May 12, 2013

Baking | Cherry & Plum Crisp … Happy Mothers Day #stonefruitlove #summer

“He who likes cherries soon learns to climb”
German Proverb

Cherry & Plum Crisp … could there be a simpler way to celebrate summer? It’s a wonderful way to make Mothers Day special too. I am thrilled to find stone fruit lining the shelves in the local bazaar already. The first week of May and I was pleasantly surprised {read giddily ecstatic} to find the plumpest, juiciest and sweetest of cherries here already!

“Straight from the Himalayas for you” announced the ever charming vendor, knowing pretty well I see through his charm. Knows pretty well too that I cannot resist stone fruit. Year after year we play the same game. In the end the love of stone fruit rules!

Cherries This year the crops been better. Sweeter too. Deep, red and SWEET, pitting means a blood red splattered kitchen. Coloured hands, dripping juice and the temptation to gobble up mouthfuls mark this beautiful season.

The hotter and hotter it gets, the more unbearably the mercury rises, the sweeter the fruit get.The irony of life. The good and the bad go hand in hand and all proverbs fall true. No pain without gain, lose something to get something … and life goes on!

Cherry plum summer crisp The same rings true with being a mother too. Agony and ecstasy? I constantly turn to one of my favourite authors Erma Brombeck for comic relief. Be it for mothers or otherwise, she always has something uncannily true, something that hits a home run each time.As for mothers, there are quotes and more quotes from time immemorial. Everyone has their two penny bit about mothers. For some reason every word makes sense. It doesn’t even matter which side of the fence you’re on!

Back to our bake. Nothing much to it.Crisp, cobblers, crumbles are no rocket science. Let your palette guide you. Throw in what you like. My recipe is really a rough guide to get you to enjoy summer and make the most of the abundance of summer fruit.

Go the cherry plum plum way, or just do a cherry crisp. Do a mixed Gluten Free Stone Fruit Crisp, or then get bake up a yummy Stone Fruit Almond Crumble.

Crisps are baked with the fruit mixture on the bottom with a crumb topping. The crumb topping can be made with flour, nuts, bread crumbs, cookie or graham cracker crumbs, or even breakfast cereal. Crumble are the British version of the American Crisp.

My love of stone fruit is indescribable! Once you’ve had the thrill of a simple crisp or crumble, maybe you can do a Rustic Peach & Plum Galette, Mini Peach Cherry & Blueberry Galettes, Chocolate Plum Clafoutis, Cornmeal Drop Biscuit Peach Cobbler. Then again you could go the no bake way and make Peach Ginger or Plum Vanilla Granita, Tropical Fruit Verrines or a Fresh Cherry Fro Yo!

Summer is for stone fruit. So much and more you can do. ENJOY!!

Recipe: Cherry & Plum Crisp

Summary: A cherry and plum crisp that is simple and delicious. A celebration of summer!

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:

350g sweet cherries, pitted
200g plums, pitted, chopped
75-100g brown sugar {depending on how sweet or sour the fruit is}
50g almonds, chopped {optional}
Few drops almond extract
10g cornflour
Topping
25g oats
50g flour
30g almonds
50g butter
Fresh cherries to serve

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200C. Place 6 ramekins on a baking sheet.
Filling
Place the fruit in a big non reactive/glass bowl with all ingredients and toss well to mix. Divide between 6 ramekins, pressing down gently to level out.
Crisp Topping
Place all ingredients except butter in bowl ofd food processor and pulse briefly in short intervals until a breadcrumb like mix is achieved.
Divide the topping between the ramekins to cover the surface. Gently press into place.
Bake for 30 minutes until bubbly and golden brown on top. If the top begins to get too brown, tent with a sheet of aluminum foil.
Serve warm or at room temperature. We are happy to have them chilled too!
Serve with cream, vanilla ice cream and fresh fruit.

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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India

April 30, 2013

Baking | Traditional Savarins with Crème Patisserie : Daring Bakers – you win some, you lose some!

“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.”
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Traditional savarins Savarins. It was the Daring Bakers time of the month on the 27th. I missed posting. Missed not because I didn’t complete the challenge, but despite baking very early in the month, something didn’t quite work out right. I lost the steam to post it. Yet, as a part of this fantastic group, I have a larger responsibility so here goes. Better late than never I guess!

Traditional savarins 3

Natalia of Gatti Fili e Farina challenges us to make a traditional Savarin, complete with soaking syrup and cream filling! We were to follow the Savarin recipe but were allowed to be creative with the soaking syrup and filling, allowing us to come up with some very delicious cakes!

