Make My Potatoes Sweet
Sweet potatoes remind me of my friend Brie…
That is her in the pretty necklace 
We lived together for 2 years here in Boston and she introduced me to them. I remember tasting them for the first time and my world changed forever. I mean, they really are sweet and with a little butter, salt and pepper…heaven. They became part of our dinner repertoire and we were even known to make a whole meal out of them. Brie and her boyfriend Brian just got engaged!!! (he is the one in the photo). It has been so fun to see how we have grown up and come so far from our tiny attic apartment on Moore Street, fresh out of college wondering where we would be in 5+ years. Well in 5 years we are now living with people who would probably not be able to make a meal out of sweet potatoes…bummer. But, Brie will be happy to know that is really the only bummer about marriage, the rest (living with your soul mate, your best friend, sharing your life with the one you love) is WONDERFUL.
So, back to sweet potatoes. The cool fall weather makes me think of pumpkins, winter squash and sweet potatoes. They are a staple on Thanksgiving tables everywhere and over the past couple of years I have been incorporating them into my desserts. Sweet potato pie is a classic southern dessert, while pumpkin seems to be more prevalent in the north. Pumpkin has often been explained as tasteless and the flavors we associate with pumpkin are actually sugar, cinnamon, cloves and ginger. However, sweet potatoes are incredibly flavorful and therefore shine beautifully in baked sweets.
One of the fall desserts I ran at the restaurant was sweet potato pie (more mini tart) with coconut cornmeal crust and streusel topping. I drew influence from a recipe by Frank Stitt and a recipe from Bill Neal - two very well known southern chefs. It was a pretty big seller and I revisited the recipe last week. This recipe is a little involved compared to your normal pie recipe, composed of three different parts. However, the filling can be doubled and used in your go to pie crust and served as you would a pumpkin pie, with a little sweetened whipped cream. Or you could divide the filling among ramekins and cook as a custard, adjusting cooling time to only about 10-15 minutes depending on size of ramekins.
Either way, this is a lovely silky fall dessert that you will very much enjoy – maybe even more than beloved pumpkin
Sweet Potato Tart
For topping:
Follow the recipe for this topping.
Once mixed, spread on a parchment lined sheet tray and bake at 350 till it begins to brown around the edges and seems to be getting crispy. About 20 minutes.
For the crust:
8 Tbsp. unsalted butter, room temp
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 egg yolk
1/4 tsp of vanilla extract
3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup of toasted shredded coconut
pinch of salt
Beat butter in mixer with paddle attachment. Add sugar and beat till fluffy and smooth. Add egg yolk and vanilla. Add flour and coconut and mix till just combined. Turn out and form into a disk, cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour.
Remove dough from fridge and let sit at room temp for 5-10 minutes. Roll out on floured surface till about 1/8 – 1/4 inch thick. Press into a 9 inch tart pan with removable bottom. Chill again for 15 minutes. Blind bake (lined with parchment and filled with pie weights) for 15 minutes at 350.
Remove parchment and weights and bake an additional 5 minutes.
For the filling:
1 cup of sweet potato puree
1 large egg
1/3 of a cup sugar
1/2 cup of cream
1/3 cup of whole milk
4 Tbsp. melted butter, slightly cooled
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. grated fresh ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves and coriander
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbsp. bourbon (optional)
Whisk potato puree, sugar and eggs till smooth. Add cream, milk and butter again mixing till smooth. Add salt and spices, vanilla and bourbon. Pour through sieve if it seems lumpy.
To assemble:
Pour filling into partially baked crust. Sprinkle the baked topping over the custard and bake at 350. Check after 15 minutes, rotate and continue baking till center is set.
Serve with slightly sweetened whip cream.
September Grass
“Oh, september grass is the sweetest kind
It goes down easy like apple wine
Hope you don’t mind if I pour you some
Made that much sweeter by the winter to come “
- James Taylor
September has been a lovely and busy month for us. Our move in August resulted in a desire to try to relax a bit, enjoy settling into our new digs and take advantage of the prettiest month of the year.
We enjoyed a cool afternoon in Duxbury, MA at the Island Creek Oyster Festival.
I made this Cardamom Spice Cake with Homemade Marmalade and Orange Blossom Butter Cream for a wedding in Madison, CT.
We went apple picking with my mom at Windy Hill Farm in Great Barrington, MA.
Over the summer I did some recipe development for Le Creuset cookware. They sent me a bunch of cookware, including a 9×9 red ceramic baking dish. I used the pan to make some outrageous fig crumble bars. Saturday would have been my Dad’s 56th birthday. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to see me become a baker or taste any of my creations. Every year I always think about what I would have made him…this year it would have been these fig bars!! As I have told you before, he was a big fan of Fig Newtons and anything with spices and dried fruit. This recipe was perfect for both loving memories and my new baking dish. The bars are very appropriate for the fall season and would be delicious served with vanilla or ginger ice cream.
