Cool, creamy blank canvas for summer desserts: Ricotta-Vanilla Cream

Four basic ingredients—ricotta cheese, vanilla, milk and sugar—create a simple, silky, rich base for inventing your own desserts. Recipe and suggestions for experimenting below.

vanilla-ricotta

I almost overlooked the recipe that inspired this post. It was tucked quietly into the table of contents pages of the July Gourmet, before you get past all the opening ads and into the big, splashy four-color editorial meat of the magazine. Somehow, that seems appropriate. The ricotta-vanilla cream itself is delicious, but in a very quiet way. It’s made to team up with a host of other flavors, elevating them and offering a creamy counterpoint. Gourmet teamed them with nectarines and pine nut brittle, for example.

We experimented with a couple of different toppings: Fresh peaches and blueberries with lime juice and flavors inspired by one of Marion’s favorite desserts at mado, buffalo ricotta with honey. The fruit worked a little better for us—its slight tartness played against the richness of the cream. But other ideas sprang to mind, even as we sampled these. A slice of pound cake topped with the cream and fresh raspberries. Orange segments [with membranes removed] and shavings of dark chocolate. Even the balsamic peaches from last week, minus the shallots and the pork chops, of course. Continue reading “Cool, creamy blank canvas for summer desserts: Ricotta-Vanilla Cream” →

Homemade for the holidays: Hazelnut Rosemary Jam Cookies

Fresh rosemary adds a subtle, mysterious something extra to Hazelnut Rosemary Jam Cookies, perfect with a cup of tea—and when holiday guests drop by. Recipe below.

YEAH, THE GUY WHO SAYS HE NEVER BAKES BAKED. But these are cookies. No yeast, no punching dough down and letting it rise again in some mysterious warm, dark place. Or is it a cool, dark place? [On a side note, the term cool, dark place invariably makes me think of the Empty Bottle or the Green Mill or some other welcoming bar, and any thoughts of baking immediately vanish.] Continue reading “Homemade for the holidays: Hazelnut Rosemary Jam Cookies” →

Romantic name, delicious dessert: Frangipane Pear and Cherry Cake

Pears and tart cherries team up with almond-based frangipane in a flavorful Frangipane Pear and Cherry Cake that gets even better the second day. Recipe below.

A quick editorial note before we get started. This post marks Blue Kitchen’s second anniversary. Part of me feels like I’ve been at this much longer, but mostly I feel like I’m just getting warmed up.

Last week, I used Michigan tart cherries for a heart healthy Roast Pork Tenderloin with Tart Cherries. The week before, I turned to pears for dessert, with my Baked Pears with Currants and Walnuts. So this week, naturally enough, Marion cooks with tart cherries and pears. Marion?

Frangipane for me has always been one of the most romantic of food names, hinting at elegant sensibilities refined over centuries of experiment and attention. I thought it would be something one would eat while discussing Voltaire and BHL, leaning back in a soft chair and wearing pink brocade, lightly picking at your dessert from a gold-rimmed lacy plate, using an ornate handmade utensil—a frangipannière, perhaps.

So imagine my teenaged surprise to find out that frangipane is essentially almond paste, sugar and egg, period—blended together and then used to make some other thing [such as marzipan, my mother’s favorite medium for the tiny adorable fruits that bedecked her cakes]. Hmph.

So I never actually made anything with frangipane until the other day, when I was hunting around for ideas to use some of the tart dried cherries we got last weekend in Michigan. The ancestor of this recipe, which appeared in Bon Appétit a few years back, looked like a good place to start. That original is more austere—olive oil and milk are two of its leading elements. I am usually a bit leery of olive oil in a cake—it may be healthy, but if I’ve decided to have dessert, I’ve already made the choice to indulge, and I am willing to trade off certain things in favor of better taste. Also, the original called for self-rising flour, a product that makes me suspicious. But I liked the foundation—pears, dried cherries and, of course, the frangipane. Continue reading “Romantic name, delicious dessert: Frangipane Pear and Cherry Cake” →

You can keep your apples—baked pears make for a great seasonal dessert

Pears baked with currants, walnuts and cinnamon create a simple, luscious fall dessert. Recipe below.

I don’t know what it is with me and apples. They have so much going for them. Apples are sure signs of autumn, one of my favorite seasons. They come in a dazzling array of varieties, creating beautiful, bountiful displays in the produce department. They have a signature crunch when you bite into them too. That sound even inspired a brilliant advertising tagline: “Washington apples. They’re as good as you’ve heard.” How can you not like a fruit with that much going on?

