TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

I usually eat coffee for breakfast. But it's impossible for me to resist a hot Dutch baby pancake, whether it's dripping in brown butter, showered with powdered sugar and lemon, scattered with pockets of caramelized jam, or filled with lemon zest and blackberries.

We made Dutch baby pancakes every single day last week. By day seven, I started to unravel.

I woke up, pulled on my favorite black skinny jeans, and couldn't button them up. At all.

Then, I found myself kneeling down in front of the oven yelling at the Dutch baby du jour (caramel praline) to "Rise, you motherfucker. Rise." And when it deflated and collapsed in on itself, I grabbed my iPhone and Googled "ovulation and Dutch babies." I didn't find a single example of ovulatory hormones impacting a Dutch baby pancake's ability to rise. But I did learn a lot about fertility in the Netherlands.

I took the sad Dutch baby out of the oven, sat down on the floor, and started daydreaming about slow-cooked pork with fennel and honey. And vegetables. Lots of leafy green vegetables.

My son ran into the kitchen, saw the Dutch baby, and yelled out, "What the heck is wrong with it? It's flat! Mama? What. Did. You. Do."

"Dash. I don't know. They are so unpredictable. I think I should have added the praline at the end."

He crawled into my lap and started palpating my neck and chin, counting every ridge, pore, discoloration, tracing the wrinkles around my eyes. "One two three four five six seven wow mama eight nine ten too many to count."

I swatted his hands away.

"But look at that amazing line between your eyebrows. I want lines on my face. When will I get them?"

"Dash, they will come when you're older. I promise."

"Like 20?"

"No. My age. 42. These special ones come from worry."

I brought his forehead to mine and we began a Sunday morning chat about what a stressful week it had been. From the hurricane to the the upcoming election to the civil war in Syria to the crazy neighbor who won't put her ferocious dog on a leash. And most of all how much we wanted to gather up our friends in New York City and feed them Dutch baby pancakes.

"Mama, get your notebook. Let's write down what we learned this week."

"Dash, you're a good little recipe tester."

"I'm not little."

Feel free to skip the details and jump straight to the recipe. But for those of you interested in geeking out on the recipe-testing details, here's what we made, learned, and ate last week:

1. On Monday, we improvised. Some flour, some eggs, pinch of salt, whole milk, and vanilla extract all went into the food processor and then into a very hot cast iron pan filled with melted butter. It was a bit cakey and cracked. And the bottom was too firm. We still ate the whole thing.

2. Tuesday. We used less flour and added 1/4 cup crème fraîche. I got the pan hotter and threw in a bit more butter. I brought the oven temp down to 425°F. Success. It was lighter. And the crème fraîche gave it a wonderful sour flavor.

3. Wednesday. Same batter. Same temperature. We added a teaspoon of lemon zest. We found blackberries in the freezer and bashed the hell out of them with the meat cleaver until we had frozen berry powder. This pancake tasted like August.

4.We scattered Thursday's with chocolate chips. The day after Halloween. For breakfast. Bad mama.

5. On Friday, I dragged spoonfuls of raspberry and apricot jam through the batter. The pancake was filled with hot pockets of fruit.

6. On Saturday, I went on an unnecessary savory Dutch baby detour. As my daughter pointed out, "It's a pancake, mama. Why would you ruin it with cheese? That just sucks." But I'm a stubborn mama and it was just two days after Halloween and I thought that my kids could use a day off from all the sugar.

If there's any interference, a Dutch baby pancake cannot slide up the sides of the pan and float into that marvelous mogul-like terrain. Big chunks of bacon and coarsely grated gruyère cheese turned my experiment into what my son called a "stupid frittata." But I accessorized it with avocado slices and crème fraîche and Sriracha and pretended it was never supposed to be a Dutch baby in the first place.

7. On Sunday, we swirled caramel sauce and praline through the batter. It started to rise and then stopped and caved in on itself. It was tasty but too dense. So we tried again. For the second one, we added the praline towards the end of the cooking time. It puffed. It climbed. It had pockets of caramel and a crispy praline top. Ooey gooey comfort.

DUTCH BABY PANCAKE

printable recipe
serves 3, if you're lucky.

Here's the template. As I've reported, it's not perfect. But it usually works!

