I couldn’t wait to make this New Year’s Eve Dinner. As much as I enjoy playing with sugar and chocolate, the prospect of working with meats and vegetables and all sorts of non-chocolate-oriented food was irresistible. It seemed like a vacation, notwithstanding all the standing and cooking… I hadn’t cooked even a semi-real meal in a long time.

I made dishes that I’d tucked into the back of my mind and had been wanting to make for a while… and luckily, since I have freakish knack for consistency, they all fit into each other to make for a nicely coherent menu — even the dessert, with its 4 components, just worked out that way.

I made a few things each day starting on Saturday, and by the time of the dinner party, everything but the risotto was practically ready and just needed to heated and plated. Such prep and organization reminded me of my restaurant stint in Napa, not to mention culinary school. The experience was like speaking a language that I learned a long time ago and was pleasantly surprised that I can still get by with — even if only in the most casual of settings. I cleared away everything from the counter that wasn’t needed for service, laid out my plates, and cleaned up after every course. There was barely any clean up at the end, and I mostly just checked in on food… until I ate it. It was the most stress-free dinner party I’ve ever had.

Spiced Quince Cake with Lemon Posset, Warm Walnut Sauce, Cranberry Sorbet, and Toasted Walnuts

Lemon Posset is my new culinary cause. It’s only lemon juice, sugar, and cream, but it sets up! Like a light-as-air lemon curd, or even a mousse! It’s so easy and brightly delicious, and it contains only ingredients whose flavor I thoroughly like! No eggs or cornstarch or powdered sugar to get in the way. I issue a warning to the next person who mentions lemon curd to me — for I shall sit them down and lecture on the wonders of lemon posset. So, yes, last year, I was amazed by Bacon Baklava, and this year, it’s all about the posset, which — bonus — is also just as much fun to say.

From what I can tell, the reaction between the acid in the lemon juice and the casein (protein) in the cream causes it to set. Like curd, some combination of lime, orange, or passion fruit can be used, too (and some possets are warm, alcoholic drinks… also worth a try; egg nog is related, I believe).

I used this recipe from Claire Cook’s new book, Indulge, which is especially useful as a go-to book for British desserts, though it is not exclusively anglo-oriented as she is currently the pastry chef at The French Laundry. Cook cooks boils the lemon juice and sugar together and adds boiled cream, but most recipes cook the sugar and cream together and add lemon juice at the end. I’m not sure what difference it makes, except for the amount of moisture lost through the boilings.

I have been taking spoonfuls of leftover lemon posset here and there (that is, whenever I can find an excuse to be in the kitchen), but like a mousse, some liquid separated out on the bottom by the second day. I guess magic can’t last forever.

As it happens, this dessert is partially a French Laundry Then-And-Now concoction — the Walnut Sauce is the Cream of Walnut Soup recipe from The French Laundry cookbook. Walnut-infused cream, poaching liquid, and a poached pear are blended together to make a sauce that’s stunning enough to be eaten alone as a soup. French Laundry at Home declares her love for it here, and the date on that post shows me that I’ve been meaning to make this since roughly last February. I think my juicy Bartlett pear may have been a bit too big, as the pear flavor was a little stronger than I wanted, but by putting it under the cake, the pear flavor nicely blended into the quince and still left the walnut flavor strong. Ah, the safety net of plated desserts combinations.

The Spiced Quince Cake is from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course. It called for a 10″ springform pan and the batter was very wet, but I used a 9″ and baked it a little longer and it was fine, if a bit spongy-looking. I poached the quinces on Saturday, left them in the syrup until Monday, when they were drained and baked in the cake; the star anise left the most noticeable impression on them. The batter for the cake was like that of a financier — (homemade) almond flour, a little flour, and egg whites with powdered sugar, spices, and browned butter. Rich flavor with a sugary crust and toothsome crumb, but a little heavy on the powdered sugar to me, esp in the aftertaste — but I am sensitive to that flavor.

