Of all the pastries in France, one of my favorites is the financier. Enriched with nuts, and moistened with butter, every bakery in France offers their own version of them. They come in different sizes, shapes, and even flavors; almond is the most popular, but you’ll sometimes come across financiers made with ground hazelnuts or pistachios. I like them all. There are a few theories how this mini-gâteau got its curious name.

One is that, traditionally, they’re baked in small, rectangular molds. Once baked and unmolded, the little cakes resemble bars of gold, which appeals to people in the financial world. Another is that people in France are known to indulge in an afternoon sweet stop at their local bakery, called a goûter. Because people who work in the financial industry normally wear nice outfits or suits, something that’s neat to eat is appreciated, so they can stay presentable when heading back to the office.

I don’t have to worry about that, nor has anything come out of my oven ever turned to gold. (Quelle dommage!) But when I found myself with some leftover brown butter from infusing it in bourbon for Brown Butter Old Fashioneds, since I treat butter like gold, I repurposed it as a base for a batch of financiers.

Using browned butter keeps the butter flavor even more in focus. Some people get a little anxious when they see dark specks in pastries and desserts; I once had a waiter ask me what the dark flecks in the vanilla ice cream were. When I told him they were vanilla beans, and asked him (incredulously) what he thought they were, he replied, “I thought they were dirt.”

So after you brown the butter, when pouring it out of the pan, you don’t want to scrape up too much of the dark bits at the bottom of the pan, but I don’t mind a few in my cakes (in fact, I prefer them). So no need to fret about having a few in your batter. These cakes are also very forgiving, which is why so many bakeries in France offer them. They’re easy to make, keep well, and are the perfect afternoon snack – or as the French say, un snack.

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Browned Butter Financiers

For financiers, I use mini-muffin tins, which are easily available. I’m not a fan of silicone bakeware but know that some people like it. This batter is pretty forgiving so can be baked in madeleine molds or even in larger muffin tins, filling them only about halfway. If you use another size mold, you’ll likely need to adjust the baking time; bake them until browned on top, and the feel just set in the center when you touch them. As mentioned, I made these with leftover brown butter from the Brown Butter Old Fashioned recipe. I started with 4 ounces (8 tablespoons/115g) of butter, which yielded the amount called for in the recipe. If starting from scratch, and making your own brown butter, start with that amount of brown butter, then you can measure it out when it’s browned and cooled. (If you need a bit more butter, you can simply add a bit of melted butter to it, to reach the 2 1/2 oz/75g amount. There are links at the end of the post with detailed instructions on making brown butter.

Course Dessert

Cuisine French

Keyword almonds, financiers, french pastry

Servings 24 financiers

Ingredients

• 1 cup (140g) almond or hazelnut flour
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (180g) sugar
• 5 tablespoons (45g) flour
• generous pinch salt
• 4 large egg whites at room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla or almond extract
• 2 1/2 ounces (75g) brown butter slightly warm (liquified)

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 375ºF/180ºC and butter the insides of 24 mini muffin tins generously with softened, not melted, butter, making sure to butter the upper rims of the indentations.
• In a medium bowl, mix the almond or hazelnut powder, sugar, flour and salt. Stir in the egg whites and vanilla or almond extract, then the browned butter.
• Fill each indentation of the mini muffin tins almost to the top. Rap the tins sharply on the counter to level the tops, then bake for 13 minutes, until nicely browned. Let the financiers cool in the tins, then remove them, using a sharp knife to help release them, if necessary.

Notes

Storage: The financiers can be stored in an air-tight container for up to one week. They can be frozen for up to two months.

Related Links

Brown butter Old Fashioned Cocktail

How to make brown butter (Serious Eats)

How to make brown butter video (Simply Recipes)

Summer Fruit Tart with Almond Cream

What is almond flour?

One of the first lessons I learned, right after I moved to Paris, was to never, ever be on time for a dinner party. When i got my first invitation to a dinner party, my hosts told me, “Come at 8pm…which in Paris, means to come at 8:20 or 8:30pm.”

Subsequently, when I have guests for dinner, I expect them to be at least 20 minutes late, although there’s much debate on how late you’re actually supposed to be. But if you’re on time, or early, your host likely won’t not be ready and you’ll probably catch them by surprise.

It’s a tricky balance when you’ve inviting people for dinner, since you want make sure when everyone’s at the table, dinner will be ready and perfectly cooked. If your friends show up very late, and you’ve made something like pork roast, which can take a while to bake, but will dry out if overcooked, you’re sunk.

