Late summer update

August is almost over! Baking continues now and again, tucked in amongst hosting out-of-state family visitors, hot/humid weather, household and outdoor projects and the occasional country drive to feel the wind in our hair. Through it all I always circle back to the kitchen and thought I’d share a few of the treats I’ve made of late.

This time of year the likes of peaches, blueberries, tart cherries, tomatoes and sweet corn enter into my baking projects.

Thinking of tarts? Grab your favorite pâte brisée, create your filling and go for it!

For a savory treat, blind bake the crust, let cool, fill with a whipped goat cheese/ricotta filling and top with roasted tomatoes and fresh thyme. I think you’ll like it.

Roasted tomato goat cheese tartelettes

Blue, blue, blueberries!! These are individual versions of the double blueberry tart I wrote about here. I tweaked my pâte brisée by replacing some of the all purpose flour with whole wheat pastry/spelt/rye flours which resulted in a delectable crust that seemed so right with the blueberries. Love it.

Fresh blueberry tartelettes

On another tart note, how about fresh raspberry tarts - pâte sucrée d’amandes with frangipane (blend of crème pâtissiére and crème d/amande) baked in, topped with fresh raspberries and finished off with raspberry coulis glaze - delicious!

Back to the savory side, here’s pizza topped with local fresh corn, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower and our go to favorite grated fontina cheese (soooo much better than traditional mozzarella in our book). Thanks Cheese Lady! TIP - pop the cheese into the freezer for 30-40 minutes then grate - it’s much easier.

Here are individual cherry puff feuilletées, a twist (hah!) on the free form cherry tart using the same components (puff pastry and tart cherry filling) but in a different form.

Tart cherry feuilletées

My go to favorite cakes of late, based on a financier like recipe (no brown butter here) - these are blueberry lime with roasted strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream - both petite and standard versions. Change up the flavors to reflect the seasons. Mmmmm!

Petite

Standard

While these have nothing to do with fresh summer produce, you should know by now that I have to include some of my favorite laminated pastries.

Classic butter croissants can’t be beat. Pay close attention to the steps, how you handle the dough, the resting and rising times. They’re all so important in achieving the lovely airy center with crispy exterior.

Next up - maple glazed cinnamon buns made with laminated Danish dough. I’ve done versions of this sort of thing many times, yet some treats simply bear repeating (just like the croissants!).

I made the laminated dough this go around by adding 120 g butter to the dough and using 180 g for my butter block. Putting the dough through one 4-fold and one 3-fold yielded some lovely layers.

For the filling (I’m always tweaking the mixture) blend 100 g dark brown sugar, 2 tablespoons maple syrup, 42 g melted butter, 3 tablespoons flour, 4 teaspoons cinnamon (I use King Arthur’s Vietnamese version), a pinch of salt and a splash of vanilla extract. Feel free to go up to 2 tablespoons cinnamon to amp up the flavor.

Roll the finished dough into a 10” x 17”-ish rectangle with the long side parallel to the work surface. Spread the filling evenly and roll up into a log. Trim ends a tad, cut 16 one inch slices and place cut sides up/down into buttered muffin tins or open rings.

I have some 80 mm one inch high open tart rings that I love for this type of pastry. They hold the dough just right to allow for rising and preserving a pleasing round bun shape in the oven.

Bake about 18 minutes at 350ºF. Mix 3 tablespoons maple syrup with 3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar and thin with a bit of cream or milk to your desired consistency. I prefer thinner for a not too heavy coating.

Scrumptious, tender and buttery, lightly glazed - just what the doctor ordered!

Even though it’s HOT here right now, I can’t help but dream of apples, pears, nuts, pumpkins and more as the seasons continue to change.

Hang in there folks! We can do it. Here’s to a beautiful autumn.

Strawberry lime cream stacks with berry sauce

Oh boy! This one was fun indeed!! Remember the vanilla chocolate dacquoise I wrote about recently? Well, here’s another creation using leftovers and ingredients that needed to be used. This time lime curd from a teacake project, mascarpone (tarte aux fraises fraîches project) and a block of cream cheese just sittin’ in the fridge.

My inspiration often comes from things I happen to have on hand, and let’s be honest - how often do we buy something simply because we have a coupon for it, not knowing exactly what we might do with it? I do! That’s how cream cheese often comes into the equation - good old Philly.

Truth be told, I’m a sucker for custards, particularly baked versions like crème brulée and pots de crème, so I tweaked a ricotta/cream cheese recipe I’ve used a number of times to create a mascarpone version instead. Cue in roasted strawberries and you’ve got yourself something pretty fantastic.

I took advantage of west Michigan’s strawberry season to roast up a bunch and purée them. So tasty in ice cream (yum!) but also to freeze to have on hand for whatever. Here it is quick and dirty - clean, hull, cut up a quart of strawberries into equal pieces. Toss them in 2 tablespoon brown sugar (light or dark, either way), spread out on a silicone mat and bake in a 300ºF oven for 30 to 45 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so until juices appear thickened and jammy. Let cool (things will thicken up), then purée.

Where am I going with all this you might ask? OK - cookie base/roasted strawberry mascarpone custard/lime cream/stacked with graham crumbs and caramel/topped with mixed berry sauce. Whoa!

It’s all about planning. The custard/cream can be done ahead and frozen for up to a couple of weeks. The base can be shortbread, meringue or cake depending on your vision. I always have caramel sauce in my fridge and graham or cookie crumbs of various sorts in my freezer.

Lemon or lime curd (just sub in lime juice for lemon) is great for making a citrus cream (2 parts curd to 1 part whipped cream) that can be doled out into silicone molds and frozen until your plan for use starts to take shape. In this case I blended 260 g lime curd with 130 g whipped cream and filled 8 of my favorite muffin shaped wells about 1/2 way. The mold, seen below, is Silikomart’s SF028. My favorite source for this line of molds is Kerekes at Bake Deco.com

I baked my mascarpone custard in the same sized mold (I have several at my disposal!) then cooled and froze the rounds until ready for assembly.

Now for the base. I chose Breton dough for mine, rolling and cutting the rounds a bit larger than the diameter of the molds. Breton dough contains baking powder so the cookies do spread. Just out of the oven, simply trim them up with the same cutter and you have the perfect base on which to set the custard stack. And you can save the crumbs for garnish too!

NOTE: I’d roll the cookies out more thinly next time - although a delicious cookie, it didn’t yield well to a fork. Something flat is best for stacking so a more tender crumbly shortbread or either sponge cake or dacquoise rounds would all work well here.

Let’s assemble! Cookie bases in papers (again for ease of placing on an individual serving plate) and components at the ready . . . . . .

Caramel drizzle topped with strawberry custard. . . . . .

then more caramel drizzle topped with graham crumbs and finished off with lime cream.

All stacked up!

Plan your assembly a few hours ahead of serving to give the custards time to thaw in the fridge. Don’t worry, they’ll hold their shape. Just before serving add whatever garnish you have in mind. I drizzled more caramel and spooned berry sauce over the top with a sprinkling of graham crumbs on the plate.

Delicious all the way around.

News flash! We’re moving into blueberry season - can’t wait!