Strawberry Canela Tart with Toasted Walnuts

So we went picking. It rained the whole time. This was not the strawberry picking of Junes passed with the summer sun beating down on our backs, sweat beading at our temples, and the fields bathed in the scent of ripe berries. This was the perfect storm. With fruit.

Imagine our motley trio knee-deep in soggy berry plants, in an unseasonable 55F, with torrential downpours putting our cardboard berry flats to shame. We were pathetic: shivering in our farm clothes, crying about mashed berries left to drown, condemning our need to make strawberry-based products at f + k (along with whoever had the idea to hand-harvest all the berries *cough* me *cough*).

It was worth it though. We got a nice haul and spent the next day in the kitchen cranking out strawberry-rose syrup, strawberry balsamic preserves, and preserved whole berries and ginger in syrup. Check them out here later today!

With some of the berries that survived the kitchen I made a tart—not one gleaming with fruit and topped with cream, but one baked with toasted walnuts, whole wheat flour, and canela. A little something to battle the strange, chilly weather we have had up here in Boston this past week. For those who are not familiar with it, canela is known as Ceylon cinnamon. This is the “true” cinnamon plant, unlike what most of us use every day which is actually cassia, a plant which tastes more like cinnamon than cinnamon does (once you try them both you will find that cassia is also more bitter). Canela works perfectly with strawberries as it doesn’t scream FALL! like cassia, instead lending a homey warmth to whatever it is combined with.

Strawberry Canela Tart with Toasted Walnuts

crust:
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2-3 tablespoons ice water

Filling:
½ cup toasted walnuts
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons canela
1 cup thimble-sized strawberries, hulled or 8-9 large strawberries hulled and halved

Mix the flours, sugar and salt in a food processor to combine. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles a coarse meal. Add ice water one tablespoon at a time, stop when mixture just begins to hold together. Wrap the dough in wax paper or parchment and refrigerate until firm.

Roll dough out to 1/8-inch thick on a floured surface to fit the tart pan you are using. Trim edges of the dough by holding a knife against the pan and pulling gently, horizontally, along the pan’s edge. Chill the dough and pan again until firm.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Poke bottom of tart all over with a fork and fill with pie weights or dried beans in foil. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the weights or beans and bake for another 5 minutes or so—enough to dry any remaining moist dough. Remove and let cool before filling.

Grind the walnuts in a food processor until they resemble a coarse meal. Add sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla and mix until smooth. Spread filling over the bottom of the chilled tart shell and top with strawberries or strawberry halves—I simply plunked whole berries right into the filling, the filling with rise over them as it cooks.

Lower the oven temp to 315 and bake for 40 minutes or until the top of the tart is a medium-brown.

panna cotta with rose honey caramel

Around here things have been a bit crazy. We relocated back to Boston on the first of May which involved a five hour car ride with an upset, geriatric cat and three flights of stairs with no elevator. Then we commenced the scramble to get our paperwork, health permits, and supplies together for fig + kindle’s reopening in early June. This, of course, involved navigating Boston’s horrifically bloated beaucracy, taking incorrect buses to industrial neighborhoods, and nearly crying when meeting someone who actually had helpful information– nice old ladies in government offices are a blessing.

Things are pretty well set. Our apartment is filling up with boxes of packaging, chocolate, and herbs, and orders are coming in for the June Tasting Box—something we are super excited to start manufacturing after the June 15^th sign up deadline (so quick! Check it out).

With all this running around I have not been in the recipe-making, photographing, blogging mood—long days of running around and sitting on public transportation do not so much inspire creativity in the kitchen. However, with a quick break and an easy classic, we are finally back in the blogosphere.

Panna Cotta is one of those desserts I would have brushed off in my younger years. Not dense enough, not homey enough, not filled with crunchy things or chocolate. Although, recently I have been craving something sweet, simple, and easy to make and this wiggly dessert came to mind. Panna Cotta is essentially cooked cream held together by agar agar or gelatin…call it milk jello if you will…or don’t if that makes you want to gag. It’s almost sinfully easy to make, and a perfect base for summery fruit desserts. However if you, like me, live in a part of the country where virtually NOTHING is producing fruit at this time of year, you can get a little more indulgent with your panna cotta accompaniment.

