Summer Baking
The abundance of summer fruit has resulted in an immense amount of kitchen output on my part. Between the plums from mine and my coworker's backyards and the massive blackberry bush thicket at the top of the hill I live near, there's been no shortage of fruit, and thus, no shortage of sweets.
A few of the recipes that have made it into rotation lately:
Upside Down Cake, before upside down and cake.
David Lebovitz's Upside Down Cake; a well-received but modest little cake. I split the recipe in 2 and baked one in an 8" cast iron pan and the second in the Heath 607 pasta bowl. I'm a rebel who likes to shock her ceramics, against all warnings. So far, so good! I wish I had a photo of the final products, which turned out rather pretty. Alas, this pre-topped photo will have to suffice. The red plums are from my co-worker Tung's yard and the yellow plums are from my backyard.
Blackberry Pie Bars. This recipe made an enormous batch and I found the ratio of crust to filling a bit off. If I make it again, I'll only make a third of the crust and half of the filling.
A modified version of this bread pudding, with blackberries added in as a bottom layer. I used sourdough bread leftover from a Heath event and forewent the whiskey sauce; it made 2 ramekins and one 6x9 casserole dish. Turned out well!
My favorite so far is this Blackberry Cornmeal Cake, which also features ricotta and yogurt. I used olive oil in place of the vegetable oil, and blackberries instead of blueberries. The cake had an amazing texture and flavor and baked up nicely in my Crane dutch oven. And thank goodness I used that rather than a pie tin, as it was about 5" tall when all said and done.
To use up the remaining ricotta (and the dregs of the blackberries that persisted), I made these Blackberry-Ricotta Scones. I got distracted after adding in the butter and walked away for a bit too long, and I think the butter softened too much and incorporated strangely, ultimately yielding a funky texture. Very sponge like scones, but decent flavor.
Blackberry Tart (obvious slight modifications from the recipe as written). Again, the ratio of crust to filling felt a bit off to me, and I found that the topping didn't brown very nicely. The bottom crust ended up a bit too tough, but the filling had great flavor.
To bring with me on this weekend's hike up Mt. Dana, I baked a loaf of banana bread. It's been quite tasty with the first jar of this year's jam. For what it's worth, I used regular ol' flour for this recipe, making it decidedly not gluten-free.
And of course, jam! I'm at 12 1/2 pints so far in 2 flavors: jamaica-ginger-cinnamon-lemon-honey-plum jam and vanilla-cardamom jam. Another 8 pounds, stoned, is macerating in the fridge. Likely to be canned in the very near future. ETA: Made this cake and split it across 2 Chez Panisse side bowls.
Note to self: buy an actual springform pan. And added 8 more jars to the jam count this weekend, all a subtle vanilla-plum flavoring.
Some other recipes I've yet to make, but hopefully will soon: