This is one of the most delicious tarts I've ever made. I grabbed the recipe over the summer from an NPR post written by the author of the Nothing in the House pie blog (thanks for this amazing recipe!).
You'll need fresh figs and a nonstick, oven-safe frying pan for this one. Once you've got those, this tarte tatin should be a piece of cake (pun fully intended). What's a tarte tatin, you'd like to know? It's an upside-down tart with caramelized fruit. It got its name from the Hotel Tatin, located a couple of hours south of Paris, in whose kitchen the tart originated.
Here to pair with this delightful tart is the ninth track from my wedding mix tape, the Beatles' "Two of Us." It might be a controversial statement, but this is my favorite love song on any Beatles album. I can just envision the tungsten lighting of a 1960s drive on 16mm film.
Ingredients:
*adapted from Nothing in the House, courtesy of the British Pieminister
--pie crust, rolled and chilled (recipe here)
--15 large figs, stems cut and sliced in half
--3/4 c. granulated sugar
--3/4 c. water
--1/2 tsp. cinnamon
--1/2 c. roasted pistachios
--3 tbsp. honey
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
In an oven-safe frying pan, bring sugar and water to a low boil until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook for about 8-10 minutes, or just until your mixture has become a thick, golden caramel syrup.
Turn the heat to a simmer and add the figs. Cook for about 3-5 minutes, or just until the figs have become quite soft (but not mushy). Remove the figs with a slotted spoon and set aside in a small bowl. Add the pistachios to the frying pan and cover them with the caramel. Add the figs back to the frying pan face-down, arranging so that the bottom of the pan is filled but no figs overlap.
Take your pie crust and top the fig and pistachio mixture with it. Tuck it down into the sides of the frying pan so that it forms a sort of top (don't worry about neatly tucking the edges! Just tuck them in as best you can--this is a rustic pie).
Poke a few fork holes in the top of your pie crust and transfer your frying pan to the oven. Bake for about 25 minutes, or just until the pie crust turns a light golden color. Remove from oven. Now here's the trick part: line a baking sheet with parchment, and just as soon as you've taken the pan out of the oven, flip the tart upside-down onto the parchment. Just do it quickly--you can do it!
Drizzle honey over the top of the tart and let cool for about 10-15 minutes before cutting.
Not exactly a pie (you could just as easily make it in a rectangular 9 x 11 baking dish), but I'm calling it a pie here. This nectarine crumble is a delicious dessert, and it can very easily be made into a vegan recipe (just substitute Earth Balance for the butter).
I love crumbles and crisps, and you could easily substitute the nectarines for any wintry fruit. Apples, in particular, can make this a great December or January after-dinner treat.
Here's Gram Parsons singing "I Can't Dance," the third track from our wedding mix and a hit from his album Grievous Angel.
Ingredients:
--6 ripe nectarines, washed and sliced
--1 c. granulated sugar
--juice from one lemon
--1 tbsp. cornstarch
--1 1/2 c. old-fashioned oats
--1 c. all-purpose flour
--1 c. dark brown sugar
--1/2 tsp. cinnamon
--1 tsp. vanilla extract
--6 tbsp. chilled unsalted butter, sliced
--pinch of salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large bowl, mix nectarine slices with granulated sugar, lemon juice, and cornstarch. Pour into a buttered pie dish.
In a separate bowl, combine oats, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, butter, and salt. Mix with your hands until you've got a crumbly, sweet crumble topping. Crumble over the top of the nectarines. (This recipe makes quite a lot of crumble topping. If you like a little less, you may end up with some extra.)
Bake for about 30 minutes, or just until the crumble topping begins to turn a very light golden color. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Like all crumbles and crisps, this dessert is fantastic a la mode.
Next up from the wedding pies? Peach melba pie! This pie is a delicious summery mix of peaches, raspberries, and vanilla. Want it in the wintertime? Freeze some peaches ahead of time in anticipation of warm weather cravings during the snowy months.
With this pie here's the Ramones' "Do You Wanna Dance?" It was initially recorded in the late 1950s, covered by the Beach Boys in the 1960s to much acclaim, and covered again by the Ramones on their 1977 album (and my favorite album), Rocket to Russia.
By the way, underneath the pie is a fabulous textile I brought home from Guatemala this past January.
