Plum Swedish Pie

The most treasured recipe I have inherited from Ben's family is Swedish Pie, a cobbler-like fruit desert. You can make it with any fruit, raw or frozen. When I make it with plums (=the best way), I like to substitute some cornmeal for some of the flour for a nice texture. I also like to add orange-blossom water or rosewater, like I do with most fruit deserts.

When I make it, this is not a tidy or attractive desert -- I find the topping to be difficult to pour and spread. My mother-in-law's are beautiful! Either way, it will be very tasty.

Plum Swedish Pie

~20 Italian prune plums
3/4 cup white flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar (regular recipe uses 2/3)
1 stick butter
1 egg
orange juice, rosewater or orange-blossom water to taste
cinnamon to taste

Preheat the oven to 350.

Wash, pit, and quarter the plums. Put them into a pie pan and sprinkle with cinnamon and, if you like, with orange juice, rosewater or orange-blossom water. Put the butter in a large Pyrex bowl and microwave just until melted, about 1 minute. Add the sugar and mix well. Beat in the egg, followed by the flour and cornmeal. Carefully pour the batter over the fruit, covering as well as you can. Bake for 1 hour or until solid (if you bake more than one at a time it may take more than one hour).

Serves 8.

Variations: apples + apple cider; apples + bourbon; apple + cranberry; any combination of stone fruits; stone fruits + berries; mango; mango + cranberry; mixed berry or blackberry or blueberry. Thaw and drain frozen fruit before using. If using berries, consider adding some cornstarch with them.

Reasonable Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

While I normally have no problems with cookies that are dessert, with sugar and butter aplenty, sometimes that's not what I want. On a cold day, when I didn't have much for lunch and wanted a more substantial afternoon snack, it made sense to make a more, well, reasonable cookie. Very good with tea. We have about ten bags of cranberries crowding the freezer, so I used chopped cranberries, but raisins would be more traditional and would make a sweeter cookie.

Reasonable Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
1/2 stick butter, at room temperature
1 egg + 1 egg white
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 to 2/3 cup chopped cranberries, or raisins
Cinnamon to taste (several dashes)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg, additional egg white, and vanilla. Fold in the dry ingredients, then the fruit.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using a teaspoon or your hands, drop small cookies onto the baking sheet, about 1.5 inches in diameter (or larger if you'd like). Bake 10-15 minutes, until the edges are colored but the cookies are still soft.

Makes 2 dozen or possibly a few less.

Rice Pudding

Continuing on the pudding trend, I made two batches of rice pudding this weekend by special request from my charming associate. For the first (for a dinner party), I essentially followed this recipe, which calls for whole milk and two eggs for a double batch. Just too rich -- not how either of us thinks of rice pudding. So today I made another batch, using skim milk, one egg, and less sugar -- just right. It worked out even though I accidentally used only 1/2 cup of rice instead of 2/3, so I'm leaving it as 1/2 below -- but I'm sure 2/3 would be just fine. (And it's a perfectly acceptable breakfast -- it's just milk, rice, some egg, and a little sugar.)

Rice Pudding

1/2 cup white rice
5 cups skim milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 green cardamom pod
1/3 cup raisins

Bring the rice, milk, cardamom pod and salt to a boil in a sturdy saucepan, stirring frequently so that it does not stick to the bottom and burn. As soon as it boils, turn the heat to low and simmer until the rice is cooked, about 15 to 20 minutes. Stir frequently. When the rice is cooked, beat the egg together with the sugar until smooth. Add several large spoonfuls of the hot rice mixture to the egg; beat after each addition. Then add the egg mixture to the rice mixture and stir well. Add the raisins. Cook about 20-30 minutes more, stirring occasionally, over very low heat, until thickened. Remove from heat. Add vanilla and stir well. Eat hot, at room temperature, or chilled; it will continue to thicken as it cools.

Serves about 4 in medium portions or 6 in small portions.

Fig and Apple Crumble

A couple of weeks ago, we bought some beautiful purple figs. I had in mind to make a semi-savory tart with them, but then, lo and behold, we ate a fig-and-arugula pizza at dinner with a friend, so I didn't feel the need to make the very same thing the next day. Instead, a crumble! I've come to love this topping, which is crunchy and tender and buttery but not over-the-top; it's way better than any crisp.

