No, no, you read right. I am not speechless for scones, I am voiceless. Apparently there is a new strain of allergies out there that cause people’s vocal cords to become so irritated that they become voiceless. Right this minute I am staring at a lovely cocktail of different medications supposed to make me feel better in the next 48 hours. In the meantime I am required not to talk…I am on voice rest until monday. You would think that such a situation would prevent me from eating or wanting to eat…Nope! Seems like my body has a way to accept food no matter how sick I am…Yippee!! I don’t have much of an appetite actually but the only thing I wanted this morning was a fresh hot batch of scones… and I knew exactly where to get them.
I have fallen in love whith every scone recipe I have found in Dorie’s book. They are so satisfying, tender and moist that they can make anybody feel better instantly…. B. provided me with a small pad on which to write so I would really follow the doctor’s orders and I could only come up with "Mmm..Mmmm…Mmmm. Hands off!"

If you feel really bad, these will make you feel really good. That simple. They were delicious plain, still hot right out of the oven. They were even better with some Coconut Honey.

Toasted Almond Scones, adapted from Dorie Greenspan:

Makes 8 large

1 cup almonds, toasted

2 Tb. brown sugar

1 egg

1/3 cup cold heavy cream

1/4 cup buttermilk

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 Tb. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1 stick, cold butter, cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 400.
Finely grind the nuts in a food processor with the sugar.
Stir the egg, cream and buttermilk together.
Combine the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Add the butter and with your fingertips or a pastry blender mix the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture ressembles coarse crumbs.
Pour the liquid ingredients in the bowl and stir just until the dough comes together. I usually do everything by hand but you can use a fork.Gently and quickly knead the dough and turn it onto a floured board. Roll out the dough to about 1 inch thick and cut out desired shapes with a cookie cutter.
Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake for about 20 minutes.

How do I feel now? Better but quiet. All that silence…! I sure I am glad I have not lost my tastebuds!

I can see you ..eyes wide open wondering if I have gone mad…Soup? On a dessert blog….Well, what if I whisper Sauternes Poached Peach a la Herme, Luscious Lemon Ice Cream via Lori Longbotham and Ricotta Lemon Beignets thanks to Richard Leach….would you keep on reading? I am going to take a chance and assume yes. What if I add that all these found the way to make a beautiful sweet dessert soup….do you think you would want to know more….?

The February I remember was cold, rainy, grey and magical. It was the perfect time of the year for hot chocolates, hearty stews and soups. My mom made sure that every meal during the winter started with a bowl of vegetable soup, a few croutons and a dash of cream were sometimes added to make it special. I remember my grandmother making me a weird concoction when I was sick: milk and alphabet pasta soup. Most of the time I’d only take a few spoonfulls and leave it aside, it was not that flavorful. All this ended the day my grandfather added a couple of spoons of sugar…and the medecine went down… A sweet creamy soup is the best when your throat kills you, your eyes are red and your nose is numb… That moment of my life was the inspiration behind this dessert and so were the three pastry shef mentionned above….what an eclectic cast!

Two of the components of this soup can be prepared ahead of time, over several days except of course for the beignets. By the way, I realized after making those that today was Mardi Gras, how appropriate! I guess that 30 something years of celebrating that day somehow has become part of my being (or is in my DNA).
The soup is served warm, not hot which provides a great contrast to the lemon ice cream. Use the beignets just like you would bread and soak up every bit of it.

Sauternes and Honey Poached Peaches, adapted from Pierre Herme:

Yields 2 cups

4 white peaches

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup honey (I used fig syrup)

2 cup Sauternes

In a large saucepan, combine all the ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the peaches are cooked through. Remove the fruits from the liquid and let cool. Remove the skin and puree in a food processor. Set aside until ready to use.

Lemon Ice Cream, adapted from Lori Longbotham

Yields 1 1/2 quarts

2 cups heavy cream

2 cups fat free half and half (picked up by mistake…not quite awake when I went shopping)

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

6 large egg yolks

1/3 cup lemon zest

3/4 cup lemon juice

Bring the cream, half and half, sugar, honey and zesr just to a boil in a saucepan. Stir to dissolve the sugar.

Whisk the egg yolks in a separate bowl. Slowly temper them by adding the hot cream in a slow stream. Add all of the cream to the yolks and stir until blended. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat until it thickens. Stir constantly. It is ready when the cream coats the back of a wooden spoon. Do not allow the cream to boil.

Remove from the heat and let cool. Add the lemon juice and stir until incorporated.

