2017 Update: This one-bowl lemon pound cake remains a perennial favorite with my family, making appearances at most summer dinners. I love that it’s so easy and requires almost no planning ahead. It also turns out consistently time after time, the true measure of a great recipe. I served it at a backyard dinner party at my house and took the opportunity to update the photos and the recipe below. This one is worth rediscovering!

Sitting in bed, listening to the crickets chirp and snuggling under the down comforter to ward off the lovely night breeze reminding me that fall is just around the corner, I’m feeling pretty good about today.  The rain finally stopped, the humidity that’s been hanging over everything and making it impossible to breathe lifted, and the sun came out with a fresh breeze to accompany it.  I woke up more refreshed than I’ve felt in days, having finally spent a night by myself in my own bed. I spent the day swimming and sunning and watching my brothers and cousins mess about in boats.  At lunch I had a few spoonfuls of the creamiest homemade peppermint stick ice cream, and after lunch it got quiet enough at the dock for the loons to swim up and be photographed.  I went for a jog at dusk, then sat down to a steaming bowl of this pork and black-eyed pea chili, followed by a slice of this incredible lemon pound cake you see here, topped with wild raspberries and blackberries that I picked along Lily Lane yesterday afternoon.  I’ve been uncharacteristically anxious and stressed these past few weeks, and it’s nice to step back and appreciate the calm and joy of simplicity.  Days like this should not be taken for granted, they should be savored.

Like this one-bowl lemon pound cake. Because this cake recipe is one of the best ever.  I don’t know where it came from, or how old it is, I just know that it’s nearly perfect.  It’s one of those recipes that’s been passed from mother to mother at bake sales and pot lucks, scribbled down from memory on a notecard.  My own mother makes it at least once every two weeks in the summer, when fresh berries, the cake’s perfect foil, are abundant and super-sweet.  She received it from a friend at a church picnic, and we love it so much that she even used to send it to us as a care package at school.  We’ve shared the recipe with aunts and friends, and one of my aunts even shared it with the owner of a bakery, who immediately added it to her menu.  It’s that good.

In addition to its sweet lemon flavor and perfect consistency, a few other things make this cake noteworthy. First, it uses exactly one bowl. No separating dry ingredients from wet ingredients, just beat everything together and pop it in the oven. It even goes into a cold oven and bakes from there.  Both of these characteristics make me think that this recipe is from another decade. It’s exactly the kind of cake I can see grandmothers making 60 years ago – no fuss, with so few ingredients that it can easily be made from memory.  You don’t even need to plan far enough ahead to preheat the oven.

It couldn’t be easier to make, or more of a crowd-pleaser to serve.  Dress it up with a drizzle of lemon glaze or a bowl of fresh berries and homemade whipped cream, and it’s elegant enough for company. Or wrap it up in a bit of plastic wrap and stick it in a lunchbox, and it becomes the perfect mid-morning snack.  The almond and lemon extracts give it the perfect scent and flavor, the inside of the cake is dense and moist, and the outside gets a crackly-sweet glaze as it bakes. My brothers and I can never resist breaking off little pieces of the sweet “crust” as the cake cools.  If you make this cake, which I sincerely hope you do, please make it exactly as written at least once before changing it.  Generally, I adjust recipes as I think best – even if it’s just changing the type of sugar or the amount of extract, but this one is well tested.

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One-Bowl Lemon Pound Cake

This Lemon Pound Cake is a favorite family recipe in the summer. We always serve it with berries and whipped cream, although sometimes a simple lemon glaze is nice as well (or both! What’s stopping you?). It’s an easy, consistent cake that feeds and pleases a crowd.

This recipe came to my family through a friend at a picnic, and my mother has been making it ever since. If anyone knows the original source, please share!

• Author: Katie at the Kitchen Door
• Yield: 16
• Category: Dessert

Ingredients

• 3/4 c. butter, softened
• 2 1/2 c. sugar
• 5 eggs
• 2 1/2 c. flour
• 1 c. whipping cream/heavy cream
• 1/2 tsp lemon extract
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract

Instructions

1. Prepare a large bundt pan by greasing and flouring the inside.  A cooking spray works best to get all the creases of the bundt pan.  In an electric mixer or large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed.  Since the ratio of sugar to butter is so high, the creamed butter will not get as fluffy as in some recipes, and may remain grainy.  This is fine – it’s not a fussy cake!  Add the eggs one at a time, leaving the mixer on low speed, or beating by hand until fully incorporated in between additions.
2. Add 1 1/2 c. flour to the batter, and beat until incorporated.  Next, add 1/2 c. of the heavy cream and beat until incorporated.  Add and incorporate the remaining 1 c. of flour, followed by the remaining 1/2 c. of cream.  Beat until smooth and fully incorporated.  Mix in the lemon, vanilla, and almond extracts.
3. Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan.  Place pan in cold oven, then turn heat to 300°F, and bake cake for 90 minutes.  Cake top will be beginning to crack when cake is done.  Turn oven off and leave cake in oven for 15 minutes longer.  Remove cake from oven, and allow to cool for 15 minutes in pan.  Then, turn cake over onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before serving.  Serve with fresh berries tossed with a bit of sugar, and a dollop of homemade whipped cream.

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Well, summer is officially over, with Labor Day come and gone. I have to admit, though, that it doesn’t feel like it yet (and I’m still hoping to get one or two more beach days in, having been forced to cram all of my summery activities into the last few weeks). And grilling season, well that’s certainly not over. In fact, you could argue that we’re getting into one of the best times for grilling – it’s a little bit cooler and pleasant to spend time outside, there’s an incredible abundance of produce available that benefits from a slight charring (think peppers, corn, peaches, eggplant…), and when does a nice piece of steak or rack of ribs not sound appealing?

For the last installment of my summer Pork and Pinot collaboration with La Crema Wines, we headed out to the grill, for what is arguably America’s favorite form of pork – barbecue. One of Trevor’s favorite things to cook is big cuts of pork (ribs, Boston butt, etc.) long and slow over a smoky charcoal grill. And it just so happens, having spent my college years in North Carolina, a great pulled pork sandwich is one of my favorite things to eat. We’re a good match, no?

This particular version of the pulled pork uses a variation on our standard rub, which includes sweet and smoked paprika, brown sugar, salt, and a touch of cayenne. We grill it for about 3-4 hours in aluminum pans, and then serve it smothered with sauce on soft rolls. I made a homemade BBQ sauce too, with blackberries, Pinot Noir, and chipotle as the dominant flavors, to play up the smokiness in the pork and to make it pair even better with La Crema Pinot Noir.

My mom and Robbie joined us for the somewhat impromptu cook-out. They’ve just come home after spending all summer in Maine (something I’m going to do again one of these years) and it’s nice to have them back within “you wanna have dinner?” distance, especially since it’s Robbie’s last year at home before heading off to college. The pork was the star of the meal, but we also had grilled corn, chicken wings, cole slaw, plenty of La Crema Monterey Pinot Noir, and burgundy pie with the last of the goat cheese and blackberry ice cream. It was a good meal – and it turned out to be the first of several over the course of the long weekend, including an extravagant dinner out in Newburyport and steak tips and peach sangria at my cousin’s BBQ on Monday. But what’s Labor Day for if not for a final hurrah of summer eating and drinking?

P.S. Several of these Pork and Pinot recipes I’ve been developing for La Crema were recently featured on Food and Wine (as was this Oyster Shooter picture I took for one of my restaurant clients earlier this year). Go check it out!

For full instructions and the recipe for Pulled Pork with Blackberry Pinot BBQ Sauce, head over to the La Crema Blog!

More Pork and Pinot posts…

• Prosciutto, Mozzarella, and Sage Pesto Stuffed Pork Tenderloin
• Red Wine Caramelized Pork Belly
• Pork Belly Banh Mi Sandwiches
• The Perfect Charcuterie Board

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of La Crema. The opinions and text are all mine.

The post La Crema Pork and Pinot #5: Pulled Pork with Blackberry Pinot BBQ Sauce appeared first on Katie at the Kitchen Door.

We have a fridge! A fridge with a freezer! Which means: it’s high time for the summer’s first batch of homemade ice cream. Beyond high time, if we’re being truthful, as it’s been more than a year since I made a batch of ice cream. And the last batch was a really good one, too, so it didn’t last more than a week. Plus, I consider having enough time to make at least one batch of homemade ice cream per summer to be an essential indicator of sanity.

This particular ice cream is one that I’ve been mulling over for more than 2 years. It’s loosely based on this incredible Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream, which is still the best ice cream I’ve ever made. Adding cultured dairy products, like sour cream or cheese, to the ice cream base ensures that it is extra thick and sets up really nicely when frozen, which can be a problem with homemade ice creams. Using sour cream or goat cheese also adds a delicious tang to offset the sweetness of the ice cream.

Since I knew that I wanted to try a recipe similar to the original that used goat cheese in place of the sour cream, we get an abundance of blackberries from our bushes every year, and blackberries and goat cheese and red wine are a great combination on a cheese platter, I decided that those three elements were the basis for what was sure to be a delicious dessert. The ice cream base would be a sweet goat cheese custard with a hint of vanilla, and the blackberries and red wine would enter the picture via a sweet and jammy swirl of fruit sauce. I added a splash of balsamic to the blackberry-red wine component for a little extra depth. The result was everything I imagined, and just as good as the strawberry sour cream version. It’s a good thing I made this 2 days before leaving for a week, or it would already be gone.

