BANANA NUT BREAD

The perfect banana nut bread…

A quick bonjour to share my favorite recipe for banana-nut bread. This is a rather exotic bread for the French. I made mini-loaves that I passed out to neighbors this year. These loaves fit in the palm of your hand and are decorated with one perfect walnut.

The recipe is based on one of my favorite websites to browse, Williams-Sonoma. They have a lovely recipe section and I always find yummy recipes with mouth-watering photos.  If you are looking for a recipe for a classic dish, take a peak on their site. They have some very nice recipes for the classics. (No, I’m not paid to plug them, but I really do enjoy their site.)

There are a few details that I changed for this recipe. I had only one regularly ripe banana (not very ripe), so I used only one banana. The result was perfect. The banana was more subtle, and the bread was a less sticky than many banana breads, with a lovely caramelized crust.

Secondly, I didn’t wrap the loaves in plastic wrap, as we so often do with these types of bread. I wanted to keep that caramelized crust crunchy, so after allowing the breads to cool completely, I stored them in a cookie tin.  When we finished the last mini-loaf about 3 or 4 days later, it was still moist in the middle and crunchy on the outside.

recipe for banana nut bread, based on Williams Sonoma recipe

Ingredients:

• 6 Tbs. (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, at room
  temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 ripe banana, coarsely mashed
  
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1⁄2 cup buttermilk
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
• 1⁄2 tsp. salt
• 3⁄4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, pecans
  or hazelnuts

Preheat an oven to 350°F. Butter and flour mini loaf pans, or a 9×5 inch loaf pan.

Beat together the butter and sugar on medium speed until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the banana and eggs and beat until smooth. Add the buttermilk and beat just until combined.

In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, salt and nuts. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and beat just until combined. The batter should be slightly lumpy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans. They should be about two-thirds full. Bake until the loaves are golden brown and dry to the touch and the edges pull away from the sides of the pan, about 30 to 40 minutes if you are making mini loaves, and 55 to 60 minutes if you are making a large loaf. Be careful not to overcook the mini-loaves, as they will be more prone to drying out than a large loaf. A toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean. Let the bread rest in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn the loaf out onto a wire rack and let cool completely.

Enjoy!

BAY LEAF ROASTED PLUMS

Bowl of roasted plums for dessert

Yesterday I stumbled upon a flavor pairing that left me giddy with cheer and I had to share right away.

Plum + bay leaf = love

Saturday, we bought some plums, but they turned out to be starchy and not very sweet. A complete disappointment, until…

I did what I always do with fruit that doesn’t pay – cooked them!  After a quick consultation with one of my favorite books, The Flavor Bible, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg advising the unthinkable, I tucked a bay leaf under these moping plums and popped them in the oven.

The secret ingredient: a bay leaf

An hour later, the bang of a big brass band struck my tastebuds.  With a hop, skip, and a jump, here’s my little recipe.

recipe for Bay Leaf Roasted Plums:

plums (at least 10 or so)

a handful of sugar

a couple tablespoons of butter

a little heavy cream (maybe 1/4 cup)

a bay leaf

…

Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Slice the plums into quarters and fill a small clay or pyrex roasting pan.

Tuck the bay leaf into the plums.

Pour over the heavy cream and place a few slices of butter over the plums.

Sprinkle with sugar and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the plum juices and heavy cream have thickened, making a pink sauce.

Serve warm and enjoy!

APPLE CARDAMOM TART

A slice of apple cardamom tart

Suddenly winter has decided to make room for spring. The sun is coming out more often and in the afternoon I have even ventured out of the house uncovered by my trusty sidekicks, coat and scarf.  Bees have begun to buzz around the plants growing on my windowsill and color is returning to the trees. Pure bliss. But some things are not raising themselves to salute spring, and the very last apples of the season are one of them.

Shriveled and shrunken like little old rags sat a last crate of apples in the damp darkness of my cellar.  It has been a few weeks now since I took them and peeled them and sliced them for one last apple delight. A simple apple tart, but dressed for spring with refreshing cardamom, colorful pistachio, and festive flowers of marzipan.

Apple Cardamom Tart

Recipe for Apple Cardamom Tart:

pâte brisée tart dough (recipe coming soon!)

apples, about 6 or 7 depending on the size

about 4 or 5 cardamom pods

a few tablespoons of sugar

about a half a cup of cream

a few pistachios

either some marzipan shaped into flowers or organic fresh edible flowers

…

Roll out the pâte brisée and dress a tart tin. Reserve in the fridge.

