This recipe comes from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook that my dad gave to me when I was first in university and just learning to cook. My guess is that he probably doesn't even remember giving it to me!
I made this in a square pan instead of a loaf pan, since it was to be crumbled to put in trifle and I figured that it would cook more quickly in a square pan. I'll post the recipe for the trifle shortly.
1/2 lb. butter (do not use margarine)
1 2/3 C sugar
5 eggs
2 C cake flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Farenheit. Butter and lightly flour a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.
2. Cream the butter, slowly add the sugar, and beat until light.
3. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating each in well.
4. Stir in the flour, salt and vanilla and combine well. Spoon into the pan and bake for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a rack.
Serve with fresh fruit, ice cream or a sauce.
We were looking for inventive ways to use the mountains of strawberries that we had picked when my husband decided to make a French strawberry tart. He made me the little heart shaped one with strawberries on top for our 9th wedding anniversary. It was so good that I decided to make a larger version myself for dessert for my parents' visit this past weekend. Unfortunately, we had already eaten through the vast majority of our fresh strawberries, so I made one with blueberries instead. The recipe might look a bit complicated, but is actually quite simple to make (in other words, I even managed to make it!).
You would normally use a shortbread-type crust for this type of tart in France, but we decided to use the simple crust from the Chocolate Pie posted on March 2/10 instead, as it is tasty and really quick and easy to make.
Pastry:
125g of softened butter
additional butter for pie pan
pinch of salt
115g icing sugar
2g of powdered vanilla
1 egg
4 egg yolks
300g of flour
1. To prepare the pastry, put the butter and salt in a food processor and pulse until it becomes creamy. Incorporate the icing sugar, vanilla, eggs and flour and mix together by pulsing until the pastry forms a ball. Place in a Ziploc bag in the fridge for 2 hours. Be sure not to overmix the pastry.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Farenheit. Use a bit of additional butter to prepare a 24 cm pie pan. Roll the pastry to fit the pie pan. Pierce the pastry with a fork and bake for 15 minutes.
The recipe for the crème pâtissière comes from the Larousse des Desserts, which we picked up alongside the Larousse du Chocolat before my husband moved to Canada from France. Again, because this is a French cookbook, recipes are given in grams rather than in cups. But you it is well worth buying an inexpensive food scale, if only to be able to make this recipe and the Chocolate Pie posted earlier!! You'll also need a food thermometer, but you can also get one that's not too expensive.
We used the vanilla beans that we had bought direct from the producers in Tahiti. Though vanilla beans are expensive here, I would recommend buying some instead of using vanilla extract for this recipe, as it makes a big difference in the flavour. Also, don't substitute a lower-fat milk for the 2%, as that's what makes the cream so creamy.
Crème pâtissière:
1 1/2 vanilla beans
30 g cornstarch
80 g sugar
350 mL 2% milk
4 egg yolks
35 g butter at room temperature (we used light butter)
1. In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks for 3 minutes with half of the sugar.
2. Split the vanilla beans lengthwise with a knife and scrape out the grains. Mix together the cornstarch and the rest of the sugar in a pot. Pour in the milk, mixing continually with a whisk. Add the vanilla beans and the grains and bring to a light boil, while constantly stirring with a whisk.
3. Pour a bit of the milk mixture into the egg yolks and mix.
4. Pour the egg mixture into the pot with the milk mixture and cook, stirring the whole time. As soon as the mixture reaches a light boil, remove the pot from the heat. Remove the vanilla beans.
5. Pour the cream into a bowl and place the bowl inside a second bowl, filled with ice cubes (I just placed the first bowl into a bowl of cold water).
6. When the cream reaches a temperature of 50 degrees Celsius, incorporate the butter, by whisking the mixture rapidly.
It is very important to continue whisking the mixture the entire time, otherwise, you will end up with lumps in your cream.
The cookbook says that it is preferable to make the cream the day that you are using it, as it begins to lose its flavour after 12 hours. However, we ate some 3 days after my husband had first made it and it seemed fine to me.
To assemble the tart, you spread the crème pâtissière on the bottom of the pie shell and then cover the top with berries. Voilà. I wouldn't put the fruit on further in advance than you have to though.
Variation: you can make chocolate crème pâtissière by mixing in 250 g of dark grated chocolate when you remove the cream from the heat in step 4. It should be stirred in 1/3 at a time. I was thinking that a tart with chocolate crème pâtissière might be nice with strawberries on top one day... hmm... the next time people visit???
Fresh berries are amongst my favourite foods and we take advantage of the yummy local berries every year by going strawberry picking. I typically pick enough to make mountains of jam, but opted not to make any this year, given that I've got an 8 week old and a stash of jam still in the freezer from last year.
But I couldn't skip the strawberry picking all together though this year. They're so much tastier (and cheaper!!) when you pick them yourselves. We always go to the Fraiserie de la Veille Grange, but somehow this year ended up at Fraiserie Gravel instead. The pickings were a bit slim this year and I gave up after 3/4 of a basket, as Logan started screeching every time I bent down to pick more. So we ended up with 2 baskets instead of the 4 I had hoped for. But good thing, as they quickly bordered going off, since we left them in the car all afternoon while picking a vanity and ceramic for the bathroom we're renovating. Not too smart, which we knew at the time...
