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Huckleberry Jelly Roll, Candied Hickory Nuts, Honeysuckle Ice Cream, Chicory

Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

This past weekend I had the priviledge to cook a collaborative dinner at Stella’s Southern Bistro with Chef/Owner Jason Scholtz and Edward Lee of 610 Magnolia in Louisville. It was an inspiring pair to work with, so for dessert I wanted to create something uniquely Southern but that also played with my childhood experiences in the woods during the late summer/fall time frame, a season which is still my fovorite time of year because of the very special memories I have of gathering and eating honeysuckles straight from the vine, and foraging nuts on the forest floor. I also loved jelly cakes – we had our own techniques for them back then but for this dinner I wanted to play with dramatic presentation of a jelly roll cake, which, since my favorite roll cake recipe comes from an Edna Lewis book, it would allow me to give her the tip of my hat she deserves almost any time I put my nose to the grindstone.

I selected huckleberries for the jelly because they represent rural mountain culture and they are also flat-out my favorite berry. While they grow wild throughout much of the Appalachian chain, they are especially elusive there because they like high elevations, and much of the Appalachian forest has, at one time or another, been clear-cut. The berries we are using here have been foraged in the Northwest.

The chicory plays two roles – and I created this dessert first and foremost to pair with the Truchard late harvest Roussane that was the paired wine for dinner – number one, the rich and sweet components of the dessert needed a bitter counterpoint to prevent the whole plate from becoming cloying, and chicory itself has a storied history in the Southern kitchen, for years standing in for coffee in the remote mountain cultures where coffee simply wasn’t available, or too expensive. In pairing with the Roussane, the roasted root provides roasty-toasty smoky brown flavors to catch the smoke and petrol in the Roussane. It worked beautifully, and at least a couple of requests came back through social media for us to offer the dessert in Chicago, so it is debuting this weekend for what we expect will be a long fall tour. At some point, we may run out of our homemade huckleberry jelly and switch to homemade elderberry jelly, but that’s OK because the elderberry jelly is pretty awesome too.

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Bourbon ginger bread pudding with candied ginger, peach butter, and peach ice cream

Friday, August 24th, 2012

A funny thing happened to me the other day when I walked out my front door at home. There were leaves on the ground. It made me want to make bread pudding. Hopefully we’ve got some summer left but here is a nod to cooler nights ahead.

Our basic bread pudding recipe has never changed – home-baked Sally Lunn, Moore Family Farm eggs and Kilgus cream, and a gill of bourbon. I wanted to keep the flavor bright because we’re still in summer here, so we’re adding lots of fresh grated ginger, upping the bourbon, and getting a bread pudding that while gooey and sticky, is somehow bright and refreshing as a well-mixed bourbon and ginger hi-ball. I thought peaches would hit the spot with this in late summer and they’ve also been our big processing project lately, so we have peach butter and peach ice cream made from fruit we source from Paul Friday and Seedling, with a little crispy-chewy-spicy kick added from candied ginger we make from the leaving of our ginger beer making process. This one’s a great way to enjoy the flavors of peach and bourbon on a late summer day.

Pairing: bourbon neat

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Anatomy of a Dish: Sea Island Benne Cake

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Truth be told, I was never a big fan of red velvet cake growing up. When I was a kid, at least one red velvet cake would show up at every church potluck, turkey shoot dessert table, or family reunion potluck. Maybe I was being too analytical for someone my age (and perhaps a bit misinformed) but in my young mind, something so red should taste like cherries, or maybe strawberries. I could never wrap my head around that taste. Vaguely chocolatey, definitely something like vanilla going on there. Cream cheese icing was always my favorite icing, but it couldn’t save red velvet cake for me. Something about it wasn’t right, it didn’t seem natural to me. Some years later, of course, I learned that red velvet cake was in fact usually brightly colored with food coloring, which I learned still later is most often made from coal tar. Yuck.