Refrigerate until completely cold and process in an ice cream maker. I did have my ice cream container ready so I poured the custard in a large bowl and froze it. I took it out after a couple of hours and give it a whirl in the Kitchen Aid. I did that twice and achieved a really nice, smooth and light texture.

Ricotta Beignets, adapted from Richard Leach:

1 egg white

1 cup ricotta cheese

1/2 cup semolina flour

1/4 cup cake flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 Tb. baking powder

zest and juice of one lemon

confectioners sugar for dusting

vegetable oil for frying

Combine all the ingredients except the lemon juice, oil and confectioner’s suagr in an electric mixer and mix until well incorporated.
Heat oil to 325 degrees and deep fry the beignets using a small ice cream scoop, until golden brown.
Drain on paper towels. With a spoon, drizzle some lemon juice over them and dust with confectioner’s sugar.

To assemble the dessert:

Heat up the peach soup until warm, scoop some ice cream on top and serve the beignets alongside.

I am not the only one to think February is Soup Month: head over Alanna’s A Veggie Venture and add your favorite recipe to the lot. I figured I could contribute a sweet one and trust me this one rocks!

I also would like to dedicate this post to Yvonne, my favorite Cream Puff, for making me a fabulous cake. You made my day!

Some might say I am obsessed, some might say I am crazy, some might add I have gone wild…I will just call myself smart: when your grocery guy hands you a case of lemons at half price, you just buy it… He does that trick once in a while. I fondly remember 2 cases of pears I worked my way through a couple of years ago when I was a the restaurant. The pear special of the week quickly became a joke between the waiters and me…but I disgress.
Back to yesterday when I brought my Precious (insert Lord of the Ring voice here) cargo home. I had to start somewhere and since we love our relaxing Sunday brunches, I made these little puppies. They turned out super puckery thanks to the couple of changes I made to the original recipe.

I use the base a lot in baking muffins as it allows for number of additions such as fruit zests, dried fruits, nuts, etc… I don’t know why or when I started dipping my muffins in a mixture of butter and sugar when they come out of the oven, but it adds a little dimension to a plain muffin. No matter what is inside your muffin, you can dip nut mufins in a mixture of melted butter, cinnamon, cardamom, pumpkin pie spices, fruit muffins in melted butter and lemon juice. Always sprinkle with granulated sugar and allow to set. One of our favorites is a plain muffin dipped in a combo of spices that make them taste like donuts.

Lemon Muffins, adapted from All Recipes:

Yields 12

1/2 cup plain yogurt
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
(optional)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
grated zest of 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin, or line with paper liners.
In a large bowl, mix together the yogurt, oil, lemon juice, egg, and, if using, lemon extract. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, 3/4 cup sugar, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix until just blended. Spoon batter evenly into the prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle remaining sugar over the tops for decoration, if desired.
Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the top springs back when lightly touched. Cool muffins in the tin on a wire rack.

Dipping the Tops:

1/4 lemon juice

1/4 cup melted butter

1 cup sugar

Dip each muffin in the lemon juice, butter and sugar. Let set.

A few days ago I was reading Is My Blog Burning when I came across this event held by Elena at Experiments , and even though I am early I think these muffins would be a great way to start the day on Monday.

Last weekend, probably after too many cocktails, I bought myself a few V-Day presents. I had been lusting after these and Feb. 14th seemed like the perfect occasion to splurge….

Be afraid people, be very afraid…there are tons of recipes I am already dying to try!

My package did not arrive alone as I found a V-Day card from Arfi at HomeMades…the card is upstairs, I am not, so as soon as I get my behind upthere I’ll take a pic, but in the meantime you can look it up here. It was the most unexpected yet hilarious card received…Thanks Arfi, you made me feel special!

Keeping with the Valentine Day Theme (just to bug Brilynn), check this dessert: Sweet Dreams.

The pastry chef works in one of the upscale restaurant in Charleston, and I admire her dedication, especially in our town.

No, Pierre Herme was not my Valentine yesterday (not my type), and no he did not serve us in person…but yes there was Herme on the menu for my sweet love. I worked late last night training clients, (funny how women want to sweat and lift weights a few hours before eating chocolate…me I’d rather pop the Champagne open!), so we ordered our favorite Indian foods and relaxed.
The connection with P. Herme in all this? While making scones last week, I flipped Dorie’s book open to "zee" famous Lemon Tart prepared by the French master. Her crust, his lemon cream…now if that does not scream "success" I don’t know what does!

