Mixed Berry Cobbler

 

Berries are my favorite fruit group, and I revel in the plentiful, reasonably-priced fresh berries that are available in the summer months.  Last year I had a huge stash of blueberries and blackberries in my fridge and realized that I wasn't going to be able to use them all before an out of town trip.  I put them all in a 2 gallon zipper freezer bag and spread them out as much as my freezer allowed, and they froze beautifully.  I figured that I could bake with them in the cold winter months when berries are sparse, imported from miles and miles away, and expensive.  But you know what?  I was busy over the cool weather months with apples and citrus and didn't really use my frozen berries.  So I was glad when I saw Dorie's Mixed Berry Cobbler on the list of recipes that I had not yet baked from Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking From My Home to Yours.  It was the perfect time to use up some of that bounty from the freezer before this summer's berries were in full swing.

n.o.e.'s notes:

-  You can find the recipe on the original host blog, Sweet Life Kitchen.

- I used the optional black pepper in the fruit mixture, and lots of lime zest.  Taking a cue from some previous Dorie fruit recipes, I also added a pinch of ginger.

- The topping is made with a biscuit method but it is then rolled out and applied like a pie crust. Because I used a deep baking dish rather than a pie pan but a deeper baking dish, I just tucked the circle of dough down on top of the berries.

- I was worried about my topping because it wouldn't hold together; it was extremely dry and crumbly.  I squished it together as best I could, put it in the oven and crossed my fingers.

-  The cobbler baked up golden on the outside and soft in the middle.  The berries had just the right amount of juiciness.

the verdict:

I served this just from the oven to my book group.  This dessert was a runaway hit with the group members.  The warm soft center of the biscuit topping was almost creamy, and combined perfectly with the berries and a bit of cold whipped cream.  One of my testers said, "This is a recipe I have GOT to have!" and she was very pleased to hear that it was a Dorie recipe, since she owns the book.  My only quibble is that the topping-to-berries was too high. Next time I make this, I will use more berries.

Fluted Polenta Ricotta Cake

 One thing I've learned from nearly 4 years of baking Dorie Greenspan's recipes weekly, and that is that I can trust her instincts.  Dorie can turn the most unusual combination of ingredients into the most sublime of baked goods.  I've seen it time and again, and this week's recipe, the Fluted Polenta Ricotta Cake, gave me an opportunity experiment in the kitchen again with Dorie.  I've gathered that here were a lot of bakers who were not fans of this cake when it was baked by the Tuesdays With Dorie group four years ago but it sounded good to me so I was interested to see how we would like it.

n.o.e.'s notes:

-  The cake was selected four years ago by Caitlin of the blog Engineer Baker, and you can find the recipe on her cake post. 

-  The recipe calls for dried figs (the seeds add to the crunch provided by the medium grind cornmeal/polenta, but I went a different direction and added chopped prunes.

-  I baked a half recipe in 8" fluted tart pan.

-  This recipe produced a definitely pourable cake batter, but it thickened nicely as it baked, and the butter pats left little light patches all over the surface of the cake.

-  I served the cake with honey-sweetened yogurt.

the verdict:

This is a rustic, homey cake, not a show-off special-occasion fancy-dress cake.  My husband and I loved it; his observation was, "this cake is a perfect balance: not too sweet, nice taste of honey, substantial texture."   Although the prunes were fine in the cake, we both agreed that it would be perfect with dates; I will make it that way next time (which might just be right away!)

{TWD} Puffed Double Plum Tart and Chocolate Blueberry Ice Cream

OK, folks, *it's* getting real in the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group. We are down to our last 3 recipes in Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking; From My Home to Yours. This week's host blogs are the two head honchos of the group: Laurie of Slush, who started this whole project 4 years ago, and Jules of Someone's in the Kitchen, who has been doing yeoman's duty administering the group.

Next Tuesday we all get to choose something from the past recipes to make and post. And the last Tuesday in December?

On December 27 Dorie Greenspan herself is choosing the final recipe of the book. Well when there's only one recipe left, I'm not sure you can really call it a choice, but Dorie is hosting us for the final week of TWD. I'm sure I'll be smiling through the tears at Dorie's "party" on the last week.

This week was another double header. First, a lovely tart:

Puffed Double Plum Tart

n.o.e.'s notes:

- You can find the recipe for this tart on Jules' tart post today.

- Back in October I found some Italian (prune) plums at the grocery store so I went ahead and baked this tart then.

- I made 1/3 recipe, using 6 dried prunes and 3 Italian prune plums. I didn't realize when I bought them, but the dried prunes were cherry flavored (and quite delicious!). Following Dorie's directions, the prunes are steeped for 15 minutes in spiced red wine. Then the wine mixture is boiled down to make a syrup which is dabbed on the tart before baking.

- For sprinkling on the edges of the crust I used turbinado sugar, figuring that the sugar crunch would add a nice texture.

- Once it's in the oven, I always halfway hold my breath until the puff pastry actually puffs

- I used duFour all-butter puff pastry that I had in the back corner of my freezer. Its directions say that moderate oven temperatures are best for this pastry, recommending the temperature of 375, so I baked the tart at 375 for 15 min + 360 for 10 minutes. At that point it was nicely golden and puffed around the edges.

- The pastry under the fruit didn't puff, so perhaps my tart might have needed more time in the oven. Also, syrup ran off the edges of the tart so it's possible that I was too generous with my "dabbing" of the (delicious) syrup!

- Although Dorie said to put some of the fresh plums cut side up and some cut side down, next time I would keep all of the fresh ones cut side up because their more golden color provided a greater contrast with the dried ones (which were dark).


the verdict:

This tart was a perfect autumnal treat. The buttery crust paired beautifully with the deeply intense wine-steeped plums. My husband said it was "a gustatory delight" and I totally agree with him. We ate the entire tart in one sitting and were very regretful that I'd only made a mini tart. I'd have to say that this was one of the top fruit desserts in Dorie's book; it was just that good.

...and the second recipe for this week:

Chocolate Blueberry Ice Cream

I'm not sure why this recipe's flavor combination sounds so odd; chocolate and fruit are an age-old pairing. And I've been known to toss of handfuls of chocolate-covered blueberries at a time. But odd or not, after all these years of TWD I finally know well enough to trust Dorie's instincts, so I decided to make this ice cream as she developed it.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Laurie's ice cream post has the recipe and her reflections 4 years after starting the TWD group. Head over there and check it all out from the original TWD member!

