Do you like to eat ice? Not water ice, or ice cream, just pure ice? I love to, and, believe it or not, it’s because I was anemic during my pregnancy. I didn’t feel anemic, but a friend pointed out that the new ice-eating habit I had picked up was a side effect of my anemia. I could and would consume two or three cups of ice in a few hours. I ate it as a snack and as a dessert and as a movie-going treat. Yum!
While pregnant and eating ice cube after ice cube, I wondered how I could do so without seeming like a giant freak. Finally, I hit upon a dessert my mother-in-law had made one night pre-pregnancy — granita. It’s perfect. It’s icy, crunchy, flaky deliciousness. And better yet, to my pregnant tastes which had demanded citrus twenty-four seven, it could be lemon-flavored.
Now, nearly two years later, I’m still in love with ice, citrus, and lemon granitas. I regularly make granitas and eat them all up all by myself. With summer coming up, it’s time to share my recipe!
I would caution about making this as the sole dessert for a dinner, however. A friend I have calls this a faux dessert. While I still count this currently honeymooning individual as a friend, I now know that for them, granita is either a palette cleanser or a part of a bigger dessert.
By the by, my granita recipe is not that sweet. If you like really sweet desserts, you might want to consider adding a few tablespoons of sugar to it. If you like really tart desserts, either take out about half a cup of the water or add a lemon or two.
Lemon Granita
From: combination of several online recipes
3 lemons
2 cups water
1/2 cup sugar
1. Get the water to boiling in a small pot. Is it boiling? Good! Add your sugar and stir!
2. Turn the burner off, and get our your zester (or Microplane) and zest up your washed lemons. I just zest directly into the pot of hot sugar water. Put your zested lemons off to the side.
3. Roll the lemon under your palm against your counter or cutting board. What you’re doing here is softening it up, because I don’t believe in using a juicer to get juice from lemons. Cut the softened lemon in half and using a fork, juice the lemons into the pot, seeds and pulp and all. Really, just dig the tines in for all that they’re worth.
4. Mix that all up and let it sit until the mixture has cooled to room temperature and then strain it into a glass pan that you can stick in your freezer. I hope you have enough room in your freezer. I always have to push over all the meals my husband makes for me that I never reheat.
5. This is so super important — every twenty minutes promptly (and possibly a little more often near the end of this step), go in to your freezer, and stir up the granita with a fork. Scrape the ice down. When you near the end, try your hardest to break up the ice bits with your fork or you’ll not be eating flaky ice, you’ll be eating ice cubes. Once your granita starts to look more like fluffy snow than frozen ice, you’ll be good to go!
6. At this stage, I get out a bowl and I scoop several spoons of granita into it and top the whole thing off with raspberries or candied lemon slices. Then, I eat it as rapidly as possible and go back for more.
When Helen first mentioned that she would be leaving for several weeks and then asked if I’d mind posting several entries, I was thrilled. I decided, immediately, that I wanted to blog several different types of cookies, combining my love of baking with my loves of Christmas and blogging! This would be my opportunity to leave the safe world of chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodles.
My first choice was the meringue cookie, as part of my plan to only blog about apple or egg white desserts! Plus, they seemed so adorable. White little clouds that crunch, then taste like sugar before dissolving on your tongue… what wasn’t to like? However, the whole recipe seemed a little too easy. Sure, they were time intensive for the actual baking/drying part, but I was easily able to whip up a batch right before Nathan went to sleep, and then leave them in the oven to dry overnight.
As it turns out, these cookies were a complete success. My son and I finished off quite a few of them in only one day, and I gifted the remainder to our next door neighbors. They’re delicious, gorgeous, and great at using up extra egg whites. If you don’t have egg whites stored in your freezer, like I do, consider making some ice cream, pots de creme, or gâteau breton first to get those yolks out of the way!
My only ahead-of-the-recipe advice for these cookies is to really mind the drying out in the oven stage. I ate several before they completely dried out and they almost tore my fillings out. I was worried that I had messed up the recipe, but the ones I had the next day were perfect. Simply make these cookies at night, and leave them in your oven overnight after you’ve finished baking.
4 egg whites 1 cup granulated sugar 3/4 teaspoon vanilla 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1. Set oven to 200 degrees and set your racks to the upper and lower middle positions. Line 2 baking sheets with either parchment paper or Silpat.
2. Beat the egg whites at a slow speed until they are frothy. I stopped when I thought to myself, “That’s a lot of bubbles.” As a side note, I used my Kitchen Aid stand mixer for this recipe, but I think it’d be doable with a hand mixer.
