x. Desserts

Every good meal needs a sweet conclusion, a proper dessert, elaborate or not.

Dessert ‘science’ is a world in itself. Throughout history, the French have been particularly active in this field, mastering countless ways to use gluten’s wonderful binding properties, inventing all kinds of creamy concoctions, perfecting various sugar metamorphoses.

Dessert preparation can be challenging in its own way and top restaurants always have a dedicated pastry chef. At home, with most of our attention given to what comes before, we keep dessert simple (but delightful) and we share responsibilities: Meredith traditionally makes all pastry, while I specialize in fruit and sorbets. Here are some of the most easily prepared crowd-pleasers. (1)

 Fruit Sashimi

Most people do not enjoy fruit, unless it is “enhanced” in some way, mainly through the addition of unnecessary sugar. As a fruit lover, I would like everyone to appreciate good ripe fruits and I propose another enticing way, based on the cutting and presentation techniques of sashimi. Guests are equipped with a fork and serve themselves directly in the main dish, one bite at a time.

First, choose a beautiful platter, the way Japanese sushi chefs do. Now is the time for you to display your creativity and skills with 4 or 5 different fruits, let’s say banana, apples, oranges or grapefruit, papaya, mango and pineapple, which you cut on a board and lay down in traditional or original ways. You can add some items for show, mint leaves or papaya seeds for example, which are both decorative and edible. 

  Summer Fruit Salads

Nothing matches ripe summer fruit. If you find sashimi too austere, you can make all kinds of combinations with one or two different kinds of fruit, some sweet wine, two or three tablespoons of sugar, and possibly some garden herb like mint, basil, lemon thyme or tarragon. French Sauternes may be beyond your means; try Japanese plum wine, in small amounts as it may be overly flavorful.

Some mouth-watering combinations include:

×           Cantaloupe melon and red or white currants

×           Peaches and raspberries or strawberries (2)

×           Figs and raspberries

×           Banana, kiwi and strawberries

Moroccan Orange Salad

This recipe exemplifies how enjoyment and simplicity can go together. It uses Navel oranges which are very sweet in winter months (especially after a cold spell) and widely available. For best results, each orange has to be pared in a circular motion with a very sharp knife to eliminate the white thin skin with the orange outer skin. Then, you slice it transversally into thick slices.

Arrange the slices on the main serving dish. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon powder. Serve with a sprig or two of fresh mint. You can add a ribbon of Grand-Marnier if you feel like it and none of your guests is alcohol-adverse but, of course, it was not part of the original recipe.

Candied Apples, Pears or Apricots

Apples and pears cook very well with sugar, without collapsing as many other fruits do. This dessert is light, easy to make, delicious and original for your guests. You just need fruit, sugar, and olive oil.

Peel 2 or 3 apples, and cut them in slivers 1/8 inch thick.

Throw them in a pan with1/2 cup of sugar and 2 tbsp. olive oil.

Sauté on medium heat, stirring in order to coat the slivers and caramelize them.

Your dessert should be ready in 10 minutes, with slivers both tender and crisp. Contrary to popular belief, there is no after taste of olive oil at all! This is delicious served hot with vanilla ice cream. 

If you try this with garden apricots, you will find them a little mushier, but their flavor after cooking may surpass all your expectations.

Poached Pears (Poires au Vin Rouge)

This simple recipe provides a beautiful looking dessert with pear hues going from pink to purple, according to pear variety and the staining capabilities of the selected red wine.

You will just need:

×           4 Bartlett pears (Poire Williams) or elongated Bosc pears

×           1 bottle red wine (dark and inexpensive! Its main purpose is to color the pears)

×           1 cup sugar

×           2 cloves

×           2 peppercorns

Peel the pears, leaving them whole with the stem on.

Place them in an enameled pan and cover them with the wine. Add the sugar and spices.

Bring to a simmer, while stirring gently to help the sugar dissolve.

Let the pears cook in the simmering liquid for about 20 minutes.

Take them out and place them standing on individual plates. If they do not stand naturally, you can slightly trim the bottom.

Pour a few tbsp. of the cooked wine over the pears.

Set aside until dessert time: these pears will taste better at room temperature or lukewarm rather than chilled.

Before serving, several variations are possible: if you want to go all the way, you can reduce the remaining wine to a syrup consistency, add a dollop of vanilla ice cream in each plate, and pour the syrup over both pear and ice cream. 

If you are in a rush, or do not have enough wine to cover the pears, you can always cut those in 2 or 4. Although less visually impressive, your dessert will taste as good.

Strawberry Delight

This very simple cold dessert, originating in the restaurant ‘La Pyramide’ in France under the label ‘Fraises de Maman Point’ can be prepared well ahead of your dinner.