So one technique I rely on is braising. Braising is cooking something long and slow, which softens cuts of meat and poultry, and infuses whatever you’re cooking with flavor. In the case of a tagine, a North African dish that benefits from braising, your cooking the meat in a broth of onions, aromatics, and spices, which all come together after a stint in the over to make a perfect one-pot meal, that’s can be kept warm in the oven until everyone is at the table.

In Paris, with so many Arabic and North African butchers around, it’s easy to find cuts of meat that lend themselves to slow-braising, and tagines are quite popular in France. When I wrote my book, My Paris Kitchen, someone wrote to me, wondering why I had non-French recipes in my book. Just like people in other countries, such as Americans who make Mexican and Asian foods at home, or Dutch people who eat rijsttafel, an Indonesian meal composed of many side dishes, French people regularly eat a variety of foods from other cultures, especially in Paris, which is a melting pot, where you can enjoy couscous in Belleville, dosas in the Indian quarter, and Vietnamese noodles in the thirteenth arrondissement. But really, you can get all those foods in just about every corner of the city.

Tagines are simple to make, and once you’ve made one, you’ll wonder what took you so long to make one? You’re basically just browning the meat in a Dutch oven or large pot, then sautéing an onion with spices and seasonings, adding a few spoonfuls of tomato paste or a can of tomatoes, some stock or water, then braising it in the over for a few hours.

This is my basic recipe that I make often. It works great with a lamb shoulder, which you can have your butcher cut into pieces for you. If you can only get a whole lamb shoulder, you can skip the sautéing step and just braise the lamb shoulder whole. If you can get lamb shanks, this recipe works well with four of them.

I like to serve it with pearl couscous, which you can see above. It’s basically pasta pearls, and goes by several different names. Regular couscous is also an option, as is rice-shaped pasta, known as orzo

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Lamb Tagine

You can substitute a cut up chicken for the lamb. If using chicken, reduce the oven time to 1 to 1½ hours. I also like to add prunes, raisins or dried apricots or cranberries to the tagine, during the last 20 minutes of cooking.

You can vary the spices depending on what you have or can get. The saffron is optional since that can be more difficult (and expensive) to obtain, but I like the flavor of it in a tagine. Sometimes I use tomato paste in my tagines, and other times I add a can of crushed tomatoes.

I put a jar of harissa, North African hot sauce, on the table, for guests who like a little spice with their tagine. (And hosts like me, who like it too!) A favorite brand of harissa in the U.S. is made by NY Shuk.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Mediterranean

Keyword tagine

Servings 6 servings

Ingredients

• 1 lamb shoulder cut into 4 pieces
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt plus more, to taste
• 1 medium onion minced
• 2 1/2 cups (600ml) chicken stock or water
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• freshly-ground black pepper
• 1 small bunch fresh cilantro tied with a string, plus a few sprigs for garnish
• a pinch of saffron threads (optional)
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste or one 14 ounce (400g) can crushed tomatoes
• Harissa for serving

Instructions

• Massage the pieces of lamb shoulder with the salt.
• Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat, and sear the lamb pieces very well, turning them only after they’re nicely browned (this step adds flavor to the tagine.) As you cook the lamb pieces, don’t crowd them in. If your Dutch oven isn’t big enough to cook them all in a single layer at the same time, brown the lamb pieces in batches.
• Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175ºC). Once the lamb is browned, remove the pieces from the pot and set them on a plate. (If there is a lot of fat in the pan, you can remove some of it, but leave a film of it in the bottom of the pan.)

  Add the chopped onion to the pot and some of the stock (or water), then scrape the bottom of the pan with a flat wooden spatula to release the flavorful browned bits. Add the spices, the rest of the water, the bunch of cilantro, the saffron, if using, and the tomato paste or crushed tomatoes. Give everything a quick stir to mix everything together.
• Cover the pot and bake in the oven for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, turning the lamb over in the liquid a few times during baking. The liquid should just be simmering gently. If it’s boiling, turn down the heat. Add more liquid if necessary while it's cooking so the meat is half submerged in liquid. When the meat starts to fall off the bone, that’s when it’s ready. Taste the liquid and add more salt if desired.
• Pull the meat off the bones. Spoon the meat and some juices into bowls over a bed of couscous or pearl couscous (pasta). Garnish with a sprigs of fresh cilantro.

Notes

To serve, remove the cilantro and discard. Squeeze some lemon juice into the liquid and add more salt, if desired. Serve with rice or bulghur, along with juices from the tagine. At the table, make sure you have a tube of harissa handy, the fiery Moroccan hot sauce.

