De Ma Cuisine

Sweets Archive

Thursday

7

August 2014

6

COMMENTS

Peach Sauce

Written by , Posted in Breakfast, Brunch, Canning, Condiments, Dessert, Fruit, Gluten Free, Kid-Friendly, Sauces, Vegetarian

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Last week I ordered twenty pounds of peaches as an add on from Abundant Harvest Organics. I thought I’d bitten off more than I could chew (haha, no pun intended) and worried that they may spoil before I got to them.

None did.

And now I have a yummy peach sauce to share with you!

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Feel free to substitute your favorite stone fruit if you’d like. Plums, nectarines, apriums, pluots, apricots… they’d all be amazing.

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Start by halving the peaches. Remove the pit, and slice or roughly chop. It’s going to be blended in a bit, so don’t worry about the shape.

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About eight to ten cups will do just fine. Out of my twenty pounds of peaches, I ended up with roughly 45 cups of sliced peaches in total. This sauce was just a small portion (I froze the rest – more about that another week).

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I added two tablespoons of butter to a large hot pot. If you don’t want to use butter, coconut oil would be just fine. The fat adds a rich quality to the sauce that I love. If you don’t want to add either, that’s cool too.

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Peaches are dumped into the hot browning butter.

Get ready for the smell. It’s amazing!

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After the peaches have cooked for about twenty minutes (and then rested for ten – not a must, I just needed more time to work on a different recipe, so they had to wait), they should look something like this.

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I had a few oranges still hanging around from spring boxes (wow they lasted a long time!!), so I whisked them up with the zest and juice from one lemon, a bit of coconut palm sugar, and a pinch of salt.

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And then, orangy-lemon juice meet smooshy peaches.

Orangeyou glad I didn’t say… I don’t know… banana?!

Sorry. Kinda.

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After the sauce cooked up for a while longer, I blended it up with my hand blender. A regular blender will work just fine too (just be sure to remove the middle part of the lid and cover the hole with a clean kitchen towel).

One more tablespoon of butter is stirred in after the sauce is blended.

Extra richy richness.

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This is gonna be good… I’m hoping that Tim will make some more Vanilla Bean Ice Cream so I can top it with some of this sauce. You could make this even more awesome by roasting some fruit to plomp on top. It would be great over French Toast or Cornmeal Pancakes, or used in place of jam.

Or, just eat it by the spoonful…

Happy Eating!

Peach Sauce
 
Recipe Type: Dessert, Sauces, Stone Fruit, Gluten-Free, Breakfast
Author: Rachel Oberg – De Ma Cuisine
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Sweet summer peaches are cooked up in butter and blended to make a delicious sauce.
Ingredients
  • 3 T unsalted butter (divided 2 T, 1 T)
  • 8-10 C ripe peaches, sliced or roughly chopped
  • 1 t vanilla extract
  • pinch salt
  • juice from 1 lemon
  • zest from 1 lemon
  • juice from 2-3 oranges
  • 3 T coconut palm sugar (brown sugar, maple syrup, or honey will work too)
Instructions
  1. Heat a large pot and add 2 T of butter. When butter is hot, add peaches. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes, or until peaches are very soft. Let stand 10 minutes (optional).
  2. Whisk together vanilla through sugar. Add to peaches. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes.
  3. Blend with a hand blender (it helps to tip the pot to the side a bit to prevent splattering) or a blender (in batches, with the middle part of the lid removed and a clean towel covering the hole). Stir in remaining 1 T of butter.
  4. To store, ladle into clean pint jars, leaving at least 1/2″ of room at the top. I prefer to store the sauce in the freezer, freezing uncovered, then adding the lids once the sauce is frozen.
 
Notes
Yields 3 pint jars.

 

Monday

14

July 2014

1

COMMENTS

Apricot and Black Pepper Galette

Written by , Posted in Baking, Breakfast, Brunch, Dessert, Eggs, Fruit, Lunch, Vegetarian

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Remember that time when my blog was broken… for like two months… and then Tim and some friends fixed it?

