cranberry and apple tart with coconut streusel

by Eva on November 17, 2012

I never got the right understanding about cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving. We never connected well. Come on it’s a berry, although I never would put a raw cranberry in my mouth (never again, I learned it the hard way) I consider a cranberry as something sweet or at least in the category for sweet stuff. And don’t get me started with another Thanksgiving variation: sweet potatoes, which I adore and eat at least once a week but topped with marshmallows, no thanks, I’ll pass. Yes that’s me saying this and I am the one who loves baked camembert with lingonberry jam. This lady is full of contradictions. Maybe not even a lady, maybe I just get tangled up in contradictions.

Anyway I am sucker for fresh and seasonal food and get excited about most of the farmers market finds and that includes cranberries too. These days you can find them everywhere, tempting bright red and yet tart. They are a great source of vitamin C and fiber and a lot more good stuff. Hence cranberries are very healthy and not just beautiful in a sauce. Today they come in company with just a few sour apple pieces, together they are a nice tart contrary to the buttery of the crust and sweetness of the streusel. If you don’t have any apples on hand, don’t bother, just skip them.

cranberry and apple tart with coconut streusel

ingredients

for the crust

220 g / 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp fine salt
70 g / 1/3 cup granulated sugar
110 g / ½ cup unsalted butter, cold, cut in pieces
1 large egg

for the filling

300 g / 3 cups fresh, washed cranberries
70 g / 1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 Tbsp. water
2-3 small tart apples (like Granny Smith)

for the streusel

110 g / ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
70 g / 1/3 cup granulated sugar
100 g / 1 1/8 cups unsweetened coconut flakes
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour

instructions

Add flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in your food processor with a blade attached and pulse a few times to mix the ingredients. Add butter and pulse again. Add the egg and pulse again, the dough should be crumbly but hold together than squeezed. Don’t overwork or the dough will become tough. Knead shortly with your hands, form a disk, cover with plastic wrap and put in your refrigerator for at least 30 minutes up to one day.
Preheat your oven to 350 F and grease your tart pan.
Add cranberries, sugar and water into a small saucepan over medium high heat. Cook until the cranberries popped and look like jam, stir frequently and reduce heat if it starts to burn. Takes about 7 to 10 minutes to thicken.
Peel and core the apples and cut into thin slices.
Mix all ingredients for the streusel.
Roll dough between two pieces of plastic wrap, lifting plastic wrap as needed. Place dough into tart pan and cover with apple pieces. Spread cranberry jam evenly over apples. Sprinkle with coconut streusel and press gently.
Bake 35 minutes and let cool on a rack.

some notes

You can use a 20 x 30 cm / 12″ x 8″ tart pan or a 28 cm / 11 inch springform pan.

Cooking time: 35 minute(s)

{ 6 comments }

plum galette for one or maybe two

by Eva on August 23, 2012

Mr. F is traveling and I am home alone. The truth is and I am just saying it: I like to be on my own once in a while. Growing up in a big family and a house equally busy like the NYC subway at rush hour crunch and with a tendency to a nut house, I appreciate some calmly time with myself.

You might get the wrong impression, just to clarify this, Mr. F and I like to spend every possible moment together. Once we even had an unpleasant situation with my friend and her husband. Actually it was her husband who found, we are obsessed with each other and would spend way too much time together. He might be right or not, anyway how much time is left after work etc.? His little speech developed from an argument into an unpleasant fight with his wife, while Mr. F and I just starred silently from left to right (like a tennis match) and wondering what was happening in front of us. The point was and the reason for this awkward situation, it was him who took too much “single time” and they did not share one hobby. No need to say this dinner night was over…

I still think about this from time to time, just to remind me to do the opposite and not do care about his advise. I’ll continue spending as much time with Mr. F as possible, grocery shopping, cooking and even cleaning the dishes afterwards can be fun in lovely company. But if we can’t be together, I’ll do my very best to enjoy myself on my own. Tonight’s movie will be much sweeter with this plum galette for one (or two) topped with a generous portion of vanilla ice cream and some wine just for balancing the sweetness.

plum galette for one or maybe two

This galette is big enough for sharing. If you make it for you own, don’t worry about leftover, if there are any they are just as good the next day.

ingredients:

120 g /4.2 oz. / 1 cup all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp granulated sugar

20 g / 0.7 oz. / 1/8 cup cornmeal (yellow or white)

1/4 tsp salt

55 g / 1/4 cup unsalted very cold butter

3 Tbsp ice water

300 g / 10.5 oz (about 3 large) plums

30 g / 1 oz. / 1/4 cup hazelnuts, whole

1 Tbsp turbinado sugar or brown sugar

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1 Tbsp heavy cream for brushing (optional)

instructions:

Add flour, sugar, cornmeal, salt in your food processor with a blade attached and pulse a few time to mix the ingredients. Add butter and pulse again. The butter will be coarse that’s necessary for a flaky crust. Add the ice water and pulse again, the dough should be crumbly but hold together than squeezed. Don’t overwork or the dough will become tough. Form a disk, cover with plastic wrap and put in your refrigerator for at least 30 minutes up to one day.

