brown butter

Berry Financiers for French Fridays with Dorie

April 11, 2013 · 40 Comments

After the disaster I had with the last berry filled pastry for French Fridays with Dorie I wasn’t sure I would attempt another one… I’m happy to report that my berry financiers were a total success and I was excited to use the financier molds that were a gift from a friend and have been stashed in my kitchen for several years. Traditionally financiers are made with brown butter and I think have a wonderful chewy texture from almond flour. The mixed berries nestled on top are a kind of icing on the cake of this beloved Parisian born sweet.

The cooking schedule of the online cooking group French Fridays with Dorie features seasonal recipes selected from Around My French Table. This week’s recipe with the option to use fresh berries is perfect for this time of year and I hope it inspires everyone to make it over to their local farmer’s market and load up on berries.

Instead of a chicken in every pot maybe we could have berries in every bowl. Even though I haven’t been a regular participant with French Fridays with Dorie, I try to keep up with the cooking adventures of this wonderful group. Please venture over to check out all the home baked financiers shared on the site this week.

I think we’re skipping over Spring here in the Bay Area with temperatures in the high eighties today. Believe me I’m not complaining but I think the garden may wonder what’s going on with these temperatures. Between the frogs, birds and a gazillion bugs that just hatched we are good to go for Summer!

I’ve made so many excellent keeper recipes out of Around My French Table..I guess I should give the Isaphan Loaf Cake another try…How about on a warm Summer day? I will bake a beautiful loaf (early in the day before it gets too hot!) and serve it with ice tea sweetened with my homemade rose syrup. I’m feeling another FFWD inspired blog post coming on…..Hopefully I won’t wait until July to share another recipe From Around My French Table.

Here is a link to Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for financiers with the addition of fresh berries nestled on top of the batter before baking.

Filed Under: dessert, french Tagged With: blackberries, blueberries, brown butter, raspberries

Brown Butter M&M Cookies

October 29, 2012 · 22 Comments

Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants- our World Champions! Last night’s game was a thrill to watch, winning the series in a four game weep was an unexpected accomplishment by the team and one that will be celebrated here in the San Francisco Bay Area for months to come. The victory parade is on Halloween day so I didn’t know it at the time but I baked these brown butter M&M cookies to celebrate our Giant’s World Series win. I broke into my Halloween candy stash (twice!) and unleashed the inner cookie monster this week. For these latest brown butter cookies I used a bag of Fall color themed milk chocolate M&M’s. After weeks of warm temperatures leading up to Halloween night, our forecast is for rain-I hope it’s wrong! Our neighborhood hosts hundreds of trick or treaters every year and this past week Halloween decorations went up on the street. Ghouls wearing rags chained to large piles of assorted pumpkins set up right next to cheerful scrappy scarecrows stuck on wooden sticks in leaf covered lawns are a few of my favorites. I also love seeing the ghost made from a white sheet that is eerily pulled across our street from tree top to tree top and the skeleton pirates reclining in a creek while passing a bottle of rum with dry ice smoking from a treasure chest in the background. But, best of all are the little people wearing costumes trick or treating after the sun goes down. I’m hoping for a dry raincoat/umbrella free day for both the Giants parade and Halloween evening.
Once again I have to thank my go-to source for fun cookie recipes- my blogging friend Lizzy@That Skinny Chick Can Bake for this recipe and for all her baking inspiration, thanks Lizzy! I hope everyone has a fun evening planned for Halloween and if baking cookies is part of your celebration I hope you’ll consider trying this recipe for Brown Butter M&M Cookies or my previous post of Milky Way Cookies.

Brown Butter M&M Cookies

Yield: 2 dozen cookies

Gently adapted from That Skinny Chick Can Bake.

Ingredients

14 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1&3/4 cups all purpose flour
1&1/2 cup milk chocolate M&M's

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F.
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment of silpats.
Melt 10 tablespoons of the butter in a medium sauce pan over medium high heat, continue cooking until the butter is light brown with a nutty fragrance.
Pour the butter into a heatproof bowl and stir in the remaining butter until melted.
Add the sugars and then vanilla.
Mix in the egg and egg yolk.
Stir in the baking soda and then flour, mix until combined.
Stir in the M&M's.
Scoop out rounded tablespoons and space evenly on baking sheets, about 2" apart.
Bake for 11-12 minutes, until light brown.
Cool on metal racks.

