David Lebovitz's chocolate sherbet

When I saw David's photo of this sherbet, I knew I had to make it. In fact, it looked so good I went ahead and made a quadruple batch the first time. It was easy to put together (aside from my letting the chocolate/milk mixture boil over--all over, below the electric coil on the stove and in the tiny gap between the stove and the cupboard--because the baby started crying at a crucial moment;), and it tasted every bit as good as it looked. I had some trouble getting it to freeze properly--I had to put it in the freezer to get it to set up, and it had some unpleasant ice crystals when it did--but testing other recipes confirmed that this is a problem with my ice cream maker and not the recipe.

This is a fantastically intense dark chocolate sherbet. While I certainly didn't limit myself to the one scoop David suggests, this sherbet packs enough punch that I felt satisfied much sooner than with regular ice creams. My only complaint about this sherbet was that when I did choose to glut myself on it, after I ate the sherbet for fifteen or twenty minutes, a cocoa/fat scum started to accrue on the roof of my mouth. I suspect this is a problem most people don't have.

chocolate sherbet (David Lebovitz)
2 cups (1/2l) milk (whole, low, or non-fat)
1/2 cup (100g) sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup (50g) unsweetened cocoa powder
4 ounces (115g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
optional: 2 tablespoons coffee-flavored liqueur, such as Kahluà

For directions, see David's site.

pear caramel tartlets

I love tarts. I am invariably disappointed by tarts that I get at local restaurants and bakeries, though. The crusts are hard and flavorless and the fillings are boring. But I love baking tarts. I've had a few disappointments baking them myself, but not many. I love Dorie Greenspan's Tartest Lemon Tart and I adore Pierre Herme's Linzer Tart. Herme's cinnamon-rum-almond tart crust for the linzer tart is my absolute favorite. It's easy to make (at least, it is now that I can buy almond flour instead of having to grind it myself), it has a lovely crumbly texture, and it's delicious. Homemade tarts are one of my favorite desserts. And the only way to improve on a homemade tart is to make it a tartlet. Smaller means cuter, and as long as there are enough minis to go around, it means you can try all the flavors or have several servings of the same one without the guilt of having a full serving each time.

My family gave me a set of mini tart pans for Christmas, and I'm always plotting new things to try in them. (You'll be seeing a lot more tartlet posts as I work out the fillings I like.) I made these pear caramel cinnamon cream cheese tartlets a couple of months ago and they were a big hit with my family. The caramel was something I threw together after reading the ingredients on a bottle of delicious and, sadly, discontinued pear caramel I found at the store. Mine was, of course, quite different from the original, but still quite good. It seems to be my sister's new favorite. At any rate, it's a work in progress, so the directions are a bit higgedly-piggedly. When I made the tarts again to use up the remaining caramel, I replaced the cinnamon in the cream cheese with ginger. The sharper flavor was a nice contrast with the caramel.

pear caramel tartlets

pear caramel

2 C pear juice

2 C sugar

.5 C corn syrup

1 TB butter

2 C cream

pinch salt

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsp-2 Tb lemon juice (to taste)

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Melt the butter. Add sugar and corn syrup. Mix and cook on medium heat until just turning golden. Add the pear juice and cook ten or twenty minutes so that the mixture thickens. Remove from heat and whisk in the remaining ingredients. When cooled to room temperature, spoon over cream cheese in tart shells.

cream cheese filling

8 oz cream cheese, softened

pear caramel, to sweeten to taste

.5 tsp cinnamon or 1 tsp ginger

Mix all and spoon into cooled tart shells.

tart crust (from Chocolate, by Pierre Herme)

7 TB unsalted butter, at room temperature

2.5 TB confectioners' sugar

2.5 TB finely ground almond powder

1 large hard-boiled egg yolk, at room temperature, pressed through a fine strainer

.25 tsp cinnamon

pinch of salt

1 tsp dark rum

pinch of double-acting baking powder

.75 C all-purpose flour

Mix butter until creamy. Add sugar, almond powder, egg yolk, cinnamon, and salt. Mix until smooth, scraping bowl as necessary. Whisk the baking powder into the flour and add the flour to the bowl, mixing until thoroughly blended. The dough will feel soft and look a little like the dough you'd use to make peanut butter cookies.

Place dough in plastic wrap and form into a disk. Chill at least 4 hours before rolling and baking.

Roll the dough out or pat it into the tart pans. Chill at least thirty minutes.

Bake at 350 until crust is honey brown. (How long this takes depends on the size of your mini tart pans.)

daring bakers: blood orange tian

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose orange tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

This is my first Daring Bakers challenge, and it was a lot of fun. I had never heard of a tian before. The dessert is a pate sablee spread with orange marmalade and covered with whipped cream, orange segments, and orange caramel. This was a nice dessert, but it needs a little punch. If I made it again, I'd use a cream cheese-whipped cream mixture instead of plain whipped cream.

