Summer Fruit Scone Cobbler: In Partnership with Falk USA

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:

1. 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.
2. Cut all of your fruit and add with your berries to a large metal bowl
3. Add all remaining fruit portion ingredients (liquor, flour, sugar, honey, salt, lemon zest and juice, orange zest, and vanilla)
4. Stir gently with a wooden spoon
5. 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:

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

For the cobbler:

1. Place on top of your fruit, evenly spaced apart. Press dough down slightly into your fruit
2. 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
3. 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!)
4. When peaks begin to form, slowly add your white sugar, then your confectioner’s sugar
5. Heavy, glossy peaks will form; next, add your liquor and extract
6. Scrape with a rubber spatula into a dish for serving
7. Remove cobbler from the oven when ready and serve immediately
8. 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. 

"Peaches and Cream" Cornmeal Galette

The stunted peaches make for a good pie. Bruised and small, they drop like stones. I catch them before the birds have a chance. They’re more stone than flesh. They’re more figment than statue. They’ll be gobbled up when the cicadas come; so I made a couple pies now to enjoy with coffee in the morning.

"Peaches and Cream" Corneal Galette

Ingredients for the crust

• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 ¾ cup flour
• ¼ cup sugar
• 2/3 cup cornmeal
• 4 TB butter, cold
• 3 ½ TB shortening, cold
• 1 egg
• 2 TB vanilla
• 6-8 TB ice water

Ingredients for the filling

• 2-3 peaches, sliced
• Juice and zest from half a lemon
• 2 TB sugar
• 1 TB flour (can exclude if your fruit isn't that juicy)
• 1 cup crème fraîche (highest quality you can get. I am in love with Vermont Creamery’s)
• 2 TB butter, softened
• 1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 2 TB honey
• 1 TB vanilla extract
• Egg wash, one egg mixed with 1 TB of water, for sealing and browning
• Extra granulated sugar, for sprinklin

Directions

1. In a food processor, combine salt, flour, sugar, and cornmeal
2. Add fats and pulse until the size of peas
3. Add egg and vanilla, pulse to combine
4. With motor running, add water, one tablespoon at a time, through feeding tube
5. When dough begins to form, turn food processor off
6. Turn out onto a floured work surface and pat into a disc
7. Halve, shape into two smaller discs
8. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for half an hour
9. Preheat oven to 400*F and prepare a sheet pan with parchment paper
10. While dough is resting, slice your peaches and add zest and juice of your lemon
11. Put in bowl with sugar and flour, set aside
12. Whisk together crème fraîche, confectioner’s sugar, butter, honey, and vanilla until well-combined, set aside
13. After the 30 minutes has lapsed, remove one disc from refrigerator and put on your floured work surface
14. Roll out into an 8-inch disc and transfer to your prepared parchment to continue work
15. Leaving a one-inch margin on all sides, spoon half of your crème fraîche into the center of the disc and spread thinly around
16. Add peach slices
17. Using a pastry brush, dip into egg wash and run along the perimeter of your one-inch margin
18. Fold crust toward center, crimping and pressing to seal
19. Repeat with second disc
20. Add egg wash to crust and sprinkle with sugar
21. Bake for 28-35 minutes, checking at the 25 minute mark for any burning
22. Eat immediately, if possible, but can stay in a sealed container for two day

This post was inspired by Vermont Creamery, who excel at making quality dairy products. Check out their website, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter for more information. Thank you!

Popsicle Week 2k16: Summer, and this Mango Chili Popsicle

There are more seasons than four.  Summer is a procession of seasons. The Dandelion Season, the Firefly Season, the Stone Fruit Season. They’re signifiers, signaled by the Appalachian muezzin of the spring peeper’s call. They get us through the long stretches of daylight. The sun doesn’t set until 9:04 tomorrow.