I also wanted to use this celebration of our new freezer to take a minute to share the first pictures (and progress!) of our new house. When we knew we were buying the house I had grand plans of becoming a design blogger and documenting all the cool DIY updates we did to the house. But, considering that I seem to be barely managing to find the time to be a food blogger, I suppose I should probably stick with what I know for now. So here’s the summary version, at least as far as the kitchen is concerned…

We started with a kitchen that is basically a blank slate: linoleum floors, cheap cabinets that have seen better days, yellow walls, ancient appliances, and plenty of space. Since the day we moved in we have 1) replaced the dishwasher and fridge with modern, stainless steel versions; 2) removed some of the counters and cabinets and replaced them with these sweet industrial DIY pipe shelves; 3) added a temporary kitchen island and stools; 4) refinished one of the walls and repainted it to a dolphiny gray; 5) added an awkwardly bulky washer and dryer that we can’t wait to move to the basement. We’re also in the process of continuing to replace the upper cabinets with shelves to match the pipe shelving, replacing the disposal, and swapping out the kitchen sink and faucet. Where we are now is certainly not our dream kitchen, but we are at least getting to the point where it feels usable and friendly – good enough until we’ve saved up enough to remodel for real. And good enough to make delicious ice cream!

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Goat Cheese Ice Cream with Blackberry Red Wine Swirl

Inspired by the NYTimes. Makes about 1 1/2 quarts.

• 7 egg yolks
• 1 1/3 c. sugar, divided
• 1 1/2 c. heavy cream
• 1/2 c. whole milk
• 8 oz. goat cheese
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 12 oz. fresh blackberries
• 1/3 c. red wine
• 2 TBS balsamic vinegar

1. Beat the egg yolks with 1/2 cup of the sugar in a heatproof bowl until smooth. Set aside. Place the heavy cream and whole milk in a medium saucepan and whisk in 1/2 cup of sugar. Whisking regularly, heat the cream mixture over medium heat just until bubbles begin to appear around the sides of the pan. Remove the cream from the heat.
2. Slowly drizzle the hot cream into the egg yolks, whisking the egg yolks vigorously as you do so. Once you’ve poured most of the cream into the egg yolks, pour the mixture back into the pan and return to the heat. Whisking constantly, heat the egg yolks until the mixture has thickened into a custard thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, which should take from 5-10 minutes. Remove from the heat.
3. Crumble the goat cheese into a large bowl. Strain the custard through a fine-mesh strainer into the bowl (to remove any bits of scrambled egg). Whisk the mixture until the goat cheese has fully melted into the custard. Stir in the vanilla. Let cool to room temperature, then cover the bowl with plastic wrap so that the plastic wrap touches the surface of the custard and refrigerate until cold, at least 3 hours.
4. In a medium saucepan, combine the blackberries, the remaining 1/3 c. sugar, the red wine, and the balsamic vinegar. Heat over medium heat, stirring frequently to prevent the bottom from burning, until thickened and bubbly, about 15 minutes. Mash the blackberries with the back of a wooden spoon so that the mixture has a jam like consistency. Refrigerate the mixture until cold.
5. To make the ice cream, churn the goat cheese custard in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Scrape half of the ice cream into a storage container in an even layer. Top with half of the blackberry mixture, then drag a knife through the two layers to create a swirl. Repeat with another layer of custard and another layer of blackberries. Freeze until solid, at least 2 hours.

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Picking blackberries is not for the impatient or easily deterred. Our blackberry patch has grown into a monstrous tangle of canes, 10 foot stalks that shoot up then topple to the ground in early summer, heavy with juicy black fruit. This year in particular, the berries are gorgeous – fat and sweet from just the right combination of rain and sun. The berries on the edges of the patch are easy to get to – as long as you refrain from grabbing the canes you can pick plenty of berries scratch-free. But the berries that beckon from the center of the patch are too numerous to waste, so we go after them despite the maze of thorns between us and them. As we cut paths into the center of the bramble and carefully weave our way in, our focus increases, and I find myself thinking only two things. Get the berries. Don’t touch the thorns. At the peak of the season, it can take the two of us over an hour to fully pick the patch, but there’s something I love about the concentration and straightforwardness of the task, moving slowly and precisely through the canes. And the reward – buckets of delicious berries – is always worth the inevitable scrapes and mosquito bites.

Our patch is generous: so far this year we’ve picked 11 pounds of fruit, and I have a feeling we’ll have a last, small batch to pick tomorrow. Like cherries, my favorite way to consume blackberries is fresh, preferably just-picked, when they’re still firm and warm from the sun. But when you have 11 pounds of berries, there’s plenty of room to experiment with recipes and still be able to eat your fill of fresh fruit. This summer I’ve made blackberry clafoutis, blackberry crumble, and a big batch of blackberry jam, all of which were good, but my favorite by a mile was this pie, an intense mix of blackberries, wild Maine blueberries, cherries, and maple syrup.

I love pie – in my book, it’s far superior to cake – and I have a particular weakness for berry pies. Juicy and summery, the berries break down to completely fill the space between the crusts, with no gaps like apple pies tend to have. And because I like berry pie so much, I have high standards for it, so I thought long and hard about exactly how to achieve the pie I was envisioning. I started with blackberry-maple, but thought the blackberries needed extra dimension, so cherries and blueberries got added to the mix. The ratio of cornstarch to fruit is just enough to have the pie hold it’s shape, but not so much that it loses its juiciness. And the crust utilizes a little extra butter and my new favorite pastry method, frozen butter grating, for extra flakiness. To top it all off (quite literally), I used a cute little leaf cookie cutter to decorate the top and make it all foresty and picturesque. Basically, I love this pie. I love it so much that I ate five slices in three days, bookending my Monday and Tuesday with pie: a slice with my morning latte, and a slice after dinner with ice cream. It’s probably good that there’s only a short window during which we get enough berries to make pie. Otherwise, I would be doing a lot more running.

