Sour Cherry Vanilla Jam with Salty Almond Cookies

Cherries are my mom's favorite fruit, so this past Mother's day I decided to make her sour cherry jam. Growing up, we had a big sour cherry tree in our backyard. Once we fought past the birds we would pick buckets of cherries during the height of the season. Then off to the kitchen we went for the messy task of pitting the cherries. Covered in cherry juice we would spend the next hour wiping down ourselves and sometimes the kitchen walls. They were juicy.

The following recipe yields a sweet tart jam with a hint of complexity due to (I think) the vanilla and sourness of the cherries. The jam is lovely sandwiched between salty almond cookies (recipe follows).

Sour Cherry Vanilla Jam from Madelaine Bullwinkel's Gourmet Preserves

2 pounds pitted sour cherries

1 pound granny smith apples (2 ½ cups peeled and chopped)

1 vanilla bean

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 ¼ cups sugar

Place the cherries in a good processor and pulse for 15 seconds to chop them medium fine. Peel, core and quarter the apples. Chop them to a medium-fine texture in the processor. Combine the cherries and apples in a 5 quart pan.

Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean, and add the seeds and pod to the fruit. Cover the pan and bring to a boil. Uncover and simmer for 15 minutes to reduce the juices, stirring regularly. The mixture will thicken, but should not stick.

Stir in the lemon juice, and then add the sugar in 4 equal batches, waiting for the liquid to return to the simmer before adding more. Stir frequently. Let the jam actively cook 10 minutes more. It will noticeably thicken and reach a temperature of 210 to 212 F.

Pour the jam into a heat resistant 1-quart measure. Remove the vanilla pod. Fill hot, sterilized jars to within ¼" of lips. Wipe the rims clean; attach new lids and screw caps on tightly. Process in boiling water for 10 minutes.

Salty Almond Cookies (or JV Snacks-Croq-Télé) from Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets

These cookies are extremely easy to make if you have a food processor. Once the dough was made, I tried 3 different shape cookies. The first as described by Dorie was the easiest, but a little too rustic for me. I formed the rest of the dough into logs and tried to make slice and bake cookies with the dough. It worked, but not very well. The last method I tried was I shaped tiny cookies by pressing the dough into my ¼ tsp and slid them out. They were extremely cute, but time consuming.

¾ cup (100g) blanched almonds

½ cup (100g) sugar

¼ tsp to ¾ tsp salt (I used ¾ tsp of Kosher salt)

1 cup (140g) AP Flour

7 tablespoons (100g) cold unsalted butter cut in 7 pieces

Preheat oven to 350.

In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, process the sugar, nuts and salt till finely ground. Make sure to scrape the bowl frequently. Once processed turn the mixture out of the bowl.

Put the flour in the food processor and with the motor running drop in the cold butter pieces. As soon as the butter is in; switch to pulse mode. Pulse till the mixture looks sandy. Add the sugar-nut mixture and pulse until the dough forms small clumps and curds. Scrape the dough out onto a piece of parchment or wax paper.

To shape the cookies take small pieces (about the size of a cherry) in your hand and form irregular sized chunks. Place the pieces on a lined baking sheet leaving ½" space between them. Bake for 9-11 minutes rotating the pans after 5 minutes. You want the baked cookie to set, but not brown.

TWD Parisian Apple Tartlettes

Jessica of My Baking Heart picked Parisian Apple Tartlettes as this week's TWD "recipe". It's hard to call it a recipe because you're supposed to buy puff pastry, cut it into a 4" round, and top it with half an apple and a bit of butter and sugar and bake. For a Dorie Greenspan recipe, this is as "semi-homemade" as she gets.

Instead of buying puff pastry, I decided to make a dough that acts like a quick puff pastry. Essentially mix equal parts butter, cream cheese, flour and a pinch of salt in a mixer till a dough forms. Chill then roll and use in place of puff pastry. I like making this dough because it's so easy, gets nice layering and I usually have all the ingredients on hand to make it. The dough works best with an overnight rest, but due to time constraints I had to make mine an hour and a half before baking. Even so, I was a little nervous that it would grow out of control, so I docked each tart shell and then topped with the apples.

Once they came out of the oven, I realized that docking them was a bit overzealous. They didn't rise as much as I expected them to, but the dough was still lovely.

The resulting tartelettes were okay. I baked them for an extra 5 minutes because the apples were still leaning towards raw, but that still wasn't enough time. Technically there was no way I could have baked the apples through and not overcooked the dough. Due to its simplicity, I think this recipe has a lot of potential. However, the apples should be sliced thinner, or the chunks should be par cooked before baking. This was so easy to make though, I'll definitely play around with it again.

TWD Cinnamon Squares

Tracey of Tracey’s Culinary Adventures chose Cinnamon Squares as this weeks TWD recipe. Visit her blog to find the recipe.




