Cherry and Apricot Clafoutis

I learned about the existence of claufoutis as a dish about a year ago when I stumbled across a recipe on Serious Eats. It was hailed by their writers as being extremely elegant, easy, and impressive to guests. The recipe also talks about experimenting copiously with egg, milk, sugar, and flour ratios to get the perfect ratios for the right texture. I made that clafoutis no fewer than 4 times and found it satisfactory as a sweet breakfast dish or a less decadent tea time treat, but it never blew my socks off.

When I found the Times recipe, I felt that their version looked, at least superficially, more in line with my tastes as it includes almond flour, yogurt (which can add a velvety texture as well as flavor depth) instead of milk, and an overall less eggy and more cake-like potential. Both recipes are simple, but the Times one is definitely more complex in a way that should take it further away from being French toast or scrambled eggs.

The first time I tried this, I made it with cherries and apricots and put too much fruit in it as you can see by the ratios in the picture of a slice that I took:

It was good, mind you, but I wanted more base and less fruit in the ratios. I should also note that I used canned dark sweet cherries that I had lying around because I had no fresh ones on hand. I rinsed them very well to get the sugary juice off of them and I only used half the sugar to macerate the fruit because the cherries were already sweeter than fresh. I didn't like how it seemed like all of the fruit had a party at the bottom and ignored the base. You can see from my picture that the edges got a bit dark. I used a dark glass quiche pan to make this and it could be that was the issue, but it also could be that my oven runs a bit hot.

Fast forward to today when I made this for the second time, but I omitted the cherries and just made it with fresh apricots. Serious Eats tells me that this is called a flaugnarde if cherries are not being used, but clafoutis is more fun to say and easier to remember so I'm going to rebel against any change in naming the dish. The second one also came out dark around the edges because I'd forgotten what happened the first time by the time I made my second attempt. I hope to remember next time to reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees because it not only got too dark at the very edge, but it also baked 7 minutes faster than the given time of 40 minutes. I think it'd be better low and slow.

Since this time I had a better chance to taste the non-fruit portion (the basic filling), I can speak better to its texture and flavor. It comes across as a slightly stretchy pancake with a fairly good and developed flavor. I can't say that the apricot-only version was "better" per se, but I did like the greater access to the base's texture and flavor. It was more tart with only the apricot in it than the original mix with cherries. However, some of that tartness can be mitigated by dusting with powdered sugar (which I didn't do with the first piece) and a bit of whipped cream.

This strikes me as an excellent recipe for making an oven-baked pancake-like experience with fruit. I think that, with the right fruit (such as bananas), it might even be pretty amazing with maple syrup instead of the whipped cream and powdered sugar. At the very least, it warrants more experimentation.

Strawberry Shortcake

When I was growing up, "strawberry shortcake" had a very particular meaning. It was little shallow cups of somewhat dry sponge cake bought six to a pack at the supermarket. Into these ads specimens, we'd scoop a pile of mashed strawberries copiously mixed with sugar until they could have been jam. Once the requisite fruit was added, more sugar was spooned on top followed by enough milk to decimate the molecular cohesion of the shelf-stable baked good.

It wasn't until many years later that I realized that "shortcake" didn't refer to the height of the cake, but rather to butter mixed with flour and very little liquid. I had no idea that one could make ones own cake to accompany the berries, nor that other people didn't douse their cakes with milk and create a pile of milky, sugary, strawberry-laced mush as a way of enjoying that dessert.

Perhaps because of my experience growing up, I rarely eat strawberry shortcake as a dessert and I've only attempted to make the cake itself once before. That attempt was so-so, most likely because my baking skills at the time didn't include a thorough knowledge of the evils of overworking your flour or using cold butter. A trip to a local discount store and two large containers of relatively sour berries had me looking once more toward trying my hand at a proper shortcake.

I did a search on the New York Times and found a recipe for which I had everything on hand. Many of them included sour cream, whole cream, or whipping cream and I did not have these items around. Fortunately, Mark Bittman's recipe for shortcake had an ingredients list that I could fulfill and a stunningly easy method of preparation.