Some people say you'll get greater height with room temperature ingredients or leaving the batter out for a few hours or overnight. Others say to try bread flour. Let me know your tricks. My most successful Dutch babies were made from batter that I had just made.

Warning: don't add anything heavy until almost the end of the cooking time (praline, cheese, bacon, chocolate chips).

However, you can swirl jam or caramel sauce or pulverized berries through the raw batter right before cooking.

ingredients:
4 eggs
1 cup whole milk
1/4 cup crème fraîche (or sour cream)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
pinch salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons salted butter
powdered sugar
lemon
maple syrup

directions:
Throw your 8 or 9 inch cast iron pan (or ovenproof dish) into the oven. Preheat oven to 425°F. You want your pan to be very hot.

In a food processor or a blender, blend the heck out of the eggs, milk, crème fraîche, flour, salt, and vanilla (30 seconds or so). If you mix it by hand, add the flour in a few batches and mix really well.

Add butter to the hot pan in the oven. Careful. The butter will brown very fast.When just melted, remove pan from the oven, quickly pour in the batter, and put the pan back in the oven. Resist the urge to open the oven. After a few minutes (fingers crossed) the pancake will start to climb up the sides of the pan and puff up in the middle. It's done when the edges are starting to turn brown and the batter is just set in the middle. About two minutes before it's done, you can sprinkle it with powdered sugar, praline, or chocolate chips and they will melt into the surface.

Serve with powdered sugar and lemon. Or warm maple syrup. Or both.

ICE CREAM FOR GROWNUPS

(Texters' names crossed out to protect identities and avoid embarrassment at work.)

The text thread above was about round one. Round two (that I served to eight people) didn't work out so well. It was sickly sweet because the ice cream and caramel mixed and melted together.

Here's a glimpse at round three and what I learned:

Whatever you do, don't stir the caramel and chocolate almond chunks into the vanilla ice cream. Instead, drizzle the caramel and sprinkle the chocolate almond chunks over the top of the just-churned ice cream. And then gently press the goodies down into the soft ice cream pillow. Freeze until hella firm. Then scoop with care. Hopefully you will get a swirl of caramel and a bitter pop of chocolate and a salty crunch of almonds in each creamy bite.

BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE ALMOND CARAMEL SWIRL ICE CREAM
(a few alternate recipe names in text thread above)

printable recipe

serves a few people if you're lucky

1/2 cup caramel sauce, refrigerated

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1/3 cup slivered or sliced almonds

pinch salt

1 1/2 cups half and half

6 egg yolks

2/3 cup sugar

pinch salt

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1/2 vanilla bean, halved and seeds scraped out

pinch salt

Make caramel sauce. Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

In a double boiler (or over very low heat), melt chocolate. Turn off heat and stir in almonds and salt. Spread on a piece of parchment on a sheet pan. Freeze. When solid, pry chocolate off of parchment. Chop into pea-sized chunks. Freeze until needed.

Prepare an ice bath. Place a fine strainer over a medium-sized bowl. Immerse bottom of bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice and water. Set aside.

Whisk together half and half, yolks, sugar, and salt. Set aside. In a medium-sized saucepan, bring cream and vanilla bean to just under the boil. Remove from heat and slowly whisk into half and half/yolk mixture. Place back on medium heat. Stir the whole time with a wooden spoon until it thickens slightly. It's done when you drag your finger across the back of the spoon and it leaves a trail.

Pour mixture through the strainer into the bowl that's over the ice bath. Leave bowl in the bath until the custard is cool. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

Freeze a container for the finished ice cream (I used a loaf pan). Freeze ice cream according to manufacturer's instructions. Place ice cream in cold container. Drizzle caramel and chocolate almond chunks over the top. Use a spoon to press caramel and chunks down into the ice cream. Do not stir. Freeze for a few hours or over night. Carefully scoop so as not to mix in the caramel.

NO WORDS

It was a shitstormclusterfuck of an evening with flat tires and such. So let's just look at tarts. And drink wine. And listen to Jeff Buckley. And Giovanni Pergolesi. And be grateful that we get to wake up to a brand new day.

CREME FRAICHE RECIPE #4:

I don't know how many people these tarts serve. The apricot tart was pretty much just for me. But I've been sharing the asparagus tart. These tarts are fundamentally the same. 