You just need :

×           1 ½ lb. strawberries

×           1 cup sugar

×           ½ cup crème fraîche

×           ½ cup kirsch (or kirschwasser, cherry fruit brandy)

Blend all ingredients together and set aside in the refrigerator.

Serve in verrines or individual cups with freshly diced peach on top.

Shortcrust Pastry Dough (Pâte Brisée)

Pâte Brisée is the most commonly used dough for sweet and savory pies. If pastry is your business, use a food processor. If not make it the way it is made in our family, with a recipe passed down from my mother to my wife and now to the next generation.

It is a little tricky but very simple. Here is what you need for one large pie:

×           1 ¾ cup flour

×           ½ tsp. salt

×           4 oz. butter (1 stick)

×           ¼ cup ice water

×           1 tbsp. oil

Pour the flour in a bowl and mix the salt and oil in.

Cut the cold butter into small pieces (about ½ tsp. size) and spread it in the bowl

Work the mixture with the tip of your fingers for 3 minutes without trying to bind everything. You should see all kinds of clumps. Leave them alone.

Now, pour the water in and mix again for 3 minutes with your hands. It should remain irregular with butter clumps.

You can now gather up the dough into a ball which you can put in the refrigerator to cool for ½ hour before use.

To make a pie, remove the dough from the refrigerator and place on a lightly floured countertop.

Flour your rolling pin and roll the dough out until you reach the desired even thickness. Place over your pie pan and then lower it down, pressing gently onto the bottom and the sides. One way to achieve this is by folding the dough in 4, so that you can lift it, and unfolding it in the pan.

At this stage, if your dough has not been worked on too much, it should tear here and there. You can just patch all holes with a little bit of leftover dough. It is this very messiness which will make a heavenly experience of your future crust.

Apple, Pear or Apricot Pie

Whisk an egg yolk with sugar in a large bowl until creamy.

Peel enough apples or pears to fill your pie and take the seeds out.

Cut in slivers that you whisk in the creamy mixture.

Arrange the slivers onto the dough in the pan and empty the rest of the mix over it.

Put in an oven at 450°F for 30 minutes.

You can try this recipe with apricots during their short season if you like them. However, they release a lot of their water during the cooking process and a stunning success proves harder to achieve. You can alleviate the problem by pre-cooking the dough for 5 to 10 minutes before adding the filling.

Tarte Tatin

Tarte Tatin is an upside-down pie in which large fruit pieces are caramelized in butter and sugar on the stove, covered with dough and then baked in the oven. You will know when it is cooked by looking at the crust color, and sometimes an excess of caramel bursting from under it. 20 to 25 minutes with a 400°F temperature should be enough. Do not overcook.

Now comes the most acrobatic operation: take it out and turn it over on your serving platter. You should discover a beautiful sight of differently caramelized and colored pieces, each encased in caramelized crust.

A few pieces of advice:

1.     Pick Golden Delicious apples, which hold up well, and fit this recipe to perfection (3)

2.     Peel them, cut in quarters, and core them

3.     Before caramelizing, sprinkle the pan with sugar (1/2 cup) and small pieces of butter (up to 2 oz. worth).

4.     Place apple quarters on the pan without crowding them

5.     Caramelize on a top burner, watching constantly to avoid burning, tilting the pan to move the caramel around.

6.     Wait until the caramel is really brown

7.     Cover with a pâte brisée, enriched with an egg in the beginning and using softer butter.

8.     Bake for about 20 minutes until golden on top.

9.     When your pie is cooked, turn it over right away, contrary to most advice, so that you know how successful you are. Place the platter where it can be admired when your guests come in. It will put them in the right mood. (4) 

If an apple piece falls off its location during the turnover, it is a good omen. Just put it back in place. Nobody will ever know. 

Sweet Pastry Dough (Pâte Sucrée)

This dough provides a different kind of crust for sweet pies only. It necessitates:

×       1 ½ cups flour

×       1/8 tsp. salt

×        4oz. unsalted butter, barely melted 

×        ½ cup granulated white sugar

×        1 egg

Mix the flour, salt and sugar in a bowl.

Add the egg. Mix a bit.

Add the butter

Knead the dough until regular and consistent.

You can make a ball, cover with plastic wrap and keep in the refrigerator until time for use.

To make a pie, remove the dough from the refrigerator and place it directly in the pastry pan. Press it with your fingertips onto the bottom and the sides to an even thickness. No rolling pin is required.

This kind of dough can be cooked part way or all the way by itself. This makes it a natural solution for lemon pies, for example, or many pies where the fruit should not be cooked: strawberry, raspberry, and the like.