Why then did red velvet cake play such a dominant role on our dessert menu from opening until recently? Simply put, I knew I could make a great red velvet cake, and since people love red velvet cake, it would be popular. I’m cooking for you, the public, not myself.

Of course when I set out to put red velvet cake on the menu prior to opening, the key decision was made to color ours with beets, and up the cocoa in the recipe, and what we got was a cake I actually liked – it had a natural color, and the earthy minerality of beets dances beautifully with cocoa, vanilla, and orange.

With the proliferation of red velvet cupcakes, whoopie pies, ice cream (!) and whatnot, I decided to celebrate the third birthday of Big Jones by bringing in a new cake that would be more unique, but also approachable and loved by you our guests, and true to our growing emphasis on heirloom crops and historic foodways. So, it was clear the red velvet cake was on the way out, the question was what to bring up in its place?

Part of me really wants to just do cakes seasonally and part of me recognizes that some of our menu should be more stable year-round so you can have familiarity each time you visit, in addition to the adventure of new dishes, ingredients, and drinks. This one, I thought, should hopefully be the kind of workhorse the red velvet cake was and regularly available. We have plenty of other dessert items that change constantly. The coconut cream cake that is always a smash hit on our Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve menus is certainly alluring, but if we put that on the menu a favorite holiday treat loses its sparkle by being around all the time. I did think the recipe could be tinkered with and tailored to some other ingredients in our pantry.

The sea island benne and bennecake flour we buy from Anson Mills were very high on the list of ingredients I was looking to get on the dessert menu. As very unique, interesting, and historically important ingredients, they typify my kitchen philosophy. They also happen to be delicious. Now I was working from a foundation of nutty, rich sesame flavor, which pointed me straight into the direction of honey as an additional flavoring because I can’t get enough of those pasteli honey-sesame candies when I’m at a Mediterranean market. It’s a great pairing. I picked gallberry honey because it possesses properties of both richness and a sparkling bright piney taste from the highly acid pine forest soils the gallberry bush (an evergreen itself) grows in. It’s also an endangered food, not because the gallberry bush is endangered, but because interesting local and regional honeys have long been losing market share to mass-market factory honey and an increasing flood of imports. It comes from a fairly small region in Northeastern Florida, South Georgia, and parts of South Carolina, where the pine forests grow, there’s lots of water, and warm, humid weather. All great reasons to give gallberry honey the nod.

Icing was another question, and I was dying to pull out a superior – if labor intensive – technique that was much more common in the 19th century and increasingly rare these days – a butter roux icing, also known as white roux icing, flour paste icing, or German buttercream depending who you’re talking to. This is the traditionally correct icing for red velvet cake, and I did try it with the red velvet cake fairly early in the Big Jones days. Folks wouldn’t have it. I loved it, but chalked it up to everyone’s familiarity with the also-delicious-but-easier-to make  cream cheese icing that’s ubiquitous on red velvet cake these days. I acquiesced and proceeded with cream cheese icing. Such are the travails of cooking familiar foods. While they all change over time for the sake of convenience, novelty, or price, when you’re selling them you’re often stuck with the current form, not necessarily the best. Eventually I decided to completely deconstruct the red velvet cake to the un-iced hot cake with cream cheese semifreddo version you all know as our standard.

Enough said about that, with the new cake I was working with some very old, historically significant ingredients but in a preparation (benne and honey sponge cake) that is definitely novel in 2011 Chicago. Time to bring out the white roux icing. It’s been a hit this time because it’s not been fighting an expectations game as it did with the red velvet cake, and it is absolutely the most rich, silky, voluptuous cake icing there is. Done.

To finish the plate I felt we needed counterpoints to the rich bennecake spongecake and the even richer icing, plus some crunch wouldn’t hurt, and some conversation in the kitchen led to a lime inverted sugar glass for acidity and crunch, and a violet-Lillet sorbet for an aromatic floral lift and the counterpoint everyone loves with cake of something creamy and frozen. We’ve since moved on to strawberry-rose sorbet as violet season ended, and we’re thinking of apricot-orange blossom as the season moves along here. The recipe I’m providing is for apricot-orange blossom, since that’s where we are currently seasonally. The pictured plate is garnished with violas from Garden to Be, we are now working with snapdragons from Green City Market.