I don’t know, but I don’t. I don’t like their vaunted tartness. I don’t care for the hardness that gives them that crunch. Add them to a fruit salad and they immediately take over. And call me un-American, but apple pie is one of my least favorites.

Give me pears instead. They’re another unmistakable sign of the season, with every bit as much a distinctive flavor as apples. They’re just about as varied too. In decent produce markets, you’re likely to find Bartlett, Anjou, Bosc, Comice and even Asian pears. Where they shine for me, compared to apples, is that the balance between tartness and sweetness is skewed more to the sweet end. And their soft flesh is less combative than that of apples, often delivering a run-down-your-chin juiciness.

So as a seasonal chill sets in, sending us looking for excuses to fire up the oven, I suddenly remembered some baked pears I’d made a couple of years ago, adapting a recipe from Bon Appétit. Luscious and satisfying and tasting of fall, they’re lighter than many desserts and relatively low in fat. A perfect, clean finish to an autumn dinner. Continue reading “You can keep your apples—baked pears make for a great seasonal dessert” →

This is some serious gingerbread

Dark molasses, black pepper and Chinese five-spice powder make for big-flavored gingerbread with plenty of spicy bite. Recipe below.

I KNOW IT’S MAY, BUT IT’S BECOME COLD HERE AGAIN. Spring had a few tentative successes—the young leaves started emerging, all soft and green, the small brown birds came back and began claiming real estate and singing to each other, pollen floated from the trees and we put away our duvets and down coats and brought out the light blankets and the little thin jackets. Then on Friday, it rained—where we were, it rained a lot and the atmosphere was quite unsettled—and then the temperature dropped very aggressively. Last night, shivering and muttering, I gave up and dragged the duvet out for what I hope will be its last hurrah. On the other hand, I also resumed baking gingerbread. Continue reading “This is some serious gingerbread” →

Strawberries: Tasting summer in winter

Fresh strawberries bring a needed taste of summer to a long winter, with a spicy, versatile salsa and a simply stellar dessert. Recipes below.

An update: In writing this post, I started to talk about food and carbon footprints, then decided to just celebrate strawberries in winter. Reader T.W. Barritt gave me a gentle nudge to reconsider the issue. So I’ve added an update at the end of the post. Probably opening a real can of worms here, but what can you do?

One morning recently I stopped at the grocery store on the way to work to pick up a couple of things for lunch. On my way through the produce section, I was stopped dead in my tracks by the scent of strawberries. It was the smell of summer. And with the winter we’ve been having in Chicago this year—it has snowed 35 days so far, some kind of record—summer is what I dearly needed to smell. And to taste.

Granted, you can often find at least a few strawberries in the store, even in winter. Often, though, they’re blond and bland. Or else they cost the Earth—this time of year, five bucks a pound is not out of the question. But this was a big, generous display of one-pound, clear plastic boxes, stacked high and smelling like a hot August day. And every bit as beautiful as the red, ripe berries themselves was a sign saying $1.99.

I took my time at the display, carefully picking a box that had the reddest, most beautiful berries without the telltale smooshed ones in the bottom that said this batch was past just ripe. At the checkout, the cashier suddenly picked up the box of strawberries and held it near her face, eyes closed, inhaling deeply, a startlingly intimate act with someone else’s purchase. But such was the power of the smell of those luscious berries on a winter morning.

The scent continued to exert its power, filling my office as I tried to concentrate on my work. By lunch, I had scarfed down half a dozen of these fat, juicy beauties, and over lunch, I hunted online for recipes to make the most of the rest of the strawberries, assuming they made it home.

What I found made the most of them indeed—a light, sophisticated dessert with exactly four ingredients. If you’re not ready for dessert yet, scroll on down to a versatile spicy fruit salsa that goes with salmon, chicken, chops and more. Continue reading “Strawberries: Tasting summer in winter” →

Mascarpone: Italian for easy, elegant desserts

Delicate, creamy mascarpone cheese is the starting point for countless impressive, easy-to-make desserts. Recipes below.

The holiday season is upon us, which means parties galore. Which means it’s also the season of the little black dress. Women know little black dresses as the simple little tricks in their closets that—with a few accessories—make them look elegant, festive and very, very lovely. Men know them as the things that make us lose our train of thought at parties, because they’re just that good. Marion has one that works like a charm, every time.