I was actually a bit dubious of the recipe because he tells you to blitz the butter into the flour completely with a food processor. I'm not averse to my life being made easy in this way, but a relatively small amount of fat thoroughly mixed into flour made me wonder what it might do to the texture. When I make scones, I always make sure not to mix the butter in completely to keep things tender. Nonetheless, I followed the recipe as stated except for a few things.

The primary change I made was to cut the recipe in half and make only 6 cakes (1 cup flour, 2 tbsp. butter, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 tsp. baking powder, pinch salt, and 7 tbsp. milk). This was in part because my husband and I are the only consumers and I didn't need a ton of them and in part because I don't have a food processor and have to rely on a tiny bowl "processor" that came as an accessory to my immersion blender. I blitzed the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt with the miniscule amount of butter until it looked like boxed pancake mix.

I then dumped that dry ingredients and fat mixture  into a bowl and made little wells and slowly added the milk, pushing the flour mixture into the milk to gently mix. I wanted to be absolutely certain not to overwork it given how little fat there was. I did not knead it or stir it. I just moistened it and even allowed some of it to stay dry. I put a lid on the bowl and tossed it in the refrigerator for an hour or so to let the flour absorb the milk. This was the other major departure from the instructions, but given how little I'd mixed it, I thought it needed the time.

When I took it out, it was fairly cohesive on its own, with a bit of dry bits at the bottom. I did find that it was sticky, but too thick to use a tablespoon to drop it on the cookie sheet. I cut it into six roughly equal pieces with a butter knife, gently shaped the dough, and put it on parchment paper and baked at 450 degrees for about 8 minutes. It did start to brown and I was worried that it might not cook inside while browning outside, but it turned out okay. I do think my oven may run a bit hot and I might want to reduce the temperature by 25 degrees down to 425 next time. I also didn't add as much sugar to the strawberries when I macerated them (only two tablespoons).

I really had low expectations of this, but it was fantastic. The interior was tender, the exterior was crispy with a good amount of give. It was lightly sweet - much sweeter than I expected given that each cake had only two teaspoons of sugar in it and provided a great base for the lightly sweetened berries.

These are definitely reminiscent of scones. In fact, out of the oven, they look like scones, but they do have a textural difference and a firmer structure in general. They're less delicate than American scones and less layered than English ones. I do believe that they could be eaten for breakfast with other types of fruit or even just like a scone with jam and butter. The odd thing is that they are probably less unhealthy than the average scone given how relatively low they are in fat and sugar (only about 160 calories per cake). I think blueberries would be great on these, add would really ripe peaches. I will definitely be making these again. 

Pan-Baked Lemon-Almond Tart

I have an interest in any recipe that includes lemon and the fact that this also includes eggs and almonds sweetens the deal. In the video for this recipe, Mark Bittman describes it more as an almond frittata than a "tart." It did make me wonder why it's called a tart. My best guess is that this does bear some similarities to tart filling as it combines cream and eggs and could turn out like a custard, but a better bet is that it'll get more page views as a "tart" than a "frittata."

Given the unusual nature of the recipe, I read through the comments carefully before making it. A lot of the people who tried it weren't particularly happy with the outcome. Some people complained that it tasted like scrambled eggs. Some said that it completely fell apart. Others said that it'd didn't set in the middle at all. No small number experienced it sticking to the pan. These were all concerns that didn't dissuade me so much as make me decide to alter the preparation a bit. I decided to take on each of these issues and alter the method to (hopefully) avoid the undesired outcome.

My initial inclination was to use a stainless steel pan, but the sticking issue made me reconsider and I went with an oven-safe non-stick pan instead. The comments about it being like scrambled eggs made me wonder if the ingredients weren't incorporated well enough in those cases or the ground almonds were too coarse. I got around this by using a blender to blend everything except the sliced almonds. I tossed everything in and then poured the mixture into a bowl then stirred in the sliced almonds at the end.

