Recipe and Tutorial: Cranberry Lemon Scones

While I was up visiting my sister and family this past weekend, I had the opportunity to do some baking with my sis, which I love to do. She's a great sous-chef (very precise, measures all the ingredients out for a recipe's mise en place, and always jumps in to assist when needed...as I said, Priceless!), and being together in the kitchen really gives us a chance to be together and bond.

Starbux CL Scone

Since we were also making Chocolate Chip Cookies for "the guys" and their UFC Fight Night later that evening, I asked what recipe would she like us to make for *us*...maybe a Sunday morning breakfast treat?  After hemming and hawing, the Sis decided that we would make scones.  But not just any scones; Cranberry Lemon scones with a sweet, lemony glaze on top, as an homage to the ones she loves so much from Starbucks.

Now, when making scones, they are very much like biscuits; in fact, you could definitely say they are the British version of an American biscuit (although for Britons, biscuit actually means cookie, but I digress...). So the first and best rule to remember when making these is that less is more. Less liquid in the dough, less kneading, less handling over all, will help to make a tender, light, almost fluffy interior and a crispy exterior.  Too much liquid, and the dough will collapse under its own weight. Too much kneading, rolling, or handling, and the gluten in the flour activates too much too soon and leaves you with cranberry-scented briquettes on which you could chip a tooth.

Given that we were working under a deadline (we had to be back by a certain time to put the baby to bed before the fight, and dinner prep was awaiting), and we didn't have any biscuit cutters, I think we did rather well! The best thing about these scones is how versatile this recipe is: don't like cranberries? How about raisins, or currants, or dried cherries, or chocolate chips? Not a fan of lemon? Make it orange zest, or culinary lavender, or espresso powder, or one of several baking spices or crushed nuts. The sky's the limit!

Cranberry Lemon Scones

Our Cranberry Lemon "Scone Clones", before they were iced

Yield: 8 scones

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup white sugar
• 5 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup unsalted butter, chilled and diced
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk (from 2% to half and half/table cream is fine)
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1-3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 400˚ F (200˚ C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter. Mix the egg and milk in a small bowl, and stir into flour mixture just until moistened. Add dried cranberries and lemon zest.
3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead briefly to help mixture come together. Roll dough out into a ½” thick round. Use a round pastry cutter to cut into 8 rounds, or a sharp knife to cut into 8 wedges, and place on the prepared baking sheet. If using a pastry cutter, ensure your rounds are cut as close together as possible, in order to minimize the amount of dough that needs to be rerolled (re-rolling the dough will toughen the scones).
4. Bake 15 minutes, or until golden brown, rotating and switching pans once during baking to ensure even browning. Allow to cool completely.
5. Once cool, combine icing sugar and lemon juice into a thin paste (flat icing); using a fork or spoon, drizzle flat icing over top of cooled scones to desired taste. Allow to dry or serve immediately. These should be eaten within 24 hours for maximum freshness.

Recipe: Meyer Lemon Tarts

I had soooo hoped to find the time (and the lemons!!!) to make these Pierre Hermé Meyer Lemon Tarts for my own wedding dessert table back in August of this year, but events conspired against me (damn you, Whole Foods!), and now I am awaiting for Meyer Lemon season to come back around to make them for myself and my loved ones.

For those who are not pastry geeks like myself, Pierre Hermé is an absolute legend in the world of pastry; still going strong in his 50's, Hermé is best known worldwide for his perfect macarons and his gorgeous chocolate confections, but pretty much everything he makes is divine. One of my dreams is to go back to Paris and visit each of his 10 confectionery shops there, buying and trying a few somethings from each boutique, then photographing it and blogging about it (oh God, I'm the Baking Hipster!!! auughhhh!)

...ok, I'm going to need a minute to get over that image....

Back to the blog at hand...!

So you may be asking, just what makes a Meyer Lemon Tart so different from a regular lemon tart?  Well, I could be a jerk and tell you it's the Meyer Lemons, duh, but in all seriousness, it *is* exactly that. The best way to describe Meyer lemons is that they are a fascinating cross between the sourness of a lemon and the floral notes of an orange, so that they are not exactly one or the other, but very much their own thing.  The rind of a Meyer lemon is a deeper yellow, and the scent is to die for.  I've definitely scrubbed, zested, and juiced my share of Meyer lemons in my day -- boxes upon boxes of them -- but even so, I'm not tired of them and would use them every day in every way I could if I had a reliable and affordable supply of them.

