Cooking with Kefir and a Chocolate Mousse Tart

My latest fermentation project, following in the footsteps of sauerkraut and bread starter, has been to culture kefir. To maintain this culture, you simply transfer a tablespoon of kefir to a fresh cup of milk and let it sit on your kitchen counter for about 24 hours. The result is a tart, thickened milk that I've started deploying in all sorts of guises. 

Using regular pint Mason jars for the culturing lends itself to preparing smoothies with my favorite trick of screwing the blender blade directly onto the jar. If you like, you can make yourself a daily smoothie after passaging a tablespoon of kefir for the next batch.

I've been preparing smoothies with about a cup of kefir, a half banana, and a teaspoon each of honey and chia seeds, which make a perfect midmorning snack.

I also found that adding a spoonful of kefir resulted in an extremely exuberant bread starter crumpet batter (reminiscent of Katharine Hepburn's waffle batter from Woman of the Year) and deliciously spongey crumpets.

For ~1 cup of old bread starter (~250 grams), add 1 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1 tablespoon kefir. Mix well and then add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and pour into well-oiled crumpet rings on a hot, well-oiled skillet to cook.

A final, recent use for my kefir was to add a bit of tartness to a chocolate mousse tart. Truth be told, this tart, for my son's birthday, was entirely motivated by my desire to use up a rye flour pie crust I had prepared for Thanksgiving and then accidentally left behind in the freezer when we dashed to the coast. Rye and chocolate is a classic combination, and filling a pie crust with chocolate mousse seemed like an easy way to please a newly minted eight year old.

I started with this recipe, and then, inspired by the success of using creme fraiche in chocolate fondue, I whipped in some kefir with the heavy cream (I've also used my kefir to culture heavy cream into creme fraiche, which works very well, but in this instance, I didn't have time). The resulting tart was a big success with the beaming birthday boy. 

Chocolate Mousse Tart with a Rye Crust

pie crust (based on Heidi Swanson's recipe)

1/3 cup (38 g) rye flour (I used rye flour from Lonesome Whistle Farm)

3/4 cup (88 g) unbleached all purpose white flour

1/8 tsp salt

4 Tbsp butter (1 stick), cut into 1/2 inch cubes

~1/6 cup ice water

Combine the flour and salt in a food processor and mix. Pulse in the butter cubes until they are lima bean sized. Then add enough water for the dough to just come together when you press it between your fingers. Mold into a disc, wrap with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Roll out into a 12 inch disc, drape into a buttered tart pan, flute the edges and patch where you need to, and now chill again for at least 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Cover the crust with aluminum foil and use rice or beans as pie weights. Bake for 10 minutes, then allow to cook completely before you fill the crust.

chocolate mousse

12 ounces bittersweet chocolate

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 3/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 kefir (or creme fraiche)

1/4 cup sugar

1. Pulse the chocolate, vanilla and salt in a food processor until the chocolate is in small pieces. Bring 1 cup cream to a boil in a heavy small saucepan. With the processor running, gradually pour the hot cream through the feed tube and process until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Transfer to a large bowl and allow to cool to room temperature.

2. Beat remaining 1 3/4 cups of of cream, 1/4 cup kefir, and 1/4 cup sugar in large bowl to stiff peaks. Fold the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture. Pour the mousse into prepared crust. Chill until set, about 6 hours. 

Marbled Birthday Cupcakes

This year, my Winter Solstice seven-year-old son was eager to help bake his birthday cupcakes. We decided on chocolate and vanilla marbled ones (no need to give a bunch of bouncing seven year olds too many choices). We adapted this marble cake recipe from Chocolate and Zucchini, and my son laboriously transcribed the ingredient list, increased by 50% to ensure sufficient cupcakes for his party.

He distributed the first layer of vanilla batter,

helped mix in melted chocolate for the top layer,

and marbled the two with a skewer. 

The resulting cupcakes were just big enough to hold seven candles for the afternoon festivities, and just plentiful enough for a second afterdinner wish.

Marbled Cupcakes

adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini, makes 18-24 cupcakes

150 grams (7 ounces) good-quality bittersweet chocolate
6 eggs
330 grams (2 cup plus 4 tablespoons) sugar
3/4 cup yogurt or buttermilk
330 grams (3 1/3 cups) flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
180 grams (a little less than 13 Tbsp) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
pinch of salt
1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 330°F.

