The Dog liked It !

Lemon Mousse with Almond Cookie

My kitchen is under a lemon invasion ! Lemons show up left and right. Big, fat, juicy lemons. Enough lemon tarts already, I am ready to move on. So I decided to experiment and the dog happily volunteered :)

I have had in mind for a while to make fruit mousse, either as a dessert or a filler for a cake. It's pretty common to find such fillings in cakes in french patisserie. I did a bit of research on french baking sites on lemon mousse. I know how to make a chocolate mousse and I wanted a similar recipe but with lemons instead. I actually found one pretty close, but with limes instead. The basic idea is to make a simple lemon curd and fold that with beaten egg whites. Very simple and quick to execute.

I had to adjust the measurements a bit since I was using big lemons instead of limes. The end results was a very lemony mousse. I have to underline it, it is a very strong lemon taste. For lemon afficionados only ! Cut back the number of lemons for a softer flavor.

I find the strong lemon taste appealing, personally. It helps with digestion after a big meal, like a lemon sorbet would, but with less sugar. I added some almond cookies to the mousse. They help counterbalance the sourness, and they are great to use as spoons !

The dog loved both. Two paws up ! And a wagging tail :)

Below is the recipe I used. Again, it is a strong lemon flavor. Adjust accordingly.

The mousse does not keep well for long. After a day in the fridge, it starts losing its consistency. It is best eaten the same day.

Lemon Mousse:

• 3 eggs (yolks and whites separated)
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 4 lemons
• 2 tbs corn starch

Collect zeste and juice from the lemons. Split the juice in half, put one half into a small cooking pan and mix the other half with the egg yolks and the corn starch. Bring the lemon juice in the pan to a boil, then add the eggy cream and cook on medium for 2-3 minutes. It will thicken quickly. Let it cool on the side.
Beat the eggs until firm. Add the sugar the zeste and beat for another 30 seconds.
Add the thick cream to the whites and fold crefully until blended.
Refrigerate for at least 4h.


Almond cookies:

• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 and 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup almond flour
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 4 oz of soft butter

Mix eggs, sugar and extract, then add flour and almond flour. Work it with your fingers until you get a "sandy" consistency. Add the soft butter cut in pieces, and work them in with your fingers. You should be able to shape the dough into a ball without sticking to your hands (add more flour if it does). Place the dough in small cookie shapes on a non-stick pan (I use a high temperature silicon pad). Bake at 350F for 15-30 minutes, depending on how brown you want them.


Trick alert !!!
You know your whites are ready when you can flip the container and they don't slide out.

Something Sweet with your Coffee ?

Almond Madeleines

Whenever I look back on my life, especially on my childhood or my teenage years in France, I have this echo in my mind of a famous text by French writer Marcel Proust, where the simple act of dipping a madeleine into a cup of coffee and biting into it awakens in him an avalanche of souvenirs. Sometimes, when I cook a french dish and I taste it, I remember when or where I had my first taste. Taste buds have memories. Or a direct path to them. That's how I manage to recreate French dishes, besides the visual aspect. The process is quite fascinating, and never fails to amaze me.
Madeleines are simple individual cakes in the shape of a clamshell, with a buttery taste. They are ideal for a tea or coffee break (a Proust moment), or anytime really :) I recently got myself a non stick mold for 12 madeleines. I finally used it the other day. The recipe is really easy and fast. The original recipe I had called for lemon zest. I tweaked it to add an almond flavor (see recipe below). Also, almond can easily be replaced with chocolate, by swapping the flavoring with melted chocolate. For fun, take the basic recipe and add your favorite flavor !