Yeah, they fixed it just because they’re nice people.

So I made them a galette.

Sometimes thank you needs to be said in the form of food.

David, Andy, Vic, and of course Tim, thank you. I can cook the food, take the pictures, and type some letters in here. But, when something breaks, it takes brains like yours to know how to make things better. I am grateful.

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So grateful that I’m sharing our stone fruit. Sharing it and converting it into a thank you treat.

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We had some over-ripe apricots in the fridge. You know, the ones that are kinda wrinkly and you think they might be good for nothing? Instead, you find that they’re super soft and sweet. Just perfect for a galette.

Nectarines, peaches, plums, apriums, and pluots could all be substituted. You know, use what you have on hand.

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Lemon zest. It needed to be a part of this dish. I just can’t get enough. It’s an essential part of my pantry, so I try to have lemons on hand no matter what the season. They brighten almost any dish.

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Apricots are combined with a bit of butter, some honey, and maple syrup.

Aaaand black pepper.

Don’t skip this. Black pepper goes really well with stone fruit.

Seriously!

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I made a pie crust. I used Alana’s recipe from her cookbook, which is one of my favorites, called The Homemade Pantry (it’s on page 150). It was super easy and I really liked how it turned out. Sooo yeah, I’ll be making that again (along with her Maple Popcorn which I’ve made twice and can’t stop stuffing into my face).

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Alana suggests folding the crust in half and then in half again to move it from the counter to the pan. I did this. It worked well.

Winner.

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All that sweet filling is plomped in the center of the crust.

I think this is gonna be good.

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The filling is sprinkled with chopped almonds. For crunch. Walnuts would be great too. Or if you’re not nuts about nuts (sorry, I couldn’t resist), leave ’em out.

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To make the crust all shiny and pretty I whisked an egg and brushed it onto the crust. You don’t have to do this, but it’s an easy way to make your galette go from pretty to spectacular.

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I was all proud of myself for making a crust that held together and didn’t have any holes for the filling to leak out of.

Wrong.

It leaked all over the place. (This happened the first time I made a galette too.)

The good thing is that it turns into candy.

Accidental candy.

I ate most of it.

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The rest I scraped off the pan and drizzled over the galette.

Yep, now the galette has caramel sauce on it.

Super fancy.

(If your galette doesn’t leak, pat yourself on the back and then email me to tell me how you did it. Ok? Ok.)

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The whole process took me a while, from pie crust start to drizzling finish. But, it’s not all that complicated or difficult. And it’s so worth it.

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Make this ahead of time and then invite your favorite people to join you for dinner. I would like to eat this outside, under a nice shade tree, after some barbecue and potato salad. And the leftovers, if there are any, might get a dollop of Greek yogurt and turn into breakfast.

That’s how we roll at our house.

Happy Eating!

Apricot and Black Pepper Galette
Recipe Type: Dessert, Fruit, Summer
Author: Rachel Oberg – De Ma Cuisine
Prep time: 75 mins
Cook time: 30 mins
Total time: 1 hour 45 mins
Serves: 6
Ingredients
  • 1 pie crust
  • 1/8 to 1/4 C honey
  • 1/8 to 1/4 C maple syrup
  • 1 t lemon zest
  • 1 T lemon juice
  • pinch salt
  • 1/4 t freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 C super ripe apricots (plums, peaches, nectarines, pluots, apriums could be substituted or added)
  • 1 T butter, cut into small pieces
  • butter, for baking
  • flour, for baking
  • 2 T almonds, chopped
  • 1 egg, whisked
Instructions
  1. Prepare pie crust and chill for an hour. Remove from fridge 15 minutes before rolling out.
  2. Pre-heat the oven to 375F.
  3. Whisk together honey through pepper. Add apricots and butter, tossing gently to combine.
  4. Butter and lightly flour a piece of parchment paper, that’s on a baking sheet.
  5. Roll out pie crust to be about 12-14″ in diameter. Gently fold in half and in half again, and pick it up to place on the parchment paper. Unfold.
  6. Scoop the apricot mixture into the center of the crust. Sprinkle with almonds. Gently fold the crust up and around the filling, leaving the center open. Make sure there are no cracks, or the liquid will run. Brush crust with egg and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the crust is golden and flaky.
  7. If any sauce leaks out, scrape off the pan with a spoon and drizzle over the galette (it will be like a caramel).
  8. Let cool completely before serving.
Notes
Prep time includes pie crust preparation.
3.2.1303