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Maple Mixed Berry Pie

Serves 8-12.

• 2 c. flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 TBS sugar
• 12 TBS salted butter, frozen
• 6-8 TBS ice water
• 1 1/2 c. wild Maine blueberries
• 2 c. blackberries
• 2 c. pitted sweet cherries, torn in half
• 3/4 c. maple syrup
• 4 TBS cornstarch
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 TBS lemon juice

1. Whisk together flour, salt, and sugar in a large bowl. Remove butter from the freezer and grate over the large holes on a box grater, working quickly to keep the butter from melting. Add the cold grated butter to the flour and toss with your fingers to coat the butter with flour. Add ice water to the mixture 1 TBS at a time, using a fork to swirl the ice water through the flour after each addition. Add ice water until the dough just comes together when pressed with your fingers. Form dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
2. Mix the blueberries, blackberries, and cherries together in a large bowl. Pour half of the fruit into a large saucepan, and add the maple syrup to the saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, and simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until berries have broken down and released their juices, and liquid has reduced by about half. Remove from heat. In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and cinnamon. Whisk the lemon juice into the cornstarch. If it is still very thick, add a few tablespoons of the juices from the room temperature berries, whisking until you have a pourable mixture. At this stage, scrape the cornstarch mixture into the bowl with the chilled fruit and stir to combine, then add the cooked fruit and stir until thoroughly mixed. Set the filling aside.
3. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Divide the pie dough into two pieces, one slightly larger than the other. On a lightly floured surface, roll the larger piece of dough out into a circle about 12 inches in diameter. Carefully lift and place into a pie plate, pressing dough gently down onto bottom. Trim the edges, leaving about 1/4 inch of overhang. Poke the bottom of the crust with a fork to allow air to vent, then bake the crust for 10 minutes in the oven, until just golden. Remove from the oven and add the prepared filling, then return the pie to the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, roll out the remaining piece of dough and use a cookie cutter to cut out a number of small shapes. After the pie has baked for 15 minutes, remove from the oven and cover the surface of the pie with overlapping pieces of the dough shapes (I used small leaves). Return the pie to the oven and bake until the filling is bubbly and the top crust is golden brown, another 25-35 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool before cutting. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

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I am writing this to you from Russia. Kind of cool, right? I’m here for work (that first photo up above is the view from my office), and I’m certainly working a lot, but with only a few nights of planned activities, I’m also totally free to explore once I leave the office. (And watch Revenge on the treadmill, but that’s probably not blog-worthy material.) Last night I wandered around snapping pictures as much as I wanted – a luxury of walking alone – stopping by a shop for a slice of cabbage pie for dinner and another, smaller slice of apricot pie for dessert. The light was beautiful, the weather cool, dry, and breezy, and even though I initially wasn’t thrilled about coming back to Russia only two weeks after my last visit, I’ve been enjoying it. I studied Russian in high school and college, but after going almost three years without practice, I feel like I’ve just barely been getting around. That is, until today, when my colleagues here decided that my Russian comprehension was good enough that all meetings would switch to being held in Russian – which is one way to very quickly remember everything you’ve been taught.

Since you’re all readers of food blogs, I can’t fail to mention what I’ve been eating, can I? I really enjoy the food here in St. Petersburg. They use a lot of potatoes, cabbage, cheese, pickled vegetables, salmon, mushrooms, and dill. They make these little individual casserole dishes that are super comforting and just the right size to fill one person up, delicious sweet and savory hand pies, consistently good bread, and you’re never far from a hot cup of black tea. I picked up a few Russian cookbooks, and when I’m back in my kitchen, I hope to share recipes for a few of the things I’ve been enjoying the most. But until then, how about some nice American cheesecake bars to tide you over? These were one of the few things I had time to make during my crazy first two weeks in our new apartment. They also happened to use up some of our abundance of blackberries, the remainder of which are now fermenting away in a bucket of soon-to-be blackberry wine (via a recipe from the new cookbook True Brews) that Trevor made last weekend. I cannot wait to try it. Also the mead he’s brewing, the sake he’s brewing, and the pickles he’s been making from our genuinely overwhelming supply of cucumbers. He’s a good person to know.

Back to the cheesecake bars. These are a very simple dessert with a very straightforward sweet flavor – the perfect sort of thing to bring to a backyard cookout when you know everyone will be craving little bites of sweet finger food after gorging themselves on watermelon and lemonade and hamburgers with melty American cheese. Or you could eat them for breakfast out of the pan, like I did on probably too many mornings last week. They are quick to mix up, and you can probably even find all the ingredients besides the blackberries at a convenience store – I did, and in the middle of our move. Do me a favor and mix up a batch of these before berries became a luxury again.

