Delectable: Sweet & Savory Baking
352
Delectable: Sweet & Savory Baking
352Hardcover
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Overview
“A home baker’s fantasia . . . [Fans] have been waiting twenty-one years for a follow-up to her equally legendary first book, The Last Course. The wait was worth it.”—Eater
ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, Saveur, Los Angeles Times
In Claudia's first cookbook, a culinary classic, she shared recipes from the menus at Gramercy Tavern that introduced home cooks to her sophisticated, classically inspired seasonal desserts and pastries and established a standard in pastry kitchens across the country. Now Claudia is offering a new collection of recipes all developed and tweaked in her own small kitchen. Baking at home, Claudia brings her characteristic style and skilled approach to every sweet and treat, along with an ease with culinary history, and a growing connection to her own family traditions. A mix of classic favorites and new explorations, including her first foray into savory recipes for savory baking, each delicious dish is the work of a master in her prime.
Claudia's knowledge and facility, refined over a storied career in pastry, mark these more casual, desserts and savory bites. Her thoughtful essays on subject ranging from working with yeast to a professional’s approach to frosting a layer cake, reflect her intention to share all she knows. With more than 140 recipes, the book is organized into chapters including:
• Breakfast & Breads: Blueberry Muffins; Rhubarb Scones
• Doughnuts & Cakes: Cider Doughnuts; Devil's Food with Earl Grey Cream
• Cookies: Grapefruit Rugelach; Pizzelles; Maple Shortbread
• Pies: Nectarine and Fig Tart; Plum Cobbler; Kumquat Tatin
• Savories: Eggplant Caponata Tart; Chickpea Crackers; Tomato Crostata
Making simple preparations truly delicious is a challenge Claudia Fleming has always embraced. With Delectable, she continues to set the standard for pastry chefs and home bakers alike.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780594173212 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 10/25/2022 |
| Pages: | 352 |
| Sales rank: | 193,844 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.20(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
Catherine Young is an author who has collaborated on critically acclaimed and James Beard Foundation Award–winning cookbooks including The Beetlebung Farm Cookbook with Chris Fisher; Salt to Taste with Marco Canora; Anatomy of a Dish with Diane Forley; and Think Like a Chef and The Craft of Cooking, both with Tom Colicchio. Catherine started her culinary career after leaving the practice of law. She cooked at leading New York restaurants beginning at Tribeca Grill (where she first met Claudia Fleming) then at Union Square Café, Lespinasse, and Gramercy Tavern. She began food writing as an editor at Saveur. Catherine lives in New York City.
Read an Excerpt
Introduction
The Next Chapter
A lot has changed since I wrote my first cookbook, The Last Course, more than twenty years ago. One thing that hasn’t is my fascination with the world of baking. Breads, cakes, pies, and cookies occupy a special place in the culinary realm, distinguished by the fact that fancy and rustic sit side by side—centuries-old recipes alongside novel creations. As a professional pastry cook, I share a lot with bakers. We use the same ingredients, have a common tool box, and our related branches of the culinary family both benefit from a deft touch. Mastering the proper ratios, managing things just so, and heating to the right temperature are all necessary to avoid disappointment. This is true in cooking generally, but the opportunities for transformation are more extreme and margins thinner when you are playing with flour, sugar, and eggs. That test of skill draws me, but alone it has never been enough. I want to touch people with my cooking, to strike resonant chords. I hope each dish I prepare—elaborate or not—links to something deep inside. I am a pastry cook, a composer of desserts by trade, but baking inspires me.
Because my career has shaped and defined me, it was no real surprise that I felt anxious when it came time to say goodbye to my restaurant after fourteen years. I worried I might be leaving not only the North Fork Table and Inn behind but an important piece of myself as well. The sale was necessary. I wanted a change and needed time—hard to find in a life defined by long workdays. In January of 2020, when the sale was done, I hoped to travel. I did, but not for very long. I yearned for adventure but missed order and soon settled into a routine at home, firing up my anything-but-fancy oven to bake ingredients I bought at my not particularly well-stocked local grocery. I started by “tweaking” old recipes, fiddling until I felt completely pleased with them, then I moved on to cooking things I never had. At some point—I can’t say when—I realized my practice of baking at home was just what I needed.
I had been at it for almost two months when the world sputtered to a halt. I was fortunate to be spared the hard decisions my friends in the restaurant business coped with during the unfolding pandemic. I never had to let people go because infection rates made operating a restaurant impossible. I could just keep on doing what I had recently begun, cooking at home by myself, happy to have my time organized by refining recipes, hoping the effort would lead to my next step and turn into a collection I could share. Weeks became months and I kept at it. Along the way, a new relationship to my food developed. I was lightened by what evolved into a freewheeling approach to my craft. I felt renewed, even as I rolled out time-tested doughs and poured favorite batters.
