Lemon Tart

"Cake" for New Years

And...I'm back! I've cooked so much since I last shared something with you here and eaten even more. I've paid a visit to my new favourite place in the world, La Bretagne (or Brittany as is it known to the Anglophone world) where I fell head over heels in love (more on that later!). We ate our first "proper roast dinner" in a rediential neighborhood of London complete with dog under the table and a poster worthy wooden platter of beef and all the fixings (how sad I forgot my camera that day). More recently I cooked my first Porchetta, that dreamy Roman style pork roast covered in cracklin', as festive as it gets! And alongside a traditional bowl of broth filled with tiny handmade tortellini. A bowl of dreams I call it. I'm looking forward to 2012 and getting back into sharing my adventures with you.

But for now, lets deal the present task at hand - New Years Eve! I'm sharing one of my best kept secrets - Cake, en Francais!

I first discovered Cake Sale 4 years ago.  If I could figure Typepad you'd see an accent on the last "e", which changes things entirely. No this isn't cheap cake, but rather savoury cake. We were staying in a lovely B & B in the medieval village of Beynac in the Dordogne region. Jean Claude and Francoise Fleurie were the perfect hosts, and living my dream. Breakfasts and dinner we enjoyed there still remain memorable so many years later. Each morning a new dish and always a different cake, for breakfast! With my competent but limited French and her non existent English, we managed to strike up conversations about cooking, obviously her passion too. She spoke to me of the many regional foods that I had never enjoyed before such as Duck gizzard salad (turns out quite delicious), Vin de Noix, a sweet nutty dark aperitif and foie gras. When I told her of some of my own baking loves, she spoke of Cake and lent me a fantastic cookbook filled with savoury loaves.

Rosa's Lemon Tart

Its nearing mid June, yet here on the Westcoast carefree warm summer days seem very far away. The garden is sluggish and I've only just worn my sandals for the first time. My yearning for extended warmth and blue skies has recently has me thinking about the French Riviera and magical days spent in that oh so cliched (for a reason!) part of the world. When I yearn for such memorable days, I usually aim to recreate them with the best way I know how - food! And so with a handful of lemons I whipped up this light, lemony Lemon Tart or Tarte Au Citron, and remembered fondly a day in Nice 3 years ago.

Nice, France is a city I can't wait to return to. Its a beautiful, vibrant city with an Italian feel due to the colourful painted buildings , Italiate architecture and an attitude all its own. The people there certainly will identify themselves as being proud Nicoise before French, a place worthy of such pride. 

Nicoise cuisine is full of bright vegetables and interesting flavours derived from an up and down history of foreign domination. Socca, the chick pea flour pancake seen above is the famous street food of the city. To be eaten quickly, its cheap, and readily available throughout town and  in simple cafes or on outdoor picnic tables. Commonly washed down with a tumbler of cheap local rose wine, I crave it regularly and have wished a stove top version made at home might suffice. Another thing to draw me back there of course is the Rose. We drink copius amounts of it we drink when in this parts of the world and no wine brings back memories of place more than this. Rose is abundant in the French Riviera, and cheaper, and as you can see by this photo I took of the rose section in the Monoprix, there's much more of it there than in my local liquor store. I weep for such selection.

I once took a cooking class in Nice from food fellow blogger, Rosa Jackson - cookbook author, teacher, blogger, guide book editor and fellow foodie extraordinaire. This proved to be one of my favourite travel memories and a day I hold dear. After wandering the vibrant Marche Cours Saleya ogling huge local Menton lemons, shiny Provencal strawberries, and baskets of wild thyme, we made our way through the narrow lanes of the Old Town stopping in quaint family run shops full of the best of everything. We gathered my favourite Cote de Provence wine, the best goat cheese and the freshest hen. Over the course of the next few hours a grand lunch would be prepared where we roasted, chopped, sauteed and baked everything needed for a proper French lunch. Of course ratatouille was enjoyed, in fact it was stuffed into squash blossoms and zucchinis and served with deeply flavoured Guinea fowl and braised white asparagus of the season. 