So, until Meyer Lemon season comes around again in my little corner of the world (which is around August for me), I figure, why make you wait for this fabulous recipe in the meantime?  I promise that when I have access to more Meyer Lemons, I'll make up this recipe, and probably a few more as well!

Meyer Lemon Tart 

Source: Pierre Herme

Pate Sucree Base:

Yield: three 10 ½ “ crusts or four 8” crusts, or eight 4” crusts

• 300g unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature
• 190g powdered sugar
• 60g ground almonds
• 1 vanilla bean, scrapped
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 500g all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt

Lemon Cream:

• 200 g whole eggs (4 eggs)
• 240 g granulated sugar
• 160 g fresh Meyer lemon juice
• zest from about 5 Meyer lemons
• 300 g unsalted butter, room temperature and cubed

Base:

1. Put the butter in a mixer bowl and cream until smooth and creamy using a paddle attachment.
2. Add the sugar, ground almonds, and vanilla bean seeds. Mix until combined.
3. Add the eggs one at a time, fully incorporating the previous one before adding the next one (the dough might look curdled at this point but don't worry, it'll come together once you add the flour).
4. Combine the flour and salt. Add to the dough in about three addition. Mix until just it comes together. Do not overwork! Like Pierre said, "it's better to have lumps of butter rather than to have an overworked dough".
5. Divide the dough in the portions you need. Form each one into a ball and flatten it into a disk. Wrap each disk with plastic wrap and store in the fridge overnight (you can also freeze the dough at this point and thaw it in the fridge overnight).
6. Remove one disk from the fridge, and roll it either between two sheets of parchment paper, or just well-floured surface. You need to move quickly though. You don't want the dough to be soft and overworked.
7. Line your tart pan with the dough and put it back in the fridge for at least 1-2 hrs to rest.
8. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
9. When you're ready to bake, put a parchment paper on top of the dough and fill the bottom with either rice or beans.
10. Bake for 20 minutes. Take the parchment paper and the beans/rice off, then continue to bake for another 5-10 minutes until it's golden brown.
11. Let cool in the ring.

Lemon Cream:

1. Rub the zest with the sugar using your finger until the sugar is moistened with lemon oil.
2. On a double boiler, combine the sugar, eggs and juice.
3. Whisk/stir constantly until the mixture reaches 85-86 C.
4. Strain the mixture and let cool to about 55-60 C and put it in a blender (if you don't have a hand-held blender)
5. Add the butter a couple of pieces at a time, to make an emulsion. The mixture will lighten in color. Continue running the blender for a few minutes after all of the butter has been added to ensure the airy and light cream. Make sure stop and run the blender a few times to avoid over-heating.
6. Pour the mixture into prepared crust and refrigerate.

Tutorial and Recipe: Cream Cheese Berry Tarts

These tiny little tartlets are melt-in-your-mouth delicious, if I do say so myself.  I sort of cobbled together a couple of different recipes, changed a few things up, and came up with these little guys for my wedding dessert table last month.

Even though the pastry is a little finicky (a light touch and not too much flour are the keys to this perfect pastry case), the cream cheese filling made up for it by being a snap to make!  In fact, I had tons left over since I had only made enough pastry for about 18 tiny tartlets; therefore, I'd recommend doubling the pastry recipe to use up all of the cream cheese filling; that way, you don't have to re-roll your scraps more than once (another major no-no that leads to tough and oily tart shells).

When the cream cheese filling (recipe below) is ready, spoon into a piping bag, or in a pinch you can use a large ziploc bag. Set up the baked and completely cooled tart shells to receive the filling, snip the end off your piping bag, and pipe the cream cheese filling up to the top. While it will need to be refrigerated, this filling recipe contains no eggs so it is stable enough to not need baking; it's essentially a "no-bake" cheesecake-type filling.

You can garnish these little guys with anything you like: fresh berries (like I did) or tiny slices of fruit, a small dollop of jelly (note, it may sink to the bottom; pipe slightly less filling in to accommodate the jam), coloured sanding sugar sprinkled over the top, or even pipe some melted chocolate or caramel in a zigzag pattern over the top and sprinkle crushed nuts over that. You can change up the lemon zest and juice to another citrus fruit, but this filling recipe does need a citrus "zing", so don't delete it altogether.

To keep the tart shells crisp, fill them the day you will be serving them.