I decided to make mine with blood oranges. I think they're beautiful, and I especially love the way they look like jelly candy when you slice them.

I've made pate sablee before, so making it was a snap (especially now that my grocery store carries almond flour). The marmalade was easy as well, and unusually tasty. I was out of pectin, so I used some gelatine to set the marmalade. Too much gelatine, as it turned out. My delicious marmalade turned into delicious blood orange jello. I snacked on a little of it and threw the rest in the food processor with hot water until it was spreadable.

I was excited that Jennifer included a recipe for stabilized whipped cream, because I've always had trouble making it, even when I follow the recipes in my cookbooks exactly. Apparently the gelatine requires a lot more water than my other recipes suggested. This time, it worked perfectly--no horrible gelatine chunks to be strained out of my whipped cream.

I had a little trouble with the caramel. The sugar seized when I added the orange juice. I had to take the pan off the heat and keep reheating the juice and pouring it over the sugar until most of it mixed together. Then I moved it to a different pan to thicken it.

Segmenting the oranges was the hardest part for me. Thank goodness Jennifer gave us a link on how to do it. Even with great instructions, it took me forever to segment the oranges. After soaking them in the caramel and draining them, I put the soaking caramel back in with the rest so I could have extra sauce.

The upside-down assembly was fun. I broke my crust trying to assemble the dessert, but you couldn't really tell once it was all together.

blood orange tian (adapted from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School)

pate sablee
2 medium-sized egg yolks, room temperature
6 TB + 1 tsp sugar
½ tsp vanilla
¼ C + 3 TB unsalted butter, ice cold, cubed
1/3 tsp salt
1.5 C + 2 TB flour
1 tsp baking powder

Put the flour, baking powder, ice cold cubed butter and salt in a food processor fitted with a steel blade.

In a separate bowl, add the eggs yolks, vanilla extract and sugar and beat with a whisk until the mixture is pale. Pour the egg mixture in the food processor.

Process until the dough just comes together. If you find that the dough is still a little too crumbly to come together, add a couple drops of water and process again to form a homogeneous ball of dough. Form into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit.

Pat the dough onto the bottom of a parchment-paper-lined 9" springform pan until you have a .25"-thick circle.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the circles of dough are just golden.


blood orange marmalade

.25 C + 3 TB fresh blood orange juice
1 large orange (to make orange slices)
cold water
5 g pectin
granulated sugar: use the same weight as the weight of orange slices once they are cooked

Finely slice the orange. Place the orange slices in a medium-sized pot filled with cold water. Simmer for about 10 minutes, discard the water, re-fill with cold water and blanch the oranges for another 10 minutes.

Blanch the orange slices 3 times. This process removes the bitterness from the orange peel, so it is essential to use a new batch of cold water every time when you blanch the slices.

Once blanched 3 times, drain the slices and let them cool.

Once they are cool enough to handle, finely mince them (using a knife or a food processor).

Weigh the slices and use the same amount of granulated sugar. If you don’t have a scale, you can place the slices in a cup measurer and use the same amount of sugar.

In a pot over medium heat, add the minced orange slices, the sugar you just weighed, the orange juice and the pectin. Cook until the mixture reaches a jam consistency (10-15 minutes).

Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge.

blood orange segments:
8 blood oranges

Cut the oranges into segments over a shallow bowl and make sure to keep the juice. Add the segments to the bowl with the juice.


blood orange caramel:
1 C sugar
1.5 C + 2 TB blood orange juice

Place the sugar in a pan on medium heat and begin heating it.

Once the sugar starts to bubble and foam, slowly add the orange juice. As soon as the mixture starts boiling, remove from the heat and pour half of the mixture over the orange segments.

Reserve the other half of the caramel mixture in a small bowl — you will use this later to spoon over the finished dessert. When the dessert is assembled and setting in the freezer, heat the kept caramel sauce in a small saucepan over low heat until it thickens and just coats the back of a spoon (about 10 minutes). You can then spoon it over the orange tians.


stabilized whipped cream with marmalade:
1 C heavy whipping cream 1 cup
3 TB hot water
1 tsp gelatine
1 TB confectioner's sugar
1 TB orange marmalade (see recipe above)

In a small bowl, add the gelatine and hot water, stirring well until the gelatine dissolves. Let the gelatine cool to room temperature while you make the whipped cream. Combine the cream in a chilled mixing bowl. Whip the cream using a hand mixer on low speed until the cream starts to thicken for about one minute. Add the confectioner's sugar. Increase the speed to medium-high. Whip the cream until the beaters leave visible (but not lasting) trails in the cream, then add the cooled gelatine slowly while beating continuously. Continue whipping until the cream is light and fluffy and forms soft peaks. Transfer the whipped cream to a bowl and fold in the orange marmalade.


assembly:
Make sure you have some room in your freezer. Ideally, you should be able to fit a small baking sheet or tray of desserts to set in the freezer.