There are two things I need to tell you about these cookies.

One is that they’re crazy-good. And the other is that they’re huge. The recipe makes just five cookies but each one is so packed with flavor, that you’ll be glad you can have one all to yourself. Your other four friends or guests will be delighted as well. (But they’re quite generous, so it’s okay to share…)

What makes these cookies extra special is their slightly savory, umami note, due to walnuts glazed with white miso. Miso is fermented soybean paste that can be purchased in Asian markets, but has become so popular, you can often find it in grocery stores. In these cookies, it adds a little je ne sais quoi, since it adds a subtle, yet complex note of flavors. Umami is often described as a flavor that’s craveable, and it certainly makes a compelling case for that description in these cookies.

If you don’t have white miso, or don’t want to make the candied walnuts, no problem. Just use toasted walnuts. Pecans, or another favorite nut will also work. You can also leave the nuts out, or swap in dried fruit for them. Do-ahead tip: The walnuts can be made a few days in advance and kept in an airtight container. The glaze will get a little sticky, but the walnuts are perfectly fine to use in these cookies.

Another “secret” to these cookies is to incorporate large chunks of chocolate into the dough. While it may be tempting to use chocolate chips, they’re really best if you chop up chocolate from a bar of good-quality chocolate. I leave the pieces quite rough and irregular, which – when baked – create large pockets and bites of dark chocolate.

I’ve adapted the recipe from SIFT: The Elements of Great Baking by Nicola Lamb. Her book explains many of the hows and whys of baking, as well as offering an array of creative recipes. Some are completely original and others are riffs on classics, and it’s a book that I refer to often and these cookies are a big hit whenever I bake them. I hope you enjoy these cookies as much as I do!

If you’re lucky, there may be a scale, a cake pan, a sharp knife, and hopefully sugar, butter, eggs, and flour. If you’re really lucky, there might be a whisk and a spatula, too. But if you’ve ever tried to peel a dozen apples with a steak knife because it’s the only one that’s even close to sharp, or eyeball 1 cup/140g) of flour, you know what I’m talking about. I once did a post on Things I Bring When I’m a Guest for the Weekend, which raised the ire of some, but I require a minimum of a knife, a spatula, a bowl, and a cake pan if I’m going to bake something, like a cake.

You’re likely familiar with the Moelleux au chocolat, the soft warm individual melting cakes that everybody loves. (If you have the kind of friends that have six to eight ramekins, well, that’s great.) I recently saw French food writer and journalist François-Régis Gaudy (his book, Let’s Eat France, translated into English, is a lot of fun and pretty amazing) make a Moelleux à la abricot on his Instagram page, which didn’t require a mixer or any special equipment. Not even a whisk!

His Apricot Cake was a very casual affair, baked in a rectangular mold on a sheet of parchment paper, and came out of the oven rather free-form, looking exactly like something that would come out of a French home cook’s kitchen, when baking dessert for friends. I’m fine with that but didn’t know if you were, so I thought I’d tinker with it and make it in a cake pan, which is easier to slice. I also fiddled around with the ingredients, as well as putting the brown granulated sugar on top (rather than underneath), to give the moelleux a nice sheen.

I used a springform cake pan but you can use any similar-sized vessel; an 8-, 9- or 10-square or round cake pan would work, or even a baking dish. The baking time will vary but if your experience with using a variety of ovens in other people’s homes is anything like mine, you’ll find that each one is different, and what one says is 350ºF/180ºC will be different than another whose dial says 350ºF/180ºC. I don’t travel with an oven thermometer but may add that to things I bring when I’m staying with people.

Tip: If you’re staying in someone’s place for the weekend, you can mix the dry ingredients in a container or zip-top bag then put the dessert together when you get there.

I made one cake with apricots first, which was sensational, but knowing fresh apricots are harder to come by elsewhere, I made another one with plums, which came out great as well. It would work with other summer fruits and berries but I really like the tanginess of apricots or plums against the moist cake layer, so stuck with those two. A handful of berries wouldn’t hurt either, but I do recommend keeping it simple.

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Moelleux aux fruits d'ete

Inspired by a recipe from French food writer and journalist François-Régis Gaudry

The ground almonds are really delicious in the dessert, but if you can't get ground almonds (sometimes called almond meal or almond flour), you can use 1 1/4 cups (175g) of all-purpose flour in place of the mix.

The picture in the post of the batter shows 3 eggs being added, and I took that photo when I first tested the recipe, which I did a few more times after that. The final recipe that I came up with, below, uses 2 eggs.