Well, when it comes to dinner parties, this is the little black dress of desserts. Simple, sophisticated, infinitely accessorizable. At its heart is mascarpone, a buttery rich double-cream or triple-cream dessert cheese from Italy. Made from cow’s milk and typically containing 60% to 75% milk fat, it is most often known as that intoxicatingly silky cream found in tiramisù.

A quick search on epicurious.com turns up more than 120 recipes for this versatile cheese. Still, they’re the first to admit that “this delicately flavored cheese needs little embellishment other than being topped with fruit.”

The recipe below is almost that simple. A half dozen ingredients thrown into a bowl and beaten with an electric mixer into mascarpone cream. And then a little fruit, nuts, chocolate or what have you to accessorize it. That’s it—no double boilers, no baking, no fuss. So easy for something that tastes so over-the-top decadent and dresses up so beautifully in the right setting. We used smallish vintage martini glasses. Teacups, mismatched or otherwise, could work just as well—especially with a couple of small, plainish, lemony cookies on each saucer. Obviously, the key here is scale. These desserts are served in small portions—serving dishes should be scaled appropriately.

An unexpected bonus for something so delicate tasting is how surprisingly sturdy mascarpone cream is. I mixed up a batch and then started experimenting with the fruit I was adding for one version. Then I fussed over one photo set-up until I decided it wouldn’t work and created a completely different one at the opposite end of the apartment. After the first shot, I decided it would be good to show two variations, and Marion helped me put together the second dessert. The whole time, the mascarpone cream was sitting out on the kitchen counter, no wilting, no running, no collapsing. And the first prepared dessert looked just as good in the last shot as it did in the first. In fact, we even had the remaining cream the next night with more fresh berries, and spending the night in the fridge [covered, of course] hadn’t affected it in the slightest. To me, this says you can whip up the mascarpone cream before company shows up and dress it up when you’re ready to serve dessert. If the kitchen’s particularly hot, you may want to keep it in the fridge.

This recipe is based on one found in Tastes of Italia, the same issue of the magazine that led to last week’s Rosemary Sage Chops. If I get a couple/few recipes out of an entire cookbook, I feel that I’ve gotten my money’s worth. Well, so far I’ve gotten two from one issue of a magazine—and I don’t think I’m done yet.

Continue reading “Mascarpone: Italian for easy, elegant desserts” →

The taste of summer memories: Italian Prune Plum Cake

Prune plums are briefly in season, right now, time to make this luscious plum cake. Recipe below.

I REMEMBER THE WARM MONTHS OF MY CHILDHOOD as a procession of seasonal fruits—first the small soft fruits, strawberries, and raspberries, both also indelibly linked in my mind to various Detroit backyards where my father always kept an assortment of fruit trees and berry bushes, lovingly tended in even the most urban settings. Every fruit was ripe for such a fleeting time, and we were all keenly aware of that little vanishing moment. When the fruits we loved fell ripe, we all went to work, picking, cleaning, canning, and the children of course holding up their end by happily eating. Continue reading “The taste of summer memories: Italian Prune Plum Cake” →

Rosemary Apricots: Toute de sweet

Rosemary, apricots, sugar and water come together quickly in a very simple, very French dessert. Recipe below.

ROSEMARY IS PROBABLY MY FAVORITE HERB. Every year we grow some in the yard and some in a pot on the back porch, and I always watch it impatiently, waiting for it to get big and hardy enough for me to start harvesting occasional sprigs. Even when I’m not clipping bits to use in some dish or another, I like brushing against the plants as I pass, catching a whiff of the big, distinctive fragrance they release. Rosemary does wonderful things to lamb, chicken, pork, roasted potatoes—and to apricots, in this wonderfully simple French dessert. Continue reading “Rosemary Apricots: Toute de sweet” →

Chocolate cake: Easy on the flour, easy to make

Quality chocolate and butter are key to this easy-to-make, almost flourless cake. Recipe below.

AS MUCH AS I LOVE TO COOK, WHEN IT COMES TO DESSERT I’m often all too ready to follow the advice given with so many main course recipes in cooking magazines: Cap off the meal with a nice store-bought dessert. With all the premium ice creams out there and lots of little bakeries churning out a dazzling [sometimes almost daunting] assortment of goodies, it’s an easy default. But there’s just something so nice about finishing a great meal with something homemade.

Fortunately for me, Marion is far more ready than I am to ignore the easy charms of store-bought and whip up something sinfully sweet and delicious at home. This decadent, rich, nearly flourless chocolate cake is a perfect example. So I’ll get out of the kitchen and let Marion tell you how to make it. Continue reading “Chocolate cake: Easy on the flour, easy to make” →