The meal continued with a goat cheese that I count as 1 of the single greatest cheeses I have ever eaten, only available to her and a chef at the grand Louis XV in Monte Carlo and Rosa herself. Talk about connections! But what ended that lovely lunch eaten slowly with rose in hand and lovely company from Canada, Boston and Nice was a lemon tart that had me moaning inappropriately. 

Lemon Tarts are my specialty and indeed close to my heart. I'm rarely impressed by many, as they are often too sweet, have bad pastry or worse yet not even made with real lemons. Yet even with this sort of malaise, I still keep my eyes and nose tuned to the possibility of a good one. This tart remains one of my favourites and I loved that I took home this technique and recipe from such a memorable experience. Each time I make it I think of that afternoon, that week, that beautiful place.

Nibby Nut Butter Granola

 
  I've been making my own granola for years, before I made  jam, crackers, bread or any other such foods. In the beginning I was amazed at how dead pan easy it was and I'm sure I asked the question "why would you buy this?". I know that's a complicated question and there are plenty of easy to make foods that in actuality are are quite simple in their execution. Think chocolate truffles, salad dressing, ricotta and even yogurt . But granola is really one I wish people dived into more.  Its easier than chocolate chip cookies, lasts longer, and is so sooo much cheaper than buying it.

My granola recipe began with a Martha Stewart recipe, as many of my early and current work does. From there it evolved with influences from many, morphing eventually into one recipe I can call me own and is still my go to formula -  high fibre, low sugar version loaded with nuts and seeds and often a variety of rolled grains, studded with bright dried berries. Perfect breakfast on the go. Its been affectionately labeled, Tamola.

But even with a tried and true recipe, I'm still always on the look out for something unique. Last year  I was particularly smitten with a granola that included a healthy does of molasses, giving it a deep dark flavour and I even dabbled in a recipe that included boiling apple cider down to a syrup to use as a sweetener. When I read a note by Mark Bittman about peanut butter granola the idea sounded positively revolutionary.

I came across a coveted jar of local hazelnut butter in my fridge and this inspired this recipe I'm sharing with you today. Since this was created soon after world nutella day, I had chocolate and hazelnut on the brain. While certainly a sweet, almost dessert version of granola could be made with chopped chocolate or cocao (wait until Nutella Day 2012!), this was still to be a breakfast treat. I reached for a tin of Theo Cacao nibs, perfect little bits of chocolate flavour provided by the broken nibs that are destined to become that dark chocolate I love. You get chocolate flavour without the sugar and plenty of crunch. This was so be some special batch of granola.

What makes this granola even better than the sum of its parts, however, are the clusters! Those nubby  globs of compacted ingredients seem like something you find in purchased granola or cereal boxes. But they are easily accomplished with this recipe because of the nut butter, which provides glue for those clusters.

 

Orange Ricotta Pound Cake

 As a follow up to the last post at Lemon Tart, where I told you my obsession with homemade ricotta, I thought you might like to know what exactly you should do with that beautiful cheese, should you find yourself with too much to eat by the spoonful.

When there's only 2 of us in the house, neither of whom love a tall glass of milk at dinner (sorry, Mom),  1/2 gallon of, albeit beautiful, milk a week eventually gets away from us. I make plenty of ice cream (especially with my new toy!) and any other custard based desserts are the puddings of dreams with this bovine elixer, but eventually something else needs to be done with that 2 litres of fresh, alive milk. 

Early on I learned to make yogurt, a beautiful breakfast treat that I think I might need to make easier and more fun with the addition of a yogurt maker.(If Rosa can justify it, perhaps I can). But then I discovered that my favourite use for excess milk was to make homemade ricotta, and now I have a  raw ingredient that means good things for weekly meal plans. Fluffy ricotta gnocchi, a partner with nettles for ravioli, a sprinkle on tacos.

And then there's this cake. A cake I don't recommend making  if you are hungry. I assure you this will spoil your dinner, and it makes me think I should rename the cake to "Dinner Spoiling Poundcake", although somehow that doesn't sound as mouthwatering. But once it comes out of the oven you are not going to be able to hold yourself back - so make it for breakfast.