Time to share something that didn’t quite work out right, yet was pretty to photograph. Also time to ponder why. You win some, you lose some. I often lose some but that doesn’t reach my blog. The amount I experiment at home gives me huge ground for failure. Thankfully you are not at that receiving end as who would like to read about the ones that went wrong?

I loved baking these. The dough seemed good too, maybe didn’t pass the windowpane test. They came out looking rustic pretty. I made half the recipe suggested. Even half made loads of mini savarins. Where did the problem lie? Not sure what I did wrong, and why things went astray, but the savarins refused to ‘drink up‘!

I soaked the little ones in an Orange Spice Tea Syrup, then filled the centres with pastry cream. Some were topped with balsamic strawberries and others with candied kumquats. They looked irresistible.

We ate them. They were OK. The kids didn’t ask for seconds immediately. Quite perplexed at the fate as they were rather dry inside. Maybe I should have dunked them in hot spiced tea syrup.

I reserved the larger ones for later. They went into a filter coffee syrup, hot this time, and I had plans for Tiramisu Savarin. I was sure I had figured out the issue. Sadly I hadn’t. The blighters didn’t drink up the coffee and get soaking good! For a paired pastry cream, I had lofty ideas. I added some espresso and homemade irish cream to the pastry cream and whipped up some delicious Tiramisu pastry cream.

Didn’t hit the ball out of the park. At all. The good bit was that I used the little savarins for a food photography 30 day exercise I was part of with Neel @ Learn Food Photography. So many savarins on hand ensured that I had something to shoot for 3-4 days! The above pictures explore depth of field {f2.8/f11/f22}. Today is the last day of the exercise. It was a fabulous learning experience.

Did I regret that the savarins failed? I did feel sad, but didn’t regret it. No! Baking is always a learning experience, this was just a little steeper! I might not try the recipe again since it was quite involved. You can view it here, and I am sure you will have better luck. A lot of Daring Bakers certainly did. Check them out here.

I have included the Crème Patisserie recipe below, and balsamic strawberries too. It is one that I make in the Thermomix and it takes me all of 7-9 minutes. You can try making it the traditional way keeping the ingredients the same. It’s a yum recipe. I put it to good use on the Bittersweet Dark Chocolate Fallen Gateau. Was delicious!

Recipe: Crème Patisserie

Summary: Simple, easy and delicious, a crème patisserie recipe which is very versatile. Pour it over desserts, add whipped cream to it and fill a cake, or pipe into choux pastry.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:

Crème Patisserie
200ml milk 2%
60g sugar
1 vanilla bean
1 1/2 tbsp {10g} cornflour
1 egg
150ml low fat cream
Balsamic strawberries
200g strawberries, sliced
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped {optional}
1 tbsp aged balsamic vinegar

Method:

Crème Patisserie {can be made the day before}
Stove top method
Bring the milk to a simmering boil. Reserve.
Whisk the egg yolk and sugar with a wooden spoon in a big bowl until the mixture becomes pale and light. Stir in the flour slowly until it is thoroughly mixed with the egg mixture.
Pour the boiling milk into the mixture a little by little while whisking continuously to avoid curdling. Then stir in the cream until the mixture is well combined.
Transfer the whole mixture into a pot, with the seeds scraped from the vanilla bean, and heat it under low setting. Stir it constantly with the wooden spoon or spatula scraping the sides and bottom until it has thickened.
Once the custard has thickened, take it off the heat, and strain / pour it into a clean bowl. Cool, cover and chill.
Whip the low fat cream to soft medium peaks. Gently fold into chilled cream patisserie.
Thermomix Recipe
Place sugar and vanilla bean in TM bowl, and process for 30 seconds on speed 10. Add remaining ingredients, plus vanilla bean shell and cook on 90C/Speed 4 for 7 minutes {until thick}. Strain into a bowl immediately to cool. I chilled it overnight.
Balsamic Strawberries
Place all ingredients in saucepan and simmer for 2-3 minutes until the strawberries soften. Strain strawberries, transfer to bowl. Return syrup to pan and reduce to a thick syrup. Pour back over strawberries and cool completely. Can be stored in a jar in the fridge for 4-5 days.

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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India

April 20, 2013

No Bake | Mulberry Strawberry Buttermilk Sorbet & Mulberry Jam … In season with mulberries!

“I put everything I can into the mulberry of my mind and hope that it is going to ferment and make a decent wine. How that process happens, I’m sorry to tell you, I can’t describe.”
John Hurt

Mulberry Strawberry Buttermilk Sorbet & Mulberry Jam! Here we go round the mulberry ~~bush~~ tree, and looks like I’m going to stay right under it! We’re enjoying a very short and very sweet mulberry season. I feel so inspired! Seems like it’s going to be mulberries all the way.