In terms of dealing with the failure to set, my best guess was that it was because of the high fat content of the cream making it too custard-like in the center so I used half and half instead of cream. Well, that's not precisely true. I used half and half because it is what I had on hand and I figured it could also, perhaps stop the problem with it not setting. Finally, though I kept all of the rest of the ingredients the same, I also added a teaspoon of vanilla as I've found it tends to round out strong lemon flavors in sweet dishes.

My dish set just fine and it smelled fantastic. This is what it looked like after the baking. I did not bother to put it under the broiler as it was brown enough for me already:

I decided another thing that I'd do to decrease the chances that it would fall apart was to allow it to cool a fair bit before removing it. When I put a plate on the top and un-molded it, all but a few little bits came out. It was happy that it came out so clean, but the pale bottom wasn't so appealing looking so I took another plate and flipped it over again. That was probably not a good idea as a few cracks formed in it as the top was wider than the bottom and it was too delicate to support the structure. I noted that even the picture on the Times recipe page shows a slice with a crack in it (though it is largely covered and obscured by angle and powdered sugar). I'm guessing this isn't easily going to stay together as a solid mass.

In terms of the experience of eating it, it's definitely interesting and generally in a good way. The interior of mine was a bit like cottage cheese married to custard. It has a thick, rough, pudding type of consistency. The taste was super lemony. In fact, the almonds largely contributed texture since the lemon flavor overwhelmed nearly everything else. If I were to make this again, I'd cut down on the lemon flavoring, double the vanilla essence, and maybe add some almond extract to boost the almond flavor more. It could also, I think benefit from a touch of salt.

It's not a bad dish at all, and I'm pleased that I overcame the textural problems that commenters experienced, but I do believe the flavors need to be tweaked. I think this could be an excellent breakfast dish with a few adjustments.

Update: This was better the next day. The texture and flavors seemed to have "settled" in a way that is more cohesive. The lemon is still quite potent, but not as overwhelming. I'm storing the remaining slices in the refrigerator and found the second slice was better than the first. I did microwave the second slice for 10 seconds to remove the hard, cold feeling from it and bring it closer to room temperature, but I don't think is as good served warm.

Next time I make this, I will leave out the sliced almonds as I think they actually detract from the texture and are adding little to the flavor. Instead, I'll add a teaspoon of both almond and vanilla extract to round out the flavor profile and leave a cleaner textural experience. 

Gajar Halwa (Glazed Carrot Fudge)

I'm lead to believe that Indian sweets are an acquired taste for the average American. For me, I found that I liked most of the ones that I have sampled pretty much the moment the first bite passed my lips, but others (including my husband) don't care much for them. I'm not sure if it is the fact that they tend to contain unusual spices or if they are either too sweet or not sweet enough, or if it's the use of milk in a variety of forms that is off-putting, but I've rarely found an American who knows what galub jamun is, let alone likes it. I mention that sweet because it is my personal favorite among Indian treats, though I also really like sohan papdi.

I chose this recipe not only because it was a fairly exotic option, but one that I have not had the occasion to try before at an Indian restaurant. I was also interested in it because it uses a lot of carrot and I bought one of those industrial-sized bags of organic carrots at Costco some time back and they're starting to get a bit shaggy as they age and start to sprout.

The Times recipe for Gajar Halwa subtitles it as "carrot fudge" so I expected that it would come out as something solid that you can eat with your fingers. I should have known better based on the ingredients. This is something which is fairly mushy when finished and has very little structure, even after being fully cooled. I was able to sort of take a wedge out of the pan, but it fell apart a bit one edge and eating it without a fork was out of the question:

I followed the recipe exactly as given (including using a little food coloring), but it lacked certain details which may have impacted my results. For one thing, it says, "grated carrot," but it doesn't say how finely grated it should be. Because this is a dessert and I didn't think enormous shards of carrot seemed appropriate, I finely grated mine using the smaller side of a box grater. I also peeled my carrots first because of their age and I wanted the sometimes bitter outer layer removed. I weighed the amount of carrot so I used almost exactly one lb.

