Dunk & Crumble

Breakfast

Raspberry Nectarine Clafoutis

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I killed so many bugs in the name of this clafoutis.  So.  Many.  Freaking.  BUGS.

It all started with a lovely day of stone fruit picking last weekend.  Unable (again) to restrain myself, our kitchen counter found itself beneath a good twelve pounds of freshly-picked and amazingly fragrant nectarines and peaches.  Gorgeous fruit!  Fresh and ripe and beautiful.  I’ll make so much pie, I thought, and cobblers and custards and jams!  Maybe scones?  Parfaits? Who’s to say?!  My heart (and my kitchen) was ripe with summer fruit potential.

Except there were bugs.  …So many bugs!  They came out when I went to wash the great pile of fruit. URGH.  They creeped and crawled and CREEPED.  They were black and had pincers and were the size of golfballs (the last part might not be true).

I screamed.  I swatted.  I put on my rubber dishwashing gloves and went at them, dancing and dodging around on my tippy toes, shaking and wriggling and trying not to actually touch the things.  I’m not proud.  I threw one out the window.  I tried to drown some in the sink (don’t tell PETA), but they crawled back up the drain.  They had to be smashed.  (Keep the change, ya filthy animal.)  It was traumatic for me (but probably more so for the bugs) and I’m getting itchy just talking about it.

At any rate, in the now famous Battle Of The Bugs, there were casualties.  Mostly of the insect variety, but we lost a lot of good peaches out there.  There was plenty of bug-free fruit left, though, and I showed those bugs who’s boss by making clafoutis (actually I did it by smashing them to smithereens, but I’m trying not to come off as a terrible person and also the clafoutis makes for a prettier picture).

So what exactly is a clafoutis, you ask?  Well, it’s pronounced CLA-FOO-TEE and it’s a fancy (but non-fancy) French dessert of fruit (traditionally cherries) in a firm, baked custard.  It’s sort of a cross between custard and cake (and pancake, odd as that sounds); clafoutis are firm enough to slice up in pieces but smooth, soft and yielding in that cream-and-egg-enforced, custardy sort of way.  It’s light and rich and delicious, and delightfully bug-free (I made quite sure of that.  But I still feel kind of itchy?)

Let’s fire up the citronella candles (and bring some swatters and maybe a can of RAID — fine, forget the RAID) and eat this al fresco, in fat slices dusted with confectioner’s sugar.  We’ll crack some wine — pink sounds good.  We’ll pour some out for our bug friends (enemies), gone but not forgotten.

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Dorie’s Swedish Visiting Cake With Apricots & Cherries

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I inherited a cast iron skillet.

Except when I say that I inherited it, I really mean that the previous tenants of my apartment left it here and I found it and now it’s mine.  Because finder’s keepers.

…Is that wrong?

I would feel more guilty about having technically stolen this skillet if it weren’t so dang heavy, you know?  I mean, the move-outers clearly left it here.  No room/strength to lug it out of the place, I guess.  Plus it was all cobwebbed and rusty, which is no way to treat a skillet.  I had to rescue it.  At any rate, I use it now and imagine that it was once my great great grandmother’s who used it to make blintzes and apple cake and dutch babies, and that’s that.

Thievery and nostalgia aside, let’s talk about skillet cake.  “Visiting cake,” as the wonderful Dorie Greenspan calls this one.  Isn’t the name kind of perfect?  Cake and visits should go hand in hand, I think.  Anyway, I’m not entirely sure what makes this cake Swedish, but we are all children of the world and this cake is good so let’s just eat it.  

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Buckwheat Berry Buckle

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Confession: I made this snacky, breakfasty buckle cake a year ago, but kept it entirely to myself — that is, I forgot to share it with you.  …Also I had four spoonfuls of ice cream for breakfast this morning (Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Cup).  Except maybe it was six spoonfuls.  Oops.

At any rate, now that berry season is upon us (here in California, anyway), it’s time for the jewel-toned crisps and crumbles, cobblers and betties and buckles to come out of the wood work.  And I think by “the wood work” I mean “your oven.”  (Side note: if I end up having three children and those children end up being two boys and a girl, I will be hard pressed not to name them Crisp, Buckle and Betty.  My kids are going to be so popular.)

I’ve been experimenting a bit with buckwheat as of late; I made buttermilk buckwheat pancakes just last week with my tiny-faced students, and then there’s this buckle.  A buckwheat berry buckle.  (Alliteration is fun.)  Turns out I really like the rich, delicate, nutty flavor that buckwheat flour contributes to baked goods – it seems to elevate things, somehow.

