Thousand Flowers Tart

Thousand Flowers Tart

When Jennifer from The Burley Hen purchased a tiny vial of millefiori a year ago, putting a single drop into her pancake batter, she somehow knew, at first taste, that I should have it instead. And so it made a short trip from Queens to Manhattan, a single drop less, and waiting. Most likely waiting for me to turn on my poet-brain. This entire recipe, from thinking it, being frustrated with it, to tasting it multiple times, brought me back to those days I’d fuss over a single poem.

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While I was super excited to have this flower concentrate in the house, I also had no idea what I wanted to do with it, as there are not too many recipes online. Mostly a lot of Pastiera; an Italian Easter cake. (That’s another thing I miss about writing a poem. The researching that comes with it. I do hope that we all take the time to know and understand the roots of the thing that we are making.)

It wasn’t until receiving sunflower flour from Tory that this idea for a tart came to, well, you know, blossom. Not to sound cheesy. As she handed the bag of flour to me, along with a spankin’ new tart pan (my FIRST in 2019! I have now bought myself some mini tart pans newly pictured here), it was a no-brainer. I wanted everything about what I create to somehow be about flowers, but in subtle ways. The crust, the filling…and what about toppings? I spent an entire day looking for edible flowers the first time I tested out this recipe and found not a single one. Mind you, they were EVERYWHERE at the greenmarkets of NYC during that time. But then it hit me.

FIGS. Inverted flowers. The loves of my life.

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Developing a recipe out of ingredients that were all gifts makes this special to me. The sunflour, which is darker than flour, adds depth to the crust. The crushed graham sweetens it, but also tones down the possibility of a bitter and very dark crust. Look at this color contrast! Fast forward to 2020, and I’ve come across other sunflours that are lighter. But still. This is magic.

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for the crust of a 9″ tart pan or 3 4″ tart pans with removable bottoms

– 1 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs
– 1/4 cup sunflower flour (I use Hudson Valley Cold Pressed Oils)
– 1/4 cup brown sugar
– few pinches of salt
– 7 tbs unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 225 degrees. (We’re just gently toasting the crust.)

In a medium bowl, whisk your dry ingredients til well incorporated and, using a fork, stir in the melted butter. In a 9″ tart pan or 4″ tart pans with removable bottoms, press mixture with hands or the bottom of a measuring cup til everything is nice and compact. Bake for about 8 minutes, til fragrant.

Cool down 1 hour before use.

for the filling (if you have some left over, no worries! have yourself a crustlesl tart)

– 2 cups half and half
– 3 long strips of orange zest
– 1/2 cup sugar
– 4 egg yolks, from large organic eggs
– 1/4 cup cornstarch, sifted
– pinch of salt
– 1/4 tsp millefiori (flower concentrate)
– 2 tbs unsalted butter, cut

1. Under medium heat, scald milk with orange zest and pour into a measuring cup. Set aside for 10 minutes so that the orange lightly infuses the milk. Stir in the flower concentrate.

2. In a medium pot, whisk together your eggs and sugar and then add your sifted cornstarch and salt. Whisk whisk whisk for about 5 minutes, or until the mixture becomes light in color.

3. Remove orange zest from the milk and gradually pour into the egg mixture, whisking continuously. At this point you’ll turn on the heat to medium and whisk whisk whisk til the mixture thickens. Remove from heat. Let it cool down a couple of minutes before stirring in the butter.

4. Place in a heat-proof bowl and cover with plastic wrap. The plastic wrap should make direct contact with the top of the pastry cream so that a skin does not form. Let it cool down 15-20 minutes more and then put it in the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours, or up to 2 days.

5. When ready to assemble, smooth out the pastry cream into the cooled-down crust, and decorate!

topping suggestions

– figs
– edible flowers
– any berry in season

After you take your photos, “pour on the fruit” as my mother would say. For 2020, there was no going to union square for the fruit or the flowers. I haven’t been there since the beginning of march and I don’t think I’ll head there any time soon. I waited an entire year to reshoot this tart. When I saw that my local market was not bringing in edible flowers, I ordered them online from FarmOne, and I ordered gooseberies and blueberies from OurHarvest. But really, get what you can right now and I promise you the taste of late spring and deep summer.

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fig and orange-zested cake

fig and orange-zested cake

How’s everyone this Sunday?

I planned on not doing anything for Easter, but I needed to lift the spirit of the house, and some figs and oh-so-buttery cake sounded like just the thing we needed . Am I right?

Think pound cake, but not measured out the way a pound cake traditionally is made.

-180 grams (1 1/2 cup) AP flour
-150 grams (3/4 cup) sugar
-3/4 tsp baking powder
-pinch of salt
-200 grams butter, unsalted, softened
-3 large eggs, room temp
-3 tbs warm milk
-1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
-zest from one medium orange
-6 figs, sliced

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease and dust with flour your loaf pan. Mine was 9×13.

1. In a large bowl, whisk together your flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

2. In a separate bowl, use a hand mixer to whisk your butter, eggs, milk, vanilla extract, and zest til light in color, about 4 minutes.

3. Add half your wet ingredients into your dry and gently fold. Add the other half and keep folding til well incorporated and no lumps appear.

4. Transfer half the batter to the loaf pan and layer the top with thin slices of fig. Add the rest and repeat. Bake for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Happy Easter everyone!

aprium and blueberry galangal crumb pie

aprium and blueberry galangal crumb pie

For one full day, I went around telling people I’ve come across the most beautiful-tasting ginger on earth. True story. Check my instagram.

This is because Maria, the wonderful woman selling them, told me they were ginger. I’m beginning to think she wanted to turn intetesting words down a notch to make a quicker sale. I’m not mad. But I was definitely confused after trying to make ginger tea. It tasted of flowers and a certain tartness I couldn’t put a finger on, with less heat. Then, struck by weird coincidence, it’s twin came up on Chopped. Galangal. Looked root-crazy and had that same almost-turmeric color.

Now that I’ve got answers, I wanted to make pie. I’ve no idea where the urge came from, but I had gorgeous apriums…look at them

and pairing them with blueberries and galangal seemed like the perfect thing for this one.

The combination is BEAUTIFUL. The galangal gives each bite another level of warmth, with a touch of lemony petals. And that crumb? Guys. C’mon.

preheat oven to 350

for the crumb topping

-3/4 cup flour
-1/2 cup light brown sugar
-2 tsp galangal, grated
-8 tbs butter, cubed

In a bowl, add your flour, sugar, and galangal. Massage the galangal into the dried ingredients to give it some extra flavor. Add your butter and cut it into the dried ingredients til large crumbs form. I use my hands, usually squeezing everything together to get really big crumbs. Pop it in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

for the filling

-3 cups fresh blueberries, some mashed
-3 cups chopped apriums
-couple of tbs flour, just enough to coat
-couple of tbs sugar (these fruits were sweet as is)
-1 tbs lemon
-1 tbs galangal or ginger, grated or minced

In a bowl, mix all of the above together and let it sit for about 15 minutes. Stir to see if a thick liquid is present. If not, let it sit for 10 more minutes.

-1 9″ pie crust (optional if you’re going for a cobbler)

Fill your pie crust then top it with all the crumbs. Bake for about 45-50 minutes. Serve with espresso, by the lake, if you have one.