Blueberries. Wonderful fresh blueberries that I picked myself. Some tart, some sweet. All delicious. These pretty much speak for themselves…so what more could I possibly have to say?

Tweet This Post 

It’s official. I like rhubarb. Or at the very least I like raspberries enough that they cover up the taste of rhubarb.

I guess I should make a couple of other things with rhubarb before I profess my undying love for it. Someone on Flickr just commented that it’s good in an apple pie. I think I’m willing to try that. But I won’t be baking a strawberry rhubarb pie for myself anytime soon. I think I’m opposed to mushy strawberries.

At any rate, this is the second raspberry and rhubarb tart I’ve made and they’ve both been pretty delicious. I’ll even go so far as to say I think they’re more delicious than plain raspberry tarts and pies.

You probably want a recipe for this tart. But I can’t really give you one as I didn’t really use one. Make this like you would any other pie. Or follow the very, very loose directions below.

Start with a double batch of pie dough. Preferably homemade. But you can use premade dough if that’s what you do. Roll the dough to the appropriate size for your pie or tart pan. Line the pie or tart pan with one of the pieces of dough.

Toss the rhubarb (3 peeled stalks of it, chopped into 1/2″ pieces) and raspberries* with lots of sugar, a bit of arrowroot powder, a hint of cinnamon, an even smaller hint of nutmeg and a dash of lemon juice. Pour these into the dough lined pie or tart pan, dot the filling with a touch of butter and top with the second piece of rolled pie dough (or in my case, arrange the star shaped pieces of pie dough over the filling). If you use a solid piece of dough, cut a few slits in the top so that steam can escape while baking. If you don’t do this, you might have a soggy top crust.

Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown.

*Sorry, but I really don’t know how many raspberries I used. Maybe 2 cups?

Tweet This Post 

My boyfriend is of the opinion that cranberries taste very similar to what he would expect potpourri to taste like. Not that he (or I) have ever eaten potpourri.

So he doesn’t care for cranberries and I kind of like them. This causes just a hint of strife when I mention baking something with cranberries. I’ve made at least a couple of things with cranberries in them this year in an attempt to get him to like them. I haven’t really had much success.

I found the recipe for this cranberry tart at The Kitchn and decided to make it today. I quickly warned the boyfriend that I was baking a tart today that he might not like. He may have groaned in response but knew that I was going to bake it whether he’d like it or not.

After dinner tonight, we tried the tart. While he may not have been crazy about it, he did say that he would eat it. He also said that someone who actually really likes cranberries would probably love it. That’s probably the best response I’m going to get out of a cranberry hater.

The recipe can be found here at The Kitchn.

I made very few alterations to their recipe. Instead of orange zest, I used the zest and juice of one Meyer lemon. Instead of mixing the walnuts into the filling, I used about a cup of them and put them on top so that they would remain crunchy. Other than that, I followed the recipe.

Oh, I used the pie crust recipe found here. Truthfully it’s the only pie crust I use these days.

Tweet This Post 

Quote from American writer and poet James Whitcomb Riley.

I had lots of grand plans for peaches over the summer. I was going to pick peaches from one of the local pick-your-own farms. From there, I planned to make lots of peach preserves and freeze a ton of sliced peaches to use all winter…not to mention the things I wanted to bake with some fresh ones. Sadly I did not get a chance to pick any peaches. Life (including moving) got in the way of my peach plans.

I did, however, find some fairly local Virginia peaches on sale last month at the Whole Foods that recently opened in Richmond. They were only 99 cents per pound…so I bought enough to bake a peach pie. I should have bought a ton more of them but I wasn’t thinking ahead while shopping at Whole Foods. I was too busy trying to get my stuff and get out as the place was more than kind of a zoo.

The peach pie here was baked with some of Penzeys Apple Pie Spice and a bit of their Baking Spice. Other than that, I followed a recipe for blueberry crumb pie found in Sweety Pies.

The bottom crust is phenomenal….it’s so flaky. The crumb topping is pretty good as well.

I’m not going to type all of the directions for making and forming this crust as they’re pretty verbose. But I will give you the ingredients list and basic instructions for the flaky bottom crust.

Flaky Pie Crust

Recipe from Sweety Pies

Ingredients (for 9-inch double crust)

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chilled vegetable shortening
• 5 to 6 tablespoons very cold heavy cream

Directions

1. Sift together the flour, sugar and salt.

2. Using a pastry blender, cut the shortening into the flour mixture until it resembles small peas.

3. Sprinkle in cream one tablespoon at a time and toss with a fork. It’s better to add too little cream than too much. Continue to add cream and toss with fork until the dough holds together when pressed lightly.

4. Loosely gather dough into a flat ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling dough.

This is where I won’t instruct you on how to make pie crust anymore. The directions for this particular crust go on for another page. That’s just too much information for a blog post. If you want to make a crumb pie like I did, simply halve the recipe above.

