Baked Winter Fruit

I've been on a baked fruit kick lately after rediscovering a recipe I'd clipped a while back.  (Remember that actually using all the recipes that I clip project that I started at the beginning of this year? It's still going....sort of.)

A couple weeks ago I was looking for a dessert to bring to some friends who were having me over for dinner.  I was keen to find something light, since I feel like the bounty of the season is already catching up with me (specifically my hips).  I decided upon a simple recipe for baked winter fruit from the Boston Globe.  It's just a simple combination of apples, pears (you don't even need to peel them!), prunes, raisins, and dried cranberries, with a touch of orange juice, cinnamon, and brown sugar.  You can also add slivered almonds or walnut pieces, if you wish.  Mix, cover, and bake--that's all there is to it!  

Frangipane Tart With Seasonal Fruit

  
I've had a short but intense love affair with frangipane, otherwise known as almond pastry cream.  I can't remember the first time I had it--either at my first bakery job, where we made Cherry Frangipane Galettes, or perhaps it was on vacation with my family a few months prior to starting that job.  Either way, it was about two years ago, and I've been hooked ever since.  With almond paste at its base, it is similar in flavor to almond macaroons, (which happen to be my favorite cookies), but with a denser, richer texture.  My favorite uses for frangipane are in tarts and galettes (rustic tarts), embellished with seasonal fruits of choice.  I've made this tart several times in the winter with ginger poached pears, but for the summer, I love a combination of stone fruits and berries.  A few weeks ago a dinner with friends gave me the opportunity to make this favorite dessert again.  

I am a fan of all things Martha [Stewart], and her recipe has been my go-to since I discovered this delicious dessert.  A basic pate sucree crust can be prepared up to a day ahead of time.  The crust is pre-baked in a tart pan; the frangipane can be prepared while the tart shell cools.  I've streamlined her fussy crust baking method just a bit--I think the results are probably comparable.  You definitely need to start early in the day to allow sufficient time for chilling and cooling at the various stages, but it's not too hard to execute, and certainly worth the effort....At least that's what I gathered from the second helpings accepted all around! 

Resolution Keeping Cookies

 
I want to tell you about some cookies I made the other day.  Essentially heartier, ostensibly healthier jam thumbprint cookies, they're a little weird, but oddly delicious as well, and I feel like I need to share them and get some feedback to wrap my mind around them.

A year ago or so I checked out Gwenyth Paltrow's cookbook:
  
 

It was a bit of a whim; I think it was propped up by the checkout section--the library equivalent of impulse-buying People magazine at the grocery store.

Like most cookbooks I check out, it sat on my desk for a month and then I realized it was overdue, so I quickly scanned through it, copied a few recipes, filed them away and didn't think about it again. 

But then 2 things happened.  The first, which I already blogged about, was the great recipe reorganization.  The second was that the other day my sweet tooth was out of control.  I really wanted a cookie, and I had nothing.  Nothing!  (For the record, that rarely happens.) 

Orange Almond EVOO Heaven

  

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, every food blogger/writer/celebrity/enthusiast (and their mothers) were putting out their "Top 10 Cookbooks of the Year."  Over and over these lists mentioned NYTimes columnist Melissa Clark's new book Cook This Now:120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can't Wait to Make.  If you're not familiar with Clark, she writes "In the Kitchen With a Good Appetite" (and has another book by the same name), which is, in my opinion, the highlight of the NY Times's Wednesday Dining Section.  After the holidays I finally requested the book from my favorite place, the Cambridge Public Library.  Since picking it up I have to say I'm totally in love with it, if only for the following recipe, an Orange-Almond-Olive Oil Cake that is just out of this world.  I also want to make about 90% of the other recipes, too, but in the last 2 weeks I've made this cake 3 times.  Yes, it's that good.  (And no, I haven't eaten them all myself--I gave 2 away.)  But seriously, this cake: so good!  It has this incredibly light texture, while still being very moist.  Clark calls it "intensely almond-y" but I really pick out the orange flavor--guess they're both there in perfect harmony.  The cake also contains buckwheat flour, which I had never used before, despite owning a bag (that, admittedly, I pilfered from my mother's cupboard).  The nuttiness of the buckwheat flour offers another interesting layer of flavor, so I'd recommend getting a bag, even if it's just for this cake.  You'll probably want to make it so many times that it'll be gone in no time!  However, if you're so desperate the try this before making a trip to the grocery store, I'm sure that replacing it with all-purpose would also produce a very good cake. 

