50 Women Game Changers in Food: #21, Ree Drummond

Do I really need to say anything about The Pioneer Woman? After all, her blog has more than 23 million page views per month and 4.4 million visitors! But if you'd like some extra skinny on Ree, check out this lovely article about her in The New Yorker.

Briefly, Ree grew up in Oklahoma and after college in California, planned on moving to Chicago to study law. Her plans got interupted when she met and married a cattleman and found herself right back in Oklahoma, this time on a cattle ranch in Pawhuska.
A familiar refrain, Ree started her blog for fun, not expecting it to lead to anything. She's a writer, photographer and home-school teacher to her four children; telling us all about her experiences on the ranch has led to a cookbook: The Pioneer Woman  Cooks and to top it all off, Ree is about to star in her own Food Network show.



I confess, I am not among the 23 million who regularly visit her blog. But someone gave me her cookbook a while back so I had already perused it. I completely agreed with a comment about it in a New York Times article: "Vegetarians and gourmands won’t find much to cook here, but as a portrait of a real American family kitchen, it works." 
And I think that's exactly what Ree wanted to do with her highly popular blog AND her cookbook: she wanted it to be the story of a real American family kitchen.

I chose a basic fruit crisp recipe from her cookbook to highlight our blogger game changer Ree. It's a nice recipe using lovely fresh peaches but what drew me in was the maple cream topping. I had some left over and used it over some baked apples (yum!), but what I'm going to pour it over next are Hannah's Whole Grain Pumpkin Pancakes! 

Peach Crisp with Maple Cream Sauce
From The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond

Ingredients:

5 to 6  whole fresh peaches 

1 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick butter (1/2 Cup)

1/2 whole lemon

7 tablespoons real maple syrup, divided

1-1/2 cup whipping cream

3 tablespoons light corn syrup

Method:

In a medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, light brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt using a 

fork or pastry cutter. Cut butter into small pieces and gradually add to flour mixture until evenly mixed. 

Peel peaches into a bowl. Add the zest from half a lemon. Squeeze juice from lemon half and stir in with peaches and zest. Add 2 tablespoons real maple syrup to peaches, stir well. 

Pour peach mixture into a small pan (8” or 9” square) and cover evenly with crumb topping. 

Cover with foil and bake at 350ºF for 15 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 20 to 30 minutes or until crisp and brown on top.

Maple Cream Sauce: 

Pour whipping cream into a saucepan. Add 5 tablespoons real maple syrup, 3 tablespoons corn syrup and stir over moderate heat until thickened and reduced by about one-third, approximately 15 minutes. Refrigerate mixture until it is cold and thick, or set the saucepan into a small bowl of ice (the ice will melt and turn into ice water). Stirring your mixture, it will cool and thicken in about 15 minutes. Drizzle sauce over peach crisp.

Serve warm.


Join Mary from One Perfect Bite and all the other participants in this fun series.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets 
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Kathleen Van Bruinisse - Bake Away with Me 
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Martha - Lines from Linderhof
Amy - Beloved Green
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda
Nancy - Picadillo
Mireya - My Healthy Eating Habits
Veronica - My Catholic Kitchen

50 Women Game Changers in Food: #14, Elizabeth David

One of the first cookbooks I received as a newly-married (it was a gift from my mother) was French Country Cooking, so Elizabeth David is an old friend. She is credited with changing the way the British middle classes ate by introducing a generation of British cooks to Mediterranean food such as pasta, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, salami, aubergines, red and green peppers and courgettes. Her descriptions of dishes caught the imagination of a post-war generation. 

Ms. David's earlier cookbooks are remembered not only for the recipes, but for vividly described landscapes and the harbors and marketplaces of the Mediterranean. Articles in Vogue, House and Garden, The Sunday Times and The Spectator helped to spread her influence throughout a country whose culinary efforts resulted mainly in fish and chips and spotted Dick. 

Many chefs, including Simon Hopkinson, Jamie Oliver and Alice Waters, say David was a great inspiration to them. 
"Her esthetic is about simplicity and a kind of fragrance," Ms. Waters said. "She had a great sense of the seasons and always about life around the table -- the setting, the conversation. It was always more than just the food because her recipes were not very specific, to say the least. I remember being frustrated, but it made you think."