This is actually an extremely labor-intensive dish despite being made in the microwave. From start to finish, it took a little over 90 minutes due to the effort of grating and peeling the carrots as well as monitoring the microwave and stirring the mixture at careful intervals. I am pleased to say that it progressed well and as expected through the stages as described in the recipe. It does seem that the half and half is reduced to unsweetened condensed milk quite easily throughout the process.

In retrospect, I think coarser grating may have added more structure to the result. It's hard to know for sure because the Times has no picture on the recipe's page, but after I completed mine, I checked and saw various presentations. Often, this seemed to be served in a bowl or in a free-form fashion, but occasionally it was also served as little slices.

The "mold" was also not especially specific other than saying we should use a buttered bowl. Since I didn't have any bowls of the right size, I used a round cake pan which I liberally painted with cooking spray rather than opting to use butter. This may have been a mistake since I could not un-mold it no matter what I did. I patted the edges in and tried to loosen it from the bottom, but it stuck pretty well and I gave up and cut out a slice with a plastic knife. My best guess is that suction with the wet carrot mixture held it fast to the slick bottom. I also wasn't sure from the instructions if I was supposed to press it into the mold and then un-mold it while it was still hot or wait for it to cool. I let mine cool for about an hour before trying (and failing) to get it out.

In terms of taste, this is actually pretty awesome. The various flavors come together especially well and the cardamom is a beautiful component. If I were to make this again, besides coarsely grating the carrots, I'd reduce the number of raisins as they sometimes dominate. I think it could also do with about double the amount of pistachios (from two tablespoons to a quarter cup).

I'd say this is a unique dessert option that would be a great addition to an Indian meal provided that your guests like the component parts. It's not especially sweet and uses very little sugar as it gets sweetness from the carrots and raisins, too. I hope to make this again, but I have to say that, while this tasted wonderful, I was disappointed in the texture.

Update: After letting this sit for an entire day, I found it was a bit more cohesive than it was initially, but is not exactly great as a finger food even though it is less crumbly than it was in the first 8 hours. After two days, it actually held together quite well (and after three, even more). I also think that, should I make this again, I might want to use chopped cashews instead of almonds as I think their flavor might be a better complement. I kept it in the refrigerator throughout the time that I ate it (which took about a week).

The Silver Palate's Chocolate Cake

The introduction to this cake recipe talks about its "incredible simplicity." As someone who rarely makes cakes, I think any recipe that requires me to whip egg whites until they have stiff peaks, fold in egg whites, melt chocolate with boiling water, and cook icing on the stove top doesn't qualify as incredibly simple. It's not that any of these tasks are so difficult, but I've made simpler cakes from scratch on the rare occasions that I've made them.

However, I'm not in this for the simplicity. In fact, I'm in it for what is different from what I've tried before as I hope the techniques used will produce a result which will surprise. After all, there's no point in doing what I've always done as it'll just give me what I've always had.

I've been craving a really lavish cake lately, and by "lavish", I mean something with good frosting. It is extremely rare for me to make such a cake and I tend to rely on supermarket bakeries when I get a craving. The reason is, in part, because they are more reliable when it comes to decent frosting than me. Mine always turns out tasting like powdered sugar and has a grainy texture. My frosting is also often too heavy. Part of the appeal of this recipe for "The Silver Palate's Chocolate Cake" is that the icing is made from chocolate chips and is cooked. That, to me, signaled an increased chance of something which didn't taste like my usual sub-par frosting attempts.

I followed the recipe precisely as stated except for two small changes. I don't have a tube pan, so I made two round layers. In accord with this change, I reduced the baking time to 30 minutes so as not to dry them out. The timing was perfect and the cakes rose well. They have substance without being too dense. They lack the overly hole-y look and texture of a cake mix cake, which I was happy about.

Because I had two smaller cakes, I stacked them in layers and spread a thin amount of the icing on top of the first layer before adding the second one. My cake looked like this:

Don't judge my stacking. I hurt my finger and manipulating anything is tricky. I kept getting icing on my latex-glove-protected, bandaged finger while trying to do this as it had to stick out all of the time. I think that the amount of icing is about right when the cake is made as a double layer one. However, it would have been more decadent with more filling. My husband felt that the proportions were exactly right for the amount of cake so that's quite a solid endorsement. The man likes a good cake to icing ratio.