- This was the kind of ice cream base that after an overnight in my fridge turned pudding-like and too thick to churn. I think this probably comes from using so much chopped chocolate. I guess the solution might be to not chill the base quite as long, and/or stir in preserves (and alcohol if you use it) before putting the base into ice cream maker rather than afterwards, as the recipe directs.

- My blueberry preserves had whole blueberries in it. I was hoping that they wouldn't turn into icy pieces as they froze but luckily they didn't.

- Per a tip from ice cream guru David Lebovitz, I added 1.5 T kirsch liqueur to improve texture of the ice cream and add a subtle fruity boost.

- This is a small-yield recipe; it made a heaping pint of ice cream

the verdict:

The blueberry is subtle in this ice cream, providing a hint of fruit to the intense chocolate flavor. The bits of blueberry in my preserves provide little fruity punctuation and a fun textural note.

{TWD} Russian Tea Madeleines and Honey Almond Pluot Tart

This is another one of those weeks where the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group is doubling up on recipes - after 4 years of weekly baking, the group will finish Dorie Greenspan's book Baking; From My Home to Yours by the end of 2011. I'll no doubt have some reflections in the final post (December 27) but until then I'm not letting myself think about it too much - too sad!

Today we have another tart and another recipe for madeleines. My Honey Almond Pluot Tart hearkens back to autumn while my Russian Tea Madeleines are decidedly wintry, featuring satsuma and grapefruit flavors.

First, the madeleines (pictured up above):

Russian Tea Madeleines

Dorie's recipe is for Earl Grey Madeleines, but I have completely run out of Earl Grey tea. I keep running across recipes needing Earl Grey and I have scavenged and scrounged the last of the Earl Grey from the recesses of my tea drawer. Since that drawer is still bursting with other varieties of tea, I am holding out on replacing the Earl Grey. But one byproduct of all that scrounging is that at the very back of the tea drawer I found an unopened tin of Russian tea. As it happens, this tea has orange bergamot oil - just like Earl Grey! - and also tangerine and grapefruit flavors. It sounded perfect for my madeleines.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The madeleine recipe is hosted by Nicole of Bakeologie. You will be able to find the recipe on her cute madeleine post.

- Dorie's recipe calls for lemon zest, which is rubbed with the fingertips into granulated sugar before beating both with the eggs, I decided to use satsuma tangerine zest and grapefruit zest to complement the flavors of the Russian tea.

- This recipe uses an unusual technique to incorporate the tea: leaves of tea are infused in hot melted butter for 15 minutes. Then the butter is strained and added to the batter, carrying the tea's flavors with it.

- Unlike the last time I baked madeleines, I tried to not overfill the molds. They turned out just right, characteristic humps and all, even though I forgot to use Dorie's trick of setting the mold onto a hot baking stone.

the verdict:

These were delicious little cookies - crunchy edges, and softer centers, with the citrus and tea flavors adding complexity and holiday cheer. My husband and I enjoyed them with ice cream and a cup of tea, respectively.

And now, on to the tart:


Honey Almond Pluot Tart

I love baking tarts. Even if f this group were "Tuesdays With Tarts", and we baked a tart every single week, I don't think I'd get tired of baking - or eating - tarts. This week's tart has plenty of appeal. It started as a fig recipe, but there are many other fruits that Dorie suggests as possible variations on the recipe.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The tart was chosen for TWD by Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table (she's a tart fan also). You will be able to find the recipe for the tart and her lovely grapefruit variation if you click to her blog post, but what's even better, you will find her reflections on nearly 4 years of TWD participation. I couldn't say it better.

- Earlier in the fall I looked at the remaining TWD recipes and decided to bake all of the ones that needed seasonal autumnal fruit while it was still in stores. At that point I could still find figs but I had just baked a honey fig cake for TWD and decided to branch out to one of Dorie's suggested alternate fruits. I was hoping for apricots or nectarines but there were none to be found so I picked up some pluots. They're half apricot so I deemed them "close enough."

- For the tart's crust, I made Dorie's Sweet Tart Dough with Nuts, using Bob's Red Mill Almond Flour. I love that tart dough recipe and thought the almond would complement the almond filling. Also, I managed to run out of flour so it was fortuitous to replace some of the recipe's quantity of flour with ground nuts.

- I added almond extract to highlight the almond flavor of the filling.

the verdict:

This was a lovely tart, accompanied nicely by a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The brightness of the pluots was a counterpoint to the sweet creamy almond filling.

All in all, two more delicious recipes, and just three more remain until the book is finished!

{TWD} Butternut Squash Pie (and Gluten-Free Butternut Squash Crisp)

As we wind to the end of the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group, we find ourselves with a fair number of tart and pie recipes from the book still to bake. The November lineup for for the group includes 4 pies/tarts! This is fine with me, since tarts and pies are among my favorite things to bake and eat, and what could be better for November, with Thanksgiving approaching?

The first pie/tart on the November docket is Dorie's Depths of Fall Butternut Squash Pie. I've come across the recipe in the book often and always thought that it looked intriguing; it's made with cubed butternut squash, pears, dried fruit and nuts. I had high hopes for this recipe.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- Valerie of Une Gamine dans la Cuisine chose Fall Butternut Squash Pie, and you can find the recipe on her blog post.

- The recipe specifies 1" cubes of squash. That seemed awfully big to me, so I cut my pieces of butternut squash much smaller, probably closer to 1/2" cubes.

- For dried fruit I used a mixture of golden raisins, cherries, and cranberries.

- I made a full recipe of the filling. I used half for a 7" pie. The other half I put in a baking dish and topped it with a gluten-free crumble mixture (equal parts of oats, butter, and brown sugar.)

- The pie crust recipe I used was my favorite: Cook's Illustrated Vodka Crust, which I previously posted, here.


the verdict:

I served both the pie and the crumble, accompanied by vanilla ice cream, at a dinner with friends. Unfortunately the pie wasn't a runaway hit with the five people who tasted it. Our friend DaH said, "This is interesting and pretty good." He thought it had a bit too much squash. My husband would have preferred no squash at all in the pie; he firmly believes that vegetables don't belong in baked goods. To me the filling was too bland and not quite sweet enough, although I didn't have ice cream with mine, and I think it would have been better with the sweetness of the vanilla ice cream.

