Rhubarb…of all the wonderful spring-seasonal foods, this may be my very favorite. I’ve gone through at least 5 pounds of it so far, too caught up in devouring it to snap any pictures. I recently made another batch of compote, though, and finally found a moment to capture its lovely pinkish-mauve hue.

I’ve been eating the compote on practically everything, especially spooned in thick, messy swirls with a dish of Greek yogurt. Regular yogurt is good, too, but the Greek stuff is so much creamier and more luxurious, which perfectly complements the tartness of the rhubarb.

Posting about something as simple as compote feels a bit like cheating, but the new job has still not left me as much time to cook and blog as much as I’d like (although I hope to change that soon with more diligent scheduling). I’ve suffered a few kitchen disasters recently, too, the most recent of which was a positively disgusting attempt at a vegetarian (i.e., no gelatine) and heavy-cream-free strawberry bavaroise. Without going into the gory details, let’s just say that sometimes there is just no substitute for the dairy power of heavy cream. On the (literally) brighter side, the sun has at last been shining its face regularly, so there are now plenty of opportunities for evening photographs.

The rhubarb compote doesn’t need much of a recipe, but I’ll include one anyway as a sort of guideline, with encouragement for personalization. I’ll admit to being a bit of a rhubarb purist and don’t often mix my rhubarb with anything but a smidge of sugar and lemon, but I’ve recently opened up to crystallized ginger and raspberries, which are excellent mix-ins. However you make it, rhubarb compote is terrific on pancakes, toast, panna cotta, grilled pork chops, ice cream, ricotta, and, well…just about anything that needs a little something tart, sweet, and tangy to cheer it up. It also freezes beautifully.

Rhubarb Compote
I like my compote very tangy, but feel free to use extra sugar (up to 1/4 cup more) if you prefer it a bit sweeter

1 1/2 pounds of rhubarb, washed and leaves removed, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
1/3 cup granulated sugar
juice from half a lemon

Mix all ingredients together in a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Cook on a medium flame, stirring occasionally, until rhubarb is very soft and almost syrupy - about 15 minutes. Taste and add more sugar if necessary. Serve warm or at room temperature, or refrigerate in an airtight container for one week.

Sweet Sauces & Fillings | 6 Comments »

It was my birthday this past weekend, and in lieu of a cake, I decided to make some macarons. Little did I know that this venture would ruin me forever in unexpected ways. You might have heard me whinge a few times about my vague disgust for frosting and its slithery, tooth-aching texture. Well, I guess the day of regret was bound to come sooner or later…because as of last weekend, I’m definitely eating those words.

The devilry behind all this arrived in a little batch of something called Espresso-Caramel Frosting. It was a recipe from Tish Boyle’s The Cake Book, and one that I’d had bookmarked for a while now. Let me just cut to the chase and tell you right now: this frosting is Dangerous, with a capital D, in a way I had no idea frosting could be. Perilous in the “I need to get it out of the house immediately before I eat the entire bowl right this second” kind of way. And even though there are a few choice things (hello there romesco sauce) that drive me to superlatives, I’m not a particularly excitable sort of person, if you know what I mean. My socks aren’t easily knocked off.

And yet…just imagine the smooth flavor of brown-sugar caramel embraced by a shot of great espresso and delivered in the smoothest, creamiest, and lightest-tasting vehicle ever. A phenomenon, if you will, that has caused me to leave behind my frosting-hating self forever…at least as long as this stuff is in the room. If you have even the remotest interest in caramel or coffee, you have got to make this stuff as soon as possible. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The original recipe makes a pretty vast quantity - somewhere over 5 cups, and suited for a full-size cake - but I was able to easily divide everything by 4, which makes enough to fill two batches of cardamom-scented macarons, adapted from David Lebovitz’s great recipe. The result was something like a caramelly Arabic coffee in macaron form. Honestly, who needs birthday cake, anyway?

(more…)

Baking, Sweet Sauces & Fillings | 14 Comments »

I made this excellent semifreddo for a visit to some friends’ house last weekend. The recipe is from Dolce Italiano, the new cookbook by Gina DePalma, the pastry chef at Babbo. I borrowed the book from the library a couple of weeks ago and have found it completely inspiring; nearly all the recipes look delicious and seem to strike a balance between sophisticated, rustic, interesting, and uncomplicated. I also like the author’s voice, as it seems to give one a sense that she is quite knowledgeable, yet down to earth and not overly caught up in trends. In other words, someone who would be pretty cool to talk to.

The semifreddo has the texture of a frozen mousse, its richness helpfully tempered by the cold. Using tangerine here seems to make the dessert little bit special and fun, and the citrus flavor is not shy - it’s nearly as powerful as the chocolate, with the two bittersweet flavors in smooth harmony. If you don’t want to make the entire dessert, the chocolate sauce is pretty terrific just by itself. Just make a batch to pour over fresh fruit or ice cream, or like me, squirt it directly into your mouth. I can’t wait for a chance to make this dessert again!

Er, why yes, those ARE oranges in the picture…but the tangerines were busy elsewhere…

(more…)

Frozen, Sweet Sauces & Fillings | 3 Comments »

For a while now I’ve been eyeing the Coconut Bread that is one of the signature recipes of Bill Granger, an Australian chef whose restaurant has the excruciating-for-those-of-us-who-respect-the-apostrophe name of bills. Even though the abuse of apostrophes causes me great spasms of torture, bills coconut bread truly won me over. It is absolutely fantastic and it will definitely become part of my regular repertoire.

