I’ve never really been into “cutesy” things.  I’m not one to redecorate my house in themes for every holiday.  And, I never wear sweaters with Rudolph, Cupid or the Easter Bunny plastered across my chest.  Whether it be home décor, fashion or food, I tend to prefer uncluttered, elegant and clean lines.  That’s just me.   Take Valentine’s Day, for instance.  Where is it written that every food served has to be bedazzled in pink or red?   I mean, it’s fine if a food actually is supposed to be pink or red.  Otherwise, I prefer my Valentine treats straight up – hold the gimmicks?   Besides, a great  recipe made with good quality ingredients speaks for itself – like these divine white and dark chocolate Pots de Crème.

Simply put, a pot de crème is the French equivalent of a custard or pudding.  The term literally means “pot of cream”.  Leave it to the French to make something so simple, sound so special!   Anyway, think of a pot de crème as a crème brûlée, without the brûlée.  

Pots de crème are a silky, luxurious and almost sinful indulgence.    While dark chocolate is more traditional, I decided to make some of my pots de crème with white chocolate as well. It takes an extra step to make them two ways, but it is so totally worth it.  Not that these are in any way difficult to make, because they’re not.  Actually, they come together pretty easily.

I found my inspiration for this sweet little Valentine’s Day dessert from Bea over at La Tartine Gourmande.  Bea’s blog is one of the first food blogs I ever read, and it is still one of my favorites.  She shares the most gorgeous food and makes it seem so effortless.

Bea’s pots de crème recipe calls for whole milk.  I swapped out the milk for half and half because, after all, these were meant for Valentine’s Day, so I felt a little extra decadence was in order.   Besides, if I had used milk, there wouldn’t have been enough for cereal the next morning -  and I didn’t feel like running out to the store again.   I also added an extra egg yolk, because I needed the white for another recipe.  I hate to waste a good yolk!

I wish I could tell you which version of these pots de crème I liked loved better, but I can’t.  They were both so outrageously good.  I also wish I could tell you which one Mr. SGCC preferred.  But, I can’t do that either, because my sweets-averse spouse wouldn’t touch them.    For twenty-five years I’ve been making him decadent treats for Valentine’s Day, and for twenty-five years he hasn’t eaten them.   Hey, I’m not complaining.  His loss is my gain. 

My father had the most magnificent fig tree in his yard.  It was about twenty-five feet tall and the breadth of its branches was almost as wide.  Though he would never actually confirm it, the rumor is that he bred the tree using cuttings smuggled here from a bigger and even more magnificent fig tree that sits on the grounds of his ancestral home in Italy.  I have seen that original tree with my own eyes, and eaten its fruit.  It is amazing!

Dad’s fig tree was the jewel in his garden.  He babied and fussed over it.  He nurtured it through winters that were too cold and summers that were too hot.  That tree was the Goldilocks of fig trees.  Everything about it was just right, including the lush, moist fruit that grew from it.  Dad’s figs were almost the size of small fists!  Ripened by the sun, their flesh was so sweet that droplets of dew-like nectar oozed freely from them.   There was nothing – and, I mean nothing, people – that could rival the taste of my father’s figs.

Almost five years ago, on a grey November day, cancer stole my father away.  Within two weeks, the fig tree dropped all of its leaves, shriveled up and died.  I kid you not.  It was like the tree was in mourning and died of a broken heart. The only sign of life that has come from that tree since is the occasional appearance of a gorgeous, crimson cardinal, who swoops in from time to time and perches itself on a bare, brittle branch.   The bird just sits there, calmly looks around for a minute or two, and then flies off again.

None of us has the heart to chop down the fig tree.  Dad loved that tree, and to do so would almost be like losing him all over again.  So it still stands in its place beside the house as a bittersweet reminder of what once was.

Perhaps it is because of all of those wonderful, homegrown fresh figs I’ve devoured in my life, that I’m in so love with them.    Even now, I have a hard time passing them up when I find them at the market.  Sadly, they’re not quite the same when they come out of a plastic container.   I still buy them however, even though I’m often disappointed.

Another thing I can’t pass up is a good deal.  A few days ago, my market was having a BOGO sale on fresh figs.  They looked really lovely, so I slipped two quarts in my shopping cart, hoping that they would be good.  As I suspected, they were all style and no substance.  Out of the two dozen or so that I had, only about six were worth eating.  The rest were a little hard and dry, and the only thing I could think of that might save them was heat.  I find it intriguing how stewing, baking or roasting lackluster fruits can bring them back to life.  I’ve tried it with  berries, peaches, tomatoes and now, figs.  It works every time.

