pear chai scones

After the parsnips, I figured I should hold back a bit and offer up something friendly, familiar, and comforting. Scones are my favorite breakfast bread and they are easy to bake (I did recently have a scone baking disaster, though!)

To bake perfect scones there are three secrets:

• Cold butter/dough. Like pie crust, scones rely on butter to create a light and crumbly texture. Make sure your butter is cold before you mix it into the flout. To encourage minimal handling, cut the butter in small pieces as well. I recommend measuring the butter, cutting it up in small bits and putting it in the fridge to chill a bit while you mix up the dry ingredients.
  
• Hot oven (400 F).
  
• Minimal handling. Again, same as pie dough. To keep a light and crumbly scone you want to mix and handle it as little as possible.
  

Scones are very versatile. I have one basic scone recipe that I adapt with a variety of nuts, fruits, and flours. Scones can also be made ahead and frozen before baking. You don't need to thaw them before baking--just add 10-15 minutes to your baking time. The freeze-ahead factor for scones makes them great for company and deliveries to coffee shops. These pear chai scones are a little sweet and a little spicy and quite lovely.

In non-scone news, my application for the Ottawa Farmers' Market was accepted, so beginning May 10th I will be selling my goods every Sunday at Landsdowne Park. If you live in Ottawa, I hope you'll stop by and say hello. Stay tuned for details about weekly offerings. In the meantime, you can find my baked goods at Cyclelogik on Wellington Monday-Saturday.

pear chai scones
chai tea
3/4 cup dried pears, chopped
2 cups flour
1 T. baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. chai spice*
4 oz (1 stick) butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup half and half or cream


Brew tea in 1/4 water (use 1 bag of tea or 1 T. loose tea). Remove tea bag or strain loose tea; soak dried pears in the liquid. Whisk together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and chai spice. Add butter and mix (with pastry blender or fingers) until crumbs form--go for a mix of fine and large crumb. Dump in pears and their liquid. Add cream and mix in lightly with a fork, mixing just until the dough comes together. You want it to look rather crumbly. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and form into a circle about 1 inch thick. Transfer the circle of dough to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Score the dough into six pieces without cutting all the way through. Brush a bit of half & half on the dough and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for about 20 minutes.

*chai spice
1 stick cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cardamom
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. fennel
3 cloves

4 peppercorns (I use cubeb, which has a nice allspice-type flavor)

Grind spices in a small food processor or coffee grinder until powdery.

parsnip & chocolate

Sometimes I have great ideas. Sometimes I have bad ideas. Other times I have awful ideas which I'm convinced are brilliant (or ideas that are brilliant, but no one else understands--depending on how you look at it). This latest idea of mine, my current obsession, I can't decide where it fits.

Don't you think parsnip and chocolate would taste great together? Just think of that sharp, nutty, spicy smell that arises when you cut into a raw parsnip. That. With chocolate.

I'm not exactly sure what started this obsession with combining parsnips and chocolate into transcendent deliciousness, and boy do I wish I could give up on my ideas sometimes, but this one's a sticky bastard. I suspect that I was trying to think of something to do with the parsnips in the fridge. Who wants to eat parsnips in April anyway? Unless they're dessert. Yeah. Carrot cake, parsnip cake. But I don't really want spice cake. Hmm, chocolate?

There are plenty of lovely recipes for spiced parsnip cake a la carrot cake. I will try them some day and I will surely love them and wonder what I was thinking with this whole chocolate idea. Just so you don't think I'm totally wacky, I did find some evidence for my parsnip/chocolate pairing. A parsnip white chocolate milk (served as a dessert pairing with chickpea cake and coffee mousseline) from a Vancouver restaurant. And a parsnip chocolate cake from a New Zealand restaurant, similar to a chocolate zucchini cake. I probably should have just gone with this recipe and been done with it, but I wasn't really looking for a variation on the other veg. cakes I've had. I wanted a cake that hollered parsnip and chocolate, not a mush of flavors.

My first attempt was a dense chocolaty cake with the parsnips baked in, a variation I suppose on the NZ cake. Cute, no? But don't be fooled. It was a disgusting. I'm sure that even the squirrels that dig around in my garbage for sweets would be happy about this one. W. tried to convince me that I should give up my quest. Oh, if only it were so easy.

The latest attempt is what you see at the top of the post. Inspired by the parsnip white chocolate milk recipe, I opted for white chocolate mousse made with parsnip-infused cream, layered with chocolate genoise, and topped with a candied parsnip curl. Not bad looking, and far better tasting than attempt number one, but still not what I'm hoping for. The parsnip flavor was there, but not with the sharpness that I want--again that earthy, spice aroma.