Spiced Fig Jam Crumble Bars
adapted from Martha Stewart
For the Fig Jam
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
3 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 cup ruby port
12 ounces dried figs, stems removed cut in half
tiny pinch of salt
Simmer all ingredients in a small sauce pan over medium heat. I cover it so that the liquid doesn’t evaporate. Cook until plump and rehydrated, about 15 min. Remove from heat and let cool. Remove whole spices and transfer to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse till smooth. If it seems too thick and stiff, you can pulse with a few table spoons of water.
For the Crust
1 3/4 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 cups plus whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/4 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter an 9 or 8-inch square baking pan; line bottom and two sides with a strip of parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang.
In a food processor, pulse together 2 cups flour and 1 cup sugar. Add butter; pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal, I actually had to process for a good minute till it started to come together. Transfer half of mixture to prepared pan press firmly into bottom. Spread fig jam over the crust evenly with a spoon or offset spatula. Shape remaining mixture into large, moist clumps and scatter over the tip of the jam. Bake until topping is golden brown, 45 – 50 minutes.
Let cool completely in the pan. Remove bars by lifting edges of parchment paper. Using a large knife cut into squares.
“Welcome Irene, have some pie…”
All week I was craving some” good old summer fun”. My return to work had me feeling that summer was over, even though we clearly have a little longer to go. I got to work planning my “summer cook out” menu and we had our friends Callie, Mike and their beagle, Beal over to share. Well, Irene really cramped my style. While I was envisioning a cooler full of beer, lawn chairs and outdoor eating, the reality was that Bryan grilled burgers in a rain coat and we ate around the dining room table. Still a fun time had by all
Our menu included:
Peach and Cucumber Salsa
Napa Valley Cabernet Burgers
Green Coleslaw
Green Bean and tomato Salad
Corn on the Cob
Blueberry Pie
The blueberry pie was born out of the Wild Maine Blueberries that I found at Whole Foods this week. They were quite lovely and I couldn’t resist. I had planned to make this (substituting blueberries and pecans), but after disastrous results with the crust for that recipe I moved on to my original plan “make a pie”. I often find myself drawn to making pies for dinner parties. I will sometimes try to think of some elaborate dessert to make, but end up having so much more fun making pie! I whipped up a batch of pie crust and crumb topping. The recipe for the blueberry filling is below. This pie came out perfectly, I often have trouble with blueberries causing the filling to be very juicy. These berries held their shape and paired well with the addition of lemon zest.
I had a piece this morning for breakfast with my coffee and it was the perfect way to celebrate Irene and my cozy Sunday doing nothing but blogging 
Blueberry Pie Filling
2 pints fresh Wild Maine Blueberries
4 tbsp. vanilla sugar (or regular sugar)
2 tsp. lemon zest
2 tbsp. all purpose flour
(Follow the instructions in the link up till the filling is added) Gently combine and pour into pie crust. Top with crumb topping and bake for about 15 minutes at 375 degrees. Then rotate pie and reduce heat to 350 degrees and cook for another 20 minutes to a half hour, till the top and crust are golden. Serve with Lemon Basil Ice Cream!
Ya Want Some Scones?!
I discovered the appeal of scones when I spent the first term of my junior year of college in Ireland. I won’t say that I discovered good scones, of the hundreds I ate I don’t ever really paying attention. They were a comfort food for my roommates and I and were ALWAYS available (along with Cadbury Chocolate) It wasn’t until I worked at Flour Bakery and Cafe that I learned that there are techniques for baking the perfect scone, and there are a lot of really bad scones in the world. Again, I won’t say that I loved the scones at Flour, probably because they were my least favorite item to make. Scone production at Flour was just that – A PRODUCTION!!! Gathering ingredients, making sure everything was cold, mixing in the 60 quart mixer, dumping 50 lbs of dough out on the table, rolling, cutting, weighing and freezing. Joanne used to challenge me to time myself, make a game out of it, but that usually backfired and when it took me over an hour and I was running late on my prep list I was usually cursing the lemon ginger scones!! Heaven forbid you screw them up, like forgetting an ingredient – that resulted in tears…really.
Well, I have come to terms with the amazing-ness of GOOD scones. When Bryan and I were scouting out Northwestern Connecticut for a wedding location we stopped in at a cute little bakery in Salisbury, Connecticut named Sweet William. A small store front with a few window seats and an open kitchen, Sweet William would be my dream bakery. There is one baker, mixing scones by hand and a friendly women serving coffee and ringing people up. Scones are baked in small batches and on Saturday mornings they are always warm. The bakery has a small cold case with a few cakes and tarts available, they also do mail order and wholesale cookies. The scones here are the BEST I have ever had. Fresh, buttery, slightly sweet and surprising light they completely blow me away. After being introduced to these beauties I knew I had to head to the kitchen and figure out how to re-create them.
