Cherry buckwheat clafoutis

I had a special request from my friend Judy to post more buckwheat recipes. It seems the least I can do after encouraging her to buy a bag of buckwheat flour to make this and these. So, here we are, with something suitable for dessert, or Sunday breakfast, especially on a cold and rainy day like today. I love clafoutis, as it's like a very thick crepe. I like the custardy, slightly stodgy texture of it, and I like playing with the proportions of the ingredients to make it cakier or eggier. I prefer it on the custardy side.

I usually make this with all-purpose flour, but thought I'd try a few different versions: one with half all-purpose and half buckwheat flour; one with half ground almonds and half buckwheat; and the third with equal measures of all-purpose, buckwheat and almond. The all-purpose and buckwheat combination was the best of the three: a bit heartier than an all-wheat flour clafoutis, but delicious. The versions with almonds were good, but they separated to make a custard layer on top (very good), and a somewhat chewy layer of the buckwheat and almond on the bottom (not so good).

I looked at a variety of recipes before making this, starting with Julia Child's, and cobbled together one that is a bit lighter than I would make for a dessert clafoutis. Feel free to substitute cream for milk and add some melted butter to the batter.

Cherry buckwheat clafoutis
Makes 3 ramekins' worth, but easy to scale up for more. Triple it for a 9" dish.

1 egg
⅓ to ½ cup whole milk, or cream (I used the larger amount of milk)
2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon Amaretto or kirsch, or other liqueur, or nothing at all
2 tablespoons buckwheat flour (or use all-purpose)
2 tablespoons all-purpose four
pinch salt
cherries, unpitted, to cover the bottom of each ramekin (6 in each was perfect for me)

Preheat oven to 425℉. Butter 3 shallow ramekins. Scatter unpitted cherries in the bottom. You can pit if you like, but the cherry pits add flavour. Combine flours and salt in a bowl and mix well. Whisk together egg, milk, vanilla, liqueur and sugar. Add to dry ingredients, whisking until smooth. Pour over cherries and bake for about 20 minutes, until the clafoutis is puffed and spotted with brown. Dust with icing sugar and serve immediately, or just warm, if you can wait. I couldn't.

Rhubarb and orange mini cakes

This is the last rhubarb recipe, I promise! Till next year, anyway. I have about 12 things I didn't get around to making this year on my mental to-do list. Don't worry, I'll probably forget at least half of them. 

I made this recipe twice last week, because it was that good. That good, but problematic too. The first time, I made a half recipe in a loaf pan, as the recipe called for, and it was delicious, but too tender. Too tender is usually not a problem with cakes, but this was impossible to slice. I ended up bringing a container of icing covered crumbs to school. They were all eaten, as teachers are not that fussy, I guess. Especially when it comes to a soft cake with rhubarb melted into it, leaving behind a tangy flavour. The second time I made it I decided to make individual cakes. I'd call them cupcakes, but I haven't got a cupcake tin, and so I used ramekins, which made for 7 slightly-too-large-for-one serving cakes out of another half recipe. I think you'd get a dozen if you use a regular muffin tin. Or refrigerate your cake for easier slicing. But cold butter cake? It doesn't appeal to me much, as it gets so firm.

This recipe was adapted from one in Rustic Fruit Desserts, by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson. They call it Lemon buttermilk rhubarb bundt cake. Makes 1 bundt cake, 2 dozen cupcakes, or 2 loaf cakes. Go ahead, make the whole recipe. Otherwise you'll just make it again the next day.

Cake:

2½ cups plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour (12½ ounces+⅝ ounce)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (8 ounces) unsalted butter

1¾ cups (12 ounces) granulated sugar

zest of 1 orange

3 eggs

¾ cup buttermilk

1 pound rhubarb, trimmed and very thinly sliced (3 cups or 12 ounces prepared)

Preheat oven to 350℉, and butter your pan(s).

Sift the larger measure of flour, the baking powder and salt together. Cream the butter, sugar and zest together for 3-5 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping the sides of the bowl after each addition. Stir in the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the buttermilk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally. The batter will be very thick, but that's fine, because the rhubarb will release a lot of liquid. 

Toss the sliced rhubarb with the 2 tablespoons flour and fold it into the batter. Spread the batter evenly in your prepared pan(s). 