As an aside, the pie crust won rave reviews!

As for the crisp version, my friend DeH loved it; the sugar in the nut topping might have helped give some oomph to the filling. I wish I had tasted it, but I gave all of the remaining crisp to her to enjoy.

TWD is doubling up on recipes this month in an effort to finish Dorie's book by year-end. Here's my madeleine post.

{TWD} Far Breton ~and~ Honey Nut Scones

The baking group Tuesdays With Dorie began on January 1, 2008, and each week it has presented members with one assigned recipe from Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home to Yours. Right now we are *this* close to finishing the book, and the group's leaders have decided that we should finish by the end of Calendar Year 2011, making the group exactly 4 years in duration. In order to meet this deadline, we have to double up on weekly recipes for most weeks this month, leaving Thanksgiving week free for us to choose a recipe we might have missed. So there's a lot of baking going on in my kitchen, and each Tuesday's post in November will have not one, but two recipes.

This week's recipes are Far Breton and Honey Nut Scones.

Part 1: Far Breton

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Nicole of Cookies on Friday chose Far Breton, and you can find the recipe on her post.

- Far Breton is a regional dish from Brittany, containing prunes. Apparently the word "far" mean "flour" in Breton, but the batter for this cake is quite egg-centric with very little flour at all.

- I made 1/2 recipe in 6"x3" round cake pan.

- Instead of white sugar, I used granulated golden palm sugar, and duck egg rather than chicken eggs.

- The recipe calls for prunes and raisins, although Dorie gives permission for other dried fruit substitutions. I stuck with the prunes and raisins, cutting the prunes in half before soaking the fruit in very strong black tea. The recipe specifies Early Grey, but I didn't have any (I rooted through the entire tea drawer not once but twice to prove that to myself.) Another option is to infuse the fruit with Armagnac, but I've never been able to locate it in the liquor stores in my hamlet.

- The far puffed a lot as it cooked, and browned beautifully. It took a good hour to bake, even at half the size.

- When I unmolded the far, it fell considerably, like a souffle.


the verdict:

The far was squarely in the delightful no-man's-land between custard and cake, like a baked custard with enough flour added to edge it toward cake territory. Both my husband and I loved the finished product. It was eggy and dense and sweet and fruity. After its long soak in strong tea, the dried fruit was tender and nearly melted away into the custard. We found the far at perfect at room temperature as an after-dinner dessert, and nearly as good, chilled, for breakfast the next morning.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part 2: Honey Nut Scones

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The scones recipe was chosen by my baking buddy Jeannette of The Whimsical Cupcake.

- I stuck closely to Dorie's recipe, with the exception of using I used pecans instead of walnuts.

- Dorie's method for forming scones produces small, individual scones. I prefer a bigger scone with more "inside" and less "outside", so here's how I baked these: After mixing the dough I patted it into a disk in a greased glass cake pan, scored the disk into 6 or 8 wedges with a bench scraper, then baked. When the scones are still hot from the oven, I cut them into separate wedges along the score lines. To me the scones don’t end up dried-out this way.

the verdict:

These scones were a welcome sight for Saturday morning breakfast. And for Sunday and Monday as well! I'm more used to fruit than nuts in a scone, but I really liked the crunch and that the nuts lend to this recipe. This was one of my favorite scone recipes in the book.

{TWD} Fig Cake for Fall

The Tuesdays With Dorie baking group is quite seasonal this week: our recipe is A Fig Cake For Fall. I knew this recipe would be coming up soon (because there are so few recipes left for TWD to bake) so when I saw some early figs in the produce section back in September, I made sure to buy them and bake up this cake.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- Our hostess this week is Alvarosa of the blog Cookie Rookie, who is from Vienna, Austria, and who had never baked before joining Tuesdays With Dorie. You can find the fig cake recipe on her post, and you can read about how she found and joined the baking group (hint: it involves meeting Dorie herself in Paris).

- The recipe calls for poaching the figs in ruby port. I had a bottle of tawny port but no ruby port. I consulted the internet for advice, and found this chowhound discussion. My conclusion after reading: use whatever type of port that you have. So I used the tawny port.

- I made half recipe in a 6" springform pan


the verdict:

Although the poached figs were delicious, this was not my favorite cake. The cornmeal was a little too prominent, and the ratio of cake to fig was too high for me. As I ate my slice of cake I found myself wishing for a denser, moister crumb, with more lemon flavor, and more figs.

Overall, I prefer more intensity in a fruit dessert, but it was still fun to try this very seasonal dessert.

{TWD} Flip Over Plum Cake

There's something very special about cooked plums. Raw, plums are fine, although not my favorite fruit by a long shot. But cooked? Plums become a completely different fruit. The flavor intensifies and the texture almost melts. Paired with the right ingredients, plums make spectacular desserts. What's more, lovely plum desserts are perfect for transitioning from summer to fall baking, which makes this week's assigned recipe, Flip Over Plum Cake, very timely.

The Tuesdays With Dorie baking group has baked with plums in the past. In 2009 we made the Dimply Plum Cake, and my I enjoyed the cake so much I actually posted a follow-up to the original post. I couldn't fathom why Dorie would include another plum cake in her book, nor could I imagine how it would be different or that it could be better.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- Becky of Project Domestication chose Flip-Over Plum Cake and will have the recipe on her blog today.

- Dorie says that the cake is a cross between a cake and a pudding. As I was preparing the recipe for this "cake" it reminded me of the southern-type of cobbler - where you make a batter and scatter fruit on the top and as it bakes in the oven, the fruit sinks to the bottom.

- In addition to flour and milk and butter, the batter for this cake is made with ground cinnamon, ginger, vanilla extract, almond extract, and a surprise ingredient, ground coriander.

the verdict:

This was an amazing fruit dessert. The plums get jammy and flavorful, and the addition of the spices to the batter elevate this one above the simple cobbler (or cake). It's one of the best fruit desserts in Dorie's book. In fact, we liked this as well, or better, than our old favorite, the dimply plum cake!