2. Melt the butter in the microwave, and set aside to cool. Melt the chocolate in the microwave, and set aside. 

3. Combine the flour with the baking powder and pinch of salt and set aside.

4. By hand or in a mixer, beat together the eggs and the sugar until frothy. Add in buttermilk and whisk to combine. Combine in the flour mixture and then incorporate the melted butter and the vanilla, without over mixing. 

5. Line 18 to 24 muffin tins with paper muffin cups. Scoop a soup spoon of batter into each cup, using half of the batter. Mix the melted chocolate into the remaining batter. Scoop a soup spoon of the chocolate batter into each cup. The cups should be about 3/4 full. Using a skewer, pierce each mound of dough and give it a quick swirl to create the marbling.

6. Bake for 25-28 minutes until a clean skewer comes out clean.

Note: we made 18 cupcakes (our household's muffin tin capacity) and had batter leftover for a mini cake, so I think one could stretch this recipe to 24 cupcakes. 

Traveling Companion Bread

Last weekend we retreated to the coast to celebrate a couple of family birthdays and marvel at the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. While packing, our luggage, as always, became densely populated with co-traveling stuffed animals, because you never know when makka pakka or totoro will be needed (and in fact they came in handy as a Bludger and Snitch, respectively, in an impromptu game of Quidditch).

This trip, I sneaked in my own traveling companion of a batch of no knead bread dough, made with Lonesome Whistle Farm red fife and rye flour. The slowly fermenting culture rode along happily in a large tupperware container, basking in the faint warmth of sun breaks as we played in the marbled sand. 

When we arrived at Yachats in the late afternoon, I plopped my friend into a loaf pan to rest as we explored the cottage and discovered a newt in a backyard stream. By dinnertime, the fragrance of yeasty bread enveloped our cottage, and even though the loaf was a bit mangled by the sticky pan and dull bread knife, it tasted delicious. Replete with the virtues of patience, adaptability, and ultimately good taste, this dough makes the perfect traveling companion.

Traveling Companion Bread

based on Jim Lahey's No Knead Bread

1 cup rye flour
2 cups whole wheat flour (such as Lonesome Whistle Farm red fife flour)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp yeast
1 1/2 cups water
coarse corn meal for coating the dough

1. The evening before your trip, or early that morning, combine the flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add 1 1/2 cups water and stir until blended (a dough whisk is handy for this). Dust a large tupperware container with corn meal, put the dough in, and seal loosely. Let the dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, and preferably at about 70 degrees, but don't worry too much about temperature fluctuations during your trip.

2. Hopefully when you arrive at your destination, your dough will have doubled in size and become speckled with bubbles. Check whether there is a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) available for baking your bread according to Jim Lahey's method. Otherwise, locate a loaf pan or baking sheet.

Lightly flour a work surface and place the dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Place it in an oiled loaf pan, shape it into a loaf on a baking sheet, or form it into a ball on a floured cotton towel. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise again, ideally for about 2 hours, but it will still be delicious if given less time.

3. About an hour before dinner, start heating your oven to 450 degrees. If using, put your heavy pot in the oven to preheat. When the oven is hot, put your bread in to bake. If using a preheated pot, carefully slide your hand under the towel and turn the dough over into pot; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake the pan once or twice if the dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with a lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until the loaf is beautifully browned. When you tap it with your fingernail it should sound hollow. Cool on a rack or devour immediately.

Yogurt Cake: Child's Play

My son's birthday is on winter solstice, and it's hard for me to believe that he is already five. Among the many remarkable implications of this statistic is that his sister is nine and a half and quite capable of baking him a birthday cake. Although her preference would be for chocolate, her brother requested a white cake. I suggested that she try a gateau au yaourt, which is apparently a recipe that all French children master at an early age. In fact, you can measure out all the ingredients in individual yogurt containers. Since we buy big tubs of Nancy's yogurt, my daughter used regular measuring cups, and not being too strict about European traditions, Swedish horse cake pans.

During baking, the batter spilled out a little from the pans, but just enough for the baker to sample her work before the official celebration.

When the time arrived, we dressed up the little cake as an elaborate zebra with a whipped cream coat and raspberry stripes. My son was delighted to have a cake baked by his big sister and devoured the whole thing. My daughter was proud of her baking accomplishment and vowed to stop calling her brother "baby" (unless he does something especially annoying).