Line a small tray or baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone sheet. Lay out 6 cookie cutters onto the parchment paper/silicone.

Drain the orange segments on a kitchen towel.

Have the marmalade, whipped cream and baked circles of dough ready to use.

Arrange the orange segments at the bottom of each cookie cutter. Make sure the segments all touch either and that there are no gaps. Make sure they fit snuggly and look pretty as they will end up being the top of the dessert. Arrange them as you would sliced apples when making an apple tart.

Once you have neatly arranged one layer of orange segments at the bottom of each cookie cutter, add a couple spoonfuls of whipped cream and gently spread it so that it fills the cookie cutter in an even layer. Leave about 1/4 inch at the top so there is room for dough circle.

Using a butter knife or small spoon, spread a small even layer of orange marmalade on each circle of dough.

Carefully place a circle of dough over each ring (the side of dough covered in marmalade should be the side touching the whipping cream). Gently press on the circle of dough to make sure the dessert is compact.

Place the desserts to set in the freezer to set for 10 minutes.

Using a small knife, gently go around the edges of the cookie cutter to make sure the dessert will be easy to unmold. Gently place your serving plate on top of a dessert (on top of the circle of dough) and turn the plate over. Gently remove the cookie cutter, add a spoonful of caramel sauce and serve immediately.

olive oil and balsamic vinegar ice cream

A few years ago, one of my foodie friends told me that she and her husband had fond memories of an olive oil ice cream served for dessert on an out-of-state trip they'd taken. A the time I thought it sounded a little odd, something I'd probably not be interested in. But B has a crazy olive-oil-and-vinegar obsession, and when he recently started getting his fix by swirling oil and vinegar in a glass and drinking them straight, I thought, there's got to be a better way to do this. And I remembered K's olive oil ice cream. I headed to the internet, and found a promising recipe at the Worldwide Gourmet.

Although I'd rate the recipe as easy on the whole, the directions were a little confusing for someone with as little ice-cream making experience as I have. I haven't made a lot of custard bases, and I curdled my first batch. This made B ridiculously happy because we strained out the clumpy bits and he drank the custard and dunked French bread in it. I also had a bit of weirdness with trying to fold the cream into the anglaise. There's a *lot* of custard, and it sort of dissolved the whipped cream, leaving a few bits of whipped cream unincorporated. I'll play with this next time to see if I can get it mixed smoothly.

Now, if you're anything like my friends, this recipe may be inspiring a lot of hate. I know it isn't exactly a standard flavor, but I wasn't expecting so many of the people I talked to about it to dislike the idea so much. If you're leaning this direction, I have good news for you--you're wrong. This is one of best ice creams we've eaten. I loved it, the one friend who actually tasted it loved it, and B loved it. Enough to go back for more every night. (With B, this is the equivalent of an 15-out-of-10-star rating. He does *not* go looking for dessert. If I buy his usual favorite, strawberry ice cream, it will sit in the freezer for two months before he'll consider eating it. And he loves it.) The olive oil and balsamic are there, but they're quite subtle. If I didn't know what I was eating, I wouldn't guess olive oil and vinegar. The custard base is incredibly rich, as it should be with ten egg yolks, and the oil and vinegar complement it nicely. The final product is a beautiful custard color.

At some point, I want to try making a savory version of the ice cream, where the oil and vinegar are more noticeable, but it's hard to really think about tinkering with this recipe when it's perfect. The finished ice cream was a little bit icy in texture, but based on results making other ice creams, that seems to be a problem with our machine and not the recipe. (If you have any recommendations for a really good ice cream maker, I'd love to hear them.)

Now for the best ice cream recipe ever. Go make yourself a batch. You deserve it.

olive oil and balsamic vinegar ice cream (from The Worldwide Gourmet)

4 C milk
10 egg yolks
9 oz. sugar
9 oz. cream
3 TB olive oil (I used a robust oil to be sure the flavor would show up.)
2 tsp balsamic vinegar

Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar. Heat the milk. (I don't know how hot it's supposed to be; I'd recommend checking your favorite liquid custard recipe.) Temper the egg mixture with some of the hot milk. Whisk the remaining hot milk into the eggs and transfer to a heavy saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens slightly to form a creme anglaise. Do not overheat or the eggs will curdle.

