Duck is probably one of the most common meats that I have eaten very little of in my lifetime.  Actually, until very recently in adulthood, I could only really remember one meal where I had eaten duck, at a Chinese restaurant when I was fairly young.  I remember it being fatty and savory and, to use a word that has been much overused in the culinary world as of late, unctuous.  For a long time, I regarded duck as a primarily Asian ingredient, out of the reach of ordinary American home chefs, since I never saw duck in supermarkets.

Seemingly out of nowhere, duck fat has somewhat become the fat du jour, alongside bacon in its ubiquitous revival.  I found it particularly interesting because in 1975, Julia Child wrote that “duck fat is not considered culinarily desirable.”  Having had duck fat fries, I would have agreed that it didn’t add any particularly special quality to the already notoriously delicious fried potato.  Still, I consider frying dinner’s potatoes in tonight’s rendered duck fat unwasteful, and indeed I found that the potatoes had taken on some transcendental quality that I could not quite identify.  I wouldn’t say that I would go out of my way to use duck fat if I didn’t enjoy duck, but I definitely wouldn’t throw away the more than half-cup of duck fat I rendered off two breasts either.

As for the sauce, in a stroke of impulse, I slaved for hours over a hot stove making it.  In other words, I opened a jar of jam and microwaved it for 15 seconds to melt it somewhat.  Yes, it was that easy, and it doesn’t have to be blackberry.  We have many jams in the fridge and I also considered lingonberry, marmalade, and apricot – cherry and raspberry might also be good choices.  Or, I dunno, salted caramel sauce?

blackberry sauced duck (2-4 servings)

Ingredients:

• 2 duck breasts
• 1/4 c. blackberry jam
• 1-2 russet potatoes

Directions:

1. Score the fat on the duck breasts in a cross-hatch pattern.  Sprinkle generously with salt on both sides.  Place fat-side down in a cold pan, and turn the heat up to medium-low.  The fat will render out over about 15 minutes or so, and in my case, the fat came about halfway up the duck breasts.
2. When the skin is brown and crispy, flip the breasts and let them cook another few minutes.  This particular poultry you can eat all the way up to rare, I understand, and for me (my breasts were butterflied) it took only about 3-5 minutes to get to well-done.  So, a thermometer might be your best friend if you’re looking for a specific degree of doneness.
3. Remove the breasts and set aside.  Pour out all but 2 tbsp. of duck fat.  Dice the potatoes in 1/2″ cubes and add to the skillet with a pinch of salt.  Cook about 20 minutes, or until cooked through.  If you find that your potatoes are sticking too much, and you don’t mind sacrificing the super-crispy skin, you can add a few tablespoons of water to the pan once or twice to allow steam to help the cooking process.
4. Place jam in a small ramekin and microwave until melted.  Slice duck breasts and pour sauce over.  Serve with potatoes.

We really like ham around our house.  Unfortunately, with only two full-time occupants, buying even a small ham can result in a lot leftover.  I bought this natural-looking (read: not round) chunk of ham specifically to fry up and serve with cream biscuits on Christmas morning.  Naturally that left us with a fairly sizable piece left and, while I’m not opposed to continuing to slice-and-fry, I was hoping for something a bit more imaginative.

With two bags of russet potatoes intended for latkes that never got made (because I am too lazy, apparently) and four leeks languishing in the fridge, I thought a thick, creamy soup would be perfectly appropriate for a cold winter night.

