Spring Food: Asparagus Tart with Ricotta

It’s spring here, but it’s definitely felt like summer. I refuse to turn on the air conditioning in March, so it’s been pretty steamy here in the evenings. By that time the house has heated up to the point where I don’t feel like cooking anything. What do you do when this happens? I’ll confess that we’ve had some cereal/sandwich dinners, but I really try to limit those. In the summer I’d serve a “cold supper”, mostly vegetables, but it’s spring, there aren’t really any vegetables in season. So I turned to a light tart. You can make this in the morning before things heat up. Eat it at room temperature, or cool it in the fridge and microwave yourself a slice in the evening. It would also be great on your Easter buffet!

This tart comes from the wonderful Sweet Paul, Spring 2012 edition. Paul is a person, but it’s also the name of his beautiful e-magazine. It’s amazing! Take a minute to check out Paul on his blog or the magazine. This recipe and many others can be found there. But it’s not just about the food. There’s a lot of other stuff too. And it’s just beautiful to look at, I can’t overstate that!

Asparagus Tart with Ricotta

Recipe courtesy of Sweet Paul Magazine, Spring 2012

• 1 1/4 c flour
• 1 stick salted butter
• 2-3 T cold water
• 1 lg egg
• 7 oz ricotta (I used part skim)
• 1/4 c heavy cream
• 1/4 c milk
• 1 bunch thin asparagus, trimmed

This crust is so good! And easy to make. It calls for salted butter, which I normally don’t use. If you don’t have any, toss a bit of salt into your flour mixture. This tart is not meant to be fussy, it’s fine if it’s a little rustic. That’s code for “not perfect.”

Put the flour in a large bowl. Cut the cold butter into cubes and add the butter to the flour.

Quickly work the butter into the flour using your hands. I use a snapping motion with my fingers to work in the butter. You can use a pastry cutter if you like, but clean fingers are God’s gift to cooks, use them.

You’re looking for a grainy or mealy texture. It doesn’t have to be consistent. You want some little butter globs in the dough. These melt in the oven and release steam which makes the crust light and flaky. And in case you think you don’t learn something every day, there you go, a bit of chemistry.

Add the water one tablespoon at a time and work the dough together quickly. Roll into a ball and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for an hour.

Remove the dough from the fridge and place it on a lightly floured surface. My tart pan is nine inches, so I used the nine inch guide to roll out my crust. I also keep a metal ruler (dishwasher safe) in the kitchen to help me get my measurements correct. But this pastry mat is invaluable. Here’s a link to a bunch of different kinds if you want to check them out.

See? Not perfect. No sweat. Use the guides on the mat to cut the circle, or use the tart pan to cut the circle. Or, you can do what I do and just make the pan accommodate the dough. It depends on how perfect you want to be. It will all taste the same, I assure you.

Do you know this trick? To move the dough I roll it around my rolling pin and lay it gently in the pan. It’s easier than folding it or trying to drag it up over the lip of the tart pan. But you do it your way.

Place the dough in the tart pan and press to fit. Prick the bottom with a fork and put the pan in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cover the tart shell with aluminum foil and fill it with beans or pie weights. Place the tart shell on a baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, remove from the oven, take out the foil and beans, then cool a bit. Turn down the oven to 350 degrees.

This method is called blind baking. See, again with the knowledge!

In a bowl, beat together the egg, ricotta, cream, milk, salt, and pepper.

Pour the mixture into the tart and nestle the asparagus spears on top. Scooch a few into the edges if your pan is round like mine. Put the filled shell back on the baking sheet and bake another 20 minutes (mine took closer to 30) until golden and set in the middle.

Serve hot or cold.

This was such a great supper! I hope you’ll give it a try! I also hope you’ll check out my Facebook page for other links and info!

What do you cook when it’s too hot to cook? Anything you crave when the weather gets warm? For me it’s Mexican and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Weird, huh?

