Category: peach

by Rachel Sally

O.C.D.

Or, alternately, Why I Shouldn’t Be Left Alone In the Kitchen.

 Or perhaps, Why I Shouldn’t Be Allowed on the Internet.

 Hello, my name is Rachel, and I am a perfectionist and an obsessive-compulsive, bossy, unstable control freak.
Doesn’t that just make you want to live with me forever and ever?
Don’t answer that.

Alas, I admit it, I am.  I’m so glad I have you all here to support me.  
The thing is, when I get an idea up in my head, I can’t let go of it.  I saw a picture on the dreaded interweb the other year day of little rosettes made of mangoes.  On a pie.
I died.

In addition, my mind was wrapped around the idea of marrying nectarines and gingersnaps.
Oh yeah, and I was so very intrigued by peach pits that I wanted to do something with noyaux, à la Bravetart.
Besides, I had already been hoping to freeze some peaches, what with the abundance right now, to save for winter. 

Oooh! Also, croissants.  For tea.  With company.

So yes, today I am presenting you with not only a laminated dough, but also a labor intensive tart. 

If, by the off chance, you aren’t as… shall we say, crazy… as me, feel free to dump the nectarine slices on haphazardly.  It tastes good.  That’s what matters.
I suppose I understand if you don’t want to undertake making croissants, but please, put them on your bucket list.  They aren’t half as hard as they’re made out to be, and they will impress your friends and terrify your enemies.  

And as for the peach pits?  I managed to crack two open, using a giant mallet and some pliers, but gave up when I discovered that I had rent a gash in my favorite bamboo cutting board.  (Damn pits!)  While I possibly could have done something with those two measly noyaux, when I awoke the next morning, all the peach pits had been trashed.  Ah, well.

 

Nectarine, Lemon, and Gingerbread Tart
For the crust: (adapted from The Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts)
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
BIG pinch each of ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, sea salt, and cardamom
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 stick very cold butter, cubed
1 tablespoon molasses
ice water as needed
Directions:
Put the flour, sugar, spices, and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor.  Pulse to combine.  Pulse in the butter and molasses until there are small bits of butter, ranging from sandy to pea-sized.  If the dough is too dry, add in ice water, a tablespoon at a time, until it can stick together when pressed.  Press the dough into a buttered tart pan, prick with a fork, cover with a sheet of aluminum foil that has been buttered (press the foil right down into the pan), and freeze, for at least 30 minutes, or up to 1 day.  When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, put some pie weights (you won’t need as many because the shell has been chilled) on top of the foil, and bake until deep golden brown and fragrant, 20-25 minutes.  Allow to cool.
For the filling:
Ingredients:
3/4 cup lemon curd 
1/2 cup to 2/3 cup mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons powdered sugar (or to taste: it doesn’t need much)
Directions:
Whip the heavy cream and mascarpone and powdered sugar together (I used an immersion blender because it is super fast and effective).  Fold in the lemon curd.  I actually made this in two parts, folding the lemon curd into some of the whipped mixture, then layering that into the tart with the plain whipped cream/cheese on top of that.
To assemble:
Ingredients:
5 or 6 nectarines, sliced as thinly as possible
Directions:
Pour the whipped filling into the tart shell, and smooth the top.  To make nectarine rosettes, gently curl the thinnest pieces of nectarine you can find, and stick them into the filling.  Then begin to place other pieces around, with less curl.  Once you are sick of rosettes, you can just place gently curled pieces around and in between, to take away the white space and act as filler.  