3. Add the cream of tartar and take it up to medium-fast now, for about 90 seconds. I didn’t count seconds, but looked for a ‘texture much like shaving cream’. Sprinkle in about half the sugar, and beat for another 60 seconds or so.
4. Add the vanilla and reduce the speed to the lowest setting. Sprinkle in the remaining sugar, and mix until that sugar is incorporated into the ‘dough’.
5. Dollop out the meringues about one inch apart. I followed the instructions to do 3 rows of 5 each and got enough for nearly two trays.
6. Bake for 1 and 1/2 hours. Touch the cookies to see if they feel dry. If they don’t feel firm and dry (or if they seem sticky still), go for another half hour. If they are done, just turn off the oven and let them dry out for several hours. Do not skimp on this step.
Supposedly these cookies will keep in an airtight container for weeks. I wouldn’t know, and I suspect that you won’t either.
When my mom offered to host Thanksgiving, I asked what desserts she’d like me to bring. Her answer? “Pumpkin pie and that apple dessert you made two years ago, the one I’ve asked you to make four times since then.” What she didn’t say, but she and I both heard was, “And which you never made even though I asked you to serve it for Nathan’s first birthday.” And I did felt a little guilty when I (virtually) heard that, especially since I had made the crisp for Helen just days before.
The good part was that I had made the crisp only days previous. So, I knew where the problems with the crisp were, and I could ‘fix’ them for Thanksgiving.
Paul and I love America’s Test Kitchen. When I first decided to try my hand at apple crisp years ago, we pulled that recipe and made it. Our immediate reaction was, “This is delicious, but the tasters in the test kitchen hate topping.” We quickly increased the amount of topping by 50% which improved the crisp by roughly 500%. This is the huge fix in this recipe.
The second fix? America’s Test Kitchen tells you that you need cold butter for the topping. I go a step further and say your butter better darned well be frozen. Do not muck around with butter from your refrigerator unless you keep a subarctic fridge like my mother. If you use cold, but not frozen, butter, you will end up with a giant unappetizing lump of dough for your topping, not the “damp sand” texture desired. If you end up with said giant unappetizing lump of dough, do not give up. Work on breaking it up as best possible and top your crisp with it. As Tim Gunn would tell you, “Make it work!”
The last thing worth mentioning isn’t really a fix at all, but a personal preference. I love McIntosh apples and I love to not eat a meal prior to making my baked sweets. This means that when my McIntosh apples hit the bowl of sugar and lemon zest and juice mentioned in step 5 below, I start to snack on them. I normally eat about half an apple to a whole apple before I can stop myself. Due to this, if you’re like me, I’d suggest adding an extra McIntosh apple, 1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice, and an 1 tablespoon of sugar, and using a full rind of zest for this recipe.
Ingredients for Filling:
3 medium Granny Smith apples 3 medium McIntosh apples 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice 1/4 cup granulated sugar
Ingredients for Topping:
8 tbls unbleached all purpose flour 7 tbls unsalted butter, chopped into 1/2 inch bits 1 1/4 cup chopped pecans 3/8 cup packed light brown sugar 3/8 cup granulated sugar 3/8 tsp ground cinnamon 3/8 tsp nutmeg (use fresh nutmeg and microplane for best results) 3/8 tsp salt
1. For the topping, put the flour, sugar, spices, and salt in your food processor. Don’t worry if you have a small one. My wimpy food processor handles this recipe like a pro! Pulse the ingredients once or twice to mix. Add the frozen butter. Pulse, pulse, pulse (about ten times) for 4 seconds each. Your topping should look like sand or coarse cornmeal. It should not be a big giant lump. if you got the lump, your butter wasn’t frozen enough, but don’t despair. You can break it up and use it, but it’s more work and it doesn’t look as good. Add the nuts, and do 4 one second pulses.
2. Make sure to refrigerate the topping for about 15 minutes or for the time to it takes to deal with the apples.
3. Turn on your oven to 375 degrees and make sure your oven rack is in the lower middle of your oven.
4. Peel, quarter, and core your apples. Cut them into 1 inch cubes.
5. Toss the apples, lemon juice, zest, and sugar in bowl. I usually combine steps 4 and 5, tossing each apple into the mix as soon as I’m done with it. This allows me to take a nice long Bejeweled break in the middle when I get tired of peeling and coring apples. It also allows me to snack on some of my McIntosh apples!
6. Pour this mix into 8 by 8 baking pan. Make sure to scrape the apple/lemon juice mix into that pan. Distribute the cooled topping on your apples, and cook for 40 minutes.