Ingredients:
--pie crust recipe x2 (available here)
--6 large, ripe peaches, sliced
--juice from one lemon
--zest from one lemon
--1 vanilla bean
--1 c. raspberries
--3 tbsp. cornstarch
--1/4 c. apricot jam
--pinch of salt
--3/4 c. light brown sugar
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a bowl, combine lemon juice, lemon zest, vanilla bean contents, apricot jam, salt, and brown sugar. Fold in sliced peaces. Mash raspberries and fold in. Pour into pie shell.
I used a pastry cutter to design the pie crust top. You could do the same (see photo), or simply add a rolled pie crust on top and cut in a few venting slices.
Cover the crust for the first 30 minutes of baking. Remove crust cover
and continue to bake for another 25-30 minutes, or just until crust
becomes golden in color. Remove from oven and allow to cool. This pie is
great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
I've been terribly absent from my blog over the last few months, but with good reason! I spent the last month in India (sweets from South Asia will appear very, very soon), and in the months before that, I made 16 pies for my wedding!
Before the new year, I'm going to try to post each one of those pie recipes for you on Spoonfeeding Casanova. And lucky for me, I'll be able to pair each one with a song from our wedding--as wedding favors, we made a mix CD for all of our guests. First song up? The sixth track on our playlist: The Velvet Underground's "She's My Best Friend."
This pistachio cardamom pie is one of my favorite recent creations. It mimics some of the ingredients of a classic pecan pie, but it takes a fabulous Middle Eastern twist. In fact, it's completely inspired by the massive amounts of baklava I enjoyed in Istanbul a few years ago. Did I mention it would be a delicious treat for any new year's eve party? (By the way, this pie is the one in the top left corner of the table in our "pie cutting" photo.)
Ingredients:
--my homemade pie crust, rolled and ready to go (available here)
--3 large eggs
--1/2 c. light brown sugar
--1/4 c. granulated sugar
--1 c. light corn syrup
--1 tsp. ground cardamom
--2 c. chopped pistachios
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
In a large bowl, whisk eggs, sugar, corn syrup, and cardamom. Line the bottom of your pie shell with the pistachios. Pour the wet mixture over the pistachios and bake for about 35 minutes (or until the center begins to puff up). Remove from oven and allow to cool.
I love alfajores (who wouldn't?). The delicious combination of dulce de leche, toasted coconut, and cornmeal-style shortbread is almost too much to handle. So why not turn this delectable cookie into a larger dessert empanada? My thoughts, exactly.
These empanadas couldn't get much easier. Make your empanada dough, roll it out, fill it with dulce de leche, and top with a toasted coconut sugar.
It has nothing to do with South America or empanadas, but one of my superfluous summer goals for 2014 was to listen to more early Black Sabbath. I found their self-titled debut album on vinyl yesterday in Richmond at Steady Sounds, so here's "N.I.B.", live from Paris in 1970.
Ingredients:
For the dough:
--3/4 c. all-purpose flour
--1/2 c. yellow corn flour (not to be confused with cornstarch!)
--2 tbsp. granulated sugar
--1/2 c. butter, chopped and chilled
--1/4 c. ice water
--1 egg yolk
For the rest:
--1/4 c. turbinado sugar
--1/4 c. sweetened coconut
--1 egg, beaten
--1 jar dulce de leche
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a food processor (or in a bowl using a pastry blender), combine the dough ingredients. Immediately roll out onto a floured surface until the dough is about 1/8" thick. Cut the dough into circles with a diameter of approximately 6-8" (you can use a small plate or saucer to do this). Place the circles between parchment and chill in the fridge until you're ready to use them.
Now for the topping. In your food processor, combine 1/4 c. turbinado sugar and 1/4 c. sweetened coconut. Pulse the sugar and coconut mixture until it's very finely ground. Set aside.
Remove your empanada dough circles from the fridge and fill each with about 2 tbsp. dulce de leche on one side of the circle. Fold the dough over the dulce de leche filling, creating half moons. Now you need to seal the empanadas. To make a braided seal, or repulge, take a look at this short video. (*Note: if you're having trouble making the braided seal, you can pinch the edges firmly.)
Brush your egg wash over the tops of the empanadas and generously sprinkle your sugar and coconut mixture. On a parchment-lined baking sheet, place 6 empanadas at a time. Bake for approximately 25 minutes. If the crusts are turning golden, they're overdone. You only want the coconut to begin to toast before you take them out of the oven. When they're done, remove from oven and allow to cool before serving (the filling will be *extremely* hot!). Store in an airtight container.