What I did not account for, after a summer of baking with stone fruits, is that apples take a lot longer to soften up. I baked the whole thing for about 40 minutes, but you really need to bake the fruit first for 30-40 minutes, and then the whole thing for another 40, in order to get a truly melting combination of figs and apples. They should be more combined-looking and softer than in the photo below:

Fig and Apple Crumble

For the filling:
2 medium sized red apples, such as Gala, cored and diced (do not peel)
1 pint purple figs, quartered
1-2 tsp rosewater, to taste (3 tsp is too much!)
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp ginger

For the topping:
1 cup flour
1/3 cup rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
zest of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine diced apples, quartered figs, rosewater, ginger, and cornstarch in a baking dish. (Size of dish is flexible: mine is about a six-inch round dish, which yields a deep-dish crumble with lots of topping; equally good in a larger dish.) Stir to mix well. Cook, covered, in the oven about 30 minutes, until the apples are beginning to soften.

Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl, combine flour, oats, baking powder, sugar, and lemon zest. Add butter and mix until clumps form.

Take the fruit mixture out of the oven and, carefully, top with topping -- just use your fingers to drop clumps of batter on top of the fruit until it is completely covered (if your dish is small) or covered to your liking (if the dish is big). Return to oven and cook, uncovered, about 35-40 more minutes, until the topping is golden and crisp.

Serves 4-6.

Cherry Cornmeal Cake

Finally there are cherries! I got too many (of course). I'm saving the Queen Anne cherries for eating, but the Bings I wanted to bake into a not-too-sweet kind of cake. This is a good cake (though not photogenic) -- crumbly, interesting-tasting, studded with cherries. Some people might think it was too close to cornbread to be called cake, but I disagree. The crumbliness does make it difficult to transfer out of the pan -- take care when inverting it!



Cherry Cornmeal Cake

1.5 - 2 cups pitted Bing cherries
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 oz. bourbon
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup oil (half olive and half canola is good; all olive was too pronounced an olive flavor)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
about 1/4 cup skim milk

In a small saucepan, melt the butter and sugar together. Add the cherries and bourbon; boil two minutes. Strain out and reserve the liquid.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease an 8 inch square cake pan.

Pour the reserved cherry liquid into a measuring cup and add enough milk to equal 1/2 cup. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, sugar, and milk/cherry liquid mixture. Fold in flour, baking powder, and cornmeal; mix just until blended.

Pour the batter into the cake pan and sprinkle the cherries evenly over. Bake until lightly browned, 25-30 minutes.

Perfect Chocolate Cupcakes

There was no good chocolate cake recipe in Joy of Cooking, so I had to scrounge around and adapt one from my old standby, Clotilde Dusoulier's yogurt cake -- I wasn't at all sure about the ratio of cocoa powder to flour, but it worked out very well. The yogurt really adds a depth of flavor. They are very chocolatey! Plus they use oil rather than butter, which I actually prefer in a cake.

(The yellow one is a lemon cupcake, with cornmeal and a little rosemary, based on this one, only with less rosemary so that it will match well with raspberry-rose frosting and no sugar crust because of said frosting; note that the lemon recipe makes a quite dense, heavy cupcake, albeit with a great flavor.)

Perfect Chocolate Cupcakes

1/3 cup vegetable oil
6 oz plain nonfat Greek-style yogurt plus 2 oz water (or 1 cup regular yogurt)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, stir together yogurt, water, and sugar. Add eggs and stir well to blend . Add vanilla and oil; stir again. Add dry ingredients and stir to combine.

Spoon the batter into a paper-lined muffin tin, filling the cups about 3/4 full.

Bake 17-23 minutes, until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Makes 12-14 cupcakes.

Cranberry-Apricot Muffins

Very good. Not much else to say.

Cranberry Muffins

1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup white flour
1 egg
2 tsp bourbon
1 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
3/8 cup sugar
1/6 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup skim milk
scant 1/2 cup chopped frozen cranberries
4-5 dried apricots, chopped

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine all dry ingredients except fruit in a large bowl. Add the wet ingredients and stir until nearly but not quite smooth. Fold in the cranberries and apricots.

Spoon into a paper-lined muffin tin. Bake 20 minutes.

Makes 6.

Hamantaschen

Purim starts tomorrow night! I made a couple of batches of hamantaschen to give to our friends.

Hamantaschen

2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 tbsp lemon or orange juice
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp rosewater or orange blossom water, or 2 tsp juice
2 tsp. baking powder
3 cups flour

Fillings (i.e., jam, chocolate, prune or poppy seed if you're a traditionalist)

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, oil, juice, vanilla, and flower water until well blended. Add the baking powder and flour and stir to blend. The dough will be stiff but somewhat sticky.

