Rustic Peach and Nectarine Crostata - Recipe

Peach and Nectarine Crostata

Crostata: pie without the fuss. With a pie (or tart), it can be hard to make one as pretty as the picture I have in my mind, either cooling on Grandma's window sill or on the cover of Gourmet. Crostata takes my inability to make a precise pie and makes a rustic virtue of it!

I made this particular crostata with peaches and nectarines, but you can use just about any fruit that suits your mood. But wow, baked peaches are really good.

Now let's have a word with you guys who are afraid of making pastry crusts. I've been there. We can get you through this and have you making tender, flaky crusts. Learn to make flaky crusts and dogs will like you, members of the attractive sex will wink knowingly, and leprechauns will buy you a beer. It really isn't hard, you just have to focus on a few details:

• The butter and the water should be really, really cold
• Only spend 1 to 2 minutes working the butter into the flour
• I really like a pastry blender - my hands are too warm, and dirtying a whole food processor makes more work than neccessary
• Use only enough water to get the dough to form a shaggy mass
• Only work it just enough to form a ball
• Refrigerate before rolling out, then let it warm back up just slightly

Our whole goal here is to get well distributed pockets of butter that will separate layers of the dough, while minimizing gluten development.

Rustic Peach and Nectarine Crostata
Vegetarian; not vegan nor gluten-free
Serves 4-6

For the dough:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons very cold butter cut into small cubes; if frozen you can do it carefully into slivers with a bread knife
• 2-4 tablespoons ice water

1. In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, and butter. Using a pastry blender (my preference), or your hands, work the butter into the flour until it mostly looks like coarse oatmeal. Limit this to at most 2 minutes. It is fine if there are still some larger chunks of butter.
2. Add two tablespoons of the ice water. Work this in with a fork for 60 seconds, then try to press a piece together with your hands. If you can form a ball, you are good. If not, add more ice cold water, a couple teaspoons at a time until you can make a big shaggy ball. You really want to err on the side of minimal water, and keep the total time for this step again to under two minutes. It is fine if there is a little bit of unincorporated flour left at the bottom. (The reason the water varies is it depends on the moisture content of both your flour and your butter.)
3. Dust a work surface with flour and flatten the dough into a disk, about 7" in diameter. Wrap it in plastic wrap, or better yet, put it in a gallon freezer bag. Press any little cracks in the edge together - this will make it easier to roll out. Refrigerate for at least one hour and up to two days.
4. Preheat oven to 400. Line a rimmed baking sheet with a silpat or parchment paper.
5. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and let warm up a bit until slightly pliable. This could be anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes depending on how well chilled it is. While still wrapped, give it several cathartic thwacks with your rolling pin to get a head start on rolling out. Now put it on your floured board, flour your rolling pin, and working from the center out and rotating after each push, form a circle about 13 inches or so in diameter. Roll up onto your pin and back out on the baking sheet. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

For the tart:

• 4 large ripe peaches and/or nectarines, cut into about 10-12 slices each (no need to peel)
• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons white sugar (sanding sugar if you have it)

1. Arrange the fruit in rings (or randomly) on the dough, leaving about a 1.5 inch rim around the outside. Roll the rim up around the fruit. You can do it totally rustically like you see in the picture above, or if you like, you can do a neater crimp.
2. Brush the rim with melted butter and drizzle the rest on the fruit. Sprinkle the brown sugar on the fruit, and the white or sanding sugar on the pastry.
3. Bake for about 40-50 minutes, until the crust is nicely golden brown.
4. Slice and serve. Probably with vanilla ice cream.

Whopper Cake - Book Review Plus Chocolate-Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

"Today is Grandma's birthday
and Granddad has an itchin'
to bake a whopper chocolate cake
and traumatize the kitchen"

They had me at "traumatize". Whopper Cake, by Karma Wilson and Will Hillenbrand, is a great children's book. The story is of a Grandpa who wants to make a cake for his wife, but has a little bit of trouble following the recipe. It is just too tempting for him to scale it up a hundred-fold or so. A delicious mess ensues.