7. Crank the oven to 400 degrees for another 5 minutes.
8. Let it cool slightly on a nice cooling rack and then serve (warm) with a nice cinnamon ice cream or whipped cream.
Welcome back, Jenn! In preparation for my trip, Jenn will be guest blogging regularly for the next few weeks. If you guys are nice to her, maybe she’ll make it a regular gig!
Recently, Helen sent me an article about a chocolate factory store in East Norriton, which is my neck of the suburbs. It wasn’t just any old chocolate store, however, but one started by an executive pastry chef for Le Bec Fin! (No, not Miel.) I drooled over the idea of dainty exquisitely flavored chocolates being minutes from my house.
Excited, my husband and I headed over to Antoine Amrani Chocolates on the same day. We sampled their dark chocolate which they use for a base (70% cacao), a mild but delicious chocolate. We had several of their bonbons and chocolates, which were gorgeous and tasty. However, both my husband and I agreed that their spiced caramels stole the show. The cinnamon and cardamom notes were perfect, not too strong, but not too weak. I meant to give some to Helen, but I secretly kept popping them when Paul wasn’t looking. I loved them so much that I ended up buying Helen a bag for her to sample since they were not available at the tasting she went to. If you’re a real caramel lover, get a bag of their salted nut caramels while you’re at it!
After some prodding from Helen, she convinced me to go back to the factory store and take more photos for PhillyFoodie. Since I wanted an excuse to buy their 6 piece petit box, I willingly went with camera in one hand and toddler in the other.
The factory store is tucked into a little industrial park in East Norriton which also has an All-Clad outlet and Talluto’s Italian Market. It’s a great visit for any suburban foodies. Surprisingly for an industrial park store, it’s gorgeous on both the inside and out.
When Amrani’s partner, Fred Potok, spotted me taking photos, he graciously offered me a tour of the factory’s kitchens. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I grabbed my 50mm lens, my son and a hairnet, and followed him down the hallway. It was shockingly clean and white in the kitchens with a few people running around, mixing and pouring chocolate.
After a minute or two, I heard Potok say, “This is Antoine Amrani.” A man rushed past me to grab a slicer. By the time we passed his kitchen, the chocolates had been sliced.
Potok was super friendly, explaining what was being made, why the biggest kitchen was empty (a visit from the New York Times on the same day), and answering any questions I had. He recommended his favorite chocolates — the coconut, the coffee sour cherry, and the pistachio. I noticed that most of those were in the box I was given, as did he, so he offered me a sample of their Duo Cafe, which knocked my coffee-loving socks off, and the Almond Crisp.
I’d like to point out that these samples were not due to the camera. Previous visits to the store with other clerks had always led to sample offers. On our first visit there, Paul and I tried the Earl Grey (my favorite) and Cinnamon Honey (which both Helen and Paul raved about) as well as a few caramels. If you get a chance to visit the store, you will not leave without something since the store keeps offering you samples until you find a flavor you can’t NOT take home with you.
If you’re not a fan of flavored chocolates or caramels (why are we still talking to each other, if so?), you can always try their truffles. I tried one and I would definitely consider bringing a box home to be shared with friends and family that stopped by.
Now is the perfect time to stop by the store and pick up a sample and a box of chocolates or bag of spiced caramels as a hostess gift this Thanksgiving. It’s located at:
550 Foundry Rd. East Norriton, PA 19403
If you can’t make it to their store, order at their website or pick some up at DiBruno Bros. on Chestnut St. I’d recommend the 17 piece box as it has at least one of each of their chocolates. I won’t go into detail about each piece they have, but my strong hint is to grab the raspberry chocolates by any means.
As anyone who has ever eaten with me at a restaurant can tell you, I heart apple desserts. I find them glorious, wonderful, autumnal, and something that I long for all year long, but they seem a damned nuisance to make at home. You have to buy pounds of apples which must be peeled, cored, and cut. There’s the crusts which appear finicky, or the crumbles which I can never get to the right crumbly texture.
Luckily, Paul has patience, the ability to follow a recipe, and a “let’s just do it” mentality, which is how I ended up eating a decadent tarte tatin one night, with a little scoop of cinnamon ice cream, and a dab of whipped cream, on the side. I know it’s still summer, but September’s looming large in my mind, and I’m starting to think of apples all the time.
Paul’s added advice was, “Many blogs and food books stress how difficult pastry doughs are and that if you look at them funny, they fall apart or end up being super chewy. That can be true but since pastry crusts are only made of flour, salt, and fat (i.e. butter) it shouldn’t be a huge deal to throw out a failed pastry dough and make another. So long as you don’t overwork the dough you shouldn’t be scared of them and they are delicious.”