I've spent the last two days traveling back and forth from Boston to Vermont, so I thought there was no way I could fit this recipe in. Well, after a quick look at just how easy it was to make I decided there was no way I couldn't make this recipe. Essentially, you mix your dries together, then add your wet ingredients, then follow by folding in some cooled melted butter. I think all together it took me about 10 minutes to assemble my ingredients, make the batter and get the cake in the oven. That was fast.

Since this cake is all about cinnamon, I decided to head over to my local Penzeys store in Arlington, MA and pick up some special cinnamon. I bought their Extra Fancy Vietnamese Cassia Cinnamon ($7.65 for 4 oz). It has a lovely aroma, and a powerful cinnamon flavor. It was the perfect spice for this cake.

I followed the recipe as written except I halved it, and baked it in a 4" round cake pan. It took 40 minutes to bake at 350.





Instead of making the chocolate frosting, I decided to make a simple cinnamon glaze. For the glaze I put confectioners sugar, a dash of milk and a big pinch of cinnamon in the bowl and whisked together till smooth.

TWD Chipster Brownies

Beth of Supplicious decided on Chipster-Topped Brownies as this weeks TWD recipe. What exactly are chipster-topped brownies you ask? Only a brownie with a chocolate chip cookie layer on top! If it sounds like a dream come true, you should go over to Beth's blog for the recipe.

I was fortunate to have people to serve these extremely rich brownies to. My parents threw a memorial day party at the log cabin they are building in North Hero, VT. Joe and I loaded the dog, all the my baking ingredients and a ton of other stuff into the car on Sunday after work and drove to VT. We were so lucky because the weather was perfect, and most of my mom's side of the family was able to make it. It was fun to see all my relatives, and nice to bake something so appealing for all of them.

Both batters were easy to make and the bar was fast to assemble. First you make the brownie layer and then the chocolate chip cookie topping.






I baked it for about 50 minutes.



The brownie part was a little underdone, but that was intentional. Everyone loved these bars, even my dog, Mason wanted some:


I thought they were okay, but way too sweet for me. I loved the brownie layer, but the cookie topping was lackluster. If someone asked for them, I would make them again; but I think I prefer my cookies and brownies separate.

TWD Tartest Lemon Tart

Today's TWD recipe Tartest Lemon Tart was chosen by Babette of Babette Feasts. For the recipe please visit her website here.

In the Buswell household my husband and I have an undeclared (but very active) war over lemon (specifically zest). I love lemons in everything, but he doesn't like them at all. To him, lemons taste like soap, especially lemon zest. So, I spend lots of time thinking of ways to sneak lemons in desserts without him noticing. Sometimes this works, but I can't count the number of times I've heard "Is there lemon in this?" or "I would love this if you hadn't put lemon zest in it." Oh well, if at first you don't succeed… make the tartest lemon tart ever.

I was unsure if Joe would like this, so I made a half batch of this recipe. I've made the sweet tart dough with almond meal more than a few times, so it was fast to assemble. The filling was fast as well. The only change I made was I blanched the lemon peel 3 times to get rid of some of the peel's bitterness.



Once the peels cooled, I blended them with the lemon, sugar, eggs, cornstarch, cream and melted butter. One thing I loved about this recipe is the ease of making it. The filling really took no time at all to make, and the ingredients are all items that I usually have on hand (except maybe the heavy cream).

Since I knew I would be making a half batch, I decided it was time to get some new tartlet pans. I had heard there was a cute kitchen store in Concord, MA; so I headed over to The Concord Shop before I made the tarts. This store has everything a baker/cook could want and more. They also have a nice selection of newly released cookbooks. While I was there, I picked up two 4" tartlet pans and a small offset spatula.



The only downside of the Concord shop was the service. I was the only person there and I had to wait 5 minutes to be rung up because a woman I think was the owner was giving the counter girl a hard time about losing an invoice. I was thinking "isn't this something that could wait" as I stood there. Also, I think greeting a customer with a smile is important; and it was frown city in Concord. Lastly when I got home, I realized they had charge me an extra 50 cents for each tart. Regardless of all that, I'm going to hope it was just a bad day there. I really want to like this shop because it has a lot of great kitchen equipment; and few store in the Boston area do. I'll give it one more try before I decide to spend my money somewhere else.

Back to the tarts; they baked at 325 for 20 minutes and then at 350 for 20 more. Total baking time was 40 minutes. I put the extra custard in ramekins and they took another 10 minutes at 350. The tarts looked just as described set with a light sugary crust.





They smelled and looked amazing when I took them out of the oven. The tarts were amazing. So amazing, that Joe even liked them. I bruleed one tart, and kept the other plain. Aesthetically, I liked the look of the unbruleed tart better. I'm also glad that I blanched the peel before making the filling. Other TWDers found the filling to be too bitter, but mine wasn't at all. I will definitely make this tart again.