Dessert First

Daring Bakers Challenge - Danish Delight

Just when I was falling into a breakfast rut and getting tired of the usual cereal or granola for breakfast, along comes the monthly Daring Bakers Challenge to fill my table with Danishes. Thanks to Kelly of Sass and Veracity and Ben of What's Cookin'?, and an excellent recipe for Danish dough, I am now reminded of the joys of homemade breakfast pastries. 

Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking has held an honored spot on my bookshelf for years, and I still find myself referring to her book when I have a baking question. If any of you Daring Bakers, or home bakers in general, don't own it, I'd highly suggest putting it on your list - it's an invaluable resource. (Yard's latest book, Dessert by the Yard, is also an excellent cookbook as well.) I'd made her puff pastry and brioche dough before and devoured the results, so it was certainly with happy expectations that I approached her Danish dough.

Thank goodness that the heat wave broke, which made putting this dough together much easier. Nothing more challenging that trying to put together a laminated dough in hot weather! I will say, though, that I was pleasantly surprised by how agreeably workable the Danish dough was. After making croissants in a bakery for about a year, I can say that the added eggs in a Danish dough make it much more pliable and easier to work with (of course, it could also be the fact that I was making a home batch of dough and not struggling to roll out an industrial mixer-sized portion of croissant dough!)

The Danish dough came together beautifully, and while the kitchen was still pleasantly scented with yeast and spices I pondered what to make with it after doing the braid. The most delightful - or devilish - thing about Danishes is just how many tempting forms they can take, leaving one in an agony of gustatory indecision. I certainly didn't have enough dough to make all the types of Danishes I wanted! Buttery, fluffy-soft, lightly spiced, the Danish dough is an ideal backdrop for all sorts of fillings.

 

I made the Danish braid with half of the dough and apple filling, topped with turbinado sugar- I can't decide if I like this or the apple turnovers better - they're both perfect combinations of crunchy, flaky, buttery pastry and sweet, tender fruit. I really liked creating the braid - a simple and elegant form that looks much harder to make than it really is. Of course, now all the Daring Bakers are in on the secret!

 

Among some of the other things to do with Danish dough (as with any other laminated dough, it is a pastry crime to waste any piece of it, especially when you think of all the work that went into its making). Some quick and easy things you can do with a square include envelopes, where you fold two opposite corners together in the middle, and pinwheels, where you make a cut along each diagonal and fold one side down to make a pinwheel form. Here, pinwheels with fresh cherry filling and envelopes with apricot jam and sliced almonds.

Finally, one of my very favorite ways to indulge in pastry for breakfast - the bear claw. I can't sing the praises of frangipane enough - simply spread a little of this almond ambrosia on a rectangle of Danish dough, fold in half, and slice little cuts along the edge to make the "claws". Sprinkle with sliced almonds, bake, and you'll have some very happy people at the breakfast table.

Thanks again to Kelly and Matt for a great Daring Bakers Challenge!

DANISH DOUGH

Makes 2-1/2 pounds dough

Ingredients
For the dough (Detrempe) 
1 ounce fresh yeast or 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup whole milk
1/3 cup sugar
Zest of 1 orange, finely grated
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
2 large eggs, chilled
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
3-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt

For the butter block (Beurrage)
1/2 pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

DOUGH
Combine yeast and milk in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed.  Slowly add sugar, orange zest, cardamom, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, eggs, and orange juice.  Mix well.  Change to the dough hook and add the salt with the flour, 1 cup at a time, increasing speed to medium as the flour is incorporated.  Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, or until smooth.  You may need to add a little more flour if it is sticky.  Transfer dough to a lightly floured baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Without a standing mixer:  Combine yeast and milk in a bowl with a hand mixer on low speed or a whisk.  Add sugar, orange zest, cardamom, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, eggs, and orange juice and mix well.  Sift flour and salt on your working surface and make a fountain.  Make sure that the “walls” of your fountain are thick and even.  Pour the liquid in the middle of the fountain.  With your fingertips, mix the liquid and the flour starting from the middle of the fountain, slowly working towards the edges.  When the ingredients have been incorporated start kneading the dough with the heel of your hands until it becomes smooth and easy to work with, around 5 to 7 minutes.  You might need to add more flour if the dough is sticky.

BUTTER BLOCK
1.    Combine butter and flour in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for 1 minute.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle and then beat for 1 minute more, or until smooth and lump free.  Set aside at room temperature.
2.    After the detrempe has chilled 30 minutes, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.  Roll the dough into a rectangle approximately 18 x 13 inches and ¼ inch thick.  The dough may be sticky, so keep dusting it lightly with flour.  Spread the butter evenly over the center and right thirds of the dough.  Fold the left edge of the detrempe to the right, covering half of the butter.  Fold the right third of the rectangle over the center third.  The first turn has now been completed.  Mark the dough by poking it with your finger to keep track of your turns, or use a sticky and keep a tally.  Place the dough on a baking sheet, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3.    Place the dough lengthwise on a floured work surface.  The open ends should be to your right and left.  Roll the dough into another approximately 13 x 18 inch, ¼-inch-thick rectangle.  Again, fold the left third of the rectangle over the center third and the right third over the center third.  No additional butter will be added as it is already in the dough. The second turn has now been completed.  Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.
4.    Roll out, turn, and refrigerate the dough two more times, for a total of four single turns.  Make sure you are keeping track of your turns.  Refrigerate the dough after the final turn for at least 5 hours or overnight.  The Danish dough is now ready to be used.  If you will not be using the dough within 24 hours, freeze it.  To do this, roll the dough out to about 1 inch in thickness, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and freeze.  Defrost the dough slowly in the refrigerator for easiest handling.  Danish dough will keep in the freezer for up to 1 month.