Ms. David led rather a racy life for the times (she was born in 1913 and died in 1992) which was never much talked about, but exposed in an unofficial biography by Lisa Chaney. After a patrician, cosmopolitan upbringing, Ms. David studied art in Paris, became an actress, and ran off with a married man with whom she sailed in a small boat to Italy, eventually making their way to Greece where they were nearly trapped by the German invasion of Greece in 1940. They escaped to Egypt where they parted. She then worked for the British government, running a library in Cairo. She married there, but the marriage didn't last long. It appears she led a spicy private life, but she certainly learned valuable lessons from cooks in France, Italy, Greece and north Africa.

 After the war, David returned to England, and, dismayed by the gloom and bad food, wrote a series of articles about Mediterranean food that caught the public imagination. Books on French and Italian cuisine followed, and within ten years David was a major influence on British cooking.  Her cookbooks were, in addition to the recipes, wonderful pieces of travel writing. In 1960, Mrs David published her masterpiece, French Provincial Cooking, a book that may be read as literature, as a work of reference, and as a splendid and representative collection of recipes.
 

Because I had some fresh raspberries in the fridge and not too much time, I chose a quick and simple dessert recipe from Summer Cooking, an interesting collection of seasonal dishes relying on fresh ingredients and fresh herbs. 
The recipe was entitled Raspberry Shortbread....the shortbread part intrigued me. I always think of shortbread as a kind of thick cookie (which I couldn't imagine with fresh raspberries) and as expected, this certainly didn't result in a cookie. Perhaps the British definition of shortbread is not the same as mine? At any rate, this shortbread turned out to be more of a fruit crumble. And while it certainly was tasty, I confess I've made crumbles I liked better.
I have posted her recipe and instructions verbatim.

Raspberry Shortbread
From Summer Cooking by Elizabeth David

Ingredients:
6 ounces flour
3 1/2 ounces moist brown sugar
2 ounces butter
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pound raspberries
a little white sugar

Method:
Put the raspberries in a fairly large shallow pie dish, strew them with white sugar. Cut the butter into very small pieces and crumble it with the flour until very well blended. Add the sugar, ginger and baking powder.
Spread this mixture lightly over the raspberries and smooth it out evenly, but do not press down.
Bake in the center of a medium oven for 25  minutes. Can be served hot or cold and is excellent.




Join Mary from One Perfect Bite and all the other participants in this fun series.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Kathleen -Bake Away with Me
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Amy - Beloved Green
Jeanette - Healthy Living
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda

Cherry Almond Crumble

Gosh, another dessert with fruit. I can't resist. Aren't you loving the black cherries in the market? I confess, I do hate pitting them though; I even wear plastic gloves and an apron (unheard of for me) 'cause they stain so. But desserts like this one make it well worth the time and mess. Imagine my surprise to find I had all the ingredients for this dish already in my kitchen! That never happens. You're going to love the crunchy topping (always the first thing I eat) and the dark brown sugar in the cherry mixture provides some lovely depth in flavor.

Cherry Almond Crumble
From Rustic Fruit Desserts via Hannah from Honey and Jam

Ingredients:

Crumble:
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup sliced almonds
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted


Cherry Filling:
1 1/2 pounds fresh cherries, pitted
1/3 cup dark brown sugar (more or less, depending on your taste)
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350. Butter whichever baking dishes you are going to use. I used individual oval ones.
Mix the flour, oats, brown sugar, almonds and salt together in a bowl. Add the butter, and with your hands, crumble it together until well mixed.
Mix together the cherries, dark brown sugar, almond extract and cornstarch.
Pour the cherry mixture into the buttered dishes and then crumble the topping over the cherries. Bake 45  minutes or until the topping is golden brown and you can see the filling bubbling around the sides.

Buckwheat Stone Fruit Shortcake

There's always some buckwheat flour in my pantry because of our love for Grandpa's buckwheat pancakes. So when I saw this recipe for buckwheat shortcake in Alice Medrich's book, I was intrigued. Then white peaches arrived in the market, I couldn't resist so decided to make the shortcake using stone fruit with raspberries rather than the traditional strawberries. The peaches were sweet and the juices from the fruit soaked into the bottom layer of the shortcake while the top stayed a bit crunchy. On top of that, this is the easiest shortcake I've ever made. In one bowl and it only took a couple minutes to throw together and ten to bake.  Dessert can be ready in a flash. I added a little confectioners sugar to the whipped cream and it really did need that touch of sweet. 
It turned out to be a lovely change from the ordinary shortcake. It even looks wholesome and healthy doesn't it? And it tasted even better than Mother's  shortcake, which I've been making for years. 

