after one bite of these cheesey pastries, you’ll understand why i persevered to make candied orange peel.

i overheard my daughter asking her dad, on his way out to the grocery, to please buy something new for breakfast, right after our February week off.

i said to myself, absolutely! i felt exactly the same way. i thought of something coffee cake-y, sort of cheese-Danish pastry like, and i made these.
candied peel in the ricotta custard filling, orange zest in the pastry lined cupcakes, with decorative strips of even more pastry–it’s very hard to resist gobbling these tangy little tarts all up in one big bite.
sweet ricotta pastries from Gourmet, January 2009.

serves 12, for dessert after a big Italian meal perhaps?, or 1 hormonal mama, lusting for carbs.
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this is the recipe that will surely test your patience.
the moment i saw this on celia K i immediately bookmarked it as a great summer treat for my kids. i wish i could say i used local berries though…the farmers’ market in our town isn’t open till tomorrow, and i just couldn’t wait to make it.

and we couldn’t wait for it to settle down and cool off, the aromas wafting from the oven just were too tempting.
the hardest part of the recipe was converting the weight measures. i had to use my countertop scale.
to keep the berries from sinking down to the bottom, i dredged them lightly in a tiny amount of the flour.
as i prepared the kids’ lunches i also didn’t see that the cake was browning very quickly. instructions call for covering up with the pan with aluminum foil should that happen.

makes you wish for berries all year long…now if only this cake counts as one of the five-a-day fruit-and-vegetable serving requirement…!

(the original recipe is from BBC Good Food. i substituted blackberries for blueberries, and omitted the three tablespoons of lime juice for the cake batter).

poke the cake all over (i used a metal barbecue skewer)…

…before spooning over the “lime syrup drizzle.”

French toast (eggy bread, pain perdu, pain dore) was invented as a way to recycle old bread.
any old stale dried up loaf will do. but for me brioche is IT.

so it is logical and understandable that an obsessive compulsive foodie will bake brioche just specifically to make it stale and old in order to make French toast.

except my last brioche loaf did not make it past its prime, nay! it didn’t last the evening it was baked. i have to make another one pronto. and then hide it. :stirthepot

here’s the recipe for bread machine brioche. …and take my word for it. French toast must be brioche-d. Brioche must be French toast’d.

the order of placement depends upon your machine.

1 & 1/2 tsps. active dry yeast
2 tbsps. sugar
3 cups bread flour
3/4 tsp. salt
3 large eggs, beaten
1/3 cup lukewarm whole milk (80F)
3 tbsps. lukewarm water

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

set machine menu to “sweet bread” setting, crust setting should be light.
put everything in the bread pan except for the butter. press start then let machine mix the dough for about 5 minutes then add the butter in portions, letting the machine work before adding the next bit.

THAT’s IT!

for the French toast: eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon/nutmeg/cardamom to taste. soak brioche and then cook in a shallow pan with melted butter. brown both sides.

for breakfast!

#1son is home for the weekend! and hungry for Chinese food and rice. so we got some of our favorite take-out dishes from our neighborhood joint and this morning i decided to bake some scones (also had to use up the jar of clotted (Devon) cream–our once-a-year indulgence.

from Craig Claiborne’s The New York Times Cook Book, everyone just loves this scrumptious buttery scone . served with my favorite raspberry jam, Bonne Maman!,  i eat it with such an overwhelming feeling.   guilty as sin.

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tbsps. sugar

3 tsps. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

5 tbsps. unsalted butter, cold

3/4 cup whole milk (approximately)

1 beaten egg

1 egg + 1 tbsp. milk for egg wash (save extra for scrambled eggs)

preheat oven to 425F.

sift or whisk together well flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. cut in the butter with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal.

mix the egg and milk together then sprinkle into the flour-butter mixture, folding with a spatula, until dough is soft and easy to handle.

knead about 15 times, roll out to 1/2 inch thickness then cut into rounds. glaze with egg and milk wash.

place on lightly greased cookie sheet and bake about 12 minutes.

to serve: split into halves then spread cream and jam. pop into mouth and slurp some milk tea or cafe au lait. jog 5 miles.