Archive for the ‘Dessert’ Category

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Banana cake

10 February 2011

I have had this recipe since I was 7 or 8 years old. I must have been in second or third grade; a friend in my class brought a banana cake to school to celebrate his birthday and offered photocopies of the recipe. I kept the photocopy, and it appears that I have collected recipes ever since. Not obsessively or excessively, but, every once in a while, I wrote down a recipe I liked.

Some years ago I copied these recipes into an orange, cloth-bound dummy book (a sample with blank pages) on the architect R.M. Schindler that I was editing at the time. The recipes compiled in the “Schindler book” (as I now very personally refer to it) are not anonymous, they are not newspaper clippings I fell across and found enticing – they are all linked to memories, and people.

This banana cake reminds me of my first school in France, of Jacob (my school friend) and his family with whom we have not completely lost touch; it evokes their music and a lemon tree in their San Francisco garden that I have seen only in photographs.

Also, it is a very good banana cake. I resisted tweaking the recipe except for the walnuts, as I seem unable to refrain from putting nuts in a cake.

***

10 Tbsps (125 g) butter

3/4 cup (150 g) brown sugar

3 eggs

3 very ripe bananas

1 lemon or orange

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups (200 g) flour (half whole wheat)

2 tsps baking powder

1 tsp sea salt

1 cup (100 g) shelled walnuts (optional)

***

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

In a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating with a wire whisk to incorporate until smooth.

Mash the bananas well with a fork and add to the butter/sugar/egg mixture.

Grate the zest and juice the lemon (or orange) and add to the batter with the vanilla extract. Mix well.

In a smaller bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt and add to batter. Stir just enough to blend everything together. Gently stir in the walnuts, if using.

Line a baking pan with parchment paper, butter the paper, and pour in the batter.

Slide into the oven for 45 to 55 minutes, until a knife inserted in the middle of the cake comes out dry. (If, like me, you like the cake to be very moist, take it out of the oven a little sooner, when the tip of the knife is still wet.)

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Posted in Baking, Breakfast, Children, Dessert, Easy, Year-round | 12 Comments »

Crêpes!

3 February 2011

Photo updated 2 February 2023

It feels wrong to write “crêpes” without an exclamation mark.

Because when you have grown up in France, crêpes invariably elicit a tingling sensation of irrepressible excitement. Crêpes were the rare summer treat sold in the van by the beach after a long hot hazy day. They were, on occasion, devoured at a boisterous restaurant with sticky tables and wooden benches. And, sometimes, crêpes were made at home. And, most probably, one of those times was February 2nd.

Today is La Chandeleur (Candlemas), which is technically a Christian festival that celebrates the presentation of Jesus at the Temple –piggybacked, like often, on an older mid-winter festival of light — but to most French men, women, and children, it is just “Crêpes Day” (Crêpes”!” Day). Every year we celebrate La Chandeleur, and if for me the thrill of crêpes may have abated somewhat, my children need those memories, too.

Usually February comes so fast that I end up haphazardly making a batch from a random recipe found online, or a very distant recollection of 12 eggs, 1 kilo flour, 1 liter milk, and some beer.

Until yesterday. I was asked to make a heap of crêpes for school, so I thought I would put the task to good use and test a few recipes. The best flour/egg/milk ratio I found was the Crêpes de Jeanne-Marie from La Bonne cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange. They are tasty enough to be eaten plain, though everyone knows that the real purpose of crêpes is the garnish: lemon and sugar, blueberry jam, walnuts and honey, banana chocolate, orange marmalade, apples and caramel, flambée with Grand Marnier…

Photo updated 2 February 2023

Recipe inspired by Les crêpes de Jeanne-Marie from La Bonne cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange

4 Tbsps (55 g) butter

2 cups (250 g) flour

2 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

6 eggs

1 3/4  cups (400 ml) milk

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 Tbsps rum

Zest from 1 lemon

Butter or clarified butter = ghee* or coconut oil for cooking

***

Melt the butter and remove from the heat.

In a large bowl, mix the flour with the sugar and salt and make a well in the mixture. Add the eggs, one at a time, stirring them into the flour with circular movements. Pour in the milk little by little, whisking continuously to obtain a smooth batter. Add melted butter, vanilla, rum, lemon zest, and stir well.

