Lemon Tart

Orange Ricotta Pound Cake

 As a follow up to the last post at Lemon Tart, where I told you my obsession with homemade ricotta, I thought you might like to know what exactly you should do with that beautiful cheese, should you find yourself with too much to eat by the spoonful.

When there's only 2 of us in the house, neither of whom love a tall glass of milk at dinner (sorry, Mom),  1/2 gallon of, albeit beautiful, milk a week eventually gets away from us. I make plenty of ice cream (especially with my new toy!) and any other custard based desserts are the puddings of dreams with this bovine elixer, but eventually something else needs to be done with that 2 litres of fresh, alive milk. 

Early on I learned to make yogurt, a beautiful breakfast treat that I think I might need to make easier and more fun with the addition of a yogurt maker.(If Rosa can justify it, perhaps I can). But then I discovered that my favourite use for excess milk was to make homemade ricotta, and now I have a  raw ingredient that means good things for weekly meal plans. Fluffy ricotta gnocchi, a partner with nettles for ravioli, a sprinkle on tacos.

And then there's this cake. A cake I don't recommend making  if you are hungry. I assure you this will spoil your dinner, and it makes me think I should rename the cake to "Dinner Spoiling Poundcake", although somehow that doesn't sound as mouthwatering. But once it comes out of the oven you are not going to be able to hold yourself back - so make it for breakfast.

This cake has ruined me for the classic. While some might see the replacement of some of the butter with ricotta cheese as a calorie adjustment, what's really going on is a pound cake on steroids! The ricotta adds a softness that the original just doesn't have.  And don't worry, you really don't need homemade ricotta to make this cake. Store bought works fine too, just has to be drained more.

 

It's nearing the end of the citrus season and my body must know that because its craving orange on everything short of scrambled eggs. A healthy does of tangerine or orange zest alongside the ricotta and butter make this cake almost creamsicle like, and so much lighter than the classic. A bright, easy to prepare marmalade glaze forces you to use your preserves for more than toast and adds a beautiful sheen. It also serves as preserving agent allowing this cake to last for days. But this one won't last long and is really so perfect with my afternoon tea.

 

Ricotta Cheese : Make it Yourself!

Lean in close.... I'm going to tell you a secret, something dairy manufacturers haven't wanted you to know in a least a couple generations:  You can. Make cheese. 

In less time than a Glee episode, you can have full flavoured, dreamy, ricotta cheese ready for so many great dishes. It doesn't take any special equipment, and the only ingredient you'll need other than good milk is citric acid.

Raw milk laws in Canada mean the milk I  buy must be labelled not for human consumption and as a cosmetic product. I'm happy to "drink" my body lotion!

 At some point in the prepared food production system, someone convinced us that basic fresh cheese wasn't anything those of us without a cow  should be making ourselves. I've been making my own soft cheeses for awhile now, like ricotta, mozzarella and mascarpone, but the ricotta is the one that's got my dance card. A batch of this ethereal, dairy magic is heated, coagulated and strained in my humble kitchen about  every other week. In fact I look forward to the day my milk supply gets away from me. What certainly began as a preservation technique centuries ago prolongs my milk's life as well. But don't worry, this can be made with any milk you can get, raw or not.
      
 A container of this in the fridge means the most beautiful topping for homemade pizza,  a picture perfect appetizer slathered on toasted baguette with pesto and a sun dried tomato and a pound cake I can't keep myself my sneaking each time I pass the kitchen (coming soon!). Not to mention these textbook perfect calzones that make you salivate upon first sight. This cheese is lacking in gums, stabilizers and preservatives, so that milk flavour shines through humbly and perfectly.