This soup recipe is incredibly easy, and it comes together in just about a half hour, with most of that time being inactive prep.  My one tip would be to go extra-easy on the salt, since ham tends to be fairly salty and it can overpower the delicate flavors of leek and potato if you’re not careful.

ham, potato, and leek soup (3-6 servings)

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. butter
• 4 leeks
• 2 russet potatoes
• 1 qt. low-sodium chicken broth
• 3/4 lb. ham, diced
• 1/4 – 1/2 c. cream, optional

Directions:

1. Melt butter in a soup pot over medium heat.  Slice the roots and dark green tops off leeks.  Slice lengthwise, then cross-wise, giving you half-moon pieces about 1/2″ thick.  Place leeks in a bowl, then run cold water over them until they are floating.  Swish them around with your fingertips, separating the leek pieces so that the water can wash away any bits of dirt or sand.
2. When the butter has melted, lift leeks out of the bowl with a spider, give it a quick shake to get rid of most of the water, and add leeks to the soup pot.  Cook about 5 minutes or so, until getting soft.
3. Rinse the potatoes and peel, if desired.  Chop into roughly 1/2″ pieces and add to the pot, along with the chicken broth.
4. Turn the heat up to high and bring to a boil.  Turn down to medium-high and simmer 15-25 minutes, or until potatoes are cooked through.
5. Turn off the heat.  With a hand blender, blend until the soup is perfectly smooth, or still has some lumps of potato – to your preferred texture.  Add ham and as much cream as you like.  Heat through.

Until recently, I had never had a Florentine, those thin, crispy almond-and-orange cookies.  I had seen them in the odd cookie book or collection, but for some reason they had never interested me enough to make.  In the end, for this particular recipe iteration, I’m not totally sure it was worth the time.  Oh, I can certainly see where it would be – they tasted great, after all.  Still, the amount of time needed to turn out what ended up being a very fragile and uneven product, well, it makes me think that I might need to rethink the recipe is all.

The issue is that the dough was very crumbly and hard to roll, and although that problem was fixable – warming the dough in my palms before making balls – it was time-consuming.  Also, the cookies spread far more than I was expecting, so far in fact that they had numerous holes in their surface, and I think, this can’t be right.  So, I’m thinking perhaps the fact that I didn’t pulverize my almonds enough was probably the culprit.  Also, several recipes called for corn syrup, and I used golden syrup, because I like the taste better.

florentines (makes about 30 4-inch sandwich cookies)

Note: When my oven was at 350, my edges got far too brown, nearly burning before the center was cooked past the point of being chewy.  So I eventually had to turn my oven down to 200 in order to get the edges and the middle to cook even close to evenly.  Again, not sure if this is a problem with my dough, so, if you’ve pulverized the almonds thoroughly enough, start off at 350 with your first batch, and keep turning down the oven accordingly, if needed.

Ingredients:

• 10 oz. blanched almonds, ground finely
• 1/4 c. + 2 tbsp. flour
• zest of 1 orange
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/4 c. each heavy cream + golden syrup
• 1 stick + 2 tbsp. butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 4 oz. chocolate (your choice of milk/semisweet/bittersweet)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together almonds, flour, orange zest, and salt.
3. In a saucepan, bring sugar, cream, golden syrup, and butter up to a boil.  Stir frequently and cook until the sugar has been dissolved.  Leave on the stove another minute, then remove to stir in vanilla.  Add to almond mixture and mix until thoroughly combined.
4. Let stand until cool enough to handle.
5. Scoop teaspoon-sized amounts of dough and roll them into balls.  Place them about 4 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets.
6. Bake about 10 minutes, rotating the baking sheet after 5 minutes, and watching carefully for doneness.  They should be an even golden brown – too light in the middle, and they will be chewy and sticky rather than crispy.
7. Cool on the baking sheet until you can safely move them to cooling racks, about 3-5 minutes.
8. When all the cookies are out of the oven and cooling, chop your chocolate and melt it over gentle heat on the stovetop, or in the microwave in 30-second bursts.  Stir while letting it cool briefly, then spread over the bottom sides of half of the cookies.  Top with the remaining half to make thin cookie sandwiches.

Choux pastry is so named because a patissier in the 18th century created little buns from the dough, and they were shaped like cabbages, choux meaning cabbage in French.  Choux pastry is one of the last frontiers of pastry/dough-making for me, after having tackled macaron and meringue.  This egg-enriched dough is used for, among other things: profiteroles (cream puffs), eclairs, churros, beignets, and French crullers.  Also, chouquettes (“little cabbages”), which are choux pastry balls sprinkled with pearl sugar, a special kind of large-grained sugar found mostly in Europe.