I thought about making some kind of tart with my figs, but honestly, I wasn’t in the mood to make a crust.  So, I decided that they would be just as delicious in a clafoutis.  For those who don’t know, a clafoutis is a French dessert where fruit is baked in a custard base.  Think of it as a crustless pie.   Traditionally, a clafoutis is made with cherries, but almost any kind of firm fruit will work well.   I love the combination of figs and honey, so I also decided to use that instead of sugar.

Despite its fancy, French name, making a clafoutis is very easy.  The first thing you need to do is cut up your fruit and artfully arrange them in a pie plate or glass baking dish.

Then, whizz up the rest of the ingredients in a blender and pour it over the fruit.

Bake the clafoutis until the custard sets and the top is nicely browned.

Look at how pretty it is!  And it tastes as good as it looks, too.  The custard was rich and creamy, with soft floral notes from the honey and the splash of orange flour water I also added.    Once baked, the figs took on a soft, jammy quality, and their sweetness intensified.   It was a lovely and elegant dessert that took hardly any effort at all.

I wish I had known about things like clafoutis when my father was around.  As delightful as this one was, I can’t help but wonder how spectacular it could have been with his figs.

*Photo of cardinal from iStockphoto.com

Whenever I imagine an intimate, candlelit dinner for two, there are certain foods that are always on the menu, like lobster, oysters, decadent dark chocolate and a fluffy, ethereal soufflé – especially the soufflé.   To me, a soufflé is the ultimate indulgence, reserved for only the most special occasions.  Maybe because it’s French, and I find all things French impossibly romantic and luxurious.  There’s a certain mystique about the soufflé.  It has the reputation  of being temperamental, unpredictable and a tad capricious.  There’s no doubt about it.  The soufflé is a diva. And, divas often get away with their bad behavior because they are brilliant and adored.

Until today, I’d always worshipped the soufflé from afar.  Too fickle for me!  I like a sure thing, and a chocolate cake has never let me down.  But  there comes a time when you have to face your fears and this was my time.  After all, didn’t I overcome my  aversion to dough?  And, what about when I stared my terror of deep frying right in the eye and kicked its butt?  I even survived two Yule Logs and lived to tell about it.  If I could do  all  that, I figured one poufy, phoofy, Valentine’s Day soufflé couldn’t take me down. 

Once I made the decision to go for it, I then had to decide what kind of soufflé to make.  Chocolate was the obvious choice, but If I wanted Mr. SGCC to even taste it,  that wasn’t going to work.   I looked at a lot of different recipes and I finally settled on Daniel Boulud’s version of Passion Fruit Soufflé.  What could be more perfect for Valentine’s Day than a passion fruit dessert?

Boulud pairs his soufflé with a caramelized pear sauce, which honestly, sounds fantastic.  But, I really wanted to find a way to work some chocolate into the dish.  Even though Mr. SGCC doesn’t like chocolate, I still do, and it wouldn’t be a Valentine’s Day dessert to me without it.   So, we struck a happy compromise and I made David Lebovitz’s luscious bittersweet  chocolate sauce to drizzle on top.

Surprisingly, the process of making the soufflé was not nearly as difficult as I expected it to be.  I whipped some egg whites and sugar into oblivion, and then gently folded them into a mix of egg yolks and passion fruit puree.  Then, I plopped the resulting mixture into small soufflé dishes and popped them into the oven.  To help things along, I made the sign of the cross and prayed like hell that they would rise!

Boulud suggests piping the soufflé mixture into the dishes using a pastry bag.  Don’t do it! That stuff is way too thin and fragile.  I lost almost a whole cup of it as it oozed out of my pastry bag and all over my kitchen counter!  I make these mistakes so you don’t have to.  Do yourself a favor and use a spoon.

I’m pleased as punch to report that my little soufflés turned out perfectly.  They were brown and crusty on top and soft and pillowy inside.  And, they rose up like they had wings!   I was so excited that I did a little happy dance all the way to my photo set-up.