I made chocolate-covered-marshmallow cookies modeled after my dad’s favorite snack. I had served them at the North Fork Table and now cooked them for friends. I added salted peanuts to the chocolate caramel tart I developed at Gramercy Tavern and liked it even better. As is my habit, I followed the seasons, baking with rhubarb and strawberries, peaches, then plums, quince, and apple, putting the fruit in pies, piling berries on cakes, and spooning preserves onto cookies. When I wanted a challenge, I would take on things I’d never attempted. I made pretzels and then batches of sticky buns filled with shiitakes. A gift of squash blossoms stirred me to make a tart. It was stimulating to cook this way and very gratifying to be able to head to a neighbor’s with focaccia or a crostata during a time when it was easy to feel isolated.
In the summer, I longed for good, homemade ice cream. I don’t have a machine, so I started making semifreddos. I experimented with different techniques and lots of flavors. I made some tasty ones, stacked three, and found I had made a dessert that reminded me of spumoni, something I hadn’t had since I was a kid.
My mother’s parents came to New York from Caltanissetta in Sicily. An excellent cook, my mom passed on her love of the flavors she’d grown up with. I thought of her more and more often as I cooked at home. I made an eggplant caponata tart and then an escarole pie. I baked taralli (a batch of fennel, then pecorino, and then another flavored with pancetta) and made dozens of pizzelles and pignoli cookies. I worked out my own adaptation of a Sicilian cassata and baked a more-or-less traditional pastiera—“grain pie”—a sweet ricotta dessert we ate every Easter. It was as though I’d found a source of inspiration that had just been waiting for the right moment to be tapped, so I delved deeper, comforted by the feeling that I had time, my goals and inspirations shifting over the course of a year.
The sweet and savory treats I made in my kitchen were not nearly so elegant as the food I’ve served in restaurants, but, like those dishes, each was intentional, and carefully wrought—the product of an effort to make things taste not just as good as you’d imagine but even better. Making stripped-down preparations truly delicious is a challenge I have always embraced. Cooking on my little electric stove imposed new limits, but working one recipe at a time, by myself, at my own pace, afforded unanticipated opportunities to get things precisely how I wanted them. While I’d never claim to have produced the ultimate version of anything, I did get the recipes I worked through to a place that satisfied me, and I was delighted to see them eaten with joy.
My home stay is now behind me (at least for the moment). I am glad to be back at work, but I don’t want to forget what I felt, learned, and produced during my time baking solo. So, I’ve gathered the recipes that resulted from my meanderings, along with thoughts on how to make each one well. The following pages provide maps that will lead to tasty food—a delicious end in itself—but I hope you find, as I did, that the process, too, is worth savoring. For me, it proved both heartwarming and soul-sustaining.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Next Chapter xiii
About this Book xvii
Weights and Measures xvii
Equipment and Ingredients xix
Chapter 1 Breakfast and Breads 3
Morning Baking 4
Biscuits and Scones 5
Drop Biscuits 5
Biscuit and Scone Notes 7
North Fork Biscuits 8
Sweet Potato Biscuits with Bitter Chocolate and Pecans 9
English-Style Scones 12
Cheddar and Stilton Scones 13
Rhubarb Scones 14
Blackberry Shortcake 16
Muffins and Quick Breads 19
Blueberry Muffins 19
Date, Nut, and Coconut Muffins 20
Oat and Banana Muffins with Pecans 21
Mom's Irish Soda Bread 22
Chipotle Cornbread 25
Working with Commercial Yeast 26
Yeasted Breads
Cheese Rolls 27
Sweet Potato Rolls with Miso 29
Chocolate Babka Buns 31
Prosciutto Bread 35
Rye English Muffins 38
North Fork Focaccia 41
Focaccia Rolls 42
Chapter 2 Doughnuts and Cakes 45
A Cake Problem? 46
Doughnuts 48
Cider Doughnuts 48
Chocolate Doughnuts with Espresso Glaze 51
Vanilla Cream Doughnuts 53