Unfortunately (?) all of my chouquettes puffed, which I suppose is really a good thing, since I was making choux pastry after all.  I was expecting something a bit flatter and denser, but I won’t complain.  Since I saw that the crushed sugar cubes I was using weren’t adhering well enough, I chose to omit the sugar on most batches and fill the remaining ones with salted caramel sauce, or serve them plain.  No one complained.

choux pastry

This makes a huge amount of chouquettes or profiteroles, so, feel free to halve the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 sticks unsalted butter
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 6 tbsp. sugar
• 3 c. water
• 3 c. flour
• 1 dozen eggs
• pearl sugar

Directions:

1. In a medium saucepan, bring butter, sugar, salt, and water to a simmer.  Add flour and stir until combined.  Cook until the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the saucepan.
2. Let cool about 5 minutes.
3. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring to incorporate between each addition.  The dough is fairly thick and sticky, so this will take a little muscle.
4. At this stage, you may use the pastry immediately, or even let rest overnight – the dough I let rest overnight puffed, and then fell, so if using for chouquettes, this is desirable, less so for profiteroles.
5. Preheat the oven to 400.  Pipe small rounds or bars onto parchment-covered baking sheets.  Sprinkle with pearl sugar for chouquettes.  Cook 13 minutes, then open the oven door, and cook a further 5-7 minutes, or until lightly golden brown on top.

So.  Three points to anyone who can name the products sitting on my kitchen table behind the tray of meringues!  I conquered the art of American-style cookies months ago.  Chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodle, peanut butter, brownies – all are things I consider to be among the easiest of baking projects.  Even the sugar cookie, which in its simplicity had long eluded me, has finally become manageable.  I had always heard that cookies like meringues, which involved touchy issues of egg white whipping and precise measurements, were very difficult, so I’d lived in fear.

Plus, I had always equated meringues to chewing on styrofoam, so I wasn’t exactly jazzed to give it a try.

At last I decided to conquer this fear, and turned out row after row of pretty, peppermint flavored puffs that melt in your mouth.  They were among the easiest cookies I have ever made, and might even be my go-to cookie in the future when I want something simple.  Sure, they’re not the quickest things I’ve ever made, but honestly, the time spent in the oven isn’t so different from the time spent scooping out dough of traditional cookies and switching baking sheets half a dozen times because they spread out.  So, I’d say it might even out, but with meringues I can spend more time with my feet up!

peppermint meringues (makes about 100, depending on size)

Ingredients:

• 6 egg whites
• pinch salt
• 2/3 c. sugar
• 1 c. confectioners’ sugar
• 1/4 tsp. peppermint extract
• 1/2 – 1 tsp. red food coloring gel

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Place egg whites and salt in a stand mixer with wire whip.  Beat on medium-high speed until foamy, and then gradually add granulated sugar, allowing the mixer to beat a few minutes in between additions.  Beat to firm peaks, 2-3 minutes on medium-high speed.
3. Add confectioners’ sugar and peppermint extract.  Beat in until blended.
4. If you want meringue to come out in stripes, drip small blobs of food coloring gel on the meringue in various locations.  Scoop into pastry bag fitted with round or star tip and pipe out about 1-inch meringues, about 1 inch apart.
5. Bake 2 1/2 hours, then let cool completely.

I’ve become sort of a resident snack-bringer for the community choir I sing in.  As those who know me already know, and those who find my blog soon find out, baking is a bit of an obsession for me.  I never tire of the fascination of turning endless combinations of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs into delicious things.  I never tire of the amazement of having something turn out just like things I’ve bought, and I usually attribute it to a good recipe rather to any indefinable magic coming from my fingertips.

So as you can imagine, new baking projects are constantly filling up my imagination, and I’ve been known to bake several different batches of items, when it’s just my husband and I in the house, and most people I know are on a diet.  On an impulse last year, I brought cookies to choir rehearsal, and they were snatched up pretty quickly, and it’s become kind of a tradition.  I don’t bring them every week, but it definitely gives me an outlet.

