Blossom to Stem

At their peak ripeness, summer fruits need little adornment. It’s tough to improve the flavor of a meltingly delicate, sweet tart raspberry or a succulent peach on the verge of bruising.

But when you find yourself up to your elbows in fragrant baskets of the summer bounty that you simply couldn’t leave at the farmers market, it’s time to think about baking.

Pies, crisps, crumbles, buckles, and cobblers are old favorites (with good reason). A slow simmer in the oven can dramatically change a fruit’s demeanor. Things mellow in there; they turn softer and more fragrant. The transformation can be stunning, but some fruits are so vibrant in their natural state it seems a shame to put them through all that.

That’s where this twist on the classic strawberry shortcake comes in. Think slices of bright red strawberries tossed with a little sugar, a dollop of rich pastry cream, and a crumbly little almond cake to nestle them on.

At home at a backyard cookout or at a dinner party, this dessert is familiar enough to pass for summer comfort food and just surprising enough to feel like something new. The toasty layer of sliced almonds on the top dresses the cake with an unfussy elegance. This version is portable and picnic friendly, as the pastry cream, unlike its whipped relative, will travel well in a cooler. It goes down easy just about anywhere and puts all that wonderful fresh fruit to good use.

Almond Cake with Strawberries and Vanilla Pastry Cream

Source: Cake adapted from Gourmet June 2007, p. 143. Original recipe available here. Pastry cream adapted from Apartment Therapy: The Kitchen.

This would be excellent with other flavorful summer fruits–peaches, raspberries, and pitted sweet cherries come to mind as good options. I used vanilla pastry cream here for its portability, but if you are making this at home you could certainly use whipped cream or lightly sweetened whipped Greek yogurt if you prefer. This cake, if stored in an airtight container or wrapped well in plastic wrap, is even better on the second day.

For the pastry cream:

1 cup whole milk
1 cup whipping cream (or heavy whipping cream)
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the almond cake:

3/4 cup whole almonds
1/2 cup sliced almonds (for the top)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cups sugar (preferably superfine, or regular granulated sugar zizzed in a food processor for 30 seconds)
1/3 cup whole milk
3/4 cup butter, melted and cooled

For the strawberries:
1 quart (1 1/2 pounds) fresh strawberries, sliced
2 tablespoons sugar

Make the pastry cream. In a medium mixing bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, and flour until well blended. In a heavy medium saucepan, bring the milk and cream to a low simmer. Turn off the heat. Whisk a few tablespoons of the warm milk and cream into the egg mixture, then gradually add a few more tablespoons of milk/cream and whisk thoroughly. Add the egg mixture to the saucepan with the remaining milk/cream and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened, about four minutes. Whisk in the vanilla extract. Remove from heat. Refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.

Make the cake. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan with cooking spray (Bakers Joy works well) or butter and flour. In a dry skillet, toast the whole almonds over medium heat just until they start to smell fragrant. Remove from heat and add them, half at a time, to a blender or food processor and pulse until they resemble a fine powder (but before they become a paste, err on the side of coarseness here).

In a medium mixing bowl, mix the ground almonds, flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a separate large mixing bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer), add the eggs and beat on high speed until they look foamy, about 15-30 seconds. With the mixer running, add the sugar slowly and beat until the mixture is the thick and the beater leaves a noticeable trail when lifted, about 10 minutes (perhaps a few minutes shorter in a stand mixer or a few longer with a hand mixer). Slowly add the melted butter and the milk and beat until well mixed. Add the flour and ground almond mixture and stir by hand until just combined. The batter will be thick.

Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan and sprinkle with the sliced almonds. Bake until the cake begins to pull away from the sides and the almonds on the top look golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30-40 minutes. Cool on a rack before removing from pan.

In a medium bowl, mix the strawberries with sugar and let them macerate in the refrigerator for an hour or so.

To assemble, cut a piece of cake, and slice it in half horizontally. Add strawberries and a dollop of pastry cream to the bottom half and replace the top of the cake. Enjoy.

Yields about 8 servings.

Sometime early in our relationship, when we had been dating for perhaps several months, Dan and I started making scones. It was an almost weekly occurrence, a satisfying project that could be completed in under an hour, proof that we had done something productive in the course of an otherwise relentlessly lazy weekend.

I no longer remember how we settled into scones. I imagine it had something to do with their sturdy, homey appeal, which makes them so comforting to nibble on combined with their faint air of Britishness¹, which lends them a certain cosmopolitan stature and makes them seem somehow less pedestrian than a muffin. Or maybe it was just their undeniable deliciousness.

