Blueberry Rhubarb Pie

 Lauren picked up a flat of blueberries and some rhubarb the other day so I whipped up a pie for her!  My deal with my friends is that I will make them a fruit pie any time they want if they show up at my house with the fruit for it.  We all love the fresh seasonal produce from the farmers market, and we are getting to the best time of year for fruits. The original plan was to make just a straight blueberry pie, but we were a bit short on berries so we improvised.  

 Now, I've made quite a few fruit pies at this point but I've never made a blueberry pie.  The crust on this was perfect (as usual - I promise I will write you a post dedicated to pie crust next time I make one.  It is such a messy process I normally forget to take photos).  I did have a few complaints about the filling, but that is just my piefectionism showing through.

 

Here's the recipe for the filling I used:
- 4 C washed blueberries
- 2 C chopped rhubarb
- 3/4 C sugar
- 2 T tapioca
- zest of one large lemon
- juice of half the lemon

I heard that blueberries have a lot of pectin in them, so I went a bit lighter on the tapioca than my instincts told me to and regretted it.  As you can see from the last picture, the filling is oozing out of the pie more than I would like.  Flavor-wise this pie was incredible, the berries and the rhubarb went really well together.  See that juice in the pie tin up there?  I spent like 5 minutes sticking my fingers in it and licking them clean after I took that photo.  No joke.   All together though it was very tart.  I tend to add a lot less sugar to my fruit pies than the average recipe calls for.  Next time I will probably add an additional tablespoon of tapioca, and probably up the sugar to a whole cup instead of 3/4s.

Vanilla Testing & Butter Cookies

 

Today Karen over at the Sugarpill apothecary was giving out samples of a "mystery" vanilla extract.    She wanted a neutral taste test, so she withheld the details about this extract until after we had a chance to try it out.  The only info we got was that it is a high-end (read:expensive) extract with beans sourced from somewhere unusual.  Fascinating.

I decided to compare the mystery extract with the vanilla extract I use most often in my kitchen, Cook's Choice.  It's not the most expensive brand, but it is pretty well respected and good quality. 

 The color of the mystery vanilla extract is a bit more golden, and it seems slightly more transparent than the Cook's (but that may be differences in age, my bottle of Cook's has been around for a few months).   If clarity is any indication of quality, the mystery extract wins out there.  They smell very similar, but the mystery extract has a subtle citrus-y scent and seems to be a bit more floral.

 For a taste test, I diluted about half a dropper of each type in 1oz of milk.  Much like in the smell-test, the two tasted very similar with the mystery vanilla extract having a slightly more floral and crisp taste.  The differences are so subtle they are hard to describe, but I would call the mystery vanilla almost orange-blossom flavored.

For the sake of science I also compared them to this really cheap Kroger brand vanilla extract.  Compared to the two high quality extracts this one had basically no flavor.

I decided to test out the extract on a basic butter cookie recipe from King Arthur Flour's website.  As you may know, I love their site and use their recipes a lot.   The version on their site also has an icing recipe which I skipped this time around.  They also provide the ingredients list in ounces or grams (instead of by volume) if you prefer that method (I do). 

Here's the recipe:

• 1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 cup + 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

 

Butter and sugar - how so many good things start

1. In a large bowl combine sugar, butter, egg yolk, salt and extract.  Beat together until smooth.
2. Add the flour and beat together until it forms a cohesive and well blended cookie dough.  Scrape down the sides as necessary.  It will seem dry at first and then suddenly come together at the end. 
   
3. Divide the dough in half, wrap in plastic and refrigerate until it firms up a bit (about half an hour at the minimum, up to 24 hours). 
   
4. Once the dough is chilled, roll it out to about 1/8" - 3/16" thick and cut it into whatever shape you want or use cookie cutters.  Re-roll and cut the scraps too.
5. Bake the cookies on an ungreased or parchment lined baking sheet at 350F for 10-20 minutes until the edges begin to brown but the cookie is still pale. The dough won't spread very much so you can fit quite a few on one sheet.

 These cookies are flaky and buttery.  They are very good plain, and I can also see them standing up to a sweet frosting very well.  As far as the vanilla flavor goes, I couldn't tell the difference between the mystery vanilla and my normal brand.   They say in baking many of the chemical compounds that make up natural vanilla extract get burned off and it is hard to distinguish the little notes that make the extract special.  I would save the extra fancy vanilla extract for low-heat uses.

After I took some of these cookies back over to Karen, she revealed to me more about the mystery vanilla.  It is from a company called Lagrima. It is made in Seattle from beans sourced from Uganda!  I would have to guess that the flavor differences come from the differences between the Ugandan bean and the more commonly used beans from Madagascar.  Also, probably differences between the small batch method vs. industrially produced vanilla.

Potato Flour Cupcakes + No-dye Green Buttercream Frosting

I have totally fallen in love with this cake recipe.  It is great for people on grain-free and low-fat diets (just don't put the butter cream frosting on top if you want to avoid fat....yeah, that's all fat.).   This recipe would work perfectly for a more traditional sponge cake, a sponge roll, trifles, tiramisu...the list goes on.  It's so good.  I've been dying to find more uses for potato flour, especially since it is so close to St. Patrick's day!   The homemade butter cream frosting is tinted green with spinach.  It looks really beautiful - light green with darker green speckles - and you can't taste the spinach at all.

The recipe for the sponge cake comes from the website GrainFreeLiving.com.  The leavening for this cake comes primarily from the air that is beaten into the eggs, and partly from the baking soda. It should be noted that the potato flour sponge cake recipe is in metric measurements. 1 cup is 250ml which is slightly larger than the imperial 1 cup of an 8 oz measure.  

Potato Flour Sponge Cake Recipe  

Ingredients:

4 eggs, separated
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup potato flour
1/4 cup arrowroot/tapioca flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tarter
pinch salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 340F (170C) and get your cupcake tins or cake tins ready.  This recipe made 12 cupcakes for me, but I overfilled the tins a bit - it should probably be more like 14-16 cupcakes. It is vital to get the tins and oven ready beforehand because the chemical reaction of the leavening ingredients begins as soon as the batter is combined.  If you wait to long to get it into the oven the chemical reaction will be over and you won't end up with the right texture.

Separate the eggs and reserve the yolks in a small bowl, place the egg whites in a large mixing bowl.  Beat the egg whites until they are stiff.  I beat my eggs until they had soft peaks, but I think the recipe would have come out better if I had been a bit more patient.  Gradually add the sugar to the eggs until the mixture is creamy and thick, the beat in the egg yolks one by one.

Sift together the remaining dry ingredients (potato flour, arrowroot, baking soda, cream of tarter and salt).  Gently fold the dry ingredients into the beaten egg and sugar mix until fully incorporated, being careful not to over mix.

Gently scoop into the cupcake tin, filling about 2/3 of the tin.  (I overfilled mine. Whoops.)   Bake in the oven for 13-15 minutes.  If making a cake instead of cupcakes it should be 15-20 minutes.   When the cupcakes are done they will be starting to turn a light golden color, and a toothpick inserted in the center will come out clean.

Spinach Green Butter Cream Frosting

Ingredients:

1 cup spinach, steamed and drained
1/2 cup butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar (about 1lb)
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Steam and drain the spinach, then place it in a food processor and puree it until smooth.   Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl, add the vanilla and spinach and blend thoroughly.  If the mixture is to moist add more powdered sugar.  Should make enough to frost one large cake, or one batch of cupcakes.

Pies I've Known

The always beautiful lattice top pie.