The first semester of our season ends tomorrow evening, and for the past few rehearsals, I’ve been getting increasingly seasonal.  Having an abundance of hand-candied citrus peel and hand-glaceed cherries, I sought out a recipe I could use them in, and settled on stollen, a German Christmastime bread with a center of marzipan.  I made some tweaks to the recipe I based it on, and it came out redolent of spices and rum.  I definitely recommend it!

stollen (makes 1 loaf)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. glaceed cherries, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 c. candied citrus peel, chopped
• 1/2 c. currants
• 1/4 c. spiced rum

• 1 c. + 3 tbsp. whole-wheat flour
• 1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp. wheat gluten (aka gluten flour)
• rounded 1/3 c. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3/4 tsp. each cardamom, cloves, and allspice
• 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 2/3 c. milk
• 9 tbsp. butter, melted
• 1 egg + 2 egg yolks
• zest of 1 lemon
• 2 packets active dry yeast
• 8 oz. marzipan, rolled into a cylinder

• 1/2 c. melted butter
• 1/2 c. confectioners’ sugar

Directions:

1. Mix glaceed cherries, candied citrus peel, and currants in a bowl.  Pour spiced rum over and mix.  Let macerate for about 20-30 minutes before and during preparation of the bread dough, stirring occasionally.
2. Pour some of the milk into a small bowl and heat until warm in the microwave.  Add yeast, with a pinch of sugar, and let stand a minute to be sure it foams.
3. Combine 1 c. of the whole-wheat flour, the all-purpose flour, wheat gluten, sugar, salt, and spices.  Whisk briefly to combine.
4. In a small saucepan, combine the remaining 3 tbsp. whole-wheat flour and remaining milk.  Bring to a boil and cook until thickened, only about a minute or so.  Let cool for a moment, and then add melted butter, eggs, lemon zest, and macerated fruit, along with all of the spiced rum.
5. Add the yeast, and wet mixture to the dry ingredients, and mix until combined.
6. Rest 15 minutes.
7. Knead until the dough is smooth.
8. Rest until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.
9. Pat the dough into a rectangle about 1/2″ thick.   Place the marzipan slightly off-center, and roll the dough over it, pinching the ends to seal.
10. Preheat the oven to 350 and rest the dough until doubled in size, about an hour.
11. Bake for 35 minutes or until a deep golden brown.
12. When cool, brush with melted butter and dust generously with confectioners’ sugar.
13. Wrap tightly and keep for several days to age the bread before slicing and serving.

candied citrus peel

Ingredients:

• assorted citrus fruits (lime, lemon, orange, grapefruit, buddha’s hand, etc.)
• sugar
• water

Directions:

1. With a paring knife or vegetable peeler, slice off long strips of citrus peel.  Be sure there is as little pith as possible.  Slice into thinner strips.
2. Bring equal parts sugar and water to a boil, and add citrus peel strips.  Boil about 10-15 minutes, or until a piece of peel when removed is soft, chewy, and sweet.
3. Drain syrup and keep for things like cocktails.  Spread peel strips in a single layer on racks to dry.
4. Toss in granulated sugar, and store in an airtight container.

glaceed cherries

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. cherries (fresh or frozen), pitted
• 1 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 1/2 c. water

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan.  Boil.
2. Seriously, that’s it.
3. Really.
4. Okay, it might take about a half hour.  You want the cherries to be soft, cooked, and the syrup to be thicker and sticky, like syrup.  It will thicken up a lot once it has been refrigerated.  Keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

marzipan (makes about 2 lbs.)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. blanched almonds
• 1 lb. confectioners’ sugar
• 2 egg whites

Directions:

1. Grind almonds to a fine powder in a food processor.  Pour out into a bowl and add confectioners’ sugar.  Whisk briefly to combine.
2. Add egg whites and stir until it is evenly combined.  Knead once or twice to be sure it comes together.
3. Roll or shape, or just eat it plain!