So, we have Sea Island Benne and Gallberry Honey Cake, Butter Roux Icing, Apricot-Orange Blossom Sorbet, Lime glass. This takes a few hours from baking to icing but actually isn’t a ton of work considering the reward.

Sea Island Benne Cake

For one ½ sheet pan, which makes 10 individual 2”x4” double layer cakes, iced.

  • 4 ounces butter, at room temperature
  • 8 ounces granulated white sugar
  • 4 ounces sourwood honey
  • 5 eggs, separated
  • 4 ounces vegetable oil
  • 8 ounces all-purpose flour
  • 4 ounces bennecake flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 cup toasted sea island benne
  • 1 cup buttermilk

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add honey and egg yolks, one at a time, during creaming. Sift the flours, baking soda, and salt together. Whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Sea island benne into the yolk mixture, followed by the oil, then alternate flour and buttermilk until all is incorporated. Fold in Egg whites in three stages. Place in a buttered and floured ½ sheet pan and bake at 325 until the toothpick comes clean, about 18 minutes. Cool thoroughly before cutting and icing.

Butter Roux Icing:

  • 1 pound plus two ounces European-style butter, unsalted
  • ¼ cup all purpose flour
  • 1-1/2 cups half and half
  • 10 ounces granulated white sugar, well chilled
  • 2 ounces sourwood honey, well chilled
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract

In a small saucepan, melt two ounces of butter and add the flour. Make a roux, cooking to a rich blond color. Add the half and half and bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Boil fifteen seconds, whisking, and remove from heat. Cool to room temperature and chill thoroughly before proceeding. In a mixer bowl with wire whip attachment, cream the remaining pound of butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the chilled roux, honey, salt, and vanilla and continue whipping until light as whipped cream, all sugar is dissolved, and the mixture has a rich cream color. Ices ten 2”x4” double layer cakes.

Crystallized Lime Glass

  • 1 cup isomalt (invert sugar, may substitute other brands)
  • zest of two limes
  • 1/4 teaspoon citric acid
  • 1/8 teaspoon malic acid
  • a few grains kosher salt

Combine ingredients and sprinkle evenly over an 18″x10″ baking sheet lined with a lightly oiled silicone baking mat. Bake in a 325 degree oven until all the sugar has melted. Remove and cool to room temperature before breaking into pieces. Can also be spun into cool shapes while cooling.

Apricot-Orange Blossom Sorbet

  • 16 ounces peeled, pitted, fresh apricots (weight after pitting and peeling)
  • 8 ounces granulated sugar
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • juice of one lemon
  • 1-2 teaspoons orange blossom water, depending on the strength and your taste

Combine the apricots, sugar, water, and salt in a small saucepan and gently bring to a simmer. Simmer and stir until all sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, add lemon juice and orange blossom water, puree and chill thoroughly before freezing in your ice cream freezer according to manufacturer’s instructions.

 

 

 

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Cooking At Home: Strawberry Shortcake

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

From the North, South, East, or West, there has to be one sweet that means the beginning of summer for every child who’s in school and whose family eats at least somewhat seasonally. That’s strawberry shortcake. School’s either just let out or soon will be for the summer; it’s time for picnics, potlucks, trips to the beach, and summer vacations.

Besides the undeniable fact that strawberries are all kinds of delicious, I think this simple, no-fuss dessert maintains such a strong emotional fix on many folks because it really is just that – the first luscious, scrumptious bit of summer, and almost everywhere in the U.S., that first bite comes right around the time school lets out for summer. Ah, freedom. Strawberry shortcake.