 In my enthusiasm for what seems incredibly exciting for this modern 21st century food lover, I told my 94 Grandmother that I'd been making cheese. She nodded with a reserved sense of interest that comes from living a life that long, having seen it all. Then she told me that her mother used to make cheese. I nodded with interest, assuming what she was talking about was a simple fresh farmers cheese. She continued her story, to explain the process of curds being scooped into drained baskets and put aside to drain. And then they were left in a root cellar to dry. She was indeed speaking of the real thing, a country Tomme style cheese. I hadn't heard any accounts of having a cheesemaker in the family. Well in fact there weren't, not as profession. She was a seamstress but she lived on a farm and at the turn of the 20th century if you had a cow you had to do something to preserve that milk, so cheese was made. Simple as that. In this age of rock star food producers, of reverence for cheesemakers and bread bakers and sausage makers, its an important reminder indeed these foods we hold in such esteem now, were all born out of necessity, there was nothing glamorous or impressive about making your own Tomme in 1905, it was simply a way to feed your family through winter.
 
Making this simple ricotta cheese will remind you that many of the convenience foods we buy are not so much work to make ourself. The trade off of a little time is worth it for something this good.

A New Lemon Tart

Lemon Tart is currently undergoing some upgrades. A new look will be unveiled soon, but currently you'll notice a far better way of browsing the recipes on this site. The recipe box on the bar below the banner has links to every recipe on the site. I will also be making my way through to include printable recipe files. Simply click on the "printable recipe" link. I hope this will make it far easier to find what you are looking for.

Sour Cherry Sidecar

While I may be a self professed Oenophile, I seek a well made cocktail as often as I can. When presented with a drink made to perfection by a professional I see the true art of this craft. There's something sexy and sleek about a dim room, a well laid out bar, glittering bottles of spirits, liqueurs and bitters, shimmering ice cubes and the many shapes and sizes of glasses. The sounds of shaking and stirring and cracking of ice completely bewitches me.

I love a cocktail before dinner, or more often, while making it. Since they are often created based on syrups or juices found in my fridge, many of my creations are often made in waves and then left for dead. Bringing them back to life on my blog means I can share the recipes with my readers AND keep the recipe alive for my own future reference.

Today's drink is a variation of a  Sidecar. A very old cocktail, the Sidecar has been around for nearly a century, a category of drinks I have a soft spot for (the Manhatten and Opera being among my favourites). Some say it was born in Paris for a patron that arrived at the bar in a sidecar of a motorcycle, others say it was created in London at the end of WWI. No matter what the story, drinks that last that long do so with good reason. Just the right mix of sour and sweet makes the Sidecar a study in balance, something I look for most in a cocktail. But what's even better is that the recipe is perhaps the easiest to remember, which is likely why its been showing up around here so often. Equal parts lemon juice, orange liqueur and brandy mean a recipe I can rattle off no matter how hectic the room is. 3 ingredients also means I always have the goods on site.

A Valentines Day Collection

Happy Valentines Day! 

If, like me, you are staying in to celebrate, cooking something for or with your special someone, I've put together a few Lemon Tart links to help you create your menu for that someone special.

• Edible Valentines can be made with sugar cookies beautifully decorated.
• Baked Alaskas are easy if you use storebought ice cream and pound cake!
• Layered pannacotta and gelee is prettier in a jar.
• Everyone swoons over cheesecake.
• Valentines day and chocolate go hand in hand!
• A special Valentines brunch is always a great way to start the day.
• Crimson red cherries for dessert are an edible valentine.
• Chocolate meringue and ice cream can't be wrong!

 

Sour Cherry Cookie Streusel Crumble

You know that old saying, when the cookie crumbles...

MAKE DESSERT!

I was making cookies recently, a new recipe that didn't quite work out. Sure it made cookies, but I added a little too many ground hazelnuts added "flour" to the dry ingredients which made for a very dry dough that was hard to work into a dough without overworking. I managed to roll it out and cut out a batch , but a second roll wasn't going to work so nicely. Just as I was hovering over the trash can, ready to scrape it all in, I stopped myself in the nick of time and thought, "STREUSEL"!