I can't stop dreaming about Japanese matcha desserts. In case you're not familiar with matcha, it's a ground green tea in powder form, and it's one of the most brightly colored teas you'll ever see. I bought some from Ippodo at their main store on Kyoto's Teramachi Street, and I brought it home with me to Virginia. I plan to make as many matcha sweets as possible before its expiration date. This mousse tart takes a little bit of time, but it's light, airy, and earthy. Oh, and it's a magnificent shade of green.
While in Kyoto, I sampled a very wide variety of matcha desserts, and aside from the ice cream, a slice of a matcha mousse tart was my favorite. It turns out it's difficult to find a good recipe in English. Thanks goodness for GoogleTranslate! Despite its many idiomatic dilemmas, running a search for "抹茶のタルト" provided me with precisely the information I needed. After some initial translations back to English, I realized the recipes used metric measurements. But with some math, baking intuition, and luck, I managed to make a dessert that brought me back to Japan.
The recipe involves making a matcha sponge cake crust, and then following that with the matcha mousse. Plan for some refrigerator time, too--it'll need about 3 hours to set.
Thinking about being lost in translation, so to speak, and the memory of walking through the streets of Kyoto, it only makes sense to give you this song: here's Air's "Alone in Kyoto" from Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation soundtrack.
Sponge Cake Ingredients:
--2 large eggs
--1/4 c. granulated sugar
--2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
--1/4 c. all-purpose flour
--2 tbsp. cornstarch
--1 tbsp. matcha
Mousse Ingredients:
--3 large egg yolks
--1/4 c. granulated sugar
--1/3 c. whole milk
--1 c. whipping cream
--2 heaping tbsp. matcha
--1 package gelatine
--2 tbsp. luke-warm water
--2 tbsp. hot water
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Make the sponge cake crust first. In a stand mixer, beat eggs and sugar until pale yellow. Add butter and continue to mix on low speed.
In a medium-sized bowl, sift together cornstarch, flour, and matcha. Slowly add, bit by bit, to the wet mixture in your stand mixer. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are fully incorporated.
Line a springform pan with parchment paper and pour in your cake batter (there's not going to be very much of it at all, so don't be alarmed). Bake for about 15 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Once it's done cooling, trim the edges so the cake fits in the bottom of a tart pan or a pie dish and refrigerate until you're ready for it.
Onto the mousse. Clean your stand mixer bowl, and whisk the egg yolks and sugar until they're fully combined. Set aside for just a minute or two.
In a small bowl, incorporate your gelatine into the 2 tbsp. of luke-warm water. You'll need to whisk it just a bit. Set aside (but not for too long--it'll begin to congeal). In a pot, whisk together the matcha and the 2 tbsp. hot water. It'll be just enough liquid to form a matcha paste. Now add the whole milk over low heat and whisk constantly to incorporate. Bring to a boil, and as soon as the milk begins to bubble around the sides, remove it from the heat. Only after you've removed it from the heat and it has just started to cool, whisk in the gelatine. (It's really important that the milk isn't boiling when you add the gelatine--it'll kill the gelatine.)
Add the green tea/milk mixture to the egg yolk mixture a bit at a time, and beat on medium speed for several minutes until it gets frothy. Your green tea/milk mixture should be warm enough to temper the egg yolks.
Now pour the whipping cream into a separate bowl and whisk until medium peaks form. Slowly fold it into the green tea/milk mixture until it's incorporated. You've got your mousse!
Remove your sponge cake crust from the refrigerator and pour the mousse mixture over it. Cover very tightly with plastic wrap, being careful not to let the plastic wrap cling to the top of the mousse. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours.
When you're ready to serve your matcha mousse tart, use a flour sifter to dust the top with matcha. Serve chilled.
In the weeks leading up to my trip to Hong Kong, I did a lot of baking but didn't leave much time for blogging. As a result, I'm writing up a few of those blogs now while the rain pours down in Kowloon. (By the way, I was hoping to make some Cantonese food in my Kowloon kitchen during my month-long stay here, but the kitchen is even smaller and more ill-equipped than I had imagined, so any new dishes are going to have to wait until I'm back in the U.S.).
Most people don't think of plums as a likely pie filling, but like any stone fruit, they're delicious when baked into a flaky crust. It's best to use plums that are just getting ripe--not too soft. And one of the great things about a stone fruit pie is that it's really simple. You'll be able to get this dessert in the oven with about 15 minutes of prep time.