Preheat you oven to 200 c / 400 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Half the plums, remove the stone and cut into about 5 wedges. Put aside.

Roast hazelnuts in a dry pan until fragrant, let cool. Add to your food processor with blade attached and pulse until coarsely ground.

In a small bowl mix hazelnuts, turbinado sugar, cinnamon.

Unwrap the dough and roll out using a rolling-pin. Move dough to baking sheet and sprinkle with nut-sugar mixture but save 1.5 Tbsp of it. Top with plum wedges, leave a 1.5 inch border, fold up rim, pleating dough. Brush pastry with heavy cream and top plums with remaining nut-sugar mixture.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes, let cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.

{ 3 comments }

not the classic sgroppino

by Eva on June 28, 2012

Some of my favorite treats evolved from traditional recipes, they are twisted and tweaked until they fit my taste buds. But most likely I simply have to change some ingredients, it’s necessary if you are for example out of caviar (happens to me all the time). And not to forget, being creative while cooking is also a lot of fun. The downside of converting my kitchen into a cooking laboratory, sometimes it happens and I have to clean a load of dirty dishes without a satisfying outcome, scary things can happen in my kitchen.

And here comes another classic with a twist, a perfect summer drink, this is not the ordinary sgroppino but what is ordinary when you talk about sgroppino? The main and as far I know, only ingredients are lemon sorbet, vodka and prosecco. Oh and one mint leave for decoration would be nice. Let’s start with vodka, it makes my head spin in this hot weather, honestly these temperatures make me skip the hard stuff, so I didn’t even thought about putting it in my recipe. Lemon sorbet wasn’t available in my freezer but orange sorbet did such a great job, I didn’t miss the lemons at all. Prosecco? The label on my bottle said: made in California, so not a natural born prosecco I guess. Any bubbly, dry or very dry white wine will do the job. And the strawberries? Well they shouldn’t be in a sgroppino but I invited them to this party and they are going to stay.

I know you are an attentive reader and might remember as I talked about my lacking computer skills several times before?! What is the thing about java at all? However I managed the “subscribe via email” widget and I am so happy and proud about myself. Actually it was not that difficult at the end…. So please sign up: look to the right, write your email and hit the “join” button. Make us both happy! And then celebrate with a sgroppino, you’ve really earned it!

sgroppino

2 servings

Champagne glass (flute) would be great but any other with a similar size would do the job.

I use a cookie scoop because these glasses tend to be too narrow for a regular ice scoop.

ingredients:

5 strawberries (about a good handful)

4 small scoops orange sorbet

nicely chilled prosecco or other dry sparkling wine

instructions:

Wash, remove stalks and puree the strawberries. Put in the freezer for 5 minutes. Then distribute it evenly in two glasses.

Top with two scoops of orange sorbet for each glass and fill-up with prosecco, it will foam very much, pour slowly. Serve immediately with straws or long spoons or both.

{ 1 comment }

coconut biscotti

by Eva on June 7, 2012

Every once in a while it has to be bacon and eggs and the whole works for breakfast, I am talking about the full treatment. I am also able and love to start the day with yesterday’s cold pizza, some of you think it’s gross (but I know some will nod and agree, come on). I might have an extra (large) durable stomach and like to take full advantage of it. Not often but every other day especially when I have a sweet tooth, I can take my breakfast the Italian way: espresso and biscotti.

The good thing about this crunchy cookies? They stay delizioso for weeks compared to standard cookies which has to be eaten within a few days. At least once a month I like to fill up my cookie jar with biscotti and place them right beside the coffee machine. At the end isn’t it sad to look at an empty cookie jar? And cookies should be available all day long every day.