The Cranberry Sorbet is based on the Chocolate Gourmand’s recipe from a high school friend. I decreased the alcohol by half, and not having limoncello and welcoming a combination of flavors, I substituted half Damiana and Tuaca. I also measured the sugar on my refractometer and it was off the chart, so I added water until it was about 27Brix. I love the smooth texture and rich cranberry flavor, bolstered by subtle spice and orange from the alcohol.

And there was even savory food, too… after the jump…

(more…)

The genesis of this pie went like this:

Me: “I wonder what I should make with my pomegranates.”

Chad: “I want pumpkin pie.”

Silence, as an illustrated timeline materializes in my mind — on the far left, under “Now,” a few gleaming arils of pomegranate swirl about. A long red line connects them to a slice of pumpkin pie on the far right, under “Late November.”

Chad: “I want pomkin pie!”

Silence, as I arch an eyebrow in his direction.

Chad: “I bet it shows up on Google!”

Silence, except for my typing.

Chad: “No, not pompkin — pomkin.”

And there it was, this pumpkin pie recipe from POM that calls for pomegranate juice.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I’ve always expected more from pumpkin pie than I’ve gotten out of it. Despite the variety of spices, sugars, and crusts that can used with the pumpkin, the pie usually comes off as a bit stodgy. The bright tartness of pomegranate could be just the thing to make it pop.

Then again, I had two bright red organic pomegranates from the Saturday Santa Monica Farmers Market that were possibly the best pomegranates that I’ve ever brought into my kitchen. Maybe they were too good to bury in an arguably stodgy pie. Or maybe I should give the pie its best chance. And snack during preparation. And hope that the pie only required one of my two pomegranates.

So, I made pie dough, chilled it, rolled it out, lined my shallow pie pan, chilled it, baked it, and then got on with my pomegranate work. I put on gloves, inserted my knife into the open end and twisted it to open it without slicing through the arils, and turned each half upside down and freed the arils with my fingers; I’ve heard about the underwater trick, but for some reason, I just never feel like trying it out.

Fresh pomegranate juice is easily marred by astringency from the membrane, seeds, and pith, so I tried to make it as easy as possible for the juice to run free from danger. I picked out any extraneous matter from the bowl of arils, and then briefly ran them in my food mill so that the juice slipped off without breaking their large seeds.

One pomegranate yielded the necessary half cup of juice, and the rest of the recipe involved simple mixing manuevers. Pumpkin pie is essentially a custard with a crust, so similar to a creme brulee, it comes together quickly and cooks in the oven for a while.

I can’t completely recommend this recipe, b/c our debate over whether the pomegranate is noticeable and what flavor it contributes exactly has reached an impasse of uncertainty. Chad is unequivocal about being able to taste it, but can’t describe what it contributes exactly. I think that there is a sour tinge that makes the pumpkin more interesting and points up the spices, but it’s elusive. I’m sure that you could eat this pie in ignorance of the pomegranate presence.

But it’s a tasty pie nonetheless, and if you have some leftover POM, you should give it a try. It has a pleasant creamy texture that’s also all the more interesting given the complex flavors behind it, and negates the need for whipped cream. It makes me think that grated lemon or orange peel may also be welcome in pumpkin pie… and that a few pomegranate arils as garnish on top of a regular pumpkin would be very good, and would require less work and pomegranate, to boot.

So, I still have one more gorgeous pomegranate… which I hope to pair with walnuts to make the fesenjan-inspired dessert that I’ve been kicking around since last year.

Ah…. couldn’t you just lose yourself in those dunes of dough?

With the form of a pie and the texture of a cake, this Russian Grandmothers’ Apple Pie-Cake from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan is just the sort of comforting fall dessert that almost makes you want to throw on a sweater and rake some leaves before you sit down at a sturdy wooden table and settle into a soft slice… preferably accompanied by a touch of creme fraiche, vanilla ice cream, lemon verbena ice cream, or even a glass of milk. Somehow, a traditional pie, with its crunchy crust, seems so harsh in comparison.

The pie-cake gave me a chance to show off the heirloom apples that I’d picked up at the Santa Monica Farmers Market that morning. I sampled each apple amidst my cutting and peeling — there were spicy Bellflowers, resonant Spitzenbergs, the most exuberant Fujis that I’ve ever had, subdued Hawk-Eyes, and zesty Annas. They were rounded out with golden raisins, sugar, cinnamon, lemon juice, and nutmeg (my own humble addition, out of habit, I suppose).