Working Lunch Part Two: Lemon Almond Tart

Lunch is one of my three favorite meals of the day. Sadly, I usually eat lunch standing at the kitchen counter wolfing down some leftovers. But still, there are worse things. I was delighted to make this working lunch and even more excited to eat it. There will be some posts forthcoming with recipes from the amazing Sweet Paul Magazine, Spring 2012, which if you’re not reading, you totally should be. The food is great but the magazine itself is a work of art! Today’s recipe is from that magazine and is the dessert from the working lunch, Lemon Almond Tart. And it’s soooooooo good! It would be perfect for your Easter table!

Don’t be intimidated by the lemon curd. This recipe makes it simple, just follow the instructions.

Lemon Almond Tart

Recipe courtesy of Sweet Paul Magazine, Spring 2012

Dough:

• 1 cup almond meal
• 1 1⁄2 cups plain flour
• 1⁄3 cup sugar
• 1 1⁄4 sticks salted butter, cold and in pieces
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

Filling:

• 5 large egg yolks
• 3⁄4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
• 1⁄2 cup lemon juice
• 3⁄4 stick salted butter, cold and in pieces

candied lemon, optional

Place almond meal, flour, and sugar in a bowl and mix. Add the butter and work it into the flour with your fingers. The result should be grainy. Add egg and lemon zest and quickly work the dough together. If it seems dry, just add a few tablespoons of ice water. Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour. After an hour, preheat the oven to 375°F.

Take out the dough and roll it out to a thin crust. Place in a greased pie tin or tart dish. Use a fork to prick the bottom. Blind bake for about 15 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Beat egg yolks and sugar until thick and creamy. Place over a hot water bath and add zest, lemon juice, and butter. Beat mixture until it becomes thick and creamy. Pour into the pie crust and cool until serving.

Decorate with candied lemons if desired.

I had never worked with almond meal before, but it’s pretty tasty and gluten free! Once you add the cold butter (note that it’s salted) work it into the dry ingredients by snapping it with your fingers. Use this snapping motion to break down the butter and integrate it into the dry mix. I added about two tablespoons of ice water to get my dough to come together. It’s not the easiest dough to work, but it is forgiving so don’t stress.

Pat it together in a nice disk, wrap it in plastic and stick it in the fridge. After at least an hour, roll the dough out on a floured surface. I made my circle about nine inches because my tart pan is nine inches. This left me some dough which I cut into strips, baked off, and served as an afternoon snack. Very lemony and very yummy!

Many pies and tarts (quiches, too!) call for blind baking the shell. It’s simple. Line the shell with aluminum foil and fill with dried beans or pie weights. You won’t want to used these beans after they’ve been baked, so store them in an airtight container for the next time you need them. Place the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, until shell is stable and starts to brown. Remove the shell from the oven and take out the beans and foil. If your crust looks a little anemic (read: pale) stick it back in for another 3-4 minutes. The tart will not be baked so the shell needs to be cooked through.

Once the shell is done, set it aside to cool on a rack and begin the curd.

Beat the egg yolks and sugar in a heat-proof bowl. Place the bowl over a pan of simmering (not boiling!) water and add the zest, lemon juice, and butter. Stir, stir, and stir some more. The curd will thicken and darken slightly to a more rich yellow color. Once the curd has thickened, pour it into the tart shell.

Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. That’s it! Super simple and perfect for spring!

For our working lunch, I set the tart on the side table. I served it like this!

It has a nice tang to it, not super sweet. You could also serve it with a mint sprig or some homemade whipped cream. Either would be lovely!

What do you like to serve for spring? Do you have a favorite Easter dessert?

Sopapillas

Earlier this week I talked about breakfast. Well, I’m going to talk about it again. It’s important. But not the weekday, rushed, grab-a-bowl-of-cereal-and GET IN THE CAR! kind of breakfast. I’m going to tell you a story about weekend breakfast. Generally a WAY better experience.

