Pear Clafouti

Pear Clafouti

I saw Ina Garten make this on The Barefoot Contessa a few weeks ago, and had to try it, mostly because of its ultra-cool name. Clafouti! How fun is that? It looked easy, and I'm always on the lookout for non-pie fruit recipes.

It was easy to make, though I had to use a hand mixer since I don't have one of those big electric mixers. Ina cut larger slices of pears, and I took the advice of some of the commenters on the Web site, and cut thinner slices of pear. They stuck together and didn't allow the custard filling to get inbetween them, but that turned out not to be a problem.

Ina used a round dish and arranged the pear slices in a star shape, and then cut nice neat wedge-shaped pieces with a strip of pear in the middle of each wedge, but mine didn't work out quite so nicely. I don't have a round dish, so used an oval dish and a much more random arrangement of pear. Next time, I'll use a square dish, since it'd be easier to pull out rectangular-shaped pieces intact.

Some of the other reviewers complained that their pears didn't cook well, but my experience with steaming pears says that that depends greatly on the ripeness you start with. Mine were ripe enough to be hard to peel, but they cooked up beautifully.

I have no experience baking custards. This one came out runny at first, so I baked it another 15 minutes or so. In retrospect, I should have let it cool to room temperature and given the custard more time to set. Then again, it might still have been runny.

And who can wait for room temp? This was delicious, light and creamy and wonderful. I didn't bother with the confectioner's sugar or creme fraiche topping, I'll save that for when uber-decadence is called for. As it is, this one is a real treat, a wonderful classy grownup dessert, with a really funky name.

Herb Crusted Pork Tenderloin

Herb Crusted Pork Tenderloin and Shalloty Green Beans
(scroll to the end of that link for the recipe.)

I snagged this one from The Kitchen Illiterate. The description "pretty darn simple" was just too good to pass up.

And indeed, it was easy. Except for the fact that I don't know what marjoram is, and would have to make a special trip to find it. So to stay true to "herb-crusted", I tossed in some dried oregano, having some vague memory that I'd heard the word marjoram in the context of oregano once.

I'm not sure it made much difference; the overwhelming majority of flavor comes from the bread crumbs. That's not a bad thing exactly, but supposed you wanted to actually taste the herbs? I keep seeing Japanese panko bread crumbs come up in recipes or on cooking shows, and they're supposed to be lighter.

I loved the green beans though. I've made lemon and garlic green beans before, but the shallots were much better and cooked up nice and sweet. I took the author's advice and made the green beans in the same pan as I'd browned the pork, and that worked great. However, I did have a timing issue, as it took about 45 minutes to cook the tenderloin through, and the green beans were ready long before then.

The score: 3 out of 4. Literally. Both my sons finished all of their pork and green beans. Now there's an accomplishment! I even got a much-coveted "This is really good, Mom!" And, I liked both, though I'm not picky. My husband....not so much. He's always the weak link. I didn't take any chances with the youngest member of the family, who happily gobbled up a hefty portion of leftover Trader Joe's rice pilaf mix, with cauliflower chopped in.


I'm going to be making this again, for certain. Especially when the baby is past the "I refuse to try this JUST BECAUSE I CAN" phase, there will be one more mouth to outvote Dad.

Pumpkin Bread Redux

Pumpkin Zucchini Bread

Why, after all that pumpkin bread I made last week, would I make yet more?!

Because, dear reader, I had an open can of pumpkin, and I can't bring myself to throw away any pureed pumpkin. Not until it's been stored for weeks in the fridge and has started to grow things. Then I can throw it away.

The big conundrum of pumpkin-bread-baking is that recipes typically call for 1 cup, but pumpkin cans never come in convenient cup increments, resulting in weird amounts of leftover pumpkin. But thanks to my experimenting with half-recipes, I had just the right amount, roughly, for another batch.

I'd found this recipe for Pumpkin Zucchini Bread in an earlier search for moist zucchini bread recipes, and it was time to try it.

This one was pretty easy to make, and turned out absolutely yummy. Not ultra-fine, somewhat dense and heavy, the sort that would support gobs of raisins and nuts. I'm not really sure what the zucchini added; moisture perhaps, but this was already pretty moist.