Cover and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

When ready to make the crêpes, remove the batter from the refrigerator. The batter should be nice and runny, and at this stage will probably require a little more liquid. Add water, a couple of tablespoons at a time, until the perfect consistency is achieved. **The best way to check the consistency is to make one crêpe and decide whether it is thin enough. Most people agree that the first crêpe never turns out perfectly anyway – the pan isn’t hot enough – so it can easily be sacrificed as a test.**

To cook the crêpes: Heat a non-stick skillet until it is piping hot (a drop of batter poured onto the pan should sizzle) then lower the heat to medium. Grease the skillet with a paper towel dabbed with butter (or clarified butter or coconut oil – there should only be a faint layer of fat in the pan). Holding the skillet in one hand, pour a ladle of batter with the other, turning the skillet quickly in a round motion to cover the base with a thin and even layer of batter (if there is too much batter, pour it back into the bowl, if there isn’t enough, quickly add a little). As soon as the surface of the crêpe is dry (barely a minute or two depending on the heat), lift it with a spatula and turn it around (or flip the crêpe by tossing it, if you feel so inclined). Barely another minute and the crêpe is ready. Repeat, stirring the batter lightly with the ladle from the bottom up between each crêpe.

The best way to keep crêpes warm is to place them on a plate over a pan of simmering water, covered with another large plate or lid. They will not dry out that way.

Garnish with the filling of choice — classic sugar and lemon, or jam, chocolate, apple sauce, etc. — then roll or fold the crêpes to eat!

*Madame E. Saint-Ange suggests using clarified butter, which is a great idea since without the milk solids, the butter doesn’t burn as quickly. To clarify butter, melt  in a small saucepan and continue to cook until the milk solids have risen to the surface and attached at the bottom. Skim off top layer and pour the clear butter without the solids into a clean bowl. Keeps well covered in the refrigerator.

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Posted in Dessert, Fall, Spring, Summer, Winter, Year-round | 10 Comments »

Cake with pear and toasted hazelnuts

21 January 2011

Or how a simple cake became slightly more complicated but also much tastier.

It all started last Friday when I decided to bake a simple cake, a classic french Quatre Quart (Four Quarters) which goes something like this: 1) weigh eggs: 2, 3, 4, or more, depending on the desired size of the cake; 2) prepare the same weight in butter, sugar, and flour; 3) mix; 4) bake. It is a practical cake, easy to make anywhere (with a scale). Some recipes call for baking powder, but to me Quatre Quart is a dense cake; when I want something lighter, more akin to Pound Cake, I make Gâteau au Yaourt (Yogurt Cake), another simple formula cake that will find its way into these pages soon enough.

Truthfully, I never just make Quatre Quart – it’s not that exciting as is. But it is a good base for baking improvisation. So I lower the amount of sugar, as a matter of habit; I always add fruit; and I often substitute ground nuts for part of the flour. Last Friday I used pears and hazelnuts and went a bit hard on the sugar. That Very Simple Pear and Hazelnut Cake was easily improved with a hint more sugar and some lemon zest, a second version that I made on Tuesday. It was much better though slightly undercooked (a mere technicality) and I was starting to write down the recipe when I thought “toasted hazelnuts.” The added step makes the cake a bit less simple, but well worth it, and no one here complained about having to eat the same cake three times in one week.

So here it is, Simple Cake with Pear and Hazelnuts – Take 3.

***

1 cup (125 g) hazelnuts

1 1/4 cups (250 g) butter

1 cup (200 g) sugar

4 eggs

1 lemon

1 1/4 cup (125 g) flour

1 tsp salt

5 pears*

*

Preheat oven to 425°F (220°C).

In a roasting tray, toast hazelnuts for about 12 minutes until they begin to darken. As soon as they are cool enough to handle, roughly remove the skins by rubbing the hazelnuts between your hands. Place in a food processor and pulse-chop into a fine flour.

Lower oven temperature to 350°F (180°C).

Cut butter into small pieces and place in a large bowl to soften at room temperature.

Using a wooden spoon, cream the butter with the sugar until smooth. Thoroughly beat in the eggs, one at a time (the dough will be lumpy at this stage), add lemon zest, flour, salt, hazelnuts, and mix well.

Peel, core, and cut pears, first into quarters and then into thin slices about 1/8 inch (3 mm). Squeeze lemon juice over the pieces of pear, toss, and gently combine into the batter.

Generously butter a 10 inch (25 cm) springform pan. Pour batter inside and smooth surface with a large spoon or spatula.