APPLE FILLING
Makes enough for two braids

Ingredients
4 Fuji or other apples, peeled, cored, and cut into ¼-inch pieces
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
4 tablespoons unsalted butter

Toss all ingredients except butter in a large bowl.  Melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat until slightly nutty in color, about 6 - 8 minutes.  Then add the apple mixture and sauté until apples are softened and caramelized, 10 to 15 minutes.  If you’ve chosen Fujis, the apples will be caramelized, but have still retained their shape. Pour the cooked apples onto a baking sheet to cool completely before forming the braid.  (If making ahead, cool to room temperature, seal, and refrigerate.) They will cool faster when spread in a thin layer over the surface of the sheet.  After they have cooled, the filling can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.  Left over filling can be used as an ice cream topping, for muffins, cheesecake, or other pastries.

DANISH BRAID
Makes enough for 2 large braids

Ingredients 
1 recipe Danish Dough (see below)
2 cups apple filling, jam, or preserves (see below)

For the egg wash:  1 large egg, plus 1 large egg yolk

1.    Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.  On a lightly floured  surface, roll the Danish Dough into a 15 x 20-inch rectangle, ¼ inch thick.  If the dough seems elastic and shrinks back when rolled, let it rest for a few minutes, then roll again.  Place the dough on the baking sheet.
2.    Along one long side of the pastry make parallel, 5-inch-long cuts with a knife or rolling pastry wheel, each about 1 inch apart.  Repeat on the opposite side, making sure to line up the cuts with those you’ve already made.
3.    Spoon the filling you’ve chosen to fill your braid down the center of the rectangle.  Starting with the top and bottom “flaps”, fold the top flap down over the filling to cover.  Next, fold the bottom “flap” up to cover filling.  This helps keep the braid neat and helps to hold in the filling. Now begin folding the cut side strips of dough over the filling, alternating first left, then right, left, right, until finished.  Trim any excess dough and tuck in the ends.

Egg Wash
Whisk together the whole egg and yolk in a bowl and with a pastry brush, lightly coat the braid.

Proofing and Baking
1.    Spray cooking oil (Pam…) onto a piece of plastic wrap, and place over the braid.  Proof at room temperature or, if possible, in a controlled 90 degree F environment for about 2 hours, or until doubled in volume and light to the touch.
2.    Near the end of proofing, preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Position a rack in the center of the oven.
3.    Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the pan so that the side of the braid previously in the back of the oven is now in the front. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F, and bake about 15-20 minutes more, or until golden brown.  Cool and serve the braid either still warm from the oven or at room temperature.  The cooled braid can be wrapped airtight and stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, or freeze for 1 month.

Frosty Relief for a Hot Summer's Day

You know what's really fun on a hot, sweltering, summer's day? Licking a blissfully chilly popsicle down to the smooth wooden stick, racing to finish it before it all melts down your chin.

You know what's really not fun on a hot, blistering, summer's day? Trying to take photos of these popsicles before they melt all over your kitchen table and you have none left to eat!

I made these little pops in the middle of a heat wave last week; they were a no-brainer given that blazing sun coming into apartment + no air conditioning meant turning on the oven = not happening. However, I didn't foresee that I would be attempting to document these ephemeral little dainties on the hottest day of the heat wave. So, unless you are a professional photographer with a climate controlled studio and a food stylist at your side with several dozen popsicles waiting as backup in the freezer, what this means is planning out your shots very carefully in advance, taking out the popsicles at the very last moment, and then snapping away like mad before returning the rapidly defrosting pops to the freezer to recover.

As it was, I just managed to get two different setups, so there's a dearth of images in this entry, but I hope they're enough to convey the sheer delight a frozen popsicle can bring. Have you ever held a popsicle just a hairsbreadth away from your cheek, so you can feel the tendrils of coldness uncurling towards your face? Or unwrapped a popsicle, covered in a dusting of frost, and worked to lick all around the popsicle until its true, vibrant color was revealed entirely? Or saved a red-stained popsicle stick after you had finished off the pop because even though you couldn't eat it, the stick is still an essential part of the popsicle, and it reminded you of how delicious it was?

I decided to make some frozen yogurt popsicles, as I've noticed the frozen yogurt trend has gone from latest new sensation in San Francisco to a full-blown craze. There seems to be a frozen yogurt shop opening on every other block, all of them with some sort of variant of "Yogurt" or "Berry" in their name, and all of them offering tart, creamy goodness in a cup.

I confess when I first heard of the Pinkberry sensation I didn't quite get what was going on. After all, I'd already been through the last frozen yogurt wave in college, when the dinner of choice for dieting co-eds was a 12 ounce of froyo from the shop across the street from the dorms. Back then, frozen yogurt either tasted remarkably the same as ice cream, meaning it didn't contain much yogurt, or it tasted like artificially flavored whipped air - suffice to say not my dessert of choice.

However, it seems like now yogurt actually tasting like yogurt is no longer a liability, and people are flocking to the tart, "yogurty" taste as a healthier, lighter alternative to ice cream. Many of the most well-known frozen yogurt franchises, like Pinkberry and Red Mango, originated in Korea, which is not surprising as tarter, less sweetened versions of yogurt have long been much more popular in Asia than in the US. Also, the favored toppings of fruit and mochi dovetails with classic Asian preferences for fresh, clean, not-too-sweet desserts.

The best part about frozen yogurt to me, though, is how simple it is to make at home. It's even simpler than ice cream, since there's no need to muck about with making an anglaise base or anything like that. Simply take some yogurt, combine with some sugar, chill, and whirl away in the ice cream maker! Much of frozen yogurt's appeal is in its straightforward tang; you want to taste the tartness, not mask it. However, you can add more sugar to taste if you want a sweeter, less assertive flavor. I also added lemon juice to my mixture since the citric flavor of lemon meshes well with the yogurt and makes it even more refreshing; it tastes almost like a lemon sherbet, one of my favorite flavors. Also, since you can't have frozen yogurt without toppings, I tossed in some raspberries, which made them both colorful and even more delicious.

If you have those miniature Dixie cups, they are the perfect size for making little popsicles. Just pour in the churned base, insert some wooden sticks, chill in the freezer, and the next day you'll be able to peel off the paper and enjoy - hopefully under a warm summer sun.