I was intrigued to learn that using buckwheat flour, even just the scant quarter cup called for here, darkens the batter (whether pancake or cookie or buckle) pretty significantly.  So it doesn’t make for the prettiest crumb topping at this berry buckle ball — but I happen to know that you’re not into artificial, skin-deep beauty.  You wait to make judgements until you’ve gotten to know what’s inside.  And in this case?  What’s inside is cake.  Deeply-purplish and royally ruby-splotched, berry-laden cake.

Grab a fork and a cup of creamy coffee!  It’s berry baking time.

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Ben’s Berry Smoothie

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The best part of having a sister who’s getting married in September is that she will invite you to join her cake tasting committee.  To “help.”  (You’re so helpful!)

Also that she has found her match and will embark upon a new and happy phase of life with him by her side – that part, yes, is a pretty good part of the general your-sister-is-engaged situation.  But getting invited to the wedding cake tasting is, you know, right up there.

So maybe you spent the whole weekend eating cake?  And dark ganache and smooth fruit curds and various flavors of buttercream?  (Thanks, A Cupcake Wonderland.)  So what?

This morning, like pretty much most other mornings since you bucked up and bought a blender, you will be awoken to the sound of loud things crashing around inside that machine.  On the one hand, you’ll be annoyed — in a bleary-eyed, frizzy-haired and too-tired-to-actually-get-annoyed sort of way.  You’re pretty sure you were just sleeping, quite soundly, a minute ago.

On the other hand, breakfast in bed!  It’s a trade-off, really.

A fruit-and-yogurt-packed smoothie rights all wrongs.  It erases all traces of errant cake crumbs and swipes of buttercream.  It makes you feel okay about that extra spoonful of salted peanut ganache.

Is that sort of logic foolproof?  Will it hold a bunch of water?  I mean, probably not.  Do I still want to jump on the breakfast smoothie bandwagon?  You bet your frozen berries I do.

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Meyer Lemon Yogurt Mousse

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YOU GUYS.  I’m back with the Meyer lemons again.  I can’t stop won’t stop singing their praises, it seems.  But the things a Meyer lemon can bring!  So many wondrous and enchanting and damn good things.

Things like lemon almond loaf cake.

And dream curd.

And muffins with gingerbread zing.

And mousse!  Moose.  Mousse.  Oui.

See the things?  I want all the things.

Let’s talk about this mousse – about how it’s bright and fresh and amazingly light, both in texture and in life.  Caloric life.  Or whatever.  It’s reduced-guilt mousse!  Is what I mean.

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Baked Coconut Caramel Doughnuts

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Sometimes a girl just needs a doughnut.

Now is one of those times.

It’s not fair, really.  Because, in life, if I see a doughnut, I need to have one.  It doesn’t matter what time it is or exactly how much caramel is involved or how hard my thighs try to tell me to resist – the craving has set.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t go into any sort of face-shoving-doughnut frenzy — I’m a lady, you guys.  Most of the time.  But once my brain has doughnuts inside it, you’d better believe there will be a doughnut in the near future of my face.  And if glaze or sprinkles are involved? Well then I’m pretty much done for.

There are a number of sources which have fueled my doughnut-brain of late: the newest issue of Saveur (which I haven’t even read yet but HOLY DOUGHNUTS), the bomboloni lady at the Ferry Building (why are you and your pastries so cute and covered with sugar?), and Shutterbean Tracy (girl, what are you doing to me??).

So you see, it can’t be helped.  Doughnuts must be had.  Baked, dipped, had.

Done.  Thank goodness.

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Almond Milk Pancakes

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Today is a holiday!  A Monday to sleep late, for some, and maybe read the paper by the window.  A day to dream.  Perfect for pancakes.

I wish I could invite you over to eat pancakes!  I’d make a pot of tea, and probably some bacon, and I’d slice up some sweet oranges.  We’d sit on the floor at the coffee table, in the bright patch of sun, with our pancakes and too much maple syrup, and I’d make you tell me everything.

Because I’ve been thinking about us.  About you, really.  Firstly, I’d like to say thanks for stopping by. Really, thank you.  And secondly, I’d like to know, who are you?  I mean, you know a few things about me — too many things, probably — because I sit here every week and I talk about what I’m doing in the kitchen, what I’m doing out of the kitchen, how I’m feeling (about cookies), , how much pie I’ve eaten (too much, obviously), how many miles I got tricked into running.  I type and I type and I talk at you, word after word and story after story, all the while oblivious to who actually constitutes the you in this relationship.