Blackberry Cheesecake Bars

Adapted from Tyler Florence. Makes one 9×9 inch tray.

• 1/2 stick salted butter, melted, plus extra butter for greasing
• 3 TBS sugar
• 1/8 tsp ground cinammon
• 9 full-size graham crackers (one half of a standard box)
• 16 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 c. brown sugar
• 1 1/2 c. fresh blackberries, washed

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease a 9×9 inch baking tray with the un-melted butter. In a food processor, pulse the sugar, cinnamon, and graham crackers until fully ground. Pour in the melted butter and pulse a few times to combine. Press the crumbs into the pan and make a layer of even thickness. Bake for 10 minutes, until golden brown, then remove from oven and let cool.
2. In a stand mixer or in a large bowl, combine the room temperature cream cheese and eggs and beat until smooth. If mixing by hand, this may take some effort. Add the brown sugar and beat until smooth.  Pour the mixture over the cooled crust, then scatter the blackberries on top. Bake for 35 minutes or until the center is only slightly jiggly, then remove from the oven and let cool completely, then cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours before slicing. Serve chilled.

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When I agreed to review Cooking with Flowers, I was a little bit worried that the book wouldn’t quite be my speed. While I appreciated the unique concept, I was having a tough time picturing how I might incorporate flowers into my diet – where was I going to find food-safe flowers? Would it be expensive to source them? Would the recipes all be fussy and girly?

Turns out that I needn’t have worried, as the recipes and techniques in Cooking with Flowers are surprisingly inviting. Organized by flower type, there were only a handful of recipes where I struggled to imagine an easily accessible source. Marigolds are popular and easy to grow, dandelions grow like crazy in pretty much every backyard I’ve ever seen, our house in Maine has an abundance of daylilies each summer, and squash blossoms are a byproduct of something I already grow. Other commonly found flowers used in the book include geraniums, herb flowers, lilacs, nasturtiums, pansies, roses, sunflowers, tulips, and violets. The only flowers included in these recipes that would be challenging for me to get access to are elderflowers, hibiscus, dianthus, and orchids, and even those aren’t too much of a stretch. Learning that so many of these common flowers are edible was exciting in and of itself – think of all the expanded possibilities they could bring to the kitchen!

With my worries assuaged, I dove into the book. It’s a decidedly feminine book, with pastel colors and curlicue font, and in general, the recipes tend toward the sweet. Let’s just say that I probably wouldn’t give a copy to my dad (but I did give one to my mom for Mother’s Day!). While recipes for cakes, cookies, and jellies were somewhat expected, some of the recipes really surprised me – Daylily Curry, Rosemary-Flower Margaritas, Hibiscus Chili Caramel, and Thai Orchid and Beef Salad stick out as creative and exciting uses of ingredients often thought of as sweet. I wish there had been even more of these out-of-the-box savory recipes, but the simpler sweets – Hibiscus Cream Pie, Elderflower Lemon Cakelets, Pistachio Rose Shortbread, etc. – are still lovely.

I should point out two other things about the book. One, that some of the recipes are fairly time consuming. The time that it will take to find, clean, and process the blossoms of your flowers will vary with flower size, but it will almost always take longer than something like chopping an onion (especially since you frequently need a pretty large volume of flower blossoms). Two, a lot of the recipes rely on base flower recipes for their floral flavor – flower syrups, sugars, jams, and creams, the recipes for which are given in the back of the book, frequently need to be prepared before the main recipe. This is good and bad. Good, in that it allows you to preserve blossoms longer-term and think up other creative uses for them. Bad, in that it sometimes adds “hidden” time to the overall recipe time.

The fact that you can cook with lilacs was totally irresistible to me. Lilacs are one of my  favorite flowers, and their heady scent carries many fond memories of warm spring days. Since lilacs pass quickly, never staying open more than a week, being able to preserve their scent in sugars and sauces felt like a wonderful trick, and I sort of went all out with the lilac recipes to take advantage of this. A few hours of cleaning lilac blossoms later, I have lilac pavlovas, lilac-blackberry syrup, lilac sugar, candied lilacs, and dried lilacs, all ready to be used now or later in sweetly scented treats. The recipe I’m sharing here marries almost all of these components – lilac sugar is used to make distinctly floral pavlovas (with a really great, chewy interior texture), which are then topped with whipped cream, fresh blackberries, candied lilacs, and the lilac-blackberry syrup. In the book, they serve the pavlovas with the syrup and a homemade lime sorbet, which also sounds delicious, but I chose to go the classic berries and cream route. All together the dessert was elegant, light, and uniquely flavored – a perfect and effervescent ending to a spring dinner.