I don’t really want to spring out of the bed at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning. But, the dog and cats are up by 6:30 at the latest, so I have to get up to preserve the peace. These sopapillas are perfect for breakfast on that kind of morning. I get up at 6:30 with the dog, feed everyone and let them out, whip up this dough, and go right back to bed. When I get up for real, the dough has risen and all I have to do is fry it up! So much easier than standing over the griddle or waffle iron.

Sopapillas 

• 1 box Hot Roll Mix
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1c very hot water
• 2t softened butter
• oil or shortening for frying
• a little flour for the board
• honey for dipping
• cinnamon sugar for dipping

So what are sopapillas? Little fried pockets of dough. Happiness in your mouth. Wonderfulness. My mom made these for us growing up and Mr. Bundt and the little Bundtlet ask for them all the time. Sometimes I even make them for dessert. Cover them with honey and sugar and cinnamon and enjoy!!

Can you tell it was early when I was taking these pictures? I’ve already left out the egg. Good grief.

Oh, wait! There it is. Don’t be like me. Be awake.

Gather up your ingredients. Whisk together the contents of the box (bag of floury stuff and yeast) in a large bowl. You don’t even need to get out the mixer. Awesome.

Stir in the hot water, butter, and egg until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Once the dough comes together, flour a small surface. Plop the dough onto the floured surface and knead for about five minutes until dough is smooth.

Before.

After. See what a difference five minutes can make? And, seriously, you’re only about 10 minutes in at this point. Still groggy enough to go back to bed, I assure you.

Put your smooth little dough ball in a greased bowl, cover with a greased piece of plastic wrap or a clean dishtowel. I sit mine in a cooling oven because the house is so cold, but you can let yours rise on the counter if you have a good dog and your house is not freezing. Give it an hour or so to rise. Go back to bed, have coffee, check your email, catch up on your blog reading, whatever. When it’s doubled in size, you’re ready to proceed. If you do go back to bed and the dough gets HUGE, don’t worry. Not a big deal.

Behold, the risen dough.

Now, give it a punch or two and deflate it.

I have a nice Tupperware pastry mat I like to use to roll out my dough. But you can use the counter or whatever you have. Just dust it with a little flour.

Put your dough on the board and roll it out to about 1/4 in thickness. Shape does not matter, just roll it. Don’t overdo it.

Now, with a sharp knife, pastry cutter, or pizza wheel, cut the dough into squares or rectangles, about 4×4 or so. You can see from mine I have all different shapes and sizes. Neither of these things really matters. You can’t screw it up.

Heat a couple of inches of oil in a deep pan or pot to 360 degrees. Use your thermometer to check the temperature. You don’t want the dough to go into the oil before it gets to 360 degrees because it will absorb the oil rather than float and fry in it. I like vegetable or canola oil. You can also use Crisco.

Once the oil comes to temperature, drop in a couple of pieces of dough. I shouldn’t need to tell you to be careful when frying, but, let’s be honest, you might be doing this in your bathrobe, so be careful.

See how they puff up! It’s so exciting! Let them get a nice golden brown on the first side, then flip them over.

Sometimes they blow up so big that they create a third side. If so, just roll them onto that side for a minute. When all sides are brown, pull them out and drain them on paper towels. Repeat with remaining dough until the whole batch is cooked. You can usually get 20-25 sopapillas out of a batch.

I serve them with honey and cinnamon sugar. To make cinnamon sugar just mix about a cup of sugar with a few dashes of cinnamon. I like to pop open the bubbles on the sopapillas and pour in honey and the cinnamon sugar mixture and kind of roll it around so the inside of the   sopapilla gets coated with it. I’ve photographed them below with powdered sugar, you could use that too!

There you go! Weekend breakfast done! So easy and quick, but your family will think you made them something really special!

What kinds of things do you like to make for weekend breakfast? Or do you eat the same things and do a bigger lunch or dinner? I’d love to hear about your weekend rituals!