During one of my visits I sat and watched the baker making a batch, I noticed both cream and butter were used. In the past my scones have been flat and a little dense. The SW scones had such beautiful height I couldn’t get over it. I had made lots of biscuits at the restaurant and I often sung the praises of the convection oven and it’s ability to help them rise. I don’t have a convection oven in my kitchen, so I was on my own. In the past I think I might have been doing the following things wrong…
- My butter or other liquid wasn’t cold enough
- I didn’t chill the cut scones again before baking them
- I rolled the dough too thin
- I baked them at too low a temperature
I had seen a recipe for Ginger Pecan Scones in the April Issue of Bon Appetit and decided that I had to try them. However, that recipe called for buttermilk and I was on a mission to make cream scones. Below is what I came up with. They were a success, tender, buttery and higher than my previous attempts. I brought these to a potluck brunch, I recommend eating them the day they are baked, if you are eating them as “day olds” throw them in the toaster oven for a few minutes. I also highly recommend a trip to Salisbury, Connecticut!!
Orange Ginger Pecan Scones
adapted from Dorie Greenspan
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup crystallized ginger, chopped small
3/4 cup toasted pecans, chopped
5 tablespoons of COLD unsalted butter, cut into 10 pieces
zest of one orange
1 large egg
2/3 cup COLD heavy cream
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix together dry ingredients, along with ginger, pecans and orange zest. Using your fingers work the cold butter into the flour mixture, creating smaller and smaller bits of butter that are coated with flour. Some larger (pea size) pieces may remain. Chill flour and butter mixture in freezer for 5 minutes. In a measuring cup measure your cream, beat in egg. Working quickly, add cream to the flour mixture, tossing as it is added with a fork or your hands. Gently knead and gather the dough into a ball. Don’t over work it, turn out onto a floured surface. Pat into a circle, 1 to 1.5 inches thick. Using a 2 inch round biscuit cutter cut out scones.
Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and chill for 15 minutes. Remove from fridge, brush with additional cream and sprinkle with sugar in the raw.
Bake till golden, about 15- 20 minutes.
*Once you cut the scones out, you can freeze them, unbaked for up to a month. When you are ready to bake pull them from the freezer the night before and let them thaw on a baking sheet in the refrigerator.
Jodi – Wa- Hodi’s Wedding Cake
I became friends with Kim Wearne in home economics class in 8th grade. Our dislike of the teacher, Ms. Sperrow and the horrific cooking skills we learned (all involving a microwave) allowed us to be fast friends. Kim and I then spent 4 years on the swim team together and have remained close since our days of flip turns and obsessions over senior boys. Over the years I have become close with the whole Wearne family. At one of the early gatherings of Wearne friends and family I attended, Jodi, Kim’s younger sister shared a song that she wrote about herself “Jodi-Wa-Hodi do da loot da doodle do”, she then wrote one for my name “Heather -the – Feather”. As with Kim, Jodi and I became fast friends! Four years ago as I was making the leap into a career in food I was living with Jodi in the North End of Boston. We had a fantastic time living in the city and although I was sad to see her move out of Boston and back home to CT, I couldn’t help but be excited for one of her reasons…she was dating Ricky Langer and was so happy we couldn’t help but wish her the best.
On July 16th, Jodi and Ricky celebrated their wedding in Madison, CT. A warm and beautiful summer weekend, the couple was surrounded by friends and family for a lovely event. I had the honor of making their wedding cake. They chose a chocolate cake with raspberry and mocha butter cream filling. This was the second wedding cake I have made and it went very smoothly! I had so much fun making it. I am on summer vacation so I was able to get up early and bake all day, I felt like I was back in the restaurant kitchen.
I really loved being able to be part of Jodi and Ricky’s day! Here are a few tips when making a wedding cake:
1. If possible bake each layer in a 3 inch deep pan. When you bake each layer separately you waste a lot of cake, since trimming the layers to be flat is a must. The thicker cake can then be sliced into 3 or 4 layers with a thin serrated knife. (This is the set that I have)
2. To ensure you have even layers, assemble the cake back in the empty pan (upside down). Line each pan with plastic wrap, then put in the layer of cake you want to be the top in the bottom. Using a piping bag, add your filling, next a layer of cake etc. Finish with cake and gently press down so everything settles, keeping the hight even with the edge of the pan. Chill for a few hours then flip out and frost.
3. Cut holes in the cardboard cake circles before you put the cake on them. I cut 1 inch circles in the exact middle of each cake circle.