I spent the better part of last week drunk, asleep on a couch and laughing with my family. We spent the week in North Carolina, in a house that used to be owned by my brother that is now a second home to my parents. I ate strawberries with my fingers and fed my dog the egg yolks my mother wouldn’t eat. I got a sunburn that turned my shoulders copper. I didn’t cry when I said goodbye to anyone in particular, but I cried a hell of a lot when I found out my sister was having a girl.

It was 2 hours to the beach each way and the ice melted in the cooler by the time we got there. My grandfather in his jeans, smoking a pipe on the beach. Anachronistic, misplaced, his very presence sitting in the lawn chair representative of every conversation we have together. My mother and aunt tanning on a quilt made by a great aunt, falling asleep with canned margaritas in their hands. We stayed until the gulls came too close. My uncle complained that the seashells were nicer in Florida. My mother complained the taffy was cheaper last year, but she bought four boxes anyway.

This is summer to me. The laughter, the sweat, the incandescent horseflies that reflect the pool tarp. Lazy, awkward, uncomfortable. Each moment was one I used to treasure when I was still in school; and if I didn’t have these small signifiers, they’d all bleed together into one long season.

And between Canned Margarita Season and Fireworks Season, there is Billy from Wit and Vinegar's Popsicle Week. Last year, I made Caramel Corn popsicles, and this year I opted for mango and chili. A chorus, a solstice, the melting of velvet on the tongue. Make these to combat the summer heat; make these to celebrate it.

Mango Chili Popsicles

Makes 4 popsicles (as that is what my mold yields), but the recipe can easily be multiplied.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup coconut cream solids (I had to use 2 cans of full-fat coconut milk for this)
• 1 mango
• 1 TB olive oil
• ¼ cup honey, separated
• 2 TB brown sugar
• ¼ cup confectioner’s sugar
• 2 TB orange juice
• ½ TB vanilla
• ½ TS paprika
• 1 TB chili powder, plus more for sprinkling
• 1 TB white sugar, for sprinklin

Directions:

1. Prior to beginning, refrigerate your cans of coconut milk for 8+ hours until solids separate
2. When ready, making sure not to shake the cans, gently spoon out the coconut cream and put into a bowl
3. Turn your broiler on high and prepare a baking sheet with aluminum foil
4. Slice your mango in half and coat with olive oil, one tablespoon of honey, and the brown sugar
5. Broil for 5-7 minutes until top is browned
6. Remove and allow to cool briefly before spooning fruit into the bowl of a food processor
7. Pulse 10 times or until smooth
8. Add confectioner’s sugar, orange juice, vanilla, paprika, and chili powder
9. Pulse once or twice to combine
10. Finally, add your coconut cream and blend for one minute to aerate the mixture slightly
11. To make this extra smooth, put mixture through a sieve into a measuring cup (for easy pouring)
12. Pour into your molds (this makes four)
13. Mixture is thick enough to add popsicle stick before setting into freezer for 6+ hours
14. When ready to eat, dip mold in hot water for 5-10 seconds and it should slide out
15. Sprinkle with more chili powder and some sugar and enjoy immediately –this is a soft popsicle and will melt fairly suddenly
16. Enjoy!

Make sure to check out all of the other exciting popsicles this week!

Bookends: A Macaron Cake

I danced on a lamppost and smoked a joint on a statue of a snake. I kissed a boy on a stone curb and crammed into the back of a Fiat with four other students. I ate nothing but bread for a week. I thought I was in love with a one-night stand, so I made him tea and milk and lost his number in the morning.  My professor invited me to a roof top party and I got so drunk I sat in a corner, silent, and thought about my uncle’s funeral the next day.

And when fall break hit, I bought a train ticket to Paris. 11 hours, through Lyon. I packed a bag with black t-shirts and a carton of cigarettes. I never made it to Paris, though. There were terror threats in the city that day, so I went to Florence instead. I smoked all the cigarettes in twelve days. I fell in love with every person I saw on the subway home. I got so drunk at the only gay bar I knew about that I ordered two crepes for me and one for my friend who tagged along. I took a shot of vodka from a sweating bottle in the backseat of a cab. I never made it to Paris, but I felt like I was writing a poem during my time in Rome: disconnected, unplanned, high on bummed weed and pills when they were offered. It was a narrative I crafted, harbored in the crawl space of my self-esteem.