Preheat oven to 190°C or 375°F.

Open the cardamom pods and crush the seeds into a bowl. Add the cream and enough sugar to satisfy your tastebuds.

Peel and thinly slice the apples. Remove the pâte brisée crust from the fridge and first fill the bottom of the tart with a layer of apples. Then place the apples as you would like to make a pretty tart, keeping in mind that they will shrink a little when cooked, so don’t hesitate to place them close together. Pour over the cream cardamom mixture and bake for about 40 minutes until apples are cooked and crust is golden brown even on the bottom. Allow to cool.

Chop a few pistachios and sprinkle over the cooled tart. Make a few marzipan flowers, or use fresh flowers and place on the tart. Serve and enjoy!

DECEMBER SWEETS: A PHOTO TOUR

Fondant-glazed Sugar Cookies

December is a busy month for a pastry chef… working odd hours, long hours, short hours (last night I worked from 10pm to 2am… and I pick up again tonight at 2am). I cook so much this month that I’ve started to feel like a real pâtissier and not just a silly imposter in a French kitchen. I can make a crème pâtissière in my sleep, a dough for a tart made from scratch takes about 5 minutes and I can have a lucsious jasmine-infused chocolate cream setting in the fridge in about 10 minutes. What a good feeling it is to start mastering something…I’m not tired of cooking, but I am a bit tired of eating sweets. At work, I only taste things that I have not yet tasted, and since we have many new cakes for the month of December, I have tasted my share. I’m thinking detox for January… perhaps a few apple tarts but nothing more!

The gray weather doesn’t make for very fantastic photos, but I try anyway. Here’s the December rundown. If you would like a recipe, feel free to contact me.

Bastien’s peaceful kitty and pacman cookies

I tested out Martha Stewarts “perfect sugar cookie” recipe and found the cookies a little dull in taste and texture, but the shapes held beautifully in the oven.

I made a fondant with a dose of fresh squeezed ginger juice which gave a delicate pique to the tongue. I’m liquidating the less natural ingredients in my cupoards, such as food coloring. Thus, the fondant is colored with food coloring, but in the future I hope to find natural colors to take the place of chemical ones. We spent a lovely Sunday afternoon cutting, cooking, and decorating.

Pâte de coing : quince membrillo

If you have never had a quince, you could be in for a nasty little trick. Bastien picked one from the farm where he “works” not knowing what it was, but seduced by its sweet aroma. We were both so excited to taste this new fruit that was scented like a honey nectar from some garden in a paradise somewhere. We sliced it open and each took a bite: yuck! We spit out the bitter cotton fruit, thoroughly disappointed and did a little research only to discover that the quince is no good raw, and to unlock its delicious flavors one must cook it with sugar!

Blonde caramel chocolates with fleur de sel

Take a bite…

I spent an afternoon after work trying to temper chocolate for the first time. Working with tiny quantities of chocolate is not easy, especially when you are trying to stabilize the temperature… but it worked out ok for a first try. My basic caramel recipe is coming along. One of these days I’ll get it perfect and post it. I just love salt with caramel, and it’s quite lovely with dark chocolate too.

Grand Marnier-spiked almond paste chocolates

Spiked almond paste in dark piment-spiced chocolate

My tempering wasn’t half bad for the second batch of chocolates, as you can see by their nice shiny gleam.

Foie gras on toasted pain d’épice triangles

We had this as an appetizer, but it could also have worked as a dessert or an amuse-bouche. The pain d’épice (honey ginger bread) was a nice compangon to foie gras. I topped with with a dab of homemade apricot jam and a dash of black pepper.

Jasmine-infused chocolate quenelles on a puddle of crème anglaise

Every other Sunday Bastien buys a few litres of raw Jersey cow milk from the organic market nearbye. Not only is it super rich and yummy to drink, but it is the best for dessert making. We have just learned that the milk changes quite a bit in the winter as the cows must eat hay rather than fresh grass from fields. It is richer in fat, but not as good in taste. Of course, it still beats any store-bought milk that I’ve tasted!

This dessert was so delicious and so quick to make (though you must let it set in the fridge for a few hours before serving). Jasmine and chocolate make for a surpisingly well-paired duo. My first crème anglaise (made at home and not at work) was just a bit too thick perhaps, but still soooo good.

Beet square salad

Beet salad doesn’t exactly make the catagory of “December Sweets” but they are sweet and I had to break the sugar fest with a little vegetable! We often have them raw, but here they were boiled, refrigerated, peeled, diced, and served cold in a very light vinaigrette.

Bon appétit!