What song? For such a delicious stone fruit pie, here's Van Morrison's "And It Stoned Me" (and the lyrics to this song fit the weather in Hong Kong, too).
Ingredients:
--2 pie crusts, rolled and ready to go (recipe here)
--6 plums, cored and sliced thinly (leave the skins on)
--1/4 c. cornstarch
--1/4 c. granulated sugar
--juice and zest of 1 lemon
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
In a large bowl, combine plum slices, cornstarch, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Pour into a prepared pie shell. Add the top pie crust and pinch crust however you'd like. I did a lattice weave and then sprinkled some turbinado sugar on top before baking.
Cover the crust with foil and bake for 25 minutes. Remove foil and continue to bake for another 25 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
Who doesn't love a good sandwich cookie? Truth be told, ice cream sandwich cookies from The Coolhaus are my favorite variety (hmm, maybe I should make some). But when I can't have ice cream "sammies," a Linzer cookie (or two) makes for an excellent treat.
How do you make pomegranate and orange cookies, you ask? You could do it a lot of ways, but my recipe involves pomegranate jelly-filled orange shortbread. I've modified my vanilla rum shortbread recipe to add some sweet citrus flavor.
Since Linzer cookies require more steps than your typical cookie recipe, I'll keep this post short and sweet. Here's R.E.M.'s "Orange Crush."
Ingredients:
--2 sticks + 6 tbsp. chilled and chopped unsalted butter
--zest of one orange (approximately 1 tbsp.)
--2 tbsp. freshly squeezed orange juice
--1 c. turbinado sugar
--1 c. cornstarch
--2 c. all-purpose flour, + extra for rolling
--1 tsp. salt
--pomegranate jelly (I used one from Kozlowski Farms in Sonoma, CA)
--about 1/2 c. confectioners' sugar for dusting
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
In a large bowl, sift the flour, cornstarch, and salt. In a food processor, combine flour mixture, butter, orange zest, and sugar. Pulse for about 1-2 minutes. Slowly drizzle in the freshly squeezed orange juice and continue to pulse until a dough forms.
On a floured surface, separate your dough into quarters. Roll each piece of dough until it's about 1/4" thick (you can make thicker cookies if you'd like, but since these are going to be sandwich cookies, I like them on the thinner side). Use a floured Linzer cookie cutter and cut enough cookies for both the bottom layer and the top layer (the one with the decorative cutout). Repeat with remaining dough, incorporating the scraps until you've used all the dough.
Place cookies on a parchment-lined sheet and bake for 8-9 minutes (no more!). If the cookies become golden on top, they're a bit overdone. Remember, they'll be *really* soft when you take them out of the oven--it'll seem like they're not done, but they are. Place on a cooling rack using a thin spatula and allow cookies to cool completely.
Once they've cooled, place about 1 tsp. pomegranate jelly on a "bottom layer" cookie and put a "top layer" cookie on top, making a cookie sandwich. The jelly should poke through the decorative cutout. Repeat until all the cookies have become delicious little sandwiches.
Using a sifter, dust all the cookies with confectioners' sugar before serving.
The weather is hot, hot, hot here, and I was in the mood to make a summertime pie. Looking for something new, I began perusing the archives of Saveur, hoping to find a unique idea. I came across a recipe for a Concord grape pie and decided to adapt it for this delicious grape pie a la mode (no grape pie is complete, in my opinion, without a scoop of vanilla ice cream). It's so simple yet oh-so-good.
While this pie is delicious warm, you've gotta let this one cool once you take it out of the oven. The filling really needs to set. If you want to have your pie warm with some ice cream or whipped cream on top, first let it set and heat it up just a tad later on. (By the way, you'll notice my new Le Creuset red "pie bird" in my pics. Super cool. Thanks, Happy Cook!)
I'll let you in on a little secret: my new thing for fruit pies is adding some jelly or preserves. It helps the filling to firm up a bit, and it adds a great jammy flavor.
And another not-so-secret tip: grape juice really does stain! After making this pie, my fingertips were purple, and my white melamine bowls were flecked with purple. My kitchen was in, well, a bit of a purple haze. Naturally, here's the Cure covering Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze."