Buckwheat Shortcake
From  Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich

Ingredients:
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour (5 ounces)
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons buckwheat flour (1.7 ounces)
1/4 cup sugar plus extra for sprinkling
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup heavy cream

Method:
Preheat oven to 425. Prepare a baking sheet lined with a double layer of parchment paper.
In a bowl, whisk together everything but the heavy cream. Make a well in the center and pour in the cream. Incorporate slowly with a rubber spatula by pushing the dry ingredients into the center, cutting and turning until the dry ingredients are moistened. The dough should look shaggy and rough. Gather the dough into a ball and knead it gently against the side of the bowl a few times.
Turn the dough out on a floured counter and roll out to a square about 3/4 inch thick. Cut out in whatever shape you prefer, place on the parchment paper. Dip a brush into the cup that held the cream and brush the leftover cream on the tops of the shortbread. Sprinkle with sugar and bake for 12 to 15 minute. Cool on a rack. (Made about 6 square shortcakes.)

Filling for the shortbread:

Ingredients:
5 medium plums, pitted, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 large peaches, pitted, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/2-pint basket raspberries
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup chilled whipping cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or extract)
Additional powdered sugar

Method:
Toss plums, peaches, raspberries and 1/3 cup sugar in large bowl. Let stand 30 minutes.  Beat the whipping cream, 1/4 cup powdered sugar and vanilla in large bowl until firm peaks form. Refrigerate until ready to use. 

Dulce de Leche Butterscotch Pudding

Mother's Day usually falls near my Mother's birthday....which was on the 16th. We always combined the two when she was still with us, so I always think of Mother's Day and her birthday in the same breath. Have I ever mentioned her name was May? And that she had a sister June? Naming kids after birth months was quite common back then . And then there was a third sister, named Francis. I always got a chuckle out of that. 

                                                                                               May Doherty Smith, circa 1930

(Don't you love this happy photo and her adorable crocheted top?!)

For Mother's Day, I was going to make Mother's 7-up pound cake (which nearly everyone has a recipe for anyway) until I remembered her butterscotch pudding. She made a lot of puddings for dessert but I especially loved her butterscotch pudding; unfortunately, she never wrote the recipe down. Often, I asked her to write down measurements as she cooked, but I must have missed this one. I've never tasted anything like it since. Mother also made a divine butterscotch pudding/sauce, which she layered over a baked meringue and topped it with a thin layer of whipped cream. Killer dessert, calorie-wise, but sheer heaven. And this butterscotch was a bit different than her pudding, thinner and more like a sauce, but not quite as thin or sticky as a sauce for ice cream. Which means I always keep my eyes open when I see butterscotch anything recipes, always hoping. I still haven't found any exact matches and neither has my sister. As I recall, that particular meringue dessert was one of my brother's favorites, too. (Of course Mother also made it with lemon curd, which must have been a treat for my lemon-obsessed sister Sharon, but I still dream of the butterscotch.)

Recently, I came across a couple butterscotch pudding recipes I thought I'd combine and try. The result doesn't taste exactly like Mother's, but it's a lovely pudding. (Back to the drawing board for those butterscotch meringues.) Anyway, I mixed recipes from Flour and The Perfect Finish. You probably all have a recipe for butterscotch pudding, but I've never tried one that adds dulce de leche. Which, BTW, I made in a new way. (See bench notes)  
You can't beat the teacup presentation for Mother's Day! 


Dulce de Leche Butterscotch Pudding

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
4 large egg yolks, room temperature
1/2 cup sifted cornstarch
2 cups half and half
2 cups whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons dulce de leche (see bench notes)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
whipped cream for garnish


Method:
In a saucepan, whisk together the brown sugar, egg yolks and corn starch. This mixture will be very stiff.
In another saucepan, heat the half and half and milk until it just comes to a boil. Remove from heat and whisk this mixture slowly into the brown sugar mixture. Whisk in the dulce de leche. Return to the stove and place a candy thermometer in the pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until slightly thickened. (Between 160º and 170º) Do not allow the mixture to boil or go over 180º or it will curdle. 
Remove from heat and divide among teacups or ramekins. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate about 2 hours.
Serve chilled puddings with whipped cream and dulce de leche.