This cake has ruined me for the classic. While some might see the replacement of some of the butter with ricotta cheese as a calorie adjustment, what's really going on is a pound cake on steroids! The ricotta adds a softness that the original just doesn't have.  And don't worry, you really don't need homemade ricotta to make this cake. Store bought works fine too, just has to be drained more.

 

It's nearing the end of the citrus season and my body must know that because its craving orange on everything short of scrambled eggs. A healthy does of tangerine or orange zest alongside the ricotta and butter make this cake almost creamsicle like, and so much lighter than the classic. A bright, easy to prepare marmalade glaze forces you to use your preserves for more than toast and adds a beautiful sheen. It also serves as preserving agent allowing this cake to last for days. But this one won't last long and is really so perfect with my afternoon tea.

 

Sour Cherry Cookie Streusel Crumble

You know that old saying, when the cookie crumbles...

MAKE DESSERT!

I was making cookies recently, a new recipe that didn't quite work out. Sure it made cookies, but I added a little too many ground hazelnuts added "flour" to the dry ingredients which made for a very dry dough that was hard to work into a dough without overworking. I managed to roll it out and cut out a batch , but a second roll wasn't going to work so nicely. Just as I was hovering over the trash can, ready to scrape it all in, I stopped myself in the nick of time and thought, "STREUSEL"!

With a toss of my hands and a few squeezes here and there, a toss onto a baking sheet, what I was looking at was streusel, which is nothing but a crumbly crunchy topping made of sugar, flour and butter, exactly what my cookies were made of. While the dough wasn't holding together enough for cookies, it certainly was for this purpose. In fact I've made a similar combination before from scratch, so this was a buttery bonus.

I baked the mixture until lightly browned all over and crunchy. In the freezer this will keep a month thrown on top of fruit pies, muffins, ice cream, canned fruit or any dessert you want a little texture. Heck this could even be ground with a little extra sugar and butter and become a cookie crust for cheeseacake. But where this stuff really becomes a life saver is simply strewn over bubbling frozen fruit, a nice change to the usual oatmeal based crumbles I usually make and a super quick dessert.

I dug down into my abyss of a deep freeze and took out the last dregs of a bag of sour cherries. So bright and crimson they would make a great Valentines dessert on their own. Such gems as these need little to make them special, just some sugar to make them palatable is all they need, but a kiss of crunchy streusel adds a pleasing texture.

Nutella Sandwich Cookies

It was World Nutella Day recently. You will recall a couple past years here at Lemon Tart, where cookies and profiteroles  made an appearance with the beloved Nutella. Everywhere in the world people were smearing this beloved chocolate hazelnut spread on everything, with reckless abandon. While I haven't the childhood nostalgia to go with this gooey phenomenon, I certainly understand that combining chocolate and my favourite nut is a really really good idea.

When brainstorming about what I would be making on the occasion of World Nutella Day I already had my star ingredient stashed away ready for its debut here. A Nutella of a different name you might say, this years player was Askinosie,  a relatively new bean to bar American chocolate maker. On the infrequent occasions I've been able to grab a few bars it is one of my all time favourite chocolate makers anywhere in the world. I picked up this spread above while in San Francisco at my dream neighborhood grocery, Bi Rite, and snapped it off that shelf as if it was the last one on earth. What sets this spread apart from other similar spreads is that this is the only Bean to Spread product. Rather than simply mixing the ingredients together, they mix full flavoured Washington hazelnut butter with the cacao beans in the chocolate making stage. I knew this stuff would be special, and oh it is, the most full flavoured spread of its kind I've come across. So this needed a simple recipe to properly show it off.

Sandwiching nutella or any other chocolate hazelnut spread between two cookies is not a new idea. In fact, aside from smearing it on toast, Euro-style, it seems to be made for that application. And as for a spread of this quality, there seemed no better way to showcase it than between two buttery crispy shortbread cookies full of my best Hazelnuts, from Oregon actually. Well, that's after licking it straight off of a very chic spoon, which as you can see I already did!

I remembered such a cookie worthy of this application. A sandwiched cookie full of tasty nutella that even after being made for a few days and shipped, came to me crispy and crunchy, yet still not overbaked. While I've made nut shortbread cookies filled with everything from Dulce de Leche to chocolate raspberry jam to ganache, all of them were tender and void of that crunch I crave.

