My neighbor had a barbecue the other night, and I was charged with bringing dessert. I wanted to do something summery/barbecue-y and not too heavy, and thought a berry cobbler paired with french vanilla ice cream would work nicely.
This recipe from America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated (free registration required, but it's worth it) uses frozen blueberries. I had a couple bags of mixed berries in the freezer - they're cheap at Trader Joe's and I use them a lot for smoothies - and the combination of blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries worked perfectly well.
The trick to using frozen is to collect the juice that's exuded as the berries thaw and boil it down into a syrup before cooking, so the berry filling isn't too watery. You could probably get away with skipping that step - after all, there's no bottom crust to worry about sogging through in a cobbler - but you'll have to watch more closely for bubble over. And of course, you could always use fresh berries and not have to deal with the juices at all.
I did my best to speed up the thawing process by spreading the berries out on a cookie sheet in a warm oven (175°F, the lowest my oven will go) for about 30 minutes, and pouring off the juice every 10 minutes. That was the most annoying part of the preparation, so if you have time to let the berries thaw themselves in a colander, it's probably best to do that.
I also didn't have any buttermilk on hand, so I just substituted non-fat vanilla yogurt (full-fat yogurt or sour cream would have worked even better) in for the biscuit topping. The biscuit was a tiny bit dry as a result, but it was an acceptable substitution... I might also have overmixed the dough, which wouldn't have helped.
Last little tip - put a cookie sheet under the pan while baking, just in case. I got a little bit of bubble over despite having reduced the juices a lot.
The finished product was very tasty; the flavors of the berries were highlighted by just a little cinnamon, salt, and VERY fresh lemon zest and juice (from the neighbor's tree... yet another reason I love living in California!) and the biscuit topping held up well to the berry filling. It was more work than I thought it would be to reduce the juices, and this recipe was definitely not the 'quick and easy dessert' I had sort of hoped it would be. I'd suggest to wait for fresh berries and save the thawing/juice reducing steps, but if you're craving a summery treat in the dead of winter, it might be worth the effort.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Year-Round Summer Berry Cobbler
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Summer berry tart
From Rose Levy Beranbaum's excellent and much-loved Pie and Pastry Bible: "When fresh berries are at the peak of their season, this tart is the time-honored way to make the most of them." Well, Rose Levy rarely steers me wrong, so I decided to give her Fresh Berry Tart a shot this weekend.
The tart has three components: a sweet cookie shell, a creamy (think eclair) filling, and of course, the berries. I'd suggest making the pastry cream first, then prepare the shell while the cream is cooling. The recipe suggests that you assemble shortly before serving, but we've had the tart in our fridge for a couple days and it's been fine - it's delicious, so you probably won't have to worry about it keeping more than 48 hours. :)
Pastry cream
2 large eggs
3 Tbsp cornstarch
2 c. half and half
1/2 c. sugar
pinch salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. unsalted butter
Whisk together the eggs and cornstarch until cornstarch is dissolved and mixture is smooth. Add 1/4 c. of half and half and whisk together. Set aside. Prepare a small bowl with a strainer set over it, next to your stovetop.
In a heavy saucepan, combine sugar and 1 3/4 c. half and half. Over medium heat, bring to a full boil, stirring occasionally. Whisk about 2 Tbsp. of the boiling mixture into the egg, and then pour the egg mixture through the strainer into a new bowl. Prepare a medium sized, clean bowl and have plastic wrap out as well before continuing to the next step.
Bring the mixture in the saucepan back to a boil, and quickly add the egg mixture, whisking rapidly. Whisk together about 20-30 sec, making sure to scrape the corners of the pan - at this point the mixture will become extremely thick (it's pretty cool, actually. Like chemistry!) Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the butter and vanilla extract. Once everything is well incorporated, scrape the mixture into your clean bowl and put a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the filling - this prevents a skin from forming.
Allow to cool to room temperature (about one hour) and then refrigerate until cold and firm.
Sweet Cookie Tart Crust (make this while the pastry cream is cooling)
8 Tbsp. (4oz.) cold butter, cubed
1/4 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. (50g) AP flour
pinch salt
1 egg yolk
2 Tbsp. heavy cream
Combine flour and salt in a small bowl. Whisk together egg yolk and cream in another small bowl. Using food processor, pulse butter and sugar together about 15 times, until sugar disappears. Add the flour and salt, pulse another 15 times; the butter chunks should be about the size of small peas. Add the yolk and cream mixture to the food processor and pulse until just incorporated, about 8 times. [Alternately, you can combine all the dry ingredients and cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or pair of knives, then mix in the wet ingredients.] The dough will still be quite crumbly but should stick together if you pinch it between your fingers.
Transfer the dough to a large sheet of plastic wrap and shape it into a flat, 6 inch disc. Wrap well and move to freezer for about 10 minutes, or until firm enough to shape. While the dough is chilling, preheat your oven to 400°F, and butter and flour the sides of a 9 1/2 inch tart pan.
Remove the dough from the freezer and either roll it out into a 10" circle and transfer to the tart pan, or place it in the center of the tart pan and press it out into the tart shell shape (I find pressing it into place much easier than rolling and transferring). Bake for 5 minutes at 400°, prick the bubbles out of the dough, lower the temperature to 375°F and bake 12-15 minutes more (until golden). Remove from oven and allow to cool.
Assembly
Once the filling and tart shell have cooled sufficiently, spread about 2 c. of the filling into the tart shell. Top with 3-4 c. berries - as much as you can possibly add without them falling off! Chill until ready to serve.
Notes
We used a 1:1:2 ratio of raspberries, olallieberries and blackberries. If you want a nice glaze, heat up about 1/4 c. preserves (we used apricot but almost any kind will do) in a microwave or on the stovetop and brush delicately onto the berries. If you don't have preserves, you could make a simple sugar syrup (boil together 1 Tbsp. sugar and 1 Tbsp. water) and use that as a glaze.
The tart was very tasty - the pastry cream was phenomenal, especially paired with our very ripe berries. The only downside was that it took quite a while to make, between cooling the pastry cream and pressing out the dough... doesn't mean I won't make it again, though! One bonus I wasn't expecting - the recipe for the pastry cream makes about a half cup too much for the tart. So if you have left over berries, or a pint of strawberries, you could just eat them with the cream!