Form the dough into two disks; wrap in plastic wrap or foil and refrigerate 1 hour.

Working with one disk at a time, knead the dough a few times, until it is smooth. Roll the dough out to about a 1/8" thickness. Using a 2 inch-diameter glass, cut circles out of the dough. Re-roll the scraps until you have used all the dough to make circles.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place about 1/3 tsp filling in the center of each circle; pinch the corners to form three-cornered hamantaschen.

Bake the hamantaschen on a greased cookie sheet about 15-20 minutes, until just lightly beginning to brown.

Makes a little more than 3 dozen.

Caramel Apple Tart

I woke up with a craving for apples and a spicy caramel sauce on flaky pastry--so that's what I made this morning!

Use any pate brisée you normally use. I experimented with a new one that called for an egg instead of ice water, and a little whole wheat flour; it turned out to be on the crumbly side of flaky, which was not quite what i was going for.

The amounts called for are for a six-inch springform tart pan, though there will be enough pastry crust for a nine-inch pan. For a nine-inch pan, I would guess 5 apples, and caramel made out of 5 tbsp sugar.

Caramel Apple Tart

1 recipe pate brisée or other all-butter pie crust (make sure to refrigerate for at least half an hour and then let sit for ten minutes before rolling out)

3 to 4 apples (Honeycrisp worked well; another red cooking apple would be fine)
3 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp butter
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
Three good shakes cinnamon
1 pinch ground allspice
1 pinch ground black pepper
1/2 tsp salt

Cut the apples in quarters. Cut out the core, but don't peel the apples: the red peel is pretty. Slice the apples thinly as you can. Keep the sliced quarters together--it will be easier to arrange them in the crust. Depending on the size of your apples, it should take between 3 and 4 apples to fill the crust.

Roll out the crust, and put it into the springform pan, patching any holes that appear (they won't show). Make sure the dough extends up past the edges of the pan, then use a knife to level the edges. Arrange a tightly-packed circle of apples around the edge of the crust, then fill in the center.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a small saucepan, melt the 3 tbsp brown sugar, ginger, and spices with 1 tbsp water over medium-low heat. Do not stir, but swish the pan around from time to time to make sure it is heated evenly. Just when bubbles form throughout, take the pan off the heat and stir in the butter and salt. Pour over the tart. It should look like this:


Bake until the crust is golden and the fruit is tender, 40-60 minutes. Let cool at least a bit before serving.

Serves 4-6.

Blackberry Cupcakes

Some might call these muffins, but to me, they are cupcakes. They are now, perhaps, my favorite cake ever. The basic cake recipe uses Clotilde Dusoulier of Chocolate & Zucchini's recipe for Yogurt Cake as a base, but is adapted to best fit blackberries. You could also use other summer fruits--diced peaches or nectarines, or raspberries, maybe. The blackberries remain mostly whole and fairly tart, which is a nice contrast to the sweet cake. The top gets light brown and crispy, and is the most delicious part.

Blackberry Cupcakes

about 56-60 blackberries, thawed at least partway if frozen
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup plain nonfat yogurt, NOT vanilla (it will mess with the texture because it has more sugar in it)
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
zest of 1 lemon
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
3 heaping teaspoons cornmeal

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix the yogurt, sugar, and lemon zest. Add one egg, beat well; add the other egg and beat well again. Add the oil; beat. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cornmeal; mix just until combined. Do not overmix.

Spoon the batter into your muffin tin, about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way up. Place four blackberries on top of each; they will sink in as they bake. Bake about 35 minutes, until the top and edges are light brown.

You can eat these as-is, or you can top with whipped cream, creme fraiche, sour cream, or yogurt.

Makes 14 cupcakes.

Deep Dish Nectarine Cobbler

This is not very different from the other cobblers I've already posted, but it was the first time I'd made an all-nectarine dessert in some time. Turns out, much as I love nectarines, I like pies/crumbles/cobblers better if there are some berries in there too. Still, not bad.
Make sure your nectarines are dead ripe, or they won't get soft enough by the time the topping is cooked. And use more nectarines than you think are necessary!