Daring Bakers: Stollen!

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

The December Daring Bakers selection this year was a lot less work than last years. And that's a good thing because, while I've been absent this month here, busy doing the usual holiday bustle, I managed to complete this challenge just an hour before heading out of town for the holidays. That gingerbread was a tad more drawn out affair last year! The reason I could pull it off is that a stollen is one easy holiday bread, yet so incredibly impressive! Shhh... don't tell!

The dough is an easy sweet bread dough studded heavily with dried and candied fruits. I made the dough the day before in minutes and put it in the fridge for almost 24 hours to rise. A 2 hour rest to warm up, then a quick roll and before you know it this is in the kitchen tempting me to stop the holiday prep, gift wrapping and all around rushing to eat a piece of this with tea. 

I made one of these for Christmas day breakfast last year, although in a more less festive, yet more manageable shape. There's something so appropriate about a holiday bread, full of the dried and candied fruits and nuts that mean less than they did centuries ago when that was the only way you would have enjoyed a fruit in December. Last year I made a marjipan stollen, which takes the treat to to a new level by wrapping the dough arounda  generous log of almond paste. Each slice has a coin of sweet, nutty candy! This year my version is a cranberry orange which is less traditional, but certainly bright and sunny. My cranberries had been soaking in bourbon for a week and are lovely. A jar of homemade orange peel was a natural addition.

If you still haven't decided on something festive for one of your holiday tables, give this a try. It keeps beautifully, so you can do what I'm doing and just make it and leave it out for people to nibble.

Need some more Christmas morning breakfast ideas a little different than this unfortunately named breakfast tradition...

This Christmas I'll be making another Spinach Strata. Melty cheese, soft spinach, puffy and crunchy bread surrounded with an eggy custard. A revelation really. Best part? Its entirely made the night before and thrown in the oven in the morning. Beautiful!

And with that I leave you, gifts packed, wine corked, cookies cooled and on the road I go!

Merry Christmas to you all! I hope the holidays are full of , what else, great food, lovely wine, and even better company whether just you and yours or a house full of family and friends.

French Fridays with Dorie: November Dinner Snapshots

In a less formal manner I've been cooking along with the French Fridays with Dorie group this month. Since its the last day of November I thought I'd share with you the last 3 recipes I enjoyed making and, more importantly, eating this month. The first one can be found here. There's a classic, a revelation, and an homage in the mix. While most of these items were served as parts of other meals, I realize that that all these recipes are the makings for one perfect Friday night dinner.

An apology for the poor lighting. I dislike using a flash, but nighttime eats at this time of year sure make it tricky to take a decent photo. Sure hoping Santa brings me my light for Christmas! Pumpkin Flans with Walnuts and Gorgonzola

The Revelation: I scoped this recipe out within minutes of cracking open the book. Its basically a pumpkin pie custard, but with a savoury bent, topped with toasted walnuts and melty gorgonzola cheese. I confess I don't really love pumpkin pie. I'd rather fill my pastry with other things. When I was younger I was known to eat the entire contents of the pie filling and leave behind a sad, scraped clean, pie shell. Turns out even then I knew the filling really is the best part in this case. While the recipe calls for a simple can of pumpkin puree, at this time of year I always have piles of gem like squash. Roasting  them is esay, and this way I'm eating local squash as opposed to pumpkins from who knows where.

This was a perfect first course with a crunchy salad. A last minute drizzle of full flavoured Pine honey brought it all together and paired beautifully with the nuts and cheese. I profess I love pumpkin, I'd just rather have it for dinner.

Roast Chicken for Les Paresseux

The Classic : Translated as "Roast Chicken for Lazy People", this recipe is the French version of quick and easy recipes for the busy cook. In actuality the chicken does take over an hour to cook, but the preparation and method of cooking is so simple that once you get it in the oven you'll have plenty of time to set the table, make a salad and unwind with a glass of wine and some Glee. A simple roast chicken is certainly one of my absolute favourite meals and something worth mastering. Over time I've developed my own recipe, but I'll admit I loved the dump in the pot technique here, which is all it was. Tossing in some vegetables means you've made a side dish without thinking about it and they'll flavoured with chicken juices and bronzed with chicken fat. The addition of a couple slices of stale bread put on the bottom of the pot which soak up chicken juices and caramelize as the chicken cookes are litte little bits of gold to fight over at the dinner tables. Like stuffing, but better.