APRICOT RICOTTA TART WITH CARAMEL BUTTER

printable recipe

If you like your tarts sweet, you should definitely crank up the sugar in the ricotta mixture.

ingredients:

shortcrust pastry dough (make a least 3 hours ahead of time and refrigerate)

3/4 cup ricotta

1/2 cup crème fraiche

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 egg

1/8 cup flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2 teaspoons lemon zest

6 apricots

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons melted butter

2 tablespoons caramel sauce (or brown sugar)

creme fraiche for topping

directions:

Roll out dough and press into an 8" round or rectangular pan. Or place free-form on a sheet pan. Place in freezer while you prepare the filling.

Preheat oven to 350º F.

In a standing mixer (or by hand), beat the ricotta, crème fraiche, olive oil, egg, flour, sugar, salt, and lemon zest. Set aside. Halve and pit apricots. Melt butter and caramel together.

Remove tart shell from the freezer. Pour in ricotta filling and spread evenly. Gently press apricot halves (cut side up) into the filling. Sprinkle sugar all over the apricots. Brush or spoon on butter/caramel mixture. Drip extra onto the cheese mixture.

Bake until crust is set and light brown (35-45 minutes). If the apricots don't have much color, you can place the tart under the broiler and brown (or char) things a bit. Allow to cool for 20 minutes before cutting.

Serve topped with creme fraiche or vanilla bean ice cream.

ASPARAGUS RICOTTA TART

printable recipe

ingredients:

shortcrust pastry dough (make a least 3 hours ahead of time and refrigerate)

16 stalks asparagus, bottoms trimmed

3/4 cup ricotta

1/2 cup crème fraiche

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 egg

1/8 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2 teaspoons lemon zest

1 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

3 cloves garlic confit (or grated raw garlic)

1 teaspoon crunch salt (Maldon, or grey, or fleur de del)

3 tablespoons parmesan cheese, finely grated
chopped salted anchovy (super optional, super tasty)

creme fraiche for topping
chopped parsley

directions:

Roll out dough and press into an 8" round or rectangular pan. Or place free-form on a sheet pan. Put in freezer while you prepare the filling.

If your asparagus is delicate, you don't need to peel it. If it's thick, you might want to peel the stalks from the base all the way up to right underneath where the tip starts.

Preheat oven to 350º F.

In a standing mixer (or by hand), beat the ricotta, crème fraiche, olive oil, egg, flour, salt, and lemon zest. Set aside.

Whisk together vinegar, olive oil, and garlic confit.

Remove tart shell from the freezer. Pour in ricotta filling and spread evenly. Place asparagus in any cool pattern that you like. I like to have every other stalk pointing the same way. But it really doesn't matter. Coat stalks with vinegar/oil/garlic mixture. Drip extra between the stalks onto the cheese mixture. Sprinkle with parmesan and salt. Add optional anchovy.

Bake until crust is set and light brown. If the top of the tart doesn't have much color, you can place it under the broiler and brown (or char) things a bit. Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes. Cut this tart with an insanely sharp knife or poultry shears, otherwise you will have quite a mess on your hands. Serve topped with crème fraiche and chopped parsley.

BLISS

(Crème fraiche "recipe" #2 is at the bottom of this post.)

Before 6 a.m. this morning, before rooting around in the pantry and snacking on old cookies, before getting into the Super Glue, before deserving a smack upside the head from Bella, before spilling a sticky orange juice concoction all over the table and down the wall, Dash set out a beautiful breakfast for all of us made up of banana bread and a sprinkling of his almond praline. It is Dash's praline because he helped me with every step when we made it last week. 

(WARNING: Please make sure that you and your children are wearing clothes when you make praline. There's no denying that Dash was shirtless throughout most of the process. I was a fucking idiot. But oh my god we had so much fun.)

To start, he measured the sugar, dug out the dried vanilla beans, and sucked on the sweet woodsy sticks. 

We poured a splash of water on the sugar and placed the pan on the back burner. I snapped at him to stop jumping up and down and slamming into me and focus or leave because cooking sugar is serious business in fact it's the hottest thing in the world dude hotter even than lava and he got it and settled on a stool. He watched me watch the sugar turn brown, he leaned in as I inhaled the telltale caramel fumes, and he smiled as I exhaled with delight and satisfaction because he knows that heat hitting sugar is my kind of magic.