So we've been eating mass quantities of strawberries for the past few days (yum!) and I've been hunting down new recipes to make with them. When we were on a Carnaval cruise to the Caribbean with my sister and husband awhile back, we were served all sorts of delicious fruit soups as appetizers. They all tasted like cream and were delicious (though I'm sure, not overly healthy!). So I searched out a similar recipe to make with my strawberries. I chose a recipe off of Allrecipes that used yogurt instead of cream, to make it healthier. I used Liberty plain yogurt, as it's nice and thick and omitted the cardamom, as I didn't have any. I would cut back a bit on the amount of sugar next time, as I don't feel it needed to be quite so sweet (you could always start with 1/4 C and add more in, as necessary). I served this as the start to a meal, as had been done in the Caribbean, but next time, I think I would perhaps serve it as a dessert instead.
4 C strawberries
2 C plain yogurt
1/2 C orange juice
1/2 C white sugar
1/2 C water
1/8 tsp. ground cardamom
1. In a blender, combine the strawberries, yogurt, orange juice, sugar, water and cardamom. Puree until well mixed. Chill and serve.
Makes 4 to 6 servings.
I had been looking for a simple but tasty recipe to make for dinner for this weekend, as my family was back up again and I don't have a ton of time on my hands these days to be making complicated meals. Brandi had made this for me a few weeks back and it was really good, so I begged her to pass on the recipe ;) And got lots of compliments on it yesterday. Brandi barbecues the whole tenderloin and then heats it up for quick meals during the week with her boys. I made a quick tomato-fresh mozzarella salad and sweet potato fries to go with it, for a super quick meal.
1 pork tenderloin
1/4 C soy sauce
1/2 C water
1/4 C honey
2 tbsp. wine vinegar
1 tbsp. garlic
pinch grated fresh ginger
salt
pepper
paprika
Marinate for a few hours and then barbecue whole tenderloin for 10-15 minutes per side.
Freezer-friendly once cooked. Undercook slightly so that it won't be too cooked when reheated.
A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for a quick dessert to make for when my family came down to visit. My grandmother used to make this 'gourmet' twist on classic rice krispie bars for us as kids. It turns out that both my dad and my uncle, who were down with my grandmother for a visit, were a bit miffed that she had never made this for them as kids. They really only take about 2 minutes to make (and maybe less than that for them all to disappear off of the plate!).
4 Mars bars (I used dark chocolate Mars bars)
2 tbsp. butter
2 C rice krispies
8-inch square pan. Refrigerate.
I made this recipe a couple of weeks ago when I was invited to spend some time with Cynthia and her kids. Cynthia can't eat dairy, so I dug through my recipes to find a treat that I could bring over for the kids that she could also eat. The recipe below calls for shortening. I would normally replace it with butter, but by using shortening instead, Cynthia was also able to enjoy a couple of cookies after lunch. This recipe has quite a bit of sugar, which could probably be cut down. I didn't want to try it when taking it to a friend's house though, just in case ;)
3/4 C shortening
1 C packed brown sugar
1/2 C white sugar
1 egg
1/4 C water
1 tsp. vanilla
1 C flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cloves
1 C raisins
1 C quick-cooking oats
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
2. Mix shortening, sugars, egg, water and vanilla.
3. Stir in remaining ingredients.
4. Drop dough by rounded teaspoonful onto baking sheet.
5. Bake 12-15 minutes. Immediately remove from baking sheet.
Heather first introduced me to chia seed, which is considered to be one of those really healthy 'super foods'. Yes, this is essentially the seed used for chia pets. But it happens to also be a great addition to various meals. I don't find that it has a lot of flavour in and of itself, but it adds a bit of crunch to meals. Chia is very high in omega-3s and also happens to be gluten-free. It is an antioxidant and is high in both protein and fiber.
Chia can be added to all sorts of different foods - sprinkled into pancake or muffin batter, burger patties, onto salads, etc. Unlike flax seed, it doesn't need to be ground to derive its nutritional benefits. And I don't bother grinding it in the following recipe, even though it's recommended. You can find chia at your local health food store. The brand Salba is carried at our local health food store, the Health Tree. However, it is rather expensive. Another brand (the name of which is escaping me at the moment) can be found at Costco for a more reasonable price.
Chia Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
4 bananas
2 eggs
1/2 C maple syrup
1/2 C milk
6 tbsp. butter, melted (or coconut butter)
2/3 C ground chia seeds
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 3/4 C whole-wheat flour or brown rice flour
2/3 C chocolate chips (to avoid dairy, use dairy-free chocolate chips)
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Farenheit.
2. In bowl, beat egg. Add other wet ingredients. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir well.
3. In second bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir well. (I ran out of ground chia, so I finished it off with some regular chia).
4. Grease muffin tins with oil. Fill muffin cups with dough 2/3 C full. Bake for 30 minutes.
Makes about 18 muffins.
These muffins are very moist. However, because of that, they spoil quickly on the counter if covered. Either leave the lid off of the container, if you have used muffin liners, or freeze whatever hasn't been eaten after approximately 2 days.