Course Dessert

Servings 8 servings

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds (680g) apricots or plums (or another summer fruit, see headnote)
• 3/4 cup, plus 2 tablespoons (100g) almond flour
• 1/2 cup (65g) all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder preferably aluminum-free
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (230g) granulated sugar
• 5 ounces (140g) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 2 large eggs at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or 1/2 teaspoon almond extract)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons coarse granulated brown sugar such as tubinado sugar (or granulated white sugar)

Instructions

• Halve the fruit and remove the pits. Slice the fruit into 3/4- to 1-inch (2-3cm) wedges. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC.) Grease a 9-inch (23cm) springform pan very well with butter or non-stick spray. (If you don't have a springform pan, you can use another cake pan but it may be harder to get the cake out so you may want to also line the bottom with parchment paper.)
• In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the almond flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. (My preferred tool to use for this step is a silicone spatula.) Add the soft butter and mix it in with the spatula until it's broken up into little pieces, roughly the size of kernels of corn. Stir in the eggs and vanilla extract, until it's almost smooth. It's fine if there are small pieces of butter visible.
• Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Arrange the wedges of fruit on their sides in concentric circles over the batter, snugly placing the wedges against each other, pressing them gently into the batter as you go. Avoid putting them right up against the sides of the pan. It's best to leave some room for the batter to rise between the fruit and the pan, to avoid juices from the fruit adhering to the sides of the pan as the moelleux bakes. (It's unavoidable - and natural - if using juicy fruits, like plums, to have juice run out. But placing the slices not right up against the sides of the pan will help you get the cake out of the pan later.)
• Sprinkle the coarse sugar over the top and bake until the center just feels set; a toothpick inserted into the center should come out free of cake crumbs stuck to it, about 1 hour. Remove from the oven and set on a cooling rack. If any fruit juices have bubbled up and stuck to the sides of the pan, run a knife around the outside of the cake, which will help it release later.

Notes

Notes: If you want to make this gluten-free, I'd go with the almond flour rendition, and use a gluten-free flour substitute in place of the wheat flour. If you want to reduce the sugar in the recipe, you could cut it by 6 tablespoons/75g and skip the sugar on top, although I wouldn't.

This recipe, from The Great Book of Chocolate, is one of my favorite recipes in the book. It’s a deep-dark chocolate spread that’s just as welcome on the breakfast table with warm croissants or toast, as it is as an afternoon snack, swiped on a slice of baguette.

The recipe comes from my friend Deb Perelman, of Smitten Kitchen, who came to Paris and made it in my kitchen with me. You can watch the full video here.

Since you’re making it at home, unlike store-bought spreads, you know what’s in this delectable. This recipe uses olive oil, which is healthy and delicious with the dark chocolate. I like to use one that’s fruity, which compliments the chocolate perfectly.

Depending on the type of chocolate you use, and it’s percentage of cacao solids, as well as the ambient temperature of your kitchen, the spread can be a bit firm, or soft, at room temperature. If it’s too firm, you can zap it for a few seconds in the microwave to make it more spreadable. If it’s too soft, it can be chilled briefly. In my kitchen, it’s perfect just as it is at room temperature…and I think you’ll love it too.

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Chocolate Olive Oil Spread

A delicious dark chocolate spread with olive oil that you're whole family will enjoy. The recipe is adapted from my book, The Great Book of Chocolate – now available!

Course Breakfast, Snack

Keyword chocolate, olive oil, spread

Servings 8

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (70g) powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup (25g) unsweetened cocoa powder preferably Dutch process
• 4 ounces (115g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chopped
• 1/2 cup (125ml) olive oil
• Flaky sea salt such as Maldon or fleur de sel

Instructions

• Sift together the powdered sugar and cocoa powder in a small bowl.
• Warm the chopped chocolate and olive oil over low heat in a medium saucepan, stirring until the chocolate is melted and smooth. With a whisk, stir in the powdered sugar and cocoa powder mixture.
• Transfer the mixture to small bowl and refrigerate until it's spreadable, which can take 2 to 3 hours. Check it every 15 minutes until it's the consistency of chocolate pudding. Scrape the mixture into a jar and store at room temperature until ready to serve.

Notes

The spread can be stored at room temperature for up to two weeks. It can be refrigerated for up to one month. Let it come to room temperature before serving. 

For more information about cocoa powder, check out my Cocoa powder FAQs.

Margot Lecarpentier is one of the best bartenders in Paris. At her bar, Combat, she shakes and stirs up cocktails – with and without alcohol – that are some of the best in the city. One a warm summer day, Margot stopped by to make an Affogato for us to enjoy in my backyard.