Whole Wheat Sourdough Croissants:
adapted from Christina Tosi’s Momofuku Milk Bar
Ingredients:
for the dough:
550 g white whole wheat flour
12 g kosher salt
3.5 g active dry yeast
370 g water, at room temperature
for the butter block:
2 sticks butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Directions: 
Mix all the dough ingredients together with a dough hook in a mixer, until smooth and supple.  Place in an oiled container that is covered but still has air flow (like a bowl with a damp dish towel cover, or a plastic bucket with a top that has a few holes poked in it).  If you want the sourdough component, stick the dough in your fridge for at least 2 days, but up to a week, then pull it out and let it come to room temp, then rise in a warm place until double its original size.  If you don’t, allow the dough to rise to at least double its orignial size, then begin to make your croissants.  When you’re ready to make the croissants, beat your butter in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment until fluffy.  Pat it into a 8 x 12 rectangle between two sheets of parchment paper.  Put it in the fridge to firm up.  Meanwhile, punch down the dough on a smooth, floured countertop, and roll/stretch it gently into  a rectangle 16 x 24 inches, and even in thickness.  Put your slightly firm butter block on one half of the dough, then fold the other half of the dough over and pinch the edges shut.  Let rest for 10 minutes.  Now, you must do 3 double book turns to create the layers.  Here’s how:  Roll the the dough out again to a rectangle of 16 x 24 inches and even in thickness.  Be gentle, so that you don’t have any butter mushing out.  Visualize your dough divided into 4 quarters.  Fold the outer two quarters to the center, then bring one edge over to meet the other (Tosi says: When I’m showing someone how to make a double book turn, I stretch my monkey arms out wide like I’m going in for a big hug, then I fold my arms at the elbow, so my fingers are touching my armpits, and fold my elbows in to touch one another.)  Now transfer your dough to the fridge to rest, wrapped loosely in plastic wrap, for 30 minutes.  Repeat the double book turn twice more.  After the final rest in the fridge, roll your dough out to a 16 x 24 inch rectangle, then cut the dough into 10 triangles (like a backgammon board), putting a small notch on the base of each Isosceles triangle.  Roll em up, allow to rise for about 45 minutes, or until puffed up, then brush them with an egg wash (1 egg+1 teaspoon water), and bake for 20-25 minutes at 375 degrees F.  

by Rachel Sally

Pas Beaucoup

«Aimer, ce n’est pas se regarder l’un l’autre, c’est regarder ensemble dans la même direction.»
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, extrait du Terre des Hommes


Comme c’est belle, non?
Ça c’est tout pour aujourd’hui.  Bien, cela et cette galette simple.

Un mariage tellement beau


Les bleuets si doux


Une pêche parfait


Finalement, ensemble.

 

Galette aux amandes, pêches, et bleuets
Ingredients:
1/2 recipe of all-butter (I’m serious. No crisco crap.) pie dough (enough for a single crust)
1 punnet blueberries
5 or so small peaches
1/4-1/3 cup sugar, depending on how sweet your fruits are
handful of sliced almonds
3 tablespoons almond flour
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Chill your pie dough in the fridge.  Meanwhile, slice up your peaches thinly, and toss them with the blueberries and sugar.  Remove pie dough from fridge and roll it out thinly into a large circle.  Pile the fruit in the middle, and gently fold up the sides of the galette (it doesn’t have to be perfect).  Sprinkle with the almond flour and almonds, and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the fruit is bubbling and the crust is golden brown.


by Rachel Sally

Stoned

I’m referring to stoned fruits, of course: those token fruits of summer.  Juicy, sweet, ripe peaches, plums, nectarines, cherries, and apricots.

Now that summer has started and these fruits abound, I’m in heaven.  Seriously.  There is nothing better on a summer morning than some plain Greek yogurt with a sliced up white peach.  
Summer is a fruit lover’s dream.  Go to your local farmer’s market and take a look around: you’re sure to find some amazing fruits, right along with the towering piles of garlic scapes and swiss chard.  The other weekend, I picked up some beautiful red and green gooseberries and long, slender stalks of rhubarb, which I combined into an olive/pumpkin seed oil-polenta crumble.  It was divine… In fact, it was gone too quickly for me to photograph (ugh), but I’ll share the recipe anyways.  It’s a keeper, for those times when you might have some gooseberries and rhubarb lying around… Actually, it might be worth seeking out these seemingly esoteric ingredients.  Inquire around your local market, I’m sure you can get your greedy paws hands on some.
As for the tart(s) that are in the photos, they were quick almond-plum-nectarine tarts that I whipped up for a dinner guest.  Slightly sweet chantilly topped them off for a perfectly light summer dessert.  I was lucky that I took photos of them that very night, because the next morning not a crumb was left.  