Lemon Pie (Tarte au Citron)

To make a lemon pie, place your pâte sucrée dough in the pan and pre-cook for 5 to 10 minutes, so that the dough gets solid enough before receiving the lemon mix.

The lemon mix will be made of the following ingredients incorporated into a bowl one after another:

×       3 eggs,

×       ½ cup sugar, stirred in

×       3 ½ oz. butter, melted, stirred in

×       Juice of 5 lemons

×       Some minced lemon zests 

Whisk vigorously and pour over the pre-cooked dough.

Bake for about 20 minutes until golden on top.

The lemon mix will need some time to cool off to room temperature, so you should make this pie enough in advance.

Puff Pastry (Pâte feuilletée)

Puff pastry has many applications in classical French cooking, for desserts as well as for savory dishes, and I could not resist giving a recipe for it.

I know. It is a long process and you can buy it at the store. However, you want to make it yourself for three reasons:

×       Our ancestors (at least mine) toiled to invent it (5)

×       It will be much better and much healthier than store-bought ones

×       Making it yourself, at least once, will give you an incredible sense of achievement.

It is made of 2 layers originally: a primary water dough (flour + salt) and butter. These layers are folded several times during the course of the preparation, creating as many layers as you want. It takes time because you must leave some time between folds for the gluten to bind properly and maintain the layer effect. The other aspect is that both the water dough and the butter must have the same consistency, which is obtained at a lower temperature than the one in the room you are working in. This temperature “management” adds to the apparent complexity.

Step 1. Water dough (détrempe in French)

Pour 1½ cup of flour in a large bowl. Add salt, and then ½ cup water. Mix all until it does not stick to your fingers anymore.

Refrigerate for about 20 minutes.

Step 2. Butter

Take 4 oz. of butter out of the refrigerator and sandwich it between 2 sheets of parchment paper and work it with a rolling pin until softened to the same consistency as the détrempe.

Step 3. Assembling

Roll out the dough in the shape of a 10- inch square and the butter into about a 6.5-inch square.

Place the butter square in the middle of the détrempe with an angle of 45° (take the paper out!!).

Then, you can fold the détrempe over the butter. Edges will slightly overlap and you can seal them with the rolling pin. You can now put this assembly in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

Step 4. First folds

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and roll the square out into a regular rectangle  of about  7 inch by 21 inch.

Fold the dough back to a 7-inch square, turn it by 90° and roll out the dough again to a rectangle and fold again to 7-inch square.

Put back in the refrigerator for 15 to 25 minutes.

Steps 5 and 6. Same operations. Your puff pastry is ready to be used, for pastry or main dish accompaniment, either right now or later. This dough can be left in the refrigerator and even frozen.

When you put it in the oven, the water will evaporate into steam and provoke the puffing effect between layers. You can manage the puffing on the edges by pinching and crimping them, and in case of excessive puffing by piercing the dough. But I think this should only come later on, in future trials. On the first time, try to see how high this will rise. And enjoy!

Petits Sablés

Apparently, these round cookies were made originally in the small city of Sablé, on the edge of the Brittany region in France until they conquered the heart of Louis XIV, and then the rest of France. They are a kind of shortbread cookie that you can prepare ahead of time. They will nicely complement crème anglaise, ice cream or fruit sorbets.

You will need:

×       ½ cup sugar

×       7 oz. softened butter

×       1½ cup flour

×       2 egg yolks

×       Vanilla extract

×       A good pinch of salt

Mix yolks + sugar.

Add salt, vanilla extract, flour.

Add butter.

Knead with your hands until homogeneous.

Roll out with the rolling pin.

Cut out with a cookie cutter or an upside down glass and place on a cookie sheet.

Bake for about 10 to 15 minutes in a hot oven. Watch closely as they can turn brown very quickly.

Crème Anglaise à l’Orange /à la Vanille

Crème anglaise  is a liquid mix of sugar, egg yolks and hot milk. This very rich custard-like dish is most often flavored with vanilla (same recipe with vanilla beans instead of zests) and usually welcomes some meringue on top as a floating island  (hence the name). I propose an unusual, delicate rendition with orange flavoring. To eliminate any risk, I recommend using untreated organic oranges. 

For a “standard” batch you will need:

×       8 egg yolks

×       5/8 cup sugar

×       3¼ cup of hot milk, infused for 30 minutes with orange zests

Peel the zests of 2 organic oranges and place them in a pan with the milk.

Heat up the milk and let the zests infuse for 30 minutes. Remove them.

Beat egg yolks and sugar together until the mix is almost white (6), and then slowly add the flavored hot milk, while whisking.