I’d read that you have to move quickly when trying to photograph soufflés.  There is a very short window of time before they start to fall.  That’s an understatement!  My soufflés began to sink before I could even get them in front of the camera.  You can see the various height differences in the photos.  Forget food styling!   I was frantically snapping shots like a madwoman!  And, still they fell!

Sinking soufflés aside, I am so glad that I took the plunge and made these.   First, because I proved to myself that I could do it.  I will never fear the diva of desserts again!  And second, because they tasted as divine as they looked!     And, I have to give an extra shout out to David for his fabulous chocolate sauce.  He calls it his little black dress of sauces because it goes with everything and never fails to impress.  He is so right!  That sauce took about five minutes to prepare and was just amazing.  Plus, it didn’t have a drop of butter or cream in it.

Please, please, please don’t be afraid to try these soufflés for yourself.  If I can do it, so can you.  And just think how special your sweethearts will feel when they see what a masterpiece you created just for them!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

One of this month’s rotation of French Fridays with Dorie recipes is Leek and Potato Soup.  As luck would have it, I just happened to have a surplus of potatoes and leeks that didn’t get used for Thanksgiving.  Poor little things!  They’ve been feeling lonely and unloved just sitting there in the fridge.  We can’t have that, now can we?  So, the recipe for this soup couldn’t have come at a better time.

Leek and potato soup is like the American first cousin to the popular French classic, vichyssoise,  a thick soup made of puréed leeks, onions, potatoes, cream, and chicken stock that is traditionally served cold.  Dorie specifies that her soup can be served either warm or chilled, and also chunky or pureed.  I chose to serve mine warm and pureed.

Since I had 6 leeks on hand, I used all leeks instead of the suggested combination of leeks and onions to make my soup.  I also simmered my ingredients in chicken broth instead of water.  I think that the broth gives the soup a nicer flavor.  I also added some half and half to the mix for a little extra richness.  But the pièce de résistance was a sprinkling of some truffle salt at the end.  I love to use truffle salt in mashed potatoes and gratins, so I thought it would also work well in this dish.  I was so right!  The truffle salt gave my little potage a delicate, musky earthiness that was just enough to put it over the top.  Magnifique!

I find it funny how an unassuming little soup like this one can be so elegant in its simplicity, but it is.  Maybe it’s because it’s French.  What I don’t find funny is that I don’t make soups like this nearly often enough.  That’s just sad.  This leek and potato soup is really delightful and with only a handful of ingredients, is a breeze to prepare.

If you’d like to enjoy Dorie’s Leek and Potato Soup for yourself, you’ll have to buy Around My French Table, because I’m not sharing.    Of course, you can always stop by the French Fridays with Dorie site and see what’s cooking over there.  Maybe someone will take pity on you and give you some soup.

Bon Appetit!

Oh, Happy Day!  Dorie’s new cookbook has finally arrived!  I picked up my copy of Around My French Table last week and was in love before I got past the dust cover. The book is filled with over three hundred of Dorie’s favorite recipes, culled from her time spent in Paris. It’s the kind of unfussy, homey food that you’d find in any French home cook’s kitchen.   In true Dorie style, the recipes are very readable, with clear and detailed instructions accompanied by entertaining stories and suggestions for creative tweaks.  And, the photographs are perfectly droolworthy – food porn at its best!

Of course, no new Dorie Greenspan cookbook would be complete without a large group of adoring fans waiting in the wings to cook their way through it.  There probably aren’t many who haven’t heard of the wildly popular baking group Tuesdays with Dorie.  For almost three years, this dedicated group of bloggers has been baking one recipe per week, in tandem, from Dorie’s classic tome, Baking: From My Home to Yours.  And now, TWD’s fearless leader, Laurie Woodward has done it again by creating French Fridays with Dorie.  That’s right.  Each Friday, a new group of Dorie devotees will be cooking a new recipe à la française from Around My French Table.

The great part about FFwD is that the rules have been relaxed.  All you need to do in order to join is buy a copy of the book and cook along whenever you can.  Not having a participation requirement is kind of liberating, and will make it easier for more people to join in.  I’m all for that!  The group currently has over seven hundred members signed up.  Seven Hundred!!! This is gonna be very interesting!

Dorie has always been a huge supporter of TWD, and she is doing no less for FFwD.  In fact, she was kind enough to select all of the recipes for this inaugural month herself, including today’s pick, Gougères.