Tarte Tatin Recipe
Pastry Dough:
1 1/3 cups of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter (cold)
1 large egg (cold)
Carmelized Apples:
1 more stick of butter (YUM!)
3/4 cup of granulated sugar, plus one more tablespoon
3 lbs of Granny Smith apples, peel them, core them, quarter them.
Instructions:
1. Do the pastry first. Mix the flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Dice up the first stick of cold butter and put the butter in to the bowl and coat the butter with the dry mixture. Then, use your fingers to squish the butter and incorporate it into the dough. You want it thinly crumbly, not thoroughly melted and mixed in. The original recipe says you can toss all this into a food processor and go at it, but our food processor would cry and then die if we tried that.
2. Then, add the egg and stire with a fork until little balls of dough form. Press the balls together with the back of the fork, and then make them all into a ball which you’ll wrap in plastic and then flatted into a four inch disk. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, but we often forget stuff like this in our household and let it refrigerate for like a few hours. Just make sure it warms slightly so you can roll it out if you forget it for a long period of time.
3. Back from watching some television or reading a book? Unwrap the dough, and turn it out onto a floured surface where you’ll roll it out. Make sure to sprinkle it with some extra flour first, though. Starting from the center of the disk, roll it until you have a 12-inch circle.
4. Move the crust to a rimless cookie sheet or a turned-over a rimmed cookie sheet if that’s all you have, or a convenient pizza peel if you have that. Cover the dough with some plastic wrap, and put it into the fridge while we do the apples.
5. Turn the oven on to 375, and make sure you have an over rack set to the upper-middle.
6. On to the apples. Melt the remaining stick of butter into a nine inch cast iron skillet. Remove from heat and sprinkle the whole of that evenly with sugar. You’ll then want to arrange your quartered apples in the skillet. Our finished picture above should give you some idea of how that should look.
7. Return the skillet to high heat. Cook until the juices turn to a rich amber color. This should take 10 to 12 minutes. Then, remove the skillet from the heat, and use a pair of forks to flip the apples over to their uncaramelized side!
8. Return the skillet to high heat again for another five minutes to cook the other side of the apples.
9. Remove the skillet from the heat once more. Slide the dough over the skillet and tuck the edges of the dough against the skillet wall. Be careful, please. The skillet is super hot.
10. Throw the whole thing into the oven, and cook for 25-30 minutes. Your crust should be golden brown.
11. Put the skillet on a wire rack, let it cool for 20 minutes. Loose the edges with a paring knife, place your serving plate over the top of the skillet and flip! We had a few stuck apple pieces, but not many, and we just re-arranged them on top of the tart.
At this point, if you were smart, you already had a bunch of cinnamon ice cream and some whipped cream ready for topping. If not, Paul will give me the recipe for his cinnamon ice cream another day to post here.
You might not know it, but I am married to Paul, cook extraordinaire. I like to play at baking, occasionally popping out a nice pavlova or a delicious crumb cake, but Paul really cooks. He makes dinners, breakfasts, breads, and ice cream. And, occasionally, he makes me my favorite drink ever — lemonade.
See, I’m obsessed with lemonade, and very very particular about it. If you handed me a Snapple lemonade or a Nestea lemonade, I might just wing the bottle at you. I will visit the Cheesecake Factory solely to sample their lemonade. I get excited at the idea of going to ballgames or the boardwalk when I think about the delicious lemonade/funnel cake future ahead of me! A good lemonade needs a tartness that doesn’t come with heavily manufactured and bottled drinks which are all sugar-y.
So, when Paul first started his lemonade making scheme, I was solidly behind it. The idea of homemade lemonade sitting in my fridge waiting for my consumption was too good to be true. And his first attempts were good, but not fantastic. Sorry, Paul. And then… he took a break after we had Nathan.
Recently, he’s started making lemonade again, and, then, one day, he made the perfect lemonade. I probably drank about four glasses of it in one day. I don’t know what happened to make it perfect, but it happened. Since then, he’s made it several times, due to the summery weather, the beauty of lemons, and… to be honest, my begging.
You start with a whole bunch of lemons. Paul likes to get six and can easily assign me this task at the grocery store. (I’m sometimes a failure at determining which fruits and vegetables are delicious and which are horribly old and yucky.)
After a quick wash, he zests the rinds right off those suckers, into a big pile in a saucepan. You don’t have to use a microplane, if you don’t have one. Paul offers that you can use a peeler, but try to avoid getting any of the bitter white pith. You only want yellow stuff in that saucepan. (In our house, we have a microplane, and I, at least, advocate its use. It’s easier to clean than many a kitchen utensil.)