Maple and White Chocolate Skiffs 56
Seasonal Cakes 59
Strawberry Cassata 59
Plum and Almond Cake 63
Quince Goat Cheese Cake 64
Apple Crumb Cake 67
Cornmeal and Olive Oil Cake 69
Fennel Tea Cake with Pernod Whipped Cream 71
Layer Cakes 72
Coconut Layer Cake 72
Devil's Food Cake with Earl Grey Cream 75
Ginger-Stout Layer Cake with Ermine Frosting 77
White Cake with Plum Filling 81
How to Frost a Cake 83
Frostings and Toppings 85
Italian Meringue (Frosting) 85
Maple and White Chocolate Cream 86
The World of Buttercreams 87
Chocolate Buttercream 88
Vanilla Buttercream 90
Buttermilk "Ermine" Frosting 91
Chapter 3 Cookies 93
Seeking Deliciousness 95
Cooking Sugar 96
European Inspirations 98
Fig Bars 98
Grapefruit and Poppy Seed Rugelach 101
Crisps 102
Pecan Olive Shortbread 103
Pignoli Cookies 104
Raspberry and Cranberry Linzer Cookies 105
Pizzelles 109
Melted Chocolate: Ganache and Tempered Chocolate 110
Tempered Chocolate Glaze 111
Toffee 113
American Classics and Riffs 114
Almond and Walnut Brownies 114
Food Truck Chocolate Chip Cookies 117
Dad's Favorite Cookie 118
Espresso Shortbread with Cocoa Nibs 121
Maple Shortbread 123
Molasses Ginger Cookies 124
Oatmeal Cookies with Sour Cherries 125
Chapter 4 Pies 129
Careful with the Crust 130
Pies, Tarts, and CObblers 132
Rhubarb and Strawberry Pie 132
Blueberry, Blueberry, Blueberry Tart 135
Blueberry Turnovers 137
Peach and Blackberry Cobbler with Ricotta Biscuits 139
Peach and Raspberry Crostata 141
Caramelized Nectarine and Fig Tart 144
Raspberry, Rose, and White Chocolate Tart 146
Ricotta Tart with Roasted Cherries 149
Plum Cobbler with Cornmeal Biscuits 151
Italian Plum and Hazelnut Tart 152
Apple Tartlets 155
Apple and Raspberry Crisp 157
Lemon Pie with Coconut 159
Lemon Tart 161
Kumquat Tatin 163
Chocolate Caramel Tart with Peanuts 165
Pastiera (Grain Pie) 167
Doughs 170
Basic Butter Pie Dough 170
Chocolate Dough 171
Cornmeal Buttermilk Dough 172
Cheddar Crostata Dough 173
Cream Cheese Dough 174
Crostata Dough 175
Cast-Iron Pizza Dough 177
Hazelnut Dough 178
Rough Puff Pastry 179
Sweet Almond Tart Dough 180
Sweet Tart Dough 181
Chapter 5 Savories 183
A Taste for Savories 184
Mostly Vegetable Tarts 187
Eggplant Caponata Tatt 187
Mrs. Stasi's Escarole Pie 190
Shiitake Sticky Buns 193
Potato Flambé Tart 197
Spring Torta 198
Squash Blossom Tart 201
Tomato Crostata 203
Nibbles 205
Cheddar Coins 205
Chickpea Crackers 206
Gouda Pizzelles 207
Gruyère and Onion Cocktail Biscuits 209
Cheese Kiffles 210
Onion and Poppy Seed Kiffles 212
Pretzels 215
Pancetta Taralli 219
Fennel Taralli 221
Pecorino Taralli 222
Chapter 6 Custards and Semifreddos 225
About Eggs 226
Custards 229
Chocolate Mousse 229
Espresso Custard with Orange 231
Coconut Custard 232
XVOO Lemon Cream 233
Passion Fruit Custard 235
Yuzu Panna Cotta 236
Chocolate Panna Cotta 239
Sweet Corn Puddings with Blueberries 241
Semifreddo: History and Technique 243
Banana and Espresso Semifreddo with Butterscotch and Macadamia Nuts 244
Black Raspberry and Chocolate Semifreddo 246
Squash Semifreddo Tart with Coconut and Pecans 248
Spumoni with Meringue and Caramelized Oranges 251
Olive Oil Semifreddo 255
Orange Semifreddo 256
Pistachio Semifreddo 258
Chapter 7 Fruit 261
Cooking in Season 262
Roasted Peaches with Caramel and Cherries 265
Roasted Pears with Maple and Goat Cheese Cream 266
Roasted Figs with Sugared Pistachios 267
Poached Quince 268
Citrus Salad 269
Poached Rhubarb 270
Candied Kumquats 271
Poached Grapefruit with Fennel 272
Blood Oranges in Caramel 273
Candied Orange Rinds 275
Candied Grapefruit Rinds 277
Apple Butter 278
Grapefruit Conserve 279
Wintertime Apricot Jam 280
Eggplant Caponata 281
Quick-Pickled Cucumbers 283
Chapter 8 Pantry 285
Be Prepared 285
Basil Oil 288
Blood Orange Caramel 288
Butterscotch Toffee Sauce 289
Honey Butter 289
Savory Mixed Seeds 290
Sugared Nuts and Seeds 291
Sugared Almonds 291
Sugared Hazelnuts 292
Sugared Macadamia Nuts 292
Maple Sugared Pecans 293
Molasses Pecans 293
Sugared Pine Nuts 294
Sugared Pistachios 294
Sugared Pumpkin Seeds 295
Maple Sugared Walnuts 295
A Trio of Crumbles 296
Brown Butter Pecan Crumble 296
Oat Crumble 298
Chocolate Crumble 298
Acknowledgments 300
Index 303