Gâteau au Yaourt
from Chocolate and Zucchini

1 cup whole milk plain unsweetened yogurt (or use two 4 oz yogurts, and use the containers to measure out the rest of the ingredients)

2 eggs

1 cup sugar (2 yogurt containers)

1/3 cup vegetable oil (bit less than 1 yogurt container)

2 cups all-purpose flour (4 yogurt containers)

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

a good pinch of salt

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract


1. Preheat the oven to 350° F, grease a round 10-inch cake pan or equivalent. 

2. In a large mixing-bowl, gently combine the yogurt, eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla. 

3. In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour mixture into the yogurt mixture, and blend together without overworking the batter. 

4. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the top is golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean (the little horse cake was done after 20 minutes). Let stand for ten minutes, and transfer onto a rack to cool.

Buckwheat Chocolate Cake

It is birthday season in our household. For her birthday party, my daughter considered offering her favorite meal of homemade pasta with pesto and rhubarb buckle, but was worried that not all of her friends would like this menu, so she decided instead on pizza and chocolate cake. Her thoughtfulness in this matter is exemplary of her gentle and generous nature, nascent nine years ago in her deep brown newborn eyes and more apparent with each passing year.

She is not a fan of flamboyant cakes and cloying icing. Instead she favors subtle, fresh flavors and (a girl after my own heart) bittersweet chocolate. Searching for a suitable birthday cake, this buckwheat chocolate one from Beatrice Peltre caught my eye, especially since we still have a sizable stash of buckwheat flour from our Lonesome Whistle Farm CSA. 

This is almost a flourless chocolate cake (and an entirely gluten-free one). The small amount of almond meal adds a rich texture and the buckwheat gives a hint of sourness that complements the bittersweet notes of the chocolate.

A decorative dusting of powdered sugar and a scoop of vanilla ice cream elevated this subtle cake into party fare suitable for celebrating a truly sweet daughter.

Buckwheat Chocolate Cake

adapted from Smitten Kitchen, 

adapted from La Tartine Gourmande: Recipes for an Inspired Life 

7 Tbsp unsalted butter, plus extra for buttering pan
4 ounces bittersweet dark chocolate
4 large eggs at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
A good pinch of sea salt
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
scant 1/4 cup slivered almonds
Confectioners’ sugar to serve (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch cake pan and line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper. Melt the butter and chocolate together in in short bursts in the microwave, stirring frequently. Set aside.

2. Prepare the almond meal by pulsing together the slivered almonds and buckwheat flour in a food processor until finely ground.

3. In the bowl of a stand mix or with a handheld mixer, beat the eggs and sugar with salt until light and pale and doubled in volume. Deb Perelman advises that one spend 5 to even 9 minutes on this to develop the cake's crumb, but with my little handheld mixer I didn't have quite the stamina for this and the cake still turned out nicely.

4. Gently fold in the vanilla and melted chocolate mixture. Sprinkle the buckwheat and almond mixture over the batter and fold gently to combine. Pour into prepared pan and bake for about 25 minutes until a tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out dry.

5. Let cool for five minutes on a rack then invert onto the rack, remove the parchment paper, and return upright on a serving plate. Serve in wedges, dusted with powdered sugar.

UPDATE: I made a Pacific Northwest version of this cake with ground hazelnuts instead of almonds and it was delicious.

Birthday Rhubarb Buckle

We spent the weekend on the Oregon coast, soaking up the natural beauty, exploring the marine creatures of the intertidal zone,

and consuming them for dinner (recipe: purchase a pound of mussels and clams and a decent bottle of white wine. Make a simple tomato sauce, add as much of the wine as you're willing to spare, steam the shellfish in the sauce until they open up, and eat them over linguini, accompanied by the remaining wine).

Food always taste better after a long stroll on the beach. And there's a certain pleasure to cooking with minimal equipment and supplies, a reminder that some of the tastiest food is the simplest, like fresh baked bread.

We did have an important cooking task at hand, since it was my husband's birthday. Rather than a cake, my daughter and I had decided to make him a rhubard ginger buckle, from the cookbook Rustic Fruit Dessert by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson. Everything I've made from this cookbook has been delicious, including another buckle, a cobbler, and a birthday pandowdy, but this is our favorite. My daughter had laboriously copied out the recipe, and we'd packed rhubarb and candied ginger. With no electric beater, we had to recruit the birthday boy into helping cream the butter, sugar, and eggs. 

The rest came together easily. The sliced rhubarb is simply folded into the cake batter, which is topped with a candied ginger crumble.

The final buckle is a delicious combination of tart fruit and sweet, spicy ginger topping. Perfect for a beachside birthday celebration.

Rhubarb Buckle with Ginger Crumb

from “Rustic Fruit Desserts” 
by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson

Ginger Crumb Topping

1/3 cup granulated sugar

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ cup finely chopped candied ginger

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Cake

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon powdered ginger
½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

¾ cup buttermilk, at room temperature

1 pound rhubarb, trimmed and thinly sliced (about 2 ½ cups, or 5 stalks)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch round baking pan with butter.

2. To make the topping, mix sugar, flour and candied ginger together in a bowl, then stir in melted butter, until well combined. Place crumb in freezer while you mix cake batter – this chills the crumb so it will not immediately melt into the cake when baked.

3. To make the cake, whisk flour, baking powder, ginger, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. Using a hand-held mixer with beaters or a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Stir in flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk in two additions, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients and scraping down sides of the bowl as you progress. Gently fold in rhubarb.

4. Spread batter into the prepared pan, then sprinkle ginger crumb over the cake. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until lightly golden and firm on top.

Wrapped in plastic wrap, the cake will keep at room temperature for 2-3 days.

Makes 8-12 servings.

Birthday Dumplings with a Figgy Surprise

All of a sudden it seems that everyone is abuzz about aebleskiver. My first reaction was "What?". But when I was treated to some of these Danish pancake spheres prepared with expert aplomb by a friend in Salt Lake City, I understood the appeal. I'm a big fan of pancakes all all shapes and sizes, and these balls of buttery, eggy fluffiness are mouthwatering when served hot from the pan. So I asked for an aebleskiver pan for my birthday (or rather I snatched one up in the hardware store when we were out buying gardening supplies and shoved it into my husband's hand before dashing off to prevent my three year old from toppling over a large display of assorted nails).

Back home, I seasoned the pan, and then watched some Youtube videos on making aebleskiver. My first reaction was "You've got to be kidding!" The implement used is a skewer! Somehow you are supposed to take a pool of liquid batter, poke at it with a thin stick, and magically produce a spherical popover. 

I prepared the batter, which is fluffy from whipped egg whites and tangy from buttermilk. For the first batch I tried, I put in dollops of jam. 

After a few moments of cooking, you are supposed to coax the nascent aebleskivers sideways,

and then poke and prod them around until they become spherical. It turns out that there are many ways to produce non-spherical aebleskiver, such as flat discs or basket-shaped structures with cavernous gaping holes. Luckily, they all taste good. 

Emboldened by this first attempt, and with remaining batter, I was inspired to create a dessert aebleskiver of a stuffed dumpling stuffed with a stuffed fig. A dumpling turdunken. To soften the figs, I simmered them in a little red wine.

Meanwhile, I toasted some hazelnuts in a dry skillet, and chilled some chocolate chips. Then I pulsed these in a food processor to make a coarse meal.

To stuff the figs, I made a slit down the side, pressed down the flesh and spooned in the chocolate and hazelnut mixture. Then I prepared some aebleskiver. It turned out that having a solid base in the middle made the turning process much easier and produced aebleskiver whose volume more closely approximated the cube of their radius times pi. They were also delicious.

As a last minute inspiration, I mixed up the reduced fig-flavored wine with a little creme fraiche, which made a lovely accompaniment for the fig filled aebelskiver. As a pleasant post birthday surprise, this recipe was picked as an editors' choice on the food52 website.