Tweet This Post 

Quote from  American consultant, statistician and educator W. Edwards Deming

I believe that these pictures of my blueberry almond bread pudding officially mark the end of the blog posts about the goodies I made with all those fresh blueberries I picked earlier this summer. Took me long enough, eh?

The inspiration for this bread pudding came from a post at Food Gawker over the summer. I really like to use sites like Tastespotting and Food Gawker to find new food to make and bake. Anytime I’m bored by my own ideas and my own cookbooks, all I need to do is to turn to the food blogs for an endless set of options.

This particular recipe was adapted from a recipe at Cook (Almost) Anything At Least Once.

As usual, I did make a few alterations to the original recipe. I used fresh blueberries instead of frozen as I had plenty of fresh ones available. I baked the brioche from scratch from a recipe in Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook. I did take a few shortcuts in baking it (as I really didn’t want to wait 24 hours to bake the brioche) and it probably would have tasted better if I hadn’t taken them.

The original recipe used a Meyer lemon marmalade in the filling. I skipped that entirely as I had no Meyer lemon marmalade and no way of obtaining or making any since Meyer lemons weren’t in season. Instead of the marmalade, I used copious amounts of amaretto and slivered almonds to add a little more flavor to the pudding.

I also used a lot more cream and eggs than the recipe called for as it seemed too dry otherwise…but maybe I made my bread pudding in a larger quantity than the original recipe?

This was the first bread pudding I’ve ever made but it certainly won’t be the last. Next time I may or may not go to the trouble of baking the brioche from scratch…baking the brioche wasn’t difficult but it takes a long time to prepare…and then I had to wait another day to assemble and bake the bread pudding. The anticipation of the eventual dessert killed me…enough so that the next time I make bread pudding, I might start with stale French bread from the grocery store to save myself a day.

Tweet This Post 

I should use Seinfeld quotes more often (this one is from “The Muffin Tops” episode from 1997). Between Seinfeld and The Simpsons quotes, I could have endless title material.

These blueberry muffins, like all of the other blueberry baked goods I’ve showcased this summer, are from the plethora of blueberries I picked in July.

Even when I didn’t particularly care for blueberries as a fruit, I liked blueberry muffins. This might stem from my general love of muffins. My favorite blueberry muffins have a crunchy top…as a child, teenager and young adult, I was a sucker for the Duncan Hines muffin mix with the can of wild blueberries and the crumb topping. Nowadays I’d never consider using a mix…so I made these from scratch from a Martha Stewart recipe found in Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook. Are you tired of me praising the recipes in this book yet?

These were very good. Way better than average. For the topping, I simply sprinkled turbinado sugar over the batter. The turbinado sugar provided a nice crunch that regular granulated sugar wouldn’t have.

I loved the advice in this recipe to toss the blueberries with a little bit of the dry ingredients in order to prevent the blueberries from sinking to the bottom as the muffins baked.

Blueberry Muffins

Recipe from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook

Makes 1 dozen muffins

Ingredients

• 1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups fresh blueberries (I used fresh this time but I’ll probably use frozen next time I make these!)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1-2 tablespoons turbinado sugar (optional)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper muffin cups.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl, toss the blueberries with about 1 tablespoon of the flour mixture.

Set aside both the flour mixture and the blueberries.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until combined after the addition of each egg. Mix in the vanilla extract.

With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture. Beat just until combined. Add the milk and beat just until combined. Do not overbeat. Lightly fold in the blueberries using a rubber spatule. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups. If you’d like a little crunch on the top of the muffins, sprinkle a small amount of turbinado sugar over the batter in each muffin cup.

Bake until the muffins are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of one of the muffins comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes. Remove muffins from pan and let cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Tweet This Post 

Quote from French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Remember a couple of months ago when I went crazy and picked 13 pounds of blueberries one day and 10 pounds a week later? These tasty blueberry and peach crisps were made with those blueberries…when they were still fresh. Yes, I’m still catching up on my posting.

I make individual cobblers or crisps pretty frequently and usually make the same oatmeal walnut crumb topping. This time, I branched out. At the time, I’d just gotten my copy of Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food and really wanted to make a recipe from it.

I had lots of blueberries and some local peaches in the fridge. I also needed a dessert that could be made quickly since the boyfriend’s sister and her husband were coming for dinner. Crisps and cobblers are a great choice when you don’t have a lot of prep time for dessert but really want to make something from scratch. I can get a batch of individual cobblers in the oven in about 20 minutes. It’s a lucky coincidence that they’re one of my favorite desserts to eat.

I’m not going to write out a full recipe for these because I seriously have NO clue how much fruit I used to make them. I think I made a batch of 8 individual crisps but I really didn’t measure the fruit at all.

