Tag Archives: Fruit

Baked Apple Dumplings

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Currently cooking from The Complete Cook’s Country TV Show Cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen.

I usually only like baked apples in pie, but this method of baking apples was pretty good. These dumplings aren’t the most elegant of desserts, but on a cool fall evening, with the season’s first apples, they really hit the spot.

The recipe starts out by having you make a biscuit dough using the food processor. Flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, shortening and butter are pulsed together until they form a mixture that looks like wet sand. At that point, the mixture is transferred to a bowl and buttermilk is stirred in until a loose dough forms. You knead the dough briefly until it comes together, then the dough is chilled for about an hour before it is rolled out and cut into squares..

For the apples, you peel, halve and then core four apples. For the filling, you combine softened butter, raisins (I hate raisins, so I used dried cranberries), cinnamon and sugar. The filling is stuffed into the apples, and the apple halves are wrapped in the dough. The dumplings are baked until the dough is golden brown and any juices that you can see are bubbling. The recipe also has you make a cider sauce, but I was feeling lazy and just served the warm dumplings with vanilla ice cream.

Sometimes making an apple pie is more work than I want to do, so this recipe is a great fallback. It is easy to make. It also makes smaller, individual-sized servings, so it is a great way to not eat a whole pie. At first I was a little thrown by the dough, as it tasted just like a biscuit. I kept expecting more of a pie crust taste and texture. According to the headnotes on this recipe, however, the biscuit dough was easier to work with and it absorbed the apple juices better than the pie crust dough.

Light Lemon Curd

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This is my go-to recipe whenever I have an excess of lemons. It’s fast and easy. I discovered the recipe several years ago in a book by Alice Medrich called Chocolate and the Art of Low Fat Desserts.

Sometimes I find lemon curds to be either too eggy or really rich. This lemon curd only uses 3 whole eggs and no butter (hence the “light” part of the recipe). The lemon flavor is bright and tart. The only drawback to this recipe is that the curd doesn’t set up enough to use as a filling in a cake. But it’s perfect over ice cream or strawberries and as a filling for lemon tarts. Heck, it’s perfect straight out of the bowl, on its own.

Recipe after the jump. Continue reading →

Apple and Nutmeg Custard Crostata

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apple_crostadaCurrently cooking from The Carefree Cook by Rick Rodgers.

I like apple pie. I like custard. I like nutmeg. But I hated this crostata. Don’t let its looks fool you (or the heavenly smell of it baking). Underneath that flaky crust, is curdled custard swimming in butter.

The premise of this crostata is that it delivers an apple pie in a much easier form. It starts out by making a standard pastry dough with butter. You roll the dough out in to a 12-inch circle, sprinkle some sugar on it and then arrange apple slices on it. A little more sugar is sprinkled over the apples and then the edges of the dough are folded up and over the apples. This gets baked for about 15 minutes to set the crust, and then you pour a simple egg/cream/nutmeg custard over the apples and bake until the apples are tender and the custard is set.

The first indication that all was not well with my crostata was seeing the custard start to bubble. Bubbling custard usually equals scrambled eggs. The crust didn’t bake up as brown as I would have liked; I think brushing it with egg whites or milk would have helped that. The other major problem I had was that a bunch of the butter leaked out of the crust and into the custard, making it somewhat greasy.

I liked the idea of this crostata. Next time, I’ll simply leave out the custard and server it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Pink Grapefruit Granita

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pink_grapefruit_granitaCurrently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.

The next cookbook comes from Alice Medrich, one of my favorite cookbook authors. Back in the 70s, Medrich decided to open a dessert shop in Berkeley that sold truffles, among other things. Unlike today, truffles weren’t a common confection to most Americans in the 70s. Especially not truffles made with high quality chocolate and other ingredients. Medrich, not knowing any better, did everything wrong when she made her truffles (not tempering the chocolate, making the centers so soft they had to be frozen before being dipped). Yet her shop, Cocolat, excelled, and her desserts and confections became legendary. By not knowing what she was doing, Medrich found new ways, perhaps even better ways, to do things. You can’t help but admire that. And, the woman’s cookbooks are fantastic. I have yet to be disappointed by any of her recipes.

Pure Dessert, Medrich’s latest cookbook, is organized by flavors, such as milk, fruit, seeds, and chocolate. There’s also a chapter based on the flavors of beer, wine and spirits. I’ll probably be skipping that chapter as I dislike pretty much all alcohol-based flavors.

So, where’s the chocolate recipe? I have three words: Pink. Grapefruit. Granita. Just look at that color. Doesn’t it make you smile? The weather here in North Idaho has been gray and wet, and I just wanted something bright, both in color and to wake up my tastebuds.

This granita is super easy. It’s made up of just three ingredients (grapefruit flesh and juice, sugar and lemon juice). You whiz everything together in the food processor, plop it in the freezer and occasionally rake the mixture with a fork so it freezes in flakes. The granita is refreshing, tangy and low fat. I served it with a dollop of slightly sweetened whipped cream, but even that embellishment is unnecessary.