Place pan over a large piece of aluminum foil in the oven for 1 good hour (10 to 15 minutes longer if the pears are very juicy). **Most springform pans leak, the aluminum prevents drops to fall in the oven and burn.** Test with a knife that should come out clean.

As soon as the cake is out of the oven, use a knife to release the cake from the sides of the pan.

*I wanted the cake to have lots of pear, but someone pointed out that 5 pears could create too much juice and make the cake soggy. So if the pears are large, or if they are very ripe and juicy, you may want to use fewer. Another option is to toss the pear pieces very lightly with flour before folding into the cake, this will help absorb some of the juice.

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Posted in Dessert, Fall, Thanksgiving, Winter | 5 Comments »

Quince and apple tarte

18 October 2010

Having found quinces at the market last week I decided to organize dinner around the fruit. As planned, I prepared lamb and quince tagine and an apple and quince dessert, though rather than the crumble I initially had in mind I made pie, or rather a French version of pie: tarte. I improvised both dishes from a variety of recipes. The tagine looked beautiful and tasted very good, but it could still be improved and I would like to refine the recipe before posting it here. The tarte, on the other hand, was entirely delicious.

***

Puff pastry*

Juice from 1 lemon

3 medium quinces

4 Tbsp mild-tasting liquid honey

3/4 cup (150 g) brown sugar

1/2 vanilla bean

3 medium apples

1 cup (100 g) ground almonds (or almond flour)

***

If using frozen puff pastry, remove from freezer and set out to thaw.

Prepare a medium saucepan with 4 cups (1 liter) cold water and juice from 1/2 lemon. Peel, core, and cut quinces in slim slices. As you cut the quince, put the slices in the lemon water (quince oxidizes very quickly – placing it in water prevents it from turning black).

Bring the lemon water with quince slices to a light boil and simmer gently for about 10 minutes, until the fruit just starts getting soft (they should still be easy to handle; they will continue cooking later.) With a skimmer, remove quince slices and set aside.

Add the honey, 1/2 cup (100 g) of the sugar, and the vanilla bean to the quince poaching water, increase heat and let the syrup boil and reduce for 45 to 50 minutes.

In the meantime, preheat oven to 375°F (190°C).

Thinly slice apples to the same size as the quince slices. (As you set the apple slices aside, sprinkle them with a little lemon juice to prevent them from turning brown.)

In a small bowl, mix the ground almonds with the last 1/4 cup (50 g) sugar.

Prepare baking sheet (or pie pan) lined with parchment paper. Butter the parchment paper and roll out pie crust. Sprinkle almond/sugar mixture evenly on crust, then place apple and quince slices, alternatingly. Using a spoon or pastry brush, coat the fruit with some of the thickened syrup.

Bake in oven for 45 to 50 minutes, until fruit is starting to color, taking care that the crust does not become too dark.

Before the tarte cools, glaze the fruit with more syrup. (There should be some left over, it will continue to thicken and can be used on toast like quince jelly).

* I have never made puff pastry. It is terribly time-intensive and I have often heard that it is one of the rare things that are not necessarily better home made, unless by an experienced pastry chef. Dufour frozen puff pastry is a very good brand available here in New York.

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Posted in Dessert, Fall, Thanksgiving | Leave a Comment »

Figs with mascarpone

4 September 2010

Fresh figs are quintessentially seasonal. They are an inevitable component of any self-respecting late-summer meal. So, with 2 guests invited for dinner but no clear plan in mind, I bought figs the other day. I also purchased mozarella di bufala in the event that the figs would become an appetizer (fig, mozarella, and basil salad – a perfect River Cafe Cookbook Green recipe), as well as mascarpone, for a classic dessert of roasted figs with mascarpone. In the end I made a different appetizer, opting for cooked figs for dessert. But these figs were so perfectly ripe and delicate, and my oven so serendipitously broken, that I had to recalibrate. The result was really quite good.

***

Dessert for 4

12 figs

12 tsp mascarpone

Mild-tasting honey

Sherry

***

Remove stub from figs and score a cross into the top of the figs so they open like a flower. Place 3 figs each onto individual plates or shallow bowls.

Heat equal amounts honey and sherry (2 or 3 Tbsp each) in a very small saucepan. Let reduce for about 3-4 minutes.

Pour a little hot syrup in and over the figs in each bowl. Place a neat teaspoon of mascarpone inside each fig. Drizzle a few drops of sherry over the dessert. Serve.

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Posted in At the market, Dessert, Easy, Summer | 2 Comments »

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