Think of gougères as a kind of savory cream puff without the filling.  They’re made with the same kind of pastry dough, called pâte à choux .  The difference between them is that gougères are not sweet.  They typically contain cheese and sometimes, herbs.  Gougères are meant to start a meal, while cream puffs usually finish it.

Dorie’s gougères recipe very easy and virtually foolproof.  I whipped up these cheesy little puffs of deliciousness with three other dishes cooking, a house full of teenagers and a very curious puppy underfoot.  And, they turned out perfectly!  If I can do it – you can too.

I’m really excited about being a part of FFwD, and I plan to participate as often as I can.  While, we’ve been asked not to publish the recipes, you can find them all in Around My French Table.  And, don’t forget to stop by the FFwD site to see what the rest of the group has done with Dorie’s gougères.

À bientôt!

There’s one thing about Mr. SGCC that drives me absolutely nuts.  (Well, there’s actually more than one thing, but that’s a story for another day.) He suffers in silence.  That is to say that, when he doesn’t like something, he usually just sucks it up and doesn’t say anything.  This especially applies to food.  I know this because over the past twenty something years, I have made and remade several dishes that he didn’t really like, yet he never said so – until maybe the tenth time I served it.  Case in point:  When we were first married, I used to cook a lot of spaghetti squash.  I served it like pasta with tomato sauce, sautéed in butter, swimming in broth… You get the picture.  I loved it.  He didn’t.  But, he never actually told me that he didn’t like spaghetti squash until years later, when it just kind of came up in conversation.

Imagine how awful I felt learning this little nugget of information after years of shoving pounds of spaghetti squash in his face!   I had no idea!

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” I asked incredulously.

“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” was his response.

Admirable intentions.  Poor execution.

HMMPH!

So, when I found one of these big boys in my veggie basket from Suncoast Organics this week, I found myself in a quandary.  Don’t you just love saying the word “quandary”?  I do.  Quandary. Quandary. Quandary.  There, I think I’ve gotten it out of my system now.

Anyway, I didn’t want to serve it to “you-know-who” when I knew that he didn’t like it. Especially when he knew that I knew he didn’t like it.   But, I certainly didn’t want to waste it either.  After some deliberation, I decided to do the only thing I could do given the circumstances.  I would try to disguise the squash by baking it in a casserole under tons of creamy Mornay sauce made with lots of butter and cheese.   I mean, everybody loves rich, cheesy, buttery sauces, right?  He’d probably never even know. Right?

And that, dear readers, is how this Spaghetti Squash Gratin came to be.

To make this gratin, you first have to cook the spaghetti squash.  There are a couple of ways you can do it.  You can steam or boil it, microwave it, although I’ve never tried that, or bake it in the oven.  My method of choice is baking.   While your squash is cooking, you’ll need to prepare the sauce. A Mornay sauce is simply a béchamel sauce amped up with shredded cheese, and is very easy to make.

Don’t forget the cheese!

Once your squash is cooked and your sauce is made, it’s time to put them all together.

Et voila!

One thing I should mention here, is that I also mixed some sautéed onions in with the squash before baking it.  You don’t have to do this.  But I love onions and thought that they would add a nice flavor to the dish – which they did.

The gratin was (Kat Flinn, please forgive me) absolutely delicious!  The squash was soft, delicate and just the tiniest bit sweet.  The sauce was voluptuous and velvety.  And the crunchy topping added just the right amount of texture.  It was a very successful dish that I plan to make again.

Oh, and Mr. SGCC did recognize the spaghetti squash, but he ate it anyway and said that he liked it.  I guess I’ll just have to trust him on that one.

Enjoy!

Why, oh why do these Daring Bakers challenges always sneak up on me? It happens every time!  I woke up at 4:00 this morning in the kind of cold sweat that could only mean that today was the “reveal date”.  And, I had nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Again.  So, I dragged myself out of bed, put on a pot of coffee and (very quietly) got to work.  Let me tell you, it’s not easy to create a culinary masterpiece in the dead of night with few night lights and a sleeping puppy in the corner of the room! But, I did my best.  Unfortunately, the situation wasn’t conducive to taking photos, so I didn’t get any “process shots”.  But, I did get a few nice ones of the finished product once the sun came up.  C’est la vie!