So, if you don’t mind, who are you, lovely reader?  Would you tell me a little bit about yourself?  I’d love to know.  How do you take your pancakes?  Do you like Beyonce?  What’s your favorite Meg Ryan movie? (Correct answer: When Harry Met Sally, closely followed by You’ve Got Mail).  If you left a comment and told me something about you, anything really, like maybe what you must have atop your favorite ice cream sundae or what the view from your kitchen window looks like, I’d feel a lot better about our relationship.

In the meantime, have some pancakes.  Heavy on the maple syrup, for me.  And for you?  You. I can’t wait to meet you!

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Cheesy Leek & Delicata Squash Tart

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There’s an old man who sits in my local coffee shop all day.  I probably didn’t notice him the first few times I ran in for a latte, but I bet he was there.  He’s always there.  Reading a newspaper and holding a pen, sometimes making notes in the margins.  He wears thin silver glasses, wispy white hairs, a navy blue sport coat over a blue striped shirt and a navy blue ascot around his neck.  I think that’s what made me notice him, at first – the ascot.  I didn’t think much about him, initially.  Just, you know, cool ascot.  But the coffee shop days wore on, and I started noticing.

I noticed that he likes ginger cookies.  His thin lips rarely smile, and his Roman nose is always gloriously beet red.  His thin pocket square slumps down in his breast pocket like a deflated dream, barely visible except when he leans over his paper to catch the small print.  He’s always getting up and sitting back down, teetering around the coffee shop with a slow purpose, it seems.  He chews with his mouth wide open and throws stray pastry crumbs on the ground.  He’s got lots of stray crumbs.

This man often makes me smile, as I sit and work and sip.  He also makes me sad.  Who is this man?  What are his stories?  Why does he sit in this coffee shop, day after day, wearing his sport coat and ascot?  What is he writing in those margins?  Letters?  Short stories?  Nothing at all?

I don’t know.  He interests me.  I hope his life is happy.  I hope he’s got a nice family.  Somehow, I’m not sure that’s true.  Watching him makes me thankful for my own life, loves, family.  I guess that’s all I really mean to say.

All of which has nothing to do with this cheesy leek and Delicata squash tart, except that I made it for my love of a sister, who was here visiting over the weekend.  We ate it warm for dinner alongside bowls of creamy carrot potato soup, then snacked on it cold the next day, like leftover pizza.  It’s definitely better warm, but when you’re snacking and gossiping with your visiting little sister, it turns out it doesn’t much matter.

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Baked Cinnamon Sugared Pumpkin Doughnuts

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These doughnuts are baked and not fried, cinnamon-sugared and not plain, eaten and not saved.  Both dunked and crumbled.  Take the leap!  Make some doughnuts.

Other leaps worth taking, while we’re on the subject:

Write things, even if you feel silly writing them.

Get up and out of the house.  Take a walk.  Wander.  Travel somewhere far!  If you can.

Send somebody a letter.  Like, in the mail.  (The mail, mail.)  What’s better than getting a nice letter written by hand?

Talk to that guy you think is so-o-o-oo cute.  Call him maybe.

Pause for a minute.  Look around.  Ok, go.

Wear something you think you can’t pull off.  If you’re wearing it (and walking tall in those boots), you’re pulling it off.

Use real butter.  Just, please do.

Be a friend.  A real one.  Everyone needs those.

Just a few leaps to keep in mind.  Mostly reminders to put yourself out there – socially, personally, professionally.  Mentally?

Sometimes I need a little extra push, a voice that says “go!” and “YOU can do it.”  Because things don’t always work out, but sometimes they do.  When they do, you’ll be glad you wrote that letter, or wore that skirt.  And when they don’t?  Well, then we get up, dust off, move on.  And either way, there are doughnuts.

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Lemon-ish Berry Berry Muffins

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“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”

“What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”

“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.

These are what’s happening exciting today.

Lemon-ish berry berry muffins, only faintly sweet and fortified with lemon zest, Greek yogurt, whole wheat pastry flour and (likely) the last of summer’s sweet berries.

These could be what’s happening exciting tomorrow, too!  Lemon-ish.  Breakfasty.  Berry Berry-able.  Muffinosity!

And if you wanted to make things extra exciting by bedazzling these with a simple lemon glaze, I wouldn’t be the one to stop you.  Just saying.

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