Being a caramel-crazed household, I decided to make myself and the boys a panna cotta topped with rose honey caramel sauce. The stuff if liquid gold: deep-flavored, rich, and a perfect combination for spring weather that hasn’t quite warmed up yet.

Panna Cotta

1 tbsp of powdered gelatin
1 cup of cream
1/4 cup of sugar
1 1/4 cup of milk
1 1/2 tsp of vanilla

Place the gelatin and more or less 2 tbs water in a small bowl, set aside to bloom (will take about 5 mins).

Combine the milk, cream, and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Stirring, heat until sugar dissolves.

Add the gelatin and continue cooking until no grains remain (1-2mins). Add in vanilla or flavoring of choice.

Pour the cream mixture into ramekins, cups, bowls, or virtually any container you can think of. Leave them on the counter until at room temperature, then place in the fridge until firm (2-4 hours)

Rose Honey Caramel

2 tbs rose petals, chopped
7 tbs heavy cream
4 tbs butter, cubed
11 tbs sugar
2 tbs honey
2 tbs water
1 tsp salt

Heat the cream in a mug until bubbling, immediately add rose petals and cover with a plate. Let steep for 10-15 minutes.

Once steeped, put the mixture through a strainer. Set aside.

Combine the sugar, honey, salt, and water in a medium sauce pot over medium heat. Stir gently until sugar dissolves and then let boil undisturbed until the mixture turns light amber.

Reduce heat and whisk in the cream in three installments—be careful as the mixture will bubble and release a hot burst of steam with each addition.

Place the caramel in a bowl and let cool for 10 minutes.

Add the cubed butter, stir until incorporated.

Pour the caramel into a jar and keep in the fridge for up to 3 weeks.

lavender scones

Despite growing up in a household of Scottish heritage, I do not remember any family members making scones. I remember vividly the first time I had a scone: it was at the Scottish Highland Games, then hosted on Loon Mountain in New Hampshire. The Scottish Highland Games are a traditional fair of manly athletics where you may witness men throwing logs, throwing iron spheres, throwing….each other. Lots of testosterone. Lots of bagpipes. And lots of baked goods, jam, and, of course, haggis. The scone I had was a massive triangle of hard dough, studded with chocolate chips, and heavily crusted with sugar. My seven-year-old brain latched onto the sugar part immediately and became frustrated at the much less sweet insides of the pastry. Meh. I didn’t like it much and resorted to dipping it in a cup of tea as I sat in a lodge with my Grandfather, watching the sun set the brilliant colors of New Hampshire’s autumn ablaze.

I must say, since then scones have become a staple. I worked over many recipes, looking in vain for something of similar crunch to the one I had had so many years ago. Alas, no luck. I find most scone recipes to be too bland, too uniform, and too…..solid. I will gift you with *one*  of my recipes for scones—one which produced a crusty outside, a light and fluffy (and somewhat un-scone-like) interior, and takes very well to added nuts, chocolate, and fruit. This recipe is dear to my heart as I consider it a wooing recipe. This was one I created while first dating my partner, Daniel. I would make scones every time he visited me in Boston, each time filling them with a different fruit or spice. I would make enough so that he could take a bag of them back to New York, so that he could take a little piece of me back with him. Perhaps it worked. We live together now.

This variation is for a lovely lavender scone. I have stated a suggested amount of lavender buds to add to this dough, but by all means do what you please. I hate the over-use of lavenders and florals and eating a scone that tastes like soap is no fun—decide how much lavender you and/ or your guests like, and go with it (in fact, with lavender, I would always say add a bit less than you think you want).

Lavender Scones

1 ¼ cup all purpose flour

1 tbs baking powder

1 tbs sugar

½ tsp salt

1 tsp lavender buds

¼ cup butter, cubed

1/2c + 2tbs cream

1 egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 400F

Sift APF , baking powder, sugar, and salt into a medium sized bowl. Add lavender buds.

