Tag: berries

  • Three-day strawberry jam, à la Christine Ferber

    Three-day strawberry jam, à la Christine Ferber

    I first made this recipe a few weeks before my mom came to visit from the south of France last autumn. She loves her morning toast – always a baguette, always unsalted butter, thickly spread. I can’t quite agree – I want salted butter, the kind that pushes back against the sweetness of the jam.

    Most times, I make my usual recipe, the one I’ve relied on since 2009, back when I first worked with Andrew Gravett. But this time, I felt like trying something different. Christine Ferber’s method – slow and deliberate. Pierre Hermé has always sworn by her jams, and he’s never wrong.

     

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    Three-day strawberry jam

    Adapted from Christine Ferber's Mes confitures: jams and jellies.
    There’s a quiet kind of magic in slow preserves – the way sugar and time work together to turn fruit into something more than itself. This one starts with strawberries, small and fragrant, macerated overnight until they glisten. The process takes three days, like most Christine Ferber's jams and preserves – an institution in itself.

    Notes

    A note on using frozen strawberries:
    I always – always – freeze strawberries in the summer. I wash and hull them first, then freeze them on a tray before packing them into freezer bags. They work exceptionally well in smoothies, compotes, and of course, jams.
    I use them straight from the freezer – no need to defrost – keeping them whole. The sugar and lemon juice draw out their juices as they macerate, turning them into something almost candied. The result is a jam that’s less spreadable, with whole strawberries suspended in a thick, glossy syrup.
    Author: Fanny Zanotti
    Prep Time10 minutes
    Cook Time45 minutes
    Total Time3 days 55 minutes

    Ingredients

    • 1 kg hulled and quartered strawberries
    • 850 g caster sugar
    • Juice of one small lemon

    Instructions

    Day 1

    • Place the strawberries into a large non-reactive bowl. Add the caster sugar and lemon juice, stir, and cover with clingfilm. Leave to macerate overnight in the fridge.

    Day 2

    • By morning, the strawberries will have given up their juices. Tip everything into a pot and bring it to a gentle simmer. Pour it all back into the bowl, cover, and return to the fridge for another night.

    Day 3

    • Strain the strawberries, letting the syrup run through a fine sieve. Bring the syrup to a boil, skimming off any foam, and let it cook until it reaches 105°C.
    • Add the strawberries back in and bring everything to a rolling boil.
    • Skim again, stir gently, and let it cook for 5 more minutes. The syrup should be thick enough to coat a spoon, and the strawberries should shine – translucent and almost candied.
    • Spoon into warm jars, seal, and let cool. Then, find a reason to open one – some good bread, a spoonful over yogurt, or just because.

  • Blåbärsmuffins

    Blåbärsmuffins

    [Blueberry muffins]

    Every summer, we head into the forest behind our house to pick wild blueberries. The days are long, with a light that lingers well into the night, casting a soft glow – not unlike a never-ending golden hour.

    As we fill our hinks with the tiny, inky-blue berries, the forest around us smells like pine and damp earth. If we wasn’t for the mosquitoes, you’d always find us there.

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    Blueberry muffins

    Adapted from Bel.
    These muffins are a favourite in our home. The batter comes together in minutes, quicker than it takes for my oven to warm up. When baked, their tops cracked just enough to reveal pockets of juicy berries.
    The crumb is light and soft, a wonderful contrast to the slight crisp of the demerara sugar crust.

    Notes

    On substituting buttermilk and sour cream:
    – buttermilk: I like to replace buttermilk with a mixture of filmjölk or runny narutal yoghurt and water For this recipe, I’m using 175g filmjölk and 50g cold water. 
    – sour cream: the closest we have in Sweden is gräddfil, in France, I would use crème fraiche or a rich Greek yoghurt instead. 
     
    If making jumbo muffins, you will have to adjust the baking time – use a skewer to test the doneness. 
     
    On saving batter for later use: 
    Sometimes, I will divide the batter without blueberries and save half in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. Then fold in half the amount of blueberries into the remaining batter and bake as usual. 
    The recipe can also easily be halved!
    Author: Fanny Zanotti
    Prep Time10 minutes
    Cook Time26 minutes
    Makes 24 muffins, or 12 jumbo-muffins

    Ingredients

    • 360 g plain flour
    • 2 tsp baking powder
    • 1 tsp baking soda
    • 225 g buttermilk read note above
    • 80 g sour cream read note above
    • 2 eggs
    • 300 g caster sugar
    • 2 tsp vanilla extract
    • a pinch of salt
    • 75 g neutral oil
    • 115 g melted butter
    • 300 g blueberries
    • demerara sugar to sprinkle

    Instructions

    • Pre-heat the oven to 225°C/fan 200°C. Butter two 12-cup muffin tins and line with paper liners.
    • In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and baking soda using a whisk. And set aside.
    • In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, sour cream, eggs, caster sugar, vanilla extract, salt, and oil until smooth. Add the melted butter and whisk well.
    • Now add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients – making sure to reserve 2 tbsp flour mixture to later coat the blueberries.
    • Mix using a silicon spatula until barely combined and the batter still has flour spots.
    • Add the blueberries to the remaining flour and shake around to coat. Then fold delicately into the batter.
    • Spoon batter into the prepared muffin tins, filling right to the top. Sprinkle generously with demerara sugar.
    • Bake in the pre-heated oven for 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 175°C/fan 160°C and bake for a further 15-16 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.
    • Allow to cool down and store in an air-tight container for up to 3 days. Or freeze for up to a month.
  • Sienna’s 5th birthday cake

    Sienna’s 5th birthday cake

    For my own record. My all-around sponge, raspberry jam, whipped vanilla pastry cream, wild blueberries, raspberry mousse, and vanilla frosting.