Ingredients:
--2 pie crusts (my truly never-fail pie crust recipe here)
--1 pound black grapes (you could definitely use Concord grapes, but our Virginia grocery stores don't seem to stock them)
--1/4 cup grape jelly
--1/4 c. granulated sugar
--juice from one lemon (freshly squeezed is always better!)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Line a 9" pie dish with your first pie crust. Now, I hope you have some patience. Fill a large bowl about halfway with ice water and set aside. Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil and drop your grapes in. Let them sit for just 20-30 seconds, then remove and place in the ice water. This is all to make "skinning" your grapes a little bit easier. (The skins will peel off relatively easily, but this is still a labor of love.)
Put grape skins in a large bowl and set aside.
Add skinned grapes to a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring regularly for about 12-15 minutes, or until the grapes are quit soft.
Using a potato masher or a fork, mash them just a little bit (you want them mashed but retaining a bit of shape). Transfer them into the bowl with the skins. Add grape jelly, sugar, and lemon juice. Mix and pour into unbaked pie shell. (If you have a "pie bird" like mine, place him in the center of your pie crust before pouring in the grape mixture.)
Cover the pie with the second crust. You can do a lattice pie if you'd like, or simply cover with a full pie crust and cut a small hole in the center. Pinch the edges and cover them in foil.
Bake for 35 minutes with crusts covered. After 35 minutes, remove the foil and bake for about another 20 minutes, or until crusts are just golden brown and the top of the pie crust is firm. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
I really recommend serving warmed, a la mode. The pie leftovers will keep for quite a few days and are also delicious straight out of the fridge.
This dessert is my own version of a deconstructed (or reconstructed, as it were) gingersnap cookie dipped in bittersweet lemon curd. It's a ginger cookie crust, filled with homemade lemon curd, and topped with a molasses whipped cream.
It's been awhile since I've made a tart, but every time I do, I think about "Queen of Tarts"--a gorgeous little food and pastry shop in Cape Town, SA that's more than worth a visit (or two).
The Felice Brothers have a new album coming out, "Favorite Waitress," and it features a pretty excellent song I heard about a year ago on a recording from Asheville's Orange Peel. Here's that acoustic version of "Cherry Licorice."
...All she wants to drink is lemon spritzer/ she don't care if the image fits her/ Who wants to spend their time/ choking on lemon rind
Ingredients:
*Adapted from Ina Garten's "Lemon Curd Tart"
Ginger Cookie Crust:
--12 tbsp. unsalted butter, chilled and chopped
--1/2 c. dark brown sugar
--1 3/4 c. flour
--1/2 tsp. salt
--1 tsp. ground ginger
Lemon Curd Filling:
--5 lemons
--1 1/2 c. granulated sugar
--8 tbsp. butter, softened at room temperature
--6 eggs
--pinch of salt
Molasses Whipped Cream:
--1 pint heavy whipping cream
--1/2 c. granulated sugar
--2 tbsp. molasses (you could add more or less depending on taste)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
First make the crust. In a food processor, combine butter, dark brown sugar, flour, salt, and ginger. Pulse until the mixture begins to form a crumbly dough. Form into a ball and press into a 10" tart pan. Press dough from the center outward until the interior of the tart pan--bottom and sides--are covered. Cover the crust with aluminum foil and bake for 18 minutes. Remove tart crust from the oven and remove the foil. Poke fork holes throughout the dough and continue to bake uncovered for another 20 minutes, or just until the crust begins to turn a light golden color. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
While your crust is cooling, it's time to make your lemon curd filling. Zest all five lemons.
Then cut the lemons in half and juice them. You should have just about one cup of lemon juice. Pour through a sieve and set aside.
Combine the zest and the 1 1/2 c. sugar in a food processor, and pulse for about 2 minutes. You'll want the zest to be extremely finely ground and completely incorporated into the sugar. In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, cream the zest and sugar mixture with the butter until smooth. Add your eggs one at a time and mix at a low speed. Drop in a pinch of salt. Slowly add the fresh lemon juice, continuing to mix at a low speed until all ingredients are combined.
Transfer your curd mixture to a medium saucepan and heat over low for approximately 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until the curd has thickened. Remove it from the heat, allow to cool just slightly, then pour into the cooled crust. Allow the mixture to set for 30 minutes at room temperature and then transfer to the refrigerator.
When you're ready to serve, make the molasses whipped cream. In a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, combine heavy whipping cream, sugar, and molasses until you have your desired thickness. I like to whisk mine until medium-stiff peaks form. Top your ginger lemon tart with the molasses whipped cream and serve.
