Experiments with quince

Tags

apples, baking, postaday2014, quince

I was telling my friend Tilly that with my children away from the house, either on tour or at university, I really miss baking and cooking for them; so much so that I fantasized about baking goodies and dropping them off to someone’s house under the cover of darkness just to get my baking fix. Tilly of course had a better plan; look into Food banks, homeless shelters or retirement homes who would benefit from my need to bake. She is such a wonderful friend full of wisdom and common sense.

I can think of someone else, Debbie my best friend, who would be loving a certain type of pie, I have been thinking about it for a while, I just have to coordinate my time to do a home delivery to her house; ever since she moved away from next door, it is hard to cook and bake for her the way I used to when it was only a skip and a jump to her front door.

Anyway just as I was writing back and forth with Tilly, my son came home early from his tour and as soon as he got in, I served him a bowl of soup and got to work on an apple clafoutis.

A clafoutis is essentially a batter type cake with fruit in it; traditionally it is full of pitted cherries, but you can make it with apricots, pears or apples. I chose apples because A. I had five apples waiting in the refrigerator for someone to do something with them and B I had picked a bunch of quince from my quince bush and I wanted to bake them into something, so why not a clafoutis.

The clafoutis batter comprises of 4 eggs, 4 tablespoons of sugar, 2/3 cups of flour( I did 1/3 cup of unbleached flour, 1/3 almond meal) 1 cup of milk ( I used 1 cup of buttermilk) and you whisk these together and pour it over the fruit that is in a buttered pie dish.

I looked through various recipes involving quince and apples and they all pointed to a quince compote which calls for peeling and dicing 4 quince and adding them to 4 cups of water, 1/2 cup of sugar and 2 cinnamon sticks that have come to a boil and the sugar has dissolved and you let them cook for about an hour. The house smelled like Christmas and Thanksgiving.

I pulled the quince off the heat, it looked like compote and tasted sweet with a pleasing note of tart and cinnamon. I gently spread the compote on the bottom of the pie dish and then after I peeled, cored and sliced up the apples, I sautéed them for a few minutes in 2 tablespoons of butter before piling them into the buttered pie dish, that is when I poured the batter over the fruit and put it in a 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes.

My son has been eating soup and has been eating clafoutis since his return; makes a Maman proud and very happy.

Getting busy in the kitchen

Tags

almonds, apples, baking, cooking, frittata, postaday2013

Father’s Day is upon us and I was gearing up in the kitchen for the weekend. I decided to make the desserts tonight because tomorrow I have my hands full; what with weight class, a doctor’s appointment, shopping and more cooking.

My hubby asked for the apple tart that I had made when my sister and her kids were here at our house last. One of my favorite cookbooks is Patricia Wells “Bistro Cookbook” and she has a wonderful recipe called the apple and golden cream tart. I improvised it somewhat last time because I had extra almond creme and I added it as the base before laying down the apples in a rosette design and adding the custard afterwards. Actually the tart’s name can now be “apple, golden custard with an almond creme”. The almond creme is a basic component in French patisserie and all you need is equal amounts of room temperature butter, equal parts ground almond, equal parts sugar and an egg with a dash of flour.My hubby really liked the extra layer of flavor that the almond creme gave to the custard and the apples.

The kids have fallen in love with the frittata and since my gratin of potatoes was devoured last night. I figured another one would make them happy, I threw in garlic, onions and bacon; everything tastes better with bacon, and the eggs. Since I had the oven set at 375 because I had pre-baked the pie shells for the two tarts (I made two to make sure that the whole weekend is dessert filled) a frittata made perfect sense. At this point I had not burned myself, I was faithfully using my dish towels. When I took out the pan and inverted the frittata onto the plate, I still hadn’t burned myself. It happened when I had my dish towel in my left hand and used my right hand to put the pan into the sink. OWWWW! I tell you, how silly can someone be? I have the dish towel just not in the proper hand. I’m okay don’t worry. I melted a few ice cubes in my right hand palm for awhile. I still love baking even though I am a danger to myself.

Perils of baking

Tags

apples, baking, burns, caramel, cuts, galette, hot oven, postaday2012

Today I spent my time making my family’s favorite cookies, palmiers or elephant ears, the dough is time consuming but only in the sense that the dough needs to rest in the refrigerator for an hour in between each time you roll it out and fold it two turns. Once the dough has rested three separate times it is ready to be fashioned into what ever pastry you want. I made the dough because besides making the cookies; I was also planning to make an apple galette. An apple galette is a French tart made with the thinnest, flakiest pastry dough.

As I’m writing this post the apple galette is done for tomorrow and the palmier cookies are all baked into golden caramel lacquered buttery, flaky, crispy cookies. I am resting on the couch nursing a deep cut on my left thumb and two painful burns on the same left hand. My right hand is unscathed which I am very much appreciative because I am lost without my right hand. I am pretty sure that my left hand always bears the brunt of the injuries because it is weaker and slower. My cut was very embarrassing just in how stupidly I handled the knife while I was slicing up the butter into small pieces to put into the freezer before combining the butter with the flour. Whenever you work pastry dough you need the ingredients to be as cold as possible, especially when working with butter. The cut went fairly deep as my thumb got in the way of the blade as I was pushing the butter off onto the plate. I don’t know why my thumb was there, it wasn’t really doing anything besides get in the way.

My two burns were stupidly gotten as well. For once I didn’t burn my fingers getting the cookie sheets out of the oven. This time I burned the front of my hand, right on top of my bulging vein, pulling the oven door down, I think, or that may be the time that I burned my inner wrist right by the small tendons; either way fragile skin feels the pain much more acutely than my work hardened fingertips.

Everything came out looking quite yummy so the results are worth the pain. My mother used to say that excellence came from suffering or pain, she used to say the same about beauty; you have to suffer to be beautiful. I am really happy with my day’s work and that’s what counts.

Tarte tatin in pictures

Tags

apples, dessert, food, pictures, postaday2012, tarte tatin

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I have to say that the chicken pot pie was a hit. Both casseroles are gone and the little Tupperware is going into the freezer. We are having a great time, watching movies together, eating together and talking about everything under the sun. The tarte tatin was demolished yesterday, we still have whipped cream and ice cream for whomever has a sweet tooth. This afternoon I made four pizza pies because nothing goes with Sunday football better than pizza.

Tomorrow is another story, I think I’m going to hand the reins over to my hubby. We have plenty of steaks and chops that he can grill, I know that I have frozen broccoli and frozen fries that I can sauté the former and throw the latter into the oven.

Our guests are leaving tomorrow but my hubby and my baby girl aren’t leaving until Tuesday morning so I’m really happy with that, next week will feel a little lonely with everyone gone, but I have my dogs and my WordPress to keep me busy and engaged.