Almond Madeleines (for about 24 madeleines)

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup almond flour
• 1 stick of butter (4 oz)
• 0.25 oz baking powder
• 2 tsp almond extract
  

Using a handmixer, mix the eggs and sugar to a froth, then add the melted butter, and the flour by portions. Mix in the baking powder, the almond flour, and the almond extract until smooth. Preheat the oven to 400F. Grease your madeleine pan with some butter, add a teaspoon of batter in each mold, and bake for 10 minutes, or until golden. Take out of the oven, let the pan cool a few minutes, remove the madeleines, then regrease and repeat the cycle until you run out of batter !

Happy New Year !!!!

Lemon and Nuts Tart

010110....today's date, not a binary code :)
I hope everyone had a safe and fun New Year celebration. Getting rid of 2009 was a celebration in itself, what a dreadful year ! Brrrrr, I am looking forward to 2010 and hopefully a full time job to fuel my hobbies :)

I celebrated the last year of '09 in the kitchen. Very fitting since I started this blog in the Summer. We had a couple of guests over for dinner. Deal was, I cook, they bring the wine. Being the wine connoisseurs that they are, I had to make sure my meal was going to be on par ! Their wine choice was absolutely delicious. A 1999 Margaux (red Bordeaux) so soft and oaky, the bottle did not last long !!! (mental note: invite them more often)

So here is my menu. I kept it simple with only one course with dessert.

• appetizer: foie gras on wheat toasts, and mixed nuts with white wine
• main course: ribeye in a wine mushroom sauce, with lobster tail, grilled polenta slices, and garlic spinach
• dessert: a lemon tart with pine nuts and almond slices

The foie gras came from my last visit to France. It is a staple in France for Christmas and New Year celebrations, and so foie gras was non-negotiable :) For the main dish, I cooked sliced crimini mushrooms in half and half with shallots and marsala wine, for about an hour. I poured the sauce in the same pan that I used to sear the steaks in order to get some of the meat juice into the sauce. The lobster tails were steamed to keep their juices inside. The polenta I bought premade into a log. It's easier to slice. The slices were quickly dipped in olive oil and baked in the oven until crispy. The fresh spinach was cooked with bits of fresh garlic and some curry powder in olive oil.

For dessert, I had a craving for a lemon tart. I had some lemons in the fridge for a couple of weeks already, I had to act. So I revisited my lemon meringue tart recipe to make it a fluffier (no butter cream) and healthier (nuts!). I'll share the recipe with you.

The crust: (see previous post on the subject)
To 1 cup of flour, add 1 stick (100g) of softened butter and 3 tbs of almond flour, and mix well with your hand. Add an egg, a bit of vanilla flavoring, mix again, and add more flour until the dough does not stick to your hand. Place the dough into a baking pan of your choice and prebake it at 350F for 10 minutes. (don't forget to prick the dough with a fork to release air formed during baking, or it will lift !)

The filling:
Beat 3 eggs with 1/2 cup of sugar until frothy mixture is obtained. Slowly add 3/4 cup of half and half, 1 tbs of almond flour, 1/2 tsp vanilla flavoring, 2 tbs of flour, juice of 3 lemons and their zests. Mix until homogeneous and pour onto the crust. Add pine nuts to the filling (I used about 2 handfuls, but you can use more or less to your liking). Bake at 350F for 20 minutes. Cool down.

The decoration:
Lightly brush the top with apricot jam (carefull not to break the filling, it's kinda soft) then sprinkle almond slices on top. No need for meringue.

The filling turned out somewhat soft with a very strong lemon flavor. If it's too strong for you, try with 2 lemons instead of 3. Overall, it does not taste very sweet and it melts easily in your mouth.

So yummy I had two pieces last night !

Tired of the same old pumpkin pie ?