Mulberries are actually a good source of raw food protein, a rarity in the fruit kingdom. They are also a good source of magnesium, potassium, riboflavin, iron, calcium, vitamin C, and fiber. One of the mulberry’s greatest health assets is it’s high concentration of resveratrol, an antioxidant currently being studied for its effects on heart health.

The sudden mulberry distraction {maybe madness} arrived unannounced as usual. This post is more about the story around the fruit, than the sorbet or jam itself. The latter would barely spin a tale, though the sorbet recipe is a real winner!

A large number of us joined the very large hearted and talented Neel at Learn Food Photography to polish our photography knowledge and skills. A few of you might know that I am still very lost about the technicalities behind the camera and am a compulsive auto shooter.

So thanks to this 30 day exercise, we are down almost 3 weeks doing what we like to do best. That includes virtually meeting and interacting with a huge like minded community. {The photograph below is one of my favourite shots from last week.}

In addition to some serious photog learning, the interactions are also a huge take away. It’s fascinating to see how food photography can reunite folk from India to Mexico! Together we’ve played with light, angles, DOF, backgrounds, props, diffusers and so much more. Maybe you can catch bits in my photographs. You can see the sorbet in many different hues, from an early morning shot, to a rather deep pink late evening one. An enriching experience!

It was on the forum that I chanced upon a photograph of mulberries that Ozan from Turkey shared. That made me sit up. What happened to our mulberry season? Why didn’t I remember? Man Friday was immediately summoned and commissioned with ‘the mulberry task’.

He never fails…never! He soon brought me a bag of pretty, juicy mulberries, sweet as sweet could be. Morning saw me stirring mulberry jam! Nothing to the recipe. Just the berries with equal sugar, a vanilla bean, a dash of lime juice. I threw in some aged balsamic too. Simmered until soft over low heat, then cooked until it thickened somewhat. TADA! Jam! No pectin, nothing!

I get a HUGE bagful every alternate day. I’ve frozen some. Throw them into smoothies for the kids. A strawberry mulberry smoothie is beautiful. Then I wanted to make something I’ve waited long to make, a buttermilk sorbet. I added some mulberries instead of just a strawberry sorbet. Delightful!

This mixed berry sorbet is light, refreshing, summery and beautiful! I shot it in many different ways in the ongoing LFP exercise. It included styling – napkins, garnish, Pinterest inspiration etc. I got some right shots, and some very wrong. So much fun, and so much to learn.

It was three days of ‘mulberry shots‘! Another huge bagful came in this morning so the head is buzzing with mulberry coloured thoughts again. Any recipe suggestions are more than welcome. Hopefully I’ll have another mulberry centric post out this month!

Until then, please help yourself to really really refreshing and pretty Mulberry Strawberry Buttermilk Sorbet. The Mulberry Jam is quite sweet and makes for a nice addition in a berry dessert sauce, added to whipped cream into a fool, dolloped over breakfast cereal or slathered onto a warm buttery toast! I love cooking in season!

Recipe:Mulberry Strawberry Buttermilk Sorbet

Summary: Sweet, tangy, refreshing, light, the berry buttermilk sorbet is addictive good. Great way to use summer berries. Makes about 1 ltr.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:

200g mulberries, frozen
200g strawberries, frozen
150g vanilla sugar
2 tbsp kirsch
Juice of 1 lime
500ml buttermilk, frozen in ice cube tray {for Thermomix recipe}

Method:

Thermomix
Place all ingredients in bowl of TM and process at speed 10 for a minute at a time until pulverized to smooth consistency Use TM scraper to scrape down sides now and then.
Transfer to freezer safe bowl and freeze until desired {or serve immediately!}
Ice cream maker
Remove the stems of the mulberries if you like {I didn’t}
Place all the ingredients in bowl of processor and blend well until smooth. Taste and adjust sugar if required.
Pour into ice cream maker and follow manufacturer instructions.

Recipe: Mulberry Jam

Summary: Sweet, simple and full of berry goodness, this is another great way to use the seasonal berry. Makes about 2 jars.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:

500g mulberries
500g sugar
1 vanilla bean
Juice of 1 lime
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Method:

Pull out the stems of the mulberries.
Place the berries in a heavy bottom saucepan, crush them with the back of a spoon so that they release their juices. Bring to a simmering boil, then add the remaining ingredients.
Reduce heat to a low simmer and cook to desired consistency, about 15 minutes.
Transfer to sterilised jars. I refrigerated mine as I didn’t seal them.

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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India