I did make a couple of changes to the recipe, such as cutting the sugar by half. It was still plenty sweet (and honestly, why in the name of Callebaut do I love sweets this much yet am so darn sensitive to sugar?), and crunchy with some Demerara sugar I sprinkled on top. The outside of the bread has a crisp and crumbly crust, while the inside is fragrant and particularly good when eaten hot from the oven.

This coconut bread really is more bready than cakey, and thus well suited for topping with butter, spreads such as lime marmalade (as Granger suggests), or a tropical fruit curd, like naranjilla or passion fruit.

(more…)

Baking, Sweet Sauces & Fillings | 7 Comments »

Pastry cream is such fantastic stuff. It’s quick and very easy to make, it can be flavored in nearly unlimited ways, and can star in or enhance any number of sweet treats. Since I have been extremely busy at work and too knackered to barely spare a thought to dinner let alone desserts, this post ended up being some quick ideas for using pastry cream when one can’t really be bothered for more than 15 minutes of other preparation.

You’ll also have to forgive my recent orange phase, an occasional occurrence wherein I experience a small obsession with a single flavor for a week or so. It was probably the fault of those yummy muffins from the other week. Oranges are so welcome during the creaky, dry, and frozen air of January, though, so it’s no wonder that my daydreams have been featuring all things citrusy and cheerful. I even went so far as to bring out a bar of blood orange soap.

The pastry cream is Flo Braker’s recipe, which is the best I’ve tried so far. It has a good amount of sweetness and is reasonably thick without being floury. I don’t mind being a piglet and eating the cream straight from a bowl, but there were also some pomegranates to use up, and who could refuse such a lovely combination? Phyllo nests can be made pretty quickly, and it takes no time at all to spoon pastry cream inside and top with pomegranate seeds. These looked very pretty and would do nicely for a party.

There were still a lot of pomegranate seeds and pastry cream left, and it doesn’t get much simpler (i.e. if you really want no further effort, i.e. me, tonight) than a fruit parfait. Even Saint Expeditus seems tempted join me in avoiding doing real work and eating this stuff instead. See how he gazes longingly at those precious rubies…

Later on, it seemed clear that trying to get work done was a silly waste of time, so I made these mini orange yogurt cakes, a simple French favorite that takes less than 15 minutes to mix up and pour in the pan. They were pretty good plain but even better when split and filled with more of the orange pastry cream. There are no pictures of this, unfortunately, as it was done quickly in the morning before bringing them in for friends so they wouldn’t get too soggy (the cakes, not the friends). I did keep one for myself, and you’ll just have to trust me that it was pretty darn good for such little effort. The sesame seeds added a bit of interest, but I think next time I will toast the seeds and also add some to the batter in addition to the tops (oddly, they did not toast as the cakes baked).

Here’s the recipe for the Orange Pastry Cream. Feel free to substitute orange with any other citrus, or mix in nuts, chocolate, extracts or otherwise. For a smooth pastry cream, you can press it through a sieve while it is still warm. Leaving the peel in gives little bursts of orange flavor.

(more…)

Baking, Sweet Sauces & Fillings | 8 Comments »

Ah, lemon curd. Excuse me while I go a bit gaga over that unassuming concoction of lemon, eggs, and butter, that smooth and rich lemon delivery vehicle, at once all tart and silken on the tongue. But even though I will gladly eat the stuff straight from the jar, I’ve also tasted my share of less-than-delightful specimens. While I think lemon curd is relatively fundamental and hopefully not too pretentious, there seems to be no end to the ways it can go wrong, from overly sweet and runny to unctuous, gloppy, and clogged with too many eggs. Let’s also not forget the dreaded curdling - like other members of that fine family of stovetop custards, lemon curd has to be cooked to just the right amount of thickness so that it cools to a spreadable consistency but before the eggs start cooking too much and leaving tell-tale white strands, those tiny flags of failure.

Of course, some people try to get around this is by pressing everything through a fine sieve, leaving the little eggy bits behind so no one is the wiser. You can also cook the lemon curd on a double boiler, keeping the eggs away from direct flame. I do think that with a bit of practice, the stovetop method becomes just as easy, but as I try not to be much of a cheater in the kitchen (cough-cough), I am all for whatever cooks it properly without relying on dirty tricks. There’s no reason to get complacent and ignore the eggs just because you have to press it through a sieve anyway (and besides, overcooked eggs will infuse the curd with an unpleasant eggy flavor that, er, trust me, can’t be pressed out).

But enough preaching about careful cooking and the ways it can be wronged. Why bother talking about lemon curd at all unless it’s completely extraordinary? It’s true that when it comes to food, I am not usually given to excessive superlatives…throwing around terms like “the best” or “the ultimate” is bound to get a gal in trouble, what with all those opinions running wild and ready for a fight. And I’m not sure if it means that I’m overly self-critical or just open-minded to think that there is almost always room for improvement or variation in a recipe. I mean, take my penchant for making so few things more than once…it’s not because of some frantic race to find the best, but because I can’t bear to pass by all the interesting possibilities that cross my path.

So getting into my rotating queue is not exactly like getting into Per Se - it just means that the returns have to be fairly high or the method particularly uncomplicated. Still, when it comes to basics, having a cache of favorites isn’t such a bad thing - they pave the way for experimentation, and you don’t have to worry about an eternal quest for a recipe that’s both reliable and above average in flavor.

Enter my favorite lemon curd recipe. It hasn’t got frills, unexpected ingredients, or even a clever cooking method. But it’s on the tart side, just the way I like it, not to mention luxurious in texture but not too eggy. For me, this one has the perfect balance of sweet, tart, and silken. I won’t start arguments about whether it’s the ultimate, but it’s the one I always return to…and I think you’ll like it, too.

(more…)

Sweet Sauces & Fillings | 8 Comments »