Add one cup of sugar to the lemon rind.
Then add a cup of water and bring to a simmer.
While the lemon rind steeps for approximately ten minutes, cut the lemons in half and juice them. Paul uses a potato ricer to juice lemons into our quart measuring cup, but I’ve seen America’s Test Kitchen say that those in need can use a simple fork. So, your choice! Six lemons should give you a cup or more of lemon juice. If you have less, you’ve got to start getting slightly bigger lemons.
Then, he pours the lemon juice into our pitcher. It’s pretty big, he estimates that it’s about a gallon and a half sized pitcher, but you could get away with something about one gallon sized. Hey, conveniently the measuring cup is empty! Now, he adds one pound of ice (measured on a food scale because Paul likes to be exact) to the quart measuring cup. Then, he pours the steeped liquid through a strainer over the ice in the measuring cup. That will cool down the liquid so it’s delicious right away. Add that steeped liquid and ice to the lemon juice in the pitcher. Now, you can add more water until you reach your ideal tartness setting. We favor eleven more cups, but I will warn you that I like a tart lemonade.
Once you get the tartness to your ideal levels, add sugar to reach your ideal sweetness. We usually add about another half a cup of sugar.
Knowing that I’m part of a food blog now, I realized I couldn’t sit on my “going to restaurants and taking photos” and “having a cute baby who eats” butt for too long. I wanted Helen to be happy that she invited me to blog with her. When Paul told me he had invited his brother and his brother’s fiancee over to have dinner, I decided I was going to make a dessert. At first I was absolutely set on making some molten chocolate cakes, but I realized that they were not very warm weather appropriate. Molten chocolate cakes are for winter, not summer.
And it struck me — I would make them. They were covered with red fruit, and topped by billowly clouds of whipped cream. How could they not be perfect? They’re practically clouds themselves!
Very luckily, every time Paul made ice cream, he stuck the egg whites in the freezer, and we had more than enough to make them. I pulled out the eight required and whipped them up in my Kitchen Aid mixer. After I added the sugar, they become shiny and lucious looking.
After all the mixing, I tossed the batch into the oven (heated at 350 degrees, but immediately cooled to 300 when I put them in).
A mere hour later, the pavlovas were out cooling on our wire racks. I was admittedly worried at this point because I thought I detected the scent of vinegar from the egg white whipping, but I pushed through. While the pavlovas had been cooking, I had washed two pints of raspberries, which are my favorite red summer fruit, and possibly my favorite fruit of all time.
I had also whipped up some heavy cream with some vanilla and sugar. Then, when everything was properly cooled, I layered pavlovas, whipped cream, and berries. A short dusting of powdered sugar later, and I had a gorgeous looking dessert.
How were they? Well, Eric declared me his hero during a game of Scattegories and he gave the reason as the pavlovas! They were much like crispy toasted marshmallows covered with whipped cream and fruit. Make of that what you will, but I ate a second one by myself.
Recipe
8 egg whites
1 1/2 cup of sugar
2 teaspoons of white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon of vanilla
4 teaspoons cornstarch
pinch of salt
Whip the egg whites with the pinch of salt until the whole thing becomes soft and billowy. I didn’t get to anything resembling firm peaks, but it was definitely billowy! At that point, add the sugar a tablespoon at a time until it becomes glossy and shiny and has soft peaks, beating the whole time. Or, do what I did, and just add it a 1/4th of a cup at a time.
When this is done, add the cornstarch, vanilla, and white wine vinegar to your egg whites. The recipe calls for folding it all in gently, but I just used the Kitchen Aid’s lowest mixing setting and went for it. It all turned out lovely in the end, though it smelled slightly vinegar-y at this point.
I had two baking sheets covered with parchment paper. I used the egg whites to make three four-inch circles of fluff on each sheet. I made sure to slightly make them concave so that the whipped cream and berries would have a resting spot on the pavlovas after they baked up.
Put the sheets in an over that has been pre-heated to 350 degrees. Now, as soon as the sheets have been put in, though, you want to turn the heat to 300 degrees. After 30 minutes, turn the heat off completely, but keep the pavlovas in the oven. After another 30 minutes, take them out of the oven and put them on wire racks. I followed Nigella’s recommendation to just move the parchment paper straight to the racks.
When it was all done and cooled, I topped the whole of it with Chantilly cream and the raspberries, but I think any berries would look striking. In fact, the picture in the book shows currants and pomegranate seeds used as well, and the pomegranate version looked so tasty, that I’m tempted to make that next.