We tried different recipes, added blueberries or raspberries or cinnamon chips, played with amounts of butter and fat content of milk and ratios of whole wheat pastry to all purpose flour. We ate our share of scones. My sister and our roommate even joked that Dan and I should open a bakery selling scones (and pizza, our other staple at the time).

After a while, for no particular reason, we drifted out of making them. We branched out into other baked goods and found ourselves with busier weekends when we sometimes baked nothing at all.

But we recently revisited the habit with a new recipe and were reminded why scones were so easy to fall for in the first place. This recipe is another one from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet. Made with cream and no butter, these scones are rich, yet light, and crumble when bitten into. The dough is noticeably less sticky than other scone doughs I’ve worked with, and it comes together easily. Out of the oven, these scones are golden on the edges but otherwise a delicate pale speckled with dark bits of chocolate. I think they’re even better on the second day, when their lightness gives way to a pleasing density. I think I could get used to having scones around again.

Cream Scones with Bittersweet Chocolate Chunks

Source: slightly adapted from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet

These scones are quite delicate and not too sweet. Any type of chocolate works here, and chocolate chips would be fine, but I prefer the texture of uneven bits of melting bittersweet. These are probably too delicate to stand up to any fresh or frozen fruit, but I have a hunch that dried fruits, such as currants, tart cherries, or apricot pieces would be lovely in lieu of chocolate. Cinnamon chips or other flavored chips could also work, if you aren’t in the mood for chocolate. With more than a cup of cream, they are not exactly health food, but they’re worth the splurge for a treat. A coarse sugar, such as turbinado or demerara will be prettier on the tops, but any mildly flavored sugar, including plain refined white table sugar, will do. You can replace a half cup of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat pastry flour, white whole wheat flour or regular whole wheat flour for a slightly heartier, but still tender and light, scone.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small chunks
about 1 tablespoon milk or cream for brushing tops
about 1/2 tablespoon sugar, preferably turbinado, demerara, or coarse raw sugar for sprinkling tops (optional)

Preheat oven to 425°F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt until well combined. Stir in chocolate chunks. Add the cream and mix until the dry ingredients are moistened. The dough will seem a little dry, but should hold together when pinched. With your hand, knead the dough in the bowl, gently, until it all comes together in a smooth ball.

Turn the dough out onto a clean counter (or silpat or sheet of parchment paper) and pat into a circle about 8 or 9 inches in diameter and about 3/4 of an inch thick. With a butter knife or bench scraper, cut the dough into 8 wedges. Place the wedges onto the prepared baking sheet. Brush the tops with milk or cream and sprinkle with turbinado (or other) sugar, if using.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the edges and tops have turned golden. Cool on racks.

Yields 8 scones.

1. Even if a scone in Britain is something closer what Americans call a biscuit. [back]

When I lived in Italy, the one meal that became a repeated source of disappointment was breakfast. Don’t get me wrong, I was entranced by the dainty cups and spoons, the mysterious drink requests (caffe normale con un cubetto di ghiaccio [espresso with one ice cube?]), the sometimes oddly tetrahedral or cylindrical sugar packets, and the seemingly unlimited uses for Nutella, but I wanted more than 30-bleary-eyed-seconds to take it all in. And I wanted to sit down. And maybe have something of substance, senza zucchero?

A typical breakfast in Rome consists of a shot of espresso, perhaps accompanied by a sugary pastry, consumed while standing at a bar in a minute or two. Caffe e cornetto sound lovely, but at the start of my day I like my coffee slowly sippable and my foodstuffs no more than slightly sweet. It turns out that when it comes to breakfast, I have a tough time imitating the Romans.

I decided, about six months into my stay, that what I wanted for breakfast, what I really wanted, was a bagel. A dense, chewy, blistered, fresh, warm, golden brown circle of doughy goodness. Sprinkled with seeds. Or salt.

I’m not sure I had ever even had a bagel that quite lived up to the standards of the mythical bagel that danced in my head. Nonetheless, when the early hours rolled around, I craved it. For weeks.

Perhaps there is a source for bagels in the Eternal City (like there is in the City of Light), but I never stumbled upon it. Truth be told, I didn’t really look. I felt rather sheepish about the whole thing, like some sort of ugly American who felt entitled to every good starch, unable to be satisfied with pizza, gnocchi, polenta, in a land where pasta and potatoes have been immortalized as a respectable meal for good common people in film. So most mornings I tossed back un caffe¨, nibbled on some dry biscotti and looked forward to the meals at which my host country excelled.