Bake the Blog: Easy English Muffin Bread

I’ve been feeling some breakfast frustration lately. Does that ever happen to you? I have a pretty standard set of three or four things that I eat regularly. Lately I’ve been trying to drop a few pounds, so I like to have some protein in the morning. It helps get me through til lunch. However, eating a solitary egg doesn’t seem like much of a breakfast. I like my eggs runny and it’s nice to have something to dip in them or put them on. So, I turned to English muffins. Or, well, I tried to turn to English muffins. Have you tried English muffins lately? They’re not how I remember them. They were a colossal disappointment. In my head they were crispy and chewy with little pools of butter in those nooks and crannies. That’s not how they were in real life.

So, I set out on the interwebs to find a recipe to make my own. And, frankly, English muffins seemed like a lot of work. More than I had time for anyway. What about English muffin bread? I’ve always loved it. Let’s be honest, it’s bread, of course I love it. But I’m kind of picky about my internet recipes. I have to trust that this isn’t someone impersonating a bread lover and passing me a crummy recipe. I found this one I’d like to make, but, I can’t be trusted with that many loaves of bread. So when this one popped up in my blogroll from My Baking Addiction, a blog I’ve cooked from before and know to be a good source, it was ON.

This bread is quick and easy. Definitely worth a shot. But a note here, English muffin bread is good toasted. I wouldn’t eat it any other way. But that’s just me. You do it your way. Then remind me that I’m right.

English Muffin Bread

recipe courtesy of My Baking Addiction

3 cups All-Purpose Flour or Bread Flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon instant yeast
1 cup milk
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
cornmeal, to sprinkle in pan

With the paddle attachment of your stand mixer, blend the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and instant yeast.

In a bowl, combine the milk, water, and oil. Microwave until the temperature of the mixture reaches 120-130 degrees. This took about 1:15 in my microwave, but check at intervals. Make sure to stir the mixture before you check the temperature. The mixture should be pretty warm to the touch. As you can see, I let mine get too hot. If this happens, just let it cool on the counter or in the fridge for a few minutes.

Pour the hot liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients already in the mixer. Beat at high speed for one minute. Use a timer, just to be safe. The dough will be soft and sticky.

Grease a loaf pan with some cooking spray and dust it with cornmeal. A handful will do.

Scrape the dough into the loaf pan. I smoothed out the top.

Cover with a piece of plastic wrap sprayed with more cooking spray and let rise in a warm, draft free place about and hour. I like to heat my oven to the lowest temperature (175 degrees for me) when I begin a bread recipe. When it reaches 175 degrees I turn it off and leave the door closed. By the time I get the bread ready to rise it’s still warm enough to do the job, but cool enough not to cook it. If it seems too warm you can always crack the oven door. Since I keep my house as cold as a morgue, this is an important step.

After an hour the bread should have barely crested the top of the pan.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Remove the plastic and bake for 22-27 minutes until the top of the bread is golden brown. The interior temperature should be 190 degrees.

Let the bread cool in the pan for five minutes. Then turn it out on a rack to finish cooling.

Slice it up! Like I said, I think it needs to be toasted. It was good warm from the oven, but WAY butter crispy out of the toaster!

And here’s what it looks like on my breakfast plate. Soooo good.

I think a nice, dark toasting really brings out the nooks and crannies. So what have you been craving lately?

Babka or Bust!

When I saw this Babka recipe in my Cook’s Country magazine I was sitting at piano lessons. But that didn’t stop me from lusting after it. I LUUUUUV bread. All bread. Any bread. Rolls, muffins, loaves, whatever. I have rarely met a bread that I wouldn’t gladly give up vegetables for. And this sweet, cinnamony bread is no different. So the next day, I whipped up my first babka. And it’s GOOOOOD. It was good warm out of the oven, it’s good cold, and it’s good made into toast. I haven’t tried it (yet) but I bet it’ll be good as french toast, if it lasts that long.