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri. A classic piece montée is a high cone made of profiteroles (cream-puffs) sometimes dipped in chocolate, bound with caramel, and usually decorated with threads of caramel, sugared almonds, chocolate, flowers, or ribbons.  Piece Montée, literally means “mounted piece” in French.  You may know this dessert by its other name – Croquembouche (“crunch in the mouth”).

I had grand plans for this one too. I originally wanted to make it as my birthday cake last week, but since I couldn’t manage to get my whole family together to celebrate, it seemed pointless.  And then, I got busy with other things and forgot about it.

Since I was so pressed for time, I decided not to try to get too creative with my piece montée, and stuck to the recipe provided by Cat.  It was just as well, because plain creampuffs are one of my all time favorite treats.  Fortunately, I had made both pate a choux and crème patissiere  a few times before and kind of knew how what I was doing.  The caramel part kind of scared me a little, but I have made that before too, so I knew the pitfalls I might face.  I guess the angels were smiling on me (or else they just felt sorry for me), because I didn’t run into any significant problems along the way.  (Hmmm. Maybe I should make all of my fancy desserts when I’m half asleep!)

I didn’t use a form for my tower of creampuffs. That was an extra step I didn’t need to deal with.  I just piled my “pieces” on top of each other and “glued” them together with the (extremely hot and treacherous) caramel.  Then, I decorated it with some pink tea roses and a few swirls of leftover caramel.

We haven’t torn into my piece montée yet, but I did sneak one of those creampuffs while I was assembling it.  Tres délicieux!

If you’d like to try your hand at making a piece montée, I have provided the recipe below.  Don’t forget to also check out the rest of the groups creations at the Daring Bakers Blogroll.

Bon appétit!

Piece Montée

Note: This recipe has 3 main components: the pate a choux, the crème patissiere, and the glaze used to mount/decorate it. While you can purchase or make a cardboard conical structure to build your piece montée or use toothpicks as an aid, it is relatively easy to assemble it using just the baked pate a choux as the main building blocks and the glaze as the glue.

While a piece montée may be a bit time-consuming to assemble, the various components are relatively easy to make and don’t require any special ingredients. The best part about them is that once you have mastered them, you will be able to go on and make many beloved French French pastries such as éclairs, profiteroles, Paris-Brest, etc. all of which are made with this pate a choux recipe, a filling and glaze.

Preparation time: You will want to use your puff pastry batter and chocolate glaze or caramel as soon as it has been prepared and as close to serving time as possible. This is not a dessert that stores well and it may be a bit temperamental in humid areas as the glaze needs to harden to hold the choux together. The crème patissiere can be made a couple of days in advance and stored in the fridge until ready to use.

You will need approximately 10 minutes to prepare the puff pastry, 10 minutes to pipe and about 30 minutes to bake each batch. The crème patissiere should take about 10 minutes to cook and then will need to be cooled for at least 6 hours or overnight. The glazes take about 10 minutes to prepare.

Equipment required:
• several baking sheets
• parchment paper
• a whisk
• a pastry brush (for the egg wash)
• a pastry bag and tip (a plain tip or no tip is best for piping the puff pastry; you can use a plain or star tip to fill the puff pastry with the cream)
• a flat surface such as a baking sheet or cake board/stand on which to assemble your piece montée
• some of the items you may want to use to decorate your piece montée include ribbons, Jordan almonds, fresh flowers, sugar cookie cut-outs, chocolates, etc.

Ingredients:

For the Vanilla Crème Patissiere (Half Batch)
1 cup (225 ml.) whole milk
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
6 Tbsp. (100 g.) sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
2 Tbsp. (30 g.) unsalted butter
1 Tsp. Vanilla

Dissolve cornstarch in ¼ cup of milk. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan; bring to boil; remove from heat.

Beat the whole egg, then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.

Return the remaining milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking.

Continue whisking (this is important – you do not want the eggs to solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil. Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla.

Pour cream into a stainless steel/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface. Chill immediately and until ready to use.

For the Pate a Choux (Yield: About 28)
¾ cup (175 ml.) water
6 Tbsp. (85 g.) unsalted butter
¼ Tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup (125 g.) all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

For the Egg Wash: 1 egg and pinch of salt

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 425◦F/220◦C degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Preparing batter:

Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.

Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly.

Add 1 egg. The batter will appear loose and shiny. As you stir, the batter will become dry-looking like lightly buttered mashed potatoes.  Add in the next egg. Repeat until you have incorporated all the eggs.