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Filed Under: cookies Tagged With: brown butter, M&M's candy

Brown Butter Apple Tartlets

August 31, 2012 · 30 Comments

My brown butter apple tartlets made with the last of my Gravenstein apples went fast! I like to bake with Gravenstein apples during their short season, but any tart baking apple would work well in this simple recipe. I used purchased pie dough for an even quicker batch of apple tartlets but feel free to substitute your favorite 9″ pie crust dough recipe. My tartlets are like apple pie cookies and would make wonderful after school treats for my ‘littles’ or for my husband Scott, who, after eating two tartlets rather quickly asked me to take the plate away, oh well-more for the ‘littles’! Next time I’ll double this recipe by adding 2 more apples and another pie crust dough to make 16 tartlets. The brown butter filling recipe makes more than you will need for this recipe, so it could be easily stretched to make a double batch. I froze my extra brown butter filling to make a future batch of tartlets. I also think it could be added to a batch of cookies or quick bread in place of butter, egg and/or sugar in a different recipe. I like experimenting with ingredients when I bake, that’s part of the baking adventure. Yes, baking is an adventure as well as a science. We’ve been told to measure our ingredients and be very precise but some recipes are more forgiving than others so that’s the time to play around and have some fun!

One of my favorite things about keeping a bowl of Gravenstein apples on my counter is the way their sweet scent permeates the kitchen. They ripen fast at room temperature and turn a soft yellow color which I think is striking next to the red stripes covering their sides. I’m always looking to show off fresh picked apples, like in a favorite cobalt blue bowl that contrasts with the yellow, green and red colors. This is one of the ways I know that Fall is on the way. We generally have a long Indian Summer in California. The leaves turn colors and the evenings become cooler, so although the seasonal changes might be considered subtle in comparison to other parts of the world, we ease out of Summer and into Fall just like everybody else. One of these apples is from a tree in my backyard and it’s not a Gravenstein, can you tell which one it is? Hint: It has a redder top than the other apples, way easier than finding Waldo!

Brown Butter Apple Tartlets

Yield: 8 tartlets

Adapted from Sweet Gratitude by Judith Sutton

Ingredients

For The Brown Butter Filling
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla bean paste
1 large egg
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of sea salt
3 & 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
For The Tartlets
Pie dough for single crust 9" pie, I used purchased pie dough
2-3 Gravenstein apples
1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons vanilla sugar, homemade or purchased

Instructions

To Make The Brown Butter Filling
Place the butter in a medium size heavy skillet over medium heat.
Cook until the butter is golden brown with a nut like aroma and you see dark specks in the bottom of the pan, about 10 minutes,remove from heat.
In a medium bowl whisk together the egg, sugar and vanilla bean paste, whisk until well blended.
Stir in the flour and salt, stirring until well combined.
While constantly whisking gradually add the browned butter, leaving the dark speck solids at the bottom of the heavy skillet, cool and refrigerate this mixture, for at least 1 hour up to 2 days, until ready to use.
To Make The Tartlets
On a lightly floured surface roll out the homemade pie dough, if purchased- defrost, peel off the plastic and lay on work surface.
Using a large size biscuit cutter, cut out 8 rounds, you may have to re-roll scraps to cut out the last 2 rounds.
Place the dough rounds on a baking sheet and place in the fridge.
Peel,core and halve the apples, rubbing sides with lemon juice.
Cut each apple half into thin slices, about 1/8- inch thick, place in a bowl and add a few additional drops of lemon juice.
Bring the dough rounds out of the fridge and spread each one with a generous spoonful of the brown butter filling, leaving a small border of plain dough around the edges.
Place 4 slices on top of the filling and sprinkle with vanilla sugar, slightly crimp the plain edges of the dough around the apple slices and put back in the fridge while preheating the oven to 400F.
Place the tartlets in the oven and reduce the temperature to 375F, bake for about 18 minutes until the apple slices look cooked and the crust is golden brown.
Cool on a metal rack, serve warm or at room temperature.