Lemon Frozen Yogurt with Raspberries

Makes about 1 1/2 quarts, or about 12 regular popsicles

To get the truest yogurt flavor, use plain yogurt, not vanilla-flavored or any other flavor, and with as little sugar added as possible. Regular yogurt contains quite a bit of water, so if you use it straight the frozen yogurt can become hard and icy. To prevent this, regular yogurt should be strained. You can place the yogurt into a cheesecloth-lined strainer or colander and place over a bowl. Fold the cheesecloth around the yogurt and place the whole setup into the refrigerator overnight to let the yogurt drain. You will need more than 3 cups of regular yogurt to yield 3 cups after it's been strained. Or, you can use Greek yogurt, which has already been strained and is thick and creamy. The more fat the yogurt contains, the richer the frozen result will be, naturally, but the 2% yogurt I used yielded quite excellent results and it's not necessary to use full-fat yogurt (not to mention it might negate its touted healthfulness!)

3 cups plain strained regular yogurt, or Greek yogurt

1 to 1 1 /2 cups sugar (to taste)

1 cup lemon juice

1 tablespoon lemon zest

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir together until the sugar is dissolved. Refrigerate the mixture for a couple of hours until it is thoroughly chilled.

Freeze in an ice cream maker per manufacturer's instructions.

When it has reached the consistency of soft serve, you can either scrape into a container and freeze overnight, or divide among popsicle molds and then freeze overnight. You can swirl the raspberries into the mixture before you freeze the yogurt. If you are making popsicles, you may want to cut the raspberries into pieces so you don't have large frozen berries in the pops.

An Abundance of Apricots

 

Roasted Apricot Cinnamon Sugar Tartlets

Sometimes it's hard to figure out what to make. Sometimes I suffer from a surfeit of suggestions, unable to settle on just one idea, other times it's the dreaded blank slate, when everything seems either too simple or too difficult or too not my style or not my flavors and I end up with my refrigerator and bookcases in disarray and still-clean bowls lining the counter.

That's why I enjoy spring and summer so much, because it's so easy to find inspiration. I just walk down the street to market and see what's come in today: crates of dark red cherries, baskets of plump strawberries, bushels of rosy nectarines. Sometimes I'll finger the exotica: yellow-green papayas, pebbly-skinned lychees, flower bulb-like mangosteens, and ponder whether this is the week I'll try something with them.

This week, however, my eye was caught by a more familiar fruit: the blushing gold apricots. Apricots are the delicate little cousins of peaches and I feel like they often get treated that way: they're not as boldly, sensually curved, and eaten fresh their flavor can be subtler, tarter, unlike the sparkling sweetness of peaches.

I've talked before about holding a peach: it's a gorgeously brazen coquette that fills your hands and boldly tempts you. Holding an apricot, on the other hand, is like holding a robin's egg or a seashell, rare and subtle; you've got to hold it close to find its secrets. When apricots are not fully ripe they can be firm and tart and not the most flavorful. At their peak, though, their flesh becomes lushly yielding, and their flavor takes on a rich, honeyed tone. Cooking is where apricots really shine, which is why you see apricot jam so often: when heated apricots blossom into a wonderful ambrosia, as dreamily sweet as a summer Sunday afternoon.

Apricots have such a short season as well, so very often the apricots you find at market will not be perfectly ripe. I left mine in a paper bag for a few days until they softened and starting scenting the kitchen. I wanted something simple and quick to showcase the fruit, and a puff pastry tart immediately sprang to mind. 

Almond Apricot Frangipane Tartlets

Now, before you start protesting that puff pastry does not fall under the category of "simple and quick", let me direct you to my blitz puff recipe which you really can make on a whim. It take less than half an hour to put together and once you've given it a good chill, you're ready to start cranking out the tartlets.

I kept it as breezily easy as possible: apricot slices, a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar, and instant summer dessert! With a scoop of ice cream, nothing could be simpler for a warm evening. If you're looking to up the ante, a layer of frangipane spread on the pastry, topped with apricots and a sprinkling of almonds, and you've got yourself a luxe little patisserie-worthy pastry.

Naturally, this will work wonderfully with many of summer's fruits, from peaches to plums. You could also add berries on top after they come out of the oven. In any case, the crisp, buttery puff pastry makes the ideal bed for honeyed, ripe fruit. I love how the pastry puffs up so neatly round the fruit every time, like the perfect picture frame. When you add the frangipane, its creamy nuttiness elevates the clean sweetness of the fruit even more.

I'm actually very happy with this week's creation as it embodies many of my ideals about pastry: simple, seasonal, and richly rewarding for the effort one puts in. After all, isn't summer all about minimizing work and maximizing pleasure?

 
Apricot Tartlets

makes about 12 3"x5" tartlets

7 to 8 apricots

1 recipe Blitz Puff Pastry

3 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

apricot jam for glaze

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a couple baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpats.

Halve and pit the apricots. Slice them thinly. Sort them them groups of 6 or 7 slices - this will make assembling the tarts faster.

Divide the puff pastry in half and return one piece to the refrigerator to keep it cold. Roll out the other half on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4" thick (not too thin).

Using a sharp knife, cut the pastry into roughly 3 1/2" x 5 1/5" rectangles. You can make the tartlets any size you want; square, round, etc. If you make one big tart, though, you may have to adjust the baking time and watch for the outer edges baking before the center.

If you want to use frangipane(see recipe below) on these tartlets, spread a thin layer on top of the puff pastry, leaving a 1/2" border as the frangipane will puff and spread in the oven.

Arrange 6 to 7 apricot slices on each rectangle. Combine the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over each tartlet.

Bake in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes, rotating halfway through. The puff pastry should puff up and turn golden brown. Place tartlets on a wire rack and brush lightly with apricot jam. Let cool slightly before serving.

Frangipane (adapted from Nick Malgieri's How to Bake)

3/4 cup blanched almonds

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon almond extract

2 eggs

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1/4 cup flour

Place almonds and sugar in a food processor. Process until almonds are very fine.

Add almond extract and one of the eggs and process until smooth.