Bench Note: 
I've made dulce de leche boiled in the can and also stovetop. But this time, I tried David Lebovitz's oven method and thought it the easiest, certainly less hands-on. The recipe follows.

Dulce de Leche 
Preheat the oven to 425° F.
Pour one can of sweetened condensed milk into a glass pie plate or shallow baking dish. Stir in a few flecks of sea salt.Set the pie plate within a larger pan, such as a roasting pan, and add hot water until it reaches halfway up the side of the pie plate.Cover the pie plate snugly with aluminum foil and bake for 1 to 1¼ hours. (Check a few times during baking and add more water to the roasting pan as necessary).
Once the Dulce de Leche is nicely browned and caramelized, remove from the oven and let cool. Once cool, whisk until smooth.Store in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Warm gently in a warm water bath or microwave oven before using. 

Blackberry and Tomato Crumble

My Michigan family was visiting recently and my sweet DIL mailed me a "thank you" cookbook after they returned. Angie's an excellent cook and she loves looking through my cookbooks. I bet she looked to see if I had this one....I didn't and was really thrilled to get it.

As you can see, it's Avec Eric  and the only way I can describe it is to say it's a cookbook/travelogue/scrapbook. With LOTS of photos of Eric. But that's OK with me; laid back and handsome Eric Ripert is a favorite of mine and his restaurant, Le Bernardin in NYC, is  as near perfect as you can get. I've eaten there and can state that unequivocably. As one reviewer stated:  "it is a high church of reverently prepared fish."

What I found unusual about this cookbook was the way the chapters were labeled. Not according to food groups as one expects, but location. Eric has this to say in his introduction: ".....you really have to get out of the city and visit the source to appreciate what it takes to cultivate and produce the food that ends up in our markets.....you have to walk the fields, talk to the farmer, see the animals and taste everything in its purest form."

So Eric takes us with him on his travels....to California, to Italy, to the Cayman Islands...where he finds inspiration for his restaurant, his home and hopefully, for us. The directions are not fussy, the recipes easily within the reach of everyone and they include wine pairings and notes. It was a pleasure to read.

Because spring is already here (Hopefully summer can't be far behind!) I chose this recipe first because just looking at it made me think of summer. It was in a chapter entitled Star Ingredients, which I certainly think these are. I like savory/sweet desserts and everyone loves fruit for dessert. The syrup for the tomatoes and blackberries made me close my eyes and go mmmmmm....such flavor! The cookbook had a scoop of ice cream or sorbet on top and I just happened to have some vanilla bean sorbet in the freezer. It was the perfect touch.

Blackberry and Tomato Crumble
From Avec Eric by Eric Ripert

Crumble Ingredients:
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cold, diced
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
pinch of fine sea salt


Fruit Ingredients:
1 pint small grape tomatoes
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
1 cup fresh basil leaves, loosely packed
3 tarragon sprigs
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1 pint fresh blackberries
lemon zest strips and tarragon leaves for garnish
Sorbet for garnish, optional


Crumble Method:
Stir all the ingredients in a large bowl until it forms a pebble-like consistancy. Cover and chill for one hour.
Preheat oven to 325 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Spread the crumble mixture on the parchment paper and bake for 10 - 15 minutes until golden brown. Cool.

Fruit Method:
Bring a pot of water to the boil, drop the tomatoes in for 20-30 seconds. Remove to ice water and peel the skin.

Combine the sugar and water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add the basil, tarragon, lemon zest and juice and the seeds from the vanilla pod. I tossed the pod in as well for good measure. Cover and allow to infuse until cool. Strain the mixture.

Rinse and dry the blackberries. Place the tomatoes and blackberries in the syrup. Chill for at least 1 hour. Drain, but reserve the syrup.

Arrange the fruit in 4 bowls and top each with a spoonful of the syrup, along with 3 or 4 tablespoons of the crumble. Garnish with lemon strips and tarragon and top with a small scoop of ice cream or sorbet.

Grateful Pudding (and giveaway winners)

Don't you love the name of this pudding? It's almost worth making just to announce it to your Thanksgiving guests! My family really enjoys plum pudding after a turkey dinner, so they had quite a surprise when I served a light rather than dark steamed pudding last time. Fortunately, they were crazy about it. I have some of my grandmother's old pudding molds- but this is the shape I like best. And it just fits perfectly in my soup pot for steaming.
 

This holiday pudding is a Martha Stewart recipe from her old cookbook Entertaining. An amazingly simple recipe (although you have to prepare the fruit by soaking overnight) and it's done in about an hour. I kind of like the traditional idea of a steamed pudding for Thanksgiving. Martha suggests using her sour lemon sauce and it's excellent with this pudding. Everyone enjoyed the tart lemon flavor (especially my dad) of this sauce. But you could make my mother's caramel brandy sauce- which would be good too-that recipe is HERE.

Grateful Pudding
From Martha Stewart's Entertaining

 

 
Ingredients:
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup muscat raisins
1/4 cup cognac
6 cups white bread, crusts removed, cut into 1/2 in squares (I used challah)
3 cups whipping cream
1 vanilla bean
6 eggs
1 lemon
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon mace

For the lemon sauce:
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoons cornstarch
dash salt
1 1/4 cups hot water
3 1/2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
4 Tablespoons lemon juice
3 Tablespoons grated lemon rind


Method:
Grate the rind of one lemon and soak the raisins with the cognac and the rind overnight. Drain.
Butter and sprinkle with sugar a 2 qt. covered mold including the inside of the lid.
Layer the bread alternating with the raisins. Scald the cream with the vanilla bean and cool slightly. Remove bean, scrape out the seeds and put back in the milk. Beat eggs and sugar until light and gradually pour in the cream. Add the mace and pour over the bread.
Secure lid and steam for 1 hour on a rack in a covered kettle with water 2/3 up the side of the mold.
Unmold pudding carefully and serve with sauce. Serves 8-10. You don't need big servings...this is quite rich.

Method for the lemon sauce:
Combine sugar, cornstarch and salt in a double boiler. Add hot water and cook 3 to 5 minutes or until thick. Add butter, lemon juice and rind. Cook a little longer.


And here are the lucky Cookbook Giveaway Winners. I used the random number generator to pick  four and then if possible, tried to give you the cookbooks you requested.

Then first winner is Donna from My Tasty Treasures . She won the Rose Levy Beranbaum cookie cookbook.

The second winner is Dana from The Kitchen Witch. She won Maida Heatter's Chocolate cookbook.

The third winner is Lea Ann from Mangos Chili and Z.    She won Dorie's book.

 The final winner is Susan from Schnitzel and the Trout.   She won Nigella's book.

Congratulations to all of you! Please email your mailing information to bsmithw@gmail.com so I can mail your cookbook out ASAP!

A Culinary Ode to Fall: Maple Panna Cotta

Don't you love fall desserts like this? A snap to make and every mouthful is smooth and creamy. Perfect for family, but elegant enough for company. A friend gave me this recipe years ago with no provenance...my apologies to the recipe's owner/chef.

I've had it served to me once with strawberries and another time with figs. But I like to serve it with one of those pretty maple candies in the center because I love the fall palatte of this dessert. Even if I can't have the golden trees in Florida, I'm going to enjoy maple panna cotta!

And because I thought it would be fun to try (I had just made gingerbread the day before) I tried layering the panna cotta with gingerbread in my cute set of Juliska glasses. I let it gel a bit in the fridge first, but it still seeped through the gingerbread layers. Not picture perfect, but it was delicious!

Maple Panna Cotta

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin (this will be less than 1 envelope)
2 tablespoons warm water
1 cup heavy whipping cream, NOT whipped
1 cup mascarpone cheese, room temperature
1 cup real maple syrup
1 tablespoon dark rum (optional)
whipped cream and some maple sugar candies for garnish.

Method:
Sprinkle the gelatin over the water in a large heatproof bowl. Let sit for 10 minutes.Whisk in the cream, mascarpone and maple syrup, and set the bowl over a pan of simmering water. Whisk the mixture until smooth and warmed through, so the gelatin is incorporated.

Divide the mixture evenly among 6 martini glasses. Cover each one with plastic wrap. Be sure that the wrap does not touch the tops of the panna cotta. Refrigerate overnight, or for a minimum of 12 hours, before serving.

Top with a spoonful of whipped cream and a maple candy. Serves 6.

The nice people from Maple Syrup World asked to add this recipe to their blog site.

Of course I agreed. Give them a visit.

Little “Visitation” Cakes from Lorraine

Visitandine or Financier? Did you know they were the same thing? Both describe an almond cake. And oh my, what a cake! It's sweet, nutty and has an eggshell-crisp exterior. I like them much better than their shell-shaped first  cousins, Madeleines. But then all a recipe has to say is almond flour and I'm a goner.

They've been making financiers in France for more than 100 years. The classic way to bake the financier (pronounced fee-nahn-see-AY) is in tiny round, fluted or rectangular molds. Anytime I see see them in a pastry shop in the U.S., they are called financiers. But many patisseries in Europe still call them visitandines. You can also bake it in a classic cake pan; still, the recipe is identical.

Pierre Lacam, in ''Memorial Historique de la Patisserie,'' published in 1890, wrote that the financier was created by a baker named Lasne, whose bakery was near the financial center of Paris. Presumably, the rich little cake was named for the wealthy financiers who frequented his bakery. The cake was baked in rectangular molds, the shape of gold bars.

But I've also read because butter and almonds were so pricey, that only the rich (i.e. well-financed) could afford to eat them. The rectangular shape was not as attractive as other shapes; a boat-shaped mold became favored, and today the cake can take any shape that appeals to the baker.


Now Lasne may have thought he invented these but Nick Malgieri, the director of the baking program at Peter Kump's New York Cooking School, said a similar cake made with nuts, egg whites and brown butter existed even before that. It was made, he said, by nuns of the Order of the Visitation and was called a visitandine. (The visitation referred to in this case was the one made by the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, before Elizabeth gave birth to John the Baptist.) The cakes don’t derive from an ancient Hebrew recipe, but were originated in the convent of a community of French nuns called the Sisters of the Visitation, colloquially known in French as the "Visitandines.


Which of these stories is correct? Your guess is as good as mine.


No matter the name, the cakes have a nutty flavor from the browned butter and are perfect served with coffee or tea. And you'll often find them served with a spoonful of jam on top or even a raspberry stuck in the top before baking.

If you make Visitandine in cake pan form, you could eat a wedge just as is, but it's also lovely with some fruit. Lucie at Bilingual Butter had a wonderful post about it recently. Reading it was what tweaked my interest. And Dorie Greenspan weighed in on it too.  The recipes are slightly different than the one I used, but the cakes all are divine.

Is this a difficult recipe? Not really. All you need is a whisk, a bowl and a pan. A few steps make or break the cake. The first, browning the butter, is what defines its flavor and adds depth to the almonds. Remove it the moment it attains the color of a chestnut. The second trick is to mix the batter as little as possible. It should be stirred until just blended. If you stir too much, the gluten in the flour will get overworked and the cake will be tough. And the batter has to rest a few hours in the refrigerator before baking.

Vistandine (or Financiers)
Adapted from Francois Payard of Payard Patisserie


Ingredients:

9 tablespoons butter, more for molds
1-1/4 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup bleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon, plus 2 teaspoons cake flour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 egg whites, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Method:

With a pastry brush, butter  thoroughly butter the financier molds. Arrange them side by side, but not touching, on a baking sheet. Place the baking sheet with the buttered molds in the freezer to resolidify the butter and make the financiers easier to unmold.


In a small pan over medium low heat, heat butter, occasionally swirling, until it begins to brown, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

Sift sugar over almond flour. (If using whole almonds, process with sugar in a food processor until mostly fine.) Add both flours, salt and baking powder, and gently whisk to combine. Add egg whites one at a time, whisking just to combine. Do not overwork or the cakes will be tough.

Add vanilla to butter. In a steady stream, whisk butter into flour mixture. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate 3 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Remove molds from freezer. Spoon mixture into a pastry bag that has a 1/4-inch round tip. Pipe mixture into molds, filling halfway.

Bake 18 to 20 minutes, until browned and springy. Remove from oven, and cool 2 minutes before unmolding. Cool completely on rack. Serve plain or dusted with powdered sugar, or warm, with ice cream.

Yield: 12 cakes.

(Storage: Keep the cakes loosely covered with plastic wrap on the day they are made. For longer storage, transfer them to a tin or plastic container with a tight-fitting cover in one layer and refrigerate them. Bring them back to room temperature before serving again. I froze some just to see what happened and, while not as good as fresh, I would not have been embarrassed to serve them to company.)