Then, I was watching a Food Jammers episode about Food Essences. (by the way, if you haven't seen Food Jammers, you must go watch now! It's three guys coming up with odd, yet amazing, food contraptions--like a taco machine). This is what I need! Parsnip Essence. sigh, like that's going to happen. I may have the tenacity to pursue a potentially foolhardy food pairing, but I'm not so good with drills and test tubes and copper coils. I have a couple of ideas for getting more of the parsnip flavor I want--infusing simple syrup, drying parsnips to make powder, building something from the parsnip white chocolate milk recipe--but I have not idea what I'll make from these and I suspect I'll still get that mushy cooked taste instead of the raw sharp flavor I want.

Maybe I'll just email those Food Jammer guys and see if they can whip me up a batch of parsnip essence.

princess cake and a late night tea party

Every year for the past three years, I have hosted a tea party for the girls in my family--which given location usually means my mom, my five! sisters, and three nieces. In other locales, I have three sisters-in-law, my mother-in-law, and another niece. The tea party is one of my favorite days of the year. I love planning the menu which always ends up being a bit excessive, spending hours prepping little sandwiches and tarts, and of course being with my girls for an afternoon. The tea party is also my way of welcoming spring.

This year, because of our move, no tea party. I was pretty sad about that. Until I realized that my sister's visit would coincide with tea party season! One guest could hardly justify my usual tea party spread, so I decided this was a perfect opportunity to make a Swedish princess cake. Princess cake is genoise layered with raspberry jam, pastry cream, and whipped cream all topped with marzipan. I've been dreaming about this cake ever since I saw it in the holiday issue of MS Living. As soon as my sister arrived, I told her my plan to make princess cake and because she is an agreeable sort and a fabulous sister, she consented to help me.

I had visions of us sitting in my backyard in the finally pleasant weather, sipping tea and savoring our lovely cake. Unfortunately, because we had to fit the cake's preparation into our already busy schedule of sightseeing and because of a few baking disasters, we ate the cake at 10:30 p.m. Not really the time for a leisurely outdoor repast. We decided to skip the tea, but I did whip up a batch of bright yellow macarons filled with lemon buttercream and crab apple jelly. It wasn't quite the tea party I had imagined, but at least I had one sister with me to welcome spring and to justify the baking of a ridiculous cake.

Hopefully one of these days soon I'll be able to have all of the girls in my ever-growing family over for a proper tea party. For now, I'll just have to settle for offering up a few pictures and all of my good thoughts. Happy spring to Mom, Lynette, Kelicia, Suzanne, Shari, Michelle, Mary Jane, Tiffany, Lizi, Frances, Carlie, Annie, Johannah, and Mingjane. How lucky I am to have such wonderful women in my life. Love you all and miss you!

rhubarb meringue tarts

While I love pie of all kinds, I've never been a fan of the lemon meringue pie. When people tell me this is their favorite pie, I just don't get it. The spongy meringue, the sweaty layer between the filling and the meringue. Then I started thinking about my distaste for the pie and I realized that the only lemon meringue pie I've had is the diner kind. And while--at least in my opinion--means pretty good things for coconut cream, I'm not sure the same can be said about lemon meringue. Maybe I just don't like the pie because I've never had a good one.

I couldn't just leap right into baking a lemon meringue pie--baby steps. Since I'm all about the rhubarb these days, I decided to make my first effort at liking the dastardly pie with a rhubarb meringue tart. The tart is has a sweet pastry crust, rhubarb curd for the filling, and a simple meringue. My favorite part in the baking process was toasting the meringue with my kitchen torch. The torch is typically only used around here for creme brulee and since W.'s the creme brulee master, I never get to play with it. I think I'll be whipping up more meringue just for the entertainment value.

I think I'm making progress in my meringue-therapy, because I can't stop thinking about this tart.

Rhubarb Meringue Tart

This tart has three parts: a sweet dough, the rhubarb curd, and the meringue. I used The Tart Dough recipe from the Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, but any pate sucree recipe will work. If you don't have one that you like, you can do a quick search and find many options.

Rhubarb Curd
Cook 1 cup rhubarb, 2 T. sugar, and 2 tsp. lemon juice over med-high heat until the rhubarb is soft. Set this aside.

In a heatproof bowl, whisk together 3 egg yolks, 6 T. sugar, and a pinch of salt. Set this bowl over a lightly simmering pan of water. Add the stewed rhubarb and, whisking constantly, cook the mixture until it reaches 160 F. Remove from heat and add 1/2 stick butter (2 oz.), one tablespoon at a time. Let the curd cool until it thickens.

Meringue
In your heatproof mixer bowl, combine 4 large egg whites, 3/4 cup sugar, pinch of salt. Set over a pan of simmering water and, whisking constantly, cook until the mixture reaches 140 F. Remove from the heat and beat on medium high speed until you get stiff, glossy peaks.