Plum Caprese Salad

My dad was an inveterate reader of newspapers. He subscribed to at least 4 papers at any given time, and he was rarely, if ever, seen without a folded section of newspaper stuck in his back pocket. He took great delight in finding articles of interest to his relatives and friends; in fact, when my siblings and I grew up and left home my parents reserved a desk drawer for each of us, just to hold newspaper clippings. Every time I visited my parents I'd open my drawer to find a stack of newsprint articles with my name scrawled in pen across the top margin.

Some of my favorite recipes are ones that my father unearthed in the newspaper, usually the New York Times. My own newspaper reading is spotty, but I rarely miss perusing the Food section of any paper that's in front of me. A few weeks ago, I was shuffling the sections of the weekend Wall Street Journal, and on the front of the Off Duty section I noticed an article about the many uses of the herb basil. It was written by none other than Dorie Greenspan, and was complete with several appetizing recipes. I immediately pulled out the ingredients for a fanciful Basil, Mozzarella, and Plum Salad. This is, in essence, the old standby, caprese salad, but, in a stroke of genius, Dorie substitutes plums for the traditional tomatoes.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- You can find the article and recipe here.

- The first step in the recipe is to make basil oil, which is not difficult but takes a bit of time to infuse.

- Once the basil oil is steeped, it is used in two ways. It's tossed with salad greens, and it's also stirred into a mixture of plums, mozzarella, torn basil, lime juice, jalapeno pepper, salt and pepper. The salad is assembled by spooning the plum/mozzarella mixture over the greens.

- We had some non-plum eaters around our dinner table the evening I served this salad, so I made theirs a traditional caprese salad with tomatoes instead of the plums.

the verdict:

This salad is both surprisingly beautiful and unusually delicious. It's a wonderful transitional salad - perfect for the end of summer/early autumn, when stone fruit is plentiful, and fresh basil is readily available.

{TWD} Blueberry Cornmeal Loaf-lets

Many years ago I learned a nifty trick from my sister-in-law for dressing up a plain box of Jiffy Cornbread mix: add blueberries and make muffins. I've served the blueberry/cornmeal muffins at brunches and luncheons, and they are always popular. When this week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe, Cornmeal Fruit Loaf came along, I knew exactly which fruit I wanted to try.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- We can thank Caitlin of the blog Engineer Baker for choosing this week's breakfast treat; click over to her post to find the recipe.

- Dorie's recipe calls for a mixture of dried and fresh versions of the same fruit. She suggests apples (dried + fresh) or pears (dried + fresh) At the time I baked this recipe, I had fresh + dried blueberries which I was excited to use, but in the future I'd try fresh + dried cherries.

- I made half a recipe. My pan collection has lots of cute little rectangular loaf pans that would have worked for the scaled-down recipe, but what caught my eye were some pretty flower-shaped baking molds that my daughter picked up for me when she traveled to Hong Kong. The batter is put together exactly like muffin batter, so I figured these would be perfect muffin-like loaf-lets. There was just enough batter in the half recipe to fill the four little pans.

- This was a simple recipe, and baked up in 22 minutes or so.


the verdict:

These were a lot like corn muffins with fruit in them. The dried and fresh blueberries combined to produce an intense blueberry sensation with each bite. We thought they were a terrific addition to the summer breakfast repertory. One suggestion: if you tend to like your cornbread sweet, go ahead and put the full measure of sugar in, otherwise you could cut the amount of sugar a bit.

{TWD} not-so-Tropical not-so-Crumble

This week's recipe for the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group is called Tropical Crumble. The recipe's creator, the inimitable Dorie Greenspan, says, "think of this in the dead of winter, when a taste of the tropics can be as warming as a cashmere throw." For Gaye of Laws of the Kitchen who chose this crumble, this was indeed a taste of the tropics during the wintertime - she's in Australia where the seasons are the opposite of what I'm experiencing here in the US.

As for me, I don't have a huge incentive to experience the tropics at the moment; our temperatures have been sky-high for weeks, with humidity to match. Through the wonders of global trade I can definitely buy mangoes and bananas here year-round, but I turned instead to the plenitude of summer fruit that was filling my fridge and freezer. I had some ripce local peaches from my farm box, and a few weeks back when I was overrun with blackberries I'd tossed them in the freezer for future baking projects. Peaches and blackberries sounded like a winning seasonal combination to me.

While the "not so tropical" part was intentional, in the course of baking this recipe I had an unintended crumble fail. In the end, my dessert didn't bear a very close resemblance to the way I imagine this recipe was supposed to turn out.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- You can find the recipe on Gaye's post.

- As I was preparing to bake the crumble, my 1st question was how much fruit to use, seeing as I was using completely different fruit. So I put the issue out on twitter: "I need to figure out how many cups of fruit is the equivalent to two mangoes and four bananas. any guesses?" In a matter of minutes, I had a response. From none other than Nancie McDermott, who wrote the book on pies - literally - so if anyone knows her fruit, it's Nancie! And although she is a fellow Southerner (living in North Carolina), the cool thing is that she was traveling in Taiwan when she replied to my question! Her reply: "3 cups." Great! I had a plan.

- I had a fair amount of ripe peaches to use, and by the time it was all said and done, I probably used close to 4 cups of peaches and blackberries. Trying to approximate Dorie's instructions, first I cooked the peaches about 5 minutes on high and added the frozen blackberries for 2 additional minutes. I added a pinch of salt to Dorie's filling ingredients, and rather than a fresh lime, I used about 1/4 teaspoon of lime zest from my freezer. I refrigerated the cooked fruit mixture overnight.

- The topping recipe calls for 8 T butter to 1/2c brown sugar to 3T flour to 1/2c nuts. I didn't stop to think about that proportion, just measured and combined the ingredients and popped it into the freezer overnight. Looking back at it, that's a lot of butter for a relatively small amount of dry ingredients.

- The following day, I brought the fruit to room temperature, sprinkled on the frozen crumble topping and put it in the oven to bake.