Now comes the thickening process, based on the mysterious talents of egg yolks, when maintained just under their cooking temperature. Over the limit, the yolks cook and your cream curdles. Baaad! That means you should cook the mix on low heat or even in a bain-marie for more safety, stirring constantly with a spoon. You will witness the cream thickening enough to coat the back of your spoon. It means it is ready. If by any chance, you see a small strand of cooked egg, you can still filter it out.

If you cook for a longer time, or at a slightly higher temperature (but less than 180 °F), the cream may thicken more. But why do it? Is it worth the risk?

Pour the cream, warm or cold, into individual bowls and enjoy, chilled, with “Petits Sablés” (recipe above).

Orange/Vanilla Ice Cream

Actually, you can use the previous crème anglaise, possibly with a little more sugar, as a basis for a rich, delicate ice cream, which will taste like no ice cream you have had before, denser and deeper in flavor.

No need today for cumbersome ice-cream makers: Just pour into a plastic container and place in the freezer compartment of your refrigerator. Every 2 hours, take out of the freezer, whisk the contents thoroughly to avoid ice crystals, and put it back. Repeat until the ice cream is solid.

When is it time to taste? Every time you stir! 

Take out of the freezer 15 to 20 minutes before serving so that the temperature increases to the desired stage.

Same Day Vanilla Ice Cream

There is a simpler way to make excellent vanilla ice cream at home, provided you intend to eat it all the same day. You will need:

×       ½ pt. whole milk

×       4 egg yolks

×       ½ cup sugar

×       ½ tsp. vanilla extract

×       1 ½ cup crème fraîche

Whip the egg yolks, the vanilla extract, and the sugar for 5 minutes, until creamy white.

Add the milk and cream and continue mixing.

Place in the freezer and proceed as in the recipe above.

Fruit Sorbets

Sorbets are frozen fruit-based desserts, originating in Italy where they are still a favorite before they moved to France and then most of the World. They were long thought to have been invented by Roman Emperors or alternatively brought back to Italy from China by Marco Polo. In any case, they make a wonderful, fresh, light conclusion to a rich meal.

Even if you have to address a few challenges in order to achieve a bright color and a soft texture without any ice particles, it is fun and easy to make with current kitchen utensils and without the benefit of an ice-cream maker.

Some fruits are more problematic than others:

×       Most fruits darken when they are blended. The universal remedy is to add lemon juice during the process. Pears or bananas may require a little bit more of it.

×       With thin-skinned fruits like plums or cherries you will have to accept residual skin bits in your final preparation.

×       With overly watery fruits, like citrus for example, it is hard to achieve a soft final result without recourse to a more complicated process like the addition of Italian Meringue.

×       For some exotic fruits like Passion fruit or Cherimoya, many seeds have to be eliminated. For passion fruit, this is impossible to do without specific tools. For the wonderful longan or lychee Asian fruits, this may be tedious but quite doable if you are motivated. Pineapples must also be well pared to keep only the edible flesh.

This still leaves you with an incredible range of delicacies to explore, from melon to raspberries, and from banana to pear to apricot.

Before starting the process, you have to decide on the amount of sugar you want to use in relation to the fruit. Most recipes call for parity in weight or volume for fruit and sugar. I tend to favor a less sugary taste and use much less sugar. Please adapt the recipe according to your own preferences. The amount of sugar I use is the minimum needed to achieve a proper texture.

To make a typical batch of 2 pints of sorbet, you will need:

×       1 cup of sugar

×       Juice of ½ lemon

×       2 tbsp water

×       1 ½ lb. fruit

Peel and cut the fruit

Add the lemon juice to avoid oxidation.

Make a sugar syrup with the sugar and the water in a small sauce pan with high walls.

Check constantly to avoid caramelization.

When the sugar is melted, pour the fruit in and blend thoroughly.

Pour the mix into a plastic container and place in the freezer compartment.

Every 2 or 3 hours, take out of the freezer and whisk the contents well to avoid ice crystals.

It should be ready in 6 to 10 hours.

Take out of the freezer 15 to 20 minutes before serving to make scooping easy and the texture smooth enough for the delight of all. 

(1)    In France, desserts can be preceded, or sometimes replaced, by a cheese course, an assortment of cheeses which will provide   its own harmonious conclusion with a variety of flavors matched by the proper wines and the right breads, actually sometimes a meal in itself.

(2)    For these fruits, you can also use a good red wine, with an extra amount of sugar.

(3)    This pie is traditionally made with apples but you can use other fruit.

(4)    Don’t listen to cookbook recos . This pie does not need to be eaten warm, or with any ice cream for that matter.

(5)    Puff pastry was invented by French chefs in order to imitate or counter the fluffiness of popular pastries imported from Turkey in the XVIII^th Century.

(6)    An electric hand mixer is useful at this stage.