Posts filed under ‘Sweet Treats’
Homemade Cream Puffs
I’m so sorry I left you without a recipe for such a long time! Especially considering the last post was a tease for this amazing recipe I have for Homemade Cream Puffs filled with Rhubarb Mascarpone Filling. Considering rhubarb season is long gone at this point in late July, I think I’ll just see if I can convince you all to make these delectable airy puffs and fill them with ice cream instead. I have another batch in the oven right now for just that purpose.
It’s been so hot here in Philadelphia that I can’t really bear to cook much. Work in the market garden is really playing me out too so it’s been tough to sit down in front of the computer without dozing off. Explanations aside though, it’s about time I got this recipe posted. I got a tutorial on making cream puffs from my mom a few months back. I had never made them, thinking they must be really tricky and the privilege of a finely trained pastry chef. Turns out, I couldn’t have been more off the mark.
My mom apparently has known the secret to making a good batch of cream puffs for a long time. In fact, she apparently used to make them a lot when she was still keeping chickens in our backyard. I guess I was a little too young to remember. In any case, the trick is to use old eggs. Something about the aging of the proteins in the eggs helps make them more stable for holding air in the center of the puffs. I’m no food chemist so I can’t really explain it well. Just trust me when I say I’ve made several batches of these at this point and never once have I had one collapse on me. As my mom recalls, cream puffs were simply a good way to use up those extra eggs from the hens that had been languishing in the fridge for too long.
According to my mom, cream puffs were a very vogue vehicle for serving food at parties back in the day, both savory and sweet. Make them tiny or make them big, you can fill them with chicken salad, egg salad, dressed baby greens, cold cuts, cheeses… or got the sweet way and fill with ice cream, chocolate mousse, baked fruit, or even jam swirled into fresh whipped cream. I’ll be taking a batch of both savory and sweet ones to a picnic in a few weeks. It’s time cream puffs were back in style!
Roasted Rhubarb & Cream
It’s much too hot to cook right now. Philadelphia is in the midst of yet another heat wave, this one the worst yet for the summer. So, I thought I’d delve into my aging drafts pile and pull out something I made about a month ago when I could still look at the stove without cringing. Sadly, rhubarb is out of season for most of us now, but you might still find a few stray stalks at the farmers market, or you can just bookmark this preparation to try next spring.
Roasted Rhubarb & Cream is really rather divine. I made it a few times while my rhubarb plants were pumping out the tender red stalks. Each time I tweaked the recipe until I came up with this final version. And it’s not just the taste that had me smitten. Something about pouring that heavy cool cream over the steaming garnet rhubarb with flecks of vanilla bean is, well, very sensual.
Tasty in its own right, eaten with a spoon while it’s still warm, this concoction can also be blended to create a creamy sweet sauce or filling, thinned to the desired consistency with more or less cream. I’ll show you next time how I used it to fill fluffy homemade cream puffs…. oh, what a tantalizing tease!
Rhubarb & Strawberry Ice Cream
Summer came screaming in like an out-of-control freight train around here. We had our first official heat wave (three days or more in a row with 90+ degree temperatures) in the first week of June which is some sort of record, I believe. The beautiful fragrant old garden roses have already come and gone. Last summer was cold and wet. This summer apparently is lining up to be hot and dry (except for today’s lovely soft rain). Me thinks the ice cream churner is going to be getting a lot of use these next few months. What a shame. It is a burden I will try to bear with grace.
First stop on the seasonal scoop tour is Rhubarb & Strawberry Vanilla Ice Cream. I realize these two wonderful earl summer ephemerals may be slipping away from the farmers market stalls, but hopefully you can find a pint of berries and a bunch of stalks to give this recipe a go. It’s so creamy and fruity; the perfect early summer cool-down.
On another note, I have to say thank you to several of you who have really been so good to reach out to me - via lovely comments in the last post, thoughtful emails, or even in-person visits at the farmers market – letting me know how much you appreciate the blog. It’s been a challenge keeping up with all my passions (turns out there is a bottom to the creative juices in this vessel) and having your words of encouragement has meant a lot to me. I feel rejuvenated and already have several new recipes in the works to keep us all well-fed as the summer progresses. Thank you, dear friends!
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.
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.
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