- I'm pretty sure I measured my ingredients correctly. But as the dish was baking, the topping never became crumbly; in fact, it never became topping. It was just big pool of melted butter with some clumps of sugar and pecans discernible among the fruit.

the verdict:

When I went to serve the "crumble" I spooned off as much of the pooled butter as I could, then put it in a bowl with some vanilla ice cream. My husband loved "the compote" and I agreed that it had good flavor. The lime and ginger paired beautifully with the peaches and blackberries, and the crunch from the pecans was lovely. Although it was a crumble #fail, it was at least a tasty flop!

Sometime I'd like to try this recipe as Dorie wrote it, with the bananas and mangoes, but before I did, I'd have to check the proportions of butter to dry ingredients so that it would be a true crumble rather than a buttery mess. I will be interested to see how this recipe worked for everyone else who baked this week.

Peach Frozen Yogurt

Ice cream week on my blog continues:

Living in the Peach State, we are inundated with delicious peaches in July. I have made a lot of peach frozen treats; in fact I previously posted 2 different peach ice creams and a peach sorbet in one peach marathon post! But there's always room for more frozen peachy goodness, so I tried this peach frozen yogurt.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I've included the recipe, from David Lebovitz' book The Perfect Scoop, is below. If you have any plans to make homemade ice cream, this book is a must-own.

- Don't try using lowfat yogurt for frozen yogurt; it will turn out icy.

- I used some perfectly ripe peaches from my farm box.

- You can peel peaches quickly by dipping them in boiling water for a minute or so, then submerging in cold water. The skins rub off easily.

- An immersion blender is perfect for the job of pureeing the peach mixture.

the verdict:

This is a fantastic choice for using perfect peaches which are perfectly ripe. The peach flavor comes through beautifully. While the mouthfeel isn't as creamy as with ice cream, the fresh fruit flavor more than makes up for it.

the recipe:

Peach Frozen Yogurt
from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

1 1/2 pound ripe peaches (about 5 large)
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup plain whole milk yogurt
a few drops freshly squeezed lemon juice


1. Peel the peaches, slice them in half and remove the pits. Cut peaches into chunks and cook them in water in a medium nonreactive saucepan over medium heat, covered, stirring occasionally, until soft and cooked through, about ten minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in sugar and chill in the refrigerator.

2. When peaches are cool, puree them in a food processor or blender with the yogurt until almost smooth. Mix in a few drops of lemon juice.

3. Freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Yield: about 3 cups

Blueberry Ice Cream

Happy Sundae Sunday!

My friend Di of Di's Kitchen Notebook had the fun idea to celebrate July, National Ice Cream Month, with a virtual ice cream social. She invited bloggers to post ice cream - or related recipes such as syrups or toppings - today. By month's end Di will gather all of the ice cream treats into one big round-up post on her blog. Click over there in a few days to see some fabulous frozen treats and accompaniments.

For Sundae Sunday I wanted to try an ice cream flavor that I've never made, which, among other things, rules out yet another vanilla or coffee ice cream post on this blog! My farm box has been including some wonderfully flavorful blueberries this month, so I set out to find a good blueberry ice cream recipe. [edit to add: after I wrote this I realized that I had actually posted a blueberry frozen yogurt two years ago]

When I'm ready to make ice cream, I usually turn to one of two volumes on my cookbook shelf, The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz, or Murphy's Ice Cream Book of Sweet Things. But I also love exploring ice cream recipes that I find online or in one of my other cookbooks.

Recently I signed up for an online service called Eat Your Books. The way it works is that you input the cookbooks that you own (which is simple because they have tons of cookbooks - about 2000 - already in the database) and then you can search for recipes by ingredient or by type of dish. The search results will give you the recipe name, the cookbook name, and a list of the ingredients. I happily paid the $25 fee - about the cost of a new cookbook these days - and I use the service several times a week. As a result, I have ended up using my own cookbooks more than ever before. (I need to mention I have no connection with Eat Your Books. I have received no compensation from the site, nor have I been asked to mention it on my blog. I just want to share with you a service that I have found to be very useful.)


My search on Eat Your Books pointed me to several promising blueberry ice cream recipes, and I zeroed in on the Blueberry Ice Cream from Amanda Hesser's Essential New York Times Cookbook. Here's what Hesser says about this recipe:

"I love that when you taste this ice cream it's not immediately clear that it contains blueberries. The lemon gives the ice cream a sharp, high pitch and a soft, buttery texture."

I couldn't wait to try this ice cream and see what we thought!

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I've included the recipe for this ice cream, below.

- My blueberries were smallish, with a tart flavor, closer to wild than to typical cultivated berries, which I find to be sweet but often bland.

- I went strictly by the book for this recipe.

the verdict:

This flavor of this ice cream was rich and fruity, intense and bright. The cream supported and gave body to the ice cream but didn't weaken the impact of the blueberries and the lemon. I'm glad I added kirsch; it sharpened the flavors and lent a wonderfully smooth texture.

I objected to the bits of blueberry skins in the ice cream and I regretted that I hadn't strained the ice cream base before churning it, but my husband disagreed. He thought the little pieces of skin lent a nice textural contrast.

Stay tuned for more ice cream posts, as I finish out National Ice Cream Month with a week of ice cream on my blog!

the recipe:

Blueberry Ice Cream
Adapted slightly from The Essential New York Times Cookbook (Amanda Hesser, p. 726)

1 pint blueberries
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup water
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup heavy cream

2 tsp kirsch (I added this ingredient to help keep the ice cream from freezing too hard)

Heat blueberries in a heavy saucepan, stirring occasionally, until they break down and yield their juices, 10 to 15 minutes.

In the meantime, dissolve the sugar in the water over low heat for 10 to 15 minutes, until you have a thin syrup. Let cool.

Puree the blueberries in a food processor, then transfer to a bowl and add the lemon juice. Mix in the cooled syrup and the cream, and mix well. Chill overnight

Once chilled, pour the blueberry mixture into an ice cream maker, straining if desired, and freeze according to your machine’s instructions. Pack the ice cream in an airtight container, and freeze until ready to serve.

Rhubarb Tart with Raspberry Cream

The Blackberry Farm Cookbook was one of my Christmas presents. I felt quit virtuous waiting to receive it until then, since I'd been coveting it for more than a year. The book photographs are so lush, and the recipes so appealing that once I unwrapped the book I almost left it on the coffee table to avoid the kitchen's inevitable trail of smudges, spills, and dented corners. But a cookbook only reaches its full potential when it's used, and I was curious to see if the taste of the food matched the beauty of the book's presentation.