Deep Dish Nectarine Cobbler

1 recipe cobbler batter (using rind of one whole lemon instead of half; ok to substitute light cream for heavy cream)

Filling:
5-7 nectarines, sliced medium-thin (not peeled)
3 tbsp-1/8 cup sugar depending on how ripe they are--taste and check
2 tbsp flour or cornstarch
1 tsp orange blossom water (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix filling ingredients in a small baking dish (somewhere in the neighborhood of 6x6, but any shape). Using your fingers, take pinches of batter and cover the top of the fruit; it should be a little over 1/2 inch thick, and there should be almost exactly enough to cover the whole top.

Bake until the top is golden, about 40-45 minutes.

Serves 3-4.

Mango Frozen Yogurt

Third recipe of the day! Just wanted to see if this would work. And it did. Yum. Like a frozen lassi.

Mango Frozen Yogurt

About 2 cups frozen mango chunks (Trader Joe's has them, or freeze your own)
3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt. I used 1/2 cup whole milk yogurt and 1/4 cup nonfat, because that's what I had on hand, but I imagine all nonfat would work too.
3/8 cup sugar (or less--taste your mangoes)
3 tbsp rosewater

Combine all ingredients in a heavy-duty blender. Puree (some small mango chunks are nice, though). Pour into a large resealable container, leaving plenty of headroom. Freeze one hour, while you go for a walk and get caught in a huge downpour. Wait under a tree for a while. When the rain stops, walk home. Stir the frozen yogurt. You can eat it now, like a soft soft-serve, or continue freezing (stirring occasionally) until it is the desired firmness.

Makes about 2 cups.

Orange-Blossom Strawberries

I had always heard that strawberries and balsamic vinegar were great, and maybe had even tried it once, but couldn't really remember. So I tried it again the other day, with some orange blossom water also. Verdict: amazing. These were not the world's sweetest strawberries, and with the vinegar they transformed into something that could be either a dessert with some sort of cake or equally well a side salad: sweet, tart, brightly-flavored.

Orange Blossom Strawberries

1 cup sliced strawberries
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 to 1 tsp orange blossom water, depending on how well you like it
1/2 tsp brown sugar if your berries are very tart

Mix ingredients in a bowl; let sit five minutes or so. Eat.

Serves 1.

Pink Fruit Salad

I WILL fix my camera eventually...

Pink Fruit Salad

5 Granny Smith apples, cut into small cubes but not peeled
1-2 blood oranges, thinly sliced and cut into small pieces
10-15 prunes, halved
1 tbsp pear brandy or white wine
Juice of 1 lemon
1 pinch ground cardamom
1 tsp sugar (omit if you're using a less-tart kind of apple)

Combine ingredients in a large bowl. The blood oranges will turn everything a lovely pink. Chill and serve.

Serves many.

Lemon Cake with Raspberry-Apricot Sauce

Once again no picture; camera's out of batteries. This is a very moist, flavorful cake adapted from the plain Yogurt Cake in Clotilde Dusoulier's Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook. It is just as good on its own as with the sauce (my own invention), but the sauce makes it a little fancier.

Lemon Cake with Raspberry Apricot Sauce

Cake:
1/3 cup vegetable oil, plus more to grease pan
1 cup plain nonfat yogurt
1 cup white sugar
2 large eggs
2 tbsp pear brandy
Zest of 2-3 lemons (depending on how lemony you like your cake)
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
small pinch salt

Sauce:
15 oz frozen raspberries
About 15 dried apricots
1/4 to 1 cup sugar, depending on taste (1 cup was way too sweet for me)
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1 tsp pear brandy



Cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 10 inch round cake pan or a large loaf pan; line bottom with parchment paper or aluminum foil if not springform. (My loaf pan is silicone--this is the first time I've used it, and it was the best $4 I've ever spent--so easy to release the cake.)
In a large mixing bowl, beat together yogurt and sugar. Add the eggs one by one and beat after each addition. Add oil, brandy, and lemon zest, and beat again. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix very well (until very few lumps).
Pour the batter into the pan and bake 35-40 minutes, until the top is golden and a knife comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes; run a knife around the edges to loosen, then flip onto a plate. Serve warm or room temperature. Gets better the next day.

Sauce: Pour about 2 cups boiling water over apricots in a medium bowl. Let sit 15 minutes. Combine apricots, raspberries, apricot soaking water, sugar, ginger, and brandy in a saucepan and cook over high heat until boiling; turn the heat down and simmer about half an hour, until the raspberries are broken down and sauce is starting to thicken. Let cool, then puree in the blender or food processor--once the apricots are pureed it will be much thicker. Serve with cake.