Add the butter and process until fully combined and the mixture is smooth.

Add in the egg and process just until incorporated.

Add in the flour and process just until incorporated.

You can use the frangipane immediately or store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Tagged with: apricot puff pastry tarts + almond apricot frangipane + puff pastry

Bite This!

Chocolate Malt Memories

 

Because I didn't have enough fun making an opera cake for Daring Bakers, I went for another layered, multi-component cake last week. Sometimes I like to go for simple, breezy creations and other times I just feel like challenging my skills. Making layer cakes is always an exercise that keeps me on my pastry toes. Also, it was my sister's birthday, and she is an unabashed lover of all things chocolate. I'd had my eye on this elegant little number from Pichet Ong's The Sweet Spot for quite a while, and now seemed like the ideal time to break it out.

As Ong describes his creation, it's a death by chocolate cake filtered through a distinctly Asian sensibility. Unlike most Western odes to decadence, which usually involve adjectives like fudgy, gooey, or sticky, and accoutrements like nuts, whipped cream and a cherry on top, this dessert hews to a lighter, more ethereal course. But I'm happy to say the perfect balance of flavors and textures makes it no less dreamily satisfying.

Besides a tendency towards airier, more restrained composition, I've also noticed that many Asian desserts have an affinity for pairing chocolate with malt or coffee. Ong goes for the triple play by combining a chocolate genoise with a malted chocolate mousse and a Vietnamese coffee buttercream. I made all three components, but when it came to assembling them I found I preferred the way the cakes looked without the buttercream. The original recipe called for making one big square cake, which is naturally easier to frost than several small round cakes. The smoky-sweet buttercream, made with Vietnamese coffee and condensed milk, was definitely spoon-licking good though, and I'll probably find a way to use it again, whether in this dessert or another.

My aim was to make those elegant individually-sized cakes you see in those French patisseries, and to make them you need those little metal cake rings. Using them is a bit like making a cake with a blindfold, since you can't see whether your layers are even. It was even trickier with this dessert since it was designed to make a single cake, and I didn't know whether the amounts of cake and mousse were proportioned to making multiple miniature cakes. A little eyeballing, a little guestimating, and I came out with some fairly well-stacked little guys. If it's any reassurance, though, even if the cakes don't come out perfectly even (and I had a few) they're still just as delicious!

The cake is basically a cocoa-flavored genoise and bakes up like a dream: light, springy, and moist. The malted chocolate mousse is airy, creamy, and silky, like all the best mousses should be. I never knew that malted milk was so popular around the world until I went to Hong Kong when I was ten and saw ads on tv touting Horlicks as the perfect breakfast food. In the United States, Carnation and Ovaltine are the most popular brands, but elsewhere there several other choices, the most well known ones being Horlicks and Milo. The same brands can be formulated differently for different markets, so be sure to compare and find which one you like best. Many brands, like Ovaltine and Milo, have cocoa in them so they have a sweeter, more chocolatey flavor. Horlicks has the most straightforward, unsweetened malt flavor. Ong recommends Horlicks in his recipe; combined with bittersweet chocolate it makes for a lovely mousse with notes of caramel and cocoa. I'm not sure if I use quite enough gelatin in making the mousse: it was wonderfully smooth and creamy but was not as firm as I would have liked. I think I might recommend against adding more gelatin and just noting that these cakes will soften up quite quickly once you remove them from the refrigerator. 

Dusted with a little cocoa on top, this cake reminds of Maltesers, another malted delight I was introduced to in Hong Kong. I consumed these malted milk balls by the bagful whenever I went there. There is a brand of malted milk balls in the US called Whoppers but to me there is absolutely no contest: Maltesers are far and away the superior candy. When a dessert makes me think of malted milk balls, I know it's going to stay on my list of favorites. It might take a bit of time in the kitchen, the results are surely worth it: an ideal chocolate indulgence for springtime.

Malted Chocolate Mousse Cakes

adapted from Pichet Ong's The Sweet Spot

Makes about 8 2 1/2" round cakes

Chocolate Cake

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (45 g) cocoa powder

3 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

5 large eggs, separated

2/3 cup (125 g) sugar

4 large egg yolks

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 up (50 g) vegetable or canola oil

3 tablespoons buttermilk

Malted Chocolate Mousse

3/4 cup (168 g) whole milk

1/2 cup (98 g) sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup (37 g) malted milk powder

6 large egg yolks

1 1/4 teaspoons powdered gelatin, dissolved in 1 tablespoon cold water

5 ounces (150 g) bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped

1 cup (226 g) whipping cream

To make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray an 11 x 17 baking pan with cooking spray, line with parchment paper, and spray again. If you can find a pan with a rim at least 1" high, that's probably best - some jelly roll pans might a little too shallow.

Sift the cocoa, flour, and cornstarch into a bowl and set aside.

In stand mixer with the whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites at medium-high speed until soft peaks star to form. Add 1/3 cup of the sugar in a slow, steady stream. Continue whisking medium-soft peaks have formed. Do not overwhip the whites. Scrape the whites into a bowl, and clean the mixer bowl and whisk.

Place all 9 egg yolks in the clean mixer bowl and whisk on medium until they are combined. Add the salt and remaining sugar in a slow, steady stream. Continue whisking until the mixture is pale yellow and very thick.

Whisk about half of the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture by hand to lighten it up. Fold in the dry ingredients carefully until almost fully incorporated. Fold in the rest of the egg whites carefully.

Whisk the oil and buttermilk together in a bowl. Fold into the batter until fully incorporated.

Spread the batter into the pan and even out the surface with an offset spatula. Bake for 10 minutes, rotating halfway through. The surface should be just dry and springy to the touch. Let cake cool on rack.

To make the mousse, combine the milk, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan. Heat on stove over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and bubbles are starting to form around the edges. Whisk in the malted milk powder and cook until fully dissolved. Remove mixture from heat.