Aebleskiver filled with chocolate and hazelnut stuffed figs

• 14 dried figs, such as black mission
• 1/2 cup fruity red wine, such as a Zinfandel
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 egg yoke
• 1 egg white
• 1 tablespoon melted butter for the batter, plus more for the pan
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 cup hazelnuts
• 1/8 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup creme fraiche
• powdered sugar

1. 1. Snip the stems from the figs and, in a small sauce pan, simmer them in the red red wine, turning occasionally, for about ten minutes, until much of the wine reduces and is absorbed by the figs. Remove from the heat and leave the softened figs in the wine until ready to use.
2. 2. Prepare the fig stuffing. Chill the chocolate chips in the freezer so that they won't melt when chopped. Lightly toast the hazelnuts in a dry skillet, then allow to cool. Chop the chocolate chips and hazel nuts in a small electric chopper or food processor until they form a coarse meal.
3. 3. Stuff the softened figs by cutting a slit down the length, then using your fingers to press in the fig flesh to make a cavity, and filling this with a small spoonful of the minced hazelnut and chocolate mixture. Set aside. Reserve the remaining fig-flavored red wine for creme fraiche topping.
4. Prepare the batter by combining the dry ingredients in one bowl and whisking together the buttermilk, egg yoke and melted butter in another bowl. Beat the egg white until stiff. Combine the dry ingredients into the wet. The batter should be runny like a thickish pancake batter. Add a little more buttermilk if necessary to achieve the right consistency. Then fold in the egg white.
5. Heat an aebleskiver pan and butter well. Fill each of the cavities to about 1/2 the height with batter. Then place a stuffed fig into each well and top with a little more batter to cover the fig and fill the well. Cook for about a minute. With a skewer tip the dumpling to one side so that the cooked half dome is perpendicular to the pan and cook for another minute. Now catch each dumpling on the corner between the first half dome and the second half dome and rotate this to the top, so that the least cooked face of the dumpling points downwards. Keep rotating the dumplings for a few more minutes until they are golden brown on all sides and cooked through.
6. Prepare a topping to serve with the dumplings by mixing in a few tablespoons of the reduced figgy red wine with creme fraiche to taste. Serve the dumplings warm with a dollop of the flavored creme fraiche, and if you like, a sprinkle of powdered sugar. 

Apple Pandowdy

My son asked that we make a cake for his friend Raiko's third birthday. Since he has not yet formulated a rigid definition of cake, I suggested we make an apple recipe I'd been wanting to try from Rustic Fruit Desserts by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson. It's called a pandowdy: baked right in a pan with no claims to elegance or beauty. 

The recipe suggests using a mixture of apples. I used granny smith and braeburn, peeled, cored, sliced, and tossed in sugar, cinnamon, vanilla extract and lemon juice.

We piled these into a cast iron skillet and dotted them with butter.

The pastry was a simple biscuit dough with butter cut into flour and then just enough milk stirred in to bring it together. We rolled this out to just less than the size of the pan.

Then we carefully inverted the dough onto the apples (a silicone baking mat comes in handy for this) and my daughter cut three steam vents.

The pandowdy baked for 35 minutes until the top was golden.

I was expected the final product to be a kind of lowbrow tart tartin, an upside down tart with caramelized apples, but it is really more of an apple crumble, with the apples remaining quite firm. Still, it was really delicious, especially with a scoop of Prince Puckler's vanilla bean ice cream. And it was sturdy enough to hold up three birthday candles and withstand two toddlers' huffing and puffing.

Apple Pandowdy

adapted from Rustic Fruit Desserts

Pastry

1 1/2 cups flour

3 Tbsp granulated sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp fine sea salt

6 Tbsp cold unsalted butter

1/2 cup whole milk or buttermilk

Fruit Filling

8 large apples, peeled, cored, and each cut into 16 slices (3.5 lbs. prepped)

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Pinch of fine sea salt

1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

1. To make the pastry, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl. Cut the butter into 1-inch pieces, add to the flour mixture, and toss evenly to coat. Using your fingertips or a pastry blender, cut in the butter until completely broken down into the flour mixture. Add the milk a couple tablespoons at a time, stirring well after each addition to evenly moisten the dough. Add only enough milk for the dough to come together in a relatively dry mass. Gather the dough into a ball, then pat it flat. Wrap the dough in a silicone mat or plastic wrap and refrigerate it while you make the filling.

2. To make the fruit filling, toss the apples, sugar, cinnamon, salt, lemon juice, and vanilla together in a large bowl, then transfer the mixture to a buttered 10 inch cast iron skillet or baking dish. Cut the butter into small cubes and scatter over the apples.

3. Roll out the pastry just a bit smaller that the size of the pan. (The small gap between the pastry and the sides of the pan will allow steam to escape.) Carefully drape the pastry over the apples, then cut 3 stem vents in the pastry.

4. Bake for 35 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and the filling bubbles up around the edges. This pandowdy is best served warm, topped with a small scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.