The Bellflowers from the See Canyon stand were my revelation of the day — when I tried a sample slice at the market, it tasted like it had been infused with cinnamon. So flavorful and alive. They’re rather large, oblong, and yellow-ish…

I originally wanted to make an infused liqueur to preserve that flavor, but they’re so delicate that they were pocked with too many little bruises for me to use them in good faith. So, into the pie-cake they went, while some hearty and singularly delicious Fuji apples became acquainted with the brandy.

As for the dough… Whenever I’m sizing up a dough or batter that I’ve never made before, I compare to another recipe that I know. I often think about my favorite basic cookie recipe — in which I simply combine butter with sugar, salt, and flour. It makes for a crunchy, buttery cookie. Since this dough is creamed and also has tenderizers such as baking powder, eggs, and lemon juice, I knew that it would turn out soft and tangy.

My baking dish was smaller than the prescribed one, so I piled the extra apples into my mini-pie dish, covered them with extra dough, and topped it with leftover crisp topping that I’d had in the freezer…

I hereby dub it the Apple Pie-Cake-Cobbler-Crisp.

Edit: The LA Times has an article by Russ Parsons about heirloom apples this week, along with an apple guide.

Only one fruit coaxed me into happily employing my oven during its well-deserved vacation… no less than the pride of Sonoma county…. the Gravenstein apple.

On Aug 19, I saw organic Gravenstein Apples for sale at the Hollywood Farmers market, and I knew I had to make pie, in all its kitchen-heating glory. After all, I hadn’t made pie this summer… perhaps not all year. I also bought some Pippins (green & tart) for variety, esp since neither the vendor nor I was sure at the time about how Gravensteins would take to baking.

I’d been putting off pie. Part of it has to do with my beloved Emile Henry pie dish. It seems like no matter how much pie dough I’ve made in the past, there’s never enough to cover the top and bottom of the deep dish. I don’t even like crust all that much, so it seemed like a frustrating problem of low priority.

This time, I tried out Sherry Yard’s Master 3-2-1 Flaky Pie Dough recipe in the Secrets of Baking. It uses the same ingredients as most pie recipes, but it was so delicious, even as raw dough (maybe it has to do with the touch of sugar in it). I couldn’t stop nibbling, however much I knew that it was making the possibility of having enough dough even more remote.

And it turned out that… there was not enough. To give you an idea of how disturbing this is, consider that the recipe called for 2 sticks of butter. A half pound of butter is not enough to take care of my pie dish! That’s double the amount of butter that is in a single batch of my chocolate chip cookies. I estimate that scaling up the recipe to 2.5 sticks of butter should be enough.

For the filling, I was torn btw cooking the apples beforehand (so that they wouldn’t release too much liquid in the pie or create a steam pocket under the top crust) or just chancing it with freshly sliced apples. Yard herself has an Mile High Apple Pie recipe extravaganza in her book that involves caramelizing the apples (in batches, no less!), and mixing in butter, cream, apple caramel glaze, and creamy caramel glaze… and topping it off with ice cream. I didn’t have the, er, apple juice that it called for… yes, that was it… and I continued to look around for other recipes.

The apple pie recipe in Chez Panisse Desserts specifically calls for Gravensteins, and is the most humble of them all… Just 3 Tbs of sugar (or less! to taste), apples, and cinnamon. No starch to bind the juices… and no pre-cooking.

In situations like this, I stop and ask myself, “Do I want to do it the simple way because I’m being lazy or because I think it’ll taste better?”

I honestly thought that the Chez Panisse version would taste better for what I had in mind… That it would bring out the best in the apples. I’m a little wary of cinnamon these days, though — it’s good, of course, it is, but it’s a little mundane. I find myself turning to allspice more and more — it’s a bit more complex and delicate and different; I think I absorbed an appreciation for it from Pierre Herme’s cookbooks. So, that’s what I used, along with some whiskey-soaked dried cherries for some added excitement. And I made rounds out of the rmg dough as the top, brushed them with cream, and sprinkled on turbinado sugar.