Cream Cheese Filling
(Original recipe courtesy of Stephanie Jaworski of Joy of baking.com)

• 1-8.oz. pkg full fat plain cream cheese, room temp
• 1-14 oz. tin sweetened condensed milk
• Zest of one lemon
•  1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
•  1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. In food processor or tabletop mixer, beat cream cheese until creamy and smooth.  
2. Add all remaining ingredients and process until just smooth (do not over-mix or the filling will be too runny).
3. Transfer filling to a bowl, cover, and refrigerate overnight (minimum 6 hours). Can be made up to a week in advance.

Sweet Tart Pastry 
(Original recipe courtesy of Cooksrecipes.com) 

Makes enough pastry for one 9" round tart or 8 individual tart shells or 16-18 mini tart shells

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp table salt
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

1. Sift flour and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside. 
2. Beat the butter with the paddle attachment of a tabletop mixer until softened. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl with a rubber spatula.
3. Gradually add the beaten egg, beating just until incorporated. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl.
4. Add flour mixture all at once and mix just until it forms a ball. Don't overwork or pastry will be tough when baked. Dough will be sticky.
5. Flatten dough into disk, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes or until firm (at this point, you can wrap it very well and chill for up to 3 days).
6. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface, turning dough frequently to prevent it from sticking and to keep its round shape. Do not turn dough over. The dough should be about an inch larger than your tart pan, and about 1/8" thick.
7. Carefully roll dough around rolling pin. Center over tart pan and unroll over the top. Never pull or stretch the dough as it will shrink away from pan during baking. Lightly press dough into bottom and sides of pan. Roll your rolling pin over top of pan to cut off excess dough. 
8. If making mini tarts, cut circles a little larger than the tart pan cavities (for accuracy, measure the depth of the pan's cavity, and add that number to the diameter of the cavity). Try to align your cuts carefully in order to not have to re-roll your scraps more than once (remember, each re-roll means tougher pastry).
9. Gently but quickly ease each pastry circle into the pan cavities without pulling, stretching, or tearing the dough; the heat from your hands is melting the butter the longer you touch the dough. Ensure the dough circle is firmly against the bottom and walls of each cavity, and neaten up the top edge.
10. Place in freezer for a minimum of 20 minutes to chill. The tart pan can be left in the freezer for up to a day if necessary.
11. If baking unfilled (as in for this recipe), "blind-bake" tart cases first; this is done by lining tart pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil, then filling with pie weights or dried beans, making sure the weights fill to the top of the pan are and evenly distributed over the entire surface. 
12. Bake crust in a 400*F (205*C) oven for 20 to 25 minutes until crust is lightly browned; remove weights a few minutes prior to the perfect golden brown, and finish baking to achieve brownness along tart bottom. Remove weights and parchment, and cool crust on wire rack before filling. 

Can be made and frozen (unfilled) for up to a month.

Commission Tales: Elmo says,"Tee hee, that tickles!"...or something.

Pulled myself through a bad case of the flu in order to complete this cake commission last week.  One of two commissions, actually. Ah well, illness never arrives in the right time anyway, so we must soldier on regardless!

Of course, I made scrupulously sure that all of my baking surfaces were cleaned and disinfected, and that I was appropriately masked and aproned, not to mention I washed my hands frequently. I figured that, after five days of illness, I was no longer contagious, so most of these precautions were a bit paranoid and over the top...but I don't take chances with other people's health, especially when I make a cake for a child.

In any case, my commission was for a delightful little girl who was turning one year old. Being a big fan of Sesame Street Elmo, it only made sense that her birthday cake would feature the giggling, furry creature.  Working on an inspiration picture gleaned from the internet, this cake was a delightful vanilla-lemon funfetti five-layer round cake, with vanilla lemon buttercream and homemade raspberry jam filling between each layer, vanilla lemon buttercream frosting in that characteristic Sesame Street bright yellow, and Elmo's face piped in bright red buttercream on the top with "Happy birthday" greetings surrounding it.

I had originally attempted to pipe the Elmo character using the "pinhole" technique, where you cut out a simplified picture of your intended design and place it on your cake, then use a sharp pin to delineate the outline that you then pipe over with frosting. This technique works very well on fondant-covered cakes, but the buttercream came to temp too quickly to be effective. So, I just hand-drew it from the reference picture.

Not bad for never having drawn an Elmo before, eh? *winks*