Cinnamon buns on a snowy Sunday morning. What could make for a better breakfast? Of course, these flaky rolls are also a delightful dessert. I had the idea for these miniature sticky buns after (jealously) watching Ina Garten stroll through London markets. I've adapted her recipe here for some even sweeter, stickier buns.
These are best when they're still just a bit warm from the oven. If you want to make them ahead of time, I recommend rolling and filling the dough, and refrigerating it until you're ready to slice and bake. You'll also need a miniature non-stick muffin pan (but shouldn't you have one of these in your kitchen anyway?).
I can't believe I haven't used this song yet, but it turns out I haven't: Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl." Here it is, to go along with some very cinnamon-y Chelsea sticky buns.
Ingredients:
(*Adapted from Ina Garten's Holiday Sticky Buns)
For the buns:
--1 package (2 sheets) frozen puff pastry dough, dethawed overnight in the fridge
--1/2 c. dark brown sugar
--1 tsp. cinnamon
--1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
--1/2 to 1 c. coarsely chopped pecans (amount can vary depending on your love of pecans)
For the filling:
--1/3 c. dark brown sugar
--1/3 c. turbinado sugar
--1/3 c. very finely chopped pecans (almost dusted)
--1 tbsp. cinnamon
--1/2 tsp. nutmeg
--1/2 tsp. cloves
--1/2 tsp. allspice
--1/2 stick butter, melted
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Start with the "buns" ingredients. In a large bowl, combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter. You'll want to beat it until the sugar and spice are incorporated fully into the butter, making a sort of brown sugar butter (by the way, this makes an excellent topping, on its own, for muffins and breads). Spoon the butter evenly into the bottoms of the miniature muffin cups, filling them about 1/3 of the way full. Distribute the coarsely chopped pecans on top of the butter in each of the 24 miniature muffin cups and set aside. The butter will begin to melt, but that's OK.
Now for the "filling." In a bowl, mix the sugars, spices, and pecans and set aside for just a moment. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the puff pastry dough. You'll have two sheets, so you'll end up doing this twice. Using a pastry brush, paint about 1/2 of your melted butter across the pastry dough. Sprinkle about 1/2 of your sugar and spice mixture evenly across the dough. Now, you'll want to very carefully roll it up using the longer edge. In other words, you want to have a longer, rather than a shorter, roll. Once you've rolled it up, pinch the ends closed and place the dough roll seam-side down. Using a serrated-edged knife, carefully cut the dough roll into twelve equal pieces. Place these on top of the butter/pecan mixture in your miniature muffin tins and repeat until all muffin cups are filled.
Bake for about 20 minutes, or just until the rolls have puffed up and are firm to the touch (you'll know when you see them!). Allow them to cool down for just a few minutes, and then flip the muffins upside down one at a time onto parchment paper--your bottoms are now your tops, and you've got sticky buns with a gooey, sugary topping. Remove any remaining butter topping from the muffin cups and add it to your buns. Let them cool just a bit longer, and then dig in!
The torta de mil hojas is a classic South American dessert. I tried my first slice at Liguria, an amazing and quirky restaurant in Santiago. I bought another in Buenos Aires at our neighborhood panaderia, Del Carmen on Viamonte. In Chile, the cake featured a lighter caramel in between the layers, and naturally, the Argentinean version had spoonfuls (and more spoonfuls) of dulce de leche.
While I was in the Southern Cone, I continued to dream about all of the sweet things to pair with dulce de leche when I returned to America. Banana has been at the top of my list since I had a banana split and dulce de leche sundae at Freddo, the best heladeria in the world. (I'm not kidding: I don't think I'll ever taste ice cream that's as rich, velvety, and creamy until I return to Argentina.)
I thought a torta de mil hojas featuring some fresh bananas would be out of this world, and it turns out I was right. As with any layer cake, this one is a labor of love, but it's definitely worth the work. I topped mine with a decorative Argentinean sun.
I have the most perfect song to accompany the banana torta de mil hojas. Los Beat 4, a Chilean band formed in Santiago in the late 1960s, has a song that's absolutely made for this dessert. Here's "Dame un Bananino" ("Give me a banana!").
Ingredients:
--1 1/4 c. flour, + extra for rolling
--1/2 c. chilled butter, chopped
--1/4 c. ice water
--pinch of salt
--pinch of granulated sugar
--2 c. dulce de leche (we brought some back from Argentina, but you can also buy it at any specialty foods store, or in many cases, the lovely World Market)
--2 ripe bananas, slice very thinly
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a food processor, make a pastry crust by pulsing the flour, butter, ice water, salt, and sugar until the mixture begins to form a ball of dough. On a large flat surface, add some flour and roll out the dough until it's quite thin. Using a dish or other perfect circle, cut out eight (8) dough circles that are approximately 6" in diameter.
