Blood Orange and Peach Fruit Roll-ups

March 1, 2017 Brett

I was a junk food prince as a kid, wrappers strewn across my room. I ate aimlessly and without purpose. I ate to make my teeth sore and to turn my tongue the unnatural shade of "blue raspberry". I ate because my father ate the same way. I ate because it was the only food in the house.

My sister's birthday is the day after Halloween; we'd always go to the dollar store to buy the discounted candy on our way to her birthday party. For Christmas, I would remind my parents every year that I wasn't partial to chocolate, but loved fruit snacks and gummies. When Nolan and I lived in California, I would make a stop to the 7-Eleven for Mike and Ikes when I was stressed from school or work. And when I was in kindergarten, I got an ulcer from stress, too, and my father brought me a candy bar when I wouldn't stop crying because I wasn't a very good reader at the time.

I'm a snacker, a grazer. I munch absentmindedly to pass the time between loads of laundry and replies to my emails. But I'm 25 now and my metabolism is changing and I change with it. I was nervous to reinvent anything from my childhood, but I was excited to use these blood oranges I bought on a whim. And so I made fruit leather, but they'll always be fruit roll-ups to me.

Blood Orange and Peach Fruit Roll-ups

A true blast from the past, these are my favorite kind of recipes. I love sharing with you what it was like growing up in Kentucky and Pennsylvania and the kind of food I ate there. These are so easily adaptable to any fruit, just replace the whole fruit with another of your choice and adjust the liquids and sugars accordingly. Keep in mind that the oven temperature is long and broad and to check periodically, especially the edges, which may burn a bit.

Ingredients:

2.5 lb peaches, roughly chopped

Juice from 3 blood oranges, strained

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4 cup water

1/4 teaspoon salt

Juice of 1 lemon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 200*F and prepare a half sheet with parchment paper

Combine peaches, orange juice, white sugar, water, and salt in a large pot and heat to boil

Reduce heat to a simmer and let simmer for 15 minutes or until peaches are tender

Puree in a blender or food processor until smooth

Strain into a large mixing bowl

Add lemon juice

Pour pureed mixture onto your parchment paper smooth out evenly with a rubber spatula

Bake for 4-6 hours or until it is not sticky to the touch

Peel and check the backs--if still sticky, flip over and bake an additional hour

Place on parchment paper, roll up, cut into segments and tie with string

Can be kept for up to a week in an airtight container, but may get a little stickier in high humidity

Summer Fruit Scone Cobbler: In Partnership with Falk USA

June 28, 2016 Brett

The Pleiades shared their secrets, but I was left alone. How dark the world looked when I saw it through a makeshift telescope, a paper towel roll that someone else had bought and thrown away. There is muscle memory for imagination; I’m exercising that muscle more and more now that I have moved back home. To the house I grew up in. Where I spent my summers as a child, eating canned ravioli and swimming in the creek behind my house. I read books about dragons. Somehow magic seems more real to me than loving the brother I never see.

Forgiveness isn’t a muscle I train very well. It’s not one I’m used to, so I’ve let it atrophy since I left home.

Since I moved to California.

Since I was in law school.

Since I moved to Texas.

Since I was unemployed.

Since I studied art and smoked a pack a day.

Since I stayed with a male go-go dancer whose name I could never pronounce.

Since I ate nothing but stale bagels from my work.

Since I left it all behind to start again and again and again, rebuilding homes from whispered promises when I was wrapped in another person’s arm.

Back when those kisses were flint and my imagination was tinder. I let my world burn down more than once. I’m nothing if not consistent.

And when I came home, it all changed for me. I could smell the summer on the frost. I could tell it was different now, that there were creek rocks that had my initials carved in them and a stunted rose bush grew where I buried my first rabbit. That life wasn’t hard and hearts break as easily as a fingernail. And I’ve broken both.

So I sit and I read now. I look for faces in clouds and the veins in marble. I think of the thousand words I want to learn in French and the handful I want to say to my mother. I sleep with my dog, we share a pillow. He breathes so much faster than I do. He hates the air conditioner. I take two baths a day sometimes and I always forget how much cream my mother likes in her coffee, so I’ve given up on pouring hers.

And I’ll never grow angel wings, but I plan on leaving here soon. I’ll probably always mistake the frogs that sing for mockingbirds; but that’s part of who I am here. A great pretender, a secret-keeper, a dreamer with his nose in the air. And I may forget I have a brother from time to time, but the lightning bugs are moving constellations and I can wish on any one of them I choose.

When my eyes have finished adjusting.

This recipe is my ode to summer. To all the fruits they sell in farm stands next to trailer parks in my little hometown in Pennsylvania: stone fruit and ruby berries. The pits in my stomach and the strawberry moon. An ode to all the memories I’m making since I moved back home. I’ll never have anything better, but I’ll dream of winter in Brussels and springtime in the desert soon, when I get too used to waking up content.