And while I wouldn't consider it for Les Paresseux, the accompanying jus is a must when it comes to roast chicken. One extra step to harness those beautiful drippings and drizzle over your plate.
 
Caramel Topped Semolina Cake

The Homage: Dessert was a cross between creme caramel (also known as Flan in Spanish cuisine) and my favourite winter breakfast as a child, Cream of Wheat. The simplicity, yet elegance of this dish is a reminder to me of the beauty of French cuisine and why its hands down the cuisine that keeps drawing me in the longer I cook. A simple mixture of milk and wheat cooked to a porridge consistency, along with some sugar and eggs and a handful of raisins. In a pan lined with smokey caramel, the cake is cooked until puffed and flecked with brown. The cake is turned out to reveal a surprise soaking of amber caramel which still drizzles down the side of the cake.

Meyer Lemon Tart

Lemon Tart turns 2 today! Happy Birthday to me! I feel proud that I'm still here, still taking pictures of my food (and better ones, luckily!)and still writing about it. I'm so grateful that there are people the world over who read my words, leave comments, share their triumphs and a passion for food with me. And I still have so many things I am passionate about I want to share with you : my love of tea and wine, cheese and chocolate and memories of my travels.

For those of you who've been here before, thank you. I hope I've inspired you to cook something new, I hope you've learned something from coming to these pages and I hope I've entertained you. For those of you new to this site, I sincerly hope you'll return. And as a birthday present to me, if you've enjoyed some of what I've done here pass along a link to a friend, or if you haven't already subscribed to receive updates via email, please do so you never miss a post. I love hearing from you, so don't be shy and leave a comment. I love dialogue about what's cookin'!

In honour of this day I am doing what seems appropriate : making another lemon tart. You already know my favourite, but there are still some other candidates for runners up. I've chosen this one because, like that favourite, its so easy. There's no cooking of the filling and you don't even need to juice the lemons. You simply throw everything into a blender and whir for a few minutes then dump into the precooked tart shell. Its richer and creamier than my usual because its got butter AND cream, but is still elegant and light at the same time. I'm quite smitten with it.

As a birthday present to myself I've just got my hands on the first of the meyer lemons and because I do so adore them, I've chosen to make this a Meyer Lemon Tart. Because you use the whole lemon, a Meyer is the perfect candidate as its pith is less bitter than a Eureka lemon. But don't despair. If, like many people, you can't find any of those fragrant and expensive Meyers, this tart can just as beautifully be made with regular lemons. 

Daring Bakers : Crostata di Marmallata

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

Pastry is my thing. I'll just come out and say it. I'm good at it, I understand it, I know how to work it into submission. I can't say that about anyone anything else in my life. As with anything, this sense of skill comes simply from experience and since pastry is the dessert category I adore the most, I've made sure I've had lots of experience with it.

So when I heard this month's Daring Bakers challenge would be an Italian tart, called a Crostata, I flipped my hair back and confidently said to myself "well, that's an easy one for me, where's the challenge there?"...

If you ever wondered what humble pie actually looks like, apparently its a sweet Italian pastry filled with apricot jam. Yup, I spoke too soon. When I walked into that kitchen I was promptly [curse alert] bitch-slapped by this simple mixture of flour, butter, sugar and egg.

Crostata is an Italian tart made with Pasta Frolla, the Italian version of pate sucree, which as far as I can see is identical to the French version. My entry into the world of tarts and pastries began with a similar recipe of sweet crust dough. I got good at it, through repetition. This kind of pastry is tricky to work with. Its sugar content makes it beautifully tender and also very fragile. It can be overworked easily therefore losing its delicate nature, and it falls apart, oh how it falls apart. Over the years my recipe changed and I discovered that pressing the dough into the tart shell yielded a still beautiful tart shell without the frustration of trying to roll it out. I also discovered that a recipe using only the egg yolk made for an easier dough as well. So I left that original recipe in my pastry past.