  • Sienna’s first birthday cake

    Sienna’s first birthday cake

    As a keepsake for myself. Vanilla génoise, raspberry and blueberry jam, vanilla crème pâtissière. Mascarpone cream, coloured with a syrup made with wild blueberries, sugar and water.

  • Charlotte au fromage blanc et aux framboises

    Charlotte au fromage blanc et aux framboises

    [Fromage blanc and raspberry charlotte]

    I haven’t spent much time in a home kitchen – let alone made pastries in a home kitchen – for the past eleven months. That’s what a pastry apprenticeship does to you! And really I must admit I feel a bit lost when all I have on hands are a couple of Pyrex bowls, a hand-held mixer, and an oven.

    But all it took was a holiday in Fouras, at my grand-parents’. I could navigate through this kitchen with my eyes closed. And I did; by the end of the week, we had a nice collection of homemade pastries: a fondant au chocolat, strawberry meringues, a tiramisu, fruit focaccias, and a raspberry charlotte.

    Charlotte is one of those desserts I will never get tired of. Dare I call it my favourite?

    In the summer, I love to make it with whichever berries we have lying around. And when the neighbour, Annie, offered us to come and pick raspberries in her garden, my sister and I probably said the word charlotte in unison.
    It was still early in the evening. Bumblebees doing a last round before the sunset. A warm wind that only summer nights offer; golden light bouncing on every flower. We picked and picked. And ate some too. And as soon as a plump berry touched my lips, it wiped every memory I ever had of tasting a raspberry before.

    When we came home, we whipped cream and folded it into fromage blanc. And a raspberry charlotte was in the fridge before dinner got on the table.

    It’s not perfect by any means, but some things don’t need to be.

    Charlotte au fromage blanc et aux framboises

    This is a slightly more elaborate version of the charlotte that my mother made often as we were growing up. It is not a delicate entremet, but one to be sliced for lunch or dinner, when the nights get longer and warmer. As I’ve mentioned it above, I love to make this while berries are in season, but it also make a wonderful winter dessert. Think poached pears and perhaps a touch of chocolate mousse. Or poached rhubarb and orange in the late winter.

    If fromage blanc isn’t available where you live, just use plain natural yoghurt mixed with a little cream cheese instead, a thick Turkish yoghurt would work wonders too.

    EDIT 06/03/2019

    As you may know, I’ve been trying to write an article about gelatin for – literally – years. And every now and then, I become obsessed with it again.
    I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, as it’s an ingredient that is so tremendously different from one country to another that it makes my job as a chef and a food writer quite difficult.
    I won’t get into details about it now, but let me just tell you that in between France, the UK, and Sweden, I’ve had to adjust my recipes a lot to fit the gelatin available in each place.

    Yes, gelatin is a difficult subject when it comes to recipe writing as many factors com ein play: brand, bloom strength, weight of each sheet… Sure, you can find information about how gold leaves weigh around 2g, platinum, 1.7g, and so on. And because of this, it should be the same to substitute one leaf of gold for one leaf of platinum. But then again, it depends on the country too. In Sweden, the gelatin used in professional kitchens comes at 4g per sheet, extra gold! And the same brand gelatin, when bought in supermarkets is only half the size, roughly 2g per sheet. So I’ve learnt the hard way that grams are some how more reliable that sheet counts.

    The original recipe called for 6 leaves of gelatin, and the gelatin used was the French Vahiné, which comes at around 1.89g per sheet.
    I’ve now edited the recipe to include weight too, although note that I mostly use silver and gold strength gelatin leaves, so your gelatin has a strength comprised between 160-190 bloom, you might need to increase the quantity slightly!

    Charlotte au fromage blanc et aux framboises

    serves 8

    For the biscuits cuillère
    two dozens of biscuits cuillère, either homemade or bought
    300g water
    210g caster sugar

    For the fromage blanc filling
    6 gelatin leaves, approximately 12g
    500g fromage blanc
    120g caster sugar
    330g whipping cream 35%, whipped to soft peaks

    a couple handfuls of raspberries

    Make a simple soaking syrup by combining the water and caster sugar in a saucepan. Bring to the boil, then pour into a wide container, and allow to cool down while you get on with the rest.

    Soak the gelatin leaves into cold water for at least ten minutes. Divide the fromage blanc into two heatproof bowls.

    In one of the bowls, mix in the sugar until dissolved. Heat the other bowl containing half of the fromage blanc in the microwave until it reaches around 40°C. Then quickly drain the gelatin leaves, and incorporate to the warm fromage blanc. Mix until fully melted. Then, fold this into the sweetened fromage blanc. And finally, gently fold in the whipped cream in a couple of batches.

    When the syrup is cool enough, soak the biscuits into it for a few seconds and arrange in a shallow charlotte mould.

    Pipe half of the mousse into the biscuit-lined tin, then cover with a handful of raspberries and more soaked biscuits. Top with the remaining mousse.

    Chill for a couple of hours, preferably overnight. Unmould and serve.