One word of caution, and this is for bread in general, not just this babka. Successful yeast dough relies upon blooming the yeast properly. That means that you need the right temperature liquid. Don’t guess, take the temperature of the liquid. This recipe calls for you to do that, many do not. Checking the temperature will ensure much more reliable results.

Babke

Recipe courtesy of Cook’s Country 

Filling

• 1 cup packed (7 ounces) light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup (1 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 large egg white (reserve the yolk for the dough)
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Dough

• 1/2 cup whole milk, heated to 110 degrees
• 2 large egg yolks plus 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups (10 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup (1 3/4 ounces) sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces and softened

I love to bake. The smell of bread or cookies baking in the oven is my favorite. It warms up the house on a cold day and it puts a smile on the face of anyone who comes in your door!

For the filling, combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Reserve one tablespoon of filling.

For the dough, heat the oven to 200 degrees, when it reaches temperature, turn it off. Whisk together the milk, egg yolks, and vanilla. I separate the eggs using the shell and two small bowls. You can use a fancy egg separator if you have one, but here’s s tip. Shell bits are attracted to the shell from which they came. So, if you should drop a piece of shell in by accident, you can fish it out using the larger piece of shell it came from. Who knew, right? See? Science is good for something.

Using a stand mixer with the dough hook attached, mix flour, sugar, yeast, and salt on low speed. You’ll notice that I weigh my flour instead of measuring it in a cup. I find that this yields much better results with my baking. It’s also convenient to have a scale to weigh other foods. If you don’t have a scale, don’t fret. Fluff your flour before spooning it lightly into the measuring cup for best results.

Once dry ingredients are combined, add the milk mixture slowly and mix until the dough comes together. This should take about three minutes. Set a timer if you need to.

Increase the mixer speed to medium-high and add the butter, one tablespoon at a time, until incorporated. This should take about a minute.

Continue to mix until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl and is smooth, about 10-12 minutes.

Grease a large bowl, transfer dough to bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in your turned-off oven. After about an hour, dough will have risen slightly. Remove from the oven and place in the fridge about an hour, or until dough is about doubled in size and is firm.

Reheat your oven to 200 degrees (again). When it reaches temperature, turn it off (again).

Punch down the risen dough on a lightly floured board or counter. I like to square mine up after punching it down.

Roll out the dough to a 20×14 inch rectangle. I use a ruler to make sure I’m close to the measurements.

Spread the filling onto the dough leaving a 1/2 inch margin all the way around.

Start with the short side and roll up the dough into a cylinder. Pinch along the seam to seal. Put the cylinder seam side up and roll back and forth until the length of the dough roll reaches 18 inches.

Spread the reserved tablespoon of filling over the top of the cylinder. Fold the dough in half on top of itself and pinch the ends to seal.

Then, gently twist the cylinder twice as if you’re forming a double figure eight.

All this rolling, folding, and twisting is what gives the babka those yummy nooks and crannies for the cinnamon and sugar filing to get into!

Place your babka, seam side down, in a loaf pan lined with parchment. Let the extra hang over the edges, these will be handles later and it will help you remove the dough from the pan. The parchment also keeps the babka from sticking to the pan should any sugary stuff leak out. Cover with plastic wrap.

Put the bread, covered in plastic, in the turned-off oven until doubled in size, about one hour. Once the dough has risen, take the babka out of the oven and remove the plastic wrap. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Beat one whole egg lightly. Brush the loaf with the beaten egg.

Bake about 45 minutes or until the loaf is a deep golden brown (about 190 degrees). Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes, them remove the loaf from the pan and cool completely (if you can stand to wait!) about two hours.

This babka is so beautiful inside and out! It’s wonderful with a cup of tea for breakfast or an afternoon snack!

What do you like to bake? Do you have a favorite baked good? Or a favorite memory of baking?