Work the butter cubes into the dry ingredients with your fingers. Be sure to rub the lavender buds and the butter if you can—you want to warm them up a little and agitate them so more flavor permeates the dough. Here you are aiming for a dough that resembles loose crumbs.

With your hands, mix in the cream. Make sure you use a light touch—mix just until incorporated. The dough should not be sticky: add more flour or cream as needed.

Usually I pat the dough down with my hands, form it into a circle, and cut 6-8 wedges: you will get nicely formed triangular scones (very traditional). Here I patted the dough down to about ½ inch in thickness, and cut rounds with a 2-in cutter.

Place the scones on a greased cookie sheet, glaze with egg mixture. Optional: sprinkle sugar over the egg and you will get a lovely, crunchy top.

Bake scones for 15 min or so—judge by the color—I happen to love them baked dark and crunchy, others may take them out just as the top begins to turn golden.

lemon-calendula tarts

It’s been really exciting for us around here at f + k—we are moving faster and faster toward our re-launch, working on some new recipes, cutting some others out of our repertoire. We are incorporating more florals and fruits into our recipes and I, for one, am really excited about having stopped by Kalustyans to stock up on bags of calendula, rose petals, lavender, and borage petals. I feel like our growing collection of essences, teas, and herbs is really shaping up into the earthy, elegant mix we have been shooting for. We are also toying around with incorporating more chocolate into our candies as we are looking to purchase a larger chocolate tempering machine to keep up with demand (thus far, chocolate goodies have only been available via custom order).  Can you say elderflower ganache?! More on that to come.

*** Please stay tuned everyone– we will be launching a KICKSTARTER campaign in the coming weeks as we prep to get fig + kindle’s kitchen alchemy out to the masses!***

This recipe was the product of lemons being on sale at the corner market. I usually go for lemon tarts made with curd: the silky-smooth yellow cream pooling ever so delicately over the top of the tart crusts. Here, whole lemons have been blended along with sugar, producing a sweet paste that is then creamed with eggs and butter—completely different, brighter, and much more bubbly than any curd can get. Although, these tarts, due to their consistency, end up much more rustic-looking than their curd-based counter parts. In keeping with that I chose to take the crusts that way as well, bunching and folding pate sucree and leaving the tops rough and uneven. Wonky food is, as always, appreciated here at fig + kindle.

With so much going on with the re-launch, I have not had the time to perfect recipes for this site. And since I feel uncomfortable presenting a first-test to you all, I will be experimenting with adaptations of trusted recipes from other chefs. This one is taken from two sources: the pate sucree from MS found here as well as the tarte aux citron found here. For the filling I reduced the sugar by ½ cup as I felt it was too sweet, and added lightly soaked calendula (marigold) petals, about 2 tbs, to the lemons and sugar before grinding. Calendula petals have a sweet and slightly peppery flavor; they really mellow out the lemon in this recipe and bring a deeper warmth to the tarts.

A Quick Bread

Hi folks. Fig & Kindle has been making it by here in Brooklyn for the time being. We’ve been working on some super cool ideas that are not edible, but still contribute to our ever important mission to promote mindful eating. Otherwise, yours truly is finishing a tremendous amount of work on a rather large piece of writing concerning the modern state of American food and its relationship to authenticity, marketing, and aesthetics. So, I haven’t had much time to be cooking and photographing and all of these lovely things I do for this site—not to mention the outstandingly high cost of food in NYC. (I am all for higher prices on organic, local, and fair trade goods, but come on people—$6.80 for a pack of Land O Lakes butter? )

As a result of this move, the work, and Fig & Kindle’s ongoing transformation I have been “stress cooking.” Some people stress eat. I stress cook which may be a bad thing (because I eat what I cook) or a good thing (boyfriend is a very happy and well-fed man). I will share with you today a recipe that I found surfing around the internet in hopes that someone would tell me how to make bread without a starter. You see, I am a bit scarred from bread baking adventures in past years. I once kept a sourdough starter named Angry Steve in a container on top of my fridge. Angry Steve constantly smelled like alcohol, belched out of his home and dripped down the counter tops, and produced bread that was dense, uncooked, and tasted like metal. Needless to say, I think Angry Steve’s cultures staged some kind of mutiny. I accepted defeat and Angry Steve got poured down a drain.