Other than the aforementioned stone fruits, I’m looking forward to a summer bounty of beets, kale, tomatoes, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, spicy carrots, an overwhelming amount of zucchini, melons, peppers, and squash.  I’m always somewhat surprised when I’m reminded of how bountiful the region where I live really is;  I’m always reminded to be thankful.  What are you looking forward to in your CSA baskets, grocery shopping carts, or gardens this summer?

Gooseberry, Rhubarb, and Polenta Crumble
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups red and green gooseberries
6 small stalks of rhubarb, cut into 1/2 inch long pieces
2/3 cup turbinado sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
1/4 cup stone-ground polenta
1/4 cup cornmeal
pinch of sea salt
1/3 cup+ oil (I used pumpkin seed and olive oil, and ended up needing just a splash more)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Toss the gooseberries and rhubarb with 1/3 cup turbinado sugar in an oven-proof dish.  Put them in the oven while you prepare the crumble.  Mix the flour, salt, sugar, and cornmeals in a bowl.  While stirring, add in the oil until the mixture comes together and has a texture like wettish sand.  Pull the fruit out of the oven and top with the crumble.  Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the juices are bubbling at the sides and the crumble is slightly crisp.

Nectarine and Plum Almond Tart
Bits and pieces from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking
Ingredients:
1 recipe tart dough
4 ripe nectarines
3 ripe plums
6 tablespoons butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup blanched, ground almonds
2 teaspoons flour
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 egg
splash vanilla extract
tiny splash almond extract
Directions:
Press your tart dough into your pan , prick with a fork, line with buttered foil, shiny side down, and freeze.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Bake tart dough for 15 minutes.  Pulse the butter and sugar in a food processor until the mixture is smooth.  Add the almonds, flour, and cornstarch and process, then add the egg.  Add the extracts and process for just 15 seconds.  Refrigerate.  Slice up your plums and nectarines into thin slices.  Remove the foil from the shells, pour in the almond cream, and arrange the slices as you desire.  Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the almond cream has puffed up and become golden brown.  Let cool in pan, then remove to serve.  Serve with fresh chantilly if desired (whip cream with a touch of confectioner’s sugar until soft peaks form).  

by Rachel Sally

Autant de Pêches

“Welcome to my herb garden…”


I planted my herb garden.  I’m very excited.  I have rosemary, basil, sage, French tarragon, oregano, marjoram, thyme, and what seems like endless lavender.  For some reason, I can’t stop singing “welcome to my herb garden” to the tune of this. (Warning: probably do not click if you are not within the age range of 14-32, or have a strong aversion to hiphop.  I’m not age discriminating, it’s for your own good.  Promise.)  
Okay, back to your regularly scheduled program: cake.

 