When I first began learning how to seriously cook, the place I started that set me off on the road to culinary exploration, was what you might call standard, traditional American cooking, perhaps with a Southern bent.  Macaroni and cheese, meatloaf, casseroles, biscuits, mashed potatoes, baconated green beans, etc.  I soon branched out into both nouvelle-American and vintage-style-nouvelle-American cuisine, thanks both to the cookbooks I had begun to accumulate (I have a particular interest in vintage ones) and to the Food Network, which I had begun to watch with some enthusiasm.

Around that same time, I started working at a place that offered Italian cooking classes, presided over by genuine Italian chefs, and I developed more than a passing interest in international cuisine.  Shortly thereafter, I started to explore the development of cuisine in other countries: Ancient Egypt, the American South.  Interested by the stereotype of British cuisine being dull, and yet finding that it was largely responsible for inspiring the traditional foods of America, I found myself sort of charmed by British traditions.  Being partially of Scots-Irish descent encouraged me to think of it as sort of discovering my roots.

This phase lasted for a few years, even after I had picked up my first Julia Child cookbook and had become enthralled by the simplicity of French traditional cooking.  In recent months, perusing blogs by those living in France and acquiring Julia Child’s first volume of French cookery, I have found myself developing into a full-blown Francophile.  I suppose I’m coming late to the scene of French obsession, and a very late comer to the world of the macaron, which has taken the culinary landscape quite by storm this last year or so.

I’d never actually had a Parisian macaron before attempting these myself, so I didn’t know what they were supposed to be like, but I quite enjoyed them.  I looked at a multitude of recipes before coming to the version I ultimately created.  Because it’s a fairly fussy recipe, I opted to give out weights rather than measures for most of the ingredients.  Also note, because I folded in the cocoa powder after the batter was complete, and I believe I over-folded, next time I would probably choose to sift the cocoa powder in with the powdered sugar.

chocolate macaron with two fillings (makes 40-80 depending on size)

Ingredients:

• 6 egg whites
• 100 g granulated sugar
• 400 g powdered sugar
• 220 g ground almonds
• 2 tbsp. cocoa powder

Directions:

1. Place the egg whites in a microwavable bowl, and microwave 30 seconds on medium power.  This will dry them out slightly, so there is no danger of excess moisture in the macaron recipe.  Or, you could leave your egg whites out around 48 hours to age them sufficiently.
2. Pulse powdered sugar, ground almonds, and cocoa powder in a good processor to combine.
3. In a stand mixer, whip the egg whites until foamy.  Then, gradually add granulated sugar until stiff peaks form, about 3-4 minutes on medium-high speed.
4. Add powdered sugar mix to meringue and fold relatively quickly until dry ingredients are combined.  Batter is done when it ribbons down from your spatula and combines smoothly with the batter in the bowl.
5. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.  Using a pastry bag with a 1/4-inch tip, pipe small circles of batter, about 1 inch in diameter, onto the parchment.  Space about 1 inch apart.
6. Preheat the oven to 300.  Let the macaron sit out at room temperature anywhere from 30-60 minutes.  Bake 10-12 minutes, or until the top of the macaron slides just slightly on its base when you press them gently with your finger.  Let cool completely.  Fill as desired.

orange chocolate filling

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. bittersweet fudge sauce
• several drops orange extract or 1/2 tsp. orange zest

Directions:

1. Microwave fudge sauce briefly until pourable (the kind we bought is basically solid at fridge temp).
2. Stir in the orange extract, and let cool until it thickens somewhat.

salted caramel filling

This makes WAY more than you need for filling macarons.  Luckily it can be used on lots of other tasty things: apple pie, ice cream, spoons…

Ingredients:

• 2 c. sugar
• 1 1/2 sticks butter, room temperature (lower-moisture European style is best)
• large pinch of fleur de sel (omit if using salted butter)
• 1 1/4 c. heavy cream, room tempature