With a toss of my hands and a few squeezes here and there, a toss onto a baking sheet, what I was looking at was streusel, which is nothing but a crumbly crunchy topping made of sugar, flour and butter, exactly what my cookies were made of. While the dough wasn't holding together enough for cookies, it certainly was for this purpose. In fact I've made a similar combination before from scratch, so this was a buttery bonus.

I baked the mixture until lightly browned all over and crunchy. In the freezer this will keep a month thrown on top of fruit pies, muffins, ice cream, canned fruit or any dessert you want a little texture. Heck this could even be ground with a little extra sugar and butter and become a cookie crust for cheeseacake. But where this stuff really becomes a life saver is simply strewn over bubbling frozen fruit, a nice change to the usual oatmeal based crumbles I usually make and a super quick dessert.

I dug down into my abyss of a deep freeze and took out the last dregs of a bag of sour cherries. So bright and crimson they would make a great Valentines dessert on their own. Such gems as these need little to make them special, just some sugar to make them palatable is all they need, but a kiss of crunchy streusel adds a pleasing texture.

Nutella Sandwich Cookies

It was World Nutella Day recently. You will recall a couple past years here at Lemon Tart, where cookies and profiteroles  made an appearance with the beloved Nutella. Everywhere in the world people were smearing this beloved chocolate hazelnut spread on everything, with reckless abandon. While I haven't the childhood nostalgia to go with this gooey phenomenon, I certainly understand that combining chocolate and my favourite nut is a really really good idea.

When brainstorming about what I would be making on the occasion of World Nutella Day I already had my star ingredient stashed away ready for its debut here. A Nutella of a different name you might say, this years player was Askinosie,  a relatively new bean to bar American chocolate maker. On the infrequent occasions I've been able to grab a few bars it is one of my all time favourite chocolate makers anywhere in the world. I picked up this spread above while in San Francisco at my dream neighborhood grocery, Bi Rite, and snapped it off that shelf as if it was the last one on earth. What sets this spread apart from other similar spreads is that this is the only Bean to Spread product. Rather than simply mixing the ingredients together, they mix full flavoured Washington hazelnut butter with the cacao beans in the chocolate making stage. I knew this stuff would be special, and oh it is, the most full flavoured spread of its kind I've come across. So this needed a simple recipe to properly show it off.

Sandwiching nutella or any other chocolate hazelnut spread between two cookies is not a new idea. In fact, aside from smearing it on toast, Euro-style, it seems to be made for that application. And as for a spread of this quality, there seemed no better way to showcase it than between two buttery crispy shortbread cookies full of my best Hazelnuts, from Oregon actually. Well, that's after licking it straight off of a very chic spoon, which as you can see I already did!

I remembered such a cookie worthy of this application. A sandwiched cookie full of tasty nutella that even after being made for a few days and shipped, came to me crispy and crunchy, yet still not overbaked. While I've made nut shortbread cookies filled with everything from Dulce de Leche to chocolate raspberry jam to ganache, all of them were tender and void of that crunch I crave.

Kale Crispies

Kale. Its a vegetable we all know we should be eating more of, one of those superfoods that frequent top 10 lists for cancer fighting vegetables, pictured on nutritional charts and in countless magazine articles. But I've noticed a lot of people aren't real comfortable with kale, not really sure what to do with it. If you are a fan of the 100 mile diet or a regular farmers market shopper you have already come up close and personal at some point in the year when this is only green in a sea of root vegetables. But if you are shopping at the supermarket, you are likely grabbing the familiar spinach than the curly strange bunches of kale at the back of the produce case. Maybe you know you should be eating more of it, but not really sure what to do with it? Well, tomorrow pick yourself up a fresh, healthy looking bunch or two and make some of these! You'll find yourself devouring an entire bunch alone and for the parents out there, you might even convince your kids these are better than potato chips. Let this be your gateway to these beautiful winter greens.

