Posts filed under 'Sweet Treats'
Chocolate Rhubarb Pots de Creme
What a whirlwind of a spring it has been this year. My life has changed so much in just a few short weeks, just like the weather. I’ve always been in the garden as much as possible, but it was after work or on the weekends. Now being in the garden is my work and my whole day, from dawn to dusk, mothering all my cut flower seedlings and transplants.
After many weeks of waiting, the sweet peas, sweet williams, calendulas, and yarrow are rocketing up to put out their first tender buds. I’m battling the slugs like an angry mama bear to keep them from eating the baby shoots of my dearest dahlias. And my back is nearly broke from hours of bending over to weed the beds of larkspur, poppies, and nigella I directly sowed into what appears to be a bottomless batch of weeds. All this in the name of making beautiful bouquets for farmers markets and weddings. I think it’s well worth it. I know I couldn’t be happier than working in the garden and with flowers all day, especially those gloriously romantic pink peonies that are bursting into bloom right about now. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that I get to snack on just-picked sugar snap peas that are scrambling up the garden fence too.
Speaking of things well worth it, Dark Chocolate and Rhubarb Pots de Creme, are really quite something to be savored. I tend to be a little leery of anything that involves scalding milk. Doesn’t it seem too much like tempting fate to burn the bejeezus out of the milk? I just can’t usually see my way past this scary step to the final dish, but the thought of silky dark chocolate creme folded with that oh-so-versatile rhubarb coulis was enough to get me past my fear. And the scalding bit really wasn’t all that bad.
The rhubarb whipped cream that tops these little pots is quite worth a try for donning any number of delightful dishes. The coulis and cream are a match made in heaven, like the fragrance of lilies of the valley and a warm spring breeze. Its subtle pink blush just made me love it all the more. Goodness, when did I become such a fan of girly pink? So unlike me! Perhaps it’s the bushels of ruby rhubarb rubbing off on me.
11 comments May 17, 2010
Rhubarb Lemon Sponge Pie
Rhubarb has been piling up in my fridge as the plants in the garden go bonkers this spring. It is absolutely amazing how fast these plants grow. The crimson stalks seem to appear overnight and if left to their own devices for a week, they’ll triple in size! Since I can’t possibly keep up with the harvest in “real time”, I have taken to making big jars of the rhubarb coulis that I included in the last post’s recipe. The coulis lasts in the fridge for quite some time (so far three weeks) and is wonderful for so many dishes, including drizzled over a big bowl of vanilla ice cream. Mmmm….
Strawberries have somehow always been the most common pairing for rhubarb, but I would argue this is an injustice to the rhubarb since the strawberries really tend to mask the tart complexity of the rhubarb. Still, having all this rhubarb around the house got me in the mood for pie. At first I was going to settle for straight rhubarb pie, but as I was writing out my shopping list, I started thinking more about my favorite kinds of pie and why I like them. I don’t particularly like pies with a crust on top; nor do I really like pies that have chunks and juices that act like strangers once you cut a slice. My favorite pies all seem to be dense and custardy, probably thanks, at least in part, to growing up with my Grandmother’s amazing pumpkin pie.
So, once I realized that a straight rhubarb pie was going to yield a pie that wasn’t, on principle, really to my liking consistency-wise, I decided to think about using the rhubarb coulis in some sort of custard pie instead. Unlike strawberries, lemons seemed a good teammate for this pie project since they compliment the rhubarb’s natural flavors. Lemon sponge pie is my go-to pie for any time I need a quick dessert to take to a potluck or to have on hand for company. Adapting it to add the rhubarb coulis was easy…as pie.
8 comments May 6, 2010
Rhubarb Napoleons
I don’t know what it’s like in your part of the world, but here in my neighborhood, it has been the most glorious spring. After the dreary cold days of last spring, it feels like the heavens have finally decided we deserve a month of picture perfect warm sunny (with just a few showers once a week) days that have made even just a short walk down the street to the market or post office magical. The sidewalks of Philadelphia are lined with the blooms of cherries, apples, dogwoods, red buds, tulips, bleeding hearts, brunnera, hellebores, lilacs, lilies of the valley, and much more. On my deck, the blueberry bush and the alpine strawberries have been blooming their little hearts out, getting ready to give us a fine feast in the months to come. I’m nearly giddy with the return of fresh fodder at the dinner table.
Activity in the garden has been at a near manic pace (my continued excuse for neglecting you fine folks; forgive me?) and the young tender leaves of arugula, beets, kale, lettuces, carrots, cilantro, and peas are all making steady strides towards the sun’s rays. I have also been busy preparing the beds for and planting the seedlings of myriad cut flowers for my business, including lisianthus, dianthus, calendula, queen anne’s lace, english daisies, flowering oregano, fragrant stock, poppies, larkspur, nigella, sunflowers, sweet peas and more. Expect to see plenty of flowers here on SFTF this summer as they are my new muse when it comes to thinking up recipes. Colors seem to inspire me just as much as flavors these days.
For instance, the cheery pink of delicate and exotic bleeding hearts reminded me instantly of rhubarb and prompted me to conjure up a recipe for something equally beautiful, delicate, and just a tad exotic. The rhubarb is from the three seedlings I started myself in the summer of 2008. They have grown into near monsters, offering up more crispy pink stalks than I could ever know what to do with, even though all the nay-sayers told me that growing rhubarb from seed was silly since it would take years to get a plant that produced much.
