Tag Archives: vanilla

strawberry tartlets

Posted in dessert, fruit, gluten free by

Sadly, strawberry season is over in these parts, though fortunately I picked enough strawberries a few weekends ago that I will have plenty to bake with in the coming months.  Thank goodness for freezers!

strawberries

Months ago I purchase some adorable little tartlet pans but had not yet used them for anything so I decided to amend the situation this past weekend.  I also have been meaning to experiment more with gluten-free baking since it intrigues me and I have many gluten-free flours in my pantry, so when I found a pate sucre (sweet crust) recipe from my La Tartine Gourmande cookbook I was inspired to marry it with some freshly picked strawberries in said tartlet pans.

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 The recipe called for sweet white rice flour which I have plenty of but also quinoa flour which I did not have.  I found it in a local health food store but it was crazy expensive but since I always have actual quinoa in my pantry I decided to go DIY and grind it into flour myself.  Many websites advised toasting the quinoa before grinding it into flour I ignored that and just ground it down using my coffee grinder.  I was a bit nervous how it would turn out because quinoa can sometimes be a little bitter but in this particular recipe there was enough else going on (namely confectioners’ sugar) that it turned out fine.  Next time I may try to toast the quinoa before grinding, however, and I will let you know if it’s worth it or not.

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This dough had to be refrigerated for a few hours and then brought to room temperature before being rolled out.  Upon rolling the dough out I used a biscuit cutter to get it into shapes that fit neatly into the tartlet pans but neatness is definitely not required here.  You could pat the dough into the pans in any manner you choose and it will still turn out fine, I was just being fancy.  I pre-baked the tartlet crusts so put parchment paper into each tartlet pan and then weighted that with dried beans.  Apparently you can buy pie weights but I don’t see the point since dried beans or rice work just as well and I always have them on hand.  (Save them and use them as intended, just let them cool after their stint as pie weights and put them back with the rest of the beans or rice.)

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I did research for the strawberry filling but wound up shooting from the hip since a lot of what I was finding seemed more complicated than it needed to be.  I wanted to keep it simple with strawberries as the main star.  The one (simple but) slightly fancy thing I did was to use the seeds from half of a vanilla bean pod to scent/flavor the sugar I used to macerate the strawberries.  It’s so easy to do but makes the dish more luxurious.

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Sprinkle the vanilla-infused sugar on top of sliced strawberries and let the berries macerate for about an hour.

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Then pour the berries into the pre-baked tartlet shells and bake for about 10 to 15 minutes more in the oven to let the strawberries roast a little bit.

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The tartlets are best served warm from the oven, and if you wanted to serve them with a little ice cream, whipped cream, or even a dollop of mascarpone cheese I would say that you and I should be friends.

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Strawberry Tartlets

Pate Sucre (Sweet Crust) (from “La Tartine Gourmande: Recipes for an Inspired Life” by Beatrice Peltre)

  • ½ cup white rice flour
  • 1/3 cup quinoa flour
  • 1/3 cup cornstarch
  • 1 ½ teaspoons xanthan gum
  • 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
  • 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and diced
  • 1 small egg

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle blade, combine the flours, cornstarch, xanthan gum, and confectioners’ sugar.  Work on medium speed to obtain a fine mixture.  Add the butter and work again until crumbles form.  Add the egg and work until the dough detaches from the bowl and forms a ball.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for a minimum of 3 hours.  Bring to room temperature before using (about 30 minutes, when the crust doesn’t feel hard).

Using gluten-free dough, generously dust work surface and rolling pin.  Roll out room-temperature dough to circle slightly larger than 10-inch tart pan.  If you are using tartlet pans as I did, the shape of the rolled-out dough doesn’t matter so much as you will be fitting it into smaller pans.  I used a floured biscuit cutter to portion out dough for the tartlet pans but use whatever method you feel is best.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Once you have rolled out the dough and pressed it into the tart mold(s), cover it with a piece of parchment paper, and top it with pie weights (dry rice or beans work too).  Bake the crust for 10 or 15 minutes, until light brown.

Strawberry Filling:

  • 3 cups washed, hulled, and sliced strawberries
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • ½ vanilla bean pod

Slice vanilla bean pod in half and set half away for use at a later time.  Scrape the seeds out of the half you are using into a small bowl.  Pour sugar into the same bowl and use clean fingers to rub the vanilla seeds into the sugar.

Place sliced strawberries into medium-sized bowl.  Sprinkle vanilla sugar mixture over the top and let berries macerate for about an hour.