The bottom line: Cooking with Flowers introduced me to a completely new concept in a very accessible way. Many of the flowers used are easy to find in my backyard or around my neighborhood, and knowing their edibility is a revelation in itself. Generally the recipes tend toward the sweet, but the savory preparations are where the author’s creativity really shines through. Recommended for adventurous cooks and avid gardeners.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of Cooking with Flowers free of charge from Quirk Books. As usual, I was not otherwise compensated for this review and all opinions are my own.

Lilac and Blackberry Pavlovas

Adapted from Cooking with Flowers. Serves 4-6.

Note: How to select and clean lilacs (adapted from Cooking with Flowers) – first, only use flowers that have been grown organically. Do not use flowers that have been sprayed or that are growing by the side of the road, as they may have absorbed toxins. Cut lilac bunches from a bush to be used. Wash each bunch, being careful that any bugs are rinsed off. Further separate the flowers into smaller clusters on a thin stem. Gently pull each flower from it’s sepal (the green part at the base of the flower). The lilac blossom should separate from the light yellow-green interior (see pictures above). One cup of lilacs will contain 40 to 60 individual blossoms. A single lilac bunch will likely yield between 1/2 and 1 cup of blossoms.

For the lilac-blackberry syrup:

• 2 c. water
• 3 c. lilac blossoms (see headnote)
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 8-10 fresh blackberries

1. Bring water to a boil. Place blossoms in a bowl and pour boiling water over them. Let stand for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.
2. Add the flowers, flower water, sugar, and blackberries to a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil for 6-8 minutes, stirring and squishing blackberries with the back of a wooden spoon. Remove from heat and strain into a glass container. Discard the solids.

For the lilac pavlovas:

• 1/2 c. lilac blossoms (see headnote)
• 1 c. sugar
• 2 TBS cornstarch
• 4 egg whites
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 210°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Place the lilac blossoms and the sugar in a food processor and blend until pulverized. Mix 2 TBS of the lilac sugar with the cornstarch in a small bowl. Set the rest aside.
3. In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites on high until foamy. Sprinkle with the cream of tartar, then beat continually on high, gradually adding 1 cup of the remaining lilac sugar as you go. (You may have leftover lilac sugar – store it in a glass jar with a lid). Beat until the egg whites are stiff, shiny, and hold firm peaks.
4. Fold cornstarch mixture and lemon juice into the whipped egg whites. Use a large spoon to dollop the egg whites into 3-inch rounds on the lined baking sheet, then use the back of the spoon to scoop out a small indentation in each pavlova. Bake for 1 hour, or until they feel dry to the touch. Turn off the oven and leave the pavlovas in there for another hour with the door closed.

To serve:

• 12 small lilac pavlovas
• 2 c. of freshly whipped sweetened whipped cream
• 6-8 blackberries per person
• 1 c. lilac-blackberry syrup
• candied lilacs (optional)

1. Place 2 pavlovas on each plate. Top each with a dollop of whipped cream and a few blackberries. Drizzle with lilac-blackberry syrup and top with candied lilacs.

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Trev and I had a little BBQ at my place this weekend – just a few good friends who all happened to be in town at the same time.  One is starting up at Harvard Law, another passing through between summer camp in Maine and hut-keeping on the AMC.  My roommate joined in as a study break, and a good friend from work stopped by as well.  It was the sort of crowd that caused minimal stress, and the sort of messy, hand-held food you should only eat with people you’re not trying to impress – ribs slathered in tangy sauce, Mexican-style grilled corn rolled in mayo and chili-flecked parmesan cheese, chocolate-stout cupcakes with a mess of espresso frosting, and this galette, sliced and served like pizza.

The galette was a bit of a last minute decision.  Initially I had planned to make a much fancier puff-pastry based tart, but the frozen puff pastry at Wholefoods was $10 a package.  Ten dollars!  I might as well just buy a pie for that price.  Anyway, with a bag of plums and a carton of blackberries I picked in Andover last week both languishing in the fridge, I went simple and rustic and it was just right for a casual Saturday afternoon.  A drizzle of creme de cassis in the filling added some depth.  I managed to snag a few pictures before I got distracted by good company and cold Blue Moon beer, so I thought I’d share it with you.

Anyway, just a quick hello.  Hope everyone’s week got off to a good start, and I’ll be back on Wednesday with a delicious frozen treat that’s also healthy enough to be featured on Greatist.

Plum, Blackberry, and Cassis Galette

A Katie at the Kitchen Door original.  Serves 6.

• 1 1/4 c. flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 stick very cold butter
• 6-8 TBS ice cold water
• 1 1/2 lb ripe plums, pitted and thickly sliced
• 1 c. fresh blackberries
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 2 TBS cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• 1/3 c. creme de cassis

1. Make the pie crust: whisk together the flour and the salt in a medium bowl.  Cut in the cold butter, and blend with a pastry cutter until the mixture is coarse with lumps no larger than a pea.  Add the water 1 TBS at a time, stirring with a fork between additions, until the dough comes loosely together.  Turn the dough out onto a piece of plastic wrap and wrap tightly.  Refrigerate for 1 hour.
2. Preheat the oven to 425°F.  In a large bowl, mix the plums, blackberries, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and creme de cassis.  Let sit 5 minutes.  Roll out the dough into a large oval on a well-floured surface, then transfer to a baking sheet.  Pile the plum filling into the middle of the galette, leaving at least an inch around the edges on all sides.  Fold the edges of the dough over the filling and press down.  Bake at 425 for 20 minutes, then lower the heat to 350°F and continue baking for 25-30 minutes longer, until filling is bubbly and crust is golden brown.  Don’t worry if the filling bubbles out somewhat – it’s that kind of dessert!