Thanksgiving has come and gone. Neighbors and family gathered for a huge feast of oven-baked turkey, Randy's secret stuffing, honey ham, marshmallowed sweet potatoes, and peruvian potato stew, to stir the melting pot that is America. I brought dessert!
I knew what I was up against. Like every year, the store-bought pumpkin pie invariably makes its appearance on the dining table, plain or with a puff of whipped cream in the center. It is a Thanksgiving staple that will never go away, whether you like it or not. I like my friend Ryan's sweet potato pie better. Maybe because it is homemade, with a recipe passed along the generations. It fits with the tradition of a homemade meal that the entire family helps prepare.
What did I bring, do you ask ? Well, I wanted to go for another seasonal fruit, the apple. And I wanted something that could hold up to a rich and satisfying meal without topping over the glucose level. By the end of a Thanksgiving meal, you can't taste sugar anymore but you can still appreciate texture ! I decided to modify my apple tart recipe by caramelizing the apples first and surround them in frangipane on a thin bed of chocolate. I present you the Apple Frangipane Tart !

Apple Frangipane Tart

It is a deep-dish style tart with sweetened apple slices and a light almond crust that is best consummed warm with a dollup of whipped cream. The almond filling will remind you of macaroons, but softer. To the recipe !

Ingredients (for a 1.5" deep 10" tart):

frangipane filling:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup almond flour
• 1 tbsp white flour
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp almond extract

Preparing the apples:

• 6 apples, peeled, cored and cut in eights
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup rum

For the crust:

• 1.5 cup flour
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 egg
• a pinch of salt
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Prepare the crust as directed in this post.
2. Melt 1/4 cup of 60-70% chocolate on low and pour it on top of the uncooked crust in a thin layer. Let it cool down in the fridge until the chocolate is solid again.
3. Frangipane: beat the butter and the sugar to a white froth, mix in the flour, the almond flour, the egg and the almond extract until smooth and homogeneous. Set aside.
4. To caramelize the apples: in a wide pan, first melt the butter and sugar on a low setting, then add the apple slices and cook them covered on medium heat. Once they have grown soft, remove the cover, add the rum and reduce the liquid (apples give out a lot of water!) until the apples start browning a little. Limit your stirring to a minimum to keep the slices whole.
5. Finish the tart by pouring a layer of frangipane on top of the chocolate layer and adding the apple slices on top of the frangipane. Do not worry too much about arranging the slices neatly, they will slowly sink into the frangipane under heating and some will disappear under.
6. Bake at 370F for 45 minutes.
7. Serve the tart warm with some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
8. To make whipped cream: pour a cold pint of heavy whipped cream into a chilled bowl, add 2-3 tbsp of powdered sugar and beat it on high until firm. Do not overbeat it or it will turn into butter !!! I recommend the "finger test". Dunk the finger and give it a taste!

Enjoy !

Brioches aux Amandes

Almond Brioche

Another week-end, another brioche experiment ! What can I say, I am still in the brioche honeymoon phase :)

This time I prepped a big batch with more whole wheat flour. It ups the fiber content and lowers my guilt :) If you refer back to the original brioche recipe, I used 2.5 cups of whole wheat and 5 cups of white flour, basically a 1:2 ratio.

A big portion of the batch went into more chocolate buns for a belated Halloween party at the neighbors. Fun party, great costumes ! I was a barcode for Low-Fat Milk. Imagine a white T-shirt with a huge barcode on it...yeah, I could have done better...moving on...

I had some leftover dough that was sitting in the fridge. I flattened it with a rolling pin then with my fingers (dough was sticking to the rolling pin). I had made a thick almond cream earlier (see recipe below) which I applied generously on the top of the dough. I then cut the dough into smaller rectangles, and rolled each one using the cream as "glue". When they bake they slowly unfurl as they fluff, leaving a baked almond crust on top. Exciting ! I placed each rolls on a buttered baking sheet and baked them at 350F for 30 minutes.

You get your typical brioche with a light almond taste. You can also add almond slices on top for decoration. Or drizzle some hot chocolate like they do on chocolate croissants. Or leave them plain and eat them fast :)

Enjoy my friends !

Almond cream recipe:

melt half a stick of butter and mix with 2 eggs and 3 table spoons of sugar. Add 3/4 cups of almond flour (Bob's Red Mill), a pinch of salt, almond extract to taste, and mix until homogeneous. You can change the consistency from fluid to thick by varying the almond flour content.