Directions:

1. Place sugar in a medium-large saucepan over medium-high heat.  Stir as it melts, and let cook to a dark golden brown color.  It should be fragrant, but not beginning to burn.
2. Add butter (and salt, if using), and stir in until incorporated.  I threw in butter straight from the fridge, and it is possible that the temperature shock caused mine to seize at this point.  This is why I recommend warmer butter.  If yours seizes, though, do not panic.  Turn the heat down to low, and continue whisking until the butter has been re-incorporated.  This took me perhaps 5-10 minutes before I had a smooth mixture again.  Another possible solution is adding a few tablespoons of hot water, allowing it to bubble a little, and whisk it until the mixture is smooth.
3. Add the heavy cream, and whisk until smooth.  It is too thin to use as filling right away, so let cool to room temperature before you use it for filling macarons.

I never get tired of fresh, in-season tomatoes, and finding things to do with them.  Raw, broiled, cooked into sauce, yum.  One of my favorite tomato dishes of all time is a nice, creamy, tomato bisque.  It’s hard to resisting it if it is the daily special at a restaurant.  But I can also be cautious, because bad tomato soup is possible, and it’s…well, it’s bad.  It turns you off of tomato soup for the foreseeable future.  Best to avoid bad soups.  This soup is not a bad soup – obviously, I suppose, otherwise it wouldn’t be making an appearance here.  It is, however, a simple soup.  About 45 minutes, start to finish, and you’ll get a velvety smooth soup that you can drink, or dip your grilled cheese sandwich in.

Creamy Tomato Soup (6 servings)

You can use anything for the fat that starts this soup.  I used the drippings from pancetta, but you can also use bacon fat, butter, or olive oil.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 c. fat of your choice
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 5 fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 1 c. chicken broth
• 1/4 – 1/2 c. heavy cream
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat your chosen fat in a large pot – tall if you plan to use an immersion blender as I did – over medium heat.  Add onion and garlic and cook for two minutes, or until fragrant.  Add tomatoes and cook until they have lost their shape, about ten minutes.
2. Add chicken broth and cook a further 15 minutes to let the flavors develop.  Remove from heat and blend with an immersion blender until smooth, or in a blender.
3. Strain through a fine mesh sieve or chinois into a pot.  Stir in heavy cream, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Some foods have simple flavors.  What you put into the dish is what you taste when you eat it.  Other foods – most foods, I think – are more than the sum of their parts.  This was most evident to me when I made pad thai for the first time.  I had eaten it many times, but would never have guessed that so few ingredients with such strong flavors would meld together to make that magical tangy-salty-sweet pad thai sauce.  Many drinks fall into the former category: strawberry lemonade, for example, tastes like strawberries and lemons.  Mint green tea tastes like green tea and fresh mint.

This tea is different.  Sweetened enough so that the liquid is slightly thick, it is fragrant and floral.  As with pad thai, if I didn’t already know what flavorings were added to this tea, I doubt I would have been able to identify them.  Normally, I don’t post about recipes that I made almost verbatim from another site, but this one was so unique and delicious that I thought it merited an exception.

Cinnamon-Orange Tea (makes 1 pitcher)

I am sure this would be as delicious unsweetened, or more lightly sweetened.  Use your judgment.  From Food Network.

Ingredients:

• 12 c. water
• 10 black tea bags
• strips of orange peel, taken from 1 orange with a vegetable peeler
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 1/2 c. water
• 1 1/2 inches ginger, peeled and sliced into coins
• 1 sprig mint leaves (4-6 leaves)

Directions:

1. In a large pot, place 12 cups of water, along with orange peel and cinnamon sticks.  Bring to a boil.  Turn off heat and add tea bags.  Steep 4 minutes, and then remove tea bags.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, 1 1/2 cups water, and ginger.  Heat over medium heat until sugar has dissolved.  Turn off heat, add mint sprig, and let cool to room temperature.
3. Pour syrup through a strainer into the tea, and give a quick stir.  Pour into a pitcher, and serve over ice.