But first, I took the time to read and savor the pages. I like the cookbook's arrangement of recipes by season. I have a few other cookbooks that have this type of organization and they are wonderful resources for menu planning.

I wanted to make something from the Spring section, and when my online buddy Kayte, who had received this book for her birthday, suggested making the Rhubarb Raspberry Tart, I happily agreed to join her (virtually, that is). This is a perfect recipe to make now, when it's not too late to find Spring's fresh rhubarb and Summer's ripe raspberries are appearing on the produce department scene.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The recipe, which I've included, below, can be found in from The Blackberry Farm Cookbook.

- The tart combines raspberry and rhubarb, but it employs a bit unconventional way of pairing the flavors. The tart filling is straight-up rhubarb; the raspberry part of this tart comes in the whipped cream topping.

- If you want to make this tart and fresh rhubarb is not available, frozen rhubarb is fairly common in the freezer section of many grocery stores.

- To make the filling, half the rhubarb is cooked in a saucepan with orange juice, sugar along with some cornstarch to thicken it. Then the reserved half of the rhubarb is added and the filling is baked in the slightly blind-baked crust until the filling is bubbly and the rhubarb is tender.

- I made 2/3 recipe, in my 7.5" deep tart pan. By mistake I used the book's Sweet Pastry Dough rather than the Basic Pastry Dough which is indicated in the recipe. In my mind, a tart calls for tart crust rather than pie crust, I guess! The sweet dough had an interesting method: the butter is brought to room temperature before being mixed with the other ingredients in a food processor. Then the dough is chilled until it is cool enough to roll out to fit the tart pan.

- When the crust was blind baking, it oozed a lot of butter. I blotted up some of it, but also found that the crust magically re-absorbed the butter as it sat cooling on the counter.

- I rarely, if ever, sweeten my whipped cream, and I left out the recommended confectioner's sugar. I will say, however, that this is one of those times when a slight sweetening of the cream would be welcome.

the verdict:

This was a lovely dessert. The tart crust was delectable and I love the unusual combination of the creamy raspberry topping and the decidedly tart tart.

the recipe:

Rhubarb Tart with Raspberry Cream

adapted from The Blackberry Farm Cookbook and adjusted to 2/3 original size

tart or pie crust of choice in 7 to 8inch tart pan, blind baked and cooled
4 cups of sliced rhubarb
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
heaping 1/2 T of arrowroot or cornstarch (I used cornstarch)
scant 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 1/3 cup wild or regular raspberries (I used regular)
2/3 cup heavy cream
heaping 1/2 T confectioner's sugar (I omitted, but would include next time)

1. In a medium saucepan, combine 2 c of the rhubarb, with the sugar, orange juice and cornstarch. Cook over medium heat, stirring, for 6-7 minutes, until thickened. Remove from heat.

2. Fold remaining 2 c rhubarb into the cooked mixture.

3. Pour filling into the tart shell and bake 25-30 mins, until bubbling. Remove from oven and place on rack to cool to room temperature.

4. In a medium bowl, crush the raspberries with a spoon.

5. Whip the cream and confectioner's sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a medium bowl with an electric hand mixer until the cream forms soft peaks.

6. Fold the crushed berries into the whipped cream and serve with the tart.

Summer Fruit Salad with Mint Sugar

While I know, and almanac.com confirms, that summer doesn't technically begin until June 21, I've always counted Memorial Day as the beginning of Summer. After all, don't the swimming pools open this weekend? Also it's the first day that it's appropriate to wear white, and nothing signals summer quite like a pair of white jeans (or shorts, if you happen to live in a place where it's just too darned hot to wear long jeans between Memorial Day and Labor Day.)

Holiday weekends are perfect for parties and eating out-of-doors. When we were invited to a picnic and asked to bring a side dish, I knew I wanted to use some of the beautiful fruit my fridge was harboring. This recipe for Summer Fruit Salad with Mint Sugar sounded like it would be pretty and tasty without being fussy and time-consuming to prepare.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I found the recipe in my big yellow Gourmet Cookbook. This book, which I recommended in my Christmas cookbook post, is a serious goldmine of fantastic recipes. I've not hit on a dud yet, including the three that I've prepared in the past few days. If you don't have the cookbook, you can find the recipe here.

- The cookbook cautions, "simplicity is the key to a successful fruit salad, so don't yield to the impulse to include every fruit you see on your cruise through the produce section." The recipe mentions grapes, sweet cherries and peaches. Although I had cherries, I didn't end up using them because I had four other fruits begging to be included - strawberries, grapes, blueberries and cantaloupe - and I didn't want to push my luck.

- The mint sugar is simple to throw together in a mini-food processor, and then it's sprinkled on the cut and mixed fruit. Voila! A finished dish in minutes.

the verdict:

This salad was lovely and quite refreshing as a side dish at a cookout on a very warm (euphemism for very hot) day. The mint gave the fruit an extra kick of flavor and brightness, not to mention a pretty green color note.

{TWD} Strawberry Rhubarb Double Crisp

There was a bank of rhubarb growing along the driveway of my childhood home, and my mother baked it into pies, combined with apples. I didn't learn until years and years later that the more common combination is rhubarb with strawberries.

Although I enjoyed rhubarb when it came my way, it's been a long time since I've eaten rhubarb, and I've never baked with it myself. So this week's recipe for the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group was an exciting first for me. Luckily our local grocery store had some fresh rhubarb in stock (thank goodness I asked the produce manager; the rhubarb was in the back) and some decent strawberries, so I was all set to bake this dessert.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The recipe was chosen for the group by Sarah of Teapots and Cake Stands. Check out her blog post to find the recipe.

- I made half recipe of this crisp, in an approximately 6" squar-ish ceramic baking dish. I really like this dish, but it's really red. In the ideal world it would be a different color when baking a crisp with a red filling that bubbles at the edges. However we all know this world is far from ideal; the dish was the right size so that's what I used.

- The "double" part of this crisp reflects the fact that in this recipe there is double the amount of crisp topping; half is pressed into the pan to form a bottom crust and the rest is reserved to be crumbled over the top of the fruit filling.