Whisk the egg yolks together in a large bowl. Pour in about half of the malted milk mixture in a steady stream, whisking constantly to prevent the egg yolks from cooking. Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan and return to the stove. Cook for another 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove saucepan from heat and add the gelatin. Stir until the gelatin is fully dissolved. Add in the chocolate and stir until fully melted and incorporated. Let mixture sit and cool to room temperature, about 1 hour.

Whip the cream to soft peaks. Fold gently into the chocolate mixture. The mixture may look very liquidy now but it will firm up as it cools and the gelatin sets.

When the mousse seems thick enough to spread, you can assemble the cakes. Place 8 cake rings on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a Silpat. Use a 2 1/2" round cookie cutter to cut out circles from the cake. You want to have 3 circles of cake for each cake ring. Place a circle of cake into the bottom of a cake ring. Spoon some mousse in. Top with another circle of cake, some more mousse, and the final circle of cake. If you have room you can spoon some mousse on top, but depending on how soft your mousse is it might make it trickier for the cake to hold its shape.

Chill cakes in the refrigerator overnight.

Unmold cakes shortly before serving them. Dust a little cocoa powder on top if desired.

Tagged with: chocolate malted mousse cake + pichet ong

Bite This!

The Opera Cake Goes Lemon and Lavender

 













When the hosts of the month for Daring Bakers are none other than the intrepid founders themselves, Ivonne and Lis, you know it will be something special indeed. These two lovely ladies who have created the web's most wonderful baking community, along with Fran of Apple Peaches Pumpkin Pie and Shea of Whiskful chose a beautiful and very apropos challenge for all who dare to bake: the Opera cake.

The very first time I made opera cake in pastry school, I felt like I'd scaled a baker's Everest, one made of cake and chocolate and cream and sugar. Like all the hard-core classics of French pâtisserie, opera cake offers a full-scale obstacle course to surmount: whipping egg whites, making joconde, mixing up buttercream, assembling multiple centimeter-thin layers of cake...anyone who finishes an opera cake should certainly feel the happy glow of accomplishment!

There's so much to learn from the opera cake: for example, the joconde is an almond genoise. Genoise is the French form of sponge or chiffon cake; these cakes are distinguished by the lack of leaveners in their batter. The only leavening in these cakes comes from the air whipped into the egg whites or eggs, which gives an added dimension to what's going on when you turn on your mixer. Unlike classic butter cakes, where you simply combine all the ingredients with a bit of baking powder or soda and let the chemicals do their thing in the oven, when making a genoise awareness of your actions becomes paramount. If you don't whip the eggs enough, there won't be enough air in the batter to let it rise. If you fold the ingredients together too roughly or let the batter sit out too long, you risk letting the air bubbles deflate, again losing that critical component of a genoise.

Some may prefer the robust, gloriously thick butter cake of American layer cake fame to the finicky, delicate sheets of genoise, but I find they both have their unique charms. Genoises are essential to the refined elegance of petit fours and other tea-time pastries; with the French penchant for individual-sized cakelets, you need thin, light layers for an effective presentation. The classic opera cake, which is composed of seven layers of cake, buttercream, and ganache, should be less that 1.5 inches total in height, meaning you've got to be pretty precise with all your pieces.

Then there's the buttercream: Ivonne and Lis chose a rich French buttercream for the opera cake filling. French buttercream is always a favorite because of its creamy, buttery flavor, but it can also melt faster because of its high fat content - I think I saw several DBs commenting on the softness of the buttercream. You need to work quickly with this buttercream, and don't be afraid to chill it if it's getting too soft. Myself, I tend to be more partial to the Italian meringue buttercream, because it's more stable and workable, and because it forces me to get over my fears about sugar cookery. Whichever form of buttercream you use, be sure to keep the layers of buttercream about the same thickness as the genoise layers - the genius of opera cake is the balance of textures and flavors between all the various components.














Finally, the top: classic opera cake is indelibly distinguished by its glossy smooth chocolate topping and swooping "l'Opera" writ in chocolate across the surface. But these days, all the classics are being interpreted and re-invented, and it's not surprising to find opera cake in all guises. I have to say one of my favorite versions is still Sadaharu Aoki's matcha version, which I tried to recreate. Ivonne and Lis specified a light-colored theme for the Daring Bakers challenge, and generously let us play around with flavors of our choosing. My mind immediately drifted to a lemon-lavender theme, and that's where I ended up: an opera cake brushed with lemon simple syrup, layered with lemon buttercream, and topped with lavender white chocolate mousse. Sweet, springy, and still lusciously decadent: I'd like to think French would approve of the modifications!

*By the way, for those that had trouble with making the white chocolate ganache mousse, I think the reason is that making a ganache with white chocolate and cream is quite different from making a ganache with dark chocolate. White chocolate is almost all fat, as is cream. Combining so much fat together can be almost impossible; overagitating the mixture will result in a clumpy curdled mess. The best strategy is to keep the cream and chocolate as cool as possible. Whip the cream to soft peaks, and then fold the melted chocolate in by hand. You can chill the mixture in the refrigerator to firm it up; this method is safer than trying to whip the ingredients together.

I always enjoy an opportunity to remake this pastry classic, and I especially enjoyed doing with all my fellow Daring Bakers! Thanks to Ivonne and Lis for creating the DB version of the opera cake - and for  inspiring hundreds of beautiful and scrumptious variants of this fabulous dessert!

This lemon and lavender opera cake is also dedicated to Barbara of winosandfoodies. Barbara is the founder of A Taste of Yellow, and I'm glad to have an appropriately-hued dessert to celebrate LiveStrong Day!

Tagged with: opera cake + lemon lavender + daring bakers + LiveStrong Day

Bite This!

Strawberry Mango Verrine

Apologies for my absence last week - I was working on a post that hasn't quite come together yet. Perhaps the brief heat wave we had was partly to blame: who wants to be inside plinking away on a computer when it's a beyond-gorgeous 90 degrees outside with nary a cloud in sight? For once, the tourists in their shorts and sandals weren't out of place, and the city was suffused - nay, drenched in a swell of sunshine that smelled of suntan lotion and ice cream instead of sea and salt and fog.