I can, however, type out the crisp topping recipe.

Crisp Topping

Recipe from The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup nuts (I used walnuts)
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 6 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Toast nuts for about 6 minutes. Let them cool and chop them coarse.

2. Mix together chopped nuts, flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt, and cinnamon.

3. Mix the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry blender until the mixture is crumbly.

4. Chill until ready to use. Sprinkle topping generously over fruit filling of your choice. Bake at 375 degrees until bubbly and golden brown.

This recipe yields about 3 cups. If you don’t use it all, it can be frozen for future use. I do that rather frequently myself. That way the 20 minutes of prep time is reduced to about 5 minutes.

I should make some other things from The Art of Simple Food…even if we did buy the cookbook for Alice Waters’ countless manifestos about food more than for her recipes.

Tweet This Post 

Pictured in this post is a blackberry and peach tart I made in July. My mom gave me a bunch of fresh fruit she’d picked locally…probably more than we could eat before they went bad. Since blackberries don’t seem to keep particularly well, I turned them into these tarts.

They’re made with a walnut shortbread crust that I adapted from an almond shortbread crust recipe I previously used to make cherry tarts. I liked that crust a lot so it was an easy choice for this tart. I believe that this recipe is the one I used to make the original almond crust. Go figure, it’s a Dorie Greenspan recipe from Bon Appetit. I should have known.

To assemble the tart, I lightly pressed the shortbread into the tart pans, sliced the peaches, tossed them gently with a little bit of flour, sugar and cinnamon and layered them in the shortbread crust. The blackberries were then scattered over the peaches. I wanted the fruit in this tart to remain separate…unlike some previous berry and peach things I’ve made where the fruit melded together.

The fruit was then topped with an oatmeal walnut crumb topping and baked until the crust was golden brown.

Other stuff: Sadly, the week at the beach is coming to a close…it kind of went by too fast. We went on a day trip to Charleston, SC yesterday. We didn’t set out to see anything in particular…we simply parked the car and walked around all afternoon taking photographs. I’ll probably write a post about that trip as we took a lot of pretty decent pictures.

Other than the trip to Charleston, I’ve just lazed about all week. I spent a little more time on the internet than I should have and I did a fair amount of reading but I didn’t touch any of the knitting I brought with me. I really should start knitting again…if for no reason other than I have an awful lot of yarn in my stash. Maybe the mood will strike once we’ve moved and are completely settled into the new house. Or maybe the knitting bug will strike again once fall arrives.

We’ll be heading back to Williamsburg in the morning…as much as I don’t want the vacation to end, I will be glad to be at home to bake. I’ve been craving sweets all week and I really don’t like grocery store desserts anymore. Ice cream kind of did the trick yesterday…but baked from scratch goodies would have been better. Oh well…I’ll be home to make them soon enough.

Tweet This Post 

Quote from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

We might become blueberries around here if I keep picking them. Thirteen pounds last week. Ten pounds this week. Maybe I’ll pick more next week?

After my single strawberry picking trip in May, I was determined not to miss blueberry season this summer. Clearly I haven’t if I’ve picked twenty-three pounds of blueberries in the last ten days.

The drive out to the local farm to pick the blueberries is a little long but it’s totally worth it in the end. They only charge $1.95 per pound for pick-your-own blueberries…think about how cheap this is compared to grocery store prices for a pint or quart of them.

I rather enjoyed the actual blueberry picking. I went by myself both times, armed with my iPod full of favorite songs. It was relaxing and a little therapeutic to be outside alone for an afternoon filling up my bucket with berries. On the first trip last week, I came to the (very wonderful) realization that I like the person I am now way, way, way more than the person I was five years ago. The me of five years ago sucked. I’m glad I’ve made all the changes I have and am happy with who I’ve become. Need some thinking time? Go pick some blueberries.

If you do go out for blueberries, make sure to slather on the sunscreen. And the insect repellent…I forgot the bug spray the first time and ended up with chiggers up and down my legs.

A lot of the berries were eaten by the handful out of the fridge. Some were given to a coworker so that she could bake a cake for her family. Five and a half quarts were put in the freezer for future baking purposes. Some of them were made into blueberry preserves.

I’m already dreaming up a cake with the preserves as a filling layer. I’m thinking about a lemon cake but I haven’t come up with a frosting flavor yet. Give me some time.

I also baked a pie. I lifted the star motif straight from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook.

Today I made a bunch of blueberry peach crisps. If the boyfriend hasn’t eaten all of the fresh blueberries by Sunday, I’ll probably make muffins or something of that sort. And maybe I’ll go back out for more of them next week…it’s hard to resist at $1.95 a pound…the work to pick them is irrelevant.

Tweet This Post