- Strawberries can be a watery fruit for baking, but Dorie solves this problem by cooking the strawberries with sugar and making a saucy filling by thickening them with a cornstarch slurry. This is then poured over the cut rhubarb, topped with the crumbs and put into the oven for a leisurely bake.

- On the advice of Caitlin at EngineerBaker, I cut the amount of sugar by about a quarter. The strawberry filling was still plenty sweet when I tasted it.

- The unusual part of this recipe is that it uses ginger in all components: ground ginger and chopped crystalized ginger in the crust/topping mixture and ground ginger in the filling.

- I love walnuts and was excited to include these in the crust/topping. I made sure to chop the nuts finely so that they would seamlessly combine with the oats.

- The crisp was hot and bubbly when I pulled it out of the oven. I spent a bunch of time trying to capture a picture of the crisp in mid-bubble, to no avail.

- We ate the crisp plain, in order to taste it more completely.

the verdict:

This crisp was absolutely delicious! I think it might be my favorite fruit dessert of all time. The rhubarb was meltingly tender and the flavor blended with the strawberry and ginger to produce a fresh, bright, intensely fruity filling that was tempered by the buttery, sweet, crunchy (thanks to the nuts), crust and topping. The oats and the ginger really took this one over the top.

Sarah, I'm so glad that you cared so much about rhubarb that you chose this recipe, and also glad that rhubarb was seasonally available around here when it came time to bake the crisp. I can't wait to bake this one again!

{TWD} Devilish Shortcakes

In the past few months, chocolate recipes have been scarcer than hen's teeth in the baking lineup of the Tuesdays With Dorie group. We've enjoyed a wonderful selection of seasonal fruit-based recipes; there's definitely been no lack of apple and cranberry sweets. But a little chocolate is good for the soul, so I was happy to see this week's selection, Devilish Shortcakes. I've never heard of chocolate shortcakes, but I was willing to give them a try!

n.o.e.'s notes:

- We can thank Tania of the blog Love Big, Bake Often for selecting the shortcakes this week, and her post contains the recipe.

- I halved this recipe, and ended up with 6 large shortcakes. I think that next time I would make smaller ones, like biscuits.

- To boost the chocolate flavor of this recipe, I used Double-Dutch Dark Cocoa powder from King Arthur Flour.

- The recipe comes together easily (Thank you, Tania). Although Dorie prefers to use her fingertips to combine the flour and butter, I have much better luck using a pastry blender.

- I gave a little taste when these came out of the oven and discovered that they are actually not very sweet or assertive in flavor; so I made a quick compote with frozen blackberries to serve as a filling with sweetened whipped cream.


the verdict:

I love serving shortcakes to my book group, because we can all assemble our desserts to our own tastes. These shortcakes were not a rich chocolate dessert in themselves, but they did make a lovely vehicle for filling and topping. They could definitely take a warm chocolate or caramel sauce but I was glad to go the fruit and cream route.

Blackberries are my favorite fruit to combine with chocolate. The mild cakes paired nicely with the bright acidity of the blackberry sauce, and the whipped cream unified and smoothed out the flavors. The shortcakes were generally well-received, although many of us had half a cake because they were so large.


Other shortcake recipes I've baked and posted:

Ginger Peach Shortcakes
Strawberry Shortcakes

Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Duck Breasts with Fresh Figs

Duck breasts with fresh figs (and the most delicious sauce!)

When my children were young, a friend of mine quoted to me, "I used to cook, but now I fix dinner." There's so much truth to that. Daily cooking can easily devolve into a routine of preparing quick, easy food that everyone will eat. With any luck it will also be tasty and nourishing!


My culinary horizons expanded quite a bit as a by-product of startig my food blog to join the online baking group Tuesdays With Dorie, baking through Dorie Greenspan's wonderful book Baking From My Home to Yours. (My daughter ALE jokes that it's not fair that I waited until she left home before I began cooking and baking in earnest. Luckily we visit each other's kitchens often enough that we engage in marathon cooking/baking sessions together.) Although on a weekly basis there are still plenty of thrown-together meals at my home, I love to pull out my books, especially when there's a special occasion afoot.

And what a special occasion this is! Today is Dorie Greenspan's birthday, and in celebration a bunch of food bloggers are getting together to cook Dorie a virtual birthday meal. We're cooking from Dorie's new volume Around My French Table and we've got it all covered, from appetizers to desserts.


As soon as I learned of the virtual birthday dinner party, I knew I wanted to make a memorable main course for a very special birthday party. Two birthday parties, actually! I was cooking virtually for one birthday girl, Dorie, and also cooking really for another birthday girl, my daughter ALE, whose birthday is just two days before Dorie's. Duck breast happens to be one of ALE's favorite things so I zeroed right in on the recipe for Duck Breasts with Fresh Peaches on page 230. Sadly, down here in the Peach State peach season has ended, but Dorie gives a selection of alternate fruits, making it into a year-round recipe. I ended up cooking the duck breasts twice (once with pears and currants and once with fresh figs) and since there are two birthday honorees, I have double reasons to call this "Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Duck Breasts."

Here's the pear/currant version of the duck breast recipe. Sorry for the artificial light photo.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Holly, of the blog phe.mom.enon, is publishing a roundup of this fabulous birthday dinner party for Dorie, so check out her post to click on each of the fantastic dishes - everything from appetizers to desserts - that bloggers have cooked up from Dorie's book!

- We have agreed not to publish the recipes from the book, so if you like what you see on our posts, I'd heartily recommend that you buy the book or request it from your library.

- The first version of this recipe I tried was with pears. As much as I love pears, when they are cooked or baked, they sometimes need a little help in the flavor department. Dried fruit is a perfect complement, so I added dried currants to the recipe.

- Dorie specifies large duck breasts - 1 pound each - but also mentions that smaller ones can be used, as long as the total weight is around 2 pounds. I was able to locate the larger duck breast at my favorite specialty market, and used two.

- The recipe's method is quite straigtforward. First the duck is seared, then placed in a warm oven to finish cooking while a simple pan sauce with fresh fruit is made on the stove top. Put the two together, garnish with fresh thyme, and voila!