This recipe for Rhubarb Strawberry Napoleon with Rhubarb Coulis is ridiculously easy, though it might look complicated at first glance. Just buy the frozen puff pastry and throw it in the oven. Then chop up a bunch of rhubarb and slice a few strawberries. Put two saucepans on the stove and beat the heck out of the whipped cream and waa-laa! You’re done! Then sit back and soak up the verbal declarations of your marvelous culinary skills as your dinner guests ooh and ahh.
The strawberries, by the way, aren’t quite in season here in Philadelphia yet. I fortunately had just a few of my petite alpine strawberries from last season still in the freezer that were perfect for this dish. If you don’t have frozen local berries, but you did put up some chunky strawberry jam last season, you could easily stir in a couple spoonfuls to the filling and would be just as well off. Or, if you have no strawberries, this dish would be just as delicious with just rhubarb if you added another teaspoon of sugar to the filling to offset the tartness of the rhubarb flying solo.
What local yumminess are you eating
now that warm weather is back in town?
24 comments April 20, 2010
Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
Spring is here! Or so it seems with three days in a row in the upper 50s. I’m wearing flip flops again, my friends! And with the warm kiss of spring sunshine, I find myself distracted by thoughts of getting into the garden and going to shop for plants and seeds. While it’s a good excuse, you fine folks still deserve a new delicious post so I apologize for the delay in putting up this last week’s post. These Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins are worth the wait though.
I have this amazing local bakery just up the street from me. Driving or walking by it and the unabashed aroma that flows from its doors is like scratching that last patch of dry winter skin…it smells sooo good, but it is also torture in a way. I buy my dinner rolls there and love how they come in an old-fashioned brown paper sack that crinkles as I take it from the baker’s hand. On my last visit, I spied a gorgeous muffin in their sweets case and my instincts told me, correctly, that it was pumpkin in flavor. What intrigued me was that there was a dollop of cream cheese that had been baked into the top of the muffin. I had to try it so I naturally had it added to my paper sack. As I expected, it was incredibly moist and delicious.
While I loved the muffin from the bakery, I found myself thinking about how I might play with the recipe if I had it at my disposal. Unfortunately, though I can’t say I blame them as what they make is pure gold, the bakery doesn’t give out their recipes. So, left to my own devices with a concept floating around my head for a few days, I determined that I would make my own but increase the ratio of cream cheese per muffin as I really loved that element in the bakery’s version. I realized in the end that what I was really envisioning was a pumpkiny-remake of the traditional black bottom cupcake.
I felt sheepish taking what was probably a fairly healthy muffin concept and turning it into a rich decadent cupcake. So, I worked hard to find ways to dial down the fat and calorie content without sacrificing that gooey cream cheese indulgence that has always made black bottom cupcakes one of my favorite desserts. Initially I wasn’t all that wowed by the muffins (it really is much more of a muffin than a cupcake, though sweet and cakey still) when they came out of the oven and I had my first bite after breaking one open and letting the steam escape. But then the next day, after having sat in the fridge, the flavors and richness were much more apparent.
I suppose with spring in the air, I’ll have to give up my pumpkin-pushing ways for awhile in favor of fresh spring flavors. But I still have some puree in the freezer so there might be one last pumpkin recipe on SFTF before we all jump into the joys of fresh straight-from-the-farm vegetables again!
13 comments March 9, 2010
Kumquat Coconut Cupcakes
The first day of March truly harkens of spring around here. The mounds of snow we’ve been buried under for a month are beginning to drip hypnotically as they melt in the fantastically warm sunshine. Oh that we would have seen the last of the white stuff for this year, but I haven’t let myself entertain such hopes seriously. After all, March has come in like a lamb, and you know what they say about its exit in such a case. I’m nearly frantic with the need to get into my garden to start preparing seed beds and fretting anxiously over my spring bulbs that would normally burst forth with blooms in just a few weeks.
So in acknowledgement that spring may have come or it may equally be far away, I’ve got yet one more winter treat for you. Kumquats hang heavy from the indoor trees here at the moment. They’ve reached the end of their season and need to be picked and used up. I was happy to oblige.
The tropical combination of coconut and kumquats seemed fitting for a creating a recipe that bridges the winter and spring seasons. It was awfully fun to create mounds of snowy coconut and roll sunny kumquats down them for this photo shoot. Sometimes it’s good to play with your food.
I should warn you that I’m still tinkering with this recipe. The cupcakes were rich and moist, but a bit too dense for my liking. Cake, cup-shaped or otherwise, should be fluffy, should it not? I suspect that it was the extra juice of the kumquats that I didn’t account for that weighed down the crumb so I’ve tweaked the amounts of liquid below but haven’t actually had a chance to test it again to be sure. Don’t mind my Miss Perfectionist attitude; those cupcakes from the first batch were gobbled down with rave reviews between greedy bites so there’s nothing to fear. I wanted to be sure to share this recipe with you before fresh kumquats sadly disappeared from your local market for another year, if they haven’t already.
If coconut’s not your thing but you’ve still got a pint of kumquats to use up, don’t forget about the delectable Cranberry Kumquat Cornbread recipe from a few weeks back. Or, if you really aren’t that fond of eating kumquats at all, D has found that they make very good eyeballs for snowmen.
11 comments March 1, 2010