Putting it All Together
This recipe made 6 four-inch tarts. Blind bake the tart shells according to your recipe's directions. Let these cool completely. Fill the tart shells with the thickened rhubarb curd. Make the meringue and fill a pastry bag. I used on oversized open star tip to create the topping pictured, but you could use a variety of star or open tips--try a few options and use what works for you. Pipe the meringue in your preferred design (if you don't want to fuss with piping, you could even spoon the meringue onto the tart). Lightly brown the meringue with your kitchen torch. If you don't have one, you could also put the tarts under the broiler for a minute or two (I haven't tested this, so keep an eye on them!)

pineapple coconut sorbet

Today is the third day in a row of April snow. please, please go away. Living here in the cold, cold north I think I have finally realized why T.S. Eliot called April the cruelest month. Midwinter, you accept the winterness of things, making sure to bundle up and settling into a haze of pseudo-hibernation. And then March comes along and little things begin to stir. The sky lightens. The birds chirp. And you start to hope. And then April. By April, you think it should be over. Really over. And it snows. You can feel all of the little things that have been opening up quickly shrink back.

Something has to be done about this. When I went to West Africa a few years ago, we went to a dance performance at the village king's compound. While we waited to be received, we waited in the Vodun shack. It was a little hut with a thatched roof full of fetishes. Some of this fetishes made sense to me; from my outsider's perspective, they seemed voodoo-y: bones, bits of hair, that sort of thing. But other fetishes seemed out of place and not very powerful: plastic combs, a bic pen. The lesson I learned from this, or at least the lesson I am applying now, is that anything can influence the gods.

This sorbet in my new little tulip cup is my offering to the sun gods, wherever they may be. Will it still work if it's now in my stomach?

pineapple coconut sorbet
note: I can't guarantee the amounts noted here, because despite my best intentions I didn't measure as I put this together. It's a simple preparation, so adjust to your own tastes.

2 cups pineapple puree (you can use fresh or canned here; if you use canned, just drain before pureeing the fruit)
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup simple syrup
1-2 Tablespoons rum (I used spiced rum)

Whisk ingredients in a large bowl. Chill. Freeze in your ice cream maker. If you don't have an ice cream maker, you would probably be fine just freezing it in a pan. If the texture seems to rigid once it's frozen just whiz it in a blender briefly to soften it up.

pates de fruits

I have a little love affair with pâtes de fruits. Gummy candies are my favorite (a preference I recently realized came from my childhood tendency to choke on hard candy), even better if you can put fresh fruit into the mix. At least you can pretend they are healthy, right? I always buy pâtes de fruits when I find a shop that makes them; my favorite come from a little cafe in Montreal. Sadly there aren't many places where I can find the candies, so I rarely have them. sad. How I love them. So sweet, so soft, so chewy.

To satisfy my cravings, I went on a mission to make pâtes de fruits. Oh, if I had only known what I was getting into. I could have stopped somewhere in my quest, but I am stubborn. And love, it is often foolhardy.

The quest started a couple of summers ago, when I made simple plum pate de fruit, more or less a paste cooked down from plums and sugar. Easy enough and certainly doable with a high pectin fruit like plums. Not so easy with low pectin fruits as I learned in a couple of failed experiments.

I searched around looking for recipes and tips. I found Lenôtre's Ice Creams and Candies highly recommended, so I quickly ordered the book. The recipes seemed pretty simple: fruit puree, sugar, a bit of butter, certo and a fairly quick cooking process. Well, I suspect Certo was a completely different thing when the book was written than it is now. Disaster. Multiple disasters.

I read some more. What I needed was apple pectin. And glucose. I've replaced glucose with corn syrup before, but all advice said that the replacement was not an option. So much effort, but what could I do? I found glucose at Michael's in the Wilton cake decorating section. I ordered the apple pectin from Pastry Chef Central, a seemingly simple move which ended up with a crazy big charge from Canadian customs and a charge from UPS because they couldn't make sense of my correctly written address--long story!

But finally, pâtes de fruits. Whenever I want them. And because my finally figuring them out led to a certain amount of excess, I have more than I can possibly eat. Raspberry, from the last of last summer's frozen berries. Blood orange. A somewhat failed pineapple (what was I thinking, varying from my successful formula?). And rhubarb, of course.

I won't give you advice for making these tasty candies, since I am still a novice at all things confectionery. But if you want to try some, come on over. I've got more than enough to share. The recipe I found most successful came from Canelle et Vanille. Use her recipes and advice and you'll be set (as will your candies). In the end, the process is pretty simple, but exacting. And, of course, delicious.