Cool custard to lukewarm. Whip the cream and fold it into the creme anglaise. Add the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Put in ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. Devour.

devilish chocolate roulade

I made these for holiday dinner with my family. We enjoyed them, but they were a little too rich for me. I think perhaps the "plain chocolate" was supposed to have been milk chocolate, but I used dark. I make this again, I'll either omit the chocolate filling entirely, or make it with milk chocolate and use half as much, and I would increase the mascarpone.















devilish chocolate roulade (from Chocolate, Christine France)

roulade:
6 oz dark chocolate, broken into squares
4 eggs, separated
1/2 C baking sugar
cocoa powder for dusting

filling:
8 oz. plain chocolate, broken into squares
2 eggs, separated
generous 1 C mascarpone

(The recipe also called for brandy in the chocolate filling and for chocolate-dipped strawberries for decoration; I omitted these because I didn't have brandy or strawberries on hand.)


Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease a 13 x 9" Swiss roll pan and line with parchment paper. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl.

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar ina bowl until pale and thick, then stir in the melted chocolate evenly.

Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks, then fold lightly and evenly into the egg and chocolate mixture.

Scrape into the pan and spread evenly to the corners. Bake for 15-20 min., until the sponge is well risen and firm to the touch. Dust a sheet of parchment paper with cocoa. Turn the sponge out on the paper, cover with a clean dish towel, and leave to cool.

Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over hot water. Remove from the heat. Beat the egg yolks together, then beat into the chocolate mixture. In a separate bowl,a whisk the whites to soft peaks, then fold them lightly and evenly into the filling.

Uncover the roulade, remove the lining paper and spread with the mascarpone. Spread the chocolate mixture over the top, then roll up carefully from a long side to enclose the filling. Transfer to a serving plate and dust with cocoa powder.

prickly pear mousse

I made this because B loved a prickly pear smoothie mix that he found in the cupboard. Looking through our cupboards is not unlike going on an archeological dig. I buy things that I have no idea how I'll use and I can't bear to throw away anything interesting or potentially useful. So, you can look and find gravy mixes from when my great-grandmother died and I inherited half her pantry and spices I received third-hand when a friend moved to California. The prickly pear smoothie mix was from a fundraiser seven years ago. Which is to say that when the small box ran out, I had no idea how to get more. But our grocery store carries prickly pears, so I decided it would be fun to make something with them. A mousse seemed like the best way to ensure that the prickly pears' flavor wasn't overwhelmed.

It turned out to be pretty good, although it was quite time consuming to process the pears. (If anyone has tips on processing prickly pears, I'd love to hear them.) And next time it will take even longer, because I'll use more prickly pears.

prickly pear mousse

5 prickly pears

2 C heavy cream, chilled

2 egg whites

1/8-1/4 C sugar

Peel the prickly pears, using caution and/or gloves. Even though most of the spines are removed from those sold in stores, I still managed to get on in my hand, and because it was so tiny, it was hard to find and remove.

Mash through a strainer, saving juice and discarding seeds. I used my pestle with the strainer for this.

Reduce juice (I started with around 1.5 C) to around 1/4 C. (I reduced mine in two batches; the first I reduced too far--it was a thick paste--and the second I left more watery. Next time, I'll shoot for a nice syrupy reduction.)

Whip cream to stiff peaks, adding half of sugar when soft peaks are reached. Mix in prickly pear reduction. Whip egg whites to stiff peaks, again adding sugar when soft peaks are reached. Lightly fold into whipped cream mixture.

We ate our mousse immediately; I don't know how well it keeps.

lentil soup

A few weeks ago, B convinced me to try some of Amy's Organic Lentil Soup. It was a hard sell, because lentil soup is ugly. It isn't just plain jane- or ugly betty-ugly. It's hideous

brunehilda-ugly. Lentils aren't just badly dressed but secretly beautiful. Designer clothes, a

makeover, and losing the tacky glasses won't save this dish. There's no recovering from looking like something the dog has already digested. And to top it off, this stuff smells a little bad. But underneath the ugly is an amazing soup. Healthy, filling, and delicious. I fell in love.

Unfortunately, Costco only carries it packaged with an equal amount of minestrone, and while Amy's minestrone is fine, it just can't compare to the recipe we make. So, after reading the back of the soup can and looking up a few recipes online, I threw this together. And I think it's as good as Amy's.

A couple of things: If the soup doesn't taste good, add more salt. Seriously. Salt makes all the difference with this soup. And when you puree, use the blender and not your food processor. It's a real pain to get all the little bits of lentil out of the inside of the blade of the food processor afterward.

lentil soup

5 C dried lentils

2 ribs celery, sliced very thin

carrots, sliced thin (about same amount as celery)

1 large russet potato, peeled and chopped small

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp cumin

salt, to taste

Put lentils in pot; cover with about an inch of water. Bring to a boil, then turn heat down to medium. Add vegetables and spices. Simmer, stirring and adding more water occasionally. When lentils are soft and you are happy with the amount of liquid, turn off the heat. (This will be fairly thick soup.) Take a few cups of the soup and puree them in the blender. Add back to the soup. Salt to taste.