I don’t know if you’ve discerned this by now, but I lalalove peaches. And nectarines, because they’re the same fruit, minus that one itty-bitty fuzz gene. People always leave nectarines out of the discussion. It’s not their fault they don’t grow facial hair, people, it’s a mutation.  So don’t rub it in.
Anyways, my brother is a peach pie kinda guy (then again, who isn’t… Let’s be totally honest here), and he is always demanding asking for one.  His twenty-first birthday was a few weeks ago, in May, but he was in Korea, so we didn’t get to celebrate as a family.  I fancied the idea of a peach pie cake, but I wasn’t quite sure how I would pull it off, until I saw a recipe in Christina Tosi’s Momofuku Milk Bar for “pie crumb” and pie crumb frosting that I knew.  Eating a sweet, ripe peach with a dollop of tangy sour cream is one of life’s greatest pleasures, and whenever I do, it brings me back to a certain family vacation to Cape Cod, my mama slicing up white peaches and serving them to me with sour cream while my dad and brothers watched South Park in the other room (Did I mention that my family is dysfunctional?), so I knew I wanted to make a pie crumb frosting with sour cream for a tang.  I made a peach cake, filled with pie crumbs, peaches, and pie crumb frosting, and topped with more pie crumbs.  The slightly tart taste of the peaches and sour cream mixed with the buttery crumbs and sweet cake was top notch, if I do say so myself.  Because sour cream has a fat content similar to heavy cream, you can whip it into a pretty stable frosting.  I will definitely be using this more often to make cream cheesy frostings.  Christina Tosi is a genius: her pie crumbs are to die for.  I made a batch and a half because I knew I would need insurance against my raging snacking habit.  Yum.  

Peach Pie Cake
Bits and pieces from Momofuku Milk Bar
For the cake:
Ingredients:
2 cups pureed peaches
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk powder
3 ounces butter
3 small eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup buttermilk
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter and flour 2 or 3 eight inch rounds.  Sift the flour, salt, milk powder, and baking powder together.  Beat the butter and sugar together, then beat in eggs one at a time.  Add in the peach puree and vanilla, and beat until combined.  Add in the dry ingredients, alternating with the buttermilk.  Pour into prepared pans and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until springy and golden.
For the pie crumbs:

Ingredients:
320 g flour (2 1/4 cups)
27 g sugar (3 tablespoons)
5 g kosher salt (heaping teaspoon)
178 g butter, melted (1 1/2 sticks)
30 g water (2 1/4 tablespoons)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Add the butter and water slowly, on low speed, until the mixture clumps up.  Spread the clusters out on a parchment lined sheet pan and bake for 25 minutes, or until light golden.  

For the frosting:
(makes enough to frost and fill one four layer cake)
Ingredients:
12 ounces mascarpone
16 ounces sour cream
8 ounces (1 cup) heavy cream
3/4 cup pie crumbs
3/4 cup powdered sugar
Directions:
Blend all ingredients in an immersion blender until thick, creamy, and homogeneous.  The pie crumbs should be broken up into almost invisible pieces.  

To assemble:
Torte the layers.  Frost each with 1/3 cup frosting.  Top with pie crumbs and thinly sliced peaches.  Crumb coat the cake, then put it in the fridge to chill.  Frost with remaining icing, and decorate with pie crumbs.  
Là voilà! Un gâteau de la tarte aux pêches!
 
by Rachel Sally

Easy As…

Alright guys.  It’s time to cut the B.S.  If I see or hear one more person committing themselves to a life of pre-made, store-bought, nasty, preservative-filled pie crust AKA junk in a box (literally), I’m going to lose it.  Think this kind of retaliation for the next lemming who jumps off the precipitous cliff of store-bought crustdom.  Seriously people.  It’s past time to stop.  There is no God-given reason to be afraid of pie crust.  It’s pastry, for heaven’s sake.  There is a reason that the saying is “easy as pie.”  So, without further ado, suck it up, don’t be whiny, and let’s make some pastries.
Yes, you can make this.
These, too!

Rule 1:  The Freezer is Your Friend
I do not care whether you are living in the Sahara or Siberia.  You need to chill your stuff.  Every little piece of it, from the food processor to the flour and especially the butter.  Chilling everything will help the pie or tart dough be flaky, because it will insure that the butter stays cold and in pieces.  Flaky crusts are a result of cold pockets of butter melting in the oven, creating pockets of steam in between layers of flour, thus stratifying your crust.  Yum.

See those pieces? That’s what you want.


Rule 2:  Just Say No to Shortening
I am not of the school of thought that believes shortening contributes to a mind-blowing crust.  And you shouldn’t be, either.  Shortening is icky.  Butter is yummy.  I believe that if you can’t spread something on a piece of toast and shove it in your mouth with a squeal of delight, then it should not be in your pie.  Butter is flavorful fat; shortening is greasy flavorless fat.  All-butter, all good.