Summer Fruit Scone Cobbler

This recipe is about approximations. It's about what feels and tastes right. Know your fruit and make it intuitive. Use more of one fruit and less of another if you'd like. Know how tart or ripe it all is and how it will work together and adjust your flavors and sugar from here. The flour in the fruit portion will make for a nice, gooey mixture. And, finally, do not pack your fruit too tightly in, as the juices are liable to overflow. Use my recipe for the fruit portion as more of a suggestion than as a mandate, because fruit varies as much as personalities can. Yields one cobbler in a 12 to 14 inch pan. And while I know this recipe will fair just fine in any other type of pan, there is something about the gentle and reassuring heat conductivity of copper that gives this recipe a whole added layer of flavor and beauty.

Ingredients for fruit portion:

4 peaches, pitted and sliced
3 red plums, pitted and sliced
8 strawberries, hulled and sliced
½ pint of raspberries
½ pint of blackberries
2 tablespoons Gran Marnier or similar liquor (optional)
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
½ cup white sugar
¼ cup clover or similarly spiced honey
½ tablespoon salt
zest and juice of half a lemon
1 tablespoon orange zest
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract

Ingredients for the scone portion:

2/3 cup buttermilk, very cold (may need less, depending on altitude and flour absorption)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup cornmeal, fine-ground
½ cup white sugar + more for sprinkling
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, very cold
¼ cup of dried cherries
2 tablespoon whole milk
scant ¼ cup sliced almonds

Ingredients for the whipped cream:

2 cups heavy cream, cold
¼ cup white sugar
½ cup confectioner’s sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
½ tablespoon Gran Marnier or similar liquor (optional)

Directions:

For the fruit portion:

Prep your baking dish with softened butter, rubbing it into all corners of your dish. Don’t bother skimping—it adds flavor and makes cleanup easier. For the best results for this dish, I chose baking mine in my 28 centimeter Falk copper au gratin pan. A cast iron pan would work as well, but the conductivity of the copper is superb for this dish.
Cut all of your fruit and add with your berries to a large metal bowl
Add all remaining fruit portion ingredients (liquor, flour, sugar, honey, salt, lemon zest and juice, orange zest, and vanilla)
Stir gently with a wooden spoon
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate while you work on your scone. Fruit will macerate and juices will begin to flow in the bowl during your remaining prep

For the scone portion:

In a measuring cup, whisk together buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla. Set aside
In a food processor, pulse together flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt, and baking powder until just combined (one or two pulses)
Add butter. Pulse 8-10 times or until fats are incorporated into dry ingredients and pea-sized
With motor running, pour wet ingredients slowly through the feeding tube until a wet dough begins to form
Turn dough out onto a floured work surface and sprinkle dried cherries on top of dough.
Pat into a disc that is about 1.25” in thickness and 9 inches in diameter
Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes
While dough is resting, preheat the oven to 425*F
Remove fruit from refrigerator and pour contents and juices into your prepared au gratin pan, smoothing to make one layer
After your half hour has elapsed, unwrap your dough and pat back into its disc shape
Using a sharp, floured knife, cut into 8 sections
Brush each with your remaining whole milk, sprinkle with sugar and almonds

For the cobbler:

Place on top of your fruit, evenly spaced apart. Press dough down slightly into your fruit
When oven is preheated, bake dish for 30-35 minutes. The water content in the fruit juice may cause the bottom of your scones to be slightly less baked than the tops. Begin checking at 30 minutes for a nice, even golden brown on the tops and a paler tan on the bottoms for doneness
While cobbler is baking, whip your heavy cream, using the whisk attachment of your stand mixer or a hand mixer (or a whisk, if you’re brave enough!)
When peaks begin to form, slowly add your white sugar, then your confectioner’s sugar
Heavy, glossy peaks will form; next, add your liquor and extract
Scrape with a rubber spatula into a dish for serving
Remove cobbler from the oven when ready and serve immediately
This dish is good for up to 3 days, if refrigerated and stored properly (but best served warm right out of the oven with a dollop of liquor-spiked cream, in my humble opinion)

This post was created in partnership with Falk Culinair copper cookware. Since 1958, this brand has established itself as one of the most trusted names in the culinary world. With its timeless designs and its multi-use products, every kitchen can benefit from Falk--I know mine has. You can learn more about Falk USA by visiting their website, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

A Better Biscuit with King Arthur Flour (and a giveaway!)

August 30, 2015 Brett

The last days of summer parade like soldiers before me. Stoic, orderly. I cannot see the end, but I sense it's nearing. Hard footsteps. A military cadence led by a dawn mockingbird. It leaves me lazy, languid. It leaves me watching sunsets in traffic, unbuttoning my shirt to let the air dry my chest. I keep promising to go to the park when I have the time, the energy. The economy of both ran out sometime in mid-July.

But Sundays come like clockwork and I never seem to be done with the laundry in time. I wait until it all piles up around me--bills, socks, excuses, before I sit in the turnstile of chores and think "I need a break." And the small moments of breakfast and coffee, of laying with my dogs before the day really begins, of greeting Sunday with an old familiarity, they make the chores bearable. They give me something to look forward to. They make the growing up part okay, even when summer is finite and we all know Persephone will inevitably eat the pomegranate seeds again and again, ad infinitum. Death and taxes might be the constants of a bookended life, but an unfulfilled summer seems just as scary, when you realize you have 9 months to make up for lost time next year.