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I feel like a “Maine is awesome and relaxing and beautiful and look there are wild blueberries!” post is acceptable, possibly even required, at least once a year.  Especially since this is probably the last summer for a while that I’ll have as much free time as I’ve had to just hang out there.  (Although, to counteract that negative point, there’s the fact that it’s also the first time that I’ll ever be able to go up for long weekends in the fall and spring.)  Plus, not coming up with blueberry recipes when you have free access to a full-sized ex-commercial blueberry field seems a little bit like a crime.  So, here goes:

Maine is awesome!  It has nature!  And mountains!  And lakes!  And blueberries!  Yay yay yay yay yay!  But seriously, even the rainiest, darkest, most boring day in Maine is significantly better than the same day would be anywhere else.  Commitments feel less pressing, time slows down, and days run easily together into a long summery memory.  On sunny days, we wake up early and refreshed and drink our tea on the back porch, watching the lake come to life and letting the sun slowly warm us out of sleep.  We float in the just-warm-enough lake, or read on the dock, stopping occasionally to watch the loons shake out their wings, or traipse through the blueberry barrens popping sun-sweetened berries into our mouths with every step, or zip across the harbor for an island picnic.   On rainy days, we all sit around the woodstove and read, or play cards, drinking hot chocolate and munching on cookies.  Every night, rain or shine, we sit down around the long wooden table for a hot meal together.  So yes, I’m condensing the experience into the best parts – we still have to do things like get groceries and clean the house and we still irritate each other as families are wont to do – but the average Maine day is better just because of the opportunity to do more than we might otherwise.  To step outside and find something new.  To gather the family for a quick boat trip.  Being in Maine is more spontaneous than being elsewhere, and much of it still feels wild and untouched, and I love it.

I made this pie the other night because I was actually tired of having so many blueberries sitting around in the fridge, and I wanted to use them up.  I briefly considered blogging about it, but by the time it came out of the oven it was too dark for pictures, and I knew it wouldn’t make it to the morning with 8 people in the house, so I just served it up and abandoned the blog prospect.  But then, it was just so good that I knew I had to make it again to share with you all.  It didn’t hurt that the recipe left me with extra crust dough and extra topping, so making another one was a breeze.  My mom had sort of wrinkled her nose when I told her there was coconut in my blueberry pie, and both my brother and my cousin almost refused to have any on the grounds that they didn’t like coconut, but all were converted after the first bite.  It’s melt-in-your-mouth delicious, with the hint of lemon and coconut bringing out the sweetness of the blueberries and giving it an almost tropical feeling, even though it’s from a book of Italian desserts.  It’s not particularly easy or quick, and with all that butter it’s not exactly healthy, but despite all that, I have a feeling it will become a regular during blueberry season.  It’s too good not to have.

Blueberry and Coconut Pie

Adapted from Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen.  Serves 8-12.

A note about this recipe: the sweet tart crust recipe makes enough dough for two full 9-inch pie crusts, with a little room for error.  I decided not to halve the recipe here due to the awkwardness of trying to use half an egg yolk and the prevalence of measurements that are in thirds.  Once you have rolled out the dough and transferred it to the pan, cut the extra off with a knife, roll the scraps back into a ball, and double wrap it in plastic to be stored in the freezer.  Then, the next time you want a pie, it will take half as much time!

For the sweet tart crust:

• 2 1/3 c. flour
• 1/3 c. sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• zest of 1 lemon
• 3/4 c. (1 1/2 sticks) butter, cut into small cubes, then chilled well
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 c. heavy cream
• a few drops ice water, if necessary

For the filling and topping:

• 6 TBS salted butter, divided
• 1/3 c. flour
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 1 c. unsweetened shredded coconut, divided
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 c. confectioner’s sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 tsp. lemon extract or zest of 1 lemon
• 3 c. blueberries
• juice from 1 lemon
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 1 TBS cornstarch

For the crust:

1. In a food processor, pulse flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and lemon zest until combined.  Add cold, cubed butter and pulse until mixture has a sandy texture, with pieces of butter no bigger than a pea.  In a small bowl, whisk together egg, egg yolk, heavy cream, and vanilla.  Add wet ingredients and pulse just until dough comes together when you pinch it.  Remove dough from bowl and work into a ball.  If mixture is still too dry/crumbly, add a few drops of ice cold water as necessary.  Knead the dough just until it is even in consistency and moisture.  Flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic, and chill for at least half an hour before using.