It wasn’t so bad, but I wish I had made it to Paris.

Three years later I was unemployed in California. Still hadn’t made it to Paris, though I had promised myself I would when I became a lawyer. I promised myself that every day until I quit law school and couldn’t get a job. I still smoked cigarettes then, and wore a lot of black, but I spent my days on a hammock, thinking about how all my potential was prematurely ejaculated once I graduated high school.

So I fought with my boyfriend about money. About cereal that went stale and if I really needed a lamp next to my bed. About how to raise the dog we bought together in Los Angeles and if love was enough to stay awake in this sleeping relationship much longer.

And in between pretending to learn a language and lying on my resume, I learned to bake. Slowly at first, then gradually I got better.  I watched cooking shows in the morning and stretched a dollar any way I knew how. Egg whites for a meringue cake and then the yolks for a custard. Flour from the dollar store and I’d skip my car payment for a month to buy quality chocolate. I only cooked French food early on, to challenge myself. To prove to myself something. I fucked up a bundt cake pretty bad once and cried about it for an afternoon. When my confidence was so fragile, even that was too much to bear. I didn’t bake for a month after that and I remember I always avoided one recipe in particular: the French sandwich cookie, the macaron.

Since then, I’ve made scones, bundt cakes, and galettes. Cakes, cookies, and ice cream. But never a macaron. Until this week, when I realized how far I’ve come and a thousand of miles in between who I was and who I am now. I don’t wear so much black anymore. I’m writing a new narrative. I use an old Coors Light bottle as an ashtray on my parents’ front porch. I made a macaron cake, pink and tart and nutty because I figured, “Why not?” Because that’s who I am now—someone who isn’t creating identity but poetry. Physical, tangible poetry set between the bookends of an uncle’s death in Rome and a crumbling relationship in California. And who I am now doesn’t say, “No” often, especially when I get the chance to bake or bum a cigarette. 

Macaron Cake with Cherry Buttercream

I am fully aware that this isn't a proper technique and is a more whimsical approach to the French confection. Makes one 6-inch cake.

Ingredients for cake base

• 1 ½ cup almond meal
• 1/3 cup AP flour
• 1 ½ cup confectioner’s sugar
• 4 egg whites
• 1/3 cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon white vinega

Directions for cake base

1. Prep your parchment by drawing your 6-inch circles as your guide for piping. Put parchment on a half sheet
2. Sift together almond meal, flour, and confectioner’s sugar in a large bowl and set aside
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until they are beyond frothy but not quite solid
4. Begin to add your sugar in a stream with motor still running
5. As you continue to beat, the egg whites should solidify and be a little shiny
6. Add your white vinegar to stabilize the meringue
7. Turn mixer off and add about a half cup of the flour mixture to the meringue mixture. Fold it into the egg whites. When mixed, add remainder of the flour mixture gradually, continuing to fold as you go
8. When fully mixed, put into your piping bag and pipe into your pre-drawn rounds
9. Set out for 30 minutes at room temperature
10. Preheat oven to 300*F
11. Bake for one hour, checking at the 40-minute mark and every ten minutes after until you notice a hard shell that is set
12. While baking, move onto the cherry buttercream
13. Remove from oven and allow to cool completel

Ingredients for the cherry buttercream

• 2 cups cherries, pitted
• Juice and zest of a half lemon
• ½ cup white sugar
• 2 TB unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 1 TB vanilla
• Pinch of sal

Directions for cherry buttercream

1. In a small saucepan, stir together your lemon zest and juice, cherries, and sugar
2. Boil on medium until juices of the cherry are released and it is reduced by half. You will have a syrupy product
3. Cool completely
4. In a bowl, using either your stand mixer or a hand mixer, beat your butter and confectioner’s sugar together, it will create a thick and dry paste
5. With your mixer still on low, pour a thin stream of syrup into your confectioner’s sugar mixture and beat until it is whipped and a light pink
6. Add vanilla and a pinch of sal

To Assemble: Turn one of your macaron discs over so the flat surface is facing upward. Spread as much of the buttercream as you’d like on top, place second disc on top of first and dust with confectioner’s sugar. Saves for up to two days, even at room temperature.