I have made lemon or citrus curds and lemon tarts and other lemony sweets before but I had been putting this one off mainly because of the 2 sticks of butter it called for. After Carol declared Pierre Heme’s Tarte au Citron to be best she tried around Paris, Valentine’s Day around the corner and our mutual love for citrus, I had plenty of excuses (or opportunities) to try my hand at it. The result? It is by far the best lemon cream tart I have ever had, thank you Pierre! The flavor and intensity of the cream develop over a couple of days so this makes it a breeze for the cook to prepare ahead of time, but they are best assembled at the last minute.

Lemon Cream Tartlets, adapted from Pierre Herme’s Desserts and Dorie Greenspan’s Baking:

Makes about a dozen

For the tart shells:

1 stick plus 1 Tb. butter, cut in small pieces
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup almonds
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 egg yolk

In a food processor, pulse all the dry ingredients. Add the butter and pulse again. Add the egg yolk and pulse until the mixture comes together in a ball. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate while you prepare the filling.
Roll between sheets of plastic wrap and cut out circles larger than your tart shells, fit the dough into the molds and cut out the excess. Bake at 350 for about 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.
Because the dough has a tendency to puff up, I take the shells out halfway through the baking process and pat the bottoms flat with the back of a spoon.

For the lemon cream:

1 cup sugar
zest of 3 lemons
4 eggs
3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 sticks butter, cut into 1 inch pieces, softened

Make a water bath by putting a saucepan of water over heat to simmer and placing a metal bowl over, without the bottom touching the water. Rub the sugar and lemon zest with your fingers and add to the metal bowl. Whisk in the eggs and lemon juice.
Cook the mixture over the water bath, whisking constantly until the cream reaches 180 degrees. It can take up to 10 minutes.
Once the cream reaches 180 (your whisk will leave ribbon tracks in the cream),remove the cream off the heat and put it into a blender. Let the cream cool to 140.
Add in the butter and process until perfectly smooth.
Pour into a container, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Assemble the tarts by spooning the cream into the refrigerated tart shells, and decorate to your liking. I added pieces of candied ginger. You know, all the seduction amunitions: cream, butter, sugar, ginger…!

Because of all the sweetness and love surrounding this post, it is also my entry to this month SHF, hosted by Jasmine.

Allright, it is true that we don’t do anything special on February 14th because we have always refused to buy into the whole money making scheme it has become and feel that we don’t need a special day to remember to say and mean "I love U". We do express it in so many different ways throughout the year, but I still like to treat myself to a little pre-Valentine dessert. I usually follow my craving of the moment and lately it has not been chocolate (shocking I know!) but berries and citrus.

Valentine’s Day is also an occasion to express my love to my family and friends. Since my dad loves Tarte Aux Myrtilles so much and I do too, I made a couple of little Blueberry Pies. I believe we will have them with Champagne tonight…don’t worry I won’t forget to make another treat for my sweetheart tomorrow.

This is another one of those recipes picked up at the Restaurant and that evolves and changes everytime I make it, but here is what I did this time. Since I like pastry dough, I made these double crusted which qualifies the little things for this month WTSIM, hosted by Jeanne.

Individual Blueberry Pies:

Crust, adapted from Dorie Greenspan:

Makes 4 3- inch tarts

1 stick plus 1 Tb. butter, cut in small pieces
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 egg yolk

In a food processor, pulse all the dry ingredients. Add the butter and pulse again. Add the egg yolk and pulse until the mixture comes together in a ball. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate while you prepare the filling.

Blueberry Filling:

1 pint fresh blueberries
zest and juice from one lime
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
2 Tb. cornstarch

In a heavy saucepan, combine all the ingredients and heat over medium until the blueberries realease their juices and the whole mix start to thicken, about 10 minutes. Let cool to room temperature

Assemble the tarts:
Roll out the dough and cut 8 circles 1 or 2 inches larger than your tart molds. If you do not have free standing tart molds, you can use muffin tins. Gently put one circle at the bottom of each mold, divide the filling evenly among the tarts and lay a second circle on top. Trim and flute the pies the way you like it.
I cut a whole at the top using the bottom part of a pastry tip, before I lay the top crust. If you forget, cut a couple of slits with a knife on the top crust.
Put the tart shells on a baking sheet and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. I like to brush mine with a bit of milk before baking.
Let cool and eat!!:

These bars are nothing elaborate but they are plain comforting good. I made another kind of scones this morning (I go through phases) and while looking for some almonds I found an almost empty jar of raspberry jam and a bag of peabut butter and milk chocolate chips. I don’t usually get these but I remember B. sneaking them in the shopping cart because "they would be good melted on toast"….bad bad man!!