Piping:

Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip (I piped directly from the bag opening without a tip). Pipe choux about 1 inch-part in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high about 1 inch wide.

Using a clean finger dipped in hot water, gently press down on any tips that have formed on the top of choux when piping. You want them to retain their ball shape, but be smoothly curved on top.

Brush tops with egg wash (1 egg lightly beaten with pinch of salt).

Baking:

Bake the choux at 425◦F/220◦C degrees until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes.

Lower the temperature to 350◦F/180◦C degrees and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

Can be stored in a airtight box overnight.

Filling:
When you are ready to assemble your piece montée, using a plain pastry tip, pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux with pastry cream using either the same tip or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet. Choux can be refrigerated briefly at this point while you make your glaze.

Use one of these to top your choux and assemble your piece montée.

Chocolate Glaze:
8 ounces/200 g. finely chopped chocolate (use the finest quality you can afford as the taste will be quite pronounced; I recommend semi-sweet)

Melt chocolate in microwave or double boiler. Stir at regular intervals to avoid burning. Use the best quality chocolate you can afford. Use immediately.

Hard Caramel Glaze:

1 cup (225 g.) sugar
½ teaspoon lemon juice

Combine sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan with a metal kitchen spoon stirring until the sugar resembles wet sand. Place on medium heat; heat without stirring until sugar starts to melt around the sides of the pan and the center begins to smoke. Begin to stir sugar. Continue heating, stirring occasionally until the sugar is a clear, amber color. Remove from heat immediately; place bottom of pan in ice water to stop the cooking. Use immediately.

Assembly of your Piece Montée:

You may want to lay out your unfilled, unglazed choux in a practice design to get a feel for how to assemble the final dessert. For example, if making a conical shape, trace a circle (no bigger than 8 inches) on a piece of parchment to use as a pattern. Then take some of the larger choux and assemble them in the circle for the bottom layer. Practice seeing which pieces fit together best.

Once you are ready to assemble your piece montée, dip the top of each choux in your glaze (careful it may be still hot!), and start assembling on your cake board/plate/sheet. Continue dipping and adding choux in levels using the glaze to hold them together as you build up. (You may want to use toothpicks to hold them in place – see video #4 below).

When you have finished the design of your piece montée, you may drizzle with remaining glaze or use ribbons, sugar cookie cut-outs, almonds, flowers, etc. to decorate.

What is it about ringing in a new year that makes everything seem so fresh, possible and…well, new?  I mean, it’s not like the world just magically changed in the span of 24 short hours, at least not my world. All of the problems and issues in my life that existed on December 31 were still lurking there on January 1.  Yet, when I woke up that morning, I felt different – lighter and “newer”. As I showered, it literally felt as though pounds of apathy and malaise were melting off of me   I had shed the skin of worry and doubt, emerging fresh, hopeful and motivated for what 2010 has in store for me.

It’s not that I’d been feeling particularly BAD. I just hadn’t been feeling particularly GOOD.  And, when I don’t feel good, I just can’t be very creative.  I find it hard enough just to muddle through the things I absolutely must do, let alone write scintillating blog posts and take droolworthy photographs.  So, I owe you a few and payback starts now!

When I was in San Francisco last September for BlogHer Food, I spent some time at the Ferry Building Marketplace, where I loaded up on delectable treats from Recchiuti Confections.  One of my very favorites were their amazing pate de fruits, or French fruit jellies.  Remember those Chuckles candies you ate as a kid?  Well, these are not even in the same universe!  Pate de fruits are soft, smooth, jammy and intensely fruity little confections that are so incredibly delicious they almost defy description.  By the time I ate my way through two 1-pound boxes of those little gems, I was hopelessly addicted and knew I had to learn to make them myself to support my habit! 

Back home, I began my “pate de fruits” project.  Thanks to Google, I found many recipes to choose from, including some by other bloggers like Helen, Jenni and Ashley, that I admire and trust.  I decided to go with Jenni’s recipe because she had a whole pastry chef “cheat sheet” with the exact pectin to fruit formulas for pate de fruits in every possible flavor combination, and she was sharing!