One thing I can say about this cake is that the quality of both the baking chocolate and the semisweet morsels you use really matter. I used Trader Joe's baking chocolate because it was what I had, but I was impressed with its flavor when I tasted the batter. It's also easy to use if you don't have a kitchen scale as it is a box with four individually wrapped one-ounce portions. I used Nestle's semisweet morsels (the type used in Tollhouse cookies) for the icing. I think both worked well, but I wouldn't scale any lower on the chocolate scale than the Nestle's morsels and think that Ghirardelli's or some other high quality brand would be a good idea. If you use cheap chocolate, my guess is the flavor will suffer, but the texture will be fine.

This is a great chocolate cake that is worthy of the accolades it gets in comments on the recipe page, though I'm not sure what all the fuss is about using salted butter. Someone claimed that that would "ruin" the cake, but there is no salt in the actual recipe and I used salted butter and it didn't taste overly salty at all. My best guess is, again, that the type of chocolate may be a part of this, but salted butter should work fine.

When I ate this cake, my taste buds weren't sure what to make of it. I believe this is my first experience making a homemade chocolate cake. I've made only yellow cakes from scratch and there is a certain quality to this which is cleaner and fresher that is very hard to describe in words. It won't taste like you're accustomed to, but it will taste good.

Corn Pudding

When I was growing up, I was not a fan of corn. Part of the problem was that my mother knew only two ways to prepare it. It was either served on the cob after being boiled forever and then served slathered in butter and doused in salt or slopped onto a plate out of a can. To my best recollection, it was never used as a component in a more elaborate dish. In fact, it was very rare for my mother to ever make anything resembling an elaborate dish. She grew up in a region in which food was largely served without embellishment and unseasoned beyond sprinkles of finely ground black pepper (pre-ground, of course) and fine salt.

While I am still not a fan of corn by itself, I love it as a component part and wanted to try the corn pudding recipe on the Times as a variation on the usual savory options. With sugar, butter, milk, corn, and nutmeg, what could go wrong? Well, it seems that what went wrong was the proportions. This just was not all that great.

I did not vary the recipe at all except for one inconsequential point. Instead of making a huge portion all at once, I made individual muffin-sized portions so I could freeze leftovers more easily. I kept an eye on the cooking time and, given that some of the comments said that they had trouble with the pudding "setting", I was probably better off with the small portions. Mine set fine, as can be seen by the spoonful of pudding.

There were two main issues and one was that there seemed to be too much corn for the amount of pudding. There also seemed to be a little bit of a liquid and solid separation issue with the pudding where the corn floated to the top, the pudding sat somewhere near the middle to bottom, and a thin layer of liquid ran across the bottom of the muffin cup.

Additionally, the corn didn't seem to have cooked enough and felt too firm. I know corn does not need to be cooked for a long time, but the soft pudding with the overly firm kernels didn't work for me as a textural contrast, and I am not a person who is averse to good contrast in food. To be honest, I think it came too close for me to memories of gnawing on canned corn or corn fresh off the cob. I need a bigger buffer zone between myself and each kernel.

Some of the commenters for this recipe mentioned making a variation with creamed corn (presumably from a can). I had a sense that I'd like this better if half to 2/3 of the corn were pureed so that the clumping of the kernels would be less. At any rate, I was insufficiently pleased with this that I threw out the remainder after eating two portions and I don't think I'd bother to try even a variation on this recipe. I think I'll stick with things which have a lower corn to other ingredient ratio.

Microwave Saffron Turkish Delight

One of my friends went to Istanbul earlier this year and brought me back a box of varied sweets. Each cube was a firm jelly either lightly dusted with a white powder or studded with nuts. They were dark in color for the most part, favoring deep reds and greens, and quite tasty. My favorite was the one that tasted like cherry, though I enjoyed them all. There was a cloudy white one that seemed to be coconut as well as a few that were obviously pistachio and walnut; the nuts peppering the edges were a dead giveaway. There were also some that were difficult to reach conclusions about the flavors as they clearly were not common in America, but I can say that I'm certain not one of those delights were saffron-flavored.