After berries have macerated, pour into pre-baked tart shells and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes in preheated 350 degree F oven.  Enjoy tartlets warm with a dollop of ice cream, whip cream, or mascarpone cheese.

rhubarb, lemon, and vanilla pie

Posted in pie by

This time of year I’m usually gifted with large bags of rhubarb by assorted friends and family.  I love the stuff but sometimes feel like I’m running out of things to do with it.  Not so.  Though I’ve made several different kinds of rhubarb pie seen here and here and here, I still managed to find another rhubarb pie recipe that intrigued me.

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Lemon zest and juice and vanilla extract along with a bit of freshly grated nutmeg get added to the otherwise typical rhubarb filling.  Genius!  So simple, but so good.  Next time I may actually add a little fresh vanilla bean along with the extract just to deepen the vanilla flavor.

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I had big plan for doing a fancy lattice top to this pie but was short on time so did what my mom calls a “flopover” pie.  You simply fold the edges of the crust over the top of the filling.  I’ve brought this style of pie to dinner parties before and people are always impressed and refer to it as a galette, which sounds much nicer than flopover.  Those French and their fancy words.

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The lemon zest and juice pair so nicely with the rhubarb and the vanilla adds a little extra sweetness.  And it would’ve been so great with the mascarpone ice cream I made last week!  If only there were any left by the time I made the pie…

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Rhubarb, Lemon, and Vanilla “Flopover” Pie (filling recipe from “A Year of Pies” by Ashley English)

  • 1 1/2 pounds rhubarb (4 1/2 cups), trimmed and chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup arrowroot powder or cornstarch
  • Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 425.

Place the chopped rhubarb, sugar, arrowroot or cornstarch, lemon zest and juice, vanilla extract, and nutmeg in a medium-size bowl.  Stir together with a large spoon until well combined.

Pour the rhubarb filling into the prepared crust (see below).  Fold crust over the top of the pie.  Cover crust with aluminum foil to prevent it from browning too quickly.  Remove foil for last 15 minutes of baking.  Bake for about an hour, until the crust is golden and juices are bubbling in the center of the pie.

One Crust Pie Pastry (from Betty Crocker’s Cookbook)

  • 1 cup all-purpose or unbleached flour
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon shortening
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons cold water

Mix flour and salt in medium bowl.  Cut in shortening, using pastry blender or crisscrossing 2 knives, until particles are size of small peas.  Sprinkle with cold water, 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing with fork until all flour is moistened and pastry almost leaves side of bowl (1 to 2 teaspoons more water can be added if necessary).

Gather pastry into a ball.  Shape into flattened round.  If desired, wrap flattened round of pastry in plastic wrap and refrigerate about 30 minutes to firm up the shortening slightly, which helps make the baked pastry more flaky and lets the water absorb evenly throughout the dough.

Roll pastry on lightly floured surface, using floured rolling pin, into circle 3 inches larger than upside-down pie plate.  Fold pastry into fourths and place in pie plate; or roll pastry loosely around rolling pin and transfer to pie plate.  Unfold or unroll pastry and ease into plate, pressing firmly against bottom and side and being careful not to stretch pastry, which will cause it to shrink when baked.

mascarpone gelato, like vanilla, only creamier

Posted in ice cream by

It’s been in the upper 80’s for the past few days which prompted me to bust out my ice cream maker– hot weather = ice cream time. So many flavors to choose from, so many mix-in options, but I was wanting something simple and straightforward, something that might go well with pie. I found a recipe I had cut out from a 1994 issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine (apparently even as a young teen I was a Martha fan) for mascarpone gelato. Winner!

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Mascarpone is a soft Italian style cheese that is similar to cream cheese, though smoother and more fresh tasting. The rest of the ingredients for the custard base were exactly what they would be for vanilla gelato (vanilla bean, whole milk, heavy cream, egg yolks, and sugar) and the mascarpone is added at the very end when you chill the custard to prepare it for your ice cream maker.

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The resulting gelato tastes like the best vanilla ice cream you’ve ever had, except creamier and richer. Ah-mazing. Will definitely pair nicely with the rhubarb pie I’m planning to make this weekend!

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Mascarpone Gelato (from 1994 issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine)

  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and scraped
  • 5 large egg yolks
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1 cup mascarpone

In a medium saucepan, heat milk and vanilla bean and scrapings. Bring to a gentle boil, cover, and remove from heat. Steep for 30 minutes.

Combine egg yolks and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat at medium-high speed until very thick and pale yellow, 3 to 5 minutes. Meanwhile, return milk to a simmer.