Simple, rustic, but oh-so-tasty!

Cranberry Almond Granola

I love Cheerios.  Always have, always will.  But on occasion I need to eat something else for breakfast. (I have been devoted to them for the past 25 years, so I think it's okay to cheat on them once in a while).  When the mood strikes, and I don't have time for anything elaborate, yogurt and granola is one of my favorite combinations.  I usually only have it on the rare occasion that I have some store-bought granola around, which happens, you know, every few years.  Which really isn't enough.  

Last Friday it occurred to me that making granola probably isn't terribly hard.  A quick foodnetwork.com search turned up a simple and relatively healthy cranberry granola from Giada De Laurentiis.  I streamlined the recipe by replacing the mix of pumpkin and sunflower seeds with all sunflower seeds (since I already had some, and I don't really care for pumpkin seeds as much--too tough!).  However, if you have both then I'm sure you can do a 50/50 mix, or use just pumpkin seeds if you really like them.   I also upped the amounts of oats and nuts, because I felt like there was too much liquid and it needed more stuff to soak it up.  The only "unusual" ingredient in this recipe is unsweetened cranberry juice, which I didn't realize was a marketed product, but I found it easily in the "natural foods/healthy" section of my local Shaw's.  There are a number of brands, some quite expensive, but the Shaw's/Wild Harvest brand was reasonably priced, and the bottle isn't too big, which is good, because there's not a lot to do with excess unsweetened cranberry juice (except make lots and lots of granola!).  This recipe comes together quickly, is mostly hands-off, and the result is a sweet and tart, slightly chewy granola that I liked so much I made a second batch a few days later. 

Cranberry Almond Granola (Adapted from Giadi De Laurentiis, www.foodnetwork.com) 

Makes about 6 cups

* A generous 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds, preferably raw, unsalted

* Nonstick cooking spray

* 1/3 cup maple syrup (I like the deep flavor of grade B, but anything you have on hand will be great, as long as it's REAL--no Aunt Jemima, please!)

* 2/3 cup packed brown sugar (light or dark is fine)

* 1/2 cup unsweetened cranberry juice

* 1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon

* 2 1/2 cups old fashioned rolled oats

* A heaping 1/2 cup almonds, slivered or sliced work well.  

* 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt (Kosher salt is fine too, if you don't have sea salt)

* 1 cup dried cranberries

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spread the sunflower seeds on a cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes, until lightly toasted and fragrant.  Let them cool.  Reduce the oven temp to 325 degrees F.

In the mean time, combine the maple syrup, cranberry juice, brown sugar and cinnamon in a small saucepan.  Cook, over medium heat, stirring a few times, just until the sugar had dissolved.  Set aside to cool.

In a medium mixing bowl, toss together the oats, almonds, sunflower seeds, and salt.  Pour the cranberry syrup mixture over the oat mixture, and stir with a spoon or spatula until everything is evenly distributed. 

Spray your cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray, and spread the oat and nut mixture over it in an even layer.  Bake for 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven, and add the cranberries, and use a spatula to stir the mix around, fluff it, and incorporate the cranberries.  Bake for 10 to 15 minutes more, until the mixture starts to brown.  Cool the granola completely, and store in an airtight container for up to a week.

Enjoy on yogurt with honey or rhubarb compote