Saffron isn't a flavor one usually associates with sweets and my main experience with it is sparingly using those expensive threads with paella that I make for my husband. I have a tiny bottle at present that was given to me as a souvenir of his father's and sister's visit to relatives in Spain a few years ago. When it runs out, I know I'll have to reluctantly pay more per ounce for this spice than I'd pay for gold.

Because of the high price of saffron, and the intensity of the flavor, I was stunned that the New York Times recipe for microwave saffron Turkish delight included a teaspoon of it. That seemed like an enormous quantity by any standard, but then I guess the Times food editors and writers make more money than my family does. As I scanned the recipe, I decided to reduce the amount of saffron and increase the amount of lemon to suit my tastes. I also substituted vanilla extract for vanilla bean because I didn't have any on hand and they are also very expensive. This was a substitution I regretted, and that I'm pretty sure lowered the quality of flavor of the final outcome, but I was already investing enough by using my precious saffron and I didn't want to splash out for a vanilla bean on a recipe that may flop. I've tried to make candy very few times in my life and have rarely experienced success.

You can follow the link above to the Times version of the recipe with instructions (which I followed as they appear), but my ingredients list was as follows:

• 1 1/4 cups cornstarch (plus more as needed for dusting)
• 3 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup corn syrup
• 1/3 teaspoons saffron threads
• 3 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Though this is a microwave recipe, it is still labor intensive. The use of a microwave over a conventional stove-top cooking method is likely meant to reduce the chances that the candy will burn, not speed up the process. You need to stop at frequent intervals and stir. I used a glass bowl much bigger than required and a silicon spatula. Heed the warning on the instructions to handle the bowl with oven mitts as it will get hot over the long cooking process. The larger bowl makes stirring the thick molten liquid much less dangerous.

Since I rarely make candy and all of my previous attempts were pretty disastrous, I erred on the side of over-cooking rather than under-cooking. I followed the instruction to smear a bit of the mixture on the side of a cold plate, but I found that that it never quite solidified into a soft solid as I expected. I know the plate was cold enough because I kept it in the freezer between tests. After cooking for one more cycle than the maximum amount of time (24 minutes), I concluded that I'd better stop.

When I spread the gel-like mixture into my well-greased pan, it started to solidify pretty rapidly and became impossible to spread evenly. I ended up with an uneven topography of yellow goo. After cooling and freezing, cutting was an adventure as it was extremely tough to get the semi-frozen mixture to pull apart. I was very concerned that the candy was going to end up like ancient gummy bears texture-wise and would pull out my fillings when chewing.

The picture on the New York Times page for the recipe shows bright yellow candy with brilliant threads of red saffron topped by a snowy white dusting. Mine looked like this:

The instructions tell you to store the candy in a a shallow container filled with a mixture of half powdered sugar and half cornstarch. This is the wise way to store them and leaves you with the snowy-looking specimens above. They are not photogenic, but they also aren't sticky. If you attempt to package or display your candy as the Times photo does, it'll stick terribly to the sides of the plastic bag that you artfully place it into.

While the reality isn't pretty, it is extremely tasty. The textural issues that were concerning me did not come to fruition. After the candy had warmed to room temperature, it turned into a pliable, but manageable jelly candy. The texture is, for lack of a better word, delightful. The flavor, despite my reducing the saffron, had plenty of that spice present. If anything, I'd recommend reducing the saffron down to an even smaller amount (1/4 teaspoon, perhaps) and keeping the increased lemon juice amount. The lemon flavor isn't particularly potent and I think that it keeps the candy from being too sweet. The flavors definitely come together to produce something akin to honey without the cloying sweetness or stickiness.

This is a fantastic candy recipe and I would definitely make it again. I'd consider also changing it up with other flavors (such as orange or even anise). However, I wouldn't make it often because it's an enormous amount of work. I think it'd make an excellent holiday recipe or as a special treat for someone who loves jelly candies or Turkish delight.