This recipe comes from the ever so spiffy Heart of New England online magazine. It holds in it the secret to making bread in just about an hour—not the best, most life changing bread I have ever had, but perfect for daily use and smothering with jam or (my fave) sweet cinnamon butter.

Quick Bread (that’s not a “quick bread”)

5-6 cups all-purpose flour (you can substitute whole wheat flour for 1 or 2
cups).
2 tablespoons of dry yeast
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 cups hot water (120-130 degrees F.)

A cake pan of hot water

Mix 3 cups of the flour with the yeast, sugar and salt.  Pour in the hot water
and beat 100 strokes (or 3 minutes with a mixer).

Stir in the remaining flour until the dough loses its stickiness.  Turn onto a
floured surface. Knead for 8 minutes.

Place dough in a greased bowl and cover with a warm damp cloth.  Let rise
for 15 minutes in a warm spot (away from drafts).

Punch down and divide the dough into two pieces.  Shape into round loaves
and place on a greased baking sheet.  Cut an “X” one-half inch deep in each of
the loaves with a wet sharp knife.

Place baking sheet with loaves in the middle of a COLD oven.   Place a pan of
hot water on the lowest shelf.  Heat the oven to 400 degrees and bake 40-50
minutes until golden brown.

Chocolate Makes Everything Better(?)

I will not lie. As a small business owner I can safely say that my work is my baby, and even this temporary closing of my kitchen has been a big blow. So, as any self-respecting woman with cooking skills will do when stuck in a rut, I made ice cream.

Shockingly, I am not a big fan of chocolate ice cream. I always felt it tasted more like chalk than chocolate and was constantly annoyed at my mother’s preference for it.  If I make it at all I make “chocolate sherbet” which tastes more like chilled brownie batter than anything else and consists of literally ½ part ice cream base and ½ part melted, 60% chocolate. But in these days of feeling trapped in a fast-moving, dirty, and hostile new city (cough* NYC* cough) without many hours to spend plugging away in the kitchen, I crave nothing but tastes from the past.

Perhaps it is loneliness or sadness speaking, but chocolate ice cream and memories of New England summers with my mother and grandparents seem to be the only thing that fills the void.

*This chocolate ice cream is not terribly sweet nor terribly heavy on the chocolate. It is a smooth cocoa flavor that is well-suited to toppings.

Chocolate Ice Cream

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup whole milk + 2 tbs divided

2 egg yolks

3/4 cup of sugar

1/3 cup cocoa powder

4 oz dark chocolate, chopped.

1 tsp vanilla

Heat the milk and sugar over medium until the sugar dissolves and the mixture simmers, whisk slowly. Combine the cocoa powder and 2 tbs milk in a small bowl and heat in the microwave about 30 seconds. Stir to produce a thick paste. Add to milk mixture along with the dark chocolate, Stir well to combine.

Separate the egg yolks into a small bowl. Whisk quickly while using a ladle to stream a small amount of hot milk into the yolks. This step tempers the eggs– brings them up to temperature before being added to the hot mixture so you don’t have scrambled eggs in your ice cream.

Add the tempered egg yolks to the milk and sugar and stir over lowered heat. Cook until a custard forms. Test this by dipping a clean spoon into the liquid, drawing it out, and running a finger along the back of the spoon. If the mark left behind is held by the thickened liquid you have custard. If the line your finger draws collapses and flows together the mixture needs more time on the heat.

Once your base has thickened, remove from heat and add vanilla.

Let cool for five minutes. Add the cream. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled before following the instructions on your ice cream maker.