Bob's Red Mill's Almond Cake - Gluten-free !

Bob's Red Mill's Almond Cake

Heard of Bob's Red Mill ? The Oregon company has been around for 25 years, delivering a wide range of grain products and baking products. A good part of them are certified organic and even gluten-free. Your local organic store is certain to sell some of its products, easily recognisable in a clear package with a yellow, white, green or red label showing the jolly face of a white-bearded man with a white beret.

To me, BRM is a savior ! One of the baking staples in France is finely ground almond, even more so in Provence where almonds are queen of the fields (hmm, at least sharing the title with olives). Ground almond is added in a range of cakes and confections, notably marzepan and almond paste. It adds texture and a slight almond taste that can be enhanced with salt or almond extract. I like it in cookies very much :) In cakes, I substitute part of the flour (up to 20%) with almond flour. So, yes, almond flour is a required necessity in my kitchen, and for the longest time I had to do without, short of grinding almond slivers (which I did by the way!). But Bob and his white beard winked at me one time at Henry's grocery store and that was the start of our love affair.

I recently discovered the company's website. Nowadays, everything is on the internet, why not Bob ? I was pleasantly surprised by the site expansiveness. Besides a list of over 400 products, you can find recipes, an online shop, but also a company blog ! I have yet to read through it. For now, I dived into their recipe collection. Their almond cake caught my eye, even more so when I saw no regular flour on the ingredient list. Pure almond flour, and some coconut flour. I had to try it !

Here is the link for ingredients and directions (magically moist almond cake). I let mine bake for 50 min at 350F for a brown top. If you like macaroons, you'll love this cake. That's what it reminded me of. It's a bit on the crumbly side, very "moist" (read buttery), with a light almond taste. Personally it's a bit too rich for me. But it's a gluten-free treat for our gluten-intolerant friends. I agree with the author, it would taste great with whipped cream (homemade please) and any berries. Or use it as a layer for an elaborate two or three-layer cake.

Thinking ahead, adding some melted chocolate to the preparation would make an interesting variation on my almost-flourless chocolate cake. Ditch the flour and replace with the almond/coconut flour combo. Hmmm....time to get some butter out of the fridge...:)

For the fig lovers...

Fig and Almond Cake

I can't believe Summer is almost over ! Same mantra every year. And here I am trying to catch up on Summer activities I should have done weeks ago, like going to the beach, biking along the river, or kayaking in the Bay (still on to-do list). On top of that, I started a new job last week, and, boy, was I tired by the end of the week !!! Needless to say, my kitchen turned into a ghost town, snacking on leftovers, takeouts, and 3-minutes sandwiches. That reminds me I should write a post just on my 3-minutes sandwiches (mental note).
Labor Day week-end came around none too soon for me to catch my breath. And take a look at the backyard. Several years ago we planted a small fig tree in the back. I love figs. Provence is fig country. Century-old, tall and gnarly fig trees with long branches full of sweet dark purple bombs waiting to explode in your mouth. "Drops of Gold" are the sweetest kind, with a sweet juicy yellow inside. Anyway, the tree has grown exponentially and been offering loads of fruits two Summers in a row, this one included. Birds, dog and myself have been delightfully enjoying its offerings.
With Summer's end comes the fig grand finale. They are all ripening at once, my fridge is full ! But when life hands you figs, you make.....a fig cake !!! Isn't everything better with sugar and butter ? (grin)
So here is the recipe I used to make a light cake with fig bits and almonds, and with a taste of honey.