For the topping and filling:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.  Melt 2 TBS of the butter and cool slightly.  Add 1/2 tsp vanilla to melted butter.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the 1/3 c. flour, 1/4 c. sugar, and 1/4 c. of the coconut.  Add the melted butter mixture and combine well.  Transfer mixture to freezer for half an hour to set.
2. Soften the remaining 4 TBS of butter, and mix with the confectioner’s sugar until smooth and creamy.  Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, until incorporated, and then add the lemon extract and remaining 3/4 c. of coconut.  Set aside.  In a large bowl, toss blueberries, lemon juice, sugar, and cornstarch, and let sit 5 minutes.
3. While berries are macerating, roll out chilled dough on a floured counter into a 10-inch circle about 1/8 inch thick.  Roll the dough loosely over the rolling pin to transfer to the 9-inch pie tin, and drape over the tin.  Press the crust into the bottom and edges of the pan, then use a knife to cut the excess from the rim.  Roll together the scraps and freeze for a later pie.
4. Spread the coconut filling evenly across the bottom of the pie.  Top with the blueberries and their juices.  Remove the topping from the freezer and use a fork to break it into small pieces.  Scatter these pieces over the top of the pie.  Bake the pie for 40-45 minutes, until crust and topping is golden-brown and berries are bubbling.

The post Good ol’ Blueberry-and-Coconut Pie appeared first on Katie at the Kitchen Door.

I mean, I have a post called strawberries and one called raspberries… I need to complete the trend, don’t I?  Next berry season I’ll have to get more creative with my post titling abilities – strawberries #2! – but until then, we’re golden.

I think the thing I like best about blackberries may be that they grow in the backyard and I can walk up the hill with my little berry basket swinging and pluck the beautiful little berries from the far-too-thorny bushes and feel all earthy and wholesome.  As well as like I’m cheating the grocery store out of all that money they charge for fresh berries.  But then, a basket full of berries picked and washed and set aside, I’m not sure what I want to do with them.  Mostly, I feel like they should be photographed, because they’re gorgeous, and nature created them, and they were free, and I felt picturesque when I picked them.  Partly, I just want to eat them, because it’s easy and summery, but I’m not sure that posting a recipe that goes “Pick blackberries.  Wash blackberries.  Eat blackberries.” would be all that pertinent on a food blog.  So I feel like I have to make something with them.  And lately, I’ve been having this problem where the first thing I want to do with fruit is boil it with a bunch of sugar and then mash it up.  I’ve been doing it with rhubarb.  I just did it with plums.  I’m considering doing it with wild Maine blueberries.  It’s a useful thing, because then you can just drizzle your sugary-fruity syrup-butter on ice cream, or yogurt, or pancakes, or mix it with tequila and call it a day.  It concentrates the flavors and colors of these fruits, lasts a long time in the fridge, and takes up less space.  But making so much fruit syrup is starting to make me feel boring.

Which is why you are not looking at pictures of blackberry syrup.  Nor are you looking at pictures of blackberry pie, or blackberry muffins, because, while perfectly delicious and viable options for fresh summer fruit, I JUST WANT TO BE ORIGINAL.  Therefore, you are looking at pictures of Blackberry Brown-Butter Financiers.  Sounds good, right?  Trendy, even?  Well they were pretty good.  I only use the modifier “pretty” because I’ve never had a financier before, so I’m not sure how these compare to other financiers, but I liked them – they were moist but eggy, nutty smelling, not too sweet, and the blackberry in the middle gave them a sweet juicy bite that was just right.  They’re so cute and easy to pop into your mouth that they disappeared within 12 hours of coming into existence.  I would definitely categorize them as more of a tea-cake or snack then a dessert, and I think that the perfect place for them would be on a tray of other bite-sized goodies at an afternoon party.  But if you don’t feel like throwing a tea party, you could probably just eat them for breakfast.  I did.

Blackberry Brown-Butter Financiers

From Gale Gand’s Just a Bite.  Makes 24.

• 9 TBS salted butter
• 1/2 c. almond flour or finely ground almonds
• 1 c. confectioner’s sugar
• 6 TBS flour
• 4 egg whites
• 1 tsp applesauce
• 24 small blackberries, or 12 large blackberries

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.  Brown the butter – heat butter in a saucepan over medium heat until fully melted.  As milk solids start to separate from the butter, use a wooden spoon to scrape them from the bottom and prevent them from burning.  Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until butter is golden brown and has a nutty aroma.  Remove from heat and pour through a metal strainer.  Discard solids and reserve the clarified butter.
2. Sift together the almond flour, confectioner’s sugar, flour, and sugar.  Whisk to combine.  Add the egg whites, applesauce, and butter, and mix to combine.  Batter will be thin and pourable.  Pour or spoon into non-stick mini-muffin tins, or buttered financier molds.  Fill only about halfway – financiers will rise quite a bit.  Place a blackberry (or half a blackberry, depending on berry size, but in my opinion the more berry the better) into the center of each tin.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are golden brown.  The cakes should spring back gently when pushed, and a toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean.  Remove from molds and dust with powdered sugar to serve.

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