In Italian, affogato means “drowned,” and the typical affogato is a scoop of ice cream drowned in espresso, which is delicious. But Margot ramps things up a notch using a blend of rum, coffee liqueur, and amaro, which gives the dessert a lively kick. While you could use vanilla ice cream, Margot likes chocolate as much as I do, so I churned up a batch of chocolate sorbet, which also happens to be dairy-free, and she used that. Feel free to use your favorite flavor.

Cheers!

You can watch the full video of Margot and I making the Affogato in my newsletter here.

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Affogato

A delicious dessert with ice cream drowned in coffee liqueur, rum, and amaro

Course Drinks

Cuisine Italian

Keyword affogato, amaro, coffee liqueur, ice cream, rum

Servings 2

Ingredients

• 3/4 ounce (20ml) dark rum
• 3/4 ounce (20ml) amaro
• 3/4 ounce (20ml) coffee liqueur
• Ice cream or sorbet
• 2 shots espresso (cooled slightly)

Instructions

• In a small pitcher or measuring cup, mix together the rum, amaro, and coffee liqueur.
• Put one generous scoop, or several smaller scoops, of ice cream or sorbet into two ice cream dishes or small bowls. Douse each serving with the mix of liqueurs.
• Add a shot of espresso to each portion and serve.

Notes

You can use your favorite brands of liqueur here. In this recipe, Margot used Rabarbaro Nardini amaro, but others, such as Fernet-Branca or Ramazzotti, would work.

Nowadays there are non-alcoholic versions of most liqueurs, including the ones used here. If you’re avoiding alcohol, you can use non-alcoholic alternatives. 

For serving, feel free to shave some dark chocolate over the top of each affogato.

One of the first “recipes” on this blog was No-Recipe Cherry Jam, posted in 2005, which wasn’t quite a recipe. Nevertheless, a lot of people successfully used those guidelines to make cherry jam over the last fifteen years. The basis for it was how I’ve been making jam forever, using 3 parts sugar to 4 parts fruit puree. The standard ratio is to use equal parts sugar to fruit puree but I like to use less.

I often make cherry jam with sweet cherries, which are what one usually finds at the market. But if you can find sour cherries, those are wonderful in the mix, but when fresh, they have a short shelf life so should be used, pronto.

So feel free to mix things up, cherry-wise!

Unlike other recipes, making jam can require a bit of using your instincts, rather than relying on set times and temperatures. Checking the jam texture on a chilled plate is the best way to tell you when it’s done. (As an example, jam usually sets between 218-220ºF,103-104ºC, but this one set a few degrees higher.) Because cherries are low in pectin, this one often “sets” a few degrees higher, although don’t expect cherry jam to be as stiff as other jams that you might be used to, or buy. It’ll be a bit runny, which is just how it should be.

One tool I do recommend is a cherry pitter. Not everyone has one, and they do fall into the “single use” category, but come cherry season, mine gets a good workout. I wrote more about why you should get a cherry pitter here.

The biggest question I get about jam recipes is people asking about reducing the amount of sugar in them. Sugar in jam does a couple of things. One, it helps the mixture jell, along with any natural pectin in the fruit. And two, it preserves it. If you use less, the jam will be runnier and won’t last as long.

Europeans tend to like their jams runnier than their American counterparts, so in the morning, you can have a European experience when you spoon some of this jam on your morning toast, as we do.

Unlike other jams that wrinkle when you do the wrinkle test (putting a spoonful of jam on a frozen plate, returning the plate to the freezer and when the jam wrinkles with you nudge it, it’s done), this one will be more like thickened syrup. It’s done when it’s thick and sticky and holds its shape for a few moments after you drag a spoon through it (below.) The cherries will be shiny and glossy, like beautiful ruby-colored jewels.

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Cherry Jam

If you only have 1 pound (450g) of cherries, feel free to cut the recipe in half. The liqueur is optional but heightens the flavors of the jam. Use only enough so it complements the fruit – you don't want to overwhelm it. As mentioned, this jam will be a bit on the runny side when "set." Sour cherries will produce a softer-set jam than sweet cherries.