Remove vanilla bean. Add half the milk to egg-yolk mixture and whisk until blended. Stir into remaining milk and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thick enough to coat a spoon.

Remove from heat and immediately stir in cream. Pass mixture through a strainer into a medium bowl set over an ice bath to chill. Whisk in mascarpone until completely blended, then freeze in an ice-cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. Store in a plastic container.

vegan gluten-free cupcakes are pretty good, it turns out

Posted in cake, gluten free, vegan by

Gluten-free baking is a bit of a challenge, I’m not going to lie.  You have to buy a lot of different kinds of flours to blend together and then add a gum (like xantham or guar, not Wrigley’s) to take the place of traditional wheat flour.  And these other flours and gums are not cheap.  It makes sense, since wheat is subsidized in this country, but still.  You better believe I will use every last tablespoon of these flours even after Lent is over…  But I digress.

A few weeks ago when I knew I was giving up wheat I decided to order a few gluten-free baking cookbooks I had been eyeing on Amazon.  One of them was from a very well-respected gluten-free vegan bakery in NYC.  Vegan bakery?  Say what?  Seems kind of counter-intuitive, right?  Even though I never got around to visiting this bakery when I lived in New York (a wrong I intend to right on my next visit) I always heard great things so decided to test it out.

And you know what?  The results were pretty darn good.  I even had a few coworkers say they were the best cupcakes they ever had.

Even though the cookbook provided dairy-free frosting recipes I opted to thaw out some leftover strawberry mascarpone frosting from an earlier baking experiment that is decidedly not vegan but you can frost however you see fit.

Vanilla Cupcakes (from “Babycakes” cookbook by Erin McKenna)

  • 2 cups garbanzo-fava bean flour
  • 1 cup potato starch
  • ½ cup arrowroot (I substituted tapioca flour and it worked just fine)
  • 1 tablespoon plus 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 2/3 cup coconut oil
  • 1 1/3 cups agave nectar
  • ¾ cup homemade applesauce or store-bough unsweetened applesauce
  • 3 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
  • Grated zest of 1 lemon
  • 1 cup hot water

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.  Line 2 standard 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, potato starch, arrowroot, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum, and salt.  Add the oil, agave nectar, applesauce, vanilla, and lemon zest to the dry ingredients and combine.  Stir in the hot water and mix until the batter is smooth.

Pour 1/3 cup batter into each prepared cup, almost filling it.  Bake the cupcakes on the center rack for 22 minutes, rotating the tins 180 degrees after 15 minutes.  The finished cupcakes will be golden brown and will bounce back when pressure is applied gently to the center.

Let the cupcakes stand in the tins for 20 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack and cool completely.  Using a frosting knife, gently spread 1 tablespoon vanilla frosting over each cupcake.  Store the cupcakes in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Strawberry Mascarpone Frosting (NOT vegan, clearly)

  • 2 tablespoons butter, softened
  • 4 oz mascarpone cheese, softened
  • 2 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ½ strawberries, cleaned and pureed in food processor or blender

In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat butter and mascarpone cheese until smooth.  Add confectioner’s sugar and vanilla, beat until light and fluffy.  Stir in pureed strawberries with a spatula.

Vanilla “malted”

Posted in ice cream by

Fact: I love all things malted. I attribute this to the many “chocolate malteds” that my grandparents treated me to as a child. Malts are way better than shakes in my humble opinion.

I decided to make vanilla ice cream with a little malted powder thrown in for good measure. This is me opening a vanilla bean. Look at that manicure! Yeah, that didn’t last very long… Did some dishes later that day and there it went. Ah well.

I love the way the vanilla bean flecks dot the custard. Beautiful.

This ice cream was the perfect compliment to the strawberry pie that I made the other day but of course it is quite good all by itself too…

Malted Vanilla Ice Cream (adapted from a recipe from www.countryliving.com/icecream)

  • 2 cups whole milk
  • ¾ cup sugar
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
  • Pinch of salt
  • 2 cups half-and-half
  • 2 cups whipping cream
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup malted milk powder

In a medium saucepan, whisk together milk, sugar, egg yolks, and salt. Drop in split vanilla bean. Place pan over medium-high heat and whisk until mixture reaches a simmer. Lower heat to medium and whisk for 5 minutes or until mixture begins to thicken. Strain mixture into large bowl, then whisk in half-and-half, cream, vanilla, and malted milk powder. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, about 2 hours.

Pour mixture into ice-cream maker; process according to manufacturer instructions.