Tart Tatin

While most of the time I eat low carb, there are those occasions that just call for something a special.   I'm also the designated family baker.  The fiance and I are having my folks over to dinner tomorrow night for the first time, so I'm making coq au vin and a tart tatin with creme anglaise. 

A tart tatin is just a simple apple tart.  Traditionally it's made in a cast iron pan but if you don't have one, it's still doable.  The creme anglaise is a custard sauce, so basically this is a dressed up version of apple pie with ice cream.

Creme Anglaise

1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
4 egg yolks
1 split vanilla bean or 2 teaspoons good quality vanilla extract
1/3 cup sugar

Fill a large bowl halfway with ice cubes and a little water (not much!!); set aside. 

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, bring the milk, sugar and vanilla bean to a simmer over a medium low heat.  Whisk the egg yolks in a medium sized bowl until they lighten in color, 2-3 minutes.  Once the milk comes to a simmer, take off the stove. 

Here's the fun part - you have to incorporate the hot milk/sugar/vanilla mix into the egg yolks without scrambling them.  While whisking the yolks, drizzle a little of the milk in at a time until it's all incorporated.  Pour the mix back into the saucepan and add the remainder of the cream.   Put the medium size bowl into the ice bath and put a fine sieve into it.  Continue to stir the custard over the stove until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.   Pour through the sieve back into the medium bowl on top of the ice bath, making sure there's no water from the ice bath slopping over into the top bowl.  Remove the seive (which should have caught any lumps that might be in the custard).   Let the custard cool over the ice bath, stirring occasionally.   When cool, pour into a container and cover; refrigerate for several hours. 

If you wanted to, you could also serve this custard warm.  Skip the ice bath, but make sure you seive.

You can also flavor the custard with a couple of tablespoons of liquor, cinnamon, other flavors of extract - it's a really versatile sauce that's great with any kind of fruit pie, crumble, betty, cobbler, or just over fresh fruit.

Tart Tatin

4-5 apples that cook well, such as golden delicious, peeled, cored, and sliced
6 tablespoons butter
1/2 - 1 cup of sugar (how much sugar depends on how tart/sweet the apples are)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons brandy or rum
1 sheet of puff pastry, thawed in the refrigerator

Set a 9 inch glass pie pan out and spray with cooking spray.  Preheat the oven to 400 F.

In a heavy skillet, melt the butter over a medium heat.   Add the apples and stir occasionally until the apples start releasing their juices.  Add the brandy, sugar and cinnamon and continue to stir occasionally until apples are cooked but not mushy.  Using a slotted spoon, remove the apples to the pie pan and spread into an even layer, leaving as much cooking liquid in the pan as possible.  Continue cooking the pan liquid until reduced to a thick syrup.   Pour the syrup evenly over the apples. 

Unfold the puff pastry and push down on top of the apples.  Trim excess off with a knife.   Bake at 400 F for about 20-25 minutes until the pastry is golden brown. 

Let the tart cool for about 10-15 minutes.   Run a sharp knife around the top of the puff pastry to make sure it's not sticking to the pie plan.  Place a large plate with has a little of a lip around it (to catch the juices) on top of the pie pan and carefully flip the pan over so the tart comes out on the plate.  If any of the apples stick to the pan, just replace them on top of the tart.  

Cut into wedges and serve with a spoonful of creme anglaise on top. 

Cake!


My neighbors celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary last week, so my folks asked me to make them a cake for the community meeting. This is what I came up with:











It's a vanilla bean cake with a chocolate mousse filling, chocolate swiss meringue buttercream, and a dark chocolate drizzle across the top of each layer. The tiers are 8 inch, 6 inch, and 4 inch. I did a few tuxedo dipped strawberries to finish it off; it's been over a year since I did any flowers in buttercream/fondant/gumpaste, so I opted to do the berries instead, since I didn't have a lot of spare time to play with the flowers. I packed up the top layer for the anniversary couple to take home, then served the other two layers - not surprisingly, most of it went. The few extra slices got sent home with people. I really had fun making it.

Vanilla!

I thought I'd do a little home brewed vanilla extract primer, because I seem to retype these instructions somewhat regularly.

So - I'm a foodgeek. I brew my own vanilla extract. Yes, you can make your own vanilla extract. It's easy, it's inexpensive after the initial investment, and it's really, really good, especially if you like to bake. Well ok, if you don't like to bake, this is utterly useless to you and you can skip the whole post :-)

First - there's vanilla beans. You've probably seen them at the grocery store, with one or two sad little dried beans stuffed into a glass jar for an outrageous price. Just leave them alone. You'll thank me.

Buy your beans - in bulk - online. I buy through eBay from Vanilla Products USA, usually about a half pound or so at a time. They're reasonably priced (go do a search - you'll see) and great quality - a totally different beast than what you find in a grocery store. You don't need to buy the highest quality beans - I generally buy the cheaper ones, and am quite happy with them.

There are two basic types of vanilla beans. Madagascar Bourbons are robust in flavor and have loads of seeds. They're great for just about anything you want vanilla for. Tahitians are more "floral" in flavor and have fewer seeds. I like the Tahitians better for things like creme anglaise, pastry cream, ice cream base, creme brulee, etc. It's a personal preference - as inexpensive as they are on eBay, get a few of each and play with your food.

To make your own vanilla extract, you need: Vanilla beans + booze + time.

So let's say you bought yourself a half pound of beans from eBay. FYI, you want to store your beans as airtight as possible - I keep mine in a ziploc bag with the air squeezed out, then in a rubbermaid container, then in a dark cabinet. Air dries them out.

In addition to the beans, you need:

1. A glass foodsafe jar (dark glass if you have it, but Mason jars are cheap and work just fine). It's my understanding that plastic breaks down after a period of time so glass is better. You want something with a wide mouth so you can fish the beans out relatively easily at some point.

2. A dark cabinet where you can keep your extract while brewing.

3. Cheap a$$ rotgut vodka, enough to fill your jar - do not waste the good stuff on this, because the vanilla will take over any flavor the vodka may have. Save your Goose to marinate an olive.

4. Patience. That's the hard part.

So to get it started, make sure your jar is clean and dry. I start a fresh batch with about 6-8 beans, depending on how generous you're feeling with your bean stash. Split the beans, toss pods and seeds into the jar, and fill the jar with vodka. Screw the cap on tightly, and stick it in the cupboard.

Every time you use a bean, throw the scraped pod into the jar of brew. If you use the pod to poach in cream for a pastry cream type product, rinse it off before you add it to the brew. You can also stick the pod in your sugar jar for a week for vanilla sugar...but then still add the pod to the brew. So what I'm saying here is use your vanilla beans as normal, but instead of throwing out the pod, you're going to recycle it into vanilla extract. Thrifty, eh?

And in between - ignore the jar. Let it sit in the dark and do it's thing. You'll notice the color deepen, and when you open it, the vanilla aroma will get stronger and stronger. How long it will take for it to be ready to use depends on your pods to vodka ratio, and how often you add more pods, but it will probably take a couple of months to get a usable strength at first. Basically, you'll be able to tell by smell and a little taste when it's ready.

I siphon some off the "mother jar" into a smaller jar to use, then add more vodka to the mother jar. In the year I've been brewing, I did sieve out the original beans and started again with fresh ones. I find the home brewed vanilla to have a sweetness to it, and a wonderful aroma.

And if you're REALLY adventurous, you can make your own lemon, lime, and orange extract much the same way. Using a vegetable peeler, carefully peel the zest off the citrus fruit (avoid the pith), add to a jar, cover with vodka, then either trim the peel off the fruit or halve and juice as normal.

Happy brewing!