A Gateau Breton Story: In Partnership with Vermont Creamery

I know the value of nourishment now. I used to smoke cigarettes until I got sick. I drank coffee and added packets of sugar to make it bearable. I ate pizza in my college mini fridge and ignored phone calls from my dad when he said he missed me.

I know what nourishment is now, to be mindful of the present. To pick quality. To say sorry. To spend time with my family, to remember birthdays and anniversaries and baby showers. I’m spending the week at my parents’ home in North Carolina, with my uncles and aunts and cousins from Indiana. I’m different than I was when I saw them last—at a grandfather’s funeral or at an obligatory Christmas in middle school. I’m different because I laugh more now; I can’t take life so seriously. I got a beer for my cousin who looks like me and we each took a drag on my brother-in-law’s Pall Mall.

It’s something I needed, to grow up. To try a little harder than what I was used to. I see the world in its potential rather than through my obsession with opportunity. Its potential to reincarnate itself into a thousand manifestations of God and God is a thousand manifestations of endeavor.

Trial and error.

Forgiveness.

I made this cake before I left. I kept it simple. I kept it about quality, about the ingredients I had in my pantry. I made a gateau breton, more shortbread than cake. A performance of cultured butter and confectioner’s sugar. A dance between countryside fever dreams and beach-going haze. A nod to my vacation with rum-soaked cherries. A dessert that lasts for days and is gone in minutes. Like respect, like quality, like forgiveness.

Cultured Butter Gateau Breton with Rum-Soaked Cherries

Adapted from Nigella Lawson's gateau breton recipe, with rum-soaked cherries and a tanginess of cultured butter with a high quality product from Vermont Creamery.

Ingredients

• ¼ cup dried cherries
• 2 TB coconut rum (or any rum or whiskey you may enjoy)
• 1 ½ c AP flour
• 2 tablespoon cornstarch
• ¾ cup white sugar
• Pinch of salt
• ¾ cup culture butter, softened
• 7 egg yolks, separated
• 1 TB vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon grated ginger
• Zest of 1 lemo

Directions

1. In a small bowl, soak cherries and rum and let sit
2. Prepare an 8-inch springform pan (or cake pan, if you don’t have a springform pan…no need to stress over it) with butter and parchment paper
3. Preheat oven to 375*F
4. In the bowl of the stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, sift together flour, cornstarch, salt, and sugar
5. Add butter and mix on medium-low. Batter will be crumbly
6. Begin adding 6 of your yolks, one at a time. Add the subsequent yolk once previous is fully mixed
7. Add zest, ginger, and vanilla. Mix for a few seconds to fully incorporate
8. With a sieve, drain cherries
9. Fold cherries into the batter (note that the batter will be thick and sticky)
10. With floured hands, pat the batter into the prepared pan and smooth out the top with a wetted spoon
11. Now, with your seventh egg yolk, mix with a tablespoon of water and spread this glaze atop the batter
12. Cut a diagonal pattern into the batter and sprinkle with a small amount of sugar
13. Bake for 15 minutes at 375*F; reduce oven to 350*F and continue baking for an additional 25-30 minutes (begin checking at the 25 minute mark)
14. Let cool completely and remove from pan. This is a hardy cake and will do well with a little confectioner’s sugar and perhaps a squeeze of lemon
15. Cut on your diagonals to serv

This post was inspired by Vermont Creamery, who excel at making quality dairy products. Check out their website, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter for more information. Thank you!