Cold butter in, good dough out.

Rule 3:  More is Not Always More

This applies to a few facets of pies and tarts; both the elements and the formation.  Firstly, more butter does not always equal a better crust: a balance must be kept between fat and flour; more fat will only overwhelm the dough and leave you with a greasy mess in the oven.  Also, and this especially goes for pie dough, you don’t need more ingredients than butter, buttermilk, flour, and a pinch of salt and sugar.  No eggs in pie dough.  Please.  Tart dough, however, is a different animal; it needs an egg.  Secondly, fillings should be simple; the essence of a good pie or tart is in its elegant or rustic simplicity: showcasing good ingredients is the goal, not showing them up with too many competing flavors.  Overly sugared fillings are unappetizing and overwhelming.  In terms of the actual making of the stuff, more rolling and more mixing are bad.  More kneading?  Same deal.  This is because of the whole butter-pocket thing again.  If you mush all the butter into invisible pieces, there will be no pockets and you will have a dense mess in the oven.  Let the dough speak for itself; don’t work it to death.  
Fresh ingredients that you would willingly eat on their own.  

Rule 4:  Less is Not Always More

Do not underfill your pie crust.  No one wants to see or experience the gaping canyon between a few layers of cooked-down fruit and your beautifully risen pie dough.  Fill ’em up nice and full, because the fruit will shrink when baking.  Do not automatically add the exact amount of liquid that your recipe calls for: you must play it by ear and eye, because a slightly sticky dough is far better than a dry, crumbly mess that you can never roll out.  Add more if it looks like it needs more.  Simple as that.  

Pressed and ready to be pricked.
Crumbly is good only for tart shells.  Not pie dough

Rule 5: Relax.


Don’t freak out. If you find yourself panicking, shut the front door and take some deep breaths. If your crimps and lattices aren’t perfect… Who cares?  Certainly not the people who are going to be indulging in your delicious, buttery, flaky, fruity pie.  Trust me on this one… They don’t care how it looks.
Everything is going to turn out just fine.
You are now fully prepared to go out and make some great looking and tasting pies.  Go forth and prosper.   And take nary a look towards the refrigerated section of your grocery store.  But really.  I’ll be watching, ready to snatch that Pepperidge Farm crap out of your hands.


Unbeatable Pie Dough
Ingredients:
For a double crust: (halve for a single crust pie)
3 cups all-purpose flour, cold
2 sticks of unsalted butter (16 tablespoons, 8 ounces), cold or frozen, cut into pieces
1/2-1 cup ice cold buttermilk
Healthy pinch salt
1 teaspoon-1 tablespoon sugar, depending on your preference
Directions:
1. Put the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor and chill.  
2.  Once chilled, pulse butter in until the mixture has some butter pieces the size of peas.  
3.  Add the buttermilk in, slowly, with long pulses, until the dough forms a semi-cohesive ball.  If it is too sticky, do not worry, just sprinkle a little more flour on your clean surface when you turn the ball out, and roll it around a bit.  
4.  Divide the dough into two balls, pat into disks, wrap in plastic wrap, and put in fridge for at least 30 minutes, but for up to 3 days.  (Can be frozen for 1 month, just take it out and let it thaw when you want to use it, or, chill it in the fridge and roll it out and shape it to the pan before freezing (then you can go straight from the freezer to oven to mouth).)
5.  Roll the dough out.  When rolling dough out, don’t overdo it.  You want it to be the proper size to fit your dish (about 1 1/2 inches larger radius than the dish), but not any larger (and therefore, thinner), than that.
6.  To par-bake, put in a 350 degrees F oven (pricked with a fork)  for 10-15 minutes, or until palest golden.