I walk across my kitchen on bare feet, luxuriating in the smooth feel of the wood, sun-warm even after the rays have long passed. Outside the window, a sunset trails its fingers of tangerine and raspberry and plum and caramel across a darkening sky. Later, when the colors have been scrubbed clean to black, we hear a familiar whistle and pop and look back outside to see fireworks blooming almost shyly from behind Coit Tower. Such a tease of summer. We pull our chairs out onto the balcony, and it's still so comfortingly warm that I think of childhood evenings in San Jose, where many a balmy summer night was spent outside riding bikes and listening to crickets. This night in San Francisco, it's so warm we can wear just tank tops and shorts, and we sit in our chairs watching fireworks glimmer in the sky in some unknown celebration but which we decide is just a spontaneous expression of the pure happiness that comes with being alive on a beautiful day.

So no, I didn't quite get around to doing a post.

But my mother came into town at the end of the week, and I knew she would be expecting a dessert. Something simple and not too sweet, to suit her tastes, and something that wouldn't require me to use the oven in an already-hot kitchen. Answer came in the form of the tumble of fruits on my counter - fruits and summer go together like swimsuits and swimming pools.

Strawberries and mangos - two fruits I love and my mom loves too. I thought of the fruity concoctions served at Hong Kong's Hui Lau Shan, and decided on a strawberry and mango verrine - or a parfait, if you prefer. Layering various components in a glass is one of the simplest and loveliest ways to present dessert.

The mangos were quickly pureed with a bit of lime juice (lemon juice works just as well), and the strawberries cubed and tossed with a bit of sugar. For the top layer, I wanted to do a traditional pastry cream, but I thought it might be a little heavy - most traditional Chinese desserts shy away from heavy, cloying fillings - and lightened it with some whipped cream.

The result is like the thrill of diving into the deep end of the pool; you dip your spoon in through the various layers, coming up to air with a spoonful of pleasure. As with all parfaits, this is easily adaptable to any fruit that suits your fancy: try to go for a mix of colors, tastes and textures (as I contrasted the smooth mango puree with the chunks of strawberries). 

I think my mom enjoyed it, and best of all, she's around for a while longer so I get to celebrate this beautiful weather with her some more. Hope you are enjoying May as spring unfurls towards summer.

P.S. I'm just getting back into the blogging groove after finishing my book, and I barely have time to write about what I'm baking, let alone what I've been reading. In lieu of a book-review post, check out the sidebars for what's been gracing my kitchen table lately - hope you find a tome or two to tempt you!

Strawberry Mango Verrines

Makes about 4 servings

1 cup (218 g) milk

2 Tablespoons (30 g) + 3 Tablespoons (44 g) sugar

3 egg yolks

2 Tablespoons (14 g) cornstarch

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup heavy cream

3 to 5 mangos (about 600 g total)

1 tablespoon lime juice

1 pint strawberries

sugar to taste

To make the pastry cream, combine 3/4 cup (172g) of the milk with 2 Tablespoons (30g) of sugar in a small saucepan. Heat on the stove over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved and bubbles appear on the edge of the pan.

Meanwhile, whisk together the egg yolks and 3 Tablespoons (44g) sugar in a bowl.

Whisk the cornstarch and remaining 1/4 cup (46g) milk in a small bowl and then add to the egg yolk mixture, whisking to combine.

Pour the hot milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly to prevent the eggs from cooking.

Return the entire mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens. Stir in the vanilla.

Scrape the pastry cream into a bowl, press a piece of plastic wrap to the surface, and refrigerate until needed.

When you are ready to use the pastry cream, whip the cream in a mixer to soft peaks, and then fold gently into the pastry cream to lighten.

To prepare the bottom mango layer, peel the mangos and slice away the flesh from the pit. Cut the flesh into small cubes - you will need about 300g total.

Puree about 100 g of the mango cubes with the lime juice and up to 1/4 cup of sugar to taste until smooth.

Pour the mango puree into the bottom of 4 glasses, filling about 1/3 full.

Wash and hull the strawberries, and cut into small cubes. Toss with about 1 tablespoon (more or less to taste) of sugar.

Pour the strawberries on top of the mango layer in each glass.

Spread the pastry cream on top of the strawberries in a smooth layer.

Decorate the top with sliced fruit.

Refrigerate for about a hour before serving.

Tagged with: strawberry mango verrine

Bite This!

Strawberries For the Birthday Girl

There are so many things I love about spring: longer, sunnier days, which means I can finally hang up my scarves and wool coats; flowers blooming everywhere, filling the air with their scent (I always know it's spring when the honeysuckle at my parents' home begins to perfume the air with its delirious, heady fragrance); the advent of all manner of fruit colorful and sweet (including my favorite, strawberries - naturally). And, of course, spring means my birthday!

I always enjoyed having my birthday in May; all the gorgeousness of spring always puts in me in a celebratory mood already, so getting a cake with candles to blow out is just a bonus. Of course, back in my school days, having a May birthday meant it was also end-of-school test time, which sometimes put a little damper on things. This year proved no exception, unfortunately: I've been so busy trying to wrap up this book that I hardly realized that oh-so-special day was creeping up on me. How come when you're young waiting for your birthday to arrive is an agony, yet when you're older it sneaks up on you like a wayward butterfly?

No matter - I've been working furiously on my manuscript so I can take today off to celebrate. And I'm also happy to say that the book will be off to the printers very soon, which means that 1)no more late nights trawling the manuscript for errors 2)the book will be out by the holidays, 3)more time to return to the blog (and all you dear dear readers), and 4)I'll be able to share more details on the book very soon! I know I've been tempting you with all sorts of vague references and allusions, but once the book's been formally announced, I'll be able to tell you what's it all about and my experiences writing it!

Also, my birthday is also extra-special now because I discovered a year ago that I shared it with no other than Bea of La Tartine Gourmande!  Bea is of course the most fabulously talented chef, stylist, and photographer I know, not to mention very sweet and charming - I'm more than honored to share my birthday with her!