 

Friday

16

March 2012

1

COMMENTS

Oma’s Moon Cookies, by Jill

Written by , Posted in Baking, Cookies, Dessert, Guest Posts, Legacy, Thoughts

I’m blessed to have two brothers. But, until I got a sister-in-law last year, I had zero sisters. However, my cousin, Jill and I are as close as sisters. She’s one of my best friends. She lives in Colorado with her family, so we make up for the distance with visits, Skype chats, phone calls, emails, and texts. She and I were devastated at the loss of our Oma a couple of months ago. We both inherited a love for cooking from her. Jill, however, must have inherited the baking side of it much more than I. She’s a great baker. I asked if she would share Oma’s recipe for Moon Cookies.

Here’s Jill.

I know what you are thinking, it’s why are these called moon cookies yet they are shaped like stars?  Well honestly it is just because I don’t have a moon shaped cookie cutter.  Every time I make these cookies I am already far too deep in the process to stop, go to the store and get the proper shape, and every year I seem to forget that I don’t have a moon shape so I choose the next best celestial object, a star.  But Oma, whose recipe this is, always made them in moon shapes, hence the name.  Everyone in the Pries family knows what a moon cookie is.

This recipe is special for many reasons, most importantly because it was Oma’s.  And everything from Oma is special.  Secondly, they are insanely delicious.  One of the ways Oma loved her family was through food. She always had lovely treats and amazing meals waiting for us whenever we would visit.  Some of my fondest childhood memories take place in her kitchen, whether it was baking Zwieback and honey cookies, or sitting under the kitchen table first thing in the morning to warm up by the vent, or having Opa help me crush my crunchy buns into my bowl of “Opa” soup.  Of all the many traditions Oma passed down, a love of the kitchen was definitely one of them.  She was always eager to teach us and to pass down these special family recipes.  She had a servant’s heart and loved her family so much through everything she did.  I can only hope that I can make my family feel as loved and as precious as she made us feel.  Oma – I love you and I will keep trying to learn to crochet dish clothes, even though they always end up looking like cat toys!!

And now a special word of caution…..do not eat these cookies while wearing black.  The evidence will be all over you. And that is especially bad if you happened to indulge yourself when you really shouldn’t have or were flat out told not to, like a certain three year old boy who disappeared behind the sofa for a few minutes and then reappeared with lovely white fluff all down his front.

Oma’s Moon Cookies, by Jill

Oma’s Moon Cookies, by Jill

Ingredients

  • 2 Cups flour
  • 1/2 lb unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups ground hazelnuts
  • Icing sugar, about 3 cups

Instructions

  1. Mix together flour, butter and sugar. Add the nuts (use your food processor to grind the nuts if you had to buy whole ones). Mix well. Refrigerate for about 3 hours. Roll out the dough about 1/4 " thick (thicker is better because they can be quite fragile).
  2. Bake at 350 for 8 minutes or until golden.
  3. After the cookies bake you can cool them until warm, them give them a bath in the icing sugar. Not just a light dusting. Carefully place the cookie in the bowl of sugar and gently pack it on so there is a nice coating. Store between layers of wax paper in the freezer.
http://www.de-ma-cuisine.com/omas-moon-cookies-by-jill/