Photo credit for the rectangular financiers: http://dessertfirst.typepad.com/dessert_first/2009/04/honey-financiers.html

Almond Praline Semifreddo with Roasted Apricots

Have you ever made a semifreddo? This was my first. Why, I can't imagine since I like ice cream so much. The name is Italian for "half cold" and refers to any of various chilled or partially frozen desserts. While this may be considered a frozen dessert, because of the egg whites or whipped cream folded into a semifreddo, it doesn't freeze as hard as ice cream. And I bet you'll be pleased to read you don't need an ice cream maker either. When you take a spoonful, you'll find the semifreddo melts quickly in your mouth and has an airy, mousse-like texture. Really lovely.

Just because I'm crazy for almond anything, I made an almond praline semifreddo. We loved it, but there simply wasn't anywhere near enough praline :D, so next time I'm going to double the praline part of the recipe. Not only would I have loved more in the semifreddo itself, but I ran out while sprinkling it on top as a garnish.

There are lots of different ways a semifreddo can be plated: you can freeze the entire batch in a large container and scoop it out to serve just like ice cream or freeze it in individual paper cupcake liners. Just peel them away to serve.  I really prefer the presentation of a slice of semifreddo, so I made mine in a loaf pan. Apricots are wonderful right now so I roasted some lovely fresh ones. Of course, you can use any fruit you like. There is a wonderful recipe at Pastry Studio (one of my favorite blogs), using cherries with an almond semifreddo. I included her recipe after the at the end because cherries are lovely right now too! But if you want to make a really simple topping for your semifreddo, just mash your favorite fresh berries and add some sugar to taste.

Almond Praline Semifreddo
Gourmet, July, 1990

Ingredients:

(Please note that I have doubled the praline part of this recipe)

2/3 cup plus 1/4 cup sugar, divided
2/3 cup sliced almonds with skin (1 ounce), toasted and cooled
2 large eggs
1/8 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 1/2 cups chilled heavy cream

Method:
Line a lightly oiled 8 1/2-by 4 1/2-inch loaf pan with wax paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on all sides.

Cook 2/3 cup sugar in a dry small heavy skillet over medium heat, undisturbed, until it begins to melt. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally with a fork, until a deep golden caramel. Stir in almonds to coat and scrape onto baking sheet. Cool, then break into pieces. Pulse in a food processor until praline is finely ground (do not grind to a paste).

Beat eggs and remaining 1/4 cup sugar with a pinch of salt in a 2-quart metal bowl set over a pot of simmering water using a handheld electric mixer at high speed until tripled in volume and very thick, about 8 minutes. Remove bowl from heat and continue to beat until mixture is cooled to room temperature, about 5 minutes. Stir in extract.

With cleaned beaters, beat cream until it just holds stiff peaks. Fold about one third of whipped cream into egg mixture to lighten, then fold in remaining cream and about 3/4 of the praline gently but thoroughly (reserve remaining praline for garnish). Spoon into loaf pan and freeze, covered, until firm, at least 6 hours.

Uncover semifreddo and invert onto a chilled platter, using plastic wrap to help pull it from mold. Sprinkle reserved praline on top. Slice semifreddo crosswise and serve with the apricots.


Honey-cardamom Roasted Apricots
From Bon Appetit Test Kitchen, June 2010.

Ingredients:
1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
6 large or 12 small apricots (about 1 1/2 pounds), halved, pitted
3 1/2 tablespoons honey, divided
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced

Method:
Preheat oven to 425°F. Mix brown sugar and cardamom in 11x7x2-inch glass baking dish. Add apricots. Pour 1/4 cup water and 2 tablespoons honey over fruit; dot with butter. Roast until apricots are tender, occasionally basting with syrup in dish, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool 5 minutes.

Balsamic Cherries
From Pastry Studio

Ingredients:
3 cups (about 1 lb, 2 oz) fresh cherries, pitted
2 tablespoons water
1/4 cup sugar, to taste
pinch salt
zest of half of a large orange
1 -2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, to taste

Method:
To make the cherry compote, place the pitted cherries with the water and sugar in a saucepan. Add the orange zest and simmer until the juices are rendered and the cherries are fairly tender, tasting for the right amount of sugar. Remove from heat and add the balsamic vinegar. Cool completely.


Notes: Semifreddo can be made 3 days ahead and kept frozen, well wrapped.
            Apricots with syrup can be made 2 days ahead and chilled.