Jenni recommends making pate de fruits using pure fruit purees from the French company, Les vergers Boiron. Their purees come frozen in 1000 gram (2.2 pounds)  packages.   I ordered several different flavors from Canelle Specialty Foods, and soon had enough fruit purees to open my own little pate de fruits shop.   Instead, I had the bright idea to share the wealth and make pate de fruits to give as Christmas gifts.  You certainly can make your own fruit purees out of fresh or frozen fruit if you don’t want to go to the trouble or expense of ordering the Boiron.  There are lots of good recipes out there that explain how to do it, like Helen’s for Strawberry-Rhubarb Pate de Fruits, or Ashley’s apple version.

Never having done this before, and in light of my bad luck with cooking sugar, I was a little nervous.  But, I followed Jenni’s instructions scrupulously and was rewarded with wild strawberry and white peach pate de fruits that were even more heavenly than Recchiuti’s!

These pate de fruits contain only fruit, sugar, lemon juice and a little corn syrup.  None of the other recipes I found used corn syrup, but I left it in because with the cost of those Boiron purees,  I didn’t want mess with the recipe and tempt fate!

The process for making these really isn’t hard at all.  It just takes a little time, attention and a good candy thermometer.  If you start with fruit that is already pureed, you’re ahead of the game.  If not, a quick whizz in the blender or food processor should get you up to speed.  Then, you cook the fruit and sugar together and stir…and stir…and stir…

Eventually, your bubbling, angry, molten mass of fruit lava becomes transformed.  From there, all you have to do is enjoy it!

I ordered some green and pink boxes for my edible Christmas gifts from a company called Bake it Pretty.  They have the cutest stuff!  You can order all kinds of bags, boxes and decorating supplies from them at reasonable prices. Plus, you don’t have to buy in bulk.  I also had matching labels made with SGCC’s logo to stick on the boxes. I tied each little parcel up with chocolate brown tulle ribbon as well.  They looked so pretty!  I wish I had taken a photo of them all dolled up and ready to go, but hey, it was Christmas time and I was a little frazzled.  At least I managed to get a shot a box and label. Don’t judge me.

Well, I’m happy to report that my pate de fruits as well as my other edible gifts were a big hit with my family and friends this year.  But, I have to tell you – it was a $#%load of work!   Next year, I think I’ll just pick one or two things to make and not FOUR (three of which involved boiling sugar)!!!  What was I thinking?

I want to thank Jenni for graciously sharing her recipe and formulas with me, and for answering all my silly questions without telling me to take a hike!  Now that I’m a pate de fruit pro, I plan on making them often!  If you’ve never made pate de fruits before, I urge you to try it.  They are utterly divine and so much better than anything you can buy in a store.  Trust me, you will become totally infatuated.  Just don’t say I didn’t warn you!

This week marks the second anniversary of of Tuesdays with Dorie.  Amazing, huh?  Who’d have thought that when our founder and fearless leader, Laurie, began this little project two years ago it would take off like a runaway train?  Over three hundred members strong, TWD has become one of the most popular (and populated) baking groups on the web!  Even Dorie, herself, has gotten into the act, graciously lending her support and generously giving much-welcomed advice and tips. (I almost fainted the few times she actually commented on my posts!)

American by birth and French in spirit, Dorie Greenspan divides her time between her homes in New York and Connecticut and her flat in Paris. She has written nine cookbooks, (two with Pierre Herme), and won five James Beard and IACP awards for them, including Cookbook of the Year.   I have spent many an hour drooling over her pastries, tartes and brulées.   She is fabulousness personified!  Baking my way through her Baking: From My Home To Yours has been a delicious journey. 

For this auspicious occasion, I couldn’t think of a more fitting treat to bake than Dorie’s Tarte Tatin.  It is a quintessential classic French dessert.  Think of it as a cross between an apple pie and a cobbler. A marvelously French apple pie and cobbler, that is.  To make it, sweet, juicy apples are cooked on the stove in lots of butter and sugar until they are hopelessly caramelized.  After that, they are blanketed in pâte feuilletée, (puff pastry), and baked to ooey, gooey perfection.  Then, the whole thing is flipped with a flourish (ooh la la!) and plated upside down. The result is a light, flaky crust crowned with a mound of très délicieux apple-caramel heaven!  C’est magnifique!