Bake for 20-25 minutes for cupcakes, 55-65 minutes for a loaf cake, and an hour for the bundt cake. Bake till the top is firm and the centre springs back when lightly touched. A toothpick will come out clean. Cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes before unmolding. Turn right side up to cool completely.

Orange glaze

2 cups (8½ ounces) sifted icing sugar, or more as needed

juice of 1 orange 

1 tablespoon soft butter

Whisk the glaze ingredients together. The mixture should be thick, so don't add all the orange juice at once. Add more sugar or juice to get the consistency you want. Spread over the cake/cupcakes as soon as you remove from the pan. (I preferred the cake without this, as it was very sweet)

Apparently this cake keeps for 3-4 days, covered at room temperature. I ended up keeping mine in the fridge, because it was so hot, but the texture was better at room temp.

Daring Bakers: Pièce Montée (Croquembouche)

I was so excited when this challenge was revealed: cream puffs were a favourite childhood treat for my brother and I. No trip to Cantor's Bakery was complete without a giant cream puff. I have made them and éclairs, and even a Gâteau St-Honoré, but I had never assembled a croquembouche. It was tempting to jump in right away, as I had all the ingredients on hand, but I decided to wait and make it for my birthday. Of course, this also meant I could procrastinate a bit, which is always appreciated. 

One of the best things about this dessert is that it doesn't include chocolate! I decided to fill the puffs with vanilla pastry cream and passion fruit curd. For the glue, I used caramel. I wanted to make some spun sugar, but the day was a bit grey and drizzly, so I skipped it, though my first batch of caramel did spontaneously turn into spun sugar. I didn't have time at that point, as I didn't want to be late for my own brunch.

The pâte à choux was really easy to work with, and I got 35 puffs from the recipe given. I used about 30 to make the croquembouche, as that's all I could fill using the 2 batches of filling I made. I used the challenge recipe for the vanilla pastry cream, and the recipe for the passion fruit curd comes from Heavenly Cakes, by Rose Levy Berenbaum. The vanilla pastry cream was the perfect texture, but the passion fruit curd was runny, which made for some messy eating. You can find the recipe for this, as well as the rest of the challenge recipes at the end of the post.

I dipped the filled puffs in the molten caramel by hand, burning myself a number of times. Only one blister, though, which is not too bad, considering I dipped them top and bottom. It was quite easy to build the structure, as the caramel was like super glue. The croquembouche sat for a few hours while we ate our brunch, and the caramel got a bit too chewy in the humidity, but it was still delicious. I'll definitely be making this one again! Check out our host Cat's site here, and see the slideshow of creations from the Daring Bakers here.

Blog-checking lines: The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.


Recipes after the jump!

Rhubarb, 3 ways

I think I'm finished with the rhubarb for this year. I picked some yesterday, but gave it all away. I know that I should spread these recipes out, but I'm really too lazy to make 3 separate blog posts, so here they are. Not sure how much baking I'll be doing this week, as it's in the 30s here already, which is unseasonably warm.

First up is a recipe from Baking with Julia. It's called Hungarian shortbread, but isn't shortbread-like at all. It's more like a cake with a layer of rhubarb jam in the middle. This is made by freezing and then grating the shortbread mixture, for a light and tender cake. I make half the recipe below in a 9" square pan, but use the full amount of rhubarb filling. You could use any jam here if you don't love rhubarb. If you don't love rhubarb you're probably not reading any longer...

Hungarian Shortbread, from Baking with Julia, written by Dorie Greenspan. Contributing baker: Gale Gand.

Rhubarb Jam
1 pound rhubarb, cut in 1" lengths
½ cup sugar
½ cup water ( I use less)
½ vanilla bean, split

Combine jam ingredients in a saucepan and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until the rhubarb turns to mush. Cool to room temperature, or chill if making in advance. This will keep for a week in the fridge, covered.