Serves 10 or more, depending on how large the cake slices are.

Tart Apple Cobbler

Tart enough to prompt one guest at dinner to ask whether there was rhubarb as well as apples in this cobbler!

Tart Apple Cobbler

1 recipe cobbler batter (see here)

5 cooking apples, skin-on, diced roughly (2 Granny Smith and 3 Braeburn is a good combination)
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
2 tbsp all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 375. In a mixing bowl, mix together apples, sugar, spices, and flour until apples are well coated. Pour into an 11x7 baking dish and bake 20 minutes.

While baking, make cobbler batter (using the zest of 1 entire lemon rather than half). After 20 minutes, take the apples out of the oven (leaving the oven on) and, being careful not to burn yourself, dot the top of the apples with the cobbler dough in a grid of marble-sized dots, leaving space between them. Return to oven and bake about 40 minutes, until the dough is golden and crisp.

Serves 8 or more.

Pistachio Cookies

Pistachios are my new favorite nut. These showcase the pistachios very well; the flecks of lime zest pick up the green color. They are crisp and not too sweet, ideal for dunking in tea.

Pistachio Cookies

3/4 cup pistachio nutmeats, chopped roughly (put them in a plastic bag and whack them with a rolling pin)
1 2/3 cups white flour
2/3 cup quick-cooking rolled oats
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp powdered cardamom
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, chilled and diced
2 tbsp water, or more as needed
grated zest of 1 lime


Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet.
In a large bowl, mix together flour, oats, nuts, sugar, baking soda, salt, cardamom, and lime zest. With your fingers, rub the butter into the dry ingredients until it reaches the texture of coarse sand. Add the egg and stir until incorporated (the dough will still not come together into a ball). Add the water, beginning with 2 tbsp, and mix with your hands until the dough just comes together into a ball (it may take more like 4 tbsp). Shape into balls slightly larger than walnuts, flatten slightly, and place on cookie sheet. Bake about 30 minutes, until crisp and slightly colored. Makes about 24 - 28 cookies.

Late-Summer Cobbler

Adapted from something from Redbook, of all places. This recipe is quite small but can very easily be doubled.

Late-Summer Cobbler

Filling
8 very ripe Italian prune plums, quartered
1 large very ripe nectarine, sliced
1.5 Tbsp cornstarch
1/8 cup sugar or a little more if your plums are not very ripe
Squeeze of lemon juice
dash of nutmeg

Cobbler Batter
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/8 cup plus 1 tsp sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
dash of salt
grated zest of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup heavy cream


Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Filling: in a 6x6 baking dish, toss together plums, nectarine, lemon juice, cornstarch, 1/8 cup sugar and nutmeg until fruit is evenly coated.
Cobbler Batter: Mix flour, cornmeal, 1/8 cup sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon zest in a bowl. With your fingers, rub in butter until the texture of coarse breadcrumbs. Add cream and mix just until blended. Batter will be quite loose and sticky. With your hands, roll bits of batter into strips and arrange on top of fruit in baking dish, weaving if you choose. Leave plenty of room between strips as batter will rise while baking. Sprinkle with remaining tsp. of sugar.
Bake cobbler for about 40 minutes or until top is golden and juices bubble (you may want to put a cookie sheet under the baking pan to catch excess juices). Cool before serving.
Serves 3.

Cherry Blueberry Crisp

Today I had a mountain of cherries on the verge of going bad, and blueberry bushes that are starting to produce like crazy, so clearly it was time to make a crisp.

I was in the mood for more of a granola-y, breakfast-y crisp than a dessert one, so this one is heavy on the oats and low on the sugar (but because these are sweet cherries, not sour cherries, it's still pretty sweet). Goes very well with some nice plain yogurt.

This is a very flexible recipe--amounts of everything are approximate. I discovered that a vegetable peeler works very well for pitting cherries.

Cherry Blueberry Crisp

1.5 cups pitted red cherries
1.5 cups blueberries
5-6 tbsp rolled oats (regular or quick-cooking--NOT instant)
4 tbsp butter
2 tbsp brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine cherries and blueberries in a small (about 6 in by 6 in) baking dish. In a bowl, mix butter, oats and sugar until just combined. Sprinkle on fruit. Bake 30 minutes. Let cool and serve for breakfast with plain yogurt.

Serves 2-3.