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Keyword cherries, cherry, jam

Ingredients

• 2 pounds (900g) sweet or sour cherries or a mix
• 2 1/2 cups (500g) sugar
• freshly squeezed juice of one medium lemon plus additional juice if desired
• 1-2 drops of almond extract or 1-2 teaspoons of kirsch or another liqueur, such as amaretto or vodka

Instructions

• Remove the stems and pit the cherries. Put them in a large non-reactive pot. If using only sweet cherries, add 2-3 tablespoons of water to the pot. (Sour cherries will exude enough liquid on their own so no need to add additional water.) Put a small plate or saucer in the freezer.
• Cover the pot and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the cherries are wilted and cooked through, about 10 minutes.
• Remove the lid and stir in the sugar and lemon juice. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring frequently until the mixture thickens. It's hard to say how long it will take, but when the mixture resembles the sixth picture in the post, the one in the pot with the bubbles, turn off the heat and test the jam by putting a small spoonful on the frozen dish. Return the dish to the freezer for a few minutes until the jam on it is cool. Run a spoon through it and if the liquid is very thick and leaves a clear patch, as shown in the photo in the post, it's done. If not, return the plate to the freezer and continue to cook the jam, testing it at various intervals, until it's done. (If you want to use a thermometer to check the jam, it should be ready somewhere between 220º and 225ºF, 104º-107ºC.)
• When ready, turn off the heat and stir in the almond extract or liqueur (or both, if you wish). If desired, you could add an extra squeeze of lemon juice to balance the sweetness. Ladle into clean jars.

Notes

Storage: This jam will last several weeks in the refrigerator. If you wish to can it, you can find instructions here.

 

I had so much fun when Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen came to my kitchen in Paris and made a batch of Chocolate-Olive Oil Spread, a delicious recipe from The Great Book of Chocolate.

The spread is easy (and fun!) to make, and is just one of the more than 50 recipes in the book, which includes Chocolate Mug Cakes, award-winning Blue Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies, Individual Warm Chocolate Cakes, Chocolate Truffles, Homemade Rocky Road, Chili with Chocolate, and lots more.

You can find the recipe for the Chocolate-Olive Oil Spread in my newsletter, too!

Get your copy of The Great Book of Chocolate at your local bookstore or online retailer from one of these links:

Amazon | Bookshop.org | Now Serving | Barnes & Noble | Omnivore | Book Larder | Kitchen Arts & Letters | Bold Fork | Books are Magic | Amazon France | Powell’s | RJ Julia | Strand | Smith & Son Paris | Amazon UK | Politics and Prose | Vivienne Culinary Books | Book Passage | Elliot Bay | Village Books | East End Books | Indigo Canada

I was recently gifted an overload of strawberries: I bought four baskets from a vendor at the market, whose booth I shop at often, and he threw in two extra baskets for free, the equivalent of a carte de fidelité (loyalty card) in Paris. So I’ve spent the past few days washing, hulling, cutting and cooking my unexpected bounty.

I’ve been making a number of things with the gorgeous strawberries. But I also realized that while I have a Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam recipe on the site, I didn’t have a strawberry jam. So here it is.

Although I’m giving you a recipe for the amount of strawberries that I used, you can use the same proportions if you have just a basket…or a bushel. You’ll just need to do a slight amount of math. Only the cooking time will change, so keep an eye on things.

Jam-making is not something you walk away from and you need to rely more on look and feel, rather than exact times. Another thing about jam-making is that fruit and berry jams are always better made in small batches; the shorter the cooking time, the better the flavor. So if you have more than 2-pounds (900g) of strawberries, consider making jam in a couple of batches rather than one big one.

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Strawberry Jam

Many traditional recipes use an equal amount of sugar to fruit, by weight, but I find it’s okay to decrease it to these proportions. Sugar is both a thickener and a preservation agent. If you reduce it too much more, your jam may not thicken and won’t keep for a long time. (Which is okay if you want thinner jam, you keep it in the refrigerator, and eat it relatively quickly.) This recipe can be scaled up or down, depending on how many strawberries you have. But if you want to make a lot more, best to make it in a couple of batches. To prepare the jars, pour boiling water into them, as well as into the lids. Let them sit 5-10 minutes, then carefully pour out the hot water and set them upside down on a cooling rack until ready to fill. Since I keep my jams in the refrigerator, I don’t put them up them in a traditional sense. I usually just overturn the jars and let them cool, which provides a reasonable seal, then refrigerate them. I find my jams keep well this way for up to one year. Check the National Center for Home Food Preservation website for instructions on how to can fruit jams. Note: Last season strawberries tend to have less natural pectin than ones that arrive earlier. So your jam may be less jelled. One strategy is the finely grate a green apple into the strawberries before cooking them, which adds pectin. (There are guidelines here for using liquid and powdered pectin.) I don’t mind the slightly runnier jam and it’s terrific on yogurt or served with fresh goat cheese for dessert.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds (900g) strawberries
• 1 1/4 pounds (2 2/3 cups, 580g) sugar
• one lemon organic or unsprayed
• optional: kirsch (or eau-de-vie, or crème de cassis)