- I made the mistake of using Asian pears, which I had on hand from my farm box. I realized too late that this was a crisp variety of pear which didn't soften as they cooked. Consequently the duck breasts got a tad overcooked in the warm oven while I waited for the pears to lose their curnch. This is a terrible thing to happen to beautiful duck breasts which had been browned to medium-rare perfection.

- The sauce, however, was delicious. I can see why Dorie loved it so much that she decided to find fruits other than peaches that would work with the recipe so that she could enjoy it all year. I think that Dorie would also love the fabulous pop of tart flavor from the currants I used. The rest of my family didn't seem to mind the barely-pink duck, but I was sad that Dorie's (and ALE's) birthday duck was overcooked.

- As is pretty typical at this time of year, dinner was ready after it was already dark outside, so the only pictures I have of the finished dish are available (artificial) light, never the best option.

- I really wanted this dish to look and taste perfect for Dorie, so I decided to make it again! Not much of a hardship, as we all love duck around here, and the recipe really is a speedy one to make. The second time I made the recipe with fresh figs. The duck breasts were from Whole Foods, and were the small version - each less than 1/2 pound - so I used five of them to get the 2 pounds needed for the recipe.

- This time the recipe went off without a hitch. The figs softened nicely in short order (thanks, figs!) and almost before I knew it we had a lovely duck dinner. And the bonus? I cooked early enough that there was still a bit of natural light on my front porch when the dish was ready to serve.

the verdict:

It turns out that this recipe for duck breasts is not only elegant enough for a fancy birthday dinner, it's simple enough to prepare for a weekday dinner for the family. The sauce is lovely, and complements a wide variety of different fruit. Overall, I prefer cooking the larger duck breasts because I think it's (usually at least!) easier to get them browned properly while keeping the meat tender.

There are two other recipes for duck breasts in AMFT, all following the same browning/warming/pan sauce method. I'm eager to try them all, and will probably not wait for another birthday to roll around before I cook duck again.

Happy Birthday, Dorie! Thanks for sharing your wonderful recipes with us!!

And thanks to Laurie of the blog slush and Holly of phe.mom.enon for organizing this fun virtual birthday dinner.

To see more Around My French Table goodness, check out the French Fridays with Dorie cooking group, where cooks worldwide prepare the featured weekly recipes from the book. You might even be tempted to join in (you don't even need a blog!)

The Tuesdays with Dorie baking group has been baking through Dorie's book Baking: From My Home to Yours for nearly 3 years. Stop by to check out the group's progress!

Apple Maple Granola with Figs

A while back my daughters were planning a backpacking trip in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Granola was on the menu for breakfast on the trail, so I offered to bake some for them. I was eager to try a recipe I'd seen on David Lebovitz's blog, filled with the flavors of autumn: apples, figs, maple and nuts.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- I've been making my own granola for over two years. Although I've tried other recipes, my usual recipe is here. Homemade is so easy that I've never looked back - or bought any granola again.

- This time I used a recipe from David Lebovitz, who adapted it from a recipe in Feast, by Nigella Lawson.

- All you need to make granola is a very large bowl, a baking sheet, oats or other flaked grains, nuts, seeds and dried fruit. I stuck very closely to Lebovitz's recipe, using oats, almonds, and raw sunflower seeds. I replaced his sesame seeds with raw pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

- The recipe calls for four kinds of sweeteners: I used applesauce, brown sugar, honey, and maple syrup (instead of rice syrup)

- My granola baked in a slow oven for nearly an hour. When it cooled, it was delightfully crunchy and aromatic, and just packed with seeds, nuts and fruit.

- I added chopped dried figs at the end.


the verdict:

This granola smelled amazing while it was baking. I love the way the flavors of the apple and maple combined. The girls really liked this granola, especially "the figs. They were key." My older daughter asked for the recipe, so you know it was a keeper!

{TWD} Pear Foldover Torte, regular and gluten-free

A 6 inch mini torte with flaky pie crust

The Tuesdays With Dorie baking group continued on an autumn baking spree this week with Dorie Greenspan's Fold-Over Pear Torte, a sort of hybrid pie/pudding concoction, baked in a springform pan and packed with fruit - pears this time - and nuts.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Cakelaw of Laws of the Kitchen selected this week's torte for us to bake. You can find the recipe on her site.

- Dorie's recipe calls for pears, walnuts, and chopped dried apricots. Although sometimes pears are a little bland in desserts, I decided to stick pretty closely to the original; my version switched out the apricots for dried cherries (plumped in boiling water first) because I'll use any pretext to bake with dried cherries.

- I made two 6 inch tortes. In addition to the regular pie-crust-encrusted torte, I also made a gluten-free version, with a base layer of nut tart crust (similar to the one that I made here) and then lots of fruit and custard. For the gluten-free torte I replaced the all purpose flour in the custard with a mixture of coconut flour and almond flour.

the gluten-free torte with a nut crust base (and no fold over)

- I forgot to add the baking powder to the custard, but luckily the tortes seemed none the worse for the omission. They still puffed a bit - from the eggs I guess.

- We love custard at our house, so I made extra filling to be certain that there was enough custard in each of the tortes. I was able to use all of the gluten-free filling in my very tall 6" springform pan. For the regular tart, the pan was much shallower and I couldn't fit all of the filling into the crust, so I baked the extra fruit and custard in some buttered baking dishes.

- Instead of Dorie's crust, for the regular torte I used the Cook's Illustrated pie crust (find the recipe here, and my previous post about it here) which is my very favorite crust for two reasons: it is impossibly easy to work with the dough, and I love the taste from the combination of shortening and butter. The pie crust complements any pie filling without stealing the starring role.

- The crust didn't brown very much as it baked in the oven so next time I might brush it with a milk or egg wash.

the leftover fruit and custard, baked in a buttered dish

the verdict:

My husband ate the regular torte and absolutely loved it. "This might be the best dessert. Ever." He savored his little torte over the course of a few days, accompanied by rum ice cream.

My daughter J.D.E. and I sampled the gluten-free torte. It had a luxurious amount of custard, and the nut crust played a nice supporting role. My daugher liked the dessert so much that she said she'd like the baked custard + fruit even without the crust (although she preferred the nut crust to the regular pie crust).

This torte has earned a permanent spot in the fall baking repertory!