The thought of making tarte tatin tends to inspire fear in many, myself included.  For me, it was that whole caramelizing the apples part.  I have almost burned my house down more than once while cooking sugar! (Just ask my local fire department. They know.)   However, after completing this recipe, I was surprised by how easy it was.  Yes, there was some nail biting as I waited for my butter/sugar bath to turn the desired color, which by the way, took twice as long as Dorie estimated it would.  And, I can’t deny that my heart skipped a little beat as I flipped my screaming hot tarte onto its final resting place.  But really, it was no big deal.  I would make this tarte tatin again in a heartbeat – and I intend to!  I think out of all of the TWD recipes I’ve made thus far, this is one of my all time favorites.

I want to send great, big, giant hug to Laurie for not only starting TWD, but for all she does behind the scenes to keep it going.  It’s a lot of work!  I’d also like to thank Dorie for giving us such a beautiful, comprehensive and well-written baking bible to work from.  And last but not least, I want to thank my fellow TWDers for inspiring me every day.

If you’d like to try your hand at making Tarte Tatin, you can find the recipe here on NPR.  And, if you’d like to see hundreds more amazing tartes, stop by the TWD blogroll.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a big, fat slice of tarte tatin waiting patiently for me to devour!

Have you ever been sorting through your food pics and found a bunch that you forgot about and never posted on?  Well, that never happens to me.  Usually, I cook food and it is either gobbled up before I ever have a chance to photograph it, it’s late and I’m too tired to photograph it, or I get so busy that it sits in the fridge until it starts to decay and then I can’t photograph it.  So, imagine what a nice surprise it was for me to find these photos of a delicious cauliflower gratin that I made a few months ago.  I really meant to share it with you then, but I totally forgot!  Better late than never, I guess. 

In French, “le gratin” means crust and the verb “gratiner” means to brown.  Thus, a gratin is a sort of a French casserole in which ingredients are topped with a mixture of breadcrumbs, grated cheese and butter that are baked or broiled to form a golden crust on top.  It is traditionally served right from the oven in its baking dish.  Gotta love that!

For my cauliflower gratin, I used a recipe from Ina Garten’s Barefoot in Paris.  It’s a pretty easy one that doesn’t take a whole lot of time to execute.  That’s what I love about Ina’s recipes.  They’re written so that real people can actually make them at home without having to hire a kitchen staff!  Plus, they always work AND they taste great.  What could be better than that?

The foundation of this gratin is, of course, the cauliflower.  However, you can make a gratin – especially this gratin – with any vegetables you choose.   Frankly, since whatever you use is going to be bathed in an incredibly creamy, rich, cheesy béchamel sauce, who really cares!   Actually, I’m just kidding about that part, (um…not really).   My point is that no matter what ingredients you decide to “gratin” using this recipe, the result will be fabulous!

So, let’s get started!

First, you need to cook your cauliflower until it’s “al dente”.  This takes about 5-6 minutes.

Then, make the cheesy béchamel sauce.  Don’t let the fancy French name throw you.  It’s really easy!

Don’t forget the cheese!

Put it all together…

And bake!

Voila!

Mmmm!!!

Doesn’t that look just marvelous?  Trust me, it is!  This cauliflower gratin is simple and rustic enough to whip up for a casual, weeknight meal, yet it’s classy enough to serve to company.  An added perk is that it can be served hot or at room temperature, so it makes a perfect “make ahead” dish.    And, look how nicely this dish goes with the color red.  This means that it will look beautiful on your Holiday buffet!  There you go.  Now, you have no excuse not to make this one!

Cauliflower Gratin
adapted from Barefoot in Paris

Ingredients:

1 (3-pound) head cauliflower, cut into large florets
Kosher salt
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, divided
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups hot milk
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
3/4 cup freshly grated Gruyere, divided
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs (I used leftover herb stuffing mix.)

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

2.  Cook the cauliflower florets in a large pot of boiling salted water for 5 to 6 minutes, until tender but still firm. Drain.

3.  Meanwhile, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Add the flour, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon for 2 minutes. Pour the hot milk into the butter-flour mixture and stir until it comes to a boil. Boil, whisking constantly, for 1 minute, or until thickened. Off the heat, add 1 teaspoon of salt, the pepper, nutmeg, 1/2 cup of the Gruyere, and the Parmesan.

4.  Pour 1/3 of the sauce on the bottom of an 8 by 11 by 2-inch baking dish. Place the drained cauliflower on top and then spread the rest of the sauce evenly on top. Combine the bread crumbs with the remaining 1/4 cup of Gruyere and sprinkle on top. Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and drizzle over the gratin. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the top is browned. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Enjoy!