Instructions

• Wash and hull the strawberries and cut them into quarters. If some are larger or smaller, just make sure the pieces all about the same size.
• 2. Toss them in a large pot, such as a Dutch oven casserole made of a nonreactive material, with the sugar. Cut the lemon in half, squeeze the juice into the pot, and add the lemon halves to the berries. Stir well, cover, and let sit a couple of hours (up to 8 hours) at room temperature, stirring one or two times while they marinate.
• Put a small plate in the freezer. Turn the heat on under the strawberries to medium-high and cook the strawberries, stirring occasionally, as they reduce and the juices thicken. If a lot of foam rises to the surface, skim it away. When the syrup is the consistency of warm maple syrup – it will take about 10 to 15 minutes or so, depending on the pot and berries, turn off the heat and put a spoonful of the jam on the frozen plate and return the plate to the freezer. Check it in a few minutes; if it wrinkles when you nudge it, it’s done. If not, return the plate to the freezer and cook the jam a little more, testing it again. It may take a few times before you get it to the right consistency.
• When the strawberry jam is done, remove the lemon and stir in a few drops of kirsch, if using, then ladle the jam into the prepared jars.

Related Recipes and Links

Apricot Jam

No-Recipe Cherry Jam

Pickled Strawberries

Easy Jam Tart

Eggplant Jam

Baking Ingredients and Substitutions

Being a baker, summer is my favorite time of year. Not only are peaches, nectarines, cherries and plums abundant at the market, but as the seasons progress, the volume of fruits lowers the price, and I stock up on whatever I can, whenever I can.

At Paris markets, I try to search out producteurs, the vendors who grow the food they sell, and every summer, one in particular shows up at my market with lots of Reine Claude and mirabelle plums, a few different varieties of cherries, plump melons that you can smell standing a few feet away, tender figs, and fresh apricots.

Making the shopping experience even better, were the fellows who sold the fruits. Not only were they easy on the eyes, but they often put punky-looking cherries in baskets, labeling them “for clafoutis” (a nicer way of saying “for baking”) and selling them at a reduced price. This year, there seems to have been a turnover in staff – zut – but the replacements also offer up the imperfect fruit, or even an overload, at a discount.

The last couple of weeks, they’ve had small lugs of fresh apricots offered up at €5 for 3 kilos, about a dollar a pound. Fortunately, I live close to the market and hauled one home the first time I saw them, along with everything else I had bought, which I used to make apricot jam. If they ever do a show called Fruit Hoarders, I will likely be the star of the premiere episode, because I went back a few times and bought several more cases of fresh apricots. (Lest you think that I was mostly shopping there because of les beaux mecs.)

With over a dozen jars of apricot jam all packed up, I still had apricots coming out of the wazoo, so decided to bake up an apricot galette. When baking a free-form, fresh fruit tart, such as this, it’s good to have a strategy to deal with any excess fruit juices that might ooze out, which is especially true of apricots; like most stone fruits, some varieties exude a lot of juice.

When I baked at Chez Panisse, we used something we made, that someone dubbed “Moon Dust.” Which, because I can never leave anything alone, I nicknamed “Lunar Lint.” It was a mix of flour, almond meal, sugar and crushed amaretti cookies.

Because it was Sunday in Paris, and most stores are closed, I couldn’t go on a hunt for amaretti cookies. But no matter what the day – they’re rather hard to find. So I used to buy them and keep them in my cabinet, but found I was snacking on them, rather than saving them for lunaire lint. (And yes, I’ve got a recipe for amaretti in Ready for Dessert, but I didn’t have time to DIY everything, especially after making several batches of jam, and cleaning up after each one.)

The apricots that I used were a little more restrained, and not much juice gushed out during baking. Still, no one called me out, saying the frangipane wasn’t necessary. In fact, my guests loved the thin, flavorful layer of almond cream under the fruit, which complimented the apricots and cherries, which, as the younger generation says these days, was a sick combination.

I’m still not on board with that word, so I’ll go back to my California roots and say the combination was “awesome,” or in French, they’d say it was chouette (an owl). Depending on where you live, you can make this galette with other stone fruits, or even figs, pears or apples, when they’re in season. I don’t give a hoot which ones you use, but do give it a go with the frangipane. One bite, and you’ll agree that it’s a wise move to use it.