So I e-mailed Bea a month ago and suggested that we make the same thing for our birthday, and she suggested, since she also loves strawberries, that we do a strawberry rhubarb tart. Well, happy birthday dear Bea! Here is my version of strawberry rhubarb tart, paired with a brown sugar ginger ice cream, all ready for our birthday!

I have loved the combination of strawberries and rhubarb ever since I made a strawberry rhubarb compote to go with an ice wine ice cream. I also love French-style tarts, so what could be better than Pierre Hermé's lovely shortcrust filled with a mixture of strawberries, rhubarb, sugar, and vanilla? Baked in the oven to soft, bubbling perfection, it's an elegant, tea-party version of the classic American strawberry rhubarb pie. The voluptuously sweet strawberries commingle with the barely-crisp, tart rhubarb into an unfettered pleasure on the tongue. The rich buttery pâte sucrée  makes a luxurious backdrop for the beautifully, vibrantly, red fruit. No birthday cake could be better.

While the ice wine ice cream was a quite excellent companion for strawberries and rhubarb, I wanted to go in a more robust direction and created a brown sugar ginger ice cream to accompany the tart. Just-sweet, pleasantly piquant, it's ice cream at its warmest and most comforting, and enhances the flavors of the tart beautifully. I used egg yolks in this ice cream, which, combined with the brown sugar gave it almost an eggnog taste until I added the ginger; next time I might leave out the eggs, but either way it's scrumptious.

I hope today is as sweet and springlike for you as it is for me, and I wish I could celebrate with all of you! Thanks so much for coming to Dessert First - it means so much to me, and I hope for many more years of sweetness!

Strawberry Rhubarb Tart

makes about 6-8 tartlets

Pâte Sucrée (adapted from Pierre Hermé's Desserts

(recipe makes more than enough, so save the rest for another tart)

1 1/4 sticks ( 146 g) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (86 g) confectioner's sugar, sifted

1/4 cup (5 g) almond meal or ground almonds

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg, room temperature

1 3/4 cups (232 g) all purpose flour

Filling

2 cups (about 9 ounces) strawberries

3 stalks (about 7 ounces) rhubarb

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For the tart shells: Place the butter in a food processor and process until soft and creamy.

Add the confectioners' sugar and process until well blended and smooth.

Add in the almond meal, salt, and vanilla extract and process until well blended.

Add in the egg and egg yolk and process until just blended; scrape the bowl down as necessary.

Add the flour and pulse just until the dough starts to come together into a ball; don't overprocess. The dough will be very soft like cookie dough.

Scrape the dough out of the food processor and make into a ball. Flatten out into a disk, wrap in plastic, and chill in refrigerator for at least 4 hours until it is firm enough to handle.

When you are ready to bake off the tart shells, take the dough out of the refrigerator - let it warm up a bit if necessary but not too much because it will start melting fast.

Roll out the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap to 1/8" thickness. If the dough gets too soft, place back in the refrigerator to firm up.

Place the tart rings you will use on a baking sheet lined with a Silpat or parchment paper.

Cut out circles of dough to fit into desired tart rings. Press the dough carefully into the tart rings and up the sides, being careful not to stretch the dough or it will shrink when baked. Place the rings into the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes. Trim off the excess dough from the top of the rings.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F while chilling the tart shells. When you are ready, line the shells with parchment and fill with beans or rice to keep the shells weighed down.

Bake shells for about 15-18  minutes until they are lightly colored and the shell feels dry to the touch. Remove from the oven and place on a rack. Remove the beans and parchment and brush the bottoms of the shells with a light egg wash (made from an egg white and a bit of water).

For the filling: Wash the strawberries, hull them, and slice into 1/8 thick slices (not too thin).

Wash the rhubarb and cut into small pieces.

Combine the strawberries and rhubarb with the sugar and vanilla in a bowl and toss thoroughly to mix. Let sit for about 5 minutes so the fruit juices start mixing with sugar.

Divide the fruit mixture among the tart shells. You can lay the fruit down in a pattern or simply spoon it in, but be careful not to overfill. When the tarts bake the juices from the fruit will bubble out and you don't want them to overflow.

Place tarts back into oven and bake for about 20-25 minutes until the filling is thick and bubbly.

Remove from oven and let cool on wire racks.

Brown Sugar Ginger Ice Cream

makes about 1 quart

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup milk

1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

1/2 cup light brown sugar

4 egg yolks

pinch of salt

Combine cream, milk, and ginger in a saucepan and bring to a simmer on medium heat on the stove.

Meanwhile, whisk brown sugar, egg yolks, and salt together in a medium bowl.

Pour about half of the hot milk mixture into the yolks, whisking constantly.

Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan and return to the stove. Cook on low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon.

Remove from heat and strain into a bowl. Chill in an ice bath until room temperature, then cover and chill overnight.

Prepare ice cream in an ice cream maker per manufacturer's instructions. Store in freezer to firm up.

 

Tagged with: strawberry rhubarb tart + brown sugar ginger ice cream + pierre herme + birthday

Bite This!

Pandan Cheesecake Pops - An Alluring New Flavor

Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms and Deborah of Taste and Tell, two blogs I totally adore, picked something quite playful and adorable for this month’s Daring Bakers – cheesecake pops from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O'Connor.

Elle and Deborah gave us quite a bit of leeway in customizing our pops, which I’m sure has resulted in a dazzling display of creativity among all the Daring Bakers. For my part, I found this recipe an opportunity to play with an interesting new addition to my pantry: pandan leaves.

Pandan leaves, or screwpine leaves, as they as also called, come from Southeast Asia, and are used in a variety of ways, from flavoring savory dishes to scenting jasmine rice. Pandan possesses a uniquely nutty, floral flavor, quite unexpected from the leafy green fronds. This subtle sweetness also makes pandan a natural for baking: one classic dessert is pandan chiffon cake, a fluffy, angel-food like concoction distinguished by its spring green hue which comes from the pandan leaf juice itself.