This is such an easy one to make at home. This is a slightly fussier version than you might like to attempt yourself, but I’ll guide you through the options and make clear the basics. Well, actually the basics are this: strawberries and shortcake. The strawberries you must procure unless you grow them yourself, and the shortcake you absolutely should make yourself, it’s as quick and easy as biscuits.

Please please please, whatever you do, don’t try this with supermarket strawberries. At the restaurant we use mostly Seedling Orchard or Paul Friday’s Berries, or else it’s Mick Klug’s or Ellis Orchard. Go to your favorite U-pick or farmer’s market and get nice red juicy strawberries. Smaller is usually better. A good market vendor will let you sample. For shortcake, I’m not necessarily looking for the sweetest berries. Tart is O.K. I want aroma and a decent amount of acid, but I also want red juice when I pinch the berry. A more acidic berry can take more sugar without becoming saccharin and make a nice full-bodied syrup after maceration.

For the shortcake, I absolutely recommend pastry flour, which may be a little hard to come by at your local grocery store. I’m a big fan of Anson Mill’s Fine Cloth Bolted Pastry Flour, which doesn’t come cheap but is supreme and absolutely worth the money if you want top-notch short cake. There’s a couple of other tricks that work in a pinch: 1) mix equal parts all-purpose flour and cake flour. This yields little flavor if you’re using supermarket brands but it works. 2) use one tablespoon of cornstarch as part of each cup of all purpose flour. This is least preferable. It really is worth a trip to Whole Foods, where you can buy either Arrowhead Mills or Bob’s Red Mill pastry flour, both of which are excellent.

I recommend whipped creme fraiche in place of standard whipped cream, but go with your own preference. Creme fraiche is easy to make, and the pointers are listed after the main recipes. Creme fraiche will whip just like whipping cream.

On to the recipe. Simple stuff here!

For about twelve portions

Macerate the strawberries:

  • 3 quarts of strawberries, tops removed and cut into bite-size pieces
  • 3 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper
  • 3 Tablespoons Mathilde X/O or substitute Grand Marnier (optional)

Wash the strawberries under cold running water, being gentle but also careful to remove all dirt, sand, and grit. Place on a clean towel on a sheet tray and return to the refrigerator for an hour or two until thoroughly dried. Slice and place in a glass or stainless mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients and toss gently. Don’t worry yet about the sugar dissolving. Cover the bowl tightly and return to the refrigerator. This is best done 2-3 hours before you want to serve. That’s another great thing about strawberry shortcake – it’s a great prepare-ahead dessert. The strawberries will keep for about a week but are best the same day.

For the Shortcake:

  • 4 cups pastry flour
  • 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 sticks unsalted butter, very thinly sliced, well chilled
  • 2 cups light cream or half and half, plus a little more if needed
  • one egg and turbinado sugar for dusting, optional

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Chill all ingredients thoroughly. Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Working quickly, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles a lumpy meal. Add most, but not all, of the cream. Working quickly so as not to warm up the mixture with your hands, gently work in the liquid while working to press the mixture into one mass. Add remaining cream a bit at a time, working each bit in, until the dough comes together as a single stiff mass. Quickly turn onto a well floured board and fold it in on itself three times. Don’t overwork the dough or you’ll have bread instead of cake! Roll the dough out to about 1″ thick and cut with a biscuit cutter of your choice. Place on a buttered cookie sheet. Beat the egg with a few teaspoons of water, then brush the shortbreads with the egg mixture. Dust liberally with turbinado sugar. Bake at 325 until set in the center and golden brown, about twenty minutes. Best served hot with cold strawberries and whipped cream.

The Creme Fraiche

  • 1 quart very fresh, pasteurized heavy whipping cream
  • 1/4 cup cultured buttermilk

In a clean sterilized jar, mix the buttermilk and cream, cover with cheesecloth, and set in a warm location for twelve hours. It should sour and thicken in that amount of time. you may leave another few hours if not fully thickened. I have never had a batch fail, but if it’s not thickened and soured after sixteen hours, I’d advise you to start over with fresh buttermilk. Chill at once. This will whip just like whipped cream, you can churn it into slamming butter, or use anywhere you’d otherwise use sour cream.