My neighbor asked me last week to make some treats she could take to the twins' teacher and wanting to change from the usual brownie or cupcake (nothing wrong with them, mind you), I had made a batch of white chocolate and raspeberry jam bars, aka "Razz-Ma-Tazz Bars". They were easy to make, traveled well, and something she could totally pass as her own….Yes, some people have ghostwriters, she has a ghostbaker….! They smelled so good that it took everything to prevent my cookie monster of husband from eating some before I could get the pan to her house. I promised him I would make some this weekend.

We were rather in a childish and playful mode this morning that I figured making peanut butter and jelly bars would be a great accompaniement to our regressive pinball marathon with the computer. I took the above mentionned recipe and tweaked it for PB&J lovers figuring if it worked it would be childlike comfort and if it failed we would hide it under ice cream and call in sick tomorrow…Well, we will go to work tomorrow, in the meantime we might have a stomach ache from eating too many of these!

Regressive Bars, adapted from a Nestle recipe:

Yields 16 bars

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) Nestle milk chocolate and peanut butter swirled chips, divided
2 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 325° F. Grease a 9-inch-square baking pan.
Melt butter in medium, microwave-safe bowl for 1 minute; stir. Add 1 cup morsels; let stand. Do not stir.
Beat eggs in large mixer bowl until foamy. Add sugar; beat until pale, about 5 minutes. Stir in morsel-butter mixture. Add flour, salt and vanilla extract; mix at low speed until combined.
Spread 2/3 of batter into prepared pan. Heat jam in microwve for 30 seconds. Spread on top of the base. Cover with the remaining batter and sprinkle the reamining cup of morsels on top.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until edges are browned. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars.

I don’t think I have confessed this here yet, but we are Nutella fanatics…us and about 95% of the world! On toast, croissant, brioche, scones, with a spoon, knife, fingers and when gone camping without utensils, with the other end of your toothbrush…never say never it might happen!
I remember letting out a little (ok, an over) excited "yes" when I read about Shelley and Sara co-project to celebrate Nutella Day and spread the love by including other bloggers (round up on the 7th). No way, I’d miss that!

I was reading one of the (many) magazines I brought back from France when I found this recipe and was first attracted by the picture, especially given my recent falling in love with everything in pretty glasses. I thought "hmm, wonder if I could do this cream with Nutella..", well duh! The recipe was for a "Creme au Nutella", I did play around with it and added whipped cream and a few macarons, you know, just for good composure! Well, actually the recipe for the cream calls for only egg yolks so you know what I am tempted to do when I have leftover whites!

Creme Au Nutella:

Serves 6

200 gr. dark chocolate (bittersweet)
1/4 cup Nutella

3 egg yolks
100 gr. sugar
3 cups heavy cream, divided
50 gr. powdered sugar

In a heavy saucepan, heat 2 cups of cream to boiling point. Remove from heat and stir the chocolate and Nutella. Let stand for a couple of minute. Stir until fully incorporated (like a ganache).
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until pale. Slowly stir the chocolate mixture whith the yolks and sugar. Return to the saucepan and cook over low heat until thickened, about 5 – 8 minutes, much like a pudding. Do not let this boil.Pour the cream in glasses or dishes and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
When ready to serve, whip the remaining cup of cream with the powdered sugar until soft peaks form and divide among the glasses.

Macarons Vanille and Nutella:

For the shells:
120 gr. egg whites, divided
35 gr. sugar
150 gr. finely ground almonds
150 gr. powdered sugar
For the boiling syrup:
150 gr. sugar and 50 gr. water

Sift the ground almonds and powdered sugar.
In a stand mixer, whip 60 gr. egg whites to soft peaks, add 35 gr. sugar.
In the meantime, in a saucepan on high heat bring the water and sugar for the syrup to 230 F. on a candy thermometer.Slowly add the boiling syrup to the egg whites and continue to whip on medium – high speed until they are completely cooled and you have a shiny meringue (10-15 minutes).
Mix the remaining 60 gr. of egg whites and the sifted almond/sugar and carefully fold into the meringue.
Fill a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip with the mixture and pipe macarons about 3 inches in diameter on parchment paper lined baking sheet. You can let them sit at room temperature for 20 minutes if desired. This is often done to assure those little feet at the bottom but I found that I can skip this step with this recipe and still end up with the same result.
Bake at 320 for 15 minutes. Let cool.

For the Chocolate Nutella ganache:

Heat 1/2 cup of heavy cream to boiling point. Remove from heat and stir in 3/4 cup dark chocolate and 2 Tb. Nutella. Let stand 2 minutes. Stir until well incorporated.
Refrigerate until of spreadable consistency.
Fill the macarons shells … and eat!

Forgot to mention I added a layer of straight up Nutella at the bottom of each glass….