Chicago isn’t really known for its bagels. Though it isn’t bagel deprived, it’s certainly no New York or Montreal. But I’ve discovered that I can satisfy any new bagel cravings without putting my shoes on. If only I had had this recipe, some high-gluten flour, and access to a kitchen in Rome…

This recipe comes from Peter Reinhart’s book The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, which has been mentioned elsewhere with high praise. I’ll add my voice to the chorus suggesting you take a look at this book if you are interested in learning more about bread. Reinhart is in the final stages of work on a new book focusing on whole grain breads that I’m looking forward to.

Peter Reinhart’s Bagels

Source: slightly adapted from Peter Reinhart’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

The key to the right texture here is high-gluten flour. I had trouble finding it in Chicago, but I was fortunate enough to have some generous benefactors (Dan’s parents) send some my way. It is available online from the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Catalogue. You may also substitute bread flour, according to Reinhart, who cautions that it won’t be quite as chewy. I’ve had good results with barley malt syrup, which is available at most natural foods stores. Reinhart recommends using diastatic malt powder, which is also available from King Arthur Flour. In a pinch, honey or brown sugar will also yield tasty, if not quite characteristically bagel-like, results.

Sponge

1/2 teaspoon (.055 ounce/1.56 grams) instant yeast
2 cups (9 ounces/255 grams) high-gluten flour
1 1/4 cups (10 ounces/295 milliliters) water, at room temperature

Dough

1/4 teaspoon (.028 ounce/.8 gram) instant yeast
1 3/4 cups +2 tablespoons (8.5 ounces/240 grams) high-gluten flour
1 1/4 teaspoons (.3 ounce/8.5 grams) salt
1/2 tablespoon malt syrup, honey, or brown sugar (or 1 teaspoon diastatic malt powder)

Finishing Touches

1 tablespoon baking soda
cornmeal for dusting
optional toppings: sesame seeds, poppy seeds, kosher or sea salt, cinnamon and sugar, etc.

A day (or two) before you want the bagels:

Prepare the Sponge.
In a large bowl (if using a stand mixer, go ahead and start it in that bowl) mix 1/2 teaspoon yeast, 2 cups high-gluten flour, and 1 1/4 cups water until it forms a thick batter. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit until bubbly, nearly doubled in size, and on the verge of collapse, about 2 hours.

Make the Dough.
Add 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast to the sponge and stir. Add the salt, malt syrup or powder, and and 1 1/2 cups flour. If using a stand mixer, stir a few strokes by hand to incorporate some of the dry flour with the sponge (this will help to prevent flour from flying everywhere when you turn on the mixer). Mix on low speed for about 2 minutes, or by hand for a few minutes or until a dough ball has formed. Slowly add the remaining flour, and mix on medium speed for 6 minutes (or knead by hand for about 10 minutes) or until all of the flour is incorporated. The dough should be smooth, stiff, stretchy, and not sticky or tacky. If the dough feels dry and tears easily when stretched, add a little water, a teaspoon at a time, and knead some more. If the dough feels sticky, add some flour.

Divide and Shape the bagels.
Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and spray lightly with oil. Divide dough into 2 3/4 to 3 ounce pieces, or, if you don’t have a scale, into 9 equal pieces. (Reinhart recommends 4 1/2 ounce bagels, which I found to be too large and difficult to work with.) Roll each piece into a ball, place on parchment, cover with a damp towel and let rest for 20 minutes. With your finger or thumb, poke a hole in each piece and stretch to about an inch in diameter. Try to stretch the dough evenly to avoid thick and thin spots. Place on parchment, cover with a damp towel, and let rest for 20 minutes. To test to determine whether the bagels are ready to go into the refrigerator, fill a medium bowl with cool water. Drop one of the bagels into the water. It should float within 30 seconds. If it doesn’t, pat the bagel dry, return to parchment and let rest for another 10 minutes before testing again. If it does float, pat the bagel dry, cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap. Be careful to create an airtight seal, otherwise the bagels could dry out. Place in the refrigerator overnight (or for up to two days).

On the day you want the bagels (one or two days later):

Get everything ready.
Preheat the oven to 500°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and mist with oil and dust with cornmeal. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and add the baking soda. Have a slotted spoon ready. If you are topping with seeds or salt, have those out and ready. If you are topping with cinnamon and sugar, melt a few tablespoons of butter, and have a cinnamon and sugar mixture ready.