I made some changes though. I put in less sugar than called for, and used some brown sugar instead of only white sugar. It just seems criminal not to have brown sugar's molasses in anything pumpkin.

And, I was back to my old ways of dumping in spices with blithe disregard for measurements. I've yet to hit the limit of nutmeg or cloves, always called for in teeny 1/4 teaspoon increments. (As an aside, I'm grateful to cloves for curing my son of sneaking in a taste of unmixed batter. Whoo-wee is that harsh!)


Mm-mm. Never fails at a potluck.

Now, can I find a zucchini bread recipe that's anywhere near as moist as a pumpkin bread? (And is it even worth trying?)

Pumpkin Bread-Off

Pumpkin Spice Bread (USA Today Magazine, Sunday Oct. 14, 2007)
Pumpkin Bread (C&H Brown Sugar recipe)

The dinner we hosted this week was a perfect excuse to make one of my all-time favorite baked good: pumpkin bread. Fortuitously, a recipe for Pumpkin Spice Bread appeared in the otherwise crummy USA Today Sunday magazine, and that inspired me to make three recipes and foist them upon our hapless friends.

The three contenders:

A: The All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking, Pumpkin Bread (p. 774). (Never sure where to draw the line at copyright violation, but I'm pretty sure scanning the recipe straight out of the book counts.)

B: Pumpkin Spice Bread, from USA Today Sunday magazine, Oct. 14 2007.

C: Pumpkin Bread, from the back of a bag of C&H brown sugar, a potluck-standby I've used for years.

I made a half-portion of each recipe, and used the same can of pureed pumpkin and spices for all three. I stayed absolutely true to each recipe, rather than my usual random tossing in extra pumpkin pie spice, testing the limits of nutmeg, or letting my son shake in cinnamon with abandon. All three went into the same-sized mini-loaf pans (marked with a Sharpie on aluminum foil) and were baked at the same time. So, for the most part, variables were controlled.


(A, B and C are left to right in the photos.)

It was immediately apparent that not all pumpkin bread is created equal! Recipe A used butter instead of oil, white sugar instead of brown, and made for the lightest batter, and the only one that held its shape. Recipe B called for cooking the pumpkin slightly, accounting for its darker color, and the batter was liquidy enough to pour. Recipe C is the easiest: just throw everything in a bowl and mix it, but the batter was the heaviest.


The baked loaves were different too. Recipe B needed a little extra baking time, but I think I put a little more batter in that pan anyway. Recipe A seemed the driest to cut, but that's relative; they were all moist. Recipe B had the most even texture to it, and Recipe C was the chunkiest, if that's a term to describe cake texture.

So I cut them into columns of easy-to-grab pieces, labelled them with A B and C placecards, and set up a sign encouraging people to taste-test and write comments.

And the winner was? By a narrow margin, Recipe A.

The A stack was the first to go, though the numerous trips my sons made with plates loaded down with pumpkin bread could have had something to do with that. Comments indicated that Recipe B had the best pumpkin flavor, C was the driest, and A was the sweetest, but also the best-liked. Things people said directly indicated A as a favorite too, though even a foodie-baking-expert friend (who wouldn't dream of using canned pumpkin and grows her own instead) said she couldn't tell that one had butter in it. One interesting comment said "B has a rich pumpkin flavor like in India."

Ironically, I'm the worst pumpkin bread judge, because I absolutely love pumpkin bread and would just as soon choose between my three children than have to pick a favorite pumpkin bread. For the future, I'll choose a recipe based on the situation: how much time do I have (Recipe C), who is my audience (Recipe B for grownups), do I feel like cleaning beaters (Recipe A).

Until then, I'll begin a delicious quest for Recipes D, E, and F.

The Return of the Grill Pan

CHIPS!

I've used my Calphalon cast-iron enameled panini grill pan only three times, only with a rubber spatula, and only cleaned it with scrubbie-things that are intended for nonstick surfaces. Which this one isn't exactly; it's some sort of baked-on enamel over cast iron. Not teflon, but not straight cast iron either.