Baking these hardy greens produces that satisfying crunch that manufactures of snack products all over the world constantly try to create. A slight rub of olive oil, a scattering of seasoning and these are better than popcorn to me. In fact some people grind and sprinkle it on popcorn. The fact that this is indeed health food is beside the fact. These are tasty tasty greens. Each time I roast a batch of these I'm amazed at the way they shatter in my mouth and my need to devour handfuls of them. They are smokey and savoury and slightly unexpected but definitely additive and I've found a sure way to get any hater of green vegetables to turn over a new leaf. Pun intended!

 

Ju Jubes to Meat Candy : The Year in Food

Here's a look back at 2010 one more time, specifically how it relates to the food I ate. Here are the highlights.

Best Sweet: Cannelles, Ken's Artisan Bakery, Portland OR.

I remember my very first Cannelle vividly. It was our first time to Paris and the magic of the Patisserie windows were enchanting. We came across an old fashioned and well loved looking pastry filled window just around the corner from our hotel in the 15th, a line is often a good sign. I purchased  a couple mini cannelles and readiest myself for this new treat. My first bite was a revelation. Slightly crispy and deep caramel on the outside, then a resistant chew, leading to a heavenly moist, interior, custardy but open, with just the right amount of sweetness. The taste was that of flavours that magically transform when the simplest ingredients like eggs, milk, sugar and flour come together in a hot oven with just the right kind of pan. I was delighted. It was like nothing I'd had before, yet there was something familiar. Creme brulee baked, perhaps? Since then I've come across them once in awhile. But nothing would rival that Parisian Cannelle moment and for the most part I pass on them, like pain au chocolate and macarons, not able to withstand the infuriating emotions that erupt when my disappointment becomes unbareable. That was until Ken's Artisan Bakery in Portland, Oregon. While enjoying my obligatory orange flecked "Morning Bun" and Oregon Croissant (turns out they are better with blackberries!) my eyes caught sight of a plate of cannelles, of all things. It was as if a French soundtrack started to play. I can spot a worthy pastry from quite far away, a handy trick when confronted with too many options for this not too tiny tummy, and I could tell these were a must from their consistently deep coloured exterior and just the right amount of shine and texture on the surface, with just a tiny pool of cooled, melted butter in the indendation on top.  One bite into these caramelized, eggy, sweet little scalloped pastries screamed perfection, which is no small feat since these beauties are pure technique and just plain fiddly. While that first in Paris will always remain close to my heart, this cannelle was certain to hold its place in my Pastry Canon, holding its own with a Seattle Pain au Chocoalate and a Gerard Mulot Macaron.

 

Best Dinner at a Friends house: Meat Candy

While 2010 wasn't the first time I had this dish, it was a year I was fortunate to realize I had found my "death row meal". These Bourbon Glazed Ribs, originally adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe, have become, whether she likes it or not, a specialty of my friend Ruth.  Plenty of smokey muscovado sugar and so much bourbon the oven door is blown open during cooking, make a sauce that  caramelizes into a sticky candy coated lollipop of pork, which is why I've coined it Meat Candy. Those finger bowls are a nice touch, but I don't remember using them much, since there's no way I'm washing away the sticky coating of bourbon, brown sugar and meat juices from these fingers with anything but my tongue! I recommend being vocal about your love for that special dish a friend makes. It gets you invited back! I've never made ribs in my life and don't plan on it. I have a friend who gives me the gift of these Meat Lollys enough times in the year. How lucky for me!