Boil.
Remove the bagels from the refrigerator. Place a few bagels into the boiling water. Be careful not to overcrowd the pot–the bagels will puff up a bit in the water. (I fit about 3 at a time.) Boil for 1 minute, then turn the bagels over and boil for another minute. Place on prepared parchment. (The bagels have a flatter side and a rounder side. Place the flat side down for a more rounded top.) If using seeds or salt, top when the bagels come out of the water. If topping with cinnamon and sugar, wait on that. Repeat with the rest of the bagels.

Bake.
Place baking sheet on the middle rack on the oven and bake for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to 450°F, rotate the baking sheet 180° and bake for an additional 5-8 minutes, or until tops are golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on racks for about 15 minutes. If topping with cinnamon and sugar, brush tops of bagels with butter just after they come out of the oven and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar mixture and let cool.

Yields 9 bagels.

When I mentioned to a few people that I was planning to make Armenian tahini bread, the most common response was, “Where exactly is Armenia?”

This landlocked country in Transcaucasia, bound by Georgia to the north, Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and Turkey to to the south and west, has had a rough go of it. Outsiders repeatedly mistake and confuse its identity when they remember it at all (Clarissa Dalloway’s muddled refrain regarding “the Albanians, or was it the Armenians?” whose genocide her husband was so concerned about comes to mind). Even the term Armenian was likely a result of a mix-up by the Greeks or the Iranians who mistook them for Aramaeans; Armenians called themselves Hayk. (They are still being misrepresented in popular media, Borat’s “Kazakh”-speaking friend was actually speaking Armenian.)

Still, I’ve found something that will help to fix Armenia in my memory at least. This tahini bread is a traditional food for the Christian season of Lent, which is usually a time for fasting and general self-deprivation, but this is an unusual treat. It dispenses with butter, eggs, and cream in favor of a dough enriched with a bit of olive oil and marbled with sugary, cinnamon-scented sesame paste. When I saw the recipe in the January/February issue of Saveur, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Saveur describes these as “a croissant mated with halvah.” I approached them thinking cinnamon rolls, but came away thinking of them as a danish’s much heartier, nuttier cousin. They look deceptively bready–but unlike most breads, they crumble. And ooze tahini.

A slice of one of these makes a satisfying breakfast or a good afternoon companion for tea. It can also pass for dessert.

Armenian Tahini Bread

Source: Adapted from the Jan./Feb. 2007 issue of Saveur magazine. Original recipe can be found here.

Shaping these can be tricky. Don’t be alarmed if some of the tahini-sugar mixture oozes out or the dough develops a little hole. Just patch everything up as well as you can and keep going. Their homey, rustic presentation is part of their charm. I used a blend of all-purpose and white whole wheat flour. I thought the mild whole wheat flavor complemented the sesame well. If you want to use regular whole wheat, I’d adjust it to 1 cup and increase the ap flour to 1 1/2 cups to prevent it from getting too heavy. All ap also would also work, if that’s what you have on hand.

1 1/8 teaspoons instant yeast
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 cups tahini
3/4 cup water, lukewarm

In the bowl of a stand mixer, stir together the flour, yeast, salt, and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Add water and olive oil. Mix with the paddle attachment on low speed until it comes together to form a shaggy dough, about 2 minutes. Switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for about 6 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. It should clear the sides of the bowl.

Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl (it can be the same bowl it was mixed in), and turn the dough once to coat with oil. Cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into two pieces. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for about 10-15 minutes. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Roll out one piece of dough into a long rectangle, about 12-14 inches long and 4-5 inches wide. Spread 1/2 cup tahini over the dough, leaving about 1/4 inch border on all sides. Sprinkle 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon over the tahini.

Starting with one of the long sides, roll the dough over itself into a long cylinder. Pinch the dough together along the seam and on the ends to form a seal. Using a bench scraper or serrated knife, cut the cylinder into three equal pieces. Pinch the newly cut ends together to seal in the tahini mixture.

This is where things get messy. Take one piece and roll and stretch it until it is about 7-8 inches long. Starting with the narrow end, carefully roll the dough cylinder into a spiral and, again, pinch the ends together to form a seal. Flatten the dough with your hand and, with a rolling pin, roll it out into a circle that is 7 inches in diameter. Repeat with the other pieces. Transfer to a prepared baking sheet, leaving at least an inch between each dough circle, and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the tops are light brown.

While the first sheet is in the oven, roll out the other piece of dough and repeat the filling and shaping process. Bake as directed above.

Cool on racks. Slice each round into four pieces before serving.

Yields 6 large rounds, for 24 servings. Best consumed within about 2 days. (Can be frozen and revived in the oven for longer keeping.)