Maple Brulee Tart

Breakfast has a good hold on maple syrup, and that’s ok because it’s expected there. It’s nice to wake up to the flavor of maple, but I think dessert deserves more maple time than it gets. I occasionally see mentions of cakes or frostings made with maple, but it seems to me there could more occurrences of it in sweet treats at times other than in the morning. I do have a thing for maple, and it’s possible this all stems from there only ever being one lone, maple-glazed doughnut in the assorted dozens we used to get. When I reached into the box and the maple-glazed was already gone, my morning was ruined. So, when I saw an article about maple syrup in Donna Hay magazine a few months ago, I cut out all the recipes to keep. There’s a cake and a cookie that I’ll try soon enough, but this bruleed tart was the first I had to make. The maple syrup is in the custard, and after baking in the vanilla pastry shell, sugar was caramelized on top to give it bits of sweet crunch on the surface. The recipe isn’t available online, so I’ll include it below.

The vanilla pastry was made first with flour, sugar, and baking powder being blended in a food processor. Chopped cold butter was added, it was processed until crumbly, and then cold water and vanilla were added and mixed until the dough formed. After chilling a bit, the dough was rolled out, fitted into a tart pan, and blind baked. To make the custard, milk and half and half were heated until just boiling before being poured over a mixture of eggs, egg yolks, maple syrup, and sugar while whisking. The custard was cooled a bit before being poured into the tart shell. The filled tart then baked for about 25 minutes or until just set. Last, the baked tart was sprinkled with superfine sugar, and I placed it under the broiler for a few minutes to caramelize. This would have been a good time to use a kitchen blow torch for caramelizing the sugar because the edges of the tart shell stood taller than the filling causing the edges to brown at the same time as the sugar. With a torch, you could more easily direct the heat. Hence, I need a blow torch.

At the size suggested in the recipe, this makes a thin tart, but it’s rich enough that you won’t feel the pieces are lacking in depth. This is best served just after being bruleed. The maple will be fragrant in the still warm, smooth custard, and the flavor of the vanilla pastry blends well with it. The crunch of the sugar on top contrasts nicely too. Now, what other ways are there for maple to find its way into dessert?

Maple Brulee Tart
(from Donna Hay magazine)
2 eggs, plus 2 extra yolks
½ cup sugar
¼ cup pure maple syrup
1 cup milk
1 cup half and half
superfine sugar for sprinkling (*Note: I’ve found that organic sugar doesn’t caramelize as well for a brulee, so I use conventional superfine sugar.)

vanilla pastry:
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ teaspoon baking powder
13 tablespoons cold butter, cut into cubes
1/3 cup iced water
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

-Start with the vanilla pastry. Place flour, sugar, and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the butter cubes and pulse until the mixture is crumbly. With the motor running, slowly pour in the ice water and vanilla and process until the mixture forms a dough. Transfer to plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.

-Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees F. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface and then place in an eleven inch, round tart pan. Place tart pan on a large baking sheet to make it easier to move tart pan in and out of oven, cover the surface of the pastry with parchment paper, and fill the tart with pie weights or dried beans. Blind bake for 15-20 minutes, remove from oven, remove parchment and pie weights, and then set aside.

- In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, egg yolks, sugar, and maple syrup. Combine milk and half and half in a small saucepan over low heat. Heat milk mixture until just boiling, and then slowly pour it into bowl with egg mixture while whisking constantly. Allow to cool just a bit before pouring the custard into the blind baked crust, and place the tart back in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until just set in the center. Remove from oven and let cool.

-Sprinkled cooled tart with superfine sugar while pre-heating the broiler. Place tart under the broiler, and leave oven door ajar so you can watch as the sugar browns. Turn the tart to brown as evenly as possible. Or, use a kitchen blow torch to brown the sugar. Serve while still warm and enjoy the wonderfulness of maple syrup for dessert.
 

Iced Oatmeal Applesauce Cookies and Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

You know I love it when I get to bake some cookies and then promptly get them out of my house. I don’t need those little, tempting treats sitting on my kitchen counter taunting me every time I walk through the room. And, putting them in the freezer is no better. In this weather, frozen cookies are just as irresistible as the ones on the counter. So, when my brother sent me his cookie wish list, I was game. It was an opportunity to whip out the Martha Stewart's Cookies book again, try a couple more recipes, and then box up the results and ship them away. The book has 175 cookie recipes, and I’ve joked that I’ll eventually try all of them. I just counted, and I’ve made sixteen so far. Although not all of them are mentioned on my site, I haven’t encountered a disappointment yet. My brother’s list went something like this: oatmeal raisin, sugar cookies, brownies, chocolate chip, peanut butter cookies. I took some liberties with flavors, naturally, and decided to make the iced oatmeal applesauce cookies and peanut butter swirl brownies.

The iced oatmeal and applesauce cookies are a rather healthy option with only half a stick of butter, one egg, and a half cup of applesauce. Those ingredients were mixed with brown sugar and granulated sugar before the dry ingredients including oats, of course, were added. Last, golden raisins were folded into the dough, and the cookies were baked and cooled. If they weren’t delicious enough on their own, the drizzled maple glaze on top made them stellar. These could easily be one of my favorite cookies from this book.

