French Table. I’m also starting to get excited about getting my hands on Baking Chez Moi and working through it with the Tuesdays with Dorie brigade.

So, again, happy birthday to you, Dorie. I’ve learned so much more about cooking and baking in these last few years, thanks to your work. I deeply admire your love and enthusiasm for food and the community it creates – you write about it beautifully.

Below you’ll find the full line up of posts for this French Fridays celebration. (Click on the name of the dish to find the recipe, so you can join in on the fun, too.)

Mini Cannelés