4. After you frost each layer, make a hole in the center with the dowel, remove dowel. This will be a guide for when you put the whole dowel through during assembly.
5. No need to worry about fondant or colored frosting, the easiest way to ensure the cake fits the color scheme and style of the wedding is to have the florist leave you a bucket of flowers to use as decorations!!
6. Check with the caterer about whether or not they and their staff know how to cut a wedding cake.
Nutter Butter Cookies
I bought “hot lunch” only once during my 14 years of elementary and high school. My mom made my lunch everyday! The one time I remember buying lunch was in first grade when I begged her to let me get pizza, I didn’t really want the pizza, I was more interested in the chocolate pudding with sprinkles that was always served WITH the pizza. From what I remember it was not good, and I never really ventured to try anything else.
My mom had a tough job in packing lunch for my sister and I because we were PICKY eaters. Although this was in large part due to my mom being a picky eater. My lunch usually consisted of pretty healthy stuff. I didn’t like sandwiches, or leftovers so that narrowed things down quite a bit. Mom would make me peanut butter sandwiches on rice cakes, because I didn’t like soggy bread As I got older the lunches consisted of a piece of fruit, crackers, drink and 2 cookies, always ending the meal on a sweet note. We had a pretty steady rotation of cookie options, one of my favorites was Nutter Butter Cookies. The little peanut butter sandwich cookie, shaped like a peanut! They were crunchy, salty and sweet, containing all of the essential elements of a delicious cookie.
A few weeks ago in an attempt to use up some left over peanut butter and make a yummy cookie to send to my in-laws, I came across a Homemade Nutter Butter cookie recipe. The recipe makes a lot and they are great for care packages. If you aren’t willing to turn on your oven in this summer heat – wait a few weeks, they will make an excellent “back to school” treat!!!
Homemade Nutter Butter Cookies
adapted from Bouchon Bakery and NY Times
Cookie Dough
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
4 teaspoons baking soda
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
2 Tbsp honey
1/3 cup coarsely chopped peanuts
2½ cups quick-cooking oats
Filling
¼ pound (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
½ cup creamy peanut butter, preferably Skippy
1 2/3 cups confectioners’ sugar
Make the cookie dough: preheat the oven to 350°F. In a bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside. Using a mixer with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and peanut butter. Add sugars and beat at medium speed for 3 minutes, scraping down bowl twice. Batter should be light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time mixing well after each addition, add vanilla. Add flour mixture and beat at low speed until well mixed, frequently scraping down bowl. Add peanuts and oats, and mix well. Use a tablespoon to ensure the cookies are the same size, (mine where about the size of golf balls, a little smaller) place balls of dough on parchment-lined baking sheets at least three inches apart. Bake until the cookies are browned and have flattened and spread out.
Make the filling: with a kitchen aid or hand mixer, mix filling ingredients till smooth.
Sandwich the cookies with frosting and enjoy!!!
How Sweet It Is
Bryan and I celebrated the 4th of July in Connecticut. It was a wonderful way to ring in the summer season. Cooler weather, sun, swims at Tobey Pond, bike rides, tennis, dinner on the deck and JAMES TAYLOR all made it a memorable weekend. I have attended every concert JT has given at Tanglewood for the past 10 years. It is an annual event that my friends and I start planning for in February when tickets go on sale. Growing up, my parents used to go every year with their friends and I have enjoyed creating my own tradition of attending.
This year we were accompanied by Kailyn and Ben, Kailyn’s sister, Megan, Kate and Chan (his first JT concert) and my sister Lindsay and brother-in-law Patrick. The crowd on the lawn of Tanglewood takes things pretty seriously; it is not uncommon to see white table cloths, real china, and LOTS of yummy looking food and wine. Over the years we have become more and more sophisticated ourselves, always trying to “out do” what we prepared and feasted on the year before. We usually plan potluck style and everyone brings something to contribute.
This year we had:
- Pesto and Mozzarella Bruschetta
- Cheese and Crackers
- Grilled Flank Steak with Bloody Mary Tomato Salad
- Grilled Lamb chops with Rosemary and Thyme
- Mixed green salad with apples, cheddar and ham
- Bock Choy Salad with Soy Vinaigrette
- Mini Red Velvet Parfaits
- Carmel and Chocolate covered pretzels
- Chocolate Peanut Caramel Tart
With the threat of rain subsiding we set up our spread. We received many “ooh that looks good” comments as people passed by our blankets – the sign of a job well done. If any of you ever get the chance to attend a concert at Tanglewood, you should (even if it isn’t James Taylor). It is an incredibly beautiful venue nestled in the heart of The Berkshires and encompasses everything that is wonderful about the summer in New England!