And just for fun, if you’d like to make the violet pearls shown in the picture, here’s that formula. Of course, this is completely optional.

First things first, you’ll need to make a sodium alginate base:

  • 300 grams water
  • 6 grams sodium alginate

Place the water in a blender on low speed. Add the alginate slowly through the feeding hole on the lid. Increase speed to medium and continue to blend on medium speed for three minutes. Scrape from the blender bowl and place in a container, cover and set aside several hours to allow all the air bubbles to escape.

Next, you’ll need to make a violet syrup:

  • 1oo violet flowers
  • 300 grams simple syrup (150 grams each sugar and boiling water, stir to dissolve)

Place the violets in a blender and pulse to pulverize, lubricating by adding a little simple syrup at a time. Once violets are liquified, add remaining syrup and blend on high for two minutes. Strain through a double layer of dampened cheesecloth. Store in the refrigerator until needed.

Finally, you’re ready to make the pearls.

  • 1000 grams filtered water
  • 7 grams calcium lactate
  • 100 grams alginate base
  • 150 grams violet syrup

Dissolve the calcium lactate in the water. This will take a few minutes of stirring occasionally. Stir the violet syrup into the alginate base and place the mixture into a squeeze bottle with a fairly small dropper tip. Drop droplets of the mixture into the calcium lactate solution and wait 45 seconds for the spheres to set. Use a slotted spoon or small strainer to harvest the pearls, rinse gently under cold running water, and serve at once.

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Anatomy of a Dish: Frozen Citron Cheesecake

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

This being the tail end of the winter season in Chicago and before any new fruit begins to ripen locally, I have always found April prime time for citrus desserts. This past citrus season, we had a great opportunity to pick up some organic Buddha’s Hand from Goodness Greenness, and I jumped at the chance. Also known as citron, it is a citrus fruit that is grown only for its supremely aromatic rind and pith; there is hardly any pulp at all. Its aroma is a heady mixture of lemon, lime, orange, and grapefruit, with a deep, resinous quality all of the other citrus peels lack. In all my reading of colonial and antebellum era cookbooks, citron is not an uncommon ingredient, and was clearly in the rotation of ingredients in most sophisticated kitchens of the era. Once again the cookbooks serve as a reminder that even under the limited transportation and communication resources of the day, Americans once ate a much more varied diet than our current mass-production food system, where citron is clearly a rarity. If only it weren’t so. It’s wonderful stuff.

We preserved our citron in syrup so it would last beyond the season, and it’s also available for the bar to use. The recipes below will call for citron zest. Fresh citron is available online through the Exotic Fruit Club. The only approximation of it would include lemon, orange, lime, and yuzu zest, though the recipe will certainly work with any citrus fruit you like. In case you are well-read in the culinary arts, I will go ahead and admit now that this is not a cheesecake, it’s actually a semifreddo flavored with cheese.

Basil is one of my favorite pairings with citrus, and given a bunch of basil in the summer you can freeze it in syrup to be used over winter for a burst of summer whenever you like. At Big Jones we use a Pacojet to whip our sorbets, so we actually freeze the syrup and then put it on the machine, which literally cuts it up into the smoothest, dreamiest consistency imaginable. You can freeze the syrup in your regular ice cream freezer according to the manufacturer’s instructions. A not about our sorbet recipe though – we use a little xanthan gum to help prevent recrystallization but in lieu of other chemical stabilizers, it only maintains a great consistency for a very few days, so only batch freeze what you know you’ll use. Basil sorbet syrup base may be frozen and rethawed before spinning in your ice cream maker.

Why blueberry preserves? Well, honestly, that’s what we still have around from last summer’s growing season! They also go swimmingly well with both citrus and basil. We may wind up using the last of our raspberry preserves on this dish before rhubarb starts coming in. You can use frozen berries, or start with this summers harvest and use this recipe next winter. Same goes with the basil.

Finally, a note on deconstructing the cheesecake. Lots of people, myself included, continue to make fun of the epidemic of deconstructed dishes on restaurant menus, sometimes to the point of absurdity. So why deconstruct the cheesecake? The answer is really simple – it separates the crust from the rest of the dish so it can be tailored to folks with gluten allergies. Additionally, it allows you to recombine the flavors in ways that interest you, rather than giving you a slab of everything with a sauce dumped on it. If you prefer to make a more traditional cheesecake shape, you can press the oat scone shortbread into your springform pan and brown it in the oven for twenty minutes under a pie weight. Cool completely before layering the filling over the crust and freezing.

So, we have a frozen citron cheesecake, blueberry preserves, candied coconut, basil sorbet, oat scone shortbread, sansyo pepper. We’ll start with the cheesecake and finish with a few pantry recipes.

Frozen citron cheesecake

  • 3 leaves 160 bloom gelatin
  • 2 cups heavy whipping cream
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1 Tablespoon grated citron zest, with a little pith
  • 3 eggs separated
  • 12 ounces Creole cream cheese (see pantry recipes)
  • juice of one lemon

Soak the gelatin leaves in cold water for thirty minutes before using. Place once cup cream, 1/3 cup sugar, the salt, cayenne, and citron into a non-reactive saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring often. At the boil, drain the water off the bloomed gelatin and add the gelatine leaves to the cream mixture and return to a boil. Whisk well, remove from heat, and cool a few minutes. Place egg yolks in a stainless bowl and liaison with the hot cream mixture, pouring the cream in a thin steady stream while whisking vigorously. Place mixture over simmering water in a double boiler and cook custard, stirring constantly, until thick enough to coat a spoon heavily. Stir in lemon juice and Creole cream cheese and continue cooking until the mixture registers 165 fahrenheit on a kitchen thermometer. Remove from heat, pres through a fine mesh sieve, and cool to tepid, about 100-110 degrees before folding in the egg whites and whipped cream. Once custard has cooled, whip egg whites until soft peak form, sprinkle the other 1/3 cup sugar over, and continue whipping until stiff but not dry. Gently fold into custard mixture. Whip the remaining one cup of heavy cream in a well chilled bowl with a well chilled whisk until stiff but not brittle. Carefully fold into the cheesecake. Pour into molds, wrap, and freeze for 24 hours before serving.

Blueberry preserves

  • 6 pints blueberries
  • 1/2cup water
  • 7 cups sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons citric acid
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 Tablespoons high methoxyl (HM) pectin

Wash blueberries under several rinses of cold water, remove stems, leaves, and any rotten or damaged blueberries. Place in a one gallon, non-reactive kettle with the water, 6 cups of the sugar, the citric acid, salt, and pepper. I like whole berries in my preserves, so I don’t blend or actively break them up. Let the heat do it for you. Gradually bring to a boil, starting with very low heat. Periodically scrape up the bottom of the kettle to make sure the preserves aren’t sticking. Eventually the blueberries will burst and start to give up their juice. Once the berries are swimming in juice, you can raise the heat to medium and bring on to a boil. Maintain a low boil for ten minutes. Combine the pectin with the remaining cup of sugar and mix well. Sprinkle over the boiling berries and stir well. Boil hard for one minute, stirring all the while. Place into clean, sanitized, air tight containers. We store preserves either frozen or under refrigeration since we don’t have a food processing license. You can can them according to instructions with your Ball or Mason jars.