With his hand on my wrist, we stirred in the almonds, vanilla, and salt. Then we quickly spread the sticky and rapidly firming mixture onto a sheet pan. Once it was cool enough to handle, he was in hog heaven for an hour with the ultimate edible toy.

He stretched the sugar into a sword and then a gun.

He held up a stained glass window of praline.

 

He pieced together the capital letter "T." Or maybe a mushroom?

 He bashed the shit out of it with a rolling pin and then a meat mallet.

And he placed it in a pretty jar. Then he looked at his very precise spy watch and said that it was a good thing that the praline was done because it was already 4 p.m. at LAX.

Ideas for what to do with praline once you've made it:

1. Sprinkle over crepes filled with homemade chocolate butter (recipes coming soon).

2. Serve over ice cream or yoghurt.

3. Incorporate into ice cream base at the end of the churning process.

4. Make the best after-school snack ever by dipping strawberries into crème fraiche and then rolling them in almond praline.

ALMOND PRALINE

printable recipe

ingredients:

2 cups white sugar (or vanilla sugar* if you have it)

about 1/2 cup water

1.5 cups sliced almonds

2 teaspoons vanilla bean extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

directions:

Place sugar in a medium-sized saucepan. Add just enough water to soak the sugar. Swirl (by the pot handle) until all the sugar is wet. Add more water if you need to. Place over medium heat. Don't walk away. Swirl around (by the pot handle) if it's not caramelizing evenly. Cook until it's almost at desired color (Grade B maple syrup or darker).

Remove from heat and quickly stir in nuts, vanilla extract, and salt. Place back on heat just to loosen it up a bit. Spread quickly over a sheet pan using a firm spatula. Let cool. Then bust apart with a rolling pin or meat mallet. This is quite easy if you cover the praline with a dishtowel. Or you can cut it into large chunks with a very sharp knife. Or place all of it in the food processor and puree the heck out of it into a powder. Store at room temperature in an airtight container. If it firms up again you can bash it apart. It lasts for a long time. And it freezes beautifully.

*Place new or scraped vanilla beans into white sugar and allow to infuse for a few days.

ADDENDUM

"You have to be a crazy person to just sit there and eat caramel sauce right out of the jar," said my grandmother.

Just then we looked up and saw my brother scooping caramel from jar to mouth. To be fair, he was gearing up for a caramel sauce taste test. 

My brother declared the one on the right "funky, dank, and luscious." It was the all-around winner.

It's fine to eat caramel by itself. But don't make your final judgements until the sauce has mingled with vanilla ice cream. 

And go a little darker with it than you think you should. The caramel you might like encased in bittersweet  chocolate is different from what works drizzled over vanilla ice cream. It's all about the contrast between the creamy and the burned.

CARAMEL SAUCE

printable recipe

Makes enough to fill a recycled Bonne Maman jar.

ingredients:

3/4 cup heavy cream

1/3 stick salted butter

1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons water

1/3 vanilla bean, halved and seeds scraped out

directions:

Measure out heavy cream and butter and set aside. Place sugar and water in a medium-sized saucepan. Swirl (by the pot handle) around until all the sugar is wet. Add more water if you need to. Place over medium heat. Don't walk away. Swirl around (by the pot handle) if it's not caramelizing evenly. Cook until it's almost at desired color (Grade B maple syrup or darker). Remove from heat and pour in the heavy cream. Careful. It will rise up and spatter. Whisk until combined. Add the butter. Cool for 20 minutes and then whisk in vanilla bean seeds. Store scraped vanilla bean in the caramel. It will keep for a few weeks in the fridge.

WELL TEMPERED

Ice cream camp, chemistry class, and pastry school. All rolled into one. That was our June.

"Bella," I asked, "do you think it's possible to get sick of ice cream?"

Her eyes widened in horror. "What? WHAT are you talking about?"

She is my little addict. 

And the taste tester.

"Mama," said Dash, "we have to caramelize ALL the sugar next time so it's stronger."

Meet the recipe tester.

I'm Julie McCoy AND the fucking dishwasher. 

(photo by bella)

But I'm not complaining. Really.