I haven’t been very diligent in posting this week, so I wanted to lead the next string of posts off with something yummy.  August tends to be kind of a busy month for me, considering that both my parents, one of my best friends, and my sister-in-law all have their birthday.  I love family birthdays because it gives me an excuse to make bigger things, like roasts and layer cakes, that I tend not to make for just us two.  Having already done the layer cake thing this month, I was dying to break out the mini-trifle dishes I picked up at the Crate and Barrel outlet.  They are adorable and just the right size for dessert.  I also have a big trifle dish, but let’s be honest, that thing probably serves 16 people.

I was originally planning a blueberry peach trifle with the blueberry sauce I’ve got frozen away in my freezer from – ahem – probably two years ago.  But Mom mentioned she’d been dying for some carrot cake, so I changed my plan.  I still really wanted to make little layered desserts, so I picked out apples as a complementary fruit.  Layering it with salted caramel whipped cream made all the other flavors stand out – and, the whipped cream wasn’t nearly as complicated as I thought it would be.

Carrot Cake Caramel Trifle (serves 6)

If you plan to make this in a big trifle dish, I would probably at least double the amounts you see below.  There’s only one layer of apples, so obviously if you’d like two layers, double just the apples.

Ingredients:

For the trifle:

• 1/2 recipe carrot cake (the rest is excellent for snacking on plain)
• 1 recipe sauteed apples
• 1 recipe salted caramel whipped cream

For the carrot cake:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c. buttermilk
• 1/2 c. vegetable oil
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 1/3 c. flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 1/3 c. shredded carrots
• 2/3 c. flaked coconut
• 2/3 c. crushed pineapple with juice
• 2/3 c. raisins or currants
• 2/3 c. chopped walnuts, optional

For the sauteed apples:

• 2 tbsp. butter
• 3 medium apples
• 1/4 c. brown sugar (not packed)
• pinch salt

For the salted caramel whipped cream:

• 1/4 c. sugar
• 1 tbsp. water
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 c. + 3/4 c. cream, divided

Directions:

For the carrot cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Grease and flour a 9″x13″ pan.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.  Set aside.  In a large bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk, oil, sugar, and vanilla until thoroughly mixed.  Add flour and stir until almost combined, but some flour is visible on the surface and sides of the bowl.  Add remaining ingredients all at once and gently fold until well mixed.
3. Pour into prepared pan and smooth top if necessary.  Bake until done, approximately 20 minutes.  Cool several minutes in the pan, and then turn out onto a wire rack.  Cool to room temperature.

For the sauteed apples:

1. Peel apples if you like (I usually don’t) and chop into approximately 3/4″ dice.
2. Melt butter over medium heat in a frying pan.  Add apples and saute for a minute, then add brown sugar and a pinch of salt.  Saute about ten minutes or until apples are cooked through and juices are syrupy.
3. Set aside and allow to cool to room temperature.

For the salted caramel whipped cream:

1. Place sugar, water, and salt in a small saucepan.  Heat over medium heat until sugar and salt have dissolved.  Stir constantly until the mixture has turned a uniform amber color and you can smell the caramelizing sugar.  Don’t let this mixture burn – it’s better for it to be a little underdone that to be burnt.
2. Whisk this mixture constantly while drizzling in 1/2 c. of the cream.  Whisk until thoroughly mixed and smooth.  It will be thin.  Set aside and allow to cool to room temperature, or chill.
3. Be sure the remaining 3/4 c. of the cream is thoroughly chilled.  When you are ready to assemble the trifle, place chilled cream in a chilled bowl and whip until soft peaks.  At this point, continue whisking and slowly drizzle caramel into the cream until completely incorporated.

For the trifle:

1. Dice or crumble about half of the cake.  Divide half of that into six mini trifle dishes.  Follow with half of the whipped cream, the apples, then the remaining cake.  Finish with the second half of the cream.  Sprinkle a bit of cinnamon on the top.