  Best pizza : Delfina, San Francisco and Delancey, Seattle

Coming from a city with a wasteland of exceptional wood fired pizza, a good piece of pie is always on my radar when travelling and our fall "foodcation" was full of credible options. Upon arrival into San Francisco we went straight to Pizzeria Delfina. There were very high expectations surrounding this lunch and it did not disappoint. Seated in a sidewalk table in the colourful Mission neighborhood, I literally gasped when this pizza arrived. The only thing thing missing was a spare stomach to try more of their unique pizzas, including one with broccoli raab and several options with housemade sausages. We had a vibrant pie covered in local, fresh cherry tomatoes, bursting open from the ovens heat and fresh ricotta cheese, the tomatoes adding acid and sweetness to the creamy, salty cheese. The lack of a traditional sauce let the pizza dough itself shine through, allowing a chewy, flavourful dough the chance to really be tasted. And all the beautiful charred bubbles were crackly crisp. The second one was one of the most interesting pizza I've ever had, covered in generous guaincale, unsmoked bacon, sliced torpedo onions, plenty of whole black peppercorns and a coating of cream. Think spaghetti carbonara on pizza. This really was my most memorable pizza experience and this place alone will get me back to San Francisco sooner than otherwise. And while I may complain that I can't get pizza like this at home, I'm glad because it makes it that much more special.

 Twice last year we had another memorable pizza experience at the much lauded and blogged over, Delancey, tucked away in a residential neighborhood of  Seattle. I had been following the progress of this opening all year and was quite excited to see what this highly anticipated newcomer to Seattle food scene would deliver. Brandon, the chef, had spent time across the US studying pizza and he obviously came away with quite the education. I was ready to cry with my first bite as DG and I ate in silence. The pizza being the only thing in the room. Plenty of charred bubbles, a dry, crispy crust, lots of cavernous chewy holes, restrained sauce and a simple menu of classics to show off the time and effort that have gone into creating a perfect pizza pie. A pizza bianca was the essence of simple and beautiful covered in excellent ricotta cheese and wild leeks, another tomato sauced version speckled with house made fennel sausage. So enraptured by this little spot we managed to plan our schedule to arrive in Seattle at opening to enjoy one last meal on our way home across the border. Bravo, Delancey. I am in awe of you attention to detail including your popsicles and fresh made chocolate chip cookies for dessert!

 

Daring Bakers: Stollen!

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

The December Daring Bakers selection this year was a lot less work than last years. And that's a good thing because, while I've been absent this month here, busy doing the usual holiday bustle, I managed to complete this challenge just an hour before heading out of town for the holidays. That gingerbread was a tad more drawn out affair last year! The reason I could pull it off is that a stollen is one easy holiday bread, yet so incredibly impressive! Shhh... don't tell!

The dough is an easy sweet bread dough studded heavily with dried and candied fruits. I made the dough the day before in minutes and put it in the fridge for almost 24 hours to rise. A 2 hour rest to warm up, then a quick roll and before you know it this is in the kitchen tempting me to stop the holiday prep, gift wrapping and all around rushing to eat a piece of this with tea. 

I made one of these for Christmas day breakfast last year, although in a more less festive, yet more manageable shape. There's something so appropriate about a holiday bread, full of the dried and candied fruits and nuts that mean less than they did centuries ago when that was the only way you would have enjoyed a fruit in December. Last year I made a marjipan stollen, which takes the treat to to a new level by wrapping the dough arounda  generous log of almond paste. Each slice has a coin of sweet, nutty candy! This year my version is a cranberry orange which is less traditional, but certainly bright and sunny. My cranberries had been soaking in bourbon for a week and are lovely. A jar of homemade orange peel was a natural addition.

If you still haven't decided on something festive for one of your holiday tables, give this a try. It keeps beautifully, so you can do what I'm doing and just make it and leave it out for people to nibble.

Need some more Christmas morning breakfast ideas a little different than this unfortunately named breakfast tradition...

This Christmas I'll be making another Spinach Strata. Melty cheese, soft spinach, puffy and crunchy bread surrounded with an eggy custard. A revelation really. Best part? Its entirely made the night before and thrown in the oven in the morning. Beautiful!

And with that I leave you, gifts packed, wine corked, cookies cooled and on the road I go!

Merry Christmas to you all! I hope the holidays are full of , what else, great food, lovely wine, and even better company whether just you and yours or a house full of family and friends.