Indefatigable Tart Dough
adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking, helpful tips from Smitten Kitchen
Ingredients: 
Makes enough for one 9-inch tart crust1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, cold1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar, cold1/4 teaspoon salt1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 tablespoons; 4 1/2 ounces) very cold or frozen unsalted butter, cut into pieces1 large egg
Directions:
1. Pulse the flour, sugar and salt together in the bowl of a food processor. 
2. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in.
3. Beat the egg gently, and pulse it into the dough.   
4. When the egg is in, process in long pulses–about 10 seconds each–until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds. Just before you reach this stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change–heads up. 
5. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and, very lightly and sparingly, knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing. Chill the dough, wrapped in plastic, for about 2 hours before using.  
6. Rolling this dough can be tricky, due to its crumbly nature, so instead of doing so, simply press it, gently, with your fingers or a cup measure, into a greased tart pan.  Prick all over with a fork (gently!).
7. Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking.
8.  To fully or partially bake the crust: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil (or use nonstick foil) and fit the foil, buttered side down, tightly against the crust. And here is the very best part: Since you froze the crust, you can bake it without weights. Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake the crust for 20 to 25 minutes.9.  Carefully remove the foil. If the crust has puffed, press it down gently with the back of a spoon. Bake the crust about 10 minutes longer to fully bake it, or until it is firm and golden brown, brown being the important word: a pale crust doesn’t have a lot of flavor. (To partially bake it, only an additional 5 minutes is needed.) 
10.  Transfer the pan to a rack and cool the crust to room temperature, and proceed with the rest of your recipe.  
(This dough can be wrapped and kept in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 2 months. While the fully baked crust can be packed airtight and frozen for up to 2 months, the flavor will be fresher if you bake it directly from the freezer, already rolled out.)

Brown-Sugar Peach Pie
Here’s the beauty of working with peaches for pies:  One, they are the most absolutely delicious fruit in a pie, in my opinion, at least, and two, you don’t have to peel them! In fact, the skin only adds to the deliciousness of the peaches, so none of this nonsense about boiling and shocking them to peel ’em.  Lawd have mercy this fruit is a miracle! 
Ingredients:
1 recipe Unbeatable Pie Dough (double crust)
6-8 ripe but firm peaches, depending on the size of your peaches
1/4 cup flour
2 tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca
1/3 cup brown sugar (you don’t need to pack it real tight if your peaches are nice and sweet)
1/4-1/3 cup granulated sugar (same deal as with the brown sugar in terms of quantity)
Healthy pinch of ground cinnamon
Healthy grating of nutmeg
Big pinch of sea salt
1 egg, beaten with 1 teaspoon water
1-2 tablespoons turbinado sugar
Directions:
After rolling out your pie dough and chilling it, cut up your peaches into 8ths and mix them, gently, with all the other ingredients.  Pour into pie crust and top with the other half of your crust, whether in lattice form or just whole, with some slits cut for steam escape routes.  Brush with the egg wash, and sprinkle, generously, with the turbinado sugar.  Bake at 375 degrees F for 45 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown, and you can see peach juice bubbling and peeking through the openings in the crust.

Peach Tart
Ingredients:
1 recipe Indefatigable Tart Dough
3-4 ripe but firm large peaches
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup turbinado sugar
2 tablespoons plus up to one more tablespoon flour(depends how juicy your peaches are)
2 tablespoons butter
Pinch salt
Directions:
After preparing your tart shell (Par-bake it for about 10 minutes, until it’s starting to turn a very light golden color), cut up your peaches into relatively even, thin slices (about 16 pieces per peach).  Pulse the rest of the ingredients until there are small, oatmeal-flake sized pieces of butter.  Arrange the peach slices in a sunburst pattern, then top with the streusel.  It will seem like a lot, but just sprinkle it as evenly as possible over the peaches.  Bake for 35- 45 minutes at 375 degrees F, or until the peaches have released juices that have become thick and sauce-like.  


This pie lasted for a record 8 hours in my house.