And now I give you 18 steps, warnings, tips, links, emotional reactions, general observations, and LOTS of unsolicited advice about parenting and the making of ice cream (caramel in particular).

1. In a bowl, whisk together egg yolks, half and half, and salt. Be brave with the salt. The caramel needs it.

2. Measure out your heavy cream and set it aside. This is the fat that you're going to pour into the caramelized sugar. This is not a time for lowfat substitutions. Half and half or whole milk will curdle.

3. If you're a kid in my kitchen and you're not being safe around caramel, I will swear at you, grab you, or push you out of the way. Sugar doesn't even start to caramelize until around 330° F. Just remember that scary temperature. 330°F.

4. Danger aside, don't let the technical aspects of caramel scare you. In a deep pot, coat the sugar with a big splash of water (water gives you a bit more control). Swirl (by the pot handle) over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the water evaporates. It will boil, thicken, and start to change color. Swirl it a bit more if it's not caramelizing evenly. The burning sugar will smell woody, smoky, sweet. It's ready when it's the shade of Grade B maple syrup (or the color of my Ikea Stockholm coffee table). It will continue to darken even after you remove it from the heat.

5. Carefully pour in the heavy cream.

6. And then stand back.

7. Hitting caramelized sugar with heavy cream brings about quite a reaction. The mixture will rise up, almost overflowing. And then (big relief) it will start to settle back down into a calmer (but still confused) ocean of sugar, curds, and whey. Whisk it vigorously and it will unite into a creamy golden syrup.

8. At this point, Dash has been known to squeal, "Mama, this caramel is un-be-leeeeeeeevable." Caramel makes me feel this way too. It's one of those transformations that astonishes every time. The smell, the heat, the color.

9.  SLOWLY pour the caramel into the egg mixture. This allows the eggs to adjust to the change in temperature without getting stressed out.

10. Pour the mixture back into the original caramel pot (so as not to waste any little drips or drops). 

11. Set aside your whisk and bring out a wooden spoon. Place back on medium heat. And start stirring.

12. Don't walk away.  Or you will have caramel-flavored scrambled eggs.

13. Watch, feel, and smell for the shift in viscosity.

14. As you stir, the thin custard will slap against the sides of the pot like waves against the side of a boat. As it thickens, the gliding spoon will cause the custard to rise up and settle back down without much of a splash. The whirlpools will slow down. 

15. To confirm that it's done, do the drag-your-finger-across-the-back-of-the-wooden-spoon test. It's ready when your finger leaves a lovely lingering trail.

16. Pour the custard through a fine strainer and place in an ice water bath. 

17.  Cool the custard in the fridge for a few hours. Pour the custard into an electric machine. Or hand churn it. Or do David Leibowitz's no-machine method. Whatever works. Scrape finished ice cream into a chilled bowl.

18. Phew.

 "Mama, did you know we're masters of making ice cream?"

"Well, Dashi. We're trying."

Over.  And over. And over. And over again.

CARAMEL ICE CREAM

printable recipe

feeds 1-6 people

ingredients:

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 1/2 cups half and half

6 egg yolks

big big pinch of salt

a little less than 2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup water

directions:

Measure out heavy cream and set aside.

Whisk together half and half, yolks, and salt. Set aside.

Prepare a water bath. Place fine strainer over a medium-sized bowl. Immerse bottom of medium bowl in a large bowl filled with ice and water.

Place sugar and water in a medium-sized saucepan. Swirl around until all the sugar is wet. Add more water if you need to. Place over medium heat. Don't walk away. Swirl around a bit if it's not caramelizing evenly. Cook until it's almost at desired color (Grade B maple syrup). Remove from heat and carefully pour in the heavy cream. Whisk until it comes together. You might need to place it back on the heat for a minute to dissolve the caramel.

Very slowly whisk the caramel mixture into the egg mixture. Pour combined mixture back into the caramel pan.

Cook on low heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon until it thickens slightly. It's done when you drag your finger across the back of the wooden spoon and it leaves a trail that stays.

Pour mixture through the fine strainer into the bowl that's over the ice bath. Leave bowl over the ice bath until it's cool. Stir every 10 minutes or so. Place sarah wrap on top surface of custard to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate custard for several hours. Freeze ice cream according to manufacturer's directions. Freeze for a few hours before serving.