Up next were the peanut butter swirl brownies. Making a simple batter in a bowl with no need for a mixer is always fun. Unsweetened and semisweet chocolates were melted with butter and then combined with the dry ingredients. Sugar, eggs, and vanilla were added, and that was set aside. Peanut butter was mixed with melted butter, confectioner’s sugar, salt, and vanilla for the filling. Part of the chocolate batter was poured into the prepared, square baking pan. The peanut butter filling was globbed here and there on top of it, and then the remaining batter was poured over the filling. The filling was swirled into the batter with a knife, and the brownies baked for 45 minutes. They came out looking decorative all on their own with no need for added embellishment, and with swooping peanut butter throughout the chocolate brownies, the flavor was perfect. Getting to bake some cookies, have a little taste of them, and then, poof, have all traces gone from the house is my ideal arrangement.

Roasted Vegetables with a Maple Balsamic Glaze

I’m not planning a Thanksgiving menu this year, and coming to think of it, it’s been a few years since I did. We hosted friends and family for the big meal for several years in row, but then got into the habit of traveling for the last few Thanksgivings. I actually really like putting together a menu for such a feast, so I may have to plan on being at home next year. When I do plan the menu, I like to include at least one dish that is completely simple and that highlights the quality of some fresh vegetables. This roasted vegetable dish fits that description. I used perfectly fresh carrots, turnips, and beets from my CSA, and roasting them alone gives them incredible flavor. I upped that flavor just a bit with a quick, tangy, sweet glaze.

The carrots were cleaned and peeled, the turnips were chopped into large chunks, and the beets were left whole with skin intact for roasting. I kept each vegetable in its own area of a baking sheet so the color of the beets wouldn’t find its way onto the other items. The vegetables were drizzled with olive and seasoned with salt and pepper, and into a hot oven they went. The roasting time, of course, depends on the size of each vegetable, so start testing for tenderness after 20 minutes or so. The carrots were done first, so I removed them to a platter while the turnips and beets continued roasting. When the turnips were golden and a knife poked into them easily, I added those chunks to the platter with the carrots. I allowed the beets to cool enough to handle and then rubbed off the skins before slicing them. The glaze, for two to four servings, was made with two tablespoons of butter, two tablespoons of pure maple syrup, and one tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. Those three items were placed in a saucepan and stirred until the butter melted. I let it continue to cook for five minutes or so to slightly thicken. Then, it was spooned over the vegetables on the platter.

I like the look of separate piles of each vegetable, so the colors were grouped on the platter. Some butternut squash chunks would have been good here too, and the mix could be as diverse or as simple as you choose. You could even roast the vegetables in advance and then just warm them in the oven before serving. The glaze goes so well with the caramelized roasted vegetables, and it’s so easy to make and worry-free, it’s one of my favorites.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Oatmeal Maple Bars

I just recently got a copy of the Greyston Bakery Cookbook, and as I read through the cakes chapter, I started mentally assigning each cake to a future occasion. The Mexican hot chocolate cake might be good for New Year’s, the steamed lemon cakelets would be lovely in the spring, maybe we should have the mocha kahlua cake on Christmas Eve, I want the fresh coconut mousse cake for my birthday, and the Bermudian rum cake would be great for next Monday because no other occasion was soon enough. After the cakes come the tarts which are followed by the cookies and bars. Since I wasn’t willing to wait for a special occasion to get baking, I decided to start with the oatmeal maple bars. All of these recipes come from the Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, New York which employs people from the community who may have previously had a hard time finding a stable job. Their made from scratch sweets are sold at the bakery, on the bakery’s web site and at shops and restaurants in New York City. There is much more information about the social mission of the bakery and the Greyston Foundation on their web site. I’ve never visited the bakery, but I had heard a lot about it, and the book came highly recommended.

As I wrote down a shopping list of ingredients for these bars, I kept flipping back to the page with the lime bars with white chocolate. In the end though, I chose to welcome the fall season with the flavors of oatmeal and maple. The bars are a mixture of oats, butter, sugar, pure maple syrup, eggs, vanilla, grated orange zest, raisins, and walnuts. The raisins were supposed to be currants, but for whatever reason, Whole Foods had no currants and I was too lazy to make another stop. The raisins were fine here, and the important thing was actually the orange zest. It definitely should not be skipped. The bars were baked in a nine-inch by thirteen-inch pan and then were left to cool. Once cool, a glaze made from butter, maple syrup, cream, and confectioner’s sugar was to have been drizzled on top. The photo in the book shows a nice, thick glaze that was drawn across the bars in lines. My glaze, however, was not of such a consistency. I tried letting it cool for extra time in hopes it would thicken. I tried whisking in a little more confectioner’s sugar. And, then, I gave up and just poured the thin glaze all over the top of the uncut bars and placed walnut halves in what would be the centers of each of 24 pieces.

My glaze may not have looked liked that in the photo, but it was delicious. The chewy, bars are an addictive flavor combination of orange, walnut, oats, and a hint of maple while the glaze adds more maple flavor on top. Cut into cute, little squares, these are hard to resist. Now, I’m starting to think those cakes don’t really need to be reserved for special occasions, and even if they do, I should probably test them first anyway, right?