Preparing for Fall

We’re in the midst of one of those ‘tweener’ type seasons.  Can’t really decide if it’s summer or fall at the moment.  Our days are warm (too warm for September, in my book), but the evenings are too cool to go running around without a jacket.  Personally, I’d like to pick a season and stick with it.  Maybe I’m just looking forward to some crisp, fall weather.

With the cool temps in the evening, I got a sudden craving for warm pudding.  And since I had just bought a box of those ginger thins I so love, gingerbread pudding sounded really good.  But I had a hard time trying to find a recipe online.  Most of the recipes that came up upon Googling ‘gingerbread pudding’ were either baked, or they were more of a cake than a pudding.  I just wanted something simple to whip up on the stove.  So I decided to experiment, and you know what?  I think I got it right on the first attempt.  This is a super rich and decadent pudding, but with the hominess of spices.  It will find a place with future, more elaborate desserts, I’m sure.  But at the moment, I was content to scarf it down with some of those lovely thin cookies.

It was perfect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gingerbread Pudding

¾ cups whipping cream

2 ¼ cups milk (I used 2%)
1 vanilla bean pod, halved lengthwise and seeds scraped out
2” piece of fresh ginger, peeled and cut into slices
1 tsp black peppercorns
2 cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces
6 cloves
1 star anise

3 egg yolks

½ cup sugar
3 Tbs corn starch
1 tbs molasses

3 Tbs butter

1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp salt

In a medium saucepan, combine the whipping cream, milk, vanilla bean pod AND seeds*, ginger, peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves and star anise.  Heat over medium heat, just until milk starts to simmer around the edges.  Remove from heat and allow to sit for 20 minutes.

Combine the egg yolks, sugar, corn starch and molasses in a small bowl.  Whisk until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.

Slowly pour about half of the milk mixture through a sieve into the egg mixture.  Whisk thoroughly and then pour this mixture back into the saucepan with the remaining milk mixture.  Place over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and just begins to reach a boiling point.  Remove from heat and add butter, the vanilla extract and salt.  Stir until butter is melted.  Place a piece of wax paper directly on the pudding to keep a skin from forming and allow to cool until ready to use.  Refrigerate any leftovers.

* If your sieve has too fine of a mesh, you might want to keep the vanilla bean seeds set aside until after you've strained the milk mixture and then stir it in.

Now That's More Like It

Enough of this healthy stuff.  Time to get back to the baked goods.

Ok, so this isn’t exactly terrible in the Things that Are/Aren’t Good For You department.  Full of good summer berries, and there’s not a ton of sugar.  But there is a stick of butter in there, so it won’t win any low-fat awards.  I made this for breakfast, by the way.

This was partly an experiment to see how well it would hold up over 24 hours, since I was looking for something to add to my catering repertoire.  I decided to sprinkle the crust with a bit of vanilla sugar before topping it with berries, and this seemed to do a great job as a barrier between the juiciness of the berries and the crust.  And of course you can go crazy with your fillings here.  I opted for blackberries and strawberries because I have a sea of blackberry brambles pushing on my back fence, and it’s a constant battle to keep them from overtaking the yard.  So this was my reward for having to wade through thorns and hack down runners on a too-warm day.  If I had been more ambitious, I would have topped it with some lemon curd, but instead I finished up a container of vanilla bean ice cream.

Ok, so you need to forget the ice cream if you’re going for a more healthy alternative.

And maybe dispense with the additional sprinkling of sugar.

And then there’s that stick of butter…

Mixed Berry Crostata

For the crust:

1 ¼ cups flour

½ tsp salt
2 Tbs + 1 tsp sugar (I used vanilla sugar, but plain will do)
1 stick butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
¼ cup ice water

Berry mixture:

3 cups of mixed berries, rinsed, dried and cut into smaller pieces, if necessary

1 tsp lemon zest
2 Tbs vanilla sugar (again, regular sugar is just fine)
1 Tbs flour

Preheat oven to 425°.

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt and 1 tsp sugar.  Add the butter cubes and cut in with a pastry blender until the largest butter pieces are about pea sized.  Stir in ice water just until dough begins to come together.  Dump mixture onto floured surface (will still be crumbly) and knead lightly just until it comes together.  Roll into a circle about a foot in diameter.  Transfer onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and sprinkle with the 2 Tbs of sugar.

In same mixing bowl, combine the berries, zest, sugar and 1 Tbs flour.  Mound this mixture in the center of the dough, leaving 3 – 4” all around.  Brush the exposed edges of the pie dough with a little water.  Bring the dough up, partially covering the berry mixture and ‘pleating’ it where it comes together.  Press slightly to get a good seal.

Place in oven and bake 30 minutes, or until the crust is golden, and the berry mixture is bubbly.  Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly before serving.