But whatever the coating is developed a chip right atop one of the ridges. Then I noticed a little red flake in the pan also. After some visual scouring, I found that the red flake belonged to the edge of the pan, where the colored part meets the inside of the pan.

Unacceptable!

So I took it back to Bed Bath and Beyond, where the customer service lady agreed it was damaged and kindly told me to go get another one, honey. But I didn't want another one, they apparently aren't made very well. Receiptless, I got a store credit.

O, Le Creuset, forgive me for straying from thy faith. I beseech thee, take me back!

Tiramisu Layer Cake

Tiramisu Layer Cake

One of my greatest regrets in life is marrying a man who doesn't share my vice for baked goods. Fortunately, most things Italian pass muster with him. With a group dinner and his birthday coming up in the same week, it was a perfect opportunity to attempt making a tiramisu cake.

So I found a recipe on allrecipes.com for a "simple" tiramisu layer cake, and decided to surprise him with it.

I had a lot of fun with this, though I encountered numerous technical difficulties.

To start, since this cake was a surprise, I had to make it in stages and store the components. This may be why the mascarpone-cheese filling was so liquidy that I pretty much had to pour it over the cake and use a toothpick to keep the layers from sliding off each other. The filling wasn't that liquidy until I'd followed the step to fold in some of the whipped-cream frosting. I'd skip that step next time.

Making chocolate curls was quite the challenge. I had to experiment with several different kinds of chocolate, finding that white chocolate worked the best. Fortunately, I have a friend who's starting a cake-decorating business, and she pointed me to this video: How to make chocolate curls. (My sons made sure the outtakes didn't go to waste.)

My cake-making friend also said that white cake is among the hardest to make well from scratch, so I went with Duncan Hines. I also followed advice in allrecipe.com's "comments" section to freeze the cake to make it easier to spear it (and to hide it from my husband), as well as to double the amount of coffee and Kahlua pretty much everywhere it was called for, and to make two coffee-flavored cake layers instead of one.

I also doubled the amount of the mascarpone cheese filling, based on more "comments" advice. That turned out not to be necessary, but also, depending on your source for mascarpone cheese, that could get expensive! Two 8-oz containers from Whole Foods can run you over $12. However, one 8-oz container from Trader Joes for under $3 is a far more economical way to go.

The result was something of a mess until I sprinkled the cocoa on, unifying and transforming its appearance, capped it with a random assortment of can't-go-wrong chocolate curls. The filling spilling out over the edges made something of a base around which to sprinkle some of the chocolate-curl outtakes. Suddenly the cake looked much much yummier!

The coffee-and-white layers looked nice on the inside, too.

I doubt this would get past a tiramisu purist, but anything with that much whipped cream, mascarpone cheese and Kahlua can't be all bad. My husband even ate a piece!

Plum Cake

Cinnamon-Sugar Plum Cake

A friend and I split a subscription to Frog Hollow Farm, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm, from which we get a box of ultra-fresh fruit every week, and an insert describing the fruit and its history and origin, often with recipes. This recipe for Cinnamon-Sugar Plum Cake was in one of the inserts that comes with the fruit every week.

Oh my goodness, is this a good recipe.

The first time I made it, I set the plum slices into the batter vertically, peel side up, then discovered to my delight that the batter bakes up, around and over the plum pieces. The second time, I set the plum slices down on their sides horizontally, like you would with a pie. It was still tasty, but it didn't leave as much space around the plum slices for the batter to magically surround them as it bakes.

The only hard part is getting it off the bottom of the springform pan. I run a knife under it, but since my springform pan bottom has texture to it, the cake doesn't slide off easily.

Before baking, without the cinnamon sugar, just to show the plum pieces. Pretty, but don't put too much effort into a perfect pattern, because it won't be visible anyway.

(Later addendum: this turned out to be not nearly enough plums. My first stumbling efforts weren't as pretty, but had more plums crammed in, and made for a much better and ... well, plummier cake. Use more plums!)

Sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top.


The final result. Not very tall, and with a slightly coarse texture, but very flavorful with a perfect balance of cake and fruit.

A grownup cake, and a staple for entertaining. And so, so good.