Candied Coconut

  • Two fresh coconuts – check to be sure they have abundant water by shaking at your ear. Do not buy dry coconuts
  • water to bring coconut water volume up to one cup
  • 8 ounces granulated sugar
  • pinch salt
  • pinch cayenne

Crack coconuts, drain and maintain water. Strain and place in a measuring cup. Add enough cold water to bring up to one cup. Place in a one-quart saucepan with the sugar, salt, and cayenne, and slowly boil while peeling the coconuts. Using a flexible and sharp knife, carefully cut meats out of the coconut shell and slice thinly, 1/16″. Rinse to remove clinging bits of shell. Add sliced coconut to the boiling coconut syrup, cover, and maintain at a simmering boil for four hours, checking periodically and adding fresh water if needed. After four hours, drain the coconut well, maintain the syrup for other uses (sorbet, daiquiris, pina coladas) and spread the coconut out in a thin layer on a cookie sheet to dry somewhat. When still sticky but not wet, toss well in additional granulated sugar. Return to a clean cookie sheet and dry in a low oven until chewy and dry but not hard, which should take about 2-3 hours depending on the temperature in your oven. Store in an airtight container and use within a couple of weeks.

Basil Sorbet

  • 10 ounces sugar
  • 10 ounces water
  • pinch salt
  • 8 ounces peeled and chopped granny smith apple
  • leaves from 1/2 pound fresh basil
  • 2 grams xanthan gum
  • 30 grams glucose powder or dextrose

Place water, sugar, salt, and granny smith apples in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring regularly. Reduce to a simmer and cook until apples are tender, about thirty minutes depending on the size of your chop. Remove from heat and cook thoroughly to room temperature. Place in a one-quart measure and add enough ice to bring up to one quart total volume. Place basil leaves in a blender with the apple pieces and blend until smooth and bright green. Gradually add the syrup in a steady stream until incorporated. Mix xanthan gum and glucose powder and sprinkle into feed hole on blender while running. Blend thirty seconds. Freeze immediately according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Oat scone shortbread

  • 3-1/2 cups colonial oat scone flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 pound butter, chilled and cut into small bits
  • 1/4-1/2 cup creme fraiche, as needed

Whisk together the dry ingredients thoroughly. Incorporate the butter as for short paste, smashing up all the bits with your finders into little disks, working the mixture between your hands until butter is well incorporated but the mixture is still somewhat lumpy. Add creme fraiche bit by bit, gently working the mixture into a stiff paste. Use only enough creme fraiche to bring together into a stiff dough, not any more. Immediately roll out 1/2″ thick on a well floured board and cut into strips 1″ by 2″. Place on a well-oiled cookie sheet and bake at 350 until well browned, about twenty minutes. Cool to room temperature and store in an airtight container. Use within a few days.

Creole Cream Cheese

Yields 2 pounds

In a large stainless stockpot, heat over medium heat:

  • 3-1/2 quarts non-homogenized skim milk

Whisk occasionally during heating. Heat to 110 degrees. Remove from heat immediately. Whisk in:

  • 12 drops liquid rennet
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk

Mix thoroughly and cover with cheesecloth. Culture at 90 degrees for 24 hours. Line a colander with cheesecloth, place the colander over a container and carefully spoon the curds into the colander to drain, trying not to break them. Allow to drain for one hour, until the cheese is one solid mass. Tie up the cheesecloth and hang the cheese over a drip pan in the refrigerator for another three hours. Season by tossing with 3 teaspoons kosher salt. Pack into a sanitized airtight container and refrigerate. Use within ten days.

To assemble, dip molds in warm water just long enough to release cheesecake. Paint the plate with blueberry preserves, sprinkle crumbled shortbread about the plate and use as an edible base for the basil sorbet. garnish with coconut and a light dusting of sansyo pepper.

A few notes on sources – we use organic coconuts we procure through Goodness Greeness. You may find them at a natural foods grocery store. You can easily substitute young coconuts, which are easier to work with and more widely available. Non-homogenized milk is available from Kilgus Farmstead at the Green City Market and select grocery stores around town. Sansyo pepper can be found at Japanese specialty markets or online.

Frozen Citron Cheesecake should be available another few weeks until rhubarb takes over.

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