tasting memories

An inspiring event for lovers of food and other delightful experiences. This dinner series to benefit the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture is an ode to locally grown seasonal produce and the five senses. Featuring a menu by Blue Hills' executive chef Dan Barber.
Via The Food Section.

Source: Dorie Greenspan.

This tart is clean, light, creamy and purely lemon. Dorie Greenspan features it in Baking with Dorie at Serious Eats: "Pierre Herme's Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart". A brilliant dessert.

Lemon Cream Tart
1 cup sugar
Finely grated zest of 3 lemons
4 large eggs
3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 4 to 5 lemons)
2 sticks plus 5 tablespoons (21 tablespoons; 10 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into tablespoon-sized pieces
1 fully-baked 9-inch tart shell

Getting ready: Have a thermometer, preferably an instant-read, a strainer and a blender (first choice) or food processor at the ready. Bring a few inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan.

1. Put the sugar and zest in a large metal bowl that can be fitted into the pan of simmering water. Off heat, work the sugar and zest together between your fingers until the sugar is moist, grainy and very aromatic. Whisk in the eggs followed by the lemon juice.

2. Fit the bowl into the pan (make certain the water doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl) and cook, stirring with the whisk as soon as the mixture feels tepid to the touch. You want to cook the cream until it reaches 180°F. As you whisk the cream over heat--and you must whisk constantly to keep the eggs from scrambling--you'll see that the cream will start out light and foamy, then the bubbles will get bigger, and then, as the cream is getting closer to 180°F, it will start to thicken and the whisk will leave tracks. Heads up at this point--the tracks mean the cream is almost ready. Don't stop whisking and don't stop checking the temperature. And have patience--depending on how much heat you're giving the cream, getting to temp can take as long as 10 minutes.

3. As soon as you reach 180°F, pull the cream from the heat and strain it into the container of a blender (or food processor); discard the zest. Let the cream rest at room temperature, stirring occasionally, until it cools to 140°F, about 10 minutes.

4. Turn the blender to high and, with the machine going, add about 5 pieces of butter at a time. Scrape down the sides of the container as needed while you're incorporating the butter. Once the butter is in, keep the machine going--to get the perfect light, airy texture of lemon-cream dreams, you must continue to beat the cream for another 3 minutes. If your machine protests and gets a bit too hot, work in 1-minute intervals, giving the machine a little rest between beats.

5. Pour the cream into a container, press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface to create an airtight seal and chill the cream for at least 4 hours or overnight. When you are ready to construct the tart, just whisk the cream to loosen it and spoon it into the tart shell.

Serving: The tart should be served cold, because it is a particular pleasure to have the cold cream melt in your mouth.

Storing: While you can make the lemon cream ahead (it will keep in the frige for 4 days and in the freezer for up to 2 months), once the tart is constructed, it's best to eat it the day it is made.

Makes 8 servings.

Bowl by Scott Bartolomei Edmonds. Photo by Marta Bartolomei Edmonds

Here's what I've learned about scones so far:

• Work quickly.
• Keep the butter cold.
• The less you touch the dough the better it will be.
• It's much easier to incorporate the butter into the flour with your hands (instead of using a pastry cutter or knifes) but the heat from your hands will melt the butter, so work quickly and freeze the mixture for a few minutes when you are done to keep the butter hard.
• Pour the liquids into the flour mixture, not the other way around.
• Stir the liquid into the flour mixture with a few swift strokes (about 6 - 10 strokes). The mixture will still have dry spots, that is okay.
• Pat the dough gently into a disk, do not overpack.

Raspberry Almond Scones
1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup quick oats
2 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 cup slivered almonds
handful of fresh raspberries
1 teaspoon turbinado sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 450°. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the whipping cream, egg, almond extract, almonds and raspberries with a few swift strokes until a crumbly dough forms.
2. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and gather the dough into a ball. Gently press the dough into a ¾ inch thick disk.
3. Brush the disk with heavy cream and sprinkle the turbinado sugar. Using a knife, cut the disk into 8 wedges.
4. Arrange the wedges ½ inch apart on a baking sheet. Bake in the middle of the oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.

Makes 8 scones.

Plate by Roger Baumann. Photo by Marta Bartolomei Edmonds

Very little in our wedding was what anyone would expect. We celebrated our wedding on a Thursday, there were hand-painted panels of canvas hanging around the room, rocks and branches decorated each table, and our parents were seated in the table farthest away from the area where the ceremony was to take place. Scott and I ate with each guest by having a few bites of food at each table and moving on to the next. I'm sure our guests were a little puzzled, but it was a perfect day for us.

Then, there was the cake. Our wedding cake was not cake at all, it was made out of cookies: Mexican Wedding Cakes.

On the morning of our wedding day, my father and stepmother, Carolina (who did not know we were serving cookies instead of cake) gave us a beautiful engraved wedding cake knife as a present. When it came time to cut the cake, we walked over to a tall tower of Mexican Wedding Cakes. I reached for the wedding cake knife and tried to lift one of the cakes from the tower. Well, the cookies were essentially glued together with thick wads of royal icing and we had to resort to more aggressive methods of cutting the cake. The cake knife came in handy to saw through the royal icing and pry the cookies away from our impenetrable tower.

Our wedding day was flavored by these walnut buttery mounds of melt in your mouth goodness. I would not change a thing. Mexican Wedding Cakes make me smile. This easy recipe comes from Food and Wine Magazine.

Mexican Wedding Cakes
4 tablespoons butter, softened
2 tablespoons pecans, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 cup flour
pinch of salt

1. In a medium bowl, beat the butter, pecans and vanilla until creamy. Slowly add 1/3 cup of the confectioners' sugar, flour and salt and mix well. Shape the dough into a log and wrap in plastic and refrigerate until chilled, at least 1 hour or overnight.
2. Preheat the oven to 350° and line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Slice the dough and roll each piece of dough into a 3/4 -inch ball. Arrange about 1 inch apart on the cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes, or until lightly golden. Cool for 5 minutes.
3. In a large bowl, gently toss the warm cookies in the remaining confectioners' sugar and set aside to cool completely.

Makes 16 cookies.