So where are pandan leaves found outside of Asia? Surprisingly, they were almost under my nose – frozen pandan leaves are often carried in Asian supermarkets, and I actually found fresh ones in Chinatown! Another reason why I love living here – there’s always something new to uncover. If you can’t find pandan leaves, there is also pandan extract and pandan paste – in fact, many recipes will often call for these substitutes instead. Having found both at the supermarket, I purchased them to do a little comparison baking in the kitchen.

Onto the recipe itself: I must confess that this was not my favorite recipe. The cheesecake was easy enough to make and set nicely, but I had difficulty forming it into balls for dipping. The cheesecake was a little too soft to work with, although I think it was an excellent texture for cheesecake: if I had baked it longer, I think it might have turned rubbery. So it was a good cheesecake, but I just had trouble getting it into its final form.

Dipping the cheesecake balls in melted chocolate proved not too tricky either, but I think these pops might store better in the freezer than the refrigerator. Storing them in the fridge kept the cheesecake centers a little too soft so the wooden skewers did not stay in very securely. Ultimate verdict: this is a nice recipe, and very nicely adaptable, but I think I enjoyed it more for the chance to experiment with flavors than actually making them.

In working the pandan leaves, I wasn’t convinced at all initially that these long leaves would actually work as described. They had a grassy smell (naturally), and after blending them with some water to get pandan juice, it still smelled grassy – and tasted that way too. I was certainly glad I had some pandan extract at this point!

I added the juice to half the batter, which fortunately did not change color – I was afraid I’d be breaking the challenge rules! Apparently it takes a lot of pandan juice to add color to a dish – many recipes call for food coloring or pandan paste in addition to achieve the verdant hue. Pandan extract and pandan paste usually have food coloring that will most certainly turn whatever they’re added to quite green!

I added a teaspoon of pandan paste to the rest of the batter and sure enough, it immediately turned bright green. Here’s an image of the two cakes for comparision:

Tastewise, I had yet another surprise. Both cheesecakes tasted very similar. I was so certain the one with pandan juice would taste grassy, but in fact it somehow transformed in the oven into a smooth, creamy cake with an elusive, sweet flavor almost like a floral vanilla – and it no longer smelled like grass. The cheesecake with pandan paste tasted a little stronger, perhaps because of the amount of paste I added, but the flavor itself was quite close. What a pleasant discovery! So I can recommend using pandan extract or paste if you can’t find leaves, as the results are close enough to be indistinguishable.

I’ve almost used up the leaves, but the paste will last me a long time – and now I’m curious to keep playing around with this intriguing new flavor!

Thanks for another fun Daring Bakers Challenge!

Cheesecake Pops

Makes 30 – 40 Pops   

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature

2 cups sugar

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

5 large eggs

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ cup heavy cream

Boiling water as needed

Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks 

1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionary coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening   

Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) - Optional   

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.

In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed.  Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.   

Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.

Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.   

When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.   

Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.   

Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

 

Tagged with: Jill O'Connor + pandan cheesecake pops + pandan + daring bakers

Bite This!

For Love of Lychees

When I visited Amai Tea House in New York, one of their treats I sampled besides their tea cookies was a moist lychee brownie. The brownie was pleasantly thick and fudgy, but it didn't have quite enough lychee flavor for my taste - I am quite fond of the fruit, so perhaps I hoping for a bit more punch.

I carried the thought back with me to San Francisco, and last week when I picked up some of the season's first strawberries, it all came together - a light lychee butter cake with strawberries and rose cream.

Lychees are surely a fruit for the sweet-toothed - with their honeyed, floral flavor and ambrosial fragrance, they are nature's bonbons, albeit in a prickly-than-usual package. Lychees aren't quite in season yet; they are found in abundance during the summer months at Asian markets, and a frosty lychee tapioca drink is one of my favorite thirst quenchers on a hot day. However, canned lychees can be found year round; they're usually packed in sweet syrup, much like many canned peaches, which can render them even more shockingly sweet. In this cake though, I found the syrup can be used advantageously to boost the lychee flavor.

The cake is a sunshiny cloud of happiness - I was aiming for a looser, fluffier texture rather than a tight, pound cake-like crumb. Gorgeously golden, it promises rich buttery flavor and delivers, along with a dose of fruitiness from the bits of lychees sprinkled throughout and laced into the cake batter. The lightness and delicacy of the cake helps showcase the lychees instead of competing against it like a heavier, more intense cake might. I also found that using the syrup from the canned lychees really helps boost the flavor - as well as making the cake irresistibly fragrant! If you're a little uncertain as to how sweet you want your cake, you can always decrease how much syrup you add in. Also, dry off the lychees before you add them to the batter - that will also get rid of more syrup and prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the cake.

In pondering what to serve the cake with, I first thought of some obvious tropical companions like coconut or macadamias, but I really wanted to use those strawberries - they were too tempting to ignore. So really, this dessert ended up being a minor riff on the Ispahan - raspberries would be wonderful with the cake too, as their tartness would match well with the sweetness of the lychees - but I think the strawberries, draped with a spring-pink rose-scented cream, fit the bill just fine.

The strawberries are adapted from Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert, but I added some rose syrup to the whipped cream to intensify the flavor and give it color. If you can't find it, rosewater will work just as well, but if you do get your hands on some rose syrup, it's a fun ingredient to work with; it's jewel-pink color never fails to bring a smile to my face.

It's awfully windy and blustery out here in San Francisco, but the bright skies and lengthening days tell me that spring is definitely here. And when strawberries start showing up at the market, who am I to disagree?

Lychee Butter Cake

1- 14 oz can lychees (about 1 cup lychees, reserve the liquid)

2 cups (240g) flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup (160g) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (160 g) sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8x8 baking pan.

Drain the lychees and cut into small pieces; set aside.

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl and set aside.

In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed for several minutes until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla. Mix to combine.

Add in about 4 -6 tablespoons of the reserved lychee liquid slowly. Mix between additions to fully incorporate before adding more.

Toss the lychee pieces in the flour mixture to coat (this will help keep them from sinking to the bottom of the batter).

Add flour and lychee mixture to the batter and mix to combine.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for