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Summer Fruit Galette

Normally apricots give up a lot of juice when baked, but these late-season ones didn't. Fruit varies in moisture but the nice thing about the layer of frangipane is that it keeps the tart dough crisp on the bottom, in case your fruit is juicy. Almond flour is sometimes called almond meal. You can use blanched or unblanched, which has a darker color. If you're avoiding almonds, feel free to swap in hazelnut or pistachio flour.

You can certainly use other fruits in this tart, such as sliced nectarines, peaches (peeled or unpeeled), plums, or figs. You'll need about 1 1/2 pounds (700g) of fruit. More important than precise numbers to follow, it's best to try to push the fruit as close together as possible, or if using sliced fruit, to overlap it as much as possible, because it'll cook down during baking. You can also make this without the frangipane but you may want to sprinkle the bottom of the tart dough with some crumbled cookies (such as speculoos or Graham crackers) or moon dust if the fruit is particularly juicy.

You can also swap out raspberries or blueberries for the cherries, using them to fill in the spaces between the fruit. I add the cherries at the beginning, but if using raspberries or blueberries, you can add them during the last 15 minutes or so of baking.

Course Dessert

Keyword apricot, cherries, galette, tart

Servings 8 servings

Ingredients

For the galette dough

• 1 1/4 cups (175g) all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 7 tablespoons (100g, 3 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter cubed and chilled
• 3 1/2 to 4 tablespoons ice water

For the frangipane

• 3/4 cup (95g) almond flour
• 1/4 cup (50g) sugar
• 2 tablespoons (20g) all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons (30g, 1 ounce) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
• 1 large egg, at room temperature

For the fruit galette

• 1 1/2 pounds (700g) fresh apricots, halved and pitted, or quartered if large (see headnote for other fruits that can be used)
• 18-20 cherries, sweet or tart, pitted
• 1 tablespoon (15g, 1/2 ounce) unsalted butter melted
• 2 tablespoons coarse sugar (or granulated sugar)
• strained apricot jam, for glazing the tart

Instructions

To make the dough

• To make the dough, mix together the flour, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer.
• Add the cubed butter and mix, using a pastry blender (or the paddle attachment if using a stand mixer), until the butter is in small, but still visible pieces, about the size of corn kernels.
• Add the 3 1/2 tablespoons of ice water and mix until the dough starts to come together. If it feels dry, add an additional 1/2 tablespoon of ice water. Form the dough into a disk with your hands, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

To make the frangipane

• In a small bowl, mix together the almond flour, sugar, and all-purpose flour. Add the butter and almond extract, and mix in with a spatula until smooth. Mix in the egg.

To make the tart

• Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to a 14-inch (35cm) circle, turning it over and dusting lightly with flour, to keep it from sticking to the counter.
• Brush off any excess flour and transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet. (At this point, you may want to chill the dough for a few minutes, as the frangipane may be a bit tricky to spread if the dough feels warm.)
• Smear the frangipane on the tart dough, leaving a 2-inch (5cm) rim around the edges. (If the frangipane is quite thick, you can dollop it in 5-6 places over the tart dough, which'll make it easier to spread.) Place the apricots on the frangipane and put cherries in the spaces between the apricots. Fold the edges of the dough over the fruit to make a crust. After pleating and folding the rim, make sure there are no "gullies" in the pleats for fruit juices to run out of. Pinch together any cracks.
• Brush the rim of the crust generously with melted butter then brush the remaining butter over the fruit. Sprinkle the rim with about 1 tablespoon of coarse or granulated sugar. Then sprinkle another 1 tablespoon over the fruit. (If using fruits like nectarines and peaches, you can reduce the sugar to a few teaspoons.)
• Bake the tart until the crust is well-browned and the fruit is cooked through, about 40-50 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the tart cool for 5 to 10 minutes, then brush the fruit with apricot jam.

Notes

Serving: Serve with a compatible ice cream, such as vanilla, crème fraîche or noyau ice cream. (The last two are in my books, The Perfect Scoop, and My Paris Kitchen, respectively), or another favorite flavor. A dollop of crème fraîche, sabayon, or softly whipped cream are other options. (Although often I like it just as it is.)

Storage: The dough can be made up to two days ahead and refrigerated, or it can be frozen for up to two months. The tart is best enjoyed the same day it’s made, but is okay the second day.

Related Links and Recipes

Summer Fruit Tart with Almond Cream

What is almond flour?

Baking Ingredients and Substitutions

Gluten-Free Apricot and Mascarpone Galette (Bojon Gourmet)

Almond Cake