I really love dipping biscotti into my coffee but I have an aversion for the muddy crumbs at the bottom of my cup. The solution to avoid that is simple: just don’t put cookies in your cup. A deluxe alternative is spooning some nutella or melt chocolate in a small bowl and mix it with some cream for a more liquid sauce. So I can sip my coffee in peace and indulge biscotti goodness with dipping sauce and make a mess on my shirt, but that’s a different story…

coconut biscotti

I don’t really care for the large coconut flakes, they are too big and I just don’t like to chew on them, so smaller flakes are the key. If you can’t find them: give the large flakes some rounds in the food processor or use the spice grinder (coffee grinder) for smaller batches. Some of you might prefer to toast the coconut flakes in the microwave, do so if you like.

ingredients:

150 g / 5.3 oz unsweetened coconut flakes

250 g / 8.8 oz all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs

200 g / 7.05 oz. / 1 cup sugar

25 g/ 0.88 oz coconut oil

1 Tbsp coconut rum (optional)

instructions:

Preheat your oven to 120 C / 250 F. Spread coconut flakes evenly on a parchment paper layered baking sheet and roast/toast for about 5 minutes. You should keep an eye on them, they go from golden brown to black in a minute. Remove from oven and let cool.

Increase the oven temperature to 175 C / 350 F.

In a small bowl measure flour, baking powder and salt, set aside. In a mixing bowl add eggs and sugar and mix until creamy for about 1 minutes. Add coconut oil and mix just until combined.

Add the flour mix all at once and mix until everything is well combined but don’t over mix. Then add the coconut flakes and coconut rum (if using) and mix shortly. Drop everything on the baking sheet and form a log: use the parchment paper to keep your hands clean, lift one side, fold over and press the dough into log shape, roll and form until you got a approx. 8-9 cm x 28 cm / 3 x 11 inch size. It’s like forming compound butter.

Bake for 30 minutes, remove from oven and let cool at least 20 minutes. Cooling is important to avoid crumbly slicing or breaking.

Reduce oven to 160 C / 325 F.

Cut log into approx. 1 cm / 0.5 inch slices, place biscotti upright on baking sheet and bake for another 20 minutes.

Let cool and store in an airtight container at room temperature.

{ 0 comments }

sunshine bars

by Eva on April 20, 2012

All this started with ordinary lemon bars, I was eager to create my own recipe. Here in my casa we love them and after trying a lot of recipes and thinking: good… but… too sweet, too tart, too thin. And don’t even make me start with the crust! Just not the real deal. So I started to tweak every time a little bit here and there. I took the crust from one recipe and mixed it with another and this went on and on since many months. At the end I have to admit, I never created the “perfect” lemon bars and any way isn’t perfect very boring?

Once I used a little bit orange juice because I was running out of lemons, I think this was the beginning, there I added ingredients which don’t really belong in there. More orange juice and some flour which I didn’t had in the beginning. The last addition in my long-term experiment was cream cheese, I started with too much. The cream cheese was not invited to this party to take over and it shouldn’t come out like a cheese cake with citrus flavor.

So here we go nearly perfect but not boring at all and not lemon bars anymore. Although the main citrus fruit season is during the colder month, this bars are definitely great for the outdoors like garden parties and picnics. They bring a little sunshine to your plate, you got the hint?

Some notes: Make sure the cream cheese is very soft or you end up with a flaky batter, a few seconds in the microwave oven will help. A mixer produces air bubbles, which rise to the surface and makes it uneven and wavy, that’s why I use a wire whisk. I save dirty dishes and use the same bowl for the crust and the topping, just a whip with a paper towel. I use Valencia oranges (also called summer navels) sweet, very juicy and in season right now. And as always if you use the peel of a citrus fruit, try to buy organic.

sunshine bars

for the crust

ingredients:

110 g / 1 stick unsalted butter, melted

65 g / 1/3 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

150 g / 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

instructions:

Preheat your oven to 180 C / 355 F and line a 18 x 28 cm / 11 x 7 inch baking pan with parchment paper.

In a large bowl stir melted butter, sugar and salt with a (wooden) spoon. Add flour and continue stirring until everything comes together. With your fingers press the batter into the baking pan and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 160 C / 320 F.

Meanwhile make the topping

ingredients:

3 large eggs

265 g / 1 1/3 cups sugar

50 ml / 3 Tbsp + 1 tsp lemon juice (from 1 lemon)

100 ml / 1/3 cup + 1.5 Tbsp orange juice (from 1 1/2 orange)

1 1/2 tsp grated orange peel (only the orange part of the skin)

110 g / 4 oz. softened cream cheese (half package)

5 Tbsp all purpose flour

instructions:

In a large mixing bowl mix eggs and sugar with a wire whisk, add the remaining ingredients and continue whisking. You get a very runny mixture, don’t worry. Pour over the baked crust and bake for 25 to 30 minutes (160 C / 320 F). The center might be a little soft but not liquid anymore. Let cool on a oven rack before removing from the pan, cut into bars and sprinkle with powder sugar if you like.

{ 1 comment }

cranberry and apple tart with coconut streusel