But today, I relax. I sit, I make coffee. I thought about going to get a newspaper and then I realized I don't read the newspaper. I drink more coffee. I made these biscuits. Biscuits have always been a synesthetic anchor to my childhood, somewhere in the limns of tactile crumbs and the warm, buttered smell. When she was working, she'd make hers from a tube that popped, dough overflowing out of the broken cardboard seal. When she took summers off, when it was Sunday, when the laundry would pile up from three kids and a lazy husband, she'd find an excuse to make her biscuits homemade. (In reality, she was looking for any excuse she could get to distract herself from all the responsibilities that pile up around you.)

She'd grease the pan with bacon fat and cut the butter in herself. Sometimes she'd use shortening, sometimes she'd make gravy. One time she added a little orange juice from concentrate and they burned around the edges. These variations came and went, but there were constants: a white coffeepot that stayed on until the afternoon when it began to burn, homemade jam she had canned from the summer before, and a bag of King Arthur Flour on the kitchen counter, scrunched close and flour dusting her nightgown.

When King Arthur Flour reached out to me to be a part of their Better Biscuit campaign by using their Unbleached Self-Rising Flour, I thought of this fading summer and how vivid those small luxuries of Sunday breakfasts were. How I, like my mother, bake to escape the lives we find ourselves in. How the baker's escapism is only one facet of our personality, and the one we both look forward to the most. And how, consistently, King Arthur Flour has been on my countertop for moments like this: when you just want to relax on a Sunday morning and not think about anything else but breakfast.

And I want to share those memories with you, so you can create them with your own family. So you can make traditions through some baked goods, so you can have King Arthur dusting your countertops. In collaboration and with KAF sponsoring this post, I am giving away a $25 gift card to use at their online shop. To enter: Leave a comment below on on my instagram, telling me your own favorite biscuit memory with your loved ones. A winner will be picked on Thursday, September 3, 2015 at 12:00 pm PST and will be announced after that. (Open to US residents only). And if you want to participate in the Better Biscuit campaign, use the hashtag #betterbiscuits and tag @kingarthurflour on instagram!

A Better Grilled Stone Fruit Shortcake with Wine Meringue

An ode to the last matchsticks of summer. Using King Arthur Flour's self-rising flour and adapting an old scone recipe, I designed a perfectly flaky, flavorful biscuit that works great as a shortcake base. Add some grilled peaches or plums and a wine reduction for an Italian meringue, and you have an simple and satisfying breakfast, brunch, or dessert for those long summer days. Makes 6 to 8 biscuits.

Ingredients for the biscuits:

2 1/2 cup KAF self-rising flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup brown sugar, light or dark
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoon shortening, very cold
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, very cold
3/4 cup buttermilk or whole milk (if using whole milk, add 1/2 teaspoon of white vinegar)
1/3 cup jam (preferably peach), warmed in saucepan or microwave until viscous)
2 tablespoon heavy cream
1/2 tablespoon of turbinado sugar (optional)

Directions for the biscuits:

Preheat oven to 450*F
In the bowl of a food processor, add flour, baking powder, brown sugar, and salt. Pulse three times to combine
Add both fats and pulse 4 to 6 times, or until butter and shortening mix into dry ingredients and are pea-sized
In a measuring cup, whisk buttermilk and melted jam together to combine and, with the food processor running, slowly pour wet ingredients through feeding tube until dough begins to form
Turn out onto a floured work surface and pat into a round that is about one inch thick and 6 inches around
Cut biscuits out and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush with cream and sprinkle with turninado sugar
Bake for 14 minutes at 450*F. (Continue with rest of recipe during this time.)
Allow to cool before serving

Ingredients for the grilled stone fruit:

3-4 peaches, plums, or other stone fruit, halved and pitted
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
Black pepper

Directions for the grilled stone fruit:

Get your grill very hot (high heat) before beginning this recipe to ensure a fierce sear and nice grill lines
Brush oil onto prepared fruit and place, flesh-side down onto the grill
Grill for 8-12 minutes, checking sporadically, until flesh is caramelized and easy to pull off grill
Sprinkle with a small amount of black pepper for taste (optional)

Ingredients for the wine meringue:

1 cup wine, red or white (see note below)
1/2 cup white sugar
4 egg whites, room temperature
pinch of cream of tartar (optional, but suggested)

Directions for the wine meringue:

In a saucepan, heat wine and sugar on medium-high heat and allow to boil. Hardly stirring, allow mixture to come to a boil and reduce to a syrup at around 240*F on a candy thermometer
While this is reducing, whip egg whites (with your tartar, if using) in a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment on high until stiff peaks form
When wine syrup is ready and with mixer on medium, very carefully pour a thin stream of the syrup into the meringue, increasing the speed gradually until all syrup is incorporated
Continue whipping on high until you have a stiff peak form that holds its shape

To Assemble: Cut biscuit in half and top with meringue, add grilled fruit and enjoy any time of day.

Note: I used white wine for this recipe myself, but I am confident red would yield the same results. I was originally just using peaches for this recipe, so it was intuitive to use white; but red for plums. Further, i just don't like red and never have it in the house, haha