Ingredients:

• 6 oz sweet cream butter
• 3 oz sugar
• 5 tbs liquid honey
• 2 egg + 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup half and half
• 9 oz flour
• 1/2 cup almond flour
• 6 ripe figs, cut in small pieces
• baking powder
• 1 teaspoon almond flavor
• almond slices for decoration

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 370F.
2. Soften the butter (I use the microwave for 15 sec) and mix in with sugar, egg yolks and honey.
3. Add the half and half and the 2 eggs, mix well.
4. Mix in the flour, almond flour, and baking powder.
5. Add almond flavor and the ripe figs, mix well.
6. Pour into a greased pan. In retrospect I recommend lining with baking paper, it will be much easier to remove from the pan.
7. Sprinkle almond slices on top for decoration.
8. Bake at 370F for 1h.
   

If you don't want to use honey, simply use more sugar instead, like 1/2 cup.
Surprisingly, the cake did not raise as much as I thought it would, though it was light and moist. Maybe because I split the cake batter into two small pans, instead of using a medium pan.
It was still very good, especially still warm, with a scoop of pistachio ice cream...Yummmmm !!!!

Another Summer treat ! Apricot and Almond Tart...

I was in Heaven the other day! My local grocery store (Henry's in North Park for San Diegans) had apricots for sale. Not the hard as a rock kind. No, no, they were soft and ripe, as they should be. And placed in such a tiny display, one would hardly notice. But my eyes are trained ! You see, I grew up in Apricot country, with an apricot jam factory next door. My summer diet consisted of cherries in June & July, apricots in July & August, right off the trees. August & September we could smell the apricot jam in the making. Sweet sweet smell to fall asleep to...Aaaah the memories...

I've been enjoying Henry's apricots for several weeks now. Sweet, soft, sometimes juicy, they are a great snack. Of course, my brain turned into "tarte mode" :) One thing one has to worry about with baking with apricots is the bitterness of the fruit, especially if they are not ripe. One way to remedy that problem is to use leftover apricots that have been sitting so long nobody wants them. You are going to cook them, so who cares ?!! Another way is to pair them with a sweet concoction. Personally I like to marry apricots with almonds, especially almond paste which is very sweet with an underlying bitterness.

Below is my recipe for an apricot/almond tart that I made this week. Interestingly, it tasted more like apricot after a day in the fridge, as if the apricot juices diffused. You won't taste much of the almond unless you add almond flavoring to the selfmade almond paste.

Ingredients:

• Dough: 8 oz flour, 1/2 cup almond flour, 4 oz butter, 1 egg, pinch of salt


• Almond paste: 1/2 cup almond flour, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 oz butter, 1 yolk, vanilla flavor


• Cream: 1/4 cup sugar, 2 eggs, 2 tablespon marsala, 3/4 cup half and half


• 6-7 apricots

Directions:

1. Prepare the dough as instructed in my second post (with extra almond flour) and place it in the tart pan


2. To make the almond paste, mix the sugar, the almond flour, melted butter, yolk and a little bit of vanilla flavor until it is homogeneous. It should be a bit hard to mix so use a wooden spoon to apply a mashing motion. Place the paste in a thin layer at the bottom of the uncooked crust. Don't be afraid to use your fingers!


3. Place the apricot halves on top, the outside facing up.


4. To prepare the cream, mix the eggs, the sugar, and the marsala, then add the half and half. Mix well and pour on top of the apricots.


5. Bake everything at 370F for 1.5 hour.

Enjoy !

Happy Bastille Day !

How could I resist ? :) It's only missing those sparkling sticks to be truly celebratory.

Blue, White, and Red are the three colors of the french flag, or "Bleu, Blanc, Rouge" as we say there. The colors are supposed to represent the three concepts of the French Revolution, Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood ("Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite"). As I am writing this, the Eiffel Tower has already been showered in fireworks and people are celebrating in streets and cafes.

This is a variation on the strawberry tart reported earlier. I covered only a third of the tart with strawberry halves dipped in honey. I used honey-dipped blueberries for Blue and a mixture of honey, almond powder, almond slices, and pine nuts for White. It's quite a sight !

***drool marks***