And it was an amazing apple pie. True to the apples, with some wily background of spice, whiskied cherries, and oh, the butter. The apples on the bottom were a bit more moist than the apples on top and little liquid collected in the dish, but I was cool with that. Why not have different textures of fruit in a pie? The bottom crust held up admirably for a while, but it turned soggy eventually. Again, though, I like multiple textures of a single element… including pie crust. Maybe since I don’t like crust much to being with, I view soggy crust as more flavorful… and somehow more comforting.

Anyway, we just had our first officially cool weekend in LA — about the mid-70’s during the day — and I’m itching to bake anything with apples. Yesterday, I stocked up on ever-coveted Honeycrisp apples at the Santa Monica Farmers Market, and came home to have Google lead me to the truth — they’re crisp due to their high water content… which makes them bad for baking. Yep, they’re just right for eating out of hand, as if you didn’t want to bother turning your oven on.

Lesson learned.

Irony registered.

Apple-y plans brewing.

Melons, grapes, and figs bring theories of natural selection to mind. It’s as if they realize that by the time they arrive, you’ve already had your fill for the year of stone fruit in baking and compotes, and even if you hadn’t, your apartment may be too hot to justify turning on the oven. You may also be a little tired of hunting through boxes for the ripest fruits of the lot.

So, they cater to you. You have to buy a rather large amount in one go — either a whole melon, or a bunch of grapes, or a basket of figs — and preparation involves little more than a few cool strokes of the knife. Sure, you could heat them and play around with them, but only if you want. This year, I did not.

Two of my best melons came from a booth at the Wednesday Santa Monica Farmers Market on Aug 8. Both were relatively small and oblong, and grown near Auburn.

The honey pearl melon was a type of honeydew with a vibrant flavor and equally firm flesh throughout.

The sugar nut melon was a type of canary melon. I don’t usually like canary melons, but this one had a delightful clean flavor.

Inside…

When looking for melons, choose the ones with as much netting as possible and the least amount of green on the outside. They’ll be the ripest and most flavorful.

I always wash them well, too, because the rind touches the cutting board and knife an awful lot.

These are Kyoho grapes, which are a Japanese variety that has a lovely deep grape flavor. They’re a worthy substitute for Concords, which are hard to find in LA markets. Their skins are a bit thick, so you can also make a spectacular sorbet out of them if you prefer. Macerating the pureed grapes with sugar overnight makes the flavor even more intense. And it’s the dreamiest purple color that you ever did see. I adapted Claudia Fleming’s recipe for Concord Grape Sorbet, which also calls for ascorbic acid (vitamin C) to preserve the color.

Good grapes are hard to come by — crisp orbs of sugar are much more common. I get a little disappointed by fruit signs at the market that advertise how sweet, sweet, sweet the fruits are. Anyone can eat a spoonful of sugar at will. I would trust signs that advertise flavor, flavor, flavor much more.

As for figs, I haven’t found any good ones at the farmers markets yet, but once again Trader Joe’s is selling some pretty fine conventional and organic ones. And how low maintenance am I being with them? Well, I haven’t even taken their picture yet…

And figs are easy fruits to test for ripeness. They should be jelly-like inside, so once you pick one up, it should feel a heavy for its size and a little squishy. If it feels light or stiff, it’s not worth the bite.

All my raw fruit antics eventually circled back to my peaches and nectarines, which usually wound up like this.

Also, if you want to preserve the fruit a bit longer without the heat of boiling preserves, you can, of course, make sorbets… or homemade fruit liqueurs. I’ll write a post about this some day — as I have about a dozen of them going right now — but again, they require little more than chopping, mixing, and waiting… which sounds like just the right kind of project for long August days. This site is an excellent resource.

And if you already know a little something about making your our fruit liqueurs, feel free to show off your knowledge by answering this question that lingers in the back of my mind every time I look at my glass-cloaked infusing legions…. If it takes maybe 30 minutes to infuse the flavor from, say, orange peel into hot cream, why does it take maybe 4 months to infuse it into alcohol?