On a parchment lined baking dish, bake the pastry dough for about 12 minutes, or until it becomes lightly golden around the edges. Remove and allow to cool completely. **If you want to make a design on top like I did, cut out whatever design you'd like from your remaining dough and bake for 10-12 minutes, or just until golden around the edges--just like the pastry layers.
Once the pastries have cooled, place a dollop of dulce de leche on the bottom of a plate and stick the first pastry circle on top. This will prevent the torta de mil hojas from moving around. Coat the top of the first pastry circle with a heaping of dulce de leche (about 3-4 tablespoons), and then add another pastry circle on top. This time, coat the circle with a very thin layer of dulce de leche (less than one tablespoon) and add a thin layer of bananas. Repeat, alternating between layers of dulce de leche and bananas, until you've placed the final pastry circle on top. If you're adding some pastry decor, attach it with any remaining dulce de leche.
Serve!
In South America during the winter months of July and August, calabaza is king! Panaderías all over Santiago and Buenos Aires sell pumpkin empanadas, pumpkin torts, and so on. I also had some amazing calabaza creations at Cumana, a delicious restaurant in Buenos Aires' Recoleta neighborhood. Naturally, given my love of winter squashes, I tried my hand at some pumpkin and cheese empanadas in our Buenos Aires kitchen! And they're a fabulous savory pastry to have for dinner on a chilly night.
They're also pretty easy to make. Once you've made the flaky empanada dough (basically a pie crust with some salt and pepper), all you need to do is fill your savory pastries with a pumpkin mash. I bought and roasted a pumpkin, added some delicious raw honey fresh from the Pampas, and topped off the filling with some delicious Argentinian queso de campo and a little bit of salt and pepper.
After going to a New Order show just before leaving for South America, I've been listening to a lot of Joy Division and New Order (in fact, I listened to "Unknown Pleasures" almost exclusively as I rode buses to Isla Negra and Valparaiso in Chile). Given the way these empanadas conjure my visit, here's Joy Division's haunting and beautiful "Atmosphere" (and, might I add, one of my favorite music videos of all time).
Ingredients:
The Empanada Crust:
--2 1/2 c. flour
--1 c. cold butter
--1/2 c. ice water
--1 tsp. salt
--1/2 tsp. pepper
--1 egg yolk
--extra flour for rolling
Pour flour into a large bowl and cut in the butter (you can also pulse the ingredients in a food processor). Add the ice water, salt, pepper, and egg yolk. Mix together until all the dry flour has absorbed into the dough.
Roll on a flat surface and cut into approx. 6" diameter circles. Set aside until ready to use.
The Filling:
--1/2 c. shredded queso de campo (if you can't find this cheese in the states, you can substitute a Spanish manchego)
--3 c. pumpkin puree (about one medium-sized pumpkin, roasted)
--3 heaping tablespoons of raw honey
--1 large yellow onion, chopped
--2 cloves garlic, minced.
--2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
--salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
If you're roasting your own pumpkin, slice in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Coat the squash with olive oil. Place both halves on a baking sheet and roast for approximately 1 hour, or until soft. Remove from oven and allow to cool. (If you're using canned pumpkin, go on to the next set of steps.)
Decrease oven heat to 350 degrees F.
In a large saucepan, saute the garlic and onions until soft and golden. Set aside until ready to use.
In the saucepan with the onions and garlic, mash in the pumpkin puree, raw honey, queso, and the salt and pepper. (If you've roasted your own pumpkin, it should be soft enough to just scoop right out of its skin and into the bowl.) I like mine with some texture, so I do a rustic mash with chunks of the squash still intact.
Fill each empanada shell with about 1 tablespoon of the mash, fold the shell over to create a half-moon shape, and press the edges together with a fork. Poke a couple of fork hole in the top to allow the empanada to breathe in the oven. Continue until you've filled all empanadas. (That's me, in our Argentinean kitchen.)
Place empanadas on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for about 25 minutes, or until the edges become golden and crispy. Remove from oven, allow to cool, and serve.
Eat heartily and happily!
*Wine hint: these go very, very well with a bottle of Torrontes, a delicious Argentinean white wine.