Shortbread
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 pound butter at room temperature
4 large egg yolks
2 cups granulated sugar

Whisk the dry ingredients together and set aside.
Beat the butter on high speed until pale and fluffy, and add the sugar. Beat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is light. Beat in the egg yolks. Reduce the mixer speed and add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated.
Divide the dough in half and form it into 2 balls. Wrap each in plastic and freeze for half an hour, or until firm. You can also keep this dough in the freezer and thaw it overnight in the refrigerator.
Assembling and baking
Preheat oven to 350℉. Remove one ball of dough from the freezer and grate it on a box grater, using the largest holes, directly into a 9"x12"pan (or 9"x 13"). If you only made half a recipe, use an 8"x8", or 9"x9" pan. Pat the dough gently to get it into the corners, but don't press it down too much. Spread the jam overtop, and grate the remaining dough over the top, spreading evenly.
Bake for 40 minutes, or until golden brown. Mine always seems to take 50 minutes or so, even in a small pan, so be sure to check that it's firm in the centre before taking it out.

Dust with icing sugar as soon as you remove it from the oven, and cool it on a wire rack. Cut into squares when cool. You'll probably need to add more icing sugar.

These keep for a couple of days, but are best on the day you make them. They can also be frozen once baked.

Next is rhubarb soda, which is easy and refreshing.

Combine 5 cups thinly sliced rhubarb, 5 cups water and a scant 3 cups sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 5-10 minutes, or until the rhubarb dissolves. Strain and cool. Use this pink concentrate to make a soda by diluting with sparkling water. Some booze would not be out of place here...

I seem to be making lots of things with egg yolks recently, so am left with a glut of egg whites. I decided to make a pavlova-type meringue and top it with rhubarb fool. This was delicious, but as you can see in the pictures, melted fast. I only made 2, but you can easily scale the recipe up.

Meringue
1 egg white
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
½ teaspoon vinegar
a bit of vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 300℉ and line a baking sheet with parchment. Beat egg whites to soft peaks, then beat in sugar gradually, until they hold firm peaks. Quickly beat in cornstarch, vinegar and vanilla. Form meringue into 2 mounds on baking sheet, making a dip in the centre to hold the filling. Place in oven and immediately reduce temperature to 250℉. Bake for 1 hour, until crisp but not browned. Turn oven off and cool in over with door propped open.

For the filling, I used the leftover rhubarb I had roasted at 375℉ with a few tablespoons of sugar, along with some of its syrup. I combined the rhubarb with about ¼ cup of cream, whipped, and an equal amount of Greek yogurt, some icing sugar and some of that pink syrup. This mess I piled into the cooled meringue shell. It was perfect--crisp and chewy, creamy, sweet and tart too.

I crumbled the second meringue and mixed it with the cream filling to make a kind of Eton mess--it was pretty good too!

There's another pound or so of rhubarb in the fridge, but I'll spare you for now! See you on Thursday with the Daring Bakers' reveal, which was one of my birthday cakes this year.

Rhuberry raspbarb crumble

Did you know that buckwheat and rhubarb are related? Not sure where I learned that, but when I saw this crumble using buckwheat and almonds I knew it would have to wait till rhubarb season. It was worth it!
Since I am down to the green rhubarb I added a handful of raspberries to the filling for their gorgeous colour. This is a super simple recipe, and it was so delicious--very tart fruit with a sweet topping. I bet it would be lovely with cream or ice cream, but I enjoyed it all by itself. The topping is more sandy than crisp, so I may add a handful of oats next time, or just squeeze it together so it's chunkier.

Here's my take on the recipe linked above, from Cannelle et Vanille:

Preheat oven to 350℉/180℃. Line a baking sheet with parchment, unless you like cleaning up boiled-over fruit goo. 

220 grams rhubarb, sliced or diced

80 grams raspberries (I used frozen)

1 teaspoon vanilla or extrait antillais (vanilla, tonka bean, sapote, mace)

50 grams sugar

10 grams cornstarch

Mix together and divide amongst small ramekins. I got 3 using these amounts. Remember that the rhubarb will slump dramatically, so fill them to near the top.

Combine in a food processor

50 grams buckwheat flour

50 grams almond flour (I used sliced almonds and saved some to sprinkle on top)

50 grams sugar

a pinch of salt

Add 50 grams of cold, unsalted butter, cut in cubes, and process until crumbs form, but it should not come together!

Sprinkle over the fruit and bake for 30 minutes, or until fruit just starts to bubble over. Let cool for at least 10 seconds before devouring.