The book ends with a (normal-scale) recipe for Whopper Cake. With my daughter's birthday approaching and the book in nightly rotation, it was obvious that we should make it for her big day. I can confirm, it makes a very moist, tasty chocolate sheet cake. You should buy this book for any kid that loves to cook with his or her family. Or any kid that loves cake.

The recipe didn't specify a frosting, but I was faced with three simple facts: (1) we had a lot of leftover cream cheese (2) my wife loves cream cheese frosting (3) cream-cheese frosting is super easy to make. Here's what I came up with:

Chocolate-Cream Cheese Frosting
Enough for a 9"x13" sheetcake
Vegetarian and gluten-free (the icing, not the Whopper Cake!); not vegan

• 12 ounces good quality chocolate chips (Ghiradelli works well)
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 6 ounces cream cheese (I used the whipped kind, but a denser one should work fine too, just break it up into cubes), at room temperature
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

1. Melt the chocolate chips and butter in a double boiler or microwave. To microwave, combine in a microwave-safe bowl and cook 1 minute at a time, stopping to carefully stir in between. This is my favorite way to do it, you just have to be sure not to overcook or you can scorch it.
2. Allow to cool a bit, so it won't cook and curdle the cream cheese.
3. Whisk the cream cheese and salt into the melted chocolate. Keep whisking until smooth.
4. Refrigerate for an hour or so until firm enough to spread.
5. Yum.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp with a Pumpkin Seed Topping - Recipe

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp with a Pumpkin Seed Topping

Who doesn't love a good fruit crisp? They are a great way to use up excesses of seasonal fruits, and you can make the topping so easily that there is no need to wait for a special occasion. Strawberry + rhubarb is a great combination for this time of year, as the rhubarb is getting late and the strawberries are not yet so perfect that it would be a shame not to eat them fresh. 

Sarina insists that there is no other topping for a crisp than oatmeal, and I certainly see her point. It has a great toasty flavor. This time I augmented it with toasted pumpkin seeds, but you could use walnuts or almonds or hazelnuts, or omit them entirely depending on your mood. Crisp topping freezes beautifully too, so why not make a double batch?

The recipe below (based on an Ina Garten formula), makes a lot of topping for a single crisp - we are all hounds for the buttery goodness, so I don't stint. But you could make do with just half as much if you are looking for a lower-fat option.

There are two good options for handling the butter for the crisp topping. You can either melt it, and then refrigerate the topping for at least an hour before baking, or you can cream it relatively cold with the other ingredients and use it right away.

Some recipes for this sort of thing involve peeling and/or pre-stewing the rhubarb. Trust me, this is totally unnecessary. All you need to do is trim the ends and cut it into 1 inch segments. It will happilly cook to tenderness in the oven, leaving a little bit of desireable texture instead of completely turning into sauce. I much prefer it this way.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp
Serves 8
Vegetarian; not vegan or gluten-free

For the crisp topping:

• 1/2 pound butter (room temperature or cold, see discussion above)
• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup quick-cooking oatmeal
• 1 cup pepitas (green, hulled pumpkin seeds), toasted (or your choice of nuts, or omit)

For the fruit:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1.5 lbs rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1" lengths
• 1 lb. strawberries, hullied and quartered
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• big pinch salt

1. Crisp topping option 1: melt the butter, combine thoroughly with all of the ingredients, and refrigerate for at least one hour until firm. You can also do this a day ahead, or even longer if you freeze it.
2. Crisp topping option 2: cut the cool butter into cubes, and cream in an electric mixer with all of the other ingredients.
3. Preheat the oven to 350.
4. Use the 1 tablespoon of butter to grease a deep casserole. I used a round Emile Henry one that was 9" in diameter and 3" deep.
5. Combine all of the other ingredients, toss well and put in the casserole.
6. Put the crisp filling on in an even layer on top.
7. Bake for about 1 hour until the fruit is bubbling and the topping is golden brown and crisp.
8. Serve right away, lest the crisp become soggy. Vanilla ice cream, duh!